A great diet I don't recommend

I’ve always thought that I was one bout of botulism away from my ideal weight. I now know that I’m one-half of a bout of botulism away.
I feel certain my recent stomach woes came from a can of tuna salad. You know - the kind that’s already mixed together with mayo and junk so that you can eat it in your cubicle with crackers?
I ate it for lunch the other day, and every bite further confirmed my suspicion about its grossness. But I ate it anyway.
The queasiness began immediately. I had rinsed out the can and placed it on the counter so that I could recycle it, but every time I looked at it I was nearly overcome with nausea. So I threw it in the trash. But then every time I opened the trash I imagined the bad tuna fumes reaching up like long green fingers to shove more grossness down my throat.
By evening I was having hot flashes and cold sweats, which made me decide that all of my symptoms were due to hormone withdrawal. I had forgotten to refill my prescription two days earlier. So I called Husband and, again, hot firefighter to the rescue. He showed up in the ladder truck to deliver my hormones.
But it wasn’t the hormones. By evening I was puking violently while the Diva watched “iCarly,” occasionally yelling out to me “You okay, Mom?” and me yelling back, “Don’t come in here, honey!” and all I could think about was that fucking tuna salad can.
It’s possible, I guess, that I picked up some sort of stomach bug, but we are leaving for a vacation with my side of the family in three days and my mother is obsessively paranoid about stomach ailments. Even the mention of an upset stomach has my mom reaching for the Immodium or at least for the Pepto-Bismal. So I’m steadfastly sticking to my botulism theory, in part because it’s too late to arrange for my rented condo to be contained in sterile bubble wrap.
I am happy, though, that I’ve managed to drop three or four of the 30 pounds I’ll gain simply by being in the same zip code as my family. You know what I mean. Nothing says “family vacation” like the complete reversion to childhood paranoia and pettiness, and my adolescent obsession was being the fattest one in the family. Which I wasn't! Well, okay, I was. But now, here at home, I’m fit and healthy and comfortable in my skin. On family vacations, I am a raging wart hog with toilet paper stuck to my shoe. It’s nearly impossible, without a full-time therapist and serious psychotropic drugs, to overcome this innate transformation, though I’ll take any help I can get.
And with this in mind, I’ve got one thing to say about botulism. Bring it on.

Is it time to talk about sex?

One day in 7th grade religion class, Elle started passing around a note.
Every girl who read it dissolved into giggles then passed it on. When the note came to me, I opened it up. It said: Did Joseph fuck Mary or did God fuck Mary?
I dissolved into giggles and handed the note to the girl next to me. Eventually Mrs. K. confiscated the note, and contorted her face while screaming, “DO YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY? WHO THINKS THIS IS FUNNY?”
I laughed because I was supposed to, but I didn’t really think it was funny because I didn’t know what fuck meant.
So I went home and found my mother in the laundry room and tearfully told her I thought I was old enough to learn the meaning of the word fuck.
Later that night, she gave me a couple of books she had been saving and we talked about it, and then I knew all about sex.
Ever since then, I have believed that I learned about the proverbial birds and bees far too late in life.
But now that it’s nearly time to start teaching the Diva about sex -- she’s almost 8 -- I’m thinking that she should never find out. Or that maybe I should just tell her, “Penises are really gross,” and leave it at that. But that wouldn’t work since I have a 4-year-old son who has a penis, and I don’t want her to tell him it’s gross, even though I prefer to think of his penis as more of just a little stick that pees and not an actual penis. (That’ll come to an end, too, I fear -- yesterday the Diva found a Black-Eyed Peas video online showing Fergie in a thong, and the Pterodactyl said, “I like her.”)
Call it residual Catholic guilt, sexual repression, whatever -- I know that I’m supposed to teach my daughter that sex is healthy and beautiful and something wonderful that occurs between two people who love each other very much, but I just don’t think I can do that when the truth is, the idea of a penis anywhere near her precious little ... um ... my Great Aunt Eva called it her pock-a-noose ... so the idea of a penis anywhere near her pock-a-noose makes me feel dizzy and weak and like I want to hurl. Seriously.
Yet I’m painfully aware that the time is drawing near. BFF’s son, who is even younger than the Diva, asker his mother last year where babies come from, and BFF told him a convoluted story about how the mom really loves the dad so the dad gives the mom a seed and the mom puts the seed in her belly and the baby grows. Of course he had all sorts of follow-up questions, like, where does the seed come from? Did you swallow the seed? Oh. My. God.
“Oh, no,” I told her. “Listen. Let me introduce you to the word ‘magic.’”
“You do not tell your children that babies come from magic.” She was aghast.
“Oh, yes I do,” I said. That’s also how I explain Santa Claus, rainbows, and how Papa’s bones got to heaven after he died.
I realize that the Magic Reasoning won’t -- and shouldn’t -- last forever, and as if to mock me I’m finding sexual innuendo in every children’s show I watch now. Last week the kids were watching “Max & Ruby,” a sweet insipid little cartoon about Max the bunny and his big sister, Ruby, with occasional appearances by Ruby’s friend, Louise. On this particular episode, the three little bunnies were playing doctor, and I hear Louise say in her gentle little bunny voice, “Okay, now, Max, Nurse Louise and Nurse Ruby are here to check you out! Open wide!” and I swear I had to glance over at the television to make sure they weren’t watching the Playboy channel.
Plus, the Diva is into watching sitcoms now, and I’m sure it won’t be long before iCarly or Hannah Montana or those idiot Suite Life boys have some sort of sexual escapade.
I’ll come up with something. In the meantime, if she asks me what fuck means, I’ll just tell her the truth: it’s what Mom says when she’s really really mad and she forgets to just say shit.

