Parenting rules

Sawyer, my oldest son, was born 12 years ago this week.

And when Sawyer was one, my nephew Matthew, who was 11, moved in and became our adopted kid until he left for the Navy at 17. So, though I only have 12 years of motherhood under my bra, I have raised kids from birth through 17. Nice trick, huh?

And a fact that I realized tonight that stopped me cold: In one year, Sawyer turns 13. And I will then have a teenager in the house until June 6, 2030. Clearly, this was not well-planned...

I have no more insight on parenthood than anyone else who's gone before me, and don't have any answers as to how to do it right.

However, there are certain things I wish I'd been warned about, and there are rules I've come up with to make sure I'm on the right path. I'm sure in ten years, when I have another twelve year old, this will seem quaint, and I'll have a new list of rules.

But for now, this is what I know and what I've learned, half-way through this parenting gig:

The bodily fluids. Oh, God, the sheer volume of it all! Who knew? I knew there were diapers. I knew there was potty training. But oh, the amount of things I was't ready for!

There will be poop. Yours, when you're pushing the kids out, just to get you used to the concept of public defecation. And then, of course, the baby starts in on it. But after the first baby, the poop won't even make you blink. Not most of the time, anyway. 

There will be pee, and this is the least of your problems. You don't even notice pee by baby number two. It's not nearly gross enough, compared to everything else.

There will be boogers. More than you ever thought about. And you'll clean them up with your hands when you're desperate. Even if you swear you never will. You will.

There will be vomit, and just when you've cleaned up and changed the sheets and you're sound asleep again, there will be more vomit.

There will be blood. Hopefully, not much, but more than, say, your husband or your best friend bleeds.

Remember the thing about pee not being a big deal? It becomes a big deal again. When they're ten, or twelve, and they pee on the front lawn. Or off the back porch. Or anywhere, really, all the time. In fact, it's possible that ten-year-old boys pee everywhere except into the toilet. They're very, very good about hitting around the toilet, behind the seat in the little cracks that are impossible to clean, and in the screws under the toilet that will fester and stink. But never, ever, actually in the toilet.

There will also, of course, be laundry, tears, spilled drinks and messes, but we're talking about parenthood here -- that's just part of the deal.

There will be pain. Parenthood will hurt more than you ever thought possible.

Remember the first time you fell in love and you thought you'd never get over the feeling that you were flying and how amazing it was? Someone wanted you and loved you! And then, the first time you were dumped and nothing has ever hurt that much? Yeah, parenthood's like that.

Only about ten million times more intense, and you can't dump them no matter how much of an ass they are. Even if they do the equivalent of cheat on you and humiliate you and insult you and tell you that "you're a bitch and they don't have to take that shit from you" in public.
And they will. 

And it gets worse: You have all of the pain of loving someone desperately and not having control over how they behave -- and that, of course, is incredibly painful -- but they will be in pain, and it will hurt you. They will cry when a friend says they're annoying, and you hurt worse than they do, because you can see that it was true, even as you swear to them that they're not annoying.

Someone will break their heart, and yours in the process. How fair is that? It used to be that you had a say in having your heart broken -- you could choose "not to play the game, to be cool."

Nope. That's all gone. You're in the game for good, now.

Nature vs. Nurture? That's gone, too. It's all nature. All nurture does is protect the good stuff and keep the bad from taking over. Your family's the garden. Your kids are seeds. You can help the plants thrive, and you can provide it with moisture and food and keep it from turning into one giant weed bed, but if you end up with turnips and you wanted tomatoes? Too bad. You're probably a turnip yourself, you know. Or your husband is. Why did you expect tomatoes in the first place, if you're from a family of turnips? And it's a sad day when a banana is grown up in a watermelon family, so to speak. Because that banana knows he's not what they expected. The sooner he goes off to find other bananas, the better.

Your funny little introvert who loves to read and play computer games and who hates sports? He's not going to play football for UT. He just isn't.  Move along, now. And my little kid who wants to be a veterinarian so badly he can taste it, and he always has, and he has his whole life planned out? He's probably never going to be into history and art. I'll make sure he learns the basics, but I'm fooling myself if I expect him to change what his passions are.

Stick to the rules. They're a clear path through the minefields. When you can't find your car keys, you're covered in maple syrup and you needed to leave the house 14 minutes ago and someone can't find their shoes, remember the rules -- they'll help keep you sane.

