the pieces of my life

Pie: Before you met Daddy, did you have a boyfriend?

Me: Lots of boyfriends.

Pie: A hundred boyfriends?

Me: Maybe!

Pie: So you did aloooooot of kissing!

****

After a day of massive chauffeuring. Adam was in San Francisco. The kids had to be on opposite sides of town three times over the course of the day. I couldn’t remember which way was up. We had just dropped Doodles off and I was taking Pie to the next event, which was a Passover dinner at the synagogue. Jasmine and her family were to be there.

Me: Pie, your mom is falling apart.

Pie: Really?

Me: What are you going to do when I fall apart. Will you put me back together?

Pie: How would I put you back together?

Me: Well, what would you do?

Pie: I’d look for Scooby.

Me: So she could put me back together?

Pie: [with a “duh” voice] No, Mom. So she could give me a ride home.

The good news is Pie is still alive. The bad news is I may still kill her. I love her. I love her little brain. But we seem to have re-entered the question phase. It’s nonstop. Last Friday I was in the midst of Passover prep. We were hosting a seder for 17 of us. And the girl would not stop talking. “How much longer till people come over? Are we having bisket for dinner? I mean brisket? Where is it? What are you making? Can I eat chips over Passover? Why potato chip and not corn chips? Can I have pasta? Can I have cream cheese and jelly on matzah? Will you spread the jelly thin? Daddy spreads it clumpy. How much longer till the seder? Can I sit next to Jasmine and Cee? I’m bored. What can I do? But I don’t want to set the table. I wish I had school today. How much longer till the seder?”

Finally I screamed, “The youngest is only supposed to ask four questions! Four! You’re over your limit by about 137!”

To which she said, “Why are there just four questions?”

Seders are over. The first night we hosted, the second night we went to a friend’s house. Ours was a loose affair–it started early (before sundown) so we wrapped by 9:30. The second night was at the rabbi’s house, so it was more traditional, but extremely lively. We had to do “homework,” research a rabbi, and luckily Doodles is old enough that I was able to pawn the job off onto him. He did amazingly well–when we all went around the table reading from the haggadah, we had the choice of reading in English or Hebrew. About 80 percent of us chose English. Doodles chose to do the Hebrew and he did beautifully. Pie napped, so she was able to make it till the bitter end (which was shortly after midnight), but Doodles fell asleep after dinner on my lap. Of course, I made the mistake of telling Pie we’d be there till at least midnight, so starting at 8 p.m., she began asking, “Is it midnight yet? How about now? Now? Is it midnight now?”

I haven’t posted much about my Martha tendencies, but Passover brings them all out. Each year I make a new haggadah.

A year or two ago I made a Passover bingo that keeps the kids busy during the meal (bingo gets you a piece of chocolate).

And last year I embroidered and sewed my own matzah cover because I couldn’t find any I liked.

Next year, I’ll make a matching afikoman cover as well.

In the meantime, Passover lasts until Saturday at sundown. Which means I have to figure out what to feed a boy whose entire diet consists of chicken taquitos and pasta and bread and brie (verboten, verboten, and verboten! Unless he’s willing to eat the brie on matzah, which I doubt). As long as he doesn’t ask me any questions about it, we’ll do just fine.

I’m not big on the parenting books, but I did like Wendy Mogel’s The Blessing of a Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children. My biggest takeaway from it is that we, as parents, are essentially raising our children to have the skills they need to leave us. We must raise our children so that someday they can be independent. I think of this often when deciding what’s best for my kids. I sometimes push my own comfort zone in order to let them have the space they need (for instance, when my precious baby boy decided he wanted to go to sleep away camp this summer. I’m not ready for it, but apparently, he is, and he’ll be going).

But I’m wondering if perhaps I’ve made them a little too independent. Pie and I were walking to school one morning, on the way to the before-school PE class she takes and at which I volunteer (Doodles opted out of it this year).

