Cheering on the inside

Simon and I have achieved something of a cease-fire, which is good, although we have declared cease-fires before and you see how far that's gotten us. Note to Israel and Palestine: I totally get it.

Honestly, I have no idea what an acceptable end-point for a marriage might be. I know people who would say "NEVER" and people who would say "When it stops being fun." I know happy and miserable people on both ends of that spectrum.

Let's say it's actually something like this: when it's more damaging to my kids that their parents stay married than that their parents get divorced.

I'll keep you posted.

*****

In other, less depressing news, Henry got his very first, very own library card yesterday. He signed the application and card by himself (just Henry, like Cher or Madonna). He remains wary of the whole "borrowing" concept--he doesn't want to have to give the books back--but he was delighted that he could bring home five books without a lecture from me about poor children who would trade their shoes to have one-tenth of his home library.

His picks included Star Wars ABCs, I Spy Spooky Night, and something about a robot babysitter.

When we got in the car to go home he said, "My insides are cheering because I got my own library card."

My insides are cheering, too.

Corpse marriage

God, my last post was FOUR WEEKS AGO? It seemed like just yesterday I was whining about Santa stories. Partly I was just busy with Christmas and, well, mostly Christmas. How much productivity is lost in this country as a result of that holiday? Possibly a million work years a season.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about divorce. I'm nearly positive that's where things are heading, and it's just a matter of when and what we do with the house and whether I'll fail to get custody because I am such a class-A freaking lunatic.

I looked up "signs your marriage is heading for divorce" on Google (which should be a top sign in itself, but wasn't on any of the lists I saw). My favorite sign was "Your wife changes back to her maiden name." Really? You think that could be a sign of trouble?

A dying marriage is a fascinating phenomenon. You know what it was, you remember holding hands after a dinner out, or running together to catch a boat that time on vacation, or semi-seriously adding "Data" and "Lor" to your list of possible baby names for twins, and although sometimes you can still see that basic idea, it's become horribly distorted. A bloated, discolored, rotting corpse of that earlier time.

(Sign #2 your marriage is heading for divorce: You describe your relationship as a "bloated, discolored, rotting corpse.")

Santa

Henry and Amelia finally saw Santa this past weekend. Twice, actually--once at the Oakland Zoo and once at my mom's club's holiday brunch. Having two Santa sighting so close together posed a problem: the kids remembered what Santa looked like on Friday, and they wanted to know why Santa looked totally different on Sunday.

Which brings us to the fact that the whole Santa story has many, many holes, and a parent committed to the Santa Experience is often forced to perform fantastic feats of split-second spin control. In the case of two different Santas, I explained that St. Nick can't attend all the holiday events himself, what with the prep work for his BIG DAY, so he sends out elves dressed as Santa who report back to him about what everyone wants for Christmas. Sometimes, of course, he shows up himself, so we have to be on the lookout for the real Santa. And that is why some Santas look real and some look very, very sketchy.

I also had to come up with a reason for Toys for Tots, because, really, shouldn't Santa be getting things for the poor children? Shouldn't that be his number one job? I told Henry that parents send money to Santa every year to pay for the gifts and delivery, and that some families don't have money, so we pick out toys for those kids to help Santa out. And that maybe Santa slips in a few extras for us because we're helping him out. That's logical, right? Although the whole pay-for-play deal does seem to suck the magic right out of it.

Anyway, Henry ran right up to both Santas, sat right down, and asked for Star Wars action figures, Star Wars Legos, and an iPad (I'll have to thank my dad later for bringing such a thing to my house before Christmas). And despite my wide-eyed head shaking at Santa, Mr. Claus's response has led Henry to believe that they have an agreement. No amount of explaining that Santa might have other video game systems up his sleeve can shake Henry from the conviction that he is getting an iPad. And he's not. So that will be fun on Christmas morning.

