It's all fun and games until someone loses a pie

The following are step-by-step instructions on how to make a strawberry tart with a toddler. (It is alternately known as a drinking game for parents).

Step one: Mom, quickly drink something alcoholic. A shot of tequilla works nicely.

Step two: Gather supplies. You will need: eight large strawberries; one box ready-made pie crusts (who needs to do all that work when Betty Crocker can do it for you?); one tablespoon of sugar; a sharp knife; a tartlet dish; a kitchen stool; a drop-cloth and a power washer, (a dog will suffice).

Step three: TAKE THE KNIFE AWAY FROM THE TODDLER.

Step four: Slice the 6 strawberries while diverting toddler's attention with the 2 remaining "decoy" berries.

Step five: Put tartlet pan down on center of crust and cut a large circle with knife. Line pan with center part of crust material. Set aside crust remnants.

Step six: Instruct toddler to dump berries into pan. ... She may do so ONE AT A TIME … S-L-O-W-L-Y, so try and be patient. This may be a good time for a second drink.

Step seven: Put drop-cloth on floor then hand toddler a tablespoon and the sugar bowl. (Word to the wise: the perfect time for this project is where there is only a small smackerel of sugar clinging to the bottom of the bowl. Even a small amount of the sweet stuff strewn on the floor will make you feel like your walking on a beach, only without the nice surroundings and the calm push of rhythmic waves).

Step eight: TAKE THE KNIFE AWAY FROM THE TODDLER.

Step nine: Slice narrow strips of crust from remaining dough and weave them as best as you can across the top of pie. Toddlers can be great with this part, making curly-cue designs while throwing pieces at the dog. Some might call the result a giant wad of sweaty goo, though we like to call it "ART."

Step 10: Time for another shot? What do you think?

Step 11: Hand kid the leftover leftovers to play with since you forgot to preheat the oven to 350 degrees (hotter if your oven sucks) and you must kill time.

Step 12: Remove dough pieces from the dog's back.

Step 13: TAKE THE KNIFE AWAY FROM THE TODDLER and put it in the dishwasher already. Sheesh.

Step 14: When is that oven going to heat up, damnit? Tap foot incessantly and pace in front of the stove. It might be time for another drink.

Step 15: Make a second pie since you have the time and a left-over pie crust. Use your hands to mash strawberries and rip pie crust into the approximate shapes of circles and strips. (Don’t tempt fate by pulling the knife out of the dishwasher).

Step 16: One more nip won’t hurt. You’re still standing.

Step 17: Put pies in oven and bake about 30 minutes or until the crusts are a golden brown, (use the timer as your senses may be slightly impaired).

Step 18: Save one of the pies for daddy because toddler will feed hers to the dog and then demand "ICE PEEM."

Note to self: Pick up new bottle of hooch at the liquor store tomorrow.

Men are from Mars, women are from Venus and parades are from hell

Some days the idea of beating my head against a brick wall until my brain oozes out my ears doesn’t seem so bad. It certainly would feel better, I imagine, than the sharp pain I get behind my eyes when I try to decipher a Rosetta stone of marital miscommunication.

As it is my wont to try to distill all human interaction into its most efficient essence, I shall call this phenomenon 'D.U.H.' - Don't Understand Him/Her.

And I'm compiling entries for a pocket reference:

Case #1: "Let’s meet for lunch"

Recently, Ittybit and I were in town (where the man in our life was working for a half-day) not getting lunch because when we met the man he'd already eaten someplace else – D.U.H. Clearly the fault was my own:

I should have made it perfectly clear that “Hey, I'll meet you for lunch” is virtually the same as “Let's meet at the same restaurant somewhere round about noon and eat a mid-day meal together.”

Case #2: Entertain the child

Lunch aside, however, all is not lost. I had another purpose for going to town. There was shopping to do. There were gifts to gather for weddings and birthdays and special occasions. Things I usually don’t do with a toddler in tow, because, let’s face it, shopping with a toddler is in the same ballpark as bringing a pet billy goat to a China shop, smearing it with epoxy glue and setting it loose in the glassware aisle.

I had hoped the man could entertain her at the ice cream shop while I spent massive amounts of money on stuff my friends would stuff in a drawer. I did not intend for him to let her down in the same store I was perusing, where all she wanted to do is hang from my shirt and cry or stack Le Creuset crockery in reverse order, smallest to largest. D.U.H. Again, I am forced to see the error of my wording.

I should have made it perfectly clear that "Entertain her while I go shopping" actually means "Take her someplace else and don't bring her back. I will find you when I'm finished. If you see me by accident cross the street and pretend I’m someone else."

Case #3: Alone time

No matter how well you plan, of course, there will be some surprises. Unbeknownst to us, turns out it was fire department day in town, which means a long parade of trucks and marching bands meander down Main Street toward the fairgrounds.

We discuss whether we should move our cars, which will surely get blocked in and erase our option to leave midway through should a meltdown arise. We finally arrived at a conclusion: I would stay for the parade and he would go home to nap. D.U.H.

Perhaps you might have explained that a 'Family Day,' is technically the same as sitting on the couch watching a "Sopranos" re-run marathon. Double D.U.H. I will need to remember that the next time I volunteer to melt in the heat with a toddler who covers my eyes, pulls my hair and won't hold my hand.

I suppose it makes sense, though. After all, he did mention that we needed more “alone time.” Unfortunately I interpreted that to mean sans baby, avec each other.

I also forgot that date-night is a term that means the mommy must arrange babysitting and come up with a plan for stepping out on the town, otherwise the word means the husband is going to poker night.

And for the strangers in the parade:

D.U.H.!?! After waving our fool heads off, clapping and cheering for you folks in the hot summer sun, I've come to the conclusion that it might have ACTUALLY killed you to smile or wave back.

I had no idea a PARADE in your language meant Perturbed And Rancorous Autocade Dourly Exercising.

Live and learn. Live and learn.

Just smile and nod

It was a cause célèbre in the newsroom. Everybody wanted a piece of the Joe.

Bruno, that is.

Senate Majority Leader.

Third man in the room at budget time.

And now, best of all, a bobblehead doll handed out at the ball field that bears his name.

Of course, there were few among us willing to wait in line after quitting time for one of the big-headed, coiffed haired, presidential-looking likenesses of the man we all know and love, not to mention the optional prostate screening thrown in as a bonus.

"They'll turn up on e-bay within the week, mark my words," chimed in one soothing voice of consolation. "'Cause you know the line for the dolls will be longer than the one for the tests."

What's with this fascination for bobbleheads?

They didn't just arrive in the land of excess yesterday, packaged in plastic eggs from the planet kitsch. They've been around for quite a while; long before the 1960s when the marketers of all things baseball adopted the big-headed curios and turned them into the icons we all know and love (so long as they are winning).

One of the earliest literary references to bobbleheads dates from 1842 when Russian author Nikolai Gogol wrote "The Overcoat," and described the main character's neck thusly: "like the necks of plaster cats which wag their heads."

