Bilingual Blues

There are some hazards involved in speaking another language exclusively with your children.

The V-meister and J-dog are still young enough that they haven't rebelled against the mother tongue, and think nothing of addressing me in Lithuanian wherever we happen to be.

The other day J-dog and I happened to be at Target, where many colorful items of craptastic plastic caught his discerning eye.

He ran up and down the aisles, happily pointing things out and shouting, "This! This! Mama, look at this! Ooooo, I want this! And this! And this!"

We got a lot of condescending looks.

Because the Lithuanian word for "this" . . .


is "šitas" ("SHIT-US.")



And this is neither here nor there, but I thought I'd share it:

Book Title Translation FAIL

The Informant

I always look forward to parent observation day at the kids' school because it's my once yearly opportunity to glean the answer to the mystical question, "What did you do in school today?"

(The J-dog learned to discern half notes from whole notes on the hand bells, and I also happened to notice that he zipped and hung his own coat up with ease. This from a kid who at home will feign total paralysis in order to avoid sticking even one appendage through an armhole without my assistance. As for the V-meister, she donned a pair of goggles and did a bit of drilling at the workbench before settling into multiplication bead work. It's a Montessori school!)

After the observation session, another parent and I were invited back to the Director's office for a Q/A and discussion session. We were talking about how well the children got along in general when the other parent (to whose son my V-meister recently announced her betrothal) brought up a name calling incident we had both witnessed.

"I have to mention" V-meister's future father-in-law said, "That we did notice one student call Logan Scully 'evil' for no good reason."

This immediately piqued the Director's interest.

"Evil?"

"Yes! Isn't that horrible?" the FIL said. "And Logan Scully was just walking along, minding his own business when it happened!"

The Director asked V-meister's FIL if he happened to know the name of the boy who hurled the insult.

He didn't.

I, on the other hand, did, but was loathe to divulge his identity for fear of being branded a narc. I had already given one girl the stink-eye earlier that morning when I witnessed her trying to wrestle J-dog's musical mallet from his hands.

"If I tell you, will you promise not to expose me as your informant?" I asked the Director, who assured me that the information would remain just between her, me, and the V-meister's future father-in-law.

"Okay." I said. "It was Hank Turner, and he called Logan Scully an evil butt!"

"Actually," the FIL interjected, "I thought I heard, 'evil gut'."

"What?" I exclaimed, incredulous. "It was definitely 'butt.' He called him an 'evil butt'."

"No, I'm pretty sure it was, 'gut'."

"Dude, that doesn't make any sense." I said. "Why would you call someone an evil 'gut'? It was definitely 'butt'. Evil butt."

"Gut!"

"Butt!"

"Gut."

The principal redirected us before we came to blows and shortly thereafter, we were dismissed.

But I don't know. As much as I like the V-meister's fiancé, I'm not sure I can let her marry into a family who doesn't know butts from guts.

I'm Watching You

I had the pleasure of observing the V-meister's last gymnastics class of the session yesterday. Except that in my excitement and haste to secure a good wall-side seat, I forgot the V-meister.

Don't worry, I had only been in the gymnasium for about a minute, fiddling around with the film option on my new iPhone 3G, before the mother to my right asked, "So, which one's yours?"

Thankfully the V-meister, who I'd left inside the climbing structure of the lobby play area, was still blissfully unaware of my absence when I scrambled back to retrieve her.

(I will be accepting my mother of the year award later this week at a private ceremony in Switzerland.)

Once class got underway with all students accounted for, I just couldn't get enough of watching her, my lithe and fragile little girl. She is the youngest and littlest one in her class, but very nimble - just like her gymnast mother before her.

One thing she doesn't have, however, is my fierce turf protection instinct. Because while the little V-meister was twirling around and talking to herself in line for the vault, this saucy little Nadia Comaneci look-alike kept cutting in front of her.

Why wasn't the V-meister standing up for herself? She seemed to care not a whit that a communist was taking advantage of her, not to mention flagrantly disregarding universally accepted rules of order and decorum.

It took every ounce of my emotional intelligence to keep my mouth shut. The V-meister, I understood, needed to learn how to stand up for herself. So I sat on my hands and hummed Eidel Weiss to prevent myself from executing the roundoff/back handspring tumbling pass that would bring me face-to-face with her aggressor.

