Bad bus behavior and true love

"Mom, I'm very discerning about cake and quinoa.  I don't really like that cake."  I wish I could say the same.  I've eaten half of it.  He said he wanted a tombstone cake, but apparently this wasn't the right shape of tombstone.  It does kind of look like a fire hydrant.  JP got kicked off of the school bus for 3 days this week because he got out of his seat.  The bus driver, our beloved Clarence, told him to sit down.  He didn't listen.  Clarence had to pull the bus over to sort it out.  This is the Clarence who picks Jack Peter up at the door of the house and drops him off at aftercare for us.  He's added an extra 8 hours to my week by doing that.  For the first 2 weeks of the year I had to bustle the girls and Jack Peter out to the bus stop down the street and wait for 10 minutes.  I would have had to leave the studio 2 hours early to meet him on the back end.  After that initial 2 weeks Clarence knows he's no longer being followed by his higher-ups.  He, then, tailors his route to accommodate kids and their families.  

Crossing Clarence called for drastic measures:  we cancelled Jack Peter's bounce house, bacon, beer birthday bash.  (The beer was for the parents.)  It's his relentless optimism that really got him in trouble.  When asked why he didn't mind Clarence, he responded, "I didn't think he could see me!"  When we told him that we'd be taking 12 hours out of our week to get him to school and back for 3 days and that we were pissed about it, Jack Peter said, "I get to go in CAR LINE!  Rosie (his girlfriend) is in car line!"  When we told him we were canceling his birthday party, he initially didn't believe it.  He wept and moped for a couple of days.  His last comment about the subject was, "When I turn 8, my party is going to be HUGE!!!"  I guess I'll be sending out "save the date" cards in January; it's going to be a RAGER!

I wonder where Jack Peter gets that insane optimism.  I've had a rough 3 years.  I've essentially had an unsuccessful pregnancy every 6 months.  I stopped telling my mom about the pregnancies when we learned that Dick was sick.  I figured she didn't need anymore bad news or anything else to worry about.  Tim was gone last week, and she came to help.  She not only did a ton of kid stuff: picking them up, cooking, cleaning, homework, but also, she came to the studio and did annoying chores for me there.  She was waxing the bottoms of pots, and I was glazing, and I told her about my attempts to have a #4.  Her first reaction was a quiet, "That must have been so hard."  Not 5 minutes had gone by before she said, "Imagine how much you've saved on birth control!!!!"  I've been wondering about my lack of trauma when each pregnancy would end.  I'd be sad for a bit, and then I'd think, "Yay!  I'm going to have a DRINK tonight!"  It's as if we are chemically unable to achieve angst. I've started to refer to my uterus as "Babyschwitz."  That can't be OK...

Jack Peter was allowed back on the bus this morning.  By the time I'd arrived at the studio at 8:45, I had an e-mail from the school administrator telling me to call.  Jack Peter and Theodore had decided to play catch with their lunch boxes on the bus.  Tomorrow we have a conference with his teacher about Jack Peter's behavior in the classroom.  Why can't we have one of those kids who's crappy at home and great at school?  Oh yeah, we do...Steel.

Steel has actually calmed down at home, and she is a peach at school.  She's also in love.  It's a strong word, but it's really been quite a romance.  Jack Peter is friends with a twin duo, Owen and Cole.  Their mom, Deena, is my first Green Woods Charter School mom friend.  It started in the winter with a play date.  She followed up with an e-mail:

I remembered your saying something about the lunches you pack Jack Peter.... See if you can top this in the "why is my mom so weird" category:
today's menu:
home-made guacamole
organic corn chips 
cherry tomatoes
home-made corn bread
dried pomegranite
what's in your wallet?  any novel lunch ideas?  in like your "spare time" :)
hope your night is going better than mine...

My response:

Geez, i cant imagine having trouble with lunch.  we just give him an almond milk, kale, mango, blueberry smoothie every day!

ummmm...Jack peter has 2 lambchops, shelled edamame and grapes today.  I'd say we're on the same rung of Dante's inferno...

One of his stand-by lunches is black beans with melted cheese in thermos and tortilla chips to scoop them; I always squeeze lemon and a WEE bit of sugar on cut apples.  Miso soup used to be a good one: tofu, seaweed n miso-super easy.  Lentil soup from trader joes got rave reviews, Clam chowder, Pork, soyaki and mayo on ritz with cucumber on top.  He got teased for that.  Pork mush looked weird.  I do the same with tuna, but no soyaki, and usually olives in that one.  I often put salt and olive oil on halved grape tomatoes.  Steel used to like baked potatoes.  Quinoa pasta although I don't really see the quinoa benefit-no more protein than normal pasta; I can't get them to eat quinoa, but we like quinoa tabouli-almonds, carrots, scallions, a touch if cumin and agave, with chicken and either mint or cilantro.  BACON...Ants on a log?  (Celery p-butter, raisins)

Should I write a cookbook?  Yesterday a woman who just wrote a book on kids bento lunches was on NPR.  She cuts apples into pokeman characters.

Deena:

your message was hilarious.. thanks for a few good belly laughs.pokeman shaped apples slices- too funny- and I am so "not that mom "

Liz:

Oh I forgot, sometimes I just fill his little thermos with melted butter and throw a lobster in the bag.

If she and I had met in college, we'd have been talking about homo-erotic behavior of football players at frat parties or Is there major difference in sex with an uncircumcised guy versus a circumcised one? or Is that visiting professor hot or a dork?  Now an in-depth discussion of Craisins is the road to mom BFFs.  

