Too Soon

1974

I don't generally go around bragging about my dad. I'm more of a go-to complainer. He can be unreliable in his travel planning, he can be a little myopic and insensitive, and he sets impossible standards when it comes to singing my kids to sleep. Or rather, singing for hours and hours without once pointing out that they SHOULD be going to sleep.

The truth is, he's a pretty remarkable guy.

He's also sort of kind of famous. For a while I was considering geekiness as a lifestyle choice- I learned HTML back in the days of AOL and dialup, I began learning a few other assorted (and now totally useless) coding languages, and I contemplated following his footsteps into the technology driven future.

I quickly learned that I would rather be covered in paint and children, and redirected my energy. But I learned a few things about geeks and nerds and the culture in general that put me off.

And the biggest was that my dad was kind of a celebrity. I instituted a rule for all future would-be suitors: If they knew who my dad was and fanboy-ed out about him, I would not, under any circumstances, go out with them.

Later in life, this has proven to be an excellent benchmark. I have a close friend who recently broke up with a total turd of a boyfriend. The sort of boyfriend who empties your bank account, trashes your credit, and then abandons you without any funds or resources 5,000 miles from home.

The day I met him he lost his cool completely, recounting my father's entire biography to me (as though I didn't know it), and informing me that he had edited Poppa's wikipedia page.

What I find most interesting about Poppa's celebrity is that the thing he was always most proud about is the thing I also take the most pride in on his behalf, and has nothing to do with the things that makes him sort of famous.

Poppa is known for his work inventing MIME- that's the standard that allows anything other than text to go over the internet. Fonts, colors, pictures, sounds, you name it- it's MIME.

But when he was fifteen he made history as the first kid to win a cash settlement after suing his high school.

Forty two years ago, my father sued his high school and won because his high school's principle had violated his freedom of speech. He, and many other students, were evicted from their Columbus, Ohio public school for wearing black arm bands on the anniversary of the Kent State massacre.

This was utterly historic. I don't say that as a daughter, I say that as the kid who stumbled onto this story while researching the history of nonviolent protest during the Vietnam War for a school project. He wasn't mentioned by name, but he was in the history book in the library. He still has the issue of Playboy he was written up in, again, not by name. It mentions that a fifteen year old student had successfully sued his high school. What Playboy added was, "proving that American teenagers still have the right to mourn their dead."

So, of course, when the news popped up of Urban Outfitters "vintage" Kent State sweatshirt... I couldn't help thinking about my dad.

Here's the thing about poking fun at the dead. It's all well and good until it hurts the living.

It's easy enough to forget that there were real victims at Kent State. It's been more than forty years. The idea of police killing unarmed teenagers is frighteningly mundane these days.

The grief was real then, and it's real now. And PARTICULARLY when the country is being torn apart by police violence, by protests marred by tear gas and bullets, when we forget the name of the unarmed teenager killed last month because we're focusing on this month, and we just don't have enough space in our brains to list the names of all the kids who are never going to go home again, it is unfathomably inappropriate to make jokes about massacred teenagers.

Is this the precedent we want to set? That given a few decades, Michael Brown is going to be a punchline? In twenty years, can we expect lawn signs that say, "Neighborhood Watch : Carry Skittles At Your Own Risk"?

The apology from Urban Outfitters, if you can even call it that, is beyond insufficient.

The fact is that we live in a society that is more and more tolerant of more and more violence. While we begin to have public conversations, REAL conversations about domestic violence and child abuse, we also move on and ignore misogynistic murder sprees (Santa Barbara et. al.) and mass child slaughters (Sandy Hook et. al.).

Let's not pretend this is okay. Let's not compartmentalize our indignation.

Let's be honest about what is and what is not acceptable for a society to embrace.

Little Gifts

The givers of many little gifts

This last month has been a nonstop carousel of insanity.

Passover came and went, with a flurry of chaos and love and joy and family.

Great aunts and uncles, distant cousins... a ridiculously full house for the Passover seder

Easter came and went, with sunshine and chocolates and full houses and full tables.

My Jewish, atheistic, color blind father dyes his first Easter eggs with my children

My birthday came and went, and I left my twenties forever to join the ranks of "real" adults. Sort of.

Yeah, that's me rocking out with a live band at a seedy bar. I'm singing the Beatles, because I'm edgy.

I performed in "Listen To Your Mother," which was a remarkable and moving experience. (Yes, more on this later.)

