Always Remember That

I said, 'It's certain there is no fine thing Since Adam's fall but needs much labouring. There have been lovers who thought love should be So much compounded of high courtesy That they would sigh and quote with learned looks Precedents out of beautiful old books; Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.' We sat grown quiet at the name of love; We saw the last embers of daylight die, And in the trembling blue-green of the sky A moon, worn as if it had been a shell Washed by time's waters as they rose and fell About the stars and broke in days and years. I had a thought for no one's but your ears: That you were beautiful, and that I strove To love you in the old high way of love; That it had all seemed happy, and yet we'd grown As weary-hearted as that hollow moon. --W.B.Yeats

One of my goals for this year was to reduce my debt and reform my spending habits. I am pleased to announce that, three months into the year, I've actually done quite well in this regard. (Let's not discuss the progress of my other goals just yet.) I have not used a credit card all year. Not once! The only "extra" purchases I've made since January, by which I mean things other than food, gas, and bills, have been: Two $5 skirts for Phoebe (I am sunk the day my kids decide that clothes from Target are uncool, or when Phoebe ceases to be excited by the "new to her" clothes from the hand-me-down bins in the attic); Scholastic book club orders (because who can resist those); some small things for the kids' Easter baskets; anti-virus software for my laptop (ugh); a new car battery (double ugh); and some birthday presents. Oh, and Kindle books, although I also cashed in some "reward" points on my credit card, which I hadn't even known I was ...

I have been meaning to do a big update on this sadly-neglected blog of mine, but I am suffering from hayfever, or the plague, or something, and slept almost not at all last night, and hence cannot think. Which makes me wonder -- how did I function, in years not too far gone, when I had a newborn in the house and got this little sleep all the time? What a bad plan, cosmically speaking, to combine infant care with sleep deprivation. Anyway. I'm tempted to go out to my car and take a nap in the backseat. I'll leave you with this, to at least make your visit worthwhile:

I've watched The Sound of Music many times in my life, and I've watched the puppet show scene, in which the children yodel with marionettes, many more times than that, because it's a scene that my children and several children that I used to babysit for absolutely love. Needless to say, I can sing "The Lonely Goatherd" along with the best of them, although my yodeling isn't all it could be. I was always baffled, though, by one of the lines of the second verse: A prince on the bridge of a castle moat heard [yodeling] Men in the midst of a ... tobbled hoat? heard [yodeling] What were the men in the midst of, again? I never knew, until it occurred to me to check google today. And the answer is: the men were in the midst of a table d'hote . Which just means they were eating at a restaurant, essentially. I'm glad I know, now, what the men were doing. Although in a way, the wondering was a bit more interesting than the answer turned out to be.

"I know why we can't eat meat on Fridays during Lent," Mallory said. "Oh? Why is that?" I asked. "Because Jesus wants us to suffer as much as he did," she said. It occurred to me later, after laughing quite a bit, that I should have supplied the correct word: sacrifice. But I'm the one who, after helping to serve at her school's PTO (Vegetarian) Soup Supper tonight, will probably go get a cheeseburger. So what do I know of either?

A note from Mallory: I want to go to the parck today. It is the walking trale parck I want to go to with the swings. Go to www.parck.com! Love, Mallory

Many years ago, I applied for a job at a certain magazine published out of Chapel Hill. It's a literary magazine -- fiction, poetry and whatnot -- and the job was for Managing Editor. I WANTED THAT JOB SO BADLY, and when I found out that I didn't get it, I cried. A few months ago, I saw an online ad for this magazine -- Click here for a free issue! So I clicked, and the magazine arrived in my mailbox a few weeks later. I flipped through it; it fell open to the page that lists the editorial staff. My jaw dropped, because listed as Managing Editor was someone named...Krista Brenner. Which is, you know, my very own first name and a surname only one letter off from my maiden name. I threw the magazine in the recycling bin without reading it. Apparently, I'm still not over that particular rejection.

I read last week that, best case scenario, the current economic crisis will start to get better in three years. I don’t know if I can stand three years of feeling this anxious. Nothing has changed, for my little family. On paper, we are no better or worse off than we were last July. We have a fixed-rate mortgage with a payment well within our means. We have our jobs and both are relatively secure (although one never knows). Nothing has changed, really, except that, like everyone else in America, we’re afraid that suddenly everything will change, and we’ll be screwed. We get by. We have enough for bills and groceries and a meal out now and then. But if one of our cars breaks down – we’re screwed. If the heat pump goes kerflooey – we’re screwed. If gas goes back up to $4 a gallon – we’re a little screwed there, too. If, heaven forbid, one of us loses our jobs, we’re really, really screwed. And I get so, so angry with myself now, every month when I send off my minimum monthly payment for ...

