FEARS

I can't quite pinpoint my fears regarding this photo.
Who knew chapped lips were something to fear?

Clearly my fear here is that my middle child shares my fashion sense….

Tim's hair loss is not one of my fears, but I do fear my inability to resist buying this wig for him.  I had the option of buying Jack Peter's Harry Potter costume and paying shipping or adding the wig to the order and getting free shipping because I'd exceeded $50.

I have a ton of petty and not-so-petty fears.  I am afraid that the kids will inadvertently dump the 5lb bag of Starbucks French Roast coffee beans all over the floor on their climb up to the candy bowl.  I'm afraid that the screw holding the 60 cubic foot bag of packing peanuts in my studio will give, and the entire place will be submerged in styrofoam.  I'm afraid one of the vessel sinks I've made will come loose when a kid is using it to leverage the climb onto the vanity to spit into the sink; the child's head will hit the ceramic floor followed by the sink for the fatal blow.  I'm afraid that my kiln will set my building ablaze, and the slumbering potheads upstairs won't wake up in time to get out.  I'm afraid that my home-made turmeric face cleanser will be liberated from its bowl and used to permanently decorate the white vanity.  I'm afraid that one of my kids will be fooling around poking the meat at Trader Joe's only to grab a free sample with filthy trichinosis hands.  I'm terrified that Jack Peter will get molested in the shower in the men's bathroom at the YMCA because he has to go in on his own as he's not allowed to come into the women's anymore.  I'm afraid that my steel craft show booth will somehow fall and kill someone or trash an entire booth of hand-blown glass.    I'm afraid that a kid will drink steaming hot tea out of my thermos…again.

my formidable steel booth….

lice….we've yet to get it, but I know it's coming...

I, a bowl maker, spent good money on these 2 favorite bowls.  I did not know to fear their demise...

I didn't know to be afraid that I'd buy the wrong size mattress last weekend.  "Babe, let's go to Ikea this weekend and sort out the kids' mattresses."  Recently, friends were visiting.  Jen got the almost-vomit/fever plague from my family, and Erik, her husband was banished to sleep in Steel's bed.  Steel's mattress is 400 years old and has been peed on by multiple generations.  Before Steel suffers permanent spinal damage, a replacement might be a good idea, and a viable bed for a shunned visiting husband is a bonus.  Like all good New Englanders, I consulted Consumer Reports on mattresses to find that the cheaper Ikea mattresses rate no worse than fancy ones.  (That being said, both Tim and I would kill anyone who threatened our fantastic $2000 Simmons Beauty Rest mattress.  It's the best place on earth.)

All the kids and the one playmate qualify for Small land at Ikea, (forgive my missing umlaut) so Tim and I got to argue and make bad decisions while someone else watched the kids.  He finally acquiesced to buying the most expensive mattress for Steel and a pillow top for JP to mask the springs popping out of his 412-year-old twin mattress.  We ate Ikea lunch bargaining the entire time with Caspar, Jack Peter's BFF, who only eats "buck buck," PBJ and fruit.  Apparently Ikea chicken tenders are inferior to buck buck.  I'm assuming "buck buck" is chicken nuggets because chickens say buck buck buck??         

Tim and I caved, ignoring Caspar's refusal to eat, and let him wolf down Steel's rejected chocolate layer cake dessert.  We tied the mattress on the top of the minivan.  The doors wouldn't close over the string, so we bundled up the kids as best we could and drove home wondering which was more annoying, the constant dinging of the "door is open" alarm, the girls' whining about being cold, or Jack Peter's and Caspar's screaming, "Look!  there's a police man!  Oh!  I see someone calling 911 about the dangerous, wide-open minivan with 4 miserable kids in it!!!!"

