Cast party

Today, after five weeks of life in a cast, five weeks of watching her struggle to get food in her mouth with her right hand, five weeks of baths with one arm wrapped in Saran Wrap, of banging her cast on the dining room table in order to make her dad mad, of smacking herself in the head accidentally and waking herself up all night long, Clementine had her cast removed. In typical working mama fashion, I was late and harried (I left my lights on and had to get my car jumped), but I did manage to grab the work camera for some shots of the cast party:




And although C spent five weeks picking at the cast and asking that we get it off her, when the time finally came, she had this to say about it: "No! Da-too! Mine."



Her one bone (the ulna, I think) remains angulated, which isn't a problem for young bones and will probably straighten out as she grown, but it is a bit noticeable. Her skin is dry and flaky, but she sure is happy to have both arms back again.

Despite her early protestations (she spent the ride to the doctor's office telling me "Doctor bye-bye!"), this trip saw fewer tears and anxiety than before, and she even seemed interested in what was going on with her arm. We've turned a corner on doctor fear! And that's good, since I will be returning to the doctor on Thursday for my own set of X-rays. Like daughter, like mother?

Bad luck be gone

Our little family of three just can’t seem to get a break these days: colds, flu, pink eye, broken limbs, a sprained ankle (Nate’s latest contribution to our health crisis). I was calling it the hat trick of motherhood for a while, then the triple threat, but now I’m starting to run out of my pitiful sense of humor. Clementine is backsliding on her sleep habits, and although I was sympathetic at the height of her illness, now she just seems willful and even a little spiteful. She screamed “Mama!” for more than an hour last night, no matter what I did to calm her, so I just left her in her room until she eventually fell asleep. When I went up to check on her, she was practically still sitting up: her legs were crossed and she had piled blankie in her lap to rest her head on it. Of course this wasn’t going to last all night, so I wasn’t surprised to hear her at 3. I went in and quickly comforted her, but she was up again at 3:45. I let her yell her Mamas for 45 minutes before I just gave up and went in. Know what I found? She was standing up in bed the whole time! Just standing there, not falling asleep, not getting tired. I thought I was going to have a mental breakdown. Instead I took her into our bed (my bed, really, since Nate and his injury were parked downstairs on the couch), where she relegated me to one small corner. I must have been one bad ass in another life because I’m paying back my karmic demerits in triple lately.

I’m not letting this become part of the February blues, though—we are determined to get some joy out of Detroit’s annual Winterblast downtown this weekend, even if it is brief, even if we’re helping Nate hobble around on his one good leg, even if the snot that has been running out of my nose for the last few days freezes on my face. We WILL have fun, dammit.

And I will return to my poor, neglected blog this weekend as well. I have stories to tell of the politics of pick-up and drop-off (Nate experienced the strangeness of this ritual the other day, so I have proof), and perhaps we will once again have a digital camera on hand so you can see how much cuter Clementine has gotten with all this illness and lack of sleep.

Sick. So sick.

We have not been swallowed by a giant black hole, but at this point that's seeming like something I'd rather be doing. We are the house of sick and have been nursing various fevers, sniffles, infections and the likes since Saturday. I'm back at work today but wish I wasn't. The joy of falling into this pit of germs is that between the three of us we may never escape, each of us bringing home germs from school or day care or work and passing them back and forth like an illicit smoke. Nate got a little better from her bronchitis, but then C went down with the flu and ear infection. She turned a corner, but then I got sidelined with my annual winter cold. We're not sleeping. We're cranky. Oh, and we're using lots and lots and lots and lots of Kleenex.

On my mind: snowboarding and babysitting

Honestly, skip this post if you are unprepared for rambling irrelevance. I apparently needed to exercise some demons today. Oh, and find a friggin' babysitter.

It would be a total lie to say that I took to snowboarding as easily as I thought I would. I knew it would be hard and that I would fall, but I imagined by the end of the day I’d be pretty proficient, able to at least handle the small hills without many wipeouts. And I might have been had it not been for the thousands of pint-sized skiers and shredders who hit the hill Sunday afternoon and totally freaked me out by either going really fast around me, really slow in front of me or by wiping out as many times as I did and lying in the snow dramatically after each fall, a little hazardous slalom course, the likes of which I certainly wasn’t ready to handle.

But all in all it was as fun as I thought and I did eventually feel like I got the hang of it. Had I not been so worried about taking the children out and having to face off against their eager parents watching from the bottom of the tow rope (and by worried I mean if I hadn’t thrown myself eagerly into the powder every time I saw anyone in front of me in order to avoid collision), I’m pretty sure I would have spent a little more time upright. I can’t even talk about Nate, who looks like he was born on a snowboard after only two times out. He was up on the chair lifts and down parts of the hill I didn’t even get near enough to look at, but he was also patient and supportive of me wiping out on the seedling hill through the best of the morning. This is huge for me: I usually HATE when he’s better at something than I am and can’t stand to have him instruct me, but this time it really worked for us and I didn’t call him condescending once.

The full injury count is hard to assess at this time because I stupidly went to an insanely tough conditioning class at the gym on Monday, so I’m not sure if the sore muscles are due entirely to one of the other. But I did knock over Cameron, my faithful and wonderful 18-year-old teacher who wondered several times if I was deaf or just unable to follow instruction. I hit my head a lot (next time a helmet for sure), overworked my legs, bruised my knees, knocked my shoulder hard and overworked my quads, and Nate either pulled a muscle or worsened a very small hernia he has had most his life. Who the heck cares? I can’t wait to back on Thursday night. I watched the X Games for inspiration and find myself standing in my snowboard stance while doing dishes or just hanging out, and I’ve been dreaming about weaving down the hills—toe - heel, toe - heel—the last few nights.

Nate and I were lucky on Sunday to be able to go boarding together because Laura (pronounced Yo-ra by darling C) was kind enough to offer to spend the whole morning with Clementine, a morning which must have been a hell of a lot of fun because C now asks for Yora morning, noon and night. Having Laura and her clan so close and so involved in our lives is a saving grace—they are the closest thing to family we have in Detroit, and that is something I’m really missing as my life with a kid gets more and more back to normal. It’s not just that I miss hanging out with my family…although I really do…it’s that I’m finding it hard to find a sitter for those still-rare nights (or days) that Nate and I actually want to leave the house together. Alone. Just the two of us. No Clementine.

I do work in a high school, so it’s not like there is a shortage of kids around. And it’s not like I’m still the neurotic new mother who won’t leave her kid with anyone. Sure, I would like to leave C with someone she knows or can come to know (we’ve had a few one-hit wonders), but the real problem is the extra expense of a sitter. It’s hard to justify a $20 movie night that ultimately costs $40 and is replete with constant cell phone checking, the possibility of interruption and the nagging sense that we’re on a schedule, that we MUST be back when we say we will. I have Laura, but anyone who has someone like that in her life will tell you it’s a careful balance—you never want to take advantage, to overuse that go-to person to the point of fatigue. I feel like I need to protect Laura for the important stuff, the big stuff, not just the dinners out and little errands. I know she’d balk and say whenever, whatever, but I just can’t abuse that.

