Ordinary Time

It's New Year's Eve. I'm not in the mood to go into a list of resolutions I might make for the upcoming year. I lack the follow-through to actually carry them out. Besides, my unoriginal resolution is always to lose my 40-50 lbs of nasty that accumulates around my middle. How tiresome. It's not as if every other chubby middle-aged woman in America makes that resolution. Why not make the resolution to try artisanal cheese or go sky-diving? What will happen is that for a week or two I go full-speed at the weight loss thing, then someone brings in brownies to school. So the logical thing would be to learn to love myself as a fatty. But I'm in the mood to make peace with my rotundness, either. And the other things I could improve, such as being more punctual or better organized just seem like a maternal part of my mind nagging the lazy teenage self that is blogging today. I want to tell my inner mom, "All RIGHT, all RIGHT. Fine, whatever," so I can go back to watching movies all day. So enough with the "new year, new life" pep talk.

This is my least favorite time of the year. What's so great about January or February? Not a blessed thing as I can see. In the Cincinnati metro region this is when we usually get our snow, not at Christmas. If we don't get snow, we usually have color-coordinated weather. The ground, the trees, and the sky are all a monochromatic gray-ish color. How utilitarian.

This is the time of the year that I start to look for little tiny things to anticipate. Good thing, too, since my big thing isn't going to happen after all. Here are some things to look forward to:

1. Luke and I are going to Pittsburgh for our friends' wedding on MLK weekend. I can't remember the last time we went away for a weekend without the children. I'm thinking it might have been in 2000, before we had kids.

2. My kids got a tent for Christmas, so I guess we can go camping.

3. I got two good cookbooks for Christmas, so I can try new recipes.

4. I have a sweet and thoughtful daughter who got me a pretty dishtowel from the Santa Shop at school.

5. Umm, well, there's always spring break.

6. And after spring break there's summer vacation.

As I said earlier, I'm not a fan of January or February. The holidays are never the shining wonder time that retailers want us to imagine them to be, but the time with family and friends is restful and fun. My day-to-day life is mostly pretty good, but to be certain the pace can take its toll. And I've got too short an attention span to be a fan of the repetitiveness of regular life.

If I had to make a resolution, then, I would resolve to find wonder in what is ordinary. I would resolve to bless the everyday moments of grace. To be certain each day is filled with grace. In my church we frequently sing the idea that "God woke me up this morning, and that's a miracle." It's easy for me to lose sight of the fact that breathing is a miracle, that trees are a miracle, that a good bowl of soup is a miracle, that my friends and family are a miracle. May I keep these thoughts throughout the year, and may I remember always to be grateful for small blessings.

Solstice

Today I needed to finish up some Christmas shopping. One of the items I needed to purchase could only be found at the Cincinnati Nature Center. I looked forward to going there. I figured that I would buy my items quickly and then let the kids play in the visitor's center while I read a book (Tweak, by Nic Sheff. It's a memoir of his addiction to crystal meth. I'm finding the bleaker the better right now). I thought I'd look at the panoramic view of the bird feeding area. What I didn't count on were the following:

I'm still sore from my operation, and I can only handle about an hour total of standing up. We went grocery shopping right before the Nature Center. So I hurt.

I didn't count on acoustic Christmas music on the speaker system. Of course I walked into "Silent Night." Later, it was "What Child is This?" There are way too many Christmas songs about babies, sleeping babies, lullabies for sweet, sleeping babies, etc. And the secular Christmas songs are annoying during normal years. This year, I really don't feel like rockin' around the Christmas tree OR having a holly, jolly Christmas. T'isn't the season to be jolly.

So the baby Jesus songs are on the stereo system, and I'm borderline weepy already. Then my kids call me over to the bird viewing area. "Hey, Mom-Look at all these birds! They're so pretty! They're different from what we see at home! This is so cool! I wish we lived by here!" This makes me smile. I have successfully indoctrinated them. My dad would be so proud of me, if he were here.

Wait-no fair. Dead family member double whammy. I was sad about the baby. Then, I thought about my dad. I'm bummed that he barely got to know my nephew Christopher, who was a baby when Dad died. I think it's totally unfair that he missed my graduation from grad school the first time, my wedding, my niece, Kate, my two children, and his soon to be three great grandchildren. And, looking at the birds, I think he would have loved going to the Nature Center with me and the kids. He would have taken Vincent and Lily fishing. They would have been so happy together.

But there was another dimension to my sadness in the moments I sat in the bird viewing area. Anything I say might sound like cliche, but here goes: The starkness of the trees, the cold weather, the grey sky-they're all beautiful in their way. This dark, bleak midwinter is sucktastic. But there must be some lesson I need to learn from it.

I sat and cried for a few minutes. Then my children asked to walk on the boardwalk path around the pond. I agreed. We hit the trail. The cold was bracing. There was a little bit of snow on the boardwalk. Vincent and Lily made snowballs and spent about ten minutes throwing them at the two frozen patches on the pond. We watched four adult ducks gliding through the pond, graceful as ballerinas in the Nutcracker. I thought about solstice. I'm not a pagan, but it seems like such a comforting holiday. If I understand correctly, the idea of solstice is that one celebrates the rebirth of light on the longest night of the year. To me, the celebration seems to say, "The world can be no darker than tonight. Let's rejoice in the fact that, although it seems far away, the light is coming back to us gradually."

