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recent posts
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Cheap Thrills While I Tap My Foot
That Dark Brown Taste
If You Squint...
Little Nippers
Knocked Around
Stepping Lively? Hardly.
Everything Old is New Again
Some Flickers of Interest
Well Spoken
Beached
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Cheap Thrills While I Tap My Foot
It became clear the I didn't plan the summer particularly well and my lack of foresight turned into this lousy tug-of-war where I have been fighting constantly for time to work and forgetting deadlines and scrambling in a way that feels much too much like finals week before Winter Break (but with 85 degree weather). This of course combines with Horrible Mother feeling because of course my work angst has been mixed with churlishness. (As an aside, I have to mention that Dahlia Lithwick and Emily Bazelon have an interesting piece about these sort of questions, writ large, and the Republican vice-presidential nominee.)
So it was with some relief that over the long weekend my mother urged me to take the children on a excursion to the recently-opened IKEA in Red Hook. This was a revelation. Not only was I able to replace the hugely embarrassingly tattered pillowcases I had been living with and get a new comforter cover in anticipation of the dog deciding to throw up on it at 4:00 AM. (He's not sick but the summer months mean people discard plum and peach pits on the street and if I'm not super spry and sharp-eyed-- and since I just described how distracted I am, you know how THAT goes-- the terrier will snarf them up and only realize he can't digest them at some quiet moment when everyone is sleeping.)
But the real allure of the new Brooklyn IKEA is not the linen department or the curious children's section (though we also found fabulous kiddie scissors), it is the means by which one gets there. One takes a free water taxi across the East River, leaving from Pier 11 downtown, to the banks of Red Hook. I can't recommend it highly enough for children. They get to see the Statue of Liberty, one of the public art waterfalls pouring away, the odd cruise ship... and the trip is a mere 15 minutes long so you're off before boredom and crank sets in.
But in spite of the pleasures of that excursion, and already I am scheming a return visit, I am wildly ready for school to start again and to be rid of the annoying sense that doing things I need to do (work, for instance) is highly inconvenient for all the people around me.
posted by Elise at 6:37 AM
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That Dark Brown Taste
I was going to blame my bad attitude on August again, but that would be making excuses for myself and I really can't.
It is apparent to me that on top of not getting enough work done (and I really must start staying up later and exerting myself more because I'm currently feeling that unpleasant sweaty pre-exam-haven't-studied feeling and the school year hasn't started) I'm also behind on various Ultramother endeavors.
Consider food. I actually don't consider food nearly enough. I want my children to be nutritionally fortified and certainly don't want them to be hungry, but I don't have elaborate rules for them. I do my best, and I know that my best is embarrassingly shabby by the standards of many.
Recently I found myself chatting with another parent about school snacks. Her child does not eat any sugar of any sort (including fructose), because she feels that all sugars are quite unhealthy, hard to digest and cause horrible problems for the body. (She may be right. I was just glad we were having this conversation in a month that was not October, December, February or April because during those phases more than others I surely must seem as if I am wearing eau d' candy corn/ candy cane/ conversation hearts/ jelly beans, and I would be really ashamed. )
But then she said that she was concerned about the snacks at preschool because some "lazy mothers" as she put it, would just show up with stuff like graham bunnies or sweetened yogurt packs and fob those nasty things off on the kids. And I was a bit taken aback. I have done snack at school and nothing I offered would have been acceptable. I am a lazy mother. I know I took in grapes at least once and clementines on another occasion and pretzels... and the one time I really was trying to earn my wings and exert myself I did something that would have really offended. I made oatmeal raisin cookies from scratch.
She asked what I thought she should do, and I suggested that perhaps the best thing to do was behave as if her child had a food allergy and sensitivity (which she may actually have, I don't know) and just supply all snacks herself (because, while it is unlikely in my neck of the woods, she might find there are other "lazy mothers" slacking around waiting to poison the world with fruit and crackers). So of course this interlude filled me with the standard tug-of-war of irritation and guilt: irritation for being forced to think about yet another non-issue that makes me impatient and doesn't have much relevance in my own affairs and guilt that I don't force a more virtuous set of eating parameters on my children, and myself, I suppose (though I have actually suspended about 93% of my candy eating).
When it comes down to it, in this moment, I'm sick of virtue. I'm tired of feeling that maybe a second cup of coffee in the late afternoon is a questionable thing to drink (of course I DO drink it without hesitation, what do you think I am?) or that I'm not applying myself well enough in the gym, at my work, with my children, in the dog run. It is unfortunate that people don't talk with enough relish about the lovely, decadent things of the world: melting ice cream, beefy red wine, sleeping late, forgoing the gym, voluptuous lounging.
I want to see some dissipation in my face.
posted by Elise at 5:01 PM
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If You Squint...
My mother was talking to me recently about the John Edwards scandal and, as part of the paternity discussion, said that the baby in question looks "exactly" like Edwards. She seemed surprised when I said that I found that hard to believe since to me babies come in only a few varieties: tiny, plain (also called "Winston Churchill"), hairy, members of one of many ethnic groups with strong physical characteristics, and enormous. (I always think about puppies when it comes to little babies and appearances. Dogs of all breeds don't start showing real dominant physical traits for a couple of weeks after birth. For a while they all really do look pretty much the same.) I reminded her that when she came to see her first grandchild in the hospital for the first time, he was being dealt with in the hospital nursery and my husband pointed out the wrong baby to her.
We did take the right one home, I'm sure of that.
