Fat Tuesday

Growing up, neither my church nor my family really observed the season of Lent. I grew up in a very Catholic town, so I certainly asked at a very early age why my friends came to school with dirt on their foreheads on Ash Wednesday, and why we always had pizza and fish sticks for school lunch on Friday. I knew that some people gave things up for Lent, like chocolate, or dessert. When I was in college, a mentor challenged me to try giving something up for Lent. I didn’t really have any bad food habits, so I decided to give up wearing makeup. After the third day of people asking if I was sick, I ended that experiment. 
 

I also heard the expression “Shrove Tuesday” for the first time in college. And I already had a pretty good idea of what Mardis Gras and Carnival were. But it took a few more years before I finally made the connection of Fat Tuesday – Ash Wednesday – Lent – Easter. And now that I know all of them, I pick and choose how to observe or celebrate each one.

I’m always up for a good excuse to make a gourmet meal or dessert, or for a good excuse to indulge in some fast food that I would normally avoid, so celebrating Fat Tuesday just makes sense. I know that there are traditional indulgent foods in various cultures, such as King Cake, pancakes, donuts, and all kinds of rich pastries, but I just go for whatever food sounds like a special treat. Maybe I’ll have steak for dinner, or maybe I’ll bake some cream cheese brownies, or maybe I’ll make myself a nice thick frappe as an afternoon snack.

Some would say that I’m being a bit hypocritical to indulge myself on Fat Tuesday when I don’t plan on giving anything up for Lent. But to me, the indulgence reminds me of all the luxuries and beauties of life that are mine thanks to God. Indulging this way helps me focus on the season of Lent as it relates to Christ’s ministry here on earth. It reminds me of the solemnity of Good Friday and the joyous celebration of Easter Sunday. It brings to mind the image of Christ and His disciples partaking of a meal together on Maundy Thursday.

So laissez les bons temps rouler! Because very soon I’ll be shouting, “Christ is risen – He is risen indeed!” And that’s a reason to celebrate!

Sucker!

My daughter is a sucker.

Now, I don’t mean that she’ll fall for anything (although she will – she is only 6 months old, after all). I mean that she loves to suck on things. She doesn’t care much for binkies, but just about anything else is fair game: her own toes, my fingers, her fingers, her dolly’s hair, toy trucks, the edge of a blanket, my face. Yesterday in church she started to get a little wiggly so I stood her up in my lap and she latched onto the side of my jaw like a little remora. I suspected she would leave a mark, but it was keeping her quiet so I let her do it. At coffee hour after the service my husband gave me a funny look and said, “Do you know that you have a hickey?” I figured he was exaggerating and it was just a little red mark, but when I glanced in the mirror later in the day I saw that there was actually a very noticeable purple hickey that would make a junior higher proud. Oh, the unexpected hazards of motherhood.

But my daughter’s very favorite thing to suck on these days is her thumb. She sucks on it when she’s hungry, or sleepy, or upset. She sucks on it to entertain herself and to comfort herself. Sometimes I hear her wake up in the middle of the night and cry for a few minutes, then suddenly she stops crying and I hear a slurping sound and know she’s found her thumb. I often see her sleeping with her thumb in her mouth. Sometimes when she’s in a mellow mood sitting in my lap, watching her brother play with his toys, her little hand will sneak to her mouth and she’ll start sucking away.

I know that many parents have varying ideas about thumb sucking. Unlike a binky, you can’t take it away. Some people claim it can cause problems with a child’s teeth or bite later on. But – and I admit to possible bias, having been a thumb sucker myself – I consider it a big plus. It helps her comfort herself in the middle of the night, so I don’t have to wake up and blearily search for a binky. We can’t accidentally leave it behind on vacation. It will never fall on the floor and get covered in dust bunnies and germs. Her brother can’t throw it in the toilet. It’s always within her reach.

So I’ll let her keep being a sucker. It makes her happy, it makes me happy, and right now it isn’t doing her any harm. Besides, she looks absolutely adorable with her thumb in her mouth, and when it comes to her adorableness, I’m the one who’s a sucker.

I'm Comin' Up

At my daughter’s 6-month pediatrician appointment last week, while the doctor was examining her, she grabbed onto the doc’s arm and hauled herself up into a kneeling position. The doc was a bit surprised and asked how long she’d been doing that. I told her about a week and joked that we had to lower the crib mattress so she didn’t launch herself over the side some morning. The doc then told me that most kids don’t get to that stage till more like 9 months. I guess she’d really be amazed if she saw my daughter pulling herself up to a standing position and creeping a step or two around the coffee table today.

Right now, if I put her on the floor in the middle of the room but stand next to her, she immediately grabs my leg and does a “hand over hand” crawl up my leg until she’s up on her knees. (She hates Mondays when I take my son to gymnastics and wear my slippery Spandex yoga pants.) She’s discovering which objects in every room are useful to pull herself up on. If we bring her into the living room, she crawls right over to the coffee table, which is short enough that she can reach up and grab the edge to pull herself up. She’s frustrated in the kitchen because the chair rungs are too low and the cabinet knobs are too high for her to pull up on. Any body part of any human being in a room with her is considered fair game – if you’re sitting on the floor you may find a small warm body pulling herself up your back or grabbing your knees; if you’re walking past a pair of small hands may grab at your ankles; if you lie down you’ll be scaled like Mt. Everest.

When you think about it, the motivation for a baby to get as much height as possible has to be astounding. All the most interesting action is happening far above her head. Up to now, she’s been totally dependent on someone picking her up to be able to see any higher than about knee level. We have a booster chair with an attached tray on the floor where my son eats his lunch, and if my daughter is crawling around while he’s eating, she immediately comes over, grabs onto the tray with both hands, and hauls herself up to peep at him and check out what he’s doing. Being on the floor, she can’t see up over a lot of things, and the curiosity just kills her. Even in her crib, if she’s awake and aware that we’re in the room, she’ll stop playing with her toys and pull the bumper down so she can peer over and see us.

As sad as I am to see my baby girl leaving the tiny baby stage and becoming a crawler and a creeper, I also find it incredibly exciting to watch her learn and grow and explore the world around her. I hope she continues to reach higher and higher all her life. After all, in the words of Shakespeare, “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”

Stick It to Me

My son, for some inexplicable reason, is not a fan of meat. He will occasionally deign to eat a hotdog, or a few chicken nuggets, but in general, any kind of meat will be left on his plate. He picks the ground beef out of his shepherd’s pie, he eats around the chicken in chicken pot pie, he leaves a little pile of pork when he eats pork fried rice, he ignores the “and meatballs” part of spaghetti and meatballs.

