Four Six

I am forty-six years old today and as I begin another turn around the sun, it's as good a time as any to take stock.

At the beginning of the year, I chose the word "stretch" as my word of the year. I wanted to challenge myself to move out of my comfort zone.

And indeed this year, I have stretched. My job responsibilities have changed, with the full participation and involvement of my boss. She has pushed for me to be less chained to my desk and more engaged out in the field. This has been fun and has led to a really productive year to date. I've been meeting a lot of people and while I am an introvert I am also good with people, so this has worked out well.

I am no longer looking for a new job. I have made a commitment to continue on this new path. I am also looking to see how I might guide my staff person to help her be more engaged, to help her spread her wings if she is so inclined. This is more of a stretch because she is very negative of late (bad breakup, for one thing). But I do want to try.

The downside to all this new work activity is that I haven't been doing much of my own writing. But I have been stretching in other ways, using my long experience in fundraising. Last month, I wrote a grant request for a film project for Sweet Dub. We will know the result in September. I don't know if we will get it, but we had to collaborate with another nonprofit to put it together, and they want to work with both of us on other projects. Time will tell what that brings...

I also started doing more yoga and body weight exercises this year, so I am literally stretching more than in recent years -- and I love it. Feeling better physically.

Emotionally this has been a rough year and I guess in that sense I am stretching too. Lots of family stuff going on, lots of opportunity for self-examination! Not comfortable, but definitely stretching my perceptions of who I am and where I fit and what the past means.

All that said, I still can't believe I am 46. Shouldn't I have it all figured out by now?!

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Happily Ever After

At the beginning of the year, I decided that for 2014 I was going to plan a little monthly LA adventure for the Blah Blah Family. We would go somewhere we'd never been, do something we'd never done, you get the idea. Well, as I have mentioned, one of our close friends got married in February, and it was such a HUUUUGE wedding that everything else took a back seat. First in early February there was the bridal shower, which had a Victorian theme, and which was held at a Victorian tea room, and for which we were told to wear period attire:

The hat isn't mine, but it's pretty great.

I am looking quite the demure and fancy lady here.

Sweet Dub was at the bridal shower because he was the photographer, but the kids did not attend, so we can't count that toward our monthly adventure. As I may have mentioned, the wedding itself had a Roaring 20s/Gatsby theme. Guests were asked to wear attire appropriate to the era. In the two weeks between the shower and the wedding I spent much of my spare time hunting down shoes for all three of us Blah Blah ladies, not to mention dresses, headpieces and jewelry, not to mention all the usual things like cleaning the house, braiding hair, doing laundry and oh, going to my job. So not a lot of time there for an adventure either. 

However: the wedding itself was the first time either of my kids had been to a wedding (okay, Viva did go to a justice of the peace ceremony at a courthouse for her cousin, but that was an on the fly wedding, not a huge event like this). The venue was magnificent, and none of us had ever been there:  the Park Plaza Hotel.  

The Park Plaza Hotel is one of those places from back in the heyday of old Los Angeles, and you can just imagine how incredible it was at the height of its glory. Today, it sits in the midst of a congested, run-down and crime-ridden area. It's an historic landmark and doesn't operate as a hotel any longer, but can be rented out for events like weddings or for TV/film production. Inside, you forget about the funky neighborhood it's in and kind of lose yourself in the glamour. 

Image credit:  http://parkplazala.com.

I took a lot of pics at the beginning and then my phone died right after the ceremony. Awesome. But I can't include a lot of the pics here because I don't have permission to publish from the people who are in them. However, here is my lovely fam:

And here is a pic of me hanging out with Ceeya, Best Flower Girl in the Land, before she went down the aisle:

Sorry, no full-length shot of me. Waiting for Sweet Dub to finish editing all 900 million photos in order to send me at least one. The wedding got underway 45 minutes late, at 3:15 in the afternoon. GAH.  The wedding event, by the way, was segmented into:

(1) the ceremony and
(2) the post-ceremony cocktail hour, both for 100 people;
(3) the reception, which seated 300;
(4) a Cotton Club-themed "after party" (I know. What?), which was to have a capacity of 500 people. (I think you already know that I didn't stay for that part, since for one thing, it was a Sunday night and we had work and school in the morning; and for another, I had children with me.)