I remember those bobbing headed animals from my childhood. Each and every one -- cat or bulldog -- bearing gold collars, sun bleached spots and velveteen hides rubbed raw from nodding against the rear windshields of every Chevy Impala ever to roll off an assembly line.

Somehow, inexplicably, while I was paying attention to the Pogues and the Pixies and Jane’s Addiction, the number of bobblehead creatures ballooned. Before I knew it, there were bobbleheads of presidents and first ladies, religious and literary figures and even, frighteningly enough, some that freakishly resembled yours truly.

Seriously, one of the first presents I ever remember getting from my soon-to-be father-in-law was a bobblehead me.



Her name was "Raven" and she was a "Goth" girl. With jet black hair, purple eyeshadow and the look of death warmed over, she came all wrapped in Christmas paper from a bearer who couldn’t stop giggling at his cleverness.

I suppose it might have been wise of me to cut and run right there, but I stuck it out. The following Christmas I was given an oversized wool sweater and all was forgiven.

It just stands to reason that sooner or later EVERYONE is going to have the chance to be a bobblehead. Some, undoubtedly, will be more flattering than others.

The surly woman who grunts every morning she takes my coffee order and then proceeds to splash a gallon of milk into my cup despite my ordering it BLACK, will probably have a some nodding plastic twin made in her likeness sooner or later. If I'm lucky enough to procure one I'll probably let the dogs chew on it just to administer a little passive revenge.

On the other hand, I'll have to plunk down some serious cash for the bobblehead of Ittybit’s babysitter. But it will be worth it. In addition to its bobbing head, hers will also have a wagging finger. Perhaps even a speaker to reminds us that "We-Don't-Poke-People-in-the-Eyes, That's-Not-Nice." Yeah, I'll be tucking that one safely away in a keepsake box to show Ittybit's teenage self who really deserves all the credit for her remarkable manners.

I wonder what Joe thought when he first laid eyes on his likeness. I imagine he might have wished the guys at the factory had given him a wider stance.

Or maybe he just smiled and nodded.

The hard work of being neighborly

I peered into the mailbox all squinty-eyed and disbelieving.

It was empty.

For the first time in as long as I can remember, 12 pounds of flyers, bills and catalogues were not waiting to be schlepped inside and immediately recycled. The mystery of the missing mail was solved, however, when I trudged into the house and noticed the insistent, blinking light of the answering machine.

Turns out, oddly enough, our mail had been inadvertently deposited clear across town at the home of the only other resident we know. A sure sign, I think, that there must be a higher power because everything about her is serendipitous, especially since I knew this woman long before either of us called our town "home."

We met just after college. She was my age but was already a single mom, dating the friend of a friend. I was struggling to find out who I was and where I belonged. I had no time to chat, regrettably, since maturity had not yet been forced upon me.

When we met again last summer at a farmers' market and learned we shared a ZIP code and toddlers one year apart, I couldn’t have been more pleased.

Since I regularly walked past her house each day on my two-mile morning constitutional, I was thrilled at the invitation to stop by. It wasn’t the kind of offer one extends lightly out of politeness. It was with genuine hope of being neighborly.

I reciprocated with equal enthusiasm, hoping since we live on the street with the playground our visits would be mutual.

In my head, though, I knew I'm not the type who just "pops by." In my head, you see, I am the eternal imposition; the person who feels awkward in their own skin and assumes they are destined to break your best China if you ask me in for tea.

A year has gone by. I’ve stopped taking my walks, in part because I can’t seem to muster out of bed at a reasonable hour to do so, and the anxiety of never taking her up on her offer haunts me.

"I'm not sure how it happened," laughs the voice on the machine, "But it appears the mail carrier has left a sizable portion of your mail at our house today. I was wondering when would be a good time for me to bring it over?"

My jaw drops open. Of course, I haven't cleaned the house since I don't know when and the dogs are shedding whole litters of puppies. As my husband putters around in the kitchen, he wonders aloud if we all wouldn't be better off if I just went to her house and collected it. He laughs, suggesting my friend might have collected the mail from our box just to have an excuse to have a get-together.

"That's not funny," I fret, as I frantically try to replace the belt on the vacuum cleaner while simultaneously tending to Ittybit's demand for help with her potty -- she needs to practice her 'Poo' song, she explains.

Twenty minutes, four disasters (including the unintentional deletion of her phone number while trying to replay the message) and one successful elimination later, and I am finally able to ring her up.

Turns out she'd already dropped it off in our mailbox.

'Aw! Shoot,' I think as I hang up the phone, 'perhaps tomorrow I'll get up early and go for a walk.'

Simple substitution: Dad, it's your turn

"Don't be fooled," I tell myself as I look at Ittybit's face over the mountain of bath toys, gearing up for our daily struggle -- bath time.

Behind those angelic puffy cheeks, pursed lips and sparkling eyes is a confection of unnatural sweetness -- A look that says: 'I win' in no uncertain terms.

It is the thin-lipped countenance of determined celebration; the knowing gaze of understanding. The expression of delight in a job well done: she's successfully trained her parents (*cough-sputter mother) to acquiesce to her desire to keep her hair from EVER touching water.

Oh sure she will get into the tub. Constant work and ample bribery, not to mention the complicity of an ever-growing army of bath toys, has guaranteed her willingness to drench the bathroom with bathwater. But each and every dousing is not without a liberal dose of inveigling.

By the time I've coaxed her into the bath by assuring her that I'm not going to wash her hair "right now," her mental time clock starts counting down. She washes between her toes and scrubs behind her knees in between tea parties with toy sharks and high dives with her Little Pony, but when it comes time to wash the back of her neck she starts to squirm for the towel and an end to "baf-time."

As the days stretch into weeks her hair starts showing signs of life. Sticking up in all directions or plastered to her forehead, the changing sculpture that has become her hairdo is the emblem of my failure as a mom. Since I am routinely in charge of cleaning up the kid -- and since I am unable or unwilling to deal with a struggling, soapy, squealing, squidlet yelling "I'm ALL DONE here!" as she scrambles out of my grasp -- the "hairdon’t" will forever be my badge of shame.

This type of thing hardly ever happens with the dad part of the equation.
I'm not sure when the shift happened, exactly. There WAS a time when his efforts would have a limit and he'd hand over a writhing mass of baby flesh for me to calm. The he'd walk away shaking his head.

But now the man in our life has it all down. He wouldn't stand for the shenanigans I put up with. He is even able to take her to the grocery store and get through the aisles without much hassle. On a recent trip, the first in which the "I want this," phrase made it's inevitable appearance, he was miraculously able to talk her out of absconding with a pillow-shaped bag of Fruit Loops stuffed under her shirt.

In my shopping cart, there would have been a lot of "wannas" and "hafta haves," followed by a long and drawn out "PEAS!!!!!" The eventual tantrum would be icing on the cake (not to mention the icy stares it would lend from the stockers, who would have to return my selected items to the freezer before a literal meltdown occurred) as I leave my cart mid-shop.

