Moving Day
Filed under: The Blog Author:
The moving vans have come and gone, and MotherBunker is outta here. Come visit over at the new place, http://motherbunkerblog.com. And pardon the dust while I settle in ...
I do. I really do want to be a geek. Remember, back in the days of leg warmers and Aqua Net, when being in the know about computers meant you were kind of a nerd (and not the good kind, either -- think dudes from Weird Science)? Those were the days when the coolest possessions you could have were the oversized sweater with neon-colored block patterns and the latest Poison CD. Now, being a geek is all the rage. Hundreds of geeks line up outside Apple stores to get the latest iPhone -- normal people, like you and me, who don't study quantum physics. (Wait -- I'm not the only one not studying quantum physics, am I?) And speaking of that, CBS has "The Big Bang Theory," which proves that not knowing what the hell a genius is talking about can be really, really funny.
Be a nerd ... all the cool kids are doing it.
Sadly, it has come to my attention that I have a long way to go before reaching geekdom. Yes, it's true: I was once the only chick in the theater for Star Trek: Nemesis, but I was on a date with the nerd that I married, so I'm not sure that counts. Every day, I learn something new that makes me feel like I'm the only kid at school without a Swatch watch. (And believe you me, you don't want to be the only mid-1980s kid at school without a Swatch watch ... or shoulder pads, for that matter.) I was watching "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" this week -- which, particularly whenever the blond cheerleader and her family is on, is absolutely awful (but yes, I watch it anyway) -- and they threw out this little tidbit of info from a high school freshman on the show: "Nobody e-mails amymore." Apparently, e-mail is, like, so yesterday. So my main mode of electronic communication is now as current as the bag phone.
I also read in Wired that Twittering is the new blogging. I just started this site in December, and I'm already outmoded? It's taken me this long just to figure out what an RSS reader is. I am amazed by the people who find the time and patience to Twitter, and I can almost guarantee you I'll never be one of them. Why? Because I waste my free time watching crap shows like "The Secret Life of the American Teenager." (Although, in fairness, I am reading Unaccustomed Earth right now, by Jhumpa Lahiri, whose writing I love ... so I don't actually waste all of my free time.)
I do think I should get geek bonus points for reading Wired, but then again, that, too, is because the husband subscribes. And he is, as previously mentioned, something of a nerd. I literally just took his new laptop from the FedEx guy ... a new laptop that was delivered directly from Shanghai, I kid you not. And he called me five minutes after it hit the doorstep to ask me if, as his sources had told him, his package had been delivered to "reception/front desk." (How great is that? I'm the front desk now.) He even ordered my engagement ring online -- which, to the untrained eye, might seem impersonal, but in this case is actually the highest compliment.
But I digress ...
I never thought I'd wind up so beyond of the realm of tech trends that my 13-year-old niece would have a better cell phone than me. I've been reading Randy's copy of Geekipedia to find out just how much I don't know. I'm only on the A's, and I'm already out of my league. Take your J.J. Abrams, for example. Creator of "Lost"? Yeah, that guy. Remember the "sat phone" that the Losties kept calling each other and the bad guys and the boat on? The Geekipedia article on Abrams says: "viewers may have thought that the sight of a KRZR — a Motorola phone marketed two years after the story was supposed to have taken place — constituted a continuity error. Nope. It was a tip-off to season three's time-bending finale." OK, um ... you have to be a special sort of viewer to 1) know the model number of that phone and 2) know the year that it was manufactured, vis a vis the year in which "Lost" takes place. If this is the kind of stuff you have to know to be a cool geek, I've got a really long way to go.
But, you have to start somewhere. There have always been a few bugs with this blog's layout, a lot of things I have to work around, a lot of tweaking that's beyond my understanding. So beginning Monday, MotherBunker is moving to self-hosted Wordpress, where I'll have a bunch more stuff to learn ... but, I think, more resources to learn it. I think the new site is slightly more geekified (that CommentLuv thing? Genius!) ... and therefore cool. You know, until I move in, anyway. That's a preview of my new place above; and on Monday, I'll post a forwarding address here, so that all three of my readers will know where to find me :)
Be a nerd ... all the cool kids are doing it.
Sadly, it has come to my attention that I have a long way to go before reaching geekdom. Yes, it's true: I was once the only chick in the theater for Star Trek: Nemesis, but I was on a date with the nerd that I married, so I'm not sure that counts. Every day, I learn something new that makes me feel like I'm the only kid at school without a Swatch watch. (And believe you me, you don't want to be the only mid-1980s kid at school without a Swatch watch ... or shoulder pads, for that matter.) I was watching "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" this week -- which, particularly whenever the blond cheerleader and her family is on, is absolutely awful (but yes, I watch it anyway) -- and they threw out this little tidbit of info from a high school freshman on the show: "Nobody e-mails amymore." Apparently, e-mail is, like, so yesterday. So my main mode of electronic communication is now as current as the bag phone.
