The Best Mother's Day Ever

At about 3 o'clock on one of the sunniest Mother's Days in recent memory, Luca sat up from a sound sleep in his Nana Sue's arms and threw up everything he had eaten since 8 o'clock that morning.  We were all sitting on the porch together, having completed two of the day's three planned meals. It was Annie's first Mother's Day and she and her own mother (me) AND her mother-in-law (the aforementioned Nana Sue) were having a pretty nice day so far. The morning meal - bagels, cream cheese, lox and fruit salad - looked like this:

And this: 

 

We had Momosa's (which is a Mimosa made on demand for Mom) and just plain enjoyed the beautiful day.  Luca, as always, was the center of attention, but the Moms got some attention, too. We moved to the back porch for our second course, mini quiches and chicken-maple sausages; bananas for Luca. My sister the Great-Aunt arrived and we all opened tissue-paper wrapped presents and cards in pink and purple envelopes. It was a good day. We moved back up to the shade of the side porch when the sun got too hot. Luca had lost his shirt by this time and my son, Uncle Christopher, showed up after he had gotten off of work.  A few minutes before 3pm, Luca looked like this: 

Not even a hint of what was to come. Then he threw up. Eight adults jumped to action: Mommy (Annie) swooped up Luca to hold and comfort him, Daddy (Tony) helped his Nana extricate herself from the torrent of bananas, rice cereal and milk that was dripping off of her black blouse and now pooling on the porch. Great-Aunt Susie and Uncle Christopher tackled porch-cleaning duty and Auntie Christina helped Daddy take care of their mother.  Papa and I helped by staying out of the way. 

The mood of the day changed. Although the little guy was able to manage that brilliant smile, he was clearly feeling terribly and continued to throw up. Mom and Dad took him upstairs and the rest of us kept vigil on the porch, sharing vomit war stories. We grandmothers hovered, galvanized, ready to be of any assistance necessary. Papa took a nap. Uncle Christopher went up to check on his little nephew and gave his sister the First Mother's Day card he had for her and decided to leave the vigil in our capable hands. Plans for meal number three were put on hold. It wasn't as if we hadn't eaten enough anyway. Many of the Mother's Day presents were chocolates; of the fancy boxed variety, so we were fine.  

At one point, Tony came down and asked both me and Nana Sue to come up - they needed advice! We didn't need to be asked twice. Upstairs, Luca was laying across Annie's lap smiling, but he barely moved. Annie held on to him as if hoping to transmit her own energy into him, looking tired yet strong. She said with a smile, "He's really making me work for this Mother's Day."

I thought about that later, how things work out. All of our plans, potted plants and tasty dishes were set aside when the baby got sick and everyone discovered something about the best laid plans and motherhood. Personally, I learned that I don't always have to know everything...just because I've been a mom for over 31 years. I came by the knowledge first-hand, through experiences just like this. Luca has a mother; he doesn't need two more. And although Sue and I are a couple of pretty good mothers, we are better grandmothers...sitting back until called upon. But when we're called upon, you better believe that we'll be on the job. But I think we both know that to be able to trust your mother's intuition, you need to develop it. And when your baby is throwing up and crying and tired...well, that is the proving ground. 

Yesterday, everyone, from Papa to Auntie, from Uncle to Great-Auntie, seemed to understand that when a baby is sick, you just do what needs to be done.  Nobody was disappointed, nobody pouted, everybody pitched in to help. As a mother, I couldn't have been more proud of the way my family rallied around Annie, Tony and Luca. Or the way the new Mommy and Daddy stepped right up to the responsibility of taking care of their little one. There will be many more Mother's Days to come, complete with handmade construction paper cards, breakfasts in bed, macaroni necklaces, fancy brunches, bouquets of flowers and lots more chocolate. As far as I'm concerned, though, this year was the best Mother's Day ever. 

I don't have much, but I love what I've got

Last year, I received--or bought--an orchid. (I'm sorry if you gave it to me and I don't remember. One of the things I don't have much of is memory.) It bloomed on the table in the kitchen for months, until, one by one, the delicate petals fell off, leaving only broad, waxy leaves and a creepy looking stem held to a stake by one of those small plastic hair clasps. It had been so pretty and I marveled at the fact that I hadn't killed it sooner than it's apparent natural demise. I didn't want to toss it out in the garbage--that seemed harsh, so I Googled "orchids" to see if I could nurture it back to beauty once more.

