Against everyone's better judgement I chose to fly myself and the kids out to Montana for spring break. Last year while I helped my mom with her hip replacement, Tim took the kids to DISNEY, so it was my turn. Tim went to Canada for another funeral; his forecast that this will be the "decade of death" is proving to be spot on. $600/per ticket plus equipment rentals and lift tickets was shaking out to be a lot of cups and bowls. I've had heart-breaking kiln disasters, so cups and bowls aren't coming so easy. I spent WAY too much time trolling around the various cheap air websites looking for tickets. I finally bought the tickets and spent as much time as I'd spent looking for tickets imagining possible bad outcomes: no snow, no one likes skiing, we infect my 87-year-old uncle with lice and toe fungus, the plane crashes, the hermit crab dies; the cat gets run over, a political argument renders us homeless in Montana. My mom warned me not to talk politics while there. I couldn't resist. My beloved uncle Wally said the words: Liz, I think Donald will get a good team together. When I told him I was a Hillary Clinton fan, he said, "She's just so STRIDENT!" I was speechless. This whole thing has exposed such latent misogyny in this country, but I digress.
The outbound trip to Bozeman had 5 layers: a ride to 30th street station from Tim, an Amtrak train to Newark, a shuttle to the airport, a plane ride, and then a 40-minute drive to Big Sky. All of this seemed do-able until Jack Peter developed a super-high fever at 30th street. He was almost unable to walk, let alone carry anything or eat. Luckily, our flight was empty. It felt like the 90's; we all had entire rows to ourselves. I'd have been willing to suspend my screen-time stinginess, but I couldn't figure out how to download the inflight entertainment, so sleep was the only option, and sleep they did. JP's illness cleared up enough so that I thought he could handle taking a snow boarding class. I was wrong. The girls wisely opted for skiing because they adore every female in the family who isn't their mom. All of those women ski. By the end of their first day, the girls were comfortable little skiers. JP was another story. He needed threats, bribery, Batman vs Superman, and a lot of love to get him back on that board. After 2 days, I made a panicked call to Tim about how I thought JP was having his first landmark moment of self-consciousness and inadequacy, and it was all my fault. Tim smoothed my feathers. We got through the whole snowboard drama, so I can honestly say that all 3 of my children can easily make it down a mountain.
A slightly bumpy road with Jack Peter and the 2nd degree burns on Toby's face (8 hours on the mountain without sunscreen; Steel's was almost as bad.) were the only mars on the face of a perfect vacation As I'd feared the snow was threadbare, but as soon as we were safely there, it snowed every night. I had an afternoon and a full day of snow boarding by myself in powder and sunshine. I've always relied on other people to negotiate runs and lifts, but I used the map and felt ridiculously prideful about it. I met Betsey's 25-year-old for drinks and lunch and got CARDED. Clearly that was the best moment of my trip. I got to cook a couple meals. I beat both my uncle Wally and my cousin Walt to the check when we went out, so I didn't feel like a complete free-loader. I'd spent 2 summers with that side of the family when I was 12 and 13, and I love them all. People calling Betsey, the cousin I idolized, "Grandma" bugged me a little, but she married a guy who has grandkids, and his daughter in law is also Betsey, so it makes sense, but still...
who the hell would card that face????
I love being with family and trying to patch together whose qualities are popping up where. With my cousins it was a comparison of random ailments: Anne got grandma's wonky thumb. I got her mania. Betsey got her inability to sleep. I'm not sure what comes from whom with my kids. They are like Tim and me in some ways and so unlike us in others.
I didn’t question what I read or what was said to me until I was told to think critically at some point in high school or maybe even in college. Toby did not inherit that lemming-like quality. Tim was driving her home from school at the same time I was listening to “Fresh Air” in my studio. Terry was interviewing Toni Morrison. Toni told a harrowing story about her father’s bludgeoning a white guy and throwing her sister's bike at him as he retreated down their back stairs. When I arrived home, Toby wanted to tell me what a great interview she’d heard on “Fresh Air.” I interrupted to ask if it was the story I’d heard, and it was. Toby’s face then contorted into a grimace of rage as she said, “Mommy! Do you know what they talked about after that interview???? (while I was cycling home) They did a whole thing on NICKNAMES! Who cares about nicknames? It was SO STUPID!!!!” I can easily imagine 6-year-old Toby calling up NPR to discuss their bad programming decisions.
We had a car full of kids on the way to baseball the other night. I wouldn't have said a word with my older brother and his friends, but one of JP's friends told him he couldn't go to JP's slumber party because he was going on a tramping kip. (camping trip) Everyone was about to let it go when Toby looked at him and screamed, "YOU JUST SAID TRAMPING KIP!!!" and laughed with such gusto, the entire car was in hysterics for a good 4 minutes. That girl just doesn't let shit go.