Me: Be careful. You’re pushing me into the street.

The girl: Oh, sorry.

Me: You don’t want me to get run over by a car. Then you’d have a pancake mommy.

The girl: You’d be a pancake? Oh, I get it! Because you’d be flat from the car hitting you.

Me: Yep. And I don’t think I’d be able to drive you to dance class if I were a pancake. I wouldn’t fit behind the wheel of the car.

The girl: Yep.

Me: So let’s walk on the side of the road.

The girl: Okay. But if you did get hit, I’d run to school and call 911.

Me: Wouldn’t it be closer to run home and call 911?

The girl [confused]: Well, then I’d be late for school!

Me: Don’t you think, if your mother was hit by a car, that they’d let you skip school?

The girl: But why would I skip school? I love school!

Me: Because I’d be hit by car?

The girl: I’d run to school. I’d have them call 911. And then I’d look for Beetle and tell her she’d have to take me home after school.

One mommy. Already obsolete…

People are giving me grief about not blogging (I’m looking at you, Peter and Keaton), but hey, life’s busy. Anyone who wants to fill in the gaps with a nice guest blog post is welcome. In the meantime, I’m trying to find a little peace and quiet to do things, like, oh, write. But it’s not to happen. I can’t even read a magazine in peace these days. I’ve resorted to hiding in the bathroom. Although the other day I tried that. Being alone. In the bathroom. Peacefully.

What’s that? Oh, the pounding of little footsteps.

From outside the door I hear:
The boy: Mom!

Me: I’m in the bathroom.

The boy: Mom!

Me: I’m in the bathroom!!

The boy stands outside the bathroom door.

The boy: Hey, Mom, I decided I don’t want a flame thrower anymore.

Me: I’m in the bathroom. I don’t care.

The boy: Instead, I want an M16.

Me: LEAVE ME ALONE! I AM IN THE BATHROOM!

The boy: Yeah, I know. I heard you the first five times.

Me: SO WHY ARE YOU STILL TALKING TO ME?

So the next time you harass me about this blog? Bite me. I’m hiding in the bathroom. And you can’t have an M16, either.

Um, London? Wasn’t I telling you about London? I think we’ve been back for a few years now, and I still haven’t finished telling you about London? Way to milk it, no? Or, as it’s London we’re talking about, way to tea it, no?

Okay, Days 3 to 7 in rapid speed:

Monday was our first day sans Adam, who kept having this annoying thing called “work” get in the way of our fun. But the children and I were not to be deterred so off to the London Eye! After that, we met up with cousins at the Museum of Natural History. I have one cousin who lives full time in the London area, complete with British-born kids, and another cousin who is taking a semester abroad in London during his freshman year of college. Freshman cousin is apparently desperate for free meals as he was willing to put up with no end of humiliation from me on four evenings. (What kind of humiliation, you ask? Why, I mocked his reading choices. I critiqued his post-college plans. And, perhaps most horrifying to him, I gave him [da da dum] … the sex talk!)

Tuesday we decided to try for a less crowded view of Changing of the Guard activities. We went to the Inspection at the Wellington Barracks. Perfect! We got there five minutes early, walked right up to the fence, and had an amazing view of the fresh guards being inspected for duty with bonus that the band played lots of songs. From there, the Royal Mews.

After we headed to Kensington Park, which is completely under construction, and after much wandering in circles, we found our way to the Orangery where we had high tea. Well, Pie and I did. Doodles didn’t want it and so he just sat reading his book while Pie and I, pinkies poised, had tea sandwiches, cakes, and scones (and champers for me. It was a vacation, after all). We played at bit in the Princess Diana Memorial Playground and then met Adam for dinner and a West End show that was out of this world: Matilda. All four of us loved it and we haven’t stopped singing the songs since.