I wasn't too hopeful.

As it turns out, there were some easy "bring-back-to-life" instructions on the web site for these particular orchids. I had to cut back the creepy looking stem and add some fertilizer and wait. A couple of months later, one of what looked like exposed roots started to poke upward. It began to turn from brown to green and as it grew, I used the hair clasp to secure it to the stake. I continued to water it and a couple of months ago, a tiny green shoot appeared with a small greenish bulb at the end. Then more appeared. I was getting excited. Then, it bloomed. I came down one morning and saw that pink, delicate blossoms hung impossibly from the tiny stems. Success! It grew back! And there were more blooms and, I think, a stronger looking stem. I pointed it out, more than once,  to everyone who walked through the kitchen - "Look! it came back! It came back!" My family was not equally thrilled. But I felt like I had just painted the Sistine Chapel.

My point is (if it has not been clear yet...no one can muddle a point like I can) that there is a lot that I can't do. And once one (okay, me) gets to a certain age, it's not likely that I'm going to acquire many more skills and abilities than those I already possess. Old dog, new tricks...that sort of thing. (I'm not cynical about lifelong learning...I teach in a lifelong learning program...I'm making a point, remember?) Some people can grow acres and acres of flora and fauna. I can't, but I can get an orchid to come back. And that makes me happy. I like what I am able to do, I'm grateful for what I am able to do.  And I'm grateful for what others can do that I can't - like my taxes. It's nice to be at this stage of life when I don't feel like I have to do everything. I can just do the stuff that I can do, do my best and let somebody else do theirs. Why take all the fun for myself?

Where do broken hearts go...?

On my hips. And my thighs. And, apparently now that I'm aging, on my upper arms. Damn the day after Valentine's Day and its 75% off sales! Go away, you practically beating shiny red hearts offering love and comfort...at deep discounts. Shame on you, mercenary retailers, pushing love in the form of smooth chocolaty centers and creamy truffled affection. And what's my problem that I can't resist the desire of having my own velvety symbol of love filled with rich pillows of confection, each ensconced in their own safe little cradle, and each ready to provide me with the fulfillment of a lover's kiss?

I seriously need some help.

For me, it's probably a combination of things, both historical and societal. As a youngster, after 5th grade, Valentine's Day was excruciating. It was in 5th grade that I reached the pinnacle of Valentine's Day expectations: I got a real Valentine card - in a real envelope - in the brown paper lunch bag decorated with crookedly cut hearts that hung taped to my desk.  The front of the card had an adorable white shaggy dog holding a little red heart in its mouth. And, sadly, I can remember the sentiment inside to this day: "Know what this is? Of course you do! It's a Valentine from me to you!" In my mind it was clear that it was also a thinly veiled marriage proposal.

After that, Valentine's Days went immediately downhill. I watched as all the girls around me received heart-shaped boxes of love year after year. Even into my teens and early twenties, I saw the giving of boxes of chocolates as some unattainable thing that the pretty, popular girls were allowed to have, but not me. Don't I get love? Or candy? I was never sure which one I was lamenting.  

Then, one day, I was in a CVS drug store and it was the day after Valentine's Day. There were dozens of bright, red, shining heart-shaped boxes on the shelves. And they were the good kinds, too. Not the cheaper off brand! The sign practically screamed at me: 75% off!  I looked around, picked the prettiest heart with the best chocolate that I could find and added it to my purchases. When I went home, I carefully opened up the box and just gazed at the tiny mounds of wonderfulness that was all mine. And then I ate most of them right up. I had to eat fast. I might have started to feel guilty.

This may have happened during the years after my divorce. It's hard to say...most of my relevatory epiphanies happened during that time. It was either that or I slipped immediately into a coma afterwards. 

The phenomenon of buying my own Valentine's Day candy didn't happen again until after Annie and her family moved in with us. Women who are constantly trying to drop some weight do not feel good buying large boxes of candy for themselves. But Annie, who is nursing baby Luca, is not concerned about gaining too much weight. She is happily and joyfully eating most of whatever she wants.  However, along with her mainly healthy and nutritious diet, she has also had a craving for chocolates. So, there I was in the drugstore. The day after Valentine's Day. I found myself in the candy aisle, not unlike the defenseless wildebeest that happens to accidentally wander into the clearing where the lions are hunting. I was overtaken,  like the wildebeest, with the signs, the varieties, the sparkly-ness, the prospect of all that love--I mean chocolate--to savor.  I bit....pun intended. I told myself that I was buying it "for Annie". But when I got home, I was a willing participant in "helping" Annie enjoy the chocolates. Fortunately, Annie likes to bite into each piece, to either find out what's inside or lay claim to the piece for later. That helped me limit my consumption. But not by much.

