Double Whammy

I have written before that my son is not a picky eater. But he does have two speeds when it comes to eating: all or nothing. We're currently in a nothing phase, which means that somehow Mike manages to propel himself through his day on the nutrition found in three Cheerios. Not three bowls of Cheerios. Three Cheerios. Three little round nuggets that combined maybe weigh a twentieth of one ounce and likely do not provide enough energy to get an ant through the day let alone a growing, busy toddler. But short of sticking an IV in his arm during naptime, I forge through the nothing phases, knowing from way too much experience that an "all" phase is ahead when he will consume more food than does his pregnant mama.

I find Mike's not eating very exhausting, mainly because I spend these nothing phases doing the equivalent of triple backflips when it comes to food preparation to try to find something, anything, that he will eat. I cook all of his favorite foods, like macaroni and cheese, over and over and over again. I try to figure out ways to sneak more nutrition into what he will eat, like making cake with yogurt and applesauce. I give him a side of ketchup with everything. If Mike so much as mentions a food, I will make it for him. Brent is always saying that Mikey needs to learn to eat what's on his plate. I suppose that is true, but I grew up with a brother who was the walking definition of "picky eater", and watched as my mother let him eat Oreo cookies slathered in A1 sauce because that was what he would eat; it provided calories and some kind of sustenance and that was the best my mother could hope for.

And, in spite of all of my experience in this, every time we hit a nothing phase, I worry that Mike is going to fade away into nothing by the time he decides to eat again. He always drops a couple of pounds, providing further evidence that eating less and moving more is the way to successful weight loss (when will I learn?)

As trying as Mike can be with his nothing phases, he has always had one major saving grace: he has always been a great sleeper. The boy is usually asleep by 9 p.m., and will sleep through the night until 7:30 in the morning. Then he takes a 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon -- every afternoon. So no matter how many hoops I leap through when it comes to food prep and mealtime, I have always looked forward to the hours ahead when I could regroup and fortify the troops (i.e. me) for the next battle.

But lately, this hasn't been the case. The little devil has been waking up in the middle of the night, every night, screeching like a monkey. Brent is oblivious to another human being screaming like a banshee as evidenced by his non-movement and continuous snoring, which means that I get up in the middle of the night, usually multiple times, to comfort our terrified child. "Scared of bed," Mike keeps telling me. I have tried to reason with him. I have tried taking him back to our bed. I have tried just comforting him by reminding him of the fun things we did that day. But nothing has worked.

A couple of nights ago, however, between the nothing eating phase and his new inability to sleep through the night, I lost all patience with him. I had just gotten very tired of trying to be understanding. So instead of rushing into him when he first cried out, I just let him cry. And cry. And cry. It wasn't long until his crying escalated into a fever-pitch; he was wailing and screaming "Mama! Mama!" and I could envision his little face with big tears running down his cheeks as he clung to his Cookie Monster and his blanky and looked out into the dark of his room for me to come and calm him down. This went on for a very loooong time, and it got worse and worse and worse. In my own bed, I sat and cried along with him, feeling terrible for just letting him be scared and alone. Then, just as I thought I couldn't take it anymore, it stopped. I laid in bed and listened, and then I went into his room and looked in on him. He was sound asleep.

And he slept until I woke him up the next morning at 8:30. The best part of this is that he has slept through the night since, getting into his crib without crying and carrying on and just going to bed like he used to. It has been glorious, and those very long moments of torment were well worth any future psychological scarring they may have caused him. Because as we are fully ensnared in one of his nothing eating phases, at least I know that he is getting enough rest.

27 Months

Dear Michael,

Yesterday, you somehow turned 27 months old. I just can't believe it. Before I know it, you'll be 7 and making farting noises under your armpits; then 17 and embarrassed to be seen in public with me; and then 27, a grown adult, hopefully doing amazing things and probably most important of all, learning from the mistakes you will make.

I now understand why people refer to this age as the "terrible two's." Before the last few months, I could not fathom my sweet baby boy with yellow eyes, a head that spins all the way around, and a forked tongue. But as sure as I am sitting here, I spent the morning with you screaming so loudly that I swore my ear drums were going to start to bleed and that you were going to pop all of the blood vessels right out of your neck. I never know what is going to trigger one of these little screaming episodes. For example, last night when I told you to take your feet off the table during dinner, it was the funniest thing you'd heard in your life. Today at lunch when I said the exact same thing, it illicited a scream that would have put any horror movie screamer to shame. So a lot of the last three months has been spent in your time-out chair, where we talk about what you've done wrong and then you apologize.

"What do you need to say?" I'll ask.

"I'm sorry for yelling."

"And?"

"I'm sorry for hitting."

"And?"

"I'm sorry for kicking and being rude."

You certainly act as if you're sorry, but then two minutes later, I have a miniature Sam Kinison in my house again. Thankfully, it has been cool enough the last few days to keep the windows closed. When the windows are open, I am afraid the neighbors think we're the local "House of Horrors" and that surely no child would scream like that without reason. Yet, you are living proof that yes, children scream loudly enough to crack windows for no reason at all.

When you haven't been screaming, you've been busy becoming the person you're going to be. I've watched your sense of humor develop over the last few months, and I can definitely see what I'm in for over the next 16 years. Pretending to sneeze a piece of aluminum foil out of your nose is almost as funny as chasing the cats around the house and pulling their tails hard enough to nearly rip them right out of the tail socket, as you announce, "Only David pulls tails!" after what may be your all-time favorite book character from the sure-to-be classic with little boys everywhere "David Gets in Trouble."

A new favorite phrase is "Mikey will do by myself." You're becoming more and more independent and want to do everything from brushing your own teeth to putting on your own shoes to reading the latest set of books from the library. "Do you want me to read that to you?" I'll ask. "No," you'll reply. "Mikey will read by myself." Then you flip open the book and start to talk about what's going on in the pictures. Listening to you "read" your books might be one of my own new favorite activities because it lets me inside your little head, and for a few minutes, I get to see what you see and hear what you think is important. But there is also the added bonus of listening to your sweet voice as you concoct stories and develop characters. It's a voice I will never grow tired of, and your little toddler speech impediments only make your talking sweeter to me. "Joyge fet tewwibah" you'll say for when Curious George does something that he should feel sorry about. Whenever you talk with your grandma and grandpa on the phone, they always ask, "What did he say?" To me, it's as clear as day -- at least most of the time.

