Seven Mom Myths, Debunked

When you’re a new mom, everyone and their mom wants to give you advice. Do this, don’t do that. Don’t do this, do that. You’ll get so much conflicting advice that it’ll make your head spin. So I put together a list of the top seven “mom myths” that I heard as a new mom, along with an explanation of why I think they’re wrong. (Yes, I recognize the irony of giving advice on not taking advice. But I’m doing it anyway.)

1.      Germs are evil.

Yes, some germs are evil. But a moderate dose of germs are actually good for you. I certainly wouldn’t advise bringing your two-week old baby to visit your nephew with chicken pox or your aunt with the bad cold, but don’t be afraid of a little dirt. Research shows that exposure to a few germs while a baby’s immune system is developing makes it stronger. Think about this: The parents of a first baby sterilize the binky every time the baby drops it. The parents of a second baby give it a quick rinse before giving it back. The parents of a third baby wipe it on their pants. And the parents of a fourth baby hand it right back, dirt and all. There is no particular difference in how many sicknesses those four children get.

2.      You are a bad parent if you don’t nurse/co-sleep/teach your child sign language/practice attachment parenting/let your baby cry it out.

There are probably as many theories of how to raise a baby as there are babies themselves. (Probably more, judging by how many people who don’t have babies have an opinion on the subject.) There’s nothing innately wrong with the vast majority of them. So if you find one that works for you and your baby, use it. But don’t let anyone bully or shame you into using one that doesn’t feel right for you. A lot of love and a little bit of common sense go a long way in taking good care of your baby. Trust your instincts and don’t be afraid to experiment.

3.      Your child needs the newest, most technologically advanced (and expensive) toys in order to be properly stimulated.

Hogwash. An electronic drum that makes different noises and talks is an exciting toy for a little one. So is an empty oatmeal box and a plastic mixing spoon. For that matter, so is a rock and a stick. Children will play with just about anything, and will use their imaginations to create whole worlds with whatever happens to be on hand. Go ahead and buy a few fancy electronic gadgets, but don’t forget the great toys you already have on hand: Tupperware, empty yogurt containers, toilet paper tubes, cardboard boxes, blankets, old hats, rocks. With those bits of “junk,” your kids can create a pirate ship, a rocket, a racetrack, a fort, a marching band. There will be stimulation aplenty!

4.      Sleep when the baby sleeps.

There are definitely times when this rule is true. With your first child, you will feel a depth of exhaustion that you have never felt before. You may go for several months without sleeping for more than 3 hours at a stretch. You will crave sleep like a junkie craves heroin. So most of the time, getting sleep whenever you can is a necessity.

But every once in a while, when your baby is sleeping, stay awake and just watch her. There is nothing in the world so peaceful as a soundly sleeping baby (especially if there was a long battle to reach that stage). Marvel at the tininess of her finger- and toenails. Be in awe of her perfect skin. Touch the unbelievable softness of her downy hair. Admire her long, thick eyelashes. Try to decide whether she’ll have your smile, or her nose will look like your dad’s, or her hair will get curly like your husband’s, or if she’ll have your sister’s freckles or your brother-in-law’s dimple or your grandfather’s crooked pinkie finger.

You can always make up the sleep later, but your baby will only be a baby for so long. Soak it in.

5.      You can do it all yourself.

You’ve heard the expression, “It takes a village to raise a child”? Once you have a child, you realize that the village is not just for the child’s benefit – it’s also for the parents’. Raising a child seems like the most natural thing in the world, and it is. But it is also exhausting, frustrating, and never-ending. Sometimes you just need a break. So when your mother-in-law offers to come watch the baby so you can take a nap (or go grocery shopping, or get a haircut, or read a book, or take a shower), let her! And if she doesn’t offer, but you need a break, ask her. Or ask your mom, or your best friend, or your next-door neighbor. It’s not a sign of weakness to need help. And it’s definitely a sign of wisdom to ask for it and to accept it when you do need it.

6.      Poop, snot, and vomit aren’t gross when they’re your baby’s.

Wrong! Poop, snot, and vomit are always gross. They’re gross when they’re someone else’s, they’re gross when they’re your own, and they’re gross when they’re your baby’s. But they’re gross for the baby, too. So you clean them up because you love your cherub more than you hate bodily excretions. Yes, it’s gross, but you deal with it and you move on. It’s good training, because a lot of parenting is like that: distasteful, but transitory.

7.      They grow up so fast.

This one is actually not a myth, although there will be times when you are convinced that it is. Some days seem like they will never end. Some phases seem like they will never end. You wonder when you’ll ever stop buying diapers and formula. You wonder if your house will smell like Desitin forever. You wonder if a weekend trip will ever require less than an entire carful of baby equipment. You wonder if you will ever again get to pee without an audience. But then suddenly your baby is a year old – or 10 years old – or 18 years old – and you wonder when that happened. I think it’s best summed up by the saying, “The days last forever, but the years fly by.”

So when you’re in the throes of a “Will this ever end?” stage, convinced that your children will never grow up, remind yourself that no stage lasts forever and that this is one saying that is not a myth. And if you have a hard time convincing yourself, just ask your mom. She still can’t believe you’re grown up enough to have a baby of your own.

Play Nice

With a title like “Play Nice” in a blog that’s mainly about motherhood, you would think that this blog entry would be about teaching my children to share their toys or not hit each other. But it’s not about children learning to be nice to each other. It’s about adults being nice to each other – or sometimes not.

Several months ago, my doctor scheduled me for my first mammogram. I wasn’t having any problems, but I was 43 and had been busy having babies since I turned 40, so I had never had one. I was still nursing at the time, but the doctor assured me that as long as I pumped right before my appointment, it would be fine. I am quite medical-phobic, so between that and the fact that I had a new baby and hadn’t slept more than 3 hours in a row for several months (not to mention still being completely hormonal), I was pretty much a basket case when I arrived at the office. With shaking hands, I completed an absurdly extensive questionnaire in the waiting room that asked me pretty much everything EXCEPT whether I was nursing. The technician called me in without introducing herself or making any pleasantries. I attempted to make a bit of small talk in order to ease my own anxiety, and mentioned in passing that I had a new baby. She made a face and grumped, “You’re not NURSING, are you?” I told her I was but assured her that I had pumped before I came, like my doctor had told me. She literally rolled her eyes and told me in a very annoyed voice that they couldn’t possibly do a mammogram on me. She never offered to call my doctor and check if there was a reason she had ordered the scan now, she never apologized for the miscommunication, she never even offered to reschedule my exam. She just kind of stared at me blankly like I was an idiot. Needless to say, I left the office in tears.

