Wordless Wednesday: Snow!

I Heart Disneyland (Holy Crap)

We have officially broken the vacation jinx, getting through an entire week in Southern California without needing to call 911, visit an ER, or have Little A admitted to the hospital to be tethered to an oxygen line. This differs markedly from the previous two vacations that were cut short by medical emergencies. It's just so freaking normal, I almost don't know how to process it. Oh wait, I remember -- YAY! We had such a great time!

So, Disneyland. I'd never been there before. I believe there are two types of Americans: those that naturally embrace all things Mickey, and those that squint and back away from the cartoon empire as if it emits toxic fumes. Prekids, I was a big Disney hater. The parks, movies, DVDs, and merchandise tie-ins are so massively hyped that it seemed like a huge, embarrasingly obvious racket to me. I just didn't get how anyone would want to go there. It didn't help that since DH is in the entertainment industry, we know people who have worked for The Mouse and oh, the stories of hardcore corporate craziness I have heard. So going to Disneyland in my twenties or early thirties made me grunt and roll my eyes. It was not going to happen.

Of course, motherhood changes you. Alters your body, makes you accept things you never thought you'd accept, makes you utter ludicrous statements on a regular basis. Just the other day I found myself saying "We do NOT wash each other's butts!" Shortly before that, "You cannot marry daddy. He already has a wife." But even though strange announcements are fairly routine around Chez Wabi, this latest one still feels odd when it comes out of my mouth:

I am a convert. I love Disneyland. I want to go back.

Now, I expected Big A would want to move there. She's almost five, deep into that frilly princess stage. (Ah, the princess stage. This is another one of those things I was initially horrified by, but now just find routine.) And Little A is a generally affable little imp, so even though she is too young to know the various characters and stories involved in Disneyland attractions, I guessed she'd like it all.

But me? I figured I'd just grit my teeth and be there on the girls' behalf. The lines were going to bug me, I knew I'd be hot and annoyed by people in the crowds. I didn't expect that I'd find going to Disneyland so pleasant myself: That walking by the uber-romanticized buildings on Main Street would still feel cozy and fun; that the parades would be delightful to watch, and that the rides would be as fun for me as the girls. And the lines? With a little planning, they turned out not to be a big deal. In a nutshell, I discovered that despite the nonstop merchandising and inflated prices, despite the fakeness of every single thing there, I had an authentically great time anyway.

I read somewhere that Disneyland averages 30,000 visitors every day, and that as many as 50,000 are in the parks during the summer and on other holidays. But the interesting thing was that I didn't see a lot of the typical ugly scenes of family stress/hunger/tantrums/arguments that one usually witnesses with that many people hanging around together. I wonder why it is that everyone seemed to be on such good behavior (my family included)? Is it park engineering? People's expectations? Some sort of happy gas?

If anyone has any theories on this, I'd love to hear them.

Oh My Darling Clementine

Today is one of those days where I'm trying to edit a chapter, talk to an author about some delicate matters related to his book, order two birthday cakes, complete a pile of preschool re-enrollment paperwork for Big A, buy enough booze and soft drinks for brunch with 20 people, pick up the girls from daycare/school, drop off a coffee urn my friend is borrowing for a holiday party, address and mail two-dozen holiday cards, clean the house from top to bottom, and finish decorating for Christmas -- all while doing the usual usual dinner/play/bath/bedtime ritual with the girls.

So, it's a little crazy. Yet I've had an extra bounce in my step as I've hustled around today because of the news that Beruriah's big boy Samuel is safely in her arms today. Yay, baby Samuel!

As might be guessed by my to-do list, we're having a party this weekend. A combined bash for DH and Little A, whose birthdays are only 4 days apart. Last year on DH's birthday he got the present of bringing Little A home for the hospital for the first time. She was so teeny, cute, and jaundiced that I called her my little clementine, after the petite orange citrus that comes into season each December.

Here we were, just home from the hospital, looking worn out and sleepy:



And here is my Baby A now, full of vim and (sweet, maybe balsamic?) vinegar, fighting with her sister over who gets to break the tree ornaments first:



Ah. Life is good here. Really, really good.

