Signs of the time: Now where did my baby go?

All of a sudden my baby disappeared.

Yesterday he was comfortably nestled in my arms, happy to see the world from the safety of my embrace, cooing and chortling and staring at his hands, and today … well? I’m not sure where he’ll be.

He’s on the move.

I might find him playing in the dog’s water bowl or trying to climb up to the sink or trying to drop any number of small items that he shouldn’t have anyway down the heating vent in the floor. It’s not out of the ordinary that as I try and put dishes in the dishwasher or clear the table for dinner, he might be emptying the lower kitchen shelves of their contents. I’ll catch up with him when I follow the trail of granola bars and macaroni and cheese boxes into his sister’s room, where she will undoubtedly be screaming for his eviction.

“He’s just a baby,” I say, trying to defuse the situation.

“Well, he’s wrecking everything.”

I’ll drag him away. I’ll put him down near a basket of toys that should keep him busy. Yet, like a mechanized toy that’s been fully wound, without missing a beat he’ll be heading off in whatever direction he’s least welcome to go.

If his father is trying to work at his desk in peace, the baby will go and empty a box of receipts or unravel a roll of stamps or have a three-way conference call with a client.

If the dog is trying to eat her meager bowl of kibble, the baby will be there to dole it out, piece by torturous piece.

If his sister is trying to color in her coloring book, he will be there to take sample tastes of crayons or to spirit them away altogether, never to be seen again.

It’s highly probable that when I try to fold laundry in the living room, he’ll make his way into the bathroom with a few choice pieces of clothing and shove them in the toilet. I can’t believe we still forget to put the seat down. I also can’t believe that one day I’ll be glad when he learns how to flush.

He’s not interested in correction. He’s still a baby. “Uh-oh!” and “No!” have come to mean “This is a fun game” when he sees the big people heading his way. The couch isn’t a place he’s forbidden to climb on so much as it’s a receptacle large enough to hide books or boxer shorts or the television’s remote control.

He’s not interested in learning sign language, either.

He’s got no use for clapping hands together to ask for “more,” or gesture with a two-handed wiping motion to tell us he’s all done. He’s not going to rub his open hand over his chest to say “please,” or put his hand in front of his mouth and lower it to say “thank you.”

Who’s got time for that? Especially when you can point at exactly what you want and yell “DAT” at the highest volume your tiny vocal chords will allow.

He knows that the people trying to get him to communicate with sign language will eventually give it up and just hand over whatever “DAT” is.

Many a time he’s been able to finagle the exact contraband he’s after:

“Uhm … Who gave the baby the cookie?”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Well, because he was SCREAMING.”
“And that worked?”
“Like a charm.”
“Good to know.”

Of course, occasionally there is something he wants that will elude us big people. In those instances it’s entirely likely he’ll break down and use one of the signs we’ve been trying to teach him.

Just the other day, as we stood in line at the crowded coffee shop, he was no longer satisfied with chocolate chip cookies he was holding tightly in his hand. He didn’t want to let them go but he didn’t want to eat them, and all the screaming in the world wasn’t making me understand his plight. But I could see his eyes light up when he realized he had the power to make his desires known. He stopped wriggling and thrust out his hand, opening and closing his fist like he was milking a cow.

“What does he want,” asked the woman handing me my change and my cup of hazelnut decaf (black).

I thought for a second about pretending not to know, but didn’t get a chance.

“He wants to nurse,” said his sister. “He’s a baby, even though he’s kind of a big kid, too.”

Burning the candlestick at both ends

On a particularly sullen-looking day during our recent vacation in Maine I had a bright idea.

What? I get bright ideas sometimes, don’t laugh.

It came about as I was taking a poll of what each member of the extended family wanted to do during our seven-day reunion.

The clan was sitting around on its duffs waiting for Maine’s state bird – The Mosquito – to vamoose. The sun was no where to be found. The mosquitoes were staying.

“Let’s go bowling,” I said, exuberantly.

Could you hear the groans from New York? No? Well, I was certain you could.

“Bowling? Bowling! Are you crazy?” my husband replied, the volume and pitch of his voice illustrating that there was no way on Earth the loud, smoke-filled lanes of his imagination were going to cut it for family fun. Not when he could be napping, anyway.

My imagination, on the other hand, drew pictures of Lavern and Shirley, sipping brewskis and pitching strikes and spares with The Big Ragu.

Nostalgia. Sure I was worried the kids wouldn’t really be able to participate fully; I pictured hulking bowling balls accidentally pitched through plate glass windows or dropped on tender piggy toes.

But I pressed on.

When we reached the alley, seven in tow, we soon found out how different New England bowling is from our ten-pin experiences.

“Oh. ... It’s candlestick bowling,” I chirp with glee after we paid the lady at the counter for the games and shoe rentals. “That’s CandlePIN bowling,” she good-naturedly corrects.

She must have thought me from mars when I asked for a three-part repetition of the rules.


What? You get THREE chances per frame instead of TWO?
What? Players get to shoot TWO frames per turn instead of ONE?
Really? The computer does the scoring for us? COOL.

Candlepin bowling, as it is really called, is unique to New England and maritime provinces in Canada. It was first played in Worcester, Mass. in 1880, 15 years before the sport was refined to the more common 10-pin standard. The differences (beside the rules of play and the shape of the pins) are smaller-sized balls (sans holes) that can be held in one’s hand, and the fact that the dead pins don’t get cleared from the alley between throws.

All of this means two things: It’s technically easier to play for all ages and abilities but more challenging to play well.

Once we had our shoes on we were ready to play.

So there we were. Standing in our adjoining alley’s sizing each other up.

TEAM ONE comprised Ittybit, her cousin and her father.
TEAM TWO was composed of myself, my sister-in-law and my brother-in-law.
The champ was a floater, getting handed back and fourth across the ball dispenser.

I felt good about our team’s chances: Collectively we are taller. I also feel confident because Ittybit can’t seem to wrap her head around the idea of wearing someone else’s shoes.

“Why do I have to wear socks?”

“Well, because we have to wear special shoes that other people have worn, too.”

“But why can’t I wear my own shoes.”

“Because the wood on the lanes is special and it has to be protected from outside dirt.”

“But inside dirt is ok?”

“Don’t worry about the dirt. Just remember that we’re taking turns.”

“OK … “ she says with uncertainty.

But I couldn’t have been more wrong about an easy victory.

In just a few frames my confidence proved overblown and her abilities blossomed.

She even developed a style …

She selected her ball from the dispenser and hop-skipped her way to the line. She swayed from side to side before she triangulated an underhand pitch from between her straddled legs. After the ball had left her hands and bounced down the alleyway, she did a little spin and sashayed back to the dispenser, where she draped herself over the hood like a fem fetal, waiting for the wood to fall dead.

I couldn’t help but laugh and the series of moves, the fluidity of which more resembled body Chinese than body English.

But I wasn’t laughing when she got a strike.

“Mom? Lets just stay here and go bowling every day.”

“If only we could. I could use the practice.”

Thinking about divorce

“I’ve been thinking about divorce a lot lately.”

I could see the statement’s effect when my friend’s smile fell right off her face.

“No. No. Not me. ... I’m not thinking about divorce for me,” I stammer, realizing that it’s this exact scenario – the surprise factor - that I am turning over and over in my own mind.

Some friends of ours announced they are splitting up.

Outwardly they were the perfect couple. Well, maybe not perfect, but definitely not a pairing anyone would doom to failure. They just drifted apart.

They have three kids; one in high school, one in grammar school and one smack dab in the middle.

They have a nice house, a comfortable living and shared interests.

When you first find out your friends are considering separating, it is often a shock.

