A Very Merry Un-Birthday To Sam.
Mood:  happy
Topic: Sam
Well, not quite un-birthday, because his birthday is in two weeks, so it's sort of his birthday season, right? And he is so excited about it. We sing "A very merry un-birthday" pretty much every day, and I adore the way he asks "For me?" (How to completely mess with his mind: sing "to Matt" instead of "to you." He becomes very indignant indeed. "No, for me!")

I was thinking a lot about Sam's birth today, because the weather this morning is almost identical to what it was almost three years ago when Ben was driving me to the hospital. In Southern California we have a phenomenon called June gloom or the marine layer, which basically means It is going to be gloomy as hell all morning, and possibly a mean little drizzle will fall, and maybe in the afternoon it will clear up, but we live at the beach, so it probably won't. Despite June being over, Thursday, July 5, 2001 was just such a day.

A lot of women like to tell elaborate birth stories; mine is not so elaborate. The only really interesting thing is that my labor actually started at the hospital, where I had been sent due to suspiciously high blood pressure at my OB exam that morning. Talk about convenient!

Ben and I still speculate that Sam was scared out of me by all the Fourth of July fireworks the night before. We had gone up on the cliffs overlooking the Back Bay to look at the fireworks, and some very kind folks had allowed me to sit on a big flat rock upon observing that I was almost literally about to pop. To this day, we call that place Pregnancy Rock, although to this day we also argue about precisely which flat rock that was. Ben's belief was that sitting on the rock was what triggered my labor, and made me go sit on it late in my pregnancy with Matt. No dice. Probably we had the wrong rock.

Anyway, my labor was uneventful. Labor with an epidural tends to be that way; we read magazines and newspapers, we watched a live police pursuit on TV, while my cervix gradually dilated with no involvement from me. Contractions? Huh? There weren't any, not that I felt anyway. Some of my "natural mommy" friends are raising their eyebrows at this, but I am here to tell you that I am a major, unapologetic wuss about pain, and the epidural was best for everyone involved. I had my first kid natural, and I'm still a little pissed off about it.

I'll never forget the moment Sam was placed on my chest. Bursting with pride, and so relieved to see that he was as healthy and perfect as all the prenatal testing had promised. He was a little turd that first night in the hospital; he had trouble nursing and screamed his head off all that night (and the next). But he was precious, and long awaited, and mine. Soon enough he was nursing and sleeping just fine. And he changed my life forever.

So, a very merry un-birthday to you, my Sam. Three years and you have gone from red, screaming newborn to the charmingly handsome guy who loves root beer floats, Where The Wild Things Are and Little Shop of Horrors. Thanks for being alive, thanks for inheriting my eyes but otherwise being the mirror image of your daddy. Thanks for calling me Mommy and sitting in my lap and saying I love you. Thanks, in other words, for being exactly Sam and nothing less. I love you, son.

Matt Matt.
Mood:  happy
Topic: Matt
Sometimes he is Matty Boo or even Matty Boo Boo, but mostly he is Matt Matt. Not in the John-John sense, but in the sense that he is more than a Matt, he is a Matt Matt -- he is Matt squared!

A few weeks back, I sat in my office and mooned over Sam. Today I am mooning over Matt. One of the best parts of being a parent is getting to rediscover your kids (and your spouse) over and over again. No matter that I see them and interact with them day in and day out, they are always reminding me anew how much I love them, and exactly why.

Matt is 17 months old and remains a brilliant ray of sunshine (albeit with a core of pure steel. Don't mess with him!). The highlight of my day is picking him up from day care, because he cries out with happiness on catching sight of me. And then I pick him up, and he puts his tiny chubby arms around my neck and hugs me as tight as he can, and doesn't let go. Meanwhile giving me "mwaah" kisses on my cheek and neck. Does life get any better than that? I look forward to this moment all day.

He's using his words more and more, although sometimes to mysterious effect. Just yesterday he started saying "Quack" at various intervals. So we are quacking back at him. We're not sure why he wants to quack, but if that's the game, if that's what Matt Matt wants, then so be it. He is a slower talker than Sam, so we try to encourage his language skills. I can't wait to hear what he has to say (until, as Erika has pointed out, he gets much older and what he has to say is Up yours, or the equivalent. But that day is a long way off).

So it's only eight a.m. or so, and I have nine and a half hours until those chubby arms are around my neck again. And sometimes I wonder why I work all day, but I guess that's it -- two little boys running up to greet me, a brilliant dimple-lined smile, a pair of chubby arms around my neck. (And later, the sight of their daddy coming up the front walk, coming home.) It might not be glamorous, but for me? It's all I ever need.

