Five More Things About Me

I have been tagged! By Meredith! Yea! I feel special! Okay, five things you don't know about me. Um. Hm. This is the place I come to talk about things I don't talk about with my friends and family. So you already know the deep dark secrets that people in "real life" don't know. But I'll try to make it interesting anyway.

1) I almost majored in music. I was a clarinet player back in the day and loved marching band in high school. (Insert obligatory joke about one time at band camp.) I even played in the concert band in college my first two semesters Not having majored in music is not one of my life's great regrets, though. I don't have the discipline to practice long hours, and although I was talented for my piddly little high school, I was not talented enough to pursue a career in music.

2) I had a hemangioma removed from my neck when I was four. It was only about the size of a strawberry, but it kept bleeding because the necklines of my shirts would rub on it. I can still remember being taken in for the surgery to have my "mole" removed. I called the plastic surgeon "the mole doctor" and used to answer every question he asked me with a robust shake of the head so I could feel my long ponytails whip around and hit my face.

3) I used to write poetry and even gave several (slow and stuttered) readings in college. I've written nothing but prose for a while now, though. I'm not sure why.

4) When I was a kid, I had a pony. My dad raises horses, and we lived out in the country, so it wasn't that out of the ordinary. I rode all the time until I was seven or eight when I was thrown. I wasn't hurt badly, but it scared me, and I never felt comfortable on a horse after that.

5) In the seventh grade, I wrote numerous shameless love letters (all G-rated, mind you) to a high school senior. Sheesh. My face still burns when I think about how bold and stupid I was. It was as close to stalking as one could come in paper form. That was my first real crush. I was sure it was true love, even though I had never actually met the boy face to face. And, hey, I just realized how funny it is that I never truly gave up the art of wooing men with writing. I did meet my husband online, after all.

Anyone who wants to be tagged and hasn't already been, I invite you to tag yourselves! Be bold! Don't sit around and wait! Just grab the bull by the horns! Shout, "Carpe diem!" Take charge! Go forth -- okay, you get the picture.

And the Verdict Is . . .

Mold. The wee one is allergic to mold. You'll excuse me if I fail to swoon from the shock. After all, I believe I've been bitching about our wet basement for nearly a year now. I had narrowed her problem down to allergies or enlarged adenoids. The allergist has confirmed the former with the scratch test (which looked more like a poke test to me) and is sending L. for an X-ray to see about the latter.

The doctor recommended many things in addition to the two medications he put her on. He said we need to scrub the basement walls with anti-mold stuff or a bleach and water solution. He recommended an air cleaner and additional dehumidifiers and a hygrometer to monitor the humidity in the house. He recommended an exhaust fan be added to our bathroom. Oh, yeah, and he said we really need to try to get the basement guys to come fix our basement sooner if possible. I spent the afternoon researching air cleaners, bathroom fans, and mold cleaners.

My mom called later to ask about the appointment. I relayed the saga of our 2 1/2 hour visit to the allergist, including a detailed description of the two, count them two, poops my daughter made during the visit, my son's pre-appointment screaming fit, and his subsequent kind and loving brotherly behavior during the "scratch test" that sent L. into screaming fits despite the thirty-dollar numbing cream for which we had sprung. And then I told my mother at length about the two medicines the doctor prescribed and about all of his recommendations for decreasing the mold in the house.

"So I suppose you're going to try the medicines and that's all?" my mother said.

Well, actually, Mom, my first order of business is to knit her a scarf of mold. And I shall cover her bed with the moldy dust from under the oak leaves in the woods behind the house. And I'm working on mold earmuffs, and even a little mold pillow sprinkled with soft and dainty spores upon which she may rest her wee head. Oh, and we're moving her bedroom to the basement.

Furrowing my brow in confusion, I told her no, of course we are planning to get the air filter and the fan, and we are going to scrub scrub scrub. She sounded surprised -- you know, as if we were too cheap and lazy for such efforts. Because she's just our kid, after all.

My mom makes me laugh. Sort of. Nervously, sometimes.

But anyway, L. was still nursing all the little needle pricks on her arm and especially the giant welt that the mold scratch left near her right wrist. She refused to get in the bathtub tonight, pointing out her booboos as an obvious defense. Because clearly, what kind of monster would ask her to bathe with such terrible wounds? I am no such monster, as it turns out, and instead I let her sit on my lap while I washed her as best I could, stopping to kiss the giant mold booboo whenever she held it up to me. Which was often.

Since the scratch test and the bath had already proven traumatic today, I decided to enlist my husband's help in giving her her first dose of the new nasal spray the doctor prescribed. I mean, really, anything stuck up a toddler's nose is just not going to be easy. And here's how it went:

Me: "Okay, this medicine goes in your nose. It might feel a little weird. Ready?"

L: "Yeah."

Me: Squirt.

L: Blink blink.

Me: "Ready for the other side?"

L: "Yeah."

Me: Squirt.

L: Blink blink.

Hm. So she's a huffer. Forget the mold earmuffs. I'm making a tiny little mold inhaler so the spores can go directly up her wee nose. Because I'm cheap and lazy like that.

December Dilemma

My son goes to a preschool that's run by a church. We chose the school because some other families at the synagogue had sent their children there -- there's no Jewish preschool in the area -- and had good things to say about it. The school receives state funding for at least one of its programs, so they keep the proselytizing out of the classroom. Christmas, however, at least in its secular form, is, of course, explored and celebrated extensively. This is my son's first time really dealing with the Christmas season and being an outsider to it all. While we do go to my parents' house for Christmas and "help them celebrate," we observe only the Jewish holidays in our home.

Because I'm not Jewish myself and have no childhood memories of Hanukkah, I'm at a bit of a loss when it comes to dealing with all of S.'s questions. He wants to know why the clerks at the store keep asking him about Santa. He wants to know more about Santa. He wants to know why his grandma and grandpa don't give him gifts at Hanukkah but give him gifts on Christmas instead. It's all so complicated. I think I've done pretty well with most of his questions, but the last one, about gifts on Christmas, is more tricky. I would really like it if my folks gave the kids at least one of their gifts on Hanukkah and wrapped the others in Hanukkah or generic paper. However, it's not so simple when we haven't been doing it that way all along. Three weeks before Christmas might not be the time to change the rules on them. And besides, it's not just my parents. There's my extended family, too, and I have a problem with telling other people how to wrap or refer to gifts that they choose to buy for my children. I always thought it wouldn't be a big deal. I mean, gifts are gifts. But now that we're getting these questions, I'm thinking maybe we've been doing this wrong.

I have to admit it makes me feel uncomfortable and a little guilty when I hear him sing Christmas songs. He's learning (and the emphasis should be on the ing, for clearly that learning is incomplete) some Christmas songs at school. Last week he was singing, "Jingle bells, jingle bells, all a sudden way." I have no idea what that meant in his little head. His lyrics were so weird and so totally him that I couldn't bring myself to correct them, though. After school today, he sang it again, his earlier error now corrected, and yet, it was oh-so-far from accurate. Now it sounds something like, "Jingle bells, jingle bells. Jingle all the way. Oh what fun it is to ride -- one whore, us, and sleigh!" That one we might have to correct, but not until after my husband gets home and hears it. I'm not messing with it until then!

I guess, as a non-Jewish mom, I'm always worrying that my kids will be "less Jewish" than the other kids at synagogue. It's one thing if a child of two Jewish parents, or even the child of a Jewish mother and a gentile father, sings a Christmas carol. But it seems somehow more noticeable when my kids do it. I'm always afraid they won't be "Jewish enough."

And yet my son, after watching my husband light his father's yahrzeit candle recently, today pretended to light a candle and began to recite his own made-up Kaddish. It sounded distinctly Hebrew and even had a few real Hebrew words thrown in, along with an occasional English word like died. The rhythm of the language is in him. And clearly, when he does things like this, I see that he is part of something much bigger, much older, than this family.

I'm hoping a few Christmas carols and a little Santa wrapping paper can't take that away.

Evaluation, Take Two

The early intervention speech therapist, whom I will call P., came this morning for L.'s informal speech evaluation. She happens to work with the woman who conducted the formal (expensive) evaluation, and she had gotten some basic information from her last week. After that, P. called me and said that from what the original evaluator said, L. probably would not qualify for early intervention services. She went on to tell me about normal speech disfluencies and how they are different from genuine stuttering. The call upset me, partly because I felt they thought I was crazy or stupid, and partly because it worried me to think that L. would be denied professional help when her father and I knew that her speech was not normal. Fortunately, P. has since changed her mind and believes L. will qualify after all.

When P. arrived today, she said she just this morning had spoken with the initial evaluator, who told her that she had (finally) viewed the speech sample tape I gave her. L.'s speech on the tape was "significantly different" from her speech in the clinical setting. I could've told her that, and in fact, I did when I gave it to her. Gee, I'm glad she finally decided to watch it. Anyway, after doing whatever fluency-counting test they do on the clinical sample and the video tape samples, she told P. that L.'s stuttering was mild in the clinical setting and moderate to severe on the videotape. Finally. Confirmation of what we already knew. P. listened to her speak some today and noted several disfluencies herself, including some occurring in the middles of sentences rather than just on the initial sounds. That, she says, concerned her. The secondary behaviors also were a "red flag," she said.

It sounds awful to say this, but I am so relieved -- relieved that someone else has seen the problem and can shoulder some of the responsibility with us. I knew L.'s disfluencies were significant. Now that we have that out of the way, we can get on with the business of helping her improve her speech and/or become comfortable enough with speaking the way she does that it does not interfere with her life.