The real issue, I think, is that when I’m looking for a sitter I feel the same pit-of-the-stomach dread I felt when I was in a doctor’s office recently and read some common-sense article about how all parents should have a will in case of disaster and an emergency bank account with 6 months of expenses in it. Holy shit, I thought, we are totally unprepared for anything out of the ordinary—job loss, death, anything.. And although not being able to find a sitter so we can go out Friday night is hardly on par with this, it does make me feel totally vulnerable, at the whims of another person, a little bit out of control. It’s hard for me to ask for help—I’m always worried I’m inconveniencing someone or asking too much—and even when I do ask, it’s hard for me to trust that it will all work out in the end. Hiring someone is easier than asking a friend to help out, but even that isn’t foolproof. How many times as a teenager did I flake out on a job? Karma is a bitch, baby.

Let me remove my wrist from my forehead a minute: I do realize the sitter conundrum isn’t dire. I realize that if we did run into some emergency, something unexpected, the people we know are awesome. I have no doubt that we’d be covered in the face of a catastrophe. But what about when we had theater tickets (with Laura) and our babysitter backed out that morning? Who do you call then without feeling like you’ve abandoned your kid with the first warm body you can find? More importantly, how do you justify leaving your kid with a series of strangers all the time? And how do you ask your friends with kids of their own or busy lives to rearrange everything so you can go out and be footloose? All of our friends around here who have kids also have grandparents and families that sit for them, so it’s not like we can trade a night for a night. Our friends who don’t have kids are either too busy or just not interested in kids and would be totally traumatized by a night alone with my picky, lovely little girl. If we lived in a neighborhood that wasn’t the white trash hole ours is, I imagine I could have some sort of bohemian co-parenting arrangement with the great family down the street or next door, an open door kind of thing that made life a constant sleepover, an easy give and take. These utopias surely exist somewhere, right?

This would be so much easier if we lived near our families (even though they are scattered all over). I’d feel so much more relaxed, so pleased knowing she was hanging out with her grandparents, her cousins, her aunts and uncles. Even if we didn’t do it a lot, it would be so nice to know that the option was there in case we ever did get a whim. Nate and I are doing a tremendous job dividing labor and splitting the work up—I get out as often as I like while he stays home with C (and vice-versa, though he is such a hermit I have to force him out). The problem with all this splitting and dividing is that we’re doing very little together these days beside pass out on the couch after a long day and let insipid TV shows decay our brain and once lively conversation. Of course there are no easy solutions—my sister lives close to my mom and has more than once admired my life as a pioneer in family-free lands. I guess I should just quit my bitching and get back to the constant phone calls in search of SOMEONE to sit.

Again, sorry for rambling.

What's a weekend without a medical emergency?

I wish doctors offered frequent flyer miles or a rewards system because we sure have had to see a lot of them in the last few weeks. Yes, the arm fracture and subsequent dozen trips to the doctor but also Nate's asthmatic bronchitis and this weekend's pink eye, courtesy, of course, of day care. Clementine woke up Saturday morning with her eye sealed shut with junk, so we hightailed it to the urgent care office, got some drugs and put her under quarantine for the rest of the weekend. She's actually here with me at work for the day, behaving beautifully because I've plugged her into the beloved "Mah Na Mah Na" and her Aunt K has been spoiling her with cake.

But there is much to tell of our weekend snowboarding adventures (you won't be reading it on my corporate sponsor's website just yet). After work. After the laundry. After, after, after.

In training for life as an exotic dancer

My sister and I joke about our kids' dance moves sometimes. Whether it's Clementine cozying up to the pole lamp in our bedroom, Nora doing some bump and grind on the floor or Abby in her flamboyant costumes doing her best rendition of the dance in Little Miss Sunshine (yes, I have seen a movie released since Brokeback Mountain--one single movie to which I will refer whenever appropriate), they all have what it takes to be exotic dancers and love to flaunt it. We choose to view it as cute and funny at this point but reserve the right to become total hypocrites when this behavior continues in, say, middle school. Parenting is all about boundaries, you know?

Clementine is upping the ante on her exotic dancer training a little lately in her Muppet-obsessed frenzy. [Aside that may just be repetition, but I'm constantly trying to justify: it's true that I have lightened my stance on TV and don't feel any shame. We bought her the first season of the Muppets on DVD, and while they have indeed afforded me some quiet moments to be more than three feet from my daughter, they have also proved all my suspicions about TV to be pretty dead-on. Now that she knows what's in the magic box, she wants it on ALL the time and wanders around calling "Ma Nah Ma Nah" and "Da-too" for the Muppets, she slaps her kneee for "Drummer Hoff," and she creis "Shoe, shoe!" for this great 40s cartoon called "The Kids in the Shoe." It's like crack--now that she's had a little, she wants more and more.] She calls out for the number "Lydia the Tattooed Lady," and then stands in front of the TV trying to writhe around like the bikini-clad stuffed pig. It's pretty cute, but it also involves sticking her butt way out toward the audience and bumping it around a lot, which Clementine follows by turning around and lifting up her shirt. I suppose this is so we can admire her tattoos, but of course she isn't Lydia and can't jiggle just so to get Andrew Jackson to climb up the hill of her stomach.



I can't capture her best moves on camera, so I'll need to grab some video because I think this kid has the stuff, which of course has me and Nate totally relieved--as a successful exotic dancer, darling C won't need us to put her through college and we don't have to worry if we don't put a penny away for retirement. Our little Gypsy Rose will support us.