China-Free Christmas = Lots of Wood

Toys, that is ...

After resolving not to buy children toys made in China this year, I have discovered that if it's plastic or cloth, it's almost always made in China. So the girls can have anything they want so long as it's plywood, ash, or bamboo. Mark my words, "Log in a blanket" is likely going to be a very hot seller this year among parents who care. Or at least among parents who are paranoid about all the toy recalls like I am.

Actually, log jokes aside, there are some very cute European-made toys out there (such as the ones shown above, by Haba). Unfortunately, they are insanely expensive compared to the 70-80 percent of toys manufactured in China. So we'll be buying a lot fewer toys than usual this year because the costs are so much higher.

Case in point: I bought these adorable blocks for Little A's upcoming birthday, and they cost $35 for only 28 blocks. This German-made mermaid doll -- the sole nonwood Christmas item I bought for one of my kids -- is also completely charming. But if you want something soft and cuddly with your China-free, it costs even more dearly than the tree-derived toys do. That doll was 40 bucks on sale, and she is only seven inches tall.

Christmas has me feeling schitzoid this year: On one hand, I'm happy that I have enough money to decide to buy fewer but higher quality toys this year. On the other hand, I never thought I'd be paying so much for something I couldn't inject into my arm or wear on a gold-filled chain around my neck.

China Gets a Time Out

All the toy recalls earlier in the year because of unsafe lead levels already left me feeling watchful and wary as Christmas approached. Especially those Mattel recalls. My children's bedroom is filled with Fisher Price items I had to comb through multiple times while looking through the ever-expanding unsafe toy lists.

Still, I thought the almighty dollar -- or the quest for it -- would prevail in fixing this. I thought that with Christmas looming, that even if the spectre of damaged kids didn't prompt Bush Administration and toy company officials to stop the insanity that occurs unchecked in Chinese factories, then at least greed would make everyone clamp down hard on quality control. That's the way hard boiled laissez-faire economists claim markets are supposed to work, right?

Then the news about the lead Halloween costume teeth recall sort of made my eyes bug out of my head a couple weeks ago. This was NOT a good sign at all. And now we've got the Aqua Dots recall, this time not because of lead --but because an epoxy can turn into the date-rape drug if ingested.

This is craziness, people. Children are in comas from Aqua Dots. If China were a person in your neighborhood who hovered around the playground and kept trying to choke or poison children, what do you think would happen? Police would be called and the guy would get hauled off to jail -- that is, if the lynch mob didn't string him up first. And yet in the case of these toys, we get mad, but nothing else happens. In fact, we just keep inviting the creepy, dangerous guy into our own houses and backyards and then seem surprised when he goes and tries to hurt the kids again.

So that's it for me. If the government and the toy companies aren't acting, then I'm forced to do the only thing I can. If it is a toy (or food, cosmetic, or other consumer product) made in China, until further notice, it is not coming into my home.

China gets a time out this Christmas at my house. Here's hoping others kick China to the curb in theirs, too.

Haunted Halloween (2)

While it wasn't the sweeping or terrifying sort of change that came with Halloweens past, there was a memorable event this Halloween I neglected to mention in the last post. This year Halloween was the last day we employed Sharon as our family babysitter.

Four years is a long time to stay with one childcare provider. Early childhood is a state of constant flux for both parents and kids. People move, schedules change, kids get older and move on to preschool. Through all this time Sharon has been a fixture in our days. She was kind and patient to our kids. Three out of four years DH and I were incredibly happy with Sharon's services.

No more. In the last ten months things deteriorated to the point where I am sad and bewildered at how things ended up the way they did. It was never about the kids and their treatment, but about the adult aspects of the daycare relationship: money and time. And at the end, respect, too.

