A Magic Number, FIN

Well dude, you are three years old. You're officially a preschooler, though you won't be going to school until the fall. Our little guy has grown so much this year, learned so much, and Daddy and I are always amazed by the things you remember and the things you say. Your smile--with all those big boy teeth!--is my favorite sight in the world. I adore your terrible attempts at imitating a British accent (Por-reege to-dee Grom-eet - Tues-dee!) and your excitement over little things like music class or going to visit your cousins or blowing bubbles. I will never ever tire of this question: "Mama, can we have a dance party?" The answer will always be yes.

You are in your big boy bed now, soon (we hope) you'll be done with diapers for good, and before we know it you'll be four. But I just want to concentrate on you being you, right here and right now.  There's so much world out there you have yet to discover, I'm just thrilled we get to come along for the ride.

Happy birthday HR, my own little wish come true.

A Magic Number, Part 1

Not to say that HR had a total blast on his birthday, but any shindig that results in this kind of maniacal glee must have been at least a little bit awesome.

Many thanks to our close family and friends who came out such a ridiculously beautiful day to celebrate, and to those from farther afield who sent along an embarrassment of love and good wishes. Mike, HR and I are so lucky to have these people with whom we get to share our lives. It's humbling, every day. And of course on such a special occasions it's ramped up immeasurably. The big boy got waaayyy too many wonderful presents, we all got our fill of delicious homemade pizza (with thanks to Mammy and Gram) and assorted party treats, had a delirious early-evening dance party on the patio, and this mama got the big time comedown blues after our house cleared of out-of-towners yesterday. Which means that it was the best of times. Most importantly, HR seemed to really enjoy his party and being surrounded by his loved ones. I think by the time his fourth rolls around, he'll retain a happy memory of turning three. Having a chain of these experiences, making it link by love-filled link, of all the things I want for my child in his life, this is my heart's desire for him. And we do what we can as parents to make it happen, but obviously, and thankfully, we don't do it alone.

Thank you again to our village. This is for you. A little more about the birthday boy himself, tomorrow.

Goodies

I may have mentioned that HR is turning three soon. Saturday, to be specific. It feels like a much more serious thing to be a mother to a three-year-old than a two-year-old. But that's fantastic. Three is, like, a real kid. Not that he hasn't been real all along, just that he's been more of us and who we are and what we do as parents than he's been himself. Now the Mr. Independent show has begun. As I wrote when he made the leap to the big boy bed (and the leap out, twice last night, thankfully the bed is close to the ground and Mike had the foresight to leave pillows there), I do harbor some sentimentality as his babyhood grows smaller in the rear view. But I'm mostly just thrilled I get to hang out with this guy, the guy he's becoming, every day. Even in his most challenging moments. I intend to write a letter to HR like I've done the past two years, but maybe only in private. At the very least, not until after his actual birthday.

I've got big plans for the coming weekend, so let's get down to it.

World Keeps Turning

Night #2 in the big boy bed was not as easy-peasy as #1 - there were some tears. However, they were familiar "I just don't want to go to sleep" tears vs. "I hate my bed" tears. Nothing new, I've gotten the firm-but-calm-you-are-going-to-bed-and-I'm-leaving-the-room act down to a science and he went to sleep on his own, peacefully, only 15 minutes later than expected. Setbacks are inevitable, but so far, so good. I won't be making the sleep report a daily feature, just following up on whether the transition was a fluke.

Meanwhile, something woke me at 4 a.m., and instead of going back to sleep immediately like a smart person my mind started racing, and I fixated on whether HR was going to get up and get into some kind of trouble in his room. And then a song from the Lolliwinks-- if you've never heard of it, consider yourself lucky as it is a very annoying children's album from my own youth--ran through my head on a continuous loop for no reason and it was... not ideal. Thankfully it's been a long time since I've had those kind of woes. Remember when sleep was the only thing I ever wrote about? I don't miss that. If there are any new parents reading this, believe something I just couldn't: it does get easier. Though I hope for you it was easy from the beginning. If you have a good sleeper, cherish it like the suitcase full of golden light it is.

