April 10, 2007

Bad Real Estate Agents, Bad Mothering

In exactly two hours and 47 minutes, our crappy real estate agent will be no more.

Nothing drastic. I mean, we're not having him whacked or anything of that nature. His contract is simply expiring, much to my extreme joy.

Thanks to everyone who made agent recommendations last week. While we're not going with any of those agents, since they're not as familiar with our area as we'd like, it was in researching those agents that I found our next ones. I somehow managed to surf into a website listing the top real estate agents, per St. Louis zip code. And that's who will be listing our house tomorrow - the agents who have sold tons of houses in our zip code. Now that we know what questions to ask an agent, we've got some confidence that they'll do a lot more for us than our current crappy agent.

The excitement's renewed, so much so that I gutted my kitchen cabinets and packed three boxes tonight. B. and Clara Jane did some work on her room to declutter, and this is all so mind-numbingly dull that you really shouldn't care about it other than perhaps you won't be subjected to boring real estate blabber for much longer.

You know what's more interesting than boring moving talk? Kid's yoga classes. We're taking one tomorrow. Clara Jane hasn't been in a very Zen place lately, and I can't keep giving her nighttime cough syrup just for my own benefit. Perhaps the yoga will clear the clutter and daily stress from her mind. Or at least give her the opportunity to pretend to be a dog - at least a downward facing one. Clara Jane's current favorite hobby involves pretending to be a dog, but I refuse to put a leash on her, no matter how much she demands is.

Seriously. She's been demanding a leash and wants us to "walk" her. Considering how tired I am of dirty Pull-Ups, the urge to let her go walkies outside is sometimes hard to resist.

In other excellent parenting news ... Clara Jane has two new favorite songs. "Alfie" by Lily Allen and "Rehab" by Amy Winehouse. Yes, this is from a parent who doesn't allow her kid to watch "The Doodlebops" or "The Wiggles". None of that crap in my house, but let's listen to tunes about weed-smoking little brothers and twentysomething soulful alcoholics 20 times a day! And sing along! Loudly! Perhaps in public, at the coffeehouse, where today she kept telling me, "I want to hear the song where the boy goes 'nooooooooooo nooooooooooooooo noooooooooooooo!'"

"Oh, you mean the song about being a drunk, Sweetie?"

"Yeah, Mommy! That's the one."

But I'm taking her to yoga! Free yoga! Healthy, economically sound, centering yoga! Which she'll do while I sit on a couch and drink coffee.

Posted by Robin at 09:11 PM | Comments (9)

April 01, 2007

Savior Dad

Parenting a 20-month-old is hard. They are, without question, the most difficult creatures ever created. But damn, they're cute.

When Clara Jane Jane was around 20 months old, she:

My friend Beqi has a son, E., who's almost 20 months old. I adore this child, but he gives me flashbacks to those days. He's more physically wild, whereas Clara Jane's wildness manifested in the use of profanities and dancing in public to artists who embarrass me.

E.'s learning, as all 20-months-old are. And Beqi's one of the most attentive parents I've ever encountered. In fact, the day we met, I was thinking, "Wow. She's got her hands full, but she's on it." Because she is. E. pushes another kid or throws a toy, Beqi's right there, usually before the push or throw has been completed. Sometimes, I think she can read his mind and knows what he's going to do before he does it. That's how on-the-ball she is.

Few things irritate me more than parents who let their kids run wild. Because left to their own devices, kids will run wild. But if a parent is obviously trying, it makes all the difference in the world.

This morning B., Clara Jane and I met Beqi and E. at the coffeehouse, and all was right in the world, as is usually the case when we're at the coffeehouse.

Or so we thought.

There was a little girl, seven or eight years old, who Beqi and I have seen there before. She recognized the father, but I didn't. Most of the times I've seen them, he's dumped the girl in the play area and retreated to the front of the coffeehouse.

I've never talked to him, but Beqi has. The girl was adopted, and the one time she talked to him, he described himself as being her "savior" because he and his wife rescued her from the abject poverty of her native country.

Okay.

I have no problem with foreign adoptions. None at all. In fact, had I not been able to get pregnant, B. and I were considering that option for ourselves. What I do have a problem with is anyone self-describing himself as being someone elses savior/rescuer/knight in shining armour.

An old friend of mine suffered from severe bipolar disorder. She met her husband in a bar when she was 19 and going through one of her first manic episodes. Years later he gave her a charm for her charm bracelet - a knight's helmet because, as he told her, "I'm your knight in shining armour." She was pleased with the gift, but it gave me the cold chills unlike anything else.

No one gets to describe himself in that manner. No one. It's scary when it's in a romantic relationship. In a parent/child relationship? Strikes me as being sick.

So today. The coffeehouse guy dumped his daughter in the play area and sat nearby, not acknowledging her for the hour+ that she was playing.

This girl is one of the most timid, shy children I've ever seen. She played with Clara Jane a bit, but mostly kept to herself before encountering E., who did what 20-month-olds are prone to do: he greeted her with a shove. Beqi responded by jumping up, telling E. that's he's not allowed to shove, apologizing to the girl, and removing E. from the scene before he could do it again.

But it was too late. The father was in his daughter's face, yelling at her and thumping her on the head with his finger for ... wait for it ... not standing up for herself.

B., Beqi and I sat there, completely astounded at this display. He was so loud and angry that people on the opposite side of the coffeehouse stopped to see what was happening.

Now, let's break this down a bit:

1. Timid older child encounters toddler who's still learning the finer points of social interaction.

2. Toddler's mother intervenes immediately.

3. Savior Dad commences yelling and thumping hissy fit directed at his child because she didn't stand up for herself.

Hmmmm ... perhaps, just maybe, this child doesn't stand up for herself because, oh, I don't know, she's being raised by a abusive motherfucker with a god complex! I'm not a child psychologist, so I don't know. Just a hunch.

Oh, but that wasn't the end of it. After E. settled down, Beqi put him back down, and he approached the little girl, who had remained silent and expressionless through it all. When E. approached, Savior Dad leaned over the counter, wagging a finger in E.'s face, and yelling his disciplinary shit at the toddler.

How Beqi kept from beating the ever-living fuck out of this guy, I'm not sure. She informed him that she was taking care of the situation. To which Savior Dad responded by shrieking something about getting the hell out of there (gee, break our hearts, whydontcha), grabbing his daughter, grabbing his Mountain Dew, and storming out.

Proof positive that the caffiene in soda is much more mood-altering than that in coffee, which makes people happy and non-confrontational.

He stole the coffeehouse's soda glass, which pisses me off, too.

But oh, it gets better! Once he stormed outside he bitched to the guy who maintains the coffeehouse's yard about us. Later, he called to complain, telling the staff that if "those parents" are ever there again, he won't be giving the coffeehouse his patronage.

Now that takes some balls. He commits what amounts to verbal and physical abuse upon his own child, screams at someone else's toddler, storms out, but won't render the complaint in person, to the people who witnessed his outburst.

The coffeehouse staff asked us if we'd mind moving in so that he'll never, ever come back ever again. Turns out, he's not well-liked by the staff, to the point where they bicker over who's going to get stuck waiting on him.

For the rest of the day, Beqi, B., the staff, and I cracked multiple jokes about calling in complaints about each other. I think it was one of those situations where if we hadn't joked, we all would have been crying on behalf of that poor child. If he's treating his child like that in public, what the hell's going on at home?

So many things about this gall me, and I've been stewing in anger all day.

I think of my single 40-year-old friend who will be such a wonderful mom. I've seen how she's grappled with arranging her career, location, finances, and life to make her chances of being able to adopt higher. This woman, who has treated my child with so much love, who's willing to adopt a foreign child, or a child with disabilities, not because she wants to be anyone's savior, but because that's how loving and generous she is. And yet, because she's a single woman, it's going to be more difficult for her to adopt.

I think about another dear friend of mine who wants a baby, and who will make a wonderful father. Despite being with his partner for almost as long as I've been with mine, adopting's going to be extremely difficult for them because they're both men.

And yet here's this abusive, manipulative, screaming jackass, who was allowed to bring a child into this country and into his family by virtue of little more than being in what's viewed as a "normal" relationship. I'm sickened, and I wish that little girl had either of my friends in her life, giving her the love and respect she deserves.

Beqi made a good point - we can't save every child. If we could adopt every child who's been mistreated we would, but we can't. The best we can do is take care of our own.

Which makes me look at my relationship with my child. She's been tough this week, as you know if you've been reading for the past few days. Yesterday and this morning I told B., "I don't know why but she's stomping on my last nerve." That's a hard thing to admit about your own child, and it's even harder to deal with. Every day, I'm stunned by the amount of patience parenting requires, patience I never knew I had.

I'm not the perfect mom by any means. There have been times when I've overreacted, spoken too sharply, or taken my frustrations out in a less-than-adult manner in front of my daughter. But I've never done what I witnessed today, and I'm confident that I never will. Yeah, there's some self-righteous parenting smugness, but at what price? The price of the child who has a shitty parent?

I can't imagine how the rest of the day was for that girl. I hope that once he calmed down, maybe her dad realized that he'd overreacted. Maybe he apologized and they went to the nearby park to blow off the steam, have a little fun, and get their day back on track. I don't think that's the case, though.

There was so much anger in him, so much he directed it everywhere. I couldn't tell if he was angry at his daughter, Beqi, E., the coffeehouse staff, B., me. I think he was just angry, period, and he was willing to direct that anger at whoever wandered into his scope.

I wish I'd done things differently, instead of my stellar reaction to the situation: sitting on the couch, hands jammed under my ass, jaw hanging open, looking back and forth from B. to Beqi with my eyes bugged, while making sure my daughter didn't wander into the line of fire. When I get really angry, I can't speak, and I was at tht point. The most I could have said, had I tried, would have been something like, "You! Dad! Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeean! Bad daddy! No!"

