The Magic Number

I read a story this morning about a very unscientific study that deemed three kids the most stressful number to have. Two is doable because the parents are not outnumbered (assuming there are two parents) and four and above seem to work because parents just start saying, "Fuck it. You kids are on your own."

But three? You're toast.

I know a lot of folks with three kids, my sister and brother-in-law among them, and it does seem really, really hard. Their toils, plus hefty student loan debt, have solidified Greg's and my hunch to lock our own family growth down at a solid two kiddos. Two kiddos and a red dog.

But as I got further into this "study," I noticed some flaws — and not just the study's flaws, of which I'm assuming there are many, but those of the mothers. I'm not player-hating here, ladies, but put down the mod podge and listen up. The reason, they attested, that the third time was most definitely not the charm is that you're doing too much. The kids are over-scheduled, they said; whatever free time is left is squandered scrapbooking and making this.

I read the story while June was watching her morning Sesame Street, and as I popped another microwaved mini pancake into my face-hole, I smugly thought, "That ain't me!" Truly, though, no one has ever accused me of doing too much.

And when I talk about the do-too-unnecessarily-much-ers out there, I'm not talking about my sister, who has two school-age children and a newborn and is valiantly clawing her way through these trying early months of a baby's life to resume what was once a dependable routine. That sounds seriously stressful. Real talk. But I'm talking about the well-meaning gals (and guys) who are just overdoing it. Too many crafts, too many lessons, too many projects, too many playdates. Aside: when the frig did we start calling it a playdate anyway? Therein, I believe, lies part of our problem. When I was growing up you "went over" to a friend's house. "Dates" imply there will be a prepared meal and some sort of wooing and entertainment involved. Too much damn work. "Going over" to a friends meant a sleeve of Oreos and un-PC cartoons for hours. Parental supervision was almost guaranteed not to be a factor.

In fact, I remember my mom saying that she liked it when we had friends over because we remained within her purview but were leaving her the frig alone — the stated objective. Also, she didn't have to get in the car and drive anywhere. Granted, right now my child is a toddler, still requires supervision, and doesn't have a choice who her friends are, so I get to invite my friends and their kids over on adults' terms only. But I hear about school-age playdates during which the parents who are virtual strangers linger, interfere, redirect, entertain. So you're telling me when June is 7 and wants a friend to come over, I have to have her mom, too? A mom I barely know who might be opposed to drinking and/or celebrity gawking and therefore with whom I have NOTHING to talk about? I have to clean the house and provide organic snacks and compliment little Brayden's faux-hawk all the while making small talk with this tee-totaling monster of woman? Ugh. Sounds exhausting.  Forget it.

I want to be a good mom. I think I am a good mom, but I vacillate between wanting to be the sort of mom that crafts with their child and the sort of mom that hands her child a crayon and some Post-Its and says, "Here. Color. Mommy's going to go lie down."

Perhaps the "I'm pregnant and exhausted" disclaimer should be invoked right about now, since just about the only thing I'm game for these days is the "pretend Junie is going to bed" ruse in which she lies on the couch and fake snores for a while. One better, this morning she discovered the hammock outside and was content to swing in its nylon hug while I sat adjacent in the adirondack chair. I nearly wept with joy at the development. Then our dog dropped his ball at my feet hoping for some fetch and I told him to fuck off.

In my very, very limited experience in parenting, I've discovered that what works for us is "less is most definitely more." This choice was not created in a vacuum, considering my husband's imagination- and wilderness-rich childhood, and the conscious laissez-faire approach my own folks took with us. I remember my mom telling me about how my brother Matt's only toy for about two years was a cigar box with, like, a twist tie and a nail file inside. That's it. Depression-era fun for all! But seriously, that seems to be the ticket with June, too, yet I know all kids don't function that way.

Pinterest, in all its Fantasy Land glory, can be a real bitch for moms. Those who "follow" me know I don't play the mommy game on that site. I'm strictly in it for the food and fashion. But those who know me for real know how much I adore my child and that I would do anything for her.... within reason.  When I saw the "pin" of a toddler sliding down a plastic PlaySkool outdoor slide covered in food-dyed shaving cream with the caption "100 Things From The Dollar Tree You Can Use In Play," I wanted to throttle my laptop. Pinterest is to pragmatist moms what the Bryan Adams "Summer of '69" video was to my late grandfather: an obscene display of waste and misdirected resources to no viable end. Shaving cream on a slide?? What, are you dying to be scrubbing that shit out of your upholstery for the next month? What's wrong with just a slide? A concussion is enough of an imminent possibility without an accelerant, but now you want to lube the thing up with a product that explicitly states both "Not for use for children under 12" and "Keep out of eye area" on its package?*

No wonder you're stressed, moms.

So much of the crap you find on crafty mommy blogs is destructive posturing for both self-esteem and hardwood floors. Clearing out the Dollar Tree of their foreign-made, chemically laden, not-for-child-use products to give kids about five minutes of payoff for quintuple that in prep and clean-up time sounds like a nightmare to me, and it should to you, too. Say no to the shaving cream, moms. SAY NO. Plus, aren't they saying now what us thirty-somethings have known since childhood? That boredom is good for kids?

I don't ever recall my mom being stressed out and keen on keeping us occupied when we were growing up, beyond the inevitable blow-ups of having four kids who were acting like a pain in her ass from time to time. We played sports and stuff through school but didn't have anything scheduled beyond that. We would do a fun project with her, like build a gingerbread house or bake bread, but that didn't happen often — and that was only with me since Meg wanted nothing to do with her for the bulk of her formative years. My mom didn't express any inadequacies relative to other moms because she didn't care — and if some other mom wanted to corral a bunch of us tweens in and out of the Northbrook Court Claire's Boutique for a fun girls' outing? Great, better that fool than her. Just don't ask her to drive.

But she was attentive and affectionate and kind and funny. She gave us nothing but time and love and joy and more time, just not finger paints. And I didn't miss 'em.