Toby might have some Aunt Sue in her. Along with fastidiously cleaning little dogs, Sue has to mop and scour her environment daily. When things get rough for Toby, I give her a mop. Aunt Jill, the dentist, is technically not related to my kids, but her influence is popping up. Toby was watching me brush my teeth the other morning. I lie on my bed on my back and let the electric toothbrush do the work. I seize any opportunity to lie down and not drool. Toby asked if she could brush my teeth, and I said, “no.” When I was finished I asked why. She said, “Mommy, you’ve got some yellow spots on your teeth that I want to get off.” I told her those won’t come off no matter how hard she scrubs because they are stains from coffee and wine and things like that. She looked at me in horror and asked, “Do you get those stains from beer?” I said I didn’t think so. She let out a contented sigh and said, “PHEW!”
I didn’t question what I read or what was said to me until I was told to think critically at some point in high school or maybe even in college. Toby did not inherit that lemming-like quality. Tim was driving her home from school at the same time I was listening to “Fresh Air” in my studio. Terry was interviewing Toni Morrison. Toni told a harrowing story about her father’s bludgeoning a white guy and throwing her sister's bike at him as he retreated down their back stairs. When I arrived home, Toby wanted to tell me what a great interview she’d heard on “Fresh Air.” I interrupted to ask if it was the story I’d heard, and it was. Toby’s face then contorted into a grimace of rage as she said, “Mommy! Do you know what they talked about after that interview???? (while I was cycling home) They did a whole thing on NICKNAMES! Who cares about nicknames? It was SO STUPID!!!!” I can easily imagine 6-year-old Toby calling up NPR to discuss their bad programming decisions.
We had a car full of kids on the way to baseball the other night. I wouldn't have said a word with my older brother and his friends, but one of JP's friends told him he couldn't go to JP's slumber party because he was going on a tramping kip. (camping trip) Everyone was about to let it go when Toby looked at him and screamed, "YOU JUST SAID TRAMPING KIP!!!" and laughed with such gusto, the entire car was in hysterics for a good 4 minutes. That girl just doesn't let shit go.
Toby might have some Aunt Sue in her. Along with fastidiously cleaning little dogs, Sue has to mop and scour her environment daily. When things get rough for Toby, I give her a mop. Aunt Jill, the dentist, is technically not related to my kids, but her influence is popping up. Toby was watching me brush my teeth the other morning. I lie on my bed on my back and let the electric toothbrush do the work. I seize any opportunity to lie down and not drool. Toby asked if she could brush my teeth, and I said, “no.” When I was finished I asked why. She said, “Mommy, you’ve got some yellow spots on your teeth that I want to get off.” I told her those won’t come off no matter how hard she scrubs because they are stains from coffee and wine and things like that. She looked at me in horror and asked, “Do you get those stains from beer?” I said I didn’t think so. She let out a contented sigh and said, “PHEW!”
?????
Toby is thinking all the time. Tim used to send me long texts quoting their conversations in the car as they drove to daycare last year. We tell her how unique her brain is and how funny she is. She seems pleased with the complements, but then she'll say something like. "Yes, my brain is often very bright and colorful, but then, sometimes, it just goes black." That's exactly how I feel when I'm trying to follow Ira Flatow's Science Friday.
Toby is thinking all the time. Tim used to send me long texts quoting their conversations in the car as they drove to daycare last year. We tell her how unique her brain is and how funny she is. She seems pleased with the complements, but then she'll say something like. "Yes, my brain is often very bright and colorful, but then, sometimes, it just goes black." That's exactly how I feel when I'm trying to follow Ira Flatow's Science Friday.
Toby's boob fascination
continues. She was looking at a perfume
ad in a magazine. “Momma! She doesn’t have any nipples!!!” I said, “Yes she does! The ribbon is covering them.” Toby said, “Shouldn’t her nipple be DOWN
HERE?” pointing to the uncovered bottom of the woman’s breast. “Nope," I said, "She hasn’t breastfed 3
babies.” Toby was flabbergasted. “When I get boobs, my nipples are going to be
up here?? That’s WEIRD!” I remember thinking that my mom’s
stretchmark-riddled tummy was so much prettier than all the other mom’s tummies
because it looked lacy to me. It’s nice
to know that my saggy boobs look right to Toby, and perky ones look WEIRD.
Steel continues to be
absolutely perfect at school saving all of her sass and meltdowns for us. She’s completely obsessed with how she looks
and who’s pretty and why. I was like
that too. I was too shy to talk about
it, but I thought it. She lost her hip Warby Parker-ish glasses and is left
with the more conservative ones. It’s a
constant battle to get her to wear them.
They make her head ache. They
make her stomach ache... I discovered the reason she wants to go to Masterman (a
school you have to test into) is not because she wants to prove she’s the best
but because they don’t have a uniform.
