Things that make my life better this week

Think of this as a really low grade episode of Oprah when she “shares” something she loves with her viewers…

1. Audio Books at the public library. I’ve been rediscovering the joys of some of my favorite books by hitting the children’s section. So far Jack and I have run errands to From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Calico Captive. Yesterday we finished the latter in the driveway– fussy Jack had FINALLY fallen asleep in the car and I didn’t dare move him so I heard the last two chapters while I waited for his nap to end.

2. Skippy Snack Bars and the new Entenman’s Round-About cakes. DELICIOUS.

3. 5:45 p.m. It’s when the cavalry has arrived this week in the form of Daddy!

4. Microsoft Outlook Access to my work email account– my calendar and task lists and contacts oh my! I love telecommuting and this is why. No office politics or clockwatching.

5. WW2 Homefront movies. In the last month I’ve watched Since You Went Away starring the delightful Claudette Colbert and one of my most favorite movies ever, The Glenn Miller Story starring my dead husband Jimmy Stewart and spunky little June Alyson. On deck for tomorrow’s naptime is I’ll Be Seeing You. It will satiate my fix for impossibly unreal but imagined marriages where the husband croons, “oh my darling!” and the wife’s whole world is her home.

That’s it. I’ve said it before. Simple girl. Yeah, I know. If this were a real Oprah ep you’d all find things under your chairs. If you do let me know.

Fever!

(I really hope you are singing that title in your best Peggy Lee impression…)

On Saturday, when he woke up from a very long nap, Jack’s little cheeks were as bright red as his pal Elmo. I knew before I picked him up that he would be hot. Poor little man! Robby wrestled with the thermometers and got scary readings from under his arm that went up to 103.8 degrees and before adding the extra degree for doing an underarm measurement.

We called the hospital’s nurse reference line and Nurse Nick (yes, that threw me, too– but I grew up with Barbie as a nurse, not a doctor) talked us through the fever that is going around our area and leaving babies with bright little cheeks and worried mamas. It was a 24 hour thing (or, in our case, a 36 hour thing) that is still running its course and leaving Jacky punkier than usual and fussy.

This morning he slept in and when I went to half wake him/get him up he was whimpery and cross. My hand, on his little rump, was wet and it wasn’t too long before all the receptors hit my brain to tell me it wasn’t urine on my hand but foul smelling diarrhea (as opposed to the lavender scented?)… ICK! It took many, many wipes and a warm washcloth. Ick Ick Ick.

The upshot is that we’re sticking a little closer to home than we might normally this early in the week. He’s content to sit on my lap or near me in his Daddy’s chair. We watched Sesame Street today (Elmo really is a hoot… Norah Jones guested and sang a take off on her “Don’t Know Why” song about the letter Y with Elmo patting her arm gently and saying, “Ohhh, Don’t be sad Norah!”) and read stories and played with his trucks. We went to the pediatrician for a strep test and the kind reassurance from the nurse practioner there…

I’m glad he’s on the mend. It was a little scary this weekend with our Mommies out of town and my sister AWOL. We’re not idiots and we’re not exactly full fledged rookies but this was our first fever. Fevers, we learn, can slip in the cracks and leave our little man pale and quiet and not his usual jolly little self.

It’s going to be a long cold and flu season. I’ve been thinking about building a bubble for us all to live in… I’ve put the engineer on it.

How many years till he can join AARP?

My husband– my Robby– my best pal of too many years to count has aged on me without me noticing.

He’s OBSESSED with The Weather Channel. He checks it constantly to see the paths of tropical storms and hurricanes in areas WE DON’T LIVE IN. And, no, Virginia– Santa Claus hasn’t planned a secret Mexican cruise for us this year. Why do we need to check the current weather on TWC when we have windows? Our front door opens nicely (though the screen door bangs like a gunshot)– it’s relatively easy to ascertain the current conditions. I swear if I said, “hey–it’s raining. Look. I’m all wet.” that he would check TWC to see if I am right.

What’s next? Lawrence Welk? All-you-can-eat buffets? A mini-van?

Iceberg dead ahead!