A couple of months ago, my cousin Beth hosted a cookie decorating party for June and her other toddler brood. June talked about it for weeks — it was an absolute delightful joy from beginning to end. Given how much fun my girl had, I decided I was going to try and recreate it one cold, gray, slow winter's afternoon. It was a disaster. She was frustrated, I was disappointed, and the cookies blew. Plus, I used one cookie cutter ... in the shape of a circle. It was Super Mommy Amateur Hour. I half-expected my cousin to appear dressed as the Sandman, shooing me out of the room with her push broom. Plus, all this was before we got our dishwasher so we made an unholy mess. But I considered it to be a shaving-cream-on-the-slide "big" project that the sleep-deprived trolls of Pinterestland told me was an instant memory-maker for a fastidious toddler such as mine. Bull. It was like she knew it wasn't my bag. If she could articulate as such, she would have licked the last bit of streaky electric blue frosting off her fingers and said, "Mom, nice try, really. But this ain't yo' style. Can we play 'monkey on a motorcycle' instead?" (That is a "game" in which she crawls behind me on a chair and we lean to and fro making noises like we're taking sharp turns on a crotch rocket.)

But this is what she wants, what she remembers. I guarantee our cookie debacle has been wiped clean from her mind's dry erase board and rescrawled with any number of stupid songs I make up, walks to the beach with Greg, stories told by her grandparents, piles of rocks counted on our driveway, kisses, cuddles, books. To the aggressive Pinterest mom, I would be an abject failure. To my happy, delighted little girl, I'm doing aiiiight. And I'll try to keep this low-balling expectations thing up for as long as I can.

The jury's out as to what pressure I'll succumb down the line as June ages, or after this baby is born. But the silver lining to all this loan debt is the simple inability to compete with the trend, even if the desire was there. I can afford 99 cent bubbles, but monkey on a motorcycle is free.

And damn fun.


*That shaving cream craft pin on Pinterest links to a blog called "Growing a Jeweled Rose"... barf.

The Real Word (sic), Highwood

Sooooooo ... hi there. How've you been? What's new? Gosh, I haven't seen you in... TWO FREAKING YEARS?

That, ladies and germs, is laziness. Nay, toddlerdom. Ok, laziness, too. Much has changed since that last dispatch (which was an also-ran from a column I had written months before — cop-out city), but I'm thinking most of you reading this are either blood relatives or check Facebook now and again, so you know the gist of the Trotter happenings.

In short: a move to the Chicago suburbs, two writing jobs for Greg, part-time employment with some hilarious priests plus a decent freelance career for me, the world's most awesome spring, followed by the world's shittiest spring, a little travel here, a few visitors there, a graying red dog, the growth and development of a most spectacular little girl, and now another wonderful (so far so good) pregnancy.

June's chatty now, and I mean real chatty. She likes to cuddle up next to me on the couch and say, "Mama, let's talk about animals." So we do. She tells me about monkeys, how they live in the jungle and eat bananas, and sometimes get in bathtubs and ride bicycles. Then we move on to cows, how they live in the fields and wear bells. And next is always lions, also living in the jungle and eating bananas. I dare not correct her. Now's not the time for Darwin.

We have given some passing thought to potty training, but are waiting a few more weeks until she shows more signs of readiness. She loves the trappings of the potty— the accessories, the how-to books, the mirage of independence — but not the actual usage itself. Right now, she's just in it for the toilet paper.

About a month ago, Matt and Margarita bequeathed their vast collection of potty paraphernalia to us, much to Junie's delight. As we were transporting the haul from my parents' house, she insisted on holding the Sesame Street-themed junior toilet seat in her lap all the way home. When it wasn't on her lap, she was holding it up to her face and peering through the hole saying, "Mama! Yook! Number zero!" Once again, too cute to correct. I commended her command of the numbers and then said to Greg, under my breath, "Where did she learn about zero? It wasn't from me." Then the little face in the toilet seat in the back chirped, "From TV." Take that, American Academy of Pediatrics.

I had incorrectly assumed, by gauging her interest (see above) and intellect, that she would be drunk with potty power by now. Not quite. She can't "hold it," she doesn't articulate when she needs to go No. 1, and she's not great at removing pants on her own. She will clink her glass and stand on a chair at a restaurant to announce the coming of a turd, but the pee warnings are more elusive. We've had a few instances where she's pantsless on the potty, says "All done!" and stands up, and then pisses or craps (or both) on the floor. Diapers haven't become such a hassle yet, and the thought that she may have inherited my pea-sized bladder and that we could be spending most of the next several years corralled in a public bathroom taking toilet turns isn't propelling me out the door to procure a copy of "Elmo's Potty Book" anytime soon.

And people, let's face it, a child out of diapers means a child getting older. And I ain't cool with that.

But a key factor in my reticence to go full-throne-throttle is the intersection of an increased vocabulary, a bear trap of a memory, and the mechanics of bladder and bowel relief. The questions are going to come, I know they are, and the answers will demand the use of "real" words.

Real words for which I'm not ready.

Everything I've ever read and heard when it comes to toddlers and the anatomy is to just let 'er rip. Be honest. Tell them the correct names for body parts. That horrifying fifth-grade sex-ed class living nightmare of "P" words and "V" words and "A" holes is supposed to be a calming, truthful presence in a 2-year-old's life. I'm calling bullshit. Did those doctors talk to any parents doing real parenting when they decided this was in the child's best interest? The generations of folks who happily grew into sexually repressed adulthood using only terms like "pee pee" and "wee wee"? The kids that we all see shouting "PENIS!" at the top of their lungs during recess just because they can and it feels right? I see what doctors are doing -- take away the shame and you take away the fascination, leading to healthier relationships and improved body image. I get it. I do. But I'm thinking about my daughter whose favorite word is currently "humungous" — a word I can see being especially expressive when paired with "vagina" and belted out during a quiet moment at Christmas Eve Mass.