Somehow, he was able to avert the most disastrous of all outbursts — the crying, limpbodied explosion of tears -- by simple substitution.

When he handed me a happy toddler, carting a box of plain-jane Rice Chex instead of the sugar-packed rings of color, I had to ask: "How did you manage that?"
"I said 'NO.'"

The trouble with some women (like me)

Driving over the bridge, with nowhere to go but onto the highway, the crazy antics of the guy in the pickup truck next to me made my heart race.

There was no flirting going on, there was only flattening.

I thought something wasn't right with the car's handling, but there wasn't the tell-tale thumpity-thump of an off-kilter chassis. It was just a feeling. Of course I did what anyone in denial would do: I turned up the radio and drove a little slower (just in case).

But I couldn't ignore the man making funny faces as his lips mouthed the words "FLAT TIRE" silently through the glass. I had to pull over.

Yup. Flat.

Not all-the-way flat just considerably more flat than a tire should be, which means with a little luck I can get the car off the highway, into a service station and fill it with air before I’m scraping sparks along the asphalt.

The idea of having to change the tire goes through my mind, but I know such a thing means wrestling lug nuts with the large probability of failure, and I haven't yet given up hope that that it’s just a slow leak.

And, don't you know, the last thing I wanted to do was call my husband.

Reason #1: I've left my cell phone in the diaper bag, which is with my parents and the baby.

Reason #2: I don't want to admit (in reverse order) that I’m having car trouble, need help and that I don’t have the phone.

Reason #3: He would ENJOY being needed, which means, by the unjust rules of the universe, I need to assert my independence.

So I cross my fingers and ease back on the highway, caution lights flashing and all.

The first station I reach is closed. I check the trunk to inspect the spare, just in case, but I don't find the tire iron. I agonize a little about asking the women sitting on a nearby porch if I can use their phone, but decide I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet. I made it this far, maybe I can make it as far as the I-can-see another gas station.

I cross my fingers, chant "please-make-it-there-please-make-it-there" and pull back onto the roadway again.

Miraculously, I pull into the next station with the tire intact. I drop two quarters into the air pump and it comes to life.

I fill up the tire, but, having trouble with the pressure gauge, I check it over and over drawing the attention of a kindly biker who ventures my way to try and help.

"Thanks. I'm fine," I tell him. "It's just a low tire and I’m hoping it's only a slow leak. … My jack is missing a part and I don’t want to get stranded."

With no audible hissing I decide to venture onward. The biker draws my attention to the little black cap that I distinctly remember taking off at the previous gas station but somehow lost between there and here, and suggests it needs to be replaced pronto.

I don't mention I lost it mere seconds ago, the same way I lost the cap to the canola oil bottle in my kitchen and still haven't found it. I blame mommy brain and let it go.

Driving off I resume my chant — please-make-it-there -please-make-it-there -please-make-it-there -please-make-it-there -please-make-it-there -please-make-it-there — but I know there’s no way on Earth I’m going to make it there.

So I turn on my flashers, turn up the radio and drive to the furthest exit I can remember that has a service station and a payphone. When I get there the tire is flat again, and it's clear I can pump all the psi in the tank I want, it will be to no avail.

I call my father and let him know I'’m going to be late picking up Ittybit, who he and my mother have been entertaining for more than an hour now. ... And casually slip in the "could-you-possibly-come get-me?" question.

He tactfully tries to get me to ask someone to help me, and I misunderstand. I tell him it's not a SERVICE station, it's a CONVENIENCE store. There's no one here who can help. After all, this isn't convenient.

I explained I would have tried to change it myself but I can'’t find the tire iron. And he tells me it's wrapped in a little brown bag floating around somewhere in the trunk.

A light goes on.

Maybe I can fix it. Maybe I can do this myself.

I hang up the phone and rush back to the car. I search the trunk and find the missing tools.

Level ground, check; brake on, check; jack in place, check; lug nuts loosened … ERRRRRRRRRRR!!!! Ugh. They won't budge.

I sit down on the curb and stare at the wheel. Oddly, I feel calm.

I'm going to have to do it. I’m going to HAVE to call my husband.

Ring. … ring … ring …

“Hi, hon,” he says with a song in his voice. “Your dad called. I'm on my way.”

How did I wind up on their SH*! list?

How did I wind up on their S#*! list?

SPAM that is.

All week long I've been getting e-mails from a former college buddy I haven't seen in years. Out of the relative blue came a string of forwarded messages with off-color jokes, editorial cartoons and inspirational messages. Nothing terribly offensive, just out of the ordinary.

I shot back a quick note, ignoring the punch-lines and explaining I was pleased as punch to hear from her. I inquired about her family and if she’d seen any of the "old gang" rattling around in her travels.

Nothing.

A few days later her husband's name popped into my inbox sandwiched between a BBC news update and a brief note from my mother-in-law checking in with a grandmotherly message for Ittybit. His communiqué, like his wife's, was a little bit of humor (video form) making the rounds on the World Wide Web.

Another note is sent off into the ethosphere ... more nothing … until … the mother of all pet peeves arrives in my inbox bearing their return address -- an e-mail warning me of the dangerous BLUSH SPIDER.

There are the people who wouldn't stand for pictures of Branjolina's leftover grilled cheese sandwich bits coming anywhere near their Internet, and I think I may be one of those people. It's not that I don’t like jokes. I laughed hysterically when the Trunk Monkey popped out of my inbox and dragged me to the Suburban Auto Group's Web site, where I spent the better part of an hour viewing SAG's library of simian "public service" ads. It's just that I have little tolerance for alarmist entertainment.

For the record: NPR is not getting shut down so don't sign and forward the petition; KFC uses real chickens; hypodermic needles are not showing up in McDonald's play areas and on the undersides of gas pumps; and there aren't people trolling around mall parking lots trying to knock you out with ether in perfume bottles.

I have noticed, however, that since I've begun tracking down urban legends and torturing folks bent on perpetuating these myths with a few facts, my inbox has turned into a virtual desert.

I can't tell you how many people send back a rebuke, telling me that they were just trying to be helpful when they passed along that "urgent" message reminding each of us to turn off our cell phones at the gas stations, lest they go off and cause an explosion.

I suppose if it were a political thing, I'd be saying I was trying to fight spam over in their e-mailbox so I won’t have to fight it in my own. But it's an uphill battle, and it doesn't help matters much that even gas stations have fallen for the hoax, many of them posting signs warning of the potential for disaster of using your cellphone at the pump.

I hang my head a little in shame every time my letters are returned with a line of hurt feelings and a streak of consternation: "Well, I thought it was sage advice even if it never happened. It can't hurt to be careful."

I'm beginning to think hitting the delete button is really the best way to connect with my imaginary friends.