So last week, when we were at Costco, my husband and I were absolutely amazed that he happily ate several meatball samples and a few pieces of chicken breast. What was the magic? Was it merely the allure of Costco that makes everything taste good? Was he just so starving that he would eat anything? No, the answer was simple: a toothpick. The samples were all given on a toothpick. Apparently, a toothpick makes anything palatable.

We tested this hypothesis at lunch today. My husband and I took both kids to lunch at Friendly’s. He and I both ordered sandwiches that were served skewered with a frilled toothpick, and we ordered my son a hotdog with macaroni and cheese and a side of Mandarin oranges. When his food arrived, my husband cut the hotdog into pieces and then we both oohed and aahed over how “yummy” and “scrumptious” his lunch looked. My son busied himself with his magical color-changing straw and ignored his food – until Daddy took the toothpick out of his sandwich and stuck it in one of the hotdog chunks.

You’d have thought that my son hadn’t eaten in a week. The hotdog was gone in about two and a half minutes. And the oranges were gone in about four more. (They would have disappeared faster, but they were slippery enough that he had to slide them to the middle of the toothpick, and it took him a while to master the technique of putting the toothpick in his mouth sideways and then sliding it out while keeping the orange in his mouth.)

I’m pretty sure that this will open endless new food vistas for him. As long as I include a fork, a spoon, and a toothpick with his place setting, I can dish up calamari, filet mignon, swordfish, rabbit, pheasant, and duck a’l’orange and be assured that he’ll eat it.

Heck, I’ll be happy if it means he’ll eat lasagna, meatloaf, and chicken with rice.

Happy Valentine's Day, or, Why I Love My Husband

Valentine’s Day is traditionally a day when people tell their spouses, “I love you.” Husbands, particularly, are encouraged to give their wives flowers, chocolates, or jewelry. Hallmark insists that a card is crucial. Restaurants swear that a romantic candlelit dinner is required. All these things are very nice, and they can be lovely ways to show someone that you love them. But there are other ways, too.

My husband is a wonderful and generous gift-giver. He has given me flowers, chocolates, jewelry, cards, and elegant dinners on many occasions – and often for no occasion at all. But he gives me so much more, every day, to show me how much he loves me.

The smell of a bouquet of a dozen roses is nice, but the clean sweet smell of a baby that my husband just bathed so I could have a few minutes to myself is nicer.

Chocolate is delicious, but it’s even more delicious when it’s a bag of M&Ms that my husband bought so we could use them as rewards for potty-training my son together.

Jewelry is a generous gift, but the true gift is shown when I put it on and my husband looks at my face instead of my necklace and tells me how beautiful I look.

Cards are lovely keepsakes, but a piece of construction paper covered in crayon scribbles that my husband helped my son to make for me is even better.

Elegant dinners are a special way to spend time together, but it really touches my heart and makes me feel special when my husband cooks dinner and then sets up candles AND both kids’ highchairs at the dining room table for a romantic family dinner.

Over the years we’ve been together, my husband has given me many thoughtful gifts, from the practical to the frivolous. He’s given me a GPS and a Kindle. He’s treated me to massages and facials. He’s bought me clothes and shoes and a gorgeous leather jacket and a fabulous set of pearls. He’s taken me to restaurants and shows and museums and galleries. But the best gifts are the ones that aren’t quite so tangible. The gifts that mean the most to me are usually not given for a particular occasion. They’re things like getting my car inspected, and getting up with the kids so I can sleep in, and making breakfast on Sunday morning, and doing three loads of laundry, and rubbing my feet when my arthritis flares up. They’re squishing centipedes in the bathroom for me. They’re bragging to everyone he’s ever met that I’m performing in a show. They’re telling me that I’m a great mom, and I’m smart, and I’m a good writer, and I’m a talented actress, and I’m funny, and I’m beautiful. Those are the gifts that make me feel the most loved.

Happy Valentine’s Day to my wonderful sweetheart, my best friend, and my dearest love. Thank you for making every day Valentine’s Day.

I Made This for You

Over the past few weeks, my son has begun to periodically bring me random objects and announce to me, “Mama, I make you this [X].” For example, he will hand me a plastic mixing spoon from the kitchen and tell me, “Mama, I make you this fork.” (He’s still a bit confused about the difference between a spoon and a fork. I’m scared to introduce him to the concept of a spork; he’ll never get it right after that.) This afternoon, my in-laws came over to celebrate my mother-in-law’s birthday, and when she walked in the door, my son proudly told her, “Bammy, I make you a cake!” (Her birthday cake was a gourmet cheesecake we’d bought at the store – although, in his defense, he had helped his big sister bake some cookies the night before.)

The point is, he understands that giving someone something that you made yourself makes it extra-special. On a few gift-giving occasions, my husband helped him to “sign” his name on a card he had either bought from the store or printed on his computer. But more recently, we’ve helped my son to make a whole card himself, by folding a piece of paper, drawing on it, and “writing” his name at the bottom. He recognizes that a card like that is special – more like another gift rather than merely a card.

For my birthday last year, my husband took my son to a “paint your own pottery” store and let him pick out a refrigerator magnet for me. My son got to pick out all the colors of paint (I understand that was quite a serious and painstaking process) and paint most of his chosen fish all by himself, in beautiful, even, sparkly stripes. Daddy added in a few details like eyes, but the vast majority of the project was done very, very carefully by my son. The magnet is in a place of honor on the refrigerator, way up high where he can’t accidentally knock it down and break it. (He was unhappy about its location until I explained that I’m pretty tall and where it is way up high is right in front of my face so I see it every time I go to the fridge.) And every once in a while when we’re both in the kitchen, he’ll point to it proudly and say, “Mama, it’s your present! I make that for you!”

It reminds me of all the gifts my sister and I gave my parents over the years. I remember helping to pick out Daddy’s birthday tie, but I remember the tie going into the closet while the handmade card sat on the mantelpiece in the living room for a month. In junior high, I made my mom a (hideous) cast aluminum spoonrest in metal shop, and it hung in a place of honor in the kitchen for years, while the Hallmark card got tossed a week later. I never understood why my parents adored stuff that I recognized was not the highest quality. But now that I’m a parent, I can see why a handmade gift is something so very special.

A gift says, “I was thinking of you.” A handmade gift says, “I want to do things for you.” But a handmade gift from one of your kids says, “I love you.”

Real Housewives of Massachusetts

I have been a big fan of reality television ever since it began. My love for reality TV started with competitive reality shows like The Amazing Race, The Mole, and The Apprentice. It continued with competitive cooking shows like Top Chef, Hell’s Kitchen, and Chopped. Then I discovered makeover shows like Extreme Home Makeover and What Not to Wear. But the one kind of show I could never get into was the “lives of the rich and would-be-famous,” like the Real Housewives franchise. They may be real housewives in a technical sense, since they are wives and they each live in a house, but they are certainly not “real housewives” in the sense of actually managing and running a home and family full time. Let me tell you what a REAL real housewife does.