When it comes down to it, when she does ask, I will tell her the truth. I will explain it to her in real terms. I will look her in the eye and say "nipple." I will not laugh. I WILL NOT LAUGH (the more I say it, the more it becomes an affirmation). I'm pregnant and my rapidly changing physique will only invite more awkward questioning. That and her refusal to let me pee alone.

At least one of us is using the toilet.

And this is the easy part, throwing a couple of names around. When the baby appears? And the whole "how did it get in there? / how does it get out?" double-whammy rears its graphic head? What will I do then? Ohhh Greg...

I love my parents so much, I do, but they will be the first to admit they dropped the ball when it came to this sort of stuff. Hell, they never picked the ball up. My dad still winces when he hears the right names for reproductive organs, and bellows "Why can't they just learn about it on the street, like I did?" when the topic of birds, bees and teaching young kids comes up. And my mom? Well, she did sit me down once to have "the talk" ...  only to stand up immediately and scamper out of the room murmuring, "I can't do this. Talk to your sister." I was 19 at the time. True story.

But I can't blame them. Heck, I turned out fine. A little childish when it comes to some topics, a little prone to laughing like Butthead in others, but altogether fine. Is this "real" word thing some grand experiment we'll revisit in 20 years when the psychotherapy community will widely renounce the practice after droves of humorless adults complain that there's really nothing good to laugh at anymore? Will we go back to the "pee pee" days just so kids have something to giddily gasp at? When we lift the "P" word veil, what's left?

Well, there's your deep thought for the afternoon. I have to pee like crazy and June's napping so I've got this time all to myself.

No questions asked.

Cut through the clutter

The following is the most recent column I wrote for the summer edition of Valley Parents magazine. Yes, this is a cop-out and I recognize that, but well, what are you gonna do.

***

At eight months in, I can say I’ve learned a few things about parenting.

A sample:

1) I can do almost everything I did pre-baby, but now with one hand – including write this column.
2) It is possible to craft scintillating dinner conversation around the contents of a soiled diaper.
3) Less is more (and not necessarily in relation to No. 2).

Now, No. 3 is an unlikely revelation for yours truly, as I’m sort of a “more is more” kind of gal. As proof, please refer to my laughably large and impractical purse collection, and the 60-plus wine glasses that wound up on our wedding registry after a power mad UPC scanner spree through Crate and Barrel. White wine, red wine, stemless, stemmed, causal, formal. I needed 60. And yes, all but about four of them are in still packed in boxes stacked in our laundry room.

But I checked my usual leanings toward the mass accumulation of stuff at the door when it came to my daughter, June. What my wedding registry lacked in austerity, my baby want/need list made up for in an uncharacteristic lack of clutter. My parents and in-laws hooked us up with most of the necessities, the rest I approached with a “we’ll cross that wipe warmer when we come to it” sensibility.

If it isn’t borrowed, it was purchased on the cheap. If June can make do without, she does without. We’ve purchased a few teething toys to supplement all the generous gifts she’s received, but that’s about it. Any items she does have to play with are augmented by her fascination (mostly oral) with books. She’s got plenty of books.

Invariably while playing with her toys, June loses interest in the modest assortment of noisemakers and stuffed animals before her and snatches a pair of baby pants out of a pile of folded laundry. The journal I keep in her room for my tearful scrawlings of baby milestones may as well contain Elmo’s tell-all with the way she lunges for it. The lid for the plastic container holding some of her teething toys is like forbidden fruit. Who needs Fisher-Price when you’ve got Tupperware?

That resourcefulness has got to be from her dad’s side. My husband has spent a good chunk of his life fending for himself in the wilderness, everything needed for survival efficiently wrapped up in the pack on his back. This has always fascinated me.

Me: “Wait, what about the spare deodorant?”
Him: “You don’t bring deodorant.”
Me: “So, no scented shower gels?”
Him: “You’re kidding, right?”
Me “How about a tube of mascara – can you bring mascara?”
Him: (silence)

Stuff is not his bag. Ironically, he wound up with someone who cites bags as her bag.

But I am getting better, and I credit several house moves in as many years with tempering my need to collect and save. And June, too. Watching her while away 25 minutes chewing on her cereal bowl has hammered the lesson home.

While visiting my parents in suburban Chicago recently, I spent some time going through old boxes of things I’ve held on to from grammar school, high school and college. I was appalled at what I found: mortifyingly sappy journal entries (grammar school), a program from some football game of which I have zero recollection (high school), an old beer bottle, the skunked, syrupy remains of Rolling Rock still redolent in its green confines.(College, clearly). I saved the journal, the rest was tossed.

I was thinking of June as I was decluttering. Would she be interested in seeing any of this someday? Should she be seeing any of this someday? Would I want her to cling mightily to so much stuff?

I’m not a maker of New Year’s resolutions but I did pledge one in the low light of a frigid winter’s morn with June in my arms: Don’t say “need” when you mean “want.” I need food, shelter, love. I want a haircut, a meatball sub, those wine glasses.

It’s a bit why I’ve really tried to pare things down when it comes to June’s belongings – in order to save what matters. I’d like to be able to produce an old toy that she spent hours gnawing on and tell her, when she’s an adult and we’re enjoying a glass of wine out of her mother’s ridiculous collection, what it meant to her. Or show her the blueberry stains on the summer dress that showed off her deliciously chubby knees. Or flip through her favorite board book, the page corners tattered from being gummed more than seen.

But that’s the stuff I want to keep.

No, it’s the stuff I need to keep.

A Dilla of a pickle

Sunday morning was a gray day, outside and in.

All because of a black-and-white hound.

We said goodbye to our 2-and-a-half-year-old dog, Dilla. It was a pretty fraught decision, but it's the right one for all parties involved. Especially her. She went to live with a wonderful family in Connecticut. And no, that's not code for anything nefarious, she really is living with a wonderful family in Connecticut.