In other news, she alternately loves and hates her barettes. Since she is nothing but an extremist these days, love means she absolutely, positively cannot go another minute without having it in her hair RIGHT NOW, I don't care if you are changing my diaper and have poop on your hand because I'm turning over and pointing at that damn barette NOW NOW NOW! And hate means get it the fuck out of my hair now or I will rip ever strand of my hair from my head angrily and throw it on the floor in front of me and why aren't you listening to me I'm gong to start screaming....AHHHHHH! Here she is somewhere in between, either on her way to hate or just getting back from love:



And still other news: only Nate got to realize his dreams of snowboarding last night because I couldn't get a sitter. I'll hopefully get my chance on Sunday and will probably be so busy nursing my sore ass OR fielding offers from thousands of would-be sponsors that I won't be able to blog about it. Luckily my manager is on the case, prepping my gear and planning for a life following her famous parents around:



I think I'm slappy because it's Friday. One last thing. Clementine wants to give you something because she just loves you all so much:

Back in blue

I have returned from Texas, a state which is very proud of its Texas-ness. Everywhere I looked there were state flags, single stars, references to the "Lone Star," and lots of other reminders of where in the world I was. I don't say this in a pejorative sense at all--it is just fascinating and for me, a true Yankee, kind of daunting because I don't know exactly what Texas stands for and so I don't know what it means to be so surrounded by it. In my ignorance I think of Texas as a red state, home of Bush, a state with big, silly fence to keep Mexicans out, a state about which I'm honestly not very curious. Nevertheless, when I was able to get over myself and quiet my suspicions that everyone was going to find out I was a Yankee and chase me to the city gates with flaming brooms, I had a good time exploring San Antonio (which many people call "San Antone," and I don't know if it's a Johnny Cash reference or what). We saw the Alamo, which isn't nearly as big or impressive as you think it will be but is still worth the visit both for the beautiful grounds (home to the biggest, most beautiful oak tree I've ever seen) and for the cute retired guys in red jackets who staff it and are eager to leap on each and every tourist and explain the significance of the handle of a single sword, the dust from the walls, the trajectory of the sunlight across the floor, whatever. They were so serious I was afraid to ask about the basement and instead listened to a ridiculously long explanation of the taking of the Alamo.

Tacky souvenir shopping is always really high on my list whenever I'm away, and I like the idea of bringing something home for darling C when I'm away. I was pretty close to buying a mounted jackalope (made from a real rabbit) because it was truly, truly tacky, but it was stupid expensive and the fake stuffed one seemed so much more appropriate (did I ever think I'd use a word like that?@!). I also got her a creepy Mexican puppet she and the cat love to fight over, and a few other tacky knick knacks I got along the Riverwalk before heading to some very chic restaurant for the conference dinner. It was strange to sit on the low banquettes in the dim lighting, sipping some ultra-cool cocktail while screaming to be heard over the pulsing electronica--it was like revisiting another life. But soon enough the women migrated to one table, and we all started talking about our kids because it is just SO much easier than trying to find some other common ground with such temporary acquaintances. As mortifying as it is to admit, I took the first bus back to the spa after dinner and left the carousing to everyone else--even though I was the youngest person in the whole group. Lame, yes, but I had a full night's sleep in a comfortable bed to claim.

It was otherwise an uneventful trip except that I got to spend a lot of time by myself (such a luxury), thinking about what my next step might be career-wise. I totally fell into this job some years ago, and while it does afford me some flexibility and even a little power, it interests me less and less as time marches on. Part of it is my amazing boss leaving last June and part of it is the growing realization that I won't be able to keep calling myself a poet much longer if I don't get out there and do something about it. I miss literature. I miss language. I think it's time to get back to teaching. Duh! some of you are thinking. It's true I came to that conclusion this same time last year and allowed them to convince me to stay in my current job, but I can't get jazzed about it anymore. And I have to stop whining.

We're going on the first whole week of Clementine's life I haven't had a camera in her face at least once, and it's not all that bad. I did miss her first trip in the sled, some general cuteness as she has started loving looking at picture albums to recite everyone's name and lots of great candids, but I think we'll all survive. Hopefully my damaged goods will be fixed and returned soon, though, because there are some triumphant moments on the horizon: Clementine will have her cast removed in three weeks AND her father and I are going to learn to become world-class snowboarders. It's true we haven't skied since high school and have only practiced snowboarding in our minds and living room, but I'm fairly certain it's my sport.

From the road: my first working mama business trip

This time last year it was unfathomable to me that I would ever be ready for a business trip that took me away from darling C for more than a night at the very most. File that under What the fuck did I know? I’m in San Antonio for a business conference at a spa that has beautiful grounds, tons of amenities and the most comfortable beds EVER—they could sleep six without touching and are like sleeping on clouds. Last night I went to bed calm and relaxed and didn’t wake up until the morning. I wasn’t even listening for my name from the depths of dreams.

I did, of course, have pangs of longing when Nate wrote me an email about how she’s asking for “Mama” every ten minutes and then saying “yeah” in her honey-sweet voice when he reminds her that I’m working. But I think I’ll survive. We’re home tomorrow night, and I’ll be there first thing when she wakes up Sunday morning.

The conference itself is a butt crusher, and hanging with my boss lacks a certain element of fun and excitement as far as travel, but how can I complain? I got to see some old friends and their new baby, I’ve had lots of margaritas, I’ve done yoga in the sagebrush and I’m off to see the Alamo! I wonder if they’ll let me see the basement (and if you don’t get that reference, you might need to consult Conky 2000).

Cast art

Since Clementine is obsessed with tattoos, which she pronounces "dat-too," constantly scanning the bodies of everyone she meets looking for them: dattoo? dattoo?, I knew she'd be psyched to get her own ink, albeit not nearly as permanent as mine. We started with a few pieces but are now trying to get our friends involved by carrying Sharpies around in the diaper bag. So far we've only gotten flames, though a dinner date tonight Laura ("Lola" to darling C) might fill it out a bit more.

It has gone from totally white:

to some bits and pieces from her mama and dad:

to flamingly fabulous:

She likes showing it off, but she also gets a big kick out of wearing her BabyLegs on her arms:


We visited the doctor yesterday and had to endure a whole new round of X-rays, this time without me even in the room. Needless to say, she screamed and yelled the whole time but was pleased to learn that this lovely type of behavior earned her stickers and an endless supply of lollipops, which her mean-ass mom confiscated after our first and last lollipop experience which had her sticky from head to toe. We learned that her bone is "angulated" a bit. In the ER they saw it and thought they would have to sedate her to straighten it out (IV and drugs...no thanks). This guy yesterday thought they could use a wedge in her cast or some manipulation in the office and the resetting the cast, both of which sound infinitely better than drugging her, though I'm sure it will do NOTHING to allay her increasing fear of doctors. Sadly, her pronunciation has improved and she's no longer calling them "cocktors" like in the ER, even though the guy yesterday was kind of an ass. He had the bedside manner of a jellyfish and reacted really poorly to her objections when he abruptly walked into the office and grabbed at her arm with nary a greeting. He also tried to give her a sling, although the smallest they had was for a 4-year-old and it's not like she's going to keep it on. Maybe I'll fashion one out of an old necktie or something...

All of this and she refuses to slow down even a second. She's still very busy in her kitchen (mostly cooking eggs, though she has every other kind of wooden fruit in the universe) and getting into whatever she can. She has become addicted to the same three or four books and has funny ways of DEMANDING you put down the book you are trying to read her and get her the one she wants. For example, making an ugly throat-cleaning sound means she wants you to read Yummy Yucky (I guess the Yucky sound is the throat cleaning), saying "No no!" means she wants to ready Mo Willem's Don't Let the Pigenon Drive the Bus (because you say "No" whenever he asks), and "No mah" means snowman or The Truth About Snowpeople. There are a few others, but I think I've blocked them out. It's funny, but I swear to god if I have to read Yummy Yucky again I may lose my mind, especially because there are so many other great books I want to read with her. She'll tolerate a good dozen, but there are some she won't even let me pull off the shelf.