This Real Housewife of Massachusetts doesn’t sleep with a satin eyemask on, because I often need to get up in the middle of the night to feed or soothe a crying baby or a toddler having a nightmare. I don’t have a nanny to do it; I do it myself, because that’s part of the job of being a housewife.

In the morning, my “beauty routine” does not include a 5-part anti-aging system. It doesn’t include $100 a bottle shampoo made with essence of mink oil. It doesn’t include a Brazilian body wax, or a massage, or a shot of Botox. It doesn’t include a drawerful of cosmetics. It doesn’t include a flatiron, a curling iron, or even a blow dryer. If I’m lucky, it MIGHT include a shower or brushing my teeth. If my husband goes in to work late and gets my toddler dressed and fed, it might include both.

Speaking of dressing and being fed, this Real Housewife of Massachusetts doesn’t wear designer clothes, unless “Kirkland’s Best” from Costco counts as a designer. I don’t wear cocktail dresses and stilettos around the house, either. On the rare occasion I do have shoes on, they’re sneakers. And even if I wanted to wear a cocktail dress, I’d be hard-pressed to find a pair of pantyhose without a run, because when I pick up my son, the Velcro on his sneakers snags them every time. Which doesn’t stop me from picking him up. And a cocktail dress and stilettos are impractical, because I spend most of my day on the floor playing with my kids. I enjoy playing with my kids. In fact, I prefer playing with my kids to gossiping over cocktails with other catty women. I know that might be hard to believe, but it’s true.

And speaking of friends, I do have friends. Not “frenemies,” but actual friends. Friends who love and support me, who help me out when I need it. My friends don’t talk trash about each other behind their backs (or to each other’s faces) or spread lies about each other. And I treat my friends with respect and loyalty. My friendship with them is based on mutual admiration and not whether whomever they are married to can boost my or my husband’s career.

Let’s move on to husbands. This Real Housewife of Massachusetts may have only been married for 4 years so far, but I intend to be married for at least 44 years. I chose my husband because I love, respect, and admire him. I didn’t choose him because of his bank account or his public profile. He may not be rich or famous, but he is loving, and generous, and loyal, and smart, and funny, and trustworthy. He is a great father and a great husband. He’s the only husband I’ll ever need, and he’s the only husband I’ll ever want.

This Real Housewife might not have nannies or a McMansion or designer clothes or fake boobs or a Porsche. I might not spend my days sipping cocktails by a pool or working out with my personal trainer or shopping at pricy boutiques. But what I do have is far, far better: I have a roof over my head, food on my table, clothes on my back, and a husband and two kids who think I’m the greatest. THAT’S my reality.

Sleeping Angels

This is probably true of most parents, but I love to watch my children sleep. There’s something incredibly peaceful about how fully they relax when they sleep. I often refer to it as “full body sleep”. I’ve commented in the past that my daughter seems to double in weight when she falls asleep – that’s how completely and utterly relaxed she gets.

I also like to watch them sleep because they’re both such funny sleepers. My son tends to sleep on top of his pillows and stuffed animals, sometimes with his blanket bundled into a lump underneath him, or with a pillow on top of his face. He’s usually in some odd, contorted position, as if he fell asleep in the middle of doing something. Arms over his head, legs in a running position, head tipped at some strange angle. And my daughter, in common baby fashion, falls asleep with her backside sticking up in midair, or her thumb in her mouth, or contorted into some awkward position that no-one but a baby could ever be comfortable in. Despite their relaxed state, both of them occasionally even fall asleep with one hand up in the air, hovering a few inches off the bed as if levitating as part of a magician’s show.

One of my favorite parts of watching my kids sleep isn’t even the watching, it’s the listening. Like their parents, they both tend to be snorers. Not heavy-duty, sawing-wood, set-your-teeth-on-edge kind of snoring, just a gentle, soothing gurgle. We’d given some thought as to how and when we could move my daughter’s crib out of our bedroom, but the more I think about it, the more I realize how much I’ll miss listening to her quiet breathing, her occasional sleeping coos and laughs, her soft sighs, and her little snurfly gurgle. And when I sit in my son’s room waiting for him to fall asleep during naptime, I love listening to his breathing slow down and become regular, and finally turning into his contented little whistling snore.
But I think the best part of all about watching my babies sleep is that I know I won’t have to do any scolding or punishing or comforting. Watching a peacefully sleeping child involves none of the hard parts of parenting. Just enjoying the fruits of your labors.

Ah, the Theatre, the Theatre

I was recently cast in an upcoming production of the musical “A Man of No Importance” with the Burlington Players. You might call it typecasting, since my character describes herself as a former child star of the stage who has returned to performing after having 9 (!) children. My favorite line of hers – and one of my favorite lines in the whole show – is as she’s coming in to a rehearsal and comments, “When I left the house, the 8-year-old was strangling the 4-year-old, the dirty dishes were piled up to the ceiling, and my old man was watching the telly with his trousers open. And people wonder why I love the theatre.” (It’s even funnier when you add in the requisite Irish brogue.)

I don’t claim to be a child star, but I certainly am a performer who’s taken a bit of time off from the stage to have children. And I will openly confess that as much as I adore my children – and I do – part of the appeal of being in a show is getting away from them. Or at least, of being in adult company a few times a week. When I began to consider auditioning for this show, my husband encouraged me to do it, telling me that I needed to get back to performing before either he or I lost our minds.

One of the biggest difficulties of being a stay-at-home mom is the lack of adult company, even for a loner like me. And another of the difficulties is getting some kind of validation. As much as I love being a mom, and as much as I know that I’m good at it, and as much as I consider it a hugely worthwhile endeavor, you just don’t get the same kind of kudos as you do when you’re working at a paid job. There’s no paycheck to tell you you’re worthwhile; there’s no tangible, immediate product you can point to; there’s no bonus or monthly quota or employee-of-the-month incentive to let you know you’re doing a good job. So I like finding other projects that help me feel useful and productive, like helping with costumes for another theater group, or even writing this blog. But performing, entertaining people, getting applause – that’s an immediate reward that makes me feel like I have something to contribute that not everyone can do.

So I’m trodding the boards once again. I’m dusting off my tap shoes, brushing up my brogue, and polishing my passagio. I gotta sing, I gotta dance, I gotta spend some time outside the house! Ah, the theatre, the theatre. It’s the best refuge for a mom who needs a break.

Super Bowl Ads 2012

Believe it or not, I watched the Super Bowl by myself this year. Yes, my husband was home. Yes, he likes to watch football. No, he did not watch the Super Bowl. Well, he didn’t watch the whole thing, anyway. He claims it makes him too tense, especially if it’s a close game. And considering that I, who am not much of a football fan, was pretty much having a heart attack the last five minutes of the game, I’d say he made the right choice. So I watched it by myself.

