Julie's posterous

Tonight We're Gonna Potty Like It's 1999

I never thought I’d cheer for poop. Yet here I was at 7 a.m., gazing into a toilet I’d neither washed nor vomited into recently, and I was smiling and nodding like a bobblehead.

“Good job Avery! You did it! High five! Nice one!”

Now I’m a cheerleader too.  It’s amazing what parenthood does to you. I’m not sure who I was before all the cartoons and glitter glue and macaroni and cheese, but I’m pretty sure I regularly brushed my teeth, I didn’t walk around the mall on a Friday night as my big weekly outing, and I certainly didn’t track anyone’s shit schedule.  I also remember eating with a fork, drinking out of cups that did not have squirrels on them, and having money.

Now my day revolves around poop. I track Avery’s ass like it contains an orbiting meteorite about to drop to the Earth. I’m a Poop Watchman.

“Avery, where are you? Do you need to go now? How about now? Now?”

Sadly this constant vigilance has rewarded us with little progress, and I’m sorely reminded of the many times my parents complained how difficult it was to get my ass out of diapers. My mom claimed she tried everything from pretty pink panties to gold stars and nothing worked. According to family folklore, I didn’t throw in the towel until I literally outgrew diapers and they were so tight they started cutting into my skin.  The first time I used the toilet my mom said, “I knew she’d be out of diapers before she walked down the aisle.”

She’s right. I actually did wear pretty pink panties under my wedding dress. And I know Avery will too. It’s just going to be hell for the Poop Watchman until then.

Today I will be Happier than a Bird with a French Fry

As I get older I realize how important it is to focus on what's going right. I remember my mom telling me as a little kid that if we all threw our problems in a bucket and randomly picked out someone else's troubles, eventually we'd want our own back. That was hard to believe at the time because I didn't know any other seventh grader who wore bifocals AND braces but didn't need a bra.

I've grown up, and so have my problems. I'm now an orthodox worrier, rotating between personal and worldwide concerns. I'm angry at the swine flu because I just don't have any more room in my closet of anxieties. I need a spring cleaning.

So just for today, I am only going to try to focus on happiness, seeking it wherever I can. The dogwoods are in bloom, Avery's curls are bouncy and I actually saw a bird jump around with a French fry and I thought "THAT is bliss."

I'm turing off "neurotic" for today as an experiement; I'm really worried how this will go.

Praise slathering

Avery, Scott and I were wresting on the couch last night. We were giggling and tickling and flipping and jumping when Avery stopped suddenly and put her hands on my face and said, "Look at me. You're beautiful, mamma."

It reminded me of my mom, and the way she'd slather me with praise and love. Every time I'd show up at her door I'd get one long compliment: "Look at how beautiful you are! I love that shirt! Where did you get it? Did you cut your hair? I love the color!"

At the time I thought, geez mom, you need to get out more often. But now that I have a daughter of my own, I'm absolutely entralled and intoxicated by her. Every little thing she does is magic. Toe wiggling makes me beam. 

So I'm beginning to wonder if maybe love really is magical, making you see beauty in the ordinary. And if we're here to love and be loved, and it's not about diplomas and degrees, pay or positions, then you can measure your success by your ability to make others happy. For the first time, I realized just how successful Avery is going to be.

Fluent Korean

I’m convinced Avery speaks clear and fluent Korean. Mostly because she combines a series of syllables, clucks and noises I’ve never heard in the English language with what can only be described as interpretive dance. It’s Avery Sign Language. She’s taken to elaborate hand gestures, pointing, head nodding and high and low inflections to get her point across. It’s amazing and comical.

But every once in awhile, she’ll belt out something clearly. Like when Obama was elected she yelled, ”Bye bye Bush! Go Bamba!” Or last night, when I handed her and Scott a tiny piece of candy for dessert and Scott asked what it was and she said, “Daddy! It’s CHOCOLATE!”

I think her world must be a little bit like watching me use my three semester’s worth of Spanish to communicate in Costa Rica. I have about fifty Spanish words in my arsenal so I have to find creative ways to put them together.

“I want the water in the bottle”

“I want the room with water”

“I want to go to the water.”

