BATMOM

Oh My...

That about sums it up today.

Peace out!

Supermom or Batmom?

Tonight Cole told me I was Supermom. I assumed it wasn't a compliment, just the facts. Simply, he is/was/is (who can keep track?) Superman... and simply, I am his mom. Thus, Supermom.

As I was trying to cook dinner, Cole was next to me on a ladder turning off and on the light. 

"Cole! Can you please turn the light back on?"

"Why?"

"Because I can't see!"

"You can see. You're Supermom."

Great.

"Cole turn on the light."

"Why?"

Because I'm Supermom, not Batmom (I need light to see). Okay, I'm Batmom (who can't see in the dark), not Supermom. What? Who the heck am I?

Open Doors

Today is Poppy's birthday (Tom's dad. Dad - now to me - as well).

I've been thinking a lot these past few years (since I've had kids and have stopped clubbing) about my identity and children and impact on the world and how to raise them to the best of their ability, etc...

And I remember words imparted by my father-in-law George. "Open doors." It is a simple idea. "Open doors." My translation is that it is my job to provide the possibility... the many open doors...  and their job to choose which door. I provide tools, but they build. I give them the best education that I can, and they walk forward through those doors in whatever manner they see fit.

This passage through doors will never be what I imagined, but as the foundation I am doing for them is love, I hope it will be what is best for them. There is not much more one can hope for.

Happy Birthday, George. Thank you.

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Adeline has suddenly decided that she will not sit in a high chair, she will not wear a bib, and she will only wear boots. Great. Cole's boot phase lasted more than a year. Come to think of it, he still prefers boots...

She has also decided that she wants to be naked - in her boots - all of the time. Even when it is next to freezing and she is deciding to be naked... outside. She pulls at her clothes and tries to rip off her diaper. Can't she wait until summer time to go through this phase? I'm tired of running out after her in my socks and pajamas.

Adeline has also become quite an adventurist. Okay, so she always was, but now she can run off as fast as she wants to run. She went missing yesterday while mom and I were cooking or cleaning or something... George left the door open. I sent mom down stairs while I ran outside screaming. "Adeline! Adeline!" I went to the swing set, the park and then saw that the back gate to the road (with the blind corner) was open. As I went screaming like a maniac towards the street, I heard a laughing behind me. "Mommy. Mommy." A footie pajama-ed pink fuzzy girl walking towards me.

Why was the gate open? 

Later that day, mom got the photo of what happened. Adeline, now tall enough, learned to flick the gate switch as Daddy does when they take out the garbage together. Great.

Individualization is a beautiful thing, but also wicked scary.

Please note the bee boots!

Cole woke me up this morning... singing Rock'n'Roll. Man, he's got some lungs. 

George called the harpsichord playing in a Bach piece "a butterfly."

Adeline sang the Spiderman song ( "Nobo'y know ooo you ahh") to the Superman placemat.

I was told to stop singing.

I was told to sing "Daddy's Cole song" by Cole, but I didn't know it.

I was also told that the Batcave is a series of tunnels and a forest under our house and that Santa has "super elves" that work REALLY fast.

There was a lot of motion when George showed me how these "super elves" worked. He was sitting on the head of a near life-sized giraffe lying on his bed as he showed me. George also informed me for the millionth time that he knows everything. Santa does, too, apparently. Oh, Santa. George says Santa even speaks Chinese. George knows, not only because he knows everything, but also because he's met Santa. Nice guy, I hear.

Today started a little nutty. I didn't want to get out of bed and the kids weren't even dressed when school began. I was out late at a Mom's group cookie-making party last night. It was great to see everyone... we don't see each other enough. But, (yawn), I'm paying!

I got word today that I am one of six finalists in the Beaufort Film Festival Screenplay competition. My screenplay will be read at the festival in March. It's not a big festival, but it was the first competition I entered with SOME ROMEO (in fact, my first writing competition period), so I consider it a good sign for the script and its journey. 