I also read in Wired that Twittering is the new blogging. I just started this site in December, and I'm already outmoded? It's taken me this long just to figure out what an RSS reader is. I am amazed by the people who find the time and patience to Twitter, and I can almost guarantee you I'll never be one of them. Why? Because I waste my free time watching crap shows like "The Secret Life of the American Teenager." (Although, in fairness, I am reading Unaccustomed Earth right now, by Jhumpa Lahiri, whose writing I love ... so I don't actually waste all of my free time.)
I do think I should get geek bonus points for reading Wired, but then again, that, too, is because the husband subscribes. And he is, as previously mentioned, something of a nerd. I literally just took his new laptop from the FedEx guy ... a new laptop that was delivered directly from Shanghai, I kid you not. And he called me five minutes after it hit the doorstep to ask me if, as his sources had told him, his package had been delivered to "reception/front desk." (How great is that? I'm the front desk now.) He even ordered my engagement ring online -- which, to the untrained eye, might seem impersonal, but in this case is actually the highest compliment.
But I digress ...
I never thought I'd wind up so beyond of the realm of tech trends that my 13-year-old niece would have a better cell phone than me. I've been reading Randy's copy of Geekipedia to find out just how much I don't know. I'm only on the A's, and I'm already out of my league. Take your J.J. Abrams, for example. Creator of "Lost"? Yeah, that guy. Remember the "sat phone" that the Losties kept calling each other and the bad guys and the boat on? The Geekipedia article on Abrams says: "viewers may have thought that the sight of a KRZR — a Motorola phone marketed two years after the story was supposed to have taken place — constituted a continuity error. Nope. It was a tip-off to season three's time-bending finale." OK, um ... you have to be a special sort of viewer to 1) know the model number of that phone and 2) know the year that it was manufactured, vis a vis the year in which "Lost" takes place. If this is the kind of stuff you have to know to be a cool geek, I've got a really long way to go.
But, you have to start somewhere. There have always been a few bugs with this blog's layout, a lot of things I have to work around, a lot of tweaking that's beyond my understanding. So beginning Monday, MotherBunker is moving to self-hosted Wordpress, where I'll have a bunch more stuff to learn ... but, I think, more resources to learn it. I think the new site is slightly more geekified (that CommentLuv thing? Genius!) ... and therefore cool. You know, until I move in, anyway. That's a preview of my new place above; and on Monday, I'll post a forwarding address here, so that all three of my readers will know where to find me :)
Well it's official: Cars has reached irrational levels of adoration in our home. MJ has the bug. I have the bug. Randy ... well, he still likes real cars better. And LL Cool Baby is much more into dollies. So I guess it's just MJ and me. She likes this movie so much that she even watches the deleted scenes (the ones that are just drawings, not all Pixared-out yet ... the "brown" ones, as she calls them) over and over again. I find myself telling Randy things like: "You know what line I love from this movie? The one where Sheriff asks Mater what he had told him about talking to the prisoner, and Mater says: 'To not to.'" How bad is it, people? Let's borrow a line from one of Mater's cousins to explain:
You might be obsessed with Cars if:
... at 10 p.m., when your toddler has been in bed for an hour and a half, you don't turn off the movie that has been playing all day. You, in fact, stop what you're doing twice: to watch the scene where Lightning McQueen fixes up Radiator Springs and then the one when he goes to the big race at the end.
... and you think to yourself: Man, I would have loved to have been at that race.
... while picking up a Cars book for your daughter, you buy the soundtrack for yourself.
... your kid and your husband get a boo boo in the same place, and each of them gets a Cars band aid ... Sally for her, Mater for him.
You might be obsessed with Cars if:
... at 10 p.m., when your toddler has been in bed for an hour and a half, you don't turn off the movie that has been playing all day. You, in fact, stop what you're doing twice: to watch the scene where Lightning McQueen fixes up Radiator Springs and then the one when he goes to the big race at the end.
... and you think to yourself: Man, I would have loved to have been at that race.
... while picking up a Cars book for your daughter, you buy the soundtrack for yourself.
... your kid and your husband get a boo boo in the same place, and each of them gets a Cars band aid ... Sally for her, Mater for him.
As he was leaving for work yesterday, Randy asked MJ and me what we had planned for the day.
"Oh," I said, with genuine enthusiasm, "we're going to have lots of fun ..."
He laughed. Not an "Oh, good, wish I could be there" kind of laugh, but rather a cheerful snort. A chortle, if you will. A disbelieving snicker, you might say. Now, give him his due: He had been up since 3:30 a.m. with MJ, when a fake need to use the potty turned into a need for toy cars and who knows what else. So the idea of having any sort of fun when watching this particular toddler for the next eight hours was, admittedly, not a viable notion to him. But I really did have plans for the day. Good ones.
Which is, of course, where I went wrong. Randy had plans to sleep all night, after all, and look where that got him.