The Breast Pump. (Warning: Boob Talk Inside.)
Mood:  happy
There it lurks, in the corner of my office. I haven't used it since, oh, March or so, yet I can't seem to bring myself to get rid of it. What do you do with a used breast pump? Sell it, my husband says, but you are absolutely not meant to do this, and also, a lot of the little doodads that came with it have been scattered to the four winds. I'm tempted to donate it to Goodwill, but the mental image of some member of the Goodwill-shopping public coming upon it and puzzling over it is too much for me. Why does this backpack have a motor? And what are these conical things with the bottles attached? And what is up with the TUBES?

It is the pitfall of the nursing mommy that we speak too much about our boobs. It's inevitable! Fortunately for you, I stopped pumping in advance of starting this blog, so you don't have to hear hilarious stories of me sitting semi-topless in my locked office, listening to Howard Stern while some crazed attorney pounded on the door because he couldn't be bothered to read the little post-it on my door that said, in essence, Please go away now. I am pretending to be a cow. Okay, so not so hilarious. But you have mostly been spared.

Until now, that is, because I am confronted with the prospect of breaking out the pump again. I have recently become afflicted with something known as a milk blister, which in layman's (layboob's?) terms means that one of the little places where the milk comes out has become clogged, and also hurts occasionally like hell. Now, what in life prepares you to deal with something like this? I am quite certain they didn't cover this topic in Health class, or even in undergraduate school. God knows they didn't touch it in law school. So I posed my question to the PumpMoms, an awesome mailgroup for moms grappling with the breast pump. Those chicks know everything.

And their advice amounted to this: Break out the pump and bust through it. (Pun not initially intended, but I'm leaving it in, because it's just too perfect.)

So here I sit, nervously eyeing the breast pump and contemplating the idea of turning my nipple into a miniature scale model of Vesuvius. And what I think is this: Matthew, someday if you ever doubt that I love you, I hope that you will (a) snap out of it, because of course I do, you silly boy, and (b) take a look at this entry. Mothers have done some awesome stuff for their kids through the ages, but this here is cruel and unusual, and By God you'd better appreciate it.

Turkeys, Plus.
Mood:  happy
We have a big mystery in our lives. A few blocks away from our house, there is a vacant field. It's not your typical vacant lot, so erase that picture from your mind. This vacant field is frequently overgrown and occasionally mown, but it is flanked by $800K houses. It's that kind of vacant field. We are informed and believe that this field slopes down to a small lake or pond, although no one can get the hell back there, so who knows? People who live in $800K homes do not want people nosing around to find out what is beyond their yards. There are privacy walls.

The thing that is mysterious about this field is that periodically -- sometimes for several days out of the week, but sometimes not for months on end, this field is full of turkeys.

Turkeys! I'm unable to find out anything about them, but they look like a species of wild turkey, and when they appear, they wander about the field, doing whatever turkeys do, and then disappear. I am crazy about them. A turkey sighting is a big event in our family, so every time I drive past the field and view turkeys therein, it is necessary that I phone our house (this is always at 7 a.m.) and croon sweetly to whoever is unfortunate enough to answer the phone, "Tuuuuuuurkeeeeeees. Tuuuuuuurkeeeeeees!"

We don't know where they come from, when they come, and we don't know where they go to, when they go. I am figuring that someone must own them, because you wouldn't call the Orange County suburbs a big hotbed of wild turkey activity. But it doesn't appear that anyone exercises dominion and control over them. Once, and only once, I observed them turking around on the corner lot lawn rather than in their vacant field. They are alluring, and very mysterious.

Back when we had a dog, before the dog tried to become a baby biter and had to be placed for adoption, we used to walk the dog past the turkey field. Our plan was, if we ever caught one of the surrounding neighbors standing around outside, to buttonhole them and demand, "Exactly what is the deal with the turkeys?" But we never did, and the dog is gone, and we don't know anyone over that way. So the mystery remains.

And you should be very glad indeed that you don't live at my house (unless you do, in which case Sorry, honey!) Because would you really want to wake up to the sound of someone cooing "Tuuuuuuurkeeeeeeees" at you over the phone?

By the way: Don't you hate it when the alarm clock rings when you're in the middle of a very long, complicated and hectic dream, leaving you strangely disjointed for the whole first hour of your morning?

And also: Don't you hate it when someone insists on telling you their entire long, complicated dream? Like "And then I was tapdancing in Central Park with Mother Teresa, but then somehow we were at a house, and it was my house but somehow not my house, do you know what I mean? And . . . " (And by the way, that was absolutely not my dream. My dream was even more boring than that. And you can bet I didn't tell it to Ben, except for the part where Sam let the bugs out, because that was really weird.

And as long as we're at it, damn, does having babies spread your hips! I can look in the mirror and turn sideways, and look all slender and shit, and then I turn around and face front, or, God help me, back, and I think Damn, those are some wide hips! It seems that having children not only tends to make you fat, but childbirth actually and physically spreads your hipbones apart. After three children, I'm figuring my hipbones just gave up and said "Screw you. We're staying here." Looks like I have to spend the rest of my life standing sideways.

