From time to time, my husband and I will ask each other questions like, “if money were no issue, what would we want to do with our lives?” I always list off the usual suspects: travel more, become a master gardener, walk our dogs more, write a novel, learn to use the sewing machine in my closet, take piano lessons once again, etc. Then we inevitably get to the point in the conversation where we discuss whether we’d miss “work” if we didn’t have to do it. We both decide that yes, even if we didn’t have to, we’d most likely want to work in some capacity.
On more than one occasion, when contemplating what I’d do if I could do anything, I’ve expressed my desire to him to own and run a small tea room in the city next to the one in which we live. The Franklin Village Tea Room is like a page out of a story book. To me, this little eatery seems like it belongs in some New England town, but lucky for me, it’s a mere five minute drive from my home. This establishment, which I can best describe as completely charming, often hosts young girls celebrating their Sweet 16, red hat clubs meeting for a cup of afternoon tea, girlfriends catching up on the goings-on in each others’ lives, and families celebrating the arrival of a new little miracle with a baby shower.
Antique tea sets and feathery flowing hats decorate this small room where the menu is generally always the same, and the atmosphere is one of whimsy. At Christmas, white lights line the windows, and though I’ve never been there during the Christmas season, I imagine it smells like cinnamon and gingerbread. (It surely would if I ever worked there!)
Though I’ve only patronized this establishment one time, I’ve driven past it at least a hundred. I believe that I may have liked it so much, in part, because three generations of my family enjoyed blackberry tea and finger sandwiches there on a sunny Wednesday afternoon last summer and created a memory captured in the photo below.
I don’t know if I’ll ever have a hand in running the Franklin Village Tea Room or something like it, but I’m grateful someone does because it means I get to continue driving by this little place. And that makes me happy.
I have what some might consider an obsession with the Keira Knightley version of the film Pride and Prejudice. While I enjoyed the book when I read it back in high school and earlier film adaptations of it, the Keira Knightley film version of this tale simply lives in a realm of its own. I actually won’t let myself buy the DVD of this film because I don’t want to feed the beast. I borrowed it once from my sister and watched it each night for seven consecutive nights before I finally—and reluctantly—returned it. My husband was slightly amused at first, but as the week went on, the amusement turned to a little bit of fear. He simply doesn’t understand the allure of P&P. But then again, has any male ever understood this?
The reason I can’t own the P&P DVD is that since I had a baby, I have made a conscious effort to avoid activities that suck away at my very limited free time for little fruitful benefit. Watching television has been the primary victim. I rarely ever watch it anymore (except for Mad Men—Best. Show. Ever.) Renting and going to movies have also become uncommon practices. And much like any obsessed person, I can’t pull myself away from the high that Pride & Prejudice affords me, so it can’t be in my house.
So why am I writing this on a blog about parenting? Well, I’m writing this post as I fly 2,909 miles from Detroit to San Francisco for a business trip. As I have written about before, I am not a big fan of business travel these days. But duty calls, so here I am aboard a Delta 747 kinda bumming that I can’t rock my little girl to sleep and letting all sorts of horribly tragic scenarios play out in my head about me not making it back. Sick—I know.
Anticipating this very moment, I allowed myself to rent a movie for play on my portable DVD player. You guessed it—P&P. And I suddenly feel a little less anxious. Thank you once again Ms. Austen!
I cherish each day of my daughter’s babyhood. Everything is different through her almost 10-month-old eyes. More mundane tasks like going to Lowes for a dimmer switch hugely jump up on the “fun-ness” scale when I have her in tow. She flirts with cashiers, laughs at ceiling fans on display and stares up at me with intense focus from her shotgun seat in the shopping cart in such a way that I’m often left to wonder what secret she’s in on that I’m not.
I love the scampering of her hands and knees on the hardwood floors tipping me off that she’s on the move and looking for her mama. I love that a game of peekaboo results in rip roaring laughter. I love that I can kiss her hundreds of times a day, and she doesn’t push me away. I dread the day when she does. But I know it will come.
The teenage years are somewhere in our future, and I fully admit to worrying already about what they hold for both of us. The mother-daughter relationship can be a rocky one during these years, and I suspect she won’t take too kindly to me burying my head into her tummy and kissing her toes as I do now.
I’ll of course do my best to be an understanding and patient mom and to help her navigate what can be an emotional time for many teens to the best of my ability. But how do I keep her from being a snotty teen? How do I keep her from talking to a waitress in a tone that I’d reserve only for someone who had just mugged me on the street? You know the tone. It’s the one I witnessed some teen girls using the other day when speaking to the very same waitress who had just moments before gone out of her way to move my party to a table that better accommodated a baby and who then proceeded to make my daughter laugh.
