Limping Along

My kids are on a never-ending campaign to render me fetal and broken, so they can play on the computers, phones and iPad indefinitely.  Last month on weekends we were letting them wake up and play on whatever electronic we'd left out.  It was giving us a little lie-in but it started spilling into the weeks.  That extra hour that one spends in and out of slumber in the early morning was lost for them.  They were tearing upstairs to play something the second an iota of consciousness arrived. The sleep deprivation alone was causing mayhem, so I hid the electronics.

I awakened to Steel's hysterical footsteps above me as she searched for a half hour.  Jack Peter had given up after 5 minutes and was sitting on the couch reading.  Clearly he doesn't have her persistence or her addictive personality.  By the time I came up to talk about it, Steel was in a ball, weeping on the couch with massive black circles under her eyes.  It was like looking into the future at her as a heroin addict.  Some of you might say that limiting the screen time is creating this, but I just can't deal with the insanity over it, and those games are so stupid.

Steel didn't take the "NO MORE MORNING SCREEN TIME" directive well, but by the end of the day she asked if she could delete her favorite game from my phone.   I didn't know how to, so Jack Peter helped her.  It's as if she realized that she can't handle it, so she had to get rid of it.  It made me think of my amazing little Grandma who quit a 3-pack-a-day habit cold-turkey because she'd woken herself up coughing at 65.  Grandma Girley lived to be 94.


In general, Steel and I have been having a rough time.  A week ago there was the black bean soup war.  She'd somehow pushed me to the point of, "If you don't eat it now, you're having it for breakfast.  If you don't eat it for breakfast, it'll be in your lunch...."  It wasn't so much about eating as it was about her acting like a spoiled teenaged c-nt.  I wanted to write her a letter,

Dear Steel,  you are displaying personality traits that will:
a. get you nowhere in life
b. make no one like you  
I am not going to back down on my attempts to nip these traits in the bud because I've seen people allowed to behave in this way, and they have crappy lives and feel like victims.  You are a strong, ridiculously smart, beautiful, powerful and sweet human being.  Rely on these to get what you want. Love, Mom

Instead, I took away all of her clothes except her school uniforms and told her she had to eat the soup and stop acting insane.  Rightly, she responded that I was acting insane.  We were having conversations about when I give all of the clothes to Toby 2 years from now when they fit her.
Steel, "I won't let her wear them!"
Mom, "Toby will put them on whether you let her or not!"
Steel, "NO, I'LL BE 8!"
(I was flummoxed by that for some reason.  Is 8 going to be the peak of her power?)

Meanwhile Toby is screaming at the top of her lungs that I am mean and I need to STOP.  Toby has, and hopefully will always, have JP's and Steel's backs.  Her ire is focussed; her loyalty profound.  She'll hit us.  (As she did at school when her favorite boy told her to save his seat.  Her second favorite boy sat in it, wouldn't leave when she told him #1 was returning, so she clocked #2.  At school she'll land at the "sit by yourself" table.  At home she'll get away with it because we are still pissed at her sibling.)

Tim was gone a fair bit in the spring.  At least one or both girls had flailing-legs, kicking-on-floor, screaming "I hate you mommy!" and "I WANT DADDY!" full-blown tantrums on every day of his absence.  As they bickered over the elliptical-machine-now-clothes-hanger in our bedroom, I considered rolling over in bed and saying, "Fine...play on the electronics all you want, eat chocolate-covered pretzels and drink the flat ginger ale left over from last night's cocktails for breakfast.  Screw bathing and brushing your teeth!"  It wouldn't end up any easier, though.  They'd either start fighting about something and someone would get maimed or one of them would be so engrossed in the electronic, they'd piss on themselves and the couch, and there I'd be with the Fabreze and the Oxy Clean.  While forcing them to bathe in the big tub with their swim goggles to make it fun, I treated myself to whipped cream on my coffee and ignored the tattling screams for "Mommy!" and the flooding water sounds for 2 solid hours.

Tim and I went to Belgium and he to Germany.  It was a long way to go for 5 days, but I had fun because I didn't have to do anything but drink beer, look at ceramics, and eat waffles with one of my favorite friends, Irish Stephen.  Tim had to present a paper, get an award, and be fabulous.  We returned to a tight ship.  Susie, my mom, had been in charge.  Friends had helped make things go smoothly, and my 3-page, single-spaced list of helpful hints had been sufficient.

 Stephen wrapping up his new purchase.  Clearly the woman who owned the shop wasn't doing it well enough.

I preferred the one with the chrysanthemum.

Susie gushed, "They were wonderful! PERFECT ANGELS!!!!"  Nothing confirms my suspicion that I'm a terrible parent more that the words, "They are great UNTIL YOU WALK IN THE DOOR."  Both of the girls' Mason and Pearson hairbrushes had gone AWOL, and we were a library book short but that was the extent of the damage.  Why do my girls each have a hairbrush worth $100?  Because if they don't, my husband will take MY $100 hairbrush to brush their syrupy, toothpasty snarled locks, and mine will be the lost one.  One of my fancy boarding school friends was gifted a Mason and Pearson hairbrush by her dad when he returned from a business trip to England, and since then I've noticed them in posh people's houses and coveted them.  Is the stress over losing them worth having them?  I don't know.  Our inability to take care of anything is who we are as a couple, and we've accepted it about ourselves and each other.  Does this mean we shouldn't have anything nice?