Quiero and agua are two of my fifty words. I can also say, “I want beer and I want bathroom,” and most helpfully, “I want bathroom with water.”

Using her limited vocabulary and her bossy tone, she’s somehow able to tell us what she’s thinking most of the time. My favorite example was last weekend. While flipping through the channels (OK, I wasn’t really flipping. I was heading right for Dora the Explorer) we passed by a show with two men kissing. Avery looked at me and smiled. Then we had this conversation: 

Avery: “Kissing!”

Me: “Yep, people kiss when they love each other.”

Avery: “Family!”

I thought about that for a second. Kissing equals affection, affection equals love, love equals family. I like that.

Avery saw me think about it and tried to clarify: “Mommy family. Daddy family. Avery family. Hug kiss Mommy.”

I mentioned this story to a friend, thinking this was a nice little lesson about  “Less being more” and smartly, she picked up on something I’m half-proud and half-ashamed to admit I missed– the world is a lot different than when we were kids. What she said was, “Isn’t is amazing that Avery lives in a world where a black man is president and two men can kiss on TV?”

That’s right. It wasn’t always like this. Lucy and Ricky used to sleep in separate beds. All of our money has white men on it. Things are changing, and they’re changing for the better and that filled me with more hope than I can explain. If Avery saw me at that moment, she would have jumped up and down with a big smile and said, “Happy Mommy!”

Gotta Go

My life is full of gotta gos. Maybe that's just part of being a working mom, part of the challenges of raising a child in an hurry hurry world. But I'm always late for somewhere, always saying I gotta go. Gotta go pick up Avery, gotta go take her to special education, gotta go get diapers, gotta go to a meeting, gotta go catch a plane, gotta go to work, to the doctor, to the dentist, to Cosco...

There's no end. Just this nonstop ----

Ugh. Avery's awake. I gotta go.

Dirty Words

I must have been in the fifth grade when I got pulled into the principal’s office for the nth time for swearing like a madman. Poor Gretchen Smith. She had no idea that in a few short years us kids would manage to drive her nutso. Sometimes I think the day she met my mom started it all.

Back then, principals got to paddle kids for causing trouble, but I had protective status. My mom had checked a box on the paddling form that said, “Oh no, call me and I’ll come down and beat the crap out of her myself.”

So I was pretty terrified when Ms. Smith said she was tired of my dirty language and was calling my mom. I waited. I watched kids bring in tardy slips, hall passes, minor injuries for the school nurse. It took about seven years for my mom to show up.

When she did, she walked by me, grabbed my arm without saying a word and when the door was closed to Ms. Smith’s office she didn’t give her a chance to speak.

“What did Julie do?” There was guilty-as-charged in my mom’s tone.

“She used dirty words.”  Ms. Smith was such a bitch.

“Uh huh. Exactly what did she say?”

(I’m going to leave this part out. You all know me, and I know you cringe when I open my mouth around your children.  I’m trying, really.)

My mom listened to the whispered words and then said, “Look Ms. Smith, what do you expect? She hears those words all the time around the house and she’s just repeating us. Besides, those are just four-letter words that mean nothing. Those are not the real dirty words in life. So unless you hear Julie say nigger, war or hate, don’t ever call me back here again.” And then she left.

I was proud then, and I’m proud now. Over the years, she added words to the ‘dirty’ list, like fag. She hated that word, explaining, “Every other marriage ends in divorce. I don’t think heterosexuals are exactly doing something right.”

I’ve just spent a week on vacation with Avery (am I the only one who realizes “relaxing family vacation” is an oxymoron) and after this family bonding time, I’ve developed my own dirty word list, coincidentally all four-letter words:

1.       “Mine”

Yes, Avery, I get it. No, really … I get it. That is definitely yours and you want it. Stop saying mine mine mine. I didn’t want a bite of your pizza anyway.
 

2.       “More”

How can you want more when you started out with all of it?

 

3.       “Want”

I would have never guessed you wanted ice cream if you hadn’t pointed at it, jumped up and down, pulled my sunglasses off and threw them on the floor so I could see better and then chanted want it want it want it.

 

4.       “Nope”

Avery, let’s go brush your teeth. Nope.

Let’s go for a walk. Nope.

