Family Camping: Take III

It's 6 am and I am up baking biscuits. They are from a can, but still, it is nearly impossible to express how unlike me this is. In my natural state I sleep until 9 and go out for brunch. Alas. My natural state is long gone.

I am up at this ungodly hour (it gives me headache to be up before 7) because Maggie woke up to announce her need to pee at 5 and the thought demons took this as the cue to worm their way into my consciousness, where they enjoyed a rowdy game of monkey-in-the-middle until I gave up on further sleep. Everyone else in the house is still snoozing away.

I'm keyed up because tomorrow morning we leave bright and early for Camp Mather. It's a family camp up near Yosemite that only residents of San Francisco can go to. You have to enter a lottery to get a spot. We did. We won. And now I spend my dawn hours making mental lists of things like nail scissors and duct tape and bug spray and all the other 5,011 things that will supposedly help us to actually enjoy this experiment in group family camping.

As many of you know, I've been scarred. I was never a big camper to begin with (I like soft pillows and showers too much). Then I went camping with one-year-old twins. Now I get the tremors when anyone mentions the words "Coleman Stove." Seriously, our track record as a family is bad.

But this is supposed to be better. It's all sing-alongs and lifeguarded lakes and cafeteria dining (no Coleman stoves!). And our kids are four now, not one, or three. And we have a cabin and I am bringing down comforters and Christmas lights and a couple of cute throw rugs (I kid you not), so I think we have a chance. I'm counting on it actually. Because, honestly, I really need a vacation. And a little sleep.

I'll be back in a week or so with tales to tell and an exciting announcement. I'll let you know if those nail scissors came in handy. In the meantime may your days be filled with the comforts of modern civilization.

Why not just practice the rhythm method and see what happens?

from here

A lot of my friends are currently trying to decide whether or not to have a second baby. Actually, they are writhing in a sort of tortured late '30s angst trying to decide whether to have a second baby.

I get it. Here you are, you've got your mate and your career and your one completely, ridiculously doted upon offspring. You still get to go out with the girls every now and again. You're having sex once or twice a week. Your body is more or less back where it belongs. You've got it worked out. Why mess it up?

It's not a bad question to ask yourself. But I find that I have little patience for the dithering. Maybe because giving birth to twins knocked me off my axis so profoundly that I never really got to the part where I felt like I had it all worked out. Maybe because I'm jealous.

I imagine life with one baby as a kind of gauzy, pink-tinged Gerber commercial in which you have hours a day in which you are required to do nothing more than suck on perfect little infant toes. If I only had one baby, I tell myself, I would never lose my temper, or yell, or say things like, "when you learn to cook your own dinner, you can start complaining about the food" to three-year-old children.

I suppose what I am saying is, I am not the person to ask when you are considering having a second child. I always knew I wanted two children. I was wholeheartedly committed to the idea of two from the beginning. But that's not why I am not the person to ask.

I am not the person to ask because there are many times when I want to grab my friends by the shoulders and shout, "Don't do it." I want to tell them that it will indeed mess everything up in all the ways they suspect. I want to warn them about never really being able to enjoy a lazy Sunday, or eat an uninterrupted meal, or have twice weekly sex again. I want to tell them about that weird shrewish voice that will come out of their mouths when their children are bickering, and how the idea of going out to a restaurant with the whole family will seem like an impossible dream.

Half the time.

The other half of the time I want to tell them to quit their hand wringing and get knocked up already. Join me in my messy, wonderful suffering. Enlarge your heart. Join the human family. Get in here and root around a little.

Mostly I don't say any of it. Mostly I shrug and say I don't know. Because, of course, I don't. If you are waiting for the right answer, forget it. There is no right answer.

I am of the best-guess-and-no-guarantees school of decision making. Go with your gut and hope it works out. That's how I approached my marriage and my career and the decision to become a parent in the first place.

And really, the big decisions are just a mixed-bag of emotions anyway— moments of despairing defeat and moments of profound and blissful joy. And in between lots and lots of moments of folding the laundry or watching crap TV or running out to the all-night Safeway to buy milk. Sometimes you are the luckiest girl in the world, and sometimes you look over and think, "This? Really?" And there's probably nothing more we can ask for.

