It Happened to Me

Harper at the Children’s Museum. (Photo somehow in LlGC ~ NLW’s Flickr photostream)

Who remembers the “It Happened to Me” column from Sassy magazine? I always wanted to contribute, but sadly, nothing ever happened to me. No abusive boyfriends, no messily divorced parents, no getting sold into slavery, UGH.

Once you’re a parent, however, there are many more opportunities for terrifying and dramatic things to happen, and/or for small things to suddenly become terrifying and dramatic.

Here’s one thing that happened. It was a few months ago, and I think my heart JUST now stopped racing from it.

Harper got lost.

At the Brooklyn Children’s Museum.

For, like, five minutes.

It was just how you think something like that will happen. I was bent over putting Ollie’s shoes on, and a noisy Catholic school group of older kids swept by like a flock of geese in plaid, and when they were gone, so was Harper. My friend who I was there with and I looked at each other, looked around. “Harper?” I peeked around the corner.The looking-at-bugs-with-magnifying-glasses section? Nope. The pretend-pizza-shop? Nope. Huh.

My urge to be a calm, collected, non-freaking-out mother has me constantly quieting my brain’s urge to panic, so I stuffed Ollie into the carrier and started fast-walking around in a sort of hectic fake-calm, calling Harper’s name, looking around, garbling incomprehensible things at bystanders: “Did you see my? Dress and braids? Harper?” After a minute, my friend and I exchanged a look, and I commenced internal freakout.  I just KNEW she’d been SNATCHED BY AN EVIL CHILD-SNATCHER who would obviously pay admission to get into the Brooklyn Children’s Museum just to CAPTURE INNOCENT BABIES.

I raced to the admissions desk by the front door, and sputtered: “Child! Missing! Girl! Mine! Blond!” A young man nodded and said, “Ma’am, it’s all right, it’s only that you’ve endangered your child by blogging about how adorable she is, you fool, don’t you know that only creepos read the internet?” “Excuse me?” I said. He repeated himself: “You stay here. We will find her. This happens all the time. Don’t worry.” Then he said into his walkie-talkie, “Code 3″ (or something.) For some reason it was very reassuring to me that they had a code for this. Oh, so it’s just a thing that happens so often they can’t even be bothered to say it! That’s good!

I stood at the desk mournfully watching the door and the busy street beyond it for an excruciating 20 seconds or so. Then another employee called out, “Found her!”

And there she was: happily driving the city bus, a few feet away. “Hi Mama!” she chirped. I threw myself on her, squeezing her with crushing freakout-love, causing her to wiggle away and look at me like I was crazy. A nearby nanny I know from around the neighborhood told me she’d recognized Harper and told her to stay put until her mommy found her. I fought an urge to smother the nanny with hugs and kisses too.

Turns out, Harper was completely unaware that I considered her lost. “But I knew where you were,” she explained. “YES BUT I NEED TO KNOW WHERE YOU ARE TOO,” I said, squeezing her hands as I did for the next three days. It did make me realize this was a conversation we’d never really had: what to do if you’re lost. My friend shared what she’d heard, which was to tell your kid that if she is lost she should find a lady or a mommy to help her. In my day you were supposed to look for a policeman or someone official looking, which actually sounds ridiculous now, which is sad, but whatever.

Now whenever we are somewhere crowded I remind Harper in a strained, trying-to-sound-nice-but-really-still-freaking-out voice, that she always has to be able to see me. The other day at the botanic gardens she made a point of walking backwards while drilling my eyes with hers for a good minute before she forgot and started running after a bird. Whatever. I remind her now and then about the “find a lady” rule, and try to still not freak out about things too much, and to remind myself of how in the end, that was a pretty good way to learn that lesson — in a protected, indoor place for children, where they even have a code for it.

So here’s another thing that happened: we had a fire in our home. (I already blogged about it over at the day job blog, in a post that actually sort of had a point.) Yes, home, the home we just PURCHASED. It was pretty sweet. I’m super glad we didn’t burn the building down. The co-op board just hates when that happens. So, yeah, this ceiling fan we’d inherited (whatever, it was ugly) had stopped working, but apparently deep in its tinny guts it was still trying to work, and sort of, like, exploded? All of the sudden, flames were shooting out from the ceiling. I was kidding before when I said it was sweet. It sucked.  But again there were many “thank goodnesses.”  I was home with Ollie while Harper was at school, so she didn’t have to be freaked out by it. Again, it could have been so much worse. I was right there. I was holding Ollie. I saw it happen, was uninjured, called 911, they arrived in a split-second, there was only a bit of smoke-damage.

