Category Archive

Our four year old computer is having problems connecting to the Internet. Taxman is at the dentist so I am using his computer. I should be working on a freelance assignment I meant to finish last weekend, but see aforementioned computer problem. This is my excuse if I have not been around as usual.

But this week has been fabulous, mostly because Miss M is having a super fantastic time at camp. From last year’s camp disaster to lots of rough emotional stuff at school this year, it is such a relief to drop her off in the morning and have her immediately engaged and sending me off with a casual wave as she starts coloring or playing with blocks. It’s not fancy, but there is such love in this place.

Love is the one thing–everything!–that was missing at school. So much so that when I picked her up from camp the first day, the teacher in charge of her “bunk” handed her over and said, “She had an amazing first day. She’s such a pleasure,” I almost started to cry. The counselors took pictures that day and made an Internet album–there is one of Miss M that, I promise you, could be a Kodak ad because she looks so joyful, her hands over her mouth in a gesture of happy surprise.

Every day since has been a good report. I wish it were summer all year long.

This magical little girl has given me, given Taxman, a full term in office. Four years.

Of course, we weren’t elected. She didn’t choose us. And heaven help us, this regime is nothing close to a democracy; as the years have progressed the balance of power has shifted from her being entirely the boss (when she didn’t know the power she had) to something more traditional for a preschooler (she has limited power; she knows it; and it distresses her mightily). I like to believe that we are willing to hear objections, ignore said objections when they get too vociferous, give in when appropriate, and try to reach workable solutions that are in everyone’s best interest.

It doesn’t always happen. There is a lot of yelling. There are a lot of tears, tantrums, lost treats, skipped television viewings, and, when things get really bad, the cancelling of bedtime stories.

This year has been a challenge, starting from the desperate potty dispatches from last June 18th. That actually went remarkably well, overall, but I am not at all sorry that we have targeted next week, rather than today, as The Final Frontier in Nursing. No reason to have her birthday be traumatic two years in a row.

The challenges of “three years old” have been mostly of the mental and emotional variety.

Preschool this year hasn’t been the unicorns and rainbows and bubbles that I had hoped it would be. She’s had as much trouble following rules and listening to instructions there as at home. “Red flags” were mentioned regarding her attention span and her ability (desire?) to take direction, along with “you should have her evaluated for…something, I don’t know what.” As recently as two days ago she made a scene at dropoff. Some of the girls are cliquey. Some of the boys are outrageously wild. It’s made me, by turns, angry, sad, and frustrated.

The question remains: How I can love someone so much and at the same time want to lock her in her room until she’s 22, because maybe by then she will say please without being prompted. (Oddly, she always says thank you; it’s usually spontaneous and usually hilariously overwrought and breathless.) And stop with the tantrums, because, dude, I have had enough.

So while the daily grind can be hair-raising and lengthy and full of explanations–”But why?” was big this year–at the same time, she is a wonder. Her exuberance. Her readiness to dance, to spin, to jump at every opportunity. Her creative spirit. Her capriciousness in sibling relations, which you all tell me is normal; one minute hair-pulling and hitting, the next minute reading together in the glider, or taking AM’s dictation, one letter at a time, in chalk at the playground. And that hair. Still.

I can’t even imagine where the next four years will take us. It should be quite an adventure.

June 2004

May 2008

(I hope whoever dreamed up shorts sewn into skirts is making a killing from girls like mine, who want to wear dresses–skirts are actually always second best–but have a penchant for swinging high, turning upside down, and “unladylike” maneuvers. As I often say, “There’s no reason for everyone at the park to know what color underpants you have on.”)

I mentioned to Miss M that I had to get a birthday present for her friend Y, who is also turning four. “Are you going to get her a toy, Ema?”

(Knowing that Y’s mom is drowning in a four-year-long flood of toys for both Y and her sister–and a third baby soon–I ran gift ideas by her ahead of time.)

“No, I’m going to get a book for her.”*

“I would like a toy for my birthday.”

“Hmm, really. You know, you already have lots of toys, and you don’t seem to like playing with them all that much.”

“I think I would like a toy for a present.”

“Well, I’ve already bought your birthday presents.”

And it’s three books, all of which were hard for her to return to the library in the past.

It’s funny how the books around here are constantly spilling–and being spilled–off the shelves, but somehow there never seem to be too many.

* I did buy a book, which I immediately wrapped, because Miss M has encountered it in the past and really liked it and would covet it to no end.

AM woke up Monday morning and started calling Taxman Abba, just as I predicted, and it’s adorable and funny and shows progress and it’s great news–did I mention he’s also got words for baby and berries and apple and birdie? and we’re still on break from speech therapy–but holy crap he really isn’t a baby any more and someday he will really be talking and everyone will understand how cute and smart and riotous he is and where did my little baby (babies, if we’re being honest; Miss M is turning four!) go?

Yesterday afternoon, I heard AM crying a particular cry. It means that Miss M is bothering him in some way. Because we were literally about to leave the apartment, I knew they were waiting at the door, so I guessed there was some physical altercation–along the lines of her pushing him down and essentially sitting on him. This makes him unhappy. I proceeded to screw up, as usual, and gave her an earful of negative attention.

But this morning, after his breakfast, he marched into her room, babbling, and climbed into her bed, which woke her. I peeked in and saw them snuggled together under her comforter, and she was reciting Curious George and the Firefighters to him. I don’t want to ruin it–I am not even going to remind her to pee. (Although I hope she gets out of bed if she has to go!)

I suppose it’s normal to see the two sides of sibling relationships, even at this age. Right? (Please say yes, because an hour later she was stepping on his hand.)

Or: It’s the weaning, stupid.

A couple of afternoons in the warm sunshine have been good for everyone. Not being home between 3 and 5pm has been excellent for morale. Mine, at least.

Apparently the mere notion of taking a break resulted in all sorts of bloggable material.  Because that very day I had a heart-to-heart with Miss M that made me realize that as much as I am desperate to wean her, she is equally desperate not to be weaned. To the tune of being willing to give up all rights and privileges of a big kid to be a tiny baby again because they nurse.

So we’ve got to figure out a way to make this less traumatic than it’s shaping up to be. And hopefully that will take care of some of the behavior stuff we’re wading through. I could also probably eliminate more tantrums if I let her wear a skirt to school every day, and though I have planned for that for next year, for now she’s stuck with what fits. (And the daily arguments about putting on clean underwear and clean socks? WHY? WHY WHY WHY???)

But the exceptionally bloggable part was when she asked me how babies get into their emas’ tummies. She’s not even four!!!!

Oh, and AM would like the general public to know he is more well-read than I implied in my last post.

I have a lot of stuff swirling around in my head, but can’t act on most of it. To wit: it is too early to shop/cook for AM’s birthday dinner (next Sunday). It is too early to pack for Pesach. Or to even wrap my head around how tricky that will be, seeing as how it will be five days at my in-laws’ in New York (will we have even cracked 65 degrees?) and then 12 days in Israel, where I am sure it is already scorching. I will spare you my bathing suit crisis because it would make you all hate me.

