Speaking of Speaking of, I am Going to Bed

It is 11:12 and I can’t sleep. Maybe it is because I drank way too much lemonade and my body is going into [fake] sugar shock. I have determined that there are four things that I consume that may kill me: My coffee creamer; my sugar-free double-chocolate pudding and the aforementioned “light” lemonade. All have that fake sugar. So I need to eliminate them from my diet, but I am very much not looking forward to that process. Did I say four things? I meant three.

Speaking of rolling with it, Nicole just booked two trips for work this fall: London in September and San Francisco in October. Part of me keeps trying to figure out what it would be like if we all went. How would it work? How would Nicole work, literally? How would the plane rides be and how about baby jet lag? After about two minutes of visualization I usually conclude the same thing: It would be too hard. The girls are still a little too young, and as much as I would love to navigate the Tube in London with the girls, it wouldn’t be a walk in the park. But then I think that will be our fallback excuse for the next 18 years. I don’t know. The girls miss Nicole when she is at work: How will they be with a whole week of no Mommy? I also don’t that that much space in our togetherness.

Speaking of us, I am also obsessing over our upcoming Very Big Day. Thanks Ellen and Portia for showing us what kind of wedding you can have if you spend a couple million. I won’t be wearing a Zac Posen gown because I don’t think I could take myselfseriosuly in anything with tulle. I obsess over what I will wear for the Very Big Day. I am all over the place, from cashmere and pencil skirts to mustard yellow strapless dresses (I think it would be a good fall color). I spent an hour tonight looking at different options online and it made my head hurt. I am also obsessed over were exactly to have said day, but we can’t get up to Massachusetts till maybe early October. Every weekend is booked or Nicole is away between now and then. There are a lot of little details that we need to attend. Not having these details decided or a location picked out makes me feel unsettled.

Speaking of unsettled, there was a minor earthquake in Tokyo today, where my brother and Mina and the kids are now, on the final leg of their Asia Tour 2008. All I can think is, what if that was just a foreshadow? What if a bigger quake is coming? Leave now, while the airport still has a runway.

Speaking of runaways (yes, I added a vowel), one of my students told me that he ran away and joined a traveling carnival when he was a teenager and stayed with it for 12 years. This is, believe it or not, the second Carny I have had in a class. I love teaching adults because they have much more interesting biographies than mini children.

Speaking of mini children, the girls are consolidating their naps. It sort of started last week, but this week they are firmly in the one-nap mode (about three to three and a half hours) with an bump of an afternoon mini session of quiet time in the crib (about 30 to 45 minutes) and bedtime promptly at 6:30. Having such a huge block of time is great; I can get so much done. But the change in schedule kind of throws me for a loop. I am trying to roll with it, and that is harder than it should be.

Pictured above: My fridge. Notice the stacks of pudding and the lemonade on the side. Evil fake sugar crap that must be banished. Below that, hair color. I narrowed it down to these two colors, but once I took this picture I decided that the one on the left is much better. What do you think? Speak now or forever hold your peace. Also pictured, a mini cake I made tonight, yellow cake with chocolate sour cream frosting. The cake was great but the frosting was not. I got the recipe from a book I just bought called Small Batch Baking. It features recipes that make just one or two portions. I think this will revolutionize our baked goods eating habits! No longer will we need to eat an entire cake just because it is there or 36 cookies! Now I can make a batch of four cookies. And mini cakes. And mini pies in cupcake tins. Also pictured, Madeline and Avery and stuffed animals in a box: Hours and hours of fun. Yes, Madeline is in a sailor top.

A Dose of Perspective, a Political Rant and a Hug

I teach online and a new semester just started up. One of my students is a 34-year-old single mother of four, including twins, and she is about to be a grandmother. So she has four kids, she works full time and she is finishing her degree. There are times when I feel so overwhelmed and tired and woe-is-me and then I hear about someone like that who has much more going on than I do and feel so petty (and inspired).

Speaking of petty, these days I am not that happy with Barack Obama and that leaves me feeling a little politically lost. I am tired of his political locutions and his change ideology, which doesn’t seem much like change at all. Part of me doesn’t want to vote for him, but the alternative is worse. I can’t believe it has come down to choosing the lesser of two evils again. Well, maybe that is a slight exaggeration but let’s just say I’m really feeling the fringe candidates. Mr. Kucinich, where are you when I need you?

I am aligned with many of Obama’s viewpoints, but I can’t reconcile his take on gay marriage with my own belief system. He has stated for the record that he believes marriage is between a man and a woman. Well, he has also said that his marriage is between him, his wife and God. So much for separation of church and state. I’m not so much into having a third party in my relationship, unless it’s Ben and Jerry. They have proven to be excellent companions.

Obama has stated that he would not support a constitutional amendment condoning gay marriage. His excuse is that this is something historically left in the hands of the state. And state control of marriage has gone SO well, so why mess with a good thing? (I am being sarcastic).

What really pissed me off as when he pulled out that old chestnut of how he thinks a gay couple should have rights like being able to visit each other in a hospital. Is that the go-to example for politicians? I am so sick of that example. Maybe it has been my own experience but I have found hospitals and hospital staff to be caring and accommodating. Nicole has been able to be at my bedside for every field trip to the hospital I have made. In terms of her being able to make life support decisions, well, that is a scary thought. I guess I should be scared, especially since she has talked about upping my life insurance coverage. But hospital visits are really at the bottom of the list of The Rights I Want To Have, because hopefully I won’t need to exercise those much. And we have a health care proxy anyway.

But all of his rhetoric makes me think that he is pandering to the lowest common denominator, the people who hate gays and think we should burn at the stake. Like he is trying to mollify them. Newsflash, Obama, those people won’t vote for you anyway because they think you are lesser of a person because of your African American heritage.

Says Obama: "Giving them a set of basic rights would allow them to experience their relationship and live their lives in a way that doesn't cause discrimination. I think it is the right balance to strike in this society." Sorry, but that’s a bunch of bullshit. A set of basic rights? That’s it? I can’t upgrade to the Deluxe package? I would love to hear how Obama explain this to, say, his little girls. Strip away the BS ad rhetoric and he too would sound like a hypocritical, homophobic buffoon.

And I get that my views aren’t the only views in life. But this is about equal rights, and when it comes to that, I feel like things should be stripped down to the basics. I should be denied equality JUST because my partner is the same sex as me? Really? Insisting that gay marriage will tear at the fabric of our society is just ridiculous. Society is being strangled more by Xboxes and cell phones and Constant Communication and the Pussycat Dolls than by this whole gay thing. Bottom line: A murderous prisoner has more rights than I do.

And on that fun note…a video of Avery giving her first hug! Turn the volume down unless you want to subject yourself to us cooing and awing. And please watch Maddie, who acts like she is just tolerating this onslaught of hugs! Also pictured, my little readers.

Maybe Slightly Controversial: Audience Participation Required

You all had some nuggets of great wisdom in the last post. I completely agree that if you go through life with just a couple (or even one) true friend, then you are lucky indeed. I know I am lucky to have a handful of true friends and I girlfriend who I would qualify as my best friend.

Walking away from toxic relationships, one-sided relationships or otherwise empty relationships…where is the how-to for that? Some people make it look so easy. My nature is very much never to end a relationship, no matter how bad it is. I am beyond tenacious when it comes to relationships. This stems in part from growing up with a really really small and disjointed and basically unhappy family. You cling to everyone you met when everyone you met is an understudy for family.

I have a maybe controversial view of female friendship that I would love to delve into. I think I would be able to explain this better in person, but I will try to write it out. This is all based on my own very unscientific study and my own experiences. I do not like to make sweeping generalizations, but I realize that that is exactly what a person says right before they make a sweeping generalization.