Getting the new mattress off of the car, up the stairs and down the stairs wasn't fun.  We managed it only to find that Steel's mattress was a full, and we got a queen.  We pulled the bed out, so Jack Peter has a massive gap between his top bunk and the wall, but we were able to wedge Steel's new mattress in there.  Fearful of the occasional pee accident, I hacked up Steel's no-longer-fitting-rubber-lined fitted sheet. My unsuccessful plan was to lie it on the already-bunchy surface of her new bed and tighten things up with a fitted sheet.  In the end, I just put her old mattress on the squished new mattress.  She feels like a princess because it's so high.  I feel like we are probably ruining a $900 mattress, Jack Peter is feeling nervous about the gap, but he loves his pillow top.  Toby is wondering why she got nothing, again.  Toby's bed is a toddler bed with a crib mattress on it.  We fill the foot-long gap at the end with a massive, dirty, pink, stuffed dog.  Maybe we'll prop Toby's bed on top of the new piano we just got and don't have room for.  She'll stop wailing about wanting a tall mattress.

Toby's solution to "bed envy" is waiting for Steel to fall asleep at night, grabbing her blanket, and crawling into bed with her.  It's so damned cute.

Back when I started this blog I didn't know to fear paying $350 to move an untunable piano to our house.  Nor did I know to fear paying someone another $60 to tell me that.  Nor did I know to fear that my brother in law who owns the untunable Steinway would want it moved, yet again, to his loft.  I also did not know to fear that the new pillow top on Jack Peter's bed would be poisonous.  We've upgraded $50 to trade the off-gasser for the non-toxic version.  In Ikea-speak that's trading the  "Kinder-lungstopper" for the "Mightlivetill twelven schleeper" Unable to bear returning it, we kept the queen mattress and put it on top of our already-too-high guest bed.  Steel has a less lumpy situation, Jack Peter describes his new bed as paradise, and Toby is still mad.

The only good thing about the ridiculous height of our guest bed is that my friend, Cori is coming this weekend.  I'm really hoping she has a good-size bruise somewhere on her person.  I'll tell the kids that I put a pea under the 2 mattresses and Cori got a bruise.  She'll be a princess to my family from now on.

I also didn't know to fear breast cancer when I was called in for another mammogram.  It was scheduled for the snow day last Monday.  They asked me to come in early because the staff was hoping to leave early because of the snow.  I assumed they gleaned from our phone conversation that I'd arrive with 3 kids.  They didn't.  They told me I'd have to reschedule.  I wasn't having that.  If I have to take a day off from the studio for a snow day, I'll be DAMNED if I'm not going to get something done...I insisted on their figuring out my getting a 20-second X-ray with my 3 kids in the vicinity.  My "20-second x-ray" turned into a harrowing 2-hour ordeal during which I was listening to the nurses talk to my children while contemplating their being raised by other people after my shocking, untimely death.  It was awful.  I was so cavalier going in.  I don't have any cancer in my family.  I have tiny breasts, so I think I'd know if something was there.  And besides, what cancer could survive the amount of kale Tim puts in our morning smoothies followed by the bottle of wine I use to wash down my wild caught salmon, organic asparagus and f-ing quinoa????  My kids were doing me proud.  Why do adults talk so loud when they are talking to children?  I know I do it.  My parents did it, and the nurses were doing it.  I could hear the exclamations of "you're so smart!!!" and "Wow!  how old are you?????"

Sadly, after my cancer scare, I built this snowman on my own.  Everyone helped in the beginning, but it got too cold.  The girls came out to accessorize and for the photo op….

I'm fine.  The mattresses are fine.  My kids and husband are fine, and I'm pretty sure I could deal with cleaning up 5 lb. of coffee beans.  I just wish I'd known to fear bad skin rather than getting fat when I was thinking of things that would go bad as I grew older.  I'd probably have stayed out of the sun.

Look at all of those spots!!!!  Don't let the lipstick and sequins distract you.

I am no longer afraid of being the mother of the chunky ballerina.  I'm sad for the skinny ballerina moms.

I am slightly afraid that our family game of hiding our upper lips might become offensive to upper-lipless people.

 One of the strengths of my marriage is our mutual hatred of musicals.  Clearly one of our children is stage-bound...

Jack Peter's first acting gig...