Thank you for the days

I haven't posted in a while. Let me just say that my fall was a whirlwind. So many good things happened. For starters, I fell in love-with my husband. It felt as if we were in our twenties again. We did some crazy things. For instance, we went to see Wilco on a Monday night in Columbus. My mother watched the kids for us. After all was said and done we got to bed at about three AM. I usually wake up for school at five. It was crazy. But it felt so good to be young again.

The upshot of all of this was that I unexpectedly ended up pregnant again, as an almost thirty-nine year old. To be sure, I wasn't feeling it at the time. I thought,"Oh no-I've ruined my life." I was so worried about how we would manage. We have a small, cluttered house. We have small cars that work for a family of four. I was slated to start graduate school in January. I didn't know how we would begin to make this work. Early on, I just thought of this as a catastrophe. I had just found my groove as a mom with school-age kids. We were hiking, having adventures, going places without diapers or pull-ups. It felt good, but it was all coming to an end.

But by the beginning of the second month of this pregnancy, I began to feel hopeful. I could almost imagine cuddling a tiny newborn in my arms. I daydreamed about experiencing this baby's milestones. It has been so long since my children were babies that I have to strain to remember what it was like to have a baby. This was a new beginning. My husband and I were in love again, and this baby was a reminder of how happy we were. My belly began to get bigger, and I made the transition into maternity clothes. Being pregnant began to seem normal and wonderful.

The last day of normal was December 17th. I skipped choir practice that night to bake cookies so I'd have gifts to give my kids' teachers. My hips hurt, but I felt resourceful. I also felt happy because Friday was the last day of school before Christmas vacation. I had a pretty new (well, slightly used) outfit from Once Upon A Child: black velvet maternity pants, a red tee-shirt, and a red cardigan embellished with a row of red sequins. I felt pretty and happy. My husband was coming with me to an ultrasound appointment to screen for chromosomal abnormalities.

I had to scramble to get to the appointment. My doctor's office had called the month before to say that I had an appointment at 1 on the 18th. They neglected to mention that it would be at the hospital. So I drove to the doctor's office early only to find out that I needed to rush to the hospital. My husband met me there. We sat through genetic counseling, after which I thought, "Okay, so our odds are pretty good, really. We only have a one in 90 or 96 percent chance of some genetic problem. I'll stop worrying." We waited for an available ultrasound room. I wasn't worried about the baby; I was thinking about what I needed to get done for Christmas.

The ultrasound began as all my other ultrasounds did. My giant fibroid (which was there for both my other pregnancies) obscured the view of the baby. Then the tech saw the baby. Then, out of nowhere, she said, "I'm sorry; there's no heartbeat. Let me get the doctor." Before I could process the situation, a doctor came in, saying, "No, there's no heartbeat. Let's call your OB-GYN to see what he wants to do." So then, bam, the OB-GYN is on the phone, asking me, "Have you eaten today? If you haven't we can get you in for the D&C right now. You've eaten? Okay, well, you can't eat after midnight. You'll get a D&C tomorrow. We'll just clean it all out." Sure, it's just some gunk in my womb. No big. It's like cleaning out the fridge, right?

All of this is going on right in the middle of Christmas preparations, the "most wonderful time of the year." While my daughter is at a Christmas party for her after school program, I'm home pondering my dead child. I can't stop thinking about what I did wrong. Why wasn't I happier about being pregnant when I first discovered that I was pregnant? Why did I think about all the hardship this would cause me? When my mother was not initially supportive in finding out about the pregnancy, I said, "Well, maybe at my next ultrasound there won't be a heartbeat." I was angry at her for not being kind. I wasn't really saying that I didn't want a baby. I was trying to make her feel bad. If only I could take back those words. I shouldn't try to hurt my mom that way. I shouldn't have deliberately tried to make her feel bad. And for certain I didn't want my baby to ever think that I didn't want her. I know in the logical part of my brain that the miscarriage is just nature's way of making sure that a child who would be too unhealthy to survive ex utero would not be brought into the world. It's a tidy solution to a problem. It's as common as oxygen, really. But I can't help feeling that she didn't understand how much I loved her, so she left to be where she would be appreciated.

Until I miscarried, I didn't know how many people lose children. Think about all the children who die of preventable diseases and hunger in the world. We here in the easy and comfortable parts of the planet don't give the poor a second thought as they die from malaria and starvation. Here, too, in the easy and comfortable parts of the world, children die. What I am finding so interesting and comforting is that as my family suffers through this, other people come out of the woodwork to tell us their stories. A friend of mine at church said, "If you meet women with two or three kids, chances are they've had a miscarriage along the way." She had one. My mother had one. One of my sisters had one or two. My niece had one. When I told my principal at school, she told me that she had two miscarriages. Beyond the many women who have miscarried, I have spoken to people in the past two days who have experienced stillbirth, who have lost babies ex utero, and a woman who lost an 18-year-old son. When I told the woman that her situation seemed much harder than mine, she said, "Oh, but I got to have him for 18 years. I try now to live the life he would want me to live." There is comfort in knowing that others understand my sorrow.

