Steamed

Those of you who live out west — and by that I mean anything farther than, say, Ohio — will NEVER EVER EVER have this problem. But maybe you'll still laugh about it with me.

I finally did laundry today, after ignoring the growing piles all last week, and laundry around here is an all-day experience. (There's the lugging of overstuffed baskets down from the third floor to the basement, for starters, which I figure is worth at least five pounds of weight loss a year, but I digress.) It's been chilly outside, too, so the heat has been on all day, and every time I've tromped down to the basement the boiler has been roaring away.

I love love love love having steam heat. Having a nice toasty radiator to put my toes on in the middle of the winter (preferably while I'm reading a book and eating a stack of cookies) is one of my most indulgent pleasures. The gentle gurgle-pop-hiss and creaking floorboards when the steam comes into a radiator is a warm, reassuring sound. The air in the house doesn't get quite as dry as it does with forced hot air. Plus, radiators just look cool. And ours are spray-painted silver.

Of course, this means we don't have central air conditioning in the summer, which isn't a happy thing. It also means we have to monitor the water levels in the boiler — there's an automatic system shut-off and an automatic water fill that kicks on if not enough water is in the system, but it's a good idea not to have to use the safeties. We also have to flush the system once a month or so during heating season, which involves turning off the heat, waiting an hour or so for the steam to condense, opening a spigot to drain the disgusting rusty water into a bucket, carrying the bucket up the basement stairs, emptying the bucket down the driveway, and repeating the spigot-bucket-driveway routine until the boiler is empty — three or four buckets — before shutting off the spigot, opening the fill valve to refill the boiler, and turning the power back on to the heating system.

The whole boiler arrangement looks like it belongs in a dark dank cobwebby Depression-era cellar: pipes and pressure gauges and levers and switches and safety valves, along with a deep roaring noise when the heat's on high. But really, most of it's less than ten years old (except for the pipes). We use natural gas instead of fuel oil, so there's no spilled-petrochemical smell, and the basement is well-lit and relatively clean. The girls love the system-flushing days — they come downstairs and ride their tricycles around the basement while I lug buckets of water up the stairs. And I feel like I know some elusive secret about the inner workings of the house. (Do you know what a Hartford loop is? Right.)

So back to laundry day.

I went down to the basement at about 5:30 to switch loads of laundry, noticed that the heating system was off — hooray for slightly warmer weather! — and checked the water level in the glass tube on the side. It was a little low, so I moved the lever to open the fill valve ever so slightly (don't want to shock a hot boiler with a gush of cold water) and left it open while I put in another load of laundry. This is something I do pretty often, and after the laundry is taken care of I check the water level again and turn off the valve and go back upstairs. Today Scott happened to come home while I was downstairs, and he brought his gym clothes home with him, and he came down to the basement while I was doing laundry, and we started talking, and then we headed back upstairs.

Fast forward an hour.

We've eaten dinner, we've talked about the day, and we've moved into the living room to have family home evening. Scott mentions that he turned off the radiator at the front door downstairs because the valve was leaking, and we should add that radiator valve to the list of valves to replace this summer.

And then I hear a drip, drip, splash...drip, drip, splash and go to investigate, and the valve on the radiator in the dining room is leaking too. I run for a towel, clean up the smallish puddle, get a bit grumpy because I can't turn off this radiator — the shutoff knob has long since broken off — and then I realize that I left the water on downstairs.

Gaaa!

The little trickle of water from the open fill valve had filled the boiler and crept up the steam pipes all the way to the second floor.

You know how I said it usually takes three to four buckets to drain the boiler? I lost count along the way, but it was at least thirteen buckets. And the water pressure was high enough that by the fourth or fifth bucket the drops that had splashed out had made quite a sizable puddle on the basement floor.

The kiddos thought it was great fun to have the whole family in the basement together. Rode their tricycles around, rocked tandem-style on the rocking horse, asked lots of questions about the vast quantities of water that were sloshing around in various buckets. Beth was so inspired by the festivities that she went upstairs to go potty not once but twice in a span of about 40 minutes.

And yes, we finished our family home evening. The lesson was on repentance: When we make a mistake, we say we're sorry, we do our best to fix it, and then we try very hard not to do it again.

Come look, Mommy! I made Paris!

Left to right: a jungle gym, the cheese shop (with a piece of cheese), the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre (the small triangle-shaped building — think the pyramid entrance) and the Eiffel Tower.

Bethism #11

Beth's preschool class is doing full-immersion Dr. Seuss this month. It's simultaneously charming and vertigo-inducing. Everything is Seuss — art projects, math workshops, food creations, and of course the books at circle time!

I was parent-helping last week, and had Beth on my lap during circle time. Her teacher told the kids that Dr. Seuss was the author and the illustrator of the book. "Who can tell me what the author does?" she asked.

Beth, very softly: "He makes it rhyme."

(This month especially.)

Sarah, with attitude

Love this picture. Really, I do.

Now if I could just get her to leave the ponytails in for a few minutes at a time....

Welcome Miriam!

Yay for the newest baby in the family — and hooray that she's another girl for my kids to play with and adore — welcome to the world, baby girl!

Sisterhood of the Ladybug Pants

Probably the best-ever kid-clothing purchase I've made: the pink pants with embroidered ladybugs that I bought the weekend before Beth was born. (On sale, even.)

Beth loved them. Really, truly loved them. Insisted on wearing them. One of my favorite Beth moments was when we were walking along Walnut Street in Shadyside, Beth proudly showing off the ladybugs to anyone who would pay attention. (One college-age girl told Beth she's like to have them in her size. Beth beamed.)

Sarah, now that it's her turn, adores her "gaygeebug" pants. Thanks to our fondness for classic Sesame Street sketches, she's spent the day singing the "Ladybug Picnic" song: at breakfast, at the bank, in the car. Sadly, she's outgrowing them. They're just about the right length for her, but the waist is getting oh-so-tight around her little middle.

Thought the magical pants were supposed to fit everyone, all the time. Bummer.

(Oh, and Sarah peed on the potty today! Hooray!)

GivEaWaY!!!!

(No, no, I'm not channeling TAMNers. Really. But oh how I laugh at that blog!)

Thanks to a kind-of-under-the-wire comment on Markie's blog, I'm going to be receiving a surprise handmade gift at some point in the next year. (It's not quite like living three blocks away and getting to hang out with her all the time, but it's still awfully nice!)

Now it's my turn: Be one of the first three people to comment on this post, and I'll send YOU a handmade gift at some point during the next year. I get to choose what it is, but I'll at least entertain requests. I'm nice that way.

But there's a catch: If you win, you have to pay it forward. You can do this by putting a similar post on your blog...or posting a note on your Facebook page...or even e-mailing a whole bunch of friends to see which three reply first. Which means you have to be willing to give three other people something handmade in the next year.

And speaking of handmade...check out the Etsy shop if you haven't already. I'm having way, way too much fun with this.

Beth the stand-up comic/scientist

For months and months and months she's regaled us with knock-knock jokes that have completely random punch lines:

"Knock knock!"

"Who's there?"

"Banana."

"Banana who?"

"Banana pineapple car!"

She's upgraded recently. Her new favorite, which she repeats over and over and over in various forms, is this:

"What did the window say to the other window?"

"I don't know, Beth. What?"

"Silly Mommy! Everyone knows that windows can't talk!"

At least we're laughing at her jokes now. In fact, I still laugh at that one. Her delivery is pretty good, and she gets such a kick out of the joke! (She also gets a kick out of coming up with different inanimate objects to put in the joke, and I can see her working on the analysis.)

She's also head-over-heels in love with the PBS show "Sid the Science Kid." Don't let Beth's fondness for anything pink and princess deceive you — she loves things that move and grow and do things too. I've had a lot of "why" questions recently, including some really annoying not-right-now-Beth ones: "Mommy, why is the toilet clugged?" (Yes, "clugged.")