But anyway, the thing that is stressing me out the most is not how the kids will acclimate to a totally foreign climate, a seven-hour time difference, new foods, and being hauled all over the country to see people and sights. Rather, it is how we will survive the plane ride. When chichimama returned from London, I did not ask her about the charms of London or how the kids did with traveling in general. No. I rather breathlessly emailed to ask about the plane flights–a mere 15 hours worth of her entire vacation.

Usually when I have things tumbling around in my brain it manifests as insomnia. I toss and turn; I can’t get comfortable. Hours pass. Sometimes I just can’t bring myself to go to bed, although I am physically exhausted, because I don’t want to just lie there waiting for sleep to arrive.

But I am so crazed about one aspect of the trip that it’s invaded my dreams. I had a vivid one a few weeks ago. The four of us were in the airport, taking one of those peoplemover cart thingies to the gate. Taxman took the kids on to the plane, leaving me with AM’s carseat and, seemingly, dozens of small bags, spilling over with toys and books. I somehow managed to gather everything and haul it on to the plane, which looked oddly like a conference room. I dropped everything at Taxman’s feet and started ticking off what we had…then realized that in our obsessive race to get everything done for the kids, we had forgotten to pack our clothes. The true crux of the dream, however, was when I turned to him and said, ”Oh, oh, oh!!!!! I don’t have snacks!”

Yes, we are an army that travels on its stomach. AM expects a snack in the car from the second he’s strapped in. I have an array of relatively healthy snacks that travel well: Cheerios, raisins, dried cranberries, pretzels, crackers, string cheese, steamed baby carrots, grapes (although I have been trying not to buy the imported ones), apple slices, bananas, popcorn, animal crackers, and even slices of bread. That would be plenty for a 12-hour plane flight.

Let us edit that list for Pesach, however: Cheerios, raisins, dried cranberries, pretzels, crackers, string cheese, steamed baby carrots, grapes, apple slices, bananas, popcorn, animal crackers, and even slices of bread. Not so good. Perhaps New Yorkers have read of the Tam Tam travesty?  No?  It was covered in the Times! Tam Tams are matzah crackers with additions of salt and (I’m guessing) palm oil. The makers of Tam Tams were waiting on a new piece of baking equipment that did not arrive in a timely way…so now we’re all screwed, essentially. We’re also taking my Pesach brownies and small bags of Pesach potato chips. And macaroons, which probably only I will eat. But really, this will gnaw at me until we are safely on the other side of the ocean.

Because I can assure you that, just as in my dream, shelves full of peanut M&Ms in the airport newsstand will not be able to save us.

• We’ve reached that lovely point in the toddler life cycle in which 5, 5:30, 6 in the morning equals an acceptable, nay, perfect time to get up for the day. No matter that it is pitch dark, that others are sleeping. Well, why not play with trains before dawn? You only live once.
• The advantage of having an older child is knowing that as much as stage x sucks, it’s not forever. (There are many days when Miss M sleeps until 6:45 or even 7.) It will be replaced by a stage even less likeable. But maybe not as exhausting.
• I almost screwed myself over in the most idiotic way ever this morning. I was in the bathroom. (Again! I know!) AM came to visit. He brought Wolfie, his little stuffed wolf that he snuggles in bed and generally drags around. And kisses and nurses from his belly button. “You brought Wolfie?” I said, jokingly. ”Does Wolfie need to go potty?” “Yah!” he exclaimed. And turned on his heel and ran top speed to the other bathroom. Ohhhh, this was not good. “AM! AM! Come back!” I heard the toilet flip up and the sound of the potty ring.  “No no no no no!” I got there just in time. But really? Still kicking myself over the potential Wolfie crisis.
• I haven’t talked about speech therapy in a while. It’s going. Slowly. But it’s going. To my ears, AM is more imitative of speech, and will even do at home, when he thinks nobody is watching, what he refuses to do at therapy. He’s even starting to ‘fill in the blank’ of some of his favorite Laurie Berkner tunes, along the lines of…”The elephant sneezed…Ah, ah, ah-choo!” Mucho cuteness.
• I am pretty lazy when it comes to housekeeping, but when it comes to doing right by my children I try to step it up. Because they are my kids and need my advocacy and support. So I am totally confused by another mom at preschool. Her little one is about two months younger than AM and does not speak at all. I offered her my Signing Time videos a few months ago, but she said no. She told me today that he qualified for speech therapy and was going to start in a few weeks, and it was a good thing because he spends a lot of the day crying, she assumes, out of frustration. I re-offered my video collection–he is at an age when he has the fine motor skills to pick up signing really quickly–and she said that he wouldn’t watch on his own and she was “too lazy to watch with him.” Too lazy to watch TV? I can’t even imagine. I also can’t imagine just being ok with waiting when he is obviously in such distress.* My heart just aches for this little boy when I think about how much we all “talk” with AM. Really from the second he wakes up in the darkness and tells me he wants to nurse. Then he wants to play with trains. Then he wants a glass of milk. And cereal. And an orange. What if he couldn’t?
• [Update!] SQUEEEEE! Rachel Coleman (or someone writing her emails) left a comment on this post. THE Rachel Coleman, creator and star of Signing Time. I feel the burning need to tell Amalah, because she would fully appreciate my starstruck babbling, although she has like 40,000 readers and probably would filter me out as spam. All I need now is Laurie Berkner to pop in and say hi and I will rule the toddler universe!

* I am totally down with Caramama’s idea of being less judgmental of other moms. But really, when a mom says she can’t be bothered about something that I personally feel could turn this kid’s entire world around? What if he hadn’t qualified for speech therapy? What then? I am not trying to hold myself up as Ideal Mother, not at all. We found something that works. But if my child was reduced to tears over something as basic as not being able to communicate at an age appropriate level? I’d be trying to find a way. Mind reading, tea leaves, anything! And you’d think she knows because he is in physical therapy, but speech therapy is not a panacea. Progress is slow at best and measured over a course of months. So that’s a long time to have such an unhappy little one.

I should really be expanding my blogreading horizons. Not that I don’t love my little ‘roll to pieces, but some of you are too nice, some of you have full time jobs, and some of you are a little, um, busy right now because all that adorableness, I’m sure, wants to be nursed right this minute and no, you may not take a shower/eat a sandwich/write an email beforehand.

Plus some of my blog buddies who have a child born around the same time as Miss M have kind of disappeared. As we all know, a lot of people are only in it for the camaraderie of the comments, so clearly paying work and Life Responsibilities trump my need to have confirmation that other mothers’ sanity is also AT THE BRINK.

In a lucky moment today I linked to mothergoosemouse and almost cried tears of joyful recognition at this: “Would you believe that my three year-old cries more than my two month-old?” YES, YES, I WOULD! Would you believe that Miss M, at age three and three-quarters, cries so much more than the 23-month-old whose spoken vocabulary consists only of “muh” “usss,” “Ay-ya-ya,” “isss,” and “(ih)MEH”?* Would you believe that she cannot keep her hands off AM’s person or out of what he is doing or off his damn plate of food oh my lord I cannot stand this another day.

