Morning Talks

Dear Morning Talks Readers

2011-05-02T15:42:00.001-04:00

I've struggled with the decision, but have decided that maintaining two blogs is too much for this writer to handle at the moment. So Morning Talks will be taking a hiatus (hey, if Mad Men can do it, so can we!)

I decided I needed more time to devote to my fiction writing projects and my primary blog, The Book or Bust. This blog is a chronicle of my journey writing and publishing a first novel. I also offer occasional book reviews, reflections on life in general, and an excerpt from my novel. I adore comments so please come to chat! You can also find there a list of self-published fiction that I have "hand-picked" (and I'm picky) for those of you interested in reading something independent. You can go directly to that list here.

Thank you for reading, and please come visit me at The Book or Bust! Mention that you've come over from Morning Talks and I will do special back flips in the comments section in your honor. ;-)

A Morning Talks Makeover

2011-04-08T12:55:00.001-04:00

Photo Credit

Folks, I got nothin'. I spent the morning working on some ideas for making over this very blog. If you look around (eyes up, down, left, right... there you go.), not much of a makeover happened here today.

Why a makeover? Well, I thought this little blog deserved its own place in the world. Like thisblogisawesome.com or youwillpeelaughing.com. No more blogspot. Just us and the .com. And the blog will have its own email and Twitter handle. Syndication. Thousands of followers. We're talking "big time" here. World blog domination.

The first order of business on the makeover front is naming. Turns out, naming is hard. And stressful.

I have spent more hours than I will admit to you or the IRS trying to generate some name ideas. "Morning Talks" is okey-dokey, but I think the blog has more spunk in it than that. Don't you? Well, here's what I've come up with so far. Now you. (Turns out one brain does not make much of a storm.) What do you think?

WormsOnTheSide.com
SnakesEtc.com
PatienceIsOverrated.com
Stabbyville.com
Chatterboyz.com
TestMyTosterone.com
AWildDeuce.com

Then there's the need for a logo. Anybody know people in the logo biz? Oy.

OK, I'm worn out. More importantly, I'm supposed to help with Ian's T-Ball today and I need at least three hours to prepare for that, mainly because I'm not sure what the preparation entails.

Please chime in, and a special prize to anybody who comes up with an idea for a name that I finally use. Don't know what the prize is, but I promise it will be something special. Like one of these boys. Ha ha... just kidding. I think.

**

Brain Damage

2011-04-01T10:11:00.000-04:00

Let's not reinvent the wheel, shall we? Bill Cosby said it best: all children have brain damage. Don't believe me?

Me: Ian, eat.
Ian: Wha?
Me: Eat. Your food.
Ian: I can't.
Me: Why?
Ian: I can't find my mouth.

Need another example? Julian's brain damage is even worse.

Picture Julian in his room alone, jamming stuffed animals down his pants. He looks like a cross between the Incredible Hulk and a porn star.
Me: What are you doing?
Julian (looks up with bank robber face): Huh?
Me: With the animals. What in God's name are you doing?
Julian: Playing hide and seek.

Like, duh. I immediately left his room and Googled for child psychologists within a 20-mile radius.

If you still need convincing, maybe Bill is the best person to explain. Bill's skit here will also explain why my face looks like it does when you click About the Author. That really is what I look like. See? Brain damage.

Poop! Is So Funny

2011-03-25T11:33:00.000-04:00

Photo Credit

This is disgusting, yes. But if you're around school-age boys, you'll know that the word "poop" is the single most hilarious word in their lexicon. We've tried every punishment to get them stop saying it, but no dice. The word "poop" is just too funny. I clearly can't beat 'em. So here's my attempting at joining 'em.

Poop! Is So Funny

Poop! is so funny
Be it sticky or runny
When I hear those long o's
I just want to snort from my nose.

Poop! is a laugh
In the pool or in the bath
Poopie face! or Poopie head!
Or just plain Poo! will turn me red.

Poop! is a hoot
Bouncing down the laundry chute
Little pebbles roll around
Squishing when they hit the ground.

Poop! is so funny
Be it sticky or runny
Be it orange, pink or gray
Say Poop! loud, it'll make your day!

(No? Still not funny to me either. Time for lunch.)

**

Just Be Glad Your Name Isn't Rhododendron

2011-03-18T04:00:00.003-04:00

Photo Credit

Ian told me this morning that he didn't like his name.

"Why?" I ask, wondering why I have to deal with self-actualization angst from someone who can't pee at night unassisted.

"Because it doesn't have enough letters. Only three. That's not enough letters," he says.

I do a quick mental rundown of his classmates's names: Bob, Leo, Sam, Tim, Pat, Kim and Ken. I don't remember the others. See that? Their names are too long. I decide to lob a bunch of cliches at him.

"Ian, you know, short and sweet? Less is more? Easy as pie?"

He glowers over his plate and stabs a sticky waffle. "I don't like it."

For a moment, I feel like my husband and I have failed on the most elemental level. His name is his identity. Maybe we've put a round peg in a square hole.

"OK, Ian, let's find you a new name!" I say, playing along. Of course, I pull out my iPhone (that's another post).

So where does a mother go for a new name? I'll give you a small hint. It starts with "G," rhymes with flugle, and was a stock I wish I had bought a long time ago.

So here's what you get when you flugle "world's longest name": Captain Fantastic Faster Than Superman Spiderman Batman Wolverine Hulk And The Flash Combined.

True story. A 19-yr-old kid in the UK named George Garratt (yes, the kid in the picture) actually legally changed his name to this in 2008. But there is no way I'm going to suggest that to Ian because a) it already legally belongs to another self-actualizationally challenged person and b) Ian would think it was way too awesome.

So I flugle "guinness book of world records longest name." Why not go straight to the source?

Here's why: The Guinness Book of Records website functions like it was designed by high-schoolers. No, I take that back. High schoolers these days would actually know how to design a website. It looks like it was designed by a task force of 45-year-old dentists. So my search for "world's longest name" (in several variations) eventually yielded nothing relevant. Except I did find out that the longest jump by a guinea pig was 8.07 inches, on July 27, 2009. Also in the UK. What is it about the UK?

I'm ready to give Ian over to Captain Fantastic until I find a quote from a Guinness "spokesman," a fancy UK term meaning "45-year-old dentist," who confirmed that the longest recorded name (in their book, clearly not their website) was: Rhoshandiatellyneshiaunneveshenk Koyaanisquatsiuth Williams. Of course with a name like Williams, I can see why this person went for the longer names up front. I'm tempted to call him Rhododendron Williams for short.

"SO?" Ian says, waiting for the results of my search.

As I open my mouth to say something stupid, like offering a real name suggestion, I realize I have just discovered the most wondrous thing a parent can unearth: bribery leverage.

"Hmm," I say, studying the face of my smart phone. "It says nobody is allowed to change their name until they can keep their bed dry."

Ian throws down his fork and sprints from the room, thumb already in his mouth.

Ian he will be. For a very long time.

***

Why I Don't Cook

2011-03-11T04:00:00.000-05:00

Photo Credit

Self is a bit of an idiot. Self suggests things like getting up at 5am to swim laps, or giving up Nutella for Lent. Is Self out of her freaking mind?

Then there was this one:

Self: You know, Ian and Julian would take more of an interest in eating if you cooked fun things for them.

Me: What's fun?

Self: You know (self wags a ladylike hand), you can make twists on what they like already. What do they like?

Me: Gummy snacks, pudding, ice cream and bread with butter.

Self: Oh. Well, that's not much to work with. But there's always the Internet!

A few Googles later...

Me: Here, Self, there's a recipe for something called Taco Pie. Beef, cheese, sour cream, corn chips on top of Pillsbury dough. I can manage this.

Self: See there! Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

Later that night...

Ian: What's this?

Me: (Smiling like I just found out my novel is going to be published, with not one revision.) It's called Taco Pie! You'll love it! Yum!

Ian and Julian look suspiciously from each other to the Taco Pie. I lay a slice of it onto each of their plates. Ian leans in, like a dog, nose out.

Me: Smells good, right!? Yum!

Ian: This smells like poop.

*

We Have Ways of Making You Talk

2011-03-04T15:23:00.004-05:00

So the talking thing has been slow lately. I mean, I do have boys after all. For example, this is the after school conversation:

"How was school?" I ask.

"Fine," Ian grunts.

"What did you do?"

"Nothing."

So, if that's all he's got, I leave him alone. Just like somebody shoulda left this kid alone.

But ninja babies at least aren't going to swear at you. Somebody needs to tell this mother that the best way to get your kid to keep right on swearing is to film it (while laughing) for 10 million people to see on YouTube. (This is Rated R, folks... so you know what that means. Turn it up!)

Still, maybe the best route to getting a kid to talk is just some good old fashioned drugs. That'll teach 'em. Come to think of it, David, I often find myself wondering all the time if this is real life. Go Gators!

And then, this poor kid will probably grow up to run for political office. Good thing he has already been filmed spewing profanity to 40 million people. (This is also Rated R... so put on the head phones at least, people!)

Operators Are Standing By!

2011-02-25T03:00:00.002-05:00

After the paramedics paid us a visit last week, it got me thinking that maybe I should teach Ian and Julian how to dial 911. You know, just in case.

I have a running list of situations about which I obsess on the appropriate time and way to discuss them with the boys. Such as:

Child molesters?
Nobody is allowed to touch you except Mom, Dad, the nanny or your doctor. I'm waiting for a call the next time they are with my mother. I left her out.

Strangers?
If a stranger wants you to go with them, just yell "I don't know you!" really loud and run away. Especially if the person has a dog, candy, a white van or all three.

Fire?
That's an easy one: stop, drop and roll, ya'll!

How do babies get in mommy's tummy?
Magic.

How do babies get out of mommy's tummy?
Drugs.

So now that I've got those covered, on to 911.

"Guys, let's practice dialing 911!" I say one night after dinner.

I pick up the phone. They are ecstatic about any opportunity to push any kind of button that makes a noise, so they both dive in my direction when I offer them the phone. A tussle ensues. Fists are flying.

"OK, OK. Listen. 911 is for emergencies," I start. The houseplant on the end table is paying a lot of attention. The boys, not so much. "Do you know what an emergency is?"

"Yeah!" Ian screams, holding his brother by the hair. "If Juli won't share his toys with me."

"OK, thanks, but no." Maybe this is too early? No. So I launch into a litany of emergency types, including scary ones that this website tells you never to bring up. According to them, fire is fine to discuss, but unconscious parents and intruders should be casually left out. The 911 Kids Rap vaguely calls these a "circumSTANCE when you NEED the poLICE or an ambuLANCE."

But I hadn't gone to these websites yet when this conversation is happening...

"So guys, an emergency is like if something happens to Mom or Dad," they stop fighting. "Or, there's a fire, or someone breaks in."

"Like Iron Man?" Ian asks. He seems excited by this prospect.

"Sure, like Iron Man. Or anybody we don't know."

I hand Ian the phone. "So, Ian, without actually pressing the buttons, can you show me how you dial 911?"

"Why can't I press the buttons?"

"Because they'll get really mad if you call them for real and there's no emergency."

"Yeah, they might send the cops!" Julian adds.

Ian gives me this gotcha! look and I immediately realize my error. I've just handed Lou Reed a plate glass mirror with lines of cocaine on it and asked him not to snort. Ian starts pounding out, as instructed, but for real. Then a little voice comes through the phone.

"911. What's your emergency?" a voice in the phone asks. I grab the phone and hang up.

"Mom, why did you just hang up on that lady?" Ian asks.

"Yeah, they're gonna send the cops on you," Julian adds again.

I hop up, clap my hands together and invite them to brush their teeth. Lesson over. Julian slumps off into his room and flops on his bed.

"What's wrong with you?" I call to him.

"I'm just going to bed. All these emergencies are making me exhausted."

*

Retail Therapy

2011-02-18T12:01:00.002-05:00

Something not so lovely happened to Ian on Valentine's Day.

While demonstrating how he could wedge both index fingers in his nostrils at the same time, he had a seizure. I swear I am not making this up. Maybe the episode will just be a cautionary tale to other young nose pickers. But in the moment, watching it, it sucked. Whites of the eyes, clenched body, locked jaw. My spastic 911 call. The whole gory show.

Ian was in the hospital for one day, tested for everything from color blindness to musical aptitude, and given a clean bill of health. Just go home, they said. Maybe it won't happen again.

This is the point in the story when I started contemplating recreational drug use. For myself. On Ian's first night home from the hospital, I crawl into bed behind his tired little body, his mouth sucking rabidly on that thing we used to know as a thumb. He is holding a small Transformer he picked out at Target after he was sprung from the big house. I lay close to him and start taking inventory.

"Ian, how does your heart feel?"

Thumb release: thawp. "My heart? Fine."

"How about your head?"

Thumb release: thawp. "Fine."

"How about your soul?" I had to ask this, as mine was pretty much in the shitter.

Thawp. "What's that?"

"It's that thing inside that feels heavy when you're sad or kind of jumpy when you're happy."

Ian stops sucking and fixes his eyes at a spot on the wall by his bed. He knows what I'm talking about. Poor thing, I'm thinking.

"My soul is sad."

Oh, no. "Why?"

"Because my soul didn't get the Lego city it also wanted at Target."

That'll teach me ...

*

God, I Begged You To Get Some Therapy

2011-02-04T09:16:00.006-05:00

You know that look Sydney Pollack has on his face the moment he realizes that Dustin Hoffman, who plays his client, is dressed up as a woman to get an acting job? That look that says Oh my God, this isn't really happening. That look? Well, keep that look in your head as you read the following. I can only plea dumbstruck horror.

5:12 a.m. Ring ring ring. Hello, this is an automated message from the Hoboken Public Schools and today is Wednesday, February 2nd. Schools will be closed due to inclement weather. We know this is the third snowday in as many weeks and you only live in a 2-bedroom apartment with two wild boars, I mean boys, but deal.

6:04 a.m. Ring ring ring. Hello, this is the Cucaracha Charter School and today is Wednesday, February 2nd. Our school will be closed today due to inclement weather. Enjoy the snow! (This message is repeated in Spanish, which I listen to because it sounds like Penelope Cruz is calling to tell me there is a snow day.)

6:05 a.m. Mom? Mom? Can we have waffles can we have waffles can we have waffles?

6:08 a.m. Mom?

6:09 a.m. Just a minute. Let me wake up.

6:12 a.m. Mom? Are you awake yet?

6:15 a.m. Waffles hit the table. With butter. With syrup. Two waffles each. One cut into fours like 'pizzas' and the other cut in two like 'half moons.' Or else I'm toast.

6:21 a.m. Mom, we're done. Are we going to school today?

6:22 a.m. No, there's snow. No school.

6:26 a.m. Mom? We're bored?

6:27 a.m. How about some TV? What do you want to watch? I commence channel surfing.

6:28 a.m. Umm. This one. Points at screen during channel surf.

6:28 a.m. Cannibals of the Amazon?

6:29 a.m. Yeah yeah! Animals of the Caminstones! Yeah yeah! Mom? What are Caminstones?

6:30 a.m. I leave them with Animals of the Caminstones and return to bed, contemplating my escape. I have at least another 90 seconds before they ask for something else to do. And next time, it might not be so kid-friendly.

Itty Bitty Board of Directors

2011-01-21T03:00:00.002-05:00

I often find myself wondering how I got this job. Mother, I mean. If it required an application, with a demonstrated set of skills, they wouldn't even call me back for an interview. Can't cook. Working knowledge of bed making, but little experience. No rewards or recognition in the area of laundry. Who would hire me?

But now that I have this job, I often feel that if I could be kicked onto the sidewalk with a meager severance in hand, I would be.

I imagine Ian and Julian as a two-man Board of Directors. They would meet in the rarefied atmosphere of a 50th-floor, oak-paneled conference room with a view of the New York harbor, Lady Liberty included. (Hey, look Ian, it's that lady with the candle!) Crayons and Capri Sun would be set up on the table in front of each of them, and a woman with a cart (are you kidding? no way is that me!) would be wheeling in silver trays with assorted kinds of goldfish arrayed on them.

"The next item on the agenda is what to do about Mom," Ian would start.

"What was the rating on her last performance review?" asks Julian.

"We decided to have mercy on her last year and just skip it."

"Oh."

"But things are getting out of control. I think it's time we get ahead of the issue."

"Yes, true. I noticed she's using that word 'stupid' a lot lately. And she says 'what the heck,' too. She knows we don't talk like that in this organization."

"Hmm. And who's this Jesus Christ person she keeps talking about? Do we need to take measures to protect ourselves from a hostile takeover?"

"Perhaps. My main complaint," continues Ian, "is this sandwich she keeps making me. She knows I don't like mustard, but she puts it on anyway. Then I don't eat it and she threatens me with a disciplinary action."

"Yes, hardly reasonable. The issue I'd have to put at the top of the list," affirms Julian, "is that she doesn't let me watch TV during my every waking minute. This hardly makes sense as standard operating procedure. It's completely arbitrary and we have no guarantee of any positive outcomes."

"I agree. Her decision making is definitely flawed. Listen, Julian. I think we just need to manage her more proactively. I know a good motherhood image consultant that we probably need to have her meet with on a regular basis."

"Agreed. Let's do it. But we can't keep mediocre performers around indefinitely. If this doesn't work, she's out."

"I'm for that," Ian puts down his crayons and takes a long last sip of his Capri Sun. "Ahhh. How about we go around the corner for a chocolate milk?"

"After you," says Julian.

100th Post!! -- Let's Play "College"!

2011-01-07T04:00:00.002-05:00

Comment on this post or Follow Morning Talks (at right) and raise money for Autism Speaks - see below!

*

This morning, Ian and Julian informed me that they were going to play "College." How could I not be intrigued by this?

"How do you play?" I ask them.

"You put on your backpack," Julian says, "and then," he flips up his little 4-yr-old paws, "you just go to college. That's all."

"Oh. And what do you do there?"

"College stuff," Ian says.

"Who pays the tuition?"

"What's tuition?" Julian asks, shocking me with his pitch-perfect pronunciation of a word I'm sure he doesn't know and will attempt to pretend he's not familiar with for years to come.

"It's what you have to pay to go to school. Do you have any money to pay it?"

They both look at each other. Weren't you supposed to handle that?

"That's OK, Mom. I'll just go to the bank," Ian says with a sigh of relief, patting Julian on the shoulder. What are big brothers for, eh?

"And the bank is going to give you money?"

"Sure," Ian says.

"Nope," I turn off the sink and put the last dripping pot onto the dishtowel. "You have to earn it."

"How do I earn it?"

"Working."

They're both quiet at the mention of this word. Ah, yes, working. That thing Mom and Dad do that takes them away from us. That mysterious thing that happens across the Hudson River where people where dark suits and loud shoes in big towers and come home with bad moods muttering about politics and stupid meetings. Even though they're not supposed to say the word 'stupid.' Ah, yes. Ian leans against the wall and gives Julian a onceover. He shakes his head and lets his Diego backpack slump off his skinny shoulders.

"OK, we'll play something else. I don't think we like college." He gestures to his brother. "C'mon, Jul. Let me show you the spaceship I built."

Julian shivers with delight. "Cool!! A spaceship!" he says, plunking his own Diego backpack on the floor next to Ian's. They run off.

I take a bite of some leftover Christmas fudge and lean against the counter. I listen to them in their room playing, making spaceship noises. Not packing a bag and emptying the place of all signs of life and childhood. Childhood is in full swing, for now. I had succeeded in getting them to forget college, and it makes me feel a little bit like the witch in the gingerbread house. Oh no, boys, you're not getting away from me yet...

*

To celebrate Morning Talks' 100th post, the blog will donate $3 to Autism Speaks for every Comment on today's post and $5 for every new Follower through midnight Sunday. Up to $100. Please pass on this message, and thanks for reading. New posts will be up every other Friday this year. Check back!

Also, for readers interested in what 5-yr-olds have to say, check my other blog, The Book or Bust, on Saturday, Jan 8th for a review of Emma Donoghue's book "Room," written entirely from the perspective of a 5-yr-old boy.

Where There's Fuego, There's Fire

2010-12-03T20:44:00.005-05:00

We're having a little bit of a discipline problem lately. Don't believe me? Here's a few choice moments from recent weeks.

"Ian no haciendo me caso," our Puerto Rican nanny says in her best Spanglish.

I dial my husband at work. "What is 'haciendo me caso'?"

"Ian isn't paying attention to her."

"Oh." I hang up and turn to the offender. "Ian, please pay attention to Irma, OK?"

Ian's look could best be described as that look George Clooney continuously gives to Al Pacino during the "Ocean's Eleven-Twelve-Thirteen" franchise. Smug. You suck at gambling. I got your girl. That kind of look. I might as well have said something like "Ian, could you please locate Osama Bin Laden and Julian Assange and give them both a time out for the next 120 years, OK?" It would have had the same effect.

Then the next week, my husband comes home to find two "frown faces" drawn on a piece of paper above each of our sons' names. The paper is hung to the back of our front door like a "Wanted Dead or Alive" poster. It lists such offenses as: spit out food, rolled under dining table laughing, said 'the party is on' as they ignored her, called her names so bad I won't even put them in this blog. It was a wonder that when I arrived later that night I hadn't found a note from my husband right next to it that said: "I'll see ya. Been real. Going back to the madre patria."

The next morning, I lay into them. Of course "them" means "Ian." Partly because Ian is older but mainly because Julian screams louder and is a general pain in the neck to discipline. Looking ahead to his teenage years, I can only plead one thing to the universe: we're going to need a bigger boat.

"Ian, what's this about?" I ask, showing him the frown face Wanted poster. He gives me the George Clooney.

My inner PsychoMama was starting to go ballistic. My inner PsychoMama had plenty to say that would not only disqualify her for Mother of the Year, but might prompt a neighbor to call Child Services. Are you kidding me with this crap! Do you know how close you are to being grounded until your first pimple? Don't give me that look. I'll glue your eyes open that way. I control your calories. I don't care where you come out on the percentiles. Try me. Fortunately, PsychoMama has a mute button, which is in permanent lockdown. But who knows for how long.

My conversation with Ian gets me nowhere, so I round up all his most precious possessions and hide them for the next week, take away TV, and vow to glare at him as long as my eyes will hold out. He looks only mildly impressed. He asks me for a Fig Newton after breakfast and I say no to that, too. He asks to wear his blue hat instead of black one and I say no. No, I say!! My discipline was starting to strafe like machine gun fire, missing every target but killing some friendlies and creating plenty of collateral damage. I didn't care. This was war.

Then, there was today.

"The maestra says Ian cut a kid's hair," our nanny says.

I'm making mac 'n' cheese in the kitchen when she says this to me. Only I have boycotted Kraft's radioactive version of it and am struggling with my "roux," with which I must blend my "grated cheese" only the problem is that I don't like to "measure" and so my cheese sauce is coming out more like orange play-doh. Dammit. What did she just say?

She sees my dumb look and repeats herself. "The maestra says Ian cut a kid's hair."

I corral Ian into the kitchen. "What is this about?" Ian starts to give me the George Clooney, but I'm holding a heavy stainless steel frying pan and my kid is smarter than he lets on.

"But he asked me to do it. He didn't like long hair. He asked me to cut it off."

"So you did?"

"Uh huh."

"How much did you cut?" (Yes, I'm already preparing the alibi.)

"Just a little."

"Where was it? Would anybody notice?" (This was turning into a Lifetime movie.)

"I don't think so. It was on the side. A little."

I shrug at the nanny. Supposedly I was to receive an email about this, she informs me. I grab my phone off the counter and check. Nothing. I shrug at the nanny again. "Nobody sent me anything."

I turn to Ian, who is finally looking dejected and morose, just the look I had been striving for. Attaboy.

"Here, Ian," I say. "Have a noodle."

Five Is Where It's At. Almost.

2010-11-09T17:42:00.006-05:00

Ian speaks to me from under the collar of a long-sleeved t-shirt (without buttons, of course).

"Mom?"

"Yes?"

"Mom? Mom?" I grab a stringy arm and stick it in its designated arm hole. "Mom? You know what?"

"I have absolutely no idea what."

His voice comes back muffled, but defiant. "Five-year-olds can do whatever they want."

