The Great Escape
So a few nights ago Lydia was having trouble going to sleep. I should mention that Lydia never has trouble going to sleep: a book, a few minutes of gentle pat, and boom, she’s all, “Noo night, Mommy. Sweet dreams. Don’t bee bite. See you in the morning.” (chalk “Don’t bee bite” up to the list of words and expressions I can’t bring myself to correct. The list also includes “moppy show you” instead of “let me show you,” “tabamas” for pajamas, “rumberband,” etc.)
So we’re sitting in the office watching the start of Breaking Bad and half-listening to her crying and shouting “Mommy Mommy Mommy” when all of a sudden the “Mommy Mommy” gets significantly louder, and there she is in the doorway. Those of you who have older children may not remember how utterly disconcerting it is to suddenly SEE your toddler in the flesh when for her entire life, once she went to bed, she’s never been anywhere else. Well, let me remind you. It’s so discombobulating it must be like those theatre-goers felt the first time they broke down the fourth wall. Shit just got real, yo.
So we put her back in the crib, and five minutes later, out she clambers. We mutter a few expletives, pull her mattress out of the crib and set it up on the floor so that she doesn’t kill herself, rig up a new configuration of safety gates so that she only has access to her room and the adjacent bathroom, do an extended 20 or 30 minutes of patting, book reading, etc., and head upstairs. Not five minutes later, we hear her door open and then the unmistakeable sound of a toddler scaling a safety gate like a monkey. By the time Ryan has gotten downstairs, she’s gotten her stool from the kitchen, carried it to the other safety gate, and is attempting to use it to scale that gate and get to us–at least, I assume she was trying to get to us. Perhaps she saw it as her one chance to make it to freedom.
This moment–the darkened hallway, the small white stool, the toddler with one chubby leg thrown over the pet gate we use because we were too cheap to buy another real childproofing gate–marked a very sad turning point in our parenting lives. As our eyes met hers, we knew we could no longer rely on each evening being free for us to do whatever we want. Now, she could come to us. She could find us, asleep or awake. She could demand things from us, even at night. It was, frankly, horrifying.
Cocker spaniel, toddler...what's the difference?
The next 48 hours did nothing to lessen our fears. The only way she’d even stay in her room was if one of us was in there with her, and even then she tossed and turned on that mattress like the world’s worst insomniac, while one of us sat hostage in her armchair nearby. After a good 45 minutes or so, I’d try to move, only to see her little head pop up like a prairie dog as she said, “Mommy, STAY DERE.”
The night was endless. We patted, we sang, we cajoled, we bribed, we yelled, we ignored, we entreated. Nothing worked. For two nights in a row none of us slept more than a few hours.
She's staring...why won't she stop staring?
And so, on the advice of some very savvy parents, we ordered ourselves what has turned out to be The Greatest Gift Of All: The Tots In Mind Cozy Crib Tent II. Thanks to the wonder of Amazon Prime, it arrived today in time for nap time. I was prescient enough to spend the entire morning talking about it: “Lydia, you’re getting a PRESENT today! It’s a TENT! For your CRIB! It’s a BIG GIRL TENT and it’s SO FUN!” The ruse worked, and even though it took me thirty-five looooong minutes to set it up, she maintained her enthusiasm for it. “Look look look, Mommy! A zipper! I going to go in the tent and read a book and gentle pat and then I going to go to sleep and Mommy is going to zip me up and then I’m going to go to sleep for a long long time and Mommy going to sit in the chair!” And all of it–except for me sitting in her chair, thank God–has come to pass. I got her set up in there for her nap, and that’s where she is, caged in her little toddler shelter, much like Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. And you know what? I feel GREAT. She’s sleeping soundly for the first time in days, and I’m no longer mistaking the sound of passing geese as her crying out for me as she plunges to her death down our staircase in the dark. If it lasts for a month or even just a couple of days, it will have been worth it. It turns out we just weren’t quite ready to be big girls yet.
Why does the Tots In Mind model look so feral?
A Very American Girl Christmas 2011
When I found out we were having a girl, there were a few things I was immediately psyched about experiencing with my child.
- Rereading Anne of Green Gables, my all-time favorite series.
- Being able to pretend that I was at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando “for my child” so that no one would know how desperately I’ve always wanted to go to Hogwarts and drink butterbeer.
