'to do' lists

My nanny sent me this image last week with the following text: "I have to remind myself to wear knickers too."

I often leave 'to do' lists around. Julie, because she's an angel-not a prying person, reads them to see if there's anything she can do for me. In this case I was on my own. I don't remember what the "Toby" line was about. "Don't leave Toby in stroller to be pushed down stairs and into the wall...." would be an appropriate line for me these days. I go shopping with all 3 of them in a double stroller. I belt Toby in; the others pile on. My fear is that I'm going to let the big two hop out and I'll just "put it away." Putting it away is pushing it down 3 stairs so it will rest tilted against the wall-somewhat out of the rain.

Tim proposed to me on a 'to do' list. It was one of those 5-year-plan lists. He had "marry liz" "have first kid" "have second kid" on there. I found it lying around. It was very romantic. Our actual wedding was inspired by a lack of inspiration. We couldn't figure out what to wear to Pat's big Halloween party, so we decided to get married and go as a married couple. Jack Peter was our best man. We scurried around getting our dress and suit together. I up-ended everything to find our social security cards. During that search, I found the diamond engagement ring he'd given to a girl before me. It seemed a shame to keep it in a box for the rest of its life, so we had a bit of it cut out, so it would fit on my pinky next to my engagement ring, and it became part of my wedding ring.

We ran around town with our photographer friend, Andrew, and had a day-long photo shoot that culminated in our getting married on the roof of my building in the hood. The pictures are so great, and everyone saw us at the party, (until I passed out breast feeding the best man) so they all feel like they were at our wedding.

My family doesn't do weddings. Both sets of grand parents eloped as did my parents and my brother and I. When I was a kid I remember wondering where that fancy picture of my mom in a big white dress was. The McDonald family does weddings. The youngest McDonald, Johnny, married my new sister in law, Tiffany this weekend. (Tiffany and I have been dating on and off, so I'm thrilled) I NEVER do anything on the weekends; I have three kids. They chose the one weekend that I had a major craft fair. I missed everything but the actual wedding, and I had to show up at that after a day of sitting in a booth at the convention center convincing people they really do need a coffee cup as big as their heads.

It was beautiful. We cried, ate, drank, danced...Their kids are going to look at the pictures of their mom in the beautiful white dress with the sparkly belt and think that she was a princess and that their dad was a handsome prince.

April?

No, October is the cruelest month. We have 2 birthdays, actually a third, the daycare takes Ghandi's off; and there's Halloween. It's also the last month for a potter to get her shit together for Christmas. It's been bad; I've been running around flushing all of the toilets in the house and then checking off the clean house box on my to do list.

One of the sources of strife in my and Tim's relationship is time management. It's my issue; I complain that Tim can't do things half-assed like the rest of us. If he's planting a garden we'll have pesto for 50...every week. I won't even go into the tomatoes. If Tim is doing 3 out-of-town lectures in a month, he has to prepare a different one for each venue. Who the hell is going to go to Providence, Chattanooga and DC to rat him out? Our neighbor is filing numerous frivolous lawsuits against him, his brothers and their partners. It's not enough for Tim to fight the suits as they come. He starts methodically building a case to get the guy, an attorney, disbarred. (I'm not complaining; he's succeeding, but it's taken a LOT of time.)

This Halloween I took a thrift shop purple bathrobe, a pair of cords, a bath matt, and a 4 year old and created an octopus in a mere 11 hours. He would have gladly traded it for a store-bought Buzz Lightyear. I also spent 2 hours trying to carve a pumpkin to look like Marilyn Monroe. I've lost a lot of ground in the you're wasting time you could be spending with me and the kids argument. Tim shaved his head and beard, donned his wire-rimmed glasses and a sheet and became Ghandi. Toby should have been a mini-Ghandi with a sheet too, but she had her heart set on being a ballerina Terry Gross.

