the pieces of my life

Let it be known that at 9:18 p.m., I am the last remaining person in this household standing. New Orleans keeps scoring, and everyone around here keeps snoring. The two little ones went down with a fight about 15 minutes ago. The big one went down without a peep, although he squawked when I tried to wake him to rejoin me watching the game. For the record, so far the Betty White commercial is winning hands down.

We had a fairly impromptu Super Bowl party, which ended early as little people had to get to bed. I whipped up some jambalaya in honor of the Saints, made some homemade turtles, which I should say, taste as good if not better than any I’ve had in New Orleans, and got the annual football cake from Wilson Farms.

Ah, 78-yard touchdown. And Adam’s asleep. Sucks to be Adam.

But forget Adam and football. Let’s talk about the Who. What was that? Oh my, who let those old men who can’t sing on stage? Does Pete Townsend really think he still looks rocking with those windmills? And what was on Roger Daltry’s head?

Me: Keith Moon was their drummer who died right?
Adam: No. Keith Moon played for the Rolling Stones.
Me: Are you sure? I’m pretty sure Keith Moon was with the Who.
Adam: No. Definitely not. Definitely the Stones.
Me: Hey, Dan, who was the drummer for the Who who died?
Dan: Keith Moon.

In 1981, I begged my parents to let me see the Rolling Stones on their Tattoo You tour. My parents refused. The were playing at Folsom Field during my Colorado years and I wanted to go so badly but, no, my parents said absolutely not.

It wasn’t long after this that I did get to go to a concert. My friend Karin and I really wanted to see the Go-Go’s at Red Rocks, which my father told me I could go to only if I found an adult to take me. “What’s an adult?” I asked him. “Someone over twenty-one,” he told me. That summer I worked as a Water Safety Assistant at the Boulder Rec. I was friendly with one of the lifeguards. I was 14. She was 23. My father had to let me go. The lifeguard introduced me to Seven and Sevens, which the guys in the row behind us had smuggled in.

In October of 1982, the Who were playing at Folsom Field–it was their Farewell Tour. (Everyone please note the last lines of this article: “One has to applaud their decision to call it quits now. But that doesn’t mean they won’t be missed.” Um, yeah. I missed them tonight.) Jethro Tull and John Cougar (and I mean John Cougar–this was a few years before he became Mellencamp) opened. For the life of me, I can’t remember two things: one, with whom I went to the concert and two, why the hell my parents let me go to this concert. What were they thinking? I’m positive there were no adults with us–I remember sitting in the row in front of the delinquent of my ninth grade class. I loved the concert–whatever happened to my Who concert T-shirt? I’m almost positive it was a baseball shirt, because baseball shirts were so cool and they went perfectly with my braided hair barrettes.

Oh, look who came back just in time to see the game being over? Yea, Saints (Me, to Doodles today, “Who are you going to root for? The Saints or the Colts?” Doodles: “What’s a Saint?” Me: “Uh… someone who’s dead who in some religions is considered is really important. Everyone will be rooting for the Saints tonight.” Doodles: “Okay, then I’ll root for the Colts”). It’s been a long time since I’ve been to New Orleans–that last two trips I was pregnant with a Brown Brown, although I didn’t know it on the first one (I was better behaved on the second one)–but I’m happy they won. If it can’t be my Dolphins, the Saints are a good second best.

And once again, I’m the last one awake (that man can sleep anywhere, anytime. I’m jealous). Time to fix that problem. Good night.

Lots of times when I run, my mind is focused on something specific: a problem I’m trying to work out in my novel, working out a school situation for Doodles, thinking about ways to get Pie over her tantrum stage. I frequently make and go over my to-do lists when I’m out there. Running is the best method I have for de-stressing and working things out. But occasionally, I’ll just crank up the iPod and my mind will float where it may. This past Monday, as I kept up a nice tempo and ABC (the band, not the kid song) was playing, my mind wandered and I started thinking about the kids. But oddly, I realized, that when I think about the kids, I think about them about two years behind. When I picture the kids, I think of Pie as a toddler, speaking in halting sentences, and Doodles, as this little kid bopping around and tripping on himself with his uncoordinated walk. When I see them in real life, it’s almost shocking.