About the drinking, Part II

Writing about my teen/young adult partying exploits resulted in some significant inward groaning, but it was pretty effortless. Lots of people have similar stories to tell, though not everyone can talk about launching the African Queen from its floating berth at the 1984 World Fair in New Orleans.
It’s much harder to write about how drinking affects my life now.        
I suspect there are a number of people who read Part I and assume this will be a glowing endorsement of some 12-step program, a penitent account of how I came to realize the error of my ways.
        That’s not the case.
        I know a couple of people who don’t drink, never have. I know lots of people who don’t drink very much - Husband included. And I know several people who don’t drink anymore because they did realize the error of their ways and quit.
        But mostly I know people like me, who like to drink and drink often and sometimes drink too much.
        Husband and I don’t argue very much about serious stuff. I mean, we argue about the dishwasher (AGAIN with the dirty blender!) and whose turn it is to pick up dog crap in the front yard.
        But here’s one thing we’ve fought about often: drinking.
It bugs him that I enjoy my wine. It bugs him less now than it did because I’ve come up with some rules. I’m always able to drive the kids to the hospital if I’m alone with them. I limit drinking before the kids’ bedtime so I won’t be too cranky while putting them to bed. I don’t get mad at Husband when, thinking I’m acting tipsy, he makes me eat something, or passes me a glass of water and tells me to drink it.
But I guess it’s still an issue, because we fought about this very column. Statistics say that at least one of our children probably will battle a drug or alcohol problem, he points out. How can we best prepare ourselves to deal with that eventuality? And is it okay for our children to grow up thinking that alcohol is something fun and whimsical and harmless?
Now I know you’re thinking - uh, if it’s causing problems in your marriage, and you have to come up with rules about it, you’ve got a problem.
       Well, yes and no. Yes. But no. And I’m working on it, and I’ll do whatever I need to do to remedy the situation. Except, perhaps, what it takes.
       My shrink once asked me if I’d ever thought of not drinking. “No,” I said. She looked at me sort of knowingly. I’ve been looking for a new therapist.
       What is about drinking? It’s not like I even get drunk any more.

       Okay, I’ll be honest with you, after that last sentence, I shut down the computer and met a girlfriend for drinks. And, unfortunately, we met at Pusser’s and it was half-off all wine, and it seemed downright irresponsible not to just get a bottle. Getting the second bottle was definitely irresponsible, but by that time a third friend had joined us, and after all we were celebrating my friend’s first grandchild. I’m pretty sure my friend was desperate to prove that she’s not yet grandmotherly, which she isn’t (she’s six months younger than me!), and so I felt obligated to help her feel young and vibrant and still able to party.
       The next morning I woke up with a hangover. When you’re my age and at my alleged level of maturity, you don’t like to think of yourself as having been drunk, and you come up with a number of reasons for why you have a hangover. On that day, yesterday, I reminded myself that I had not eaten anything for many hours before I started sipping wine. When my friend and I realized we needed to eat, we ordered rare ahi tuna. So for dinner I had wine and raw tuna. Then I arrived home an hour and a half late -- babysitter wasn’t too happy -- ate four oatmeal raisin cookies, four Advil and a bite of cold pizza, and fell asleep in my clothes. And I broke rule #1.
       On the bright side, I did a killer workout the next morning at the gym to sweat out the toxins and my guilt and did not have any wine at all yesterday or today.
Why did I do that? Why do people drink? There’s tons of research on that, and I can only speak for myself. I consider myself a “social drinker,” but what does that really mean? That I don’t do shots any more? Which I don’t.
       Again, the real issue here is how all of this affects my children. The Diva, now 7, has definitely reached the age at which she’s aware that there’s something attractive and mysterious about “grown-up” drinks. Yesterday while I was cleaning the kitchen, the kids were playing family and I heard her tell the Tyrant, “Ok, honey, the babysitter’s here. Mommy and Daddy are going out to have cocktails.” But I’m not alone here. My BFF’s son named one of his imaginary friends Chardonnay. Though really, my friend’s more of a Pinot Grigio gal.
       I wonder sometimes what my life would be like without drinking. Better? Boring? Would I play more board games? See more movies? I do think I would lose 10 pounds pretty quickly, and that’s an attractive motivator.
       I don’t think I’ll find out anytime soon, though I haven’t ruled it out. I think my lifestyle -- kickboxing instructor and full-time mom -- keeps my drinking issues in check. I’m healthy and I love being strong of body and mind, and on the vast majority of nights I go to bed early and sober and wake up rested and happy. But I really like having a drink or two, and on the rare occasion, three or four.
       I wonder if I’ll change my habits when my children are teenagers, and I believe that if I have to, I will. Husband is hoping that the Diva, who was born in Vietnam,  has the somewhat common Asian trait of being allergic to alcohol. Sometimes, frankly, I wish I had it, too.
(Man, this was hard to write.)