Aside from fleeting moments of frustration, they seemed happy.

Yet, they’ve drifted apart. There is unhappiness. There is tension. They want to try their lives separately.

Isn’t it natural to look at yourself in this mirror of friendship?

‘We seem happy.’
‘We have stress and tension and a tendency to meander into solitude.’
‘We have arguments about everything … and nothing.
‘Is it only a matter of time?’
‘Could this be us one day?’

You shake your head. ‘No. Not us. This is not going to happen to us. We are different.’

‘We love each other.’
‘We can work it out.’
‘Our frustrations are fleeting.’
‘There’s too much at stake.’

Yet, somehow, it’s already happened to us.

It’s our circle – our community -- that’s getting broken up, too. The guys we play cards with and the women with whom we swap recipes. The divide happens there, as well.

We look at each other and try and tease out a turning point; a place where the road started to get bumpy -- the kids, the job, the familiarity? Nothing we could change really, except in our attitude.

And who’s got the patience for that? Not her. Not him. What about you?

There will be anger and resentment for a while. Somebody will be the ‘bad guy’ until it’s the other person’s turn. The circle of friends twittering on about news and details will result in its rings expanding as if in a pond.

No matter how much you think you can remain neutral you can’t. Eventually you find yourself on one side or another.

My husband’s been down this road before with his parents. They split up when he was young. He understands what it means for the kids. I can’t only imagine. My parents are still together. Both of us want to be supportive.

But there’s only so much we can do. We can offer our condolences, and our heartfelt sadness. We can offer an ear and a shoulder to lean on. We can offer a room for the night or a hundred nights. We can hope.

The story’s not entirely finished -- there will be an attempt at reconciliation; there will be counseling, there will be efforts to address the problems as they become defined.

It’s not over. There is hope.

Reaching inside for answers to worries on the surface

The day had been ordinary, we all had our work cut out for us: employment responsibilities for the adults, play for the children.

Nothing was unusual. Everyone seemed happy.

But the sun is waning. The witching hours are setting in. And as night closes in, strange things start to happen.

Sudden fears pop up. Angry accusations. Every step lands in a potential minefield.
She is crying in the backseat of the car as we start the 11-mile commute home. A few minutes earlier she had been happy, bubbly; singing nonsense songs to make her brother laugh.

All of that was gone now; clouded over by the pitfalls of growing up.

"I'm so, so, so, so sad," she cries, and breaks into incoherent sobs.

I can hear the fatigue of a long day in her voice.

I am tired, too. I am at the edge where I would trade all the happiness in the world for a 20-minute commute filled with comfortable silence. I am at the very place where losing my patience meets screaming my head off.

But all of that building rage disappears the instant she finishes her complaint:
"I am not pretty. My hair isn't pretty. My clothes aren't pretty. I try and I try and I try but I am never going to be pretty. I am always just going to be me."

I do what every parent does when words their kids say rip at their hearts.

I search what's left of my mind to come up at a loss: Where. Is. This. Coming. From?
How could she think she's not pretty?

In an instant, I jump to cruel world of summer camp.

"Where did you get that from? Who told you that? Did someone hurt your feelings at camp?"

No, she assures me. No one stomped on her tiny little ego. Again it's JUST her.
I am taken off guard by the outburst, but when I think about how to answer I realize I shouldn't be surprised.

Hasn't she been trying to look different lately? Wearing dresses? Wanting her hair to look just so? She is watching and comparing and accounting for every slight, every stern look.

She tells me more about the problem's genesis: The kids, from weeks ago, who wouldn't play with her. They all had pretty clothes and pretty hair. That must have been the difference, she reasons. She wasn't pretty enough.

I feel like I'm trapped in a cave.

Of course I want her to grow up unaffected by societal pressure. I absolutely want her to be comfortable in her own skin, whether it's beautiful or otherwise. I know all about beauty being skin deep and in the eye of the beholder and underneath. But I don't want to tell her that beauty is unimportant, especially when it clearly holds importance to her at this moment in time.

I've thought about what I would say. I've pondered the possibilities. I've wondered if by telling our smart girls that wanting beauty is petty and shameful we haven't completed a circle begun when our grandmothers we're told they should be pretty and obedient. It's a circle that skirts the truth of the matter.

Yet I also thought I had more time to ease my way into the pool from the shallows.
Instead I dive into the deep end: I tell her that what she feels in normal; that we all feel unpopular and unattractive at times but that often these feelings, while real, aren't always true. We compare ourselves to ideals that can't always be met, and we're also not always the best judges of ourselves. ... I don't know how much she understands. She is, after all, only four.

But she accuses me of not understanding: "You are a grownup. You aren't like me. You don't know."

"You are right I am nothing like you. But I was a child once, only I never had the gumption you have. I would never have gone up to a stranger and asked them to play with me. I never would have had the guts to try. Your father even talks about how amazed he is with your courage. You are not like me. You are better.

"This is all the tricky stuff of growing up, you know. ... We humans are silly. Sometimes we belly up to the things that scare us and give them a good old poke in the nose, other times we take those same fears and give them a pat on the back.
"It's really hard to figure out which to do when. Even when you are a grownup, it's difficult."

I look back into the rearview mirror, and see her blotchy face, calm and serene. I know from her expression that the conversation won't continue. She's not convinced, she's just moved on to another topic.

"Can we have ice cream when we get home?

Two chairs, no waiting at the DIY clip shop

See if this sounds familiar: Parents are sitting on opposite ends of the couch, doing whatever it is parents do when their kids are quietly engrossed in play.

For my husband it means mucking around on his new iPhone, for me it means surfing the good old Interwebs.

Some people call it absentee parenting.

I call it parallel play.

Whatever you call it, for all intents and purposes the cats are away so the mice still play.

Imagine my surprise when I look up to find Ittybit, hitherto using a pair of scissors to render small pieces of paper even smaller, fluffing a rather large pile hair in the middle of the coffee table.

I sat there dumbfounded as her arms -- scissors in hand -- lift again toward her head.

“Um. … You’re cutting your hair,” I blurt out a little too sharply.

She stops mid-snip as if awakened from a dream and starts to cry.

I instantly feel horrible. I hadn’t meant to yell. I wasn’t angry I was just surprised. Her hair has always been a bit of a battleground. She never wants to get her haircut. In fact, she hardly ever wants to comb it or wash it or put it in cute little pig tails.

I take the sheers away and pick her up. I try to get her to stop crying, telling her it’s not bad. Hair is just hair and will grow back. In fact, she’s done a better job with shaping it than I ever have in the two years I’ve been trimming a little here and there to keep it out of her eyes.

I tell her it looks pretty, which I don’t really think was a lie.

My husband looks at me worriedly.

“It looks like a mullet,” he whispers. “What if the kids make fun of her at camp? She’s going to have to get that fixed.”

“When I was a kid we’d call this a shag.”

But I have to admit, with a square patch of pink scalp showing through in the back and triangular patch showing through in the front, a trip to the hairdresser would be unavoidable.

I had to phone my mother. She’ll get a kick out of this:

“Hi mom. Guess what? Ittybit got her first real haircut today at the salon.

“Yeah, the husband took her.

“Oh … because, you know, she cut it herself and looked a little too much like Billy Ray Cyrus.

“No. no! I was sitting right next to her, paying no attention, whatsoever.

“…. Go ahead laugh. It is kind of funny.”

But the DIY haircut is more than merely humorous, it’s a rite of passage for some kids.

My mom told me about how when she was about Ittybit’s age, she and a little boy in her neighborhood exchanged haircuts. She remembered snipping away at his hair carefully, trying to keep it straight. “His haircut looked pretty good but mine … well it was awful.”