Although I liked the initial evaluator pretty well, I like P. even better. She has a son who stutters and -- I didn't know this until our meeting this morning -- a father who stutters severely. When I answered the door this morning, she said, "I'm P. You must be M." It's the little things like that. The little things like gracefully taking away the pressure of introducing myself. She didn't do it in a condescending way, either, just in a natural way. The way someone would if she had lived with stutterers her whole life.

She also was able to detect L.'s disfluencies when she was across the room playing with her brother and P. and I were conversing. I was impressed that P. would stop what she was saying and listen attentively to the kids' conversation in order to pick up some of L.'s disfluencies. She has a good ear for this kind of thing. In the initial evaluation, I was repeatedly frustrated that I could hear L. stuttering while the evaluator was talking to me and seemed absolutely oblivious to the "evidence" right there before her. I hadn't wanted to interrupt her to say, "Listen! She's doing it now!" Today, with P., I didn't have to.

When P. left, she seemed absolutely sure that L. would qualify for early intervention. She seems to think that while L. is too young to start the Lidcombe program, there are aspects of it we could do. She didn't elaborate too much but will do so in our first meeting after the L.'s eligibility/IFSP meeting next week, I am sure.

Finally, one of the best things P. told me was a story about her son, who is in elementary school. He was in speech therapy for his stuttering for several years, and now that he is old enough to really express his opinions and talk about speech, he is saying that his stuttering, his blocks, don't bother him. He stutters fairly severely but doesn't let it get in his way. They eventually dropped the speech therapy because he just wasn't interested. She was afraid the story would be a downer for me since it didn't have a fluent happy ending. It was quite the opposite. Her son's story reminds me that even though blocks and severe stuttering episodes were very upsetting to me when I was young, they might not be to every person who experiences them. Her son has an attitude that I didn't begin to have until I was in my twenties. Perhaps the influence of a grandfather who stutters and a mother who respects and understands stutterers is part of what made his attitude so different from mine. I can't fix L.'s speech for her, but I think I can influence her attitude about it. And attitude is more important than fluency anyway.

The Basement Blues

I've been feeling a little blah. I figured it was just the time of year at first, but, as is often the case, I was eventually able to figure out what's really bothering me. Fortunately, it's nothing serious.

Problem #1: A wet basement. Our first estimate on the basement repair nearly knocked me over. I thought I had prepared myself for the worst, but I wasn't even close. Very depressing.

Problem #2: Fleas. They are back. But it's too early to spray again. Wet basements make flea problems much harder to get rid of, I have learned. They love dampness. Great.

Problem #3: Snot. For over a month now, my daughter has had what they were calling a sinus infection. She has been on antibiotics three times, and she isn't getting better. Her doctor said this morning that she will refer her to an allergist. My best guess? She's allergic to mold and mildew from our wet basement.

Problem #4: Feminine issues. I was on antibiotics myself for a sinus infection a few weeks ago, and I am left with the antibiotics' lovely sidekick, the yeast infection.

Problem #5: Feminine issues times two. I started my period the day after I started using the three-day yeast infection treatment. No tampons allowed during the treatment period. Great. Nothing like being crampy and itchy AND grossly uncomfortable.

Problem #6: Holiday shopping blues. We've been worried about money, especially after the basement estimate that took our breath away. I haven't had any work yet from the part-time venture I mentioned a while back, and all the shopping for my family's gifts overwhelms me sometimes.

Now, all in all, this stuff isn't much to complain about. The yeast infection and the period are both only temporary. We had a second basement estimate today that was only one seventh the cost of the first one (and we feel better about this company for other reasons, too). If we get the basement dry, then the fleas should be easier to get rid of. Also, if the basement is dry, L.'s snot levels might decrease, allergist or no. And shopping, I have to say, will be easier if we aren't destitute. Bring on the sump pump, baby!

Happy Thanksgiving

We got home not long ago from a very nice Thanksgiving trip. My husband and I have had some nice Thanksgivings since we've been together, but I think this one was the best yet. For the first time, my husband and I didn't have to decide which side of the family to upset. This year my in-laws joined us at my parents' Thanksgiving dinner. It was nice -- for everyone, I think. Here are just a few of the things for which I am thankful.

• my husband, who has made the last seven years of my life wonderful (and who is currently washing dishes, bless his heart)
• my children, who make me laugh every day
• my extended family, who welcomed my in-laws yesterday
• my mother-in-law and sister-in-law, who braved one of my family's get-togethers
• my health
• the health of my loved ones
• our home
• my friends, both on- and off-line

There are other things, too. Lots of them. Like The DQ pumpkin pie Blizzard. And Glide dental floss. And naptime.

A belated Thanksgiving to you all, my readers. And that goes for both of you.

Assessing the Assessment

The early intervention people came this week and started the intake process. L's evaluations should be done and an IFSP written by the second week in December. During the private evaluation, which we had to pay for, L was totally fluent. Strange as it seems to say it, I hope she is at her worst for the early intervention people.

Her stuttering is certainly cyclical. She was in a fluent period when she was evaluated, but she is now on the downswing. Her original secondary behaviors have been replaced by new ones: whispering and tilting her head to one side. These behaviors are cuter and more socially acceptable, and so people now don't even realize she's stuttering. In fact, she's so quiet, people don't even realize she's talking.

When she was stuttering at her worst in early October, there was a day she went to the grocery store with me and drew LOTS of attention from people. Every time she started a sentence, she would repeat the initial sound, stuff her hand against her mouth, and allow the pitch and volume of her voice to rise dramatically. People thought she was just yelling to be mischievous. One man even scolded her and said, "Is that you making all that noise?"

Now she does the other extreme: she repeats a sound until her air runs out, and then, rather than inhaling again, she continues to "speak" by moving her mouth but making absolutely no sound. No one else has noticed this but me. It's hard to notice. Sometimes I glance at her and see her little mouth working silently, and I realize she's been trying to talk to me for some time.
She is communicating less, or at least making fewer audible attempts to communicate. When I catch the tail end of one of her "silent stuttering" episodes, I can't understand what she has said because it's either too soft or too distorted by her use of residual air. I ask her to repeat herself, and she just pops her thumb in her mouth and turns away. Too much work. Yeah, baby, I've been there.

Again, it's not so much that she stutters. It's how she stutters that worries me. She just struggles too damn much sometimes, especially for a toddler. I cannot tell you the anger and disappointment I feel when well-meaning people dismiss as mere noisemaking my daughter's efforts to speak; she is only two, but people's reactions to her communication attempts will help shape who she is. I wish I could protect her. I wish I could live the rough parts for her.

And I wish a professional could see her when she is like this. I wonder if they would be so reassuring then. As much as I want L to experience the ease of fluency, I hope she stutters up a storm the next time a speech therapist is near her. I want an assessment based on all the evidence.

Happy Birthday, L!

Today is my baby's birthday. As hard as it is to believe that L is already two, her birth seems so long ago. Postpartum depression as well as severe pre-eclampsia that kept me hospitalized until L was two weeks old made it difficult for me to be the kind of mother I wanted to be right away, and when I think of her birth, I feel more guilt than anything else. I remember the intense anxiety I felt as the nurses brought her to my hospital room each morning. I remember a sense of relief, followed immediately by guilt, when I was put on a medication incompatible with breastfeeding. So many times I think I'd like to just start over with her.

Now when she comes into my room in the mornings, she makes me laugh first thing. Just recently she has discovered she has the power to get up from her toddler bed when she wants. This morning S woke up cranky, and although I convinced him to climb into bed with us and calmed him down, the noise had already awakened L, who soon came pitter-pattering into our bedroom, announcing, "I up!" As my husband hoisted her up onto the bed, she said, "Hi, Daddy!" She giggled as we all hugged and kissed her. She is such a joyful child. I have trouble finding words to express how much I love her.

Apparently, S does, too. When he leaned over to hug and kiss her this morning, he laughed and crooned, "Wittle metucky fwied chicken!"

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Nine Weird Things

Because I'm all about the self-tagging, I'm stealing this meme from Writergrrl. Nine weird things about myself? This one, I have to say, should not be too hard for me.

1. I am fascinated by my children's earwax. I look in their ears frequently to see if there is any ready to harvest. I am slightly disappointed when I don't see any.

2. My husband and I met online. No, we didn't have a torrid Internet affair and meet for the first time on our wedding day. We met through a personals site, met in person a couple weeks later, and dated for a year before getting married.

3. When I walk, I do a weird spelling/typing thing with my feet. I think of a word, and I imagine I'm typing it out on a keyboard, so I say each letter to myself (silently) as I step down on the appropriate foot -- the left foot for letters typed with the left hand, and the right foot for letters typed with the right hand. If two consecutive letters are typed with the same hand, I have to wait another step until that foot comes down again to continue spelling. Each word has its own weird walking rhythm. For example, the word rhythm would be R(left) H(right) (left) Y(right) T(left) H(right) (left) M(right).

4. I am really good at Pig Latin. My father used to have long, involved conversations with my brother and me in Pig Latin when I was small.

5. As I get to know new friends, I notice myself taking on some of their mannerisms. It bothers me a bit. I don't do it on purpose at all, and it makes me feel like a phony.

6. Not only do I sometimes pass out at the sight of blood, but I sometimes pass out at the mention of blood. I passed out in health class in elementary school a few times, always during the chapter on the circulatory system. And I passed out during my mother's first talk with me about menstruation. (Fortunately, the anticipatory talk bothered me much more than the actual event.) Once I passed out in an acquaintance's car when she casually mentioned that her baby's penis had bled inordinately after his circumcision. Somehow we didn't make that leap from acquaintances to friends. Go figure.

7. Some melancholy music just sucks me under. Certain songs by Nine Inch Nails, for example, can put me in a deep, dark funk for days.

