The Best I Have to Offer

My favorite small humans

Tomorrow is M's birthday. We're going on a date, and that means tonight we're having a little family party.

The girls planned it.

That is why we're having a strawberry cake with chocolate ice cream, and the cake will be decorated with pictures of the whole family standing under a rainbow.

Yes, I'll post pictures.

That's why I'm still unshowered and my house is a mess. Because the priority right now is birthday.

Wrapping presents. Baking cake. Mixing frosting. Making ice cream.

And yes, picking flowers. And making a giant freaking mess.

I always feel bad about the way my home looks. Always. Because my home is always a disaster zone. Take the dining room right now- there are dress ups under the easel, there's laundry on the rack that's been dry and ready to hang up for three days. There's a mountain of coloring books and picture books under the toy table. The dining room table still has breakfast dishes, and craft supplies, and random crap all over it. My desk is a an organizational nightmare. There are random trucks and clown shoes and neck pillows scattered on the floor. There's dryer sheets and bean bags and a puppy in a baby carrier just hanging around underfoot.

That's just one room. And barely the tip of the iceberg.

That laundry has been there since Thursday.

I tried to clean it last weekend, so that a professional housecleaner could come to my home and do the deep cleaning.

She deemed it uncleanable and gave me my money back.

I am constantly embarrassed by my home. I go to other family's homes and I see their floors. Their carpets, and I see their spotless countertops, and their little rows of matching shoes... and I feel ashamed and incompetent.

That's how I feel most days.

But there's one person in this world who always makes me feel better about my home.

I've never seen her home. I've never seen her family. But she's in my home twice a week, every week, and she knows when I make some pathetic excuse about how busy we've been, it's nonsense. This is just how we live.

And that person is RH's physical therapist.

You might recall RH started physical therapy about a year and a half ago to help her compensate for a possible spinal cord tether. Since then, two times a week, this woman comes into my home and plays with my children. She takes all three of them to the yard so I can take a shower. She plays games with them, and she compliments them.

And before she goes, she compliments me.

I am not the best parent in the world. Despite what my husband and kids say, I know I'm not. I know there are parents out there who make more nutritious meals for their kids, every day, from scratch, and at least once a week my kids have veggie corn dogs or fake chicken nuggets courtesy of Morningstar Farms, smothered in ketchup that's 99% corn syrup.

I know there are parents out there who keep their homes clean. Like, REALY clean. Who have EVER wiped down the baseboards. Who go through the house putting away toys once the kids are in bed. Who never leave dishes "to soak" in the kitchen sink overnight.

I know there are parents out there who are more engaged than me. Who spend all day homeschooling, or unschooling, or going on adventures. Who ration out screen time carefully. Not like me, who uses Disney Princess movies that I despise as a nearly daily opportunity to brush my teeth without being interrupted.

I know there are parents who get out of bed before the kid so they can get in an uninterrupted workout routine, whereas I stay under my covers until the very last moment it's humanly possible.

I know I'm not the best mom out there.

This is one of DD's "collections." You can find them in drawers, corners, baskets,
and hats all over the house. Only the flowers don't look so good anymore.

I know that today I've already threatened my kid with a spanking for screaming and crying and ignoring me when I tried to talk to her about headbutting her sister so hard in the face that it gave her a nosebleed. I know that today I ignored the fact that my toddler was wearing "princess shoes" before "princess shoe time" because it was the first time all day she's stopped yelling about anything and everything, even though our downstairs neighbors have more than reached their limits when it comes to the constant noise of three small children above them. I know that I've got a pee soaked cloth diaper draped over the edge of a diaper pail with no bag in it because I'm not going to risk waking a sleeping toddler just in the name of sanitation.

I know I'm dirty, and exhausted, and I smell like days old migraine sweats and somebody else's piss, and in a few minutes I'll take the world's fastest shower so I can finish baking a fresh-from-scratch strawberry birthday cake and write "Happy Birthday Daddy" on it.

But an hour and a half ago, when RH's physical therapist left my home, she stopped to talk to me as she does every Monday and Wednesday.

"RH is doing so well," she says.

"And SI and DD are so smart and so polite," she says.

"And they're so good with her. They're such good big sisters," she says.

"I don't know how you do it. You must do a lot of reading," she says. "Your girls are so sweet. I'm so impressed with how you deal with the temper tantrums. All the talk about choices and talking them through what they did. I tell my sister how good you are with that kind of stuff."

And I am flabbergasted that she says these things. I cannot imagine that she could mean them. This sweet woman, with two kids of her own- also four and two. She thinks I'm doing something right.

This is the woman who, one particularly rough day, SI greeted by announcing, "Mommy THREW DD onto the floor!" Which isn't what happened, but it had JUST happened. And I was sitting on the floor, hugging DD and telling her I'm sorry she fell when I yanked her out of her seat, but she needed to use TWO HANDS when she grabbed for a full cup of milk and I needed her to move instead of freezing so I could get to it before all the mess all over the dining room was soaked in milk. And while I panicked that now a state child welfare worker was going to have to report me for potentially abusing my child, she looked at me and said, "Would you like me to take the kids outside so you can have breakfast with a little quiet?"

I'm a mom who snaps more than I'd like to. I get angry, and I get frustrated, and I'm constantly outnumbered. Outnumbered by three kids who are all going through growth spurts and won't eat cheddar cheese if they know there's gouda in the house, and hate mangoes until all they want to eat is mangoes, and trash every room the moment I've finished making it livable again, and no matter what I do I can't keep up with them.

But I'm lucky. Because twice a week, another mom who's constantly outnumbered and exhausted and can't keep up with her kids either comes into my home and tells me I'm doing a good job.

Part of me hopes RH needs twice weekly physical therapy for the rest of her childhood, so I'll always have that twice weekly moment of reassurance.

Part of me feels intensely guilty for my gratitude that this woman has no choice but to come and relieve me for an hour twice a week of the constant attention of my own kids.

My little chaos machines

Today we're baking a cake, from scratch, and I can do that. I can do these fun things, and take pictures, and laugh, and have a great time with my kids.

I can help them wrap presents and I can enjoy this time with them, and I can make a gourmet freakin' dinner for M's birthday- grilled tuna steak with tequila salsa for him, quinoa garlic patties for the rest of us, a spinach strawberry salad for us salad eating adults, and curry roasted cauliflower for everyone. I can acknowledge I'll be cleaning up those dishes for another three days. I can acknowledge that while the cake cools, the children will be trashing the living room.

I know it's coming.

I know what my life looks like, and what it looks like is chaos. These are my priorities.

And although I'm ashamed, constantly, of the results of those priorities when it comes to my shabby house, my monstrous dust bunnies, my perpetually nearly-not-dying house plants and the random used bandaid that turns up in the middle of the floor, I'm not ashamed of my choices.

I'm happy with them, because they are the choices that make me happy. Rather than force myself to feel the constant frustration of my children's enthusiastic mess, I just let them live in it.

Rather than feel the constant exhaustion of not looking beautiful enough, I put my hair in a ponytail and settle for an Ariel assisted tooth-brushing.

Rather than argue with an obstinate two year old that she's making an invisible neighbor miserable, I accept the tongue lashing I'll get in ten minutes on the phone.

Facts are facts. The fact is that my house is a disaster.

But my life isn't.