So the new read-along book I wanted to do with her ended after two pages, when she figured out this was the same story she could watch in movie form on the DVD player. I used to love read-along books when I was little, so surely she would, too? Nope. Not so much. But then again, what good is a read-along when you can't read yet?
Then there were the muffins that I thought we could make together. Like any kid who hasn't yet realized how much work is involved in cooking, MJ always wants to help in the kitchen. We have a toddler cookbook by Annabel Karmel that makes this task seem like a glorious mother-child bonding moment. Witness the shiny happiness on this page:
But what MJ did instead of pouring and stirring was to make "apple boats":
... which is altogether cuter than stirring and pouring, but was not in the recipe, aka, "the plan."
The day went on like this. I had a vision of how our day might go; she had an altogether different idea -- not worse than mine, just a different interpretation. A different plan. No plan, in fact.
A lactation consultant once told me that women who demanded (or demand) excellence from themselves in the workplace are often surprised or frustrated by the ways in which they can't control the daily tasks of motherhood. It starts when you devise a birth plan that gets shot to h-e-double-hockey-sticks as your labor doesn't behave right, and continues each time you make a plan, big or small. In my workplace, there were rules and etiquette and meetings and benchmarks. In parenting, there are questions, journeys, unknowns. Being prepared doesn't mean crossing off a checklist of to-dos; it means understanding that you might just have a better time at Chick-fil-A's customer appreciation day than your kid, who actually turns out to be afraid of the main attraction: The guy dressed up in the cow costume.
In fact, if motherhood were a job you interviewed for, it would be the only occasion where "I'm a perfectionist" would be a proper response to the question "What would you say is your greatest weakness?"
As a freelance writer, I knew the steps to putting together an article. I could envision the research, the reporting, the transcribing, the brainstorming, the writing, the editing. As a mother, the best days I have are usually the ones where one random activity takes us to another one, when I don't concern myself with entertaining her so much as I let her be entertained.
Most of the time, I know this; I've learned it through months of practice. But there are days still when I have to relearn it, relinquish control, rewrite the plan, and make apple boats instead of apple muffins.
"Oh," I said, with genuine enthusiasm, "we're going to have lots of fun ..."
He laughed. Not an "Oh, good, wish I could be there" kind of laugh, but rather a cheerful snort. A chortle, if you will. A disbelieving snicker, you might say. Now, give him his due: He had been up since 3:30 a.m. with MJ, when a fake need to use the potty turned into a need for toy cars and who knows what else. So the idea of having any sort of fun when watching this particular toddler for the next eight hours was, admittedly, not a viable notion to him. But I really did have plans for the day. Good ones.
Which is, of course, where I went wrong. Randy had plans to sleep all night, after all, and look where that got him.
So the new read-along book I wanted to do with her ended after two pages, when she figured out this was the same story she could watch in movie form on the DVD player. I used to love read-along books when I was little, so surely she would, too? Nope. Not so much. But then again, what good is a read-along when you can't read yet?
Then there were the muffins that I thought we could make together. Like any kid who hasn't yet realized how much work is involved in cooking, MJ always wants to help in the kitchen. We have a toddler cookbook by Annabel Karmel that makes this task seem like a glorious mother-child bonding moment. Witness the shiny happiness on this page:
But what MJ did instead of pouring and stirring was to make "apple boats":
... which is altogether cuter than stirring and pouring, but was not in the recipe, aka, "the plan."
The day went on like this. I had a vision of how our day might go; she had an altogether different idea -- not worse than mine, just a different interpretation. A different plan. No plan, in fact.
A lactation consultant once told me that women who demanded (or demand) excellence from themselves in the workplace are often surprised or frustrated by the ways in which they can't control the daily tasks of motherhood. It starts when you devise a birth plan that gets shot to h-e-double-hockey-sticks as your labor doesn't behave right, and continues each time you make a plan, big or small. In my workplace, there were rules and etiquette and meetings and benchmarks. In parenting, there are questions, journeys, unknowns. Being prepared doesn't mean crossing off a checklist of to-dos; it means understanding that you might just have a better time at Chick-fil-A's customer appreciation day than your kid, who actually turns out to be afraid of the main attraction: The guy dressed up in the cow costume.
In fact, if motherhood were a job you interviewed for, it would be the only occasion where "I'm a perfectionist" would be a proper response to the question "What would you say is your greatest weakness?"
As a freelance writer, I knew the steps to putting together an article. I could envision the research, the reporting, the transcribing, the brainstorming, the writing, the editing. As a mother, the best days I have are usually the ones where one random activity takes us to another one, when I don't concern myself with entertaining her so much as I let her be entertained.
Most of the time, I know this; I've learned it through months of practice. But there are days still when I have to relearn it, relinquish control, rewrite the plan, and make apple boats instead of apple muffins.