If you are wondering whether I actually got up and danced on stage at this event, as I mentioned here:  NO. No, I did not. That portion of the event did not take place until nearly 10:00 PM, and I was long gone by that point. My kids and I were in our jammies and watching How to Train Your Dragon by 7:57 PM.

But the important thing is: it was beautiful, and the newlyweds looked enormously, gorgeously happy. And it was sort of an adventure, and certainly only one that could happen in L.A. The End.

Gettin' Gatsbyfied

“I hope she'll be a fool -- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

 

So I am going to this wedding in a couple of weeks, and the bride is a very dear friend of the family. She is loud, and foul-mouthed, and complicates things endlessly. She is also generous to a fault, loyal, hilariously funny and loving to the point where she would without question take a bullet for anyone in our family. You take the good, you take the bad, and we love her, so here we are. 

 

Our friend likes to live large. She is an event planner, so naturally, her wedding has become a huge event. It is a 1920s themed wedding, being held at an art deco landmark LA hotel, and she has asked that all her guests dress in 1920s themed attire. I have been looking online at 1920s beaded dresses and found one I LOVE (a reproduction) for $400. Well, that is not going to happen in this current scenario. So I have decided to do a modern interpretation of the theme, and today I bought this:

 

Image courtesy of Bloomingdales

 

In the 1920s, dresses had little to no definition at the waist:

Image from Vintage Dancers - go check out the site, it's cool.





I bought a kind of art deco looking belt to slap around that bad boy and we'll see how that looks. I am going to wear long strings of pearls or perhaps a tassel necklace, depending on what I can find, and probably some 1920s shoes from Modcloth. I may try to set my hair in finger curls - will let you know how that turns out (I've been watching tutorials on YouTube).

 

So okay, I am getting all that together, feeling pretty good. And then today I received an email from the friend, saying that she is putting together a performance AT the wedding, and she is asking selected couples who have what she describes as successful marriages to participate. She wants me, as one-half of one of those couples, to lip-sync a song to Sweet Dub in the middle of the reception at this HUUUUUGE wedding. Holy Jesus!

 

You know what? My first reaction was to say no...so I said yes. Totally outside of my comfort zone, and I might embarrass the hell out of myself, but I'm going to do it. It will be a complete surprise to Sweet Dub and he will love that.

 

I get to pick the song. I am thinking I might do a Josephine Baker or Edith Piaf song. Or, in keeping with the theme, there's always Fergie:

 

I kid, I kid. But I do like her manicure here. And by the way:  song suggestions welcome!

 

Thankfully

Thanksgiving, man. Not a good day to be my pants. - Kevin James

Wishing you all a day of elastic or drawstring waistlines. Wishing you a day of abundance not only in food, not only in thanks, but in family, friends, love, contentment, comfort, and all the things that are the opposite of stress. Wishing you peace. 

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Christmas Countdown!

Yeeps! For those who celebrate Christmas:  it is exactly ONE MONTH away. Aiiiiii!

Why do I feel like it has gotten away from me already? We usually have our holiday photos done and ordered by now, and we haven't even done our photo shoot yet - I admit I feel a little under the gun. (We are planning on shooting on Thursday or Friday morning and then designing and ordering the card over the weekend. Hopefully I can then receive them and do a mail-out by the weekend of December 9th. Time to get my mailing list together...)

One of the things that can too easily leave me scrambling at the last minute is stocking stuffers.  Not so much for the kids as for Sweet Dub. (I have also been known to buy them for myself now and then - don't judge, sometimes I just see something I would really like that seems perfect. Smiley face emoticon here. You know how it is.)

I was quite happy to stumble upon this in my Internet wanderings today: a list of men's stocking stuffer suggestions from the Art of Manliness blog. I think there are at least five items that Sweet Dub would be quite happy to receive.