- Doing arts and crafts, especially the tedious and boring kinds like embroidery and quilting.
- Helping my daughter select her very own historically appropriate American Girl doll and reading the books* together.
Oh, Anne, when you cracked that slate over Gilbert's head I only wished I could be as spunky as you.
*(The astute reader will notice a theme here. In case you didn’t catch it, the theme is Let’s Make Our Daughter A Giant Nerd.)
Now, I realize that nothing makes a book or activity less appealing than a parent’s naked, overwhelming desire for their child to like/engage with it, so I knew that when Lydia was finally old enough for me to introduce her to my favorite childhood activities, I’d have to play it cool. Harry’s Marauder’s Map not the single coolest thing you’ve ever heard of? Cross stitch not immediately your #1 pastime? No problem, I can roll with that. I’m chill…or maybe I’m “chillaxed” if that’s what the kids are saying these days. You go and do your texting…or your field hockey…find your own bliss. I’ll be right over here reading Anne of Avonlea for the 80th time.
But I’ve got to tell you, the waiting is practically killing me. At what age is it appropriate to start reading your kid a—let’s face it—slow-paced chapter book about an orphan growing up in Canada? My hunch is Lydia will have to be seven or eight to truly appreciate it. And historical dolls like Kit and Ruthie: “resourceful girls living in the Great Depression?” The website says ages 8+. That gives me five years, minimum, before I can begin Operation Nerdify.
So imagine my excitement at learning that the marketing wizards at American Girl have introduced a new line of dolls specifically for toddlers. And how did I learn of these dolls? Let me paint the scene for you. I was at the gigantic Natick Collection with my friend Emilie, who shares my abiding love for American Girl dolls and has a six-year-old girl for whom she has purchased a doll and many, many accessories. (So many accessories, in fact, that upon returning home after a different visit to the store, she wrote the following email: “I spent a shameful amount of money which I justify by saying that I will space out the gifts between Christmas and birthday. I’m just happy that my husband didn’t make me set up the four-poster doll bed to sleep on.”) Emilie and I go to American Girl to buy presents for Emilie’s daughter. I casually mention that I wish I could buy something for Lydia, but that she is is too young. Emilie says, “Does she have a Bitty Baby? They’re made for kids her age.”
Those juice boxes are actually filled with heroin--it's the only explanation for my behavior.
I go immediately to the Bitty Baby section where I promptly lose all sanity and sense of reason. I’m like a sex addict in a whorehouse. I find an adorable doll with brown hair and eyes—just like Lydia! I find a Sleepover Snack Pack, which is like a tiny backpack for the doll complete with tiny juice boxes and a petite Tupperware filled with microscopic Cheerios. I find a Potty Training Set with little underwear and tissues—what awesomely proactive parent could not buy this for their toddler? I find a Winter Play Outfit and a backpack for Lydia to wear that has a Bjorn attachment for the doll. She can wear her doll. I mean, how can I not buy this? I exit the store, Sherpa-like, my gigantic red shopping bag filled to the brim.
Ryan, understandably, cannot understand what has happened to me. He watches skeptically as I wrap all the gifts and suggests that we dole them out to her over Hanukkah and Christmas, so as not to overwhelm her. I agree, calculating that that means I can play with Lydia can play with the doll four days earlier that way.
So, in a scene that hopefully does not portend future scenes, we give her the doll on the first night of Hanukkah. I am practically shaking with excitement, so badly do I want to share this experience with my daughter.
A PRESENT!, she shrieks when we tell her she can open one. A PRESENT, A PRESENT, as she rips off the wrapping paper. OH, A BOX!, she squeals as the paper comes off. “No Lydia,” we say, “the present is inside the box.” She opens the box. “A DOLLY!!” she says. I’m thrilled—it is the Inaugural Moment in the handing down of my favorite experiences. I take the doll out of the box and pretend to rock it before handing it over to Lydia.
She looks from me to the doll with what I can only describe as distaste. I pick the doll up and pretend she is jumping and dancing. I say, sweetly, “Lydia, should we read the doll her book?” She says, “No, Mommy. JUST LYDIA.” and puts the doll back in the box. “DOLLY STAY HERE.” And she snuggles up next to me, just the two of us, the Bitty Baby interloper out of sight and out of mind.
