Addendum

I posted here last week that Mae's listening grade wasn't so hot, and that she lost her ipad and tv privileges for the next month, so she can "concentrate on listening better."

Bela did not lose her privileges. At least not by my doing.

Last week the girls had their friend sleep over. This was the very day after Mae lost her TV rights. But, you see, they just HAD to watch Coraline. Had to. HAD TO.

Here was the deal, as developed by Bela.  I let Bela watch the movie, and Mae, and their buddy. And Bela gives up all TV and all iPad along with Mae for the next month.

How could I say no?

So, how did our first weekend go without any TV? Without any IPad?

It was so exhausting the girls and I overslept this morning and showed up at school 45 minutes late.

And that was a good thing.

Saturday was Circus class, lunch out, and the Christkindlmarkt in Daley Plaza (they complained almost the entire time between leaving Circus and arriving home after the Market). Then we made gingerbread houses.

Saturday was exhausting, but we all stuck together.

Sunday we were smarter. Sunday we split up. Chris took all three girls plus our neighbor friend sledding by the lake, then out for lunch and Cocoa.

He dropped them off and I stepped in. Next stop? Waveland Bowl for the annual Toys for Tots party our neighbors put on. The girls bowled for two hours. Then it was home for a snowball fight with the neighbor boys.

Not too bad. We'll see how next weekend goes. 

Yawn.

Simplify

I've been too complain-y about my girls lately.

That being well acknowledged, I'll just say that I think they are the coolest, nicest gals around. And I'll also say that, starting after this post (and in the spirit of the holiday) I'll write only positive things for the rest of the month.

Ok. On with it.


I'm coming off a bad month. Things were out of control. Work and responsibility piled up, my two year old behaved like a two year old, my girls were struggling with their listening skills and were not keen on helping out around the house, and my husband was traveling.

Details went hazy. Things slipped through the cracks more than usual - forgotten homework, overlooked deadlines, missed appointments.

And because Chris was traveling and working a lot I was not yoga-ing or running a lot. And one thing I've come to realize in the last several years is that running with my ladies is the only thing standing between me and a giant bottle of prescription anti-depressants. I just feel so angry and sad when I can't run. Period.

So I wasn't at my best.

And then one Sunday morning, in the middle of scooping out piles of chicken poop from the coop, I had... one of those moments.

I remembered that a few years back I heard about Simplicity Parenting written by Mr. Kim John Payne - a former Waldorf teacher and parental guru. And although I didn't (and don't) know all the details of his Simplicity Parenting ideas, I did know that reducing, slowing, and simplifying were big.

So I started throwing things away. Before the book even arrived I started purging our lives of excess.

I started with a 50% reduction in fowl. Yesterday afternoon the girls and I walked Ole Golly, Lavender, and Emma four houses up from us and plopped them in our neighbors large and spacious chicken haven. Their three hens stopped laying a few months ago; I'm sharing the egg love now.

The next afternoon while Gill napped and the girls slaved away in school, I crept up into Bela and Mae's room - a hotbed of domestic disharmony around here. I filled paper shopping bags and moving boxes with books and toys they will never notice went missing. I threw away broken shells and rotted flower petals, candy wrappers and filthy bits and pieces.

And I didn't stop there. I thinned out our own book collection, recycled magazines, trimmed the belongings in the basement.

When I come across something on the floor that I consider to be non-essential to our everyday lives, I chuck it in the trash. 


The theory here is that more does NOT equal better. More just equals more. And more means more mess. And more mess means crazy angry frustrated Mom.

And it's not just about the stuff in our house. It's about the stuff in our lives, and the way we choose to spend our time. Chicago Park District opened up it's Winter Program enrollment recently, and right before I hit the button to register Bela for another clay class, I shut the computer. No. No more! She's in chorus. She's in Girls in the Game. She takes circus classes. It's enough.

The funniest part of all of this is that I still haven't read the silly book. It's just sitting on my shelf next to the other parenting books I never read. Cluttering. But I'm glad its there. Like a reminder to me that filling our lives with extra activities and our home with extra stuff just makes life more difficult to manage for me.

I also know that this little book and the whole idea of Simplicity Parenting isn't going to solve what I consider to be one of my biggest difficulties: I long for a simple, well-organized life. But I'm also always looking for the next thing. The next class. The next hobby. For the girls and for me.

For now, though? I need to step back. Take care of the things at hand (like these mittens I need to finish knitting) and stop spending so much time managing the mess.

Listening Grade

The ladies have been less than stellar listeners lately. 

They have reached a stage in their development where they can completely tune out 99.9% of what I say to them. The only thing they seem to hear clearly is Ipad, TV, and maybe Cookie.

