Missing Instructional Manual: page 641

641.

in the middle of the night. As a new parent you are probably looking forward to your stolen solitary moment after the little ones have been tucked snuggly in their beds. Good for you.


This time of day is governed* by the following rules:

• If you stay up too late, one or more of your children will wake up in the middle of the might. Which due to circumstances clearly within your control, is only twenty minutes after you have fallen asleep.

• Always check to make sure the children are actually asleep before breaking out that box of chocolate truffles you've been saving. It calls to them like a siren.

• Alway try to act as if you don't really care when they get to bed. Children can smell desperation and they thrive on it.

• Trusting your own children to turn out their lights as they have pinky sworn, is not a reliable method. Double check.

* Not all rules apply.

When you were a baby I have no idea what you did.

This week at Freya's school they are going to be talking about growing up, and things that they used to do when they were babies. Each child has been asked to bring in a picture of themselves when they were a baby and a story about something that they did or something that happened when they were a baby.

The picture is no problem. Unlike many poor second-born children of the past, Freya was lucky enough to be born the same year that I got my first digital camera, so yay for her, she has at least as many photos as her big sister.

But what has she done since she was born? Where has she been? I have no idea.

One would think - since Freya's only three - that it wouldn't be that hard to remember what has happened during her short lifetime, but alas, as the world's worst mother (or at least the most forgetful) I can barely remember anything!

We started talking about it at dinner tonight, and every time I thought I had something I was met with these responses:

That was Matilda.

Mom! That was only a couple months ago!

That was Matilda.

That was yesterday.

That was Matilda.

And on it went until at last I was able to remember a few things. There was the time with the stove and the knife and the sugar bowl, when she was a baby she cried a lot, she ate sand at the beach and she loved her e as much then as she does now.

While I might not remember everything she's done, I sure do love that kid. She's sinister in the best possible way, spirited and musical, whimsical and determined. I might remember that Matilda ate a necklace of mine once, that she loved to steal food off of other peoples plates and wear sunglasses all the time. I might be able to tell you how old Matilda was when she got her first tooth, I know when she said her first word and what it was.

Poor Freya, it's a good thing she has a digital trail to prove that she's been around for three whole years.

And so it begins...

The sunflower wallpaper that has haunted me since we moved in, is coming down!

Beside, the ripping is so fun! The kids can help! And since it's a small bathroom there is a slight chance that I will actually get around to repainting it before summer! Maybe even before the road trip!

I am officially taking suggestions on paint colors and styles. Here are my requirements:

1. The tile floor - I like, the color in the picture is pretty close to the actual color, so the paint must coordinate somehow.
2. It is a very small bathroom - so no black.

Thanks, dudes!

In a Temporary State of Limbo, Well, Several States, Actually.

The applications are complete. The personal statements - carefully adapted for each individual program - have been sealed and mailed along with transcripts, recommendations, GRE scores, financial statements, and supplementary forms. All that is left for me to do is wait. This is the hardest part.

I'm a planner. I like to map things out, spread them out before me like a quilt, rearranging the pieces until they all fit just right, then carefully stepping back, stepping forward, and letting the plans mesh with reality and take me where I need to go. But now I can't even plan. The schools that I have applied to are in four different states, may or may not accept me, may or may not offer me an assistantship package that makes it possible for me to go there.

Once I know, once I have the name of my school I can tuck it safely in my pocket and sit down to make a plan. I can search Zillow for the perfect house, find a new school for Matilda, start calling around to preschools, help Steve find a new job: figure things out.

I need that one piece, I need to know. Of course there are things I could be doing to keep everything moving forward, things that will have to be done anyway like redoing the floor in the kitchen, tearing down the wallpaper in the bathroom, getting rid of junk we don't need so we don't have to move it...

But I can't. I am without a plan. How do I know what to do first? What if I do one thing and it turns out that a different thing would have made more sense?

In my restless state I have found one thing that I can do, one thing that I can plan, that seems to make sense no matter where we wind up. From February 16 through 23, Matilda and I will drive across half the country - through New York, Ohio and Indiana, to the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, then on to the University of Missouri, and Ohio University and then home, with plenty of museums and hotel pools along the way.

It turns out that a cross-country trip is a planner's dream. I have already spent hours researching the best route, with enough stops, but not too many, the most affordable hotels, even which towns we might want to stop in for quick meals. The possibilities are endless. I'm hoping that my brother will be able to join us, but even if he can't, I think we're going to have a great time, and the best part is that I will have the opportunity to transform myself from a paper application into a flesh and blood applicant at each of the schools I want to get into.