And although I do enjoy football to some degree, and I do enjoy the Super Bowl more than many other games, one of my favorite parts of the Super Bowl, I will admit, is the ads. There have been some spectacular Super Bowl ads over the years (the Coke ad with Mean Joe Green has to top that list), as well as some that were memorable despite being less than spectacular (Budweiser frogs, anyone?).

So naturally, what better blog for the day than a review of the commercials of Super Bowl 2012? And here it is – with apologies in advance if any of your particular favorites didn’t make the list.

Hyundai – lots of ads

Ugh, Hyundai spent a lot of cash on some pretty boring ads. Compare yourself to a Porsche all you want, you’re still a Hyundai. The only ad of any note (in my opinion) was the one with all the employees singing the Rocky theme. I’m still not 100% sure how that tied in to Hyundai, but hey, Rocky theme. Like.

VW - Chunky Dog and Star Wars Spoof

I’m not always a big fan of animal ads, but I find this one to be incredibly endearing. A beautiful dog working out to shed a few pounds just so he can burst through the doggie door to chase the cool red VW Bug driving past? Awesome. Extra points because I even remember what product it’s for.

But the all-around best ad of this year has to be the spoof of the Star Wars cantina scene. It recalls both a previous stellar VW ad (the little kid dressed up as Darth Vader using mind control to lock the car) and one of the most memorable scenes of a classic and nostalgic movie. The character who gets choked by Vader is a dead ringer for the character in the original film. By next month I may have forgotten that it’s for VW, but you can bet I’ll remember the ad itself for years to come.

Go Daddy – Body Painting

Ew. As always, Go Daddy brings the gross. Really, Jillian Michaels and Danica Patrick, do you need endorsement money that badly? Obviously, I am not their target demographic.

Tax Act – Need to Pee

The ad with the little boy desperately needing to pee and not finding a place to go was kind of funny. But I still can’t figure out what on earth that has to do with Tax Act. By tomorrow, I will have no idea what product this ad was for.

Doritos – Baby Bouncy

Maybe it’s because I have both a baby who loves the bouncy chair and a feisty grandmother, but I found this ad hilarious. Do NOT taunt the feisty grandma and the bouncy baby. You WILL lose.

Pepsi – Elton John

I like Elton John as much as the next guy, and trapdoors are always funny, but no-one should ever sing the song “Respect” unless her name is Aretha Franklin. Seriously.

M&Ms – Naked M&M

I was a bit surprised that I found this one to be very funny. I suspect that most people found it funny, especially because most of us have been to a party with “that guy”. Plus, it’s an ad for M&Ms, and I love M&Ms.

Ferris Buehler Revisited – Honda CR-V

I graduated from high school in 1986, so naturally I love Matthew Broderick – and Ferris Buehler. And it doesn’t hurt this particular ad that I’m also a big Honda fan. Although the edited ad that played during the actual Super Bowl was not nearly as funny as the extended version that was available on line prior to the game. “What are you still doing here? Go home!” Just as brilliant today as it was 26 years ago.

So the bottom line for me is that there were a few cute ads but really only one or two that I’ll still remember a few weeks or a few months from now. VW’s win over Hyundai was nowhere near as close as the Giants’ win over the Patriots. It was a lackluster year for me both for the commercials and for the game itself. But that’s okay. There’s always next year.

I Love to Tell the Story

One of my favorite parts of the day is my son’s bedtime, when I eavesdrop on the baby monitor while my husband tells my son bedtime stories. Or even better, when my son tells my husband bedtime stories. Two of my son’s favorite stories are Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and The Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf. But when he tells them back to us, they come out somewhat altered from the original. In fact, my son was telling us a story on the way home from his grandparents’ house yesterday, and this is what it sounded like:

Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Ryan. And there were three bears in a house and a front end loader. And then Goldilocks’ head fell off. And the three bears’ heads fell off too. So Goldilocks put them back on. With stickers. And glue. And tape. And the front end loader was broken. And the tow truck came and the front end loader was still broken, so it fixed it. And there was a Mama named Mama. And she fixed it with glue and tape. The end.

So my son is probably going to flunk reading comprehension, but boy will he ace creative writing.

He actually wakes up on a regular basis telling stories that are either imagination or conscious continuations of his dreams. They usually involve some kind of construction vehicle, such as a jackhammer-backhoe or a “dunk truck” or an excavator. And they usually also involve something being broken and requiring either a tow truck or glue (occasionally both) to fix it. His flow of events may lack logic at times, but he is a master of creating a conflict or problem to be solved and – eventually – solving it. Not necessarily in a logical, reasonable, or even physically possible way, but the problem is somehow solved. The end.

For all that the events in his stories rarely occur in a logical fashion, he does have a good mastery of narrative flow in some senses. He knows to begin with an exposition: the words, “Once upon a time,” followed by the introduction of the protagonist - usually himself; sometimes, a truck. Soon afterwards, he introduces rising action to create a conflict – perhaps the truck breaking down, or the arrival of a blue fairy, or some other random bit that adds interest to the story. The climax is notable by its sound effects, which I will not even attempt to describe in print, other to say that the words “guttural” and “phlegm” often come to mind. Finally, a bit of falling action, such as the introduction of an unrelated character like “Mama”, followed by a final denouement, and the words, “The end.” I didn’t learn that narrative process until I was in high school, so at age 2 I’d call him a good ways ahead of the game.

So maybe if that pro football career doesn’t work out, he’ll have a good shot at being a novelist. Or a journalist. Or at least he’ll be very good at telling bedtime stories to his own little boy. I’d say those are all pretty admirable career options.

The Art of the Lie

This morning, my 2-year-old son was playing with his toy trains in the playroom while my 6-month-old daughter was reclining in a chair with a bottle. My husband went into the next room for a moment and heard a distinct “clunk clunk clunk” followed by a wail from the baby. He ran in and saw my son standing next to her with a train in his hand. “Did you just hit your sister with that train?” he asked. My son clutched his train, dropped his head, and with a very guilty expression, said, “Nope.”

It’s official: my son has learned to lie. Fortunately, he has not yet learned to lie well.

He’s at that fascinating age when he knows when he’s done something wrong, and he knows that there’s a chance he can escape trouble if he lies, but he has no idea how to lie convincingly. This is the age when a child whose face is covered with melted chocolate will deny eating a candy bar. When a child who is staring into a toilet with a toothbrush (not his own, of course) floating in it will deny throwing said toothbrush into said toilet. And when a child holding a forbidden object (TV remote, pair of scissors, Sharpie, French fry, etc.) will deny ever touching it. It’s that golden age before they learn how to cover their tracks.