Let me preface this by saying I always wanted a sister. Of course, I envisioned the idealized version of sisterhood: Sharing clothes and makeup and doing each other’s hair and consoling each other through the hard times. We would talk every night before we went to bed, even years after we moved out of the same home. We would lend each other support, money, clothes and furniture. We would be best friends.

So my sweeping generalization, my perhaps unpopular theory, my half-baked idea, my thesis here is that I think women who don’t have sisters tend to cling more to friendships than women who DO have sisters. Again, this is just MY experience. But I think I so badly wanted a sister my entire life (again, because I idealized sisterhood) that almost every friend I had unwittingly auditioned for this role.

My friend with sisters would do anything for their sisters. My friends without sisters would do anything for their friends. I am not implying that women with sisters are not good friends and I am not implying that women with sisters wouldn’t do anything for their friends. Follow that? In other words, I am not dissing anyone here. But I do think that women without sisters (who always wanted one) tend to place a little more emphasis on their friendships. Maybe sisterless women tend to be relationship caretakers—or groundskeepers, as Malea put it. Think about your relationships with women with sisters and without: Are there any differences?

Again, let me clarify that I am not saying that sisterless women are desperate and women with sisters are aloof. . I am not saying one values friendships more than the other. I am just saying that there are nuances here.
I will add that I am very interested in this because as the mother of two daughters, I want so badly for them to grow up and to have a close, loving, impenetrable relationship. A couple of my friends with sisters do have just that, and I need to pick their brains about how it works. My mom and her sister: Not at all. So no role model there. Nicole and her sister are polar opposites but they have a great relationship now, but didn’t so much growing up: A five-year age difference, and sharing a room probably played a big role in this.

I also want them to grow up and have close friendships like I have. There are a handful of people that I have been friends with for two decades and more, and those relationships are a part of my foundation in life. We have a history and a present and a future. I have friends that I talk to on the phone every day. I have a few friends with whom contact is less frequent, but that doesn’t change a thing. I have friends who would be excited to hear from me spur-of-the-moment and vice versa, as CD an SP wrote in her comment. The rest? Those are the relationships I have a hard time abandoning. Toxic house cleaning is in order.
if this

I know I did a bad job explaining this, but I am curious if anyone else has thoughts on this? What is your experience like? Do you notice any similarities, differences, patterns, trends?

Hot off the presses: Avery is feeling the sister bond. Today, for the first time, Avery went over to Madeline and gave her a hug. Can you believe it? On her own! We went nuts, which prompted her to keep doing it. And that prompted Madeline to eventually run away from her and hide in a corner, she was that tired of hugs.

The girls are gaining speed and can run now. They can walk up and down the steps in the living room without holding on. When I tell them it is time for lunch, they run to their chairs. The babble like crazy but other than Mama (which they don’t understand means us) they don’t make much sense. When I ask them if they want to go for a walk, Madeline brings me the Bjorn. Avery hugs stuffed animals and plays peek-a-boo. Madeline collects flashcards, hiding them in stashes around our home. They love to try on our shoes and try to walk in them. They are becoming such little people and I am trying to record every little thing here, since I am doing such a crappy job keeping up their baby books.

Nicole talked about the need to get a babysitter/mother’s helper and it made me feel sick to my stomach. We have free day care at Nicole’s work, but neither of us feel comfortable with using it, even in an emergency situation. There are only a few people I would trust with the girls. But that’s also another post.

Pictured above, Avery giving Madeline her first hug. Then the second hug The third hug. The fourth hug. And Madeline hiding!

If It Walks Likes a Bear, Talks Like a Bear & Takes Honey Like a Bear…

I just had an awful, terrible, sudden realization.

A little background: When I was in college I had a friend that I was completely enamored with. No, not in that way. She was just a very funny, interesting, smart and I thought she was the greatest thing in the world. The feelings seemed to be mutual. We spent a lot of time together because we had some of the same classes and we were in the same program. It was an easy-going kind of relationship, but we both had other friends and circles and I was dating someone, so it wasn’t like we saw each other very minute of the day.

It took me a very long time to realize just how one-sided our relationship was. In the moment, it was all great. We would go to a concert and have an awesome time. We would meet for dinner at the dorm. We would hang out in the library working on papers.
Despite all of the time we spent together and all of the fun things we would do together, it was always me making the effort and me making the plans and me keep the friendship floating. I realize that now, ten years later. In those moments, I didn’t see it that way.

We graduated from college and kept in loose touch. Or should I say I kept in loose touch. This was before email was ubiquitous, so we had phones with answering machines and letters to keep the friendship fires alive. It took effort, which I was willing to put in but she was not.

There were so many clues: I would be going to a bar near her apartment and call her to see if she wanted to join me and my friends and she would answer the phone, but refuse, even when the bar was literally on the first floor of her building. She always had some excuse at the ready: “Dude, I am so hung-over and I can’t get out of bed” or “Dude, I totally would but my cousin is on her way over and I have to wait here for her”. I bought all of the excuses, and kept trying. It just didn’t occur to me that this was a brush-off. Besides, I am tenacious and not one to walk away from any relationship, something I used to pride myself on but something that I now realize is very, very unhealthy.

I think I finally got it a couple of years after we graduated. I was on a road trip and passing through her town. I vacillated over whether or not to call her. And then decided, rather suddenly, to just do it. This was in the beginning of the cell phone era, so I called her from my car about an hour away from her way upstate New York home. I told her I was in the car and passing through her town and wanted to meet up with her. I could hear the panic in her voice. The stream of lies started, something about how she was leaving on a vacation with her parents right away. She even threw in a couple of aside to her parents, who were supposedly urging her to get off the hone and get in the car. That was the last time I spoke to her.

The whole experience, stretched over about five or six years, just confused me. She acted like she liked me, but the way the relationship fizzled out made me wonder. She put in enough effort to make me feel safe, I guess, but not enough, in the end, by a long shot. Now, looking back, I can see how I worked hard to keep our friendship going. And I and see how it was so easy for her to let go when we graduated.

History repeats itself. That is my awful, terrible, sudden realization. Am in the same relationship right now. It isn’t exactly a shock to me: I have know for long time that this is a one-sided friendship, and I have talked endlessly with Nicole about it, and how it is so unhealthy for me to continue to put effort into this friendship when only a modicum of effort is returned. But I don’t give up easily. Have I made that clear?

I can say that in all truth I give up, and it took me a while to get to this point. But it hit me like a freight train: I am repeating patterns that are unhealthy. Who, me? Perpetuating negative behaviors? Ha! What else is new? And I realize that this person is using me, and that makes me a little sick to my stomach. But I also realize and have to admit that I have allowed it to happen. I can’t leave a barrel of honey on my porch and be surprised when a bear shows up (unless that it just a cartoon myth, that bears like honey). Nicole would see me dragging that honey out, and she would admonish me for it and tell me how wrong it was. She even said once that she was dispaoited in me. But deep down, I sort of hoped the bear would see the honey, leave it and just knock on my door and want to hang out with me, not because of the honey, but because of me. Yes, I am continuing this bad bear metaphor. It might have been a test, but I hoped my friend would pass it. In closing: Bear doesn’t want me. Bear wants my honey. And no, honey is not a metaphor for what honey sometimes is a metaphor for. And I have no time for honey-grubbing bears.

The best part is, ignore my honey and I will give you truckloads of it, just because you are my friend.

This is such a poorly written and meandering kind of post, but I think it gets my point across. My bear friend doesn’t read this blog so I could be specific, but I guess I just don’t want to go there.

OK this has taken enough of my energy.

I saw Nellie Olsen (Allison Arngram) of LHOTP fame perform stand up last night and it was great! If you have to ask what LHOTP stands for then you probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it. But there was lots of inside references and jokes. And talks of a musical heading to Broadway! That is one musical that I would pay to see.

