Ruby and I are in Brasil, and I don’t think that I will be able to find the words to even discribe  it but ill try. We are in Trancoso a small town in the state of Bajia. We are staying with friends of ours at their huge house with 2 guest houses nestled at the end of a dirt road in the jungle. Sloths, monkeys, roosters, huge hairy spiders Oh my! The drive here was amazing, after our 24 hour trip to get here (thanks TAM airlines for forgetting to tell me at JFK that they had changed our flights causing a wild goose chace in Buenos Aires at 6:30am). When we arrived in Porto Seguro after travelling for about 20 hours, we still had to wait a couple of hours for our friends to pick us up and then another 2 hour drive to Trancoso. A hilly drive through Eucalyptus plantations (not the scrawny type you see in the US, but rows of huge trees about 7 stories high. It reminded me a bit of the backroads of texas where the side of the road you drive on here is optional. In town it is all dirt roads, and we arrived on Sunday where everything stops and the communal watching of the soccer game is an all-day event. Bars along the strip put their big screen TV’s outside and people say in chairs and on the sidewalk and stood in the street watching and yelling. Mimi and Mark’s house is amazing. It has huge open windows on all sides (no screens anywhere) and a tall roof. Their decore is antiques, Tibetan and Indian with some new-age thrown in there with all sorts of religious articles. The kitchen is big with hanging pots and everyone eats lunch (the biggest meal of the day) at a long wooden table next to big glass doors that open up to a view of the jungle. The warm air blows through the house despite it being humid. The chalet’s are cute and we feel at home right away despite a couple of Brasil usuals: a shower where the water is heated in a small water heater attached to where the water comes out, and a huge mosquito net we sleep under like we are princesses of the jungle.
Ruby and I have spent every day at the beach. Yes, that is all that you do here really which I can’t really complain about. We wake up when the sun gets a little hotter (no one has a watch here among us) and we go to the beach around what I would guess is around noon. The water is warm and the ocean is calm. The first day we park under some trees next to a guy they call Brama that sells cokes and beers and mixed vodka drinks and pineapples. Mark said it took him about 10 minutes to tell him his name, and he calls Mark Brama too. Aparently it is a name of a beer. If you aks him weather the tide is coming in or out, he will answer you later usually getting it wrong. It doesn’t seem to be important, and neither does his name or yours. The mentality here is possibly the polar oposite of New York’s uber-achiever mindset. Here you do not give times to show up specifically. You show up “later” or “tomorrow” which may mean the day after or the day after that. Its been nice to sleep in and wake up around 11 not knowing what time it is. Although the first couple of days adjusting to this whole way of thinking adds to the culture shock. Not only is everything unfamiliar, but it lacks the structure we cling to also. But it has been relaxing ultimately to let go of those little things like time and order for a week. As much as this does look like paradise here, the laid backness of it might drive me a little crazy.
The beach is amazing, lots of dark skinned Brazillian men riding on horses towing another horse giving rides to tourists. There are many tourists here, but not many Americans, its too long of a commute I guess. There is a club med here and they are building a Ritz-Carlton on the beach here soon. Most people hang out on the chairs and beds of a local restaurant drinking from coconuts from a bendy straw. The local Indians and hippies walk by trying to sell you cooked pastries and jewelry made from bone, feathers and seeds. We have learned to say “Nao Obrigarde” which means No thank you. Its been great to finally get some time with Ruby. Our lives have been so hectic and we have had a lot of great talks here.
Last night we walked to a house nearby where a band was rehearsing.. They play the local music for Bahia, lots of percussion and an amazingly seductive beat with an acordian and violin adding a Cuban flair. Mimi and Ruby went home as we had a small dinner party planned but I stayed on and watched as they all sung and swayed in this tiny dimply lit shack. The dinner was really great too, nice people a German and a Spaniard made us spanish tortillas and then played amazing Brazillian music for us on guitar and saxaphone. I went to sleep with the softest version of “the girl from impanema” going in my head.
We leave tonight and are off to the beach for one last time, and then to shop a bit in Porto Seguro before catching our 1am plane to Salvador and then to Sao Paolo. I can’t wait to get home, I miss Tom and Jack and Marlowe like crazy. But it was an amazing experience here, one I am sure we both won’t soon forget. Ill post some photos when i get home.

