Daddy Has Legs! Daddy Has Legs!

This morning Thalia drew a picture of Daddy. Daddy holding a whistle. What's particularly impressive about it (no, not the whistle) are the limbs- she's never drawn them before.

"What made you give daddy legs in the picture?"

"So he could play."

"What can you do with legs? What kind of playing?"

"Stand.

"Yes! And what else?'

"Walk."

"What else?"

"Jump!"

"Yes, jump! And what else?"

"Twirl around."

Which I'm sure daddy does often when the rest of us aren't looking.

Soon she's going to be drawing pictures of families that look like we do - a mommy and a daddy and two girls. Maybe twirling. But of course, that's not how all families look.

I just wrote a post over at Wonderland on AlphaMom asking how we describe families to our children when the old definitions become outmoded.

I know a whole lot of readers here have their own cool kinds of families and probably have strong opinions about such things. (Hally. Joanne. Amy. T.) I'd be obliged if you headed over and joined the discussion.

Sleep is For the Weak, Publishing is for the Strong

Last month, Rita Arens handed me an envelope at the BlogHer Business conference. I took it home and opened it, retrieving a thank you note and three crisp twenty dollar bills.

I cried.

That $60 meant even more than paychecks I've received with far more zeros at the end.

There is something immeasurably gratifying about getting paid for your writing, at whatever sum, at whatever level you are. Not writing bad commercials for breakfast cereal although that can be fun too, but writing that comes from your heart. About your life. About things that matter to you not because you're paid to care about them but because they're the fabric of your soul. And that little smirk from a trio of Thomas Jeffersons - or even Abe Lincolns - validates the fact that that even though we all "just write for ourselves" (uh-huh) that it's never really just for ourselves.

If a writer writes in a forest - or, more often, her bedroom at 3 am while the baby screams in the crib next door - and there's no one there to hear...

You may have heard a bit about Sleep is For the Weak, the anthology of essays from parent bloggers that Rita conceived of, assembled, proposed, shopped, defended, tweaked, rewrote, rewrote again and sold to Chicago Press pretty much single-handedly.

This book is the result of one woman doing what most people only ever talk about. That's my kinda woman.

The author list is absolutely amazing - bloggers you know, and bloggers you don't but should. I am honored to be among them, more than you can imagine; when Rita first approached me I hadn't been blogging a year. I was surprised she had even heard of me and I quite literally felt unworthy. I would have certainly contributed for free. I can only wish that any one of you who has ever dreamed of publishing something gets to experience that feeling - and that books like these open the door to make that happen for more of us.

Cut to many months later, sixty dollars, yadda yadda yadda...

tears.

The book won't be on shelves for another few months, but starting today you can preorder on amazon, b&n, and local book shops you can track down through book sense.

And I hope you will. Because the one thing that makes a writer weepy, even more than money, is an audience that actually care what she has to say once in a while.

Misunderstood

I wanna rocket roll all night and I want to have a good day! Alright!

I walked in on Thalia in our bedroom opening and closing one of those cheesy Hallmark cards that plays music when you open it (Happy birthday Nate) and that was refrain she was singing.

I explained the lyrics, even fired up an MP3 on the Mac so she could hear the whole song - but no use. I want to have a good day!

I am having the best time keeping track of Thalia's toddler misunderstandings about the world. I'm pretty sure that she thinks her nickname was Little Bean when she was in my belly because human embryos start out as actual beans. And she thinks foods "full of vitamins" have little purple Dora-imprinted chewables buried in there somewhere.

Along the same lines as the misheard song lyrics, she mismatches nursery rhymes in the cutest way: Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater, eating his curds and whey. Why not? I mean, pumpkin is probably good with a little ricotta.

But my favorite so far: Last week Nate turned a game of Got Your Nose into Got Your Belly Button and Thalia insisted she needed her belly button back right away.

"Why? It doesn't actually do anything."

"But I need it!" she cried.