Mischief Managed, Mostly.
Mood:  happy
Topic: Sam
Harry Potter update: Sam and I had our movie date this morning. It was touch and go for a while. Upon waking him up, I crowed, "Sam! It's Harry Potter day! We're going to the movies!" to which he replied "No. It's scary." Well, shit, that was a fine kettle of fish. But since we were taking Matt to day care anyway, I figured I could just drop him off too, go by myself, and eat the extra $6.50 for the child ticket.

He waffled a bit at the day care and finally elected to go. And God bless his heart, he handled it like a champ. He wasn't scared, despite the seven alarming previews we had to sit through first, and the thundering sound system. What did him in, eventually, was this: A little boy of not quite three absolutely cannot, will not, sit still for two hours plus.

I believe the running time of Prisoner of Azkaban is 145 minutes. As you may know, the attention span of a boy of not quite three is about fifteen seconds. To be honest, he did great for about the first hour and a half, whereupon he started to fidget. Seriously to fidget, including things like kicking his foot repeatedly against the railing, making repetitive noise. And if there is one person I refuse to be, it's that woman you have silently vowed to strangle because her child is persistently doing something incredibly annoying in a public place, yet she refuses to stop him. I managed to keep him at bay for a while, but I knew time was running out.

So we were winding down towards the end, and we'd gotten past the bit where they use the Time Turner, and you are seeing the werewolf scene again, and Hermione (and her boobs!) are howling, when Sam suddenly announced, in typical Sam cut-to-the-chase fashion: "I don't want to be in this place anymore. I want to go bye-bye." At that point, I knew it was time to make our exit. And out we went, without further ado.

So, I missed the final fifteen or twenty minutes of a movie I have been waiting months to see. But that's okay. I've read the book; it's not like I don't know how it ends. I won't write a movie review here (honestly, I am on a few HP mailgroups, and I love you guys! but I have read too many minute dissections to have the stomach to write one of my own). I will say that I loved the Monster Book of Monsters, that was really well done, and the film was gorgeous and visually striking, and I really don't mind Michael Gambon, and I would have liked to see more Maggie Smith, and David Thewlis did an awesome job, and I wasn't as impressed by Gary Oldman as I thought I'd be, and Emma Thompson was hilarious. She's actually a good comedic actress. Did anyone see Junior?

I've talked to a few HP purists who didn't like the movie because it diverted too much from the book. Well, that, as they say, is showbiz. I am a huge fan of the author John Irving, and I have read his novel The Cider House Rules a number of times, and I adore the movie adaptation even though a whole bunch of stuff was cut out or altered, and a few extremely central, pivotal characters were eliminated entirely. But you gotta do what you gotta do (although, of course, John Irving himself wrote the screenplay and won an Oscar for his efforts). It's Hollywood, not some alternate John Irving universe. And so, if I may, for HP.

Apart from that? Sam and I had a super mommy and son day. We went to the playground, and a McDonald's with a playground, and Prehistoric Pets (local reptile shop/reptile zoo, where he got to interact with a giant monitor lizard which roams the place), and finally Toys R Us, where he persuaded me to buy him a Harry Potter playset, despite my certainty that all the tiny pieces will be scattered to the four corners of the globe by week's end.

But does anyone know when Prisoner of Azkaban is coming out on video? I hope it's not too far off. Having waited months to see the movie, I'll be waiting months more to see the ending.

Teen Titans!
Mood:  happy
Does it mean that I'm a bad mother that the, oh, I think 8th word Matt learned to say is Titans, as in Teen Titans?

We are all about that cartoon these days. Sam and I chanced upon it one day after work, and three weeks later, the entire family is hooked. Honestly, it is approaching Harry Potter proportions, and you know how wild we are about Harry. We don't just watch the 6:30 p.m. showing, we watch it again at 10:00 p.m. We have a Teen Titans monkey on our backs, for sure.

You want to know proof that we are completely nuts? Ben, one day, mused: "Starfire is cute, but I like Raven better. She has a better body. They draw her dirty."

God help us all. My husband might be a wanker, but I guess that just means he shares his sons' interests. Today Sam saw a ceramic mermaid while we were in the reptile shop. "Mommy, what's that?" he asked. "That's a mermaid," I told him. "She is a girl with the tail of a fish and bare boobies. Do you like her?" And Sam said "Yes" with his biggest and most radiant smile. But I knew that was coming. He's a guy, after all. They are hard-wired. And Raven might be sullen, but it's true: She has better legs than Starfire.