Really? I pull the shirt down and it pops over his head. His wispy blonde hair fluffs up into a Kramer-esque stand at attention. "Who told you that?"

"Caroline. She's seven." Caroline is Rebecca's older sister. Rebecca of last year's preschool love affair. I've learned that Caroline has more authority over Ian's tiny brain than I do. Lucky her.

I pull his Levis up over his tighty-whities. He wiggles his legs into them. I stop myself. "Hey, if five-year-olds can do whatever they want, I guess you can dress yourself." I have a cup of coffee getting cold in the kitchen. I stand to go get it. Ian gapes at me with his knees locked together by the fly of his jeans and grips my wrist as I start to leave.

"No!" he yelps. "I can't dress myself."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to. I only want to do what I want."

I sit back down. I knew this was too good to be true. "Ian, I have news for you. Even I don't get to do what I want." Ian looks crushed by this revelation. How can this be? I'm the grown-up. Don't I get to skip through the mall all day long with a lollipop in my mouth, buying myself things. Of course I do. In a parallel universe where there is no such thing as debt, the county jail, or calories.

"How come?"

"Just because. I have to do what a lot of other people want me to do, and sometimes what I want, but usually that almost never happens." Now he looks sorry for me. "But you have it easy now, Ian."

"Easy?"

"Yeah. You only have to do one thing."

"What's that?"

"Anything I say."

Macho, Macho Man

2010-10-28T17:20:00.008-04:00

I should have known that raising two boys in Hoboken was going to have some weird consequences.

This town is full of machismo. I'm talking about Old World machismo. Seventyish-year-old Italian men smoking cigars outside the Juventus Soccer Club a few blocks from our apartment. ALL freaking DAY. Soccer club? More like an I-need-somewhere-to-hide-from-my-nagging-wife club.

It should have been enough of a warning for me that Frank Sinatra was arrested on these very streets for renegging on a marriage proposal. The swine.

So it shouldn't have surprised me when I got a talking to from Julian about my, ahem, femininity.

"Mom, why don't you wear dresses?"

"I don't know, Julian. I don't like dresses."

"But you're a girl. All girls should wear dresses. All the time." His little hands flip up in the air like they do when he feels that what he's saying is more than obvious. Duh.

Really. We're packing up our lunch bag and getting ready to head out the door for pre-school. I'm thinking of switching out the pretzels for liver and onions.

Juli bounds away to his room. Oh good, he forgot something. Maybe my tiara.

"Here! Mom!" he says, running back to the kitchen and swinging several red strands of mardi gras beads. "Put these on." I oblige. "And Mom?" I can't wait. What else? Oh right, my garter and stockings. Jesus, why didn't I think of that? "Mom?"

"Yes, Julian. I'm standing right here."

"Can you put that stuff on your nails, too. Mabye like a red, or a pink, or something like that."

"You mean nailpolish?"

"Yeahyeahyeah. That. Nailpolish. Can you put on that? Can you put that now?"

I don't look at him. I shove a napkin into his lunchbag. "No. We have to go to school. We're late already."

He's disappointed about this. Not about going to school, but about having to go to school with me not having nailpolish on. It reminds me of a recent episode of What Not To Wear. They were trashing this mom on the show because she took her kids to school in yoga pants. I had to turn it off. Do Stacy and Clinton take kids to school? Not even close. They probably don't even walk their own dogs. When Stacy and Clinton stay up all night with monsters under the bed and spend all morning in a power struggle over a 3T outfit, then they can tell me what to wear to take my kid to school. Julian, on the other hand, is another problem.

We head out the door and he looks reluctantly toward my hand that his held out to take his, but he takes it anyway.

"Mom, that's OK. When we go to the store again, when we go," he rubs his sleeve across his nose. Now who's gross? "When we go, I'll find a dress that you can wear. OK? I'll find it for you and then you can wear it and then you'll be sooooooo beautiful."

He looks up at me, absolutely enamored with his plan. Smiling like a carved pumpkin. I shake down the leg of my yoga pants and follow him into the elevator.

General Hospital

2010-10-20T14:50:00.002-04:00

Woman walks into the ER with two dying men. They are greeted by a doctor who looks like Jon Hamm. (Hey, this is my fantasy, isn't it?)

Dying Man #1 (gasping): She made me eat cereal. And it had milk on it. I think I'm going to die.

Dying Man #2 (also gasping): I can't even eat. My foot hurts so much that I can't lift my arm. I just can't do it. I need somebody to help me.

Jon: I see. When did these symptoms start?

Dying Man #2: Symptoms? Noooooo. Aren't you listening to me?! Every morning. I can't eat. It's my foot and my leg and I'm too tired. And she makes me sit there. Waaaaaaah!! My misery has no end! It has no beginning!

Jon: Ma'am, is it true what he's saying? Do you make him sit and eat even though his foot hurts and his leg hurts and he's too tired?

Woman: Depends. Do you have a tongue depressor on you?

Dying Man #1: Stoppp! All of you! What about my shirt? What about this shirt she made me wear? [Dying Man #1 covers eyes] This can't be happening to me! This shirt has... it has... it has... BUTTONS!!

Dying Man #2: Owwww! Stop leaning on my leg, Jon! I can't take it.

Jon: Ma'am. May I ask what you need to do with a tongue depressor?

Woman: It's not obvious?

Dying Man #2: Please, Jon, please. Please pick me uuuuuppppp!!! I can't walk any more. I just can't! I'm tooooo tireeeddd!

Dying Man #1: Don't make me wear this shirt! Whyyyy mee?!! Jon, do you have any band-aids, the kind with Lightning McQueen or Mater on them?

Jon: I'm afraid not. But if your shirt's the problem, I don't think you need any band --

Dying Man #1: What!?!? Yesss! I need a band-aid! I'll feel better if I have a BAND-AID!!

Dying Man #2: Can I have some of that pink stuff, Jon, in the little plastic cup? I can do it myself. I'll feel better if you give me that pink stuff. I think my stomach hurts now.

Jon: I thought your leg hurts so you can't lift your arm and you're tired?

Dying Man #2: Oh, yes, owwwww! My leg. I need you to pick me up, Jon! Now!

Jon: Ma'am, I have some paperwork I need you to fill out. Can you come with me?

Woman: Certainly.

Jon leads the woman into a soundproof office away from the two dying men and asks her to write down her phone number and email and times she is available for dinner. Then, as they say goodbye, Jon leans his face close to her cheek and whispers into her ear, words sweeter than any she has ever heard: "Why don't you let me keep them here overnight for observation?"

2,600 More School Days 'Til College

2010-09-15T14:38:00.006-04:00

What? Me count? Of course not. OK, just a little. Well, and I did also use a calculator. We've only spent three days doing homework and I'm not sure I can do another 2,600 days of this.

Ian has homework every night. We sat down yesterday with a piece of paper requiring him to trace the upper and lower case letters "A" and "a". There was also a sheet with apples that he had to count and then write in a blank space how many apples were on the paper. This is not rocket science, am I right?

We sat at the desk in my office, a space usually off limits to the kiddies. I figured that would motivate him. He had two pencils - one with hearts, one with ladybugs - with matching erasers that were given to him at a little friend's birthday party recently. They were not sharpened yet. I had no idea that the electric sharpener on my desk would take us on a twenty-minute detour.

"I can do it, Mom, let me," says Ian, almost elbowing me off my chair. He taps one pencil in. It spins. I show him how to hold it and apply light pressure. He follows my example, except that his pressure could have tenderized meat. The sharpener smokes.

Once the first pencil is sharpened, of course, we have to sharpen the other one. He forgets about the pressure, so I repeat the instructions while he swats away my hand and insists again that he knows how to do it by himself.

Pencils sharpened, I push the first paper, with the apples, in front of him.

"I don't want to do this homework," Ian whines.

I nudge him. He decides that before he does the homework, he'll do eeny-meeny-miney-mo to choose either the ladybug or heart pencil with which to execute the required assignment. He starts, but has to restart because he messes up the rhyme. I take a humongous deep breath and say nothing. I decided, going into this all-important Kindergarten year, that I will not be one of those parents who push their kid. He will develop his own work ethic, even if that means going to school with unfinished homework and suffering the consequences. He finally picks a pencil.

"You know, Mom, this pencil is really sharp. I think if I have to erase, I need to cover the pointy end with this eraser so it doesn't poke me in the eye," and he picks up the matching ladybug eraser and shows me how he can cover the pointy end. I take another deep breath. He needs to develop his own work ethic I remind myself.

"OK, let's focus on what you have to do here, please," I say calmly, but it's the kind of calm that actually sounds like I'm being held up at a bank and don't want to upset the guy with the gun. What I really want to say is "Let's do the freaking homework already!!" Except that "freaking" probably would have been the less-printable version of the expression.

Ian rolls the pencil in the little space between his top lip and nose. He is totally bored. Admittedly, this homework is stuff he was doing with his babysitter when he was 3. He's been in daycares and pre-schools since he was 3 months old so we might even be ready for Calculus now.

"This is boring," he whines again, the pencil dropping from his face to the paper.

"I know. This is pretty easy. Should I ask Senorita Alfaro to give you harder assignments?" (*Ed Note: Ian is attending a dual-language immersion school in Hoboken called HoLa, in which his class is taught 90% in Spanish through Grade 2, then 50/50 with English. We expect him to be able to run for President of any one of 35 Spanish-speaking countries by the time they're done with him. Either that, or help me at the airport in Madrid if his father isn't around.)

"NOO!" gasps Ian. Are you crazy, wench! his look says to me.

"OK, so let's do it."

Ian counts the apples. There are nine of them. It takes him about nine minutes to count them. I feel ants crawling up my pants and have this urge to run around the block or hit a tennis ball against a concrete wall like it's match point at Wimbledon.

"So how many are there?"

He looks at me and the pencil is back on his lip. His eyes have narrowed to slits and are crossed, like he's trying to see the end of his nose. "I don't know."

What the freak!! I'm thinking. (Again this is not the version of the word I would have used if we lived in a different zip code.)

Then, faster than you can say 'college application essay', I fall prey to being one of "those parents" that "do" their kids "homework" for them. "There are nine apples, Ian. Nine. You just counted them. I saw you."

"Ohhhhh, OK. Nine."

"So write it."

"I don't know how to write '9'," he says, which we both know is a balls-out lie.

So I write it. I put his apple homework in his green folder, but first I mess up the '9' a little so it looks like he wrote it.

Then I write "Screw it" on a post-it and think about sticking it to the folder, but don't. Not this time anyway.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

2010-09-14T15:36:00.003-04:00

I swear I just had them. They were right here. I sent a shiny faced three-year-old and neatly combed almost-five-year-old to school last week. Now, I have no idea who I'm living with.

You see, I'm all for school. But school also has these things called friends.

Friends are much more influential than I am. Whatever I say now skips right by them. To be honest, if that's how it's going to be, I wish friends would pick up the groceries, make dinner and change the beds, thank you.

After Day 1 of pre-school, Julian came home jiving at me in the bathtub like Will Smith.

"I got, I got, I got soap in my eyes. Woah, Mama! Shake it, shake it!" Julian said, jiggling his frontal parts wildly and shaking his head like a wet dog. When he noticed the confused expression on my face, he started cackling and baring his pointy canines.

Wha?

Ian, now in Kindergarten, has also learned some new ways to express himself. (Some of what he says could serve as useful dialogue for soap opera script writers if they are running low.) When I vetoed TV on a school night, he promptly informed me that I am "the worst mother in the entire world!"

"Good," I said. "Then I'm doing my job. Didn't you know that was my job, Ian? To be the absolute worst mother ever?"

"I don't want to talk to you EVER!" he shouted, stomped to his room and slammed the door. I've said I-don't-know-how-many-times that there is no door slamming in our house, so this time, I marched into his room with a pair of Fiskars and clipped about 30 silly bands right off his wrist. So there. How's that for worst mother ever!? Cue evil cackle...

Every day they come home with more complaints about how our life does not measure up to their friends lives. We need a bigger house so we can buy a dog like one of their friends has. I need to put cupcakes in their lunch because the lunches their friends have are more cooler. I have to let them wear ripped NFL jerseys to school because that's what all their friends are wearing. My answer to all of these complaints is: What? Sorry I wasn't listening.

I'm going to have to bust out some Aretha Franklin on them and those friends if this keeps up.

Princessa's Dance Party: A One-Act Play

2010-08-19T11:01:00.005-04:00

Sometimes (often, actually) the best Morning Talks are the ones I'm not part of. While I was dressing yesterday, this is what I heard going on in the hallway from the voices of Ian and Julian.

The Players (Made in China)
Princessa - played by a plastic figurine of Bo Peep from Toy Story
TRex - played by blue plastic dinosaur whose legs goosestep when you push a button under his tail
Pterodactyl - played by green rubber bird

Scene One
Princessa is being jammed into the non-existent passenger compartment of a model Formula 1 race car by TRex. Pterodactyl looks on, wings in permanent state of being about to take off.

Princessa (in falsetto voice): I can't fit in this car. What are you doing to me TRex?

TRex: But Princessa! You are going to be late to your dance party. Wait! Stay here! I'm going to set it up.

Pterodactyl: Where are you going?

TRex (from boys' bedroom): Over here! Princessa can dance on the Peter Rabbit box! TRex, c'mon, drive her over here. Fast! Get moving! Formula Uno! Wooo hooo!

Car screeches out of the hallway and into the boys' room.

Princessa: Heeeelllp! I told you I don't fit in this car!

Pterodactyl: Shut up princessa! If there's any more screaming, you're going to have a time out. And NO dance party!

Scene Two
Princessa is being bobbed around violently on the Peter Rabbit box while TRex makes percussion noises. All of the sudden, Pterodactyl wails.

Pterodactyl: Ahhhhh! Help me! Help me! She put her hook in my mouth! I'm going to have to bite her!

TRex: C'mon princessa, kill him! Shoot him with your hook. DO IT!

Princessa: Harrahaharrahah! Bang bang bang! You're a mean Pterodactyl! I've had enough out of you!

TRex: Good job princessa! You're awesome!

Pterodactyl: I TOLD you there is no hitting or screaming or any of those things or you're going to get a time out. That's it! TIME OUT!

Scene 3
Princessa has been put inside the bowels of Mr. Potato Head -- cleared of its ear, nose, eyeglasses and eyeball parts -- for time out. She's crying for her mommy.

TRex: Why did you have to put her in time out? Now she's going to miss her dance party.

Pterodactyl: Too bad. I warned her. Too late now. I'm sick of all this crying!

Princessa (falsetto voice echoing from inside Mr. PH): Is my time out finished yet?

TRex: Almost princessa. I'm going to play some music for you so you can have a dance party while you're there, while you're there inside, inside, inside the Mr. Potato Head. OK?

TRex elevates over the carpet and picks up a harmonica in his teeth. Miraculously, breath comes from out of his plastic body and the harmonica blares.

Princessa: Yeah! I'm dancing. Woo hoo! Thanks TRex. But I'm going to bump my head in here though. Can I come out now?

Pterodactyl: No way! Not until I say you can. Stop asking me that.

TRex: Princessa! I'm going to rescue you now! Hang on!

TRex kicks Pterodactyl to the ground with rapid goosesteps and then he eats him. Then TRex smashes the plastic door on Mr. Potato Head's rear end to free Princessa.

Princessa: Oh TRex! I love you! I think we should have a wedding! Will you be in my wedding?

TRex: Cool, a wedding. Sure, Princessa!

Princessa mauls TRex's face in a sloppy wet kiss. Pterodactyl comes crying into my room to complain that TRex kicked and ate him and that he doesn't want to play with TRex anymore. I comfort Pterodactyl by telling him that we can stop payment on the humongous check we sent for their wedding gift. Pterodactyl's happy and Princessa and TRex have no idea that their checking account is about to blow up.

THE END

Hot My Marshmallow

2010-08-17T10:17:00.003-04:00

Top 10 things your city kids will definitely say about camping:

10) I'm going to go back to my hotel-tent now and lie down. I'm tired.

9) Please can we turn on the air conditioning?

8) Are there bugs in camping?

7) Can we watch videos now?

6) I can't sleep because all those people in those other hotel-tents keep talking!

5) It's too dark! What happened to the lights?

4) The trees are being too noisy!

3) There's too much dirt to play here.

2) Look at the fire! It's burning!!

1) Here's my stick, Mom. Can you hot my marshmallow?

Oh, It's "The Brothers"

2010-08-12T11:52:00.004-04:00

Julian and Ian are in week 2 of "Art Camp." I must say, these two boys are having a summer that the Jolie-Pitt kids would have to envy (OK, maybe that's stretching it a little, but almost). Two weeks in the Mediterranean, two weeks being squired about the D.C. area by their Grandmommy to every attraction known to kid-dom, then Science Camp (with a million dollar view of Manhattan from the classroom), and then three weeks of romping around a re-habbed factory space in Hoboken for Art Camp. In between there's been swimming, tennis, camping, you name it. The adults involved are close to passing out.

I even made them a calendar to keep it all straight. I'm a little concerned about the time I spent on this calendar because it can only mean that I'm starting to actively cultivate completely unmarketable skills like, um, being a mother. Ha ha. I can imagine that interview: "But Mr. Top-Rated Marketing Firm Employer, my sons loved that calendar. It took a lot of time to find the little colored icons and perfectly fit them into each box. Isn't that the type of attention-to-detail employee you're looking for? I think you've found her!"

Well, so, Art Camp. When I showed up with them on Day 2, this is how the head teacher greeted us (visual: a high-school girls' basketball coach with a Jamie Lee Curtis haircut but not a Jamie Lee Curtis body).

"Oh, it's the brothers!"

"Yes, it is the brothers," I say, forcing one of those fake-friendly mother smiles and actually wanting to say to her What the hell does that mean?

"So yesterday," the Coach continues, "the brothers stood up in front of ALL the other kids and took a pledge not to hit each other. Didn't you, brothers?"

Now Ian and Julian are looking at her with one of those fake-friendly mother smiles, too.

"Did you tell Mommy about that, brothers? It was great. Wasn't it great, brothers? Everybody clapped!"

I can only imagine my sons' humiliation. It probably ranks only slightly behind having to be spritzed in the hair with an anti-lice spray (but it's all natural, don't worry Mommy) when they first check in every morning.

So ever since that Day 2 dropoff, we get greeted the same way by the Coach.

"Oh, it's the brothers!"

And I get to hear again from the Coach about how they're going to love each other forever and be gentle and not hit ever again for the rest of their lives. Is she delusional? Does she even have brothers?

I'm starting to feel like what she actually wants to say is, "Oh, it's the youngest members of the Taliban who are making a guest appearance at a children's summer camp in America and have miraculously adopted perfect Jersey accents."

It's no wonder Ian and Juli both scream bloody murder every morning when I drop them off. I think tonight I'll teach them how to say "Oh, it's the teacher!" in that same rimmed-with-loathing, Taliban-esque fashion.

What Would Kissinger Do?

2010-08-10T11:47:00.003-04:00

I suck at diplomacy. I really do. I applied to attend The American University for a masters in International Service way back in 1994, and at the same time took the State Department's Foreign Service Exam. I was accepted to AU and failed the exam, so I called it a draw. A reasonable alternative to an esteemed diplomatic career seemed to be making soap commercials in Eastern Europe. So that's what I went with.

My *diplomacy* with my kids goes something like this: DO IT, or I will count to three and then something really bad will happen. Could you imagine how the Chinese or the Soviets would have reacted to that? My friend Susan even gave me a book about disciplining children called "1,2,3 Magic" and let me tell you, after I count 1,2,3 there's definitely some damn good Magic going on.

Our current diplomatic challenge is that we are raising two boys who want to kill each other. It's like nuclear weapons, or nucular, if you're a Republican (sorry, sorry... it's just so hard to resist).

While giving Ian a bath, I play my last card. Asking his advice.

"Ian, what do you think Papa and Mommy can do to help you and Julian stop fighting?"

Ian is squeezing black sludge out of a water toy I should have thrown out in 2006.

"Ian?"

"I don't know mom. Let me think about it."

I let him think about it for about a minute and then I can't keep my mouth shut any longer.

"Ian, why do you and Julian hit each other so much?"

"Because he hits me first. So I have to hit him back." Duh.

"Ian, do you know what an arms race is?" (I know. You're thinking where the hell is she going with this?)

"What is it?"

"What does it sound like?"

"I dunno." More squeezing and squishing.

"It's when two boys are hitting each other and they keep hitting and neither one of them stops until they just hit each other forever."

Ian is impressed by this. "That sounds bad."

"It is. So somebody has to be the one to stop hitting first, right? Or it will just go on forever, right?" (And Mommy and Papa will go out of their freaking minds, right?)

"So one of you needs to stop hitting first. Who do you think should stop hitting first?" (I SO impress myself with what an idiot I am, sometimes. I even have a master's degree.)

"Julian should."

Thank God for all of you that I'm not in the Foreign Service.

Non Sequitur

2010-08-05T10:48:00.005-04:00

I served a salad last night with dinner. Ian and Julian actually love salad. I know, you're thinking, what bribe worked for eating salad? No bribe. They just love the green stuff.

Julian was especially excited. He calls the hard white parts of the lettuce "crunchies" and wanted all of them. Ian wanted all the olives, which both boys call ceitunas, a near-miss pronunciation of the Spanish word for them.

"Mom? Mom? You know, you know, you know..." says Julian.

I'm looking at him and my eyes widen further with each "you know?" until they are bulging.

"Mooooom! Don't look at me like that!"

Oh, sorry. "What is it, Julian?"

"OK. Mom? You know? You know..."

Not this again.

"Yes?"

"You know who has lechuga? You know who?" Another Spanish word, this one for lettuce.

"Who?"

Julian puts both palms down on the table, as if to steady himself when he shares his next piece of information.

"Witches!"

Excuse me?

"Yeah. Witches! They have lechuga. And you know what else? You know? You know?"

I'm still on Witches!

"You know? Also. The dinosaur? The one we saw. Him, his name, his name was Poopy Mopsydo."

I wondered if my reading of Beatrix Potter the night before got a little confused. But I was still on Witches!

I start to shake my head that we don't use that word, Poopy not Witches!, especially at the table. Julian is one step ahead of me, waving me off.

"Mom, Mo-Mo-Mo-Mom, I know. I know. But really. That really is his name," he shrugs a sorry, but what can a fellow do if that really is his name. It has to be said. "It really is Poopy Mopsydo, his name. It really is."

"Who is this?" I ask, still on Witches!

"Mom. You know. He's the brother of the other guy!"

"Does this have anything to do with the Witch who has the lechuga?"

Ian and Julian drop their forks and look across the table at each other. Ian is shaking his head and I can tell Juli is totally shocked by my question.

"Mom?" Ian puts a hand on my elbow, gently, as if to soothe me during my bout of delirium. He gets close to my face and speaks in a whisper: "What are you talking about?"

Fudging the Sex Talk

2010-07-30T11:27:00.004-04:00

Sooooooo, yeah. I shoulda seen this one coming. The boys and I started flipping through photo albums of when they were babies and there happened to be a few pics of yours truly with what looked to be three watermelons under my shirt.

"Mom, what's wrong with your stomach?" Julian asks.

Haha. You were wrong with it, I want to say. But I'm not that mean (usually). "You were in there, Julian."

"WHAT?!"

"You were. I swear. No joking."

"NO WAY!!"

"Seriously."

"And where was Ian?"

I point to a picture of Ian with sweet potatoes mashed all over his face, including up his nose and dabbled across every single eyelash. "Here he is. Eating." Ian is alarmed by this photo of himself. He is even more alarmed by another picture of himself with a green bean in his ear, as if his hearing might have been at risk.

"Why do I have food all over my face?" Ian looks at me accusingly, as if I should have done something to prevent this.

"Because you didn't like to eat. We had trouble getting the spoon in your mouth because you kept moving your head. And you spit a lot of stuff out that we had to scrape up and put back in your mouth."

Ian's face is contorting while he's listening to me, a giant facial 'ewwwwwwww'. All the while, Julian has been quiet, staring out the window at the two tomato plants on our little patch of a balcony. We are desperately trying to cultivate them so we can eat at least one tomato before it's time to go back to school.

"Mom?" Julian says dreamily, still looking out the window.

"Yes?"