And to say that you have a wild imagination is a bit of an understatement. "There's a spider on the ceiling," you announce and point to a spot. "Where?" I ask, and after falling for this the first 175 times that you did it, I finally clued in that there is no spider on the ceiling. But you seem to be able to see all of these imaginary spiders as if they really are right there in front of you. "It's black and hairy and it has a bunch of legs and it has polka dots and purple eyes and big hairy teeth," you'll announce, trying to help me see what I can't see.

You continue to master the English language, and listening to you has made me realize just what a wacky language it is. You're using different verb tenses, along with their appropriate helping verbs now, and often you get it right, but there are some real tough nuts to crack. One of those is, "It blewed right off of there." Another is "Mommy's gots some water." I know you'll get it someday, because anyone who can understand what the heck a catalytic converter is at the age of 2 will likely be able to put verbs together the right way eventually.

Your mind is astounding to me in so many ways -- but perhaps one of the most amazing things is your ability to reason and to figure things out -- probably because my sad little mind allows me to do neither. When your dad took apart a doorknob the other day, you put it back together -- with all of its parts in the right places. I can barely figure out how to work the salad spinner, and you're reconstructing hardware as a toddler. Life isn't fair, but that's a lesson you'll learn later on in life.

As much as you love trucks and tools, your love for flowers might be nearly equal. This spring, as we took our daily walks, our pace slowed down to a crawl as we had to stop and pick every single dandelion we came across. For weeks, you had a yellow nose and chin from burying your face in them and inhaling as deeply as you could. Then you were covered with dandelion fluff as the flowers died and became "blowies." Any flower that dared to bloom in our yard was quickly picked and carried around and inhaled deeply, until it was a creased, crushed former version of itself. Your favorite though might be the lilacs, and fortunately, Helena is blessed with more lilac bushes than I have ever seen in any other place. We pick many bunches as we walk along, and you spend the rest of our stroll with your nose buried deep in the purple and white heady smell of them, announcing on a regular basis, "Mama needs to smell these!" and holding them out for me to inhale and to enjoy as much as you do.

With spring came a new little friend for you. His name is Andrew, and if it's possible, he loves trucks as much as you do. Though when we see Andrew, the two of you mostly play side by side, examining one another's truck collections, you talk about him all week long. "Play with Andrew today?" you'll ask. I like it when we go to play with Andrew as much as you do, because for whatever reason, it puts you on an even keel the rest of the day, and you seem less likely to morph into a screaming, kicking, red-faced version of yourself. After we leave Andrew's house, your dad and I hear for the next two days about what Andrew has. "Andrew gots monster trucks. Andrew gots a sandbox. Andrew gots an orange cat that yells a lot. Andrew gots a mommy named Rebecca." I certainly don't think you need to be around a bunch of kids all of the time to be socialized at this age, but I think playing with Andrew on a very regular basis is really good for you. And good for me -- because I enjoy Andrew's mommy as much as you enjoy Andrew and his rather amazing truck collection.

And so, you continue to grow up. You're taller, more sturdy on your feet, stronger -- both in body and mind. But you're still my little baby, the one who clings to my legs and crawls all over me like I'm the coolest set of monkey bars ever made; the one who snuggles with me on the couch and in bed to read stories, sometimes the same one ten times in a row; the one who helps me bake by throwing spoons and measuring cups into the batter; the one who makes my day the second I hear your little voice in the morning and when I lift you out of bed, the one who gives me a kiss and a hug like you haven't seen me in years, instead of a scant few hours.

I love you.

XOXO,
Mama

For Those of You Who Have Asked

After my last post about the laziness of my husband, I feel like a bit of a hypocrite for what I am about to admit here.

I've been taking naps lately.

I have never been a napper. Not when I was a kid. Not in undergraduate, when it seemed all the world was a bunch of nappers. Not in graduate school when I worked two jobs and went to school full-time, and drank the remaining hours of the day.

Part of this is because I have always been able to get by on remarkably little sleep. I average 4-6 hours a night, every night, and that is enough for me. I don't get tired. I'm cranky, but I just think that's part of my personality.

The other part of this is because I have always viewed sleeping as the most colossal waste of time. Life is too short to spend it not awake.

But lately, between my son waking up screaming like a banshee in the middle of the night and all of this gestating that I've been doing -- not to mention working, fretting about various home improvement projects, and writing the occasional blog post -- I have just been pooped. Like by 2:30 p.m., I feel as if I am in a very thick fog and that I should not be allowed to operate heavy machinery, let alone take care of a toddler.

So instead of blogging, I have been sleeping. There. For those of you who have written and asked for more posts, my secret is out. My husband is wearing me down. I am becoming nothing but a lazy bastard.

However, I am very near the end of the first trimester. I remember from last time that it was as if someone flipped a switch the day I started trimester #2. I no longer felt like barfing my brains out the minute I glimpsed a lettuce leaf. I didn't feel as if someone had been dragging me behind a truck for days. I am very hopeful that this pregnancy will be the same -- that my energy levels will be restored, that rainbows and unicorns will fill the sky, and that I will again post on a more regular basis.

Workaholism is Not a Bad Thing

You know things are bad when a neighbor comes over and says, “I’ve noticed you guys have a lot of half-finished projects around here, but I was wondering when you’re going to finish up that fence and if you need to borrow any tools to do it.”

My husband is the king of half-finished projects. Right now, we’ve got a half-painted back fence, a half-deconstructed front fence, a half-painted house interior, a dismantled hot tub, a bath tub that is in various states of disrepair, and a garden path that needs to be sodded but is currently serving as the world’s largest cat litter box. The length of this list is not the most alarming aspect of it. What is most alarming is that some of these projects have been half-finished for as long as two years.