And, um, can we talk about this face?

Thank you, Internet. Now can I have a nap?

If any good has come from our exciting new lives as parents of a child in a cast, it is that I've made so many new friends (and reconnected with so many old ones) in the last two days. I've gotten lots of calls and emails and a few comments reassuring me there will be no lasting mental scars for any of us and, more importantly, that I'm not alone. Apparently not realizing your child has a broken bone OR realizing it but just not having time to deal with it until after dinner is a part of parenting, and I'm getting very zen about the whole thing. I know feeling guilty is useless, but I feel my heart break a little every time I look at her or imagine breaking a bone and not being able to tell anyone--look, it really hurts. I would so much rather have broken my own bone!

Then, when I've had my maternal moment, I can't help but laugh at the stories I will one day tell about the whole ordeal, including last night when I watched her try to pick up a pretzel with the stubs of fingers that poke out of her cast. It was frustrating, but she wouldn't give up and even grunted a little for good measure. When she finally grabbed hold of it and began to lift it to her mouth (her other hand was occupied with her sippy cup), the 90 degree angle of her cast made it impossible for it to get it to her lips, and instead of readjusting she craned her head left, left, left even more, trying to find a way for finger and lips to meet. It was sad. But also kind of funny.

So thank you all for your kind words and your advice. Now can you do something about our shitty sleeping? We were right in the middle of a pretty smooth transition to her own room, her own bed, and now no one's sleeping well AT ALL. Clementine can't get comfortable, which means she's wide awake and needing lots of comfort. We're committed to the bed and refuse to backslide, which means we aren't just doing what's easiest and hauling her in bed with us. What that means is that one of us is in there with her most of the night (last night it was me and it was ALL night), trying to help her get comfortable and avoiding the giant clunk of cast into our foreheads every time she moves around. Let me tell you, the damn thing isn't smooth--I have scratch marks all over my face, which isn't nearly as bad as the huge bags under my eyes from getting only about two hours of sleep. It's like having a newborn, and I think I can only take another night of it before I try to figure out a new plan. Like sedation. Or soundproofing.

I am still managing to get some pictures, though my camera isn't fixed. I have been dragging home a camera from work that has a broken lens, but it still works with the zoom lens which is why I have such odd close-up perspective on all the shots. It may look like I'm right up in her face, but I'm actually a half a room away calling "Clementine, Clementine!" like a moron. From far away it's hard to see she even HAS a cast:

But she has a great sense of humor about it. She would forget her arm was there at all for a while, but then she'd try to use it only to find it was stuck under the table. Nevertheless, she laughs AND is still very excited to me five:

I can't get the monkey hat off her sometimes. She is obsessed with all things monkey.

Lest you think she's gettin a free ride and all kinds of spoiling just because she's hurt and we feel guilty, she's still doing her chores. Again, it's a tight shot so you really can't see how cute it is, but every night we tell her to "do her laundry" and she scours the hallway, picking up anything in her path and takes it, piece by piece, to the laundry chute to throw it down. It's harder now with one hand, but she's not slacking:

I can't put any of her bath shots with my ingenious saran wrap water shield up here because they all show her parts and I'm a little leery of bath pictures on the internet after hearing some bizarre Flickr stories, but here is one of my favorite new pictures of darling C and her dad. She almost never gets out of the bath happy, but I think now that the cast makes baths so miserable we have more of this to look forward to:

Further adventures in parenting: the hospital edition

That I didn’t title this post “Why I’m the worst mother ever” shows only that I’ve come a long way since crying like a baby when the pediatric orthopedic doctor told me Clementine’s arm was fractured in two places and that he might have to sedate her in order to set it. It’s not that I feel guilty for letting her fall off the couch (OK, I do feel guilty about that, but kids fall, right?). It’s that I SENT HER TO DAY CARE this morning with a fractured arm. After she fell last night and cried a while, she seemed just fine. Well, she seemed like she was in pain at first, but there was no swelling, she was still using the arm and I just didn’t sense in my gut that there was something broken. We read the books, checked the internet, called my sister, but it seemed like it would be crazy to rush her to the emergency room like insane, overprotective parents. Why not give it a night, see how she was doing in the morning and call the pediatrician? Nice gut instincts, huh? I feel terrible and have been replaying every second between her falling off hte couch and finally calling the doctor to see if I really did miss a big sign. The doctors were all very nice in telling me that it's hard to tell with kids, especially if they can't talk and seem as happy as she did. This did not make me feel all that better, but I did talk to another mom whose daughter had fractures for three days before they got an x-ray. It made me feel a little better. But not really.

When I neglectfully dropped darling C. off this morning I asked Julie to keep a close eye on her and she called me within 3 hours to say something wasn’t right. At that point I hadn't seen CLementine awake for three hours since the fall, so that's what I keep telling myself. Julie isn't more caring or more attentive than I. Is she? Her call is how we ended up calling to Dr. and then getting x-rays and then being shuttled to the ER where we got MORE x-rays before they put a cast on her. With hindsight I see thiswhole event is not such a big deal (her life was never in danger), part of being a parent and all that, but it breaks my heart that my tiny, lovely little daughter who is not even 1 ½ years old has a broken bone. I cringe even more when I think that she went almost 24 hours before someone put a cast on it so it would stop hurting her.

Other than a total freak-out both times she was x-rayed and constant crying while the doctor (whom she called “cocktor”) put on the cast, the girl was a trooper. She handled the waiting with a sweet sense of humor, and she charmed all the patients waiting in the ER. The kid went hours without food but was still sweet as a peach. What did I ever do to deserve such a love? We let her eat Mac and Cheese and didn’t force the veggies when we finally made it home for dinner, we read her all the books she wanted and eventually left her asleep (uncomfortably) in her own bed. See? We’re still committed to her own bed. Of course in retrospect all the bitching I did this morning about what a shitty night’s sleep we had last night seems exceptionally cruel when I see now that she was probably calling out to idiot parents that she was IN PAIN, not just that she missed them.

I feel like I’ve been initiated into a new circle of the parenting club—more than half the other people in the ER were parents with kids in various splints, casts, slings and band aids. And we all survived. But know what my sister said to me on the way home? “Oh my god, you’re totally that mother with her kid in the cast.” Hmmm. I guess am. Poor little monkey. Time to break out the summer clothes!

Can it be this easy?

