Starting off on the right foot...

I have pledged to read more this year, and to read things that will feed my brain and soul. I started off with an appropriate choice, I think: I am re-reading Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own. And I can already tell that this resolution to read more is a huge gift to myself.

Under the Mid-Winter Sun

It was 83 degrees when Husband and I went out to dinner last night. That is, it's not feeling so wintry around here.

Still, today is a day for resolutions and new beginnings, even if the weather is the same it was back in June. I saw Times Square on a brief glimpse of the Today Show this morning, and it made me remember a New Year's Eve I spent there, right on the streets in Times Square itself. It was a rainy, cold, miserable New Year's Eve that ended in an emergency room in Elizabeth, New Jersey, but it was still as exciting and adventurous as it gets. Everyone needs to spend at least one New Year's Eve in New York City. Just be sure to take your mittens.

Today I have started to try to wade through the muck of Christmas Aftermath at our house. I think I have decided that instead of storing everything and finding new niches for new toys and dishes and gadgets, we just need to buy a new house instead. One with storage.

USA Network keeps showing Under the Tuscan Sun on television. I didn't see the movie in the theater, as it was released after 2002 (that is, after I had babies), and I still haven't seen the ENTIRE movie from beginning to end, but I really like what I have seen. I read the book back before I was a mommy, and I have many daydreams about packing it all in and moving to a run-down Italian farmhouse and eating olives and cheese for the rest of my life.

But what the movie (and the book) always reminds me of is that I don't need all the STUFF that we have. We have so.much.stuff. And I want less. I want to be able to find what we have, use what we have, and love what we have. And I want less to clean up, dammit. Because I spend so much of my life living Groundhog Day -- cleaning the same things I cleaned yesterday, folding the same clothes, wiping the same heinies, picking up the same toys, washing the same ridiculously annoying milk glass. I want less.

I especially want less paper. Oh my gosh, do we have paper. Paper and art projects and old shoes and postcards and photographs that aren't in albums. It is enough to make me crazy. And we don't have a useable attic, a basement, or enough closet space. All our stuff is under our feet. And that is very inconvenient for a Mommy who is usually carrying a baby and can't see where she is walking. I am pretty sure I have a few permanent dents in the soles of my feet thanks to inadvertently stepping on tiny legos and Playmobil swords and runaway game pieces.

And yet my life is such that I don't have enough time in a row to actually make a dent in the de-cluttering of it all. I need hours back to back, not snatches of hours here and there in between picking up children and nursing and feeding the kids one of their eight zillion snacks a day. I need hours.

And so, all I want in 2008, besides my wishlist and alongside my other requests, is to have less material stuff. I think I'll start by dumping the Whac-a-Mole Tower and the Moon Sand. Good idea, don't you think?

Manna of the gods

No, I mean it. And I think I can thank these little suckers for at least two of the five pounds of baby weight I regained over the holiday season.

And yet I still love them. Passionately.

So I am spreading the weight-gaining cheer:

Get thee to a Williams-Sonoma for some Black and White Caramels with Sea Salt lovin'. There's no sign of them on the website, so you are just going to have to take my word for it.

I Don't Want to Live on the Moon

Speaking of "I Love Trash" and other Sesame Street golden oldies, "I Don't Want to Live on the Moon" is my very favorite children's song. You can get it on iTunes, sung by Ernie and Shawn Colvin, for the love of all that is awesome.

There's so many strange places that I'd like to be, but none of them permanently.

The best present was apparently the football helmet.

We have more than a week of vacation left and I am already D-O-N-E. Like, stick a fork in me. That kind of done. Our "happy holidays" have consisted of tension-filled family time with my dear brother and sister-in-law and my crotchety grandma and grandfather and ALL of their precious dogs. But when the dog dander settled and the wrapping paper was mostly thrown away, I was left stuck at home for the past three days with two kids with diarrhea and a four-month-old. Good times.

Today kind of says it all. Before we could get to noon, M. and C. got in a fight over their father's hat (you know, real treasure, totally worth fighting over) which resulted in C. falling forehead-first onto the train table, leaving a nice-sized goose egg right between his eyes. This will be our second double-black-eye inducing injury this year. And can I just voice how utterly unprepared I am for such injuries? They make my skin literally crawl. I am so not cut out for the injuries of reckless children.

C. wasn't done for the day, though. He proceeded to fall again while fighting over the same hat, and this time he fell on a new toy, scraping his tummy (and the poor pirate pop-up set isn't looking so hot now either). Then he tried to climb on me and fell on my knee, making him bite his tongue. And thus, I have decided that my parents' gift of a football uniform, complete with helmet and shoulder pads, was the best present for my child. Now he needs to wear it 24/7.

It's almost 6:00 now, and I don't think any of us like each other anymore. Except the baby. We all like the baby. He has spent the majority of the day sleeping, the little angel. The boys have done nothing but fight. They fight over the dry-erase part of the easel (the chalkboard is apparently inferior due to the supply of only white chalk; they prefer colors. And yes, M. actually usues the word "prefer" when informing me of this.). They fight over the Spider-Man robot my parents gave M. (I called to thank them today for the robot that farts and belches -- such a nice gift for the five-year-old. He is thrilled about it, though, I will give them that.) They fight over the Darth Vader laptop game even though they also received a Spider-Man laptop AND a Venom laptop. They fight over the life-size R2-D2 robot. Did I mention my parents are ridiculously excessive when it comes to Christmas gifts? Did I mention I have nowhere to store this stuff? Did I mention that despite all these toys, my three-year-old injured himself not once, but TWICE fighting over my husband's BASEBALL CAP?

That three-year-old is going to bed early tonight. I think a head injury definitely deserves an early bedtime.

Also, just FYI, Whac-a-Mole Tower makes an adult want to rip her flipping ears off her head and stuff them into her skull. Seriously.

The best part of vacation has been playing songs on my iTunes and watching C. rock out to them. If you haven't seen a three-year-old in nothing but underwear briefs shaking what he's got to Steven Tyler's version of "I Love Trash," you simply haven't lived.

A hand waving at you from the piles of toys and food

My house literally looks like a toy bomb went off inside of it.

It's a happy toy bomb. It even contained a few pink Littlest Pet Shop sets to add color to the otherwise boy-colored array of superheroes, Star Wars sets, Matchbox contraptions, and Transformers. A few books are hanging out, along with a brand new easel and a huge pile of Moon Sand, which has already taken over my patio. I'm so glad we spent so much money renovating the patio, especially on our new tile and grout. It is now permanently stained pink and green in several spots from melted play-doh.

I never got around to finishing my Christmas list. I guess now I will make it a New Year's wishlist.

What I Would Like in 2008:

1. To lose, oh, 50 pounds. I don't feel sorry for myself or need a lot of smoke bown up my wazoo about how my weight doesn't matter and it's all okay. I'm freaking uncomfortable looking and feeling this way. I know what I have to do and I plan to do it.