I had another craft fair in May.  To start, the subtext of every conversation for 3 days being, "I'm here to sell pottery." sickens me.  I always despise selling pottery, but this one was more outstanding in its beastliness.  It was in Rittenhouse Square, a nice neighborhood in Philly.  I've noticed that nice neighborhoods all have eccentric crazies who linger around.  We, the crafts people, are sitting ducks for these rambling lunatics.  Then there was haggling.  I'm actually pretty nice about giving a free pot to someone who buys a few or taking a price down if it's a sweetheart who is agonizing over cost, but when someone asks me to lower a price, it's so gauling.  I always wonder what they do for a living and how they value their time to undervalue mine so brazenly.   I've also identified a new species of craft show attendee.  They come into the booth overflowing with praise.  They look at multiple things and hem and haw.  Finally they ask me if I have something I obviously don't, a 34 oz butter bell in pinks and browns?  a coffee cup that will also work as a fly swatter?  When I say, "no, I don't have that,"  They look at me and nod with a triumphant, slightly disdainful and faux apologetic look muttering "Oh...." as they walk out.  All of this theater is to say that I clearly don't have my finger on the pulse of the ceramic needs of society.  I end up making money at these things, but it's like pulling teeth, and is it worth all the work, the schlepping and the pressure it puts on Tim, the kids, my mom, and his mom????

Bringing the bikes to Rochester was Tim's genius.  The kids spent hours buzzing around on them.  Their complete exhaustion helped them sleep through the 40 degree nights in the RV with only summer blankets and sleepy suits.  Turning on the RV heat was out of the question.  Sunflower Rose threatens to completely implode if we run the heat for over 20 minutes.

We had another RV trip in Sunflower Rose this time to Rochester NY .  It is not a tight ship.  I don't have the personality type for an RV.  My friend Mia was one of those people who always had whatever you needed.  We called her "Prepared Mia."  She would use all of the pockets in her backpack and remember what she'd put in each.  Watching her pack for her round-the-world trip with her then fiancé was as shocking as watching someone do a Rubik's cube proficiently.  All of her clothes were in these tight coils, and she could see and access anything.  I'm sure she had some sort of ingenious dirty/clean system worked out.  Maybe I'm like that when I pack a kiln, but otherwise I'm not.  I can't even manage my 3 purse pockets.  In the RV, I just don't have the drive to use all of those filthy little stowing compartments, so everything that the kids don't throw on the floor ends up there as the thing pitches and sways like a boat in a gail.  8 miles to the gallon, non-functioning wipers, and having to scream "are you buckled?" to miserable, bored kids every 12 minutes doesn't help either.  We've taken a really fun trip in it that all 3 kids will remember, and now we can sell it...

I'm trying to smile to avoid feathering lipstick and attempting an unwrinkled forehead for the photograph.  The result is a little intense, don't you think?  Can you believe I birthed that face with that TINY nose?????

I'm celebrating the decision to sell Sunflower Rose by vowing (again) to get healthy and write more.  This morning I went for a 1.5 hour long walk along the Skuykill river.  I wore knee socks, clogs, a Susie skirt and a cute top.  I had a talk with my good leg.  I told it that it was in charge and the slacker leg would have to keep up. I focussed on good posture and my "smiling is the new botox" mantra.  I flounced along happily for 2 hours, and my hips were fine.  Stretching my limbs afterwards in my skirt was the only time I coveted a spandex something to cover my ass.  Last week I'd donned workout clothes and real sneakers for the trek.  I ended up limping by the end of it, and throughout the walk I was comparing my barely-walking self to the perky joggers flying by.  I saw Richard running in agony.  I asked him what he was doing, and he responded, "Trying unsuccessfully to stave off middle age."  Perhaps my limp is shoe-related and perhaps it is because an 80-year-old woman stole my right leg and gave one of hers, but I feel like such a poser if I actually wear athletic clothing.  

I got a good little workout, but I did it on the sly.  I did the same when I was attempting to become a full-time potter.  I worked at a law firm and started chipping away at my work schedule one day at a time until I was down to zero hours at the firm and 60 at my studio.  I've always seen that as a weird character flaw.  I'm so afraid of failure that I sneak around when I go for what I want.  I'm going to embrace my furtive attempts at success; it's not going to change.

As I approached a picturesque bridge on my flouncy walk, I squinted at the canvasses of 6 older women in a Monday morning oil painting class.  One of them was clearly experienced.  Her bridge was really coming along.  She was going through all of the measuring motions. with her one eye closed holding up a vertical.  I've always been too lazy to be any good at rendering.  I was wondering how she was going to treat the graffiti on the top wall of the bridge.  I imagined she was probably going to ignore it and do a really boring picturesque painting, but I was fantasizing that she'd customize it with Graffitied "Menopause sucks!" or "FUCK FIBER." I'm sure if I'd said something to her she'd have thought I was one of those weird, posh-neighborhood crazies who corner people and say absurd things.

