Holly Go-Lightly

I have always prided myself on being an excellent packer. I figure out ahead of time exactly what I’ll need, I pack clothes in a single color palette so everything matches everything else, I roll instead of fold, I bring one all-purpose sweater instead of several warmer outfits, I pack socks inside shoes, I wear my bulkiest outfit instead of packing it, I figure out ways to make every item I bring have multiple uses. I can pack for a week in a single backpack and still have room to bring home souvenirs. Just call me Holly Go-Lightly.

Actually, I should have written that previous paragraph in the past tense. Because I USED to do all those things. When I was single and packing for just myself, all those things were true. Now that I have kids, forget about it.

When you’re a single adult, you don’t have to plan for a lot of contingencies. It’s possible that you’ll spill wine on your blouse, it’s conceivable that you’ll break a sandal strap, it’s within the realm of possibility that you’ll catch your heel in the of hem your skirt and tear it. But the chances of anything like that happening are so small that you don’t even plan for it other than maybe packing one extra blouse. But with small children, there’s a VERY high probability that clothes will get stained, or wet, or torn (or, in the case of shoes or socks, lost), usually once a day or so. So instead of packing one outfit a day – or less, assuming you’ll get a couple of days’ wear out of a pair of pants - you pack two for every day plus a couple of spares on top of that. And you never assume you'll get a second day's wear out of ANYTHING.

And that’s only clothes. Now add in the entertainment stuff. The single me might have packed one paperback book (or these days, a Kindle) to keep myself entertained on the road. Now, for each of my kids, I have to pack a stuffed animal, one toy for every hour of airplane time (both ways), a couple of bedtime books (fortunately, these can be shared), a special blanket (for the baby), a coloring book or sketchpad (for the preschooler), and a few emergency snacks.

And don’t get me started on the “personal care items.” Diapers (two sizes), swim diapers (two sizes), baby wipes, changing pad, diaper cream, baby Advil, child Advil, baby Benadryl, child Benadryl, bandaids, first aid cream, baby shampoo (hotel shampoo is rough on little eyes), formula, bottles, sippy cups, child-sized forks and spoons, and bibs.

And that IS traveling light! If we were traveling heavy I’d have to add two high chairs, a Pack & Play, a collapsible bed tent, a double stroller, a jogger-stroller, two car seats, and a full-size changing pad. (Oh wait, we’re bringing the double stroller. OK, scratch that off the “packing heavy” list.)

At least I can still pack lightly for myself. Which is fortunate, since there’s not much room left in my suitcase!

Motherhood Skills I Didn't Know I'd Need to Know

When I was expecting my first child, I thought a lot about the various skills I’d need as a parent. I figured I’d need to know how to sing some lullabies. I figured I’d need to know how to mix formula one-handed. I figured I’d need to know how to have a pretend tea party or build a pretend railroad. I figured I’d eventually have to be able to give a passable rendition of a few dozen fairy tales and nursery rhymes. I even figured that I’d have to learn to drive a minivan. But after nearly three years of hands-on parenting, there are a lot of skills I’ve picked up along the way that I never expected to need to know. Let me give you some examples.

I never knew I’d need to be able to dress and undress a recalcitrant, sticky, poop-covered octopus. The first time I had to change an uncooperative 8-month-old baby in July following a poopsplosion, I realized there were skills involved that I had never even imagined. I had to somehow have enough of my own appendages to hold all of his appendages away from the poop and still have a couple left over to peel his clothes and his diaper away from his sweaty, wriggling little body, plus at least one more to grab the clean diaper before any escaped baby appendages beat me to it.

I never knew I’d have to learn how to make everyday food into something entertaining enough that a two-year-old will eat it without question. I had no idea that the expression “plating,” in reference to a toddler, would mean creating everything from a pancake shaped like Mickey Mouse to a peanut butter sandwich shaped like a pinwheel to a pile of scrambled eggs with a face made from pretzel sticks, Cinnamon Life cereal, and M&Ms. Fortunately, I also discovered that in a pinch, I can just cut everything into chunks and stick a few frilled toothpicks in them.

I never knew I’d have to be able to create toys from nothing but the detritus in the passenger seat of my car, while driving. Who knew that an empty plastic water bottle, an oversized Dunkin Donuts straw, the lid of a yogurt tub, and a piece of tinfoil that was once wrapped around a gas station hotdog could occupy a small child for enough time to get to a reasonably hygienic highway rest stop with a child-friendly restaurant and changing table? Not to mention the fact that I also had to develop the power and accuracy in my throwing arm to get said detritus into the hands of the child in the back seat, using only the rearview mirror to aim. If I ever decide to make baseball pitching or dentistry my next career, I’ll be well ahead of the game.

I never knew that I’d have to learn how to make up stories on the spur of the moment based on subjects like, “the camera on my ceiling,” “a bulldozer,” “a smokestack and a silo,” and “my wall.” (All of these are actual story topics requested by my son within the past few months. And yes, I managed to come up with a story that had not only a coherent plot but also some kind of useful message for each one.) This particular skill happens to come in very handy when I’m blogging, as it gives me plenty of practice in having to expand a very simple or even vague idea into an entertaining story with a useful point.  

Wanna hear the one about the bulldozer that pushed over the smokestack and the silo which then knocked over the wall while being recorded by the camera on my ceiling and thus learned how to be gentle when playing with his toys?

Cuteness Counts

One of my favorite commercials shows an adorable baby laughing and playing while a woman’s voiceover says, “When my kids were small, I just wanted to eat them up.” The image then changes to a laughing toddler dropping a large bunch of keys into a toilet, and the voiceover continues, “Sometimes, I wish I had.” This commercial is the story of my life.

