Car Crashes and Train Wrecks

Jack Peter turned 8 on May 14.  We'd cancelled his turning-7 birthday party last year because he'd gotten himself kicked off of the school bus.  That parenting decision was maligned by a number of our friends as WAY TOO HARSH.  This was revealed casually throughout Jack Peter's 8th year.  On Jack Peter's actual birthday we did a little family/close friends dinner.  After eating we went around the table saying something we love about Jack Peter.  I would have been a hot squirmy mess listening to all of that schmaltz.  Jack Peter smiled regally, nodding in agreement.  When we got to the last person Jack Peter said, "I want to tell you all something great about me...."  I can't remember what it was, but it's good to know that kid doesn't have any confidence issues.

I don't think any sort of disciplining we've done has been "WAY TOO HARSH"  Let's hope this is the 3rd and last conduct referral this year.  I texted the image to Jen.  If you can't read it, it says "sitting under the desk not following instructions"  She texted back.  "That's progress.  He wasn't on top of the desk exposing himself!"  Friends are great at helping me get perspective.  Speaking of WAY TOO HARSH...a conduct referral for sitting under the desk 5 days before the end of school??

Speaking of confidence issues, In early May, I was a part of the complete decimation of a little boy's confidence.  I already harped on my recent craft show in Rittenhouse Square, but I forgot about the WORST PART.  I was setting up my booth early Friday morning.  As we set up, the locals walk around.  I was putting up shelves, and I could feel eyes on my back.  I could hear whispering, so I turned around to see a mom holding her almost-two son.  As I faced them his eyes widened in HORROR.  The mom was continuing the banter.  Apparently, they'd left the house that day in search of Anna from Frozen.  I was wearing 2 braids, and I have light blue streaks going through my platinum blond hair.  From the back, it was clear that they'd reached their destination.  The mom was so thrilled that their mission had been a success.  She was gushing about their having found Anna.  When I turned to face them, it was clear to the kid that I am not Anna, but his mom, for fun, was insisting that I was.  I'll never forget the horror in that kid's eyes.  He was being lied to flagrantly, and HE KNEW IT.  What a blow.  Not-even-two, and discovering that it's all a SHAM!!!!!

Jack Peter's birthday party had a Minecraft/karate theme.  Everyone who wanted to, wore gees.  I put together 50 varying-sized cardboard boxes on the stage at the park, and they built things, kicked them over, put each other in boxes, kicked out of them, dumped them all off the stage, threw them back on the stage, etc.  I had the optimistic notion that I was going to break down all of the boxes and bring them back to my studio for packing and shipping.  They were TRASHED. We did the obligatory piñata. Who's idea was it to blindfold kids and give them a weapon to flail at a moving object, a moving object holding candy, so while the blindfolded kid is hacking away, anxious toddlers are running towards the weapon in hopes that the candy is coming out?  Did the Mexicans steal that idea from Auschwitz?  Jack Peter has a future in party planning.  The box idea was his, and he'd asked for a punching bag piñata.  Belting a piñata with boxing gloves makes the process so much less stressful for the parents!  Unfortunately, I'd started the punching bag piñata a week before the party, and it was a damp week, so I didn't get as many layers on it because it kept not drying.  It withstood 3 punches.  Even the candies were anti-climatic.  JP picked Werther's candies to go inside it.  They're good, but they are such grandmother candies.

The cake was uneventful except that in my drunken magnanimity, I let every kid pick out the exact piece he or she wanted.  It looked like the boundaries of the Middle East by the end of it.  Brandon, our baker friend, wasn't impressed by my carving prowess.


On the day of the big party we decided to go house-hunting.  Moving wasn't on the list this summer, but Johnny (Tim's brother, and the realtor in the group) had somehow promised one of the four bottom units at our glamorous place (that Tim designed and built) to two people.  One of the people is a couple in their early 30's.  The male half of the couple has been gravely ill for a year.  He's gone through chemo.  He doesn't seem to be improving.  I try and bring food over periodically.  Having watched the effects of Dick's illness on my mom, my sympathy for Alexis, the female half of the couple is strong.  They currently live in one of the units, but they keep thinking they'll have to move out because they only have one income.  Our friends, Ashley and Kurt were the other couple.  She's pregnant, and their first child is testing high for lead.  They need to get out of their old Fishtown house.  Rather than say, "no" to either of them, Johnny suggested (in a heated phone conversation with Tim about TAKING RESPONSIBILITY) that WE move out.  I said, "Let's go!"  We saw 2 places the morning of the party.  One was small and smelled like dog, and the big kids dumped Toby out of the hammock they had in the foyer.  The other was bigger and smelled like the oil tank that had been leaking for the past 3 years.  Despite the stench and the beeping batteries in the smoke alarms in the house, the kids chose the second house.