"But Mom? If I was in your belly, then how did I get out?" He flips both palms up in the air like he does whenever an idea totally confounds him and seems to be something that would have to also confound the whole world. A mystery. A totally impossible thing to explain. Like why he has to go to bed at night.

So what can I say? This is indeed a totally confounding question. I remember when I looked on the EPT stick at dinnertime on January 10, 2005 and saw those lines when I was pregnant with Ian, the first pregnancy, and the immediate thought I had was "How is he going to get out?" I felt like I had just been put on a massive log flume and had no choice but to get DAMN soaked before I was let off of it. No choice.

Ian did get out, and so did Julian, but it wasn't pretty. I look down at Julian now and consider giving him the real answer, but then I remember that he is only three years old. I think about my husband, much older than three, and how he looked when Ian and Julian got out. Like he had just smelled very, very bad milk and he would never drink milk again. He has made me swear that this subject, or anything related to it, like menstrual cramps, will never be discussed in our house.

So I really have no choice but to fudge my answer to Julian. So I just say "It was magic." Which if you think about, isn't entirely a fudge. It was.

Peanuts

2010-07-07T21:38:00.003-04:00

Ian has an infected penis, and this morning I found myself in the cramped bathroom of the "minute clinic" (inspires confidence, doesn't it?) trying to get him to pee into a plastic cup. As of this morning, peeing really really hurts. So now, it's no freaking dice, Mom. He says he won't pee for the rest of his life. Still, I try, but the scene isn't a good one. Tears from him. Cajoling from me. Sobs. More cajoling. Backing into the corner, tears spurting. Promises of new DVDs and ice cream. More tears. Meanwhile, Julian was observing the tense exchange with rapt attention.

"Mom? Mom? Mom?"

"Yes, Julian."

"What's wrong with Ian?"

"His penis hurts him."

"His peanuts? Ian, do your peanuts hurt you?"

Ian is too busy crying to respond.

"Mom? What happened to Ian's peanuts?"

"I don't know, Julian."

"Mom? What are peanuts?"

"Penis, Juli. Penis."

"Peanuts?"

I'm back to cajoling Ian and turn away from Julian. This always annoys him.

"Mommmmm?! Mooommm! I'm talking to you. Mom?!"

"Yes, Julian."

"Mom? Do you have peanuts?"

"No, mommies don't have peanuts."

Julian is turning in circles near the side of the toilet thinking about this.

"Ian? Mommies don't have peanuts. Only boys have peanuts. Only boys and papas have peanuts," he reports. He comes face to face with Ian and strokes his arm to try and calm him down. My sons tend to show enormous compassion for one another. It usually lasts a total of 1.5 seconds before the upset one of them kicks the other away.

"Ian? Do your peanuts hurt you? Ian, don't worry. Your peanuts won't hurt much longer. It's OK."

I'm just watching them, thinking about the various ways of extracting urine from my son. I envision myself tickling him until he pees and then catching the urine as it trickles down his leg. I guess that wouldn't be what you'd call a 'clean catch.' Julian taps me on the cheek and I come out of my daze.

"Mom? Mom? It's OK. I told Ian his peanuts won't hurt much longer."

"OK, thanks Julian. Is he going to pee in the cup?"

Julian purses his lips. He is all business. "No, Mom. No. I really don't think so."

Extremely Random Acts of Kindness

2010-07-01T04:58:00.005-04:00

I went to bed last night believing my older son Ian is possibly the most generous and warm-hearted 4-year-old to ever live. Then I made the mistake of praising him for it.

Last night we got back to our hotel room late and Julian was sleeping in my arms as we came in. Ian was carrying two souvenir treasures that Julian had been coveting all day: a miniature wooden sailboat with real cloth sails and a shell from a snail (snail not included, thankfully). As Ian passed by Julian's bed, he laid them on his brother's pillow and went to put on his pajamas. Julian woke up to find them this morning, elated.

At breakfast, I couldn't contain my pride.

"Ian, that was really, really a nice thing that you did last night."

Ian looks at me. Plum jam is making a Gorbachev-like mark on the side of his face and he doesn't seem concerned with wiping it off.

"Huh?"

"Last night? When you gave Julian your boat and your snail shell."

"Huh?"

"Do you remember doing that? Putting them on his bed when we came in?"

"Huh?"

"Last night, Ian. Last night. Do you remember coming into the hotel room?"

"Yeah."

"And then you put your boat and snail shell on Juli's bed. You remember that?"

"No."

"Did you just put them there because you were tired of carrying them?"

Now Ian's tongue is flapping around the corner of his mouth trying to wipe the jam clean. He looks like a frog trying to nab a fly. "Probably," he says, tongue flapping.

I take a sip of coffee and regroup. "Anyway, Ian, that was really nice."

And just as the words are coming out of my mouth, Ian whips around to his little brother and licks his cheek with a tongue full of jam. Julian howls and grips his face, screaming as if Ian were a comic strip villain and had just splashed him with a vat of sulfuric acid. Then Ian turns back to me. "Huh?"

"Nevermind."

A Cave Story

2010-06-30T13:22:00.002-04:00

My husband's sister lives with her new husband on a hillside farm in Mallorca called a finca. A rocky cliff rises steeply behind their property and is covered with a thin canopy of pines and acorn trees along its top edge. There are dark nooks at the base of the rock face that look distinctly like caves, called cuevas in Spanish. Julian has been inspecting them from afar since we arrived last week. I didn't even know he knew the Spanish word for cave until he was pointing them out to me today.

"Mom? Mom? Mom?"

I was listening the whole time. Yes?

"Up there are cuevas. Do you see them? Do you see them, Mom? Yes or no?"

"Oh? Cuevas?" I turn to my sister-in-law and ask her what the heck a cueva is. Once informed, I turn back to Julian. "Who lives in the cuevas?"

Julian looks at me pensively and considers my question. As I watch him, I can tell it hadn't occurred to him that somebody could actually be living in the cuevas.

"Mom? I think the wolf and the sheep are living in the cuevas. I have that story in my school. The wolf and the sheep." Julian is shivering with delight at the connection his little classroom has with this towering formation of earth on an island thousands of miles from home. His story continues. "No, actually, no. That's not how the story goes. This is the story: the wolf lives in the cueva but he doesn't want the sheep to come into his cueva. He pushed the sheep out and shut the door and now only he lives there."

"But what about the sheep? Aren't they lonely?" I ask.

Julian looks from the cuevas to me, completely taken aback by the new predicament of the sheep. Loneliness. As if suddenly a word existed to explain an experience he had struggled with since his first hour of life. His large eyes roll towards me like orbs and he speaks slowly. "Yes, Mom. Yes, the sheep are lonely now."

"But Juli, maybe somebody could go get them and bring them down from the cueva so they won't be lonely. Could you go get them?"

His mood lifts as he giggles and shakes his head. Of course he can't. What a question.

"But Juli, why can't you get them?"

"Oh, Mom. Because I'm not in the story!"

Green Acres

2010-06-24T05:45:00.003-04:00

Ian has taken to Mallorcan farm life like he was meant for it. After four days visiting his aunt and uncle's self-sustaining family farm, he can tell you what their dog can and can't eat, where the plums are ripest, which lettuce can be picked and how to water each row of vegetables.

This morning over breakfast on the terrace, I get an earful about the hens.

"Mom, you have to be careful with gallinas because they can scratch you with their nails."

"Oh, OK, that's good to know. Thanks."

Ian hoists his foot up to the level of the table to demonstrate to me. "See, the gallinas don't have this thumb," he says, pointing to his big toe. "But they have these other fingers and at the ends they have really sharp nails."

"You mean claws? They have four toes with claws at the ends?"

"Yeah, except they don't have four toes, they only have three actually." He attempts to bend back his thumb and second toe to demonstrate a foot with only three toes. Exasperated after a moment, he puts his foot down. "You see, Mom? You have to be careful."

I nod.

"Oh, and you have to get their eggs every day or they might break if they stay there. You have to pick them up and be careful with them." I nod again. "Oh, and you have to make sure the gate is shut and locked or Bruxia will eat the gallinas." (Bruxia is their playful, blonde Labrador. Her name roughly translates to mean "witch".)

I nod again, sipping my coffee. Ian is scanning the mountainous horizon around the country inn where we are staying, estimating what needs to be attended to at his aunt and uncle's farm today.

"Oh, and Mom?" I nod again. "We have to bring something for Bruxia to eat so she won't eat the gallinas. Does she like Colacao?" (This is an excellent chocolate drink you mix in milk, like Nestle Quik, that the kids love here.)

"She might, Ian, you can try it."

Ian leans back, drinking, satisfied. He feels in charge. And as I watch him, I realize there is nothing more enjoyable for a four-year-old than that.

Wherever You Go, There You Are

2010-06-22T13:56:00.006-04:00

When you're three years old, there are just some things that can't be explained to you. For Julian, the country of Spain is comprised entirely of a five-bedroom apartment where his grandparents live in the city of Zaragoza. Spain is nothing else but that.

So you can imagine his anguish when we finish an eight hour flight and then announce to him that we are in Spain and he looks around and does not see the apartment he is expecting to see. Just palm trees. Just a beach. Some picturesque mountain ranges in the distance. Just a charming country hotel with lovely gardens and farm animals. The stunning, rugged island of Mallorca. He wasn't going to have any of it.

As we're unloading our things onto the hotel's gravel driveway, he twists into a ball and throws himself down.

"NOOOOOOO! I want to go to ESSSSSSPPPAAAAÑÑA!"

I'm jet-lagged and hungry so I can only manage to come up with the obvious answer. I should know by now that the obvious answer is bound to be the wrong one.

"But Julian, you are in España. You are."

"NOOOOOO! This isn't ESSSSSSPPPPAÑÑAAA! NOOOOOOO!" Julian is going full blast, screaming, tears bursting forth, writhing on the ground. We're starting to attract attention from other guests who are relaxing on the terrace with an afternoon beer. I wave. Don't worry. It's not child abuse, I want to say, if I knew how to say it in Spanish.

OK, next tactic. I get down to his level. "Juli. Calm down. Calm down." (He's not hearing me so I say this so many times I feel like it's time to fly home by the time I'm done.) "Listen, you are in España, you are -"

There she goes again! Lying to me! My continued, but unchanging, explanation has only launched him into an even more energetic hysteria. My husband puts down our overweight suitcases and kneels next to Julian with me, starting to make a map with his fingers. Julian is mildly intrigued by this.

"Juli, look. This is España, the peninsula (Iberia - also known as Agustin's left hand), and this is Mallorca over here (his right hand) which is also part of España. It's an island. It's in the Mediterranean. It's also España too, see?" Agustin holds his left and right hands up in front of Julian's face and wags Iberia and Mallorca in front of him to emphasize how they go together.

Julian thinks he is even more crazy than I am.

"NO NO NO NO NO!" he wails. He is totally distraught and I'm about there myself.

The next 24 hours were a continuous rant from him about how he was not, no way, not possibly in and couldn't be anywhere near España. We stopped trying to convince him, and anyway Agustin had run to the end of his pre-school geography curriculum.

Not until the owners of "España" (known to the rest of us idiots as the apartment in Zaragoza) arrived, and Julian asked them where he was and they looked incredulously at him and said "you're with us!" was he ever happy.

And that's why God invented grandparents.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAALLLLLLL !!

2010-06-17T11:58:00.006-04:00

From the "don't you wish you were me file":

Tomorrow comes one of my very favorite things to do: sit in between my children for eight hours.

My husband and I are taking them to Spain for a family wedding. We're all very excited to be there, of course, but we always wish we could just "teletransport" (because that's what marshmallow-cleavaged superwomen can do in his comics, I guess... see Tuesday's post if I've lost you.)

This morning, I needed to do something to calm myself down. I needed confirmation that my sons were older (not infants) and could behave (not scream) and might even be at an age where they could have fun (not puke and poop).

I had to talk to the boys about how we behave on a plane. I knew it wouldn't sink in, but I also knew such a talk would at least make me feel a fraction more secure. Secure, like when the flight attendants review the procedures for a water landing. Procedures which would involve me floating on my seat cushion in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Ha ha. They can't fool me on that one; unless Sully is my pilot, a water landing is not going to work out so great. But security, even the false kind, I'll take it.

So as we are velcro-ing our sandals to head out, I drill them.

Me: Guys, where are we going tomorrow?

Them: (in unison) ESPANA!

Me: That's right, and how do we get to Espana?

Julian: (With command) In a C-130 Transport! (Too much military aircraft knowledge? Check.)

Me: Well, not exactly, but close. What do we do on a plane?

Julian wrinkles his face at me and I realize my question may be a little too broad.

Me: You know, when you sit down?

Julian: Ohhhh, yeah yeah yeah OK. I know! We watch movies! YEAH!!

Oops. I told my husband last night I didn't want to bring the DVD players. Not this year. Let's leave TV behind. Not even watch the World Cup. Let's enjoy each other. But once I mentioned the part about not watching the World Cup, my husband was ignoring me and had his nose in the comics again. Did I seriously think I would visit a country who is seriously a contender for the World Cup and not be watching it? Silly American...

With the boys, though, I redouble my efforts.

Me: Guys, how about coloring books? And dot-to-dot? And mazes? And we could bring some of your little travel games and puzzles? And Ian, we can read some of your "I Can Read" books?

They both look at me quizically. Is she OK?

Me: Guys?

But I had lost them. They were high-fiving and oh-yeahing and were already at the drawer by our TV picking out what movies they were going to jam into my purse for the trip over. Still, I'm the boss, right? I may just pull a totally gutsy move and leave the DVD players at home. 30,000 feet up, there's not much they can do. (With the minor problem that the same rule applies to me.)

I'll have to sleep on it and decided just how gutsy I am. I hope there's still hope for my dream of a TV-less vacation. Because readers, let me remind you: as of this writing, the U.S. has 1 point and Spain has 0. I might just come out ahead on this one.

Annie, Get Your Freakin' Gun Already

2010-06-15T12:10:00.003-04:00

Ian is not usually a chatterbox. Except for today. He was rolling like a hippodrome broadcaster calling the lead horse from the minute we left our front door until we got to school. And like any self-respecting, spaced-out Mom... I was spaced out. OK, I'm trying to remember what he said. It was something like this:

"Blah blah blah blah shooter blah blah guns can shoot at the man blah blah and they have shooters blah blah blah shooters are huge but blah blah bigger than guns blah blah. Oh! And blah shooters are like THIS HUGE blah blah blah."

Now, at the risk of revealing my politics, I will tell you that I am not pro-gun in any way (because I actually don't care about revealing my politics). I don't see the point of being pro-gun with a four-year-old, do you? But he is gaga over them. Pow pow! Blam! Bang! Shoot-em-up!

I went to buy him pajamas at Sears recently and couldn't find any that weren't plastered with weaponry, the weaponry carried by scary looking robotic beings that can transform into lawnmowers or circular saws or whatever.

And my husband knows I could throw him under the bus by talking about the Iron Man and Hellboy comics he has lying around within reach of the little ones, but I wouldn't do that. The only thing cooler for me than the guns blazing from every page is the marshmallow cleavage popping out of every superwoman's shirt. Are they serious with that?

Am I just out of touch? Is this a normal stage of development for any little boy, this fascination with wrecking stuff and shooting things? Will it pass or do I need to take up arms myself and bar the door? Will my husband ever talk to me again after that comment in the last paragraph?

Please, if you're a man reading this, help me understand this penchant for violence. Please reassure me that my kid will be as likely as the next one to turn out normal. Because if you don't, I just might have to resort to drastic censorship from their clothes right down to their toothpaste. And I don't think my politics could take things that far.

Here's The Story...

2010-06-10T11:13:00.003-04:00

Lately, the "boys will be boys" line is not sustaining me. If I have to separate another foot from a midsection, a fist from a face, an elbow from a back, a head from a gut (you get the picture) one more time I'm going to do them both in. But no, that might land me in jail.

Raising little boys has made me realize that when they were handing out patience, I must have been in line to get another supply of chocolate chip cookies. So I have none. Absolutely none. So you see, I'm somewhat lacking in resources in the little boy department. But I decided that I could get on top of this deficiency. I could. I just need a new approach. Yeah, that's all. Just a new approach. Like being somebody completely not me.

So today, I decided to try it out. To be someone with total control. With a zen approach to mothering. Someone who confronts temper-tantrums with aplomb (what the hell is aplomb, anyway?) An ability to cook and not mess up her clothes. Who, who, who I wondered? Who? I know! How about Florence Henderson?

I pictured her in her most famous incarnation, Mrs. Mike Brady: yes, those bright, perky dry-clean-only minidresses, that blonde coif, those twinkling eyes. And Mike, how awesome is he? And they live in that totally rad architect's house. Cool. And they have that awesome station wagon just beginning to hint at aerodynamism. Cool. And that carport with the fake-grass backyard. All cool. I could be her. Sure.

So here's how it went:

Me: (Entering the boys' room, singing like Snow White in the forest) Good morning, my little lambs!

Them: .... radio silence ...

Me: What would my little darlings like for breakfast?

Them: .... more radio silence, but slight movements of the eyelids ...

Me: (Hands to heart, like Florence might do in yoga) How about some nice waffles with butter and syrup!?

Them: ... grunting ...

Me: OK, coming up!

I trot off to the kitchen, already showered and dressed (Flo would never make breakfast in pajamas). I put some frozen waffles in the toaster and hum "Here Comes The Sun". I take out the condiments and set the table. I'm still humming. I'm realizing I kind of like this song. What the hell.

The waffles pop.

Me: Oh, boys! Let's eat so we can go to school and have a great day!

Them: (Sounds of a struggle come from their room) Noooo!! Stooooooppppp!! Stoppp it! I had that! That's miiiiinnneee! I'm going to tell MOM on YOU!!

Julian approaches me in the kitchen. I'm still humming. He's sobbing hysterically.

Julian: Maama der far wahhs miiirne aaaan Ian took it!! Wahhhhhhh!

I kneel down, like Flo would. You have to talk to kids at their level, you know.

Me: Julian, slow down. Don't worry. Tell Mama what's wrong. (I'm petting him on the arms and I bring him to hug me. His tears are jettisoning off his cheeks and splashing on my shoulder.)

Julian: Der far wahhs miiirne aaaan Ian took it!! Wahhhhhhh!

Me: Der far?

Julian: NOOO, der faaaarrrr!!!!

Me: (In my Flo voice) Oh, OK, der far?

Now Julian is jumping up and down with his fists clenched. Ian arrives.

Me: (Still in Flo mode) Ian, dear, can you explain to Mama what Julian wants so badly?

Ian: He wants the red race car, Mom.

Me: Julian, when we want things we have to ask for them nicely right?

Julian: Ian, can I please have the red race car?

Ian: No.

Ian retreats back to their room with the car under his arm like a football. Julian goes ballistic, and I mean full blast ballistic. I turn back to the waffles and begin spreading butter on them, followed by a neat swirl of syrup. I start humming "I Am Sixteen, Going On Seventeen" from The Sound of Music.

The boys eat through a storm of fighting and crying and Mama humming. Then we leave.

As we motor away in our very aerodynamic Honda Accord, I realize that I could only keep up this Florence Henderson thing if I could also be allowed to trip on some LSD on a regular basis. And anyone who knows me will tell you I'm too much of a goody-goody to trip on anything except a crack in the sidewalk. So Flo may have to go back in the closet.

And P.S. - I looked up aplomb. Yes, that's exactly what I need. More aplomb.

Girl Toy

2010-06-08T09:08:00.004-04:00

Today, I did probably one of the most generous things a young (OK, give it to me) working mother can do: I shared my nanny.

No, really. It's big. When you live in a nanny town, and you have a very good nanny like ours, you guard her like a vintage car. If she's stolen, she's irreplaceable. I think if we could figure out how to put a LoJack on her, and it didn't border on being a possible felony, we would do it in a heartbeat.

But because I know what it's like to be a mom in a childcare jam, and because I'm also a non-confrontational sucker, I said "Sure, bring your daughter over for the day!"

This may just be for today, but I fear the chance that it will go on and on like when Hitler took the Sudetenland and the next thing we knew the Yankees were handing out American chewing gum to French kids in Normandy. But for now, it's just one day.

And Ian and Julian, well, they love her. When she showed up this morning, little pony-tailed Emma, toddling all 19 months of herself around our apartment, you would have thought we just brought home a cocker spaniel with a bow on her neck.

"Mama! I think she wants something to drink?!" Ian yelped. Emma was standing in front of the fridge. I fetched some milk.

Ian and Julian took her by the elbow like a little old lady and squired her to the table so she could sit down to drink the milk. But Emma apparently doesn't sit in regular chairs yet. As soon as Julian hoisted her diapered bottom up to the seat she took a flying leap off the other side. Ian was on the scene immediately.

"Mama! [Ed. note: Ian switches from Mom to Mama when he's feeling especially docile and obedient. I don't hear it very often.] Emma fell off the chair!"

As a mom of two boys, it's hard to impress me with an injury, even if it happens to somebody else's kid. "Is she OK?" I call from the kitchen. I look over the breakfast bar into the living room and watch Ian inspecting every inch of her, lifting up everything from her left heel to her right ponytail for a look.

"Yeah. I think so, yeah, Mama, she's OK." I saw the fall and knew she was, but I figured I would let the boys play Ponch and Jon at the side of the Glendale Freeway for a few moments to exercise their damsel in distress muscles. They did a fine job.

The nanny rolled in at just that moment with a double stroller to take Julian and Emma to the Hoboken waterfront, to sit by the Hudson River and watch the sun come up over Manhattan, the cruise ships churn out to the Atlantic and daysailers playing hooky from work flit by. I took a swig of joe and thought about how fortunate that child was to be visiting the side of a deep and swiftly moving body of water with the nanny and not me.

Once Emma was strapped in next to Julian, I started to feel really sorry for her. Julian isn't one to shut up, especially when he's excited.

"Emma do you like the water do you like the boats do you want to go see manhattan emma do you do you what do you like Emma?" No, he didn't take a breath.

Emma looked up at me with her round blue eyes and her light brown ponytails sprouting from her head.

"I know, Emma, I'm really sorry about him. Try to make the best of it."

And they were off.

A Butterfly Moment

2010-06-03T11:09:00.003-04:00

Sometimes I overestimate the urban savvy of my small sons. Like, for instance, this morning:

Julian and I were leaving the apartment and I was busy trying to find the right keys to lock our apartment door. Julian was waiting for me in the hall.

"Julian, can you call the elevator, please?"

"OK, sure Mom," he says, moving like a little soldier toward the elevator, a few precious Bakugans in one hand and his other hand balled up like an infant's fist. I'm smiling to myself, back turned on him, because I love it when he says "sure Mom"! It's one of those rare moments when I truly enjoy my son's company, when my tornado of a pre-schooler suddenly exudes something more like a gentle, tropical breeze on which a butterfly might float. A butterfly with nothing to do all day but be beautiful and feel the sun on his wings.

Still with my back turned, this is what I hear next:

"Yoooohoooo! Oh, elevator! Where are you, elevator? We're waiting for you, elevator! Please come up to us, elevator! Yooooohooo!"

I turn to see him with his head pointed toward the innards of the elevator shaft, behind the closed door, trying to delicately coax the elevator upstairs with his child voice. I howl.

He sees me and knows he did something funny, but isn't sure what. He smiles back, my small butterfly. As we leave, laughing together, I'm feeling so sorry to take him off to school.

Rise and Shine !!

2010-06-01T10:43:00.004-04:00

I think I've written before in this space how I am not a morning person. I assumed my reluctance to get out of bed was a high school/college problem, and that when I grew up to be an adult, I would bound out of bed to go conquer the world every day. That has not happened, unfortunately. At 7 o'clock in the morning, there isn't much difference between me and a 17-year-old about to miss her first period class.

Except for this one, tiny thing:

Julian came in early this morning, pantless (more on that later), carrying a small, plastic mechanical rooster. I didn't see this, I just heard it. He put it up next to my ear, which was attached to my deeply sleeping head, and he pulled a little trigger under the rooster's belly that makes him do what roosters do: COCK A DOODLE DOO!!!!!!

Oh, and the rooster also has this Berlin-wall era spotlight that blasts light out of his mouth whenever he crows. So there was that, too.