The winds of change

I remember when I felt time was just standing still. Ten years after college ended, I was still wearing my ratty Levis with the worn knees and sitting on salvaged couches. I could move through life as I pleased, or so I thought, even if it wasn't true.

There were signs of responsibility — there were more bills to pay, pets that needed attention and care, and there was a growing accumulation of things that seemed to own me — but nothing that quickened the passage of time. It just seemed to drag along from one day to the next.

Then along came Ittybit. Even in pregnancy, I felt time speed up. Nine months didn't seem long enough to adjust to this new existence that was headed our way. I spent a lifetime coming to terms with who I thought I was only to have a 6 pound, 2 ounce little girl show me who I could be, and, more importantly, who I wanted to be.

Time is just flying by much too fast now. Weeks are flowing like minutes. She's already half past two, and if I'm not careful to pay attention, I miss all the best things.

Take, for instance, a recent car ride in which Ittybit demanded "wind." It was a cold morning. I tried to talk her out of it, but she persisted. She wanted the wind. So I pulled a jacket across my lap, turned the heat to high and acquiessed.

Turns out she wanted me to open the windows of the car so she could liberate a roll of paper towels — leftover from a recent cleaning — one sheet at a time. I had to laugh when she heeded my rear-view admonitions and, drumming her fingers on the roll, asked if she could make "yittle pieces" dance on the wind.

"Absolutely not," I stifle a laugh. "That's wasting AND littering. And we don't do either of those things."

I didn't really expect her to comply, but I had no idea how closely she was paying attention.

As we continued to drive she asked me if I "yiked" the wind.

"No," I answered. "It's too cold out today. I have goose bumps."

A few streets later she started to list our differences on the matter: "You no yike wind. I yike wind. Mommy not yike it. I yike it."

Something about the categorization of this new knowledge and the tone in her voice, which was matter-of-fact if not melodic, made me add something else to the list of differences. Something I didn't want to think about at 8 in the morning.

Namely our names.

I didn't want to lose my indentity in marriage and neither did my husband, so we kept our respective names.

Up until Ittybit was born I corrected people who called me Mrs. The Mister, and delighted that during her first days on this Earth the name on her wristband was mine. For those four days in the hospital, at least, everything about her was mine.

It was stunningly greedy of me, yet I felt it only fair because she was a part of me; someone I knew better than anyone, even if it was only for a moment in a lifetime. When we left the hospital, I left as the person I had always thought I had been and she left with a new name on her birth certificate. It was our first major difference but not likely the last.

As we drove down the road with the windows fully open now and the heat blowing hot against the tops of my feet, Ittybit asked the question again: "Mama, you yike the wind?"

This time my answer was more considered: "Yes, Baby. I LOVE it. I love the wind."

I could hear her excitement bubble over: "You yub it? I yub it, too!"

Sometimes all it takes is a little fresh air to remind me what's most important.

And now ... ve DAUNCE!

"Ow! OW! OWWWW!"
My husband is yelling and dancing around the house in a towel again.

"You know we should really get a disco ball for the shower if you’re intent on practicing your moves," I tell him without ever looking up from my game of "grocery store" with Ittybit. (We're at the part where she is trying to get me to give her $49 for two boxes of pasta and a carton of chicken broth but refusing to bag my purchases just like at the REAL market.) He complains that it feels like something's biting him. I think it's just a phantom sting until he flings down the towel and stomps on it.

He searches gingerly through the trampled terrycloth and extracts a flattened wasp. Proof, according to his side of the story, that the carnivorous insect was in a clean towel he pulled from the laundry basket, already folded but not yet put away.

I’m not sure I can endure any more communal living with the wildlife that migrates through our house each time the seasons change.

In addition to the occasional outdoor-dwelling neighborhood cat that makes its way indoors despite the presence of two loveable but loud dogs, I've put up with visits from bewildered raccoons, discombobulated bats, and off-track birds, not to mention freeloading houseguests such as spiders of all variety; worms I can’t identify; lady bugs, which are cute in small numbers but terrifying in swarms; and ants that fly. Each year brings a new brand of infestation.

The wasps, though, have moved in for good.

I imagine they are building elaborate wasp "condominimums" behind the walls in the rafters. On the sun porch in the evenings, I sip my coffee and watch their enormous bodies wheedle in and out of the light fixtures. I am sure they are studying the sockets so they can bring the magic of illumination to their own more than humble abodes.

I can't get myself to think of these creatures as anything but villainous. Especially when Ittybit comes running to me from the playroom of the same porch, complaining that there is a "weary, weary, scary 'piiider on her duck. And begging me, "Peas, Mama, det it off."

As I go to investigate — fully prepared to relocate a daddy long legs or some other common house spider and explain the family motto: spiders are our friends — I stop mid-thought when I see that what is crawling on the gigantic stuffed animal is a wasp.

I shudder at the image swirling in my head of that inch-long monster driving it's stinger into her bee's knees. I sweep her up in my arms, telling her all the while she was right to call me for help.

While the husband studies the labels his collection of insecticides, carefully deciding what toxins he's willing to unleash on the world to rid ours of the latest infestation, I rush to judgment.

"This time, we disco," I announce and I run to the bathroom for my no-name can of hairspray, rusted from 12 years of styling neglect and shower steam.

"Welcome to the '80s, waspers; I hope you like Extra Hold."

My own private river in Egypt

Denial is not just a river in Egypt it's also a highway in New Jersey, a bridge over the Mohawk and a twice annual argument over the marching of time.

I've spent the last several months thinking of all the things willed into non-existence thanks to differences of opinion that make it difficult for otherwise affable people to see eye to eye.

We all know these people, right? They are the folks who -- regardless of their esteem or genuine regard for you -- never believe a single word that you say.

When I was just out of college I met the KING off all disbelievers. He was a guy who, although highly educated, wasn’t terribly motivated and couldn't conceive of anything that conflicted with his view of the world – regardless of how sane and straightforward the information offered as proof may be.

His answer to virtually everything that went against his grain was always: "I don't think so."

For those who have never encountered such a person, let me further confound you with a hypothesis: The 'I-don’t-think-so' reply of his is virtually the same response as the more adolescent retort "SO?" There is really no way to refute either one. No matter what facts you throw at this naysayer, they won’t believe you.

If you think you haven't encountered someone with this particular gift, just try to send a seasoned Capital District driver over the Thaddeus Kosciusko Bridge. A few blank stares and a MapQuest search later, and they'll still be standing there dumbfounded and questioning your grip on reality until you add: "You know, the twin bridges? The Dolly Parton bridge?"

My husband still has disagreements with his grandfather over how best to get to the old family homestead in New Jersey. According to the elderly gentleman, who hasn’t driven on the highway since 1970, the I-287 bypass just doesn’t exist. Nothing his grandson can say, even hauling out a map and pointing out the line that clearly reads I-287, can convince him otherwise.