Steel is Andy, the little boy from Toy Story, every day. A red cowboy hat ordered online brought her Andy ensemble to an adequate Halloween level although she had a last-minute princess panic, so I'm glad I didn't spend 11 hours on Andy. Steel was the inspiration for my costume. She asked me one morning last week, "Mama, why don't you wear your Tweety bird nightshirt ALL the time?" I blacked out some teeth, had bad hair and make-up, leggings, fur-lined Eagles crocs, and the nightshirt, and I was a Fishtown mom. As I was putting on my bad make-up I started having second thoughts. I didn't want to expose my kids to snooty elitism. "I'm a white trash mommy, honey!" It was too late for me to change, but I needn't have worried. I walked out and Jack Peter shouted, "Mama! You're a 5 year old!" Turning 5 and having their teeth fall out is IT for my kids. I'm glad they're setting attainable goals for themselves.

Speaking of teeth falling out...I just found out that my friend (extreme mom) Heather is letting her kids have their Halloween candy whenever they want. She said that they self-regulate and that they usually ask her if they want a piece. I just can't figure out why she'd give up that many opportunities for extortion.

Honk if you love Jesus

Steel and her brother were bickering over watching Toy Story or Finding Nemo on movie night. It got heated, so I said, "Sunshine is coming over; we'll let her pick." I was expecting flack, but Steel looked at me with a confident smile and said, "Yes, we'll let Sunshine pick, and she will pick Toy Story." Sunshine came to the door. Steel greeted her with a Woody doll in her arms and said, "Sunshine! Do you want to watch Toy Story????" Even Jack Peter got swept up in the enthusiasm.

After she's done a good marketing campaign for my pottery business, I need to hire Steel's PR firm to spin the YMCA. The first problem is that I feel guilty about it. On Mondays I pick them up from one daycare only to dump them in another so I can swim. The drop-off is always chaos. Toby now cries as soon as we walk into the room, so I have to cuddle her while filling out the sign-in sheet and explaining to a rightfully skeptical Miss Kim, that cheese-its are fine for my infant. As I leave, I extricate all of the big-kid bribes from my swim bag and wrestle the last remaining car key from Toby's mouth. (We've lost all but 1) I sneak out as she screams indignantly. I noticed last time mid-cuddle that Toby's leg was inside my pants. It's not easy to concentrate on paperwork when your brain is saying to your child, "Girl, What is your foot doing in my Va jay jay?" so on top of my usual graceless exit I had to choreograph pulling up the fly on my huge, clay-covered man pants.

I'm wondering when we're going to have to confront the Christianity issue. I don't see too many Bible thumpers at the Y, but mocking Christians has been a family tradition, and it might not go over well. My dad used to shout across the woods, "PRAY FOR ME, EVAN!" every Sunday morning as the neighbors piled into the station wagon on their way to church.

Last weekend my mom revived a Kinder family favorite. I have always had fall allergies. I heard my husband admitting to a friend that my nose blowing would be a deal breaker if he didn't love me as much as he does. Regardless, I blew my nose in the kitchen while the kids were eating cereal, and my mom bellowed, as she and my dad did throughout my childhood, "HONK IF YOU LOVE JESUS!!" Jack Peter has embraced it. He has also started to shriek, "DAMN!" and "JESUS!" periodically, usually with an impish grin on his face.

I'm trying to convince him to say, "JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL!" instead. I wish I'd screamed that instead of what came out last Wednesday night. Steel had gone for a bed wetting hat-trick that day. She'd soaked all but the guest room mattress, and Toby had taken the most shocking poop in the tub. At dinner the 3 had mounted their first successful coup d'etat. Tim was teaching at Penn, and I had lost all control. They were refusing to eat and swinging from their chairs. I'd finally gotten them into their beds and was about to start singing, "The cowboy song" (Sweet baby James) when the neat freak in me lunged out of the rocker to pick up one last toy. Our now former friend Shawn had left his pit bull, Maud here while he'd gone to help Tim with his class. Poor Maud had taken a dump on the rug in the kids' bedroom, and I slid through the shit on my way to pick up snoopy. Tim had just returned. His response to my panic was,

"BABE, from now on, I DEAL WITH POOP! My dad was a plumber; I can handle it. You FREAK OUT!"

