Who says you can't go home again*

We have now been in Delaware for almost a week. Actually, we are, at this very moment, less than two hours shy of one full week in the state of my youth, with two weeks to go.

It's fun. No, really. I enjoy coming home, especially for long periods of time, so I don't have to cram seeing everybody into 15 minute intervals while I race across town with the kids from house to house. I like driving around the streets of my childhood and adolescence, reminiscing about lazy Saturday afternoons on the high school football field debating the merits of the Born in the USA with friends back in 1985. I enjoy hearing my sister talk about kids--sons and daughters of people that I went to 8th grade with--that her kids are now playing with. Most of all, of course, I like spending time with my family: sitting around the kitchen table with mom, gossiping about all 5 of her siblings and their extended families, driving around town with my sister and her two kids, discussing the new Carolina football coach with Dad.

My parents' house is extremely comfortable, even with all of us extra folk taking up space. The guestroom I stay in is huge, with a remodeled bathroom, both of which are nicer than what Lance and I are currently building in L.A. The kids have a nice room with twin beds and lots of leftover toys from when my niece and nephew were small. Best of all, the basement: chock full of old toys and games, a partially working television, kid-sized table and chairs leftover from my childhood, and three different boiler-type rooms to hide in. My kids will play down there, happily, for hours, leaving me to make dinner, phone calls, read the newspaper, or watch TiVo in utter peace. I could get used to living here, trust me, especially since my mom stocks the fridge and only lets me pay for beer. There is even a spare car for me to drive around in. Also, I get to spend quality time with my best friend Susanna and her two children, commiserating about girls who turn into brats at age two and husbands who are wonderful in so many ways and yet still drive us crazy. In L.A., I don't have any "good" friends who are also moms, so it's nice to be able to talk to someone who totally gets where I'm coming from for a change.

You'd think I'd have more time to blog, then, but to be honest, I'm enjoying the break. I miss you guys, of course, but it's a little bit of a relief not to have all those November posts to plow through every day. No matter how much you guys make me laugh, or cry, or nod in agreement, sometimes it's nice to just live my life outside of the computer for a little while.

One of the great things about coming East for a few weeks is the opportunity to see old friends. Along with Susanna, I also get to see old friends from middle school, friends from college who trek miles just to see me, and blog friends. Since I'm here for 3 full weeks, it's fairly easy to fit everybody in. I have even found the time to fit in a visit with my Dad's mom--a difficult woman, and a visit I don't generally look forward to. But it's done! Already! My mom's mom can be difficult too, but in a different, much more loving way, so we've already spent several nice afternoons with her. Last weekend, I actually drove with the kids to Virginia (about 4 hours away) to visit Lance's brother Mark and his wife. They live on a neat old farm in the middle of nowhere, between Charlottesville and Richmond. (This is the nice brother, of course. I would never travel any distance to see assboy.) The kids had a blast riding tracters, playing in the barns and feeding the goats, and I had a great time hanging out with Mark and Margaret. My sister's daughter (age 9)came with us which was a huge help for me, especially in the car, especially since the traffic going home had us traveling from 10am until 5:30pm.

I will leave you with a few shots of the gorgeous leaves--we got here just in time to catch the last gasp of them in the neighborhood; now they are mostly gone. For many of you East Coasters, this is nothing, so these pictures are dedicated to my fellow California bloggers (you know who you are):



I hope everyone is having a wonderful November!

*I have a sinking suspicion that the title of this post is a song lyric from someone like John Cougar Mellencamp--and now you will all see me for the top 40 music redneck that I am. I know that you've been pegging me for a Radiohead fan all these years, but alas, I've finally given myself away.

Confession

Vivian has been ready to be potty-trained for months now. Months. I think I could have easily trained her around her birthday in June, when she was showing all kinds of "ready" signs. But I was lazy, and I didn't feel like dealing with the accidents, so I kept putting it off. I bought her some underwear, and put her in it several times, with minimal accidents, but whenever we left the house I put her back in diapers. I've been half-assedly training her for a long time, putting her in underwear when I remember, but mostly using pull-ups. The other day, Melissa wrote a post about her daughter who basically trained herself, and I realized I just have to do this. Deal with the accidents so she learns. What a pain in the ass (heh).

Also? Last week, I spent two (2!) of my free mornings doing absolutely nothing. I didn't do laundry, go to the store, buy Vivian underwear, check on the status of the remodel, make doctors' appointments, or any of the usual trivial crap I busy my days with. God knows I didn't go to the gym and work out. I laid around on my ass, catching up on TiVo (except at the new apartment it's Time Warner DVR, which I hate) and occasionally surfing blogs. I ate Halloween candy. I rested.

And it felt great. (You see why I love being a stay at home mom? It goes so well with my lazy nature!)


In other news, I have started a new blog. I'm not linking it here, because it's a private blog. I'm going to hand out the URL to my family members, and whenever I post something innocuous here about the kids, I'll post it there, too. That way, I can finally achieve the original purpose of the blog: keep my far-flung family up-to-date on kid happenings. And I can do it without giving up this little corner of self-help I've dug out for myself. Plus, since I'll make it a totally private blog that only family members can see, I won't have to answer a myriad of questions like "but why would you want anyone in the world to be able to see pictures of your kids? What if a child molester finds you?"

Also, and this is most important: now when I go home for extended periods (I'm leaving for Delaware Nov. 6th and not returning until after Thanksgiving) I can still blog, without arousing suspicion. If they think I'm spending an inordinate amount of time at the computer, I'll just play stupid, and say I'm having trouble trying to figure the whole thing out. This will be easy for them to believe.

Whaddyathink?

Where have I been?

Last Thursday, I left the kids at school and flew home to Delaware. My mother's 60th birthday was Friday, October 20th. My dad surprised her with a weekend trip to Bermuda; the two of them left Thursday morning. The second part of the surprise came when my brother, sister and I showed up at their resort for dinner Friday night.

She was thrilled, and completely shocked. Yes, that means I flew 6 hours Thursday and then another 2 on Friday morning, followed by a 13 hour travel day two days later, but it was totally worth it. You only turn 60 once, after all. Not to mention, Bermuda! Yet another tropical family vacation, and you know I never say no to that. *

I had never been to Bermuda before, and it's always fun to go to a new spot. We were there less than 48 hours so there wasn't much time to explore, but the weather was gorgeous. The resort where we stayed was extremely nice, and my father booked my siblings and I into a large suite so the five of us would have a place to congregate. My impressions of Bermuda are two: beautiful, as you'd expect from a tropical island, and also a little stuffy, in a British/ New England kind of way. (Lots of blue blazers and madras pants, know what I mean?) Oh, also? Horrifyingly expensive. Moreso than Hawaii, and that's saying something. However, as I said, we had very little time to explore, so those impressions could be way off, and might be more indicative of the resort than the whole island.

I would go back in a minute, especially if someone else was paying.

Here is where I would normally post pretty pictures, but I forgot the camera, so you'll just have to take my word for it. I really wish I'd gotten a picture of Mom's face when she walked into the dining room and saw us there, but even without the photo, I'll remember it forever.

Some things to remember:

The "family" that flew with me on the transcontinental flight fro L.A. to Philadelphia. Mom and 3 year old in front row, Dad and 4 year old in second row. Several times during the flight, I thought to myself, "Hmm, that Dad sure doesn't help much (he had passed his kid up to sit with the Mom very early on)" or "I would kill Lance, if he was just sitting there reading the paper while I dealt with all the kids". Then, when we arrived in Philadelphia, the mom said "Well, thanks for playing with us, Megan!" and got off with her daughter, leaving the stranger and his kid to get off on their own. Yeah. He passed his kid off to a complete stranger for the entire 5-1/2 hour flight while he read the paper.

Water. This particular resort does not have mini-bars in the rooms; instead, they send you a list of possible items to choose from before you arrive. My sister filled out the form, and decided that we'd need several bottled waters. Assuming their bottled water was the standard, 8-12 oz kind, she ordered 18-- 3 a day, per person. The bottled water came in liter size, which, if you're not quite sure, is slightly larger than a bottle of wine. 18 liters of water to drink in less than 48 hours. This led to much hilarity, in the form of water-pounding competitions, and jokes along the lines of "Gosh, I just wish I had some clear liquid to drink. You know, that doesn't taste like anything, but is refreshing. Where could I find something like that?" or "Maybe we should take the water with us to dinner--do you think they'd charge a corkage fee?" For the record, my brother and I won the who-can-drink-the-most-water contest, and in fact, we did get through all 18 liters, not to mention 12 beers, a bottle of rum and 1/2 a bottle of champagne. This doesn't include what we drank at dinner.

