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).

Pain

Oh, have we struggled the last few days. There has been no working on my syllabus. No cleaning the garage. No spinning. And no sleeping. NO SLEEPING. Ever since the kids started kindergarten, I have been doing a lot of reminiscing about their babyhood, and the NO SLEEPING thing brought me right back to the nauseating desperation that takes over when one goes several days without rest.

It all started on Tuesday, when Green came home from school complaining about his ear. Whenever Green gets a cold, his ears clog up. I know this. But somehow, I sensed something was different. And in the middle of the night, the screaming began. This was wild, back-arching wailing. We tried Tylenol and Sudafed and the Hokey Pokey. Nothing helped.

Clearly, the kid wasn't going to school on Wednesday. And Wednesday brought with it escalating shrieking and crying. He started to plead with me, "Mama, I need your help." So we picked up Blue from school at 3 and went to visit our friendly pediatrician.

I'll admit it. I hate going to the pediatrician. The place is too hot, the rooms are too small, and I feel just a bit resentful that we have almost single-handedly put this doctor's kids through college. For years, we have shown up with a series of horrible symptoms and get sent home with the news that "it's just a virus." I call this the BUMMER FOR YOU (BFY) diagnosis, because when things get bad enough for me to drag the gaggle of us to the doctor's, I would like to receive a PLAN OF ACTION in return. But no, it's usually "drink liquids and get some rest."

Now, ear pain seems to be the most likely affliction to generate the BFY diagnosis. And I understand this. I do. If you take too many antibiotics, they become ineffective when you really need them. But on Wednesday, I would have cut off a few of my toes if it would have meant that there was something that could help my child. Still, after looking in the kid's ears, Dr. Busy looked up and smiled. She chirped, "Lucky for you, Green, you don't have to take any yucky medicine!"

I was sweaty from the heat and shaky from the exhaustion, and I could feel myself getting a bit screechy. "Are you sure it's not infected?" I asked incredulously. "Nope," she answered. "There's just a bit of fluid in there. You just need to wait a few days."

A FEW DAYS!!!?!?!?!?! Didn't she get it? Something was wrong, definitely more-than-average wrong. Green had been screaming bloody murder for 24 hours, and he wouldn't eat ice cream. No ice cream!! But see, there's a problem. My degree in mother's intuition is worth far less than her fancy medical education. What can I do? Tell her that she should trust me, the ear really is infected even if it doesn't look like it?

So we went home, with no antibiotics. I almost asked Dr. Busy for a prescription for grape-flavored Vicodin, but I figured that Green already had his folder flagged with a note that read: "Mother is a freak." In some venues, jokes about narcotics are simply not appreciated.

Wednesday night was like a scene out of hell. Green cried and cried and cried. He slept for maybe an hour, if you pieced all his five minute dozes together. By morning, his little eyes had fallen deep into their sockets. When the doctor's office opened, I called Dr. Busy and left a shrill message. An hour later, a nurse called us back. "Hi," she said. "This is Emily from Busy Pediatrics! Dr. Busy wants you to try warm compresses on Green's ear and have him take regular doses of Ibuprofin." Wow! Thanks so much. I never would have thought of over-the-counter pain medication!

By yesterday evening, Green was pleading, "Can't you do something?" It was time for a trip to Urgent Care, which is a fancy term for a nighttime doctor's appointment at the cost of an emergency room visit. Isn't it crazy to spend hundreds of dollars to have someone look in a kid's ears? It is, truly. But guess what? I was right. Green is the proud owner of a raging infection and a shiny new collection of amoxicillin bottles.

The big thing that we learned through this process (besides the fact that I know my kid) is that Green (and presumably Blue, too) has a geographic tongue. What's that, you ask? It's basically a funny tongue that has marks on it, but what's interesting is its rarity. It affects only .06% of all Americans. So, Blue and Green are identical twins (1 in every 1,000 deliveries world wide) that are mirror image (23% of identical twins) with unlikely tongues. I love these boys, but they sure are weird.

Clutter

Now that the boys are launched into their new school year, I am left to evaluate my summer goals. Did I mention that I had goals? I bet you didn't think I was the goal-making type, but actually, I came up with three goals for the season. Goal number one was starting this blog. Check! Number two was turning something from my dissertation into a publishable article. Since this was unpleasant, I reassigned it to the fall. That leaves me with goal number three: cleaning the garage. To me, it is still summer (temperatures in the 80s, no obligations), so I think I need to get this done.