Pictured above, Madeline and Avery stretch their chubby, chunky delicious legs in my friend Corrie’s luscious backyard. You can’t tell from the pictures, but her husband is a bit of a horticulturist so the property is practically Eden. The girls were so excited they didn’t know which way to turn!

Concerts, Mobs, Dinners, Dates, Girls With Brown Eyes

I feel so old. Taking an eleven-year-old to a Jonas Brothers concert doesn’t help. Isabelle wanted to get there early—it was her first big concert ever. So we were there at 5:30, for a 7:00 show, caught up in the frenzy that is 10,000 six- to eighteen-year-olds contained in one space. The opening act didn’t come on until 7:30 and the Jonas clan didn’t start for an hour after that. Such divas. The show ended by 10:30 and I was exhausted, but Isabelle wanted to go to the Virgin music store in Times Square for the midnight album release party, which the brothers said they would be showing up for. Since she plans on marrying one of the brothers, I figured we really should go. In my head, I kept saying “no way” but I knew in the end I would take her. How can you say no?

The release’s locale lead to an interesting exchange:

Isabelle: Virgin makes music? I thought they made cell phones?
Me: Actually, Virgin makes airplanes. But I guess you wouldn’t know that because you were born like two years ago.

OK, I didn’t actually say that part about being born two days ago, but I thought it in my head.

The record release (oops, there I go revealing my age again: I mean CD release) was a mob scene, literally. It was so crowded that Isabelle and I came up with a meeting place should we get separated, which was a horrifying thought but we needed to play it safe. We were up close, three or four people from the front of the barricade, but we had literally an entire city block of people behind us pushing. I really thought that there could be a stampede, one that we would read about the next day in the papers. I was pushed and pulled and jabbed and fondled and threatened. One girl in front of us was yelling to all around her “I swhair ta Gahd I’ll spit on yew if yew pash me again.” And she did. Nice.

We got home at 1:30ish. In the freeking morning. I didn’t get to sleep for almost an hour after that. We had to get up early the next day because I then had to drive Isabelle to soccer camp on Long Island. It was exhausting but she had a really good time and it was nice to see her so excited and happy and I was glad to be a part of this memory of hers. But I so don’t get the Jonas brother infatuation. The whole time I kept thinking of Lisa Simpson’s (yes, The Simpsons) and her Non Threatening Boys. That’s a reference we old people might get.

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon at a friend’s house with the girls and then came back to the city and went out for dinner with two other friends and a restaurant that was too loud. See: Another I’M Getting Old Moment. We sat outside because without a pitcher of margaritas and a few beers and ten years slivered off my age, I couldn’t imagine screeching inside the restaurant to be heard or straining to hear. It was so nice to get out and we had a great conversation about lying, mothers, marriages, and very pale skin. We laughed a lot.

I enjoy watching the Olympics but I am beginning to feel Olympics burnout. And seeing all this greatness of athletics makes it easy to lose perspective that you are indeed watching the elite. I told Nicole that they should have side-by-side presentations of the elite with the amateur. So there should be a swimming lane with a regular person like me in it, doggy-paddling down the pool while being lapped sixteen times by Dara Torres. Then you would really see that she is unbelievably amazing. When you see her swimming next to other elites, it is so easy to not see that greatness. At least for me. You know it is great because she is in the Olympics, but where is the perspective? Show a regular person trying to walk on a balance beam next to the gymnasts. Show a regular person trying to do a vault. It might make is all appreciate the athletes more.

Was any one else disturbed that the USA gymnasts all looked the same? All blond hair. Are there not women of darker hair or skin in this country that are flexible and strong?

Above, if it works are two videos. After yesterday’s playdate the girls feel asleep in the car like two seconds after I started driving away. On the radio was Brown-Eyed Girl and I thought it was so fitting, as here I am, with three brown-eyed girls in my life (including Nicole, who will say her eyes are hazel but whatever). The second video is them sleeping still because how can you get enough of such cuteness? In that video, Just Like Heaven is on, which also seemed very fitting. And a third mini video because I am having fun uploading videos. In all, embarrassingly, you can hear me singing in the background. Please, no judgements. I now my voice is off key! After you get over the sugar shock of cuteness and the horrors of my singing, you can feel horrified that I was driving AND videotaping at the same time. I know.

Eat Sleep Play Eat Sleep Play Eat Sleep Play Collapse

I woke up on Monday and was slammed by the Depression Freight Train. Well, maybe the “sad” Freight Train is more accurate since I can’t qualify for being clinically depressed unless feelings of crappy-ness persist for, what, two weeks? Let’s hope this is a short trip.

Anyway, so it was/is basically a combination of the Monday blues and feelings of motherhood failure and that sensation of being at the bottom of another mountain that I have to climb (yeah, that would be the week, aka, my reoccurring mountain). And a few other things.

Motherhood is nothing if not a chance to feel like a failure every day. Does that make sense? What I am saying is, this is the job I want to excel at and it is difficult because my managers (Madeline and Avery) are not very good at giving feedback. Plus, they totally overact at the slightest injustice (Avery screams if she is not allowed to touch my computer; Madeline falls into hysterics if she can’t open her toy backpack.) Children are SO dramatic. Sometimes their little overreactions are funny. Other times, it’s just draining.

And there are no short cuts. This morning I gave them breakfast: blueberry waffles, melon, cheerios and teddy grahams (the cookies were just a desperate shot to get them to eat anything). Everything ended up on the floor. Normally, after every meal without fail, I pull out the dustbuster and clean up the floor, wipe down the table and clean their bibs. But today, I am just so tired. I figured I’d let the breakfast mess mix with the lunch mess and just clean up once. So I released them from their seats and let them play in the kitchen while I cleaned the coffee maker and got the coffee ready for tomorrow, which seems like a priority. While I was distracted by coffee grounds, they proceeded to step on every chocolate cookie, crushing them into 1,000 pieces and getting them all over their feet and the floor. Who knew so few cookies could be reduced to a mountain of chocolate dust? So my little dustbusting break caused me twice as much work. See what I mean? No shortcuts.

I always feel like I am not entertaining them enough, or stimulating them enough, or taking them on enough walks, or arranging enough playdates (or any playdates, for that matter) or feeding them enough or doing anything enough. The books that give a week by week play by play all expired at a year, and I am swimming in the insecurity of “Should they be using a bottle still?” and “How much milk do the need?” and “When are they going to give up that morning nap?” I’m playing it by ear at this point, trying to trust my gut, and that is not easy for me. I sometimes get non-Organic milk and I feel like I am poisoning their little systems. I feel like I don’t give them enough food variety. I don’t change their little sheets enough. The list can go on and on.

So it was Monday and all that as in my head and the week stretched before me, sliced and diced into segments of wake, eat, nap, eat, nap, eat, bedtime for them, bedtime for us. Repeat repeat repeat. I love routine and ritual more than the average person but sometimes even I—the one who abhors changes and the one who craves order—wants to shake things up. My brother and his family are in China right now and I keep thinking that could have been us too. Instead Nicole is slogging off to another week at work and I am here with the girls, trying to add spice to our all-too-regular routine days.

It’s August, and that is my least favorite month of the year because it is the final hurdle between me and my favorite time of the year. I long to wear sweaters and jeans and boots and scarves and mittens. I have a lot to look forward to this fall, so I am ready for it to begin. We are going away a few times and we have the whole wedding in October and apple picking and Nicole’s birthday and fall foliage. I can’t wait.