Science, though: We spent quite a while launching her stuffed sheep around the living room with a lever made out of building blocks, and a few days ago we built a makeshift pulley (basket, string) to lift things up to the top of the playroom jungle gym. The sharing time activity at church yesterday was planting beans in little plastic cups, so we talked all the way home about how a plant grows and that plants use sunlight to make food. And she's been begging me to go back to the Museum of Science, so we're going to have to plan an outing. Dinosaurs were mentioned, but let's be honest with ourselves: there's a good chance we'll end up watching the baby chicks hatch again.

Sarah "frosting" a cookie

This is just going to make Brooke jealous...

...but that's not the reason I'm posting it. Well, not the only reason. (Come visit! Come visit!)

My friend Christina is in a graduate museum studies program (woo hoo!) and since she has this week off work we piled the kids in the car and drove out to Amherst, home of (drum roll, please) The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. It's a long drive — two hours without potty stops, and believe me, we made potty stops. But so, so worth it.

Why?

• Trina Schart Hyman drawings. I adored her art as a kid reading Cricket magazine: all the delicate long-limbed fairies and arching trees and picture-window borders around everything.


• A Leo Lionni illustration of his adorable mice. The Greentail Mouse was my favorite book as a kid. And it's back in print!


• An illustration by an artist whose name I don't remember of King Midas descending his staircase. It's obviously meant to be a two-page spread inside the book. The staircase is curved, and everything behind Midas is gold; everything in front of him is vibrant blues and reds and brilliant flowers. If you look at it out of the corner of your eye you can practically see him moving.


• An Arnold Lobel drawing of Frog playing the violin.


• A Kinuko Y. Craft illustration from Cinderella, hung at Beth's level, absolutely mesmerizing to a princess-obsessed three-year-old.


• Two lovely little Beatrix Potter illustrations of alternate scenes in The Tale of Peter Rabbit. My mom embroidered some pictures from the Beatrix Potter books for me when I was a baby, and they're hanging in the girls' bedroom now; Sarah recognized these as similar to the pictures in her room. Wow.

And then there's the gallery devoted to Eric Carle's work, celebrating the 40th anniversary of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Ducklings from 10 Little Rubber Ducks! Side-by-side comparisons of the art from the original (1969) version of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and the redone illustrations in the 1987 version! A video of Carle showing how he produces his gorgeous painted-tissue-cutout pieces!

I also have to add how impressed I am with the staff's understanding of their audience. The pictures are hung lower than you'd expect — they're still inside an adult's viewing range, but they're also at a good level for, say, a six-year-old (I still had to pick up my kids to show them most things). Each gallery has wide benches to sit on, and a basket on each bench containing the books corresponding to the artwork on the wall (we read book after book after book to the kids this way). In the Carle gallery, the basket also holds several little stuffed hungry caterpillars that kids can carry with them — there's a note attached asking them to see how many caterpillars they can see on the walls. Given kids' need to touch things to really experience them (every time we go to a museum I find myself repeating the mommy mantra: "Look with your eyes, not with your hands") this is genius: the girls walked around looking at the art on the walls and stroking the caterpillars instead of reaching up to touch things. And there's a library in the building, with story time twice a day. We spent four hours in the museum and didn't even get to the art studio, didn't sit in the auditorium for one of the performances by students from a local performing arts high school. (We did visit the shop, though, and I can only justify the amount of money I spent there by telling myself that I did get in free with Christina's NEMA membership, the DVD of Carle explaining his art is a Mothers Day present for my mom, and Beth and Sarah really shouldn't leave a museum like that without new books. I didn't buy any Carle-designed fabric, but I suppose that's only a matter of time.)

Oh, and the cafe has caterpillar cookies. Not what you think: they're round, and chocolate-chip. But each one has a little hole eaten through the center.

Add it up: it's an eight-hour day. I don't think we'll be going again for a good long while...like, May, when two new exhibits will be up....

Recently heard around here

Beth, after throwing the bouncy ball that showed up at our house for Valentine's Day: "Sarah, go get it!"

"Bethie, are you treating Sarah like a puppy?"

You-caught-me voice: "Yeah."

Beth the budding cook

Made her own breakfast the other morning — scrambled eggs. She cracked the eggs into the bowl all by herself (sure, I scooped out a few pieces of shell) and then whisked the eggs with some milk and salt. Wouldn't cook it, since she's still not a fan of the gas stove. But oh my was she proud of herself!

A few things...

...from the last few weeks, because it's been too crazy around here to even think about sitting down to blog:

• Sarah is now talking in complete sentences. They're still largely unintelligible, but if you can understand her you realize she's actually completing thoughts.


• Beth, in a fit of insatiable curiosity, burned her finger on the iron last night.


• We were all sick with a killer stomach bug two weeks ago. Sarah got it first, then me, then Scott, and finally Beth. That was one entire week when we didn't leave the house. Did wonders for our attitudes in the middle of winter, let me tell you.


• Sarah still walks around singing, "Happy birthday, dear Sarah" (usually while wearing a mixing bowl on her head). She loved loved loved her birthday party. Tells people she is two all the time.


• Beth has begun a true obsession with the vintage Fisher-Price little people she got for Christmas. There are elaborate stories going on (she calls them "plays"), many of which involve the people sitting in the barber's chair.


• This last perhaps because I cut Beth's hair a few weeks ago. She's had it done by my mom, and professionally (if you can call a visit to Snip-Its professional), but she insisted that I cut it this time. I'd never taken a pair of scissors to anyone's hair before trimming Sarah's baby mullet a few months ago, and attacking Bethie's thick curls was nerve-wracking. It took an hour. If I do say so myself, it looks amazing. All hail the forgiving curly hair!


• Beth has learned to use scissors, which fortunately has nothing to do with her haircut.


• Scott has a paper coming out in a top-tier journal this year. Woo hoo!


• In a fit of frustration (too many people telling me, "You should sell these!" upon opening baby shower gifts) I opened an Etsy shop. Am now up to my eyeballs in fabric and other random sewing supplies, and wondering why I ever bother to listen to other people. It's been frustrating. Nice to sell a few things, but frustrating. And certainly not profitable.


• In the midst of this, I had a complete I'm-a-stay-at-home-mom-woe-is-me breakdown, which Scott countered with, "You're feeling like a trapped housewife and you're going to sew to make yourself feel better?" Guy has a point. I almost decked him, but he has a point.


• I went to parent-teacher conferences with Beth's preschool teacher. They adore her over there. She's a child who was born to thrive in preschool.


• Rose and I took the kiddos to IKEA last week, and Josh and Beth were big enough (and potty-trained enough) to go in the playspace while we did our shopping. Sarah and Lilah, free of the older siblings' influence (and bossiness) had a grand time running through the store and striking disarmingly cute poses on Scandinavian furniture. My friend Stephanie calls the parenting-preschoolers years "the tunnel." I got a wee little glimpse of the light at the end.


• My friend Lisa got us hooked up to play in the pit orchestra for a local high school musical. I'm way, way more excited about this than I have any right to be.


• Beth has taken to commenting on farts, her own and other people's. One night at dinner she did something particularly loud and juicy, grinned a HUGE grin, and said, "That was just disgusting of my gas!" I had to leave the room, I was laughing so hard. I'm waiting for her to do this at church, or at the grocery store, where I'll have to pretend to be embarrassed by it.


• I found jalapeño ranch dressing at the grocery store. Makes an excellent dip for chicken nuggets, which we've been eating with alarming frequency.


• Sarah, apparently in an effort to make up for Beth's refusal to latch permanently onto a particular stuffed animal or doll, has two buddies whom she simply must have with her: Pink Teddy and her new doll Eloise.


• Beth has become a huge fan of "Shaun the Sheep" — to such an extent that she has renamed her stuffed lamb Shauna. (This is a departure for Beth; for a long time all of her stuffed animals had to be named Beth.)


• Sarah's fascination with the potty continues, though it is unfortunately not synched with her need to go.


• Beth has happily worked with stickers and glue and markers and construction paper to make valentines for her preschool friends, her neighborhood friends, her immediate family, and her grandparents. Sarah colored half-heartedly (ha!) on two paper hearts and declared herself done.


• As usual, we celebrated Groundhog Day somewhat obsessively, complete with decorations and thematic food: sausage. (Think about it. It'll come to you.) No gingerbread Phil cookies this year, though.