Our most current project that may actually someday see completion is replacing our front fence. The previous owner of the home put up a fence made out of sticks. It works, meaning that it keeps the deer out and the boy in, but it makes our house look like people that are a special kind of crazy reside inside. So, when we first moved in, Brent took down all of the sticks on the side fence. Then a neighbor donated a bunch of old pickets. And that is as far as we have gotten with our fence replacement in the last two years.

When another neighbor came over and donated a bunch of tools, that essentially meant that Brent was out of excuses and had to work on the fence. To his credit, he has been working on it. But one of the major differences between Brent and me are our work ethics. This means that for the past few weeks, Brent has been working hard at coming up with excuses not to work on the fence, while I sit around and think about filing for divorce.

I blame this on lineage. Brent comes from a long line of middle-manager types – people that will be the first to tell you you’re doing something wrong without offering any suggestions on how to do it better, and they’re also the last to lend a hand to help out with something, even if you’ve accidentally severed yours. On the flip side of that, I descend from a long line of folks that worked as farmers and blue-collar types, meaning that my family has a history of rising long before dawn, depending on nothing but their own hands and the strength of their backs and their ability to put in longer, harder days than their competitors just to put food on the table for their families.

Can you see where I’m going with this?

By now, you dear reader, are probably thinking to yourself, “Well, if you’re such a hard worker, then why don’t you get your ass out there and finish the fence yourself?”

Trust me – I’ve thought of that. The problem is that the stage we’re at in the fence replacement involves sanding off approximately 700 gallons of lead-based paint, which isn’t exactly brain food for the little tadpole that is busy gestating inside of me. And so, I am left waiting for my husband to finish sanding before we can move forward to a part that I can do.

Yesterday, while Mike napped and I worked, Brent was supposed to finish up sanding so that we could finish up painting and actually finish the fence this weekend sometime. (Though rain and snow are forecast, I assured Brent that we could nail a bunch of boards on in rain and snow.) When my phone rang after I had been at the office for a couple of hours and I heard Brent say that he needed my help, I was hopeful that he had finished sanding and was moving to a portion of the project with which I could actually lend a hand.

But my hopes were soon dashed.

“I need some bandages,” he said. “I gashed open my hand, and I don’t think I can work anymore.”

Very grudgingly, I went to the drug store and bought a bunch of gauze and tape, thinking the whole time that Brent had found yet another way to weasel his way out of doing any manual labor.

When I arrived at home to find blood all over the front porch, the floor and the cupboards of my house and only 5 or 6 boards sanded in two hours time, I was pissed to say the least.

“Is that all that you’ve finished?” I asked as I handed over the gauze and tape.

Brent looked at me incredulously and then showed me his wound. It was impressive, but not enough to stop work for a day.

“I just don’t think I can do anything else today,” he whined.

“Well, if this wound is going to be such a problem, maybe I’ll just drop your ass off at the ER and you can get it stitched up and we can move on with our lives,” I said to him. “And clean up all of this blood! If it stains anything, I’m going to be even more pissed!” I yelled as I stomped back to the car and went back to work.

I will admit here that I am not a particularly sympathetic human being. I grew up in a family where being tough was a prized personality trait and illness and wounds were nothing but lame excuses for not getting a job done. My dad was once crushed at a job site (with a resulting punctured lung and broken ribs) and he finished the work day before he went to the hospital. I myself have worked with broken limbs, raging fevers, a nail through my foot, and while in labor with my son. So a cut on the palm of one's hand doesn't exactly scream "Stop all forward movement!"

What is even more annoying than not finishing the fence is the way Brent is now acting about his papercut. He actually contemplating calling in sick to work, but when I told him he could then get his ass back outside and commence sanding again if he was going to be home, he miraculously found his hand worked well enough to sit in his little cube and take an occasional child abuse report and play video games the rest of the damn time. He is also wearing a bandage the size of a grand piano and enough tape to qualify for the world's largest tape ball, drawing ridiculous amounts of attention and sympathy to his cut.

"What happened?" people have been asking as they see his hand slathered in gauze and tape (though shockingly, he has not deemed a splint necessary as of yet).

"Oh," he'll chortle. "I had a little accident while doing a home improvement project." Then he'll wave his hand around to illicit more sympathy from complete strangers.

I'm not sure why exactly this has irritated me as much as it has. Our differences in the way we we approach work and follow-through have always been this way -- long before we were married -- and will probably be this way until one of us is in the ground (I'll probably go first from the sheer stress of living among a range of unfinished projects my entire life.) And truthfully, it hasn't been all bad for either of us. I feel that I've definitely relaxed my view toward work since I've been with Brent, and that I enjoy a much healthier "work/life" balance now. And, since I have known Brent, he has gone from working as a parking lot valet to having a job with a lot of responsibility -- even if he does get to play video games at it occasionally.

I think the crux of the problem is that now that we are parents, I worry that Mike will take after Brent's lackadaisical ways of getting things done. Brent is a really smart guy, and it took him something like NINE years to finish his undergraduate degree. Nations are taken over in significantly less time.

Luckily, I think that Mike takes after me in the workaholism department. Even now, when we go outside, the first thing he'll say is "Do yard work!" And when we weed, well, if only you could hear the happy little noises he makes.

MILF

Thanks to the simultaneously fascinating and frightening television show, "Real Housewives of Orange County," (pictured above) I have recently learned a new term to bandy about: MILF, which is the abbreviated version of "Mother I'd Like to Fuck."

Probably long a part of our American venacular, the term MILF is a completely new concept to me. Looking back on my teenage years when I first realized what exactly fucking was (beyond a dirty word I first learned from Laura Modders that earned me an hour of sitting with a bar of soap in my mouth), I cannot think of a single one of my friends' parents with whom I would have wanted to do the deed. Perhaps this was because the parents of my friends were like my own parents -- hopelessly Midwestern, middle-aged, and paunchy. Perhaps this was because as a teenager, I only found pimply boys who drove Chevettes or motor scooters exciting. I do not know. But I do know that I find it awfully strange that there are teenage boys out there who fantasize about getting it on with middle-aged women.

