Just So I Don't Get Lonely

In my 9 Weird Things post I mentioned that I can't fall asleep knowing a dresser drawer or closet door is cracked open when it should be securely closed. I'm guessing that the same part of my psyche that compels me out of my bed in a state of severe exhaustion and near-collapse in order to push the drawer flush with the others also propels me into a frenzy when I can't place a particular sound. Or when a sound is bugging me, like when I'm alone at night watching TV and I hear something incessant and distant but not quite distant enough, like a clicking coming from upstairs.

I've been through lots of ear-itation (see what I did there?) this year. You could say it began with Mr. Turtley, who causes an alarming racket every time he (it?) gets hungry and which can only be temporarily muffled by an enormous pile of very expensive lettuce.

You could say that it continued with the series of tree frogs that graced the presence of our home for two loooong months. You might imagine that the unbelievably-startling late-night croaking sessions in which said frogs indulged could, well, piss me off - if not actually curse all that is sacred in this universe while utilizing every four-letter word with which I'm familiar. At the top of my lungs. You know, to compete.

But the frogs are dead and gone. The turtle is basically manageable. I highly doubt you could have predicted the current source of my audio malaise, because I sure as hell didn't.

Do you mean to say you didn't KNOW that Mexican Jumping Beans make noise?

Elan and Ariel behave, they get toys. It's nothing new. Y goes to the gift shop at the La Brea Tarpits to get these gifts, as it's conveniently located across the street from his office. As an added bonus, it contains an incredibly interesting and educational selection. This makes the whole reward process more self-serving than when we give them Power Rangers, the source of All Things Bad but most especially, my kids' worst behavior.

Okay, so the "fake" tar got all over my cream sofa. FOREVER. But anyone coulda seen that one coming.

The fossilized skull of a saber-tooth tiger? Awesome.
The 100-piece dinosaur floor puzzle? Hours of fun.
The Fossil Jelly that makes impressions with your model prehistorics? Sweet!
The wooden snakes? Rock.
The fold-out origami dinosaur book? One of the Great Wonders of the world.

The Mexican Jumping Beans? Yeah. Effing loud.

Of course, I didn't immediately realize that the constant ticking coming from the boys' bathroom (where most precious belongings seem to wind up) for a week straight wasn't an invisible, persistently-leaky faucet. To be honest, the Beans never even occurred to me. I thought they were a nice little gift, read about them when I was a kid, and for the first week Elan owned them, they didn't so much as twitch. I thought, Okay, so they're obviously dead jumping beans but HELL if I'm going to be the one to tell Elan. Just smile and tell him how cool they are.

So now, several weeks later, you could say I'm the not the tiniest bit relieved and quite a large bit irritated to find them jumping up a storm. Audibly. At night. Every night.

When I'm watching TV. When I'm on the computer. When I'm lying in bed, praying for sleep.

Yes, you might say that.

Hooray.

Foiled Again

"Can I have cake?"
"If you eat something healthy first for dinner."
"What's healthy?"
"This turkey is healthy."
"I don't want turkey."
"Why not?"
"I never had that kind before. I don't like it."
"How do you know you don't like it if you've never tasted it?"
"Well, I don't like trying someping I never tried before. Because then I don't know what it will taste like, and I don't know if it will be good, and I don't know if I will like it."

Well, duh. WAS THERE ANY OTHER WAY OF LOOKING AT THINGS??

Actually, I've heard this rationale before, and from an adult - a very close friend who has never actually tasted the likes of whipped cream, because that would just be way too wild and crazy and would you jump off the Brooklyn bridge just because everyone else was?

Yeah, that's right. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE.

"Just try it, Elan. It's only turkey. Take a tiny bite, see if you like it, and decide the rest from there. It's not such a big risk."
"O-ka-ay..."

24 HOURS LATER:

"Mommy, can I have my gum?"
"Sure, honey, here's a piece."
"Do you want a piece, too? You can have one if you want..."
"No thanks."
"Why not? Have one!"
"I don't want it."
"Why?"
"It's orange. I only chew mint gum."

Pause.

"You know, Mommy, you don't seem to like tasting new 'hings eiver."

I look at Y, open-mouthed, who says, simply: "Yes. He'll always outsmart us."

Indians and Pilgrims

My parents took us camping when we were kids - like, a lot. That was what we did for vacations. My friends went skiing in Aspen and tanning in Miami. We camped.

