Chocolate Syrup Will Add a Realistic Brown Tone to the Blood

OK, I will admit this: I never really liked Michael Jackson. Sure, I was “there” for the 1982 premiere of the Thriller video on MTV, and I was of the first generation of suburban kids to try and fail at moonwalking. But, when my parents presented me with my very own cassette tape of the Thriller album, I asked them to take it back to the store.

I have confessed this ambivalence to assorted friends over the past few weeks, and most have reacted with a touch of horror. “But what about the dancing?!?!” they exclaimed. “Don’t you think he was a genius?” Hmmm. Well, the dancing was good, and he was very creative. But I was just never…thrilled.

When he died, I was not surprised that there was a collective national gasp of shock. But I certainly didn’t imagine that there would be an elephant parade in his honor! Or a Maya Angelou poem ("Beloveds, now we know that we know nothing, now that our bright and shining star can slip away from our fingertips like a puff of summer wind")! Or a butter sculpture! So I got to thinking -- perhaps I have underestimated the whole Michael Jackson phenomenon. Is there a way connect with this larger movement, to feel it for just a moment?

To that end, I decided to take to the streets and gauge the impact of Michael Jackson’s life and death in my own community. I was going to ask people about why they were so attached to him, how his music changed them, and how they were coping with his death.

So Last Friday evening, my friend ECM and I headed out to the 2009 World Record Thriller Dance. Here was the premise: You were supposed to dress up like a zombie (we didn’t – I regret that), wait in line for hours, and then join with thousands of similarly bloody individuals in a dance that filled several blocks of city streets.

When ECM and I embarked on our attempt at investigative reporting, we found that most zombies were more than willing to let us pick their brains. Take, for instance, “Chubby Farmer Zombie," who joined us on the sidewalk to chat about the larger significance of the event. “Why did you dress up like a zombie tonight?” I asked him. “Because my wife made me,” he answered. “It didn’t have anything to do with Michael Jackson?” I continued. “Ah, yes!” he corrected. “Michael Jackson! Michael Jackson changed music, man! He was the KING OF POP. He just died, you know.” At that point, he was joined by his nagging wife (sporting an “I Love Brains” shirt, below) and their charming son, G.I. Joe.



My attention was diverted by “Vitamin Water Zombie,” who came up to us to ask us what we were doing. “I’m taking pictures of people like you!” I said. “Why?” he asked. “Because I want to write about why all these people came out tonight in costumes to do a dance from the 1980s.” He said, “I came because my ex-girlfriend wanted me to come.” I looked at him quizzically. “It’s complicated," he added.




There were others.


Zombie with a Brain on a Stick:



Corporate Logo Zombies:



Elvis Zombie:



Going to the Chapel Zombie:



Zombies Up Past Their Bedtime:



A Banana:



A Penguin:



Random Bloody Guy:



ECM and I planted ourselves with a good view of the main stage. The music started for the warm-up, and we could hear the perky dance instructor zombies begin their work.

Right, Left, Right, Left, Shoulder Step, Shoulder Step, Shuffle Back, Hop, Hop, Forward, Slide, Slide, Right Hip, Right Hip, Left Hip, Left Hip, Claws Up, Claws Up, Stare, Stare.

But it turned out that all we could really see was a confused and sweaty crowd of zombies milling around without a place to be. ECM and I were debating about what to do when we heard a zombie say, “Hello, Seattle! We are 300 zombies short of a record. Please go sign up so that we can be WORLD LEADERS!!!”

World leaders! Yes! The Senate election in Minnesota was won by a similar margin. Our participation mattered! We mattered! I grabbed ECM by the arm and dragged her down the street and over to the sign-up station. We weren’t mere journalists. We weren’t bystanders. We were going to DO the Thriller dance, join in this ghoulish display, be a part of HISTORY.

We signed up, gave our phone numbers for verification, and joined the throngs on our way to dance. Except…Wait….There was no dance. We found ourselves out on the street watching a costume contest. About 20 zombies were up on a platform, vying to win an XBOX.

I stood, practicing the dance in my head (Slide, Slide, Roar, Turn), while the competing zombies introduced themselves. Oddly, the fellow who won was not dressed as Michael Jackson; rather, he was dressed like Billy Mays.

Soon, the crowd dispersed. ECM and I looked at each other. Slide? Slide? Roar? Turn? Where was the dancing? We signed up! We were ready!

We made our way up to the front, where ECM found what seemed to be a zombie-in-charge. “When is the dance?” she asked. “The Thriller dance already happened,” he said. “You missed it.”

Missed it!!?

Missed it!!?

Missed it!!?

Days later, we are still at a loss. We were part of this huge event, this RECORD BREAKING event, and yet we weren’t. I have started a letter:

Dear Guinness Book of World’s Records,

On Friday, July 3, Seattle broke the Thriller dancing record with 3,848 zombies. You will need to subtract 2 from that total, because ECM and I somehow entered the twilight zone and didn’t actually do the dance.

Sincerely,

Zombie, Ph.D

I am also at a loss about the larger meaning of this evening. It didn't seem to have much to do with Michael Jackson. Does this suggest that his music transcends his untimely death? That the Thriller Dance will live on, even though he has joined the Land of the Dead? Perhaps there was a sense that drenching oneself in ketchup and carrying around a fake amputated leg could create unity. After all, aren’t we always hungry for something common to rally around, to cry over, to feel together? But more likely, most people were simply happy to have an excuse to celebrate Halloween in July (and maybe win an Xbox along the way).


(Somebody out there was able to see the actual dance. Thanks, YouTube. The dancing starts 22 seconds in.)

The Talk

I should have known it was coming when Green brought home this book from the school library:

The boys have been tiptoe-ing around the question of babies. Recently, I overheard a conversation between them and a friend. It went something like this:

Blue: Jax, do you know how babies are born?

Jax: (slyly) I do.

Green: How?

Jax: The mommy squats down, and the baby squirts out her butt.

Together: Hee Hee Hee

Blue: I’m pretty sure that it squirts out her belly button. Remember, the baby is in the mommy’s stomach?

Jax: Yes, but a stomach is connected to the butt. That is how you poop.

Blue and Green: Ahhhhhh! Now we get it!

At that moment, I was a coward. I did not want to have that discussion, not then. I needed a cocktail first. I needed Michael to be home. I needed to hire a professional to take care of it. I cleared my throat and said, “Boys! Why don’t you all go outside and pretend to shoot things!”

“Yay!” they hooted and ran to the yard with their make-believe guns. I rested my head on the table, feeling like I had dodged a bullet.

A few days later, I was not as lucky. It was a sunny spring day, and we were all headed to the beach. In typical fashion, it was a heroic endeavor to get us all fed, dressed, and sunscreened. About 2/3 of the way through the process, I came into the living room to find the boys hunched over a large children’s encyclopedia.

I leaned over their shoulders and peered at the page. At the top, in neon letters, were the words “Human Reproduction.”

I almost dropped the large load I was carrying. The theme music to Friday the 13th filled my ears:



“Look!” Blue shrieked. “It’s a picture of a baby hatching!”

Hatching?!

I glanced up at Michael, who was half-way through smearing sunscreen on his own face. He raised his eyebrows at me, and I knew what he was saying: Now. We need to tell them now.

These days, the dominant philosophy about sex education is to demystify the topic early and often. The idea is that early parental intervention can protect against misinformation (see above) and crazy, inaccurate hypotheses (see above), and also open lines of communication. Of course, this kind of forward-thinking openness doesn't always produce the desired result. One afternoon, my friend, ECM, and her kindergartner were cooking together. She asked him, “Do you know how babies are made?” His head snapped back in surprise. ECM began to share the details. He suddenly put his hands over his ears and screamed, “I don’t wanna hear it! I don’t wanna hear it!”

I don’t blame him. Anyway, Michael and I decided that we would let our boys’ own curiosity guide the timing of the discussion, and here we were.

I cleared my throat. “Uh…boys? Babies don’t hatch from eggs.”

Green looked up suspiciously. He pointed to a picture of a fetus in the book. “Here’s a picture of a baby with a huge penis. It’s in an egg.”

I paused, then said, “That baby is in an amniotic sac. And that’s not a penis. That’s the cord that brings food to the baby while he’s in his mommy’s belly.”

Green said, “It sure looks like a penis. A giant monster penis!”

There were a couple of silent moments as we all reflected on the idea of a giant monster penis. Then Blue asked, “So how does the baby get in there?”

The Friday the 13th music played again:




Michael and I gazed at each other, waiting to see which one of us was going to take the bait. Usually, our problems fall into jurisdictions. If a birthday party is coming up, I’m the one who is responsible for the journey to Toys R Us. If there is a flying millipede with fangs whizzing through the living room, Michael has to deal with it. But this? This? We stared at each other for 10 seconds, then 20.

Blue repeated the question. “How do babies get in the mommy’s belly?”

Michael shifted, stammered, then dove in. “Well," he said, with a scientific tone. “See…there’s a sperm and an egg, and when they meet, a baby begins to grow.”

Blue was not satisfied. “Where does the sperm come from?” he asked.

Michael looked at me, eyes wide, pleading with me to take over. “From the daddy," I mumbled.

“What? I can’t hear you.” Green said.

“FROM THE DADDY. SPERM COMES FROM THE DADDY,” I wheezed.

“I don’t get it!” Green whined, growing exasperated.

Michael coughed. And coughed again. And then he clarified.

Green’s mouth hung open, his eyes like saucers. “You’re joking,” he challenged.

Michael shook his head and said, “I’m not joking.”

Then Green’s eyes got squinty. He said, “I don’t believe you.”

Blue jumped in. “ I know!” he exclaimed. “Green, you need to ask your teacher. She’ll know the truth.”

It just so happens that Green’s teacher is 7 months pregnant. I would not put it past my child to run into the classroom and say, “Mrs. Worksheet, my daddy says that he knows how that baby got in your belly!”

“ACK!” I shrieked. “No! No! Let’s keep this discussion in our family!” I paused, trying to compose myself. “Uh…do you have any questions?”

Blue said, “I do. I have a question.”

I braced myself. “What is it?”

“Can we go to the beach now?”

Seven

Blue and Green turned 7 a few weeks ago. I always get a little misty-eyed when I think about them getting bigger, and 7 seems so…old. But, truthfully, the event itself made me weary. When I woke up that day, I came into the kitchen and said, “Look at the birthday boys!!” Green looked at me and said in a snotty voice, “So where’s my birthday breakfast?”

Birthday breakfast?!

“What do you mean, Green?” I asked. He furrowed his brow. “Every year I’m supposed to get a special breakfast on my special day.” I growled, “Really? I didn’t get that memo.” I tossed a can of frosting onto the table in front of him. “Spread this on your Cheerios,” I said, reaching for my coffee. “Knock yourself out.”

I don’t know about you, but I remember my birthday being A DAY. With maybe a piece of cake and a song. Blue and Green expect their birthday to be an endless PARADE OF LOVE AND SUGAR. They had a party at a crazy bouncy place with 24 of their sweaty friends (Madagascar 2 cake, with two airplanes on it!!). Then there was their class party (brownies + frosting + marshmallows and candy on top!). Later, there was the celebration with their little league team (rice crispie treats!). And apparently we were supposed to take them out to dinner as well (at the Spaghetti House, where you can by Ragu covered noodles for $10 a plate. The boys say it’s SO MUCH BETTER than the kind we have at home.).

To me, Blue and Green’s 7th birthday turned out to be more of a soul-sucking drain of resources than a rite of passage. But I have to admit that something has changed in the last year. There has been a quiet shift from cute little cherubs to… boys. As they were heading out the door to school that morning, I said, “Wow. You guys are really growing up.” Blue looked at me, rolled his eyes, and said, “Well, DUH.”

Duh, indeed, but I am still shocked at all the differences. Lately, I have witnessed an increasing nonchalance about their old favorites, trucks and buses. Curious George has joined preschool favorites Dora and Diego in the Land of Forgotten Characters. They ask me to stop when I sing the song about Port-a-potties that they made up last summer. “Mommy,” Green said, “That song is hurting my ears.” “What do you mean?” I exclaimed. “You WROTE that song!” “I know,” Green answered, “but that is a kindergarten song. And we’re first graders.”

Ah, yes. Of course. First grade. The year is almost over, and I haven’t really said a thing about it, have I? I will preface my comments with the important detail that my kids like first grade. They claim that it’s way better than kindergarten. But I can’t believe that this is true. Kindergarten was newness and finger paint and potato-decorating. Kindergarten had songs and Choice Time and taxidermy.

First grade has work.

Lots of work.

To the credit of the teachers and this curriculum, my kids are certainly excelling. Last year, they were counting to 100. This year, they’re doing multiplication. Last year, it was the A-B-Cs. This year, they are in “book clubs.” But, as thrilled as I am that they are plunging ahead into the world of knowledge, I have to admit to some ambivalence. Can’t you have multiplication AND finger paint? Chapter books AND Choice Time?

I am still a weekly classroom volunteer, but I am definitely less enthusiastic. Remember volunteering last year? My job was to help kids make peacocks out of paint and to construct Irish Derby Hats out of newspaper. This year, my job has been to work with the kid who can’t focus on his math, the one who is slipping behind as his peers hurtle forward to algebra. This is what my typical volunteering experience has been like this year:

Me: Hello, Jasper! Mrs. Taskmaster wants me to help you with your double-digit addition. Then we can get to work on those fractions!

Jasper: What?

Me: Math, Jasper. Let’s do 42 + 37 + 63 + 50 + 17. Quick! In your head! Then tell me what 1/3 of the sum is.

Jasper: Who are you?

Me: I’m Blue’s mom.

Jasper: Do you even know how to do that problem?

Me: I can’t do it in my head unless I have another cup of coffee. I could, however, solve the problem with a paper and pencil. But you are not allowed to do math the way I learned it. You are supposed to intuit it.

Jasper: So you are saying that you can’t do it, aren’t you? Don’t you have a PhD?

Me: Umm….yes, but my PhD is not in math.

Jasper: I think you are a big fraud.

Jasper is right. The way that I learned how to add and subtract and multiply and divide got recycled long ago. And the way that I learned how to spell? By memorizing? Forget it. My kids are “feeling the sounds” or something like that. I wasn’t very good at the kindergarten crafts, but I find that I am even less competent at first grade academics.

To better illustrate how much things have changed, I want to compare Blue’s Mothers’ Day gift to me last year with the one that he created this year. Last year, Blue spent an afternoon at school decorating a flower pot for me. It had hearts all over it and the painted words, “I love you.” The teacher gave each child a droopy flower to plant, and Voila! I had a lovely hand-made memento of my child’s affection (Actually, the teacher did not consider what would happen to this gift when it was toted home in a backpack. What I really received was a sack full of dirt and an empty pot).

This year, Blue gave me a bubble diagram for Mother’s Day. Awww, honey, how romantic! The kids have been working on these kinds of diagrams all year. I am not sure why. I have a feeling that bubble diagrams are going to be covered on the Big State Standardized Test, and Mothers' Day is just another opportunity to practice, practice, practice.

As you can see, Blue laid out several of my most pleasing attributes:

1) I have a great sense of humor (That’s true, though I hate to break it to him that my laughter at his knock-knock jokes is not genuine.).

2) I am a nice person (unless you ask me to make you a special birthday breakfast before I have my morning coffee).

3) I give him things that he wants (though it seems to me that just last week he was screaming, “You never give me anything I want!!!”).

4) I am a good cook (No one has ever said this to me before. I guess I have perfected my Noodles With Butter dish. ).

5) I am playful (This is true, unless I am doing Facebook. Then I tend to say things like, “Go off and find something to do!! Why do we have a house full of toys if you’re not going to use them?!”).

6. I use my computer a lot (Oh no! I guess I am spending too much time on Facebook. Sorry, kids.)

Sigh. As I write this, I am tucking the bubble diagram into my scrapbook ( Just kidding. I don’t have a scrapbook – I have a “memory pile” next to my desk.). I am also doing long division problems in my head, so that I can be ready for second grade volunteering. After all those years where the days went by so slowly, I suddenly feel the increasing speed of the boys’ childhoods. I think that if I could have picked out my perfect Mothers' Day present, it would have been to hold life still for just a moment -- just one moment, before it wriggled out of my hands and dashed on.

The Gutter

Warning: The contents of this entry may be objectionable to some readers. If you are opposed to references to bodily functions, smells, or noises, you should turn back now. If you are squeamish about underpants, especially random dirty underpants, be advised that there is DANGER AHEAD.

I have learned many things about parenthood. I have learned how to deal with a child's ear pain (Motrin, not Tylenol. Scotch for me). I have learned that, to a six year old, a sprinkle of basil on pizza counts as a vegetable (and will not be tolerated). I have learned that identical objects are not identical -- your brother's will always be better than yours, and IT'S NOT FAIR. But I have to say that the one thing that has surprised me over the past year or two is the total smearing of our lives with POTTY TALK.

About six months ago, my boys became enamored with the Captain Underpants series of books. You know these books, the ones with titles like “The Madcap Adventures of Professor Poopypants.” I realized then that all it takes to make a buck in this world is to tap into the timeless joy that can be found in the idea of poop. Dav Pilkey, the author of the series, simply types a few potty words on each page, draws some rough sketches of a school principal in his BVDS, and zillions of little boys across the country are happy to lay down $4.99 a pop for the pleasure of this kind of “literature.” Better yet, there’s a CD of Captain Underpants potty talk songs (sung by a Japanese synth band) that your child can purchase and play on continuous repeat (Who can resist a song called, “Oops I farted, Oops I burped”).

I do know that there are certain families that forbid potty talk, or forbid it at certain times of the day, or in certain places. One family we know has a rule that you can only use potty talk in the bathroom. Of course, all this means is that their kids each go stand in a separate bathroom and holler their potty words across the house.

Personally, I am rather beleaguered by all the forbidding I have to do. Daily, I have to forbid hitting, punching, kicking, saying mean things, biting, and hiding your brother’s toothbrush in or around the toilet. And just today I learned that I apparently need to forbid digging large holes in the middle of the lawn. I am tired of screaming, “No! No! No!” all day. And that means, at our house, the potty talk will continue to flow in a steady stream.

Occasionally, we can use the potty fixation to our advantage. A few weeks ago, Michael and I took Blue and Green on a little winter hike. Michael was trying to explain the complex ecosystem to the boys, pointing out the presence of an enormous nurse log that was hosting the growth of a new tree. “See that dead tree on its side," Michael began. “You can see its root structure.” Green asked, “Mommy, when are we going home?” Michael persisted, “Isn’t this cool, guys? This tree died and a whole new tree is growing on top of its trunk.” Blue said, “I’m tired. Is it time for ice cream yet?”

Finally, I piped in. “Boys,” I said, “Go check out that tree’s butt!” And off they ran to play in the forest.

We do try to help the boys decide which situations are not ripe for this kind of material. They already know that school is not the ideal place to discuss potty-related topics (though let me tell you, I have learned some things about elementary school boys’ bathrooms that a prim mother doesn’t need to know). We have also asked the boys to refrain from excessive potty talk when we have guests in the house. This rule is generally effective, but occasionally some special circumstances arise. Take, for instance, my in-laws’ visit last December. We were all happily sitting around the kitchen table, talking about mild and wholesome things, when the phone rang. It was our neighbor, calling with hysteria about some “suspicious characters” in the neighborhood.

I should probably back up and mention where we live. It’s a little 1950s neighborhood that is filled with the “original owners.” That means, in polite terms, that the social scene around here is pretty sedate. Nothing really happens, but still, this one neighbor is on the lookout. Don’t even think about stumbling drunk along our street! By all means, clean up after your dog! And if dandelions take over your lawn, watch out! This lady will call 911.

So, anyway, we were all sitting around in the kitchen when our neighbor sounded her alarm: A car! Parked outside our house! Strange people! Doing strange things! I peeked outside, and sure enough, there was an unfamiliar grey beater. Parked. Empty. No strange people. “Thanks,” we told the vigilant neighbor. “We will stand guard.” But, of course, we went back to whatever we were doing, and when we looked outside again, the car was gone.

The next day, when the kids and I were heading out of the house to go to school, Blue stopped abruptly and squealed with delight.

“What is it????” I asked, startled.

“UNDERPANTS!!!!!” He shrieked at top volume. “Mommy! Look! There’s a pair of stinky, smelly underpants in the road!”

And he was right. In the precise spot where the strange vehicle was parked the day before lay a striped pair of Victoria’s Secret panties. For me, this presented a set of perplexing problems: What was I going to do with a pair of someone else’s panties just steps from my front door? Was there a way to dispose of them without actually touching them? And, most importantly, how was I going to tell my mother-in-law not to trip on the USED bloomers decorating our property? For Green, this was a delightful twist to an otherwise ordinary morning. “Mommy,” he said. “This is shaping up to be a really good day!”

By now you are probably wondering why I am sharing this piece of news with you. Well, let me tell you, dear readers, YOU are going to participate in the Saga of the Traveling Underpants. Each month, we will go together out into the street. Will the panties still be there? Will someone move them? Or will they decompose? Maybe this is a question for environmental science: What happens to synthetic fabric made by children in Bangladesh if you expose it to the elements over time?