Granted, the "Real Housewives of Orange County" are not ordinary wives or mothers. In fact, I am fairly certain that the only thing that is "real" on any of them might be some of their internal organs. Perhaps, if I was a teenage boy and was presented with such a "womanly" specimen, I would also have a list of MILFs to daydream about.

I wonder if my own son, napping upstairs in his little Bob the Builder pajamas, might someday fantasize about a MILF. Which is just one more reason to keep him locked in this house until he's 45.

As far as I go, I am not, nor will I ever be, MILF material. If there is ever cause to praise God, this might be it. I will never be a MILF for a wide range of reasons, not excluding my stretch marks and droopy National Geographic boobies. But it mostly has to do with attitude, I think.

For the same reasons that I didn't end up marrying a partner in a big law firm or a world-famous cardiologist (try as I might so that I could have financial support for my dreams), I will never be a MILF. I am not perky. I am not a cheerleader (though I DID work at a cheerleading camp for a summer; if you want my definition of Hell, that may be it). Lately, flirting for me includes wearing a clean t-shirt without holes. And, in the future, I am about 1,000 times more likely to say to my son, "As long as you're trying your hardest, I'll try to forget about the minus on the A-" than "Wow, Mikey, your friends are really hot -- H-O-T -- HOT!"

A MILF I will never be. And I am more than O.K. with that. Because if, when I am in my mid-40s, the only thing that makes me feel good about myself is having a bevy of teenage males admiring me, my life will be emptier than I ever could have imagined.

Easy Like Sunday Morning

Ever since I was a kid, I have loved Sunday mornings. Sunday was the only day that I wasn't either pushed out the door to school or out the door to work around the house by my dad. And, best of all, Sundays meant big breakfasts, big newspapers, and the CBS show, "Sunday Morning."

I'm not much of a TV watcher. I will admit an addiction to "Sex and the City" re-runs, but other than that, I occasionally watch "Frontline" on PBS and "Real Housewives of Orange County" on Bravo -- but only when I'm feeling out of touch with reality. I find both very grounding.

But CBS' "Sunday Morning" is, in my mind, in a different league all of its own. It is the holy grail of televsion -- something that if I had a TIVO (is it A TIVO or just TIVO? Talk about not being grounded in reality) and could figure out how to work it, I would TIVO (again, can you use this as a verb?) "Sunday Morning." This show is about all that makes life worth living -- literature, art, fashion, food, nature. In short, it is a fascinating series of college humanities courses -- on video!

I have watched "Sunday Morning" for decades; I actually began watching it as a child with my own parents who tune in religiously every Sunday. I watched it through college and grad school and post grad school. Fortunately, it is on VERY early in the morning and not only is it informative and interesting, but it also made for good sobering-up material when I had just staggered in from a bar.

But lately, I have had the distinct pleasure of attempting to watch "Sunday Morning" with my two-year old. Said two-year old is very interested in monster trucks -- not so much in the architecture of Frank Gehry, and so watching "Sunday Morning" with him is, perhaps, one of the most annoying experiences of motherhood.

Brent works late on Saturday nights, which means that he doesn't like to wake up with Mike on Sunday mornings. I understand this, but I also kind of feel like beating Brent over the head with a large cast-iron skillet as he's dozing on Sunday mornings because watching this televsion show in peace is one of the ONLY private joys I have left in my life.

Lately, however, Mike has been sleeping late -- probably due to his waking up in a complete panic in the middle of the night. Last night as I went to bed, I thought about sleeping in or taking a hike in the hills behind our house or -- and then it dawned on me -- I could watch "Sunday Morning" in peace and quiet. How positively delightful!

So this morning, I woke at my regular time (5:30 a.m. and no, I don't even need to set an alarm to do this). I laid in bed for awhile and listened to the nest of birds outside my window; I read a few chapters in a new book from the library. Then I realized what would make my "Sunday Morning" experience even better was hot coffee and a bagel. So off I went to the bagel store.

I returned seconds before the show started, plopped down on the couch, flicked on the TV, and enjoyed the little "Sunday Morning" trumpet song that heralds the beginning of all that is right with the world. And then I heard someone singing the ABC's. Backwards.

"How could this be?" I wondered, because Mike has slept past 8:30 a.m. every day for the past two weeks, which would mean that if he managed to do this today, I could watch the ENTIRE show without his assistance.

So I decided to ignore him, hoping that he would fall back to sleep. No such luck, however. Within a few minutes, I heard his little voice ringing through the stairwell, "Mama! Mama! Mikey needs to go downstairs!"

The little devil still hasn't figured out that he can actually crawl out of his crib (hallelujah!) and so we haven't switched him over to a big boy bed yet, which means that he is totally dependent on my willingness to go get him and bring him downstairs.

Nighttime can do strange things to a mommy's memory, because I actually thought to myself that Mike would likely play quietly by himself, allowing me to enjoy my show, my coffee and my bagel. So I went up and got him.

Then reality set in as I spent the next 40 minutes turning the TV back on after he had turned it off, demanding to be read "Giant Dump Trucks" for the 156th time in less than 24 hours. Finally, in a very foul mood, I just gave up and got his breakfast around as I pitied what has become of my existence. And here's what I came up with.

Becoming a mother changed me, probably for the better. It's not that I didn't like who I was before; it's that I understand now what it means to be truly unselfish -- to give of oneself unconditionally -- whenever the little person who needs you needs something from you, whether you're at your very best that minute or dragging around barely able to keep your eyes open.

Motherhood can be rewarding. There's nothing better than when Mike sees me and runs as fast as he can towards me, just about knocking me over as he grabs hold of my legs and says, "Hhhhiiiiiiiiii." Or when I'm grunting as I bend over to pick something up, and he pats me on the back with his little hand and says, "Are you o.k. Mom?" Or even just as we play in the flowers, and he brings some dandelions over for me to smell or when he makes up stories about the spider on the ceiling or when he asks me to sing "that mama song" as we rock before bedtime.

But motherhood can also be annoying. It means not having time for yourself. It means having to share your last bite of brownie, and giving up all of your fresh raspberries. It means never having any privacy. It means not being able to watch the only television show you like. It means eating a lot of meatloaf and macaroni and cheese for dinner.