Marlowe, yesterday you turned 1. (one!) Its hard to believe a year has passed by. At about seven forty-five tonight I thought about this time last year, when you arrived on this earth and our lives were changed forever. I wrote about your first six months last September and it feels in some ways like that was just yesterday. You were born with your strong and spirited personality and it has become my favorite thing about you. That and your cute Rod Stewart haircut…the one he wore in the “Do you think I’m sexy” video. You wake up every morning with a smile standing in your crib with a little bed head and a smile that shows your four bottom teeth. You make all kinds of noise at your brother trying to wake him up, usually an “eeeep!” is thrown in there. You are cuddly and so kissable and when Jack comes crawling towards us, you get a smile and shriek and crawl as fast as you can up into my arms, even if he isn’t chasing you. You love to be chased and tickled down the hallway. There is no torture worse than having your nose wiped or getting your diaper changed and you are a master escape artist if there is any threat of either. You are learning how to be gentile and try to show this on Jack and the dog although your coordination makes it a challenge. You still get in trouble a lot for smacking and Jack has three bite marks on him. I have seen you shake your head from side to side with your mouth open going for him like a puppy, I think you get excited and think its playful but don’t have the ability to bite gently. I suppose its our fault as we play with you this way, biting your fingers or toes lightly. You have been a fighter since you were born and stand your ground and don’t ever hold back when you want something. You are tough, but so pretty and tough. I am so glad I have a tough girl. You are so into movement and dance when you hear music, even when the dog squeaks her toy in any rhythm. You bop up and down with a serous face. Your favorite toys are still any that make music (like my cell phone). I really think you will do something competitive that involves movement somehow. You are competitive with Jack although most of the time he just lets you win. You are so determined to walk and spend hours pushing around a big jug of coins we have like you were training for the strong man competition. It is fun to make you laugh by throwing you up in the air or wrestling with you, but you are the cutest when you do things as a joke with a smirk on your face. You shake your head no when you are told “no” looking very serious about it. You are going to be the comedian in the family. You already have a wit about you which makes you seem so much older than one. At night we put you and your brother in your bouncers (your legs hang over the sides) with your bottles (not long for those) in front of the TV where you watch Play With Me Sesame. It is part of your bedtime ritual but will soon be replaced by water and bedtime books. You are always watching Ernie and Bert intensely and dance a little at your hips when any music comes on even while drinking in your bouncer. You are so pretty Marlowe, and everyone that sees you comments on this, your long lashes and rosebud lips…the irony in this is that you snore like a baby warthog. The pediatrician says that you will grow out of it, but I can just see the boys all being crushed out on you and you yawning prettily saying that you are tired and chhhooonkchggggguuugh! It has really been an amazing gift to have been able to spend this year with you and watch you grow. You are so new to this world but it also feels like you have always been here. I look forward to helping you find a voice that will allow you not to feel threatened so that you have to fight physically, I hope you will find power in those words. I also look forward to helping channel all of that crazy energy into something constructive and creative and not ever stifle you or hold you back. I hope the world is ready for a beautiful and strong woman like you will someday undoubtedly be. This year of being one will be so much fun for you. There is so much to explore and discover. And it will be so wonderful to watch you learn names of things and learn how things work. You are so loved, your Dad and I are amazed at how lucky we are to have you. For your birthday you had some chocolate cupcake, but you will eat anything really..food is not your passion or aversion. We all clapped when we blew out the candle for you, I made a wish for you asking for lots of fun and lots of music to dance to this year. You got some cool presents but you loved your egg shaped music shaker most of all. Happy Birthday sweetheart.