2. To decide where I want to live. I am struggling with this every day. I know what I want, but I don't know if it is the best ultimate decision for my nuclear family. Grown-up decisions suck. Ideally, I would like to live in Los Angeles and be able to visit NYC every other week, with a trip to see my parents every here and there. But apparently this lottery thing is hard to win -- that's the word on the street.

3. For someone -- anyone -- in my household to listen to me the first time I say something and not make me repeat myself, throwing words vainly out into the ether, a thousand times.

4. For one board game and one puzzle to keep all their pieces for at least six months. In one place.

5. For the five-year-old to learn that someone does not actually have to cheat to beat him at a game.

6. One single, solid night of sleep. Just one. I won't be greedy. Just one whole night, uninterrupted by children, babies, leaking boobs, yowling cats, or snoring Husband.

7. STORAGE. Did I mention the toy bomb?

8. A bathtub. Just for me. I am a bath girl, and I have been without a bathtub or a bath for almost two years now. There is a hole in my life without a bathtub.

9. Time to read. I have been too exhausted to open anything thicker than People magazine lately.

10. Patience. The one thing I have plum run out of and need the most.

I have been suffering from some funked-out holiday hangover today (no alcohol involved) and I desperately need to sleep. Send me strength to avoid the pitfalls of Christmas candy and cookies tomorrow. I would like to be wearing my beloved Lucky jeans by this time next year.

Every time a bell rings...

It's been a wondrous Christmas morning that almost started at 3:41 AM, when M. originally woke up and wanted to hunt for Santa Claus' gifts. That was only two hours after Mommy and Daddy (and Santa) had gone to bed, though, so we forced him to wait until 7:30.

Many bells have rung this morning, so many angels must be sporting new wings. The kids are largely thrilled with their hauls. Mommy is very, very tired. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Joyous Winter, and Goodwill to Men. I would say Peace on Earth, but Santa left C. the Whac-a-Mole Tower game he has been begging for, and we all know that there shall be no peace in our house for a very long time.

Dude.

My kitchen is a mess, my pants are getting tighter, but all I have to say is:

Paula Deen's Creme de Menthe brownies. Homemade chocolate frosting lovingly smothered with Andes chocolate mint chips by tiny hands.

Also?

Butter and jam thumbprint cookies. With apple-cinnamon and bing cherry preserves lovingly heaped on the cookies by tiny hands.

And last but very certainly NOT least,

Swirled Holiday Snowball Cookies. Slightly molested for their powdered sugar by tiny hands. Lovingly, of course.

More conversations with a new mama

My new mama friend called me yesterday. I asked how she was, and she sort of grimly chuckled. "Baby S. is eating every hour! She won't let me put her down! I was up all last night and I am so tired I can't see straight! I just don't know what to think... we still haven't gotten her into a good sleep pattern and she is still eating all over the place. We must be doing something wrong."

"How old is she again?"

"Six weeks."

"BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

[Yes, I did tell her she is doing nothing wrong. And I told her that her baby is still really, really, reeeeeaaaaaalllllly little. And someday she is so going to look back at this and laugh. If she can remember it.]

The mother of THAT kid

Recently, my friend Michelle at Quint-Essential Chaos wrote a piece about how she had been struggling with some of her child's behavior at preschool. It took me back to times when we struggled with the same thing with M. We had moments when he was two and three -- he did, one day, take a chunk out of a classmate's arm in his two-year-old class, but fortunately it was a one-time occurrence -- but we didn't really know heartache until he was four.

I felt like the worst mother in the world when M. was in preschool. He ended up attending three schools from the time he was two until he was four. He started off well in one school, but over time, differences between me and the preschool director became too much to handle and M. was unhappy, so I pulled him out in the middle of his three-year-old class and put him in a wonderful local Montessori. Despite how much we loved it there, I decided to pull him again for pre-K4 and put him in a local private elementary school. I had struggled with the decision to a ridiculous degree, but I thought that we were going to send him to the private school for his primary education and I was concerned with him bonding with his classmates in that pre-K year. So reluctantly, I took him from a place he loved and put him in the new school.

The first six months of that school year were absolutely a nightmare for us. I never went to a private school and was a little taken off-guard by the politics and social dynamics involved. M. was placed in the younger four-year-old class because he has one of those dreaded summer birthdays and was the second or third youngest student in the entire pre-K. His teacher was the older teacher of the two, a 17-year veteran of the school, the kind of preschool teacher you think you want for your child: she caught caterpillers and let them grow into butterflies in the classroom, she played piano to welcome the children every morning. She was a grandmother.

It soon became evident -- and when I say "soon," I mean in the first or second week of class -- that M. was not going to be the model student in his class. Right off the bat, he had his duck moved to yellow. You heard me right. THE DUCK WAS MOVED TO YELLOW! in the pre-K classrooms, each student had a symbol that was either on red, green, or yellow. Yellow was the warning light, of course, but it also meant a note home. Red meant a trip to the principal's office.

In M.'s class, there was a clique of boys, the three of whom had gone to the affiliated church nursery school together, had moms who did everything together, and were the third or fourth children in their families to attend the school. Their three moms were the alpha moms, the Queen Bee moms, the Room Moms. Immediately, M. wanted to be their friends. He worshipped them. Another child, an only child with a strong personality like M.'s, also wanted to be included. M. ended up duking it out for attention with that child and acting out inappropriately to garner attention from the cliquey boys.

And so, yes, for six months, I was the mother of THAT kid. And it broke my heart in two. I spent so many mornings sitting in my car and sobbing on my steering wheel. I was SO. DAMN. FRUSTRATED. M. could not keep his hands to himself, his teacher told me matter-of-factly. He put his hands on Jason's neck because Jason wouldn't slide down the slide. He called Kali a loser because she lost to him in a footrace in P.E. (to which I answered, "Well, yes, then she literally was a loser and that is what M. meant!") He pushed in lines. I dreaded pick-up every day, when inevitably I would receive a sad look from his teacher or, even worse, a note in her sprawling cursive outlining his infractions for the day. I did everything the teacher asked, including an elaborate behavior reward chart that she worked with me on implementing. Nothing was working.

My child was THAT kid, sent to the principal's office, whispered about to other parents, shunned by the do-gooder kids with their ducks perpetually on green. Other parents complained about him, I was told. What if he hurt their children?

These people were talking about M., my firstborn baby, my shining light, my happy, cocky kid? This was my child with an irrepressible spirit, who loved school with his whole heart from the time he was just 26 months old? I felt so crushed. I knew my child was not a bad child. He was not THAT kid. But these people didn't know any other version of him. You send your child to school on those annual first days just hoping with all the hope you have that people will be gentle with him, will know him and love him, will find him as crazy sweet and funny as you do. You hope he will be appreciated for his wonderful qualities and forgiven for his less charming ones. It hurts so much to open the folds of your heart and let you child out into the world in the first place, you just hope that you won't both be crushed by the experience. And we were crushed.