That she, who likes structure and reliability, cries, whines, or throws herself on the floor pouts upon being reminded of her daily routine and what it entails. Things like using the bathroom first thing in the morning and right before bed. Washing her hands with soap. Eating meals. Going to school. Taking a bath in the evening. Getting dressed. And don’t even get me started on the latest wardrobe fights around here. This morning we had the third pants/dress/a jumper is/is not a dress/if you wear that you MUST wear tights/no, it’s not warm out/Hashem makes the weather, not me! battle of the week. Followed by her insistence on wearing mittens with her fleece jacket. And crying when she could not find her mittens after school–because the fleece does not have pockets for said mittens, they went missing.

The whininess extends to me. I am not permitted to: take a shower, go to the bathroom with the door closed, eat something that varies from what the children are eating, drink tea, read my own book, talk on the telephone, or think, really, without inviting comment. Admittedly, many times I am guilty of tuning her out–because there is just so much chatter I can respond to when I am juggling the dozen or so things I am doing/thinking about at any given time. But really, it’s hard to be sunshiny when the first thing out of her mouth in the morning is a demand to nurse, usually followed up several minutes later with “But I don’t want you to take a shower.” This particular morning? Ever? So basically I am seething snit of a mother from about 7 in the morning.

I have been venting my frustrations with Miss M here for well over two years. I suppose it boils down to her penchant for seeking negative attention and my falling for it every damn time. Not enough one-on-one time for the two of us. Too much yelling. Too tired to change.

The thing that kills me is that I know she knows how to be reasonable, how to wash her hands without creating an enormous mess, how to play nicely with AM. All of those things happen all the time–at least once a day. And then they don’t.

I find hope in the fact that the other day she told a little boy at a playspace “Please stop doing that!” when she was upset with his actions, rather than knocking him to the ground and ripping the offending object out of his hands. (As an aside: you will never see adults move so fast as when they hear a preschooler raise their voice and say “Please!” It reeks of desperation in a way that screams and tears do not convey.)

I am not sure where this all is going. I wish I could see light at the end of whatever tunnel we all are in right now. But every day is just…tense. It makes me sad because she really is funny and whimsical and I spend my days frustrated and making bad impressions.

This should have been a letter to Ask Moxie, but it’s just too rambly so instead I am gifting it to the blogosphere for tea and sympathy. Where is my hanky?

* more, nurse, Ariella, ice, Ema

Purim is coming. (My hamantaschen lament here, in case you missed it last year.)

But tomorrow, the day before, is known as ta’anit Esther, the fast of Esther. No big explanation as to its origins; it’s right in the megillah. When Mordechai tells Esther that she must approach the king, unbidden (a potential capital offense), in order to save the Jewish people from destruction, she undertakes a fast to prepare herself. Her fast was three days, though. Surely, she was made of tougher stuff, so we fast for one day.

Anyway, I am skipping the fast. My status as “pregnant or nursing or mother of baby under 2″* is quickly running out. No plans to change it soon. For the past four years I’ve only fasted on Yom Kippur and Tisha B’av, the “major” fasts, 25 hours long and with additional restrictions.

I will still be nursing after AM turns 2, assuming he wants to continue–Miss M, of course, will have to be driven away with a sharp stick on the eve of her 4th birthday–but in the Eyes of the Law things will have changed. It’s true, they have changed. He is adorable and funny. We have the funniest half-sign conversations. And obedient! (Sometimes.) I can’t get over it. When I say, “Ok, it’s time to clean up your chalk/legos/books so we can go home/watch Signing Time/take a bath,” he usually just trots over and does it. Shocks me every time because I am so used to the “Huh? Me? I didn’t hear what you said. / I am completely ignoring you, bitch. / Ha! You say you don’t negotiate with terrorists yet you negotiate with ME!” of Miss M.

But I digress. Perhaps the return to a cycle of six fast days will signal a return of other things. Synagogue attendance. Spiritual feeling. Energy to attend to things happening outside the walls of my house. Who knows, perhaps I will even find work. (Although, as BrooklynGirl notes, that comes with its own set of challenges.)

When I first was excused from the minor fasts I felt like I was somehow cheating. As a religiously rebellious-yet-repressed 15 year old, fasting was something I COULD do. Couldn’t keep Shabbat, but wow could I not eat all day! Easy peasy. I even took on fasts I didn’t have to. (The fast of the first-born, the day before Passover, is only for first-born sons and has an easy out for anyone who attends synagogue that morning.)

But four-and-a-half years into the pregnant/nursing/mothering thing, I will tell you this: I need all the help I can get.

* I am not a rabbi, nor do I play one on TV. My Local Orthodox Rabbi (who is a total gadol ha’dor, if you ask me) is pretty lenient about things concerning pregnant/nursing women.

While shopping at that child-friendly mecca, Trader Joe’s, my wee ones demanded that I make good on the snack I promised. (It had been originally, loudly demanded, natch, from the rear while I was driving highway speed.)

I had a large bag of raisins but no way to distribute them in small quantities.* I found some little cups over by the drink machine and snagged two. I guess they are supposed to be used for sampling the TJ product of the day, but nevermind. As I started to put raisins into the first cup, Miss M piped up: “Me first! I’m the mommy!”

“Oh, honey,” I said regretfully, “The mommy always gets served last.”

“But I want to be first,” she explained.

“I know,” I sympathized, as I gave the cup to AM, “but the mommy goes last.”

* Left to his own devices, AM would eat the entire bag and still ask for more, so I have to control the portion.

AM’s new DST schedule is wreaking havoc with my life. (By the time he goes to sleep I am too useless to do anything but watch the second half of The Biggest Loser: Couples. And then go to bed too late and hungry because I am too tired to make anything decent.) Therefore, an edict has come down–from me, because I am the Queen–that the 20 minutes that he napped in the car on the way to speech therapy will be the only nap he takes today.

Good news: He should go to bed at the “normal” time.

Bad news: He will be an enormous crank starting at 3:00. And 3:00 to 7:00 is a long time.

Update! Everyone was sleeping by 7:10.

I had a brainstorm–to take the kids out for Chinese food, at a kosher place 20 minutes away. Would kill time, get us all fed. My brilliant idea was threatened by the fact that I had a FreshDirect delivery scheduled from 4 to 6. But my buzzer rang at 3:35, so off we went! Of course, we were the only people at the restaurant 4:20. Did not care. AM got rice everywhere. Did not care. Miss M had to be bribed to eat the chicken. Did not care–she ate plenty of brown rice without complaint. Overpaid for truly mediocre chicken with mixed vegetables. But an entire afternoon’s activity? Priceless.

If anyone reads Ianqui’s blog (and you should, ’cause she cool–and not just because we were born on the very same day!), you know that I met her on Sunday night in the Village to see The Business of Being Born.

This was A Big Deal.

• Taxman had to come home early from the office, give everyone dinner, and put them to bed. (AM still nurses before bed, although he apparently did not kick up a fuss.)
• It was freezing cold. Manhattan is a fracking wind tunnel. The whole borough.
• I never go to the movies. Not once in 2007. I saw Charlotte’s Web over a year ago with my mom. The last movie I saw before that was Sideways. Miss M was six months old.
• I took a car into Manhattan, which meant either finding street parking or paying for a lot, which I find personally offensive because of what these places charge. Do I look like I am made of money? (And of course, the shame of showing up to a blogger meetup with Ianqui in a car. Hey, at least it wasn’t the van! Because I would have had NO chance of street parking that animal.)