The Business of Being Born

My kids have already asked me what God is (not an easy question for a Jewish/Buddhist/Super-secular girl like me to answer), what it means when you die, and how babies get into their mommy's tummies in the first place (well, it happens when they are very, very, very tiny).

Yesterday, they finally thought to ask how babies get out of their mommy's tummies. Aha! An easy one.

Except that when you explain the birth process to a three year old they totally think you are lying. Oliver just looked at me with smiling apprehension and said, "Nahh." Maggie said, "Oh, yeah, they turn into pee pee and come out your vagina," in a voice meant to convey that while I was indeed hilarious, she could not be so easily fooled.

After a second attempt to convince them I wasn't kidding, I figured out that it was pointless and let them draw their own conclusions. Someday they will know the ugly truth about so many things.

Besides, that's not how they were born.

They were born under blinding lights, attended by masked men bearing scalpels. They were tugged from my body by gloved hands. The first people to hold them were nurses we will never know. They were whisked away to beeping incubators while I lay strapped down and prone and unconscious and the Mister stood pacing furiously outside an OR he had no access to. I didn't get to see them for ten hours. It left us all feeling powerless and incapable and totally blindsided.

"holding my kids" after their birth

Their birth was one of the most awful experiences I've ever had, and to this day I feel like weeping every time I think about it. When you tell people this, that you had a bad birth, they try to make you feel better by saying, "But you got two healthy, beautiful children." This is true. We did get two healthy and beautiful children. And for this I am more grateful than I can possibly ever express. It is a blessing and good grace that boggles the minds, and that, frankly, makes me a little nervous.

This is no way to first see the world

But the fact remains that their birth and all its attending medical intervention and bullying has left me with a bit of sadness and shame I am not quite sure how to shake.

It's been three-and-a-half years and the pure envy I feel for women who have those empowering, I-am-woman-hear-me-roar births is nearly unbearable.

And here's the thing: I know I would have been good at it. Under other circumstances, with a less complicated pregnancy, I would have gotten my wool-clad midwife to light some candles, sunk down in the birthing tub, and pushed those babies out like Ina May Gaskin herself. I would have worn braids. And planted the placentas under magnolia and olive trees.

Ok, maybe not the placenta part. But afterbirth fertilizer or not, it would have been, I think, a better beginning for all of us if it could have been a little closer to how God intended. Alas.

If you are a pro-vagina, groovy mom like me, you will probably have the same love/hate relationship with this movie that I do. I can't even watch the trailer without crying.

What I learned in school today

This is what I learned at my kids' first day of nursery school today:

1.) I have a distinct tendency towards nervousness. Okay, to be fair, I totally knew this. But this experience really sealed it. It was crazy. Butterflies galore. Heart palpitations. Nervous what-ifs driving the Mister mad (what if the blueberry bars are considered junk food? What if kids are mean to them? What if they are the weird kids? What if we don't like it there? What if no one will wipe their butts after they poop?). You'd think the twins and I had been asked to address the U.N. Naked. In one of those dream-states in which you can't stand up.

2.) In San Francisco non-Japanese parents pack nori in their kid's lunches. And the kids eat it.

3.) I really like name tags. And if they are supplied and then some people are too cool to wear them, I feel slightly peeved all day and it is hard for me to like the non-adherents.

4.) Three-year-olds are wonderful. I knew this too, especially as it pertains to my own kids. But hanging out this morning with 20 other three-years-olds was pretty awesome. First of all, they are really funny but also, they have not yet learned to express disdain. There is no "duh" in their vocabulary. No eye rolling. They are just funny and eager and bright. And, baggies of seaweed aside, they have good snacks and are easily distracted.

The worry divide

I am not an overprotective parent. I believe in dirt and scrapes and bruises. I don't carry that antibacterial gel with me. I don't even carry Band-Aids. I let my kids climb alarmingly high at the playground. I let them wrestle and eat things that have fallen on the ground (and stayed there for more than 5 seconds). But I do have limits.

Yesterday the Mister and I walked to daycare together to pick up the kids. Since I used to have a commute, this has always been the Mister's provenance. He picks them up and walks them home. Which had always seemed like a good thing.