Okay, this was too funny.

Know what bugs me most? I've started to write the darned note twice, and even though I click on "Save Draft," Facebook doesn't save it. Grr.

Proof that Beth's mom spends too much time on the Internet

This morning Scott was sitting on the couch reading to the girls when Beth opened her Ladybug magazine and said, "Look at this funny blog in my magazine!"

Sick day today

Sarah has been toting her throw-up bowl around with her all day today. Not that she's actually thrown up in it. She just likes to have the option, and pretend to throw up, and make fake retching noises.

She threw up in the night last night, which we feel totally guilty about because she didn't fuss about it and then slept the rest of the night in her own vomit. Iiiiiiick. Scott found her in her rather chunk-filled crib this morning. I've spent the day doing laundry and cleaning off her various dolls and stuffed animals. Sarah has spent the day with her bowl, mostly sitting on a big fleece blanket in front of the TV (I can't even think about cleaning vomit off the living room rug) staring at her shows: Sesame Street, Over the Hedge, Word World, and now Blue's Clues. I just don't know what else to do with a sick kid. She also took a three-and-a-half hour nap this afternoon, and only woke up when Beth went in to check on her and stage-whispered, "Mommy, Sarah's still asleep."

I've also severely restricted her food and liquid consumption after she did a repeat puke on Scott's shoulder immediately following breakfast. Sips of Pedialyte, some white bread, and a little mac and cheese for dinner. She's miffed that I'm not letting her eat more. But she also insisted on having the throw-up bowl on her tray at dinner, and tells me every few minutes that she needs to throw up. Then the fake retching noises, and a big grin. So I'm not taking any chances. Poor kiddo.

Trash, treasure

I spent yesterday morning at the indoor cleanup for Beth's preschool. They do this three times a year, and it was actually pretty fun, despite starting at 8am. Waaaay too early in my book...but there you go.

As I was going through bins and bins of old curricula and books and dress-ups and toys — and throwing out anything unusable — I noticed that someone had thrown out a doll. A My Friend Mandy doll. That's part of my childhood, folks. She had ink all over her face and legs, and her hair was a mess, and her cloth body was stained, but...Mandy! So I pulled her out of the pile and held her up for the director to see.

"Are you seriously throwing this away?" I asked. "Do you know what these things are worth on eBay?"

She gave me a dubious look. "Well...if you want to sell it on eBay and give the money to the Fundraising Committee...."

So I brought Mandy home, threw her in the wash to clean her up (Fisher Price was definitely on the ball when they made a machine-washable doll), and looked up her value on eBay (about $15, though a new-in-box doll fetches around $90) as well as some ways to clean her up (thick conditioner should work wonders on her hair).

Halfway through combing out her hair I realized I didn't want to sell her. Want to know why?

See any resemblance?

So the after-nap conversation went something like this:

"Sarah, who does this dolly look like?"

"Beff!"

We went upstairs to find Beth. "Bethie, who does this dolly look like?"

"I don't know." Pensive look. "ME!" Then she had to take a look at herself in the mirror with Mandy.

She's staying. I'll write a check to the fundraising committee tomorrow. I hope Beth enjoys her half as much as I enjoyed mine.

They ARE my kids, after all

They may look like Scott, but take a gander at this picture:


That's Beth and Sarah wearing sunglasses, carrying bags and sitting on chairs in the brightest-colored room in the house. You can't see it in the picture, but they're facing the radiator.

They're playing "beach."

Atta girl.

Reality parenting

Beth came downstairs saaaaaad tonight after I'd put her to bed. Scott picked her up and hugged her and comforted her...and, over her shoulder, gave me a Look, held out his fist, and proceeded to rock-paper-scissors me to see who had to take her back to bed.

I lost.

I'm saving this story to tell Beth when she's older, some day when she tells me that Daddy is WAY nicer than I am.

Bethism #10

Beth is a Sunbeam. She's three, and it's January, and that means that at church she graduated from the nursery into the Sunbeam class in Primary. And she is so, so proud of herself.

The chorister was trying to teach the little kiddos a new song today, one about heaven, and she asked them all, "Where do we come from? Where did we live before we were born?"

No response. I think some of the kids had their fingers in their mouths. So she tried again.

"Where did we live before we came here?"

Beth perked up. "Oh!" she said. "Pittsburgh!"

Every adult in the room cracked up.

It's a valid response. Heaven...Pittsburgh...I think her memories of both are equally hazy.

Totoro!

Not quite in full-scale panic mode

I have my sewing machine back, and it's humming along beautifully, and since the girls' dress-up capes are done and all the Christmas gifts for our neighbors are put together, I spent this evening cutting out pieces for the first Totoro. There's gray fluff everywhere — the dining room table, the floor, ground into the living room rug, on my clothes.

Oh — and my back is killing me, even after taking prophylactic ibuprofen before spreading the fuzzy fabric out on the table.

I have four more days to make this happen, and I'm not really panicking quite yet, but I'm scared enough to start working my tail off.

On the plus side, I think I figured out how to make the ears stand up: pipe cleaners.

Wish me luck. How are your Christmas preparations going?

Eating my words...

After weeks of openly and roundly mocking Scott for playing "My Heroes Ability" on Facebook (at random hours of the day and night)...I'm going to have to eat my words. I admit it. I'm hooked on "Nobility."

Sigh.

I am such a nerd. Let the mocking begin.

NIMBY

So I called the town health department today, out of curiosity:

"I have a strange question — I've been looking on the town website and I see licensing requirements for dogs and cats, but nothing for other animals. Specifically, I'm wondering about getting a miniature pig."

"Um...not in Belmont."

"I see. What can you have in Belmont?"

"Just chickens."

"Huh. Well, thank you."

Well. There goes that idea.

Cautionary Tale, or: Never move to a new city to be with a guy

I have this cautionary tale that I tell occasionally, usually when I'm talking to someone who's besottedly in love and making hasty decisions. (I used it several times when Scott and I were assigned to the singles ward in Pittsburgh.) It goes like this:

Once upon a time, about nine and a half years ago now, I was dating a guy who lived in Los Angeles. I'd known him since high school, when he was geeky-cool and funny, and we'd kept in touch as he took more and more interesting artistic jobs (ending up as a storyboard artist for Disney) and I'd floundered through my twenties trying to figure out what I wanted out of life. Somehow we ended up dating at the same point that I found myself between jobs and between roommates, and it was my mom who suggested that I move to L.A. to see if we could make things work romantically.

So I lined up a job (I thought) and an apartment, and moved myself down to Southern California, and then the job fell through and the boyfriend's endearing quirks started to really grate on my stressed-out self, and within a month I found myself jobless and boyfriendless.

The lessons are these:

1. Never move anywhere for a guy. (And the corollaries: Never make drastic life changes based on body chemistry alone; Major life changes will usually result in too much stress on the relationship.)


2. Your mother always wants to see you happy, and she's not going to be above pushing you into a romance if she thinks it's going to put a smile on your face or pictures of grandchildren in her brag book.


3. Sometimes you end up doing something right for all the wrong reasons.

Anyway.

Here's what the guy in question is doing now. And I'm taking the kiddos to see the movie this afternoon. (If you're in the area, I'd love some company.)

Mean streak

My baby sister just called me with her newest Grand Scheme: in her bid to become Favorite Aunt, she's going to buy our other sister's daughter a miniature horse.

And, since we're the city-dwellin' folk that we are, she's buying my daughters a teacup pig.

Not this Christmas, mind you. She has some saving to do.

I think she has a mean streak.

Two girls and an easel

Okay, these were just too cute not to share:


Beth and Sarah decided they both wanted to paint today. Beth had brushes; Sarah had her first giddy foray into finger painting. It works particularly well when there's an easel between them, and plenty of newspaper on the floor.


Instead of putting these paintings on the wall, we'll use them as wrapping paper for the grandparentals, who will no doubt appreciate them way more than we do here. (Too much of a good thing at the moment.)


