Again with the sudsy diapers! What is UP? Does anyone know anything about this weirdness? It is only with diapers, and only since I got Wegman's brand detergent. This is what I get for being a cheap hippie.

A great big thank you goes out to Susan in Seattle, who just sent me a collection of all the cartoons ever published in the New Yorker. I will reemerge from the bathroom in approximately ten years.

Snapshot of the Quistilton Household, 12:06 pm

I am washing the French Press in the bathroom sink. Why? Because there are 36 clean, but soap-saturated cloth diapers in the kitchen sink. I am washing the French Press because I was awake from 1 until 5 this morning, after falling asleep with the Wee One at 8 last night, and I either need to drink more coffee or prop my eyelids open with toothpicks. I can’t find the toothpicks.

The Biggie is playing “School” with remnants of a piece of multigrain bread. “See, Mama, these crumbs are the students and the sesame seed is a teacher!” This is because we are cruel parents and don’t allow her to have real toys. The nine-and-a-half foot tall tree (which blocks out 50% of the natural light coming into the house) is listing to one side, after I stripped three broken light strands off it this morning. (Have you ever taken lights off an already-decorated tree?) The washing machine is continuously washing, mysteriously not draining soapsuds (see first sentence of blog).

The Beginning of the End of the Not Sleeping, Maybe

I have decided to teach the Wee One how to fall asleep at night without nursing, so that theoretically I might one day be able to leave her with another person and know that she will not spend the entire sleepy time screaming. I know that many of you think I should have already done this. I know that many of you probably think it’s weird that I’m still nursing her at all, since she can walk, climb on top of the kitchen table in less than ten seconds, and drive a stick shift.

So, filled with fear and trepidation, I nursed her the other night in the rocking chair, telling her all the while that “When we’re all done with milk we’re going to go upstairs and just fall asleep, like the Biggie!” And that’s what we did. She squirmed, yelled for ten minutes, and then, miraculously, settled into a quiet state during which she stared into my eyes while I sang “Wheels on the Bus” approximately forty times. The next night, there was no yelling at all. I am in shock.

I have spent such a long time functioning on so little sleep that I don’t know what I’ll do with myself when I get a solid eight hours a night. What do you people do, you with the sleeping and the restfulness? Will the bags under my eyes disappear? Will I stop telling everyone everything twice?

Will I stop telling everyone everything twice?

Overheard on the Monitor: “Calvin, why don’t you make your own triceratops sandwich?”

There Really, Really Are No Brain Cells Left

I just called my friend Debi and left a message on her machine asking her to save milk cartons for me for a Christmas project. Then I called my friend Brita to ask her the same thing. And then I called my friend Debi, to ask her to save milk cartons for me for a Christmas project.

Sadly, that is not a misprint.

I will continue to alienate my Republican readership (all two of you) by offering the following, sent to me by my dear friend Sharon.

Bush Haiku (not really)

This is a short poem made up entirely of actual quotations from George W. Bush. These have been arranged, only for aesthetic purposes, by Washington Post writer, Richard Thompson.

MAKE THE PIE HIGHER

I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It's a world of madmen and uncertainty
And potential mental losses.

Rarely is the question asked
Is our children learning?
Will the highways of the Internet
Become more few?

How many hands have I shaked?
They misunderestimate me.
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.

I know that the human being
And the fish can coexist.
Families is where our nation finds hope,
Where our wings take dream.

! Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize society!
Make the pie higher!
Make the pie higher!

In the spirit of trying not to think about the abomination or elation tomorrow’s election may bring, I decided to perform one of the Quistilton Family’s most hedonistic rituals: The Returning of the Bottles and the Cans and the Change. This ritual involves dredging up the huge trash bags filled with deposit containers (Coke cans, beer bottles), dragging them to Wegmans, and counting them up to receive a measly 5 cents per container. We always wait eons to do this, until we have three or four garbage bags of funky cans and bottles, and then I force the Husband to bring the beer bottles back because I don’t want to look like a desperate alcoholic toting wee ones to the store for her deposits.

And then I have so many cans that they clog the machine and I have to move to another machine which they also fill up, while the Wee One is climbing out of the grocery cart and I can’t grab her because my hands are sticky with Old Coke Shmutz.

But then I return the change, and it’s always worth far, far more than I think it will be. Today it was $40, and that was only a paltry few handfuls of nickels, dimes and pennies. Yeeha! On to the sushi bar!

Because of course the hedonistic aspect of this festival is that it all feels like free money, so we get whatever we want in the WHOLE DARN STORE. This is what we got today, crazy nuts that we are: Two trays of sushi, Jergens intense moisturizing cream, chondroitin and glucosamine tablets for the Husband’s knee, Viactiv milk chocolate calcium chews for my poor mineral-leached bones, pink lemonade for the Biggie, and *gasp* a six-pack of beer. Good lord, someone arrest us for our folly!

Except we almost couldn’t buy the beer. “Marva,” our lovely hostess, wouldn’t allow me to buy it because the Husband didn’t have his ID with him. Somehow she believed that we, with our fatigue-aged faces and young children in tow, were attempting to illegitimately buy booze and get the naive young Husband liquored up. Dude, PARTY!

So the Husband, seething, left the store while I went back to the beer section and tried to get another six-pack of our favored local brew (“Cascazilla,” named after the lizard and Cascadilla Gorge). There wasn’t another one. Annoyed by the inconvenience, and certain the Wee One was gritching for her dinner outside, I marched haughtily to the manager’s desk and demanded, “Um, where do the cashiers put things when customers can’t buy them? See, uh, I was going to buy this beer and then she said we couldn’t because my husband didn’t have his ID and then there wasn’t another six-pack and then, um, so...” all along feeling the New Englander’s Guilt--I WAS ACTUALLY GOING TO BUY BEER. AND I ADMITTED IT.

And it turns out Marva was wrong--they’re allowed to sell beer to married people. Because presumably we need it. So, Pfffflllbbbt to you, Marva! And cheers to the rest of you. May we all survive tomorrow.

This essay was e-mailed to me today by a friend. I edited it a little for length, my apologies to the author.
***********************************************************************************************************
How Women Got To Vote (by Kathy Acuff)

A short history lesson on the privilege of voting...

The women were innocent and defenseless. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of "obstructing sidewalk traffic."

They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the "Night of Terror" on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.

For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms. When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because--why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie "Iron Jawed Angels." It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse.

Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy. The doctor admonished the men: "Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity."
***************************************************************************************************

OK ladies--get out there and vote. And I might even forgive you for being a Republican, as long as you don't rub it in if Dubbya "wins" again.

Why, oh why, must cats express their discontent by peeing?