B. reminded me later that it was right for us to not intervene too much, because this guy was obviously unhinged, and you just never know when someone who's unhinged will run you through with a Mountain Dew straw. Beqi made the excellent point that, if we made more of a confrontation, his daughter would have been the one to pay for it. And I know they're both right.

However, if I see him again, and he's treating his child the way he treated her today, I'll be dialing 911 so fast it'll make his jacked-up Mountain Dew heart rate look slow.

I've grappled a lot with how aggressive I want to teach Clara Jane to be. I don't want people to walk all over her, but I don't want her to grow up feeling angry and entitled. She's a pretty mellow kid, all told. When pushed, she walks away. If someone takes the toy in her hand, she walks away and finds another toy. I've often wondered if I need to teach her to stand up for herself, or if maybe she's got the right idea. She knows how to roll with the punches. That's who she is. B.'s always said that any kid we have, especially girls, will take a martial arts class or two, just enough to learn how to defend herself with discipline and respect. I'm all for that.

I wonder how peaceful that little girl is going to be when she's grown. I'm going to wonder a lot of things about her for a long time.

Clara Jane's no longer stomping on my last nerve. I have a feeling it's going to be a long, long time before I feel that way. She's learning, and it's my job to guide her as she learns, no matter how frustrating it is. I wasn't put here to save her. She, like every child, didn't ask to be brought into this world. B. and I made the choice to bring her into the world and we owe it to her to teach her the skills to navigate it. Not bully her into it.

Posted by Robin at 04:12 PM | Comments (10)

March 29, 2007

The Pinnacle of Excellent Parenting

I'm down in my back today, and I have no idea how this happened. Perhaps the strenuous act of getting out of bed is what caused every muscle on my right ribcage to wedge between my rib bones. That's about the time the pain started - pain that's resistant to Alieve, but slightly responsive to Alieve and chardonnay. I took Clara Jane to daycare, hobbled around Target for a bit, and laid across the basket of my cart while the check-out clerk glared at me. I told her to get the fuck over it and get a stockperson to find me a truss.

Since Clara Jane was covered for the day, I came home, eased myself back into my pajamas, fired up the heating pad, and spent several hours lying on the couch, watching bad TV, knitting, and smelling the flesh on my back burn.

But soon, 2:30 arrived and I had to worm my way back into real clothes, get behind the wheel, and fetch the child. Then there was the time to fill before her father got home from work, in which I wanted to play with her. Really, I did. But I also did not wish to snap in two like a brittle old woman.

Pre-parenthood, I was one of those parents who swore my kid wouldn't watch TV. Ever. We were going to have a ceremony in which we burned our Tivo with the placenta in the woods. Okay, not really. That's the Alieve and chardonnay talking. But really, I was anti-TV.

That lasted about 11 months. I do limit how much she watches. Despite her demands, I'm not giving in to her desire for "Wonder Pets" 24/7. I already have that playing on loop in my brain; I don't need it playing on loop in my living room.

Here's some video I took last night, before I injured myself, of Clara Jane, watching the very age-appropriate Sesame Street.

Here's a photo I took of her tonight, while I was logging my 21st hour on the couch.

What can make this child so filled with joy?

Whatever could fill my child with such obvious joy and glee? Why, watching over and over and over and over the same 15-second ad for A Night at the Roxbury on TBS 2384 times in a row, thanks to the magic of digital video recording techonology - watching it long enough to master the Will Ferrell/Chris Kattan head-bob. Watching it long enough that I was able to maintain my prone position on the couch for a good 20 minutes longer than I would have, had we not had access to "What is Love".

Good parenting. Sticking to my values. That's what it's all about.

Posted by Robin at 09:15 PM | Comments (9)

March 28, 2007

The Hobos Return

Yes, I know I wrote nearly two weeks ago about taking the train to drop my kid off with my parents, and nary a word has been mentioned about her since. This was the longest she's stayed with them - ten days. Long enough that my dad asked my mom, "Do you think something's going on with them and they're not telling us?" Not possible, as I have to tell eveyrone everything about my life. I'm not sure what he had in mind, but it's fun to speculate:

Of course, none of the above happened. Well, B. did rake a bunch of mud in our backyard, but it was just barely orgistic. Some dog-humping occured at the same time, otherwise, it was very chaste mud work. Fact is, time just got away from us. We didn't make a return plan right off the bat, and the next thing we knew, it had been a week. Didn't help that I planned Saturday's much-needed alcohol and estrogen-fueled shindig. Plus, we got so much work done while she was gone. Like sleeping.

Seriously, B. finished several major house projects. I did a ton of packing, mostly involving Clara Jane's stuff, which I can't very well pack while she's home without psychologically scarring her for life. But we did miss her terribly. I wanted to jump a train on Sunday to fetch her, but it wasn't economically smart, so I went on Monday afternoon.

Now, B. and I are smart people. Most of the time. One of the things that's prevented me from making these trips to my hometown via the train is our single-car situation. Either B. would have to take off work to drop us at the train station in Kirkwood, or he'd have to spend hours transferring buses from his downtown office to the suburban station to pick up our truck after I leave.

Gee, here's a thought: what if B. buys a ticket from the downtown Amtrak station, located blocks from his office, rides to the Kirkwood station, where he will exit the train as I board? Just enough time for us to kiss goodbye in passing. Grand total for this jaunt? $3.30, and it adds 100 points to my Amtrak frequent hobo card.

It only took us three years to devise this plan. Brilliant!

(Yes, I could depart from the downtown station, but it's a pain in the ass to get to. And it's not pretty like the Kirkwood Depot, nor is it Kaldi's-adjacent like the Kirkwood depot. In other words, I'm the most yupped-up punk rock hobo in history.)

Monday afternoon, coffee and book in hand, I waited at the pretty depot for the train bearing my husband. He jumped off the train, walked me to the car that didn't contain the Girl Scout troop all hepped up from their visit to "Princesses on Ice", gave me a smooch, and sent me on my way for four hours of solo iPod/knitting time.

Not the case. The train, thanks to the Girl Scouts, was damn near full. "Make a friend!" the conductors say when the seats are rapidly filling. I like making friends! I decided an older woman would be my new friend, primarily because I happened to be by her seat when I realized everything else was full.

She, however, didn't wish to be friends. She avoided eye contact with me and scooched as close to the window as possible. When the time came for her to eat the cold Church's chicken legs she'd hauled onto the train, she turned with her back to me, like I might snatch a drumstick out of her maw.

She was not Train People, so I didn't feel the need to be Train People with her, either. I pulled out the iPod, cranked up the new Arcade Fire as loud as I could stand it (which means the chicken lady most certainly could hear it) while working on a new sock.

It's probably this attitude that led me to making a mistake in the sock that required me to unravel the entire three hours of knitting I did on the train. It's also probably responsible for the constant buzzing in my right ear.

Was Clara Jane glad to see me? Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. So glad, I can't even begin to describe it, other than the say that the talking didn't stop for next next 14 hours. She didn't want to go to sleep, and she let me cover her entire face with lipstick prints. The feeling was mutual

Tuesday morning, my dad took us to the fancy train station in my hometown:

Clara Jane & My Dad

And we set out across this great state. Again:

Watching Missouri fly by.

Clara Jane fought sleep the night before and woke up with huge dark circles under her eyes. I hadn't brought earplugs with me because the two reasons I wear earplugs at night - my snoring husband and my snoring basset hound - weren't with me. I hadn't planned on sleeping with the windows open. My parents live near the train tracks. Do you know how many trains pass through their town in the wee hours? Four. At least, that's how many I heard. Either that, or they were nightmare trains, warning of the day to come. When we boarded the train at 9:30 AM, we were both ready for a nap, but none were to be taken.

I was a bit concerned during the entire trip about the rather unkempt man in the seat catty-corner behind us who stared at me for roughly 2/3 of the trip. The other 1/3 was spent emitting a slurpy, wet hack while singing The TB Blues under his ragged breath.

Clara Jane was a bit obsessed with the large woman - and when I say "large woman" I always mean larger than me. This means any woman I describe as "large" is going to be in the "I can't believe I don't fit into Lane Bryant clothes anymore" to "Holy cow! The Discovery Health Channel just gave me my very own show!" category. Keep in mind I don't intend this in a derrogatory manner because there but for the grace of God waddles my fat ass.

Anyway, the large woman in the seat in front of us wore head-to-toe blue-backed leopard skin. Drapey blue blouse, covered in leopard spot with a matching skirt. Leopard-print purse. Leopard-print luggage. Leopard-print cell phone that played "Secret Lovers", just like that one cell phone commercial, at least eight times in the two hours we shared the train with her. Even her hair - jet-black mixed with streaks of orange - resembled a leopard.

The first time Clara Jane and I walked past this woman during one of our many trips to the snack car, Clara Jane looked at her and said, "Mom, this woman looks just like a leopard!"

Luckily, Leopard Lady took this as high praise. Leopard Lady was sweet to Clara Jane and let her feel the silky sleeve of her leopard-print shirt. She's good Train People, even if she did make me feel a little like we were on the Big Cat car of an old-fashioned circus train with Atlantic Starr.

Instead of going to the pretty Kirkwood station, we opted to go all the way to the downtown station, where B. would meet us with the truck. We'd drop him at work and take ourselves home. Or so we thought. That was before it took us an hour to get from Kirkwood to downtown St. Louis (Miles traveled in this time: 15. Obviously, we weren't on the bullet train. We weren't even on the musket train.) I was fighting sleep, and Clara Jane was fighting me. Hard. Why? Because I wouldn't let her accost the back of Leopard Lady's seat with her feet. "Leopard Lady's been so nice to you. You shouldn't kick her. Besides, leopards are predators and I'll bet you're tasty."

By the time we arrived at the downtown station, I handed my four bags over the chain-link fence to B. Then I handed him his daughter over the fence. Then I went back on the train and told them to take me to Chicago, pronto.