 Now that the bikes are such a big part of our lives, Steel could not bear another minute of Princess bike torture.  Thank God for spray paint and duct tape.  Toby's too-boyish bike got an upgrade as well.  JP started the gold trend.  He's such an amazing cross between Elvis and Evil Knievel

Lithukrania

I still find it a little weird that I have a house cleaner.  The narrative I've created about Zana is that she was a doctor in the old country, Ukraine, and she's going to school again so she can practice in the states.  She's funding this endeavor by saving me from stepping on legos and cleaning my bathrooms.    Besides my newfound knowledge that it's not THE Ukraine,  my only connection to the Putin craziness is Zana's hypothetical family back there.  I texted her.
Liz:  I keep worrying about you and the Ukraine/Crimea.  It's such a wretched situation.  I'm so sorry if you have family in crisis.
Zana:  Liz, thanks for your worrying, but I am from Lithuania - is located much north.  But I am also appraised.  Thanks
Liz:  Oh phew!  Erin said you were Ukrainian!  (or maybe she said Lithuanian and I turned it into Ukranian because I'm a terrible listener.)
Zana:  Don't worry.  Lithuania and Ukraine sound similar.
Liz: Lithukrania???
Zana: Almost.
I find that conversation almost as humiliating as paying a doctor who is older than I am to clean my house.

The lipstick Zana will be scouring off of our bathroom vanity

It gets worse.  My now friend, Sharon, who saved Jack Peter and Sage on the street when Tim left them there thinking that the bus had picked them up when they'd actually missed it, is taking time off.  She asked me if she could help me out in any way.  She did some packing at the studio for me, but once again, I feel weird asking someone who is older than I am who is an accountant to do manual labor.  I didn't, however, feel odd asking her to get new windshield wipers for the Mini Cooper.  I bought new ones in January because the thing was a deathtrap every time it rained because the wipers were so ineffective.  I had the new ones installed at the garage when I was getting the car inspected.  The new ones were the top of the line from Pep Boys.  They turned out to be CRAP!  They were falling apart straight away, and they didn't wipe for shit.  Tim and I had both pulled over multiple times to push the bit that was flying off of the wiper back on in hopes that they would wipe better.

Sharon went into Pep Boys armed with the receipt from January.  It's now April.  She asked if it was possible that they were defective and could she exchange them.  The Pep Boy guy said, No!  It's been such a bad winter.  With that kind of weather you need to replace them more often.  Appeased, she bought a new pair, and they sent her around to the service department to get them installed.  She pulled up and handed them to the guy.  He said, Why are you getting new wipers?  The ones you have are brand new!  She said, They don't work!  He said, You didn't take the plastic off!  I'm so glad I sent her.  I would have been more pushy about demanding a new pair for free.  That would have unfolded badly.

Windshield-wiper-destroying winter...

I find myself singing the oscar-winning Frozen song a lot.   LET IT GO!  LET IT GO! It's so irritating, but it's replaced Taylor Swift as our family soundtrack.  If geography and basic mechanics are eluding me, I really don't think I need to be letting anything more go.

Speaking of letting go, Charlie Tepper, a kid at Toby's daycare exploded right in front of me at story time.  He looked up, and I somehow knew he was about to vomit.  I watched in horror as gallons of orange liquid flowed from his little 2-year-old mouth.  I was reeling for a couple of days.  Steel got the tummy bug, but she was such an olympic puker.  The first puke was in the shower; the second and third were in the car, but she managed to contain all of it in a single blanket.  The final puke was in my studio, and she made it to the toilet even though vomit on the floor there would have been easy to clean up.  I have no recollection of Jack Peter ever puking, and Toby only did it when she was a baby and there was too much booze in her breastmilk or when she had a concussion.  I couldn't figure out how we'd escaped the kind of Charlie Tepper combustion I'd witnessed.  It finally dawned on me.  I'VE BEEN STARVING MY CHILDREN!  Charlie Tepper puked more in that one sitting than my kids have eaten in a week-aggregate.  It's too late now.  They are used to eating 1200 calories in a week.  I'm just finally understanding why pretty-big Tim, and massive me have kids that are little.  Like the malfunctioning windshield wipers, it's good to know the answer, but it's still kind of a bummer.

The best pukers in Philly.

Another news story I've been following is the legalization of pot.  I've been all for it.  The whole issue of kids smoking pot never seemed like a big deal to me, but all of the research points to the fact that until the age 25, your brain is still developing, and pot messes up that process.  I've been trying to blame my idiocy on pre menopause and hormones.  It's a heartening point of view because the subtext is that I'll get my Herculean mental powers back as soon as I stop menstruating for good.  Now I have to embrace it as a permanent condition.  At least I'll have the knowledge to know when my kids are stoned, so maybe I can step in for them.  My mom did not see my standing in front of the open fridge with girlfriends scooping handfuls of home-made strawberry kiwi trifle into our mouths as an indication of anything odd.

I wonder if pot is legal in Lithukrania.

We aren't going to Lithukrania, but we are going to Brussels and Aachen Germany.  This would have been my passport photo had I been smart enough to figure out how to print it.

The Dad tattoo is the only visual I have of Tim.  I should take more pictures of him.

Watch out, kid.  I had Certificates of Excellence back in the day.

Honor thy parents, but don't become one.