My kids, like most kids, are a constant mixture of cuteness and trouble. Luckily for them, their cuteness has saved their lives on many occasions. I sincerely believe that cuteness is an evolved survival tactic. Think about it: When your toddler finds a sharpie and writes all over your computer monitor, you’re ready to kill him – but then when you see how cute he looks with his self-inflicted sharpie mustache, you relent and allow him to live.

This morning was a prime example of life-saving cuteness on the part of my daughter. For some reason, for the past few weeks she’s been waking up several times a night, wailing. Last night was the absolute height of bad sleep: she woke up every hour between 11:30PM and 4:30AM, screaming. Which meant that I woke up every hour between 11:30PM and 4:30AM, feeling like screaming. But after she got back to sleep that last time, she slept through until 7:30AM, and when she did wake up, she happily (and adorably) cooed and played and giggled in her crib for nearly an hour before she finally yelled to get up. Had she woken up making yet another pouty face and wailing crankily, I’d have treated her much differently that I did after seeing her beaming and waving to me while babbling cheerfully. Because she’s cute, I greeted her with a hug and a kiss instead of crabbily and wordlessly pulling her out of her crib for breakfast. Her cuteness got her much better treatment than she would have gotten otherwise.

Is it fair? Maybe not. But then, is it fair that I would have treated her less lovingly because she had a hard time sleeping last night? If my husband treated me badly every time I had a sleepless night, we would have a much less successful marriage. So maybe cuteness is just God’s way of evening the odds for a child who can’t help crying when she needs something that she can’t express, a child who isn’t intentionally naughty but whose curiosity sometimes leads to things getting broken.

And I hate to cut this entry short, but I hear some suspicious noises coming from the playroom. Let’s hope the kids are being especially cute!

Nap with Me

Naptime with my son is often a struggle. Naturally, he would much rather keep playing with his toys than lie down in his bed and be quiet. When my husband manages naptime, he has a remarkable ability to give my son The Look and immediately son lies down and falls asleep. Alas, I have yet to master The Look, so my approach is a combination of cajoling, scolding, bribery, and resignation.

An average naptime goes something like this:

Me: Ryan, lie down and go to sleep.
Ryan: [lies down; immediately jumps up again]
Me: Ryan, lie DOWN and go to SLEEP!
Ryan: Mama, I need my toy.
Me: No, you don’t. Lie down and go to sleep.
Ryan: Yes, I do! YES I DOOOOOOOOO!
Me: Nope. It’s naptime now, not toy time. Lie down and go to SLEEEEEEEP!!!
Ryan: [squirms and tries to get up]
Me: You may have the toy after naptime, so the sooner you go to sleep, the sooner you can play.
Ryan: I want to play NOW! [gets up yet again]
Me: [grabs him bodily and wraps my legs around him so he can’t wriggle]
Ryan: Mama, LET GOOOOOO!
Me: If you can lie still and not say a word for 30 seconds, I will let go.
Ryan: [wriggles and yells after about a second and a half]
Me: [continuing body wrap and adding head lock]
Ryan: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

This may continue for several hours, until one or both of us falls asleep.

Yup, it is very common that I actually fall asleep during his naptime. Hey, I’m exhausted, I’m lying in a bed, I’m listening to quiet music, I’m thinking sleepy thoughts – sometimes the subconscious just takes over. (Before anyone worries, my subconscious is very aware that I have another child and will never let me fall asleep unless she is either also napping or being watched by my husband at the time.)

And it’s actually really nice to join my little guy for a nap. He is so high-energy when he’s awake that he rarely wants to snuggle for more than a second or two at a time, so it’s a rare treat when I can hold him in my arms and run my fingers through his beautiful hair and feel his warm, chubby legs and his still-soft little boy skin. And I love the way he relaxes in my arms when he finally decides to give up the nap battle. He knows he’s safe in my arms, and I love hearing his breathing relax into the deep exhausted sleep that only small children can throw themselves into so completely when they feel safe and secure.

And when I know that he’s safe and secure and relaxed, how can I help but feel the same way? There’s nothing so satisfying as relaxing into dreamland knowing your children are safe and relaxed as well. Why would I ever want to resist that?

Boo-Boos and Band-Aids

My son is at that age when boo-boos are fascinating. Which is good, because he’s constantly covered in them. At least once a day he comes to me and announces that he has a boo-boo or a “scwatch” that needs kissing, rubbing, or just general consolation. Occasionally, after studying his wound carefully, he will proclaim that he needs a band-aid. If I happen to agree and give him a band-aid, it is guaranteed that within the first 30 seconds of band-aid application, he will have removed said band-aid a minimum of half a dozen times, thus rendering its adhesive useless. He will then come to me in great distress and request a replacement band-aid. Lather, rinse, repeat.

What’s getting really fun about these boo-boos is that he’s starting to understand that they heal. So now, every morning he gives me the rundown on each of his boo-boos. The best part is his absolute astonishment that each scratch is disappearing. He peers at a scratch on his foot and shouts in excitement and delight, “Mama! My boo-boo is getting BETTER!!! I’m HEALING!!” It’s like he’s at some old-fashioned revival meeting at the feet of a faith healer. I half expect him to throw his hands in the air and shout, “Hallelujah!”

I don’t know why his surprise comes as a surprise to me, though. Every else in his world that gets broken or damaged needs to be fixed externally, and most of the time it’s never quite as good. If he scratches one of his toy racecars, it has a scratch forever. If he breaks the snowplow off the front of his snowplow truck, he has to wait for Mama or Daddy to pop it back on, and even so, it falls off more easily than it used to. If he breaks the boom arm off his toy backhoe, it’s gone for good and the backhoe is now just a tractor. If he cracks a CD, we have to throw it away. But if he’s not careful with his own body, all he has to do is wait and it miraculously heals itself. No wonder he’s astonished. That’s pretty astonishing!