Who are these big kids? I sign Pie up for kindergarten today and, oh, the things she can do! She can go to the computer, turn it on, load up her phonics game, and play. She can add and subtract and write the names of everyone in the family. She’s the best Go Fish player I’ve met. She’s adept at using my iPhone and knows the words to Selena Gomez’s and Hannah Montana’s most popular songs. She oozes attitude like a teenager.

My boy is not just reading, he’s reading. We’ve moved way beyond Minnie and Moo and Biscuit and his new “just right books” include my childhood favorites, like Judy Blume. We’re reading Freckle Juice together and last night, as we went to bed, he said, “Yea! Another chapter of Freckle Juice!” He absorbs information and can spew out things he gleaned from books or school or by looking it up on the computer. Adam and I are no longer the ultimate sources of knowledge–he can find things out himself.

I’ve noticed of late that my kids simply take up more space. Pie’s outgrown her car seat and we’re going to be a booster-only family. Doodles laughs every time I mock-cry, “My baby boy! Stop getting so big!” and he tells me, “Mom, I can’t help it! It’s what I’m supposed to do!”

What’s a mama to do?

Talking about the weather sucks, but the fact is that the weather here does suck and it makes me crazy. I skipped running (outdoors) this weekend because I have a policy of not running in anything that “feels like -x.” And this past weekend was “feels like -12.” No thank you.

But, weather aside, I’ve been feeling very fortunate of late about living in the Boston area and the advantages it affords our family. Doodles and Adam just had a Cub Scout overnight at the Museum of Science. How cool is that? They arrived at about 4 and had programming till midnight (midnight! My baby boy is only 6!). They camped out on the floor of the museum in sleeping bags, and then were woken up at 6:45 for more programming. The kid loved it. Lightening shows, illusion experiments, a coral reef IMAX movie, science demonstrations. Heaven for the boy.

And then there’s my hockey-playing, Hannah Montana-loving, Pinkalicious-worshiping little girl. One of the challenges I have is finding the right balance between respecting the interests of my kids and pushing them out of their comfort zones. It’s easy to say, “Oh, Pie loves art and music and dancing” and encourage her in those directions. But just like I wanted Doodles to try a hip-hop dance class (which he gave his all, but after three months, he decided it wasn’t for him, and I have to respect that), I want Pie to explore other things as well. So when an opportunity came up for her to take a (free!) LEGOs robotics class at Tufts, how could I refuse? One group session and then three one-on-one classes with a graduate student. What an opportunity!

We live 20 minutes from rural farm area, 20 minutes from an honest-to-goodness city, 4 hours from the center of the universe (okay, so I’ll never be an true Bostonian). Ocean is 45 minutes away, mountains (or at least close approximation to them) are a couple of hours away.

Yes, I hate the Patriots. True, the accent can be near impossible to understand. So putting up with rabid Red Sox fans (including the one I’m married to) can be painful. But I like this place. I think we just might stick around.

Me: Okay, everyone out of the car. Little people out. Big people out. Medium people out.
Pie: I’m big!
Doodles: I’m big and Pie’s little.
Me, standing by Doodles: Oh, really? You don’t seem so big to me!
Doodles: Well, duh. Compared to you I’m little!
Pie: I know! You’re big. We’re little. And teenagers are medium.
Me: That sounds good.
Pie: Yeah, I’ll be medium when I’m a teenager.
Me: Yep.
Pie: And you were medium about 400 years ago!
Me: 400 years ago?!?!
Pie: Um, 500 years?

Six. That’s right, six. The magic age when a child becomes embarrassed by his mother. My son has suddenly blossomed into tweendom. Walking home from school, I was chatting up a neighbor girl. A second grader. Who lives on our block. Walking home with her father and her younger sister. The humiliating conversation?

Me, first to Tab and then to Doodles: So, anything exciting happen today?
Tab: No.
Doodles: Mmmph.
Me to neighbor girl: How about you? Anything exciting happen today?
Neighbor: Well…
Doodles, hitting me with his jacket: Mom! Cut it out!
Neighbor: We watched a movie at school today.
Me: That does sound exciting. What movie?
Doodles: MOM! CUT IT OUT!
Me: Sweetie, I’m allowed to talk to our neighbor if I choose to.
Doodles: No!
Neighbor: It was a Magic Schoolbus movie.
Me: What was it about?
Doodles, still hitting me: CUT IT OUT CUT IT OUT CUT IT OUT CUT IT OUT CUT IT OUT!
Neighbor: It was about gravity. Because we’re learning about the moon!
Doodles: Cut it out!
Me: Doodles you’re being rude.
[pause a few seconds]
Doodles: Mom, can I have computer time when we get home?
Timing isn’t his forte. And for the record, the answer was no.