Once a week Jack and I go to the library for a Mommy & Me type group. The story lady has an arsenal of puppets and books and rhymes that takes us through a very fast 20 minutes of programmed activity and then her box of toys is brought out and we are cut loose to play.

Jacky is one of the youngest babies there. The others are a few months to half a year older and I marvel at their capabilities. One little girl is incredibly verbal– she speaks in little phrases to her mother and plays quietly. One little boy is unfortunately and demonically named– but it suits him. We steer clear of him. Another is restless and roams the entire time away from his mother but listens (for the most part) when he goes off to far and she calls him back.

We’ve been going for over a month now but we’re just learning the names of everybody– and it’s only in the last two meetings that the Mommies have started tentatively talking to each other. The first weeks we were all consumed with our babies. I worried about Jack a little– he’s smaller and younger and not used to playing much with people in his demographic. He’s held his own though and now I stay back and watch him from an albeit short distance.

Today the topic was potty training. Thankfully, Jack and I aren’t interested in it yet so we could stay on the fringe of the discussion… but one Mom started in on her tales of woe with her (verbal) little girl and how she’s completely uninterested in the whole idea of not pooing herself. A debate about whether underpants and rubber pants as a combo trumped Pull-Ups and the like insued. The crazy grandmother that occasionally attends noted that she has yet to meet a kindergarten aged child that isn’t out of diapers. (I hate when the crazy people make sense. It throws off the rest of the day.) Bossy Mommy threw in her two cents (assuming that her two cents is a 1865 two cent piece and worth a lot of money…) that she’d read a study that there’s no use even trying until children were two years old because they couldn’t hack it before then and it was just stupid and futile. Story Lady refuted that and argued that if you wait until they turn two then you have to battle their independent spirit… “But this study..,” volleyed back Bossy Mommy…

All the while the debate raged on, and the facts and figures were thrown about, and the voices raised with quivers of insecurity, I watched Jack play. He’s comfortable in the story room at the library now. He knows it. He doesn’t sit timidly near me like he did the first few weeks. He’s learned that when the great box of toys and board books is brought out that it is time to play. He jumps right in with the older kids and is completely unaware that a few of them find it fun to hand “the baby” things.

There’s a lot ahead of us that we have to learn. Potty training is just the tip of an iceberg of stuff we know nothing about. But this much we have gotten the hang of– I can sit back while he plays without too much anxiety, and Jack has added the library story room to another conquered territory.

Chip off a bit of that iceberg for our drinks, will you?

Hair today…

Chalk this up to one of the Great Mysteries of Parenthood–the other night we put Jack to bed with his little hairs sparse and laying down as hair should but retrieved him from his crib in the morning with a head of fuzz. The kid’s hair seriously sprouted up over night. Now it’s wild and long and sticks up in funny places. Over night.

I may have to start sleeping on his floor.

Inadequate

Some news kicks you in the stomach.

Jack had finished lunch and was entertaining me while I ate my pizza bagels. I was scanning last night’s newspaper between “peek-a-boos” and saw an obituary that stopped me cold. The really nice woman that cuts my hair (and mercifully covers my gray hairs) gave birth to a stillborn son.

There’s so much unfairness as it is in the world but I think babies dying are in their own catergory. Even as a casual acquaintance of her I was excited for the entrance of this baby… we’d chatted about her plans for a nursery and bemoaned the funny comments people make when you are expecting. It’s been a wonderful year for her– lots of good things happening to her and her husband and this very much anticipated first child.

I don’t know her middle name or what street she lives on but I knew what she’d wanted to name the baby months ago and how her mother and mother-in-law were so wildly different in their preparations for a grandchild. We’d discussed preschool options and how to acclimate their dog-child to a baby. I’d cancelled my last appointment with her when I thought I might have strep throat to keep her from getting sick the week she was going on maternity leave.

And now their is this obituary in the paper that left me with a cold plate of lunch that I have no stomach for and a grief for her and her family that I don’t know what to do with.

I can only imagine what her world has been like in these last few days. So many ways her house and body must betray her. I’m not close enough to intrude on her grief or to assume that I might help in some way– my sadness is a drop in her ocean.

