A Super Duper, Fan-Packed Weekend. Seriously.

My husband just said he thinks this is the best weekend we have had since we moved here last fall. I agree. The only thing that could have made it better would have been a "date night" for my husband and me. But we can't be greedy.

On Saturday we took the kids to the park for a romp on the playground and a picnic in the grass. There happened to be a walk-a-thon for autism going on at the park, so there were a lot more kids on the playground than usual. My favorite part of the playground experience was that there were autistic kids and "typical" kids, and for the most part, no one could tell who was who. With all the other kids on the playground, my kids learned a little about taking turns, too -- we don't get out much, so at first my son didn't get the concept of getting in line and waiting his turn for the slide, but by the time we left, he was much more confident.

I love this particular park. The play equipment is built into the landscape. There aren't ladders to the slides; the slides are built right into the hillside so you walk right up to them and sit down. That also means they're fully supported underneath so that fat mamas like me can slide down with their little ones without having to worry about weight restrictions. Yea! I had forgotten how much fun it was to slide! I admit to being a little disappointed when my daughter started sliding down by herself.

She is as much a daredevil as my son is cautious. He is the sort who will stand at the edge of the playground until we coax him first onto the sand, then up to the slide . . . where he sits and sits and then has to move over and let other kids slide and then he sits and sits some more until at last he gets the courage to go down, and then onto the swings . . . where he screams if he goes too high. My daughter, on the other hand, giggles like mad the higher she goes, and she loves the slides (although my husband and I nearly have a heart attack every time she flies down, her tiny body wobbling from side to side).

In the afternoon, we took the kids for ice cream. My son had never been to an ice cream parlor before, but I have to hand it to him: the kid knows how to order his food. He said he wanted strawberry ice cream (which he's never tried before, and which he didn't even know they had). My husband asked if he wanted anything mixed in with it, and I was just opening my mouth to list some examples for my son, when he shouted, "Oreos!" So strawberry ice cream it was, with Oreos mixed in.

The kids had their fun yesterday. Today, however, was my day. I did something I haven't done since before the kids were born: I went shopping by myself, for myself. I walked at a leisurely pace, didn't have to worry about strollers or sippy cups or getting finished before nap time. I wasted time looking at things I didn't need. I tried on lots and lots of clothes and bought a few things for the summer.

Have you ever noticed that in department stores, the plus size women's clothing is usually on a separate floor from the other clothing? I think it's funny. I pass by all these pretty skirts and trendy tops until I come to the escalator. "See ya!" I call to all the thin shoppers, "I'm heading up to the Fat Racks!" And there, at the top of the escalator, is a lovely muumuu made just for me. No, seriously, fat clothes have gotten a lot better. I found some stuff I actually liked, stuff that makes me feel young. Uh-oh, does that say more about the current state of plus size clothing, or my old lady taste?

Anyway, I came home refreshed and rejuvenated, and now I'm ready to face the world in something other than spit-up stained t-shirts and worn-out jeans. Um, except tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, I have nowhere to go. Hm.

But the weekend, I'm telling you, was great.

Teething

We're teething. The little one is the one getting the new teeth, but we're all feeling the pain. Nobody's getting much sleep, and we're all a little grumpy.

Yesterday morning, after my daughter finished a very long screaming session, she finally decided she would sit in her chair and eat breakfast. We enjoyed about two minutes of calm before my son ran over and took her bowl away from her. She began screaming all over again, very loudly, her fists clenched, her body shaking, even after the bowl was returned, even after I offered to feed her, even after we were all offering her our own breakfasts. As my frustrated husband was putting my son in time-out, he asked, "Do you like to hear her scream?" My son, wide-eyed, whispered, "No. Turn it off."

Last night my daughter, all screamed out, slept very well. However, as I said, we're all teething, so my son, used to waking to his sister's wails at 5:00 A.M., began wailing himself around that time. "It's still nighttime, sweetie. Go back to sleep," I called.

He continued to scream. We tried to ignore him and tried to get back to sleep. I thought the screams were getting louder, and I was just pulling the cover over my head to drown them out when a little face appeared at my bedside.

"Mommy!" my son wailed, "I want you to come in my room and get me out of bed!"

"That doesn't even make sense," I muttered.

"MOMMY! I NEED YOU!" he shrieked in my ear.

Cursing about Skinner's rats and intermittent reinforcement, I reluctantly got up.

I guess I figure the kid means business when he braves the dark hallway alone. When I was a kid, I would yell for my parents, but I would never, and I mean NEVER, venture through the dark house to their room. From my bed, I could see a green, coffin-shaped storage trunk in the living room, and I knew that Frankenstein would come out of it and grab me and bite me if I were to walk past in the dark. Yeah, Frankenstein. I didn't quite have that whole vampire/regenerated tissue thing worked out in my mind back then.

We don't have a coffin-shaped trunk in our house. In fact, there's not much scary in between the kids' rooms and ours. It's a straight shot. Lucky little dogs. You know, I'm calling my mom right now to see if that green trunk is still in her basement. I bet it would fit nicely right outside our bedroom door. That ought to buy us some sleep.

