Tippy Toes and Tantrums

Hombre del Cohete

Day three seeing the crazy jogger. Today it was groceries and a Walkman. No phone in sight. She really needs an iPhone.

When Rocket began taking two naps a day, it meant we were stuck home on the morning that the cleaning lady, Princess Jasmine, comes. It is awkward, for both us and her. Actually it is probably more of a pain for Jasmine because she likes to listen to Spanish talk radio when she works, but doesn't do it while we are home. I've told her she could play her radio when we are home because it doesn't bother me, but out of courtesy she does not. She told me several weeks ago that no one is ever home when she cleans other houses, so she likes to talk a little with us, especially for the English practice. (Even though I wish she'd speak Spanish to Clover, who has announced to Jasmine that she speaks Spanish and will then count to ten to prove it. To a native, fluent speaker, Spanish knowledge gleaned from Dora the Explorer isn't so impressive.)

Initially, I would work hard while Jasmine was here, cleaning up too to assuage my guilt, but Rocket is somehow attuned to my footsteps, so I try to stay far from his bedroom during nap times. This leaves me stuck in my office, pretending to look busy on the computer. I must spend a lot of time doing this because Clover always tells people that I "work on computers" as my job.

This morning Jasmine brought Rocket a birthday gift: two paintings of rockets that match his room perfectly. It was very thoughtful and kind...but, they are just not my style because they say "outer space" in odd, ugly writing on the bottom. We've run into this issue for the last two Christmases when she gives us a gift (despite me telling her to not give us anything) that is for the house, but it completely clashes with our likes. Each time I am faced with whether I should put the item out or not. I'll leave the pictures in Rocket's room for awhile because they mostly match and it was very nice, but at what point can I get rid of them? For Christmas, her daughter-in-law embroidered a dish towel with large purple flowers. I put that out every few Fridays for Jasmine to see, but other than that, it stays in a drawer.

I am sure Jasmine thinks we are nuts. I would love to listen in on her talking about us to get the scoop. I am sitting on my ass while she races around me, working hard, spraying god knows what into the air. (She bypasses my low-to-no-chemical products by sneaking in some of her own - I have to open all the windows after she leaves).

I had written much more about Jasmine's story, but I don't want this to be political, so I'll leave it at this: she works very hard, she is here legally, but she dreams of returning home.

Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting

The crazy jogger was out again today, standing on the side of the road, adjusting her earpiece and her phone. Again, she was holding a grocery bag, so I wonder if she really needs something from the grocery store every day, if she just buys something to have a weight or if she slowly does her weekly grocery shopping, piece by piece, each day.

I am frantically trying to sell a week of camp at Clover's preschool so we can buy an additional week of the excellent science camp. Her school is allowing me to sell the week, but I cannot publicize it, which means my easy plan to post this on the school's yahoo group is out. I'm nervous and excited about the possibility; it's like the last few seconds of an ebay auction.

Rocket was dragged with me to the doctor's office this morning, poor guy, especially because it was his naptime. He sat in his stroller looking like I had drugged him, with these two, tired eyes and hang dog expression. I am slowly becoming a believer in aqua aerobics, thanks to the doctor's office. I had to go in last week and I noticed that I was down a few pounds. When I went in for a follow up today, I was down almost five more. It said I was down five pounds, but I wore chunky sandals, so I took them off before stepping on the scale, but I did not remove my shoes the week before, so I don't think of it as a full five pounds down. This is all great news for someone who has vowed never to diet again and for someone who has recently eaten a ton of ice cream with some birthday cake in there too. I've been attending aqua aerobics religiously, thinking of it more as something I have no choice but to do. Before, sometimes when things got hectic here, I would skip a class, but I haven't done that in a long time. It's only two times a week, afterall.

A major obstacle is usually that the class is at dinner time, so I tend to go to class hungry. I've tried eating before but it is too hard to balance that with the kids. A few times when I walked into the locker room, the large thin screen TV that is on the wall in the lounge area has been set to foodtv, which is both unfair and stupid. Another week it was on The Biggest Loser, which maybe motivates some people, but I wish they would just keep it on CNN or something that easily blends into the background.

We've also had a substitute teaching the class more frequently lately and she finally updated her music selection (before it was all slow 70s music, which featured Kung Fu Fighting as the most upbeat song), but she plays some salsa (or "Mexican" as she calls it) music now and it is much better, but it has me thinking about...well, salsa. And fresh tortilla chips.