About the drinking, Part I

About the drinking.
Part I
I entered high school in 1977. Across the nation it was a time of bell-bottoms and tie-dye. At my Uptown New Orleans private school, it was the age of the preppy. The cool girls wore LaCoste shirts and straight leg corduroy pants. The cool boys wore the same thing.
One of my first dates was with a boy named Mike. I really wanted to hang out with the straight-leg crowd. Mike had a lot of feathered black hair, a huge Italian nose, and ... bell-bottoms. And polyester shirts. But he was so darn nice, and he adored me.
I was 16 years old, it was summer, and on Wednesdays it was 50 cent hi-ball night at a bar called The Boot, which is where lots of Tulane University frat boys hung out. Mike took me there. I went up to the bar and ordered a hi-ball. “I’d like a hi-ball,” I said. The bartender just looked at me. “Uh, what kind of hi-ball?”
The question stumped me. That’s how young I was. I thought the hi-ball was a drink. I eventually ordered a screwdriver, and then I got really drunk and ended up with a hickey on my neck that my mother noticed before I did. Which was awkward.
I often think of that night as the beginning of my formal relationship with alcohol. The high school years were a blur of bars and “open parties” by kids whose parents were out of town and to which everyone was invited. We all knew the drill regarding area bars: Shanahan’s checked IDs but nearly always took fake ones; Fat Harry’s never checked; Nick’s was nothing more than a long stretch of plywood - you could stand in the parking lot while someone else bought you a drink; ATIIs was pretty strict, but if you had a date who knew the bouncer you could get in. Nick’s, incidentally, had the most amazing concoctions. My sister’s favorite was the Wedding Cake, which I swear to you tasted just like wedding cake.
We drank astounding amounts for teenagers. And most of us could drive - the drinking age in Louisiana back then was 15. Designated drivers were - well, what were they exactly?
The only hard part was acting sober upon returning home, though usually my parents were asleep and I could sneak to my room. But when that got too taxing, there was always Leesa’s house. Remember Leesa, who stole my date at my prom? (See Prom in New Orleans, June 8). Leesa’s mother and father were bona-fide artist hippies, and seemed to think Leesa could make her own decisions, which was not true, but that wasn’t my problem. Anyway, we often told our parents we were spending the night at Leesa’s house because Leesa didn’t have a curfew. We didn’t exactly spend the night there, since we usually didn’t get home until 4 or 5 in the morning. But we did spend the morning there, and nursed our hangovers with Tab and donuts.
Frankly it was exhausting. I think my mother thought college would calm me down. But Irish Catholic schools with enormous football traditions aren’t known for their staid atmospheres. At Notre Dame, our freshman year resident assistant gave us sage advice: All men are shits, and don’t drink the Flanner punch.
Of course I drank the Flanner punch, and (re)-discovered for myself that all men are shits. And that was just the first semester.
By sophomore year, I had been appointed chair of the Tailgating Committee, and was in charge of securing kegs before every home game to raise money for our dorm. My aunt has a great picture of me sitting on a keg handing out cups with dozens of guys handing me dollar bills. It gave me some solid retail experience.
By the time I graduated from college, I had been grossly, awfully drunk more times than I can count. There are dozens of legendary stories -- the time I was making out in the dorm’s common room with some guy, but kept running upstairs to throw up and brush my teeth before returning to make out some more. The fist-fight with a guy in the parking lot. The spontaneous midnight road trip to the Kentucky Derby with -- um, is who I went with even important?
I thought about how much I drank, particularly on Sunday mornings when I felt near death. I occasionally looked at literature about how to tell if you were an alcoholic. Inevitably, the pamphlet would ask 10 questions, starting with, “Do you ever have a drink before noon?” I never drank before noon, so I always told myself I was fine.
I was an expert at nearly all drinking games. Quarters was my specialty because I have a particularly perfect nose; a quarter rolls off of it at just the right angle to bounce into a shot glass.
I never wanted college to end, but thank goodness it did. After college, I held several years worth of jobs conducive to partying. I traveled in Europe and worked in a London pub; was a tour guide in the Louisiana swamps (partied after the tours, not during); and then, I worked for two years on the Mississippi Queen steamboat.
On the MQ, we worked 12-hour shifts. The remaining 12 hours were spent drinking, either in the crew rooms or on shore when the boat was docked. My favorite party boy was Thomas the chef; during one shore outing in Greenville, Mississippi, we found a juke joint way outside the city. My clearest memory of the excursion starts with us dancing on the bar and ends with us hitchhiking back to the dock and leaping to the deck after the lines had already been untied.
In 1988 I was accepted to the Masters in Journalism program at Boston University, and re-acquainted myself with people who actually read books. My seminal moment came during a discussion about that year’s presidential campaign pitting Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis against the first George Bush. Kitty Dukakis, the governor’s wife, had just admitted to being an alcoholic because she had “blacked out” a couple of times after drinking.
I remember making fun of her for claiming to be alcoholic. “Really. Who hasn’t ever had a blackout?”
There was a pregnant pause. “I haven’t,” said one friend.
“Me, neither,” said the other.
I still can see the light bulb that appeared in my brain at that moment, with the words, “Hmm. You should think about this.”
I’ve thought about it ever since.
I realize much of this story has entertainment value, but I don’t recall these chapters of my life proudly, or even fondly. To paraphrase modern lexicon, it simply is what it is, and for better or for worse has become a part of me.
More about that in Part II.