The same Husband who did not want a dog, who made it clear that the dog would be entirely my responsibility and had a detailed list of annoying habits the dog simply MUST NOT HAVE, spent the night on a mattress on the floor next to the dog's bed, so that Roger would not be so lonely.

Got Me a Dog

It's 7:50 pm, and all the Quistiltons (save myself) are asleep--including the newest Quistilton, Roger. Roger weighs about 50 pounds, is black and tan, short-haired, and kinda smelly. (Ah, yet another hapless being to blame the family gaseous emissions on.) We are thinking German Shepard-Random Hound mix. I'm trying to post a picture of him, but since I have the web abilities of a sea sponge, I can't figure out how. Tell ya what, do a google search for "tompkins county spca," go to their home page, click on "dogs" and scroll down. He'll be on the site for a few more days, taunting others with his cuteness, though they CANNOT HAVE HIM.

Charles, the non sea sponge, has figured out how to post a new picture of Roger. He'll sit on the home page of quistilton.com for a bit.

The Scene This Evening, 8:13 pm:

Me, scurrying down the stairs holding a coffee-clouded fishbowl, high-pitched shrieks of “I don’t want my fish to die!” echoing in the night.

The cat drinks the fishwater, and I have taken to filling it back up with the water that the Husband leaves out for the Biggie when he puts her to bed. I didn’t think about what ELSE might be in a cup on the kid’s bureau.

That was one buzzed beta.

So Much For Not Having Cable TV...(from the "Where Did THIS Come From?" Department)

(straight from the mouth of the babe)

I am Fiona, the Bad Ogre Slayer. I use this whip to snap the bag ogres in the eyes. I snap them and then they get all messy everywhere, and my husband Shrek comes and cleans them up and puts them all in the garbage, even their muscles, because we don’t want to have their slimy meat in our stir fry. We go to the grocery store to get chicken for our stir fry, and eat it up with broccoli.

This is my whip, and first I snap one eye of the ogre and then the other, and then it can’t see and I crack it on the head really hard with the air conditioner and it dies. I am very strong, you see.

Shrek, my husband, and I have children now. We have a seven year old and an eight year old and a nine year old and a ten year old and an eleven year old and a twelve year old and some babies. How many kids is that? I kill the bad ogres because they try to eat my children. They don’t hurt grown-up ogres.

Upon viewing the Biggie on tiptoe on the back of the couch, holding on to the precariously installed air conditioner for balance: “Please get down so you don’t fall.” “Oh, but this is how they taught me to do it,” she replies authoritatively. “Who?” “Mr. Nobody, the ghosts, and Peter Pan.”

More Jokes: “How did the grapes cross the road? In the belly of a kid!” “How did the playground cross the road? Got taken apart, put into boxes in a truck. Went across the road, and put back together again by a kid and her mama, in some mulch.”

Why There Are No Brain Cells Left

Over breakfast: “Can I have a spoon, please?” When given spoon, gently places it next to cereal bowl. Starts eating with fingers. “Please use your spoon.” “OK.” Uses fingers to put cereal in spoon, then puts spoon in mouth. Puts spoon down next to bowl. Starts eating cereal with hands. “Please use your spoon, sweet potato.” (Attempt at parenting with kindness.) “OK!” Continues to eat with hands. “Please stop eating like a monkey, and use your spoon.” (Attempt at parenting with humor.) “A monkey! HAHAHAHAHA!” Continues to eat with hands. “Mama, what do monkeys eat? Are they carnivores like us? Or do they eat--MONKEY BREAD?” “USE YOUR SPOON!” (Attempt at parenting with volume.) “WHAAAAAAAAA! Mama, don’t use a mean voice to me! I want to hang out with a nice mama, not a grumpy mama!”

And the wee one: “Yaaahhhh!” “What do you want, little one?” “Whaaaa!!!” “OK, do you want me to pick you up?” Pick up; she immediately starts contorting her body; flinging it back and forth like she wants to get down. Put her down. “Rrrraaaaahhhhh!” accompanied by mama pant-leg clutching. Pick up. Body contortion. Put down. Scream. And so forth.

These two sets of interactions occurred simultaneously, and this is how I frequently start my day. Some women I know have reserves of calm, pools of serenity which surround them as they go about their mama-work. They are able to turn each of the neverending queries into an opportunity for education. They are immune to the ear-blistering shrieks of the small ones. I am working on this. I am not so naturally gifted, but I’m trying, and on most days I do a good job. But then there are the days where the shriek volume is set to extra-blistery, and the migraine fairy camps out on my shoulder, waiting for an opportunity to sneak in. On those days I am flabbergasted that the human race has made it this far.

Thunderstorms and pouring down rain all day, every day, for what seems like a week now. Isn’t this why we left Seattle? I am waiting for the basement to flood, checking it hourly. There are cracks in the foundation, you can see stripes of the outside through them. Are there lares (household gods) of gutters? What could I give them as an offering, buckets of rustproof paint? The promise of biannual deleafing? There are inches-deep puddles in the yard and the patio is completely underwater. Maybe the koi pond I wanted isn’t so unrealistic, after all.

I like the rain and the cozy closed-in, hot cocoa feeling it brings, but the kids are nutso, and driving me there as well. The Biggie has been pretending to be the Wee One all day, crawling around and saying “HIYA!” This is fine, except when I’m trying to get the real Wee One down for a nap, and she keeps jerking awake to the sound of shuffle-shuffle-”HIYA” downstairs. Grrrr.

The Wee One would be walking now if she chose to, but has no patience for it. Why would she, when her legs-blurred supercrawl is faster than light? The Husband often remarks that her face must hurt, she smiles so much. There are not dimples, there are craters, black holes sucking all sunlight into the middles of her cheeks. I am savoring the baby chub while it lasts, because when this kid takes off, it’s going to be all muscle from there on out. I’m thinking wrestling, soccer--anything that will get her a scholarship.

The Biggie is, I hate to place on the record, going through a major whiner phase. She is probably just sick of hanging out with her domineering mother (“Do NOT paint the table with yogurt!”). I need to find her a preschool. (The preschool did implode after all, and we are out of luck for the fall.) All of my superkind, kid-centric attachment parenting techniques have no effect on The Whine. When it starts, my head whirls around like a top and veins start to bulge out of my neck. Maybe I’m just drinking too much coffee.

Sigh. Time to check the basement again.

The Biggie recently learned (sortof) how to tell jokes:

“Mama--MAMA! How did the King Salmon cross the road? HOW? Slither, slither, slither!”

“MAMA! How did the box cross the road? On a truck! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

The Best Birthday Present Ever

The night I turned eleven, my parents blindfolded me and told me to get into the back of the car. We cruised in the 18-foot Lincoln through the chill New England night. “Don’t look!” my mom said. “You know where we’re going, don’t you? She knows where we’re going,” she said to my dad. “No, I don’t!” I protested giddily.