Rule number one: Never, ever, ever share a drink with your kids. I know I said boogers don't bother me and I can do poop and vomit with no issues. But drinking after a two-year-old is like French-kissing someone with a mouthful of peanut butter, half-chewed paper and cold cereal. Their backwash is legendary. Don't do it.

Rule number two: Don't do something once unless you want to do it at least a thousand times. This includes everything from singing "Old MacDonald" at bedtime,  letting your kids eat cereal in the playroom "just this once," riding without a car seat while you move the car "just this once", and letting them play Angry Birds on your iPhone when you're desperate for quiet and you're on the phone. The next thing you know, they're experts at Angry Birds, they have a right to ride unbuckled if you're in the driveway and they set the table in front of the TV for breakfast. And you're so sick of singing Old MacDonald that his farm now has robots, caterpillars, scorpions and dinosaurs.

Rule number three: Video games are junk food for the brain. You know it. They know it. Anyone who tries to tell you they improve coordination or that they're good for social skills is rationalizing. Video games are a cheap, easy way to get an endorphin rush without actually working for it. They're bad for kids in anything but tiny amounts. Sure, you can binge once in a while and play a lot. But a steady diet of video games and you'll end up with the brain's equivalent of eating Cheetos and Coke. Every hour spent playing video games is an hour not reading a book, playing a board game or learning how to be bored and working through it. Don't buy into it.

Rule number four: Kids are inherently good. They just don't know what you want. And they're desperate to know that they're needed and that what they do in the family is important. And they don't see the big picture, so no matter how many times you tell them the details, they don't get it. 

You can tell them to put forks on the table every night for three years. They still won't understand that this means that they're supposed to set the table every night, and every night they will be surprised that you're asking them to do it. They're still surprised when they're hungry because you they don't realize that they have to eat every night! But it's critical to them to know they have an important role in the family. Even if they forget every night, make them set the table anyway. Don't do it yourself, just because it's easier.

Rule number five: Choose your battles. Only fight the ones you're really, really willing to sacrifice in order to win. Everything else is just negotiation. I'm not going to fight over food, clothes or haircuts. If they don't eat, so what? If they like weird clothes, so what? I'm willing to go toe-to-toe over schoolwork, character traits and video-game time. Other families might want to fight to the death over bed time, curfews or homework. But don't fight over everything. Life's way too short.

Rule number six: This should be a no-brainer, but in too many families, it isn't. If you don't want someone to treat you that way, don't do it to your kids. If you're at a restaurant and you spill a glass of water, imagine your husband yelling, "That's IT! I told you the last time you spilled that you're not allowed to have a drink unless you're more careful! Waitress, she can't have any more drinks!"

Yeah. Or, when you know annoys him, but you do it anyway, imagine him trying to ground you and keep you home. Or punishing you. I don't think so.

If I wouldn't want Mark to do it to me, I don't do it to my kids. Really, there aren't many exceptions. I don't want someone to tell me to finish my dinner or I don't get dessert. That's just obnoxious. And I can't imagine anyone ever telling me that they really love me, but I broke the rules, so they're going to have to hit me now to show me what I've done wrong. This is a simple one: Don't hit your kids. Don't humiliate them. Don't yell at them, or make fun of them, or embarrass them. It's just mean. 

Rule number seven: Be kind. Always. The world is a hard place. There are people who are mean. There are bullies. There are doors that are too hard to open, math problems that are too hard, girls who don't like them back, machines that steal their money, scary dogs and scarier stories that friends tell them. Kids need a safe place where they know that no one will ever make fun of them.

They need to know that they can go home and tell someone how awful their day was. And honestly, if you don't have your kid's back, who does? If you don't put them first, in front of everything else, who ever will? If they say their teacher was mean, believe them.

Take their side, always. No matter how trivial. Be their biggest cheerleader. Stand up for them when they succeed, yell the loudest in the grandstand, and don't be ashamed of it. You only get one go-round of this. That's your kid, dammit! Yell loudly, cheer proudly, and let everyone know that if they mess with your kid, they're messing with you! Kids need backup. They need to know that there's a safety net.

And the last rule, which seems to contradict rule seven, but doesn't: Be hard on your kids. Expect a lot from them. To those whom much is given, much is expected -- let that be their motto. If you're reading this on a computer screen in a first-world country, your kids are in the category of "to those whom much is given." Don't let them forget that.

Heinlein said, "Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy." They're capable of amazing, wondrous things, if you ask it of them. 