We received a card in the mail today. It was from Cole... a beautiful painted Christmas tree card with one blue googly eye and one black googly eye. Inside his teachers quoted him: "I wish you a happy New Year and I wish for green pants 'cause green pants are scary. Them are bad! Love, Cole"

Cole has been scared of the green pants for as long as I can remember. And I think I must have feared the green before I ever had long-term memory...I have always been scared of them. They're in a Dr. Seuss book: Pale Green Pants. 

Now the question is: does he really want green pants for Christmas? Now I am stuck deciphering his intention. Hmmm....

Well, I was walking in the night
and I saw nothing scary
for I have never been afraid of anything.
Not very.

page 2
Then I was deep within the woods,
when suddenly I spied them.
I saw a pair of pale green pants
with nobody inside them.
I wasn’t scared but yet I stopped.
What could those pants be there for
What could a pair of pants at night
be standing in the air for?

page 3
And then they moved, those empty pants!
They kind of started jumping.
And then my heart, I must admit,
it kind of started thumping.
So I got out- I got out fast, 
as fast as I could go sir.
I was not scared but pants like that
I do no care for, no sir.

page 4
After that a week went by.
Then one dark night in Grinitch,
I had to do an errand there and
fetch some Grinitch spinach.
I was starting back through town
when those pants raced around a corner and
they almost knocked me down.

page 5
I lost my Grinitch spinach
but I did not even care
I ran for home, believe me
I really had a scare.
Now bicycles were never made for
pale green pants to ride ‘em.
Especially spooky pale green pants
with no body inside ‘em.

page 6
And next night I was fishing
for doubt trout on Roover river
when those pants came rowing toward me,
I really started into shiver.
And by now I was so frightened
that I’ll tell you but I hate to-
I screamed and rowed away and lost
my hook and line and bait too!

page 7
I ran and found a brickle bush.
I hid myself away.
I got prickles in my britches
but I stayed there anyway.
I stayed all night, the next night too
I’d be there still, no doubt,
but I had to do an errand
so the next night I went out.

page 8
I had to do an errand-
had to pick a peck of snide
in a dark and gloomy snide field
that was almost 9 miles wide.
I said “I do not fear those pants
with nobody inside them.” 
I said and said and said those words-
I said them but I lied them.

page 9
Then I reached inside a snide bush
and the next that I knew,
I felt my hand touch someone
and I bet that you know who.

page 10
And there I was- caught in the snide!
And in that dreadful place
those spooky empty pants and I
were standing face to face!
I yelled for help, I screamed, I shriked,
I howled, I yowled, I cried.
“Oh save me from those pale green pants
with nobody inside!”

page 11
But then a strange thing happened-
why those pants began to cry!
Those pants began to tremble.
They were just as scared as I!
I never heard such whimpering,
and I began to see
that I was just as strange to them
as they were strange to me.

page 12
I put my arm around their waist
and sat right down beside them
I calmed them down-
poor empty pants 
with nobody inside them.

page 13
And now we meet quite often,
those empty pants and I.
And we never shake or tremble
We both smile and we say
“Hi!”

George's class has a teddy bear named "Nounours," or in French, teddy bear. 

Every child takes Nounours home for a few days. Parents take cutesy photos and then put them in a class book along with some stories about Nounours' adventures with the family. 

We started out badly when we forgot to bring him home over the weekend. Oops.

First we went to piano class:

Nounours, not wanting to take a dip (no salmon?), reads Cinderella.

Pooh Bear and Nounours play dress-up:   

 

 

Scrappy Christmas tree with Santa Nounours.

Nounours goes with the Clydes to the Christmas Carousel

Nounours, Adeline and Cole go on a safari. (Nounours is still looking for the salmon).

Nounours sees Santa (sort of).

I stayed holed up in my office today writing...bios and statements... and a few moments of actual creative writing.