We parked and I peeked. Bill and Andy’s bike shop. This was late December. “Well, you said you never got summer presents because your birthday was in the middle of winter.” (What a rude kid I was!) “We want to get you a ten-speed.” Shocked, I stumbled inside where we were greeted by a gentleman, possibly Bill or Andy. He steered us right over to a fleet of gleaming, impossibly fast-looking Raleighs. “This one looks about right.” It was. It was the most beautiful bike I had ever seen. Sparkling blue-gray, nice cushy saddle, sleek, skinny wheels. I think it cost a hundred and twenty dollars, an astronomical sum. I fell in love, we took it home.

I rode the next day, for hours and hours, past my dog who nearly broke his neck barking at me from the end of his rope, with mittens on in the icy air, around the block a thousand times. It was freedom and power I’d never known, like flying, like a carnival ride except I was the one making it go.

My dog got hit by a car three days later, on New Year’s Eve. My sister says I tried to kick the police officer who came to the door to tell us; I have no memory of it whatsoever. It was the first time I was depressed, and I didn’t know what to do with that sick, useless feeling. I just wanted to get away from it, like it would disappear if I went far enough, fast enough. I rode, and rode, until I started to feel better.

Now I know that’s what always works. I need exercise for my twitchy brain like I need food for my growling stomach. That’s why I did the triathlon, that’s why I get up at 6 a.m., sneak away from the babies, and run. I can’t bike for hours now because the wee one needs me, but when I do get away even for twenty minutes I get that same feeling of freedom from everything that binds me.

A few weeks ago the Husband of the Blog asked me what my inseam was, comparing it to his to mock my shortness, so I thought. Later that day he came home and pulled the tiniest road bike I’ve ever seen out of the back of the car. It’s white, with extra-small wheels so they don’t bump into the midget frame when I turn, and it weighs less than my baby.

It took me a while to figure out the “intuitive” shifting, and the seat leaves my nether regions whinging (“It’s what all the female racers use,” the guy at the shop said--well then! *Insert comment inappropriate for my family blog here.*), but when I’m in stride, on top of that big fat gear, it’s the same euphoria I remember from my eleventh birthday. And to be able to have that back, to be thirty with two kids, a penchant for migraines and a career crisis sniffing at my heels, but able to hop on and fly away for a while--why, that’s just priceless.

Thanks, hon. From the bottom of my jock-girl heart.

FYI

Yes, you can spell it "triathlon" OR "triathalon."

Also, yes, the period belongs INSIDE the quotation marks if the last word of the sentence is in quotes. I may not know a lot about editing, but this, I know.

Hiya, long time no blog! Much has been happening lately, much too much for my poor sleep-deprived neurons to handle. Here is a brief update:

Moved into the new house at the end of July, though construction still continued. Cursed self by joking with head contractor, "Heck, we've messed with every system in the house except the electric!" Two days later, was informed by an electrician that our GE breaker box was "crap." Was also informed that the Husband of the Blog would be attending a conference for a week, in South Africa. Dear, dear friends left town for various too-far-away states. Found out that the wee one has a slightly elevated lead level (one unit above normal); have spent most of waking time wiping her hands and removing foreign objects from her mouth ever since. Was called by the Health Dept. because of the lead, and though I explained that we have moved to a new environment which has been extensively renovated with lead removal a goal, they still want to come visit and check me out to make sure I'm not feeding her paint chip cocktails.

Oh yeah, and then there was this triathlon I was training for. The swim, which I had completed just two training sessions for, was first. Oddly, my awkward, flailing sidestroke did not place me near the front of the pack. There were three or four people (out of a couple hundred competing) behind me at the end of the swim, and when I got onto the bike I just started passing people. I was so far back, the first people I was passing looked like they hadn't ridden in years. They were literally weaving back and forth on the road, looking down at their gears in confusion. I say this not to disparage them, but to point out that I was BEHIND these folks, I was so damn slow in that swim. I kicked some booty on my sweet new bike (gift from the Husband of the Blog, who understands that diamonds are not THIS girl's best friend), and continued passing on the run. The knee condition I'd been coaxing into submission during all of the training finally reared its ugly head during the first mile of the run, but I gimped across the finish line in an hour and 52 minutes, which is about how long I was in hard labor with the wee one. Needless to say, the triathlon was a cakewalk in comparison.

Next year, an hour and a half, baby. Bring it on.

So here it is, a link to the triathlon web site. Yep, it's real. Yep, it's only a few weeks away. Yep, I'm gonna die. CLT 2004 Index

These Are the Days to Remember

I don’t have a “for pay” job. I spend a considerable amount of emotional energy thinking about this issue, thinking, maybe I would have more brainpower if I exercised my noggin, maybe I wouldn’t be so bitter about housework if I felt like it were more equitably shared with the Husband, maybe I wouldn’t feel so guilty about spending money if I made some. And other thoughts along these lines.

I think everyone has their reasons for how they resolve this issue in their own families, and I wholeheartedly support folks in finding their own solutions. I firmly believe that a mama who is bitter because she gave up a satisfying, hard-earned career is NOT going to raise well-adjusted kids. One of the wonderful things about living in the time that we do is that there is flexibility surrounding the childcare issue--mom can choose to stay home instead of feeling forced into it, dad can stay home if mom makes more money, there is part-time work to be had, there are fantastic care providers who can enrich your kids’ lives. Everyone can be made happy to a certain degree, at least if you’re settled snugly in the middle class.

So every once in a while I have to remind myself that I am choosing to do this. I have a Master’s degree, I could go out and make, well, SOME money (the degree is in education), but I’m deciding to forego the working world for this funny stay-at-home-mom existence, with its 24-7 workday, its piles of poop, its screaming coworkers, its neverending stacks of dishes and laundry and “art project” remains. Because I also get uninterrupted sweet nursing sessions, leisurely puddle-splashing walks, and unexpected tiny, fierce hugs throughout my workday. I don’t have a retirement account or a shot at making partner, but I do have a boatload of sweet, treasured memories of watching the creatures I produced develop and grow.

I’m not fooling myself into believing that my sun-glossed memories of these days can support me in my old age any more than Social Security will. I’m fully intending to get a for-pay job when these ragamuffins are a little older. But I know, deep down, that if I had chosen “the other way” for these first few years, there would always be something missing in my heart. Because it’s just who I am now--it’s my life, this is what I want, and I decided to do it.

I’m just reminding myself, that’s all.

Why Parents of Preschoolers Are Insane (Conversation had while driving in 91-degree weather, rush-hour traffic with screaming baby.)