The house is currently 11 minutes from the kids' school (although a 2-year-long traffic diversion is supposed to ruin that)  The plan is to fix it up, move there for two years while we build our dream house in Northern Liberties, and then we'll flip it.  It was $174,000, so it's got nowhere to go but up, right?  So now on top of his 2 full-time jobs: teaching and running an architecture firm, Tim has taken  managing what he hopes will be a month-long renovation project.

I'm just excited for a change and a massive PURGE.  I mentioned how stressful it is to own nice stuff in my last blog.  Our current place at Thin Flats is so nice...WAS so nice.  It deserves better.  Our car was so nice when we bought it a year ago....

yes, that's a melted crayon, a wretched thermos filled with dried kale smoothie, and a festering sleepy time vanilla tea thermos inside a sticky coffee cup....that's where the ADULTS sit...






Speaking of cars.  My dad visited last weekend.  He turned 80 on June 6.  Our MIT niece, Brittney, turned 20 on June 2.  We all descended on Nanny's house for a Gemini birthday bash.  Brittney is a vegan; my dad is obsessed with longevity; and Johnnie kills it at the grill with the veggies.  All my dad could say on the ride home was, "Jesus, I embarrassed myself deah (dear) I gwoa-jd (gorged) myself!  Those VEGETABLES!!!!!"  We hung around for quite a while because Johnnie time is about 2 hours later than Patrick time which is about 1.5 hours past Tim/Carol time.  The kids don't care.  When they're at nanny's all rules are off.  They get to watch crap TV and eat pretzels.  My dad was happy.  He had a new audience.  He's either a complete hermit or a comedian.  Patrick and his high school friend, Tommy, were mesmerized by Peter's accent and his stories.




Peter went to both Princeton and Hahvahd Lo-wah (Harvard Law) with Ralph Nader.  Somehow he was regaling Pat and Tommy with stories of Ralph.  Ralph and Peter had almost gotten expelled from Harvard because they copied and shared the exams from the previous year with a posse from their class.  Ralph was off trying to import serapes from Mexico when it all went down.  The climax of Peter's story involves Ralph loping across campus in a serape with the dean and 5 horn-rimmed-glasses/Brooks-Brother-suit-bedecked classmates anxiously awaiting his arrival to clear them of malfeasance.  That story went down well, so Peter went into Ralph Nader's bio a little more deeply.  He started talking about Ralph's book on Cah Crashes.  (Car Crashes)  Pat and Tommy were rapt, so Peter kept going.  Things unravelled when Peter said he came across a terrible Cah Crash on Route 95.  Pat asked incredulously, "WHO WERE YOU WITH????"  Confused, Peter said he was alone in his car.  For the entire story, Pat and Tommy had been hearing the words COCK RASH instead of CAR CRASH.  (Was Pat picturing my dad's passenger dropping his drawers in the front seat on 95????")

The story has a bad ending.  In general my dad feels pretty good about how he's looking and feeling at 80.  He prides himself on his ability to play on words.  His not hearing "cock rash" and his temporary bafflement by Tommy's and Pat's confusion was a huge blow to his ego.  I'm sure he's still pissed about it, and here I was trying to make his 80th special!  How do I feel when my conspicuously absent dad shows up for McDonald family functions talking about jock itch?  I spent a lot of my life trying to heed all of my dad's decrees, but now I have to balance his with the equally forceful decrees of my kids.  "Deah, when you're interviewing with a woman, put your hair up.  When you're interviewing with a man, wear it down."  (It's worked for me all my life.  Craft shows are populated by women...ponytail it is.  When my dad is here, down it goes.)  BUT, despite my fathers constant caveat that long dresses make tall women look like curtains, the one maxi dress I own is my daughters' FAVORITE look.  Risking hearing my dad bellow something negative about "MU MU'S," I wore my hair down for him and the maxi dress for the girls-democratic as always.  It was great to have him; I wish he'd come down and gwoaj himself more often.

