I'm still here

Just insanely busy. I have signed up to post daily in November, so that should be interesting considering the difficulty I have just posting every week. Let's see, what has been going on? last night, Richard took the older kids to the playground and met up with Stacey and Andria and their offspring. I knew Stacey's husband was out of town, so I told him to invite her over for dinner since I was making spaghetti and I tend to cook enough for an army even though my kids don't eat my cooking. He called from the park to say that the female 2/3 of Andria's family would also be coming. Since she's pregnant, I'm going to count her as two guests. So let me just brag for a second and claim that I cooked dinner for 12 people on a school night with a baby on my hip for the last half of the cooking (ok, subtract the fetus and the boob baby and that's still more people than you cooked dinner for last night). I am a badass! If I do say so myself.

Just call me Winky

In the bathroom this morning soon after getting to work, I noticed that something about my reflection looked a little off. I had my hair in a ponytail because I got out of bed too late to wash it, so at first I thought it was just the effect of the Ugly Betty Bangs that I was seeing. Upon closer inspection, however, I saw that I had put mascara on my right eye but not my left. Lovely! I tried to figure out how I had managed to do this, and then remembered that Calvin came in as I was applying my makeup and asked me to help him find a picture of our dog. He needed it for CLUE class and of course, it had not occured to him to look for it before 6:53 this morning. So I guess I set the mascara down intending to come back, but then I never did. When I got home this afternoon, it was still sitting there partially open on the sink, right next to the necklace I picked up but forgot to put on. Luckily I did manage to get eyeliner onto both eyes, so the Lisa Left-Eye look was somewhat mitigated. And then, I teach teenagers who by definition don't realize that anyone over 30 has an actual face, so it wasn't really a big deal.

What's more disturbing is the thought that this is just one example in a greater trend of forgetfulness. Yesterday morning, as I was making the multiple PB&J sandwiches that I make for the kids' and my lunches every morning, I realized that I had put jelly on too many pieces of bread. No big deal, I thought, I'll just go ahead and make an extra sandwhich for Joshua's breakfast (yes, he eats one for breakfast and lunch most days, and often for dinner as well, because he is a freak like that). Then I realized I was one slice short in the bread department, meaning I took out an extra one in the first place. Ok, got out another slice, no big deal. But later when I bit into my sandwich at lunch, I tasted grape jelly instead of the sour raspberry that I prefer, which meant that someone else got the raspberry jelly and probably didn't like it. I could only hope it was Somerset and not Joshua, because she's a much more adventurous eater, and because the last thing we need is for Joshua to decide that he doesn't like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. That would narrow his diet down to chocolate chip Pop Tarts and cheese pizza with the occasional granola bar thrown in for variety. Oh, and popcorn, let's not forget that. And bacon. Anyway, when we got home that afternoon, lo and behold, there was the breakfast sandwich sitting on the counter with only one bite taken out of it because it was, of course, the raspberry jelly. I explained to Joshua why it had tased funny, and there seems to be no damage done to his tender love affair with that important 1/5 of his diet. I wish I could say the same for my mental capacity!

Why do I keep spacing out like this? I hate to blame it on placenta brain. And really, I've felt so un-placenta-brained lately. My classes are great this year and I feel stimulated by what I'm teaching, which I think has gone a long way toward keeping me more focused and less flaky than I expected to be (and have sometimes been) at four months post partum. But these morning slip-ups have me worried. What if I've been lulled into a false sense of security, only to be hit with the dread disease now, when I least expect it? Tomorrow will I get to work and realize I have on two different shoes, or that my underwear are on the outside of my pants like a superhero costume? It will be like that dream where you're at school wearing nothing but big white granny panties and everyone is looking at you! This is what I get for not buying more prenatal vitamins when I ran out two months ago. Or maybe it's the cumulative effect of the massive amounts of caffiene and sugar I've been ingesting in the form of sweet tea (more on that later). Whatever it is, I've got to be vigilant, and you can help. If you happen to see me out in public with my nursing bra inside out over my shirt, make sure I've at least remembered to hook the cups back up, ok?

