(Most of this short throw-off was written back in late August, but I just noticed that I hadn’t published it, so I inserted a brief addendum, and here it is.)
Joe gave me a great anniversary gift this year: he arranged for a day off for both of us to spend together; and I’m thinking that this may be a new, bi-monthly solution to our date night difficulties.
As everyone with a child knows, pretty much nothing is as much of a rare, precious, desperately yearned-for resource as time for yourselves. So for my gift, Joe planned to take a Friday off from work during my maternity leave and paid for Neve to spend the day (in the baby room) at the same place where Lily would be in pre-school. Plus, as a bonus, he arranged for his parents to come over and feed Lily dinner, and take care of Neve, while we ate dinner at a restaurant.
So after dropping off the girls, Joe made a lovely, Cheerios-free brunch while we read the newspapers; then we went for a bike ride and attended a matinee screening of the last Harry Potter movie. (We’d hoped to do more outdoors, like canoeing, or going biking at Kensington, but that Friday turned out to be kind of overcast and crummy.) After picking up the girls and spending some time with them, Grandma and Grandpa arrived, so we left for a quiet dinner at Sweet Lorraine’s.
You know. A dinner where we weren’t begging/ordering Lily to focus on dinner and eat, with Joe trying to fork food into his mouth while cradling Neve, who suddenly wants to be held.
We did another “date day” for Joe’s birthday in December, and I plan to ask for another in February, when my birthday comes up. It’s a lovely, occasional respite that we can look forward to.
Three years ago today, on January 9, you died. You’d dealt with (what began as) breast cancer on and off for 14 years, but when the end came, it worked its destruction on your organs so quickly that we couldn’t get to you before you were gone.
On this particular anniversary, I’ll confess that I feel a strange lightness – an appreciation for the life and family I now have. And I have no regrets. Because you started making a point of saying “I love you” at the end of visits and phone calls once you were diagnosed (thank you for that), I’m not haunted by what wasn’t said; and since we’d visited you and Dad only weeks before, at Thanksgiving and at Christmas – despite the logistic difficulties of traveling by plane with a 7 month old baby – I’m wholly at peace that we got to spend some reasonably “normal” time with you before everything spiraled out of control, and that you got to spend as much time with Lily as was possible before you died.
Lily, sporting her distinctive fashion style in the summer of 2011
That having been said, I know you’d absolutely love to see her now, at age 3 1/2. She’s a mischievous little ringleader, with that trademark, thick, multi-hued honey blond hair that seems to run in our family.
Yes, she can be stubborn, of course (she was bound to get that trait no matter what, with me and Joe as parents), and she’s demonstrated already that she may well possess Joe’s temper and capacity for volume.
But there are nonetheless these moments when I nearly burst with love for her. For instance, when we were returning home from visiting Dad at Christmas, she sang and ran and skipped down the airport’s multiple moving sidewalks, wearing a sparkly red tutu over her purple pants, with her long, ragged braid bouncing off her back. I was the one chasing her with our bags, while Joe stayed with the baby in the stroller, so I got to see the faces of all the people we passed light up with smiles as they watched this sprite of a girl – this little being that Joe and I somehow created. Continue reading →
Some movies I desperately wanted to see, but didn’t get to:
“The Descendants”
“Hugo”
“Young Adult”
“The Artist”
“War Horse”
“Moneyball”
“Super 8″
Movies I actually got to watch in a movie theater for work assignments (thank goodness this is actually part of my job sometimes):
“Scream 4″
“Win Win”
“Cedar Rapids”
“Ides of March”
“Answer This!”
“Clash of the Wolves” (a 1927 silent Rin Tin Tin film, which was screened as part of a book promotion event with Susan Orlean)
Movies I watched in a movie theater when NOT on the job:
“Rio”
“Mr. Popper’s Penguins”
“The Muppets” (Are you noticing a pattern here?)