Virtual Slideshow

me
February 1980

why don't my children have the curls?
circa 1981

when we lived in Texas
circa 1983

me and my three little brothers, stripey
circa 1986-87

(mysterious gap in my photo album 1988-1998)

me with the little girl I nannied for
circa 1999

choking holding a baby alligator on vacation in New Orleans with Steve, pre-babies
circa 2001

Matilda was a very squishy baby
circa 2002

awaiting number 2 (the day before her arrival)
November 25, 2004

my glamorous spawn, with bling
circa 2006

"Smart" sure can backfire.

Okay, enough with this whole my-daughter-is-so-great thing already.

Yesterday, dinner-time.

I think I may be coming down with some kind of plague or something, at least that's what my aching head and back are telling me. For the first time in a while I am seriously considering serving the children cherrios sans-milk for dinner.

"Girls," I yell, "time to clean up."

Matilda pokes her head down the stairwell, "I'm starving."

"I'm getting dinner ready right now."

"I can't wait. I need an appetizer."

She can't just beg for food with over-the-top drama like normal five-year-olds, she has to throw big words in my face, using them against me. Isn't that cute? My five-year-old knows all about dining etiquette. The little terror.

I appease the children with bread and butter and send them into the living room to clean the blocks. Cherrios have been abandoned in favor of pasta and brussel sprouts, Matilda's new favorite vegetable. Honestly, what kind of mother would I be if my child actually asked for brussel sprouts and I laughed in her face and gave her dry cherrios instead? Well anyway, I wasn't ready to cross that line. Not yet.

Five minutes pass in silence. (i.e.: I do not hear the gentle clunk of blocks being put away.)

"Girls," I yell from the kitchen, "you're not cleaning!"

"How do you know?" Matilda yells back. "You can't see us!"

"I know everything," I retort.

Huddling together against the power of my omnipotence, Matilda comforts her little sister, whispering, "Don't worry Freya, that's not true, she doesn't really know everything."

Fifteen minutes later the blocks are still strewn about the room.

Hands on hips, I put on my serious voice. "Ladies, you need to get a move on. I want these blocks cleaned up right now, or you won't have time to clean your playroom and you'll have to go straight to bed with lights out after dinner." The impending plague has done nothing for my already thin, end-of-the-day patience.

Matilda, using two fists for emphasis, yells, "You're not treating me with respect! I want to be treated with respect!"

I have to leave the room. I do not feel at that moment as though I am capable of treating her with respect.

But she follows me.

"You have to be kind to me! No one ever treats me with respect! It's not fair to treat a child with no respect and that would be me!"

How am I supposed to have an irrational argument with someone who sounds so freaking sensible?

Matilda, that's not a nice thing to say. - Um, no.

I am treating you with respect, God damn it! - No.

Shut up and clean!

This isn't going well. A little help?

No-good, smart kid. Why? Why does she have to be smart and rational? Traits, which until recently, didn't seem to have a down side.

Seriously, when I am not feeling like a good mother, and my daughter calls me out on it, is it wrong to think about making her sleep in the garage, just for the one night? I'd send her out with plenty of blankets and brussel sprouts, and it has been unseasonably warm lately...

remembering, firsts, and growing up

Matilda has been doing some amazing things lately: learning to read, spelling everything, losing teeth, explaining things I didn't even know she knew.

I'm one of those parents who always says, "oh, I'll remember this," and then doesn't. I mean to, but it just sort of slips into the blur that is my past and I remember my children's very early years with a vague sense of pride. I especially remember the things I repeat often: Matilda didn't sleep through the night until she was a year old. She loved to eat food off of other people's plates, especially our friend Anna, who lived with us when she was small. I pulled her arm through a too-small pair of pajamas when she was only a few months old and dislocated her elbow. She could be talked down from imminent tantrums with reason and logic. But mostly, I forget stuff, and I'm pretty okay with that.

If I had kept a baby-book I supposed this post wouldn't exist, but I didn't. Since I started this blog there has been more recording of daily activities, of first-times and milestones, and I'm glad that it's happening now.

The kind of firsts that are happening for Matilda now feel so vital, so monumental in a way that makes even first steps feel second rate. I don't mean that learning to walk isn't important, and maybe it's just because as I look back on my own childhood, the things that she is learning to do now are things that I can actually remember as exciting and new. She's navigating the world of Kindergarten, a world I am not a part of, a world in which High School Musical (huh? what's that?) plays a larger than life role. She's learning how to read, which, if I had to choose just one thing that was the best thing I ever learned how to do, would be it.

