Just a while ago on this very night . . .

“Goodnight Laura.”

“Goodnight Mommy. Merry Christmas. Kiss my ass. Kiss his ass. Kiss your ass. Happy Hanukkah.”

And to think that if we’d made it our tradition to watch “It’s A Wonderful Life” each year, we would have missed that precious moment tonight.

I Make No Apologies

While whiling away another half of an hour engaged in one of our favorite family activities, I was impressed enough with Laura’s answer to one of the clues that I once again took a picture of our T.V. screen so that I could brag about it. I mean, blog about it, of course.


“Gilligan’s Island,” Laura answered to the clue above. She offered her reasoning: “Skipper calls Gilligan his little buddy. I saw the words ‘buddies’ and ‘island.’ I thought that ‘Gilligan’s Island’ could be the answer.”

Not only is Laura’s logic sound, but I think she’s right! I’ve managed to convince myself that I remember an episode in which the seven stranded castaways were laughing at the beards of the local chieftains from a neighboring island whose attention had been attracted by Mrs. Howell’s interest in drums just before Gilligan’s mouth became a radio and the Professor tried to cure Skipper’s amnesia with hypnosis.

Thanksgiving 2006

Photos from Thanksgiving Day at Grandma & Grandpa's house:
(Note to Grandpa: Click once on each photo to see it enlarged.)

Laura

Kristen

Courtney (She spent Thanksgiving in Minnesota.)

Cousins Laura and Emerson

Cousins Ian, Kristen and Jessica

"Everyone is paying attention to Emerson."

Adam to the rescue.

Why have pumpkin pie when you can eat dirt & worms?

This one's for you, Grandpa.

If You Give a Juggler a Pancake

If you give a juggler a pancake, he’ll want two more to go with it. You’ll give him two more pancakes. He'll probably start to juggle them, so he'll want an audience. He’ll ask you to take some pictures. When you start taking pictures, he’ll ask you to make it a video. When you make it a video, he’ll probably ask you to show it to him right away. You’ll have to download it onto your computer. The downloaded video will remind him of YouTube. He will wish his video was there. He might suggest you upload it. He’ll look all happy about the idea. He’ll stand near the computer looking hopeful. When he’s standing by the computer, he’ll think about checking his emails. He’ll go check them. He’ll probably have to answer some of them. When he’s all done, he’ll come back and ask if you’ve uploaded the juggling video. When you tell him that you did, he’ll ask to see it. Once he has seen it, he’ll probably want you to post it on your blog. So you’ll have to think of a clever way to include it. When you’ve finished writing a clever post (clever being a subjective term), he’ll be happy. He won’t be happy about how clever the post is, but about his video being the subject matter of it. Then he’ll want to know if you sent the link to his friends and family. You’ll tell him that you did. Then he’ll want to watch the video again. And chances are, while he’s sitting at the computer watching himself juggle pancakes on YouTube, he’ll be juggling the three balls that he keeps at his desk for just that purpose.



This post was inspired by the series of books written by Laura Numeroff and illustrated by Felicia Bond.

The Right to Arm Bears

Tom’s status as my favorite husband remains secure. He may not always notice when there are less than four squares of TP hanging on the roll, but he’s a dandy guy to have around when you’ve got some children in need of rearing. On Tuesday night last week, I ran into the father of one of Laura’s school friends in Trader Joe’s. He told me that he was taking his daughter on a YMCA Adventure Princess (a group formerly known as Indian Princesses, the father-daughter version of the group formerly known as Indian Guides) camping trip that weekend, and that he thought that Tom and Laura would really enjoy it. I told him that it was so kind of him to think of them, but that Tom really isn’t a camping sort of guy. He went on to explain that this trip would involve cabins and indoor plumbing, canoes, climbing walls, quality father-daughter time, and (for the sake of not outing a great group of guys who take their daughters to Y camp), let’s just say “tasty beverages” during poker after the kids are asleep. He encouraged me to have Tom call him, and while I didn’t think there was much of chance that my corporate-lawyer husband would hitch up the wagons for a spontaneous camping trip in the mountains, Tom did call that very night. And I only encouraged him a tiny, little bit. ;) And then that very night Tom decided that he and Laura would join the tribe and go camping (cabining?). I know Tom’s a great dad, and I’d like to think I’m a great mom, but I’m tossing and turning on my 400-thread-count sheets just thinking about camping with the Brownies, an event that looms in my Girl Scout Co-Leader future. So hats off to Tom for making the sacrifice to give his child an enriching experience, fun with her friends, and quality father-daughter time! (I personally think it was the “tasty beverages” part that won Tom over, but still.)