Culling from my own experience, I would have thought she’d decide one (if not all) of her dolls needed cosmetic attention. I didn’t really expect my kid to play hairdresser on herself.

Apparently, the folks who fix such hairy situations don’t always see this play out this way either.

“Oh, honey? Do you have an older brother?”

“No?!”

“Oh. We’ll, we usually see kids experimenting with haircuts on their younger brothers and sisters.”

“I DO have a little brother,” she replies excitedly.

I guess we know what to expect next.

Don't read this ... it's probably wrong

Raising children offers nothing but lessons in failure.

I had no idea how many times I could be wrong in a single day until I became a parent. And my highly critical child is only four.

I start making mistakes usually around the time the alarm sounds in the morning and wander sleepily into the room occupied by my night owl, bedtime-cheating daughter and try to cajole her from sleep. When I manage to rouse the little bear from her bed, it is always the WRONG side.

Of course sometimes the mistakes start well before the clock’s infernal bleating, in the middle of the night when she is awakened by some arbitrary need that I didn’t foresee before kissing her goodnight several hours beforehand.

“Mama! YOU didn’t read me the last few pages of the book we were reading!”

“But I didn’t want to wake you after you’d fallen asleep!”

I can see her lower lip quivering even in the pitch black.

When the sun finally does make its return and we start sifting through all the possibilities, I still can't seem to do anything up to her exacting standards.

The clothes I offer are always the WRONG color or the WRONG style; the breakfast I pour from the box is never enough or else it's too much, and usually the milk that sloshes around it is either inadequate or in error. When we get out door and head to the car there's always something WRONG with sequence: she wanted to drive in her father's car, or stomp in the puddles, or pick some flowers. If it's snowing she wants to make snowballs or catch flakes on her tongue. At least twice before the car stops at its first destination, she wonders if I've not gone in the WRONG direction. Of course the music I turn on while we drive is not what she was hoping for, nor are the word games we substitute for the WRONG songs ever exactly right. I never can seem to follow the rules she makes and changes.

When we get to the destination -- let's say a doctors' office, where we have an appointment -- she wonders if I've gotten the WRONG time. By the time we leave, I know I was WRONG to worry.

Eight-gazillion choices in the day, usually hers, and every one of them WRONG. The furrowed eyebrows and pointy eyes always looking at me.

"Why did you get me the pink marker? I wanted the purple one?

"I didn't want four blueberries, I wanted six.

"I always like the small pieces of watermelon ... unless I want the big one.

"I don't want to take the stairs I wanted to take the escalator.

"I do not like Green Eggs and Ham ... "

I tell you, by the time she's eaten the WRONG dinner, brushed her teeth with the WRONG flavored toothpaste and taken a shower with all the wrong toys, I'm ready to throw in the WRONG colored towel.

Even reading three WRONG books the WRONG way, one might think I'd be able to just laugh it off and call it a day.

But of course there's always just one final question at the end of every day that gives me a chance to redeem myself. Usually it has to do with kittens or goldfish or one of her toys, and usually all I have to do is name the item or tell her a story about how it came to be.

I wasn't prepared to answer how babies are made.

Sure she knows about mommies and daddies being important components and all of that. She's not really interested in the twittipation that starts the whole thing off; she's interested in just how it is a person like her could live inside a being like me.

I know since I can't ever be right, I might as well make WRONG really interesting ...

"Do you know, that when I was pregnant with you my body grew an entire organ all on its own?

"It's called a placenta.

"Can you say placenta?'"

"Plah-sment-ah"

"That's pretty good."

"What is a pla-sment-a, mama?"

It's an organ that grows with the baby to make sure it has food and oxygen and can get rid of waste that could be bad for it."

"Food? Like ice cream?"

"Well, sorta like ice cream."

"Wow."

"Yeah. Wow."

"Thanks mom. That was really nice of you to do that. I guess you did something right."

Dancing into mommy time

“Did you see me? Did you see me, ma?”

I wasn’t looking.

“No, darn it! I missed it! Can you do it again?”

“Oh, Ok,” she says with the same disappointed tone I use with her father when he forgets the ONE thing I sent him to the store to get. “This time watch, okay.”

She had on her best dress and her new tap shoes. She was excited to be taking a dance class. Perhaps even more excited to FINALLY have her mother all to herself. Finally, it would be her mother, and not a daddy or grand parent or babysitter, cheering her on from the sidelines.

She twirled around on one heel, her dress revolving around her with a flourish. But there wasn’t a perfect finish. The taps slipped out from underneath her and down she went. On her bottom with a thud.

“Whoops! That wasn’t supposed to happen,” she says with a laugh. I laugh, too, happy that the unceremonious fall wounded neither her body nor her ego.

She doesn’t even wait for me to tell her how lovely she looks or what a wonderful listener she is for the teacher before she disappears back into the room.

This is our “mommy time.”

But somehow, standing outside of the studio, taking turns with the other moms peering through the glare of the glass window in the waiting area, didn’t much seem like “mommy time” unless you define the term literally.

Dance class was something I had put off. I knew Ittybit would LOVE to dress in pretty things and pirouette around a dance floor, but I wasn’t ready for all the things I thought formality would bring.

Would the tights and leotards and learning of steps take away from her free spirit? Would it warp her sense of self? She would have to tame her wild hair and her wild style to play this role.

“You are really thinking about this too hard,” my husband said. “Little girls LOVE to dress up. To her this will be fun. And really what’s wrong with letting her learn about an art form the way it was intended to be taught.”

He was right.

I wasn’t really afraid of the tutus and the leotards.

I was worried about the other mothers.

I knew most of them had been through the drill: Kinderdance on Tuesdays, Kindermusic on Thursdays, Kindergymnastics every other Saturday.

What would they be like? Would they think I was odd? Would they wrinkle their noses because my kid was the ripe old age of four and some has never really been to a formal “class” of any kind? Would they like me? Would I like them?

Ittybit and I are early: the kind of early only anxiety can explain.

As the dancers start trickling in, I can see the parents sizing each other up. Such is human nature. I am sizing them up, too.

Their kids have sweet little dance outfits of all variety. Some are dressed in shorts and sneakers. No matter how many times they’ve been here before they counseled their tiny dancers to stand in line and wait until their names are called before entering the dance studio.

When the class starts, we all gather in front of a picture window in the wall for a glimpse of our kids waving at us from the other side.

We all have cameras and jockey for the best positions to avoid the glare, but we take turns. There’s just not enough space for everyone to camp out there.

We can’t really do much else, so we introduce ourselves. We chat about our kids, which leads to chats about ourselves. We learn of similarities. We laugh. Eventually we get so loud in our individual conversations that I’m sure at any moment the teacher will come floating out of the studio to shush us. I imagine she will close the door, and we will feel chastened until our kids coming running out to grab us around our legs, telling us how fun dance is and how they really LOVE their mommy time.

Little do they know, so do we.

An ocean of time in a drop of water

The girls are sitting on the seawall, brown skinned and shiny. I can almost smell the imitation coconut of their suntan lotion. They have bottles of water and brightly colored towels artfully placed near the car they came in: a new Cabriolet. I presumptively imagine the compact white convertible is the most impressive gift one of them got for graduation, and the girls are showing it off along with their long limbs and summer sleeked outfits. Their clothes, although decidedly beach attire, were never meant to touch sand or surf.

They are here to be seen.

As are the boys, roughly the same age, who parked their Vanagon five spaces away.

The male delegation, however, has made no pretense of being at the beach. They have neither towels nor swimsuits. They take off their shirts and talk to each other in loud voices; the kind that want to be overheard. They walk on the sea wall in the girls’ direction but never get close enough to share any conversation. They punch at each other’s chests, trying to knock one another off balance. They are trying to establish who will be king of the seaside.