This morning, I went in for another try. This time I had a different technician (thank God), who immediately introduced herself and asked me how I was doing. She made some small talk that put me at ease and carefully explained what she would be doing. When she asked if I had had a mammogram before, I gave her a brief summary of my previous experience. She clucked sympathetically and told me it was too bad I’d had to go through that, and reiterated how important it was to be able to get a clear baseline image. She assured me that she would be able to get a good clear scan this time. She was gentle but firm, apologized for my discomfort, and just generally made the experience as not unpleasant as possible. In other words, she was NICE. And that made all the difference in the world.

Now, it may be that the first technician was having a lousy day. It may be that I was the third patient that week who had been incorrectly told by a doctor that a scan could be done while nursing. It may be that her hemorrhoids were acting up. But whatever her problem was, it would have made both of our lives a lot more pleasant if she had tried to be a little nicer. A little nice goes a long way. If she had put me at ease, it would have made her life a lot easier, too. A comfortable patient is a cooperative patient. After all, nice is contagious. When you’re nice to people, they’re more likely to be nice to you. And conversely, when you’re grumpy and unfriendly, the people around you become grumpier and more unfriendly as well. It’s a vicious circle.

So let’s all try being a bit nicer to each other. After all, if 2- and 3-year olds can learn to “play nice,” can’t we all?

Thing 1 and Thing 2

My husband is a huge fan of Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss. Geisel was a fellow Dartmouth alum and a member of my husband’s fraternity, Sigma Phi Epsilon. So when Geisel visited Dartmouth while my husband was a student, he made sure to introduce himself and even get a photograph, which his father later sent to Geisel to have it autographed.

Geisel’s inscription reads, “It’s very flattering to have my picture wanted…especially with my mouth stupidly open like that. – Ted Geisel”. It is one of my husband’s prize possessions. So naturally, the last time we were up at Dartmouth, he bought the kids bright red T-shirts reading “Thing 1” and “Thing 2”.

For those of you may not remember Thing 1 and Thing 2, they were the fluffy blue-haired cohorts of the Cat in the Hat, always making messes and getting into trouble. Other than the mops of blue hair, my children are very similar to the Things. They specialize in making messes and getting into trouble.

My daughter, at 9 months, is on the verge of walking, but even without that skill, she has become a master of climbing. A few days ago I left her in the playroom for literally 90 seconds while I used the bathroom. When I came out, she had climbed all the way upstairs into the kitchen and was happily opening and closing the cabinet doors. Another time, I left the room to answer the phone, and in the 30 seconds I was gone she had climbed up onto the seat of the couch, then pulled herself up onto the back of the couch, and was standing on the back of the couch, hanging onto the stair railing behind it and grinning at me. If there is a door within her reach, she will open it. If there is a button nearby, she will push it. If there is any kind of small object on the floor, she will pick it up and eat it. If there is any kind of large object on the floor, she will pick it up and bonk herself with it.

And speaking of bonking, her big brother, at age 2-1/2, can give Thing 1 and Thing 2 a run for their money in the world of bonking. Sometimes he bonks himself, sometimes his sister, sometimes another toy or the wall or the television set. But if he can lift it up, he needs to try bonking something with it.

He’s also at an age where he needs to test his will against his parents’ at every opportunity. If I tell him to put down something that he’s holding, he’ll look at me and hang onto it for a few moments, until I raise my voice or warn him about a spanking, before he puts it down. Or he stares at me blankly as I pry it from his hand. I’ll tell him to do something (sit in his chair, get into the car, take off his shoes) and he’ll calmly say, “No, thank you.” (At least he’s often polite about his defiance.) He is mischief personified.

Thing 1 and Thing 2, in the Cat in the Hat books, are often infuriating, and yet the reader is still always delighted when they make their appearance. Likewise, my children are often infuriating, and yet I am still always delighted with them. It is one of the mysteries of life that children can drive you absolutely bonkers but at the same time you’d still throw yourself in front of a bus for them.

It reminds me of a comment Jeff Foxworthy once made: He said he never understood God’s relationship with the human race until he had children. And then he understood how it’s possible for God to love us even when we drive Him absolutely crazy with our disobedience and our mischief.

Yes, I sure do love my Thing 1 and my Thing 2, even when they’re destroyed my house and getting on my nerves and just generally driving me nuts. Because they’re still MY Thing 1 and Thing 2.

Kids Keep You Humble

There are times when your kids totally build up your self-esteem and puff up your ego. Like when my son sees me wearing lipstick or a dress and announces, “Oooh, Mama, you look so pretty!” Or when my daughter hears my footsteps coming down the stairs to the playroom and she drops everything to crawl over to me as fast as she can and give me a huge grin. But there are other times when kids have a knack for bursting your egotistical bubble and cutting you right down to size.

The reason they do it is that kids notice everything. And they’re curious about everything. So when they see something new, or something they haven’t noticed before, they want to check it out and ask questions about it. You often don’t realize the kinds of things that polite adults ignore or at least pretend not to notice until there’s a small child pointing it out and asking questions about it. It could be a pimple on someone’s chin, a birthmark on their neck, a streak of grey in their hair, a dark mole on their arm, or some kind of a facial tic. In my case, it’s my hairy toes.

Yes, I admit it. I have hobbit feet. Every one of my toes sports long, unladylike, thick black hairs. I trim them, I even shave them occasionally. And if another adult happens to notice my hairy toes when I’m wearing sandals, they would never dream of calling attention to them. But my son has no such compunctions. He was looking at my feet the other day and announced, “Hey, Mama, you have hair on your toes!” He was fascinated by it. He tried pulling the hairs out (ouch!), he tried combing them (yes, they’re that long), he spent several minutes stroking them this way and that. I was a bit embarrassed. But you know what? I have hairy toes. It’s a fact. They aren’t hairy because I’m a bad person, or because I don’t take good care of myself. They’re just hairy because they are. And there’s nothing wrong with that. In my son’s opinion, it’s actually kind of cool. But it’s still a bit humbling to me to be reminded of the fact.

So I hope my son restrains himself from pointing out my hairy toes in public. But if he does, that’s okay. With all the hugs and “I love you”s and open adoration I get from him, a little humility to keep my ego in check is probably a good thing.

Someone's in the Kitchen with Mama

I spotted an article in Slate Magazine this morning about cooking with children: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2012/03/children_cooking_how_young_can_they_be_.html. It made me feel very proud of the cooking I’ve done with my 2-1/2 year old son. I always loved cooking with my own mom, although I started at a much later age, maybe 9 or 10. But what really spurred me on to get him involved in the kitchen was when I was taking care of my then 11-year-old nephew, who happened to be a very picky eater. He was in rehearsals for a show right around the corner from our house, and my sister-in-law asked if I could pick him up for his dinner break so she wouldn’t have to make a 1-1/2 hour round-trip during rush hour. I was delighted to help, but concerned that he wouldn’t eat anything I made. But then I read an article about how children are much more willing to eat food that they helped make themselves, so I decided to recruit him to help me make homemade meatballs and marinara sauce. For a kid who generally only ate bread and cheese, he ate an impressive amount of “his” meatballs. So I decided to do the same with my own son.

