the pieces of my life

Me: I need to run by the store and get some Oxiclean.

Pie: What for?

Me: To get the grape juice and wine out of our table cloth.

Pie: I seen that on TV.

Me: Really?

Doodles: Yeah! And you can get a spray with Oxi power! It’ll really clean. All you need is one squirt and it cleans!

Me, vaguely horrified: Oh?

Doodles: See, Mom! TV is good for some things!

Today I was rolling out the bread dough, preparing to braid it for our Friday night hallah. Doodles’s friend, Tab, was over. The two of them and Pie were sitting at the counter while I did this.* Now, have you ever seen hallah rolled out into logs before it’s braided. It has a distinctly, um, shall we say phallic look to it? So I cringed when Doodles said to Tab: “You know what that looks like?”

Tab: “No, what?”

And now I’m preparing to jump in. Not sure what I’m going to say. Doodles has been going out of his way lately to be rude, disruptive, and to shock (but luckily only at home–he’s on best behavior at school).

Doodles: It looks like bones!

I’m greatly relived. But then he surprises me by continuing.

Doodles: Do you know which bone it looks like?

Tab: No.

Doodles: It looks like a femur!

Me: How do you know what a femur is?

Doodles: From school. [He points to his leg.] The femur is right here. [And I had to look it up just now to confirm he was right. And he was.] Do you know how I remember?

Me: No.

Doodles: Femur in front! So the patella is in back.

In those moments, I’m reminded that this kid has his own life. I, a runner who should know better, have no idea what the bones of my body are called. He’s got this whole world going on that I’m not part of where he’s learning and doing in his own life and becoming this real little person.

And then, then he reminds me. He’s just my little boy. Take dinner tonight:

Pie: I fed Haver at school today! [Haver means “friend” in Hebrew and it’s the name of the guinea pig in Pie’s classroom.

Doodles: You did?

Pie: Yes! He took the lettuce right from my hand.

Doodles: Who feeds Haver at night time?

Adam: The leave food for Haver at night, probably. And then, when everyone leaves, he watches movies on TV.

Doodles: Really?!?

Pie: No. He’s a guinea pig.

Doodles: I want a guinea pig!

Me: We’ll think about that.

Doodles: But who would feed the guinea pig lunch while I’m at school?

Pie: I’ll feed him when you’re at school!

Doodles: No! You can’t feed him. The only one who’s allowed to take care of Haver…

And here I’m thinking, “Hey, maybe he is mature enough to have a small pet.”

Doodles: …is Mom and Dad!

And there goes the guinea pig, folks. Once my baby boy, always my baby boy.

* This, I have to say, is my absolutely favorite feature in the house–that we have a peninsula in the kitchen where the kids can sit and have snack or do their homework while I’m in the kitchen; the kids love it, too, although they don’t realize it yet as I’ve been baking for them a ton more lately and that they’re in to. Just yesterday I made the most amazing pumpkin-banana muffins and they were oil free, If you try these yourself, I cut the sugar down to 3/4 cup for each, didn’t use oat bran, but instead used extra oatmeal, which I first ground in a hand blender to make it less textured for little boys who don’t like texture–the boy’s eaten four in the last 24 hours and only because I cut him off. Am I Martha yet?

Last weekend, we headed down for NYC for Saturday night to celebrate my parents’ 45th wedding anniversary and my dad’s 69th birthday. Our trips to New York are so brief these days that I don’t get to see old friends or do much of anything that doesn’t revolve around the kids. I’m hoping this summer to take the kids for a good week or so and then I’ll get to call people and get out a bit more.

This time, though, I kept thinking I’d seen people I knew. For example, on the subway with Pie on the way to hang out with Tweeds in Soho, I could have sworn I saw my former boss from my publishing days. She was sitting on the platform, with her trademark gray streaked hair. I was seconds away from saying something to her when it occurred to me that she looked exactly as she looked… eighteen years ago. If I saw her today, there’s no way her gray streaked hair would still be streaked. At this point, it would be entirely gray or solidly not (if she colored it). The woman was in her mid 30s. These days, my former boss would be in her early 50s. I thought I saw a guy I dated briefly in college and two friends from film school. But the people I was seeing were the age they were back then.