After a few run-ins with other mothers and a call from the assistant head of school telling me to come pick M. up early because from now on every infraction would result in him leaving early, I had enough. At that point, M. was crying in the car every morning on the way to school -- something he had never even come close to doing before in his little life -- and I was crying too. I went to pick him up that day after the assistant head of school called, and I found his little body in a big armchair in her office. He looked at me and his big blue eyes filled with tears. It was all I could do not to break down in front of Mrs. D., so I just took his hand and put him in the car.

After much hand-wringing and several conversations with the principal about how I took responsibility for M.'s behavior but that in the end, I just wasn't sure if he was a good fit for the school or the school a good fit for him (why would anyone send a four-year-old to the principal's office unless he was, like, setting fire to the classroom?). The bottom line was that M. wasn't happy, and an unhappy child acts out. The last-ditch action for the school before I pulled him and put him back at the Montessori was to place him in the other class with children a full year older than M. and a brand new, if experienced, teacher.

The result was instantaneous. M. had a beautiful second half to his school year. He didn't have a single other physical altercation with another child. He came home the first week in his new classroom and told me, "Mom, the other kids LIKE me in there!" It made all the difference. And when he told me that, his father and I both cried. Because as happy as we were that he was now content and things were working out and he was no longer THAT kid, we realized just how unhappy and unloved he had felt for those first six months, and we just wanted to curl up in a ball and bawl over it.

So I completely feel Michelle's pain when she talks about feeling like an awful mother, or when she rejoices in the realization that her kid, despite what has been going on at school, is a polite kid, is growing up okay. I understand what it means to feel those little triumphs. Having been on both sides of the story, with a second child that has never had a problem at preschool but HAS been the one repeatedly bitten by another specific child, I know what terror lurks in the hearts of mothers. The bottom line is that you don't want your child hurt -- either physically by another child or emotionally by the labels and judgments and decisions of the adults around him.

That old saying that says having a child is like letting your heart walk around outside your body? So, so true.

My firstborn, in a nutshell:

Yesterday, C. came home from preschool and his Baby Jesus Birthday Party (he goes to a Presbyterian school even though we are not religious -- I picked it because some of my Jewish friends send their kids there) with a Santa sack full of Christmas goodies, including a card from his teacher that contained a class photograph.

M., the five-year-old, burst into tears. "It's not FAIR that he gets a class photograph!" he bawled. I pointed out to him that C. receives things from his class parties, M. receives things at his own class parties, it all evens out.

Standing in the middle of the family room, M. squeezed his eyes shut and his entire face fell into a crumpled cry. "But... but... but I DON'T LIKE IT WHEN I AM NOT IN THE PHOTOGRAPH!"

Randomly Kind

I did it! I fulfilled the task set before me by Mantramine: I performed a random act of kindness.

It's so not easy to do such a thing with three kids in tow, I have to tell you. The sheer physicality of doing ANYTHING out of our routine stumped me for a while. But yesterday, I was at our drive-thru Starbucks acquiring both a Christmas gift for C.'s speech therapist and a pick-me-up for myself (hot chocolate as light as it can possibly be made) when I realized I had my chance! I am happy to say that the gold Altima behind me received a free hot coffee with a whole lot of added milk and sugar as well as a piece of pumpkin loaf courtesy of yours truly. I positively giggled as I drove off knowing that the woman behind me would be surprised with the free breakfast. I cannot wait to do it again.

Today I also purchased my children's final Christmas gifts: I donated enough to a teacher's project at Donors Choose to complete the fundraising for the project. Eighth graders in North Carolina will now have new books to read. I cannot think of a better gift, for them or for my own kids.

And can I just add thank goodness for drive-thrus and the Internet? Without either I, Everymama, surely would never be able to act randomly kind OR buy a single Christmas present, not to mention get cash or grab a meal on the fly. All hail technology and drive-thrus!

Ho Ho Ho

Now that I am a mother, I love Christmas.

Christmas and I had a falling out in high school, you see. After a pretty great childhood filled with glorious Christmas mornings, Barbie Dreamhouses,new bicycles, days spent singing along with my Sesame Street and Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas albums, and nights spent just sitting by my beautiful, if artificial, Christmas tree, I was unprepared for finally seeing the Man Behind the Curtain, aka my mother, as she sat up every Christmas Eve wrapping presents until 4 AM. I loved buying presents for people, but the joy was gone from opening my own knowing that my mother would be playing martyr once again. I call my mom the Perfect Storm of OCD and ADHD for a reason; at Christmas, for example, she could not finish a single task on time or without much stress, yet every single aspect, in her mind, had to be absolutely perfect or else the whole thing was "ruined." She speaks in such extremes -- "perfect," "ruined," "disaster," "wonderful." It did leave scars.

My mother was never done decorating the tree, even with our help, until late on Christmas Eve. It was, you see, never "perfect" until it had every last ornament in place just so, evenly spread, perfectly lit, with the exact right skirt placed just so, evenly spread. And then, my mother never took down the tree. Literally. A fan of the color white, she bought an all-white artificial tree when I was 13 years old, decorated it in all white ornaments (perfectly), and then didn't take it down for ten years. The tree sat in our formal living room, slowly turning an ugly beige, for ten straight years. It was kept company by an array of moving dolls dressed in red and green and holding candles that could light up, a white carousel horse carrying a white teddy bear dressed in a white Santa hat, and white wreaths and swags. It was always Christmas at our house, a visual enigma for pizza delivery men and prom dates and everyone in between.

And so, by my early 20s, I hated Christmas. Christmas meant a weird beige tree and symbolized, to me, my mother's complete inability to get her shit together. At the time, I didn't know what diagnosis to give her other than Completely Stressed Out and Overwhelmed By Life. It made Christmas morning, when we opened one of a trillion gift bags (actually wrapping or putting bows on gifts would have made her OCD head spin off its axis) while she still found herself unable to sit and be still and enjoy the moment, I just felt tired by the whole experience: tired for my mother and tired of the chaos.

But Christmas now is on my own terms, for the most part. At least, the most important parts of Christmas are mine, and I can largely look away from the continuing freak show my mother puts on annually. While she spends the last few days before Christmas running around town like a chicken with her head cut off, buying things willy-nilly and nowhere near ready for the actual holiday, I get to have fun with my own kids. We are not a religious family; Christmas is purely a festival of consumerism for us. But it is also an important part of our family story because it gives us a place for ritual and tradition. Those are the parts of religion I miss -- the predictable, familiar, comfortable processes and acts that bind me to the rest of the community, the world, and my family. So it is very important to me that we have these things in place for our children.