Naked Friday and the Pull-Up Fairy
Filed under: Potty Wars Author:
When I went out to get the paper yesterday morning, someone had left us a surprise on our mailbox post: a Target bag filled with an unopened package of Pull-Ups. That someone clearly reads this blog, including my last post about the "broken" Pull-Ups. I'm pretty sure that someone also has a 3-year-old girl (the pull-ups were pink), and I thank her. This is one of the things I love about living in a neighborhood where so many people have kids the same age: We're all kind of in it together. Even when it comes to potty training.
And let's talk potty for a minute, shall we? It's a great subject, after all, especially when you're talking about Naked Friday. Yep, we went old school to start the weekend, potty boot camp, a full day (well, minus mealtimes, naptime and bedtime ... that's where the Pull-Ups come in) of a t-shirt and no diapers -- a dangerous but, it turns out, highly effective, method of potty training. It seems kids really don't like even the idea of peeing down their legs. Go figure. Not one accident, people. Not one. The Royal Potty Chair was a-singin' all weekend. I wouldn't say we're there just yet, but things did go well enough that we broke out the toddler underwear that we've been hoarding for months now and gave it a spin. I haven't been this excited since she learned how to walk.
And let's talk potty for a minute, shall we? It's a great subject, after all, especially when you're talking about Naked Friday. Yep, we went old school to start the weekend, potty boot camp, a full day (well, minus mealtimes, naptime and bedtime ... that's where the Pull-Ups come in) of a t-shirt and no diapers -- a dangerous but, it turns out, highly effective, method of potty training. It seems kids really don't like even the idea of peeing down their legs. Go figure. Not one accident, people. Not one. The Royal Potty Chair was a-singin' all weekend. I wouldn't say we're there just yet, but things did go well enough that we broke out the toddler underwear that we've been hoarding for months now and gave it a spin. I haven't been this excited since she learned how to walk.
Another Dumb Reason to Call the Husband at Work
Filed under: Bat Phone, Canadianism, TV is my friend Author:
We now interrupt your workday to bring you this important, vitally important, piece of news.
To the Bat Phone!
Ring!
Him: Hellooo?
Me: Guess what?
Him: What?
Me: Guess who's going to be on "Rescue Me"?
Him: Who?
Me: No, guess!
Him: Who?
Me: Guess! You'll never guess!
Him: Probably not. Just tell me.
Me: Michael J. Fox!
Him: Wow. That is exciting.
Me: [squeal] I know!
Him: When?
Me: Dunno. Next season, I guess.
Him: Cool. Thanks for letting me know.
Me: Yeah. No problem. I'm on the case.
Him: Yes. I can't imagine going through the whole day without that information.
Me: Exactly.
Him: What else is going on?
Me: Um ... yeah. That's pretty much it.
Him: OK. Working now.
Me: Yeah, OK. Bye.
To the Bat Phone!
Ring!
Him: Hellooo?
Me: Guess what?
Him: What?
Me: Guess who's going to be on "Rescue Me"?
Him: Who?
Me: No, guess!
Him: Who?
Me: Guess! You'll never guess!
Him: Probably not. Just tell me.
Me: Michael J. Fox!
Him: Wow. That is exciting.
Me: [squeal] I know!
Him: When?
Me: Dunno. Next season, I guess.
Him: Cool. Thanks for letting me know.
Me: Yeah. No problem. I'm on the case.
Him: Yes. I can't imagine going through the whole day without that information.
Me: Exactly.
Him: What else is going on?
Me: Um ... yeah. That's pretty much it.
Him: OK. Working now.
Me: Yeah, OK. Bye.
My baby is 11 months old today, which is so hard to believe. With MJ, I recall time passing sort of slowly through her first year. With so much to learn and, every day, something new happening in the world of this little person -- first cereal, first smile ... even her belly button stump took four weeks to disappear (and, disconcertingly, we never actually found it ... yikes) -- the first 12 months of her life floated deliciously by, and I can honestly say I savored each one.It's been harder to do with Little L, though I've tried, and though I've been all-too-conscious of trying. That's because MJ continues to have firsts herself, the subtle kind that show up in a grown-up remark, a comprehension she didn't have the week before, even a new kind of beaming smile that grabs up the world around it in a knowing way -- different from that baby smile, the one of joy over simple motions happening in the space around her, of a person she trusts making an entrance into the room, for example.
And so my mind is always split. But in short, quiet moments, I do savor the things that make a baby a baby for such a short time; the ones I still conjure in my mind, I suppose, when I end a request or an answer to one of the many "Whys?" I hear every day from MJ with the term of endearment, "baby."
And here's one of them, one that doesn't last long: The snaggletooth smile, via Little L today. Yes, I know you get a version of these later, when they start to lose their teeth ... but are they ever quite like this again?