Thoughts on Giving Up Dieting

It's been more than two years since I officially gave up dieting. They've been the most freeing two years of my life (um, okay, except for the part where I'm not allowed to go to the bathroom without at least one diapered escort -- but that has nothing to do with dieting).

Why, you might ask, would I do something so crazy as to give up dieting? Why would I decide to just "let myself go"? Here's why.

• There is a ton of evidence that yo-yo dieting, and perhaps even weight loss in general, is worse for one's health than is just being fat. (See this post on Alas (a Blog) for just a taste of the truth.)
• Diet after diet after diet after diet after diet, and the results were always the same: temporary weight loss followed by out-of-control binge-ing and horrible guilt and sometimes purging and eventually the regaining of the weight I had lost plus a good bit more. It was making me bigger.
• The most unhealthy relationship I have ever had with food was when I was the closest I have ever been to my "ideal" weight. Yes, I was able maintain, at least for a few months, a weight of only five pounds above my "ideal" weight, but only if I a) restricted myself to a 1000 calorie a day diet, and b)exercised vigorously (high impact aerobics, jogging) for sixty to ninety minutes a day six days a week. The feelings of desperation I had when near a piece of cake back then are enough to remind me that what I was doing was NOT normal.

How has giving up dieting, America's favorite pastime, changed my life?

• Now that I have given up dieting and legalized all foods, I no longer feel those out-of-control cravings for cake, donuts, etc. I have actually had to throw away sweets that went bad because I don't feel the need to eat them. That NEVER would have happened before.
• Two years since giving up dieting, I am now able to enjoy salads without having flashbacks of starvation. I eat things like cucumbers and broccoli and black beans (You knew that was coming, didn't you?) because I love them, not because they are required diet fare.
• I now eat when I am hungry, not when the diet book says I can eat, and not when I have some extra calories/points/fat grams/carbs to which I am entitled.
• I am learning to recognize when I am full. I am learning to stop when my body says I've had enough, not when Weight Watchers/Dr. Phil/my father/the carb police say I have used up all my calories/points/fat grams/carbs.
• I am finally able to separate issues of health from issues of weight and to choose fruits and veggies and whole grains because they taste good and are good for my body -- not because they might make me smaller.
• My children are learning things that I didn't learn (or that I knew and forgot years ago?) until my thirties. At dinner the other day, my son said, "I'm not going to finish this strawberry because I'm full. My body is saying I had enough." He can stop mid-strawberry! One day I want to be that in tune with my body.
• I move my body because it feels good to do so and because it's good for my health, not because it burns calories. I now know that I love to walk, practice yoga, play tennis, swim, dance, mow the yard, and garden. I used to do many of those things as a way to punish myself, not for fun.

Sure, I have a long way to go to undo the damage I've done to myself in a ridiculous quest to be something I'm not. I'm getting there. Despite being big and looking the farthest from "normal" I've ever looked, this is without a doubt the most normal I have ever been.

My Gutters Have Been Cleaned!

And not by my husband.

(Ahem. Okay. Promising to behave myself now.)

We finally found some home repair folks to fix our water problems. A team of one loud guy and one quiet guy arrived yesterday while the kids and I were on the front porch watching the rain.

Loud Guy asked if I had a water hose, so I plucked my daughter from her precarious perch on the porch glider and took her with me the short distance to enter the code on the garage door opener. Loud Guy said, "Hey, let me hold 'er. She's gonna get wet!"

"Thank goodness," I said, handing my child over to the almost complete stranger, "because, well, she's never been wet before. We've always had her dry cleaned."

Okay, okay.

What I really said was, "She'll be all right. It'll just take me a second," and I took her with me. It was only sprinkling, and the kid had been climbing down from the porch and darting out into the yard just to make me chase her, so she had already proven she wouldn't melt, and I was worried she might turn the glider over since she did turn a rocking chair over last week.

Loud Guy followed us, trying to hold his jacket over her head and breathing right in her face as he told her he wouldn't want her to get sick.

Once Loud Guy found the water hose, the kids and I went inside so we wouldn't be in the way (read: so the kids wouldn't try to climb the ladder). Then it was time for an afternoon snack, which my children ate happily at the picture window, sippy cups resting on the window sill, heads tilted back and eyes peering up at Quiet Guy's feet on the ladder, gazes occasionally following a small clump of leaves as it was tossed to the ground.

Loud Guy followed their gaze, looked at the leaves on the front lawn, and yelled up, "Hey, put them leaves in a bag! I got a bag right here!"

Then Loud Guy announced he'd found the source of our basement leak: a crack in the concrete drain in front of the garage. He fixed it with some concrete caulking maybe.

Maybe. We've already had to mop up several gallons of water downstairs, but it did rain quite a bit before Loud Guy and Quiet guy got everything fixed. We'll have to wait until the next rain to find out if our money was well spent.