It was mostly pretty wonderful. My parents had the packing and the food and the bug repellent down to a science, and the entertainment was free: a lake here, a few croaking frogs there, leaping grasshoppers, leafy trails. The car rides were long, but somehow there weren't iPods and portable DVD players involved. There might have been a walkman or two, there were cassette tapes of showtunes, and certainly there were stacks of paperbacks, but mostly? There was The License Plate Game.

I didn't grow up in the Sixties and I know how old-school I sound. We had a home computer and Internet access before anyone else I knew. But it's the truth - our family trips were about simple pleasures.

I don't have many clear, actual memories of those drives, and now that I have two boys of my own, I'm pretty sure I know why - I must have blocked them out. They must have been rife with fighting and yelling. There were four boys and me. It must have been hell for my parents.

Right?

For years, we really camped, slept in sleeping bags on the floors of blue, nylon tents. I do have many, quite vivid memories of waking up in the middle of the night to pitch blackness, pounding sheets of rain, and a mouthful of blue, nylon tent. Because it always rained at night. And they always collapsed. We'd scramble to detangle ourselves from the fabric and race to the ginormous Suburban, where we'd fall back asleep under cover, listening to the downpour and elbowing one another to get comfortable.

Now that I have two boys of my own, I'm pretty sure I know what drove my parents to suffer this kind of "vacation" - they were clinically INSANE.

I'm also pretty sure I know the source of my often-crippling claustrophobia.

Eventually, we upgraded to a pop-up trailer, and we have loads of camping stories and mishaps that keep us laughing on the occasions that we are all in the same place at the same time. But at some point, I'm not sure exactly when, my mother decided - just as she did, one day, about skiing in Utah with my dad - that she was Done. With Camping. Period. And that was that.

I'm thinking about all of this now, because living in LA, you don't really have to GO anywhere to enjoy the outdoors. Living in a mountainous region is still so incredibly new to me, and the fact that I am never more than ten minutes away from absolute seclusion and quiet and trees and streams and trails and mountain lions - it never fails to impress me. The mountain views on the 101 North never fail to impress me. Yes, there is materialism all kinds of nauseating in Los Angeles. But I've only been here a couple of years, and for the mountains, I'm still appreciative.

So lately, we've been doing a lot of hiking. On Sundays, Y and I try to do something special with the kids, the old quality-time thing, and we've found that we bring out the best in each other when we are being one with nature - or destroying nature, depending on how one views a bug-collecting habit. Last week we did Malibu Creek, and today we hit Franklin Canyon, which is my favorite so far.

And I find that while I work in fashion - and delve into matters zippered, toggled, double-breasted, perfectly-worn-in, pin-tucked, embellished, ruffled, pleated and raw-edged all week long - it takes only the promise of fresh air for me to feel like I'm about six again, with dirt under my fingernails and mosquito bites on my shins. For me to throw on anything that's comfortable and durable, to ditch accessories and makeup like I've never heard of them in my life.

I also find that I love the freedom and familiarity of that feeling, that I love watching my sons explore and empathizing with their flushed cheeks and pounding hearts.

I like seeing Ariel - who has suddenly become afraid of EVERYTHING, who sees monsters in every shadow, who deems anything other than blazing sunlight "too dark," and who refuses to bathe in the kids' tub because a scratch on the bottom of it "has wings" - fearlessly plow up a steep incline to stand on the edge of a cliff, look down, and beg to go higher, to reach the very top. (Yes, Buba, I do hold his hand.)

I like the sight of Elan's face in the car on the way home, his eyes bloodshot with wind-burn and the strain of keeping them open a little longer, as he tells Y and me that he "really loved the day."

I remember both the taste of nylon and the PTSD-inducing shock of being jerked awake to a collapsed tent somewhere in the middle of America, and for years, I was glad those days were behind me.

But these days, these years, and especially since I started working, I'm feeling like my parents were maybe less crazy.

And more along the lines of genius.

Career Potential

I've written in the past about the school projects that the boys' teachers have so obviously made themselves, and which I'm expected to cherish forever anyway.

But last week, Elan came home with something pretty fabulous, his eyes twinkling with pride and excitement.

"Mommy, you aren't going to believe what I made you. You're not going to believe it. It is..."

He whipped his hands out from behind his back.

"...A necklace!"

Actually, it was a bracelet. But I opted not to correct him.

"Can you believe it?" He repeated.