Shortly after our first meeting, Deena and her husband were going to her 21st Who concert in Atlantic City, and the sitter fell through.  (I'm still having trouble with the Who thing. I had to see the faces of the Who every morning for a year as my first boarding school roommate had a poster of them on our wall.  They are not good-looking guys.)  I invited the boys to spend the night.  They met me at my house, and we walked to pick up my kids.  The first stop was the girls.  Steel and Toby popped out of the fray, and Steel met Owen face to face.  She gets very close to people when she first meets them.  Their faces were about 5 inches apart.  She gave him her usual, quizzical stare, and his body jolted like he'd had a little shock.  Steel and Owen got into the double stroller together while Cole and Toby walked to get JP.  They stayed like that until we got home.  

I always worry that Jack Peter and his boy friends will leave out the girls and be mean.  I kept Toby with me cooking dinner, figuring Steel could hold her own.  I called them all for dinner telling Owen and Cole that they could each sit next to JP.  Owen looked at me and said, "I want to sit next to Steel!"  "OK" I said.  "Who will take the pink cup?"  Owen said, "I want it!"  Even my girls won't take the pink cup.  (Steel had her super-bright pink hair at the time.  I attribute Owen's sudden, aggressive love of pink to that.)  Steel and Owen cuddled throughout the entire movie that followed dinner.  I got everyone to bed with Owen and Cole on the air mattress, and my kids in their beds.  When I went to check them an hour and a half later, Owen and Steel were asleep together in her bed.  We've seen them a few times since; I've heard about some closet kisses, but I've not seen the strange intensity of that first night and morning.   Recently, Steel, Toby, and I picked up JP at Owen and Cole's birthday party, and I did notice that Owen didn't even greet her, and my heart broke a little bit.  She said, confidently, "He didn't see me."

On mommy day this week, Steel spent a fair bit of time writing a note to Owen.  She had to ask me how to spell a lot of it, but I wasn't allowed to see the final thing as she had made an envelope for it.  Of course I peeked before I gave it to Deena Tuesday morning at school.  (One nice thing about the bus hiatus is that I've actually gotten to see how the school rolls , and I got to see Deena and meet a couple more moms)  

Owen, I just wanted you to know that I love you.  Steel  

Deena vowed to give it to Owen on his own, so he could digest it without getting ribbed by his dad or by Cole.  My heart leapt this morning when I saw what I thought was Owen's response written on a file card.

Steel, I love you.  Owen

I texted a picture to Deena, and she said, "What?  I haven't had a moment to give Steel's note to Owen!"  We spent the day hypothesizing.  All of our theories were proved wrong.  Owen wrote the note to Steel on Tuesday and had Jack Peter deliver it without knowing that Steel had just written him.  It's uncanny.  They haven't seen each other for over a month.  Owen went into his room on his own to read the note.  He came out beaming and told Deena she could read it.  She did.  He said, "Can you read it out loud; I want to make sure I got it all."  After reading it, Deena gushed, "Owen, it's so great that you're friends and you love each other!"  His solemn response, "Mom, it's a bit more than that!"  

At least I'll get along with one set of in-laws....

Yarn Bombing (after the Boston Marathon bombing)

Susie skirt at the Kennedy Center

The runners of Philadelphia wore Red Sox shirts this evening to commemorate the Boston Marathon Bombings.  I told my kids to say, "Go Red Sox!" to the joggers as they passed.  Some of them gave us thumbs up, and I started to blubber.

The girls and I had abandoned dinner to pick Jack Peter up at karate.  His karate teacher, Sensei Brandon, speaks to Jack Peter in a Samuel L. Jackson voice.  As I grabbed the bag with Jack Peter's karate uniform, Sensei Brandon commanded, "Jack Peter, YOUR MOTHER does not carry your karate uniform; you are IN CHARGE of your uniform."  It's amazing how quickly Jack Peter will man up for Sensei Brandon.  I imagine Jack Peter's four uncles doing the same for the infamous "Grandpa Jack."  I adore the manliness of my husband and his brothers.  I'm glad someone is here to prompt my son in that direction because it's not happening over here in glitter-shoe-pink-hair-knit-skirt fairy land.

Jack Peter even pushed the girls in the stroller for half a block.  Another deep-voiced black man had watched JP hop onto the stroller and said, "You should be pushing that stroller; what are you doing in there?"  To my surprise, Jack Peter hopped out, told me to walk ahead and pushed for half a block until the front wheel tapped the heel of my boot, the stroller bounced back and hit him in the nose.  Steel jumped out of her seat, guided him into it and tried to make him laugh so he'd stop howling while Toby stroked him with her little fat hand. God, I hope they always have each other's backs like that.

This evening the pictures of the "suspects" in the bombing were released by the FBI.  They look no older than my oldest niece.  That fact makes me as sad as knowing that one of the victims was about Jack Peter's age.  Tim just rejected a job in Boston at Northeastern University.  Neither of us was prepared to move to Boston despite his admiration for the program at Northeastern and for the academic environment of the Boston area.  I feel like a sham being overwrought about the "Boston Marathon Bombings," but I cannot help it.  To the untrained, not-from-New England-ear, my father's thick Rhode Island accent is the same as the ones we've been hearing on the radio deflecting the inquiries of the press.  Not too many years ago, my mother and her, now deceased, soulmate were at that finish line cheering on his daughter as she crossed the finish line.  Most of my high school shenanigans occurred in Boston.  I am linked to that city whether I admit it or not.  I listen to the stories of the stalwart Bostonians and can't help but feel pride.  In the next breath I feel shame at this sudden, emotional appropriation of my Massachusetts roots.