Their teachers agree.

Back in November when I went to Parent Teacher conferences, aside from the glowing praise about Bela's reading level and Mae's artistic and writing abilities, they admitted that they had to give them lower grades in Listening because, well, they were a little chatty. They were tuning their teachers out.

Now, although I'm the kind of lady who likes Good Grades, we're not talking Bad Grades here. They both were handed Bs in Listening.

But as I'm also wont to do, I used another adult's opinion to drive home a point I was trying to make at home (because we all know that they care waaaaaaaay more about what Mrs. S and Ms. L think about them than what their old boring Mom does).

"Your teachers agree with me that you're not doing a great job listening lately, and they have lowered your Listening grades."

I'm pretty sure I told them that if they didn't raise their grades to As in listening "at school and at home" (whatever the hell I meant by that) they would never get into a decent Chicago High School, and, therefore, would never go to college.

I also told them that their Saturday Ipad and Tv time was all dependent upon the A.

Oh the A.

Progress reports came home this week.

Mae's teacher sent hers home yesterday. Not only did her Listening Grade not improve, it got WORSE. Along with her Math grade! Apparently, she's doing most of her talking and not listening during math stations.

I broke the news to her. She had to go the next 4 Saturdays without TV or Ipad.

Bela's progress report hadn't come home yet, but knowing Bela as we all know Bela, (and Mae Mae knows Bela) she didn't get upset. She assumed that she and Bela would be in the same boat, living the bleak and Ipad-less 4 weeks together, in solidarity. She shed not a tear. She stamped not a foot.

I couldn't believe my good fortune. I hinged the screen time on the grade, but it's no secret around here that if I had my druthers I would toss the ipad in the toilet and cancel the cable package.  They cause way more headaches than they solve. So I talked it all up like this had been her doing, and then I patted myself on my back for getting exactly what I wanted.

Until Bela brought her progress report home today.

She got all As.

Mae is devastated. 

I'm still going to cancel cable. Well, as soon as the season finale of Homeland airs this weekend. And then, seriously, it's gone.

Well, at least until Game of Thrones comes back on in the Fall.

What? What was that you said?

Sigh.

And just like that...

...she turns 2.

I love you more than I could ever ever say.

Happy Birthday to my favorite two-year-old.

Thanksgiving - in notes and photos

 

-- rockets in the fields beyond Grandma's house...

-- secret plans for a "Cousin Party" late at night, while the grown-ups are sleeping:

1. Sneak in grandmas frige.

2. Pillow fight.

3. Check on all the doors so we could see if all of them closed there doors.

4. Look out the window.

5. I spy.

6. No music (it will cause the grow ups to wake up!)

7. Barbies.

8. Jewls. 

9. Draw pictures

10. Look out the window.

11. Wish on the first star.

12. Paper air planes

13. Clean the house.

14. Set up breakfist

15. Take a two minute nap two reasons: 1. it might almost be morning 2. not waste our energey.

16. After two minutes, look out the window.

17. Dress in real cloths.

18. take a ten minute nap.

 and that's all.

-- the meal comes together with the help of many. And bacon fat.

 

-- after many days together, the cousins begin to fight. And to make up.

From Mae to Ruby

-- and then there's Gill.

 

Book Fair

The girls bake a lemon pound cake for the School Bake Sale.

There's a lot going on at the girls' school lately. We've had report card pick up, the bake sale, the Fall Dance, and the book fair.

Do you remember the book fairs you used to have in school  as a kid?

I do. Vividly. I remember the inky, newsprinty ad that would come home, listing the books that would be available. I remember filling out the order forms, waiting anxiously for the book fair to start and for my pre-ordered books to be handed to me. I remember the smell of the books, their glossy covers. It was so exciting.

I worked 4 1/2 hours this week at the girls' book fair. I showed up with my mug of coffee and my latest knitting project, because CLEARLY I did not remember what these things were like. It was no sleepy affair. Not only did I not finish my coffee and not knit a single stitch, I almost never stopped herding children to and from the books, and I never sat down.

There were so many hundreds of titles. Some parents sent their children to school that day with money, and those kids tore through there, set on spending every last penny.

 Some kids didn't have money yet, and I helped the littlest of them write their favorite titles down along with the price so they could go home and beg their parents to send them back the next day with cold hard cash.

When my own girls skipped into view I almost jumped up and down with girlish excitement. I took them around to the titles I had seen and thought were interesting. They completely ignored me and got the books they wanted anyway (although I had to put my foot down about the Barbie Princess crap that Mae wanted.)

As I walked through the narrow aisle of books, I couldn't help but notice that, for the most part, the kids were drawn to the very commercial books that had very little to do with reading. Ninjago and Chima character guides, Barbie Princess Paper Purses, Minnie Mouse's Hair Bow.