The thing is, the garage is the only storage place in our house. And let's just say that we haven't been very good at throwing things out over the last, oh, 10 years or so. When we moved from our apartment to the house, the boys were 14 months old and we couldn't be bothered with organizing. So we just shoved stuff into boxes, marked them "miscellaneous junk," and put them in the garage. Soon it became difficult to walk through the garage, so when something needed to go in there, we just heaved it onto the monstrous pile. Now it looks like one of those messes that gets a person flown to the Oprah show to have a heart-to-heart with Dr. Robin about hoarding.

I'm not a hoarder (really), but I am a collector. And this whole garage cleaning problem brings up some questions for me. When can the memory of a person/time/event stand on its own, without an object attached? Surprisingly, I'm pretty good at making this distinction with the kids' stuff. Those of you with children know that the amount of art work that a single individual can produce is staggering. At first, you might save every little scribble, but after a while the sheer volume of it becomes unbearable. You learn to say, "Oh, sweetie, ANOTHER abstract rendering of a circus. How lovely!" And then you chuck it. Now I just keep the most special things -- like the family portrait that Green produced last year, the one that had the caption, "Mommy is a better pitcher than Daddy."

It's a totally different story when it comes to stuff from my own childhood. When I was a kid, I collected wacky pack stickers, buttons, and Madame Alexander dolls. I clipped newspaper articles from the day MTV debuted and from the day the Challenger exploded. Did you ever write me a letter where you told me all about your first love? Well, I kept it (oooh, I smell some blackmail potential...). I saved stuff, lots of stuff. Here's an example. When I was 15, I had a crush on a boy, and I wrote about him all the time in my journal (oh yeah! Did I mention the journals? I have enough to fill a whole trunk). Here's a short excerpt:

I can’t tell if he likes me, and that bothers me a lot. I mean, he walks around with me, he talks to me, he says hi to me in the halls. But it seems to me that he does that to a lot of people…The best b’day present I could get would be if I got some miniature sign on Monday that he likes me!

Then Monday came, and I followed up with this:

I may have got my sign. I can’t really tell... I ate lunch with X today. Afterwards, he walked me to my locker. I opened it and was getting my books out, and he threw a candy bar in! I was thrilled beyond believable belief.

And here's the thing: I taped the candy bar wrapper into the journal. Because the object was so important to the event, I had to save it.

When I read this 22 years later, it looks like I have a piece of garbage in my diary. But back then, the wrapper held the promise of the moment, that a boy I liked might actually like me back. (So what do you think happened after this? It's a choose-your-ending romance story! Did this boy a) follow-up with a bouquet of roses; b) ask me to the Christmas dance; or c) ignore me? Take a guess.)

I like to reconnect with all these things, because I'm a historian at heart. I love archives, where you can go through folders and actually touch and feel old documents. Without those old papers, there's no history. Details get lost. People get lost. But at some point, the boxes get too full, the piles get too big, and decisions have to be made. What goes, and what stays?

Blue and Green have complicated the issue, because they, too, are collectors. They gravitate toward earthen things: sticks, twigs, rocks. Last weekend, we went to the beach, and the boys brought their buckets for gathering shells. At the end of the afternoon, Green brought over his bucket to show me his findings. Inside, there weren't rocks or shells. Instead, he had picked up countless pieces of the dead crabs that had washed up on the shore. And he wanted to bring them home. "No way," I said. "But mama," he whined, "It's for my collection!" "No," I said, holding firm. Candy wrappers from crushes, I get that. But dead crustacean parts? Forget it. Not in my garage.

The First Days

Thanks to those of you who expressed your support on Wednesday. I'm happy to report that I did recover from my initial angst, thanks in part to a successful retail therapy excursion. Blue and Green love kindergarten so far, especially recess (three times a day!), the perpetual ringing of the bell (two before school, each recess, lunch, after school), and, of course, the locker. It is a bit hard to figure out exactly what's going on, since the news I get is partial. When I asked them what they learned yesterday, they answered, "We learned how to draw straight and squiggly lines." Huh. Well, that will sure make their doodling better! Gotta love my tax dollars at work.

Once I recovered from Wednesday's danish binge, it occurred to me that I have a rather unique opportunity here. My classes don't start until the first week of October, so that leaves me with three weeks with TIME TO MYSELF. SIX HOURS A DAY. Can I say that any louder? SIX HOURS A DAY!!!! TO MYSELF!!

I began my stint as a lady-of-leisure by returning to the gym after a rather lengthy hiatus. This return had less to do with my danish habit as it did with my need to catch up on reading material. My sister-in-law is recovering from surgery, so I thought I'd use this space today to entertain her (and you!) with all the knowledge I gained on the elliptical machine this morning.

#1) Fitness magazine says, "You must be a priority...Be your own high-stepping, baton-twirling majorette." Hmm. OK, but I don't have a majorette costume.