I’ve almost entirely given up on the “Leggings aren’t pants”
battle. I thought I’d won when I had her
put on a Grandma Susie skirt that was too short but still better than
nothing. I told her that the way the
skirt goes out makes her look super long-legged. She looked in the mirror and chirped happily,
“I’M SO SKINNY!!!” The skirt was in the book bag when she came home. Now she’s taken to putting really tight short
shorts over the leggings, which makes her look like a stripper.
She spent an entire
hour at the ice rink practicing glamorous falls with her friend, Margaret. (who
looks EXACTLY like Brittney Spears)
She’s constantly posing and singing to herself in the mirror, and yet,
she refuses to brush her hair. Poor Tim
picks that battle every morning. I let
her look like a dirty hippy. I’m more
concerned about her ass. None of her primping goes by unnoticed. Teachers and parents constantly tell me how fashionable Steel is. Even when I say, "Really? those gymnastic shorts over her leggings are working in your opinion?" The response is usually an emphatic, "Yes they are!" followed by a minute, but detectable, "I feel sorry for you." flinch. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I felt comfortable wearing this to a party in college. Our 25th reunion is this May. The reunion committee put together a huge book of photos that people sent in. I was wavering about going to the reunion. Seeing a picture of me in this get up dancing lasciviously with one of my gay friends was surprising. Now I'm definitely not going.
Steel's vanity extends beyond herself. She looked at my head and asked plaintively, “Mommy why can’t you have a REAL hair color? Yours is grey and blue.” Letting her voice trail off and get softer and more questioning she added, “and pink and yellow and green?” I remember asking my mom to wear high heels all the time and frowning upon some of her outfit choices, so I get it. Confidence-plummeting, back-handed complements are her forte: "Mommy you look nice when you get out of the shower! Before you shower, you look so old and WRINKLY!!!!!" She often reminds me of my mom's mom who would say things to my mom like, "Susie, you look nice!" and then she'd turn to me as if my mother had suddenly lost her hearing and say, "EXCEPT FOR THAT CAN!!!!!" Her eye muscles would quiver as she'd lift the undulating folds of her eyelids to implicate my mom's rump.
Steel's vanity extends beyond herself. She looked at my head and asked plaintively, “Mommy why can’t you have a REAL hair color? Yours is grey and blue.” Letting her voice trail off and get softer and more questioning she added, “and pink and yellow and green?” I remember asking my mom to wear high heels all the time and frowning upon some of her outfit choices, so I get it. Confidence-plummeting, back-handed complements are her forte: "Mommy you look nice when you get out of the shower! Before you shower, you look so old and WRINKLY!!!!!" She often reminds me of my mom's mom who would say things to my mom like, "Susie, you look nice!" and then she'd turn to me as if my mother had suddenly lost her hearing and say, "EXCEPT FOR THAT CAN!!!!!" Her eye muscles would quiver as she'd lift the undulating folds of her eyelids to implicate my mom's rump.
Steel also gets really
bent out of shape when boys tease her.
Boys are lower life form. She
never finds one cute. After YEARS of
asking, “Is that one cute? Is THAT one good looking????” she finally
told me that she finds the host of “Cupcake Wars” attractive. I was excited to have something to go on, but
now she’s reneged. One boy teases her
about being married to Matthew. I told her that she should just reply, “How
could I be married to him??? I’m engaged
to Lucas! We just picked out our
flatware!” With every ridiculous response she howled from the back of the
car, “Say another one mommy!!” “I’m not
married to MATTHEW; I’ve had 3 illegitimate children with NICHOLAS!” “I WAS married to him, but we divorced on Valentine’s Day.”
“Matthew? Oh no! I’m saving myself for Donald Trump…” She also gets bent if
she feels snubbed by another girl. These
imagined or real transgressions will annoy her from lunch until I pick
her up at 6. I
hope she learns to let this stuff roll off.
Toby is feeling the same about boys, by the way. She told me yesterday that she wants to be gay when she grows up. I said, "Like Chesley and Sherri? Is it because you like girls better than boys?" to which she responded, "YEP!!"
Steel announced tonight at dinner that she likes Ryan F. because he's funny and tall. The only thing she doesn't like about him are his teeth. He's tall because he was held back a year, his teeth are crooked, and he's got a thick Philly accent...great.
When Toby is cranky, I give her a mop. Sometimes a project will pull Steel out of a funk; she's crafty. We spent and entire snow day turning an old cashmere sweater into a stuffed animal for her new cousin, Avery. Sometimes, though, Steel needs to have a meltdown. On our last day on the mountain, Steel and Toby skied with Betsey and Anne because JP and I were not "doing the trees" on our snowboards. On the last run of the last day Steel went ass over tea kettle on the flats at the end of the run. Jack Peter and I arrived on the scene a few minutes after the fall. Betsey was insisting that Steel needed an x-ray. "She's dislocated her shoulder!" Look at the way she's carrying her arm!" I let Betsey put her own stuff in her locker while I assessed the arm situation. I know I err on the side of laissez-faire parenting, but with this one, I knew Steel was just fine. She was ever-so-slightly dramatizing the immobility of her arm. Like Grandma Girly, Steely just needs to have a "poor spell." Grandma Girly would generally be tough as nails, but all of a sudden, she'd fall apart. Everyone around her would coddle her and give her attention, and after an hour or so of this, she'd be FINE.