What is it to be from Massachusetts?  I can tell you that my mother is busy knitting red, white and blue skirts for me, Steel, Toby, Gillian (my niece) Jana (my sister in law) Hope (my god daughter) to wear on the 4th of July.  The 4th of July celebration in my town is not unlike Patriot's Day in Boston just on a smaller scale without any major sporting events except for watching the hot-dog-eating-people on TV at the end of the parade.  Why is my mom knitting those skirts? 1. because we will look so cute at the 4th of July parade where we will see all of her friends. 2. because she lost her soul mate on Labor Day, and that is the productive way in which she grieves.  I believe that both of those reasons are what it is to be from Massachusetts, and you can bet that she's getting all of that yarn on sale too.

These are just mine...I owned the one Jen is wearing and dyed it for her because she's not really a pink person.  If I had a dime for every person who asked me for either a skirt or the pattern, and if I had a penny for each time Jen gets asked....

At some point during that 4th of July celebration, one or both of my girls will remove their shirts because it will be hot, and they will be sticky with the candy that gets thrown from the fire engines in the parade.  They will be wearing the skirts and sandals and nothing else.  Is unabashed nudity part of being from Massachusetts?  I don't know.  I do know that my mother sewed my bikini bottoms for most of my childhood.  I suppose I should really say "monokini;" she refused to sew a top "until you have something to put in it."   To her friends she would say, "I won't have my daughter sexualized by a ridiculous 2-piece bathing suit!"  Sadly, I still don't have anything to put in my top, but when I see little girls at the Jersey shore in their hoochie-mamma spangly 2-piece swimsuits, I understand.  

My mom routinely scaled three flights of stairs naked in my youth until the washing machine was moved from the basement to the 3rd floor.  Then she only had to streak down the hall if she forgot the fabric softener.  I watched my father's morning routine EVERY morning.  I just loved the bristle-y sound of the razor on his whiskers.  On a good day, he'd dot my nose with shaving cream or my mom would give me a spray of her Chanel #5.  My dad was immodest until I turned 12, then the towel went on in the shower before he emerged.  I'd see his disembodied arm reaching for the towel as mine does at the YMCA when I come out of the showers.

I've had two brushes with my lenient attitude towards nudity in the past two weeks.  I went swimming last Saturday at the Y.  I usually go with the kids, but Tim urged me to go on my own.  He and I had taken advantage of my mother's presence and gone out to a bar the night before.  In a drunken moment of "clarity," I'd told him that I was finally extricating myself from my desire to have a 4th child.  A hungover swim was necessary the next morning.  To get to the pool, one walks through the showers.  I always take the locker next to the door to the showers, so I can grab my (completely dry) towel as I re-enter the locker room.  I don't like carrying it into the pool.  I swam, showered and opened the door to the locker room fixing to grab the towel and staunch my naked floor drips.  I was greeted by a woman sitting on the bench in front of "my" locker.  She had an incredibly adorable 5-month-old girl in a snuggly strapped to her expansive chest.  I was paralyzed, swooning over this gorgeous baby forgetting entirely about grabbing my towel.  The baby's 3-year-old sister danced around as I cooed.  I couldn't ignore the 3-year-old, so I, the naked white lady, chatted with her, as well.  Meanwhile, poor mom of 4 was shouting at her two boys to "TURN AROUND AND FACE THE WALL!!!!!"  She was in there with 4 kids trying to get them all ready for the pool.  She was perfectly happy to talk to me about her gorgeous baby; she'd just snap at the boys periodically, "FACE THE WALL!"  I finally realized that, as much as she loved my adoration of her youngest, my presence was creating anarchy in the other 3.  I slunk off to the curtained changing area with my bag.  As they all left the locker room for the pool, I heard her shouting to the boys, "WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AROUND FOR????? SHE'S GONE!  GET INTO THE SHOWERS!!!!"  


The only thing I take away from that experience is that I can still bring Jack Peter into the women's locker room for 2 more years.  Her boys were 5 and 8.  The policy at the Y is that one can have kids of the opposite gender in the parent's locker room until they are 5.  I sent Jack Peter into the men's room once because we'd gone with his friend, Caspar.  Caspar said that a naked man was saying "potty talk."  I'm not sure if that was just a guy on his phone changing into his clothes or something weird.  Jack Peter did not corroborate the story, but it was enough for me to think twice about making JP deal with the men's locker room on his own for a while.  From that baby meltdown, I also should admit that I'm not fully committed to giving up on a 4th child.

I did test the theory that Steel is looking embarrassed in this image because we are wearing the same skirt.  I copied her green Susie skirt/black tee outfit exactly, and she was pleased.  My mom has knit 3 matching skirts for Heather and her 2 girls.  The older, in Kindergarten, said, "Mom, we are never going to be twinsies, alright?!  If I'm wearing mine, you CAN'T wear yours!"  I'll be so sad if Steel is like that in a year's time...

The second nudity issue happened at the park.  The girls and I stopped to play before getting Jack Peter.  Steel was flipping around on the swings and bars.  Every time I saw her knickers, I'd sing, "I see London; I see France; I see Steely's underpants!"  I left the girls to the play equipment to hang out with a girlfriend.  All of a sudden 2 black women were screaming at me..."Your girl's underwear are showing!!!!!"  My response was, "We don't really care about that sort of thing, but thank you."  Was I referring to white people from Massachusetts when I said "we?"  I'm still not sure what I should have done.  I used to have blue leotard-material "bloomers" to put over my underwear when I was doing penny drops in 4th grade, but that was way back when knickers were all white and knicker-looking.  Steel's were a very bikini-esque blue.  Also, I was 10; she's FIVE.  Who cares about her cute little undies???