Clearly I wanted to see this movie, and I was going to take advantage of seeing it Right Now, when it was playing only in NY and LA, not waiting until it comes out on DVD and forgetting and then not seeing it until 2011.

And, wow, now I want to have a home birth. Although I absolutely admit that I am putting that feeling out into the universe because I know it can never happen. After two C-sections? Two three-day long labors? These were not C-sections for anyone’s convenience; trust me when I say that my births were inconvenient for everyone. My doctors, my doula (who insisted that she was tossing out the length of my first labor because it skewed her statistics so wildly), my in-laws, my husband. I hesitate to say that I earned the C-sections, but hey, those babies were not coming out on their own unless they needed to borrow the car or something. 

But I digress.

The laboring women in this movie just radiated grace. Even at their lowest moments, in pain, exhausted, overwhelmed, they were beautiful. I think the me of 10 years ago, or even five years ago when we were in the midst of “trying,” would have been embarrassed and scared to watch. Nudity! Moaning! Babies emerging! Augh, my eyes! But. Having “been there” twice, I was awed by their power and trust in their bodies.

The huge advantage of a home birth, which I attempted to re-create in my labors by refusing to go to the hospital until I was so exhausted I needed, mentally, to know how dilated I was in order to push further, is the freedom to labor in the position and state of undress that’s comfortable, changing as necessary. Not tied to a bed or an IV. Working with gravity instead of against it. The film showed women laboring–and delivering–in the bathtub, next to a bed, squatting on the floor. Compared to what I, and a gajillion other modern American women, had experienced in the hospital, it seemed Biblical. And I mean that in the best of ways: natural, fundamental, connected to previous generations of women, attended to by women who are experts in birth. And strong.

One thing that struck me about the home deliveries was that the babies often didn’t cry immediately. “What’s wrong?” the moms demanded, “Why isn’t he crying?” But everything was fine; the babies blinked in confusion on their mothers’ chests for a moment or two, then they all let out the stereotypical yelp. My (unprovable) theory is that the births were so seamless, particularly in the case of the waterbirths, it took them a minute to realize they were no longer inside. Once they came around, of course, they joined the newborn chorus. Which is, I am convinced: “Holy shit! I don’t want to be here! It’s COLD! It’s BRIGHT! I don’t like it! Put me back! Put me back right now! I hate you!”

The movie had its flaws. I think that pitching birthing at home to the average American woman is unrealistic. People are too scared, too litigious, too afraid to ruin their bed linens or their couch. I am not judging–I would have never considered having Miss M at home. The very idea of pushing her out was horrifying; I guess I wanted surgical backup. Although in retrospect I can’t figure out why I thought a hospital would be a better place for feeling comfortable and doing that than my own home (or, at the very least, the Roosevelt Birthing Center). Of course, I probably should have gone with a midwife-hospital delivery for AM to give myself the best chance for a VBAC, but I was so overwhelmed by the pregnancy with him in general I couldn’t see going outside my comfort zone to a new medical professional. Oh well.

So I wish that the movie had explored more avenues for women within a traditional hospital setting: delivering with a midwife; using a doula; even just educating themselves to the teeth about the pros and cons of various interventions and writing a birth plan and sharing it with their health care provider. But hey, moderation isn’t quite sexy enough for the movies. Even though I am still pretty amateurish in the whole birthing business, I had enough reading and experience to want to yell at every woman laboring on her back, “Stand UP!”* And I didn’t do that much reading.

For me, the saddest and most frightening part of The Business of Being Born surrounded the pregnancy and birth of Abby Epstein, the director. She and her boyfriend-now-husband (the movie’s cinematographer, Paulo Netto) became pregnant, unexpectedly, during the filming. She was thinking of a homebirth but wound up with an emergency C-section; her water broke several weeks early and her son was breech. The frightening part was that the baby had some sort of growth restriction (unclear to me if it was IUGR or something else), and when she quizzed her doctor about why it wasn’t caught earlier in the pregnancy, he said something like, “We usually discover this after a stillbirth. We don’t catch it in the middle.” Um, holy crap.  The sad part was that this mom-baby dyad (to get all LLL on y’all) was clearly behind the 8-ball. Watching her, teary-eyed, desperately trying to nurse her tiny preemie for the first time on the third day of his life. With NO apparent help.** I just wanted to reach up to the screen, help his latch, and strip everyone down for some Kangaroo care.

But back to me. It was hard to walk out of the theater without wanting another baby, sometime in the future. (It’s the newborn fingers that get me!) At the same time, though, that whole avenue of a natural birth, never mind one at home, is closed off to me. (I spent the drive home plotting an upending of an imaginary scheduled C-section, because: Choosing the date that someone is born? Creeps me out.) So that makes me wistful. Then again, I think I have to be a better parent to the kids I already have and a better partner to the husband I already have before I can really and truly think about adding another person to the mix. No idea if I will ever get there.

Which brings me to my point about Choice. I have been at this mothering thing for a relatively short time. But long enough to know that while it is rewarding, it is hard. It is demanding in every possible way: physical, mental, emotional, financial, spiritual, more that I haven’t even thought about. It can’t possibly be right for every woman at every point in her fertile life. I cannot and will not judge another woman’s circumstances for a decision to become a mother or to become a mother again. Or not. It’s personal. And for right now, that means it’s political too.

* During my 2.5 hour pushing phase with AM, even though I was partially numb, I felt compelled–at my very core–to be upright. It was instinctual. Wasn’t practical, but it couldn’t be stopped. Taxman and my doula held me up because I could not prop myself. How other women can deliver flat on their backs I have no idea.

** I am savvy enough to know it could have been edited this way for effect.

I promise.

But first a confession: I haven’t posted pictures in, um, about 11 months, because that’s when I switched to WordPress and I have yet to figure out how to properly post pictures. This drives me nuts. If anyone knows how to skool me in the ways of WordPress imgs, plz help!

Anyway, the straight hair made her look not like herself. It wasn’t at all stick straight because it has way, way too much body, even after being blown into submission. Rather imagine a tiny, red-haired Donna Reed (from the ’40s, not the ’60s).* And when she woke up this morning it was back to curly, although not as much as usual and actually pretty nice looking. Her tresses at 6:30 am usually sport the Bride of Frankenstein look.

The other odd turn of events is that the child now has Product. Namely gel for kids (no alcohol), which we are suppose to apply to wet hair and scrunch.** I have no Product beyond two-in-one in-shower hair care. But I have to be honest: It’s a relief, because hopefully this will keep the frizz under control. In a bizarre twist of fate, my daughter seems to have inherited her hair–color, texture, and kink–from my college roommate, who scared the crap out of me when she arrived freshman year bearing an enormous vat of gel. No, really, a vat. (32 oz? 40? 64?) I got used to the gel long ago, but now I have a deep understanding.