I am clearly not cut out for the "have baby, will travel" set. I always seem to be just a step behind everyone else when it comes to meeting the current standards of mother-child excursion preparedness. For the past few weeks, we've been new gym members. (Technically, new members of an old gym we used to belong to, back in the halcyon days of semi-ripped ab muscles and good posture.) In those four weeks or so, I've been in three-and-a-half times, which is about the number of instances per week I had planned to go. The half, by the way, constitutes the trip when I worked out for 10 minutes before the child care folks came and got me to retrieve my absolutely-out-of-her-mind-with-stranger-anxiety 11-month-old, which is not to be confused with the trip when I never made it out of the child care room because she was in full meltdown mode 15 seconds after we entered. I sat in the room for an hour, playing with toys I could have been playing with at home, while Randy finished his workout. But that? The frustration over actually wanting to workout and actually wanting to leave the baby behind for a while to do so, and being thwarted every time? That's a different story for a different time.
This story is about how I went back in to retrieve my children yesterday morning. Bawling, splotchy, shaking, heaving, squealing, angry and frightened baby? Check. Waiting for me at the door. Well-adjusted, happy, couldn't-care-less-whether-Mommy's-around-or-not toddler? Hmmm. Being held. Looking pouty. Nice Gym Nanny looking at me with mingled pity and concern -- not for MJ, I guessed, but for her mother, her wholly inadequate and unprepared parent who apparently missed the memo that said her kid -- and all other kids -- is incapable of going ONE HOUR without having something to eat and drink. One hour, people.
Me: What happened?
Nice Gym Nanny: Well, she wanted a snack, and we couldn't find hers (waves a hand in direction of a counter that is literally packed with little Take-and-Toss bowls with goldfish crackers, each lovingly labeled with child's name before the mother/father left home to exercise.)
Me: Oh.
Nice Gym Nanny: Yeah. So she was really disappointed.
And so, I guessed, was Nice Gym Nanny ... in me. This is one of the reasons that I never bothered much with Gymboree classes and the like when MJ was even smaller than she is now; the idea of having to pack up her and half of her belongings to go somewhere else to play for 30 minutes seemed like unnecessary work for an 18-month-old with very simple needs. And now, packing a small lunch at 9:30 a.m., complete with masking tape monogramming (do you know how long it would take me to find masking tape around here?) seems like a lot of unnecessary work for a mother with a very simple need to sweat out all the spent patience clogged in her SAHM-y pores.
Am I being whiny and petulant? Yes.
I'll be honest. Some days I can't remember to brush MJ's hair before we go to Target. What I'm saying is: I'm soft. I need training. Boot camp. I'm a Type-L (for "lollygagging") parent personality living in a Type-A world. I'm pretty sure preschool in the fall will be as much about preparing Mommy to play nice as it will preparing MJ to do the same. They should charge me double. (But don't tell them I said that.)
Pop quiz time! What do you see in the following picture? (Hint: You're a TODDLER.)
a) a tea bag;
b) a "dwink" envelope (or "mail-ope," as MJ says);
c) a letter of the alphabet;
d) a bag of cookie seeds
Well, it's d, obviously. This happened to be sitting on the counter while we were making chocolate chip cookies this weekend (mmm ... chocolate chip cookies), and:
She slays me, I tell you. She just slays me.
a) a tea bag;
b) a "dwink" envelope (or "mail-ope," as MJ says);
c) a letter of the alphabet;
d) a bag of cookie seeds
Well, it's d, obviously. This happened to be sitting on the counter while we were making chocolate chip cookies this weekend (mmm ... chocolate chip cookies), and:
MJ: "Mommy, this would grow good cookies."
Me: "It would what? Grow cookies?"
MJ: "Yeah. You could grow nice cookies with these. These are seeds you can grow some cookies with."
Me: "Yeah?"
MJ: "Yeah. You put them in the ground, and ... and ... and they grow cookies!"
She slays me, I tell you. She just slays me.
So, we've been reading this book called The Mixed-Up Chameleon by Eric Carle -- very cute story about a chameleon who tries to be many different animals, but in the end, finds he is happiest as himself. A great message.
But when we reached the page in the book where the chameleon looks "gray and dull" because he's "cold and hungry," MJ disagreed. Her take-away message: "He looks that way because he's old."
Nice one.
Now, for the record, I'm not teaching her that older folks are gray and dull. I blame this guy:
That's Fred from Cars -- yes, more Cars; this is getting to be such an obsession it will have it's own Bunker blog category soon. Fred is one of the lesser-known characters, but when you're collecting all these little guys like she is, you have to start slow. Work up to Tow Mater and Sally and Doc. Give her something to look forward to. Anyway, she asked me why Fred's body was all bumpy and beat up, and I told her it was because Fred was rusty.
"Why?"
"Well, because that's what happens when cars get old," I said.
I sincerely hope she doesn't tell her grandparents they're rusty next time she sees them.
But when we reached the page in the book where the chameleon looks "gray and dull" because he's "cold and hungry," MJ disagreed. Her take-away message: "He looks that way because he's old."