I also had the horrifying experience of browsing through the barnes and noble website and seeing a book written by an old acquaintance. I was shocked that she wrote a book and even more shocked by the subject of the book. She is not a very nice person. Never was. She was mean and obnoxious and rude and arrogant, and she would admit that too. So to see her now, a writer, an author of a book, a fiction book with decent blurbs from halfway decent writers on the cover. Hello, Green-Eyed Monster. There is no money to be made in publishing a book (you have to me a mega best seller, like Stephen King, in order to really see anything other than a tiny advance) but this book has Hollywood written all over it, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it is snapped up ad turned into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon. To see another person (I know) accomplish something I would love to makes me feel more feelings of failure.

So this new author’s success lead me to start looking up some of these old friends and coworkers and acquaintances and seeing what they are up to. But I don’t have the energy/ego to reach out to anyone right now, because my biggest accomplishment is buying a new Wet Dry dustbuster, and that makes me feel a little inadequate. No book or big promotion or giant bonus or new job. I know, woe is me. Talk about dramatic. Let’s hope I feel like myself again soon.

Pictured above, the floor after mealtime. Madeline was clearly not in the mood for, specifically, cut-up tomatoes, mozzarella, pasta, chocolate teddy bear crackers or Cheerios. But you can probably surmise all of this just by looking at the floor. Also pictured, Skye in China picking out dinner. This is why I am happy to NOT to be in China. What would I eat? I would lose like 20 pounds. By the way, Mina said SKye's bathing suit cost two dollars.

And Then I Start Thinking....

I don’t know where the energy came from, but at 9:30 tonight I dragged myself off the couch, took off my pajamas and put my clothes back on and went to see a 10 p.m. movie. It was Frozen River, and it was fantastic. Grim and sad and cold and bleak but so amazing. The lead actress, Melissa Leo, will get a Oscar nomination for certain. It was one of those movies that you watch and think how lucky you are to not be the people in the film. There was one scene that was so chilling and horrifying that I almost walked out of the movie because I didn’t think I could take it, emotionally. It was that powerful.

Now I am back home, in my pajamas and back on the couch and I can’t sleep. I think it is in part because Leif and Skye are on a plane right now, finishing up hour 10 of a 12 hour flight to Hong Kong. Because I am such a ridiculous flyer now, I can’t relax until I know loved ones have landed. I make Nicole text me as soon as the plane touches down. But Mina and Keith and the kids don’t land until around 3:00 a.m. our time, which is either tomorrow in Hong Kong or yesterday in Hong Kong; I can never keep it straight. So I am in this state of suspension, between tired and needing to sleep and worried and needing to track the flight.

I’m also preoccupied with wedding thoughts. I can’t even imagine how distracted I would be if I were planning a huge event with 200 people and as forced to select appetizers for a cocktail hour. I emailed a Justice of the Peace but turns out she moved down South. She recommended another, who I have emailed, but have yet to hear from. Enter those old impatient feelings. I just want everything set in stone. Yesterday. Before an addendum happens or the governor changes his mind or Mitt Romney some how comes back to Massachusetts and reinstate that 1913 provision.

I loved the suggestion of Atkins Farm, and love the idea of being married in an apple orchard, even if it is post apple picking season. It really is symbolic and perfect. Nicole and I go apple picking every year, a tradition we started the first year we were together. I love apples; I eat two a day. We live in the Big Apple. I like most apple products. I love apple trees.

And I like the idea of Kerry Lynn the Massachusetts Photographer. I really wanted to tale pictures but wondered how that would work, sine Nicole or I need to get the shots. Then I start thinking if someone is taking pictures, then shouldn’t we do it in the evening, when the light is better? Not quite evening but rather in the gloaming. Or in the crepuscular light (I love that our language has specific words for the lighting I mean). Or better yet, in the early morning light. Wouldn’t that be great? Sunrise on an apple orchard? This is when my head starts to spin.

And I still can’t sleep.

So I think of Leif and Skye on a plane and wonder how they are doing.

And then I think about Frozen River again, and how the mother was giving her kids popcorn and Tang for dinner because she didn’t get paid till Friday.

And then I think about how I asked the girls if they wanted to go for a walk today and Avery shook her head yes. So enthusiastically.

And then I think how Avery shook her head no, also enthusiastically, about 15 times when I was offering her lunch items. “Chicken? Red grapes? Green grapes? Purple grapes? Cookie? Bread? Broccoli? Cheese?” I do have a tolerance for her pickiness, since I am picky myself. As long as her little thighs stay chunky and her belly sticks out and there are fold of baby fat on her, I will be calm about pickiness.

And I think about how Madeline walks around all day saying “Mmmmmmoommmm” and “mmmmmaaaaaammmmmmma” and various permutations of the word Momma and Mom and how I love love love that that is the soundtrack of my day.

And then I think about how Nicole came home from work and realized she couldn’t find her wallet, so she called someone at work to have them check her office and it wasn’t there. And instead of panicking I merely went to her bag, looked through the pockets and found it and brought it to her. Because while Nicole is many things, she is not a very good looker of things. But we all can’t be perfect, can we? I will still take her to be my lawfully wedded wife.

And then I think how much I love this city, about how alive it was on my midnight walk home.

And then To Do lists start popping into my head….

Pictured above, Mina and Skye and Leif heading to the airport. The picture was sent from Mina’s iPhone, which makes me very very jealous. My iPhone envy has ramped up considerably. If only they had a Verizon package. Below that, the girls in their Double Wide. I have been bjoring one and strolling the other, but the past couple of days (ever since I slammed my shoulder blade into a drawer) I needed to give my back a break and push them both instead.

NOT Going to the Chapel….

...in California, that is. [Oh, yes, I am so clever, starting a sentence in the title and finishing it in the body of this post.]

However, in lieu of the go-go West Coast, we are heading up to staid and charming New England. In an amazing development, Massachusetts has just made it legal for Our Kind to marry in said state without actually being residents of said state. I am sure many of you know this already. And if you don’t, let me be the first to tell you: That thunderous sound you hear is the gays heading for hills of Massachusetts in droves, playing show tunes and the Indigo Girls in their fabulous and crunchy/localvore wake. (Yes, I just stereotyped.)

This is huge. Human rights and equality aside, now we don't have to plan packing up me and two babies and bringing a Helper Person and heading to California in September for a week while Nicole is there for work. The downside is we won't be packing up me and the babies and bringing a Helper Person and heading to California for a week (I was looking forward to it. I love San Francisco.) And the OTHER downside is I will be playing the role of single-mom-of-two for a week while Nicole is living it up—or working, as she calls it—in San Francisco. On a side note, the last time she was there she called me from the tub in her super luxurious hotel room, where she was about to read a book, and order in dinner and sleep a full night’s sleep all the while ensconced in a tower surrounded by San Francisco fog. And me? I was solo-flying for the first time in stained pajamas and an empty stomach with two babies. But who’s bitter? Actually, I am not bitter but couldn’t resist the split screen image of her night vs. mine.

So off to Massachusetts we’ll go. This is a double win for us because we have much fondness for that state and spend a lot of time in the lovely hamlet of Northampton and its surroundings. Talks of a vacation home in that region have been bantered about again. I have emailed a Justice of the Peace and asked her to officiate the ceremony. She has not yet emailed me back, which has stirred up impatient rage, I mean feelings, in me, but I will give her 24 hours and then I am moving on to the next J of the P on the list. We will write our own vows (a task that Nicole doesn’t relish perhaps as much as I do. Mine will be so long, I know this already) and we will most likely keep it small. In other words, just us and the girls and maybe our friends who just moved to Northampton.