I remember this awkward dance of adolescence wherein being noticed is important. Each gesture is carefully choreographed for optimum effect.

I focus on their bodies, their beauty and youth; for a moment I am wistful.

I suppose none of the adults who walk by headed to the beach a few yards away — as I was doing just then, carrying a baby in a pouch and dragging umbrellas and bags of sand toys — give the teenagers much thought other than to briefly brood for their own youthful bodies, now weighed down by time and responsibility.

We are too busy keeping our little ones from eating fistfuls of sand or mouthfuls of seawater. We are trying to do whatever it is adults with families do when they’re on vacation: Mom reads a book under the shade of an umbrella as Dad builds an elaborate sandcastle that resembles the car in the James Bond movie viewed last night by the light of the computer after the kids were tucked into bed. Our children run off to collect mussel shells and sand dollars, pasting each one carefully onto the dashboard with water and sand.

I’m sure the teens aren’t thinking much about us either. The idea that they will look like us one day has no place in their minds. How can it? They haven’t been to college, or seen the world, or met their special someone. They are still looking. Their job, right now, is to stand beside that seawall and be discovered just as my job is to make sure the sun isn’t discovering my children’s tender skin.

We are where we are supposed to be; to each their own frivolity. And yet I can’t help but look over at them as I pretend to read my book. Wasn’t it only yesterday …

When we’ve finished our sandcastle and our beach-gritty peanut butter sandwiches, we pack up our things and head to the car. Sand is everywhere, which is why I didn’t bring my camera. There will be no pictures of the Aston Martin we carved into the ocean’s driveway. Soon the tide will come and wash the sand car away, and there will be only memories of the children sitting in the deep well of its cockpit, uttering the profoundly satisfying sounds of the pretend engine: “Vroooom-vroom.”

The sound echoes into reality as the girls and boys up above us on the seawall pile into their respective cars and drive away. They head in the same direction, and I wonder if their parallel play will continue at the clam shack or the pizza joint. I wonder if they will muster the nerve to speak to each other before the night is over.

I smile at the thought of this, a not-too-distant memory. I know they will see it too one day: How the days go by like years but the years go by like days. Cameras cannot capture it the way the mind can. Soon, the teens will be looking at their reincarnations at the beach wall from their place amid sand castles and beach shovels and tubes of SPF 55. I hope they smile, too.

What am I forgetting?

I should be packing.

I should be thinking about what clothes I will wear for the next seven days, find them and put them in a suitcase.

Instead I’m standing in the middle of the room looking at a pile of laundry, half expecting it to get up and walk across the floor by itself.

It’s that time of year again: Summer vacation. It is a week in the life of a family during which the strict schedule of the workday transfers onto the itinerary of leisure.

Soon my husband will be breathing down my neck: “Are you ready yet? Are you ready yet? It’s time to go. ARE-YOU-READY-YET??? … WE-SHOULD-GET-GOING!!”

It used to be simple in the days before kids. I’d pack my bag days before departure. When it was time to head out all I’d have to do is toss it in the car and go.
But after the kids come something dark happens.

All the organizational skills I once took for granted have disappeared.

I am not one of those mothers whose bag typically contains the magical panaceas known to cure preschooler ennui. “Hmm,” I say during any given public meltdown, “Our crayons and coloring books must be in my other bag.”

I’m not exactly sure what happened. Perhaps it was the understanding that the baggage of children is more than figurative: travel with children includes packing most of the possessions they own. That pretty much sums it up.

You can try to take five books, but invariably it will be the one you leave behind that they’ll pine for.

You may THINK you need seven changes of clothes, but because you will be away from home and potentially away from laundry facilities, you will more likely need seven times that amount.

Once you’ve gone from room to room, gathering all the toys and books and clothes, you must not forget to empty the bathroom and the kitchen. Eventually the kids will have to wash and brush their teeth, and that doesn’t just include a tube of paste and a toothbrush but also every single bath toy that’s ever floated in the tub.
Who has the baggage to pack that?

Where will you pack your own clothes? How will you fit it all in the car?
Simple. You try and cut back on what you pack for yourself.

You wear the same three things anyway, why bother bringing more? Do you really need an alternate pair of shoes? Toiletries are really overrated. The motel provides miniature versions of things you can’t afford to buy anyway. And the kids’ tear-free suds will do in a pinch.

That book you planned on reading? Forget it. Save the bulk. The minute you sit down to read, one kid or another will be climbing in your lap clamoring for you to read all about Goldilocks or some silly bear that went over a mountain.

You fling as much bulk as you can. But the weight wins out.

What vacation can be had without cameras and computers and cell phones? We can’t really unplug in these high-tech times. A vacation from modern conveniences is really no vacation at all. Can we really get that far without the portable DVD player and 120 hours of animated bliss?

It’s funny how normally we get from place to place accompanied by word games and music on the radio. The kids nap and we talk. Those are short trips, though, where time somehow seems more of a premium.

I look out the window my husband, who is throwing the travel crib and the bikes in the back of the “van.” I can’t even remember what I’ve packed in my almost-full bag. I know it won’t be long until he’s going to be trying to round up the troops and head out. It’s just me and my bag he’s waiting for.

“Are you ready yet? Are you ready yet? It’s time to go. ARE-YOU-READY-YET??? … WE-SHOULD-GET-GOING!!”

I know I’m forgetting something. But now I’m fairly certain it doesn’t matter.

Reaching for the stars

If you were to ask me what I want Ittybit to be when she grows up, I couldn’t really (or rightly) say.

I could only recite all the clichés known to mom, and you've probably already heard them: I want her to be happy. I want her to have integrity. I want her to be kind and loving and generous. I want her to use her mind and never let people with ill-intent screw with it.

One of the most difficult things to explain to a four-year-old (or even a forty-year-old for that matter) is the question: "Why don't they like me?”

It’s in my explanation that I hear my own mother's voice waft out of my throat: "Honey, they just don't know you. If they got a chance to know you they'd like you.”

And it is in her reply that my own voice echoes back: "No, mom. I don't think they would."

It breaks a mother’s heart to watch her child run from one group of children to the next, hoping to be included in their games, and finding only quizzical faces and flying hair as the bodies attached run in an opposite direction.

“Why won't they play with me?” she asks before breaking down in tears.

I know it's because kids are like that. Even she can be like that. They can’t hide their bewilderment nor can they veil their reactions. They haven't the means of deception using polite smiles and fingers crossed behind their backs ... not just yet anyway.

So there we are she and I, sitting hip to hip, rocking on the hillside. I have no words of wisdom. I have no advice other than to tell her to persevere.

I know she doesn't want to just run with the gangs of youngsters that flock from hill to hill. She doesn't want to just be in their general vicinity. She wants to lead them and influence their play. She's got big ideas, this little boss lady of mine.

She’s also got alternate plans.

"Maybe if I play with my play picnic food someone will come up and want to play with it, too,” she says, her excitement returned.

But as the minutes go by in our staged picnic of wooden meats, fish, cheeses and vegetables, no one was enticed.

"I know! I'll get my stickers and hand them out. Maybe then they'll play with me."

I pull the sheets of colorful stars from my bag and she makes another run toward the children. She wordlessly holds out her offering. Some of the kids come closer. Some of the younger ones, prompted by their mothers, wordlessly accept. Others just say "No, I don't want any stickers."

In the end this becomes a game she plays with herself. She no longer needs the children. She only needs the stickers.

“I have to find more people. I have to make sure EVERYONE gets a sticker!" she tells me. And then she's gone. I catch a glimpse of her teal shirt, which, from a distance, looks perfectly free of the cherry-ice stains and ground-in dirt I know from several washes now are permanent.

