Freak Accident

Weekends have not been kind to me the last couple of weeks.

The weekend before last, I (unknowingly) ran over a piece of metal in my car and had to get the tire patched. Translation: I realized my tire was making the universal “I’m losing air” sound about a mile from home, pulled over and checked it, drove home at about 2 miles an hour, and ran into the house yelling up the stairs for Sweet Dub to come down. It then became his responsibility to fix the tire. You know, I consider myself a feminist, but this is one instance where I am happy to play the helpless damsel in distress because I just don’t want to deal with it.

So, this past weekend. Sweet Dub is lying on the couch, sick as a dog. Cily is asleep. Viva is…hmm, I’m not sure what she’s doing. She may be out in the back yard trying to find the latest cat who has decided we belong to him.

I am upstairs, having decided that our house is a Den of Filth and that I am going to clean from the top down. I start with the bathroom. I have already scrubbed the toilet and the tub. I am in the tub with my jeans rolled up, scrubbing the glass shower doors. I slide one of the glass panels over to get to the other one better, and all of a sudden there is a big crash. I am no longer holding the door, because the door is no longer there. I am standing ankle deep in bare feet in chunks of glass. Beads of blood are already starting to form on my arms. I realize if I move I am going to really hurt myself. I scream for Sweet Dub, who is already awake and moving because he heard the crash. He and Viva run upstairs. He and I both yell at Viva to stay out of the room because the glass has shattered all over the floor as well as the tub. It is in the toilet. It is in my hair. It is in the rolled-up cuffs of my jeans, and in the hood of my sweatshirt. Part of the shower door is still swinging a bit from the frame of the shower. Viva is whimpering. Cily sleeps through the whole thing.

Sweet Dub walks carefully into the room in sneakers and lifts me out of the tub. When I put my feet down, I cut myself – which I think was inevitable because tiny slivers of glass are clinging to my feet. I stand out in the hallway right outside the bathroom and carefully pull off my clothes, which we throw into a bucket. I have a couple of really deep gashes in my hands, on the outer parts of my thumbs, below the knuckle, and my left wrist is slashed up. I also have many smaller scratches all over my hands and feet. I wrap my hands in an old T-shirt and apply pressure. It could have been worse. What if Viva had been in the shower? I don’t think she would have had the presence of mind not to move, so she would have been cut up much worse.

Our landlord’s father is the one who put the shower in. It’s supposed to be a floating glass door, i.e. it doesn’t have a frame around the sides or bottom, only at the top. So when it jumped the track a millimeter, it hit the tub and with no frame to protect it, fell to pieces. At least, that’s what we think happened.

I don’t want to replace it. A tension rod and a shower curtain, and I’m all good.

On Sunday, Sweet Dub said to me, “Can we just make a pact? Can we go one weekend where you’re not screaming ‘HON-EAAY!!!’ with the latest disaster up or down the stairs?”

I’d like that. I really would.

Physical Fitness

Hey, so the 100 push-up challenge! I started yesterday. I did my pre-challenge test on Saturday morning and discovered I could do 22 modified (on my knees) pushups. I decided to do the modified ones first and once I reach 100 of those, I’ll re-do the challenge but this time do standard pushups. I’ll be doing my pushups on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

So, Day One, Monday: 25 pushups.

FYI: I am also doing yoga on the Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule, and doing cardio workouts on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Sunday is my day of rest. Rrrarrh! (I feel very Howard Dean, even typing that.)

Stay tuned. I’m going to be a lean machine. For those who are also doing the challenge: how has it been for you? How do you feel? I’m honestly kind of surprised that I can already see progress. But that’s good for me, because too often I get discouraged if I don’t feel I’m moving forward, even though I’ve just started. That’s me, part of the Instant Gratification Generation. Ooh, look, something shiny!*

Edited to add: once again, I’ve started something without fully researching what I’m supposed to be doing. I just went onto the website to log my pushups and I realized I’m supposed to be doing SETS. Duh. So I’m starting on Week 3 and tomorrow I’ll be doing several sets of pushups. Holy crap. I’ll let you know how that goes and if I’m still as enthusiastic about the program.

* I said that to Viva the other day as a joke, and she whipped her head around and said, “Where?” Then I felt like kind of an ass. Good parenting skills!

Good Concept, Not So Great Execution

So I blew off a little bit of steam yesterday. I was at work and I was a little pissed off and I didn't have a whole lot of time, so I have no idea whether yesterday's post was even remotely coherent. And what's more, I'm not all that worried about it.

You may have noticed (or not! and it matters not a whit whether you have or not) that I have been on a Grace in Small Things hiatus. Not because I don’t want to appreciate all the small wonderful things in my life. They are there, and participating in GIST was a great exercise to recognize that. But it’s hard to come up with things that are wonderful and great besides my kids and my husband every day (say what you want about my personal limitations), and then that becomes kind of hackneyed and predictable. “Hey, she’s happily married and she loves her kids and she’s saying it AGAIN!” Snore.

I think my default setting is a little snarky, with a side of riled up. And I think that having a space where I can blog about these things lets me blow off steam, which allows me to be better – better at my spousing and parenting and job thing. So mixing the Grace in Small Things in with this blog space was not the best move for me.* It may work for other people.

Don’t worry – this doesn’t mean I’ll be pissed off here all the time. Just that the GIST thing seemed to be messing with the Blah Blah vibe.

At any rate, you know what's a good idea when you're pissed off about something? It's a good idea to channel your fury into something positive. Hence and therefore:

I'm joining Nerd Girl in the 100-pushup challenge! (How's that for a segue?) And I have to say, I'm going to try my damnedest to do it. My problem is that I start off these things with all the best intentions, and then life happens and my good intentions kind of run off the rails. While this is very vexing to me, it might be quite entertaining to you, and you know me, I'm all about the entertainment. (That's me, I'm a giver.)

Do you want to try it? What's the harm? Come on in!

* I’m moving it back over to GIST where it belongs. You are welcome to visit it there.

Kumbaya

Sometimes I think life is too stressful and we’re all too angry and we all need to just breathe and link arms and teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. And then I come across a rant like this, on Bitch, PhD. (I’ll stop for a second so you can go read it, if you want. By the way, my favorite part of it is this, in regard to the AIG bonuses: “This tearing the doors off the barn and then running around trying to figure out how to Teach a Lesson to the cow that wandered into the kitchen is stupid bullshit, unworthy of anyone over the age of three. Put some goddamn fucking doors on the goddamn barn. That one cow isn't any different than any of the others, if you were a cow you wouldn't be either, and even if you shoot it in the head your kitchen is still going to be a mess and a different cow is going to wander in tomorrow.”)

I read a rant like this, and I think, no, you know what? NO. America, we have every damn right to be angry. Yeah, I’m tired of being pissed off at things, but the world is not all lollipops and rainbows. There’s a reason I’m pissed off. And as someone I’m too lazy to look up and cite properly once said, “If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.”

I’m pissed off and I’m sleep deprived, and I have no time to tie my own shoes. If I get my kid off to school each day with her hair oiled and combed and her teeth brushed and her face clean, I consider that a victory every damn day. I’m here to say I’m tired, man, and I’m not going to sugar coat it. I get up every day and do what I’m supposed to do, and nobody throws me a parade or gives me my own reality show for doing so. The economy is essentially flushing itself down the toilet and scaring me for the future of my children and yours, and I get up every morning and plow ahead anyway – that is the real story. Me and all of you like me, who don’t expect to get something for nothing, who don’t hang your hopes on some bullshit system – you get up and you grumble a little bit and you try to raise your kids the best way you know how. You try to be the best person you can be. You think about your parents, your grandparents, about people you know who have faced some of the worst horrors imaginable and come out – not whole, exactly, but with a kind of fractured intactness, and they function in the world, and they interact with people like you, and they think you are some crybaby fussypots for thinking these times are bad.

The sun rises. I get up. I have a job, I have a home, I have food. My kids are healthy and thriving. My bed is very comfortable. My husband calls upstairs to me that he’s leaving and it’s late.

I get up. The news is blaring, and the news ain’t good. I wipe bums, I pack lunchboxes, I put on lipstick. I drive through Los Angeles, explaining to my oldest the nuances of 6-year-old behavior on the playground. I kiss her as I drop her off. I almost get sideswiped by a black Escalade. I drop off the baby. I stop at the door and go back to kiss her again. I drive off. Passing the Metro station, I see an old woman with a shock of white hair and a white beard stumping around painfully, slowly pushing an overstuffed collapsible grocery carrier. I watch passersby avoid her. At work, I find out that requests to our internal emergency fund (for families who need immediate financial assistance due to eviction or job loss or relocation due to family violence) are up 75% over this time last year. At the same time, funding – from government sources and from private donors - is down.

You think, “What small thing can I do to make a difference?”

You get up.

Lunch Limbo

“Mom, I want to have school lunch.”

Oh, dear God. Well, I think we have fallen into a bit of a rut as far as packing a lunch from home. I admit it. Since the baby’s birth, I’ve started packing stuff I never would have sent to school with Viva before. I’ve actually broken down and bought – oh, the shame – junk food (Cheetos, I’m looking at you). And not just junk food, but individually packaged junk food, so not only am I potentially ruining my child’s health, but I’m simultaneously destroying the planet! All by my onesies!

Ah, my old friend, Guilt. When did you get back in town?