#2) Fitness also claims that leggings, leg warmers, and LEOTARDS are back in style! Oh boy! Maybe I can get a majorette costume after all.

#3) If leotards aren't your thing, US magazine offers some useful advice for any woman of a certain age. "In your twenties," they write, "you can wear a skirt with fishnets and red satin heels, but in your thirties, you have to choose just one." Oh no! Just one? I'll leave it to you, my loyal audience, to make that choice for me. What should I wear to the PTA picnic tomorrow -- fishnets or the red heels?

#4) I know that many of you are in your forties and beyond. US says this about you: "Go for clean, classic styles with bold accents like a splash of leopard." Alright, it's time to pack away that leopard bodysuit you love so much. Didn't you hear them? They said a SPLASH of leopard, not an entire carcass.

#5) For those of you who have daughters, this one's for you. Actress Evan Rachel Wood recently told reporters, "I'm sorry if I have blonde hair and blue eyes and my boyfriend looks like a vampire. What do you want me to do about it?"

Kindergarten

My neighbor gave me this picture. I think she thought it could be a model for what my time today should be like. But, alas, there are a few differences between my life and this woman's life. First, there's her neat living room. Where are all the toys? The dust bunnies in the corner? The milk stains on the coffee table? Was she really able to get her house clean during those long, late-summer days when the kids were wrestling and throwing plastic food at each other? And of course, there's also her face. Doesn't she look serene? I, by contrast, am pale and blotchy from the epic crying fit I had in the car after the parents were ushered out of the classroom this morning.

The boys have left for kindergarten. Kindergarten. KINDERGARTEN. How did that happen? I remember when they were 2 months old and colicky. At five o'clock every night, they would commence screaming in an inconsolable, window-shattering way, and the only thing in the world that could stop it was driving over 55 mph. So Michael and I, on 3 or 4 hours of sleep, would put them in the car and drive to the mountains and back. The stress of the rush-hour drive was nothing in comparison to the sweet joy of silence. But when we returned, just as we were slowing down on the exit ramp, the screaming would begin again. It was as if they were saying, "You're not going to get any quiet for FIVE WHOLE YEARS."

And here we are. It's so quiet in the house I can barely stand it. I guess I should feel some measure of success, because we've come a long way in the last few weeks. Green, in particular, was concerned about the whole big-kid school concept. When I told him last week that we were going to his kindergarten orientation on Thursday at 1 pm, he said, "I think I'm busy at that time." And I said, "Clear your calendar, kid. The real world's knocking."

Lucky for us, Green found something to get really excited about: lockers. Ever since Green was a toddler, he has loved doors. Sliding doors could entertain him for hours. But lockers! That's new! We did a little video of each of the kids, where I asked them a series of questions like "What do you want to be when you grow up?" and "What's your favorite food?" When I asked Green what he was most looking forward to about kindergarten, he didn't mention learning to read, or art class, or recess. He said he was most looking forward to having that locker. "Why?" I asked. And he answered, "Because I get to open it."

Well, alright. Whatever works for you.

So they're off with their lockers, and I'm left trying to figure out what's making me so sad about this whole thing. Part of it is that my nest is empty. Michael said this morning, "But your nest will fill back up again at 3:00." That's certainly true. But the thing is, when they're not in my nest, I can't protect all of those fragile things about them: their enthusiasm, their silliness, their creativity, their joy. I have to let them protect themselves. And how can they do that when they can't even eat applesauce without spilling it down their fronts?

I know I'm not the only person going through this. After the post-drop off crying jag, Michael took me to the coffee shop to buy me a cream cheese danish. I find that it takes about 700 calories or so to soak up all those tears. While I was waiting, I must have looked pretty pathetic. A woman came up to me and asked, "Did you just take someone to kindergarten?" "Yes," I answered, and she smiled as if to say, "It's going to be OK." And I know it will. But for now, I have four hours to go before they come home. And I'm holding my breath.

Summer's Last Gasp

To celebrate the end of summer, Blue and Green created a lemonade stand. This was no small project. First of all, we had to overcome their lofty expectations about what was involved in such an enterprise. For example, we were not going to build a series of traps to catch any bad guys that stopped for refreshments. And we were not going to offer a series of nine drink choices. We were not going to give away prizes to our customers, and we were not going to charge $6,000 per glass.

It was going to be a lemonade stand. The old-fashioned kind. With just lemonade. For a quarter.

But, still, this was their project, and they demanded some control.

They created some lemonade stand head gear:

And created some work for the lemonade stand art gallery:

They put on their lemonade stand outfits and brought their cash registers:

And they made $19 dollars for their efforts. Green says he plans on buying "some expensive toys" with the profits.