The kids naturally gravitated towards the books that came with a necklace, a small lego set, glow in the dark pens. And these naturally cost as much as a beautiful hard cover picture book, sometimes more.

I had to take action. I started hiding some of these titles behind the ones I perceived to be of higher quality. I passed judgement on Club Penguin. I banned Barbie. I led 5th grade boys away from Taylor Swift and towards Gary Paulsen. I took the hands of kindergartner girls and showed them the Mo Willems (Don't let the Pigeon drive the bus) as I placed the My Little Pony on the upper shelves.

But for the most part they were un-swayable, those stubborn little imps.

I saw kids crying because they didn't have enough money. I saw a teacher be extremely nasty to her students. I heard a parent demanding to know how her daughter could buy a $2 pencil with $10 and not know where the rest of it went. 'I spended it!" she insisted. Her mother repeated the math lesson until it came out that the little girl had just divvied up the change among her friends.

Working those 4+ hours at the book fair was like conducting a social psychology/marketing/anthropological study in children, literacy, consumerism, and family dynamics.

I can't wait for the next one.

Pajama war

I (temporarily?) deactivated my facebook account last week because I'm drowning in school work.  I've had weird health problems for the last three weeks (my chickens have infected me, I just know it), and lots of grading plus lethargy and general malaise meant I was trolling Facebook in unhealthy and unnatural ways.

So I made it disappear. And with a click of the mouse I was freed, and suddenly found myself facing freely my professional duties. No imaginary obstacles to keep me from tending to the task at hand. The grading. All the grading. And the logging, and reporting, and planning. Not an obstacle in sight.

And now I have time to write this blog post.

We have entered the year of war over here. A more forward thinking, optimistic gal would call it something else, but she'd just be covering up for the fact that all children from the age of 2 -3 are impossible stinkers.

For good reason, of course. Gill is exerting her independence. She is forming opinions. I just don't agree with most of them.

Since the day I took ill with chicken disease I have repeated to myself throughout the days I spend with Gill the following, oh... let's call it my mantra.

[deep breath in] It is my job to be her Mom. It is not my job to  {fill in the blank}.

{ FILL IN THE BLANK: make her presentable to the world; be on time; maintain impeccable body hygiene; get her diapers on timely, or ever; put her in pajamas}

Let me explain how this works.

Gilli's hair is a ratty nest in back and she can't see in front, but if I go anywhere near her with a brush and hair band she'll punch me in the face? It's my job to be her Mom, her role model, not to make her presentable to the world.

We are late to get Bela and Mae from school because I let her sleep too long at nap time on Thursdays but she won't ride in the stroller because she insists on "walkie"? It's my job to be her Mom, to let her explore. It's not my job to make sure she, and we, are on time.

I'm not always great at this, but things have gotten better.

The one battle area where I become my own worst enemy is at pajama time.

The kid won't get dressed after bath. She just won't. Doesn't want a diaper. Doesn't want pajamas.

Not a big deal, right? Except that it's cold in this old house. And dammit I don't want to wash peed on and pooped in sheets every morning.

Each night as bedtime nears my entire insides fill with dread, but on the outside I'm all scheming. I casually whistle my way into her room and pretend like we've never had a battle about pajamas before. And I try everything.

I give her two pairs of pajamas to choose from. Polar Bears or Penguins?

I buy "pull up" diapers to make it more fun. Wanna step in? No need to lie down!

I nurse her naked (she's naked folks, not me) and try to sneak them on by pretending I'm covering her with a soft blanket. I rub her arms gently and then try to slip her feet into those little footie pockets while she's drinking away.

I sneak her into my lap and read a book while I try to quickly slip her fat fists into the polar bear pajamas. She screams for penguins. I act cool. Like this is no big deal. Of course! Yep! You get to choose the pajamas. I reach for the other pair, she squirms away, I get a Brown Bear, Brown Bear in the face, she runs for the door, I grab her ankle, she falls to the ground, I start to sweat, she's screaming so loud and hard her fists are clenched and her body is shaking, Chris - whose whole approach to pajama time is "If you control the hips you control the man" - walks in, we proceed to pin her down, shove her into her pajamas by force, get kicked in the face repeatedly, use bad words in her presence, zip and snap the damn penguins once and for all, and then need to all retreat to our corners to calm down and stop shaking.

And this happens every. stinking. night.

I wouldn't be surprised if we left bruises. The truth is that I haven't looked too closely because I don't want to know the truth.

(Deep breath in) It is my job to hang on until she is 3. Or 4. It is my job to not kill her at Pajama time.