Oh, and Beth decided she wanted to be "a lady with a baby in my tummy." That's her hat tied around her middle. I had to stop laughing before I could take the picture.

And the award for best technologically-integrated customer service goes to...

Anyone called Amazon.com customer service lately?

Or, rather: Anyone been called by Amazon.com customer service lately?

Scott bought a number of our Christmas gifts on Amazon, which is typical, and the order got split up, which is also typical. One of the shipments, unfortunately, got sent to our old default address in Pittsburgh. We called some friends who still live in our old apartment complex to see if they could head it off at the pass, but apparently the U.S. Postal Service is savvier than UPS: they know we've moved. The package was marked "undeliverable" and sent back.

All of this I can see by clicking on "Track your package" on Amazon. But we still don't have the package. So I go through the Amazon web page to contact customer service. Up pops a page that says "Talk to us! We'll call you. Right now. Really."

I enter my phone number. The phone rings immediately. I also get a popup screen that's managing the telephony somehow — if I want to hang up the call, I click a button. I'm also connected (again, immediately) to Nitu, a very nice customer service agent in India, who confirms that the package is in Amazon receiving limbo somewhere and sets me up with a replacement order.

Let me just say, since I've done my time (two years!) in the purgatory that is phone-based customer service, that this is Very Impressive. Now, granted, they're estimating that the new shipment won't arrive until the 18th (bummer). But I'm still impressed.

At what point do I issue a DNR for my sewing machine?

Let me point out that I love my sewing machine. It's an old Singer Stylist model, purchased secondhand out of the Pittsburgh Pennysaver for the grand total of $25: machine, cabinet, and all the extra parts, random thread colors, measuring tapes and other odds and ends that had accumulated in the storage compartment of the cabinet. I understand this machine. Like me, it's wound a little tight, tends to be tense, and stubbornly insists on doing things its own way. (You should see the threading diagram.) We're both products of the early '70s.

And, like me, it's higher-maintenance than it appears. (I hate to admit this about myself, but trust me.) First it was $40 to get it cleaned and oiled and tuned. It sorely needed the attention, and I was happy to pay for it. Then it was a few dollars here and there for new needles and the right kind of bobbins and some oil (the oil seems to have disappeared when we moved, darn it — it's not like it's expensive, but I like having the right kind of long-nosed bottle).

About two years ago it stopped working altogether. It's of the nylon-geared generation of sewing machines, and the gears finally wore out. Getting them replaced cost about $100.

Saturday night, as I was in the middle of appliquéing a princess crown on a cape for Sarah, the zigzag stitch got narrower and narrower and less and less predictable until it finally stopped zigging and zagging completely. It's a timing issue — the needle goes back and forth, but not quite when it hits the fabric.

The guy I took it to this morning gave me an estimate of $129 to replace the bearings, and there are a few other small things I'm going to have him replace while he's at it. Right now I figure it's worth it, since I don't have the money to replace it with a good quilting machine at the moment. But I'm starting to wonder how many other parts might disintegrate, and where to draw the line.

Sigh.

_______________________________
Thanks, Danika, for lending me your old Kenmore machine. We're going through a getting-to-know-you phase, and having a few scuffles over territory, but we're going to get along just fine. Can it stay and play for another week and a half?

Listen to your body!

10:00 last night, Beth still doing her in-and-out-of-bed, up-and-down-the-stairs routine: "I can't sleep."

"Sweetie pie, can you go back upstairs and put your head down on your pillow?"

Mournful face, tears welling up in the eyes. "But I'm saaaaaad." This is a common refrain around our house when Beth is exhausted, and I have a consistent way to deal with it.

"Bethie, you aren't sad. You're tired. When you feel this way it's your body's way of telling you that you're really tired."

"But I can't hear it!"

Bethisms #9 and #9.5

Yesterday in the car:

Me: "We're going to the bookstore! Does that sound like fun?"

Beth: "Uh-huh."

Me: "I think it sounds terrific!"

Beth: "You said it, Mommy."

_____________________

This morning, as she was rummaging through her top drawer looking for clothes to wear to her friend Josh's Lego-themed birthday party, Beth said in a disappointed voice, "I thought I had a Lego costume, but I didn't."

For this, I got a $25 Visa card and a free liter of bottled water

Here's what the graduate marketing students should have learned from our market research interview this evening:

1. Even if everything you're asking is an open-ended, free-association-type question, you may not want to hear everything your interview subject is willing to talk about. Every once in a while you'll interview someone who likes to talk, thrives on free association, and has never ever ever learned to shut up, even if it's in her best interest to do so*. Move things along at an appropriate pace or your professor will come in to remind you that your class is about to resume.

2. Be very, very careful about the assumptions you make when you recruit people for market research interviews. Don't assume, for example, when you're doing research for a shoe company and you say you're looking for people who enjoy being around the water, that the people who show up will all be preppy northeastern sailing types. You might just end up with a displaced Southern California girl who thinks that the only appropriate footwear around water is flip-flops, Tevas or aqua socks. (And roller blades, but that's too Southern California to explain to someone who doesn't pronounce his Rs.) I've been on a sailboat maybe three times in my life, but the poor guy interviewing me jumped all over that: "Tell me about sailing. What would you wear on your feet?" Um...sunscreen?

Turns out their market research was for Sperry Topsiders. Sorry, guys. If I'm going to be around water, I want to be IN the water, not standing on a yacht sipping upscale microbrews and chatting about the Harvard-Yale game.

I can just picture what happened when these two unfortunate souls walked back into their class: "So, tell me about the person you talked to." "Well, she's a crazy mom who likes to swim with sea turtles and wear red patent-leather heels — not at the same time — and she forces her kids to go to the beach even though they sunburn easily and are terrified of waves. Oh, and she used to be a Mormon missionary. We got nothin'."

Unless, of course, they're trying to re-brand Sperry...in which case I expect to see a pair of candy-apple red high-heeled aqua socks at Nordstrom next spring. Or at least Sperry ads featuring models taking off their preppy shoes and actually getting in the water**.

___________________________________________________
* I did have some composure. I never once mentioned the skinny-dipping incident. That should count for something, right?

** Actually, my real prediction is this: If anyone ever does look at their research, there will be a major Sperry ad next year featuring a pair of gorgeous bare feet with a sandal-line suntan, bright red toenails, and sand between the toes. No shoes — the shoes will be implied.

Parenting lessons

Since Brittany just posted about learning some parenting lessons the hard way...here's mine for the week:

Do not leave the bathroom alarm clock within arm's reach of your three-year-old. Said three-year-old will inevitably push buttons and flip switches, and the alarm will inevitably be set for 6:00 a.m.

That's all.

Huh?

It's almost 5:30. Sarah just barely woke up from her nap, and tried to use the potty, and is now hanging out with me and drinking water out of her beloved sippy cup. When I put her down for her nap more than three hours ago, she actually thanked me.

Beth, who insisted on wearing her pajamas to take a nap this afternoon, is still asleep. I tried to wake her up at 4:00 for a playdate, but she only rolled over and closed her eyes again.

Something is definitely amiss. Not that I'm complaining, but this is not normal.

Prototype

This is what a rough draft looks like in muslin and (mostly improvised) stuffing. I'm going to have to use some sort of wire to keep the ears up (that's why the pencil is there now), and there are safety pins and pen marks all over the place where I need to make some alterations. The neck should be positioned lower on the body, the arm/body seams should be more rounded, tail (not shown) should be about twice the size I planned on and placed higher. If I can figure out how to do some friendly-looking claws, they'll be in there too.

Oh, and I had no idea how hard it would be to find good gray fabric. Yowza. Fortunately, one of the sites I'd looked at previously got something in stock last week that I hope will work.

He's chilling upstairs in the attic right now, awaiting dismemberment and minimal redesign, which will have to happen on the sly after bedtime. Strangely, I miss him. Even in muslin, he's awfully cuddly.

Sarah and the budding sense of humor

A few days ago, after Sarah and I had spent a chunk of the morning next door, I asked her, "Did you like playing with Sam?"

"Gup!" (That's "yup," for those of you who aren't fluent in Sarah.) "Ooo-ooo-ah-ah-ah!"

