The Gap

O: Mommy, what did you do before I got here?

There is this gap between the type of parent you imagine you will be and the type of parent you are. The hypothetical conversations about attachment parenting, discipline, rules, and diapers that take place between partners or friends are the breeding ground for those definitive statements about things we'll never do. They start from a seed of judgement but grow from our own self-doubt and fear.  

I try to look back on pre-O Kate's ideas about parenthood fondly and gently.  I admire her enthusiasm and regret only her absolutism.  I try to remember her when I'm talking to people who don't have children yet.  I try to stifle my laughter, my eye roll, or my snide remarks, when they share with me the things they think they'll never do.

I forgive her for her naïveté.  She couldn't know. She couldn't know how terrible and wonderful it would be all at once.  She couldn't know how much she would be willing to give up for sixty-seconds of uninterrupted silence.  She couldn't know how the long stretches of complete boredom and drudgery would be punctuated by moments of sheer, blinding, white-hot bliss.  She couldn't know how badly she would need community, how isolating and lonely being a parent can be.  She just couldn't.  

The type of parent that I am today is kinder, more loving, and more flexible than pre-O Kate could ever imagine.  She dances in the rain, does cartwheels, and goes to bed without finishing the dishes. She has learned that there is joy in the smallest things.  She eats ice cream right out of the container and has french fry parties.  She makes mistakes, big, terrible, unfixable mistakes, that she forgives herself for and learns from, or at least tries to.  I could have never even conceptualized the parent that I am, because the parent that I am has been shaped and molded by who my children are becoming.  I owe them a debt of gratitude for that. 

Five Things I Swore I'd Never Do

O: It's ok mom, I'll just watch another DVDV. 

Before I had kids, I swore I would never

1. give them food I haven't paid for yet in the grocery store.

I will buy your silence with string cheese, even before I buy your string cheese.

I came here to kick butt and eat string cheese and we are all out of string cheese

2. ever use a disposable diaper.

We were so close, but I can not tell a lie.  When it is after midnight and I discover we are all out of clean cloth diapers, I'm super happy about that secret stash of disposable diapers, left over from our Grand Canyon trip, I have hidden in the trunk of the car.  

they just take so long to dry

3. let them have screen time on road trips.

Kids need to be bored, I said. It's when they stretch their brains and use their imagination, I said. Evidently, I said a lot of silly things.

4. utter the phrase, "Because I said so."

To be fair, I did say so, and sometimes, shouldn't that be enough?

5. start a blog, but especially, a mommy blog.

Oops.

The Beach: Pro Tip

O: Let's go dip our toes in the big blue ocean.

Jim and I both grew up in Southern California. Here is our tip.  Go to the beach, in the evening, in the winter, seriously.  It will be empty.  It will be peaceful.  It will be beautiful.  

It always sounds harder than it is.  Go.

Stay until the sun sets.  You'll never regret it.  

I promise.

Humming Birds and Trumpet Vines

P: AAhhh egg canto black plaaa.  

O: She said she is going to find a spot where the flowers will grow, because that is the spot that will make them happy. 

We are too sick to go to school, but too well to stay home, and the weather has been beautiful, so we ventured out to the nursery.  There is a small family-owned nursery that has been around for generations, just a few blocks from us.  

this is our smelling flowers face

While wandering the rows O spotted a humming bird's nest.  She admonished me not to disturb the mama while I took her picture, but was perfectly delighted when I offered to scoop her up so she could get a closer look.  

Is it spring yet? It sure feels like it.

We found a climbing trumpet vine, with pink flowers.  It looks healthy enough and the man assured us that it would thrive in our very shallow, full-sun, flower box outside our front window. 

Behold, the conquering hero

Every morning, on waking, O rushes to the front window to update us on the vine's progress. So far, we have gotten a new flower every day, well worth the twelve dollars and fifty cents, especially if you include the fresh air, the humming bird's nest, and the sense of accomplishment. 

They have the most beautiful orchids.  I have yet to bring an orchid home.  I tend to kill plants, not with neglect, but with an abundance of love, a good metaphor for my parenting (I'm working on it). Perhaps, next time, I'll bring an orchid home to practice mindful neglect. 

Wanted: Infinitely Patient, Brillant Scientist

O: Why does our skin move? Why don't our bellies have any bones? What's the ooey stuff between my hair and my head? Why is a dragon not a dinosaur? Why am I not a dragon? Why does bread get hard when you leave it out? Why? Mom? Moooom? Mom?

O: I got a smart thinkin' brain.