Nice one.
Now, for the record, I'm not teaching her that older folks are gray and dull. I blame this guy:
That's Fred from Cars -- yes, more Cars; this is getting to be such an obsession it will have it's own Bunker blog category soon. Fred is one of the lesser-known characters, but when you're collecting all these little guys like she is, you have to start slow. Work up to Tow Mater and Sally and Doc. Give her something to look forward to. Anyway, she asked me why Fred's body was all bumpy and beat up, and I told her it was because Fred was rusty."Why?"
"Well, because that's what happens when cars get old," I said.
I sincerely hope she doesn't tell her grandparents they're rusty next time she sees them.
Remembering the Tiniest
Filed under: Grandparentology Author:
My grandmother gave birth to 10 children, the last three of whom died at birth. I've always wondered about those babies, missing from my mother's family pictures, and wondered, too, what my grandmother must have felt to have such sweet beings -- she was a wonder with tiny creatures -- come into the world, but never experience it. Their graves are next to my grandparents', in their hometown six hours from here, and my mom, so many years later, was thinking out loud of them before Memorial Day and wondering if there were flowers there to keep them company, to mark their small-but-powerful lives in this big world. I wondered too. Now more than ever, as a mother myself, I think of them with a deep respect. And I thought of them again yesterday morning when I picked up the paper.
There was an extraordinary story entitled "Reminders of Life" about "remembrance photography" -- a service provided by an organization called Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. Volunteer photographers around the country, including here in North Carolina, help parents of severely ill babies by giving their time to capture the children on film. In many cases, the infants have just passed away when they are photographed.
The article was incredibly moving, the pictures -- especially in this video -- hard to view ... because they are achingly beautiful and tug at every grateful bone and muscle in your body. I wanted nothing more than to go and wake up my two sleeping girls after reading the story, just to give them a hug. To be demonstrably thankful.
I couldn't stop reading this line from the story, from a father whose seriously ill daughter was photographed with the entire family for a portrait that would be hung above the fireplace in their home (she passed away before she turned three months):
It's worth reading, and the pictures worth seeing, to settle a little deeper into the gifts that crawl, skip, run and slumber around you each day.
There was an extraordinary story entitled "Reminders of Life" about "remembrance photography" -- a service provided by an organization called Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. Volunteer photographers around the country, including here in North Carolina, help parents of severely ill babies by giving their time to capture the children on film. In many cases, the infants have just passed away when they are photographed.
The article was incredibly moving, the pictures -- especially in this video -- hard to view ... because they are achingly beautiful and tug at every grateful bone and muscle in your body. I wanted nothing more than to go and wake up my two sleeping girls after reading the story, just to give them a hug. To be demonstrably thankful.
I couldn't stop reading this line from the story, from a father whose seriously ill daughter was photographed with the entire family for a portrait that would be hung above the fireplace in their home (she passed away before she turned three months):
"To me, that's the last family picture I'm going to be in," Tom says. "This is our family."
It's worth reading, and the pictures worth seeing, to settle a little deeper into the gifts that crawl, skip, run and slumber around you each day.
Mmmm ... Cereal.
Filed under: "MommycanIhavesome...", Bunker's Burning Questions, Canadianism Author:
What, you may ask yourself, is so exciting about a picture of a couple of boxes of Frosted Mini-Wheats?
I mean, you could buy these any day you wanted, yes? No. These are no ordinary boxes of Frosted Mini-Wheats. These are very special cereal boxes, which arrived in a package last Friday from a member of the Bunker posse because they contained these:
... and because, once she reads something, some quandary involving, say ... the inability of a mother to find anymore of these spoon flashlights, this posse member files away said information into a wondrous and unlimited resource of goods and services known as Her Marvelous Brain. It is my belief that the HMB (or, "Lisa," in layman's terms) automatically processes and cross-indexes all interests and loves of those around her with her existing knowledge base -- like some wizard librarian of pop culture. Or a character from "Battlestar Gallactica." (Maybe she is the true fifth Cylon? But a benevolent one? Sorry ... went geek for a minute.) SO, it wouldn't surprise me if the HMB had summoned these cereal boxes from their store shelves and teleported them to my door in her sleep. She is just that powerful, folks. Behold the power.
It was a top-grossing weekend for cereal lovers in the Bunker household. We also got these via Canadian motor transport (i.e., the Dodge Caravan-in-Law visiting from Ontario):
Mmmm. The Jumbo Box O' Shreddies. "Good, good whole wheat," or so I'm told the jingle says. Like its American counterpart Wheat Chex, only slightly larger in shape, slightly sweeter tasting, and more fun. Because adding "-ies" to the end of anything makes it more fun. The most fun of all? Shreddies crunch with a Canadian accent. It's true. I swear you'd think you were eating breakfast with Alan Thicke.