On Sunday, Jack Peter and Tim went to a "celebration of Dave Friedman's death" as Jack Peter called it.  The Rabbi told a parable about how important it is to honor your parents after which Jack Peter gave his dad a hug and sat on his lap for the rest of the service.  People were getting up and telling funny stories.  Before Tim knew it, Jack Peter popped off of his knee and sauntered to the front of the room.  He said, "I have a joke to tell.  Dave Friedman didn't tell me the joke; my mom puts jokes in my lunch box every day, but I think Dave would have liked it:  What trembles at the bottom of the ocean?  A NERVOUS WRECK!!!!"  Tim was appalled and thrilled at Jack Peter's ease and comfort with getting up in front of a group of adults.

 

In the vein of honoring parents, I have to post images of my mom's latest knitting projects.  She's moved on from the time-consuming skirts for me and my big-hipped friends.  Susie's pricing is on a square-inch scale, so I don't know why she's complaining about XL skirt commissions, but she's doing entire ensembles for American Girl dolls instead.  "Sunny" pictured here is not, in fact, an American Girl doll.  Why would Susie spend $120 on the real thing when she can get a knock-off at A.C. Moore for $20? ($17.50 with her coupons)

The knitting and colors are thrilling, but what's crazier is her photography.  I'm starting to imagine an all-white gallery in SOHO with 20 of these images blown up to 4'x6' mounted on the walls and art critics fawning over my mom.  Whenever I show these pictures to people, their jaws drop as they scroll through them with looks of sheer amazement.  Susie sent an outfit to Jen's daughter, Willa.  Jen helps me sell pottery every year at my craft show, so she and her daughter are high on Susie's list for gratuitous knitting.  Jen had to respond to Susie's images with the following picture.  (When I asked the name of the doll for my blog, Jen texted me Rebecca Rubin.  She's the Jew from Brooklyn.  I got her text long after I'd asked.  Out of context, a text reading: Rebecca Rubin, the Jew from Brooklyn, was baffling.)

Susie's critique, "I wish Willa would pull up the tam a bit.  It looks very geeky pulled down tight like that.  Otherwise, the outfit is very cute even with the purple cast."

Is Susie worried that Rebecca is going to be picked on at school for how she's wearing her hat?  or is she worried that the beret-like treatment of the tam isn't flattering to her craftsmanship?  I'm stunned that the American Girl doll company has tapped into every girl's desire for a broken limb.  Casts were so damned cool in grade school.  You can also pay $10 to get a pair of glasses for your intellectual American Girl doll, or if you're Liz Kinder, you get them for $6 on ebay and then pay some absurd amount for shipping.  I got them because Steel has been desperate for glasses for herself for 3 years now.  Demanding glasses is like demanding cellulite, grey hair, and age spots in my world.  Although I do remember being disappointed that I, too, did not need glasses and braces like my brother.  Merry Shuwall, my childhood friend's elusive older sister, had to wear head gear in addition to her braces, AND she had boobs, so head gear was so hot in my little brain.

The girls and I did not get to go to the service for David Friedman.  We were at Lorena's birthday party.  I'm always flummoxed when it comes to birthday presents for kids.  I don't want to buy them crap.  I also don't want to spend a ton of money buying them something they probably won't want.  I decided on "Trader Joe's organic fruit leathers" because as I packed Toby's lunch the other morning and threw one in, she asked, "Can you put one in for Lorena, too?  She loves them."  I responded, "No, I'm sure Lorena's mom would rather Lorena eat what's in HER lunch."  I was masking my stinginess.  Those damned things are dear to me.  They are $.50 each, and they are the only thing passing for a "healthy snack" that all 3 of my children will eat.  When I was 3 I got a book of Life Savers candy for my birthday.  It was one of the highlights of my existence, so I figured Lorena would be happy.

The contents of lunch boxes are also a delineation of cool in school and pre-school.  Back when I was in grammar school, we were allowed to trade.  There is no trading of food at Green Woods Charter School; I suppose imminent death from allergies is a good reason, but it still seems uptight to me.  I remember being so excited when I got home-made chocolate chip merengue cookies.  My mom's meringues were like her knitting and her pancakes…perfect.  They were chewy on the inside, hard on the outside and completely regular in shape and size with a perfect peak on top.  (Virgos are amazing.)  I could trade those peaked piles of fluff for ANYTHING.  I'd invariably go for some processed Hostess item that I wasn't allowed.   

Lorena's mom is Brazilian.  Members of her Brazilian family had flown in to Philly for the party.  It was a blowout. I was a little concerned that the Brazilian mom might think I was trying to say something about her lunches.  I opted to make light of it at the party.  I needn't have worried.  She said, "Oh great!  I was just sending in the same granola bar day after day with her lunch.  Jane (the school director) had to pull me aside and tell me that Lorena doesn't like granola bars."  That woman has no idea what it is to be a neurotic freak about what her kids eat.  I'm almost as jealous of that as I was of Merry Shuwall's headgear and boobs.  Brazilian mom almost spent all of the Liz Kinder capital she'd earned by serving mimosas at the party when she put horns and Pop Rocks in the gift bags.  I had taken the girls to the party in the stroller despite the fact that it was an hour away.  Tim tried to get rid of the stroller last week in a purging attempt to make our place presentable for a potential partner.  I fought hard for the stroller, so I'll be walking it to Zimbabwe  for spring break to prove its productivity.  The girls were honking the horns at pedestrians during the entire walk home.  They could manipulate them to sound like drowning camels or angry cats.  It was pretty fun, but had we driven, Lorena would be off the birthday party list.