We have already learned that a Weather Event will not carry the underpants down the street in a flow of ice and water. We have also learned that the passage of various garbage and recycling trucks does not propel the panties away from our house and toward someone else’s. And, finally, we have noticed that few people actually mention the presence of the underpants when they come to visit us. Does this mean they don’t notice that they just plopped their kicky leather boots on top of someone’s unmentionables? Or does it mean that they think that the underpants are MINE?

Here it is - the first installment (covered in a little snow):

Lunar New Year

Each year at school the boys have a Chinese New Year assembly. They get very excited about this event, because they get to watch some fancy dancing and acquire fortune cookies and little red bags of chocolate coins (most likely made in New Jersey). At our house we also celebrate the Lunar New Year, but with a slightly different purpose (and less dancing. No Billy Idol in this case.). We use the New Year as an opportunity to modify annoying behavior.

For instance, we declared 2006 as the Year of the Pot. (Not the Michael Phelps kind of pot -- come on!). At that point, our enormous almost-four-year-olds were refusing to go to the toilet, and I was in that "Will my kids be in diapers in college?" stage of worry. And, if I'm truthful, I was getting kind of embarrassed about taking them out in public. What was I supposed to do -- heave my four foot, 55 pound preschoolers up on a changing table? So the Year of the Pot involved a lot of rather hefty bribes and a little bit of lying to make the kids think they came up with the idea. The result: everyone in this family will be wearing underpants at college.

But, of course, those of you who are parents know that many endeavors are more complicated than they first seem. For our kids, the 2006 project required an extra step. As a result, 2007 became the Year of the Wipe. I will not elaborate on this process here but will offer the confession that the results of the 2007 activities continue to be less impressive than they should be.

2008 was the Year of the Pronoun. I'm pretty sure I've talked about our pronoun issues before, but I will offer a recap. Blue and Green look alike. They have the same interests, and they stick to each other like glue. This has always been confusing to people. And then, when they were little, they had the added quirk of ignoring the basic rules of grammar. When talking about themselves, they would use the second person. If Blue was hungry, he would say, "You are hungry!" If Green was upset, he would say, "You are not happy!" Needless to say, this was a problem for anyone who did not know the code.

Before the Year of the Pronoun, we tried a number of pronoun incentive plans, most notably the Pronoun Sticker Chart. For every correct pronoun, a kid could get a sticker. This worked for something like two minutes. I remember standing in the kitchen with a big book of stickers from Target, armed with patience and a chirpy attitude. "Who can give me an 'I' sentence?" I asked. "I can!" Blue shouted, and was rewarded with a sticker. "Me, too!" said Green. "I want another one," Blue said, laughing. "Me, too!" said Green. Stickers were flying onto the chart. Woo! What fun! Then Green turned to me with a frown and said, "You're done."

One day, for reasons unclear, the boys switched from using the second person to the third person. So if Green said, "Green hates vegetables," he was talking about himself. It seemed like a step in the right direction, but yet -- still a confusing mess. The Year of the Pronoun promised to be a busy one. Oh yes -- I was going to send those kids to college with clean underwear AND the ability to communicate with others.

And you know what -- it worked! The boys started using "I" and "me" correctly and with ease. Though if I'm honest, I'll admit that I probably had nothing to do with it.

That brings me to 2009. Green does indeed hate vegetables, and Blue will happily hate anything that Green hates. And what began as a toddlery distaste for variety is now just poor nutrition. And, you know, I'm unemployed and have lots of time to worry about ending up on a TLC reality show called BAD MOTHERS AND THE KIDS THAT THEY MESSED UP.

Last weekend, my parents took us to a nearby Chinese restaurant. The boys ordered their usual dish of (beige) noodles with (beige) tofu and (white) rice with NO VEGETABLES. Each time we go to this restaurant we have to somehow translate, "Please do not put onions or basil or any sort of green fleck that might be confused with a vegetable on the noodles, or an epic hissy fit will ensue." And it occurred to me at that moment, 2009 is going to be the Year of the Vegetable.

Yesterday I began the hard work of selling vegetables as tasty treats. I pulled out the cookbook my Great Aunt Martha gave me as a wedding gift, the kind of cookbook that has a whole section on cooking vegetables with marshmallows. And I found this carrot recipe that managed to take the vegetable OUT of the carrot (Boil the crap out of it, coat it in brown sugar and butter). I presented this dish to the boys with the following preface: "Boys! Try this yummy piece of orange candy covered in fat!"

As it turns out, you can put lipstick on a carrot, but it's still a carrot.

Don't worry -- I'm not afraid. 2009 has just begun. It's the year of HOPE! and CHANGE! Right? With any luck, we can transform these kids' beige palates, one marshmallowy bite at a time. YES WE CAN!!!

New Year's Excuses

Some of you are getting a little bit naggy about my lack of updating. Good news for you -- naggy works! I do have an excuse, though. Oh yes I do. It's called a 21 day winter break, stuck in the house with two very grumpy short people.

See, out here in this lovely city, we had what was called a "weather event." That's fancy speak for 5 inches of snow in a place that is not prepared. And apparently, a weather event involves a surprising amount of inaction and denial. There was no plowing, no salting, just waiting for the snow to melt (which it did not).

The weather event also involved the closure of the public schools, which meant that the boys' two week vacation turned into three. And let me tell you, a vacation for them is not a vacation for me. Lucky for us, the school system developed a new alert plan to inform parents about weather related issues. The first day of the snowy week, when it was not even snowing yet, the phone started to ring at 5:45 a.m. When we didn't answer, a computerized voice left a message on our answering machine saying something like, "Due to the possibility that it might snow some time in the future, we are going to cancel all classes. This gives us the added benefit of being able to save our cash-strapped district a little bit of money on our heating bills." The system then proceeded to call our cell phones, so the whole house was alive with ringing and buzzing. At 5:46, the kids whooped with joy. "No school! Hooray!" they sang. At 5:47, Green said, "I'm bored."

I'm afraid that being house-bound for so long drove me to drink. I didn't actually mean to drink as much as I did. But on New Year's Eve, as we were lamenting with friends about the weather, Michael accidentally doubled the amount of tequila in his famous margaritas. And sadly, bloggers, that led to some rather unfortunate middle-aged dancing around the living room to Billy Idol.

Oh, it wasn't pretty. There's even a video out there of the drunken flailing (and singing! "Dancing With Myself, woh-oh-oh"), but don't go asking to see it. You never will.

So anyway, that's a long, windy way of saying sorry. I know it's been a bit of a rough patch in our relationship, but returning to blogging is my new year's resolution. I'll leave you with a few photos from the holidays.

Holiday Penguin

Snow Day

Snow Day

Would have been a snow day if it weren't already winter break

Tongue

Freaks and Geeks

Miss Me?

I know.

I KNOW.

I've neglected you, dear bloggers, and I am sorry. It's been kind of a rough fall for me. I decided to teach a full load this quarter, which proved to be a little too full. It was especially problematic, because one of the classes I was teaching was unfamiliar to me (read: I did not know the subject). So every weekend, like my students, I was reading the core literature in the field. And I was writing a lecture and coming up with fun activities and practicing looking authoritative. It turns out that the acting class I took during my freshman year in high school came in handy (And today the part of the Competent Professor is being played by....).

Then it came to my attention that several of my students were big, fat cheaters. Yeah, you read that correctly: SEVERAL. So here's the thing: If you ever become my student, you might find that I don't always know what I'm talking about. But I usually know if you've copied your paper right from the internet (or from the textbook), especially if you are normally a crappy writer or don't speak English as your native language.

Here's my favorite cheater moment from this quarter. I brought the offending student into my office to "talk about his sources." He sat across from me, looking slightly concerned that my normal "nice professor" face had changed into the face I put on when I yell at my kids. As I showed him what happened when I plugged his sentences into Google, he looked shocked. Then he said, "I had no idea that this paper came from the internet. I had my dad write it for me!"

So I've been a little busy being an academic honesty cop. But, OK, here's my confession. I also started a little relationship with Facebook this fall. I find that it's just as fun as this blog, but I don't have to write essays! The first week I joined, I went crazy (they don't call it Crackbook for nothin'). And I have reconnected in a chit-chatty sort of way with a few people I haven't talked to since, oh, 1981. But slowly the buzz is starting to wear off. I imagine it's kind of like going to a high school reunion. At first, it's so much fun to see how everyone has changed. Then you start to realize that the reason that you didn't keep in touch with all these folks is that you never really did have anything in common. The conversations usually go like this: "How have you been? You have 2.5 kids, a great job at a bank, and a white, picket fence? Terrific!" And then you're done.

Coincidentally, I received my college's alumni magazine yesterday. You know these things -- people send in blurbs about how fabulous they have become (kind of like the Facebook updates, but with more glory: "I have 2.5 BRILLIANT kids, am CEO of a bank that did not require a bailout, and my white, picket fence is eco-friendly"). But, anyway, there was one update that stood out to me. It went something like this: "I wrote (Successful Novel), published by (Fancy Publishing Company) in 2008. I wrote the book while in (Exotic Country), where I played (Professional Sport) for a year. After I finished it, I traveled to (Warm Beachy Island) for a vacation, and I decided to stay!"

I've decided that next time I have the "What have you been doing with your life?" conversation on Facebook, I'm going to use this woman's story instead of my own. But, wait, that would be kind of like stealing a paper from the internet, wouldn't it?

Thank you all for being patient. There will be many new updates soon.

The True Meaning of Halloween

(6:30 p.m. A dark and stormy night)

Me: Time to trick-or-treat! Hooray!

Green: I think I only want to go around the block this year.

Me: WHAT?!

Green: I want to go around the block and then go home and hand out candy.

Me: What's the matter with you? Are you sick?!

Green: Mommy, this the season of giving! And I want to give!

Me: No, Green, you’re thinking about Christmas. This is the season of getting, of taking. It’s the season of GREED!

Green: I want to go home.

Me: (heavy sigh). Blue, would you like to score tons of candy with me while your brother goes home and practices being generous?

Blue: Yes!

Me: I think you must be the kid who’s related to me. That other one, I don’t know where he came from.

(A half hour later)

Blue (getting whiny): Mommy, you need to help me carry this bucket of candy. It’s overflowing, and it’s too heavy for me.

Me: Blue, you should never complain about being too rich, too successful, or too full of candy. You were very good at getting all those ladies to pour their entire bowls of goodies into this bucket. Remember that one house where you got something like 20 Starbursts!?

Blue: It’s just too heavy. I’m done trick-or-treating. I want to go home and give out candy with Green.

Me (shrieking): Spreading the wealth!? Are you crazy? What are you, a Socialist?

Blue: Mommy, I think you might need a time out.

Politics, First Grade Style

(Driving home from school)

Green: Mommy, did you know that Obama is just like Martin Luther King?

Me: Uh....What?

Green: He loves Martin Luther King! (Green then bursts into a rendition of the Martin Luther King song he learned in kindergarten: Martin Luther King/You make my spirit sing/You mean so much to me/'Cause you taught us how to be free...)

Blue: Well, there's one thing that's a problem about Barack Obama. He likes chili, and I can't vote for anyone who likes chili.

Green: But the other guy likes Ronald McDonald. Mommy says that McDonalds food isn't good for us.**

Me: McCain has been talking about Ronald McDonald? The clown?

Green: It's true! He likes Ronald McDonald, and he enjoys fishing like Grandpa.

Me: Boys, I have no idea what you're talking about.

Green: We discussed politics in school today. That's how we're going to become good citizens.

Blue: That's right. If you're going to vote, Mommy, you'd better learn about the issues.

**Aha! It's Ronald REAGAN! Not Ronald McDonald!

The Search For Order

(Bye, Summer!)

Blogging is like exercising. Some months I’m totally on the ball, spinning several times a week, walking the hills around my neighborhood, generally making an effort. Other months, I feel pretty good if I carry a load of laundry from one end of the house to the other (phew! Hard work! I think I need a snack!). So look what happened: I decided to focus my attention on maybe learning a bit about the new subject I’m teaching this fall (gulp) and had a brief blogging hiatus. Then a week turned into two, into three. I admit that I’m a flabby writer now, and I need to recommit.

Another obstacle to blogging has been that my kids are driving me crazy. I thought I could just hunker down and wait out this spell of annoying behavior. All you parents out there know how that goes. You wring and wring and wring your hands about the (fill in the blank: waking up at night; fear of the bathtub; biting; burping; not napping; napping too much; eating too much; eating too little; unwillingness to do the age-appropriate thing you want them to do….), and then, one day, it’s suddenly not a problem anymore. The reasons for the change are as unclear as the reasons for the problem in the first place.

The issues in question are what I would classify as sibling stuff. And I don’t have a sibling. I never had to fight over the front seat. I never had to share my toys. I never had to take turns. I never had to hear my mother say, “I can’t help you build a waterproof movie projector out of toothpicks right now because I’m busy helping your brother make a walkie-talkie out of bubble gum wrappers and rubber bands.”

So part of my difficulty dealing with sibling stuff is that I don’t know exactly how it feels to constantly have to WAIT to get what I want. And I certainly don’t know how it feels to watch Curious George while my clone of a brother kicks me in the head with his tremendously smelly feet.

But still, we’ve had more than our fair share of smacking and hitting and whining and screaming and floods in the bathroom and general badness. Last week, after one particularly horrendous battle over getting dressed for school, I called Michael at the office and bellowed, “WE NEED TO HAVE A FAMILY MEETING!!!!”

And he said, “I’m actually in a work meeting right now. Can I call you back?”

And then I shrieked, “NO! DON’T YOU THINK THAT THE FACT THAT I WANT TO SKEWER YOUR OFFSPRING WITH THEIR TOY LIGHTSABERS SUGGESTS THAT THERE’S AN EMERGENCY WE NEED TO TAKE CARE OF?”

That night, Michael and I sat down to make a new behavior incentive plan. Here’s how it went:

Me: We need to break the day down into sections and tie rewards to specific behaviors!

Michael: We need four sections. Let’s list the jobs tied with each section and their associated behaviors.

Me: OK, Morning. Job #1: Eat cereal without gargling or spitting.

Michael: But isn't "eating cereal" the job, while gargling and spitting are behaviors?

Me: Whatever. But do you think we need to turn “no gargling” into a positive? Like, the associated behavior is “using table manners?”

Michael: Terrific. Now let’s turn to getting dressed.

Me: Job #1: Change into clean underpants. Associated Behavior: No throwing brother’s dirty underpants behind the dresser. Behavior translated into a positive: Treat brother’s underpants as you would treat your own.

This went on for some time. My eyes began to droop. “Uh, Michael?” I asked. “Do you think that the fact that we just wrote a 300 page behavior manual, complete with footnotes and appendices, means that this new plan isn’t going to work?”

Michael paused. He said, “I think we need to have the kids brainstorm the rules.”

So, like CEOs who are trying to be hip, we sat the kids down to come up with all the rules that we already decided to implement. Michael became the group facilitator. Right away, Green said, “I think we need to make a change to the system. I think we need to get a toy every week for our good behavior.”

Michael said diplomatically, “Thanks for that suggestion, Green. But let’s focus on what you think our house rules should be.”

Blue said, “Daddy, did you know that emperor penguins can weigh up to 88 pounds?”

Michael said, “That’s wonderful, Blue. But let’s see if we can think about what kinds of things will help us get along in the mornings.”

Green said, “I think that getting a toy every week will help me get along!”

I sighed and said, “Why don’t you tell me about your class rules.”

Green sat up straight. He said, “Respect others and property.”

“Terrific!” I exclaimed. “What might respecting others mean at home?”

He thought a minute, then said, “Uh, not throwing toys at Blue’s face?”

“Marvelous!” I crowed. “And Blue, what might respecting property mean at home?”

Blue giggled. “I know!” he said. “Not putting Green’s penguin in the toilet!”

Slowly but surely, we came up with a list of things the boys will do and how they will act on a daily basis. I know that some of it will work, and some of it won’t. But it already feels like our normal household vibe is back. “You did a great job, boys!” I said. “Now maybe it won’t be so hard for Mommy to live in this house with you!”

Green replied, “I always come up with good rules, Mommy. You wanna know why?”

“Why?” I asked.

And then he said (and I kid you not), “I make good rules because I am The Decider.”

Vacation Recap

Just in case you were wondering, I did bring the laptop with me on vacation. BUT I never turned it on, not even once. It sat unattended in my suitcase, making me just a bit (well, actually a lot) paranoid that some wicked sunbather was going to break into our hotel room and steal it.

We had a nice time, despite a wee windstorm and the occasional six-year-old attitude problem. Notably, Green decided, after years of flagrant nudity, that he was suddenly and unrelentingly modest. "Uh, Green," I said. "Could you wait to take this developmentally-appropriate step until the whole family is not crammed into a single tiny space?" "NO!!!!" he bellowed. "I need my privacy!!" Not to be outdone, Blue also decided that I was never to set eyes on his cute little butt again. "But Blue," I argued, "just yesterday you were playing the naked somersault game!" (Come to think of it, I could do without any more naked somersaults). He looked at me as if to say, "That was then, this is now." The result of this new declaration was that the two of them spent a considerable amount of the vacation arguing about who was going to change his clothes in the postage stamp-sized bathroom.

The other thing that I learned on this trip is that it is unwise for me EVER to express my opinion or to make a suggestion. Apparently, adolescence has arrived early, because both kids are dead set on rejecting all of my good ideas. Here's an example:

(Vacation Morning Number One)

Me: Boys! Let's go to the beach!
Green: No, I want to go to the pool.
Blue: Me, too!
Me: But look -- the beach is sandy! You can dig!
Green: Digging is dumb.
Me: When did digging become dumb? Yesterday you made a point of bringing your buckets and shovels.
Blue: It wasn't dumb yesterday, but it's dumb today.

(Vacation Morning Number Two)

Me: Look, boys! There are waves at the beach! Let's go jump in them!
Green: No, I want to go to the pool.
Blue: Me, too.
Me: But there are no waves in the pool...
Green: Waves are dumb.
Blue: What a bad idea, Mommy.

(Vacation Morning Number Three. One hour before checkout).

Random Playmate: I'm going to the beach!
Green: Let's go to the beach!
Blue: Yes, the beach!
Green: This is so amazing! There's sand!
Blue: We can jump off the dock into the waves!
Me: Guys, you have five more minutes, and then we have to go pack up and leave.
Green: No fair! We didn't get to spend any time at the beach!
Blue: Why didn't you tell us there was sand at the beach! Why didn't you tell us about the waves?
Me: I did, but....
Green: I never get to do what I want!
Blue: I never want to go home!

(Wild, epic screaming ensues)

Next year, I'm going to try a different approach. This is what I envision:

Me: Boys, you may not go to the beach.
Green: Why? There's sand on the beach!
Blue: We could dig!
Me: Beaches are violent and dangerous and inappropriate.
Green: Mommy, you have to let us go to the beach!
Blue: Pleeease!
Me: OK. Just this once.
Green: You are the nicest Mommy ever.

Brilliant, don't you think?

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted, Vacation, Have To Get Away

I know it's been awhile since I last updated. I can't blame my absence on the lazy days of summer, because nothing around here has been lazy since camp ended. I don't think I can emphasize enough how much I am ready for SCHOOL TO START!!!! Our house is filled to the brim with arguments over IT'S NOT FAIR and HE WON'T LET ME HAVE A TURN and YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME.

So we're getting out of Dodge. We're going to a place that's three hours away and supposedly has some hot weather and a pool. If I'm honest, there's something nostalgic driving this trip for me. When I was a kid, my parents and I went up to a place in northern Michigan every summer. We stayed in a cabin that was on a small lake, and we just hung out. There was a beach and paddle boards and a game room and other kids. There was also a ghost that inhabited one of the buildings, and she prompted several intense searches that would rival anything you could see on the A&E channel's Children of the Paranormal (and this show is HILARIOUS. You should check it out).

(And I know my parents are reading this right now, saying, "That didn't happen. There wasn't any ghost hunting." But you have to trust me -- they were too busy leisurely reading books to notice any hauntings).

Anyway, I want that kind of vacation for Blue and Green. You know, the stuff of good memories. The only difference is that my kids are not really inclined to run off and dig holes and find companions and search for ghosts. They're more likely to turn their freckly faces up at us and say, "What now?" as if we hold The Itinerary of Fun in our back pockets. This has made it so that I have to plan for every contingency. What if they suddenly become really independent and go hunt for ghosts? I'm bringing 3 books and a silly magazine just in case I magically have the time to read. What if it pours down rain for three days? Ack! I'm bringing a sack full of Legos and some craft projects and a big bottle of whiskey. What if it's too cold to swim but not raining? Tennis rackets! Balls! Board games! It occurs to me as I write this that maybe the reason that our kids can't just amuse themselves is that their imaginations are buried somewhere under the luggage.