She is milling about the clusters of adults sipping wine from glasses and waiting for the line at the buffet to draw inward. She is asking them if they'd like to choose a sticker.

Most oblige. Who can say no to a little girl bestowing self adhesive gifts?

Finally, she meets the only girls at the party willing to play her games: A trio of bluegrass singers hired to entertain - Those Darlins.

And they were. Darling.

From their patch of grass in front of the performance space, the singers and their friends accepted her stickers. They played with her picnic foods and juggled for her. They danced with her and played word games. They played and hide ‘n seek, and made sure to find her.

When it was time for their show to go on, Ittybit danced in the front row. They dedicated a song to their biggest (and littlest) fan. She was walking on air.

And she took every opportunity - every lull in the performance - to hug each one of them around the knees (often encircling their guitars, too).

It's every mother's dream for her children to reach for the stars. ... And it would be mine, too. I just wish she didn't have to be so literal.

“I know it looks like play, Ittybit, but really it's work. Let's just wait until the music starts again. And we'll dance."

Anything is possible

In 1961 ...

John F. Kennedy became the 35th president of the United States;

The Beatles performed for their first time at the Cavern Club;

The Peace Corps was established;

The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, allowing residents of Washington, DC to vote in presidential elections;

The Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba begins AND fails in two days;

A Freedom Riders bus was fire-bombed near Anniston, Alabama and the civil rights protestors were beaten by an angry mob;

The British protectorate ends in Kuwait and it becomes an emirate;

Ernest Hemingway commits suicide by gunshot in Ketchum, Idaho;

Construction of the Berlin Wall begins;

Amnesty International is founded;

Digital photography is presented in a technical paper at the American Rocket Society's Space Flight Report to the Nation in New York;

The Fantastic Four #1 debuted, revolutionizing the American comic book industry;

Rudolf Nureyev defects at Le Bourget airport in Paris;

Catch-22 is first published by Joseph Heller;

"Barbie" gets a boyfriend when the "Ken" doll is introduced;

AND

Ann Coulter, American author, political commentator and attorney was born.

Not all of those things were bad. Some of the developments of that year were downright wonderful.

Let’s not forget George Clooney was born that year, too.

Perhaps the most important development for mothers, however, also happened in 1961:

Proctor and Gamble introduced the disposable diaper.

Of course the Pamper — now a slender, soft, chemical laden, cloth-esque, urine soaking titan of its former self — has the unique distinction of being loved AND hated by many. Beloved because it freed women from the drudgery of piles of poopy laundry, and yet reviled because its padded puffs have added to our use-and-toss economy and tipped the balance inside our beleaguered landfills.

Over the years the lowly Pamper has gone from looking and feeling like a pile of paper towels wrapped in a plastic bag to a thin piece of padding "that gently gathers at the legs" and holds a literal shit load of liquid. It has confounded upstanding grannies of all ilk (the BIG cartoon character goes in the front, right?) with its easy tab closures and amazing moisture wicking properties. Even our moms did use disposables, they looked and worked nothing like the brands of today. Today’s Pampers, dear friends, ARE NOT your mother’s disposables.

The bubble-butts of yesteryear’s child are greatly diminished, leaks are less prevalent and diaper rash can usually be traced back to food sensitivities or teething, not moisture next to the skin.

So in honor of 1961, the environment and a recent announcement by Proctor and Gamble noting a 20 percent across the board hike in prices, I've made some small changes that will likely result in many, many, many more changes and at least one extra load of laundry a day: I've invested in cloth diapers.

For $150, I've purchased six fitted cloth diapers, two pocket diapers, two diaper covers, four additional absorbent inserts, four cloth wipes and something called an ICKYBAG (self explanatory, yes?). I’ve watched videos, asked friends for advice, researched brands and decided to buy a few different kinds of bum wraps to see which work best.

I'm starting slow (weekends and vacations at first) I don't want to scare the babysitter. But hopefully - at home at least - we'll see a little less of Ernie and a little more of our earnings. I doubt we’ll really do much to save the Earth, after all, what we keep from the landfill will we’ll be taking in additional water and energy to launder. But who knows? It’s possible.

I mean, truly. If I'm excited at the prospect of washing poopy diapers ANYTHING is possible.

Father’s day surprises mom

Just two days after father's day last year, my husband (with my help, of course) had himself a son.

A boy; the gender than engenders the fear and loathing of some prospective parents and unadulterated adulation of others. Partiality be not proud.

Collectively thought of as all rough and tumble, wrapped in the added benefit (some may claim) of being the carriers of names into future generations, boys in many, many cultures are prized.

When I asked him to guess what we would be having, way back when, he never even hesitated. "A girl," he said without question.

Nope.

B.O.Y.

I could see the look on his face change from trepidation to disbelief.

To actually admit to having a preference seems monstrous. And yet many of us have our hearts set on one or the other, and we convince ourselves we will be happy with either.

It was plain as the nose on his face: This B.O.Y. was B.I.G.

Back then he was still known to rant about being raised by a pack of shewolves (his mother's many friends) whom he insists (ever so playfully) damaged his tender male psyche with their 1970s off-the-cuff male-bashing ways.

"Oh, they'd deny it," he says, "but I'd have to listen to them talk about how men really were horrible. And there I was, devastated because I knew that someday I was going to be a man."

My husband knows chapter and verse about the evils of gender inequality, and yet he believes that it’s all in the past. Women, he says half-jokingly, rule the world.

So it was no small thing for a man who bristles at having been surrounded by women for more than 30 years to come to the realization that he would have “the rich man’s family:” A daughter and a son.

I have to admit that I worried about the potential for favoritism.

Would the line of demarcation in our family become drawn at his’ and hers’ restrooms? Would father/son ski trips toss an avalanche of ill feelings toward the double X chromosome dwellers in our household?

Yet, this past year as our son squirmed his way into all of our hearts, I’d kept my squinty eyeballs peeled for any hint of The "MY BOY BILL," chest beating-type of sentiment that would ultimately make me want to get off the carousel.

I was possessed.

When our local public radio station aired an interview with Dr. Margaret Meeker, author of the book “Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters,” I turned up the volume.

I don't know what I was thinking, really. If I were to be honest, I'd have to say that I thought perhaps I could catch something that he was doing that would forever alienate our daughter and send her skipping down the path of depression and self-loathing at break-neck speed.

But as I listened, I realized how lucky she is to have him as her father. How, even in these tiny years, he's engaged without being overbearing. He watches and guides, showing her every step of the way that he’s there and willing, and yet in many ways letting her lead the way.

Not even the slightest tinges of favoritism have I seen.

In fact whenever Ittybit brings up her own superlatives pertaining to gender – girls NEVER drive trucks or boys CAN’T wear pink – her dad is the first to disagree.
“I know women welders and women truck drivers ... AND oh, and lookie here ... the T-shirt I’m wearing is P.I.N.K.”

But most interestingly, perhaps, is that he can often meet her on her terms whether on the playground swings or among the princess things.

I suppose the real lesson in there was for me: "Mom, don't go thinking you know everything there is to know about girls."

Good times call for cheese and whine

It's been busy, busy, busy here at the casa de la Toyland.

It all started last Sunday when we were invited to a cookout for which we were to bring a side dish, and for which I impulse purchased a Zyliss folding mandolin while we were buying produce at the grocery store, and so (as it turns out) I could more easily make mass quantities of tasteless au gratin potatoes AND slice a little skin off my left thumb.

Good times.

The fun continued into Monday, when, because I have this amazing device that drastically reduces prep time for thinly sliced root vegetables, I made a cucumber salad to add to lunches AND inadvertently sliced off several layers of the skin on my right thumb.

