Fail Safe and Sound

    Share Email Drew has started implementing safety standards for his own obedience. If he is about to spill his milk, again, on purpose, and he knows it — he can feel the drumbeat of compulsion rushing through his veins — he hands me his glass and says, “Here, Mommy, I gonna spill dis.” Even if it has a lid on. Maybe he is about to unbuckle his seat belt. Again. After being given the big-bug-eye treatment. “Mommy, h...

My Double (Whammy) Life

Share Email I have been living a double life. For a week, I have left my children in the care of others in order to stab bobby pins through curls of hair, one after another, creating an auburn hat of monkey bread, and sucking the configuration up into a tight black wig cap. After this, a lady comes into my dressing room and drapes a flesh-colored cord from the back of my head to my forehead, cinching it in place with a bobby pin, anchoring the part dangling...

The Sun'll Come Out

      Share Email Today we passed a police car and Drew informed me he would “yike” to drive it one day. I explained he would have to become a police officer first, and he paused for a moment before replying, “Yes, I will be that.” Police Officer is about the 39th profession Drew has agreed to adopt in order to acquire some time of privilege like scanning produce over the radar at Tom Thumb or digging highway ditch...

Are You "Done?"

      Share I was dropping Drew off at preschool last Friday when his teacher, who was in the middle of unbuckling him from his car seat, asked, “Are you having another baby?” I misinterpreted her question as, “Are you pregnant?” to which I quickly said, “Oh no, no, no,” as if she was inquiring into a very private skin condition. I wasn’t immediately offended that she thought my tummy resembled a 12-week wo...

For (or Against) the Birds

      Share Email Last week Gordon and I were on the couch playing with Madeline when she started wiping my nose with a balled up Kleenex. She was precisely dabbing each nostril like she was British, or like I was British, or like we both were British. “She’s so motherly,” remarked Gordon. “She must have gotten that from your mother.” I have never claimed to be the uber-nurturer, bearer of all things warm and ...

Yelling at Your Kids? Me Too.

      Share Email One of the only unfortunate side effects to taking voice lessons over a period of time is that your yelling gets really loud. Have you ever been in a dream where you wanted to scream above the surface of the water or above the mountain you’re trapped on or above the head of your attacker, and all that comes out is a breathy little whimper? Well, I’m having the opposite problem. I surprise myself with newly ampl...

Parking It

      Share Email From the swings at our neighborhood park, you can see the medieval-ish silhouette of Saint Stephen Presbyterian Church. When Gordon was a young Boy Scout, his troop met in a small house on the church property. Gordon remembers they all called it “Fort God,” and it’s easy to see why: It was dusk on Monday evening, and we were still looking for ways to spend the one extra hour of daylight, so off to the ...

The Jean-ing of Life

A couple of nights ago, I went to a jeans party. You’ve heard of Tupperware parties and Pampered Chef parties and jewelry parties and “toy” parties — mere child’s play, indeed. This was a no-nonsense, grown-up gathering of women who could have done many things with their evening that night. They could have read books, waxed philosophical about waxing, painted their toes, watched “Jersey Shore” in secret. Yet they prioritized fashion and bargain-...

Planes, Trains, and Auto-Avarice

      Share Email Watching the Oscars on Sunday night was enlightening. It illuminated a lot of vast and abstract concepts, like what grade of Plaster of Paris Angelina’s upper-upper thigh consists of. And how bizarre — and red — Nick Nolte has become. Between smearing vanilla ice cream on the play table and yelling into pillows, Drew and Madeline caught bits and pieces of the show. Drew pointed at the large statue on th...

The Butterfly Effect

      Share Email Madeline has what I have come to call her “koala talons” — slender, dainty, beautiful little fingers that, when closed in a fist, could crush a Tahoe. Maybe you’ve felt the pinch of a parrot beak. Imagine an infant’s hand where each finger was a separate parrot beak and imagine the horrible force of being caught in such a grip. If Madeline wanted to shimmy herself up a palm tree (and happened ...

