Still here

The combination of no preschool, 12 hours a day of potty discussion, a three-day sinus headache, and weird weather is kicking my behind.

Oh, and AM just discovered that the kitchen trash can is a perfect receptacle for, well, just about anything. (Puzzle pieces, sippy cup, car keys, etc.) It’s fun.

I hope that everyone is staying cool and (relatively) sane.

Unceasing wonders

To wit:

Sleep 

The kids slept until 7:00.

(Miss M was up twice last night–I took the 2 am call, which woke me from such a sound sleep that I had a panic attack after she was back down; Taxman took the 5 am call, which I did not even hear.)

Potty 

This morning, before we changed her (wet) diaper, Miss M announced she wanted to sit on the potty. Sure, great! After about 10 minutes, I was going to excuse her–after all, she probably didn’t have to go–when she called to me that she had peed and to come help her. And, in fact, she had!

Poop

Do you have any idea what two prunes can do to the digestive system of a young toddler? Wow. Here I was, afraid that one day without poop meant he had caught the pervasive constipation of teh Internets, due to increased rice cake consumption. In fact, not so much. AM must be a pound lighter than he was on Wednesday.

Random Kid Stuff

This morning we got to the park at 9:31. I did not have to feed anyone until 9:56. I can’t even explain how liberating that was.

Procrastination

I have so!much!stuff! to do between now and next Tuesday, yet here I am…

Potty roundup

So, whoa.

I think I have reached a new level of exhausted, despite not leaving my building today.

We did better than expected because Miss M sat on the potty. And peed. More than once. One time she even told me she had to go–and did, 10 minutes later.

I am an idiot because I pushed too much. I got carried away by the partial success of the morning and it was just.too.much. Too long a day. By the end we were both frazzled and relieved to return to diapers.

Tomorrow we will regroup and try small chunks. If we can go 6 to 9:30 in underpants, then we’ll take a break. We’ve all got to get out of the house.

Night-night. And we thank you for your support!

Naptime update

temporarily back in a diaper so i can breathe for six seconds….whew…..

peeing while on the potty is ok (a little whining, but not bad overall), but she won’t tell me when she has to go. makes things frantic when she’s off the potty and boring when she’s on it.

am is staging a coup d’etat because he realizes my attention is elsewhere.

i may never leave the house again. (how do people do this?)

i have been up since 5, but neglected to move my car from the wrong side of the street by 11:30. 

i still have no idea if i am doing this the right way!

did i mention my inlaws are going to be here in three hours for a birthday dinner (only 1/3 made) and cupcakes (made!)? the house is a mess, but there will be other adults here! one for each kid and one for the kitchen! hooray!

One small step for Miss M

The tally so far (8:49  9:34 am):

1 birthday muffin with candle

2 3 seatings on the potty

about 5 seconds of protest

1 actual pee  2!!! in the potty

1 actual pee 2 actual pees in Elm0 underpants

5 readings of Curious George Goes Potty

Stay tuned….but it’s good we rolled up the rug, let’s say.

Devolving

into bullets, of course.

• I cannot wait until school starts in September.
• School ends tomorrow.
• We are apparently the most unpopular family on earth, because the one response we’ve gotten to Miss M’s birthday party (out of 10 evites sent) was negative.
• Two of her friends can’t come.
• But what about the rest of them?
• Anyone close by who would like to come on the 24th to make your own sundae and donate a book to a family shelter is welcome.
• I took AM to the Strand today to buy some books to donate. (First they’re going to be centerpieces, holding some helium balloons at the party. If anyone comes to the party. Sob!) There was no poop, but there was some major fussiness. Tired? Hungry? Thirsty? Confined? All of the above! Oh well.
• The Strand is still completely overwhelming. Even when you only stay in one section.
• But they have classic kids’ books for half price.
• I found street parking on my first pass through the Village. Insane. And I managed to parallel park Humongo-van. Doubly insane.
• I passed a kosher falafel/shwarma place on 12th Street. I tried to go at 10:30, but they had just opened and had no food. Losers! You can get those street food staples at 7am in any Israeli city.
• I got coffee instead. But it’s not the same.
• I keep forgetting that AM wears shoes and I can put him down. Like on the sidewalk while I was undoing my mei tai next to the car. Except then he went tearing down 12th like he was jonesing for Star$s.
• I cannot get motivated to do anything around the house. Even (or especially?) cooking.
• Thank goodness we are going away for shabbat.
• I haven’t even thought about Miss M’s birthday cake for Monday.
• Or Father’s Day.
• Taxman is low maintenance, thankfully.
• But we’ll be seeing my dad.
• He’s not high maintenance.
• But I should really get cards.
• That means darkening the door of a retail establishment with one or more of my children. Bad idea.
• I’ll have a real post again someday. Promise.