And even when it feels like it is, because people can see my disastrous home and therefore must have access to my disastrous life... the physical therapist smiles and tells me my kids are great, and I must be doing something really right.

Today is our celebration of M's birthday. Fresh fish, a pink cake, chocolate ice cream, home-made wrapping paper covered in his daughters' drawings.

He deserves it.

I deserve it.

And my children deserve the best of what I can give them.

I can't give them a spotless home. I just can't. But I can give them the best of my love. I can give them the majority of my attention and affection. I can give them hugs and kisses, and songs, and stories, and green eggs and purple oatmeal, and teach them to squeeze lemon onto sliced strawberries.

I can let them make a mess.

For me, I think that's the best I can do. Because my life is messy, and they're a part of it.

And I think they know what a big part they are.

Becoming Vegetarians

SI and DD

When M and I started dating, he made a huge effort not to eat meat in front of me. I thought this was adorable but misguided- my objection has never been to seeing meat.

As things got more serious he got more comfortable ordering a steak on our dates, or eating a burger in the car on long trips. We never teased each other about it. He never waved bacon in front of me, joking about delicious delicious dead pig. I never squealed, "Mother! Where are you mother?" when he bit into venison jerky.

We respected each others' choices when it came to our diets. I had been raised since birth as a vegetarian, and he had been raised in a very American meat-and-potatoes environment. And we were both comfortable with our own choices.

For our last dating anniversary before our wedding, I made him lamb. I'd never cooked any kind of meat before, and I wanted to make some sort of grand gesture. I did a lot of research, too. I chose the kind of meat, not for ethical reasons, but because I was confident I would be able to prepare it without killing him.

And now here we are. I cook meat regularly, for him, and never taste it. And no, I never have the impulse to taste it.

Sometimes, at our dinner table, the children eye daddy's food curiously. They rarely ask about it. But that is starting to change.

I remember how old I was when my classmates started making fun of my diet. I was about five years old. I always assumed it would be around that age, for similar reasons, that my children would question their diets as well.

Turns out, I was wrong.

The other day we sat down to dinner. It was a rough day, so we ordered in Thai food. M had chicken pad thai, the girls had tofu pad thai. Everyone was eating happily until SI, the never-ending fount of questions with no answer, asked why daddy was eating from a different container.

"Daddy's pad thai noodles have chicken in them. Yours have tofu."

I watched her try to wrap her head around this. She's long known that daddy eats animals. But recently she's been very interested in the nutritional content of things. She knows she can't have ice cream every day, because it's made of fat and sugar. She knows that fruits and vegetables are nutritious, she knows that protein is important.

"Is chicken nutritious?"
"Well," I answered, "it's got lots of protein."
"But does it have fat and sugar?"
"It has some fat, not as much as red meat."
M piped in here, cautiously. "Like steak or burgers. Those are red meat, and they have much more fat."
"Why don't you eat meat, mommy?"
"I'm a vegetarian."
"What's a vegetan... why?

I hesitated for moment, and threw a quick apologetic glance to M. "I don't eat meat because I think it's wasteful."

SI nearly dropped her fork at this. "Wasteful" is a word she believed she understood, completely. She and DD love to play the "wasteful" game in the car, where they come up with examples of things that are "wasteful," and generally these things involve throwing food into the mud. Eating food is wasteful? This made no sense at all.

"You see, sweetheart, a long time ago, people had a hard time finding all the food they needed to have nutritious meals. It was hard to find sugar, and fat, and also protein. But if you killed an animal and ate it, you could have protein for a long long time.

"Do you remember the Buffalo Woman book? People used to eat meat like the Native Americans in that book- they would kill one buffalo and use every single part of the meat to feed their family for a long time. They didn't have to kill very many. Each buffalo had enough meat to feed the family for months.

And they used every part! They used its bones, and its eyes, and its skin, and its teeth, and its horns, and even its bladder! They didn't waste any of it. They were very respectful of the buffalo they killed to get protein in their food.

But now that's not how people get their meat. Instead of killing one animal and using all the parts, they kill lots and lots and lots of them, and only use a few parts. And a lot of the other parts just get thrown away. Sometimes the whole animal just gets thrown away. And that's not respectful at all."

She frowned at M's plate. "So why do you still eat it, daddy?"

And there it was. The question I never asked him. Because his diet is his choice, and the last thing I ever wanted to do was guilt trip him over it. His eyes widened in a guilty panic. I started talking again.

"Daddy eats meat because protein is an important part of his diet, and meat is one of the easiest ways to get lots of protein."

"Even though it's wasteful?"

M sighed. "Even though it's wasteful."

"Everyone has to make a choice about their food," I added. "Daddy chooses to eat meat because the protein is important to him. I choose not to, because I don't want to kill animals unless we need to. But it's up to you to choose whether you want to eat meat or not."

"I don't want to waste animals," she said. "I'm a vegetarian too."

"Me too!" said DD.

"Me doo!" said RH, with a mouth full of noodles. And like that, the conversation was over.

As soon as the kids went to bed, M and I apologized to each other a dozen times. Him, for not having any answers for the kids. Me, for possibly shaming him about his food. Something I never wanted to do.

I expect our family will talk about this again. Probably lots of times. And in the meantime, M can figure out what he's going to tell the kids about his dietary choices, and his reasoning for them.

And I can keep figuring out ways around conversations about our food industrial complex and the ethical treatment of animals. I'm not eager to talk to my kids about the unpleasant things we do to animals in captivity. And I'm fairly confident that my children will continue to choose not to eat food that is wasteful, and inhumane.

If we lived somewhere where it was feasible for us to buy meat from a family farm, where we could visit the animals, maybe even pick out our own cow before slaughter, things would be a little different. If we bought a whole cow, bones and organs and all, rather than just the bits and pieces that make the act of killing seem sanitary and mundane, it would be a different story. And the girls and I can have that conversation whenever they want.

But the most important thing is that our children know what their food is, and where it comes from.

They know that ice cream is fat and sugar, with no nutritional value. And they know sometimes it's okay to eat that.

And they also know that meat is a dead animal, that people eat. And that can be okay too.

They know what waste is, and that it's a bad thing.

I'm pretty confident they'll make good food choices so long as they remember those guidelines. And really, giving them guidelines and sending them into the world to make their own choices?

That's pretty much my job, isn't it?

Best Friends

This bride stole my baby

M has lots of friends from his childhood. Whenever we go to Minnesota, we invariably make the time to meet up with his group of buddies from high school. They're awesome people. I like all of them. Really, all of them.

They're doing pretty much what we're doing. There are some four or five kids (not our own) involved in the brood, most of them are married, they almost all still live in the same metro area.

My friends from high school?

To be honest, I don't really have friends from high school.

Me on the left, Aunt Marla on the right
circa 2001

That's because I didn't exactly go to high school. I was in high school for one year, and then I moved on to the greener pastures of college.

And back in those days, I hung around with a questionable crowd. And I mean very questionable. I'm not saying that they're bad people, or they were bad people, I'm just saying that now, with the gift of hindsight, I would have been a pretty nervous parent if my fifteen year old was hanging out with thirty year old college dropouts at Rocky Horror Picture Show rehearsal.