Amelia took a little longer to warm up to the old man. At the zoo she refused to sit on Santa's lap, and instead stood at the foot of the sleigh and shouted up, "I want video games!" When Santa asked what kind of video game she wanted, she shouted back, "Pink!"

She felt different at the Sunday brunch, when she ran up to chat with Santa three different times, once actually climbing onto Santa in the middle of another kid's meeting. By the third time she didn't have anything left to ask for, so she told Santa about our cats.

I'll post a photo if I ever get around to downloading them from the camera.

Why I seem a lot more fun than I really am

So last week was my turn to go to school with Amelia (it's this "parents and children together" program that was a lot more charming the first time around with Henry). It being winter, I had a slight cold, so the tip of my nose, right around my left nostril, was dry and BRIGHT RED.

It looked hideous, so before I went in, I touched it up with some cheap cover-up stick in pale ivory. And that, of course, looked worse, so I tried to wipe it off. It didn't really wipe off, though, because of the dry skin. Instead it just looked like my nose was red with a light dusting of white powder around the nostril.

I can only hope I'm building an interesting reputation at the preschool.

That person

I'm lucky, right? Look at those faces. I'm really, really lucky. And I have much to be thankful for: two great kids, a nice house, a warm bed, family who babysit for free, friends, a six-day-a-month job, that I'm not bald yet.

Things are good! They're great, in fact. Really, really, really [sob] great.

A couple of weeks ago I went out to drinks with a couple of old friends from high school. One friend is having a particularly hard time--his mom has Alzheimer's and he's working a job he hates--and he said his girlfriend is pressing for marriage and babies.

I leaned toward him, stared him in straight in the eyes, and said, "NEVER get married."

And even as I was explaining how it was a terrible institution, and how only a fortunate few could ever truly be happy being yoked to one person for life, I was flooded with the horror that I have become that person--bitter and jaded, glowing with a smoldering resentment fueled by the carcasses of my dead dreams. All I needed was a cigarette and maybe a limp and the whole picture would have been complete.

I can't say exactly how things got this bad. It's never one thing, just 10 years of things piled up and littering the floor until our home is the emotional equivalent of a cat hoarder's place.

I do love those kids, though. Thank God for them.

*****

On an unrelated note, but still under the category of "Things That Suck," Amelia seems to be suffering from some sort of insomnia. It started with one missed nap on Sunday when we took her to see a play. Then the next day she spent nap time wandering around her room, and the following night she was up for an extra 90 minutes performing stealth excursions to turn up the volume on her lullaby sounds. Since then, she hasn't napped at all, it's taking hours for her to fall asleep, and this morning she was up for the day at 4:30.

Meanwhile, her waking hours are what you might expect from a two-year-old who's missing four to six hours of sleep each day. There's a lot of whining and tears and writhing on the floor.

The poor dear needs sleep. But she won't sleep. So she's overtired. So she can't sleep.

This is not heading in a positive direction AT ALL.

"I hate you"

I honestly thought things were going well between us.

Last night Amelia and I read two books: The Little Engine That Could and Good Night San Francisco. Except for my insistence that she sit with me on the rocker and not across the room on her stool, we got along swimmingly.

Shortly after going to bed she threw up. Half-digested spaghetti, carrots, and Kit Kat were in her hair, in her ears, down her pajama top. Simon did the heavy lifting, washing and rewashing her hair as she sobbed, "I throwed up!" But I was there, too. I got the pajamas, blanket, and sheets into the washing machine, I put new sheets on the bed, dried her, dressed her, and sat next to her, stroking her hair, until she fell asleep.

This morning at around 7:30 I heard her saying, "Daddy, I want to get up!" which is funny because I'm almost always the one to get her up in the morning, especially given that Simon has been sleeping on the couch lately (which is a subject for a whole separate, bitter, weepy post).

I went in, as usual, and said, "Good morning! How are you feeling?" in my sunniest voice.