 Don't accept anything less. My favorite saying, one I have on my desk, and the one I use to make decisions about my kids: "Don't prepare the path for the child -- prepare the child for the path."

Other truths: Don't label your kids too early. Easy kids turn into hard kids. Your hard kids become your easy ones. Problems that you thought were huge disappear. Others show up later. Things will change as soon as you've got it under control. Roll with it.

ADD is real. So are peanut allergies. Even if you don't believe it. Until you've lived it, don't judge it.

Sleep when the baby sleeps. It's the only sane thing to do.

Snuggle. Enjoy them. But don't feel like you have to enjoy every minute of it. Sometimes, the minute you're having really sucks. Who wants to enjoy being kicked in the guts by a screaming toddler simply because you were trying to keep her from getting run over? There's enough guilt about parenting.

Enjoy what you can. Do the best you can. And know that your kids will love you, no matter what. 

A long story about the name Eva

Published June 1, 2010

This is a story. I have no idea if it’s true. I doubt anyone does at this point, because it happened 98 years ago and everyone involved is dead.

My mother told me this story when I was little, and I loved it. 

I love family history, family heritage and family lore. My mother couldn’t stand her actual life in the present tense, and so she told stories about the past, where everything was happy and wonderful.

I listened to a lot of stories about people I’d never met and would never know, but over the years, as I visited cemeteries and heard more pieces of stories, and got to know cousins who were so-and-so’s grandchildren, I was hooked.

At one point, my mother could name all 11 (or 12?) of Aunt Hazel’s siblings, and what happened to each of them. It made it much more interesting to visit Aunt Hazel, who was in her late 80s when I was a teenager. Visiting Aunt Polly was a lot more fun when I realized she was the one who stole the blueberries, or swam across Lake Champlain because she didn’t want to pay the dollar for the toll bridge.

 So my mother and aunts might quibble with this version. It’s all sort of jumbled together in my head. I never met my great-grandparents, and I don’t know if I spelled their names right. I don’t know if they met here, or in Poland. I don’t know if my great-grandmother was born here or in Poland. I guess I’ll have to start asking questions and actually writing it down -- I used to know some of this, but it’s been forgotten.

And so, since this a story, there might be poetic license involved. And it might be 100 percent true.

My grandmother's name was Eva Golembesky, daughter of Waclawa and Wladyslaw Golembiewski, who were of course known as Nellie and Walter.

Nellie and Walter lived in Mineville, New York, deep in the heart of the Adirondack Mountains, across Lake Champlain from Vermont. They call it the North Country, or God's Country. They still hunt bear up there. It's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, in the summer and fall. In the winter, the average high temperature is 26 degrees. The average low is 7.

And Walter went to work for the Witherbee iron mine.

I don't know how they got from Poland to Mineville, and I don't know if they met in New York or in Poland.

But by 1912, they were married and lived in a tiny house in Mineville, rented from Mr. Witherbee, who owned everything. 

He owned the mine, and the houses in town, and the mining equipment you needed to go get ore. If you wanted to be a miner, you had to buy your equipment at the company store, and then they'd take the cost out of your paycheck.

Next door to Walter and Nellie lived Margaret and Victor Smith. Victor Smith was also a miner. Everyone was. But they were born and raised in the Adirondacks. 

By 1912, their families had been here 200 years and had fought in the American Revolution, and the Civil War. It must have been interesting living and working next to newly immigrated Poles.

It's 1912. Victor and Maggie have settled in to mining life, and they have a bunch of children. Next door, Nellie and Walter settle in, too, and have a baby. Within a month, the baby has died.

And then another baby is born, less than a year later. And two weeks later, she, too, is dead.

At Victor and Maggie's house, they end up with four living children, and three more who die young, but they can't feel anything but sorry for the Polish couple next door. No living children yet. They try again, and this time the baby lives three months.

Meanwhile, Maggie takes in boarders. They have a tiny house, just three bedrooms and less than 900 sq. feet, but they pack the miners in like sardines. Every night before she goes to bed, Maggie makes the dough for 20 or 30 pot pies for the miners to take for their lunch. She bakes them in the morning, wraps each one tightly to keep them warm until lunch, then makes breakfast for at least ten men. Pancakes, sausage, biscuits. She sends them off with two or three pies each, then spends the rest of the day making beds, cleaning and making dinner for ten very hungry men.