When I was a teenager, my friends ranged in age from my younger sister's grade to pushing forty. It wasn't that they were creepy older men (well, some of them were), it was that we had similar interests. We had engaging conversations about philosophy. sociology, law, art... we liked the same music and went to the same parties. The friends I had nearest in age were either high school and college dropouts, or recent grads from different high schools in town. I only ever met half a dozen of their parents, and they took turns being homeless and living in the attic of my parents' garage.

And so, I don't have that sort of nuclear group, that big group of friends who are all growing up together, getting married together, having kids together.

Aunt Marla getting married

Whenever I go back to my old hometown in Michigan, I don't see many friends. I only have two or three friends back there who I really kept up with, who I really want to take the time to see. And they aren't now nor have they ever been friends with each other.

My friends scattered to the winds, and really, I'm happy for all of them.

But I never see them. Uncle Brony moved to the southwest for flight school, and now lives in San Francisco where I think he's becoming a yoga instructor. Aunt Marla stayed in our old town, but she works nights as an end-of-life nurse, and the schedules never really link up. The person I get to see most is Aunt Lego, who was the first friend I ever really watched become a mother, raise kids, maintain her sense of self and her identity. She showed me that it could be done. And part of that is the insane busy schedule that means that really, no matter how often I make it to Ann Arbor (and it's not often), we probably won't meet up.

Last weekend, we went to Aunt Marla's wedding. We were in Ann Arbor for about eight hours. They were glorious.

I got to spend most of the day with Uncle Brony. I hadn't seen him since he came into town for my baby shower- when I was pregnant with DD and SI. He is one of my best friends in the whole world, and he still hadn't met my kids. The more I think about it, the more I realize that the people I'm closest to in the whole world haven't met them. They finally met my family this spring, my mother's side still haven't met RH and she's a whole year old, my oldest and dearest friend hasn't met them...

Me, center right, with Uncle Brony before
Prom. Yes, that's Aunt Genocide at the
far left

I'm happy for Uncle Brony, who walked my mother down the aisle at my wedding. He and I have been pretty much as close as they come since we were twelve years old and our Kadima trip to Cedar Point got rained out. We (and the piemaker, Aunt Genocide, and a now awesome slam poet), spent all day at the mall (some substitute for roller coasters!) playing at the arcade, skipping through the halls with our arms linked and singing The Wizard of Oz.

The only prom I ever went to, Uncle Brony was my date.

I'm so happy for Aunt Marla, who I've known for fourteen years, who I've watched freshly tattoo-ed and drunk, passed out in my hallway closet. She had a wedding utterly full of joy and laughter. It was wonderful- the bride and groom had the world's shortest ceremony (in an increasingly heavy rain), kissed four or five times, and then high-fived before traipsing down the aisle to the reception.

But no matter how long it's been since I've seen my friends, my real friends, the people who I always think of and remember and miss when I think of the people who know and love me...

No matter how long it is, nothing has changed. They are still the same people who made me feel that I belonged, who accepted me as I am from the first word, who loved me regardless of whatever stupid crap was going on in our lives.

And that kind of love isn't reserved for one person. They love me, and by extension they love M, and they love my children.

Uncle Brony with the kids

And it has been painful, at times physically so, to have so much life happen in between the few moments when we can actually spend time together, in real time and space, with real and wonderful things happening all around us.

It was amazing to watch Uncle Brony and the kids bonding- right now he's probably their favorite person in the world. To see his eyes fill with tears of love and joy when they jumped on him, hugged him, demanded to be carried to the dance floor and then to dance with him endlessly into the night...

He loves my kids, and they love him.

It was amazing to see Aunt Marla, who on her wedding day threw whatever plans she might have had out the window to dance with my children. Seriously- halfway through the first dance, she and her new husband broke apart so that she could welcome my kids, children she hadn't seen in three years onto the floor and dance with them just as her invitation described, awkwardly and enthusiastically.


Aunt Marla, on her wedding day, picked up my baby and waltzed off with her. She befriended that baby so fast and so fiercely that by the time I had to pry her out of the exhausted and joy-drunk bride's arms, she was reaching back to give her he sweetest little baby kisses you ever saw.

I'm playing Magenta here. I also played Janet, Frank,
and Trixie (the usherette/lips).

It was so intensely wonderful to see my old friends. Not many of them, they're too far flung. They're too distanced from their shady pasts. They've moved on.

There was never that tight a group of us to begin with.

There were so many groups that simply overlapped. Uncle Brony was in Rocky, but he was also a friend from middle school, from the neighborhood. Aunt Lego wasn't in Rocky, but she went to high school with most of the Rocky techies, she and I took classes together at community college, her step-sister and I went to high school together. There were a dozen different circles, mixing together like some weird three dimensional Venn diagram.

There is no group, growing up together. It's just not how we did things.

And I lament that. I wish that I could check in once or twice a year, meet all my friends' kids, see how much they've grown, swap stories about potty training or nursing woes or awkward in-law drama. But that's not what my friends did.

M's awesome friends, together at our wedding

Most of them aren't married. Most of them don't have kids. Those that do, did so sort of accidentally, without the usual bells and whistles. I know a lot of single dads from those days.

I don't think any of M's friends are single dads, or even single moms. They're all "responsible" adults, tattoo free (or at least VISIBLY tattoo free), married and procreating and working in professional jobs.

They do pretty much what you're expected to do when you grow up. College, grad school, law school, med school, marriage and then a kid or two, deployments to the middle east and the occasional getaway to the Dells or the Caribbean to relax and enjoy the stability of being 30 and following life's guidelines.

From what I can tell by voraciously stalking them on facebook and seeing most of them every Christmas and at least once a summer, they're all very happy.

My friends from those days are independent and/or struggling artists and musicians, they own local gyms and cleaning services, or they toured the country with their punk bands and gave it up to teach feminist summer camp. They're slam poets and pie activists and recovering alcoholics and etsy knitters. They became peace activists and pot farmers, they run Air B and Bs and organize open mics. They bake cakes and tattoo people and print t-shirts and ran off to Israel to become guitar playing rabbis.

And they're very happy, for the most part.

That's me delivering a speech at Aunt Lego's wedding

It's a very different group. And really, it's not a group, there's no cohesion. It's a pseudo collective of people who I know, who do or don't know each other, but who I am connected to through love and friendship.

When I was at Aunt Lego's wedding, I saw a lot of old friends from those days. But not all of them, not nearly all. And I only saw a few at Aunt Marla's wedding. And if Uncle Brony ever gets married, it will be yet another cross-section.

There will never be a day when the family is visiting somewhere, and all the people who knew me when, who got into trouble with me or made art or music or theater with me, who knew me back when I was a weird teenager and loved me then, there is no future day when we'll all sit down and have some cookies and watch our kids play together.

And it's sad to think it will never happen. But it's the way I expected my adulthood to be... you pay for that kind of bizarre freedom with a little loneliness later.

I wish Aunt Marla all the happiness in the world. I hope she takes me up on my offer and comes to visit us in Chicago. I hope all my old friends do.

My 16th birthday crew- only two of them are in regular
communication with each other these days.

I just also hope that, when my kids are older, they are fortunate enough to have a group of friends like M. A group who can grow together, and be there for each other, to reunite joyfully at these times.

It is one of the few things about normalcy I hope they can inherit from him.