The biggest difficulty, as a parent, is keeping a straight face in front of a child who is blatantly – and hilariously – lying directly in the face of the evidence. You want to be stern and strict, to let the child know that what he did was wrong and that he will be punished. And yet, you also want to laugh out loud at the child’s solemn denial of his own guilt, which is written all over his face.

The hilarity of the child’s obliviousness is, I think, a God-given survival tactic. After all, if a parent couldn’t laugh at a child holding a magic marker while denying drawing all over his baby sister’s face, the child’s life expectancy would be much reduced. Especially the third or fourth time it happened. So I’m going to go ahead and laugh at my lying child. There will be enough crying over his lies later in life.

Every Rutabaga Is STILL Different

When I was pregnant with my daughter Katie, I wrote a blog entry called “Every Rutabaga Is Different,” in which I explained why we referred to the then-unknown-gender baby as “Rutabaga.” For those of you who missed (or have forgotten) the story, the short version is that in college I did an experiment analyzing the enzyme content of rutabagas, and when the class got wildly differing results, the professor assured us that was okay, telling us, “Every rutabaga is different.” Since my pregnancy with my daughter felt so different from my pregnancy with my son, I reassured myself that the baby was okay, it was just that “every rutabaga is different.”

Now that my daughter has been born, and especially now that she is developing her own personality, habits, and quirks, I am seeing even more how true that statement is. She looks a lot like her brother, and has a few baby habits that are similar to his - she grunts while she eats, she laughs when she falls over, she loves to bounce in her bouncy seat, she grins at anyone who looks at her, she wakes up in the morning laughing and playing for a while before crying to get up. And yet, she has many habits and traits that are entirely her own – she sucks her thumb; she lounges in a funny half-lying, half-sitting position that I refer to as “The Cleopatra;” she eagerly rolls solid food around in her mouth, rarely spitting it back out (by accident or on purpose);  she squalls wildly before falling asleep; she flails her arms away from her body instead of bonking herself in the head the way he did; she sings and hums to herself constantly in a way he never did.

I love that my children are such unique individuals, and I look forward to seeing their growing differences as well as their growing commonalities as they grow and mature and each become their own person. I hope that they continue to share their sunny, laid-back personalities, their eager curiosity, their love of people, their quick smiles, their easy affection for their family, and their good manners. And I hope they each develop their own interests, their own set of friends, their own strengths and areas where they can excel. If they both turn out to be athletes, or musicians, or physicists, that would be great. But I hope that they each choose to follow their own heart and don’t feel the need to follow in another’s footsteps (be it a parent’s, a grandparent’s, a sibling’s, or a cousin’s) or to compete with someone else just for the sake of competition. I will love them both, no matter what path they choose to follow. I just want it to be a path that leads to happiness and fulfillment.

Security Blanket - or Security Rag, or Security Chin

When I was little, we all had security blankets. Mine was a soft white waffle weave with yellow satin binding. It started off a bit worse for wear, being a hand-me-down from my sister, and went downhill from there. When I was scared, or sleepy, I would comfort myself by clutching it in my left hand and rubbing it against my face while I sucked my thumb. By the time I outgrew it it had become ragged, grubby, and pilled, with long strips of binding hanging literally by a thread. My sister also had a security blanket. She was so attached to hers that I remember my mom describing how she would stand anxiously by the washing machine while it was being washed, and would then follow my mom to the backyard while she hung it on the clothesline and would then stand out under the clothesline hanging onto it for hours while it dried.

Kids today seem to have expanded their “security” repertoire – so much so that a “security blanket” is no longer called a security blanket, but a “lovey”. It might be a stuffed animal, or a pacifier, or a small toy, or some other random object that the child has decided for some unfathomable reason is a comfort. And in keeping with their generation, both of my children chose non-blanket objects as their loveys.

My son did, at least, stay within the textile family. When he was born, my husband and I bought several packs of two dozen plain white washcloths from Costco. These cloths served as burp cloths, bibs, handkerchiefs, impromptu changing tables, teething rings, sponges – anything you could possibly do with a piece of terrycloth, we did with them. And my son, God love him, chose them as his lovey. Even now, when he is overly tired or not feeling well, he begs for a “rag” to snuggle with and chew on. In our opinion, it’s the ideal comfort object, since we have 48 of them and there is guaranteed to be one within reach anywhere in the house and in both cars. We don’t have to worry about him being anxious while his lovey is in the wash, because there are dozens more exactly like it for him to choose from. And if we lose one? No problem, there are 47 more around.

My daughter, on the other hand, has been somewhat more creative and varied in her choice of lovey. Since she tends to be a flailer, reaching out with her arms and kicking out with her legs when she is agitated or upset, she will grab onto whatever object is handy to calm herself down and help keep herself still. It could be a blanket, but it could also be a doll, a block, my finger, my hair – whatever her little hand happens to encounter first. She does this especially when she is having a bottle. My favorite position to feed her in is sitting at my computer with my feet up on the desk and her nestled in the little cradle of my belly, with the back of her head on my chest and her feet at my knees. I love it because I can lean down and sniff and nuzzle the top of her sweet fuzzy baby head. She loves it because she can not only reach up and grab her own ears and hair, as she often does, but she can also reach up and pat my face or cup my chin. My chin seems to be her favorite comfort object of late. With her eyes shut tight, she flails upwards in the general direction of my face until she smacks my chin, then she grabs on tight with her little kitten claws and I can feel her relax. This is another reasonably convenient lovey, since there will always be a chin handy for her to hang onto – it might not be mine, but I suspect the chin of whoever is taking care of her will be acceptable.

Loveys may have changed over the years from a security blanket into various other huggable objects, but I’m not complaining. There’s no higher honor than to be a human lovey for my own sweet loveys.

I Have No Bodily Functions

When my stepdaughter was a young gymnast, her coach very sternly told the team that they were to take care of all bodily functions – using the bathroom, getting a drink of water, blowing their nose – before going out on the gym floor. Once you’re on the floor, he told them, “you have no bodily functions.” Naturally, they asked him, “But Patrick, you’re always on the floor. When do you do those things?” Without missing a beat, he informed them, “I have no bodily functions.” And, given his reputation, I’m pretty sure they believed him.

I wish I could pull that off with my own kids. Or kid, anyway. Ryan is in that delightful stage of potty training where he’s fascinated by all things bathroom-related. He finds it interesting that everyone uses the potty, and oftentimes the one enticement that will get him to pee on the potty is if Mama goes first. Telling him that I went already just won’t fly. So much for using the bathroom in privacy. I thought that moms who said they never got to pee without an audience were exaggerating. So help me, I really did. I mean, how hard can it be to lock a toddler out of a bathroom? I was totally missing the point. It’s not that you CAN’T use the bathroom alone, it’s that if you do, that’s one more diaper you’ll have to change, one more day of working on potty training, one more missed opportunity to celebrate the joys of diaperless living to a child who is less than eager to be convinced of the same. In other words, the reward of peeing without an audience pales in comparison to the reward of a potty-trained child.

