My youngest child, Moira, has become a handful. I'm not sure when it happened, but it sure feels like it occurred during the night a few months back while I was sleeping. She has always been a pretty laid-back, easy-going kid. A bit of a homebody, but that was okay with me, and certainly her father, whose lack of impartiality where she is concerned is alarming. Moira, or Mo as she is known to most, is 11. She turns 12 in a few short weeks. She is spunky, witty, smart, fashion-minded (whose mind, I do not know) and a pain in the butt.

I think the biggest change I have noticed lately is she has become more aware of what her peers are doing or wearing - consequently feeling the need to conform. This causes a number of arguments, the most recent over bathing suits. She thinks she needs a bikini, her father and I don't. She says all her friends are wearing them. Her dad says, "You might as well wear a bra and bikini to the pool." She says, "Maybe I will." Her dad says, "Bikinis are skanky." She says, "Are you calling my friends skanky?" He says, "That's not what I meant, and you.. just forget it."  There's more, but you get the point.

She spends a lot of time away from home now. The kid who used to have to be convinced, every single morning, that she should go to school will now go on vacations with her friend's families and forget we exist. I know she's just growing up and exerting her independence, but I can't help but feel left behind. Does she love her friend's mothers more than me, or are they easier to love because they don't have to dole out punishments or chores?

I shouldn't complain. I was lucky enough to be able to stay home with my children for most of their younger years. I have spent, and try to continue to spend, quality time with each of my children. This doesn't make it any easier to let others take the responsibility of caring for them. My two youngest children went to daycare for only a week before I couldn't stand it any more. Thousands of women and men don't have it as good as I did. They hire nannies or take their kids to daycare to help them raise their children while they provide for their families and build careers.

Every mother has a moment, or two, or two thousand, when she wonders if she is good enough, if she spends enough time with her child, if she is doing it right, if her child loves her and likes her. That is one of the reasons I found this essay by Mona Simpson so fascinating. It talks about nannies and the people employing them. It touches on the special bonds these caregivers make with the children they help to raise and the space a parent puts (sometimes inadvertantly) between themselves and these employees (it's hard to think of them this way).  Simpson stirs up some interesting thoughts about paying another person to love your child.

"We don’t like to mix love with money. We want love to come as a gift that offers as much pleasure and reward to the giver as to ourselves."  Simpson writes about the sensitivity woman have when it comes to admitting how much time they spend working for their career and working as a mother. She points out that we want our children to be well-cared for and loved, even when we aren't present to offer those things.
"Even more than we want good love for ourselves, we want it for our children, those vulnerable satellites of our hearts that we send, unsteady, into the world." 
The relationship can not be easy between a parent and a nanny. It's a mixture of employer/employee and skinned-knee bandager/bedtime story reader. You are paying for a service that is unlike any other. You are paying someone to try to love your child the way you do. From a parent's point of view, it's not always possible.
My favorite line in Simpson's essay says it all. "You can pay a person who almost certainly will not love you but, with any luck, may love your child."

And while I am not paying my daughter's friends and parents to love her, I am entrusting her care to them for a small while. I am confident that they do not love her like I do. Mostly because I love her in spite of her flaws, and fortunately for them, they don't usually have to see them. For now she is still mine and I can still try to mold her and shape her into the beautiful person she is destined to be, but it is not long until everything I say becomes stupid or insulting. I am bracing for it, and when it happens I will come here and cry my eyes out to you.

My grandfather passed away last night. Grandpa Brown was my mother's dad. He was an intelligent, artistic, loving and kind man. Of course, there are not enough positive adjectives to show his true character. When I was young he smelled like pipe tobacco and awed me with his crossword puzzle abilities. He was at once imposing and fascinating. He built airplanes and wooden yo-yos and volunteered at the hospital.

I have a lot of memories of my grandfather, some of them were borrowed from my mother, but they are all still mine to keep.

There are four girls and one boy (the youngest) in my mom's family. For quite a while it was just girls. My mom used to tell us how her dad would help get them ready for school by brushing their hair and putting it into pigtails. She always recanted, with much drama, how he would brush their hair so hard their heads would ache and then proceed to pull it into the tightest circle possible, leaving them with mini-facelifts and almond-shaped eyes.

I was lucky enough to spend some summer time with my grandparents when I was young. My grandpa made the best breakfasts. He would fix silver dollar pancakes and sausage links. I had never had pancakes that small before. He sat at the breakfast table with a cup of coffee and the morning paper- then proceed to his chair in the living room with the crossword puzzle.

I always gravitated toward his shop in the garage. It smelled so good. Shavings and saw dust from several different types of wood gave it a great perfume. My grandpa wasn't always building cabinets or making multicolored vases. Sometimes he sat in his shop watching the news or a baseball game on his small black and white TV, and I imagine he was enjoying the smell too.

One summer he flew me home in the plane he had built. I thought he was the coolest man in the world. I still do.

One of my favorite memories is of my grandpa sitting in a chair at my mom's house with my youngest daughter on his lap. I think she was around two-years-old. He was reading her a Christmas book and she looked up at him just like I had at her age- with wonderment and love.