After they left, I looked out the window at the back yard and saw that Quiet Guy had gone back to dumping leaves into the yard when Loud Guy wasn't looking. So after my husband got home, I raked them up in the rain . . . which only proves how desperate I was to get out of the house for a while.

Yea, Me-Time.

Stuttering at Work

Results of a survey by Professor Marshall Rice of the Schulich School of Business at York University, Toronto, indicate that more than half of stutterers believe their stuttering has been an obstacle in their employment. Furthermore,

. . . 42 percent felt a job interview was "cut short." Fourteen percent said an employer told them directly that they would not be hired for a position because of their stuttering.

Shortened interviews? Yeah, that's definitely happened to me. I'm pretty close to being among the fourteen percent, as well. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, though, so perhaps the rejection letter I received from an employer accusing me of lacking "honesty and forthrightness" for not having specifically told her that I stuttered meant that my failure to state the obvious, not the stuttering itself, cost me the job.

I truly believe that when I go into an interview, or most any other situation, I have an obligation to make my listeners feel as comfortable as possible and to educate them about my speech when necessary and appropriate. I also know that it is incredibly difficult to know just how to carry out those obligations during a job interview. I've tried numerous techniques, and they all failed at one time or another.

Before I was to graduate with my undergrad degree, I approached a professor who frequently sat on interview panels and asked his opinion about how I should deal with my stuttering, since it would no doubt show itself during an interview. Should I raise the issue to put the interviewers at ease, or should I just let them figure it out? He thought about it for a while and got back to me the next day. His suggestion: mention it if I was comfortable doing so.

So I did. During the first interview, I was frank and told the employer that, as he had most certainly noticed, I did stutter, and that, as it should be clear from my transcript, my student teaching evaluations and my letters of reference, I had never allowed my speech to interfere with my work. The employer looked me square in the eye and said, "Lady, you need to lower your paranoia level."

That went well, now, didn't it?

In my second interview, once I mentioned my stutter, the employer refused to look me in the eye at all.

Oh, brother.

In my third interview, I was frank about my speech, and then promptly and rudely was told that I was not allowed to talk about it because of the ADA. The interview ended shortly thereafter.

What the . . . ?

So for my fourth interview, in an effort to avoid "breaking the law," scaring people, or being "paranoid," I changed my game plan. That's when I just stuttered my way through without mentioning it . . . and received the "honesty and forthrightness" letter.

ARGH!

The truth of the matter, though, is that I eventually got the kind of job I really wanted: a job teaching at a residential school for the deaf. I can't remember now what was said about my stuttering in that interview, but I know for a fact that the employer was much more interested in how I signed than in how I spoke. (Would you believe it was the only interview in which signing was even a component? But that's another post for another day.)

As for me, once I was employed (in my first teaching job and my subsequent one), I don't think I was overlooked or underestimated because of my stuttering. I'm one of the lucky ones, though. I have a feeling there are many less forgiving professions than the field of special education.

Remembering the Six Million

Today is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.

To read or listen to the stories of a few survivors, click here.

"The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference." -- Eli Wiesel

Normal Disfluency

Shortly after the release of the why questions, my son's brain also declared, "Prepare to enter stage of normal disfluency! All systems go!" That's right. He's entered the land of normal developmental stuttering. My son is definitely repeating sounds, words, and entire phrases. It's all "easy" stuttering, with none of the tension, frustration, or blocks, that a real, live adult stutterer would exhibit.

Actually, I noticed it a couple weeks ago, but no one else did, and rather than chalk it up to my super sensitive stuttering radar, I decided maybe I was imagining things. But yesterday my husband and parents both noticed it.

I knew this developmental stage was coming. I spent a lot of time wondering how I would deal with it. And of course, I wonder at what point we will know if the disfluency is temporary or if it will hang around and intensify the way mine did. The odds in favor of fluency for my son aren't the greatest. Stuttering runs in my family. Four of my father's six brothers stutter(ed), as do at least three of my first cousins.

To make the statistics a little more interesting, I am a woman and the only female in my family to stutter. Stuttering is a sex-linked disorder; the vast majority of stutterers are males. A college acquaintance who was a speech pathology student and who stuttered himself, gave me some statistics way back when about the likelihood of a stutterer having children who stutter. I don't remember the exact numbers, but I do know that the sons of female stutterers were the group most likely to stutter themselves.

I have moments when I worry about how well I would do at parenting a child who stutters. I hope my own experience would be an asset, not a liability. I know what it's like. I know what my kids will need to deal with obstacles -- you know, those little obstacles like introducing themselves.

Just a few months ago, for example, when we went to the synagogue in our new town for the first time, I was having some difficulty introducing myself to all the people we were meeting. Not everyone recognized as stuttering all of my blocking and my technique of starting my voice with a neutral "uh" before I set the first sound of my name on it (as in "UhhhhhhhhhhhMmmy name"), so they often made jokes about how I'd forgotten my own name, ha ha. I have developed a pretty thick skin about it and usually just laugh along, but sometimes frustration creeps in.