Toby is feeling the same about boys, by the way. She told me yesterday that she wants to be gay when she grows up. I said, "Like Chesley and Sherri? Is it because you like girls better than boys?" to which she responded, "YEP!!"
Steel announced tonight at dinner that she likes Ryan F. because he's funny and tall. The only thing she doesn't like about him are his teeth. He's tall because he was held back a year, his teeth are crooked, and he's got a thick Philly accent...great.
When Toby is cranky, I give her a mop. Sometimes a project will pull Steel out of a funk; she's crafty. We spent and entire snow day turning an old cashmere sweater into a stuffed animal for her new cousin, Avery. Sometimes, though, Steel needs to have a meltdown. On our last day on the mountain, Steel and Toby skied with Betsey and Anne because JP and I were not "doing the trees" on our snowboards. On the last run of the last day Steel went ass over tea kettle on the flats at the end of the run. Jack Peter and I arrived on the scene a few minutes after the fall. Betsey was insisting that Steel needed an x-ray. "She's dislocated her shoulder!" Look at the way she's carrying her arm!" I let Betsey put her own stuff in her locker while I assessed the arm situation. I know I err on the side of laissez-faire parenting, but with this one, I knew Steel was just fine. She was ever-so-slightly dramatizing the immobility of her arm. Like Grandma Girly, Steely just needs to have a "poor spell." Grandma Girly would generally be tough as nails, but all of a sudden, she'd fall apart. Everyone around her would coddle her and give her attention, and after an hour or so of this, she'd be FINE.
Both girls have been harrowed by an incident down the street.
Two sisters were playing in the snow, and a man pulled up in his car and
asked them to get in. The sisters
screamed at the top of their lungs and ran home. I talked about it with both Steel and Toby,
and we discussed action plans if someone were to approach them on the way to
the neighbor’s house. They keep bringing
it up. “Mommy what would happen if we
were close to Bob’s house? Would we run
to his house or to Kathy’s or to our house???” I'm glad they are planning for it. They both are so much more self-possessed than I was at their age.
While Toby is questioning public radio programming, Steel is critiquing her gymnastics coaching. She had the head coach, Coach K. As a kid I responded very well to being yelled at and being told that I wasn't doing a good job; this does not work for Steel. Coach K told Steel her performance on the trampoline was "junky." Steel held it together for class, but she broke down in the car. She told me that Coach K isn't nice, and that doesn't inspire her to do better, and she doesn't want to stick with gymnastics if she has Coach K. I had a completely neurotic piano teacher who levitated herself and her enormous breasts off of the bench in a weird twitch every time I hit a wrong note. I had a field hockey coach who would throw things at us, and a latin teacher who allowed herself to be locked in the closet by 8th grade boys. I questioned none of this.
Toby, by the way, does not seem as concerned with her appearance. She has the feeling that she isn’t skinny, but she seems to think that Steel is handling the skinny part for our family, so she’s off the hook. She did insist that my cousin Anne carry her mittens for her when she got too hot on the ski slope. Anne had suggested Toby tuck them into the pockets of her snow pants. Toby refused: "NO!!!! it'll make me look FAT!!" Maybe I should feel depressed about that, but I'm going to try and not worry about it for now. Tim is a little worried. We were just at the movies, and Toby was comparing her thighs to Steel's on the booster seat. "Mommy! Steel's thighs are skinnier than mine are!!!!" I told her that Steel's thighs were probably her size when she was 6. I waited until the movie started to say, "Toby, your thighs are perfect the way they are. What am I supposed to say to Steel when she gets upset and tells me that her nose is so much bigger than Toby's is???" Toby said after a long pause, "I don't know."
And then there's Jack Peter. Somehow, he still maintains his rockstar status with a fair number of people. Kids get obsessed with him. We had 2 such kids with us on Saturday. All of us went to a carnival. A ton of school friends were there, so Jack Peter fell in with his school friends, and I got asked, "WHERE'S JACK PETER??" every 12 minutes. One of these kids is the most gorgeous athletic kid I've ever met. He won fish for everyone and stuffed animals for the girls. His Dad ended up getting coerced into a nauseating swinging ship ride by his sisters and my girls. I was feeling awful about it, and I said to the kid, "I hope your dad doesn't puke on that ride; I definitely wasn't going on it!" Hudson replied emphatically, "My dad won't barf; he's from ALABAMA!"