Wednesday morning we cleverly decided to go to Westminster Abbey. Where we were cleverly told we couldn’t go in until 11:30 because people were–gasp!–praying! Yes, it appears we Jewish Yanks forgot all about Ash Wednesday. So instead we walked up Whitehall, reading the relevant bits for our Rick Steves’s book and oohing and ahhing over the sites. We did a fabulous kids’ audio tour at the National Gallery. We had a pub lunch, which Doodles and I enjoyed, and Pie just whined about (“They don’t understand what chicken salad is! This isn’t chicken salad! It’s a slab of chicken with mayonnaise!”). We did a bit of shopping after lunch and then early evening we split up: Pie and Adam had dinner at the hotel, and Doodles, Freshman Cousin with a Penchant for Abuse, and I all went on a Harry Potter tour. Walking around London at night with a fabulous tour guide was terrific, even if there aren’t that many Harry Potter sites to see, although Doodles got a huge kick out of Platform 9 3/4.

Thursday morning we first hunted for the spy clues in the kids’ spy pack around the hotel. Then we had Westminster Abbey Take 2, which almost went okay. Pie was slightly whiny, though Doodles loved doing the kids’ tour, and by the time we exited both had pushed buttons and I was standing outside of Parliament yelling, “We are going to go back to the hotel RIGHT THIS INSTANT AND STAY THERE ALL AFTERNOON!” I don’t know why people say Americans are so loud and ugly.

We did get over our spat and decided to make our way to Camden Markets for a wee bit o’shopping. Pie had to buy something for everyone in her class. Doodles refused to buy anything for anyone because he didn’t want the mortal embarrassment of having to give it to them (“Fine! You can buy my teacher some tea, but I’m not giving it to him! You are!”). That evening we met up with Adam at a cocktail party at his office, where Doodles sat in the corner reading Harry Potter 6 and Pie decided to pull her tooth out in the bloodiest of ways she could. Freshman Cousin with a Penchant for Abuse met us for dinner and Adam left his wallet in a taxi. Good dinner, though. (And just after Adam canceled all his cards, the wallet was returned, and Adam was completely dependent on me to pay for the rest of the trip. Ha ha ha ha ha!)

Friday morning, Adam returned to us. He took Friday off of work and we crammed in as much as we possibly could. We went to The Monument (designed by Christopher Wren in memory of the London fire), climbed the 311 steps, only to have the kids freak out and decide they are scared of heights. From there we went to London Tower, lunch, tour of the Globe Theatre, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and Harrods. Deep breath. We made it! We met the Freshman Cousin with a Penchant for Abuse and his roombuddy (as Pie called him) for a Chinese dinner, and thus ended our London trip, as in the early hours of the next morning, we headed toward Heathrow where we bought enough chocolate for our friends back home to keep them on a sugar high for a month.

Not enough for you? Here’s our trip in a seven minute video (music from the Clash, of course, and from the musical Matilda).

Whew! Done. And now back to writing the school newsletter; driving to dance, Hebrew School, Cub Scouts, hockey; preparing for the next Girl Scout meeting; planning for the synagogue seder; writing my novel; and, oh yes, planning the next vacation….

Pie and I are watching My Fair Lady. We’re at the part of the movie where Professor Higgins sings the song “Why Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man?”

Pie asked me: Did you hear that?

Me: Yes.

Pie: He wants to know why women can’t be more like men.

Me: I heard that. What do you think of that.

Pie: [With a roll of the eyebrows] Well, of course not. Women have two br*easts. Men don’t have br*easts. Men have p*enises. Women don’t have p*enises. Most of us have long hair and not much of them have long hair.

Can’t argue with logic like that!

Report cards came out last Friday. Both kids did beautifully, both are right where they should be, perhaps a little ahead in the reading areas. But the third grade teacher sent home a class letter reporting that he was no longer hounding the kids to turn in their reading journals–he was merely giving them one reminder–and as a result some kids aren’t turning in their reading journals. If that was the case with our student, it would be noted on the report card. Reading journals are done in school, and kids have different due dates for them. Doodles’s reading journal is due Mondays. Sure enough, on the report card, it said, “This term his reading journal wasn’t always turned in.”