Truth be told, the bracelet was a thing of beauty. Strung on twisted green pipecleaner, multi-colored buttons jangled and dangled from it in random succession. I slid it onto my wrist and informed Elan that it was the single most beautiful thing I'd ever laid eyes on in my life.

"And Mommy," he said, his voice hushed and serious. "See these parts?" He pointed to some tacky metallic buttons painted a too-bright gold. "They're golden! Do you have any'hing else what's golden??"

"No," I replied. "At least not like that. I will take VERY good care of this golden jewelry from my big boy."

He beamed. "You should keep it in that box where you keep all of your necklaces so you don't lose it, okay?"

"Yup. In the jewelry box it goes. Don't worry."

Suddenly, he looked concerned. "Listen, Mommy. You have to share it with Daddy too, okay? So he doesn't get sad. I made it for BOFE of you."

I sighed, trying to appear disappointed. "Oh, all right. I suppose I'll share it with him. I was going to wear it to work tommorrow..."

"Take TURNS wearing it to work. One day you will, and the next day Daddy will."

"Sounds fair."

The next morning, true to my word, I came downstairs dressed for work, makeup on, hair done - and a large, colorful, pipecleaner bracelet on my wrist.

"Hey guys," I said to the boys, all casually. "I'm just getting ready to head off to work, you know, me and my golden bracelet here."

The kid smiled so hard I thought his face would crack.

At the office, a co-worker was examining a waist-long necklace we'd be selling, made of large balls of brightly-colored twine.

"Can you believe this piece?" She asked.

"It's pretty funny. I'm surprised people will buy it," I said.

"I know - it looks kind of like the style of your bracelet there."

"My four-year-old made this. I promised I'd wear it to work. Of course, my husband gets a turn tomorrow - should go nicely with his suit and tie."

She laughs. "That's adorable! Looks like something we'd sell. He's right on trend!"

"How much is that one going for?" I pointed at the balls of twine.

"Guess."

"$200?"

"Not even close. You'll die - $665."

And it's not even golden.

Peer Pressure

On Sunday, I had the pleasure of taking Elan out alone to get him new shoes. And since the shoe store is right next to Baskin Robbins, we went there afterwards. Elan wanted to know if we were going to take the ice cream to go or eat there. He really wanted to eat there.

He got his usual - Mint Chocolate Chip, in a cup, no cone. I threw all of my morning's intentions to diet into a scoop of Oatmeal Cookie, which I'm generally a sucker for in any form. Sugar cone, too, please.

We were the only ones in the shop, and as we sat down, I was struck by the intimacy of it all. I'm rarely entirely alone with one of the kids, with no distractions or things-to-do. It was - well, wonderful, and I figured we should talk, so I asked Elan about school, for a detailed account of his classroom's daily schedule. He obliged, but seemed kind of bored.

"So," I started, taking a lick. "What about your friends? How are they?"

Well. His friends. Why didn't I just go ask Al Gore what he thinks of George Junior and see if he's got anything to say on the subject.

"Well Kevin is the boss so when Meir took our dinosaur and he didn't ask if it was okay and it was OURS because we got it first but he just took it so Kevin said well then we aren't your friend because that isn't nice and then Meir gave it back but we still were mad because he can't just take some'hing other people are playing with but you know sometimes when I do some'hing Kevin doesn't like he says I'M not his friend and it makes me sad and then he goes and tells secrets to Meir and he says I won't tell you, so you know what I do? I go and tell a secret to DREW and I tell him in his ear and I DON'T tell Kevin or Meir and you know Kevin is the boss so when you gave me those cheese chips in my lunch and everyone wanted some I gave everybody just ONE because Kevin said that's what I had to do and he's the boss."

Kevin is a three-foot-tall twig with an uneven crewcut and the voice of a 65-year old man with a lifelong smoking habit. Hardly your standard profile for the mob godfather.

"It seems like Kevin's kind of bossy sometimes, Elan. I'd like you to do what YOU want to do, not what he wants you to do. And also, you shouldn't give in when he says he's not your friend - he's just being manipulative."

"What's 'manipulative?'"

"Saying something to get someone to do what you want. Don't give in to that."

"Well, you know what? I am not going to give my cheese chips to ANY girls. Even if they want. Because I don't LIKE girls."

"I'm a girl."

"Except you."

"Why not?"

"Because Kevin says girls are gross."

"They aren't."

"Well you know WHAT? I am never going to MARRY a girl. And I'm never going to kiss - I mean MARRY one." (Shy smile.)