Brad and Amy came for dinner. Mom shopped and cooked. Amy and Brad are overdue with their first baby, and I'm just so excited for them (and that lucky baby). I feel as if I have no wisdom to give them. I was never prepared for any of my actual births. I was only prepared for the ideal ones, and yet, the ones I had were perfect in their own odd ways.  They were always challenging and different than I anticipated and, yes, beautiful.

Oh I miss that. What a beautiful time! The time of child bearing seems to have passed so quickly. I have barely grown up myself. Am I grown? Hmmm... 

I wish Adeline let me listen to Bach. She's not a fan. What does that mean? 

A life full of the unexpected? Most definitely. 

"Welcome," I say to myself. Welcome. This is all going to blow your mind!

WHERE IS MY SEATBELTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was up too late discussing a film we saw at Think Visual and didn't write an entry last night.

Tom and I took the boys to ODC's Velveteen Rabbit today (thank you Auntie Mo)! Cole was riveted... for at least 20 minutes. George, more like 10. We were in box seats, so they could wander around and not bug anyone. The crowd was full of little kids, so their comments just blended in with our little Clyde noise makers. We all missed Adeline. We did not feel complete.

The sadness of the Velveteen Rabbit story has always been hard for me. I remember weeping and weeping when I first read it as a child. The book sat on my bookshelf. I had trouble even looking at it but I would not get rid of it.

The "happy" ending was never happy to me. So she was real... She was without her friend: the boy who loved her. 

Today's performance was no exception. They tried to make it truly happy, happy for the kids, but death and loss is not happy, happy. I was terrified of death as I watched the rabbit become "real." There was no buddhist enlightenment to be found, for me, in this nothingness of death. I felt as if I was the rabbit and I was on a large stage circling round and round. There was no audience, no cast, no meaning. Just circles. And I cried and cried and cried.  Tom knew exactly what I was going through (he was having a similar reaction), and he put his hand on my neck.

I was happy to return home and be hugged by a dancing Adeline. I felt I existed again.

Tonight Cole tripped and fell into the corner of a wall. He cried a silent cry, and I ran to him. I held him in my arms and whispered to him because he was still in distress and not speaking. It wasn't until Tom came and gasped that I realized Cole had blood dripping down his forehead. "I touched my head and it was red." Cole finally got his words out. He had a big gash on his beautiful, soft forehead. 

We thought it was a trip to the ER, but thankfully my doctor sister Rebecca had the idea that their may still be a doctor at his pediatrician's office, and there was!  He only needed a little glue (they glued my son's forehead. Crazy... glue). He took his apple into the office and was more upset about being unable to sit on the small frog chair immediately than he was about anything else.

He chomped on his apple as the doctor glued and taped him. Brave dude (it may have helped that I told Cole that the nurse was Robin and the doctor was Batman). Mommy had to look away a few times and Tom (sitting behind me right now) still has a blood splotch on his cheek. I keep telling him to wipe it off, but I think it must feel a bit like war paint. War paint worn by a guard who is sworn to protect his family. We all lean on him. It's a good thing he's Superman.

Today, today, today... I'm not sure I have much to say.

I'm getting closer to celebrating "Goodbye to the C" and farther and farther from obsessive thoughts about it. Isn't it amazing how we can incorporate something into our lives and then simply move on. Okay, not so simply. But I have stopped flossing my teeth! For a little bit. It seems to be a mini rebellion. I've had a hard time starting my FREE-OF-CANCER diet, too. I'm trying to drink more green tea and shift from my coveted black tea and milk. I'm trying to take my mushroom supplements and others, but I resist. I'm trying to cut out the cheese, but I love it so. 

So does Adeline. She wakes up saying "Mommy! Daddy!" And then quickly moves from her demand for "downstairs" to "cheese." "Cheese!" We cannot move quickly enough to get it. "Cheese! Cheese. I want cheese!"

After cheese, it's "Book! Book! I want book!"

Family, food and books. Not so bad.