As for my wish list: honestly, I have what I need. I would like some red boots since my wonderful old burgundy ones bit the dust last year. But truly I would be happy with an Amazon gift card and a few hours free to read.  And maybe a massage.

What's on your list?

Last Minute Me

I have to attend a wedding this weekend and (of course) I have nothing to wear that fits/is appropriate for a fall evening wedding, so I have been trolling about on various websites to see if I can find something I like. In a classic case of champagne taste on a beer budget, I found this:



I love it, but it's $198. Can be bought at Nordstrom if you are so inclined. As for me...I gotta keep on looking.

Don't get me started on shoes.

Let's Do This Thing!

Last night per tradition, Sweet Dub and I took the girls over to the West Adams neighborhood where many of his friends grew up. We use the house of the mom of one of his oldest friends as our home base to meet up and trick or treat from, so other friends can join in as the evening goes on. I look forward to it because it is one of the few times a year we all get together, and in past years we have had as many as 13 kids in our group, shuffling along in their assorted costumes and shining flashlights hither and yon.

One of our friends is the mother of four girls, currently ranging in age from 12 to 16 (there's one set of twins in there). She works full-time at a demanding job as an educator, runs marathons, and is constantly driving her kids to swim meets and volleyball tournaments all over Los Angeles in her spare time. She is warm and funny and I have missed her. When I ran into her on the sidewalk, she hugged me tightly and told me I was gorgeous. Who doesn't need a friend like that?!

Later, we were sitting on her mother-in-law's porch as our kids were trading candy and still giving candy out to straggling trick-or-treaters, and she said to me: "I just have to tell you that you have inspired me!"

“What?” I exclaimed. “How so?!”

“I am writing!” she said, her face all aglow. It turns out she is working on not one but two writing projects as part of her work, and she will be publishing an academic e-book as well as contributing a chapter to a book that is being edited by a colleague in Australia. She said that I inspired her because I am a writer and she knows I have been working on a book myself.

Er…okay, let’s be honest here. I haven’t even written on this blog consistently, never mind working on the actual book I want to write (which is in pieces, each of which is less fleshed out than the last). My job is stressful and exhausting and once I have got home and dealt with dinner, baths, the kids’ homework and everything else, I have nothing left.

I confessed all this to her, and she was sympathetic and supportive. “You just have to do it,” she said. And by God, this is true. My spirit is withering away without having a shred of a creative outlet except the fun projects I do with my kids. I need to get this shit together.

I am writing again. And I am starting here. NaBloPoMo is upon us! Wish me luck, and some quiet time to think.

Ceeya Cinco

Today, my beloved Ceeya turns five! Here she is, enjoying a birthday chocolate muffin before school this morning. 

I can't even describe how much Ceeya has changed our lives, and (warning, cliche) how much richer our family is for having her in it. We were not lonely before as three, but now I wonder what we did with only one child. I can see how some people keep trying for just one more kid. I don't see how they afford it, but I get it. Each kid seems to magnify the love in the house. It doesn't seem possible, but love just magically expands.

Sweet Dub and I joke about Ceeya being our Unexpected Journey, and it has been one wild and crazy journey that has taught us so much about each other and about ourselves. She is so amazing and lovely and needed in our family. How I worried that she might be overshadowed by Viva! It seems silly now, since she is such a big personality, but Viva is a tough act to follow.

I need not have worried. My little busy bee is no shrinking violet.

 

Can't wait to see what comes next. Happy Birthday, my babygirl!

To Viva, On Turning Ten

My oldest child, Viva, was born on April 1st, 2003. Yesterday, we celebrated her turning ten. Here is an edited version of the letter I wrote to her for her birthday.

Dear Viva,

You are turning ten and it is a big deal. I can remember the moment I looked at the home pregnancy test and realized it was positive. It just confirmed what I already knew:  something huge was about to happen and it was going to change my life forever.