 Victor goes to the mines every day with them. He asks every few months if Mr. Witherbee will let him buy his house instead of rent, but is turned down.

The Polish couple have another baby, their fourth. Within a month, this baby is gone, too.

Desperate, they finally consult with a doctor. It takes all of their savings, but this is what savings are for. The doctor does an examination and tells Nellie to come back when she's pregnant again.

She does, and he says, "There is a reason for this, and God has given us a way to make sure that you will have a baby that lives, as long as you honor him and the Bible. When this baby is born, if it's a boy, name him Adam. If it's a girl, name her Eve. This will please God, and the baby will live."

And so Nellie had a girl, and they named her Eva, and they waited. She made it to the six-month mark, and they started to breathe a little easier. And then, for the first time, they had a baby make it to one year old. And then two. And then another baby came along, and she lived, too.

And they had four babies in a row who lived and thrived.

When Eva was 12, her father, Walter, went into the mines one day with his pies wrapped up warmly. Finally, Mr. Witherbee was putting electricity into the mines, so there would light, and clean air would be pumped into the shafts. This was an exciting time for the mine.

Walter reached back behind him into his sack to get his pie and touched a live wire. He was dead when they brought him to the surface. Eva went to work cleaning houses. Now they had no income, but four children to feed.

Less than a year later, Mr. Witherbee offered to sell all of the houses to the miners. He'd give them a mortgage himself, and offered to take the payments right out of their checks. About half the miners in town took him up on it, and were amazed at the possibly of owning a home on a miner's salary. They figured that perhaps Mr. Witherbee had finally made enough money that he would make some changes to safety in the mine, and wanted to build the town up by having everyone own their own home.

This is where Mr. Witherbee lived:

http://www.century21adirondacks.net/listings/13100-sq-ft-Mansion-on-over-5-Acres.html

My grandfather, Bernard Smith, Maggie and Victor's oldest son, was 14, and had grown up next to Nellie and Walter and was already in love with Eva. He knew he'd have to support her, fatherless as she was, but he had a bout of polio which crippled and deformed his foot. He tried to work in the mine, but he lasted two days and had enough.  

He knew someone who knew someone who'd gone to sea, and that was good enough for him. He went and became a Merchant Marine, and shipped out by the time he was 18, taking his new bride, Eva, with him, away from mining, away from the Adirondacks.  

His parents and her mother, though, stayed in Mineville.

They'd bought their houses, you see. And three months after Mr. Witherbee sold everyone their new homes, he closed the mine and put everyone out of work, and the homes were now worthless. 

So Eva and Bernie sent money home, and their parents lived out their lives in the tiny red wooden houses in Mineville.

My grandparents did come back, though, to visit, and every summer my mother played in the yards of the tiny red houses where her parents had grown up.

I have stories in my head of Tongue Mountain, and of wild blueberries, and grandma’s house where you took a bath in the living room once a week in an iron tub because there was no plumbing. And of dogs living under the front porch, and a train trip that came to an end when the conductor yelled, “Next stop, TI-CON-DER-OGA!”

There are stories about Leo’s wife, Larry, who was beautiful, and stories of the Smith brothers and the trouble they got into, and a story about Uncle Hank getting hit by a train when he was a baby and living through it. Those days are very real to me, stories or not.

The houses are still there, more than 100 years old, and still have families living in them.

And while all of Eva's siblings left the Adirondacks for warmer climates, most ending up in San Diego, Bernie's family still lives there, running hotels, working in restaurants, hunting and trapping and getting by as they have for the past 300 years.

And that, in a very long-winded way, is why my grandmother was named Eva. And why, in some fashion or form, I’m going to give my daughter that name.

When she’s born, it will be 98 years since her great-granmother was born, and 72 years since her grandmother was born. But in some way, she’ll be connected to those memories, and to those people, and will know where she came from, this little Eve or Evie or Eva or Evangeline. And I’ll feel good about having a daughter who knows the stories. 

On being pregnant and 40

November 15, 2009

When the Gods want to punish you, they answer your prayers. Or so says an old adage.

And here I am, with the teenager I raised off to the Navy and about to turn 20, my oldest son turning 10 next summer, and newly-five-year-old son.

And, apparently, if all goes well, a new baby in June.

Oy.

Yes, I wanted another baby. Specifically, a girl.

But I had just gotten to the point where I was accepting, slowly, that it just wasn’t going to happen.