But if I could just convince Ryan that I somehow no longer have any bodily functions, he couldn’t ask for a command performance! Because what would be my response? “Sorry, would love to, can’t.” What argument is there after that? None! It’s a pre-won argument. There is no comeback to, “I can’t.” If I said, “I don’t want to,” you can argue to make me want to. If I said, “I won’t,” you can try to convince me that I should. But if I state that it is physically impossible for me to do what you’re asking, you’ve got nothing to argue against except the laws of physics.

So starting tomorrow, I’m plotting a campaign to convince my child that I have no bodily functions. I’ve already convinced him that I can fix anything with glue and tape and that my kisses miraculously and instantaneously cure any ailment, so how hard can it be, really?

The Seven Stages of Crying

You’re probably familiar with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ theory of the seven stages of grief. Her theory states that someone who suffers a loss goes through seven different states of mind during the grieving process: shock, denial, bargaining, guilt, anger, depression, and finally, acceptance. I have discovered that a crying baby goes through seven very similar stages.

This theory occurred to me last night as I lay in my bed, listening to Katie protesting being put to bed. We are trying to settle her into a routine, much to her chagrin. She’s been sleeping 6 hours a night often enough that we know she has it in her to sleep that long all the time, and now we just need to get her to put those 6 hours into a time slot that works for us. Midnight to 6am would work nicely for me. I’d love to go to bed closer to 11pm, but since I occasionally want to stay up till midnight but I NEVER want to get up at 5am, midnight to 6 it is.

Which means that when we put her to bed last night, it wasn’t because she was falling asleep, but because it was bedtime. So as soon as she realized she was alone in her crib with the lights out, she began her Shock Cry. The Shock Cry is distinctive because of its overtones of outrage and personal offense. The baby expresses her disbelief that her parents would abuse her so, by abandoning her in her crib, with only her cozy blanket, half a dozen stuffed animals, a rattle, and a lullaby to keep her company. The Shock Cry is an attempt to convince the parents that they have made a horrible mistake and should return to her immediately.

The next stage, the Denial Cry, is a quieter stage that often lulls the parent into thinking that the baby has fallen asleep. Not so! The Denial Cry – more of a soft sigh or a whimper, really – merely serves for the baby to gather her energy for the next several stages.

The Denial Cry leads gently into the Bargaining Cry, which again is not so much a cry as it is a soft, charming plea. It may include pathetic coos and chirps calculated to remind the parent how adorable the baby is and convince them that they are missing cuteness and should immediately come and play with this adorable thing. The Bargaining Cry rarely lasts for more than a few minutes before crashing into the Guilt and Anger Cries.

Unlike the Guilt stage of grief, the Guilt Cry is not a sign of a feeling of personal guilt, but rather is intended to bring on a sense of guilt in the parent. The Guilt Cry is similar to the Shock Cry in that it expresses a sense of outrage and even betrayal. The baby is intent on convincing the parents that they have made a horrible parenting mistake in putting her to bed, and her dramatic Guilt Cry is often successful in making them think exactly that.

If the Guilt Cry is unsuccessful, the baby will quickly transition into the Anger Cry, which is easily identified by its loud, high-pitched shrieks. It may be accompanied by kicking feet, pounding fists, and thrashing around in the crib. It may also be punctuated by moments of silence which are, in fact, open-mouthed silent cries during which the baby is gathering strength for a furious scream about to follow. The Anger Cry is, by far, the loudest Crying Stage. And if it does not, in fact, last the longest, it certainly seems like it does.

If the parents are able to withstand the onslaught of the Anger Cry, the baby will eventually lose steam and fall back into the Depression Cry. The Depression Cry is more of a whimper or a whine. The baby is coming to realize that its cries have come to naught. Like the Anger Cry, it is punctuated by moments of silence; however, unlike the Anger Cry, these moments are not indicative that the cries are about to escalate, but rather that the baby is losing energy as she progresses to the final stage, Acceptance.

To call this stage an Acceptance Cry would be something of a misnomer, as the Acceptance Stage is actually the lack of a cry. The baby has either succumbed to sleep or has accepted that no-one is coming to play with her and has found a way to amuse herself. In either circumstance, it is distinctive by its silence or, at least, its quiet coos and murmurs. And in the best of circumstances, it is marked by slow breathing and light snoring.

Like the Stages of Grief, it is possible for the sufferer to move back and forth among the stages, and even to skip some stages. One baby might never utter a Denial Cry, another might reverse the Anger Cry and the Guilt Cry, yet another might go through all stages one night and only two or three the next. But once a parent is able to identify his own child’s distinctive cries for each stage, he will be better prepared to withstand the progression until at last it reaches Acceptance.

And with Acceptance comes sleep. Blessed, blessed sleep for all parties. The best Stage of all!

How Do You Know?

I post on a message board frequented by women of all ages and all backgrounds, and it’s always fascinating to me how such different people often have such similar concerns and problems. One of the topics that comes up on a regular basis is how to know when you’re ready to make a major life change, like getting married, changing jobs, or having a baby. Just today another poster was sharing her concerns over whether she and her husband were ready to start a family. Having a child is one of the biggest decisions you can make in life. It’s possible to change jobs or even to change spouses, but once you’re a parent, you’re always a parent. You can’t go back on parenthood.

It made me think about my own decision to have children. I knew what a huge decision it was, and I knew at a certain level how much it would change my life. And part of me was terrified that I wouldn’t be good at motherhood, or that I would hate it. But then I asked myself what else in my life I had done that was scary at first, or challenging, but turned out to be exciting and fulfilling. Going to college, choosing a career path, changing jobs, and getting married all came to mind. These were all big decisions that made me quake in my boots because I knew that the decision I made would change my life. Or because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to handle the responsibility. And even after I made some of those decisions, I had moments of, "What was I THINKING??" But the vast majority of the time, I knew, deep in my heart of hearts, that I had made the right decision.

Parenthood is like that. You have moments (or even days) when you feel like you're totally unprepared and in over your head. But there are lots more moments when you are so proud of yourself and so secure that even if you screw up now and then (as every parent does) you know that your kids will grow up to be pretty awesome human beings. No-one is ever truly, 100% ready to be a parent. But when the thought of having a child brings more excitement than it does trepidation, you'll know you're as ready as you'll ever be. And that really is enough.

