Messages on the Mirror

Yesterday morning, I woke up, went into the bathroom, looked in the mirror, and grimaced. But once I stopped wincing at my glamorous hairstyle, I read these words, written in window crayon, on the mirror:

“I recommend trying some bok choy,

It’s tender and may bring you great joy.”

Amazingly coy,

She poured in the soy.

“I only use cabbage, my dear boy.”

It was designated as a poem of our early culinary adventures together.*

My husband leaves me silly poems, brings me flowers, and even sometimes sends me cards in the mail—for no reason at all. Just because. What a catch!** *** **** *****

*Please note: I still prefer cabbage, and he still prefers bok choy. But he has converted me from milk chocolate to dark chocolate. Which just goes to show you that marriage can change a person.

**He is also fun and silly and an awesome daddy. And a good provider too. And smart. And not intimidated by me when I am smart. And… et cetera, et cetera.

***But all you other girls, you don’t need to be too jealous. He also makes lots of random, incomprehensible noises instead of speaking words. And he doesn’t put away his shoes. And… well, I’m sure there’s something else.

****I must also mention that window crayons are pretty cool too.

*****How awesome is it that my footnotes are almost as long as the actual blog post?

Who knew lemons could be such fun?

You know that joke about how you stand in line for hours at the mall, spend a fortune for the coolest Christmas present of the year, wait breathlessly while your child opens it, and then … watch your child play with the box it came in? Well, there’s a reason everyone knows that joke. It’s because it rings so true. Your child will want the box more than she wants the toy. Just deal with it.

Recently a small lemon made its way into our home and was quickly elevated to Favorite Toy for a few days. That’s right. A lemon. My three-year-old snuggled it in with her animals, carried it around with her, and almost had a meltdown once when I wanted to take it away. But most of all she also used it as a hammer.

My seven-month-old’s favorite item to chew on* is an el-cheapo checkbook cover. Stuffed animals? They’re okay. Teethers? Meh. But checkbooks? Yum. And my cell phone. And membership or credit cards. And coasters. Oh, and also spoons. I have taken to keeping one in my purse for emergencies.

So it’s a good thing we try to buy toys that the hubby and I will enjoy. That way, we can play with the toy and the kiddos can play with the box.

*Besides any scraps of junk lying on the floor that would have been vacuumed up if I were a better housekeeper; she’ll always go for those first.

Babies Make Great Napkins

In the movie The Three Musketeers (the 1993 version with the cast that made me drool, with Kiefer Sutherland inspiring a long-lasting teenage crush on Athos) there’s this scene where Athos gets all drunk and morose.* I remember thinking there are different kinds of sloshed. There are the weepy drunks, the exhibitionists, and probably some others. I’m not sure since I don’t often hang out with drunk people.

Like drunks, it seems there are different types of bloggers. The reviewers (my favorite, and most opinionated: Orson Scott Card). The authors (if you have not read Shannon Hale’s blog, you really should). The journal bloggers, with varying levels of detail (today I ate Marshmallow Mateys for breakfast! hooray!). And, like me, the confessional bloggers. I tend to blog my deep, dark secrets, things I wouldn’t admit to in person. Note here the title of this post.

So, let’s be honest, shall we? I have used my children as napkins. On multiple occasions. In fact, I did it today. Here’s the thing: my baby is nursing in my lap, so I’m stuck in place for at least the next 10 minutes. Suddenly I turn into a total slob (which, admittedly, doesn’t take much); I drip ketchup down my chin or my fingers. But I repeat, I have a baby in my lap. I can’t go get a paper napkin. But what do I have at hand? A piece of fabric sitting exactly where a cloth napkin would in a fancy restaurant (to the uninitiated, this fabric looks suspiciously like a onesie being worn by a little baby). Problem solved.

I have also used my baby as my tissue at least once, but only for tears. Out in the hallway at church, carrying her the other day, I was feeling a little emotional, and she was wearing a soft cotton dress. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Other mothering practices I embarrassingly confess to?

I sat across the room the other day and just watched while my baby chewed on a piece of paper. What’s the big deal? It’s just a little extra fiber.

I hide our movies that I can’t stand watching again. Alice in Wonderland spent a couple months in my dresser drawer.

These are the mothering practices I’m embarrassed about but not mortified by. I deleted some others that I considered sharing, because they were too awful. And we shall not even mention the practices that are, well, unmentionable.

However, despite all the stuff I have done, I could still hold my head up high until about a month ago. That was the day I engaged in the evil that I once swore I would never, ever take part: the blankie-wipe. You know what it is: when a mother uses her child’s wrappings to wipe her child’s nose. I used to ask myself, Why oh why, when there are tissues in the world, does this occur? Why, when there are leaves, newspapers, and innumerable other reasonably soft, relatively harmless products surrounding us?

And then, my day of humility came. Outdoors with my baby, far from civilization (at least 30 feet), I saw that her nose was running. I had nothing on hand except the blankie she was wrapped up in. I was desperate. The snot was starting to drip onto her lips and would soon start triggering her licking action. I had to do something! I cringed, I turned away so I didn’t have to watch myself, and … I wiped. How the mighty are fallen.