“Why did you not have a cat when you were growing up?”
“Because they made Grampa sneeze.”
“Why?”
“Because he was allergic to them.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s the way he was born.”
“Why?”
“Because maybe his mama or his papa was allergic to them too.”
“What does allergic mean?”
“When something makes your eyes water and makes you sneeze.”
“Why?”
“Because your body doesn’t like it.”
“Why?”
“Some people’s bodies are just like that.”
“Is that why you didn’t have a cat when you were growing up, because of cats making Grampa’s body sneeze?”
“Yep.”
“Why?”

And so on.

I know, I know. Not much bloggage lately. But there has been a bit going on. First, yes, I am still training for the triathlon. I just haven't been updating my workouts on the site. Second, the Biggie's preschool nearly imploded because of the evil actions of one vindictive parent, and I have been spending approximately 1,000 hours a day arranging schedules of afterschool care for the kids. Third, the Husband of the Blog’s grad program ended, and our friends are all leaving town. Saying goodbye is NOT GOOD (see “What Free Time?” for details). Fourth, I am in charge of the home renovation, and when I say renovation, I mean revolution, because the place is changing inside out, top to bottom, in a decidedly violent way. I was writing a note to my friend Eric, telling him what we're having done, and it goes as follows: new furnace, water heater, roof, paint job inside and out (we're doing the inside), new heat supplies and returns, new copper pipe, dishwasher installed, new kitchen cabinets, sink and countertop, new fridge, all existing windows replaced plus three new ones punched in the bedroom, parlor and office, insulation blown in the walls, heat-efficient hatch put in the attic, floor refinishing, new porch and steps...anything else? We're going to put new linoleum in the bathroom and retile the kitchen backsplash, too. What's funny is that many of these things simply happen without us really knowing what's going on. I let the floor refinishers in one day, did not give them a key, and left. They locked the doors, I found when I went over that evening, and left their equipment there. I called them to ask when I should let them back in, left messages for the head guy, his son and his other son, and never heard back. The head guy is pretty old, so to tell you the truth I checked the obituaries to make sure there wasn't something REALLY wrong. When I returned to the house a few days later, the floors were sanded and a coat of polyurethane was drying. The doors were still locked. When I returned the following evening (still with no return call), the floors were covered with red rosin paper, and all of the equipment was gone. There was an invoice in the mailbox. The contractors are all pretty goofy, to tell the truth. The painter calls me "Dear" and tells me when he thinks a color combination "looks stupid." The porch guy hardly speaks English but is an architect who wants to talk about mountain biking more than the porch. And on, and on.

The Biggie and Wee One are doing well. The Biggie is signed up for Pre-Ballet, the prospect of which strikes fear into my soccer-jock heart. Oh, the costumes, the posing, the inevitable twisted body image and eating disorders which follow! The Wee One is all over the place, and tried to climb the stairs today. She waves now, at people, cats, dogs, squirrels and most moving objects. She even waved at a miniature cast-iron horse head we saw yesterday.

Let Us Speak of the Wee One

If you ask, “Want to go for a walk?” she grins and grabs your hands, pulls herself up and then takes off. She has two teeth, soon to be joined (judging by the whinging, as my Scottish friend Liz calls it) by a third. She is eating beans, and graham crackers, and pizza crusts. She is a mighty fan of pears, and bangs her fat, sticky fists on the high chair tray when she sees me pull them out of the fridge.

Her favorite person is her Biggie, the only one who can stop the whinging simply by showing her face and occasionally singing “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.” The Biggie is my hero for this reason. If only we could find a magic way to stop HER whinging. Then I could happily put my feet up and sip iced mochas while they amused one another all day long.

The wee one especially enjoys eating Things Off the Floor, a rare delicacy never enjoyed by the older one in her own infancy. I will pick her up and she will be chewing, chewing, chewing. I stick my finger in her cheek and pull out...a petrified rice puff, a candy wrapper, a purple foil star from the Biggie’s fairy crown. I would feel bad, if I did not know that this was the fate of the Second--to be less doted upon, perhaps, but also less restricted, allowed to explore without an anxious mama wringing her hands at her every move.

The obnoxious but clever cat has figured out how to get me to let her out at 4 am. She simply lies on top of the wee one, purring her 18-wheeler purr, and starts licking the sweaty, salty baby head. Kitty is out the door in sixty seconds. She redeems herself later by dangling her tail in the wee one’s face and letting her pull on her ears. They will be friends, I think.

And that is all, for now.

Why Preschool Rocks

So we’re at the festival yesterday, and the Big One spots the face painters. I had avoided the hour-long line the previous day by promising “Mama will paint your face with special magic paint (i.e. old lipsticks) at home!” But there weren’t many kids waiting, so I figured what the heck. Face painting is one of those things that is annoying to parents, who have to wash the grime off of pillowcases, but is truly marvelous to kids. Plus, it was free.

She tells the painter that she wants a butterfly. “You mean on your cheek, here?” the painter asked. “No, I want my whole face to be a butterfly.” The painter outlined the butterfly with black paint and then asked what color she wanted the body to be. Of course, PURPLE. “I don’t have purple, honey. Could we use pink instead?” “Well,” the small person replied, “you can MAKE purple, you know.” “Really, and how exactly would I do that?” the painter said, with a faintly incredulous smile. “You take the red and the blue and you mix them together. Then you will get PURPLE.”

Since we have spent all of our money (as well as a lot of money we don’t have) on buying and renovating our house, we are incorporating a “shabby chic” decorating scheme. Unfortunately the Big One has declared that she doesn’t like going to the “Salivation Army.” Also, she has requested that we not say “dammit, shoot or darnit” when we are riding in the car.

“I am sick, Mama, because I am coughing and sneezing and burping and spitting bad-tasting things out of my mouth. For all of those reasons, I am sick and cannot go to school.”

Theoretically, you can now post comments on the blog. I don't know if it's working yet--I have to post a new post to see.

My Girly Girl

I could charitably be described as a tomboy. I wear jeans and sneakers whenever possible, shave my legs semi-annually, and last bought makeup in 1996. I totter on my sole pair of heels, which measure in at a whopping 3/4 of an inch high. It’s not that I have an ideological problem with the trappings of femininity--I simply avoid them, because they scare me. Whenever I find myself cornered in a perfumed temple of womanhood such as a hair salon, my palms sweat, my pulse races and my thoughts are reduced to elemental, animalistic fight-or-flight reactions.

So of course I have given birth to the girliest of girls.