Of course, in my case, the tendency for folks to write me off as unreliable isn’t too far fetched. I am, after all, the person who believed for YEARS that Tommy Chong was killed in an airplane crash; that Mikey (who hates everything and is fed Life cereal anyway) died tragically when a chemical reaction between Poprocks and Pepsi caused his stomach to explode; not to mention that long-held fallacy of my youth that Sex Pistols front man, Sid Vicious made a guest appearance on Sesame Street.

But no matter, when you have lived through more than 30 sets of time swaps -- two a year -- it galls you to have to defend the "Spring Forward, Fall Back" dynamic.

ME: I hate this time of year. I never feel good until I get that hour of sleep back.

HIM: No. It's Spring AHEAD. We GAIN an hour.

ME: No. The CLOCK goes AHEAD, which means we skip an hour thereby losing an hour of sleep.

HIM: I don't think so …

ME: &$!@ #@&!! … We go through this EVERY YEAR. And every year I am right. Could you please, FOR ONCE, just suspend disbelief long enough to commiserate with me, and then you can go back to whatever it was you
were doing? HUH? Just this once!

HIM: (Eerie silence).

Before he tiptoes away from the crazy, sleep-deprived weirdo he married, I can see the glint of recognition in his eyes. "Oh, I get it. This is your road leading to New Jersey."

Yeah, something like that.

Soap scum and impulse control, who needs it?

My husband tries to pretend as if he's immune to consumerism. He acts as if he's been vaccinated against caving in to impulse items craftily placed at checkout counters and the lure of soft-sell advertising by nature-bestowed testosterone.

The things he buys he NEEDS. He's a MAN. Men don't make purchases out of some strange super subconscious urge to feel better about themselves when they’ve had a tough day (that would be too womanly.) When men need two KING-SIZED Snickers bars and a Truck Trader magazine it’s because they have to eat and they have to have a way to get to work. Period.

Whereas I have come to embrace my irrepressible urge to fork over $80 at Target every time I just stop by to get diapers. Small things — socks, picture frames, baby clothes and paper goods — call out to me. I'm drawn in by the bright colors like a raccoon to a shiny trinket.

So it is with understanding that I laugh as my husband walks into the house with a box containing the answer to all our prayers.

Yep. He needed the Dow Scrubbing Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner unit as much as I needed Don Aslett's Multi-purpose Two Piece Broom Set (as seen on TV) or the Swiffer Wet Jet. Where my pet peeves are pet hair and floor gunk, his are mildew and soap scum.

After scanning the directions and assembling the apparatus, he hangs it in the shower and prepares to test it out. To me, it looks like a soap dispenser masquerading as a flea bomb.
I can’t help but giggle as I look at the package assertions: "So easy, it’s like having a maid!" As for instructions: "Touch, Spray and Clean." Simple enough.

"Says here you push the button and you have 15 seconds to close the door or pull the curtain before the sprayer goes off."

The cautionary literature is pretty entertaining as well: If you get this stuff in your eye, a light rinse is sufficient because it contains few irritants; safe for cosmetics containers and tub toys. Not toxic.

"This is good," I think to myself. "Who needs a pesky emergency room visit when house guests mistake it for a soap dispenser."

I half expect to see a recipe for a tasty salad dressing under its "safe for all kinds of tubs" advisory.

"Ok, stand back. Here we go."

Fifteen seconds later I’m piggy-backing and peering over the shower door as the 180-degree sprayer spits out a nearly invisible mist with the assistance of a deafening mechanical whirring sound. As I stand there trying not to inhale the patented Fresh Scent smell that has now filled the room, I inwardly doubt the contents of the shower bomb will live up to its promises. I make a mental note to make space for the device in the closet alongside my family of useless floor cleaners.

"Well at least my impulse buy makes a cool noise."

I swear he can read my mind.

WARNING: Objects in mirror are closer than they appear

I’m going through a phase in my own development in which I am repeatedly forced to ponder the primordial and often painful parental question: "Where did she come up with that?"

As my little mime walks in circles, chanting "I know, I know, I know," I am actually staring into a tiny mirror. Almost everything that leaves her lips, from "Oh, wow!" to "Sooooo cute," comes from hanging out with me.

Much of what she repeats is immediate. As soon as the words “OH, DARN IT” fall from my mouth at the exact moment whatever I am holding catapults to the ground, the same words and inflections tumble out of hers.

And it's not just speech, either. As we left a coffee shop the other day, she put the lip of her sippy cup between her teeth and smiled widely as I juggled the tot, a diaper bag and my own cup of java dangling from my mouth and dashed across the street to the car. Monkey see monkey do.

Most parents don't think their kids are watching as closely as they do. The standard joke: when the call from the teacher comes to report Junior has slung the most repugnant of all four-letter words, the constantly cursing parent wonders where he bleepin' picked that up.

I marvel all the time that Ittybit's first regurgitated words weren't some variation of human waste products. The slips on my part have occurred far too often for them to have gone unnoticed.

Of course, more egregious mimicry has occurred. On the occasion of an unavoidable social function, which she was also attending, I snidely informed her we are going to meet some "annoying people."

She immediately grasped that last couplet and ran. "Oh yay! Meet annoyyyyyying PEEEEEPLE." And I spent the rest of the day trying to convince her that we were actually meeting NEW people. "Can you say NEEEEEW people?"

What toddlers choose to repeat and how they do it is fascinating. As she sits and talks to herself, a rambling stream of conversation she’s recorded in her VIMEO memory comes to life.

And while some influences are evident, others are more elusive.
I know most of the behaviors she displays are based in something she’s witnessed and somehow adapted for her own purposes.

The other day, our sitter reported through peels of laughter, that Ittybit was smashing a play hammer into a bean bag dog, flattening the toy time and again.

"Ahhhhh. All better," she was quoted as saying soothingly, while wrapping the toy dog in a blanket and continuing to apply her medicinal services to any and all exposed parts.

"What are you guys doing at home?" the sitter laughs into the phone.
"I’d tell ya, but then I’d have to … well, tell ya. And to tell you the truth, I really don’t know."

Watch and learn, watch and learn

The creaking of the swings can be heard long before we reach the playground. She's fighting her third (and hopefully last) cold of the season but I've convinced myself that a walk to the park will be good for both of us.

When we reach the green Ittybit squirms to get down.

"I need to running, mom?" she looks at me for permission and lopsidedly waddles over to the BIG slide.

"Go up there, mom?" This time her tone is more of a command than a question, but still she waits for my nod of approval before she makes her ascent.
I'm not sure how we managed to harbor an early walker (10 months) who is still content to stay in her crib until we come to "wakt" her up, especially now that she's over the ripe old age of two. But I thank the same gods who decided she would — of her own volition — ask permission BEFORE she gives any of her food to the dogs; throws fruit down the stairs; or puts her favorite book into the VCR expecting it, no doubt, to come to life.

Of course, when you have a child who hangs back and watches every move, you have the tendency to try and get her to take the bull by the horns once and a while. Some might call me naïve and even unwise to let a toddler make such decisions as whether to climb the 14 feet straight up before careening down a chute on her own, but I've always learned by watching, too.