"What do you need it for?"

"I need it to fart."

Neither of us taught her this. (Shockingly.) She just somehow came to it on her own.

Suddenly I'm reminded of all the misinformation that filled my head in my younger days.

-When I was a kid we had a cleaning woman from Jamaica. She used to describe this beautiful far away island with palm trees and miles of sandy beaches. And yet when I used to hear the local traffic report on 1010WINS describing backups along the BQE to Jamaica, I couldn't imagine how this spectacular island was somewhere hidden right in Queens.

-That old chestnut: Little men inside the television.

-After third grade one day, I ran home indignant about a song we had learned music class. "It was a CHURCH SONG, mommy," I said, the junior liberal in me busting with pride in my ability to bust the proselytizing music teacher.

"It was called Eleanor Rigby."

-The local library gave out sticker maps and we'd get a new state sticker for every book a child took out. The map hung at eye level on our kitchen wall, and is the very reason I thought Alaska and Hawaii were right next to each other, just West of Texas.

-I never entirely understood that classic BeeGee's lyric We can try to understand the New York Times' old anchor man but I sang it that way.

The sad part is, I still sing it that way. It just comes out.

-I have an Aunt Fredda. I thought there was another Fredda out there, a really famous dancer. Her name was Fredda Stare.

-I was certain God was the spitting image of the Lucky Charms Guy.

So what do your kids get wrong now? What did you get wrong as a kid? I'm feeling a little alone in my abject cluelessness here.

Sage, My Sage

Sage,

I've had one year to prepare for today. I've had one year plus a day, this being leap year. And yet somehow I'm blindsided by it.

One? Really? Is it possible?

Forgive any triteness that may follow.

You'd think that one year is long enough to prepare, ample time to know what to say to you today that's not unworthy of the joy and beauty and pure love that is Sage. And yet I find myself hesitant, afraid of finding the wrong words.

As your grandma always said to me, "You are a child for the first time and I am a mother for the first time so we'll just have to learn from each other." I am a second-time mother for the first time and I think the adage holds.

I want so much for you to be your own person, to find your own way, to live independently of the shadow of Thalia. And while I am spending all this time anxious about it, about I realize it's exactly what you have done, with or without my help.

I hope I can help you continue growing into the person you already so clearly are.


I hope you never stop being the confident girl who wants that thing, that one - yeah, that one over there, almost...within...reach... and will stop at nothing to get it.

I hope you never stop being the joyous girl who claps to the beat of any song.

I hope you never stop being the mysterious girl who giggles to herself when no one's looking.

I hope you can always enjoy bread with the abandon you do now.

I hope you never stop being the girl who loves her daddy beyond anything else, even bread.

I hope you never stop being the happy girl who smiles with her whole face. And yet I hope you know that you never owe anyone a smile, and that the ones earned of you are worth far more than the ones given easily.

Most of all, I hope you understand that coming second doesn't mean coming last.

I will always think of Thalia in terms of how she transformed me - she made me a mother. But I will always think of you in how you transformed us all into the family that we are.


I don't always have the time or attention to photograph every single smile, every eyelash flutter, every outreached arm or toothless shriek of joy. I don't write bad poetry to you (for that you will be grateful, trust me) and I don't have a baby book plastered with firsts and nexts and almosts and soons.

What I do have is enormous love for you.

And the willingness to learn from you, Sage my sage.

Know that regardless of when you were born, there are spaces in my heart reserved for you and only you.

This much I am sure. Even after only one year.

Happy birthday Sagey. Your birthday made my Mother's Day.

Toddler Math

Cinnamon toast cut into squares > Cinnamon toast cut into triangles

Cinnamon toast cut into "teeny teeny squares" > Cinnamon toast cut into regular squares

Cinnamon toast cut into triangles > Cinnamon toast cut into squares one day a week*
*That day changes at random and you will not be notified of such change until after the squares have been cut

Cinnamon toast cut into triangles then reassembled into squares ≠ Cinnamon toast originally cut as squares

Cinnamon toast your sister is eating > Cinnamon toast you are eating, regardless of shape

Cinnamon toast: Breakfast :: Gun: Mommy's Head

On Ninety

Age can be beautiful and age can be brutal.