Photo by Balee Images

And then Mother's Day, with my children's love and the blaring, oppressive heat and humidity of Chicago in May.

Kisses and hugs are always the best gifts

And through it all, I've been working as hard as I can on the book. The book. It's practically an obsession right now, because it's practically done. Really done. I've put it through the ringer with beta readers and professional editors. I'm incorporating the last dozen bits of feedback and building it into something bigger and stranger than I imagined it would be. This thing, this labor of love of mine.

It's so close to done, I'm almost afraid of finishing it.

And through all this, it's been the little things that have kept me happy beyond reason.

My children, singing the Four Questions in Hebrew for their enormous extended family

Beautiful sunny days after a bitter, seemingly eternal winter

Visits from old friends

The friendship of these remarkable and ridiculous women
(Again, Balee Images)

My daughter marching around the house in her Pirates cap, screaming "GO PIRATES!" at the top of her little lungs

And maybe my favorite little gift. Messages from you, my lovely readers, making sure that I'm okay, that I haven't left the blog or you. And I haven't. I'm here, and I love you all. And now that this month of insanity has passed, now that I'm almost really truly completely done with the book, now that I'm not having daily panic attacks over getting onto a stage alone, or trying to decide what turning thirty means, or setting ever more places at the table, I can come back to you.

I've missed you all.

It's going to be a glorious summer.

Becoming Invisible

Probably my mother's 30th birthday.

When my father was just a few months younger than I am now, he tried to throw my mother a surprise party.

She was turning thirty, and although she has never been the sort of person who particularly cares about that sort of thing, thirty is kind of a big deal. It signals a farewell to a specific kind of youth and identity, and as my six months younger father cared quite a bit about that sort of thing, he wanted to do something memorable.

He put a lot of work into the party. He invited dozens of people, all of whom were thrilled to come and celebrate my mom- who would never in a million years organize anything like it for herself. And as my father was not exactly competent when it came to party planning, he delegated most of the food related tasks to other people. But one thing he did do was order cheesecake from a local bakery.

He placed his order for a dozen cheesecakes, in a variety of flavors, to surprise his wife who loved cheesecake. Their friends would bring food, potluck style, their friends' children would play with me and my sisters, and my mother would experience a spectacular thirtieth birthday party.

That was his plan. But in the early spring of 1987, a terrible flu spread through the city of Pittsburgh. The morning of the party he collected the cheesecakes, and the phone calls started coming in. All but three guests, or their children, had started puking, and couldn't come. My father cancelled the party, and he and my mother celebrated her thirtieth birthday quietly, packing as much cheesecake as they could into the freezer and living off the rest for the rest of the month.

I was completely oblivious to these events. I was three years old, and my memory of my mother's
thirtieth birthday is that my parents smiled a lot, that my sisters and I got My Little Ponies, and that the house was unusually clean.

Now, I feel like I understand my parents. Why my father, at my age, would have wanted so badly to do something special. I understand why my mother, at my age, with three children the ages of my children, would go out and buy them presents for her birthday.

I understand how helpless my father must have felt to make one day, any day, about her. And I understand how much the gesture must have meant to my mother.

Now, I get it.

My father very much as he is in my memory

When you stay at home all day, when your job is your children, life is only about you if something terrible happens. If you get very sick, or injured, if you lose a loved one. The only way to make something about you is for you to make it about you, and let's face it... nothing saps the fun out of any happy occasion like sitting down with your kids and forcing them to make cards for you. The easiest way to make sure you have a good time is to make sure they're happy. And that's why my memories of my mother's birthday involve a stuffed purple pony hopping on the dining room table.

As I near my thirtieth birthday, I think about this. I think about my father as he was then, barely thickening around the middle, wearing faded blue jeans and subversive t-shirts. I can see his wide smile, his deep dimples, his bright eyes. I can picture him at my age, just as clearly as I can picture him now. He looks like a stranger, or a distant cousin. This memory of him feels nothing like my father the entity, the man who, for me, defined men. But from my memories, I can put him together, like a puzzle. These aren't just images from photographs, not just remembrances of pictures of him twenty five years ago. These are the flesh and blood imprints he made in my mind.

But not my mother. I can picture the photographs of her, yes, but no matter how I wrack my brain I can't see her as she was when she turned thirty years old.

I can see her hands, rolling cookie dough into balls, dropping them gracefully onto a pan. I can see her wedding ring clear as day, and her fingernails, and her wrists.