I Have No Life.
Mood:  happy
It's true: I have no life. I read a number of other blogs to keep up on my Internet friends, and they are full of we did this or we went there or we had this party. But me? Unless Sam says something clever or Matt does something dastardly, I've got no material. Unless this counts:

I woke up. I dressed myself. I dressed the kids. I dropped the kids off at day care. I went to work. I worked all day. I left work. I picked up the kids at day care. I brought the kids home. I played with the kids. Ben came home. We cooked dinner. We fed ourselves and the kids. We cleaned up after dinner. We watched TV and played with the kids. We put ourselves and the kids to bed.

Repeat. And repeat and repeat and repeat! Not very interesting, is it?

I'm not complaining, mind you. Those kids, as you may have surmised, are the absolute centerpiece of our lives. But as you see, my life is mostly devoid of drama, and what drama exists is not fun drama. Doesn't make for good television, as they say.

But it's Friday, and the weekend looms ahead. This weekend, we will have to try to have some sort of adventure. So far, the biggest adventure I've had this week was breastfeeding a plastic crab at Sam's insistence. I think we can do a little better than that.

Exit Erika.
Mood:  d'oh
I don't write much about Erika, my daughter. This is mostly because she is 19 years old and hates it when I drag her onto the 'Net, and also because our relationship has been, well, problematic since adolescence reared its ugly head. We've been through some tough times, Erika and I, and even though she like no one else has been the constant in my life for the past 19 years, we don't always like each other. Sometimes we actually hate each other. We have a very thorny kind of closeness, and I hope (but honestly don't always know for sure) that she loves me. I think she does.

The reason I bring her up now is that Erika is about to move to Salt Lake City with her boyfriend. She works at my office, and has given her notice, and today is her last day on the job. So, no more Erika at work. No more Erika to ride to work with. No more Erika coming into my office fifty times a day about some little thing. No more Erika.

A couple of years ago, she almost moved to Colorado with her father, and I was very upset when she ended up not going and moving back into my house. But things have changed since then. She's grown up, and our relationship is less thorny, although we certainly have our moments. But honestly? I hate to see her go.

She is my firstborn, after all, and even though we've had some very rough times, she is my first baby, the one who's been with me since long before Ben and Sam and Matt were ever thought of. We consider ourselves to be different, and opposites, but I see myself in her. Some bad aspects of myself, but also some good ones. She has assured me over and over, in moments of anger, that I was the worst mother in the world. I hope I wasn't. I certainly wasn't the best, but I always tried.

And honestly, when we're not arguing about something, we have a great time together. She is smart and witty, with a wicked sense of humor. Her little brothers adore her -- Matt has been known to squeal with delight at the very sight of her. She loves and understands her brothers deeply and individually, and she truly enjoys them. It's a blessing that they, especially Matt, are too young to really understand her absence and be sad about it.

So, sweetheart, I probably won't be able to say this to you in person, and I know that because I am shedding tears just writing this. But I love you, honey. Always did. Always will. You just take care of yourself, okay? and know that I will miss you in a million little ways. And please come home after a while. Life with you hasn't always been easy, but I can't imagine life without you.

Preparing for Harry Potter.
Mood:  happy
I've mentioned before that we are big Harry Potter fans. Not completely rabid, mind you, but pretty intense, especially for a woman of my age who oughtn't to be obsessed with books and movies meant for kids.

It's Sam who got me into it. I didn't give a fig for Harry Potter until one of the movies came on cable and he insisted on watching it. Just that once, and Bammo! I was hooked.

The current big news, amongst us Harry Potter types, is the new movie which is being released on June 4. Now, Sam has never been to the movies before, so I hatched a plan to have this be his first moviegoing experience. And I'm not kidding around about it, either. We've bought our advance tickets online and I am taking a day off work so that Sam and I can have our very special Harry Potter movie date, one on one.

The fun part is to hear Sam tell about it. "I'm going with Mommy. Not Daddy. Not Matt. Not Erika. Not Joel [Erika's boyfriend]. I'm having popcorn and a coke. And we see that skeleton guy and he scares Harry."

Such a buildup! We're both anxiously awaiting the day. And I am crossing my fingers as hard as I can that Sam doesn't get scared, wig out in the theatre, and insist on leaving. Because this could happen. And I guess it would qualify as child abuse to force him to sit through it, howling, so that Mommy can have her Harry Potter fix.

The Academy Would Like To Thank . . .
Mood:  happy
. . . Sam, for picking out chocolate chip cookies at the store and explaining "They're not spunky, they're chocolatey." (Editor's Knote: Whaaaaat?)

. . . Matt, for grinning with such charming and obvious pleasure as he peed into his freshly drawn bath.

. . . Ben, for the times I overhear him interacting with his sons, making me almost cry and very much want to kiss him.

. . . Sam, for so sincerely claiming credit when he farts.