It’s wonderful to see the world through the eyes of a child, and to be reminded of just how astonishing some parts of life are. Like the fact that our bodies can fix themselves. We’re even better than Tonka trucks, Matchbox cars, and Legos, combined. After all, we were made by a much more skilled Toymaker.

It Was an Itsy-Bitsy, Teeny-Weeny...

I did something yesterday that was either very brave or very foolish. I didn’t have an awful lot of choice in the decision, although I suppose I could have chickened out entirely. But I took a deep breath and I did it.

I wore a bikini in public.

Not just public, but in front of people ranging from strangers to acquaintances to close friends. In other words, a bunch of people most of whom know me and are likely to see me again.

This might not seem like a big deal, except if you recall that I’m 43 years old, had two children after the age of 40 (one of them less than a year ago), and have not darkened the door of a gym in my entire LIFE. Also, the only time I have ever publicly worn a bikini was on my honeymoon, by request of my husband, and when I was at pretty much my lowest adult weight. (Which I am NOT currently at.)

But I have to say, although nobody would confuse me with a supermodel, given the factors above, I looked pretty damn good. And it was probably good exercise that I kept my tummy sucked in for a solid four hours.

To back up for a moment, I have to admit that the reason I wore a bikini is that I could not find any of my other three full-coverage bathing suits, because I am a mom and when I get out of the pool and change from my swimsuit into dry clothes, I am generally rushing to get two small children out of their swimsuits and swim diapers into dry clothes and regular diapers before they pee on the couch. So my suits generally get tossed wherever. Bottom line being that it was my own fault I had to wear the bikini or forego swimming at all, but there you are. Bikini.

My point, however, is that I was dreading doing it. I didn’t want people to look at me and think, “Ugh, does she really think she looks good in that?” or “She looks like an ad for liposuction.” But once I did it, and forgot to worry about it, I didn’t really care what people were thinking. And, based on the comments I did get (or overhear), they were more along the lines of, “Wow, she looks great,” or “You’d never know she had a one-year-old,” or “Good for her!”

I’m sure there were a few youngsters thinking, “I’ll never wear a bikini if I look like that!” but you know, who cares? My friends thought I looked great. My husband thought I looked great. I thought I looked…not horrendous. (I’m a tough critic; “not horrendous” is the equivalent of about 4-1/2 stars). So at the end of the day (both literally and figuratively), I ended up facing my fears and discovering that there wasn’t anything to be afraid of, after all.

And isn’t that usually the case? Once you face your fears, you almost always either conquer them or find out there wasn’t anything to be afraid of in the first place. So the next time you have to face something you’re afraid of, think of me in a bikini. It’ll either give you courage or a good laugh. Win-win!

Two Great Tastes

Remember the old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups jingle, “Two great tastes that taste great together”? And they were soooo right. Peanut butter is good; chocolate is good. Put them together and they’re better than good – they’re great! This is a prime example of the old saying that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

This concept is on my mind today because yesterday I was shopping at Target and a bag of Oreos jumped right into my cart. I can’t remember the last time I had an Oreo cookie, but when I got home from the store, I poured myself a big glass of cold milk, got out a little stack of Oreos, and started dunking. Milk is good; Oreos are great; the combination of the two is spectacular.

This is true of a lot of foods, if you stop and think about it. Particularly with desserts and junk food, many foods just naturally complement each other. Coffee and donuts are better together than either is alone. Cake is best with an ice cream accompaniment. Graham crackers are kind of boring and so is milk, but put them together and WOW! And let’s not forget the dessert trifecta of graham crackers + marshmallows + chocolate that is a s’more.

But it can true for savory foods as well as sweet. Pork chops and applesauce. Eggs and bacon. Tomatoes and basil. Bagels and cream cheese. Lamb and mint jelly. Pretzels and Dijon mustard.

But what is it that makes these pairings so complementary? What is the common relationship between the two members that makes each pair so delicious? I think what makes them all work so well together is that they’re different.

Oreos are very sweet and a bit dry. Milk is bland but wet. The two combined are the perfect balance of taste and texture. Same with coffee and donuts: coffee is bitter and donuts are blandly sweet – taken together, the sweetness level hits just the right note and the donut is infused with the rich coffee flavor. Ditto for a savory example: tomatoes are acidic but sweet; basil’s freshness mellows the acidity and brings a layered flavor to the sweetness. Salty bland pretzels mingle with spicy, overly-strong Dijon mustard to enhance the best flavor qualities of both.

A lot of life is like that. You can find a balance by combining two things that are overly strong and letting them cancel each other out a bit, or by combining two things that are a bit bland and letting them bring out the best in each other. It works for jobs, it works for people, it works for situations. You like your job but it has frustrations. You like your hobby but it has frustrations. Doing both somehow cancels out the frustrations of each and enhances the enjoyment of both. You’re a bit shy and inhibited and so is your best friend, but when you’re together you give each other courage to try new things and go new places and meet new people.

And if you can’t figure out exactly what you need to complement your life, just sit down with a big glass of milk and a bag of Oreos. Your life might not quite be perfect in the big picture, but for those few moments of dairy-infused chocolate nirvana it will be.

The Hair Up There

Last night, I gave Katie her first haircut.

Before I get demands for before and after photos or a blow-by-blow description of the grand event, let me clarify. I didn’t give her bangs, or trim off inches of length. All I did was cut off her annoying little rat tail, the one remnant of her newborn hair that stubbornly refused to fall out with the rest of its kind.

Why did I do it? For one thing, because it ruined the line of the rest of her hair, kept getting stuck in her collar, was straight next to the rest of her cute curls, and was the only part of her hair long enough to actually get tangled. But the other reason is that it just reminded me too much of the bad hairstyles that ran rampant when I was growing up.