Okay, in all fairness, here’s what Viva went to school with this morning: tuna salad with multigrain crackers, strawberries, seedless red grapes, a “100 calorie” package of Pepperidge Farm Chessmen cookies, and watered-down lemonade. (Regular readers may recall that Viva is not a big fan of the sandwich. I was pleased to discover recently that she loves a sandwich on a bagel, so that became a once-a-week staple until I learned that she was taking my lovingly constructed sandwiches apart and eating each component separately. Apparently this also meant she was throwing away the lettuce on the sandwich rather than eating it. Ugh.)

Her lunch generally consists of a “main course” with some kind of protein (can be anything from a turkey sandwich on a bagel to mac & cheese in a Thermos), one or two servings of fresh fruit (pretty much any fruit) or vegetables (edamame beans, baby carrots), a side of crackers or chips, and some kind of treat (this can be anything from a granola bar to Trader Joe’s yogurt to the occasional bag of cookies). And a drink. I don’t do juice boxes, so I fill up a reusable container with drinks from home – either water or watered-down juice. This covers two snack breaks and lunch during her school day.

When I asked Viva why she wanted school lunch, she said, “It just looks so good!” However, we have tried school lunch before, and aside from it being more expensive, there were often items that Viva simply didn’t like, and she’d come home hungry. Also, school lunch doesn’t include snacks, so I had to pack a lunchbox every day anyway.

I’ve been looking up lunch ideas online and found some good suggestions to get me out of my rut at lunchopolis and ilunchbox. Let’s face it – I’m never going to send Viva off with the gorgeous lunches you might see at Vegan Lunch Box. But I’ve got to think if I mix it up a bit more, she might back off on going back on the lunch plan at school…for the moment.

What about you? Do you have any fairly easy, fairly healthy lunchbox suggestions? Throw ‘em my way! I’m open!

The Joy of Not Cooking

This week, suddenly and unexpectedly, I have completely lost interest in cooking.

You know, I think I had a fairly good run there. I'm one of those who sits down on Sunday and maps out meals for the week, and then draws up a grocery list based on that, and then pretty much follows the meal plan with a little improv here and there. But I've just had it. I just want to come home and spend some time with the kids. This evening when I came home with Cily, Sweet Dub was mid-workout in the living room. Viva was upstairs, having finished her homework, and she proudly showed me her MVP ribbon from football clinic at school. I changed my clothes and folded laundry while sitting on the floor in my bedroom next to Cily on her activity mat. Viva plopped down with us and began playing an elaborate game of cars, planes and dinosaurs, which I provided some of the voices for. It was -- dare I say it? -- relaxing.

Sweet Dub came upstairs and asked what we should do for dinner. I realized I would be fine eating some fruit and a bagel sandwich, so that's what Viva and I had for dinner. Dub had leftover tortellini. All was well and the world did not fall off its axis. I could get used to this. The End.

Lucky Thirteen.

Appreciating, on this thirteenth day of appreciating what I should appreciate:

1. I finally, after MONTHS of not, got my hair cut and colored on Saturday. I feel like a new woman!

2. New red shoes. HOT!

3. A quiet day at the office. I finished drafting my cover article, including sidebars and suggesting which photos to use.

4. Really good news from Sweet Dub's job. Apparently they appreciate him almost (ALMOST) as much as I do.

5. Jon Stewart taking on Jim Cramer. One love, Jon. One love.

Day Twelve. And a Partridge in a Pear Tree.

Here are some small things for which I am grateful:

1. It’s Friday.

2. It’s cool and clear today, and because I am in Los Angeles, that means it’s 63 degrees. I never have to dig my car out of the snow before I go to work. As a Bostonian by birth, I know that is truly a blessing.

3. The Blah Blahs are officially planning a vacation. Destination as yet unknown (planning has just barely begun).

4. I gave a progress report on my foster care project in a meeting today. It was very well-received – staff are excited about all the possibilities of this new program. I am too. Maybe my enthusiasm rubbed off. But my boss and boss’ boss are particularly pleased.

5. I went to the Farmer’s Market at lunch today. There are few things more scrumptious than a fresh strawberry.

Day Eleven. Cheesy and soulful.

Grace in...oh, you know.

1. Brie cheese.

2. And Camembert, too.

3. And focaccia.

4. Soul sides. Because I go to the site and scroll around and inevitably yelp and yip with excitement. I hadn’t been in a while, I admit, and today I was reading back a few posts and YIP! “I LOVE DAVID RUFFIN!” Yeah, it’s like that. Really great artists you may have totally forgotten about. Old soul music is just like home to me. I can’t explain it any other way.*

5. Being told that the EVP where I work (who is a published novelist, and completely anal about language) has been praising my writing talents hither and yon. Wow.

* Ooh! Dionne Warwick! Now there’s an O.D. (Original Diva) for ya. And look at her picture. She looked FABulous.

A Lovely Bouquet

One of my co-worker friends is getting married next year and she just asked me if Viva could be her flower girl. Given that the only lengthy conversation they’ve had was about tae kwon do, after which they practiced air kicks, she knew what a risky proposition this might be.

“Will she even wear a dress?” she asked.

“You know, that really is an issue. I’ll have to ask her about it and get back to you,” I said, and then sympathetically, “You might want to keep looking and have Viva as a backup. But I’ll see what she says.”

Can a flower girl wear track pants and a “My school is cool” T-shirt? That seems to be Viva’s default outfit these days. We’ll see.

Day Ten. Belatedly.

Grace in small things:

1. Cily’s been healthy for a few days.

2. Had a great meeting with a VP at work – we brainstormed about a new creative arts program we want to offer to foster kids. He really knows his stuff and is excited we’re trying to do this, and was happy I asked his opinion. I was happy because he really knows his stuff and is excited we’re trying to do this, so he gave me a lot of great ideas. Now I just have to write them up and hammer out a budget. Sweet!

3. Talking with some work friends about massages and pampering yourself and discovered one of our work friends has never been to a spa. (She is only 27, so I’ll cut her a little slack.) The rest of us (there were three of us, late-30s and age 40-moi) were taken aback and insisted she learn how to pamper herself. I then went online and sent her the link to this. You look, too. It’ll relax you just to look at it. Once when I went there I had such a good time talking with my masseuse that she gave me an extra half-hour and then comped the entire massage. And she wouldn’t take a tip! Ah, good times.

4. Vietnamese take-out for dinner. No dishes to wash. Pho sho!

5. Sick, but I can still do push-ups. In sets of ten! Rrrraarrrh!

Banging My Head Against the Wall

Update on the day care situation:

The director of the center did not read my email. She heard from Cily’s caregiver that I had emailed her, so she called and left a message saying she would rather just speak with me in person.

When we spoke, she had the nerve to argue with me. Incredibly, she seemed to think that if Cily wasn’t crying, there was no reason to think she might be hungry. “We feed on demand,” she said.

“I understand that,” I said. “But if a child goes five hours without eating anything, wouldn’t you just offer her something?”

“Well, she wasn’t crying,” she said.

“No, sometimes she doesn’t,” I said. “But—“

“Well, usually she lets us know if she’s hungry,” she interrupted. “Believe me.”

“What I would like to see happen is EVEN IF SHE IS NOT CRYING, offer her a bottle every three hours,” I said. “If she isn’t hungry, she won’t eat it. But she should never go five hours without being fed.”

“Okay, we’ll do that,” she said. “But you know usually a baby will cry to tell you they’re hungry.”

Deep breath. “Okay, L. – let me tell you what I am trying to do here. I am trying to avoid having my husband come down here. He is not happy. You do not want him to come down here. Can we just agree that from now on you will check to see if she wants to eat every three hours or so?”

Agreed. Jesus Lord, give me strength.

Day Nine and Feelin’…Meh.

1. Yesterday I was asked to work on some creative projects at work. Today that translated into me writing the cover story for our company newsletter, along with a couple of other articles. That is so much with the coolness!

2. Good and yet not so good: I’ve been watching my money carefully and I was wondering why I had more money in my account than expected – but not enough to really pursue it. Today I was changing purses and I discovered a bill in my purse that I thought I had mailed two weeks ago. Oh, so that’s why I have an extra $779 in my account! Yeah, I’m really tired. It made me laugh at myself.

3. Piggybacking on my husband’s issues with his clothes: I spent ten minutes trying to figure out what to wear this morning. Finding pants that fit, with tops that are warm but not too warm, and coordinating shoes, has become something of a challenge. Where is the grace in this, you ask? Wait for it, wait for it…well, it’s forced me to put together different items in ways I wouldn’t before. Today a random person at work stopped me to compliment me on my outfit. Somehow I made it work. Tune in tomorrow!

4. A friend at work gave me a free tamale this morning. It was yummy. (I see a theme developing here…there’s a lot of free food at work.)

5. Forgot to mention: this weekend Viva was imitating Edna Mode from The Incredibles, with perfect intonation:

“You are ELASTIGIRL! (disgustedly) My GOD, (mimes smacking someone repeatedly) pull - yourself - together!” Hey, she comes by it honestly.

The Gods Must be Laughing

Lately Sweet Dub has been complaining about his clothes and how he hates them all and needs new stuff, but he never seems to find time to shop. I found out that Macy’s was having a one-day only men’s private sale today and I decided to go downtown on my lunch hour to the Macy’s at 7th and Figueroa. I have never been to this particular Macy’s but it is the closest one to work geographically. As I was walking down to my car, this thought flashed through my mind: “No good deed goes unpunished.”