Well, I did everything but that last part. B. took the afternoon off work and I fell asleep roughly thirteen minutes after walking in the house, which included the time it took to empty 24 ounces of Amtrak coffee from my bladder. I've heard rumors that Clara Jane fell asleep shortly after me, and we were both out for three hours.

I had nightmares about tubercular leopards.

Posted by Robin at 08:51 AM | Comments (8)

March 07, 2007

The Day I Decide to Let Tom Waits Dictate My Parenting Style

We're nearly three weeks into age three, and it's still the most bizarre experience. I swear, most of the time when I look at my daughter these days I think, "Who are you and what did you do with Clara Jane? Did you eat her?"

I have such a headache I can't even begin to articulate ... nothing. It's not like anything huge or massive is going on. Well, other than overnight my baby turned into a teenager.

Did I mention that my head hurts?

I did have some practice in dealing with people who act in the manner in which my child has been acting. I didn't realize it at the time, though. For many years one of my best friends was severely, often untreated, bipolar disorder. Who knew that would prepare me for parenthood? It's a lot alike, what with one minute heaping me with praise and love, and the next minute punching me in the gut.

Here's a brief overview of today. Not that it's been much different from any typical day around here since The Three-Year-Old devoured my sweet child.

Morning: Hey! Let's go to storytime at the library! Great! Everyone adores this idea. But wait ... let's pee on the potty twice before we go. Awesome! Then let's run around naked for two hours!

Well, she ran around naked. I, for once, was fully clothed - in real, presentable, going-out-in-public clothes, no less - and ready to go to storytime. She hauls out 3/4 of her entire toy collection and piles them on the table.

"Clara Jane, do you want to get dressed and go to storytime, or do you want to stay home and play with your toys?"

"I want to stay home with my toys."

Fine.

Thing is, I didn't want to stay home. I wanted to have a little smidge of time in public, where grown-ups might be. Preferrably grown-ups who can look at their children, shake their heads and say, "Holy shit, I'm tired. I love my kids but ... holy shit, I'm tired."

Afternoon: I talked her into going to the coffeehouse. There's something wrong with that; I'm the parent in this situation. I shouldn't have to talk anyone into anything. What I say, goes, right?

Of course not!

Now, I must cover another issue that has me so confused because I can't keep up with the constantly-changing rules. I never know the rules regarding singing. Sometimes, like at naptime, I am required to sing. Other times, like when we're driving to the coffeehouse and "Ol' 55" by Tom Waits comes on, and I do as I'm required by natural law and wail it at the top of my lungs, I'm told in no uncertain terms to shut the hell up!

Not that my child said, "Shut the hell up, Ma!", but I could tell by her tone when she requested repeatedly that I cease and dissist that she was thinking it.

Granted, I've set a bad example, I'm sure. When she sings all the lullabyes in her lullabye book, I'm all kinds of happy. You try listening to that little voice singing "Brahms' Lullabye" from the backseat and restrain yourself from wild, weepy praise.

On the other hand, singing "The phone ... the phone is ringing! The phone ... we'll be right there!" from The Wonder motherfucking Pets for 13 straight hours a day? No so much wild, weepy praise. Wild, wailing cries for mercy, yes. I can see why the child is confused regarding the singing rules.

Anyway, the coffeehouse. Two blocks from the coffeehouse, she says, "I don't want to go to the coffeehouse. I want to go to storytime." I explain that no, she made her choice when she opted for Naked Toy Crazymaking Time at home.

Apparently it's a bit soon for lessons this complex, judging from the whining, shrieking hysteria that ensued...

...which promptly ended the second we walked into the coffeehouse and ordered a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Which brings me to yet another point. Are you confused yet? Well, you should try it from my perspective because my God, this is how I live every day of my life these days! The food issues. This kid used to be the best eater. At 18 months, the entire kitchen staff at a local Vietnamese buffet came to the dining room to get a gander of the bald-headed American pho-eating baby.

Her current diet:

Where was I? The coffeehouse, also known as Clara Jane's Pooping Place. She's doing really well with going to the potty when she has to pee. At least, she is this week. Next week is anyone's guess. As for pooping, she will only poop in two locations: at home, and at the coffeehouse. At least she's predictable.

Did I mention that I couldn't get her to leave the coffeehouse today? You know, the coffeehouse she adamently didn't want to visit? Yeah. We had the same battle regarding leaving as the one involving our arrival. Once again, I'm wondering who's the parent. Certainly it's not me because if I was the parent, there would be rules and they would be followed. Someone's dropped the ball big-time with this kid.

What's that? Oh, right. It's my c-section scar, burning like sweet death. It does that when I try to pretend that I am in no way involved with the pooping, whining, shreiking child who just gave your child the stink eye.

Was there a nap this afternoon? What the hell do you think?

Did she consume any dinner? It was chicken pot pie. Do you see that on her list of consumables? Of course not. If it was peanut butter nut yogurt French fry pie, the story would be different.

After the dinner battle, B. went to the bathroom to run bathwater. We were anxious to see if Clara Jane would melt when she came into contact with it. She slipped off to her room while I sat at my desk, resting my head against the screen of my monitor because frankly, it was the closest place to rest my head.

That's when the oh-my-God-I'm-injured-and-dying screams started from her room.

We met halfway in the living room, Clara Jane wailing and clutching at her eyes. Eyes ... how could she have injured her eyes?

Oh my God I left my blood sugar testing supplies in her toybox and she's gouged lancetes into both her eyes!!!

Wait ... I've never taken my blood sugar testing supplies to her room. At sometime during my freakout, she informed me that she'd bumped her mouth and that I'm a complete dumbass.

This tiny bump at the center of her upper lip, which produced about as much blood as I use in those blood sugar tests, required the entire family - dogs and cat included - to gather in the master bedroom while Clara Jane wailed, moaned, groaned, writhed, sobbed, gagged, choked, and screamed at me for attempting to comfort her.

"I'm ... so ... sad! Nothing ... makes ... me ... happy!" she would scream as she flung herself onto the mattress. Again and again.

After half an hour of this, I just stopped trying. I rolled onto my stomach, buried my face in my pillow, and just laid there. It was 7:30 PM, and I had reached my limit.

Minutes later, B. began listing all the things that make Clara Jane happy. Turns out, the mere mention of praying mantises is all it takes to bring her back from the brink.

She opted not to take a bath. Again, not sure who's making and enforcing the rules, but it sounded like a good idea to go with what she dictated.

A snack was made - peanut butter and jelly on whole-wheat bread, cut with a flower-shaped cookie cutter per her request - and my presence on the couch was required for a pre-bedtime viewing of Jack's Big Music Show. Not good for my headache, which had reached the point where I was trying to recall the symptoms of brain aneurysms, but the snuggle time was good for my battered spirit.

As soon as the show ended she looked at me with her peanut butter-smeared face and said, "I'm ready for my bath now."

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

B. put her to bed. He's also been the one to go to her during the three times she's screamed for him in the past hour. I'm pretty sure there will be at least one more wake-up, sometime around 2:18 AM when my brain finally snaps and I find myself under her changing table, reenacting one of my other favorite Tom Waits songs.

Posted by Robin at 08:08 PM | Comments (12)

December 19, 2006

Good Mother Points

Here's something I bet you didn't know about me: I get horrifically, violently motion sick. I may not throw up every single time, but I can promise you that unless I'm in the driver's seat, I'm not feeling so hot.

When I was younger, the motion sickness was limited to vehicle rides. I could do just about any ride at any amusement park without incident, as long as it was fast. But as I've aged, it's gotten worse. Seriously. I can't even spin in my desk chair without getting a little taste of my last meal.

Not that this surprises me. The motion sickness is hereditary, and my dad's even worse than me. My mom didn't learn of this affliction until she was eight months pregnant with me, wedged into a Volkswagen Beetle with her parents and my dad, driving down a hilly, curvy Ozark road when he bellowed, "Let me out!" and proceeded to puke up the equivilent of a Volkswagen Beetle on the side of the road.

There's a restaurant off the backroads in the Ozark foothills that we sometimes frequent when we visit my parents. Do you know how we know we're getting close to it? My dad has to pull over and vomit on the side of the road within a mile of arriving. When Dad pukes, we know Mennonite fried chicken's just around the bend!

I guess I should be grateful that, although I inherited the motion sickness, I didn't inherit my father's ability to vomit so loudly that it registers on the Richter Scale. So loud is his vomiting that once, when I was a teenager, the noise woke me up from a dead sleep in the middle of the night from the opposite side of the house. It's such an all-encompassing, rumbling, cross between a downshifting 18-wheeler and a hippopotamus either in the throes of death or passion (or maybe both) noise that once, my mom and I huddled in my room and laughed at my dad's puke noises, just because they're so completely absurd.

But this isn't about me being a bad daughter. It's about me being a good mother.

Nothing makes me sicker faster than merry-go-rounds. Having missed the motion sick gene, Clara Jane loves them more than chocolate-covered candy canes dipped in crushed potato chips. So, merry-go-round rides are B.'s domain. I can't even watch them ride without getting sick.

Today, because I am an idiot, I took Clara Jane to the mall. Not to shop, mind you. I wanted to take her to that park, but it's a bit too cold, so I opted to take her to an indoor play area at the same mall where her father takes her to ride the pukey-go-round. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that the wing we entered ended right at ... that's right ... the merry-go-round.

And she was so excited and happy. So thrilled, and she'd been so good. I couldn't say no.

Did I mentioned that as we entered the mall, I chugged about 1/4 of my large eggnog latte?

B. always lets her have three rides, so I slid my $5 bill - a brand new one, so I couldn't even use the incorrect change excuse, not that she'd understand it - into the token machine, took a moment to recall what my therapist advised for motion sick situations, checked my gag reflexed and got on.