* By the way, I am so not an expert on the post-WWII era of TV/movies/pop culture. But when I said that to the woman who cut Miss M’s hair, she had no idea who Donna Reed was. Then I, of course, felt like an idiot–but isn’t Donna Reed kind of iconic? Not exactly Lucy, but still Up There?

** I actually know how to do this. When I mentioned it to Taxman, he blanched. I will teach, of course. I feel compelled to share my (admittedly limited) hair care knowledge, when called upon.

A conversation, brought to you by instant messaging

nu? how did it go?

fine

she wasn’t happy about the hairwash or blow dry but it was ok

her hair survived?

it’s crazy–she blew it out, so it’s straight

she didn’t lose the curls tho, right?!? RIGHT?!?

no

phew

they will come back after a hairwash

oh, ok

send her to school like this tomorrow and see what they say

yeah, that’s the plan

Clearly someone else needs a brownie as well.

Like RevDrMom, I found myself quite disoriented over the past 10 days or so without the usual moorings of a regular work schedule for Taxman and of preschool for Miss M. It wasn’t bad, but ordinary weeks have sort of a beginning, a middle, and an end, not three Sundays and two Thursdays and Shabbat. I wonder if it’s been messing with AM also, because his naps went all haywire and it took 90!minutes! to get him to sleep last night. So far it’s looking like today will be a more normal go of it…

(Aside, am I really that habituated and boring? Alas, it appears so.)

As long as he’s sleeping, though, I am going to continue freaking out about this afternoon. I’ve scheduled Miss M’s first haircut for 3:45, and I must complete my tizzy now, so that she will be calm and open to lollipop bribery.  I’ve been saying for about a year that she needs a haircut, but now it’s very true–if only to get rid of the dead ends that snarl every ponytail holder in the universe. I will repeat, over and over, “It’s just a trim.” I don’t want it short; I like the option of putting it up. Miss M prefers a little top knot “and curly in the back,” but this makes her look about five and breaks her father’s heart. I like two little poufy pigtails because it’s adorable or a tight, ballerina-like bun because it keeps the hair out of her face the best when she’s eating yogurt or using glue. But when it’s not too frizzy (maybe 2 days out of 7 in the winter) I accede to her wishes, if only to avoid the inevitable tantrum, with howls of “Ema, I want ONE!”

Anyway, this rite of passage has been pushed back far too long, and now I am too invested. I am beyond vain about her hair (and AM’s eye color, just so that nobody thinks I am playing favorites), as evidenced by the above freakout and willingness to spend probably more money on this afternoon’s adventure than my past three haircuts combined.* I need a good smack, clearly. But at the same time, her hair is the first thing people notice about her, so I feel responsible for getting it right. Ack, the pressure, it’s all too much!

I must go eat a brownie.

* Full disclosure: Taxman cuts my hair, so it’s free. But I never liked to spend much; in college I used to wait until I went home and my stepmom took me to her salon. Great haircuts, but I wouldn’t have wanted to pay for them by myself!

It is easy for me to sit here and read posts about B’s darling Katie and get emails about Michaela’s little girl and think that they are beyond geniuses. Talking so much at 18 months! So expressive!

But somehow it is something else entirely for our neighbors to drop by with their little boy, just a few weeks younger than AM, and watch words fly around.* Not sentences–yet–but words upon words, including the names of both Miss M and AM.

“Ema,” Miss M observed, “B says words! AM (I am not sure if there was a dramatic pause here or if I am inventing it) doesn’t say words.”

Right.

That’s why, as of last Wednesday, he was on the borough list to be evaluated for therapy.

Somewhere, locked behind those big blue eyes, pidgin ASL, emphatic pointing with The Index Finger of Doom, and tight hugs, are torrents of words. There must be.

* I am not intimating in any way that small boy B is not intelligent. I am sure that he is. He is a legacy to three different Ivy League universities, for pete’s sake.

How is it that there is a “popular” group of moms, who have the ear of the preschool director and run the rumor mill?

How is it that I am supposed to do their bidding when they uniformly cancelled the “younger siblings” playgroup that I arranged for today (on a Yahoo group, but still)–”Nobody was going to come,” the host mom explained, “except for you.” Umm…right. That was the point.

I’ve taken it upon myself to make sure that some of the moms who work full time get fuller access to the rumor mill (via me), but really, with all the money we’re laying out, shouldn’t everyone have the same news about preschool? From a reliable source?

Junior high was really not my favorite time of life; do I want to repeat it with my 3 year old?

The good news is that now I am WAY smarter. The whole thing to which I allude is complicated, but suffice it to say that when I am “kind enough” to pass the info to other moms, maybe I won’t be exactly objective. Clearly everyone can make their own decisions, but I am entitled to my opinion too.

A common sarcastic remark out of my mouth is, “Are you new here?”

Meaning, “This has been going on for so long, how could you not have noticed?!”

But this morning I majorly screwed up.

Last night, after the two families we had invited for Shabbat dinner said they could not come, we decided to decamp to my in-laws in exchange for bringing them desserts. (This is a good deal. No cooking, plus we are sure to get naps!)

This morning, somehow forgetting it was only Wednesday and there were still more than 48 hours to go until Shabbat, I announced the plan to Miss M. She was happy, to be sure; so happy, in fact, that she collapsed in a teary heap on the driveway when I told her that no, we weren’t going to the car to go to Opa & Savta’s house because we were going to school. Suddenly Wednesday to Friday seemed very long indeed.

Yes, sometimes I am new here.

Early morning conversation:

Me: “Miss M, tell Abba what today is at school.”

Miss M: “Abba, it’s green day today!” (She is supposed to wear something green; they will put out green playdough, green paint, green legos, eat something green for snack/lunch, etc.)

Taxman (to me): “What are you going to put her in?”

Me: “That sweatsuit she has.”

Taxman: “Which one?”

Me: “The aqua-y one.”

Taxman: “That’s not green! It’s aqua-y.”

Me: “Shhhh!”

Luckily, Miss M did not seem to hear this witty reparte and willingly got dressed in her seafoam green faux velour sweatsuit.* (No, I did not buy this. Nor would I. But as preschool wear goes, it’s pretty great–looks good with paint, washes well, and if it doesn’t make it past April, no big deal.)

Nevertheless, I read Taxman the riot act.

“If you tell her that outfit’s not green and she has a conniption, you are going to make it all better and you are going to take her to school.”

Because three-year-olds have a problem distinguishing humor from reality.

He, wisely, did not say anything at all.

* Just for the record, she is also wearing green underpants and green hairbands. ‘Cause I’m coordinated like that.

Twice in the past few days I’ve had a couple of odd moments, one relatively shallow and one very deep.

Last night I was at an open house for a potential school choice for Miss M next year. It was really an introduction to the entire school (which goes through 8th grade), its philosophies and quirks. They did not, of course, mention the tuition, which is astronomical.

But I sat in on the “intro to general studies” (as opposed to the pep talk on their Judaic studies, which I attended in another session) with a second grade teacher. I loved, loved, loved my second grade teacher. I actually had her twice–for second grade and also for reading when I was in first grade because I was pulled out for part of the day and put in her class. (This was my educator-mom’s deal with the principal that kept me in public school. Apparently overwhelmed, novice first grade teachers and smart, uppity, well-read six-year-olds don’t mesh all that well.)