But I hope what they inherit from me is the need for and the ability to find truly great friends. Friends who will go out of their way to be there for you, no matter how long it's been, no matter where they are on the earth or in life. Friends who remain friends despite any obstacle because their bond is one of the most important things that they have in this life.

When I say that my friends, my close friends, are my family... I mean it. I love them as intensely, as profoundly. I love their children simply because they are their children. I love their parents because they're their parents. I love their spouses because they love them. I worry for them when their loved ones are sick, I mourn for them when their loved ones pass away, I remember their birthdays regardless of facebook or birthday tracker or what-have-you.

When I think of the meaning of friendship, I think of the bond that no time, no distance can erase.

Uncle Brony dancing with my maid of
honor at my wedding

I think of the people who I have loved since the first, who have always loved me, who connect me with who I once was, with who I wanted to be.

I don't know if you can have both. I don't know if being close to your friends physically diminishes the emotional bond- I've never had the opportunity to know.

...even the friends who I have and consider close here in Chicago, who are physically near to me, I don't see very often.

But I do know that when your friendship is so strong, no distance can make you grow apart.

Next year, I'm going to my oldest and dearest friend's wedding, and I couldn't be more excited about it- sixteen months ahead of the happy day. I haven't seen her since M and I got married. I don't know when I'll see her again.

I also have no idea when the next time I'll see Aunt Lego and her family, or Aunt Marla and her husband, or Uncle Brony, or any of my old friends might be.

But they will always know how much I love them.

And I will never doubt how much love they have for me and mine.

Dear Less-Than-Perfect Mom

Dear Mom,

I've seen you around. I've seen you screaming at your kids in public, I've seen you ignoring them at the playground, I've seen you unshowered and wearing last night's pajama pants at preschool drop-off. I've seen you begging your children, bribing them, threatening them. I've seen you shouting back and forth with your husband, with your mom, with the police officer at the crosswalk.

I've seen you running around with your kids, getting dirty and occasionally swearing audibly when you bang a knee. I've seen you sharing a milkshake with a manic four year old. I've seen you wiping your kids' boogers with your bare palm, and then smearing them on the back of your jeans. I've seen you carry your toddler flopped over the crook of your arm while chasing a runaway ball.

I've also seen you gritting your teeth while your kid screamed at you for making him practice piano, or soccer, or basket weaving, or whatever it was. I've seen you close your eyes and breathe slowly after finding a gallon of milk dumped into your trunk. I've seen you crying into the sink while you desperately scrub crayon off your best designer purse. I've seen you pacing in front of the house.

I've seen you at the hospital waiting room. I've seen you at the pharmacy counter. I've seen you looking tired, and frightened.

I've seen a lot of you, actually.

I see you every single day.

I don't know if you planned to be a parent or not. If you always knew from your earliest years that you wanted to bring children into the world, to tend to them, or if motherhood was thrust upon you unexpectedly. I don't know if it meets your expectations, or if you spent your first days as a mom terrified that you would never feel what you imagined "motherly love" would feel like for your child. I don't know if you struggled with infertility, or with pregnancy loss, or with a traumatic birth. I don't know if you created your child with your body, or created your family by welcoming your child into it.

But I know a lot about you.

I know that you didn't get everything that you wanted. I know that you got a wealth of things you never knew you wanted until they were there in front of you. I know that you don't believe that you're doing your best, that you think you can do better. I know you are doing better than you think.

I know that when you look at your child, your children, you see yourself. And I know that you don't, that you see a stranger who can't understand why the small details of childhood that were so important to you are a bother to this small person who resembles you.

I know that you want to throw a lamp at your teenager's head sometimes. I know you want to toss your three year old out the window once in a while.

I know that some nights, once it's finally quiet, you curl up in bed and cry. I know that sometimes, you don't, even though you wanted to.

I know that some days are so hard that all you want is for them to end, and then at bedtime your children hug you and kiss you and tell you how much they love you and want to be like you, and you wish the day could last forever.

But it never does. The day always ends, and the next day brings new challenges. Fevers, heartbreak, art projects, new friends, new pets, new fights. And every day you do what you need to do.

You take care of things, because that's your job. You go to work, or you fill up the crock pot, or you climb into the garden, or strap the baby to your back and pull out the vacuum cleaner.

You drop everything you're doing to moderate an argument over who's turn it is to use a specifically colored marker, or to kiss a boo-boo, or to have a conversation about what kind of lipstick Pinocchio's mommy wears.

I know that you have tickle fights in blanket forts, and that you have the words to at least eight different picture books memorized. I've heard that you dance like a wildwoman when it's just you and them. That you have no shame about farting or belching in their presence, that you make up goofy songs about peas and potatoes and cheese.

I know that an hour past bedtime, you drop what you're doing and trim the fingernail that your three year old insists is keeping her up. I know that you stop cleaning dishes because your kids insist you need to join their tea party. I know you fed your kids PBandJ for four days straight when you had the flu. I know that you eat leftover crusts over the sink while your kids watch Super Why.

I know you didn't expect most of this. I know you didn't anticipate loving somebody so intensely, or loathing your post-baby body so much, or being so tired, or being the mom you've turned out to be.

You thought you had it figured out. Or you were blind and terrified. You hired the perfect nanny. Or you quit your job and learned to assemble flat packed baby furniture. You get confused by the conflict of feeling like nothing has changed since you were free and unfettered by children, and looking back on the choices you made as though an impostor was wearing your skin.

You're not a perfect mom. No matter how you try, no matter what you do. You will never be a perfect mom.

And maybe that haunts you. Or maybe you've made peace with it. Or maybe it was never a problem to begin with.

No matter how much you do, there is always more. No matter how little you do, when the day is over your children are still loved. They still smile at you, believing you have magical powers to fix almost anything. No matter what happened at work, or at school, or in play group, you have still done everything in your power to ensure that the next morning will dawn and your children will be as happy, healthy, and wise as could possibly be hoped.

There's an old Yiddish saying, "There is one perfect child in the world, and every mother has it."

Unfortunately, there are no perfect parents. Your kids will grow up determined to be different than you. They will grow up certain that they won't make their kids take piano lessons, or they'll be more lenient, or more strict, or have more kids, or have fewer, or have none at all.

No matter how far from perfect you are, you are better than you think.

Someday your kids will be running around like crazy people at synagogue and concuss themselves on a hand rail, and somebody will still walk up to you and tell you what a beautiful family you have. You'll be at the park and your kids will be covered in mud and jam up to the elbows, smearing your car with that sugary cement, and a pregnant lady will stop and smile at you wistfully.


No matter how many doubts you might have, you never need doubt this one thing:
You are not perfect.

And that's good. Because really, neither is your child. And that means nobody can care for them the way you can, with the wealth of your understanding and your experience. Nobody knows what your child's squall means, or what their jokes mean, or why they are crying, better than you do.

And since no mother is perfect, chances are you are caught in a two billion way tie for Best Mom in the World.

Congratulations, Best Mom in the World. You're not perfect.

You're as good as anybody can get.

With love,
Lea

Dual Religion Reality Check

There are internet cats for everything.

When M and I were first engaged, I was talking to my sister about our plans to have children. "Would they be Jewish?" she asked me.