We’ve had two babies and two miscarriages. As Mark said, we’re two for two. Let’s appreciate what we have, that we have two beautiful boys, and that we’ve figured out how to keep them healthy and happy.

And, frankly, the first three years of Sander’s life nearly killed us. If we had another baby with autism, it would pretty much finish us off.

Plus, he said, I’m always sick and miserable and unable to function for the first four or five months of pregnancy, and he doesn’t know if he can pick up the slack.

And yet, here we are.

When I told Mark, he was quite literally stunned. You could see him doing the math in his head -- “I’ll be 47 when the baby is born, and I’ll be HOW OLD with a teenager???!”
Yeah.

Well, it’s too late now.

And I’m sick and miserable and unable to function. And Mark has to pick up the slack.

When I was young, at least 100 years ago, I was a true feminist. I believed that women are the same as men, can do anything that men can do, and that I would never need a man in my life.

Why would I? I remember having to answer questions about my future career in college. One guy in the class asked how I’d be an archeologist if I had kids -- what would I do with them?

I almost laughed, the question was so foreign. Kids? Me? Right. I don’t think so. And if I did have kids, I’d put them in a backpack and take them with me -- they’d get a great education on the dig site.

I guess I knew that I’d homeschool even then, at least.

Kids were portable, and easy, right? You just make them adapt to your lifestyle -- it’s not like they have any choice in the matter.

Well.

I’m working on baby number three. Pregnancy number five. And this will be the fourth kid I’m raising.

I am still a feminist. I still believe women deserve equal rights. I do not believe men and women are the same. I don’t believe they can do anything men can do, and I don’t believe men can do anything women can do. And frankly, if you’re going to have sex and get pregnant, you’re going to need a man in your life.

I think the choices now are: Skip men altogether, including sex, or accept that fact that if you get pregnant, you’re going to need help. Lots of it. Moral support, emotional support, physical support, monetary support. Pregnancy is not for sissies.

The first thing I learned, with the first pregnancy, is that we’re animals, whether we like it or not. Once the pregnancy hits, you’re part of a larger biological process than just you. Unless you step in with modern technology to halt the process, which is an option our grandmothers didn’t have, then you’re in for a ride. There’s no turning back, no other options. 

If you get pregnant, you will have a baby, want one or not. Ready or not. In love with the father or not. Rich or not. Single or not.

You are no longer in control of your body at all. Your boobs start to hurt. You slobber all the time. You snore when you sleep. You’re grumpy and mean. 

And, at least for me, there’s vomit involved. Lots of it.

Currently, it’s at 7 every evening. Whether I have dinner plans, or a movie to watch, or someone to impress. Off I go, out to the back porch, heaving away. And there’s nothing ladylike about it -- I’m barfing so hard that my eyeballs hurt and start to tear up, the retching noise is so loud that the kids and the dog run away from me, and, I’m sorry to say, the heaving is so strong that I pee my pants every time. Lovely image, isn’t it?

And it’s not just the barfing. There’s also the fact that I FEEL like I’m going to throw up every minute of every day, unless I’m horizontal. 

And the exhaustion, which conveniently can be taken care of by lying down.

Currently, I’m sleeping 10 hours at night and still need a two-hour nap.

Sander informed me yesterday that I’m going to win a prize for world champion sleeper. Apparently, I’m NOT up for mother of the year this time.

And then, at the end of this whole miserable process, there’s a birth involved. And that’s when I first realized the usefulness of a man.

When I was pregnant with Sander, very far along and already wobbling, Mark and I took Matthew and Sawyer to the mountains of Virginia for a weekend. We stayed in a cute cabin and went for a walk in the woods. Matthew was 14 and wanted to do the “extreme trail” hike; since Sawyer was four and I was about as mobile as a beached Orca, we opted for the “stroller/wheelchair friendly” trail.

It was a beautiful fall day, and the place was empty.

We walked about a quarter of a mile, and then, right in front of us, a baby bear crossed the trail. It was gorgeous, and we all stood in awe, watching it. 

And then saw the mother bear, on the other side of the trail, and realized we were in between the baby and the mother.

So. Matthew, smart boy that he is, walked backward about twenty feet, slowly, and took off running. The mother bear came a little closer, probably 15 feet away by this point.

Mark picked up Sawyer. And tried to put Sawyer on his head, as high up as possible.

And then I saw him look at me, waddling backwards, and saw him trying to decide whether to go and bring Sawyer to safety or stay with me.