Once I pealed myself off of the ceiling, Julian was there next to the bed, smiling, wearing only a skimpy Spiderman tank top.

"Hi, Mommy!!"

And then a question from me that seemed like the only logical thing I could ask: "Julian, where are your pants?"

"I don't know," he says, then: "Mommy, my rooster wants you to wake up. He wants breakfast."

My eyes are closed again and I can hear Julian jogging from one foot to the other, unsettled by my lack of verve. "What does the rooster like to eat?" I ask, my eyes still closed.

Julian calms down. Good, I gave him something to keep his head busy for ten seconds so that's ten more seconds of sleep for me. "I know! He likes doughnuts, and he likes corn and he likes bugs." Of course he does.

"Mommy? Can you get him his corn and his doughnuts and his bugs? You have to get up. They are with the kitchen toys." Julian is jogging left-right-left again and I know my seconds are numbered.

"Mommy?"

My eyes are closed again.

"Mooooommmmmy!! Youuuuu'rrrre noooot geeetttting uuuuuup!!"

No kidding. Then I think of another stall tactic: "Julian, why don't you find your pants and then we can make rooster's breakfast together?"

Julian stops jogging. I can tell he's thinking. Then I hear: COCK A DOODLE DOO!! and the rooster-mouth strobe hits my closed eyelids again. "But Mooooommmmy. I don't knooooooow wheeeere are my paaaaaaants," he whines.

"When did you take them off?"

"At night. I think at night, in my bed. I don't like sleeping with pants."

OK, this is new. I think I'm starting to realize that Julian has more libido than a three-year-old can handle.

I roll off the side of our queen-size sleigh bed (oh, queen-size sleigh bed, how I love thee!). As I follow Julian to find the rooster's doughnuts, corn and bugs, I wonder who bought us this rooster and hope that we aren't friends with them anymore. And then, when I'm more awake, I'm going to accidentally "lose" the rooster somewhere like, say, in the trash can.

Not Too Early for Three to be a Crowd

2010-05-17T09:06:00.003-04:00

Ian's love interest, Rebecca, also has a little friend named Leslie. Leslie and Rebecca are always joined at the hip. Ian is frequently annoyed by this inconvenience. He ruminates on the subject as we walk through the park this morning.

"Mom? Leslie and Rebecca always want to play with dolls. Playing with dolls is boring."

"Well, Ian, they're girls. Girls like dolls."

"Yeah, but why don't they like cars, too?"

"I don't know. Some girls just don't like cars."

Ian is ham-fisting a collection of matchbox cars that he's toting to school.

"Mom, I brought a car for myself and a car for Rebecca. I'm not giving any cars to Leslie because she's mean to me."

"Why is she mean to you?"

"I don't know. She just doesn't play with me so I don't like her."

"Did you think maybe she's jealous because you play sometimes with Rebecca?"

As Ian's hands are occupied, he wipes his nose with the side of his windbreakered sleeve and thinks about this. "No. Why is she jealous?"

"Because Rebecca is her friend, too, and maybe she doesn't like when Rebecca plays with you."

Ian's walk slows. The concept of female jealousy is clearly jolting to him.

"Ian, why don't you play with Leslie today? Maybe it will make her feel better."

"Yeah, but then that will make Rebecca jealous."

The man has a point. I'm encouraged that my son is such a quick learner, but all I can do when I leave him at the door of his classroom is pat him on the head and wish him luck. As I head for the exit, he approaches Rebecca with his stash of cars. She looks unimpressed. I can see Leslie, however, on the other side of the classroom sharpening her daggers...

Hard to Play Hard to Get

2010-05-11T09:07:00.002-04:00

Today, Ian was going to see Rebecca again in school after a long, long absence. She went with her family for a week to California. In the middle of the week last week, late in the evening, when the apartment was quiet, I heard Ian's little voice call from his bed:

"Mom?"

I went in, not happy about it, but tried to have an open ear. Ian was curled in the fetal position sucking his thumb, no different than when he was three months old. "What is it, Ian? Why aren't you asleep?"

"Mom?" he said with a slight whimper. "It's taking Rebecca and Rachel [ed note: that would be Rebecca's 7-yr-old sister] a long time to come back from vacation."

Oh, her again. I guess it isn't too early for love to stink. I reassured him that the week would go fast and then he'd see her again.

Last night, in anticipation of the event, he wanted to text her a message on my phone (as if she had a phone number, which she doesn't, but I wouldn't have sent it anyway). The message said: "I love you, Rebecca." Oy vey. Thank God Ian has me to protect his image.

Ian took an inordinate amount of care dressing this morning, choosing a kelly green shirt that made him look especially handsome (according to his mother). When we arrived in the classroom this morning, Rebecca was at a table with a gaggle of other pre-school girls. They were making jewelry out of play dough.

Ian nearly pirouettes past her table, light in his shoes, beaming from every inch of his four-year-old body. "Rebecca!!" he blurts. "You're here!"

The look on Rebecca's face unfortunately foretells a long path ahead of Ian in which he will overplay his hand again and again. I could see it coming. In the midst of rolling out one of her links of plasticine, she looks up at him and literally glares. As if to say, Oh, it's him again. If there weren't witnesses, I might have said something.

But after a moment contemplating her predicament, I couldn't really blame her. Ian flutters around her, asking her what she's doing and how was her vacation, to which she answers with a few grunts. Then Ian dispatches himself to the computer table to play a video game with the boys.

Ian kept a stiff upper lip and pretended not to notice the brush-off (well, more than likely he didn't realize he was getting the brush-off). As I left, I gave him an extra long hug and told him how handsome he was.

But love stinks in that direction, too. I'm already taken.

The Case of the Missing Brown Sandals

2010-05-03T09:07:00.003-04:00

Today, it's raining. Ian makes a note of his footwear as we're walking through the park. I also have footwear on my mind because I just bought Ian and Julian each a pair of nice brown, leather sandals when they need to be taken somewhere where "park rat" attire won't cut it. We went to a birthday party last night and I turned the house upside down looking for Ian's, but to no avail. I even emptied corners of their closet that I swore I would only empty in the event of war or an act of God.

"Mom? Ya know what?"

I nod.

"I'm not wearing my boots today so I can't jump in the puddles."

"No, you can't."

"And you know what else, Mom?" I nod again. "You couldn't find my brown sandals yesterday."

Genius. Thanks for the reminder. Ian continues. "You couldn't find them because I hid them in a suitcase so you couldn't put them on me and I could wear my cool sandals."

What?! I'm shaking my head. This, I'm sure, is not the first or last time one of my sons will put something over on me. I'm thunderstruck, however, by his sly creativity, his ability to do it without me ever noticing, and his ability to keep completely mum about it until he is halfway to school the next day and safely out of range of another wardrobe change. His execution of the scheme was flawless and cool-headed. I had to hand it to him.

I look down at him while he spins his yellow umbrella over his shoulder and walks along next to me. He looks gleefully self-satisfied. "Ian, I had no idea you were so sneaky."

He nods in acknowledgement and his tone is slightly sympathetic. "Yeah, Mom. You have to watch out for me."

No doubt. Jean-Paul strikes again.

Fashion Victims

2010-04-30T13:29:00.005-04:00

How'd you like to start your morning having tighty whities thrown in your face?

I was helping Julian get dressed and was pulling a rather stretched out pair of cotton undies over his little beanstalk legs. Yes, the undies are a bit droopy. Yes, they had seen better days when they belonged to Julian's older brother. (Unfortunately for Julian, we hand everything down.)

Julian had ignored the indignity for a long time, but today he was getting wise. He flaps the waist of them against his pooch of a belly and then decides it's time to assert himself. He pulls them down and lets me have it.

"I don't want these calzoncillos!" he shouts with total Spanglish fluency, flinging the undies at me.

OK, OK, don't get your panties in a twist I'm thinking, literally. "Julian, why don't you pick out the underwear you want then."

He stomps over to the dresser in a huff. "I WILL pick my own calzoncillos. I WILL pick them." Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. He rips a pair of Spiderman bikinis out of the drawer. Fine with me. The kids in his daycare have all spent the year potty training together and they enjoy showing each other their underwear. Julian especially likes showing off Spidey. This is one of the many things I pretend I haven't noticed is going on.

I finish with Julian and then turn to help Ian, who's lying on the floor with a heap of clothes next to him that I picked out. Ian is more of a problem. My husband and I call him "Jean Paul", as in "Gaultier", because he tends to be a little on the fussy side about clothes.

"I don't want that shirt," he whines. That shirt has buttons. I should have known better. Ian does not wear any shirt with buttons.

"I don't like those jeans," he says, picking them up by two fingers as if they were radioactive waste. "I want to wear my soccer pants." The soccer pants are elastic-waisted sweats, the kind of thing housebound people wear when they've given up on being even close to presentable. I let him play sports in them but won't go any further. It's almost a daily battle.

What feels like a week later, we're walking out the door. Julian is excited about his Spidey underwear. He's also wearing a t-shirt from the "Blue Angels" that the daycare teachers must think is the only shirt he owns. He doesn't wear anything else. Ian is in tears because I vetoed the soccer pants, but through his tears he's not too distraught to cast a critical eye at me.

"Mom? I don't like that shirt."

I inspect myself. "Why?"

"Because it has buttons."

"Well, I tell you what. They're my buttons and I'll wear them if I want to."

Take that, Jean Paul.

Two Tongues Are Better Than One

2010-04-20T09:21:00.004-04:00

I'm trying to get a spoonful of Post cereal into Julian. I aim and keep missing. He's decided he wants to be spoon fed like an infant and on most mornings, although I know I'm just perpetuating the problem, I play along so he doesn't go hungry. Ian's keeping a close watch on the whole operation.

"Mom, it's so funny when you have two tongues," Ian says.

I look closer at my target. No, one tongue. I ask what feels like an obvious question.

"Ian, that's silly. When do you have two tongues?" I ask this to him without looking, concentrating on my objective of getting food into Julian.

When Ian doesn't answer, I look up. His eyes have bugged out, he's screwed up his mouth and he still has bedhead hair. His look says: DUH. "When you're an alien."

Duh. When else?

Forever Young? Not So Much.

2010-04-16T14:50:00.003-04:00

"Mom? Ya know what?" Julian says, chomping on a piece of waffle, his head swivelling as he shoots spacey looks all over the room. Then he forgets for a second that he already got my attention.

"Mom? Ya know what?" I'm nodding. "Mom?" I'm still nodding.

"Tell me, Julian."

"When I get big and finish being three years old I'm going to be the baby again."

I think about that for a second. Ah, yes. Reset. Don't we wish.

"Julian, it doesn't really work like that." I am about to drop a bomb on him, so I give him a little squeeze across the table. "You're all done being a baby."

He's shocked. I can see what he's thinking. How can that be possible? How can I be done? There were so many things I would do differently. I wouldn't have morphed into the exorcist baby all those times in the grocery store, especially when I was told I couldn't buy Goldfish. I wouldn't have been such a jerk when I got tired and then refused for hours to fall asleep. I wouldn't have hit my brother so much (well, maybe I would have). If I had a chance to go back, I would have done it all... perfectly.

"So what I'm going be after I'm three years old?" he asks me.

"You're going to be four."

His face brightens. "Then five?" I nod. "Then six, like Lucas?" I nod again. "Then seven eight nine TEN!" He's on a roll. He thinks about this progression and then gives me a pained look.

"Mom? Why it takes so long?"

He he. "Don't worry," I say to him, clearing his plate. "It will all be here and gone before you know it."

He doesn't believe me. But none of us ever believed it, did we?

Cranky

2010-04-13T15:28:00.005-04:00

"I think I'm going to be cranky all day," Ian says as we walk through the park to school.

I laugh to myself. How often have I gotten out of bad with that determined sentiment?

"Ian, why are you going to be cranky all day?"

"Because Julian hit me and it made me cranky and now I'm going to be cranky all day." He folds his arms in front of his puffed out little pre-schooler chest.

I recently explained to them about what it meant to "be cranky" and I may be sorry about it. Now, they love to be cranky, to say "cranky", to pretend to be cranky, to make each other cranky. It's starting to make me cranky.

"That doesn't sound like a very good day, Ian. Does it? Nobody likes to be around a cranky person."

Ian shrugs his shoulders. So what. "I like to be cranky."

"So it makes you happy to be cranky?"

"Yes."

"Then you can't be cranky, right? How can you be cranky and happy at the same time?"

He walks and doesn't look at me. I can tell he's annoyed by how right I am.

When I got done with work and saw Ian again at home, he was bounding like Tigger in our living room.

"Ian, what happened to being cranky?"

He giggles, kisses me and bounds away. "Being not cranky is much better, Mom!"

Amen. I wish I had that kind of rebound.

Goodfella

2010-04-08T16:24:00.005-04:00

I drove Julian to daycare this morning. Very much on my mind was all the fighting that has been going on between Ian and Julian (alas, Easter vaca means lots of together time and they have the bruises and scratches to show for it).

So I say to Julian: "Hey, you know you and Ian have been fighting a lot."

I look in the backseat and he has this face like DeNiro's in Taxi Driver when he says "You talkin' to me?"

"You know, it makes Mama and Papa really sad when you guys fight."

Still the DeNiro face.

"Yeah, it makes us sad. How do you guys feel?"

Now the face has shifted to DeNiro, but in The Untouchables, as Capone. I'm not encouraged.

"Do you guys feel sad?"

Still the Capone face. Julian puts his head back a little, does something that almost looks like winking, and purses his lips. I'm tempted to duck in anticipation of the swinging bat.

"So Julian, do you guys feel sad?"

He looks me straight in the rear view mirror and says: "NOPE."

I drive on, contemplating my 3-year-old's steely lack of compassion. I wondered if Julian and Ian had a deal to keep quiet. Like DeNiro says in Goodfellas: "never rat on your friends, and keep your mouth shut."

If they do, it's gonna be a long time 'til we get to 18.

Justice is Deaf, Dumb and Blind

2010-03-26T12:37:00.003-04:00

Everybody wanted his hat and gloves this morning, which made no sense as the weather is finally warming up, but whatever. I went digging in our "Hat and Gloves" drawer (yes, and I even have it labeled). None of the gloves I found for Ian were the right ones, nor any of the ones I found for Julian, which left me digging and muttering to myself about why we have so many blipping gloves for these two kids.

Anyway, found something that passed muster, we flew out the door, the boys batting each other about the face fighting over who would have command of the elevator buttons.

"Just push the '1' button, Ian!" I said (or rather, shouted) as they were shoving each other away from the console inside the elevator.

"No, I get to push it!" shrieked Julian.

"Who cares who pushes it, Julian!?" I say. Am I crazy to ask this question? Of course, Julian is the one who cares, and a hell of a lot.

"No, I get to push it! I always get to push it!!" He is right about that. We've established certain rituals every morning and it's true that Julian does two very important things: push the '1' button in the elevator and push the button that opens the garage door.

Julian is coming unglued. Ian raises his gloved hands at both Julian and I. "OK, OK, OK. Julian, calm down. You can push the key and open the car door, OK?" Ian smiles at him, the peacemaker, like Reagan nuzzling Gorbachev. Whatever, I just want to make it out of the house and not be late to preschool.

Once everybody's strapped in and I start the car, there's a new problem.

"Mom! Ian won't give me the helicopter!!" screams Julian, tears spurting. Ian is cowering in the other corner of the backseat, jealously guarding a marine attack helicopter wristwatch, a gift from my brother.

"Julian, I'll get you another one."

"No! Mom! THAT is my one!" he yells, clenching his teeth.

"Well, Julian, Ian has it now. It's for both of you."

"No, Mom. No. Uncle Warren gave Ian the Blue Angel plane and he gave to me the helicopter watch. Uncle Warren gave that watch only to ME!"

Jesus, he actually remembers. That is exactly how things happened, but Ian quickly commandeered the helicopter watch and has had custody of it all week. And then there's my brother. Didn't he read the "Snow Day Fake Out?!" Doesn't he know you should never give the boys two different gifts. Same, good. Variety, bad.

What can I say to Julian? He is completely right and his brother has possession of his rightful property. I couldn't think of anything I could say or do that would restore his sense of justice. And for some reason, taking the copter away from Ian didn't seem right either. I had let him have it all week, so I was just as guilty as Ian was.

But you'll never believe who came to my rescue: Calle Ocho. As soon as Julian heard a few uno-dos-tres he forgot all about the copter. I was spared another withdrawal from the mother reservoir of wisdom. Good thing, too, as it feels pretty empty in there these days.

Return of the Jedi

2010-03-23T09:33:00.002-04:00

I am the big sister to two boys who grew up in the 70s and 80s. For years, I was menaced by the flotsam and jetsam of Star Wars paraphernalia - AT-ATs as large as small dogs, white and black plastic Stormtroopers whose legs kept popping off and showing up all over the house, C3-PO and Han Solo and Lando Calrissian dolls and even Princess Leia with her cinnamon roll hairdo. We had a Chewbacca plush and an R2-D2 piggy bank. I figured, once we sidled into the 21st century and I grew up and out of the house, I would be well past the saga of the Clone Wars and the New Republic.

But I didn't count on two things: 1) that I would become the mother to two boys and that 2) no business person in their right mind would let the Star Wars franchise fade like those crawling titles into the blackness of deep space.

Yes, Star Wars is back. Like it never left.

The latest toy giveaway at McDonald's is none other than a Darth Vader key chain. Ian got one a few days ago and carries it everywhere, even though he has no keys and doesn't really know much about Star Wars.

"Mom, what's this guy called?"

"He's called Darth Vader."

Silence from Ian's end. His lips are moving slowly and I can tell he's trying out the awkward syntax of Vader's name. I guess it's too early to try Wicket Wystri Warrick out on him (Ewok hero - I admit I got a little help from Wikipedia).

A few more minutes pass and I assume we've left Star Wars behind and changed the subject. "Mom? What's the name of the green koala?"

"What green koala? Where did you see a green koala?"

"You know. The one with this guy in the movie." He holds up his Darth Vader key chain.

Green koala. Green koala. I have no idea what the heck - then it hits me.

"You mean YODA?"

"Yoda?"

"The short guy with the big ears?" I raise my hands and make a flappy ear motion on both sides of my head.

"Yeah! That one! Yoda!"

OMG. I wonder if George Lucas would be bummed out by today's kids thinking Yoda looks like a green koala. With all the money he's making off McDonald's and everyone else, it probably wouldn't keep him up nights.

Bad Luck O' The Knight In Shining Armor

2010-03-17T09:53:00.005-04:00

I gave myself a lot of credit this morning for remembering that it's St. Patrick's Day. Then I gave myself even more credit for remembering to dress the boys in green, as requested by their teachers, because it's true that parents need more things to remember in the morning.

But while I was hiking down Ian's green shirt and looking for green socks, he looks at me, suddenly stricken. His normally pouty lips are puffed out even more, his round cheeks are getting hot and red and his eyes are starting to water. Even the faint, Gorbachev-like birthmark between his eyes is starting to turn red, lighting up like the tip of ET's finger. I knew I was in trouble.

"What is it, Ian?"

"Mom," he chokes out, standing in front of me in jeans and a green t-shirt. "Rebecca is going to wear her princess costume and I promised to wear my Batman costume."

Batman? On St. Patty's Day?

"Ian, are you sure you don't want to wear green? All the other kids will have green on."

"No, Mom. I have to wear the Batman costume. With the cape."

"Ian, really? Why?"

He looks up at me, his gray eyes round as silver dollars. He's earnest and soulful all of the sudden.

"Because, Mom. I have to save Princess Rebecca. I promised her."

I mean, what can a Mom say to that? Batman it was.

But I hate to tell you that when we got to school, Princess Rebecca was wearing a bright green t-shirt with sequiny shamrocks on it and blue jeans. Nary a princess getup in sight. She threw her hands over her face when she saw Ian in his Batman costume.

"Oh, Ian. I forgot!!"

Ian turned to me and buried his hooded head into my legs. His little cape was jerking up and down as he started to cry. The black fins darting off his wrist were flicking side to side as he wiped his wet cheeks.

By the time I left him, he had made peace with the disappointment and Shamrock Rebecca was being extra nice to him.

As for me, I'm still trying to recover. I've never been so disappointed to see a shamrock.

Monsters On His Mind

2010-03-16T09:20:00.005-04:00

If someone made a pie chart of Ian's brain, this is basically what it would look like: 88% - favorite movies and TV shows, 5% - how to get more chocolate, pudding and ice cream, 5% - Transformers, Bakugan and Pokemon toys, and how to get more of them, 2% - how to piss off my brother.

So you get the picture. Ian is very taken with, let's call it, the 'visual arts.'

Four months ago, his Papa took him to a movie. It's still on his mind.

"Mom? When I saw Monsters, Inc. that was really cool."

"Sure, that is a cool movie."

"Mom? Did you know that Rebecca was there."

Of course she was. "Who else was there?"

"And Lucas and Josh and Kristin," he squeezed my hand, clearly relishing the memory of seeing a movie with his friends. "And Rebecca, too." In case I had missed that.

"Mom? You know what? Julian didn't get to see it."

"I think that movie is too scary for Julian."

You could do the aforementioned pie chart exactly the same way for Julian, except the 88% would be evenly split between "monsters" and "how to piss off my brother." Julian could practically care less about movies and TV shows.

"Mom? You know what? It doesn't scare me because I'm tough!"

"I know you are," I say, hoisting him up to press the call button on the door of his school building. They ask him who's there and he screams "Optimus Prime!!" into the intercom. I let him down. They buzz us in.

"Mom? You know what? If I see a monster, I can just turn into a robot and kill it."

I'm sort of not paying attention at this point. I'm looking for a form that we had to fill out from his dentist that says he has good dental hygiene. I'm glad the public schools have time to be concerned about this.

"Good," I say, "can you teach Julian how to turn into a robot and kill all his monsters, please? Mommy and Papa need to get some sleep."

Ian unzips his coat and we start walking upstairs. "Sure, Mom. I can do that."

Thank God. We finally have a good night of sleep ahead. Until Julian realizes he's scared of being a robot.

Never Met A Puddle He Didn't Like

2010-03-15T09:04:00.002-04:00

I should have dressed Ian in a pair of thigh-high waders. By the time we got to school, Ian was soaked up to the knees. OK, before you think I'm totally ineffective at controlling my kid (you'd be right a lot of the time), I tell you I did try to keep him out of those puddles. I nearly pulled his arm out of the socket. Twice.

"Hey Mom! Check this out!" Ian darts away from me (I hadn't caught on to him yet) and dives feet first into a puddle in front of our building, easily ten inches deep, lurking and waiting for little boys on their way to school.

SPLASH!!

OK, wake up Mom.

We walk across the street. Ian is full of studied observations of the soggy landscape, sort of like a National Geographic photographer on a helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon.

"Mom! Look at that one! It goes alllllll the way around the bushes and then - oh wow - Mom, look how deep it gets over there!" He pulls at my arm and I squeeze his hand to the point where he starts complaining.

"Mom, oww, you're squeezing my hand too hard."

I let go.

"Mom!!! Hold my hand!!!"

We walk by the aforementioned lake phenomenon and Ian is jerking at me all the way. I can feel the pull of the puddle as if it had all the gravitational force of the moon drawing in a high tide. Ian is almost levitating in its direction.

When we get to the park, I realize my biggest mistake was that I should have avoided the park altogether. It is a wonderland of ponds, lakes, streams - all brown and murky with mud. There's even one puddle that's red - not the silty red of Georgia clay but the toxic, neon orange of a county once full of light bulb factories and still trying to expel the mercury from its soil. Yuck.

"Holy cow, Mom! Check this out!"

I'm checking it. We weave through one puddle after another and I hold tight onto Ian's hand as he contorts his body, trying to stick at least a toe in while I'm speeding him past the water. Then, as she always does, mother nature wins. Ian wriggles loose and he's off.

"Woooohoooo!" he yells, diving flat-footed into a puddle so large it could have played Lake Ontario in a movie.

SPLASH! SPLASH!

I duck to avoid the spraying water. Then I run around to the other side of the puddle to grab him as he comes out the other side, ready to scold, like one of those frazzled mothers in the supermarket trying to keep Hyperactive Harry from ripping open a bag of Goldfish.