I do not want to be smote by the sleeping gods by bragging, but I can hold it in no longer: Clementine has her own bed and has been sleeping (mostly alone) in it for the past three nights. We have been kicking this around for a little while, and although I think co-sleeping, accidental as it was at first, was a great choice for us for a long time, we had all outgrown it before Christmas. She was waking us up in the middle of the night and we were waking her up when we came to bed, and although I loved being able to hold her close and smell that sweet little head, I think the negatives were outweighing the positives. We went to IKEA some Saturday right before Christmas, and as we were wandering through the labyrinth of fiber-board furniture, we came across a low bed that was so inviting and enticing to Clementine, that she lept up in it, put her head down on the pillow and said “Shhhhhhh,” pretending to go to sleep. Sure, Nate and I hemmed and hawed about whether we could afford it, whether we should find something used or smaller, whether it was the right time, but in the end, how could we argue? We bought it (realizing immediately we had brought the wrong car to the store, meaning I was pinned beneath it the entire ride home and risked beheading), took it home and promptly…did nothing. We had so much to do for Christmas and so little time to do it that we waited until we returned from our epic travels to find a mattress, take down the crib and set up the bed.

But sure enough it did get done. I bought some sock monkey sheets (which are her new obsession since her grandma made her one we call Coco), gathered her stuffed animals to give her some company and braced ourselves for the struggle of our lives. While it hasn’t been a walk in the park, it has been pretty dang easy, with none of the bumps, bruises, marathon crying sessions or other trauma I imagined. It’s true that I did sleep most of the first night in there with her (and “sleep” is a strong term for lying next to her and shushing her while she said “Coco,” “ball” and “vroom” while pointing to the monkeys, bowling balls and cars on her sheets), but the second night was gang busters. Oh, yeah, and last night I was in there again, but it was my fault I stayed so long—I fell asleep. OK, so maybe it doesn’t sound all that great, but I can’t tell you how nice it is to feel like I have my bed and my sleep back. We will have to continue to adjust, and I’m not going to play hardball just yet with the midnight wakings until we’ve given her a little more time to adjust.

I’m pretty proud of this move, but I feel like I can’t quite shout it from the rooftops. It’s a big deal to me, but most other people can’t believe we still had her in our bed anyway. I wanted to tell my dad last night on the phone, but then I remembered my sister telling me that he grumbles about how useless the crib he got us was. I told my friends at work today, but then one accidentally outed me as a cosleeper at the lunch table and my boss, who already thinks I’m an insane doting mother, was visibly horrified and disturbed, citing how dangerous a practice it is. Will the shame never end? I need a meeting to attend—Cosleepers Anonymous, but even that implies that it’s something I want to get over. Sure, it’s done for us now and it’s the right thing at the right time, but I tell you one thing for sure—if we ever have another kid, we’re going to do it the same way. And I’m not just speaking out of my ass here: Nate totally agrees. One of my only mom friends (who has been mystified by my cosleeping) called me last night, and when I said “I have some very exciting news to share with you,” she immediately countered with “Oh my gosh! You’re pregnant.” Heck, lady. I just got my bed back—how do you think something like that would happen so soon?

Knowing me, you are no dount wondering where the heck the pictures of the new bed are. Shouldn't I have taken about a hundred by now, including some fancy night shots of her sleeping soundly in it? The truth is that my camera is BROKEN. And I have to send it in to have it fixed, and it might take a few months and I have to send a check with the camera, which I couldn't do until after Christmas so I didn't accidentally bounce ANOTHER check. Yikes. So I'm going to have to find a way to borrow a camera from school or something because I really feel like I'm missing an arm without my camera. As it happens my awesome school camera is also having trouble and only the zoom lens works. Maybe I can take some very close up shots of the bed. Or maybe I can stand very far away and shoot it. Hmm.

Before I dash off to a very important meeting (voice dripping with sarcasm here), I want to say to my cousin and sister who have included me in a little meme thing that I’m not ignoring you. Seeing as I write a heck of a lot down here on this blog, there’s not a lot people don’t know about me. Especially you, sissy. But here are some things I’m thinking not everyone remembers about me. Or maybe they never knew them. Or maybe they don’t care. Whatever. And I’m not putting “I’m a cosleeper” here because…guess what?...I’m not! Well, not really anyway. I took my cousin's lead (because, even though I hardly know her, we LOVE the same book--I can't stop rereading Special Topics in Calamity Physics) and put a lie in here. See if you can spot it.

1. I am a published poet who has seriously fallen off the wagon. There are very few people in my life these days that remember the time when I was a poet first and everything else second. That makes me sad, especially because I was surrounded by poets and poetry less than five years ago. I fear not being able to get back into poetry and then spending my life regretting it.
2. I feel very comfortable with most of my musical tastes, but I secretly can’t stop listening to or singing “Fergalicious.” Or “Sexy Back.” If you don’t know who sings these songs that you are much hipper than I.
3. I am poised to become a totally amazing snowboarder (even though I’ve never done it before) if we ever get some snow. Seriously, I feel drawn to it and think I’m going to kick some serious ass. I’ve been practicing in my living room.
4. I have always dreamed about living in Texas, a state that celebrates the big and tacky in everything. My business trip there next week is exciting because I have a chance to see some friends but also chill out and imagine moving there.
   
5. I’ve put on quite a bit of weight since I stopped breastfeeding, which is one of the reasons I was able to last so long—I KNEW this would happen and would have gone on pumping forever so I could keep eating ice cream if only it were a little easier.
6. I always paint my toenails blue. When I remember to paint them. Which isn’t so frequent these days.

We have officially survived

Much can be said of what a trial Christmas can be between the shopping and the wrapping and the parties and the obligations and the travel and the headaches. Sure, it's a great holiday, but it's also a hell of a lot of work. This year it happened to be a hell of a lot of fun with a wild child very into the spirit of it all, which is why I've been MIA for a few weeks. I'm now sitting in my living room enjoying the first bit of peace I've had since the 12th of December, and I'm trying as hard as I can to ignore the stacks of presents I have to find a home for, the scraps of wrapping paper my very lonely cat left as reminders of being left behind and the bunch of bills I can't even being to think about how to cover.

I've only managed to deal with pictures from Christmas Eve, since we hit the road after Christmas day for an epic journey across several states, into at least a half dozen houses and with a baby that was alternately the sweetest, most lovable little creature and a small demon sent to terrorize my mortal soul. I think we can say for now that Clementine does not travel well, or at least she doesn't like to sleep in strange beds night after night after spending days with people she doesn't know and not being allowed to stick to any sort of sleep schedule. But those tales will come later. For today, pictures of Chirstmas Eve, when I convinced Nate we should *gasp* try to go to church so Clementine could hear some Christmas carols and maybe even see the nativity play (OK, and maybe I wanted her to be seen in the cutest dress ever). She certainly let us know what she thought of all that by squirming, fussing and crying for the first five minutes of the service so that I spent the remainder of it in the bowels of a very stately church chasing my little devil around. I think it's safe to say that will be our last attempt for a while. We went immediately out for Chinese, where she revived, gorged herself and passed around tons of good cheer:



When we got home, I decided I could wait no longer to open the 7-foot tall box that my mother-in-law had sent. I was nervous it would be some god-awful thing that was important for her to buy, despite our tastes or desires, but we were all very pleasantly surprised to see that she had made the most amazing tee pee, which Clementine fell in love with immediately and now must play in at all times. And, yes, Floyd likes it too...maybe a little too much.