8. Even at my very largest and my most out of shape, I have always been able to sit on the floor with the soles of my feet together, my heels back close to my body, my knees touching the floor, and my head to my feet or the floor. It's a fairly useless talent.

9. I have a bad habit of leaving the kitchen cabinet doors open. After I've made dinner, it's not unusual for almost every cabinet door to be open. Is it dangerous and annoying? Yes. Does that compel me to close the doors? It seems not to.

L.'s Evaluation

L. had her speech evaluation today at a local university clinic. Initially we were told she couldn't be evaluated until January, but only a few days later we got another phone call saying someone could evaluate her sooner after all. It turns out they weren't initially anxious to see L because of her age; stuttering apparently begins when children develop more complex expressive language skills. To quote the speech pathologist, "When I first heard that a twenty-two month old had been referred for a fluency evaluation, I said, 'It's impossible. She's too young.' But then when I read the case history and the sample sentences she was saying, I decided okay, maybe I'm wrong."

During the evaluation, L. was incredibly fluent. Naturally. It reminds me of the Michigan J. Frog cartoon. There were only two or three moments when she stuttered, and even those were minor. I did, however, give them a tape of her talking at home, one segment from several weeks ago when her speech was quite severe, and one segment done last night when she was just mildly disfluent. Once they watch the tape, they'll realize why I took her in, I'm sure.

The plan right now (pre video viewing, of course) is to watch her for a while. They will contact me once or twice a month to check in, at which point we will decide whether or not they should see her again, based on how her speech is then. I am also to call if it becomes severe again. They gave me a list of things to do (slow my speech, encourage turn-taking when both kids are vying for the spotlight, etc.) , most of which they said they noticed I'm already doing. If L is still stuttering in 12 months, they/we will start an intervention program that seems to work well with preschoolers.

L. was very well-behaved for the evaluation and just ate up all the attention. She did manage to embarrass me a bit with her insistence that every doll's clothes must come off. Both the pathologist and her student couldn't get over L's language level. They were most impressed with her use of the word manatee (she saw one at the zoo and liked it) and the sentence, "I pretending Mommy a bunny." It was kind of funny watching these two grown women nearly wet themselves over the jabberings of a small child. The elder woman was orgasmic over L's correct use of the "-ing" ending.

Because I'm too lazy to put the rest in paragraph form, here are a few of the main points from our post-evaluation conversation:

• L's good language skills give her a better shot of overcoming stuttering.
• Secondary behaviors are indeed rare in children, but they are not unheard of.
• L's being a girl gives her a better chance of outgrowing the stuttering.
• The fact that my dad and brother outgrew their stuttering is another sign in her favor.
• Stuttering usually begins very mildly and without any tension. It's rare for it to come on so strongly.
• They said it was a good sign that the few disfluencies L had today seemed to be without tension. (I am not sure I entirely agree with their assessment on that point. True, there wasn't much tension. But I think it was there. Just a touch, under the surface. Perhaps I'm being overly sensitive, or perhaps it is my stuttering radar picking up on what others don't hear. I'll hope for the former.)
• They recommend the Lidcombe Program of Early Stuttering Intervention if she does happen to continue to stutter after twelve months. (I had my initial misgivings about the program when they first explained it to me, but the more I learn, the more optimistic I am about it.)

Overall, I am pleased with the evaluation and the professionalism of the evaluators. They were really good with my daughter and did indeed know their stuff. And they left me with the hope that L might very well shrug this thing off and trample all over it like a jacket she's determined not to wear. Nothing would make me happier.

Hello Operator

Have you heard of video phones for the deaf? And that there are now video relay services in addition to the old text relay services so that deaf people can sign their phone conversations and have a real live interpreter voice for them? Yeah, I didn't either until I got a call from a former student a couple days ago. Wow. Let me just say that communication is so much smoother with the video relay service than it ever was with the old relay. For one thing, there's none of the super slow talking so the relay operator can type, and there's none of that GA/SK business to contend with. Plus everyone gets to communicate in his or her own language.

Still, the relay, video or otherwise, kicks my stuttering ass.

Talking on the phone under normal circumstances is hard enough for me. I was in my late twenties before I really got a grip on phone conversations; now I handle most phone calls with some easy stuttering at the beginning to clue the other person in and to get myself off on the right foot. But the relay takes me right back to my mega-blocking days of yore. What is it that is so stressful for me? There's a lot going on with a relay call -- two different languages spoken, the message being relayed through a third party -- but the pressure really isn't on me; it's on the relay operator. Yet my throat closes up on those calls. In fact, it has crossed my mind that I could just not answer the phone when it's the relay. But I gave up the drug of avoidance a long time ago; one hit, and I'm a goner.

You know, one of my funniest stuttering stories involves a relay call. When I taught at a residential school for the deaf years ago, most of my friends were deaf. One day a friend was visiting me at my apartment and needed to call her husband at work. She and her husband are both deaf, and at the time, I didn't have a TTY. So here's how the phone call worked: my friend signed to me, I voiced her message to the relay operator, and the relay operator typed the message to her husband, who read it on his TTY, and then the whole process was reversed. Complicated. And a potential pit of stuttering madness.

It started off okay, though. My speech was reasonably under control, and we were able to get through the first few exchanges okay. Then, THEN, the relay operator, a very smug-sounding man, interrupted me and said, "You know, lady, this would be a lot easier for me if you wouldn't stutter."

Dumbfounded, I began the usual spiel to educate my listener: "Well, it would be easier for me, too, but I have a speech disorder . . . "

And then my blood started to boil as I thought: Is the relay not a service for the hearing and SPEECH impaired? Are these people not TRAINED to talk to people with whom communication is guaranteed to be ANYTHING but EASY? The humiliation of being caught off guard and of having to educate someone who should already have been educated, hit me like a truck, and I finished my "education" with . . .

"SO F*CK YOU!"

And I slammed down the phone. Only then did I look up and see my friend and the look of horror on her face.

She signed frantically, "Why did you hang up on B.?"

Oh. OH! I had forgotten all about him! And her, for that matter! I apologized and quickly explained what had happened. Then I took her advice and called the relay back to speak with a supervisor about the operator's need for some sensitivity training (I also threw in a sheepish apology for the profanity). And then my friend and I had a giggling fit.

The relay center, by the way, called me no less than three times over the next twenty-four hours to offer their sincerest apologies. The call had apparently been recorded. I wondered how many times they replayed my outburst. And I hoped I hadn't gotten anyone fired.

I guess maybe that's what I worry about when I'm on a relay call now: the responsibility of speaking and maintaining everyone's employment. It can be too much for a girl sometimes. I'm going to have to look into getting me one of those video phones.

Progress

Remember back on June 9 when I did a meme including my goals for the year? What?!?! You don't have every one of my goals committed to memory? Sheesh. Okay, okay. Here's a link. WHAT? You don't feel like clikcing on it? Oh, for crying out loud, what is wrong with you people. Fine. I'll list my goals here so that you may refresh your memories. (sighing loudly)

In the next year I will . . .

• begin my conversion process. (See, I'm being decisive today.)
• find a pre-school for my son.
• find a way to get out of the house at least one day a week, whether it's
  through membership in some kind of organization, a class, or a part-time
  job.
• find a babysitter so that my husband and I can go out more.
• go on our very first vacation as a family of four.
• enjoy every minute of my children's silliness.

Okay, to be perfectly honest, I had to cheat and look myself. So no hard feelings. But my reason for bringing this up is that I realize I've done several of these things already. Yay! And yeah, I know, many of them were not earth shattering. In fact, some of them are just silly. But still, I know life can throw things at us sometimes and knock us off our feet, and I am so thankful that I've been lucky enough to be able to move vaguely in the direction I wanted to go.

Let's see . . . well, the conversion process has not started yet. But I have become more active in the synagogue. I know that doesn't count.

My son has started preschool. It's a good preschool we picked, too, I have to say.

I'm getting out of the house a little more now because I've made some friends. I am also (drumroll please) preparing to begin some part-time work very soon. It's the kind of work that is unpredictable -- I have to wait for them to call me when my services are needed -- but I'm just a few days away from being officially on the list as a service provider. Yippee!

My friend now babysits for us sometimes. She's awesome!

We went on our family vacation back in July.

And I am still enjoying my kids' silliness. I squander a few moments here and there when I'm feeling overwhelmed or grouchy. I regret that. But I love them, those little boogers. They're such cuties. I'd do anything for them. Even convert.

But maybe not quite yet.

This One's Going Right Back to the Library

Last night my husband and I watched one of the items I got from the drive-through library. It was this video about children who stutter. Aside from the strange choice of camera shots and the uber eighties glasses the narrator was wearing, the video was just so-so. It was supposed to contain clips of children stuttering. Real kids doing real stuttering.

But we were left with the feeling that they picked four kids who were borderline cases at best to make the techniques they were suggesting look good. Either that, or L. is the only kid in the world who stutters so severely. Which is our fear. There's not much written or videotaped about kids with stutters like hers.

Okay, so there was one cute little blond boy who was shown briefly -- demonstrating both the prolongation and the block, of course, since the other children seemed to have never experienced either -- doing some hard core stuttering. But they didn't show him again in the section where the parents were using the suggested techniques with their kids. All the kids in that section were almost completely fluent. And little Mr. Blond Boy was the only child who didn't make it onto the cover of the video, too. What the hell? It's a stuttering video! Let the kid with the biggest stutter win for a change! Naturally, I considered the possibility that the parenting techniques had no effect on a more severe stutter and that any footage of the blond kid was destroyed. Or maybe they were afraid showing a severe stutter would scare parents? Or . . . or . . . what?