I might as well move from nudity to public urination.  Yesterday, poor Toby had to confront the fact that she will never pee standing up with any aplomb.  We had taken 30 minutes to pull ourselves out of what was supposed to be and early Sunday dinner with friends.  The house was big enough that 5 kids disappeared while we drank a new drink...Dark and Stormies; I'd happily have sat there all night.  I suddenly realized that Monday and possibly the whole week was going to be hell if my kids weren't sleeping in the next 17 minutes.  Toby announced as we were finally getting into the mini van, "I have to pee!"  We were not going back into the house.  I held her as she "popped a squat" in my friends' yard.  (I'd never heard that term.  Deena told me that Toby could "pop a squat" in her yard anytime in response to my guilty, "i let my girl pee in your yard" text.)  Toby had attempted to do it standing, but she's still small enough that I can pull her pants down to her ankles, flip her around and bend her over in a pretty fluid motion.  I think she was disappointed.

Queen's Fat-bottomed Girls rocked the Honda Odyssey on our way home.  As we flew down the off ramp from 676 Toby asked, "Mama, are WE fat-bottomed girls?"  I replied, "Well, it's all relative.  Living in Philly, we don't really have any claims to that title, but I'll put it this way, if you grow up looking like me, it's more likely you'll be with a bottom guy than top guy." (especially if you keep wearing those flouncy Grandma Susie numbers...)

I cried a little again listening to the coverage of Boston's attempts to return to normalcy this morning.  Unravelling the root of my sadness has been hard.  I feel lucky and happy so much of the time.  I get weepy and proud when I watch runners cross the finish line of the marathon.  I feel connected to their triumph.  I'm uplifted by their accomplishment maybe because I too, once ran a marathon.  But I feel the same pride watching anyone try hard and succeed because we are all connected.  Conversely,  I feel so sad when two brothers, 19 and 26 arrive at the conclusion that bombing innocent people is the right decision.  We are all failing, and I have no idea what to do about it.

California girls in Susie skirts.  It's a nationwide revolution....

multi-tasking

I'm brining a turkey as we speak.  At one moment today I was brining a turkey, dying a lightening bolt into my son's hair, working at the studio and resisting the temptation to micro-manage my new studio assistant with some very intricate bubble wrapping.  If I'd answered the phone, I'd have been talking to my mom, as well.  Maybe that's why I liked being pregnant so much.  I could have been doing all that AND making a baby.

Right now I'm in charge of 4 kids who are watching Return of the Jedi for movie night.  In full-disclosure of my multi-tasking scenario, I might add that I'm on my second rye and ginger of the evening.  I think of myself as someone who recognizes and craves the finer things in life.  My relationship to rye and ginger is an anomaly.  Rye and ginger is a "Nanny drink."  Tim's mom started us on them.  For her, it has to be Canada Dry Ginger Ale, but she's never balked at Windsor Canadian, the cheaper version of Canadian Club.  There's an even CHEAPER version, Canadian Gold with which I made her a drink 2 nights ago.  She didn't bring it up, but, when prodded, she admitted that it might not be as smooth as Canadian Club.  Honestly I sort of like that rough edge; I'm becoming a cheap date.

One of the four kids, Jerrod, is not mine.  He's been eating since he walked in the door 3 hours ago.  He's onto the pistachios now.  On his way back to the movie room, he asked me for a bowl for the shells.  I handed him one, and he said wide-eyed, "You gotta alotta small bowls!" in his perfect, "What you talkin' about, Willis?" black urban accent.  I said, "Jerrod, I make small bowls for a living."  He looked at the side of his bowl, shrugged and walked back into the movie room.  He's not impressed.

In, yet another attempt to multi-task, I agreed to let a friend, Gavin, film me at the studio answering a few questions.  He's got a great gig casting for a Walmart "Real Mom" campaign.  Every Tuesday, for a year, he needs to come up with four moms who will agree to do their shopping on camera.  Two of the four get $250 to shop and then another $250 credit at Walmart.  One of them has to do a commercial.  Usually Gavin puts an ad on Craigslist telling moms to video tape themselves answering 5 questions.  He forwards the videos to some guy in California, and that's it.  He forgot to place the Craigslist ad, so he had to come up with some moms fast.  I figured the pink hair would be a Walmart ad deterrent.  Although honestly, my multi-tasking capabilities did not extend to thinking through the humiliation of having all of Philadelphia and South Jersey witness my mock surprise in a Walmart ad.

Heather was the other mom.  We caravanned to a random New Jersey Starbuck's to meet with the little marketing team.  They gave us $250, and we were let loose to shop at Acme. (a local grocery store) Heather and I had spent an entire swim at the pool and another phone conversation plotting what we would buy.  We could spend $250, but only on 40 items.  It was challenging to come up with that many over $5 things at a grocery store.  Both of us are from New England.  Clearly we weren't going to get 40 items that came to a penny under $250.

We convened at Walmart to have the contents of our carts analyzed.  The pink hair theory wasn't looking good.  One of the marketing people had a dyed black overgrown mohawk with clippered pink hair on the sides of her head.  The camera guy had shaved eyebrows and a purple/black goth look.