Southern festival of Books

This weekend is the Southern Festival of Books, which is hosted by Memphis and Nashville in alternate years. This year it's our turn, and it's killing me that Big Daddy and I don't have more time to spend down there. I feel like a crackhead who can't get to the Crack Festival. Well, except I did get to go yesterday and hear Lee Smith, author of my favorite book, read from her new book On Agate Hill. She was funny and charming as always, and she signed my freshly bought copy of the new book as well as my old, well-loved copy of Saving Grace. The last time she was here, at Burke's Books, I bought their first edition copy of Fair and Tender Ladies and got her to sign that. Now I have three! I can't explain why this makes me so happy.

Joshua's kindergarten class walked down to the children's stage yesterday to a party for Curious George. This also makes me happy. Hopefully we'll all get to spend some more time down there this weekend. I'll let you know how it goes.

Fall Break Friday

The kids and I were out of school today for "Fall Break," whatever that means, so we took advantage of the opportunity to sit around in our pajamas all day like we like to do. Well, in the kids' case, it was more like the clothes from yesterday that they slept in last night, but still. Big Daddy left early after being alerted to the fact that downtown was on fire, and Somerset woke me up at 8:30 which did not feel as late as it sometimes does, since someone kept me up late like he likes to do. Nevertheless, I got up and made her a waffle that she requested and then left three quarters uneaten. I also made myself a waffle with peanut butter and chocolate chips, because I'm a grown up and I can eat things like that for breakfast if I want to, and then took up my usual post on the front porch glider. I'm thinking we should just move the couch out there like the hillbillies we apparently are, because we live out there lately.

Before long, the offspring started appearing with scraps of paper, attaching them to the porch, then going back inside. I became gradually aware that they were "decorating" the house for Halloween. The whole decoration-making production line was eventually moved outside. It involved scissors, markers, paper plates, a roll of scotch tape with broken dispenser, a roll of black electrical tape, most of a box of perfectly good Puffs tissues, and fishing line. And an empty toilet paper roll.

I have to confess here that I have become alarmingly like my mother in my old age, in that my tolerance for having a lot of crap everywhere has gone way, way down. I was not loving the idea of a TP-roll Frankenstein hanging from my crepe myrtle, and little tissue ghosts hanging from everything that could be reached by their short creators, and little drawings of monsters and witches that had been crudely cut out taped to every vertical surface. But they were so freaking happy with their decorations that I didn't have the heart to rain on the paper parade. At one point, Joshua exclaimed "It looks so good, I want to stay out here forever!" After they were done, we took a walk around the block to see if we could spot any other decorations. I can tell you that we were shocked and apalled at the paucity of tissue ghosts in Chickasaw Gardens. We thought we saw some in the trees of one of the few families we know in the neighborhood that has kids, but they turned out to be store-bought, imitation tissue ghosts made of plastic. And they even homeschool! What is this world coming to? And as we walked, Calvin asked me this very Calvin-like question:

"Mom, do you ever feel so good that like, you don't want anything else to happen, you just want to keep doing exactly what you're doing? But like, it kind of makes me nervous because then I start wondering what is going to happen next."

To which I replied a very myself-like answer:

"Sweetie, try not to worry about what's going to happen next. Just enjoy the feeling good part." He just kind of nodded and took off on his scooter. That child is so much like his father, it's scarier than a whole box of ghosts made out of the cheap generic tissues that hurt your nose when you blow.

Later, after the baby napped and everyone had lunch, we went to the duck pond. The last time we were there, the boys hooked up with a kid who had a net. It was heavy duty and looked suspiciously like the one we had seen a week earlier and left alone because we figured it belonged to someone. The little boy was using it to scoop out turtles, after which he would immediately let them go. This was decidedly more exciting than feeding the lame old ducks, and Calvin has been asking for a net ever since. We made a quick run up to the Dollar Tree and got three flimsy plastic nets, which I warned the kids were only going to hold little turtles. They were thrilled, and off we went. Calvin caught a couple of turtles, but for the most part they had nothing to fear from us. We did feed the ducks, too, and then tromped around to the little peninsula, where we attached long sticks to the nets in order to give them more reach. Joshua decided his was a horse and started galloping around on it, scaring the little fish that Calvin was trying to catch. The whole scene was impossibly idyllic, with the dappled sunlight and the happy children and the baby cooing at the ducks from her perch in the sling. I wished I had brought the camera.