Foreshadowing much? So here is a conversation I had about 45 minutes later as I was walking back into the building and ran into a smartly-dressed male colleague:

LBB: I just drove downtown to Macy’s.

SDMC: Oh, I’m on my way to Macy’s right now.

LBB: For the men’s secret sale? Did you know they’re closed?

SDMC: The one at 7th and Fig?

LBB: Yeah.

SDMC: Yeah, they had to close that one because of the sucky economy. Why didn’t you go to the other Macy’s?

LBB: What other Macy’s?*

SDMC: There’s another Macy’s one block away, at 7th and Flower.**

LBB: Are you kidding me?? Why would they have two Macy’s so close together?

SDMC: One of them used to be a Robinson’s-May. But that’s why they closed the one at 7th and Figueroa, it was just duplicate business.

LBB: So you‘re going downtown right now? I wish I’d known.

SDMC: No, I’m going to the Beverly Center.

LBB: Wow. Have a nice two hour lunch, slacker.

SDMC: Shut up. Bye.


* Again, the “not being an LA native” thing works against me. Dammit!

** I've since heard that this Macy's sucks.

Day Eight. Vinyasa Blah Blah.

1. Relieved to read “Renting still beats buying.” Sweet Dub and I have an ongoing conversation about this since we’re not convinced that a 30-year-mortgage is something we should be struggling to obtain.

2. Today is workout day and I’m actually looking forward to it! I think today might be a yoga day.

3. I discovered this new (to me) singer through the magic of NPR and today I created a Pandora station with similar-sounding artists.

4. My boss called me in to her office today and shut the door. Yikes. No, it turns out people where I work are actually fighting over me and approached her to ask if I could work on a project. She is reluctant to let me do it, but agreed I could work with this other department on one creative project a month. (Backstory: I worked with them on occasional projects as a favor until they hired someone new. Now it turns out they like my writing better. Nice!) I am more than happy to get a break from my routine to do something fun.

5. Despite (or maybe because of) the dire economic news, Sweet Dub and I have been talking about taking a REAL vacation this year. “I’ve been working for twelve years and I’ve only ever taken one real vacation,” Sweet Dub says. You know what? Yeah, life is short. Let’s hit the road!

This Parenting Thing

Have you noticed, you who have children, that this parenting thing is um, kind of non-stop? As Exhibit A, I give you this:

Dear [name redacted],

I would appreciate your immediate attention to this matter. I spoke with [AM childcare person] this morning, and wanted to follow up with an email. When I picked Cily up at around 5:00 on Friday, her chart indicated that she had not eaten anything since 12:10. You may remember I asked you about it, and you said perhaps she was fed and no one recorded it. When I dropped her off that morning, I left her with three 4 oz. bottles. One was completely full when I picked her up – consistent with her not having been fed.

Cily does not always cry when she is hungry. I noticed she was sucking on her fingers loudly in the car on the way home. When I fed her, she drained the bottle (4 oz.) and wanted more. I then changed her and noticed her diaper was really heavy.

Looking back at the chart, it looks like she was asleep from 12-ish until 3:30 or so. In the time between her waking up and my arrival, she did not have her diaper changed and was not fed. This is the second time since January (when Cily started at [daycare]) that I have arrived to discover Cily hasn’t been fed for several hours. This is absolutely not acceptable.

Cily should get a diaper change within five (at most ten) minutes of waking up, and should be fed every three hours if possible. She shouldn’t go five hours without eating anything, even if she is not crying. If this is not feasible, please let me know.

It’s difficult to leave my child in someone else’s care. It’s really upsetting to be paying a premium for care and feel she is not being attended to.

Yours truly,
Lisa Blah Blah

I think it speaks for itself. Will let you know what response I get at pickup today.

GIST – Day Seven. Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY!

1. I can not tell you how much I am enjoying Big Love this season. The plot twists are ingenious and completely believable. Only two more episodes until the season finale! Criminy! (When is Weeds coming back?)

2. Cily laughs now! I nuzzle her under her chin with my nose and she chuckles and chuckles irrepressibly. If you heard it I think your heart would swell up and burst out of your chest. So yeah, maybe you should stay away.

3. Called my sister and although we chatted for only a few minutes, I automatically felt better when I was talking to her. This is not to say I was feeling bad when I called her, or that we talked about anything particularly noteworthy. I think it is just a sensory thing, hearing her voice.

4. Weeded through Cily’s clothes and put a whole bunch of outgrown outfits in a bag to give away. Pay it forward.

5. Viva put together a rather complicated paper bag puppet show version of American Idol, with a frog, lion, elephant and cow squaring off. She told me she disqualified the elephant because it was a girl. I gave her a pretty stern (for me) lecture about how it’s not right to treat someone differently just because they’re a girl, which she rolled her eyes about. And then for the rest of the day I had “Suffragette City” playing in my head. I know, but that is just how my brain works.

GIST – Day Six. The Weekend Edition.

1. Took Cily for her 4-month checkup and all is well. “What a perfectly shaped head!” her doctor exclaimed. Yes, she is a perfect child. I have the photos to prove it and maybe I’ll post them someday.

2. At the doctor’s office, as we were leaving, we ran into a new mom who gushed fountains over Cily. Her stroller was completely covered and I asked if I could peek in. OH. My. GOD. Her baby boy was only 5 days old. How teeny and sweet and red! It made me all melty.

3. Thai veggie fried rice and fried tofu for lunch. Completely satisfying.

4. Had a “sleepover” with Viva in my room Saturday night. At one point woke up with my big old girl all draped over my right side. She is still a little girl – sometimes I forget that because Cily is so tiny in comparison.

5. We booked a venue for Viva’s birthday party next month. It will be a bowling party with eight other kids. Cute because they have these bumpers that go up so kids can’t roll gutter balls. While I am not crazy about bowling shoes, I do so love the sound the pins make when the ball hits ‘em.

Day Five. Blue skies. And God.

Again with the Grace in Small Things. At least it's making me write every day. If you don't know what on earth I'm talking about, mosey on over here.

1. Mini oatmeal chocolate chip cookies from Trader Joe’s. I mentioned that I’ve been working out, right?

2. An impromptu rooftop lunch with a friend at work. We work a couple of miles from downtown Los Angeles, and the sky is clear and blue after the rains yesterday. The downtown skyline looks amazing from the roof.

3. The dad of Viva's classmate emailed me for professional advice. I am always taken aback when someone considers me an expert in my field – and then I realize I’ve been doing this for nearly 15 years (WHAT?!). Kind of nice that people seek me out.

4. It’s Casual Friday and I am wearing my comfiest jeans! (No, not the ones with the hole in the knee.) To dress it up a little bit since I am at work, I’m wearing a cashmere sweater with a seersucker blazer thrown over that. Ahhh….

5. Bowled over by Viva asking us last night at dinner to take her to church. This led to an interesting and thoughtful discussion at the table about what church to go to. We are Methodists but rarely go to our church. We do talk quite a bit about spiritual matters and I think Viva’s spiritual education is going to kick a bit more into high gear this year. I am pleased about this, because it forces me to sit and really think about what I believe and what I want to pass on to her.

A Fraction of What I Have to Say

So many things to blog about, so little time:

Cily is much better, just about at 95% I'd say. We have battled the Croup and won!

Viva is having issues with school. As in, not being challenged by the curriculum. I hate to say it, but I can only imagine this would be worse if she were in public school. At least with private school you have some leverage, as in "we are paying you folks a lot of money to educate our kid - let's figure out what we can do to keep her motivated, shall we?"* Last night we were reading a chapter book before bed - alternating reading pages aloud to each other. Whenever Viva would come to an unfamiliar word, she would pause, work it out carefully and then move on with the rest of the sentence. This was both exciting, since she's suddenly at warp speed with the reading, and at the same time, not really odd to me. I know she is very bright, and it's reminiscent of how I was at her age, so it seems pretty normal. Then I was looking at the book today and found it's listed as Grade 7 and up. No wonder she's bored with kindergarten...

Sweet Dub and I are both working out pretty regularly these days. He is on this kick to lose weight (!! if you knew him you would laugh, but I think he only wants to lose ten pounds) and get in shape for the spring, which is on its way faster than ever since we live in Los Angeles. I am trying to lose my baby pooch and generally firm up all over. I feel pretty good, and I'm enjoying making my work friends laugh with my overexaggerated-for-comic-effect hip-hop abs moves. "Everybody dance y'all!"

If I were to talk to you on the phone right now I would rattle on like this for about twenty minutes straight and tell you I have to go but I have so much more to tell you and then I'd apologize profusely but hang up. That's just how I roll. Always leave 'em wanting more. Thank you and good night!

* Why is it as taxpayers we don't feel entitled to demand the same level of service? Am I not now paying twice for education? I sure as hells am.

Day Four. Thursday Thoughts on Grace.

1. Reason #567 to love my husband: he's been making sure I get uninterrupted time to work out in the evening.

2. 3:30am and I should be asleep, but I have Cily, wide awake next to me on the bed, skootching as close to me as possible so that when I open my eyes, her giant brown eyes are staring into mine, and she gurgles, and smiles, and grabs my face with her chubby little hand and squeezes my cheek, and I just have to learn to accept the sleep deprivation.