Greg and I have been hemming and hawing about finding a new home for her for a little bit now. We're gearing up to move again, someplace a lot smaller, and having two dogs cooped up in a tiny house or apartment is not fair to them. June is about to start crawling and in order to create more space for her, we're boxing the dogs out even more. We've had Dilla for two years, versus Gypsy's nine with Greg, so by default she was the one on the chopping block, so to speak. It's a lot of work, and expense, to have them both and a baby and I can't devote the attention to them I used to with June around. It's more than we can handle on multiple levels. To quote Greg quoting the USPS after announcing the closing of all those post office branches, we're trying to "rightsize" our operation. Dilla is collateral damage in that rightsizing.

But only for us -- she's somewhere that is going to make her blissfully happy.

It was sort of the perfect scenario. My friend Gerry was looking for a dog, a black one, too, and we were looking to find Dilla a new home. It happened quickly, but that's better than being belabored I suppose. Gerry has two sons young enough to bestow upon Dilla a cuddle-crazy heroine's welcome, but not too young that she's going to he headed toward a tail pull-a-thon. The way Gerry describes his sons, they will be great for her, and her, them. I can't think of a better solution to this.

Either way, it's breaking my heart. Concurrently breaking and warming. Warming the broken pieces. The dogs drove me up a freaking wall this winter, about which I've written, but as June has gotten older and more aware of their high entertainment value, and as the mass of snow gave way to a backyard paradise, the pooches made their way back into my heart. But while there may be room in our hearts, our home is another story. And big dogs in small spaces ain't fair. And truly wonderful dogs, like Dilla, deserve the best.

I had a pit in my stomach leading up to when Gerry was slated to arrive. I gave Dilla a bath -- always a challenge -- then shared a little of my homemade macaroni and cheese with her. I tried to take a couple of photos but she turned her head to the side and gave me this eye, like "When was the last time you took a photo of me alone? Something must be up."

I burst into tears while feeding June that morning, the blubbering and bleating sending her into fits of hysterical laughter. I called Dilla over to sit with us, her tail thumping the ground and her head weaving to and fro under my hand in order to find the petting sweet spot. I stared at the two of them, June and Dilla, and let go of the image I always carried in my head -- the one looking about five years into the future, of my dog sleeping at the foot of my daughter's bed. Staying close, as she did with me while I was pregnant.

Greg and I got her a little over two years ago from the Southwest Missouri Humane Society. It was already beastly hot for early June, and Greg woke up early to call a guy about a canoe he saw on craigslist. The canoe had sold so Greg, summoning up the next-best-thing suggestion, said, "Wanna go look at a dog?"

I didn't. We already had a dog, a wonderful dog, and two seemed like a handful. But being a good new wife (and also morbidly curious), and understanding the merits of Greg's argument (puppies are much easier to train with older dogs around), I obliged. He had been sending me links to a puppy he found on petfinder.com. The jpeg showed a goofy looking little thing, ink-black, save for a white spot on her chest and paws, with a huge head and two spazzy hind feet kicked out next to her. The listing said she was half-black lab, half-Great Pyrenees. It said her name was "Alyssa."

"Alyssa?? They have got to be freaking kidding," I thought.

I get that a humane society might be hard-pressed to generate original names for each of the hundreds of puppy mill drop-offs that get carted through their doors yearly, but I'm a little wary of pet names that are reasonable monikers for humans. Roger. Stephen. JoAnn.

Alyssa.

We got to the humane society and Greg told the volunteer that we were there to look at Alyssa (oy). She led us into the corridor of dog cages, a Phil Spector-grade Wall of (barking) Sound chattering our teeth.

"There she is, the one on the left."

Dilla (er, Alyssa) sat and watched us, ears perked up on her disproportionately large head, tail thumping the ground, her front white paws dancing in excitement. Her littermate was with her -- humping, biting and pawing the dogshit out of Dilla (sorry, Alyssa). She paid it no mind, and continued to stare at us with a sort of pitiful hope.

Shitshitshitshit, I thought. She's freaking adorable.

Next we took her outside to their dedicated dog run, watched her break into the goofiest gait imaginable, possibly for the first time. We threw a ball and she watched it sail through the air. When it landed with a thud she went back to sniffing a pile of dog turds near our flip-flopped feet. A fetch dog she is not. Finally Greg put the onus on me: "Well, what do you think?"

Shitshitshitshit.

Let's do it. Greg said she should be my dog. I should name her.

I liked that.

As soon as the decision was made, I was in love. She wasn't jumpy or yippy or snippy in any way. She just stared at us, tail wagging, happy to be there. We got home and Gypsy was salty, growling at her as we brought her inside, clearly cognizant that there had been a seismic doggy shift in the house. He disappeared as we fawned over the new pup, who was puttering around and taking dumps at will. That night as we were getting ready for bed upstairs (stairs that we had to carry her up), she made her way to Gypsy's dog bed in the corner of our room. She sniffed around and plopped down with confidence as if to say, "I'll be taking this one, thanks." Gypsy, who had spent the afternoon pouting in our basement, eventually came upstairs to find that his last sacred space, the foul WalMart dog bed, was now occupied. Gypsy tends to internalize his feelings (this is a veterinarian's assessment, by the way), and sighed and opted for an impossible-to-access nook in between the bed and the dresser. There he stayed until we moved months later.

Dilla, who is named after the late experimental hiphop producer J. Dilla, took to the basic obedience commands early and easily, and even had a relatively smooth transition into house training. She did, however, enjoy gnawing on wood, linoleum, carpeting and anything else not cheaply replaced, earning her the nickname "Security Deposit Killer." For a long time she refused to go to the bathroom on walks, and when she heard another dog barking she'd hit the deck and decline movement altogether. She wouldn't lick our faces, but instead aggressively sniff one of our eyeballs, and she would sit and watch me get dressed in the morning with an almost perverted zeal. She'd eschew her dish of clean cold water, choosing instead the brackish, larvae-loaded rain water collecting in lawn chairs in our yard. You couldn't sit anywhere near her on nice days outside, as she'd be mobbed by winged insects. Her dense coat was what we referred to as "Fly Xanadu." She had a bark, which she used often, that sounded like Phil Hartman imitating Ed McMahon.