The most pressing question that plagues us as we get ready to go on vacation is whether or not to bring the laptop. Isn't this the biggest thing that distinguishes the Brady Bunch vacations of the seventies from the trips we take with our own kids? Michael is worried that he might slip in his fantasy baseball rankings if he can't stay connected (and while he's checking the stats, he could also make sure everything's going OK at the office...). And then there's our habit of watching The Closer DVDs in the evenings. What will we do if we have to wait until the weekend to find out what color lipstick Kyra Sedgwick wears in the next episode? I'm all about rustic family time, but that might put us over the edge.

I do think that the computer will tether us to our daily lives in a way that will diminish the getting-away quality of this trip. The question is, do we have the fortitude to leave it behind? Stay tuned.

John Edwards

Last Friday afternoon, the boys and I were hanging out at the Baskin Robbins. Blue was in a bit of a funk. He had spent a fair amount of time choosing his flavor, taking free samples here and there and acting totally oblivious to the line of 45 people behind him. In the end, he chose Cherries Jubilee (because that’s what Green picked, and Blue didn’t want to be left out). The trouble was that Blue doesn’t much like cherries or whatever constitutes Jubilee. So he had to sit there picking out the flecks of cherry and dark chocolate and miscellaneous other stuff that made up the bulk of his treat.

Anyway, Blue was half way through his ice cream excavation when a senior citizen in a tennis outfit came running in the store. “Did you hear about John Edwards?” she shrieked to a cluster of ladies sitting by the door. “HE HAD AN AFFAIR!!!!”

Green had barely spat out, “Mama, what’s an affair?” when the woman continued,“He’s a skunk! Did you hear me?! A skunk!”

We all know that skunks are smelly, and stinkiness is a topic my boys enjoy. “Hee Hee Hee,” Green giggled. “She said skunk! P.U.!” And with that turn of fortune, I dodged the problem of having to explain to my six-year-olds why Democrats have trouble keeping their pants up.

Of course, upon learning about the Edwards indiscretion, my first thought was, “Aha! Now I can blog about politics! That’s what my readers said they wanted, after all.” And so I went home and readied myself for the flood of who/what/why/what position/what kind of cigar media coverage I assumed would follow.

But the flood never came. I didn’t even receive a call from my father-in-law, whose outrage over the Monica Lewinsky escapade has yet to diminish. I did a quick search today, and the Edwards story fell well below the news that Cindy McCain sprained her wrist from shaking hands. (And in fact, there would be no story at all if Elizabeth Edwards’ family members would stop talking to People Magazine. I guess they figure that the National Enquirer shouldn’t be the only tabloid to benefit from Elizabeth’s humiliation).

So what do you make of this? Have we drawn a line between scandal and Real News? Are we more interested in thinking about Michael Phelps in his swimsuit than another slimy politician in his birthday suit? Are we more cynical, or are we smarter?

Weigh in, bloggers.

Twelve

Since we’re getting in the habit of achieving last summer’s goals, I decided that it would be fun to finally go on that coastal hike that Michael and I wanted to do last year. Unfortunately, when I checked out the trail I found that, once again, we would have a high tide problem. But you know what? I’m sick of obstacles. I’m sick of Mother Nature trying to tell me what I can and cannot do. So I persuaded Michael that we could get to the coast, hike the several miles in to the beach, and see all the natural wonderfulness before the ocean whisked us away.

This, apparently, was an error in judgment. Tides do not like sassy ladies to challenge their authority. More on that later.

We deposited the kids with my parents (Junk food! Toys! Constant attention!), and headed out for the drive to the ocean. We used to be road trip experts. There was no blue highway too rural for us. So much of our history together involves a travelling adventure or an odyssey. But these days, I am tired. Time is in short supply, and my butt gets sore if I sit too long.

We discovered this time around that what may look like a short distance on a map could really be a very lengthy, tedious drive on a poorly-maintained gravelly road. I had hoped to spend a little time in a town called Pysht --- because, really, how funny a name is that!? I thought, “Hey! I could do a remote blog from Pysht!” But it seems that Pysht is too small a place to actually have a building, so we must have driven right through it. This cracked me up. “Hey Michael,” I said. “I think we already pashed Pysht. I am Pysht off! Hee Hee Hee.” (At this point, Michael thwacked me on the back of the head with the map).

My interest in Pysht reminded me of one of our notorious wild goose chases. We were on a road trip up to the Canadian Rockies, and we decided to meander through rural Washington instead of taking the direct route. In particular, I saw on the map that Ronald McDonald was buried in the northeastern part of the state. No one told me that he had died! Poor, grief-stricken Hamburgler! We definitely needed to go see Ronald’s grave and lay a greasy french-fry bag by his headstone. Something like seven hours later, we finally stumbled upon his memorial site. Except this wasn’t Ronald McDonald’s grave after all. It was the gravesite of RANALD MACDONALD -- not a junk food-selling clown, but, rather, the first man to teach English in Japan. My dream of standing on a mountaintop and mournfully singing the early 1980s jingle, “Big Mac, Filet O’Fish, Quarter Pounder, French Fries, Icy Coke, Thick Shake, Sundaes, and Apple Pies,” was dashed.

Anyway, once we pashed Pysht, it was a mere 2 more hours to our destination. This offered me the opportunity to ask Michael, “What are you thinking about?” nearly 3000 times (His responses: nothing, baseball, weather, nothing). I have since learned that it was a good thing that we did not stop to explore the loveliness that would have been Pysht, because a human foot in a tennis shoe washed up on the nearby shore of the Strait of Juan de Fuca that very day. Many such disembodied feet are turning up on beaches throughout the area, inspiring feelings of general creepiness and providing a reminder to keep up-to-date with one's pedicure.

We arrived at the trailhead just in time for the rain to start. The hike involved three miles of boardwalk trail to the beach, three miles along the beach, and then three miles back along a different boardwalk. Michael went into the ranger station (remember how he loves a pretty ranger?) and was told that high tides were no problem. You just had to climb up and over the impassible parts. In my normal, city life, I tend to walk about 3 miles a day. 9 miles with a little up-and-over shouldn’t feel that different, right?

Wrong.

3 miles along a rocky beach with the tide rushing in does not make for an easy stroll. To this place’s credit, it may have been the most gorgeous, rugged, jagged coastline I had ever seen. And for a moment, I sighed heavily and drank in that seemingly untouched beauty.

Then I had to stop sighing and climb upon a huge dead tree and slide my way across its branches to escape the rushing water. After that, we had to lie down flat and wiggle on our stomachs to get under the next fallen tree. A quick shimmy up some enormous boulders preceded the realization that we were completely stuck. I’m not sure what was louder – the crash of the waves or the crescendo of my whine.

So Michael, what you may not have heard over the noise was the fact that there is no one I’d rather dangle off the edge of the world with than you (even if I get blisters and the bugs make it impossible for me to eat my lunch). Happy 12th anniversary.

Nature, Finally

Well, wasn't that poll fun? Thanks to all of you for participating. I am somewhat surprised by the breakaway success of the "coverage of weird events" category. I never knew that's what turned you on. Get ready for an upcoming entry about our city's basset hound festival, in which more than 300 costumed bassets march down a parade route. You asked for it!

I am also somewhat surprised by your lack of interest in underpants. This must mean that there aren't many six year old boys among my readers. Or maybe you guys are just embarrassed to admit how much you liked last month's story about the thong injury.

Since we've been talking about anniversaries, I have to mention that a whole year has gone by since I first posted about how much we want our kids to love the great outdoors. I was on a kick last summer, reading about the importance of connecting children with nature, blah, blah, blah. We had this big ambition to get the boys hiking, so I set about finding kid-friendly hikes that were close to home and had big payoffs. But there was always some big obstacle -- Green's tantrums, rain, the problem of where to get and how to get a trail parking pass, the issue of timing the hike correctly so that the kids wouldn't fall asleep in the car on the way home (5 minute nap at 3 p.m. equaled no bedtime until 11 p.m.).

12 full months later, we got ourselves a parking pass. We landed ourselves some sunshine. Green woke up on the right side of the bed. Everyone was well-rested. And we went to the mountains. Oh yes we did.

This is not to say that getting there was easy. The boys insisted on controlling the music, which meant a solid hour of the song "My Toothbrush Marches Up and Down" (to the tune of "The Ants Go Marching One By One") on continuous repeat. But we made it to the trailhead, found a parking place, examined the outhouse in great detail, and set out for our 1 mile hike up to the "natural water slide." And while there was a fair amount of "are we there yet?" moaning, the kids actually handled the ascent pretty well. The payoff was indeed delightful, especially if you enjoy swimming in glacial runoff (uh, Sparky, this water is COLD).

To Michael, a lifelong hiker, no journey is complete without a trip to Dairy Queen at the end. I suggested that eating a 1400 calorie sundae after the hike might negate the exercise component of the experience. He outlined several reasons why eating ice cream after a hike actually improves children's love of the environment and makes them want to hike more, which in turn keeps them active. It didn't make any sense, but I agreed that we could stop at a DQ if we came upon one.

But we didn't find one. We passed sign after sign advertising various trashy fast food places, but there was no Dairy Queen anywhere. And then something unusual happened: Michael started to whine. It's as if his inner first grader emerged and couldn't handle a ride home without the obligatory Peanutbuster Parfait.

"Oh, come on," I said. "Let's just stop somewhere else and get a regular ice cream cone." "It's not the same," Michael pouted. Finally, we pulled into the driveway of a diner, one whose sign proclaimed, "Nothing in this establishment is good for you." That seemed a promising enough advertisement to me.

Right away, I noticed that we were not the only ones in search of a frozen delicacy that day. In the parking lot, alongside our dusty Subaru, loitered a sizable posse of Bikers for Christ (Their leather jackets read, "We Ride the Lord"). Apparently they couldn't find a Dairy Queen, either. I watched a big smile emerge on Blue's face. He exclaimed, "I want one of those!" I was worried that he meant one of numerous colorful Jesus tattoos that decorated the members' entire bodies, but he was clearly admiring the the long line of giant motorcycles. "Blue," I said, "you can get yourself a motorcycle when you are 18, but I will never allow you to wear a t-shirt that says, "Hey beautiful, show me your tats!"

The boys ordered some sort of marshmallow milkshake and Michael had a caramel one. Those choices seemed a little yuppie to me, given our company. But we polished them off and returned to the city drenched with nature, sugar, and good vibes.

And it's all about good vibes, isn't it? I think the drawback of the Get Your Kids Into Nature literature is that it turns something that is fun into a grim responsibility. Because, really, what's better than a day of swimming followed by a picnic with 200 reformed thugs?

(Michael inserts that it would have been better if the thuggy picnic was at a Dairy Queen. Crybaby.)

Anniversary

Well, bloggers, we did it. We've been together for a whole year. On this very date in 2007, I was patting myself on the back for figuring out how to get this thing up and running without having to access my computer support team. Today, I am still patting myself on the back. Way to go, me!

Along the way, I have learned quite a bit about you guys. You're pretty feisty about politics, and you became REALLY alarmed when I wrote about my political indecision. You have enjoyed my adventures as a kindergarten volunteer, and you dig the occasional story about lecherous penguins. You have strong feelings about high school reunions, and you like chain letters and spaghetti. You really like food on a stick and have some misgivings about letting small children ride pissed-off sheep. You have also reacted well to any story involving underpants. On the other hand, you could care less about my literary interests or how much I drink on my birthday.

I say all this to let you know that you matter. I pay attention to your comments and your emails (i.e. I spend a lot of time checking for your comments and emails). You may have noticed that it has become easier to leave a comment (see sidebar for instructions), but if the system still makes you nervous, just send me a regular email sometime. I'd love to hear from you.

With the goal of being more responsive to you, I have set up a poll to the right of this entry. Please let me know what you'd like to read about. Be sure to vote! You can pretend like it's American Idol.

Art

The lazy days of summer are definitely here. I'm certainly feeling lazy, especially about blogging. Sorry about the lapse. And thanks to all of you who emailed to complain --- it's always heartening to know that people are still paying attention.

Blue and Green are busy at day camp this summer. The camp is located on "daddy's campus," and they attend assorted "classes" in university buildings. Their group of smelly six-year-olds makes stuffed space aliens in a room right next door to a calculus class. The exciting news this week was that one camper threw up right outside the door of a class that was taking a midterm. The kids apparently shrieked, "PUKE!" at the top of their lungs until the real professor of the real college students came out and yelled at them.

Much of what they do each day involves complicated projects that require "recyclables." They have made a "space machine." They have made star scopes. They have made pillows and booklets and tambourines. All of these things have been carefully constructed out of garbage. In fact, one afternoon the boys came running out of their last class with their backpacks bulging. Inside were cereal boxes and butter tubs and empty yogurt containers. "Ummm, boys?" I said. "Why do you have a bunch of trash in your backpacks?" Green said, "No, mama, that's not trash. That's ART." "But Green," I responded, "You haven't done anything to this to make it art." He rolled his eyes. "Mama, it's art in my imagination."

The upshot is that I have a whole bunch of someone else's breakfast containers in my house. Maybe this is the future of recycling. Instead of placing your crap in the recycling bin, you just find a small child and fill his backpack with it. Then he takes the stuff home to his mother, who sighs deeply and redirects it to her child's school for their art supply closet. The garbage will soon go home with a different child, in the form of a different project. Thus, the trash goes from family to family to family without generating any waste or pollution.

I'm not sure what came over me the other day. I was noting how excited the boys have been about their various pieces of trash artworks, so I put us all in the car and drove us 30 minutes away to a "salvage studio." At this place, you pay $6.75 per child to make "art" with the store's vast collection of trash materials. I don't know what I was thinking --- maybe that the kids would make a small keepsake of some kind? Instead, they each made a factory. A FACTORY. These pieces of trash sculptures are enormous. And it occurred to me, I just PAID MONEY to bring home someone else's refuse. That cash could have bought us a bag of organic cherries or an itty bitty amount of gas! Instead, there is a huge pile of debris fine art in my living room, and I am under strict orders not to move, jostle, disconnect, or do away with it.

Next year, Blue and Green will be going to an art-free camp. No more creativity for those two.

Mommies On The Loose

Last weekend, my friend E and I jumped on a train and headed out of town, leaving our families and motherly duties behind us. It was just the two of us --- no schedules to follow, no penguins to manage, no tick-tock-tick-tock of the machinery of everyday living. We wanted to prove that we are women who are still fabulous, still young, still full of spontaneity and fun.

(Getting on train)

Jennifer: Yay! We’re free! No obligations! No kids!

E: Just two wild and crazy ladies with time to kill and money to spend.

Jennifer: And crafting to do. Don’t forget about our bag of craft supplies.

E: I think I forgot my glue stick.

Jennifer: Michael made fun of me for bringing my craft stuff on our trip. Can’t we go to bars AND make collages? Why are the two mutually exclusive?

(Train employee in uniform walks by)

Jennifer: Oooh! Look! A train guy! My boys need a picture of that.

E: You’re not supposed to be thinking about the kids.

Jennifer: I need a picture of the dining car, too. Let’s go find it!

E: Wait. Look what’s getting on the train.

Jennifer: Oh no. It seems like we’ve been seated with a tenth grade girls’ volleyball team.

E: They look like strippers. What were their mothers thinking, letting them go out in public like that?

Jennifer: We’re old enough to be their mothers, you know.

E: Not this weekend. This weekend we’re young, hip, and carefree!

Jennifer: I do have to remember to find a toy store while we’re there. I need to bring back souvenirs.

E: You’re not supposed to be thinking about the kids.

(That night, at dinner)

Jennifer: Woo! This restaurant is swanky!

E: I think you’re supposed to be cool if you come here. Can you fake it for a few minutes?

Jennifer: Look at the yummy list of cocktails! Can you make sure I get back to the hotel safely?

E: How much to you plan to drink?!?

Jennifer: Uh, one or two?

E: You are so NOT cool.

Jennifer: Let’s get that waitress to take our picture!

E: This is so embarrassing.

Jennifer: Uh, Courtney? Could you take our picture? We’re two mommies on a getaway vacation! It’s just us! No children!

E: Stop it. Drink your cocktail.

Jennifer: They call this the “Vampire.” I think it has Squirt in it! Delicious!

E: Don’t drink that too fast! My wine isn’t even here yet.

Jennifer: I shink I mi be gittin loooooopy.

E: I think we need to order you some food.

Jennifer: I mish my kiiiiids. Aren’t my kiiiiiids cuuuttteee?

E: You’re not supposed to be thinking about your kids.

(Next day. Shopping).

Jennifer: I need to get something for Michael.

E: Like what?

Jennifer: I don’t have any ideas. If I don’t find something soon, I’ll have to get him an Amtrak key chain at the train station.

E: Look! There’s a men’s boutique across the street!

Jennifer: A men’s boutique?

E: Yes! Maybe you can get him a really nice shirt. Let’s go!

(The women enter the store. It is dimly lit, with a sign that says “You must be 18 to enter.” Obscene clothing and paraphernalia line the shelves.)

Jennifer: Uh, E, I think this may be a different kind of shop.

E (picking up what appears to be a whip): Oh. My. God.

(They read a sign that says: "Please Refrain From Hitting Customers While Shopping”)

Jennifer: Hee Hee.

E: Hee Hee.

Together: Hee Hee Hee.

Jennifer: Look, E, I can get some underwear with penguins on them here! I’m totally buying these.

E: You are NOT supposed to be thinking about your kids.

(That night, in the hotel room. Crafting)

E: Aren’t you going to finish your collage?

Jennifer: I’m getting kind of sleepy. It’s after my bedtime.

E: It’s only 9:30.

Jennifer: Exactly.

E: We came all this way. You can’t go to sleep at 9:30.

Jennifer: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

E: Do you think we should put on some nice clothes and do something wild and crazy? We could crash that wedding reception downstairs…

Jennifer: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

E: We could talk. Not about kids, but about other stuff. We could discuss the meaning of life!

Jennifer: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

E: You’re no fun. You’re acting like such a GROWNUP.

Jennifer: Fine. Let’s open the minibar. Tell me the meaning of life.

E: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Jennifer: Exactly.

Pomp and Circumstance

(Wild Kindergarten Graduation Boogie)

All sweet things must come to an end. Last Tuesday, the boys graduated from kindergarten. And I cried. I cried through the graduation wiggle dance (see above). I cried through the diploma presentation. And I cried through the ceremonial ingestion of bomb pops on the playground. I was crying because in the space of a year, my tiny boys morphed from mere nubbins of people into "big kids." They read books. They ride their bikes without training wheels. They roll their eyes at me. And I feel this sense of being at the perfect moment of their lives, at the place where childhood wonder and an increasing competence exist in equal measure.

But truthfully, the graduation itself didn't work out so smoothly. Blue and Green's teacher decided that she would present the diplomas in alphabetical order. And then, to create a sense of metaphor, each child and his/her parents were to leave the room and symbolically head to first grade. This worked well for Adam, Anna, and Ashley. By the time it was Green's turn, the room was seeming a bit empty. And Zachary? When it was time for him to get his kindergarten certificate, his mom was the only one in the room to deliver the applause.


(Blue receiving diploma while teacher does "sign language clapping.")

Of course, the kids didn't notice the sloppy execution. They didn't notice my tears, either. All they noticed was that SUMMER! VACATION! IS! HERE! God knows that all those kindergarten craft projects and field trips and playground games were EXHAUSTING. Time to kick back with a juice box and wait around for the ice cream man to show up.


(Green, with post-graduation refreshment. If you look closely at the background, you can see the sign that tells students that they can't bring their potbellied pigs to school. I am not kidding.)

But, wouldn’t you know it, six-year-olds relax a little differently than I do. On the first day of summer vacation, the boys made an elaborate bad-guy-catching system throughout the house. They used string to zigzag booby traps between furniture and across rooms. On the second day of summer vacation, they brought in all of the rocks they could find in the back yard and piled them up in the kitchen. Apparently this was supposed to be a construction site. On the third day of summer vacation, they pulled out some toy police vehicles that blared the COPS theme song at top volume (Bad boys! Bad boys! Whatcha gonna do?) and played the tune over and over until I screamed. Then they made houses for their penguins out of Cheerios boxes (paper, tape, markers everywhere) and created a series of menacing signs for their room ("No Adults Allowed"). When they had a little friend over last week, I overheard one of them say, "I know! Let's make a flood!" And here's what I learned: little boys + running water + dirt = cosmic mess.

When I was a kid, summer was all about staying cool. As a parent, I’m finding that summer is all about keeping my cool as the kids tear through my previously serene space and destroy it. Remember the picture that my neighbor gave me when the boys began school, the one with the lady in the living room smiling happily as her kids leave on the bus? I get it now! I get it!

Summer vacation. One week down, ten to go.

Lawsuit

I'm taking a brief break from the blogging as summer vacation starts. I'll try to update this weekend. In the meantime, I'll leave you with this fabulous bit of information:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/rbssConsumerGoodsAndRetailNews/idUKN1938991320080619

I know that being the parent of two little boys has changed me, because I now find stories about underpants to be laugh-out-loud funny.

Memo

From: The School District
To: Parents of Kindergarteners

Dear Parents:

This memo is to inform you that we have scheduled a field trip at the beach for your children on June 6. We have made sure that this trip coincides with "S is for Summer!" day in the kindergarten curriculum, and we have attached an important handout about the importance of sunscreen.