Tomorrow we’ll give Lyd the Potty Training Set. I’m going to take my own advice and pretend I don’t even like it, that I don’t want put those cute undies on under Dolly’s tights so that Dolly can feel like a big girl. Maybe that way Lydia will think it’s cool. And then in a few years, I’m going to say, “Hermione? What a loser. Who would want to read about her?” so that Lydia can come to it in her own way, if at all.
Because after all, that’s the mature thing to do.
No dolls were played with during the writing of this post.
32 Hours In a Car With Our Toddler
And they said it couldn’t be done. A few weeks ago, we took our very first family road trip with Miss Lydia, and we didn’t bother easing her into it: thirty-two hours from Boston to Myrtle Beach and back, done over 4 days. Here’s what we learned:
1. There are a LOT of Cracker Barrels on I-95.
2. Comfort Suites = awesome. For $100/night, we stuck Lydia in her own room, closed the door, and watched trashy television until all hours (okay, 10pm. But still).
3. Lydia may generally have the attention span of an ant, but she sure can watch a lot of Yo Gabba Gabba. In fact, she probably watched as many episodes of Yo Gabba Gabba as there were Cracker Barrels we could have stopped at. We just rigged the iPad up on the back of the seat in front of her and let her watch as much as she wanted; this turned out to be every episode of seasons 1 and 2.
4. The thinking adult’s take on Yo Gabba Gabba? On Day 1, Foofa’s high-pitched, breathy starlet voice got stuck in our heads and made us want to die. On Day 2, Brobee’s whining and bad attitude made us want to stick forks in our eyes. On Day 3, Toodee’s bossy, overbearing and obviously fake enthusiasm made us contemplate throwing the iPad out of the car. But by Day 4, we both agreed that, really, Muno is the worst character of all, partially because he’s shaped like a gigantic ribbed condom, but mainly because he’s like that kid you never wanted to be friends with when you were young but somehow guilt always made you be nice to him. We hated that kid, and by the end of our trip, we hated Muno.
Get a life, Muno.
To truly capture the experience, we made a short film. 32 hours distilled into five minutes. Enjoy!
You Say Betweeny, I Say Bikini…
*Note to my three male readers: This post is about bikini waxes. If that grosses you out, stop reading!
Trust me, that's going nowhere good.
I’m a low-maintenance kind of gal. Seriously. Yes, I have my high maintenance moments (shopping binges at Anthropologie in advance of work conferences, $120 highlights so that I can pretend I’m still a natural blond, penchant for shampoo sold only at high-end salons, etc. etc.) But there are moments when I get a window into the world of true high-maintenance behavior, and these moments make me intensely glad I’m not more obsessed with personal grooming.
Take Sunday as an example. Due to the PTSD I incurred from my last budget bikini wax, during which I was forced to lie on a previously used piece of waxed paper that had bits of wax and hair clinging to it and after which my skin actually bled and got puffy and swollen and completely negated the point of the waxing, I decided to go high end. I chose a fancy downtown salon and booked my appointment online (bonus: I didn’t have to talk to anyone!) It was $35 for a bikini wax, which seemed reasonable considering the previously mentioned Journey-To-Hades wax job was probably $20 (memory dims, or perhaps has been blocked out).
It seemed reasonable until I was doing it. Yes, the salon was VERY nice, all ecru and Tiffany blue with quirky little ad campaigns all over the place with waxing definitions for terms like “Landing Strip,” “Full Monty,” or “Bermuda Triangle.” (If you have to ask, you’ll never understand.) The salon employee (waxer?) who was helping me was sweet and funny, keeping up a chirpy banter throughout the procedure that made me, for whole seconds at a time, able to not focus on the fact that I was naked from the waist down, sprawled on a vinyl table, having hot wax in the salon’s signature blue shade smeared on my cooter and then ripped off with eyeball-watering efficiency.