Clara Jane picked her horse, and I braced one arm around her, resting my other arm with my purse dangling from my elbow on a neighboring 10-point buck. I centered my feet, fixed my eyes on the top of Clara Jane's head after I spotted all the nearby trash cans, and took slow, deep, slow breaths as the horrible ride began.

I expected the turning, of course. What I didn't expect was the left half of my body moving up with Clara Jane, while the right half of my body jerked down, my purse hung on the buck's footrest.

And there I stood for three full rides. Round and round. One side up. Other side down. Eggnog latte at the top of my throat, ready for takeoff.

I can't even say more about it. Just recalling the wretched experience makes my stomach turn.

One of these days, when Clara Jane hates me, thinks I'm embarrassing, and takes great delight in laughing at the noises I make when I vomit, I'm going to remind her of this day.

Posted by Robin at 10:55 PM | Comments (6)

December 11, 2006

Goody Bag From Hell

I'm feeling much better today, even though by all means, I shouldn't.

I barely slept last night. When my brain misfires, it likes to stay up all night, sometimes in spite of the artificial chemicals I pump into my body to convince it otherwise. The good part of all this: I was showered, dressed, and out the door around 8:15 AM, which is unheard of for me. I grabbed a nutritionally sensible bagel and a huge cup of coffee for breakfast and started knocking errands off my massive list. Then I spent the afternoon working on Christmas gifts. So engrossed in my work that I forgot to eat lunch, get anything to drink, or pee.

Through all of it, I was still anxious and edgy. I didn't want to be home by myself, so I stayed busy until time for B. to come home. The edginess continued for the first hour we were home, but then 6:00 hit and ... normal. Just like that. For an hour and 45 minutes, I've felt fine. I've tried to conjure up the panic by trying to recreate the thoughts that set off the attacks, but it's not happening.

I did a little math today. Remember a few months back, when my doc diagnosed me with premenstrual dysphoric disorder? Made perfect sense, and I'm surprised it took us so damn long to realize - duh - my anxiety and depression tend to appear shortly before my period. So she put me on one of the birth control pills that stop periods. Lo and behold, this current spell, along with last month's spell occured during the week I would be having my period, were it not for the magic period-stopping pills.

Pass me a fork. I'm going to remove my uterus myself.

Anyway, that's not what I want to write about today. I just felt the need to give you good folks an update after all your empathizing and such, which I appreciated.

I was thinking about this before I read any blogs today, so I had a chuckle when Tracey at Maternally Challenged wrote about the mommy wars. Specifically, the unspoken competition to be The Best Mom in the Class, a title that's won, it seems, via cupcakes. The Washington Post even had something to say about this very topic today.

My woes aren't about cupcakes. Cupcakes, I can handle.

Clara Jane's daycare holiday party is Thursday, and because I'm an idiot loaded up on mind-altering drugs, I signed up to bring "non-food treats". Why did I sign up for non-food treats? I have no fucking clue, considering that the "food treats" column was right there!!! next to the "non-food treats" column. For God's sake, I was a food writer! A culinary teacher! A caterer! I know food treats. I guess I felt the need for a challenge. I don't have nearly enough things in my life to make me feel inadequate, after all.

I hate to say this, but I was appalled at the non-food treats in Clara Jane's gift bag last Christmas. Cheap, dollar-store crap, none of it age-appropriate. Let's have a choking hazard Christmas! Now, I don't want to be that mom, the one who complains about the damn goody bags. But seriously. These goodies were a notch above a bag of glass. I swore, when I signed that sheet, promising to bring non-food treats, that I would take it a step up, go beyond the cracked plastic ornament from Dollar Tree.

This quest was top of the list this early morning. I had in mind what I wanted: quaint little gifts bags loaded with stickers, holiday pencils, perhaps little books, something crafty, and maybe a tasteful ornament for eight children, preferrably under $15.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to find holiday stickers, pencils, little books, crafty crap, and ornaments? We're talking grail proportions, People.

I wandered around the large, boxy mega-store, wishing I was having dead toenails removed instead of wandering around a large, boxy mega-store two weeks before Christmas, and I found diddly shit for the little munchkins. Add the anxiety and sleep-deprivation to the mix, and I found myself constantly asking myself, "Would I kill a parent who gave Clara Jane a _____________ in a goody bag?" Because I knew that if I didn't ask myself, the kiddos were likely to wind up with goody bags filled with thus:

Three stores later, here's what we have:

Good, no? Until I called B. and he informed me that there are 12 kids in her class, not 8.

I might as well give the children shattered glass bulb ornaments. Well, I might as well give shattered glass bulb ornaments to eight kids in her class at let the other four feel like little forgotten - albeit unbloodied - losers.

The whole time I was on my two-hour, three-store nutfest, I kept asking myself, why? What's the point of this? There's no rule that I have to sign every single sign-up sheet presented to me. There are plenty of other moms in the class and the kids always have way more than enough. Last year, I signed up for fruit. Bought a small crate of Clementines and called it good. The kids were happy. I was happy. Everyone was happy.

There's a set of twins in Clara Jane's class. They were born to much older parents; it took me about a year to realize that the man I thought was their grandfather is actually their father. I overhear their mother all the time, talking about the umpteen activities the family's in. And yet, for the Halloween party, she presented overflowing, Martha Stewarty gift bags that didn't contain metal hooks or live fish. Totally over-the-top, and I hate to admit the momentary pang of inadequacy I felt for taking nothing more than the big bag of candy I'd signed up to bring.

Is that why I partook in the two-hour, three-store nutfest? To make myself feel better because the twins' mother raised some imaginary bar and I fell short? To make myself feel better for judging the twins' mother for the pains she took to assemble those astounding goody bags?

They're goody bags for two-year-olds, for crap's sake!

My goody bag days are done. From now on it's a box of Clementines, maybe some cherry muffins on her birthday like last year, if she wants them. I'd rather use my energy to do something directly with my daughter from now on.

Posted by Robin at 07:38 PM | Comments (8)

December 03, 2006

What Every Mother Wants to Hear

Upon awakening Saturday morning Clara Jane said, "I had a dream last night. I dreamt I was playing guitar."

Just as long as it wasn't for some crappy emo band, more power to you, Kiddo.

Posted by Robin at 05:15 PM | Comments (7)

November 30, 2006

Day Thirty - Last Day! Real Content!

Ice has been falling from the sky since 8:30 this morning, minus taking off the noon hour for lunch. This is what my front porch step looks like:

Ice. On the step. Tread with caution.
So sparkly. So terrifying.

Awhile back, my Yooper mother-in-law made wise about us "southerners" closing schools when we have an inch of snow, while they function just fine with 3,847 feet of white stuff on the ground. To which my mother replied, "Ever try to drive on a two-inch sheet of ice?" or something to that effect.

We're not having a snow day today; we're having an ice day. I'd decided to keep Clara Jane home from daycare about ten minutes before her teacher called to tell me they were going to close due to weather.

Oh, how I love snow/ice day! I throw the rules out the window on snow/ice day. We can watch too much TV, eat junk food, play a little loose and free with naptime. What does it matter? We're not going anywhere!

The day started with Clara Jane asking to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas during breakfast. We piled onto the couch, she with her apple, cheddar cheese, and sippy of milk; I with my steel-cut oatmeal and coffee, for that is the snow/ice day way.

About a year ago, on a similar snow day, I made a post about making cookies and watching "A Charlie Brown Christmas" with Clara Jane. Today was no different, but completely different. I had a job for us.

I've been in a bit of a quandry about our Christmas tree this year. Clara Jane loves Christmas trees with a depth that borders on idolotry. I'm cool with that. The problem is, our tree (which we haven't set up yet; I refuse to buy a tree prior to December) is always decorated in tastefully matched silver and purple glass bulbs that we got for a wedding gift. Very breakable glass bulbs. On one hand, I don't want to deny my little tree-hugger. On the other, I don't want to spend the next month with shards of glass wedged in my feet.

Solution: let's make salt dough ornaments! Better yet, let's paint the salt dough ornaments purple and silver so I'm not completely sacrificing my pretty, pretty ornaments! And even more better, making salt dough ornaments will give us something to do when we hit Hour Three of snow/ice day and I start freaking out because we're snow/icebound.

Oh, what a difference a year makes.

December, 7, 2005:
Cookie cutter bracelets
Clara Jane wears her cookie cutters as creative fashion accessories, and covers two rooms of my house with green decorator's sugar.

November 30, 2006:
Making sugar dough ornaments
Clara Jane personally cuts three baking sheet's worth of salt dough ornaments all by herself, even lifting them off the table with a spatula and placing the on the baking sheets without dropping or breaking. Unlike her professionally-trained cook mother, whose salt dough cut-outs look like the snowmen who live near the toxic waste dump.

Last year: Clara Jane kept talking to the children on the TV as if they were really there.

This year: While making ornaments and listening to the show's soundtrack, Clara Jane recites bits of dialogue she remembers from her breakfast viewing of the show, reenacting the entire Schoder and Lucy piano scene.

Last year: I'm sure there was probably a temper tantrum when all the green sugar disappeared from her grip.

This year: Clara Jane has the emotional maturity to say, "This song makes me feel happy," when "Christmastime is Here" comes on.

Last year: Clara Jane squwaked a bit about being stuck at home.

This year: "Mommy, can we make a snowman?" No, honey. I'm afraid the only thing we can make out of this stuff is a Vanilla Iceman.

Last year: Clara Jane shoved half a tube of pre-made cookie dough down her gullet.

This year: "Mommy, we don't eat Play-Doh." That's what she said when I stupidly kissed the wad of salt dough she held in her hand.

And she's right. Don't eat the dough. It'll dry out your innards. Some things are learned the hard way.