To add insult to injury the husband later informed me, with wrinkled nose, that he only likes sweet things made of chocolate so the sugared/vinegar dressing really didn't “do much for him.”

I suggested he hold a couple of the slices firmly on his backside ... and stop talking to me.

Good times.

Even MORE fun ensued after he dropped me off at the auto repair shop (afterhours, of course) where the kindly mechanic had finally figured out why the Check Engine light was in constant party mode on my dashboard and had fixed said conundrum.

Last year around this time the same mechanic fixed something presumably connected to the problem, turned off the light, slapped an inspected sticker on the windshield, I paid him, drove away and two hours later the eerie glow was back on. Being the lazy person I am, I chose to ignore it for the next 12 months.

But this time the mechanic pin-pointed a rusted-out valve in the gas tank and fixed it. He also changed the oil, slapped on a new inspection sticker, and my newly inspected, injected, detected and neglected old car was ready to go.

Whew.

Needless to say, Tuesday was its own disaster.

Not only were we slow in leaving the house in the morning as a result of a perfect storm of dawdling, lollygagging and dallying, I was further delayed by the stunning realization that I’d dropping off the kids at the babysitter's house while leaving the emotional equivalent of a swimming pool of frozen breast milk (about 40 ounces) out on the kitchen table. I had to go back home and return the milk to the freezer before it festered.

Since I was already late (and arguably deranged) I decided I might as well take the dog to the vet.

To the normal person a visit to any doctor, even a veterinarian, isn’t a spontaneous occurrence akin to stopping for a coffee.

But it was overdue. The dog had been chewing on her hind leg for weeks now and despite the husband’s best intentions, he hadn’t found the time to schlep the poor pooch the three or so blocks to get it checked out.

Ah ... time? Where does she go?

I call, they tell me to come on over, and the visit is in-and-out-here’s-a-prescription-what’s-your-hurry? and I’m back on the road.

So, so late now; might as well stop at the apple farm and buy some artery-clogging goodness for the people at work who are probably already picking up my slack.

Mmm … Doughnuts.

I get back into the car only to see the flashing lights of police cruisers ahead on the highway. Oh man, they're checking inspections, which (thanks to the mechanic and $375 worth of work) I now have, but because the registration expired three days ago and I haven't yet peeled it off and replaced it with the one in the envelope stuffed in my bag … I am forced to realize the horror of yet another delay: I have to go back home and get the husband’s car because I am NOT paying another fine for non-affixed registration thankyouverymuch.

So I casually take a left when I want to take a right.

And that's when it happened, folks, I kid you not. ... The Check Engine light blinked back on.

Cue never-ending stream of expletives.

Good times.

Trying to play my cards right

My husband and I are tripping over ourselves trying to out-witness each other with regard to our second child's firsts. (Just try and say that three times fast.)

Last weekend, my hulking husband scrambled to his feet after playing on the kitchen floor with his son and roughly three thousand plastic containers and lids, and, practically jumping up and down with excitement, exclaimed: "He took his first steps."

Without even looking past the countertop, where The Champ was hidden from my view, I told him in no uncertain terms: "No. He didn't. What he's doing is called 'crusing.'"

He could not be dissuaded.

"Well, I know what I saw, and this kid took a step."

"No. He didn't."

"Yes. He did!"

"No, he didn't."

"Yes, he did!"

"No he didn't."

"Yes he did!"

"Nohedidn't."

"Yeshedid!"

"Ok, this is getting us nowhere. I appreciate that you think The Champ has taken a step, and that you want to be the first to witness this event, but I assure you that he has not, in fact, started walking."

If I remain calm and collected, say my piece and turn back to what I was doing, I win. This, in poker terms, would be what they call a bluff.

Really, it's not fair that I get to witness all the firsts. I realize that. It's not fair that milestones in my babies lives don't actually happen unless I am there to witness them.

That old conundrum "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it; does it make a sound?" Well replace that old hunk of wood, root system and leaves image with that of a chattering, wobbly boy baby, who has a whole 'nother existence while his mommy's at work, and any mommy-type can unequivocally say: "Nope. Not a sound."

Daycare providers all know that firsts happen first at home (even if they don't). They know that any telling of a first happening elsewhere will result in the one of the following responses in ascending order of likelyhood:

"You're fired."

OR

"Oh, I forgot to mention, he started walking yesterday at 4:30 in the morning while I was trying to change his diaper, rearrange the living room furniture and figure out that world peace thing."

OR

A wordless response might also result, wherein good ol' delusional mom turns into a puddle of heaving, sobbing Jell-O right before the caregiver's eyes.

Most daycare providers understand that we working moms can be an irrational and fragile set, so they wait until we arrive the next day and triumphantly announce the kid's new skill. Some will even go the extra mile to act completely shocked and emphatically stress how advanced the child is (to be doing whatever milestone he should be doing anyway between now and the next three weeks).

This is called a strategy, and smart parents should remember such skillful caretakers at Christmastime with a generous bonus.

Of course, this strategy is wholly separate and apart from the ones we, as parents, are employing against each other to ensure we triumph in being the first name to pass our kids’ lips.

ME: "Who am I? MAMA. I'm MAMA."

HIM: "Hey Buddy, can you say DADA? Go ahead, say 'dada'."

ME: "Mama?"

HIM: "Dada!"

ME: "Mama?"

HIM: "Dada!"

ME: "Mama?"

HIM: "Dada?"

ME: "Mama?"

HIM: "Dada?"

*silence.

CHAMP: "Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!"

**silence.

ITTYBIT: "I think he said my name."

And that, dear readers, is what's called a trump.

When we agree to disagree

My husband and I disagree.

Often.

About a lot of things.

For instance: He likes chocolate-based ice cream flavors while I prefer fruit or coffee-flavored confections.

He can't throw anything away. I can’t stand clutter.

He prefers action adventure. I like witty comedies with lots of dialogue.

He thinks children who make hideous experiments out of food items in the pantry should be made to eat their creations. I think a little time in Time Out and a lot more supervision is a more humane and appropriate consequence.

He also thinks a woman in Missouri, who was indicted on charges in connection with a "cyber bullying" event that ended after a teenage girl committed suicide, should go to jail.

I don't.

It's not that I think Lori Drew — the woman accused on several charges for opening an account on a social networking site under a false name so that her kid could "get back" at a former friend — doesn't deserve to be vilified in the press, or spurned by her neighbors, or considered to be America's Most Immature Mother for the next fifteen minutes or fifteen years for that matter. She definitely earns that disrespect.

It's that I think making Cyber Bullying (or any bullying for that matter) a crime endangers our freedom of speech.

For my husband the argument is personal: He puts himself in the place of the parents. He sees a woman who victimized a teenage girl. Even if she didn't know the girl would hang herself in the aftermath, she is culpable and should be punished by the law. He sees an event that is deeply disturbing, and that, from all media accounts, seems to be burgeoning as more and more people avail themselves of the thin blanket of anonymity the internet provides.

I feel all of those things, too, and yet I also see that such a visceral reaction has caused a rush toward making outright and low-down meanness a crime. I see the disparity of having laws that apply justice arbitrarily. Why have different laws for cyberspace? In the real world, if they had passed fake notes in the classroom would they be in the courtroom?

Cyberspace is not really a different world. Meanness is meanness wherever it is found, whether on the schoolyard or in the boardroom or on a Web page.

I think we all need a few lessons in dealing with jerks that doesn't end up with a phone call to the local precinct. We need our children to be strong enough to ignore; to rise above their petty peers. Not only because bullies will always exist but because if this keeps up, one day freedom of speech may not.