We're sick. Mallory started it; she got the flu and missed an entire week of school. The very day she finally started to feel better, Phoebe succumbed. This weekend, Chris developed something which is not quite the flu, but which involves a terrible cough and a sore throat and other miseries. I don't know if I technically have the flu, but I certainly feel like I've been run over by a large truck. I can't sleep, breathing through my nose seems like a fond, distant memory, and when I lay down it feels like my blood turns to icewater. Send help! Or sedatives. What makes things worse is the fact that my children are...difficult. To venture here into a territory that the superstitious wouldn't dare go -- there are, it goes without saying, a whole host of reasons that I hope my kids never get a serious illness, but not least among those reasons is the fact that neither of my children would be, in their illness, raised to the status of a "brave little fighter" o...

See this? This picture was taken a long time ago. It is a picture of my children all ready to go to school. How I long for those days, when they actually went to school. When they didn't both have the flu, the dreaded, never-ending flu. Thanks a lot, flu!

Chris teaches at a Catholic high school, and Mass attendance is obligatory for him and for his students. Nevertheless, apparently, his students try to wheedle him into letting them skip the services every week. A few weeks ago they were even offering him money -- pulling dollar bills out of their wallets as if this would convince someone who earns a high-paying salary as a Catholic school teacher. (Ha! and Ha! again) One kid took out a dime, rubbed it between his fingers, and said, "Could I interest you in my friend Grover Cleveland here?" Chris told me this story and we laughed and laughed. "Grover Cleveland!" I snorted. "I know!" Chris said. "Who doesn't know that it's Teddy Roosevelt on the dime!" I stopped laughing. "Wait a minute. It's not Teddy Roosevelt." "It's not?" "No, of course not." "Well then who is it, smarty?" "It's, um," I said. I fished around in our coin jar f...

There's a thing going around facebook lately -- you're supposed to post 25 random things about yourself. I haven't done it, but just for fun, here's 25 random things about Phoebe instead: Phoebe is exactly the same age today – 3 years, 7 months, 5 days – as Mallory was the day we brought Phoebe home from the hospital. At that age, Mallory was obsessed with babies (and not just because we were having a new one); Phoebe never has been. That’s one reason – but not the main reason – why Phoebe will never be a big sister. Phoebe’s best friend from school is the second-shyest girl in the class (guess who’s the shyest). When they see each other in the morning, they smile, run toward each other, and then stop and avert their eyes for a few seconds before deciding it’s okay to start playing. When Phoebe gets hurt, she will do everything in her power to not let anyone know about it. She does not want kisses or hugs or, god forbid, band-aids. She’d rather cry to herself and move o...

A few nights ago, Mallory asked if the sun would ever stop shining. Chris explained that yes, in a million billion years (approximately), the sun would in fact burnt out and do whatever stars do once they burnt out. They talked about this for a few minutes, and then I glanced over and saw Phoebe, quietly sobbing into a pillow. "What's wrong?" I asked. "I don't want that to happen to the sun!" she cried. And what do you say to make it better? "It's okay, honey, by the time this happens you'll be long dead anyway?" I just gave her a hug and told her not to worry, that the sun would be fine. Little darling.

One night, when I was about three years old, my big sister crept into my room. We were both supposed to be asleep. "I need you to go check on Mommy," she said. "I'm afraid she's left us all alone." "Okay," I said agreeably, not asking why this fear had surfaced. We had never been left all alone before, after all; but I was used to doing what Jana told me to do. So I slid out of bed and padded down the hall. I was probably carrying my beloved doll, Sherry, by the hair. (I often woke up in the middle of the night and cried because I couldn't find Sherry. My mom always came to help me locate her.) I peered around the corner into the living room. My mom was on the couch, watching TV and possibly needlepointing. It might have been Kojak or the Rockford Files on TV. She looked up and saw me. "What are you doing out of bed?" she asked. "Um," I said, not knowing exactly what to say. Should I rat out my sister? I decided not to. ...