And on the upside, I got to answer for myself the question: what would you grab in case of a fire? Our carefully-curated “fire folder”, containing our birth certificates and wedding photo negatives and such? Nah. The kid and the dog. That’s it, not even my wallet, oof. But hey, at least I took the dog with me to freak out in the lobby while greeting the firemen with a quivering “There! Up! My kitchen! Fire!” When I told Adam the whole story he said, “Hey, you took Quimby! Nice!” with just a touch of surprise.

So anyway. Those were the scary things that happened, and you know what? Even though I’ve now been able to write this “It Happened to Me,” I think I’d rather just keep having a boring life where nothing really too bad happens. I’m a fiction writer anyway.

(Which reminds me…the last round of revisions of the novel have been turned in! So I can once again spend my evenings doing relaxing things. Like finishing moving in. Yes, it’s been two months. Shhh we’ve been busy.)

Household Wording Elsewhere

I've been blogging away. On a red typewriter. Okay, this picture doesn't make any sense.

As usual, I have many posts I intend to write that remain in my brain because instead I am doing other things like sleeping. But just wait. I have books to write about, and rooms in the new house, and novel revisions, and playschool, and my new obsession with cross-fit training. Totally kidding about that last one, I’m still all weak and pasty. Anyway, I have been writing posts for Mamarama over at Redbook that are the sorts of things I would be posting here if laundry magically did itself at night. Here are a few, in case anyone is interested:

The one about how awful it is when your toddler has a tantrum on an airplane and people are dicks about it.

The one about reading my favorite childhood books to Harper whether she likes it or not.

The one that is a letter to Alton about how much we adore him, even though we forget his name sometimes and refer to him as Harper’s brother.

The one where I try to be funny about Michelle Duggar.

And maybe one day I will write something for this blog too.

image from skippydesigns on etsy

 

A Moving Tribute

To live gracefully in a small space, you must either be a minimalist or exquisitely organized. Unfortunately, we are neither. Fortunately, we are moving to a larger apartment this week. Unfortunately, this means we have to move. Fortunately, we have two small children who love cardboard boxes and are happy to pack. Unfortunately, this is how they pack:

With any luck, by this time next week we will be all settled in. Hard to imagine, but there’s a chance.

Things We Now Know About Murray

Taking Murray sledding.

I always wanted an imaginary friend. Only as I type that sentence does it strike me as a little sad. Why in the world didn’t I just imagine one?  I guess it never occurred to me, and so clearly I did not deserve such a companion. So anyway I’m happy for Harper that she has her dear Murray. Murray has been with us for about 7 or 8 months now, having arrived on the scene as soon as she saw Sesame Street for the first time and forged a deep connection with the muppet Murray. Pretend-Murray, as he was originally known, made the leap from screen to home, and has since become a near-constant presence. No one can say for sure why Murray, the loud, friendly, floppy show host with the underbite and devil-may-care attitude captured her imagination so much more than, say, Elmo or Abby or some other carefully engineered tot-buddy. And yet captured her imagination he has, so much so that she doesn’t even want to see actual-Murray anymore because presumably he messes with the pretend-Murray in her head.

All of which is to say, Murray has been especially busy lately. Allow me to share some tidbits.

1) Murray is 18 years old, which means he can drive a car and chew gum.

2) Murray lives in Mexico with many cats.

3) Murray has a new baby arriving soon, sometimes a brother, sometimes a sister, sometimes a “other brother.”

4) Murray is prone to terrible stomach troubles due to his habit of eating old strawberries off the floor. This results in frequent doctor visits, but he rarely fusses and almost never kicks the doctor.

5) Murray is fuzzy, like Sesame Street Murray, but instead of orange, he is yellow.

6) Sometimes Murray is a baby and nurses and bites or nibbles. I don’t know where she gets this stuff.

7) Murray often squeezes toothpaste on clothing, creating the need for outfits to be changed post haste.

8) Murray is sometimes sitting on the toilet when I’m asking Harper to try to pee, so she can’t because she doesn’t want to smush him.

9) Murray usually stays home from parties or outings because he’s feeling shy.

10) Murray has more than once pushed Ollie down or thrown toys at him, and needs Harper to explain to him that Ollie is just a baby and needs to be treated gently.