Just as my hands get to him, however, I see how elated he is. He's grinning from ear to ear, his blond hair flying and his eyes lit up by the intoxicating blend of mischief and mess. There wasn't anything I could say except: "That was fun, wasn't it?"

He totally agreed. I let him do it one more time and then patted him down with cheap paper towels in the school bathroom. He had a blast, and I'll just have to think of a good excuse when I have to haul him into the pediatrician for the flu later this week. Hopefully the doc doesn't read my blog.

Those Meddling Mamas

2010-03-09T09:14:00.003-05:00

Our babysitter tore a muscle in her shoulder last week. Ian wanted to know all about it.

"Mom? What's wrong with Alma?"

"She hurt her shoulder. So today, I'll pick you up from school so she can rest."

"Where will she rest?"

"She'll go to her apartment. She needs to rest, to do quiet things."

"Oh, like when Papa hurt his ear?"

My husband recently had surgery on his ear and so the boys now reference all "boo-boos" back to the one their father had.

"Yes, Papa had to do quiet things."

"Mom, when you hurt yourself, you have to do quiet things. Like watch Scooby-Doo."

"Sure, that's one thing you can do."

"Mom?"

I knew where this was going. "Yes?"

"I think I hurt myself this morning. I think I need to do quiet things after you pick me up."

"Sure. We can play your Memory game."

"No, Mom. Something quiet."

"OK, how about read one of your books?"

"No, Mom. Something quieter."

"OK, then you can take a very, very long nap and let Mommy have some peace and quiet."

Ian walked a few steps, silent, considering his position.

"Mom?"

"Yes?"

"I think I'm feeling better."

Snakes and Snails and Tattletales

2010-03-08T20:56:00.005-05:00

"Ian," taunts Julian, "you can't put your foot in the street when you're crossing or the cars will smash you like Tom and Jerry."

"No, they won't. I'm super fast!" Ian jets away from us down the sidewalk like Dash from The Incredibles.

Julian looks at me, gaping. "Mom? Did you see that?"

"I did. Don't worry, Julian. He can't escape us."

"Oh," says Julian, not the least bit reassured.

"Ian!" I call. "Wait for us!" He does. Shocker.

When I get close to him, I launch my I'm-your-mother-and-this-is-a-teachable-moment speech while I imagine my Parenting Scorecard, hovering in the heavens somewhere, is dinging like a pinball machine on full tilt.

"Ian, you can't run across the street."

"Huh? Why not?" I love when he asks a clarifying question to a statement he hasn't remotely heard or understood.

"Because you might trip and fall and then you'd be on the ground in the street. And that's really dangerous."

"Huh? Why?"

"Because cars won't be able to see you."

"OK. So I look for cars? And then I run across? Right?"

Mom, meet your son, Brick Wall.

"No. I said NO running. Do NOT run. That means walk, not run. Walk."

"OK, OK, OK."

Julian, the Reinforcer, chimes in: "Mom said not to run, Ian. Mom said not to do that." Juli shivers with the rush of being allied to the woman in command. I pat him on the head; I need all the suck-ups I can get in my position.

We get to the next corner. I utter my power word: "Manos!" [Hands] Both the boys lock in at my sides like a pair of F-14s in formation. We all hold hands, waiting for the traffic to pass. Ian is watching Julian, who is watching Ian's foot on the curb. Julian knows I told Ian he can't set foot in the street until I give the OK. Out of the corner of my eyes, I see Ian slide his right shoe over the edge of the curb. Julian is shivering, anxious, starting to hop from one foot to the other. I'm pretending to ignore the whole show. Ian keeps his eyes trained on Julian, like a sharpshooter looking for his moment. He leans forward, extends his foot and drops the front of his shoe onto the asphalt. Julian is apoplectic. He sounds the alarm.

"MOM! Ian is touching the street and you didn't say he could touch the street!! Mom! Look at what Ian is doing! Mom! Mom?!"

I give the all clear and we start across the street. I smile at the crossing guard, remark to the boys what a wonderful day it is shaping up to be - sunny, warm. Ian is skipping along at my right side. Julian is yanking my arm. I know all I have to do is outlast Julian's moment of triumph and I'll be in the clear.

"MOM!! I'm trying to tell you something! Mom! Listen to me!!"

We walk a few more paces beyond the opposite curb and then I stop. I slowly bend to look Julian in the eye. His eyes are red and his face is flushed.

"What is it Julian?"

He looks at me, catching his breath. He starts to look vaguely lost. He looks up at a squirrel. Then all he comes back with is: "I don't know." But he has my attention, and doesn't want to waste the opportunity, so he says: "Mom? Did you see that squirrel there?"

God Bless short-term memory.

I'm Not Lovin' It

2010-03-04T16:37:00.004-05:00

I really shouldn't be mad at the marketers. They know not what they do. I should know; I am one of them. And hell if I know all the unintended (or intended) consequences of what I do either. A marketer's life, while it may busy itself with things like customer satisfaction and consumer insights, is very narrowly focused on doing one thing extremely well: selling. If marketing were an Olympic sport, the ones working at McDonald's would be taking home a hell of a lot of gold.

On the way to school, we hear a radio commercial for McDonald's. The boys are such ardent lobbiers on behalf of the fast food chain that they should be given an office across the street from Congress.

"Mom, did you hear that?" Ian asks from the back seat.

"Hear what?"

"They're talking about McDonald's."

Damn. Why wasn't I faster to change the station?

"Mom?"

"Yes?"

"Can we go there?"

Julian lobs one in for the cause: "Mom, we need to go to Old McDonald's because we haven't gone there in a long long time. We need to go there."

"No, we don't go to McDonald's."

"Mom, did you know they have a playground inside?" offers Ian.

Yes, I did know that. Our babysitter takes them there sometimes to "play" and then they come home smelling like fried chicken nuggets. I've been looking the other way on that one for so long that my head is about to spin off.

The voiceover starts talking about McD's latest marketing innovation: the McCafe, where the paper coffee cups are a nut brown - faux recycling? - McD's fair trade? - and the foam on the coffee is coated with a glistening lattice of chocolate syrup and whip cream. I mean, who wouldn't love another 700 calories and a sugar rush in the morning?

Unfortunately for me, Ian is paying very close attention and also, unfortunately for me, he knows his mother very well.

"Mom?"

"Yes?"

"If you wanted a cafe [that's what Ian calls "coffee"], you can get one there. McDonald's has cafe. Did you know that?"

This really isn't fair. I haven't had my coffee yet, and my own kid knows it, and he also knows he can use that to tempt me to go by McDonald's. But I'm not giving in, cafe or no cafe. The marketers are not going to win this one.

It Takes Disgusting To Know Disgusting

2010-03-01T09:16:00.006-05:00

Ian and I trudged to school this morning through the wreckage of yet another Nor'easter snow storm.

It started last Wednesday night, first as a cold rain, then as a slimy slush, then pelting ice by Thursday morning that mixed with the slush and piled up in the streets and made everything around us in Hoboken look like the top of a glazed doughnut. By Thursday afternoon, the flakes were as fat as Thanksgiving turkeys and started sticking to everything - even the stucco side of our apartment building was frosted white like a birthday cake.

The flakes fell without end all through Friday until the wee hours of Saturday morning. Of course, we had no school on Friday (and yes, that is despair you detect in that sentence.)

Going out of the apartment was treacherous for most of the weekend, though we did it anyway. (Apparently, the city had warned people not to go into the parks on Friday as the trees were heavy from the glazed doughnut effect; some poor guy was even hit on the head in Central Park with a falling tree branch and killed. This Mom somehow missed the memo and took her 3 and 4-year-old children skipping into the park anyway. Like I always say to myself, only the grace of God stands between my kids and disaster. It sure isn't me.)

So this morning, trudging under the now-safe tree branches, Ian tells me all about his favorite subject these days: Rebecca.

"Mom, why didn't you put my snow pants on?"

"Because you're walking to school. You don't need them. That means I expect you not to jump in the piles of snow next to the street." (I know, it sounded ridiculous to me, too, but I said it anyway.)

"But Mom? Rebecca wears snow pants. She has pink ones. I want to show her my snow pants."

"Well tomorrow you can show her."

"Mom? You know Rebecca wears black boots," he looks down at his, "just like mine!"

Thank God I've purchased the right boots. It had nothing to do with Sears practically giving them away by the time I got around to buying them in February.

"Mom? You know what Rebecca does?"

I can't wait to find out.

"She does this funny noise with her nose, like this." Ian inhales sharply, then snorts like a pig. How ladylike. Ian is bowled over and laughs hysterically, then breaks free from my hand and jumps straight into a slushy, brown hill of snow piled up by the plows between the street and sidewalk.

Ian is still sniffing and snorting while he jumps. "Isn't that AWESOME, Mom!!??"

There's no other word for it. I'm annoyed by him jumping in the snow, but I know I only have myself to blame.

After his romp in the snow, Ian notices that he's gotten a bit of something brown and slimy on the toe of his left boot, not unlike the leftings of some dog poop. Great. I instruct him to scrape the boot around in the snow, which seems to fix things.

"Mom, that was disgusting!" Another favorite new word that Julian and Ian trade like a baseball card lately, sort of like: "Ian, you're DIS-GUS-TING!" and then Ian says: "No I'm not, you're DIS-GUS-TING!" And it continues on for a few moments like this until I've had enough and say something un-Caroline Ingalls-like.

When we get into his classroom, he decides that he needs to update Rebecca about the disgusting poop on his boot and he runs over to her with the news. Rebecca's face sours. I don't blame her.

I watch them for a moment and think that maybe I need to help Ian with his pipeline of girlfriends as Rebecca is surely going to re-evaluate after that news. And then I see something that reminds me how they must be made for each other: Rebecca starts sniffing and snorting.

I wave to Ian and he snorts back. I clearly have nothing to worry about.

Love, Actually

2010-02-23T09:22:00.004-05:00

It's raining today in good ole Hoboken, but it's a steady spring rain, not an icy winter soaker, and I'm actually enjoying it. Not Ian.

"Mom? Why is it raining?"

"Just because it is." Having not had my coffee, that's about as creative an answer as I can muster.

"I don't like it. It makes the mud all squishy and you can't play there."

True. Ian steps square into a puddle and soaks his right Adidas sneaker.

"I don't like puddles."

Well don't step into them, I'm thinking.

"Mom? Why is it raining?"

Oh, brother. "It's raining because it will help the grass to grow and then you won't have all that mud. Isn't that good?"

"OK." Ian walks a few steps and then shifts to a new, but related, topic. "Mom? My pants are dying."

"Your pants?"

"NOOOOO!" Ian must be thinking "Boy, this Mom doesn't listen very well!" The thought has crossed my husband's mind on more than one occasion, and now his sons are experiencing the same hair-pulling joy of talking to someone who's not paying attention.

"No, Mom! My PLANTS! My plants are dying."

"You have plants? In class? Ian that's really cool."

He's totally underwhelmed. "I guess so. But actually, they're just dying."

The word "actually" has recently come on full force in Ian's vocabulary. He uses it at any opportunity.

"Can you show them to me when we get to class?"

"Sure."

We get to class and he shows them to me, sitting by the window, which is getting pattered with rain today. They look pretty happy and green to me. I explain to Ian that the little green leaves at the bottom are new growth. He looks encouraged, though he's only half paying attention because Rebecca has just walked into the classroom. The ceiling could cave in on us and Ian probably wouldn't notice. I'll admit, Rebecca is cute.

"Actually, Mom? I need to go talk to Rebecca now. See you later."

And he's off. But he'll be back. Actually, I'm sure he'll be back. I still do his laundry.

Abracadabra

2010-02-22T09:12:00.004-05:00

"Mom, I want you to pick me up from school and take me to soccer."

I love these requests. I feel like the Ultimate Bad Mother when I have to admit to - gasp! - having my own things going on. Somewhere down the line, though, I'm convinced it will save all of our sanities if I do.

"Ian, I can't take you because that's the day I have my writing class."

"What's a writing class?"

"They teach you how to write stories."

Ian thinks about this. I know what he's thinking: Why would anyone need a class to learn how to write stories? I imagine native peoples sitting around a campfire and, before the chief pipes up to spin a new yarn, he says: "Is there anyone here who has taken a writing class? Maybe you should start." Ha ha. Even better is when I have my own things going on that feel like a complete waste of time when I explain them out loud to my kid.

"Where is your writing class?"

"It's in Manhattan."

"Oh, that's where Jerry goes."

"Who's Jerry?" What a question, Mom. Who's Jerry?

"You know, Mom. Like Tom and Jerry."

"Oh, the mouse! I love Tom and Jerry."

"Yeah, they're OK."

"So what do you like, Ian?"

"I like to play Crystal with Rebecca and Lisa."

"Oh, how does that go?"

"They dress up like witches and put spells on people."

I'm suddenly reminded of a freind of mine who used to live in a dump of an apartment in the East Village with a girl who called herself a 'wicca.' Their whole apartment stank of incense. I wasn't sure I was cool with 'Crystal,' but I kept quiet.

"Do you play like you're a witch, Ian?"

"No, they are the witches. I'm the one they put the spells on."

That gets a good laugh out of me and Ian isn't sure what's so funny. I look at him, so innocent as to the mess he's already embroiled in at the age of 4, and the bigger messes to come, and there ain't an eye-of-newt his Mom can do about it.

I look down at him. My friend, I think, if only you knew. This is just the beginning.

Enter the "Why"

2010-02-19T17:04:00.004-05:00

When my two sons were just a couple of inert infants, I used to look forward to the day they could talk. Then they started talking, and I found out what a bliss it is to be around people who can't talk back. Bliss. Now, not only do they talk back, but they do something far more dangerous: they reason.

"Mom, why are you making huevos for Papa?"

"Because he likes them, so I'm making them."

"But why?"

"Because he likes them."

"But why?"

You get the picture. This morning was a headbanger of "why"s.

"Mom, why are you wearing that shirt?" He looks at my multi-colored, hippy-patterned, long sleeve cotton shirt from Target and I'm suddenly defensive.

"Because I want to."

"But why?"

"Because it's the first thing I got out of my drawer."

"But why?"

"Because it doesn't make me look fat."

This silences him. Julian has been on the Cheerios and Cheezits diet nearly since birth, so the idea of not wanting to look fat has not been a concern of his so far.

I go into the boys' bedroom to wake up Ian. Professor Julian Emeritus is trailing me.

"Mom, why are you waking up Ian?"

"Because he needs to get up for school."

"But why?"

"Because he does. He just does." I'm sort of running out of answers that will stop him dead in his tracks, like the 'looking fat' answer, so I opt for the totally unimaginative, which starts to rile him.

"BUT whhhhyyyyyy? Why are you getting him up?"

"Because Mommy will be in really big trouble if he's late to school."

"But why?"

"Because life's not fair for Mommy at all."

"But why?"

"Because you boys drive me bonkers."

"But why?"

Now I've got him. The old answer-a-question-with-a-question: "I don't know Julian. Why do you and Ian drive me bonkers?"

He's totally, utterly stumped. Then, probably while he is considering the word "bonkers", he collapses into a fit of giggles. He points at me and laughs and laughs and laughs.

I should try that answer next time.

Little Lost Alien

2010-02-18T14:02:00.004-05:00

Some mornings things come up that can just bring everything to a grinding halt, especially when we are on the verge of running late and I can feel my stress level rising (see post: Last Minute Louie for a reminder of the humiliation I would suffer upon being late to school).

Julian woke up with a little alien figurine in hand, the one from the Toy Story movie, and had been carting it around all morning. He had told me four different times (at least, I lost count) that he was going to take it to school to show to his friend Liam.

"I think that's great, Julian," I said. I was trying to find socks that would fit Ian and I could have cared less, as long as he wasn't having a tantrum. He could have said, "Mom, I'm going to shove this alien up my nose," and he would have gotten the same response from me.

I find the socks, put shoes on me and them, I reach for my keys, then panic sets in. Julian is pacing the apartment.

"Mom, where's my alien?"

I almost say JC out loud but catch myself.

Then I ask a question that is mainly rhetorical. "Where did you leave it?"

"I don't know, I don't know, I don't know." He's pacing in and out of the bedrooms nervously, not really looking at anything.

I start poking around in his room while Ian is thundering around in his snow boots. Did I mention our downstairs neighbor is a saint?

I turn over every dumped out toy, rummage through the buckets of their Ikea toy shelves, crouch to look under the beds (hardwood floor, bad knees, not fun). Then I think to check out where he hides all his best booty: in his bed.

Sure enough, the alien in question was stuffed in one of the folds of his jungle comforter. I pick it up and hand it to him. He's visibly both relieved and awed by my toy-hunting skill.

"Oh, Mom," he smiles broadly, "you are so good at finding aliens!"

High praise, indeed.

That Thing He Does

2010-02-17T10:47:00.003-05:00

All kids have "that thing," you know? That certain mannerism they have or thing they say that is so uncharacteristic for their age that it's adorable, even if it borders on being inappropriate. Julian has something we call the finger wag. An authoritative wag of the right index finger, the other fingers carefully curled under, the chubby pointed one moving rapidly side to side. Tsk tsk tsking.

If something is not where it belongs, he wags.

If somebody does something they're not supposed to do, he wags.

If somebody uses a bad word, he wags.

Today, I got a protracted explanation of what a bulldozer was doing in front of his daycare when we were walking in. There was such a mountain of snow accumulated in the street that they had to send in a bulldozer to scoop all the snow away, and two highway workers to scrape off what was left of the snow and ice when the dozer was done.

"Mom, they're cleaning that street because that street is dirty." The finger is up, poised for wagging, but not moving yet.

"Mom, that street is dirty that's why they have to clean it." (Julian is also artful at saying the same thing about four different ways.)

"And Mom, that street has a lot of snow on it, and that's not good to have a lot of snow on the street." Then, there it is: wag wag wag.

"Mom, snow doesn't belong there on the street," the wagging is continuing, like a metronome, in front of his face. "Snow belongs on the sidewalk. That's where snow belongs."

He stares at the bulldozer and the men scraping with rapt attention, his round little cheeks luminous in the morning sun, his mouth slightly open.

That thing has cast its spell on me: I spy the little pink bottom lip and decide to make my move while he's in a state of stunned distraction. I give the little lip a kiss while he's looking off into the street, holding the little baby flesh in my lips for a moment and savoring it. He shivers with delight in my arms. Kissing under the bleachers was never this good.

Candy Land

2010-02-16T09:14:00.003-05:00

More snow in Hoboken this morning.

Ian and me, in the park. Ian has thrown his head back and stuck his tongue out, eyes closed:

"What are you doing, Ian?"

Suddenly it occurs to me that only an unimaginative adult would have to ask that question. I feel a little pang of pity for myself and work on blowing it off while we continue the conversation.

"I'm catching those little balls on my tongue," he says.

"Ian, those little balls are called snowflakes."

He doesn't answer. Tongue out, still catching. I decide that playing along might lift me out of my drab adulthood and make me feel a little better.

"OK, so what do they taste like?"

No hesitation from Ian: "Chocolate!" He sticks his tongue out again: "And vanilla!"

"No other flavors? No strawberry? No pistachio?" OK, now I'm hamming a little.

"No, Mom, all chocolate and vanilla!" Ian is elated by this.

Chocolate snowflakes? Now that's a world I'd like to live in.

As I drop him off, I realize that today is the day he learned the word "snowflake" and that before today, he apparently didn't know what they were called. (I'm not sure how we missed this word with last week's dumping, but we miss a lot of things so why not this.)

I tried to remember when I didn't know what those little twinkling white things were called and I really couldn't. Fortunately, every day, Ian and Julian remind me of things I've long forgotten. And isn't that what it's all about?

Friday Morning, Starring Baby Triceratops

2010-02-12T09:19:00.005-05:00

Julian traipsed out of his room at 6:42am on the dot this morning looking for his Mommy. Once he found her, already in the kitchen (OK, I'll be honest, this never happens... long story why I was there), she scooped him up and he promptly announced:

"Mommy, you be the Mommy Triceratops and I'll be the Baby Triceratops and Ian will be the Brother Triceratops."

Got it. Julian is very big into the Mommy/Papa/Brother/Baby roll playing. Just about everything in our house has played the roll, but usually dinosaurs get starring parts. If you break character, watch out.

"Juli, please finish your waffle."

Julian squirms in anguish at the table. "NOOOOO, Mommy, say 'Baby Triceratops please finish your waffle!'"

"OK, sorry, blah blah blah Baby Triceratops."

A few minutes later, I lapse again.

"Julian, c'mon, we need to get dressed."

More anguish, accompanied by some wake-the-dead stomping on our floor/the neighbor's ceiling. "NOOO, Mommy, I'm BABY TRI-CER-A-TOPS!!"

"OK, right. Baby Triceratops, can you go wake up Brother Triceratops?"

"Sure, Mommy Triceratops."

Then my husband comes into the kitchen to eat and spies a few left bites of waffle on Julian's plate. He follows Julian into the bedroom with a fork of waffle, where Julian is busy clocking his brother square between the eyes with a Transformer to help rouse him.

Suddenly, Julian comes running to find me, Papa trailing him still with a bite of waffle hanging from the fork. "No! I'm not hungry! Mommy, Papa Triceratops is bothering me!!"

Then, inspiration hits me, and I haven't even had my coffee yet. "Hey, Baby Triceratops, if you don't eat all your waffle you can't go scare all the other dinosaurs."

This works. He darts to the table and wolfs down the rest of what's on his plate and then asks for more.

We play the game all the way to school until I deposit Baby Triceratops in his classroom. It's one of those days when I feel totally in control, which is a major high for me (again, unfortunately).

I'm sure disaster is waiting around the corner, but for now I'm set. Sun is shining, kids are back in school and my husband and I are meeting friends for a big kid dinner (with adult drinks) in Manhattan tonight. Life is good. Happy Valentine's Day to all my Followers. I love you!

Partial Snow Day Fake-Out

2010-02-11T17:20:00.003-05:00

My cousin, Rachel, who has three kids, once gave me some very wise advice: when you have multiple kids, especially close in age and/or sex, make everything you get for them the same. Don't buy new toothbrushes where one has Diego and the other has Mickey. Buy two Diegos. Don't buy the 'variety pack' snacks. Buy all goldfish. Don't buy one black snow boot and one blue one. Buy two black ones. You get the picture. If not, each child will covet the different object of the other child and think that their own is chopped liver. And man, will you hear about it. And don't think that simply switching the object is going to fix it. Grass is always greener, remember?

So you can imagine the quandary I was in this morning when they announced that Ian's school would still be closed for another snow day and Julian's would be open. Two different, not the same, and who wants to go to his school when his brother is at home? I had to put on some theatre.

"Mom, are we going to school today?" Julian asked first thing. This is now starting to be the question he asks every morning, even on Saturday and Sunday.

"Yes, we're all going to school," I lie, in this case well, because I am hurriedly looking through Ian's drawers for school clothes to help support my fake-out that Ian is going to school. Even Ian doesn't know. I tried to let Ian in on a fake-out once and it bombed.

"Ian, I'm going to take you to Johnny Rockets today when Julian is taking a nap because you're doing so good at not hitting your friends, but don't tell Julian."

Ian's immediate next move was to run into the living room and announce to his brother that he was going to Johnny Rockets, nah nah nah. I know. I don't think I've ever felt like more of a total idiot.

So this time, Ian was on a 'need to know' basis, which meant he did not need to know.

To tell you the truth, it went great. Even Ian complained about not wanting to go to school and I kept up the ruse.

"Sorry, Ian, we all have to go to school," I said, smiling apologetically.

Once we dropped Julian at his daycare, I walked back to the car with Ian, who thought he was headed to his own school and I said to him: Ian, guess what? You're staying home with Mom today! To which Ian replied, with a fist pump: "ALLLLRIIIIGHT!"

Now, what am I teaching my kid by pulling the wool over on his little brother? Probably nothing good. But if you've ever heard them fight over a Mickey and Diego toothbrush, then you would have some sympathy for me. Really you would. At least I hope you would.

Snow Day: 4:55pm

2010-02-10T16:33:00.004-05:00

When your kid gets a birthday present and there's a little note at the bottom of the card that says "Don't hate us for giving this to him!", your first instinct is to hide the toy in the back of the closet and re-gift it to someone. But by then, the kid has it open and has decided that no other toy in the history of toys has ever been so awesome.

