1 Mother 2 Another

My neighborhood playgroup arranged to meet
at a Barnes and Noble for story hour yesterday; apparently the guy
is supposed to be really good and we thought it’d be
something different to do as a group. What with spring colds going
around and bad weather brewing, everyone bowed out and Maddie, Cora
and I were the last ones standing. Since Maddie loves books so much
though (and I’ll confess, it’s been a LONG time since
I’ve had the luxury of browsing a bookstore other than
Amazon) we decided to head over on our own. Maddie was disappointed
her new friends weren’t coming, but excited about story time.


Let me tell you something: my friends are lucky they stayed home.
Because the stories aren’t the only things that came out
during this story hour.

Following in a long and illustrious line
of family members before her, Cora is showing every inclination of
heading towards the footlights.


I shouldn’t be surprised; after all, Maddie’s favorite
thing in the world to do is put on a ballet skirt, some classical
music, and dance around the room. And when she’s not dancing
she’s coaxing music out of all the baby toys and asking me to
teach her the lyrics to the tunes. How many times can one girl sing
“Oh, Susannah”?? (Answer: current record is
twenty-seven.)

Context is everything – ask any
politician. The most radical liberal on the slate can sound like an
uber-right-wing republican if his words are lifted out of context.
But context goes beyond simply words: lift your average supermodel
out of her frame- the lights, the clothes, the carefully chosen set
– and you’ll often end up with a bizarrely dressed,
awkward, hungry-looking girl. And when you take that girl out of
the world of high fashion, out of her setting, out of her comfort
zone, and set her someplace strange and unflattering –
someplace different – chances are she’ll go from wonder
woman to wallflower, simply from a fading of self-confidence. We
need context to know how to refer to ourselves, how to think about
ourselves. As a friend of mine in the ballet world once said,
“I have to step on the scale every morning, and what it tells
me determines whether or not it’s a good day or a bad
day.” Without that frame, she didn’t know how to think
about herself.


I’m blathering on about this because I’ve lost my
setting. I find I’ve been plucked from one scene and dropped
in another, and though the costume and actions are the same, I feel
like a totally different character.

I’m not one of those mommies prone
to sitting around with other post-partum women and moaning about
baby weight; I’ve got enough stress as it is, and
there’s nearly always an element of competitiveness about
those conversations, either of the “I’m losing faster
than you” or “I’m more miserable than you”
genre.


At the same time, I know it’s something that’s
important to talk about, since celebrities paint a picture (thank
you, Heidi Klum) of instantaneous weight loss and firming, and if
we mommies don’t talk about it together we’ll all sit
there thinking we’re the only mom who is having a hard time
finding her old thighs again.

What child is THIS?


Yes, right after I blogged about my terror of an oldest child,
Madeleine delivered a day so sweet, so obedient and kind, that I
found myself wondering if she’d sneaked into the study and
read my blog, vowing then and there to turn over a new leaf and
make Mommy happy.

Our discipline structure revolves around
the idea of choices and consequences; we’ve taught Maddie
that she has almost limitless choices in front of her, but each
choice has consequences she has to live with. Choose wisely, and
she finds great freedom, for obedience often brings greater joy and
freedom than rebellion (who has the looser curfew – the
sister who’s always home on time, or the sister who’s
always sneaking out?); choose poorly, and the consequence is often
the loss of something dear to her. We’re hoping this helps
her understand how her actions directly affect her happiness level,
to be blunt.

I was unboxing some videos recently (yep,
still unpacking) and came to our family home movies. A specific,
silly memory sprang to mind and I sat down with the DVD player to
try and find it – a fun, private exchange between me and
Maddie. With the DVDs neatly labeled (OCD is a sickness, I know,
but it’s so darn useful) I was able to quickly find the
timeframe I was looking for, and I began to scan through the
appropriate disc, watching other clips in fast-motion.


I haven’t really stopped to look at home videos for a long
time – since before Cora was born, and Brian and I went back
to the newborn tapes to remind ourselves what we were in for. And
as I watched a short stretch of life speed by, I was astonished at
how much of Maddie’s daily life we’d captured on video
tape. I’d forgotten how, as a fourteen-month-old, she’d
stagger up to you with a book in her hand, turn it over to you, and
sit down in your lap uninvited, the request (demand) clear for a
snuggle and story; or how she used to wander around with a scarf
over her head, pretending to be invisible; and I smiled as I caught
a glimpse of the baby she used to be.