We Are Sick, We Are Sick, We Are Sick Sick Sick

As a mom, I am finding that there is one thing worse than having sick kids: having sick kids and being sick yourself. Taking care of a tired, cranky, whiny, snotty-nosed child is never fun, but it’s even less fun when you’re tired, cranky, whiny, and snotty-nosed yourself. And today, that is exactly what the two kids and I all are: tired, cranky, whiny, and snotty-nosed.

My son Ryan started off with this cold a few days ago and just had a runny nose, which then turned into congestion and trouble sleeping. He passed it along to me, and it lodged in my eye which is now swollen and runny, as is my nose. And apparently one of us also spread it to baby Katie, who is now also congested and groggy. Last night, Katie had a terrible time sleeping, which meant that I had a terrible time sleeping. She would snooze for 45 minutes, then half wake up  and toss and turn and cry for another hour before dropping off for another 45 minutes. I ended up fleeing with her to the couch in the basement and letting her snooze on my chest so at least when she woke up I could comfort her without having to get out of bed myself. It meant my not getting much sleep, but probably more than I would have gotten otherwise. At 6:30 I stumbled back to my own bed and tucked her in her crib, and fortunately on her next waking (about 30 seconds later) my wonderful husband got her and my son up and brought them downstairs for breakfast. I slept in until 9:15, grabbed a quick shower, and jumped in the car to take my son to gymnastics.

I should have known I was in for trouble when just getting him into the car created a minor meltdown. He didn’t want to put his shoes on, he didn’t want to put his coat on, he didn’t want to go outside. He wanted to stay and play with his trucks. I finally got him into the car by letting him tuck a couple of toy tractors into his pockets. Bad strategy on my part, because then when we got to the gym he threw another tantrum when I told him he couldn’t bring them onto the gym floor. Within the first five minutes of class he’d had as many meltdowns (what my husband refers to as “The Sniper” – when he suddenly throws himself on the floor as if he’d been shot). After numerous warnings and threats, I took him upstairs for a little “come to Jesus” talk and he promised to behave. Two more snipers later and this cranky mom had had enough of this cranky child and bundled him back into the car without stopping to look at the front end loaders parked in the parking lot, which is just about the worst punishment that either of us could conceive.

Within two minutes of coming home, he had somehow found a crayon and colored all over the wall. Again. As in, the second time in 24 hours. I frog marched him up to his bedroom and locked him in, hoping he’d be at least a little less destructive there. After about an hour of letting him play alone, I went to check on him and discovered that he’d managed to pull out one of the support rods of his fabric laundry hamper and split it into pieces, so instead of freeing him, I turned right around and marched back out, leaving him to his own devices once again.

Fortunately, before he could cause any more mayhem, his cold got the best of him and he fell asleep on the floor under his bed, snuggled in a spare blanket he’d pulled out of the closet. At around the same time, his baby sister had finished her lunch and after a mercifully short caterwauling session, had cried herself to sleep as well. Even with my bleary, germ-addled brain, I knew a good thing when I saw it and I immediately crawled into bed myself, with a cozy blanket and a box of tissues close at hand.

Two hours later, we all woke up, all in much better states of mind which were improved even more by the immediate application of juice and lunch. Being sick is no fun, but eventually it passes, as long as we all manage not to kill each other in the interim.

Llama, Llama, Snotty Drama

In typical two-year-old fashion, my son is a complete drama llama. When he doesn’t get his way, he sobs. When he can’t find a particular toy, he sobs. When it’s time for a nap, he sobs. When it’s time to put away his toys and sit down for dinner, he sobs. If my husband or I scolds him, he throws himself to the floor and – you guessed it – he sobs. The sobs are mainly a put-on (or at least an exaggeration), as proven by his ability to turn off the tears in the blink of an eye if he gets distracted. And there are times when a few tears are appropriate and genuine. Being both a klutz and a bit of a daredevil means he has his share of stubbed toes, bonked heads, and smashed fingers, all of which result in – all together now – sobbing. Fortunately, since the genuine pain is overlain with a solid layer of drama, a kiss from Mama is generally sufficient to stop the tears immediately.

Much like the mother of an infant quickly learns which cry means it’s hungry, which means it’s wet, and which means it’s angry at being left alone, the mother of a toddler quickly learns which cry is manufactured drama and which is genuine sadness or pain. So when I woke up in the wee hours of the morning this morning to the sound of weeping coming from my son’s room, I could tell immediately that it was genuine distress and I quickly threw on my bathrobe and went to see what the matter was.

He was lying in bed hugging his pillow, and when I asked him what was wrong, he turned his tear-streaked face to me and said in a sad, pathetic little voice, “Mama, I have snotties in my nose.”

I managed to keep a straight face and offer to go get him a tissue (we don’t keep a tissue box in his room because he loves to pull them out of the box, one after the other after the other, until his room looks like a nor’easter just passed through). I snickered quietly as I brought a few tissues from the bathroom but composed myself before I went back to his bedroom. I expressed sympathy and helped him blow his nose. I could hear that he was quite congested, poor thing, but he fell back to sleep very quickly after we got rid of his "snotties."

He woke up this morning with his cold in full swing: runny nose, sneezing, and sounding even more congested. He was more contrary than usual in the morning, having several sobbing fits after breakfast when it was time to go to his gymnastics class but he wanted to stay and play with his trucks. When he got back from class, he was sleepy and cranky.

It occurred to me that to a small child who is rarely sick, having a cold is a very strange feeling. He has no idea that the way he feels is only temporary, and that he’ll be himself again in just a few days. He has gone through so many physical and developmental changes over the last two years (learning to eat and to walk, growing taller, getting teeth, learning letters and numbers and colors, developing gross and fine motor skills) that this seems like just another change to him – and he doesn’t like it. Hence, crankiness. I can’t blame him, though. I know that a cold won’t last forever, but I’m still cranky when I’m sick.

So right now my husband is tucking the snotty little drama llama into bed in the hopes that a long nap will help him to feel better and to put him in a better mood. At the absolute least, it'll give the rest of the family a short break from the drama.

My Bucket List

A few years ago, when the movie “The Bucket List” came out, it was all the rage for people to write up their own bucket lists of everything they want to do before they die. For some reason, I never did. And maybe it’s my mother’s and brother-in-law's recent deaths making me realize my own mortality, or perhaps it’s the knowledge that my family is now complete, or maybe it’s just looking around and seeing all the wonderful and exciting places there are to go and things there are to do, but I’m suddenly being inspired to come up with a bucket list of my own.

I wasn’t sure exactly where to start, so I went online and looked at other people’s bucket lists. Some of them were quite mundane: graduate from high school, get a driver’s license, lose 10 pounds. Some of them were rather unrealistic: shake the hand of the President of the United States, win the lottery, climb Mount Everest, kiss Justin Bieber, win a Grammy Award, star in a Broadway musical. Some of them were kind of vague: become a better person, be more forgiving, cook more often. Some of them were ambitious but achievable: learn to speak fluent Japanese, complete a marathon, make a speech in front of over 1000 people.