At age 2-1/2, the majority of his contributions are cracking eggs, pouring milk or sugar or flour into a measuring cup, and stirring, stirring, stirring. But I can already see that he will be ready to make more significant contributions very soon. Knives and flames are still on the forbidden list, but there are plenty of recipes that include very little of either that he will be able to manage with just the tiniest bit of help from me, very soon. In fact, he has already made shepherd’s pie with my help only in browning the beef, pouring the boiling water for the mashed potatoes, and pointing out the right line on the measuring cup. My son spooned the meat into the baking dish, poured on the frozen corn, measured the milk and butter for the potatoes and stirred them up, spread them carefully over the top, and sprinkled the whole thing with shredded cheese. He was so proud of his creation! And I can imagine him making his own meatloaf the same way – cracking a few eggs, measuring out the bread crumbs and herbs and salsa, squishing everything together with freshly-washed hands, and then pressing it into a pan. In fact, every time I make a recipe, I think about what parts of it he will be able to do and how soon.

I know he will love making chicken parmesan, whacking the chicken breasts with the little mallet, carefully laying out the squares of mozzarella, and pouring the sauce over the top. He’ll love pouring oil onto his hands to slather over a whole turkey. He’ll squeal with mock disgust as he pulls the guts out of a whole chicken and replaces them with some chunks of lemon.

But the best part will be when I break out my mother’s chocolate fudge party cake recipe that I remember learning to make with her. Or when I teach him all the different options for my grandmother’s 3-bean salad recipe. Or when I show him the intricacies of slicing my grandfather’s favorite Swedish tea ring just so. Or when I pass along my mother-in-law’s tortilla soup recipe, the one she made for me when we brought my son home from the hospital. I will love sharing all the family stories and traditions. I look forward to teaching him that Christmas means making Kinderpunch for when we decorate the tree, or having hot mulled cider simmering on the stove while the trick-or-treaters come around on Halloween. Or the first time he helps me decorate the bunny cake we make every Easter, or the gingerbread man cake we make for his dad’s birthday every year.

Food is more than food. It’s family tradition. It’s a link in a chain of family, and love, and laughter, and story-telling. And I can’t wait to carry on those traditions with my own children!

Going Up

For those of you unfamiliar with theatrical lingo, the expression “Going up” refers to putting on a show. It also happens to be the title of a song from a musical called “A Man of No Importance.” It also happens that last night the production of “A Man of No Importance” that I am performing in went up.

It’s difficult to explain to someone who has never performed on stage exactly what the emotions of an opening night performance are like. Standing backstage, waiting for the house lights to go down and the overture to begin, is a bit like standing at the front of a line to get on a roller coaster. You’re excited, you’re terrified, you’re suddenly wondering why the hell you thought this was a good idea in the first place. But you realize that it’s too late to back out so you take a deep breath, step out with a leap of faith, and let the ride take you where it will. And right afterwards, that rush of adrenaline gives you a high like nothing else in the world, and you can’t wait to do it all over again.

And just like roller coasters, the experience of performing is not for everyone. Some people get on a roller coaster and never get that happy, excited rush. They just feel like throwing up. And theater is the same way. Some people just don’t enjoy being on stage. They only experience the terror and never reach that euphoria of connecting with an audience, that delicious terror of teetering on the edge of disaster at every moment. And I’m a bit unusual, in that I have a bit of both extremes. Up until performance time, I am completely neurotic. Anyone who has ever performed with me knows that I always have a cheat sheet with me, I don’t deal well with any last-minute changes, and I completely freak out with nerves during tech week. But come opening night, I’m cool. I know that I can manage anything that happens. And, in live theater, anything can – and will – happen.

My mom was always impressed with how composed I am on stage. She definitely fell in the “only feel like throwing up” category of performing, and she told me that my composure definitely came from my grandmother, not from her. My mom told me a story of how, when my grandmother was in high school, she was performing in a play and just as the curtain began to rise, she felt the elastic band of her underpants snap and her panties fell down to the ground. (This was in the early 1920s, mind you.) Without missing a beat, she stepped out of them, kicked them under the couch she was standing in front of, and went on with the scene. Now THAT is a performer who knows how to roll with the punches.

So although last night’s performance went beautifully smoothly, as with any show, there were a few glitches, and I like to think that I managed them in a way that would make my grandmother proud. When I came onstage for a scene and found that someone had accidentally cleared the chair I was supposed to sit in, I calmly went backstage, grabbed another one and walked right back into the scene as if that was supposed to happen. When I started to exit another scene and saw that an apron had fallen in the middle of the floor, I nonchalantly scooped it up on my way by and tucked it out of sight behind a set piece. When I noticed that someone had left a prop on a table that wasn’t supposed to be there, I simply took it with me when I exited the scene. When another actor closed a door but it didn’t quite catch and swung back open, I surreptitiously closed it behind her. If those things had happened during tech week, my mind would have been spinning: “Did someone mean to leave that prop there? If I clear it, will someone kill me backstage? Is someone else going to come through that door so it’s supposed to be open? What if I hide the apron on stage but then someone else needs to pick it up backstage?” When there’s no audience, I overthink things so much that I get scattered. But when there are people out there watching, I somehow know that I can manage anything. If someone needs that apron, I know I can figure out an ad lib to take me on stage for a moment to grab it for them. If someone needs to come through that door and can’t open it themselves, I trust that they’ll know to knock with an elbow and I’ll open it for them. And if I can’t figure out how to fix it, I know that someone else will.

The beauty of theater, for me, is how deeply you come to trust not only yourself, but your fellow actors. Even if you’re alone on stage, if you blank out and suddenly find yourself staring at the audience without the faintest idea of what you’re supposed to be saying, you can trust that someone backstage will either hiss you a cue or find an excuse to come onstage and get you back on track somehow. My favorite actors to work with are not necessarily those who are amazingly brilliant actors, but those who can be trusted to save your butt if necessary. They’re the ones who’ll figure out how to say your line for you if you screw up. Who’ll roll with whatever happens. One of my favorite theater “oops” stories is from a production of “Cabaret” that I did a number of years ago. In one particular scene, we were in a nightclub and I was supposed to cross the stage and then begin to dance with someone. As the lights went up, I looked up to see the man I was supposed to dance with standing in the wings, wearing the wrong costume, staring at me with a horrified look on his face as he realized he’d skipped ahead and there was no way he could come out for the scene. Thinking quickly, I crossed the room and grabbed another actor that I knew I could trust to go along with whatever I did, and pulled him up to dance with me. He looked a bit alarmed and whispered to me, “Um, I don’t know this dance!” even as he followed my clumsy lead. I whispered the steps a beat or two ahead and he gamely obeyed. When I exited the scene, the director ran up to me and literally threw himself at my feet, he was so thankful that I was able to cover the mistake. But it wasn’t that hard, because I knew there were other actors onstage who had my back.