She kicks off her jeans and begs for dresses and tights. She lobbied for ballet slippers for two weeks, and had a tantrum when I wouldn’t buy her a white dress for her pretend wedding. Her favorite cartoon characters are Disney’s Princesses, who as far as I can tell have the free will and initiative of gnats. When I broke down and bought her pink lip gloss, she covered her entire face with the stuff and spent the next hour analyzing herself in the bathroom mirror.

The problem came to a head for me today when I had to call a friend to ask her if I was allowed to wear a blue shirt with a black skirt. (Let me remind you that I am THIRTY YEARS OLD.) It looked ok to me, but I was vaguely aware of some sort of blue and black rule. Aren’t I not supposed to wear blue with black? I had a friend in Seattle who thought I was clueless because I didn’t match my socks to my shirt. Where did she learn that? Did they teach us in school and I just missed it, the way I never learned fractions because I was reading “Ramona” books under my desk in Mrs. Geary’s class?

I don’t think so. I think that I, being female, am supposed to have some deep, genetically based understanding of the rules of clothing, facepainting and general self-decoration. The problem is, I DON’T. So what am I going to do when she asks me how to pluck her eyebrows, or what the difference is between “matching” and “going with”? I have spent some serious insomniatic musing time on this subject. I am prepared to take a course, or bring in outside consultants.

“I really AM sick, as you can tell because I am coughing and burping. I CAN’T go to school.”

Did You Know...

That volcanoes don’t explode, they “interrupt”?

I convinced two other women to do the triathlon with me. They each have two kids, too. The times we’ve gone running, it’s as if we’re sailors on shore leave. An hour away from the kids, the messy house, the neverending chores! We sail through the woods, bounding and laughing, giddy with freedom. None of us has any idea how we’re going to fit in biking and swimming, but I don’t think anyone cares. The point is really just to try.

When I went out to get the paper this morning, one of my co-conspirators was talking to a neighbor, a woman with three kids. “Hey, I’m gonna do it!” she yelled across to me. Yeeha! We need a cool name or something, we triathloning mamas!

We stopped by the new house yesterday to say hi to the owners, who were having a garage sale. The kind woman wanted to give us a purple glass ornament. “Don’t give it to the little girl,” her husband said. “It might shatter in her hands.” We thanked them and walked away. I held my breath as the kid contemplated this.

“I am not little,” she began. “The man said I was little.” “You are clearly not little,” I replied, hedging, “He only thought you were little because he, compared to you, is enormous.” “I am enormous,” she said. “No, you are not enormous. You are a big girl, but to grownups you look small.” “I AM enormous! Look at my body!” cried the 38-inch-tall, 32-pound kid.

It’s a Miracle I Have Teeth

I have been a dedicated drinker of Coca-Cola for years, ever since I was a freshman in high school. Come to think of it, that was the last year I ever grew. HM.

I have never given much thought to what was in that little red can. Caffeine, caramel coloring, bubbles, it’s pretty simple, right? Oh yeah, and some sugar. “Some.”

Do you know how much sugar there is in a can of Coke? 39 grams. It says so right there on the side of the can. Have you ever MEASURED 39 grams of sugar? It’s more than a THIRD OF A CUP. IN ONE CAN. I, who regularly halve the amount of sugar that’s called for in the baked goods I lovingly prepare for my child, have been hypocritically consuming this super-saturated sugar solution in front of her very nose!

When it comes right down to it, I must say that I enjoy my teeth, and would like to keep them. So I’m going to give it up. Yep, no more liquid candy. No more mid-morning carbonated lift. No more sweet “ka-shwack” of the opening can. Farewell, sweet friend, farewell.

TRIATHLBLOG

If you were the mom of two young children, one of whom requires your physical presence in order to fall asleep three times each day, you would decide to DO A TRIATHLON, wouldn’t you? I mean, it’s not like training to swim half a mile, bike 14 miles, and run three miles in under two hours would require an extensive time commitment or anything. It’s not like my flimsy joints are still recovering from the rigors of pregnancy. It’s not like my chief support person is trying to work, finish school and start a company, giving him zero extra time to provide childcare. No, I think this is a wise decision.

I have done a triathlon before. Of course, during the swim portion, I was moving so slowly and haphazardly that the rescue crew asked if I needed a lift into one of their canoes. I was actually doggy-paddling. Once I got out of the water I did ok, though, and crossing that finish line was one of the defining moments of my life. I had completed something difficult, reached a goal. That sense of accomplishment is something one rarely feels as a parent. Sure, you are constantly working to raise your kids to the best of your ability, but you never finish anything. There is no point in time when you sit, pat yourself on the back, and say, “great job.” (While you did that, your preschooler would surely strip down and paint her body green.) And that is one of the most frustrating aspects of parenthood for me, a former goal-setting, checklist queen. I just want to finish a task. Hence, the triathlon.

The Wee One is now officially mobile, though not in any traditional crawly way. She pushes up on her hands, raises her back legs, and pivots on her belly. Then she either rolls over and over or pushes herself backward until she finds something, or somewhere, that’s interesting. I left the room for thirty seconds today and came back to find her under the couch, gnawing on one of its legs.

Also in Wee One news: She’s eating rice cereal and yams. We use the two-spoon method, wherein she seizes one food-filled spoon from us, shoves it into her mouth, spits out half the food, and throws the spoon to the floor. We then hand her another spoon, and she repeats the performance while we retrieve the first spoon.

She’s not a little baby anymore, a fact which makes me misty-eyed until I realize I’m that much closer to the point when I can expect to sleep for more than three hours at a stretch, or make it through the day without someone shoving their fingers up my nose. Ahh, these are the days!

"I'm just following orders, sir."

Y'all film-minded folk, go to Dierdorf's blog! Fishsuit! Posthaste!

Scott's "wicked cool" film festival, Stockstock, is gearing up for another run, and I am shamelessly plugging it. You can enter, I could enter if I still had a brain (and a lot of film-making equipment, experience, etc), it's the film festival for the masses. Go check it out!

Sobering Realization of the Day: I have now been out of the “work force” for as long as I was in it.

From the Mindworks Division:

“Mom, thinking is like a morning dream.”

Mom of Two Part...Three? It Feels Like Nine Thousand.

We are rockin’ today. Doing laundry. Doing dishes. Meal planning. Grocery shopping. IRONING, for God’s sake. We are the CEO of the home. We are an efficient homemaking machine. Yeeha! But then the migraine fairy, who is always sitting on our left shoulder, starts to cackle. Hee, hee, HEE.

It starts when I am on the phone, because it always starts when I am on the phone. I should blow up the phone, and then maybe these things wouldn’t happen. I step in to the Kidderito’s room with some laundry and am hit by a wall of...smell. Yes, it’s that smell. The smell that every parent dreads. The smell of the potty-training child taking things, literally, into her own hands.

