OCD

I am standing in the bathroom just before lunchtime.  We have come inside so Annie could use the bathroom and both girls could wash her hands before eating.  Annie stands up, pulls up her skirt, and climbs onto her stool to wash her hands.  Instead of holding her hands under the running water, she cranes her neck around to look at the toilet.  

"Don't flush it!" she says.

"I know; I won't," I say calmly.

"Mom!  Don't let Jemma flush it!  Don't flush it!" she repeats, compulsively, over and over, as I continue to promise her that nobody is going to flush the toilet until she's exited the bathroom. 

*******

I am loading the girls into the car to go to the school district offices for the THIRD time to try to convince them that we really DO live here and really CAN enroll our daughter in the district for the fall.  (Birth certificate original, water bill, summer tax bill, closing documents from home purchase including previous owner's signature, our signature, address, and date of closing:  check, check, check.)  I open Jemma's door, wait for her to run over.

"I.  Have.  Something.  In.  Mine.  Shoe."  She stops, sits down in the wet driveway among a thousand maple-seed helicopters, takes off her Croc, puts it back on.  This takes five minutes.  I wait.

"Hop up!" I say.  As she climbs into the car and turns toward her carseat, I bend down to grasp her hand and help hoist her up.  She freaks out.

"I Can Do That Myself!" she yells.  "I Vant Do That BY MYSELF!"  She glares at me fiercely, climbs back down, gets back out of the car, pauses a moment to let the glare sink in, and begins the whole getting-in process again.  

******

I am reminded of the part in David Sedaris' book Me Talk Pretty One Day where he writes about how he used to have a specific routine on his way home from school:  touch this mailbox seven times, lick that stone, open the door with a certain hand in a certain direction.  Annie, Jemma, David Sedaris - they're the ones with OCD.  And I'm the one going crazy.

Byline

"Writing isn't about making money, getting famous, getting dates. getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it's about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It's about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy." - from Stephen King's On Writing

My Rapid Growth article came out today, and I'm feeling a little Lois Lane about it. Taking a minute to read it over, slowly, to see my name in print. It's a start.

http://www.rapidgrowthmedia.com/features/festival052809.aspx

Timing

Now that Annie's not usually napping but Jemma's still sleeping solidly from about 1:00 - 3:30 every day, we have a bit of an issue about bedtime.  Annie's an exhausted mess by 7:00 while Jemma's still ramming around the house, yelling, laughing, protesting even the idea of settling down to read a few books.  She's just not tired.  Last night, after tucking her in at 7:45, we heard her babbling away in her crib (happily, for the most part) until almost 9:00.  So tonight I took her for a run after we had tucked Annie in, and it was nice to be out in the humid summer night with her.  Not sure now we're going to solve this problem in the long run, though:  I don't enjoy starting the day with Annie's singing at 6:00 a.m. and not ending it with Jemma until 8:30 p.m.

*******

I've been writing more, which is good, but it also feels a little like I'm spinning plates, trying to keep every little project going.  I've basically increased my workload by two hours a day without getting any more time in which to do it (right at the time when Annie's finished school for the summer, too).  I pull out the laptop from 1:00 - 3:00 every day and I sneak moments here and there, and I stay up at night typing after Jason's gone to bed.  And I love it.  I love the thrill of telling a good story; I love the idea that I'm actually being paid to do something I'd probably be doing anyway.  But I don't love that I've lost a lot of the "me" time in my life - time I used to spend reading, talking on the phone with friends (something I do very little of when the girls are awake and around), watching the occasional DVR'd Food Network show . . . I'm searching for a balance, here, but mostly just wishing for a little more time in each day.

*****

I'm wishing lately that Annie had been born on August 11 instead of September 11, and not just because of the obvious negative connotations with that date.  For months now, I've been torturing myself over whether or not to send her to kindergarten next year or have her do young fives.  Since she is a September birthday, she's automatically qualified/recommended for Y5s, and I don't know why I've been questioning that all along.  I look around and compare her to all the other kids she interacts with every day (neighbors, schoolmates, dance classmates, Sunday School kids) and I think she looks and acts just like them.  I think about how both Jason and I went to school young and did well.  I think she's smart, capable, curious, determined, up for a challenge.  I think she's ready for kindergarten.  This is my gut feeling, and I always think you should go with your gut feeling.

But.  I also think you should always find the people, the experts, who know the most about the situation that you haven't yet experienced, and then you should take their advice.  And the experts - the district kindergarten teacher, the across-the-street-neighbor who teaches preschool and has had four kids go through the school system - all say, unanimously, young fives.  They say it's a gift of another year for her to just be a kid, that the more-confident, more-aggressive, whole-year-older girls will eat her alive, that she'll turn out to be a leader in her grade with extra confidence and poise, that I wouldn't want my 13-year-old freshman daughter at high school with the 18 and 19-year-old boys.  

I like to think that, whatever decision I make (and I say "I" and not "we" because Jason has given this about two minutes worth of thought and thinks we should just do young fives and stop analyzing), it will be fine.  And it probably will.  But don't want fine; I want great.  I want Just Right.  I want Perfect.  I want her to have been born a month earlier - two weeks, even! - so that this decision was a little easier to make.  

