Girl Scout Cookies!

Yesterday Natalie and I joined Daisy Scout Troop 3105 to sell Girl Scout cookies outside Wal-Mart.

By the appointed time, I had dismissed scores of excuses for not showing up and decided to just suck it up and Be The Mother. So my shy little girl and I set up shop with Natalie's friend Kalei and her lovely mom Pam.

Kalei and Natalie are perfect for each other. Quiet, sweet, unassuming. And terrible saleswomen.

Neither of them dared to make eye contact with anyone who approached our table, despite Pam and me urging the girls to at least look up, or say thank you.

Enter Christine, their fellow Daisy. Christine is not shy. She came to our table near the Garden Center from her post at the main entrance, where she had been pulling in one sale after another.

She showed the quiet girls how it was done. She even let them hold her handmade Girl Scout Cookies sign, on the corner of which she had printed: "Don't touch my poster."

After a little peer mentoring, Natalie began to come out of her shell.

After an hour, her shell was nowhere to be found.

Email

Out of the hundreds of emails that buzzed across my iPhone this week, the one Natalie sent me this morning is by far the best. Succinct, spelled correctly, true to herself and with an enthusiastic subject line. As a communications professional, I approve.

Subject: Love,Natalie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cinderella

Jasmine

Belle

Ariel

Snow White

Sleeping Beauty

Mulan

Pocahontas

Tiana

Rapunzel

Dear mama,

I love you

She loves me more than gum

Look what I pulled out of Natalie's folder tonight.

Swoon.

Not only does she love me more than gum. She loves me more than mac 'n' cheese AND dresses.

Oh, I love that little girl.

Tonight the three of us - BM, LD and BG (that's Big Mama, Lizzy Daddy and Baby Girl) - went for pizza. We got a giant pizza and a big carafe of wine and some antipasto.

When we got home, we took the dogs for a walk around the hood and LD got the hiccups. He sounded like a wino.

Then we came home and read Junie B. Jones - Natalie says "She is sooooo bad!"

A good Valentine's Day on the whole.

More than gum!

Field trip

I recently chaperoned Natalie's class on a field trip.

I don't like tight spaces with a lot of people - Costco makes me crazy - or lots of noise. I am a Highly Sensitive Person. (Are you?)

So this trip was a bit challenging for me. I recorded 15 seconds to share with Tony, so he could praise my not leaping out the window.

It was 35 minutes just like this. Can you hear the Disney music over the din?

Good help

Good help is so hard to find these days.

That is why I employ little girls in princess dresses who aspire to be Cinderella.

Here is my helper. San Diegans may recognize the orange towel. It came home from the Y in the Mister's gym bag (whoops).

Actually, I don't pay her at all. This is Natalie at play.

"Mama, can I clean the floor?"

"Hmmm. Well. All right. If you promise to eat all your dinner tonight."

Look at that shine!

She can eat hard food now

The top front tooth that Natalie's been babying for weeks finally came out tonight. Which is really terrific because it's felt like having an old person living with us. Soft food only!

This tooth has tormented her! No apples, having to bite a PB&J with her canine and first premolar. Can you imagine her relief?

She suggested Tony and I go to bed early tonight, so we don't scare away the Tooth Fairy.

She looks like a real kid now. Not so much my baby anymore.

I'm back!

I'm baaaaack!

And it's all thanks to my two faithful readers, Thyme and Kristine, who were standing out there in the dark, holding their lighters up for me. Let me tell you, when I get complaints from 20 percent of my readership, I take it seriously.

So, the last two months, in a nutshell:

1. The new job continues to be awesome and sometimes exhausting. Some days I am literally (I hate it when people say "literally," but I want to be clear I'm not exaggerating) running from one meeting to another. But it's exhilarating and amazing to feel such purpose in my work again. Someone I admire recently told me: "This is going to be the best job you'll ever have."

2. Natalie is loving ballet (see photo above) and she has signed up for tap, following in her mother's footsteps. We plan to take a Mommy & Me tap class this summer. Between tap and Natalie and I joining Daisies (little Girl Scouts), I'm in mother heaven.