Good theater is nothing if not teamwork. Actors need to read each other, to trust each other, and to help each other. And when that happens, there is no feeling in the world quite like going up!

Far More Precious Than Jewels

Today, the website salary.com posted their annual estimation of what a stay at home mom’s work is worth (http://www.salary.com/mom-paycheck/). This number is based on average time spent per week on jobs such as laundry operator, facilities manager, housekeeper, cook, van driver, janitor, and psychologist. The study calculated a base salary of about $37,000 for the first 40 hours, plus roughly 55 hours of overtime pay at about $76,000, for a grand total of $113,000. According to a radio interview I heard about the study, this number is a national average so, adjusted for the Boston area (where I live), what I do is worth around $120,000 dollars a year.

Now, I don’t deny that’s a nice, fat paycheck, and I certainly wouldn’t complain if someone offered to pay me that amount. But I do beg to differ at the article’s definition of “worth.” Being a stay-at-home parent cannot be defined simply by monetary worth. And this is a job description that is, by far, so much greater than the sum of its parts.

The time I spend as a day care teacher is worth about $9,500 of my salary. But hearing my son use words like “humongous” and “actually,” or count to twenty, or point out letters that he knows, to me, is priceless. Actually being there to see my daughter stand without support for the first time instead of getting a report about it from someone else is priceless.

The time I spend cooking for my family is worth nearly $10,000 of my salary. But cutting sandwiches into gingerbread men, letting my son be my sous chef when I bake cornbread, and watching my daughter’s funny expression as she tastes a piece of something I just made and rolls it around in her mouth is priceless. Being able to tailor my menus to the tastes of the people in my own family is priceless. Watching my children grow strong and healthy on the food I prepare for them is priceless.

The time I spend driving my son around to things like gymnastics and church and the playground is worth $6,000. And the time I spend as a psychologist is worth nearly $15,000. But the value of just getting to talk to him – and, more importantly, to listen to him – is immeasurable. Discovering how and what he thinks about the world around him has a value that cannot be calculated in dollars and cents.

And let’s not forget that, as with all jobs, there are always “other duties as assigned.” How about nurse, when the baby is running a fever of 102 and the preschooler is coughing up a lung in the middle of the night? Or conflict mediator, when both kids are determined to play with the same toy at the same time? Fashion consultant, photographer, travel agent, personal shopper, manicurist, hairdresser – there are truly too many components to list.

It’s nice that someone has calculated a tangible, numerical value for my job, something that in some way recognizes and attempts to validate what I do every day. But I know, and my family knows, that what I do, and what all stay at home parents do, is worth far more than can be defined by a paycheck.

An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life. She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household. She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy. She is not afraid of snow for her household, for all her household are clothed in scarlet. Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.” Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.

- Excerpted from Proverbs 31

An Open Letter of Hope and Sorrow

Yesterday, a dear friend of mine from college passed away, leaving a young teen daughter. This is an open letter I wrote for her.

My dear Sarah,

My heart is breaking today. It is breaking for myself, for your father, for your grandparents, for all your aunts and uncles and cousins, and for everyone who knew and loved your mother, but most especially for you. It is never easy to lose your mother, but it is even harder when she is so young and when you are at an age where your mother is so important.

The first time I met your mother, nearly 25 years ago, she was only 8 or 9 years older than you are now. I was a shy college freshman, and she was a worldly senior who lived on the same floor of my dorm. And she had a car. I think it was probably only about the first week of school when she scooped up me, her roommate Kim, and another friend from the floor, Dorie, and we all hopped into her car and took off on some adventure, probably to get ice cream or burgers. I don’t think that any of us imagined that the four of us would become part of a circle of friends that would last for the rest of our lives. A few months later, a girl named Suzanne transferred in and we all piled into your mom’s car again, this time to go to Pizza Hut, and one more person was added to that circle of friends. We did a lot of laughing that night, and ever since.

That’s always how I think of your mom: laughing and smiling. Even in hard times, she was able to find laughter. The same year I met her, your Grandpa Gray was taken to the hospital in Boston, and your mom and Kim took off in the middle of the night to go visit him. They got lost in a very bad part of town, and when your mom told us the story of two white girls driving through Roxbury at 2am cranking Amy Grant music from the windows of an ancient green VW Beetle, she had us all in hysterical laughter. She was afraid because her dad was very sick, but she still managed to find something to smile about.

Two of the biggest smiles I remember seeing from her both happened in the same place. Your mom and I went to the same church, and I taught a Sunday School class for two-year-olds. We kept the door classroom door closed before class started so none of the little ones would escape, and one morning your mom opened the door just enough to stick her head through. She had a huge grin on her face and when I asked her what was up, she didn’t say a word, she just stuck her left hand through the crack of the door to show me the beautiful diamond and sapphire engagement ring your father had just given her when he asked her to marry him. Only a year or two later, she stuck her head in the door again, this time to tell me that she was pregnant with you. If it’s possible, her smile was even bigger that day.

Your mom had many accomplishments over her lifetime, but the one she was proudest of was you. The day I visited her in the hospital when you were born, she handed me the beautiful little bundle that was you and said to me with unmistakable love and pride in her voice, “Do you want to hold my daughter?” She announced your every milestone to her family and friends with great pride. When you performed in a dance recital, she was proud that you were graceful, but even prouder that you worked hard to do well. When you got a good grade on a test, she was proud that you were smart but ever prouder that you had the discipline to study for the test without her nagging you. When you had friends over, she was proud that you were such a good and loyal friend. She was so proud of the lovely young woman you have become.

It’s hard to understand why people sometimes die young. Part of me wants to be angry at God for taking your mom so soon. I don’t understand why He chose her. But what I do understand is that no mother could have set her daughter a better example, or set her daughter on a better path, than your mother did for you. I know that the woman you are, and the woman you will become, is a person who would make her proud. And I know that her spirit will continue to watch over you and to be with you.

I also want to share with you something that a very wise woman told me when I lost someone that I loved: When someone close to you dies, it leaves a hole in your heart that will never completely heal. But over time, memories of that loved one fill the hole until it’s just a tiny scar. I pray that your happy memories of your mom will quickly fill the hole in your heart. And if you ever need a few extra memories to help fill that hole, I will be more than happy to share some of mine with you.