“Crazy Stupid Love” (anniversary date night)
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, part 2″ (a weekday matinee watched during one of my and Joe’s patented “date days”)
Movies half-watched when rented On Demand, due to a child waking up or one or both of us falling asleep:
“Sex and the City 2″
“Bridesmaids”
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, part 1″ (we finished watching the following night)
“The Hangover” (watched solo, in pieces, during my maternity leave)
Movies I can nearly quote by heart now:
“Tangled”
“Toy Story 2″
“The Sound of Music” (admittedly, this was true before Lily was around)
The Tony Awards made me anxious to see:
“The Book of Mormon,” of course
“The Normal Heart”
Norbert Leo Butz in ANYTHING (Sutton Foster, too, though I previously got to see her in “The Drowsy Chaperone”)
New York City again, in general
Live shows that led us downtown to the Fox Theatre
An awesome live taping of “A Prairie Home Companion”
Barney’s Birthday Bash
Books half-read – usually because I needed to start reading a different book for work:
“The Imperfectionists,” by Tom Rachman
“Here Comes Trouble,” by Michael Moore
“Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend,” by Susan Orlean
“Lastingness: The Art of Old Age,” by Nicholas Delbanco
“Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” by Jonathan Safran Foer
Of the books I managed to finish, my favorites were:
“Bossypants,” by Tina Fey
“Poser,” by Clair Dederer
“This is Where I Leave You,” by Jonathan Tropper
Favorite shows during maternity leave:
Lots and lots of “West Wing” episodes on DVD
“Up All Night” – Duh. It’s like watching our life, but with sharper dialogue.
“Modern Family”
“Parks and Recreation”
“30 Rock”
“Daily Show” and “Colbert Report”
Occasional forays into “The Young and the Restless” and “The Bold and the Beautiful” while eating lunch. The actor that plays Ridge on “Bold” is so painfully bad that I started to wonder if it was some kind of ironic performance art thing, a la James Franco on “General Hospital.”
Things I love about watching “Sesame Street” with Lily:
The opening sketch; dance-oriented bits; and songs like will.i.am’s “What I Am,” Hunter Foster’s “Lever Lover,” and one of my comedy faves, Ricky Gervais, singing Elmo a lullaby.
Things about “Sesame Street” that make me want to run into traffic:
Abby’s Flying Fairy School – the theme song alone nearly sets off my gag reflex these days. Twinkle think about that.
Elmo’s World – the segment that never, ever seems to end.
Hosts of my favorite “Muppet Show” episodes from the first 3 seasons, which Lily has been watching on DVD:
Harry Belafonte
Gilda Radnor
Roger Miller
Chloris Leachman
Things that keep stacking up on the DVR, but I never, ever seem to watch:
“The Office” – after Jim and Pam got married, it just felt over.
87 episodes of “House,” from various seasons, all slammed together.
Purchased CD by a band I love, yet I have yet to listen to:
Foo Fighters, “Wasting Light”
CD that, four months after I bought it, I listened to for the first time:
Taylor Swift’s “Speak Now”
Song I’ve heard a million times, and that continues to be played as if on a loop, because Lily likes to dance and sing to it, though it now makes Joe want to pierce his eardrum with an ice pick:
Michael Buble and the Puppini Sisters’ “Jingle Bells”
How the last moments of 2011 were spent:
For the first time this past year, we watched an On Demand movie in its entirety in one sitting – Woody Allen’s wonderful “Midnight in Paris” – while drinking champagne, and then we watched the ball drop, and finished up the night with the last scene from “When Harry Met Sally” (my request). About as nice of an evening as we could hope for, really.
In early November, Joe and I drove to the Fillmore Theater in downtown Detroit to see the Indigo Girls in concert. We hadn’t had dinner, and we had some time, so we tucked into the bar/restaurant next door first.
I got a cosmo, Joe got a beer, and we ordered burgers. As we talked during the meal, I said, a couple of times, “Wow, my burger is REALLY GOOD,” and I ordered another cosmo. Now, this was the most I’d had to drink in one evening since before I was pregnant with Neve, so I was feeling pretty tipsy, but I was also really enjoying myself.
And I had a great time with Joe and friends at the concert, so it was a fabulous night overall. But for days and days afterward, I’d think about that burger, and my mouth would water, remembering how good it was.