I am grateful to the staff at the hospital who tended to my D&C. When I found out on Friday that the baby was dead, the hospital staff seemed brusquely efficient. I went in for the operation the next day to find out that I needed to go through labor and delivery, past women trying to deliver their live babies. I cried, sobbing wordlessly I as handed my forms to the nurses at the front desk. The nurses there were emissaries of Heaven, I am certain. A lovely young receptionist took my hand and said, "I am so sorry. We will take care of you." A nurse named Pam found me a quiet, solitary room away from the laboring moms. She and Heather, the nurse who assisted in the operation, made sure that I understood that the baby was dead, because I had made the mistake of reading other people's ultrasound urban legends on the internet. Pam wanted to be sure that I could accept what needed to happen before I signed my consent. I am grateful to Debbie the anesthetist, who made sure I was comfortable. I am grateful to Dr. Bhatia, who showed respect for the situation, not treating it as a simple housecleaning procedure.

I am grateful to my friends and family who have all offered to help. Thank you, Jim and Carolyn, for watching our children on Saturday. Thank you, Mom, for being so sympathetic. I am sorry about the cruel thing I said to you. Thank you Judy, Karen, Becky, Drew, and Kathleen for offering your help. Thank you Jonni and Justin, for listening.

When I look back on this situation, if I am honest with myself, I can be grateful for the time we had with Peach (which is what we took to calling our baby, based on the size she grew to be. The pregnancy books would say, "At this time your baby is the size of a bean/prune/etc. Our baby grew to be the size of a peach. Hence the name.) Peach made me feel hope again. Peach reminded my husband of how much he loved me. Vincent was certain that Peach would be the playmate who would always want to play with him. Lily was very solicitous of my health and Peach's development. Peach reminded me that I still was young, not middle-aged, because I could be the mother of a baby. Peach taught me to be open to possibilities.

Maybe Ray Davies of the Kinks said it best in his song, "Days":

Thank you for the days
Those endless days those sacred days you gave me
I'm thinking of the days
I won't forget a single day believe me
I bless the light
I bless the light that shines on you believe me
And though you're gone
You're with me every single day believe me.

Thank you, Peach. I will always love and remember you.

This is the first full week of Autumn that we are entering, here in the northern hemisphere. I'm writing at 7:12 on a Sunday night and the sunset (already) is yellowy-orange. I love autumn: leaves falling, pumpkins, Halloween, crisp air, all that stuff. Still, however much I love autumn, I always feel a tinge of melancholy at its onset. I've already made my list of things I love to shore up my sagging mood. I have been told that cultivating gratitude helps in this situation. And I have to admit that at my core I'm self-centered (aren't we all?). I'm wont to complain about the problems I have. Yet I if I can be honest with myself, I must admit that any trials in my life pale in comparison to what 90% of the world goes through. I'm more blessed than cursed. Here's a list of why I know that I am lucky:

1. I have people who support and love me.

Any time I have problems, I can talk to my husband, my mom, my sisters, my brother, my in-laws, my brothers and sisters-in-law, and of course, my friends.

2. I have NPR

When I feel lonely, sad, irritated at having to enter grades into the computer at work, I can go online to NPR's site and find something interesting or enlightning to listen to while I toil (no, this is not a pledge-week testimonial).

3. I have the job I was born to do:

I love Spanish; I love doing creative things; I love kids; I love to sing. How lucky am I that I get to teach Spanish with all academic freedom I need while also doing music at school masses?

4. I am no longer doing a job that I hate:

I am thoroughly convinced that there is no good reason to hate what you do for a living. Well, maybe that's easier said than done in a recession. But I so don't miss being a planner in zoning services. Three years away from my time as a planner, I have to laugh at the crazy idea that I could have ever been successful in a job that entailed measuring the area and height of proposed signs and counting trees and parking spaces on a site plan (and, look, I don't want to cast aspersions on anyone, but what kind of person a) enjoys and b) is good at this?)

4. There is more than enough water to drink in Northern KY:

Ask people from Colorado, Florida, Montana, California about how great it is to live in a state that doesn't have a lot of water. It may not be a normal thing to bring up, but I used to be a planner. I think about these kinds of things. Most of the rest of you don't think about signs on buildings or billboards, I'd bet.

5. I lived in Paris for awhile when I was in my twenties.

6. I lived in Florida for three months and went to the beach whenever I could.

7. I am grateful for the collosal errors in judgement I have made:

These may be too numerous to count. But I believe in a song I used to listen to, from a nineties-alternative band called Poi Dog Pondering. One of the lines in the song went, "Would our paths cross if every great loss had turned out a gain?" If teaching had worked out for me the first time I tried it, in the nineties, I wouldn't have gone to UC for planning and met all of my friends from planning school. If I hadn't spent five years in a job that made me miserable, I wouldn't have had to courage to go back into teaching. If the principal at my urban junior high school had decided to let me come back for a second year, I wouldn't have found my dream job. The chorus of the song goes, "Thanksgiving for every wrong move." Amen, I say to you!

8. I am grateful that neither of my children is at an on-site child care facility with me this year, for the first time in three years.

I like having some time to de-compress after I'm done with work. My paid employment and my unpaid employment leave me frazzled and hassled. I'm so glad to not have to move jarringly from one into the other. The other benefit to this is that I have the drive into school in the morning. Covington is its prettiest in the morning.