I was born in 1968, which meant that I spent my younger childhood in the fashion black hole of the 70s, when hair was long, straight, and limp, and I spent my more fashion-conscious years of high school and college in the 80s, when the popular styles were big hair, bigger bangs, spiral perms, mohawks – and rat tails. At the time, we all (myself included) thought they were totally cool and fashionable. I recall a classmate with beautiful thick curly hair who cut it crazy short but grew a braided rat tail that by graduation must have been 18 inches long. Boy was I jealous of her coolness.

My own hairstyles were rarely the height of fashion, even at the time. I had a pixie cut as a toddler, long straight hair in my early childhood that I cut off into a Dorothy Hamill cut in first grade, grew it long again with bangs and the occasional disastrous home perm, cut it all off again in 7^th grade, somehow ended up with a few tragic femullets through junior high and high school, and eventually settled into a semi-fashionable short cut all through college. I think my wildest hair thought was a passing desire in 9^th grade to dye a single lock of hair on the side of my head magenta –my mother, to her dying day, was convinced that I had wanted to dye my entire head of hair magenta.

My 1976 school picture: the long hair years, just prior to the one trendy haircut I ever had, the Dorothy Hamill

It makes me wonder what horrific hairstyles my kids will come up with over the years. My husband probably doesn’t agree, but hair cuts and colors aren’t a hill I care to die on. Hair grows back, after all, unlike, say, piercings and tattoos. No matter what a girl does to her hair, it can’t be overly revealing or sexualized. No matter what a boy does to his hair, it can’t be anything that can’t be remedied with a razor (or a hat). The most unfortunate haircut in the world won't lead to infections or hepatitis. The worst result of a hair tragedy (whether accidental or by choice) is a class or yearbook photo. And don’t we all have those anyway?

My 1983 (failed) attempt at 80s big hair

So it Katie wants to grow her rat tail back someday, so be it. And if Ryan was to chop off his glorious curls into a Mohawk or a flattop, that’s his choice. I’ll be standing by with the camera.

Dancing with Daddy

I adore my daughter, and in some ways I am (and will always be) closer to her than her daddy. And there’s nothing wrong with that. In some ways, he is (and will always be) closer to our son than I am. Say what you will, I am a firm believer that there are just some commonalities of gender that create a natural bond with the parent of the same sex.

But there are some special things between my husband and our daughter that I will never have. Like dancing together.

Katie and Daddy dancing

Of course, I can dance with her, too. But dancing with your mom is just not the same as dancing with your daddy. That’s why everyone cries at the father-daughter dance at weddings. It shows that very special bond between a man and his little girl (doesn’t matter if she’s 17, 27, or 47 when she gets married, she’s still his little girl) that is now changing forever, as a new man becomes the focus of her life.

A little girl dancing with her daddy is something special. She will never feel safer, or more loved, or more cherished, than she does in the arms of her daddy. She will never feel more beautiful or more graceful than she does in the arms of her daddy.

And I will never feel more proud of them both than I do when I see my littlest sweetheart dancing in the arms of my biggest sweetheart. After all, his daughters are the only girls other than me that he dances with with that much love in his eyes.

Midnight at the Oasis, or, When the Children Are Asleep

When the children are asleep we sit and dream,
The things that every other dad and mother dream.
When the children are asleep and lights are low,
If I still love you the way I love you today,
You'll pardon my sayin', I told you so...
When the children are asleep, I'll dream with you
We'll think what fun we have had and be glad
That it's all came true.

These are the lyrics to a lovely song from the musical “Carousel.” I love it because it’s a reminder that no matter how many children you have or how long you’ve been a parent, sometimes you need to take a break and be husband and wife again for a bit – even if your conversation is still mainly about your children. And that’s what my husband and I did last night.

We had spent a wonderful day playing and swimming in the pool with the kids, and once we got both kids fed, tubbied, and tucked snugly into bed, it was grownup time! A relaxed candlelit dinner with a nice bottle of wine to share, quiet chat uninterrupted by small demanding voices, and a midnight swim for dessert.

I love being a parent – I even love being a stay-at-home parent (well, most of the time). And I love playing with my kids, and talking to them, and listening to them. But there are times when I yearn for adult conversation, for more than 2 minutes of peace and quiet at a time, and for eating a meal without interrupting myself to feed someone else at the same time. So nights like this serve to rejuvenate and refresh me, and to give me strength for the ongoing battle. Nights like these are my oasis.

In-Laws: The Family I Never Knew I Didn't Have

When I got married, I had no idea what I was getting myself into in the in-law department. My mother-in-law is the youngest of eight children, all very sociable and outgoing, so the number of new in-laws with whom I would be in regular contact numbered in the dozens, maybe even the tens of dozens. My husband has cousins, second cousins, and even third cousins who are within ten years of our age, and since he has both a 20-year-old and a less than one-year-old, we can identify with the least three generations of family who are at roughly the same stage of life as we are.

And when I say “in regular contact,” I mean not only tons of Facebook postings and e-mail updates back and forth, but actually seeing these people face-to-face several times a year. For literally decades, my extended in-laws have had a Christmas party and a summer picnic every year, with anywhere from 50 to 100 family members in attendance. And that doesn’t even count other family events like weddings, funerals, and graduations.

Now, for a lot of people, going to a party with all your in-laws can be a bit of a trial – something to be endured rather than something to be enjoyed. But to me, an in-law party is just about as fun as it can get. I never have any fear of awkward silences, or of being left out of an in-joke, or of accidentally sparking a family squabble. In fact, as soon as I walked into the yard at this year’s summer picnic, my niece was offering to bring me a cold drink, my sister-in-law relieved me of both my bag and my baby, and a number of people were hugging me and striking up conversations. My daughter was delighted at all the attention from aunts and uncles and cousins, my son was thrilled to play in the pool with the big kids, and my husband and I happily regaled all interested parties with stories about my stepdaughter’s experiences in Army boot camp.