For me, the most awkward moment to block on my name is when someone is shaking my hand. I try to spit out my name, it takes a very long time, and the whole time the confused person holds onto me. It becomes this intimate hand-holding session when all either of us wanted was a quick shake -- yet the other person is almost always too polite to let go until I've finally finished. At the end of the evening at the synagogue, I was in the midst of just such a hand-holding session with a very nice gentleman when I became frustrated and embarrassed, and said, "Agh! I'm sorry. I stutter, and it's sometimes really hard for me to say my name." The man didn't flinch. He gestured to the elderly man beside him and said, "Oh, so does my father." His father, a stooped and gentle man in his late eighties or early nineties, whose mind was very sharp, took my hand gingerly, smiled into my eyes, and said, "I know. I know. All my life. All my life."

That simple act of kindness and acceptance touched me deeply (I made it to the car before I cried) and comforted me in a way no non-stutterer's kind words ever could. If my son never "outgrows" this period of disfluency, I hope I will be able to look him in the eye and repeat with kindness those same words: "I know. I know. All my life. All my life."

Profit

For the second weekend in a row, I traveled to my parents' house. This time, however, the trip was not for pleasure. I had an appointment to answer a ton of health questions and to give a blood sample (for "$1,000 worth of blood tests," according to the nurse) in connection with a health project to see what effect the community's contaminated drinking water has had on our health. For my trouble, I got $400, my main motivation for participating.

When I was growing up, we all knew that the cancer rate for our community was higher than normal. We always blamed the nearby power plants. It wasn't until recently, however, that a chemical company upriver admitted to years of dumping perfluorooctanoic acid into our water supply. Hence the mass testing.

After I had given my answers and my blood, I sat waiting for the receptionist to print my check. I couldn't help but notice a family with three children. The oldest child, who couldn't have been older than ten or eleven, was particularly striking. She had a very short and trendy haircut, dark little waves lying close to her head. She stood out, perhaps because the rest of the family, and most of the rest of the community for that matter, didn't look nearly so trendy. I wondered if she had asked for that haircut.

The girl's father was shuffling through a pile of documents trying to prove that he and his family had been residents of the area during at least one full year in which contamination occurred. The only problem was with his eldest daughter's documents; somehow the name of the elementary school had been left off her report card. The father, although polite, was becoming a little flustered. All the while, though, the girl looked on with the calmest eyes I have ever seen -- wide, brown, and deeply calm. I thought again how stunning she was. The receptionist was trying hard to find them a loophole so that testing could be done. Finally, she suggested a bank statement from the girl's savings account -- that, she said, would provide an address and tell the date the account was opened. The family stepped outside the cramped trailer to make a cell phone call.

As the receptionist printed my check, she said to her coworker, "We have to find a way to get that little girl tested."

"Why?" the other woman asked.

"You didn't know?" the receptionist continued. "She has cancer."

Suddenly I understood the "trendy" hair style and those eyes. I felt a lump in my throat. The receptionist handed me my check. I was disgusted by my profit.

What the Intermarried Talk About

(The following is a conversation my husband and I had early in our marriage.)

She: Have you ever wondered why you never hear of people today having the last names of certain people from history? For example --

He: You mean like Christ?

She: (Laughs) What?

He: Seriously. I've never seen the name Christ in a phone book.

She: You do know that Christ wasn't Jesus's last name, right?

He: What? Wasn't it? Then why are people always calling him Jesus Christ.

She: Christ is a title, not a name. It means anointed or savior or something. It's not a last name.
He: Are you sure?

She: Yeah. I mean, it wasn't like "Mary and Joseph Christ."

He: It wasn't?

She: No!

He: Oh, that's right! Mary's last name was Magdalene.

She: No, no, no. That was a different Mary.

He: Then what was his last name?

She: He didn't have one.

He: What do you mean he didn't have one?

She: Well, I don't think people had last names back then.

He: Are you sure?

She: Pretty sure.

He: Hmm.

She: I mean, it's like Moses. Moses didn't have a last name.

He: (frowns skeptically)

(A few moments of silence)

He: Well, what about Judas Priest?

A-Z Meme

I wanted an easy post for today, so I took this meme from Jack.

A-Z Meme

Accent: A bit of an Appalachian accent when speaking. A bit of a "hearing accent" when using American Sign Language

Booze: Not much of a drinker. Do wine coolers count?

Chore I Hate: Putting away the folded laundry

Dogs/Cats: 2 cats, but I love dogs, too

Essential Electronics: Computer with Internet access

Favorite Perfume/Cologne: Anything other than baby spit-up

Gold & Silver: Whatever. Silver, I guess.

Hometown: Teeny tiny town in the hills of Appalachia

Insomnia: Rarely

Job Title: MOMMY!

Kids: A son and a daughter, ages almost 3 and 17 months respectively

Living Arrangements: In a house, with hubby and kids

Most Admired Trait: Admired by whom? If you ask my kids, it's my ability to make sandwiches and cut up fruit. If you ask my husband, it's . . . well, something else entirely.