Until he says this: "I let them get out here and climb the fence." At that moment we are standing in front of a shuttered auto mechanic shop surrounded by a rusty chain-link fence topped with three rows of rusty barbed wire. Oliver jumps out of the stroller and scales the thing like a monkey until his perfect butter-like chin is resting over a rusty three-pronged barb. All that stands between him and an accident too awful even to imagine are his teensy little arms with their teensy little quivering biceps. Reader, I am horrified.

I've written before about my own accident-prone childhood, but what I may not have mentioned is that one of my worst injuries, the one that put me in an ambulance at age five, was from slipping while climbing a chain link fence and ripping open the tender inside of my elbow on the nasty, pointed top.

When I express my horror, the Mister does a little shrug like I'm just working myself into some sort of hysterical mom-frenzy, like I am completely off my chicken for thinking that the combination of sharp rusty fence and distracted toddler could possibly come to a bad end.

It's the same shrug I got when I freaked out after the Mister tried to take Oliver (who can't swim) kayaking on Tomales Bay without a life jacket. It's the shrug that says, "I'll humor you now, you raw bundle of unchecked worry, but as soon as you turn your back, me and the kids are going to ride our dirt bikes up the coast to go abalone diving with a bunch of guys I met at a halfway house."

Reader, I am worried.

The Creative Habit

I look exactly like Anne Sexton only not so leggy and without the cigarette.

This is my "week to write," meaning the kids are in daycare full time and I can leave scabby breakfast dishes on the table all day without repercussion (we artistes get a lot of leeway).

Like everyone else, I'm working on a novel. This is daunting in so many ways, but especially because I am already a proven literary failure. Years ago—maybe six now—I completed a novel. It was ok. It had its moments, but it wasn't going to take the literary world by storm, or inspire any movements, or get translated into Urdu. But, I had a fancy agent who sent it to fancy publishers and one very fancy and famous editor in New York liked my book and wanted to meet me.

I walked through the streets of Greenwich Village in a gritty windstorm to her office and then spent the entire meeting acting like a monosyllabic mouth-breather and trying to free tiny grains of sand from between my teeth. I think I said "That's cool" a lot. In parting she said, "Well, Samantha, I'm not going to publish your book, but I did like it quite a bit and I want to see whatever else you write."

It only went downhill from there. Rejection after rejection after rejection. Until there was no one left to reject me. And, here I am, living proof that your dreams do not necessarily come true. Or at least they don't come true in time for you to be a young literary phenom.

But, bootstraps and all that. Six years, two anthologies, and a set of twins later, I think I may have mustered the courage to have another go. Fifty-four pages down, 250 more to go. Too bad the fancy editor is no longer in the biz. I'm sure she's been waiting with bated breath.

Last night I started perusing Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit, a book that has been on my nightstand as long as my last novel has been in a box in my garage. I believe in taking one's creative endeavors seriously and I thought she might have something righteous and helpful to offer. And she does. She's very tough and no nonsense. She says things like, "I hope you've been to the ballet and seen a dance company in action on stage. If you haven't, shame on you; that's like admitting you've never read a novel or strolled through a museum or heard a Beethoven symphony live. If you give me that much, we can work together." Luckily, I meet her standards and we can work together.

Except for page 26, where she is talking about distractions and how to get them out of the way. She writes, "I try to cut it all off. I want to place myself in a bubble of monomaniacal absorption where I am fully invested in the task at hand. As a result, I find I am often subtracting things from my life rather than adding them."

Ok, I get that. But what's weird is how resistant my three-year-old twins are to being ignored. Try as I might to achieve a state of monomaniacal absorption, there are still the lunches to pack, the breakfast to make, the socks to put on, and the dance moves to witness.

And here's my question for you: Motherhood and creative pursuits, how do you do it? Is it possible (without the full time cadre of nannies, I mean).

Sylvia Plath is NOT my model but I do sympathize

Our Lady of Dora the Explorer

This morning Maggie got dressed all by herself, the whole shebang, even the socks and shoes.  Oliver ran into the bathroom where I was getting out of the shower to tell me about it. “Maggie got dressed all by herself,” he said. “Isn’t that impressive?”