I can see the backs of her jeans as she walks ahead of me down the sidewalk, the tail of her shirt hiding her back pocket as she pulls out her wallet to give me money for the ice cream truck.

I can see her bare legs in front of her on the porch floor, her ankles crossed and a train of ants walking across them. They look like my legs.

I can see her silhouette at the bottom of the stairs, casually warning me to give up my attempts to somersault down to the living room.

I can see the barrette in the back of her hair as she sits at the table.

Mothers with their children

But I can't see her face. I cannot assemble these pieces. My mother is an invisible force of nature, a supernatural entity made of love and discipline and constant presence.

I looked at my father. I studied him, this person I loved, who lived with me but who's comings and goings from a mysterious place called "work" carried the weight of disappearances and reinvention. I never had to look at my mother.

I was always confident that she was there. Maybe not in sight, but near by. If I screamed she would appear. If I misbehaved she would reprimand me. If I was suddenly scared or hurt or sad, I could run to her and wrap my arms around those blue jeans and her elegant hands with their narrow wrists and simple ring would run through the hair on top of my head, and her voice would echo from the everywhere of motherhood.

I can hear her voice, my thirty year old mother, but I can't distinguish the words. It's a hum that fills the universe, that permeates every fiber in existence, that rumbles through my bones and soothes them. I can hear its cadence.

At thirty years old, my mother was invisible to me.

Now I am her. Like my father, these birthdays matter to me. I don't know why exactly, but they do. Superficial, I know, but I feel it. And like my father, I feel helpless to give this event some kind of meaning. I sympathize with him so much, this twenty nine year old father of three. I understand him.

And I believe I understand my mother. But to me she will always be something of a mystery. No matter how closely my family parallels hers, no matter how similar our struggles and joys and the mundane details of our lives, no matter how much I understand her as she is now, I will never be able to put my feet into her shoes and sympathize with her life the way I do my father's.

And in a way, this makes me feel closer to every mother. To every other woman who has been a shadow, an omnipresent force in their children's lives. To every stay-at-home parent who's children don't bother to look at them when they come or go, who rush past and ignore them because they will always be there. It makes me feel closer to them, and at the same time it fills me with a grief so deep I can hardly name it.

I am this vibration, this mysterious force. And in my own ethereal, faceless way, I will also be erased from my children's memories, continuously replaced by the constantly changing, constantly aging face before them.

In my memories, if I must picture my mother, I see her now. Maybe a little less grey, maybe somewhat thinner, but still- as she is now. Familiar glasses. Familiar lines on her face. Not the slender, black haired twenty-something girl I know she was.

That girl, that young woman, she is somebody I will never know.

I feel the grief that I have already lost part of my mother forever.

I'm there for her, she doesn't need to look at me.

Maybe it's just me. Maybe I was the only child so self centered that they never bothered to look up, but I doubt it. I see it in my own children who once stared forever at me unblinking as they lay swaddled in my arms, and now run past without so much as a glance when I remind them to wash their hands or hang up their coats.

Maybe it isn't turning thirty that bothers me. Maybe it's losing myself in motherhood. Maybe it's the fear that I'm already gone, replaced by this ghost who's voice will soothe my children's memories, long after I've died.

And while I mourn this former me, I am filled with a guilt and a joy so great they bring me to tears.

I have always wanted to be this thing, immortal and benevolent and profoundly loved. Loved until I dissolved into the enormity of the word, until it absorbed me and replaced me with the all powerful phantom caring for every child, every person, with a fierceness so raw and so bold and yet so constant that they disappeared into it.

I have always wanted to be a mom.

Sunday Blogaround - 10.13.13

Hello lovely readers! And welcome to the Sunday Blogaround!

This week was intense. It was Mental Health Awareness Week, as well as the #forMiriam campaign, targeting post partum psychological disorders. It's Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and Pregnancy Loss Awareness Month. We celebrated National Coming Out Day. In short, a lot of heavy issues, and beautiful posts. But let's start off with something light...



"Tricks or Treats: Which Will You Choose?" - Mama Be Thy Name
I'm a big fan of candy. I remember one year my sisters and I trick or treated until past midnight, when everyone was out of candy and flustered housewives dropped cans of Coke into our pillow cases. I remember the house that handed out sugar free candies and toothbrushes, too. And while we never TP'd the house, the thought definitely crossed our minds.