Family Thanksgiving photos:

Movie star Adeline:

Me, Adeline and Cousin Lulu:

Joseph (the eldest cousin of our littles) is edging up on his Auntie!

The Thanksgiving Gang (the adult section):

Boys and their games:

The Puzzle Bliss of Cole:

 

It's called the COUSIN SCOWL (it tends to set in post Puzzle Bliss):

Puppet Show Peeker:

Puppet show breakdown post peek!

The girls both insist that Grandma pick them up. Poor Grandma! Cook with a girl in each arm?

Lighting for the evening:

It was a lovely day to night!

Now on to that book (the one I'm supposed to be writing)!

Decision

Adeline has suddenly decided that she will not sit in a high chair, she will not wear a bib, and she will only wear boots. Great. Cole's boot phase lasted more than a year. Come to think of it, he still prefers boots...

She has also decided that she wants to be naked - in her boots - all of the time. Even when it is next to freezing and she is deciding to be naked... outside. She pulls at her clothes and tries to rip off her diaper. Can't she wait until summer time to go through this phase? I'm tired of running out after her in my socks and pajamas.

Adeline has also become quite an adventurist. Okay, so she always was, but now she can run off as fast as she wants to run. She went missing yesterday while mom and I were cooking or cleaning or something... George left the door open. I sent mom down stairs while I ran outside screaming. "Adeline! Adeline!" I went to the swing set, the park and then saw that the back gate to the road (with the blind corner) was open. As I went screaming like a maniac towards the street, I heard a laughing behind me. "Mommy. Mommy." A footie pajama-ed pink fuzzy girl walking towards me.

Why was the gate open? 

Later that day, mom got the photo of what happened. Adeline, now tall enough, learned to flick the gate switch as Daddy does when they take out the garbage together. Great.

Individualization is a beautiful thing, but also wicked scary.

Please note the bee boots!

Music

Cole woke me up this morning... singing Rock'n'Roll. Man, he's got some lungs. 

George called the harpsichord playing in a Bach piece "a butterfly."

Adeline sang the Spiderman song ( "Nobo'y know ooo you ahh") to the Superman placemat.

I was told to stop singing.

I was told to sing "Daddy's Cole song" by Cole, but I didn't know it.

I was also told that the Batcave is a series of tunnels and a forest under our house and that Santa has "super elves" that work REALLY fast.

There was a lot of motion when George showed me how these "super elves" worked. He was sitting on the head of a near life-sized giraffe lying on his bed as he showed me. George also informed me for the millionth time that he knows everything. Santa does, too, apparently. Oh, Santa. George says Santa even speaks Chinese. George knows, not only because he knows everything, but also because he's met Santa. Nice guy, I hear.

A Special Christmas Card

Today started a little nutty. I didn't want to get out of bed and the kids weren't even dressed when school began. I was out late at a Mom's group cookie-making party last night. It was great to see everyone... we don't see each other enough. But, (yawn), I'm paying!

I got word today that I am one of six finalists in the Beaufort Film Festival Screenplay competition. My screenplay will be read at the festival in March. It's not a big festival, but it was the first competition I entered with SOME ROMEO (in fact, my first writing competition period), so I consider it a good sign for the script and its journey. 

We received a card in the mail today. It was from Cole... a beautiful painted Christmas tree card with one blue googly eye and one black googly eye. Inside his teachers quoted him: "I wish you a happy New Year and I wish for green pants 'cause green pants are scary. Them are bad! Love, Cole"

Cole has been scared of the green pants for as long as I can remember. And I think I must have feared the green before I ever had long-term memory...I have always been scared of them. They're in a Dr. Seuss book: Pale Green Pants. 

Now the question is: does he really want green pants for Christmas? Now I am stuck deciphering his intention. Hmmm....