Yeah. There was no way I could fight the bear, unless I could manage to sit on it. And I couldn’t outrun a sloth.

That was when I realized why men as partners are useful. Mark has an interest in protecting me, and Sawyer, and the baby. And he’s physically able to do it when I’m nine months pregnant. All I’m able to do is obsess about nursery colors and baby names.

Thankfully, after we backed up, the bear had enough room to cross the trail after her cub, and after glaring at us, she lumbered off and away from us.

With all my self-reliance ideas shattered, I was still unprepared for childbirth. Sawyer had been a C-section. No big deal -- just a minor surgery. You’re out of commission for an hour or two, tops, and you could still hobble away later if you had to, baby in tow.

Sander was a natural birth. And was nine and a half pounds. And was two weeks late. And the epidural didn’t work.

Nothing, but nothing, ever, in my life, prepared me for labor.

I thought it would hurt. I took a delightful class on hypnobirthing, that taught me to ride the waves. I was ready for anything, and figured if it was THAT big a deal, no one would ever have two kids.

Wrong.

Perhaps my problem is that I wasn’t abused enough as a child. I’ve never been hit. Never been in a fist fight. Never been beaten, or had a black eye. Never broke a bone. I’ve really never had to deal with physical pain.

Until the day Sander was born.

I had a fantasy of walking the halls, breathing deeply, riding the waves. I asked not to be hooked up to a monitor, so I could walk around and take a shower. No catheters or bed pans for me, thanks -- I was going to be fully mobile.

And the first labor pain hit. The doctor had come in and said we had to start things moving, so he broke my water and said to see if that did the trick.

Within about ten minutes, I was convinced I was dying. There had to be something wrong. No one, ever, could have ever felt this way.

And then, crawled up in bed in the best fetal position I could manage, I screamed, and moaned, and yelled, for eight hours. You know it hurts when you have a sliver under your fingernail? Yeah. That kind of pain.

The kind of cramps you had when you had the worst flu of your life, and you were shaky and sweaty on the toilet from the pain? Double that.

And then, imagine having the worst flu possible, vomiting and shitting all over the place, unable to speak because of the pain, and someone comes up to ask you to make important, potentially life-altering decisions.

Do you want ice chips? Do you want a monitor? Are you sure you don’t want a C-section? Do you want to try the epidural again? Can you hold completely still for five minutes?

And then, at the end, the baby wouldn’t come out.

And so, the flipping begins. The midwives turned me like a pancake. On my back. On my knees. On all fours. Over a giant rubber ball, ass end up, almost naked. All done with monitor wires and an oxygen mask and an IV and a fetal probe attached.

I have vague memories of the worst of it -- I was quite literally unable to think. I was panting and gasping and completely unaware of what was going on around me.

If I had been a cavewoman, unattended by my mate, or perhaps a peasant girl who’d been thrown out of the house because she was pregnant, I would have had no protection. None.

Lions, come get me. Bears, have at it. Bad guys, take what you can get. I’m not going anywhere.

But there is a beauty in the whole thing, knowing that your mother did this. And her mother, did, too. And her mother did, and without painkillers. And her mother, probably at home. And knowing that many of them lost children because they didn’t have the resources we do.

It’s a wild, savage beauty, though. It’s not pretty. Neither are babies.

I’ve never talked about poop and vomit and blood and snot more in my life than the first month after Sawyer was born.

In my twenties, picking up cat vomit made me sick.

Now I can wipe a nose, a bottom, clean up barf and a dog mess before breakfast without batting an eye.

And here I am, again.

Hoping this baby is healthy. I’m only eight weeks along. A lot could go wrong. I’m optimistic, though -- the two pregnancies I lost were both times of immense stress in my life, and both times I never felt sick. This time, I’m making up for those -- I’m sicker than I’ve ever been. Although Mark swears I say that every time, and I was just as sick and tired with Sander and Sawyer.

Which is why he was hesitant.

Humph.

Oh, and the worst bit? I’m trying to avoid food issues with this kid. We’ve already got one with celiac disease and one recovered from autism, so I’m being careful and following suggestions from great doctors. 

Unfortunately, those suggestions are:

No gluten

No dairy

No sugar

No caffeine

No alcohol, obviously

No meat with hormones or antibiotics (so no eating out, unless it’s vegetarian.)

No produce with chemicals or pesticides (so all organic, at least at home.)

Yeah.

Doesn’t leave much that I like.