3. Reading Hope for the Flowers (which Amazon lists as for Grade 7 and up) with Viva, and realizing she’s really reading – we are alternating reading pages aloud, and she really gets it. When she gets to an unfamiliar word she pauses and she sounds it out and keeps going, and it is like she suddenly hit warp speed with the reading. She is awesome. She is Five, Hear Her Roar.

4. Making my work friends laugh hysterically as I show them my hip hop moves from this workout DVD.

5. Loving this.

Day Three. Sweet, Spanish, Sweaters.

1. Finding inexpensive art for Viva’s bedroom on Etsy.

2. Remembering my umbrella (it was pouring this morning)!

3. Vitamin water (it’s like crack for me)

4. Managing a Spanglish conversation with the parking lot attendant at work - not as hard as I'd thought, and he seemed so pleased.

5. Wearing my favorite comfy green, gold and chocolate sweater.

Day Two. Smiles and starfish.

1. Joy in my two girls every day – watching them cuddle and smile into each other’s eyes this morning. It is beautiful to watch my 5-year-old falling in love with her new baby sister.

2. Rediscovering how good it feels to work out – and rededicating myself to taking care of my body.

3. Being unexpectedly captivated by the new salt water fish tank in the lobby at work. There is a huge (maybe 6 inches across) horned brown and orange starfish on the side of the tank. I’ve never seen anything like it. It is strangely beautiful.

4. Giant bag of hand-me-down baby clothes from a co-worker’s granddaughter, three months older than my little one. A nice surprise, and so thoughtful.

5. The always-in-the-background support of my sweetie pie husband. Appreciated so much more than I can say.

Squeakers

Cily has the croup and it has resulted in laryngitis. She coughs so hard she vomits, and then she cries in the most pathetic heartbreaking squeak. Needless to say, Sweet Dub and I have been taking turns taking sick days to stay home with her. She is intermittently feverish, but surprisingly not very irritable at all. A little fussy, but snuggly and sweet fussy rather than “O My God nothing is making her happy” fussy.

Today, Sweet Dub went to work from 6AM to 11AM, and then came home so I could go into work in the afternoon. Of course, now that I am at work (and it's almost time to leave) I can’t concentrate. Hence:

Grace in Small Things*

1. This morning I was tickling Cily on the sides of her neck and she really started laughing – which, since she has laryngitis, was not very loud, but nonetheless really turned my heart into a big gooey mess.

2. Last night, our neighbor from around the corner came over to introduce herself and to let us know of the deadline for a local charter school (next Wednesday). I guess she’d been talking to our next door neighbor and he told her of our school issues. We had a nice chat and I found out that not only does she have a 7-year-old daughter who is into a lot of the same things Viva is, but there’s a 5-going-on-6-year-old girl living next door to them as well. You mean Viva might actually be able to play with little girls her age, a mere stone’s throw away? Sweet!

3. Today I am only working a half-day! Granted, that is because Cily is sick, but hey, a half-day on a Friday? I’ll take it!

4. Today an old classmate of mine from college emailed me unexpectedly – found me through Facebook – and she is just as I remember, funny and on point.

5. At work today someone dropped off a bunch of free pies. I just had a slice of blackberry pie heated up in the microwave and it was heavenly.

* Hat tip to Journeymama for her blog posts which led me to the Grace in Small Things Website. If you haven’t read her blog, take a look – she and her husband moved last year from the States to India and I love to read about their transition. They have four very small children and you’d think their lives would be nuts, but Rae is always kind of inspirational and peaceful. Her kids are beautiful, too.

Deep Down

…I’m really shallow. Lately I have become obsessed with the things we do not have in our house – things I think we should add, and things I want to replace. It’s a long list, and I won’t bore you with the details, but it’s making me a little nutty.

Added to this, my darling Sweet Dub is obsessed with buying either (a) a treadmill or (b) a new video camera. We have already had conversations about how we should not be making any serious purchases in this economy – this is not a recession, it is something much more serious, and with so many unknowns, it’s best to be careful. Also, it seems likely that, with more budget cuts in public education, we will be keeping Viva in private school indefinitely. So we are holding back and saving our cheese, but because (a) we live in a capitalist society and (b) we are inundated with catalogs from the previous residents of our home and (c) everyone everywhere is having a SALE SALE SALE, we’re (or maybe more accurately, I’m) a little antsy.

Furthermore, although we’ve had offers of cribs from two different sources, we haven’t been able to coordinate pick-up with either party. At the moment, Cily sleeps in a co-sleeper for part of the night and in the bed right next to me the other part of the night. I’d like to move her into a crib and ultimately put her into Viva’s room at some point. I won’t get into why we haven’t been able to get either crib, but I will say it hasn’t been for lack of trying. I’m going to give it one more go this weekend before I completely wash my hands of it and go buy a damn crib with the money I’m not supposed to be spending on anything.

I know, I know: it’s not about what we own, but what we are. Or really, who we are. I will not be moved! I have nerves of steel! My debit card remains securely in my wallet, rolling its figurative eyes at the crazy.

Things I Love More Than…Well, Things:
(in no particular order)

(1) Cily’s toothless smile
(2) The L.A. sky after it rains
(3) Watching the snow fall. On TV.
(4) Viva’s laugh
(5) Being in bed with my honey
(6) A cup of tea and a good book
(7) An unexpected phone call from a friend
(8) Sitting on the beach watching the waves
(9) Singing loudly in my car
(10) The way I feel after yoga
(11) Discovering new music
(12) Snuggling in a big pile of kids and husband on the couch
(13) Making people laugh
(14) Making lists (no, for real)
(15) A good night’s sleep

The Tooth, the Whole Tooth, and Nothing But the...

Dear Viva,

Wow! You lost your first tooth! You are officially no longer a baby, although you will always be my baby. I’m sorry I got a little weepy when it fell out. Moms are like that sometimes. It doesn’t mean I’m not excited for you, because I really am!

Love,
Mama


Dear Tooth Fairy,

Five bucks per tooth? Really?? Even in this economy? It’s just because that was the first tooth, right?

Bemusedly,
Lisa


Dear Viva,

I’m very pleased that you’ve decided to save your five dollars and wait until more teeth come out so you can save up for something special. You are such a smart kid!

Love,
Mama


Dear Sweet Dub,

What constitutes “something special”? What if she wants to buy a snake or something?

Love,
Honey


Dear DNA,

Please let Viva’s teeth come in fairly straight. I’m putting in a plea for no orthodontia. Help me out here.

Sincerely,
Lisa

Sign 'O' the Times

...and not the Prince song, unfortunately.

I work for a social services agency that serves "high risk" families. Most of our clients are low-income, many have substance abuse problems, and pretty much all have experienced some type of violence. When people ask me how things are going at work, I tell them that things are much more difficult for our families than ever before, with the economy being what it is. Even in the best of times, our client families are hard pressed to provide the basics for their kids. I learned today that among our client families, CalWORKS applications have doubled in the past six months.

Goddammit, that's depressing.

Connect 4 - or in this case, more

Do you belong to any networking sites? I have a Facebook account, a LinkedIn account, a Shelfari account, a college network account, a family MySpace account, and a friend just emailed to invite me to join HoverSpot.com. I don’t even know what that is, but I’m pretty sure I don’t have time for it.

I barely have time for the friends I have, even my nearest and dearest! I know this is going to sound antiquated, but wouldn’t it be cool to get off the computer and just call the people you want to talk to? Or even just email a quick note to say, “Hi, I’m thinking about you”?

What is it with this crazy life? I admit I am just as bad as everyone else about keeping in touch. I have aunts back east with three and four kids and not only do they manage to shop and wrap and get packages out to us every Christmas, but they promptly write thank you notes (like within a week!) for the gifts I send their way. It is mind-boggling.

I blame the TV and its siren call. Now, really, after I’ve been staring at a screen all day at work, do I really need to stare at a screen for a couple of hours once I get home?

I think not. What I need to do is attend to other personal business. Spend some time with my husband, maybe do some yoga, maybe catch up with some friends. What did I do with my time before I had children? I really feel a need to reclaim that part of my life in little bits and pieces. Don’t get me wrong – I realize it would be unproductive to long for hours of free time to just noodle around. But can I grab 15 minutes here and there and make little moments for myself?

Financial advisers always say you need to pay yourself first. You hear me? That's what I'm talking about. Facebook and all its minions can wait. I've got other stuff on my mind.

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.

In Which I Confess I'm a Bag Hag

"I'm thinking balls are to men what purses are to women. It's just a little bag, but we feel naked in public without it."
- Sex and the City

So my sister Lola’s birthday is coming up and for some reason I am obsessed with buying her a bag. Mainly because I love a good bag (this is not a euphemism for anything, you dirty, dirty Internets. Stop breathing so heavy and grabbing my knee.), so I get to shop vicariously.

How cute are these (courtesy Mimi Smartypants)? I love them all. And yet they are maybe a little boho and perhaps better suited to me than my sister. And yet, who doesn’t need a splash of cute hipsterness, especially when one is being reminded that one is getting older due to one’s birthday, and one could use a dash of how you say, joie de vivre? I think it’s a perfect gift. And if I happen to buy two, what’s the harm? Economy, eshonomy. (Say that ten times fast, I dare you.)

By the way, Etsy is the best invention since the self-threading needle. Better, even. There, I said it.

P.S. I just bought the cutest Orla Kiely bag (on sale! SWEET!) as a replacement for my nasty falling-apart tote bag that I'm ashamed to bring to work anymore. Now you know my weakness. That and shoes - if I had the money, I would have a whole room full of shoes. And books. Oh my God, let me shut up now.