And it did. And you have. And I am so proud and happy that we have each other. I can’t imagine my life without you in it. Here are ten things I know about you:

You are smart and kind and thoughtful

You are gorgeous

You are funny and fun; you love to make people laugh

You love to sing

You are sensitive

You are outgoing and make friends easily

You are an artist, with mountains of creative ideas

You are getting ever more responsible and independent

You are COOL

You are self-confident and brave

Plus one more:  You are a blessing to our family.

This year has been pretty interesting for you. You are in a 4th/5th grade combo class, which we didn’t expect, and you are excelling there. At the same time, this is the year things became serious. You learned about slavery, and about racism and discrimination. You learned about how cruel people can be to other people—people who look like you. Because you are so sensitive and because you believe that all people should be treated fairly, this has been very tough for you.

 I wish I could take this on for you. But I can’t. I wish such things didn’t exist in the world.  But they do. All I can do is try and help you learn to handle them, and that I can promise you, I will do.  It is not a one-time lesson. It will be, as so many complicated things are, a continuing conversation. I will try not to bore you. I will be as honest as I can. If there’s stuff I don’t know about, we will learn together. And I know you will come out all right in this, because you are strong and smart and brave.

Right now you are also solidly in your tweens, and your teen years are on the horizon. There is so much I want for you, and so much I want to tell you. I don’t have all the answers, but here are ten things that I want to tell you:

1.       You are stronger than you imagine. You are a [Blah Blah]! We ain’t wimps.

2.       You should never run away from your dreams. The things that you love to do, the things that keep calling you? Those are your passions and that is what you were put on earth to do. Do not let other people keep you from what you were meant to do.

3.       You are amazing and unique. There has never on earth been another person like you. You have unique gifts you bring to the world. Not everyone will understand this, and that’s okay – but anyone that tries to put you down or to smother your uniqueness is not deserving of your time and energy.

4.       It is okay to have a difference of opinion. You are old enough to have a point of view, and you should feel you can express it. As long as you are respectful when you are disagreeing, that’s okay. Don't pick fights, but know that your opinion is just as important as anyone else’s.

 

5.       You don’t always have to be right. Choose your battles. Look at the big picture.

 

6.       It is important to try new things. Stepping outside of your comfort zone is the only way to grow as a person.

7.       You are really beautiful. Inside and out. I want you to remember this, so I am going to say it again, louder:  YOU ARE REALLY BEAUTIFUL. INSIDE AND OUT.

 

8.       It is important to have time to yourself. This will become clearer as you get older, but time to yourself is really when you figure things out. Make the time to allow yourself some quiet space to hear what’s going on in your own mind. Listen to yourself.

9.       Do the right thing. And do it as soon as you can. A wise person once said, “Do difficult things while they are still easy. Do big things while they are yet small.” Don’t put off something to tomorrow if you can do it today. My experience has been the longer you put something off, the bigger and more complicated it gets.

 

10.   I will always and forever be your mother. Even if I yell, even if we are mad at each other, even if we are separated by thousands of miles, even when I am no longer alive. I am your mother and I will always, always, always until the dolphins fly and parrots live at sea, love you. You make me proud.

Happy Birthday, my love. You are one of my greatest treasures of all time.

Love,

Mommy

An Attitude of Gratitude

I am thankful for:
 
A happy ending yesterday at work:  a severely autistic nonverbal client wandered off Monday afternoon and stayed out overnight, but was found yesterday and reunited with his family.

My chocolate turkey that my boss gave me this morning:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My wonderful beautiful smart and happy kids, who bring all sorts of chaotic joy to my world.

My saintly, hardworking and ever-lovin’ husband, who continually impresses and surprises me with his ability to make the best of difficult situations and with his capacity for creativity and fun.

Clean water. Hot water. Food and drink.

My friends and family, near and far, who are dear to me although I don’t see them as much as I would like.

The Internet, which takes me places I have never been and connects me to people I have never met. It is truly a marvel.

 

And for you. A very Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, wherever you may be!