Thanks, Di

During dental school days, I was slowly teaching myself to cook.  As I struggled through my cooking magazines (and Jason struggled through some of my creations), I was always in awe of my friend Di, who seemed to effortlessly throw together amazingly delicious feasts for large groups of people on a moment's notice.  I remember her cooking three varieties of stuffed manicotti one night, making shepherd's pie for our book club discussion of Angela's Ashes, and whipping an apple crisp out of the oven one night when we were just hanging out, watching television together.  

Meanwhile, my adventures in the kitchen were still tedious, drawn-out affairs.  I had to read each recipe about a hundred times during the cooking process.  I could only do one thing at a time.  I had no idea how to time things so that a main course and the side dishes would get done around the same time.  I had no sense, reading a recipe, if the flavors would be good together or not.  I relied heavily on Jason, who came into our marriage knowing more about chopping and cooking.

Fast forward ten years or so.  I can sometimes look in the refrigerator and throw a few things together for dinner without a recipe!  I can take a recipe and modify it so it turns out better, healthier, or easier.  I can do more than one thing at a time in the kitchen, estimate how much to feed a crowd, choose things that go together, and know which flavors belong together.  I haev a stash of favorite recipes that I've tested myself, and I'm always looking for more.  

All of this is just the result of time, practice, and experimenting, and now cooking is something I actually enjoy.  I still think it's ironic that I actually write about my own cooking for a wider audience, though.  In posting my latest recipe at Bodies in Motivation, I thought of Di, and how she inspired me, and how this particular not-a-recipe is really hers, not mine.

Recent Annie-isms

-While watching the weather channel to decide whether or not to head to the cottage for the weekend and seeing pictures of a tornado:  "If there WAS a tornado, I can show you a tricky move!"  Gets down on floor, tucks self into a little ball, covers head with hands, and begins counting backwards from twenty.  (Thank you, preschool.)

-While at the park with Ben yesterday, after he had extolled the benefits of his new Slip N Slide and offered to get Annie one for her birthday:  "Could you get me an American Girl Doll instead?"  (Brat.)

-While putting on lip gloss before going to a ballet-themed birthday party yesterday:  "Mom!  Look!  My lips are as red as the rose!"  (Thank you, Sleeping Beauty.)

Glossing Over

This morning dawned sunny and warm, and I briefly considered packing the girls up and bringing them to the beach for the day.  Now that Annie is done with preschool, our summer is opening up, and even though I've signed her up for a couple of things (Safety Town, a three-week dance class in July, and something called Fairy Camp which will certainly be the fanciest, girliest "camp" ever), our days are mostly one unscheduled hour after another, now.

I got so far as to make some PB&Js and rummaging around for the swimmies and the sunscreen before I realized that the beach would probably not be my best call today.  The unbelievable amount of whining, sobbing, arguing, fighting, meltdowns, and general inability to cope with life BEFORE 10:00 A.M. really tipped me off.  And since being at the beach would have involved skipping Jemma's naptime and Annie's rest time, I called it off.

This afternoon, though, after everyone's attitudes had been re-adjusted, we had the inaugural afternoon of this summer's Sprinkler Pool, a $29.99 Target special that thrills the kids every May and falls apart every August.  There were popsicles, there was sunscreen, and there were wet, happy children.  

Later, the girls and I even ate dinner outside.  We ended the day with bike rides around the block (Jemma, too!) and much-needed baths to cool down some sweaty, red faces.  Annie's crashed out for the night, Jemma's hanging in the playroom for about ten more minutes, and I'm about to make some grown-up dinner, sit outside with a glass of red wine, and summon my patience to face another day of unscheduled wrangling tomorrow.

Last Day of Preschool

You wouldn't know it from this photo, but there is literally no limit to the things about which they can fight or argue.  It makes this picture that much more precious, I think - knowing that they really DO love each other and enjoy being together, sometimes.

Jemma, hair in eyes as always, being silly outside.

Annie, tending our cilantro and basil, and making "salad" out of the dead daffodil and tulip leaves from the front yard.

Annie with Miss Jenny and Miss Susan at today's picnic to celebrate the end of her preschool experience.  I remember Annie's very first day so vividly (she wore knee socks and her backpack was huge on her back) and I truly can't believe that she'll never need to tote that red canvas bag into a preschool classroom again.  She's thrived there, made good friends, learned all manner of things, and - best of all - discovered that a good school (and good teachers) make learning fun.  I'm so glad that school is a place she's thrilled to be.  

This afternoon was sunny and perfect-spring glorious.  As we walked to the grocery store, Jemma in the jogger and Annie holding my hand and walking beside me, I asked her, "What makes you happy right now?"

"Well," she said, "let's first start with what makes me sad right now."

"Okay."

"I'm sad that it was my last day of school."

"I know," I said.  "I was always a little sad about that, too."

"But I'm HAPPY that I'll go to a new school next year with new teachers and make new friends and you'll always be my Mommy."

"Yep."

"And I'm happy about the sunshine.  Can we buy new popsicles at the store?"

We did.