For the sake of his child, Tom went for two nights without much sleep, slept in a bunk bed in a room with three six-year-olds and two other dads (one whose tribe name is “Snoring Bear”), and shared one bathroom with fifteen people. Tom and Laura came home filthy dirty (no opportunity for showers when fifteen people share a single bathroom), but the pile of laundry wasn’t so bad since it appeared that they mostly wore the same clothes for two days and nights. And even with all of that, Tom said that he and Laura had a great time. There was bead trading, there was hiking, there were campfires, and all of the stuff that you might expect at such a camp. Although the passion in a marriage will naturally ebb and flow throughout the years, I must say that when Tom came back I looked at him with a renewed gleam in my eye. And it wasn’t because of the pungent pheromones produced by his unshowered body. No, I felt all smitten and in love because this man, my husband, truly loves his daughter, and acted selflessly to demonstrate it. Laura came back and told me that she learned “six sayings” and that one of them was “Make your dad your forever friend.” How cool is that? One of my most fervent wishes for my children (along with health, happiness, and a graduate degree) is that they marry someone who treats them the way that Tom treats all of us.

Tom said that the weekend also provided him with one of his proudest moments as a father, which happened when the activity of target practice was discussed, and Laura turned to him and said, “Daddy, what’s a rifle?” Now it isn’t that we believe in gun control around here. We don’t. In our family we believe in gun elimination. I know that there are some who do not share our views, but isn’t it nice that we can all have different views and still peacefully coexist in our world? ;) Yeah, yeah, we know all about the second amendment and the reasons for it. Tom and I happened to study the U.S. Constitution in law school. But folks, we don’t need to hunt for food anymore, and while I know all of the arguments (the right to protect your home from criminals, security against totalitarian regimes,* etc.), statistically, the main purpose guns serve in our society is to shoot defenseless animals for sport, commit violent crimes, murder people, and accidentally kill gun owners’ children. Laura didn’t know what a rifle is because we’ve never let her play with even a toy version of a gun. Imagine what the world would be like in twenty years if every child born from today on never knew what a gun was.

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

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*Like the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, you know, those totalitarian regimes that have had gun control for years.

We the People

I’m sure people used to say odd things to me or ask personal questions about Kristen and Courtney when they were little dudes, but I don’t remember. They were little dudes way back before perimenopause took control of my brain. Now I walk into a room and don’t remember what I came in to get, so how am I going to remember what some stranger might have said to me a dozen or so years ago? But on a fairly regular basis, I get some of the strangest questions about Laura, and I wonder if strangers have always been so personal with other strangers, or might this be recent phenomena in society? I don’t think it necessarily strange that a stranger might be wondering such things (although, get a life, and think about something useful), but I think it strange that a stranger would actually ask such questions of another stranger. So I’ve been pondering for some time why it is that someone, someone I may be standing behind in line at Trader Joe’s, someone whose table might be next to mine at a restaurant, someone whose name I don’t even know, asks a question that I wouldn’t even ask someone I knew. The kind of personal information that you might only find out about someone after the person felt that he or she knew you well enough to share it.

How personal are the questions to which I refer? How about the one that I often get asked during the summer, when Laura and I are out and about without Tom in tow? I have been asked more than once, in a hushed tone, “What ethnicity is her father?” or “Is her father of another race?” By way of explanation for the question, not an excuse for the behavior of the questioner mind you, but for the record, Laura does have lovely, dark, olive skin, and it gets particularly tanned during the summer despite the gobs of dermatologist-approved sunscreen that I zealously slather all over her. But sheesh people out there, so the kid has dark skin. Why do you need to know the ethnicity of her dad? What earthly reason would anyone ask this question? My husband happens to be a WASA (that is, White Anglo-Saxon Atheist), but I think people who ask such questions, particularly in hushed tones, should be kept guessing. So I deliver my standard, cheeky answer, in an innocent tone of voice, “My husband is American.”