I didn't get to see my grandfather much in the last ten years. He and my grandmother moved to Oklahoma, which always seemed worlds away. Two years ago I drove with my mom and aunt from California to Oklahoma to visit. I was surprised at how much older my grandpa looked, while still looking the same. Does that make sense? He didn't get around as well as he used to, but you could still find him in a favorite chair with a thriller/suspense novel and his quick wit and wonderful sense of humor were never lacking.

Although my kids didn't get to know him as well as I would have liked, they were lucky enough to spend some time with him and through stories from myself and my mother, they were surrounded by him in spirit. His passing makes me very sad, but I am so grateful to have known him. I will not forget him, and I will not let my children forget him either.


**If anyone has any other pictures they would like to share, please email them to me and I will add them to this post.

I don't know where this picture came from, but it makes my point.

There are way too many babies around lately. It seems as though everyone is either pregnant, has a newborn, or has a child under the age of one. They are in my office, my neighborhood, my favorite hangouts and on TV. Luckily, they are not in my house.

I used to get a deep yearning in my uterus every time I saw a baby - even an ugly baby. I would want to touch the baby's head, rub my fingers along its hairline and touch its little nose and small ears. I would get the urge to smell it and my arms would, of their own volition, reach out to hold it.

Now I see a baby and my first reaction is to smile and turn the other direction. Then I want to make sure anyone who is touching the baby has washed their hands and sanitized - both for the baby's sake and theirs.

Babies are gross.

Once you've had one, you're allowed to say that without judgement. Granted, there are a few babies I particularly enjoy, but they are related to me, so I don't think they technically count in the gross babies category (it really does depend on the day though).

My sweet nephew Aiden.

Reasons Babies Are Gross:

Babies have multiple bodily fluids emitting from many different places without a predictable timeline.

When babies get pimples everyone thinks it's cute. GAG- pimples are always gross.

Babies are like dogs. If you don't watch them they will eat anything.

When babies get teeth- biting is almost always acceptable. I'm not allowed to bite anyone unless I am being attacked in a dark alley- and even then, I might get some sort of disease, so I probably wouldn't do it anyway. So unfair.

Babies can make you feel really bad about yourself. Some babies love me, but with others it's like they have an Erin counter on them (like a Geiger counter). The closer they get to me the louder they scream.

Babies never say excuse me when they pass gas, yet people think it's hilarious. If I fart and don't say excuse me I get nasty looks.

Babies use their shirts as napkins.

People post pictures of babies all over the InterWebs- like they are baby kittens and puppies or something. Nothing is cuter than seeing baby kittens and puppies on the InterWebs.

Irresitable photo of a bulldog puppy.

Babies are boring. They don't laugh at my jokes and they never answer back (unless it's jibberish).


See, what did I tell you? Babies are gross.

I think about food all the time. Even right now, I'm thinking about what to make for dinner and whether I should buy more romaine or skip the salad and have mashed potatoes instead, or just skip dinner all together and eat half a chocolate mousse cake. See how that happens? A simple, reasonable thought about food turns into this unhealthy obsession that causes my brain to battle it out with my stomach.
We host many barbeques and dinner parties at our home. We enjoy doing it -- great food, good conversation and even better friends. It's a lot of work, but at the end of the night we go to bed full (not just of food, but life and happiness). The thing is, at these dinners we talk about food. Everyone shares a story about their most recent food experience, their favorite hometown restaurant or the recipe they tried last week. It's natural to talk about food while eating food, but it can go too far. I've had a friend comment on how she enjoys watching me talk about food. She said it was as though I could taste the words coming out of my mouth. (Those were her words, not mine. To me it sounds a little like vomit, seeing as how it is coming out of my mouth.)

Isn't this plate of food beautiful? This mozarella and pasta dish was prepared and photographed by Framed Cooks. (Talk about feeding my food obsession- she's amazing.)

Her comment got me thinking, and I tried to listen to myself when food came up in conversation. I realized I sound as though I am talking about my first love, or recalling my happiest memory. I love food, I have a passion for food-- not just eating it, but preparing it, admiring it and sharing it. The trick is how to find the balance between my love of the art of food and how eating it makes me feel or is a result of how I feel. How do I enjoy food without using it to calm my nerves or allow a celebratory event to become an excuse to have more food? (What? Armistice Day is not a good enough reason to have a three-course meal and dessert bar?)

In any case, I'm still working on that balance. Let's just say, it will be a lifetime battle-- especially since I just became the proud owner of my very own KitchenAid mixer. Can you see how this might be problem?

Isn't it gorgeous?

I know my blog doesn't get an unlimited amount of traffic, but there are some people out there who do read it. If you are one of them, or want to be, would you please become a follower? Not in a weird stalkerish kind of way, but in a hey, you sometimes have something clever to say and I want to read about it sort of way. Wow, that is some sentence!!!

So far my follower's box looks kind of pathetic. Only one person is in it and he is my husband. He kind of has to be there. Don't be shy. You don't even have to have your picture here. You can follow me anonymously. I don't mind. I just want to be loved.

Now that I have poured my heart out to all you readers- why not boost my ego a bit and click that little button on the right hand side that will make you a loyal follower for life.