Ryan playing in the pool with his second cousin (I think) Brian

I love my own family, but I think it’s wonderful that I love my family-by-marriage just as much. Growing up in a small family, even the family gatherings where everyone in the extended family was there amounted to maybe 30 people. So being in a group of 50 to 100 family members – especially a group bearing very strong family resemblances – is a special treat for me. My in-laws have become a part of my family that I never knew I didn’t have. And I love them all for it.

June 30 Photo: A Friend

Since I am a stay-at-home mom and there aren’t many preschoolers in our neighborhood, my son doesn’t have the opportunity to make a lot of friends that he sees regularly. Fortunately, being a very sociable and outgoing kid, he is content to make friends with any other kids he happens to meet, whether it’s at a playground or in a store or out for a walk. But he does have one friend that he sees nearly every week when Daddy runs at Fresh Pond: Katherine.

Katherine is a few months older than Ryan, but was much more shy and less talkative than he when they first met over a year ago. But between getting a little older and coming out of her shell a bit, the two of them are now best buddies. Every Saturday, they run around together before the race starts and again after it ends. They hold hands and run through the grass, they examine trees to look for bugs, they play follow-the-leader across the stone walls, and they greet friendly dogs. But their favorite thing to do together is play with the tools.

I love to listen to them explaining to each other what the various tools are for, or watch them helping each other find a particular tool. This morning when I went over to check on them, Ryan was carefully hoisting Katherine up in the air so she could reach one of the tools that had been looped over the top of the rack and was just out of their reach. It’s always good to have a friend around when you need a little boost.

June 29 Photo: Soft

“Soft” is another concept on the Photo-A-Day list that’s, well, a softball when you have a baby. You’re surrounded by soft clothes, soft blankets, soft toys, and soft baby parts. Soft feet, soft bottoms, soft noses, soft hands, soft hair. It’s difficult to choose which soft thing should be the subject of the “soft” photo! But of all the soft things I see around me, the one that I always find myself patting and snuggling and wanting to touch is my daughter’s fuzzy baby head.

My son had fine, soft, downy hair when he was an infant, but it thickened up and started to lose its baby softness when he was 4 or 5 months old. My daughter, on the other hand, still has beautifully fine, soft, baby-textured hair even at 10-1/2 months old.

I love her hair for so many reasons. First of all, because it is so soft. Second, because it has a magical way of retaining just a hint of that sweet, clean baby shampoo smell long after her bath. Third, because it is such a glorious buttery blond with just a hint of coppery undertones in sunlight. And lastly, because it picks up the tiniest bit of curl when it’s humid. And because of all those things, snuggling my face into her hair makes me happy.

In fact, it makes me so happy that on more than one occasion when I was having a rough day, my husband has handed her to me and ordered, “Snuggle. It’ll make you feel better.” And he was right, it did. Ahhhh, soft.

June 28 Photo: On the Shelf

I have stuff on shelves all over my house. There are shelves of clothes, there are shelves of toys, there are shelves of vases, there are shelves of food, there are shelves of Tupperware and tchotchkes and DVDs and CDs and sheet music. But my favorites, by far, are the shelves of books. And my favorite shelves of books are the shelves of kids’ books.

My mom was a children’s librarian and my sister was an early childhood education major, so not only do I know all the great children’s literature from my own childhood, I’m pretty up to date on all the good stuff through the mid-1990s. And because my wonderful cousin Carol passed along her kids’ favorite books, I’ve even got some good stuff from after 2000.

This shelf is only the books we keep in the playroom – it doesn’t include any of the marvelous classics we keep in the bedrooms for naptime and bedtime stories. We’ve got it all: Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Go Dog Go, Are You My Mother, all things Seuss, Make Way for Ducklings, The Story of Ping, Tikki Tikki Tembo, Where the Wild Things Are, the complete Richard Scarry Collection, Goodnight Moon, Chick Chicka ABC, There’s No Such Thing as a Dragon, Animalia, I Spy, Polar Express, half a dozen books involving trucks and/or trains, and Does God Know How to Tie Shoes? We have books about being a big brother, getting a big boy bed, and learning to use the potty. We have books with no words, a few words, and lots of words. We have books with a few pictures, a lot of pictures, and only pictures. We have some that we read nearly every night and some that I can’t wait until the kids are ready for them. We have books that make sounds and books that have windows that open and books that have different textures to touch.

Books are a window to the world around us. They introduce children to animals they have never seen, places they have never been, and adventures they have never heard of. Books teach them little words and big words and little ideas and big ideas. Books help them think and grow and learn and imagine.

It’s a shelf full of books, but it’s also a window to the whole entire universe – and maybe a couple more universes, just for good measure!

June 27 Photo: Bathroom

I grew up in a house with one bathroom (and an older sister). So personal space (and time) in the bathroom was always at a premium. When I got my first apartment on my own, having my own bathroom was one of the most satisfying rewards of being independent. And when I got married, one of the things I most appreciated about my new husband and my new house was that I got my very own bathroom.

And then I had kids.

And since my bathroom happens to be the one with the bathtub, it also happens to now be the kids’ bathroom as well as mine. And that’s fine. Honestly, I find it kind of fun that my shower has an Elmo faucet cover, and that I usually have to fish a few rubber duckies and a truck or two out of the tub before my morning shower. But I’m also very glad that I still have my own personal “girly corner” that is mine, all mine.

My girly corner is full of things that remind me that I’m not just a tired mom who hasn’t had the chance to wash my hair in two days and who smells like stale formula and Desitin. My girly corner is a promise that there can still be a hot, relaxing bubble bath scented of raspberries or a cool, refreshing tub scented of spearmint after the kids go to bed at the end of a long day. I have mousse and hairspray and pomade for those wonderful evenings when we get a babysitter who starts duty an hour before we’re due to leave so I can actually style my hair. I have a bottle or two of perfume that make me feel like a sexy woman and a loved wife and not just a child-herder.