Say your criticism of treatment by a doctor, or shoddy service at a store, or any number of things you have a right to say becomes a criminal matter because the person to whom you are referring claims you made it up intentionally?

Really, this type of legislation could go anywhere and apply to anything.

What about that boy to whom you gave your virginity IN REAL LIFE? He's the one who told you he'd love you forever and who broke up with you the next day. What about him? Some of you are probably wishing he could get his comeuppance, too. Maybe if he broke your heart in an e-mail, you'd get your shot.

To my husband, and many others I imagine, it may seem as if I am defending this monstrous woman who antagonized a child in her skewed understanding of fairness and lack of any semblance of parenting skills. Everyone, it seems, wants an eye for an eye.

I want to teach my kids that jerks are jerks; and nobody — not even a Real Boy who tells you lies or says mean things — is worth your tears. You are better than that. We should all be better than that. We can unplug. We can move on. And we can agree to disagree.

If we could do that we'd surely take most of the power away from the small minded and mean spirited.

Until then we can the bullies of morning news magazines take care of the public shaming. They're already on it.

An ode to the supermarket

The refrigerator is empty.

Well, almost.

A single snow pea is alone in the vegetable crisper, having somehow managed to escape the thin plastic produce bag when all the remaining vegetable orphans were gathered up for the traditional "What's Left Stirfry."

We adults play a game of rock, paper, scissors to see who will get the task of refilling the larder.

I lose.

I snake up and down the aisles of the grocery store, throwing this and that into the shopping cart.

I can do this in my sleep, I think to myself, despite having the Champ sitting in the sling, protesting the inability to reach a breakable item and Ittybit asking every six steps if we need whatever is in her line of vision.

"No honey, we don't need any pickled pigs feet today, but we could use a few of those pears. You may pick them out?"

It's been a tradition in our house that if a child asks for healthy food as we do "The Big Shop" together, we indulge. I keep telling myself a child that eats vegetables is priceless, so don't worry that the sugar snap peas are pricey.

We avoid most of the center aisles where the prepackaged food is at eye level. We try not to buy anything that has any recognizable children's characters marketing it to us.

"We do not buy Dora yogurt," I tell Ittybit with the same firmness I've established her father and myself as "Dog People" not "Cat People."

"There will come a day when you can buy your own Dora foods," I tell her. "But until that time comes, we will be buying the one with the cow on the label because it doesn't have high fructose corn syrup."

Nothing usually changes, not even the order in which the items appear as we rarely alter our route through the maze of narrow aisles. Even the pre-schooler's picks have become predictable: "We need bananas, apples, oranges, cucumbers, broccoli, peppers and spinach ... can we have melon, too?"

Week after week the same things pile up in the cart: fruit, vegetables, coffee, cereal, pancake mix, bread, pasta, sauces, juice, meats, eggs, milk, cheeses, butter and ice cream. Occasionally something new catches my attention and I pitch it in with the rest of the provisions.

So it was with some surprise that the check-out clerk totaled our haul and handed me the bill for 160 smackeroos.

I'm not sure if the checker in Lane 7 noticed my head spin completely around (because I think from the jarring sensation in my neck it happened pretty fast) but there I was sputtering and wondering when exactly WAS the last time I did the marketing?

Might it have been last year? Could it really have been only last week? Have prices really gone up that much in only seven days?

I was full of questions, and yet I didn't want to be THAT person. You know, the one who stares at the cashier in disbelief, muttering about how her food dollar used to go so much farther. Emitting a cloud of blame that somehow wafts over the register in the direction of the poor soul who is collecting payment? Yeah. THAT person.

Instead I look over at the person putting my groceries into the colored, reusable bags we've accumulated in hopes of saving the planet. Nothing really out of the ordinary is going into the bags.

There's no super-duper sized container of laundry detergent; no pharmacy, cleaning or personal products.

Besides a few boxes of cereal and one box of snack crackers there’s not much that isn't considered a staple.

I sign the receipt and sigh.

I've always had a love/hate relationship with food.

Dear fill in the blank

The People for Less Unrest in Marriage, an imaginary but incredibly well-organized think tank for which I sometimes find myself a spokesperson, would like to share the following announcement as a public service:

With the skyrocketing price of food and the growing unrest about the safety of its origins, the necessity of purchasing a chest-type freezer and stocking it with locally produced and butchered meats might seem like a very wise endeavor; a good investment, even.

It's an endeavor made infinitely more satisfying if you find yourself helping a struggling farmer in the process.

And we at PLUM like farmers not to struggle.

Yes, your friends WILL likely want to know that there is an alternative to paying exorbitant prices at the grocery store for saline-injected, color infused cow flesh of questionable origin.

You should go right ahead and send them an e-mail, alerting them to special chance they have to fill up on free-range, grain fed bovine that is completely hormone and antibiotic free. They will undoubtedly thank you for the tip. They also don’t care to see farmers struggle.

But all this good intention and progressive purchasing will spiral into a vortex of flame if your significant other — the one who said: "... Yeah ... not too keen on adding THAT much red meat to our diets..." when you wanted to buy the same freezer and fill it with a half a cow last winter — is initially notified of your NEW grand plan as a "CC'd" recipient of the same missive that went out to your entire electronic address book.

That is all.

Oh ... except we do have another concern here at PLUM.

When asking for a favor, it's always advisable to remember not to pretend you are Tom Sawyer. No matter how fun you tell them painting a fence will be, it's still a lot of work.

Your significant other is not really all too keen on having to take out the trash or pave the driveway or do the dishes on their night off. It's probably wise to ask in a way that doesn’t sound like YOU are doing THEM a favor for letting them help you out.

I do not WANT to help you clean out the cruddy, gunky buildup that's congealed in the crevices of your car’s cup holders during the last two years while you’ve driven over country roads without the lids on your travel mug. ... But I will if you ask me nicely and don’t disappear to play video games on your iPod while I toil.

That is all.

Except. Oh, there are some other items that should be on your radar as the spouse of a member of PLUM: Sponges should be wrung after use; dirty clothes should be put in hampers; shoes should be left at doorways; and dishes may be put INTO the dishwasher at any time after the contents have disappeared into your digestive system.

We know you are trying though. And that is why the People for Less Unrest in Marriage would also like to thank you for taking out the recycling. The garbage and recycling people, however, are writing to the People Against Procrastination — another hard working but entirely imaginary organization, of which I am only a part time member — to get you to do it more often.

Shopped, dropped and rolled at the mall

I recently got it in my mind that I wanted to look less like the aging hipster I am and more like *shudder* a grown up.

I had a carrot hanging over my head: A party that didn't include balloons or pin the tail on the donkey. This would be a fete where people my own age would actually speak to me and not just to tell me my kid was putting something dangerous in his mouth. It was to be an evening in which adult beverages would be consumed and tiny plates of succulent savories would be passed that only folks under three feet tall could reject.

Oh, the invitation said it was to be casual affair, but I knew better. I knew half of those in attendance would be dressed to the nines and the other half would be dressed to the eights. I did NOT want to be the only person at the gathering dressed like an integer in boy-style Levis' jeans, a boxy sweater and clogs.

I did NOT want to be me; Not this time, I told myself. This time I was going to go shopping and I would buy something that would scream "SHE IS HIP. SHE IS IN TOUCH WITH FASHION. SHE LOOKS GOOD. HER CLOSET DID NOT CLOSE TO NEW TOGS IN 1989."

My mission was to have people take one look at me and think: "Gee, she cleans up well."

But with two kids and a husband (who's idea of helping is standing just outside the dressing room door asking the sales folks if they've got anything that would "fit tighter") I needed a plan.

I'm not a planner. I'm a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of gal.