I read something lately about a woman who wanted nothing more in life than to be a mother. "It fulfills me," she said.

"Maybe for you," I thought. Here's the deal: I love being a mother. It has changed me and made me a better person. I wouldn't trade being Mike's mom for anything in the world because I cannot think of anything that is more important, more worthwhile, more rewarding. But it doesn't fulfill me. For me, being a mother stops short of that. If I was never able to have children, it wouldn't have ruined my life. In fact, I am certain I would have had a very full life -- full of friends and writing and family and travel and food -- all of those things that I also find tremendously important, worthwhile and rewarding. All of those things that make life worth living.

I remember a friend of mine in her 60s with grown children telling me that if she could do it all over again, she would never have had children. "Too much work and not enough payoff," she had said. If I could do it all over and not have children, would I? Sometimes. Like this morning, it would have been really great not to have a kid and another one on the way so I had to drink decaf.

But most of the time, even with all of the giving I have to do and with no privacy or time of my own and with the fact that the second I sit down, I have someone crawling all over me like I'm a set of monkey bars, I wouldn't do it over. Because having Mike has pushed me in ways that I otherwise wouldn't have been pushed. He has made me work harder at my dreams, at being fulfilled, because I think it makes me a better person, a better wife, and most of all -- a better mother. He is the reason I plug along at a million different projects, because I realized that being a mother didn't fulfill me, that I needed more.

And when I look at it that way, not being able to watch "Sunday Morning" seems such a small price to pay.

Mama's Giant Boo-boos

Over the past few weeks, Mike has started this rather annoying habit of pulling my shirt out when I'm holding onto him, looking down it and saying as loudly as possible to anyone within earshot, "MAMA'S GIANT BOO-BOOS ARE DOWN THERE!"

He announced this to the paint mixmaster at the Ace Hardware, who became VERY engrossed in his paint-mixing.

He announced this to one of my co-workers who replied, "Well, I've never seen a kid say THAT before."

He also announced it to a friend, who happens to be a therapist, "Gandy! (Her name is Randy; for some reason, he prefers Gandy) Look! Mama's giant boo-boos are down there."

"I don't know what's up with that lately, but he says it at the most inopportune times," I told her.

"Don't worry," she replied. "I've seen worse."

Which I found only slightly comforting.

I have told Brent that he is NOT to acknowledge that I have breasts in any way, shape, or form and that we would try to resolve this situation by doing what we do best when confronted with a behavioral problem -- ignoring it and hoping it will go away.

But the fact is there is no ignoring my giant boo-boos as of late. Because they are GIANT. They are no longer like large headlights; they are like lighthouse beacons, large enough to guide even the most disoriented ship captain back home again.

According to all of the stellar writing about pregnancy out there, I am supposed to embrace this change. Because in every article about how one's body changes during pregnancy, the authors like to highlight that (and this is a direct quote), "You may just LOVE your new voluptuous shape!"

Question: Do only skinny women with small breasts get pregnant? Because when you're already "voluptuous," the last thing you want to do is increase your voluptuability level. Because then you're just a fatty who can't button any of her shirts.

AND you don't want to wear anything that is knit because your old size TRIPLE D bras don't fit, and thus you're suffering from muffin top of the bra. And that is just gross.

I have hesitated to buy new bras, because if you've ever bought supportive ENORMOUS bras before, you would know that buying one is the equivalent of purchasing a new personal airplane. They are an investment -- one with no payoffs except that perhaps I will not resemble the tribal women featured in the National Geographic of my youth. That is, as long as I have the bra on. If I go braless, you can just put a big plate in my lip and I am immediately indistinguishable from the rest of the fine Drooping Boobies tribe.

And so I am suffering with my breasts crammed into my old DDD's, as they continue to grow and grow and grow. Soon, we will have to put an addition onto the house for them.

My friends in college used to call me "Chesty Morgan" (pictured above) after the 70s porn star, who played undercover agents and suffocated the bad guys with her MMM size udders. That was funny then; now that MMM bras may be in my immediate future, I fail to see the humor in it.

That Boy is Super Freaky

When I first met Brent and people asked me what he looked like, I always described him as "freakishly tall." I have since changed this description to "really tall" because describing your spouse in freak-like terms is, according to some, not good wifely behavior.

But he is freakishly tall -- 6'8" worth actually.

I always thought I would end up marrying a tall man. I'm not that tall (only 5'8") but I seem much taller. Brent blames this on my, as he refers to it, big personality. I think it's the heels.

Regardless, I always thought I'd end up with someone who was somewhere between 6' and 6'4", which is definitely tall, but not circus-like.

Now that Brent and I have been together for so long, I never really think of him as being that tall. Though I am reminded of it as strangers like to ask him if he plays basketball and the few times that he has just about taken Mike out by carrying our son on his shoulders and forgetting to duck as he goes through doorways.

Living with a very tall man has its advantages. There are no need for step stools, for instance.

But there are LOTS of disadvantages that normal-sized people do not consider.

For instance:
Our dining room table -- Brent cannot fit his legs underneath it. So he has to sit with his legs out to the side and turn to eat.
Beds -- His feet hang off the end of all beds, and so he doesn't like to tuck the sheets in. And not tucking the sheets in drives me crazy.
Clothing -- Brent's legs aren't any longer than mine, but his torso is the length of approximately two football fields. I cannot tell you how many hours I have spent stretching out t-shirts to get them to hang below his belly button -- even the tall ones.
Countertops, sinks, and showerheads -- These are all too low. Quite frankly, I am shocked that he does not walk around permanently hunched at the waist.

However, the most annoying aspect of living with someone who is freakishly tall is that this certain someone cannot fit into any vehicle that is not some luxury sedan designed for old geezers who came of age when you could fit approximately 13 people into a Buick.

Which is why we are probably the only people under the age of 75 who own a Buick LeSabre. And before that we owned a Cadillac. Not an Escalade, mind you, or one of Cadillac's new sportier models. This was a Cadillac sedan -- way before Cadillac was King again. When I drove it, I could see neither the end of the hood nor the trunk -- that's how obscenely long it was.