But a lot of them were fairly reasonable: visit [x country], learn to do [x], do volunteer work with [x] charity. In fact, the majority of the “normal” bucket list items can be grouped into just a few categories:

• Travel (take an African safari, kiss the Blarney Stone, see Niagara Falls)
• Learning or trying new things (learn to speak Japanese, learn to make a quilt, learn to play guitar)
• Personal achievements (write a screenplay, adopt a child, rent an apartment)
• Professional achievements (become vice president of a company, become an MBA, start a business)
• Daredevil stunts or overcoming fears (skydive, parachute, ride a roller coaster, hold a tarantula)
• Physical achievements (ride in a bicycle race, lose 30 pounds, climb a mountain)
• Fun stuff (go scuba diving, swim with dolphins, own an exotic pet)
• Philanthropy and making the world a better place (donate $1000 to a children’s charity, volunteer to build wells in a third-world country, become a mentor to a troubled teen)

Some of these categories are overlapping, of course. Graduating from college could be considered either a personal or a professional achievement. Skydiving could be both a daredevil stunt and something fun. Climbing Mount Everest falls under both travel and physical achievements. But most of the items on the majority of people’s bucket lists could be classified into at least one of these categories.

Looking over other people’s lists and dividing them into these categories helped me to create my own list. And they also made me realize how many things I’ve done that would have been on my bucket list had I made it earlier in life, so I’m giving myself credit for them. This is the list that I came up with, by category:

TRAVEL

1. Live in a foreign country

2. Go snorkeling

3. Take a cruise

4. Swim with sting rays

5. Go on a safari

6. Feed a giraffe

7. See Niagara Falls

8. Go to England

9. Go whale-watching

10. Take a Duck tour

11. See a Broadway show

12. Tour a vineyard

13. Travel in the sleeper car of a train

14. Take a trip across the country

15. Visit Fenway Park

16. Visit the Smithsonian Institution

17. Visit the National Zoo

18. Go to Hawaii

19. Go to France

20. Go to Italy

21. Go to Ireland

22. Go to Australia

23. Go to Germany and Austria

24. See the Aurora Borealis

25. Take an Alaskan cruise

26. Visit all 50 states (still remaining: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Wyoming)

27. See the Highland Games (either in Scotland or in Nova Scotia)

LEARNING OR TRYING NEW THINGS

28. Make a quilt

29. Take ballroom dance lessons

30. Go skateboarding

31. Go snowshoeing

32. Ride a horse

33. Ride an elephant

34. Ride a camel

35. Ride a tandem bicycle with one of the kids while my husband rides one with the other

36. Learn to build a campfire

37. Drive a convertible sportscar

38. Shoot a gun

39. Ride a motorcycle

PERSONAL ACHIEVEMENTS

40. Get a college degree

41. Get married

42. Have children

43. Own a house

44. Write a blog

45. Have a lead role in a musical

46. Win an acting award

47. Costume a musical

48. Write a book

49. Read the Bible all the way through

50. Be a movie extra

51. Read all of Anna Karenina

52. Dance with one or both of my kids in a dance recital

53. Serve on a jury

54. Sing the National Anthem at a sporting event

55. Perform in a murder mystery dinner

56. Direct a musical

57. Go rollerblading

PROFESSIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS

58. Publish my writing for pay (book, blog, or article)

59. Get 100 or more blog hits every day for a month

60. Be someone’s boss

DAREDEVIL STUNTS/OVERCOMING FEARS

61. Eat sushi

62. Eat escargot

63. Go skinny-dipping

64. Go hot air ballooning

65. Go ziplining

66. Go up in a small plane

67. Ride in a helicopter

68. Go waterskiing

69. Eat kimchi

70. Put my hands up in the air while riding a roller coaster

71. Go parasailing

72. Go Zorbing

PHYSICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

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PHILANTHROPY/HELPING THE WORLD

73. Become an organ donor

74. Give blood

75. Sponsor a needy child

76. Serve on the board of a non-profit organization

77. Adopt a pet from a shelter

78. Volunteer for Habitat for Humanity

FUN STUFF

79. Drink really, really expensive wine

80. Own a grand piano

81. Get a massage

82. Get a manicure/pedicure

83. Get a facial

84. See a shooting star

85. Taste caviar

86. See a baby being born

87. Fly first class

88. Go to a Renaissance Fair in costume

89. Go on a blind date

90. Sleep under the stars in the open air

91. Attend a taping of a television show that I like

92. Win a contest (chance or skill)

93. Host a fancy dress ball

94. Have my portrait painted

95. Saber a bottle of champagne

96. Be in a flash mob

97. Eat at a famous chef’s restaurant

98. Have my own vegetable garden

99. Buy an original work of art

100. Eat at a chef’s table

Looking at my list, I am struck by two things: First, that the “Physical Achievements” category is conspicuously blank. (Which should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone who’s ever met me.) And second, that out of 100 goals, I have already reached exactly 50 of them. What is more striking is how the goals I have already achieved break down by the age when I achieved them.

Ages 0-17 (prior to graduating from high school):
Go skateboarding
See Niagara Falls
Visit the Smithsonian Institution
Visit the National Zoo
Take a trip across the country
Take a Duck tour
Go whale-watching
Give blood
Have a lead role in a musical
Become an organ donor

Ages 18-21 (between high school and college graduations):
Live in a foreign country
Taste caviar
See a baby being born
Go on a safari
Fly first class
Sponsor a needy child
Visit Fenway Park
Go snorkeling
Travel in the sleeper car of a train
Feed a giraffe
Get a college degree

Ages 21-30:
See a shooting star
Go to England
Read the Bible all the way through
Tour a vineyard
See a Broadway show
Go on a blind date
Make a quilt

Ages 30-40:
Serve on the board of a non-profit organization
Win an acting award
Take a cruise
Costume a musical
Eat sushi
Write a book
Eat escargot
Take ballroom dance lessons
Write a blog
Drink really, really expensive wine
Get a manicure/pedicure
Get married
Get a massage
Own a grand piano
Swim with sting rays
Go skinny-dipping
Own a house

Age 40 or above:
Be a movie extra
Go to a Renaissance Fair in costume
Have children
Get a facial
Read all of Anna Karenina

The division of achievements over time is surprisingly even. (Okay, I may have been a bit of a slacker in my 20s but I made up for it in my 30s.) So as long as I continue on this trajectory, I might just be able to meet all my goals before I die – as long as I live into my 80s, anyway. But even if I don’t quite make it, it’ll sure be fun to try!