Um, that’s a three syllable word, people. I don’t mean to brag, but that’s impressive. Maybe it’s all those New Yorker articles we read to them before bed.

Or maybe it has something to do with the lack of TV.  They saw nary a screen flicker until they were almost three and now they watch only DVDs (including the never-ending Thomas the Tank Engine--Oh My GOD but that’s boring) and only now and then. As far as I know, they’ve never seen a commercial.

Before you think I’m some insufferable, holier-than-thou ass wipe, I just want to say that although I was mostly on board with the no-TV rule, The Mister and I had some real blow-ups over his Stalinesque adherence to our self-imposed hardship (the path to the people’s liberation is through interminable hours of PlayDough kitchen!). I mean, can’t a mother get a break once in a while?  What’s the harm in putting on 30 minutes of Dora while you grab a little shut-eye, or mix an old-fashioned?

Actually, I can answer that: the harm is in how easy it is.  I had heard about the whole TV-as-babysitter model, but until I tried it I had no idea.  I had NO idea. It’s like a miracle. The closest I’ve come to real silence in the last three years is when I put on a copy of Sesame Street’s Learning Letters. I sometimes watch as my little angles sit rapt and motionless in front of the TV and wonder why I made it so hard on myself for so long.  This whole time I could have been showering, or brushing my teeth, or even returning emails!

I can’t get that time back.  But maybe there is some consolation to be found in the fact that my kids love books and have great vocabularies and know how to catch chickens. 

Or maybe your kids grew up on a steady diet of The Bachelorette and I Didn’t Know I was Pregnant and could recite pi to its 23rd digit by age two.  Feel free to put me in my place if so.

Why it's fun to be a twin

Built-in bathtub toys...

May your weekend be this much fun. See you Monday, all squeaky clean.

xoxo Samantha

P.S. have you seen this yet? The Mister does a mean Khrushchev. That's him, banging his shoe. Weird family, I know. But at least we don't have to wear ties to work.

I wish I were more like Sarah Connor

It's a good thing he likes firefighters

I was what could accurately be described as an accident prone kid. I broke my arm not once, but twice in second grade (effing Steal the Bacon). I required stitches in my chin and my head. I sliced through a vein on my wrist (I was not precociously suicidal; we just had some really weak-ass windows in our house). I rode in my first ambulance in kindergarten after cutting my arm down to the bone after a poorly calculated fence climbing attempt.

You'd think seeing so much of my own blood and guts (fat tissue, by the way is bright yellow, like a sunflower) I'd be pretty ho-hum when it comes to trauma. But, alas, I am weak sauce. It's not the blood that bothers me, it's the fear. I can't stand the idea that one moment you are going along all la ti da and the next moment you are wondering if you are going to die. Just the thought of that bewildering terror makes my stomach churn. I've known for a very long time that the worst possible job for me would be paramedic. And so far I've been pretty adept at avoiding that particular career.

That's me in the middle, pre stitches (yes, hippie parents)

But now I'm a mom. And since becoming a mom I've spent a lot of my down time wondering how I will behave when injury befalls my own kids. My own mom was calm and efficient: she'd wrap my bleeding part in an old towel, put me in the back of Datsun B210, and whisk me off to the ER, all the while distracting me with talk of the blow-softener to come. Sometimes the blow-softener was something like an ice cream sundae, but most often it was a trip to the toy store meant to add a little sunshine to an otherwise shitty experience (the all-time worst blow-softener ever was the baton I chose after breaking my arm—duh).

Today I had the chance to test the mettle we've already established is so sorely lacking in me. While I was watering and Maggie was herding chickens, Oliver did a spectacular somersault off the hammock and landed on his head on the gravel spattered cement patio. The blood was instant and copious—a fountain of red to make a vampire ache. I mean, it was shocking.

I picked up my already scared and screaming son, screeched at Maggie to put down the chicken she was cuddling and come with me right this instant. On the way up the stairs to the house I literally ran out of my shoes (ok, they were slippers), but I did have the wherewithal to grab a clean rag and press it to the blood spigot located somewhere above Ollie's eyes.