Last night Tom and I went on our Valentines date. We went early so that we could get a sitter and avoid those pesky naked flying babies with bows and arrows. It was snowing and the roads were icy but we luckily have a 4 wheel drive truck and decided to go for it (hey there is more off-roading in the Brooklyn potholes than in suburbia lemmietellya). We dropped the babies off at the babysitter (she lives next door, and would head over to my house with them an hour later) and we got dressed in a flash and headed into the city. We drove up the West Side Highway and made a right onto West 47th Street, we drove through the dark warehouse district that merged into a more residential area with restaurants along the avenues. Ahead we could see the bright lights of Times Square reflecting in the snow and snow clouds above and it looked like a parade coming toward us. We parked under the Crown Plaza Hotel and for a second there considered just renting a room, taking a bath, ordering room service and sleeeeeeeping. But we ignored the temptation and only stopped in the gift shop to buy $3.75 waters. The man behind the counter was surrounded by tiny Statues of Libertys, FDNY and PDNY T-shirts and caps and a glass case that held I heart NY shot glasses, die-cast taxi cabs, Zippos and a pink sequined ladies evening purse in case of an impromptu ball. We joked that he filled up the waters in the back with the tap and he laughed with a burst. We walked into Times Square and looked up at the lights and billboards. It is strange to think that we live so close to this spectacle and don’t often remember its there. The snow was still white on the ground and was about an inch deep, it made the square (that is really a triangle) pretty, like a white Christmas. I put up my hood with the fake fur around the face and took Tom’s arm. We slid and scuffled down the sidewalk weaving in and out of the slow walking tourists and stole kisses from each other at the intersections. A huge billboard showed 5 women heavily airbrushed in impossible lingerie and I thought for a second that they weren’t properly dressed for the weather. Tom wondered how many men stood and looked up at that billboard frozen while the light changed to walk and back to don’t walk again. We passed the M & M store and I noticed the jean jacket with embroidered dancing M’s on it and I wondered: What man would wear that? …it seemed the opposite of NYC chic. How was it that the big candy stores of all things had moved into this area creating a Disneyesque theme version of New York. Portraying “safe, safe, safe to spend, spend, spend!”. I remembered it when off the side streets it was all XXX places, Ruby Foo’s and Madame Tussaud’s wax museum. The red light district has been moved out to Jersey and Queens but Madame Tussaud’s is still there. Lady Di still has to have her ass re-waxed now and again from being rubbed flat by the nice men posing with her. The signs of the times are brighter and flashier now. It is indeed a sight to see, our little cathedral of commercialism.
We walked to the Court Theater and went up to the mezzanine and stood in the back finishing our drinks while the angry usher publicly humiliated anyone who put their umbrellas on the ledge. We were there to see The Homecoming and we were both so glad to not be seeing a musical. The play was written in late 60’s London by a playwright (Harold Pinter) trying to fit into the new breed of cutting edge playwrights. It had a handful of actors and one set but we are suckers for a dark humored British story and we loved it. Ian McShane was amazing as we figured he would be. He played the father to three grown boys and Michael McKean played the Uncle. One of the boys comes to visit with his wife and the whole dynamic of the place changes with her presence. For all of its crassness it was sexy and poetic. And as I like so much in a story, it took a turn to where I had never imagined. At the intermission we were glad that we took advantage of pre-ordering our drinks. They sat at the end of the bar under a napkin that said “Tom” in blue ink and we avoided the line of perfumed and fur wearing theatergoers. We talked about the play and how it seemed to have room to breathe and we wondered what it might be like to play the same part every night for months. I said that it was probably a lot like what I had seen on the road with bands. The first week was spent trying to get all of the notes right and making sure of your mark and then once there is confidence it can then become musical and they begin to feed off of each other. I imagine that it was similar here and that as the play aged it took them to places that might even surprise the actors. And that the audience played a large role in what direction it went.
When the play ended we went down to the orchestra seats and stayed for a Q & A with the director and all of the actors. Everyone spoke candidly about what it was like to work together and with the playwright who answered questions via e-mail and often tersely. You could see how charming each actor was and how different their personalities were from the characters they played. Ian said some funny things about it not “arting you to death” which is something that bugs me in a lot of things too. Tom and I left with big smiles on our faces and happened to see Ian McShane getting into his car out front. Tom told him “Great show Ian” to witch he thanked us for. I don’t get star struck because I worked with famous people for awhile and have seen that we are all human and as capable of flaws as the next guy. But I am sure we would have jumped in the car with him and gone to Clancy’s for a round given the invitation. We stopped at the Hershey’s store to get Ruby something for Valentines Day and picked up our car and headed home talking about the play pretty much the whole way back. We are both the type to be attracted to characters who have a dark sense of humor, have big hearts and are a little rough around the edges. It was nice to be inspired by something. We usually go out to see live music, but this was a nice change. Although the $100 tickets, $38 parking and the $70 babysitter didn’t make it a cheap date. But it wasn’t like we had dinner at Nobu with glasses of Crystal or anything, not like we care about that stuff. We were happy we had done it, although next year I want to get that hotel room for afterwards and get my Mom to come up and stay the night. We should be allowed to sleep in at least once a year I think. And since our twins were born on Valentines Day last year we should make a tradition of also treating ourselves for having made it through another year. We have a lot to celebrate.

Harold Pinter’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech here where he says “So Language in art remains a highly ambiguous transaction, a quicksand, a trampoline, a frozen pool which might give way under you, the author, at any time.” (thanks for the link Josh!)

Optional soundtrack: The Smiths - Unhappy Birthday

- Wow. Tom and I went to go see the Coen Brother’s film No Country for Old Men, based on the book by Cormac McCarthy. We totally loved it. Even though we went to a tiny movie theater that we had vowed earlier never to see a movie in again. We sat 3 rows from the front and were so close we had no idea how the people in font of us could see anything at all. Our knees were pressed to the seats in front of us. Granted we are both tall but this was ridiculous. We were happy to finally see a movie worth the money however. The character of Anton Chigurh played by Javier Bardem was the scariest bad guy I have seen in a movie in a long time. He plays a psychopath that kills people without flinching with a high pressure air gun used to kill cattle. But what is really creepy about him is that he finds his order in a coin flip and only shows any impatience when someone won’t call it. I loved walking out of the theater knowing that most people did not feel satisfied with the ending. Id like to read the book. I recently finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy and was able to accept his tendency for open endedness and long silences. We are big Lebowski fans here, so anything that Ethan and Joel Coen are involved in gets on our favorites list.