During the cart analysis Heather and I were treated to a tour of the 250,000 sq. foot Walmart by Chris, the rotund manager.  He was probably a good looking guy in high school.  He commented on his weight every few minutes.  He presents his love of food like a fascinating hobby.  Some people play piano; others knit.  Chris eats.  Both Heather and I immediately digressed into our brown-noser-in-high-school persona.  We feigned interest, asking pertinent questions about his Walmart.  Chris happily responded, and it was fun for the first twenty minutes.  An hour and a half later I could only assume that Chris had a little crush on Heather.  He'd gone into excruciating detail about his saga with Walmart's corporate headquarters in procuring pork roll for his store.  With a proud swipe of a borrowed inventory gun we marveled at how many pork rolls Chris has sold in the past 3 months.  I'm still wondering what percentage of those went home with Chris.  I'd never heard of pork roll.  Shocked, he went into the dietary needs of his mostly-Italian demographic.  He was getting a little too deep into the Feasts of the 7 Fishes and directing the bulk of the information to poor Heather.  I finally said, "Chris! Heather's kids are named Luca, Ciela, and Gia; She could write a book on Jersey WOP culture."

Sadly, the commercial mom is picked by the percentage of savings she would have gotten at Walmart on her shopping trip.  My olive oil and Starbucks coffee put me in a 19% savings category.  Heather's Doritos and Reynolds Wrap left her with only a 17% savings.  Even though she would have been way cuter on camera, and she would have been happy to leave Rene, her husband, to cope for a day, Heather got to go home.  I, on the other hand, had to say, "Awesome!" and "Great!" for the next 6 hours.

My first issue was the make-up artist.  She listened to my "less is more" caveat in all areas but lip gloss.  I could feel strands of it connecting my lips when I spoke.  At 39, I would have just gooped my way through, assuming that she's the expert, but I'm 43 now, so I actually said something every time she re-applied.  The next problem was my inability to stop saying "Oh my God!"  The chunky Mormon girl from Walmart Headquarters with iridescent purple eye shadow followed us around on the shoot making sure that no legal boundaries were crossed.  Once she'd told me I couldn't say "Oh my God!" it was impossible for me to stop.  In the bathroom, not peeing on the shackle-like microphone stuck to the back of my leggings while worrying whether the sound guy was listening proved difficult as well.

Thankfully there was Dave.  Dave is the actor who has to explain gleefully on camera to moms every Tuesday how much they would have saved had they shopped at Walmart.  Dave abandoned teaching elementary school after a after a talent show because a student's mom responded to Dave's skit with another teacher, "You're good at that!  You should be an actor!"  

Dave hopped down the aisle with my Starbuck's coffee in an Easter basket singing Here comes Peter Cottontail effortlessly springing into his spiel.  He could look directly into the camera with the right amount of handsome authority, jauntily discussing savings percentages while helping me not collapse into a puddle of "Oh my God's!"  That's serious multi-tasking, and it's his gift.  I'd just been discussing Justin Timberlake with poor Shaina, my new studio assistant.  (Poor Shaina because she has to listen to me talk about stupid crap like Justin Timberlake's willingness to flog Bud Lite) Why the hell would he want to do that?  He doesn't need the money?  I asked Dave if he got famous, would he still do a Bud Lite ad?  He said, "I can't answer that."  Maybe doing a Bud Lite ad for Justin Timberlake is like my making a lamp finial.

I had an experience 10 years ago that gave me great admiration for models.  I got a call from Danny, my English stylist friend in San Francisco, "CHICKEN, all of my models are too skinny, and YOU'RE TOO FAT!  You need to have a 26" waist in 2 weeks to model a $10,000 wedding dress on the local morning TV show."  I ate oranges and soup for 2 weeks, and the dress was swimming on me.  A professional model, my friend, Jennifer, and I had to turn around on a little stage in these dresses and smile.  I was appalled at how effortless the model and Jen flowed as they spun around.  I looked like the dwarf next to the little girl in this Velasquez painting.  I just don't have that fluid, "Look at me, I'm fantastic" gene. 

Tim has gotten countless texts saying, "Did I just see your wife in a Walmart ad?"  Picking up Jack Peter at after care, I was greeted with, "When did you start working for the devil?"  Apparently there was a print ad too, so I could also be humiliated in front of people who don't watch TV, as well.  Perhaps my Walmart ad is running at the same time that I'm blogging.  I can be blogging and flogging at the same time.  There's always a silver lining.

Jesus and feathering lipstick

So Tim left this morning for DC.  He's gone for 2 days.  I need to get used to it because he's going to be teaching in DC and in NYC for the next few months.  Can't he find teaching jobs that don't interfere with trash night?  He DID empty the dishwasher at 6 am which is basically foreplay and made me my smoothie and salad.  However, he also bought 8 boxes of Girl Scout cookies and left me alone with them.  I keep walking up to the Samosa's and saying in a sultry french voice, under my breath, "So, my darlings, we meet again."  I stole that line from Colin, a college friend, who greeted a Sara Lee coffee cake in that manner for an entire weekend until it was gone.

I've had low expectations for this week.  First, I cannot get the Taylor Swift song, "We will NEVER EVER EVER get back together" out of my head.  Tim has been complaining about having "Farmer's Daughter" from Steel's Country Men Mix stuck in his head.  My sympathy isn't high because it's a better song, and Tim actually has to use his head during the day.  I can have a song go through my brain every 30 seconds for 8 hours when I'm glazing.