On feeling old in my head

Husband and I had a date last night, and we were walking to a restaurant near the beach when a gaggle of drunk young women spilled out of a poolside bar into the parking lot.
One of them yelled, “Hey, look at this!” and she pulled down her white bikini bottom and lifted up her beach cover-up. She had a substantial white dimply ass with some sort of tattoo.
This went on. She walked across the parking lot -- waddled, really, since her bathing suit bottoms were around her knees - sipping a drink and wiggling her bare butt, which wiggled quite a bit, mooning the block. Her friends were howling. Husband feared the image was burning into his brain.
I have never been into looking at asses under the best of circumstances, with the exception of clean baby butts, which are of course adorable. But other than that, really, I can do without seeing anybody’s rear, including my own. I don’t even want to see the ass of Brad Pitt, though I would probably be fine looking at it if it was wearing tight jeans.
But here I was staring at a particularly unattractive ass on a drunk girl. And there were a dozen thoughts that could have been going through my head, ranging from: “that poor girl, she must have been drinking on an empty stomach,” to “Quick, honey, call the police.”
This is what I actually thought: I’m so old.
We all know the traditional ways to recognize the onset of middle age, and frankly, though occasionally disarming, they’ve not been terribly upsetting. The Diva likes to ask me to raise my eyebrows so she can run her fingers over my forehead furrows. She thinks that’s hilarious. I have a few gray hairs, but nobody notices because I yank out the noticeable ones. And I have the normal aches and pains, but really I’m healthier than I’ve ever been, and in better shape, too. I sort of have to be, since I am 45 years old and have a 2-year-old. How am I going to hold her down in time out if I haven’t adequately built up my triceps?
No, the real surprise has been watching myself get old in my thoughts, in my perspective on things like drunk girls taking off their pants in parking lots, or my attitude toward modern teenagers. At least four times a day I find myself thinking, KIDS THESE DAYS! and then thinking, I’m turning into a cranky old shrew.
At the Diva’s day camp, for example, one of her teeny-bopper camp counselors mouthed off to me the other day while I was trying to console the Diva regarding her confusion about how to get in line to climb the rock wall.
“Uh, I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” he said, irritated, with hands up, palms facing me, like he wanted to push me out of the authoritative orbit he envisioned around him.
I had just come from my boxing class. I wore my all-black workout gear and my bandana doo-rag, and it took all my willpower not to push out my chest and say, “You talkin’ to ME?” I did manage to wag my finger at him, though, menacingly enough that he took a step back.
And I walked away thinking KIDS THESE DAYS!
In my defense, though this probably sounds like more evidence of my shew-like aging process, I do believe modern parents have been way too focused on fostering self-esteem in their children without teaching them basic manners, how to tie their shoes, and the importance of society’s hierarchy - as in, let old people have your seat and don’t talk to almost-old people as though they were stupid.
On the bright side, I have more patience, and didn’t summon the manager at the grocery store yesterday when the bag boy said, “Jeez, what do you give those kids to eat, pure sugar?”
I just rolled my eyes at him and said, “This is what kids are like. Consider it birth control.” And in my head I added, “....in the off chance that anybody wants to have sex with a skinny little doofus twerp like you.” But I kept that to myself, of course. Which is one of the things I’ve learned to do in my 4.5 decades on the planet.
Similarly, I did not shout something obscene at the bottomless drunk girl careening around the parking lot last night. Husband and I simultaneously made the “tsk, tsk” sound and ushered each other forward like an old married couple. The only thing missing was a hand-knit shawl around my shoulders to protect me from the night air.
I must tell you, however, that after the incident made me feel old, it made me think about drinking, and embarrassing myself when drinking, and the fact that it’s high time I came clean about that. Stay tuned.