Wanted: an infinitely patient, brilliant scientist, preferably with a weird sense of humor and a background in earth science, biology, paleontology, evolution, and mythology.  Needs to love children and answering questions.  

Why am I worried that this is some kind of upside-down flag, anarchy symbol that means Jim and I should be very afraid?

I'm no dummy. I love science. I studied botany and physics in college (and political science, and linguistics, and psychology, but that is a conversation for another day). 

I'm doing my best.  Drawing on everything that I can remember,  I am trying to take each query honestly and answer it genuinely.

K: Our skin moves, because we move and it needs to be flexible so that it will move with us. There are no bones in our bellies because that soft tissue is where a lot of our organs are and they expand depending on what they are doing and bones would get in the way of their function. I have no idea what the ooey stuff between your hair and your head is, but we are definitely washing your hair tonight. A dragon is not a dinosaur because dragons are mythical beasts and dinosaurs are archeological fact that we can observe in the fossil record. You are not a dragon because you were born of human parents, and for that I apologize, because it is almost entirely my fault. Bread gets hard when you leave it out because the moisture in the bread evaporates into the atmosphere and it becomes, what we call, stale.  

Oh, no.  Next, P is going to start asking me questions about trees.  

But, apparently, it is not enough.  So if you know anyone who meets the above description and works cheap, please, send them my way.  

O: Why does the sky turn orangy pinky when the sun sets?

K: Because, well, light refracts at different angles and then, well. Why don't you ask Daddy?

I would also settle for a very talented creative writing major, who could tell her beautiful, artistic and complex lies, but watch out, the kid knows when you're reaching.  She's got a smart thinkin' brain. 

We Only Have One Refrigerator

O: Not that one, Momma.  That one is the dust cloud that made all the dinosaurs get dead.  

K: How about this one?

O: Yeah, you can cut up that one.  It's just a dragon eating a princess. 

painting stance

O is as prolific as Picasso. And sure, each painting is a precious delicate flower and I’m going to save all of them. Except, I’m not. We live in a very, very small space, and we like it that way, but it means that choices have to be made and clutter must be vanquished. Here are four of the ways we’ve come up with to deal with the artistic output.

Warning: the below suggestions involve the destruction of your tiny one’s masterworks. We generally go through the stack together and pick a few that are not to be altered. I generally lean towards ones that O can tell me a story about; O gravitates toward anything sparkly. If you are a completist and cannot imagine parting with even one of these treasures, in the interest of your home not becoming the next episode of Hoarders, let me recommend ArtKive, an app that lets you photograph, tag, and date your kid’s work. They also make lovely coffee table books from the images. It is quick and easy, and the app is free.

and now P is getting in on the act

1. Wrapping paper-We usually give books and those large preschool paintings are just right for wrapping picture books.

2.Thank you cards-Just find something blank on the back and cut a rectangle, fold in half and write a note in the middle. Bam, homemade thank yous.

Bonus: This year O wasn’t going to go to school on Valentine’s day because we were planning a long weekend. We didn’t pack in time and ended up deciding to send her at the last minute. I grabbed a stack of paintings that leaned red, cut out twenty hearts, and she scrawled her O on the back. The cheapest (read free) and most environmentally friendly Valentines ever.

2. Packing material-Ok, I know, this one hurts a little, but remember Artkive, and remember Hoarders. It makes it a little easier as you are crumpling up those paintings and shoving them in a box. Plus, I can not tell you how many thank you notes we have received that have said more about the packing material than the gift. 

3. Papier Mâché-Cut long strips of the paper, blow up a balloon, dilute some white school glue with water and go to town. This is a messy proposition. A drop cloth is advisable. Outdoors is preferred. Younger kids like to just layer the sticky pieces on the balloon, but you can encourage older kids to create masks. You can always go back and cut eyes and mouths with a pen knife once your creations are dry.  Note: any kind of shiny paper is not a great choice, the closer you can get to the look and feel of newsprint the better.

Full disclosure: This doesn't actually solve any problems, but instead creates a new one.  Now you have to throw out three dimensional pieces of art instead of just paintings, but, hey, it kills an afternoon.  

4. Grandparents-There is no shame in making them someone else's to throw away.

or they might just keep them forever

Any storage tips from the parents who keep it all? 

Maybe It's Working

O: Hey mom, let's be Toms.

A little bedtime Silverstein

We try a lot of things as parents. Much of the time, it just feels as though you are shouting into the void, with not even an echo coming back.  Every now and then, however, you may get a glimpse that your thought, energy, and love are building up in that tiny brain, affecting those synapses, helping to form new connections.  

Lay a foundation.  Keep having conversations.  Act with love. Maybe it's working.