Family. It hasn't been just the five of us in years--probably 20 years. We had such a great time, and Dad stepped right back into his preferred role of director, getting out the maps and tourist information at dinner Friday night and organizing our whole day Saturday for us. This was much more endearing than it is on longer vacations: there was no sense that he was trying to control our holiday, since this was only a weekend, and we were there just for Mom anyway. Nobody bickered (again, it was only a weekend), and we all left in better spirits than we arrived. I love my family and miss them, and holidays like this just reinforce that lucky feeling--I am truly blessed to have these people in my life.

The one stressful moment occurred when we decided to rent mopeds--two doubles and one single. My dad and Chip drove the doubles, with Mom and I as passengers, and Ann rode the single. Mopeds are big--bigger than you think--and unsteady--and in Bermuda, they drive on the left side of the road. My dad has a bum knee, so it was difficult for him to steady the bike, and I felt pretty unprotected, riding behind Chip. Fortunately, after we spent a good twenty minutes learning how to ride the bikes, with my stress level rising every second (it was scary, y'all) and my dad furiously licking his lips in concentration at every turn, we went to sign the contract and discovered that they only had 24 hour rentals. Since it was already 4:30 pm and we were leaving the next morning, we decided to skip the mopeds and hop in a cab instead. At that point, I don't think anyone was too thrilled about the moped ride (with the possible exception of my brother), but no one wanted to be a kill joy for anyone else. When it became clear that the rental terms would give us a way out, we all sighed in relief.

I'm glad to be home, and, even better, Lance is glad that I'm home. He's a bit tired from a weekend alone with the kids (she says, with just a trace of smugness). Hope everyone else had a nice weekend too!

*I didn't mention it here because it was kind of last minute and also I felt a little sheepish, having just returned from Hawaii a few weeks ago.

Vacation, all I ever wanted

Bullets, because otherwise I will never get around to writing this post.

1. California is really an entirely different country from Delaware. At least, it should be. Everything is different, and I'm always struck by that whenever I go home. I've been going home now for 15 years, and I'm still struck by it. The smells are different: the flowers, the trees, even the factories produce aromas that you just don't find in L.A. The light is different: in Delaware there are trees--big, leafy trees--that filter much of the sunlight, while California has smaller, thinner trees, trees that don't take up so much space, that don't offer the same kind of shade. The clouds are different, too: Delaware has the big, puffy cumulus clouds, clouds that change over the course of a day or a week. Los Angeles doesn't have clouds to speak of, not really. The enormous uninterrupted expanse of blue sky that you see in L.A. almost every single day does not exist in Delaware. Of course the climate is different--it's humid in Delaware: thick, oppressive, sweaty heat. Wet heat that moisturizes your skin and plumps up dry limp hair like mine. Not the mild, dry heat you get out here. But most of all, the people are different. People look different in Delaware. I've been trying to figure out why for as long as I've been living on the other coast. Is it the haircuts? The clothes? The Phillies caps and the Tevas? The genealogy? Definitely less Mexican, more Puerto Rican. Less Hispanic in general and more African American. More Italian, I think--only maybe it's just that there are more Southern Italians in Delaware and more Northern Italians in L.A. I don't really know how to describe this, but there is a "look" to people that I recognize the minute I get off the plane in Philadelphia, a "look" that feels as familiar to me as my mother's potato salad. Maybe it has nothing to do with genealogy and everything to do with me, and my nostalgia for home; I'm just not sure. But it fascinates me, every time I go home.

2. I love my family, all of them: my five aunts and uncles on my mother's side and their spouses and children, my two living grandmothers, my parents, my siblings, my brother-in-law, my niece and nephew. Even the 3 aunts and uncles on my fathers' side, who we rarely see, I have no issues with them. We have our typical family squabbles, but there is no high drama. However. However, I am very very glad to live 3000 miles away, and not only because I am afforded prodigal daughter status whenever I go home. Also because I have this very strong feeling that if I lived less than a mile from my parents, the way my sister does, I would not love my family nearly the same way. And they would not love me, either. My parents can be prickly; let's just leave it at that.

3. Lance and I do not get along around my parents. After 8 years of marriage and countless visits to my folks, we have not yet figured out how to appreciate each other the same way we do when we are in L.A. I'm sure part of me reverts to adolescent behavior when I'm around family, but Lance is also guilty. He feels threatened by how much I miss home and ends up acting snide and irrational when at home he'd be making jokes. Knowing that he feels threatened somehow does not translate into me toning down my "oh, I wish we had lightning bugs in California" comments but instead ratchets them up a notch. ( I've been known to complain that California doesn't have mosquitos--there's something I need to see a therapist about.) My mother loves to play "pick one child and gang up on them" games (no doubt learned in a childhood shared with 5 siblings) and Lance is thrilled to play along, especially if Amy is the victim. Lastly--and this one deserves a post of its own, but god knows when I'll get to it, since it requires retrospection and thought, something in short supply at the POW household lately--I seem to have married my father. And two controlling guys, used to having their own way, do not always mesh seamlessly. Throw in Lance's passive-aggressive tendencies and my own shrill, defensive and critical behavior and all is not always fun.

4. I'd love to talk about FFB here, but since he occasionally reads this blog (thanks again, Lance!) I guess I can't relay how annoying it is that he refuses to share his every thought and emotion with the rest of the clan. How, duh!, we all just want the best for him and why can't he just tell us what he's thinking so we can all dissect it to bits until we've solved all of his problems for him, without asking his permission. I will say that it's always, always great to have him around, and even if he doesn't feel the same way about the rest of us, we still smile bigger whenever he's in town. (Is this how it always is with the youngest? The youngest, the most loved, the one who doesn't necessarily return the love, he is the one we all want to be with? Is that why he doesn't share things with us? Because our love, our need, our want is too strong? FFB, elaborate.)

5. Isaac learned to swim. He can't lift his head to take a breath on his own yet, but he can easily swim 5 feet or more all by himself. I can't tell you how pleased I am about this, not least of all because we didn't have to attend any classes for this to happen. Vivian, of course, is not about to put her head under water, though she will blow bubbles on demand, and likes to float along the top step of the bubble yelling "Watch me! Watch me, Mommy, I swimming!!"

6. My sister lives less than a mile from my parents. (Did I mention?) Yikes. She is a saint. An occasionally opinionated, rigid, anal saint, but a saint nonetheless*. Though, she makes my niece and nephew do schoolwork during the summer. Isn't there some law against that? Shouldn't there be?

7. We spent a week at the beach in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. My parents own a rental property there, and for the last 4 or 5 years, my dad has allowed us to spend time there during the season. This is huge, as for the 15 years he owned the property before that we were only allowed to stay there during the winter, when it's cold and windy and there's nothing to do. We had a great time, and Lance couldn't complain about there feeling "claustrophobic" because he's so far away from the ocean. (God.) My niece, who is 9, loved babysitting, and my kids worshipped their older cousins (my nephew is 10). This made for a sometimes relaxing vacation, which those of you with toddlers know is an oxymoron.

8. Why can't my best friend--you know, one of the ONLY close friends I have with children--live on the West Coast? Why must she persist in staying in Delaware, so that I can't run over to her house with Vivian whenever I need a distraction? Her daughter is Isaac's age, and her son is the cutest two month old you've ever seen, and now I will not see them again until Christmas. Bah.

*If my sister had a blog, I can only imagine the adjectives she might use to describe me. (Clueless? Self-absorbed? Not-very-smart?)

And now, pictures:

Vivian and her cousin Sawyer, in the matching Lilly dresses my mother snuck out and bought, careful to remove the price tag before she presented them. Wasn't I talking about grandmotherly excess just the other day?



My best friends'** kids and my kids--don't they look like they'd all be great friends? If only we lived closer . . .


Isaac, jumping off the diving board. (Hmm, maybe you didn't actually need a description here. Uh, that's my nephew, Kitchel, standing on the side. There.)



. . and swimming:



Three generations (me, my mom, her mom, my sister):



At the beach:


**Don't worry, Heidi, you are also my best friend!

Separation Anxiety: what not to do

For reasons I cannot fathom, neither of my children has ever really suffered from separation anxiety. They've always been happy to go to whoever wants to hold them, happy to be left with a babysitter, or my in-laws, or whoever. There's been the occasional tear, if Lance and I leave too close to naptime, but always the crying has ceased before we even make it to the car. Even when I left Isaac at pre-school for the first time, there was only a millisecond of concern before he was off exploring all the new toys.

I feel fortunate that my kids are like this, but I doubt it has anything to do with my parenting skills. I'm not sure what it says about my parenting skills that my kids are just as happy with anyone else as they are with me.