But Nadia Comaneci was ruthless, and continued to cut in front of the V-meister with wild abandon.

That's when an invisible motherforce completely beyond my control caused me to stand up and yell, "HEY, V-MEISTER! DON'T LET THAT KID IN THE RED LEOTARD CUT IN FRONT OF YOU ANYMORE!" Then I tried to make eye contact with Nadia Comaneci by re-enacting Robert De Niro's "I'm watching you" maneuver from Meet the Parents.

It worked.

I am not proud.

If they ever let me into either one of my childrens' sports related functions again, I will be wearing a straitjacket and a muzzle.

Plant Whisperer

I inherited a mess of plants from the former owners of our house. My family scrambled to place bets on how long they would survive.

When the P-Dawg and I did a final walk-through before receiving the keys just over one year ago, the former lady of the house lovingly introduced me to each plant by name and gave me explicit instructions for its care and nurturing. I followed her around, scribbling in a spiral notebook which I promptly lost.

A few months ago, the family had gathered for a cookout at our place, and while the rest of us were chillin' on the patio, my mom and mother-in-law stepped into the sun room to inspect my plants, as is their custom.

I could see them through the windows, making their rounds.

After visiting the Hawaiian ginger and the cymbidium orchid, they lingered in front of my Christmas cactus with bent heads a-murmuring. There was some sad nodding and hand gesticulation, and then the two of them emerged with long faces.

"I hate to tell you this, Rima," my mother said with a glint in her eye, "But your Christmas cactus is dying, if not already dead."

"Yep, it's a goner!" my MIL gleefully interjected. "There will be no reviving that one. Have you ever watered it?"

"You guys!" I rolled my eyes. "It's a cactus! It will bounce back."

The mothers exchanged knowing looks.

"It's a succulent," my MIL corrected. "It does need water from time to time."

"You said succulent!" I snickered.

"What?"

"Nothing."

I continued to water the Christmas cactus whenever it occurred to me, which is to say almost never.

And last week, this happened:



It bloomed.

The next time they came over, I flaunted my cactus and taunted the mothers with my stoopid-fresh plant cultivating skillz.

"Have you noticed how beautifully my Christmas cactus is blooming?" I asked. "And a full month ahead of schedule, no less?"

The mothers circled my plant with arched eyebrows.

"Well if you want to know the truth" my MIL said, "Even a rock could thrive in this sun room of yours."

"Dumb luck" said my mother.

Then they sauntered off arm-in-arm to identify hidden safety hazards in the basement.


Plants-a-plenty

J-Dog Goes to School

The moment of J-dog's dreams finally arrived yesterday: pre-school orientation.



I even got to stay and watch for awhile - a HoverParent's dream come true! We had to sit on the sidelines so as not to interfere, but that didn't prevent me and my friend V from feverishly snapping paparazzi style photos. V was actually bold enough to cross the line of demarcation and take some close-ups of her daughter while the teachers' backs were turned, but I restrained myself and stayed put in my pint sized pre-school issue chair.

There was only one minor incident when, after another student occupied the seat he'd been sitting in, the J-dog tried to bulldoze her out and then resorted to sitting in her lap. Thankfully, I was able to shoot daggers at him with my eyes from my perch in the Parent Zone, and certain disaster and/or a potential sexual harrassment lawsuit was averted.

Today was his first day flying solo and went swimmingly. By all accounts, the J-dog was cheerful, cooperative, and in control of his bodily functions, although he is quickly making a name for himself as the class clown and had to be reigned in a few times for disrespectin' the geometric form work.

I think he'll be OK.

The Tooth Fairy is an Irresponsible Slacker

After weeks of persistent nudging, the V-meister finally wiggled her first tooth free very early one morning last week. Very early.

Because the ragged little pearl was presented to me in bed a mere four hours after I had finally fallen asleep for the night, it was difficult to muster up the enthusiasm I'd always planned to display upon such a momentous occasion. My morning breath and I congratulated V-meister as heartily as we could, advised her to keep the tooth safe for the Fairy, and gave a brief lecture on the importance of going back to sleep.

The V-meister and her tooth climbed in beside me.

"Are you sure you don't want to put that tooth on the nightstand?" I urged, eyeing the impossibly tiny specimen my daughter held precariously between two fingers. No. The tooth would remain in V-meister's possession, and she would hand it off to the Fairy herself.