I ask Nicole what she is going to wear and she didn’t even try to pretend that this has crossed her mind. Her wardrobe falls into two distinct categories: Work clothes (suits and jackets and French cuff shirts and the like) and her not-working clothes (pants and shorts with critters on them). Neither seem very appropriate for THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY OF HER LIFE. (Emphasis for Nicole, should she be reading this, to prod her into thinking more about her wardrobe. She should also start writing her vows because that is going to take her a long time and I require at least one page, one-and-a-half-line-spaced, and two pages if she chooses to use bullet lists, which she probably will). I haven’t thought too much about it what I will wear but I am thinking, just off the top of my head, maybe something with a strapless silhouette, a fitted bodice with a full skirt and all-over box pleats. Oh, and a back zip, not pesky side zip.

If I hold flowers (which I doubt) they will be hydrangeas. I will put much thought in the something old/something new/borrowed/blue requirement. There will be no Wedding March or walking down of aisles.

We have selected a date in the end of October because fall is our favorite season and October is our favorite month and the foliage will be spectacular. I can see it all now, those reds and yellows and oranges. And me in some clashing color. Hmm. I may need to rethink my wedding attire.

And while I won’t be wearing a gown by any stretch, I will be booking my appointment to try them on some time n September. And I can’t wait. I hope that we can take pictures because I will try on the puffiest dress and the most expensive dress and the tackiest dress and ones I like as well, and then create an album of me in these dresses, but I still think I have time on my hands to do such things.

But one step at a time. First the justice of the peace and the date will be set in stone. Then, in mid September, we need to travel to Massachusetts to apply for or intention to marry certificate. And then, staring in October, it will be very hard for Nicole to get rid of me.

If you are a justice of the peace and reside in Massachusetts and are looking to make a little $$ and don’t mind long-winded vows, please email me. And if you live in the area and know of some special little place that would be perfect for the exchanging of vows, I am all ears as well.

Pictured above, how ca you resist those colors? Nothing beats fall in New England. Also pictured, our first four-of-us family portrait. You could stick your fingers in my eyeballs and roll my head down a bowling lane. My head really looks like a bowling ball! Also pictured, Miss Avery playing. Was she perhaps foreshadowing with that bride-like veil/ fitted crib sheet n her head?

Weighty Issues: Starts with a 1, Followed By a 2, Ends with a No. <9

My sister in law shows up last night to baby-sit with a dozen roses for us. For our date night? How nice is that? She gets the sticker for world’s best baby-sitting Aunt.

She also brought that book Skinny Bitch. My first thought is, she could write that book (the skinny part, not bitch part) so why is she reading it? And she has never been concerned with weight and diets and body images and all that. But apparently the book is not what I thought it was. It is a pro-Vegan treatise that talks more about a new way of eating and a way of life than it does about vanity and diet per se. Mina is a very healthy and balanced eater. In fact, she has the healthiest approach to food that I have every seen. Lots of fruits and veggies and rice and all that. She can eat whatever she wants without gaining weight and while that does inspire immediate (and temporary) jealousy and resentment on my part, I am happy that Leif and Skye and my girls will have a living, breathing healthy eating role model in front of them. You never hear her inner food dialogue. You never hear her say “Oh, cake, I really shouldn’t eat that.” She doesn’t make pithy comments about gaining weight or needing to lose weight. She just eats, and enjoys it.

I am at a bit of a crossroads with gym and weight and losing weight and all that. Maybe crossroads isn’t the right word. Corner? Dead end? Maybe going round and round in a cul de sac? My first and most important goals were (are) to be physically fit to be able to take care of my children. This will be an on-going forever sort of thing. My vain goals were to fit back into my Girls’ Night Out vinyl pants and, inexplicably, to see a “2” on the scale in the tens number slot. Now the sad part is I can’t find the damn pants. They are not in the nooks and crannies in my closet or drawers. I have no idea where they are. None. I am thinking I might have thrown them out in a fit of “When the hell am I ever going to ear these again?” because, really, when do I have an occasion to wear vinyl pants? And besides, I never did figure out what shirt one wears with vinyl anyway. I know they would fit, so I guess I can check that off my list.

And the “2” thing. Starting several weeks ago, I have seen a “2” on the scale, dipping into the upper 120s, and it isn’t exactly the happy shiny moment I thought it would be. Very anticlimactic. It is just a number. It’s cliché, but true. I can be in the 120s and still feel unhealthy and out of shape and large and puffy. Body image issues are not mitigated by numbers or even by accomplished goals.

I am back at the point where I am thinking seriously about maintenance. Again, this is not to say that my body is runway ready or anything. But I have evolved and I need to say that this is good enough. I am not going to diet my way down to a size smaller. I am not going to obsess over staying in the 120s. I am not going to try to maintain a number. I am not going to weigh myself and be in a shity mood if the number isn’t what I want it to be or think it should be or any of that.

But shifting to that place is hard. I watched my weight fluctuate through years of infertility drugs and pregnancy and miscarriages. I watched my weight creep up to over 200 pounds when I was pregnant. I watched my weight slowly go down. Every day I get on the scale and revel a little in the fact that the number on the scale is going down or staying the same. So to get on the scale every day and not see the number go down but stay the same….it doesn’t seem like progress or success when in fact it really is. But I need to train myself to think This Is OK. The number can stay the same. Or go down a little or up a little. I am trying to maintain a life. I want to keep running. I want to feel strong and capable and like I can lift a car if I have to. I don’t want to have my life revolve around a freaking scale and a bunch of numbers.

With that in mind, I am thinking about throwing out the scale. I am thinking that I will let how my clothes fit tell me whether or not I am doing well. I know that eating a package of Milk Duds and popcorn, as I did last night at the movies, is not healthy to do every day. But I am not going to beat myself when I do eat it. I want a piece of coconut layer cake and I might get it today. I am not going to obsess over these decisions. Do you hear the desperation in my voice? Hear the bravado? My obsession about not obsessing? These are not easy steps for me. I want to think about food and approach food much like Mina does, but it is not something that is intuitive for me. And not very easy. But, I’ve said this before, I don’t have much time to get this all under complete control. I don’t want my girls growing up and being like this. Aunt Mina, yes. Me, not so much.

I have so much more to write about this but that’s for another day.

And last night was fun. We saw The Dark Knight and it was great. Very, very violent but great. Heath Ledger was amazing and he will win the Oscar.

Pictured above, our little ladies in the pool. And Madeline modeling the latest in baby swimwear. Less exposed skin means less sun block we need to put on them.

….My Brain After Too Many Onomatopoeic Words

It’s a family-events centered kind of weekend, saying hello to one side and goodbye to another.

Keith and Mina and Leif and Skye leave for Hong Kong/Japan in less than a week. This is the trip that we vacillated on for a while but ultimately decided not to take part in because I couldn’t imagine setting up shop for an extended period of time halfway across the world with two one-year-olds. I also can’t begin to imagine the terror that is baby jet lag and the horror that is feeding babies with very capricious food tastes and whims. But now that they are leaving I think “That could have been us too.” My dad lives there and seems to have no interest in returning anytime soon so I imagine we will have another chance to go. Nicole’s brother is also in town from Florida with his wife and their daughter for a golf tournament. They are staying on Long Island so we are going back and forth between families.

I will share this next embarrassing story because I’m an over-sharer, even if it makes me look bad. We arrived at Keith and Mina’s on Saturday afternoon. Mina looks at the girls and laughs. We then had this interesting exchange:

Mina: Oh, so cute. Is Maddie all sweaty? [looking at her hair]
Me: No. Why?
Mina: Oh, her hair [touches hair, her hair is crunchy, not wet]
Me: That’s just food in her hair. It makes it stiff and crunchy.
Mina: I want to give the girls bath now. [She proceeds to give the girls a bath.]

It sounds better if you can hear Mina’s Japanese/English accent and if you were there. But the gist of the story is the girls were so dirty that Mina felt the need to bathe them herself immediately. No playing or eating or anything. Baths first. But in my defense Mina experienced firsthand how difficult it is to bathe two babies the same age at the same time.