As I've mentioned, right before we left for the East Coast, we took a trip up to Carmel, to see some old friends. The kids have been there before, but I don't think either one of them remembered. Strange surroundings, strange people, but they both did fine. Immediately afterward, we went to Delaware where again the kids were dumped into a strange home, surrounded by strange people. The time change plus the long napless flight exhausted them, but still they seemed okay. Right after we got to Delaware, my brother-in-law, my dad, and my niece and nephew took the first car down to North Carolina. We sent Isaac and Vivian with them, since I had some training to do at my dad's company and my sister had tickets to see Brooke Shields give a speech* that night. At first, they were thrilled with the idea--riding in a car! With their cousins! And there was a dvd in the car! But once they were all strapped in and reality set in that I would not be joining them, Isaac started to lose it. "But Mommy! I'll miss you", he whined. "I'll be there before you know it", I reassured him. "I need ya, Mom! I miss ya! Don't leave me!"

I gave him a few more kisses through the window, and sent them off, assuming that once they got going he would forget all about missing me. According to my dad, he did fall asleep shortly thereafter, and all seemed well. About 1.5 hours later, he woke up, and immediately started crying. "I want my mommy!" Nothing my dad, brother-in-law, or anyone else did made a difference. He cried/whined for two straight hours. He finally got over it, and managed to have an okay time for the next 24 hours (again, in new surroundings) until I arrived, but the damage was done.

Ever since then (June 7th, 2006), whenever I leave for any amount of time, no matter who I am leaving him with, he has a complete fit. Screaming, crying, refusing to leg go of my legs. "I need ya, Mom! I miss ya! Don't leave me!!" When we left him with my parents so Lance and I could go out to dinner, he cried for 10 minutes. When we left him with a babysitter so all the adults could go out to dinner, he cried for 30 minutes. When we finally got back to L.A. and I took him to school, he screamed for 20 minutes (something he's never done there before). We left him last night with my in-laws, whom he has stayed with hundreds of times, and he cried bloody murder for five minutes. This morning, at school, even after insisting to me that he wouldn't cry, that he was excited to go to school, he screamed. (Though they did call me a few minutes after I left to say he'd stopped right away.)

Update: today I had to carry a screaming Vivian out of preschool ("No go, Mommy! Stay! I want to stay!") while the sweet pre-school teacher held a flailing Isaac ("Don't leave me! Mommy! No!"). Fun times.

I'm really hoping this new phase/ personality quirk is short-lived, as it's agony to leave him when he's that upset. I'm not used to it, and it makes me feel incredibly insecure about my mothering abilities. (Should I leave him? Should I ignore the behavior? Should I explain again how I'm coming back? How could I have done this to him? Is he ruined forever? etc etc)

Vivian, on the other hand, has been totally non-plussed by all the comings and goings. Apparently, for her, I'm still as interchangeable as ever.


*I'd give her a B-.

Easter Sunday

I am not a religious person, but I'm not anti-religion at all. My mother is a very faithful Episcopalian and brought my siblings and I up in that tradition: we were baptized and confirmed, and attended church and Sunday school for most of the Sunday mornings of my childhood*. After we were confirmed (8th grade, if I remember correctly), Mom gave us the choice of attending church or not. We chose not to.

My sister has since gone back, though this is not surprising. My sister is a wonderful, caring, traditional woman, and one of her parenting goals is to give her children the same childhood that she and I and my brother shared. Exactly. The same school, the same neighborhood, the same dancing class, the same church. I think it is quite a compliment to my parents that she strives so much to replicate our experience. (Fabulous fantastic brother, do you disagree with this assessment?)

Anyway. I never went back to church, except on the few holidays when I was home. As I got older, I started attending the Christmas Eve children's service with my mom, which I love. You've never seen such a bunch of happy excited kids, squirming around in the pews, shouting out the lines of Silent Night as loud as they can, craning their necks to get a glimpse of baby Jesus up on the manger, or perhaps Santa Claus through the stained glass windows. Heartbreakingly cute, even to my jaded 25 year old self.

I have no ill feelings towards Episcopalianism--my time in church as a kid was completely innocuous; I only hated it because it was boring. Now that I have kids of my own I often think about finding a church nearby to expose them to--but that's as far as I get: the thinking of it. My husband is a lapsed Catholic, having been to church exactly once in the 10 years I've known him.

If I ever go back, I assume I would go back to an Episcopalian church, since that's what I know, and since I don't have any bad associations with it. As far as I know, they allow women to be ministers and bishops, and they allow gay and lesbian leaders. Not to many rules, not too much guilt, plus the churches are pretty and so is the music.

But maybe not. Maybe I should branch out and try the Lutheran church. Or Pentecostal. Or Baptist. Jewish. Congregational. Truthfully I don't even know what half of those mean, and the chances of me going back to anything aren't that good, no matter how much guilt my mother-in-law tries to throw my way.

Years ago, when I was living in San Francisco, Billy Graham came to speak. (I remember, it was at the Cow Palace.) I really wanted to go. Not because I wanted to believe what he had to say, or find religion through him or anything, but just because I thought it would be worthwhile to hear what made the earth move for so many people. Surely, he must be a phenomenal speaker, and I was interested to experience it first-hand. I couldn't get any of my friends to come with me; in fact, they were mostly appalled that I suggested it, and worried that I'd suddenly found God or become some sort of extremist. (Really, they should have known better: of course I'm not going to be an extremist, me of the ever-placating point of view!) I think about that all the time, and wish I'd gone by myself anyway. Sigh, a missed opportunity.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this; I seem to have gotten off track.

Tomorrow is Easter. Many people, the very religious, the slightly religious, the okay-I'll-go-so-you'll-get-off-my-back will be attending their local church. They will be learning about the resurrection, they will be singing Easter hymns, they will be dressing up in their Easter finest and kneeling before a God they have faith in.

Maybe I'm a little bit jealous of this. Maybe I feel a little twinge of guilt that my kids don't even know what church is. (This is the time for guilt, though, right? The crucifixion should definitely make you feel guilty, I would guess.)

On the other hand, I'd much rather be at the beach tomorrow morning, watching the ocean, feeling the warm sun heat up my winter-cold bones, raking my toes in the sand. Religion can be found at the beach, after all--I just need to remember to soak in some spiritualism tomorrow, along with the vitamin A in those rays.

I hope everyone had a fabulous holiday weekend and week, and I can't wait to hear more about your celebrations, whatever they were.


*My dad, a non-believer, never attended with us, except for the occasional Christmas or Easter service, or the day every year when the flowers on the altar were given in honor of his late dad.

Blog Against Sexism Day

I started writing this a month or so ago, when Blog Against Sexism Day actually occurred. But since I never could really get to the part where I condemned the whole sexist part of the story, I never finished it. I just found it in my drafts and thought it was worth finishing and posting, even if all it does is reveal me as a less than perfect feminist. (Are you shocked? Don't answer that.)

Both my parents went to college in the south, in the 60's. My mother attended Salem College, a small women's college in Winston-Salem, NC. My dad went to Carolina. Dad graduated in 1967; Mom didn't graduate, she got married and had a baby instead.

I wish I could post some photos of their time in North Carolina, in the late 60's. I saw several of them when I was home over the holidays: small, square, black and white and faded photos of clean-cut, extremely young-looking, white, happy people, posing in front of impossibly old Chevrolets, with huge headbands and flipped blonde hair, khaki high-waters, your perfectly typical Happy Days-ish kids. Alas, the photos are in boxes, in Delaware, 3000 miles and a scanner away. You will have to imagine them yourself.

In these photos, always there are four of them: my mother, my father, Uncle Mike and Aunt Sheila. My mother and Sheila met at Salem; Uncle Mike was already in law school while my dad finished his undergraduate degree, both at Carolina.

After college, my parents and my sister moved to Nashville, where my dad attended Vanderbuilt law school. I was born there. Sheila and Mike, after Mike graduated from law school, moved back to Roxboro, North Carolina, not far from their family. They started their own family in the correct manner, marrying first, finishing school, then having a girl, Zane, about a year after my mother mistakenly had me. (I don't mean anything by that, except to inform you that both my sister and I were accidents. Fertile myrtle, my grandmother used to call my mom.) By the time Sheila and Mike had their second daughter, Anderson (Don't ask me about those names, I have no idea), Mom and Dad had moved their growing family back to Delaware.

You'd think the friendship would fade away then. 7 hours away by car, no email, no voicemail, no call-waiting: how could this endure? But endure it did, happily, forcefully. The Cardens came to visit us at least twice that I can remember before I was 7. They would rent a huge Winnebago, and drive all the way up I-95, through Richmond and DC and Baltimore, finally arriving in Wilmington, a town that seemed like a city to them, coming from small-town Roxboro.