Yes, I cut back on my work schedule, and that impacted Sharon's income. But she is not a nanny who worked for us exclusively. She has as many as five client families at a time, depending on whether the kids in question go to her home part time or full time. So I don't understand the animosity of the past few months after I started a part-time schedule. Sharon now seems to have a sense of entitlement that I find obnoxious. She is angry that I didn't want to pay a 20 percent rate hike for services when she simultaneously cut back her available hours by 20 percent. But what rational person thinks they can get paid so much more for working so much less? (Especially when they devolve into petty nastiness during the discussion about all of it.)

When I gave Sharon two weeks notice a few days after our blowup, she accepted the news without any questions. I guess there really wasn't anything else to say. We fell into an ignore-the-angry-elephant-in-the-room type scenario for the last few weeks. But that last time I picked up Little A from Sharon's house, I sort of wished we could part with a few kind words. I admit I could have made the effort, but chose not to. She did the same. And so I walked away from her house with baby and diaper bag in hand, feeling a peculiar mixture of feelings. I hate having big arguments, but somehow that one day has seemed like the most truthful exchange between the two of us in some time.

It's a new month now, and the beginning of a new daycare situation for Little A. The new babysitter, Susanne, is a retired teacher with a house full of toys and and a rambling, gorgeous yard. I like the idea of Little A being outside playing in the fresh air. And it's nice that the relationship with Susanne is a clean slate. No muddy boundaries or simmering resentments. When I dropped Little A off this morning, I left with a sense of relief that hasn't been part of my daycare routine for a long time.

I know the change we made was the right one. I am sad I stuck it out with Sharon for so long. It would have been better for everyone involved if we had left sooner.

But that in itself makes me sad, too.

(Note that I can't get bleeping Blogger to link back to my older posts on Sharon for some reason. Anyone got any pointers on that? But I wrote about our blowup last month in several "daycare debacle" posts, in case anyone is curious ...)

Haunted Halloween (I)

Yesterday when I raised the shades and looked out at the view, a few lines sprang to mind: Summer is past and day is past. Somber Clouds in the West are massed ... When I start thinking about Robert Frost, winter must be here. I have always agreed with the Celts' view that Halloween marks the border line between the end of one year and the beginning of the next. Even here in the balmy Bay Area, the days are short and the trees that go bare in the cold season have shed most of their leaves. For the past week fog paints out the mountain that normally sits beyond in my living room window and leaves a sinus-headache-white curtain in its place. No rains yet, but (hopefully) soon.

This time of year my life also seems caught up in the rhythm of the world around us. Especially in the past five years, life teeters on the cusp of change every November.

2003 I spent my first Halloween in Oakland. My main memory is being pissed off at being four days past due in Big A's pregnancy. She was an extremely tall baby (over 22 inches long at birth) and I am not an extremely tall person, so by the time we were 40+ weeks along, her feet were tickling my tonsils. And besides being uncomfortable, I was also nervous about the birth and what would come next, of course.

Halloween 2004 was much more fun, with DH and I going out trick or treating with our own kid for the first time. That October Big A was still my baby, but less than a week later she quit crawling in favor of walking and celebrated her first birthday. So Halloween is the last "baby" type memories I have of Big A, before she laid down on the floor and enthusiastically kicked and screamed her way through the toddler years.

Halloween 2005 I was too tired from my doomed T18 pregnancy to go out trick or treating with Big A. Despite my fatigue, it was also one of the last dwindling days of normalcy, when we still thought the baby was fine and hadn't be forced to make a series of gut-wrenching decisions yet. And last year was a bad sequel to 2005: pregnant again, only more tired this time, with more worries already about what my pesky uterine scar from the previous year was up to, and what would happen to the baby and me in the coming months.

I'm grateful to say that Halloween 2007 kicked ass compared to the last few years. I had a baby in my arms dressed like a daisy, and she squealed with delight every time a front door opened and -- SURPRISE -- yet another adult bearing a bowl of candy stepped out. Which is to say that Little A totally hooked us all up with extra buckets of candy. And Big A loved her bag full of candy so much that she named the individual pieces and played with them like dolls after we got home last night.

Here's hoping Big A won't notice that while she was sleeping, I ate "Mommy Snickers"!