Do you want milk? Nope.

Can mommy have a kiss? Uhhhh … Nope.

 

 

 

I'm Dreaming of a Warm Christmas

I know it snows. I believe in snow, but I believe it happens in faraway places like in Garrison Keillor stories, or in snow globes. And sure, I got plenty of warning, but I’m from California, and other than one badly timed weekend in the Arrowhead mountains, I’ve never actually seen snow stick. I’ve seen it fall, sure, but stick? No, that’s suppose to happen in Minnesota, not anywhere near me.
When I got up this morning and I had to dig my car out of the snow, I didn’t know what to do. I mean, I knew how to dig … but I didn’t know what to use. I started with a Swiffer, moved up to a dustpan and then finally started scraping with a credit card. All of this just to find out my door was frozen shut. 

I had that feeling that I get quite often: does this shit happen to other people, or is it just me, and my unfaltering ability to accept change gracefully? I thought back to three days ago, when the newsman said, “80% chance of snow,” and my brain said, “Oh good, there’s a 20% chance it won’t snow!” That’s optimism hedging on stupidty.

I miss my friend Julie, who has spent most of her life in a small town, and would know what to do. She’s the poster child for preparedness, and has things in her house like baking soda and candles. I bet she has sand bags and bottled water. She would not be caught in the middle of a snow storm without kitty litter.

So here I am: walking out in the snow with my non-waterproof boots and my thin-gloves-that-are-made-for-show-only, and I’m cursing my inability to accept the obvious: it’s winter, duh. And it’s getting colder. I need to buy my kid a heavy coat. Winter is here and it’s staying.

Oh, and I guess the cable bill will not go away if I try to ignore that as well.

 

Take the Punch

I've had the air knocked out of me twice in my life. Once, when I was around 11 and I was punched for refusing to wear a Dodgers windbreaker, and then again last week.
I was outside Avery's school, struggling to get her arms in her coat while she struggled to get them free. I was focused on this ridiculous Push Me - Pull You process of getting a three-year-old into a winter jacket when I caught his wild Jackie Robinson look in her eyes. Call it mother's instinct, but I knew something bad was about to go down.
Avery wiggled and wriggled, I lost my grasp and the moment she was free from her straight jacket, she started a triumphant wind sprint toward traffic -- right as a  huge truck was pulling around the corner. She had a head start and I knew immediately I had already lost the race.
I screamed. I yelled stuff you are not suppose to say in front of kids, and not in front of a school. I screamed and ran and screamed and right before she jumped off the curb, she heard my pleas, paused her unfocused run, and turned around and looked at me. I think the truck may have honked.
That was the pause I needed to tackle her and when I hit the ground, I got the wind knocked out of me for the second time in my life.
Avery cowered; she repented. She hugged me and said, "Sorry mommy sorry."
The whole thing took place in a few seconds, and the whole time a voice in my head YELLED, "OH MY GOD I ALMOST LOST EVERYTHING!"
I scooped her up, locked her down into her car seat way too tightly and within a few minutes the whole event was forgotten to her. She listened to her favorite song and waved her arms around like a tone deaf Pinocchio maestro as if nothing had happened.
It made me realize my first thought was not, "I'm going to lose my child."  I thought ... I'm going to lose everything. I would never be mommy again. Scott wouldn't be daddy anymore. My whole family would be broken. There would be no need for all those crazy toys I was complaining about wrapping. No more Sunday morning cartoons that were driving me nuts.  No more Dr. Suess here, there or anywhere. No more stickers stuck to my toilet. No more Sunday evenings freezing my butt off at the playground.
I feared losing everything that I thought was driving me nuts. At that moment, I realized how grateful I was to have Avery in my life. I said a silent prayer along the lines of, "Thank you for sending her to me," and then I unlatched Avery and kissed her too much.
Then I did what I've never done before -- I thanked her. I told her mommy was happy she lived with us and my life was better because she was in it and I was a better person because of her. I'm not sure she understood, but she hugged me again and that felt like another small gift.
When I got back to work, I was a mess. My brain was frazzled and I probably had twigs in my hair. It seemed like a small price to pay for Avery being OK.
For the record, I think being punched was less painful.