Oh, Murray!

ETA: I cannot BELIEVE I forgot about one of Murray’s most definitive characteristics, which is that he is often accompanied by The Big Kids. This is an amorphous group of age-shifting children. Inquiries into their ages, genders, names, and other characteristics are always deflected. But there they are, on the couch, or at school, or causing some sort of mischief. “Oh, that’s the Big Kids’ snack, you have to leave it out,” or, “Murray and the Big Kids decided to draw on the wall.” Adam finds The Big Kids to be somewhat creepy, and I have to concur — they sometimes seem to operate kind of like a Warriors-esque gang, a cohesive group of themed folk who seem playful at first but are, it is soon revealed, unstoppable. You didn’t think Murray traveled without a posse, did you?

An Open Letter To Newly-Adopted Pet Dogs, From Quimby T. Mouse, Dog.

Dear Newly-Adopted Pet Dog:

So it’s happened. You’ve found your “forever home.” Congratulations to you. It all starts off so well. Some nice human couple, feeling nurturing but still too cowardly for actual offspring, peers at you and smiles. You make you-eyes at them. They coo. You think you have them in the palm of your paw. They murmur nonsense at you and stuff you full of treats. There are toys. There are long walks. There are playdates with other dogs. There are extensive snuggles. There are sweaters and matching booties on cold days. There are beach days and water hoses on hot days. You sleep in their bed, between their big warm bodies. Your tricks are beloved. Your talents are revered. Your misdeeds — a chomped spectacle here, a pee-marked carpet there — readily forgiven. You think you’ve got it made.

And for a while, things are good.

But watch them. You must watch the lady one especially. Is she sleeping more? Is she getting big and soft? Is there a vague smell of milk in the air? Watch her disappear for a few days. Watch her come back. Sniff the squalling thing she’s brought with her.

Now you are fucked.

Kids. Their saving grace is that they are often covered in peanut butter.

Listen, I know what you’re thinking. Not my people! They kiss me on the lips! They will never toss me aside! Friend, how I wish this were true. But inevitably, incredibly, it happens. The people forget about you. They can’t help it. They have large, dopey brains, and only a few of their hairless little puppies to go around, and they just don’t know any better. They will compliment you if you do not eat their new baby. Not eating the new baby is highly recommended. Eating the new baby will only feel good for a second, and then you will be out in the cold on your own. Don’t eat the new baby and you will still get your spot on the couch, at least.

Now you bide your time. I’m sorry to tell you this, but no one will play with you again until the child is large enough to run after you and tug your tail. This is what playing is now. Try to enjoy it. In the meantime, you wait. You sleep more. Your walks are shorter. You are occasionally tripped over. “Jesus! Forgot you were there!” they will mutter, annoyed. You might as well get used to this idea. It could be worse. You could be a cat.

But here is a happy thought for you to savor while your people are mooning over their useless little bundle of blankets. Eventually the baby learns to eat food. These are halcyon days. The baby sits in a high chair and is given delicious bits of things: halved berries, crumbs of cheese, shreds of chicken. And the baby takes these foods into his fat little hand, and he hurls them onto the floor. This, friend, is the moment you’ve been waiting for. For the next year or so you will eat like you’ve never eaten before. All the scrumptious people food you’ve ever wanted, flung right into your mouth. I recommend parking your tail beneath this high chair and not moving until the kid’s motor skills improve. After this, the main thing you have to look forward to is being dressed in dolly clothes and having your ears mercilessly tugged.

My fellow pets, good luck to you.

And now, I shall resume licking my own behind for the next several hours.

-Quimby T. Mouse, Dog.

The last known photograph of Quimby, taken accidentally.

McMe-Time With Fries

They made me do it.

I am writing this blog post on my phone, in my parked car, having just participated in one of the most salacious, shameful activities in my mom-repetoire, so embarrassing that I feel compelled to immediately share with the world. It involves… sleeping children. And… fast food.

