September 2008 Archives

This morning I made waffles (from scratch; with a half stick of melted butter and a teaspoon of vanilla paste) in The George.  I've never made waffles before, because I'm sort of a pancake girl, but let me tell you that when I opened the grill and saw the first batch of two giant-sized waffles all golden brown and perfect, I was all Awwwwwwww, yeah!  Who is rockin the waffles?  And the kids were all Whatever, Mom.  Do we have any powdered sugar? 

The boys' friend C slept over, and I barely got all five kids out the door in time for church.  We listened to the Juno soundtrack for our five minute ride, and all the kids sang along: If I was a flower growing wild and free, all I'd want is you to be my sweet honey bee. My awesome minister talked about Buddhism today, and Lex sat next to me and I think he was interested.  I have mixed feelings about Buddhism myself; maybe I'm just not educated about it enough, but I think I prefer to have passion and laughter and tears.  I'm kind of messy and loud sometimes.

I spent the afternoon puttering around, cleaning up the house and rearranging things and cooking.  The kids played outside for most of the day.  When the sun set, a bunch of them ran around playing Capture the Flag while I talked with a couple of other single moms from my street on my front yard. 

I'm happy.  I'm exhausted, my house is trashed beyond belief, I'm sort of behind on a bunch of different things, and I am having a hard time keeping us in milk and bread (we go through it so so fast), but things are good.  Great, even.  Part of me is inclined to feel bad about feeling so very good, but that is the same part that has gotten me into such trouble in the past.  It's okay for me to be embracing this change.  I don't have to feel bad for being so much lighter and hopeful.

Saturday mornings I get up early and leave the girls sleeping in my bed while I sneak to the kitchen to make coffee.  Quiet in my house is less rare than it used to be, but it's still something I love to soak up while I can. 

This morning I got the soccer uniforms together, put in a load of laundry, and emailed Soph's coach to set up a playdate for our girls.  My girls appeared next to me in the living room while I was typing, rubbing their eyes, their hair in sleep-rubbed tangles that will be a pain to deal with later on.   Soph wants me to help her: with batteries for her camera, with emailing her friends, with putting a movie on, with spelling words, with starting her project that is due in four weeks.  She wants me to make waffles.  From scratch.  Willow just goes to the kitchen table with a stack of light blue paper and the blue marker that she's been using for the past few days to draw stick people.  She hands me drawing after drawing, This is you and your friends, Mama: this is your boss, this is you, and this is Jenny. 

It makes me sad that when she draws me, she draws me away.  She used to draw me with them.

For days she's had blue fingers and cheeks.  The ink gets on her hands and she rubs her face.  I find tiny blue fingerprints on the bedclothes and the bathroom counter.  She washes her hands, but the ink doesn't quite come off. 

In an hour, the boys will be back from their friend's house.  We'll pack up and go over to the soccer field.  Instead of one long stretch today, we have one morning game and then three right around the same time this afternoon.  I love standing on the sidelines watching my kids play, seeing them come running off the field toward me all out of breath and happy.

I've been so busy it's comical.  Still finding time to pick up my camera here and there.  I am grateful to have creative things to do that are sort of easy to fit into such a full life. 

The kids and I are getting into a routine that is suddenly centered around the AWESOME George Foreman grill my mom gave me for my birthday.  I asked for it, and she was all, Ooooookay.  Happy Birthday?  I'm now turning out halfway good dinners for my kids in 20 minutes or less and they are eating everything on their plates.  Happily.  That thing just simply fucking rocks and you should buy one.   When my pickiest kid says that dinner is better than a restaurant then the world should listen up.  Last night I made for myself (in, like, seven minutes) chicken apple sausage with grilled arugula and cherry tomatoes over brown rice.   The rice went in the microwave, but the rest went on The George.  I just threw a few handfuls of greens and tomatoes on with the sausage and let it do its magic.  </unpaid commercial>

I'm happy it's autumn.  Once I said "fall" to one of my English friends and he delivered a lecture on how badly Americans have twisted their language:  Fall? He said to me.  How can you use such an ugly word to describe such a lovely time of year?  Only Americans would say "fall" rather than "autumn.  Fall?  Ugh."   I didn't take it personally, because I pretty much agree with him, even when he's being a snooty British bastard.  Next time he's in town, I'll have to really bust out the slang for him.  Maybe I will say that I'm finnin to leave, and has he seen that thing that I brang with me?  Or something. 