"What I Learned While Teaching My Son To Ride His Bike" - mamaschmama
This is such a sweet post. The frustrations of trying to parent through difficult tasks, of the kindness of strangers undermining your message, of needing some of the ugliness of life, just a little of it, to rear up- to help them understand danger. And of learning things you never realized you needed to know. Also, that is one hilarious picture.


"Life Goes On" - Antarctica. Srsly.
You may remember that my friend is trapped on the ice. He's going to be remaining there for a long time, helping to keep the station safe while all science is put on hold, thanks to the government shutdown. But there are dark sides to even this sad tale. His friends, the scientists, don't have jobs back home. They don't have homes back home. The future of Palmer is very much in question.


"Facing Demons Inside and Out; This is D's Story" - The Caffeinated Chronicles of a Supermom
Sara is hosting stories about mental illness all month, for Mental Health Awareness Month. This story is incredibly heartbreaking- a tale of bullying and depression and psychosis and addiction. Worth a read for certain.


"Breast Cancer Prevention?" - Motherthoughts
What causes breast cancer? And how can it be prevented? Serious questions with few answers. This post isn't cheerful, and it's not even particularly optimistic, but it is important. Read it.

"Hard lessons learned too young" - The Writer Revived
Elizabeth's father is in the process of dying of dementia. He's not just the man who raised Elizabeth, he's her daughter's best friend. And so her daughter has had to learn about death in a very intimate way. But sometimes, death doesn't come slowly, as with Babop. Sometimes it swoops in out of the blue.


"Life With Kids- I Kicked Cancer's A**" - Diapers n' Heels
One woman's story of breast cancer diagnosis, treatment, and survival. This woman is a champion, and talks about her experience so honestly and with so much optimism... it's worth a read for every single sentence, from noticing a lump to recovering from treatment. Go give her a huge standing ovation.


"Confession Cam #3: This May Wreck Everything" - Picklesink
I have a confession, too. And it's the same one.


"The Betrayal" - Short Fat Dictator
I laughed my ass off at this. I feel her pain. This year, I got to watch my beloved Pirates make their way to the playoffs for the first time in twenty one years. I've gotten used to watching my team lose. I'd kind of made peace with it... until they started winning.


"In an article dated Feb. 8, 1953..." - The Lively Morgue
Such a stunning photograph. I love the Lively Morgue. I don't care how often I have to say it, this is a tumblr worth following. It's not news, it's history. But it's also not history, it's side notes. It's anecdotes. It's utterly fascinating and beautiful, and your day will always be better for having stopped in. Go check it out.


"You're A Better Mom Than Me" - My Life And Kids
I have another confession. This could have been me. There is almost nothing on earth that can wake me up, I'm like my father that way. I remember once when I was about five, I woke up in the middle of the night with a flu. After I puked, I stumbled through my granny's house in the dark to find my parents. I tried to be brave, and said, "I threw up." My father's answer? "Now would be a good time to learn some self reliance."


"Two Pink Lines" - Dovetail Blog
Trying to conceive is awful. You question your body, you question yourself. You fear talking to friends and family, lest they ask questions to which you have no answer. And most important of all, it is fraught with heartbreak. This is a very personal account of one part of that journey- one month of certainty.


"In a fraction of a second, she was lost" - Abandoning Pretense
There are certain nightmares all parents share. Certain horrors we can hardly comprehend. Certain tragedies that we can only see as personal failures, as a glaring stain on our own humanity. This is not that story, but as Kristen points out, it might have been. And every near miss is simply too damn close for comfort.


"Distracted Living" - My Jenn-eration
Another heart breaker about what might have happened. I'm guilty of this, frequently. I've soothed myself with the idea that my twins will watch out for each other. If I need to leave them in the tub or something, I call out "Marco!" every thirty seconds, and they know to call back, "Polo!" But would I do it if there were only one? I just don't know.


"My Little Pony" - Dad Post
As you know, we're big fans of My Little Ponies in this house. But not because there are so many little girls. It's because... honestly? That show is kind of awesome. The characters are well rounded and interesting. They're contradictory and honest. There are good morals and there's real historical and social commentary. This dad? Nails it.


"Grief... of a Different Kind" - Kissing the Frog
Joy guest posted on Kissing the Frog's grief series this week, about the grief that comes from an experience other than the death of a loved one. This is the grief that comes with the events that might have led to death, that might have been the end. Instead, Joy has PTSD, and struggles constantly with the fear of maybe hanging over her head. It's a fear I relate to.