She shed more than any animal has a right to, and would occasionally go AWOL when we let her out for her morning whiz. She'd get up multiple times in the middle of the night to adjust her position, walking in a circle and then falling to the floor with a sleep-shattering thud. This went on until we blocked the stairway to keep the dogs out of our rooms at night. She had a nervous peeing problem for a while, leaving little yellow surprises on our tile floors. Or worse, when we lived in that horrible place in Lebanon, would retreat upstairs to pinch one on the carpet right outside the bathroom. That dog pissed me off to no end on multiple occasions.

But man oh man, was she sweet. And smart. And, AWOL incidents notwithstanding, extremely obedient. She was a saint with June, and sat patiently while I slowly lost my mind and yelled during the long, harsh winter spent trapped indoors. Before we banished dogs from furniture, she would get on the couch next to me and put her head in my lap, snoring like a large man. She was my girl -- well, my girl before my girl was my girl -- and she loved it.

Monday night was a rough night. The house was bigger, quieter, emptier. Greg noted that was sort of the point in us finding a new home for her, we were running out of room, but still, it hurt. She's still everywhere -- and by that I mean her thick, coarse hair is covering every surface in our home. But also that I instinctively went to retrieve her absent food dish to get her dinner, waited at the door for a minute too long after Gypsy came back in the house, thinking she was still outside, and even now, I have my feet drawn under my desk chair to make room for a snoring black dog that's not there.

And Gerry, if you're reading this, it's in no way meant to lay a big guilt trip on you. You're ushering in Dilla 2.0 and doing us the mightiest of good deeds. More importantly, doing her the mightiest of good deeds.

Right at the point last night when I was feeling saddest, guiltiest, most regretful, my phone let out a ping and on it was a text message from Gerry. He wrote of how great she was on the drive to his home, and how they had taken a nice walk, and that the family was in love with her already. Included was a photo of his two adorable, redheaded sons doting on Dilla, parked on the floor with what can only be described as a big ol' doggy smile on her face. I burst into tears. That's exactly what she deserves.

It was meant to be.

I know some day June will ask why we gave away such a great dog, and I will have a less-than-great answer for her. "You'll understand when you're an adult," I'll tell her. Hell, she might not. I won't blame her. But I think of those boys, those sweet redheaded boys, and I'll tell June, "We had to share her. She was too good to keep for ourselves."

I was remembering back before I got pregnant and how Greg and I would go running together. He would take Gypsy, always game for exercise, and I would take Dilla, more of a couch dog who had to be coaxed into a run. Sounds familiar. Dilla and I felt the same way about morning runs as we did a lot of things. It's goofy to say that a dog reminds you of yourself, but Dilla was a lot like me. A perennial younger sibling, a bit of an instigator, a homebody, sort of a loner, a smartass, a pleaser, a cuddler.

A vocal sort, and a little too loud when she needn't be.

I'm not going to pretend that saying goodbye to Dilla was akin to losing a loved (human) one. But it was still hard, and likely the hardest decision we've ever had to make. My mom said something about how now we have a taste of what it will be like when June goes to college. Now, I know that this is not exactly a fair simile, but I sort of get what she's saying. The baby grows up and needs space we can't give her, needs space that's going to help her grow. We oblige.

Last night before we went to bed Greg said to me, "My heart is heavy. Let's have that be the only dog we ever give away." I started sobbing, the guilt and grief bubbling out into my husband's arms. But then I thought of that picture Gerry sent and my tears stopped, pretty abruptly. I fell fast asleep.

I don't remember my dreams.

One of my father-in-law's old Tennessee idioms is, "The sun shines on every dog's ass some day." And Sunday, after the fog burned off, and as Gerry's car was rolling out of our gravel driveway, I caught a glimpse of Dilla through his rear window.

Tail wagging.

Insecurity blanket

June has just declared detente with her second cold.

While it was certainly more, um, productive than the first in terms of mucous output, it was pretty mild. Save for one night, she slept fine, was in a great mood, and it remained in her sinus cavity. Nothing in the ears, lungs or throat. I'm very thankful for that.

There was one big beef poor June had with her malady, however.

Kleenex.

For a baby unaffected by most things that would upset a child (loud noises, whacking herself in the head with a toy, the administering of a rectal thermometer and the like), Kleenex is her undoing. It got to the point where she would simply see me pull one from the box and start to recoil.

I had a thought: this must be why the white sheet became the symbol of surrender -- deep-seeded issues arising from infant colds.

My dad, watching her writhe and bellow while I grasped her sturdy cheeks with Kleenex in hand, offered a typically wise observation.

"This must be where insecurities come from."

So, so true. Here's a lady (me) who has made it her life's work to do nothing but good for this child (June). Feeding her when hungry, comforting her when upset, hand-picking dog hairs from her toys when they become unrecognizably hirsute. Suddenly I approach her with the Dreaded White Thing and intentionally annoy the crap out of her. She doesn't realize it's for her own good (and for, admittedly, my snot phobia). All she thinks is, "Well, this sucks. Thanks for nothing."

I think about those kids we all knew in grade school -- the ones who, on their healthiest day, had two streams of snot the width of PVC piping shellacked to the underside of their nostrils. Is this going to be June? So scarred from her mother's persistent nose wiping that she chooses to eschew it altogether? I shudder at the thought.

Then I think about myself, and the fact that there is no shortage of insecurities rolling around in my dome -- most of them tied to a specific moment in time and burned into my memory. Let us take a look back, shall we?

Insecurity No. 1: My obsession with clothes.

