Author Archives: Naptimewriting

Pouring your heart out through nasal passages

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I had a really clever post lined up at dinnertime, but once toy cleanup and bath and jammies and teeth and light show and stories and songs and all that jazz wound up I drew a blank.

And in my mentally weakened state, I’m pondering this deep bit of uselessness:   can we compost snot?

If you toss used tissues, they end up in a landfill. Bad. If you flush used tissues it uses valuable water and expensive waste treatment. Bad. If you flush used tissues only when there is other, less savory solid matter in the toilet, too, the sewage treatment involves straining out the wood pulp and the mucus and the white blood cells and the microbes to make pure biosolids, which are composted.

So if the water treament facility composts my kid’s snot, can’t I?

And there you are, ladies and gentlemen. No bottom to the housing market, but the bottom of my intellectual development. The lowest I’ve sunk in my brain dead tenure as a stay-at-home idiot. I could have been a contender. I had game in all twenty of my previous careers. I was a fundamentally bright person.

Now I’m contemplating disposal methods for green Kleenex. Summa cum laude.

Bookworm raises my hackles

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Today was the first day in four years that I played bookworm. I won’t link to it here because it’s addictive and I don’t want to be a pusher.

But here’s the thing. That game has more made up words than any round of Scrabble from my childhood. And I know…we used to spend our turns at grandma’s reading the entire dictionary for the letters we had. I learned “xat” and “firn” while reading the unabridged. Our turns took so long that we all played Rummy as a side game while the other cheaters “thought” about their letters with a dictionary.

Anyway, I play bookworm to win, despite the fact that no matter how many points you get they pretend you’re the king of all lexicography, making up titles to stroke the ego of even the lest compitent player. After my thesis was submitted I played a marathon game that netted more than a million points and I went online to find out how awesome I was in the bookworm geek community. Turns out there’s no hierarchy or bragging rights because every point you get earns you a new title. And all of the six or seven people who cared were all bragging about a couple hundred thousand points. Pedestrian.

Tonight, in hour three of play, I worked my way to the word “Tuesday.” Took a lot of playing just the right side of the board, because I had to wait and wait and wait for a “y”. Well, bookworm says Tuesday is not a word. It, does, however, accept the following:
trad
quate
waly
caff
seis
jee (come on, seriously, it’s gee.)
shott (come on, seriously, even chott is pushing it)
lang (seriously? I get the whole British thing, but not the ancient Scots)

but it won’t accept Tuesday (or shrove. Or Narnia or Jedi, but I get those. Purists. I gotcha.)

Look, it took me almost an hour to get Tuesday. I took a lot of sucky four letter words along that right three columns just to get that word. I wish I could say I’m totally boycotting your game, you maker-up-ers of words.

Unfortunately, I have to go. I got “baroque” last round, and I’m working on hellion just to see if you accept it.

Maybe it was the boogeyman

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Spouse is out of town, and I get very nervous when I’m here alone. It’s better with Peanut here, but I still hear noises, triple lock the door, get weirded out by windows. That kind of nervous.

When the wee one and I got home from the grocery store this evening, I couldn’t find the compost. I could swear Spouse took it out last night and left it clean and empty, just waiting for eggshells this morning. I swear. Where is it? Nowhere.

So I start to get a little paranoid. What if some freaky creepball has figured out how to get in. Doesn’t rob us, doesn’t harm us. Yet. Just plants the seed in my brain by taking the compost. A little teaser. A I Know What You Put inthe Compost Last Summer kind of thing. I start to get freaked out. I look in the garage, I look in the rooms, I check closts. Because serial killers who get their jollies knowing how scared their victims are often hide in closets. Or garages.

Then I look at Peanut. He’s holding, metaphorically, Occam’s Razor in his hand, and trying to stuff it into his new fire engine. To wit: one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything. Or, in laypeople’s terms, don’t make up serial killers when you have a garbage-fascinated three-year old right next to you.

Me: Did you move the compost?
Pea: No.
M: I can’t find it. Have you seen the compost?
P: No. I no touch compost. Trash dirty. No way touch it.
M: I know, sweetie. I’m sure you wouldn’t touch it. But did you move it?
P: No. Maybe cats do it.
(Oh, crap.)

I search until I find it behind the couch, crawling with about three trilion ants. I explain again why we don’t put food in the living room. I explain again why telling Mommy what really happened is important, even if we want the answer to be different.I explain surprisingly calmly, considering it took me three weeks to get these same ants, or the little bastards who look just like ’em, to leave the house last month.