The Family Gourds

Are pumpkins even gourds? (Wiki says not, but whatever.)

Note that Big A's pumpkin has three eyes. On purpose, she wants all to know.

Fleeing the Lake

Well, that whole Tahoe vacation thing with the in-laws? Fun in theory. Not so much in practice.

Actually, the first couple days were great. Both A's did fabulously well on the four-hour car trip. I usually do all the vacation planning, but DH tackled it this time, and maybe he should take the task over permanently, because he really came through with the house. It had a spectacular view of the lake, was reasonably priced, yet didn't have that certain eau de skank that many bargain-basement rentals (and also meth labs and frat houses) tend to exude.

At first we enjoyed the cool, clear days. DH and his father went to the Air Races in Reno. Me, I would have hated staring up at airplanes buzzing over my head at low altitude all day long, but the guys raved about how fun it was, so I was as glad that they went as I was that I didn't have to tag along. Most pleasing for me was the fact that Big A is finally at an age where she loves interacting with her grandparents. It was so much fun to see her seek them out for playing and reading books. Despite her gregarious nature, as a toddler Big A did not like it when the grandparents swooped into town for one week every six months and then insisted on spending every waking moment of it with her. The first day of every vacation would go fine, but after that she'd grow ever more snarly and and start whining, "No, want MOMMY!" every time Grandma approached. This was upsetting and awkward for all. So this time it warmed me like a good shot of scotch to have Big A bound inside after a trip to the local playground with MIL and say, "I just had the most wonderful time ever!" Plus, both FIL and MIL cooed over Little A and kept remarking on what a sweetheart she is, which is always a heart warmer for a parent.

But unfortunately, Little A got very ill within a few days of arriving in Tahoe. At home she'd had a mild cold and seemed to be on the mend, but she deteriorated quickly once we hit the Sierras. DH and I spent Sunday and Monday in a state of exhaustion because Little A slept so fitfully. Normally I'd take a sick kid to the pediatrician for a quick check up if a bad illness cropped up, but being hundreds of miles from home, that wasn't an option. By Tuesday I was concerned enough to bring Little A to the nearest ER. Turns out she had a double ear infection, and with Tahoe being over 6,000 feet above sea level, the elevation was making an uncomfortable situation even worse for her. Poor baby!

We got antibiotics for Little A and hoped things would improve soon. Unfortunately, work problems cropped up too. I brought my old laptop with me so I could line edit a chapter whose deadline is fast approaching, but the infernal machine was simply not cooperating. DH tried his best to play tech support and make it function, but by the end of Wednesday I'd not accomplished one minute of real work. And my schedule being what it is, blowing off the editing now and making up the time later was just not an option. This left me stressed out about the deadline as well as mad about life in general. In the past few months my days have become so rigidly reigned in by preschool pickups and drop offs, babysitting swaps, and DH's desired work hours/routine that it feels like there isn't one spare moment in the day left for my work, let alone for just plain me. Every time I stop to catch my breath, there isn't any relaxing, because I know that I'm already late moving on to the next thing I ought to be doing. And there I was on vacation, still living that way. I was so pissed off I could hardly breathe.

DH's parents were planning on leaving us alone up at the vacation house starting Thursday, when they would drive down to Sonoma to visit SIL and her kids. But by then I had thoroughly and completely had it with trying to pretend I was having fun. After the in laws left DH and I quickly packed our own bags and came back home three days early.

We hardly ever take a real vacation these days. I have certainly never left a vacation early before. On one hand, obviously it sucks.

But on the other hand, it was also sort of thrilling and satisfying to just say "Fuck it." When you are a parent and a spouse and a worker bee most of the time you struggle to make things in various states of disrepair function. But for once, DH and I didn't try to make the best of it. We didn't try to put a good spin on it either, or spit shine around all the proverbial dings and dents of the week. We just left.