"Whatever you need to believe to be able to sleep at night" - Things I Can't Say
Rape is one of the most under-reported crimes in the country. Not just because of the fear of being shunned, or the fear of not being believed, or the fear of repercussions. It's also because, unbearably frequently, victims shame themselves out of believing that they are actually victims. I don't know what happened to Shell. I do know that I wish every victim had this moment- this moment to feel, if only fleetingly, empowered and righteous. I wish I'd had my own.


"You're a stay-at-home mom? What do you DO all day?" - The Matt Walsh Blog
This post has been going positively viral, and I'm DELIGHTED. Not just because I'm a stay-at-home mom, but because I've long felt that SAHMs deserve their own Taylor Mali-esque anthem. I know it's coming, and I can't WAIT to see the gorgeous graphic representations of Matt's words now that they're out in the world. Bra-freakin'-vo.


"You Can Call Me Mama Ash" - Clothesline Confessional
I have a lot of genderqueer friends who call me Auntie Lea, for similar reasons. And yes, I'm a mom now. But despite being a woman married to a man, I'm bisexual. Go ahead, clutch your pearls. Now get over it. Sexuality is personal, and while it does have a lot to do with who you are, it IS NOT who you are. I only wish there were a million Mama Ashes, for everyone who needed a shoulder to lean on.

Into the Woods

My three bathing beauties- DD, RH, SI

 Lovely readers, I am off the grid.

Not exactly, obviously, as you're seeing this post. But as close as it's possible to get in the continental United States. Of that I'm pretty sure.

I am at Guppy Lake, writing like a fiend well into the dead of night.

You see, lovely readers, as I've mentioned before... I'm working on a book.

Not the ebook that can be yours for any donation to my BlogHer fund (see the button at the top right of the page? Go click it and buy yourself an ebook!) No, I'm writing a bigger, badder, bolder book. One that I'm sure all of you will immediately run out and buy, and then read in one sitting, while spooning apple sauce into the ears of your screaming infants and hiding in bathrooms with small children banging on the door. And then you will buy copies for all your friends, recommend it for your book clubs, and generally make Amazon explode with joy for selling it.

We'll get there. Together.

In the process of writing this book, I have found that I really need time to work. And one does not simply sit down and finish writing a book when one has three children with a total aggregated age of seven years old. No, it takes a village to write a book.

So, as I've previously mentioned, money's a little tight. And that's okay- nobody thinks to themselves that a career as a writer is going to be the money making machine that an MBA might, so pinching pennies isn't the biggest deal in the world.

And that, lovely readers, is why I'm here.

In what might actually be the literal middle of nowhere.

The kids on the dock, last year
This year the water is about two and a half feet higher

I'm here so that my parents can watch my kids all day while I write. M is at home in Chicago, working insane amounts of overtime to compensate for the outrageous amount of take-out we've been eating thanks to my inability to experience hunger while I'm working, and thus remember to... oh... make dinner.

I am in the middle of the woods, sitting in what is probably a hundred year old cabin with a seventy year old bedroom and an unfinished seven year old bathroom complex, overlooking a body of water that only qualifies as a lake because of the outrageous rainfall.

I'm missing out on a ton of fun here, folks. Poppa taking the kids on paddle boat rides, soaks in the Jacuzzi, experiments with a potato cannon... Mostly, I'm sitting in a non-air conditioned room with windows that don't open and a ceiling fan older than I am, holding a scalding hot laptop on... well... my lap.

And I could not be more grateful to the wonderful people who are allowing this to happen.

Fourth of July cookout, chillaxing on Grandmommy and Poppa's deck-
where I can get WiFi and write but also get a million mosquito bites

I miss M like crazy, but only when I come up from the manuscript for air. I feel guilty for not sitting with Grandmommy as she watches DD and SI throw rock after rock after rock into the water to their seemingly unending preschool delight, but only after taking a moment to gloat at another five thousand words that have been hacked and slashed to oblivion. I feel awful that each time RH looks at me she asks, "Dada?" with the most expectant little smile... but I know that back home M would feel much guiltier about working the overtime if he had adorable little ones waiting at home, staying up past bedtime for a glimpse of daddy after the sun has set.

And so, lovely readers, I just want all of you to know that I am grateful for you, grateful to you, and working hard on something you'll love even more than the blog posts that you're currently missing.

And if you're feeling so inclined, PLEASE donate to the BlogHer fund! Help me hobnob with publishers, agents, and the momerati of the blogosphere. Help me not only finish this book, but sell the hell out of it.