*Ummm ... just to clarify, it was not this particular scene that inspired the crush.

Blog Your Tyrant Husband

I’m sitting at the computer, enjoying a leisurely (read here: lazy) card game while nursing Addra, when a voice sounds from across the room: “You can only play for one minute. Then you have to work on your blog.”

Me, whining: “But I don’t have any arms.” (Addra’s head is occupying the crook of my right arm, so I suppose technically my left one is still free.)

“Then blog your lack of arms.”

Mumble, mumble, whine.

“I’m sure you can hunt-and-peck a blog post.”

“Yuck, no.” I begin to extract my arm from beneath my daughter.

“Blog what we did today.”

More whining. “You’re such a tyrant.”

“Then blog your tyrant husband!”

“Ptui.” I then call him something really mature, something I hope my three-year-old picks up on. Something like “poohead.” And I finish my card game and start to write.

Having a fantastic husband really puts a damper on the quest for mediocrity.

Nothing Amazing

Well, imagined audience of thousands (and actual audience of two—thanks, Kem and Brice!), the time has come. Four entries into my resolve to Write a Blog, I find the oomph is waning. The first problem is that I appear to have used up all my clever, brilliant, and witty thoughts in posts 1 through 4. The second problem is that … um … it’s hard? And thus we arrive at post #5. Its sole purpose: sheer existence, being at least some sort of post so that I actually keep on Writing. In this post you shall be regaled with awe-inspiring tales of … (drum roll, please) … not much.*

So, let’s see. Today was Mother’s Day. I did not receive a pansy; I received a petunia. I did not know if they are edible, so I chose not to find out. I also received some delicious chocolate from my loving husband. Yum. We made a fantastic breakfast together: scrambled eggs with oodles of cheese, bacon, crepes, melon, juice, and potato cakes. Also yum.

As I type this entry, Coriel is stringing twine and masking tape around our house. Her latest favorite activities are making giant messes (see above), playing with her figurines, and reading books together. Unfortunately, another favorite activity lately seems to be having meltdowns whenever we go somewhere, unless it’s Chuck E. Cheese or the bouncy place. *Sigh.* **

Also as I type, Addra is in my lap, both sleeping and eating. I am continually jealous of that ability.

Brice is still wonderful in nearly every way. He is such a fun dad. He makes me laugh on a daily basis. And have I mentioned that he provides chocolate?

With the advent of mulch, our garden is beginning to look vaguely like it was planned instead of simply plopped. If we can keep the friendly bunnies away and my black thumb in check, we will enjoy a beautiful harvest.

All in all, despite occasional craziness (both situational and personal), life is good. I am reminded of a certain period during ninth grade. Carrying a sweet-smelling lilac, I would bounce up to one of my friends, say, “Life is glorious! Here, smell!” and shove the flowers in his/her face. Not the most endearing behavior. Well, these days I wouldn’t be nearly as obnoxious about it (although we do have some lilac growing in our backyard)—and frankly, life feels much, much harder than it used to be—but when I really look around, it’s still true. Life is pretty glorious.

So today’s post may not be anything amazing, but I’m writing it, so hooray.

*Editorial self-observation: You may have noticed my unreasoning adoration for parentheses and ellipses (and, for that matter, footnotes). I cannot help myself—are they not lovely?

**The asterisks surrounding the word “Sigh” were not indicative of footnotes.

Endless Surprise

Last week, just after Brice put Coriel to bed, I went into our bedroom. Beside my nightstand is an empty spot where I usually keep my purse and a few other items. Last night, when I passed this spot, it was filled with a teddy bear in a pot, facing the corner.

This is what I love about having a three-year-old.

There is always a new surprise, something fun to discover. Sometimes it’s a teddy bear in a pot, sometimes it’s a piece of yarn wrapped intricately through the holes in the kitchen chair, sometimes it’s an ocarina in my back pocket (yes, this actually happened; at first I couldn’t figure out why it was so uncomfortable to sit down).

A couple weeks ago, we were having a little cleaning time. I was in the living room, directing our daughter to take her toys, one by one, into her bedroom while I cleaned up other items. Later I walked past her room, and the sight made me smile. She had carefully lined up each of those toys all right inside her door, sitting next to one another. There must have been ten or fifteen of them all happily snuggled in a row.*

Sometimes her surprises are downright magical. We check lots of books out from the library, and sometimes it’s hard to keep track of them. While we can usually find them all when it comes time to return them, Clifford Goes to Dog School was particularly stubborn. We searched the entire house over and over. We renewed it until we couldn’t anymore. It became past due. Another month or so went by. We were sure it was gone for good.

Then, suddenly, one day I was reading through piles of books with my daughter in her room. I looked away from her for a moment, and when I looked back to see what she was reading, there it was, Clifford Goes to Dog School, as if it had never been gone. I still don’t know where it was hiding.

Sometimes her surprises are funny, like the time she asked if she could have a yogurt and then produced one from within a kitchen cupboard. She still doesn’t open the fridge on her own, so she must have gotten it from the fridge at some point (a day before? a week?) when Brice or I had it open. Don’t worry, I didn’t let her eat that one.