- I have been tagged by another blog called a broader mark. I have to admit that I have never read the tagger’s blog before. Tagging is like a pyramid scheme but there is no money involved, just a way to spread or share readership of one’s own blog. I have to admit that I am not a very good player. As a rule I delete all forwards. This was a habit I got into when working in a place where I would get between 300 to 400 e-mails a day. I didn’t have time for anything non-essential. I also hate them from friends and relatives because it bugs me that they take time to read this crap and send it on to me, but do not ever take the time to sit down and write a simple e-mail. And also because I am often offended by them. I have been forwarded some narrow minded stuff and I have been kicked out of the like-minded club for my responses. I am usually disappointed by the people who send them as well. I feel they should know better. Boycotting Starbucks because they won’t give free coffee to US soldiers in Iraq (which was not true), Mars is coming closer to the earth than the moon (better kiss yer arse goodbye if that happens), everyone should learn how to speak English (that one really pissed me off), men are stupid themed, “In God we Trust” is no longer on the dollar coin, or Photoshopped photos of people burning with American flags they have burned. It all makes me scratch my head and wonder if our education and opinions are formed by floating hoax-y e-mails that promote hate and ignorance and remind us that our only power is to forward on an un-researched e-mail or act as a consumer! Why do we choose to endlessly circulate this crap when there are so many causes and issues that actually need our attention out there that get none! Have you ever received a forward asking for fundraising help for the homeless? Or have you ever forwarded an article that brings attention to something we should really be outraged about like inhumane living conditions of the elderly?
OK, down from the soap-box…i digress…anyway, the tag…yes. So in case you don’t know, if you are tagged, someone posts a link to your blog on their web-site along with 6 others. In turn you have to link back to them and post 7 blog sites and also list 7 little known or interesting facts about yourself. Seems harmless I guess, but I wouldn’t ever ask anyone to link to me on their site. But I am not sure how thats any different from people being able to link to me through comments I have made on other sites. I guess it is because comments are open to all, and this is something I would be specifically requesting be put on their site in the body of their post. I have links to blogs I read and have never asked them to link back to me. I would find it rude.
What I found interesting was that when I went to the site that linked to me (tagged me) I took a look at some of the other blogs that she had selected to tag. Three of them were pro-life Christian minded blogs written by women/mothers. It seemed a little strange as I am neither Christian nor pro-life and the readers of those blogs would not feel comfortable with many of my viewpoints. But maybe she felt that we are all women and mothers and we all have opposing views about many many things most likely and that we will have to agree to respect the others viewpoint and support their effort to write and self-publish. Maybe. Or maybe she just likes the writing. I know that I read blogs of people who I don’t solely agree with, but enjoy their writing and that is enough for me. Maybe I was just chosen at random, chances are good here.
But, even though I may have gotten a “doesn’t play well with others” mark on my report card more than several times, I am still able to play a game and try and lighten up and have fun with it. And what is wrong with sharing readers and hopefully turning a reader on to another blog? I am sure there are many out there I have yet to discover. So, here are 7 facts about me, and 7 blogs I like…but to be a wet blanket, I am NOT asking for anyone to link back to me!

Kickyboots
Ariel Gore (editor and creator of the magazine Hip Mama)
Wheels On The Bus
Finslipppy
Rockstar Mommy
Just Another Ink-stained Wretch
Her Bad Mother

Nor does anyone tagged have to do eff-all about it. But if anyone wants to continue the chain, here are the rules:

Once you are tagged, link back to the person who tagged you.
Post the rules on your blog.
Post 7 random or weird facts about yourself on your blog.
Tag 7 people and link to them.
Comment on their blog to let them know they have been tagged.

1. I grew up in a small town in Germany as an Army brat and rode a ten speed bike around town alone when I was 7.
2. I have a strange ability to make electronic things break if I touch them. Maybe its all of my organic energy.
3. I ski without poles.
4. When I was little I wanted to meet the Elephant Man when I died so that I could tell him how sorry I was. Then the list expanded to Ghandi, Elvis, Peter O’ Toole and Frank Oz. I pictured us all at a table like in the last supper with Jesus at the center.
5. I can not remember 3 or more numbers in my head. I have to write them down always.
6. I drive with my left knee bent up and my foot on the seat because it hurts my back to sit otherwise. This was kind of interesting when I rented a stick-shift car in New Zealand and Australia where the steering wheel is on the right side of the car.
7. I have a thing for Jody Foster. Maybe because we both had stalkers.

More interesting stuff about me in list form on my about page.

- Blog stats never cease to amaze me. My favorite google searches that led me to my site lately are “old Jewish women with large breasts”, I am neither Jewish nor do I have large breasts, and “sexy grandma” ..how is this possible? since I took off my post about tattoos, “sexy stretch marks” seems to top the list. So glad I can give the people what they want.

- So we are all sorted with a summer rental at Fire Island this year. Jack and Marlowe are getting a wagon from Grandma Dewey and Pop Pop so there will be lots of fun with that. We are going with some friends of ours. I am really looking forward to it. Last year was a little nutty as we got married the day before and the babies were still not able to sit up. Now they will be walking. Ruby will hopefully not be grounded when we go this time so that she may get a bit more freedom. There are no cars on the island other than emergency and maintenance but they are few and far between. Because we live in the city we can not just let our kids play outside. It is such a luxury to be able to do that without the same worry. As a kid I rode my bike all over the place when most kids had to ask their parents to cross the street. I would test the boundaries and rode probably much further away than I should have. Ruby doesn’t get any freedom without parameters set. Strange that I would have such different rules. People say that its a different world now…but was it?