About halfway around the pond, Somerset started having a meltdown because she was tired of walking, but that's de rigueur and not enough to ruin an outing. I told her I guessed she would have to stay there and become the lady of the lake. "No, I don't want to do that" she said, as if it were an actual possibility.

The Big Bang

Lately I am finding that even though I'm doing a decent job of staying on top of the daily routine, adding anything to it is practically impossible. Case in point: I have been trying for months to go get a haircut. Why is that so hard? Well, anytime I'm not at work, I have four tumbling, wrestling, bored/tired/hungry/angry/loud kids with me. Don't get me wrong, my kids are fairly well behaved most of the time, but there are four of them, so everything they do becomes multiplied. Big Daddy is great with the older kids, but he's still kind of scared to keep the baby alone for very long, being without breasts and all. I'd take her, but she won't sit in the bucket one second longer than necessary, and wearing a plastic cape over baby-in-sling seems like a bad idea. To make things worse, he seems to work the exact same hours that most salons are open, and is only off on Sundays when they're off too.

Since my parents recently moved from the burbs into midtown near us, I thought I could catch a break and have my Mom watch the kids while I ran out for a quick Saturday morning salon experience. After several weekends of having other things planned, I finally got my chance this Saturday. Or so I thought.

Let me give you a piece of advice: if you want to get your hair cut on Saturday, you need an appointment. Probably you know this. I foolishly thought I would be able to walk in somewhere and have services rendered. I'm not sure where I got such a crazy idea, but it might have been all those neon "Walk Ins Welcome" signs in the salon windows. Now, I know the higher-end salons are going to be booked, but I thought some of the funkier high-volume shops would have room for work-ins. You know, like leaving space for people who are actually sick to visit the doctor in between all the scheduled appointments for people with scheduled illnesses. I thought wrong. Times six.

My first stop was Bermel, less than half a mile from my house. I figured it was a long shot, but I was curious about what the scene was in there so I decided to try it anyway. I got hopeful when I walked in to find a woman helping a ten year old girl figure up someone's bill for the purpose of learning the math skills involved. But when I asked if there was an opening, the nice lady regretfully told me they were booked. I went on to Goulds in Poplar Plaza. This was my original destination anyway, and I was shocked to learn that they were booked up. Next stop, Dabbles, an old standby where I figured they could take me since they usually have several stylists working at once and it's a popular midtown spot for those with more style than money. No such luck. Ok, on to Tangles on Madison. Booked. Hi Gorgeous farther down on Madison. Booked. This was a sign of desperation, because I've gotten a bad haircut there before by a guy who did not look at my hair before washing it, then cut every hair to a different length with a razor, gave me a zig-zag part, and dried it flatter to my skull than I would have ever believed possible. I wasn't going to let that guy near my head again, but I was willing to give the shop another chance. I guess they didn't want one. On to Cloud Nine, next to Old Zinnie's and the now-defunct Green Orb, where I had the somewhat surreal experience of walking into the tiny, hallway-like space to see the sister of Big Daddy's ex-girlfriend, commonly referred to as "the cleanup woman" and "psycho skank," dying someone's hair kool-aid red. T.C.W. and I were actually good friends in high school (supposedly), so I knew her sister pretty well. She offered to "do" me after the customer she was currently working on, but that was going to be a while, so I declined. I think enough members of my family, (and everybody else's family, if you know what I mean), have been "done" by members of that family anyway.