Anyway.  Fall.  Autumn.  Whatever.  It's my favorite time of year.  My favorite moment in the fall is usually that first time each season when the sky is clear and thicker blue than the summertime sky and I'm outside somewhere and I smell woodsmoke for the first time.  I love being in the kitchen and hearing a football game in the other room.  I love it when the kids are playing outside and it's a little cold so they have sweatshirts on and they run around until their cheeks get flushed.  The full moon is prettier, the light is sweet and honeylike, and to me it's always felt like the real start of the year - a do-over three quarters of the way through the calendar.  I'm obviously starting over this fall.  Well, not entirely.  Lots of things are the same, or the same but amplified.   Maybe calling it a change of direction is more accurate. 

I've been wanting to do this since I first saw it, so here it is.  The bolded things are things I have et, and the plain text are ones I have not.  The strike-thrus are the ones I refuse to try.  I'm brave in other ways, I don't need to eat a pig's ass or something scraped off the side of the road. 

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Wednesday nights the big kids sleep over at their dad's, so it's just me and Willow here after she's back from dinner with her dad.  She's got afternoon kindergarten and I work at home on Thursdays, so we sleep in and cuddle in my bed and talk during the time that we're usually busting ass to get out the door on time.  Today she wanted to go to her before school daycare to see her friends.  She was listening to her iPod and I was putting her hair in pigtails, and she started to cry.  I asked her what was wrong, and she said that I was knocking her headphones off.  I told her to just hold them over her ears and that I'd work around them.  She stood there with her mouth quivering and big tears running down her face. I brushed her teeth for her and she was still crying.  I got on my knees and hugged her and she kept on crying, not making any noise.   

I picked her up and brought her over to the couch and sat her on my lap, facing me.  You're so sad, I said.  Do you know what is making all those tears come?  She shook her head yes, but didn't talk.  Would you like to tell me? I asked her.  Sometimes, if you just say what's making you sad, it makes you feel a little bit better. 

She just looked at me, and the tears kept coming.   

I held her for awhile, wiping her tears away, helping her blow her nose.  Will you turn off your music and talk to me?  She nodded and took off one side of the headphones and turned off the Last Unicorn soundtrack she'd been listening to. 

I want to help you, Willow, I said.  Will you tell me what's making you so sad?

You yelled at me, she whispered, so small.  While you were brushing my hair. 

I held her little face between my hands.  I am so sorry, I said.  I didn't want to yell.  I wasn't mad.  I just wanted you to hear me over your music.  I'm not mad, okay?  I love you.

She shook her head yes and melted right into me, her wet cheek on my collarbone.  I ran my hand over her back and hugged her close.  And as I sat there, barely holding it together, all I could think of was how the conversation we'd just had was such a false one.  Really she is sad that her daddy moved out.  Really I wasn't apologizing for yelling without meaning to; I was apologizing for breaking her heart to try and save my own. But she's too little and it's all still too tender to even put into words. 

We got in the car, Willow still teary.  I took her to daycare, and she clung to me for a little bit.  I sat on the floor next to her at a tiny table as she put cotton stuffing into a tiny little felt shark body.  This is so cool, I told her, you get to make a stuffed animal and it's a shark.  How awesome.  She put it down and looked right at me.  I need your help, mom, she said.  I know you do, baby, I said.  I put my hand over hers and helped her use her popsicle stick to put the stuffing in the shark's tail. 