As a parent of a kid with a stutter worse than little Mr. Blond Boy's, I was a bit offended. And alarmed, really. I mean, I've said before to my husband that my daughter stutters like an adult, that I've never (in my admittedly limited experience) seen a child stutter that way. Last night's video viewing reinforced that idea. It left my husband feeling down about L.'s prognosis, too.

Not that we think less of her if she stutters. Not that the stuttering itself bothers us. It's the thought that she will have to struggle, that she might feel the need to hide parts of herself, that people might not always recognize her immediately as the bright and charming person she is.

I said the other day that she was demonstrating two of the eight warning signs associated with increased risk for stuttering into adulthood. She has already added a third: she has "expressed concern" about her speech (when she asked me to help her . . . which, by the way, she has done twice now).

She also substitutes words. She had conned me into reading one of those insipid, plotless Dora the Explorer books yet again and, pointing to a picture of Dora, said, "I-i-i-i-i-iiis D-d-d-d-d-----d-d-d---- (pause) She w-w-wear sssswimsuit?" She gave up on saying Dora and substituted with she. That is such an adult way to stutter. Crap, part of me is proud of her ingenuity. She's not even two, for crying out loud.

I can remember being totally fluent when I was a young child. Or, at least, I can remember not knowing anything about stuttering, at least not being aware of it, not ever feeling tension when I spoke. I can remember a time when I said what I wanted to whomever I wanted, a time when I didn't have to weigh my words or judge the receptiveness of listeners. I remember a time when I didn't know speaking fear. And later I always saw myself that way, as just normal, but with this thing that happened to me and kept people from seeing the real me when I spoke.

What if L. retains none of those fluent memories? What if she remembers only fear and tension and being different?

A Morning of Pampery Goodness

Did I tell you I've made a friend? A really good friend? We met at the dreaded storytime last summer, and we soon found ourselves making playdates for the kids just so we could get together. She and her family moved her a few months ago, and it turns out that before we moved here, we lived only ten minutes from her. And we know some of the same people. Including another interfaith family. And she used to work with one of my best friends. Freaky.

Anyway, the point is that my friend decided I needed a morning to myself. She very graciously offered to keep my daughter (who is just the best of buddies with her daughter) while my son was at preschool, so that I could do whatever I wanted. Yes, that's right. Whatever I wanted. At first I couldn't think what that meant. And I admit I wasn't very good at it since most of what I chose to do was in some way related to my children, but hey. It was still pretty cool.

So after I dropped my children off, I went to Toys R Us to do a little birthday shopping for the wee one, who will be two in just a few weeks. Mind you, we cannot go into that store with my son, for it turns him into a screaming and whining beast. So I got to shop at my leisure and even purchased a Chanukkah gift or two while I was there. Yea, me.

Then, then, I did the coolest thing. Okay, which I totally could've done with my kids. But still. I drove through at the library -- the one we dared not enter yesterday -- and picked up an assortment of reading and viewing material for the family. This was my first time placing a hold and picking up the books at the drive-up window. I must say it was exhilarating. Okay, so I could've gone in today for I was without child. But I didn't. I drove through. And I see a lot of that driving through business in my future.

Next, I drove through another establishment, picking up a strawberry milkshake just because I wanted one and because I could do so without having to buy one measly thing for my messy offspring. I then drove around town slurping my milkshake until, finally, I went over to my friend's house and claimed my daughter.

It was a lovely time. Really. I'm pretty bad at using my free time these days since it's such a new thing for me. I feel like a cave man looking at a computer. He pokes it, chews on it, rubs it with a stick to start a fire, finally sits on it. Give a mother a fish, and she looks at you as if you're crazy. Teach a mother to fish, and . . . well, she says, "When the hell do you think I'm going to have time to do that?"

Um, but as I was saying, I had a nice morning. And it made me extra patient when my daughter, apparently paying me back for having abandoned her, threw a big fit in the parking lot of the preschool. I patiently and calmly peeled her up from the asphalt three different times, waited while my son retrieved his dropped backpack twice, and didn't even make an obscene gesture to the totally evil and snooty and perfectly made up high cheekboned beeyatch who, rather than waiting the twenty seconds for me to get my children out of the way of her gas guzzling SUV, tried to drive around us and rolled her window down, opened her thin little impatient mouth to say something snotty but -- and she should thank herself for this -- thought better of it.

Ah, amazing what catastrophes a little me-time will prevent.

Why We Spent the Morning Reading Quietly at Home

We played hookey from storytime today. Oh, the guilt. But our last library visit for storytime ended in sibling warfare, serious mommy embarrassment, and some substantial kid grief over my confiscating the identical blue balloons over which they were fighting. I had to drag my children kicking and screaming (and I do mean that literally) into the elevator and through the normally quiet library lobby. If not for the kind look of sympathy from the first-floor librarian, I might well have been frustrated and humiliated enough to advertise both of my offspring on ebay that very afternoon.

So it was official: I became one of THOSE mothers. You know, the ones whose parenting skills I used to question silently in my childless days of yore.

This morning when my son asked if we were going to storytime, I said yes, but then I proceeded to remind him of the proper way to behave, and how he lost his balloon last time, and how if he ever acted that way again at the library I might never ever ever ever take him back, and did he think he could stay quiet and obey me. At which point he said, "I don't think I want to go."

And yeah, I felt some guilt that my warning was dire enough that I might have made him afraid to try again, but on the other hand, I was relieved that I had an excuse to stay home. Because really, it is hellish. I'll take them again next week. I'll be a really good parent then. Somehow I'll manage not to be one of THOSE mothers.

More Notes on L.

Today was a really bad speech day. L struggled on nearly everything she said, especially this evening. I wondered if she was aware of the struggle. Actually, I wondered how she could not be aware.

And then tonight, after struggling on one word for fifteen seconds or more, she cried a little, tried the word again, and then stopped, looked me in the eye, and said, "Mommy, help me."

So I guess that answers my question.

Bedtime Conversation

My Son S: Mommy, where am I going when I wake up?

Me: You have preschool tomorrow.

S: Will you take me there when I wake up?

Me: Yes, and we have to remember to pick out some nice clothes for you to wear because you're having school pictures taken.

S: Well. Okay. But I'm not going to say cheese.

Me: And why's that?

S: Because I think I'm going to say vagina.

Calming Down

Well, things have settled down here. I am no longer panicking. I received my packet of information from the National Stuttering Association, and I have regained my perspective. The NSA is just awesome. I used to be a member and even led a local chapter, but then I got busy and not nearly as active, and eventually I failed to renew my membership. I rejoined last week. One of the booklets I got from them for a meager fee is called Young Children Who
Stutter. It answered several of my questions. Here's what I've learned:

• Secondary behaviors can indeed happen in young children.
• Even children who stutter severely enough to have secondary behaviors often "outgrow" their stuttering.
• Only about 25% of preschool stutterers continue stuttering into adulthood.
• There are eight risk factors that might indicate a childhood stutter will continue. (My daughter exhibits two of the eight: a family history of stuttering, and signs of struggle and tension when she stutters.)

Also, on a visit to my parents' house this weekend, during which my daughter stuttered some but not nearly as much as she was doing in the middle of last week, I was able to ask my parents a few questions. Here's what I learned:

• I began to stutter at age 4.
• For the first year or so at least, my stutter was not as severe as L.'s is.

I think what was scaring me last week was that her stutter seemed more severe each day. Finally, by Friday afternoon, it was improving. I was afraid she would struggle like that every single day. Stuttering is cyclical, I know, but it worried me to think that her cycles might go from severe stuttering on her bad days to moderate stuttering on her good days and never any higher. I see now, though, that she still has almost-fluent periods. I'm glad of that. She'll appreciate them.

And Teej's comment about L.'s having an advantage because I stutter myself reminded me of the stuttering daughter of an adult stutterer whom I met several years ago when I was active in the NSA. I remember watching her discuss her stuttering openly in a group meeting. I never would have felt comfortable doing that at such a young age. So maybe I can't give my daughter fluency, but I can show her by example that stuttering is nothing to be ashamed of. I think I was twenty before I figured that one out.

Stuttering Yada Yada Yada

I talked to my father yesterday about my daughter L.'s speech. I mentioned it to him mostly because I wanted information about the beginnings of my own stutter. I knew my parents always thought I was just imitating my brother, who went through a pretty noticeable period of normal disfluency. But that was all I knew.

My dad says he never noticed my stuttering himself. The speech pathologist who did my kindergarten screening was the one who noticed. The pathologist told my parents that I was demonstrating the beginnings of what he feared would be a serious problem. They put me in therapy, but deep down they didn't think I needed it until, well, until it became obvious a year or two later that I did.

Initially I took this information as bad news. If my speech problem was hardly noticeable at age five, and L.'s is so totally noticeable at age 23 months, that's a little scary. Then I found some information that says a child whose stutter develops after age 3 is more likely to continue stuttering as an adult than is a child whose stutter develops at a younger age. So, oddly enough, I'm finding L.'s early onset of stuttering to be not that upsetting; at least hers isn't developing just like mine. I'll hold out hope that hers won't be as severe in the future.

The severity of her stuttering, however, still concerns me. From everything I've read, her problem is not a "borderline" one, but one that most certainly requires intervention. I haven't read anything at all about secondary behaviors in children under the age of six. I hope I'm just not reading the right stuff and that it's more common than I realize. The secondary behavior has evolved from just the back of her hand over her mouth to sometimes her hand stuffed in her mouth while she is struggling to speak.