Jack Peter is extremely confident. I always worry that the sports thing is going to bring him down. In baseball, he won't swing at the ball which often results in his striking out. He's so small that his strike zone is petite, so he walks some, but not as often as he strikes out. I found him crying about it a week ago, and he wailed, "I'm letting my team down!" I was heartbroken but OK with it because it was the first time I'd heard him thinking about his community as well as himself. They had a really awful game on Saturday. They lost 18-0. Again, he was crying. To console him, I gave him a cuddle and talked about how it should be fun...blah blah blah. I said, "Jack Peter, in the grand scheme of things, this really doesn't matter. You won't even remember this in a few weeks!" He responded, "Grand scheme????? They got a GRAND SLAM in the first inning!!!!" (oops) Sports came so easily to me. I was captain of all my teams in grammar school, high school and college. I got so much confidence from my athletic ability. This over-emphasizes, in my brain, the importance of JP's failures. I get so sad and worried, but 5 minutes after he's gotten his cuddle and cry HE'S FINE.
Of course he's fine. The only true lament in his life is his lack of screen time. He coerced me into letting him use the computer on a winter Sunday to "start a school newspaper." By the end of the day he had a page and a half. His first big headline was, "TROUT DYING IN 4TH GRADE!" He made 25 copies and distributed them at school that Monday. He came home with a trailblazer award. Trailblazers are the positive behavior incentives. By Tuesday Jack Peter had a staff of 9 kids, a designated lunch table for their meetings and an administrative person committed to giving them an online presence.
He had a great report card, a solid 4.0 average. His teachers all seem to be plugging for him. His homeroom teacher, Mr. Sylvan, works the hardest. JP just got a detention for sending an e-mail to a classmate, "FHST fucking sucks." (At aftercare they have warring tribes. The tribes have acronyms for names. The wars involve hills, rocks, sticks. and probably a lot of obscenity screaming) Teachers have access to all of their e-mails, and JP knew this because he's gotten in trouble before. Tim and I couldn't believe he'd done something so stupid. All he could say was, "I can't remember why now, but I WAS REALLY MAD at Sage." Such a public offense had to be punished properly, but Mr. Sylvan, keeps most of JP's disciplining in his own classroom. JP made another infraction during the standardized tests. He had finished the test, so he got up to get a book. Getting up at all during the test is prohibited. His teacher slammed a book on Pugs down on JP's desk and whispered, "2 page essay...NOW!" I sent an e-mail to the teacher thanking him for that discipline choice a. because it didn't involve detention and b. because it was the most amusing option. He responded that the next essay is probably going to be: "The history of ketchup."
The one major flaw with the teacher is that he hates glitter. Who hates glitter? Jack Peter told us that Mr. Sylvan refused to let his daughter have a gift at her 2nd birthday party that was covered in glitter. I kept suggesting to the carpool boys that they should fill an entire desk drawer with glitter on April fool's day. They looked at me wide-eyed and said that he'd probably suspend them. Somehow we discovered that Mr. Sylvan's birthday was in early April, so I made him a cup with a "no glitter" sign on it. I only put a tablespoon of glitter in the bottom beneath the bubble wrap I'd stuffed in and around it. He thanked me, and I replied that he was welcome, but having a little girl and not being able to deal with glitter seemed slightly heartless to me. He admitted that he won't let any of the glitter art she makes at daycare into the house. "It's really a problem with loose glitter!" he said uncomfortably as Steel and Toby stared him down with narrowed eyes. He's fine with glitter nail polish. The next morning Toby, Steel and I had to go through the recycling looking for Steel's homework that I'd relocated. They were finding masterpieces they'd created. I'd kept them around for a while but purged on trash day. Mr. Sylvan's heartless glitter ban came in handy. At their indignant howls I shrieked, "I'm not as bad as Mr. Sylvan!!!!! He won't even let that stuff INTO THE HOUSE!!!"