Speaking of glazing.  I've spoken before about my inability to withstand my pepto pink glaze.  I've had numerous people tell me how much they hate it.  The best was the following description accompanying an order:
My tendency is to like sad, snot dripping melodic music, w/a shimmering,  life validating inner resonnance.  Sure, it's so f.......g easy to say I like urbchic whites, golds and stoneware's lite blues.  I stand by  my  political views - to totally despise pink and everything it stands for. Who lives that life? Let's just walk away and say my pain is between Adele and Munchausen by Proxy.
This morning,with a subject line "Pink" I sent him this image with the following text:
I can't help it!  This morning's kiln offerings look so cute with my scary breakfast smoothie.  Don't worry, next week it'll be all the moody, angst-ridden, nihilistic pots.
His response:
It's the diabolical pink straw that makes it gangster.
You give me too much credit. Nihilism requires the realization of a moral dissolution.
Superficial ambiguity is more my style.
I really shouldn't complain about things when most of the people I deal with in my professional life are cooky gallery owners who don't bat an eye at being sent a random iPhone picture of a cappuccino cup and a collard green smoothie at 8:45 am on a Thursday.  I can't imagine what would happen if I had a real job.

I responded that if he found the straw diabolical, he should have seen the lipstick I nicked off of Steel to wear.  Straws ARE diabolical.  I've been trying to kick my straw habit.  My mom is a straw addict.  She washes hers.  I'm pretty green, but washing straws and ziplock bags really bugs me.  If I'm going to have a straw, I want a new one.  I'd be lying if I said I was trying to quit straws because of the trash factor.  It's the sucking.  Make-up people talk about lipstick "feathering" meaning it's going into the tiny wrinkles around your lips and making little lines around your mouth.  "Feathering" is a really nice way to say, "Your lipstick is foreshadowing how you'll look when you're corpse," assuming I live long enough to be old and super-wrinkly.  I'm making a conscious effort to smile more when I'm alone at the studio, and I'm going to stop sucking on things to stave off those hideous mouth wrinkles.  Some mornings, though, I just need a straw.

Tim is actually gone, but he's also metaphorically gone.  He's on the wagon again: reason number 2 for low expectations this week.  I'm trying to be supportive, but last night my kiln went late, and it fired poorly.  I NEEDED a rye and ginger.  This morning, I had the genius idea to pack a half a grapefruit in Steel's and Jack Peter's lunches.  They each only ate a third.  I took that as a sign that I should have a vodka/grapefruit to help me through trash night.  Sadly that's been accompanied by another and 8 girl scout cookies.  I want to start an alternative girl scout troop.  We'll make baked goods without high fructose corn syrup and all the other crap.  We'll sell them, and then use the proceeds to take the RV "camping."

My third reason for low expectations this week is that it's pledge week on NPR, but I've discovered KLUV. It's theme is, "positive and enthusiastic radio!"  I have not gone online to sign up for the 30-day challenge, only positive, enthusiastic Christian Music for a month, but I'm pretty taken with the station.  It's helping with my smile-more-at-the-studio agenda.  Let me ask you, if being a Christian were illegal, would there be enough evidence to indict you?  What?  That line almost got Taylor Swift out of my head.  What would it take to make me believe?  If I did listen to KLUV, and then I managed to write a book and have a 4th child, and my lipstick stopped feathering would I think that God or Jesus helped me?  I doubt it.

One of the positive and enthusiastic stories was about a burglar coming into a jewelry party.  Women have moved onto selling jewelry instead of tupperware or cosmetics.  The hostess screamed at him, "In the name of Jesus, get out of my house!"  All of the ladies started shouting JESUS! JESUS! JESUS!  The robber left.  One can deduce that Jesus was, in fact, there.  Maybe the NRA people need to hear that story.  See!  We don't need guns; Jesus will come!  Don't they all believe in Jesus?

My favorite story was about a female pianist and marshall artist.  She just got into the Guinness Book of Worlds Records because she's the first woman WITH NO ARMS to get a pilots' license.  The moral of the story is "Are your limitations really limitations?"  It made me think of my favorite friend of Tim's, 1-armed-Mike.  He came in drunk one night bitching about how hard it is to deal with cling wrap with only one arm.  Yeah, she can fly a plane, and play Chopin with her feet, but I'd like to see her wrap up a tuna sandwich!  The dj's also discuss challenges people face.  Weight challenges kept coming up, so I found myself adding lines into the songs.  "I was at the bottom again....of a bag of Doritos."

The songs are modified rock ballads and anthems.  Instead of "I want to f__k you forever" it's "Jesus is with you forever" It takes a minute to realize that they are all about Jesus.  One of the every-hour hits has the unintelligible line: "stuck in a valley of a shadow of death." He must be talking about lipstick feathering.

Saving the best for last

"WHAT'S MY NAME?  SKIP?" is usually shouted at a McDonald family gathering if one forgets to deliver a snack or drink to any of the 14 people sprawled on the couch in a post-roast coma watching a holiday special from the 60's.  I'm imagining that is what cousin Ashley barked when Jack Peter kissed everyone on the couch good-night but her.  He had, in fact, forgotten her, but without missing a beat, he pointed at her with two hands, sidled over, and said with slitted bedroom eyes, "I was saving the best for last!"

What?!  Where does that come from?  His dad and I are not the most suave people on Earth.  Tim took Toby with him to do some Christmas shopping on a cold morning in December.  She was perched on his shoulders walking down 2nd street.  I'm sure they were both happily chatting away.  A woman came up to Tim with a pained look on her face and said, "Sir, you might want to pull your daughter's pants up."  Her bare ass was wrapped around his neck like a stole for 4 blocks.  It was 35 degrees out.  How did neither of them notice that?