So, thanks Valentine's Day. Thanks for another reason to feel guilty/excited/fat/loved/comatose all in one swoop. And all at 75% off.

Comfort Junk

Does anyone else find this photo ironic? 

 

Look closely...amidst the packing tape, Altoids tins and last year's Valentine's decorations, the careful observer will spy with their little eye a book my husband bought a year or so ago. 

See it? 

It's called Throw Out FIFTY Things by Gail Blanke.  

See where it is? Under a pile of about fifty things we should have thrown out. Months ago.  There are small white bags that we used at my daughter's wedding... she was married in September 2009.  The book itself is perched on a paper plate...hopefully not a used one. There is a paper cup holding some solid yellow mass which I am sure was of some import to someone (my husband) at one time. Little plastic shot glasses, a package of graph-lined index cards, half a roll of raffia and a couple of bags of catnip--these are the things I still have in my possession. 

Most people have a junk drawer in their kitchen--I have a junk hutch. The visible shelves hold cookbooks, veggies and file folders with Important Papers in them. (Ha! There are medical records for our cat Chloe in one of those folders...may she rest in peace.) The only reason that the junk above is visible is because the fold-down desk top that usually remains in its upright position was opened to retrieve something Urgently Necessary. 

I wonder what it was. 

I know that I am not the only one who has piles of old mail, an unopened package of suction hooks and a bag of foam flower stickers laying around in some hidden, yet accessible place in their home.  What I wonder is why I can look at that pile, identify the object I needed, grab it and shut the door again without sweeping the whole mess into the wastebasket. No, that's not true--you know as well as I do why not: because I would have to "go through" it all to make sure I don't get rid of anything I might need at a later date. And it would take me about an hour to go through it all because I would no doubt come across a magazine article I hadn't read, a cute photo I would have to find another place for or some beautiful paper I could use to wrap something. Some day. 

How could I just toss all that important stuff?

Obviously I can't. And, God help me, this is a pattern that repeats itself throughout my life. Remember the dumpster? I do. I still have old towels, stacks of English essays from classes three years ago and --and I just found this today-- a potpourri crockpot for simmering spices during the holidays. Now why didn't that go into the dumpster? What could possibly have been my rationale for hanging on to that? "It's so festive! I can use it at Christmas!"

When I was divorced, I lost most of my possessions in the separation. Not only common items that should have been evenly shared, but many of my personal belongings, too. Like my high school year book. In my early single parent days, I had so little that I think I started hanging on to things for no other reason than, "just in case." I suppose those kinds of feelings can stick around for awhile. There are other situations that drive people to hang onto things, I suppose. It's funny how those feelings can stick with you and they're as hard to get rid of as a set of keys that don't open anything, birthday cards from three years ago, a lone checker and three balls of string kept in a handy drawer or box...just in case.

Why Do Today What I Can Put Off Until Next Year?

The only reason that I have sparkly, white Christmas lights hanging in my living room today is because I never took them down from last year's Christmas decorating. (I'm not kidding.)  I did manage to buy a bag of Candy Cane Kisses and miniature candy canes for my English class's final exam yesterday, but as my students ate most of the treats, there really isn't much left for my family. I have not bought one Christmas present. For anyone.

If you came into my house right now you would not see my reindeer candy dish brimming with M&Ms, the Santa-covered photo book of all the Christmas card pictures I've received over the years or the cute little snowmen that I usually stick here and there to be festive.

There is no tree.

There are no stockings hung with care or otherwise and the only other decorative, Christmas-y item in view in my house is the handmade advent calendar that I managed to get out on December 1st. But as of today we do not have 16 ornaments hanging on it. The emails I get announcing "Last Minute Specials!" or "Free Shipping- Today Only!" get deleted because I don't want to think about it. I don't want to think about Christmas at all. The only thing I want to think about is this...