The entire procedure–from the first undignified moments of being shown the Tidy Towel that the salon makes available for all bikini wax victims patrons and which I was told I could use “if I needed to” (who would choose NOT to use the Tidy Towel? Is anyone that confident in their personal hygiene regimen?), to the final moments where the poor salon employee was bent over me, doing a final check for any wax that hadn’t gotten ripped off successfully–took fifteen minutes. $35 for fifteen minutes of pain, agony and humiliation. And, I contemplated as I got dressed, some women do this every WEEK! That’s over $2,000 a year if you’re a good tipper. Which I am, when it comes to people touching my vajayjay.
Luckily, I’m an old married mom, so my days of wearing thong bathing suits are far behind me–not that I ever wore them. In fact, I’ve discovered these wonderful swim shorts that I wear all summer long for my dips in the river with Lydia: you never need a bikini wax and only moderately resemble a Victorian lady in full swimming costume. Perfect! So it’s really only when I go on vacation to sunny locales that I submit to the torture of the wax, and I’m glad of it. That’s $2,000 that I can spend on whatever the hell I want, and no matter what it is, it’s GOT to be more enjoyable than hair removal.
So, feeling pretty great about myself and my thrifty hygiene regimen, I went downstairs to the checkout desk, where I was rung up for $50.
“I thought it was $35,” I said.
“Oh, no, a Bikini wax is $35. What you got is a Betweeny, and that’s $50.”
I vaguely remembered my perky waxer saying, towards the end of our time together, “This is called a Betweeny! Doesn’t it look great?” and me agreeing with her that, yes, my irritated red skin looked fantastic.
“Um, okay, but when I signed up online I chose the $35 one. I never would have paid $50.”
The salesperson looked at me with what seemed like pity. “Did she take off too much?”
“NO! No! She was fine! It was fine! She just didn’t tell me how much it would cost.”
“Did she say it was a Betweeny?”
“Well, yeah, I think she used that word, but I had no idea what it meant.”
And this was the moment that I realized how glad I am to be low maintenance. Here I was, standing in an airy and beautiful salon, with a lemon sage aromatherapy candle wafting perfume all around me, arguing about how much money I had just spent on my pubic hair. And the reason I was arguing about it was that, during the fifteen minutes of shame I’d just endured, I hadn’t cued in to the magic word “Betweeny” and somehow known it would tack on fifteen bucks to my bill.
So Reader, after a few more moments of halfhearted complaining, I paid it. And I tipped 20%. Because I’m low maintenance…or a moron. All I know was that I would have paid $100, if it had gotten me out of there any faster.
Watch out Myrtle Beach, here I come!
Come Here and Give Your Mother a Hug
Lydia’s always been a snuggler. As a newborn, she wanted to sleep on us, and as she has gotten older she still has a snuggling mode that she goes into when she’s tired or nervous or shy: head on my shoulder, thumb in mouth, other hand twirling her hair. And I’m not going to lie: I love it. There’s nothing like the feeling of that little body relaxing against me, the heaviness of her head, the warm cuddliness of her. A friend of mine who has a more independent girl used to go into her daughter’s room while she was sleeping and pick her up just so that she could hold her as long as she wanted. I totally get that, and would have done the exact same thing.
This past weekend, I went to Philadelphia for two days, and when I came home, all I wanted was some quality Lydia snuggle time. I got home too late the first night to see her, and the next morning we were all rushing around, work and daycare and commuting. So today, my day off, I gave her her milk and plopped her down on the couch. MOMMY SIT, she said imperiously as she always does, patting the cushion next to her. I sat down, and grabbed her shoulder so she’d lean in on me while she was drinking. She pushed me away. NO, she said, MOMMY SIT, patting a part of the cushion that was a little bit further away. I felt like a boy on an awkward first date, scooting myself just out of reach but feeling pretty resentful about it.
A few hours later, we were playing in the kitchen, and I found myself actually asking her to give me a hug. “Mommy needs a hug,” I told her, kneeling on the hardwood and holding my arms out to her like some sort of absurd Dr. Evil impersonator. At first she had other ideas, but finally she ran over and threw herself at me, giving me the shortest hug on earth before running back across the room to continue playing.
And it’s fine. Really. She’s two now, her own little person. Like everything else, it’s wonderful to watch her getting more independent by the day, and there are plenty of years left where she’ll need to snuggle with me when she’s tired or sad. But good god, what’s goign to become of me when she’s a teenager and those snuggling days are far behind us? Better start adding a few nickels to the therapy jar, eh?