I remember being awed by the way Zane and Anderson called their parents "Ma'am" and "Sir". My own parents were strict, especially my father, but even he didn't insist on those mannerisms. Zane was younger than I was by about 18 months, but she could swim much better than I could. (They lived on a lake, and I, well, I was never a "strong swimmer". Still can't really swim. But I digress.) This stays with me to this day: how Zane got to swim in the big pool at my grandparents' house while I was relegated to the baby pool, and she was younger than me! Oh, the injustice!

Aside: Zane looks exactly like Michael: jet black hair, dark olive skin, a beautiful girl. Anderson looks exactly like Sheila: blonde, fair, all big eyes and friendly smile with none of the complexity of Zane or Uncle Mike. You would never, in a million years, imagine them to be sisters.

We visited the Cardens in those years too, though we would just drive down in our paneled station wagon--or was it the Datsun, then? No Winnebago for us, much to the dismay of my siblings and I. We loved visiting them. They lived on a lake, and had a few speedboats, and waterskis, and rafts, and a dog, and--my god, the fun we had there. I learned to slalom waterski there, one summer when I was about 10. My parents had flown me down there for a few weeks, to keep Zane company, and to get me out of their hair. Uncle Mike, with unimaginable patience, drove the Boston Whaler round and round the lake, giving me pointers, watching me come almost up and then fall, over and over and over again. Until, hours later, I finally made it up, and I've been a slalom skier ever since. Whenever I waterski, I think of him, and that long long afternoon. How he refused to let me give up, how he didn't get bored, how he even seemed to enjoy it, no matter how many times he had to whirl the boat around, dragging the ski rope back to me, across the still water.

Aunt Sheila is fabulous, too. In typical Southern fashion, she is the most friendly, welcoming person you will ever know. Pretty, bubbly, interested--no, fascinated--in you and your life, just because you are a person she loves. When I was a college freshman at Carolina, she drove up to Chapel Hill one weekend to pick me up, and in the car on the way back to Roxboro, she started quizzing me about my current boyfriend, a leftover from high school, with whom I was very much in love. The relationship was on its last legs, which I knew on a level that I was refusing to see. "Tell me what is so great about him, Amy. Tell me why you love him so!" I will never forget that conversation: no one had ever asked me such personal questions about Anton, not even my mother, and yet I couldn't be offended. Her intention was entirely pure, born of love and curiosity, and I remember thinking how strange it was that it felt so comfortable talking to Aunt Sheila, when I would never be able to do the same with my own mother.

But back to Blog Against Sexism Day. I must have been 8 or 9--so late 70s--when we all were visiting the Cardens once again. One evening before dinner I noticed a button on the refrigerator. It was a round white button with red letters-- ERA-- contained in a circle with a line through it.

"What's this?" I asked.

"Oh, nothing, honey" said Aunt Sheila. "Here, have some crackers."

"What does E.R.A. stand for?" I asked.

My mom turned to me and said quietly, "It stands for equal rights amendment, Amy."

"Oh. . . . . Why is there a line through it then, if it's for equal rights?"

"Oh, well, darlin', sometimes things are called what they shouldn't be. Now why don't you run out and see what Anderson's doing? Here, take some more crackers with you."

In typical Amy fashion, I obeyed, never one to rock the boat. I could tell something was up with that button, though, and I asked about it on our ride back to Delaware.

My parents explained what it was, and tried to explain how Aunt Sheila and Uncle Mike, people I loved like family, could be against something that seemed like it should be a given, to me. I don't think they did a very good job of it, and how could they? How do you explain that because of your gender, some people think you deserve less? It doesn't compute. It didn't to me, it didn't to my parents, and it still doesn't.

Yet, my parents have remained dear friends with the Cardens throughout the years. I have not loved them any less, even knowing this strange little fact about them. I have never mentioned the ERA to them, never questioned them for this belief, never stood up to them or tried to enlighten them.

Truth is, it is not such a "strange little fact". They were Southerners first. Staunch Republicans, faithful Christians, believers in the way it was is the way it should be. That they are also dear, funny, wonderful people doesn't really fit with that side of them, but then again, isn't that what it means to be human?

Years later my mother and I talked about it, and she asked me if I'd ever noticed how subservient Sheila was to Michael, always. (I hadn't.) His word was law, and she and her girls never questioned him. He was the king of the house, and she was his handmaid. She waited on him hand and foot, which is what he expected. Here's the thing, though--she expected it, also. She did all this willingly and knowingly, and they were both very happy in their positions. It should be no surprise that the passage of the ERA would have been difficult for them to accept.

I can't really explain why I never noticed this, except to say that I was a kid for most of the time we spent together. Then in college--I don't know, in college I suppose I was too involved in my own life to pay much attention to anyone else. Plus, they were Sheila and Mike, and that's the way they were. If I had ever seen Sheila stand up to Mike, that I would have noticed. Maybe I just didn't want to see it.

Two months after my wedding, Uncle Michael suffered a sudden, massive stroke. He died around Christmas, 1998. He was maybe 55 years old. Hanging on a wall in my house is the Thomas Kinkade painting of California Street, complete with tacky gold frame, that they gave me as wedding gift. My husband hates it, and I'm sure I would, too, if it wasn't from Sheila and Mike. If it didn't remind me of sitting in their hotel room in San Francisco, catching up, listening to Sheila tell me how beautiful I was, laughing with Uncle Mike about how many homeless people there were in town, and how I was going to go broke if I kept giving them all my money.

But I don't hate it. I love it.

Maybe part of the reason I love it so much is that it is ugly. Ugly, like the part of them that was sexist, and also racist, and homophobic, all to some degree. Then again, the painting itself--California Street, in the city that holds my heart--is also beautiful in a way, despite the cheesy paint-by-numbers thing. The fog, the trolley cars, the bridge in the background: there is enough of the good stuff to counteract the bad.

Just like Aunt Sheila and Uncle Mike, and possibly me: beautiful, and flawed.

Thanks, Phantom!

Check it out:








This video makes me want to write something about my uncle--Lloyd, who was born mentally retarded. But I'm still crazed here, not to mention hungover (birthday party went well!), so it will have to wait a few days.

As seen at Phantom Scribbler

Back to life, back to reality

We're back in L.A., back to 70 degree weather instead of 35 degree "wintry mix", and it feels nice.

You know what's odd? I was sooo ready to drop the kids off with my in-laws Friday I practically threw them out of my moving car. Yet by the time I got to Raleigh some 6 hours later I already missed them. Then, I missed them terribly all weekend and yet when we went to pick them up, within twenty minutes they were driving me crazy again. ACK.

Despite the missing of the children, I had a fabulous weekend away. Two of my college roommates came into town from Virginia, and I got to see the other one in her home in Durham. We stayed with my favorite brother in his fabulous house (yes, I am quite green with envy over that), and enjoyed my favorite spot in all of this glorious country.

I'm not sure what it is about Chapel Hill, and the people from my time there, that make me so happy. Is it just the aura of the place? The history, the beauty, the friendliness of the inhabitants? Or maybe it's that the town is mostly populated by attractive, smart 18 to 25 year olds, which gives it an incredibly youthful, exciting vibe? Then again, I can't deny the nostalgia factor--who among us can walk past that first bar we were ever thrown out of, and not get all warm and fuzzy inside?

Then the people--my old college roommates, and my fabulous brother--who knew these people would mean so much to me? I don't leave near any of them--not even the same coast--and because I have such a difficult time with the phone, we don't get to talk much. We e-mail all the time, and the blog keeps them aware of my doings (more on that later), but I feel much closer to them than our communication would indicate. Is it because we share a common experience? Is it because we were at that impressionable age? Is it because I picked people of exceptional quality? (Obviously, this has something to do with it: there are many other people that I was very good friends with in college that I no longer keep in touch with.) My brother didn't share all the same experiences, as he attended five years after me, but we still have the college itself in common. It seems perfect to me that he is the one who lives there now: it just fits him.

I guess the quick answer is: yes. It is all of those things. So without further ado, a photo-blog. (This is incredibly difficult since I only took 6 photos all weekend.)



My two college roommates, Sarah and Lori, with Sarah's younger brother John. John is twenty (you heard me right, he was four when we were in school), and a sophomore. He kept stressing out about a financial accounting exam he had on Monday, and all I could think (and say, aloud, just to be a patronizing old hag) was "Oh, if that was my only problem!"



My brother and Lance. Note Lance's eyes, which look a bit cross-eyed. Although this photo was taken Saturday night, his eyes looked quite similar on Friday night. Which only partly excuses his hungover behavior on Saturday morning, when we got to hang out with Mommygoth and her fabulous husband. She made an awesome cheesy eggy spicy casserole for us all, yum!