Not to sign off on a bummer note, but I was saddened to hear of the passing of the Divinyls lead singer yesterday. Until recently I had no idea that her band even existed before "I Touch Myself," let alone that it was their song in a pivotal scene of that all-time classic The Legend of Billie Jean (I am serious about my love for that movie). RIP, Chrissy Amphlett (and Richie Havens, and the incomparable E. L. Konigsburg). Damn, yesterday we lost a bunch of good ones.

And Onward

I feel like anything I could say regarding the events of the past few days would be superfluous. It's all been said. I'm in a very very lucky place where I can close the book mentally and any lingering sadness and anxiety is second hand. I don't even know anyone who was injured. The madness hit close to home--literally, as in the suspects' apartment is blocks away from my house, and greater Boston area is itty-bitty in general--but now that the initial shock and panic has faded, I have the luxury of moving on. This is in no way meant to belittle others' grief,  their loss and trauma. That is for serious, and I can't even imagine what all these families are going through. But that is theirs, and even as the tragedy sort of belongs to me as a Bostonian, I feel like I don't want to claim it. It was awful and it sucked and I want to revel in just being OK now. Until the next curveball, the one that might be the one that delivers a real personal blow. Ah, life.

Speaking of curveballs, we unexpectedly moved HR to a big-boy bed this weekend. I mean, it's not that unexpected. The kid's going to be three on Saturday for crying out loud, lots of kids are out of cribs before their second birthday. But he had never once showed any interest in or awareness of the possibility of escaping the baby cage until Saturday night when he executed a swan dive over the rail and landed on his head. He was fine, but witnessing that in all of its split-second-but-slow-motion glory was not my favorite parental moment. I'm tentatively happy to report that the first night in the BBB went beautifully. Tentatively, because I'm not dumb enough to think that one good night = mission accomplished. He actually had a nap yesterday afternoon, so he went to bed under ideal, non-overtired conditions. Plus we made a huge deal about how cool it is to be out of a crib. And he really took to heart the awesomeness of being able to crawl into bed himself, while at the same time not quite getting that he could also crawl out. I'm optimistic that he's just ready because he's practically a teenager, but who the hell knows how it's going to go when the novelty wears off.

I think it does help that he's older, and so is probably just developmentally prepared for this step. Time will tell. Even though HR has been true to his surfer-dude leisurely pace in hitting this latest milestone, it still feels like it happened so fast and it makes me a little emotional. No more crib. Next up: no more diapers. No more baby. Our boy's growing up is an awesome thing to witness, and I'm looking forward to every step, but it doesn't mean I'm not prone to sentimentality.

What the hell, here's some Big Boy, for our big boy.

Irony Free Since 2013

Once upon a time there was a group of friends, four couples, who formed a "supper club." We'd meet once a month for dinner, rotating hosting duties, each faction contributing a dish and/or cocktail according to the pre-determined themed menu. The food was always amazing, drinks flowed with happy ease, but in retrospect all that goodness was beside the point, because the reward was having some of the greatest times with some of the greatest people I've been lucky to know. Then life, as it happens, impelled half of the couples to move to other states. And over the course of five years seven new lives have come into the fray. I guess you could say Supper Club broke up, or at least reached an amicable separation agreement. But such a bond--cemented in the love of bacon, booze, fearless culinary experimentation and shameless enjoyment of hair metal--is not easily put asunder. We could not quit each other, and make a point to re-form as much as possible. Cut to: this past weekend.

Before Monday happened in all its terrible sadness, I got to spend a wonder of a couple of days with my old crew. It all started when the husband half of one of the couples, now Long Island denizens, got a wild hair to get us together in the Big City for an evening. We found a weekend that worked for most of us, then the Mr. realized, 1) he had yet to check in with his wife regarding this engagement and 2) her birthday was right around then. So it became a supersecret mission to slyly assemble in a restaurant where he would be taking her under the guise of a date night (surprise #1) followed by karaoke until the wee hours, then (surprise #2) caravaning to their abode the next morning for a full on supper club reunion. And it worked!