Steel had the genius to use the stapler to get the fruit leathers onto the picture; thank God someone in this family is practical.

Our life has been a tyranny of birthday parties lately: 2-3 every weekend.  Obviously my kids are attracted to Pisces.  I wrapped up a pyramid-shaped touch light for Saturday night's party for boy Sage.  (How can there be two children of different sexes named Sage in Jack Peter's class?  There are also 2 Maeves and 3 Nicholas's)  Jack Peter liked the lamp, so I thought Sage would be cool with it.  OK, it was the free gift from ULine after spending $500 on bubble wrap, and it did say ULine on it, but I DID put in the three AA batteries in to make it work.  Maybe I should have gone for the steak knives.  That party was at a climbing gym.  It was utter chaos.  They ran out of food, and there wasn't anything for either kids or adults to drink.  I know boy Sage's mom, she's a big wig in the nursing school at Jefferson Hospital, so I've grilled her about nursing on behalf of my niece.  I went ahead and ordered a couple pizzas.  I figured she wouldn't be offended.  We had the following text exchange after the party:

Sage's mom, "Embarrassed to ask but gifts got combined..lamp or Pokemon from the Kinder McDonald collaborative?"

Me: Super fun party, thank you.  People who a. Keep track of who gave what and then b. have the GAUL to send thank-you notes are just trying to make the rest of us feel shitty.

Sage's mom: Fine.  I will not make my boy send you a thank you, but perhaps we shall send something else…LIKE PIZZA REIMBURSEMENT

Me: Please Stop!

Sage's mom: OH Liz Kinder, you will get yours

What does that mean?  She's probably going to get Jack Peter a set of 1000 dominoes with Jefferson Hospital written on them.  Gifts with multiple pieces are THE WORST unless they are edible.

Tim is gone for the night.  I can usually handle it, but apparently my kids did not get the "honor thy parents" memo.  I was late to get Toby because I'd forgotten to change the clock at the studio for daylight savings.  Toby was mad that I arrived during story time, so I let her sulk at me from across the room and listen to the story while Lorena snuggled with me instead.  I couldn't help but ask her if she liked her birthday party.  She responded and got chewed out for snuggling with the wrong mom and talking during story time.  I felt wretched.  I then let the girls convince me to go to the park with another mom while I got Jack Peter and the stuff.  He told me about his science project on the way to get the girls.  They are creating hybrid animals.  His is the "Batasaurus Cock"  (part bat, part T Rex, part peacock)  We've just had a run-in with the science teacher, Ms. Skladitis, because last week he'd been unable to resist the temptation to talk about poop throughout her class-specifically about a Chinese man pooping and then walking through the poop.   Before I'd gotten home to the Skladitis e-mail, Jack Peter had responded to my query, "How was your day?" with "My day was a tiny bit not good." I cannot express my relief in discovering that the Batasaurus Cock was the result of a group project and not Jack Peter's personal brain child.  

We got home and I tried to manage dinner and homework.  Somehow Steel ended up slamming Jack Peter's neck into the counter because he was gloating about all the sweets he got to eat at the funeral (while she and Toby were eating Pop Rocks and cake)  She got her dessert rescinded and threw it at me while kicking me in the back.  I finally put up my clogged foot to avoid another attack and got her right in the gut where she'd impaled herself during a fall off her bike on Saturday.  She hysterically howled, Toby vociferously defended her while Jack Peter was complaining about his dessert...just as Tim called to say good-night.  

They are in bed now, and I am drinking vodka and writing a blog.  Steel finally pulled herself together to ask me, "If a person is dumb and can't speak, do they make a sound when they burp?"  Somehow that redeemed her.  People always talk about how sleep-deprived parents are.   I'd always thought it was because kids are waking them up all night.  That's not it.  Parents are so excited to not have kids around that they stay up past midnight every night to enjoy time without their kids.  A lot of people who slog through my blog are, surprisingly, not parents.  I'm convinced you read it to confirm the genius of your decision not to procreate.  Here's a little gem for all of you:  when we finally lurch down the stairs to bed, we peek in on the kids.  That is when we love them the most WHEN THEY ARE ASLEEP.

Last week 2 people who read my blog who do not have children told me that my son is gay.  They were responding to the following photo in particular:

Jack Peter asked to wear a tuxedo for picture day.  We don't have a size 7 tuxedo, but I told him he could try and work something out with the suit he wore to Uncle Johnny's and Aunt Tiff's wedding 4 years ago.  He rocked it.  I guess a kid who wants to wear a tuxedo for picture day could be gay.  He has also been spending a fair bit of time perfecting his bow for the piano recital this month, but the jury is still out for me.  