Before I was a parent, I observed in amazement as my cousin asked her toddler if he "felt safe" climbing to the top of the jungle gym by himself. He said 'no' and promptly came down. That same child, standing on top of a stored canoe one year later, weighed his mother’s words as she asked him if he thought standing on the wobbly boat was "safe." This time he answered a defiant "yes" and simultaneously came crashing to the ground.

She picked him up in her arms and calmly checked him over, dabbing at a little blood on his lip with a kitchen towel. She spoke calmly and without sarcasm asked him if he’d be doing that again. Through tears and sobs he answered as honestly as any preschooler could: "YES!"

We laughed. But it became clear to me that the work of being a toddler is mildly dangerous out of a kind of necessity. They need to go IN so they can find OUT. Getting a few scrapes and bruises along the way, isn’t the worst thing that could happen.

I knew right then I wanted to be my cousin's brand of mommy.
I remind myself of her example as Ittybit wants me to go up the slide with her like I use to when she was a "baby." I tell her she can do it by herself now, but I will be at the end waiting to "catch" her.

She sits at the top for a second before giving herself a lifting push. Down she comes, laughing joyfully, her eyelids press tightly together and her wispy hair aloft on the breeze. She pushes my arms away as she scrunches to the end of the slide and drops to the ground by herself. Wheeling around toward the ladder, she shrieks with glee, "Do it again, mommy. Do it again."

No questions asked. No help necessary.

Beware the ides of ... April?

"How may I help you?"

The first clue of advanced maturity should have been the conversation itself.

It was 9 a.m. and I was on the phone with a mutual fund company trying to max out my contributions to a retirement account. It’s a far cry from downloading the latest MP3s from iTunes and nowhere near as satisfying.

Since I’d waited until the last possible moment to make the year-end transaction, and I couldn't remember my secret pin number, I had to call the convenient 800 number and plead for help before the ides of April thwarted my financial future.

The woman on the other end of the line was calm, pleasant and accommodating. She even walked me through the Internet procedures with the skill and composure of a freelance Web designer apologizing for her company’s obviously clunky platform.

She ascertained my preliminary identity and then performed more rigorous tests to confirm it: Mother's maiden name; home telephone number; birth date (month and day) although, for some reason, she spared me the embarrassment of having to say the year aloud.
But she knew it anyway: "Oh, you have the same birth date as my husband ... though not the same year."

Then the entire conversation came into a different perspective. It just then dawned on me that perhaps I was no longer the youngest person in the "room." Though nothing in her words or demeanor gave me unequivocal proof, it became abundantly clear to me that I probably had at least a decade on her spouse - my unnamed rival - who almost shares my birthday.

See, I had pegged her as my age or older. I had assumed her care in walking me through the online procedure was more than formality. Yet, as the transaction progressed it became painfully obvious that there was no need for a simultaneous pressing of buttons; "Houston" didn’t need radio contact for this mission. She was merely helping an old woman cross the information super highway without getting squashed.

Its not like I don’t see time marching across my face whenever I look in a mirror. The evidence is clearly apparent. The grays that have been making ever more numerous appearances and the lines etching in deeper on my forehead are just two of its tell-tale signs.

But somehow it’s still a shock when you turn the corner from kid to adult. When you’re 50th birthday is closer than your 20th, and you know in a blink of an eye it will be upon you.

I suppose when you’ve been carded for R-rated movies a decade out of college and six months pregnant you just take it for granted that age will not outrun you. Of course, when you pull out that drivers’ license and show the pimply-faced kid behind the ticket counter the proof he requires, you’d better brace yourself for the response.

"Wow! Sorry, lady. I had no idea you were that old."

So much for soft and cuddly

I should have known by the words on the palisade that this was going to end badly.

The tape keeping the throng of sugar-craving toddlers at bay read "CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS." The message I chose to ignore was clear: There is nothing warm or cuddly about an Easter egg hunt.

We didn't attend our town's Easter egg hunt last year. We thought it would be too chaotic for a child still learning to walk. Instead we held a little hunt of our own in the front yard. I spent a few minutes hiding eight plastic eggs filled with Cheerios and other dry cereals in plain view. With a little help from her grandparents, Ittybit found all eight orbs in short order.

But this year we were ready to join the community of egg hunters. We even got to the hunt a half hour early afraid of the consequences of being late and also to hobnob a little with the neighbors. As we stood behind the police tape trying to keep Ittybit amused with songs and games, stopping every once in a while to explain why her soft pleas to "do out there and pict some ayes" were going unheeded.

I listened with interest as parents all around us were laying out strategies for their kids so complex I expected at any moment one of them would pull a chalkboard out of a stroller and diagram the game plans with arrows, Xs and Os. But even that didn’t register as odd. I was too giddy, as I clutched my camera, to notice.

Just when we thought it wouldn’t be possible to wait any longer, the man with the megaphone informed us the tiny tots’ event would start momentarily. He asked for volunteers from the parental audience to come into the field and guard the borders, a little assurance there would be eggs aplenty for the next gaggle of gigglies.

My husband said I should go out there. He thought it would entice the young 'un to run out to me, picking up eggs as she went. While my inner mother was screaming for me to tell him she would need his help, the outer one I didn't say a word. Off I went to be a minuteman.

When the signal was thrown dozens upon dozens of tiny tots broke rank. All except for our little one, who clung tightly to her father's shiny stain-proof pants.

Within minutes all the eggs were gone. I had even forgotten my job and let dozens of kids into forbidden territory as I watched my own little peanut move haltingly toward a shiny green egg a few feet from where I stood. I held my breath as she got closer and a blur wooshed in between us and it was gone. She stood there blinking in disbelief. By all accounts it was a dismal failure.

I had brought candy with me on the chance that the eggs were filled with a confection too advanced for her small palate. But she had her heart set on picking up an egg. As her tears started to fall like rain, I chastised myself for not scrubbing the soap scum out of last year’s mismatched egg halves, now transformed into misfit tub toys.

Talk about heartbreaking.

What's worse, the crowd was dispersing and no one seemed to notice the little girl with the empty basket. As we stood there like deer in headlights a neighbor came over to see about the tears. Their daughter had snagged four eggs. (She had been to the event last year and was a professional marksman at the tender age of two). After a brief conference to entice the child to hand over one of her eggs, our little benefactor happily handed over two.

I have never wanted to hug someone else’s child more than I did that very moment. I think Ittybit wanted to hug her too.

Out of sight, but not out of mind

On a recent Saturday the stars aligned and the grandparents stepped up so we could step out.

“Date Night:” A sad two-word phrase that single folk scoff at and married folk have to schedule as if it were a dental appointment. The understanding is universal: If you have to plan it in advance your relationship’s romance would rather be napping.