I love that we actually do get our tree up and decorated early. We have lots of nights with the well-lit tree. The kids marvel at it just as I hoped they would, fingering the ornaments they have made themselves and the little symbols that belong to them -- the Baby's 1st Christmas pooh bear, the Rudolph, the little Star Wars ships. We start listening to Christmas music early, and it is so much fun to hear the boys singing "Jingle Bells" in a little chorus of their own from the back of the minivan. In a life filled with fighting, whining, and crying, a little Jingle Bells can lift a mom's spirits considerably. We took the boys individually to pick out brother presents, and now that they are wrapped and under the tree, the kids are out of their skin in anticipation and pride. There have been homemade Christmas cookies to paint and a gingerbread house to decorate and build -- things we never did growing up. And we love driving around to look at Christmas lights. Our own house looks like the Target Christmas section threw up on our lawn, with every kind of colored light (the big, satisfying fat ones as well as the tiny, delicate ones) lighting our roofline and trees. A lit deer lies in our yard, and a fat, obnoxious carousel snowglobe with every Christmas character riding a reindeer rotates nearby. It ain't glamorous or elegant, but it thrills my children to the point that they stand on their tippy-toes and squeal with glee when they see it all glowing through the windows.

And unlike my mother, I am able to wrap everything in a decent amount of time on Christmas Eve, maybe because I have some help from Husband (already grumpy about the assembly required for this year's gifts, which include bicycles and a fold-up trampoline and an easel). We watch Love, Actually on TV and drink beer and have fun being the parents and playing Santa, nibbling on the cookies and taking bites from the reindeer's carrots and leaving a mound of gifts in our wake. To me, the magic is waking up on Christmas morning and having No Rules, no Limits, just pure excess and a whole mess of wrapping paper and a bunch of new toys. It's getting drunk on just the excitement and the things that are given to you without the strain of having to earn them. It was always, in my childhood, the one time of year when I didn't have to worry about whether I had made the grade or fulfilled the assignment; it was something unconditional. That's what I want Christmas to be for my kids: unconditional.

Which is not to say that I haven't had to call Santa's cell phone at least three times already to inform him of certain infractions. But he has received follow-up calls assuring him that M. did not actually mean to hurl a Buzz Lightyear at his brother's head, or that C. didn't mean it when he called his Mommy a "stupid coo-coo head." Ah, the Christmas spirit is coursing through these children's very VEINS, I tell you!

I'm working on my Christmas list and I will share it shortly! Hint: it doesn't contain anything you can buy at a store.

Mine.

That word. I cannot stand that word. I hear that word about fifty thousand times a day, starting verrrrrry early in the morning, usually before the sun streams into my bedroom. In shrieks -- "MINE!" In growls -- "MIIIIINE." In sing-songy, wheedling voices -- "Mine! Mine!"

We have to distinguish the presents under the tree ("Are they mine?") and the different batches of Christmas cookies (These are mine because IIIII'M the one who painted them") and shirts ("Superman is MINE!) and stuffed animals and placemats and Advent calendar chocolates and underwear and candy canes and play-doh. We have to distinguish whose TURN IT IS and whose BEDTIME and whose SCHOOL STARTS FIRST.

I am so sick of MINE.

Did I do this to them? Is it because they are the same gender, so close in age? Is it because we have given them too many toys and thus placed some emphasis on material objects? Is it ever going to end?

How do you give your child the ability to think he has enough? That he doesn't need things to be "his?" An assurance that he won't need, won't be forgotten, won't be left behind, won't be left wanting? How do you do that with three boys in a house?

My husband thinks that this little fight is good in the kids, that it is good for them to want things and go after things. My husband also sees the kids for a total of an hour a day if we are lucky. So he doesn't see the consequences. He doesn't have to hear the "mines." He gets paid to listen to people say "mine" all day in his litigation practice.

I'm not getting paid to listen to "mine."

My husband also grew up with a younger brother and to this day eats with one hand shielding his food, as if I might reach over and take it if he leaves it vulnerable for a second.

So tonight, when the last batch of cookies was ready for decorating, I looked at the kids and said, "Mine." And as they clamored around me and cajoled and whined, I painted every last cookie by myself. Mine. It's not just for kids.

Epiphany in Bedford Falls

Last night, I was watching snippets of my favorite movie, It's a Wonderful Life, with my five-year-old. He was up late after an over-exciting dinner with Grammy, Granddad, and his only cousins, ages 11 and 3.

I was pointing out the characters to M. "That is George Bailey. He doesn't have a lot of money, but he decides that he is actually rich because he has so many friends," I explained.

"Is he real or is he fake?

"He's fake, honey. It's a story. About George Bailey. Mommy likes George Bailey."

And we watched as George tortured Mary by holding onto her bathrobe while she hid in the bushes.

It was when the car pulled up to take George home to his father, who had suffered a stroke, that I realized that I am George Bailey right now. And I am not sure exactly how I feel about that.

Husband and I have been debating a move. Not a move down the street or across town -- a move to Far Away. A move to my Happy Place. A move to the North.

We are in search of a better public school system, seasons, proximity to old friends and big cities and historical places. We are in search of our Peeps. We are starting to look up after years of focusing only on the little people surrounding us, and we are asking ourselves, What is there for us here?

My heart is torn in two. Here I can give my children family and a certain kind of roots, but here I am not fulfilled. My soul doesn't sing here. I grew up here, moved away for college, and returned eleven years later. When I look around, I feel like I never left. And that's not a good thing. But here I can give my children a very secure place to live, suburban sprawl, lots of beach days. They can be big fish in a small pond. But even more, they can have grandparents at their school plays and cousins to play with on every holiday.

Husband and I yearn to move to the place where we met. It has a certain kind of roots for our children too. It has better school systems and houses with character and history. It is a college town with academics and artists and poets among its citizens. Children who grow up there look beyond the state borders to their futures. And it is close to the cities I love and crave as well as the New England tiny towns and steeples that I miss. And in my heart, I really feel that children should grow up knowing seasons, even if that is not what I had growing up.

I feel like George Bailey. I want to move away, to join the exciting World Beyond again that I know is there. I have my tickets in my hand, but I look back and see my parents here and I wonder -- do I make my wonderful life here, or do I leave Bedford Falls again and set out to make our wonderful life elsewhere?

When I was young, the movie annoyed me to no end because George Bailey never did get to leave. I wanted him to leave so badly and see the world and go to college and live in New York with Sam "Hee-Haw" Wainwright. But now I can see Mary's point too -- I do see the benefits of living in the old house with the broken banister and raising a houseful of kids in the town where everyone knows you already.

Husband and I talk about it and never quite can draw a conclusion. We know we don't want to stay here, but we also cannot say that we know leaving will be the best thing. Both choices have advantages and not. We are sad about something either way.

But somehow, just seeing myself in George Bailey gives me some sense that no matter what I choose, things will work out. We can have our wonderful life here or there. And in that I do find a sense of comfort.

Monday's classic motherhood moment:

Sitting on the floor in the back of the grocery store's card section nursing a baby who is breathing through large bubbles of green snot and popping off periodically to breathe better (sending milk spraying around us like a fireman's hose gone wild) while my five year old and three year old run amok, taking eighty different packs of stickers down off the wall and asking, "Can we have these? How 'bout these? Oooh, Batman stickers! Did you see, Mama? SPIDER-MAN STICKERS! Hey, can we have these food stickers? What about these letter stickers? Those would be good. They would teach C. to read. How 'bout some dog stickers? Ooh, Mama, do you think Publix has a bathroom? I need to go potty. I need to go poop. Can we get cookie cutters? What about some Lunchables? Mama? Mama? MAMA?!"