In our case, this was a few weeks ago for Julian's birthday and the gift in question was a game called "My Little Sandbox Play Set." I don't need to elaborate about why this gift is problematic, do I? I think the name says it all.

Suffice it to say, the boys have been digging in the sand for pirate treasure for the past 45 minutes and are starting to show signs of disinterest. Even though the box says "hours of fun." Somebody should really hold them to that.

Still snowin' and blowin' out our way...and the entire Southwest quandrant of my living room (there's no place else to play in a two-bedroom apartment) is covered in electric blue 'ultra fine sand', as they boast on the box. (Is the 'ultra fine' supposed to be somehow reassuring? It's just harder to sweep up. Give me the 'ultra huge, more like a baseball' size sand next time, thanks.)

Snow Day: 1:11pm

2010-02-10T12:39:00.004-05:00

I was determined (because I'm usually like that, unfortunately for many people around me) to build a snowman with the boys today during our snow day. But I discovered that, when you're a little boy, it is infinitely more fun to destroy a snowman than to build it.

But Mom is sometimes a little slow on the uptake (and determined - which I've discovered is an unfortunate combination). I built two bottom bodies, only to have them both kicked in by the business end of Ian's Lands End boot. Then I got to my third lower body, put on the middle body and was starting to shape the head. Meanwhile, my sons were pelting each other with snowballs. Then they spied my nearly finished snowman and came running like a pair of Vikings. Despite my pleas for mercy, they laid into that poor headless snowman with gusto.

Needless to say, there is a nice smallish round snowman head laying on the ground in Church Square Park now, missing its body. I gave up.

I'm attempting to have them take a nap now... even though Ian will be five this year. I've insisted to him that even Papa takes a nap when he goes to work (not true) in my usual bad-liar style. Fortunately, Ian is about as gullible as me. We do fine. Julian? That's another post altogether.

More snow has started to dump in the last 30 minutes, with new energy, and is supposed to fall until sometime late tonight. Maybe my snowman will have a second chance at life.

Snow Day: 9:20am

2010-02-10T09:13:00.006-05:00

ON YOUR MARK! OK, if your dad is from Spain, there are three things you learn early: serrano ham is way better than prosciutto, there's only one kind of "football" in the world and the Spanish teams play the best (apologies to our friends from those other European countries, and Brazil), and Nascar has nothing on Formula 1.

So Ian dug out his radio control Formula 1 Renault, Team ING, and is careening it around the apartment. I figure nobody in the building is going to fault me for letting them get a little rowdy on a day like this. His little brother has been in hot pursuit.

"Mom!! Ian won't let me doooo it!"

I told Ian if he helps his brother learn how to drive it, I'll let him watch Spongebob, which I had the foresight to rent at the supermarket last night to hold as a bribe, as needed. I'm kind of pulling in my Spongebob favors early, I know. We'll see what I have left by 2 o'clock.

Snow Day: 8:00am

2010-02-10T07:48:00.002-05:00

SNOW TIME! The boys and I are at home today (so far, I'm still OK, thanks for asking) watching the snow pile up outside. Both of their schools notified us yesterday (one by automated phone message - what will they think of next?) so at least we knew what we were in for.

The pic attached is the view out our living room window, across a parking lot to a church which Julian calls the "Mouse House" because that's where "Pickey Mouse" lives (known as Mickey Mouse to the rest of who have been well indoctrinated by the Disney Co.)

So far this morning I have made breakfast, gotten everyone dressed, assembled a giraffe limbo game, fixed a matchbox car's wheel that was broken and hooked together a few cars of a duplo train so it can drive around Julian's bowl of oatmeal.

If you're snowed in, please COMMENT!

Carry On

2010-02-09T21:09:00.004-05:00

Ian rolled his Diego suitcase onto the elevator this morning, loaded with his sheet and blanket for nap time, along with 1 of the 13 different models of Lightning McQueen that we have in our apartment, and he stopped in his tracks.

Heading down in the elevator was a man who also had, are you ready for this?, a rolling suitcase. Ian glowed.

"Mom, his suitcase is just like mine!"

"Well, sort of, yes, just like yours."

The suitcase man chimed in, looking at the blue and orange graphics of Diego roping a troubled forest creature to safety. "But yours is cooler," he said.

Ian and the suitcase man exchanged a charmed smile.

Ian was walking on air all the way to school. I knew how he felt. Someone older, wiser, more important than him was doing something he was doing. And it feels good when we see that, doesn't it? Especially when we got up in the morning and came up with the idea all by ourselves, and then out on the street we see that mirror reflection of ourselves in someone we think is more ahead of the curve than we are. It shouldn't feel all that good, but let's face it. It does. Ian got it. So did I. Like when someone else is wearing the same Manolo Blahniks as me. Ha ha... I almost had you there, didn't I?

Tune in tomorrow for the Snow Day Chronicles... school has already been cancelled.

Be Mine

2010-02-08T10:19:00.003-05:00

When I got Ian to school this morning, his teacher took me aside. I always hate it when she takes me aside, sensing that I'm about to hear about some discipline problem that my husband and I have been lax in attending to. But she prefaces her comment today by saying: "Don't worry, Mom, it's not bad."

Whew. OK, so what is it?

"So, Mom, I told Ian and Rebecca that they could not be boyfriend and girlfriend."

I think I need to sit down. "Do they even know what that is?" I ask.

"Yes, it seems they do. They told me they're going to get married and buy a house together."

"What?"

"Yes, and Rebecca is going to work and Ian is going to stay home with the kids."

I can't find a chair so I sit down on a plastic milk crate by the door of his classroom. It's not comfortable. "He's going to what?"

"Yes, well, that's what they said. And he also hit Maggie last week."

Hit Maggie? He's a stay-at-home-dad who beats up on other women? I am not liking this.

"Yes, he hit Maggie because Maggie was playing with Rebecca and he wanted Rebecca to himself." The teacher gives me this knowing smile as she looks at me. I'm trying to think how I can deflect. Should we be worried about Rebecca and Maggie having a thing for each other (not that there's anything wrong with that)?

"But Mom, don't worry" continues his teacher, "it always gets like this around Valentine's Day."

She couldn't have started with that? I would have felt like Ian was less of a deviant if I knew this was just a case of overactive pre-school hormones stirred up by a commercial holiday designed to sell even more candy than was sold at Halloween and Christmas.

Ian comes over to me to say goodbye and his little, deviant face looks up at me, his gray eyes wet from coming in out of the cold and his pink, plump lips smiling and showing off his chipped front tooth. I pat his blond hair down and lean over.

"Ian, you know it's not OK to hit, right?"

"Yes, Mom, I know," he says and throws his arms around my neck, squeezing me.

And in my head, I continue: And Ian, you know it's not OK to marry your 4-yr-old classmate and beat up on anyone who talks to her or to even THINK about buying a house with someone.... right?

But I just smile, and Ian bounds off to join Rebecca in the blocks area, probably to build a house. Who knows?

Spidey Makes a Comeback

2010-02-05T16:25:00.004-05:00

You may remember way back somewhere about November, I wrote in this space how Batman was better than Spiderman. Several reasons: he has a car, he can fly (without relying on that messy web), and there were a few other compelling ones that I can't recall now, but they were good (and I even came up with one).

Today, Spidey appeared in the backseat, in the form of a kiddie laptop, and was making a big comeback. Ian was teaching Julian how to play the "Letter Power" game.

"Jul, you have to start it like this," Ian says, pushing some buttons. Now he's an expert. I can remember when he would follow us around the apartment asking us how to turn it on.

"Oh, OK, thanks Ian." I can see Julian in the backseat. He's shivering with excitement.

"What do you want to play, Jul? Let's play Letter Power."

"Oh, OK, let's play Letter Power," says Julian, total putty when his brother is showing him something cool.

Ian presses a button and then Spidey says: "Let's play LETTER POWER! ALRIGHT!" and there are some swashbuckling sound effects, like we imagine Spidey swinging from one letter to the next.

Then some suspenseful base notes as Julian is asked to find the letter "T". He presses the key for "X."

I hear some kind of game show waah-waah and then Spidey says: "NICE TRY! TRY AGAIN. FIND THE LETTER T!"

Julian presses another key and I hear the computer say "F". Man, he's a slow learner. Ian's starting to get annoyed.

"No, Jul, this is the letter T," and Ian reaches over from his seat to press the key for "T".

"Oh, OK, that's T, OK," chirps Julian. "IAN! Let's do another one. Let's do it! I can do it!"

Ian's getting tired of this game (that makes two of us). "OK, Jul, but get it right this time, OK. I can't reach over there."

Ian stretches over to restart the game.

"ALRIGHT! LET'S FIND THE LETTER "B"!" says Spidey.

The car is quiet except for the tick-tocking of the laptop as it waits for a key to be pressed. Julian presses something and then I hear Spidey.

"WOW! YOU'RE AWESOME!!!"

Thank God. He's awesome. Maybe Spidey wants to come over tonight and cheer him on while he eats his peas.

Tall Orders

2010-02-04T17:10:00.003-05:00

I just had had enough today.

"I want to take my tricycle to school!" Julian started in on me, fifteen minutes after we should have been out of the house.

"No, you might lose it." (This is my standard answer #83 re: removing items from the apartment that I or my husband will get stuck lugging home.)

Julian then brought me a nylon shopping bag we use to save on plastic at the grocery. "Here, Mommy, please put some candy."

At least he asked nicely, right?

"No, I don't have any candy."

"Yes you do. It's in the kitchen. In the candy box."

Aha. He seems to have noticed the plastic tub I bought at Bed Bath, loaded with birthday party flotsam I didn't want them ingesting, then shoved in the back of one of our cupboards in the kitchen.

"Oh, that. No, there's no more candy in that."

He looked up at me suspiciously. I'm such an atrociously bad liar, I don't know why I bother.

Next thing, just after I've put a blue and green striped shirt on him: "NOOO, I want to wear this," and he yanked a sweater out of his drawer, his favorite with little red snowflakes on it. I put the sweater on over the shirt.

"NOOOO!! I just want the sweater! Nooo!!" He was going full tilt by that point.

I took off the sweater, tossed off the shirt, and replaced the sweater on his bare, ivory little torso. There you go.

"NOOO! I don't want it like THAT!!!! I have to do pee pee!!"

Is he freaking kidding me? At that point, I was kneeling in the hallway in between his bedroom and the bathroom, trying to simultaneously get Ian to brush his teeth ("I'm too tiiiiired.") while I argued about fashion with Julian. I was losing on both fronts. I suddenly was outside my own body and looking down, seeing this image of Master and Slave, and I was not on the right end of the equation. So I blew up. And I'm not proud to tell you. I keep having this hope that I'll be able to wake up one day and be the kind of mother who could have reared the Ingalls kids out on the Prairie, calmly birthing all of them in the loft of our lean-to frontier house and then the next day be out in the field helping Charles and all the while having time to make homemade biscuits and pat my moppets on the head with love and adoration. But it ain't me. No matter how many times I wake up, it ain't me.

"Here, do pee pee," I pushed Julian down onto the plastic Ikea potty and told him to produce some urine or else! He was bawling. Jesus Christ.

I brushed Ian's teeth, probably a little too excitedly, rinsed him, shuttled him into the hallway for his coat. Then he looked up at me mid-fury, his eyes a little pleading and his voice very gentle, and he said:

"But Mom, I didn't do anything wrong."

No, you didn't, I reassured him with a pat on the head (another Prairie attempt). Ian is the best soldier in this little ragtag army, as my husband always says. Loyal and calm. The thumbsucking helps a lot. I wonder if that was Caroline Ingalls' trick?

Bedfellow

2010-02-03T09:58:00.003-05:00

Another morning of snow here in Hoboken, but this time, I was a little smarter about avoiding a "can we build a snowman!" meltdown. I did something pretty revolutionary. That's right. I kept the curtains closed. They got through dressing and breakfast and had no idea there even was any snow. I know, she's smart, isn't she? It only takes me a dozen times of getting it wrong to eventually get it right.

Anyway, it was all for nought as Toddler Drama came a little earlier this morning. I woke up today to feel the four rubber wheels of a monster truck digging into my lower back. At some point, Julian had moved into our room with his Hot Wheels and had turned our bed into a queen-size Auto Mall.

"Julian, why don't we pack these up and we can have breakfast?"

"NO!!!"

Hmm, OK. "Julian, want to help me make waffles?"

"NO!!!"

What else? "Julian, there's a surprise for you in the kitchen." Now I was skating on thin ice. There was nothing of the sort for him in the kitchen. I would have to improvise fast if he went for this one. But he didn't.

"NO!!!"

Then his voice wound up like a siren, starting quiet and then blaring. "I want you to staaaay in the bed with MEEEE!!!!"

Oy vey.

Since getting rid of the pacifier, he's demanded I sleep with him at night, which I refuse, after way too much cajoling and singing of "Rock-a-Bye Baby". So he's started to find me in the morning and demand quality time in the A.M. under the covers with Mom. And all I want to do is get going with the morning. Snuggling is hard for me at that point. But if I make for the door, he has this way of completely melting, his lips curling out and his whole face cracking and his little body quivering and the tears spurting that I can't bear to see, so I stay with him. Snuggle, snuggle, snuggle. OK, should we eat now? [I know, you're reading this and thinking, "Man, is she a sucker." I know.]

When he's 15 years old and doesn't want to have anything to do with me, won't hold my hand or hug or kiss me, won't sit near me on the couch or even want to be seen with me in public, I'll look back on these morning snuggles and I will hardly be able to believe he ever wanted to curl up in bed with me. He won't believe it either. If it didn't feel so pornographic, I'd probably even have my husband take a picture of us snuggling together amid the mini inventory of the Auto Mall.

Today, it only takes him a few minutes to recharge his 'Mommy battery', as I call it, and then he pops up in bed. I'm hopeful. Now we can get on with breakfast. That's when he says:

"Where's my surprise?!"

Oy vey. How do I always do this to myself?

Groundhog Schmoundhog

2010-02-02T09:09:00.004-05:00

"Hey, Ian. You know what today is?"

"Huh?"

"Today? Do you know what it is?"

"I'm tired."

"OK. Well, today is Groundhog Day!" I'm very excited about this, clearly more than he is. I dislike winter, and any faux holiday involving a glorified rodent predicting the weather, hopefully less of the winter variety, is fine by me.

"Do you know what a groundhog is, Ian?"

"Nooooo." He sticks his thumb in his mouth and his walk becomes a little hobbled by the fact that one of his arms is now attached to his face.

I launch into my highly untechnical explanation. "It's like a little dog who lives inside the ground. On Groundhog Day, he comes out of his hole to look for his shadow." I watch Ian for signs of interest. Surely, animals coming out of holes is interesting to a boy, right?

Ian releases the thumb. "Oh. When does he come out of his hole?"

I try to remember the movie. He comes out after Bill Murray shows up with the satellite truck and hits on Andie Macdowell a few times.

"Today, sometime," I say.

Ian is scanning the park. "Mom, I can't see him."

"Well, he'll be here. And if he sees his shadow, it means 6 more weeks of winter."

"Why?"

"Because it does. That's just what it means."

Ian puts his thumb back in his mouth. If nobody was looking, I think I'd do the same. At least until we hear from the rodent.

Last Minute Louie

2010-02-01T14:23:00.005-05:00

This post is dedicated to my sister-in-law, Amy, who uses this expression now and then. I just love it, and somebody should have told me about it a long time ago (see more below). Happy Birthday, Amy!

~

One of the most curious things about my mornings with Ian and Julian is the strange irony that I am now in charge of other people who have to be places on time. I am never to my own places on time.

No, really: I used to always miss the bus in grade school and my parents would have to drive me. I missed the bus for a regional track meet once and my Dad drove me 100 miles to get there in time for my race. I was so late sometimes in high school that I used to just skip first period altogether. After I graduated from college, I had this recurring dream that I missed my first class every day for the entire last year of school and then couldn't graduate. If I were an airline, nobody would fly me because I would have the worst on-time record in the industry. By a long shot.

So when Ian first started in pre-school this year, I had to confront one of my biggest personal growth issues head-on. You see, in Ian's school, if the parent brings the child late three times (that means past 9:00 a.m.), then the child is banned from school. I saw this on one of the 467 pieces of paper I had to sign about stuff like permission for your kid to take walks around town, having their pic in the newspaper, food allergies, favorite books, etc. Then I saw that little half-slip of paper about TARDINESS and almost went into shock. Were they serious? Banned from pre-school! [If James Lipton ever interviewed me on "Inside the Actor's Studio" and asked me my least favorite word, that would be it: tardy.]

"Don't worry," said the teacher's aide. "First you get two warnings."

Had they met me? Did they think two warnings was going to do it?

The first two times the child is late, the parent is led to the equivalent of a principal's office to write down on a piece of paper: "I will not bring my child late to school again" and then sign and date it. And the best part about this is that you have to bring your kid in with you while he watches you write this sentence out on a piece of paper. The only thing missing is the dunce cap.

So it's February 1st. How am I doing? I'm pleased to report to you that there hasn't been one humiliating trip to the principal's office yet. I've done everything humanly possible to make it, including failing to strap my kid into his car seat, walking to school with my pajamas under my jeans, and you can totally forget about my hair and make-up. Working from home has its advantages for us Louies.

But, alas, there's still five months left of school. I have plenty of time to screw it up.

Apologies to Derek Jeter

2010-01-29T10:10:00.003-05:00

While Ian was eating his waffles this morning (no, we don't eat anything else), I figured I'd check in with him about spring sports.

"Ian, do you want to play baseball this spring or soccer?"

"Huh?" Ian looks at me with the corner of a bite of waffle sticking out of his mouth.

"Baseball or soccer? Which do you want to play?"

"Soccer!" He's sitting up on his knees to eat, a commanding presence over the Mickey Mouse plate, waving a Lightning McQueen fork.

"Are you sure? Papa and I took you a few years ago and you hated it. Remember?"

"Huh?" Ian freezes while poking around for the next bite, as if he just realized I'm talking to him. Sometimes he really reminds me of that fish in "Finding Nemo", the one who had a short-term memory problem.

"Remember? You hated it?"

"No, I want to play soccer. They have teams in soccer. I like teams."

"Well they have teams in baseball, too."

"Yeah, but I don't want to be a Yankee," he says, chewing a wad of waffle from inside his cheek, tobacco-like.

But whew. Looks like we dodged a bullet on that Yankee thing.

"I want to be the other thing. The soccer thing."

Real Madrid? Man United? His Papa, hailing from Europe, will be so proud.

And in case I needed a reminder, he adds this bit:

"And Mom? I'm gonna WIN!!!!!! WHOOOOOPEEEE!!!" and he pumps his fist like our friend Rafa Nadal.

Looks like the next conversation needs to be about how you get thrown out of the game if you don't have a sportsman-like attitude. Or maybe I'll let the coach tackle that one.

Frightful Outside (and In)

2010-01-28T13:27:00.003-05:00

We had a charming little blizzard here in Hoboken, New Jersey this morning. Wet, fat flakes that stuck to everything. It was beautiful. When the boys saw it out the window, I could barely get them dressed from all the jumping up and down and sticking their faces to the window. And then, the inevitable questions:

"Can we go outside and play?!" and "We want to build a snowman! Can we? Can we?"

Unfortunately for them, I'm sort of a taskmaster. A little snow wasn't going to mess up my schedule. I had a meeting to get to 30 minutes away, I had my coffee mug in hand, and my big fat answer to all that was "NO!"

You should have seen their reaction in our living room. Total anarchy. Stuff about we don't want to go to school!!! and we don't want to go in the car, we want to walk!! and we don't want to go with you, we want Papa!! (given the aforementioned Oedipus issue, I know it's serious when they call for Papa).

But I've learned to tune out almost everything. They could be crying about two sets of broken legs and I'm not sure I'd notice until an hour after they started moaning. It's probably not in their best interest, but it's one of my last remaining survival skills and I've spent years honing it. I'm not giving it up now.

So I just shoveled them into the elevator, not unlike a stubborn snowbank on a driveway, and pressed "1". To the garage, more shoveling. Into the car, more shoveling.

Then finally, they were restrained in the backseat like two mental patients and I could enjoy my coffee.

As we pulled out of the driveway and onto the street, Julian was suddenly deathly quiet (that's usually when I start paying attention).

"Are you OK, Jul?" I ask.

"Yeah. I just want to hear the snow," he says.

"But snow doesn't make noise when it's falling."

"Yes, Mom, it do. It do make noise."

I listened at the next stop sign when the engine was quiet. And you know what? It do.

"Job WANTED"

2010-01-27T18:36:00.005-05:00

After we dropped Ian off at his preschool and were on the way to Jersey City, Julian spotted this on the sidewalk: A man in a dark suit and tie, crisp pressed white shirt and shined shoes was standing near the stoplight. He was wearing a sandwich board on his chest on which he had carefully printed the words, in orange, "Job WANTED".

"What's that man?" asked Julian.

"Well, Juli, he's just standing there, waiting for someone," I sort of lied.

"What are those letters he has?"

"Um, those letters are because he wants to tell people something."

"What he wants to tell people?"

How do you explain to a 3-year-old about having a job, and then losing that job, and then trying desperately to get another one? How desperate must things have gotten for this guy that he's resorted to a blitzkrieg, an untargeted shout-out to all the passersby on their way from Jersey, into the PATH train, and on to their own jobs in Manhattan. But I couldn't figure out a non-anxiety-producing way to explain the whole this-guy-has-no-job-and-is-probably-on-his-last-dime situation of the sandwich board. So I did what most of us do in those situations (at least I hope most of us do, not just me). I wimped out and completely made something up.

"He wants to tell people about a cool new toy."

But I should have known better than to go that route.

"A toy? But I want that toy! Mommy, I WANT IT!!"

I dug myself in deeper. "Well, I don't know where to buy it."

"Mommy, but I WANT it. Mommy, buy it!!"

Juli has a short fuse. When something distresses him, he goes off the deep end pretty fast. Soon, he's crying and thrashing about wanting a toy that doesn't exist, based on my lie. I deserve this, I'm thinking.

"OK, Jul, we'll find it." Where I was going with this lie I had no idea, but he starts to calm down.

We drive on and I think about the sandwich board guy. I wish I ran a company so I could give him a job. Anybody who had decided they could stand in broad daylight and advertise to strangers that they were out of a job, dressed in a suit and ready to work, is obviously somebody who doesn't give up. Ever. That would be a good person to hire. I hope somebody walking past him to their job in Manhattan would be thinking the same thing. I hope I don't see him there tomorrow, unless it's because he's commuting. Good luck to him.

Just Trippin'

2010-01-26T09:12:00.003-05:00

I honestly had to ask myself if Ian had LSD on his Special K this morning. Special LSD?

There was a puddle in our path on the way to school and here was how Ian explained "puddles" to me:

"So, Mom, the snow melts and makes a puddle, then the puddle turns into a cupcake. A snow puddle cupcake! Ha ha ha!!"

I decide to play along. "Oh, I see. Is it chocolate, vanilla or strawberry?"

"Vanilla. Ha ha ha!"

"Would you eat the whole thing?"

He does the "no's" in rapid fire. "Nononono, No Mom. I would eat all the icing and then I would take little bites of the cake part."

He has a flash, a new idea. "Then the WHOLE PARK would turn into a giant cupcake and I would eat the icing, aaaallllllll (he's circling his hand flat out in front of him like the rotors of a helicopter) the icing and then you could have the cake part."

"Oh, thanks. But I think I would have a belly ache."

"Yeah, that would be cooool!! Like that movie, Mom, like the belly ache movie."

We told him that "Airplane" was just a silly movie about people having belly aches on the airplane. Remember, everybody gets sick (including both the pilots) after eating the fish? He was scared it was something more serious. No, we said, it's no problem if the pilots get sick. (Ha ha ha)

When we get to school he jumps up and down, reminding me that he wants to push the buzzer that opens the door (we're in the city, you know, can't just let anybody in). I lift him up to the 6-feet-off-the-ground buzzer and he presses it. A voice comes on the intercom: "Who's there?"