Pie, four-year-old little Pie, isn’t immune to tweendom, either. Her birthday is six months, four weeks and one day away. Pie is suddenly into the rock stars and she’s planning a rock star birthday. (“Can I have a swimming rock star birthday?” “That might be a bit much.” “Okay, then this birthday will be a rock star birthday and my six birthday will be a swimming party.”) She’s obsessed with being a rock star. Which has led to some interesting outfits. Pie has a number of dresses that she loves, but which she’s clearly grown out of. A few weeks ago, we agreed that she could keep wearing the too-small dresses but with a pair of leggings underneath.

A couple of days ago she put on one of those dresses, which barely grazes her tush.
Me: You’ve definitely grown out of that dress!
Pie: Oh?
Me: It’s too short on you. Why don’t you put some leggings?
Pie: Oh, I don’t need to!
Me: I thought we said when dresses are too short, you’d wear them with leggings. Lots of rock stars wear leggings. It’s very popular for rock stars.
Pie: But, Mom, I saw Hannah Montana! And she had on a really short skirt with no leggings! So I’ll just wear tights with the dress.

Just shoot me now.

Many of you know that my father is, proudly, from New Jersey. Don’t go teasin’ with any of that “What exit are you?” He’ll have none of that.

But you may not know that my mother is an actual Southerner. I don’t mean Miami Beach. Plenty of people have asked me what it’s like to live in the South. And I don’t know. Because Miami and Miami Beach are not the South; they’re the East Coast. South of Orlando is the East Coast; north of Orlando is the Deep South.

My maternal grandmother and her big sister were born in Chipley, Florida, where people came from all over to see if “the Jew baby had horns.” My great-grandfather had to travel a couple of hours to Alabama to buy kosher meat to bring back for my barely-spoke English great-grandmother. My maternal grandfather (whom I called Abba) was born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. My mother, while born in Memphis, moved before her memory even kicked in and spent all of her formative years in a suburb of New Orleans. My mom comes by the “y’all” honestly, and it doesn’t take too much riling up to get her accent out.

Let’s move to football. Once upon a time, I cared a great deal about football. Abba was a serious fan. He had season tickets for the Dolphins for as long as I could remember, and occasionally, I’d get to go see, first Bob Griese, and then Dan Marino play. Abba would travel to watch the Dolphins and he was at the ’73 Super Bowl when the Dolphins had that unforgettable year. I became interested in late high school, when it was a fun way to hang out with Abba. We could bond over the Dolphins. When I lived in Seattle, football was amazing because it was never on past my bedtime, and I had two good from-Miami Beach buddies who would, week after week, go to the sports bars with me at 10 a.m. for beer, fries, and Dolphins.

But then kids came along and I became a Dolphins fan in name only. Sure, if they’re on network TV and it’s not starting past my bedtime, I’ll watch. But I have no idea who is who. As Dave Barry once put it, at this point I’m pretty much just routing for the color. I do watch enough to know that the evil man Jimmy Buffet replaced the Dolphin’s fight song at touchdown with a stupid Landshark song, but my loyalty is pretty much a remnant of the past that shall always remain. I follow playoffs, I watch the Super Bowl, but I’m not as invested as I used to be. Perhaps one day I’ll have a good team again, my kids will be big enough I can lounge on Sundays, and I’ll be able to spend a little time caring.

Okay, this is the part where we bring everything together: Deep South mom and football. My mother knows exactly two things about football: 1) Peyton Manning, the quarterback for some team, went to Isidore Newman School in New Orleans, which is the same school she attended and 2) Peyton’s little brother, Eli, the quarterback for a different team, also went to Newman.

But suddenly my mother has found a bandwagon. And she’s jumped on it. In an e-mail last week to me and my father, she announced, “Okay, I care about the Super Bowl. Geaux Saints.”