. . . Matt, for the long explanations in language no one but Matt can understand, but which are clearly heartfelt and very detailed.

. . . Ben, for knocking me up twice. Thanks for the two little squirts (ahem).

Life Lessons.
Mood:  happy
Ben to Sam, overheard: "Some of the best things in life are plastic."

I'm not sure I want to know what "things" he might be talking about. Model airplanes? Boobies? It's frightening to speculate.

Oh, Sam.
Mood:  happy
Topic: Sam
Could I possibly love him any more? I don't think so. Sam has grown up so much lately, and has gotten out of most of the unpleasant toddler stuff, and is just such a joy. Here I sit at the office, mooning over him and missing him. So in love with my sweet kid!

Last night he was striding around the living room swinging his Harry Potter sword, and I told him "Sam, please don't swing that sword around and whap your brother in the head." He turned to me and said very seriously, "Are you mad at me?"

Shit no, honey. How could I be mad at you? Just calm down with that sword, now.

He pees in the potty. He makes his little brother laugh harder than anyone else can. He likes Howard Stern. He cuddles in my lap and tells me he loves me. He's smart, sensitive and insightful. And he has the most enchanting almond-shaped dark brown eyes. Ben and I made this creature ourselves? Sam is proof that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Weekend = Almost Over.
Mood:  happy
This is the rarest of all rarities: I am able to spend some time on the computer at home, instead of in stolen moments at the office. Thank you, Walt Disney and Alice in Wonderland. The boys are enthralled, and I have a sudden and unexpected period of freedom. Freedom! To, oh, I don't know, decide to roast a turkey when it is 93 degrees outside. Which is exactly what I'm doing. Foolhardy, I know. But we love turkey, and we have a strange and resistent attitude that dictates we cook a turkey not at obvious times like Thanksgiving or Christmas, but on days like today. Excuse me while I go drop an ice cube down my butt crack . . . okay. That's better.

It's Sunday and already wearing down toward late afternoon, and as usual I am left wondering where in hell the weekend went, and whether I can have it back. What the hell did we do all weekend? Not laundry, certainly. There are armies of it out there, as undone as it was on Friday night. Nor changing the oil in the minivan, which we were absolutely meant to do today. So where did the weekend go? Okay, to recap.

Saturday morning: Get up. Sam has Cocoa Puffs for breakfast, with rice milk, bleargh, because we are out of normal milk. Arrive in Laguna Hills too early and hit the 99 Cent Store. Ick, cubed. Go to Verizon store and trade in our Stone Age cellphones for ridiculously state-of-the-art ones, because we are friends of the owner and get special treatment. Go to Laguna Hills Mall and manage to spend money on absolutely nothing except one Harry Potter action figure and one Wetzel's Pretzel.

Saturday afternoon: Lunch at King's Fish House, yum. I had oyster shooters with flying fish caviar. Are we chichi, or what? Ben had cioppino despite the already ridiculous heat. Then to Ralph's for grocery shopping, where Sam was esctatic that we were able to secure a shopping cart tricked out like a racecar. To him, this made the whole trip worthwhile.

Saturday evening: Visit from Uncle Don, one of Ben's aging bachelor friends. He's been trying to remedy this by bride-shopping in the Ukraine, but guess what? Those Russian babes would rather freeze their asses off and earn $30 a month than live in a beach house with rich Uncle Don. Dinner at the Yard House (which we of course call the 'Tard House), followed by an evening of watching Tommy on cable over Ben's protests. Screw him, I say. This from a guy who watches Doris Day movies.

Sunday morning: By 9 a.m., it is 75 degrees outside. We load up the kids and head for Huntington Beach, which guess what? Everyone in Orange County (and, apparently, Riverside and San Bernardino Counties) has had the same idea. To park, we have to hit Duke's for brunch and get valet, which is really okay because Duke's is the coolest place to have brunch. Afterward, we walked down to water's edge in the shadow of the Huntington Beach pier, and Matt had his first adventure with wading in the ocean.

Sunday afternoon: Side trip to Prehistoric Pets in Fountain Valley, because the surviving gecko needs crickets to eat. Sam and Matt run around and look at the lizards and snakes and turtles. And then back home to start cooking the freaking turkey in 90+ degree heat.

Now: Mommy updates her blog and wonders where the hell the weekend went, again.

What A Boy Wants.
Mood:  happy
Topic: Sam
What does a boy want? If you're talking about Sam, the answer has become everything. That's probably the biggest sign that they have outgrown being babies and have started being kids: They see things on T.V. and start asking you for them. When they learn the magic words Mommy, buy me that, you know that you are in for a world of pain.