"Well, I'm Jewish," I hedged.
"Yeah, fine. But will they be raised Jewish?"
"They'll be raised both."
"Do you really think that's going to work?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean- can they really be Jewish if they're raised half Christian?"
"Well, they can make a choice when they're old enough. If they want to."
"But you'll want them to."
"Probably."
"And if they're raised with a Christmas tree, if they're raised learning that Jesus is the messiah, can they ever really be Jewish?
"I don't know."

And I didn't know. And M and I had a lot of long talks about religion, about what parts of it were important to us, and why. I put my foot down on Hebrew school. I told M, I don't always believe in God, I don't always know that I believe in God, and I am certain that I don't believe in God the way he's described by the majority of religious people, but I believe in my culture.

And I tried, vainly, to explain that Judaism isn't really a religion. Or isn't only a religion. That it's a community and a heritage and a birthright. That being Jewish doesn't mean speaking Hebrew or making aliyah, but that those things are important because they help Jews connect to each other.

And M was perplexed and exasperated, but understanding.

And then we had kids, and now they go to Hebrew school, and things are a little different. They're different because our children play Shabbat, light their little wooden candles and mumble their Hebrew prayers, and sing silly songs about challah on the sabbath.




And M feels that this has nothing to do with his own culture, his own heritage.

At first, he tried to tell himself that Judaism is the precursor to Christianity, and therefore anything that Jews did was in some way related to what Christians do. He has quickly learned how incorrect that assumption was.

Shortly after Channukah, we had a conversation that seemed eerily familiar to me. The kids were all sleeping in the back of the car, and M and I had started talking about his desire for the girls to go to Sunday school. He said he wanted them to go, but he didn't know why.

"Is it because the girls go to Hebrew school?"
"Yes, sort of."
"They can do both."
"That's not what I want. It's just... hard, to feel like there's something important in their lives, and in your life, that I don't have any connection to."
"Yes, you do."
"No, I don't. For you, it's a culture. It's your identity- and I don't have anything like that. I'm just... sort of boring. I don't have any traditions. I don't have any culture."
"You're not culture-less. You're American."
"Gee, thanks for that."
"Really. You can't know what it's like to grow up Jewish, because you've never been part of a minority. You're a white, Christian, American male. Your culture is THE culture. You don't know what it's like to feel like an outsider in your own community. No matter how many Jewish people I knew, every time Nickelodeon played a Christmas special, I felt weird and different. Every time the teachers handed out candy canes, every time I went to a friend's house and they had Christmas lights or a Christmas tree, every time Christmas songs came over the radio, every time they put up a Christmas tree downtown, I felt like I didn't belong. Like I wasn't welcome. You might not have any sort of cultural identity that you SEE, but I see it. And because of that, your kids will never feel as alien as I did. And maybe that will make them less Jewish. Maybe part of being Jewish is cultivating that feeling that you're not the same as everyone else. It's the whole "chosen people" business. But it sucks feeling like you don't belong in your home.
"Your kids are going to grow up with a Christmas tree, with a dad who watches claymation specials or whatever it is you do, with a sense that the phrase 'Merry Christmas' isn't actually a subtle way to say 'Fuck you if you don't celebrate Christmas.'"
"That's kind of harsh..."
"Yeah, but it can feel that way. More and more it feels that way."
"I'm sorry."
"I don't want to make you feel bad, I want to make you feel better. I might be giving our kids a sense of cultural identity that you don't have, but you can give them something that I never had, and that's feeling safe and welcome in their own country. I can never give them that. I can never make them feel that way."

Then we carried our three sleeping children up to bed.

Lighting candles

The thing is, neither M nor I is particularly religious, but we're both fairly spiritual people. And the problem with religion in general is that it's divisive.

Most Jewish kids in the United States are familiar with a short conversation. It starts with the Jewish kid doing/saying/having something foreign to the other, and the other asking why. The Jewish kid answers, "Because I'm Jewish," and the other kid says something like, "Oh, I guess that you're going to Hell, huh?" because that's what they've been taught- that without belief in Jesus you go to Hell.

This year, I googled "Channukah Cookies" and found a site completely dedicated to trashing Jews who were trying to "cash in" on the "Christmas tradition" of making cookies. This isn't an isolated incident. This is what it's like to be Jewish in America. This is what it's always been like to be Jewish- to always be a minority.

Jews are all about history. We can trace our family tree back to which son of Jacob we were descended from. We can trace our direct lineages back hundreds of years. Our shared history and shared culture is what is important to us.

We know that the Passion Play was a tool to rile up mobs to attack Jews hundreds of years ago. That's history, but when the news is covering the local churches' performances, it still makes me worry that my Catholic neighbors are getting ready to enact some sort of punishment against me. Because I'm Jewish, and the lesson that used to be taught about the Passion is that all Jews are responsible for Christ's crucifixion.

M will never know what that feels like, but our kids will.

Every time I see a Confederate flag, I think about the people attacked by White Supremacists, and I worry for my children.

I don't know if M has ever felt that fear from those symbols.

Right now, my children are watching Lambchop's Passover special. Shari and Dom DeLouise are singing about the items that go on the seder plate, and my kids are playing with their very strange baby Moses story book doll.

Here's the thing- around Christmas, there are HUNDREDS of movies to choose from about the holiday. And another three or four come out every year in movie theaters. 

Every year M can take his children to go look at Christmas light displays at the zoo, and harbor no resentment that his tax dollars are paying for something that is fundamentally denied to a minority- a minority he isn't a part of.

M doesn't feel that he has a culture to share with his children, but he does. It's a culture of inclusivity, despite my own exclusion.

So I have no idea if my kids can really be Jewish if they've grown up being included. Being part of the Christian mass of the American public. Trimming their Christmas trees, going on Easter Egg hunts, being told by their parents that there is such a thing as Santa Claus, having Santa Claus play any kind of role in the story of their childhood. They'll grow up ingesting the constant messages about Christ and Christianity and especially Christmas that America is utterly saturated with.

Visit from Santa

Most Americans don't see it. They don't see how Christianity is fundamentally a part of American culture. They decry the "War on Christmas" because they don't understand how thoroughly it is already won. Already, to be an American, really an American, you have to be intimately familiar with a subtle language that pervades everything. The "War on Christmas" is non-Christians asking not to be forced to participate in Christmas, that their children not be forced to participate in Christmas, that they can live one day of their lives between October and the New Year without having to know what "the reason for the season" is.

But my kids? They will never feel that way. My kids are part of this, thanks to their father. And that makes me feel distant, alien.

I don't like that feeling. Just as I know that M doesn't like the feeling that the girls and I are part of a culture that he can't share.

The fact is, M and I will never really be able to ignore our cultural differences. M will always have the culture of his family, his childhood, his nation. I will always have mine.

But our kids? Who knows. Who knows what happens when you teach your kids they are members of a group that is fundamentally separate from all others, and when you simultaneously teach them they are members of the collective whole.

Who knows?

I don't. I don't know what it's like to be Jewish and to feel completely included in the culture of the majority.

I don't know if it's possible to be Jewish and to feel that American culture isn't constantly attacking you.

But I suppose we're going to find out. And no matter what, M and I always address these issues the same way- with love and kindness and open minds.

Maybe watching us struggle to explain Passover and Easter in the same week will teach our kids something greater than religion. Maybe it will teach them to transcend religious divisions. Maybe it will teach them to cherish their heritage and cultivate their sense of history on both sides. Maybe they'll become militant atheists, who knows.