Bright side

It's been one of those moderately challenging weeks that require a little looking to the bright side.

I've been on antibiotics for the last 10 days due to an infection induced by the breast feeding I seriously shouldn't be doing anymore.

After a week on the medication I woke up Monday with fever and chills, but had to work. Blech.

On Tuesday I noticed that my ass was radiating pain and, after a session of some ass kicking yoga (meant literally) at Moksha on Wednesday night, discovered I have high hamstring tendonitis and won't be running for a bit. Damn.

And today I woke with a head to toe itchy rash brought on by my antibiotics (?) which I finally finished yesterday. I'm a mess.

It's easy to get all caught up in the crappy crap that happens to me during any given week, and make it my focus. It's easy for me to play the lead role in my one woman show.

So today, I'm looking for a bright side. I'm looking for some moments from my week that made me laugh.

Like this one.

While I was washing dishes, this little gal sneaked downstairs (where we keep all our embarrassing secrets like fish aquariums and guinea pig hutches) and climbed right in. This looks funny. And it was. But it was also filthy. She climbed in and cuddled up to layers of fleece and felt that were coated in piggie poop and pee. She probably sucked on their water bottle too.

I heard the pigs squealing from upstairs and assumed she had gotten her hands on them. I was partially wrong.

If you zoom in on this one, you can see poor mama mia squished behind - and almost under - Gilli.

OK!. I feel better (itch itch). I'm going to get off my (aching) butt and head home to start my weekend with a glass of wine..

Have a great one, everyone!

Discipline, maintenance, and survival

What I love about Gillian as a toddler: she talks more and more each day. 75% of what she says I'm still struggling to understand, and surely she is doing a lot of "practice" talking. But our communication capacities evolve and expand each day. And it's endearing and exciting.

I also love her messy bed head. Her silliness. The way she takes on the roles of others in the house, just trying them out. When I try to ignore her in bed and close my eyes to go back to sleep, she crawls up to me slowly, strokes my arms and neck, and softly goes "shhhhhhhh".

She plays the tattler, the victim, the pet manager, the daddy, the mommy, and the toddler - jumping from role to role with ease and delight.

Plus she smells so good.

But she needs constant maintenance in order to survive. She is always three steps away from killing herself; from falling out of tall chairs, from drinking dish detergent, from pulling sewing equipment down on top of herself.

And she is testing the waters and pushing the boundaries all day long. And it's so exhausting.

I read a lot of parenting blogs, and they all have advice: calm and gentle but firm words, logical consequences, a "yes touch" drawer to match every "no touch" one you establish.

But most times I find myself so rushed and so frustrated that I can't remember or execute any of them. (An argument for slowing down, which I'm exploring).

Lately, I've developed my own set of coping mechanisms. And although they work GREAT I think I'm setting myself up for major problems down the road.

Coping mechanism 1- PBS
      Gillian screams like a maniac and won't let me change her poopy diapers or get her dressed in the morning. My solution? I turn on PBS and she freezes for 10 minutes.

Coping mechanism 2 - Chocolate
     Gillian refuses to sit in her stroller, and we usually don't have time to let her walk to school with the girls in the morning. My solution? Chocolate chips. In fact, I spent a few weeks last month with a constant supply in my purse. In danger of a melt down when I put her in stroller/car seat/grocery cart? I would whip out a chocolate chip and voila! Silent and obedient.

Coping mechanism 3 - Boobs
     Despite my very best intentions, Gillian still nurses semi regularly. Now, it's usually first thing in the morning, maybe around naptime if I'm home, and then again at bedtime. But when we are out in public and she is sleepy and threatening a nuclear explosion and asking me for milk, I give in.
     When we are camping with non-parent human beings and she is in danger of crying ALL NIGHT LONG, I nurse her. ALL NIGHT LONG.

Potential consequences of my coping mechanisms?

An intellectually dull, uncreative, overweight grade schooler who is shunned by her classmates because she still nurses at age 7.

Tangly

Gillian's hair had become unmanageable. I knew I wanted to avoid the unfortunate mistake of cutting her bangs as they grew into her eyes (poor Bela and Mae suffered terrible haircuts at my hand). I have instead tried my hardest to pull her hair out of her face and sweep it up into a little ponytail on top.

But the back had gotten so long. It was beautiful and wavy, but - much like her budding personality these days - completely intolerable.

So we paid too much money for a few snips of the scissors yesterday, on a whim. I just couldn't get the ratty nest out of the back of her hair without suffering her 100th tantrum in 24 hours.

Much better..

The Sleer

Back in August, when we decided to drive a thousand hours and camp our way through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, we knew we would need a lot of audiobooks to keep the kids occupied in the car.