Sam's overriding desire at this moment is a light sword like the ones in Star Wars. Oh, he has his Harry Potter sword, and he is forever fighting and slaying things with that, but for Sam, a light sword has become the Holy Grail. Every day on the way home, he announces that his daddy is buying him a light sword, and I have to explain anew that Daddy is not buying him a light sword today, but maybe he will get one for his birthday. Sam's birthday is over two months away, and to Sam, it might as well be in ten years. He looks forward to his birthday the way a nymphomaniac looks forward to walking into a crowded bar.

The light sword is one thing; the things he sees on T.V. every day are another. When we get home in the evening, he watches Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Teen Titans. That's what the big kids watch; no Barney for Sam. He's moved beyond all that. But good Lord, I had forgotten the insidious commercials they show with these cartoons.

Every sixty seconds, it's a new desire. Lilo & Stitch frozen meals. Action figures. Some new and sugary breakfast cereal. It's a barrage of new things to covet and crave, punctuated with frequent repetitions of "Mommy, will you buy me that?" Worse, Sam has a fantastic memory. He can see an ad on Wednesday, and he'll still be bugging me to buy him the product in question on Saturday.

So I've been having to say no a lot. "You don't need that" is my litany, repeated again and again and again. I suppose I should take comfort in the fact that Matt isn't yet advanced enough to ask for much more than juice or a cookie. Just imagine, in two more years I will be hearing Mommy, will you buy me that? in stereo. But I'm all set. I've got a big bag of No with their names on it.

Hell Hath No Fury Like . . . Matt.
Mood:  happy
Topic: Matt
My younger son, as I've mentioned, is a sweet, happy, sunshiny soul. This was evident even in the womb, where he was much quieter than Sam -- so quiet, in fact, that I used to lose sleep worrying whether he was okay in there. And further evidenced by their respective first nights on earth: The night he was born, Sam screamed all night. The night he was born, Matt slept all night. Sam is an intense kid, and I was relieved, on getting acquainted with Matt, that I'd finally managed to produce that most coveted of all parental accomplishments: an Easy Baby.

And he was an Easy Baby. But Matt, now that he is walking well and is starting to talk, is a baby no more. Matt is a toddler. An easy toddler? Oh yes. Matt is a sweet little ray of sunshine and happiness.

Until, that is, you thwart his considerable will. Then he turns into Attila the Hun with an anger management problem.

He has taken to walking alone with such fervency, such singleminded dedication, that nothing will do but that he must walk alone everywhere. In busy parking lots. Along steep inclines and small waterways. In crowded stores. Everywhere, in short, that a guy less than three feet tall should not be walking alone. And if I refuse to put him down to walk, or pick him up once he's started, he will struggle furiously and howl with the purest rage and indignation I have ever heard, until people turn around and give me piercing looks like Why are you beating that adorable little child?

Nor, when he walks, will he be guided by any outside force. At the park yesterday, as Matt marched around, he got too close to the edge of the duck pond. I, who was dutifully following him around, took his hand to guide him away. His response? He howled with rage, sank his teeth into the back of my hand, plopped down onto his butt, and screamed bloody murder until I backed off. It was a difficult outing for both of us. Certainly, I wanted to make my little darling happy and let him walk freely in the great outdoors, but I didn't want him marching into the duck pond. Or off the side of the hill. So we were at a bit of an impasse.

Finally I found a flat area with no water or other major hazards, and he marched around to his heart's content, until he decided that he'd had enough and I should pick him up. (When Matt decides that I should pick him up, it's no issue and he doesn't protest; unless, God help me, I don't pick him up. Then it's the indignant rage all over again.)

So I have been blindsided by all this, my Easy Baby blossoming into a toddler with a formidable will and incredible tenacity. Next to him, Sam is a pushover. Who knew? The moral of the story is to never underestimate an Easy Baby, even if he has enormous dimples and a smile that could melt the polar ice caps. Especially if he has enormous dimples and a smile that could melt the polar ice caps. We are a stubborn, strong-willed family, every one of us, but in Matthew I think we have met our match.

Of Bats & Triglycerides.
Mood:  happy
It's six a.m., that most famous hour, and I am nursing Matt when suddenly Sam, sound asleep, speaks up from beside me.

"It's like . . . it's like a bat. It's a bat. . . . Mommy? . . . Mommy?"

"Yes, honey."

"Winnie the Pooh has a bird, and it's like a bat."

"It's all right, sweetheart."

"Okay. Mommy, it's okay." He turns to his father and pats him comfortingly on the arm. "It's okay."

Having thus reassured us, he rolls over and goes back to sleep.

* * *

Meanwhile, we have been confronted with the issue of triglycerides, middle age, and the need for a purer life. Ben had a physical a week ago, and his blood work revealed that he has dangerously high triglyceride levels. Now, this is something of which I knew virtually nothing before yesterday, but triglycerides are fats in the blood, and at high levels, they pose a serious risk of heart attack or stroke. My husband is 48 years old and, honestly, has probably put on too much weight since we've been married. So these are things of concern. We have two small boys to raise.