In more messy news, the girls have graduated from their high chairs to…. New high chairs. We got two Stokke Tripp Trapp seats, the kind that push up to the table and make you feel like you are all eating together. It is, so far, great having them (the girls, that is) closer to the table and across from each other. And I love even more getting rid of the bulky seats that we were using. And now we can fit eight at our table (six big people and two little ones) for ALL those dinner parties we have (note the sarcasm).

We are also transitioning them to eating from bowls. This has so far been a disaster. They love to take the bowls and turn the contents onto the floor. I bought those suction cup bottoms kind but, well, they aren’t exactly living up to expectations or suction, for that matter. Avery and Madeline can easily break the suction and lift the bowls off the table. I am considering using duct tape till they get past this stage, if they ever get past this stage.

Yes, this post is just one exciting development after anther. It can’t all be drama and strife and wedding news, can it? I had awful awful awful dreams last night. They were so real, these dreams. I am afraid I will have them again. So now I have insomnia because I am afraid to go to bed. Which is why I am writing this meandering post.

Tomorrow it’s back to Long Island, and then Date Night back here in the city. Because I can’t keep a secret I told Nicole we are going to see The Dark Knight. I wanted to get tickets for the Imax showing but they are all sold out till next week (unless we want to go to the midnight show or 1:00 pm show). I wanted to keep it all a secret but then I didn’t want her to get her hopes too high up. How disappointed she could be when I say “Surprise! We are going to a movie!” when she was expecting, I don’t know, a private concert with George Michael or something. But the best I could come up with right now is a movie and maybe something delicious from here. I could so go for some coconut layer cake.

Another surprise: I pushed my Everest documentaries to the bottom and put The Golden Compass on top of our Netflix queue for Nicole. The book was recommended by our esteemed Librarian friend. Nicole loved it. Tore through it in a few days and we went to buy Book Two and Three today. On a disturbing note, our ten year old niece received a notification from her [church] school saying that that book was banned reading. It also said that they couldn’t watch the movie. If I had the energy right now, I would get into the stupidity of t but I don’t have the energy right now. Suffice it to say it is stupid. And now I want to take the book and read it in the back pew in full view of all. At her age I was reading Flowers in the Attic and The Thorn Birds and Deenie and Wifey and all sorts of soft porn geared toward lonely housewives or curious preteens and I turned out just fine. If true faith can be shaken by a mere book, than I doubt said faith was that true to begin with.

Pictured above, just a reminder of what we have to deal with when Avery eats. It is ALL over her. Below that, Skye in the tub. She had second shift bath after the girls. And below that. Madeline in her new seat. She looks quite comfortable, don’t you think?

A Dose of Live George Every 20 Years Does a Girlfriend Good

I’m coming down from a George Michael high.

I loved him in the 80s, when he was a part of Wham. On a side note, thanks to my sheltered life, his sexuality never, ever crossed my mind. In those days it was pretty much assumed that every one except Billy Jean King was straight. At least by me. It was normal for men to have gorgeous, flippy hair and to wear very short and very tight shorts. I looked at Boy George and thought, oh, he just likes to dress all flashy and do fun things with makeup and hair. I had a lisping, affected male teacher who wore an ascot and was pretty much the poster man for Stereotypical Gay Man and still I was clueless. I had a mulleted female gym teacher and never really thought she might be gay, either. Richard Simmons was another straight with a very flamboyant style in my fantasy world. I lived in a fancy, label-free world. Such innocent times.

Anyway, back then I used to sing the words to Careless Whisper so emphatically, as if lyrics like “Should have know better than to cheat a friend” and “I feel so unsure as I take your hand and lead you to the dance floor” actually applied to my life. Like I lived those lines a hundred times. Oh my, the histrionics.

I loved him I the 90s, when I was in college, in a time when things on my To Do list included “learn the Hammer dance” and “buy more Fun Tac for new Monet posters” and “figure out which deli has the best muffins.” His album, Listen Without Prejudice, brings me back to those days. It is still one of my favorite start-to-finish albums. Perfect.

The concert was great. He was so energetic, the crowd was so alive, and I have never seen my girlfriend so happy. She actually danced and grabbed me (in a playful, dancing way) at some points. She loved George when she was younger, as did one of her good friends, who came with us to the show. Our seats were beyond amazing. I feel spoiled by such amazing seats because once you have them you never want to sit I the back row again. We were so close I could almost see George’s plastic surgery scars (kidding. I have no idea if he has had surgery, but let’s just say his face has held up very, very well over the years. Hmmm.)

So let’s revisit Nicole for a second. She was in Heaven. Some might say, the Edge of Heaven. Ha. While she is a content person, and has smiley moments like the rest of us, she isn’t one to display feelings of joy or happiness in an effusive way. She is not extravagant with her emotions. She isn’t the type to scream out the lyrics (like me) or dance like a fool (also, me) or add in studio-version song touches (again, me. I hate when concert songs don’t match studio versions to a Tee). But last night she was feeling joy AND showing it. Dancing, screaming, clapping and holding her cell phone in the air in demand of an encore. Anyone who knows her knows this isn’t standard behavior! She chalks it up to her adolescent crush on George. And also because it was 18 years since she last saw him in concert. I had a great time, but she had the time of her life.

We didn’t get home until midnight and, as luck would have it, Madeline woke up and decided she needed, absolutely needed to sleep with us. So she came into our bed and proceeded to try out for the Baby Olympics for at least an hour. If not more. I eventually saw her drift off to sleep, her eyes getting heavy, her breathing becoming deeper and slower, and it is a beautiful thing to see. But I was so tired that I didn’t cherish that moment quite like I should. Instead of thinking awwww so precious and cute I was thinking FINALLY. I didn’t get to sleep really till closer till two in the morning, I’m guessing, and then I was up at 6:00 with the little miss early bird. So it has been a long day.

Nicole and I have a date night on Monday. Last night counted, but not entirely since we had a friend with us. Monday my sister-in-law is coming and we are going out. I have a plan but it is a surprise for Nicole. It is so important for me to have something like that to look forward to. So there is that. And then Nicole took off Tuesday so there is that. And we are going to Florida at the end of August so there is that. And maybe a trip to Northampton in between. And this weekend we will see Leif and Skye, because they will be going (with Keith and Mina) to China and Hong Kong and Japan for the entire month of August. Can you tell my brain is in schedule mode? The more life feels like an endless treadmill and the more my brain starts shifting into overdrive, the more I try to calm myself down by thinking about these things to look forward and the simpler one too, like my coffee in the morning, that, now that I think about it, I need to set the timer.

I have been instructed to stop making Nicole milk shakes. My best effort was a cookie dough milkshake, with real cookie dough and vanilla and brown sugar. And I liked the peanut butter cup one. And the Oreo one. I need to work on consistency so if anyone knows the trick to making them more frothy, please share. On tomorrow’s menu is a Nutter Butter milk shake. And then a pudding milk shake. And then I will heed Nicole’s plea to stop.

Thanks for all of the great comments/stories/words of encouragement in the comments from my last post. It all means a lot to me. And the bathing comments were helpful Believe it r not, I never thought to bathe them one at a time. I think with twins you are just conditioned to think is pairs. And I did bathe with them till about a month ago. Literally me in the tub with the two of them. But I like to relax in the tub after the girls go to bed, so taking a bath with them first sort of sucks the pleasure out of looking forward to my own bath. Yes, I know that I am ridiculous.

I just joined Facebook and opened a NetFlix account. I am finally getting with the times.

Pictured above, us at the concert. And below that, this is how close we were. The pictures suck (we finally got with it a snuggled a small camera in like the rest of the world) but it gets our proximity across.