Posted by Robin at 03:37 PM | Comments (11)

November 15, 2006

Day Fifteen - Schlemiel-Schlamazel

It's a crap day around here. From the hours of 3 AM until 7:15ish AM, my eyes remained open. The wee bit of sleep I eeked out afterwards barely counts for anything. I've got a massive knot in the middle of my back from three nights of trying to sleep on the couch, since conditions in my bed have been less than optimal for sleeping of late. To top it off, once again it rained all day. Normally I love chilly, rainy fall days, but we've had several in a row. Quite frankly, it's making my dogs stir-crazy, which in turn is making me a little nuts. Trust me, there are few things as pitisome as a Basset hound with cabin fever. But we've got one. At one point, she was so bored that she crammed her head under the couch cushions to do a little crumb-surfing. She and Murphy both sat at rapt attention, listening intently while I read Biscuit books to Clara Jane. When dogs take an interest in literature, you know they're mere inches away from the dreaded Death by Boredom.

I totally phoned it in today. Clara Jane and I stayed in our jammies. We ordered pizza for lunch and ate in on the couch while watching "Sesame Street". Since her sleep patterns are a bit wonky right now, too, there was no napping. We read and played, watched way too much TV, and snuggled. No new things were learned. No new experiences were had. We ate bad food and watched bad TV, but we'll get to that in a bit.

I don't know if this happens to everyone, but if I see parts of day which I normally sleep through, it really screws with my perception of time through the rest of the day. Luckily, most of the time, it makes the day fly by. That's what happened today. If feels like it should be about 3:00 and it's nearly 6:00, which means sweet, sweet sleep in the spare bedroom is just around the corner.

We watched a lot of "Laverne & Shirley" today. I know I've mentioned my lifelong adoration of Laverne & Shirley. It was my favorite show when I was a kid, and in the past few months I've rediscovered it via digital cable upper-tier reruns. You know, on the cable channels no one ever watches. As far as I can tell, this particular channel, a spin-off of Lifetime, shows nothing but reruns of decade-old made-for-Lifetime shows and Laverne & Shirley. Every afternoon from 2-4 (which is Clara Jane's naptime), it's time to go to Milwaukee and hang out with those girls.

I'm always amazed that when I'm having a bad day, this channel has a knack for showing episodes I absolutely adored back in the day that still crack me up. Maybe that's because I adored just about every episode. Today was no exception. There was a talent show episode, and let me tell you, if I was allowed only one sub-sub-sub-sub-sub genre of TV for the rest of my life, I would chose the Laverne & Shirley talent show episode sub-sub-sub-sub-sub genre, as that's just about the best TV ever made. There was also the hilarious episode where Laverne breaks a tooth and Shirley's dental student cousin offers to fix it for free. There's a scene where the girls are in the exam room, stoned on laughing gas, that I find just as funny now as I did when I was ten. "Reach for the sky!" "You wouldn't dare!"

Which means I really haven't matured much over the past 24 years.

As an adult, one who happened to be bored and exhausted while entertaining these thoughts, I've noticed that a lot of decisions in my adult life led to Laverne & Shirleyesque situations and scenarios. To whit:

In this time-wonky "Laverne & Shirley"-filled afternoon, I caught myself thinking back to being ten years old, and how that seems to be the year that formed my personality. The things I liked when I was ten are pretty much the things I love now: "Laverne & Shirley" reruns in the afternoon, books (I read the better part of an encyclopedia set that year), writing (thanks to an encouraging third-grade teacher), music (I got my first radio that year), cooking (I learned about clipping and organizing recipes that summer. It was a decade before I set foot in a kitchen, but it was ingrained.). It was all there when I was 10.

I was obsessed with baseball when I was ten, something that's fallen by the wayside. And yet, when our power and cable were knocked out the night of the final game of the World Series, you know what I did as soon as the lights were back on? I sprinted to the nearest radio to see if the Cardinals were winning. And when they did, you better believe I cried like a little kid. The baseball thing might not be front and center anymore, but damn if it's not still lurking.

Immature sense of humor aside, maybe this is the sign of adulthood: getting past the trial and error of youth and realizing that what you liked when you were a kid, before your brain was bombarded with choices and options, is the core of who you really are.

If that's the case, pass the milk & Pepsi and smack an oversized L on my left boob.

Posted by Robin at 05:49 PM | Comments (3)

September 13, 2006

How to Act Right in Public

In the past week I've seen lots of things that have put issues of the public behavior of children on my mind. I guess that's expected, as I have a child who's often in public.

I guess it started about a week ago. Someone on a message board I frequent asked if parents are too lenient these days with their kids. Of course, the resounding response was, "Hell yeah, they are!" Examples of kids running wild on airplanes, doing backflips in restaurants*, starting knife fights in church** were given.

(*This is a slight exaggeration.)
(**This is an outright fabrication on my part.)

Now, being mom to a two and a half-year-old, I took a bit of exception. Sure, there are a lot of parents who let their kids run wild. My biggest peeve is when I take Clara Jane to kid-geared places, like the Museum of Transporation and we encounter playgroups where the moms are standing around, gabbing, while their children have combined their powers of evil to steal a one-hundred-year-old locomotive.

These moms always have sweaters tied around their waists, even when it's 90 degrees outside. I think they're tied so tight that it prevents the blood from their asses from reaching their brains. But those examples aside, I think there are a lot of times when a parent might be trying and struggling with a difficult child, only to face the tsk-tsks of others. Far too many people seem to think that a loud, crying, screaming, excited, running child equals a lazy, lenient parent. Not true. I think more often than not, it's a parent who's at her wit's end, exhausted, frustrated, and at a loss because God forbid she discipline in public, because then she's a child abuser.

Parents just can't get a break sometimes.

That being said, a few days after that post, I caught myself being that mom. You know, the one who disciplines other peoples' kids in public.

We were making our usual Saturday outing to the Tower Grove Farmer's Market. I'd finished my shopping, and we were in the playground, having fun. Now, this is one of those cool parks that not only has two seperate play structures - one for kids under five, the other for bigger kids - but even has them in seperate playgrounds. The big hooligans should never come into contact with the sweet babes.

As it was getting late in the morning, my little family had the entire toddler area to ourselves. That is, until a pack of wild dingos a group of young people came trampling in. There were six of them. Or 23. It was hard to tell with all the pre-adolescent arms and legs flailing akimbo and the screaming and yelling and oh my God, don't these kids have parents, for God's sake? All 47 of them climbed onto the one-person merry-go-round and began spinning round and round and round and screaming and sweet Jesus can you imagine how much puke this is going to create we need to leave NOW.

Oh, I wanted to tell them to pipe down and go play in the big kid's playground. Even though they weren't bothering us. Even though they were just being kids. Even though they didn't seem to have any parents around, and one girl who couldn't have been more than 13 years old appeared to be in charge of the whole group. So, I bit my tongue.

That is, until the punches started flying. Once these 253 unsupervised brats started physically fighting, I put on my Mom Shoes (they're made by Easy Spirit***) and kicked some ass by annoucning, "Hey! You kids! Stop fighting right now!" even though I feel like I'm a nerdy 11-year-old narking on the big kids when I say shit like that.

(***Good lord, no, I don't own those shoes. I'm not that far-gone. Not yet.)

But apparently, I don't look or sound like a dorky 11-year-old, because those kids stopped dead, shut up, and stopped fighting.

I have the parental power supreme.

And then there's today. If you read regularly, you've probably figured out that Clara Jane and I don't spend a lot of time at home. We like to get out and go. I've had a lot of people inform me that we go more than is typical. We just don't like to be cooped up. When we're cooped up, it's far too easy to sit around in our jammies, doing nothing but watching TV all day. I don't want Clara Jane to grow up like that. So, the two of us go to the library. We go to museums. We take classes. We hang out at coffeehouses. We go out for lunch several times a week, just the two of us. Yes, it's fun. And yes, it's hard. Crazy hard.

I used to be friends with someone for many, many years. From second grade until about three years ago, we were friends. She suffered from severe, often mistreated or undertreated bipolar disorder. It was a horrible experience in a lot of ways. But let me tell you, being in public with someone in the midst of a manic breakdown is good preparation for being in public with an outspoken two and a half-year-old. And bonus - it's much easier to wrestle a two and a half-year-old to the ground.

My frustration currently is that every fun thing with daughter is marred by The Mania.

On Sunday we finally took her on her first proper outing to Ted Drewes Frozen Custard. She'd been twice before, but was too tiny to actually eat anything. I'd looked forward to this day for so long.

Clara Jane's first real trip to Ted Drewes Frozen Custard

Doesn't that look awesome? A child, her first proper trip to a landmark, a cup full of frozen custard deliciousness, held on her father's lap. Does life get much better?

No, because in about thirty seconds, that child is going to dart into the heavily-trafficked parking lot, throwing herself to the pavement, completely deaf to the screams of her parents.

Yesterday, I had grand plans of us making apple cupcakes. What really happened? She threw a fit because I had the audacity to use my Kitchenaid mixer. First she climbed my body like a lemur, howling and screaming at the unfairness of it all, then she asked to go play with her toys as if nothing had happened. Not that it matters, since I underbaked the cupcakes. I ate one this afternoon anyway, and it had a mysterious crunchy substance on its top.

And today. I took her to the zoo. We're fortunate in that we live in a city that has one of the best zoos in the country, and it's free. There's not the huge pressure to go once a year and see everything because dammit, we're gonna get our money's worth. If we want to go for an hour or two and see one area, we can. And we do. But we haven't in a long time, not since the days when she was pretty content to stat put in her stroller.

Today's stroller-free freedom allowed her to interact with fake sea lions:

and a real hippo:
Hello, hippo!

It allowed her to wander around and find the bookie to place our bets when the rhino rumble broke out:
Rhino Rumble

For the record, if you happen across a rhino and she's giving you the stink eye like this:
Pissed-off rhino
do yourself a favor and get the hell away from her. Of course, that advice is probably good anytime you happen across a rhino. stink eye or no.