Well, I was walking in the night
and I saw nothing scary
for I have never been afraid of anything.
Not very.

page 2
Then I was deep within the woods,
when suddenly I spied them.
I saw a pair of pale green pants
with nobody inside them.
I wasn’t scared but yet I stopped.
What could those pants be there for
What could a pair of pants at night
be standing in the air for?

page 3
And then they moved, those empty pants!
They kind of started jumping.
And then my heart, I must admit,
it kind of started thumping.
So I got out- I got out fast, 
as fast as I could go sir.
I was not scared but pants like that
I do no care for, no sir.

page 4
After that a week went by.
Then one dark night in Grinitch,
I had to do an errand there and
fetch some Grinitch spinach.
I was starting back through town
when those pants raced around a corner and
they almost knocked me down.

page 5
I lost my Grinitch spinach
but I did not even care
I ran for home, believe me
I really had a scare.
Now bicycles were never made for
pale green pants to ride ‘em.
Especially spooky pale green pants
with no body inside ‘em.

page 6
And next night I was fishing
for doubt trout on Roover river
when those pants came rowing toward me,
I really started into shiver.
And by now I was so frightened
that I’ll tell you but I hate to-
I screamed and rowed away and lost
my hook and line and bait too!

page 7
I ran and found a brickle bush.
I hid myself away.
I got prickles in my britches
but I stayed there anyway.
I stayed all night, the next night too
I’d be there still, no doubt,
but I had to do an errand
so the next night I went out.

page 8
I had to do an errand-
had to pick a peck of snide
in a dark and gloomy snide field
that was almost 9 miles wide.
I said “I do not fear those pants
with nobody inside them.” 
I said and said and said those words-
I said them but I lied them.

page 9
Then I reached inside a snide bush
and the next that I knew,
I felt my hand touch someone
and I bet that you know who.

page 10
And there I was- caught in the snide!
And in that dreadful place
those spooky empty pants and I
were standing face to face!
I yelled for help, I screamed, I shriked,
I howled, I yowled, I cried.
“Oh save me from those pale green pants
with nobody inside!”

page 11
But then a strange thing happened-
why those pants began to cry!
Those pants began to tremble.
They were just as scared as I!
I never heard such whimpering,
and I began to see
that I was just as strange to them
as they were strange to me.

page 12
I put my arm around their waist
and sat right down beside them
I calmed them down-
poor empty pants 
with nobody inside them.

page 13
And now we meet quite often,
those empty pants and I.
And we never shake or tremble
We both smile and we say
“Hi!”

Nounours

George's class has a teddy bear named "Nounours," or in French, teddy bear. 

Every child takes Nounours home for a few days. Parents take cutesy photos and then put them in a class book along with some stories about Nounours' adventures with the family. 

We started out badly when we forgot to bring him home over the weekend. Oops.

First we went to piano class:

Nounours, not wanting to take a dip (no salmon?), reads Cinderella.

Pooh Bear and Nounours play dress-up:   

 

 

Scrappy Christmas tree with Santa Nounours.

Nounours goes with the Clydes to the Christmas Carousel

Nounours, Adeline and Cole go on a safari. (Nounours is still looking for the salmon).

Nounours sees Santa (sort of).

Seatbelts

I stayed holed up in my office today writing...bios and statements... and a few moments of actual creative writing.

Brad and Amy came for dinner. Mom shopped and cooked. Amy and Brad are overdue with their first baby, and I'm just so excited for them (and that lucky baby). I feel as if I have no wisdom to give them. I was never prepared for any of my actual births. I was only prepared for the ideal ones, and yet, the ones I had were perfect in their own odd ways.  They were always challenging and different than I anticipated and, yes, beautiful.

Oh I miss that. What a beautiful time! The time of child bearing seems to have passed so quickly. I have barely grown up myself. Am I grown? Hmmm... 

I wish Adeline let me listen to Bach. She's not a fan. What does that mean? 

A life full of the unexpected? Most definitely. 

"Welcome," I say to myself. Welcome. This is all going to blow your mind!