The biggest encouragement for me to go is my kids' horrible behavior. I leave for the gym at 6 p.m., which is during the hour and a half each day where all hell breaks loose in our house and it is reminiscent of Lord of the Flies. As I was packing my gym bag yesterday, Clover said she does not like it when I go to the gym. I said I don't like it either - meaning the workout - and she said "Because you want to stay here with me, right?" Riiiiiiiigggghht.

Triple Tasking Ridiculum

The Jesuit university I attended had an ethics requirement, which landed me in a bioethics class with a very outspoken abortion opponent (he's the guy the local news call when they need a comment on any abortion-related accident - which I think is bad for the school, as the guy's opinions have grown harsher and more hateful as he has aged, but that is another story). True to my Jesuit education, I love ethics, logic and debate, so the class was great and not nearly as political as it may sound, but what I remember the most from the class is some of the non sequiturs shared by the the professor. One such story wasn't funny, but he said that he had been an avid runner, jogging every day, regardless of the weather, even going out in pouring rain. Something - time, age, an injury, I don't remember - forced him to cut down a bit and it changed his perspective. He said that since then, when he would see people jogging in the rain, he realized how ridiculous they look and how he used to be one of them. Every time I see someone jogging in inclement weather, I think of this professor.

Today when returning home from dropping Clover at camp, I saw a woman jogging very awkwardly, kind of favoring her left side, with her head also angled to the left. She was carrying a full grocery bag in her right hand, so she had just come from the market down the hill, and as I drove past I could see that the cause of the left shift was that she has an earpiece in her left ear and was talking on the phone. As she ran. With a full grocery bag. My first thought was Christ, she is in much better shape than I am. But then I thought, slow down and relax. Was the phone call that important? Imagine being the person on the other end of the call - listening to the jogger talk through heavy breathing. I hate talking to people on the phone when they are out of breath from running to answer. I don't have to worry about it - none of my friends jog.

Thank You So Much, Blah Blah Blah

The worst part of a birthday is always the thank you notes (actually, at my age, going up a year pretty much sucks too). I have three more to write and it is causing me agony. I keep thinking the number left is lower - once I miscounted; this afternoon my mother-in-law's card rollllled in - but it is still low enough that I should just bang through it and get it over with, but I can't. I use the same format dictated to me as a child by my mom. First line "Thank you very much for x." Second line explains how I intend to use it. In one of Clover's thank you notes about a year ago I decided to be honest and write "It's going into her savings and I'm sure she'll blow it on beer and nail polish when she's in college." It was in a note to my cousins who have a sense of humor and (at the time) three college aged kids.

The second and last paragraph is somewhat conversational, like "thank you for helping us celebrate. It was wonderful to see you." I try to mix the messages up a bit, to avoid people closely related receiving the same wording. As if they are on the phone with each other reading their thank you notes to compare verbiage.

I could put off sending my mother-in-law a thank you to be passive aggressive right back, but I want to get this party behind me. She sent her card a week late - her typical passive aggressive M.O. - so she probably wouldn't care. Any cards from her come late. She doesn't call to pass along birthday wishes either. She will call on holidays where she knows we are not home and then leaves a message saying she must have missed us in a faux, aw shucks tone. Once Kevin did answer the phone because we were leaving to attend a holiday party late and she immediately said "I didn't think I was going to get you" and then remained silent even after Kevin had responded, like she was speechless after having mentally prepared her answering machine message.

My birthday card is sent in late December. It is actually just a happy birthday written in the top left corner of Kevin's birthday card, with an additional $10 added to the check. Kevin's birthday is in early December and mine is in March. I never understand if she is making up for the past year or getting a jump start on the next.

She's never met Rocket, even though she has money, lives one short Southwest flight away and has no limitations that keep her from traveling. I sent her an invitation to his party, but like with every other member of Kevin's family, it was ignored. Maybe in the thank you I should ask if the card was to serve as her R.S.V.P. Maybe I should simply write "Thank you for the birthday money. It will buy him two beers when he's in college. xxoo" I cannot wait until my kids can write their own thank you notes!

We Have Liftoff!

It's confirmed, Rocket is a party animal. His birthday was by far the best party we've ever thrown. People hung out on the front deck, people hung out on the back deck, mingling back and forth, Rocket walking among them, enjoying the food and conversation. It was relaxing, even for me.