Number of Sexual Partners: Sorry, but I am NOT giving out his number.

Overnight Hospital Stays: Four in all, the last of which, for a c-section from hell with a side of pre-eclampsia, lasted for thirteen days.

Phobia: Blood and spiders . . . but not so much bloody spiders.

Quote: Books are for reading, not for eating. (Sigh. I must say this twenty times a day.)

Religion: Raised Methodist, baptised because I was afraid of the demons from the sewer in Ghost, married to a Jew, raising Jewish children, considering conversion.

Siblings: One

Time I Usually Wake Up: When the little people make me.

Unusual Talent: I do a damn good chicken imitation.

Vegetable I Refuse To Eat: Refuse is a strong word, but I tend to avoid celery.

Worst Habit: Being indecisive. Well, no, no, wait. Maybe it's . . . oh, I'll have to think about it.

X-Rays: Yeah, I've had some of those.

Yummy Foods I Make: black bean soup, pasta with pomodora sauce, chocolate almond cake

Zodiac Sign: Capricorn

HTM-Hell

Dude. I don't know what I did to my sidebar. It's messed up. The headings are somehow included in the previous links. I've looked at the template. I've forced my husband to look at the template. I even looked at the template while standing on my Gorilla Ladder. All to no avail. Any ideas?

Gotta Get My Mind Outta the Gutter

Our midnight mopping sessions have continued. The day before yesterday I mopped up two giant Fresh Step kitty litter buckets full of basement water, and then my husband mopped up another half bucket when he got home. The good news is that we think we have figured out the source of the problem: our gutters.

The gutter above the spot where the basement leaks seems to be leaking. There's a slow, two-day drip after every little rain, and during a major rainstorm, the water just pours out over the edges of the gutter. We cleaned the leaves out late last fall, but apparently something still isn't right. We decided the downspout must be clogged.

So I added "call gutter people" to Monday's to-do list. I found the number for a handyman service that does gutters. When I called, I spoke with a very sincere-sounding man who, I immediately detected, stuttered. I have a stuttering radar. I can detect a person's stutter before he or she so much as repeats one syllable. It sounds mysterious, but after reading the book Blink, I am convinced that I am just "thin-slicing" and recognizing in other speakers the same teeny tiny stuttering (or trying-not-to-stutter) behaviors that I myself exhibit.

I don't remember the journal or the article or anything else, so feel free to accuse me of making this crap up, but when I was in college, I read about research in which brain activity was scanned for stutters and non-stutterers. During speech, the brain activity of the two groups was drastically different. The fascinating part, however, was that even during non-speech activities such as wiggling the fingers, the brain activity of the two groups was very different. So if stutterers do lots of stuff just a tad differently from other folks, it does seem logical that I might subconsciously find some other stutterer's actions familiar. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm off on a tangent. I know.

Anyway, the sincere stuttering guy, who didn't actually stutter until very late in the conversation, and then only enough for most people to think he was "just nervous" (a pet peeve of mine and another blog entry entirely), quoted me a fair price, promised a free estimate, said he could get gutter covers for me for 10-15% less than the price at Lowe's, and told me one of his workers would be here Tuesday morning. Um, Tuesday was yesterday. I'm still waiting. Wanting to give them the benefit of the doubt, I called back late Tuesday afternoon and asked if there had been a mix-up, and sincere stuttering guy's wife assured me that the guy who was supposed to give me the estimate would call with an explanation "as soon as he comes in the door." That was yesterday afternoon. It's Wednesday now. I guess he's still not back.

So, highly irritated that I couldn't give sincere stuttering guy my business, I did the next best thing and called a "handylady" who was advertised in the phone book. She charged fifteen dollars more per hour and said I would have to buy the gutter covers myself. I told her I would think about it.

Grumbling and frustrated, I put the kids to bed this afternoon, got out the Gorilla Ladder, which I have to admit makes me feel all-powerful, the water hose, a straightened wire hanger, and a pair of rubber gloves, and went to work. The downspout had a few leaves in it, but not many, and when I put the water hose in, I saw the water come out the bottom. That was a good sign. I checked the gutter right over the basement leak, the place where the drip occurs, and it also seemed mostly clean except for a think layer of silt. Then I squirted some water in . . . and it flowed the wrong way . . . as in away from the downspout. Uh-oh. What causes that? I do not know. Even with the awesome power bestowed upon me by the Gorilla Ladder, I cannot answer that question.

Am I going to have to call in the Big Guns, the gutter salespeople? I'm sure they'll tell me the whole thing needs to be replaced, even if it's a minor problem. Grumble, grumble, grumble. I'm stumped.

Oh, and I was wrong. Those aren't calla lilies after all. That's gotta be a baaaaaad omen.

Why Oh Why

I noticed about a month ago that my son was asking "why" questions but was not yet using the word why. He created some rather convoluted syntax in order to ask his questions. Instead of asking, "Why did you say that to her?" he would ask, "What did she do that you said that?" I'm fascinated by language development and felt downright giddy every time he came up with something like that.