She has also developed a strange way of dealing with the word I, which gives her much grief. Just yesterday, she was repeating and prolonging the I with much tension as her voice rose in volume and pitch. Now, however, she is repeating less and simply prolonging a gurgling version of I that sounds more like the Hebrew /ch/ in words like chaim and challah. Is distorting sounds to make them easier to handle a secondary behavior? Whatever it is, she's doing it.

We decided to proceed with scheduling a speech evaluation for her while we wait for E.I. to contact us. I contacted a local speech clinic, filled out and sent in a case history form, and am now waiting for them to contact me about scheduling the evaluation.

It was so bizarre calling the clinic and requesting speech therapy for my daughter. I told them, not so fluently myself, what the problem was and then added, feeling like a total dork for even having to say it, that "stuttering runs in our family . . . obviously." Sheesh.

Which brings me to a related topic. Someone suggested to me that L. might be picking up the stuttering from me -- you know, just imitating me. I'm all about guilt and blaming myself and all that good stuff, but you know, this time I think I'm off the hook. When I'm at home with the husband and kids, I hardly ever stutter. Even when I'm at the grocery or on the phone or any of the other places L. might hear me talk, I don't stutter that severely lately and most certainly not with that secondary behavior -- mine is more uh and um, thank you very much. Funny, but she learned to stutter all by herself. She's independent, that one. She grabs hold of a gene and just runs with it.

That's my girl.

I'm No Good at Waiting

So I'm waiting for a call back from the early intervention folks. I'm impatient. I want a professional to see her yesterday. Her speech has gotten so much worse just overnight.

It's as if our Little Miss Words was flying along at 90 m.p.h. and hit a brick wall. She was chattering about anything and everything only a week ago, mild stutter and all, but now even the basics are a struggle.

She has developed her first secondary behavior. When she is blocking on "I" or "is" or "pretending," three of the words that trip her up the most, she now covers her mouth with the back of her hand. A secondary behavior at twenty-three months? I have never heard of such a thing. But then, I only know the adult side of stuttering. Maybe it's not so rare? Maybe it's not such a bad sign?

She has been laughed at twice in the last twenty-four hours by well-meaning people, once on the playground and once by one of my husband's coworkers. When she tries to start a sentence with "I," she blocks and produces only a choking sound that goes on for five seconds or more. People don't recognize it as stuttering. They just see this tiny child opening her mouth and producing a strange sound, so they laugh.

Today while riding in her carseat and trying to ask me a question about the song playing on the car stereo, my daughter got so frustrated she cried. I was driving, and I couldn't reach her to comfort her.

I'm supposed to know what to do. I'm supposed to know how to deal with this. So why do I feel so helpless?

Come on, folks. Call me back, call me back, call me back.

My Daughter, My Mirror

Sometimes you're right and sometimes you're wrong, and sometimes you're half right. My three-year-old son quickly outgrew his pseudo-stuttering phase. I thought we were in the clear. He's the son, after all, and boys are more likely to stutter than girls.

My daughter, however, who is not yet two, has begun to stutter. And I don't mean the easy repetitions that her brother was doing. She's repeating initial sounds in words throughout each sentence, and she repeats the sounds at least four times. Tension and forcing have begun to show themselves, and while I've not noticed all-out frustration, she has most certainly resigned herself to stop speaking mid-sentence several times, finding it just wasn't worth it. This, folks, can't be anything other than the real thing. Dammit.

When I first mentioned it to my husband a couple weeks ago, he initially dismissed my concerns. Several days later, however, when my daughter repeated and semi-blocked on several words in a sentence, he said, "Whoa. You're right." And I told my friend about it a couple weeks ago, too, but she said I was probably worrying about nothing. Then when our kids were playing together last Friday, my daughter's stuttering was severe enough that my friend, trying to hide her look of alarm, said, "Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, maybe you should get that checked out."

It very well might go away. She hasn't been stuttering for more than a month. She could end up with perfectly fluent speech. And yet, with the family history she has (a stuttering mother, four stuttering great uncles, two stuttering second cousins), the odds are not on our side, and I feel the need to give her the best chance possible. Right now I don't know what that is -- therapy, or just a relaxed wait-and-see approach with careful monitoring.

Part of me is in take-charge mama mode: researching tips for parents of toddlers who stutter, looking for speech pathologists and early intervention programs in the area, etc. The other part, under the surface, is fighting feelings of guilt and sadness. I mean, it's not as if she has a terminal illness or a profound disability. I know what to expect, I know what she will need as she grows, and yet, crap, I hate to see the hard parts of my life repeated in hers.

Today my husband wanted to show us some photos he had taken at a little get-together we had yesterday. The kids and I joined him at the computer, watching the slide show of pictures, each one flashing for only three seconds or so. We were all commenting on the photos. My daughter had a lot to say. "I-i-i-i-i-i-s tha-tha-that br- I-i-is thaaaat brother?" But by the time she finished, the picture was invariably gone. I did my best to answer her questions, but before long she stopped talking, unable to keep up the pace. I could always slow down the presentation for her next time. But life isn't like that. There will be so many times when the conversation will be too quick, and she will fall behind, not stuttering, just mute. How I want to slow it all down for her, to give her the time and space she needs to let her words out, every last one of them.

This week, I have some phone calls to make. Wish me luck.

Alert! Empty Toddler Bed at Naptime! Summon the -- Oh, Wait. Never Mind.

Today I mourn the loss of an ally of mine, perhaps the greatest savior of my sanity over the last three years: the double afternoon nap. Its death was a slow one. We all saw it coming, and yet we held on. Today, finally, I let go. For the first time in ages, I did not put my three-year-old down for a nap when my one-year-old went down. Farewell, free time. So long, afternoon solitude. Au revoir, uninterrupted blog reading. Adios, sense of self.

My son had been having trouble sleeping at bedtime. He had been lying awake for over an hour, or even getting up out of bed and sneaking around until 10:00. It wasn't like him. He's always been a really good sleeper. I suspected THE NAP, which he had begun to take a bit later and, oddly enough, a bit longer, was the culprit. But I looked for every other excuse. It's the difficult transition of preschool, I said. It's because his daddy was out of town this week, I told myself. Deluding myself was no solution, however. The truth is that he was sleeping too much during the day and then was unable to sleep at night.

So today he stayed up all day and wasn't even exceptionally cranky this evening. Oh, yes, there is hope he will be cranky and begging for a nap tomorrow afternoon. But in my heart, I know what's true: my afternoons will be a bit noisier from now on, filled with more whining and less productivity.

On the other hand, though, I will get my son all to myself, and vice versa, on weekday afternoons. That's nice. I think he needs that one-on-one time with me without his baby sister. Honestly, I enjoyed my son more this afternoon than I have in a long time. He's funny and sweet, and even if I can't read my blogs without interruption anymore, I have to admit he's great company, that kid.

Clowning Around at the Flea Circus

We have had houseguests. I had no idea until one jumped from my daughter's hair onto my arm. And another jumped from my son's shirt to his neck. So I checked my cats and found them to be hosting quite the three-ring. Did I mention our cats are indoor-only cats? And that they haven't had fleas since the flea treatments/flea bomb shortly after I adopted them and took them home to my one-bedroom apartment lo those ten years ago?

Three theories:

1) The fleas came in on our shoes and pant legs and then found their way to the cats, who offered them comfy places to copulate.

2) The previous owners of the house left a few of the critters behind when they took their dog, and those critters made their way to the cats and slowly increased their numbers and only went to the children's bedrooms when the carpet was removed from the rest of the house a couple months ago.

3) The two salamanders I found in our basement last month were actually agents of the circus. Smoking cigars late into the night and speaking in hushed and husky voices, they negotiated with my aging felines until the cats made a deal with the devil.

I'm leaning toward Theory Number 3.

Yesterday was the great de-fleaing. The cats were treated. The house was bombed. We vacated for two and a half hours and fed the kids Wendy's Frosties way past their bedtime to keep them from driving us crazy while we waited. And so far there have been no new flea sightings. The cats are happy to be out of their evil kitty carriers, and I am happy that my children won't be getting any flea bites for a while.

And now, because I am not completely heartless, we shall sing the following to remember those tiny ones who fell in yesterday's siege:

Baby saw that when they pulled that big top down
They left behind her dreams among the litter.
The different kind of love she thought she'd found
There was nothin' left but sawdust and some glitter.
Don't cry out loud. Just keep it inside.
Learn how to hide your feelings.
Fly high and proud. And if you should fall,
Remember you almost had it all. . . .

Um, yeah.

Salad Island

Personally, I prefer red wine vinaigrette or peppercorn ranch, but the hubby and kids are all about the thousand island. I used to like it, too. In my teen dieting days I forced myself to eat many a salad topped with the stuff, and I know that it tastes quite nasty coming back up. But, as I said, my husband likes it and has now introduced the kids to it.

"Mommy, I want salad island on my salad!" my son says whenever he sees greens on his plate.

Salad island. Makes sense to me. I've been enjoying his cute mistake for weeks.

Today my daughter, whom we call Little Miss Words, and whose vocabulary never fails to freak out her pediatrician, added her own interpretation.

"Do you want dressing on your salad?" I ask her.

"Yes!" She points to her plate. "I want Coney Island right there!"

So Coney Island it is. It makes it sound somewhat more palatable, makes it sound fun and whimsical and -- oh, wait, smelling a bit like greasy food upchucked into a rusty metal trash can beside the tilt-a-whirl.

Um, yeah. I think I'll stick to my "popcorn" ranch.

Adjusting

My little boy is officially a preschooler now. This is his second week of school, and he is, let's just say, adjusting. By "adjusting," of course, I mean that he clings and/or cries. His assistant teacher cannot leave the room because my son is permanently attached to her. Today was the first day he actually cried when I left, but there were tears during the day last week -- mostly during music class during one "sad song" or another. He's very sensitive to music, that kid, and cannot handle minor chords.