My father had to point out that the Saints weren’t in the Super Bowl yet, and she’d have to get through a playoff game. Her response, “Oh shit. That means I have to watch two games.”

Tonight I went out and had a lovely dinner with Pie at a friend’s house (a friend who is so creative and engaged with her kids that she makes the rest of us look really, really bad. I know you read this! Stop that now!). I got home and Adam was putting Pie to bed, so I started cooking a little dinner for him (I’ll take cooking for anyone any day over putting her to bed) and I turned on the game. It was a commercial, so I called my mom.

“I just got home and it’s a commercial. What’s going on in the game so far?”

My mom replied, “Um, the Jets lost?”

“Yes, I know that. What about the Saints game. The one that’s on right now?”

Silence for a minute. “Um, I forgot. Let me go turn it on.” We hang up.

A few minutes later she calls back. “It’s not on!”

“Yes, it is. Of course it is. Put on Fox.”

“Oh. I guess it’s a commercial.”

Theoretically she’s watching the game right now. Ask her who the quarterback for the Saints is. She won’t know. He went to high school in Texas. Geaux Saints.

One of the most annoying things about having a mixed marriage is that in a hotly contested election, like say the Martha Coakley vs. Scott Brown for the Massachusetts Senate seat, we get twice the phone calls. As a registered Democrat, I’ve received calls from Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and of course, Martha Coakley. As a registered Republican, Adam’s heard from a different crowd. I love checking the messages and being able to say, “Sweetie, it’s for you. It’s the pro-lifers.” He’s heard from the pro-lifers, Scott Brown, and the Catholics.

Adam ran out early this morning to cast his vote. Since the voting is at Doodles’s school, I offered that I could go early so Doodles and Pie could come with me to “cancel out Daddy’s vote.” Which led to a discussion of what is a Democrat and what is a Republican.

Have you ever tried to explain a topic like that and remain unbiased and neutral? I don’t think it can be done. I started out with some reasonable basics. “Well, the Republicans believe that government should be smaller, with people taking more responsibility for things. The Democrats believe the government should do more for people.” Which of course is just generic enough to not explain anything. Adam came home from voting as I was trying to explain. “You know how we have a nice home and–even if you don’t like the food I offer you, we have plenty of food to eat? Well, if we couldn’t afford food, we could get something called food stamps, which are given to people by the government so no one has to go hungry. Food stamps are like coupons that people without enough money can exchange for food. But someone has to pay for that. So we pay taxes. We pay on taxes on our house, on the money we make, on the things we buy. And those taxes pay for things like food stamps. The Democrats believe we should pay more taxes to help more people. And the Republicans…” And this is where I flounder. Do I say, “let people starve” or “think only rich people should eat”?

I start again. “So, the Democrats like to help people…” Adam bursts out laughing. This isn’t really the unbiased explanation I’m going for. I laugh, too, and tell Adam, “Screw this!”

So as we’re getting on our winter clothes to head for the school to vote, I simply say to Doodles, “If Harry Potter were an American citizen, he’d be a Democrat.”

End of conversation. Take that Scott Brown.

My kids have personalities as different as can be. But nowhere does it show itself as clearly as it does in their reaction to the weather. Doodles, who claimed that his favorite thing about the trip to Miami Beach was “the hotness,” constantly bemoans the fact that we live in New England instead of Florida. The minute the temperature drops, the boy becomes a couch potato, piling up a stack of books, planting himself in front of the fireplace, and settling in for the day.

The girl has the opposite reaction. She wakes up. “Snow? Can I shovel!” She’s the first one in her snow pants and ready to play outside. This morning as I attempted to shovel us out–attempted because it was one of those wet, heavy snows that doesn’t want to cooperate with the shovel–she proclaimed, “Do you know what my favorite season is? It’s winter!” And then she attempted to make a snow slide out of the mounds being shoveled.

I want to buy all of us snow shoes. Pie says, “Can we go today?” I tell her, “I haven’t bought them yet!” Doodles protests, “I don’t want snow shoes. It’s just walking in the snow with tennis rackets on your feet. And I hate walking.”

My sun worshiper and my snow baby. And never the ‘twain shall meet.