I left her there, head bent over her work, totally concentrating.  I walked out the door into the beautiful blue sky fall day, put on my sunglasses as I walked down the steps, and picked up the silent crying where she'd left off. 

I know that I've made the right decision for me.  I don't know if it was right for Willow.  All I know is that my heart keeps breaking and breaking and breaking, and I don't know how to make it stop.      

I swear my birthday used to be on the first day of fall, but the past several years (or longer), it's landed on the last day of summer.  At least once in college it fell on the first day of school, but that was so long ago I can't remember when.

For the first time since I became a mother, I spent my birthday without my kids. (I think - my memory is bad.  But since it's how I remember it, does it really matter if I'm wrong?) I saw Willow briefly, she brought me flowers, and the other kids sang me Happy Birthday over the phone three or four times in a row, while I sat with my cell phone, feet up, beer in my hand, about to eat a really (really) great dinner. 

I missed them, but ended up having a nearly perfect day.  It started with bacon and coffee at Gwendomama's with Jen, Squid, and the (blogless) BOS, and ended with presents and that really great dinner, and truly the best sleep I've had in awhile.  In between the start and end there was gluten-free beer, a late-afternoon trip through the foothills in the most incredible light, music, and reclaimed furniture:

 
painted by Squid

I'm going to use it to store the kids' art supplies in the living room.  It's purple and lime green, and it rocks ten ways to Sunday. (I know that's not the phrase, but there it is all the same)

Most of all, though, I'm starting a new life.  It's so hard to write about this stuff without sounding like a dumbass, but new starts are gifts.  I'm feeling hopeful and happy.  I have a lot to look forward to.

Tonight I found myself on the highway with a passel of kids during rush hour.  I barged my van over into the carpool lane, and we immediately were able to drive past two lanes of cars stuck in very slow traffic.  Lex was in charge of music, so we were listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and as we blazed past the stopped cars, I heard Willow yell, "SUCKAHS!" before going back to singing along with the music.

I love listening to little girls with big brothers dish it out.

Yesterday morning at breakfast Willow started choking on her food.  It was pretty scary, because there were moments where she wasn't making any noise.  She finally got herself sorted out and of course I got a little teary.  Nate and Sophie were still at the table eating their breakfast and they each had their hands around the front of their necks in a slightly different way as they fought over the proper sign you're to make if you are choking. 

The neighbor that I share walls with and have a huge grudge against (I haven't written about it, because she got threatening with me in both legal and policeical ways) offered Nate the fantastic opportunity to mow her yard for two whole dollars.  While I was still rocking Willow in my arms and kissing her forehead, Nate was telling me about it:

Nate: Mom!  Amber offered me two dollars to mow her grass!
Me: Uhhh, dude.  I don't think you know how to operate a lawn mower?  And?  TWO DOLLARS?  Seriously?
Nate: You think I should ask for three?
Me, thinking: WTF?  Betch should have asked ME first!  Two bucks?  the hell?
Me, outloud: Well, I think you should really think about it.  I pay our yard guys more than twenty bux a week to come do our yard.
Nate: Hmmmmmm.

I'm supposed to go to a class tonight from 7 until 9, but I totally dropped the ball and didn't arrange childcare.  Tuesday just kept seeming so far away, until this morning when I was waiting for my coffee to brew and writing the kids' chores for today on the calendar in the kitchen.  I actually said, Tuesday, you totally snuck up on me, good one! to the calendar.  Or the wall. Or maybe to Tyr or Tuesday Weld, who Willow looks the tiniest bit like.   Anyway, here it is: Tuesday, and not only do I not have childcare for tonight, I have no clue how Sophie will get to soccer practice this afternoon.  I'm thinking about asking my next door neighbor to drop her off:  Hey Amber, if I give you THREE dollars, will you take Soph to practice? 