Being stroller-free also provide Clara Jane to walk up to an eldery zoo volunteer and explain that the elephant has "a great big trunk, two big white tusks, and makes a big poop."

It also allowed her the opportunity to go running through the makeshift cave, screaming her head off, where she was able to throw herself onto the concrete ground and throw a first-rate tantrum, all in the presence of tsk-tsking people who were apparently smart enough to leave their toddlers at home. I couldn't tell if they were tsk-tsking because I was a lazy, lenient parent whose child was running around like she needed some lithium, or because I was a child-abusing disciplinarian.

The whole experience, even though it had precious moments like Clara Jane telling me the mother elephant is beautiful, made me break out in what I can only assume is a bad case of rhino pox:
I got the monkey pox.

Posted by Robin at 03:15 PM | Comments (12)

June 13, 2006

Questioning My Sanity

Today's better. At least, a little. I haven't cried today, nor have I screamed. Much.

Unfortunately, after I posted yesterday, things went from bad to worse to oh my lord I'm going to burn this house down and skip the country-levels of intense.

For one thing, do you know what's worse than having to fling a maggotty dead bird over the fence after your kid's stood in it? Why, having one of your super-stupid idiot dogs, the one who is, honestly, too stupid to be alive, puke giant greasy black puddles of maggotty dead bird all over ones house.

Apparently, there was a second bird in my yard, of which I was unaware. But while I was making dinner, Murphy made certain I was aware of said bird, and highly aware of what the bird and its parasitic pals was doing to her digestive tract.

Then Clara Jane fell in the bathtub, bumped her head and liked to have drowned. And Chloe's eating a hole through her thigh. And the phones were ringing, and dinner was getting cold, and once Clara Jane recovered from her fall she went right into what she currently does best - screaming at the top of her lungs regarding the horrible injustices she suffers at the hands of her captors.

There was an intense battle yesterday over custody of my cell phone. She refused to let go of it, opting instead to scream as loud and long as any human being ever has. I think she was trying to call Amnesty International.

And I'm almost back to where I was a year and a half ago, before all the therapy that made it possible for me to go days without feeling like I was having a heart attack. All day yesterday, I grappled with those old feelings of panic and anxiety. In the past, when the anxiety would strike, I would focus my attention on my aging cat, terrified that she was on the verge of death, instead of dealing with the actual source of my stress. Yesterday, I caught myself doing the same thing to Chloe, my Bassett hound.

Oddly enough, I wasn't one bit at all worried about Murphy, even though it looked like she had exploded in my living room last night.

All day, I felt myself slipping. Not figuratively, either. It was literal, like I was standing at the top of a hill and watching my mind roll further and further away from me, just out of my reach when I tried to catch it.

I tried to remember what it was I learned in therapy, how to reign it in, but I've forgotten everything. I'm sure I was given a guide book on how to navigate my way out of these situations, but I can't seem to find it in the clutter of my brain.

PKB called this morning. Being a mom of two boys, ages 16 and 7, she's my parenting guru. I don't think I'd even said hello when she launched into the "It's so hard. And it's constant. And if you don't get a break from it you'll lose your mind" speech. And she's write.

She's also pulling into my driveway right now to take me shopping.

All along I've had a hard time reconciling something about motherhood: physically, it's not much work. It's a lot of play, with the person I love best. How can it be exhausting? Or hard? That's insane. This isn't work. Sitting behind a desk for 10 hours a day with an asshole boss breathing down my neck, that's work.

So why is it I'm doing something that doesn't feel like work, and yet, I can't handle it? I can't keep from losing my shit on a regular basis?

Because PKB's right. It's constant. Even when Clara Jane's napping, that doesn't mean I'm off duty. There's a slim chance I'm doing something in the housewife realm while she naps. There's a much bigger chance that I'm tentatively, yet frantically, trying to eek out a little time for myself, all while keeping my ear cocked towards her room because I'm on her schedule, not mine.

Even if Clara Jane's in a good mood, it's constant. There's always a demand, a request, a change of rules or plans.

And fuck if that won't send one's brain lolling down the hill, just out of reach.

Posted by Robin at 01:44 PM | Comments (12)

June 06, 2006

The Beatings Will Now Begin

I should know by now to not crow about having a good day before noon, as it's a sure-fire way to make the day go down the toilet.

Upon returning home from grocery shopping, Clara Jane opted to explore the gas tank on my truck instead of heading for the house. I was loaded, pack mule-style, with two weeks-worth of groceries as I told her, "Clara Jane? Stop it. That's yucky. Clara Jane? That's dangerous. Clara Jane? If you don't stop by the time I count to three...", trying every ploy that didn't require me to put down all those groceries, physically prying the gas cap from her hand before carrying her sure-to-be-tantruming ass into the house. Each parental direction was greeted with a hearty, "No!" as she continued turning herself into a human fire hazard.

When I tried to pull her away while holding the groceries, she dug in and went limp. The groceries teetered, and next thing I knew one of the bags broke. As I instinctively lunged for the one bag, the rest of them smashed to the ground. I caught the nail of my right-hand middle finger on ... I have no idea what I caught it on. A falling bag, probably. All I know is my groceries hit the driveway as my nail was ripped from my finger, tearing all the way across a mere 1/8 of an inch from the cuticle. I screamed, blood spurting from my finger as my strawberries rolled in every which direction, my peaches bleeding to death under the weight of a half-gallon jug of juice, and my kid still playing with the goddamn gas cap, not even acknowledging the chaos around her.

Moments like this, my kid has no idea how lucky she is that I'm not a spanker.

Eventually, I got my hard-headed child inside, fed, and down for a nap. I gathered the crushed remains of my groceries from every corner of the driveway, wanting to cry as I threw away the destroyed peaches, as I was really looking forward to that first peach of summer. I bandaged my finger and marvelled at how much use the middle finger on the dominate hand gets. And not just for communicating, either. I'm learning that an injured middle finger makes things like writing, typing, knitting, diaper-changing and bathing surprisingly difficult.

I collapsed on the couch and did something I rarely do during Clara Jane's naptime: I laid down and watched TV. Scrolling through our 3,849 channels, I landed on an old favorite I haven't seen in about a million years: Bill Cosby: Himself. It was just starting, so I hit the record button for future viewings. When I was 11 years old, I recorded the same movie on HBO and watched it until the tape disintegrated.

I consider those 11-year-old viewings of this movie as the true beginning of the development of my sense of humor. In fact, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that, between Himself and Saturday Night Live, the idea was planted in my head that perhaps I could write funny stuff and be funny when I grew up. Being funny became an objective and a goal in my life that has never gone away.

Back then, I loved the movie because the humor was so absurd. Like this bit about getting drunk:

Now you've got to go. So you come into the bathroom, close the door; now, don't forget: you owe this to yourself. You've worked hard all week. It's come to this: [Kneels beside the chair and pretends to lift the lid on the john, then starts moaning]"Ahh, Jesus... Oh, God... If You get me out of this, I'll never drink again as long as I live..." [groans again] Now you are ready to put your face in a place that was never built for your face.

It's funny because it's silly! No way would anyone do that!

Actually, it turns out, people really do do that! It wasn't funny because it was absurd, as I thought when I was 11. It was funny because it was true!

Of course, the bulk of Himself is the material about his family, which morphed into the basis of the not-nearly-as-funny Cosby Show a few years later. In the movie Cosby paints a picture of a family overrun with wild kids. Dad's just trying to lay low and not deal with the chaos around him, while Mom's always about two inches away from a violent mental breakdown. Of course that was absurd! I mean, I had seen my mom get mad, but I never saw her head split open with flames shooting out of her skull as Cosby describes his wife upon her discovery that he's fed the kids choclate cake for breakfast.

C'mon, you know you want to sing the chocolate cake song with me. I've been singing it for the past 24 hours. Dee dee boom dee dee boom ... Dad is great! Gives us the chocolate cake!

Absurd! Crazy! Absurd and crazy are funny!

I've always heard about people having a conniption but I've never seen one. You don't want to see 'em. My wife's face split. My wife's face split and the skin and hair split and came off of her face so that there was nothing except a skull. And orange lights came out of her hair and there was glitter all around. And fire shot from her eye sockets and began to burn my stomach and she said, "WHERE DID THEY GET CHOCOLATE CAKE FROM?"

Wait ... that's not absurd! That's the motherfucking goddamn truth! And I swear to God, when I was picking up bruised strawberries, covered with road grime in my driveway with my bloody finger-stump, I felt it. I felt the skin and hair seperating from my skull. I felt it, I'm telling you! I felt the flames. And two hours later, when I saw this scene in the movie, I laughed until I cried. Or maybe I cried first, and then laughed. Or maybe I had gone so stupid and crazy from parenthood that I did both at the same time. I don't know. I just know that I so clearly saw myself in something that, 22 years ago, I saw as being completely foreign and exaggerated.

By the time I got to the climactic scene, where the children are fooling around instead of going to bed, and his wife whips around with a yard stick, "like a samuri warrior and says, 'I have had! Enough of this!'" I was curled into the fetal position, trembling from the laughing and sobbing.

Not that I would ever take a yardstick to my kid, but damn. I get it now. I so get it. I get that until you're a parent, it's funny because it's so exaggerated. But once you become a parent, it's funny because it cuts right to the bone and touches a raw spot. You've got to laugh because it's the only sane option. In the driveway hours before, I would have loved nothing more than to turn into Samuri Mom, so intense was my anger, frustration, and exhaustion. But all I can do is laugh at the idiot who stood among the strawberries, screaming garbled nonsense because it wouldn't be right to stand in the driveway and scream obscenities with my kid, mesmerized by the gas cap, standing right there.