"Do you think Sam is a monkey?"

"Gup!" And then her great belly laugh: "Hahahahahahahaha!"

A joke! She made an actual joke. This is going to be one entertaining ride.

Convergence, and life imitating art

Sarah closed the girls' bedroom door tonight during Beth's pre-bedtime potty run, and we've been reading David Wiesner's The Three Pigs pretty obsessively, and the combination resulted in this:

Beth (from the hallway, behind the closed door): "Little pig, little pig, let me come in!"

Scott: "Not by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin!"

Beth (opening door, giving her father an exasperated look): "Daddy, you don't have any hair on your chin."

Cabin fever solution #1 (assuming — and desperately hoping — that I can come up with more of these)

Played Hullabaloo with the kiddos this afternoon when the chaos got to be a bit much. It's great. Foam rubber spots on the floor and an electronic M.C. The hardest part was putting in the &%(@#*! batteries.

Beth, true to form, carefully (even studiously!) followed the directions, ended up on the right kind of spot, and frequently won a round. Sarah joined in and tried to copy Beth. If she got tired of the game she sat down and picked up the game spots with just as much enthusiasm as she'd shown while actually playing. Beth's buddy Avery had only the slightest interest in ending up on the right spot, but took the "skip...hop...twirl" directions to a whole new level. When they won a round, all three girls demonstrated amazing victory dances.

Me? I'm just a bit taken aback at what a good workout it was. Ooof.

And I like my victory dance. It rivals Joey's domino champion dance, with a more appreciative audience.

Newsprint, newsprint everywhere

In the last few weeks, I've had not one but TWO people accuse me of being craftsy. (Note the "s." I know I'm crafty. But that's another post.) I shudder at the thought of this: I don't scrapbook. I cringe at the thought of vinyl lettering anywhere in my house. There are no stuffed bunnies in calico dresses hanging from my doorknobs.

But, they both said, sewing is crafting! You sew!

Grr. Yeah, I sew. It's in my blood. Both of my grandmothers sewed — one taught textiles at the college level, the other just made fantastic clothes for her kids after looking at what was in style in shop windows. My mom sews occasionally (I learned a healthy number of my good swear words from her when she was making me a velvet and paper taffeta dress for a high school dance). I learned to sew clothes for my Mandy doll when I was, what, six? When I was in high school my dad made me a deal that he'd buy me the fabric for any clothes I'd make myself. He ended up regretting that deal after a certain box-pleated Black Watch plaid wool skirt, which I only wish I still had.

Now...I make baby blankets, and piece the occasional baby quilt to give away (and boy do I mean occasional), and hem Scott's pajamas. And...okay. Some doll clothes. And a doll blanket. And pillowcases out of a torn sheet I couldn't bear to throw away. I made a quiet book with some friends a few years ago. But that's it. Mostly my sewing machine is used for mending torn clothes, and the cabinet doubles as my computer desk, and I spend way more time on the computer than I do on the sewing machine.

So why does it bug me to be told that I'm a crafts person? I suppose that somewhere in my head I link crafts with all things frivolous. I do have this taste for projects. Making things. Useful things. Fun things. Not add-more-kitsch-to-my-country-style-kitchen things. I just sent a batch of mix CDs to a CD exchange group I joined a few years ago (I'm really, really late) and they look and sound awesome, if I do say so myself. When I'm working, I love doing websites and graphic design. And then there's the matter of the mid-century dining room set that I've been halfheartedly working on refinishing/reupholstering for several years now....

...anyway, here I am, working on making a BIG stuffed Totoro for my kids for Christmas. There's no such thing as a pattern out there, so I've made a prototype out of newspaper, which I'll then dismantle so I can use the paper as pattern pieces. Cutting the pieces freehand worked surprisingly well, and I only had to do a few little tweaks on the body. But I have newsprint everywhere. And I can't get the head to look quite right — something about the nose, which I think needs to be lower and perkier. And I'm wondering whether, given the cost of good fuzzy fabric and the likelihood of finding the right stuff for whiskers, it isn't a really bad idea. But somehow I can't seem to give up on it.

I think I need a life.

How weird is my three-year-old?

Beth requested sushi for her snack yesterday morning.

Bentley's cafeteria has a sushi bar, and she got her wish for lunch. Lucky kid. California roll...but still, I think we're raising her right.

Election day: pigtails, tears, awe

I took my kids to vote today. I've heard stories about people standing in line for hours, but at the senior citizens' center down the street there were no lines, no Black Panthers, no lawyers I could identify as such. Just elderly civic-minded ladies manning the polls, and a few of us civic-minded citizens. The girls had red, white and blue ribbons on their pigtails (we dug out the Fourth of July stuff), and the poll workers couldn't stop telling them how adorable they were.

In Massachusetts we vote using oversized Scan-Tron sheets, which makes me feel like I'm back in high school taking a test, and also makes me miss the more balloty-feeling punch cards I had in California. Here's the thing, though: as I was standing in my little semi-private voting carrel, I had a rush of patriotic pride (huh? me? wow) and my eyes welled up with tears as I bent over the paper. I had to blink the tears back to make sure I was really filling in the circle next to "Obama/Biden," and had this overwhelming feeling of being a drop of water in a massive wave of change, which I'm still getting a little choked up over.

And then I went to the library, where The Audacity of Hope finally came in (I've been on quite the waitlist), and I got choked up over that, too.

Stayed up way too late watching election results (I realized as soon as Fox News called Ohio for Obama that I could probably go to bed, but didn't). I watched McCain's concession speech — the best political speech I've ever heard in my life, and the most heartfelt I've heard him in the last year — and cried more. Watched Obama's speech, thought about that wave of change again, cried even more.

Agree with me; disagree with me; I don't care. I voted for someone I believe will infuse hope into our quite-jaded view of all things political, someone I hope will be able to bring about even a smidgen of the change and purpose he advocated in his campaign. I'm deeply moved at the thought that our individual voices or stylus punches or filled-in ovals mean something, and I'd defend your right to vote your conscience whether or not it agrees with mine. I was trying to explain the concept of democracy to the girls in the car (got pretty sticky when I realized my encapsulated American Revolution story was encouraging disobedience among the pint-sized ranks) and it just got to me how cool this all is.

Three best quotes of the evening:

• On BBC World News, an American commentator who said something along the lines of, "This should silence the people who are still saying America is a racist country," and then turned to one of the other talking heads and added, "Right?" Silence.


• Karl Rove, on Fox (Scott got to drive the remote last night): "Every American ought to be celebrating tonight." Well said. Unexpected, but well said.


• Fox's Juan Williams: "This is truly an incredible moment of American history.... I don’t care how you feel about him politically, on some level you have to say this is America at its grandest, the potential, the possibility, and what it says for our children. Black and white, the image of Barack Obama and those little girls in the Rose Garden in these years to come. I think it’s just stunning."

Wow. Wow. I'm so proud of my country right now. So hopeful for the next four years.

Linguistic progress

Sarah has finally learned to say her name, and it comes out "Rah-rah!" Which is pretty much how I feel about her.

I knew that Bethie would start speaking more clearly after some time in preschool, and I know that in the long run it's a good thing...but she's started to say th at the end of her name, and I miss my Beff-Beff.

THIS is how I feel about Twilight...

The Deseret News just published this year's Bad Writing Contest winners. The whole list is worth a gander, as long as you bring a good airsickness bag along with you (I just got a pack of these for Beth to carry in the car). But the best one by far, IMO, is this:

When Bekka — sweet, adorable Bekka, scrapbooker, scripture chase champion, pure, innocent chaste Bekka, who made her own modest swimwear and provided Rice Krispie treats for every missionary homecoming — when Bekka announced her engagement to Ed, everyone in the ward knew it was right, because Ed was, as any fool could see, Bekka's perfect match: good looking, strong and a vampire.
         — Eric Samuelsen

Eric, whoever and wherever you are, you made my day.

Bethism #8

"Mommy, why do books have to have jackets?"

"To keep the book nice."

"Does it keep them warm, too?"

"Yes, it keeps them warm, too."