P: [thinking] Maybe the cats move it.
M: Well, Peanut, the cats don’t have hands, and the compost weighs more than they do. So I don’t think that’s what happened. Why did you move it to the living room?
P: Uuuuuuummm, I take it for walk, walk, walk, walk, put it in living room, there no room my train, I put it next couch.
M: I see. Well, thanks for moving it out of the way, so nobody trips on it, but compost stays in the kitchen. I know it’s fun to go walking with a big bag. Next time you can ask Mommy and we’ll find a good bag, one that’s empty and that you can fill up, okay?

That is, unless the serial killer hiding in the closet moves the bags before we can get to those, too.

highlights of my year

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You know why I love KBG? Because she is the best mom I know and makes it look absolutely effortless to find a loving balance. Not sure how she does it but I want to watch a lot.

You know why I love MPG? Because he’s so earnest and thoughtful and intense and silly all at the same time.

You know why I love KFRD? Because she’s always, always, always there, for the little stuff and the important stuff. Just shadow-like.

You know why I love HRH? Because when he’s good he’s very, very good, and when he’s bad he’s horrid.

You know why I love JDG? Because she’s way cooler than me but makes me feel that creativity, joy, and pie are all within my reach.

You know why I love KGT? Because some people just feel like home when you talk to them, and if they deign to talk back, it’s like sunshine. Talent and love and smart all poured into one phone call or email that feels like a gift but not the obligatory kind or the please reciprocate kind.

You know why I love CKi? Because aside from right place right time, she gave me more than I could ever ask of a friend: intelligent clarity built on a foundation of respect and trust. On our first date.

You know why I love CKb? Because she’s wild and funny and so intensely soulful she knocks me off my chair.

You know why I love LF? Straight up talent, y’all, with the real world proof that creatives can be good at business, and business can have a heart.

You know why I love SL? Because she is changin the world, minute by minute, hour by hour.

You know why I love BK? Because you don’t need to be that good and decent when it might cost you personally, but fear does not puck that man up. He just keeps smiling.

You know why I love CB? Because she has every reason to be in a bad mood but instead she creates her own happiness and trusts her friends; she gives to them unconditionally and they repay in kind. She’s just a good model for humanhood.

You know why I love NFK? Cuz I do. She’s all that and a bag of rich chocolately goodness.

You know why I love PJH? Because every time I pick up the phone I’m agitated and nervous, but if it’s his voice I instantly relax and smile.

And it’s only March.

The news today…

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…is depressing. I avoid newspapers and television news because the world is a scary, depressing, soulless place of nasty, angry, people who seem full of nothing but hate. Today is one of the reasons why I beg people to keep their horror stories to themselves.

And today I’d like to declare to the people on my official “done me wrong” list, those half a dozen people who have really been horrible to me or my family, who have done things that simply can’t be forgiven: you’re totally safe. I am still angry with you. I hold grudges and make no apologies about that. But I guarantee you I won’t spiral out of control into a shooting rampage. I will not hurt you or anyone you know. I don’t forgive well; that’s my problem. You are a terrible human being; that’s your problem. I am content to coexist with you on this planet without causing you harm.

You hear that, girl from fourth grade who bullied me and humiliated me? Reprehensible animal who selfishly fled the police at over 106 mph and slammed into us? Terrible woman who, though you may not have known how condescending you were, in reality robbed me of what little safety I had at a vulnerable time? Disgusting colleague who lied and blocked the clearest path to success just because you’re scared about your own failings? Couple who lied and continue to lie and took with them our life savings? All of you? You’re safe. I will not do any of the things that are in the news today.

Because of all the terrible things that have happened to me (and in comparison to 99% of the people on this earth I have led a charmed life) most of the worst have come from forces nobody can control. Earthquake, fire, personal loss, and cancer are all something on which I can blame nobody. So the small potatoes in my life can go on rotting unmolested.

I’m sorry for all the families who lost someone today. For all the people who lost hope today. For all the damage the human race does, daily, to the universe and its grand, cosmic potential. Sorry the allegedly advanced apes are screwing everything up, universe. We’ll keep trying.

Slight miscalculation

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In the middle of the night, say 3a.m., the sound of a cat who compulsively scratches the top of the litter box, desperate to cover the odor that might go away if he actually scratched the litter instead of the roof, is exactly the same as the sound of a newly crowned three-year-old (with his infant insomnia still intact) padding into the living room to use the new chalkboard that grandma and grandpa sent for his birthday.