Now everyone on Earth seems to know how important alone-time is for parents except parents. We spend much of our week away from the kid (and each other) in our respective jobs and activities. Reserving weekends for family-building seems only appropriate. But when you add a liberal dash of household chores into the mix as you try to schedule kid-friendly activities in between Journey to Ernie and the afternoon nap, you find the days just slipping away.

When we started performing dramatic interpretations of Winnie the Pooh (speaking to each other in the voices of the characters most closely resembling our moods), I knew it was time for some entertainment that carried a rating more restrictive than ‘G.’
After explaining the situation to Ittybit, who pleaded to be included in this magical dinner and movie experience, she finally relented as we helped “Amah and Papa” re-familiarize themselves with the locations of every possible food item the little queen might crave during our absence.

Bracing myself for a tearful goodbye, instead she begins gathering her play balls and ignores my continued presence. “Bye, Mommy. Bye.”
In case you weren’t already painfully aware, parents of small children tend to be unable to have conversations about anything else besides troubling body functions or behaviors exhibited by aforementioned kids. Date nights are no exceptions.

Through appetizers and drinks we discuss our non-existent potty training strategies; her aversion to water and soap coming anywhere near her skin, unless she’s playing in the sink of her own accord; and the potential that she is honing accelerated diversionary skills at the tender age of two.

When the meals arrive we inhale them, forgetting that tonight we have the luxury of time. Drumming our fingers on the table as the check arrives, the movie is still hours away.

“Should we call?” I venture.

“No. They’re fine,” my husband says, unsure.

We put the phone call out of our minds as we trudge over to the theater and wait in line. Even though we are silent, I can hear him thinking about snacks. Since we child-proofed our cupboards of virtually every food item off-limits to toddlers, we have been hankering for such contraband as popcorn, peanuts and sticky sweets.

We find seats and settle in, determined to leave parenthood behind for a few hours. When the lights dim and the film flickers to life on the screen we are transported back to our wild, carefree days when we could stay out all night, decide to go to parties at the last minute or even take off for the weekend on a whim.

We continue watching until all the credits have rolled and the lights come back up. On the drive home we discuss the magic of the movie with all the pretension of theater critics, and wager (with sly hope) that Ittybit will still be awake and entertaining her grandparents with her own dramatic exploits when we get there.

I lose. … She is fast asleep in her crib. But waiting for us in our room are the playballs, trussed up one on top of the other with masking tape and sporting a cardboard jewelry box “hat.” The gift is carefully balanced on the laundry basket next to my bedside table.

“Look, she built us a snowman,” I exclaim, as my mother fills us in on the details. And as it usually happens my husband finishes my thought: “I kind of wished we’d seen this movie.”

Breaking the (piggy) bank

“Moe mondey, MOE MONDEY!” Ittybit chants as I break another cardinal rule of parenthood by handing her a “choke-able” and telling her to go play.

She’s only two, but already she knows how to swipe a credit card, hand cash to the cashier at the grocery store and put quarters into the family “piggy” bank (actually an enormous Coke bottle) for safekeeping.

She becomes vexed when the Eisenhower dollar her papa gave her won’t fit through the slot. “Go in there. Go in there. Go in there,” she instructs the coin, as if the emphasis on the right word will be the magic that makes it fit.
When the enormous silver dollar won’t listen, she asks me to make it a bank of its own.

Scrounging a bit, I find an empty diaper wipes box and some stickers for decoration, and in seconds we have a new repository, not to mention one very satisfying “plunk” sound.

If genetics has any role in financial acumen, I am praying that Ittybit will take after her “Amah.” I have nothing but hope that my mother, who loads her up with dollar bills (that probably have gone through the washer and dryer several times to ensure cleanliness), will also instill in our tiny tot some of the secrets of her saving ways. Lessons, I might add, which have been almost entirely lost on yours truly.

If you’ve never met anyone with the Midas touch before, you should park a chair next to my mom and sit for a while. She has the gift.

By the time she was my age — on a nurse’s salary — she had already helped her parents buy a house, her brother a car and established a healthy savings for her own growing family. During the course my youth, she and my father even salted away enough money to put both me and my sister through college.

Such fiscal diligence has its price, though.

Every now and again my mother asks me if I remember our Christmases, and how our piles compared with our friends’ piles. I know what she really wants to know is whether we were disappointed.

In terms of quantity, our celebrations were more subdued but I’m fairly confident neither my sister nor I ever felt any real inequity. Quite the contrary, in fact, we felt rich beyond belief. We had everything we wanted and even things we didn’t need. We felt lucky.

But it really wasn’t luck at all. It was skill. It was being able to decipher need from want. It was being able to hold off on gratification long enough to make a choice that was based on more than impulse. It was taking money out of the equation almost entirely. “This isn’t about the money. It’s about you. Things aren’t going to change you.”

I’m embarrassed to say it, but money still burns a hole in my pockets. At the end of any given work week my cash reserve is usually long gone. Although I’ve gotten a little better at saving (thanks to automatic banking) I could still use the kind of discipline my mother has and my daughter is practicing.

Come Thursday, as I’m scrounging for quarters on the bottom of by bag, Ittybit toddles over and hands me her purse. Inside are three crisp dollar bills.

“Hey, can I borrow this until payday?”

“Sure mommy, sure.”

How do I love thee ... let me count the toys

After Ittybit’s bedtime I gather a bunch of toys left helter-skelter in the “Blue Area” — an empty question mark of a room situated between the master bedroom and the rest of the house, which my husband inexplicably painted the color of painter’s masking tape — and make my way to the playroom where they belong.

As I crouch on the floor near the toy bins, adjusting the small figures this way and that, it might appear to the untrained eye that I am merely tidying up.
My husband is not fooled.

Since my tiny two-year-old has started throwing up her hands at the “Mamarazzi” (‘No pishers, mama. No pishers, peas.’) I have turned my lens on HER toys. It’s regressive, I know, but it fills the void in my photographs where she once stood. I set the camera on a table and adjust the focus. Click. Inching the accessories forward just a bit, I reset the camera, re-check the focus and … click.

“Come on, she knows they’re YOUR toys,” my husband chuckles as I claw through a small box of figures. I am reminded of why I married him when he asks me if I’d like a bowl of ice cream while I play with MY toys.

It turns out, with respect to collections at least, I am like my father.
My dad would spend hours setting up his old train set under the tree every Christmas. One oval-shaped track, an engine and a handful of cars could consume the better part of an entire day. Forward and backward he’d send that train around the track, never letting it speed out of control or derail. He spent so much time giving detailed lessons on the set’s operation that when he was willing to hand over the controls we had already moved on to another game.

Unlike my father, who was satisfied with his small Lionel set, I covet what I don’t already own, and brand loyalty isn’t part of my vocabulary. My latest obsession is Playmobil. I can’t seem to pass a toy store without adopting one of the jewel-box sized “Specials.”

I like the ones that depict everyday scenes such as a woman in the laundry room or a mother grocery shopping. I one day hope to own the construction site portable toilet with crews and the airport screening line. They’ve even replaced my love of fast-food toys.