Why do I blog? Do you care? Thanks! I knew it.

“Do you work?” the woman asked me.
“Yeah,” I said. “I work in the laundry room.”
She gave me her best patronizing smile, and clarified her question. “Do you have a job?”
Feeling generous, I threw her a slow-moving softball. “I’m a writer.”
“Really? What do you write?”
Zing! Outta the park!
I wanted to put my arm around her shoulder and whisper conspiratorially. “Listen,” I’d say, “here’s the deal. I do manual labor all day, except when I’m watching “The View.” Mostly I write checks, but now I write a blog, along with 12 million other people, and the .00007 percent of the U.S. population that reads my blog seems to like it. (Yes, I worked out that figure, though my math is undoubtedly faulty.)
Everybody seems pretty tired of hearing about how hard full-time mothers work. I’m a little sick of it myself. Frankly, I feel very fortunate that Visa, American Express and my Husband have all collaborated to make it possible for me to stay home with my children. Of course it’s hard work, even physically demanding at times. Just yesterday I had to throw the Pterodactyl over my right shoulder to drag him out of summer camp while holding the Tyrant with my left hand, which quickly went numb.
More taxing, though - at least for me - is coming to terms with who I am, redefined. I once won national awards for my writing, held the title of university professor, and helped launch a community-wide service organization that continues today.
Yesterday’s big accomplishments included pulling the rest of a coloring book out of my dog’s butt, stealing a 15-minute nap, and taking the Tums away from the 2-year-old before she ate more than one.
When I graduated from college, my dear friend Kay and I said tear-filled goodbyes on the steps of our dorm. “I’ll vote for you when you’re running to be the first woman president,” I sobbed.
“You go find your Arabian prince,” she sobbed back.
See, her dreams were a little loftier than mine. Kay has achieved something close to her goals. She’s not The President, but she’s a president - of a public relations firm. She constantly emails me from exotic locations. She travels the world doing glamorous things and looking fabulous.
I did marry a prince - a metaphorical one, and he doesn’t have a kingdom, and he’s not Arabian, though he has a nice olive complexion. But what I really wanted, even then, was to be a writer, the type of writer whose words rested on the tips of everyone’s tongues, who appeared on “Fresh Air with Terry Gross” and caused traffic jams at book readings.
Well, I’m not that kind of writer, at least not yet. But I am the kind of writer I should be - the kind who simply has to put words together in order to feel complete. Telling people I blog, I must tell you, is a little embarrassing at times, much like it’s embarrassing to tell people you’re a writer. For me, it’s tantamount to saying you’re unemployed.
But I’m moving past that perception because it just feels so good to do this. I love being a mom, except for the parts involving cleaning toilets, chopping raw chicken, little boys peeing in the flower garden in front of the preschool, poop in public pools, siblings hitting each other, and head lice.
And I love being a writer, except for the parts involving people asking me about being a writer. In other words, I know I have a pretty good life, having two jobs, both of which actually cost me money.
Husband once told me that I didn’t have to be extraordinary. Then he amended his statement before I jumped all over him for it. “What I mean is, some of the most ordinary people live the most extraordinary lives.”
I like that. So that’s what I’m aiming for. Nonetheless, the next person who asks me what I do will get no ammunition.
“I’m unemployed,” I’ll say. And reasonably proud of it.