Soon it became apparent that the V-meister, who was trying to be as quiet and unobtrusive as possible, was expecting the Tooth Fairy momentarily. Unfortunately, T.F. is union and her shift was over for the night. Also, she'd had a few glasses of wine with dinner and stayed up late watching the Colbert Report. The tooth fairy, I explained, would not be making her appearance just yet, but she would love it if the V-meister tried to lie in bed quietly until the alarm went off.

I rolled over and feigned a deep sleep. Moments later, there was a great rustling of sheets, followed by some scrabbling which robbed me of my covers. Irritated, I drew those covers back over my body in a rough, impatient manner, causing the tooth V-meister had inadvertently dropped somewhere in our king sized bed - and had been desperately trying to locate - to become airborne and land in an undisclosed location. And thus an earnest, yet futile early morning tooth search and recovery mission was launched while a hapless, grief-stricken V-meister looked on.

That evening, the V-meister went to bed toothless on several levels. We assured her that the Tooth Fairy, with her X-Ray vision, would be able to find V-meister's tooth wherever it may be. It was only after she had fallen asleep that P-Dawg finally located the renegade incisor on our bedroom floor. It was too late for V-meister to put it under her pillow, so P-Dawg placed it for safekeeping on top of our dresser, where it was accidentally disposed of during a vigorous dusting session the very next day.

Luckily, we were granted a chance at a do-over when a another tooth jumped ship three days later under our babysitter's watch. She had the foresight to immediately put it in a ziplock baggie and place it directly under V-meister's pillow at bedtime, where it was later spirited away without incident by Alert and Responsive Tooth Fairy.

P-Dawg says that in ten years time V-meister won't give a crap whether I saved her first tooth or not, but I still mourn the one that got away.

Good Thing I Passed on the Fruit Loops

J-dog and I ran into our family pediatrician in the supermarket checkout line today.

Dr. W is young, hip, and witty, which is why I spazzed out, turned beet red, and had nothing constructive to say when she greeted me.

Would I be forced to tell a bald-faced lie if asked how J-dog's potty training was going? What if she wanted to know whether I'd finally signed V-meister up for Safetytown? I tried to shield my purchases from view and chucked a box of Uncrustables into the gum display. How did this junk end up in my cart? Gawd.

But as I was attempting to pay for my groceries with my library card, I noticed that Dr. W was herself looking visibly frazzled. Her twins were climbing out the back of her grocery cart, and darned if that cart wasn't chock fulla Valentine's Day candy and artificially flavored grape juice.

I think Dr. W was having a bad morning. She tried to make small talk with me while her babies moved along the conveyor belt, but you could tell her heart wasn't in it. I'll bet she went home and popped in back-to-back episodes of Dora the Explorer.

Thing is, I almost followed her there. Because I've decided I would like to be her best friend forever. Would it be awkward to stalk your pediatrician in that way?

Party at the Pediatrician's

One of my most abhorred parental-type tasks is taking the kids to the pediatrician. (It's possible the pediatrician is not crazy about seeing me, either.)

I remember how much I hated going as a kid, how I'd all but start convulsing on the spot every time my mom would announce it was time for the yearly checkup, and I just want to spare the J-dog and V-meister the pain.

But I also want to spare them a lifetime of negative associations with doctors' offices and their own father's profession, so if you can ignore me while I wipe down the magazine table with my handy-dandy anti-bacterial cloths, I'll make a great show of being the very picture of maternal composure - like a soccer mom on a trivial errand! - even though my internal voice is screaming "ZOMG kids, let's get the H-E-double hockey stick outta here!"

I'm the mom who backs into the office without touching the doorknob. If the J-dog or V-meister so much as think about grazing a surface contaminated with critters of any kind (and aren't they all?), I'm up in there with my trial size bottle of Purell faster than you can say "Bubonic Plague."

So the V-meister had her yearly check-up today, where she was the epitome of pediatric health and decorum, answering all of Dr. W's questions clearly and succinctly, acing her hearing and vision tests, and enduring two mean booster shots (which she insisted on watching) with nary a flinch. My heart swelled inside of my chest cavity, popped right out onto the floor and bounced into the hallway.