Unsolicited Advice for New Parents

O: Mommy, you are the best mommy I've ever had. 

On that stellar recommendation, I have distilled all of my parenting experience into a single piece of universally applicable advice for any and all new parents.  Everything, other than this gem, is just situational guess work and opinion.  Breast or bottle? Cloth or disposable? Cry it out or attachment? Stay at home or back to work? These are choices you get to make.  I have no input or insight to share, because what worked for my family may or may not work for yours. Ok, here it is: 

Clearly I know what I'm talking about.  Look how happy and well adjusted she is.  She looks like this ALL the time. 

Get a heating pad, plug it in and leave it on or near your rocking chair.  BAM. That's it.  

Full disclosure: I'm two kids and nearly four years in and I just did it a week ago.  Don't make the same mistake I did.

To everyone else, the already-parents, the never-been-parents, the parents-of-grown-adult-children, hush.  Let these sweet new families have some peace.  Don't scare them with stories of poop in the tub, the 5:00am feeding that lasts until noon, or the panic they will feel the first time that baby sleeps for more than two hours.  They'll know soon enough.  If they need you, they'll ask.

Make them dinner, but don't tell a woman who is eight months pregnant to sleep while she can. Drop off cookies, but don't ask about their birth plan, or, even worse share your own harrowing tale. Offer to come over and hold the baby for twenty minutes so she can go take a shower and promise to leave right after, but, please, don't comment on how she is feeding, clothing or washing her baby, partner, or hair.  

New parents, know you can always ask. Someone will have an answer for you, and you get to hear that answer, listen to your heart, and make a choice.  Some of those choices will be right. Some of them will be wrong. All of those choices will be yours, and it will be ok.  You know more than you think you do.  

But, I am serious about that heating pad thing. 

Growing Green on Concrete

O: When my sweet pea plants turn into sweet peas, I'm gonna do a sweet pea dance. 

We love living in Los Angeles, but I would be lying if I said there was nothing I wish I could change.  I wish people drove down our narrow street like it was a residential area, which it is, instead of like it was a highway, which it isn't.  I wish I knew the names of all of my neighbors and we would congregate on the front porch for cocktails and a catch-up on a warm summer evening.  I wish my girls had a garden, a verdant hideaway, where they could chase butterflies, make mud pies, hunt for fairies, and grow sweet peas. 

There are gardens in LA, beautiful public spaces to roam, private back yards of multimillion dollar homes, and, even, community gardens, where you can rent a patch of earth to call your own and get your hands dirty.  

Generally, we, the renters, are left with potted plants, sad window-box herb gardens, and that lush basil that I buy at Trader Joe's every few months that makes my kitchen smell like heaven, until I denude the poor bastard to make pesto.  

Out of my own sheer stubbornness, we do have a garden, a little plot of dirt, a raised bed that is intended to sit on harder-packed earth.  Ours sits on the concrete pad outside our dining room window.  The roots of the plants often creep out from under the forest green plastic, seeking soil, but we forge on.  We have grown kale (attacked and desiccated by cabbage worms), tomatoes (never ripened), pumpkins (this was acknowledged, in advance, to be folly), and cucumbers (of which we harvested 3, making them approximately forty-six dollars each). 

This bull shit is expensive

(the above contains actual bull shit)

This season, it is sugar snap peas.  As we scattered the seeds, O was already planning for the harvest, listing the names of dear friends who would share in our bounty. I love, at times, how short her memory can be, how the failures of the past months don't even register in the face of this new and hopeful venture.  The tiny green shoots have been measured daily, their growth tracked by comparison to her tiny index finger.  The first bloom, (see, I can be hopeful too) will be an event, celebrated with leaping and dancing.  

 We have a garden, not the garden I imagined, not the garden I would hope for, but a garden none the less.  

It is pretty good for making mud pies

Mostly, we just make a mess, but sometimes we make magic.  

When those sugar snap peas are harvested, dear friends, be they five or five hundred, they will be the best sugar snap peas you've ever tasted.  I'll keep you posted.  

Roses and Thorns

O: Roses and thorns. I go first. My rose was when you left me at school, and my thorn was when you picked me up. 

We have been up at 4:45am almost every morning. The laundry is piling up. The house is mess. O has been sick all week. P is teething.  Jim has been insanely busy at work. I am trying to catch up on everything I put on hold to open a show. Even the unflappable brown dog seems to be a little out of sorts. 

And...

Oh, my god, you guys, my dress is purple and ruffly at the same time!?!?

this happened today.

So, roses and thorns.  But mostly roses.