She sat up in bed, furrowed her brow, and yelled, "I want DADDY."

"Daddy's downstairs," I told her, still chipper as I opened her curtains. "We'll see him when we go down for breakfast."

Amelia folded her arms. "I don't like you," she said.

But she couldn't mean that, right? Surely she was expressing dissatisfaction at, well, something else. An ongoing stomach ache. Hunger. Congressional infighting.

"Why don't you like Mommy?" I asked.

She looked down at her dolly, then straight into my eyes, "Because I hate you," she said.

And, you know, what?!? Was it because I told her to stop asking me for water when I'm driving? Because I wouldn't let her sit on her stool during story time? Did she blame me for the problems between Simon and I? Or did I damage our relationship irrevocably when I had to stop breastfeeding after a year due to a new medication? Had we ever really bonded at all?

I started to say that it hurt my feelings when she said that, because it did. But then I thought better of it, and, trying to be the best parent I could, I conjured up a smile and said, "That's OK if you hate me right now. I still love you."

Then I helped her pick out an outfit to wear, and called Simon to come upstairs because, really, I just want her to be happy.

And to love me.

Orange and black

I didn't make it to the Giants parade last week. I thought about it. I even asked Henry if he wanted to go.

"Will there be cotton candy?" he asked.

"No," I said. "There will be a lot of people standing together on the sidewalk cheering for the Giants."

"That sounds super boring," Henry said.

My sister went. She said not taking my kids there was the best parenting decision I've ever made. Sadly, she may be right.

But missed parade and deformed "SF" jack-o-lantern aside, I am over the moon about their victory. Yay Giants!

*****

The build-up to Halloween at our house was epic. In length. We bought Henry's Boba Fett costume in early September. So I had been listening to "Is it Halloween yet?" for about six weeks by the time October 31 rolled around.

Henry was firmly aboard the Halloween bandwagon, wearing his Boba Fett jetpack to school and folding his arms in bored condescension at severed heads and zombie babies alike, declaring, “That doesn’t scare me one bit.” Amelia, on the other hand, was having none of it. Outside of her lukewarm approval of her bee costume and her genuine happiness about her Hello Kitty jack-o-lantern, her standard response to all things Halloween was, “Too scary for me!”

And then it was time to trick-or-treat. We approached the first house, a large Victorian with gravestones on its front lawn and a smoke machine in full operation on the porch. Simon and I each took one kid’s hand, and walked slowly into the foyer. A large man wearing a Jason mask sat at a table, surrounded by cobwebs and body parts. Amelia stood beside me, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Jason silently held out a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup. Amelia immediately let go of my hand and ran toward Jason. “Thanks you!” she cried, happily.

She was hooked. For the rest of the night she wriggled out of my grip and ran toward houses that even Henry refused to enter. “That one!” she yelled, holding her Elmo treat basket proudly before her.

As for Henry, a block into trick-or-treating he stopped going into any house with more than a jack-o-lantern for decoration. Two blocks after that he said he was done, and I walked him home (happily, it being Game 4 of the World Series).

Amelia stayed with Grandma for another block or two. She would have gone longer, but it was her bedtime. As she fell asleep that night, she told me, “That scary guy so nice to give me candy.”

So what did my preschoolers learn this Halloween? Ignore your instincts about what looks dangerous! Take candy from strangers! Commit extortion! At least it makes me feel better about the whole Santa charade.

******

One last thing: A friend sent me this link to a blog post by the mom of a boy who went as Scooby Doo’s Daphne for Halloween and got flak for it by other moms. I hope she feels supported by all the positive comments. Her son looks awesome, too.

Personally, I am a little sad that Henry has moved on from loving princesses to embracing all things Star Wars. I mean, I like the movies and all, but I am so tired of the pretend shooting and light-sabering.

It's so odd to me that boys playing killer is A-OK, and boys wearing mod purple minidresses with kicky pink boots are bullied by grownups.