I got back in my car, stunned by six straight rejections, and made a rash decision to go to Fantastic Sam's in Overton Square. You heard me--Fantastic Sam's. My hair had gotten pretty long, and I rationalized that I would just get a trim and how bad could it be if I told the person not to touch my bangs? I think you see where this is going. She touched my bangs. I didn't even really have bangs. I had a very thin layer of cheekbone-length fringe that I could never decide what to do with. Since I'm currently in the throes of post-partum hair loss, to be followed by the post-hair-loss "hedge" of new growth that will stick straight up along the my hairline, I figured keeping some sort of bangs until that passes was probably a good idea. The woman cutting my hair seemd to actually know what she was doing, so when she asked what I wanted to do up front, I threw caution to the wind and said "Um, I don't know" when I should have said "DO NOT TOUCH THE BANGS!!!" She told me they were "at the perfect length to do that side-swept bang that is so popular right now." "Um, ok." I replied. Apparently in crazy-bad hairdresser language, this translates to "Yes, please do cut two inches off my bangs, go back another inch from my hairline and bring that hair into the bang collective, and oh yeah, cut them on an angle going the opposite direction from my part." So that's what she did, of course. I now have Ugly Betty's haircut. I guess I finally have a reason to be glad the 80's are back in style.

It's a wonderful life

Saturday morning, the kids and I slept in while Big Daddy got up and went to work. I never thought I would consider 8:45 "sleeping in," but now it seems absolutely decadent. I heard the boys get up and turn on cartoons as Genevive rooted around a bit in my bed and then looked up at me with her best "am I not the cutest baby alive?" smile. The lady Somerset generally does not show her face before 10:00 a.m. on weekends, but this day she came padding into my room and crawled up into bed with the baby and me. The three of us snuggled and chatted for a little while until gradually the boys drifted in asking about breakfast. Sugar is the rule for our Saturday mornings, so Calvin and I made our favorite, chocolate croissants, and we all took them out on the front porch to eat. The older three soon felt cartoons pulling them back inside, leaving Genevieve and me in relative peace. She likes to alternate between sitting in her exersaucer and rocking with me in the porch glider. While she practiced standing and reaching in the saucer, I gorged on chocolate and The New Yorker, reading a short story, a couple of poems (one good, one bewlideringly not good), an article about Bill Clinton's working post presidency, and a fascinating article about a WWII era sociological movement called Mass Observation. Somewhere in there, Genevieve fell asleep in the crook of my arm and I put her back in bed.

I sat there, rocking and reading and eating with my kids drifting in and out and the baby doing her baby things, and I tried to hold the sweetness of the moment in my mind. There were years when time seemed to be suspended in babyhood, when months seemed like eternities and I thought I would never see the end of diapers and sippy cups and Blues Clues. I never had baby fever. I lived for the day each one of them would walk and talk. Babies are sweet, but we had kids because we wanted kids. We became parents with visions of biking with them, going camping and canoeing, not of cribs and mobiles and pushing a stroller. Not that there weren't good things. Babyhood has its moments, but for the most part, I have wanted to kiss the ground as each child turned four, because the journey to that point has just about worn me out. Then one day, I realized I couldn't find clothes to fit Calvin in the toddler section anymore. Joshua was talking clearly and sucking his thumb less. Somerset, who was then our "last baby," potty trained and finally weaned on her third birthday. It felt like the end of an era, and it was bittersweet.

Two weeks later, I got pregnant. I have to confess that I was devastated. There was a time when I wanted a fourth baby, but then I had Somerset only fourteen months after Joshua. We decided that three was enough. We worried that we were pushing our luck. We had three healthy kids, why tempt fate? It was a hard decision for me, but once I decided I was done having babies, I felt good about moving on to the next stage. As it turned out, having babies was not done with me. When it started to dawn on me that I might be pregnant, I responded with strong denial. There was no way. I was so sure that I would never be pregnant again that I couldn't even wrap my mind around the possibility.I've had two miscarriages, so that always feels like it could happen again. I didn't want to miscarry, but I knew it could happen, and if it did, I would know that the whole thing just wasn't meant to be. The thought of starting all over with a newborn was just overwhelming to me. Then one day, I guess about a week (a very looong week) after I figured out what was going on, I saw blood. I walked into my kitchen, leaned back against the counter, and cried. It was crazy, I didn't even want to be pregnant, but at the same time, I felt like I had just lost something very real. I thought in flashes of everything that would never happen for that baby. I felt like I had wished away my chance to know one of my kids.