Turns out the bleach-stained shirt was the least of my worries.

The question is...

Once you know that the black shirt you are wearing now has a bleach stain on the front of it due to careless (mis)handling of the household cleaning supplies, do you:

a) Go to the grocery store and Target in it anyway because to change would mean dirtying a second shirt in a day and really, when only four shirts fit you, that's kind of extravagant, and just accept that you are the Queen of the Shlumpy and Not Glamorous and you should wear your tiara proudly?

b) Change shirts but disregard whether or not the shirt actually matches or fits well with your Old Navy lounge pants?

c) Decide that maybe you don't need milk or cookie-making ingredients after all, even though it will mean much whining and complaining from your children and/or husband?

Life's dilemmas, I tell you.

All I Want for Christmas is You

We've been listening to Christmas music in my car lately. The boys are really into it, and it saves me from having to turn on the DVD Player. It's also one of the only true signs of the Christmas season here in The Land That Never Gets Cold.

I've been pleasantly surprised by the boys' willingness to accept Ella Fitzgerald and Bing Crosby singing the Christmas songs to them. I like to think I'm slipping a little culture in with Frosty the Snowman. And they now sing "Here Comes Santa Claus" just like Elvis. Can't beat that. It's almost as cute as hearing them croon, "Want a plane that loops the loop... I still want a hooooola hooooop..." with the Chipmunks.

But the cutest display of Christmas cheer has come from C., the three-year-old. I have thrown some adult Christmas songs on the CD, like "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" by U2, "Christmas" by Blues Traveler, and "All I want for Christmas is You," by Mariah Carey. It is truly the ONLY Mariah Carey song I can stomach. I am *not* her biggest fan. But I do love that song, mostly because of the movie Love, Actually. Anyway, I figured C. was largely ignoring my more adult selections -- when he wasn't lecturing me about how that is "NOT a CHWISTMAS SONG!" and to fast forward.

But one afternoon on our way home, Mariah started singing. The beginning of the song is quiet, and then she suddenly breaks into full band and voice. Right before she did, I heard C., from the depths of the minivan, say under his breath, "Here comes the fun part!" and as Mariah's band and drums kicked in, so did C. He burst into a full display of Rock Out, complete with head bopping, feet kicking, and air drum playing. And he had the hugest, silliest, goofiest grin on his face. "I WUV this song, Mama!" he exclaimed. Hard to not be in the spirit when you have goofy little elves belting out and dancing to Mariah Carey with you.

How to chap my hide:

Tell me that even though I have given birth three times now, I don't know what I am talking about when I say my hair is falling out because I am postpartum. Act like you know everything because you are my mother's age, and tell me my hair is falling out because of "the change in the weather" (what change in the weather? it's still 80 degrees.). Tell me your hair is falling out in big clumps too. I don't know what your problem is, lady, but I know for a fact that MY hair is falling out because I had a baby. Now shut up and move over so I can do some sit-ups in silence or I'll put your eye out with my big ol' postpartum boob.

This is how I roll.

Dude, my kids are driving me EFFING CRAZY.

Let me start over.

Today begin innocently enough, except that it began at 6 AM when Baby B. decided daylight was not required for waking up. And it so is. C., my three-year-old, followed right behind him, and unlike most days, I couldn't beg him off on his father -- it was Husband's birthday and I decided to be generous and let him sleep some more. I guess.

So we had a 6 AM showing of How the Grinch Stole Christmas in my bedroom, but I soon acknowledged the inevitable and hauled my sore carcass out of bed -- perhaps a strength conditioning class was a little ambitious for my first week back in the gym -- and started gathering the troops. No, there are no more frozen french toast sticks. You'll eat your frozen waffle instead and you will like it. Hush, I know there is one more set of frozen french toast sticks, but one cannot have them without the other one having them, so waffles it is. CRAP. M. did not finish his homework -- M., get over here and write your spelling words twice even though you already know them. Because I said so, and because it's your teacher's rules. Please just do it. No, really.

Today is the Kindergarten Christmas show at his private Episcopalian school, so M. will need Christmas pajamas. I guess I will let him wear the pair he is supposed to get on Christmas Eve, the pair that matches his brothers' pajamas, and hope he won't mess them up. No, he says they aren't "Christmassy" enough; he wants to wear the pair he is already wearing and has worn for three days. Um, okay, why the heck not? But note to self: should I buy different Christmas pajamas for everyone? Are these not Christmassy enough? Here' s his uniform. No, he says, I need to wear my costume. My teacher said so. Are you sure? You're positive that is what she said? Okay...

C. needs an outfit too, and Baby B. needs an outfit too... it's 50 degrees now but it will be 75 by noon... and I have no clean shirts for myself because the three that fit me are in the wash. And they are actually wet. Mmmmkay. And it's not like all the snotty moms at the school won't notice if I have spit-up on my shirt.

Husband keeps trying to elude my grasp, disappearing into the bathroom or attempting to start getting ready for his day, as if he has any right to those privileges. Who does he think HE is? He needs to be helping ME! He has a meeting this morning and so won't be able to go to the show, but also won't have to leave the house until 9 AM, so clearly he needs to get his priorities straight.

Okay, snack box packed, camera ready (sans lens cap, since someone stole it at the last private school soiree), who needs socks? Get your jacket on... wet the baby hairbrush and brush down the kids' cowlicks. Wait, Mama, I am still in my pajamas! Yes, you are, you said that your teacher said to come in costume! She did, I need my costume! Your pajamas ARE your costume! Right? Wait, right? Oh, just go to school in your pajamas and it will work itself out. Sigh. Strap the kids down in the car.

The Christmas show is packed and parents save large groups of seats for their friends. I am relegated to the back row, baby in the Bjorn, pacifier at the ready in my cleavage, C. climbing the seats like a monkey, sprawling on the ground, declaring he is bored. My mother is late, AS ALWAYS, but shows up wearing her uniform of matching velour sweatsuit, Christmas jewelry, full hair and make-up, Ugg boots (one of her four billion pairs despite the fact that she lives in Florida).

M. appears on stage in a chorus. They didn't give any parts to the Kindergartners at all. He sings "Rudolph" and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and "Silent Night" (they BUTCHERED the "round yon virgin" line) and then it is over. That's it?! I would have been so ticked if he had been told to wear one of the mouse or toy soldier or reindeer costumes, only to stand in the middle of a bunch of other kids in the rafters unseen. At least I just had to send him to school in his pajamas.