Thanks to a superior network of childcare helpers (thanks for the two-night sleepover, Grandma!), we were all able to not only make it happen, but happen in vintage SC style. We managed to shock the birthday girl and then go on to have a great time, partying like it was 2008. For someone who had no idea that all these people would be invading her house, she took it in remarkable stride. And then we had some great food, caught up with the hosts' two ridiculously cute girls (as well as the two girls belonging to the Vermont outpost, who made it for Saturday portion of the event), and acted like there wouldn't be a Sunday morning. Oh, but Sunday came, and we all paid handsomely, but it was worth it.

Anyway, thanks all for pulling it together and for being such quality human beings. Forgive me for being a bit mushier than I would have normally been, but it was a truly marvelous memory to take with me before everything went sorta kablooey in our world. Again, thankfully, none of us were physically affected by the Boston Marathon bombings, but in our own ways each of us (who all at one point did live here) picked up a new scar. All the more reason to make sure we see each other again soon.

And on and on and on and on.

Laurels

Someday maybe I will write a proper entry about yesterday's devastating events. But it's still too new, too raw, too unfinished. It's not that I'm waiting for it to make sense, because it never will.

Over the time that has passed since the bombings, I have been frozen with terror. And depressed. And angrier than I thought I could get. But more than anything I am grateful that all my loved ones are accounted for and well. That the tragedy wasn't worse than it was. That this is the city I chose to call home over half my lifetime ago. That there is genuine kindness, generosity and beauty to stand up in the face of terror.

This was a horrifying, indefensible act. I grieve for the people who died. For the people who were hurt. Who were robbed of a triumphant life-altering experience. I hope that the culprit will be discovered and made to pay for his crime, but right now my sadness swallows up any feelings of vengeance.

For now, that's all I can put together. Thank you all for the calls, emails and texts. Even if we know, or are 99% sure that those we love were not anywhere near the scene, just being able to check in with our people, hear their voices, see a message they wrote, it helps restore a sense of calm, of control when things go off the rails. It makes a difference.

I guess I don't have anything new to add to this. I just want to wrap it up by saying that I know that good doesn't always win, and that justice isn't served even half of the time. The world can be a dreadful place for a million reasons. There are places where things like this are an occurrence every day, including yesterday while it was going on here, and it's enough to make you want to give up on this life and see if there's another one. But hate and fear have to lose. They have to. There's no other way to go on. Other people have honed in on this sentiment much more eloquently. But repetition of it only makes it more true. If there's a message I want to harp on here, to take as a personal beacon, it's that one. We'll be OK because we'll help each other, and if that ever stops then we're all done anyway.

As always, love and love and love to all.

Many or One or None

A couple of weekends ago I had my family in to celebrate the Easter holiday. There was lots of eating and drinking, and the bunny made a visit and it was great to be with everybody. But there's one moment I keep thinking back on, as my favorite series of moments from the weekend, when my boy's favorite song came on and we all danced with him and sang along and he loved it so much, when he asked after his bath, before bed, if he could do it again, I couldn't say no. This is usually not the time to get a kid who had skipped his nap and was already ramped up on sugar and attention further excited, but special situations warrant a little flexibility. We did it again, and it was just as awesome. And it was that moment that cemented for me that he's growing up taking for granted that all the love is for him. That there's no other way to be in the world. Maybe this mindset will ruin him, but I don't actually think so. I think there's a way to bask in unconditional adoration and still be able grow into a person aware of the world around him. By making HR an only child, there will challenges for him on the road becoming an upstanding human being. But that's a challenge for every parent, every child, and if our guy has the chance to be the center of that kind of pure love every day of his life, I would never deny him of it. It doesn't qualify as spoiling.

When I was a kid, it never occurred to me that I had less love in my life because I had siblings, or that love was rationed out. Love, to me, is bottomless. Infinite. It's what I was given, what I model after. And though I shared my home and my life with so many people, I always felt that I got tons of attention. There was always time or each of us, there was always room. And that's how I believe I would feel about my own kids, if I had more than one. Having enough love for another wasn't a factor in determining our family size.