While I was having my teeth cleaned a few weeks ago, I learned that first morsel of information from my dental hygienist; I learned the other one from my mom, while complaining about the number of plates of perfectly good food I dump into the trash each week after putting them in front of MJ.
I am a colossal non-flosser. They hand me the little white box of free floss at the end of each cleaning with such optimism, such hope that I'll actually use it. It's nice, really, to see someone show that much belief in you. But every six months I go back, and there's no hiding it, not even with the last-minute flossing I do the night before the cleaning. I always come clean:
"Have you been flossing?"
"Uh, not as much as I should. I mean, you know, occasionally." Except never.
Well, dental karma is catching up with me, because now that my teeth are officially old -- that's what she told me, that the crud on your pearlies is loose when you're young and hard when you reach middle age (and then loose again when you're an Advanced AARPie) -- I have a toothache in my left jaw that is KILLING me. Well, only when I chew on it, or drink anything cold. Or grind my teeth. Yeah, I do that, too.
So during the sharing of this information with the Bunker grandmother -- you may know her as GrammyBunker -- she throws this out for me to chew on: "Yeah, well did you know your taste buds are old, too?" Thanks.
G-to-the-B said that little people have not only more taste buds than we do (in the sides and roof of their mouth, which you gradually lose as you age), but sometimes, more sensitive ones, according to this article and others, which I ran to the Internet to find.
Apparently there is a gene that directs some kids to an aversion of bitter-tasting foods. Which I can totally see. But my preschooler also seems to be genetically predisposed to hate hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chicken tenders (chicken tenders!) and virtually anything else I make her. Her cerebral cortex seems to be powered entirely by macaroni-and-cheese and the ubiquitous, all-powerful cheese stick. I wonder if there's a gene for being a pain the proverbial bum at dinnertime. Pretty sure she got that one, too.
I am a colossal non-flosser. They hand me the little white box of free floss at the end of each cleaning with such optimism, such hope that I'll actually use it. It's nice, really, to see someone show that much belief in you. But every six months I go back, and there's no hiding it, not even with the last-minute flossing I do the night before the cleaning. I always come clean:
"Have you been flossing?"
"Uh, not as much as I should. I mean, you know, occasionally." Except never.
Well, dental karma is catching up with me, because now that my teeth are officially old -- that's what she told me, that the crud on your pearlies is loose when you're young and hard when you reach middle age (and then loose again when you're an Advanced AARPie) -- I have a toothache in my left jaw that is KILLING me. Well, only when I chew on it, or drink anything cold. Or grind my teeth. Yeah, I do that, too.
So during the sharing of this information with the Bunker grandmother -- you may know her as GrammyBunker -- she throws this out for me to chew on: "Yeah, well did you know your taste buds are old, too?" Thanks.
G-to-the-B said that little people have not only more taste buds than we do (in the sides and roof of their mouth, which you gradually lose as you age), but sometimes, more sensitive ones, according to this article and others, which I ran to the Internet to find.
Apparently there is a gene that directs some kids to an aversion of bitter-tasting foods. Which I can totally see. But my preschooler also seems to be genetically predisposed to hate hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chicken tenders (chicken tenders!) and virtually anything else I make her. Her cerebral cortex seems to be powered entirely by macaroni-and-cheese and the ubiquitous, all-powerful cheese stick. I wonder if there's a gene for being a pain the proverbial bum at dinnertime. Pretty sure she got that one, too.
Hee. It sounds like a dirty word, doesn't it? Well it kind of is, and I'll tell you why. Last night, Randy's parents (Canadians visiting the U.S. on Canada Day? What? It's true. You heard it here first.) showed us some video of, if not the Loveliest Place on Earth, at least the Loveliest Place In Holland, where they visited a few months ago.Maybe I've mentioned the FatherBunker-in-Law is Dutch? (You know, before he also became Canadian.) I know! I am SO sort of multicultural-by-marriage. The good people at my liberal alma mater would be so proud ... you know, if I were actually using my diploma. And if Dutch-Canadian was a popular buzzword for multicultural. Which it's not. Hmm. Must rethink patterns of logic.
ANYWAY, the Loveliest Place in Holland: Keukenhof. Holy cow, they grew a blanket of tulips at this place in the shape of a dragon, and all I could think of as the images flashed across the screen was the dried-up-and-dead petunias sitting on my front porch -- which were beautiful before we went away for a week during the hottest days of the summer when it didn't rain. Now? As previously mentioned ... dried up and dead. I was also regretfully reminded of the Bleeding Heart bulbs that were so lovingly planted in the spring and so rudely lounged upon by our dog, so that they would not grow ... that is, when he wasn't peeing on the tiny, lifeless body of a baby evergreen. Then there were the squirrels -- oh look, aren't they cute, digging up my Gladiolus in that corner? Oh, that's really sweet. From there, my mind went down a dark place to the only thing I have successfully grown -- a pale pink knockout rose that I loved to look at out my window ... until last week, when the freakin' Japanese beetles came to roost and left its leaves looking like the contents of a dirty old ashtray.