A floating accumulation of miscellaneous stuff

I don’t have anything deep to say today, just a bunch of random observations. Let’s dive in, shall we?

Seriously? One of the Best. Headlines. Ever:

Early Humans Had Nutcracker Jaws

As an Anthropology major, I salute you, Yahoo! News!

The Golden Age

For years, Sweet Dub has complained about car commercials never showing a black man in the driver’s seat. I admit I had never noticed this because I am not insane, but once it was pointed out to me, I realized he was right. Finally, over time, we actually began to see black men driving the car in some of the car commercials. This weekend, Sweet Dub was watching the post-Super Bowl TV offerings and said, “Hey, look – a black man driving the car. Now you see it all the time…[thinks for a moment] Black President, black coach wins the Super Bowl, and black men driving the cars – after all these years of being the boogeyman, this might be our time. It’s the Golden Age of the African American male, honey.”

And with that, Cily spit up all over her daddy’s hand.

“There’s your Golden Age,” I said to him. “How’s that workin’ out for ya?”

A Musical Interlude

Yesterday, on the way to school/work, I eased up to a red light and happened to look in my rearview mirror. The guy in the Honda CRV behind me was pulling a guitar into his lap. Because you know, what better way to pass the time waiting for the light to turn green than to strum a few bars to yourself. I was about to make some snarky comment like “lost on the way to the Lilith Fair,” but even I don’t know where I was going with that.

The World is a Rainbow

Last night, a very dear friend of ours, Lady E, was in town for business and we had her over for dinner. (I know! On a Monday night! We frickin’ rock.) (P.S. We ordered Indian food. What, you thought I was going to cook?) Lady E is black and her husband is white. She was telling us that her oldest child B. is very race-conscious and is always describing people by their color. “You know that book, Shades of Black? It describes all the different colors of blackness, like you’re yellow like popcorn, you’re brown like a pretzel – you know what I’m talking about?” Evidently they talk a lot about race at their house, and it doesn’t hurt that they live in Oakland, right near Berkeley. She jokes about her daughter being a little militant for a 5-year-old. But anyway, yes, I had heard of this book and I felt a tinge of guilt for not having a copy of it because I do try to show Viva books that validate her experience, yada yada yada. And about two seconds later I got over it, because God knows Viva has a very strong self-concept and is very proud of being brown – and that didn’t come out of a book.

Later, after Sweet Dub had dropped her off at her hotel, he said to me, “That book she was talking about? That is the last thing we need.” As it turns out, B. pointing out what color people are is not always welcome. I know! With all the complications surrounding race in this country, who’da thunk?

We’re All Friends Here

Viva will be turning six in just a couple of months and she is already demanding to know what we are doing for a party. I won’t go into our labored and lengthy discussions, but want to put this out there: do you feel it is acceptable to not invite all the kids from school to a party that is not held on school grounds? Is it ever okay to invite just the kids she’s friendly with? And where does one draw the line?

Sweet Dub and I are divided on this issue based on previous experience. I won’t bias your response by telling you my opinion. What do you think?



**This post has been edited to correct the misspelling of Super Bowl. What, I thought it was all one word. I don't know from football.

It’s Not Easy Being…

In these economically distressed times, most days I've been brown-bagging it to work. Except I don't use a brown paper bag, I use one of my Chico bags, which is actually a shopping bag and really too large to use as a lunch bag. So today while eating lunch at my desk, I was looking into reusable bags and eco-utensils and I got distracted onto Fleurville’s site. You know, they’re all environmentally friendly and stuff. And I came across this:

It’s the Calla Chair, the coolest looking (and eco-conscious!) high chair known to man (or maybe just to me). You know, Cily will need a high chair in a few months. Some day she might eat actual food. And you know what?

It’s $675. SIX HUNDRED SEVENTY FIVE DOLLARS.

Ye Gods.

Apparently you need to have some green to go green these days. Go figure.

Talking to Myself

Note to self: when it is 3 am and your baby is wide awake and lying next to you gurgling and smiling and staring into your eyes and not by any stretch of the imagination going back to sleep, remember that she will not be this small forever. Smile back at her and cuddle close. And that baby puke smell on the towel you’ve laid out under her on the bed? With the wet pukey spot close to your face? It’s sweet, is all it is. Repeat that like a mantra as the baby tries to grab your nose with one clammy (clammy? From spit-up? Best not to think about it.), chubby hand.

Note to Cily: yes, it’s sweet the way you want to rest your head on Mama’s shoulder all the time. But could you maybe not spit up on her shoulder every single time she picks you up from daycare? Because at home, it’s fine – she’s usually wearing something she can just throw in the wash anyway. But when she’s getting you from daycare, she’s generally wearing something that’s dry clean only, and honey, it’s getting expensive.

Note to Viva: I love your – how shall I put this? – “spiritedness.” You have a very strong personality, and I applaud how firmly you assert yourself. However, sticking your tongue out at Mama when she says something you don’t agree with is a sure way to find out the meaning of “there’ll be hell to pay.” And saying you’re really, really sorry does not negate the rudeness. Thus, you will be going to bed with no story. That’ll learn ya! Also: in general, please keep singing. The sound of your voice, coupled with your enthusiasm and complete lack of self-consciousness, brings me joy. Even when I have a headache, I still love it. As long as it is not accompanied by the sticking out of the tongue mentioned earlier. (I really hate that.)

Note to husband: we are ships that pass in the night. I love you. What was your name again?

Note to self: perhaps deciding to get your black flats repaired while in your eighth month of pregnancy, at a shoe repair shop that is not located in the flow of your regular life, was not the best decision. I would place a bet that your shoes are no longer there. Console yourself with cyber window shopping at Zappos. Mmmm, shoes.

Note to Neutrogena: your hand cream rocks.

Note to crazy mom at Viva’s school: Friday at 5 pm, in a ridiculously congested and densely populated part of the city, is not a good time or place to have your child’s birthday party. Calling me three times to try to convince me that Viva really wants to go? Makes me want to accommodate you even less. And for the record, a Dora the Explorer electric toothbrush has to be one of the weirdest goody bag gifts ever.

Note to Riley, the dog next door: Why do you keep trying to escape from your house? Why do you always run to our house? Your people genuinely seem to like you, since every time we call them to tell them you are with us, they dutifully drop whatever they are doing (generally having the nerve to have dinner! Without you! Somewhere outside the house on a Friday or Saturday night!) and drive home to get you. Please, Riley. The last time you escaped you really almost hurt yourself. Try and summon up some survival instinct and stay inside your yard.

Note to the movie industry: Wow. DVDs and pay-per-view are really chapping your hide, aren’t they? Um, here’s the thing. I took my kid to a matinee this weekend and between the tickets and popcorn and such? I spent THIRTY-ONE FIFTY. For real. So not cool. Get with the program.

Note to self: Yes, you know that you don’t have it so bad if that’s your worst problem. Over and out.

I Am Gon

In all the excitement over the inauguration yesterday, I forgot to mention that this weekend, Viva made her first attempt at running away from home.

Ah, yes. I remember when I was about her age, getting furious at my mom about God only knows what, and pulling out my blue flowered suitcase, throwing some beloved possessions inside it, and telling my mom I was leaving home and not coming back. I threatened to move to my grandparents’ house, and as I recall, my mom did not try to dissuade me. We were living in a housing project then, in a concrete townhouse kind of dealio, and I stomped down the stairs to the front door, which I remember was royal blue and metal, and then I sat there in the doorway with my suitcase, pretty ticked off and kicking one sandaled grubby foot at the pavement, halfway stubbing my big toe in the process. Every now and then I would steal a look up at the kitchen window, and my mom would quickly pull the curtain back as if she was not looking at me at all and wasn’t worried I was going anywhere. Realizing that she was watching me not leave, I got up a few times and walked out of sight, a few houses down and back, just to make it look like I meant business.

Finally, I gave up and went back inside and told my mom I wasn’t leaving today. I think there was some apologizing and hugging, but I can’t fully remember.

Back to my firstborn. Over the weekend, Viva got mad at Sweet Dub because they were playing Wii and she got frustrated with whatever they were playing and burst into tears. One of our house rules is that if you start to cry while playing a game, you need to take a break from playing it. She threw such a hissy fit when Sweet Dub told her to take a break that he grounded her from playing Wii for a week. This only made matters worse, and she stomped up the stairs in a screaming whirlwind. Sweet Dub was – well, it wasn’t his best moment. I decided to mediate, and I went up to Viva’s room.

Viva was crying loudly and yelling at the same time about how she was NOT going to stay in this HOUSE and she was going to RUN AWAY and how Sweet Dub was the MEANEST meany daddy EVER and it’s not FAIR and on and on in a continuous loop. I knocked on her door and went inside.

“Viva?” I said. She was inside her closet dragging out her suitcase, surrounded by various items of clothing and toys. Among the things she had pulled out to take along was her hoppity horse – perhaps not the best choice unless she was going to use it as a means of transportation.

She screeched something unintelligible and angry at me.

“Why are you mad at me?” I said. “I have nothing to do with this and I’m just trying to see if you’re okay.”

“I’m mad at everyone in this FAMily,” Viva said.

“Even Cily?” I said.

“Yeah, because she made a NOISE while I was playing and it made me lose my concen-TRAY-shun,” Viva said. “And that made me LOOOOOOOOOZ…” and she started bawling again.