- Tom and I are going to see a Broadway play this week called The Homecoming with Michael McKean (Lenny from Laverne & Shirley, Spinal Tap, etc…) and Ian McShane (from Deadwood). We are so psyched. We were big Deadwood fans (the HBO series) so its a treat for us. We hear that Ian drinks in a bar around the corner after the show, but the babysitter might not be too happy about it if we stayed and bought a round.

- Tom is dressing the babies after a bath right now. I needed a break, he had been gone hanging out with his friend Tony who was visiting for the day and left me with the babies for a few hours. Because we are raising vegetarian babies it is making this transition into more solid solids a challenge. They had lentils with applesauce and some mac n’ cheese with flounder for dinner. But they want to feed themselves everything. Jack will either put on the breaks and refuse to eat hoping for bananas, noodles or toast, or be mad that its not coming fast enough. Marlowe will eat almost anything, but thinks its funny to feed the dog. I have some great recipe books, I make most of their food from scratch, but it is tough to get them the nutrients they need right now without being creative (sneaky) about the protein and iron. Jack is a big boy for as much as he eats he is skinny and tall. I can just imagine that we will need 2 fridges when he is a teenager. Maybe he will rebel with a bucket of KFC. We had friends from New Hampshire visit us this morning with their 8 year old. Darinda the Mom said that she loves meat so much that she looses the ability to speak when she passes the meat counter, and she often pulls over after stopping at the McDonalds drive through just in case she may need a second sandwich. Tom e-mailed a bunch of friends a link to am article on meat production in the NY Times last week, He got some funny responses “f*ckin’ hippie”, and “now I want a Big Mac”. It is so hard to change what we are used to, especially something that gives instant gratification. Perhaps one day there will be a Meat Eaters Anonymous. Here is the link to the article if you are interested, it is about the meat industry’s effects on the environment and is called “Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler“. I can just imagine the votes lost if “Hitlery” or “Huckleberry” as a friend calls them vowed to do something about this issue.

- Marlowe Rose, the girl is almost 1 and can already accessorize!

Tom and his friend Jim on top of Cherry Peak, NH (3,554 ft) 

- My husband is on a snowmobiling trip in New Hampshire. He went with two friends from work, the same ones he plays on-line x-box with. I am sure it was a male bonding experience. They had a blast although Tom flipped his snowmobile over and the three of them took 40 minutes to turn the 400 lb. beast back over. He says he did 70 mph on the straight-away. I am just glad that he made it without anything broken. He says he saw 3 moose on the trail, luckily he didn’t run into one, those things are huge! He is convinced that I would love it as I love riding motorcycles in the dirt. I always was against it because snowmobiles crush animals’ winter homes. But he covered over 100 miles on groomed trails that get a lot of traffic so that made me feel better. I am looking forward to the photos and complaints of sore muscles.

- I am trying to learn Brazillian Portugese. No I am not. I am trying to learn enough Brazillian Portugese to be able to order a coffee or call a cab when I go to Brazil in (gulp) 8 days. I am a little stressed, leaving the babies won’t be easy. In fact I feel horrible about it. I want this time with Ruby, but really wish we all could have gone. Its one week Kristin…they will be fine. Yes, take the time and RELAX…remember that word?

- I spent the time Tom was away alone with the babies. I did great actually. I spend a lot of time with them alone actually, but its usually broken up here and there, and I am able to get Tom’s help to get Ruby from school, walk the dog, move the car (brooklyn parking!) or whatever. All they want to do is walk. They are pushing furniture around all over the place like a young interior design team. I just read an article in the NY Times about Dr. Karp (who wrote the book The Happiest Baby on the Block)…he has a new book called The Happiest Toddler on the Block. He says that toddlers are primitive and that we need to communicate to them in this basic form. When they are having a tantrum we usually would respond with something like “No honey you can’t have that right now its before your bedtime.” Logic and reason mean zilch. He suggests repeating back to them what they are feeling (who doesn’t want their feelings validated?) and after they calm down you can try and explain. So you would say “You want, you want, Fred wants this now, yes I know”. Something like that. I am a big fan of the method he used to calm crying babies. Id like to see this toddler calming method in action. Marlowe likes to smack Jack whenever he approaches her and she has a toy. On one hand she is competitive, but I also think it is because she feels threatened and doesn’t have the voice to say No! yet. We were giving her a lot of negative attention for it and now I am trying to do the positive reinforcement of good behavior. And be her voice for her as he approaches. It is my job to protect them from being hurt or pursued aggressively. And most of the time I am protecting Jack. But I think she feels pursued as well so its tough call sometimes. Its not all survival of the fittest. (Yes, Marlowe is the scrapper…a future rodeo star, but Jack just pushes her aside with his big paw). They are mostly discovering, laughing, and looking at things with new eyes every day. And luckilly they don’t always pick the same things to be amazed at at the same time. As the toddler age showed up in our lives one morning as we awoke before the sun, so did wonderment and days filled with learning one little thing at a time. I remember at this age Ruby spent a whole day on saying the word “envelope”. I love this age, everything is emotional and important to them. An object’s color, taste or how it feels to the touch is as important as its purpose or meaning. And I am given the amazing gift of being there to help them make sense of it all.
A great post by Motherbumper on toddlerhood here