After finding the vignette I sought, I put the disc back with the
others and continued organizing our home movies. And I was startled
to see how much longer of a time-stretch each video covered: where
one hour used to encompass perhaps two months, recently they were
covering a good four or six months. Bring on the guilt.

We went to a Maundy Thursday service
yesterday – the service in the church calendar that
celebrates the Last Supper, and Christ’s act of washing His
disciples’ feet. As we’ve been church shopping in our
new city, we’ve looked for places that find new and
interesting ways of bringing the familiar stories to life –
new ways of celebrating what we’ve heard over and over again.
And one of the churches we’d visited previously was doing a
service woven around a meal and the foot-washing. Sounded
interesting, so we headed over.

From time to time I’m approached by
different companies asking if I’d promote their product on my
website; as my website readership grows I guess I become more of a
blip on the radar of different publicity machines. At any rate, I
toss most of those requests in the garbage, not finding it
necessary to give someone else free publicity unless I really love
their product and want to support the (usually parent-based)
company behind it.


Last week, though, I was contacted by a company hoping I’d
put the word out about casting for a new reality television show
that sounds interesting. Before you roll your eyes (as I did before
I read the thing) just check out the details – you know
I’m not going to pass it on if it doesn’t sound
somewhat legit. Basically, they’re casting a new cooking show
and seeking really really BAD cooks for a two-week boot camp with a
celebrity chef. So if you’re in New York and suck at cooking
and wanna be on t.v., follow the details and let me know if you
make it on. Here ya go, and remember that I have no affiliation
with this company whatsoever and make no guarantees that they are
legit:

I was at my weekly playgroup recently when
the talk around the mom’s table turned to crime. I’m
not sure how we got there – discussing my move from New York,
I think. At any rate, while talking about crime and fear, someone
brought up guns. In the home.


One mother said, “I’ve just never been comfortable with
the idea of having a gun in the house. I mean, I’d be so
afraid the kids would get hurt.” I was sitting there
thinking, Of course! Who WOULD be comfortable with a gun in the
house? I’d be afraid that I would get hurt! But if the
weighted, uneasy looks shared between a couple of the moms after
that statement is any indication (and I think it’s safe to
assume it is), then I’m most likely going to have a playdate
in the somewhat near future in a house that has a gun.

Yes, Cora at ten months has said her first
word. In more than one way.


First, she’s been saying Mama and Dada for a month or so now,
but just last week she pointed at Maddie and said, “Meh
Meh!”, which is what Maddie’s been trying to get Cora
to call her for a long time now. Maddie and I both looked at each
other, delighted, and both recognized it for the deliberate speech
that it was. And I have to tell you, seeing your kid’s face
light up as her baby sister yearns for her is priceless.


Second, we’ve been working on sign language with Cora for the
past several weeks, and she finally got the hang of it. First
signed word? “More.”


Tell me any other baby who knew a different word first.

Maddie turns 3 this summer, and talk on
the playground and in playgroups these days is all about preschool.
To be honest, I hadn’t even thought about it until a week or
so ago, and now it’s waking me up in a cold sweat.
Registration for next fall is either RIGHT NOW or already over, and
we’re not sure we even want to do it, much less where
we’d go.


I’m trying to sift through this rationally, but it
isn’t easy. Maddie would be one of the youngest kids in her
“class”, and while she is at the front of the
developmental curve, I know the move has been hard on her and
she’s going through an intense “mommy” phase.
I’m assuming she’ll be past that come fall, but who can
tell?


I also have to ask myself why I’d be sending Maddie to
preschool. After all, I didn’t set foot in a school until
kindergarten – not even pre-k for me – and was third in
my class. Maddie will be attending public school so we don’t
have to worry about getting into the “right” preschool
to ease us into the “right” private school. And I have
to wonder if the hundreds of dollars a month we’d be spending
on preschool wouldn’t do more good for her education, say,
stuffed into her college fund.

Yes, a week shy of her ten-month birthday,
and Cora has finally slept until 6:30 a.m., three nights in a row.


How did I do this, you ask?


Child abuse.