I then began my weird, panicky mantra: ohmygod—ok—ohmygod—ok—ohmygodok. I dialed 911 because I couldn't figure out how to get both kids to the ER in car seats while maintaining pressure on the wound and also because I had this weird idea that that is what a good mother would do.

This whole time I am also totally stressing about the chickens, loose alone in the yard. I am just completely stymied by the logistics of everything. I hang up on 911, realizing almost instantly that it is an insane overreaction. Then I forget the Mister's cell number even though I dial it a bajillion times a week. I proceed to misdial the numbers of three other friends who are great at dinner parties but couldn't possibly do anything in this particular situation.

At this point, Maggie, realizing she is getting the short end of my attention, begins fake falling and then whimpering up at me as if she's been injured. Ollie is screaming his head off. 911 calls back but I can't hear anything over the screaming so I just shout "We're fine" into the phone and hope that, despite all evidence to the contrary, they are convinced.

Maggie is still doing her lame fake falling, so I say, "Look, I know you want some attention but right now I just have to figure out how to get Ollie to the doctor. He had an accident." Ollie, who looks a little like Carrie after prom at this point, starts screaming "I don't want a shot! I don't want a shot!" while Maggie whines "I want 'tention," over and over again, still with the completely unconvincing pratfalls (does she think I'm stupid?).

I calm down enough to remember how to call my husband, who is kind enough to cross worrying about the chickens right off my plate. He is so calm, in fact, that I am able to remove the rag and look at the wound. It's a little, pebble-shaped hole in the middle of Oliver's forehead, and you know what? It's not really bleeding that much anymore. The fountains have slowed to an ooze. Ollie is still shaking and carrying on like he's lost an arm, but I am considerably soothed by the sight of his cut. My hands are sticky with blood and the wall is smeared with gore, but I am starting to suspect we don't have to go the hospital at all. In fact, I am starting to suspect a little hydrogen peroxide and a Nemo Band-Aid might do the trick.

Twenty minutes later, the three of us are sitting on the couch munching crackers and reading Skippyjon Jones. Oliver has a blue fish bandage on his head and his hair is all scabby. But otherwise we could totally pass for normal people.

Which we are not. Because earlier today, as we were getting ready to leave the playground, I accidentally locked my children and my keys in the car. In the sun. It took six firefighters to unlock the minivan and get them out.

And I totally forgot the blow-softener.

Happy B-day, America

It's the Fourth of July and that means two things:

1. The Bethany Beach, Delaware parade, complete with marching bands, candy thrown from fire engines, and about a million kids on bikes. Maggie and Ollie got to ride on their first float (it won first place!), and double-fist lollipops thrown at them by strangers.

2. My mother-in-law's Blueberry Yum Yum. It takes just about everything I've got not to eat the whole pan. Here's the recipe. You can thank me later, as we are waddling down the street in our stretch pants and mu-mus.

Blueberry Yum Yum

recipe originally from McCabe's Blueberry Farm, Selbyville, DE

(serves 15)

2 c. blueberries

1/4 c water

2 c. sugar--divided*

1/4 c. cornstarch

3 tbsp. water

1 c flour

1/2 softened butter

1 c. finely chopped pecans

1-8oz. package of cream cheese (softened)

1 pint heavy whipping cream

* I use about half the sugar called for.

Combine blueberries, 1 c. sugar and 1/4 water in a saucepan, cook over low heat until berries are soft. Combine cornstarch and 3 tbsp. water in a small bowl, stir well. Add mixture to blueberries, cook stirring constantly until thickened. Set aside to cool. Combine flour, butter, and pecans in a bowl, mix well to make dough. Press dough evenly into a 9x13 inch pan. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes, let cool. Combine cream cheese and 1 c. sugar, beat until smooth. Whip cream until stiff, fold into cream cheese mixture (I add a teaspoon of grated lemon zest to this mixture). Spread topping evenly over cooled crust. Pour blueberry mixture evenly over topping and refrigerate. Cut into squares and serve.

