Mama Wear Yellow Dress, I Wear Yellow Dress

I was worried about telling Natalie that I was getting married.

It actually produced quite a lot of anxiety for me.

That is because, before agreeing to marry Tony, I had promised to marry Natalie. She had the wedding all planned out. She would wear Mama's White Dress, a traditional gown that I wore to marry Daddy that now resides in a box in her closet. And I would wear my blue Cinderella dress, which was a great hit with the pre-schoolers at the Halloween carnival last year.

Whenever she talked about it, she'd remind me: "I wear Mama's white dress; Mama wear Mama's blue Cinderella dress."

I took off my ring when I first saw her, waiting for the right moment to break the news. When I'd found the moment, buckling her into the car after school, I showed her the ring. She grasped my hand, drawing it close to her smudged glasses.

Then she looked at my other hand and asked why Tony had only given me one ring. I told her what the ring meant, that Tony asked me to marry him and I said I would. She studied the ring, and then looked up.

"I wear Mama's White Dress and Mama wear Mama's blue Cinderella dress."

"Yes, baby. That's right."

Nothing would change that, I told her. And then I told her what marrying Tony meant. That we'd pick out a new house and paint her room lavender and that we'd have a party to celebrate. Which meant that we'd dress up.

Natalie thought about that as I drove us home from school. And then she told me her new plans.

"I know, Mama! Mama wear yellow dress, I wear yellow dress!"

She has one in particular in mind.

Watermelon

It's the universally flattering nail polish shade preferred by three generations of Fitzsimons women.

Natalie's World

Mornings around here can be a little hectic.

We get up early enough: 5:40 in order for Natalie to be at school and me at my desk by 8.

Nevertheless, we are often running behind. We lie in bed cuddling. We swaddle Baby Miss Ann and talk about our dreams. We plan our outfits. We make coffee and chocolate milk and smoothies and sausage and oatmeal.

And then about 25 minutes before we're supposed to leave, I get into the shower. And while I'm doing my makeup, Natalie brings her tea set into the bathroom. While I'm drying my hair, she stands at the door, her little lips moving, but I can't hear a thing. This is all very stressful for Mama.

Enter the camera. Lately, Natalie will disappear for five minutes, returning to ask: "Mama, I take peek-peek my babies?" She has arranged her babies just so and now she wants to photograph them.

So I give her the camera, grateful for a moment's peace. And later, I look at what she's shot, and as I click from one frame to the next I see Baby Miss Ann - lots of Baby Miss Ann - and her other babies, and me, and Elmo, and the apartment.

I see what Natalie sees. I see her sweet little life.

A New Member of the Family

The other day when I picked up Natalie at school, she ran through the playground gate without kissing me hello and straight to her classroom cubby.

"Look, Mama! My pet rock!"

We took the rock home and in the morning, Natalie went to check on her new pet. Natalie painted her blue, green and purple.

She has eyes.

And a tail.

And you'll never guess her name.

This Is a Drill. This Is Not a Drill.

Part of my job is practicing for disaster. Any kind of catastrophe that you can imagine, except for tornadoes, we are prepared for. It's a lot of pretending so that when the real disaster comes - an earthquake, a fire, an outbreak of a deadly virus - we know what to do.

Yesterday, I was in Irvine, part of a dress rehearsal for a drill scheduled for September, during which we will pretend there's been some kind of calamity at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station - which we call SONGS. All the while, serious representatives from FEMA will be standing over our shoulders, making notes on a clipboard. We get downgraded if we slip up. Like not giving the correct address of the evacuation center, or not saying "This is a drill" at the start and finish of every conversation.

"Good morning. This is a drill. My name is Elizabeth Fitzsimons and I'm representing the County of San Diego. The County has declared a local emergency and established an evacuation and decontamination center at Carlsbad High School...This is a drill."

Even when I called our County's Emergency Operations Center to ask a question.

"EOC. This is Yvette. This is a drill."

"Hi, Yvette. This is Elizabeth. This is a drill."

You get the idea.

Around noon as we were giving our third pretend news conference to the pretend news media, a SONGS representative stepped up to the microphone.

"This is not a drill," he said gravely.

CHAOS!

No, we just stood there and waited.

Turns out, someone at SONGS, who was simply to pretend sounding the sirens that tells residents of the seaside town of San Clemente to run for their lives, actually sounded them.

So we had to suspend the drill to allow the the public information officers from San Clemente and SONGS to put together a news release telling the residents of San Clemente that, no, they did not need to evacuate. I imagined the release's headline: NEVERMIND; OUR BAD.

Not sure what the FEMA man with the clipboard thought of this, but it certainly made the day more interesting. And now we are prepared for the event of the nuclear power plant's alarm going off when it's not supposed to.

My Meow Small Now

Last night Smokey came home from Daddy Waas and on the way he peed in his carrier in Daddy's New Car. Daddy was mad.

But not as mad as Smokey when Mama put him in the bath to wash off all the pee.


Natalie watched from the doorway, handing me the baby shampoo - No More Tears! - and then the camera. Her lip was quivering.

"What's wrong, honey?"

She shook her head. Her eyes welled.

"My meow small now," she said.

"Yes, but he isn't hurt," I told her. "He just doesn't like the water."

I toweled off Smokey and he ran into the dining room, where he hid under a chair.


He then spent the next four hours licking himself.

Being Here

Too often my head is down. Dinner, dishes, bath, bed. Breakfast, dishes, school and work. I check my watch. I tell Natalie to hurry.

"Quickly, please!" I say, keys in hand, shifting from one foot to the other as she stops to inspect a leaf, or search the trees and power lines for the bird whose singing she hears.

This movie, made by Natalie's dad, made me stop.

And now I remember what I often forget. That no chores, no routine, is more important than what's right in front of me, if I'd only look up.