Trick-or-treating beta test

My friend Mindy figured we'd let the kids do a trick-or-treating run-through this week at a local nursing home. The girls were okay for the first few minutes, and then they realized they didn't know anybody there and freaked out. I tried explaining the mechanics of trick-or-treating: if you're nice to people, they'll give you candy. Nope. Nothing doing.

The church Halloween party on Friday was somewhat more successful (our M.C. dubbed the trunk-or-treat part of the evening "the world's largest fleet of haunted minivans"), though Beth wouldn't go near anything too creepy-looking, or loud, or flashy. Both kids brought home inordinate amounts of sugar, though, which we've been weeding through with a critical eye. Lollipops? Halloween Kit-Kat bars with the icky orange-colored white chocolate on the outside? Sure, they can have that. Junior Mints and Crunch bars? Mom and Dad had better confiscate those.

The party was a rousing success; the awesome professional storyteller we hired, Bruce Marcus, said it was "the best controlled chaos I've seen." (I'm still giggling over his "wereman" story, and the kids' enthusiastic, fist-pumping participation.)

Glad it's over, though. I carved two of our three pumpkins to use for table centerpieces: a kitty for Beth and a Totoro pumpkin for Sarah. The resulting pictures were so worth the carving hassle the night before....

Possibly the weirdest conversation I've had all week

We, the TV addicts we are, are up catching up on episodes of "Life," which is either cynical or exhilarating, and I'm still not sure which.

So on the screen, Charlie asks an animal activist why she's wearing leather shoes, and she says they're gym shoes, but it turns out they're really "Jim" shoes — Jim, the founder of the activist group, willed his body for manufacturing purposes to raise people's consciousness.

At this point Scott pauses the DVR and says, "Libby, when I die I want you to turn my skin into shoes and wear me."

"Can I dye them red?"

"Sure. But they won't hold the tan — they'll just crack and peel and be white again, like me."

Marie-Therese Gown

Oh my. Wouldn't Beth be adorable in THIS?

The eyeballing game

Okay, THIS isn't addictive or anything.

(My best score's a 2.52. Don't even ask how long it took me to get it.)

Make way for ducklings

We had this totally awesome (and stressful too, but then, what isn't?) week o' visitors: first Grandma and Gigi, then (hard on their heels) Sarah and Rob and Olivia. This is why I insisted on having a guest room. Makes it ever-so-convenient to have friends and family here, without the tiresome blow-up-the-air-mattress-and-have-people-changing-in-the-bathroom problems.

So it was a fun-filled week. We went apple picking,


went to the aquarium (which Beth pronounces "queearium"),


rode the T everywhere,


and also had glorious Italian food in the North End and went shopping in the Back Bay, where Gigi met a cute guy at Borders (wearing MY cute rain boots, thank you very much).

The crowning fun+stress glory: We ended up driving downtown to see the Make Way for Ducklings statues in the Public Garden. During rush hour. With carsick kids. Beth threw up once on the way downtown (in a plastic bag my mom held for her), once while we were walking around (in a Starbucks bag) and over and over and over on the way home (in an empty Starbucks cup). And she did it with such composure I wanted to hug her (but didn't since I was driving).

Totally worth all the puking, though, to see Sarah hug and kiss each of the ducklings in turn — some on their bronze-feathered duckling bottoms! (Gigi took photos; go bug her for them.)

Sarah is in love with the ducklings. Beth keeps asking when we're going to go back.

I think Grandma and Gigi both needed a Beth-and-Sarah fix. Beth, for her part, insisted on calling Gigi the next week to say that she missed her:


Rob, Sarah and Olivia arrived late Friday night, much to Beth's chagrin — she couldn't stand it that Liv was getting here after bedtime. On Saturday — possibly the last nice day of the year! — we went over to Bentley for the homecoming/alumni weekend carnival. The kids collected blue-and-gold bead necklaces from the cheerleaders, got their faces painted, saw some rather docile petting-zoo goats, and jumped in (or, in Beth's case, came out crying from) a bouncy house. Food was good. Game of dominoes after the kids tucked in for the evening was even better. Catching up with Rob and Sarah was great.

I have zero — ZERO — pictures of the weekend. Sarah brought her camera, and if you've seen her pictures you know why I didn't take any.

Chilly

I'm going around the house closing all the storm windows, because it's becoming increasingly apparent that the warm weather is NOT coming back (well, not for months and months, anyway) and the cold is starting to affect my ability to type. And cook. And play with my kids. And do anything other than huddle under a blanket watching the Food Network. (Speaking of...if you haven't seen "The Chef Jeff Project," it's totally worth a gander.)

Sarah WILL NOT wear a hat. Or mittens.

Beth insists on wearing her hat, mittens, and scarf...even while inside. It's a good idea. I'm wearing a rather jaunty (well, in my mind anyway) black beret around the house myself. Goes with the black Halloween tee and the overall grimness outside.

I want the sky to stop being gray. August, August, wherefore art thou, August?

If I play my cards right...

Sarah's had quite the day today.

1. She fell out of the car on her head. (I know: YIKES, right?) I think she caught her foot in the car seat straps when I told her to turn around and sit down so I could strap her in. She has a lump and a lovely scrape on her forehead, which only enhance her generally tomboyish appearance. This is a rough-and-tumble kid I've got, and as much as she likes her sparkly tennis shoes and ribbons in her hair, she's way more proud of being able to go down the big slide by herself. Forehead scrape? Part of the job, my friend.

2. While Scott was out picking Beth up from preschool, Sarah pointed to her diaper and grunted. We've learned that this usually means she's about to use the diaper, and in a flash of mommy brilliance I said, "Do you want to go potty on the potty?"

"Gueah!"

So I raced with her to the bathroom, stripped her down, and put her on the potty. Nothing happened. We were sitting there staring at each other when Beth and Scott came home. Beth was very impressed: "Sarah, you're sitting on the potty? You're a big girl." Sarah beamed.

Which leads to...

3. An hour later I was making grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch (the gourmet choice — Kraft singles and all) and talking on the phone. The girls were off doing goodness-knows-what. And then from the hall I heard, "Mama, Sarah goed wee-wee!"

Er...she did? I poked my head around the corner. There was a bare-bottomed Sarah, with her pants down around her ankles, grinning at me. Beth, proud as punch, was behind her holding her diaper. I scanned the floor: no puddle. (Please, please tell me the puddle isn't on the living-room rug.) I looked in the bathroom and saw this:


Toilet paper strewn about the bathroom, and a small yellow puddle IN THE POTTY. Beth had pulled Sarah's pants down, taken her diaper off, and helped her sit down. And then, to keep her company, Beth went on the big potty. I was cooking lunch, and they were having a potty party in the bathroom. Not feeling the love, here.

I laughed my head off for a good few minutes before finding a new diaper for Sarah. Both girls got M&Ms (Sarah says "Em-num-nums" now, which pretty much echoes how I feel about them) — Sarah for going in the potty, and Beth for helping her. By this time, of course, the cheese sandwich was burned beyond recognition.

At bedtime, with the house still smelling faintly of burned cheese, I was once again telling Beth what a good helper she had been. She was glowing. "I'm just like a mommy!"

If I play my cards right, this will be the easiest potty-training on record, because I won't have to do any of it. Beth will do it for me. Gigi says, "You knew you had her first for a reason."

(I do not, unfortunately, have a picture of Sarah bare-bottomed in the hall. At some point, caution trumps hilarity and potential teenage embarrassment.)

Customer disservice, part 2

...and here's the reply I got today:

Dear Libby,

Thank you for contacting H&M - we received your e-mail.

We apologize for the situation you encountered regarding our leggings, and H&M is grateful for your honesty. Unfortunately, H&M does not have on line shopping in the US and no transactions are processed outside of our stores. We regret this information was not supplied to you immediately in a customer service friendly manner.

H&M is appreciative of your willingness to pay for the legging, unfortunately H&M does not have the capability to process personal checks and they are not accepted as a method of payment in our stores.

We value your patronage, time and concern Libby, and in no way want you to feel embarrassed. Feel free to return the leggings at your convenience, the next time you visit us, as we understand the error was clearly an innocent mistake.