Maybe Jesus did take the wheel.

discipline

Some people are into extreme sports. My friend, Heather, is into extreme parenting. She, too, has 3 kids, but somehow her house is immaculate, and she's put together-for real. Jack Peter once picked up an "US" magazine and said, "Look, Mama, it's Aunt Heather!" He was pointing to a picture of Angelina Jolie. The resemblance was uncanny. I'm proud of myself if I maintain some sort of hair removal routine which means I shave every 2 weeks; I do my eyebrows every month or two, and I might Nair my bikini area during the summer, so I don't scare the kids on the beach. Because we have no privacy, my kids have witnessed all of these rituals which makes me feel like a groovy open-minded mom. Heather took all three of her kids with her to the salon to get her bikini wax. She probably brought them all to the dentist afterward on her way to T-ball and ballet lessons.

Her oldest just started Kindergarten at Catholic school. The tyranny of looking into and applying to schools is starting for us, and we're trying to embrace only public school options. I'm partial to the military-style charter school in our neighborhood that consistently tests all of the kids at a 10 out of 10. It goes for an extra hour every day, there is no recess, they take French and Spanish every year including Kindergarten, and there is absolute silence in the halls when the kids are lining up to go to class. Jack Peter would be the only white kid there. Very few people in our social group consider the school as an option. I hear the phrase, "teaching to the test," delivered with an air of disdain. A failure to incorporate "learning modalities" was brought up as another drawback. There's always someone who tells me that kids need to "learn through play." I nod and try to look interested, but there's a nagging feeling that those are the people who are going to be spending a lot of money on expensive tutors down the road, and I have the echo of my father's voice bellowing, "F-that! Those kids need to sit there, listen, learn, and BUCKLE DOWN!"

Tim's dad, Jack, had those 5 kids buckling down. They worked every weekend. They chopped wood, dug holes, built houses, learned plumbing. Discipline was the only option in the McDonald house from what I gather. Susie, my mom, had us on a tight leash, and we went to the "best schools." In comparison, our home life is pretty loosy-goosy. My big issue is diet; not eating properly is not an option. Tim is strict around bedtime/naptime structure, and we don't allow any T.V, but there's a lot of cereal dumping, yard demolishing, head smashing, toy snatching, wall-stickering, water spraying, whining and general mayhem that slides by unpunished or worse, with mirth.

Tim and I have profited so much from our ability to be disciplined. Both of us work for ourselves doing what we love. An anaesthesiologist for the Navy periodically comes to my studio to buy work. After wandering around molesting pottery and chatting, he mused, "I've never done any drugs, but your work makes me feel like I'm on something...the COLORS!" It was a nice complement coming from someone so straight-laced. It must seem to him that I flounce around with a paintbrush like some sort of psychedelic pottery fairy-which I do. However, a pottery business is difficult both physically and mentally. I'm thankful I have the stamina to do it because it gives me so much pleasure, and, let's be honest, I'm not qualified to do anything else for money.

If I send my kids to the school where there is silence in the halls, will their creativity, curiosity and fire be squelched? Will they no longer say things like, "Mama, Alligators don't have chins."
Speaking of alligators, I STILL haven't taken any of my kids to the dentist.

Black eggs

I rarely answer my phone when I'm glazing, but a call came from the kids' daycare today. With a knot in my stomach, I rushed to pick it up. It was Jane. "Jack Peter let the lid of the toilet fall down on his penis, and it's pretty bruised. I think it might be uncomfortable for him to pee; Ivan did it last week, but it just hit the side. Those boys have to be macho and stand up to pee, so it happens from time to time. The whole tip of Jack Peter's penis is purple. We're putting ice on it, but maybe you should call his doctor to see if there's something else we should do. "

"Is he still crying? I think you're the first person who's ever used the word 'macho' to describe Jack Peter." I didn't mean anything by it, but I think she thought I was calling him a pansy. "Well sure he's macho on the days he's not wearing a dress! It's all in the clothes. Steel's pretty macho too!" No kidding...she wore boy clothes and would only respond to 'Andy' this morning.