Anyway, the second grade teacher who spoke last night was completely bubbly with enthusiasm. I am sure she was handpicked among the dozen teachers who could have given the presentation for just that reason. But beyond that, I was fixated on the “daily schedule” posted on the board. Wedged somewhere between Recess and Writing Workshop was a yellow card with red letters, spelling “D.E.A.R. Time.” After the session was over, I approached the teacher (who can’t be more than two years older than I am) and said, “D.E.A.R ?”

“Drop Everything And Read,” she replied.

“I think I love you,” I said. To a stranger. But one who was channeling Ramona Quimby. So how could I not????

I wonder if Miss M could do second grade at age four. Hmm. Probably not. Could I do it over at 33?

The second person who I want to just hug and thank from the very bottom of my heart is Martha Beck. I am generally pretty “eh” on the topic of life coaching and things of that nature. I don’t read O Magazine. I had never heard of her before. But I ordered her memoir Expecting Adam from PaperbackSwap. And read it in about three days, which is pretty much a miracle in itself.

It’s funny and sad and perspective-changing if you read it all the way through. There are a lot of interesting thoughts about parenting and just personhood in general. But she had me pegged at page 58:

One of the great myths of our society is that when women are left with small children, they are not alone. The truth is that a mother left with babies is far more alone than she would be without them; every bit of energy, attention, protectiveness, and care she might use to meet her own needs must first be directed toward the needs of her children.

There, in black and white, from the mind of someone else, is a rational explanation of how I can think that cheese crackers and cold tea are acceptable sustenance for myself.

At the same time, though, it saddens me to think that there are so many of “us” like that–I mean here, where I am, living in my neighborhood, wheeling strollers to the park–and I can’t seem to really connect to any of them. What am I doing wrong and how can I stop it?

In this, The Summer That Does Not End (Until September 17), I think I have finally reached the official end of my rope.

At 6 pm, as Miss M was finishing her dinner, I caught her taunting AM, already finished and walking around, from her booster seat. She was brandishing a fork and narrowly missed his face. She lost her bedtime books and got a lecture. (Read: I was verging on hysteria. A fork? A sharp, pointy fork?) 

Ten minutes later, she was perched on a dining room chair, drawing. AM, who was playing and really minding his own beeswax more than usual, wandered too close to her, within, say, two feet. So she pushed her foot into his chest.

I dropped her into her bed and told her to stay there. Because I have no idea what to do. (Remembering where Siblings Without Rivalry is would probably be a good start.) Because this happens all freaking day long.

Ten minutes later–teeth unbrushed, bathroom unused, bedtime rituals undone–she was asleep.

An hour later he was too. Still in one piece, no thanks to me. Or her.

Only eight hours until we begin again.

$&*% 

Scene: My elevator, late yesterday afternoon. Fresh from the park, we have Miss M, AM in the stroller, and me. Add a middle-aged man with a black long-haired daschund (making AM extremely excited–he signed dog and was frantically making noises for the entire time we were in the elevator) and a woman in her 70s.

Woman: “Look at that hair!”

Man: “I know.”

Woman (to me): “What do you do to it?”

Me (wondering if I am misunderstanding): “Do? I don’t do anything to it.”

Woman, in disbelief: “You mean it’s just naturally like that?”* (to Miss M) “Turn around, honey. Can I see the back of your hair?”

Me (as we’re attempting to disembark): “Yeah, she kind of channels Shirley Temple.”

Woman: “Remarkable!”

I don’t know. More remarkable than her actual hair, to me, is the idea that I would sit there curling it! Putting it up in elastics is enough of a struggle! Of course, this poor woman has no idea that I’d probably win the lazy parenting award, if there were one….

* To be fair, the hair was rather showy yesterday–fat sausage curls bouncing around; it wasn’t overly hot, so I just gathered it out of her face instead of sweeping it into two pigtails to get it off her neck.

• About four blog posts, including another one about breastfeeding
• My plan to do a full-scale edit of my dresser drawers in anticipation of some retail excitement
• My plan to finally really and truly shift AM to a middle-of-the-day, three-hour nap
• My plan to drop Miss M’s nap and its associated nursing in favor of an earlier bedtime
• Thinking that my parenting hadn’t screwed up my children too much

After three days plus an hour, Miss M was basically uninvited from returning to camp. Her hysterical outbreaks, her “refusal to communicate her needs and desires,” and running from her “bunk” (a safety issue) were preventing her from “thriving in camp.”

I have no idea, really, what the hell to think about any of this. To be sure, they can’t do what I do when she gets hysterical and irrational, which is to give her a sippy cup of water, say “I’m sorry you’re so upset; why don’t you go sit with a book until you calm down and can tell me what’s wrong.”

Camp was supposed to be a nice little break for everyone, but clearly it’s “not to be.” But if this is foreshadowing for school, the very expensive preschool at which she is enrolled for the second year, I am beyond dismayed.

So the last thing standing between Miss M and her dream (play) kitchen is pooping on the potty.* She’s done it a couple of times–it’s a fraught and fearful experience. The days between poops (3 or 4 from a former 1-2 x a day pooper) are fraught for me.

I figured it would continue to be a struggle every few days for some finite period of time.** Basically hugging her while pinning*** her to her potty seat as she begs to get off, just like peeing was for the first couple of days.

So you can imagine that I never dreamed she’d poop in a relatively uncontrolled environment. (Kate, Kate, you say, surely you project! It’s YOU that deals with safe toilet syndrome. My only defense is that prior to the potty being such a huge part of our lives, I could count on one hand the times she pooped not at home or where we were sleeping on vacation–from the time she was about 6 months old, no less.)

So there we were, at the park. She was running herself ragged climbing up and sliding down a section meant for kids over 8. I made threatening noises about collecting her sand toys right! this! instant! if she wanted to get pizza for lunch. She came running over, clutching her crotch in the traditional potty dance manuever. “Aieee!” she cried.

“Do you have to pee?” I asked.

“Yes!”

“Come here, I have your little potty.” I brandished the Baby Bjorn potty that now lives in the trunk of the car and is our constant sidekick.

As she was sitting, I noticed her back hunch in a suspicious way. “Are you pooping?” I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral. Because I was completely unprepared for that. Pee is easy enough to dispose of and clean up after, plus won’t give anyone cholera.

“No. Aieeee!”

(At this point AM, who was in the sandbox, wanted out. Right then. The protest was sustained and loud. Why do I go to the park by myself with them? I have no idea. I need a buddy, clearly.)

So yes, there was poop. And pee. And a poopy potty. And only one plastic bag. Thankfully, there were other parents at the park as well, one of whom gifted me a plastic grocery bag so I could tote Teh Now-Gross potty home.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I must lament the fact that we don’t have a utility sink.

* Miss M is not a huge fan of public toilets, although she did use one at the library today without a peep of protest. To my utter amazement.

** Complicating things is that she’s pretty much sworn off diapers. The last time she wore one during the day was last Friday, and that was because she had had two accidents while we were out and had run through the stash of underpants. We have offered her diapers to poop in, and she’s steadfastly refused them.