My brother, moments after Lance told him that I had a blog. I know! He told a family member I had a blog! I tried to explain that night, and I'll do it again here: it's not that I didn't want you to read it, Chip. It's just that if I told you, I felt like I should tell Mom and Dad and Ann, and that's, well, different. They might judge me! They might ask questions! They might correct my grammar!



Here we are, the three amigos. Sarah, Lori and I were roommates for two years, and suitemates for one. We will be friends forever, to my great delight. Sadly, I have no photos of my other roommate, Mommygoth. Too hungover to remember to take the camera to her house, but you can see photos at her blog. All I can say is: Kayleigh is HILARIOUS, David is fantastic, her house is gorgeous, and it was too good to see her.

I love these people, all of them.

Now it's off to the laundry/unpacking/grocery shopping/cleaning that fills my days. Yee-ha!

Blood is thicker than water

Ha! I just found out that James Frey is my second cousin. Now, granted, I've never met him or heard of him, but there is blood relation there. His grandmother and my grandmother are sisters. It's on my dad's side of the family, where good familial relationships go to die.

I guess my defense of him was just those blood ties coming through.

Or possibly ignorance, since the more you guys tell me, and the more I hear, it seems that he is a pathetic liar.

Oh, god. And he's related to me.

What I did over Christmas Vacation, by Isaac

First Mom and Dad ran around like crazy on the morning after Christmas, packing up all the warm clothes we own. Then we went to the airport and waited in line for a long time. Mom got me a hamburger and french fries and let me have a sip of her soda. Once we got on the airplane I had to sit in my carseat, but Vivian got to sit on Mommy's lap. I took a nice nap, and Mommy and Daddy said I was a really good boy. Vivi was a good girl, too.

When we finally got to Delaware, Grandy and Grandad were there. They have lots of new toys at their house. It was really cold, but Daddy gave me some gloves to wear. He said last year I wouldn't wear them, but this year I know that my hands will be cold if I don't. Daddy says I'm much smarter this year.



I have cousins named Sawyer and Kitchel, and they live in Delaware too. They come over and play with me a lot. In Delaware they have basements, downstairs, and it's really fun to play with the toys there.


Grandy and Grandad were really glad to see us. They said we grew a lot since we went to Hawaii.


One day a bunch of kids came over. Mom said they were my second cousins.


Then, another day, Daddy's brother Mark and his wife (the good ones) came and stayed with us. They live in Virginia but drove up to Delaware just to see us. I think they are really nice people. Maybe they can switch houses with my daddy's other brother.


Daddy had to go back to California to watch the Rose Bowl. Mommy and I rooted for the Trojans, but they didn't win. Daddy was too sad on the phone to talk to me.



Mommy has a friend named Susanna who lives in Delaware and she has a baby in her tummy. I tried to see the baby but I couldn't. Susanna said she would send me a picture of the baby when it comes out of her tummy. How does that baby come out of there? Susanna has a little girl named Stella who just turned three. Stella is hot! I think I love her.



Mommy and Daddy leave us with babysitters a lot in Delaware. Once they went with Uncle Chip, Leigh, Uncle Ed and Annie to New York City. They even rode the subway and a nice man took their photo. Daddy says we have subways in L.A., too, but I don't believe him.




They saw Chicago, and met Huey Lewis after the show. My great-aunt dated him a long long time ago, so we are practically related. Mommy said she and Ed were the only ones brave enough to get a photo.



Mommy and Daddy went out for sushi one night and left us with a babysitter too. Daddy couldn't believe they had sushi in Delaware! Even Grandy and Grandad went and ate some raw fish. I don't think I like sushi.



I really miss my Daddy. I told Mommy it was time to go back to California. She said she misses Daddy too, but he has to work hard to make money so we can eat.

Well, that's all so far. I'd tell you more but Mommy is making me take a nap. She doesn't like to wake up before 6am, but I do.

Shhhh!

I am here, in Delaware, on my Dad's home computer, DYING--dying, I tell you!--to regale you all with tales of the last 10 days of my life, but I am afraid. My dad is very non-computer savvy, so I don't think he would be able to check the google drop down bar to see where I've been, but I can't be quite sure.

I just can't stand having that hideous post about Brad up at the top for one minute longer, so it's worth the risk.

The worst sadness of all is that I can't check in with all of you. What the hell am I supposed to do during nap-time? There's not even any CSI episodes TiVo'd for me to watch!

Please, stop doing or writing anything funny or interesting until I can get to a friend's house to read you. I mean it!

I may post a few pictures of our trip so far, if I am brave enough to stay on this page for much longer. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!!

Matching set

When I was a wee child, my parents did not have a lot of money. My dad graduated from law school when I was two and my sister was four. For several years after that, he was getting his footing, and it wasn't until my adolescence that we began to live comfortably, and then well. As a result, my mother made many of the clothes that Ann and I wore.

About twice a year, a box of clothes would come in the mail from my great-aunt and great-uncle, who lived in Nashville, Tennessee. They had two daughters, who were about 10 years older than we were. They lived very well in Grand Ole Opry land, and dressed their daughters to the nines in matching dresses befitting the times. Unfortunately, by the time Ann and I fit into these clothes, the "times" would be 10 years past.

How we dreaded seeing that box come in the mail! Oh, the ugly matching dressed it would hold. My mother forced us to wear them all, not wanting to let any free gift go to waste, much less expensive dresses that she could never afford to buy us. No matter that the style in Nashville is much different than the style in Delaware. No matter than peter pan collars have been out of style for 8 years. Ann and I would beg and plead to get out of wearing these dresses, or at least not have to wear them at the same time, but to no avail. I'll have to find some old photos so you can see just the how bad they were.

Consequently, children in matching clothes make my skin crawl. I have a feeling that even without the traumatic childhood memory, children in matching clothes would make my skin crawl, but this is my excuse. Once, at a holiday party, I saw a whole family matching: the same plaid in the mom's skirt, dad's pants, little boy's short overalls, and little girl's dress*. YUCK.

This year, my mother-in-law purchased a cute red plaid outfit for Vivian to wear at the holidays, with a matching plaid button down shirt for Isaac. Fortunately, I felt comfortable enough to thank her profusely, but mention that I just didn't like the kids to match, so I'd probably just have them wear each outfit to different events. I reassured her that I would be happy to put them in their matching outfits and take a photo for her, and she rolled her eyes, but otherwise accepted this deal, no doubt chalking it up to yet another character flaw of mine.

So. You may imagine my surprise when I realize that my son likes to match his sister. Every night at bedtime he runs excitedly into the room, saying, "Let me pick out the p.j.'s, Mom, let me! Here, here, Vivian should wear these ones. I think she likes these, Mom!" He'll pull out a pair of hers, one of the one-piece ones that snap up the front, and then race to his drawer, searching for his. He only has two pairs that snap up the front, and both of them are too small, but he insists that if Vivian is wearing a one-piece, then so must he. The other night, he got more specific, insisting that Vivian wear the pajamas with the trucks on them (a hand-me-down, they used to be his), since his also had trucks.

So far, this need to match has only manifested itself in night-wear (thank god), but I wonder if it's only a matter of time before he is asking his grandmother for matching clothes for his birthday. Oh, she will be so vindicated!


* Okay, here I have to admit: that family is related to me. My mother's first cousin and her family.

The morning after

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love Christmas, too--but Thanksgiving holds a special place in my heart.

The first time I spent Thanksgiving away from my immediate family, I was about to be 24 years old*. I had been living in San Francisco, had fallen in love with Paul, and--in an effort to cut my ties to him, had quit my job, given up my apartment, and flown to Singapore, where my favorite uncle and his family were living. Unfortunately, those ties to Paul were stronger than I was, and he ended up flying over to travel through Thailand with me. We spent a month traveling, then returned to Singapore just before Thanksgiving. My uncle, who worked for DuPont at the time, had business in Hong Kong or somewhere, so my aunt and two young cousins (ages 12 and 10) had arranged to go to the local American club for dinner. Paul and I tagged along.

That Thanksgiving is not necessarily a favorite of mine: it felt strange to be eating Thanksgiving dinner in a restaurant, in a country that did not recognize the day as a holiday, in a climate that felt very much like the middle of summer. I knew that Paul and I were finished, and each day spent with him was just rubbing a sore spot raw. My aunt and cousins were similarly out-of-sorts: after all, their own father wasn't even around. But I do remember feeling somehow grown-up; I survived a major holiday without any immediate family, and it wasn't that bad!

For many years after that, I went home only sporadically for Thanksgiving, saving my vacation days to come home during the Christmas holiday. Back in San Francisco, I befriended Jen, and spent several Thanksgivings with her family--all of us crowded into her sister's tiny apartment, the assorted cast of characters changing from year to year, depending on who was dating who. Those Thanksgivings were full of love and fun, and I remember them with the same kind of nostalgia that I do my own childhood holidays.