Goodbye dear boy

I am slowly learning that everything for which I once expressed disdain, I will someday make manifest. Forty-year-old writers still plugging away at their less-than-lustrous careers? Present. People stupid enough to ride motorcycles? Married one. Women who talk about their children's eating habits. Uh oh.

And then today, we gave up our dog. They call it "surrendering," which is probably as good a word as there is for relinquishing your family pet, a dog that has lived in your house like family for seven years.

It took us two years to finally make this decision. It's been obvious since the day we brought our twins home more than three years ago that we were no longer up to the task of properly caring for Woody, but I just couldn't imagine becoming one of those people, someone who could find it in their hearts to turn out a loyal dog. But here I am.

I was finally convinced that giving him the chance to spend his remaining years with someone who could care for him and love him and lavish him with the attention he needs was in fact the compassionate thing to do (I am also well aware that the Humane Society could decide he is not adoptable and euthanize him). My guilt and shame were not reason enough to keep him.

It's been a very difficult day. Very sad. A sadness laced heavily with guilt and shame and tinged as well with relief.

More than anything, it's made me feel like a grown-up, for real. Grown-ups are the ones who have to make decisions like this, where neither choice feels exactly right, where both sides are apt to leave a scar. I am starting to think that that may be the very definition of adulthood: having to see the world as it really is and having to make decisions you would rather not.

I will probably never see Woody again, the dog I liked to call "the little mammal who lives in our house." I will miss him. A lot. He was a very good boy (you can see him in action here).

Here is a piece of a longer essay called "Puppy Love" I wrote about failing my dog back when I still couldn't image actually giving him up. It's just the part about how much I once loved him and how awesome it was to be his person.

There was a time when I could lie, spooned against Woody’s back, flipping the velvety tip of his ear against my lips for an hour just to feel his warmth and softness. I used to sneak him into bed. I have picked actual fights, with actual insults hurled at my poor husband, over whether or not Woody should sleep with us (me: yes, Pete: no). When I first adopted Woody from the stinking cement slab at the pound I lost ten pounds from our daily brisk beach walks. Watching him frolic on the sand, running madly after the mission-in-life tennis ball, was something I referred to as “the transference of joy.” It made me happy to see him happy.

I have hours of video documenting my dog’s athletic prowess. When he jumped for the ball, sometimes soaring 8 feet straight up and covering a distance of almost five yards (I measured) my heart would stretch with pride. Throwing a ball for Woody at the dog park actually boosted my self-esteem. I often did that thing where I pretended not to notice the admiring attention of strangers, all the while basking in it. What, my blank face said, doesn’t your dog do that? It was the “transference of achievement.” Woody’s abilities made me seem able. His existence made me a better person. I was friendlier, peppier, possibly even prettier back when I loved my dog.

Potty Mouth

My kids are deep into the potty talk stage and although I've been assured that this is a completely normal part of being three, I grow weary. There is entirely too much poop in my life without having to listen to Maggie sing "My bottom came to school today, school today, school today. My vagina came to school today. Early in the morning," during bath time (complete with visual aids, thank you very much).

Between the dog, four chickens, and two mostly-potty-trained pre-schoolers it can sometimes feel as if I am always either wiping a butt or picking up a steaming pile of excrement. I suppose this is the life I signed on for, and seeing as I am fortunate enough to have indoor plumbing, a hefty supply of wipes, and a mop, I shouldn't complain. But, please, allow me to recount my day.

It started at five when Maggie woke up cocooned in a mass of urine-soaked blankets. Once that was cleaned up and she was once again ensconced in her requisite pink (we said we wouldn't, but we do), we stumbled downstairs for our Cheerios only to be greeted by our dog's diarrhea splattered across the living room floor like some Jackson Pollack masterpiece. Okaaay, we said, taking a deep breath, we've been through this before. The Mister changed into his Haz. Mat. suit (cut off sweatpants and an old stained t-shirt) and took the rug outside for a little pressure hosing.

I went to work.

Fast forward ten hours.

I arrive home with the kids (the Mister is swimming in the Bay) and upon opening the front door, am confronted with a physics problem I assure you I am incapable of figuring out. It goes like this: how can all that shit possibly have been inside that medium-sized dog?