It's tough leaving him when I know he's missing me, but at the same time, I know he needs to get used to it now. He's three. I feel guilty for not having prepared him better -- by putting him in daycare, by leaving him with sitters more, etc. He's the only kid in his class who seems to be having this difficult a time adjusting. It's not as if he's constantly in tears or anything -- he loves his school and his teachers and has learned something like a million songs already -- but he's just not adjusting as smoothly as the other kids are. Last week I worried and worried about it. It's easy to blame myself, or even to become impatient with my son.

He is who he is, though. It's not fair of me to expect him to be something different. Change is difficult for him. He's coping the best way he can -- by going to school (usually willingly) despite being afraid, participating as much as he feels able, asking for the support he needs (i.e. clinging to the assistant teacher), and pretend-play rehearsing learning circle and music class when he is home as sort of a practice for the real thing. If it takes him longer than it takes the other kids, fine. I have to stop comparing him to them. He's making progress at his own pace. I need to chill out. He'll adjust.

If I keep telling myself that, perhaps I'll adjust, too.

Notes on Socialization (And Some Notes About My Children, Too)

Wow, have I been busy. In a nutshell, I've spent this week getting a life. I've finally connected with a few other moms in the area and found some ways to socialize a little while letting my kids socialize, too. Oh, this feels so much better. I also spent some time working on the possibility of part-time employment in my future.

The biggest news of all, though, is that Phase One of potty training is over. My son is completely potty-trained. Finally. He is only a few weeks away from pre-school, so you can imagine how relieved we are. He has been peeing in the potty for a long time and even stays dry at night, but he was afraid to poop in the potty. He would just go put on a diaper when he had to go. A few nights ago, though, he did his business where his business should be done. I have never choked back tears at the sight of a turd before. Let me tell you, I was deeply moved, but I did not allow myself to cry. My son's therapy will be expensive enough as it is without the extra years tacked on for dealing with my having wept over his poop. Now, my son likes to walk around, chin high, shoulders back, and say nonchalantly, "Oh, I poop in the potty all the time."

And me? Oh, I get out of the house and talk with other moms all the time.

PMS and the Library

This post is laced with female hormones, the ones that make me particularly cranky and sensitive this time of the month. I didn't realize it was that time until I found myself crying as I walked the last half block from the library to my car this morning after story time. The tears didn't come exactly from nowhere. Although I'm embarrassed that where they came from is such a petty place. It can be humiliating to cry so easily.

Our trip to story time didn't start off well. We had to park two blocks from the library. It was already nearly 90 degrees. As we began to walk to the library, my daughter asked to be carried. Did I mention it was hot? And that she weighs nearly 30 pounds? And that she usually walks? I said no, at which point she began screaming bloody murder, dropping dramatically to the sidewalk, slumping and screaming louder. Eventually, through a mixture of carrying her, convincing her to walk while holding her brother's hand, and, at some points, pulling her along despite her incredibly loud protests, we made it there.

This is only our second trip to story time here. It is painful sometimes to watch my son with other children. He hangs back. He watches them but clings to me. He is three, but he is always trying to crawl into my lap. At one point the children were taking turns playing a game of using a flyswatter to try to swat a flashlight beam "fly" on the floor. My son was wriggling with excitement, waiting for his turn. But when his turn came, he walked forward slowly, gave one hesitant little swat, and turned back toward me. "Go on," I encouraged him, as did the story time librarian. So he swatted a little more, but not the way I know he wanted to.

It's painful watching that inhibition. He is too much like me in that respect. I was like that as a kid -- and, who am I kidding, as an adult -- always hanging back, always wanting to join in but not knowing how or feeling I wouldn't be able to do things as well as the other kids, always feeling as if I were on the outside looking in. How did I pass this on to him? Gah! I wanted to scream, to drop him off at the nearest daycare or preschool, to say, "Take him! I'm ruining him! He needs to get away from me!"

Then came lunch. They feed kids a sack lunch after story time in the summers, and my son, as usual, was very much looking forward to eating. He had asked about this bag lunch twenty times that morning. As soon as the librarian got out the lunches, most of the other kids hurried to get in line. I told my son to go ahead, that I would follow with his sister. He hesitated, although I know he wanted to go ahead. But he waited for me. And we stood at the end of the line, politely letting little ones get by with cutting ahead of us. We were considerate. When we saw a little boy had been waiting for quite some time for his lunch, we made sure he got his first. And then, and then . . . they ran out. That's right. We were the last ones in line, and the food was all gone. I watched in horror as she handed the last bag to a little boy. And then she turned, as if the three of us were not even there, and walked away to help someone else with something. Mind you, she never would have done that on purpose. She was busy -- there was quite a crowd there today -- and somehow didn't realize my two kids were going to have to go without lunches. She never would have let it happen intentionally without at least an apology.

Still, when my son didn't get his sack lunch, it was painful. My daughter didn't care one way or another, but my son, my son who is trying to get used to trusting teachers and to waiting his turn and to having fun in a classroom setting for his upcoming start of preschool . . . my son cared very much. "I'm sorry, sweetie," I explained. "They ran out. We'll stop and get you something else on the way home."

His face fell, and then as I waited for the inevitable wailing to start, I felt a lump in my own throat.

Geez, I told myself, it's just a sack lunch. It's no big deal. Yet I had to fight back the tears.

I took my son out of the room so he wouldn't have to watch all the other kids eat. I talked to him and did my best to calm him down and reassure him before we left.

And that's when it got really fun. It was now about 95 degrees, and I was carrying library books, and my daughter was refusing to walk. She had a kicking and screaming and throwing her shoes and socks off fit in the middle of the sidewalk. So I had to carry her almost the entire two blocks to the car, at which point I realized I had lost one of the library books, so we had to go back and look for it. Once I was holding all the books, my son's hand, my daughter, and her socks and shoes, I made my way to the car. And I was crying. Crying hard enough that I was making little noises, and my son asked, "Mommy, why are you laughing?"

"I'm not laughing, sweetie," was all I could answer. I saw the traffic going by, was humiliated to think how many people were looking at us and seeing me cry. There was no way to miss me -- the fat, sweaty, crying lady with the messed up hair and the two little kids and the library books. I cried all the way home. I hate when I do that. I wanted to model good coping skills -- okay, so the food was gone, we'll have fun anyway. But no, I cried. It sucked.

It sucks to feel invisible. It sucks even worse to watch your child feel invisible. And it all sucks more still when you have PMS.

Random Notes From Vacation.

We've been on vacation this past week -- three nights out of town, and the rest just enjoying ourselves around here. Tomorrow our week of fun and family will wind down, and it will be back to the grind Monday morning. But boy, has it been fun. I'm too overwhelmed by the thought of recounting chronological details of our vacation, so I think I'll settle for some random notes.

• Traveling with two small children is easier than I thought it would be. The hotel stay wasn't bad at all. True, at 9:30 the first night, my daughter was still standing up in the hotel crib with the sheet wrapped around her head, a panda bear in one hand and a stuffed bird in the other, dancing to entertain my son. But by 10:00, soon after I decided to get in bed with my son and fake sleep, everyone was sound asleep. Naps and bedtime got much better after that first night. And okay, sure, the car trips weren't always easy, what with the wild screaming fit with intentional vomiting, and the fifteen minute whining fit about the itchy butt, but all in all, it was better than I expected.
• Today is our sixth anniversary. I can't say enough how much I love my husband. I have loved having him around during his vacation. I love it when he, the kids, and I can all goof around together all day. He is a fabulous father and a terrific husband. I am quite lucky. And I'm going to miss him terribly when he heads off to work Monday morning.
• Since we got home Thursday afternoon, I've dreaded setting foot in the kitchen. It's just terrible to go from eating delicious food that I don't have to prepare, to having to cook mediocre food. My husband understood this and said, "Why don't we ease back into this cooking thing bit by bit? For now, let's just get stuff for sandwiches, and we'll eat off paper plates." Whew. Did I mention I love my husband?
• We spent the very last of our vacation money at a yard sale across the street. We bought two cups of lemonade (hey, who can pass up a lemonade stand with adorable little salespeople?) and a toddler bed for our daughter. The bed, which we spied as we drove past, was our reason for going to the sale. It was a good deal, and although we hadn't planned on moving her to a toddler bed for a couple more months, today just turned out to be the day. We carried the bed home, and my son was so excited about it that my daughter became interested in it, too. And then at nap time, we just put her in the bed, and she went right to sleep. Can it really be this easy?!?!?! With my son, it was not. He was very excited about his bed -- so excited, in fact, that as he watched us put it together, he began to claw the skin from his face. His face was bleeding by the time we were done. And then he just wanted to get in and out of the bed over and over and over and over and over and over again. It took a couple days before he slept in it as well as our daughter is sleeping in her bed now. And it took weeks for his scratching tic to stop. Okay, actually, for the record, the pediatrician was hesitant to call it a tic. But whatever it is, it still comes back once in a great while in moments of great anxiety.
• My son is afraid of heights. I had suspected this for some time but knew without a doubt a few days ago when we got on a Ferris Wheel. He hated it. He was so afraid that I began to feel afraid, too, although I didn't let him know that. I sang to him and talked about all sorts of things to keep his mind off how high up we were. "Mommy," he said through tears, "does Dora the Explorer ride the Ferris Wheel?" "Yes, she rides it with Boots on one of your DVDs, doesn't she?" I replied. "Why?!" he asked. My son also dislikes the Tilt-a-Whirl. He screamed for his daddy the whole time we were on it. As he wiped his little tear-stained face after the ride was over, a woman asked him, "Did you have fun?" "Yeah," he said. A few seconds later, he said, "Mommy, what's 'fun'?"