3. We went to Wisconsin for Thanksgiving. It was very cold!

4. I went skiing with my dad in Aspen - my first time on skis in 15 years!

And first time on shaped skis. We had a great time. Saw a bald eagle from the chair lift! I actually missed Natalie's ballet recital because I was on a plane to Aspen. Terrible!

5. We might get a puppy. A chocolate Labradoodle. Oh they are sooo cute! We drove up to Norco last night to see them and fell for two - a boy and a girl. Now I am tormented between them. Tony says either one will be a great dog and I won't regret whatever we choose. He is always so reasonable about these things.

The boy:

The girl:

6. Natalie is getting funnier and funnier.

The other day she asked when she'd have lunch with the principal again. Lunch With the Principal is an honor at school for kids who are doing well in class.

"I think that was just a one time deal, honey," I said.
"Oh."

"Though I don't know for sure. Do kids get to go back?"

"Yeah, if they left something in there."

I called the Mister right after to tell him.

There was another funny one. Recently at school, Natalie pointed out a kid to Tony.

"That's Ronnie. 'Cept his nickname is Ronald."

7. My 38th birthday is next Saturday. I feel good about it mostly because I have a wonderful job and family. Last year I had a classic birthday of self-loathing where I said to myself: I'm 37 years old and what am I &%$##@! doing with my life?? I would feel better about it if I didn't have all these gray hairs, which I suddenly see because I had the great idea to grow out my highlights. Guess who's getting highlights again?!

8. I have a new nickname here at Mill Peak Road. Big Mama. And we live at Big Mama's House. Natalie and Tony both think it's hilarious.

That's all for now. I will try to post more regularly, Thyme and Kristine. Or I will just see you at the next Kevin Faulconer event!

Halloween

We had a nice Halloween this year, beginning with a rainy trip to the pumpkin patch and carving these two beauties, which we named Pumpkinseed and Steve.

Sadly, Pumpkinseed and Steve only lasted a few days before their teeth curled in and they started to stink up the house.

Natalie, shocking everyone, veered from tradition and eschewed her Cinderella dress (worn the last two years), opting instead for Tinker Bell. Here she is dressed for the parade at school.

On Saturday night, Tony and I dressed as our favorite TV couple from our favorite TV show, "Friday Night Lights." Coach and Tami Taylor set a much better marital example than our choice last year: the totally dysfunctional, but extremely stylish, Don and Betty Draper from "Mad Men."

Here's Coach in his East Dillon Lions gear. He even got Croakies for his shades. Authentic!

And here's Tami. Wish my hair was longer, but I think I captured her Texas spirit. That silver and turqoise belt belonged to my grandmother. The boots were an impulse purchase that I justified by telling myself I would have them for life and they were the same brand worn by Teddy Roosevelt.

After we snapped this photo, we went next door to our neighbors' house. Dwayne and Manya and their friends spent the entire day dressing up the house with spiders and centipedes and cobwebs. It was the best Halloween house I'd ever seen. Oh! And someone brought a cake in a kitty litter box, with a scooper for serving and Tootsie Rolls on top. Gross, but tasty!

I think we might keep up the TV couple theme for next year. I was thinking Archie and Edith Bunker, but Tony had a better idea: Lucy and Ricky Ricardo! I'm going to start looking now for a red wig...

Happy Halloween!

My littie gril

A favorite time of day for me is pulling Natalie's folder from her backpack to see what Mrs. Evins has sent home from Room 1.

The other day, it was a picture with a story below. Natalie wouldn't let me read it until she'd grabbed her crayons and finished the drawing at the dining room table.

Then she read it to me. And when she was done, she looked up at me, over her glasses like an adult would pausing from the newspaper.

"My name is Natalie. I am six yrers old. I am a littie gril. I like to go to the zoo because it is fun. I like to do my best."

Natalie and me on the grass; the sign says pink "because me and Mama like pink"

Of course I told her I loved it.

"You do like to do your best, don't you?" I asked.

She nodded.

The day before I started my new job I told Natalie I was nervous. She considered this, and then gave me a piece of advice I have followed every day of the last two weeks - during which much of the time I've had no idea what people were talking about and felt like I'd parachuted into a foreign country.