What we know, M and I, is that we really don't care about religion. What matters to us is the peripheral stuff. For us, it's about us, nobody else. So if the girls grow up with a sense of awe for the universe, respect for life in its myriad forms, and a strong moral compass... we've done a good job.

We just need to keep that in mind as we try to teach them our own histories, our own faiths, with consideration and respect for each other's.

You'd be amazed how little of an example is out there for how people can do that.

Oh Monsters, Why Did I Create You?

The monsters attacking Daddy

My children are monsters.

I don't mean that they're horrible, nasty, mean little children. No, I mean that they run around the house roaring and pretending to eat me. My children sometimes take turns being the monster and being the "Princess Knight on a horse with a sword." One lays on the floor, "asleep," while the other uses their "sword" to kill the monster (usually RH's playpen), and then kiss the "sleeping" princess and wake her up. And then it repeats, with the roles switched. Back and forth. Back and forth.

Sometimes, Daddy is the monster, and he chases them across the house. But like a roomba, when they reach a solid object (like the back door) they shift directions. The children become the monsters, and they chase Daddy until another object blocks their path.

They've been monsters for a pretty long time.

When I was still pregnant with RH, and honestly, not very pregnant at all, I started considering ways to make the transition to big sisterhood a little easier. The thing I read time and time again was that the new baby should give its new big sisters a present.

Easy enough. But I thought that it should be something big. But something fun, and distracting. Something that would keep them preoccupied.

And then I ran across this Kickstarter campaign...



It's an animal hat- but it's a monster! And it's a big, cuddly, Mr. Potato Head. I thought it was absolutely ingenious. I thought that my kids would love to play with that sort of thing. I thought that I would love to play with one. I thought about how much fun my sisters and I would have had, making puppet shows to perform ad nauseum for the adults in our lives.

That's right, a year ago, I invested in this business.

It's been a wide variety of exciting and frustrating. On the one hand, seeing all the changes, learning about all the challenges that go into producing a new product... it's a fascinating thing to have a view of. I learned all about the challenges they had finding a mass producer, how they decided to license their invention to a much bigger toy company... then it was totally weird to see the commercial on television for the final product.

...a final product that I still hadn't received. And still hadn't received. And still hadn't received.

Fun, right?

Over and over again, delay after delay. First, RH was born. The girls got dinosaurs instead. Then Channukah- no Hugalopes. Then Christmas- no Hugalopes.

And now?

Now it looks like they're coming. But I'm not going to be handing them out just yet.

Those Hugalopes are going to be fourth birthday presents.

...in October.

The thing is, as frustrating as it's been to sit around waiting, I was always a little bit nervous that they wouldn't be quite old enough. That they'd need too much help with the toggles, or they wouldn't be ready for the sort of creative play that comes with puppets.

Now I'm positive they're ready for everything but the toggles.

By their birthday, they'll be the perfect age for this sort of thing.

And so, with my Hugalopes FINALLY on the way, with a few toys stored away that were too complicated for them last year, and that didn't come in the mail before Christmas, I am almost completely done getting my twins presents for their birthday.

You know, that event more than SEVEN MONTHS AWAY.

I've even got the party favors for their Care Bears themed birthday party. Yeah, I'm that prepared.

Be jealous.

Paging Dr. Rapunzel...

DD is Rapunzel

I have a girl living in my house.

I don't just mean that she's biologically female. I mean she is girly. I don't even know what to do with them. All my girliness was directed at Little House or Anne of Green Gables or American Girls (BEFORE Mattel bought and destroyed them). I got a bit older and became obsessed with the Mists of Avalon.

I was very female oriented, sure... but girly?

And here I am, home all day with DD, the girliest girl of them all. Everything needs to be pink, and poofy, and glittery.

SI spends about a third of her time humoring DD. The rest of the time she escapes into her own, must stranger fantasies.

And that leaves me and RH to bend to DD's absurdly girly whims.

I think I've been patient. I've watched Beauty and the Beast with minimal commentary about the nature of sexually abusive relationships. I've watched hours of Angelina Ballerina with only subdued constant gagging sounds. I've watched Cinderella a million times and restrained my outbursts only to expressions of frustration that Cinderella doesn't go and find herself some paid work- she's obviously employable.

Everybody is a royal around here.

And then I stopped being able to take it any more. I stopped biting my tongue, and I let the princesses have it.

I explained to DD that the only way she can ever be a princess is to marry a prince, and mostly they're not very nice. This devastated her. She asked if she could still marry daddy, and my assurances that it was still an option calmed her significantly.

Then I told her that there are other things she could be, that being a princess isn't having a job. It's like being a girl, or a grownup, it's a state of being that you can't really alter. But even princesses have jobs.

A recent issue of Mental Floss (our favorite magazine) provided a list of princes and princesses with day jobs. I explained that there's a princess who works helping children get medicine. There's a prince who drives a rickshaw. (I think I called it a bicycle car.) There's a princess who's a doctor.

These princesses are also firemen.

That one stuck.

Suddenly, DD was running around the house wearing her frilliest tutus, her sparkly crown, and a stethoscope.

"I am Dr. Rapunzel!" she announced.

And Dr. Rapunzel has remained.

But DD's not the only one who gets to play doctor around here. She has explained to me that she still needs to marry a prince. And right now, with SI being uncooperative in her royal pretending, I must pick up the slack.

And that is how during the last few weeks, I have found myself addressed on a regular basis as, "Dr. Prince Mommy."

Two steps forward, one step back. I think I'll wait until she's five to warn her about playing doctor with boys.

Dr. Prince Mommy

Good Night, You Moonlight Ladies

Aunt Something Funny and I playing bedtime- circa 1986

It's hard to know just when we start forming truly permanent memories.

My earliest memory is, I believe, from when I was 16 months old. It's of an eye exam, I think  I can remember being strapped to a big blue table, and crying for my mother. My mother's face is young, her glasses enormous, and she seems very, very far away. She's not speaking to me, and she's not crying, but she's looking at me.

I have quite a few memories of life starting about a year later. Birthday parties, games with my sisters, babysitters, my father carrying me up to my attic bedroom. I remember watching my parents' friends paint the shed in psychedelic colors, the word "Peace" emblazoned in bold, tacky letters.

I'm sure Poppa wil LOVE that I posted this

I remember a small black and white television playing clips of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show.

But the thing I remember the most, the consistent, daily occurrences of my life when I was SI and DD's age, is my father singing to me.

Every night, he sat in the room that Aunt Something Funny and I shared, and sang us lullabyes. I remember laying in bed with my eyes closed and listening. I remember laying in Aunt Something Funny's bed (sometimes she was frightened of the top bunk) and staring at her poster of kittens in a basket, listening. I remember laying in the red tent I liked to have set up in my bed, listening.

I remember peeking at him from the top bunk especially, He is also young, his hair and glasses both big, his legs folded around each other. He looks like my father, but not as he is now. He's lithe and young, his voice maybe just a little clearer than now. In the dark, I don't know what color his t-shirt is, but he looks comfortable. Peaceful. The sight of him makes me feel happy, sleepy, and safe.

My daddy, singing songs.

I remember murmuring the names of the songs I wanted next, barely audible. Half asleep. He must have known exactly which songs I would want. No doubt they were always the same songs.