“I don’t know what it was,” I said to Joe one night, “but that burger I had before the concert tasted amazing to me. Were the burgers that good?”
I’d questioned this afterward, because the place wasn’t a cult local favorite for burgers – just a run-of-the-mill bar in an advantageous location. And my suspicions were confirmed when Joe said, “They were good, but not that special.”
So I finally figured out that although I may have had cosmo goggles on that evening in regard to the food, the main thing that was heightening my enjoyment was the sense of freedom I felt (or “tasted,” as it were). Freedom to have a couple of drinks; to spend time with Joe and some dear old friends from college, listening to music that I love; freedom from absently, mechanically shoveling food down in order to feed an increasingly disgruntled baby or comfort a sensitive 3 year old; freedom to re-visit the person I had been before I became “Mommy.”
It was such a relief, and a release, to find that I could still locate that person within myself. But the opportunities are few and increasingly hard to come by. Continue reading →
Just a quick note about feeling excited last weekend upon seeing Neve going to town in her Jumparoo.
What’s the big deal, you may ask? Previously, when I’d put her in the Jumparoo, she just kind of hung out, or swung from side to side. But seeing her actively bounce in it – that is, seeing her really start to PLAY – was one of the first tangible indications (witnessed by me, anyway) that she’s becoming a more sentient little person.
Yes, she smiled in response to things at about 6 weeks, and at 4 months, she started giggling occasionally. (Like her mother, she’s a tough crowd, comedy-wise – you really have to nail it to get a laugh.)
But this Jumparoo moment wasn’t her responding to something; it was her initiating something. And that was strangely, surprisingly moving to me – an initial preview of the playfulness to come.
The night of Lily’s first-ever dance class, in early September, she was so excited that she spent nearly an hour dancing around our kitchen in her tap shoes, watching herself in the oven’s dark glass.
And since then, she asks me nearly every day, “Do I have dance class today?”
So color me shocked when she came out in the middle of her most recent ballet/tap lesson – dressed in her pink, skirted leotard, and this week’s appointed class “leader” – and asked to go home.
To tell the story I want to tell, I have to backtrack a little in order to provide context. So bear with me.
Lily is just now getting her first experiences with money. At a neighbor’s suggestion, we recently encouraged her to help us pick up sticks in the yard, and we gave her a penny for each stick. After a while, she’d earned $3, so we took her to the nearby CVS and told her she could pick out something that cost that much or less. (She chose glittery gold nail polish, naturally.)
Plus, a couple of weekends ago, I took her to Toys R Us to pick out a present for a preschool friend who was having a birthday party. In the past, in similar circumstances, Joe had also let her choose something small for herself, so I did the same. But the first thing she gravitated to was a Rapunzel doll that costs $20 (“Tangled” is probably her favorite movie). I told her it was too much money, and she didn’t cry, she didn’t throw a fit. She found other things, and each time, when I explained they were too much money, she put them back without a fight and looked for something more appropriate. We finally settled on a lower-key doll that was $8 – more than I initially intended to spend on her thing, but she’d been so good about all the “nos” that preceded it that I cut her some extra slack – and I told her that Hanukkah and Christmas were coming up, so maybe she’d get the Rapunzel dollie then.
“Rapunzel was too much money,” she said several times on the drive home, lovingly stroking the red hair of the doll we actually purchased. “But maybe I can get it for Hanukkah. When is Hanukkah?”
“Well, it’s several weeks away yet,” I said, looking at her in the reariew mirror. “But if you’re a good girl, like you usually are, I think you’re chances of getting a Rapunzel dollie are good, sweetie.”
OK. A lovely experience, generally, and I was proud of Lily. She hadn’t acted like an entitled brat in the store, and she seemed to be in the early stages of learning the value of money. All good.
Then, last Wednesday night, I’d wished I’d never had this conversation with her. Continue reading →
Neve, about to leave for her first official day at daycare
We didn’t make any specific plans for how things would go on the morning of my first day back to work, after a 3 month maternity leave.
Joe and I didn’t decide that one of us would take both kids to the daycare center two blocks from our house; or whether we’d stagger it with one kid each in tow. We played it by ear, trying to be flexible while seeing how things naturally played out.