As I've mentioned before, this one didn't exactly yield an impeccable sense of style. While I may stew about what I wear (and fantasize about outfits as I drift off to sleep at night), I normally don't look particularly good. Take today, for instance. I changed three times getting dressed this morning. Three times. What wearable golden egg emerged victorious? A stained skirt and a shirt so stretched in the bustline that I can just whip one out without adjusting any clothing. No, I'm not going anywhere, and yes, it made functional sense, but three times? Three times??

I remember doing something similar in 7th grade on the day I was to visit New Trier High School (what a joke that was -- like that was ever even a fleeting option). I had been thinking about what I was going to wear that day for weeks. New Trier was a fashion mecca of pegged jeans, hemp ponchos and crystal pendants. How do I, with the austere wardrobe typical of the uniformed, compete with that? When that morning finally rolled around I chickened out of dazzling all those boys with my authentic Jeremy Roenick jersey and opted for the invisible look: jeans, a giant green v-neck sweater and a white turtleneck. And not even my "good" white turtleneck. I had to secure it with a safety pin so the collar would hug my neck just so. My guide for the day, Jillian Abruzzo (name changed), wore white jeans, a chambray shirt, and, as I discovered when she changed for gym, a real bra with lace on it and everything. My mind was blown and I, deep down, thanked Jesus for my predetermined path to single-sex Catholic high school education. I was just not ready for the level of sartorial responsibility coeducational schooling demanded.

Anyway, the insecurity can all be traced to one definitive moment.

Picture it: OLPH Preschool. Glenview, Ill. 1981. A gaggle of girls standing in a hallway talking before Miss DePrima ushers the group into her classroom. One of the girls' mother approaches.

"Oh, look at all you girls in your pretty dresses!"

Little Kerry beams, then panics, looking down to find that she is NOT wearing a pretty dress, but instead a pair of purple overalls and a heart-studded turtleneck.

Cue a lifetime of clothing anxiety dreams, wardrobe regret and the ability to remember what I wore on just about any given day of my life.

Insecurity No. 2: The wearing of makeup every day*.

Now, It's not a face full of foundation and an eyeliner beauty mark, or wearing makeup to the gym (if I went to the gym), I'm talking a little mascara, a little concealer, a little Benefit Dandelion to give June something un-wretched to look at. It's part of my routine and if it makes me feel a little better, then why not, right?

*Every day is a bit of a stretch, as there are plenty of occasions where this ritual gets shirked. But most days is accurate. And if you have seen the photos of the morning of June's birth and the mascara on my tear-streaked cheek, then you get the idea. Although, in my defense, I went in to labor when we were out to dinner so I didn't exactly rush home to prep my skin. Anyway.

I trace this one back to the following. It was on or around my 13th birthday when my mom felt I was old enough to handle the heavy journalism and ensuing body image problems of Seventeen Magazine. She brought it home from the grocery store and presented it with grandeur, cognizant of the life-altering power it possessed. I was elated. Having recently discovered the joys of scented lotions (see No. 3), it was like they had run those Love's BabySoft ads for me alone. I scanned the table of contents: "Does He Like You?" -- who cares. "Your Changing Body" -- gross. "Zap That Zit in a Hurry" -- my hands couldn't work fast enough to find that page.

It was between that generous review of "Return to the Blue Lagoon" and the box ad for those deodorant crystals that I found a story about a pair of modeling sisters. They loved one another (lies), and did everything together (serious lies) and stumbled into modeling when they were discovered on the beach near their California home (oh, come on). The younger of the two, also 13, was breathtaking. Straight, sunkissed hair, a smooth bronze sheen to her skin, perfectly aligned Tic-Tac teeth. I closed my eyes and summoned the power of all the beauty gods to find a visage like this little bitch's when I opened them again. Instead I found a head of hair like David St. Hubbins', including some big-mistake bangs I had recently cut myself, a gray pallor and a grill full of sideways horse teeth.

I burst into tears.

This girl upset me so much that my mom, who had since surprised me with an entire subscription to Seventeen, threatened to cancel it if it was going to continue to affect me this way. No! No! No! It can handle it, I told her. I needed this magazine now. I was one UPC code away from the free Caboodles gift set.

Rather than letting the teen model bring me to ruin, I channeled the negative energy and decided to put it to good use. I sneaked into my sister's room, rifled through her makeup bag and produced a free-gift-with-purchase-sized compact of Clinique blush in Totally Tawny. I ground the included brush into its cakey constitution and applied it with such gusto that I split the brush hairs in two and could feel the brush's metal anchor scraping my skin. Forehead. Cheeks. Chin. Nose. Eyelids. Heck, neck too. Why not. I admired my creation in the mirror. I looked tan, beachy, like a sun goddess.

Meg walked into her room, pissed. We were headed to a graduation party for her and her friend and this was not what she wanted accompanying her. I assumed it was because I looked so good.

"What the hell are you doing? Get out of my room! And you look like you got burned in an industrial accident."

So much for that.

It's being applied with a much lighter hand these days, but it's still being applied.

And I know now I'm totally not a Totally Tawny.

Insecurity No. 3: The need to smell good.

This stemmed from what I like to call "The Horse Days." I'm talkin' interest in horses as well as a resemblance to horses.

And apparently an odor reminiscent of horses.

It was a love not unlike what so many other girls experience at the onset of adolescence -- the horse love. I have no idea why. Is it their majestic beauty? The aristocratic airs horse people have? A communion with nature? The fact that, unlike boys, horses will love any old sadsack who flat-palms them a carrot? I'm guessing that one.

Whatever it was, I BEGGED my parents for horseback riding lessons. After years I finally wore them down and I was treated to a two-week summertime riding camp at the Horse Forum in some northern suburb I'm forgetting now. For the first week I threw up every day, and by the end of the second week I realized what terrifying, pissy animals horses are and that put an end to that obsession.