Anyway, here is a little commentary that ran in New York magazine's gossip blog on the subject, and I think you'll agree with me that, while that is undeniably a baby on the cover, it doesn't bear too much resemblance to anyone... except possibly Mr. Churchill.
Even now that both of my children are old enough to look like something non-generic, I still get people peering at one or the other of them and saying: "Now, who does he look like?" I never know what to say to that question. If I say something definitive, wouldn't it make the other person feel doltish? Happily I get the opposite, intense affiliation of one of my sons with me and the other with my husband almost as frequently.
Sooner or later, though, they'll have to separate and start looking like themselves.
posted by Elise at 1:35 PM
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Little Nippers
There are suddenly a lot of teeth around here and I find they have become a constant preoccupation.
I worry about their arrival (and how little sleep I'll get as they come in).
One is always on the lookout to make sure no one is taunting or accidentally hurting the terrier (potential tooth scenarios abound).
Speaking of the terrier, I have been told by his veterinarian to brush his teeth periodically, as an investment in his future.
And then the Felix, who just went to the dentist, apparently has a couple of teeth that must be "watched closely" -- this is what I get for holding off on the fluoride toothpaste for a little too long. (I have no defense for this, by the way. I had been told to use non-fluoride toddler toothpaste at one point and never remembered to ask when to switch over until I was informed that I made the switch late. This is the sort of vagueness I can't stand and I wind up kicking myself forever while gnashing my teeth about the inability to do the right thing-- and I'm not just talking about fluoride, in case you missed my little flight from the specific to the general.)
Oh, and of course there are the children who bite each other (or try to bite- it isn't as if no one runs interference around here), which really makes me crazy. We're in the middle of an extended punishment moment (Sebastian is learning the true meaning of "time out" while Felix is experiencing the pain of No Ice Cream on Several Consecutive Beautiful August Evenings.
I intend, and there's no other way to put it so forgive me, to nip this in the bud.
posted by Elise at 1:51 PM
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Knocked Around
There is a running joke in my house, inspired by the ubiquitous reruns of Law & Order, that if the police ever show up at the house, my husband will have a lot of explaining to do because I tend to be covered with bruises and scrapes. I can't even lamely say "Oh, uh, I walked into a door" (the way battered women on cop shows tend to protest) since most of the time I have no idea how I turned up black and blue.
It seems my children have inherited my tendencies. Both boys have entered August with a full complement of scrapes and bruises. It is completely unclear how they acquire many of these marks, though I can absolutely say they inflict many of them on each other with some regularity. One of the amusing aspects of Sebastian becoming more of a child, less of a baby, is that he is happy to play with his brother (something like Hide and Seek-- but without the hiding part and lots of "boo" shouting was invented recently), and while neither of them is abusive, they are not gentle with themselves or each other.
So today, I scanned the children and wondered how it is that so many other kids I see are pristine when mine are not. How can this happen? How can I keep Felix off the slide or out of the playground generally? Speaking for myself, some of the danger is in the house. We're living in somewhat close quarters these days and we are all constantly whacking shins, hips, and arms into the sides of the "dining room" table or bookshelf corner. Whenever we finally move, it will be interesting to see if the bruise rate declines.
posted by Elise at 6:35 AM
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Stepping Lively? Hardly.
I can't stand August for all sorts of reasons. Indulge me.
The lack of productivity kills me.
No one calls you back.
No one is in town.
Tempers run short. (So it's probably good that no one's around, but still.)
The line between "relaxed" and "restless" is too fine.
If things get really bad, psychiatric help is inevitably abroad.
Having said all of that, my crowd is not jumping on the bandwagon and hitting the road (too much work to get through before September, among other reasons). We're sitting in place, doing things we forgot to do during the school year.
However, in the interest of being helpful, I will point you travelers towards this not unhelpful article about travel gear for parents of young kids.
If you do find yourself in Manhattan on a nice day in August (no that's not an oxymoron), though, I do recommend a swing through the Metropolitan Museum of Art. If nothing else, you can grab some fabulous snapshots in the sculpture garden.
posted by Elise at 4:48 PM
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Everything Old is New Again
One of the ways I denied the realities of having a baby (now babies), especially in the early most sleep deprived days, was in dreaming about the library of children's books I would collect for Felix, and like everyone I tended to embrace the things I had when I was little.
It was something of a disappointment to discover that a lot of my favorite books had fallen out of print (shocking, I know, and how insulting to be reminded of one's advanced and advancing age). Among my favorites are two books by the same author. The titles:
No Kiss for Mother and The Beast of Monsieur Racine.
The author: Tomi Ungerer.
So it was thrilling to see in the New York Times today that Mr. Ungerer is coming back into the picture. Another one of his stories, The Three Robbers, is an animated movie and I am excited and a bit concerned about it because I stil have strong fond memories of a favorite babysitter reading The Three Robbers to my brother and me when we were very little.
The article, if you read it, elaborates on how subversive Ungerer's text and images appear to some people. Maybe this is the case, but what I love so much about all of his books is that they drift very close to themes and topics that are worrisome and then proceed to undermine the unhappiness with a joyful ending. Consider Alumette, Ungerer's revisionist Little Match Girl story in which the Poor Little Match Girl ends up becoming a great philantrhopist.
So it is with great pleasure that I read about Ungerer's return and I hope there are more, because the latest of his works that I discovered when my first child was only a few months old, is Flix, the story of a pug dog born to cat parents who goes on to become a famous politician and uniter of dogs and cats everywhere. Now that's a successful child.
posted by Elise at 12:07 PM
1 Comments
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