I hang up the damn phone. Trudge downstairs, take sweet child’s face into hands, ask gently, “Is there something you forgot to tell me?” “Um...no?” “Are you sure?” “Um, did I poop?” “Yes, you did.” We march up the stairs with rags and cleaner. “Look, I used two pull-ups, one for each poop! And I cleaned my own self up!” Sigh. Scrub, scrub, scrub. “Mama, you did a good job of cleaning that mess!” Thank you, dear, polite child of mine.

I foolishly get back on the phone. Yak yak, hi Mom, how do you make mashed potatoes? The bathroom door slams. This is always a bad sign. I open the door and see my darling child, who now has tomato-red hands, surreptitiously trying to wash them. Sigh. The wee one starts screaming her I-am-stuck-under-the-LaZBoy scream and I run. There is nothing obvious wrong. Nurse nurse nurse, change diaper, put her down, she’s still screaming. Sling her onto hip, head back to the bathroom. “I washed my hands, Mama!” She dances into the kitchen, and when I turn to go, there I see...a wall of red handprints. “Um, sweetie, is there something else you forgot to tell me?” She gives me a genuinely quizzical look. “No?” Shaking of small brown head. “Did you do some art?” “Oh, I made some handprints!” “You know what, sweetie, that is NOT OK.” “I’m sorry Mama. Will you clean it up?” “No, YOU are going to clean it up.” More rags, more cleaner. “Mama, are you going to still be grumpy when I am done cleaning?” Grrr.

OK, so the Husband of the Blog has pointed out that if number nine in the previous list were really true, then really, number ten should be to eat MORE broccoli. I’m sure the blogging world was afire with that debate.

For the Novices Out There: 10 Ways to Make a Baby Happy

1. Let her chew on your face.
2. Leave her bare-butt. (It is just pee-pee. You might as well get used to it.)
3. Hold the kitty down so she can rip out fistfuls of her fur.
4. Let her hold you down and rip out fistfuls of your hair.
5. Disappear and reappear multiple times, preferably making a nonsensical exclamation (e.g. “Boogedy!”) upon reappearance.
6. Throw her in the air repeatedly until she spits up in your mouth.
7. Walk, walk, walk. DO NOT SIT, EVER! YOU WILL BE PUNISHED!
8. Cure-all: The Change of Pace. If you are inside, go out. If you are outside, go in. If she is dry, jump in the shower. You get the picture.
9. Visibly and audibly share her enthusiasm for her toots.
10. Speaking of which (this one is just for the moo-cow): Do not eat too much broccoli.

You're welcome.

In the Parental Twilight Zone (aka the "Is This MY Kid?" Dept.)

Me: “I think we should have some pink ice cream.” Kid: “No, I don’t want any ice cream. It’s time for me to go to bed.”

The wee one is happy all the time, like someone is always telling her jokes. She makes little yodeling sounds at her feet when you leave her by herself, and then when you come back into her field of vision she greets you enthusiastically with rapid, staccato coos. This is what we call her “baby story.” “The cat licked my head! The rug tastes good! I got half of my foot in my mouth!” She’s trying to sit up now, and when I hold her on my lap she rocks furiously back and forth, like I’m a mechanical bull.

I have visited Home Depot’s web site approximately one thousand times since our offer was accepted. Visions of red granite countertops and frosted glass cabinet fronts dance through my dreams.

We did it! We bought the house in the hand, yeeha! Of course it’s all dependent upon the inspection, major structural defects, blar-dee-blar-blar. I am already envisioning myself retiling the kitchen backsplash. Yikes, I know what a backsplash is. Does this mean I’m a grownup now?

Oh, and in case you’re wondering why your kid needs to leave all three lights on in her room when she trundles into your bed at 3:30 am, it’s because if she doesn’t, all of her toys will shrink and disappear.

Sorry, all two of my loyal readers, that there has not been much bloggage lately. The wee one was in the hospital for four days with pneumonia and general wheeziness, which is a whole other very NOT funny story. We are now spending a lot of quality time with a nebulizer, which she mostly just tries to eat. And of course we are trying to cut down on her smoking.

The Quistilton Family is also attempting to purchase a home, an endeavor which is absorbing much of our waking time and all of our emotional energy. I do not help this process by falling instantly in love with every house we view. “Oh, the flaking paint in the kitchen sink is charming (yes, a painted SINK)...No off-street parking isn’t such a big deal, we only get ten or so big snowstorms a year...Small bedrooms are fine, we’ll teach the girls to live simply...” etc. We are currently trying to decide between an inexpensive home which needs some work and is located on a busy, perhaps not friendly street, and two new homes (one with an ENORMOUS yard) which are coming on the market in the next couple of months. With the frustrating way that the (otherwise wonderful) non-profit we’re working with does things, we don’t know if we have a real chance at either of the two new homes because there will be a lottery to decide who gets them...it’s a very clear illustration of the “bird in the hand” thingy. (Proverb? Metaphor? Did I GO to college?) As in, “The slightly crappy, enticingly cheap, busy-street-no-offstreet-parking, small-yarded house in the hand is worth two chances-to-get-the-only-brand-new-houses-in-the-city in the bush.” Or something like that, maybe with less gratuitous punctuation.

Add to this whirlwind the mid-life crisis I'm too young to be experiencing, a babe who will not sleep off the boob since leaving the hospital and the Kicking Kid who comes into our bed when she wets her own, and you get one very nutso mama. Whine, whine. I need a time-out!

The Kidderito, after a particularly high-volume trip to the playground: “Mom, I’m sorry I was such a banshee at the park.”

Revelations from our recent trip back east to Quistilton family headquarters:

Rest stops are called “Pee Barns.”

If you talk about it, it will come, as in, “Be sure to let me know if you have to pee, so I can stop at a pee barn.” (10-second pause) “Mama, I have to pee now.”

The proper attire for “Sun Ballet,” apparently performed only when the temperature is 12 degrees: Bathing suit, tutu, and feathered open-toe slippers.

The enterprising folks at AdsByGoogle have once again dared to put an ad on my site. Nothing potentially offensive this time. I’m not really sure how they decided my blog is related to campaigns, though. Perhaps I should endorse a candidate. I’m sure Clark is counting on the approval of the Quistilton Faction, certain that it will pave his way to victory.

I’m curious, though--is Google watching me? “Let’s see how she reacts to the ‘Related Searches: Mermaid Parade’ bar!” To tell you the truth, I’m glad they started putting ads up again. I was feeling guilty about having them host my nonsensical ramblings without potential profit by my benefactors (and let me tell you, I’m bringing in the customers--I know of one confirmed purchase of fuzzy slippers from a link on this site).