And it means that my newest craving, for a turkey and bacon foot-long sub from Subway with lots of hot peppers and Italian dressing, just isn’t going to happen.

Sigh.

So, wish me luck the next four weeks. I have an ultrasound on Nov. 23, and we’ll see then if everything looks good. If we see a heartbeat and baby’s the right size, I’ll be a lot happier.

If not, I’ve been doing a LOT of puking for nothing!

My dreams come true

Published September 2, 2009

Anyone who has known me for a while knows that I have a rich imagination (some would say alternate reality,) and that I live in a dreamland, in the future, in what ifs and somedays.

My all-time favorite fantasy, though, and the one which I really thought would come true, is this one: I marry a tall, dark, handsome man. He adores me and would do anything for me. One of the conditions of marriage, for in my fantasy I have many suitors, is that we live in Europe, at least for a little while.

I live in an ancient walled village, in a tiny apartment, or maybe a house. I have a little red-haired girl, and while my husband works, we explore Europe. 

We go to the farmer’s market, and make friends with the dogs and cats in the neighborhood. We know the butcher’s name, and the lady at the farmer’s market gives the little girl a strawberry or a piece of bread when she sees her. We have a lush garden, full of grapes and good things to eat, and we cook in our old house on an ancient stove.

On weekends, we go to Paris, or to Brussels, and explore.

My girl grows up learning two or maybe three languages, and then we come back to the states, which is about as far as the fantasy gets.

In reality, I got as far as the first sentence. 

I did marry a tall, dark, handsome man, and he said we’d try to live in Europe. We’ve been working on it for the twelve years we’ve been married. And it hasn’t happened, and now we’re settled in to Austin. With two boys, and not a hint of pink in sight.

I’m sort of resigned to this. My latest version of the fantasy is to figure out a way to get to Europe when they’re older -- I’m thinking if I just write a best-selling novel, when Sawyer’s 14 and Sander’s 10, in five years, we’ll live in Italy for a year. 

Sawyer would love Rome. And Paris. And the food! Sander would love the subways, and the bustle and life.

Mark wouldn’t do well there. He would try, but language is not his strong suit. He speaks one language well, and it’s engineering. 

English is a second language for him, and he struggles to convert the pictures in his head into English. 

Asking him to pick up Italian or French to go live in Europe is akin to asking me to go speak calculus so I can live in Cosin Land, where the Tangents and Square Roots live.

And so, I’m slowly learning to love Austin, and trying to adapt.

I adore Mark. I adore my boys. I’m trying to accept that this really is who I am. That Europe can wait.

And that I can learn to be happy here -- after all, I’m not in a freakin’ refugee camp, and it’s not like there aren’t people literally dying to get into the U.S!

And then...

For eighteen years, my best friend Christy and I have been over this fantasy so much it’s become our mantra. This is what we talk about -- how we love Target. How we love huge bookstores. How nice it is to go to Whole Foods.

And yet: We’d happily give it all up to have a farmer’s market in a town square in a walled village. Instantly. Goodbye, outlet malls. Hello, fishmonger.

No more freeways, or ice cubes, cold beer or baseball. 

Instead there are old gardens and ancient traditions and old ladies with babushkas and baskets of cabbage. Yes, there are discos and night life in Europe, but that’s not what Christy and I talk about. We talk about the slow pace, the wine with dinner, the good food, the lack of cars in tiny villages and the feel of community.

It might be all a fantasy, of course -- who knows if life would really be like that?

And two months ago, Christy moved to Germany. With her tall, dark, handsome husband, and her little red-headed girl.

To a tiny village, with no freeways or ice cubes.

There’s a grinding wheel in the courtyard of her house. And an ancient pressure cooker down in the scary basement, next to the chimney that you use to smoke meats.

Of course there’s a lush garden, where the red-haired girl picks grapes, and apples, and cucumbers and blackberries, so far. It’s only been eight weeks -- I’m sure there’s more to come.

They visit the old lady across the street, who wears a babushka, on their way to the bakery two doors down. The old lady, it turns out, has hay in her basket, not cabbages. Who knew?

They go through the dark forest behind their house down a path and into the walled village a half-mile away for the festivals that happen so often this time of year.

There’s wine with dinner, and good food, and everyone knows them and says hello.

And I’m not there.

I’m here, thousands of miles away, with a shriveled up, miserable pile of dirt that should have been a garden, with two amazing boys who are not red-headed, and not a grinding wheel or a walled village in sight.