I remember in 4th grade being asked by my Aunt Penny if I had a crush on anyone in my new school.  My temples throbbed with the rush of blood that went to my face and I willed the back seat of their red Chevy station wagon to suck me down and dump me onto the road.  I did have a crush on Frankie Brown, and I was utterly humiliated that it had been detected by my best friend's mom.  Jack Peter (6) announced nonchalantly that he has a girlfriend and that he'd kissed her.  The hussy demanded a kiss at recess the day after Jack Peter had entered THE RED ZONE, punishment for two offenses: talking in class and bumming a cracker off of his friend at lunch.  Food sharing is against the rules.  According to Jack Peter this kid can spare a cracker or two "He's CHUBBY, and he's always going to be until 8th grade," but that's not the issue.

I'd told JP that movie night was going to be rescinded unless he stayed on green all day, AND he shut out Team NPA.  He wept and wailed, "I cant control team NPA!!!", but I held fast.  I must have been trying to prepare for the holiday break.  We spend it with my brother's family every year.  The subtext to any of the vacations with Curt's family is that he and his wife are better parents than Tim and I because they are better at disciplining their children.  I admit, Owen, Gillian and Kellan ARE better behaved.  For a few months after we see them, I can reign in my girls by saying, "Would GILLIAN be screaming and crying and freaking out the way you are right now?  NO she wouldn't; she'd roll with it!!!  (Incidentally, the only thing that really gets Gillian mad is Jack Peter's torturing her with The Magic 8 Ball.  He'd ask it repeatedly whether or not Gillian was his girlfriend and then he'd scream out the affirmative answers: YOU MAY RELY ON IT!!! WITHOUT A DOUBT! YES, DEFINITELY!)

I don't know what the Green Woods Charter School stance is on PDA, but if Jack Peter had lost movie night for kissing Rosalie Trojan, it might have affected his sex life forever!  Tim picks up the kids at the end of the day.  There were butterflies in my stomach when I texted How many points for NPA?  The joy I felt at seeing the response, 0, was completely disproportionate to the situation.  Yes, I am crap at disciplining my kids.


I always, think of Steel as a mini-me.  She's crafty, she's got WAY too much energy.  Her body is straight, strong and lean.  But, like Jack Peter, she's MUCH cooler than I will ever be, and I'm pretty sure she's smarter. This isn't the best example, but we were looking for sneakers online before school.  Jack Peter and Toby picked out light-up ones.  I showed Steel her light-up options, and she looked at me disdainfully and said, "I don't want light-up sneakers!"  as if I'd offered her a pacifier and a teething toy.  She's already finding the Santa story to be suspect.  Who questions Santa at 5?

I was wearing cat-eye make up the other day, and she told me it was WAY too make-up-y.  I'd have died with happiness if I'd seen my mom in cat-eye make-up.  It was foggy, and I told her that my brother used to tell me that fog was clouds that tripped and fell.  She looked at me and said, "What would they trip over?"  (omitted but implied: dumb-ass!)  If Curt had been Steel's older brother he would never have gotten her to chew up a mouthful of peppercorns by saying, "Open your mouth and close your eyes; I'll give you a BIG SURPRISE!"  I believed/trusted my brother because I admired him, and I wanted to please him.  I was/am inherently a pleaser, and I rarely bother to question authority.  Not one of my kids shares this trait.


My brother's kids have responded to his disciplining because THEY ARE LIKE ME!  I'd like to see how his methods would work with MY kids-probably as well as my mom's disciplining worked on HIM.

When I watched the Rosalie video, I remembered that Jack Peter and Steel were making out in the shower the night before.  It had struck me as a little odd, but I hadn't wanted to make a big deal about it.  I asked him if he'd been practicing the night before on Steel, and he said "Yes!"  I admire his foresight and planning, but ummmm....

$27,000 Concussion

A lot of my friends/family have dealt with concussions in their kids.  I remember having one of my own.  What cannot be conveyed is the ensuing desire to bubble wrap your child.  I've been fantasizing about making cool bubble wrap balaclava's for all three for Christmas.  Toby fell down a spiral staircase at a friends' house the other night.  She lay on the floor with her arms in an odd position, her head hunched into her neck like the Barbie we have who's head won't stay on unless it's pushed way down.  Toby's eyes were wide open, and she was neither breathing nor crying.  She finally worked up to a dull moan.  It was, to date, the worst moment of my life.  (Or, at least, it rivaled getting the phone call last month, "Tim is in an ambulance; he's fallen off of a roof; we don't know any more.")  I was sure she was paralyzed.

We spent 2 days in the hospital.  The doctors/nurses are as professional as can be, but one cannot escape the feeling that her heath was not the reason for the prolonged stay.  Was it that we have private insurance? Was it liability?  We were told from the first morning that "she'll be getting discharged soon," and yet it didn't happen for another day and a half.  Since she's been home, she's been asleep 80% of the time.  Is she recuperating from the concussion or from the hospital stay?

At least I don't have to worry as much about Jack Peter.  He was born risk-averse.  I'll never forget driving by a playground when he was about 2.5.  Steel had suffered an egg-allergy episode, our only other ER visit with a kid.  Allergic was a big word around our house.  At that point Steel had tackled slides and other playground equipment that Jack Peter, 17-months-older, still shied away from.  He said quietly, from the back of the car, "Mom, I'm allergic to slides."