• Cups of coffee = two
• Pieces of bacon = two and a half
• Spiders = two
• Burned out light bulbs = one
• Loads of laundry = two
• Ran the dishwasher = once (sink STILL not empty)
• Stopped to look at the gorgeous full moon = forty seven times
• Minutes spent at meeting for kids' drama club = thirty
• Minutes spent standing in line to hand in drama club parent volunteer forms = thirty
• Number of people who checked in on me in person, or via phone, email or txt today = at least twenty
• Number of people who offered help clean my house = three
• Number of forms my kids brought home about lice exposure at school = two
• Number of times I said shit, goddamnit, motherfucker about the idea of my kids getting lice = ninety six
• Number of times I checked their heads = eleven
• Number of kids who got their heads scrubbed by me = two
• Number of kids doing Irish dance in the living room an hour past bedtime = three
• Number of beers I've opened = two
• Messages in my work email that I need to answer = 186
• In personal email = afraid to look
• Number of kids who didn't get lunch today because they thought I didn't give the school a check and didn't think to ASK SOMEONE = two
• Number of schools I actually forgot to give a check to = one
• Number of times I yelled at my kids = one (roughhousing turned to injury turned to punching)
• Number of times I felt lucky = seven
• Number of nice surprises = one

5:00 a.m. and my alarm clock is beeping in the dark.  The girls have their arms and legs wrapped around me and I have to extract my own arms from the tangle one at a time before I can slide myself close enough to the clock to hit the snooze button.

5:18 a.m.  I think this is the third time the alarm's gone off now.  I turn it off and walk to the kitchen, put some water on the stove to boil so I can make coffee. 

John moved out over the weekend.  It's a little wobbly around here.  The house is torn up from pulling apart seven years of shared stuff.  The kitchen is still a disaster from being emptied and separated.   My pretty new orange and clear-glass French press sits next to the stove and the space where the coffee pot was is taken up by dirty dishes and and empty tomato and strawberry containers. 

I have a shitload of work to do around here, and the house is the easy part. 

The kids are doing what kids do when things suck: they're fine one minute, sobbing in my lap the next.  They love me, they're mad at me, they are extra-helpful, they stare me down and tell me no.  I can hardly look at Willow without crying.  She sometimes calls John's apartment his hotel.  She wants to be there and here at the very same time.  She wants her family back under one roof.  But, mostly she's alright; she and Sophie have been playing very complicated games with stuffed animals and Playmobile people.  Honestly I haven't been listening too closely, because I am pretty sure the games are all about parents dying, moving away, or losing their babies. 

The boys are a little big to process all this through play.  They're sad, but they are more cooperative and helpful.  I think they may be cutting me a break.

I'm mostly fine, but I'm also kind of a huge mess.  John and I aren't fighting, we even took the girls out to dinner together Saturday night after a long day of soccer games and moving.  Yesterday he stayed with the kids so I could run errands and go sign Soph up for Brownies (god help me). 

Now it's almost 6:30.  I've made the lunches, relocated a couple of spiders, made the girls go back to bed twice.  The sun is about to rise.  Then I will get the kids up and dressed and fed and we'll go back out into the world.

Late last night I saw one ant in my kitchen, so I wasn't too surprised to wake up to the superhighway of ants on the counter this morning.  We haven't had any in the house in a couple of years, but we used to all the damn time.  They don't really need to eat anything; they just cruise around excitedly waving their antennae all over.  I say that, but these ants today were having a little party on the bit of strawberry left sitting in the sink.  Used to be they'd just come in from a crack in the baseboard and make a line that went under the dishwasher.  (Dude.  I just googled ants to see if they were carpenter ants.  I may NEVER stop shivering.  Ewww.  Ick.  Yuck. FullBodyShudder.)  They'd generally show up with heavy rain, high temps (like now), or um, if there were ever any scrambled egg bits left anywhere in the kitchen, which used to happen more when a high chair was in use here. 

They *love* eggs.