I hesitate to even write about this because I’m quite sure that in my past I used the snotty teen tone on more than one individual (sorry mom)! Who am I to judge? But I did witness some teens treat a hard-working, happy-go-lucky person in a way that made me extremely uncomfortable, and I have to hope that I can help mold my daughter into the kind of teen who won’t do that.
At this period in my life, it seems so much easier to be the mom of a nine-and-a-half-month-old who wakes up with an ear-to-ear grin than the mother of a high schooler encountering the trials and tribulations of ages 14-18. But as she grows, I’m sure I’ll grow in my desire to see her come into her own. I just hope that as she does come into her own she kicks the snotty teen tone to the curb.
I woke up this morning and realized there was a small person living in my house. The baby was gone. A person was left in her place. When did that happen?
Surely a baby wouldn’t grind her teeth. Most certainly, a baby wouldn’t exchange bird calls with a black crow on the limb of the large maple out front. Yet the alleged “baby” did just these things, and this is why I’m convinced a “small person” now inhabits the crib in the green bedroom off the stairs.
Back in eighth grade, I was “Mama #3″ in the chorus of “Fiddler on the Roof.” I thus learned every word to “Sunrise Sunset.” And I admit that only now do I get what Golde and Tevye meant as they watched their eldest daughter marry and sang these words:
“When did she get to be a beauty? When did he grow to be this tall? Wasn’t it yesterday when they were small?”
I get it now. I thought I did before, but then I merely understood it. I didn’t “get” it. Everyone told me how fast the baby would grow, that I needed to cherish each moment. And I nodded and smiled. But suddenly I have a new appreciation for just how right they were.
And all this leaves me more than a little curious to see what the small person will be doing tomorrow. In fact, is it remotely possible that I now hear her tap dancing upstairs? ………Sigh…
I have a terrible singing voice. This was confirmed when, at age 13, I took singing lessons with my sister. As aspiring actresses, we wanted to put our best foot forward for the school play auditions. Under the tutelage of “Mrs. M,” we belted out “I Got Rhythm” and the Ice Castles theme song, “Through the Eyes of Love,” into a microphone plugged into a recorder in her living room each Wednesday night. This enabled us to play back our performances for study at home.
Encouraged by Mrs. M’s praise of our voices, we returned each week for about a month. I don’t recall what tipped us off to just how bad our singing was, but I suspect one or both of my parents had something to do with it (I can only imagine the eye rolls and stifled laughter they enjoyed at our expense). All it takes now is a mention of the “singing tapes,” and my sister and I are brought to tears of laughter. We’re still in search of the infamous cassettes–they must be destroyed!
I mention all this because I have been singing A LOT lately. I now pity my poor husband who has to hear it. But baby girl seems to like it. I sing as I give her a bath. I sing as I change her diaper. I sing as I feed her a bottle. I sing because it’s sunny outside. I sing because it’s raining outside. With all this singing, you can imagine that I have gone through every song I know the words to and many I don’t.
What I find amusing is the song I found myself singing over the weekend when I couldn’t bear to sing “My Favorite Things” or “You Are My Sunshine” one more time. From somewhere deep in my brain, I pulled out the lyrics to my high school fight song, and surprisingly, I recalled every word. And she liked it. And so now we have a new song in our repertoire.
To all you Marian Mustangs out there, ping me if you need a refresher on the lyrics. (Oh and I fully recommend three spirited fist pumps timed to the “rah rah rahs”. It adds a little something extra to the performance.)
Have I mentioned that I love having a kid? It makes me do things like re-read childhood classics. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery is a fable that certainly qualifies as such. Before my most recent reading of this little book to Meghan, I last read it in twelfth grade French class. Le Petit Prince was the first (and last) novel I tackled in the French language. I don’t know if the message of this little book resonated so much then as it does now. Perhaps that’s because I had to look up every third word in the Dictionnaire Francais (I’m ashamed to admit this Madame Krasucki)! Or perhaps it’s because when I read it in high school, I was on the cusp of adulthood and growing further away from my own childhood much to the Little Prince’s chagrin.
For it was he who said such things as, “All grown-ups were children first. (But few remember it)” and“Grown-ups like numbers. When you tell them about a new friend, they never ask: ‘What does his voice sound like?’ ‘What games does he like best?’ ‘Does he collect butterflies?’. They ask: ‘How old is he?’ ‘How many brothers does he have?’ ‘How much does he weigh?’ ‘How much money does his father make?’ Only then do they think they know him.”