- My daughter rode the city bus home from school by herself today. You may recall my argument against it to her father some months back. He and I met and talked about it last week with our nice lady. He doesn’t feel he has a choice because of his work schedule and his wife is busy with other things namely work and younger siblings. I asked him to give me the option to bring her home, but I didn’t get a phone call. At the beginning of the year I was against it, and as I said then I would be open to it later in the year if she rode with a friend. He said in our meeting that he was going to do whatever he wanted on his weeks and not confide in me whatsoever. Originally I was angry about this as we have joint decision making and we just can’t go and do whatever we want especially around her education and safety. We have wording in our divorce agreement that basically says that we have to work it out to that maximum definition. Unfortunately that is inconvenient so was therefore ignored. I was really mad back in October, but now I am feeling much more at peace with it. It is not just that I have come around on the bus thing which I have. His explaining that it was not possible for his family to continue to get her everyday at 3pm is a part of his argument that I can take seriously. And that fact would have been enough for me as its important to remember that what effects Ruby’s family also effects her. Sadly this would have been an easy agreement (actually my request was that she travel with a friend wherever possible and that we should work on making that happen not rely on Ruby, and that we sign her up for a self-defense course), but instead he needed to announce that he was no longer going to take any of my concerns for her safety seriously. What a shame. 

I was not going to write about my ex-husband anymore on his blog as I didn’t want to use it as a place to air my frustrations and I didn’t want all of the negativity poisoning this space. I have taken great strides in eliminating it from my head as well. But I think this is important and I thought I would speak to it this once. I am feeling strangely positive about the whole thing really. When challenged as to why we should work towards agreeing and compromising and making decisions together for Ruby I said that there were 3 reasons:
One was that we chose to have a child together, and when we did that we promised to do the absolute best for her. That no one on this earth loves her more than the both of us. No matter what any judge or agreement says, I am Ruby’s Mother all of the time, and he is Ruby’s Father all of the time. And the best thing for Ruby would be to be unified wherever possible and show Ruby that we have respect for each other’s role as parent (note I said ROLE…not person). Ruby feels the tension when we are divided, it causes her great stress (she’s got her eye tic back again). And we are not putting out a CD we are raising a child and it is emotional and hard enough as it is without at least an effort to un-polarize it. I know that I act in a way that shows that I need control over what happens with her. But what he doesn’t understand is that I act that way out of fear. How much nicer for us all if there wasn’t the threat of non communication and actions in spite of concerns by the other parent? How much tension would be eliminated from parents and Ruby if that fear was gone? …and that we knew we would be taken seriously if a concern was voiced?
The second reason is “why do that to yourself?”. Any rights as a parent he takes away from me, he take them away from himself equally. So if for example Ruby wants to go on a ski trip with friends who like to drink and drive, and it takes place on my week…Ruby’s father forfeits the right to say anything if he feels concerned. No, he can say anything he wants…but there are no guidelines set up for if one raises a flag. Why? Because it is too hard right? Well parenting is hard!
The third reason is that we were ordered to. We have an agreement that says in black and white that we must work towards agreement. The whole agreement lists anything we could predict but outside of that it basically says here are the tools to work it out…go do that. If we can’t at least strive for that then we should not have joint custody. Look, I don’t want my ex involved in every parenting decision, that is not what I am talking about. I know there is a gray area as far as what is one’s jurisdiction and where one just has to trust the other parent’s judgement. For both of our mental health we both have to let a lot of that stuff go. The difference is that as things come up, and one parent has a concern over a major health and safety issue, one should be allowed to discuss it and raise a flag and be heard. And we need use the built in safety in there that keeps it in check which is that you can not raise a flag on something that you would not want raised on yourself. It is in fact what parenting and decision making as a parent is about! …deciding where do you step in and where do you let go. We may have different rules about this (obviously) but over time it would balance out and there would hopefully be an understanding as to where the line is. Maybe not. Maybe we will have to draw it again and again in the sand every time, but hopefully have some vague rule of respecting one as you would care to be respected. One need not respect the other for that to work.
So why do I feel positive? I guess that I feel a little like someone who is not going to continue to push the bolder up the hill or tumble down after it. Ruby’s father’s actions affect Ruby. And that is just the way it is, I don’t want control of that. All I can do is act in a way I would like to be treated and continue to strive for what is the best thing for Ruby. And at the end of the day, she knows that her father is doing something I opposed, and she knows that this is the way it is for her as a divorced child of her particular parents. It doesn’t have to be, but that is not my choice. And the repercussions of that choice effects Ruby most of all. When we were in the midst of the divorce Ruby’s attorney said that she is in Juvenile Court every day and the common thread between all of those kids in trouble is that the parents were not unified. In this case, I do not think her father is trying to harm her, but I do think that unless we do whatever we can to work towards a relationship of mutual respect (for our ROLES as parent) then we are not doing everything we had promised her.
One of the things my divorce agreement says is that we are not to act in a way that harms or influences negatively her relationship with each other. Some may view what I just wrote in opposition to it. I don’t. I never understood the argument that one’s actions aren’t the cause of the harm but someone’s revealing of them is. I decided long ago that I would no longer “cover” for anyone. Censoring the truth is more harmful to her. And Ruby knows it all already, she is smarter than we know. Id like to think that I actually show respect and a desire for compromise and respect of his role in this post, a far cry from where I started out years ago. And if Ruby’s father feels it is detrimental to her to read this (she doesn’t read my blog btw) he can raise a flag and be taken seriously right? I am not a vengeful person. I see that people pay the price of their actions just by having to be themselves. Instead I would like to focus my energy on the positive and help empower Ruby to have a voice and speak up for how she feels. And continue to focus on positive ways to make joint custody work in Ruby’s best interests. Even if I am met with someone who does not care to see Ruby’s family holistically.