9. I am grateful for the fact that I'm finally being to feel comfortable with who I am:

You know, for the most part, anyway. I mean, there are still moments of doubt and panic, moments when I'm embarassed with who I am. Yesterday, for instance, I felt one. I went to Barnes and Noble at Newport on the Levee to kill some time. I was reading aloud to Vincent. The book was making me laugh, so I was laughing. I don't laugh quietly; I'm a loud person anyway. So this European-accented woman stage whispered to her daughter, "Let's go outside. She's too loud." This threw me into some junior-high-ish crisis of self-esteem where I felt vaguely Roseanne Barr-ish. In social situations where I feel that I'm floundering, I see myself as fat, loud, and embarassingly working-class. Of course, none of these is bad, actually. Now that I think about it, what's wrong with being fat? As for loud, yeah, well, I can probably outsing that snotty Eurowitch any day of the week. I have a phenomenal speaking voice, and I'd lay odds I'd read any book with more dramatic flair than she and her bland, non-specific European accent could do. And as far as working-class goes, too bad for you if you disdain people for working honestly. Maybe your lazy European tuchis doesn't have to work, but I WORK FOR A LIVING. AM I LOUD ENOUGH FOR YOU NOW, YOU PRETENTIOUS SNOB? IF YOU WANT QUIET, DON'T GO INTO A BOOK STORE ON NEWPORT ON THE LEVY, STUPID!!! AND STAY OUT OF THE CHILDREN'S SECTION.

10. I am grateful that I am not saying this things in real time to Eurowitch:
I am still a chicken. All I said to her in real life was, "Sorry."

11. I am grateful that you all like me despite my neroses.

12. I'm grateful that Luke, my amazing husband, took me and the kids to Natural Bridge in Kentucky for Labor Day weekend:

It rained the whole time we were there. Here's a picture of all of us together. We look like drowned rats. There were only camouflage rain ponchos in the adult sizes at the gift shop, so I look hunter-ish.

13. I am grateful that the folks at Blogger let me do this:

It makes me feel better to be able to write.

Happy first week of autumn, everyone!

I have absolutely no original thoughts.

So here's the deal: one of the classes I have to teach is called "World Cultures." It's an enrichment class. The three world language teachers in the elementary school share the responsibility of this class. Our format usually has been to teach about a country. We take turns, so in the course of a semester I'll have to teach about three countries (this year's choices: Brazil, Indonesia, and Somalia). This still leaves us three more classes to fill. Tomorrow's class will be about "Where does this food item come from?" I thought at the time, "You know, there must be something interesting about noodles. I'd love to know the history of them."

Yeah, well, so would apparently a whole bunch of folks who watch Korean Broadcasting Service. They produced a whole documentary series on this very topic called "Noodle Road." So I'm not the only dork out there who thought, "Wow, I'd like to learn all about noodles." Here's a link to the promo for the series:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8xv_00iQrI

This only goes to prove a thought I've had for years: any idea that I have will already be out in cyberspace somewhere. Think of anything to google, any two random words, and there will be a web page for it, maybe 400 web pages. I'm not quite sure whether to feel this is reassuring or dehumanizing.

Into the Woods, Part II

Hello, Gentle Readers:

I haven't posted in a couple of days. I'd forgotten just how hard teaching full-time and having two kids can be. Summer's like some crazy kind of high. I know, logically, during summer, that I will be stressed and overworked once we all go back to school; but my summer-high mind convinces me just to forget it. "It's all good," my mind says, "Read some more. Why not hang out on Facebook for six hours or so?" The idea that I won't have time to burn seems too unlikely to be possible. So now I'm back to "real life," which is considerably harder. I have been looking forward to having a few minutes to write something.

I thought I should update the "60 Hikes within 60 Miles" situation. Since I last posted about this in July, the kids and I (and sometimes one of my sisters) have visited Caldwell Park (#22 in the book), Cincinnati Nature Center's Rowe Woods (#24), The Fort Thomas Landmark Tree Trail (#55), as well as John Bryan State Park in Yellow Springs, Ohio. JB didn't make the cut. Tamara York listed Clifton Gorge Nature Preserve, which connects to JB. I'm still counting it, though. They connect eventually, so it's as good as going on the trail. We've had mostly positive results. I have to qualify my answer with "mostly."

The first of these was our visit to Caldwell Park. The book listed Caldwell Park as being a good site for looking at fossils. This is pretty much all we got to do. The children, their aunt, and I all walked in the creek, looking for fossils. Then we ate lunch. Then Lily needed to use the restroom. We had to leave the park to do this, driving to the neighboring Caldwell recreation center, since there were no working potties at the park. We took care of the situation, with the children looking longingly at the rec center pool. Then they both noticed the playground there, so we got stuck for another twenty minutes. The kids were not into the hiking idea after that. Their aunt got them to take a very brief hike after promising them Graeters, which we ate post-hike in Hyde Park Square. What I found kind of funny about this hike was that the kids did end up enjoying nature but in their own way, not mine. They love tromping in creekbeds, and they love the little park with flowers and a giant pine tree in Hyde Park Square. The kids hid under the branches of the pine tree after they got done with their ice cream. Does this count? I think so.