Not much happening in the kid department, though I think I can safely say we have a potty champion on our hands. There are many, many hilarious anecdotes related to that process, but I really can’t share them. I would have to put too many dollars in the girl’s therapy jar.

We have added another blog-link, from another mom who also chooses to spend what little free time she has away from her kid blogging about what little free time she has away from her kid. Check it out.

Charles figured out how to post links to other blogs on our site. I am telling you this, because the font on the header is small enough that only ants can read it. I don’t want to tell him that, because it took him a while to get to it and he doesn’t have a ton of extra time right now to fix it. I don’t know, maybe he’ll just...read about it...somewhere.

Anyway, the links are to two other blogs I read, one by my friend Shane who works with Charles (“Happily Stuck in Ithaca”) and another by my friend Scott from Seattle (“Fishsuit”). They are fun, and also fart-ad free.

I know I haven’t posted anything in a week, but not much of excitement has happened lately. Well, there is DEFINITE, REAL progress in the potty department, but if I write about that, Murphy’s Law (which rules my life) dictates that said progress will come to a screeching halt. Let me just say that we will be investing heavily in Princess Fruit Snacks for the short-term future. (Hopefully it’s for the short term. Can you see me getting the call to go to her office when she’s a high-powered attorney? “Hey Mom, get on down here--I peed! I need my Princess Fruit Snacks before I go into the deposition.”)

OK, one neat thing did happen yesterday morning. Ariel is the Little Mermaid Princess, and the Kidderito really likes her because she has a tail. Oh, and those things acting in place of a bra? They’re not seashells, they’re “gills.” Just so you know. Anyway.

(Brief aside here. Do you ever go to drink your coffee, and instead of pouring it in your mouth, you just miss your mouth altogether and nonchalantly pour it onto your chest? Not like the cat nudged you and jostled your arm, no, you just forgot where in space your mouth is located.)

So she's pretending to be Ariel from her package of fruit snacks (“before her voice gets lost in the ocean”) and she’s sashaying around the house while I attempt to inject coffee directly into my bloodstream. “I’m going to draw a picture of me!” “Excellent,” I say, and hand her some markers before I grab the comics. She draws a tiny alien-like figure with long hair and dances around a little more. “I am going to write my name!” “Cool,” I say as I try to make it all the way through “Doonesbury.” She knows how to write her own name, and likes to pretend-write with scribbling. She thrusts the paper into my face. “See, I wrote my name!” On the paper is a very definite “r E L.” Okay, so the “E” has four horizontal bars and “r E L” is followed by “io” like in her own name, but come on, folks, the kid is three!

The fart ad drama continues. I wrote to Google’s ad department about the ad:

Hi, so you want feedback on the ads that are posted on blog sites? The ads make me unhappy! There are fart doll ads on my family blog site! My mom, to whom I have never even said the word "fart," reads this, and there are fart doll ads because I happened to mention my infant daughter's farting in a blog entry. Why couldn't Google have picked up on any one of the other thousands of terms in my blog entries, like potty training, scissors, or rutabaga?

OK, so looking at the ad's related links DID lead me to an incredibly funny fake video of a farting preacher, but still--my mom reads it!

This is what they wrote in reply:

Hello Linnie,

Thank you for taking the time to contact Google AdSense.

The ads that you are referring to and the 'Ads by Google' link on which you clicked are being generated through the Google AdSense program, which delivers relevant text-based Google AdWords ads to content pages. Currently, blogspot.com has an account with AdSense and has chosen to
display targeted ads on certain pages within their site.

If you have any questions or comments regarding the website or the ad placement, please contact the website in question directly.

Sincerely,

The Google Team

So they passed the buck. But then, when I logged on today (and hopefully while you are looking at the site right now), voila! The fart ads have disappeared! Hallelujah!

This amazes me and is only blogworthy because I see it as a small triumph of the human spirit. In this age of electronic anonymity, I actually got the nameless, faceless internet to respond to little ole’ me. Yeeha!

And if any of you missed the preacher video (yeah, I know your type), feel free to e-mail me. I’ll send you the link.

OK so duh, Google, sneaky internet marketing demon extraordinaire, is responsible for the banner ad. This is obvious simply by READING IT, which I eventually did after I got over seeing the phrase "fart doll" every time I opened the page. And now I've just made it worse by mentioning the f-word (NO, NOT THAT ONE) again. Now I bet anyone looking for fart dolls on the internet will be led right to this blog. Well, at least that will widen my demographic beyond just family and friends (a big shout out to ya, Auntie Hilma!).

No, I do not know why the banner ad across the top of my blog is for “pull my finger fart dolls,” unless some sort of sneaky internet marketing demon has been searching for blogs with the word “fart” in them (see the entry for January 7th). I just hope my mom doesn’t see it.

She looks up from the breakfast table this morning, long-haired doll in one hand, scissors in the other. “Mama, please go upstairs so you don’t see what I’m going to do.”

*****************************************************************

It Was Only a Matter of Time

Remember what I wrote before, about the scissors and the doll? That was funny, wasn’t it? I’ll bet you laughed your pants off! Ha, ha, HA.

I was on the phone this afternoon with my friend Lisa, and mentioned how quiet the Kid was being up in her room. “She’s probably peeing,” I said, laughing it off. What with our modern laissez-faire potty training, a little pee is no big deal around here these days. In fact, you could walk up to me and pee on my foot, and I wouldn’t bat an eyelash.

She came down after I got off the phone, while I was busy chopping vegetables for dinner. “Mama, I gave the fuzzy lion a haircut, because he wanted less hair.” No biggie, I thought as I concentrated on a particularly slippery slice of squash, it’s her own doll, as long as she doesn’t freak out when the fake hair won’t grow back. But wait a minute, she doesn’t have scissors up in her room, that wouldn’t be safe! And you know how goofy kids are, if she had scissors and was unsupervised, she might just...

CUT HER OWN HAIR. Which is exactly what she did. Why? “The dolls wanted some more hair.” In her room was a small pile of curly brown locks, stuffed into various pieces of dollhouse furniture. If only the dolls would “tell” her to pee on the toilet!

I evened out the sides and the front (“Mama, if you are mad, why are you cutting my hair more?”), but I can’t do anything about the top short of shaving it. She will just be a little goofy-looking for a while. And yes, the scissors are way, way out of reach now.

Quote of the Day

The Kid, upon asking me to start the DVD player again after her snack: “You’re kinda like a ‘pause’ witch.”

Can I Get Worker’s Comp For This?

I saw it when I glanced in the mirror last night before bed. I thought it was just a shadow, but it was enough to make me look twice. Yep, it was indeed...a hickey. On my chin. Guess I let the little Hoover go a bit too far on that one.