My bathroom may no longer be completely my own, but it is still my haven when I need it to be. My girly corner tells me so.

June 26 Photo: Where You Shop

Going shopping with two little ones is a challenge, so I tend to limit my shopping these days to only that shopping which is absolutely necessary – in other words, Costco, the grocery store, and an occasional CVS run. The main difficulty in shopping with two small children is that your average shopping cart was not designed for a tall almost-toddler and an even taller preschooler who has exceeded the printed weight limit on the cart for nearly a year now. Even the Costco carts, which are designed for two children, are a little too small and a lot too close together for my two. (Remember fighting with your sibling in the back seat of your huge 1970s station wagon? Yeah, imagine that scenario in a Smart Car and you’ll have the general idea.) But we need to eat, so at least once a week or so I brace myself, bundle them into the car, and brave the wild world of the grocery store.

My daughter gets to ride in the cart. She spends most of her time kicking off her shoes, licking the handle of the cart, and twisting herself around to flirt with other shoppers. My son gets to “help” push the cart. He spends most of his time holding the cart back when I’m trying to push it, pushing it when I’m trying to stop it, and grabbing random items off the shelf and slipping them into the cart when I’m not looking. (Fortunately, he has yet to learn to drop things in the cart gently so the telltale clunk usually warns me to check my cart contents.)

There are an awful lot of benefits to going shopping with my kids, though. Because of them, people often strike up conversations with me: grandmotherly types who tell me about their grandchildren, fellow moms who ask questions or give advice about whatever phase my kids are in, store employees who offer them cheese or cookies or a chance to pet a lobster. But my favorite part of shopping with my kids is just watching people’s reactions to them. Many times I see a fellow shopper coming down the aisle toward me looking tired or grumpy or frustrated, but when they see my daughter grinning at them or singing happily to herself, or hear my son’s running commentary about the various foods he likes to eat, they break out a smile themselves, and as they pass by I see their step become a bit lighter, their posture become a bit straighter, their whole attitude become a bit cheerier.

Where I shop. It’s also where I sometimes get to make the world a slightly happier place for people, even if only for a moment. And that’s something you can’t buy no matter where you shop.

June 25 Photo: Something Cute

“Something Cute” has to be the biggest no-brainer of all the 31 photo concepts in this whole month-long Photo-A-Day challenge. Seriously, I have a 10-month-old daughter and a 2-1/2-year-old son who are the most adorable and photogenic children on the planet. “Something Cute” is their life motto.

But as cute as they each are individually, their cuteness is beyond doubled when they’re together. Well, at least when they’re together and being nice to each other, which I’d estimate is maybe 20, 25 percent of the time. Fortunately, I happened to have a camera handy this evening when that 20 percent rolled around.

Katie loves to play with Ryan’s toys, especially while Ryan is playing with them, and Ryan is not especially appreciative of that fact. And if she takes one of his toys that he isn’t playing with, he usually develops an urgent and immediate need to play with it himself. Both situations often result in tears on one or both of their parts, whether or not I intervene. But this evening, after a bit of sparring, they managed to come to an unspoken agreement on their own. (Based on this photo, I think that agreement must have been along the lines of, “Ryan gets to play with all the toys and Katie gets to watch without getting smacked.” Hey, if it works for them, who am I to judge?)

What I find so cute about the photo is the expressions on each of their faces: Katie grinning and looking up adoringly at her big brother, and Ryan looking benevolently and (somewhat) patiently down at his little sister. He’s showing her how the toy works, and she’s listening intently. I wonder how many times in the coming years a similar scene will be played out between the two of them. Perhaps I’ll see similar expressions when he teaches her how to ride his old tricycle, or when he gives her the rundown of the rules of baseball, or when he shows her how to make meatloaf, or when he takes her to the parking lot of the church down the street and teaches her to drive stick.

They might lose a bit of their cuteness in the eyes of the rest of the world over the next dozen years or so, but in the eyes of their mum, I kind of suspect they’ll always look like they do in this photo: cute.

June 24 Photo: On Your Mind

Today’s photo is another slight cheat, but again, for a very good reason: Today would have been my parents’ 50^th wedding anniversary. Obviously, I wasn’t there at their wedding, so I didn’t take any photos. But that is definitely what is in the forefront of my mind today.

This is absolutely my favorite photo from my parents’ wedding album. Both my folks are so obviously glowing with excitement and happiness. And they are truly surrounded by family and friends. Unfortunately, the only groomsman I can identify is my mother’s brother, my Uncle John (the one wearing glasses). The women are, from left to right, my mother’s sister Elaine (who was only 16 at the time), my mother’s college roommate Myrna (the matron of honor), and my dad’s cousin Carolee (who, I believe, borrowed my mother’s wedding gown for her own wedding not long after).

I love the men’s white dinner jackets, the women’s perky little hats, the beautifully draping flowers, and my mom’s lace gauntlets and voluminous ball gown. I love her beaded pearl headpiece that I would wear (upside down and backwards) at my own wedding, nearly 45 years later. I love the familiarity of the backdrop, the room being the Ladies’ Parlor of the church I grew up in, with the same mirror, the same wing chair, and quite possibly the same curtains that were there during my childhood.

I love seeing them when they didn’t know what life had in store for them. When this picture was taken, they had no idea that they would have two daughters, or two grandchildren. They didn’t know that they would buy a house and live in it for their whole entire lives. They didn’t know that my dad would work for the same company for over 40 years, or that my mom would be a teacher, then a stay at home mom, then a children’s librarian. They didn’t know that their funerals would be held at the same church that they were married in, the same church that their children were raised in. They didn’t know that my mom’s dad would live with us for a year while suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, or that my dad would eventually need hospice care in our home, or that my mom would live in a hospice facility in the next town.