Someone out there needs to come up with a thing that can be said that would truly help at times like this. Something to make such a little life matter. I’m sorry is really, really inadequate.

I hate that.

Home and Away

Some days are just ridiculously busy, aren’t they?

Today Jack and I went to work where he toddled around the conference room during a meeting I needed to attend. His Museum Aunties (and the lone male in our department) tolerate Jack’s attendance in part because he’s cute and it breaks up the usual monotony of meetings and because I am still in pretty decent brainstorming form even if a toddler is being bounced over one shoulder at the time. It’s exhausting though. Keeping tabs on my brain and my baby. He adores my boss. And she him. I get a lot of good and useful advice from her, too. She has a little rounded headed boy that is now quite grown up and filled with teenage angst.

After the meeting I bundled him into his carseat and headed home where we met my oldest niece who, with a half day off from school, volunteered to babysit for the afternoon. I left her feeding him lunch and went back to the Museum to work on our Christmas program over lunch with that committee. It was a good meeting that accomplished a great deal. And I heard (via cell phone) from my pal Pete from Chicagoland who promises a copy of the Museum magazine I help edit. (Petey is also the proud Papa of two little calfs that I like to hear of. One is the same age as my Jack and not nearly as clever.)

Back at the house Jack was in a different outfit having had “an incident with his milk at lunch” and snoozing contentedly on Maddie’s lap. I put him off to sleep in his crib so Maddie could stretch a bit and then left again to run errands– grocery store and the ilk. It’s easier if not as fun to shop by myself then with Jack. He almost always loves the grocery store until we hit his aisle. The babyfood aisle induces a high pitched screech that, I think, could summon baby Condors.

Back again at the house Jack was awake and ready to play with Maddie so I left again (after stowing the groceries) and headed out to pick up the Market Day order at the elementary school that my youngest neice goes to and then meet my boss at the fabric store to buy fabric and notions for Christmas program costumes.

Back AGAIN at the house Jack had been changed to yet another outfit and my sister waited with Maddie. Apparently, while I was out, there was an incident involving Jack and the lazyboy and his little chin resulting in his top teeth nicking his inner bottom lip. By the time I got to the scene there was only Maddie’s contrite explanation and a bloodied shirt to prove the tale. Jack, for his part, was happily playing with his toys. Maddie really is a great babysitter– she didn’t panic but knew, when my cell was out of service, to call the next nearest Mommy. It still hasn’t occured to me that I should ever have been worried. The baby’s fine and so is Maddie. I’m hoping to score her again later in the week on another of her half days.

When Rob came home we all bundled off (this time I was the one in a different outfit) to my in-laws for supper. And now, all’s quiet again.

I’m beat. Tomorrow will be a “let’s play inside” day.

Happiness is….

Tonight was a night of multi-syllable conversation with two pals and a ridiculous amount of food. The three of us have been known to solve most of the world’s problems over a good appetizer and this night was one of appetizers, entrees, and a shared dessert so you can imagine the good we were able to do.

My manifesto is this: Happiness is… a crock. It’s a concept entirely generated and perpetrated by the 20th century media and not at all worth the fuss and bother it’s given. It puts me in mind of the conversation I had a few months ago with my friend Wally who said that it’s no business of children (or God) whether we are happy or not. Children don’t care (nor does God) if we’re happy– just that we’re doing the things we’re supposed to be doing. You don’t read about wise people worrying about happiness. Or unhappiness.

Joy, on the other hand, is unselfish and very much worth being a goal. But happiness? Charles Schultz was right– it’s a warm blanket. Or a nice iced chai. A trip to the land of Disney. The trouble with happy is that it’s a moment. A measureable thing. And it’s fleeting.

I’m not banning the word, just being more careful how I use it. I’ll still wish a happy Christmas. I’ll still delight in the happy expressions of my small son. I just want more than Jack to grow up to be happy. I want him to grow up to be joyful and kind and gentle and generous and honorable.

Happy schmappy. Now pass that dessert over here.