I realize that not-learning how to walk would dramatically alter one's life, but most people do learn to walk, talk and communicate, and yes, I know I'm supposed to say something about how lucky we are or something, but now more than ever I see her becoming her own person, I see her learning how to do things that don't involve me, and I love it, it's wonderful. I don't miss the baby that she used to be, or the toddler who never had much time to snuggle me anyway (too many other things to explore) and I don't know what I would do without her.

after the pool party

Having survived a pool party this afternoon with my non-swimming children, we arrived home tired and (I thought) full of pizza and cake. Freya was asleep, I stripped Matilda and hustled her into a warm bath. Steve was preparing a lovely dinner in the kitchen, and it was looking like an early night.

I should have known better. As Matilda is getting out of her bath and dinner is just about ready, Freya starts crying from upstairs, something about being starving I think. So down she comes and eventually we settle around the table to eat fish and broccoli and sweet potatoes.

Usually Freya is a non-eater. She just doesn't seem to believe in eating anything unless it is absolutely necessary (or made primarily of sugar), and usually it is not.

"Mmm, Daddy, how did you make this fish so yum?" she says, shoving fork fulls in her mouth and brandishing her knife like a miniature rapier.

"It's called Tilapia, do you like it?"

"Yes, it is yum. Whenever I say 'Talipa' you have to bring it to me on a plate. That's the new rule."

Having made her decree, she settled back into eating, and talk turned to Steve's recent resolution to stop eating meat.

"I think it's just because you're tired of spaghetti and meatballs," I say and I'm still pretty sure it's the truth, although I can't really blame him, spaghetti and meatballs is a food that I will never get tired of, and our weekly dinner menu for the past seven years proves it.

"I like meatballs," he says, "I'm just tired of pasta."

"Blasphemer!" I say, much, much too loudly.

Freya points her finger at me and says, "Don't ever say that at the table again."

And so I wont. One of the important things about mothering an evil child is learning how to pick your battles. This one is easy - I can always whisper "blasphemer" quietly to myself on the inside.

the tooth fairy, wishes and money

On New Year's Eve, in a Cambridge taxi cab, Matilda lost her first tooth.

She had told me it was loose the day before, wiggled it for me with her finger, and said, "Mom? There's something wrong with my tooth."

Less than an hour before it came out, I received six gold dollar coins in change from a subway ticket vending machine. Having given very little thought to what our particular brand of tooth fairy did for girls who lost their teeth, I was not expecting our older, wiser friend Eden to say slyly, "These are perfect for the tooth fairy."

Thinking about it later I decided that I didn't want our tooth fairy to bring money in exchange for teeth. Instead I told Matilda that if she put her tooth under her pillow that the tooth fairy would come, take it, and grant her a secret wish.

I realize that this presents some logistical problems, but I was thinking of the children's book One Morning in Maine by Robert McCloksey and how childlike the idea of wishes can be. So instead of a dollar coin, the tooth fairy left Matilda a little note, and she was very pleased with it.

Almost as soon as the first tooth was gone, the one right beside the gap turned out to be loose too. It's still wiggling away, but has got me thinking about wishes and money and organization.

Let me explain.

One of the reasons why leaving a dollar (or a quarter, or whatever) for a tooth seemed off, was because Matilda has very little concept of money. She knows that it buys things, and she knows that people work hard to get it, but it's all still very fuzzy for her. I've been thinking about working out an allowance with her, something where she'd have jobs to do during the week - feed the cats, clear and set the table, keep her room clean - and at the end of the week she would receive a dollar or so to save or spend.

The thing is, I'm not a very organized person. I try to keep our house clean and neat, our checkbook balanced, and the children fed and clothed, but most of the time, while these things get done, they happen in a way that is haphazard and does not lend itself to a nice neat schedule of chores and allowance and a solid foundation in learning about money, time, and how to manage them wisely.

I want my children to understand where money comes from, what to do with it, how easily it can be lost. I want them to know that things in life are not free and that to have the things that one needs or wants, one must work hard and plan carefully.

But I set a terrible example.

I am a last minute, up to the deadline kind of girl, both in terms of how I spend my time and how I spend my money. My house is clean when guests arrive (well, mostly) but it always involves a last minute scramble. I have been trying to plan the budget and organize the money better lately, and it's kind of working, but paying bills involves the same last minute flurry of check writing.

Changing the way one lives is really, really hard, and is not the stuff of New Year's resolutions, but rather of ongoing and persistent effort, over a long period of time, definitely years, maybe decades. I am encouraged by the progress Steve and I have made in the last year, the debts are shrinking, the overall household income increasing (slowly) and bills are almost all paid on time these days, but I can't help feeling that we have a very long way to go.