Additionally Libby, it would be our pleasure to send you a Courtesy Coupon valid until December 31st as a token of our appreciation to you - if you would provide us with your complete mailing address.

Sincerely,

H&M Customer Service

So here's the deal: I've already put the check in the mail, as the saying goes. I appreciate that the stores have a policy of not accepting checks for fraud prevention purposes, but I'm going to trust that somewhere in the vast H&M worldwide resources they'll be able to figure out how to cash a personal check for $4.90. 'Cause it's going to show up in their mail tomorrow.

Sigh.

Late-night snack

You know what I like best about chocolate ice cream sodas? The slushy ice crust that the soda puts on the ice cream. Yum.

Customer disservice

Here's the text of the e-mail I sent to H&M today:

My kids and I went to the H&M store in downtown Boston this morning. My three-year-old, who was hanging on to her new clothes, accidentally dropped a pair of leg warmers in the basket underneath our stroller. Of course I didn't discover them until I was nearly home (at the end of the subway line, folding the stroller to stow in the trunk of my car).

So I called the store as soon as I got home: I have a pair of leg warmers, and I'd like to pay for them. The woman who answered the phone was utterly confused, and told me I'd have to come back to the store and show them my receipt.

No, I said, I didn't pay for them. They're not on the receipt. I'm calling because I WANT to pay for them.

She asked me to hold while she got a manager. I was on hold for quite a while -- 10 to 15 minutes -- and finally hung up. When I called back a few minutes later I asked to speak to the manager immediately.

He wasn't much more help. No, he couldn't take a credit card number over the phone. I would have to return to the store to pay for the leg warmers. (I don't go downtown often.) Or, if I didn't want them, he guessed I could send them through the mail. He didn't see any other way he could help.

How about this, I said. I'll send you the tag from the leg warmers, with a check. He agreed, gave me his name (Paul) and the address of the store, and hung up.

Now, I'm embarrassed that I walked out of a store without paying for something. And I really wanted to do the right thing. But at no point did either employee thank me for being honest. Instead, they acted confused -- why would I want to pay for something if I didn't have to? -- and, in addition to being unable to help me, seemed unwilling to go an extra step to find a way in which they could help.

I wonder if your employee training covers how to handle a situation that is out of the ordinary. From the experience I had today, I doubt it. I would have appreciated someone saying that they didn't have an answer for me, but they were certainly sympathetic, they appreciated what I was trying to do, and they would give me a call back within an hour with a solution.

Oh, and Beth had so many questions about why things were a certain way on our train that I suggested she could design subway cars when she grew up. She's pondering it.

Sarah and the orange crayon

Sarah drew me a picture today, all by herself. She found the paper, she found the crayons, and she opened the box without help:


Masterpiece, isn't it? I have this vision of someday getting frames for my kids' artwork, and having a place on the wall to show it all off, along with a small card to the right of each piece:

Pumpkin
2008
orange crayon and scratch paper
private collection

(This may actually be an indication that I need to find a paying job back in the arts world and let my kids be kids.)

It is a pumpkin, apparently. Sarah showed me the picture and I said, "That's beautiful, Sarah! So much orange! Is it a pumpkin?"

"Gueah!"

"Or maybe spaghetti. Is it spaghetti?"

"No no no."

A few minutes later she was in the playroom, working hard at something important in the play kitchen, and she showed me the dishes she had put in the oven.

"Is that dinner? What are you making me, Sarah?"

In answer, she pointed out of the room, then led me back to the dining room where her drawing was still out on her little table. She put her finger down on the paper.

"Pumpkin? Are you making me pumpkin?"

"Gueah!"

Free handbags!

Seriously...it's turning out to be quite the good day. Beth learns the macarena, Sarah draws me a picture, we decide to get Beth night potty-trained for once and for all...and now this: Handbag Planet giving away a handbag an hour as a site launch gimmick (and viral marketing campaign, which I totally respect). On the delight-o-meter, this is like Piperlime without the pesky do-I-wear-an-8 1/2-or-a-9? dilemma.

"The library is not a shrine for the worship of books." — Norman Cousins

(Good thing, too. I'd get kicked out.)

Do I have a significant, thought-provoking, fodder-for-good-discussion book I should read for my book group? Well, yeah. It's The Preacher's Daughter by Beverly Lewis, in case you're interested (and I am, I really am). Did I check it out while we were at the library today? Um, no. The hour we were there was all in the kids' section: storytime with a good dose of songs and dances, and some time on the computer so Beth could have a multimedia Tomie de Paola experience, and some looking at and waving to the turtles, Overdue and Renewed.

The following falls under the category of either Tragically Hip Mamahood or Spectacularly Bad Parenting...but I just couldn't help myself. We checked out a stack of kids' CDs, including "Sesame Street Hot! Hot! Hot! Dance Songs." Last song on the CD? The Macarena, Muppet-style. Beth can now do the dance, after a (decade-old) fashion.

Sarah's new word, and budding candy addiction

I was standing at the kitchen counter the other day when Sarah came up to me.

"Mama? Mama? Emanem." Expectant look.

Emanem! I can add a new word to her scant and oddly selective repertoire: elbow, okay, me. This is the child who understands everything we say but doles out her own words like a miser parting with shiny new quarters. But she loooves food, and she knows I keep M&Ms in the cupboard (and, failing that, always a Costco-sized bag of chocolate chips).

I opened a brand-new bag of peanut butter M&Ms and gave her one. I figured I should encourage her in her attempts to verbalize her wants. And, you know, the look on your kid's face when you give her chocolate? Priceless.

Blue caboose

Scott got an e-mail this week from a Bentley administrator inviting faculty and staff on a train ride. Specifically, a ride on a restored 1913 (or thereabouts) Boston & Maine wooden caboose. Bring the kids, food on board, etc. It's a two-hour ride up to New Hampshire where the train is, but we figure, hey, this sounds like a lot of fun. And Scott has always wanted to ride in a caboose.

Turns out? The administrator and her husband own the caboose. It had been damaged by a fire during a railroad strike, and they took the time to restore it and get it operational again, and it's absolutely darling. Bright blue, big B&M logo on the side, shipshape inside painted white with blue cushions on the seats. There are seats at the front, a small galley area, then benches along the sides that double as beds. At the very middle there are built-in ladder rungs that go up to the top of the cupola, where there are two facing seats on either side. We ended up sitting in one side of the cupola — just enough space for the four of us — and the girls happily munched on cookies and sandwiches and drained their juice boxes.


Beth was a bit nervous at first about the open windows (oh my, the view!), while I was keeping one arm around Sarah to make sure she didn't dive headfirst out of hers. But Beth got over her fears:


Sarah, sick of me hanging onto her waist while she stuck her head puppylike out the window, decided the cupola was boring and the main level (and resident Cocker Spaniel) would be much more fun:


She also made friends with a six-year-old girl who mother-henned her quite well, tried (unsuccessfully) to get out to the observation deck, and waved out the window at a train we passed along the way. Scott asked the caboose owners' daughter if her dad had always had trains. "Yeah," she said. "They've just gotten bigger."

Help! I'm parenting a teenager!

Okay, not really. But here's Beth slouched down on the couch last Thursday, watching TV:

Here's the outfit she was wearing that day: a vintage-look silkscreened T-shirt and straight-leg jeans (check out the pose):


The absolute last straw was when I was stirring frozen peas into a pot of boxed mac 'n cheese and called her to lunch. She stalked into the kitchen, looked at the bare table and the pot on the stove, said, "I can't eat it. You're still making it," and stalked back out.

First day of preschool

Apparently the way your kid reacts to stress at age 3 is the same way they'll react to stress when they're 13 and 30. If that's true, I know exactly what the first day of junior high school will be like, and it's not going to be good.

Bethie was sooooo nervous about her first day of preschool. She couldn't sleep the night before — kept coming out of her room with various excuses and finally an "I can't sleep!" Poor munchkin — she worries about new situations, and despite the fact that she'd already met her teacher (a wonderful home visit) and that we'd been talking about preschool for quite a while, she was just a little bundle of nerves.