Today as we played with the twins, my daughter turned to me and said “You know Mom, you will be almost 50! when these guys are 10.” Well, I will technically be 48, but who’s counting. “yup” I said. It was hard to imagine. Ruby turns 12 in a month and that is something I am still amazed at. At (almost) 50, will I be a better mother? Will I be active in my kids lives or an old stubborn opinionated and jaded crumudgon? Will I mature? Or has that pretty much leveled off. And I have reached my potential maturity and at some point I stopped maturing and that’s as good as it will ever get.

I took the subway into Manhattan on Friday. I sat on the bench because I was too old and tired to stand. In front of me on the pillar was some graffiti. It said “kra-z krew”. I imagined a few young kids together, not old enough to drink. Trying to show off to each other, tagging whatever was in reach. I wondered if that graffiti would still be there in 10 - 15 years. And maybe the writer would sit where I am sitting and recognize it and look back and think of that time as a time when they were less mature. When I see photos of myself as a teenager hung up all around my parents house, I laugh fondly at my punk rock hair styles, and my exaggerated white skin and black eye make up and red lips. I stand there in my yellow t-shirt and brown hair looking at the photo of a time when I would not be caught dead in either. As a teenager I made a choice not to carry out a pregnancy to term, I knew I lacked a partner, money and support, but I really lacked maturity most of all. And the strength to do it alone. Was then maturity strength? Was it years of hard living that earned me the maturity I have now? Hard knocks that involved having to create that maturity inside over and over again when I needed to get back up again?

I often judge people by their reactions to things and assume it is based on their level of maturity. Even without knowing them very well, it takes me a second to make this assessment usually. Look at the guy who will not let you pass him on the highway. Or the girl who makes a face and a tisk sound if not given the answer she wants. One specific example is when once I was stuck on a plane on the tarmac for a couple of hours and the 20 something guy next to me called the airline and complained to them and threatened them as if they controlled the weather. OK, that was entitlement and ignorance too, but he did not have the maturity to cope with it. But then is maturity just how good your coping skill is? Do the contestants on American Idol that react in anger when rejected all share a lack of maturity? If maturity is based on coping than I have some fluctuating maturity as sometimes I am able to cope better than other times. Yes, your three year old having a temper tantrum in the store when not allowed to have a toy would be considered his lack of maturity and common for a child his age. So when as adults we fly off the handle and create a scene, is that then a lack of maturity?

I know people older than myself by thirty years who are unable to cope with simple tasks. And as I get older some things that I would have been able to handle are now more difficult. But somehow I am much more mature than I was even 5 years ago. Some years you have to grow up a lot. My husband can act like a total goof, usually it is to make our children laugh (Ruby just rolls her eyes at him), and has been known to do the most insane things. Ruby bought a book called the Guide to Immaturity and within the first 20 pages a great many examples were things Tom had done (although they need to include climbing into the ice cream freezer bodega and lying across the ice cream knocking up on the glass in the next printing). But at the same time, when speaking of emotional maturity, he is one of the most mature men I have ever met. He is able to put ego and pride aside and step up and make adult decisions and show wisdom beyond his years. I like to think that like maturities attract. That it is a strong factor in a couple working out. Although Tom doesn’t have the parenting experience I have had, he seems to be able to handle the parenting role pretty easily. Maybe maturity is something we learn from our parents, passed on from generation to generation.

As a parent I have figured out a lot on my own. But I never seem to stop learning. As an older parent I will need to be careful not to age myself out of my children’s lives. I think that is a choice and I hope to be the parent my children are inspired by. I don’t ever want to be the parent that stops feeling like they have so much to learn.