In love and sorrow,

Aunt Sandy

Tooth or Dare

My husband has been mocking me for the past 5 months because I keep saying that our daughter is teething. And I keep insisting that one of these days I’ll be right. Well, yesterday afternoon, I finally was. There’s a sharp little tooth cutting through those shell-pink gums. It is officially the end of letting her chew on my face.

As excited as I am to finally be right, I’m also a little bit sad. There’s something incredibly charming about a gummy baby grin. When a tooth appears, it’s still adorable but it’s a different adorable. It’s slightly more grown up, slightly less innocent. And knowing that Katie is my last baby, it’s a bit bittersweet. Never again will I have a child of mine grinning at me with a toothless grin. My last baby has entered a new phase: teeth.

She’s shown a lot of interest in food lately, so this new tooth will come in very handy. Having an older brother definitely makes her different from her kind-of-only-child brother, who had no-one but adults around him. My son often eats his meals sitting on the floor in his footless high chair, so she is the perfect height to check out what he is eating, and she surely does. She is fascinated by what he eats, and usually tries to steal it. And the delightful thing is that he wants to share with her. He is thrilled at her admiration, and loves to offer her treats from his meals. If he has chunks of apples, of cantaloupe, or bananas, she steals a chunk or two to gnaw on. If he has pizza, he offers her the crusts. If he has a breakfast bar, he wants to give her a taste. I love how generous he is to her.

And now that she has a tooth – soon to be teeth – there is nothing she can’t try. As long as it’s not a choking hazard, I’m up for letting her take a crack at anything that grabs her attention. My son is not an especially picky eater, but it took him a long time to be willing to eat meat, and even vegetables (other than squash) are still not his “thing,” yet she is excited about everything right now. One of the benefits of being a second child, I suspect, is a willingness to try anything. And when her brother is around, he’s ready to offer her anything he has.

So far, she’s gnawed on pizza crusts, apple rings, and chicken nuggets. She attempts to steal her brother’s breakfast bars, toast, sippy cups of milk, and French fries. Pretty much anything that’s on his plate, she’ll take a crack at: cantaloupe, French toast, hot dog chunks. I think she’ll learn more about eating from what’s on her big brother’s plate than anything she’ll learn from mom & dad.

And since her big brother loves offering her samples from his plate, I have no doubt that her eating habits will be even better than his. Just one more of the benefits you don’t really realize you get from having a big brother. Not to mention the fact that he loves to help make chocolate chip cookies. That, if nothing else, guarantees him “Best Big Brother” status forever.

CPS Will Be By Any Day Now

I love my children, and I’m a good mother, but I have a feeling that Child Protective Services will have me under surveillance before long. Why? Because my kid has a great imagination. I know, that doesn’t sound like a reason to call CPS. But the problem is that my kid with the great imagination likes to make up answers to questions. Sometimes very inappropriate answers. Let me give an example: My son takes a mom-and-me gymnastics class on Mondays and Fridays. Usually my husband is able to work from home and watch my daughter, but sometimes he has a meeting so I bring her with me. She had come to class on Friday, but yesterday she stayed at home with Daddy, so the gymnastics teacher asked my son where his sister was. He replied very matter-of-factly, “She’s in the car.” Fortunately, the teacher knows me well enough to know that I had NOT, in fact, left my baby alone in the car. But if my son announced that to someone who didn’t know me, I might very well be getting a call from CPS.

Now, I love the fact that my son has a very active and creative imagination. I love that he makes up stories on the spot. I love that he occasionally tells people that I’m a firefighter or a doctor. (I’m a little less thrilled at his choice of adjective, “big,” as in “Mama is a BIG firefighter” – emphasis his.) I love that he pretends to be a pirate, or a construction worker, or a racecar driver. But I can easily see how his pretending could be misinterpreted by a stranger. He likes to pretend that he’s a patient and someone else is the doctor, so I could well imagine him approaching a parent at the playground or the library and informing them, “I have a boo-boo,” and then listing 27 different places that he’s hurt. And then having that parent call CPS to come and make sure I’m not knocking him down the stairs on a regular basis.

I guess that’s a good fear to have – if I actually were knocking him down the stairs, it’s a good thing that other parents would be concerned enough to call for help. But it would be really embarrassing to have to explain to a social worker that my kid was just playing doctor and I’m sorry for wasting their time. Fortunately, I think it’d be pretty obvious pretty quickly that my kids are loved and well taken care of. And it would also be pretty obvious pretty quickly that my son makes up stories. By the time a social worker had been there for five minutes he or she would have undoubtedly already been asked to put on a fireman’s helmet and help rescue a cat stuck up a tree, or invited to listen to my son’s heartbeat with a stethoscope, or informed that we were going to build a house together.

Of course, he also might inform him or her that he hit his sister, which is probably the truth on most days. But that’s another story entirely.

Um, please don’t report us to CPS, okay?

A Is Like B

I love seeing my son make connections between things. It amazes me how all of a sudden he figures out how something works, or the pattern that its shape makes, or how it relates to something else. Just this morning, he made a bunch of observations that something was like something else. He was bringing his folding stepstool over to the counter and he looked through the open square at the top and said with delight, “Hey! This looks like a window!” Then as the two of us sat at the kitchen table eating our breakfast, he told me, “This is just like a restaurant!” And then he noticed a bouquet of flowers in a vase on the table and announced, “Those flowers look like an umbrella.” When you think about those observations, they’re pretty profound for a 2-1/2 year old mind.

Think about it: a window is made of glass, has panes in it, and is usually in the middle of a wall. But he was able to grasp the main points of it: it’s square and you can look through it. Therefore, even though his ladder had no glass, no panes, and no surrounding wall, he still could see that it had a big square hole that he could look through, which made it like a window. A restaurant is a place you go to that has a lot of people and tables where someone brings you your food. But it’s also a place where you sit at the table with your family to eat. So even with no waitress, no menus, no strangers at other tables, and no drive to get there, he recognized the commonalities. But the bouquet/umbrella connection was the most impressive to me. After all, an umbrella is made of fabric, it has a skinny handle, it’s used outdoors, and it’s nearly always being carried by someone. But it’s also wider and flared at the top, over a narrower base, so the vase of flowers, despite being indoors and sitting on a table, certainly fit that general shape description. What an abstract connection for a small mind to make!

I swear, I can practically see his brain forging new synapses. Every day – every hour, practically – he says or does something to show that he’s just learned a new relationship between objects, or he’s figured out how two objects can be used for the same purpose, or he understands what a word means in a different context than he’s ever heard it before. If I learned things as quickly as he’s learning them right now, I’d be smarter than Einstein by next Tuesday. The human brain is an amazing thing in any context, but in the developmental stage of the first few years of life, it’s absolutely – well, mind blowing.