Cuatro

Four years ago, this:

And today, this:

 

My baby is four years old! What the Doc McStuffins?? I can hardly believe it.

 

Before Ceeya was born, I worried whether I would be able to love another child as much as I loved Viva. Ceeya just tromped on in and claimed her space in my heart with absolute certainty that that spot was hers. She is super intelligent, hilariously funny, incredibly stubborn and heart-rendingly sweet. She is my roll dog -- anywhere I am going, she wants to go along for the ride. She has made our family all the richer for being in it and I adore her.

 

Happy Birthday, my little pumpkin. You make Mama proud!

 

 

Happy Leap Day!

Gjon Mili—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

I love this picture. It makes me want to jump for joy!

What leaps are you taking today?

Now I Kiss You on the Nose

Happy Love Day!

I am filled with love for you and the universe.

And yet I did not get you anything for Valentine’s Day. No roses, no chocolate, no extravagant jewelry.

Just love.

Here it is.

I didn’t wrap it, but I hope you like it anyway.

Love & kisses,
Mama Blah Blah

Holidazedly

Feeling a bit grinchy today. Discovered that a package containing Christmas gifts that I ordered online was stolen from the FedEx station. Did FedEx call me to tell me so? No, I kept tracking it and was mystified that it had been “out for delivery” on the truck in Los Angeles for FOUR DAYS and yet not delivered.

I was tracking it rabidly because the box contained the Christmas morning “wow” present. You know the one, yeah, you know it. The one that you anticipate your kid’s head exploding with joy when she opens it? Yeah, that one. Naturally, it was not a small package. It contained three Razor Sole Skates for Viva and my two nephews. We are not doing a huge Christmas this year and I got a deal on these through painstaking bargain hunting online.



The good news is that Amazon is replacing them and rush shipping them to me at no charge. They will deal with filing a claim with FedEx and all that. Barring more delays from the weather (yes! Here in Los Angeles we are in the midst of a week-long deluge. Welcome to Christmas in Southern California), they should arrive on my doorstep tomorrow. I am tempted to stay home to insure they arrive and are not instantly carried off by a plague of pterodactyls.

In other world news, I am loving my kids right now. Ceeya is two, and what else need be said. She is fierce about her opinions, oftentimes to a maddening degree, to wit: We are in the car listening to music on the way home. She screams out, “Too youd!”

“Too loud?” I say, and obligingly turn it down a couple of ticks. She bursts into tears. After several stop lights of her howling with me asking different questions to determine what’s wrong while driving through the pouring-down rain in rush hour traffic, I finally come up with: “You said too loud, but do you want it louder?”

“YEAH,” she yells through her tears in that brokenhearted way kids do. I turn up the music.

“You need to say ‘MORE loud,’ not ‘TOO loud’ when you want to hear it better,” I say, as calmly as I can, considering that this type of outburst happens about five times on average between day care and home.

She sniffs. “Want juice,” she says. She is exasperating but so sweet.

Viva is amazing. We had a stellar parent-teacher conference. She is still consistently two grade-levels ahead of her grade and knocking the socks off her teacher with her kindness and willingness to help the other kids. Probably fodder for another post, but I am so thrilled with her transition to this new school. She has really come into her own. She is confident and happy and although we have our moments, most of the time she is such a cool person to be around. Our latest pastime is deconstructing Dora the Explorer (Ceeya’s new obsession) and laughing our heads off about how ridiculous it is.

It is a good time. This year has been a bit bumpy for us, but I feel like we are all doing well, considering, and are closer for it. I am looking forward to seeing what the new year brings.

In the very likely event that I don’t get back to the blog before the end of the holiday season: a belated Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad, Happy Kwanzaa and a very healthy and happy New Year to all!

She is Two

Two years ago today, I was in the hospital having a wee little person removed from my uterus:

And these days, the paparazzi can catch her eating junk food and givin' folks the stink eye:



O Celia my love, how my adoration for you grows with each passing day. Now I must tear myself away from my computer and hie myself yonder to Ye Olde DayeCare, where lo! I shall distribute popsicles to many small people before taking thee out for pizza, which ye shall not eat. Many happy returns of the day.