I'm all like "Give me a freakin' hug"
But Lydia's got her ladybug backpack on and is basically ready to move out.
A Supposedly Fun Thing I Never Thought I’d Do
Back in my “wild” days, my friends and I used to hang out at a dank little coffeehouse called Paris on the Platte. It was at the outskirts of LoDo, a 25-minute drive from the suburban wasteland where I lived, and had all the dissolute elements that made it attractive to a fifteen-year-old wannabe rebel: waiters with piercings, a thick fug of smoke hanging over the tables, and an attached bookstore selling battered copies of On The Road.
Paris on the Platte, back in the day.
If you go there now, you’ll find a different sort of place. A few years ago they jumped on the yuppie bandwagon, turning the bookstore into a wine bar, firing the pierced people, and getting up to code with Colorado’s new smoking ban. But in 1994 none of this had happened yet. One of the most alluring features was the tobacco bar at the bookstore counter. It was filled with what, to me, were objet exotique, packages that called to mind a far away land: Djarums, cigarillos, bidis, Sampoernas and Gudang Garams. I was around sixteen at the time, so for me clove cigarettes were actually illegal, which of course only added to their allure and necessitated flirtatious interactions with older tattooed boys who could procure them.
You mean they're illegal AND they come in different colors? Be still my teenage heart!
My friends and I would sit at our grotty little table, ordering cappuccino after cappuccino, holding our cloves casually between our fingers and reveling in how utterly, completely cool we finally were. Everything about the experience was cool: the crackle of the carcinogenic cloves and the tobacco, the dirty-hippie aroma, the way the smoke curled up around our faces and partially obscured our glasses and Claw bangs.
Yeah, we looked cool. Kinda like this woman.
More than once, I told my friends that I was never ever ever going to stop smoking cloves. It was a part of who I was, man. No One Would Ever Take My Identity Away From Me. I remember these conversations vividly, probably because I was completely earnest. I felt the sort of deep belief in my clove habit that only a teenager can feel; I felt it in my stomach, where my intestines churned with passion–or possibly coffee.
I was thinking about this a few days ago when I was cleaning out our kitchen junk drawer and found a stale package of Sampoernas smashed in the back, next to a dried out Glue Stick and the 2006 Somerville visitor parking permit. The cloves were at least five years old; Alexis and I had bought them on a whim when she was visiting me. We had sat outside and each smoked 1/4 of one, marveling at how unpleasant they now seemed to us. Despite this, I never had the heart to throw them away, and had in fact carried them from the junk drawer in my previous rental to the condo where we live now.
It turns out that I’m a person of strong convictions which I almost always discard–in fact, the stronger the conviction, the more likely I am to cast it off. I will never stop smoking cloves. I will never get married. I will never take a lot of gear with me when I go car camping because gear’s for pussies. I will never have children. I will never date someone who’s not a smelly mountain man. I will never stop drinking wine. I will never live in the suburbs.
So here I am, almost 34, and going through the above list, it appears that the only vestiges of my former personality that I have left are loving wine and living in an urban area. Whee! Way to know yourself, Whitney!
The most frustrating, or perhaps disappointing, thing is that all of the convictions I discard along the way are the things that end up making me the happiest: I love being married, I love my kid, I love being able to take a deep breath without a sharp pain in my lung. The frustrating piece is that I’ve spent so much time and energy on the convictions–I’m apparently very invested in not knowing what will make me happy. I envy those people who have always known what they want: the veterinarians and astronauts and girls who knew they wanted to be moms when they were five. It must be nice to have your vision of yourself line up with reality so neatly, and I sometimes wonder why mine doesn’t.
I actually still feel pretty strongly that I will never camp with something like this.
This is all a very long way of getting to my point, which is that Ryan and I are contemplating moving, and it’s scaring the s*#t out of me. Turns out that our urban paradise has one of the crappiest school districts in Massachusetts, and like all parents before us, we want our kid to go to a good school. But good schools necessitate a move to the heretofore dreaded suburbs. Of all my convictions, this one may be the strongest. I hated growing up in the sterile neighborhood that we moved to when I was in fourth grade. I hated the big box superstores and the chain restaurants, and I sensed that my parents hated it too, that they missed the tiny brick house near Washington Park where I was born. My whole life, I’ve thought that I would do anything I could to avoid that fate, and if I had kids, they’d be happier wandering the streets and alleys of a real city than they would be if they were safe and secure in suburbia.