*** Does that sound awful? I’m afraid that she’s going to jump off in the middle of going and the results are going to get flung all over the bathroom. It’s kind of a health hazard, considering AM and his propensity to, uh, explore with his fingers and mouth. There hasn’t been any permanent damage to her psyche (I think), because now she’s totally cool with peeing. As she’ll be happy to tell you. Over and over. The less she knows you the better.

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!

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.

While I was mulling over this post, AM chewed about half of a cardboard puzzle piece. (The result was gross.) So grains of salt everywhere.

Today at pre-school pickup, as I was struggling to get Miss M into her sweatshirt and jacket while wearing AM on my front, the head teacher approached me.

After pleasantries, she asked, “Does Miss M eat salad?”

“What?” I replied.

“She doesn’t eat vegetables here. Cucumbers, tomatoes, things like that.”

“Well, she doesn’t like lettuce and tomatoes, so she doesn’t eat salad, per se. She does like cucumbers.”

“She won’t eat them here.”

“Miss M does eat vegetables, though. She doesn’t have a huge variety in her repetoire, but she’ll eat a lot of the ones she likes.”

(Teacher looks extremely skeptical, so I actually list the vegetables Miss M eats.)

“Well, ok,” she finally says. “I just thought you should know.”

“I have to be honest,” I say, jokingly, “if you offered me a choice between cucumbers and French Fries,* I wouldn’t eat the cucumbers either. She’s only here for three meals a week.”

I thought that would be the end of it, because I was all clever and disarming. But she went on! “I know that she eats fruit.” (Yes, she does, like it’s going out of style. Woe unto us if we have fewer than three different kinds of fruit in the house.)

Finally, I put it to rest by pointing to Miss M, running around like a lunatic, and saying, “She’s not exactly wasting away. And it’s only three meals a week.”

But, to borrow a phrase from the Grey’s Anatomy writers, Seriously?! 

There are kids who come to school eating lollipops–at 9:00 in the morning. There are kids whose moms are shoving bites of breakfast into their mouths as they run in the door because they refuse to eat at home. There are kids who will only drink juice and refuse water. There for the grace of Demeter go I, clearly, because Miss M is none of these: partially because we don’t allow it, and partially because she’s fine with my rulings (food has never been a huge battleground, thank goodness, although there are plenty of others). 

Not eating cucumbers at school, though. That’s serious business. How many demerits do you think I deserve?

* The lunches at school aren’t anything to write home about, in my opinion. The kitchen facilities are limited, so they get meals from a local restaurant and reheat. They serve cucumbers and tomatoes every day because, I’m guessing, there is very little prep required. They also bake cookies or muffins or a sweetbread at least once a week and eat it at their Shabbat party. So it’s not like their program is the be all and end all of health and balanced nutrition.

I’m sure every parent has that moment when you realize the tiny person in your life is really on the way from babyhood to personhood. Their first bite of ice cream, outgrowing a certain outfit, a first tooth, first word, a first “sleeping through the night” (no, this isn’t it for me!).

Both of my babies were born in the spring. Their newborn summers I tried to keep them shaded and wearing hats and tucked into Solarveil ™ slings–they run way too hot to be dressed in long sleeves and pants during the steambath that is a New York City summer.

So my trigger that signifies the beginning of graduation to toddlerhood and beyond? The first time I lean in to kiss those chubby red cheeks and they smell like sunscreen. I know that by the end of the summer I’ll have a walking, watermelon-stained, mischievous, curly-haired (maybe?) rascal making me laugh, instead of the wide-eyed, giggly baby. He’s already so big, but his sweet cheeks are heralding the changes to come.

This is going to be a little disjointed; see any random post for sleep-deprivation tally and its effect on my brain.

So I have been thinking about pediatricians lately. And how it’s hard to advocate for your kids in the face of authority.

I am emailing with someone who is moving to the neighborhood from another NYC borough, and she is looking for a new doctor.

I’ve also been an alternately sympathetic and outraged ear for my friend D, who has gotten some zingers lately from a local pediatrician. I have no idea if D is blogging it out herself; of course my original thought was, “She has a 2 1/2 year old and a 4 month old. How can she have the time and headspace to blog?” But then look at me–would any of Miss M’s classmates’ moms think I am offering up my snark to the universe? Probably not. They might even think I am nice.

Pediatricians have a big job. The good ones appeal to the small set but also know how to talk to their parents. Unlike a “regular” internist, who might see any given patient once a year or less, a pediatrician sees a kid from birth to 12 months probably a minimum of six times (this is assuming, in my privileged way because I am too scandalized to admit that it is otherwise for millions of kids, that the baby has health coverage). Even if each appointment is only 10 minutes, that’s a lot of face time.

And even more than that, parents, especially first-timers, are often looking for guidance that inches beyond medical and into “lifestyle.” Would you ever imagine troubling your grown-up doctor about what kind of laundry detergent to use? What about a brand of underwear? Or plastic cups?

So it’s a fine line. I admit this.

But really, if your heart’s not in it, there are plenty of specialties where you don’t have to interact with kids andtheir parents. Hell, there are specialties where you don’t have to interact with patients all that much (radiology, hematology, pathology). I suppose that once you set your path and do more training it’s difficult to change. Honestly, though, it would be great to give it some thought beyond internship and residency and the hotshot toys. My dad was planning on being an OB/GYN but realized he didn’t want to be delivering babies when he was 50; he picked another specialty.

I’m not saying my pediatrician or her practice are perfect. I was trying to parse the “the office is closed” message yesterday–clearly a fever, sore throat, tummy ache and sore ear isn’t an “emergency,” but some antibiotics were looking pretty necessary–and wished for a way to get through to a person. (We got dosing instructions from our neighbor, and my dad called in the Rx.)

But overall, I am really happy with our pediatrician. She’s kind to the kids, who are inevitably screaming from the first crinkle of the paper, and she is my biggest breastfeeding cheerleader. You should be a La Leche League leader. Nursing through pregnancy? Good for you! Tandem nursing? You’re such a great mom!She never forgets that the kids are individual parts of a family and everyone’s health and attitude reaches out and affects everyone else. (She was disappointed to learn that my evening book club was only once a month. “What else are you doing that’s just for you?” she wanted to know. Does blogging count?)

Anyway, our path to this pediatrician was twisty. We started with the practice where D’s kids are now. I “interviewed” with them when I was pregnant. But, really, what could I possibly have known? I knew that I wanted to breastfeed. Did I know that I would breastfeed until college pre-K? No. Did I know that we’d actually love like babies in our bed? No. Did I know that I would instantly know that my daughter really would cry all night if left alone in a crib, rendering any kind of sleep training an impossibility?* No. Did I know that our crib would be a great place for laundry? Also no. Did I have a clue that we’d wind up with a second car, rendering moot our desire to have a pediatrician’s office within a 10-minute walk? No.