We probably didn't need to this year, but we extended the tradition of all-protein breakfasts during the standardized tests. Last year JP's teacher called in a panic before the testing because she was sure he'd be kicked out of the tests. We had to run around the block and perform 3 sun salutations on top of no-carbs breakfast. JP asked me on Sunday night during our cuddle, "Mom, can we please not have eggs every day this week???" I said, "No problem! We'll have bacon on Monday, eggs on Tuesday, smoked salmon on Wednesday..." He looked at me and said, "How is a smoking salmon going to help me with the PSSA's???" I laughed and pretended to be a shady smoking salmon. Since then all of the kids will suddenly pretend to smoke a cigarette and mumble under their breath, "Pssst...hey, kid, let me help you with the PSSA's"
So Jack Peter might have a tiny anger-management issue. He's so easy-going at the house, but every now and again he'll get really mad about something stupid like having to practice. He got so irate one day that he started to pack up his things. Tim and I said it would be fine if he left, but that he should bring an extra blanket because it was going to be chilly out that night. The girls were swirling around him and us wailing like professional mourners. They were pummeling us and screaming, "You can't let him run away!!!!!" JP eventually backed down. During his bedtime snuggle that night he said to me, "You wouldn't ever let me run away, would you mom?" Tim is so much better with all of the drama. He greets the "I don't want to practice!" with an amazing cost/benefit analysis. He cited how much the kids have to sleep to get themselves on track versus the tiny amount they have to practice piano to fling open doors in their brains. They listen wide-eyed and rapt. I tell them, "You have to practice because I'M TELLING YOU TO PRACTICE, GOD DAMN IT!!!!!!" I told this story to my mom. She said, "I'm glad Tim's taking the time with the kids, but YOU DO SO MUCH!!!!!!, and I agree with your argument. Those kids should practice BECAUSE YOU TOLD THEM TO! That woman really has my back. Happy Mother's Day, mom.
Speaking of practicing, they had their piano recital in March. Thank God Tim's mom thinks that it might be an opportunity for them to look good. She spends hours shopping and texting me. All of my responses are usually wrong, but she knows this is the case and buys 10 items per kid and then returns the rejects. Am I going to be that kind of grandmother or am I still going to bust out trash bags of moldy hand me downs that are in the loft in my studio?
I also have to spend some of my studio time texting. One friend and I text about pissing ourselves (literally) She just told me a great one. She was brushing her hair fresh out of the shower, coughed and, to her daughter's horror pissed down her leg and onto the floor. Her daughter will be thanking her. No one ever told ME about post-natal incontinence. I'll just write my response to her here to give myself some more clay time tomorrow. Last Friday was D&D night instead of piano night. Jp had 4 boys and one girl over for D&D. It lasted for a couple hours, and then it devolved into an outside, stomp on mom's flowers, free-for-all. They were all running wild around our block when the dad of the ONE GIRL shows up. I greeted him and then admitted I had NO IDEA where his daughter was. He said, "Wow! I've always wanted to live in one of those neighborhoods where the kids get to just run around wild." I said nothing about the guy propositioning the little girls down the street and instead said, "THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR IS FOR SALE!!! Move here! It's JUST LIKE OURS!!!" As I turned around to lead him into our house, I made a bigger-than-usual step over some kid trash and pissed myself ever-so-slightly. Another friend and I text about pottery and flowers, and then I have to respond to and trump other people's "bad kid" stories. For the next 4 months the garden will consume me. Tim calls the seed catalogues my porn. All late winter I'd stay up late drinking and furtively ordering roses and drought-tolerant annual seeds. No wonder I can't get anything done. I've been looking at porn all night.
I'm still cycling in to work and having conversations in my head with famous people. I've been telling Hillary that she needs to Obamify her voice. She needs to have faith in modern technology and coo into the microphones. She's straining her voice to shout, and if she's pitted against Donald, then she needs to convey to the world that this match up isn't straining her in any way because he's a dolt. She needs to refer to him as Donald, never Mr. Trump, and everything she says should be in a whisper, the same one she uses in Bill's ear to tell him to stop looking at some woman's cleavage at a fundraiser. She also needs to lose the pearls and go for a scarf. I get it that she's not got a great neck, but the pearls aren't working.
I've been telling Michelle Obama that she needs to stop straightening her hair and crop it really short and cool. I was trying to come up with someone who has the hair I'm thinking about, and I googled Hannah Kilson. She was the captain of my lacrosse team when I was a sophomore. She'd scream, "Smoke'em SMOKER!!!" every time we'd have to do sprints. I googled her name, and here she is. I love the internet!!!!!
While Toby is questioning public radio programming, Steel is critiquing her gymnastics coaching. She had the head coach, Coach K. As a kid I responded very well to being yelled at and being told that I wasn't doing a good job; this does not work for Steel. Coach K told Steel her performance on the trampoline was "junky." Steel held it together for class, but she broke down in the car. She told me that Coach K isn't nice, and that doesn't inspire her to do better, and she doesn't want to stick with gymnastics if she has Coach K. I had a completely neurotic piano teacher who levitated herself and her enormous breasts off of the bench in a weird twitch every time I hit a wrong note. I had a field hockey coach who would throw things at us, and a latin teacher who allowed herself to be locked in the closet by 8th grade boys. I questioned none of this.
Toby, by the way, does not seem as concerned with her appearance. She has the feeling that she isn’t skinny, but she seems to think that Steel is handling the skinny part for our family, so she’s off the hook. She did insist that my cousin Anne carry her mittens for her when she got too hot on the ski slope. Anne had suggested Toby tuck them into the pockets of her snow pants. Toby refused: "NO!!!! it'll make me look FAT!!" Maybe I should feel depressed about that, but I'm going to try and not worry about it for now. Tim is a little worried. We were just at the movies, and Toby was comparing her thighs to Steel's on the booster seat. "Mommy! Steel's thighs are skinnier than mine are!!!!" I told her that Steel's thighs were probably her size when she was 6. I waited until the movie started to say, "Toby, your thighs are perfect the way they are. What am I supposed to say to Steel when she gets upset and tells me that her nose is so much bigger than Toby's is???" Toby said after a long pause, "I don't know."