(Glancing in the rearview mirror, as this conversation has taken us through our ice cream and into the car:) "You don't have to worry about that for a long time yet."

"But even when I'm GROWN-UP, I will never want to marry her."

"Who?"

"The girl that wants to marry me! Even if the man says I have to, I will just RUN AWAY!"

The 'man?' Who, Girl Who Wants To Marry Him's dad? I really didn't want to have to think about this yet.

"Okay. I won't let anyone force you to marry them."

"Good."

We are home. Y smiles when he sees us, and Elan rushes to show off the new superhero sneakers he'd worn home from the store. We hand over a pint of Cookies 'N Cream, and Y says, "So, did you have fun?"

"It was great," I reply. "Elan and I had a little date."

"It was not a date!" Elan protests, rolling his eyes.

And it occurs to me: How much does this kid know?

Where Things Stand

It's been hard to write lately because I have so much less time than I used to, and because I can't write about my job, which would be such good material. And less time in general means less time to process every little thing that happens between my children and I, to grasp the poignancy of these moments with enough leftover to aptly communicate it to anyone who might be listening.

But it's even harder to write about Ariel, who is at such a delicious age, that age when you wish so badly that you could just videotape their every move and every tantrum, because they're just that amusing, that entertaining.

I want to write about him so I have a record, but it's hard because he is developing SO quickly, becoming a thinking and frightfully-opinionated person more rapidly than I can track. His level of reasoning is more sophisticated with each passing day, and there are so many oh-my-god-did-he-really-just-say-that moments that when I want to blog about him, I get overwhelmed with the where-to-begins of it all.

How to describe my child?

Lately, we've enjoyed watching him try to figure out who he is and where he fits in this world, and he seems to be of the belief that those answers are best understood when placed in context - in relation to everyone and everything else.

"Mommy? Yer a girlie. Just like all da udder girlies. Like Esti Hammi in my class. Da only gurl."

Or:

"I'm seventeen. You're one, Mommy."
"Actually, I'm twenty-six."
"Oh, yes yes. Right. Yer twunny-six, jus like ME."

There is also evidence of his ongoing urge to take a stand and argue a cause, and he seems to feel his best chance of gaining the jury's sympathy is by channeling his inner Mommy, in his best Authoritative Voice:

"Ariel, I'll stay with you for one more minute. Then you really need to get some sleep."
"NO. You will stay for twunny-wunny meenutes and DATS FINAL."

He's also good at finding ways to delay the inevitable, like taking a nap:
"MOOOMMMMY! COME HERE!! I NEEEEEEED YOOOOU!"
(Rushing upstairs:) "What, Ariel? Are you okay?"
(Chin in his palm, with a let's talk expression on his face:) "My brudder Elawn is really funny, huh?"

And then, there are the ever-remarkable powers of manipulation that toddlers seem to learn before you've realized they know how to speak - these, too, are getting more impressive all the time. When I refuse Ariel something, his immediate response has become:
"Nuh-uh, my daddy said ye-es!"
Never mind the fact that he never did ask Y's permission, nor that Y needn't even be home for him to apply the tactic. When speaking to Y, it's "my mommy said ye-es," and, as you might have guessed, when both of us are present, his "brudder Elawn" is the one who gave him the go-ahead.

Also not surprisingly, he's a little songbird, and once on a kick, can throw four or five complete songs into the universe for posterity at the top of his lungs. (For volume, he's his own cheerleader: "Goooo, Adiel! Say! It! Louder!") He recites the alphabet in two languages, knows most of the Beatles White Album, and has memorized a slew of PBS theme songs - which you KNOW I love.

We can't take him to a movie theater because Ariel prefers to provide a running narration during a film so that he can be PERFECTLY CLEAR on who is a bad guy, who is a good guy, and who "can't walk because he's SO old."

He knows about the world of Bad Guys because Y taught him. Y taught him about the notorious Gray Goose Monkey, which Y claims to have come across during his sabbatical in the jungles of Africa (prior to meeting me). No, said sabbatical never actually took place, but Ariel will tell you what the Gray Goose will do, should you happen upon one: "Squeeze yer brains out of yer head and bite yer ears off and make yer eyes POP OUT!"

Thanks, Y, for that.

Lest you think his understanding of good and evil only applies to fictional animals, Ariel has also labeled Nicolette Sheridan's character on Desperate Housewives, the conniving, perpetually-lingerie-clad temptress Edie Brit, a "bad gurl."