So now we have no rug and no rug pad.

But our floors are VERY clean at the moment and I leave for Venice in 36 hours, so again, I can't complain.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, the next line is, "My penis came to school today, school today, school today." Everybody sing!

I'm an expert, but if you need help identifying who made these turds, go here.

Mommy Mojo

Back in the halcyon days of sleeplessness and fretting about milk production

Last night I was supposed to go to the movies but I got too lazy. Plus, there's nothing good playing. So instead I just hid in the office with a glass of red wine and wrote while the Mister took the kids for ice cream and then began the completely boring, monotonous, I-can't-believe-this-is-really-my life bedtime routine.

All was well in the world, or all was tolerable, made rosier by the fact that I was freed for at least 24 hours from having to repeat the words "don't splash water out of the tub" ad infinitum.

Because here's the thing (and I know even writing this makes me the object of scorn or pity in the eyes of some—not that I care what those judgemental a-holes think): I am not really enjoying this parenting thing at the moment.  In fact, it feels like a giant pain in the ass.

My friend Molly hates admissions of parental distress that are preceded by claims of love for one's children because of course we love our children like nothing else in the world, and of course we would throw ourselves in front of a bus to protect them, and of course we want them to be happy and well-adjusted and to feel loved.  So, in honor of Molly, I'm going to spare you that part and just say that if I hear one more sentence that begins with the words, "Mommy, I want..." I am going to scream.  Actually, the screaming started a long time ago.  

Which brings me to the other thing: I'm sort of tapped out.  I need to figure out how to get my happy mommy mojo back.  I need to find the joy in completing the Eric Carle puzzle yet again and stop seeing every single activity as a power struggle just waiting to happen.  Because right now, every trip to the playground is just a fight about going home that hasn't happened yet. 

A thing I like

I worked out with Tina Vindum this morning and let's just say that the next time you see me I will look exactly the same but I will be a better, happier person.  I don't really like personal trainers and I don't really like the word "awesome," but she was awesome.  Seriously.  You can buy her new book (just that picture of her on the cover will inspire you to do a few lunges) if you can't afford her in the (incredibly firm) flesh.

Naked Gardening, James Beard, and How to Make A Baby

via The Washingtonian

First of all, a massive congratulations to my Sunset coworkers on their James Beard Award!  How cool is that?  They won in the food blogging category and if you haven't already been following the one-block diet blog, may I suggest that you do?  They may have single-handedly started the backyard chicken craze that's sweeping the West.  Plus, James Beard?  He was huge!  And so is the award named after him.

Also, I can't believe we didn't take advantage of this holiday at the twins three-year-old birthday party on Saturday.  It would have made what was a pretty hectic and disorganized gathering of preschoolers (my mural painting idea was ruined by the rain) a lot more interesting.   Oh well, next year.

A thing I like

This "How to Make a Baby" video, via Mighty Girl.  

It's in Spanish so if you need a translation, just ask.

Happy Everything & A Gratitude List (if you can stand it)

May the season be filled with love,

a few happy surprises, and at least one GIANT hot fudge sundae

Five things I'm grateful for right now, in no particular order:

1. My job.  It's good work.  It's 3 days a week.  There is often free food and wine.  What more could I want?

2. The Mister's work.  Yes, retail is shaky, but he owns a bookstore.  A bookstore!  How cool is that?

3. My kids.  To be honest I vacillate wildly between an awe-struck feeling of luck at being their mother, and the distinct impression that motherhood is best reserved for people without my personality.  But when I think about how they almost never came to be, I can't bear it. I literally can't bear the thought.  

4. Creative people.  Despite my fits of ungenerous jealousy, I am so often inspired by the amazing minds of others: writers, seamstresses, poets, singers, people doing weird things with glue guns and yarn.  You people make a world full of Dress Barns and Bratz dolls and The Bachelor worth living in.  

5. Perspective.  Every time I get some I realize that I am a lucky, lucky girl.  Stressed, a little zaftig, famous in very few places, and definitely not rich.  But lucky just the same. 