But they knew that they loved each other, and they knew that they could handle whatever life threw at them, with help from each other and from God.

I may not live long enough to be married for 50 years, either, but I know that with help from my husband and my God, I can handle anything that life may throw at me during whatever part of that 50 years I may have left. And that’s what’s on my mind today.

June 23 Photo: Movement

Today’s photo is a bit of a cheat, because I didn’t take it. (And I can’t lie about that fact, because I am clearly in the picture.) But since movement is really difficult to depict and since I love the way this photo captures it, I’m going to give my husband credit for taking it and post it anyway.

Most of the photographs that I take trying to capture movement just end up as blurs. (And with my kids, most of the photographs that I take are trying to capture movement!) I can’t blame it on my camera, because my husband used my camera to take this photo. Maybe he knows some special setting that I don’t (likely) or maybe he just has a better eye than I (extremely likely). But whatever technique he used, this photo captures movement exactly the way I wanted to capture it.

If you look closely at the lower left-hand side of the photograph, right under the surface of the water you can just make out the flesh-colored blur that is my son immediately post-belly-flop. He loves to stand on the side of the pool and hurl himself in, spread-eagled, in order to make the maximum splash possible. It takes an amazingly quick shutter finger to catch him mid-air, since he gives zero warning that he’s about to jump, so most of the photos of him jumping into the pool look a lot like this one.

And that’s a pretty good illustration of life with a 2-1/2-year-old boy: You rarely see the event, just the aftermath. You find the Legos strewn all over the living room after the 3-foot-tall tower crashes down. You mop up the puddle of soapy water on the bathroom floor after the tub toys have had an epic (and splashy) battle. You rescue the child with his head trapped between the bars of the fence after he squeezes the rest of his body through (photo below for those of you who missed it).

Yup, life with a 2-1/2 year old boy is pretty much constant movement – yours, his, toys, and time. It’s nice to have a photograph every now and then to freeze the action so you don’t miss it completely. Because you can’t stop the movement of the child or of the clock.

June 22 Photo: From a High Angle

My son looks up to me. Literally, he looks up to me. After all, I tower over him. I’m no giant, but at 5 foot 8 I’m a relatively tall woman. And although he’s exceptionally tall for his age, he’s only about 3 foot 4, which means I’ve still got well over two feet on him. So I do an awful lot of looking down, and he does an awful lot of looking up.

But more than just literally looking up at me, he also looks up to me in a figurative sense. Here is another human being who is using me as a model for what human beings are supposed to be like. He imitates the way I talk – not only the words and grammar and intonation, but the attitude. If I’m rude to people, he thinks he should be rude to people. If I swear and mutter under my breath, he’ll learn to swear and mutter under his breath. But if I’m kind and helpful, he’ll grow up to be kind and helpful. If I work hard and carefully, he’ll be a conscientious worker, too.

So whenever I’m tempted to act like the kind of person that deep down, I really don’t want to be, and that I don't want HIM to be, all I have to do is look at that little person down there who looks up to me, and suddenly it’s not so tempting any more. He may be small, but he’s a big responsibility.

June 21 Photo: Where You Slept

Last night was my first night back in my own bed after sleeping in a sleeping bag on an air mattress in a tent for four nights. And oh, did it feel good!

Don’t get me wrong, I love sleeping in a tent. I love the squishiness of the air mattress and the way it poofs me up in the air a tiny bit when my husband lies down on the other side. I love the feeling of toasty warm toes inside my sleeping bag and a chilly nose peeping out of it. I love hearing the lullaby of the frogs calling and the owls hooting and the wind rustling in the trees. I love the smell of campfires and sweet fern and pine as I drift off to sleep. I love waking up to the sound of birds singing and chipmunks chittering and neighbors going about their business.

But there’s something to be said for the familiarity of your own bed. I know exactly what angle to lay the pillow at to get my neck comfortable. I know exactly how many layers of covers I need to get the perfect temperature. I know exactly how much space I have to roll over in between the edge of the bed and my husband. I know my way to the bathroom without needing to turn on a light. I have my glasses and my tissues and my Kindle and my lamp right at hand. The familiarity is comforting.

It’s fun to go on a trip of any kind, and to sleep in new places. But it’s always so sweet to come back home and sleep where you know you belong, right in your own bed.

June 20 Photo: Favorite Photo You've Ever Taken

Being married to a semi-professional photographer with a great eye and even better equipment, I don’t take a lot of photos. And those that I do take aren’t especially spectacular. But as the saying goes, even a blind pig finds a truffle now and then. So I do have a few of my own photos that I’d call favorites.

Not surprisingly, most of my favorite photos that I’ve taken are of my kids. They’re photogenic as well as funny, so the skill of the photographer is a minimal contribution to the quality of the pictures. There are some where they’re doing cute things, or making cute expressions, or wearing cute clothes – or sometimes all three. But if I had to choose one single photograph that I’ve taken over the past few years that is my favorite photo of all, I’d have to choose this one.

I took this photograph in August of 2010. My mom had finished treatment for ovarian cancer that included two major surgeries and several rounds of chemotherapy, and she was finally beginning to feel healthy again. My son, her first (and at that time only) grandchild was the greatest joy of her life, and the feeling was definitely mutual. He was only 9 months old but he absolutely knew and recognized his Grammy Martha, and he adored her. My mom loved coming over and spending time with our family and especially with my son, and this photo was taken at one of a number of summer evenings that she spent poolside with us.

Sadly, her cancer returned a few months later and she passed away in April 2011, when I was pregnant with my daughter. Seeing this photograph makes me wish that I had a similar one of my mother with my daughter. But I love that years from now, I will be able to show this photo to my son and tell him about his wonderful Grammy Martha and how much she loved him.