A final tidbit for those of you who don't have children: a weekend ploy to keep them amused and away from us is putting them in the tub after breakfast.  They'll spend 2 hours in there.  Every towel in the house was drenched, but I got to spend quality time realizing that I didn't have my wallet.  I ran to the car in my pajamas and orange suede boots.  The wallet wasn't in the console, so I peeled off to the studio.  It was the first nice day we've had since October, so I rolled down the window.  I ran into the studio looking frantically for the wallet.  I concluded that I must have left it at the chiropractor.  I grabbed stuff I needed to work on at home, clamored back to the car awkwardly attempting to open the car door.  I didn't open it wide enough, so it came back on me.  I put out my free hand out to stop the door from hitting me in the face, but the window was rolled down, so the hand went through the window and the door did hit me in the face.  So now I'm clutching my face in pain, in my pajamas and orange suede boots looking down at my wallet in the door of the car.  Did Schloka, the car, clock me in the face on purpose to let me know my wallet was there, so my weekend would not be ruined?  Is a weekend with three kids ever not ruined?

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...

Morning Missile

 

Halloween costumes this year did not put me over the edge.  OK Harry Potter's hair is an odd shade of indigo.  My mom never allowed me to be an unoriginal witch, so I had some pangs about that.  The green pumpkin was a little challenging, and it was annoying that it was thrown over for a toddler bee outfit from the dress-up bin, but I have no complaints.

My day started with another mom inadvertently sending me a visual text of her massive, naked tits.  There's no better way to start a day or a blog entry.

I sound like a frat boy.  I've started listening to the Preston and Steve morning show on Philly's Rock-n-Roll radio.  I get in touch with my inner meathead and feel slightly connected to the blue collar side of Philly.  It started when I got pulled over right after depositing Toby at daycare, by a bald, white cop with good posture .  I'm no longer eligible to play the "I'm attractive; don't give me a ticket" card.  I admitted to rolling by the stop sign as I handed him my license and insurance, and he sauntered back to his car.  He returned to my window after a short time, and I said, "Honestly, I was listening to Preston and Steve.  They were talking about women who prostitute their way through college, and it was so depressing!"  The cop said, I WAS LISTENING TO THAT TOO!!  HORRIBLE!!! Now, your registration is expired, and you really need to pay attention to stop signs, but I'm going to let you go...   


The radio was tuned to MMR in the first place because I try to be a "cool mom" for Toby's 5 minute commute and play music for her.  I suffered through NPR and AM radio Red Sox broadcasts for all of my commuting young life.  As soul-crushing as the adult radio was, I would never have dreamed of asking Susie for some pop music.  To this day I get slightly nauseous when I hear baseball because it brings back cigarette smoke/no-air-conditioning induced car sickness.  Tim and I got pulled over a few weeks later.   We were on our way to set up my Rittenhouse Square craft show in the rain.  We were probably listening to BBC's James Kumarasamy talk about Syria.  Without Preston and Steve on our side, the truck was impounded, Tim spent hours and a lot of money getting it back.  I walked to my soggy booth in the rain.  I'm sure Dave, the kid in Tim's office in charge of renewing registrations, wished his day had started with an inadvertent boob text rather than the rampage he received from Tim.


First day of school!

It's been 3 months since my last confession/blog.  My excuse?  Tim started a new full-time job at Temple which he loves except that it sometimes conflicts with his other full-time architect/developer gig.  We became pet owners at the end of the summer-3 hermit crabs.  It doesn't sound like much, but there's been some drama.  I've had numerous craft shows, both girls had massive birthday parties, and Halloween happened.  I've also had a recurring zit inside my nose.  I'm obviously doing penance for a major wrong in a past life.  It's agony, and it's bad for my marriage.  If Tim grazes my ever-growing nose on his way in for an affectionate peck, I want to punch him in the face.  We've also had to adjust to driving an hour + roundtrip every day to get Steel to/from school as Kindergarteners aren't bussed in Philly.  We get to share it with the Duffy family otherwise it'd be 2.5 hours.  Sadly Duffy #3 is younger than Toby.  We'll have to do it on our own when she hits Kindergarten.

The 5 Duffys live in 800 sq. feet.  Their main mode of transportation is bike carts.  Marni has a business sewing cloth diapers; Tray works at the bike shop.   Having met them, the idea that we are remotely "green" is absurd.  They did that hippy potty-training thing where you start them at 3 months.  She makes whole wheat pop tarts and quinoa, and their kids eat them.  They aren't horrible and self-righteous, though.  She admits to realizing that she's an introvert only after having had 3 children.  Her hilarious complaints about the needs of her children is refreshing.  Touching, for instance, after the morning snuggle and before the nighttime cuddle drives her nuts.  She keeps her hair at about 1/4" long and looks fabulous.  She can even joke about the devastating death of her young mom.  Despite numerous pre-trip swine flu jokes, Marni's mom died of the swine flu after her trip to China.  The only major difference between our outlooks is that they go to church and their mortgage is probably less than we spend on alcohol for a week.

Marni cycling the girls to school in her "bakfiets.nl"

After a week of propriety, the Duffy/McDonald kids now torture each other like siblings.  It's all fine if we are singing along to racy pop music.  However, Sage and Steel have the same taste in men, so that's lead to some heated conversations.  Sage tattles on Jack Peter for whatever wrongs occurred in school.  Jack Peter retaliates by writing her into comic strips.  The "Sage-O-Tron" was his most recent, easily-vanquished foe.  The middle Duffy, Fern, is a flawless human being.  She prides herself on reminding me to yield at a particular point in the ride where I'd almost killed them, me, and another carful of somebodies early in my Green Woods Charter commuting days.