Thank you, and a belated Happy Fourth,
Lea
aka Becoming SuperMommy

Ridiculously Awesome

I know we haven't, but I like to imagine that we've all been at that same special point in our lives.

You know, the one where your old fat jeans became your regular jeans, and you didn't really mind because they were your fat jeans when you were 22 and you hade made two babies with your body since then...

And then your new fat jeans became your regular jeans, and that wasn't such a big deal, because you were kind of busy making another baby anyway, so you could deal with that.

...and then one day, your latest fat jeans are so tight that as you sit in the driver's seat you can feel the horrific sensation of your back fat being squeezed up behind your shoulder blades and smooshed into the seat.

We also all know that moment when
you realize that some days  "lunch"
is five twizzlers, a third of a  banana,
and twelve blueberries... right?

And then, you cry. Oh, how you cry. And you go out and get a new HIGH IMPACT SPORTS BRA OF DOOM and you relegate an hour every morning to getting yourself in shape.

But, it's easier said than done when you have three very very little people leaving half eaten bowls of goldfish crackers all over your house, and any attempt at a workout routine becomes "jump on mommy or howl in misery" time.

And then, you come up with the brilliant idea to DANCE!

So, you dance and dance and dance with your kids, hoping that this will magically whittle your waistline and you can give those fat jeans that made you cry the finger.

But it doesn't work so well, because while dancing with mommy starts out as being a good hour of cardio a day, it becomes mommy dead lifting thirty five pounds and then spinning in circles with a weight on her shoulder for half an hour, followed by another half hour of vaguely nauseated tottering to a beat.

Yes, we've all been there.

And so I began wondering, what do we do now? When we're still angry at our not-fat-day-but-regular-day jeans, when our workout routine has fizzled, and when we have just as little freedom to leave our homes and go to gyms or zumba classes as ever before?

That's right, folks, workout videos.

I began my hunt for the perfect workout video. It had to be dance based, to fool the kids. They would think we were still having dance parties, but we would just be having them with the movie.

I picked out the one I wanted. It was the P90X guy, so I figured it would work.

But I kept not buying it.

I kept going to the website, and hovering my cursor over the "checkout" button, and just not clicking, and I couldn't figure out why.

I asked M, "Do you think this is a good idea?" and he said, "I dunno... looks kind of sleazy..."

No. Just... no.

And that was it. He had hit the nail on the head. I couldn't bring myself to buy a video to watch with my kids with the goal being "sexiness," filled with testimonies of girls who finally felt "hot" in bikinis, with the never-ending rhetoric around looking like... well... the the people on the video.

I didn't want to send that message to my daughters. I didn't want to let them think that I was losing weight to look sexy, to look like somebody else's ideal. I didn't want them to think that there was a right way to look, and that was it.

Let's face it, they're my kids. They're going to have hips, and breasts, cuves everywhere. And if they're lucky and they've got some of Mike's shape to them as well, they'll also have AWESOME butts and maybe broad shoulders.

They certainly won't look like Jillian Michaels.

I wanted to lose some weight so I could feel good. So I could feel happy in my clothes, in my skin. So I could take a walk without feeling the telltale jiggle of having made three children in the lumps over my butt.

Gross, right? Exactly.

I wanted to feel good, and I know if I feel good about myself, I feel pretty much perfectly happy with the way I look. No matter what number is on the scale.

So, none of those "hot body" workout videos.

A few friends suggested specific dance workouts. Belly dancing, for example. I decided that we had to stick with something that my kids would recognize as dance- and keep in mind, they have learned from me that "dance" means "pseudo-rhythmic flailing, the occasionally hopping or kicking, and the intermittent jazz hands."

You know, this:



So no, it couldn't be African Dance for Beginners.

No, I needed a workout video that just kind of looked like dancing, with music that the kids could just distract themselves with and dance to without paying attention. Something with people who aren't all gussied up in greasepaint makeup and exposed, rock hard tummies. Something a little bit ridiculous.

And then... it hit me. Like a bolt of lightning. The perfect workout routine.

That's right... we're Sweatin' to the Oldies.

It took me ten seconds to find a GREAT deal on a box set of DVDs, and less than two days to have it in my hands. (Thanks, Amazon Prime!) But it took me more than a month of staring at it to put it on. Why?

Because it was utterly humiliating. I mean, Richard Simmons? REALLY? Could I look at myself in the mirror without shame? I mean, the man is the biggest running joke in... almost anything.