So if one parent went tearing into the living room, confused, groggy, and more than a little surprised to find it empty, then barked angry instructions at the still scratching cat; and the other parent lay in bed, confused, groggy, and calculating the odds that the midnight sounds were cat-based not child-based, well, then you will fogive both. They aren’t firing on all cylinders anymore. Cats who scratch the lid of the litter box and child who wakes them several times a night have killed their sanity, deductive reasoning, and willingness to just let other creatures scratch and color and generally keep to their noisy selves at 3 a.m.

Merry March to all and to all a good night.

En garde.

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Okay. I’m here to pick my battles. I’m done, little tyrant. Things are gonna be different because I’m here to declare, on national blogovision, where I draw the line.

This is pretty simple. Listen to me. Listen to my words. Listen to me, you f—ing little freeloading ball of attempts to become an individual. You can have all the opinions you want, you can make most of the decisions. But f—ing listen to me! Not the third time, not the eighth time, not just when I give up on my parenting willpower and patience reserves and yell. Listen to me the motherfucking first time, you parental hostage taker.

Trash stays in the trash can. Why is that so hard? Don’t touch trash. Don’t grab it, feel it, shake it upside down. It’s trash, you little eating-whining-pooping robot. It’s the same trash I’ve gently steered you away from since you could move under your own power. Please touch something else. Please step over here. Please go around. Please put down the f—ing trash. Because I’m picking this battle.

We pee in the toilet. Not on the floor just because it’s funny. Not in the cat box. The litter box is for cats. Yes, I know you can meow, but you’re not a cat. No you’re not. No you’re not. Fine, you are, but your kind of cat uses the toilet. Yes it does. Yes it does. Oh, I see. This is not your house and in your house the rules are different. Okay. Then go there. Because in this house we pee in the toilet and only in the toilet. You’ve been out of diapers for more than a year. You know full well what your body can and cannot do. And choosing to piss me off by pissing on my floor is a big ball of not okay.  I’ve chosen this battle, as well.

We use gentle touches with the cats. Would you like it if someone hit you? Kicked you? Pulled your tail? Well, they don’t like it either. And I’ve been telling you this for months. Redirection isn’t working. Positive reinforcement isn’t working. Clear explanations aren’t working. Empathy lessons aren’t working. If you can’t be gentle you don’t get stories or toys or breakfast or lunch or dinner and I may just lock you in your room until college, you little AP expermient gone horribly, horribly wrong. Don’t hurt the cats. Be friendly with the cats. Or I will teach you the word rue. For I have chosen this battle, as well.

We use gentle touches with daddy. Would you like it if he hit you? Kicked you? Well he doesn’t like it either. And I’ve been telling you this for months. Don’t make my retype the whole cat admonition, just replacing your father’s name for the cats’ names. I don’t want to say it again. I didn’t want to say it the first two hundred times, calmly, gently, in short declarative sentences at eye level with explanations when necessary. Don’t. Hit. Or nobody will like you, including me. Unconditional love is a myth they tell kids who watch TV and you don’t get more than half an hour a week, so don’t come crying to me about how I’m supposed to love you no matter what. I picked this battle, too.

That’s it. I picked my battles. Know what they come down to?  Listen to me. When I have to say things twice I sweat. When I have to say things three times I twitch. When I have to say things four times I yell. And when I have to say things five times I lose my shit and contemplate horrible things including your sale to the gypsies, my escape to the tropics, and choosing a soulless career in any one of the three hundred jobs I had before you sucked the life and brain out of me just to get away from you.

Go to the trash, would you,  please, and fetch mommy’s sanity. Sweetie? Would you please help Mommy and get her self esteem out of the trash? Peanut—please go take my selfhood out of the trash and bring it to me.

Jayzus. Do you hear me? I need you to listen to my words…go get my life out of the crapper.

Do not read that story.

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I didn’t know what I was in for, reading that story, but I know that it is the single most tragic thing I’ve read, including Hemingway’s famous six word story, and that the final line is eight hundred thousand times more (just more—more everything—more compelling, more shocking, more evocative, more terrifying, more conclusive, more emotive, more beautiful, more provocative) than any last line, including the last line of Infinite Jest. And I wish I had never read it, because this is now seared in the softest part of my mind.

I can’t quote it and I can’t bear to recommend it. Please don’t read it if trauma haunts you.