Back on my regular computer today, I finished the editing assignment that had been hanging over my head all week. DH took the girls out for a nice day of mini golf and fast food treats while I worked. Later we talked a little about looking for a new childcare arrangement, since it is obvious the current one is driving me bat crazy. I know it won't happen overnight, but at least change is part of the general plan for our future now. DH might even rearrange his work schedule so that he can drop off the girls a few mornings a week at daycare, thereby freeing me up just a smidgen more time for work.

Plus, now that I completed the task that was hanging over my head, I really do feel much more relaxed, and we still have the weekend left before our vacation is officially over. Little A's ears seem a lot better now that we are back at sea level again. And Big A seems content to be back in what she calls our "regular house," with her regular toys and books, too.

All in all, I'm pretty sure I'm having a much better time right now than we would have if we'd actually stayed on vacation. Strange how that works.

Lakeward Bound ...

In celebration of DH and I being married for 11 years (Jesus, we look 1990s-fresh in those wedding pics) our family is off to some rented hut on Lake Tahoe for the week. I'm bringing my laptop, but since the house didn't advertise WiFi, I'm assuming we're roughing it without decent Internet connectivity. Unless I can jack off some body's free service, I probably won't be posting again until after 9/24.

Here's hoping the kids, the in-laws, and DH and I can all get along in a 2 BR + loft for the week!

Independence Day

Sonoma has a seriously cute Independence Day parade. It doesn't include nudity or transvestite nuns of the more citified area celebrations, but it has all the classics: Good marching bands to clap along with, horses to wow the little girls, floats filled with candy-throwing officials, and a roller-skating grandma dressed up like the Statue of Liberty. Best of all, the Sonoma parade has water fights. Each year the locals come to the town square armed and ready for the appearance of fire trucks. Firefighters spray the crowds with their pumper truck hoses. Spectators return fire with waves of water balloons that the fire fighters fend off with garbage-can lid shields. It's hilarious to watch from a distance, and fun to get wet up close.

Since DH had to work on July 4th, this year I made the trip to the parade with the girls by myself. We met at SIL's house and walked together to the square. I was a little freaked about going to such a big event with no partner to assist with my kids. Of course SIL and her husband were there and did switch off with watching one girl or the other at times, but given that they have an 18-month old and a three year old themselves, their hands were already more than full.
Taking preschool-age kids to outdoor events is basically a suicide watch. (Stop walking at the corner! Stay near me! Don't eat that gum from under that bench! etc.) And suicide watch works best in a one-on-one ratio, and I am still getting used to having two children. Thank goodness Little A doesn't walk yet! Keeping track of meandering Big A while I was tethered to her sister's stroller was tricky enough.

I did pick up a good tip from a fellow mom at the parade, though. She wrote her son's name and her cell number on his hand, just in case he got lost. I thought this was brilliant and immediately did the same thing to Big A, which made me relax a little bit. Still, I think I caught maybe fifteen minutes of the two-hour parade, because I couldn't take my eyes of the kids for very long.

The nieces and my girls all had a pleasant time. But boy, was it HOT. Triple-degree temperature hot. Sonoma really ought to do their 4th of July parade in April, it was so hot. The walk back to SIL's house was just brutal, but somehow we made it without anyone getting too sunburned or overheated. We collapsed in the air conditioned splendor of their house and ate burgers and potato chips for hours. Ahhhhhh.

Easter Weekend!

Eldest Niece had her third birthday party on Saturday. It was a nice warmup for the sugarshock known as Easter that took place at our house on Sunday. As one can see from this photo, even little A, who only gets drunk on candy indirectly via her mommy, had to sleep it off after the birthday party.

Things DH & I Learned This Weekend

1)Dressing a three-year-old child in a white frilly skirt is cute for about three minutes. Then very stupid. By the end of Easter Big A looked like the "before" picture for a laundry detergent commercial. Except I don't think the skirt is going to be completely clean in any "after" scenario.

2) Bubble machine: Equivalent of the adult open bar for small children when it comes to ice breakers. Best $8.50 spent, ever. Let's get this party started!

3) Bubble solution, pink sidewalk chalk, and spit-up jellybeans combine to form a very strong epoxy when applied to toddler hair and just about anything else.