We are aware that this year is a La Nina year in our city. We know that record grey, record cold, and general crapitude is predicted for the upcoming weeks. But we truly doubt that the region's bad weather would impact this wonderful excursion. If it does, we will change the curriculum theme to "S is for Shittiness."

We have also made sure to schedule our trip at a far-away beach. Despite the steep gas prices, we want to ensure that your child has a powerful memory of a long ride in a steamy, gas-guzzling bus. To further enhance their experience, we have chosen a site that has no bathroom facilities. After all, if you bring 85 six-year-olds on a four hour trip, the likelihood that someone will need to pee is small, right?

If, on the day of your trip, you are startled by the predictions of snow in the mountains and several inches of rain in the lowlands, be advised that we will not cancel or change these plans for any reason. We owe it to the environment to send your small children out into the low tides to handle, fling, and strangle the wildlife.


Sincerely,

The Powers That Be

Stretch Your Mind

I know that many of you have been all wrapped up in the ending of the Obama/Clinton saga. The stress and the drama have been enough to send me running to the nearest movie theater ---- Yes! You guessed it! We actually WENT OUT and saw a real movie, and we STAYED AWAKE all the way until the credits rolled. I can't tell you how excited I was to go see Sex and the City. But, ultimately, I can't say it was as fulfilling as I had hoped. I loved the TV show. It captured a real yearning that so many of us have to create a happy, authentic, connected life. But the movie? Here are my impressions:

1) There was too much emphasis on fairy tale endings.

2) I don't like Mr. Big, even if he does build groovy closets.

3) It might be better to be left at the altar than to see yourself in wedding photos wearing a large, teal bird in your hair. Maybe I just don't get high fashion.

So, bloggers, weigh in. What did you think of the movie?

The other thing I've been doing lately is reading poetry. My absolute favorite poet, Erin Malone, is featured this month on the Beloit Poetry Journal blog. Go check her out. In addition to reading two fantastic poems, you can join the ongoing discussion in the comments section about punctuation. There's nothing sexier than a bunch of writers talking about the ethics of the ampersand.

The Unknown

The other day Green came into the kitchen with a piece of information to share. "Mama," he said. "Did you know that another word for a lockdown is a reverse evacuation?"

I did not know that.

But I did know that he and his fellow six-year-olds spent the week preparing for danger. There was the usual earthquake drill, the regular fire drill, the What-To-Do-If-a-Bear-Wanders-Onto-Your-Playground drill. But there was also something different. This time they were practicing what they would do under siege.

The drill began by simulating a lockdown in the classroom (door gets locked; shades get drawn; kids huddle under windows). Then they learned what to do if the lockdown happened while they were in the library (huddle in the computer lab, as far away from the windows as possible). And finally they learned what to do if the lockdown happened while they were in the bathroom (pull up pants fast).

At the beginning of the year, we had to send an "emergency kit" to school. The bag needed to include a snack, a toy, a photograph of the family, and a note. I remember being paralyzed by the task. What kind of note? What kind of emergency were we talking about? The bear on the playground or the apocalypse? Should I say, "Don't worry, honey, you'll still get home in time to watch Curious George!" or "It's been kind of a bad day for mommy. I've been vaporized. Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy the stale granola bar I have provided for you."

Every generation has its thing. My parents had Duck-and-Cover. I spent my adolescence listening to Sting sing about how he hoped the Russians loved their children, too. But the boys will have to live with a cultural anxiety that's less specific. Is the lockdown about a terrorist? A sociopath with a gun? Another child? A stressed out mother who didn't get her morning cup of coffee? Who is it? So far, this ambiguity has not troubled the kids. But I, with a wee tendency toward anxiety, am unsettled.

Yesterday afternoon, I brought up the drills again. "Hey guys," I said. "Remember those things you did this week for reverse evacuation?"

They nodded.

"Why did you do them?" I asked.

They shrugged and returned to their game of Penguins in Love.

"Guys!" I continued. "What kind of danger is so big that you would need to close the shades and lock the door?"

Blue answered, "We'd have to go into lockdown if we had an invasion of Purple People Eaters."

Wild Minnesotan football players on the loose! I didn't think to add that one to my worry list.

America Got it Right This Time, Dawg

I am about to reveal something very personal. You all know I work at a university. I read big, dense books filled with complicated words. I enjoy a murky coffee shop filled with intellectual-types who spend their days in angst-filled contemplation. But I also have a dirty little secret: I love American Idol. I started watching the show when some of my students told me that the voting component of the program involved "doing democracy." Really? Huh. Well, yeah, that's true if you believe that democracy is aggressively sponsored by Coca-Cola and involves choosing which pretty kid sang the best off-key version of a Celine Dion song. But still, even though I am beyond the target demographic of this show by a couple of decades, I am an ardent fan.

Deep thinker by day. Crappy reality TV show watcher by night.

Why, you ask?

Well, first off, it's terribly philosophical. I love hearing Paula Abdul say things like, "You are more than just you. You are in a zone, which is truly yourself, showing America that you are authentically about your own heart."

Second, there's something fascinating about the explicit manufacturing of mediocrity. It's a show concerned with creating a shiny, middle-class, middle-brow "product" who will sell middling music. It's like McDonalds french fries, bad for you in every way, but somehow irresistable. And if you tuned into that corny finale, you know what I mean. George Michael was there! And Bryan Adams! And ZZ Top! Not only did the show generate mediocrity, it managed to showcase mediocrity from 20 years ago. It doesn't get any better than that.

And the third reason I watch American Idol? Well, frankly, reality shows are fun. Don't tell me you don't watch at least one of these, even if it's Antiques Roadshow. You can kick back after a long day of wrestling with budgets or teaching uninspired students or scraping macaroni and cheese off the ceiling and ponder what Kristi Lee was thinking when she tried to turn " 8 Days a Week" into a country show tune.

So it is without shame that I (and Michael, though he'd never admit it) watched the season ending "boxing match" between the two Davids on Tuesday, and then the two hour (!) finale yesterday. In case you haven't tuned in, the final contestants were a sniffly teenager who said "Gosh!" a lot and a twenty-something, stubbly guy who called himself a "word nerd." And I, with considerable enthusiasm, was rooting for the word nerd.

So here's my confession: Not only did I watch this show every week, but....I VOTED on Tuesday! Oh yes I did. 31 times. I guess I wanted to know what it felt like to "do democracy" like millions of 13 year olds across the country. Just imagine how great it would be if you could vote maniacally for Obama on your cellphone, hitting re-dial with rapid fire.

You're probably wondering why I'm telling you this. After all, most of you come to this site to get the latest update on penguin fornication. I'm outing myself about watching, no -- participating, in the American Idol machine, because I finally feel comfortable with this side of my personality. I embrace it (And while I'm at it, I may as well acknowledge that I enjoyed "Rock of Love," too).

Speaking of embracing, several months ago I received a question from a reader. She asked, "How has being a mother changed you?" It was a complicated question, and I didn't give it a thorough answer. I remember when the boys were tiny, and I kept expecting to wake up from parenthood and be magically returned to my former life (and sleep). There was such as shift between life before and life after kids. So it was interesting last weekend, when the four of us went up to Vancouver for a little vacation. Vancouver is one of those places that I so strongly remember from my life "before." Michael and I loved going up there and just hanging out, as if we really lived there. It was, and is, such a vibrant, thriving, exciting city. But now we have the kids, and we needed to see the place with new eyes. So we exchanged hanging out in cool neighborhoods for hanging out at the aquarium. Finding a fun, funky place for dinner succumbed to finding any place that was willing to serve noodles with butter as a main course.

And I will tell you this: I loved it. I loved it even though I never went shopping. I loved it even though we never went to a bookstore (which I ALWAYS do, no matter where I am). I loved it even though we ate dinner at a terribly uncool pizza place and had lunch at a Canadian version of Applebees. We did mediocre, middle-brow, middling touristy things. And it was wildly fun, and the boys whooped with joy at the hotel elevator and the swimming pool and the kiddie train at the park. So really, the answer to the question from so many months ago is that I am just more comfortable at accepting happiness when it comes, however it comes. And for me, let me tell you, that is a big change.

(Cue up the sappy American Idol power ballad)

Don't Worry. Next week I'll put away the cheese and pull out my usual dose of sarcasm. Or maybe I'll just do a review of the recent season of Celebrity Fit Club.

No Joke

For the remaining month of school, the boys need to bring something into class each day. Friday is Joke Day, and each child is responsible for sharing a chuckle with his/her peers.

Green has already identified his joke. Here it is:

Question: Why did the penguins cross the street?

Answer: Because they needed to find a place to mate.

Oh no!

Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no.

I said, "Green, I don't think that's the kind of joke that is appropriate for school."

"Why not?" he asked.

Why not, indeed. What was I supposed to say to that? No sex jokes in kindergarten?! Ack. I ended up saying something like, "That joke won't be good for school, because not everyone is interested in penguins in the same way you are."

I don't think it was my best parenting moment.

Contradictions

Guess what, dear readers! I have a holiday to talk about! And no, it’s not Teacher Appreciation Day or Take Your Grownup to Lunch Day. There’s a very important holiday that the boys recently celebrated in school, one that required nearly two weeks of preparation: Earth Day.

The good news, of course, is that the kids learned how important it is to be a steward of the environment. They learned about all the garbage that imperils the ocean ecosystem. They learned a catchy tune in music class about recycling. And they even informed their father about the pollution he was creating as he started up the gas-powered lawnmower.

The bad news is that they used nearly 30 reams of paper to do their Earth Day craft projects.

This contradiction is just one of many the boys have experienced in kindergarten. And, of course, I am wildly entertained by these contradictions. For instance, their recent character education lesson on “compassion” coincided so perfectly with the creation of a new “No Kissing” rule. Apparently it’s important to be kind to others, but not so kind that your slobbery little lips cross paths with your neighbor’s cheek.

So you can imagine my amusement as the Earth Day festivities ended on Tuesday and were replaced by a large unit on lumber on Wednesday. No joke. The teacher sent home a note asking us to take our child to visit a sawmill (!) “to see lots of wood in various stages from tree to finished product.”

One thing I have noticed over the years is the curious corporate sponsorship of “environmental science” curriculum packages. For example, last quarter one of my students brought in a curriculum package his district uses as part of their middle school “environmental learning” unit. The set of materials, called Caretakers All, is sponsored by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. What I love about this curriculum (besides the fact that I learned all about the scary things made out of cows: shaving cream, lipstick, capsules for medicine…) is that it offers some particularly baffling activities. Here’s one of my favorites:

Have students complete this sentence to show their awareness.

I’m glad the farmer is a good caretaker of animals because…..

(Sample good answer: I like hamburgers!)

Huh.

Anyway, I now know more than I ever expected to know about lumber, because I agreed to be a chaperone on the boys’ field trip to the Center for Wooden Boats. I can’t really explain how I got myself involved in this, but it had something to do with two matching freckly-faced kids and some serious begging. The result was a long ride on a school bus and then another journey in a wooden umiak (basically a tippy native Alaskan rowboat) with 22 of my favorite snot-nosed kids.

When I agreed to participate on this trip, I first had to sign a form stating that I would not, under any conditions, sell drugs to the children. This was a foil in my plan. See, I had this idea that I could sell each of the kids a double-dose of Benadryl and then go for a wild joyride on the bus.

But instead, I had two jobs. The first involved holding a small boy who was deathly afraid that our boat was going to be swallowed by a shark. The tour guide/boat captain/lumber educator tried to reassure him that the water was so polluted that it contained no living creatures, but the kid was inconsolable.

My second job was to help the young people build some small wooden boats with hammers, hand drills, and assorted other tools. I will admit that comforting little kids is something that I do somewhat naturally. But carpentry? Uh, this is a bit out of my skill set. Besides, I’m not so sure that giving kindergarteners unlimited use of woodworking implements is such a great idea. After all, the “No Whacking Your Classmate With a Hammer” rule was never officially stated, not even during Compassion Week.

It all turned out OK. No one jumped off the dock on my watch. No one got eaten by a shark. And no one got hammered (not even me, though I did make a joke about how good it would be for the chaperones to get some free cocktails. This joke was not well-received).

I will not, however, be going on any further field trips. Nope. No way. The power of cute freckly faces only worked this time. Manipulate me once, shame on you. Manipulate me twice, shame on me…

(Addendum: I am scheduled to chaperone the class trip to the beach on June 5.)

Birds Gone Wild

The flowers are blooming, the birds are chirping, and the bees are buzzing. Spring is definitely here. And with spring comes new life. This has brought about an interesting development in our world: the penguins are mating.

Yes. Mating. (!)

But they’re not mating with each other. They have their sights set on a pair of armadillos wearing cowboy hats. So far, the armadillos don’t appear to be interested, but I am slightly worried that we will soon have a house full of pengui-dillos.

The conversations about mating are always uncomfortable for me. I mean, it’s science, right? I shouldn’t be editing out the sections about reproduction in the boys’ vast library of penguin literature. But I’m nowhere near ready to have the “Where do penguins come from?” conversation that seems to be looming on the horizon.

The other day, I had a rather upsetting encounter with Blue. I was sitting in the kitchen, peacefully eating my bowl of bran flakes, when Blue and his penguin came into the room. He announced, “Mama got laid last night.”

(gasp!)

The cereal shot out of my mouth, and I started to choke. Blue patted me gently on the back as I tried to recover.

“Ummm…WHAT????” I wheezed.

“Mama got laid by my penguin!” he answered.

(the penguin?)

“What do you mean, honey?” I asked, trying to sound normal.

“The penguin laid an egg, and now you’re going to be the baby!” he said, proudly.

(AHA! GOT IT! Phew!)

“That’s terrific,” I said. “Now go and play while I clean up the mess caused by my brain exploding.”

Meet the Peckers

Reunions

When we were in California, I was lucky enough to go out to dinner with Pete, a fellow blogger and friend from high school. I hadn’t seen Pete since graduation way back in 19--, and I told him that hanging out with him constituted the only high school reunion I would be going to this year.

It happens to be one of those BIG reunion years for me. It’s not the first one, where everyone has transformed into cool, up-and-coming hipsters. It’s not the next one, where people come to brag about their new houses and cute little families and lucrative careers. The reunion in question is the one after that, where people try hard not to admit that they’ve morphed into the very parents they rebelled against all those decades ago.

I am not going to my reunion for many reasons, one of which is that my high school never threw a fun party. And true to form, there will be an alumni golf game and a luncheon, but no wild reunion bash. I can’t even begin to tell you how disappointing that is to me. If I’m forced to have a long conversation with John Q. Popular about what a sellout he is, I would prefer that there be a keg, some loud music, and dim lighting.

Another big reason why I’m not going to my reunion is that I haven’t been invited. Come to think of it, I haven’t been invited to any of the reunions. It’s kind of like I’ve been washed off the canvas of my adolescence. Apparently I was voted “Most Likely To Be Disowned By This Institution” at the end of my senior year. But honestly, that’s OK. Since I don’t have to spend time buying a new little black dress, I have a few extra minutes to contemplate the very idea of reunions and why they matter (or don’t).

I’ve always been a fan of reunion movies and books. Revenge is a big theme --- you know, where the ugly guy/girl comes back beautiful/rich/famous. And while I’d love to think that some of the under-appreciated members of my high school class are now fabulous and successful, that’s not the thing that truly interests me. I’m fascinated by the choices people make, even the small choices. Who stayed close to home (or who still lives in his parents’ basement?)? Who traveled far? Why did they leave? Who chose an interesting career? Whose career chose them? Did life turn out like they expected?

Over dinner, Pete claimed that I wouldn’t be very impressed by the stories I would hear at the reunion. I’d see lots of people doing regular things in regular ways. “But come on,” I told him. “Remember the group of boys who took a lot of steroids and spread chicken blood around the school our senior year? Aren’t you curious about what happened to them?”(This is true. It made the front page of the newspaper, in part because of the Boys Gone Wild nature of the stunt, and in part because the offenders got caught. Apparently there’s only one place to buy a live chicken in Detroit, and the chicken dealer identified the culprits). Pete figured that those boys probably stopped doing steroids long ago and are now medium-sized guys who work in a bank.

I suppose it would be disappointing to return to my childhood home only to find a beige and predictable group of people who hadn’t been transformed. But the more I think about it, my curiosity about the reunion has less to do with other people’s stories and more to do with my own. Did my life turn out like I expected? What did I expect, anyway?

I remember being at a graduation party when someone turned on Alphaville’s synth-pop ditty, “Forever Young.” A hush fell over the crowd as the singer crooned, “Forever young/I wanna be forever young…” It seemed so deep, that moment, sitting around with people we’d probably never see again, waving goodbye not just to friends but to childhood itself. And now, what strikes me even more than our incredibly bad taste in music is that feeling of being poised, of being ready to create something new. That’s the thing that gets lost in the churn of everyday living.

Last fall, Blue and Green attended a “preschool reunion,” which involved getting together with all the kids they hadn’t seen since, well, 4 months earlier. I will admit to you that I was excited about this event. How had the kids changed? Did little Skipper stop biting? Did Ken learn to wipe his nose? And Barbie, did she start to like math? The potential for transformation was there. But really, all the kids had more-or-less forgotten about each other as they began their new lives as kindergarteners. When the reunion ended, I asked the boys if it had been fun to revisit the long-ago days of preschool. “No,” Blue answered. “We are way beyond that.”

I, too, am way beyond those Alphaville days. But there’s a piece of me that would love to feel those clichés again, even for just a moment.

Six!

When I was One,
I had just begun.

When I was Two,
I was nearly new.

When I was Three,
I was hardly me.

When I was Four,
I was not much more.

When I was five, I was just alive.

But now I am Six, I'm as clever as clever.
So I think I'll be six now forever and ever.

(By A.A. Milne)

(Happy Birthday, B&G!)

(Holy Crap! They're six!)

Publishing

I know that many of you are trying to get published. I feel so lucky to know so many writers -- writers whose books line my shelves, and writers who are just plugging away after work or during preschool hours or in the middle of the night. The writing part is hard enough, but the publishing part is always a mystery and a problem.

Yesterday I went on my spring pilgrimage to the book sale. Remember that I wrote about this sale in the fall --- the enormous crowds, the battles between literature lovers and online sellers, the nutty zeal. This time I paid attention to the sheer volume of books on the tables, and that made me hopeful! Come on, if these guys can get their work out there, SO CAN YOU!











And finally, my personal favorite:

Photos

I know, I know. I promised to update from the road, and I didn't. And I don't have anything but pictures to share with you today. But never fear -- the kids are back in school, and I'm getting back in my groove. I'll post something about penguins or holidays later in the week.

Cold Water + Kindergarteners = Crazy Fun

Theme Parks + Kindergarteners = Crazier Fun

Family + Kindergarteners = Craziest Fun

Spring Fever.

I've been rather overwhelmed this week. Somehow, everything is happening all at once, and I'm not dealing with it very well. First, there was Michael's birthday. I barely remember what we did -- except that it involved me getting the boys OUT OF THE HOUSE so that Michael could lie around on the couch in peace. I've noticed that our respective birthday aspirations have grown much less ambitious over the years. It used to be that we would plan ADVENTURES and PARTIES and give BIG GIFTS. Now we say, "Honey, can you take the kids away so that I can have a nap? That's all I need today."

Second, there was the end of the teaching quarter and its accompanying stack of student papers. Unfortunately, while forcing myself to read at a steady pace without drifting off into a numb and bored sleep, I had a violent encounter with a box of thin mint girl scout cookies (Guess who won?).

Third, T-ball season started. You'll be glad to know that Blue and Green are now proud members of a team called the "Peckers." No, I'm kidding. Their team really is called the "Penguins," though. Green's winning suggestion for a team name beat out the "Fire Breathing Dragons" and the "Snakes."

Fourth, there's Easter, which is strangely situated in mid-March this year. It was challenging to squeeze the egg-dying in, because we're still busy getting over the leprechauns and the pots of gold from St. Patrick's Day. The boys each made three "leprechaun traps" at school last week, and we're waiting patiently for some evidence of the mischievous little green guys. I didn't tell the kids, but I think a trap dismembered one of the Easter Bunny's back feet. There was a bloody pile of toes and fur by the front door this morning.

It's been exhausting. Good thing we're going on a trip! Yes, this week Michael, the boys, and I (along with the stuffed peckers) are taking off for California, where we plan to swim in frigid water and pretend like we're real penguins in Antarctica. I will try to update from the road.

Today I will leave you with the winner of the Winter Quarter 2008 Absurd Sentence Written by an Undergraduate Award:

"One plus one may always be two, but there is more than one way to come up with that answer."

Huh.

I don't even know what to say about that one.

The March of the Penguins

It has been a busy week. Who knew that the kindergarten preparation for St. Patrick's Day would be so intense? Last Friday, I had to measure each child's head for an Irish "derby hat" made out of newspaper. My instructions were to cover the children's heads and faces with newspaper and then wrap their heads tightly with masking tape. Does this count as torture?