So I did what everyone (except the males of the species) does when standing in an unfamiliar place: I asked for directions. I reached out to friends and begged them to give me a primer (with photographic examples) of clothing styles that would make me look skilled in the art of dressing myself.

They were good. I could feel their fingers on the pulse of the fashion district’s artery as they came to my aid. While I was absently paging through catalogues looking at fonts and wondering why the models had bare feet, they were telling me to "turn to page 30 of the most recent jcrew catalog and look at the clothes."

They even gave me rules-of-thumb to help me make the best decisions should I get to the store and find the catalog and the inventory didn't jibe. They offered advice such as "shop in the petite section," "select jackets that are 'cropped' and that 'nip' at the waist," and "choose funky colors as accents."

I felt ready. I felt charged. I felt emboldened. I was going to look for a wrap dress and espadrilles, or wide-leg slacks and shimmery top. I was on a mission to find heels and chunky jewelry. I was going to click through those racks with authority. If something stood out that I liked I was going to PUT IT RIGHT BACK. I may not know much, but I know I can't be trusted with my taste in clothes.

Standing in the store, with the Champ in one arm and Ittybit pulling the other out of its socket, I knew I was doomed.

"How can there be more pants than tops?" I wonder aloud, noticing a seven-to-one ratio of styles. There were pedal pushers, capris, hipslung, ultra low rise, city cut, short and long ... and yet only a single tank top in seven different colors.

I felt like a deer, blinking in the glare of headlights.

The store clerks were cheerful and accommodating, but ultimately unhelpful.

"Oh, we're getting petites in JUNE!" said a lovely woman, touching my arm in solidarity.

I try on a few things, but nothing looked right. I hung my head in defeat, but I dove in anyway.

After an hour I came up for air, settling on some comfortable things with outlandish price tags.

Even before I saw the total, though, I knew the score:

Flattering jeans, $100;
Blue silk shirt, $89;
Black strappy sandals, $125;
Comment from host upon arriving: "Thanks for not dressing up," Priceless.

When first they practice to deceive

"Mother says I can't marry Elias. I have to marry Jacob," Ittybit protests over a dinner of steak and broccoli.

My husband's mouth drops open as I fix my vacant stare in her general direction. We haven't slept in months; neither of us trusts our ears.

"What?" I ask, wanting to be sure I heard her correctly.

She stuffs another green tree-like vegetable into her mouth and chomps away under a chorus of mmmmmmmmmms, ignoring my question.

"I want to marry my best friend and MOTHER says I can't," she exclaims in the direction of her father, defiantly waving a fistful of steak. "SHE says I have to marry another best friend."

She has a flair for the dramatic, my daughter. And true to parental cliché, I have no idea where she gets her inspiration.

"What are you talking about? We don't have arranged marriages in this house," I laugh, knowing full well rhetorical questions and sarcasm are useless on most children.

"And we're not cat people either," she responds accusingly, taking a sip of milk.

She's not most children.

I suppose this accusation she’s leveled in my direction is what some folks would call a lie; a blatant disregard of actuality for the purpose of ... Oh, who am I kidding? I have no idea. Maybe this is some strange form of pretend play wherein she's the script writer and we’re the clueless actors. She’s balancing tightrope between pretending and deceiving.

"Look here," she bellows standing behind my husband, now clearing dishes and loading up the dishwasher. "This is completely unacceptable. We cannot have little children playing around this. Some one could get hurt. ... I’M TELLING YOU YOU ARE REALLY GOING TO BE IN TROUBLE MISTER!"

"DO YOU HEAR ME, MISTER MAN?"

"Why are you yelling at me," he asks her.

"Oh, I'm not talking to you," she says sweetly and darts away singing a little scat number she made up; a soundtrack for her off-scene pursuits when she's supposed to be getting ready for bed.

By the time she's corralled and coaxed into brushing her teeth, I swear I can hear the theme from "Jaws" emanating from my husband’s ears. I know it's time to whisk her away before the tinny sounds of "Psycho" overtake them.

She makes a grand exit, bowing deeply and kissing the air: "Thank you, thank you, thank you," she tells him. Then, with me in tow, she leads the way to her bedroom; knees reaching the height of her hips as she marches. "This way, please. This way."

She wiggles into her pajamas, gathers her bedtime stories and scoots into bed. But before I can begin reading from them a new play has opened.

"Mother. I want to be a veterinarian," she says brightly. Her mood darkens. "... but dad won't let me." She starts to cry. "He says I have to be another kind of doctor and I just don't want to. He said I have to go to college and leave home and get a cat. Well, I do want a cat but I don’t want to leave home."

The crying, although exaggerated, seems strangely genuine.

"Aw, Ittybit. Daddy doesn't care what you become so long as you are happy."

"I'd be happiest if I had a cat."

There’s still time for sleep ... someday

Any parent will tell you children and sleep are the chemical equivalent of oil and water: they don't really blend well.

We didn't start out this parenting gig thinking about sleep styles. Ittybit slept in a crib next to our bed for her first 11 months. She occupied her own room by the time she was a year-old when she attained the holy grail of milestones: Sleeping Through The Night.

Contrary to familial belief, however, we didn't look down our very long noses at folks we knew who were still sleeping (or not sleeping as the case may be) with their school-aged kids because they had adopted the Family Bed sleep style in their offspring's infancy.

We didn't eschew the idea of sleeping like puppies from the start. In fact, with Ittybit, I had hoped to sleep in the same bed at least until the round-the-clock feedings spaced out.

But it was clear quite early that she wasn't comfortable with the puppy arrangement. She fussed and fidgeted until I laid her in her own bed, where she instantly relaxed and fell into a restful sleep. Maybe it was because I didn't "room in" with her in the hospital. Who knows? Having never really babysat or changed diapers before her birth, I was afraid to be alone with her at night. It’s also possible that she just sleeps better solo. I know with my snoring soul mate I would.

The Champ’s early days were different. When he was born, three and a half years later, I wasn't petrified of motherhood or of a tiny child.

Unlike the staff that cared for his sister, the nursery staff on duty during his stay had to come and find him for weigh-ins and examinations. Usually they'd find us both sleeping, him in the crook of my arm in the hospital bed.

The sleep custom continued after we got home because of nerve pain that came with his birth. It was just too hard to get out of bed to nurse around the clock. It wasn’t much of a hardship; he was calm and comfortable, hardly moving a bit.

We were all somewhat comfortable back then, no doubt helped by my husband's insistence on getting a king-sized bed after numerous late-night visits from the sleep-master-flash herself in the months prior to The Champ's arrival.

He's been very patient, my husband, even though I know he's wishing for the day when we can clear the cribs and changing tables and plush toys from our bedroom and install a lock.

I, however, am in no rush.

I know there are days when I should have more sleep. Not only is my disposition more similar to a rabid beast without ample shuteye, having to drive upwards of 100 miles a day makes sleep deprivation a potentially dangerous condition for everyone around me, too.

But I also know that my children are small for only a little window of time. And sooner than an blink they'll be sleeping like logs and locking their own doors. ... (Well, not The Champ, poor guy, since he won't really have a door to lock. He’s been relegated [by birth order] to a closet-size cubicle that only fits a bed and dresser).

It's just that waking up before the kids do and watching them toss and turn during their sleep may indeed be the best part of my day. I can see their personalities from the first eye open: Ittybit wakes like a lion and the Champ wakes like a lamb.

There is nothing better than to watch as The Champ opens his eyes and notices his sister has crawled into beside me during the wee hours of the morning. He screams in delight and claws his way overtop of me to get to her. A little brother wake-up call.

It even makes my grumbly husband a bit misty: "Do you think they make a bigger bed than king sized?"