And then there's Jack Peter. Somehow, he still maintains his rockstar status with a fair number of people. Kids get obsessed with him. We had 2 such kids with us on Saturday. All of us went to a carnival. A ton of school friends were there, so Jack Peter fell in with his school friends, and I got asked, "WHERE'S JACK PETER??" every 12 minutes. One of these kids is the most gorgeous athletic kid I've ever met. He won fish for everyone and stuffed animals for the girls. His Dad ended up getting coerced into a nauseating swinging ship ride by his sisters and my girls. I was feeling awful about it, and I said to the kid, "I hope your dad doesn't puke on that ride; I definitely wasn't going on it!" Hudson replied emphatically, "My dad won't barf; he's from ALABAMA!"
Jack Peter is extremely confident. I always worry that the sports thing is going to bring him down. In baseball, he won't swing at the ball which often results in his striking out. He's so small that his strike zone is petite, so he walks some, but not as often as he strikes out. I found him crying about it a week ago, and he wailed, "I'm letting my team down!" I was heartbroken but OK with it because it was the first time I'd heard him thinking about his community as well as himself. They had a really awful game on Saturday. They lost 18-0. Again, he was crying. To console him, I gave him a cuddle and talked about how it should be fun...blah blah blah. I said, "Jack Peter, in the grand scheme of things, this really doesn't matter. You won't even remember this in a few weeks!" He responded, "Grand scheme????? They got a GRAND SLAM in the first inning!!!!" (oops) Sports came so easily to me. I was captain of all my teams in grammar school, high school and college. I got so much confidence from my athletic ability. This over-emphasizes, in my brain, the importance of JP's failures. I get so sad and worried, but 5 minutes after he's gotten his cuddle and cry HE'S FINE.
Of course he's fine. The only true lament in his life is his lack of screen time. He coerced me into letting him use the computer on a winter Sunday to "start a school newspaper." By the end of the day he had a page and a half. His first big headline was, "TROUT DYING IN 4TH GRADE!" He made 25 copies and distributed them at school that Monday. He came home with a trailblazer award. Trailblazers are the positive behavior incentives. By Tuesday Jack Peter had a staff of 9 kids, a designated lunch table for their meetings and an administrative person committed to giving them an online presence.
He had a great report card, a solid 4.0 average. His teachers all seem to be plugging for him. His homeroom teacher, Mr. Sylvan, works the hardest. JP just got a detention for sending an e-mail to a classmate, "FHST fucking sucks." (At aftercare they have warring tribes. The tribes have acronyms for names. The wars involve hills, rocks, sticks. and probably a lot of obscenity screaming) Teachers have access to all of their e-mails, and JP knew this because he's gotten in trouble before. Tim and I couldn't believe he'd done something so stupid. All he could say was, "I can't remember why now, but I WAS REALLY MAD at Sage." Such a public offense had to be punished properly, but Mr. Sylvan, keeps most of JP's disciplining in his own classroom. JP made another infraction during the standardized tests. He had finished the test, so he got up to get a book. Getting up at all during the test is prohibited. His teacher slammed a book on Pugs down on JP's desk and whispered, "2 page essay...NOW!" I sent an e-mail to the teacher thanking him for that discipline choice a. because it didn't involve detention and b. because it was the most amusing option. He responded that the next essay is probably going to be: "The history of ketchup."
The one major flaw with the teacher is that he hates glitter. Who hates glitter? Jack Peter told us that Mr. Sylvan refused to let his daughter have a gift at her 2nd birthday party that was covered in glitter. I kept suggesting to the carpool boys that they should fill an entire desk drawer with glitter on April fool's day. They looked at me wide-eyed and said that he'd probably suspend them. Somehow we discovered that Mr. Sylvan's birthday was in early April, so I made him a cup with a "no glitter" sign on it. I only put a tablespoon of glitter in the bottom beneath the bubble wrap I'd stuffed in and around it. He thanked me, and I replied that he was welcome, but having a little girl and not being able to deal with glitter seemed slightly heartless to me. He admitted that he won't let any of the glitter art she makes at daycare into the house. "It's really a problem with loose glitter!" he said uncomfortably as Steel and Toby stared him down with narrowed eyes. He's fine with glitter nail polish. The next morning Toby, Steel and I had to go through the recycling looking for Steel's homework that I'd relocated. They were finding masterpieces they'd created. I'd kept them around for a while but purged on trash day. Mr. Sylvan's heartless glitter ban came in handy. At their indignant howls I shrieked, "I'm not as bad as Mr. Sylvan!!!!! He won't even let that stuff INTO THE HOUSE!!!"