I’m Making a Molehill Out of A Mountain, She Says. Indeed.

I know. Sorry for the secrecy. I do not appreciate when others do the same on their blog. Because I need to know everything! Unbloggable things drive me crazy! No reader left behind and all.

But sometimes, just when I am ready to open certain emotional valves and let them gush, I chicken out and start thinking way too much about what to share and what not to share.

On one hand, this is my forum, my space, my journal, my life, so I want to be able to write about whatever I want. I do it for cathartic reasons as well as because I like to have a snapshot of my past, a blueprint for my future. And also because I just like to write. But is it my place to expose another’s life, even if it does intersect with mine? If a friend tells me about second thoughts she has about her husband, can I write about that? About how it makes me think about commitments and relationships and how the grass is never greener on the other side? Obviously I would omit names and identifying details, but it still feels like an invasion of her privacy. So I don’t. I censor myself and those thoughts and feelings get bottled up. But if this were a journal I wrote in and kept between my mattress and box spring, you better believe it would include such pontifications.

I haven’t exactly made it a secret that have a difficult relationship with my mother. While this doesn’t make me unique, I do think that some of our circumstances are. When we have a fight or a situation or whatever you want to call it, I get into details with friends, or with Nicole, but these are just little glimpses of moments, peeks behind the curtain, just quick scenes from a life. They hardly tell the whole story. But a moment does not a relationship make. Everyone responds in appropriate ways and then act as my coach or cheering section or just the ear who listens. I am always amazed that most people can intuit exactly what I need in particular moments.

But like the proverbial onion, there are so many layers here. I can tell you about a blow-up, but that hardly presents an accurate picture. And while I like having an outlet, I also want solutions. I want someone to make it better for the future and I want one of those Clorox pens to erase emotional stains of my past.

I read Tori Spelling’s book because I heard that she talked about her notoriously difficult relationship with her own mother in it. I tore through the book at record reading speed (no easy feat with two babies). And I was disappointed, because I irrationally expected Tori (yes, we are on a first name basis) to provide Answers. But she didn’t have any. Her relationship was tattered and stitched and torn and broken and healing and suffering, just like mine. I left wanting more.

And I got more in, of all places, on her reality show. On a recent episode she lamented her relationship with her mother. She looked incredulous as her husband suggested she just cut all ties with her. She looked sad and wounded and hurt. But she really hit the nail on the head when she said that she is excited that she will have a good relationship with her daughter but laments that she never had it herself with her own mother. Yes yes yes. THAT is what her book should have been about. That is what I want to talk about.

So now people like her and me, we embark on motherhood without a roadmap, with the best of intentions and many, many fears. I feel very lucky to be in this position (one of the aftershocks of infertility) but at times I am scared out of my mind. And I still [irrationally] feel like I need to heal the past and protect the future with my mother. This is, after all, one of the most important relationships in our lives. Yet it seems to get the shaft, as we grow up and focus more on relationships with spouses and friends and our own children. A parent has unconditional love for their child, but does a child have to have unconditional love for their parent? To me, a relationship seems lopsided if they don’t. I will love my daughters no matter what. But I expect them to love me too, no matter what. For me, that reciprocity is the ultimate glue in any relationship. Maybe I am alone in that thinking, but I stand by that.

Maybe my expectations are too high and maybe I just have a hard time accepting reality. Maybe I just need to protect myself, my girlfriend and my children. But, in situations like this, what might be best to do isn’t the easiest thing to do.

So now I focus on my own girls. I want my daughters to be proud of me. I want them to love me unconditionally. I want them to be annoyed with me, and get past it. I want them to think of me as a keeper of traditions; a creature of habit; a baker of delicious cookies; a popper of popcorn for movie night; a recorder of their memories. A reader, a writer, someone who does crafty things. I want to be their fan, their coach, their ear and cheering section, as my friends have been for me. Most of all I want to be someone who is always, always there for them. Someone who can slide her own issues and priorities to the back burner for them. As we tell the girls all the time when we play Flying games with the girls, Mommys are always a soft place to land. And I mean that metaphorically as well.

The above title, a comment my mother made to me recently. Hello, Freudian slip. Indeed at times I feel like I take this mountain and reduce it because to deal with it had-on is just way too daunting.

Pictured above, despite everything, will I be able to be a good mother? I look at their little faces and I hope like I have never hoped for anything in my life that I can.

Round and Round and Round and Round I Go

The weekend has come and gone, and not without incident. Why is it we are drawn to bad relationships? Why is it so hard to close doors on certain people? Because I need to live up to my arcane title every once in a while, let me be mysterious and annoyingly coy, but I have to say I am done with the trials and tribulations with one particular person. [Regular readers may have figured out the culprit already. And regular in-the-know readers can read all of the gory details soon in the down-low forum.]

Now it is Tuesday and the fog of the weekend has lifted and it is back to business as usual. My patience is a bit short these past couple of days. Not very auspicious timing, considering I think Avery is teething. I’m not sure, but I put together runny nose and lack of appetite and giant white thing pushing through fleshy gum and came up with teething. I’m a genius. This makes her a bit cranky. And by a bit I mean Good grief just PLEASE just calm down for two seconds. Teething for Avery means she wants constant attention, an impossible feat with two babies. And this teething is coinciding with her desire to climb everything in sight. I mean everything. Now the peek-a-boo game of Where’s Avery? is not so funny when “where” turn out to be on top of the couch or on a table. So it is PAY ATTENTION TO ME plus watch-me-try-to-climb-out-the-window.

People seem to bathe their children far more than I do my own. Meaning, their hair is crusted with food sometimes before I attempt the whole bath thing. I blame my own limitations/desire to not be radically uncomfortable on this. It is hard, minding two slick, squirmy and excited babies who refuse to sit down in the tub. Avery loves the water. She tries to drink it. She like to splash it. And she loves, above all other things, standing up in it. Madeline is more likely to sit on her chunky butt and not move as much. But when she gets it in her mind that it is time to stand there is no telling her otherwise.

Both girls seem to understand no, and gleefully shake their heads back and forth in imitation of me. Both girls also see the word “no” as a chance to turn any activity into a game. Pulling books off the shelf is just a task or chore that they must do with regularity. But as soon as I say NO it becomes The World’s Funnest Game. [Yes, I know “funnest” is not a word.]

So leaning over the tub, at the end of the day, trying to keep the girls safe from porcelain harm is just not my idea of a fun time. A quick survey of others indicated that I am way below the national average of baby bathing. I usually wait for Nicole and we do it together but I know this isn’t fun for her either. I like to have the girls feed and in their pajamas by the time she gets home so we all can just have fun, relaxing family time. Not Bath Hell time.

On a completely unrelated note, I was in the food store the other day and it was hot and I was cranky and tired and weighed down by gallons of milk and juice and other staples that I seem to need to buy on a more than regular basis. I am waiting on line to pay with Avery, who is attempting to Houdini her way out of the now-not-moving stroller and Madeline, who is trying to wrench herself out of the Bjorn. These girls do not like to stop and wait on lines. And this man in front of us looks at Avery and says “Looks like she needs a tissue.” To which I reply “Oh, look at that. I don’t have one.” To which he replies (doesn’t anyone else agree the banter should have stopped there?) “Wow, but she really needs one.” So I lean over (no easy feat with a 23 pound human strapped to you) and lift Avery’s shirt and wipe her nose with her own shirt. Problem solved. Now leave me alone, strange, talkative, nosey, interfering, tissue-obsessed man.

Tomorrow night is the George Michael concert. I am excited. We have amazing seats. Part of me is tempted to sell my ticket (they are going for as much as $1,000 each for our seat area online!) but that wouldn’t be fun, would it. Apparently there is an intermission. I am not sure how I feel about intermissions in a concert. This is a concert, not an opera.