Rowe Woods was a better fit. The Nature Center is a pay park, but it's so worth the six bucks or so you have to pay. However, I feared we would never get out of the visitor's center. They have an indoor interactive center for children. They have a library with "books for grown-ups," as Lily noted. Most importantly, they have a gift shop. As gift shops go, this one has a lot of nice things. But I hate gift shops in museums, nature centers, parks, etc. I hate gettting hassled for gifts, the subtle suggestions of "(sigh) It's too bad we can't get anything here," countered with my terse, "Yeah, well, it's a shame, isn't it?" It took a lot of coaxing to get my kids outside again. Once outside on the trail, though, we had a great time. We saw the same deer on three different occasions, as well as a bunch of frogs in a puddle and some really pretty flowers. The trails are the best marked I have ever seen in my life. They use pictures, which is cool for the early literacy set. The Center's goal is to educate children and young people about nature, and I think this mindset is evident the minute you drive into the park.

The Fort Thomas Tree Trail was altogether a different vibe than the Nature Center. The NC was packed when we went on a weekday. We were the only souls in the tree trail. Still, the Tree Trail has a sort of educational mission of its own. The point of the trail is the identification of 25 notable species of trees. The trees are well labeled; the trail is straight forward. Finding the trail was more difficult than I would have thought possible, especially considering it's in the Fort Thomas Army Reserve complex. Folks, this is right next door to Tower Park, which is about a six or seven minute drive from my house. But it's a secluded trail for certain. We found the trail and the kids finished the whole thing. I think what makes hiking the trail fun for kids is the tree identification. It gives them a goal to look forward to. "Hey, where's number 16? Do you see number 16?" "There it is! I see it, Mommy!" It's also nice that it's right in our backyard. Better still, the excellent Tower Park Playground would be a great reward for finishing the hike.

Today, we went to John Bryan Park. It took about a month of Sundays to get there, or so it felt. I've been there probably forty or so other times in my life. The kids don't remember this, but they've both been there before, at least twice for each of them (maybe even three or four times for Lily). Once we finally parked our car and hit the trail, Lily gasped and said, "Oh Mommy, it's BEAUTIFUL!" I agreed. This was probably our most successful foray to date. I had promised them waterfalls, but we didn't end up on the trail with the waterfalls. Vince was the trail leader, and he was keen on staying right next to the river. After a point the riverbank trail petered out, so we ended up on some other trail that wasn't gorge or cliff. It wasn't as pretty as what I had remembered, so I got the kids to climb up a hillside, saying, "I think that's the trail over there!" It wasn't, but I could see a trail a few feet below on the opposite side of where we'd been hiking. We got on that trail, and Vince sprinted up a whole boatload of steps in the process. We ended up in the park's campground, which we stayed in for about half an hour or so. Vincent pretended he wanted to build a fire. Lily confided in me that she "might want to look into Girl Scouts." They both like the idea of camping. I'm just happy to continue a family tradition. Some of my happiest memories of my dad are of the times we spent hiking. I can't help but think he's smiling at me from wherever Heaven might be, looking at his grandson, hiking stick in hand, going off the trail like generations of Bachman men before him.

I've got to go bathe my filthy children. Have a lovely evening.

Some Ugly Truths about Motherhood

Okay, here's the part where I get confessional. I'll give you the back story to my confessions (bless me readers; I have sinned. It's been about four years since my last confession). I'm sitting here removed from my children, alone in our very air-conditioned bedroom. My husband is downstairs dealing with the things to deal. I'm left here to sort out my thoughts and air my dirty laundry publicly. Here are some things I'm not proud of:

1. I get jealous and resentful of my children because their childhood is easier than mine. No, I didn't have some sort of Frank McCourt-drunken-dad-ambivalent-mom childhood. I did come from a working-class family, though. Prior to about fifth grade, most of my clothing was third or fourth hand, such that I recall wearing (gasp) bellbottoms in straight-legged 1982.

The Prince and Princess don't have that. They have a posse of folks who adore them and shower them with gifts. Whereas I went out to eat with my family about once every two or three months as a kid, my children do this about once or twice A WEEK. My darling, overly picky daughter was just pouting because she had to eat the disgusting, leftover Mom's-homemade pizza, while her brother had a piece of Pizza Hut pepperoni leftover from a trip there with their dad yesterday. "It's not FAIR, "she complained. Yeah, well, they didn't have bread machines back in the 1970's or 1980's. So I got Mom's homemade pizza about once a year.

I feel like some disgruntled old geezer in complaining about this. Part of me gets mad because I don't think they understand the value of the things they have. But some petty little part of me feels like the kid who wasn't chosen for the kickball game. It's not fair! How come I didn't get to have Pizza Hut once a week when I was a kid, huh? Maybe I will make them eat my most despied childhood food, the torturous ham and green beans, to exact my revenge upon them. As long as I don't have to eat it, too.

2. I secretly fear that I am screwing these children up and that they will be ruined forever and not be functioning adults. If I make the mistake of comparing my parenting to other parents around me, nearly everyone else seems to do a better job. My parents, especially my mom, were much more organized than I am. The mommies at the pool and the mall are not only thinner, prettier, blonder, and wealthier; they also seem to be such loving, patient sweet women that I feel like Roseanne Barr next to them (loud, loutish, working-class, fat, allowing my children to eat Cheetos). I am not an overly saccharine person. I also resent putting the children to bed and having to read to them. So maybe the kids will grow up to hate reading and with it school. I know that the reading part, at least, is craziness. Lily lives to read. But I can't control the crazy train when it leaves the station house; it just runs ninety miles an hour downhill on a mountain. My thoughts are not always rational, in other words.