Anyway.  This morning there was an ant superhighway and I looked at it and sighed and was all, Damnit, now I have to kill you.   Which, you know, makes me feel bad, because not only are they working so hard (!) but one time I heard an interview with one of the Zappa kids  (MoonUnit, I think) where she said that her father never, ever killed ants but instead lovingly shepherded them out. 

Me?  I went for the poisonous bait (Grant's Kills Ants!), poked the gelled toxic crap with a toothpick to make sure they could get to it, and then stood there drinking my coffee and watching them find the poison and tell their friends.  I couldn't help myself; suddenly I was hissing at them, Ha ha ha!  Die you little fuckers!

Maybe I need to switch from yoga to kickboxing and get some of that aggression out of my system?

Later, after several hours in the office, I left work a little early to go to the dentist to get two fillings.  I have teeny cavities, nothing bad really, but they need to be fixed before they get bad.  Either that or my dentist doesn't want to hurt my self-esteem.  He's all Noooooo, your teeth! they're great!  Really!  It's OKAY!  No worries!  But, um, come back in a month, okay, so I can put in three more fillings and fix that cracked tooth. 

It was a really shitty way to spend the afternoon, with a bit of foam wedged into the back of my mouth to keep my jaw open while he fixed the two cavities between my molars.  And now it's sore and I'm crabby and it's hot and I can't sleep.  It was funny, though, at the dentist, because he was all, So?  HOW many kids do you have again?  and I said, Four.  And he said, And now you work full-time, too, right? And I said, Yes, I do, and HE SAID, Hahaha, so this is your relaxation time! And I'm all WORD.  Then he said that my jaw was tense, asked if I was stressed, and kneaded my jaw muscles for a minute so I could open my mouth up enough to not bite his fingers off.  Also?  Many jokes were made about how I got there late and they rushed me back and I was all Hey, wait!  I totally need to brush my teeth, and he was all, Eh - I can deal.  And I said, Um, no.  Dude, I had carne asada tacos for lunch.  And he goes, Eh, I have TOOLS.  And then while he was drilling and putting the fillings in he kept saying, LET ME JUST GET THIS MEAT OUT OF THE WAY.  And I laughed like this: garhahagar, because my mouth was full of cotton and shit to bite down on and sharp objects and drills.   Also, don't you totally hate how they smush your face over to one side to get to the back of your mouth and you just know that your nose is like, practically inside out, and all your nose hairs are just sitting there for the dentist to have to look at?  I want to ask for a little hankie or something next time.

When I came home my mouth was still numb, but it was time to be at Back to School night, so off we went and I didn't get to eat, or - more importantly - drink, anything before we left.  They were sneaky and had the PTA meeting sandwiched in between the lower and upper grades' presentations, so we went.  The people running it are all nice and everything, but honestly?  that's all the good I have to say about PTA meetings.  They make me want to sneak out for a smoke.  I don't smoke anymore  (cloves don't count, right?) though, so instead I text messaged with Jenny and cut out of the meeting early.  It was totally just like that time in high school where I cut Latin class and went and walked around.  Really.

By the time we got home at 8:36, I was starving and in desperate need of a beer.  Willow and I sat at the table after I poured her some milk.  She ate her cold, leftover pizza, and I had chips with hummus and salsa for dinner.  We talked about her day a little and she stopped midway through telling me about playing musical chairs and said, Who made the world?  The sun?  And were the dinosaurs killed by a big rock?  Some people think so.  I think the world was made by the sun and that a rock killed the dinosaurs because today I saw dinosaur skin in the drain at the Y (day care).

I looked at her and said, C'mere.  Let me smell your milk.

It seemed fine, so I guess she was just asking weird questions.  I told her that I didn't know who made the world, but that if she wanted to believe it was the sun, I'd buy that for a dollar.  How'd you know it was dinosaur skin in the drain? I asked her.  Oh, she said, because it was green.

Huh, I said.  You learn something new every day.