"I was scared for first grade. But I'm not scared anymore," Natalie said.

"Just do Mama's best and work hard."

So every day I'm doing Mama's best. I'm so proud of my littie gril.

Curly hair

The new thing around here is braiding Natalie's hair at night, when it's wet. In the morning, when we take out the braids, her hair is "curly" for school.


Actually, it's crimpy. Very retro '80s. I told Natalie that when I was a little girl, I slept with rollers in my hair. (Really, it was just two for the bangs, the rest of my hair left straight. Great look.) I shouldn't have told her about rollers because now she wants them.

I usually manage about six or seven braids and then call it quits. There's no way I'm doing rollers.
Last night Natalie was so excited about the braids and her curly hair, she imagined what her little school friend might think.

"Maybe my hair be so curly, Calista not know I'm me!"

Milestones and hope

It took me awhile before I could drive past Rady Children's Hospital and not think of the night I stood at the pay phone in the ER waiting room and cried into the receiver, telling my mother in Wisconsin that my new baby daughter had suffered two violent seizures and a CT scan of her brain showed that it was atrophied.

Not only would she be paralyzed, as we had been told the day of her adoption just a week earlier in China. She might never be a normal child or functioning adult.

I can still see the parents in the waiting room. I thought them so lucky; their children had fevers or a broken leg. They looked away as I sobbed into the phone. The next morning I drove home to find dinner on the table as we'd left it, plastic wrapping from the paramedics' instruments on the floor, and the phone on the coffee table, where I'd dropped it after calmly telling a 911 dispatcher that my year-old daughter was unresponsive.

But later that morning, I returned to the hospital to find a kindly neurologist, and then an animated neurosurgeon who reminded me of Guy Smiley. And within a few hours the diagnoses from the night before and China were dismissed. They were replaced with theories about the mysterious scar at the base of Natalie's spine and why her brain's ventricles were so large - along with the physicians' guarded hope for a normal development. There would be more visits to the ER, but we had begun the ascent.

My mom and Natalie

There were many visits to Rady Children's over the next several years. And as Natalie sat up, and then learned to crawl and walk on the padded mats of the physical therapy department, those terrible memories of that night, when I thought everything was lost, started to fade. When I'd approach the hospital on the freeway, I didn't feel sick anymore. I felt happy. This was the place that was fixing my daughter, and fixing me, too.

It had become a place of comfort, compassion, camaraderie - and most importantly: milestones and hope.

On Monday I start my new job there. I can't think of another place I'd rather be.

All aboard!

A quick post here as momentarily we will be boarding our train to Santa Barbara for the weekend to see my parents. Look at our old station in San Diego. Isn't it cool? I always thought it'd be a great place for a wedding. That's the train we're taking - the Surfliner.

This will be Natalie's first train trip other than the kids train at Balboa Park that she's ridden 9,000 times with her dad.

Not sure how many times Tony has been on a train. Lots and lots of times for me, starting when I was little.

My dad and I took the train to the Grand Canyon, where he had me stand on the edge and point into the abyss for a snapshot. We sped past moose and deer and stood between the cars shivering to see the moon. I took a train with my mom to visit my aunt in Sacramento. A mustachioed cowboy named Bart took a shine to my pretty mother with her long, strawberry blond hair, but he and his guitar got off in Cheyenne, Wyoming and that was the end of Bart.

Then there were train trips on my own as a child, from Milwaukee to spend weekends with my dad in Chicago. I was so scared of falling asleep and missing my stop. I knew Glenview, which I called Gwendolyn after my school friend, was my warning that downtown Chicago was next.

As a young adult, I took trains across Europe and through the British countryside and stared out the window,watching the landscape rushing by and thinking deep thoughts, typically with headphones on. Trains are great for deep and dramatic. I can't help but think of Dr. Zhivago and his family on that train winding through the Ural Mountains. And then, Strelnikov!

This afternoon will be a whole new experience. Cold cuts and salads from Little Italy, a bottle of wine and my two favorite people in the world. And the best part: my dear dad waiting at the station in Santa Barbara.

The hawk and the ham hock

This morning I woke from a harrowing dream.

I was on the edge of a woods, with Natalie and Tony and I think a couple of my coworkers.