There’s just something satisfying about these German-made toys with their simple shapes, their smooth colors and ever-present smiles. They are always smiling, even when they’re vacuuming or shoveling elephant dung at the zoo.

I can’t imagine cleaving my life to another’s who didn’t share, or at least respect, such simple pleasures as the small toys that dwell in kids’ meals. I’d sheepishly go through the drive-through windows of fast food restaurants, order a Happy Meal and a coffee, pretending to be a mom with a kidlet to go home to just so I could collect all of the toy prizes from Toy Story, Batman and Shrek. I knew I’d married wisely when my husband ingested pride, happy meals and antacids (in that order) to procure some of my most beloved trinkets.

Even on our honeymoon in New Zealand, while most people would be busy visiting as many natural splendors as possible, he was willing to indulge my plaything fascination and risk 16 hours of travel time and our next room reservation to visit the “MacDonald’s Toys of the World Museum,” a private, basement collection listed in a book of “local attractions” provided by our motel in Foxton.

That is why I know my husband feels my pain as Ittybit thwarts my camera lens with a furrowed brow and an outstretched hand. I know he’d like to be able to ease it with a little ice cream and a kids’ meal toy.

I’m not sure enough can be said about a man who knows your weaknesses and loves you because of them, and not despite them.

“You know,” he says, handing me a bowl of Rocky Road, “these photographs would look really good in the blue room.”

Hey, mom ... you're fired!

I wasn't expecting the phone call alerting me to the e-mail.

I sensed something uncomfortable afoot when she became eager to hang up the phone, instructing me to read the message and call her back. This isn't the first time I've been in this uncomfortable place. Since getting married, however, I thought I would NEVER again have to hear the most frightening words to ever loom over a relationship: "WE HAVE TO TALK."

And now, it seemed, one of the MOST important relationships in my life was on the rocks. As I read (and reread) the six paragraphs, it became painfully obvious our babysitter was breaking up with me. Well sort of, anyway. She wasn't quitting, thankfully, she'd just decided the smoothest way to make the morning transition less exciting would be to do it quickly. It would be easier if I were a long-distance partner.

For two years my morning routine has revolved around wrestling an infant-turn-whirling-dervish into a breakfast bib, fresh clothes and then the car seat, and driving 17 minutes to a warm cup of coffee and the connected feeling of friendship and commiseration. What could be better than catching up on girl talk and having (and being) a sounding board as the kidlet loosens her kungfu grip on the collar of my shirt and ventures out into a room littered with toys?

As I studied the detailed account of her thoughts in the electronic missive — all carefully crafted so as to give me the letdown gently but providing little room for argument — it became clear I had two choices: drop my kidlet off in the morning and leave or drop my kidlet off in the morning and leave. The only variation in the choices was how I could spend my time before my arrival or after my departure.

I should have seen this day coming. I sensed it the same way I sensed that my high school boyfriend was looking to the blonde beyond me. Yet I pushed it to a dark corner of my mind where it took its place next to the elephant I was trying to ignore, as well.

See, lately, Ittybit has been having a power struggle between mom's authority (which is somewhat lax) and Lori's (which is considerably more stringent). For a few months most of our mornings have begun with meltdowns and playpen timeouts that drag on until THE MOM leaves. It's a daily lottery that has no discernible pattern. Sometimes she's joyful and eager to play with toys and other days she's clingy and cranky, eager to play one legislator against the other.

It’s a roller-coaster emotion of care provider rejection: That pivotal moment when it becomes clear that you, as a parent, are doing more harm than good with your presence in the playroom.

As I sat at my desk rereading the e-mail, I felt my heart sink as the largest part of my social network suddenly became unmoored. The two-woman coffee klatch I savored each day for the past two years was adrift. I suppose I didn't really need the caffeine as much as the camaraderie.

But as I look at my Ittybit, I see another reality looking back at me: The baby has vanished and a full-fledged person, with new needs, has taken her place. It’s only natural for me to feel unsteady as I search for my place in this new development.

Will power

Two years, two months and nine days.

That’s how long I was able to hold off introducing Ittybit to the inherent evils of fast food.

Friday morning, as we dashed through a breakfast of pancakes she didn’t want, cereal she only nibbled, and fruit she just wanted to hold, I asked her what she really wanted to eat.

“NO REALLY!” I said, implying with as urgent a tone as I could muster that I was serious and there would be no more of this dilly-dallying about.
“Shawsheege,” she said happily.

Oh, of course, sausage – the only bit of fatty, artery clogging animal flesh our house was lacking that day.

“We don’t have any sausage, honey,” I said with the sweet dulcet tone ebbing back into my voice, “how about some of this yummy soy bacon?”

“Nooooooooooooooooo,” she moans.

And here’s where things go horribly wrong. (I know you’re all thinking … no, the SOY bacon was where things went awry.)

“Perhaps we can stop at the store … later,” I mumble.

Here’s a tip for any one who has ever made or even implied making a promise to a child hoping they would forget about it the minute they were strapped into a car seat and the neighborhood dogs — out with their owners for their morning constitutionals — go whizzing by the car: Don’t do it.

This is not your husband or wife. … This is a person, albeit a small one, who generally gets all the sleep they need and whose desire for things is not clouded by the hoops one must hop to acquire them. And you might as well know that there are no children on Earth gullible enough to be duped by a crazy woman in the driver’s seat pointing out the window and yelling, “Oh, honey, look at that cute puppy.”

Two seconds later. ...

“Shawsheege, Mama. Shawsheege, PEAASSSE!!!”

As we pass the grocery store I try to reason with her. “Honey we can’t go there now. We have to go to the bank and then to the babysitter. We’ll get some later.”
“No now. In there. Shawsheege in there, mommy.”

Just then, her sweet toddler voice is replaced by a loud, piercing cry, and foreign-sounding words begin to tumble out with sobs and “shawsheege.”

It’s no use. I check my pockets for change and, finding some, pull my car into line at the McDonald’s drive-thru. As I wait my turn I contemplate how much longer my commute to work will be now that I’ll be choosing a route that doesn’t include any glimpses of the golden arches.

Before I can chart the course, it’s my turn and I inch the car forward. I ask the box if I can just get a side-order of sausage, and the nicest, static-filtered voice I ever heard replied, “Oh, you sure can. Drive on up to the second window.”

The cashier laughs a little as I hand over a mountain of small coins and gives me a small bag in exchange. She waves at the toddler sitting in the backseat, who is wide-eyed as the pungent aroma of sausage fills the car.

“Oh, shawsheege,” she squeals in utter delight when she opens her package and finds a perfectly round patty steaming up at her.

“Shank you, mommy. Oh shank you,” she says, petting the folded box as if it were a kitten.

Before I pull away from the widow and drive into the rest of my day I ask her if she’s going to eat some.

“No. Save it fo’ later.”

I guess she just has more will power than I do.