Chris always picks good ones.

We spent the entire week listening to Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book. I couldn't get enough. It was the perfect combination of creepy, odd, eccentric and fantastical, with a little gore mixed in.

Anyway, these few months later, the impression the novel left on little Mae smacked me right in the face.

Often, at school, they print the kids these take home books in black and white, minus illustrations. They bring them home several times to read to us, add some illustration, and then they disappear again.

This week's book was a Halloween treat, and today at school Mae got to illustrate it. She brought it home tonight to read to us (again) and I was impressed by her illustrations and wanted to record them here to share and to remember.

One of the creepier characters in the novel is the Sleer, the three headed snake-like monster who guards an ancient crypt for the "master"; who guards the master's three treasures: a bowl, a brooch, and a blade.

Mae's Halloween Book and her interpretation of The Sleer:

Page 1 - Her ghost in chains

Her Sleer! And the blade, the brooch, and the bowl (she mistakenly remembered the bowl to be coins)

I love these glimpses into her mental take-aways from the books we read and listen to.

marathon

It doesn't feel right to run so far and not say a word about it here.

So... I ran the marathon.

It was a beautiful day. Great weather, great friends, funny crowds. The first half was fast and pain free, but I started hurting at about mile 15 - weird achilles tendon pain I've never had before. Plus the running calluses I have on my big toes blistered underneath and stung like crazy.

I stopped only long enough to take my goos and water or gatorade in the first half, but started walking the length of the water stops after mile 19. Did a few desperate stretches in the middle of the road in the home stretch.

The only reason I made it across the finish line running was because I was minutes away from the 4 hour mark. My training times would have landed me a 4 hour and 20 minute marathon. My optimistic goal time was 4:10. But I've never run alone, so when I found myself coming in at under 4 hours, I really pushed it to keep it that way.

ouch.

Thanks to everyone who came out to cheer me on! Thanks to Chris for following me on that Divvy bike, and to Karen for running those 4 miles along the dead stretch from Pilsen to Chinatown to Bridgport - those barren roads sticky with gatorade and slippery with mashed banana and peels - a pretty comic food option for those last miles when your footing ain't so great anyway.

Thanks to Eric for hauling my girls around, thanks to my beautiful girls for going out to cheer me on, to the Kobayashi's for including us in their post race celebration (yay cake!)

It was such a wonderful day! I never want to do it again.

This moment

A moment from our week I'd like to share and remember. Happy friday.

blankie

Driving the gals around town yesterday afternoon to get a few things done, I happened to look back at a stoplight and see Gill grab a hold of Bela's blankie, stick her thumb in her mouth (which she rarely does), and take a deep long sniff.

Yes. At almost 9 years old, Bela still adores her blankie. I don't think she's gone a single night in her life without it. Crocheted by Aunt Joan over 8 years ago, it's looking a little faded and worn.

But she loves it. She loves it so much that her little sister Gillian wants to love it too. Of course, Gilli has her own blanket by Aunt Joan - she calls it 'bobby'. She doesn't suck her thumb and smell it, but she must have it cozied up to her neck before she can go to sleep.

And then there's Mae's. Mae is more flexible when it comes to her green blankie. She can, and has, gone without it lately. But she still loves it, still sucks her thumb at night, still smells it.

And what do these three bobbies smell like?

 I guess they smell a little bit like the life of three little girls. They smell  like their skin, their hair, their home, the food their mom cooks, the books that have taken up residence in their bed, their cats, their spit, their not-so-pleasant smells. All mixed up. All soft textures and warm feelings.

Happy Friday, all. Go cuddle up with something wonderful tonight. Something that smells a little bit like your whole life.

Another fan letter

August 2, 2013

Dear Mary Pope Osborne,

my name is Bela Strong I am eight years old.I love your magic tree house books mostly the magic tree house book when Teddy, Jack and Annie went to a castle with ghosts and a half man half raven tride to get a diemind from them. I am so upset with ghosts and silkies.

How do you make up such good stories? Did you know I look just like Annie? I have some questions to ask. How does Annie understand animals? What does good medicine mean?

YOUR GOOD FRIEND
Bela Strong

p.s please write back

family

I spent the day at the hospital today, with my mom and brother. He isn't doing so great, unfortunately. He's slated to undergo open heart surgery in a couple days, and if you would like to visit him send me an email and I'll give you details, as he's here in Chicago.

In the meantime, a few pictures of what very early mornings are like around here. Gill has been waking before the sun unfortunately, and I usually drag her into bed with me (and usually one sister or another). She knows how to bypass my security code on my iphone and get to the camera, and got these shots this morning that I think are pretty cool..

Here's to family. And wishing for the best.

