Always Remember That

Just kidding, I'm glad you're reading. And I've been meaning to tell you for ages that after your visit last March, Mallory will occasionally cup her hands and take a little slurp of water after brushing her teeth and say "That's how Grandmom showed me to do it." And any friend of Aimee's is more than welcome to leave (positive) comments whenever she wishes. So. When I grow up I want to be a Speech/Language Pathologist. That may seem to be out of the clear blue sky, but it's kind of been in the back of my mind for many many years. When I was in junior high, after reading One Child by Torey Hayden, I thought I might like to be a child psychologist. And one day when I was a junior in high school I suddenly thought that hey, I should totally be a neonatologist. And when I was a freshman in college I took a Psychology course and thought that I should look into being a developmental psychologist, doing research with infants and small children. Why I did n...

Today Mallory asked me if she could go into outer space. "Sure, " I said, "but you'll have to become an astronaut first." She wrinkled up her nose and said, "Can girls be astronauts?" I said of course, but I'm wondering why would she think they couldn't? I'm hoping the reason is benign -- for example, because Buzz Lightyear is an astronaut and he's clearly not a girl. We've certainly never told her there were limits on what she can do as a girl, and I don't think she would've heard that at school or even on TV, not in this day and age. In fact, I don't remember ever thinking there were things I couldn't do because I was a girl, and I grew up simply decades ago. The Free to Be album really sunk in, I suppose. (I should let Mallory listen to that...it would be a nice change from Sesame Street and Yorrie Berganer (that's Mallory-speak for Laurie Berkner). My problem is that I decided what I wanted to be at a very...

I "worked from home" last Friday, and indeed will either work from home or be off work completely every Friday through the end of the year, thanks to an accomodating boss and my clever hoarding of my paid time off. This allows me to stay home with the girls and gives my inlaws, who watch them the other four days of the week, a day to themselves which I'm sure they sorely need. On the one hand I'm grateful to my accomodating boss and my abundance of paid time off which makes this arrangement possible. On the other hand I kind of resent the fact that I have to hoard my time off and negotiate working from home. (I'm supposed to be "discreet" about it.) The company I work for, which I shall not name, has been good to me in many ways, but they are really behind the times as far as bringing family-friendly options to the workplace. I have a web-based job, I don't physically need to be in the office building on most days -- why can't I work from home...

Yesterday, because he can refuse her nothing, Mallory's grandfather (Papa) bought her a real honest-to-goodness coconut at the grocery store. Mallory watched, fascinated, as he proceeded to pierce two of the holes in the coconut, drain the milk, and then whack the thing open with a hammer. (I admit that I was fascinated too...I've never seen a real coconut unwrapped, so the speak.) Then he cut off some of the flesh for her to eat. Now, this is a child who lately eats only four or five things (the kid standards -- pb&j, chicken nuggets, cinnamon toast, and ice cream) so I was surprised that she agreed to try it, and not surprised that she didn't like it much. I had a bite too -- it was not too bad, but obviously the sweetened stuff is much better. Especially when residing in my mom's Italian Cream Cake. Most interesting fact about the coconut -- the inside is cold to the touch. This ends your science lesson for the day. After the taste test, Mallory picked up one h...

I'm a bit of an introvert, so one of the hardest things about being a mother, for me, is all that interacting I have to do with my children. Especially when it comes to the questions, my god, the questions. You know, to bring up the old cliche, I would be thrilled if Mallory (that would be my older daughter) would ask me something straightforward like, "Why is the sky blue?" Because that is a question that has a rational answer. But Mallory doesn't ask questions like that. Mallory asks questions like these: 1. The Unanswerable. "Mommy, what was that in the road?" she asked this morning as we were driving to my in-law's house. "I don't know, I didn't see it," I said. "But what WAS it?" she asked. "Mallory, I don't know, I didn't see it," I repeated. "But Mommy, what WAS it?" she asked, becoming shrill. "Um....grass?" I said. "Oh," she said. Oy. 2. The Repetitive. Last year a...