Me: This is unacceptable. Why don’t you turn it in?

Doodles shrugs.

Me: You need to be responsible for your work. Your grade suffered because of your lack of effort on doing your reading journal.

Doodles: But I don’t like doing my reading journal.

Me: Doesn’t matter. You still need to get it done. There will be lots in life that you don’t like doing, but you still need to do. We need to brainstorm a way that you can remember to write it and turn it in. Maybe we tape an index card to your desk that reads, “Thursday: Do writing journal.”

Doodles: But it’s not due till Monday.

Me: That doesn’t mean you should do it at the last minute. You know, you tell me you want to go to M.I.T., but to get into M.I.T. and survive at M.I.T., you need to be organized and responsible for your work. No one is going to nag you and tell you to turn in your assignments when you’re at college.

Doodles: Well, you could call me every day–no, not everyday. You don’t have to call me on weekends. But you could call me five days a week and nag me to get my work done when I’m at college.

Me: That is so not going to happen on so many different levels. Kids who can’t turn in their reading journals don’t go to M.I.T.

Doodles: Fine. Then I’ll go to Princeton.

When Pie came home from school today, she said, “Mommy! You had a lot of candy today, didn’t you!”

“Huh?” I cleverly responded.

“You had a real lot of candy today! I see a lot of candy wrappers in the garbage! Exactly how much candy did you eat today?”

I ate a f*ckload of candy. What do you expect? I want a freakin’ medal for surviving this week. Oh wait. It’s only Wednesday.

As you know, Adam went to Germany on Sunday. “Oh the travel is so hard! Oh, I’m so tired!” Yeah, bite me buddy.

This was day 1, aka Monday:
Write 1,000 words of work in progress novel
Supervise homework, Hebrew school homework, and the building of Neptune
Run lines and practice songs for Doodles’s play audition
Teach son how to wash face (he has a medicine he uses on his face that needs to be washed off. After breakfast, I said, don’t forget to wash the medicine off your face, plus you have egg yolk on you. On way to school, notice the egg yolk is still on his face. “You didn’t wash!” “Yes, I did!” “But you still have egg yolk on you.” “Well, yeah. It’s not like I use water when I wash my face.” Uh….)
Take child to play audition at 6:30 p.m.
Be wrangled into chairing a committee for play
Argue with son in car on why Eli Manning is superior to Tom Brady; yelling ensues.
Get child back from audition, retrieve daughter from neighbors, in time for hosting a 7:30 meeting for the synagogue at my house

Deep breath, on to day 2:
Volunteer for Books on the Go in first grade
Write 1,200 words of Work in Progress (WIP)
Back up WIP to Dropbox
Volunteer for workboard in first grade
Daughter meltdown in first grade
Mother meltdown in first grade
Mother takes away every extra activity
Mother immediately regrets taking away every extra activity because it messes up carpool and brother’s plans
Mother, in a most unauthoritative way, recants
Bring boy to Hebrew school
Bring girl to ballet
Post office, library, bank
Pick girl up from ballet
Feed children
Bring boy, girl, and Pinewood derby car to Cub Scout meeting that goes an hour past girl’s bedtime