Seance

For as little official time as we allow Bela on the computer, she is quite the Google expert. Lately, I've had a problem with finding her on my computer when she's not allowed to be. Basically, Monday through Friday, she can put on music and listen to audiobooks or maybe do some search for something with me by her side, but that's it.

I'm trying to teach her moderation, I'm trying to limit her screen time, and I'm trying to make my old laptop last as long as possible.

Today, after many days in a row of snapping the computer out of her hands, I found her behind the couch holding the lap top while she listened to audio books. I suspected she was googling or playing with Power Point or something. She denied.

As I cleaned up after dinner and sent the girls upstairs tonight,   I couldn't help but check out the browser history and spy on her.

Her searches?

How to buy minecraft. 
Minecraft secrets.
Minecraft minecraft minecraft.

But then?

Seance.
How to do a seance. 
Do seances work.
Seance.

Bela is upstairs right now reading a book about ghosts to Chris. Maybe I should join them and we should try out her new seance skills?

I got it covered

Chris likes to tell this story about his Mom: When he was younger, it never failed to thoroughly gross him out that she would manage her kitchen compost bin bare handed. After days of dumping egg shells and coffee grounds, potato peelings and rotting tomatoes, she could just reach in there up to her wrists and swish it around, smash it down, and scoop it up.

And while my following opinion is limited by my own personal experiences, I'm just going to go ahead and say that, when it comes to the gross parts of  kids, of domesticity, and of life, the Mom's have it covered. Am I right?

Take the other night. After more than a year without an infestation, I found a few nits on Bela. Now, this was after a long day of work, coming home to a chaotic and messy house full of kids needing to do homework and to eat a decent dinner, while lacking any other adult to help out because daddy was traveling again.

With the beautiful and miraculous help of my two older girls, we succeeded in making dinner, completing all the homework, putting the chickens in for the night, stripping  the beds, and washing the blankies, all while keeping tabs on the adorable but impossible Gillian Fern.

As I stepped over pellets of guinea pig poop that had been scraped out of the cage by my almost two year old, as I slipped through the pee that had sloshed out of her new and much adored (and FULL) potty, I stuffed my arms with towels, discarded clothing, jackets, and anything else that might need scalding to rid us of the nits.

I arrived to Gillian's closet and reached down with the last empty inch of my right hand to pick up a pair of crusty and nasty pajama pants she had deposited there on the floor, and discovered that my aging kitty Bronte, who completes 18 years on this planet come January,  had decided that that was the perfect place to poop.

I hesitated only a moment, I swear. I adjusted some of the things I was holding and, lacking any sort of tissue or paper, I reached down and grabbed the hard little pile. With my bare hands.

I'm almost certain that the guy I married--the one who throws up when he has to pick up dog poop with a doubled up plastic bag--will shudder when he reads this.

Lunch

Once a week I "let" the kids eat school lunch. This usually happens towards the end of the week, when my only packing options are a can of Artichoke Hearts and some dijon mustard. The girls love school lunch, and that's no lie. I don't know how they stomach the stuff.

The other 4 days of the school week I insist on making their lunches. I abide by only a few rules: (mostly) healthy; (mostly) balanced, and (mostly) non-packaged food. And the girls only grumble a little.

To make things easier, I pre-make some meals and freeze them. And so we tend to have a soup day (Bela's current favorite is lentil; Mae loves Hearty Split Pea); a "pocket" day  of homemade calzones, a veggie and dip day, usually a leftover dinner day, which ranges from pasta to casseroles to pizza. I toss in fruit, cucumbers from the garden, popcorn or nuts to round it all out. And when available, a little treat.

They get very excited about the treat, sometimes to my annoyance.

"Fruit is a real treat", I say. "You don't need dessert every day", I say. "Sugar isn't good for lunch" I say.

Last week, Mae was helping me make dinner (which was to also become their lunch for the next day). After we ate, I plopped Gillian in the tub and Mae decided to help out with the kitchen duties. She cleaned up the table, washed the dishes, and then continued to make MY lunch for the next day.

I was tickled! But I can't lie: I was pretty bummed when I sat down to eat, ravenously hungry.

A Mae Mae special: Cucumber salad with carrots, salt and pepper. Another, less flavorful, salad with raw mushrooms, cucumbers and celery. A banana.. And (thank goodness) two little chocolate chip cookies we had just made.

I wonder if the girls feel as sad at lunch time as I did as I ate my two salads, and my "treat" of a banana.

Thank goodness for chocolate.

Scream

There's a fish in this bucket!

Chris left town for another week. Things have the potential to get pretty grim around here soon.

My sweet, laid back baby girl has been replaced with a raging monster, and this makes single parenting a difficult endeavor.