But now that she's five and knows all, I had an internal debate on whether I should give her advanced warning about the shots that she would be getting. As a child, I remember Them springing shots on me without any advance notice, as if this would somehow lessen the blow, and I remember being positively incensed about it. Not only did it hurt like a mother, but it was the seventies, man, and they gave us those shots in the hiney. I'm not saying I wouldn't have carried on as though I were being skinned alive if they'd given me a heads up, I'm just sayin' "respect."

So just when the V-meister thought she was home free, I told her about the certain doom ahead. I said that yes, it would hurt for once second per shot and she could squeeze my arm and yell "Ouch!" as loudly as she wanted to.

And she said, "No thank you, I don't want any shots today," but acquiesced once I explained the cost-benefit involved in getting pinched in the arm a few times versus coming down with measles, mumps, or rubella. Plus, I was totally blocking the exit.

We both left today's appointment relatively unscathed. I'm glad I told the little V-meister she would be getting shots because it made it possible for her to look those bad boys in the eye and say, "Bring it, mofos."

But I'm not entirely certain that I've been forgiven, because she just came inside from raking leaves with her dad, set a bottle full of red winter berries down in front of me, and said, "Mama, I picked these poison berries for your birthday next year."

A Final Dispatch from the Hut

This might be my last dispatch from the hut. We are moving out next week and will be staying at my parents' house until our new place is available in October.

The P-Dawg is not the least bit nervous about the prospect of living with his in-laws for a month and a half (although they will be on vacation for three weeks of that time), viewing it as an adventure and opportunity to take advantage of free babysitting. Optimism is the P-Dawg's middle name and it serves him well.

I'm a bit more skeptical about the specific machinations necessary for peaceful cohabitation of three generations under one roof. I'm prepared to pull my weight in terms of household responsibilities and all that, but the other day my mom mentioned that I might want to bring my crockpot, as well as a few of my "favorite pans," and I'll be honest, this struck mortal fear into my heart.

It's not that I don't know how to cook, exactly, it's just . . . the expectations. Before the P-Dawg and I got married, my dear late grandmother actually pulled him aside and said, "I so sorry she no cook! We try to teach, but she no cook." It's like a test: after almost eight years of marriage, has she or has she not learned how to cook already?

Anyway, aside from waxing nostalgic and going through a daily litany of "lasts" ("P-Dawg, do you realize this is the last Thursday we will ever spend in the hut? The last time we'll ever grill out in this yard? The last new ketchup container I will place in this refrigerator? By the time this milk expires, we will be gone"), I have done little in the realm of preparing for the big move. Although I did shower this morning with a morsel of soap no bigger than my pinkie finger because I am hell bent on making it the last piece of soap I will ever lather up with in the hut.

Now that we've come down to the wire, many possessions previously regarded as indispensable are being tossed willy-nilly into a garbage bag as I make my rounds from room to room. You didn't read it here, but it's possible that some articles of the P-Dawg's clothing might get "lost in the move." As they say.

Also, much as it pained me, I had to dispose of this *begin air quotes* craft *end air quotes* the V-meister made at day camp this week:


What, if I may ask, is your general rule of thumb when deciding whether a piece of your progeny's artwork will receive a coveted spot in the underbed Rubbermaid container or serve as landfill instead?

It seems that I'm always saying to the V-meister, "Hmmmm . . . I don't know what happened to that picture/rock/lint-studded piece of dried out play-doh!" What's more, I feel only the slightest twinge of guilt as these words leave my lips, just thankful that I haven't been caught with my hand in the garbage can yet.

My presence will be scarce in blogland for the next few weeks as we move out of the hut (*sniff*) and get settled in at my parents' place. And because this blog is TOP SECRET as far as my extended family is concerned, when I do resume posting, it will be by flashlight under the covers in my old bedroom. And then only if I've completed my chores.

See you on the other side!

I'm Not Complaining

I had posted this earlier today, and it just seemed so dang whiny that I took it down. But now that the P-Dawg is home from work and I've helped myself to a few glasses of vino, I'll be darned if it's not downright amusing.

*************************************************************************************
J-dog and V-meister have been at each other's throats from the moment they woke up this morning. It's one of those days when I'm just a toddler tantrum away from reverting back to my monkey roots.

That's right, I'm about to start flinging poop.