To be completely honest, it drives me just a little bit nuts, having Mallory read aloud to me. She's a good reader, for a 7-year-old, but she has some frustrating traits. For example, she will read words like "discouraged" and "misunderstood" without hesitation, but then she'll stop and need help with words like "what" and "don't." Worse than that, though, is that her comprehension isn't quite up to par, and she'll often stop in the middle of a sentence and ask what's going on, a question that would be easily answered if she would only read the rest of the sentence . "'The polar bear was frightened because' -- why was the polar bear frightened?" she'll ask. And I'll say, "Finish the sentence!" and she'll say, " Mommy , would you just tell me about the polar bear!" and then I'll say something I regret. When I was a child, I did my daily assigned reading to my young broth...

Mallory is supposed to read aloud for 20-30 minutes every day. As Chris and I are working parents, that means we have to try to fit that half-hour of reading between 5:30, when we get home, and 9:00, when the kids (supposedly) go to bed. Along with dinner, and other homework, and bath, and Daisy scouts, and other stuff. You would think that someone such as myself, who would rather read than do almost anything else in the world, would do everything in my power to foster such a love of reading in my children. You'd think that I'd make reading practice a Very High Priority. The truth is...some nights, like tonight, I let Mallory play with her little sister instead. She has the rest of her life to be a reader. She only has a few short years to be here at home with Phoebe. I don't feel the slightest bit of guilt about letting her skip reading practice. I do feel a little bit bad about forging the Reading Log that gets turned into her teacher every month. Let's just hope Mrs...

Me: You know what really annoys me? Chris: What? Me: I'm reading this magazine about storage solutions, right, about how to organize your closets and whatnot -- but look at the examples they use! All these closets are at least three times as large as ours, all of these kitchens have way more cabinets, all these living rooms have built in bookshelves -- what about getting organized when you have a tiny closet or an inadequate kitchen? What are ordinary people supposed to do? Chris: Well, it is called Better Homes and Gardens, after all.

Because it's that kind of day. The stickers on apples. How very cold it is in my bathroom. We're keeping our thermostat down low to save energy/money, and mostly the house is tolerable if you wear a big sweatshirt, but my bathroom is just frigid. Especially the porcelain toilet seat. Brrr. People who don't understand four-way stops. When your child wakes up whining that she's so siiick and she can't possibly go to schooool today, and then fake-cries pitifully when you tell her to get dressed anyway. When your child then proceeds to throw up everywhere, and then cries that you're so meeean because you didn't belieeeve her that she was sick. Stomach viruses. Mouth noises of any kind. Smacking, slurping, crunching, munching, snoring, gargling, whatever it is, don't do it around me. Often I have to leave my desk for a moment while my cubicle-mates eat their lunches. Gah. Grocery shopping. When a book I really want to read is not available in Kindle format. T...

I got a Kindle for Christmas. You're jealous, aren't you? If you're not, you should be. I've read six books on my Kindle in the past month and not once have I missed holding a physical book in my hand. The screen is great -- no glare, no fuzziness, it's just like reading ink on paper. It's easy to learn to use, it's easy to navigate. It's actually easier to read than a book in some situations -- for example, while lying in bed, because you can prop it up with one hand and not worry about the pages flopping over. You can read it while complete covered up with a blanket, hands and all, because all you have to do is nudge a button to get to the next page. I'm sure that ease of reading while lazing in bed under the covers was not high on the list of design features that were considered in the device's manufacture, but there you go. The most wonderful thing about the Kindle is that, with it in my hand, I will never be without something to read. Even ...

It's really cold, and I'm grumpy. So this week we're going to talk about my favorite things. My mom gave each of us a calendar every Christmas. When I was eight or nine, mine was a Sandra Boynton cartoon calendar. The January picture was of a bunch of cats in a hot air balloon, and the caption said: "Oh no! It's only January, and this calendar already has catsup on it!" Get it? Catsup? Cats, up in the air? You can bet that my eight-year-old self found that very funny. But it wasn't until I had my first child that I became a true Boynton afficionado. Mallory had almost every Boynton board book, and we loved them all. The ABC book, with the Penguins Painting and the Kangaroos Kissing. Blue Hat, Green Hat (oops!). Hey, Wake Up! with its broccoli stew (for the rabbit, not for you!) and The Bedtime Book with its perfect last line (The moon is high, the sea is deep, they rock and rock and rock to sleep). But her very favorite book, the one we read for bedtime fo...