Spending the weekend with my grandmother, now 90+2 days was the former.

Ninety. Nine-freaking-ty.

Momsie is smart, she's strong, she's in better shape than friends ten year her junior who attended her birthday party, some of whom were making shapes with their spines that defied imagination.


It was much the same way I felt at a family wedding last Fall; when you gather in any sort of multigenerational setting, things become clear. Your purpose on this planet seems undisputable and the meaning of life suddenly has little to do with either money or chocolate.

Your heart is full.


Even so I couldn't help but feel a gnawing in my soul, just something that didn't feel quite right. It took the weekend down 6% from perfect. It took until now to realize what my body knew before my head.

When you're in the presence of ninety, your mind works differently. You exist in a constant state of wonder - whether this will be the last hello. The last goodbye. The last photo snapped. The last old story retold, laughed at, and set to rest. The last time you look down at your hands wrapped in hers. The last time you smell her hair or collapse into her strong arms or take in the sensation of her nails gliding up and down your back. The last time you open her refrigerator and hope for Andes candies with the mint in the middle. The last time you make fun of her for never kissing anyone on the lips.

"Ninety," I kept repeating. "What more can you ask for?"

I think I said as much as an acknowledgment that life doesn't go on forever. It just doesn't. And as much as we're all blessing her good health and the triumph of ninety, there's an end to it all that's painful and imminent. I said it because if I can acknowledge it before happens, maybe it won't hurt me as much when it does.

I have a concrete block in my gut as I write these words. It makes my palms moist and my chest tight and my bowels loose. It makes my arms tingle and my stomach turn. It makes that burning sensation rise up from the back of my eyeballs and slowly slide to the front. But I know ninety.

I remind myself that it can happen at sixty. It can happen at thirty. It can happen at six, God forbid. Life is unpredicatble. And so we celebrate the miracle of life and the beauty and glory and brilliance and great luck and genetic blessing that is ninety.

We sing and we dance and we tell our stories. We hug and we love. We kiss, but never on the lips. We place the children in the lap of ninety for many, many photos.

And hope to do the same at ninety-one.

Showering the People I Love With Love, and James Taylor Lyrics

I just finally got my clothes unpacked from San Francisco (seriously, I'm the world's laziest unpacker) and now I'm back on the road again. The Sunshine State is so far living up to its moniker, and hopefully the weather holds for tonight's revelry in honor of my grandmother's 90th birthday.

Nine-Oh.

I come from strong stock. Don't count me out just yet.

Though the internet suckage at the hotel is widespread, I wanted to take four minutes to ask you all to hit the Two's A Charm Baby Shower and wish a hearty WHOO to three pregnant blogmamas extraordinare and offer up some assvice for second-time mamas, even win a few rockin' door prizes courtesy Cool Mom Picks. (Seriously, the prizes are great.)

I feel hardly equipped to give great advice, as I'm still finding my way through this mom of two world. So I'll pass on the best advice I got at my own virtual shower from Citymama last year: If the first one needs your attention, give it to her. The baby will never remember if you ignore him or her. Sure enough, it's true. Although I will add that eventually that baby grows up and you can't just leave her lying in a bassinet when she's 8.

And I will give my own helpful L&D tip: Do NOT for any reason forget to pack yourself a couple of peanut butter sandwiches before you head out. Those sandwiches, eaten moments after the birth of each of my girls, were seriously the best of my life.

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One more thing before I head down to the swimming pool which Thalia has been begging for for 18 hours straight: Do not miss Thank a Stranger, a brilliant new blog that counterbalances all the whining, complaining, sniping, and snarking on the internet.