I think the issue is, I don’t picture myself as 40. I feel like I’m eternally about 26 or 28 (never 27. Don’t know why, but 27 never enters my thoughts). Forty just doesn’t fit right on me. It’s kind of like the house remodel–I told Adam, “The new house feels like the kind of house a grown-up would live in. I’m not old enough for a grown-up house.”

Growing up, my parents would always say, “Our house, our rules.” When I was 19, I lived in a loft-style apartment in New York near Gramercy Park. My mom came to stay with me. At about 2 a.m., a friend of mine called. My mom was on the couch below and I saw her jump up when the phone rang, with a look on her face like someone was about to get in trouble (no phone calls after 10 p.m. had been the rule). And then suddenly her expression changed as she realized she didn’t have a say any more, and I said, “My house, my rules! Calls are welcome at any hour!” I felt like such a grown-up! I definitely felt more grown-up then than I do now. (For the record, nowadays calls are almost never welcome, at any hour, and certainly never after oh, let’s say, 7 p.m.)

But grown-up I am. Pie loves to check on my hair roots. “Mommy, pull back your hair! I want to see the white!”

I pulled back my hair, but I had had it colored two weeks ago (yes, I have my hair colored). Pie said, “It’s not white!” Then she paused and said, “But it will be!”

Yes. Yes, it will.

–The boy twisted his ankle today and sprained it while playing on his gymnastics mat. He had to hop to dinner. Lie on the couch. Moan. We did the RICE treatment, so I had him stick his leg on the arm of the sofa and put an ice pack on it. He got a couple of shows. Adam carried him to bed. And then I asked, “Can you twirl your foot?”

The boy: Ow, ow, ow! [he twirls his foot] It hurts!

Me: Are you sure? Because when you were laying on the couch, it was the other foot was the twisted one.

The boy: Oh. Which ankle did I sprain?

–I promised my b’nai mitzvah class that I’d have a rough draft of our dvar written in two weeks. That was one week and six days ago. It’s a very dry parsha. Jubilee years and all sorts of fun stuff. But no worries. I have a couple hours tomorrow after volunteering in the kindergarten to get it done. Oh, whoops! What’s that? Pie has a fever? No school tomorrow? I’ve had how much wine? Should be an interesting Torah talk…

–The boxes are pretty much unpacked. But in order to get those boxes unpacked, I had to put the stuff somewhere. So the floor is now covered with stuff that had been neatly put away in boxes. I have one week to get it all put away because…

–In one week I host my first social event of the year. Sure, some might call it a solemn religious occasion, but why split hairs? I’m hosting a Passover seder, which will call for full use of my beautiful new stove. I can’t wait. Including my family, there will be 18 of us. I’ve already made two huge batches of chicken soup, farfel kugel, and I’ve bought enough matzah and gefilte fish to get us through at least a few days, so at this point I know no one will starve. I’m plotting out what to cook next.

–So the contractor handed back his key today. Sad, sad day for me. No more, “Could you just…” “Would you mind…” “Hey, maybe we should…” Now it’s just me and Adam. The trailer’s out of the front yard, the garbage is off the front porch, and the mailbox has even been returned to its rightful place on the house. All that’s left is for me to get my crap off the floor.

–Random link: I love this site. Everyone go save a word. I haven’t officially adopted a word yet. I haven’t found the one yet. I’m waiting for my beshert. Although I’m sure you’ll be able to tell on this blog when I’ve chosen my one. I’m also into the Very Short List. Best e-mails I get.

–When I was a wee girl, I had three stuffed animals: Beady Bear (named for the book of the same name), Snoopy, and Elly Belly Elephant. I will come out and say that Elly Belly Elephant was a disputed animal: The Tweedle Twirp seemed to think that Elly Belly was hers. Let me set the record straight here: The Tweedle Twirp was wrong. I still own Beady Bear. He’s a little worn, but still recognizable. Tweeds had custody of the other two.

Tweeds decided it was time to pass the two on to my children. I took the two creatures, which were recognizable. That is, if by recognizable you think of a homeless, strung out, Avenue Q-version of Snoopy and Elly. Those two have never been washed. I’m pretty sure not ever. Those animals are about 38 or so years old, and untouched by water. So I took those animals in the name of my children. And I decided it was high time they were introduced to the pleasures of cleanliness. Into the washer they went.