One degree!

Miss M’s preschool class had a farewell breakfast this morning. It was nothing formal–we were all waiting around for someone to say something but nobody ever did–but juice and muffins in the playground and some time to socialize among the adults (while blowing bubbles for Miss M) was fine.

I was chatting with Y’s mom. She and I met while we were pregnant with the girls. We were due a week apart, and we’ve been friendly since. We talked about Miss M’s upcoming birthday party, and she said she was unsure if Y would be able to come. “N and I are going to a wedding on Cape Cod, so my parents are going to be with the girls. I’ll encourage them to bring her.”

“Cape Cod?” I asked. (Cape Cod, while a very nice place for a summer wedding, is not generally associated with religious Jews.)

“Yes, one of my oldest friends is getting married. We met in first grade and ultimately wound up at different schools and on different paths, but we always stayed in touch. Anyway, her mom is a writer and has a beach house, so that’s where the wedding is. Maybe you’ve heard of her mom? Rebecca Goldstein?”

“Rebecca Goldstein?” I sputtered. “The Rebecca Goldstein? You know her? Wow! Oh yes, I’ve read several of her books. My master’s degree is in American Jewish Literature and Social History, so she was on my reading list for my comps.”

“I thought you might have. Yes, I’ve known her a long time. Rebecca always used to speak to us like adults, even when we were quite small.”

“You’re on a first-name basis with Rebecca Goldstein. [Insert mental awestruck profanity here.] I can’t believe it.”

So now I’m only separated from Rebecca Goldstein by one degree! Ha!

But if I ever meet her, will she forgive me for being such a dork?

8 Random Facts

Courtesy of CCW, some random stuff about me.

1. I don’t cry at the movies. I think it’s too public a venue; I am too uptight to be vulnerable in public (even in a darkened theater). I cry sometimes over movies/tv (when I was pregnant, Everwood made me cry every week) but only at home. All this is practically moot because I’ve been to the movies twice in the past three years.

2. My favorite childhood book was Charlotte’s Web.

3. I named a gray stuffed seal–a present for my fourth birthday–Wilbur. He’s as well traveled as I am (Spain, Denmark, Israel). But now on the rare occasions that Taxman is gone, I have actual warm bodies to fill the void, so poor Wilbur hasn’t had a snuggle in a long time.

4. My favorite class in high school was AP bio. There were 11 people (10 girls) in the class. Our teacher was Mr. Max, a bizarre gnome-like guy who scared the crap out of the freshman bio classes. He was tough, but boy did we learn a lot–most of us got 5s on the test. We dissected a rat over a period of weeks and had to take it home to study. I named mine Templeton (see facts #2 & #3).

5. I have had a few vehicular scrapes, but never with another car in motion.

6. I hate baths. (NB: not bathing) I will never understand how people find them relaxing. The water is instantly too chilly and porcelain could never be described as a soft surface. You wind up, to borrow a phrase from my mom and others, stewing in your own filth. Why is this good?

7. I hate crowds. And traffic. I will do almost anything to avoid them. Like go food shopping late at night or early in the morning. I used to travel between Philadelphia, where my dad lives, and Boston, where I went to school, in the middle of the night to avoid traffic on the NJ Turnpike. Seriously–I used to leave his house at 2 in the morning and arrive at 8.