The kids also decorated potatoes in fancy clothing and brought them home as "pets." Apparently they also measured them and weighed them as part of a math activity. We are now the proud owners of one potato in a yellow scarf whose name is "Toilet." Fabulous.

Speaking of pets, we've managed to avoid taking home any of the real animals that have infiltrated the kindergarten curriculum these past few weeks. There were the goldfish and the snails and the worms. Much of the discussion surrounding these animals concerned poop (Does a worm poop out of both ends? What does snail poop look like? When a fish poops in the water, does the poop sink or float?). Yesterday, when they were drawing and writing "D" words, one kid proudly announced that his "D" word was going to be "dung." And he went on to produce a very life-like representation.

The other animal unit that the boys studied was "Penguins! Penguins! Everywhere!" (FYI, penguin poop is called "guano."). For some reason, Blue and Green have become obsessed with the waddly little creatures. Penguin artwork covers our walls. Penguin books cover our bookshelves. The other day, I noticed Green peering down the front of his pants. "What are you doing?" I asked him. "I'm looking for my brood pouch," he answered. When I tried to clarify the difference between boys and birds, he told me, "I would rather be a bird."

The biggest result of this fixation on penguins is that both kids have attached rather deeply to a couple of mangy stuffed penguins. I think it's part of some sort of separation thing. The consequence of this attachment is that I have been abruptly demoted from "Very Important Person" to "The Lady Who Makes My Sandwiches and Washes My Clothes." It used to be that when I picked the boys up from school, I would say to each one, "Oh, sweetie, I missed you so much today!" And they would respond, "We missed you, too, Mama!" Last week, I said to Blue, "Oh, sweetie, I missed you so much today!" And he said, "Do you know who I missed?" and ran over to hug his annoying little toy.

It takes a little bit of effort for me not to mention to them the THREE MONTHS I spent on bedrest while pregnant, or the THREE MONTHS I spent listening to them scream through colic, or all the ear infections and croup and toilet training and general handwringing. But it's good that they're becoming more independent, right? It's so wrong of me to have homicidal feelings toward some greying and matted toys that Michael bought for $2.99 in the grocery store floral section.

Of course, there's one little detail that I've left out of this story. They each refer to their penguins as their "peckers." The first time I heard them use this term, I was eating a bowl of cereal in the kitchen. "Mama!" Blue shouted from the other room. "Have you seen my pecker?"

My head snapped back in surprise. "Uh...what?" I asked.

"I can't find my pecker! Where is that tiny little pecker?"

"Ummmm...." I stammered.

"Oh, pecker, where are you?" Blue continued.

I waited, not sure how to handle this issue.

Blue screeched in delight. "Mama, I found it!" he said. "I found my soft pecker! Would you like to come give my pecker a kiss?"

They may be done with me. I'm old news. But I do think that they have a bit more to learn about the world before they leave for good. "How about if we give your penguin a new name?" I asked Blue the other day. He shook his head and said, "It's my pecker, and I can do what I want with it."

Enough said. I think I'll let their father deal with this one.

Email Excuses

Dear Professor:

I apologize that I could not come to class but
I had a migraine
Lymphnoids en-flamed
My flight was delayed
I had the flu
The longest cold on record
I thought I had mono because I could barely get out of bed
My grandmother’s dead
Again
This weekend was nothing short of a disaster
My sister, she’s very ill
My uncle’s not well
This was not in my plan
Please understand
I’ve had ovarian problems, staph infection, strep throat
Do you want a doctor’s note?
I have been up for 36 hours straight
The reason I’m late is that I just found out I’m pregnant!
I know you don’t want to hear my sob story

The More Things Change

The other night, in the midst of a deep sleep, I heard a whisper from above. “Mama,” the voice said. “Mama, wake up!” I opened one eye, and there was Blue, peering down at me with an intense gaze. “Mama, I can’t sleep,” he said.

“Huh,” I muttered.

“MAMA,” he said more firmly, with a hint of impending whine. “Did you hear me? I can’t sleep!”

Because I was so tired, I let him into our bed. That is always a mistake. Two seconds later, he was breathing heavily, his enormous head taking up the better part of my pillow. And I was the one who could no longer sleep.

I gathered some blankets and headed to the couch, already feeling the mounting anxiety about being tired and grumpy the next day. Once my brain engages, it’s hard to turn it off. And my thoughts often turn to all the things I haven’t done, and all the potential horrible events that could possibly happen, and how I wish that I had said X instead of Y to that guy in history class back in high school.

I tried to steady myself, to focus on something neutral. I decided to think about record albums. You see, my dad brought me a big bag of my old records that had been taking up space in his basement for the past 20 years. Strangely, the bag did not include any of the good ones I purchased back in the day; instead, it contained ones like this:




This Shaun Cassidy album is the first album I ever sought out myself. I wanted a Shaun Cassidy album because everyone else had one. In particular, Maureen O’Reilly, who was just a tad cooler than I was, told me that I had to get one. She had a poster of him that came with her Dynamite magazine, and she put it on her wall just high enough that she could tip her head back and kiss the image of his lips.

So I was pretty pleased with myself for acquiring this album, because it meant that I was entering the outer reaches of cool. But, to my dismay, this did not turn out to be the album that featured his hit cover of Da Do Ron Ron. It wasn’t cool after all, and neither was I.

When my dad brought in the bag of albums, Blue and Green asked, “What are those?” They had never seen a record and had no idea what the purpose of such a thing would be, especially since we don’t own a record player. To them, a record is just a black frisbee in a funny case.

This got me thinking about all the antique objects that linger on in my memory and in my language. I say “printer ribbon” instead of “cartridge.” I talk about leaving a message “on your machine” instead of on voicemail. I say “turn the channel” as if there’s still a knob on the TV that you have to twist.

Michael, too, has his retro moments. Right now, he has a message on his cellphone that cracks me up every time I hear it. He says, “I wasn’t able to make it to the phone, so please leave a message after the beep.” What, were you so busy playing Strat-O-Matic on the orange shag carpet that you couldn’t sprint to the kitchen to answer the wall-mounted phone? No, dude, you just have to reach down into your jeans pocket, so why is it so hard to “make it to the phone?”

The other day Polaroid announced that it was no longer going to manufacture its signature film. In a world where everything is already instant, who still needs to wait three minutes for their Polaroid picture to emerge from the photographic darkness? Apparently there was a mad rush on Polaroid film when this announcement was made. Lots of kooky folks were clamoring to extend the life of their now useless toy.

You all know that my garage is full to the brim with similar dinosaurs. There are car seats from 6 years ago --- obsolete! There’s my typewriter from college – obsolete! There’s a Sharp Wizard from the 1990s – obsolete! And there’s this:



This was the “stereo” that I brought with me to my freshman year of college. It was very cutting edge – a dual cassette player that could easily whip out mix tapes to suit my adolescent moods. My roommate and I agreed that we would share things – I could use her tiny refrigerator, and she could use my stereo. Of course, what that meant was that I had to hear her Erasure tape played on a continuous loop for an entire year. Over and over and over.

But you know, my freshman experience would have been so different if she and I had been plugged separately into our respective iPods. I would have experienced my academics differently if I could have emailed my professors my papers instead saving my drafts on enormous old floppy disks, taking the disks to the computer lab to print, and then running at breakneck speed to the departmental office by 5 pm to get them in on time. There were things – like going to the travel agent to buy plane tickets or waiting desperately by the dorm mailboxes for REAL LETTERS from faraway friends – that gave texture and shape to my life.

It’s so easy, now that I have kids, to talk about “the olden days.” You know, how I had to walk to school barefoot in the snow without any music to listen to because my Walkman was broken. The boys have already learned how to roll their eyes at those stories. Blue asked me the other day to tell him the year I was born. Then he said that if I were a ferry boat, I would be out of service. That’s me, out in the garage with the typewriter and the Polaroid camera. Obsolete!

On Spaghetti

Many of you know that I do not like chain letters. In fact, I have often responded to mass-email writers imploring them to remove me from any distribution list that includes the message, "If you do not send this email on to 100 of your friends, evil things will befall you and everyone you love." You know, seriously, I feel like I have had my fair share of badness these past few years, and I don't want even a hint of that kind of energy around me.

But, come to think of it, I don't really like the happy chains either. Recently, a mommy at the boys' school asked me if I wanted to participate in her Amish Friendship Bread chain, which, apparently, involves creating a bread mix and passing it on and on and on to make a friendship "circle." Call me Scrooge, but I didn't want the pressure. I asked her if refusing her Friendship Bread would mean that I couldn't be her friend. She just shrugged.

So I winced when Krystal, my niece, mentioned me on her blog this morning. Apparently she has "tagged" me to participate in some sort of blogging recipe chain thing. My first response was, "Oh no, my blog fans will NOT like this. I only write about serious matters, like politics and...holidays."

But then I got to thinking about how Krystal is pregnant, and pregnancy brings with it a whole host of indignities. There's the back pain and the hip pain. There's the sudden, maddening hunger that seems to come around only when you're impossibly stuck in traffic. There's also the urgent need to pee, again somewhat correlated with being stuck in traffic. And, of course, there are the tears. One minute you're sitting calmly on the couch eating a pint or two of Ben and Jerry's, and the next minute you find yourself crying uncontrollably at a commercial for laundry detergent.

So I said to myself, "How hard would it be to participate in this recipe chain? It would bring Krystal joy, and joy is good." And there's also the sheer humor of the fact that she tagged ME to distribute recipes. Ummm.....Step 1: Buy a Trader Joe's frozen pizza. Step 2: Take it out of the packaging. Step 3: Heat in oven.

It's really no secret that I am not domestically inclined. How many of you have had dinner at our house and have thought to yourselves, "This meal tastes remarkably like takeout from the deli section at Whole Foods." Ahem. Well. What can I say? I may not be very adept at cooking, but I am GREAT at making selections at the grocery store. Bon appetit.

Because I am such a giving person, I am going to enter the chain JUST THIS ONCE. Per the instructions, I will leave you with two different recipes for one thing I CAN make myself: spaghetti. Only the best for you guys.

Recipe #1: Fancy Grownup Spaghetti

OK, what you're going to like about this one is that it's a MARTHA STEWART recipe. You might be wondering what in the world I, of all people, am doing anywhere near a Martha Stewart idea. I actually discovered this recipe while reading Martha's magazine on the elliptical machine at the gym one day when all the copies of People and US were taken. I have modified it slightly to make it more suitable for the average person (e.g. you do not need to make your own noodles or grow the olives yourself).

You'll need:

1 and 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup black olives (Gaeta or nicoise), sliced into small pieces
1/2 cup Italian-style green olives, sliced into small pieces
3 tablespoons capers
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 can (28 oz) diced tomatoes
1 sprig fresh basil
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
spaghetti
freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1) cook your noodles

2) Heat oil and garlic in a large saucepan about 30 seconds

3) Add olives, capers, red pepper flakes, and tomatoes. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Add basil and oregano. Cook for 10 more minutes

4) Toss spaghetti with sauce. Add cheese on top.

Recipe #2: Spaghetti that you can call PASTA

The key to this spaghetti recipe is that you NEVER use spaghetti. What makes it different than the spaghetti that we eat the other 6 days of the week is that it takes CAVATAPPI noodles. This adds an air of sophistication to the meal that is unmistakable.

You'll need:

fresh spinach
1 package cavatappi pasta
olive oil
1 can cannellini beans, rinsed
2 garlic cloves
lots of shredded Asiago cheese

1) Cook your noodles

2) Heat oil and garlic. Add spinach. Wait until the spinach gets all droopy. Add the beans and heat them up.

3) Combine everything with the noodles. Dump lots of Asiago cheese on top.

4) If you separate some of the noodles out, you can give your kids just the noodles with the cheese on top. That way, there won't be a hint of "healthy" anywhere near it. And it can be differentiated from the macaroni and cheese they ate at lunch, because it's CAVATAPPI. Remember?

Now, I am going to assume that there are at least 3 of you out there reading this thing. And if I get the gist of what Krystal is saying, I'm supposed to persuade you to somehow add a couple of recipes to the chain. So, if you want to, post a recipe or two in the comments section. And if you don't want to, well, that's OK, too (but you might find yourself with a big lump of Amish Friendship Bread on your front porch tomorrow. Consider yourself warned).

Caucus Video Issues

I know that those of you with PCs are not able to see the whole video (about 9 seconds gets cut off at the end for unknown reasons). I have spent most of my day trying to figure out why this is happening, but I still don't know how to fix the problem. If you can't tell which candidate I chose in the end, you have a few choices:

1) Go buy a Mac.

2) Drag the video cursor beyond the point at which the video stops. You will then be able to see the last 2 frames of the video.

3) Email me, and I'll just tell you what happened.

The Caucus

Doing My Part

Alright, Democrats. You didn’t make things easy for me with your votes on Super Tuesday. I was looking to you to make a clear choice in your states’ Democratic primaries so that some of the pressure would be off of me on Mediocre Saturday, when I will be participating in the Washington State caucus.

Usually, by this stage in the political game, there is already a front-runner, and my vote is nothing but symbolic. But this year, I feel like I really have a say. The only problem is that I don’t know what that say will be.

I am undecided. Really undecided. This is a new feeling for me. Part of the issue is that the two candidates on the buffet menu are both moderate Democrats who, more or less, propose similar ideas. But I also think that I’m struggling with something bigger, some larger question about what matters to me.

It occurred to me that, for the first time, I am no longer a “younger voter.” And I guess the issue is whether I am still able to feel like a younger voter and whether I want to. In the past, if a candidate said that he was going to have us all stand together on the top of a mountain and hold hands and find common ground across division, I would have followed him up the hill like he was the pied piper. But now, I hear the calls for UNITY! And CHANGE! and HOPE! and I think to myself, change doesn’t happen just by wishing it so.

Or does it?

Obama gives me the opportunity, if I’m willing to take it, to reconnect with a type of idealism that has been slippery and elusive. He is not the first to promise a new set of civic relationships, a new way of solving problems, a new world order of sorts that has capital J Justice at its core. He is not the first, but he delivers his message in a way that sounds so authentic, so real, so almost-there possible. I miss that feeling, and I am hungry for it. But I am also wary, because I know that we, as a country, have a crappy track record of translating good vibes into meaningful action.

It would feel right to jump on the sails of Obama idealism, but Hillary Clinton represents a different kind of idealism for me. I’ll be honest. It’s exciting to me that we could possibly have a left-leaning, competent, persuasive female president, even if we have to spend the next four years analyzing whether she’s too female or not female enough (Too many tears? Too few? Too much cleavage? Matronly pantsuits?). I read an essay by Rebecca Traister on Salon.com that has come the closest to expressing my feelings about the gender component of this election. She writes,

"…I think of how, when I was 9, my dad took me into the voting booth so that I could pull the lever for the first female vice president, and how he told me that he hoped that in my lifetime I would have the opportunity to vote for a woman at the top of the ticket. And I think about the fact that this is it -- my chance to pull that lever for her, so that I can do it again come November.

Who am I to turn up my nose at her because she's imperfect? I always figured the first female president would be a Thatcher-style Republican -- how can I complain about a Wellesley-educated Democrat who once resembled the second-wave women who fought for my ability to control my own reproduction and get paid as much as my male colleagues?

How could I ever tell those women that I voted for Barack Obama? What do I tell my aunt, my mother -- women who aren't crazy about Hillary's politics either, but whose extra decades on the planet have left them more acutely aware than I about the fleeting opportunity she presents. What if I have a daughter someday and she asks me about why we've never had a woman president? Do I tell her that we once came close, but that Mommy was really digging Obama that day?"

And so I struggle, but I sure am glad to feel the power of choosing again, to feel that a struggle is worth it. I have a sense that I will walk into the caucus site this Saturday still unclear about what I will do. Perhaps I will be one of those people who shifts position in the middle of the caucus! Wouldn’t that be fun?

Stay tuned. I’ll be doing a little filming this weekend as we make our way from the boys’ school pancake breakfast to the polling place. Live coverage of my indecision – it doesn’t get any better than that.

Celebrity Blog, Part II

Here's the second volume of my answers to your most probing questions. Never fear, next week will be business as usual. I'm sure you're weak with anticipation to hear about the boys' unit on water snails or a synopsis of the class preparation for Groundhog Day.

Now that you teach, I imagine your perception of university life is a bit different than when we were the "customers." Do you think the students are different, or might it be just us? What do you think of students who don't bother to attend your class each time?

Oh, don’t get me started. But you know, I didn’t feel like a customer when I was in college. I felt “lucky to be there,” or at least that’s what I was told over and over again. What was the magic bullet that let me in the door to my alma mater, and not the 7 other kids from my high school who applied and were rejected? (It must have been that poem about nuclear war that I sent in along with my application. Ha.).

But I definitely feel like my students are customers, and I am the server. Or, as I told a friend the other day, I am a waitress of ideas. Low wages, bad tips. I’ve said it before, but I feel a tremendous pressure to keep those customers HAPPY.

That said, many of my students are incredibly active, and my class is just a tiny spot in their lives. A student might be an Assistant Manager at Blockbuster AND President of the Student Senate AND Co-chair of the Save the Elephants Auction AND an intern at Microsoft. When I was in college, I just read books (oh, and I also drove a recycling truck. But that’s a different story).

The thing about the kids who don’t come to class is that I get 30 emails afterwards asking me what they missed. And I say, “You missed class.”

I do wonder how you select your reading list for your books, and how do you find time to read on top of everything else?

Do you mean the books I assign in my classes? I tend to pick books that have a good, narrative style, because I’ve found that many students, especially younger students, tend to connect emotionally with a topic before they connect intellectually. (Plus, good stories make them HAPPY).

But if you mean the books I read on my own, I tend to choose those by browsing around. I read Nancy Pearl’s suggestions. I check out new releases on amazon.com. I’m on goodreads.com, and I poke around there. I read the New York Times Book Review. And I like to go to bookstores, too. And as for the time thing, I’ve always been a big reader. It’s like breathing to me. The TV writers’ strike helps, too.

We want to know what is the favorite ethnic food at your house and do B&G ever eat it too?

We definitely have pan-Asian palates. Japanese, Chinese, Thai…And yes, the boys eat it, too, in large volumes. After all, noodles are beige.

Do you want to live overseas? Even if only for a six month stretch? How old would Blue and Green need to be before you would take them out of the country for that long?

It would be fun, but I think I’d rather do something like that when the kids are older and better able to entertain themselves. Right now our lives are consumed by trying to keep the boys busy and fed and exercised. That seems so much harder if you’re sitting in some cobble-stoned little village where you don’t speak the language and you’re under tremendous pressure to drink a big bottle of wine during the afternoon siesta and again in the evening. But you should ask ECM and Shawn, two of this blog’s loyal readers. They’re currently hanging out in Rome for three months with their five year old and are having a great time. I’ve heard that the kid keeps busy by licking the peeling lead paint off the walls.

When you drive/fly/ship Blue and Green off to their respective colleges of choice, how will you know how you did as a parent?

I don’t think that moment will be the point of measurement. I’ll judge success ten years later by seeing whether one is able to buy me a big house with a view of the water. That’s all I care about. I’ll leave it to their professors to make sure that they’re HAPPY.

If you find out that you're going to die tomorrow and you can choose whatever you want for your last meal, what would you choose and why?

Well, I think I’d have to combine elements of my some of my favorite meals into one big multicultural feast. (Warning: This probably won't mean anything to you unless you live in my city). I’d start with some calamari from Toyoda Sushi. And then I’d have a margarita and a green enchilada plate from Santa Fe Cafe. And some fried spring rolls from Araya's Vegetarian Thai. And I’d end with a cup of Gold Medal Ribbon ice cream from Baskin Robbins. Why? Well, why not? If I’m sick the next day, who cares?

How do you tell Blue and Green apart from a distance? Do you regard dressing them in different colors as a kindness to others, and if so, should we thank you when you do this?

From a distance? Hmmm. Green is a little thicker. Blue has two cowlicks in the back of his head, giving him rather noticeable sprouts of hair. Green’s head is round like a basketball, while Blue’s is a bit more oval. Blue is usually the one who is jabbering.

Their teacher has thanked us for color coding them, so we keep doing it. But you know what’s funny? There have been at least three occasions when strangers have approached me and started a conversation that goes like this:

Weirdo: Are they twins?
Me: Yes.
Weirdo: You might want to get that checked to be sure. They don’t really look alike.

When did the Scotch thing start?

You’re referring to my enjoyment of single malt scotch. I think I first tried it in my twenties, when Michael and I went to a scotch bar (long since closed). Scotch is fun, because it’s half snooty refinement/half tough-guy cool. And it makes me happy without causing me to slide under the table.

Of course, my love of scotch can get me into trouble. When the kids were just two years old, we had a little backyard party. The boys came outside with sippy cups filled with apple juice. They proudly told the crowd, “Look at our scotch!”

No, really, I don’t drink it that often. And the kids only get some after they finish their chores.

Who’s going to be the first sponsor of your blog?

What, you think I’m going to sell out?

Uh, anyone want to sponsor this blog?