When we went to buy the Buick, I had my heart set on something small, affordable, and good on gas. A Honda Civic, actually. So imagine my disappointment when my husband could not fold himself up efficiently enough to even get both legs in the car.

"Jesus Christ -- just stoop a little bit more," I hissed at him.

But try as he might, he could not contort his body in such a way that he could get both feet in the vehicle simultaneously.

Now several years later, we are most unfortunately in the market for another new car.

This time I want a Toyota Scion. If you have not seen the Scion, it is the approximate size of a walnut. Yet I know someone who owns one, and he swore up and down to me that Brent would be able to fit into it.

So on Wednesday, we drove to a dealer in Missoula and checked it out. Brent could get in the Scion, but his knees rested on the dashboard.

"I don't know," he began. "I think it's kind of a tight squeeze."

"Well Jesus Christ," I said to him. "You're rarely going to go very far in it so it doesn't really matter if you're that comfortable."

He just looked at me. He got out. I got in with Mike. It was a perfect fit for us.

Reason #15,697 that I should win the Powerball -- so my vertically challenged husband can have custom-made tables, counters, showerheads, and cars and so that I don't have to spend the rest of my life tooling around in old geezer mobiles.

Fashion Police -- Please Send Help!

Summer has arrived with a vengeance in Montana. A few weeks ago, I was still wearing my winter coat. Last week, we saw the first of the spring flowers – daffodils, tulips, and lilacs all started to bloom. But for the past few days, it has been over 90 degrees. 90 degrees! Everything beautiful is wilting – including moi!

When I moved to Montana, I was under the impression that I would enjoy cold winters and cool summers. Not so. We arrived in Montana in early fall and during my first winter, I watched as my new Cadillac literally froze to death in temperatures that hovered in the 40 – 60 BELOW ZERO range for weeks. Those temperatures are not cold; they are nothing short of obscene.

Then when summer (and I thought my earned reprieve) arrived, I endured weeks of 90+ temperatures and blowing smoke and ash from nearby forest fires. I had to wonder if I had up and moved to Hell.

Please keep in mind that I did not grow up, nor have I ever lived, in a mild climate. I am not a weather wimp used to perfect temperatures and sunny days. As a child, we received so much snow at our house in Michigan that my mother used to warn my brother and me not to touch the telephone wires when we played outside. In Chicago, I endured horrendous snow, driving rain, and oppressive heat and humidity. I’ve also lived on the East Coast, where I’ve enjoyed everything from humidity to nor’easters, and in New Orleans, where the humidity is so high that I actually drove to work with my windshield wipers swishing away on the sunniest days – that was how wet the air was.

But no matter where I have lived, I can say with some degree of certainty that NEVER in my life have I witnessed so many fashion faux pas as one can witness in the summer months in Montana.

Granted I am no longer the fashionista of yesteryear, now favoring Nikes and cotton socks to my Manolo’s and Jimmy Choo’s, which are sadly retired in the back of my closet. In fact, I have not even seen the spring line of any major designer, unless you count Liz Lange of Target maternity wear fame, and I cannot bring myself to include Liz among the likes of Donatella.

But to demonstrate just how far I have fallen, I will share that I actually found myself wearing a new T-shirt the other day that I had received FOR FREE with the words “Bud Light” emblazoned on the front. In the words of one of my gay boyfriends, “Sister, you should never wear anything that you got for free, unless you are a movie star on your way to the Academy Awards and your free item is from Harry Winston.”

Yet even with my Nikes and capris from JCPenney, I would like to offer a few tips for summer fashion wear by which I think we can all abide and make the world a better place for this and for future generations.
1) Underwire, underwire, underwire. No matter how small your boobies are, you need to wear a bra. Supportive undergarments are key to good fashion sense.
2) Wife-beaters are always a no-no, unless you are a lesbian with nice arms WHO SHAVES HER PITS.
3) Women of all sexual orientations: shave and wax accordingly.
4) If you’re going to wear sandals, two words: Professional pedicure.
5) Getting a healthy glow is o.k. Tanning until you resemble a leathery, different ethnic version of yourself is not.
6) If your body juts out where your swimsuit ends and bare skin begins, buy a bigger suit.
7) Just because everyone in Hollywood is walking around exposing all parts of one’s body doesn’t mean you should jump on the bandwagon too – unless you are six feet tall and weigh 90 pounds and do Pilates and approximately 3,000 sit-ups EVERY DAY.
8) Knit tops accentuate back fat AND muffin top.
9) Back fat and muffin top are NEVER o.k.
10) Unless you work in the porn industry, baring your breasts and stomach are NOT o.k. at work.

And finally, as my mother always used to tell me, if you ever put something on and find yourself thinking, “Hhhmmmm…maybe. Or maybe not.”, then you probably shouldn’t.

We're Surrounded

There must be something strange in the water up here on Granola Hill, as we who live here call our neighborhood. Because there are a bunch of married couples that live up here and they DO NOT HAVE CHILDREN.

These are not young couples, ripe for reproduction or even couples in their early thirties, desperate to have a baby before their reproductive systems shut down completely or require jump-starting with in-vitro fertilization. These people are in their late thirties and early to mid-forties and some are even in their fifties or sixties, (way beyond baby-making age) and these people have quite simply never reproduced.

"Did they get married too late in life to conceive? Were they unable to conceive?" Brent and I have wondered aloud to each other.

OR could it be that they didn't want to have children??? That they didn't want to wake up in the middle of the night FOR YEARS? That they didn't want to spend an obscene amount of time talking about poop, reading about poop, and finding new and innovative ways to get someone on the potty to poop? That they didn't want to spend their spare time building sandcastles and listening to children's music and washing monster truck shirts so that there is ALWAYS a clean monster truck shirt? Could this be????

Scandulous!

Because I'll let you in on a secret. I'm a bit envious of all of these childless couples. They're the smart ones, I think.

As a matter of fact, there are days, (particularly after watching a good "Sex and the City" episode where Carrie writes a great column, wears a great outfit, and then has a great date with Mr. Big) that I think to myself, "What in the HELL was I thinking?" Is there summer camp for two year olds? Someplace I can send this beastly little child of mine so that my husband and I can remember why we got married in the first place?