All of the food was finished up, except the pesto pasta, but that is because I made enough for an army. We have two large Gladware containers in the refrigerator full of pasta. Kevin will be eating that for lunch for the next two weeks. Enjoy!

Rocket tasted a little bit of frosting, then picked up the large corner piece of cake that I had cut for him and began shoving it into his mouth. He ate the entire piece, and most impressively, without getting sick. I had a piece for dessert last night after the party and I told Kevin I thought something was going wrong with me because I felt woozy. He said it was the cake and that it had affected his head too. Somehow Rocket managed.

Our house shined if you did not include my bedroom closet, which was stuffed full of dirty laundry and blankets, essentially a pig pen attached to my room. When people arrived, they toured the house, walking through the rooms. Finally I walked around with my cousins, only to find that Kevin had left both closet doors w i d e open for all to see. Lovely. I had cleaned every nook and cranny of the house, only to have a spotlight shined on the one blemish. I'm trying to erase this oversight from my memory.

I woke up early to finish cooking and make it to the Farmer's Market by opening at 9 a.m. Most other booths open early, but the french bakery does not. They don't need to, as they sell out quickly enough anyway. I arrived at 9 a.m. and was easily the fortieth person in line (granted, some people were together, but I was probably the 25-30 customer). They opened at 9:20 a.m. and by the time I reached the tables, they had already sold out of some of the tarts. I wanted a peach tart or even a strawberry, but they only had apple and pear left. I chose apple as it was much prettier than the pear. The fresh baguettes made the sandwiches, including an asiago baguette that I did not get to try because I used it for heirloom tomato, basil and fresh mozzarella sandwiches that were gobbled up quickly.

I went to sleep exhausted, having been up and working since 6:30 a.m., only to have a dream that Kevin was leaving me for Angelina Jolie, America's favorite husband nabber. In the dream, she came to our house where Kevin told her that he wanted to get into marathon running with her, which was a clear signal that he was leaving me, the anti-runner. Kevin is not a jogger, nor can I ever remember seeing him run at all - or even hustle for that matter - so the marathon thing should have been humorous. I blame the buttercream.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes. Now that the party is over, it's sinking in that I no longer have a baby anymore. My boy is one! Sob...

T Minus One Day

Things are together. The downside of that is I want to just rest and enjoy it, but I need to get crackin' in the kitchen. Last night Kevin hung lights around the pergola and it looks very Pottery Barn-esque, though unintended. We've been working nonstop for the past two months at least to ready the house and it is actually ready. I told Kevin that maybe we should put the house on the market because, while we have no plans to move, the house is ready to go. There are still little things here and there - my closet needs to be reorganized again - but the noticeable stuff, especially for the party, is done. I went from room to room last night, enjoying the rare moment when everything is clean and in its place.

I've made one dish for tomorrow and I have many to go. Our cleaning lady is coming this afternoon, after I cajoled her into it, and I hate to make a mess in the kitchen while she cleans, but I have no option.

We are going to pick up Clover from camp, then go pick up the cake. I worry that Rocket and Clover will have a scuttle and someone will end up on the cake before I can get it home. Once I get it home, I worry the cleaning lady will do something crazy with it. The refrigerator is clean, which should keep her away from the cake, but she has done some crazy stuff in the past. Nothing crazy like dusting my house, though. That would be too wild for her.

Tomorrow morning it will be up early to cook some more and get to the Farmer's Market at open. Wish me luck!

For He's a Jolly Good Fellow

One year ago it was unbearably hot and I sat in front of a fan, while Kevin called the hospital every hour asking when it would be our turn to come in. I was scheduled for a morning c-section, but we were bumped back due to emergencies that needed to be handled first. With Clover, I was one of those emergencies, as my body was shutting down, my kidneys were not working and I was edging toward a stroke. I was glad to wait and not be one of the emergencies this time around. The only problem was I was not allowed to eat or drink as I waited, which was pure torture on such a hot day where I longed for a sip of ice water. I would have cheated and had something to drink if I had known I would be delayed nine hours, but at the time, we were so hopeful that they were going to take us at any minute that I couldn't break the rules. I sent Clover off to camp with a huge hug and desperate "I love you" that she probably thought I was weird. I thought the next time I saw her, she would no longer be an only child. But no, I was still home, sitting by the phone when she returned from camp in the afternoon.