I remember being several years older. Playing with my stuffed animals on my bed in the room that Aunt Genocide and I shared in our next house. I sang the same songs to my stuffed animals.

I remember being even older. Practically a teenager. I remember trying to look cool and hide my shock when I learned that the lullabyes I had known my entire life, that seemed etched into my soul, were essentially the Best Of James Taylor. Hearing him sing those songs- his own songs- sounds disjointed and wrong to me.

Everyone told me to sleep while I could. Yeah right.

I remember my second night as a mother, laying in a hospital bed, with my two, tiny babies on my lap, propped up against a pillow. I remember staring at their tiny, sleeping faces, and being unable to sleep. Instead, I stayed up until 5am, singing them those lullabyes. The first time I sang lullabyes for my children. I will never forget it.

They're the same lullabyes I still sing.

Not all of them are the songs I listened to in my earliest memories. I sing songs from my choir days, I sing folk songs that my father never sang me, I sing Elliott Smith and Jewel and Sarah McLaughlin. A few Disney songs that didn't exist back then. A few that did. I sing a song or two from my mother's repertoire as well, But I also still sing the James Taylor songs.

And when Poppa is here, he takes his seat in the darkened room where two little girls lay, not sleeping, and sings them the same songs he sang to me.

I always knew I would be a mom. Never did I know that more than when my father was singing me lullabyes. There was something so magical about that time, I couldn't imagine there was more to adulthood that sitting in the dark, singing your children to sleep.

SI and DD playing bedtime

Now I know there is, there's much more to it. But there's nothing that makes me feel more like the grown-up I always wanted to be than sitting in the dark, singing them the same songs. Over and over and over.

Now, my children sing those songs themselves. In eerie, tiny little voices over the monitor, I hear them singing to their toys after they're supposed to be asleep.

Part of me is astounded to be part of this creation of history, this creation of tradition. Could James Taylor have known when he wrote his songs that there would be generations of families, singing them to their children as lullabyes, in their own voices?  Will my grandchildren lay in the dark, listening to the same songs that my father sang to me?

I hope so. I hope that my children feel the same closeness and love for me as I sing to them that I felt for my parents. I hope they feel as safe, as certain that all is right in the world.

I hope their children feel that as well.

These are the moments in which I feel the need to weep for my children. For their childhood that is flying past me at breakneck speeds. For every night that I'm too tired or too busy to sing every song they know.

RH, sleeping peacefully

I remember sitting in a rocking chair in my twins' darkened room, seeing my reflection in the mirror. I am singing the same songs my father sang to me, as I rock in that chair, draped in sleeping toddlers.

I remember sitting in a different rocking chair in RH's darkened room, staring at her owl mobile as I crane my neck around the bulk of her chubby head, singing the same songs as her breathing quiets and her fingers relax in their death grip on my hair.

I feel like I've always had these memories. That since my earliest childhood, listening to my father sing, they've been lying dormant. Waiting to happen.

I feel supremely blessed, living a charmed life. A life of love and of quiet music, murmured requests in the dark, peaceful sighs from sleepy children.

In these dark, musical moments, I have everything I ever wanted out of life.






Do you sing to your kids? What songs did you grow up with?

DD's First Heartbreak

Playing with Daddy at the beach

I was standing in the nursery, changing what was, to the best of my knowledge, the grossest diaper that RH had ever presented me with. It took a lot of attention and vigilance to keep her from spreading the mess around, and so I wasn't as available to my other daughters as I might have liked.

Daddy is awesome!

DD was sitting on the rocking chair behind me, talking about the wedding picture of me and M in our hallway.

"Mommy? Is you married to Daddy?"
"Yes, honey. I AM married to Daddy."
"Because you love him?"
"That's right. And someday when you grow up, I hope you find somebody that you love just as much as I love Daddy, and then you can get married too."
"Mommy? I love Daddy SO much! He is so awesome!"
"Yeah, I think so too sweetie."
"I want to marry Daddy!"

*beat*

"Well, Daddy's already married to Mommy..."
"I want to marry Daddy."

It wasn't an exclamation, it was a fact. Simple, obvious, self-evident.  In my head, I ran through all sorts of Freudian story lines, and settled on the fact that I had probably wanted to marry MY daddy when I was a little girl, and that this was a totally normal and healthy reaction of a three year old who thinks that her daddy is awesome.

"That's very sweet honey."
"I will ask Daddy to marry me!"

And as I wrestled with RH's furiously kicking and incredibly strong seven month old legs, DD ran from the room to find Daddy.

Daddy teaches DD to bowl

Daddy was laying in bed, recovering from the events of Friday, which I will share with you later.  I couldn't hear what was happening, but I imagined a sweet scene where DD told M that she loved him SO MUCH and that she though he was awesome, and M smiled and said Of COURSE I'll marry you!

A minute or so later, DD walked slowly into the room.  Her head was held high, but her jaw was set firmly closed in an expression I've seen a hundred times in the mirror. Her eyes were glassy and green and she was not looking at me. Determinedly not looking at me. Her hands were stiff at her sides.

I cleared my throat.

"DD? Is everything okay? What did Daddy say?"

There was a forced calm on her face, and in her voice as she began to speak.

"Daddy says he does not want to marry me..." her voice cracked. "He wants to marry YOU!"

Daddy taking DD trick or treating

And with the last word, the dam broke. She wailed it, as though all the anguish in the world were flowing through the one syllable.  She fell gracefully, face first, onto the cushion of the rocker, and sobbed piteously.  She wouldn't look at me. She just lay there, her face buried in her arms, and wailed.

"Oh, honey, it's okay..."

My words only made things worse. She slid off the chair and lay face down on the carpet, crying directly into the Oriental styled pile.  I bit my lip to keep from laughing, but RH was doing it for me. She laughed and laughed and laughed at DD, seeing only her antics and hearing a foreign sound that must have sounded much like hilarity to her. She made eye contact with me and wiggled her eyebrows as if to say, see? This is pretty freakin' funny!

I cleared my throat and spoke slowly to mask my own giggles.

"Daddy loves you so much, DD. He loves you so so so so so much, and I know when you grow up you'll find somebody who loves you the way mommy loves daddy and THEN you'll get married..."
"But I want to marry Daddy!"
"I'm so sorry honey..."
"I want to marry Daddy!"

Daddy and DD, hanging out at the diner.

She cried harder. RH laughed harder. DD wailed.

Now, as you can probably imagine, by this point I knew that if I didn't get DD out of the room and over her heartbreak quickly, I would actually dissolve into laughter, and probably scar her for life. It was then that I recalled that M could actually hear me through the baby monitor.

Again, I spoke slowly. This time for M's benefit.

"DD, why don't you ask Daddy to marry you again? I'm SURE that THIS TIME, Daddy will DEFINITELY SAY YES."

She paused in her crying, and lifted her teary face to look at me.

"Daddy will marry me?"
"I KNOW that if you ask Daddy again, HE WILL SAY YES."

Daddy and DD at the museum

She got up and left the room at a run. Just in case the monitor was off, I yelled down the hall after her, at the top of my lungs so M could hear it, "DADDY WILL SAY YES THIS TIME!"

I washed the poo off the bottoms of RH's feet, and began putting her back into some clean clothes. No sooner did I get the onesie over her head than DD came running back into the room, beaming.