3. This is hard to admit, but sometimes I get disappointed that the children were not made to order to my specs. Yes, it's true. I want things the way I want them. This means that from time to time I want my children to perform per my expectations, and they don't. I am very musical. I sing and I was a pretty good clarinet player back in high school. My husband is musical. He is an ex-piano teacher and a keyboardist in a local band. I expect my children to love music. Our parish is recruiting heavily for the children's choir. I know better than to force the issue. Lily wants no part of it. "I can't read music," she tells me. "Daddy could teach you. I know how, but I'm pretty sure you don't want me to try to teach you." As we were leaving today the Deacon of our church said, "Where are you going? Deacon needs you children to help with the choir." The little boy said, "No." The little girl just hung her head and pouted. I know in my heart of hearts that they would make a contribution to the choir. But I also know that they can't be forced.

4. I remember reading some stupid poem in Dear Abby, long before I had kids, to the effect of "dust bunnies, you'll just have to wait; my dear children will only be children for a little while." I hate that sentiment. I can't live in a nasty looking house. And I'm super squeezed for time. But I've kept this stupid poem in my mind for twenty-something years, so I end up either a) cleaning and feeling guilty because I'm not spending time with my kids or b) feeling resentful because my house looks gross and I'm stuck playing Monopoly or some matching game.

What does this all add up to? I'm always looking for a tidy ending, just like some After School Special of my youth. I'm confident there isn't one. Logically, I know that I am human and that parenting is hard. My parenting style isn't like other people's. I won't ever be perfect. There's lots I do wrong. Here are three things I've done right in the past month:

1. I introduced my children to the excellent Gertrude Warner story The Boxcar Children. It felt so good to get them hooked on a story I had loved as a child.

2. I took them both to Coney Island before the summer ended, and we had one of my happiest ever motherhood memories together.

3. I put a note in my daughter's lunch box on the first day of school, just like they tell you today in the women's magazines. She thought it was kind of weird, but she liked it ultimately.

I guess in the end, I just fumble around and try to do my best, confident in the knowledge that I'm about 65% percent succesful on a good day. Then I take a bath and go to bed. Good night, everyone. Thanks for being here.

Raindrops on Roses, whiskers on kittens

This is the time of year where I start to feel a little down. I suppose it's inevitable. School is back in session, and as a teacher, I'm back at work after a long summer. The light starts to fade. The flowers start to look a little droopy. It's going to be cold soon. What's a mom/Spanish teacher to do? Well, I've decided to compile a list of the things that make me feel better when my mood is less than exuberant. Here goes (in the order in which they came to my mind):

1. Nothing beats Charlie Harper's artwork. If I feel sad, I just need to look at one of his cardinals. http://www.charleyharperprints.com/

2. Old cast-iron skillets. I love them.

3. Listening to my kids play together, because my son says "Betend (not pretend)."

3. John Coltrane's "My Favorite Things."

4. This cool Youtube video of the Columbus Symphony playing at Ash Cave park in the Hocking Hills region.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFx3BMpo3vg

5. A quick view of Chartre cathedral. The most beautiful shade of blue in the world can be found there. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYRVmIj7bw8

6. The sound of wind in the trees

7. The sound of water in a creek as it goes over the rocks

8. The sound of seashells as they wash up on the beach

9. The yellow on my dining room wall

10. A nice glass of Pinot Grigio on a hot day

11. A nice glass of shiraz on a cold day

12. Thai pumpkin soup

13. Subzi dalcha

14. Talking to my mom or my sisters

15. A walk through my neighborhood because I like to look at everyone's gardens

16. Walking through my neighborhood at twilight, when the families who live there turn on the lights inside the houses. Lights through the window look beautiful to me.

17. If you look at the glass on office building windows in the late afternoon, the sky reflects in the windows so that they look almost silver.

18. Krohn Conservatory

19. The Purple People Bridge

20. Singing at the top of my lungs, especially stuff in German or Latin that I remember from college choir

21. My white-and-red-flowered tablecloth

22. Cold Saturday mornings, when I burrow under throws on my sofa, and my children and cats climb on top of me.

23. Talking with my husband about music

24. Dinner with friends

25. The show "What Not to Wear." My husband makes fun of me for watching. Yes, it's predictable. Yes, the shlubby woman will be fabulously transformed. Yes, Nick Arrojo will give her the same haircut he gave the woman on the last show. Why is this bad? In a world of recession, wars, disease, etc., what's so bad about knowing what's coming next?

26. The video "Bonito" by the group Jarabe de Palo. The song is almost what I just did right now. The lyrics are about all the things in the world that are beautiful to him ("todo me parece bonito.") Great video. Great sentiment. Take a look. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaPIrbmEj5E

If you have any suggestions, feel free to add them.

I think this picture should have been a Yes album cover

I think if you tweaked the color, it would look like a prog rock album cover.

Procastinators of the world, unite! (tomorrow)

I haven't posted in forever. I'm back to my job as a Spanish teacher. Volvi a la realidad. I have no desire to do any work, while I know that I have a ton to do. It's 3:29. While I should be entering the summer homework assignments in the gradebook, I prefer to search for navrattan korma recipes online. Donde esta mi motivacion?