Not without my daughter - and another chicken taco

Two years ago this month, I was living in an apartment in a nice section of Guatemala City.
It was a cute little spot, not far from the main avenida, with several little restaurants and shopping areas nearby. It was very safe. It was extra safe, in fact, because the International Olympic Committee was holding its annual meeting a block away to decide the venues for upcoming Winter Olympic games, and there were soldiers with machine guns on every corner. So it was very safe in a terrifying sort of way.
My infant daughter and I had just been released from a Guatemalan hospital, where she had been treated for viral pneumonia, a staph infection in a weeping wound on the back of her head, thrush in her mouth, dehydration, malnourishment and chronic diarrhea. She wasn’t really an infant anymore -- she was 9 months old -- but she weighed just 11 pounds and she didn’t smile, so she was very babyish. I slept in the bed with her every night because she wouldn’t let go of my hand, and I learned how to say, “Can you check this I.V.?” in Spanish. The coffee was excellent.
My Guatemalan attorney - let’s call her Idi Amin - told me to just go home and let her handle everything, but Husband and I decided that this skinny little unsmiling urchin simply needed us. Plus, the doctor said she would die if she went back to the orphanage.
We rented the apartment so that we could take care of her while we waited for the paperwork to clear. Husband stayed home in the U.S. to take care of the other two children, though he came down once so I could fly back to see them.
On pleasant afternoons, I’d stroll the baby -- she wasn’t yet the Tyrant - down to the Taco Tico for lunch, where I’d chat with Mario the manager and order the chicken tacos. During one particularly surreal dining moment, I sipped my El Presidente beer, ate my tacos and listened to “Escape (The Pina Colada Song)” on the stereo system. Mario knew the words.
It would have been a nice little life, had I not been 2,000 miles away from my family and desperately fearful of Idi Amin coming to steal my child. Also, the machine guns kept me slightly on edge.
Though the baby slept a lot, I was very busy keeping all her medications organized, at least at first. After she got better, I stayed busy getting to know her. We watched “Good Morning, America” every day together. Actually, we watched it about 12 times a day, because that’s how often The American Network played it.
One day, Idi Amin called to say that she was going to visit the judge who had the power to sign my paperwork and let us go home. I don’t like to hate people, but if Idi Amin was in a room with me, I would feel perfectly comfortable chopping off her arms. But at the time, she had legal custody of my daughter, and I had to constantly reassure her that she was indeed the most brilliant, compassionate, powerful woman to ever walk the planet.
After she called, while the baby napped, I got on my knees and began to pray. I had not prayed in a long time, and I was not convinced that it would do any good, but it was all I had. Next door to my apartment a political rally was being held, so the background to my fervent pleas to God was a lot of fervent Spanish chanting.
I cried until I began to heave, and heaved until I choked. I knew we would never leave this child, but I couldn’t fathom how we could make this work.
The judge did not sign my paperwork that day, nor that week, nor the next. She didn’t sign it for four more months, in fact. By that time, I had returned home and left the baby with a family I’d met through friends of friends. She was far outside of the city, away from the hands of Idi Amin, and I returned to Guatemala to check on her every three weeks.
The baby was 13 months old when she came home to us for good, and ruined the Pterodactyl’s life. But that’s another story entirely.

How do I love thee? More than I like you, sometimes

During the Pterodactyl’s third year, I took him to the pediatrician with some alarming symptoms.
His temper tantrums had come to resemble volcanic explosions, complete with rumbling and the spewing of liquid. He was completely unreasonable and occasionally downright mean (not unlike how he is now, in fact, at age 4).
And his little voice was so raspy, it pained me.
Dr. M examined him from head to toe. “Well,” he said. “He’s hoarse and raspy because he screams so much. And he screams so much because he’s 2.”
So the diagnosis was that my boy had a terrible case of the Screaming Meanies. It’s apparently a chronic condition because he still suffers from it. It doesn’t make me love him any less. But let’s be frank: there are lots of times when I’d rather not be around him.
Having children is a constant battle of contradictions. Your heart expands impossibly, and sometimes feels like it might explode into a millions shards of love. It can be painful. I remember biking over a bridge when the Diva was a baby, and suddenly becoming paralyzed with the fear that the Diva might grow up and fall off that bridge one day.
Yet the love, ever-present, can be tempered by....resentment?....no, let’s call it extreme frustration and exhaustion. Just yesterday, I left the house to walk the dog, and the Tyrant pressed her tiny nose to the living room window and threw me kisses goodbye. She smiled her best smile, and did a little dance and waved at me, never taking her eyes from mine. As I walked the dog, I was struck with the possibility of being hit by a car and never seeing her again, and my love for her felt like it was the blood in my veins, running through my body and nourishing it with life.
Ten minutes later I found her naked, eating lipstick and throwing dollhouse furniture at the Pterodactyl. The blood-love turned to gelatin and I suddenly needed a long solitary nap.
We love our children so much. And there are times when we can’t stand them. It’s the part of motherhood no one tells you about - that your 7-year-old will say “whatever,” when you ask her about her day, that your son will learn to incorporate the words poopy, weener and pee-pee into every lullaby he knows and that your toddler will learn how to climb up on the counter, open the medicine cabinet and help herself to some Tums. Or that while you’re on the phone, the children will decide to play a violent rendition of musical chairs to Lady GaGa’s Poker Face and the baby will beat a lizard to death with a diving stick.
Last night, we took the trolley down the beach, and the Pterodactyl, obsessed with all things that move, was beside himself with excitement. “Look, Mom! I see a lake!” he shouted as we rode past the retention pond behind Target that we pass every single day. His sense of wonder made me weak with adoration. Later that night, at a restaurant, he stole his sister’s crayon, dropped his lemonade on the floor, drew all over the Diva’s picture, and locked everyone out of his room when we got home. Classic Screaming Meanie.
But he’s my Screaming Meanie, and I couldn’t possibly love him more.