Cuatrodos

Hello!

I am forty-two years old today.

That is not so bad, right? It is better than the alternative, which is to cease to exist altogether. When you put it like that, it sounds pretty damn good to me.

Over the weekend, we were having some lovely, funky friends over, and I bought an assortment of beers because I was feeing a bit whimsical. Why not try different kinds of summer ales and such?, I thought. They might in fact have enjoyed some rum punch or something, but making some sort of rum punch was a bit beyond me. (They probably like punch. I knew I should have made punch.) At any rate, the cashier carded me. I almost wept, except that I was giggling a little bit. I thanked her and as I handed over my driver’s license as proof that I was of legal drinking age, I said, “I will be 42 next week!” I might have sobbed as I said it. Maybe not.

So here we are, forty-two. It honestly is not all that different from 41, or 40, or even 39, if you want to know the truth, and yes, I can remember that far back. The main issue of being 42, and it may not be related to my age, seems to be that I think I am going blind in one eye. My ophthalmologist can not seem to tweak my prescription correctly in my right eye, and so I spend my days tapping away at my computer with one eye closed in order to see correctly. Since I spend a great deal of time writing for my job, this is annoying. If I open my eye, it’s all blurry and I can’t read a thing. Not to worry, though, I can drive perfectly well! Take it easy out there, Greater Los Angeles!

Today I am looking forward to having Ceeya sing Happy Birthday to me on my actual birthday. She has been practicing the song every day for about three weeks or so. It sounds a bit different when she sings it, principally because she interprets it as “Appo DIRTday to you,” which I love, and I particularly love the way it sounds in the high-pitched gusto with which she sings it.

One final thing: In honor of my Dirt Day, and with a hat tip to Chad Ochocinco, I am changing my name for the day to Lisa Cuatrodos. Encantado.

Seven

It was a Tuesday morning. Sweet Dub was working horrific hours at his job. When he left for work at 6 AM, he asked if I was okay. My hips had begun hurting pretty bad at about 4 AM, but I said, “I’m fine, go to work.” And then I said, “But if I call you and ask you to come home, it’s not an April Fools!” and I went back to sleep.

About an hour later, I woke up with the distinct feeling of being wet. “The final indignity has happened,” I thought. “I’ve peed myself.”

I hefted myself out of bed and padded into the bathroom, where I peed again. As I was washing my hands I felt like I was peeing on myself again. I could feel fluid running out.

“Did my water break? I think my water broke,” I said out loud to no one in particular. “Is that what this is? This is not what I thought it would be.”

And, seven years later, that pretty much sums up my journey of motherhood. It is not what I thought it would be. It is so much more of everything, I can’t even explain it.

That day, my life changed forever. At 7:22 PM, Viva rocketed into the world.

A few hours old

A few weeks later

And she’s been rocking my world ever since. But enough about me, because after all, it is her birthday. Here are her specific birthday instructions/requirements:

(1) I must sleep with her, in her tiny little bed, so we can wake up together all snuggly-like
(2) She does not care what she has for her birthday dinner, as long as there is cherry Jello for dessert
(3) She is having a class field trip, so no party at school (huge sigh of relief here)
(4) HOWEVER, she is inviting her entire 1st Grade class over to our house for a party next Saturday (insert nervous breakdown here)
(5) She must also sleep over at Auntie Lola’s Saturday night, so as to wake up at her house Sunday morning for an Easter egg hunt and thus, maximum birthday/Easter-type leveraging of wonderfulness

Ah, my girl. Was there ever one so amazing and superb? Her legs are ten feet long and she can tell you the plot of every SpongeBob episode EVER and sometimes she still does that thing where she says, “Remember when--?” and it’s about something that happened when I wasn’t even there, but she always assumes I am with her, all the time. It’s like she thinks I can see everything she is doing. Not quite in a creepy way, but like we are so connected that I must be able to see everything she does even when I’m not there. Like we are twins or something.