But then, of course, I started to wonder if he was on track or whether he should already know how to use why. I kept meaning to look up the age at which children begin to use why, but before I got around to it, I heard him use it for the first time. He'd been using it every now and again since.

And then last night during his sleep, his brain must have sounded the trumpet and called out to his mouth, "Release the WHY questions!" Today the whys have been endless. For the first couple hours, I found this new stage of development fascinating.

And then it just became annoying.

Spring Surprises

Do you ever get the feeling the universe is telling you you are just where you are supposed to be? This spring is giving me that feeling.

Shortly after we moved last fall, I remembered the lilacs I left in our old yard. My father had dug them up from my parents' yard, and I had transplanted them. They were tiny, but each year they got bigger and even started blooming two years ago. I wished I had brought them. I realized I would miss my pink hyacinths, my tulips, and all my lilies, too.

Then early this spring, when the tree at the corner of our new house began to bud, I realized it was a lilac, more than three times the size of the ones I had left behind. I then spotted hyacinths and tulips coming up in the back yard. And last week I figured out that the familiar-looking flowers coming up at the side of the house were calla lilies, some of my favorites and the last bulbs I had planted at our old house.

I told my mom last week that the only thing I needed to add would be some peonies. I hadn't gotten around to planting them at our old house, but they were next on my list. During our visit to my parents' house this weekend, though, I took one look at my parents' peonies and realized that they looked exactly like the two little bushes coming up on our backyard.

A coincidence? Probably. But I can't help feeling this house was meant for us.

Now if I can just figure out where the previous owners planted that dishwasher . . .

Dai, Dayenu . . . I'll, I'll Weigh You

Our Seder went well. My husband did a great job leading it, and the kids loved singing the songs and looking for the afikomen. Grandma didn't seem offended at all by the real wine (it's grape juice all the way at her church), perhaps partly because my uncle, a minister himself and my grandma's favorite son-in-law, chose to drink all four glasses of wine. He has always been wonderful to us, setting an excellent example for the rest of my family when it comes to dealing with our intermarriage. He even brought his own yarmulke. I was touched, as I know my husband was. My mother-in-law also had nothing but wonderful things to say about him after the Seder.

The only negative part of the evening was that my father did not show up. His not coming would not have surprised or bothered me nearly as much if he had not promised my son repeatedly that he would attend. When my mother arrived alone, my son began to wail. I asked my mother why my father hadn't come, and she said he didn't say. The poor kid wailed louder. After he had calmed down a bit, I excused myself, went to another room, and called my dad. Long story short: my father, in his typical passive-aggressive manner, was punishing my mother because of some argument they had had, and my little boy was the one who got hurt. My father has broken his promises to me a hundred times, but somehow I hoped my children would never know that part of his personality. At the very least, I hoped they wouldn't have to know it until they were out of diapers.

Saturday morning we were to go to my parents' house. My husband was not thrilled about going there after my father's childish behavior, but we piled into the car and went anyway.

And here's the really fun part. When we walked into my parents' house, my dad immediately picked up my son and said, "You're really growing! Let's go see how much you weigh!" This has become a habit of his -- weigh the kids before we're even all in the door. I realize weighing toddlers isn't unheard of, but this is the man who taught me that my weight is inversely proportional to my value, and I'm not letting him teach my children that lesson. I've had enough. Now, I don't think quickly on my feet, and I was trying to plan what I was going to say to keep the great weigh-in from happening while avoiding World War III. Well, let's just say that while I was searching for the right words, my husband found some of his own that got the point across quite nicely, and neither of my children was weighed.

Have I mentioned how much I love my husband?

From the Junk Drawer

Some miscellaneous ramblings . . .

• I'm totally on a black bean kick lately. Last night I made black bean and carrot quesadillas, and today I had a black bean burger for breakfast and another for lunch. Yummy.

• Being a grown-up almost made me forget that dandelions can stain your hands and that the best place to find bugs is under a big rock.

• We're hosting a big (well, big for our small house, anyway) Passover Seder in a few days and have invited some of my family members, including my grandmother who knows very little about Judaism and who has probably never been in the same room with an open bottle of wine in her life. My husband said, "Is your grandma going to think less of me when I drink four glasses of wine?" I replied, "Well, you'll get lots of extra points for leading us in all the religious readings and prayers. Yeah, sure, she'll think you're a lush, but a religious lush, so it'll all even out."

• I'm allergic to something. I pulled weeds yesterday and now have bumpy, itchy hands. I've never gotten poison ivy in my life, and goodness knows I've been exposed to lots of it before, so I doubt that's what it is. Hmm. If I find out it's a reaction to black beans, I'm going to be seriously upset.