Sometimes her surprises will produce continued surprises in the future. Take, for example, our garden. A few days ago, I was planting some cantaloupe seeds. Coriel wanted one to look at, and then she wandered off with it. Suddenly I realized that she didn’t have her seed anymore, and right in front of her was a whole garden bed of lovely dirt. I’m looking forward to finding out if I have a cantaloupe growing among my onions or among my carrots.

Her tendency to fill my life with these kinds of surprises is usually a delight, but occasionally it causes a bit of frustration (read here: occasionally I want to tear my hair out and scream at the top of my lungs). I’m not much good at keeping a house clean even when I only have myself to take care of. So cleaning up after her adventures and explorations… well, let’s just say it doesn’t always happen in a timely manner. Our house is most of the time a bit chaotic (read here: a butterfly must have flapped its wings in Japan to cause our own personal tsunami here in Maryland).

And just when I want to throw all her toys out the window just so that I won’t step on one that she “put to bed” under a sock in the hallway, I discover a smiley face that she drew on a receipt or I walk into her room to find her feeding her baby doll some lunch. And it’s just so darn sweet that I can’t be angry anymore. She’s just sneaky that way, a beautiful source of endless surprise.

*I have now learned that I have to be more specific in where I ask her to put things: “In the toy bin in your room, please.”

Princess Lolly

I have a favorite princess. It is not Belle, or Aurora, or Cinderella, or even Rapunzel. It is Princess Lolly. From Candy Land.

Over the years, Princess Lolly has appeared on the Candy Land board in a variety of iterations, from preteen to thirty-something, innocent to frankly a little slutty.* But in our household, there is only one word necessary to describe her: Messy.

A few months back, our dear then-two-year-old, Coriel, was going through a phase. The “tell me a story please, and if you pause in your story to draw breath I’m just going to ask you again” phase. I don’t remember exactly when during this phase the stories of Princess Lolly first took shape. Perhaps it was simply that after telling Sleeping Beauty ad nauseum, I was ready for something different. Perhaps it was the inevitable lure of places like Molasses Swamp, Ice Cream Sea, and Gumdrop Pass. However it began, Princess Lolly has become part of the Stay family canon.

Princess Lolly has been on many adventures. She has visited all of her friends through Candy Land innumerable times. She has tried, unsuccessfully, to make peanut butter and gumdrops. She has learned the secret of Plumpy’s special plum pudding (and fallen into a batch of it). She has painted scenery for the school play using ice cream. She has gotten so sticky that she is unrecognizable even to her mother, a very loving and patient Queen Frostine.

One of my favorite adventures was when she met Princess Coriel.** She showed Princess Coriel all around Candy Land, and by the end of the day Princess Coriel was every bit as sticky and messy as Princess Lolly. And she went home happy.

Sometimes Princess Lolly crosses over into other storylines. There was the time that she stubbed her toe on a Lifesaver, for example. Covered in candy goo, hopping around, and groaning in pain, she was mistaken for a monster. The men in black (who just happened to be walking past at the time) took her to the secret government facility for monsters, where she met Susan, Dr. Cockroach, and even Escargantuan.***

After the harrowing experience of taking three baths (in water! with soap!), she was finally able to convince them that she was not a monster after all, but just a little girl. So they sent her home very clean and with a band-aid on her toe. So dismayed at her appearance, and unrecognizable to her mother (who apparently has difficulty recognizing Lolly when she is either too clean or too messy; she has no problem with just fairly messy), she promptly dove into the Molasses Swamp and soon felt much better.

I love the stories of Princess Lolly. She can always be counted on for a little bit of stickiness. But you want to know one of my favorite Princess Lolly moments?

“Mommy, tell me a story,” said Coriel.

So for the second time ever, I told her the story of when Princess Lolly met Susan. We had just gotten to the part where they gave her the baths and sent her home.

“With a bbmphd, Mommy.”

“What?”

“With a bbmphd, Mommy.”

I still didn’t get it.

“They gave her a bbmphd. For the ouchy. On her toe.” She looked up at me, expecting me to get it.

“Oh! You’re right. I forgot, they gave her a band-aid for her ouchy. Thanks for remembering.”

My darling Coriel, who had only heard the story once before, already knew exactly how it was supposed to go, and she wanted to make sure I got it right. What joy to have such an amazing person to take care of, to tell stories to.

Coriel still requests stories, though not with the same urgency she used to show, and we still tell them to her, though sometimes I think our creativity is dwindling. She is getting older, and I am saddened to think of the day when she may not want to snuggle on the couch and get a story. Fortunately that day is still far away.

And who knows? Maybe someday her children will want to hear about Princess Lolly too.

*Wanna see pictures of all the versions of Candy Land? Here you go: http://www.hasbro.com/games/en_US/discover/candyland_history.cfm
**Incidentally, I suppose that Princess Lolly is really only my third favorite princess. My first two are Princess Coriel and Princess Addra.
***From the movie Monsters vs. Aliens