Ian throws his head back, smiles broadly and yells: "It's PACO!"

Whatever he had, I'm having it tomorrow.

Holy Cow, Toto!

2010-01-25T09:25:00.004-05:00

It often amazes me how impressed kids are by things. When Ian and I walked to school this morning, it was through an unseasonably warm morning with stiff gusts of wind and pelting sprinkles. But for Ian, you would have thought it was the Gale farm in Kansas, headed for Oz.

"HOLY COW, Mom, that church is going to blow away!!" he screams through the wind.

"HOLY COW, Mom, that car is about to fly - look!!"

"HOLY COW, Mom, I'm going to blow away, Mom, watch out! Here, hold my hand!"

I never noticed his fluency with "Holy Cow" until this morning. My influence, unfortunately, but I guess there are worse things he could be saying. I just continued on with my miniature Judy Garland and thanked God he wasn't saying "HOLY SHIT, Mom!" or "JESUS CHRIST, this is a big wind, Mom!" Can you imagine?

A few more Holy Cows later, we're at school, Ian grunting and shoving his way up the front stoop of the school and muscling in through the wind-whipped door. As soon as we get inside, he hands me his umbrella, which he has been fighting with against the wind during the whole walk. He sits on the first step of the marble flight leading upstairs to his classroom.

"Mom, my arm needs to go to sleep. It's tired."

"Just your arm?"

"Yeah, just my arm. Can you tell my teacher? I don't think I can do school today."

Holy Cow.

Carseat, Optional

2010-01-22T09:58:00.004-05:00

By the time I get to Friday, a lot of my synapses aren't firing anymore. You know how it is, right? It just so happens that there was one particular synapse, the one that tells you to strap your child into his carseat before you leave the garage, that wasn't only not firing it was still in bed waiting for someone to bring it breakfast.

During the whole ride from our apartment to his school, Ian was frantically trying to get my attention.

"MOOMMMMMM!!!!"

I'm looking ahead, wishing I had thought to put some coffee in my 1-800-Mattres (leave off the last "s" for savings) travel mug before leaving. "Ian, don't bother me, I'm driving."

"BUT, MOOOMMMM!!!"

"Ian, don't yell while I'm driving. You're going to make me have an accident."

Julian tries to help. "Mom, Ian wants you."

Thanks. "Boys, there are lots of books and things back there. Can't you keep yourselves busy for 5 minutes?!"

"MOOOMMM, I have to show you something!"

"Ian, show me when we get to school. I can't turn around when I'm driving."

Julian again, with a note of concern in his voice. "Mom, I don't think you strapped in Ian."

WHAT!??! I'm stopped at an intersection with a Hummer sitting impatiently on my back bumper. Didn't they outlaw those things? I whip around to look at Ian. Sure enough, there he is hanging out in the back with narry a seatbelt.

There's a backstory here which will help you understand how much I flipped out on myself at that moment. When Ian was about a year old, and we were in Madrid for a family wedding, I nearly HELD UP THE WEDDING so we could find a carseat to put Ian in for the cross-town drive from our hotel to the church. We just hadn't thought about how Ian was going to travel to the wedding until we were all on the curb in our finest hailing taxis. Where's Ian's carseat? My husband gave me this blank look. Can't he ride on someone's lap? Madre mia, over my dead body. Ian and I stood in front of the hotel for a good 45 minutes while my poor husband and his family scrambled to rectify the situation. Listen, I try not to be the crazy American, but it's hard, especially when my kid is involved. I just thank God he can humor me when things like this happen.

So, with flashbacks of Madrid, I pull the car over and jump out, run around to Ian's side and strap him in. In these moments, just like a good therapist, Ian somehow knows exactly what I need to hear.

"Mom, don't worry. You were just being silly."

Oh, how I love this one.

My Oedipus Wreck

2010-01-21T13:09:00.006-05:00

I haven't written about this before, but given that it's an ever-present tension, it's worth mentioning. What I'm talking about is the mother-son thing. Call it maternal love, worship, devotion, whatever. If it were bottled, it would have to be a controlled substance.

When I first heard about the so-called "Oedipus complex", I thought the idea that a boy would want to kill his father to be with his mother (or some less fatal variation of that) was pretty absurd. Then I met Ian. When Ian was about 6 months old, I was nuzzling with my husband on the couch one Saturday afternoon. Suddenly our placid baby boy, who was playing with a toy on the rug, dropped everything, pointed wildly at my husband and started to scream.

We thought the nuzzle-kiss-scream trick was pretty cool. We tried it again. Closer, closer, a little peck, there it is: SCREAM! It never failed. We did it for friends. See, watch what he does when we do this. Again and again. Eventually Ian learned how to cope a little bit better, but when his chips were down, look out Papa.

Then, 16 months later, Julian came along. At that point, our Oedipus Complex became multi-layered. Julian didn't want Ian. Julian didn't want Papa. Ian didn't want Julian. Ian didn't want Papa. Both sons had only one object in their sights: me. Each of them schemes regularly about how to get rid of the other two men in the house.

Scared yet? I am. Especially when it's bedtime and I have to listen to:

"I don't want Ian to see MY STORY!" Shove, push, slap (yes, I'm sorry to say.)

"I don't want Julian to sit on the couch next to us!" Shove, push, and another slap.

Then in the morning when we pile into the car I get to listen to:

"I AM sitting behind Mommy!!!"

"NO, I'm sitting behind Mommy!! You CAN'T sit behind Mommy! No no no!!!"

The energy from the anxiety circulating around the car (mostly from me) would be enough to light half of Manhattan for a week.

Ian wants confirmation: "Mommy, where are you going to sit? I want you to sit here." He points to the passenger seat, which is in front of him. I explain that if I sit in the passenger seat then nobody will be driving the car. This is a small detail that he doesn't want to be bothered with.

"Mommy, you have to sit HERRRREEE!" He's still pointing to the passenger seat. Juilan catches on to his taking-the-mountain-to-Mohammed strategy.

"No, Mommy always sits heeere! Mommy, you have to SIT HERE!" Julian is about to turn his third shade of purple as the Acapulco-cliff-diving tears are jettisoning themselves from his eyelashes.

They're both kicking the back of the seats on our leather interior Honda, a small luxury my husband and I snuck in for ourselves when we bought the car. I just see heels flying, fists waving, tears, hear screaming. I think I'm starting to black out... now I know what those Calgon people were talking about.

This flag-planting, lets call it, on the continent that is "Mommy" continues day after day. It's usually down underneath many a temper tantrum. Oftentimes, I'm too weary from the onslaught to be very good at soothing them. I'm sure I'm sowing all kinds of seeds of male dysfunction (a la, 'my mother didn't love me enough that's why I have commitment issues,' etc), but look: I'm just trying to keep my head above water most of the time. This is too much love for any woman, don't you think?

Calle Ocho Dance Party

2010-01-20T09:57:00.000-05:00

Did I mention Julian likes Calle Ocho? And I mean, A LOT. He got so mad in the car this morning because I was letting Steve Miller croon about that big ol' jet airliner that he started to scream at the top of his lungs:

"I want CALLE OCHO!!!"

So if you haven't been keeping up with the Top 40 stuff (I hardly do), then I'll remind you of the song that is Calle Ocho's big hit right now. There are basically three lyrics:

I know ya want me.
Ya know I want ya.
Uno Dos Tres Cuatro!

Ring a bell? At least the guy can count.

If the song comes on while we're in the car, Julian goes ballistic. His head flies side to side while he 'dances', his little body retained only by the 5-point-harness on his Britax carseat. If it weren't for that, he'd have his head out the top of the sunroof. Remember Tom Hanks' Manhattan limo ride in the movie "Big"? Like that.

Poor Steve is just keepin' on: Don't carry me too far away, oh oh oh.

"I want CALLE OCHO!"

I try to explain to Julian that I don't control what they play on the radio. Normally, if this Calle Ocho worship got bad enough, I might be tempted to buy the CD and play it for him, but Ian put a quarter into the felt-lined CD intake slot about 3 years ago and no CD has been played in our car since. There's even a Johnny Cash stuck in the 6-disc changer. I miss him.

My husband and I argue periodically about whether or not it was a dime (his recollection) or a quarter (mine), but like most things related to home/car upkeep, we haven't done anything about fixing the radio or settling who's right. (I'm not too anxious about it. I know it's me.) We're hoping maybe we could even sell the car without the buyer noticing. I mean, think about it. Did you check the CD player the last time you were shopping for a car? (OK, no, we would never do that. I promise.)

I flip around to other stations. No Calle Ocho. Sorry, Julian, I say. He's not appeased. I try to concentrate on Steve and do that thing where I zone out and watch the stoplight until the red, green and yellow merge into a color that kind of looks like okra. I'm considering the earplug solution, but Steve's serenade is too good.

Ridin' high I got tears in my eyes
You know you got to go through hell
Before you get to heaven...

Ain't that the truth, Steve.

Silence Ain't So Golden

2010-01-19T14:24:00.003-05:00

Some mornings are just not funny.

If you want to know how to reduce your 4-year-old child to total silence for an extended period of time, start his morning with a sharp reprimand (you come when I'm talking to you!), and the seizure of his beloved new Power Rangers motorcycle given to him just 24 hours earlier by a friend.

That's how Ian's and my morning walk got kicked off. Then we walked to school in the gloom of a January morning, one that can't seem to decide if it's spring yet, in total and complete silence.

And I learned something: I don't like silence as much as I thought I did.

He didn't want to hold my hand. He didn't want to walk near me. I even got a "leave me alone!" plea, which sucked, while I was pretending I could give a damn.

So on the way to school I try to use those few quiet minutes to broker a truce. If the morning walk has taught me anything it's that during that walk, Ian is like a tourist and I'm like a billboard in Times Square. With neon and animated bubbly things and moving cardboard parts. He can't miss my message. He's a captive audience and I'm an obtrusive advertiser. So be it.

"Ian, do you know why Mommy was mad this morning?"

Silence.

"Ian?"

"Because I wasn't listening," he says, talking over the chapped flesh of his thumb, which seems to be continually renewing a monthly parking pass inside his mouth.

"Right. Do you know how to listen?"

"Yes."

"OK, then. We're going to work on that, right?"

No response. Suck suck suck. Like that baby in The Simpsons. Only mine is wearing silver Adidas and a winter hat with Spiderman lunging across the front of it, throwing his web.

By the time we get to school, Ian gives me the standard issue hug and kiss and I blast my last public service announcement: "Don't hit anybody, please," I say.

OK, OK, OK he says, trying to ignore me, but I know he won't, or rather can't, at least for now. Kinda like TV advertising before there was TIVO. You just gotta sit through it.

Does She Still Have Them?

2010-01-15T11:00:00.000-05:00

So after yesterday's post, you're probably wondering if I still have posession of my two sons? If they talked to me when I came to pick them up, if they decided to classify me as "known adult to whom I can talk" versus "stranger to whom I cannot talk and must run away from." Did they follow me home? Yes, unfortunately they did. No, I don't mean that. OK, usually I don't mean that.

They did follow me home, but the talking was enough to have sent a stranger running into the woods far, far away from them. What was I worried about? A kidnapper wouldn't last three minutes with them.

Picking up Julian from his daycare in Jersey City, the "talking" went something like this:

"I don't wanna go home," he whines when I pick him up in his classroom, my car double parked outside. What is he talking about, he doesn't want to go? He usually screams "child abondonment!" at the top of his lungs when I drop him off. He writhes and goes limp so that I can't possibly get a jacket sleeve over either arm.

"I wan't PIZZA!" he then says. OK, we'll talk about it. My standard answer.

"I want pizza NOW!!" he then says again. OK, that's enough out of you, Mister. My other standard answer.

Come to think of it, you could just put a pair of D-cells in my back and just let me chatter off a few patent lines every day and you'd probably never know the difference between me and a real, human mom. Sad, isn't it?

When I get Julian home, after a ride-full of ordering me around, Ian has his own show to put on.

"I cannnn't eat, I'm tooo tirrreed." He splays himself over his chair like a dying man, arms and head out one side and his skinny doesn't-eat-enough legs out the other.

"OK, if you're tired, then you must be too tired to watch Dora and Diego before brushing teeth." Another patent line. This threat perks Ian up for about a tenth of a millisecond.

"I dooonnnn't like this," Ian says, pushing his food away. I push it back.

"I caaaannnn't eat this," he says again. Push away. Push back. Meanwhile, Julian is climbing up my left leg because he's either decided he's a cat that needs to scratch his claws, or he wants my attention. I can never tell the difference.

Once in the bathroom, Julian informs me he wants to take a bath without getting wet. I have nothing clever to say in response to this and just continue to fill up the tub with two inches of water.

"Get in," I order.

"Nooooooo!" he hollers.

Jeez. Why couldn't I just be a stranger? Then they wouldn't talk to me, they'd just call me a poopy and run away. I'd be OK with that.

Don't Talk To Strangers

2010-01-14T14:23:00.004-05:00

Occasionally, I do pay attention. Take this morning. While driving under the overpass for the NJ Transit rail lines, the ones that run from the hinterlands of Jersey into our little burg of Hoboken, they were talking about a child predator on the radio. Some guy in Greenwhich, Connecticut was spotted yesterday trying to lure kids as young as 10 yrs old into his van by asking them for directions.

Holy Mapquest, Batman! I switch off the radio.

"Hey, guys?" I call out to Ian and Julian in the backseat.

Huh? They both look at me a little glazed over, still digesting their waffles.

"Do you know what to do if a stranger talks to you? A grown-up who you don't know? What do you do?"

Ian knows what to do. "You say, 'You're a poopy!!' Ha ha ha!!" Yes, we're starting to get to that age when excrement terminology makes it into every conversation. I'm loving it.

"No, guys. You run away. You say "I don't know you!" really loud and then you run away and find your parents or your teachers. OK?"

They both look at me like I am asking them to walk with their shoelaces tied together.

"No, really, that's what you have to do. Get it?"

"OK, Mom." They both nod blearily.

"What did I ask you to do?"

Julian offers a concise recap, as concise as he can with his word-search kinda toddler speech pattern. "If if if if our Mommy or or our Papa or teachers talk to us, we should yell and run away."

Holy cow.

"No, guys. Not your parents and teachers. A stranger. Do you know what a stranger is?"

Ian knows. Brace yourself. "A stranger is somebody with no arms, no legs and no head. Ha ha ha!!" He's laughing so hard he's holding his side and I'm trying to figure out when the Backyardigans got so graphic.

"Guys, OK, one more time. A stranger is a grown-up who YOU DON'T KNOW. A stranger. Got it? So what do you do?"

They answer together, offering the obedient, programmed response I was hoping to finally hear. "We run away."

"Yes, exactly. You run away."

Ian decides that now I'm just nagging. "OK, Mom, we get it."

Now the fun part will be when I pick them up from school. Will they scream and run, or follow me home? Hard to tell with these two. I'll let you know tomorrow if I still have them.

Cain and Abel, Revisited

2010-01-13T10:41:00.003-05:00

You wanna know how Cain actually killed Abel, I mean how it all went down, play by play? I can tell you.

So Eve straps Abel into his carseat, and then she goes around to the other side and straps in Cain. That is her first mistake. Cain is pissed off that he wasn't strapped in first.

Then Eve starts to drive, and Cain, being pissed off, starts banging the back of her seat with his sneaker.

So Abel, ever the good son, says: "Mom, Cain is banging the back of your seat. Cain is doing that, he is."

To which Eve says: "Shut up and let me drive."

To which Cain says: "See, you can't tell Mommy what I'm doing."

To which Abel says: "Yes, I can."

"No, you can't."

"Yes, I can."

At which point Eve reaches a stoplight and turns around, fuming like a dragon.

"If either ONE of you opens your mouth again for the rest of the drive, even to BREATHE, you're getting a spanking. I MEAN IT!"

Cain and Abel watch her. Will she do it? They both open their mouths wide, silently, and wait.

At the next light, Eve looks in the rear view mirror and sees two gaping mouths, tonsils wagging. She is sorry she ever took a bite of that apple.

"Mom?" says Abel.

"Yes?"

"Cain touched me."

"Cain, don't touch Abel."

"But Mom, he really really hurt me. Mom, he's still touching me. Mommmmm!!!!!"

Eve keeps driving.

"Mommmm!!!!" Eve hears garbled noises from the backseat, belts unbuckling, some wrestling, punching, the car starts to rock back and forth. Eve keeps driving.

There's a rough punching sound, car glass breaking, and then silence. Eve keeps driving. There's no talking from the backseat. One of them must be dead. At least they can't both drive me crazy anymore, Eve is thinking.

"Mom," says Cain.

"Yes?"

"Are we there yet?"

Explaining Wall Street

2010-01-12T08:54:00.002-05:00

Halfway through the park today, Ian asked a very reasonable question: "What does Papa do?" It was on his mind because Ian went with Papa to his office on Sunday to help him move into a new office tower adjacent to the World Trade Center site. But how do you explain "he works in finance operations for a large investment bank in lower Manhattan" to a four-year-old? That is my answer for adults, but I figured it wouldn't fly with him.

So here was how I explained it:

"So, Ian, let's say you have two people. The first person has money and the other person has a really cool toy. So the first person decides to give the other person his money so he can go home with the toy. So what Papa does is he makes sure that when they exchange the money for the toy, it all works right."

"But why wouldn't it work right?"

Good question. Why wouldn't it work right? How do I explain global compliance, IT infrastructure, trading desks, queues, exchange rates, etc, etc? I spent the night on the couch, in part because of the aforementioned pacifier separation issues with Julian, so I was not a very quick draw this morning. Here was my really sucky answer:

"Well, sometimes it just doesn't work right. Like maybe the first guy drops his money in a puddle and it gets all muddy."

"What?!" says Ian, wrinkling his face. Makes no sense, clearly. What kind of idiot drops his money in the mud.

Fortunately, Ian took over and came to my rescue. "But Mom, that's not what Papa does. Papa has TWO computers on his desk. He works on the computer!" Eureka! In Ian's simple little mind, if you have a computer in front of you, nay two computers, you're doing work. It's called "working on the computer."

With that thorny question resolved, he proceeded to tell me how Papa's building is really really really tall and he climbed all the way to the top of it like Spiderman. Really? I asked him if he looked out the windows and what could he see. What windows? OK, clearly he was mostly paying attention to the TWO computers. A career is born.

You're Walking Too Fast

2010-01-11T10:15:00.003-05:00

I'm working now, having dropped Ian off about an hour ago, and I can't get that little whiny voice out of my head.

"You're walking too fast."

I slow down.

"You're walking too faaaaasst."

I slow down more.

Ian had decided he was tired. This often happens when I need him to do something. If somebody walked up to him on the sidewalk and gave him a Transformer, however, he would suddenly be brimming with energy.

And then, shortly into our walk there was a new problem. Ian was carrying a small, plastic shopping bag (I know, shame on me) with his nap blanket in it. He held it out to me.

"Mom, can you carry this? I don't want to carry it anymore. It's boring."

Boring? That was an interesting choice of phrase. But yes, it is indeed boring to do things we don't like, especially when we're tired. What could I tell him? I just dragged him on through the park, moving at an ever more glacial pace with each whine. If my mother were with me, I would have turned to her and whined:

"I'm tired. It's cooooold. I wan't my cofffeeeeee."

But those days of whining are over, sadly, and boy do I miss them.

Mourning Our Pacifier

2010-01-08T09:58:00.004-05:00

Having served a tour of duty so far of 1,565 days as a mother (not counting today, I mean, it's not over yet), I've learned the difference between a manipulative cry - shrill, barking and purposeful - and a cry of real grief - breathless, the whole body heaving, sobs coming like an avalanche. This morning I got the latter from Julian, out of the blue, over the recent loss of his pacifier.

Last Friday, the boys put their shoes by the door to lay in wait for the Three Kings to bring presents. We celebrate both Christmas and the Epiphany (or King's Day), since both holidays were important to my husband growing up in Spain. (Don't you wish you were born in this family?) In addition to candy for the Kings, Julian left his pacifiers in a little orange bowl from Ikea, right next to his silver Adidas. A friend told us it might work. The Kings come, take the pacifiers so they can distribute them to little babies, and then leave a 'big boy' present. We explained how it would work, and Julian seemed reluctant with the plan, but thought he would try it.

He woke up that night (while one of the Kings and his Wife were laying out the presents) crying out for what he calls the "pete" (PEH-tay), short for the Spanish "chupete," which means something like "sucker." I explained that the Kings took it. He didn't believe me. Sob. Sob. He wanted to see. Sob. Sob. I walked him to the front door, and there on the floor was his empty Ikea bowl. Sob. Wail. Clinging to Mommy. No, it can't be. But next to the empty bowl was a stuffed dog from LeapFrog called "My Pal Scout" that plays music when you squeeze his paws. Julian is a little songbird and once he realized what Scout did, he was, to use the word, pacified. And Scout was even green. His favorite color. Back to bed.

The past week has been full of fitful nights of sleep, with Julian waking to the memory of the absent "petes" and asking us for them. He even explained to me a few nights ago that, once the babies were done with his "petes," he'd like to have them back please. I just patted his head and changed the subject.

But this morning, he got me in the gut, only because he so calmly and beautifully expressed the dark feelings he's wrestling with. He stood in the bathroom this morning, in a pretty striped yellow shirt with a collar and buttons down the front, brushing his teeth. Then all of the sudden, he took the Diego toothbrush out of his mouth and turned to face me, his big brown eyes starting to water.

"Mommy, I'm just so sad because the Kings took away my petes," he said, the sobs rolling out of him.

Well, there's not much I can write to tell you how that felt. If you're a parent and have helped your kids deal with any kind of loss, you already know what it's like. I was ready to let him suck on the "petes" until he was in college if necessary. I hugged him over the bathroom tile, his little stripe-shirted body heaving. I told him how proud I was of him for being such a big boy, and how proud the Kings were of him, too.

After a minute or so, he was quiet. I'd like to think he even seemed a little proud of himself, too. At least I hope so. He turns 3 on January 23, so we figured it was about time. It's been hard, but we think he can do it and that he'll be better off not being a 3-year-old with a pacifier habit (and he had a bad one). But that's just our opinion. Who knows when the right time is. Maybe he'll have recurring nightmares of lost "petes" until he's 25. But then I'll have another reason to hug him.

All Mom and No Play

2010-01-07T15:21:00.002-05:00

This was one of those mornings when my sons were feeling especially playful and I was feeling especially adult and therefore, not playful. We were running late, no time to play.

Ian wanted to play hide-and-seek with me behind the bathroom door. After telling him 10 times to brush his teeth and listening to the hide-and-seek giggles coming from the bathroom, I went in and did the molar hosedown myself. He wasn't happy.

Julian thought it was funny to show me the food in his mouth, which he followed me around the apartment doing (laughing himself silly in the process) until I gripped him by each bicep and put him back in his chair at the table, wagged a finger in his face, and told him to finish his breakfast - MOUTH CLOSED! His eyes started spewing projectile tears that always remind me of little Acapulco cliff divers launching themselves with all their force into the Pacific. Only Juli's launch off his lower eye lashes and splash all over his face, shirt, food, table, floor. You name it. He's good at this.

But what is it they say about how children recover more quickly than we do? Five minutes later, there wasn't a wet eye. More play on the way out of the apartment - who's going to push the elevator call button first!?

More play in the garage - who's going to push the button to open the garage door!?

More play getting into the car - Ian entered on Julian's side and Julian on Ian's side so they could "tunnel" from one side of the backseat to the other to get in their carseats. What a laugh riot.

I eventually uttered, while strapping them in, "You guys are exhausting." Sigh.

Halfway to school, Julian was humming something in the backseat and then he says, "Mom?"

"Yes?"

"You're exHAUSting!"

And finally, something made me crack a smile.

Crying Out Loud

2010-01-06T10:12:00.006-05:00

On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, I have to get both Ian and Julian to school, one in Hoboken and one in Jersey City, by car. So the "morning talks" for Ian and I are not quite the cozy affairs that they are on Monday and Tuesday.