Vocational Testing for the Pre-Schooler

My son will be three next month. Already there are some clues about his future vocation. Judging from his words, I see several career paths emerging as potential fits for my son. For example:

1. Spin Doctor/Politician -- When his little sister tries to join him for a round of "jumping" (bouncing on his knees) on his toddler bed, my son rudely tells her to go away. I remind him that we are nice to each other in this house and that we share. He pauses to think. Finally, gesturing earnestly, he says to his sister, "I don't want you to fell and hurt your head. I sorry, but I just don't think it's an idea." He convinces her.
2. Horticulturist -- Taking his toy lawn mower out into the yard, he says, "Bye, Mommy. I'm going to make some dandelions."
3. Therapist -- "Daddy, are you sad because your daddy died? Do you miss him? Here, I give you a hug."
4. Jewish Farmer -- "Old McDonald had a farm, E-I-E-mayim!"
5. Attorney -- My son sees me give his sister, who has just received a vaccination, some Tylenol, and he asks me for some. I explain that Tylenol is just for people who are sick or who are hurting from, say, a shot. He asks, "If I don't get a shot and I take Tylenol, will it make me sick?" I answer that it might. "Then can I take Tylenol because I'm sick?"
6. Doctor -- In the middle of Shabbat dinner, my son blurts out, "Grandma, do you have a 'bagina'?"

Hindsight Is 20/20, or, Home Sweet Money Pit

This evening after we put the kids to bed, my husband and I sneaked downstairs together for a repeat of last night's little rendezvous -- a romantic adventure for two mopping the gallons of murky water that had seeped into one room of our basement.

Since we moved in last September, I have, like a brilliant detective, solved one after another the mysteries of the peculiar items the previous occupant left in the shed. First there were the tarps. Three of them. Each one folded neatly and placed on a shelf. They had smears of dried mud on them. First I just thought the previous owner had a tarp fetish. But why, then, would he have left them here? By November, we had figured it out. The dozen or more oak trees on our property drop a lot of leaves, and one of the easiest ways to get rid of them (as we learned from watching neighbors) is to rake them onto a tarp and drag them down over the hill.

First mystery solved.

Then there was the mystery of the snow shovels. There were two in the shed in the backyard. For snow, right? Ah, one would think so, except that another snow shovel had been left in the garage near the front of the house. November solved that mystery for us, also, when we realized the leaves in the backyard were too numerous to rake. The top layers could be dealt with more easily with snow shovels, until only a reasonably rake-able layer was left.

Second mystery solved.

Most peculiar of all to us was the large, industrial size, heavy duty, custodian's mop bucket on wheels with the built-in mop squeegee. Last night solved that mystery. We wheeled the sucker out to sop up the mess in our basement.

Third mystery solved.

Let this be a lesson to you. If the previous occupant of your new home leaves you a mop bucket on wheels, expect to use it. Our home inspector gave us some clues, too, that we didn't understand until now. As he walked through the extraordinarily clean basement, he said with what struck me as a bit of sarcasm, "Oh, a fresh paint job. Well isn't that nice."

This is the same inspector who spent such a long time looking at the floor around the base of the toilet. He pressed on it with his foot. He got down on all fours. He went to the basement and shone a flashlight up underneath the bathroom floor. Finally, he muttered, "Eh, yeah, it's okay." Well, last month we had to replace the seal around the base of the toilet, and the plumber announced that although the subflooring around it was fine, the wood floor beneath the linoleum was rotten. I guess that's what "Eh, yeah, it's okay" means. Next time I'm going to get a home inspector who comes right out and says things instead of leaving little clues. I've had enough of this detective business.

I hesitate even to mention this, but I also found in the shed a peculiar box with wooden stakes, holy water, crosses, and a nearly empty can of Vampire-B-Gone. Hm. Wonder what that could mean.

In Which I Unabashedly Brag About My Offspring

At sixteen months old, my daughter is saying a whole slew of words, well over a hundred at last count. I am amazed by her vocabulary, perhaps because it is so much more extensive than my son's was at that age. She not only tries to say almost everything, but she manages to say it all so cutely.

And now I shall bore you with a few of my favorites:

• Rabbup (rabbit)
• Boop (book)
• Pup (up)
• Puppies! (Up, please!)
• ARRRROOOOOOO? (Where are you?)
• Mac (macaroni and cheese)
• Chee (cheese)
• Bapple (apple)
• Meel (mail)
• Rayrer (Ranger, the neighbor's dog)
• Brow (eyebrow)
• Bobbum (bottom)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so my background in language development and linguistics tells me why she says her words the way she does, but nothing, I tell you, nothing can explain that cuteness.

Clean House, Empty Head

At last! I have accomplished enough today that I can blog without guilt.

So far, I have dressed the kids, fed them breakfast and lunch, changed several diapers, rushed my son to the potty numerous times, cleaned up two of his accidents, put the kids down for a nap, washed two loads of clothes, folded three loads of clothes, tidied the kids' rooms, vacuumed the carpet, scrubbed the kids' booster seats and chairs, and washed the dishes.

Okay, blog time, here I come!

Crap. Now I don't know what to write about.

Irked

I am so easily wounded. It's one of my worst faults, you know. Or at least that's what I've always been told -- I'm too sensitive. But now, with thirty-four years of hyper-sensitivity under my belt, I've realized something: it's a gift, really. It's just the underbelly of empathy and compassion. So sure, go ahead and call me sensitive. It's no longer a source of shame; it's just something about me.