Happily, the blood turned out to be only a little implantation spotting. The baby was fine. I felt so relieved, but I still worried. I'm not the anxious type, and when irrational thoughts pop up, I usually shut them down immediately. But one day when I was driving the kids around, I looked to my right and saw a woman pushing what looked like a six-month-old baby in a stroller. A thought flashed into my mind with such force and certainty that it was almost as if it had been spoken aloud: "I'll never see this baby like that." I pushed it away, but the feeling that it was true was hard to shake. I never said a word to anyone, but through my whole pregnancy, some part of me was just waiting for the worst to happen. I did not allow myself to think about how it might go down, but I couldn't stop believing that it would. So when I was finally in labor and the nurse noticed that the belt monitor was not picking up the baby's heartbeat, that part of me just sort of detached and said "So this is how it's going to happen." My incredible nurse, Marta, moved swiflty and expertly as she attached the internal monitor, rolled me on my side, put an oxygen mask on me, and unhooked the bed from the headboard so she could tip me on my head. As she moved, she calmly explained what she was doing and how it would get more oxygen to the baby. It all happened so fast, and I was able to listen to her, but at the same time part of me was thinking that this was how I would lose my baby. I don't know if it was the guilt over not wanting to be pregnant, or just hormonal irrationality, or what, but it felt so real at the time.

Ultimately, my fears were unfounded and Genevieve was fine. She came out looking blue as Vishnu, screaming soundlessly, and when they laid her on my chest I said "Are you sure she's ok?" They assured me she was fine, but I was still shaken. Then my doctor held up a length of the umbilical cord between her hands and said "Look, a true knot." It was tied in a perfect knot but not pulled tightly enough to cut off the blood supply. Only two weeks later, I would learn that the baby of a friend's acquaintance was stillborn because of a knot in the cord. But my baby lived, and she was beautiful and perfect and she relaxed in my arms the moment the nurses brought her back to me. She rested her head on my chest in a way that said so clearly "Yes, you are the right one." I could write a million words and never be able to describe what I felt at that moment.

So, finally, with my fourth and definitely last child, I have been able to enjoy having a newborn. When she cries, I feel sympathetic but not like my own emotions are tied up with hers, which is how it always felt with the others. I do not feel like my head is going to explode. Ok, sometimes I do, but that's usually when I'm trying to do something else that seems important at the moment. Most of the time, I just hold her and smell her crazy hair that stands straight up, laugh at her babbling screeching baby sounds, smile at her smiling at me. She is indescribably sweet, and so much sweeter because I know now how fast it goes. I know that I wasn't even expecting her, my bonus baby, and she came to me through sheer luck, and before long she will disappear into the child she's bound to become.

Music To My Ears

This afternoon during the drive home from school, Calvin was perusing a freshly handed out book order form (remember those?). When he came across a selection of "Jigsaw Jones" books, he exclaimed "Only ninety five cents! Those are great books--they should cost a billion dollars!" My work here is done.

At the Fair

When I was growing up, the arrival of the Mid-South Fair was one of the highlights of the year. My parents, long-time Fair enthusiasts, would even check my sister and I out of school each year so we could beat the crowds on wristband day. Naturally when I became a mother, I looked forward to taking my own offspring to the Fair. Only somehow I managed to breed with a Fair hater. My husband does not like crowds, fried food, or rides (yes, he is afraid of rides!), so the Fair really has nothing for him. He doesn't know what he's missing.