Celebrity Blog, Part I

Thanks to you all for your questions. It was so nice to sit down today and not have to puzzle over what to write. If I didn’t choose your question today, never fear. We’ll be doing this again next week! Aren’t you excited? Good – because I need you to send in more questions. Keep 'em coming.

Who is your favorite dwarf and why?

OK, I ‘m assuming that you’re talking about the famous 7 dwarves here. I confess to not really remembering them all, so I went ahead and looked on Wikipedia for a refresher. The seven dwarves are: Doc, Grumpy, Sneezy, Bashful, Sleepy, Dopey, and Happy. I guess that the only way to pick a favorite is to try to identify with the names. Doc? The boys call me “not really a doctor,” so I guess I’ll scratch that one off the list. Sneezy? Not usually, so I won’t choose him, either. Bashful? Ummm, not exactly. Dopey? I hope not. Happy? Well, down deep, yes, but do I walk around grinning all day long? No. Hmmm. Grumpy and Sleepy – those are two that I can identify with. I think I’ll go with Sleepy as my favorite dwarf.

But here’s an interesting twist! There were lots of dwarves that didn’t make the cut. Here are the others: Blabby, Jumpy, Shifty, Snoopy, Scrappy, Cranky, Dirty, Awful, Silly, Daffy, Flabby, Jaunty, Biggo Ego, Chesty, Bald, Gabby, Nifty, Sniffy, Burpy, Lazy, Puffy, Dizzy, Stuffy, Sleazy, Tipsy, Titsy, and Tubby. This list is much more interesting. If I am going to pick a favorite from this list, I’ll have to do some categorizing before I make a choice.

I am never: Chesty, Bald, Dizzy, Awful, Shifty, Stuffy, Tubby, or Titsy

I am sometimes: Blabby, Jumpy, Snoopy, Scrappy, Cranky, Dirty, Daffy, Flabby, Jaunty, Sniffy, Burpy, Lazy, Puffy, Sleazy, and Tipsy

I am always: Silly, Biggo Ego, Nifty, and Gabby

Of those five, I think I’ll have to choose Biggo Ego, because it is truly the best name I’ve ever heard.

If you could do anything – and I believe you can – what would it be?

I immediately approached this question as a career question, though I’m not sure that’s what you intended. If I could do anything, I would be the next Sarah Vowell. She’s got it made! She sits around and writes clever essays, gets paid to read them on the radio, and occasionally gets to do cartoon voices for hit movies.

In my dream last night, you had given me instructions for a performance that we were giving together; we were supposed to introduce writers to an audience. I was ready for this, until you announced that this was just a rehearsal, which had to do with everyone eating a lot of cake at your house. Also, a set of twin girls about the age of Green and Blue were there, and my husband moved in with your family. Overall, I felt panic. Can you interpret this for me?

Well, of course you are panicked. I spent the whole day bossing you around, and then I went and stole your husband. I hope I at least gave you some of the cake.

What happens when you combine bottomless, strong margaritas, chips, salsa, and guacamole?

Well, first of all I turn into two of those rejected dwarves – Tipsy and Tubby.

Then I start to spill my secrets…

Have you ever been abducted by aliens?

Yes, almost six years ago. Their names are Blue and Green.

Do you wear underwear?

Often.

If you could go back and “do it all again,” would you?

I don’t think so. There are certainly things that would be fun to relive, but I assume that “doing it all again” would involve the bad as well as the good. Plus, ultimately I would want to end up in the same place (but with a bigger house and tighter abs).

If you could go back in time and impart one piece of knowledge to your high school/college self, what would it be?

I’d tell my young self to take a risk. I was always timid in my choices.

Oh yeah, I’d also tell myself to throw away those stirrup pants. What a mistake!

Can you tell me why I am thinking up questions when I should be sleeping?

Because this is so much fun!

Do you budget your family expenses and why?

Not so much. I do a little mental budgeting, though – like, “If I give up Diet Coke for a month, I will be able to buy X.” But then I don’t usually give up the Diet Coke.

How has becoming a mother changed you?

Well, it made me lose YEARS of sleep. I will be at a deficit for the rest of my life.

I also never expected to become REALLY GOOD at sucking boogers out of a baby’s tiny nose with a bulb syringe. It really is an underappreciated skill.

And there’s a whole cavity in my brain that is filled with horrible songs. Do any of you remember the Wiggles? The boys have totally forgotten the show and the characters, but I will be humming “Toot, toot, chugga, chugga, Big Red Car!” throughout eternity.

I have also learned to really value privacy, because I no longer have any. Yesterday I was in the shower, when I suddenly heard the bang and slam of people entering the bathroom. The boys began a deep and animated conversation about ferry boats just inches from the shower curtain. “Hello!?,” I shouted. “Why is there a party in here?” They were still in the room when I got out of the shower, and despite my efforts to conceal myself, Green said, “Mama, you have bumps like a camel.” Fabulous.

But, seriously, I guess I would say that becoming a mother has amplified everything. I find the world so much funnier with the boys in it. I laugh louder, and I scream louder. My capacity for happiness is enormous, as is the potential for grief.

You are so amazing and talented. How do you manage to do it?

Thank you. Thank you. I’d like to thank my manager, my publicist, my personal trainer, and YOU, the fans! Where would I be without my fans?

Blog Fatigue

I have to admit to having a bit of blogger's block these days. We've been at this blogging thing for six months, you and I, and I'm finding it a bit difficult to come up with new and exciting things to babble about.

This week I considered writing about the Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration at the boys' school. I happened to be volunteering last week when the kids abruptly abandoned their lesson about goldfish (They're gold! And they swim!) to practice their Martin Luther King song and dance. Yes, you read that correctly -- a song and dance. It starts off like this: Martin Luther King/You make my spirit sing/You mean so much to me/'Cause you taught us how to be free. Combine that with a little foot stomping, hand waving, and wiggling, and you're ready for the Martin Luther King assembly (pageant?) on Thursday. I was also there when the teacher tried to generate a discussion about "brotherhood," but that quickly dissolved when the five year olds started raising their hands to say things like, "I have a brother!" and "I have a sister!" and "My brother is mean!" At that point, the kids were quickly dismissed to go work on their tooth fairy pillows (in preparation for February, which is Tooth Month).

But, you know, I feel like I've already made the case that this school is capable of making any serious holiday hilarious. I think I need to do something different for a few weeks. I'll come out and admit that I've read more than a few celebrity blogs. On these sites, fans write questions to the celebrity, and he/she answers. I think that's what we should do! After all, I can be a pretty big diva. But, of course, this plan only works if you ASK ME QUESTIONS. They can be funny or serious. You can pose them in the comments section, or you can send me an email. But you have to do it, and if you don't, my feelings will be hurt. And if my feelings get hurt, I'll have to post a video with me crying. Let me tell you, that's not a pretty sight.

To get us started, certain young people agreed to be the first question askers. Here is what their inquiring minds wanted to know:

Do you eat lunch while you're teaching?

Sadly, yes I do. One of my classes runs from 10 am until 1 pm, right through the lunch hour. And if I get hungry, as some of you know, I am not a nice person. And if I am not a nice person in class, I will not get good teaching evaluations. And if I don't get good teaching evaluations, I will not be rehired.

My lunch looks like a kindergartener's lunch: peanut butter sandwiches, applesauce, Chips Ahoy cookies. This is because there is no grownup food in our house.

Do you have play time at your school?

Uh, no. I have some bad news for you, Sparky. After kindergarten, you'll find a substantial reduction in fun.

What do you do while you're teaching?

Fly by the seat of my pants. And show movies. There's nothing like showing a movie to kill an hour of class time.

What is your favorite grocery store?

This is a tricky question. We have many, many grocery stores near us, and they all serve different purposes. The closest one is our local organic coop, where we can go and spend a lot of money but feel happy about ourselves and our choices. This is the place we go for produce, dairy, and general good karma. But if we want Chips Ahoy cookies, we need to go somewhere else. We tend to go to the place that has the free child care, because in addition to buying Chips Ahoy, you can take a little time to get a coffee and read a magazine. Now, if the coop were to offer free child care, I would move in there! Good karma and babysitting at the same time!? Can you imagine?

What do you like to eat for breakfast?

Little kids.


OK, there you have it. Now it's your turn. Send me a question. I'm waiting.....

Politics

So we were all sitting on the couch a few mornings ago flipping between the three national morning shows. I was marveling at whatever process it is that allows three anchors on three different channels to interview the same presidential candidate at the same time. At one point, the big, grinning image of John McCain popped up on the screen. Blue started cackling wildly, holding his belly because he was laughing so hard. “What is it?” we kept asking him, but it took him a while to regain his composure. “That looks like Grandpa,” he finally answered. Then, as we were contemplating this idea, Green said, “Look! That one looks like Daddy!”

It was Mitt Romney.

I just about peed in my pants.

Michael and I are progressive people. We live in a progressive town. We wear fleece a lot and enjoy a good spotted owl. But, as fate would have it, we have a son who is not so progressive. Do you remember the 1980s show, Family Ties? It was the one with the hippie parents and the Ronald Reagan-loving son. I have a feeling that’s going to be us in a couple of years.

Green is conservative. He loves his routine and his rules (one does not put one’s underpants in the hamper until AFTER the Curious George show ends). He eats the same food for lunch every single afternoon. One day a while back we asked him whether he would like to try something different, something new, just to spice things up. “Mama,” Green said, “I do not like different.”

Well there you have it.

But you see, Michael and I DO like different. And no matter how many times we screech Change! Change! Change! like a couple of overcaffeinated Democratic presidential hopefuls, Green is not interested. He likes tradition, consistency, and the status quo. I'm pretty sure that he is going to grow up to be the kind of guy whose idea of a good afternoon involves a can of beer, a recliner, and a Packers game.

I bring this up, because we came to an interesting realization the other day. We’ve made it through babyhood. We’ve made it through toddlerhood. We’ve made it to the point in our family life where we might actually be able to DO STUFF again. Except there’s the teeny problem of Green, who has no interest in broadening his horizons.

Last year we took a little weekend trip to Portland. We stayed at a hotel out by the airport, because we wanted an affordable suite. It turns out that this hotel was a conservative 5 year old boy’s nirvana. It had a view of the runway (planes taking off and landing! Woo!), lots of elevators (and buttons to push), a swimming pool, and a free buffet. Green was quick to mention that he saw no need to go out into the city and actually do anything, when there was SO MUCH FUN to be had at the hotel. And when we did leave at the end of the weekend, there was considerable sobbing and screaming. Michael and I needed to promise that we would someday return to that hotel and stay in the exact same room.

Green and I recently had a meaningful conversation about traveling. Here's a piece of it:

See what I mean? It looks like we're not going anywhere exciting any time soon. But if you have an Embassy Suites in your city, let us know. You can join us for the free breakfast.

New Year's Eve (the Parental Version)

Back in the day, New Year’s Eve was a marker of one’s essential coolness. When asked, “What did you do for New Year’s,” you wanted your answer to stand out: “We went to Club Whatever until midnight and then sat on the beach until sunrise” or “I went to this fabulous party with the most creative, interesting people, and we made sculpture out of broken clocks by the light of the moon.” It was understood that New Year’s Eve wasn’t an ordinary night; rather, it was one that had to generate a STORY.

Well, then we had kids and lost any semblance of essential coolness. I know, I know, some of you have kids and are still cool, but we aren’t. Somewhere along the line, we decided to let our young, cool selves go into hibernation. We figure that one of these days, we’ll wake up and be revitalized, older cool people, and that will be OK. Until then, however, we’re just tired.

But New Year’s Eve is still noteworthy no matter how boring your life is, so we had the idea that we could celebrate the east coast New Year’s Eve – that way we could be wild and crazy until 9 pm and then go to bed like usual. To that end, we invited some other parents-of-a-kindergartener over to join in our nutty early evening festivities.

You may not know it, but Michael can make a mean margarita. A REALLY mean margarita, the kind that makes me pretty stupid after just a couple of sips. So it was 5:00, and the grownups were sitting around the kitchen table with a huge pitcher of lemon-lime goodness. After just a few minutes, we were giggling like kids about old prom stories (what color was YOUR tuxedo?) and bad hair and questionable fashion choices. Every once in a while, a kid would come in and ask something like, “Mama, can you take the top off of this toy?” And I would say something like, “Umm, you’ll have to wait a minute until I can reconnect my brain with my hands.”

But here’s where that essential coolness problem comes in. It’s was now 5:45, and we were all feeling kind of bad. We looked around at our disheveled selves and thought, “We could just go to sleep right now.” But, no. There were 3 hours and 15 minutes left until “New Year’s.” Wouldn’t it have been embarrassing to go to bed BEFORE the east coasters did their countdown? Wouldn’t it have been pathetic to go to bed when it was technically still daytime?

Never fear. We made it until 9. Oh yes we did. And I am proud.

All of this got me thinking about New Year’s Eves in the past, and I was startled by one memory. I’m not sure what year it was – sometime in the late 1990s. We were in Minnesota, visiting Michael’s family. New Year’s Eve fell toward the end of the trip, and all of us were feeling weary of the constant celebrating. That night’s activity consisted of sitting around together watching the Access Hollywood Year in Review special. But there was one funny twist. Michael’s sister told us that changing your underwear at midnight could bring you special luck, provided that the underwear’s color was aligned with your wish. If I remember correctly, yellow meant money, pink was love, and white was happiness. So at 11:59, all six or seven women, including Michael’s mother, took off for the back bedroom where we stripped, changed, re-dressed, and returned to the living room by the stroke of midnight.

And we’ve never spoken of it since.

I wonder, did anyone get their wish that night? Can well-chosen unmentionables bring prosperity or romance or just general good energy? Next year, I will try again. And if you find me with a wad of cash in my pocket in January 2009, you will know why.

The Camera

I don't have any clever ramblings today, but I really want to see if I've managed to get video to work on this blog. You probably need to double click on the play button.

Green suffered through the night and most of the day with a stomach virus. Stomach viruses are like train wrecks in our family, knocking each of us off our tracks one by one. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to a thrilling New Year's Eve.

While Green was sleeping/throwing up, Blue and I spent the morning freeing a plastic shark jaw from a rock. In case you're wondering why he's wearing such stylin' specs, they're "safety goggles."

Aftermath

We have had an exciting couple of days. It turns out that the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus were scheduled to arrive on the very same night. Yes, Green's front tooth fell out in his Cheerios on Christmas Eve morning, prompting me to sing "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth" over and over again until Michael threatened to take my present back.

So we set out two plates of cookies, one for the Big Elf and one for the Fairy. Santa got a glass of milk, but the Tooth Fairy did not, apparently because fairies don't get thirsty. Coincidentally, I was just reading about a Tooth Fairy/Santa Claus encounter. In Father Knows Less Or "Can I Cook My Sister?": One Dad's Quest to Answer His Son's Most Baffling Questions, Wendell Jamieson tells the story of the unfortunate loss of his sister's tooth on Christmas Eve. When his sister awoke to find her tooth untouched under her pillow in the morning, she asked why the Tooth Fairy did not show up as planned. Her father told her that the Fairy did not forget-- it's just that she had been run over by Santa's sleigh. Apparently, that did not go over well. (Lucky for us, the Tooth Fairy was watching where she was going and managed to slip a little cash under Green's giant melon head).

Now, I know that every family that celebrates Christmas has its own little traditions. Some people open gifts on Christmas Eve, while some wait until Christmas day. In my family, we manage to do both. You see, my MOTHER wakes us up before the crack of dawn to open gifts, making the whole enterprise over and done with before the sun even rises. This year was no exception, and she broke a cardinal rule of parenthood which is YOU NEVER WAKE A SLEEPING CHILD.

Imagine our surprise when we heard the screech and bleat of a marching, singing toy Santa Claus at 5:20 a.m. It did not turn off until we were all out in the living room with our hands covering our ears. Fortunately, the holiday joy of small children outshines the outrage that comes from being violently uprooted from sleep.

The kids got what they wanted from Santa, and so did I. I have been coveting those cute little Flip video cameras that you can carry in your pocket, and one was waiting for me under the tree. We have a camcorder, but it's rare that I have it with me to capture the excitement of my everyday life. So be warned -- I'm going to try to get video up here, so you're likely to be exposed to a LIVE ACTION version of me cleaning the garage.

Now THAT is something to look forward to!

Merriment

Sorry about the small blogging hiatus. I was socked by my annual Christmas virus, which coincided with the end of the teaching quarter. I found myself shaky with fever, preparing for my inlaws' visit, and tackling the grading of 40 papers all at the same time.

I have a small problem when faced with big tasks. Rather than address whatever unpleasant project is at hand, I divert my attention to a different but still monumental endeavor. Here's an example. Back when I was in graduate school, we lived in this little 1960s apartment (complete with bright orange sink and avocado green gas fireplace). It also had the original refrigerator and ICE BOX. Over time, the ice box would freeze over, and the food would need to be rescued. So it was finals week, and I had 3 large research papers due on the very same day. I was woefully unprepared. On the night before the papers needed to be turned in, I decided that RIGHT THAT MOMENT I needed to chisel out the ice box. Of course, it took hours to get the ice out, and then another hour to clean up the puddles of water on the floor. Michael asked me why, when there was so much reading and writing left to be done, I would find it imperative to address the freezer situation. I shrugged. I may not have finished my work, but at least the tater tots were free from their icy prison.

So, here I was last week with those 40 papers, and it occurred to me that there had been a funky smell in the kitchen for awhile. All along I had been blaming the odor on Green's poor hygiene, but I was beginning to suspect that the problem might reside in the refrigerator. So what did I do? All the food came out, and all the shelves came out. And there, underneath the vegetable crisper boxes, I found the source of the aroma -- a small but pungent arboretum.

5 whole hours later, the ecosystem was destroyed, the appliance was pristine, and I was sufficiently disgusted. But I still had those 40 papers to deal with, and there was only one day before grades were due. When my inlaws arrived, I barely had time to raise my head out of the pile of puzzling essays (Here's one of my favorite sentences from the batch: "The purpose of American schools is to produce intelligible citizens." What? If that's the case, we are clearly failing.). But at midnight, I penciled my last grade onto the bubble form, and I was DONE.

Finally, we were able to rev up the Christmas merriment.



The boys had been antsy to visit the jolly old elf for awhile. We had been using Santa as a threat for weeks: "Blue, you need to get your dirty underpants off your brother's bed right now! Santa's watching!" or "Green, if Santa sees you hit your brother on the back of the head with that pirate sword, he's not going to bring you any presents!" Both kids were a little skeptical that one pudgy old man at the North Pole could monitor the behavior of all the world's kids at the same time. Did he have a bunch of cameras installed in everyone's house? Since I am unclear about the exact nature of Santa's surveillance equipment, I told them they should ask him themselves.

So Granny, Grandpa, Blue, Green, Michael, and I headed downtown to visit Santa. Afterwards, we rode the holiday carousel:



And we went and saw a gingerbread model of the Kremlin:



And that evening, we ate an eclectic pre-Christmas feast of grilled salmon and mashed potatoes and green beans (and ketchup). After that: presents! The boys were wild with excitement, and so was I. You see, I had found my father-in-law the perfect gift. He is a man who continues to have particularly strong views about the Clinton presidency, so I bought him a talking Bill Clinton doll. There was nothing more entertaining than watching him cringe when the doll said, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman...."

But anyway, the build up to Christmas is such a funny thing. It starts before the leaves drop from the trees, and there's such a pressure to buy, buy, buy. And in a world so full of trouble, the cheery cards that say "Peace on Earth" seem to sit in an ironic pile on the dining room table. But when you have a five year old (or two), something really does crack open when the Christmas tree lights go on for the first time, or when Santa places a candy cane in his nervous little hand. I wish I had a picture to capture the instant when Blue opened his first present from Granny and Grandpa, when he jumped in the air with his hands above his head and screamed, "Oh Granny, how did you know? How did you know this is just what I wanted?" Sometimes life can be so hard it brings you to your knees, but there are moments, like that one, when I know that everything is right and good and possible.

Rain, Rain, Reindeer

OK, so this post was supposed to be titled, "Let it Snow." You see, we had a little treat on Saturday. It was a bit colder than usual, and it began to snow -- the fluffy flake kind that's sticky enough for fun. It doesn't snow much here, so when it does, people go outside and play with wild abandon. And that's just what we did.

Michael was so happy to have the chance to release his inner-Minnesotan. I was able to get some use out of my cute green hat. And the boys? They got some hot chocolate. About half-way through the outdoor merriment, I went inside and excavated some old packets of Swiss Miss instant hot cocoa. You know, the kind where you pour hot water and stir. When the boys came in and sipped some of that, they said, "Mama! How did you ever learn to make such good stuff?" "Boys," I said, "I am a domestic diva. This is my special, secret recipe."

Anyway, when it snows in the Pacific Northwest, it's BREAKING NEWS. All of the newbie news reporters get sent out to various suburbs, and they have to stand around and report on whether or not flakes are falling in that particular location. Actually, the funniest thing is when it's supposed to snow but then doesn't. The poor reporter has to stand by the side of a busy road and say things like, "If it were 10 degrees colder tonight, it would be snowing. But, as you can see, it's not."