The Sage-o-tron rocking a Grandma Susie skirt

There's a lot of penis and vagina talk.  Steel announced that when she presses on her "coo coo" it feels like people are tickling her.  Sage revealed that in "her world in her head" there are only girls except for one boy who is naked.  I was convinced she was channelling Hugh Hefner when she started making Hawaiian Luau references.  I've seen hitting, tears, spitting, and juice-box-dumping-down-shirts in my rear-view mirror.  I just continue to drive and bellow out math problems.

Kindergarten has been a disappointment for Big Deal McSteel.  She has a lot of undisciplined 5-year-old boys in her class.  She's at the maturity level of a teenager, so it's been trying.  "KINDERGARTEN TAKES SO LONG!!!" was her complaint the first week.  Her teacher was on maternity leave for the first 6 weeks, and the assistant teacher was barely in charge.  On back-to-school night, the assistant said to me, wide-eyed, "Thank God for Steel.  She's my teaching assistant!"  The real teacher is back, but I'm pretty sure she'd rather be with her 3-month-old son than constantly disciplining a bunch of kids who can't sit still.  I read to the class on Steel's birthday and had three little boys crawling up my skirt while the teacher was fuming, "MICHAEL!  KEATON!"  One of them has actually been suspended from Kindergarten.  One day Steel came home triumphant, I asked why she was so happy.  Her reply, "No one got in trouble in gym class today.  It was so fun!"

I guess gym class is where it all comes to a head.  Mr. Hunsberger had to call me about Jack Peter's conduct referral in gym.  Apparently Jack Peter wasn't supposed to twist a girl's arm and jump on it because she told him his Harry Potter hair was not black, it was blue.  I agreed with Mr. Hunsberger that Jack Peter needs to exercise some impulse control but I was pissed that he was putting emphasis on the fact that the victim was a girl.  I see what goes on in the back of my Mini Van; Jack Peter has some integrity issues, but the physical aggressors in our world are almost always female.  We had to have a family sit-down.  The girls are really good (outside the house) about following rules.  I had to explain that if Jack Peter hits someone again at Green Woods, he'll be suspended, and it'll be ALL of their faults because they've gotten so used to clocking each other over who gets the dark blue cereal bowl.


Report cards were uneventful except for Toby's.  At AKWD, Jane has a whole list of things that can be "age appropriate" "exceeds age expectation"  "needs development"  With all of our kids she draws a gratuitous pencil line through the "age appropriate" row, but she'll check one thing in the "exceeds age expectation" column.  Toby is our first to get a check in the "needs development" column.  She is, apparently, off the charts in her ability to lead, but she lacks in the "ability to follow" area.  It's been a little rough for her.  She was feeling abandoned because Steel left her for JP's school.  The big kids have homework and are exhausted, so they get all of our attention either screaming at them or doing homework with them.  Toby lines up her dolls and teaches them.  The classes go on for hours.  She'll only take a break if either Tim or I is coming down on Steel or Jack Peter.  She'll run up and scream at us with her arms out to protect her sibling.  In hindsight, it's darling, but in the moment, we want to kill all of them.

It was a game called "play dough pirate."  Toby's students are a rough bunch.

According to my chiropractor, I did have a previous life; my hip problems are from a past-life injury.  I'm cooky, but the idea that previous me was hit by shrapnel in WWII, and now I get gimpy if I'm on my feet on concrete 12 hours a day for 3 weeks straight isn't compelling.  My skepticism stops, however when he tells me that my lungs and liver are fine.  I am constantly worried about silicosis and cirrhosis of the liver.  We all hear what we want to hear.  My chiropractor, himself, has his own selectivity going on.  Over the summer, we were at our local music festival.  It's one of those, "buy and empty cup for $20 and drink all day" events.  By 5, no one was feeling any pain except for Jen's husband, Erik.  His back had gone out, and he was prone on the picnic quilt stretching and groaning.  Jen, on the other hand, was walking around with her usual perfect posture and "tits on a stick" physique.  A slightly lit Dr. George approached her to tell her she needed a chiropractic adjustment.  This was out of the blue.  I was nowhere near, so he didn't approach her because she was my friend.  Erik could have been getting gang-banged by a group of rabid squirrels.

My husband doesn't hear what he wants to hear.  He doesn't hear at all.  We are perfectly matched in almost every way (especially our mutual hatred of musical theater)  Our major marital hurdle revolves around his deafness and my mumbling.  I mumble things that aren't worth saying at all.  Narrating the minutia of my life out loud is one of my fears.  I've seen it in relatives.  So, I mumble something boring.  Tim says "what?"  I mumble it again because I'm embarrassed to have said it at all, and he again asks, "WHAT?"  I then scream, at the top of my lungs, "THE SMOOTHIE ISN'T SO BAD WITH CABBAGE THIS MORNING!!!!"  Tim's feelings are hurt, and I feel like an asshole for being short with him and for saying something so stupid in the first place.  