So at Miss M’s 4-month appointment, when the doctor said, “Get her out of your bed,” I bristled. At 10 months, I was instructed to stop nursing her at night because that was causing her gastric distress (it wasn’t; it was the dairy sensitivity that the doctor completely missed in his eagerness to get her to cow’s milk) and that it would make her fat. I took umbrage to such a bald-faced lie and resolved to leave the practice.

But D is dithering. She’s at the pediatrician a lot. Her older son, a classmate of Miss M, is sick a lot. He’s got a million food allergies and frequent ear infections. Her younger son was a very fussy newborn, tons of stomach distress. She reported to me that the pediatrician (she sees the woman in the two-person practice) told her at one month that the baby was allergic to her breastmilk and that she needed to wean him immediately to very expensive “pre-digested” formula. What? No, seriously. What?!I told her to cut out all dairy (her first attempt to do this was really half-assed) and to ignore such idiotic advice. When her older kid is so allergic (to dairy, among other things) she should stop breastfeeding? But here’s the thing–it wasn’t her sister-in-law or a nosy neighbor feeding her such crap. It’s her pediatrician.

Then last week D reported that the baby’s 4 month checkup had included the lovely advice to nightwean him because he’s big enough (weight-wise) to not need to eat at night. And to sleep train him, “First let him cry for five minutes, then eight, then 11, etc.” and that if D couldn’t stomach it, “Don’t worry, it doesn’t make you a bad mom.” Even if the doctor was joking…you just don’t say that. If she wasn’t joking, what the hell is wrong with her? I wish I could call the American Academy of Pediatrics on her. Dangerous nursing advice and ignoring medical research and obnoxious comments all in a neat little package. And I love these little pronouncements–hey, doctors, if it’s so easy to resettle a baby without nursing at 3:00 in the morning, here are my keys…you come do it.

Naturally I’ve been pitching my pediatrician. “You have a car,” I told D. “It’s not that far. This office accepts at least 25 insurance plans. What are you doing staying there? It’s toxic!” She sighed and said she didn’t know.

I’ve been there. You have to reach your limit before you really break out of the complacency. But once you do, you can hardly believe what you put up with in the past. I hope it comes soon for D and her boys.

* We never even tried, and I’m not sorry. Even though it took two years for her to sleep through the night, it took much less time for her to go to bed peacefully.

Q: How to you get Miss M to sleep past 8*?

A: Change the clocks.

* This is only if you ignore the two wake ups in the middle of the night, the second of which caused Taxman to fall asleep next to her for a couple of hours, and her 5:30/6:30 (old time/new time) demand to nurse.

So, at my mom’s suggestion, I am thinking of making up a “star chart” for Miss M. Which in a way seems ridiculous, because she’s 2 1/2. However, I think she’s all about the “reward” (see under: bribe), and I have a specific goal.

I don’t want to be a nag. I really don’t. But Miss M often refuses to pick up any of her toys. I don’t expect her to make the place spotless, because then I would be the biggest hypocrite in the universe. I just would like her to take a little responsibility for her stuff. Some of it has specific places to go (bins, toy boxes, bookshelves, etc.), and I’d like her to be inspired by some cheap trinkets–because my simply asking her once (like they do in school), twice, or 3,874 times is not enough–to just pick up one category of “things” before moving on to the next activity. That would probably carve a small path through the living room, and I’d be satisfied with that for now.

So I am thinking of a chart to do the nagging for me.

Other than my misgivings surrounding the principle of it, another big stumbling block is what else to add to the chart. Even though she can be very demanding of attention, she’s really great in a lot of ways, especially for a two-year-old. She eats vegetables. She loves to take a bath and doesn’t mind a hairwash. She allows her teeth to be brushed without complaint and even asks for multiple tooth brushings a day. She used to be excellent at sharing toys and taking turns, but her little pals are getting very into “mine!” and she’s starting to follow suit–can’t blame her for that. One of her favorite things in the world to do, and I’m not kidding, is to help schlep groceries up to the apartment and unpack them. (I know!)

Not pushing AM away by the head needs to be part of the family contract with or without a prize. Potty stuff is still on the periphery for the birds.

I am feeling naive. Anybody walked through this fire before?

Just now, instead of putting on a video for Miss M while AM nursed to sleep, I pleaded with her to play quietly in her room with her Little People. The seventh (or so) request was the charm, and AM got a solid six minutes of blessed silence in which to fall asleep and completely ruin the rest of my Friday schedule.

I tucked him onto the floor of our bedroom and popped my head into Miss M’s room. “Octopus very clean,” she told me, proffering the turquoise octopus from the Little People Pirate Sea Skiff set.

“Oh,” I said, not really sure where she was going with this.

“Octopus very clean,” she repeated. I took the octopus and there was some tacky transfer to my hands. The scent was unmistakably grape-y and sweet. What had she gotten into? The infant tylenol? No, I got it.

Her toothpaste. (Aside: Oh, no, did they stop making this fluoride-free?)

She had used her (brand new, as of last night) toothbrush and her (brand new, as of last week) toothpaste to “clean” her octopus. In a bizarre twist of fate, I didn’t yell; I merely took the toy to our bathroom to wash it off and survey the damage. Miraculously, there were just a few purple dots in the sink, and the toothbrush was carefully laid on top of the toilet tank.

Someone without kids would probably be horrified that I had left her unsupervised for 10 minutes, that she had gotten into the toothpaste (our unsafe-to-swallow fluoride-filled Colgate Total was right next to hers), or that I meted out absolutely no consequences besides, “Oh, Miss M, please only use your toothbrush for your mouth. And only when a grown-up is helping you.”

I just lost my head because I was so entirely relieved that my bathroom (newly cleaned) wasn’t awash in sticky purple ooze. And she had ”cleaned” only one toy. Hallelujah to that. The rest is just funny.

It is vacation week. There is no school tomorrow.

My cleaning lady comes Thursdays. When I signed Miss M up for school a year ago, the only day that I requested was Thursday.

Miss M’s carefully planned playdate for tomorrow friend from school has a fever.

My mother-in-law has a dental appointment tomorrow and will be unavailable to play.

Despite a fun-filled morning with her great-aunt (and being endlessly entertained on the 30-minute drive home), Miss M did not nap today. I almost literally bit her head off. It was ugly.

Because of Miss M’s dried fruit obsession, I changed five poopy diapers today. (Just from her.) I am so not letting her eat it again until she uses the potty.

Infinte chaos reigns in my apartment. The laundry that has been clean and even folded for days has yet to make it to the bedroom. Entire pieces of furniture are lost under it. There is crap everywhere. Normally this doesn’t bother me, but today it is making me want to burn down the house just to get rid of the disorder.*

The weather has been really super nice for the past two days, but the playgrounds are still a wreck of snow and huge puddles. Yesterday Miss M spent some time at one in snowpants and a parka, but she got them filthy. Guess who didn’t do laundry last night?

So, yeah, tomorrow. I have an errand to run in New Jersey, so that can kill maybe 45 minutes there and back. There is absolutely no way our apartment can be cleaned in that period of time. 

What would a virtual playdate look like? 

* My stepmom was always like this before she got her period. Could I be getting my period? I haven’t had one in 3 1/2 years. Coincidentally, it was 3 1/2 years ago that I last slept from 11p-6a.