Just last week we were going over his EXTENSIVE Christmas list.  A Hubble Telescope is on there amidst every over-$200 lego product on Earth.  We were looking at pictures of space, and asked him if he wanted to be an astronaut.  "NO WAY!"  Tim and I looked at each other both thinking, "Dude, You're 6, what could be better than an astronaut?"  Eyebrows up Jack Peter looked at us and said, "There can be A LOT of problems with lift-off!"  He then went on to tell us about The Challenger.

Steel, meanwhile has no interest in Santa Claus.  Does she not want to be beholden to a big guy in a red suit?  She's not good at telling me what she wants, in general.  Her forte is telling me what she DOESN'T want.  It just occurred to me that my ordering instructions on my website are, "tell me what you DON'T like."  I suppose I'm wanting them to tell me what they don't like before I make them a cup they don't like.  Steel waits until afterwards to tell me that she didn't want what I put in her lunch.  She asked me for a Ken doll this morning.  I told her Santa might get her one.  She, said, "NO!  I want US to buy it."  My brother makes sure that Santa only gets the mediocre toys for his kids.  Mom and dad need the credit for the big ones.  Who should I say got Ken?

Speaking of mediocre, we got our first report card from JP's new school.  Jack Peter is reading with the fluency of a 6th grader in 1st grade.  I wasn't thrilled to see less-than-stellar grades from him.  We've had a parent/teacher conference about it.  Apparently he just can't sit still and pay attention.  We now greet him with, "How many times did you raise your hand today?" when he comes home from school.  She has given him a little sheet on his desk.  It has a grid, and there are two teams, "team Jack Peter" and "team not paying attention"  He fills out the squares throughout the day when one of the teams prevails.  There were quite a few contenders for the opposing team name: Team talking in class, Team going and getting a book while Mrs. Murphy is teaching, Team standing up and leaving your desk.  Who knows if it's working?  I'm a little concerned because he's been wanting one of those grids to fill out.  He was jealous of the kids who had them.  He had the same feeling last year about the kids who got pulled out for speech class.  I know one kid has to fight against "team putting your fingers in your mouth" and another kid battles "team calling out."  At least Jack Peter's not fighting "team eating your own boogers."

Team NPA won the night we weren't watching as Toby fell down the stairs.  We do have health care, but the bill for that lapse in attention was over $27,000...unbelievable.

Halloween 2012

I don't often admit to having married a facsimile of my father, but Tim is not yet willing to turn on the heat.  Does it have to be December?  I don't know.  It's been below freezing for a few nights in a row.  I have to bribe Jack Peter to get out of bed by putting his school uniform in the dryer to tempt him with warmth.  My father used to keep the house at 62 degrees during the day, but just before bed I'd catch him poised in front of the thermostat.  His glasses would be tilted forward on his nose so he could peer over the tops to discern the numbers.  He'd whistle quietly as he turned the dial down making the sound of a bomb plummeting from the clouds punctuating the desired mid 50's number with the explosion sound straight off of the Road Runner/Wiley Coyote sound track.

Speaking of cartoons, Steel just looked at the image of the Disney store Dory costume and said, rightly, "She looks like a duck."  What she meant to say was, "Mom, the Disney store can kiss your ass!"  Is my Halloween costume intensity purely motivated by a competitive spirit?  Is it directed at the Disney store or the world at large?  I like making stuff, but I am always keen to share my creations with everyone.  I was raised to be ashamed of my competitive spirit. I love it when people are unabashedly competitive.  My friend, Safeena was going to a "paint your own pottery" bridal shower.  She called me in for a pre-party consultation.  "Liz, I want mine to be the best.  How do I do it?"  I told her to make an asymmetrical bold pattern go off of the edge of the plate.  "Liz, I CRUSHED it!  Mine was definitely the best!"  That bridal shower didn't know what hit it.

People always say to me, "You're not a potter; you're an artist!"  I insist that I am a potter.  Maybe I'll just start saying, I'm a potter now, but I aspire to be a foam and duct tape artist.  My Halloween insanity often inspires exclamations from other moms, "You make me feel so BAD!  I just went to Walmart for Halloween costumes!"  Ummmm....so you bought your kids the costume they really wanted and then you had a month to pay attention to them rather than sequestering yourself with a bunch of foam and spray paint while screaming at them, "DON'T TOUCH THAT!!!"   You're the bad parent????  .


I wonder if it's going to be annoying for Steel or fun to have her birthday fall on Halloween.  She does get extra candy when she tells people it's her birthday, but what good is that going to do her?  We dump it all into a bowl and put it high up on a shelf.  It usually lasts till Easter.  This year it seems to be dwindling faster.  Tim and I are doing most of the damage after they go to sleep while we watch dumb things on Netflix.  Our morning routine is so ridiculous and yet, we still can't pry ourselves away from each other, the Halloween candy, alcohol and bad films to get over 7 hours of sleep.

A friend of mine is reading an historical novel about Elizabeth I.  She was pleased to read that mothers of 500 years ago also relished their wine after a day of taking care of their children.  Was alcohol created to deal with children or was it created to create children?  It's one of those chicken and egg questions.  Which came first the children or the booze?  All I can say is that I definitely needed a drink after taking them trick-or-treating.  Toby refused to wear her Dory costume and wanted me to carry it and her for most of the night.  It was freezing out.  She should have wanted to wear it for the warmth alone, but she's been inured to the cold by her obsessed-with-passive-house architect father.