While I was putting my sweet child to bed, I needed to run downstairs and get her water bottle. I didn’t feel like lugging the little fist-eater, who was peacefully grinning. “Can I leave her with you for a moment?” I asked the Big Sister (we still need that new moniker, folks!). “You won’t pick her up or anything, right?” “No,” she said casually, “I won’t pick her up. I will just look at her in amazement.”

The Wee One rolled from her back to her front last night. I put her down on the floor while I was making the bed, and when I looked back down a few minutes later there she was, gnawing on the rattle that had been just out of her reach. She’s working on doing it again right now, yodeling away. She also went from her belly to her back this morning, twice. Future Olympic champion, I tell ya.

You know, what with all the high-powered potty negotiation that’s been going on with her older sister lately, I’ve realized that communicating with the babe is really quite simple. She has two primary means of expressing her feelings. One is by high-pitched screaming, which sounds very distressing but translates into, “I am awake, yeeha!” or “I might like a snack/nap/diaper change, if you don’t mind.” The other is by farting, or “tooting,” as we call it in the quistilton household. An expulsion of gas means “I am relaxed and/or pleased.” A really big ripper in conjunction with a look of concentration means “I am so very interested in your face/the cat/a rutabaga,” or “Mom ate a lot of broccoli yesterday.” It’s just refreshing, the simplicity of it all.

Now there's a movie of the big sister on quistilton.com, secret language, new hair and all!

I guess there are some folks who read the blog, but don’t look at the web site. For their information, there is a movie of my leap into the lake on quistilton.com. There is also a little clip of the babe “talking,” though it doesn’t nearly capture the extent of her shrieking capabilities. (“doesn’t nearly”? Did I really graduate from college?)

Big News: The Toddlerita is officially no longer a toddler, at least by my definition. (No more d-i-a-p-e-r-s--a long and horrid story which I might write about someday, or might choose to block out of my memory.) She needs a new name, and we’ll put “Toddlerita” in mothballs until the Wee One can use it. “Preschoolerita” just doesn’t have a ring to it, so I think I need some help on this one. If you have any ideas for the new moniker, e-mail them to me at phin122699(at)yahoo.com.

While you’re tripping about on the web, check out the newest pics on quistilton.com. My favorite is the one where the big sister looks like a jaded Vegas starlet.

I feel like I’ve been stuck in a rut for, say, the last ten years or so. It’s not that I haven’t done anything--I got married, had two kids, and earned a (minimally challenging) master’s degree. But during the nineties, while my two sisters were earning, respectively, a medical degree and a Ph.D. in social psychology, and my brother was studying in Venice, I spent an inordinate amount of time warming the bench at Red Robin, downing Happy Hour appetizer specials. Let’s just say my life has lacked a certain zest.

The New Year is always a time that is ripe for change, and perhaps the coincidence of my recent thirtieth birthday spurred me to action. Whatever my motivation, I decided that the inaugural event for my new life of high adventure would be a Polar Bear Swim. What is a Polar Bear Swim, you ask? It is a bizarre tradition started by jokers who enjoy watching stupid people make fools of themselves. In the middle of the winter, groups of people (the aforementioned “fools”) leap into frigid bodies of water, wearing nothing more than underwear. These people then cavort amid the ice floes, often loudly stating to bystanders how “invigorating” and “rejuvenating” the water feels. The resulting human popsicles are then removed from the water and fed to the local zoo’s polar bears as a special New Year’s treat.

On New Year’s Eve, I called the event organizer. She sounded jolly and hardy. “Should I bring anything?” I asked. “Well, uh, maybe a towel to dry off with,” she said, obviously thinking I had pudding for brains. “Um, yeah I know, but it said in the paper to call this number for more information. Is there more information?” “Oh, we just want to get people’s names.” Probably so she can record them on her stupid fool quota sheet, I thought. “It’s gonna be great--surefire cure for a hangover, man.” Man? Hangover? Was I out of my coolness league? I’m lucky if I can see Dick Clark through until midnight, dude. “We’ll bring an axe in case we have to chop through the ice,” she said.

I called my Brazilian friend Vivi to tell her what I was doing. “Swim...in the Cayuga Lake? Tomorrow?” she asked. I could tell she thought she was just misunderstanding me, thinking, Americans aren’t really that dumb, are they? I don’t know the Portuguese phrase for “flaming idiot” so I just explained it again, slowly. She burst out laughing. “I will come watch you! I need to see this! You must drink whiskey!”

A dull sense of dread crept through my body starting the afternoon before the plunge. To distract myself I started looking for my bathing suit, a sporty number I bought when I was training for a triathlon in Seattle. Pulling it out of the closet, I shuddered involuntarily, remembering how little protection the skimpy material had provided when I swam in Lake Washington...in August. I pulled on another bathing suit and a pair of bicycle shorts, and stood shivering in my house. The thermostat was set at 70 degrees. It was supposed to be in the thirties on New Year’s Day. Did I want to die, and leave my young children motherless? What made me think this swim was going to change my life, anyway? I don’t even like swimming.

Vivi called me back. “My foolish husband, he is going in the lake with you. You talk to him.” She handed the phone to Paulo. He was giggling hysterically. I gave him the details, along with the number “for more information,” and hung up. Charles came home, and I told him Paulo was going to do it too. “Paulo? He’s from Brazil! And he’s skinny. He’s going to die!” Charles exclaimed. “What about me?” I asked. “You’ve got, er, uh--you’re curvy,” he said, scurrying into the other room. Curvy? Sigh.

On New Year’s Day, we woke to blustery skies. It was 32 degrees outside. We bundled the wee people and left for the beach, bolstered by lots of coffee and wool. When I took off my clothes in the chill wind I balked. But the camera was rolling, and perverse pride wouldn’t let me wimp out. I ran into the water up to my chest, and it felt like my lungs had been wrapped in cement. I immediately lost all sensation in my legs, which gave me the odd feeling that I was bobbing on the surface, even though my feet were still on the ground. I had planned to hang out for a while, showing off how tough I was, but my sensible body took over from my insensible mind and headed for shore. “You looked like you were frolicking a little,” Charles said later. “That was thrashing,” I replied.

Paulo did not, in fact, die. He showed up fashionably late and bombed into the water wearing a Brazilian soccer uniform. Over lunch that afternoon, we discussed the fact that we still could not feel our feet. I ended up winning a prize for “best costume”--though I suspect they gave it to me because I was the only person in a costume who was left when the organizers got done getting dressed. Everyone else fled the scene as quickly as humanly possible. Did the plunge change my life? Not really. But there is a certain something, a gutsiness that had been lost by the wayside, that’s back. Plus I won a really nice blanket.

I know where I’ll be next January 1st, and you’re welcome to join me. You bring the whiskey, I’ll bring the axe.