I was at my dear friends' 50th wedding anniversary party.  After a few drinks I had to make a toast:
Everyone is saying such nice things about marriage.  I grew up across the woods from this couple.  The "tapestry of obscenities" that wafted through the woods on a regular basis during one of their marital battles was rich.  Marriage is really HARD.  The other night I asked Tim why he always opens a new tube of toothpaste but leaves the old one for me to finish up?  Is his time worth more than mine?  Why doesn't he just throw it away?  His response, "I don't really think about it, but I do worry that you'd be pissed if you saw a not-entirely-empty toothpaste tube in the trash."  I responded with, "Next time just throw it away, and baby, you deserve a new tube of toothpaste when you want one. 
I finished the toast with something about being on the same team.  Everyone laughed.  The part that made me laugh was Mia's confession, "Mike (her husband) would NEVER finish a tube of toothpaste!  Then it would be his responsibility to put toothpaste on the grocery list!"  So poor absent-minded Mike and cheap me are wrestling the dregs of the toothpaste tubes to eternity.

It's mornings that are the hardest.  Steel and Jack Peter need to practice piano.  Everyone needs to get dressed, eat, pack their school bags, and brush their teeth.  I have to make 3 breakfasts, 3 lunches, and 2 "healthy snacks."  Tim needs to make coffee, 2 salads, and 2 smoothies.  All of this has to happen before Marni arrives at 730 to exchange Sage for Steel.  Sage and JP wait outside for the often-tardy bus, and I get Toby ready to go to school.  This is all happening while kids are randomly pulling out crafts, legos and unauthorized reading and Tim and I are screaming, "LOOK AT THE CLOCK!!!  WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"  It's a logistical fuster-cluck.

We've had a couple major morning almost-catastrophes.  Two weeks into the school year before Marni was dropping Sage off to wait with Jack Peter for the bus, I put Jack Peter on the bus and went in to get Toby ready.  It was still warm out, so the windows were open.  I heard his real bus stop.  I looked and saw, to my horror, Clarence, his real bus driver waiting.  My level-headed response was to run into the house and start screaming.  This made Toby scream as well.  Tim had to decipher  what we were screaming about, get his boots on, and catch both busses.  I was convinced that Jack Peter had been taken away from me by a cleverly disguised pedophile.  Meanwhile, Jack Peter was intrepid on the Frankford Friends School bus.  Zoe, our 11-year-old, Frankford-Friends-student neighbor had walked by Jack Peter and taken her seat.  Tim was able to make the switch at the stop sign.  The upshot was that Amy, Zoe's mom, had to give Zoe an assertiveness lecture, (if you see something you know isn't right, like Jack Peter on your bus, you need to SAY SOMETHING)  I needed to reassess my emergency coping mechanisms, and Jack Peter had to learn to avoid buses without Clarence at the helm.

On a Monday, I asked Tim if he could drop Toby off for me, so I could start my week with a swim.  Tim picks up the kids at Green Woods twice a week.  I do it 3 times.  I always take Toby to school, so I felt entitled to a morning by myself.  Everything went smoothly until I got to the studio at 10 feeling refreshed and ready to work.  I checked my phone and saw 2 messages.  One was from Tim telling me to ignore the previous message.  The previous message was from a woman named Sharon Wonder telling me she had my son and Sage.  Sharon had been walking to work when she'd been approached by a weeping Jack Peter.  Can you HELP us?  Jack Peter could only remember my number in his hysteria.  He and Sage had been waiting out in the cold for an hour.  Apparently the bus had already come, and they had missed it.  Tim left with Toby assuming the big kids were gone.  After I didn't answer the phone, Jack Peter told Sharon Wonder that he and Sage go to Green Woods Charter School.  Sharon googled and called the school, the school called Tim.  He was there in 10 minutes, and they got to school in time for science.  Sharon Wonder is now a great friend, so all's well that ends well.  

Were Marni and Tray mad that we'd abandoned their daughter on the street?  Nope.  They compared the incident to the time I had to run back into their house asking where their 3rd child was.  Leaving, I was verbally assaulted by a roofer from across the street, "HEY LADY!!!!  THERE'S A BABY ON THE ROOF!  GO GET YOUR BABY!!!!"  Ryder, Marni and Tray's youngest was not on the roof.  He was sitting in the 3rd floor windowsill with only a poorly-fitting screen keeping him from being an Eric Clapton song.  It did occur to me that a roofer in California would have been stoned and waving at Ryder and playing peekaboo.  A roofer in Philly is not going to let a kid in a window fly-especially if he gets to simultaneously scare the shit out of a dumb blonde getting into her minivan.

Speaking of blondes, I was asked to write a Haiku about my life: 
3, 5, and 7
Taylor Swift is our soundtrack
Oh trouble trouble

That sums it up.  I'm putting in more pictures this time because I've been told to...

 yes, we've already had a snow day.

 Toby in the "birthday chair" at school

 Yes, Steel is essentially a teenager.

 JP decided to get dressed up for Thanksgiving.

Yes, I still bathe them together and let them eat xmas cookies for breakfast in the tub.  Although I should stop soon.  Jack Peter exclaimed to the girls, "MORNING MISSILE" as he got his sleepy suit off and hopped in.