I'm not depressed! Far from it. I'm just too busy looking at this boy! Luca. Ever since Annie, Tony and the baby moved into my house after Thanksgiving, I've done nothing but hold the baby, change the baby, bathe the baby, hold the baby again or watch other people hold the baby. That takes a lot of time. And energy -especially for an "older" me. All my Mommy skills came back in an interesting way: I'm more confident of them, just slower at them. And my knees hurt more.

No one gets anything done. Except Tony but he has to go all the way to Manhattan to do it. I have managed to go to work when I'm expected, but I come right back and snatch up Luca from wherever he is and gaze into his face. At six weeks old, he is starting to recognize us and I think that he likes me best so far. Obviously I'm not going to tell anyone that, because I think his mommy and daddy might be put out by this information...but it's clear that I'm right. He laughs at all my jokes and hasn't peed on me at all. If that's not evidence I don't know what is.

I'm not the only one that is totally enraptured by this baby. My husband is as swept away as the rest of us and threatens to take him back to Italy - just the two of them. And that shrieking noise you hear is Nana Sue up in Buffalo going out of her mind missing him. A baby changes everything. Well, duh...we all knew that, didn't we. But I didn't know how much he would change me. Christmas -- and probably the next several holidays and possibly dusting and laundry -- will just have to wait. Unless it has to do with the baby, I don't have time. For now, the only thing I'm celebrating is Luca.

Near-Death Experience

Near death experiences are pretty simple; they end one way…or the other. It’s the “near” part that one gets to live to tell and that part is what I am going to tell you about now...
Near-Death Experience

The Calm Before (and After) the Storm

"Hope for the best and prepare for the worst." You hear that all the time, but no more often than the last several days here in New England. An Atlantic hurricane named Irene was gunning for us and she had the meteorological folks all a-twitter. Literally. I'm not one who is easily alarmed, but by last night, I started to get a little concerned: our house is surrounded by large, swaying trees and strings of electrical wires. We sit in the middle of a downhill bank and water streams past our house during every rainstorm. What would a full-fledged hurricane do to our basement? Also, I had a house full of people: my parents up from Florida and my 7-months pregnant daughter and her husband. Their plans were to all go together up to Maine, but Irene canceled their trip by Thursday night.

So, here we all were. By Friday night, the warnings were posted and we were stocking the larder; mini marshmallows and Teddy Grahams. I had baby shower favors to make and being stuck in the house because of a storm seemed like an opportune time to get them done - especially as I now had a small workforce trapped with me! Angelo and I still had some clients yesterday morning, but we were done by noon. Okay...Hurricane Prep time.

We took down all the hanging pots and lanterns. We secured loose cushions and gardening implements and stowed the porch furniture in the back underneath the garage. The AC unit in our bedroom was removed and shoved in the office and we didn't remember to shut the storm windows (duh....STORM windows...) until 11pm. Dinner was easy - just some simple grilling as a rehearsal for possible days without power. At bed time, Angelo passed out PELDs to each of us (that's Personal Emergency Lighting Devices to all you unfamiliar with Hurricane Prep. You know...flashlights) and we went to bed feeling pretty safe and sound.

This morning Annie got up early and manned the post on the couch watching the Weather Channel. My job was to get breakfast on the table before the power went out; scrambled eggs, bacon, apple-maple syrup chicken sausage, cheddar cheese biscuits and English muffins. Done. After a few tense moments when the microwave went out - but not because we lost power but because it's a cheap little oven that stops working when it gets too hot - we enjoyed our breakfast and discussed what the aftereffects of Irene might be.  We decided to go look and survey the damage:

What a mess! 

This is going to take minutes to clean up after!

Oh, no! Angelo's sculpture is down!

That tree wasn't there yesterday....Irene decided she wanted that branch right there!

The peonies seemed to actually benefit from the storm.

Now, before anyone gets mad at me because they actually do have a flooded basement (my neighbor) or a tree inside of their car (my sister), I realize that we were very lucky to have been spared some of the really aggravating and damaging problems. With my pregnant daughter and my over- and nearly-eighty parents here I am very grateful that the biggest calamity was that I didn't defrost the chicken for dinner yet tonight. There are lots of people cleaning up, picking up, making do and dealing with all manner of predicaments that I was spared. This time.  On the other hand, maybe I'd better go check the basement again...