Waiting for Rocket that day was no worse than the 2.5 years we had already waited. Clover was born early and small. Rocket was born on time and a normal size, yet compared to his petite sister, he has always seemed large. He grew fast too, so much so that I cannot remember him as a small baby. I remember the early days with him, mostly thanks to the oppressive heat wave that he was forced to endure soon after birth (and god forbid Stanford has a functioning air conditioning system. We were sweating in the hospital.), but I don't remember him small.

Rocket began rolling over at exactly one month. He began crawling and walking early too. He can scale steep ramps, climb up slides, and do all sorts of crazy things without help. It seems like he was never a baby. Sometimes we call him Bam-Bam, especially after he gave rides to his sister's friends by pushing them in a ride-on toy. He was 10 months old, they were each five years old. This week he walked around with his sister's Dora baseball bat, slamming it down as he walked, making him look even more like Bam-Bam. I clapped my hands and sang "Macho, macho man. I want to be a macho man" as he slammed the bat down in time and laughed.

When Clover was little, I was very overprotective. First baby, after all, plus I'm anxious in general. Kevin would tease that if we had a boy, his name would be Winslow and he would be the most scared, effeminate boy ever because his mother locked him in a protective bubble. Rocket is no Winslow.

Clover was a talker when she was his age, saying about 20 words. Rocket only says a few, mostly mama and mostly only when he is tired or hungry. For the past month, he has been pointing at everything like mad. I try to tell him the name of the thing he is pointing toward - 90% of the time it is any of our four ceiling fans - but sometimes it is an animal or something new and he points, while eagerly looking at me with wide eyes and a smile. I love this deepening of communication, the growing peek into his world.

One of the best things about him is that he is a snuggler. He is independent and curious, off checking things out, but he is always willing to let me grab him and nuzzle his neck or snuggle him in my chair. A friend once told me that I should enjoy this time with him because in a few years, he'll belong to his father. I reminded her that I am Italian and Italian men are notoriously mama's boys, so I'm not too worried. Every man on my mother's side was/is a mama's boy. It's in the genes. I know one day there will be another girl who takes my spot in the center of his world - when riding the train recently, he was flirting with the pretty woman behind me and he pushed my head to the side, as if to get rid of me - but until then, he's mine to hug, kiss and rub noses like the Eskimoses.

Happy birthday sweet boy. I do not remember what life was like without you, but I am sure I don't miss it.

T Minus Three Days

Rocket will have a cake after all, but one decorated for a wuss. The cake is coming from Safeway and I'll get a fruit tart from a French bakery to serve in addition for the cake-haters. I went to order the cake last night and the man cleaning out the doughnut bins called to me to say that I should let him know when I was ready to order. I should have know then that this was going to lack the attention to detail I would like. I had never ordered a cake from Safeway before last year when my sisters got a cake there for Rocket's baby shower that was really good and decorated with a rocketship. That was a different Safeway, one with more enterprising decorators, I guess.

The only first birthday cake in the design book had multi-colored balloons, making it look like a Happy Promotion! cake, rather than a little boy's first birthday. I asked the man if they could do a rocketship or any thing with a space theme and he said no. This was Tuesday night and the party is Saturday, so I didn't have time to shop around for the cake. I picked a Sesame Street design, figuring that Rocket's seen Elmo a few times before. There are two cars on the cake and it looks like Big Bird is driving a tow truck towing a car with a waving Elmo in it. What the fuck? It doesn't seem safe to have a passenger inside the car being towed. It reminded me of the service AAA runs on New Year's Eve where you can get a local tow home if you are too drunk to drive. The ad for the service said in bold print "no reservations." Do not plan ahead to get so drunk that you need to be towed home! And what if you could make reservations, would you feel pressured to get completely blitzed by your pick up time? "We have an early reservation. We have to do shots to get hammered fast!"

This morning Rocket picked up what is used as a Polly Pockets sleeping bag, but it is supposed to be a terry cloth ice pack cover with Elmo on it. I jumped on it, saying loudly "that's ELLLLMMMOOO," for god knows what reason. So he'll recognize Elmo on his cake?

When I told Kevin that I was disappointed with the cake design options, I said that I wasn't going to worry about it because it is something I'm never going to think about again. "Besides now?" he said.

Tomorrow I need to do more cleaning and grocery shopping. Before I forget, I need to dust picture frames and shelves. We have an every other week cleaning lady, whom we love, but she is sucks at dusting. At least once a week I yell "would it kill x to do some dusting?" She dusts the half-assed way I did as a kid - only in front, where is is most noticeable and she never moves things, she just (somewhat) dusts around them. She also seems blind to spider webs.