It's an Art, or, The Difference Between Good and Great

This weekend, my husband and I celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary as we have for the past two years, by spending a few days in Newport, Rhode Island. One of the highlights of the trip, for me, is the wonderful restaurants where we dine. The first year we had dinner at Castle Hill Inn, and immediately declared that to be an annual tradition. The food is magnificent, the ambiance and the ocean view are lovely, and the service is impeccable. This year, we had dinner at Castle Hill our first night, and then our second night we ate at a newer restaurant called The Muse, which is in the Vanderbilt Grace hotel. Like Castle Hill, the ambiance is charming, and the food is magnificent, but the service is…well, let’s say, “unpolished.” It was the difference between a good dining experience and a great one.

For example, at Castle Hill, we had an assistant server who seemed to be relatively new – she was very young and seemed slightly nervous, but she was pleasant, helpful, and knew her duties and did them well. She had obviously been well trained. She cleared plates unobtrusively, made sure our water glasses were filled, and made charming small talk with us as appropriate. At one point when she was clearing, she dropped a fork and was obviously unsure of how to handle it. Her hands were full and I could see her considering whether she should try to stoop down and retrieve the fork, but then I noticed her catch our regular waiter’s eye and he subtly tipped his head to indicate to her to leave it, and he came over and swept it up for her. It was a perfect example of a team working well together, silently communicating in such a way as to not disturb the guests, and efficiently fixing problems.

Castle Hill Inn

In contrast, our waiter at The Muse informed us that he had only been there for a few weeks. He was unfamiliar with many of the bar and menu items, and although he dutifully checked with the kitchen and came back with descriptions, his descriptions were mostly reiterations of the descriptions on the menu and repetitions of the word, “delicious.” I’m sure everything on the menu is delicious, but I was hoping for something more descriptive, like, “spicy” or “tangy” or “the sage in the polenta is very subtle” or “the peach glaze is a bit sweet but it’s a nice complement to the tartness of the cranberry coulis.” He was pleasant enough, and obviously eager to serve, but he was a bit disorganized and the service suffered for it. At one point we mentioned how much we were enjoying the pianist and asked if she had business cards on the piano. Our waiter offered to get us one from the office and even offered to give us one of her CDs, but neither card nor CD ever materialized. My husband’s napkin fell on the floor and the hostess offered to bring him a new one, but after she took the old one away, she forgot to bring the new. When our dessert soufflé and ice cream was served, an assistant server removed our spoons and gave us forks. (To her credit, she later brought me an extra napkin to cover the drips I made on the tablecloth while trying to eat a dessert including ice cream and chocolate sauce with a fork.) There appeared to be no regular bartender on duty, and both the hostess and our waiter seemed to be covering the bar, sometimes to the neglect or at least delay of their own duties.

The Muse at the Vanderbilt Grace

Any one of those mistakes or glitches would have been understandable and forgivable, but the collection of all of them, including how they were handled (or, more importantly, not handled), made the difference between a good dining experience and a great one.

At both restaurants, the food was perfectly prepared and gorgeously plated. At both meals, the chef sent out delightful little amuse-bouches between courses that were creative, unusual, whimsical, and delicious. In both cases, the staff recommended wines that were ideal complements to our meals. In both restaurants, the linens, dishes, utensils, and glassware were lovely, beautifully presented, and appropriate for each course. At both locations, the restaurant was tastefully decorated, there was lovely background music, there was soft lighting, and there were interesting and complementary fixtures and artwork or architectural details. Truly, the only major difference between the two evenings was the polish of the service.

It just goes to show that there is a fine line between good and great, and as the saying goes, “The devil is in the details.” Anticipating your guests’ needs makes you great. Knowing your menu inside and out and being able to describe it in a way that will convince your guests that they cannot possibly live without ordering that specific dish makes you great. Organization, communication, and teamwork make you great.

I hope that The Muse is able to improve their organization and their training. In their defense, they have only been open for not quite one year, so they are undoubtedly still learning and mastering their own systems. If they can do that, they have the potential to provide as fine a dining experience as Castle Hill does. But until they do, I’ll still be a strict devotee of Castle Hill. Because I know that there I will be treated like a queen. A queen with a very well-trained staff.

The Perfect Wedding

Four years ago today, I married my Prince Charming in the perfect wedding. Well, MY perfect wedding, anyway. Looking back, I still wouldn’t change a thing. Because these are the things I remember most from my wedding day:

Waking up in my mom’s living room, where I’d slept on the floor on a camp mattress shared with my mom, in a house full of relatives who were nearly as excited as I was.

Getting ready at the church, with my matron of honor and my mom. Watching myself in the mirror as my mom pinned her headpiece in my hair and laughing as my matron of honor got all teary and then tucked an emergency Kleenex in her budge.

Hearing the beautiful music of a brass quintet wafting through the church.

The look on my husband-to-be’s face as the doors at the back of the church opened and he saw me in my wedding dress for the first time.

Holding his hand as I slipped the ring on his finger. Well, slipped the ring partway onto his finger, at which point it got stuck and he had to help me. (Nice symbolism of the years to come.)

Practicing our first dance in the gazebo behind the reception hall.

Racing onto the dance floor for our first dance when the music started a bit early. Dancing the traditional waltz clog with my new family. Watching my husband do the Superman dance with all the teenagers.

Being serenaded by my new brother-in-law and then a barbershop quartet. Sitting back-to-back with my husband playing the “who” game, courtesy of my sister-in-law.

Making the rounds of all our friends and family, chatting and accepting all their congratulations.

Falling asleep on my husband’s shoulder on the plane on the way to our honeymoon.

But most of all, I remember smiling. A lot. And laughing. A lot. And being so happy, not only that I would be spending my life with this wonderful man, but that all our family and friends were so genuinely happy for us. It was a day full of laughter and joy and family and friends, which is exactly what a wedding day should be.

Happy anniversary to my dearest friend and my dearest love. Here’s to four more, forty more, four hundred more! I love you.

Pork Chops and Printers

I sometimes get into lifelong feuds with inanimate objects. I know it sounds ridiculous. It sounds ridiculous because it IS ridiculous. And yet, it’s true. Take pork chops, for example.

As I often remark to my husband, “Pork hates me.” I can cook pork chops that are all exactly the same weight and thickness, yet their cooking times vary by, oh, up to an hour. I’ll throw one in for 15 minutes and it’ll turn into shoe leather, yet another one exactly the same size and shape will still be raw an hour later. This never happens to my husband. I have never seen him cook a pork chop badly. And yet there are no noticeable differences between his cooking techniques and my cooking techniques (both techniques being, “slap on Shake N Bake, place in oven” – it’s not exactly rocket science). The only possible explanation I can come up with is that pork hates me.