HR will benefit in many ways from being the only one, just as he'll lose out in other ways. But the ways in which we're lacking are not things we're going to worry about. I like to think that parents of any number of kids do their best to make sure that each and every one of their offspring don't turn into a jerk when they grow up. It's not solely the dominion of only children. Discipline applies to everyone. Every kid has trouble sharing at first, it doesn't come naturally. We're doing our best, as I believe most people do their best. And in the end, we get what we get.

There's no shortage of opinions about people who have one child. And I have no shortage of opinions regarding other people's life choices. But just as whatever I think doesn't mean anything because it's not my beez, the decisions we make for us are just for us. They're not about anyone else. And I feel good about them. I'm not putting this out here to defend our choices against an invisible attacker or be sanctimonious and say what we're doing is the best. It's only the best for us, and we're the only ones I'm qualified to speak about. I've just been thinking about it a lot lately, as HR plants his feet in some mightily willful preschooler shoes. Basically, we can't spoil our child by giving him all our love. The trick is to love him enough to do the things that sometimes cause him to not want love us back, for his own good.

In conclusion, parenting is parenting. And parenting is wonderful and tough. And not parenting is cool too, provided you don't have kids. I fully support those who are child-free by choice - if you don't want kids, why would you have them? In conclusion, happy belated sibling day, which is a thing, I just learned. After I wrote this.

Family Book Club

You know that thing where you write a heartfelt entry about raising an only child and it gets deleted because TECHNOLOGY SMASH BLERGH? That. I'm a bit sad about my gobbled up words, and will re-write the entry from scratch tomorrow and it will be better for it. I learned that lesson more times in my academic life thank I think I needed to, frankly.

For now, let's chat about what we're reading. I'm currently dividing my time among Let's Pretend This Never Happened (a hot recommendation from a lot of you guys), the whole bunch of Game of Thrones books (on my phone, so this'll take ten years) and a book that shall not be named that I have been reading since 2005, give or take. I recently finished Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling, and it was so great, as many of you said. She's just fantastic, and makes me so envious that she has my fantasy career--one of 20 fantasy careers--comedy writer. Oh, and I realize I never weighed in after finishing The Fault In Our Stars, and I have this to say: read it. Just pick up that book and don't put it down. I read it at the worst conceivable time, and I still found it more wonderful and exhilarating than sad. I cried, of course, but I cry all the time for lots of reasons. John Green, just, Jesus. I read that Shailene Woodley was cast as Hazel in the movie version, and that is not good news for me because I unfairly hold the stupid teen pregnancy preaching show against her, but I'll see it regardless.

Next up is The Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter and The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer. Oh, and In the Pleasure Groove: Love, Death and Duran Duran, which sounds like summer vacation reading to me. I like to have some great stuff in the chamber at all times.

HR can't get enough of The Wicked Big Toddlah Goes to New York by Kevin Hawkes, and rightly so because Hawkes is awesome, and also from Maine so big ups to the homegrown author/illustrators.

Mike's reading a lot of wikipedia because he's always working, pretty much. But he did read the aforementioned John Taylor autobio as well as the Terry Francona joint, which is required reading for Sox fans.

And then we do a lot of dancing around to this because it's a great song for kids before they can understand the lyrics.

Gooey Warmth and Light

Our home has somehow transformed into the enchanted land of no more naps. I'm not ready to say they're done forever, but they've become more of a sometimes thing than a reliable thing. On the upside, HR's nighttime sleeping has been consistently great. On the downside, all those awake hours in a row can be exhausting... for the adults. It's not so bad for me since I only get the weekends (though I will miss my occasional co-nap). And it's a nice thought that we can be out doing what we do and not have to worry about being back in time for nap. But this will make for some long weekdays for Mike, and he'll lose that 1 1/2 - 2 hours he's been able to use to get work done, having to get up extra early in the morning to do it before I leave. It was a good run, anyway. And things will change again before we know it, as there will be preschool in the fall.

I'm finally catching a taste of spring fever, which is a bit late this year since today is the first lose-your-mind sunny, mild weather day. Usually we get one of those big teases in March. It's better now though, because even though there will be many false starts before springtime in New England REALLY begins (or leapfrogs directly into summer), we truly are almost there. I'll get sick of the heat in a month, but I promise to keep it to myself.