Things I Hate

I've stolen yet another idea from Meredith. What can I say? I'm a thief -- but an honest one.

I Hate:

1. Menstrual Cramps. They're not so bad lately, but before my kids were born, before I had a laparoscopy to diagnosis endometriosis and remove some adhesions, my period was the worst. If I didn't take way more Aleve than the directions on the bottle said, I could not function. Now, I make it through most months without so much as one Motrin, but when the cramps are just bad enough to remind me what it used to feel like, boy oh boy, do I hate them.

2. The Feeling of Being "Dismissed," when the person with whom I am speaking ignores me or brushes me off. This used to happen especially with a very macho male boss I had, but it happens from time to time in other situations. I would wait fifteen minutes to speak to him about something important, and then when it was my turn, he didn't seem to notice I was there. He would half listen to me until another male, or occasionally a very attractive female, happened by, at which point I would be "dismissed" with a casual turn of the head. Nothing pisses me off more.

3. Putting Away Clean Laundry. I don't mind carrying it downstairs to wash it. I don't mind sorting it. I don't mind washing it or drying it or even folding it. I don't mind carrying it back upstairs. But I HATE putting it away.

4. Spiders. (shudder)

5. Centipedes. (double shudder) They're faster than spiders, and more of a surprise. Ick, ick, ick. We used to get them in our basement every now and again at our old house. Fortunately, the house we live in now seems to be centipede-free.

6. Oversimplified/Partisan/Either-Or Politics. I am overwhelmed by the complexity of many tough political issues. When the issue is too big, it's easy to point fingers. I understand why the blame game happens, but I still think it's a cop-out when people say, "It's the Republicans' fault," or, "It's the Democrats' fault." Getting to the heart of the issue, and finding real solutions, on the other hand, is much more complicated.

7. Diet Plans Aimed at Children and Adolescents. I dislike most diet plans, and the entire misguided War on Fat. But when children are encouraged to lose weight (rather than choose a variety of nutritious foods and find some fun ways to be active), I nearly blow my top.

8. Children's Books That Try Too Hard to Rhyme. Look, it doesn't have to rhyme to be a good children's book. Leave the rhyming to Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein already. Prose can be rhythmic and beautiful. And maybe, just maybe, if these authors quit trying to rhyme, their books might start to develop something like, oh , I don't know, plot.

9. Meat That Looks Like the Animal It Came From. I really should be a vegetarian. It would be much less hypocritical of me. I don't have it in me, under non-starvation conditions anyway, to kill a creature for food. Even a fish. If I see where it comes from, I don't want to eat it. Chicken with skin-bumps where feathers used to be? No thanks. Meat that's still on the bone? Gee, I already ate. Steak that runs bloody pink? Thanks, but -- (upchuck noises). Yes, I grew up on a farm. Yes, I occasionally ate a cow I had seen in the field or a chicken whose clucking had helped me develop my fabulous chicken imitation. The thought of it sickens me. Now I prefer to have no prior knowledge of my entree. Really, I prefer meatless things, and yet, I remain a half-hearted carnivore. I feel guilty. But yeah, I let someone else do the wet work, and definitely, I'll take the anonymous chicken.

10. Wallpaper. No, I don't mean I hate to see wallpaper in other people's houses. It looks really nice sometimes. I just hate wallpaper at the moment because I've had to remove so much ugly and old wallpaper from this house that I can't look at it without wanting to peel a little off to see if it's the kind that comes right off or the kind I'll have to fight for hours with a spatula and a bottle of Downy water. I have wallpaper left in the bathroom and kitchen, still, and I hate the thought of having to remove it.

Little Mommy Home

I'm posting earlier than usual today. Well, okay, so posting at all is unusual for me this week, I know, but if I had posted all those other days, it would have been later in the day than now. So why am I posting so early? Because I have no children to watch today!

That's right. My children are staying with my mother. They were there last night. Which means I slept in until 7:00, and I got up and sat on the couch for a while, and then I ate a leisurely breakfast.

Oh, sure I miss the kids. I've already called three times. My son is happy as a clam, though, and my daughter is doing pretty well, too. She did have one brief episode of sadness after my phone call last night. My mother tells me she said over and over, very sadly, "Mommy home. Mommy home. Little Mommy home."

Yes, my daughter calls me "Little Mommy" sometimes. I suppose she thinks little is a term of endearment since I cuddle her and call her my little girl. Naturally, I'm not going to correct her.

Anyway, while the kids are gone, I am doing all sorts of stuff to the house that I wanted to do before but didn't have the time. The hideous wallpaper is gone from our hallway. The hideous, hideous, HIDEOUS carpet is gone from the dining room, living room, and hallway. And the hallway walls have been painted. Wow. Is this my house?

My husband and I had been working on the carpet removal piece-meal after the kids went to bed each night. We weren't getting much sleep. Not because the removal was taking so long, but because afterwards we would just sit there for hours staring at the beautiful hardwood, saying things like, "Is this really our house?" and "Why would they have covered these floors with such ugly carpet?" and "Wow, this looks great!"

When I finish with my leisurely lunch and leisurely blog today, I shall then do some leisurely mopping and some leisurely cleaning up. And then, and then, Little Mommy is going to take a long shower, in the middle of the afternoon.

And then I'm going to call to make sure the kids are okay.

I Am Woman -- Hear Me Snore!

Being productive is exhausting. I am quite tired, but I have gotten a lot done with the house over the last couple days. After the long process of removing a huge plastic flower pot and the downspout that the previous owners had routed through it (yeah, it was truly weird), we gained some insight into our basement leak problems. Part of the problem might require an expert to fix. But one problem we discovered is that the cement drain which a repairman patched recently has another huge crack/hole that he missed.

So, handywoman that I am, I borrowed my dad's caulking gun and just went to town Saturday evening. I mean, I caulked. I didn't literally go to town. Caulking is much like decorating a cake. And my skill at caulking is much like my skill at decorating cakes; my handiwork doesn't necessarily look great, but it tastes good -- er, it's functional. We'll see at the next rain whether my cake decorating did any good.

Then last night my husband and I ripped up the dining room carpet and removed the staples and tack strips from the hardwood. Under that hideous carpet we found one of the few pleasant surprises this house has had for us. The hardwood is really in pretty decent shape. Oh, it's not perfect, especially around the edges, but when we stand in the next room and look at it, it looks really nice. Tonight the plan is to start on the living room. We might find that the rest of the hardwood is a mess, but at least the dining room, where carpet is just not practical for us, is in good shape. If we have to re-carpet the rest of the house, then so be it. We're hoping, however, that dim lighting (which is the only kind of lighting we have in this house) and some area rugs will hide most of the problem spots.

After all my Bob Villa-ing yesterday, and after the shot glass of Benadryl I took for the cold or allergies I'm fighting, I slept great last night. So great, in fact, that for the second night in a row, I must have bitten down on my tongue for the entire night. My tongue is sore. I mean, it's really, really sore. It hurts to eat. It's too embarrassing to mention to a doctor or dentist, and I can't think of any -ectomies I could have that would take care of the problem and leave me with any kind of quality life anyway, so I'm just going to have to eat soft and bland food for a while until it heals and hope I will soon go back to my usual habit of grinding my teeth without the tongue clamp-down.

Saga of the Potty

It is 9:14 A.M. My husband left for work almost an hour and a half ago, and from the time his car disappeared down the road until just a couple minutes ago, I have been at the mercy of a potty-training three-year-old.

He spent nearly an hour sitting on the potty, trying his very best to poop. I provided him with special potty-pooping-only toys, including a little chalkboard and chalk I found in my parents' basement cleanout. He drew, he erased, he dropped the eraser into the toilet. He moved from the big toilet to his little potty and back again. He asked for privacy, he begged for company. He tried it all. And we were so close. So very close. Just one grunt away from victory, and he bailed out. He pulled up the pull-up and finished that way.

I hid my disappointment fairly well. As I changed him, I praised his effort, said we were so very close and surely one day very soon he would poop on the potty. I then calmly went about the business of cleaning up the bathroom -- sorting and putting away all the, shall we say, accoutrements de poopage -- the chalkboard, the wet eraser, the books, the Kandoo wipes, the little bits of toilet paper ripped up and tossed about like confetti. At last it was all cleaned up. With a sweet smile, I checked on the kids, who were reading a book together in my son's room, and then I logged into blogger, where I now weep bitterly into the keyboard, using all my self-restraint to keep from screaming, "JUST POOP ON THE FRICKIN' POTTY! YOU SIT, YOU POOP! HOW HARD CAN IT BE?!!?!"

Ahem. Okay, I feel better. I shall now return to a morning of kind and patient parenting.

Crossing My Fingers . . . And Opening My Larynx

In the boxes of treasure from my parents' basement I found two cassette tapes I thought we had lost forever. Both are tapes of my brother and me singing, talking, telling stories, and basically being silly. In the first of the tapes, I was two or three years old, and my brother was four or five. Tonight I forced my husband to listen with me to parts of those tapes. I had two basic reactions:

1) My brother's made-up stories and songs were always so much more entertaining than mine. Take, for example, my brother's classic song "God and Santa Claus Want You to Share Toys," and my pathetic follow-up about a mud puddle named Muddy Mud-Mud.