“Oh, honey,” I said. (Is it just me, or when your kid cries, does it make you want to cry?) “I know you don’t like to lose. But you know games are supposed to be fun, and when it stops being fun maybe you should—“

“I am running aWAY,” Viva yelled, crying some more.

“I understand that,” I said. I watched her pick through some more of her things, sniffling and moaning. “Can I say something to you first?” Viva nodded. “Can you come here for a minute?…Closer. Closer,” I said, and then pulled her toward me to hug her.

“I just want to say that I’ve really enjoyed having you around for these five years,” I said. “And I’m sad that you want to leave us, and we’ll really miss you. And I’m sad that Cily might have to grow up without you, because you are such a great big sister. And so I hope that you’ll reconsider your decision. And I love you.”

And I kissed her, and then I walked out of the closet, out of the room, and closed the door.

Later, after Viva had come back downstairs and was playing Legos without further incident, I happened to be taking laundry upstairs and found this note taped to her door: “I am gon Love Viva” I quickly spirited it away, to be filed with my “you dot love my”and “it’s omost The Week End hep hep hray” notes from previous encounters. Oh, my girl and her drama. I do love her so.

Obama Sandwich

The Blah Blahs took yesterday off to view the inauguration at home together as a family. Yesterday in the late morning, Sweet Dub’s Blackberry was blowing up with texts and emails from folks who were all saying, “You said there’d never be a black president! You said there’d never be a black president!” I said to him, “You should write back, ‘I’ve never been happier to be wrong.’”

“Oh my God,” Sweet Dub said. “That’s exactly what I said.” He scrolled down in his Blackberry and showed me the message: I’ve never been so happy to be wrong.

“Same sandwich,” I said, and kept right on washing out baby bottles.

(This should go without saying, but we stayed home to watch not just because Barack Obama is the first black president. We stayed home to watch because of the phenomenon that Barack Obama has become, and the response he has engendered among the public, as evidenced by the insane turnout on the Mall. People are ready for change, and even if he doesn't accomplish all that he sets out to do as president, he has energized a goodly segment of the population. In and of itself a very positive thing.)

(We also stayed home to watch so we could scream with glee and jump up and down like idiots as George W. got into the helicopter and flew away. If I could get that video and the video of the Iraqi reporter throwing his shoes* at W. on a continuous loop? Man, that would be the best video ever.)

(* I really do think that should be W's "thing" wherever he goes. I wish everyone at the inauguration had thrown their shoes at him. And Dick Cheney. Like, just at the two of them, maybe in an isolated space without anyone else around, so there wouldn't be collateral damage to other people. I am not totally heartless.)

Edited to add: OH MY GOD! How did I miss this?? ("Bush Protest: Shoes Thrown at White House")

Sandwiches and Synchronicity

When Sweet Dub and I first began dating we kept being struck by how similar we were. Naturally, some of that was just part of getting to know each other and finding out how compatible you are (or are not). At one point while we were dating, I arrived at Sweet Dub’s apartment after a horrible day at work and rather than cooking anything, he decided he would just go get us some sandwiches at Subway. Tenderly (partly because you know, these were our early days, and partly because I’d had such a crummy day), he said, “What kind of sandwich would you like, my sweetie?”

“The [sandwich name redacted because now I can’t remember it],” I said. “It’s not on the menu anymore, but if you ask for it they’ll make it.”

“Are you KIDDING me?” Sweet Dub said.

“No, I know it sounds weird, but they’ll know what you’re talking about,” I said.

“I KNOW,” he said. “That’s my sandwich.” He actually sat down, he was so thrown. “I can’t believe it,” he said. “We are so alike that we even eat the same sandwich.”

That has become a shorthand of sorts for us.

Recently, each of us unbeknownst to the other, on the same day, went on to craigslist to check rental prices in our area. While we just moved (JUST MOVED! You remember?) in November into a year-long lease, we both already went back to craigslist to look around. I think both of us were wondering in this economy whether we are getting our money’s worth in the neighborhood we’re in. The consensus: yes. Rents are not coming down, at least not here. We both independently concluded that we should continue to watch the market and possibly start looking at buying a house later this year, as our lease expires. When we discovered that we had each done this on the same day, all we could do was laugh.

“That is unbelievable,” Dub said.

Yeah. Same sandwich.

A Mixed Breed

With all the turmoil in the world right now, and all the burning questions of the day – should the U.S. government bail out, well, pretty much everyone? What can be done to fix the mess in Gaza? Will Los Angeles ever rid itself of smog? (Apparently not.) And, does this inauguration make my ass look big? – with all that, I say, I know what is foremost in your minds: which dog should the Obama family choose to bring with them to the White House?

The Obamas have narrowed it down to two choices: the Portuguese water dog or the Labradoodle, both of which are evidently good for people with allergies because they don’t shed. (First Daughter-Elect Malia has allergies.) Fortunately, the experts have been quick to weigh in, and at first it seems all sweetness and light: Sen. Ted Kennedy owns three Portuguese water dogs and enthusiastically endorses them as a good choice for the First Family. And then there’s Christy Westover, who breeds Australian Labradoodles in Klamath Falls, Oregon. She says the dogs are “family-friendly, loyal and sweet-tempered…It's a great choice."

Okay, so then I don’t care either way. But then there’s this:

The American Kennel Club does not recognize the Labradoodle, a cross between a Labrador retriever and poodle, as a breed. The club wants the Obamas to choose the Portuguese water dog, according to Daisy Okas, spokeswoman for the AKC.

"All dogs are wonderful," said Okas. "But a Labradoodle is a mixed breed and its predictability can't be compared to a purebred. We think especially for such a high-profile family, they need to know what they're getting."

My (kneejerk reaction) vote: Labradoodle. The AKC can kiss my ass and mind its own bidness. President-Elect Obama is biracial himself. What’s wrong with being mixed? Go, Labradoodle, go!

And now that you know my vote, I’m sure you can sleep soundly tonight. Live, from Los Angeles, I’m Lisa Blah Blah, signing off. Tune in next week as I rant about my bellybutton lint.

Caffeine, How I Love Thee

The coffee maker in our office break room is broken. NOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooooo!


P.S. Two of us who work closely together have infants at home (mine 2.5 months, his 7 weeks old). We are both frantically sleep-deprived. The coffee maker breakdown is truly a Crisis of Epic Proportions. Work productivity? What's that?

Geeking Out

My first week back at work was rough, especially after not only being on maternity leave but having thoroughly enjoyed the holiday season. Okay, there were some moments where I thought I might lose my mind with so much togetherness, and here I must shout out a very belated note of thanks to Los Angelista: not only did Viva receive the SpongeBob Lego Rocket Ride set* in time for us to discreetly wrap it and set it under the tree, but she also received a SpongeBob Lego ER set. She literally played Legos for two days straight and refused to leave the house or change out of her pajamas. I know I said that she was crazy for both SpongeBob and Legos, but even I could not have predicted this extreme response. It was just a bit worrisome...

So anyway, as I say, going back to work was a bit of an adjustment. Cily is at a daycare center just five minutes away from my job and I’m actually pretty comfortable with her being there. I think Sweet Dub had more anxiety about it than I did, to be honest, because he hasn’t been there yet.

With going back to work and with the new baby, I’ve been feeling a little…removed from Viva, and so when she came home with the news that she had a science project to do – and then it turned out that in their science unit, they’re covering animals, and that the project involved creating a diorama and a mini-report – oh my God, do you even understand what a geek I am that I was so excited that we were going to work on this together?! (I am pretty sure that last run-on sentence was a hot mess, but hello, sleep deprivation.)

Viva told me the animal she’d chosen was a lion, and that she needed to create a diorama of the lion in its habitat and then write a mini-report about where lions live, what they eat, etc. I went to Target Saturday morning and along with new outfits for Cily, who is outgrowing all her clothes quickly, I bought a couple of lion figurines so we could get started. Of course, Cily was going through something this weekend, adjusting to childcare and then adjusting back to home, so her sleep has been all messed up and she was irritable, harkening back to her colicky days, and it seemed she just wanted to be attached to me 24/7.

During one particularly rocky period with Cily in the afternoon, at Viva’s urging, Sweet Dub emptied out a shoebox and they began work on the diorama (it’s due at the end of the month). Do you know they pretty much finished it?? It looks frickin’ great. Viva made a bloody zebra carcass out of Play-Doh and they printed out pictures of zebra herds and pasted them on the savannah background they’d already installed so it looks like the rest of the zebras have run away. She cut out long golden grass and stuck it here and there so the lions are kind of half-in and half-out of it. Viva ran to me to proudly display it.

“It looks fantastic, baby,” I said, and then to Sweet Dub mournfully, “I didn’t know you were going to do the whole thing!”

“She still has to write the report,” he said.

“That is not exactly the fun part,” I said. “You know I was geeking out about getting to do the creative part.”

“We still have to decorate the outside of the box,” he said in a conciliatory tone.

“Whatever,” I said. I had to console myself with reading one of the Junie B. Jones books all cuddled up with Viva. Her obvious enjoyment of the Junie B. series also pleases my inner geek. I gotta get my thrills where I can, people.


* Through a fantastic giveaway on the Los Angelista site! If you haven’t been over to Los Angelista’s, what are you waiting for? She posts just about every day and it’s always something interesting (unlike this space). So go, already!

Cutie Patooties

Day Four of work. Buried! Up to my neck! Ridiculous!