It is with great regret that I have to inform you that they didn’t make it back out and they have gone to the great playroom in the sky.

RIP Snoopy and Elly. You were well loved.

This link here is just for Adam. See, I think about you!

We’ve got separation anxiety going on here. Serious, serious separation anxiety. The kind that keeps you up at night and leaves you in cold sweats. Because we are about a week away from the contractors being done. And leaving. Us. Me. No more, “Hey, I can’t quite reach that. Can you put in that light bulb?” Or, “What do you say? Should we hang that mirror there?” Or what about, “This shelf is sticking. Could you get it in the proper place for me?” Forget live-in maid or cook. I want a live-in contractor. Every time we’ve had any oddity (“Is that supposed to do that? Is that making a funny noise? I wish we had an outlet there”), it’s been a simple matter of “Oh, Leo will be here in the morning. We can ask him.”

But it will end. The punch list is just about punched. The shingles are shingled. We’ve got a single stair rail to go up outside. We’ve got gutters to go up. But that’s really about it. We’ve got just mere days of “ask Leo.”

And I’m not sure I can handle it.

But it’s time. Time to let go. Time to grow up and enjoy my brand-new grown-up house all on our own. And speaking of brand-new house, I believe I’ve been delinquent on photos. Today I give you the kitchen. I was going to wait until it was nice and clean and everything put away, but I thought you’d want photos sometime this year, so here it is in all it’s everyday-use glory.

The old kitchen:

See those expanses of counter space? The beautiful cabinets? The aisles of storage space?

Note, here, the oven hood that Adam installed that prevents the cabinet next to it from opening all the way:

The new kitchen. Not the best pictures because you can’t truly see my beautiful 36-inch stove, but I’m too lazy to take more photos:

We couldn’t get a proper mud room into the house, so we now have a new side entrance and cubbies for each of us:

With Adam’s master Elfa pantry. I haven’t mastered the wide shot of the small space, so you can’t really see it in all it’s true glory, complete with my lovely drawer labels. There’s a whole wall on the right with more shelves and drawers:

(And I have a secret: we’ll need to replace our front windows and front door soon. Leo may not have seen the last of us yet!)

More rooms to come…

I’m unpacking. Can’t you tell? I’m doing the big push of just freakin’ emptying the boxes so I now have individual pieces of crap all over the house, but at least the boxes are noticeably dwindling. The kids have more toys than any of us know what to do with and I need to do some stealth thinning. And we have a lot of stuff that I’m getting rid of now (like hooded towels–I had saved all those baby hooded towels and the kids just aren’t wrapping themselves in ducky hooded towels any more). Freecycle has been my best friend these past few days.

Adam’s best friend has been the Container Store. he is elfa-ing like crazy. At this second, he’s knee-deep configuring our pantry (I’ll add a picture here when he’s done). He’s also done the fourth–yes, fourth–Ikea run in the past three weeks (our house is embarrassingly filled with Expedit shelves).

And now I need to find a space for everything. We have lots of room, but a lot of the stuff I have is “display” stuff, and I don’t have many surfaces for “display” at the moment. My mom sent me a ton of my grandmother’s stuff–about a year ago I went through her house (with the other grandkids) picking out things we wanted. And then she packed it all up and saved it for the year while we did our house remodel. Which is great, but as I’m unpacking, I don’t remember what half the stuff is. Some of the stuff is super cool–I have this musical cigarette holder of my grandmother that makes me want to take up smoking (not really, Mom; it’s just a joke). And most of the stuff is cute tchotchkes that I want out and about.

Okay, break over. Time for sushi and then more unpacking. No rest till the boxes are gone!

Pie: Mommy, go like this.
Pie pulls her hair tightly back against her head. I comply.
Pie: Mommy, your hair on the bottom is white!
Me: Yes, it is.
Pie: You need to color it. How about purple? I’ll color mine purple, too.

Peter [my father], on the way to the “new” house after picking him up at the T station:
So, Pie, what color is your room!
Pie: Purple! Lily Lavender!
Peter: Oh! And what color is the guest room?
Pie: Um… it’s white! Like your hair!

Doodles: Dad, the laundry is really piling up. You need to do it.
Adam: Why don’t you tell your mother that?
Doodles: Dad! Mom doesn’t do laundry!