I haul the bunch back out to the car -- C. is hungry and the baby is tired. We drive home, where the baby sleeps for four and a half hours (!), which is LOVELY, but my boobs are en fuego and filling breast pads at an alarming rate. They ache along with the rest of my poor body. I definitely should have reconsidered the lateral pull-downs yesterday. C. is relatively well behaved, but he has the nerve to demand that I feed him lunch, requiring me to get up and actually move my arms a little bit.

Christmas gifts arrive. I have probably spent too much. Did I get enough to thrill my kids and make a few dreams come true? What the HELL am I getting my parents? My father is crazy and works too hard. I am worried about him. My mom is crazy and does not need one more thing in her Oprah-show-worthy hoarding houseload of crap. Someday I am going to have to go through that houseload of crap. My brother won't do it. It's going to be all me, and it is going to take for fricking ever. Sigh. I remove three-year-old's Christmas shirt so he will have something to wear to "red and green day" at preschool tomorrow. He is very unhappy about this.

Why doesn't the cable work in my bedroom?

It's time to pick up M. at school, so I have to wake up Baby B. and shoot his eye out -- ahem, I mean nurse him. I change him for the change in temperature since he was last awake. C. is angry -- he doesn't want to get in the car, and for the love of all that is good and holy, he wants to watch THE MOVIE WITH THE HEAT MISER IN IT, NOT THE MOVIE ABOUT RUDOLPH! And if I am going to force him to watch a Rudolph movie, he wants THE ONE WITH THE CAMEL IN IT AND HAPPY NEW YEAR, NOT THE PLAIN OLD ONE! And these demands are all fruitless, because I have neither movie in the car.

We pick up M., and we head off to Plasterrific!, where I am hoping we can make something for Husband for his birthday. I have to wake up the poor, drooling three-year-old when we arrive there. No nap for you, C. Try to help C. walk straight while he re-orients himself in the middle of parking lot.

Turns out Plasterrific! only has pre-made characters and tchochkes made of plaster -- no plain platters or plates as I was hoping so that we could do handprints. So I let the kids choose Spider-Man and Patrick from Spongebob, and they start painting away. The teenager working there in low-low-rise jeans and a bedazzled belt talks on the phone about school gossip and plays air guitar to the Beatles (How does she know about the Beatles?! She probably thinks they are very obscure.) while my kids take painstakingly slow swipes at their plaster objets d'art with myriad paintbrushes and precariously placed plastic tubs of paint.

We have to wait for the art to dry after it has been glittered and shellacked, and in the meantime, the baby spits up and the kids combust. By the time the glitter has dried, C. has yelled twice at M. to STAY AWAY FROM HIM, making the only other patrons -- a family of three girls -- as well as the crack-baring teenager manning the joint stare at us in wide-eyed disapproval. I herd the children, kicking and punching each other as we walk in fits and starts across the parking lot, out to the car, lugging bazillion-pound child in bazillion-pound carseat and blue and red-painted plaster Spider-Man (with blue glitter) on a styrofoam plate out to the car. Have to move pounds of detritus from front seat to make room for drying plaster objects to ride home.

Did I remember to eat lunch?

But before we go home, we have time to kill before Husband gets out of work, so we swing by Bruester's Ice Cream (thank GOD there is a drive-thru) to pick up... uh... SOMETHING for Husband's birthday dinner. Oh, thank goodness, they have ice cream pies. Pre-made. They write "Happy Birthday Daddy" on one in suspicious green gel icing -- eww -- and we are on our way. Except the baby is screaming and the children are trying to kill each other again, first while debating whether we bought an ice cream CAKE or an ice cream PIE, now because M. is telling C. that there are nuts in the ice cream pie (in the hopes C. won't want to eat any -- more for M.!) and C. is yelling at me that there are "none" nuts, and when I reassure him that there are "no" nuts, that is not good enough. I have to say there are "none" nuts for him to stop the madness.

I call Husband, who is getting a document out and will not be able to leave for fifteen more minutes, and I abort mission to eat dinner out. I'm going home. I have already threatened children three times they will get no piece (or none piece, as the case may be) of the ice cream pie because they are fighting, causing C. to burst into tears. Now I feel guilty about making my children cry.

We get home, and I try to persuade M. not to drag plaster pieces out yet, try to convince M. that he should actually give his daddy the plaster piece he made for him instead of trying to keep it for himself (though why I care who owns the plaster Patrick is beyond me). My boobs leaking everywhere; the baby is totally not interested in eating. My jeans smell like sour milk. I throw baby in his crib and hope he will nap. My older children literally will not stop moving and wander around, circling me like vultures, yelling for the RIGHT RUDOLPH MOVIE! A SNACK! THE PLASTER ART! DADDY! ICE CREAM PIE! for an hour before Daddy finally arrives home with take-out from his favorite pizza parlor.

I no longer have the will to live anymore, much less raise my arms. But at least I can resolve some disturbing blood sugar issues -- I wolf down dinner.

The children present Daddy with plaster pieces, then engage in Patrick vs. Spider-Man combat, resulting in a broken Spider-Man and a crying three-year-old. The baby screams; I am exiled to my room with the crying baby, interrupting my blogging that I am trying to finish before going to bed. I finally get back out to blogging and my wireless mouse loses all battery power.

I'm about to go to bed now. Husband has been walking the fussy, over-napped baby around the house for the past twenty minutes, and my boobs are still leaking everywhere. Four hour naps mess everything up. And I have eyeliner smeared all over my face because I vowed to learn how to apply it this week and I keep forgetting I have it on, so I rub my eyes and come away with hands full of make-up.

Tomorrow is Friday. It is my day to serve Pizza Hut to the entire private elementary school. Three hundred pizzas and three hundred rich, entitled kids who lie to me about dropping their cookies on the floor just so they can get a second Chips Ahoy cookie from the kitchen. It's good to have something to look forward to, you know.

I think the Christmas lights just tripped a breaker on one side of the house.

I heart The Dan Band (and you might too)

One of my very favorite things that I found while living in L.A. was a little thing called The Dan Band.

The Dan Band is a bit hard to explain. It is, in fact, a band, made up of men, led by a lead singer named Dan. That is pretty self-explanatory. But they mostly cover songs sung by women. That is the part that is sort of "I Guess You Had to Be There" about them. These days they also have some original material -- mainly in the form of a Christmas album -- but their playlist includes "Total Eclipse of the Heart," "Gloria," "No Scrubs," "You Oughta Know," and "Shoop." Said so matter-of-factly, you don't get that this is hi-frigging-larious. Because Dan, also known as Dan Finnerty, actor and husband to actress Kathy Najimy, is an absolute comic genius. He sings these songs with such complete commitment and a very liberal use of profanities that you cannot help but guffaw.

Now, you have to have a sense of humor. You also need to be okay with the F word. A lot of it. It's all said in jest and irony, so you have to be able to go along with that too. You have to be able to picture him on stage with two back-up singers, also men, in suits -- one tall and skinny, one short and, uh, not skinny. Better would be to see the band live, as I have countless times now, or on the Bravo special produced by Steven F. Spielberg. That stands for Steven Fucking Spielberg, in case you were wondering. See? I am in good company in my love for all things Dan.