Once we got married and moved to L.A., Lance and I started rotating holidays--spending Thanksgiving with one family and Christmas with the other, then switching it the following year. By then my sister had married and had kids, and I no longer felt such a need to prove my independence, which made going home something to look forward to again. My parents bought a vacation home in North Carolina, and we started spending Thanksgivings on the Outer Banks, instead of Delaware. Instead of all the aunts and uncles and cousins and second cousins, it was just my growing immediate family, with the occasional grandmother or cousin thrown in.

In Los Angeles, Lance's mother usually made dinner. Sometimes the cousins would join in, and usually the grandparents were there. Once, Thing One and Thing Two made an appearance. Sometimes Heidi joined us for the festivities.

Last year was the first Thanksgiving after my grandfather's death, so instead of spending the holiday with their own immediate families, my mother's whole clan stayed in Delaware, and we had Thanksgiving at an uncle's home. Everyone was there--my grandmother, all 6 of her children and their spouses, 12 grandchildren and their spouses, 8 great-grandkids. It was the first time since the funeral that we had all been together. Very reminiscent of the Thanksgivings we had as small children, with the kids playing in the basement and the adults chatting and drinking upstairs. Also bittersweet, because my grandfather wasn't able to enjoy it with us.

This year, Thanksgiving was held at my mother-in-law's again. Fortunately, Thing One and Thing Two couldn't make it. Instead, we invited our neighbors, who have two boys, aged 3 and 2. Our friends Del and Jen came, too. And Lance's two living grandmothers. It was a wonderful group, made all the more exciting and fun because the kids were absolutely wild. Isaac could not contain his excitement at having his two best buddies over to his grandmother's house, and spent much of the evening running from room to room, grabbing toys from here and there, shrieking and laughing with the sheer delight of it all. Vivian even got into the swing of things, getting so excited about a Turkey shaped sugar cookie that she almost fell out of her chair.



It was wonderful, and unlike any Thanksgiving before it. In fact, since I started living on my own, most Thanksgivings have differed dramatically. The location, the people, the mood of the holiday changes each year. To me, that's what Thanksgiving has over Christmas--you never quite know what to expect. Yes, there is always turkey, and mashed potatoes, but everything else is subject to change. It might be small, with just Lance's parents and our little family. It could be large, with all the extended cousins and grandparents. It may be mostly friends, with just a few relatives. Or maybe everyone at the table is related to you by blood or marriage. Maybe you spend the morning walking on the beach in a t-shirt. Or you bundle up in wool sweaters to brave the wet cold air. One year, my mother even put oysters in the stuffing. If you are very lucky, everyone in the room loves each other--so whether it is the first holiday without a loved one or the first one with a new baby, everyone leaves feeling full--of food, of hope, of contentment.

I feel very lucky.


*Rah, if you are reading this: what did we do the year before that? Did we do Thanksgiving together in Mill Valley? Or were we fighting already by then? For some reason, I can't remember Thanksgiving 1992.

Hawaii, Part V

The Ugly

(Again: certainly there was nothing "ugly" about our vacation. It's merely hyperbole, for effect. See how creative I am?)

My father is a complicated guy, and I've talked about him a little bit here. Of course I love him, and I know he loves me, but he can be difficult. One thing about him: he never sits still. He needs to always be doing something, learning something, moving. He loves self-improvement books, reads them by the bushel-full and actually takes their advice and tries to apply it to his own life. Oh--and he speed-reads. Yes, with his finger and everything. He learned how to speed read when he was in law-school, working part-time and trying to be dad to my sister and I. He's done it for my whole life.

Wherever we go on vacation, my father always needs to "explore". He likes to see what's out there, and he doesn't like to go to the same place twice. The first day we got to Maui, he hauled all the travel books out and demanded a family meeting so we could all work out our activities for the week. Snorkel boats, hikes, helicopter trips. Golfing, swimming, bicycling. Sunset cruises, garden tours, whale-watching. You name it, he wanted to do it. What he doesn't want to do is sit on the beach and rest.

For a guy so "on the go", he has raised 3 fairly lazy kids. Me? When I'm on vacation I like to sit on a chaise lounge in the sun with a mai tai and a good book. My brother is pretty much the same. My sister likes to get out and about a little--but not to the extent that Dad does. And my mother--good sport that she is--goes along with Dad on his excursions until she can't take any more.

There was a bit of resistance to Dad's excursions, not least of all because they happen to be expensive. Fortunately for me, I had a built in excuse for every event: my children need to nap. Also, they can't really swim yet, and they certainly can't go on a 4 mile "arduous" hike. So I spent a lot of time lounging by the pool at the house while the kids were sleeping. Worked great.

Other members of the family did not have such an easy out, which caused a bit of tension (this Dad was completely oblivious to). It's annoying when you're on vacation but you still can't do what you want to do, you know? Dad is definitely not the best at seeing things from other people's point of view. I will say that even I got tired of hanging out a home, not seeing much of the islands, and that after the excursions, people were mostly glad they had gone. (Though not on the arduous hike. Only Dad liked that one.)

When we got to the Big Island, even Dad was tuckered out, and we all spent the first few days lounging around. But by day 3 of that, Dad was in a foul temper, so we quickly sent him out with everyone else for what turned out to be a great hike in the Waipio Valley. (Lance and I took the kids on a driving tour, which was also kind of fun.)

The other thing about my dad: he likes to be in charge. He likes things to run smoothly. He doesn't like messes. He doesn't like to be questioned. He doesn't like 7 other adult opinions about how we should all spend the evening conflicting with his own. So, for example, when we went to a beachside park one evening for dinner, and Lance forgot the relish, and we didn't get there early enough so it was really dark by the time we ate, and it took 3 tries before we could all agree on the right park bench---that was a difficult evening for him. There was frustration, and shaking of the head, bulging of the vein on the forehead, clicking of the jaw. But we got through it!

Then there's my sister. Also very complicated. (Aren't we all?) Ann is incredibly loving and sweet, but at the same time she can be really rigid and competitive. The unfortunate dynamic of our family is that in the past 10 years, Ann has become the odd man out. Not for any real reason, it's really just happened by circumstance, and we all love her to death--let me explain.

My Dad went to UNC. My brother went to UNC. I went to UNC. My mother attended a women's college, not far from UNC and spent every weekend with my dad there, effectively "going there" too. My sister applied and was excepted to UNC but instead went to Princeton. (Can you imagine? Bad decisions will haunt you your whole life, Ann. (See, that's the kind of joke we make--and it's not really fair. Funny, to me, but probably not to her)).

My mom is fairly easy-going. My brother is completely laid-back. I am pretty good at going with the flow. My sister--not so much. She likes to be in control. She thinks she is smarter than the rest of us (she went to Princeton, after all) and she usually thinks she knows the best way to do things. You know what? She probably is smarter than the rest of us. Smarter than me, anyway. But that still doesn't mean I like to be told which bags I need to carry home, or that Ed will listen when she tells him to bring Sawyer's book in the car, or that Mom will appreciate her advice to bring more napkins and less potato chips on the hike. And even though we mostly shrug our shoulders and continue on in our mild-mannered way, we still kind of form a bond in opposition to her, rolling our eyes and cracking jokes at her anal tendencies.

Also--I moved to San Francisco after college. Chip moved to San Francisco after college. Ann moved back to Delaware. Although neither Chip nor I live in SF anymore, we share memories of that place that Ann doesn't. And neither Chip nor I live at home now, so the relationship we have with Mom and Dad is totally different than the one she has.

I feel, to a certain extent, like the prodigal daughter. Everytime I go home, everyone is always thrilled to see me (Ann included, of course), and I'm thrilled to see them. We're all on our best behavior. Then, before we start annoying each other, I'm gone. We get to appreciate each other, without psychoanalyzing or questioning each other's motives and decision-making skills.

I think the same can be said for Chip. And anyway, he's a boy and has a different relationship with Dad altogether. I think Ann is just a little bit jealous of that, especially since she knows there's nothing she can do to change it. She can't become his son, after all.

Since Ann lives less than a mile from Mom and Dad, she doesn't enjoy the same easy, surface relationship. She actually knows them much better than I do, and they know her and her children much better than they will ever know mine. But they grate on each other's nerves more easily. They criticize each other more and are less appreciative of each other. And again, I think she is jealous of the easy way the rest of us get along.

Plus, Mom and I are more alike--we laugh at the same jokes, which, Ann, in her seriousness, doesn't always get. We get pissed off at the same things but don't let a lot of things bother us at all. I don't think Ann really understands where we are coming from most of the time. And that frustrates her. Also she feels ganged up on. Like it's Mom and me versus her.