I looked up to see a large hawk circling low. He swooped down for a landing 100 yards away and I shouted to him.

"Hawk!"

I expected him to know his name. And sure enough, he turned, tucked his wings back, and walked toward us. He was huge.

I thought: he is much bigger than a hawk. This is an eagle! I could see his big talons and his giant, hooked beak and I thought: maybe this wasn't a good idea.

"Go away!" I shouted.

He screeched and unfolded his wings and I realized as he grew closer and I backed up that he wanted something from me. And that he was taller than Natalie. Was he even an eagle?

Conveniently, I realized I had a ham hock in my hand. I threw it as far as I could, and the bird followed. I rounded up my family and coworkers and as we began to run I looked over my shoulder to see the hawk/eagle/prehistoric scary bird with the ham hock in his beak.

Then I woke up.

A little more on the ham hock: I used two for my bean soup on Sunday, and they remained in the refrigerator until last night, when Tony gave one to the dog. She went outside to eat it and gnawed on it with her hackles up.

Big girl

Natalie is now a first grader.

It's been a little rough.

New school. New teacher. All new kids. New after-school program.

And... no naps.

Which all adds up to an over-tired, overwrought little girl who falls asleep moments after I kiss her goodnight at 7:30 p.m. Last night, big tears rolled down her face when at the dinner table we asked her to say "please."

On Monday Natalie ran from her line for class, screaming "Mama, don't leave me!" and wailed as I pried her fingers from my pant leg. She sobbed and waved to me through the chain-link fence as I strode away, waving and smiling: "Have a great day, honey!"

By the time I reached my car, I was crying, too.

I recalled the first time I left her at daycare - for two hours. When I returned her shirt was off under her tiny overalls. She had cried and sweated so hard for those two hours, she'd soaked her shirt. For months after I went back to work, I'd have to drive us home with one hand on her little leg, because she couldn't stand any more time apart - not even in the back seat.

But she got used to it. In fact, she grew to love everything about that place. Eventually, I'd have to coax her to the car at the end of the day. This summer at the lake in Michigan she waded deep into the water as I watched from the shore, so proud of my fearless girl.

It feels now like we are starting over. But like we did back then, we try and try again. And each day gets a little bit better.

When you were a baby

Lately I have found that if I want Natalie to do anything, I appeal to her sense of nostalgia.

We went to Gordon Biersch last night and to head her off from requesting macaroni and cheese, I recalled the time when she ate there as a baby and oh how she loved the jasmine rice and steamed vegetables. In fact, the rice was all over the floor because she was grabbing it by the fistful. Silly baby!

She beamed.

"Let's order that tonight!" I said.

"Yeah!"

I remember at my baby shower Matt's sister wrote to me in a book of advice from my friends and family that I should do whatever works until it doesn't work anymore.

So right now, what's working is "When You Were a Baby ..."

e.g. At bedtime tonight: "When you were a baby you loved it when Mama read this book." (Short, easy book NOT about princesses.)

This actually is very fitting because I am quite nostalgic. As long as I can remember, I've loved looking at old pictures, old letters, recalling times passed. My college boyfriend used to tease me about it.

"You're the only person I know who wants to reminisce about the day before," he'd say.

In other news, we spent part of the afternoon painting ceramics and all I could think about was this video:

Step off little girl, that's my ...

Back to the '60s

Last weekend Tony and I went to a '60s party at the Del Coronado Hotel. It was hosted by his new men's club, the Rest and Aspiration Society, which is a fancy name for drinking and talking smart. But they are a nice bunch.

Every year they have a party that the wives attend. Which is really so weird and antiquated to me that the '60s theme seemed perfectly fitting. I happen to adore the style of the '60s and have a few vintage dresses - from a great store called Frock You! and from my grandmother's closet.

Here I am at Halloween, dressed as Betty Draper.

The day of the party I tried on this dress, but it seemed to have shrunk in the hips while hanging in my closet.

I had a backup, a green sheath from Gimbel's that my grandmother once wore. I pinned a great big brooch on it and I was ready to go.

I wore heavy black, liquid eyeliner and pale lipstick. I had my hair done, too. Here I am waiting for my martini.