To which I can only say, let's hope intuition always serves him as well.

It's Raining Flakes

I'm dropping Ariel off at school, and spy one of his teachers, who also babysits my boys on the days my mother-in-law can't. Our eyes meet, and she yawns dramatically.

I approach.

"You ok?"

"Yeah, I'm just not feeling well at all lately. I can't sleep at night, I'm not getting any sleep these days. I just don't know what's wrong with me."

I put on what I hope is a concerned, empathetic face and then remember that I have to get to work. I don't have time to shmooze. What does this mean for me? I think.

"So what does this mean, hon? Are you still okay to watch the boys this afternoon? Do you feel up to it? Are you contagious?"

"No, I'm watching them today, don't worry. It's just...in general..."

"In general, what?" I prod.

"In general, it's just, like, I'm not sure I can handle working at the school, babysitting, and now taking school, too. I don't know if I can do it all. I'm getting stressed out. I'm not sleeping, I get, like, 3 or 4 hours a night."

You're 19 years old, single, and living at home. WHEN, exactly, are you going to have more energy in life? And who complains about 3 or 4 hours of sleep in a night? I get that most WEEKS.


Also, what school?

"What school?" I ask out loud. "You're taking classes? Are you quitting on me?"

"No! But yeah, um, I have to, like, take this certification course in order to continue working at the boys' school, and it's like, gonna be hard. I don't know if I'll be able to manage it AND babysitting."

"Well, sure. That's a lot. When does the course meet?"

"It's every day, starting at 4:30."

She babysits for me starting at 4.

"Ah ha. So it's actually IMPOSSIBLE for you to keep babysitting."

"Not necessarily, I just need to decide if I'm taking this course or not. It starts in three weeks, so I have to decide already."

"So are you?"

"Well, I just have to take it to keep my job, and I can only take it this year."

"So you are taking the course, and it's impossible for you to juggle it with babysitting because they are at THE SAME TIME, so what you're really saying right now is that you have to quit in three weeks?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

Progress. Don't panic...don't panic.

"Ok." Deep breath. "Well, thank you for telling me, because I need to start looking for a replacement."

"Right. I'm sorry."

"That's alright. Try a sleeping pill. There's a reason people get addicted to them."

And that, my friends, is how my first babysitter quit on me. I could tell her heart wasn't into it anyway when Elan would say, "Play with us? No, all she wants to do is watch TV," and I'd come home to the three of them mesmerized by a taped Desperate Housewives.

But still. No phone call? No sit-down? No formal statement whatsoever?

"I'm not sleeping great lately" at the playground = "Find someone new?"

To be 19 again.

Finding the Words

"Mommy? Do you love me?"

"I love you very much, Elan."

"How much?"

"Well, I love you past the sky, past all the clouds..."

"Well, I love YOU, Mommy, SO HIGH UP IN THE SKY HIGHER THAN ANYFING!"

"I probably love you more."

"You can't love me more, because I love you SOOOO much and SOOOOO far and high away it's a place you can't even see, there's just NUFFING there, I can't even es-plain it - it's just so big and so forever, it's - nuffing!"

"Elan?"

"What?"

"Did you just describe infinity?"

In Homage to My First Direct-Deposit Paycheck

Things I No Longer Do Now That I Am Working Full-Time:
- Rearrange the furniture/think incessantly about living-space optimization.
- Re-fold the clothes in Elan and Ariel's drawers.
- Buy "necessities," such as storage bins, as an excuse to go outside.
- Exercise.
- Eat balanced meals.
- Call people back on the same day.
- Clear surfaces.
- Yell.
- Hurry.
- Shlep.
- Cut down on caffeine.
- Get easily irritated with my kids.
- Panic in traffic.
- Complain.

Things I Still Do:
- Wake up several times most nights.
- Make breakfast, lunch and dinner for the boys in my life.
- Experience out-of-body exhaustion.
- Say terrible things about the housekeeper each Wednesday night, after she's left.

Things I Do Now That I Never Did Before:
- Set my coffeemaker each night to start automatically the next morning.
- Eat breakfast.
- Listen to Norah Jones and deep-breathe in traffic.
- Play with dinosaurs and Legos for hours on end.


Things That I Do Now More Than Ever:
- Hug, kiss, cuddle, squeeze, pinch, and nibble on my children at every possible waking opportunity.
- Appreciate my husband.
- Appreciate my mother.