It's kind of an odd dynamic and I wish it wasn't so. I tend to feel a lot of guilt about her whenever I'm home, because I know that on some level, things are easier for her when I'm not around.

We still had a great time together, though. Here's a photo, to prove it:

Hawaii, Part IV

The Bad

(Note: of course there is nothing truly "bad" about a 2 week vacation in Hawaii, but . . .)

On day 5 of our trip Vivian began experiencing some diarhea. I guess it was a bug, though my original assumption was an allergic reaction to something she ate. (Papaya? Purple sweet potato? Vanilla soy milk? An excess of sugary juice boxes?) She maintained this--shall we say, soft--consitution for the remainder of the trip (12 more days). Which meant we went through about a gazillion diapers. Does anyone really want to change 8 poopy diapers a day while on vacation? From one kid? Yuck.

True to form, however, she remained happy and non-plussed by the whole situation, until the end of our trip, when her diaper rash got the better of her. By that time her ass was red, raw and chapped. The Desitin we used made it sting, and she would just stare at me, screaming in horror and pain for what seemed like hours after every diaper change. My poor sweet girl! We took her in the ocean one day around that time, too--talk about pouring salt into your wounds. Oops. Finally we procured some Bacitracin--that, combined with the eventual slowing of her digestive tract, cleared her right up. Also she spent some hours out by the pool in the nude, which--whether or not it helped--was pretty damned cute.



See?









Also at the end of the trip--right about the time Vivian's ass was getting better--Isaac mysteriously became feverish. He didn't have any other symptoms--just a fever--and motrin brought it down fairly easily. Once the medicine wore off, though, the fever would come back, and he'd get all glassy eyed and miserable. This first appeared on a Friday night and continued until Monday around mid-day. I gave him his last dose of tylenol in the airport. But since we would be home in a few days, and since as long as I kept the fever down he seemed pretty happy, I didn't bother calling the doctor. Once we got home, he developed a rash, and when I googled his symptoms, they pretty exactly match those for Roseola--so I never did take him in. He seems fine now. But he was pretty miserable for a little while.







Here he is before the tylenol kicked in.





For most of the trip Lance and I shared a bed with Isaac (we rented a crib for Vivian). We had a king size bed in Maui, and a queen on the Big Island. Isaac, for whatever reason, hates bed covers. Also, he must sleep in a horizontal position (as in, cross-ways). So, with Lance hugging one side and me squeezing in on the other, the three of us formed an H each night in bed. Not the most comfortable way to sleep, nor the most romantic. Especially since we were not allowed even the thinnest of sheets to cover us, or he would wake and demand sleepily, "No covers, Mommy! Nooo!"

The time change also made sleeping difficult, for no matter what we did Isaac refused to sleep later than 6am. Often he and his sister would wake, for the day, closer to 5am. This made both children incredibly fussy by lunchtime, after which they would nap for sometimes 3 or 4 hours. Long naps are great when you are at home and want to watch all your TiVo'd episodes of Bernie Mac, but when you're in Hawaii, there are often places you'd rather be around 4 pm than waiting for the kids to wake up. Like, say, the hotel bar for happy hour. Fortunately, both homes we stayed at were gorgeous, so it wasn't a true hardship to have to read some dumb mystery novel by the pool all afternoon. We did have some long days, though. And I'm sad to report that the time change has not worked in the reverse since we got home: the two munckhins are still up by 7:30 every morning. Sigh.

Here's another photo, taken on Sandy Beach on Oahu, just to prove how much all the complaining above is truly un-warranted:

But do notice the time stamp: in Hawaii Time it was 9:01 am and we had already been out on a 1.5 hour driving tour, stopped to have breakfast, and played on the beach for a long time before this phtos was taken. That morning we were up at 5.

Hawaii, Part III

I'm afraid these posts on Hawaii will never end.

To continue, with The Good:

Last year, my in-laws took us to Hawaii (yes, I know, we are spoiled, spoiled people) when Isaac was 19 months old and Vivian was 3 months old. We had a fabulous time, but Isaac was a nightmare the whole trip. It was 10 days of the longest never-ending temper tantrum ever witnessed on this planet. So we were a little apprehensive about his behavior this year, especially after the hellish plane ride.

Fortunately for everyone, he was actually quite charming for most of the trip. He loved Hawaii, loved the beach, the ocean, his cousins, swimming, eating at "restahlants", riding in the van--all of it. He really did have a grand time, and it was much fun to see.

Last summer Isaac had swimming lessons and this year he has been in my mother-in-law's pool fairly often. But he definitely didn't know how to swim. He didn't like getting his head wet or going under and was just starting to learn how to blow bubbles. It goes without saying that we spent a lot of time at the beach while we were in Hawaii, and the ocean there is a very comfortable temperature, unlike the Pacific here in LA, which I swear to you, hovers around 65 degrees year 'round. (How anyone swims in that water without a wetsuit baffles me, but then again Lance claims I'm soft, so who am I to say?) Anyway, in addition to the easily accessible ocean, both homes we stayed at--in Maui and the Big Island--had swimming pools. So we spent a lot of time in the water. Isaac probably spent a good 70% of his time when he wasn't sleeping in the water.

And he basically swims now. He was boogie boarding by himself in the ocean by the time we left. Several times he got tumbled by a wave and just got up giggling and kept going. I am completely amazed, as I for one am a terrible swimmer and don't really enjoy the ocean except to sit next to and read. The real test will be when we go down to the Santa Monica Beach and he tries to swim in that water. It's definitely rougher, deeper, and MUCH COLDER. Time will tell . ..












Isaac's language skills have been improving lately, too, which makes for some interesting conversations. One day at the beach, he had been pestering some girls and their beach ball for about an hour when I finally dragged him away. As we sat on our chairs drying off, he said "Can I play with the ball, Mom? Where's the ball? Did you see the blue ball? Can I play with Kristen?" And I would answer, "Not right now, okay?" After about 5 minutes of this I said, "Let's not talk about the ball anymore, okay, Isaac. Let's just think about something else." And he said: " Mommy, why are you being a little pest?" I kid you not. One night Kitchel and Sawyer decided to skinny dip in the pool, which involved, again, much squealing and giggling, especially when Lance came outside. Isaac went in the pool too, in his diaper. Later he said, "Sawyer was wearing her coochie in the pool, right, Mom?" And one day at the beach a little boy was swimming naked--to which Isaac asserted, "I saw that little boy's crack, Mom. The little boy was swimming with his crack."

He also somehow picked up the expression "I'm okay!" while we were there, as in "Do you want some milk, Isaac?" "No, I'm okay!" This quickly morphed into his answer to every request we gave that he didn't want to honor: Me:"Time for night-night! Let's go get in our pjs!" Isaac: "I'm okay!" Lance: "Have some more chicken." Isaac: "I'm okay!" Even this morning when I said "Let's go to school!", he answered "I'm okay, Mommy. I don't want to go to 'cool."

Somehow on this vacation, he also (finally!) learned to say thank you. We have been working on pleases and thank yous all along, but he only remembered about 50% of the time. Now, thank you is his favorite word, it seems. Very cute. I hand him his shirt: "Thank you, Mommy." I put his plate down in front of him: "Thank you." And so on.

Sadly, this politeness did not temper his demands, so often you'd hear, "Get in the pool, Mommy!" MOMMY! GET IN THE POOL!" "I'm okay! I don't need lunch! NOOO! NO LUNCH! GET IN POOL!! And then 7 minutes later as he's sitting at the table, "Thanks for my juice box, Mom."

Vivian also had her share of good moments on the trip. She finally got one large front tooth, so now she has a total of 3, though none of them are all the way out yet. That one front tooth really changes her face though (Sob.) She is so much sturdier now than she was before we left. And get this: she actually stood on her own a few times, for about 10 seconds each! So perhaps she will be walking before she's two. She was pretty angelic the whole vacation, despite the fact that we moved around so much. Really both my kids were surprisingly adaptable the whole vacation, knock on wood. She remains an exceptionally calm, laid-back child, happy to go to whoever wants to hold her, content to play with a shell necklace for 15 minutes at a time while the rest of us drank our Mai Tais, and Kitchel and Sawyer turned cartwheels on the lawn while Isaac ran between them giggling hysterically.

She also loves the water, and would crawl straight into the ocean without a care. She loves playing in the sand, especially finding old cigarette butts to suck on (oops!). She, with her beautiful olive skin (lucky bitch!) got incredibly tan despite the 50 sunblock I lathered her in (her brother and mother remained pale and see-through, as always), and her hair turned much blonder. She does have my hair in one sense--when it was humid, she get little curls in the back; and when it wasn't, straight as a poker.

