Monday, July 30, 2007

Menu Plan Monday




I do it anyway, I thought I might try posting it.

Monday: black bean quesadillas & salad
Tuesday: whole wheat waffles & fruit
Wednesday: seefood / out to see Mimi
Thursday: grilled ham & cheeses w/ fruit & chips
Friday: pizza

Can you tell it's summer and I don't want to cook? LOL

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Learning mommy

The days have been slipping by. E had an ear infection, them M. E is 95% potty trained, M is 95% walking. Some days they look so big. I've been telling E stories about when she was a baby, she did this, or that. She thinks its funny that she used to kick mommy from inside the tummy.

I haven't journaled or blogged about M the same way I did about E's babyhood. Lack of time, fear of showing "favoritism", I'm sure a thousand other reasons. I need to start. I need to write things down to remember how she crams food in her mouth, how she clutches her blanket at nighttime, and lays her head on my shoulder when I sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to her. I need to remember her sweet disposition and how she's already chasing and playing with her sister. I'll try to do better, baby.

And now some words from another mommy that I found in my inbox. I love this piece. I need to find out if Anna Quindlen really wrote it. ;-)

An Essay by Anna Quindlen, Newsweek Columnist and Author

All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but in disbelief. I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like. Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past.

Everything in all the books I once poured over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach, T. Berry Brazelton, Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education, all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages dust would rise like memories. What those books taught me, finally, and what the women on the playground taught me, and the well-meaning relations -- what they taught me, was that they couldn't really teach me very much at all.

Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout. One child is toilet trained at 3, his sibling at 2.

When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow. I remember 15 years ago pouring over one of Dr. Brazelton's wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month-old who did not walk. Was there something wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China Next year he goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk, too.

Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes were made. They have all been enshrined in the, "Remember-When-Mom-Did Hall of Fame." The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language, mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late for preschool pickup. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, "What did you get wrong?" (She insisted I include that.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald's drive-through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons. What was I thinking?

But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night.

I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.

Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, and matter-of-fact - I was sometimes over the top.

And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world, who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity. That's what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts. It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

22 hours after I got the book, I'm finished. All 730-something pages of it. Thanks to my husband, who took E out this morning, while M had her first nap, and thanks to all of them for napping this afternoon, I had some quiet time today.

It was sooooo good. I'm sad it ended, but it was an awesome ride. Thank you JK Rowling!

I will start the re-read Monday morning, during my commute!

Monday, July 16, 2007

I'm no Little Ball of Hate

My recent column.

One of the most interesting things about having a semi-regular column in the paper is the mail I get afterward. Usually, it's pretty polite, and pretty supportive.

Today, I got this:
"You need to understand something. The only thing people want to hear less from (more than a lawyer) is a female lawyer. Do your best to try to stay quiet."

Which just really makes me laugh.

Someone else accused me of being high. Which also made me laugh.

Then I was copied on an email by a city manager, to another concerned resident. The city manager forwarded this other person my column, and said he was sending it to the city council.

I guess he hasn't heard that he shouldn't listen to FEMALE lawyers.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

making plans

People come up to me all the time, asking me, "Legal, how do you and your husband stay together, year after year?"

My answer, "We spend lots of time apart."

No, not really. But ever since we were dating, we do respect each other's need for space. Now that we have kids, the "need for space" requires planning and marking each other's calendars several months in advance. We send each other Outlook requests when we want to go out. Seriously.

So a certain person is having a girls' fiesta next Friday (con margaritas - Yo amo margaritas) and then the next week is a boys' birthday celebration. We trade off, you see, and it works well for us.

Imagine his reaction when last night over dinner I told him I'd need him to watch the kids for "approximately 48 hours next weekend." "You have a party next Friday night... is it for 48 hours?" he asked with that edge in his voice.

"No, but the new Harry Potter book is coming out, and I require some uninterrupted reading time. Thank you!"

Hmmm... my suggestion was not taken well. But I'm still working on it. This ONLY comes once in a lifetime, right?

Friday, July 13, 2007

Momentous Occasions

Yesterday was such a huge day. E started the 3 year old class on Monday, and yesterday wore big girl panties -WITH-NO-ACCIDENTS-...!!!!! She also went poopy on the potty ("but just a little bit, mommy.") If she does it again today, I'm taking her out for ice cream, or something.

Also, M walked. Repeatedly. Granted, it was like 3 steps, fall down, Mommy pick up, 3 steps, fall down, Mommy pick up, but still. She knew what she was doing too, I could tell. For the past few months, I've been trying to get her to "walk to mommy" since she is the biggest mama's girl ever and who does she finally walk to, last night? E, the big sister, who was brushing her teeth and running around having a grand time. J doesn't believe me, as he worked late last night and didn't see it, and she wouldn't repeat the feat this morning. But I think we're off and running.

What else is happening? I get to close out a case that was reassigned to me when I returned from maternity leave... from my first baby. This was not a complicated case, but still rather huge and one of first impression. We got a signed commitment from the recipient last night, and I get to tell the person who filed that it's finally over. Yay me.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

So Together

Honestly, since my Pocket PC died this spring, I am leading a far more organized life. I switched to a paper planner, and it took some time, but I am back in the swing of things organizationally-speaking, far more so than I had been in the last few years.

Want proof?

It’s 167 days until Christmas.

And I have lists started to prove it.

Boo-yah.

Could more frequent blogging be next? Oh my!