June 19 Photo: Imperfect

Today’s blog entry itself is imperfect, because I am cheating. I am cheating because I am posting a video instead of a photograph. A photo could not quite do this story justice, so please bear with me.

One of the hardest things for me as a mother is to let my kids do things themselves that they can’t really do yet. For example, my son is learning to put on his own socks, and they often end up either inside out or only half-on with the toes dragging on the floor. But he is so proud that he has done it all by himself that I have to bite my tongue and let his socks be. Or when he helps to wipe off the kitchen table when I’m getting dinner ready, and it ends up even stickier than it was when he started, and I need to force myself to thank him and wait until he’s out of sight to fix it.

If I never let him do anything imperfectly, he’ll never learn to do anything at all. If every time he tries something new, I tell him that he’s doing it wrong, or I fix it for him, he’ll get discouraged and convince himself that he can’t do anything. So we’re both learning to be happy with imperfect for now, and leave learning to do things perfectly until later.

Today I saw a beautiful example of his imperfection. He’d been helping his daddy fill our water jugs at the spigot near our campsite, and today when Daddy asked if he wanted to help get water, he announced that he could do it himself. So my husband laughed a bit to himself, handed him a plastic pitcher, and sent him on his way, expecting to hear a plaintive voice calling, “Um, Dada, can you come help me?” in a minute. But to our surprise, he came back a few minutes later, very solemnly and carefully carrying a pitcher about one-third full of water. We weren’t sure how he’d managed it, so the next time we needed water and he volunteered to get it, Daddy surreptitiously followed him with a video camera. This is the result.

We could have told him he wasn’t big enough to get water by himself yet. We could have told him we needed to help him. We could have told him we needed more water than he could get. But then we would have missed out on seeing that determined expression on his face as he carefully navigated around roots to avoid spilling his precious cargo, and his look of triumph as he handed it over. Sometimes, imperfect is way more than good enough.

June 18 Photo: Something We Don't Know About You

A lot of people don’t know that I love to go camping. Growing up, my family went camping for two weeks every summer at a local campground, and then often took another trip somewhere farther away later in the summer. We had an old Cox pop-up trailer, with two wings that swung outward to make bunks. When I was very small, my parents slept on one bunk and my sister and I slept on the other. When my sister and I were old enough to object to that situation, she took the bunk and I slept on the floor. I’m still not sure why this was such an improvement in my mind, but I do recall that it was.

I remember my mom getting out boxes and lists from the attic. She carefully consulted her menu and packed dry foods in a green wooden box with a sliding top, and perishable foods in a heavy Coleman cooler with an aluminum latch that made a very satisfying CLUNK when you latched it. She had another green wooden box filled with yellow and turquoise plastic mugs, cheap cutlery and serving forks and spoons, and plastic bowls and plates. A large white jerrycan nested inside a white basin that was used for washing dishes and people. Ziploc bags filled with everything from damp washcloths to shampoo bottles to sponges to hot cocoa mix were tucked into the nooks and crannies of each box. And the dark green sleeping bags, one lined with plaid flannel fabric and the other lined with brown flannel fabric printed with flying ducks were carefully aired on the clothesline before being rolled, tied tightly with twine, and crammed into the back of our Plymouth Gran Fury station wagon, which already groaned under the weight of the aluminum Grumman canoe my dad had heaved on top and tied down with bungee cords.

It’s funny the details I still remember some 30 or 35 years later. And it makes me wonder what my own kids will remember years from now. Will they remember that we left them sitting in the minivan watching a DVD to keep them out from underfoot while we set up the tent? Will they remember that we always had a fancy dinner of steak and corn-on-the-cob with wine for the adults the first night of vacation? Will they remember the cool toasting forks with the thumb wheel that we used to toast marshmallows over the fire? Will they remember chasing fireflies after dark, or lying in the tent listening to owls calling, or looking up in the sky on the way to the bathroom at night and seeing a shooting star?

It may look like just a tent to you, but to me, it’s my kids’ memories in the making.

June 17 Photo: In Your Bag

I’m always carrying a bag. I’m a woman, so I’m usually carrying some kind of handbag or purse. I’m also a mother of two children in diapers, so I’m usually also carrying a diaper bag. (And if I’m not, you can be sure the handbag or purse that I AM carrying is doubling as a diaper bag.) And since today I’m also a vacationer, you can bet there are plenty of bags around me right now.

Now that I stop and think about it, I’m not sure how many bags I do actually have at the moment. I’m in the process of moving my family from staying at a hotel to pitching a tent at a campground, so my minivan is impressively full of bags. As well as the previously-mentioned handbag and diaper bag, I have a bag with a full-size, three-room tent in it, complete with stakes and a rainfly. I have three sleeping bags. I have a pack-and-play crib in a bag. I have a suitcase full of clothes. I have a bag of baby food, a bag of kid snack food, and a bag of adult snack food. I have a bag of trucks and bubble stuff. I have a bag of extra diapers, wipes, diaper rash cream, formula, and bottles. I have a bag of pillows and blankets. But perhaps the most important bag of all is my bag of snugglies.

The blue-jammied bear with the saucy red curl (aka “Bear”) is my son’s current bedmate of choice. The dog on the right with the jingle bells and the wiggly bone (aka “Jingle Dog”) keeps my daughter entertained in her crib when she’s on the brink between sleeping and waking (in either direction). The owl with the built-in teething ring (aka “Owl”) keeps her entertained in the car (at least, it does until she catapults it behind her car seat where I can’t reach it). And the plastic cup with cheery Jessie the Cowgirl on it (you can see we do better with toys that come pre-named) keeps my son occupied in the car.

Without these four dear friends, long trips with two small children would be much more difficult and tear-filled. You could say there’s a little bit of travel magic in my bag.