Really.

And then I told myself to suck it up and go sweat to some oldies with Richard Simmons, because if I just laughed through feeling ridiculous and dated and weird, then the kids would laugh too, and they would think that exercise was something fun and goofy that we all did together.

And really, that was the whole point.

And so, lovely readers, the kids and I have been doin' the pony with Richard Simmons for several weeks now.

And you know what?

It's kind of awesome.

First of all, the music is totally perfect. I mean, perfect.

Second of all, by the end of it the sweat is pouring off of me. Which feels pretty awesome.

I'm sore all the time. I also shower more regularly.

But the best part is, I have no choice but to keep going. Because now every morning begins with SI putting her nose in my face and saying, "Wake up, mommy! It's time for exercise!"

She doesn't care if I was up until after midnight watching roving hordes of Chicagoans take to the streets to celebrate winning the Stanley Cup.

She doesn't care if I was up until two in the morning reading all of "Bossypants" in one sitting and had idiotically started after she went to bed.

She doesn't care if I just ache all over and don't want to do it just this one morning please please please?

Photo from Nina Falcone

Best personal trainer ever. Instead of shouting at me that I'm fat and lazy and that I need to PUSH or
STRETCH or COMMIT- she just cries that she wants to do exercises with me. Please oh please oh please.

And so yeah, I drag myself out of bed, put on my HIGH IMPACT SPORTS BRA OF DOOM (of which there are now two), and do a million freakin' knee lifts.

And after about five minutes, the girls lose interest in exercising and instead sit on the couch, watch me, and quiz me on the weight lost by the rainbow of people, in an amazing variety of shapes and sizes, sweating along with Richard Simmons.

They squeal in delight whenever the fattest fat lady is standing next to him. "She has a plump tummy! She has a plump tummy!" they yell, and I say, "Yes! And she's exercising to be healthy!"

And they list all the people they know with plump tummies. The list always includes Poppa. "When we see Poppa in Greenbush, we will tell him he needs to exercise to make his tummy smaller!"

"Good idea! We can bring our movie, and you and me and Poppa can all exercise TOGETHER!"

"Yeah! And SI!" contributes DD.

"And SI," I huff through my unceasing kicks and the tune of "Mr. Personality."

Thanks, guy.

"And Grandmommy!" she adds again.

"Yeah," I wheeze out, remembering to breathe slowly despite my impulses to gasp for every particle of oxygen in the room, marveling at how hard it can be to balance on one foot with your arms straight out to the sides, despite being in motion.

DD always jumps in when it's "It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want To." SI always does the cool down. We always smile and laugh and they constantly show me "new exercises" they've invented. Usually, it's some sort of bridge.

The hour that we're exercising together flies by. Every morning.

But the best part, the absolute icing on the cake, is this...

We've recently acquired a teenager. She's staying with us for a chunk of the summer, a friend of a friend of sorts.

Anyway, she's started joining me in Sweatin' to the Oldies.

And that kid? She can't keep up.

Every day I am outclassing a fifteen year old in my workout routine.

And that feels more amazing than looking at my reflection and not being grossed out by it.

Lunch: cherries, toast with goat cheese and a fried egg,
and cucumber/cantaloupe/parsley juice. That's better.

I also pulled my old juicer out, and began replacing meals (or those seven hour windows where I skipped meals) with fresh juice. My go-to breakfast these days is a beet, three carrots, and two grapefruit. In liquid form. I cut out most of the sugar, carbs, and cow-dairy in my diet. I switched to almond milk and goat cheese, and spent a few weeks taking pictures of every single thing I ate, that shamed me into making way better choices, and the habit of looking at something and thinking, "Do I REALLY want a picture of me eating this?" made a pretty big difference.

That said, I still took the kids out to Kilwin's for ice cream cones yesterday, and totally had a scoop of toasted coconut in a waffle cone. The whole point is to enjoy life, right?

In less than a month, I've lost about ten pounds, and I feel great. I'm trying to lose another twenty (I keep upping my goal) before I move forward on a breast reduction. I am definitely looking to go down to something in the first half of the alphabet in the cup size.

And the kids know it's not about how I look. To them, I'll always look the same. Like mommy.

It's about how I feel.

And I feel pretty damn great.

"Hey everybody! Come see how good I look!"

Is This Heaven? No, It's Iowa.

With thanks to Grinnell College

This past weekend, we went to Iowa for Grinnell College's commencement.