In lieu of a real post, I give you pictures of my girls -- pictures that, had I gotten my act together, might have accompanied a Christmas or even New Year's card:

I say to you that I still hold out hope that I may (a) print these out and (b) send them with thank you notes to old folks back east who generously sent the kids things for Christmas and who as yet have no clue how to access email or download attachments. That is my hope.

All the best to you and yours.

Black Woman Here No More

Adieu, Maternity Leave. As of yesterday, I am back at work. I have a new, larger office with nice furniture and, because one of the senior therapists here just retired unexpectedly for health reasons, for the entire month of January I have a Reserved Parking Space (RSP), which I am capitalizing so you will understand what a Big Deal it is.

The only problem with the RSP is that no one seems to know which space it actually is.

Our organization has four reserved parking spaces on the first floor of the parking structure, and they all are labeled with the name of the organization only – not with the name of the person who is to park there. Since I don’t want to cause any ill will by parking in someone else’s space, this is a bit of a dilemma. So today, I went to the parking attendant supervisor guy (PASG) and explained the situation and asked if he could tell me which space it is. “I’m parked in 138, but I don’t know if that’s her space,” I said.

The PASG, whose first language is definitely not English, said, “Black woman?”

“Yes,” I said. Vice President with advanced degrees, but he doesn’t know that.

“Black woman here no more?” he said.

“That’s right, she’s retired,” I said.

“Oh, black woman here no more,” he mused. Then he gestured and said, “Come on.”

We went down the ramp to look at the spaces, which he identified as “Nissan Xterra, BMW, and Mercedes.”

Since Dr. Black Woman Here No More drives a Mercedes, we determined I was in the wrong spot. However, Nissan Xterra, also known as White Guy On Vacation, is a suitable spot for the moment and I don’t have to move my car.

Last Day of the Year

Little to no blogging of late, because Viva and Sweet Dub have been on vacation and that means we all spend a lot of time together, very little of which involves a computer. Even now, after I've spent just a little time getting caught up on email and blogs, they are giving me a hard time for being on the computer. It is 1:23 pm and I am still in my pajamas, letting 2008 wind down in mellowness.

To all of you out there in Internetland: many blessings in the new year. May you be healthy and swimming in joy.

Rainy Days and Mondays

It's raining and chilly here in Southern Cal and that makes me want to do not much of anything.

Despite the rain, after dropping Viva off at school I motored on and interviewed a childcare provider today and (dare I say it?), it looks like we may actually have secured a spot for our little one next month. I really like the director of the program, I like the philosophy of the center (for those keeping score at home, they use the RIE approach) and it's only 5 minutes from my job.

As far as the other kid: we have made the decision to suck it up and leave Viva at her current school, even though we will probably have to dip into our savings to pay for it for the next six months. I still want to get her into the decent public school in our neighborhood, but I have to go through a permit process to try and get her in for September since we are outside the boundaries. (Yes! How can it be more of a struggle to get her into public school? I don't get it.) We don't want to move her twice in one year, so we will keep her where she is. Errrgh. Ye gods.

In holiday news: what are the odds that I'll get Christmas cards out this year? Scratch that - what are the odds that I'll get Christmas cards with a photo of the family on them out this year? I'm thinking those odds are not good. The only photo I have of Viva and Cily is very grainy, but maybe I could make kind of an artsy card...

This is on my mind because we recently processed some 35mm film from this summer. I wish I had a beautiful photo like this of my two girls together:

Viva peeking out from the pear tree in our (former) front yard. Sadly, the only picture I have of the two of them (besides the grainy one taken off the videocamera) is of me pregnant with Cily, hanging out with Viva:

I don't think this really counts as a picture of the two of them. By the by, I can't figure out why the scanner is putting those black bars on the side of the photos. It's wildly irritating to me. But I love this series of photos and I wanted to share and I can't find the photo CD that has these shots on it. And let's be real, it's difficult enough for me to get on the computer these days...

Viva dancing around the front yard...

Aaaand... Miss Cily's up. Time to go attend to her every whim...

All Childcare, All the Time

Aside from all the holiday hoopla, I'm neck-deep in childcare research right now. The latest on the school issue: I visited the local elementary school for which we are allegedly zoned this morning. It's not what I thought. It's a different demographic for sure -- skews primarily Latino and Armenian (I know, only in L.A.). I met the principal, who was friendly, approachable and very thorough, and she gave me a spur-of-the-moment tour, so I got to see the kindergarten classes in action. I saw one Asian boy and one African-American girl in the two classes I visited, and everyone else pretty much appeared to be either Latino or Armenian. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I'm used to a more even distribution of ethnicity at Viva's current school -- higher proportions of both Asian and African-American. (Yes, and they even have white kids, some South Asian and Middle Eastern kids there. Don't mean to leave anyone out...)

I think Viva would be fine here -- in fact, I'm pretty confident she'll excel no matter where she goes. She is a friendly kid and teachers always love her. She is just a bit sensitive and I hate to throw yet another change at her. Having said that, I liked the principal very much, and the front office staff was way more welcoming than at the school we thought we were zoned for. This is only the principal's third year at the school and she is implementing a lot of changes, including way more parent involvement, etc.

BUT (you knew that was coming): what I have discovered is that their free after-school program, LA's Best, has no openings. I can wait-list Viva (!!!) and look into a private after-school program which offers transportation to a part of Hollywood which is about 10 minutes away.

The other school, which shredded my hopes and dreams Friday, has a parent-led after-school program, and OF COURSE that program has an opening. One of the parents contacted me and was as sweet as could be, really very helpful. There is a parent meeting tonight and I should really attend just to connect with the other parents and get some advice, and at least sow the seeds for next fall. Trying to be pragmatic in the face of disappointment.

In closing: I could really scream. I can enroll her at one school with no after-care available, but not enroll her at the other one which has after-care spots. WHAT?

It's public school. Why is this so complicated?? I hate to say it, but no wonder people are fleeing the LAUSD in droves.

In other world news, I am also screening childcare centers and nannies in the hopes of finding the perfect infant care situation for my little screaming meemie. Although as Sweet Dub says, "How are you going to leave her with anybody?" Lord knows.

The latest from Viva, who I love with a fierce lovingness even though my sleep deprivation has led me to snap at her quite a bit (in my defense, she is being really trying on purpose):

"You know, that's really a bum." (She means it's a bummer, but I just can't correct her because I love it.)

And the obligatory kindergartener misspellings:

On Thanksgiving: "I'm thankful for my family and for being hatthe [healthy]."

As a caption to one of her drawings: "Theis is a ranbooe." [Translation: this is a rainbow.]

Here's to sunshine and lollipops and ranbooes.

Easy Like Sunday Mornin'

Our next-door neighbor is a music producer. I just sat down at my laptop to research stuff on Ye Olde Interwebs and I can hear someone next-door playing piano and singing enthusiastically. So far they've played "Rainbow Connection" and "New York State of Mind." He's got a really good voice. I'm picturing the whole family (they have two kids, 2 and 9?) clustered around the piano in their funky artsy granola-ish fashion, enjoying a bit of togetherness.

It's nice. I really like this neighborhood. These are neighbors who came by and brought us pumpkin bread the first weekend we moved here. It's one of those areas where you actually get to know your neighbors.

Friday night when Sweet Dub came home, I heard him talking to someone softly downstairs. Since I was upstairs with both kids, I couldn't imagine who it could be. I went downstairs and found him crouched at the front door.

"Honey, I think this is Carlos' dog," he said. "Do you remember what their little dog looks like?"

"Oh, what's his name, Riley?" I said, and the little dog shot into the house and ran up and sat next to me on the stairs. He'd gotten out of his yard and was running back and forth in the street when Dub saw him.

Viva was in heaven. We called Carlos (our neighbor on the other side) on his cell and let him know the dog was with us. He was in Pasadena and said he'd come by when he got home. Riley is about ten kinds of adorable and kept licking Viva in the face. About 45 minutes later, Carlos' fiance came by to pick Riley up, and was both profusely apologetic and grateful to us for keeping him.

Despite our current school issues, I really like it here. It's very easy to feel comfortable and like we are a part of the community already. Sweet!

Irate. Livid. Beside Myself.

This morning, after I dropped Viva off at school, and after a very pleasant experience at my local Trader Joe's where they treated Cily like a rock star, I drove home, put Cily in the stroller, and prepared to walk through my lovely neighborhood to the local school to formally begin the process of registering Viva for kindergarten in January. As I was setting out, I bumped into my lovely neighbor and her 2-year-old, who is hilariously cute, and we discussed childcare. She said she may have some leads for me for someone to look after Cily, which was very welcome news. I took off for the school in great spirits.

Now, you know we moved to this house, for which we are paying more in rent than we would otherwise, because of the local public school -- so we would not have to pay for private school and then could afford to pay for childcare for Cily. When looking to rent, I religiously used LAUSD's online school finder to determine which elementary school fell within the boundaries, and if it were a decent school. We eliminated a number of possibilities based on what the school finder said.

When I walked into the school this morning, I admired the Christmas tree in the front entry, sweetly decorated with garlands of gingerbread men colored in by the students. There was a class of kids about Viva's age lined up with kazoos, waiting to go into the auditorium. I could easily picture my little creampuff as part of the line.

And then, when I reached the office, they told me our address doesn't fall within the boundaries required to enroll.