Computers and their accessories are often the same way. They hate me. They MOCK me. I follow the directions on the screen to the letter and nothing happens. My husband comes over, does EXACTLY the same thing I just did and the damn machine purrs to life like an overexcited kitten.

This is even more embarrassing in this age of technology when things practically install themselves. I installed a new printer this morning that has a touch screen. It explains what to do, it shows you a cartoon diagram, it even has a little animated movie so you can watch the ink cartridges magically fly into place. And yet, when I “flew” the cartridges into place with my fat little fingers, all I got was a blinking instruction snidely telling me that it would go on to the next step when I’d done it right.

It’s a good thing I didn’t have a sledgehammer handy.

I popped all five cartridges out and back in again, I slid the little tray left and right, I opened and closed every door and tray and flap that I could find, but I still got the obnoxiously cheerful little message smugly telling me it would go on when I’d done it right. I was starting to think it was a lot less cheerful and a lot more obnoxious. I watched the animation three more times and reinstalled the cartridges. Nothing. Finally, I stomped out of the room like a petulant 2-year-old (I have a great example of that hanging around my house). When I came back, my husband calmly announced that I hadn’t seated the cartridges so they made a little “click.” “Click”? There was no “click” in the animated movie. There was no mention of a “click” in the cheery message on the screen. Seriously, how hard is it to animate a little bubble with the word “click” in it?

Did I mention how fortunate it was that I didn’t have a sledgehammer handy?

Anyway, with a bit of extra help from my live-in IT guru, I finally managed to install my printer. The last step of the installation was printing a test photo, which didn’t work because I got a paper jam that the “wizard” wasn’t aware of, so the “wizard” cheered that I’d done it right when, in fact, the printer was mocking me yet again with a flashing red light and a decided lack of actual, you know, printing. But I did make it print a regular document, and when it finished, it played a little “tah dah!” like it expected me to give it a round of applause or a cookie or something. Yeah, I’ll give it something, all right. Like a knuckle sandwich.

Eh, pork chops and printers. They might not agree with me much, but fortunately, neither of them is nearly as important as they think they are. And also, my husband is always willing to beat them into submission for me. And that’ll do rather nicely.

"Dance for Joy"

My son loves to dance. So much so that he will often spontaneously break into dancing without warning. Yesterday at gymnastics, we had to wait a few minutes for someone to finish using the next apparatus, and he announced to me, “Mama, I need to dance!” and began gyrating wildly, much to the amusement of all the parents watching from the observation deck.

Coming from a dance family, as he does on his father’s side (his great-grandmother, Hazel Boone, opened a dance school over 100 years ago that was later run by his grandmother and is now run by his aunt), I’d love to say that his dancing is rhythmic and stylish and shows great potential for future training. But I’m afraid he looks more like a cross between a ferret being electrocuted and a frog in a blender. It’s not pretty. He stomps as loud as he can, he flails his arms, he waggles his head back and forth, he wiggles his backside, and he spins around like a whirling dervish. There is no grace, no beauty, no pattern, no rhythm. There is merely exuberance.

Apparently he inherited his dance skills from my side of the family.

But I am reminded of Hazel Boone’s motto: “Dance for joy!” And I am forced to admit that above all else, he dances for joy. He dances for the joy of the music, the joy of a healthy body, the joy of a big room to play in, the joy of entertaining those watching him, the joy of discovering control over his own body. I like to think that Hazel Boone would have appreciated his dancing despite its lack of training and form. She would have seen the joy shining through the awkwardness.

And after all, isn’t the best dancing the kind you don’t do for anyone else? When did you last experience joy while dancing? If you’re like me, it was probably back in junior high, when you turned up the radio, grabbed a hairbrush for a microphone, jumped up on your bed, and did your best Flashdance imitation in your bedroom mirror. My moves were more Joe Cocker than Janet Jackson, but I didn’t care. I was dancing, and I was joyous.

So the next time you feel a sudden urge to get up and dance, don’t look around to see if anyone else is watching. Just grab the nearest hairbrush, wooden spoon, water bottle, or whatever is handy, rock out, and dance for joy!!!

Finishing the Hat

This weekend was an especially busy one. My husband left for a retreat at the crack of dawn on Friday morning and got home late Saturday night. We hosted the family for Easter dinner on Sunday, plus I was teaching the pre-school Sunday school class. I had a whole list of things to get done on Friday and Saturday: take both kids to gymnastics, shop for groceries, bake Easter dessert, clean the house for company, buy treats for the Easter baskets, dye Easter eggs, set the table, put together the family’s Easter baskets, plan my Sunday school lesson and find craft supplies for it, find a pair of white shoes that fit, cook the carrots for Easter dinner, sew pink ribbon and a flower onto my Easter hat, and amidst all that, keep the kids fed and bathed. Whew! There were a few things I was tempted to drop off the list, and one of the things that almost didn’t get done was to finish trimming my hat. Would it really matter all that much if my hat had a black ribbon instead of a pink one? Or if it didn’t have a flower to match my daughter’s hat? Was it really worth the time and effort to get all our outfits so coordinated or our hats to be matching?

At the end of the day, it turned out that it was. Not only did the whole family look lovely and festive,
but the three girls in our matching dresses and hats were absolutely the hit of coffee hour after church.

Three pretty girls in three pretty hats is not a sight you see every day, and we attracted our share of attention and compliments. And the boys in their handsome matching suits got nearly as much attention. It felt really nice, not just because it’s nice to get compliments, but because it really made us feel like a family. We worked together to make our outfits work together. We both complemented and complimented each other. It was really fun to make such a public announcement that we are a family. We go together, we live together, we work together.

Yup, it was definitely worth finishing the hat.

Occam's Razor: The Nap Corollary

The principle commonly referred to as “Occam’s Razor” states, basically, that the best explanation of a situation or the best solution to a problem is usually the simplest one. Occam’s Razor has a lot of applications in parenting. For example, if your 8-year-old is playing baseball in the yard and your window suddenly shatters, according to Occam’s Razor, the likeliest reason for the broken window is not a daytime prowler coming after your worldly goods, but your 8-year-old hitting a baseball through the window. Or if your 4-year-old comes to you in tears because his prized rock is missing from his pocket and there is a hole in said pocket, chances are the rock fell through the hole rather than being stolen by a marauding rock pickpocket. Today’s parenting example of Occam’s Razor is the Nap Corollary.