Nate and I killed a bottle of wine while playing Santa. It was more fun than I had imagined to set up the kitchen set we bought her and to arrange presents under the tree, stuff the stocking, etc. Clementine appreciated every effort, and it took us until almost 2 p.m. the next day to open all the carefully wrapped presents. That isn't a sign of wretched excess, just the first hints at what I suppose will be her ultimate rebellion: tidiness. She picked the wrapping paper off a piece at a time and ran back and forth to the garbage can with all the scraps. One present took about 5 minutes, and then of course we had to take it out to play with it.

The excitement I got to see on her face that day was repeated last night when we finally returned home--it was like Christmas all over again as she was reunited with her toys, her tree, her cat, her high chair. She screamed with delight as she ran around and touched everything in the house. And then she was wide awake until after midnight because her schedule is officially fucked, out the window, done. I say it every year and this one is no exception: next year we are totally staying home.

While reassuring...

My mother is coming this weekend, but I'm not stressed. I convinced her to bring her boyfriend who has a very calming effect on her. He is very sweet, but I just received an email from him that is reassuring and alarming at the same time. He went to great lengths telling me not to worry about cleaning for them or tidying or straightening...that for family we should just be ourselves and let it all hang out. I'm looking at this thinking on the one hand that it is such a lovely sentiment. On the other hand, is my house that much of a shithole that he feels he needs to make me feel better about it??

Officially dating

Work sucks, but it's easy to plug away when Christmas break is so close. Oh, and not caring a whole hell of a lot helps too.

On the home front, sleep is also sucking big time, and I think we're ready to end this wonderful co-sleeping experience. I believe in it and have loved having Clementine in our bed, but know what? I love sleep more. Way more. And none of us is sleeping well with things as they are now. I was feeling guilty about kicking her out of bed (because I'm apparently twisted beyond belief), but it is totally time. Now if only we weren't so broke from Christmas that buying a bed is near impossible. Oh, and if only we weren't getting ready for holiday travels that will see us sharing beds for convenience. It just seems like there's not time to really dedicate to making this a good transition for all of us, and yet if we don't do it soon I fear the result of all this lack of sleep for all of us. Nate and I really need to sit down and talk about all this, but it's hard to find the time when we're ready to collapse at 9 because we didn't get any sleep the night before.

Clementine's vocabulary continues to expand, and I've practically lost count of all her words. In addition to those we understand, there are several that are consistently associated with things like the Christmas tree and certain toys that sound nothing like what we are calling them. We haven't had any slip-ups with her repeating our transgressions, but it is interesting to watch her mimic our behavior. She has taken to disciplining the cat, for example, and that has gone from just saying "No" and "Down" in an angry voice while pointing (do I really look like that?) to hitting Floyd. As you can see, he's ready to fight back, which has me a little more than nervous:



She's into just about everything these days, and I love to watch her attention flit from thing to thing. We let her watch a few old Christmas cartoons, but she can't just sit still and enjoy--she must multi-task by talking on the phone AND playing on her rocking horse. After about five minutes, it's just too much and she needs to take a break to play. I think if I were home with her all day, I'd be exhausted all the time.




I think it is safe to say that I officially have a new mom friend (we've had two "dates" now in rapid succession), and although I feel totally lame boasting about that, you can't imagine how nice it is to find someone who lives close to us, is easy to hang out with and who has a great kid. My friends without kids don't really understand how isolating motherhood can be, especially during week nights when I'm used to a little company, dinner out, some conversation with people to whom I am not related (not that Nate isn't the best conversationalist ever). Last night we arranged a last-minute get-together because Nate was cooking and I felt like that was something worth sharing. She and her daughter came over to play and eat and go home early for bed, and it was easy and fun. Sure, my expectations for social encounters are totally different than they were a year and a half ago, but what of it? More than artists and rockers, poets and thinkers, I need parent friends who get where I am in my life, who don't get offended if I cut their kids' meat for them or remind them to be gentle with the cat and who, in turn, will pick my kid up if she falls down or give her a great big hug for no reason. In this case, it's a little of both (good parent friend but also a cool woman who has a little of the rocker/thinker thing going on), and I'm going to stop mooning because this may sound like a creepy crush instead of just a thank-god-I'm-meeting-cool-moms-to-hang-with thing.

It's strange to be in my 30s and this obsessed with finding friends. I sound like a Middle Schooler, but I'm only a little embarrassed. There are all sorts of things they don't tell you about how your life is going to change when you have a kid, and connecting with parents is, for me, one of the harder omissions, especially since I work and don't have time during the day to cultivate that. And it's not like I'm desperate to escape the comfort of my cozy little three-person family--I love that Nate and I get tons of time with each other and our awesome little girl. I just want to make her world as big and wide as possible, and I want her to see her parents out there having a life instead of turning it all over to her. But enough justification. I also just want to be able to go to someone's house after our kids are in bed, crack open a beer and talk about all the weird shit kids do. I woke up with Clementine literally sitting on my head last night while cooing "Mama." If I don't find someone to laugh about that with I may just end up crying.

Superlatives

When we've had a fun weekend (and really what weekend isn't fun?), I sometimes have to restrain myself from giving into hyperbole and superlatives to declare it the best weekend ever. Maybe it's just Mondays and my ambivalence about my job, but when I sit back at my desk at work and remember all we were able to cram into 48 hours, I feel like we will never again experience so many highs, so many great things in a single weekend. But that's of course never the case, and when I manage to trudge through a work week I'm always rewarded with another best weekend ever. I can't decide if this is an optomistic thought or a pessimistic one (because maybe they all just feel so great because my weeks are so crappy...?), and before my head starts to hurt I'm just going to revel in the weekend past while working on my plans for the weekend future when my mother, who wrote me a very formal businessy letter announcing the plans for her visit, will be here.

On Friday we went down to the Detroit Institute of Art to see Mexican Elvis impersonator El Vez and his Merry Mex-Mas show. It was fabulous, most especially because Clementine was just tired enough to go totally crazy, dancing all over the place and running through the precious gems of the art museum like she was at a demolition derby and needed only focus on taking that guy waaay over there out. We were supposed to have pictures taken with El Vez, but instead we ended up in the basement portrait studio taking very fun pics of our blended bizarro family with the Lambertis. Clementine looked elfin, and she tried out to be the new got milk? spokeschild.