The hair quickly fell though. (That $%#@! sea air.)

Tony was handsome as always.

Sadly, though, we were no match for the McNallys.

Upon arriving we were greeted by members of the host committee, dressed as flight attendants. That's my friend Stephanie on the left. Isn't she darling?

We drank martinis, ate Waldorf salad and danced to a great '60s band. We did the Twist. We slow danced. It was romaaaantic.

Here we are with our candy cigarettes.

When I left the ballroom for the Ladies Room, I turned a few gray heads. I think I reminded them of the old days.

When the party wound down and the ballroom cleared out, we started to gather up the centerpieces. I slipped off my shoes and went from one table to the next, and passed an older man.

"Barefoot and cleaning!" he said. "I need you over at my house!"

See? This '60s party was authentic!

He just keeps on livin'

Over the weekend we had house guests: Merlin and Kitty.

They live with Natalie's dad. Natalie and Matt went to the Bay Area for the weekend to see his parents in Bodega Bay and also join the 5th annual reunion of families with whom we traveled to China to meet our daughters.

Poor Merlin is winding down.
He is a dog's dog. A regal animal. The benevolent alpha male who defends Natalie and me, and graciously allows children to pull on his ears and tail. On walks with Lizzy, who is a quarter his size, Merlin walks out in front, his leash taught. Lizzy walks off leash, but keeps a respectful distance behind Merlin. She knows he is the leader, and our protector.

The Merleman has bone cancer, and Matt was told back in January that Merlin didn't have long to live. His face is totally gray now and a man we passed on a walk last night called him Grandpa.

Matt and I found Merlin in the newspaper 12 years ago. We brought him home and tried not to panic as we realized we now shared a one-bedroom, second-floor apartment with an 85-pound dog. Now he is 13, and spends much of his time during the warm months in an Elizabethan collar because his skin allergies make him so itchy he bites himself until he's bleeding.
When I take off the collar, which we call the cone, Merlin is very happy.

Let me tell you, the visit was exhausting. I am tired. Tie-urd.

I felt like I had a newborn. Except I never had a newborn. But I did have an extremely sick baby and sometimes wondered if, when I went to her crib, she'd still be alive.

The other morning - after sleeping in the guest room with Merlin, who rose to pace and pant and bark at nighttime noises every two hours - I went to make coffee. When I returned, he was in the same position, like a dead deer on the side of the road.

"Merlie?" I said.

He was still.

"Merlie!"

Nothing.

I bent down and stroked his big shoulder, running my hand along his flank, now bumpy with tumors. And he raised his head and smiled at me as dogs do. Moments later he was in the yard chasing birds, as I mixed medicine and turkey meatballs into his kibble.

After he ate he rolled around on the rug, happy with a full belly and free from the cone.

One of the best things about Merlin is that he follows me everywhere. Back when he was a pup I put him on a leash and tied it to my waist. So wherever I'd go, he'd have to follow. It was a great way to keep an eye on him and teach him to stay with me.

So for all these days of his visit, I had a constant companion who waited patiently for me while I dressed, while I cooked, while I read. Which is a nice treat because Lizzy, despite my giving her affection and treats and long walks, really just gives me the High Hat in return. She is Tony's dog, through and through. But we were both able to fake it for that fireworks video.

By the way, Kitty spent the whole time either in a corner of Natalie's room, or under the guest room bed. She once was very sweet. She used to crawl up the screen door and cuddle and play. But now all she does is hiss. So rude!
Smokey, as usual, was a good sport. He likes his big brother Merlin. Likes to sniff his tail, too.
Last night Matt picked up Merlin and Kitty and I was really sad. I worry that's the last time he'll be at our house. But then, I thought that in the springtime. But the old guy just keeps on livin'.

Tooth Fairy

Natalie’s tooth fell out the other night. Actually, I yanked it out.

She cried on and off all night, begging me to pull it. I think it was driving her crazy.

“It’s not ready to come out,” I told her.

“Please Mama. Check again.”

So after her bath, when I dry her and hug her and comb her and lotion her up – oh how I love this time of day – I reached in and pulled that sucker out. It resisted at first and I cringe typing this, but then I felt the tearing release of gum and fleshy strands holding it there (more cringing) and in an instant blood was welling in the little hole where the tooth had been.