Yeah. And now here we are, and I find myself yearning a bit for some green space for Lydia. For trees and a little single family home with an actual yard. For a street that she could ride her bike on. A neighborhood where she could actually go outside and play without–gasp!–constant adult supervision.
Plus, it dawned on me recently that I can’t imagine childhood any other way. We’ve got to give her something to break away from, a place that she can define herself against–somewhere she can leave to go smoke clove cigarettes. So we’re looking (well, really I’m looking) at endless MLS listings and we may move in a year or two. And then, suburbified, who will I be?
Maybe, like all these other choices I didn’t think I wanted to make, living in the suburbs will be awesome. And at least I’ll still have wine. Realistically, there’s probably a really nice wine bar in whatever suburb we end up in, so that’s something.
My once and future home?
Crazy
I am sitting in the coffeehouse with my old friend Alexis and I am telling her about it.
Here is what I tell her.
It is early on a slow Wednesday when they seat the crazy person in my section. She doesn’t look crazy. She looks like the sort of person you might stop and say hello to in the street: petite, short brown hair, big brown eyes. A bit of extra weight around the middle but who doesn’t have that, you know what I’m saying?
My shift’s just started, so I take my time before going over to her. I give her plenty of time to settle into her vinyl chair, to get her tray situated, to get comfortable.
Good evening, I say. How may I help you?
More, she says. Elmo.
Alexis, it was strange. She has a certain way of talking. Sort of monosyllabic. Like her brain and her mouth aren’t linked up like other people’s. Strange, you know?
I know for a fact that the chef’s been working hard on the meal for tonight, so I explain the options with a little flourish.
I say, Tonight we’ve got some really delicious stuff prepared for you. We have some organic chicken hot dog, cut in half so no one chokes on it, and then sliced into little half moons.
Moona moona moona, she says.
It’s weird, you know? I mean, who says that? But I just ignore her and keep going.
We’ve also got some broccoli florets. We’ve steamed them in the microwave until the whole house reeks of it, and cut them into bitesize pieces. Do you want some broccoli?
More, she says, making an odd gesture with her hands where she taps her fingertips together.
I take this for a yes. I spoon a dozen pieces of hot dog onto a plastic plate and add some broccoli. I present the plate to her, and with one hand she swipes all the food off the plate and onto her tray. Okay, I think. Not everyone wants to eat food from a plate. I’m not about to judge anyone–I mean, I’ve seen it all in this life. You know what I’m saying?
She stares at the food for a while, the food she’s just said she wanted, and then she shakes her head.
No, she says.
That’s part of it. That’s really a big part of it.
NO? I say. What d’ya mean, no?
She shakes her head again, and then in the exact minute that I turn my back to her, she swipes all the food onto the floor. Alexis, I gotta tell you, there was food everywhere. There was broccoli on the wall, and hot dog scattered under the cabinets. She wasn’t a big person but she had some strength.
But I keep my cool. You don’t want hot dog? I say. How about some whole wheat pasta, lovingly prepared with fake cheese sauce because of your dairy allergy?
No, she says. MORE.
More? I ask.
I see her face turning red. She is getting upset, but it’s not clear why. Her little hands scrabble at her tray, and her mouth makes this weird grimace, like you would do before you burst into tears.
MOOOOOOOOOORE, she yells. And then she is crying, pointing at the tray and looking at me like I’ve done something really terrible to her.
I know it then. It’s not a normal night. I’m all keyed up, so I get a little frantic. I show her Fig Newtons. I show her blueberries.
MOOOORE, she wails.
Do you want applesauce? I say. Do you want an egg? Toast with jam?
It’s clear that I’m reaching here a little bit.
More! she yells. Mommy! She points at the ground.
Hot dog? I say. Seriously?
She immediately stops crying. Alexis, don’t tell anyone, but I pick that hot dog up from the floor and I put it back on her tray. Like I work at a gas station or something. But it’s that kind of night. I don’t know what else to do.
She starts shoveling hot dog into her mouth with her small, plump hands. I watch, fascinated. I’ve never seen someone eat like this before.