Maybe you too have read this little book before? If so, I encourage you to read it again–especially if, like me, you’re a parent or a grandparent, Godparent, guardian or caregiver of little ones. It has made me take pause and consider how this little daughter of mine might look at the world–with no preconceived notions and a curiosity and wonder that I hope I can help her preserve as long as possible.
It reminds me of a birthday card I once received from a friend when in high school. I saved it (yes, I’m an admitted pack rat) because I liked its message, and until a recent re-decorating, I had it hanging above my desk at home.
I think I need to post it in a place of prominence once again. I suspect the Little Prince would approve.
Growing up, the smell of Chanel No. 5 (in the black bottle) meant only one thing to me: babysitter coming. Though I’m sure age has made my recollection somewhat cloudy, I recall my mom wearing this fragrance only when headed for a rare evening out with my dad. It always made me panic a little to catch a whiff and know she’d be away for the evening. (If you’ve read any of my blog posts, you know I’ve always been slightly too attached to her.)
To this day, Chanel No. 5 still reminds me of my mom and the panic I’d feel knowing someone else would tuck me in. I wonder what, if any, scent will remind my daughter of me. Right now, I’m guessing it would be Tide since lately she has given to burrowing her head into my chest to relieve what I can only guess is an itchy nose.
Tide’s not so bad, but I think I may just pick up some Chanel No. 5 to continue the tradition.
See this photo? Which bag would you guess is the diaper bag, and which the computer bag? Hopefully now you can see why it was understandable that I should arrive at work on Monday morning to discover that instead of my laptop, I was pulling baby wipes and a onesie out from what I thought was my computer bag! I suppose this is a lesson to those moms-to-be (or others in the market for a diaper bag) that there’s a reason so many diaper bags are a brilliant shade of pink and covered with baby bunnies playing ukeleles. It’s so crazies like me clearly select the appropriate bag for the appropriate occasion. I think a few people at the office got at least a smile out of my excuse for getting a later-than-usual start to the day after having to return home to retrieve my computer. I know it provided me with an oft-needed reminder to try to slow my marathon run down to a jog every once in a while.
Still, I think I need a new diaper bag. Any suggestions?
(Oh and btw, the bag on the right is the diaper bag……I think)
My Aunt Janet gave Baby Blue the cutest bathing suit when she made her world debut. I haven’t had a chance to put it on her yet, and I fear that before long she won’t fit into it. So I decided to take her to my sister’s pool this past weekend and get the requisite baby-in-pool-footage for her scrapbook. But of course this whole experience meant I would have to put on a bathing suit too–yippee! I’m still a little “soft” from the whole carrying a baby in my body thing, so wasn’t entirely thrilled about donning a bathing suit quite yet. But as I contemplated this task, I recalled a GREAT post I read on one of my favorite Mom blogs. Really rings true, so I share the link to it here.
I’ve never run 26.2 miles, but I would imagine it’s right up there as one of the most physically and mentally challenging undertakings that people actually choose to put themselves through. I think being a working mom might be somewhat similar. I feel like I’m part of a long distance run where if I stop I might not get started again!
Since Baby Blue arrived, my M.O. has been to take one day at a time, to get all the essentials done and get to the non-essentials when I can. So that may mean letting the dogs out to do their business, but that their businss may sit in its spot on the lawn for a week or more before it’s picked up. The former is an essential (unless you’re this man). The latter not so much. Likewise, I may run the dirty bottles through the dishwasher, but the spoons, bowls and plates may sit there for a few days until I find myself eating yogurt with a fork. Just keep moving I tell myself.
Last night, my marathon pace became more like a brisk walk. I saw an opportunity to do something non-essential that was too good to pass up—a free concert in the park! Because I’m so used to running, I did struggle to relax (I do admit to pulling out my Blackberry more than once), but I saw through the fog of my marathon exhaustion to capitalize on a great photo opp and a reminder of why I started running in the first place.
Have I mentioned that I love having a kid? It makes me do things like 
See this photo? Which bag would you guess is the diaper bag, and which the computer bag? Hopefully now you can see why it was understandable that I should arrive at work on Monday morning to discover that instead of my laptop, I was pulling baby wipes and a onesie out from what I thought was my computer bag! I suppose this is a lesson to those moms-to-be (or others in the market for a diaper bag) that there’s a reason so many diaper bags are a brilliant shade of pink and covered with baby bunnies playing ukeleles. It’s so crazies like me clearly select the appropriate bag for the appropriate occasion. I think a few people at the office got at least a smile out of my excuse for getting a later-than-usual start to the day after having to return home to retrieve my computer. I know it provided me with an oft-needed reminder to try to slow my 