I texted Hans, our pediatrician. He suggested that ice on the penis might not be a good idea, but he wasn't worried about it unless Jack Peter couldn't pee. I called the school back to relay this, and I got Chris, another teacher. "Hi Chris, it's Liz, Jack Peter's mom, I'm calling about his penis." "His what?" Jack Peter is not one to suffer in silence, so knowing that his shrieks of agony hadn't reached every ear at the daycare was a good sign. In the meantime I alerted Tim of the catastrophe, and he responded with a gleeful swagger in front of his staff, "Of course it hit him; it couldn't miss!"

Final text to Hans:

"Purple penis is fully functional and a source of pride, so all is well..."

Will a time come when Jack Peter will be embarrassed that he offered to show our neighbor his purple penis in the middle of the sidewalk? Will we not be able to fart in the kitchen and blame it on the ducks in our butts? Farting is our family's main source of humor. It's not a Philly thing because I know a married couple here who have been together for 12 years, and they still don't fart in front of each other.

I understand that impulse. There are times when I'm in the studio and I'm so glad I work alone. Did I become a potter, so I don't have to fart in front of anyone? 'Black eggs' are the term a friend used for his wife's dreadful pregnancy farts. I think about that more often than I'd care to admit. Driving back from Virginia yesterday, Tim offered me a mint in the car. I mumbled, "Can I put it in my ass?" Someone should come up with ass mints. Maybe I would have become a surgeon.

I don't LIKE potstickers!

I was riding my bike to the studio last Friday underneath the elevated train, and another cyclist was coming toward me with an enormous boom box on his bike playing doo wop music. Normally I get passed by a car blasting R&B, Puerto Rican pop, or Arabic top 40, and I'm pissed off because the base makes me feel like it's going to throw me off of my bike, but the doo wop made my day.

I turned the corner to discover that the Philadelphia anti-graffiti league had painted over the mural on my wall. I paid a guy named Nunzio to paint it, and it had this great plumbob on it. Plumbob is the name of Tim's architecture firm. I was told if a reputable graffiti artist does a piece and allows the neighborhood artists to put their marks on it, the building won't get tagged. It worked for 2 years, but then it got a tag or two, so the league took it upon themselves to cover up the whole thing. The league uses a different color of grey paint every time they come by, and they do a sloppy job around door handles, etc, so they don't improve anything. It's baffling.

Tim tried to call and fight the anti-graffiti league, but that campaign fizzled. He'd already spent 2 days away from work last week researching and convincing a friend to go into rehab for alcohol, and I had another miscarriage. In the face of Ken's shaking hands and self-loathing, my problem seemed much more manageable. I'm taking the oven metaphor. My oven went into "self-cleaning" mode. So, I was not meant to have an Aries child; it's the second one that's gone down the tubes. Maybe I'll produce a Leo or a Sagittarius to get the last of the 4 elements in my brood, or maybe 3 will suffice. In the end, I'm choosing to see the miscarriage as an indication that my body is a good editor. My writing could stand such aggressive editing.

Ironically, our shaking friend happens to be a great father to 4 amazing kids. Meanwhile, Tim and I have been on the wagon for over a month now. Tim was rhapsodizing about how easy it's been to get alcohol out of our routine and how much better we feel. I know he was trying to make it seem easier, but I half expected Ken to say, "I don't know why you're having a hard time having this 4th kid; it was really easy for us!"

We all wanted to relax, so we suggested a movie. Without too much thought we settled on Half Nelson. I was planning to go to bed, but Tina, one of my best friends from Andover played Ryan Gosling's girlfriend, so I was sucked in. Ryan Gosling is also one of those actors who is stunning, but he's not stunning in every frame, so you're on the edge of your seat waiting for another glimpse of his gorgeous side. It was a slow moving film. Ryan's character was a high school history teacher in an urban high school who turned out to be addicted to crack. None of us could stop watching, but it could not have been more awkward.