Because here are some of the things I have witnessed with my own two eyes my neighbors do:
1) Read -- for hours -- uninterrupted.
2) Spend time in their gardens without having to pretend that their giant excavator arm is going to dig up all of the weeds.
3) Pack up and head out for the weekend -- just because it's going to be nice -- in about 15 minutes.
4) Entertain their friends without having to step over a wide array of big rigs and sandbox paraphenelia.

They also seem to sleep past the crack of dawn on the weekends. In other words, these childless couples seem to luxuriate in one another.

A few weeks ago, my boss asked me how long Brent and I had been married before we had Mike.

"Eight months," I told him.

"Good lord!" he said. "I hope you dated for a long time before you got married."

We did. But still, I can't help but wonder what our lives would have been like if we had had even a few months to be a married couple -- a married couple that wasn't expecting a baby or being mama and dad.

I remember when I told my parents that I was pregnant with Mike, they were so happy. "But we just got married!" I protested. "Brent isn't done with school!"

"If everyone waited for the perfect time to have a baby, nobody would have babies," my dad said.

This is probably true.

And when I told my OB that my husband and I had been married for only a few weeks, she said, "Well, it's better than the alternative of you coming in here five years from now and saying, 'I always wanted kids and now I can't get pregnant.'"

This is probably also true.

But here's what I know is true: I LOVE being a mom. There are at least 100 times every day that Mike does something that makes me smile or laugh and I will sometimes find myself wondering what else I would be doing besides loving being his mama. But I also will always wonder if I could have loved being just a wife.

I'm Here. You're Safe.

Since Mike was six months old, he has slept through the night. He will sometimes wake up at the crack of dawn (usually on a Saturday or Sunday), but generally speaking, he goes to bed at 9 p.m. and will sleep until 7 or 7:30 a.m.

Without making a peep.

Yes, there are those rare occasions where he will wake up in the middle of the night, but they are just that: rare.

Until lately. Since I left to go to Missoula, he has been waking up in the middle of the night screaming. Screaming so that it jolts me awake and before I am fully cognizant of what I am doing, I am holding him and rocking him and telling him that he is safe and that everything is going to be fine.

As we rock in the dark of his room, I talk with him about the things that we had done that day -- remind him of the flowers we picked and the sandcastles we built; of chasing the cats up and down the stairs; of the walk we took to the nearest construction site to watch dump trucks and excavators.

This seems to calm him down. Mikey's happy thoughts I call them.

After rocking him for awhile, I put him back in his bed and watch as he snuggles under his blanket with Cookie Monster, and falls back to sleep -- safe, happy.

I can never go back to sleep though. I wonder what it is that is making him wake up in the middle of the night. Is he having bad dreams? What is he dreaming about? Is he dreaming that we are apart? That I never come home from work? What could it be that terrifies him so?

I want to make it stop. But I don't know how.

I recently read "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion. She loses her husband of 40 years, and then nearly loses her child. When she first arrives at the ICU where her daughter has undergone emergency brain surgery, she recalls whispering, "I'm here. Everything's fine. You're safe. I'm here."

Her child is an adult at the time that she says this, but she writes that since they brought her home from the hospital, that has been her basic promise to her daughter. That she will keep her safe. That she will not leave her.

I remember within the first few hours of Mike’s life, looking down at him and realizing that I would do anything for him. I would step in front of a speeding semi if it would save him. I would cross the world ten times over if I needed to find something that would keep him safe. I would give organs, blood, my entire body if that was what he needed.

But unfortunately, things happen in life that mothers, no matter how much they love their children or what they are willing to do, cannot fix – cannot make better – cannot make go away.

These are only bad dreams that he is having now. They will pass. He’ll sleep through the night again soon, dreaming beautiful excavators with shiny hydraulic arms. Will this be the worst of it? I can only wish. As he grows older, I know we will face many things together – from bullies at school to broken bones – and possibly much, much worse. And I know my promise to him will always be the same: “I’m here. You’re o.k. Everything’s going to be fine.”

The Best Tonic

Sadly, about six months ago, the people who had lived in the house next door for over 45 years decided to sell to a Californian. Said Californian immediately rented the house to what I lovingly refer to as our "White Trash Neighbors."

Our "White Trash Neighbors" do drugs. They smoke and throw their cigarette butts all over the yard. They play music so loud that it vibrates the windows in our house. Before their car was repossessed, they zoomed up and down our hill at approximately 90 m.p.h. When the husband is gone, the wife brings home a bunch of fine-looking "White Trash Hook-Ups." They drink Pabst Blue Ribbon and swear loudly in the backyard.

There is no hope for these people. I'm not a religious person, so I've been crossing my fingers since they moved in, hoping that they would either burn down the house or get evicted.

Unfortunately neither has happened. But fortunately, they're a bunch of chickens when it comes to bad weather and so they've mostly holed up inside their house all winter.

But it is spring now. And it is beautiful. Blue skies that go on forever. Wind that smells heavy with pollen and trees and grass and mud and melting snow. Tulips and daffodils. And the crabapples are blooming.

I love spring. I love sitting outside in our backyard with Mike as he plays in the sandbox, and listening to the birds and the wind and picking out shapes in the clouds as they zoom overhead.

Except this spring I have practically been a hostage in my own house, thanks to our "White Trash Neighbors'" sociopath four-year old.

The White Trashies do not supervise this child. He literally plays in the street, and I find it unfortunate (not just for myself, but for society at large) that he has not been run over by an enormous pick-up truck. For within the past week, this boy has 1) peed through the fence at Mike and me; 2) spit at us; 3) called us a wide range of colorful names; and 4) thrown rocks at our house. Let me stress: he is FOUR YEARS OLD.

This child is one of the many examples of how Brent and I differ from one another. Brent feels sorry for this future convict, claiming that he doesn't know any better and that we shouldn't hold his terrible behavior against him. In fact, he has even gone so far to say that we should try to be nice to this little beast and perhaps we could have a positive influence on him.