Now I come to my personal “favorite” personal question. Let’s say I’m standing in Target and a woman sees me buying an item that is clearly for a child, say a Polly doll, a pair of size 6X jeans, or Goldfish crackers. She’ll ask, “Do you have children?” Now this kind of question is part of the small talk that women in line at stores make, the small talk that briefly connects those of us who might spend any number of hours each day without adult human contact. I say yes and almost inevitably the next question is, “How old?” Experience has taught me that it’s likely to get interesting from here. I reply that I have a twenty-two-year-old, a twenty-year-old, and a six-year-old. And then, here it comes, hold onto your mouse pad, the inquisitor poses this question: “Was the little one planned?” Or even better and more to the point, I am sometimes asked, “Was your youngest an accident?” I mean, think about the implications of this question! Was I too lazy or too stupid to use birth control? Still, I always truthfully reply with a smile, to a face that will go from inquisitive to skeptical in seconds flat, that we had wanted our youngest for a very long time before we were lucky enough to finally have her. But Blog This Mom! Reader, do you know what I really want to say? I want to give an answer that’s just as personal and intimate and inappropriate as the question. I am simply dying to one day say, “Did we plan to have her? Was she an accident? Darn right she was a boo-boo! It all started, I suppose, when I had been delinquent about taking my birth control pills for a few days, here and there. You know how that can be! Then one night we drove home drunk as skunks and barely made it into the house. If fact, we were so drunk that we couldn’t get upstairs to the bedroom where we have our trapeze and silk handcuffs, so we had to get our groove on right there on the living room rug. Of course, once we got going, we sure as heck didn’t want to stop to put on a condom! I mean, if we were going to stop to put on a condom, then we might as well have stopped to put on our cheerleader and football player costumes too. No, we didn’t stop! Nothing ruins spontaneous sex more than responsible birth control. Don’t you agree? Part of the fun is taking the risk! Besides what are the chances of a pregnancy resulting from unprotected sex anyway? Then, just a month or so later, I realized my period was late. My periods are usually right on time, but I’ll spare you the details of my menstrual cycle, as I’m sure you wouldn’t want to hear such personal information. So, sure enough, we had ourselves an unplanned pregnancy, and nine months later we gave birth to our little accident! Now, of course, we’re stuck with her, but what can you do? Shit happens.”

I know these kinds of questions happen to other people. I know that people whose babies’ skin color isn’t an exact match of theirs, people whose babies aren’t neatly spaced apart every couple of years, people whose babies have two moms or two dads get personal and stupid questions. And so I thought about it, and decided that I have a choice. I can’t stop the bonehead questions, but I can do something about how I perceive the reason behind the questions. And, most importantly, I have control over how those questions affect my emotions and reactions.

I think that part of the reason that these questions get asked is because people are trying to find personal connections in a society that finds them slipping away a little bit at a time. People used to sit on their front porches while their children played hide-and-seek around the neighborhood. Now everyone is in their backyards. People used to drop in for coffee, or catch up during telephone conversations. Now we sit behind computers and send emails or comment on each other’s blogs. Kids used to knock on the door to see if other kids could play every day after school. Now only the occasional play date is arranged, by moms, well in advance, to accommodate busy schedules. I’m not saying that these changes are all bad. I’m just as much a part of this society as the next mom. I love email! I love my backyard! My kid has a busy schedule! But sometimes I too want to connect. And although it might be done in a cloddish way, perhaps the stranger asking me a personal question just wants to connect too. So if I choose to spin an insensitive question into something positive, then maybe I can respond good-naturedly, and teach the stranger—and, more importantly, my listening child—a little lesson in graciousness. But if I allow such insensitive remarks or questions to annoy or anger me, then I’ll be reacting to, and therefore allowing myself to be controlled by, a tactless stranger. I’m not giving up my power and grace that easily, at least not on my good days, and certainly not with my kid watching.