Ryan walks in around now. How’s Crazypants doing? he asks. She sure is a crazy one.
She can’t help it, I say, suddenly taking her side. I don’t know quite what’s gotten into me.
The hot dog is gone. She frantically makes a sign for more, so I load up her tray.
Elmo, she says.
She eats a few bites of hot dog and then–BAM–she throws the rest on the floor again. I wonder to myself what it would be like to be so crazy, to have your life controlled by crazy like that.
Later that night, I can’t think of much to say. Ryan and I watch television and pretty soon I get up to go to bed. He’s there before I am, already with his headphones in to listen to the radio show he likes.
She was crazy, I say. And here’s the thing: when Ryan nods and agrees with me, I suddenly feel this weird feeling come over me. I want to fling things. I want to ask for them and then fling them away. I see myself up in the sky, a huge thing, and below me piles of all the food I’ve dropped everywhere.
That’s a strange story, says Alexis. I can see she doesn’t know what to make of it.
I feel depressed. I’ve told her too much. She can’t possibly understand.
She sits there waiting, watching me.
Waiting for what? I’d like to know.
My life will never be the same.
Hello Goodbye
We’ve been spending a lot of time on “bye-bye” these days, which Lydia says with a nasal, Long Island inflection: boye-boye,waving her hand like the Queen Mum, lots of wrist action. Boye-Boye when we shut the fridge, boye-boye when we step over the safety gate, boye-boye to people we pass at the grocery store, most of whom haven’t said hello in the first place.
You can’t blame her. There’s a whole lotta bye-bye going on. First Tereza, her nanny of over a year, moved back to Brazil, which is something we can’t explain to Lydia and can’t expect her to understand. The day after Tereza left, we went on a trip to Cancun, and then two days after we got back we plunked Lydia into a daycare for the first time. Plunked might not be the right word. Try peeled off my body where she clung like a limpet and dropped kicking and screaming into an unfamiliar stranger-filled environment, then walked out the door listening to her wails of terror and rage and the sounds of her little hands shaking the fence that keeps all the kids penned into the toddler area. If she was able to string more than one or two words together, I think what she would have been screaming was, “WHAT THE F#%K????!!!!”
We’re on daycare week three now, and things have improved. For the first two weeks, they suggested that we only leave her there for 3-4 hours at a time (still unsure if this was for her sanity or theirs), which made for an interesting couple of work weeks for me and Ryan. It also greatly increased Lydia’s Yo Gabba Gabba consumption, up from the three minute clips we’d showed her on the plane to a solid twenty minutes or so while we tried desperately to earn our paychecks. But now we’ve cut her off of DJ Lance, she’s up to full daycare days, and from all reports she is perfectly happy there. My favorite note from them so far was, “Lydia loves to play peek-a-boo with the other children. She will stand behind the toy shelves and pop out with smiles.” Socialization: check.
Perhaps I think things have improved because I’m no longer the one taking her there. The daycare is on Ryan’s way to work, so he’s been doing drop-offs and pick-ups, leaving me with a significantly larger chunk of alone time than I have had since Lydia was born.
Since that day, all the time I’ve spent alone in our house probably adds up to a few hours, tops. I have a homebody of a husband and a small person constantly demanding my attention. There’s been a small person following me into the bathroom when I pee, a small person standing outside the shower and staring at me through the vinyl curtain while I wash my hair, a small person needing to be picked up and put down and held and listened to through the monitor while she is sleeping.
And, as I’ve now had the pleasure of remembering, there is something phenomenally wonderful about being entirely alone in one’s own house. The first day Ryan took her to daycare, I had grand plans to go to the gym, and instead I found myself sipping coffee at the dining room table and browsing an Athleta catalogue. Then I went upstairs and took a small-person-less shower, during which I used a conditioning hair treatment that you have to leave on for five minutes and which hadn’t been used for so long I was worried it might have dried shut. I tried on three–three!–outfits before deciding what to wear, and actually picked up the castoffs and hung them back where they belonged. I washed all the dishes in the sink and then just stood there, listening to the ticking of the water draining from the pipes and the weird buzzing noise our stove makes.