But it was sometime during my Horse Forum days, before I saw a horse bite Lizzie O'Rourke in the chest and thus get turned off from the hobby permanently, that I was with my dad at the Winnetka Village Toy Shop and was able to successfully lobby a Breyer model horse -- a Pinto pony, if you're wondering -- out of the visit. In a gesture of thanks, I threw my arms around his neck and gave him a big, genuine hug.

Only later did my mom delicately explain to me that my dad said the hug was a rather musky, equine one and perhaps I should think about showering after returning from camp. She handed me a stick of Avon deodorant that had come in a gift pack she scored for half-price the day after Nite Lites, and suggested maybe it was time. For the record, I would have been better off with the crystals in Seventeen Magazine. That deodorant was a joke. Anyway, I was pretty shook-up by the whole ordeal and committed to not only not smelling bad, but smelling almost offensively good at all times. Lotions. Potions. Perfumes. Shower gels. Soaps. It's an affliction that follows me to this very day. This morning, with my stained skirt and light makeup application, I am enshrouded in a subtle mist of Hawaiian Pikake flower essence. It is delightful.

So very long story short, the littlest things have the biggest impacts.

And, please Lord, may June take after her insecurity-free father in this respect.

Back that thing up.

I have a new appreciation for doctors.

Granted, I've always had an appreciation for doctors but now I value them even more because that job sucks. Yeah, they get paid a lot, but they deserve it. Think about it: they're dealing with puss and veins and kids' snot, three of the grossest substances / presences on the planet, people do nothing but complain to them, they're just sitting down to dinner and their beeper goes off because some paranoid mom such as yours truly has a child with the sniffles, and they spend all day in a windowless office wearing rubber gloves. I hate rubber gloves. I should amend my earlier statement about puss and veins and kids' snot to include rubber gloves. God, I'm getting the heebie jeebies just thinking about them.

And even during well visits, you're never talking about good stuff. They just sit there rattling off the list of maladies you may have had or may very well will have before the clock runs out. High blood pressure? Thyroid problems? A family history of rickets? They never ask you if your hair has gotten any thicker or if you discovered you have a high tolerance for expired food, or something else equally cool. The conversation always winds up a downer.

When I was in my preteen years I thought I wanted to be a dermatologist, under the impression that I could wear a white lab coat and design skincare regimens for celebrity clients. Then I found out it's mostly lancing boils and parting butt cheeks on the hunt for precancerous moles. Survey says? No dice.

This comes on the heels of several unplanned doctors appointments in the last few weeks. There was one for June while in Winnetka, in which a sweet pediatrician accommodated our transient selves to give us the blessing that June, with her cold, was well enough to fly. Then there was another while in Winnetka, only for me, during which I flashed a nurse-midwife, causing her to wince (I'll get to that in a second), and the third was here in New Hampshire, when I visited the poor physician who had to go poking around, um, downstairs to determine whether or not I had hemorrhoids. I referenced this in an earlier post.

I know what you're thinking -- "Uh, gross." I realize no one wants to read about my butt. No one. Least of whom, my husband. But I was begging him to indulge me in a little discussion on the matter. He didn't want to hear about my infected black fly bites, so why in sweet baby Jesus' name would he want to hear about rectal bleeding? Unfortunately his wishes were not heeded and he not only had to hear about it, he had to buy me Preparation H.

Before I go on, let me tell you I DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT have hemorrhoids. Turns out all the fuss was over a very minor irritation that arose from childbirth. Nothing to it, nothing required. And for those ladies expecting their first children, embrace the possibility of a) this sort of thing happening to you, and b) this disturbing comfort level in discussing these sorts of things also happening to you.

And I believe this could be of help -- or at least for a good "been there, done that" chuckle to some of you -- as I believe most of my readers are moms themselves. And a 63-year-old father of mine. And potentially one or two Catholic priests. But I digress...

I think this was the most surprising part of this whole ordeal: I had this poor doctor's finger up my butt and I didn't bat an eye. One minute we were talking about his visit to Saddam's palace while he was stationed in Iraq, and the next he was a couple inches away from tossing my salad. I listened, I cracked jokes (what else can you do?) and I shook his hand at the end (ha) of it all. He used terms like "bottom" and "fanny" and I countered with "butt" and "booty." I remarked that this was a helluva way to kick off a Friday. He told me he liked my story that had run in the paper that morning.

I have to give a lot of credit to pregnancy and childbirth for giving my modesty a kick in the pants. The whole "drop your drawers, and spread 'em" directive is so ho-hum that I'll do it at the dentist if I have to. Would you like me to hold the light in place for you, Doctor? Skooch in any particular direction? Point to the trouble zone on that medical poster of a woman's bottom half? Help me help you.

Don't get me wrong, the experience was still thoroughly awkward, especially since I was convinced I had the H-word (what Greg insisted I call it) when in fact I had nonesuch. How one goes about experiencing a false positive for hemorrhoids I may never know, but I did it. Clearly I've never had hemorrhoids before or I would have done a better job of identifying the problem. In the meantime, I needed a doctor who had confronted more carnage in the pit of Sadr City to tell me I was healthy and to eat more fiber. Thank God for that $0 copay.

For those of you who have stuck with me this far, thank you. For all the others who have navigated away from this page in favor of that Web site with the live feed of those Akita puppies, I hope you will return.

In related news, the more recent doctor's visit was for mastitis. Or as I described to my dad, who promptly put his fingers in his ears and started ululating, "an infection of the hooter." Which is almost intolerable soreness and a red stripey presence that looks like someone cold-cocked the underside of my tatty. I have loved breastfeeding so far. Honestly, it's been wonderful. The bonding, the health benefits for June, the convenience, the savings, the assistance in the weight loss -- I'd do it forever if that wasn't creepy. This is the first hiccup and I attributed it to the fact that I wasn't pumping while I was in Winnetka. Or maybe it was an ill-fitting nursing bra. Or maybe my "era of good boob feelings" time was up. Either way, I got some horse pills that make my mouth taste like I've been eating mulch and I'm almost 100 percent better.