It seemed like a good idea...

I got a really good book this summer:

60 Hikes Within 60 Miles. The American Hiking Association publishes these guides, contracting experienced local hikers to hike trails in a metro area and to write a guide to them. The guide provides directions to the trails listed, including GPS coordinates to the trailhead. The author of the Cincinnati guide, Tamara York, noted that she hikes with both of her daughters, who are under five. This, of course, made me feel like a slacker. I love hiking. I don't do it often enough with my children. Besides Ms. York's guidebook, another book on the topic of kids and nature influences me greatly, Last Child in the Woods, by Richard Louv. Mr. Louv argues that our children are experiencing a dearth of unstructured time in nature. He has named this condition Nature Deficiency which he feels "describes the human costs of alienation from nature, among them: diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses. The disorder can be detected in individuals, families, and communities. Nature deficit can even change human behavior in cities, which could ultimately affect their design, since long-standing studies show a relationship between the absence, or inaccessibility, of parks and open space with high crime rates, depression, and other urban maladies." Righto. I'll do my part to save civilization, Mr. Louv. Me and the kids'll hit the trail.

See, I'm all down with the idea of going hiking with my kids. My parents took me hiking all the time as a kid. I don't question the benefit of doing this. But I have a hard time making it work. I feel as though the kids and I have to suffer together to make our natural contact meaningful or something. Maybe I'm just trying too hard. I got my 60 Hikes book and looked up a location near our house that had fossils. We'd just seen a documentary about fossil hunting, and they were both into the idea. So I said, "Great! Let's go to Stonelick Park." The directions in the book seemed pretty straightforward, listing the drive time as being about 25 minutes. I'd never been there in my life, of course. Still, I confidently thought, "No problem. We can do this in the time between swimming lessons (10:00) and gymnastics (4:00). Of course, it didn't work out as planned. Here are the pitfalls I fell into:

1. Yeah, the directions are straightforward IF YOU READ CAREFULLY. I didn't of course. So I missed a turn.

2. My children have limited experience in Ohio State Parks, and I'd forgotten about the nasty toilets there. Hamilton County Parks and city parks all have flush toilets and sinks, not to mention toilet paper. Luckily for myself, I had brought t.p. with me. I still couldn't convince my daughter that she wouldn't contract some unmentionable disease from contact with the gross toilets.

3. While the hike listed in the book sounded interesting, I think we covered about an eighth of it. Vincent gets tired pretty easily. Plus (sorry Richard Louv-I guess I've overscheduled my kids) I was fool enough to do this on a day when we had two other scheduled activities between our hike.

Despite the rough going, I'm going to keep hiking with my kids. What I intend to try in the future is to NOT try to go to a new park when we have to be somewhere right after the hike (duh, right? Well, I'm stubborn about trying stuff when I want to try it). I'm going to insist that we use the potties in the park. They'll thank me for it later if they get stuck in a bar in Europe and have to use a Turkish toilet. Go where you have a hole (or a tree, if necessary). I'm going to give them journals to draw/write what they see. I'm going to give them baggies to put in leaves or stuff they find (of course within reason. I know they're not supposed to take stuff from the park). I will get them their own cameras to take pictures of the hike. Vincent took this picture of Lily on our hike.

Even after the potties and my missing a turn and our mad rush and subsequent late arrival to gymnastics, we had a good time together. We found four butterflies, several red leaves, lots of tall trees, and lots of good conversation. Both kids got to take turns being trail leaders. So I've covered about one eighth of the sixty trails. Only 59 and 7/8 left!

J’enseigne pas de français

Alors, c'est une nouvelle triste pour le Jour de L'Independence. I recently discovered that, for the first time in my teaching career, I will not be able to say that I am a French and Spanish teacher. I'm only teaching Spanish next year. It's kind of sad, until you keep it all in perspective. I ended up studying French in the first place just because I got closed out of German in high school. Back then, no one wanted to learn German. Now, no one wants to learn French. Maybe 50 years from now, people will only want to learn Chinese anyway.

I'm trying to blog every day, just because I guess I should write or something. Today, I have no witty observations or nothin'. I'm fresh out. I went to the Clinton County Fair with my mom, my kids, and two of my sisters to see one of my sister's artwork. She won best of show for a photograph AND a painting she did. Kudos, Sis! We got to see pigs, sheep, goats, cows, and rabbits. Oh, and about a gazillion tractors. Sadly the overpriced carnaval rides were not operational, so I got to hold onto about twelve dollars of my hard-earned cash rather than do my part to stimulate the economy.

After we'd seen all that we could see we traveled in the way-back machine to Cassano's. When we were kids, we'd have Cassano's pizza about once a month. They've all but disappeared around where I live. My sis found one in Wilmington, OH. It is located in a rehabbed livery. Great adaptive reuse (spoken like an ex-urban planner)! Great pizza, too.

I took the venerable old U.S. Hwy 22/State Route 3 home (aka "3 and 22" in my family). We passed through a fair amount of farmland. I was looking for a a farmer's market or a farmstand. I found something better-the Valley Winery and Schuchter Farm Market. I got tomatoes, potatoes, half-runner beans, eggplant, yellow squash, and peaches, along with a bottle of wine. I got the kids each a stick of old fashioned stick candy (you know-the stripey kind. Looks like a candy cane without the crook at the end). Then I hit Trader Joe's for some staples on the way home.