Ever since I mentioned in an earlier blog
that Maddie and I make breakfast bars from a recipe I cooked up
(pun intended), I’ve had several requests for said recipe. So
I’m just going to post it here – feel free to email
(Jennifer@1mother2another.com) with questions, or to get an address
to send me my share. Just kidding, unless they turn out really
well, and then I’m not. And if you don’t like the
recipe, knock yourself out making it better and let me know how you
did it.

I’m always on the lookout for ways
to indulge myself without ingesting either 1) calories or 2)
chemicals of dubious healthfulness (also known as artificial
sweeteners). I recently stumbled across a real winner.


target="_blank">Metromint is a relatively new line of
flavored water that is, as you can guess, variations on mint. Most
flavored waters will have the aforementioned artificial sweeteners,
or at least a modicum of calories, in them, with my favorite href="http://www.drinkhint.com" target="_blank">Hint Water
being a notable exception. But I’ve not found any that
channel my favorite flavor – chocolate.

Remember when, a couple weeks ago, I wrote
about how amazing it is to hear your kid say, “I love
you”? How it’s the purest, sweetest thing in the world,
coming from your little baby girl?


And then they grow up and get crafty.


I’ve noticed Maddie has a disturbing habit of breaking into a
chorus of, “Mommy, I love you so much!” right when she
notices I’m becoming cross with her. I can’t help but
suspect she’s discovered how turning her big soft eyes
towards and adult and saying sweetly, “(fill in the blank), I
love you so much! I really, really, really do!” makes said
adult simply melt into a puddle at her feet. Indeed, there’s
nothing else she can say (even something more appropriate, such as,
“I’m wrong, and I’m sorry”) that would have
such an instant, reversing affect on the direction of the
conversation.

We’ve had unprecedented cold weather
here – two inches (stop the presses!) of snow a couple days
ago, then an entire day of sleet and snow yesterday. When the rain
turned to sleet, Brian was sent home early from work, so fearful
are people down here of bad weather. Which I appreciate, because no
one here knows how to drive in bad weather, and you see those big
huge trucks barreling down a slushy street at 50 miles an hour.


But I digress.

As part of my quest to get the kitchen
unpacked and organized, I’ve been setting up our kitchen
pantry for the long haul, organizing it into a user-friendly
– and, need I add, tidy – system. Maddie and Cora have
become used to seeing me in front of one open door or another,
plastic storage tubs and shelf extenders scattered everywhere. With
two kids and little time to devote to such luxuries as neatness,
it’s slow going and I’m sometimes tempted to simply
shove everything onto the shelves and be done.


Then I come to my Container Store-heightened senses and press
on.

Newton’s First Law of Motion states
that an object in motion tends to stay in motion.


Apparently, he’s met my daughter Cora.


I’m telling you, I cannot stop this child. It was bad enough
that she started crawling and pulling herself up so early, but then
came the cruising around, looking for something else to hold onto
to keep her moving forward. And now, she’s fashioned herself
a home-made walker.

With apologies to poet Browning - The
lark’s on the wing; the snail’s on the thorn;
Maddie’s in her kitchen, and all’s right with the
world.


Our kitchen remodeling is finally finished; I started unpacking my
kitchen boxes bit by bit last week as projects were completed and
space opened up. As ecstatic as I am to be back in a kitchen that
is more sophisticated than a microwave and a hot plate,
there’s someone even more excited about it: Maddie.

So we visited another new church on
Sunday, this one a small new mission church currently meeting in an
elementary school auditorium. We sat in the back as we always do so
we can sneak out with a baby if need be, and boy is it a good thing
we did.


We were perhaps fifteen minutes into the service and had reached
the point at which the entire congregation reads a psalm together.
This Sunday it was the famous 23rd Psalm, “The Lord Is My
Shepherd”. We were a few short steps away from the sermon,
which is usually my cue to take Maddie to the nursery. Both girls
had been in a good mood all morning, and I was thinking that this
two-kid thing was getting easier.


Maybe two lines into the psalm I heard Brian, who was holding Cora,
say next to me, “Are you KIDDING me?” Being reasonably
certain this was not even a loose interpretation of scripture, I
looked over at him in time to catch a sight I’ll never forget
– Cora, sitting facing him on his lap, smiling happily at him
as a veritable fountain of pee streams onto Brian’s lap and
trickles merrily to the floor.


Apparently we were going to head to the nursery a little early.