Tea, Tables, and tumbling thermometers

Robby’s family cottage is closed for the winter. It truly is a cottage and not a house– the only way to winterize it would be to build a building around it and enclose it. This weekend we shivered our way through the mornings with bodies stiffened from trying to keep in heat all night. Jack was bundled in his little bed with a nest of blankets and thick jammies and socks… and the dog was grateful for his winter coat that’s been coming in lately.

Our movements in the cold semi-circle away from the fireplace and kerosene heater are clumsy and hurried. It’s a constant game to read the thermometer that tells both the inside and outside temperatures. Sometimes it makes it worse. By mid-afternoon it’s almost pleasant. Especially outside. In the sun. But the mornings and evenings are something else. My mother-in-law has been packing up the last load for home all week. When the temperatures dropped she took to her electric sheets.

I lived and slept in the wool socks my Auntie made me. And two layers of flannel pajammas. As Robby rightfully pointed out, “We’d suck at being pioneers.”

Yes we would.

During the day we took a trek outside. Jack rode in style on Robby’s back in the backpack with my long fingerless mitts on his arms and hands. My Mom brought him a little navy hat that ties under his chin and his little red cheeks under the hat enchanted us. There is a great path through the woods that, at this time of year, is crunchy with leaves and sticks. Our friend, Irene, lives off the path and we were treated to hot mugs of tea in her sunny front room. (Irene’s offers of tea are never, ever refused– always her tea is perfectly brewed. She always has milk for it, too.) Jack explored the sunbeams that came in the large window that looks out on the lake. It’s a completely different view than we are used to because her house is on the lake’s level and our cottage is on top of a hill overlooking it.

Last night we were invited to have supper with the Tuthills at their insulated haven of warmth and hospitality. I love fall at The Lake– the cottages and cabins and houses glow and spill out light into the cold black night in a fierce way. In the summer it’s the noise that spills out from the cottages along our road– walking the pup at a late hour you are aware of screen doors slamming and fireworks popping and card games turning raucous… but in the fall you are aware of the lights first. Noise doesn’t penetrate the cold in the same way the light seems to.

I’ve sung the praises of the Tuthills before. And that their table is the nicest one to at which to linger. Philbin pup is as welcomed and hailed as Jack baby. Dorrit’s bowls and platters always yield some perfect marriage of seasoning and David works the grill with roasts and birds that come to the table dripping with flavor and juice yet.

Padre sighed and stood when he remembered that we needed to stoke the fires back at the cottage or we’d have a miserable night. We bundled Jack into Meggie-the-dog’s duvat and chattered into the still cold. The moon last night was magnificent– a perfect Man-In-The-Moon yellow crescent hung low, low over the quiet lake. Jack’s warm little body and Philbin’s wiggling smaller body kept me warm on the way home but the first true cold, like this weekend’s, is a mean one.

For half the year the Lake is off limits to us– which makes the cottage all the more magical when May brings warmer temperatures again. Still, I’m glad to be in stout brick walls tonight with the furnace on and a throw on my lap. I’ll miss Irene’s tea and the Tuthill’s table though.

Rumbling Tummy

How’s this for a start to the day?

It’s Keegan’s birthday and her favorite restaurant is Bob Evans. My sister calls to invite Jack and I to breakfast with the Ladwig clan to celebrate over some yummy Bob Evans offering. Of course, to accomodate everybody’s schedule we’d have to go at 6:30 a.m. and my sister recognizes that this might not be so easily accomplished with a one year old and a Mommy that very much likes her sleep when she can get it. So she suggests that they stop by after dropping Maddie at school so that Keegan can spend the intervening hour with the JackRabbit.

So, at 7:05 while I am in the shower I am imaging all the possible outcomes of what might be in the Bob Evans Take Out bag that surely will be in the hands of my sister or niece. Secretly I hope that it isn’t pancakes since we had them for dinner last night… but maybe the yummy raspberry crepes? or biscuits and gravy? thick oatmeal and toast?

By 7:38 my tastebuds are whipped into a frenzy of wondering if maybe a cinnamon roll will appear.

The two deadbeats “forgot” to bring me anything. I’ll let the little one off the hook– it’s her birthday. But the older one owes me big time.

[Rumble. Rumble. Rumble.]