Oh Brent, you naive fool. I pity your simple mind sometimes.

I think the best thing for this kid would be to lock him up now, and forget that he ever existed.

I have tried to talk to the White Trashies about their son's behavior, but they refuse to open the door. I have been getting angrier and angrier about this, until I think that my delicate heart is ready to explode. So today, I left them a note. It was not a nice note. But it was not as mean as it could have been. For instance, I did not let them in on the fact that they are raising a sociopath and they had better keep an eye on their other baby and any of their pets to make sure they don't find them dismembered in the freezer one morning.

The White Trashies have not even read the note yet, but I cannot tell you what enormous satisfaction I felt after taping it to their door. For months I have been furious that these people have polluted my little part of the world and for months I have been threatening to do something. And today, I finally, actually took a very small step and hope that this situation will resolve itself.

Oh Sara, you naive fool. I pity your simple mind.

I Am My Mother's Daughter

When people ask me for directions, what I should probably say is, "You'd have better luck getting where you're going if a blind man told you how to get there." But what comes out of my mouth is something like this: "You're going to go down this street for awhile, and then in about 4-6 blocks, you'll see a big lilac bush. You're going to want to turn right at the lilac bush, and then keep your eyes open for a yellow house that usually has a motorcycle parked in front of it. After the yellow house, go another 1/2 block and hang left and then go to the corner with the house that has a really cool tree house...."

After I prattle on for a few minutes, people usually just gun their engines and leave me standing in their dust.

I have NO sense of direction. ZERO. When I lived in New Orleans, I thought I was often running parallel with the Mississippi River -- until I just about drove right into it. In Chicago, I relied on kindly storekeepers to guide me from el stop to el stop. In Helena, which is not exactly a thriving metropolis, its streets are laid out in a grid and numbered (in the right order) and I STILL occasionally lose my way after five years of living here.

Right now, I'm in Missoula, MT, which is a significantly bigger city than Helena, and a city in which I spend the majority of my time lost and disoriented (not any fault of the fine city planners of Missoula, mind you). I'm here to attend a conference, all of which is being held in a single hotel, which means I do not have to even go outside for fresh air if I so choose. But, on the second day, I decided to bag on the last event of the day to do some exploration of my own, but mainly to find ice cream.

I remembered that about four years ago, a friend of mine and I had eaten at a little ice cream stand selling homemade ice cream. And THAT was the ice cream I wanted -- no Dairy Queen; no Ben & Jerry's. I wanted the sweet creamy concoction that I remembered from years ago in flavors I had never imagined before -- lavender, honey, and green tea. But of course, I could not remember the name of the ice cream place. I could not remember what it looked like, and I certainly could not remember where it was. Yet with nothing to do except watch "I Love the 80's" in 3D back in my hotel room, I set off to find it.

I zipped around Missoula in my little car, up and down one-way streets, across the Clark Fork River and past restaurants and bakeries and coffee shops. For once, I didn't feel lost or disoriented. I felt as if the car was guiding itself. Then, almost gleaming with promise, I saw it: THE ice cream store, which is named The Big Dipper.

I parked the car, and ordered something relatively pedestrian, though the green tea flavor was still on the menu. Then I drove to a park and ate it slowly, savoring every bite.

Growing up, I remember my mother practically slamming on the brakes in the middle of the street of a foreign town if she saw an ice cream shop that looked particularly promising. My mother could always eat, but the amount of ice cream that she was able to consume in single sittings was nothing short of amazing. She showed restraint when she ordered a triple dip, and this was long before ice cream shops measured out the dips; instead, they piled the ice cream on the cones. My mother often swaggered out of ice cream shops with a cone that was so big it caused others to smile or whisper to each other, "Look at that!"

So tonight, I am my mother's daughter. For the first time in my life, my sense of direction did not fail me. Instead, it guided me right to the source. Like a homing pigeon who knows right where it is headed, I flew towards home.

Weight Watchers, Here I Come (Again)

I had my first pre-natal check-up yesterday. Sad but true -- according to the doctor, I must unhook my red wine IV drip that helps me make it through the days with an overactive toddler.

Yesterday was that first meeting with the doc where they ask you a million questions about your health and the health of every relative on both sides of the family and about your activities prior to realizing you were pregnant (sleeping pill addiction, barrels of red wine, gallons of coffee, etc.) and you start to realize just how many things can go wrong with your unborn child.

Yet, when she asked me if there was anything I was worried about, I didn't tell her that I was concerned that having another baby might aggravate my disfunctional heart and cause it to explode or that I was terrified that I would wind up with preeclampsia again or that I read on the Internet that the sedation I had for my oral surgery prior to realizing I was pregnant increased the risk of birth defects. Oh no. I told her I was worried about getting fat. Do you see where my priorities are?

If you had seen me after giving birth to Mike, you would understand where and why this fear is deeply rooted. Because I did not just gain "maternal fat stores" when pregnant with Mike, I gained maternal big box stores, like the size of Costco. Apparently it is true that if you eat nothing but sausage, pierogies, and ice cream, you can gain over 60 pounds in six months.

AND, by the time I went to my six-week post-partum check-up, I had regained whatever I had lost by giving birth, PLUS THREE MORE POUNDS. Contrary to what I wanted to believe, nursing your child does not make the weight "fall off." Because I spent a small fortune on Weight Watchers, leafy green vegetables and the South Beach Diet, not to mention nearly a year of my life, fighting every ounce of that weight gain.

I am now at my comfortably 30 pounds overweight weight that my body seems to love and that I can maintain with relative ease -- as long as there are no chocolate chip cookies, ice cream, or sausage pizzas within my reach. However, there are now four gallons of ice cream in the freezer, and I just finished baking a batch of chocolate chip cookies. These are dangerous times.

So far, I have only gained two pounds. I am determined not to gain more than those two pounds for the rest of the first trimester. I WILL NOT GAIN MORE THAN TWO POUNDS FOR THE REST OF THE FIRST TRIMESTER. I repeat this as I finish my seventh chocolate chip cookie and wonder how much sugar will send my little embryo into a state of shock.