My first attempt at taking any of our kids to the fair did not go well. Calvin at age three was afraid of the rides (faulty genes), had not developed a proper appreciation for food involving funnels, boiling oil, and powdered sugar, and quickly tired of walking around. I didn't try again until last year, when my parents and I teamed up to take the three of my four kids who were in existence at the time. (Come to think of it, I must have gotten pregnant with Genevieve right after that.) They were 7, 4, and 3 then, and I suspected that they would all three be afraid to ride more than a tame kiddie ride or two, so I went the ticket route rather than spring for the $20 armband (all you can ride). That was a mistake. They loved the rides and begged for more, more, more! Unfortunately, they were also mesmerized by the games and the booths festooned with giant-headed Dora and Spongebob baloons on a stick. Afterwards, my Mom came up with the bright idea of collecting change in a coffee can so that this year they could ride more and play more and buy more (and of course, eat more). I think we managed a whopping $22.35, but wristbands were nevertheless purchased, one game was played, and much food on sticks and in paper cones was eaten.
Once we arrived and got through the traumatic childhood flashback that was my dad parking, we made our way to the kids' area just inside the gate. The first ride in sight was the caterpillar coaster, and all three kids went for it as of their whole lives had led up to that moment. I was so proud! But it wasn't long before Somerset came back down the steps saying she was scared. No biggie--it was a scary ride. Joshua stuck to his guns, but looked terrified all during the ride and came off saying in his funniest growly yell "I am never, ever riding that again!" Not to be scared off, though, they all rode just about every ride in the kids' area, (although after one or two, Joshua put a firm ban on rides that went up into the air). I had originally planned to sit out the rides, figuring I'd have Genevieve, who is three months old, in the sling the whole time as I usually do. But at the last minute I decided to strap her seat onto the little seatless stroller thingy I keep in the back of the sassy-mobile, and for once she loved it. I went ahead and got a wristband, which was a good thing, otherwise I would have missed the experience of sitting inside a giant, spinning, 90 degree metal strawberry with a farting five-year-old who was not at all certain he wanted to be in there. On a positive note, Calvin and I rode a really fun ride where you lie on your stomach and fly through the air like Superman, side by side above the crowds. Later he said that was his favorite part of the fair. No small compliment coming from an 8-year-old boy who's been waiting all year for this weekend in September. Somerset and I were cheated out of riding the bumper cars together by the guy at the door who was a stickler for the pesky "You must be this tall" rule. On a high note, I rode the swings all by myself, and it was just like I remebered. I held my slip-on sandals in my lap for fear of having one fly off and take out a pedestrian, and as I flew around in circles high above the crowd I was grateful for the distance between it and my pedicure-deprived feet. But back at casa Sassy, Somerset let me know that there was a "brown spot" on the bottom of my foot as I rode the swings. Eew! That's what happens when you wear sandals to the fair. Oh well, I still came out ahead of the extremely large woman wearing an extremely small tank top with a good three feet of belly hanging out between it and her stretchy pants.

Who am I kidding?

One of the reasons I haven't started blogging before now was that I could not really pin down what my focus should be. I have four kids, which apparently makes me the modern equivalent of the old woman in the shoe in many people's view, but I don't really want to write another mama blog. Plus, my husband already writes a funny blog about his experiences with them, and he steals all the good material. I spend a lot of time thinking, talking, and writing about my kids and my experiences as a mother in other places. Nevertheless, whenever I think of something I might want to write here, it's usually mama-related. Oh well. The truth is, having kids is probably the best and most interesting thing I've ever done, so I may as well write about it. But I will also talk about other things. I read voraciously, and whatever I'm reading at the moment will inevitably lead me to think about connections to other ideas and experiences. There will be book talk. I also teach English in an "urban" high school, so I'm sure I will talk about the adventure that is my job sometimes. I'm really happy with my school and classes this year, so it's not going to be a bitch fest or anything. And then, I'm generally opinionated about, oh, everything. That should lead to some good times. I'll try not to get too political, though, because let's face it, we're not really hurting for another angry-white-liberal-Bush-is-the-devil blog, now are we?

Here we are

Just a little while ago I finished reading Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle again, about sixteen years after reading it the first time. There's that scene, after the world has been mostly destroyed by ice nine, when the narrator and the lovely Mona have just settled in the oubliette/bomb shelter, where he spreads his hands and says "Here we are." At that point, they are two of the only people left alive, in a situation far removed from anything ordinary. And since it is in fact the end of the world, any relationship they could develop will be completely outside the context of what such a relationship might have been in "normal" life.

I think blogs are kind of like that, or at least they can be. I'm fascinated by the idea that so many of us take the time, now of all times, to sit down and play around with words, of all things. As a person who loves words and believes that they are powerful things, I'm relieved to see that they can hold such a space for themselves in the midst of so much technology. Maybe people are smarter than I've ever dared to hope, if so many of us can see the value in sitting down to write about life, and read about the lives of people we may not even know, and be entertained and moved by their words.

I guess I'll give it a shot.