This particular corollary of the principle is being applied to my son’s diminishing willingness to take naps. On one hand, when I finally get him to go down for a nap, he still sleeps for two hours 99% of the time, which indicates that he needs the extra sleep. But on the other hand, on days when he doesn’t take a nap, he doesn’t generally go to bed any earlier or wake up any later, so maybe he doesn't need the extra sleep. I have been exploring solutions to the one- to three-hour long nap battle for weeks, even months, without much success. I tried putting him down with music on and with no music on. I tried putting him down as early as noon and as late as 4pm. I tried sitting in his room without speaking. I tried sitting in his room and barking at him to “Lie down!” and “Lie still!” and “Stop talking!” I tried lying in the bed next to him. I tried lying in the bed next to him while pinning him in a half-Nelson. (That was the closest to successful; however, I think it was more exhausting for me than for him so I needed a two-hour nap afterwards as well.)

But I finally lit on a solution that I think is working. For the past week, when naptime comes, I put him in his room and tell him he doesn’t have to go to sleep, or even stay in his bed. But he does need to stay in his room and play quietly for two hours. No jumping on the bed, no stuffing toys or clothes in the diaper pail (oy, there’s another whole blog entry in THAT little gem), and no hiding in the closet (he gets stuck and panics). But he can read his books and play with his toys, and if he should happen to get tired, he can lie down and take a nap. He tells me every time that he won’t take a nap, but as of today, he’s got about a fifty percent record for ending up napping, either in his bed or on the floor somewhere.

I don’t know why it took me so long to come up with the simple solution of letting him (or his body) decide whether he needs a nap or not. As long as he’s not a cranky monster for the rest of the day, it doesn’t matter to me whether he sleeps or not so long as I get two hours of not having to hover over him. Other than the aforementioned diaper pail, his room is sufficiently DestructoBoy-proofed that he can’t do any permanent damage in two hours. It gives him good practice in keeping himself entertained, it gives me a bit of a break, and it lets us both ease into the transition from napping to not napping.

And you know what the best part is? When he’s safely in his room for two hours, Mama gets to take a nap even when he doesn’t take one. Thank you, Mr. Occam, wherever you are!

April Is National Poetry Month

The word “poetry” immediately brings to mind Miss Kelly’s 7^th grade class, and memorizing dozens of poems, most notably John Masefield’s poignant “Sea Fever,” most of which I can recite to this day. Thanks to her and many other teachers like her, I have learned to enjoy many types of poetry through the years.

The poet with the earliest influence on me was, of course, Dr. Seuss. From fox in socks and hop on Pop to green eggs and ham with Sam I am, his simple, memorable rhymes taught me poetry when I could barely read. Ogden Nash and Shel Silverstein were close behind, with poems like “A Wonderful Bird Is the Pelican” (one of my father’s favorites) and “How Not to Have to Dry the Dishes.”

As I grew a bit older, I discovered that poems don’t always have to rhyme. My favorite example of a non-rhyming poem was haiku. I loved the predictable rhythm, the brevity, the tiny taste of description before the poem vanished. I could even write them myself! And I learned the beauty of other non-rhyming poems, with their glorious imagery. Some of my favorite lines of poetry are Carl Sandberg’s, “…the fog comes in on little cat feet” and ee cummings’ “…the moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy.” (Both, I may add, in my memory thanks to Miss Kelly.)

And then I discovered Shakespeare. Oh, Shakespeare! The vocabulary, the description, the pure loftiness of the words, the sly humor. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.” “’Tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but ‘tis enough, ‘twill serve.” “Full fathom five thy father lies: of his bones are coral made, those are pearls that were his eyes.” “Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” “Hark! Hark! The lark at heaven’s gate sings!” And of course, my personal favorite, from “Much Ado About Nothing”: “I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes; and moreover I will go with thee to thy uncle's.”

And so much glorious love poetry outside of Shakespeare! Robert Burns: “My luve’s like a red, red rose.” Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” Lord Byron: “She walks in beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies.” Edna St. Vincent Millay: “I will permit my memory to recall the vision of you, by all my dreams attended.” Percy Bysshe Shelly: “Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, are heaped for the beloved’s bed; And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, love itself shall slumber on.”

And our local poets. Robert Frost: “I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence.” Emily Dickinson: “I’m nobody. Who are you? Are you nobody too?” Ralph Waldo Emerson: “My angel – his name is Freedom. Choose him to be your king.” Anne Sexton: “And what of the dead? They lie without shoes in the stone boats.” Robert Lowell: “Sleepless, you hold your pillow to your hollows like a child.” Anne Bradstreet: “The world no longer let me love, my hope and Treasure lies above.”

The world is a richer place because of poetry and the poets who write it. This month, let us all lift a glass to those who wield words through poetry to make us savor those words, to question them, to enjoy them, sometimes even to hate them. But above all, to think about them.

Salut!

Sniff, Snort, Slurp

I have the noisiest sleeping baby on the face of the earth.

You look at the sleeping angel face with the long lashes, soft skin, fluffy downy blond hair, and rosebud lips, and cannot even comprehend that those phlegmy, vulgar, unladylike sounds could possibly be coming from such a perfect cherub. It’s my own fault, I suppose. She seems to have inherited her snoring, sleep slurping, general sniffiness from me. It’s a bit less noticeable in an adult, but in a small baby, large noises like that are somewhat incongruous.

I was particularly aware of her sleep sounds last night, as she had yet another fussy night and I spent most of it sleeping on the couch downstairs with her in my arms. Or rather, NOT sleeping on the couch downstairs with her in my arms. I can sometimes get her to fall asleep just enough that as long as I don’t move (or breathe too deeply), she’ll stay asleep. But the slightest movement will cause her to wiggle or cough or cry. So I lie in the dark, wide awake, every muscle tensed, listening to her breathing to see when she might be sleeping deeply enough that I can move my arm which has currently fallen asleep pinned underneath my body. And instead of quiet, calm, measured breathing, I hear slurping, snoring, wheezing, and sniffling.

She’s not a pretty sleeper.

And yet, when she sounds so uncomfortable is when my mothering instinct kicks in the most. One tiny cough, and I’m propping her into a more comfortable spot to clear her congestion. A few slurps and my finger is in her mouth to ease those sore gums. A sniffle or two and I’m wiping her button nose with a tissue. A slight wheeze and I’m making sure her head isn’t cocked at an awkward angle. General wiggling will buy her rocking and a series of lullabies. And as much as I don’t like it, I like it. In fact, I love it.

How can you not love the chance to calm an uncomfortable baby? How little of a sacrifice is your own sleep when it means your baby is peacefully slumbering? And what is more wonderful than watching a beautiful sunrise with a finally sleeping baby breathing slowly and deeply on your shoulder? Those few moments of quiet serenity are worth every hour of wakefulness listening to gurgling and mewling and tired, sad whines.

And when that sleepy baby wakes up and looks at you with a big “good morning” smile? Priceless.