So, what now? Oh, simple. A diet containing no alcohol, no sugar and virtually no fat. Meaning we are basically looking at lean protein, vegetables and whole grains. And no wine. No wine! We are the sort of people who go on wine tasting trips, and love to have a bottle of a good California red with dinner, so this is a tall order. Once his levels go down, a glass of wine a day is permissible, but this is the upper limit.

And I'm going to go ahead and do the entire regimen with him, because would there be anything quite so obnoxious as your wife smirking at you over her glass of wine and plate of pizza as you drink your green tea and eat your skinless chicken breast, steamed veggies and brown rice? No, something like that could hurt a marriage. So it's a life of virtue for us.

And it got me thinking that you really don't think, before having kids in your 40s, about the sacrifices involved. (Hell, if we had, they might not be here.) Before the boys came along, we were jet skiing, wine tasting, gourmet restaurant, partying kinds of people. And then came the boys, and we had no life, but we sort of knew that was coming. So we sold the jet ski, invested in a serious cable television package, and enjoyed family life. But we still had wine! And pizza!

But it's important not only that we spend time with our kids, but that we ensure we live long enough to raise them. So, another sacrifice: We take care of ourselves. Which I guess is not such a sacrifice if you look at it the right way, but no wine? And no pizza? Someone just gag me with a head of steamed cauliflower.

Well, as Ben puts it, we are just going to have to look for other pleasures in life, and I guess we've found them. Those would be the two little bundles of little boyness who bring us such joy. Now pass the pizza. But hold the crust. And the cheese. And the pepperoni. And if you've got a recipe for skinless chicken breast that doesn't taste like absolute cardboard, drop me a line.

Thanks For The Mammaries.
Mood:  happy
Topic: Matt
Breastfeeding is awesome. I had this thought at three in the morning while nursing Matt in our familiar posture, lying down in our warm bed with a cool breeze wafting through the window. It's such a happy thing for both of us that when I cuddle him close and he latches on, a little Mmmmm escapes us both. And I stroke his head and shoulders and look at his sweet face. This is the ultimate in mother/baby bonding, and the fact that we have been at it for 15 months does not make it any less sweet or precious.

Don't think I don't know it. Matt is my last baby, after all, unless Ben and I do something really stupid. I am 43 years old, and the prospect of reproducing again is (a) foolhardy and (b) sort of gross, honestly. So nursing my baby is precious, because when I have nursed Matt for the last time, that will be it. Finito. (Also, from a practical angle, I know with certainty that when I stop nursing him, my boobs are going to wilt horribly, and at my age, that is not going to be a pretty thing.)

Nursing a toddler is something I haven't done before, having weaned Erika at 3 months and Sam at 8 months. (I'm sorry, kids!) It can be a tricky thing, like when Matt tries to stand on his head while nursing, or when he tries to reach in my shirt and deedle my other boob, which I really dislike. But it keeps him happy. He will play with his brother and walk all over the place, but periodically he comes back to me and says Na na, and makes a pit stop. Breastfeeding is his home base, the safe place he comes back to when being a toddler just gets to be too much work and he needs to refuel.

We have fun, too. When he nurses while awake, we smile at each other and play our little nursing games. He pulls at my necklace and explores my face with his hands. And I talk to him and tickle him. Perhaps my favorite sight in the world is his happy little face, laughing with a boobie in his mouth.

I could climb on my soapbox and lecture you on the benefits of breast milk, but half of you know all about it, and the other half of you don't care. But ladies? Don't cave in and go the formula route if you can help it at all. And guys? Get over yourselves and encourage your wives to breastfeed. It quite honestly is one of the most awesome things that's ever happened to me, and Matt lets me know in a hundred little ways that he agrees.

Sam Speaks.
Mood:  happy
Topic: Sam
That Disney movie, The Country Bears? In Sam language, they are the Crunchy Bears.

That animated movie about the horse named Spirit? To Sam, his name is Spearmint.

Last night he found a map of Los Angeles and pored over it for a good half-hour. (Which charms me, because I am the same way about maps.) I showed him where the Tar Pits are, which impressed him. But in the final analysis? "I want to go Wild Animal Park. I don't want to go Hollywood."

Okay, son. Wild Animal Park it is.

The Crying Game.
Mood:  d'oh
Topic: Matt
Just when you think you've seen it all as a parent, when you're telling yourself This is my third kid and I have been there, done that, and seen it all, one of them throws you a complete curveball, and you are floundering around like a bewildered first-time parent, wondering what to do. Matty threw me such a curve last night.