You might have spotted the band in the movie Old School. They are in there, I believe singing "Total Eclipse of the Heart." The band's album is great to work out to, but right now I am crushing on the Christmas album, "Ho." And yes, there is a song about a "ho." Again, all in jest and irony, just having some fun. My favorite song, other than "Rock You Hard This Christmas," is "Christmas in California," which sports my favorite line, "And you're sweating half to death as you hang lights in the palm trees... If I spend another minute on the stupid 405 I will drive my damn car off the cliff and burn myself alive." Hee.

They're dirty and not at all politically correct, but I totally heart Dan and his band. Consider this a public service announcement. You know, if you like the F word.

My child skips when he walks

The past few years with M., my firstborn, have been, um, challenging. Those of you who know me and/or him are busy picking yourselves off the floor laughing so hard at my understatement, so I'll give you a moment to collect yourselves. Done? Great. Yes, he's a challenge. Husband likes to tell the story he heard from one of our friends' moms, who is an Econ professor at our alma mater. She tells it that she once went to lunch with a student, and she asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. "CEO," he answered. "CEO of what?" she asked. "CEO of anything," he answered. She laughs at how he did not care what he was the future boss of, he was just certain he wanted to be the boss.

That is our firstborn: future CEO of anything. At his first teacher/parent meeting at preschool when he was just over two years old, his prim and British teacher looked us up and down grimly and said, "M. likes to be the line leader... EVERY DAY." And from the time he was born, it has been a fight in our household as to whether we or M. are the line leaders in this house. I have had actual arguments with him as to whether he is the boss of me or not. And when he was three and four, we spent a whole lot of time trying to figure out how to discipline this kid of ours, this kid who thinks we work for him.

We had so many afternoons that ended with both M. and me in tears. Timeouts were not so effective on him. He laughed if we took away privileges or toys, beloved or not. M. had problems dealing with his anger, controlling his temper, mediating his emotions. We ended up with a therapist -- mostly to help ME figure out if I was going to survive this kid or not, but also to help him figure out how to deal with his passionate self and to help him transition schools.

Last year, we had a bad run of Pre-K that included a bad fit with both the teacher and the class, and for many months, I cried almost every day about M. I just wanted him to be happy, and it was obvious he was not. He was hitting classmates, he was not listening in class, and he was lashing out verbally at his classmates. For the first time in his whole life, he was crying on the way to school and telling me he did not want to go. It was a miserable time.

We worked things out, and this year he is worlds happier and a completely different child. And the other day, when I dropped him off at school, I noticed that every morning as he walked up to his class, my child skips. He hops. He has a huge grin on his face and he is the happiest child. Today at pick-up he climbed in the car and said, "I had a good day, Mama," and "In just two weeks I get to stay home with you EVERY DAY, Mama! Isn't that great?" and he showed me his day's work. And as we drove home, he sang along to Ella Fitzgerald singing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" on the car stereo system, and I thought, "My child skips when he walks," and relief just washed over me, because what could tell me more clearly that I am doing SOMETHING right?

Back in the saddle again

Yesterday was my first real day back at the gym since giving birth to Baby B. almost four months ago. I have been a few times in between, but they were truncated because I made people sit with the baby up in the gym cafe -- I wasn't ready yet to leave him with the ladies in the childcare. But this week I could not wait any longer. I need to get moving, need to make some progress on my waistline, and I felt confident that B. would be okay for thirty minutes in the care of women I regularly see at preschool pick-up and drop-off.

I had to laugh at myself, though, walking up through the gym parking lot. I was wearing an old XL T-shirt covered in cat hair because it had been stored under my bed for so long and gym shorts that were so short beneath it they could do nothing to hide how white and pasty I am right now... and hairy. Must remedy the hairy after the workout, I pledged. My hair is falling out in postpartum clumps -- perhaps my least favorite part of the whole postpartum period -- and so I was removing hair from my shoulders, my diaper bag, and my baby. I was a sight to behold.

But I left B. in the childcare with the admission that he probably would make them hold him the entire time. Oh well! And I headed off for a whole thirty minutes to myself (which I hope to stretch someday soon to a whole hour by myself). I listened to my Ipod, I practically jogged on the elliptical trainer, I caught a re-run of Project Runway... life was perfect.

Baby B. was waiting for me upon my return. The ladies were carting him around the room in an umbrella stroller. "He's really heavy!" one of them said. Yes, yes he is.

All in all, a successful first foray back into the gym world! My legs are sore today, but I can't wait to get back, with all luck today. Mama is on the road to getting her groove back.

Anniversaries, holidays, and days in between

This week is Husband's birthday. I married a baby -- he's five months younger than I am. An annoying five months every year, I might add.

The baby is turning four months old this upcoming week too, and I cannot believe he is already that old. He's blossoming into such a happy, reasonable baby -- a true joy. My two older children are obsessed with the Letter Factory videos right now and love to sing about vowels, "the glue! The glue!" that hold words together. Baby B. is our glue. We can all agree that we adore him. That alone makes him worth the trouble.

Today is also the first birthday of some of our best friends' twin sons. They were born at 25 weeks gestation a year ago today, and they have pulled through with flying colors. Happy Birthday, K. & E. And happy, happy birthday to their mother and father, too, who have been to hell and back this past year. You are some of the strongest people I have ever met.

I'm sitting here going over all my to-do lists and listening to Christmas music on iTunes in the background when "O Holy Night" starts to play, and it reminds me of Allen.

This is an anniversary for Allen too. Allen was my uncle by marriage -- my mother's sister's second husband. He came into my life when I was about eleven and he passed away from cancer eight years ago this month.

Allen was a force to be reckoned with, a self-made man and engineer who invented and patented something you use every day. This made him a millionaire many times over, but he was a grounded, salt-of-the-earth man whom I will always remember for washing the dishes almost before you could eat the last bite on your plate and his gung-ho positive attitude. With Allen around, I really did believe that anything was possible. And beyond everything else, Allen believed in me. He believed in everything about me, and he lifted me up that way. I believed in me when Allen believed in me.

I spent many Christmases at Allen and my aunt's house in Vermont. It was more than a house, it was more like a Kennedy compound -- a collection of cottages and houses decorated in Ralph Lauren with a recliner in every room per my uncle's request and fires constantly going in the fireplaces. It also sported more than one frozen yogurt machine. My uncle was all about ice cream with mounds of whipped cream on top. More was always better with him.

In the mornings around Christmas when the whole family was staying at the house, my uncle would get up early and turn Christmas music on the house stereo that piped into every room. Unfortunately, he was losing his hearing, and he often turned the music up so loud that it could made you jump out of bed despite the chill in the air outside your blankets. More than once, "O Holy Night" made me levitate out of my bed.