Maybe a Madmen episode would have been nice. What am I talking about? A drink is poured every 30 seconds in Madmen, and there's always the chain-smoking, martini drinking pregnant ladies to contend with.

My Aries best friend sent me those flowers to cheer me up. Hot pink, orange, fuchsia and plum definitely did the trick. Steel did her part. The tantrum she pitched over the pot stickers I made for dinner made me wonder why on Earth I'd want another baby.

neon babyfood

A selection of this morning's manic blendings;
green beans don't go chartreuse the way peas and edamame do...

Before we went to Montana I had 1.5 hours to get everything together while the kids were napping. I panicked when I looked into the fridge. We'd just harvested stuff from the garden. I couldn't let it go to waste. In lieu of packing I started cooking baby food which, like my pottery, is gaudy. I added 1 beet to a bunch of sweet potatoes and carrots to make them the color of Heinz ketchup. (Tim always plants the carrots too close together, so they're x-rated. They have hips, 2 long skinny legs, and some sort of mad genitalia-ish thing going on in between) I made magenta pork, beet, eggplant surprise. Brocolli, snow pea, edamame, and cucumber juice went uber- chartreuse. The roasted plantains, corn, summer squash, chicken stock combo was mixed in the ketchupy blender, so it came out a nice rusty orange. I had them all stacked up in take-out Indian pint containers; the fridge was empty, and I felt good.

The kids had to weather the 40 degree nights in Montana with no warm clothes or socks because I forgot to pack them, but we survived, and neon babyfood makes the drudgery of changing diapers almost exciting. In the same manic "I must use every vegetable in my fridge" way, I make huge salads for me and Tim to have at lunch. I know he looks forward to Fridays when I'm at home with the kids so he can have hideous Chinese food or pizza for lunch. Mr. Pan's is the Chinese place next to the office. My employee ate there every day until he started seeing blood in his stool.

In addition to having to eat the healthy lunch, the chaos of the kitchen in the morning between salad stuff, kid lunches, cheerios and neon babyfood puts my Tim over the edge. Is it worth it? I just spilled beet juice all over my first big-girl wallet while transporting our lunch to work on my bike. For the past 8 months I've had this beautiful Bermuda blue/green Hobo wallet. Johnny's fiancee bought it for me for Christmas because I said I felt ashamed going out to dinner with her. The check came, and her manicured hands opened this glamorous, organized wallet as I dug my sticky, pink and green velcro "hello kitty" one out. Now my fancy wallet is another colorful reminder that I have no business owning anything nice.

Speaking of purple and turquoise, I took back a bunch of garish pottery from a shop in Philly. They feature me in their holiday show, and they're the hub of Philly's clay scene. They've always been snooty, but they've been selling my work well for the past 6 years, so I put up with the attitude. I went in the other day and found no sign of my work in the shop. They had piles of pottery on display. It was looking "car boot sale-ish," (Scottish expression for flea markety) so being a part of the display wouldn't have done my reputation any favors, but I'm behind on orders. Finding out I have work sitting in a closet on 2nd street bothered me. It reminded me that they'd pissed me off last summer too. They are a non-profit, so they have a fundraiser every year. Everyone donates crappy pottery, and they sell it cheap. Last year I decided to give them some nice-ish work. I left the 2 kids in the car and waddled my 9 month pregnant self up to the door with my donations. The not-so-lean woman at the desk looked at me and said cattily, "Donations go up to the 3rd floor." I said, "I think you can take them up for me." and left. What I meant to say was, "A big girl like you should be clamoring for an excuse to get your ass out from behind that desk to climb some stairs!" When you're pregnant fat, you're less likely to take lip from someone who's avoidably fat especially when they are in their 20's.