Incarnations of Burned Children at Equire and in Oblivion.

You know it’s been a long day

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…when you just can’t find the right adult beverage to complement the girl scout cookies your neighbor dropped off right before dinner.

Samoas and… red wine? Samoas and pina colada? Who the hell whips up a pina colada after their kid goes to bed, just to go with cookies? Fine. Where’s the blender?

Tagalogs with…Jack and Coke? I thought Jack and Coke went with everything (well, everything except flax and soy yogurt).  Nope. Tagalogs and champagne? Doesn’t that scream lonely housewife in Connecticut, though? (please say no please say no please say no)

Thin mints and…Kahlua coffee? Vodka Rooiboos? Hot buttered…why do people put butter in their liquor? [I know it’ll get me blog hate mail, but I’m not a thin mint gal. Don’t like ’em. Don’t really like any of the girl scout cookies, laden with toxic nonsense as they are, but, what could be wrong with charity donations for organizations that intentionally excludes members based on  gender and sells baked goods as a symbolic early entry into gender-prescribed home making roles? Sure, sure. I hear you. But there’s coconut in them…]

The only Girl Scout baked goodthat has clear pairings is the shortbread thing, and I just can’t bear to buy shortbread. It’s like asking someone to come by and pour melted butter all over your popcorn “in case” you need it.

When the world stops

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Words fail me…a friend just posted a link on his facebook page about a boy he worked with…

Zachary Cruz was walking from kindergarten to his after-school program and was killed by a car.

His parents, grad students at Cal, have set up a memorial page. There’s a link to help defray their son’s funeral costs, and info about the Oxnard and Berkeley memorials.  Two weeks before his sixth birthday.

Can you imagine?

Can you help, please?

www.zacharymichaelcruz.com

“This amazing, wonderful little boy that I worked with for the last two years died Friday in a tragic traffic accident in Berkeley on his way from kindergarten to his after school program. He was mind-bendingly sweet and adorable, a really old soul. His parents, grad students at Cal, have set up a wonderful memorial website for him and could use help to defray funeral costs. Check it out and make a donation if you can…”


this is why I love McSweeney’s

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Okay, I’m sitting in the lobby of the Hyatt Regency in Albuquerque, temporary home of the Southwest Texas Popular Culture agglomeration of academic geeks, basking in the glow of my relative non-fuckedupedness in a postmodernism and new media studies panel (in the vein of, ‘well, I can’t be worse than half of the other panel chairs I’ve heard so far) and of the feminist reading of the Berenstain Bears by one hilarious and brilliant scholar from Dayton…and stumble upon this.

Seriously, the title alone is why I love McSweeney’s Internet tendency:

A Questionnaire Regardingthe Phenomenon of the Snuggie, the Blanket with Sleeves, for Testing Your Understanding of American Home Economics and Your Own Personal Desires, Written in the Style of Walker Percy’s Lost in the Cosmos by Stephanie Gehring

I am in blog withdrawl

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I haven’t written in what seems like ages, and I don’t have time right now. I’m presenting at a conference in a few minutes, my first professional work since Peanut was born and I abandoned graduate work to raise him.

My questions for you are as follows:

When did reader response come back as a valid form of literary criticism? Why do film studies dudes get away with that?

When you’re in the movie theater, the sound of shoes suction cupping their way across the floor raises my hackles because it makes me think of the sticky, nasty, sugary spill through which they are walking. So why, at the end of naptime as I’m drawing my paper to a lovely conclusion, is that same sound, this time of little feet in grippy-soled socks walking across the hardwood floors to my room, the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard?

The Child-Sized Laws of Motion

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First Law: net inertia. Subjects at rest tend to stay at rest until you settle in. Then they spring into action, usually of the death-defying (or at least social-convention-defying) sort. Conversely, subjects in motion will tend to stay in motion until such time as you enjoy their motion. Then they will stop.

Second Law: F=ma. The relationship between the force needed to cajole a small person into even the most pleasant task is Force=(minutes needed to perform task without small children)x(age, in years, you feel after the task is complete). Exempli gratia, force required to put on child’s shoes=(.25)x(57)=14. Units may vary. 14 minutes, 14 different techniques, 14 different pair before they finally agree to leave one on, 14 threats to leave without said child.

Third Law:  For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. You get dressed, they glitter paint the cat. You prepare breakfast, they remove all the tape flags from your research books. You strike up a conversation with the clerk at the market, they strip down naked and run away laughing.