So, fine, Mother Nature: You win. I give up. Take all the vegetation we have. Keep on giving us these 98-degree days (and I don't mean the kind where I have to listen to Nick Lachey & Co.) with no rain, so that we can only water two days a week by city rules. Send me some leaf-chomping bugs to take care of anything the drought or the family pet doesn't do away with. It's AWESOME. Really. I mean it.
FatherBunker-in-Law tells me that "Keukenhof" means "Kitchen Garden." But I've decided it means something else entirely. I've decided this is my new curse word for all things gardening-related. So now, if you walk by my house and hear me yell, "Oh, Keukenhof! The dog's been peeing on (insert name of newly dead plant or shrub here) again," do not be alarmed. Because at least this word won't make you cover your toddler's ears -- although you may be tempted to speed past the crazy lady beating insects off her flower boxes with a broom. And I'm OK with that.
The Case of the Lost Teeth
Filed under: Toddlerology Author:
Sometimes I forget about all the little things that MJ doesn't know about yet, the little things about childhood. Like losing your teeth, for example. Last night, while she and her six-year-old cousin (who is in town visiting) were trying to get to sleep, Cousin M sat up in bed and said, "See? Look? I lost my tooth!"
MJ perked up. I was sitting behind her, and even from that perspective, I could tell by the way she held her little blond head that she was bewildered. She craned her neck forward to get a better look at the Jack-o-Lantern grin before her. She pondered. She sat starkly still. I smiled to myself as Cousin M continued talking, a rambling, sweet, little-girl-who's-been-in-the-car-all-day kind of information unload, and MJ settled back under the covers.
A few minutes went by. Cousin M was chatting some more, but when she fiddled a bit with her teeth, wiggling a loose one, MJ sat bolt upright and moved away from her, a look of ... well, horror, I guess, crossing her face.
"What's wrong, sweet pea?" I asked her.
"He ..." MJ began, sweeping a hand in the direction of her cousin -- have I mentioned we have a problem with our pronouns? -- "his teeth are lost."
"I know, sweet pea, she lost some teeth, but it's OK. That's what happens."
"Why?" MJ asked, not with the usual toddler curiosity, but rather with a hint of repulsion at the thought.
"You lose your baby teeth and grow big girl teeth," I told her. She grasped her bottom front teeth with her thumb and forefinger, both checking to see if they were still there and if they were flexible. You could see in her expression that she was trying to make sense of this strange notion. She moved in to get a closer look at her cousin's teeth.
Cousin M obligingly grinned widely, a Cheshire cat smile, as MJ peered into the holes and thought who knows what. That they had been stolen? Lost in a fight over a stuffed toy? It was hard to know, but fascinating to think about.
"Yeah," Cousin M explained through her smile, "your mommy lost her teeth, too, and now she has big teeth."
At this, MJ came over to my mouth to confirm, to look for holes, still wearing a look of horror and confusion. I thought she might start shaking any moment. So that first trip to the dentist I've been meaning to schedule? Yeah. That should be interesting.
MJ perked up. I was sitting behind her, and even from that perspective, I could tell by the way she held her little blond head that she was bewildered. She craned her neck forward to get a better look at the Jack-o-Lantern grin before her. She pondered. She sat starkly still. I smiled to myself as Cousin M continued talking, a rambling, sweet, little-girl-who's-been-in-the-car-all-day kind of information unload, and MJ settled back under the covers.
A few minutes went by. Cousin M was chatting some more, but when she fiddled a bit with her teeth, wiggling a loose one, MJ sat bolt upright and moved away from her, a look of ... well, horror, I guess, crossing her face.
"What's wrong, sweet pea?" I asked her.
"He ..." MJ began, sweeping a hand in the direction of her cousin -- have I mentioned we have a problem with our pronouns? -- "his teeth are lost."
"I know, sweet pea, she lost some teeth, but it's OK. That's what happens."
"Why?" MJ asked, not with the usual toddler curiosity, but rather with a hint of repulsion at the thought.
"You lose your baby teeth and grow big girl teeth," I told her. She grasped her bottom front teeth with her thumb and forefinger, both checking to see if they were still there and if they were flexible. You could see in her expression that she was trying to make sense of this strange notion. She moved in to get a closer look at her cousin's teeth.
Cousin M obligingly grinned widely, a Cheshire cat smile, as MJ peered into the holes and thought who knows what. That they had been stolen? Lost in a fight over a stuffed toy? It was hard to know, but fascinating to think about.
"Yeah," Cousin M explained through her smile, "your mommy lost her teeth, too, and now she has big teeth."
At this, MJ came over to my mouth to confirm, to look for holes, still wearing a look of horror and confusion. I thought she might start shaking any moment. So that first trip to the dentist I've been meaning to schedule? Yeah. That should be interesting.