My uncle did everything he could to beat cancer. He never gave up. I was somewhere in the air flying from L.A. to Florida to be with him when he died. But someone who lives that fully and with that much voice in his words, with that much energy and life, cannot be forgotten. And I hope that my children, one of whom carries on his name, will know as well as I do the things that Allen used to do. I have to remember to tell them. And more, I have to remember to live the way Allen would have, the way Allen did.

I miss Allen.

A little too close to home

I have written before about my unfaltering love for Friday Night Lights (yes, despite the gosh-awful decision by someone to do the Lifetime movie murder storyline about Tyra and Landry -- uffft, make it stop already). I heart that show. So, so much. Last night, I lifted with glee out of my seat at dinner remembering that it was going to be on and that it was going to be new. This WGA strike has me quaking in my boots wondering if I will be watching QVC at 4 AM instead of my Tivoed primetime shows come March.

To me, Connie Britton and Kyle Chandler make this show what it is. There are a million little details that I love about the show, and the dialogue and the acting are great all the way around. But those two elevate everything they touch to a higher ground. And the storyline of their marriage, especially in the wake of the birth of their new baby this season, is spot-on, right down to the baby vomit on the back of Tami's shirt that she doesn't know is there and the exhaustion and the hormones and the isolation and the wide-eyed What the Hell look on Coach Taylor's face when he is dealing with her and trying to figure out what his new universe looks like.

But I have to say, at least three times last night, Husband and I squirmed and shifted our eyes as we watched. Hits a little close to home here and there. And it's funny, but it also points out just how in over our heads we are most of the time. I'm so far in some days I don't even know how to begin to get myself back out.

So if you thought my post below sounded smug at all, just know it's not arrogance making me snicker when new parents figure out how hard this whole thing is. It's utter joy that another couple is breathing our air and "gets it." I wonder if they are watching Friday Night Lights too.

Conversations with a new mama

One of our friend couples just had their first baby a month ago. We were anticipating this event with great joy, both because they were so excited (and miscarried before this baby was conceived) and because they were SO naive. We could not wait to see how this whole having a baby thing played out for the Clueless (but sweet) Twosome. Husband and I had been giggling for MONTHS about how these two would handle parenthood once it ran over them like the mack truck that it is. We were all but curling up by the phone with popcorn waiting to hear about the arrival and its impact.

Well, Baby S. entered the world at last, and as with a lot of births, she threw some curveballs at her hapless parents. First, she didn't come out on her due date, much to her mother's dismay. Because her mother had gestational diabetes, her doctors recommended an induction, and after a day and a half of that, they recommended a C-section. The baby's heart rate was high, the mother was not dilating, and everyone was exhausted. So a mama who had hoped for no interventions ended up with all of them. Isn't it always that you get the birth you don't expect? Luckily, the mom was zen about it and just excited to see her new baby girl.

When the new mother called me that first week, it brought back all the memories of my first foray into motherhood. The baby won't let her put her down, she said. Her mother-in-law, whom she likes and who is helping her, told her she needed to let the baby cry, but she didn't want to let her cry. Her MIL says she is spoiling her. Bullshit, I said. You can't spoil a one week old. You pick that baby up whenever you want to; you follow your gut. The new mother said, nursing is going great! The baby wants to snack, but my doctor says not to let her. Bullshit, I said. You nurse that baby whenever you want to and you let her eat. The new mother said, everyone wants to come see the baby, but I am so tired. I said, let them wait. That baby will be there, cuter than ever, when you are ready for them to come.

The worst things about being a first-time mother are not knowing how long the tunnels are going to be or whether there is a light at the end of them at all. It's all the well-meaning input from our elders and our doctors that often does more to panic us than reassure us. Pediatricians get very little training in breastfeeding or sleep. I have learned, finally, not to ask them for advice in those areas. But new moms live and die by their pediatricians and their friends who are already moms and their OWN moms, and it is often a case of too many cooks in the kitchen when really there doesn't need to be any cook in the kitchen at all except that new mama. She might just not know that yet.

Now the baby is a month old, and the new parents called us on Friday night. I have been dying to know where the baby is sleeping, not because I care, but because before the baby arrived, the mother assured me that they would *definitely not* be co-sleeping. The reason? Their dog, who ruled their roost at the time, slept between them. She was their baby at that point, and their routines revolved around the dog. "We are not going to let the baby take the dog's place in the bed," the mom asserted. "That's the doggie's bed." Mmm hmm, I thought at the time. I was never going to co-sleep either, and then I ended up not only sleeping with my first child for a whole dang uncomfortable year, but I actually slept with him on my chest in a La-Z-Boy for the first 17 weeks of his life. Talk about the best laid plans of mice and men.

So when they called Friday night to tell us that the baby now weighs eight whole pounds (less than any of my blessed children have weighed AT THEIR BIRTHS, mind you, not that I am bitter), I made Husband ask where the baby is sleeping. Wait for it... yes, in their bed. I snickered. Not because I am judging, of course -- when they called, Baby B. was snuggled up next to my chest in his usual place in our bed. Just snickering at how the world works, and how we make such grand proclamations about how Life Is Going to Be and how then we get knocked on our butts by the Mack Truck of Parenthood.

Ooh, but they also said they are going to "try to wean the baby off the bed" this weekend. Good luck with that, my friend.

I am so glad I never have to be a first-time mother again. I am so glad that at this point, even when the third baby throws me a curveball of his own, I at least know that indeed, this too shall pass. I remember sitting in a circle at Gymboree class when my first baby was baout ten months old. We were going around the circle and talking about our baby's sleep patterns. I burst into tears when we reached me. We didn't have a pattern. The baby slept with me and nursed every hour of the night. During the day I had to lie down with him for naps. He had never slept alone or in his own bed. I sometimes drove around the hills of Los Angeles for hours while he napped, just grateful that I got to listen to the radio and drink Diet Coke from the McDonald's drive-thru with my hands empty. And when the circle reached me, I just said, "I am a failure at sleep!"

And of course I was NOT a failure at sleep. I was just so sleep-deprived I couldn't see straight, and sleep deprivation has amazing impact on someone. Earlier this fall I was very sleep deprived for about a week, and at one point, I realized I needed to get gas. Getting gas seemed like the hardest thing ever. I thought, "Oh my GOD, how will I ever survive GETTING GAS?!" And then I realized, "Wow. I must be very tired." I don't think first-time parents realize just how screwy everything seems through the lens of sleep deprivation. It didn't take much to eventually get M. on the right track ith his sleeping -- it just took hitting a wall and turning a corner (um, that would be getting pregnant with #2 and realizing if I didn't start getting sleep my body would seriously go on strike)... aaaaaaand hiring a professional sleep trainer who made me do it. But within a week M. was sleeping like a champ and my whole world looked completely different.

We haven't seen our friends' new baby yet. I am giving the mama her space. She needs to heal and get her feet under her. When the time is right, I'll make her wash her hair and put on clothes and go out to lunch with me just to show her she can. She's going to be okay, but right now she is definitely in shock. And, really, if she wasn't, I would be wondering about her.