2) Boy, did we stutter. Both of us. My brother outgrew his stutter by second grade . . . which surprises me when I hear the severity of it on those tapes. Funny, I listened to those tapes when I was a kid and never noticed it. Wow, how did I miss it? We didn't really repeat many sounds, but the stuttering was right there under the surface. I could feel it even before it showed itself in a disfluency of some sort. It took me a few minutes to figure out what it was I was hearing, but finally I realized I was hearing the Valsalva maneuver. It was all over the place in our speech, even in the middle of otherwise perfectly fluent sentences. Our little throats closed all the time when we spoke. Weird.

I am so glad I found the tapes. Just yesterday I worried about my son's speech during a long, pause-laden story of his that seemed to take much more effort than it should have. I kept wondering, "Just how much disfluency is allowed in normal disfluency?" Now, however, I am encouraged. Yeah, sure, it took my son a while, and he threw in an uh and an um, but I didn't notice that sticky Valsalva quality in his throat. Maybe the kid will escape it yet.

House Whiff

My house has a smell. It is not a good smell. It is not necessarily a bad smell, either, but it's certainly more bad than good. When I am home all day, I don't notice it, but then when we are out somewhere, I will catch a whiff of it on our clothes. Or when I come home after having been gone for a day or two, the smell irritates the hell out of me for the hour or two it takes for my nose to grow accustomed to it again. I go around sniffing -- sniffing walls, carpets, closets, ductwork, trying to find the source. I end up feeling discouraged . . . and just a little high from all the house huffing.

The smell does not belong to us. We did not create it; we just paid for it. It should have been listed as chattel on our sales contract along with the fridge and the broken ceiling fan.

When our realtor first showed us the house, she said, "I think you'll like this one. And smell it -- it's clean!" She sniffed deeply and appeared to be in ecstasy, as if she were smelling fresh-baked bread or her lover's pheromones.

Every house has a smell, of course. My husband calls it house whiff. I don't mind house whiff in other people's houses, and I don't mind my own house whiff in my own house. Everyone should have the right to create his or her own house whiff. Living in the whiff of strangers, on the other hand, is not so fun.

Just as with pheromones, the beauty of the house whiff is in the nose of the beholder. When the realtor bragged on the smell, I made a mental note that the smell I was smelling was from cleaning supplies and could be gotten rid of with alternative cleaning supplies.

Nothing has worked, however. What we are smelling here is not the smell of clean. It is the smell of whiff. Permanent whiff.

I hold out hope that replacing the carpet will help. However, we have two very small children right now, and new carpet would be an absolutely ridiculous investment. My nose is begging me to throw that money away. "Enough is enough!" my nostrils are crying.

I am practical, though. I am frugal. And yet I am not without empathy. So I shall appease my nose with an old trick. I found out not too long ago that one cannot smell while smiling.

I am breaking out the perma-grin. No, folks, this is not a grimace. This is happiness. Pure happiness.

Current Events Shopping

Can I just say that I love shopping carts made for two kids? My kids are extra cute in them. These days there are different kinds -- the cart with the massive blue or red plastic attachment with seats, and the traditional shopping cart made wider and with not one but two seats in the place where you used to put the eggs and the bread until you became a parent. And did I mention I love these carts?

My kids are so happy while riding in them. They chatter and sing and recite their ABC's and 123's. Passersby note my children with either smiles or raised eyebrows, depending on what is coming out of their mouths at the moment. If they are singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," we get smiles. If they are shouting, "David Hasselhoff! David Hasselhoff!" we get the raised eyebrows.

I have to blame that one on my husband, who is a Simpsons fan. He says there is an episode in which Lisa Simpson is shown as a baby with a knack for speaking, and Bart teaches her to say David Hasselhoff. So my husband, testing our daughter's abilities against Lisa Simpson's in the ultimate toddler assessment, asked her to say it. And she did. And so did my son. And they both do it all the time now.

Sure, our kids are weird. But they come by it naturally.

Hey, it could be worse. Most people have heard about David Hasselhoff's recent shaving injury, so my children's bizarre shouts are at least topical.

Women Like Me

It's weird baring my soul online for all to see. After my last post, I felt exposed. I went to bed early to escape the embarrassment. It's like all those gym class stories, in a way. Except only two people who know me in real life know about this blog, and only one reads it, so the embarrassment is at least mostly anonymous. Which is why I started this thing in the first place, I guess -- to have a place where I could whine about all the things that don't make me look so great, allowing anyone who wants to roll his or her eyes or curl a lip in disgust to do so without putting a friendship in jeopardy.

I can't figure it out -- should I be embarrassed? Am I ashamed for not being one hundred percent "over" the things my father said to hurt me, or am I embarrassed that I am/was the kind of person to whom such things could be said? I suppose it's both. And since this is the place where I can write the ugly stuff, I'm writing it. Because for better or worse, I am the kind of person to whom such things were said, and I am the kind of person who is still not completely "over it" all these years later despite having moved on and found happiness.

When I was no older than ten, I was riding home from a Boy Scout outing I had tagged along on since my mother was one of my brother's troop leaders. I heard on the radio some mention of the Equal Rights Amendment. I asked my mother what it was, and she gave me a very brief explanation: an amendment that would give women the same rights that men have. That evening at dinner I tried to prove that although I was the youngest and usually in the dark about politics and the like, I was now getting pretty smart indeed.

"I think the E.R.A. is a good idea!" I said with such childish enthusiasm.

My father whipped his head around and shot me a look of fury the likes of which I had never seen before. What he said next I never forgot, mostly because it was such a mystery to me.

"There are names," he sneered, "for women like you."

My first point of confusion was what I had done to anger my father, how political talk, which happened at our dinner table all the time, could upset him so much. My second point of confusion was that I was not a woman. I was just a kid. Maybe he wasn't talking to me? True, it is possible he was speaking to my mother in a passive-aggressive way since she was surely the one who had put such an idea in my head. But the glare was in my direction, no doubt about it. I remember trying to think up one name for "women like me," one insult bad enough to match the venom in his voice. I didn't know any names that bad.

What my father and I usually butted heads about was my body -- typically my weight, but occasionally a skirt that he deemed too short or the legs he wouldn't let me shave when I was in seventh grade. I always thought it was about my being fat and/or physically disgusting: I needed to lose weight and would not be worthy until I did so, and therefore my legs were different from the skinny girls' legs and did not merit being shaved or being visible. It was all because I was fat, you see.

When I think about the E.R.A. incident, however, I have to laugh because I realize the conflict wasn't only about my body -- in fact, I would dare to say that it wasn't even mostly about my body. The problem was always that he saw in me a feminine strength that threatened him. Why else would he think of such "names for women like you" when he looked at his pre-adolescent daughter? I scared him.

Someone pointed that out to me a long time ago, but I didn't see it. It took me a long time to realize it was true, that my dad, whom I had always seen as larger than life, was fallible, that he just didn't know what to do with me.

I still scare him.

Lately I have found myself in a position of power over him from time to time. It is strange. He screws up, and the natural consequences just knock him off his feet, and I find myself standing over him, looming larger than I meant to be. I nearly always feel sorry for him. I help him up, or I turn away and let him keep his dignity as he picks himself up.

I don't want to dishonor my father. But I don't want to protect him anymore. Just as I am angry with myself for speaking of all this, I am angry with myself for keeping silent. I couldn't find the words to say no when he wanted to weigh my children -- my husband was the one who spoke up. I couldn't even find the words to tell my father he was no longer going to be left alone with my children after this incident.

I am embarrassed that I dwell on past wrongs, and I am embarrassed that my father can still say and do such cruel things. I am embarrassed that I have not protected my father more, and I am embarrassed that I have not protected my children more. I am embarrassed because I can't forgive my father, and I am embarrassed because I can.

Purge

My parents are cleaning out their basement. Suddenly all of my childhood things are taking up too much space in their downstairs landfill. My junk is therefore being transferred here box by box, and I have the job of going through it all and deciding what is worth keeping and what I need to throw out.

Really, very little of it is actually worth keeping. I mean, there's nothing of value. But there are things like my sticker albums from elementary school that are just difficult to let go -- an entire page of scratch-and-sniff stickers, and the pizza one still smells! There are things from high school and college as well -- prom pictures, class notes.

I came across some unfinished letters I'd written to my college roommates after they graduated and I was still in summer school wondering if my double major was such a good idea after all. The letters were all poignant for one reason or another -- I smiled through tears as I read a letter about the wedding of a roommate, for instance. But one of the letters particularly upset me. It contained a word-for-word account of a conversation I had had with my father -- one of the conversations in which I was told no man would ever want me.

I had forgotten just how painful it all was -- the intense anger and the feelings of worthlessness, the way I loved and hated each man I met, the way I assumed they were all as disgusted by me as my father was, the way I both dared and begged them to prove him wrong. As much as I loved college, as much fun as I had with my roommates, I am glad that time in my life is over. It was several years before I began to realize my father might be wrong, and even longer before I truly believed he was wrong.

And lately, when I think back, sometimes I wonder if it really happened at all. Maybe I imagined those cruel words coming from his mouth. How could the man who so totally adores my children and treats them with such tenderness, have said those things to me? I must have made it all up, right? Or provoked him? Or allowed the memory to become an unfair exaggeration of the truth?

Yet here is a letter I wrote only two days after an incident about which I had completely forgotten. I remember pieces of earlier conversations -- ones in high school and one in my freshman or sophomore year of college. But the one I wrote of in that unfinished letter I had allowed myself to forget totally.

It reminds me that I have exaggerated nothing, that in fact I have allowed myself some forgetting, choosing to forgive rather than hold on to every wrong. I am glad about the forgiveness, and in some ways the forgetting. Yet I don't want to forget completely -- I need to remember that it happened, that I shouldn't let my guard down completely, that I have a daughter to protect, that it wasn't my fault.

I hold it in my hand and can't let go of it, this yellowed piece of paper, my absolution.