Oh, and she's learned to say "Cheese!" Not for the food (she's allergic, dammit), but when one is taking a picture. By the end of the vacation she learned to say cheese with the best of them. Although my sister was trying to insist we NOT say cheese, since for some reason the face Sawyer makes when she says that word is not the prettiest.

That's still one of her only words--she also says ba-bie, for bottle and "birdie". She says Mama and Dada and Mommy and Daddy and about half the time she means what they say. Just today I think she's finally master "Uh", for up. So we're getting there, but slowly.





See the tooth?

Hawaii, Part II

The Good

Here I must start with my little brother. My parents have taken us on family trips like this twice before in the last 5 years or so. First we went to St. Croix in 2000, then we went to Jackson Hole in 2003. It's a great way for us all to reconnect since we are living in different areas of the country. (Except my sister and her family: they live less than a mile from my parents.) But ever since the first trip there has been a kind of family joke that Chip is the 5th wheel, since he has always been single. Usually these trips are planned way in advance, so for months before I'd be teasing him, saying things like "Chip, it's 9 months away, surely in that amount of time you can find a girl willing to be taken to St. Croix!" He's always a good sport about it, but I do think it bothered him a little, to always be the 7th at the dinner table.

Happily, this year, he brought Leigh. They have been "dating" for about 6 months or so, and it does not appear to be serious yet, but I think they care about each other. I mean, it's a big leap to invite someone 5000 miles away to spend a week with your family; and it's a big leap to accept the invitation. It's fun to see Chip in a relationship, and best of all, Leigh is fantastic. She is smart and funny and respectful and talkative (this is important, as Chip is often more the type to hang back and observe). We really enjoyed her. At the beginning of the week it seemed a little awkward between them, but once they both got used to us all and the fact of being on vacation together, they really seemed to open up and enjoy themselves.

Here's a photo, if I start feeling guilty in a few days I'll take it down:












Next, my sister and her husband. Ann and Ed are the kindest people you'll ever meet. My sister is a bleeding heart liberal, mostly because she has so much compassion for every person on the planet. They are always thrilled to see us and our kids, and it's a wonderful feeling to feel so much love every time we meet. Not only that, but they have kids, so they understand how exhausting two small children can be, and they help out all the time. One morning they took Isaac and their kids to an aquarium so Lance and I could have some peace (Vivian was napping.) They were constantly offering to take Isaac to the beach, or watch Viv for us, helping us get dinner, and so on. It's been a real adjustment to come back to California and realize that once again, it's all up to me. Sigh.

Here's another photo--again, don't get too attached:











My parents. It is always so much fun to see Mom and Dad, and I think doubly fun for me since I see them so rarely. Their personality quirks which would drive me insane if I lived with them are merely endearing when we spend but a few weeks a year together. My mother and I have similar personalities and get along well for the most part. We're both easy-going and have no problem going with the flow. My dad is very controlling and almost fastidious, but he has a lighter side, too--and on vacation we get to see more of that lighter side. My dad can be slightly oblivious, too but for the most part on vacation that just means he is happy as can be, unaware of any undercurrent of tension among the rest of us. Like Ann and Ed, Mom is a huge help, and I miss that already.


















Then there's my niece and nephew. They are at a very good age--able to take care of themselves pretty independently but not yet sullen and distrustful of adults. They are also at an age which is fascinated with all things sexual. So we had lots of squealing and screaming when they overheard Lance say "You look sexy, babe." Sawyer has figured out how to blow air into the lining of her swimsuits, filling them out and giving her fake "knockers", much to her brother's delight. "Ohmigod, that's so disgusting!" they would scream, as Lance kissed me on the mouth before cocktail hour. Once in the car, the two of them were insisting that girlfriends and boyfriends were the most disgusting things ever and when I told them that one day they would change their minds and bring home their own boyfriends or girlfriends, the screams that erupted shook the van. Literally. Seconds later they asked what names these boy and girlfriends would have and we all decided on "Big Bad Bob" and "Super Sexy Sally". This caused much more giggling and squealing as Sawyer informed me that if we took off the y, "sexy" would be a "really really bad word. The worst word in the world!" At some point during this discussion Isaac was hollering from his carseat: "I am so sexy, Sawyer! I am so sexy!" Later she told me, "Did you know that you have to have sex to have a baby? So I'm adopting!"

In addition to comic relief, these two also helped immeasurably with Isaac and Vivian. Isaac adored both of them and followed them around like a puppy from day one. "Sawyer? Sawyer?" he'd call out, looking around for her after a nap. They were very patient with him for the most part, and it was really fun to see them play together. Sawyer also loved playing with Vivian, helping me dress her and change her diaper, picking her up before she crawled into the ocean, and so on.
Once again, a photo:
















I must break here again, but of course there is much more to tell. Bear with me, I hope to be through with the vacation stories in a few days!

Oh, and to clarify: Thing One and Thing Two, happily, were not along for this trip since they belong to my husband's side of the family.

Hawaii, Part I

Hawaii. Hawaii is unbelievable, as you know if you've ever been there. Gorgeous, breath-taking scenery. Beautiful, comfortable climate. Mostly unspoiled landscape. Generally friendly locals. Most of the amenities of home while still seeming completely unique. We were in Maui for 1 week, Honolulu for 2 days, and The Big Island for 1 week. A very long, satisfying trip. So much happened, I don't really know where or how to begin.

First, the travel. Travel with babies is difficult no matter how far you go, but 5.5 hours on a plane with my two terrors is bad enough, without the logistical nightmare of lugging two carseats, two carry-ons, two babies and a stroller through the airport. Isaac finally slept for about half the trip, after spending the first 3 hours kicking and screaming, demanding to "get down!", spilling soy milk all over me, ripping the airphone from its socket, and generally being exactly the kid who makes people say,"When I'm a parent, I'll never let my child behave like that." Vivian was not quite as loud, but she refused to sleep more than about 20 minutes, which meant the rest of the time she spent wiggling and bleating out her babbles to all our neighbors. I'm sure the first 30 minutes of "Babie? Babie? Digga digga digga, dada DA DA FEEE FEE FEE" were cute; after that, it's anybody's guess. On our trip out we were in coach, which on United Airlines means that you have approximately 3 inches of leg room. Fortunately for the return trip we somehow managed to be in "Economy Plus", which gave us quite a bit more room. That made a huge difference. Our other two travel days--from Maui to Honolulu and Honolulu to the Big Island--were not a whole lot better, despite the fact that those flights were short--about 30 minutes each. Still we had to pack all our crap, carry all the crap and the kids through the airport, return the rental car and entertain the munchkins while we waited at the gate. The only good thing to come of it all is that our trip home actually seemed fairly easy--now we are seasoned traveling-with-kids parents.

Hawaii is expensive. I don't know how anybody vacations there without help from their parents or some other benefactor. My parents paid for our flights and lodging; all we had to pony up for was the rental vans and living expenses while there. We are basically tapped out now for as far into the future as I can see. But it was all worth it.

Not only did we get an awesome vacation, I also got to see my whole family. I have mentioned before how much I miss them, and how I hate that my kids are growing up not knowing them well. So it was really fun for us all to get together and spend quality time learning about one another again.

Here's the clan:
Mom and Dad
Ann and Ed: my sister and her husband. She turned 38 while we were there.
Kitchel and Sawyer: my sister's kids. Kitchel (boy) almost 10. Sawyer (girl) just 8.
Chip: my younger brother. He's 30.
Leigh: Chip's "girlfriend". This is the first trip Chip has brought a girl, though it's very hard to tell if they are serious or not.
And us.
Total of 12 people. My brother and Leigh had to go back after Honolulu.

In Maui and the Big Island we stayed in private homes. Awesome homes, each with 5 or 6 bedrooms. In Honolulu we stayed at the Sheraton Surfrider Hotel.

We took close to 1000 photos while there, which I will share with you somehow. Perhaps I will finally use that Flickr account I set up months ago. But here a warning: this is going to take me a while. I don't even know how to use the new camera yet, don't know how to use flickr, and have a gazillion things on my to do list before I get to that. Also--my family doesn't know about my blog. Is it fair to post pictures of them without their knowledge? I guess not, but I'm really tempted to do it anyway. I'll have to think on that and come back to it.

Now I'm out of time again and I haven't even posted anything of value yet. I realize this is pretty boring so far but I'll try and get to the good stuff soon.

Father knows best

Things my father told me

1. Always do your best
2. Rely on yourself
3. Don't worry about the details
4. Concentrate fully on the task at hand
5. Read, read, read
6. Obey all the rules
7. You can do anything you set your mind to
8. Be careful with money
9. Trust people, and they will be good to you
10. You can always do better


Whether or not I listened to/believed him is another matter altogether.