We probably didn't need to this year, but we extended the tradition of all-protein breakfasts during the standardized tests. Last year JP's teacher called in a panic before the testing because she was sure he'd be kicked out of the tests. We had to run around the block and perform 3 sun salutations on top of no-carbs breakfast. JP asked me on Sunday night during our cuddle, "Mom, can we please not have eggs every day this week???" I said, "No problem! We'll have bacon on Monday, eggs on Tuesday, smoked salmon on Wednesday..." He looked at me and said, "How is a smoking salmon going to help me with the PSSA's???" I laughed and pretended to be a shady smoking salmon. Since then all of the kids will suddenly pretend to smoke a cigarette and mumble under their breath, "Pssst...hey, kid, let me help you with the PSSA's"
So Jack Peter might have a tiny anger-management issue. He's so easy-going at the house, but every now and again he'll get really mad about something stupid like having to practice. He got so irate one day that he started to pack up his things. Tim and I said it would be fine if he left, but that he should bring an extra blanket because it was going to be chilly out that night. The girls were swirling around him and us wailing like professional mourners. They were pummeling us and screaming, "You can't let him run away!!!!!" JP eventually backed down. During his bedtime snuggle that night he said to me, "You wouldn't ever let me run away, would you mom?" Tim is so much better with all of the drama. He greets the "I don't want to practice!" with an amazing cost/benefit analysis. He cited how much the kids have to sleep to get themselves on track versus the tiny amount they have to practice piano to fling open doors in their brains. They listen wide-eyed and rapt. I tell them, "You have to practice because I'M TELLING YOU TO PRACTICE, GOD DAMN IT!!!!!!" I told this story to my mom. She said, "I'm glad Tim's taking the time with the kids, but YOU DO SO MUCH!!!!!!, and I agree with your argument. Those kids should practice BECAUSE YOU TOLD THEM TO! That woman really has my back. Happy Mother's Day, mom.
Speaking of practicing, they had their piano recital in March. Thank God Tim's mom thinks that it might be an opportunity for them to look good. She spends hours shopping and texting me. All of my responses are usually wrong, but she knows this is the case and buys 10 items per kid and then returns the rejects. Am I going to be that kind of grandmother or am I still going to bust out trash bags of moldy hand me downs that are in the loft in my studio?
Speaking of the studio, I mentioned that I've had some kiln disasters. I'm also finding myself procrastinating more than I remember. I spent one morning gluing the kids school pictures to ads in a Forbes magazine that keeps arriving. I sent them to my dad with a card telling him that I was so glad that my kids had chosen the trans-gender option on school picture day.
If I'm not procrastinating, then I'm working at an OK pace but I have to leave 2 hours after I've gotten there because there's some celebration at school or a doctor's appointment. I did get tearful at the mother's day kindergarten party, but honestly, a better mother's day present would have been to keep my kid until the end of school, so they could all go to aftercare thus giving me an extra 4 hours of work.
I'm still cycling in to work and having conversations in my head with famous people. I've been telling Hillary that she needs to Obamify her voice. She needs to have faith in modern technology and coo into the microphones. She's straining her voice to shout, and if she's pitted against Donald, then she needs to convey to the world that this match up isn't straining her in any way because he's a dolt. She needs to refer to him as Donald, never Mr. Trump, and everything she says should be in a whisper, the same one she uses in Bill's ear to tell him to stop looking at some woman's cleavage at a fundraiser. She also needs to lose the pearls and go for a scarf. I get it that she's not got a great neck, but the pearls aren't working.
I've been telling Michelle Obama that she needs to stop straightening her hair and crop it really short and cool. I was trying to come up with someone who has the hair I'm thinking about, and I googled Hannah Kilson. She was the captain of my lacrosse team when I was a sophomore. She'd scream, "Smoke'em SMOKER!!!" every time we'd have to do sprints. I googled her name, and here she is. I love the internet!!!!!
I've also been having a long conversation with Donna Karan about underwear. I've rediscovered the body suit she's famous for, but I can't, for the life of me, figure out why someone hasn't found a place for the snaps that doesn't involve my snatch. I know it might seem diaper-esque, but can't something on the sides work? She should make compression stockings sexier. Aren't the diabetics and pregnant ladies of the world worth some thought? What about cool lingerie for pregnant bellies? There are a lot of untapped markets. I could write her campaigns for people like me..."46 and fully grey, but still rocking the lingerie!" or "was a "B," until they fed 3, now my double AA needs lingerie." I had a short talk with Pope Francis recently about his foot fetish. All I heard for a day on NPR was that he was washing Muslim's feet for them. Most people think, "what a humble, great man." I know better.