It's not just whining. And it's not just a little loud. It is ear piercing. It is clenched fists and red face. It's shut the windows so the neighbors won't hear. It's cry in the middle of the night and wonder if maybe, just maybe, you drank too many glasses of wine while pregnant and this is what happens to bad parents like you.

On Sunday I tried to walk with the three of them to the grocery store to get food for lunches for the week. She wanted to "walkie" and push her own stroller. I wanted to pull my finger nails out. But instead we walkied, slowly, towards the closest store. But she had no shoes on, nor any intention of putting them on. So I said, Hey Gill, wanna walkie? You need shoes. This is the big city!

She screamed and threw her apple at me.

Aware that the only person who would be judged in this public performance would be yours truly, I took a deep breath. Pretended to be zen and calm; pretended nothing could push me off my high momma horse.

I said, Walkie? Shoes. No shoes? Stroller.

She screamed and threw her shoes in my face.

I put her in the stroller. And things just deteriorated.

This was the point where Mae and Bela chose to have a street-side squabble of their own. I was looking pretty bad. I started to sweat a little. I felt a little nauseous. I felt embarrassed. But mostly, I just felt so, so tired.

I buckled her screaming and writhing body into the stroller with brute force. I scraped her shoes off the sidewalk, fisted the apple, stifled a desperate and psychotic scream of my own, swung the stroller around and marched back home.

When we entered our alley I took her half-eaten apple and threw it with all my strength into the side of a brick garage, to watch with indulgent satisfaction as it exploded into hundreds of mealy apple bits.

The girls looked worried, and I only felt a little better. 

Once inside I needed a minute to collect myself, and then I gathered her up and hugged her and started doing weird yoga breathing, inhale for 10 exhale for 10, in the hopes that she would either A)begin breathing deeply, become fully relaxed, and chill the f*** out, or B) just stop crying because she was wondering what on earth had happened to her mother.

She stopped. And we're all fine now.

But we are only on day 2 of the 1 against 3 challenge. If you need to find me tomorrow I'll be in my office late, catching up on work (hiding from Gillian) until my yoga class (further escape) starts.

Don't stay away too long, dear. 

Yikes

Holy crap it's been 45 days since I last checked in. Where does the time go?

Well, in an effort to slow the unforgiving march of the clock (and to wean an overly booby obsessed almost-two-year-old), and to celebrate my husband's 36 years on this planet, I spent 5 hours in the car yesterday. My mission? Drive all three (ALL THREE!!!) of my children to their Grandma's house for 60 glorious hours.

I got them settled in, nursed little Gill (for the last time?), and jumped back in my car and drove home. Alone.

I'm disoriented and can't get my bearings, but have big plans for the day. So far? I ran 14 miles out at the lake, had coffee with a great group of ladies in Lincoln Square, made my list and headed to Home Depot.

On the agenda? Some window washing, some laundry, some grouting, some yard work, some dinner out to celebrate, some wine, some sleep. Maybe some knitting.

Extractions

Bela got two teeth pulled yesterday. About a year ago our dentist sent us to an orthodontist to talk about the lack of space in her mouth, the crowding of teeth.

Their recommendation was for me to spend $5000 on some form of "pre" braces (because she was still going to need braces later, they assured me.) This was an expander, executed in three phases. Each phase costing more than the first.

After a few weeks of worrying about ruining her looks for good by rejecting this procedure, by letting her teeth be all jammed up in her mouth, I smartened up. I said no way.

So she needed some baby teeth pulled to make room for the grown up teeth that were coming in. I guess the new plan is to just keep pulling until we run out of teeth to pull, and then we fork out the money for braces.

The dentist put her extracted teeth, with roots intact, into a little tooth shaped container. And within an hour Bela lost this container in our car.

I searched high and low. I just couldn't believe she managed to lose the teeth in the car so fast and so completely. I absolutely could not find them. 

"Bela! How can the tooth fairy come tonight if you don't have your teeth?" I grunted.

She shrugged me off and said she had a plan. She would write a lengthy letter.

"Why aren't you more upset about this?" I asked, genuinely surprised by her lack of drama.

She responded with a serious face: "In the middle of my heart I am very upset. But on the outside of it I think my plan will work."

I didn't share her optimism. I know just how fickle the tooth fairy can be. I mean, sometimes she doesn't even show up when there are real teeth under that pillow.

I headed to the car after dinner with a headlamp and new determination, and found those little teeth in the most impossible to reach little hole under the passenger side front seat.

She put one tooth under her pillow, and one under Mae's ("because she's not had a visit from the tooth fairy yet"). And you know what? The damn tooth fairy actually showed up.