When you're a father you censor yourself. You get just as angry with a child but you don't want to say, "What the filth and foul and I'll filth and foul, filth and foul and, yeah, ya filth and foul face, and I'll filth and foul, foul, filth!" You don't want to say that to a child so you censor yourself and you sound like an idiot.

I'd like to know how my parents controlled the urge to chuck the remote control at my head the many times we watched that movie together when I was a kid.

Speaking of which, my parents will be arriving any minute now.

My parents never smiled... because I had brain damage. My wife and I don't smile because our children are LOADED with it. Oh, my parents smile now, whenever they come over to the house and see how much trouble I'm having. Oh, they have a ball! "Havin' a li'l trouble, huh, son?"

Oh, my mom laughed last night when I told her about our little driveway fiasco. And I can guarantee that when she talks to Clara Jane later today, she'll take the kid's side.

I tell my kids, "This is not the same person I grew up with. You are looking at an old woman who is trying to get into Heaven."

Posted by Robin at 01:10 PM | Comments (7)

April 20, 2006

Questinable Parenting

I was looking yesterday, and I noticed that I've had more days this month where I haven't blogged than days where I have. Not that I feel guilty about this. I don't. I love all of you, really I do, but you don't own me, dammit. You understand, I'm sure. Well, most of you probably do.

So, what's kept me away? This week, it's been the book-writin', which is finally getting back on track. I've stopped threatening to take the manuscript and light it afire, which counts as progress. I went to the coffeehouse to write for the first time in three weeks today. Wanna hear my excuses for the last two weeks? Two weeks ago, I got two hours of sleep on Wednesday night, so I opted to dump Clara Jane at daycare, then return home to sleep. The next week, Clara Jane woke up screaming in the middle of the night with nightmares on Wednesday night, so we both stayed home the next day.

Speaking of Clara Jane and screaming ... four weeks ago, she moved up to the next level in daycare. Ask me how it's going. Go on. I dare you. I motherfucking dare you to ask me. How the transition. Is going.

Not well. That's how it's going. Not well at all. Unless we're trying to teach Clara Jane how to cope with abject terror, or how to scream louder than all the other children, it's not progressing as we'd hoped. She's learned to cling to my leg like a 34-pound piece of Clingwrap. That's a good life-skill to have, I'm sure.

Today, we progressed like we have every time we've gone to her new classroom: we walked in ... scratch that. I walked in, with my perfectly able-bodied child, the one who sprints like a puma, in my arms, screaming like a babysitter in a bad horror movie while using my boobs as a step-ladder to propel herself over my shoulder so she can run! Run for sweet freedom!

Once I pryed my hysterical child from my body, my shirt saturated with snot and tears (mine and hers), I tracked down the woman who runs this freakshow and told her that it's not working and we've got to do something different. I don't care what. She offered to move Clara Jane back to her old classroom.

In the five minutes it took me to get from her classroom to the coffeehouse, I got a call from the daycare director, informing me that my child's fine and will be staying in her new room, where she had a delightful day of crafts, songs, naps, and telling everyone that she loves to eat "Doggy Yum-Yums".

So, her new teachers have seen two things: 1) my child screams like she's being killed by jellyfish when she's in my presence, and 2) she might possibly eat dog food. If that doesn't merit a call to family services, well, I have no faith in the system.

Some other things that make me question my parenting skills:

1. Tonight I fed my child a casserole made with ham of questionable freshness for dinner.

2. During a 45-minute car ride yesterday, I indulged her repeated requests for The Beatles' "Come Together". No, she's still not over that song, thank you very much. I know there are much worse songs she could be stuck on. Like, anything by Elmo. Problem is, she's starting to sing along. My current concerns regarding my image at her Methodist daycare are nothing compared to what they'll be the first time she screams, "Hold you in his armchair you can feel his disease" during circle time.

3. In similar news, I allowed her to watch a portion of I Am Trying to Break Your Heart with me this afternoon. Yes, it was 70 degrees and sunny, and we were sitting inside, watching a movie. I can make that another point on this list, if you'd like. And yes, I won't let my kid watch commercial television, but I'll let her watch a black and white documentary about rock n' roll hooligans. I don't know what part of the film she enjoyed most - the drums and guitars, or the smoking, cussing and record-label hijinks.

4. She's going to her 2-year check-up tomorrow. Yeah, she turned two in February. Shut up.

5. And finally, that thing about sitting inside, watching movies, on a gorgeous day as such.

Posted by Robin at 05:57 PM | Comments (9)

April 04, 2006

Why I'm Never Leaving the House Again

I made a decision today. From this point on, I'm never leaving my house again. Yes, I know, this is rather drastic, seeing as I've always been quite the gadabout. No more.

I'm feeling a little better, having gone to bed early last night. Still not nearly up to my usual manic standard, but I'm not sobbing because I'm exhausted, which is an improvement over my condition 24 hours ago. Even if I hadn't felt slightly improved, I intended to get Clara Jane out of the house, at least for a little bit. Best-case scenario: we would hit the new used-baby store in our neighborhood, followed by a quick run to the fabric store. At 10:30 we'd go to storytime at the library, then lunch at Moe's and lastly, a quick run to Trader Joe's.

Yeah, that's optimistic. We didn't get ready fast enough, so the fabric store was crossed off the list before we left the house. The used-baby store? Two things: 1) Large "open" signs that are visible from the street? They're cheap. Buy one. Potential customers don't like parking a block away, hauling a kid out of a car seat on a busy street, hauling kid to store, all for naught. In fact, they dislike it so much that they probably won't come back. 2) Your shop is only open from 11 AM - 3 PM? How do you make rent? I mean, I know the used-baby business is lucrative and all, but it's not that lucrative.

Have I mentioned what was happening with my bra during all of this hauling and such?

I'm in bad need of new bras. I'm down to one that's wearable, and I'm using that word in the loosest sense. This poor bra ... it's tired. It's tired and abused and so stretched beyond its limit that the strap in the back keeps trying to escape through the neckhole of my shirt. I think the reason I'm so damn tired all the time isn't because I've contracted the Black Death; it's because I spend roughly 6 hours a day in perpetual motion, trying to wrangle this renagade brassaire back onto my body. It's exhausting.

When you visualize the events in this post, don't forget that through everything, I'm constantly fiddling with my bra.

On to the library. Clara Jane's a veteran of storytime. Her last storytime experience? Two weeks ago, we piled into the county library headquarters with roughly 100 other toddlers to see a live appearance by Franklin.

Now, I implore you ... does this look like a kid who has any trouble with storytime?



That's Clara Jane on the right, shortly after she sprinted away from me shrieking, "Hey Frank-a-lin!", but before she insisted on exchanging high-fives with him. After chattering non-stop with her favorite turtle-suited person, she heaped herself on the floor with a pile of crayons - some blatantly pilfered from the gaggle of little boys next to us - to capture her Franklin experience on paper while it was fresh on her mind.

Clara Jane has no fear when it comes to costumed characters, to the degree that I'm a little concerned about her developing a fetish. But do you know what library fixture scares the fuck out of her? Crazy Old Library Lady, that's who.

Things started out just fine, as all library trips do. My kid adores the library. Or did. I'm not so sure she feels the same anymore, as her sanctuary of books has become a house of horrors. But I'm jumping ahead of myself.

Today's election day, and the library we visited today was a polling place for one of the 3,927 St. Louis-area municipalities that are electing mayors. At first I wasn't thrilled, because I was going to have to deal with pamphleting electioneers 26 feet away from the entrance, barraging me with propoganda. However, they were all quite nice and understanding when I explained that this wasn't our polling place and we had bigger fish to fry. Or read about frying.

The problem ceated by election day: the polling place was set up in the meeting room usually used for storytime. Not a problem. As Clara Jane shared an alphabet book with a little girl named Isabella, her mom told me that, when storytime's displaced, they have it in the teen area and it's great and fabulous and Miss Sandra hung the moon and stars. Wonderful.

Another little girl, accompanied by her grandmother, were sitting at a table in the teen room when we made our way to storytime. At the next table, another older woman, flipping the pages of her book with such agitation that I wondered if perhaps the characters were telling her horrible, awful things about her mother. Please don't let this be Miss Sandra, I thought. Because whatever this woman's reading, I don't think I want her reading it to my kid.

Clara Jane and the other little girl chattered, as two-year-olds do. They remained on our laps, giggling and talking. I fidgeted with my bra. Grandma smiled adoringly at the girls. Crazy Old Library Lady Who Best Not Be Miss Sandra flipped pages, turned to us and barked, "This is supposed to be a silent area. Get the kids out of here."

Both girls fell silent, inately aware that suddenly, their silence was required. Perhaps their lives depended on it.

I stopped tugging my strap so as to look at least a little reasonable. "Actually, storytime is starting in here in a few minutes."

"This isn't the storytime area! They don't hold storytime in here! This is a silent area and I came in here for peace and quiet! I need peace and quiet for what I'm doing! This is not the storytime room and you need to leave!"

I prepared to hand Clara Jane to the grandmother, whip off my bra, and use it to truss and bind the woman who was having such a screaming, flailing meltdown in her silent area that she was rapidly turning into a very loud, very slimy puddle on the floor. Just then, a plump woman with a soft salt-and-pepper pageboy entered the room, wheeling a cart filled with books, crayons, monkey puppets and an autoharp. "It's storytime!" she chirped in the general direction of the molten petrolium product that continued to shriek, "You're welcome to stay, if you'd like!"

The puddle yorped in the new woman's direction, absorbed her reading materials into her oil flow, and slithered out of her most-decidedly non-silent area.

I think she took a little of Clara Jane's spirit with her. This child - who's been social since the day she was born, who loves live music, and storytime and coloring, and being around other similarly-inclined kids - would not allow me to put her down. When I did, she sobbed as if I was going to leave her in The Bad Vibes Room to be raised by whatever crazy old person happened by next.