Pictured above, Miss Avery. She looks a wee cranky in the bottom picture, no? She climbed on my lap while I was typing this and pitched a it till I hoisted her up. And she loves to look at herself on the screen, hence why I have thousands of pictures just like these.

It's Bulk Shopping Day and Yes, That excites Me

First, the delicious Northampton donuts came from Atkins Farm market. Those cream-filled ones (vanilla and chocolate) are amazing. Their cider donuts are out of this world. Nicole and I once picked up a bag for Annie and Nancy but ate the entire bag on the car drive back to NYC. We had the best of intentions.

We are off to New Jersey to shop like it is the End of Days. I am meeting up with my sister in law and heading to BJs and the food store and Bed Bath and Beyond and maybe other suburban delights. I will pack the car to the gills and then somehow drive home and unload it all and get the girls in bed in time for their afternoon nap. I love a challenge.

On Wednesday night I went to the Billy Joel Shea Stadium concert with my brother and Leif. Leif was so adorable. He brought a portable telescope to look at the moon! How cute is that?? I said to him that I was excited to share his first concert with him and he said “Is this your first concert too?” Cute. I then told him that his daddy and I used to listen to Billy Joel when we were his age. The Glass Houses album I remember explicitly. I must have been eight or so. Leif let me sing to him and hold his hand and he shared his Cracker jack with me. We ended the evening by running full speed down the ramp.

I felt very, very, very old because during “New York State of Mind, “ a guest joined Billy on the stage. It was Tony Bennett. My brother jabs his finger toward the stage, which is about 6 miles away from our nosebleed seats and says “That’s Tony Bennett!!!” He was excited. This, my brother, who loves classic rock and Led Zeppelin and The Dead and that sort of stuff was excited to see Tony Bennett. The younger Keith might have feigned insouciance, at the very least, even if there was a deep-seeded interest in Tony Bennett. Older us can’t help but show our appreciation for older crooners.

But how fun was it to be in a giant stadium for a concert like that?! I had a great time. The audience cheered when he sang “Oyster Bay” during Billy the Kid (that is the town next to the one I grew up in). We left early because Leif is five and neither Keith nor I wanted to battle mass exodus of a stadium-sized crowd all trying to leave at the same time. Besides, he has tickets for tonight’s show as well.

Avery is full-on climbing up chairs, couches and low tables to reach toys or laps. Nicole says this is a milestone. I am still waiting for them to kiss. I was devastated to see that the lovely Beckett, who is a full two moths younger than the girls, kisses on command. I ask for kisses and the girls just look a me blankly. And Avery still points at the ceiling fan when I ask where is Momma. It occurs to me that I should be spending more time teaching them things, but so far, I am enjoying their learning via osmosis. Very easy for me, them having these sponge-like brains.

I must have some secret, hidden desire to turn Nicole into the size of a house because my latest obsession is making her milkshakes. I like a milkshake every now and then but in general they are no temptation for me. But I really enjoy experimenting with making them. Last night I made a peanut butter one that was really good. I was proud because I made up the recipe myself. I have one planned for tonight as well. I also made a strawberry version and a chocolate version, using some Max Bennet chocolate powder and vanilla ice cream.

I just discovered that Nine Inch Nails make for a great running soundtrack. And Prince’s Let’s Go Crazy seems to be my standard pace.

Pictured above, Madeline loved playing with Beckett, who was winsome and charming. Avery stared at him for a while but eventually warmed up to him. The next day she took to pushing her toys around a la Beckett!

Eat It • All By Myself & Corporate Skullduggery • Binges• Poison

Four things:
1 • Why is it that the little ladies will turn their little button noses up at food when they are in their high chairs, but as soon as they are released and free range again, they will gobble up food from the floor as if they are starving? I really do have a hard time understanding the capricious food whims of children. One day peaches are coveted and eaten with relish (not relish relish, but relish) and the next the carefully cut up peach ends up in the garbage. Pizza seems to be a consistent hit, as well as pasta with red sauce and ricotta. Everything else is on their Thanks For Making Me Chicken Cutlets, But You Can Just Throw That In The Garbage Because I Don’t like It Anymore list. I cannot handle food waste. It seems so…wasteful.

2 • Why is it is took Nicole and I thirteen months to realize that we are not always in after-work, end-of-the-day sync? After a day of being with the girls allllll byyyyyyy myyyyyselffff (that song is in my head), I really look forward to the paradigm shift that occurs when the other mommy comes home. I like the company and family time, first and foremost. But I also like the help. Having the chance to do something while the girls are completely occupied and out of my eyesight is an amazing luxury. Instead of a half hour to fold the laundry, I can power through that task in 15 minutes. I can make dinner without having to relocate little girls who like to get underfoot, literally. I can run down to throw laundry in without strapping a baby on my chest and strapping one in the stroller and dragging the heavy hamper with one hand while pushing the thrashing-about baby in the stroller with another. I can put things away and organize and clean up without feeling like Sisyphus.

But but but, and this is important, after a day of dealing with corporate skullduggery and pressures and hassles, Nicole just wants to come home and not get swept up into the Chores Olympics. She only has about an hour with the girls (if that) before they go to bed and corralling them away from whatever I am doing is not top on her list. I can see that, because as soon as the girls figure out I am doing something as fantastic as folding laundry in the bedroom, they MUST be involved and will bang on the door until they are let in. It becomes an exercise in Relocation and Attempted Distraction, which usually doesn’t end well.

3 • Why is it no one has written the article “Anatomy of a Binge?” If I could magically drum up an extra three hours every day I would write the article myself. Maybe I will. Maybe I will dust off my old journalism credentials and sharpen my pencils and flip open one of those Reporter’s Notebooks and start making some phone calls. Maybe maybe maybe.

The article would talk about how “binge” is relative, so while on one hand, eating 15 pounds of candy for one person might qualify as a binge, eating two big pieces of cake might qualify for another. And both are equally traumatizing for the binger. What I find so interesting about binges is that they are single moments and decisions that set forth a gush of motion that is hard to stop. So after a bad day someone might eat half a pint of ice cream, then go to bed. That’s not so bad, right? But what is bad is that is sets off three weeks of bad choices, misery, despair, feelings of being out of control, depression, and apathy. Well, at least it usually does for me.

I am not in a binge mode now. At the tail end of vacation, I did overdo it on donuts, which lead to the next day of overindulging in my own way, which lead to a third day and maybe a fourth, I don’t remember. And my binge is not textbook scary. But for me, it represents no control, and that is not good. But it is over and done and I have moved on to normalcy and control. I don’t always. Usually I hit the Fuck It wall, and it is a really hard wall to scale.

This phantom article might dissect the reasons why people binge and explain how to get back on track quickly, instead of lingering in that bad place for weeks. Most important, it will explain how a day or two of binge eating (or gym skipping or any unwanted behavior, really) will not destroy your health or body or sanity or mind. We can bend without snapping. That is what I am trying to learn myself.

4 • The final piece of my random pie: Why is it we humans are so drawn to dark, toxic, unsatisfying relationships? I am a participant in a toxic relationship that rears its head every now and then. And when it did rear its head this time, I wanted to rear back in a negative and unhealthy way. But I didn’t. I just left it all as if and walked away. At least for today I did. We will see what happens tomorrow and the ext day and the next. It is so easy to get sucked into the undertow of negative. But for now, I made the right choice.

Pictured above, the donut and cake that spurned a few days of bad choices. It’s kind of pathetic to say that my mind thinks “Well, since I ate two slices of birthday cake, I might as well eat everything until I explode” but I would be lying if I pretended that thoughts like that didn’t cross my mind from time to time.