My bosses are buying us chinese for lunch in honor of it only being Tuesday and we've already had a humdinger of a couple of days, so that's a nice little treat. And if all goes well, I'll be able to get in a little outdoor time to appreciate the best of what the cruelest month has to offer.  Thumbs up day.

Modern Probs

Sometimes I feel like I have nothing to write about in here because I already facebooked it out. It's one of the inevitable by-products of our family's schedule that finds me alone so much with a (sleeping or awake) toddler - there are moments I want to share with other adults, and FB provides an instant community. HR does something cute? Post a pic. I'm watching a movie that I really really want to discuss? I can usually find someone up for discussing it and not only that, sometimes they're watching the same thing (that actually happened this weekend). Outside that whole working-opposite-schedules-from-my-husband bit, it's nearly the perfect set-up for me, because I'm not lonely in my solitude. My alone time is sacred. It's just that I like to let people in at my convenience. Often when I see my friends and family in real life, though, I realize I've already had half the conversations online or whatever story I've got to tell has already been posted in my blog. Future time electro-robot problems! I have almost nothing to offer as a flesh-and-blood person anymore, I might as well be a head and pair of hands in a jar and start a twitter account.

OK, maybe it's not as drastic as all that. I think I strike a decent balance when it comes to using technology and being in the moment with my loved ones, but it does behoove me to drop out every now and then. I'm not going anywhere just now, I mean, it's a workday and being online serves a whole other host of purposes. It's just a good thing to check in and remind myself why it's smart to keep to the dull side of the double-edge-social-media-sword.

Hey, whatever! It's opening day at Fenway Park and let's go you beautiful Sox.

Joys of Aging

One of my most amazing volunteers at work is a woman in her early 50s. Let's call her MM. MM's the mother of four kids, three in college right now and one still at home, and she does things like play in a hockey league and takes night classes and basically runs circles around me. She also looks great, just fresh and natural and put together. She definitely looks like a mom, but in the best sense of the word. The reason I'm giving her this build-up is that she has this theory that being middle aged makes you invisible, to your advantage. For example, she feels like, as she's in a sort of time in her life where she's marginalized and not looked upon as a sexual being, and that it's freeing. She's happily married, but she feels like she can be playful and flirt with the cute, young FedEx guy and it's all in good fun. He doesn't take her seriously as someone he'd be interested in, and she doesn't want him to. It's all harmless and one of the joys of life and she's running with it.

I don't like to think of myself as being middle aged, but technically I could die at the double the age I am now and have lived a very good life. I hope I get at least that. But what I'm getting at is that I am starting to get what MM is talking about, and why it's desirable. I mean, it is, and it isn't. From a feminist perspective, or even just a human being perspective, it's unfair and messed up that youth is king when it comes to physical beauty and there's a whole industry built around it and that being made to feel lacking and inferior and have to conform to a standard is de rigeur. From a vanity perspective, it's weird to think of myself as different than I used to think of myself when inside I don't feel different. Not that I want to flirt with anyone or be flirted with necessarily, I just want the option. But then on the other hand, the idea that I can move about relatively unnoticed is a new kind of power. Does that make any sense? Not that I am not putting effort into being attractive, just that who I might be attractive to has shifted. And that's ok, I mean, that was never in my control anyway. And again, I'm happily married so it's not like I'm out looking. I just think that it's nice for anyone when they are noticed by someone who isn't bound by love to notice them. I'm not even going to get into the whole issue of unwanted attention, which is a sucky part of being a woman of any age and definitely the wrong end of the power struggle.

Since I was a teenager I was under the assumption that I was unmemorable, that I sort of blended in, because a lot of times people wouldn't remember my name or that they had met me before - it actually still happens more than someone lacking in self-esteem could probably handle. It got to be that I was surprised when people DID remember me. But then I realized as I grew up that 1) aloofness is often an act 2) some people have genuinely bad memories and 3) who cares? I don't need outside validation to feel good about myself, nobody should. And that's the bottom line. Still, it comes up. I'd like you to think that none of this ever even crosses my mind, but it does.