But before I dive in, let me just provide some context– after an exciting morning of having a cavity filled (honestly, the most restful moment of the day), I spent an hour getting the kids ready to go to the doctor. This had me a little anxious already; last time we went to the doctor’s Harper distinguished herself by shouting,  “I’m not listening to you! I’m going to escape!” and running out of the room. This morning she is being especially contrary, vetoing the sweater I offer, turning down the suggested boots with disgust, really wanting Special Baby to go in the car seat instead of Ollie. (How do you argue with something like that?) Getting downstairs takes cajoling, getting across the street to where the car is parked takes threats, by the time I’m trying to get her in the car seat she’s kicking at my face (“I want to do everything all by myself on my own!”) while Ollie watches the show, and I’m yelling at her there on the avenue for all to see. “Stop kicking me!” I add as I shut the door, just in case any disapproving eavesdropper needs to know why I’m spewing venom at a sweet-faced little blonde clutching her dolly.

So. Then, the doctor’s office, where Harper repeats her trickery despite not being the one being examined at all, pushing at the doctor’s chair experimentally and whispering, “No doctor for me OR Ollie.” One shot and one screaming baby later, we are headed home. “I’m going to be a doctor when I grow up!” Harper announces as we get back in the car.

Now, we don’t drive often. This used to be because, hello, we live in New York City which is where people live when they are superior beings who walk places and frequent local shops. Now I admit, it’s mostly because finding parking in our neighborhood is an exercise in futility, so that my outings are all coordinated with alternate side parking, when the streets miraculously clear for the street sweepers, only to have every spot filled the instant it’s legal again. So driving is a little bit of a novelty for the kids, and for me, and so I am unused to this weird phenomenon of the kids both falling asleep in their car seats on our way back from anywhere.

Car naps used to disturb me because I used to care about “junk sleep” and “nap schedules.” Then I had another baby. Now I take what I can get. And when both kids are asleep at the same time, it’s like a spa vacation. In my car. So you know what I do?

I drive to McDonalds. I do. And I go through the drive-through. I do! McDonalds is so evil and disgusting! I, who used to be a vegan who lectured people on how supporting companies like McDonalds was destroying the earth and making angels cry! And… “Ah, can I get an iced coffee? And, like, a grilled chicken sandwich? Do you have something like that? A grilled chicken sandwich?”

“A McChicken?”

“Um, is that grilled?” I hear how ridiculous this sounds and correct myself, “Yes, please.” (It is not. It is a big chicken finger covered in greenish ribbons imitating lettuce and something like mayonnaise.) (It is DELICIOUS.) “Is the chicken organic?” I’m kidding, I don’t ask that. But I do think it. Oh, and can I just say that the sandwich, coffee, and fruit thingy that I get all cost $5? Do people know about this? That’s amazing!

And then, there I am, parked on a tree-lined Park Slope street, my kids snoozing away in neck-kinking slumps, sipping a McDonalds iced coffee (the medium is large enough to kill a horse — what is wrong with this country?! — oh, and delicious), and you know what? It’s the second-most relaxing moment of my day. After having my cavity filled.

PS Read more about how deeply, embarrassingly imperfect of a mother I am over at an even-more public forum here!

The Motherboard.

So, I’m super excited to be blogging for REDBOOK’s Motherboard Blog Council. This means that every week I will have a post up at The Motherboard in which I reflect on my life as a perfect mother and offer tips and tricks on how you can be more like me.*

*No, not really.

There are some seriously great bloggers on this here Blog Council, which is a little intimidating but whatever, it’s also flattering: Tracey Black of Don’t Mess With Mama, Alicia Harper of Mommy Delicious, Joslyn Gray of Stark. Raving. Mad. Mommy. and Carmen Stacier of Mom to the Screaming Masses. Seriously, check out their “Don’t Judge Me” posts — they are amazing. Alicia Harper still goes clubbing! I admit, I am judging her…to be awesome.

Yesterday was the official launch of the Blog Council, but, in classic Mama-trying-to-do-too-much-form, I was all scattered and crazy all day — helping out at playschool last minute and then working in the afternoon (by which I mean, trying desperately to concentrate despite the JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE BLARING at the coffee shop, aka, my office). So, what I’m saying is, Don’t Judge Me Because I Didn’t Post This Until Today.

Check this out!

Anyway, here’s my post, about how I let Harper watch television even though it makes me feel so guilty. I mean, not guilty. No judgment! No guilt!

But really, a little guilt.

I hope I don’t get fired for writing that.

The Quotable HMT, Volume 2

Call me “lazy” or “exploitative,” but today’s blog post once again comes to you from the 2-and-a-half-year-old indentured servant child who lives in my apartment. Because of her, I am tired of even thinking about talking. And yet, she just says the darndest things.