This time, those young reporters were in for a little fun. The snow gave us an hour or two of winter excitement, but slowly, slowly, the temperature crept up. Our snowmen began to lean into each other and droop. By Sunday night, it became clear that we were in for a teeny tropical storm. Oh no, wait, not just a tropical storm, the remnants of a TYPHOON. Fabulous. On Monday morning, it was nearly 60 degrees and pouring buckets. I had my nice hour long commute to work that morning, which ended up being an even longer commute through standing water on the freeway. 24 hours later, some bridges are gone, and several schools are flooded and closed. The road we take to the beach has washed away.

I was lucky that my mom was taking care of the boys during my hellish commute. However, when I pulled up outside the house after my crappy day, I heard an odd, piercing screech. Imagine the sound of a sick cat, and combine it with the noise generated by 30,000 nine year olds shrieking for Hannah Montana. I covered my ears and walked into the house. This is what I found:

I'm thinking that this particular gift was delivered with a touch of hostility. What's the matter, mom? Are you getting me back for that driving trip to Cape Cod in the early 80s where I made you play my cassette tape of Rick Springfield's Working Class Dog over and over and over again? I'm sorry, OK? I will never sing "Jessie's Girl" again.

To those of you who saw the grim coverage of our local weather situation on the Today show, fear not. We are fine. Michael is not travelling to the office in a rowboat. A river did not swallow up our house. But if you happen to hear the wails of a musical toy reindeer as it disappears down a sinkhole, I take full responsibility.

Assessment

A special thank you to all the folks who sent love my way after my shameless shout-out for feedback. I really did just want to see if anyone was actually reading this anymore, but I am very pleased about the fact that my blog made so many “What I am thankful for” lists.

This weekend we discovered that the thing that we are truly grateful for is ketchup. Without ketchup, our kids would not have eaten any of the Thanksgiving feast. Without ketchup, there would have been whining and moaning and sulking. So thank you, ketchup, for your amazing capacity to disguise the taste of any food. Thank you also to chocolate sauce, which accomplishes the same thing, except without the antioxidant properties of lycopene.

While they were waiting to eat their ketchup on the holiday break, the kids had to do a particularly perplexing homework assignment. Here were the instructions:

Write down what you would do on Thanksgiving if you were a turkey.

Ummm……WHAT? Was the purpose of this assignment to make the kids aware of the connection between the horrors of industrial farming and their own food consumption? Did the school intend for the students to cast a critical eye on the process of coloring cute, feathered farm animals one week, only to eat them the next? If so, it worked! Blue said, “If I were a turkey on Thanksgiving Day, I would be all chopped up.” Fabulous.

One thing about last week that I haven’t mentioned yet was that we attended our first parent/teacher conferences. Oh, the stress. I want so much for my kids to be happy and well-adjusted and curious and comfortably above-average. This was our first chance to find out where on the cosmic scale of happiness and adjustment and curiosity and above-averageness they each land.

What I was unprepared for was the extent to which the boys’ abilities have already been measured, quantified, and categorized. At our conference, we sat down, and the boys’ teacher promptly took out a massive sheet filled with numbers and rankings. Then she had to explain how the evaluation sheet worked. “So you see,” the teacher said, “Level A means kindergarten level work, and the number that follows the letter suggests whether your child is below, approaching, at, or beyond standard for the year. This number corresponds with the assessment done on September 20, and it suggests the anticipated outcomes from the assessments delivered on November 13. If you place these numbers on a graph, you will see if your child is gaining skills and knowledge, losing skills and knowledge, or just waiting patiently each day for recess.”

For those of you who plan to enroll your child in kindergarten any time soon, here are three tips to maximize your child’s score on the key first trimester exams:

1) Geometry is very important. Any kid can learn squares, circles, triangles, etc. from watching a half hour of Dora the Explorer, but you need to make sure that yours is familiar with all the obscure shapes most of us encountered for the first time in the 10th grade. Green, for example, could not name the trapezoid, whether it was right-side up or upside down. He was an ace at naming the rhombus, however. Atta boy.

2) It is crucial that your child learn how to draw well, or, to use the correct term, draw “smart.” You know all those times you’ve exclaimed with happiness when your child brought home some silly scribble from preschool? Stop it right now. Start prompting your child to make his drawing more exact by saying things like, “Sparky, why doesn’t your rendering of the ice cream man include a big, fat wallet? By drawing his wallet, you will help the viewer understand why the ice cream man is charging so much for his products.”

3) If your child has sufficient practice at drawing smart, she will do well on the tests that she will be taking over the course of her kindergarten year in preparation for the big state-wide standardized test in the fourth grade. Here is a sample question that Blue and Green each answered correctly:

Shawn had 3 cookies, and Erin had 2 cookies. If you put their cookies in a bowl together, how many would they have?

The answer is 5, right? Well, the tiny test taker needed to do more than simply offer that 3 + 2 = 5. He needed to DRAW THE COOKIES IN THE BOWL to show that he understands the math problem conceptually. Blue and Green were savvy enough to draw cookies with chocolate chips in them, which made them look like actual cookies. Smart cookies!

The good news is that Blue and Green do indeed appear to be happy, well-adjusted, curious, and above average. If they stay on this course, they will likely pass kindergarten. The teacher did point out that we need to focus on that trapezoid problem and the general bad handwriting.

But, really, I have trapezoid problems, too, and I think I’m doing OK.

Thankful

Here we are just a few days before Thanksgiving. The boys have the entire week off from school, and I am struggling to maintain my sanity. Right now, if I hear them correctly, they are shooting pirate toilets across the living room. A good parent would investigate what, exactly, this activity entails. But clearly I’m not a good parent. I don’t want to know.

Once the Veterans’ Day hoopla died down at their school, the boys and their classmates moved into a unit about Thanksgiving. My volunteer work on Thursday involved helping twenty wiggly, snotty kids follow very explicit directions in a Mayflower craft project. Once again, I proved to the world that I am not astute enough to do kindergarten crafts, because I inadvertently encouraged the kids to put their glue on the front of the ship instead of the inside. I was quickly reassigned to manage a painting project in which each child was asked to add their handprint to the back-end of a turkey. I think their prints were supposed to look like feathers, but the whole thing got so smeared and drippy that it didn’t look like much of anything at all. When the teacher came by to check on things, she frowned. “It kind of resembles a peacock, doesn’t it?” I asked. She didn’t reply.

One of the last projects they did before the holiday hiatus was to write about what they were thankful for this year. Green believes that it’s important to follow directions. He understood the intent of this assignment and searched his brain for an appropriate answer. His choice? “I am thankful for having a nice mommy and daddy.” Good boy! Blue, on the other hand, decided that this assignment was a cliché. Or maybe he’s just more honest, because he produced a surprising answer to the teacher’s question. What is little boy Blue thankful for? Do you think it’s his ramshackle but warm house? His opportunity to live on the dumpy fringes of a really nice neighborhood? The abundance of organic macaroni and cheese in his kitchen? No. Blue is thankful for...

Bugs.

Yes, Bugs. I don’t know why. When I asked him about it, he said, “The idea just came to me.” OK. Bugs it is.

In the spirit of irreverent thankfulness, I’ve come up with my own list. So here are the things Jennifer is thankful for in 2007:

1) Netflix. Obviously this service is good because of its efficiency, delivering your movie selections right to your door. But for me, it’s something more. It sort of makes me feel like we have a social life, a built-in plan for the evening, even if we never really go anywhere. Netflix allows for structured TV watching. Otherwise, I fear that our nights would involve aimlessly flipping between “The Biggest Loser” and “Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders: Making the Team.” So thank you, Netflix, for adding a little quality to the time we spend staring vacantly at the box.

2) Portable DVD Players. Really, how did our parents survive without them? Have you traveled lately? Did your 3 hour plane flight with the family suddenly turn into a 7 hour odyssey? You needed one of these. The rest of the passengers needed you to have one of these. I think that all the research that says that kids’ screen time is detrimental to their health does not take into consideration the social good that results from having kids watch cartoons on an airplane.

3) Snapea Crisps. Have any of you tried this product? It’s genius. Whoever thought of the idea of taking a potato chip and dying it green and shaping it like a vegetable deserves an award. If you’re inclined toward the occasional midnight binge, this is the snack for you. If it looks like a vegetable, and you bought it at the health food grocery, it must be a vegetable. Right?

4) Senorita Margarita Hot Salt Scrub. OK, so imagine this. You’ve just faced a moral dilemma with your class of undergraduates. Upon reading their last stack of papers, you discover that they have no knowledge of the basic rules of grammar. They don’t know that “they’re” and “their” and “there” are three different words. And if you really look closely, you see that they don’t understand that splitting their ideas into different paragraphs is helpful to the reader. Complicating the issue is that this particular group of students plans to be TEACHERS. So, do you break away from your plan to investigate the ins and outs of school funding to teach grammar? Do you risk getting bad course evaluations (and therefore not getting hired again) by telling them that something they did was less than fabulous? It’s the end of this headache-provoking day, and you step into the shower. Suddenly you’re transported to the warmest, sauciest cantina in all of Mexico. The smell of this bath scrub is so good and so real, you could drink yourself.

5) Living with Tech Support. I have a lot of problems with computers. Really, the fact that I got this site up and running ALL BY MYSELF was the most amazing thing I did all year. But usually I’m not that independent, and I need to ask for help. I feel so lucky that I live with a person that has such talent with computers that he can solve just about any issue that confronts me. Plus, he’s always so cheerful when I interrupt his very important meetings to ask him how to fix the margins on a paper I’m writing.

5) You. Yes, I am so thankful for you, my loyal readers. I would love it, however, if you would let me know that you’re out there. Leave a comment. Send me a sign. What do you want to hear more about? My cauliflower butt? My hideous garage? My adventures at the gym? Let me know. Your wish is my command.

Veterans' Day

I know it seems like all I talk about are the holidays, but it's hard to avoid them this time of year. Just as the pumpkins on the front porch started to rot, the boys came home from school last week to announce another round of school-based festivities. "On Friday," they chirped, "we're going to celebrate the people in the cemetery!"

"What?" I asked. I was confused. Halloween.....er, Harvestoween had passed. The posters of mummies had been taken down. The books about feisty witches were removed from the classroom shelves. I had no idea what the boys were talking about. And frankly, neither did they.

"Are you going on a field trip to the cemetery?" I asked. They shook their heads, no. I pushed a bit more. "Well, did your teacher tell you how you were going to celebrate the people in the cemetery?" Blue answered, "She said we were going to sit criss-cross-applesauce on the floor of the cafeteria."

Ah! An assembly! "Is someone coming to talk to you?" I continued. "Yes," Green replied. "It's gonna be a soldier that plays a horn." Things were becoming clearer. I had a feeling that the arrival of the tooting soldier meant that Blue and Green were going to have their first ever lesson about war.

Michael and I have kept the boys pretty sheltered. They don't play video games. They haven't seen many movies. They don't watch the news. And they don't really know that people, if left to their own devices, are not always very nice to each other. Basically, we've done a crackerjack job of preparing them for a world that doesn't exist.

So on Friday, I anxiously sent the kids off to school to learn about Veterans' Day. I think my trepidation was influenced by my own experience with Veterans' Day assemblies. When I was a kid, veterans' organizations were working to get folks to remember the horrors of the Vietnam War. The people who came to speak to us didn't bring cheery tales of heroism. Instead, they talked about their Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. They talked about the innocent people they killed. They talked about friends that had died. It was grim and gruesome and shocking.

Apparently the message has changed over the last 30 years. This was not an assembly about war. This was a military pep rally! Blue and Green broke away from their morning lesson on squirrels to listen to the high school band play a medley of foot stomping, patriotic tunes. Then a member of the Air Force spoke about the meaning of the flag. And get this: each child was given an Air Force football as a souvenir. It's the kind of trinket that recruiters give away at their booths on college campuses. RECRUITERS.

The boys love their footballs, but they may have missed the message. On the way home from school, I asked, "Boys, what is Veterans' Day about?" Blue answered, "It's about the military." "And what's the military?" I asked. Green shrugged. "I dunno. Something about Yankee Doodle." OK, I guess they're not signing up for service just yet.

Of course, Blue and Green had some Veterans' Day homework to complete. Each weekend, a kid in the classroom gets to take home the class "pet" (a stuffed mouse puppet). The student's job is to write a booklet describing all the things that the mouse did with that particular family. And this weekend was Blue's weekend. On the way out of the classroom, the teacher said, "It would be great if you could take the mouse to do something related to the holiday. You could go to the cemetery!"

What is it about the cemetery?! No, I was not going to drag the kids and their smelly puppet around the cemetery in the rain. Instead, we went to visit one of our favorite veterans, who kindly pulled out all of his pins and medals to educate the rodent about the armed forces.


Thanks, Grandpa.

New Month

Well, phew. I’m glad it’s November. All the harvest celebrating got to be a bit much. There were the two trips to the pumpkin farm. There was the in-school party, the after-school party, the jackolantern carving, the costume buying, and the inevitable craze that was the actual day of Halloween. I’m exhausted.

I think what we need is another holiday in October to offset the maniacal build-up to Halloween. Columbus Day is clearly not helpful. It seems as if that day’s claim to fame is that all the people in the neighborhood get to wander around wondering why the mail isn’t being delivered. I’m not sure we know what to do with Columbus anymore, now that his big discovery has been challenged. In schools, teachers are left with a bunch of curriculum materials that are historically problematic. But, not wanting to waste all those “Columbus Was An Explorer. Are You An Explorer, Too?" signs, educators have simply watered down the old message without addressing the controversy. As a result, Blue and Green received a host of bland Columbus-related social studies worksheets, including one that said this:

Columbus sailed on a ship.
He landed in America.
He met the people who lived there.

Now there’s an exciting story! Way to bring the drama of history to life!

But anyway, Halloween. Trick-or-treating pulls something primal out in me. The truth is that I wasn’t ready to give it up at age 13 and would probably STILL ring people’s doorbells for candy if it were at all socially acceptable. When I was a kid, it was all about strategy. The size of the candy bar was often in inverse proportion to the size of the house. Older people often gave out TWO pieces, probably because they didn’t want leftovers. People with little kids were often too distracted by their own goblins to pay adequate attention to their candy supply. And so on. I learned how to maximize my candy acquisition in the shortest possible amount of time.

To my dismay, Blue and Green are not strategists, at least not yet. Despite my exhortations to hurry! hurry! to get the most candy, they happily ambled along. At about 7:30, after an hour and a half of reminders about the importance of saying “thank you,” Green announced that he was ready to go home. “WHAT?!” I hollered at him. “You’re done?! How can you be done?” But he was, so Michael took him back to the house. I convinced Blue that it would be worth his while to do one more block. And sure enough, I was right – he scored several more reese's peanut butter cups (his favorite). “Blue,” I told him, “you’re learning from a master.”

The sad part is that I don’t really crave the candy anymore. I’ve had a piece or two, the “fun size” kind, but I’m not crazy with lust over the remaining bowl of Hershey bars that we have sitting on the kitchen counter. When did that leave me? When did I learn to be happy with small squares of organic dark chocolate, you know, the kind with ANTIOXIDANTS? I’m certainly glad they didn’t tell me that as a child. Can you imagine the depressing high school assembly, entitled “Things You Never Guessed About Adulthood?” Here’s what they would say:

1) No matter how old you become, you will always get pimples, especially on important days.

2) McDonalds food will stop tasting good, or at the very least, it will make you feel incredibly crappy if you eat it.

And

3) You will no longer want to consume an entire bucket full of Halloween candy in one sitting, and if you do, it will feel like a shameful binge instead of a joyful celebration.

On that note, I will leave you with assorted Halloween photos:

Choosing the biggest pumpkins in the patch




Carving

Doctor Green, Doctor Blue, and Me (Not Really a Doctor)

Holiday

At Blue and Green’s school, today is Halloween. Well, it’s not really Halloween. It’s Harvestoween. We certainly would never celebrate anything connected to the underworld, but farming? Yes! We love farming! Though we all live in the city, we go to the farmer’s market every weekend to get our organic produce. So yes, let’s celebrate the farmer and his/her bountiful pesticide-free spinach.

I shouldn’t poke fun. I understand that holidays are complicated for public institutions, but this one just cracks me up. For the past week, the boys have been studying nothing but traditional Halloween symbols. They painted jackolanterns. They designed elaborate pumpkin people. The hallways are filled with signs that say, “Boo!” Last week, the school dragged all 85 kindergarteners to a rural pumpkin patch, never mind the driving windstorm and pounding rain. On our permission slip, the administration promised that this trip was intricately tied to the goals, objectives, and learning benchmarks of the kindergarten program. But in truth, the kids took a tractor ride, slid down a big slide in a hay maze, and were able to pet several bedraggled rabbits.

Besides the absence of the actual word “Halloween,” several other things have changed about this holiday since I was a kid. First, the children are not allowed to wear full costumes to school. Instead, they can only decorate their heads. I assume this rule emerged to make costumes less distracting, but I’m not so sure that’s working. I saw one girl this morning who fashioned her long hair into a foot tall palm tree on top of her head. It was painted green and had noisy, dangling coconuts on it. Another little boy almost peed in his pants because he was so excited about wearing hair products for the first time. “Look at me! Look at me!” he shrieked at the top of his lungs. I overheard his teacher say, “Brent, you need to sit down and take out your homework.” “I can’t,” he responded. “I’m wearing mousse!”

The other thing that is different about Halloween is that there's no candy. Instead of in-school trick-or-treating, Blue and Green are going to experience a healthy food bonanza at their classroom party. I told the boys that they weren’t going to need their lunchboxes today, because each child was bringing in a wholesome dish to share. “What about dessert?” Blue asked. “Ummm,” I stammered, “Your friend Linus is bringing in dried apricots, and some people might consider that a dessert.” “Mama,” Blue said, “An apricot is fruit. Don’t you know that?”

Well, yes, I know that. I am also aware that as I write this, my picky-eater boys are struggling over whether to a) go hungry or b) eat the mini soy corndogs that Lucy brought in, or c) try the honey dew melons that Schroeder contributed, or d) sample the “mini raisin lemon pancakes” that Pigpen’s mother stayed up late last night to make. I have a sense that Green is going to stomp out of his classroom this afternoon and announce, “Harvest time is no fun.”

Another problem with this holiday is that it is being muscled out by Christmas. When I was at the drugstore the other day looking for appropriate head decorations for the boys, I found one measly aisle devoted to Halloween. But if you were out that day looking for a wreath or a stocking or some reindeer wrapping paper, you would have been in good shape. And if you were really paying attention, you would have heard the instrumental version of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” being piped over the airwaves, just to get you ready for when he really does come to town in TWO MONTHS.

And of course, all this ho!ho!ho! retail spirit is getting the kids geared up for greediness. Blue and Green are already hard at work on their Christmas lists. In particular, Blue wants a custom-made, gas powered garbage truck that he can drive up and down the neighborhood streets. “Uh, Blue,” I said to him, “I don’t think Santa will have room in his sleigh to bring a garbage truck of that size.” “He’ll make room, Mama,” Blue replied. “You told me that Santa is magic.”

Maybe the Christmas rush starts so early to give parents enough time to work themselves out of moral dilemmas like this one. But, just in case, I have to ask: Does anyone have a spare garbage truck they could donate? The stinkier it is, the better.

Lost Youth

I had to go get my driver’s license renewed yesterday. I remember the last time I went, when the boys were tiny and screaming and unmanageable. Other people may have hated the idea of wasting so many hours, but I thought there was nothing more appealing than sitting alone for an afternoon (even if I had to be surrounded by anxiety-provoking signs that said things like “Intimidating a State Employee is a Felony”).

Anyway, this time I was nervous. It’s kind of embarrassing to admit this, but I was worried about getting my picture taken. There’s something about having two identically staged photos side-by-side to make you aware of how much time has passed, how much wrinkle-causing water is under the bridge.

I’ve been noticing my age lately. It’s not that the number itself is an issue, but I’ve just been feeling slower. In years past, if you had given me the choice between a) going out and doing something exciting or b) sitting on the couch and watching Grey’s Anatomy, I would have chosen going out without even thinking. These days, I often find myself in my pajamas at 8 pm. And I wonder, have I become the stodgy adult I swore to myself I’d never be?

The truth is that there are consequences to staying up late. First off, there’s Blue and Green’s marching band, which starts its rehearsals at 6 am. And let me tell you, the sound of a toy guitar with weak batteries before dawn is enough to break a person’s spirit until lunchtime.



Second, for every hour I spend with a margarita in my hand in a dark bar, I pay for it with an entire day of feeling crappy. Why is that? Going out on Saturday night should not render me useless until Thursday.

There was a time in my life when I could stay up late and return to form the next morning. In college, it seems like I would routinely stay up all night to write some dumb paper and then go out the next night to celebrate getting it done. And then, when I finally did get to sleep, some kid down the hall in the dorm would set the fire alarm off because he wanted to test whether or not the fireproof doors were really fireproof. Out we would all go in our pajamas into the blustery Chicago night air. But it was alright – the next day I could drown my drowsiness in one of those large plates of “breakfast potatoes” that they always served in the cafeteria. I learned then that french fries in the morning are a miracle cure for whatever’s ailing me.