I don't know where I'm going with this, really, I just think that MM's theory is interesting, and worthy of discussion. Maybe I'll come back to it at another time. Maybe I'll just turn back the hands of time and remember when I used to be able to wear a bodysuit and belted jeans that gathered at the waist like a paper bag, a la Janet in "Poetic Justice" and maybe someone thought it looked good and maybe not, and that was part of the fun.

Hooch Talk

From the booze files: do you have a signature drink? I do not. I want to have one, but I just like all the alcohols. My go-to is a glass of malbec, a nice hoppy draft, or bourbon rocks. But in the summer a gin and tonic hits the spot, and a perfectly poured Guinness cannot be topped and everyone knows you go manhattan at a fancy occasion, like a wedding reception. Plus you can't have a celebration without popping a cork, am I right? So you see why I can't commit. No James Bond, I (though a proper martini is not without its charms).

As we move toward summer, however, I have a seasonal ritual of predicting what my warm-weather drink is going to be, and usually stick to it. A couple of years ago it was the negroni (Campari is summer). Last year (or was it two years ago?) I was way into sparkling rose, which of course is still in the rotation. This year, though I historically prefer reds, I'm all about the mineral-y whites, like a nice vinho verde. It seems that my slow transformation into total MOM is just about complete, right down to my drink of choice. I'm at peace with that. Just stop me if you see me crossing over to white zin.

I am aware that you will now think I am a full-time lush. And to that I say,



On another note, you'd be surprised how much I love old country music. I was, anyway.

Not Much

And so it's baseball time again, which is a thing of beauty. The Sox had a great opening day. That means nothing in the long, long run of a season except they won that one game, but that's good enough for me, for now. I don't know what to expect from them this year, but if it's possible for them to be worse than they were in 2012, well, that would be some accomplishment. GO SOX!

Although I am beyond thrilled that spring might get here maybe someday soonish, I'm noticing that the passage of the seasons has become disconcertingly quick. As part of our bedtime ritual, before I say goodnight to HR, I pat his back and tell him about the "other day," meaning what's going to happen in the future. It goes something like, "tomorrow, you have music class, then it's Tuesday, then blah blah blah it'll be spring then your birthday then more blah blah blah..." and I usually wrap it up around summertime, and all the fun things we'll do when it's summer. But now it's so close I actually have to talk about fall and things like him going to school. I don't want to think that far ahead, but the story isn't quite long enough if I don't. That right there is the definition of pointless conundrum.

Also pointless: I think I might have developed an addiction to ModCloth. It is a good, good thing that there is a wishlist option on the site, because putting items on there has saved me from many an impulse buy, especially since when I go back to look at it I wonder what struck me about most of those clothes in the first place.

Beards aren't really my thing, but I'm totally cool with MMJ.

No Foolin'

Easter weekend was a dream. My family came out in full, multi-generational force, the weather was beautiful, the food was plentiful and delicious. HR was in his glory with the love and attention and, er, sugar. He had a great go-round with his first Easter Bunny visit. Oh, and I guess we're potty training in earnest now, which is an experiment in agony-ecstasy. Really we can afford to take a zen approach, because we weren't even planning to start until after his third birthday, so every time we have success it's taken for what it is. When we have a miss, it's no tragedy, just pass the wet wipes and keep trying. It will be nice to be a diaper-free household, but I'm not setting my sights on getting there any time soon. On a related note, is there anything cuter than toddlers strutting around in their big-boy undies?

Friday night my brother and I went to an old school hip-hop show, which was a treat for many reasons because it was a super fun show, also, we got some one-on-one sibling time which never happens. The crowd was amazing, almost exactly 50/50 racial make-up from what I could see, and everyone there was my age or older. There were some outliers like my brother, who didn't know a lot of the songs but is appreciative of the art form, but mostly it was a 30s-40s crowd, psyched to have a night out and going mental when the hits came on. I was on the floor, and nobody pushed, which is one of the main factors in assessing my enjoyment at a concert. Also Big Daddy Kane came out into the crowd during his last number and I could have touched him but I didn't.  I know famous people are just people, but for some reason I'm askeered of celebrities in real life. The music really brought me back in a good way, and I have to say I missed Niki keenly through the entire thing. Which I should have expected. Anyway.

On the whole, life is killin' it right now.