The day began with me running out of the shower, dripping wet, to disengage J-dog from the V-meister's headlock. By the time we got out of the house, it was practically twilight and the twenty or so hours I'd spent applying SPF 50 over every nook, cranny, and crevice of our pasty white selves had gone to waste.

Nonetheless, we headed to the splash park.

But when we finally arrived there and met up with V-meister's little friend, no one actually wanted to splash. The V-meister was requesting an early lunch, and the J-dog wanted only to climb in and out of my lap over and over again, mixing it up with an occasional full body slam for good measure.

After endless rounds of this, I set him down none too gently, and when he came in for his next approach, I totally blocked him with a tae-kwon-do move. Of course I'm not proud.

Once the kids were finished not splashing, not running under any fountains, and not eating their lovingly packed nutritional and environmentally friendly lunches, we walked over to the playground. We were only there ten minutes before I found the two of them locked in a death-grip in the middle of the crawl tunnel.

I marched up inside that play structure - fuming- but instead of giving each of them a nuggie as I was wont to do, I reprimanded and separated one from the other, the J-dog with his legs still cycling in mid-air like some caricature of an angry toddler.

Then, on my pissed off and humiliating descent from the jungle gym, I totally nailed my head on a metal beam and swore out loud in front of the V-meister's wide-eyed little friend, who had been watching the spectacle from the sidelines.

In between the stars that appeared before my eyes, I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the J-dog putting gel beads that had fallen out of some kid's leaking diaper from the swirly slide right into his pie hole.

And then we left.

On the way home, the V-meister asked what was for lunch? but I simply cranked up the volume on our Lithuanian pop music CD and bopped along to the accordion/techno beat while taking deep breaths and counting to twenty in my head.

Now it's "nap time" and I've been sitting here on my living room couch listening to the J-dog attempting to bust out of his crib for the past forty-five minutes. It's funny, I don't remember tucking him in along with a hammer and crowbar! but by the sound of it, that is what he's employing.

There's also a dead rabbit in my backyard, and this makes me want to cry.

It's a Jungle Out There

What is it about a sidewalk sale that turns otherwise decent, law-abiding women into hormonal wilderbeasts?

After spending all of Saturday afternoon diligently working on a freelance editing project at my local coffee shop, I decided to reward myself with a quick jaunt to the nearby Anthropologie clothing store.

A sidewalk sale was in progress, and womenfolk were circling the racks like tigers staking out their turf.

I approached an as yet unclaimed rack full of blouses and, as is customary among the genus thirtysomethingus suburbanus femalus, began combing through it starting at the far left end.

I was about halfway down the rack when a broad of the genus bad makeup, leathery skin, frickin' rude as-all get outus cut in front of me and began examining the garment directly to my right.

As in, the item I was about to inspect on the rack that I had staked out.

This was by no means a friendly, "I'm just going to shop here at an appropriate distance alongside of you" overture, but rather a balls-out violation of personal shopping space.

My fur began to bristle, and I may or may not have bared a solitary fang.

In a cheerful growl I said, "Oooooookaaaay, then. I guess I'll just switch places with you," and proceeded to swoop around to her right.

She released her talons and wasted no time in one-upping me with another cold-blooded queue jump, landing again directly to my right, where she began eyeing a little summer hoodie that was next in line for my nimble fingers to examine.

Friends, I had no intention of trying on a navy blue maternity type hoodie with oversized orange and yellow buttons, but I grabbed that garment off the rack faster than you could say, "b1tch."

I quickly eyeballed the label on my trophy, only to find that it was two sizes too big, but damned if I was going to put it back for my enemy to lay paws on.

There was only one more like it left on the rack (in what I suspected was the size I actually needed), and my arch nemesis snatched it up like a winning lottery ticket dancing on the wind.

We both stood there in the blazing afternoon sun, examining our loot, each of us knowing that we were holding a garment in the other's size, but neither one willing to make the concession to put it back on the rack.

What is a self-respecting shopper to do?

I walked around inside the store for a few minutes before hiding that hoodie on a full price rack, of course.

A few minutes later, I found the one in the size I needed discarded among a pile of jeans.

Next time, I think I'll just mark my territory with a circle of pee.

Spied at the Neighborhood Coffee Shop

Heh, heh, heh.