Why I haven't written, or why I am a bitch

I haven’t written anything in several days. I’m sure the two or three of you keeping track assume I’m occasionally too busy being a domestic goddess to keep up with my blog.
But that’s not it. The truth is that the prescription for my happy pills ran out a week ago, and my primary care physician wouldn’t refill it without an office visit. I like my doctor, but there are a couple of issues. One, since I moved he’s an hour away. And two, he can’t ever see me right away, which means I’m inevitably stuck talking to the P.A., who takes my blood pressure and asks me if I’ve had any suicidal thoughts. Of course, the only ˜†˜¥
¢ ´˜∫∫†∞(I’m leaving those symbols in because the Tyrant just wrote them with her toes)
suicidal thoughts I’ve had are the result of running out of my happy pills, but I just smile politely and say, of course not! He is now my ex-doctor.
Anyway, Prozac is supposed to stay in your system for a while even when you’re not taking it, so perhaps my panicked irritability is psychosomatic. If so, I pronounce myself a mental Goliath, because let me tell you, I make a convincing raving lunatic. Yesterday, Husband took apart the baby crib and built the Tyrant’s big girl bed, took apart the futon and moved it into the guest room, put together the bookcase I’ve been asking him to build for months, vacuumed the house, cleaned the kids’ bathrooms and let me go to the gym from 6-8 p.m., a time also known as the “witching hour.” And you know what I did? I took some time for myself and then berated him for putting the blender in the dishwasher without asking me if I needed it first.
Yes, I am the wife from hell. Or I can be. If I was a man I would have left me a long time ago.
Envision me, right now, raising my hand to be called on and meekly offering, by way of a defense, that I do suffer from a mental illness. Over and over I’ve been diagnosed with depression. What do I have to be depressed out? Well, nothing. That’s why it’s classified as a disease.
Millions of people suffer from mental illnesses far more debilitating than mine. But for me, living with untreated depression is like having a severe head cold that won’t go away. I can function, but it’s really unpleasant, and I’d rather be in bed.
The combination of medication, regular strenuous exercise and a healthy diet keep my little problem manageable, and now that my medicine cabinet has a full bottle of little green pills, I’m much more apt to smile at my children and ignore them when they take every clean sheet out of the linen closet to build a fort. Just this morning, in fact, at 5:15 a.m., I found the Tyrant sitting on the kitchen floor digging through my purse.
It was all just fine. In fact, it gave me something to write about.
Happy day.

Don't ask, don't tell. It's gross, okay?

I am a big believer in “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” It makes a lot of sense to me on many levels, none of which have anything to do with gays in the military.
Well, maybe it has a little to do with gays in the military. I believe homosexuals and heterosexuals have the same inalienable rights, including the right to sign up for years of bad food, poverty wages and travel to war-ridden lands.
But I’m not going to ask gays about their sex lives -- and I certainly don’t want them to tell me about it. I’m not, in fact, going to ask anyone about their sex life, and this applies to all public figures (particularly, it seems, governors) suffering from incurable verbal diarrhea. Please pardon the profanity here, but they have got to shut the fuck up. It’s bad enough that they cannot control their equipment. But let’s face it -- they’re hardly alone in that respect.
What makes them so spectacularly unique is their predilection for trying to explain. I was ready to believe Gov. Mark Sanford was misquoted when he said that though his mistress is his “soulmate,” he’s trying to work things out with his wife. Then I heard it with my own ears. Seriously? Is his wife a blow-up doll? Because that’s the only way I can imagine it working at this point.
Then former New York governor (and serial john) Elliott Spitzer weighed in on the Sanford affair. While trying to defend the indefensible, Spitzer pointed out that “at least” he didn’t fall in love with the hooker he was screwing. That seemed a little self-righteous for a man who so recently lost the respect of nearly every person on the planet. Did Harvard not offer any classes on the Basics of Discretion?
So it’s convenient that the Obama administration is scrutinizing “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” I believe it’s high time the phrase be taken out of the military realm and applied to the general population. Do not misconstrue this as a way of excusing indiscretions such as adultery and improperly using taxpayer dollars to be skanky. Gov. Sanford, I am not going to ask you how many times you had sex with your girlfriend from Argentina. Please, in return, don’t tell me.
I know this will be difficult to enforce because, in my experience, men love to share details. I know a few men, in fact, who are perfectly comfortable sharing such intimacies at cocktail parties, baseball games, and in grocery lines -- often with people they barely know . It provides for some hilarity, of course, especially when alcohol is involved. Still, I must say I find it appalling.
I’m not sure I want Husband indicating to anyone that he finds me attractive, much less admit that we’ve ever had sex. And the same goes for the intricacies of our relationship. If he needs to work out some kinks during those rare (okay, frequent) times when I am indisputably unlovable, he can talk to one or two friends who have been approved by me for that purpose. Otherwise, he must keep it to himself. And in the event that things don’t work out between us, after he’s released from the hospital he certainly can’t go on national television and announce to the world that he’s fallen out of love with me, regardless of whether he says it with a twinge of regret.
So today, on the Fourth of July, when Americans worldwide are celebrating our independence and the freedom we have to express ourselves, I’d like to suggest that we also celebrate our freedom to be quiet. Really. C’mon. Just shut the fuck up.