"Daddy said yes! Daddy WILL marry me!"
"Oh honey! That's wonderful!"
"Yeah, that is!"

And grinning at me with all the gratitude and joy her little heart could contain, she went running off to find another game to play.

As I watched her run off, I thought I saw a shadow of a great big pre-teen girl. Anguished one minute because some boy she likes likes some other girl, the next minute asking me to drive her to some friend's house for a sleepover.

I feel like I already know that girl.  I already love that girl.

And when she's all heartbroken over those stupid preteen boys, I'm sure she'll find herself running back into the arms of her first love. Even if it took a rejection before he finally agreed to marry her.

DD and Daddy forever

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Best Pictures of 2012 and Neruotic Whatnot

A runner up.  The pictures were that good.

As you may recall, I am a crazy person who feels the need to shame myself into doing the absolute minimum to assure that I am healthy, passable as sane, and generally presentable.

This year, my goals were as follows:

1. Write (daily)
2. Complete my homework (daily)
3 Leave my house (daily- at least step onto the balcony)
4. Eat at least two meals (daily)
5. Maintain my hygiene (daily)
6. Exercise (at least 3x week)
7. Observe Shabbat with my children (1x week)
8. Finish reading a book (1x month)
9. Make art (1x month)

Now, some of these should be absolute no-brainers.  I mean really, to fulfill my fifth goal, I simply had to shower OR brush my teeth OR wash my face ONCE each day.

And some of them are obviously easy.  I finished school at the end of May, so for a full half of the year (and then some) I had NO homework, and therefore it was already completed.  Free checkmark for me.

Sadly, I am gross and lazy.  This is why I give myself a check list.

Read about it!

1. Did I write?
This year, I wrote in my journal on 320 out of 365 days.  That's awesome, but it still means there were forty five days when I wrote nothing- and one day less than I wrote in 2011!  I am willing to accept this amount, as I recall how exhausted and busy I was while finishing school/being pregnant/taking care of my big girls.  Plus. even if I apparently blew off a month of writing, I also wrote a draft of a novel in a month.  So I'm going to call this one a win.  Go me!  I wrote a lot!

Read about it!

2. Did I complete my homework?
I completed my homework on 330 days.  That means that for 35 days, I did not complete my homework.  Keep in mind, I was only in school for six months.  Which means, I am a lousy student.  This is simply not good enough.  Good for me I passed anyway.  That said, I only completed my homework 244 times last year, so I think I might have actually improved a little bit.

Read about it!

3. Did I leave my house?
I left my house during 255 days- including days that I didn't leave the house but was in a house that isn't mine.  That means that for 100 days this year, I didn't see the sun.  This is particularly embarrassing. as last year I left the house a whopping 301 days.  So this year, I was worse at leaving the house than the year before.  I'll blame the pregnancy, but I know I'm going to have to do better.  No way can I be a happy person if I'm always cooped up.  That said, it's not on the list for next year.  Next year, my list includes, "alone time."  Alone time can include leaving the house, but I think at this point taking some time to myself every day is more important to my mental house than being outside.  So, we'll see if I end up crazy and cooped up in 2013.

Read about it!

4. Did I eat at least two meals?
Leaving all of my other goals in the dust, I managed to eat two meals on 347 days!  I actually beat my total for 2011 by a whole 13 days.  Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I confess that some of those "meals" were three slices of raisin bread or an apple.  But I did force myself to stop and eat something, two times a day, nearly every single day.  I'm keeping it on my list for next year, because I know that the reason I did so well was that I was holding myself accountable.  But still, I'm pretty proud that I'm learning to take the most basic care of myself.

Read about it!

5. Did I maintain my hygiene?
Do you really want to know?  In my defense, I spent half the year pregnant and exhausted and chasing small people, but who's really buying that?  This year, I failed.  Yes, failed.  In 2011, I cleansed myself in a minimalistic way a whole 251 days.  This year? 216.  That's right, there were only 60% odds that on any given day I had even brushed my teeth.  I am humiliated.  Next year I am going to do better, dammit.  Because OMG I am so gross.


6. Did I exercise?

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Hell, yeah!  I had a goal of 156 times in the year, and I almost made it!  Mostly thanks to two months of daily dance parties with my kids.  That said, I exercised 141 days, that's only 15 days short, and that's considering that I was, as previously mentioned, miserable and pregnant and whatnot.  I'm going to do better this year.  Keeping the same number as my goal, but this year?  I'm gong to BEAT it.

Read about it!

7. Did I observe the Sabbath?
Well... I was certainly more honest about it than last year, when I claimed fast days and Channukah and whatnot as "observing," which is bogus.  This is a weekly observance, and that's 52 times a year.  Now, I don't light candles and whatnot if M and I are going out, if we're out of town, all of that.  And M and I did make the effort to do a lot more dating this year.  I lit Shabbat candles with the girls 28 times this year.  That is easily double my number for 2011.  So I'm going to say progress is good, but we still need some work.  Still, better than every other week is something I feel good about.

Read about it!

8. Did I read a book a month?
Sort of.  I read 16 books in 2012, which is 12 fewer than in 2011.  And most of them were graphic novels.  Still, I managed to read a little bit.  I am planning on reading more "real" books this year, but finding the time is hard.  Hopefully, it will get easier as RH becomes more independent.  We'll see.

Read about it!

9. Did I make art every month?
Sort of.  I intentionally left "art" open ended last year.  I decided to count all sorts of crafting as "art," so decorating RH's room, making our holiday cards, making Halloween costumes... that was most of the "art," if not all of it.  This year I'm actually prioritizing making REAL art, so we'll see if my number goes up from 2012's 18 "arts."


And now that I have forced you to suffer through the madness that is my neurotic cataloging of my annual failures, I give you- the best pictures of 2012!

January 2012: The girls are STILL talking about the time Daddy threw snowballs in the air.

February 2012: The girls' hair is finally long enough for pigtails, and they begin having tea parties.  Occasionally with robots.

March 2012: a three way tie

March 2012: a three way tie

March 2012: a three way tie

April 2012: Passover dresses

April 2012: Passover dresses

May 2012: a four way tie.  I (finally) graduated, at nine months pregnant.

May 2012: the girls' enjoy a boat ride

May 2012: M becomes a Master of Structural Engineering

May 2012: my friends shower me for my upcoming third baby.

June 2012: a six way tie.  It was a big month.

So. stinkin', cure.

RH is born, and I am in love with her.

Her daddy is in love with her.

DD is in love with her.

SI is in love with her.

July 2012: Our first family photo as a family of five

August 2012: A three way tie

The whole family enjoys a bonfire at Grandmommy and Poppa's house

I learn the hazards of DIY photography

September 2012: DD and SI's first day of preschool

October 2012: a tie.  DD and SI turn three years old.

October 2012: The family dresses as the Wizard of Oz for Halloween.

November 2012: Another tie.  We eat the baby.

November 2012: I took my kids to vote.

December 2012: Hands down my favorite of the month.  RH desperately tries to de-beard Santa.  DD and SI are still pretty sure this is actually Uncle Robot.  I've told them that I don't think so.  I am officially a liar.

Happy New Year, lovely readers!  May 2013 bring you all the joy you can handle.  :)


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