It even carried over to the next morning. Here's Beth wearing her jacket, backpack, and nervous smile, ready to go to school:



Scott stayed home with Sarah so we could do the first day unencumbered. Once we got to school she found her cubby with her picture in it, hung up her things, and trooped into the classroom with some other kids. And there were foam beads at one of the tables, and the kids were making necklaces. Less than ten minutes from the time we'd walked in the door, she was happily stringing beads on yarn. I told her I was going to have to leave, and I would pick her up at the end of her class, which was only an hour and fifteen minutes long that first day anyway. She barely looked up to say goodbye.

When I picked her up, her teacher commented that Beth had spent her time playing with the boys: sand table and pirate ship. Well, yeah. That's my kid. Boys aren't icky yet (except for Daddy, and when she says it she giggles) and what could be cooler than a ship that looks like it's from Pirates of the Caribbean?

Now that she's been going for a week (I started this post right after her first day of school, but somehow haven't found time to finish it until now), my anxious girl is gone — replaced by a kid who bounces out of bed at 7:00 on school mornings. She has three other little girls she plays with regularly, and she will happily chatter to anyone who asks about what she did at preschool. (Unless I'm in the room and I've already asked her, in which case she'll sigh and say, "Mommy, I already told you." So perhaps Scott and I are supposed to communicate telepathically?)

Miss Sarah also adores preschool, and is miffed when she has to leave with me. Life is so unfair when you're not yet 2 and your big sister gets to do cool things.

Say-ings

I have the Bethisms, and since we call Sarah "Say-say" sometimes (it's a reference to when Beth couldn't say her name and called her Baby Sayah) I figured I'd call Sarah's version Say-ings. Do stop me if it's too, too...well, okay. It is too-too much. It's my blog, and I'll be nauseatingly cute if I want to.

A month ago she was barely saying anything at all; now she'll tell us animal sounds (particularly "baa!" and "gack-gack-gack" for "quack"), enthusiastically point out Elmo, and point to her elbow and say "e-bow." "Yes" comes out as "guesh" or "gueh!" and she finally picked up "no-no-NO!" which I'm not thrilled about, but there you are.

Beth started preschool yesterday (more on this in another post) and I'm "guesh"ing that Say picks up quite a few more words without her big sister to intercede for her in a "Mommy, Sarah wants..." kind of way. Right now she makes herself understood (and quite well, too) with a combination of points, "uh-uh-UH!" grunts and frustrated yelling.

Oh, and she learned to do a somersault, too. Not communication, just awfully cute.

Somebody's been watching too much Wonder Pets!

Beth, to Grandma, who's reading her a book about dinosaurs: "Those guys eat this guy."

"That's right. If there's enough of them."

"They use teamwork and they take him down."

Bethism #7

Beth, playing with a rubber duckie while I'm taking a bath: "I'm putting this duckie under the water because he's gonna get baptized."

Rite of passage, or "Hmmmm...does this fit?"

Between toddlerhood and kindergarten there are the preschool years, also known as the sticking-things-in-various-orifices years. Beth is running headlong into this: tonight she stuck a little round noodle (thanks to Google I can tell you the singular of "acini di pepe" is "acino di pepe," but that probably doesn't help anything) in her nose. Utter panic on Beth's part when she realized it was really stuck! Fortunately I got her to blow out her nose — she usually blows in — and I extracted the noodle.

I know, I know — it's my fault for serving her Italian wedding soup. But it's her favorite!

Just wonder what's next....

Money management (pre-K version)

We pay a 5-cent deposit on bottles and cans here in Massachusetts, and though I'm good about rinsing them out and bagging them, I usually forget to take them back to the grocery store. So a while ago I made a deal with Beth: if she remembers to take the cans to the grocery store and helps me feed them into the recycling machines, she gets the money for them.

Much enthusiasm. It's very cute to see her carrying two unwieldy plastic bags filled with soda cans across the parking lot, and though she can't reach the machines, she's perfectly happy to hand me individual cans and then carry her little redemption tickets through the grocery store.

It's turned into quite the big deal. She is figuring out how many cans give her how much money, and we're cementing the idea that she can earn money by doing some work. We count out her tithing (awfully cute to see her solemnly hand her tithing envelope with all of 13 cents in it to the bishop!), and once she has a dollar (and five cents for tax, which is another good discussion about government and everyone helping everyone else) she can take it to Target and pick something out of the dollar bins. Anything above and beyond the $1.05 ends up in her piggy bank, and we talk about savings.

How did I stumble on this? I have no idea. But I feel like such the good mom for the hands-on cross-curricular learning experience. And Bethie loves her newest acquisition: a pair of plastic Hello Kitty bracelets.

Birthday, and other good things

Yes, we spent a week and a half in sunny Southern California, and yes, it happened to coincide with our seventh(!) anniversary and my birthday. Perfectly glorious weather, old friends who are still good friends, the beach, the Mouse. Heaven.

Oh, and murderous traffic on the 5 (and the 405 and the 110 and the 101 and the 10). We snagged a bright blue Prius from the rental agency to mitigate the gas costs, but there's no mitigating the time on the freeway with two peevish children. I remember L.A. having bad traffic. Really. I think it's just easier to handle without squirming and fussing in the back seat, especially if I can't hear the urban music mix on KCRW over the fussing. And with a sunroof. I definitely miss my sunroof.

Beth and Sarah have new buddies, thanks to my oh-so-considerate friends who have kids just their age. We got to see Allison & Chris's fabulous house (especially fabulous because Chris did all the work himself, and they lived with his parents for 18 months while he was doing it). Awfully cute to see Beth and Annelise walk to their Moonbeam class holding hands. Lisa and I took all of our kids to the beach and to Downtown Disney and they got along beautifully while the two of us talked and talked and talked and talked and talked. Beth and Benjamin really hit it off:


We spent time with some friends from ages and ages ago — dinner with Ashley up by her work in Burbank, and with her parents and sister and brother-in-law on the beach in San Diego. All of which was lovely, and easy (once we got through the traffic), and felt very familiar. Beth had no interest in the waves and was perfectly content to sit and chat with Gary and Nicole and Mike, who were just as content to sit and chat with her.


On our anniversary Lisa had planned to host a dinner party, and to that end she invited a bunch of friends from our L.A. 1st days, and at the last minute she had puking kids (not conducive to a good dining experience) and the lovely and talented Dora-chan stepped in and took over. And then she blogged about it, and I'm surprised and touched by her Xenocide reference, because it's a part of the book that really speaks to me, and something I've had in the back of my mind as I try to put together this little family of ours.

My birthday involved me packing the girls into the Prius, driving up the 5, and spending the morning in the L.A. fashion district — reminder of the times when I lived close enough to walk there (and no, it's not as bad as you think). All three of us now have Ugg knockoffs to keep our toes warm this winter, and I have a faux Coach bag, and the girls have frou-frou fancy dresses for next Easter. Beth kept asking, "Mommy, why are you talking Spanish?" and I didn't have an extremely good answer for her. (Um, it's easier?) And then I happened to meet an Orthodox Jew from Buenos Aires who was sightseeing and wanted to see the "real" L.A. Delightful man, fun chat; he wanted to see something a little more historic, so I pointed him toward Olvera Street. I hope he enjoyed his visit.

We drove west, had lunch and saw a movie (the American Girl one, which was cute) and then Beth threw up her Jamba Juice in the car on our way home. So there I was in south-central L.A. with a half-naked kid on the sidewalk and a bag of baby wipes, cleaning off the car seat, and if there's a Mom Olympics there has GOT to be a good start value for that event. I was still in a pretty good mood, though, and Beth is none the worse for wear.

If I can't live there, this is the kind of vacation I want: somewhere with palm trees and sun and old friends and interesting people and lots of kidlets running around and enjoying some good chaos.

Jen, this one's for you

(Note, please, the correct conical princess hat AND the pink-and-purple gown. Seriously. It's the Mouse version of my Lady Macbeth costume. There are deep, deep childhood memories to be mined here, and they all involve the word "mousemeat.")