Stay-cation, Part II: the partial suck

The Tyrant slept in until 7 a.m. yesterday morning, and then she entertained herself while I drank coffee and read the paper in bed.
We’ve turned a corner, I thought happily. Every few minutes she would run into my bedroom and check in with me before scurrying off to do her business. I was finishing entire articles and even contemplating world affairs.
On the fifth or sixth check-in, she seemed very excited. She spoke a lot of gibberish, pantomimed doing a shot of something, then ran out. I thought I should investigate.
She somehow had toppled my purse from the kitchen counter, dug through it and found my emergency supply of Benadryl. (I have kept an emergency supply of Benadryl in my purse ever since the Tyrant sat in a fire ant pile last month.)
She managed to twist off the top and take a swig. And boy, was she proud of herself. “I did it! I did it!” she shouted about a thousand times.
Well. I decided I shouldn’t tell Husband about this due to the recent multi-vitamin incident, which really wasn’t my fault because it was SUPPOSED to be a childproof cap, but I told him anyway and he wasn’t happy. It might have set the tone for Stay-cation Day #2.
I really wanted to leave for the zoo by 9 a.m., but Husband’s previously mentioned clean floor fetish got in the way. In addition he was moving super slowly because he had suddenly developed some sort of chest infection, which made me angry.
I consider it one of my most critical faults that I become infuriated when Husband is sick. As soon as he starts with the coughing and achy business, I start my eye-rolling. I am not sure why I’m like this. It’s possibly because he doesn’t seem able to distinguish between being really sick -- I-can’t-get-out-of-bed-sick -- and what I call “man-sick,” which is more like Boy-I-wish-I-felt-a-little-better-sick. So I never know whether to ban the children from his room and cook some homemade soup, make sure the life insurance payments are current, or just smile sympathetically as I leave him with a couple of kids. Really, if he ever develops some serious illness, I may have to kill him.
At any rate, we finally left the house at 10:24 a.m. We stopped at Starbucks. The Tyrant was well-behaved in light of the Benadryl. After getting back on the road, I was in the middle of telling Husband a very important story involving the previous evening’s Pterodactyl meltdown when he spilled some iced latte down the front of his white t-shirt.
It shook him up, possibly because the chest infection was already spreading to his brain. I kept reminding him we were going to the zoo, for pete’s sake, and who would care? But I could tell he wasn’t going to move past it, so I purposely spilled some coffee down the front of my white shirt, too, which made him smile a little bit but really pissed me off. Because I had looked a bit put together for a zoo trip, but now looked like a slovenly matron who’d never heard of bleach.
Now here’s the surprising part: we enjoyed our time at the zoo. The Diva and the Pterodactyl especially appreciated when the gorilla peed right in front of them, and the Tyrant still hasn’t stopped talking about the size of that gorilla’s butt.
I enjoyed it, too. Lovely birds everywhere, beautiful foliage, what’s not to love? Aside from the Benadryl and coffee incidents, I thought it was a decent day.
Today, the chest infection became a member of the family. It waffled between glueing Husband to the bed during Wimbledon and helping him thrust the mop over the immaculate floors, after which it temporarily expanded into something like pneumonia. It is currently watching a Cubs game and considering what to have for dinner, but I expect it to carry Husband to bed very soon, certainly before it’s time to take out the dog.
The big activity for the day was going to the library. The Diva checked out books about Barbie, fairies, Rapunzel and Paula Deen’s home cooking. The Pterodactyl picked books about bridges, airplanes and volcanoes. Right now they’re reading the books to the giant stuffed elephants they bought at the zoo.
The chest infection will accompany Husband to work tomorrow, of course, which leaves me in charge of the final day of Stay-cation. I’m not going to be very ambitious. I’ve learned my lesson. Adventure Landing, the zoo, the library -- all worthy field trips. But the Pterodactyl pointed out in his inimitable way that he and his siblings are not impressed with the glamorous life. At the zoo, I tried to interest him in the number of wood storks nesting in a single tree. “Yeah, great, Mom,” he said. “Blah, blah, blah.”
Tomorrow I think we’ll just go to the pool.
NOTE: Husband just read this and is going to bed grumpy because of it, and wants it pointed out that he watched the kids for 1.5 hours while I got my hair cut today.