T Minus Four Days

Clover's recital was in a nice, new theater. We were in the sixth row, which meant fairly good seats. The no flash photography rule was barked about again the day of the recital, but that did not stop someone behind me from taking a picture with a flash and their camera made that crunch noise that camera phones typically make. Double the interruption.

The school had also warned that people could only enter during the very brief breaks between numbers to limit the disruption. They tried to make good on that, stationing volunteers at the doors to keep them shut until appropriate times. Once the doors were open, though, people seemed to take their sweet time finding their seats, causing a complete blockage of the show, the kind where in elementary school someone would have shouted out "you make a better door than a window!" The family two rows ahead came late and separately had to maneuver the very old members of their group down the steps and into their seats. Then they ran out of seats, but that didn't stop them from cramming more people into their row. Before the show began, maybe in an effort to make more room in their row, one of the men in the group dropped a small toddler into a seat next to my sister and then he left. To go back to his seat two rows ahead. The baby was crying and my sister was trying to console him, which is when I came running to my seat as the lights were about to dim, not knowing what to do about the abandoned kid, until the man got up from his seat and picked up the child and took him back to his seat. I wonder if his wife was busy backstage and he didn't want to deal with a small child. We should have know that this family would not be concerned about blocking the stage during the show.

As Clover's performance was beginning, a man and child seated in the front got up to move, blocking our view. After watching the video, I can hear someone say "down!" The message was missed or ignored. For all the bitching these people did about flash photography, I wish they would have reminded everyone to keep their asses in their seats because while their daughter may not be on stage, some one's daughter is, so respect that.

I found myself watching the video camera more than Clover's actual performance, which was sad because I was missing the moment, even as I tried to preserve it for the future. Our photos taken backstage are okay, which reminded me that I had not heard from the studio which took their portraits at the beginning of the month. Now I need to track them down after hearing that other people have already placed their orders. We were supposed to receive a postcard within a week saying the proofs were ready, but I didn't get one. It could have been lost, but our mailman has a convenient, yet bothersome habit of shoving the mail into catalogues or magazines, so I need to fan through everything to make sure I got all of our mail. When I lived in Sacramento, I had a particularly lonely day when those junkmail circulars fell off my counter, releasing a letter from my college roommate that had been shoved inside the ads. I was so happy, but still annoyed that I almost recycled the letter without knowing it was there. Maybe that is what happened to the proofs postcard.

The photo stress isn't what I need to deal with this week, but I worry that if I put it off, they will get rid of the proofs, as they took photos of well over a hundred girls. Rocket's party is on track, I think. I need to order the cake tonight, but the menu is set and the pantry is cleaned. Tonight I also need to clean out the refrigerator. Tomorrow I need to go to the mid-week Farmer's Market to buy heirloom tomatoes, then get the rest of my shopping list ready.

Updated: I just received a call to say the photography studio screwed up and they haven't mailed all the postcards. I guess it wasn't my mailman after all. Carry on.

T Minus Five Days

Rocket's first birthday party is Saturday and now that the ballet recital - my last legitimate diversion - is behind us (it rocked, Clover was awesome), I need to seriously begin working on the party. We've focused on the house and the many things here and there that needed to be done that I have not given much thought to the menu. My direct planning work for the party ended soon after I sent the invitations out last month. Maybe I should have stayed focused a little longer.

Today I cleaned out the some cabinets. It had to be done, really. After I clean my desk and the refrigerator, everything will be well organized. (Not including my closet, but if someone goes snooping in there, they deserve to be hit with a mountain of dirty clothes.)

The play structure arrived today after I sat here all day Friday awaiting the delivery that never came during the 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. window. Apparently 10 hours is not enough time to get some boxes delivered from across the bay. Or enough time to call to say the delivery is being postponed.

We live on a hill near a bend, which means that noises tend to bounce around. I heard large trucks several times today, only to run to the window to see a fire engine or UPS or UPS again drive by. Finally the delivery truck arrived and the driver was nice enough that I felt guilty about the angry email I'd drafted, but not sent about the crap-ass treatment I received on Friday. I'll sit on the letter for a day, but I think I'll sent it after adding that the driver was very kind.

By tomorrow I need a menu and I need to order a cake. What is a first birthday without a cake?