She was wide-eyed and grinning. And relieved.

Later, in bed, the tooth in a baggie under her pillow, she asked: “Is the Tooth Fairy real?”

My heart sank a little. I thought about being her age when some punky classmate told me there was no Santa.

“Of course she’s real.”

“Mama saw her?”

“Yes, but not when I was a little girl. I was a grown up lady, but not a mother yet.”

“Mama tell the story?”

And so I told her how one night I happened to be looking out my window and saw what I thought was a star. But it was moving, closer and closer to the Earth, until finally it came down to a neighboring house – and stopped at the window to a bedroom where a little girl slept.

I saw then it was a fairy, about the size of Tinkerbell, and she slipped through the window into the room. And behind the drawn curtains I could see the light dancing for a moment or two. Then, the fairy was back outside the window and flew off as fast as she had come, back up into the sky, disappearing into the stars.

Natalie seemed satisfied. The next morning, at 5, she called from her room, waking me from a dream.

“Mama! “ she yelled through the dark. “The Tooth Fairy came!”

Baby talk

Lately we’ve been talking about having a baby.

My approach this time around is decidedly more lax.

Recently I was to have my thumb X-rayed. It had been swollen and throbbing ever since that hike in Kauai, perhaps from when I fell into the hole, or the river, or slid across the mossy rocks, desperately grasping at wet ferns trying to stay alive. Lots of possible thumb trauma scenarios there.

As is the routine, the X-ray tech asked if I was pregnant.

“No,” I told him. “I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?”

“No. Probably not.” I told him.

He cocked his head.

“Have you been trying to get pregnant?” he asked.

“Well. We haven’t been trying to avoid it.”

He laughed – “haven’t been trying to avoid it!” - and shook his head and walked me back to my doctor’s office to get a pregnancy test.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had women find out they’re pregnant this way,” he told me in the elevator.

So I took the test and waited for the nurse and was a bit surprised to find that that old, gooey, nervous hope rising in my belly. And then, the familiar dump of disappointment.

All for the stupid thumb that wasn’t even broken.

But now, five years into being a mother, the disappointment wasn’t crushing like I remember. No tears. No hating myself and my useless body and wondering what I ever did to deserve being denied what I then considered the most fundamental experience of being a woman.

This time, I got a breakfast burrito and was over it.

The most frustrating thing about all of it back then was that everything was officially fine. All the tests said so. It just wasn't happening.

Will it now? Perhaps. Perhaps not. I do know things are different now. I don't have that hole in my heart that I used to have. I feel happy with my life. I like being a mother. I have an incredible child and I'm proud of the mother that I've become. I think I will be alright either way.

Mostly, the discussions have been light and jokey, and centered on maintaining our current lifestyle. Could we send the baby to Natalie's dad's house when she's over there? Maybe we should adopt a 5-year-old because small children are really so much more enjoyable than infants. Or, we could just opt for a Golden Retriever, because that you can leave alone at home. Much more conducive to keeping the fire aflame.

Recently we floated it past Natalie.

"Would you like a baby brother or baby sister, Natalie?"

She didn't take much time to think.

"Noooo," she said.

"I already have a baby... Baby Miss Ann."

Hot cheese

Natalie celebrating her shared birthday with my Dad

We have been discussing differences of late.

Last night Natalie dug into a bowl of leftover macaroni and cheese, and I sat with a glass of wine, watching her. Natalie calls mac 'n' cheese "hot cheese." It's her favorite dish.

She swallowed a bite and looked up.

"Fahd does not eat pork," she said of her classmate. I nodded.

"Fahd is from ... near China."

She looked at me expectantly, as she does when she comes to an unfamiliar word while reading aloud.

"Afghanistan?" I offered.

"Yeah, there." She took another bite, chewed.

"Some people eat pork. Some people not eat pork."

This reminded me a conversation we had last week, after a boy asked why I was white and she was brown. ("Some people dark, some people brown, some people light. Everybody different," she said.)

Natalie was quiet for a moment as she chewed, and then added:

"I eat hot cheese."