The end of the school year is such chaos in general-gemini birthdays aside.  I have constant shame that I'm not the recess mom, the PTA mom, the kindergarten aid mom.  Of course, when my half-hearted pledge to chaperone the kindergarten field trip to the aquarium was accepted I WAS THRILLED!!!!  It actually wasn't so bad.  They gave us 5 kids and let us do what we wanted.  My life is managing 3, so 5 for 3 hours wasn't a huge push.  I also know the aquarium pretty well, so my hideous lack of orientation didn't factor in.  My phone did die, so meeting the 1:00 deadline at the bus was challenging in the dark.  Towards the end of our stay, I lead everyone to the outdoors penguins, so I could see who had a watch and could ask them the time.  Whiling away 35 minutes with 5 exhausted kindergarteners in 90 degee weather in front of lackadaisical penguins should be an Olympic sport.  Thankfully the penguin with the ankle tag number 6195 swam up to us, looked meaningfully into our 12 eyes, and took a cloudy white penguin dump in the water right in front of us.  I put on penguin voice and introduced myself as 6195, but you can just call me 5 because I feel we are so close.  I didn't expect to hit this level of intimacy so soon, but so it is....I don't normally poop RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU ALL!!!!!!  I'm not sure what I had for breakfast.  I feel so ashamed!!!!! For the next 30 minutes and for the 45 on the bus the boys in the group demanded, "DO NUMBER 5!!!!!!"  So now I'm Steel's mom, the one who talks about penguins pooping for the next 8 years.  I also let them horse around on the escalators.  Steel fell and got a massive, band-aid requiring gash on her shin.  I also committed the Green Woods Charter School sin of messing up the waters of two students.  Sharing is NOT ALLOWED with food at Green Woods.  I gave Gia's pristine water to Ryan, leaving her with Ryan's backwashed-cracker-filled-semi-clear one.  I've probable gotten myself out of chaperoning field trips for the foreseeable future.

Speaking of bad parenting decisions, I made an epic one after Toby's ballet recital.  This ballet thing is no joke.  There were Saturday rehearsals.  The 3-page single spaced instructions for recital day scared the crap out of me, but we made it through, and 13 McDonald-family-Toby supporters filled a whole row at the theater.  It was actually one of the most moving 2 hours I've had in a while.  Jacquetta, the head of the ballet school had chosen a Maya Angelou poem, "Phenomenal Woman" to be a theme for a couple of the older kids' dances.  When Maya died, Jacquetta carried the theme throughout the show.  Each dance started with a Maya Angelou quote delivered a by solemn little dancer.  Living Arts Dance is one of the few things we do in Philly that is truly diverse.  With my WASPy New England sensibilities, I was honestly wondering how it was going to come together.  Over half of the older girls are either overweight or obese.  The recital still brings tears to my eyes.  By far the most amazing dancer was a girl who is carrying at least 40 extra pounds.  She was astonishing.  Each of the dancers appeared to have a McDonald-size posse there supporting her.  Jacquetta MC'ed with poise and love and tears.  It was life-affirming and perfect.


A super-amazing bonus to the already amazing recital was the introduction of the sock bun to our lives.  Each of us has a sock buried into our hair in these photos.  It takes 20 seconds to do, lasts all day, and only works with dirty hair.  I honestly couldn't have dreamt a more perfect hairdo for all of us.

A bunch of us went out for food after the recital, and we had a few margaritas.  The recital was perfect.  The after party became a train wreck.  Toasts and tell-alls abounded.  The kids were almost asleep in the booth when we left the restaurant.  Somehow Tim had doused Steel with water.  She was LIVID.  In my drunken attempt to appease her, I asked some outdoors diners whether I could take their pint of water.  They obliged.  I gave it to Steel and told her to douse her dad with it.  Of course it shattered on the pavement, and Steel's hysteria rose exponentially.  Who the hell gives a 6 year old a glass pint of water off of a random person's table to pitch at her dad?

The same person who decided to make egg cups without measuring.....

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?