These days go something like this: my husband makes as much noise as possible until I crawl out of bed, he gets Juilan's daycare stuff ready, I shower (this is optional, however), he makes the boys waffles, I dry my hair (this is also optional, and somewhat dependent on how likely it is for ice to form on my head once I leave), I get the boys out of bed, we fight about how they have to get up, they tell me they're tired, I go back to my room to find clothes for myself (unfortunately, not optional), I go back to their room and drag them out of bed until they're standing crying on the polka dotted area rug in their room, I carry them both to the table to eat waffles, they may or may not eat, I dress them both (while crying, sometimes all of us), we all brush teeth (still crying), put on coats, put on hats, put on gloves, go down to the garage and get in the car.

Today there were two Wall Street types in the elevator who thought that all the crying this morning was pretty funny. Julian was in full blare, gripping the extended ladder of his toy fire truck and throwing his head back.

"Ha ha, I wish I could get away with that at my office!" said one of the Wall Streeters, laughing to himself, probably imagining the hissy fit he could throw over his paltry, politically-charged bonus this year.

Ha ha, indeed.

Once in the car, I was hoping for better things, or at least no crying. But I made the mistake of turning on the radio.

"I want that song!" shouted Julian, as I was flipping. OK, back to that song. Lady GaGa.

"No, I don't like that song!" shouted Ian, wanting a different station. So I just turned it off and they both started to wail.

"We want music!" the backseat chorus sang, or rather, wailed.

All I could do at that point was pull my hat down over my ears. I keep earplugs in the car for just these moments, but feel a pang of irresponsibility if I put them in while driving my children. You never know. If my darling sons get loud enough, however, the pang goes away and in go the plugs.

Today, I was reaching for them as the light changed...

Let's Spend The Night Together

2010-01-05T15:14:00.003-05:00

OK, let's back it up a few hours before our morning walk. At precisely 4:11am (I know because I had to hunt for my glasses on the dresser and then squint at the digital clock to see the time), two men came to my bed. Sounds good so far, right?

Except that as soon as I looked over the 400-threadcount sheets at them, they asked me to make them a waffle. With syrup. I actually had to say out loud: Are you freaking kidding me?!?! To which they blinked and scratched their heads. Yes, waffles please. With syrup. I went back to bed. Jumping and crying ensued from the men standing at the foot of my bed. I worried about the neighbor in the apartment downstairs calling the police (well, not really, but I should).

Which is how I found myself, then at about 4:15am, dropping two hockey puck-like frozen round waffles into our toaster. Ian and his 2-year-old brother, Julian, were actually sitting at the table, quiet, hands folded in front of them, waiting for their waffles. As I stood like a Denny's night shift waitress over the toaster, I thought to myself: I don't get paid enough for this job.

Between waffle time, and 8:15am when we left for school, Ian, Julian and I slept a collective 17 minutes piled on top of each other in our queen-size bed, in a game I like to call "Who Can Sleep Closer To Mommy." My husband, who is wiser than I, abandoned ship immediately when the waffle-eaters appeared in our room. He spent the rest of the night tossing on the foam mattress of an Ikea toddler bed and probably slept another 15 minutes himself.

So when we left for school, I was not feeling very chatty. We start out, it's only about 20 degrees in Hoboken this morning, Ian and I are bundled from head to toe, hands included. But despite the affront to my beauty sleep, I'm feeling generous. I hold my gloved paw out to his.

"Ian, would you like to hold my hand?"

"No, thanks."

That's how these nights always end, isn't it? No matter how old they are. No, thanks.

Back to School (and not a moment too soon)

2010-01-04T09:45:00.002-05:00

I did not expect to find Ian charming in any way this morning. I envisioned this morning as follows: bundle child, bundle self, walk as fast as possible through the park (freezing) to school, deposit child with teacher and get the heck outta there. After two weeks of 'vacation' (which was much more fun when I was the kid), Ian and I had probably had a little too much together time.

But today on the way to school, Ian was verrrry charming. And that, in and of itself, is also charming: his ability to warm up to me when I least expect it - to chat effortlessly, to not complain, to smile, to squeeze my hand, to even say "thanks, Mom" more than once during our walk. Where was this kid during the last two weeks, I ask you!?!?

Our walk starts in the elevator. Ian is eating those little Sweet Tarts candies (I know, I know... don't call the police on me). He holds the roll out to me.

"Here, Mom, do you want to have one?"

Who am I to turn down a Sweet Tart at 8:30 in the morning?

"Sure," I say. He digs a sweet, little white candy out of his roll and hands it to me, all the while pressing his gloves under his elbow to keep them from falling.

"Thanks!" I say.

"Sure, Mom, you're welcome."

I finish it and he offers me another. Wow, what generosity.

As we walk out of our building, Ian stuffs his Sweet Tart wrapper into his pocket and discovers that one of his Transformers is in there. He gasps.

"Mom, Ms. Thomas doesn't let us have toys in our classroom. She's going to take this away from me," he explains. He's visibly bothered by this prospect, and seems to regret not having checked his pockets before leaving home.

"Don't worry, Ian," I say. "I'll keep your Transformer in my pocket and then put it at home, safe on the kitchen counter. How's that?"

"That's good, thanks Mom. When people take my toys away at school it makes me nervous."

Nervous? OK, well, glad I could help.

We walk on, Ian and I squeezing hands through our gloves. He skips, tells me he's excited to see his friends, and then laughs half way through the park because his pants are falling down. He couldn't be in a better mood. (Did I ask yet where was this kid during the last two weeks?)

When we get to his school, he dashes inside and takes the big turn-of-the-century (the one before the last one) marble stairs two at a time up to his classroom on the second floor. I trail behind, peeling off layers of hat, gloves, coat, sweater as he goes up the stairs. Once he's in his classroom, I try to remind him about not hitting. But before I can finish my sentence, he wriggles out of my arms and he's off talking to his friends. I slip out of the room.

You see, he was just as happy to have a break from me, too.

Pokemon 101

2009-12-16T15:14:00.004-05:00

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Pokemon really popular about 20 years ago, and then went away? When did it come back?

Ian gave me a whirlwind tour of the Pokemon characters on the way to school today. To be honest, I couldn't even write this post until I went digging in the mountain of toys and books in his room to find his book entitled "Meet the Pokemon". (That is, POH-kee-mohn, in case you're a newbie).

Ian's favorite character is somebody named Ash, because Ash has a cool orange jacket and only wears short sleeves.

"Doesn't he get cold?" I ask.

"No Mom, he doesn't. His Mom never makes him wear long sleeves." Fool!

So I, silly me, thought Ash was a Pokemon character, and Pikachu's best friend, but no, silly me, he's not. Ash Ketchum is a boy (though with that name, sounds like he should be running an ad agency) and he's a Pokemon Trainer. And sure enough, when I look in the index of the book and find him listed as "Ketchum, Ash" and flip to his page, there he is wearing those blasted short sleeves!

So, during my walk with Ian, I ask my usual array of questions whenever he starts talking about something completely foreign to me:

"Are Ash and Pikachu friends?"

"Sure."

"What do they do? Do they help each other?" I was hoping the answer to that question wasn't "No, Mom, they fight to the death with machine guns" and that I would be sorry about asking it.

"Sure, Mom, they help each other. They carry around their Poke Balls." (OK, I'm not even going to go there...)

"And then what?" I ask.

"That's it, Mom." I mean, really, what was I expecting?

"You know what, Mom?"

"Yes?"

"Ash is super cool!!" Ian says, as he does a fist pump almost like he's Rafael Nadal in a fifth set tiebreaker. I'm part proud and part disturbed.

So turning back to my (or, Ian's) Pokemon textbook, I notice that on Ash Ketchum's page, it also explains that they store information about characters in things called a Pokedex (really, I'm not kidding you). And then I turn the page and see that Ash's best friend is this hot-looking girl in a pink miniskirt named Dawn, from Twinleaf Town.

Is it too late to burn the book?

Anybody Got A Nice Cheese Pairing to Go With This Whine?

2009-12-15T14:59:00.004-05:00

We allllllmost made it. Only a few steps from the front door of Ian's school and then he remembered the complaint he had forgotten during almost the whole walk.

"Mooooom," he says, wiggling, squinting up his face and slowing down like a dog you want to just start dragging by his leash (if he had one, which he doesn't, I promise, though I've thought of it). "I don't waaaant to goooo to schoooollll. I don't waaaant toooo gooooooo. I waaaant tooo staaaaay aaaat hooooome."

My answer is only: "You can't stay home because then you won't grow up to be a rich doctor." He doesn't get this. I keep pulling him by his mittened hand but decide to be open to his concerns (or at least appear that way).

So I ask him: "Why don't you want to go to school?"

"Because I want to stay home."

"But home is boring. Nothing happens at home. What do you want to do at home?"

"I want to play with my toys."

Of course, this is understandable. What child doesn't want to play with his toys?

"But what about the toys in your class? What about the video games at school that you like to play with on the computer?" But then I'm sorry to have said this, because it makes him remember that we don't have video games at home. Fool! This starts a line of questioning from him about wanting a video game and me answering "No Way" (see yesterday's post).

So then we're back to: "I don't waaaaant toooo gooo," with me dragging and him whining like a Nebraska cornhusker.

I have no strategy for this, and realize it will be a long war of attrition, with my patience and hair color as the main casualties. It's not just this year. It's next year, and it's 13 more years after that, and then it's hoping he doesn't drop out of college to travel the world and find himself. I don't have strategies for any of those things.

"Ian, you just have to go to school. That's it. Sorry. I don't know what to tell you."

He looks at me, disappointed, not that he has to go to school but that I don't have a more convincing argument. For a split second, I could swear he looks as if he even knows that it's his job to be difficult and my job to convince him of everything from the importance of toothbrushing after meals to the hazards of running at the pool.

If anyone else out there has figured out the argument that will make a kid want to go to school, or brush his teeth, or not run at the pool... I'm all ears.

Merry Canihavea

2009-12-14T16:58:00.003-05:00

As it's getting close to Christmas, there was really no talking going on between Ian and I on today's walk. He had one question to ask and I had one answer.

"Mom, Can I Have A...?" is his question.

"We'll Have To Ask Santa," is my answer. My plan is to have Santa turn out to be a total deadbeat and someone I can blame if not all the presents show up, or show up not exactly as requested. I'm not even keeping a list of requests, so I am for sure going to screw up his gifts.

What I sort of remember from today's walk goes something like this:

Can I Have A alecia doll? (what's this, and why is he asking for a doll?)

Can I Have A mario game? (No Way am I bringing video games into my house... not yet. Once the video game dike breaks with three boys - my husband included - all six of their eyes will be fully dilated for the next 15 years and we'll have to deal with joystick thumb on top of it. No way. At least No Way, this year.)

Can I Have A racecar with a controller thingy? (does he think we live in a McMansion? No Way, again.)

Can I Have A machine gun? (I don't even need to say No Way for this one, do I people?)

Can I Have A scooter with only one wheel in back, not two? (OK, Ian, have you seen how badly you ride on the scooter you have now that has two wheels? And you think you're ready to balance on one? No Way, my friend.)

Can I Have A party at Chuck E Cheese? (Not unless Santa's paying.)

So now you must be asking yourself: Is Mom a complete scrooge? (No Way. Blame Santa.)

Here Be Dragons

2009-12-11T16:24:00.002-05:00

I never knew the park was such a dangerous place.

Shortly into our walk to school, Ian doubles over, socked in the gut by some invisible fist. He holds his middle, writhes for a moment on the ground, then stumbles to his feet.

KaPOW! Arggh! BLAM! Ian coughs and sputters. He's short of breath. He gasps, still gripping his middle.

I start to ask him if he's OK, but quickly realize an imaginary comic strip is playing itself out, and I had better just keep eyes front and walk.

KaPOW! Sock! Sock! BLAM! Argghhhhhh! Ian staggers forward, barely catching himself with each step.

I walk a little faster, thinking maybe I can pretend I don't know him. Soon, he's a good ten paces behind me. At some point, I'll risk appearing like an irresponsible mother so I slow up to five paces. Ian's down again.

Argghhh! Ack! Grrrr! Argghhh! KaPOW! He recovers and is back up again, walking closer to me now, holding his right shoulder with one gloved hand and abdomen with the other. He seems to be coming out of the fight. It seems that he won. He's breathing heavy, trying to recover.

We reach the edge of the park, cross in front of Sinatra's high school. Ian's breathing is slower. He looks up at me, as if to reassure me:

"Don't worry, Mom. I'm OK."

I had no doubt.

When I Grow Up To Be A Man

2009-11-23T09:07:00.005-05:00

This seems to be very much on Ian's mind. Already. For example:

"Playing" tennis yesterday and observing what was happening on the next court:

"Mom, those mans switched sides," he says, pointing to them.

"Yes, they did. That's how you play. After a few games, you switch sides. Do you want to switch sides with me?" I ask.

"No, mom. That's for big boys. When I'm big, I'll switch sides."

Today on the way to school, we talked about what was going to happen in Winter. Turns out, a lot of things. At least 4 birthdays in our immediate family (if I'm counting correctly) and 3 big holidays - Christmas, New Years and Los Reyes (the Kings). Ian is bowled over by the list of upcoming opportunities for merrymaking and, especially, present getting. One thing is missing, however. He wants to know if his birthday is in Winter. I explained that his birthday is in Autumn, which is just about to end. He's not happy about this.

We also talked about the Winter Olympics in Vancouver that will start soon.

"Mom, is the Lympics for boys that are bigger than 4 years old?" he asks.

"Yes, usually it is. But one day you'll be bigger and you can do it."

"OK, then, I'll do the Lympics when I'm big," he says.

You heard it here, folks. Look for him when he's all grown up. 2022? 2026? Maybe I'll even be grown up by then.

It's a Transformer World

2009-11-16T09:22:00.004-05:00

If you ever wanted to know how to work Transformers into just about any conversation, read on.

Ian's friend Tyler* let him borrow a Transformer last night and overnight (literally) it has become the thing around which the sun, moon and stars revolve.

"Hey, Mom, ya know what?" he starts, as he starts all sentences these days.

"What?"

"My transformer doesn't like waffles."

"What does he like?"

"He likes huevo frito," Ian explains, referring to how we call fried eggs in our house as Mom and boys work on being bi-lingual to catch up to Papa.

"Did he sleep well last night, Ian?" I ask, remembering that last night, Ian tucked his Transformer - a large silver and yellow robot with a frightening expression on his face and bulky arms and legs - into his pirate hat and covered him with his clown blanket so he wouldn't see any monsters.

"Yeah, Mom, he did, thanks," Ian says, as his manners momentarily appear and work their magic on me like a rare whale sighting on the open ocean.

"Mom, ya know what?"

"What?"

"Everyyyyyyyboooddy's a Transformer," he says.

"Everybody? Even you?" He has to think about this.

"YES!"

"What thing do you transform into?" He has to think a lot about this.

"A MONSTER TRUCK!!" he says, then modifies it: "A RACE CAR monster truck," he says.

"Oh, that's very nice," I say in my most uncool mother voice. "And what about me, what do I turn into?" I ask.

"You're a truck, too, Mom, a blue and red one that has windows," he explains. I'm happy to have windows.

"Ian, do some trucks not have windows?" I ask.

"Yea, sure they do, Mom, they all have windows," he says. My elation at having windows is dashed.

"What about Papa and Julian?" I ask. "What would they turn into?" As we walk through the park, leaf blowers and lawn mowers are making an awful noise. "Would Julian turn into a lawnmower?" I ask. Ian is horrified by this suggestion.

"NOOOO, Mommmm. Tranformers don't make lawnmowers. They only make trucks and race cars," he says. C'mon Mom.

"Ian, do you know where we are going next week?" I ask, deciding I have nothing more to add to the Transformer discussion.

"Yea! Grandmommy's house!" he says.

"And what are we going to eat?" I ask.

"Turkey!" he yells, and leaps into the air.

"Are turkey's Transformers, too?" I ask, deciding I might have the hang of this game after all.

"Sure, the turkey makes a race car robot turkey," he says.

We arrive at school. Ian plops down onto the carpet with a friend and a bin full of building blocks. They decide they're going to build - what else? - a Transformer. I warn the teacher, apologize, and make my escape before I get turned into something else and, God forbid, lose my precious windows.

*The name has been changed to protect our Transformer sources

Oh Gentle Muse, Where Hath Thou Taken Off To?

2009-11-13T11:21:00.003-05:00

Our Fall break, which was only for a week and a day but seemed to last four months, finally ended this Tuesday. On Tuesday morning, we left the apartment at 8:29, a full minute before he was due in class, with my standard "Hurry up, Ian, we're going to be late," while he looks at me with this look as if to say, "Then how come you didn't get me to turn off the cartoons 10 minutes ago, Mom?"

On this walk, a slightly new Ian is emerging. The teacher told us we'd be "surprised" by the Ian that she saw about to come out of his shell. I'm not sure surprised is the right word.

"Hey MOOOMMMM!! Come OONNNNNN!!" he says to me as I'm buttoning my coat and he's holding the front door to the apartment building open. He hisses and expels an enormous sigh of exasperation.

Excuse me?

"Ya know what? Ya know what? I'm only gonna play with Lucas today. He's my best friend. I don't like anybody else," and Ian kind of rock and rolls down the sidewalk, not wanting to hold my hand.

I start to join the conversation and Ian moves on to the next topic.

"Ya know what? Robert pee-peed in his pants last time!! HA HA!! Pee, pee!! Poo, poo!!" and Ian thrusts his tongue in and out of his mouth making fun of the imaginary Robert who was not with us, thank God.

I'm about to ask him not to talk about pee pee and poo poo and he moves on again.

"Ya know what? Ya know what? I've got a shooter in my pocket and I'm gonna shoot you, Mom!" and he whips out his two hands from his pockets making a gun with his index and thumb, and making shooting noises.

Ok, ok. "Ian, we don't play with guns. We don't even play with pretend guns," I say, trying to reinforce his parents' vehement objection to arms of any kind. Then I remember that we gave him and his brother water pistols over the Summer. I move on. "And Ian, you can't talk about pee pee like that, it's not nice to make fun of other kids," I say.

"YOU aren't nice, Mommy!!" says Ian, making the pistols and shooting noises again. I close his pistol fingers, take his hand and start walking faster.

So by this point, I'm thinking, an 11-year-old boy has kidnapped my pre-schooler.

When we get to class, I mention to the teacher that we've started seeing more attitude from Ian. She smiles knowingly. "Yeah, that's the age." Really?

"And you know, there are some rough kids in this class. I'm sure he's picking some of that up here," she says.

Rough kids? Four-year-old rough kids? I'm suddenly terrified of elementary school. I kiss him, as he ignores me, and I walk out of the school feeling like a juggernaut of other people's attitude problems is against my sweet, little baby. Is it realistic for me to camp out in the classroom? Do I start profiling the bad kids and call their mothers? Then it hits me, the awful spectre of another possibility: is my kid one of the bad boys? Impossible. I walk home, head down, sure a nicer boy will show up at home after school.

Polo the Goat

2009-10-29T09:23:00.005-04:00

"Mom, I'm going to tell you a story," said Ian as we started our walk.

This ought to be good, I thought. The tale that follows is more or less what came out of Ian's mouth as we walked from our apartment to his school, crossing the park which was littered with leaves, and bundled against an uncomfortable pre-winter breeze. Mom edited (only slightly) for some continuity in the story, but it's basically his.

Polo the Goat
by Ian
Polo the Goat lived in Manhattan with his brother, his sister and his baby. He also had a Mommy and a Papa. They lived in a big, green house that was next door to a church.

Polo had a bedroom that he shared with his brother and his sister. They slept in a bunk bed that had three beds on top of each other. It was a three bed bunk bed. Polo didn't jump on it [Ed. note: No, I'm sure he didn't]. Polo's baby slept in the bedroom with Mommy and Papa.

Polo was six years old. His brother was five and his sister was four. [Ed. Note: Boy, that Mommy goat was awfully busy.] Polo never hit them, he was always nice. Also, Polo never cried because he was already six.

Polo went to a big boy school and liked all his friends and liked everything he did in school. When he wasn't in school, Polo liked to go swimming. He didn't need to take swimming lessons because he was a very good swimmer. He didn't need any help.

Other times, because Manhattan was next to Spain, Polo went to Spain. He walked first to his car, then drove his car to the airport, then got in a plane, then flew to Spain. He liked to be in Spain with the other goats there. Polo had a goat family in Spain that he liked to visit.

One day, Polo would be 38 years old like his Mommy Goat, but for now he's going to finish being six, because 38 is too old for a goat.

[Editor's Note: Before agreeing to publish the above, the Editor checked for "Polo the Goat" on Google and Amazon. She wondered if there were any stories about Polo already. It appears not (though if you find some, please let the Editor know). The search, however, did lead the Editor to information about an ancient Asian sport, still played in Afghanistan, called Dead Goat Polo, in which the game is played with a headless dead goat instead of a ball. The Editor is not making this up. (Thanks, Dave Barry.)]

The Food Pyramid We Would Wish For

2009-10-27T10:41:00.003-04:00

"Mom, if I eat candy I'll have big muscles, right?" Ian asks from under his umbrella, barely audible to me as we trudge through the rain. I'm sure I didn't hear that right and ask again. Yep, candy = muscles. Don't we wish.

"Well, Ian, actually you get muscles when you eat protein."

"What is protein?"

"Protein is a, um (I'm searching...), a nutriet that's in certain foods, in meat. Chicken has protein."

"I love protein!" he says. "Mom, can I have some protein chicken tonight?"

Papa made some homemade chicken nuggets on Sunday before leaving on his business trip this week and Ian loves them (and yes, my husband does have a brother, but unfortunately he's also married. Sorry girls.)

There are wet leaves all over the sidewalk as we head through Brando's park (see the first post). Logically, Ian says, "Mom, if the leaves ate protein they'd have big muscles, too, right?"

"I guess they would, Ian, sure," I say, splashing as I walk. The hand I'm using to hold Ian's with is soaked from the elbow down.

"Mom?"

"Yes?"

"Does macaroni and cheese have protein?"

Don't we wish. Splash, splash, splash...

Cake and Copters

2009-10-26T09:41:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, while his younger brother took a nap (an unusual moment of calm in our apartment), Ian assembled a Lego helicopter with his Papa. But this wasn't any old Lego helicopter: it had tiny rubber antennae that could attach to a single node of any brick, doors that folded up and down, and complicated joint pieces that allowed other pieces to move. I didn't pay much attention. After all, this was clearly a toy designed for father-son time. After about 30 minutes, actually, it seemed a toy designed solely for father time as Papa became engrossed in perfecting the helicopter's assembly. But Ian was observing his father carefully all that time, so on the way to school today, I got an earful about helicopter design.

"So, Ian, tell me about the helicopter you built with Papa."

"It's cool, Mom."

Of course. I had no doubt. "So how does it work?"

"It has these flat parts that go around and keep it up. What are they called, Mom?"

"Propellers?" I ask.

"No, Mom, these other things, these flat things?" he asks, with both palms up and a perplexed and insistent expression on his face. You must know this, Mom.

"I don't know, Ian. That's my best guess. Does your helicopter have a man inside?" I asked.

"It has two mans. It has one who drives and one who jumps."

"Oh, a jumper. That is cool. Where does he jump?"

"He jumps down in the water but he's inside this little thing and so the shark can't get him."

A shark? This was sounding more and more like that climactic scene in Jaws when the helicopter coming to rescue Chief Brody and the kids is gobbled up - rotors, pilot and all - by the giant fish.

"What thing is he inside of? Is it a pod?"

"Yea, it's a pod, yea." He clearly had no idea what a pod was, but was glad to have the new word in his vocabulary, as it figured prominently in the rest of his narrative.

"Yea, he's in a pod and so he stays there and the shark can't get him. The pod has windows, so he can see the shark, but it can't get him. (Just in case I missed that point.) And the man driving the helicopter goes up and up and doesn't fall down." Yes, I knew, that was thanks to the unnamed propeller-like things that were not propellers.

"Ian, if you had one in real life, would you have a helicopter that was big and slow (I'm imagining Platoon-like transport choppers) or small and fast (I'm thinking Miami Vice, with that 80s percussion playing as it skims low over the azure water of south Florida)?"

"I'd have one that is big and fast!" he says, triumphantly, skipping towards the crosswalk.

Of course he would. Wouldn't we all? Next lesson: why you can't have your copter and eat it, too.