I wake up every morning these days hungover. Headache. Fuzziness. Dry mouth. Which I wouldn’t mind, if I had actually been drinking. Which I haven’t been. So it must be winter. We really need a humidifier.

I had fully intended on doing a bit o’ new year’s reflections, but my plans were thwarted because Adam no longer keeps an at-home work computer. Being tied to my desktop means that I don’t blog. Because if I’m at my desk, the kids aren’t home. And if the kids aren’t home, I’m working on the novel, not writing to you (nothing personal). We’ve budgeted a new laptop for me in March, so perhaps there will be more blogging then. I’m here now because Adam–and his laptop–are home from work and I can use his laptop during his naptime. Truth be told, though, you don’t even have my full attention now, because I’ve discovered the United States of Tara on demand, and I’m working my way through them at this moment. I can try, though, when Toni Collette isn’t distracting me.

My father will quickly dispute that 2010 is not the start of a new decade, but considering I am a sheep, I counted 2000 as the start of the millennium. How odd is it that 1/1/00 doesn’t seem long ago at all. I remember new year’s so clearly, my annual party at Barb and Steve’s, hanging out with Pam, who was a brand new friend from my night-shift stint at a warehouse in McDonough, Georgia, a dry town that housed one of Amazon’s brand new “distribution centers.” I lived alone in Seattle in a small house I had just bought myself three months before. I was not only single (well, sort of single–I was a profuse dater), I hadn’t even met Adam yet (actually, we’ve pieced together that perhaps we had met once, but neither of us registered on the other’s radar). I was still–on paper–an Internet millionaire. I’d just done my first triathlon and I didn’t know it, but in another month, I’d be training for my first and only major bike ride–a double century (in a day when it wasn’t sponsored and was much more rugged–really!).

And now? Well, if you’re here, you know the now. In some ways, I feel like I’ve lived so many lives. New York me. Grad school me. Kibbutz me. Seattle me. And now haus frau me. Each is so distinct and feels so separate and yet so integral to who I am.

So what’s next? Every year I make fairly elaborate new year’s resolutions. Some I keep; most I don’t. I read somewhere that instead of new year’s resolutions you should pick one word to represent the year ahead. I decided to go with this idea. But then I had to come up with a word. What word? At first I thought “focus.” I need to focus on my novel, focus on better eating, focus on the moment. But that didn’t quite encapsulate what I was looking for. So I went with “order.” I want my life in order. Um, no. Passion? Too cheesy. Awareness? Too Zen. Drunk? Closer, but not quite it. So I think this is the year I go resolutionless. And let’s see what I can accomplish.

If only I could get rid of this hangover. Or get a humidifier. Does that count as a resolution? Moisture. Hmmm. Could work…

Dropping Pie at preschool today, I fully expected a completely meltdown. She bawled for an hour on the flight home last night because she wanted the Nana. Her first words upon waking this morning were, “I want Nana!” But it’s when you most expect anything from children that it least happens and vice-versa, isn’t it? She gave me a smooch and ran off to her classroom. I, on the other hand, am ready to crawl back into bed and not come back out till the tulips do. Readjustment after the Miami Beach trip is always hardest on me.

Spa day at the Standard. More martinis and cafe con leches than I could count. Movies–first run!–in a theater, on a big screen. Boat rides. New Year’s party. Breakfast outside on Ocean Drive. Ice cream. Shorts. Walking to dinners out. Swimming for the kids. Family. Friends. I so don’t want to be back in Arlington.

However, there are a few pluses. I will say that I do enjoy an excuse for hot chocolate and we have that in spades. I whipped up another batch of homemade marshmallows this morning. Boy do I love me them homemade marshmallows. They melt so much better in a cup of hot chocolate. And our friends up here are amazing. Our plane got in a few minutes late and out the window we were greeted by a world of white. We rushed out, got luggage, and the car. We went straight from the airport to drop Doodles and Adam’s off at a cub scout meeting. Pie and I went home to shovel… only Beetle and her husband had already shoveled us out! Can you ask for better friends than that? While Pie was mildly disappointed, I was quite thrilled.

And now it’s time for some new year’s reflections, I suppose, but that will have to wait for a later post, as one of my resolutions is to get back into the swing of writing, and since I’m off soon to get Pie for gymnastics, I better get a few pages written.

Welcome back to real life!