We've decided to become members of the DIA again since the winter is definitely here and our daily trips have been put on ice (excuse the pun). It's great for her to have a place to run free, though I swear we aren't those obnoxious parents who leave their children running through the galleries while they swill wine in the great hall. Clementine did get a little crazy and kept falling down to lick the shiny floor, so we bundled her up pretty quickly and headed home.

On Saturday we braved weekend holiday shopping traffic and all the mom jeans an madness that come with a kids concert to see Ralph's World in Ann Arbor. We've been pretty lucky with kids music so far (meaning Clementine is happy listening to lots of our tunes and doesn't require insipid baby music that gets stuck in my head until I'm in a work meeting humming "My mom has got a pig on her head, my mom has got a pig on her head..." for hours at a time), and Ralph's World is about as close to it as we get. He is a very cool rocker who still plays with the Bad Examples but is enjoying a lucrative career as a kids performer. I was worried about the show since he recently sold out to Disney, but it was very fun and friendly and not commercial like the terrible Radio Disney fiasco we stumbled into after Thanksgiving. Clementine had a blast, though she was a shell of the dancing queen she was the night before. She inched her way, song by song, closer to the kiddie mosh pit and just stood looking at other kids. There were lots of cute moments where the kids were a wriggling mass of dancing bodies and she a lone, still figure watching in amazement. Then, she discovered the stage and stood riveted in front of each band member in turn. I hope that doesn't mean she's thinking about her life as a future groupie. That's her in the middle:

Nate was a trooper at the show because I think kiddie rock offends his sensibilities even more than mine. He wore my favorite T-shirt ever, which took guts in the crown od mom jeans. I actually tried to photograph a pair of them that were especially bad, but the woman caught me doing it and I had to pretend I was trying to take a picture of a kid behind her. It was awkward to say the least. Luckily I didn't have to worry that Nate was going to make off with some other mama.

We made a dumbass novice mistake on the way home from Ann Arbor and let Clementine have a bite of the yummy chocolate we bought there. The girl screamed "More! More! More!" for 30 minutes straight until in desperation I pulled off the highway to find a place for dinner. As it turns out we ended up near Marvelous Marvin's Mechanical Museum, a very cool little arcade that hosts a huge collection of vintage video games and machines in addition to the cutting edge Japanese video games that make you feel like you're a rock star or on a roller coaster. How could we not further overstimulate our child by a quick run through there? Although she loved most of it, some of it was a bit too much:

On Sunday we decorated the Christmas tree, which was as fun as I secretly always thought it would be when I was very busy being dark and too cynical to enjoy traditional holidays. Clementine was very eager to help, and she's so damn in love with the finished product that she stops whatever she's doing every once ina while and runs over to marvel at it and the Christmas stockings.

And as if that isn't enough, I went on a blind mom date with a woman who lives very close to us and has a very sweet and funny daughter who is a little older than Clementine (nevertheless, I think they hit it off...as much as you can say two small children can do so). Because I was involved and it was social, it was a little awkward and I was far to obsessed with not being cool enough, but below all of that was a real sense of relief at knowing it's not that hard to make friends when you meet the right kind of people.

I got to talk to some old friends this weekend as well, one of whom accused me of trying to get fired by blogging about my troubles at work, so I'm going to be a bit more circumspect this week as I just try to make it to the holidays and a much-needed break.

Phew!

Donna Reed, week 4

A few weeks ago, Nate and I came up with a solution to equitably divide many of the chores around the house, most importantly the menu planning and cooking of each night's family dinner. We call it being Donna Reed, and the basic premise is that one person is Donna Reed for an entire work week, meaning he or she is responsible for the planning, shopping, cooking and cleaning up after four or five meals a week (weekends are a free-for-all). We figured it would be better to rotate by week as opposed to date so that each person can get into her groove, whether it is the groove of freedom (Alex) or servitude (Donna).

Had I written about our progress last week, I might have done a little bitching. We got off to a rough start on both sides: Nate was the first Donna, and on his very first Monday of being in charge he called me at work to ask me if I thought we had a particular ingredient on hand. One of my complaints about the division of labor before we introduced Donna into our lives was that even if Nate cooked the meal, I had talked to him and counseled him and answered his questions so many times before the food hit the table I might as well have cooked it myself. This wasn't an entirely fair analysis, but it was how I felt and when he called me to ask an innocent question I was a total bitch and refused to answer. Boo on me. But as we got into the swing of things, I was wowed by how well the system worked. Nate would be in the kitchen cooking up some wonderful, healthy dinner like whole wheat penne with kale and mushrooms (note: we can now say mushrooms are not on darling C's favorite food list), and I could calmly play with Clementine until we were called to the table. Heaven. When it was my turn to be Donna, I could cook in peace and quiet, knowing the people I love were safely enjoying each other's company and not under foot and knife while I was making them a nice meal. Cleaning up still sucked, but it's easy to power through it while imagining not doing a single dish the following week.

Our second Donna rotation was a little more difficult since Nate hasn't really gotten menu planning and shopping down. I frankly think the notion scheduling is overwhelming to his bohemian self, and he doesn't like to be fenced in by things like plans and menus. It's what I love about him--he's very laid back. He ended up having to grocery shop every time he cooked a meal, which was only twice as we had leftovers once and pizza once. I set out this week to moel what I think a good Donna week is--grocery shopping and some prep on Sunday and five fabulous, home-cooked meals the rest of the week. It seems pretty easy in concept, but I must admit I almost cried tears of joy when my lovely friend Laura called on Tuesday to say she had made a giant roast and would like us all to come over. That many home-cooked meals in a row is hard.

All in all, the Donna concept is working for us, but I'm starting to think even more radical...like living on a commune. OK, maybe not that extreme (although it does appeal to my socially retarded side because I wouldn't have to keep trying to akwardly make friends), but I do wish I had better neighbors. The drive home from Laura's is just long enough that Clementine can sneak in one of those awful I-closed-my-eyes-for-five-minutes-and-now-bed-time-is-fucked naps, and almost all my other friends with whom we could enjoy an easy, brief, midweek dinner live just as far if not farther. If only the white trash I live among could be the kind of people I want to call up on a Tuesday and say, "Hey, I made way too much lasagna. Come over and eat with us." Nah. If only Laura had a few extra bedrooms. I want to move in and let her be Donna.