Merry, merry, happy, happy everything

Sometimes Being a Mom Doesn't Look so Hot or Alone at the California Academy of Sciences with Two Toddlers

 I guess there are some moms who somehow manage to be well-coiffed and kind and calm all the time.  You see them occasionally chatting up their toddlers, their lips glistening with perfectly applied gloss, their shiny, freshly washed locks pulled into stylish ponytails.  Even their strollers are sleek and crumb-free.  Their kids enjoy sushi and clam sauce and 60 Minutes.  

And then there's me today at the California Academy of Sciences, belly pouching uncomfortably over my too-tight jeans, my sticky-faced children arching and thrashing and screaming.  I was the one trying to balance that tray of food in the crowded cafeteria while pushing a double-stroller into the ankles of my fellow diners.  That was me crawling on the floor under the table in an effort to retrieve a runaway water bottle.  And yes, that woman pleading with her two-year-old to try to hold her pee pee while she stuffed an egg roll in her mouth and used her napkin to wipe guacamole off  the other twin's quesadilla?  That was also me.  

And I just want that young, hot guy who rolled his eyes and made that irritated little puff sound when I accidentally cut him off at the napkin dispenser to know that although I look like a nightmare, like every cliched, harried mom that you never, ever wanted to be married to, I am really a pretty nice person. I know I don't make it look easy. But that's only because it's not.

A thing I like 

This would be a very boring video narrated by a balding  geologist with a ponytail if it weren't for the awesomeness of nature.  Watch the whole thing.  It's worth it for the octopus at the end.  

What did happen in 2008

Oh, and I painted!

Well, I've been thinking about this all day, about what I would write and what I might list as the positive events or accomplishments of my own personal 2008.  And let me tell you, this will be an exercise in counting my blessings because all-in-all 2008 has not been one of my better years.  

Here goes, ten things that DID happen this year:

1. It got easier, just like everyone said it would.

2. Maggie stopped wearing diapers just in time for the economic crisis (that's about $100 a month).

3.  We raised $10,000 for Barack Obama and then he won.

4. The Mister and I had our very first weekend away without the kiddies (we went to Santa Barbara).

5. I rearranged my living room and it looks much better. See?

6.  I published a short story about about an earthquake. 

7. I joined Facebook, started blogging, discovered Etsy, had my first IM conversation , and figured out how to do a video chat with my in-laws. I am Samantha 2.0.

8. I bought my first pair of truly expensive jeans and came to understand why they were worth it.

9. I traveled to Mexico, Delaware, Oklahoma, Petaluma, Calistoga, Yountville, Santa Barbara, and Carmel.

10. I kept my offspring alive and mostly happy and seem to have imparted to them the importance of getting funky, real funky, on the dance floor. 

So that's it–it's not a Nobel Prize or even a book contract.  But in my defense I am coming off a couple of real stellar years.  And at least it's not a van down by the river.

New daily feature alert:

A thing I like

This amazingly funny, deadpan, smart novel about fictional Grouse County, Iowa in the '80s by a guy I've never heard of.  Read it.  It's great.  The End of Vandalism by Tom Drury.

Sonoma County Fair

I went to the Sonoma Co. Fair every summer as a kid.  Cotton candy.  Horse races.  Rides on the Zipper to Van Halen. Free scoops of Clover vanilla ice cream if you were willing to wait in line for it.  I pined for the huge stuffed Tweety Birds and longed for the sparkling white 4H uniforms.  Oh, the smell of fried stuff and manure.

I couldn't wait to take my twins this year.  First carnival rides.  First funnel cake.  And, most importantly, first photo booth.

Highlights:

1.)Pony rides!  Oh my God, my kids are so brave and cool.  They let the strange mustachioed men hoist them up on Franky and Cinnamon and then they rode those ponies like little buckaroos (okay, they were strapped onto the saddles and the horses just clopped along in a small circle, but still). 

2.)Watching the kids do interpretive dances to the bluegrass band until Mags threw up her funnel cake onto the parquet.

3.) Not having to go into the commercial building to look at automatic beds and astounding vacuum cleaners with my mom!

What we ate:

funnel cake with powdered sugar

tri-tip sandwich

pretzels

apple pie

blackberry pie

corn on the cob

Yum!  A great day.