It's not just that I absolutely love college graduations, we had a reason. Poppa was being presented with an honorary doctorate.

He was very happy about this honor.

I know, he's so dignified.

Really though, he is. After watching him blush through his introduction, I recommend watching his whole address. It's only four and a half minutes long.

It was amazing to see everyone. It was the first time since M and I got married that all of us have been together at the same time. (That's five years on Thursday.)

We arrived Saturday afternoon, and caught up with Great-Grandmommy and Great-Granddaddy, as well as Great-Great Aunt E, Aunt Green, Aunt Genocide, Grandmommy and Poppa

The college wined and dined us in grand fashion.

The kids went to bed, Aunt Something Funny arrived, and we spent a lovely night together. For real, Grinnell really knows hospitality. We had a spectacular stay.

Poppa's old advisor took the entire gang out for brunch.

Aunt Something Funny taught the girls to play a new game...

Then after a brief rest, it was time for a picnic on campus.

It's a gorgeous campus, even in the balmy, oppressive heat.

Then we all gussied up for dinner at the President's house. (No, that's not it behind us. That's Grinnell House, where we all stayed.)

After a trip to the Observatory that turned into attempted waterboarding of the SuperMommy family by the sky, everyone raided the kitchen for snacks, drinks, and ice. It was a marvelous time.

The next morning, it was up and off to commencement.

We watched some truly wonderful speeches- including a poem performed by Sarah Kay. It was great.

Then Poppa was presented with his honorary doctorate, to match his real doctorate, but not plaid. (...because everything that has anything to do with Carnegie Mellon is plaid. The MASCOT is plaid. Excuse me. "Tartan.")

Poppa delivered a killer speech, link above.

And then, once again, my camera died.

We picnicked again, we laughed and chatted and then bid our tearful farewells. The SuperMommy family piled back into our minivan and trekked back to Chicago, where nobody is going to feed us amazing stuffed slivered eggplant or eight layer chocolate coffee torte, or take us out for eggs and hash browns.

Poppa should get honorary Ph.D.s every year.

Joy, Relief, Remembrances, and Celebration

Summertime and the living is easy...

This will be a fragmented post. My apologies.

...

For all of you who have been keeping RH in your thoughts, I'm happy to report that we have the results of her MRI. (Yes, I'll write about the MRI itself, once the trauma has worn down.)

She does not have a cord tether.
And she does not have brain cancer.

She'll still be getting physical therapy, starting next week I hope, but in the meantime we can relax and stop worrying about it.

Because she's still doing great.

This kid? She knows how to freak me out. She seems to WANT to freak me out once in a while. So she waited until right before that MRI, and what did she do?



That's right. She crawls. And it's adorable.

Unfortunately, now that I've started saying things like, "Oh no! RH is escaping!" as she makes a bolt for the door of whatever room we're in, DD and SI have started giving her brand new opportunities to escape.

Like opening the front door to our apartment so that she can "escape" down three flights of stairs.

Fun.

...

Did you know that May is ALS Awareness Month?
I have a blogging buddy. She lost her mom to ALS last year. It was a long, excruciating process. This post is heartbreaking, and it puts this disease into perspective for people who might not realize what ALS is, what it does. For one agonizing, horrific weekend we were terrified that M might have ALS, and that the diagnosis "brain cancer" was a comfort should give you some idea. Please take a moment to learn about ALS this month.

And maybe consider donating to an organization that helps ALS patients.


...

Did you know that May is also Jewish Heritage Awareness Month? I had no idea this was even a thing. And so here are what I think might be my most raw posts about my Jewish Heritage.
What's In A Name?
Day of Remembrance


...

Poppa and SI at the zoo

Tomorrow, the family is heading off for Iowa, to celebrate Poppa. He's receiving an honorary doctorate from his alma mater. At first he thought that this would be a sweet gesture on the part of his old college, but it's sort of snowballed. There will be 14(!!) of us there to cheer him on, he'll be delivering a speech at commencement, and he'll be joining a fairly prestigious club of honorees. There were a couple of presidents, Martin Luther King, Jr., you get the idea.

I think he's starting to freak out just a bit. I'm sure he'll be great. His hair is... fine.

And so, tomorrow the motley crew and I will pack ourselves into the minivan and drive to the middle of nowhere.

DD and SI have recently learned that only ONE of them can actually see RH at a time in the car. They fight endlessly about who gets to make faces at the baby. This is a five hour drive. With no functional DVD player in the car.

Should be a blast. :)