Point being, very little grosses me out anymore.

You wish you could say the same about this post, huh?


(And happy father's day to my blessed husband, father, fathers-in-law, late grandfathers ... and all the other guys out there who showed up and then some.)

Peaks and valleys

A month? I haven't posted in a month?

For shame.

Sorry folks (uh, mom). It's been quite the four weeks. First my parents were in town, (good!), then my grandfather died (bad). After that I thought I had hemorrhoids (bad), but it turns out I didn't (good!). And how does someone think they have hemorrhoids but actually be in possession of blessedly normal bowels? (bad... and good?) Anyway, then I got slammed with freelance work (good!), but got an insurance bill for over $9,000 for June's birth. Uh, bad. But as I suspected, we were billed in error. Good.

Very good.

But now I sit with a few minutes to spare, listening to the tickticktick of the kitchen timer laying in wait for the roast chicken and potatoes in the oven. Beautiful baby's in bed, sun's slipping away behind the hills, husband's chatting on the phone, cool summer breeze is creeping in through the windows. It's a jeans-and-flipflops kinda night. I love the roasting, stifling heat of a Chicago summer's eve (uh huh huh), but this is pretty nice, too.

As I mentioned, my grandfather died several weeks ago. He was 94. It was neither tragic in the untimely sense, nor terribly sudden, nor greeted with the wash of regret over missed opportunities a lot of folks feel when an elderly loved one passes. Spoose knew precisely how I felt about him, and God bless his kind heart, I knew precisely how he felt about me.

It's very weird that he's gone. Dad and I kept repeating those words when we were in Winnetka a few weeks ago. How is that possible? He's here, then he isn't? But I just talked to him? He just told me he couldn't carry my shoes (but he effed up and said "I couldn't carry your jock" ... then started laughing really hard. "I haven't said that since I was in the service!" he said. Which got me thinking, what the hell was he telling guys in the service that for anyway? That's awfully, um, loaded.)The point stands -- and as Trish said when I wrote to tell her, "Moose and Spoose always felt strangely immortal to me." And how. Sure he had his "spells," or, you know, had one ear, but he was with it, and funny, and sweet. It's easy to ignore the fact that he was repeating himself, when he's telling you how much he loves you.

Spoose's death is hitting me in waves. The morning I found out was one wave, the night of his funeral was another. I had a good cry the other day when I finally grew the balls to re-watch the video my dad made months ago when he met June for the first time, and a couple Saturdays ago when my spectacular and oddly-dialed-in-to-the-cosmos mother-in-law, Sharon, told me about the vivid dream she had of her own beloved grandfather. "I was thinking about what you said to me after your grandfather died," she said in her whispery-sweet voice. "Where does that energy go?" My guess is the only place we're not too distracted to give that energy a platform: the zzzz's.

I'm hoping for a dream like Sharon had -- one where he appears with a smile, gives me a hug, tells me I'm "the greatest", and is so vivid that I could feel the nubby wool of his soup-stained John Gardner's Tennis Ranch jacket. But Sharon's grandfather died decades ago, so I guess I ought to be patient and grateful for when it does come.

I did dream the other day that we were with him, but he wasn't doing so well. We were at a grocery store, he was talking to a bag boy and then fell -- he closed his eyes and that was it. I woke up.

June and I were back in Winnetka last week for a planned visit. June got sick, as did I, so we spent the last two days of our trip either at the doctor's or trying to get an appointment. We didn't see Moose until our last day when she stopped by, looking cute in her skinny jeans and oxford shirt and driving that death trap of a Pontiac with no working seatbelts. She looked great, was funny and loving, but there was a sadness to her. Hey, she had Spoose around for 67 years so what do we expect? She said several times as we were talking, "It's so quiet. I pretend he's on a trip." I'm sure psychiatrists would recommend confronting the loss and working through it in order to process the grief and move on. I said to her do whatever helps you sleep at night. If it's pretending he's still around, why not. She's 89. She's had enough pain and loss in her life. She's also had a tremendous amount of joy and laughter. Whatever she did to rectify the bad stuff in the past has worked.

I'm not so good at pretending he's still around, because he's simply not. But it's strange living so far away and attempting to accept it. His death is difficult to confront because I am not around to really sense his absence. In some respects I feel like I can get in touch with him a little more easily now. I find myself quoting him a lot more. Talking about him a lot more. Talking to him a lot more. I know folks who had lousy grandparents so their death never had an impact. It's like when the face fell off the Old Man of the Mountain here in New Hampshire. This community built an identity around this presence, but now the presence is gone. Folks thought, "Well, now what?" The identity is still there, but the face has changed. The only difference is this sucks more.

I had Spoose for 33 years. That's remarkable for anyone in terms of a grandparent. A week before he died mom and dad were here visiting and dad and I spent some time after dinner one night talking about Spoose's war service. He was a pack rat -- not a hoarder -- but someone who held on to seemingly meaningless stuff. But when he returned from his time at sea on the escort ship, he got rid of all his military belongings. No hats, no papers, no jackets. He gave some away, tossed the rest. That part of his life was over and he was ready to move on.

Dad told me that he heard from a friend who was at the funeral who witnessed something pretty spectacular. Right before the eulogies started June began to get a little squirmy. Greg got up from our front row pew and made his way down the center aisle toward the back of church with our baby as "Mountains of Mourne," an old Irish song and one of Spoose's favorites, was played by the musicians. Dad's friend said June was beaming the whole way back, and looking up toward the ceiling, her huge blue eyes affixed on something worthwhile. It was a powerful sight, the friend said.

It's instances like that that has me convinced his "energy" is still floating around. I walked through our house today and, I swear, I could smell him -- that comforting blend of dryer sheets, the ocean in Southern California and the faintest traces of Moose's "Charlie" perfume. He's not here, but in some respects he's here more than ever.

The face of that mountain may have changed, but the mountain is still worth visiting.