"That's impossible," I said. "I looked it up online before we moved -- before we even signed the lease. I called the school and had a long conversation with someone here about the Christmas vacation schedule and after-school programs. We moved here based on information from the LAUSD."

The woman behind the desk was adamant. Our street, she said, was never within the boundaries.

"Well, what are my options?" I said. "Because you don't seem to understand what a disaster this is."

"We couldn't enroll her for January anyway," she said. "We don't even have space available. You can try to get a permit and enroll her for September."

"No no no," I said. "We already gave notice at the private school she's currently in that she would not be back in January, based on a conversation with your staff. And I know someone whose daughter goes here and she says her kindergarten class is not full. So I just -- there has to be some way."

And around and around we went, and you can only imagine the bureaucratic bullshit. I would have to fill out this form, but only on the second Tuesday of the blahblahblah, zippideedah. She might as well have been speaking French because my mind had completely shut down.

Finally, I did the walk of shame out of the office, struggling not to cry, and while I almost broke down on the way home, I managed to only let a few tears fall before I got inside our garage,
when the floodgates opened and I yelled "Fuck, fuck FUCK!" which is pretty much all I could say for the next few minutes between tears.

Fortunately Cily was sleeping.

Since then, I have talked with several people at the LAUSD, left a message for the principal of the school, and had a long conversation with Master Planning and Demographics, who tells me that the boundary for getting into this school is one block east of me. They are still looking into it and will call me again.

I am now going to call our alleged local school, which is farther away than the school I want to enroll Viva in, and find out what their story is. Note that their test scores are below the district-wide minimum standard. However, parents seem to like the school, based on reviews at Greatschools.net.

I'm trying to do what I can to mitigate this mess, but I am so freakin' pissed off.

What? Oh, hullo!

November has come and gone and I have barely blogged at all. Happy December!

There were many moments I blogged in my head last month. Two that stand out...

Watching Barack Obama win the presidential election, and weeping with relief and excitement and joy during his acceptance speech. Tinged with the Sad that neither of my grandfathers is alive to see such a momentous event.
------------------------------
Taking the baby to her first pediatrician's appointment, to a pediatrician I had only spoken with over the phone, and realizing once we got there that the practice primarily serves patients on government assistance. The office was tiny, and shabby, and crammed, and although I had an appointment I was on time for, I was told there were 4 sick walk-in kids ahead of us, one of whom was hanging with her germy little hands all over our stroller, with the baby just inches away. "Are you okay with this?" Sweet Dub said in an undertone. I went up to the receptionist and explained that we just brought the baby out of the NICU and that she'd had respiratory difficulty, and perhaps being around a bunch of sick kids was not the best option. And then, a few minutes later after we'd ducked out of there: "What were you thinking?" Dub said, laughing at me and shaking his head.

"I wanted a pediatrician that was closer to our lives right now," I said. "For the baby, I'm going to have to take her to the doctor every month. Dr. S. [Viva's doctor] is so far away, it's a shlep to get over there and back. This doctor is just a few minutes away from work, from Viva's school -- "

"I get it, I get it," he said. "But seriously, you know how we are. We are total snobs. Admit it."

"Okay," I said, laughing. "But I figured people over on this side are also going to demand good-quality health care. There are some well-to-do folks over here. We can't be the only snobs."

"Well, they sure ain't bringing their babies here. GET THEE BACK TO BEVERLY HILLS," Sweet Dub intoned. "Shit, you must be crazy bringing our baby to a clinic. That was basically a clinic. What the hell do I pay for health insurance for? To sit and wait for hours in a clinic?"

Fortunately, we were able to get a rare Saturday appointment with Viva's doctor, and that was all she wrote. Her office is clean and pleasant and uncrammed, and the staff always greet us by name before we even sign in. I guess I'm stuck shlepping to Beverly Hills for the foreseeable future. I am resigned to being a healthcare snob.
---------------------------------
In other news, not crazy about the baby's pseudonym (Clu) here. Viva calls the baby/spells her name Cily, so I think I'll switch to that.

Whatever her name is, she is causing some strife around here. I used to call Viva the velociraptor because she had a particularly deadly screech. Cily has been dubbed T-Rex because she is so tyrannical. She does not want to be put down, ever, and she screams like tigers are eating her if you dare to try and give your arms a rest. The sling, the swing, the bouncy seat -- none are acceptable. She also screams for hours in the evening, usually about 5 pm to 7 or 8, takes a break to sleep for a few hours, with a feeding at about 9, and then is up anytime after midnight for at least an hour and a half. Last night she was up from 2:30 to 3:30, then up again at 4:15, and again at 5:15. It is this second, early morning spate of waking and fussing that is breaking me, since Sweet Dub leaves for work at 6:45. He wakes Viva up at 6:30 to ensure that she is up before he leaves. This means that pretty much right after I have fallen back to sleep, I have to get up, get dressed, pack lunch and get Viva off to school, all while trying to keep Cily from blowing a fuse.

"It seems like whenever she is awake, she is not happy," Sweet Dub says. "What are we going to do?!" Out of desperation, yesterday I Googled everything I could find on inconsolable crying in newborns. While it seems Cily does not quite meet the definition for colic, we are evidently not the only parents who have this issue. I found numerous testimonials on a message board that gripe water is a miracle cure, so yesterday I bundled up my screaming meemie and went to my local Albertson's market...and they didn't carry it. Back in the car and on to the local Rite-Aid, which was teeming with a uniquely Angeleno mix of urban hipsters in nerd glasses and pajama pants buying Powerade and poinsettias, Catholic schoolgirls just getting out of school and swarming the magazine section, and tattooed cholas buying Lays Limon potato chips, tampons, and gum. I secured some gripe water and, with Cily refusing all comfort in the back seat, zoomed back home.

Verdict: it kind of works. I gave her less than half a full dose in the afternoon, but made the mistake of giving her a full dose at 11:00 pm, and then didn't want to overdose her by giving it to her at 2:30 am, so I had to suffer the early-morning angst. I won't make that mistake again.

One for the baby book: in the rare quiet moments when Cily is not screaming (before a butterfly flaps its wings in Singapore and disrupts her equilibrium), she does actually occasionally smile at me when I talk to her. She is also beginning to play. Yesterday after the gripe water half-dose, I laid her on a large pillow on the floor and pushed a Tigger car over near where she could see it. She shot her arm out and pushed the car toward her, over and over, and once she got bored with that, she practiced pushing it away. When I told her how fantastic she was, she smiled and then got a determined look on her face and punched the car. My little T-Rex.

Right now she is cuddled on my lap and is at peace. Ah, sweet sweet quiet. Perhaps I can get in some online Christmas shopping...

Oh So Weary

My darling second child, henceforth known here as Cily, is (not surprisingly) nowhere near sleeping through the night. I thought I was tired before she was born, what with the having to get up to pee twice a night and then letting anxious thoughts about Everything Under the Sun keep me awake each time. Oh, but no. I have reached a new level of fatigue.

Cily eats every 2 to 3 hours, sometimes every 1.5 hours, around the clock. I am not breastfeeding this time around, and that is a whole ‘nother stressed-out post in and of itself. (Summary: My milk has dried up. Cily is a biter, lactation consultant was not helpful, pumping painful and not fruitful [i.e. pump for 20 minutes and get 3 drops of milk], I was preoccupied with packing and moving during the crucial two weeks after she was born, I am not healing well from the surgery, and for some time there I was barely eating -- all of which resulted in a kind of “perfect storm” of breastfeeding not going well. NOTE: Much as I love you and value your opinion, I am not looking for advice on this. I have received a plethora of well-meaning advice. Despite all that I know about the benefits of breastfeeding, I have made my peace with this happenstance.)

So we have set up a feeding station in the bedroom, bottles at the ready. Cily is now waking up, eating and STAYING AWAKE for sometimes an hour and a half at a time, screaming for part of that time, and being perfectly sweet but awake for part of that time. During the sweet time, we lie in bed next to each other and stare into each other’s eyes. I stroke her cheek and speak softly to her.

In the not-so-sweet times, like at 2 this morning, I swaddle the screaming one and we dance slowly across the bedroom floor to the Cowboy Junkies’ “Sweet Jane.” We sway and I tell her how tired I am and I sing to her, “Heavenly wine and roses seem to whisper to me when you smile,” and I thank God I don’t have to go to work in the morning. And then her sister screams from her room down the hall that she is scared of her closet, that she needs a drink of water, that maybe she has to throw up.

Two kids. Two little girls. It is a blessing. It is tiring. I love them.

P.S. Digital camera? Broken. Videocamera? Recording, but out of focus, so the recording of Cily's birth is all hazy and smudged like a French Impressionist watercolor. My darling husband, who (a) makes his living with film, and (2) lost all his childhood photos in a fire and is thus rabid about documenting our children, is livid. I'm trying to figure out how we can afford to (I) repair the videocamera and (314a) buy a digital SLR (it's the lens on our Canon SureShot that's broken). Merry Christmakwanzaakuh to us! My point: I don't have any new photos to post. We are resorting to our 35mm camera, but then we have to process the film, which we haven't yet done. Not to worry! These early weeks of her life are not lost forever!

Technical Difficulty, Part I

Oh my God. So after two weeks without Internet access, I am finally online, I just wrote a post and hit "publish," and Blogger tells me an error occurred. "Hit the back button," it advises me, and when I do, my post has completely disappeared.

What the Pf--??

I am filled with rage.