I spent the entire 45 minutes of storytime on my knees, Clara Jane adhered to my torso. If her feet got within three inches of the floor, she'd fire up the tears once again. Nothing assured her that everything was okay. Not the gentle melody of the autoharp and Miss Sandra's sweet voice. Not the giggles of the other kids. Not the stories about shoes and the finger puppets based on Eileen Christelow's Five Little Monkeys, who happen to be Clara Jane's favorite monkeys in the whole wide world. She would calm when she was pressed against me with both of my arms wrapped tight around her, but if my muscles fatigued and her feet came within the dreaded three inches of the floor, she'd cry, legs peddling like a frantic duck, kicking my thighs and stomach as her fingers dug into my shoulders, begging me to take her home.

It's really hard to fidget with a renegade brassaire in such a situation.

I don't expect everyone to adore my child, or to be charmed by her every chatter and shriek. Kids in public places can be irritating; I'm the first to admit that. But Jesus. What kind of person has a screaming hissy fit of such magnitude that it leaves a normally gregarious kid so terrified she can't unlatch from her mother?

I think that woman truly did need some peace and quiet, perhaps the kind provided by solitary confinement at one of the area's mental health facilities.

Maybe I should have given in to Clara Jane's pleas to leave, but what would that teach her? That it's okay to let a bully ruin something that is rightfully hers? I hate that the ire of one unhinged person has the possibility of changing how we go about our lives. My reaction - I quit. I'm sick to death of dealing with people and I just don't want to do it anymore. I'm exhausted and I don't need this. Most importantly, I don't want Clara Jane to deal with this. I want her to believe that people are good and have her best interests at heart for as long as possible. I don't want one crazy old bat at the library to steal that part of her innocence. I don't want the storytimes that she's loved so much to have any shadow of fear. But now, they might, and there's nothing I can do about it.

Clara Jane's going to learn about the meanness in this world, and I don't get to choose when or how.

I'm going to learn about the meanness in me. In the past, the sight of such a person - old and alone, miserable and angry - would have made something in my heart hurt. I would hurt for whatever horrible hurt had brought such misery into being. But today, I felt no sympathy, no "there but for the grace of God go I". All I felt was the overwhelming desire to strike this person so that she might hurt as much as she hurt my child.

Posted by Robin at 02:42 PM | Comments (10)

March 15, 2006

The Naughty Nunu and Dirty, Filthy Po

Yep, I'm still glad Clara Jane's home. Life feels normal and right again. She's developed a fixation on the Beatles' "Come Together" and keeps trying to do John Lennon's opening vocal effect, which rocks my socks off. She's also taken up yogurt painting, and covering the bathroom floor with half a bottle of baby shampoo, but I'm still freaked out enough by the tornados that I was able to maintain my composure in light of old flattop's antics.

I'm thanking my lucky stars that we're only experiencing a little vandalism, considering the horrible, sleazy tripe she's been watching. If this isn't proof that the Republicans are right and PBS is evil, I don't know what is.

Allow me to present to you the taxpayer-supported pornography masquarading as the Teletubbies...

While I could have provided better quality images with, say, a video capture card, I opted to go the simple route and just photograph the wretched images. Besides, the little black bar from the video roll accents just how dirty and filthy it is.

Warning: what follows is not appropriate for children, or their overly immature parents.


While Po lolls on the bed at left, Nunu enters. Nunu's got needs. Powerful, sucking needs.


Nunu's engorged and hot, ready for his sweet, sweet Po.


Not wasting a second, Nunu jumps straight to the goods, schnurffling Po's ... what the hell is that, anyway? Um, tubbie? Nunu can't get enough of that sweet, sweet screen.


SWEET JESUS! WHAT THE HELL IS THIS? SEX AND THE TUBBIES?? My eyes. Oh, God. My eyes. And I think my vagina just grew shut.


I don't care what that rat bastard Dipsy tells you, Po. Doing that does not maintain your virginity. Stop it. Stop it right now.


Who knew animated vaccum cleaners made O-faces?


Oh, now that's just kinky and sick. Sick!


That's it. There's gonna be tubby custard all over that floor. We're going to see that floor under a blacklight on 60 Minutes one of these days, and it's going to look like the bedspread of room 164 of the Salina, Kansas Super 8, mark my word.


That's it, Po. Show him where to put it and what to do with it.


It's not all smut and slime. Po and the nunu share a tender moment. Either that, or Po's humping him. I don't know. I had to turn it off at this point.

I have never wanted to die as badly as I want to having watched this with my child.

Posted by Robin at 08:31 PM | Comments (13)

March 12, 2006

Gimme Shelter

I'm sitting here with my new iPod on shuffle, and the first song to come up? Gimme Shelter:

Oh, a storm is threat’ning
My very life today
If I don’t get some shelter
Oh yeah, I’m gonna fade away

Despite the fact that, an hour ago, I was organizing my music and thought, "Gee, I'm in the mood for some classic Stones. Maybe I'll listen to Let it Bleed while I'm writing tomorrow," this really isn't the song I want to hear right now. Even though it gets more ominous after that first verse, any mention of storms puts me further on edge tonight. I was thrilled when the iPod shuffled on to a little lighthearted Skeeter Davis.

This is the scene in my hometown, Sedalia, tonight, and it's not over. Just as one tornado warning lifts, another twister is sighted. It's bad enough that most of my family's there, but tonight, Clara Jane is there, too. She's sick of being hauled to the basement, and the sight of all my mom's home-canned green beans lining the cellar shelves is making her hungry, I'm told. For entertainment, she's been hauling my old Easter basket around, but even that's losing its charm as she gets further from her bedtime.

When the first tornado siren sounded this afternoon, she asked my mom, "What's that? I like it!"

You'll get over that soon, Kiddo. Trust me. Few sounds chill me to my core like that wail. It sounds like doom to me.

It's a common sound in this part of the world in the springtime, the low rumbling howl of the sirens. Sometimes you have to listen hard to hear them over the roar of the wind and claps of thunder. Other times, they blow when the sky's bright and calm. Only the pale green aura that surrounds everything indicates that it's not a mistake or a test. Those are the worst, because of the reminder of how quickly fate can fall out of the sky and blow lives apart.

A tornado hit Sedalia the spring of 1977 when I was four years old. I'd been excited that day, because Mom had been doing laundry in the basement and she was letting me come downstairs with her to help. When the sirens blew in the middle of the afternoon and she hustled me down the steep wood stairs to the concrete slab basement, I thought it was merely time to put the wet clothes in the dryer again. Instead, she directed me to a concrete-ensconced crawlspace, padded with blankets and pillows that we pulled over our heads.

My dad was a truck driver for a dairy, and he was on the road that day. While my mom and I sat in our cubby, I remember her telling me that we needed to pray for Dad to come home safe. Prayer wasn't a regular event in our house, aside from the usual "now I lay me down to sleep" and "God is great, God is good" childhood graces. Asking God to bring my dad home was new and terrifying.

I remember the roar of the wind, sounding like a giant truck engine surrounding the house. And then silence.

We emerged from the basement and our house was intact. So were the houses surrounding ours. Most of the damage had occured on the northwestern end of town, where the expensive new subdivisions had been built. Houses looked like their lids had been removed like those of tin cans of green beans. Fallen trees blocked the streets, their scattered leaves looking like a green autumn. The old drive-in movie theater was destroyed. The factory where my dad eventually worked for over twenty years was heavily damaged.

I sat in the backseat of my grandma's yellow Volkswagon Beatle, surveying the wreckage of the only place in the world I really knew while my mom and grandma sobbed in the front seat.

We were lucky. Everyone we knew and loved, including my dad, were fine, losing nothing more than some shingles and a few trees. A story floated around for years that a dog in one of the subdivisions was picked up by the storm, which set him down several miles away at the state fairgrounds, where he promptly took a large dump upon terra firma. Whether that really happened or not, I don't know. Sedalia recovered, and has since gone on to survive several other direct twister assaults.

Things are different now. B. and I were shopping when my mom called my cell phone after today's first storm. "Just wanted to catch you before you saw the news and panicked. There was a tornado and everyone's okay."

When we got home a few hours later, the helicopter news footage from Sedalia was already on the local news. I squinted while I watched, trying to see if I recognized any of the destroyed houses. I didn't. During the other storms, my mom and I kept in touch. While they were in the basement without news access, I called with storm updates from the Weather Channel. When we weren't talking, I sat glued to the motion weather maps, watching the giant red splotches of storm as they headed towards Sedalia, grabbing my phone when the spot moved past that dot on the map to make sure they got through it.

I can fill myself with information, presented in an unbiased, non-panicked tidy little animated box. I can plug a zip code into a website and find out exactly where a tornado was spotted minutes earlier, and I can go to a map site and see exactly how far it is from my parents' house, where my baby's trying to sleep. Then I can make a phone call that doesn't require possibly downed lines to make sure everyone's okay the minute it's over. Those endless hours of waiting to see if someone's going to come home have shrunk to seconds. But it doesn't make the fear any less. It just means that I might get hit with unthinkable news faster than we did thirty years ago.

All day I've been thinking about how I hate that Clara Jane's going through these storms, and that she wasn't safe in St. Louis with us. But now, the worst is probably past them. We're the ones who might be facing the same storms, only in the middle of the night. Suddenly, I'm glad she's not here. I'm glad we won't have to wake her at 3 a.m. to make that fast, frantic rush to the basement, half-asleep and bewildered, exhausted from trying to sleep and listen for those sirens at the same time.

I think all of my people in Sedalia have been accounted for, but I'm wondering who was killed, and who's lost. I'm wondering what local sights that I'm so used to seeing have been reduced to haystacks of shattered wood. I'm wondering what we're in for tonight. I'm wondering if Clara Jane was as scared as I was thirty years ago, and if she's wondering when her mom and dad are coming home.

Posted by Robin at 09:52 PM | Comments (12)

March 07, 2006

D