I was waiting at home when Ben brought them home from daycare, and we followed our familiar ritual. Ben pulls up out front and honks the horn. I, who am waiting inside, rush outside and crow "Boys! Boys! Boys!" at my two little darlings, who are beaming at me from their carseats. And then Ben takes Sam and I take Matthew, and we go inside together.

Last night, Matt was fussy, and Ben mentioned that he'd been crying a bit on the way home. None of this is like Matt. He is a sunshiny little guy with two big dimples which are always on display. So, okay, he's cranky tonight. He's cutting some new teeth, and that must have him down.

In the house, the situation steadily worsened. Matt cried and cried. I tried to nurse him, but he kept turning away and starting to cry. Ben made him a bottle. He took two sucks and then started crying again. We walked him around. We rocked him. We gave him Motrin. We gave him Orajel. Nothing was working. This sort of behavior is fairly common in colicky newborns, but in a fifteen-month-old, it's Just Plain Wrong.

After about an hour of trying all our tricks while Matt screamed steadily, I told Ben "This baby is in pain. We need to take him to the hospital." Ben agreed, so we started to get ready. I was starving, so insisted on heating up some leftovers so I could gobble something down before what would inevitably be a long evening at the emergency room. Ben carried Matt, still screaming, off into the living room while I ate leftover lasagna standing up at the kitchen island. But what was this? Matt had stopped screaming.

I came into the living room and found Ben and Matt sitting on the floor together. Matt was sniveling a bit, but the crying had stopped. "What did you do?" I asked Ben.

"I took his shoes off," he said.

It transpired that Matt had lost a shoe just before leaving daycare, so a teenage boy, a friend of the family we've known since he was a toddler, helpfully put it back on for him. Now you may or may not know a lot about shoeing a toddler, but it's delicate work. There is often some sort of seam on the sock bugging their toes, or something is out of place, and you have never heard anyone complain so loudly as a toddler with shoe and sock issues. If you are fifteen months old and a guy of few words, as Matt is, there is no help for it but to scream bloody murder until someone fixes your shoe.

So we almost went to the emergency room for a shoe that was rubbing his foot. Thank God we didn't actually go there -- I shudder to think what they would have put him through before someone took his shoes off.

Who Taught Him That?
Mood:  happy
Topic: Sam
The worst thing about having toddlers is that you have to watch your mouth. Seriously. Not only that, but you have to watch other people's mouths, including people in movies and on television, because precisely the thing that you're hoping they will not notice anyone said? Will become permanently stuck in their minds, and they will repeat it again and again and again. In front of people's grandmothers.

I can remember the precise date we got our first indication of this (because it was the day we bought my minivan, and Pearl Harbor Day besides). It was December 7, 2002, and Sam was 17 months old. We were pulling up outside the Chrysler dealership and being driven completely insane by the very bad driver in front of us, and the two of us were using the "F" word an uncommon amount. When abruptly we stopped and stared at each other, because we had suddenly noticed the small voice piping up from the back seat: "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." It took us the better part of two days to get him to stop saying it.

Some of the songs I sing to the kids are suspect, too. There's one I always sing to Matt while changing his diaper, because Matt is a guy, and the minute his diaper comes off, he reaches for his privates and grasps them in that unmistakably male way. So I sing:

Yay, it's your package
Hooray, it's your package
Okay, it's your package
Hey hey, it's your package

And so on. You get it. Which was all very innocent and fun until I noticed that Sam was singing along. Nice. Next thing I know, he will go off to day care singing about his package.

Another diaper changing song which Sam has picked up is:

Oh, naked baby,
You're the one for me.
[Repeat ad infinitum]

Nice, huh? I don't know what it is about changing diapers that makes me break into song, but here is one that Sam has, thankfully, not picked up on:

Good morning, Mr. Baby
We're very glad you're here
So grow up big and strong
And don't suck shlongs or be a queer.

That's their father's invention. When I protested, he said "But that's good advice!" And I guess I'm inclined to agree with him.

And honestly, it's not just the songs. You really have to seriously watch it, because the most spontaneous of conversations will be repeated, too. Our family is all into Harry Potter, and Ben, Erika and I were discussing the publicity stills from the new movie, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and the big news that suddenly Hermione has boobs. So we were marveling at this. Hermione with boobs! Sam let it pass. At first.

Much later in the day, he was for some reason reciting a list of the things that were big, important and good in his mind at the time. Toddlers do stuff like that. They're charming that way. And the list sounded something like this: "Harry Potter. Dinosaurs. Vanilla milkshake. Cheetos. Hermione with boobs." And we looked at each other and said Shit! He totally picked up on that!

And the problem will persist, because Ben and I are about eleven years old at heart, and can't resist giggling over dick jokes. So I guess we will just have to get used to hearing our pithier comments repeated back at us. And the day care people will just have to get used to Sam telling them "How about no, you crazy Dutch bastard?"