IN WHICH She Brags About Her Youngest Child Without Even a Smackerel of Humility

It has been said before that we regularly enjoy a rousing round of Jeopardy in our household. A few nights ago, we gathered around the TV to vie, as we are wont to do, for the coveted position of being the first in the family to answer clues in the form of a question. With the big girls away at college, unless it is Kid Jeopardy (or Celebrity Jeopardy, which has easier clues than Kid Jeopardy), it is mostly Tom and me belting out answers these days, although the little one does hang out and sponge up information. Perhaps Tom and I still shout out answers to try to impress the other, but we’ve been married long enough that mostly we just end up impressing ourselves when one comes up with the correct answer to some esoteric clue. Still, we are always eager to be impressed by our youngest child, anytime, anywhere, and she never disappoints us in this regard. So it was that Tom and I got all giddy the other night when Laura belted out a couple of answers all on her own. And they weren’t just the cheesy $200 clues either. In short order, the kid made us feel pretty good about what we’ve been spending on her tuition. In fact, I got so swollen with pride that after Jeopardy concluded, I rewound the episode on the DVR and took pictures of the clues on the screen so I could blog about it. Sure I’ve been known to post an entry or two or three in which I brazenly, blatantly and unabashedly behave as a blogging braggart about my child’s accomplishments. But in furtherance of my ongoing effort to reach that ever-elusive state of self-actualization, I have decided that it is time to begin working Step One, i.e., admitting that I am powerless over my mommy blogging tendencies. Although I’m not sure I really want to recover from this proclivity any more than I want to recover from my recent penchant for the Perfect Gay Cosmopolitan.* Don’t you have to want to be helped before the recovery process can even begin?






Anyway, I’ll post the answers to these clues in the Comments section, so you can try your hand at answering them without peeking. Also, a big shout out to Laura’s darling and dedicated piano and first grade teachers. Without you two, this post would not have been possible.

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*The Perfect Gay Cosmopolitan is distinguished from its “straight” counterpart by its fresh-squeezed lime juice and higher ratio of vodka to other ingredients.

Halloween II

The big sisters dressed up for Halloween too.

Adam and Kristen celebrated Halloween with 5000 of their closest friends:


Never mind what they tell you on campus tours when you're checking out colleges with your high-school sophomore, ALL colleges are party schools, if your children are so inclined. Thankfully, my middle child does not engage in party games. Rather, my child is the referee. Grant and Courtney on Halloween:

Trick or Treat

I singlehandedly (no pun intended) carved the "creepy" pumpkin. Laura drew the face and helped Tom carve the traditional jack-o-lantern. And Mr. Potato Head has apparently gotten in touch with his inner queen by the looks of that white pumpkin.



I took off my splint and proved that my finger cannot be broken after all because I was able to create this hairdo, which I think we can all agree looks quite like the original 'do created by the team of professionals at MGM studios back in 1939. My finger is better, but I am now suffering with acute arm strain from patting myself on the back.




As you'd probably surmised from the hair, Laura was Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. And that's me dressed as the Scarecrow.


Laura went trick-or-treating with Henry. Every girl should be so lucky as to have her own personal dragon ninja to escort her safely around her neighborhood on Halloween night.


I think we need a "pick-a-title-for-this-photo" contest. Here's my vote: "A Trick-or-Treater in a Mike Wasowski Costume Tried to Get Fresh with Laura so Henry Ate Him!" Leave a Comment with your entry. :)


Laura was delighted with the similarly costumed girls whom she referred to as "partners." The first picture is of Laura and a random child we came across while trick-or-treating. The other is of Laura and her friend Sharon at their school Halloween party.



I can't help but think that somewhere over the rainbow on each and every Halloween since 1969, Frances Ethel Gumm reclines on her fluffy white cloud and gazes down upon the Earth with great amusement at all of the little Dorothy Gales in pigtails and ruby slippers who walk through their neighborhoods, not in pursuit of courage, hearts, or brains, but rather in pursuit of that immediate gratification in a wrapper, which we outside of Emerald City call candy.