Urine Trouble, Mister

      Share Email I’ve been trying to pinpoint why I have been in such a bad mood all week. Granted, there’s the matter of the Womanly Shadow that has been cast, and the fact that Drew has been sick, and the fact that one of my best friends is going through something terrible, and life has just…gotten under my skin. Then I realized. The reason is obvious. My entire house smells like urine. I walked into the bathroom ye...

Review: Casa's "Charlotte's Web"

      Share Ema It’s terrific! It’s radiant! It’s Some Show. For anyone who didn’t grow up watching the classic movie or reading the classic E.B. White novel, here’s the runt-down (pun intended): A little piglet is born onto the Arable farm is saved from the chopping block by eight-year-old Fern who lovingly names him Wilbur. Wilbur begins to make friends in his new home while he learns about t...

Where to Take Your Swagger Wagon

      Share Emai On Saturday Gordon and I went to a parenting conference. This made us feel so very Docker-worthy, though perhaps not minivan-tastic. It had been a couple of years since our last parenting conference, where a woman with perfect teeth and a perfect body taught us how to perform a perfect timeout on our 2-year-old. We felt very smug and awesome for about 20 minutes afterwards, and then started researching more conferenc...

Where to Take Your Swagger Wagon

3 Books for Your 4-Year-Old

BORING, right? Right. Who cares what your preschooler reads? Not me. Nope. I’ve got enough problems of my own, like how to not look so unattractive every Wednesday. Why are the stars so out of alignment regarding my hair and apparel choices on that day? Why must hump day always equal frump day? These are questions for the ages. Last week I wrote about Drew’s obsession with his Christmas book Drummer Boy , and how reflective and slightly creeped out the story makes me. Then ...

A Drum Beatdown

      Share Email   Drew’s new favorite book is Drummer Boy , a retelling of the Little Drummer Boy Christmas story. A little late for Christmas, I admit, but Drew tends to circle his books like big game stalking its prey — for weeks and weeks — before he comes in for the kill. Then it’s a lights-out marathon of nothing-but-the-new-book. We gorge ourselves on Drummer Boy every day, at naptime and at bedtime, ...

Potty Lock: Lessons From a Brief Imprisonment

      Share Email On Saturday, I had the privilege of seeing life from the confines of a 4 x 7 foot cell. Not as a result of petty theft or even because of solidarity with my imprisoned Christian brethren, but because I closed the door to the bathroom. And it was broken. And I’m an idiot. You have to understand: I am still over the moon that Drew poops in the potty. Just today he looked up at me from the toilet with those moony bro...

Crack Questions

      Share Email Drew has become obsessed with the cracks in the floor at Esperanza’s. Esperanza’s is our family’s favorite Mexican food dive, and I’ve considered sending Drew there to work in exchange for enchiladas, much like the boy Samuel who served in the Temple. Last week he noticed a corner where the tile seems to have been shattered by a heavy object. “What are dose cwacks, Mommy?” He asks me t...

2 Videos: Thing One Performs The Classics

Have you ever looked at your child and thought, YES. YES. He is meant to do this or that. I can see it plain as day. A budding artist, blooming singer, emerging actress. I think I will start preparing now for the life of ease that is coming my way when he buys me my second house off his third world tour record from his fourth platinum album. Perhaps I will embed a small diamond into my left incisor. I will definitely change my name to Mother To Rhodes Children so there is no confusion....

Late-Bloomer Grinch

  A furry green index finger and furry green thumb pluck a morsel from the ground, a crumb too small for a mouse, leaving behind utter desolation. A quiet wind blows. It might be after Christmas, but a Grinch-like muse has taken us captive for severe organization. Not to steal away the fire trucks, dolls, trains and pony paraphernalia, but simply this: to corral and tame the beast of unmatched parts. Parts. There are so many. Puzzle pieces, Legos — large and small and ...