And despite our lack of planning, the day started idyllically.
Neve slept through the night, waking at 6:50 to eat. After I fed her, she went back to sleep, and a while later, Lily got up with Joe (as has become the norm since Neve’s birth). I spent a bit of time with Lily before she left with Joe for pre-school, and then I got things ready for my day as Neve snoozed in her room. At 9:30, after Neve had had nearly 12 hours of sleep, I woke her (she was still deeply asleep), fed her, and changed her (pooped-soaked) diaper. With all this going for her, she was nothing but big, flirty smiles and coos as we walked to the daycare center and I handed her off to one of the women who’d taken care of Lily when she was the same age.
I drove to work in Ann Arbor, plowed through more than 800 e-mails that were waiting for me (using the delete function liberally), used my breast pump there and at home, and then went to pick up the girls from daycare. (Joe and I feel so weird saying “the kids” now; it’s as if we weren’t really defined yet as suburban parents until we had a second child and started having to use the plural instead of just saying “Lily” or “our girl.”)
I decided to check in at Neve’s room at daycare first, since Lily often tends to be the Norm Peterson of pre-school (wanting to play and stay until closing time at 6 p.m.), and I was anxious to find out how Neve had done on her first day. Continue reading →
On Wednesday evening, we had a Rosh Hashanah dinner on our enclosed back porch that – aside from the addition of some Hebrew prayers, and challah, apples and honey, and candles on the table – resembled a typical (read: maddening) family dinner involving an infant and a 3 year old: Lily immediately started whining about not wanting to eat what was on her plate; when we coerced her into trying a bite, she cried, red-faced, with her food-stuffed mouth hanging open, and she wailed that she didn’t like it just before she spit it out; Neve woke up halfway through the meal, grumpy and hungry, so Joe held her while I shoveled the rest of my dinner into my mouth and left to feed the baby in a more comfortable chair; Lily started negotiating how many bites of each part of her dinner she needed to eat to qualify for dessert, and asked Joe to put some peanut butter on a piece of challah; and finally, when Joe and Lily had had their dessert, I finished feeding Neve, handed her off to Joe, and headed to the porch to have my dessert course alone.
“What did you get?” I asked Joe, who’d picked up various items at the Franklin Cider Mill the night before.
“A pumpkin pie. For you.”
I popped open the plastic container and cut a slice for myself, resuming my place at the table. The candles were burning down, the world was rainy and dark outside the windows, and the littered, abandoned battlefield of the dinner table, which I would soon need to clean up, lay before me.
When Lily was a newborn, one of the only things that consistently soothed her was being toted around in a sling – so we walked around town with our “baby in a bag” quite a bit.
On one occasion, a neighbor, after peeking inside the sling to see our then-sleeping new addition, admonished me and Joe to “cherish this time,” because we’d never get it back, and it would all go so fast.
We nodded gravely, but Joe and I exchanged subtle glances that conveyed that we were both mentally circling a pointed finger aside our heads in a “cuckoo” gesture. Was this guy meshugge? Having your sleep constantly and randomly interrupted; being screamed at for long stretches, and feeling absolutely helpless to soothe your child; being shat and spit up upon regularly; and not being able to eat a meal together in peace (let alone eat a meal, or take a shower, when flying solo with the baby) – this was the apex of parenthood? Seriously?
Joe and I shook our heads while walking back to our house, agreeing that, from what we could tell so far, the baby phase was something to be endured rather than “cherished.”
Now, of course, our family lineup has changed, and we have a boundary-pushing 3 year old as well as a newborn in the house. And this long-past, casual conversation with a neighbor has come to have far more resonance for me.
This is partly due, surely, to the fact that Neve is a low-key, sleepy, easily comforted baby, and I’ve enjoyed the baby phase much more the second time around (when the anxiety is generally lower, anyway). But I think the primary reason I’m recalling this exchange lately is because I’m realizing that handling a newborn, despite its challenges, is relatively simple when compared to the self-doubt/guilt/misery spiral involved in disciplining your average, volatile 3 year old, who’s prone to operatic, irrational tirades. Continue reading →