“How’s your owie, Daddy? When I’m an age I’ll be a Harper doctor and I’ll fix it for you!”

“The pee was walking to the pee door but now it’s walking the other way and getting on the bus.”

“I’m going to nurse Alton. Okay, now I have to save the rest for my dollies who love my spicy milk.”

(singing) “Hush little baby don’t say a word, Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird, and if that mockingbird don’t shine, that clementine will be a lime, and if that monkey have a mustache…how it goes again, Mama?”

(After the dog jumped on the couch in the midst of a stuffed animal tea party) “Quimby falled down my cubbies! She makes me laugh but she also makes me fuss.”

“Maybe when we are bigger we can live in a treehouse. When I am bigger because I eat healthy food. We love each other so much!”

“I’m not hungry for lunch. I just already ate pretend hot dogs.”

“Ballerinas don’t poop.”

Wisdom for the ages.

Would you believe me if I told you she dressed herself today?

In Love With Inconvenience: The New York City Parent

 

Brooklyn, Land of the Schleppers

One thing I love about living in the city is having interesting, sophisticated, worldly conversations with the smart, creative people one meets here. To wit, one of my recent favorites, concerning the question, “How do you get in the door?” I bet moms in the suburbs don’t have stimulating conversations like this one.

In the strange case that you were curious, here’s my version: If we are in the double stroller I kick Harper out, make her walk up the front stairs, then pull the stroller up the front stairs into the vestibule where I park, unload, put Ollie in the carrier, then lug everything up to our third floor apartment while shouting at Harper, “Go! Go! Don’t pick up the neighbors’ shoes! Just walk! No, don’t sit down and talk to Pretend-Murray! Walk! Up!” Or, alternately, if we are in the single, umbrella stroller, then I kick Harper out, make her walk up the stairs, unload whatever groceries we’ve acquired or cubbies that have been stowed in the basket, take these up into the vestibule, then fold the stroller and insert it into the stroller-pile in the hallway before lugging everything up while shouting, “Walk, Harper! No, Pretend-Murray doesn’t need a time-out! Go up the stairs! Up! Up!”

My friends and I like to discuss our other fox-chicken-chicken feed type conundrums – how to get groceries, walk dogs, take the subway, etc – in excruciating detail, grateful for every inkling that someone else has it worse. “Oh, you have to store your stroller in the basement? Drag!” It’s very enriching. And it’s not just the everyday household stuff either; it’s schooling (“How many pre-Ks is Punky applying to?”); it’s housing (“I hope the co-op board approves us so we can move into our $800,000 studio!”) – we just like everything to be about 12 steps more complicated than it is anywhere else.

But as I was transporting an IKEA haul up our rickety stairs the other day, having performed extremely complicated car-moving maneuvers (coordinating, as I do, all driving outings with times when the car has to be moved for alternate side parking/street cleaning anyway), it occurred to me that I probably secretly like all this ridiculousness. After all, it is a kind of a puzzle, a riddle to feverishly occupy my mind while my body performs numbingly boring tasks like grocery shopping. It becomes a kind of a game to multi-task as many tasks as possible, to transform an ordinary errand into a complicated series of strategic moves. Everyday life, become chess.

That said, I wouldn’t mind a slightly less crafty opponent, sometimes.

The Quotable HMT

Harper is constantly telling me she needs to work on her blog. Here’s a secret for you, though — her writing is really terrible. So I figured I’d help her out (this only works if she’s asleep, otherwise it’s all “I want to do it all by self on my own!”) and share some of her recent gems of wisdom. She’s been fuuuuunny lately. Well, I think so anyway.

“I’m pretending my feet are kissing. I’m pretending they’re a mama and a dada. [in a highpitched voice] ‘Where’s our kids? Where’s our kids?’”

“I’m going to read you this special new book with special new pretend words in Spanish.”

“I’m drawing a pirate. Pirates fly in the sky with other pirates and then they eat pirates.”

[upset about the washcloth being used for bathtime]: “No! I don’t want that technology!”

“I dripped the water in my mouth and now it’s running in my brain!”

“Alton, are you a person or a big pile of sand?”

“Daddy, you are good at talking.”

“I’m Amy.” [starts flailing arms around, pawing at a pile of towels] “I’m just looking for something!”

“I’m so happy that Alton is here and we can touch him and love him.”

"Oh, I'm just thinking of what to blog about as soon as I can actually type. Hope you're prepared, Mama."