8. I was born 2 weeks past my due date but have tried to be punctual ever since.

This meme is going around…so I don’t know if I can come up with eight people who haven’t been tagged. Anyone want to do it?

Baby Steps

Yesterday AM got his first pair of shoes.

Of course, now he has to learn to walk all over again, but when we tested them at the park he was suddenly trying to climb play structures way out of his league. Apparently they are Super Shoes.

I was unexpectedly emotional at the sight of him with real shoes on his fat little tootsies (Taxman’s family genes dominate in the foot department–all the grandkids, even my skinny little nephew, have WIDE feet). It wasn’t, as my mother-in-law joked, a tug for wanting another baby. It was a tug for wanting THIS baby and the snuggles and hugs and nursings that are going to change as he grows up. You can’t stop progress, naturally, but I’m glad he is still running to me, instead of away from me.

Washout–my tale of woe

It’s pouring outside, but the washout happened (apparently) over email.

I decided to stretch myself a bit and joined up with a second book club.

I’ve been part of one for two years now, and I love it. I don’t love every book–that would be boring!–but I love the discussions and the laughter and the real thinking that happens there. I am the baby of the club by several years; many of the members have grandchildren about the same age as my kids. Seeing these people once a month makes me really happy. I get to have adult thoughts! About books! I get to use three-syllable words! Hear salacious jokes (sometimes)! Drive in the car by myself for eight whole minutes each way!

At Miss M’s preschool dropoff a couple of weeks ago, I heard about a neighborhood book club, already in progress. It sounded promising because it was guided by an English professor at a local university. I asked my friend to forward me the info, and I recognized some of the names on the list. I was a little nervous about the demographic–namely, it was all people just like me. (Approximate age; race; religion; marital status; hell, I think most of us have two kids, too. Potential to be supremely boring.) But here was a way to get out among adults a little more, an impetus to watch less reality television in favor of books. I was in.

I had only two weeks to get my hands on and read Out of Africa. I got a library card from an adjoining city and started plugging away. It was tough going at times. Memoirs aren’t my favorite form of writing, particularly for a discussion context, and I found Dinesen’s style a tad stilted. But I finished the last 20 pages yesterday. And I thought that the book brought up a lot of questions. I was happy I got through it and was going to be able to talk about it.

You see where this is going, right?

At 8:10, I left my house. The kids were in bed. Taxman was working in front of the Yankees-Red Sox game. It was pouring, so I drove. At 8:22 (eight minutes early) I buzzed the evening’s hostess. I got her husband, who said, “Book club?” (That should have been a sign.) So then she got on the intercom and was totally apologetic. Hadn’t I gotten the email? Yes, I got one last night, with directions to her apartment. No, the one from today, cancelling the meeting. (Clearly not.) “Nobody liked the book,” she explained, “so we decided not to meet.”

What?!

I apologized for disturbing her, turned on my heel, and went back to the car, hissing over my cell phone to Taxman. “What is this, the sixth grade? We didn’t like it, so it fails to merit discussion?!” Wasn’t this supposed to be an intellectual exercise? I mean, Out of Africa isn’t going to make my top 10 (or top 100) books I’ve read in my entire life, but there was plenty to talk about.*

So I came home, disappointed and peevish, to the sympathetic arms of my husband and the empathy of my bloggy pals. (Right?)

What do you think? Do I email the coordinator and say (nicely) that I’m disappointed? (Do I have sympathy for the fact that she just had a baby and was probably easily convinced to cancel?) Do I give these people another chance? How is it that nobody out of a list of 12-15 people decided to stand up for the idea of a book club?

Thanks for listening, anyway. I’m going to bed, since I’m home early.

* Isn’t this what book clubs do? Aren’t discussions even more lively when people don’t like the book? I belonged to a book club of six or seven women back before I had kids–the first book we all read together was The Lovely Bones. This was back when every third person on the subway (almost literally) had a copy, it was THE book, etc. We all hated it. Ripped it to absolute shreds. Boy, was that fun!