Things we love: the winter coat edition

Any parent will tell you that no matter how cool the toys you buy your kid are, said child will prefer the remote control, a cell phone, a stinky old blanket or the silly plush toy someone you hardly know gave her, even if it isn't clever or unusual like the stuffed roast beef from Mr. Pickles. I've come to accept this truth and happily hand over my cooking utensils and car keys as toys when darling C. whines for them. Sure, I'm giving in, but it's so much easier than watching her have a fit on the floor, especially because she loses interest quickly if I readily hand them over; resist and she will cradle the treasure for hours after I finally give in and I never get it back.

All of this said, I don't understand the deep love Clementine has for the winter jacket my dad gave her. Sure, it's cool and all, reversible and with a zip-out liner/rain coat/3-in-one do-all thingy, but it's not so cool that I can't imagine a world without it. C feels otherwise and will bend over howling in frustration or shriek loudly while huge tears roll down her reddening cheeks if you try to make her experience a world like that. I'm not kidding: take this kid's coat off and she totally loses her shit. She can be somewhat ameliorated if you let her carry it around, but really she wants that thing on and will go to great lengths (read: scream on the floor for more than 10 minutes) to get it.

At first I saw this as not wanting to be indoors or fenced in, but it isn't that. Then I wondered if maybe she wasn't handling transitions well--that not taking the jacket off meant she wasn't ready to be at day care or home yet. Maybe she is trying to keep something safe and consistent with her. But it isn't that either. I've decided it's time to stop analyzing: Clementine just loves her coat. A lot. And I'm going to stop fighting it. If she wants to eat in it, fine. If she wants to wear it to bed (the other night I let her cuddle with it but removed it once she'd nodded off), fine. I might draw the line at bath time, but if she wants to wear it all day at day care, that's fine too. I wish I could find a coat I like this much.

Let it snow!

Although Clementine was with us and free of the womb this time last year, she was just a little precious lump of a baby, hardly a sentient being. She had her first Christmas and saw her first snowfall, but these firsts were not much different in terms of leaving an impression than hearing a bell ring or wiggling her fingers--everything was new, so there wasn't really any distinction. This year it has been a delight to see all the changes of the season through her eyes, watching as she discovers with wonder things like Christmas lights and cold wind. A few weeks ago the white trash decorating contest began in my neighborhood as a few of my neighbors dragged every light-up invention they owned out onto their lawns in the 60 degree weather and set up competing winter wonderlands. Clementine was very impressed.

On the last warm day of the fall we took her in her wagon around the block to look at the various light displays, and with each one she shouted "Yay!" and began to clap (this is the same reaction we get when we pull in the driveway at the end of the day, when we arrive at a store or when she sees her dad). When we got back to our house, she got out of the wagon and decided to go for a closer inspection of our neighbor's displays. This naturally lead to dancing with the inflated animals to the tune of their generaters humming in the night. She is especially fond of all the little penguins, although Santa in the Nascar (I kid you not--they just keep getting tackier and more cliche) is also very popular.

Her enthusiasm is infectious and exacerbating the surge I felt in Christmas spirit last year when I was shocked to discover how into the holiday I was for the first time since I still believed in Santa Claus and really wanted him to bring me a Miss Piggy tiara and a purple bicycle (I got the bike). After years of cynically eschewing Christmas trees, holiday music and decorations, I found myself excited to start our own family traditions, especially since I could add to them a twist or two that would make the holiday more our own. We put up a red tinsel tree with black trim and loaded it with ornaments (none of the proliferation of cheesy “Baby’s First Christmas” ornaments we received), went out for Chinese food on Christmas Eve, danced in our jammies to bad ass Christmas tunes instead of the churchy ones and hung out just the three of us. This year I've been eyeing an even bigger tree (last year's is falling apart) and can't wait to hang the stockings I've made. We put up our own lights outside (alas, nothing inflatable but I think C will live) and even put some decorations on our mantle.

But before the holiday comes the snow, and while the rest of the midwest was getting buried early in the weekend, I was bummed we saw hardly a flake. Early Sunday morning on our way home from our weekly breakfast at Club Bart's, however, there were great big flakes falling from the sky, and Clementine let out her heartiest "Yay," clapping in such total delight it seemed her face might beam right off her head. She had to bend over a little from such excitement, and it was truly amazing to watch her literally discover and understand what the snow is, where it comes from, what it feels like and how quickly it melts. We sat in the parking lot for 10 minutes watching her try to catch the flakes as she repeated to herself snow, snow, snow (it sounded a little like "no" but sweeter), and it was one of the most sublime and happy moments I've had as a mother. I can't quite put it into words.

The whole weekend was full of stuff like that--she is growing by leaps and bounds by the minute it seems, moving in such unexpected and interesting directions that she sometimes catches us completely off guard. Like at dinner last night when she held her sippy cup out to me again and again saying something that sounded like shoes or even juice. Where did she learn that? we wondered. We don't give her juice. But C shook her head at us and became even more emphatic until she reached over and hit her cup against mine and said it again. Cheers? I asked. Yup, cheers. What can you say in the face of that?

I'm crafty (or I used to be) and just your type

A long, long time ago in a land far, far away (OK, just a year ago and no real physical distance), I was quite the crafty gal and loved to make all sorts of things. Part of it was a release for all the creative energy I previously spent on writing (I've been on a little hiatus from my poetry career and am now aching to get back to it), and part of it was just the challenge, but I was really into it for a while. I sewed all manner of cool stuff for my house and person, made art for our walls, learned to make tiles at Pewabic Pottery, developed photos, rehabbed vintage jewelry, made silver charms, silkscreened, made lamps, painted and sketched poorly and even made some crafty baby clothes and goods. Eventually, Clementine arrived and I lost a lot of my steam. I kept going for a while, but who has time to craft when she can't even shave her legs, balance her checkbook or keep up on laundry until the third consecutive day of inside-out underwear? Not only did parenting get in the way, but my writerly self started to reawaken of late, and I can't see finding time to nurture that and still string together beads.

At my craftiest I was lucky enough to participate in a cool show at my friend Laura's house. It's a wacky mix of art and jewelry, gifts and kids stuff (cool kids stuff like "George Bush Hates You onesies and a line of capes, tuts and dress-up duds you'd die for), and you never know what you are going to find there. Overall it's not as bizarre as the Bizarre Bazaar, as hip as the Renegade Craft Fair or as traditional as that crap they host at the local high schools every weekend, but it's a mix of all of those and you can find something for just about anyone. Despite my lack of craftiness of late, I even have a few things for sale (including my silver "punk" necklaces). As if that's not enough of a draw, there are snacks and wine at the sale tonight and a whole Christmas festival (complete with sales, sleigh rides, a parade and Santa) just blocks away tomorrow. If you live in the Metro Detroit area, pop up to Berkley and check it out if you can. My little fam will be there along side Laura and her crew (her 13-year old makes these very cool and crazy stuffed animals, her husband amazing paintings and tiles), and we'd love to see you. It's a family affair! Here's the invite (click to make it larger and to print):