She is slow as molasses on a cold day, and quick as a whip, and all other kinds of similes and metaphors that I won’t bother employing here. She wants to be like all the other kids, and at the same time she wants to be different, and I get it, I really do. She is a complex little person. The other day she said:

“Mom, Ms. C only lets me get CHAPTER books out of the library.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“I’m the only kid that has to read chapter books. No one else has to read chapter books.”

“I thought you get to choose whatever book you want,” I said.

“No, Ms. C picks our books,” Viva scowled. (Actually, I believe the process is that the teacher has to approve the books they’re checking out.)

“So what’s wrong with chapter books? Is she picking ones that are too hard for you?”

“NO,” Viva said.

“It’s just that you’re the only one who’s reading them?”

“Yeah,” Viva said. “The other kids get the easy books.”

I finally realized that she thinks the teacher is being hard on her, rather than recognizing her skill level and having her read what’s developmentally appropriate. I then tried to explain to Viva that it’s because she is so good at reading that Ms. C gives her the more advanced books, because she might be bored with the easy books. Viva was still skeptical, and still kind of pissed at being labeled different in some way, even though it’s because she is way beyond her grade level.

She has an innate sense of fairness, and she really could not give a damn what she looks like. Except she better have some cool sneakers on. If she could wear whatever she wanted every day, it would be basketball shorts, a T-shirt and some badass Adidas. She protests having her hair “did,” but refuses to get it cut. She loves the way her hair looks right after she gets out of the shower, and right after it’s been oiled and braided. She has a much higher tolerance for fuzzy edges than I do, and ducks when I try to swipe at her hairline with a brush in the morning.

She hates it when she is not excellent at something the first time she tries it. I mean, she hates it to the point where she will burst into tears and throw a racket down and say, “Tennis is so STUPID anyway!” I mean, like in the moment if she could she would take a flamethrower to the tennis racket, the tennis ball, and all of Wimbledon, Serena Williams be damned. I know that it is only time and a moderate level of maturity that make me a bit more mellow about things like this than she is, but at the same time, it is exasperating.

Three weeks later, she will be bouncing a tennis ball with her racket like she is a pro, rage forgotten. She is a tough cookie, and still a little girl who screams for her parents in the night when she has a bad dream. The Tooth Fairy is no fiction to her. Yesterday, we had a serious conversation about cartoon duck voices (from Donald Duck to the baby duck on Tom and Jerry, we covered the whole pantheon).

She is so distinctly herself. I really lucked out. So happy birthday to Viva, my sweet, smart, ever-growing knockout of a girl.

Avoidance

In direct contrast to the last couple of posts, today’s post is a bit fluffier. Think cotton candy. Sprinkled with just a light dusting of exasperation. Read on…

Well hey, it's that time of year again. What’s that, you say? Well, it’s Viva’s birthday! (Almost.) She will be seven in just nine more days – that’s right, she’s an April Fools baby. So I sent out birthday party invitations by email to some friends, and one emailed me back that she won’t be able to make it but by the way, she ran into the mom of one of Viva’s bestest besty friends in the whole world at the farmer’s market last weekend and the mom asked my friend to give me her phone numbers and call her because bestest besty friend misses her so much.

If they are bestest besty friends, you ask, why are we not in touch?

I’m so glad you asked. Viva and her friend (let’s call her BeBe) used to attend preschool together and were inseparable, and then her mom elected to take her out of private school and put her in a charter school. I’m not mad at that – if I could get Viva into a charter or magnet school, I would probably do the same.*

What I am mad at, and long-time readers (all two of you! Hi there!) may remember this, is that two years ago, we had decided to let Viva pick one friend to take to Disneyland for her birthday, and naturally Besty Best was that friend. I ran it by BeBe’s mom first, and told her no pressure, she didn’t have to decide right away. But I made it clear that we would pay for both of them to go with us for the whole day, and that food/treats/etc. were all part of the deal. Basically all they had to do was show up. And then I called her. And I called her. And she never took my calls. And I never heard back.