You don’t see how those are equal and opposite? You must possess logic and reason, then. Ah. You must not have children.

Warning: fugitive at large

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Police in the Bay Area are looking for the perpetrator of a heinous crime: teaching a three-year old to say, “Whatever, Mommy” in response to her urgent requests to “listen to her words”.

The authorities have a few suspects in their sights. First, the father of said three-year-old, who has been known, in both times of calm and of rage, to tell his wife, “Oh, whatever.” Also on the suspect list is grandma, who has been witnessed on numerous occasions to roll her eyes and sigh, “what-eeeever.” The select few who have seen both these suspects use the epithet in question have also been known to shoot her disparaging looks while intoning, “oh, right, like you’re perfect.” Police are afraid that if they don’t capture the Whatever Bandit, the toddler might become a snide, sarcastic preschooler.

The suspects were reported to police by the child’s mother, after she gave him a timeout and told him he could say ‘whatever’ to the cats or the ants that are overtaking the house, but not to people. When asked why she was so shaken by the child’s response to her requesting that he pull the drain plug at the end of bathtime, she answered that she is terrified that preschools won’t admit him, after the two year waiting list finally clears, because of his tween-y behavior.

“I’m just desperate to get him in the care of some responsible, child-development expert who will reinforce the gentle discipline we’ve tried to teach,” she says. “Or anyone else who will have him. If they refuse to admit him because he rolls his eyes and bleats his little falsetto ‘whatever’ to teachers, what the hell am I going to do?”  The bags under her eyes tell a tale of strained patience, as do the nervous tics we noticed while reporting this crime.

When asked if she, by chance, could have used the term, “whatever,” even in passing, she adamantly denied it. “Of course not. I’m very careful with my words. We say ‘you’re doing it yourself’ not ‘good boy;’ we say ‘you must have worked hard on this, you should be proud of yourself,’ instead of ‘I love this!’; and we always use ‘I love you and I don’t love hitting’ instead of ‘you’re going to go live with your uncle if you hit again, you terrible little terrorist!’ But if you don’t believe me, whatever.”

If you have any information about the whereabouts of the reckless cad who taught this small child such language and its appropriate use, please call your local FBPI (Federal Bureau of Parental Insanity) branch. They are willing to let drop the whole “who taught him to yell ‘dammit’ every time he drops something” issue, since they know it was reinforcement by both of the aforementioned parents that solidified that one.

Eco Lunch Boxes

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In looking for preschools, we’re finding that a lot of local programs are at no-waste schools. So Peanut and I have been on the lookout for the perfect reusable lunch box and supplies. And in our search, we found a wonderful mom-owned and operated business that has all the best nontoxic, eco-friendly lunch containers. (I don’t know the owner or anyone who works for her. I get nothing if they do well, and I got nothing for free during the process of finding them and buying from them.)

One Small Step is an aggregator of all the best lunch sacks, lunch boxes, bento boxes, reusable containers, washable sandwich wraps, stainless beverage mugs, and other eco-conscious, non-toxic stuff. And they offer the best prices I could find online, which is more than a little important to me.

We got a lot of things, since we’re new to the whole “eating away from home without ziplock” thing.

Peanut chose a washable cotton lunch sack that he can paint with fabric paint.acme2

He chose a brightly colored bento box that we’ve used now for four meals in a row. I checked the measurements before we bought, and it fits perfectly into the bag.bento4

The bento box is big enough for an adult lunch, but small enough for preschooler who likes lots of choices.

He also chose a great washable sandwich wrap that velcros contents in a little non-toxic burrito.

cozy1

And the reusable-lunch gurus at One Small Step (maybe just one guru, if the handwritten note included in my recycled box from the owner is any indication that this is a new, new, new one-mom company)  included a few awesome bamboo sporks.

This company has no idea I’m blogging about its offerings and my enormous satisfaction with the customer service and quality of products. The ownerhas no idea I have a blog, nor that I have tens of thousands of readers (somewhere in there—who’s counting?) who hang on my every word.

Local, home-based business a mom started = yay. Eco-friendly = yay. Prices as low as I could find anywhere else online for the best quality stuff = yay. Can you tell I don’t have a future in reviewing? Yea.

Go get yourselves some reusable, nontoxic lunch stuff. I’m temted to go back for the Fugu neoprene lpunch box for myself. For the planet, you understand. For the planet.fugured