That whole process took about an hour, and then I found myself wondering how Lydia was doing. It would be circle time at daycare, and I pictured her, not yet entirely comfortable, sitting off a little to the side, sucking her thumb and twirling her hair like she always does when she’s anxious. She’s still so little, and lately when she’s throwing a tantrum or demanding another bottle, I can forget that she’s just a baby. But she is a baby. She’s got that baby fat still, a little muffin-top of it over the top of her diaper, and it turns out that an hour of alone time made me miss it, and miss her, more than you might imagine. Saying bye-bye to her each morning is pretty nice, but saying hello to her at the end of the day is even better.
Just chillin' with my snack trap
Oh DJ Lance, you're soooo entertaining!
This small person wants you to tickle her belly.
Bostonians Should Have 100 Words For Snow–and For Boredom
After the first big snowstorm, we smiled and laughed, dressing Lydia in her Down Expedition Suit and her mittens and hat and gigantic boots and taking her out in the driveway where we propped her up on the top of a drift and helped her slide down, and then made snow angels with her in the untouched snow in our back yard.
After the second big snowstorm, we took Lydia outside while we shoveled, and watched her run up and down the snow-packed sidewalk, the snow piles taller than her head. We wished for a sled, and then bought one at CVS, propping it in the garage for use on another snowy day. We smiled as we thought of pulling her up and down the bike path, the sunlight reflecting off the snow, the air cold and crisp and clear.
During the fourth–but who’s counting?! ha ha, not me!–big snowstorm, the snow turned to sleet and freezing rain and created gigantic unnavigable slush puddles at every curb and iced our garage door shut with our still-unused sled stuck inside. We were stuck too, stranded at home for yet another interminable day.
Interminable? Did I just say that? No no no, the day is flying by! Ask any mother on the Arlington Parents’ listserv what they are doing to pass the time with their offspring, and they will provide you with a long list of fun activities to do with toddlers. In desperation, we tried some of them today (all before 11:30).
Get Crafty! Tape a large piece of butcher paper to the table and let your toddler draw with crayons or markers [Lydia translation: Attempt to draw for approximately ten seconds, then drop crayons on the floor one by one while saying "uh oh" and looking at me defiantly. Emit high-pitched keening scream if crayons are not picked up immediately so that they can be dropped again. Total time usage: six minutes.]
Water Play! Put a large tarp down on the kitchen floor and get out your Isis-Maternity-Approved Water Table. Let your toddler have fun pouring water from cup to cup or floating rubber duckies. [Lydia translation: Lydia has no water table, so I gave her a bath. This was actually a huge hit, and she played in the tub until her fingers pruned and her lips turned blue, and then cried when I took her out. Total time usage: twenty-five minutes.]
Building Towers! Use a set of Legos or other blocks and help your toddler build towers and then knock them down. [Lydia translation: Get frustrated when you are unable to get Legos stuck together, then shriek for Mommy to do it. Total time usage: three minutes of stacking, three minutes to clean up.]
Bubble Fun! Let your toddler experience the magic of watching bubbles drift down from overhead. [Lydia translation: Yell "BUBBLEBUBBLEBUBBLEBUBBLE" at the top of your lungs, and watch disinterestedly as Mommy tries to blow some through the ineffectual bubble wand. Take the bubble bottle and insist on attempting to screw and unscrew the lid. Total time usage: two minutes.]
I guess if I were responding to the listserv with my ideas for ways to make it through yet another snowy day, these are the things I’d be able–honestly–to say are how we spend our time:
–Flinging socks and pants out of drawers
–Attempting to put on boots
–Pulling sheets out of the drawer under the crib
–Insisting on pushing a very noisy walking toy around at 7:45am right above the neighbor’s bedroom, then screaming when told to stop
–Ripping interactive pieces out of board books
–Crying to be picked up at every possible moment
–Attempting, repeatedly, to climb onto the glass coffee table, especially after being forbidden to do so
Jealous? I knew you would be. It’s so relaxing spending a day at home—I sure do hope it blizzards again next week!
Snowstorm #1. So new! So magical!
Snowstorm #2, when the mound of snow outside was not yet seven feet tall
Today's storm.* Note car antenna (pictured) and Lydia (not pictured).
*I didn’t take my camera today, so thanks to Allison Adair for posting this on Facebook today! I hope she doesn’t mind me repurposing it.