WHERE IS MY SEATBELTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bunnies, Nightmares and War Paint

I was up too late discussing a film we saw at Think Visual and didn't write an entry last night.

Tom and I took the boys to ODC's Velveteen Rabbit today (thank you Auntie Mo)! Cole was riveted... for at least 20 minutes. George, more like 10. We were in box seats, so they could wander around and not bug anyone. The crowd was full of little kids, so their comments just blended in with our little Clyde noise makers. We all missed Adeline. We did not feel complete.

The sadness of the Velveteen Rabbit story has always been hard for me. I remember weeping and weeping when I first read it as a child. The book sat on my bookshelf. I had trouble even looking at it but I would not get rid of it.

The "happy" ending was never happy to me. So she was real... She was without her friend: the boy who loved her. 

Today's performance was no exception. They tried to make it truly happy, happy for the kids, but death and loss is not happy, happy. I was terrified of death as I watched the rabbit become "real." There was no buddhist enlightenment to be found, for me, in this nothingness of death. I felt as if I was the rabbit and I was on a large stage circling round and round. There was no audience, no cast, no meaning. Just circles. And I cried and cried and cried.  Tom knew exactly what I was going through (he was having a similar reaction), and he put his hand on my neck.

I was happy to return home and be hugged by a dancing Adeline. I felt I existed again.

Tonight Cole tripped and fell into the corner of a wall. He cried a silent cry, and I ran to him. I held him in my arms and whispered to him because he was still in distress and not speaking. It wasn't until Tom came and gasped that I realized Cole had blood dripping down his forehead. "I touched my head and it was red." Cole finally got his words out. He had a big gash on his beautiful, soft forehead. 

We thought it was a trip to the ER, but thankfully my doctor sister Rebecca had the idea that their may still be a doctor at his pediatrician's office, and there was!  He only needed a little glue (they glued my son's forehead. Crazy... glue). He took his apple into the office and was more upset about being unable to sit on the small frog chair immediately than he was about anything else.

He chomped on his apple as the doctor glued and taped him. Brave dude (it may have helped that I told Cole that the nurse was Robin and the doctor was Batman). Mommy had to look away a few times and Tom (sitting behind me right now) still has a blood splotch on his cheek. I keep telling him to wipe it off, but I think it must feel a bit like war paint. War paint worn by a guard who is sworn to protect his family. We all lean on him. It's a good thing he's Superman.

Family, Food & eventually Books

Today, today, today... I'm not sure I have much to say.

I'm getting closer to celebrating "Goodbye to the C" and farther and farther from obsessive thoughts about it. Isn't it amazing how we can incorporate something into our lives and then simply move on. Okay, not so simply. But I have stopped flossing my teeth! For a little bit. It seems to be a mini rebellion. I've had a hard time starting my FREE-OF-CANCER diet, too. I'm trying to drink more green tea and shift from my coveted black tea and milk. I'm trying to take my mushroom supplements and others, but I resist. I'm trying to cut out the cheese, but I love it so. 

So does Adeline. She wakes up saying "Mommy! Daddy!" And then quickly moves from her demand for "downstairs" to "cheese." "Cheese!" We cannot move quickly enough to get it. "Cheese! Cheese. I want cheese!"

After cheese, it's "Book! Book! I want book!"

Family, food and books. Not so bad.

Family Thanksgiving photos:

Movie star Adeline:

Me, Adeline and Cousin Lulu:

Joseph (the eldest cousin of our littles) is edging up on his Auntie!

The Thanksgiving Gang (the adult section):

Boys and their games:

The Puzzle Bliss of Cole:

 

It's called the COUSIN SCOWL (it tends to set in post Puzzle Bliss):

Puppet Show Peeker:

Puppet show breakdown post peek!

The girls both insist that Grandma pick them up. Poor Grandma! Cook with a girl in each arm?

Lighting for the evening:

It was a lovely day to night!

Now on to that book (the one I'm supposed to be writing)!