But here I am facing another birthday, and I’ve been feeling like I need to rekindle some of that lost youth. So last weekend I decided to throw caution to the wind. I gathered some friends and had them take me to a fun place that served big, fruity drinks. I actually put on lipstick and dug out my good jeans, not the usual ones that are covered with macaroni and cheese stains.

When we got there, I noticed right away that my good jeans didn’t really cut it. There were girls in tube tops and stilettos, and lots of people were wearing my favorite outfit from 1984: the Flashdance ripped sweater over leggings. If only I had made more headway cleaning the garage! I’m pretty sure I have that outfit tucked safely away in a box labeled “bad memories.”

To offset my discomfort about my attire, I ordered a margarita right away. One of my friends began the evening by making a rule: no talking about kids. This left us with discussions about politics (depressing), work (stressful), and movies (never get out to see any). But it only took a few minutes for me to generate a great topic. MEN! Isn’t that what youthful women talk about when they go out on the town?

I wish I could share the scandalous details of that conversation with you, but I can’t remember it. It was so funny and fabulous that I accidentally drank two of those margaritas. And if you know me well, you are aware that two margaritas are 1 ½ too many for me. I leaned over to my friend somewhere along the line and said, “I hate to ask you this, but can you carry me to the bathroom?”

As I was being escorted across the bar, I watched the room spin around me. And I had a strange sensation, a psychic vibe of some sort. Though I couldn’t see anyone, I knew that one of my students was there. Oh yes, THIS is why I don’t go to bars very often. People don't want to see their drunken, middle-aged professor stumbling and sloshing past their dinner table.

Not much longer after that, my friends wrapped me up and returned me to my quiet, family-friendly neighborhood. I came through the front door with a huge smile on my face. Michael was watching me from the couch. “Baby,” I said, “Look at me. I ‘m getting older, but I’ve still got it going on.” He rolled his eyes, unimpressed. I poured a glass of water, got some aspirin from the medicine cabinet, and joined him on the couch. “Let’s watch Grey’s Anatomy,” I slurred.

A few hours later, the marching band began to play “Jingle Bells” at top volume. I woke up and put on those cheese-stained jeans. “Mama,” Green said to me as I poured a strong cup of coffee, “your butt looks like a cauliflower.” “Thanks so much, honey,” I said, and I gave him a kiss. Growing older is OK. It really is.

The Race

Blue and Green's teacher has created an elaborate incentive plan that rewards good behavior while simultaneously preparing the next generation to participate in the market economy. For every positive act, each child is presented with a fake dollar bill (a dutiful dollar), which they can then spend at the "store." When they learned about this plan, the boys were thrilled, thinking that the teacher was going to take them on a wild spree at ToysRUs. In reality, the "store" is just a paper bag filled with pencils and stickers, but its allure is still enough to get my kids to toe the line happily each and every day.

On Wednesday, the mother of one of the boys' classmates asked me, "Did you hear about the counterfeit dutiful dollars?" I hadn't. She lowered her voice and told me the sordid tale. Apparently, some child brought in a homemade stash of pretend money and quietly stowed it in his pencil box along with his other, honestly-earned dutiful dollars. When it came to light that this kid was suddenly much richer than his peers, his scheme was revealed.

But see, there's more. Rumor has it that the counterfeit dollars were made by scanning a genuine dutiful dollar into a computer and then copying it. The question naturally emerges about whether it's possible for a five year old to do this by himself. And if it's not possible, does that mean that a parent was an accomplice?

Now, I'm pretty suspicious about the whole story. Information that weaves its way home through the mouth of a kindergartener is usually part fiction, part wish, and part maniacal, exhausting, run-on blathering. But what's interesting about this case is its calculating, competitive nature. Whether or not the story is completely true, it's not totally inconceivable that a parent would lie, cheat, or steal to get his or her child to the head of the class.

Parents are everywhere in this school, all day, all the time. One thing we noticed -- and loved -- when we visited the school for the first time is that there are always parents cheerfully helping the teachers. I joined these ranks recently, giving up one of my precious hours each week to offer my expertise in the classroom. Every Thursday afternoon, I do things like help the kids finger paint the trunks of coconut trees or glue sea shells to the tops of shoe boxes. But really, I'm watching. I'm watching how my kids play with others. I'm watching how well they write words. I'm watching to see if the numbers they put on their worksheets look like actual numbers. And, if I'm honest, I'm watching to see how they compare to other kids.

I think it's natural to think that your own kid is a genius. I mean, come on -- you knew him when he couldn't even raise his head off the mattress. Now look! He can count to 110! He can write the words "stay out of my room" with just a little assistance! Sure, he might have a few annoying habits, like needing to rip the toilet paper precisely on the perforation line, but otherwise this kid emerged from his amoeba-like form and turned into a real phenom.

A couple of weeks ago, I returned from my stint as mommy volunteer feeling a bit dispirited. I was in the midst of a rather hectic craft project with seven kids, trying to get them to make patterns out of sequins. It is very difficult to get that many kids to focus on a project like this. In their eyes, it would be much more fun to organize the sequins haphazardly. There's more splash! More pizazz! But no, this is school, and they're supposed to be learning. One boy had a red, blue, red, blue thing going, when he suddenly inserted a yellow. "Why did you put a yellow there?" I asked him. "Because it's pretty," he answered. "But, honey," I said, "remember that you're supposed to be organizing these sequins into a pattern." "Why?" he asked, looking at me with an unflinching gaze. Why? Why? I had no idea. I wanted to say, "Because I need to get a good grade in volunteering."

Anyway, I was in the middle of this chaos, when Blue and Green's teacher came up to me. "I'd like to talk to you about the boys' writing," she said. I smiled at her. My kids are fabulous writers! So creative! So inspired! But the teacher frowned. She said, "They have very immature grips."

Oh.

Now this isn't completely surprising. They do come from a long line of folks who have poor penmenship. But, still. She's saying my kids are immature? Why didn't their preschool teachers alert me to this problem? Why wasn't I working with them all summer to get them better acquainted with correct pencil form? How will they get ahead? How will they ever pass the test to get into the Smarty-Pants Program? How will they get into college? Ack!

It's in the air, this pressure to excel. Yesterday, I approached a group of mommies standing at the edge of the playground after school. They were whispering and pointing at a kindergarten boy who was sitting and reading a book. "Is Fred reading a chapter book all by himself?" one of them exclaimed. Another nibbled on her fingernails and said, "I just don't know what to do about Daphne. She would rather play with her ponies than do the worksheets I give her. How will she ever learn to read like Fred over there?" Everyone clucked sympathetically. One woman cleared her throat and said, "I hear there are more kids who are qualified for the Smarty-Pants Program than there are spaces available. I wonder if there's a way to help my son Shaggy become better prepared."

I wanted to squinch my eyes closed and cover my ears like the boys do when they don't want to hear what I'm saying. My kids are five years old. There are leaves to jump in, pumpkins to carve, jungle gyms to climb, castles to build. I want to give them this time. Doesn't the window for childhood joy seem pretty narrow? But I also know that the race has started, whether I like it or not.

Ready, set, go?

Ramblings About Growing and Building and the Ph.D

The fall season is definitely here. The leaves are turning, the air is cold, and giant pumpkins are sitting in the parking lot of every grocery store, waiting like pound puppies for a good home.

Do you remember how I said that we’re participating in a pumpkin growing contest with the neighbors? Well, things are not going well. First off, my pumpkin plant decided to escape. One night we heard faint screams coming from the yard. If you listened closely, you could hear a voice wailing, “Let me out of here!!!!!! She’s killing me!!!!” And then the next day, I noticed that my pumpkin plant had grown itself out through our fence and was heading away in search of a more suitable family.

There are only a few weeks until Halloween, and the plant's two pumpkins are pretty puny. I don’t even think you can officially call them pumpkins yet. Is there such a thing as a fetal pumpkin? And the sad thing is that someone has taken a hearty bite out of the side of one of them.



It’s not all that surprising, considering I have never actually nurtured a plant successfully. I don’t have that je ne sais quoi, that green thumb, that whatever it is that makes some people able to cultivate a nice yard. I’m not even sure that it’s fair to call our yard a yard; it’s more like a plastic toy-filled jungle.

But anyway, I like to think that the reason why I’m not good at plants is because I’m showering all my love and attention on my kids. You know, all the bushes in the front of the house might be dead, but look at these robust, flourishing children! Woo!

Apparently, Blue and Green think differently. The other day, when the sun had not even come up yet, I felt a small tap on my arm. “Mama?” Green said. “Huh?” I garbled, not yet awake enough to communicate. “Where are the hammer and nails?”

I almost said, “They’re in the top drawer under the microwave,” but something nagged at me. Why would a five year old be asking for the tools? “Green,” I asked, “why in the world would you need a hammer and nails?” “Because,” he answered, “today Blue and I are going to build a house just for us where we can make up all the rules.”

Well, there you have it. The pumpkins left me, and the kids are moving out.



In the meantime, however, the boys are cluttering my world with all sorts of building projects. One hot activity is creating a "nurse's office" out of their bedroom. To make this work, they gathered all of their plastic medical equipment and drafted some architectural sketches:



And now they are in debate about one crucial element. Who's going to be the nurse? Neither one wants this job. While they were working out the details of the project, I overheard this conversation:

Green: Mama can be the nurse, because she's a doctor.
Blue: No, wait, she's not really a doctor.
Green: She used to be a doctor, but now she's a teacher.
Blue: I think we need to find someone else's Mommy to be the nurse.

I'm glad to see that my confusion about my career does not belong to me alone. The Ph.D is such a vague thing. On the one hand, it's a badge that represents lots of hard work. But on the other hand, I get to wander through life being "not a real doctor." The boys asked me to tell them about what we do in my classes. I could see on their faces that they were expecting me to talk about the kinds of things they do all day: drawing apples, counting, finger painting. "Well," I answered, "in my class we talk about ideas and issues." They both blinked. "Mama," Blue said, "that doesn't sound like very much fun."

Blue actually has a sense of what he wants to be when he grows up. This boy is not going to hang around for 10 years trying to earn a degree that no one understands. He has decided that he's going to be a "plan maker." And he's already practicing. Sometimes, at the end of the afternoon, I stand in the school hallway and spy on the boys. More often than not, Blue is perched on a chair that towers above all the little kids building castles and forts with the wooden blocks. When I ask him why he's just sitting there, he tells me that he is "hard at work being in charge."

Smart kid. This one's gonna make me proud.

Literature

I feel like I was a bit of a voyeur at the state fairs. Truth be told, I'm not really that comfortable with weird food or scary rides or kiddie rodeos. But September always brings a wacky event that is just my speed: the Friends of the Library Book Sale.

I really love reading. I always have. I was one of those kids who looked like she was doing the phonics worksheet on her desk, but she was really reading a novel on her lap. I think that reading, especially reading fiction, has made me a much more creative person. And these days, I'm pretty proud of my eclectic tastes -- I can enjoy the Pulitzer Prize winning masterpiece, but I can also appreciate the finer points of a schlocky thriller.

People who read like I do make up a geeky bunch, and there's something pretty funny about bookish nerds competing to get their nail-bitten hands on the best used paperbacks the city can offer. Twice a year, the library system puts on these huge sales in an abandoned Navy hangar. There are thousands and thousands of books on every subject, and waiting for them are thousands and thousands of slightly furry people wearing wool socks and Birkenstocks.

Today's sale began at 9 a.m., and my mom and I arrived at 8:45. The line had already wrapped itself around the building. People came with empty suitcases and stacks of cartons and boxes that they could use to haul their treasures home.

It was cold outside, but the anticipation in the air warmed us all up. Despite the classical music being piped out of the building and the aroma of coffee from the nearby espresso stand, this was a line of tense people. Whose child would be the lucky new owner of that fresh copy of Walter the Farting Dog? Who would be the first to claim that first edition of the unauthorized biography of Anna Nicole Smith?

There was a lot at stake.

Apparently there's also a bit of a controversy about the book sale. I learned about this in the newspaper this morning. ON THE FRONT PAGE. I guess this is a big story! It turns out that online book dealers tend to snatch up all the books and pull them off to the side. Then they scan the barcodes to check the going price on the internet, leaving behind their piles of discards in the corner. In the meantime, the regular shoppers don't get a chance to see those books. Horrors! The efficient sale volunteers came up with a new rule to solve the problem: "You can still use [handheld scanners], but you can't take books off the table. They can scan only as they walk up and down a table. That's settled things down considerably."

Well, phew! I wouldn't want to see a brawl between a scanner-wielding capitalist and a bearded fellow holding a ceramic NPR mug.

I managed to avoid conflict as I gathered up 30 "gently loved" children's books for Blue and Green. I'm so pleased that the boys are avid readers, and I try to keep up with their interests. Books about reptiles are big this season, as are Magic School Bus science books, and the Magic Treehouse series. I also picked up a classic about slime. It begins, "Slime in my pocket, in my shoe. Is it custard? Is it glue?" How could I resist that?

These days, Blue and Green also like to browse through grown-up books, pulling out words that they recognize and inquiring endlessly about ones that they don't. Green is fond of "reading" the dictionary. He'll pick out a word and recite all the letters. "Mama," he'll say. "What does a-n-n-o-y-i-n-g spell?" Blue, on the other hand, has a few special grown-up books that he returns to again and again. We don't know why. Here's a favorite:

I'm so happy that they are little book lovers, but I'm a bit worried that school will strip the joy out of it for them. Already I'm concerned about that one homework assignment where they're supposed to fill out a checklist for each day that they read for twenty minutes. When I told them about this assignment, Green asked me, "Why do they say that reading is work?"

Why, indeed. For most of the people at the sale, reading was anything but work. There were the two frizzy mathematicians searching for gold in the science fiction aisle. There was the guy in the corduroy suit with his hefty stack of poetry. There was the way-too-cool pierced hipster with her bucket of literary theory. Nobody was working today, and I was loving the quirky wonderfulness of it all.

Everyone seems to have their own favorite sections of the sale, and I tend to stick to the kids' section and the literature section. But as I was waiting in line to check out, I became transfixed by the nearby Self Help table. I realized that I've missed out on so much by lingering in my usual zone. All this time, I could have been reading this:

Or, better yet, this:

I'll keep these two fine selections in mind as my classes start this week. On Monday, don't be surprised if you hear me holler, "Oh inner critic, let me give you a hug! I'm feeling stressed out today, but I'm LOVING IT!"

Curriculum

Over two weeks have passed since Blue and Green started kindergarten, and we're beginning to get into a bit of a rhythm. Of note is the fact that we've been on time every single day, even with the double breakfasting, the dressing, the lunch packing, the snack packing, the form signing (twice), the water bottle filling, the car loading, and the car unloading. I'm always a little sweaty by the time the bell rings, but the kids are as cheerful about a new school day as I am about a frozen margarita on a hot beach.

The hardest thing for me has been the fact that I don't really know what's going on for them during the day. In the afternoons, I ask for an update, and I usually get a gossipy story about kids who didn't follow the rules (pronounced woo-wuls). Most of these rules seem to concern having kids SHUT UP. Here are a few, in Blue and Green's words:

1) Don't shout out to another teacher who's with another class when you're in line because you need to be quiet because it will disturb other classes that have their windows open.

2) Don't talk during directions

3) No talking unless you raise your hand

4) If you need to talk, don't talk in a mean way

and

5) After lunch, try to get into two lines and don't talk until you get around the corner and if you do it well the principal will give a silent cheer.

I happen to know that there are a few other rules, because I received the school's six page "code of conduct" during the first week. In addition to SHUTTING UP, here are some of the other guidelines:

1) No pocket chains

2) Summer clothing should be reflective of an educational institution and not that of a beach party (this is a direct quote!)

3) Flush toilets

and

4) Wood chips stay on the ground at all times.

OK, so I get it. Rules are important. But what are they learning? What are they doing all day? It's hard to tell. One day earlier this week, I asked the boys what they did in class. They answered, "Today we played with dead birds!" Ummm.....what? Is this for an important unit on taxidermy? Guess what, boys? I have a new rule! Wash your hands after every lesson!

My gap in knowledge about the school day was concerning, so I was happy that our teacher held "curriculum night" on Thursday. At 5:45, 20 parental sets squeezed our big bottoms into teeny chairs and learned that our little geniuses would exit kindergarten 1) reading; 2) writing; and 3) certainly able to stand in line without talking. We learned about science ("preserved" birds = observing the natural world), math, and literature. We learned about field trips (school buses!), birthday parties, and art.

I was pleased. It seemed like a rich curriculum that both had a purpose and was reasonably creative. But there's one thing that still nags at me: homework. Yes, homework. For kindergartners. I don't know why I'm surprised. After all, my two five year olds need to be able to compete with five year olds in China and India, and God knows that those other kids have been up to speed on dead birds for years now. But, man. Homework? I guess that I have a Leave It To Beaver-esque notion of what childhood should be. You know, you come home from school, throw down your backpack, and go play kick-the-can with the neighborhood kids until dinner. Homework complicates that image.

Of course, if I'm honest about it, it's vexing that their homework is really my homework. And I could tell that other parents were agitating about this, too. After the curriculum night presentation was over, there was a line-up of nervous mommies in designer jeans waiting to talk to the teacher. And I could hear the questions:"OK, it says on the homework sheet that Junior needs to read more than two books for twenty minutes every night and then fill out this form. I'm reading chapter books with him, so can we read more than two chapters, or do we need to read several of those long books every night?" or "I've already taught Poopsie how to do long division. This homework is too easy for me....I mean, her. Can we adapt it to include some pre-calculus?" And in my case, I notice that I'm approaching their homework the way I used to approach my own, by putting it off until the last minute. That way, the work itself might not be interesting, but it becomes a huge! alarming! emergency! that can add a little drama into an otherwise dull afternoon.

For their part, Blue and Green love doing homework.



They think it's fabulous, no matter how mundane the task. "Okay guys," I said the other day. "It says here that you have to go count all the cans in the pantry." "There are twenty!" they hooted, after pulling out and examining all the cans of beans and vegetable soup. "Actually," I replied,"There are nineteen. I'm throwing this one away because it expired in 2004."

One of their favorite activities had to do with leaves. They were supposed to gather 10 leaves and then sort them by size and color. We put on our shoes and trekked to the park. I said, "This is homework, boys. You need to find 10 leaves." Off they went, while I rested on a bench. When they returned, this is what they had with them:



Overachievers, already.

Comparative Case

The lengths I go to for you people! Seriously. You don't understand what I did for you today. Since my inbox practically overflowed after my report on the Minnesota State Fair, I figured I could entertain you even further if I enlarged my knowledge of the whole state fair phenomenon. So this afternoon, in the pouring rain, I visited the Washington State Fair, aka "The Puyallup" (pronounced Pew-allup).

Did I mention the pouring rain? It was pouring. And 58 degrees. So I was a bit surprised at the fact that zillions of other people were also at the fair, wrapped in their slickers and hunching under umbrellas. At the Minnesota fair, there was something so summery about the way the curly fries blew greasy steam on their eaters' sunburned faces. But here, the rain and the cold and the hot chocolate were constant reminders that our state decided to put its fair in the autumn, after all the kids go to school. I just don't get that.

But anyway, how do I describe this experience? OK, remember the Minnesota fair? The butter sculptures? The crazy food on a stick? The gluttony? Well, throw a little west coast cool on top of the celebration. Instead of a corn costume, you can buy an earth-friendly bamboo shirt.

And this is certainly not the place to fill up on artery-clogging piles of junk food. This year, Washington State banned trans fats at the fair.

And if you're looking for food on a stick, all you're gonna get is fruit.

But still, Washington State is not all about love and peace and healthy living. We have a nasty side. You may have heard, but we really don't much like small children or sheep. Want some evidence? Check out the Mutton Bustin' Championships.

Here's what happens. If you're a parent of a kid who is six years old or younger, you can PAY MONEY to have him or her thrown off the back of an angry, running sheep. And, if your kid hangs onto the sheep for the longest amount of time, he or she will win A BELT BUCKLE. And then that winner gets to compete next weekend for A BIGGER BELT BUCKLE.

So imagine this. It's, as I mentioned, pouring rain. Mud is everywhere. Peeved sheep are at the ready. The damp crowd rises and sings the national anthem. And then, the first kindergartner is placed atop one of the beasts. The gate is opened, and the stopwatch starts:

He stays on for one second. Then another kid and another sheep are introduced:

Seventeen tiny children go through this, all heaved up on the animal's bare back by a willing parent. Some kid hangs on for three seconds and goes home with a new buckle. But, really, the sheep wins every time.

The host of this pint-sized rodeo event left us with a piece of wisdom. He said that there's nothing more unpleasant in this world than bare skin on wet wool. Hmm. I don't know, I think having a crazed sheep step on your face might be a bit worse than that.

Later, I asked Blue and Green to choose their favorite fair. Each gave his vote to Minnesota, and I think I have to agree. The Washington fair certainly has a good vibe going. But Minnesota? It takes the cake (on a stick).