Deep breath, on to day 3:
Daughter wakes me up at 6 a.m.
Reprimand daughter for washing hands for too short of a time after using the bathroom. “You need to wash for at least 20 seconds,” I tell her. “Wet your hands, soap up, rub, rinse, dry.” The girl informs me, “But there’s no soap in that bathroom.” Excuse me? “There’s been no soap for a few months.” “So you and your brother have been going to the bathroom and not using soap to wash for a few months now?” “Yeah.”
Write school newsletter
Go to mall to buy socks, birthday present, and underwear (for the boy)
Tweak WIP a little
With five minutes till school pick up time, realize that the work in progress I’m currently working on is actually a version from a month ago, as Dropbox somehow synched my computer’s version with the one on Dropbox from February
Freak out
Pick up daughter
Freak out some more
Take daughter to ice skating
Yell at daughter because I’m freaking out about WIP
Try to find a current version of work in progress
Take son to to string instrument concert rehearsal
Go to store, playground, and freak out
Pick son up from string instrument concert rehearsal
Freak out
Realize kitchen lights are somehow broken as the circuit keeps flipping and won’t stay on
Feed kids in the dark
Play with computer some more
FIND CURRENT WORK IN PROGRESS!
Feel guilty for yelling; tell kids they can eat extra hamantashen
Take the kids to synagogue for the Megillah reading and Purim party
Load kids up with sugar
Get children, who are normally in bed by 7, home at 9 and to bed

And the sad part? I don’t drink when Adam’s not in town! So I’m here, beat, done, exhausted, and stone cold sober.

Tomorrow night, when Adam is home, I’m holing up in front of reality TV with a big ass bottle of wine. Don’t call. Don’t write. Don’t even think about me. Just leave me and bottle of wine in peace while I find my happy place.

“They’re changing guard at Buckingham Palace –
Christopher Robin went down with Alice.
‘Do you think the King knows all about me?’
‘Sure to, dear, but it’s time for tea,’
Says Alice.” –A. A. Milne

Which means it’s time to head to Fortum & Mason for an ice cream tea:

Sated? Then it’s off with their heads at the Tower of London! Or, as the kids learned about the wives of Henry VIII at the Horrible Histories “Barmy Britain” show later that night, “Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived.”

And that was just day two…

This morning I went out for an easy five-mile run. On my way down the hill, I saw a friend running in a different direction than I normally go, but running with someone is always better than running alone, so I switched direction and tagged along. We had a lovely run for about a mile, although she pushed me a bit–I hadn’t planned on going quite so fast. I was huffing, but I felt great. We were booking. I looked good! And then she said it. “I’m sorry I’m going so slowly. I’m at the end of a 22 miler.” And sure enough I looked at my watch and we were running a blistering 10:37 pace. How humiliating.

When I was a kid, at bedtime my father often sang me a song about an old Cadillac trying to keep up with a Nash Rambler. (My father was not known for his traditional lullabies.) The gist of it is the Cadillac gives it everything he has and he finally thinks he’s going to take the lead, when the guy from the Nash Rambler calls out, “Hey buddy! How do you get this car out of second gear?”

I am a Cadillac. Old. Slow. Out of fashion.

I hadn’t run in over two weeks. In London, Adam left before 7 a.m. for work and no way was I getting up at 5:30 on vacation to go running. When we got back I had a wicked cold and then we had our lone snow storm of the year, so I’ve been out of commission for a while. I wasn’t really in the mood to start back up today, but Adam just left for yet another trip to London (I don’t envy this trip; he flies overnight to London, goes straight from the airport to meetings, then instead of getting to sleep, he hops another flight tomorrow night to Germany), and I knew that if I didn’t run today, it would be another week.

I did five miserable miles. At points I was running as slow as 10:45. Okay, that’s a lie. I was running 11:00 minute miles. Which wouldn’t be so bad if that hadn’t actually been 11:12 miles.

Running is hard. Stopping running and then running again is even harder. I hate being slow. (At my peak I was doing my “easy” runs at a 9:30 pace. I haven’t seen my peak in about five years.)

And this bowl full of Hamantashen dough isn’t helping, either. Mmmm, Hamantashen dough!

My routines have been completely thrown out of whack lately. My writing has slipped. My running has slipped. My general hygiene has slipped (many folks may recall that when I don’t run, I don’t see the point of showering). This is the week I take charge! Exercising! Writing! Showering! Getting through my to-do list!

Charge!

Although, at a 10:37 pace, it’s not really a charge, is it? It’s much more of an amble. If I could only get out of second gear.