Vampire Girl

Bela is writing a book. Here is chapter 1. Ok. I miss them. They can come home from camp now.

VAMPIRE GIRL

Written by Bela Strong

Illustrated by Chris Strong

                                                        CHAPTER 1

                                                                                                                    

It was a rainy day in July 25^th a family called the Johnsons was about to go to the movies. They had two daughters named Mae and Nora. Mae was a very brave and Nora was very curious. When they came back Nora and Mae’s parents put them to bed, kissed them good night and went to sleep. Just then Nora screamed was is it? Mae asked” Something bit me on the leg! Mae tried to find a flashlight but she did not have one. Nora got out of bed what are you doing? Mae asked. Something is wrong” Nora said. They both went down stairs It was dark all the lights were turned off. Just then there was a rustle of mowas the first night that some mysterious things started to happen

 

Camp

I dropped the older girls off at sleep away camp this morning. I left home 24 hours ago with them and headed towards the heart of Amish country, Ohio, quite excited about the idea of solo travel with just those two. How long has it been since we've been alone? 19 1/2 months?

Gilli our constant companion, we don't get many moments to be alone, the three of us. So I left our little blue house with high hopes and a couple of audio books and some peanut butter crackers, looking forward to reading together, to cuddles, to special moments.

The reality of it all, though, is that I was quite grumpy. I'm in my special grumpy time of month, which lasts quite literally from 1 week, 4 days before my period starts to 1 week, 4 days after. Yeah. The math is ridiculous. I get about 4 good days of sanity per cycle.

And I just couldn't get past it. Their bickering, their rivalry, their drama...it just ate away at me most of the trip. There was no reading, no cuddling in soft, cushy hotel beds together. We just crashed out of sheer exhaustion.

This morning we woke up and decided to get along like good little ladies, and I started to get teary eyed at the thought of dropping them off at the farm, without me and their dad.

Hotel pool fun

Sleeping beauties, first day of camp.

I shed some secret, interior tears as they bounded out of the car, kissed me, and squeezed my love handles in some strange gesture of goodbye, and I turned our enormous rental car around and drove 6 1/2 hours back to Gillian.

As I drove home I listened to Jonathon Franzen's collection of short stories, reviews, and lectures (Father Away) and couldn't help but ponder my relationship to the girls. Listening to him reflect on his relationships - to his parents, to his ex, to his friends, I found myself hearing a lot of things that resonated with me strongly.

Being a Mother is some tricky, messy business. So freakishly easy at times, at times natural; and yet often just as confusingly not so.

I longed to take back my hormonally induced inability to tolerate the competitive tendencies shared by my 6 and 8 year old. I longed to cuddle in that hotel bed. I longed for Gillian and her sweet smushy skin that smells like wet, warm bread with powdered sugar sprinkled on top.

I turned off the radio, loaded up on iced caffeinated beverages, and raced toward home to relieve the babysitter and grab my beautiful girl and hold her in my arms.

I ran through the front door to a lethargic, sweaty Gill on day 5 of a fever. I scooped her up, nursed her, brought her face to mine... and watched as she threw up in my bra.

I tried to explain the non-electric aspect of Amish life (totally unsuccessfully) to the girls. "Why?
 they asked. I didn't have an answer. But they recognized that these were "non-electric" hay stacks :)

The list

Chris and I flew to Denver and back yesterday. I found "the list" while cleaning out my wallet on the plane.

I really want my girls to learn to sew. And to like it.

In order to accomplish this, I enlisted the help of my mother-in-law. Yes, I do know how to sew. But no, I would be a terrible teacher for the girls. I'm impatient. I meddle. I can't let their skills just unfold naturally. I'm pushy.

SO. Last Spring Break, I sent Bela down to her Grandma's house to have a three day sewing date. We picked fabric. We picked the pattern. Chris drove her down and dropped her off.

I envisioned them there, in the sewing room, textile knowledge pouring from one generation to another. I pictured Bela, enthused. Bela, learning. Bela, sewing.

Then we found her list - the list of things she wanted to do while on her sewing date with her grandma:

Bela Strong

1. play out side

2. lunch

3. play on the porch

4. clean up room

5. draw pictures

6. play 'easter'

7. put balls in order (no idea)

8. jump on pillows

9. play with dad

10. look for bunnys

11. go to the river (the drainage ditch)

12. spy on grandma

13. go to bed

14. eat dinner

15. read

16. go to bed

Hmmm. There was just one thing missing. Hmm, what was it? What was she forgetting????

They did end up sewing, and almost made it through two nightgowns. Paula packed up the pattern and the fabric and the mostly finished nightgowns: one for Mae, one for Bela. I put them next to my sewing machine. Last March. And they're still there.