And I miss her every day, and wish I could be a part of it.

After all, if someone’s living my fantasy, it would only be fair if I at least get to visit.

Damn.

What’s the old advice about learning to appreciate what you have?

Oh, but I do. I know I how lucky I am. I am truly thankful every day for the incredible places I’ve been and where I am right now.

But for someone who lives in the land of what if and someday, it’s hard to keep your mind in Austin when your dream’s in a tiny walled village half a world away.

The world's ugliest feet

My toes are stuck together, stumpy, and ugly. I can live with that.

However, the way my feet look in shoes...

Yikes. Like zip-locs full of lard, with a bad tan line, stuffed into a wire cage. Not a pretty sight.

Originally published August 10, 2009

I have issues with my feet.

I also have issues with shoes.

I have two pair of shoes. Three, if you count sneakers, which I don’t. 

I only have sneakers because someone keeps telling me that I have to exercise -- so I go, dutifully, and buy sneakers once a year to exercise. This year I had a bout of temporary insanity (it runs in my family and happens on a regular basis) and I started running. 

Hah.

It lasted five weeks. I ran 11 times, for a total of 12 miles, and spent $140 on a pair of running shoes, $11 for running socks and $5 for a cool iPhone app to let me know just how far I had run.

Which works out to $14 a run.

So no, sneakers don’t count.

I have UGLY feet.

Very ugly.

My feet are a size ELEVEN. That’s right, I said eleven. As in, most people who have size eleven feet are either men or are lucky enough to be a woman who’s six feet tall. 

But I’m the shortest one in my family of giants, the only one who doesn’t even make it to five-foot-eight, and I’ve got the biggest feet. 

How fair is that?

My toes are stuck together, my feet are flat and fat, and I have a permanent tan around my flip-flop line.

At my best friend’s wedding, I met a man with a foot fetish/phobia, (he said he had a “thing” about feet,) and I scared him into an almost comatose state by showing him my stuck-together toes.  We’d all had a bit to drink by that point, and I kept taking off my shoes and wiggling my toes at him. He was begging me to stop. Couldn’t handle my toes. Oh, the power! I reveled in his misery. Finally had to put my shoes on, though, when he threatened to throw up.

Not one of my finer moments.

So I have one pair of flip-flops, which I wear February through October, and a pair of moccasins, which I wear in winter. 

Occasionally I will buy a new pair of flip-flops, and when I do, I spend $70 and get a “real” pair, meaning one that’s from Hawaii or Australia and will last for the entire summer. I alternate sometimes with Birkenstocks. 

Whatever is comfortable, has my toes and heels hanging out, protects my feet on the bottom and won’t break.

Similarly, in the winter I occasionally veer from the moccasins into docksiders.

And that’s it. Two pair of shoes in my closet. I will never wear heels again, unless someone I love dies and they were the kind of person who would be offended by flip-flops at their funeral.

If I go snow camping, I might buy a pair of boots.

And yet, though I have had this weird thing about shoes FOREVER, the people in my family who haven’t yet accepted this (and there are more of them then you’d think,) have decided that the reason I don’t wear pretty shoes is because I don’t have any.

So they send me shoes.

They see a pair of size eleven shoes at a garage sale, or at a discount store, or even at a designer place, and seeing a pair that big is rare.

So their thinking must go something like, “Oh, there’s a size eleven! Poor Meagan always has to wear those horrible flip-flops because she can’t find any shoes in her size! If I get her these, she’ll start wearing cute shoes! And maybe she’ll paint her toenails!  Oh, and then she’ll feel so good she’ll get an outfit, an honest-to-God outfit, to wear with it, instead of the jeans and T-shirt she always wears. That’s it! All I have to do is buy these shoes for her and she’ll be cute!”

Because once a month, someone buys shoes for me.

The latest are above.

Are they the cutest shoes ever or the ugliest shoes on the market?

I honestly don’t know. My first reaction was hideous disgust.

Then I thought maybe they’re sort of cute. 

Then back to loathing.

But I tried them on anyway, just to see how my pale lumps of lardy feet would looked jammed into these delicate works of care and feminine charm.

Yah. Just what I thought.

There’s a reason I wear flip-flops, you know?

So just in case anyone is wondering what I need for my next birthday:

It’s not shoes.

Really. 

Even if you find a cute pair in a size eleven, and they’re on sale.