And you know, try explaining that to your 5-year-old. She was very upset, and I was all mama bear furious. (How dare you snub my kid? At least have the decency to call and say you can’t go, for whatever reason - make something up if you have to, for heaven's sake.) We ended up taking my sister and nephews and had a lovely time, despite my morning sickness and fatigue.

At any rate, I know what I should do. I should do the right thing, do what would make my kid happy, right? I should suck it up and call her. I know that. I just don’t want to!

* Just found out Viva got waitlisted for second grade at a charter school for the second year in a row. She is number 83 on the list. I love public school,** oh yes, I do.

** I’m not being sarcastic, I really do love public school. I just wish the ones in L.A. weren’t so hit and miss. And that the school-year schedule made sense for parents who work full-time and have no family support. I can’t really have my kid out of school for three weeks at a time at Christmas.

365

One year ago today, I posted this:

I've been having contractions since 5:30 or so this morning. They have been intensifying but are still not at the magic "every 5 minutes, 1 minute in duration" level. Nonetheless, we've kept Viva home from school while we wait to see what happens and we've got all local family members on standby. I am cramping, hips are extra sore, back is killing me. It feels like this is it.

Happy 1st Birthday, Celia, my love. You are tremendous and I love you even more today than 365 short days ago when we first met. I am sorry that you woke up on today of all days cold and wet and with poop in your pants. Hopefully, each birthday will be better than the last!

Cily, about 10 minutes after waking up cold and wet (her diaper leaked) and with poop in her pants. Approximately 5 AM today.

Birthday Bidness

Following up on my post from yesterday: I started to write a really long response about the birthday issues in comments, and then realized it was getting kind of ridiculous, so let me just put this out there:

Regarding who to invite: I hate to leave kids out, but there are 24 kids in kindergarten, split between two classes, and Viva has friends in both classes. If we invite all the kids, and they come with parents and siblings, ye Gods! That doesn't include cousins and other non-school friends she might want to invite.

Most of the kids she is friendly with are kids whose phone numbers I have - so I could invite by phone or even by email. I dunno, I'm thinking I may end up doing one school party like last year (like Nerd Girl) and then invite some friends to an off-site party, probably at a bowling alley, since that’s what Viva is leaning toward at the moment. Sweet Dub is really against the idea of only inviting some kids to the not-on-school-grounds party. He thinks there will be hard feelings if other kids find out – which, of course, there will be.

For the record, for Viva’s fourth birthday, I invited only five of Viva’s school friends to a party off school grounds, and I did a separate low-key party with cupcakes at her school. There is one little girl at school whose mother is...well, she crazy, there's no other way to say it, and no one wants to deal with her. We had already been stuck with her at some other kid’s party a few weeks before that, and we did not want a repeat. Nonetheless, the little girl found out about Viva’s non-school party and confronted Sweet Dub when he picked Viva up from school.

“My mom says my invitation must have got lost,” she lisped at him, giant brown eyes all soulful. He says it broke his heart.

“I am not going through that again,” he said. “We have to invite her. I’ll deal with [Crazy Mom’s name withheld].”

I ran it by several moms over the weekend. They all said they only invite the children their kids are close to, and that they never feel slighted if they aren’t invited to something.

“You’re doing me a favor if you don’t invite me to a party,” one said, and we all agreed. But of course, the problem is not the parents’ feelings, it’s the kids’. Nobody liked the idea of inviting the crazy mom, who we’ve all had to deal with at some point. But we all like the little girl, so we may just have to suck it up. I’m leaning toward inviting only 8 school friends (all of whom have at least one sibling), 2 or 3 non-school friends and siblings, her 3 young cousins, and a few of our friends and their kids. That means we could be talking 30 kids! Has anyone noticed it’s a recession?

My head is killing me. I’m ready to curl up in the fetal position and hibernate until this whole birthday thing is over and done.