Fat-SO?! or SO FAT!!!!

I have done this issue to death in my life. I am so tired of expending energy with regard to THE FAT THING. I spent most of my life as a fat girl. I was a little fat kid who grew into a fat teen who remained a fat adult. Then, when I was 31, I began a weight-loss regimen through a twelve-step program that allowed me to drop 60-67 lbs. I then spent a glorious nine-month period as a tiny-boned 5'4"-tall size six. There are a couple of publically-held conceptions in this type of situation. Thought one is that magically the former fatso has a fabbo life. She finds Mr. Right; she gets a tiny designer wardrobe; she takes up salsa dancing and feels better than she ever has in her life. Thought two is that the ex-chub is still miserable because she has unresolved issues. For me, the skinny life was walking with one foot in each camp. I won't lie; there was a certain fabulousness that accompied being that small. I remember finding the best clothes. I remember feeling smug about my petite structure, thinking about how much more acceptable I was than my former loud, fat, size-16-ish person I was before. For the first (maybe the only) time in my life, I felt as if I were actually female, and not some Pat-like creature (for those of you too young to remember, "Pat" was an adrogynous person whom Julia Sweeney played on Saturday Night Live in the '90's. The theme of the sketch was that no one could tell what Pat's gender was. Look it up on the Youtube, as John McCain might say).

While the tiny clothes were a definite plus, my skinniness brought to light that my (as I perceived it) youthful face was the result of my blubber. With no weight on my face, I was all severe angularity. Lines became more noticeable on my face. Morevoer, I lost a lot of hair from my weight loss. I had always been a fat girl with pretty, thick, hair. I became a skinny girl with thin, lack-luster hair. Besides, being skinny didn't change that I hated my job and felt that my talents were not being served. Being skinny didn't keep me from being lonely. While it changed everything about my life, it also changed nothing at all.

All told, I started losing weight in February of 2003 until November of 2003. I maintained my weight loss until July of 2004. Then I became pregnant with my son and remembered that I like food. I struggled with my food, frequently feeling guilty about eating between meals. I worried constantly that I would put the weight back on. I did, of course, but not immediately. I still haven't put all of it back on. I've put on enough to make me realize that I might as well be that fat girl I was before. I look a lot like her. Maybe I'm just her older, slightly thinner sister.

So here I am in the present, weighing pretty close to what I weighed when I was about to deliver my son. I'm still smaller than I was in high school, but I'm not the mini-me I was five years ago. My high school reunion is next week. My dream was that I could go back to my reunion and no one would recognize me. What's probably going to happen is that everyone will tell me I look exactly the same. I know, objectively, that I'm not really fat or anything. If I go by BMI I'm slightly overweight. If I compare myself to the mythical Average American Woman, I'm pretty much her twin (okay, maybe her six-pound-heavier twin). But that's not the point. The point is I was That Skinny Girl for about a year. I'm like the Indian in Brave New World. I know what's really out there.

That's why I'm having a hard time. I watch What Not to Wear frequently. I know that Stacy London would love my dress I picked out for the reunion. It's a flattering cut with a faux-raparound and ruching. The color is perfectly suited for my skin and eyes. Objectively, I know that it looks great on me. I still don't feel happy. I know the number on the label. Stacy can tell the contributers to the show not to get all hung up on numbers, but I'm pretty sure she's never been in double digits, let alone the dreaded last of the misses sizes. She's probably never had to wear a zero-X either (I kid you not. Hey clothing companies-way to make a fat girl feel great. Zero-X=OX in the label).

I just read a great book by Wendy Shanker called The Fat Girl's Guide to Life. Her premise is basically that she needs to take back the word fat from those who give it a negative connotation, to re-make "fat" into "Fat." A Fat girl will take no prisoners. She will say to department stores, "Hey, you need to carry this outfit in my size." A Fat girl will not allow herself to feel inferior to others. A Fat girl will embrace her beauty. A Fat girl will be the glorious self she is called to be. I like the idea in theory, but I'm torn. I still kind of just want to be skinny. This is too much to think about, and my son wants to watch "Phineas and Ferb" clips on Youtube. So I guess I won't resolve this tonight.

My children impress me

I really don't understand this, but my kids ADORE each other. They're almost three years apart to the day, but they play together all the time. When one gets mad at the other, the angry kid will tell the other one, "Fine. You're not my best friend anymore." Do you suppose they'll keep this up through college?

You must listen to this!

Hey, all the vast expanses of people who follow my blog! I'm giving my first recommendation. Take a listen to this guy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M-bZ1tbHw8

Jorge Ben Jor, originator of Brazilian funk. His music was good enough for Rod Stewart to rip off. His music was good enough for David Byrne to put in his Brazilian compilation albums. I'm pretty sure he could rip a page out of the Bahia white pages, put it to music, lay the fat groove down, and I'd be shaking my thirty-something, Middle-American nadegas.

Bienvenidos a mi vida

"Vincent, NO!" These are words that I seem to say at least sixty thousand times daily. It's summer vacation. I'm a mom; I'm a teacher; I'm home with a four-year old boy. Is there something wrong with wanting school to start?