June 14, 2010

3 weeks in...

June 14, 2010/ kendratheadverb

I saw the figure emerge in my peripheral vision. We were asking the clerk about the merits of various double strollers when I saw a penguin of a girl slink out from behind one of the merchandise shelves with her pants slipped down to her knees. She had to go potty.

Only, when I brought her to the public restroom in the store, she declined. She wanted to use one of the colorful Baby Bjorn chairs stacked in the nursing aisle. Who could blame her? Baby Girl was conducting important consumer research. How many of us would bypass the chance to test-drive a throne so cute? Of course, most of us would likely possess the social cues not to pull down our drawers in public, nor expect to actually test the limits of the bowl, but I had to give it to Baby Girl for taking the initiative.

*** I have learned to do something new in the last week. It is is not a totally new learning, it is a learning that has taken on a new form in a new context for me this week, and it has made a huge elephant footprint of a difference.

I decided earlier this week that I was not going to lose my temper with my toddler. If I had any self control at all, and if God had any power over that self control, I was just not going to let the ignite the coals of my anger. So I didn't. I just...chose not to escalate any situation. I'm not saying I handled every altercation well, but given the fact that Big Pops and Nana Jake thought it prudent to gift my tot with a set of porcelain pug salt and pepper shakers (totes appropos for 2 y.o.) and given the fact that my toddler chose to gift me with a banging of my funnybone with one of said pug pepper shakers, I have to say that I did well, praises be.

***

As mentioned, my dad and stepmama visited earlier this week, which was 10,000 laughs and chicken parmesan and a trip to the zoo and hanging out on our primitive patio, blowing bubbles. I missed them before they came and now I miss them more because I bear Baby Girl's missing them and so it's a camel back of missing people who live far far away.

***

Little Man is still the smooshiest, sleepiest member of our family. I am watching the cheeks of his sister thin out by the day, so I am working extra hard to plump his up to balance the cheek chubbery around here.

***

One more thing. I was home yesterday tending to both children by myself. I allowed Baby Girl to fingerpaint. In the house. For the first time ever. And we didn't have to call poison control!! We had fun!! Masterpieces were made!! I am the mother of two children!!!

***

Nana J and Pampa

May 09, 2010

Projections

May 09, 2010/ kendratheadverb

When I graduated from grade school (it was a K-8 type establishment), I thought I was going to become a great feminist orator, taking down the patriarchy one impassioned Gloria Steinem speech at a time. When I graduated from high school, I thought I was going to become a great humanitarian, an eventual czarina of the American Red Cross, traveling the world on a campaign to suck the world of its healthy blood.

When I graduated from college, I thought I would move to Boston, drink a lot of martinis, work a mediocre job while applying to law school, and eventually become a great attorney, vanquishing injustice one power suit trip at a time.

When I graduated from graduate school, I thought I was really in a pickle because I would have loans and a kid and a mortgage and no time or no energy reserve to produce anything worthwhile for the next eight years.

And I have to say that pretty much none of these projections have really come true. There are letters next to my name that don't mean a lot. There are bills in my name that should mean more but don't. There are clips in my portfolio for which I nearly killed myself and for which I was paid a pittance. There are dozens of jobs on my resume that led me closer to more detours that led me closer to more doubt and self-loathing. Yet I wouldn't trade any of it for a smarter dossier, a shinier car, a more assured career path.

I want this life, this one that I never expected. This union with my best friend, my laughing partner, Saturday nights spent unloading Trader Joe's of all of its inventory. This urbane home of the dirty, cluttered, creaky floors and the neighbors who like to bang upstairs. This full-time job of motherhood where the overtime pay comes in chubby fingers reaching out to latch on to yours.

Not even 30 and my stock portfolio includes a closet full of lip gloss and an enviable supply of cloth diapers.

Happy Mother's Day to those who never expected to love the job as much as you do, and for all those who will join the force soon, I'm wishing you a blessed journey.

And to you, Newbie 'Nother Baby: We're keeping a "wook-out" for you....

P.S. Here's a Mum's Day-ish column I wrote. Enjoy.

March 24, 2010

Unc

March 24, 2010/ kendratheadverb

Dear Unc, The anniversary of your death came and went last month and I thought I'd feel better after a year had passed. But the truth is that I don't know what I expected "better" to feel like, to look like. Only that I had hoped I'd feel differently. I don't. I still miss you in a way that feels fresh. All the time. Sometimes it's once a day, sometimes it's once a week, but I always think of you and I'm lucky because I never saw you when you got gravely ill, so my mind still flashes to your quick smile and the way you would silently crack up with your head cocked back, almost like you were hyperventilating and singing Gospel music at the same time.

Since your death, I've been really selfish with my memories of you. I don't mean I've been keeping them from people who were meant to have them. I just mean that I've been private in my pain, silent with my questions, crying in the shower so there are no puffy red eyes at untimely times. Sometimes I go through the e-mails you wrote me, or find a picture of you, or think about the last thing you said to me, which was, "I'm going to give you one more hug before you become a mom." Then I think about how you never met my daughter, who people say made you a Great Uncle. But I know that you were already a great uncle.

I had to give a speech a couple of months ago, and I didn't know why I had been tapped since I haven't done anything significant besides potty train a toddler and master the art of pineapple surgery. But when I heard the other speaker at the conference, Wayne, talk about his friend who had passed the year prior, I realized why God had given me the opportunity. Wayne talked about how much he missed his friend, how his friend had died young and before he had time to "finish his work." So Wayne thought he would try to dedicate the next year of his life to finishing this friend's work. And then I realized how I could parlay this into my life, how I might better channel this grief. I thought about the work you had been doing, not just as a CEO of a spiffy hospital, but on a more human level, as a uniter, as a healer, as a mad hyperventilative cackler. I cannot do any of those things very well, but maybe I could understand what motivated you to be those things...Perhaps that can be part of my own life's work. I'm trying to do this. I succeed most often with the cackles. I love and miss you. And I'm trying to love on my husband more, just in case we only have 20 more years together, too.

Love, KC