But I digress. My point was going to be that I was wounded yesterday . . . by a post on a blog I've only recently started reading (and which will, at least for the time being, remain anonymous) but with which I have otherwise been impressed. I was wounded by the words of a person I don't know, a person who has never met me, a person who was simply stating his (unfortunately, very popular) opinion.

The blogger, who appears to be educated and intelligent, said, "It is one thing for parents to be overweight, but children. This just irks me. It is just wrong. Why are so many children overweight."

I read that, and then the rest of my day was crappy, until finally, during my evening walk, I thought and thought about what he had said, what I believe, and why the words of this total stranger hurt me so much.

First of all, the part of his post that bothered me the most was the word "irk." It doesn't concern him, or worry him, or even trouble him. It "irks" him. In other words, it annoys him that there are chubby kids. It disgusts him that fat children exist.

I'm particularly sensitive to reactions of disgust. My father was disgusted by my body. I would say my fat definitely irked him. He wasn't worried about my health. He wasn't concerned about my emotional well-being. He was irked by my appearance. He was disgusted by my shape. He was offended by the space I took up. And that is why I was the only eight-year-old who counted her calories, the only kid in my class to skip trick-or-treating. Everything he did to make me smaller over the course of my childhood worked temporarily, only to send my weight rebounding to more than the pre-diet weight. I am sure I continue to irk and disgust my father to this day, and I would bet money he is not the only one who is "irked" by my size.

But I've learned patience over the years. More than being the fat kid, being the kid with with the stutter taught me that those worth having around will get over their initial recoiling at the sound of my voice, or the sight of my wide derriere. They'll figure me out, if I just give them enough time. And when I was a kid, they did. Really, I find it amazing that I wasn't made fun of more when I was little. Sure, it happened sometimes, especially when I met new people, but the vast majority of the people who initially rejected or made fun of me at least came to keep a respectful distance if they didn't end up being downright friendly. I'm not sure why that is. Was it something about my personality? Was it the inherent goodness of people? Was it dumb luck? I don't know. I just know that I, the fat stuttering kid, made it through childhood relatively un-bullied.

To this day, when faced with people who are disgusted by me, I use the same patience I learned as a kid. Perhaps to an extreme, I will give people the time to figure me out, refraining from intervening on my own behalf when I learn that others have gotten a false impression of me. What? She thinks I'm stupid? Ah, I'll let her figure it out. What? He thinks I'm fearful? Ah, I'll let him figure it out. What? She thinks I know nothing about nutrition? Ah, I'll let her figure it out. What? He thinks I never exercise? Ah, I'll let him figure it out.

But that patience, I'm finding, does not transfer to my own children. If someone is "irked" by my child's weighing more than the chart in the doctor's office allows, I have very little patience for that.

When my daughter was born three weeks early, she already weighed over eight pounds. From her first visit to the pediatrician's office, my daughter's weight was off the charts. If I hadn't already experienced my son's pediatric visits, I would never have known how differently my daughter was being treated. Once my daughter was weighed at each visit, the nurses became curt, their faces judgmental. They didn't smile at my daughter or talk to her or offer to show her the fish in the aquarium. The focus of each visit was her weight . . . so that I would have to remind and remind them of any other concerns. It wasn't until my daughter's most recent check-up, when her weight was finally within "normal" limits, did the doctor remember to check the three hemangiomas on my daughter's torso without having to be reminded numerous times. They also talked to her, smiled at her. They were, apparently, no longer "irked."

What did I do to make my daughter so much more acceptable? What did she do? Nothing. I just fed her the same way I've always fed her, the same way I've always fed my son, and she just grew the same way she had been. But isn't it funny that suddenly, when her body naturally happens to weigh within these somewhat arbitrary parameters set by the medical establishment, my daughter is worth everybody's time.

I don't know why kids are getting fatter these days. Maybe it's for the same reason they're getting taller. Maybe it is, as so many claim, because of "junk food." Is fat really the cause of health problems, or is it a condition that is caused by the same things that cause many health problems, a condition that often exists alongside health problems? Either way, let's focus on encouraging healthy habits for all kids, not just the fat ones. And let's take some time to examine our attitudes toward fat people . . . because prejudice is certainly no healthier than fat.

Monday Newsworthlessness

For the scores upon scores of readers left dangling on the edges of your seats over the weekend wondering about our big fight, I shall reassure you. We have made up. We don't tend to stay mad long. I'm not saying every problem went away when we made up, but at least we are back to our usual mode of trying to deal with problems together.

In other news, the big oak tree in our front yard finally lost its last autumn (??)leaves yesterday in a wind storm. Um, it's April. And, of course, the wind storm happened only hours after I had sucked up some stray leaves along the front of the house with the leaf blower from hell -- which cost too much, weighs too much, and does indeed "suck" and "blow," although not in the way I had hoped.