As someone very very thankful my 20’s are long in my past, I find myself at a philosophical place I wouldn’t have predicted. I try now to laugh things off. For example someone who knows how to push my buttons recently owed me $14.95 and refused to pay me giving the most asinine reason. Usually I would have steamed about it for a few days…and I did for one honestly. But one morning I looked at my kids at the breakfast table and started to laugh about it. I laughed all week about it every time I talked or thought about it. I felt I had gained an ability to take a step back and see things in perspective and that this was what it was like to gain a bit more maturity.

Overall I have also gained an understanding about karma and suffering and life and death and identity and happiness that it has taken a lifetime to come around to. But now I also can play, and have a sense of play now like I had when I was very young. Tom often says he sees the little girl in me. I hope at almost 50, he will still see it. Although I can’t promise I won’t have a temper tantrum when I can’t get something I want.

The doctor that delivered Jack and Marlowe was on the phone talking to a patient. She tried not to show any judgement in her voice or any positivity or negativity. The woman was asking for a planned c-section. I could tell from the look on her face that she was not completely happy about it but from years of experience knew that the woman was not going to be convinced otherwise. The doctor assured the woman that the doctor on-call was excellent and that she would be in good care. But the woman insisted that she be fit in her schedule. Dr. Russell had a trip planned with her family to go to France for a long weekend. The weekend of this woman’s due date. When faced with the prospect of delivering outside of the doctor she had been seeing throughout her pregnancy, she opted for a c-section scheduled that morning. The doctor would have to run for her plane (and did ultimately, meeting her family at the airport arriving just as their plane was boarding). The doctor told me that the requests are not often, but have been more so in her experience than ever before.
At the apartment we lived in before this one, our landlords lived above us. They were from Switzerland and their personalities seemed to indicate that they liked things planned and neat (hense the leveling on the Japanese Maple and koi pond into a square of putting-green green sod). They had two kids and one on the way. When Jack and Marlowe were born they came by, dropping off some gifts. The woman cringed when I told her they were born naturally and she told me that she was planning on having a cesarean section. I asked her why and she said that she had experienced childbirth two times already and didn’t need to go through it again. This woman is the president of an international bank. Implying that she is not stupid. But she chose this route I am assuming fully informed of her choices and risks.
I have noticed that there has been increased media coverage supporting the idea that women are requesting non-emergency cesarean sections. NPR (national public radio) reported this rise as well as Salon.com and USA Today. Although some argue the rate of non-emergency cesarean section requests are rising slower than portrayed. I wonder why then the press? On one hand we have an increased rise in people using doulas and midwives, but also the highest rate of cesarean section (31.1% in 2006) and an increased number of women choosing to medicalize their births.
Now don’t get me wrong. I believe in a woman’s right to choose, even if it is to choose a cesarean section. It is their body, their baby …not mine. What bothers me about this is that I wonder how many of this women have made an informed choice. Was it presented as “Would you like a c-section or would you like to risk a tear and possible decreased sexual function? or “Would you like a c-section or do you really need to go through all that pain?” sounds extreme? I don’t think so. What is the difference between that and being offered drugs by the nurses in the first hours of labor not allowing you to grow with the pain and in effect committing you to the slippery slope of pain aid? Was the effects of narcotics on your ability to make decisions and be alert for your birth covered in childbirth class? I am worried that many women will be misinformed of the risks. Yes, we are adults and we ultimately have to take responsibility and educate ourselves. But we put ourself in the care of someone who we hope will tell you the risks and options if an emergency arises. Say your baby flips around while in labor. You can’t exactly say, wait a second, I need to research the statistics associated with birthing a breach baby vaginally… You have to rely on those educated professionals, hoping they have been educated fully and are not influenced by a timeline, antiquated professors, restrictive hospital policy, distorted view of what a woman’s body is capable of or are one malpractice suit away from losing their license. You don’t know. We put our trust in the system. A system that stopped prescribing amphetamines for post partum depression in 1969 mind you. But this can hold true for midwives and homebirth midwives as well. We put our trust that there is not so much personal hatred for the medical world that intervention is dismissed when may be necessary. I suppose with choice opens up the flood gates for informed and misinformed choices in there. You have to take the bad with the good. Many would argue that we should not get to have a choice when we are putting an unborn child at risk. But to that I say, there is risk in every childbirth. And at some point we have to be parents, and we make decisions for our children that affect their safety every day.
But I also think that even when some women are given the information about fetal distress, and risk of infection and hospital borne infection, and risks associated with anesthesia as well as not being able to hold your baby for hours afterwards, and the strain it puts on the hospital for increased staff and a prolonged hospital stay, as well as a bigger bill for your insurance company that effects premiums, and that there are no studies done on the mortality or morbidity of infants birthed with planned cesarians, and a coincidentally increased rate of deaths of the mother alongside the rise of this procedure, and the potential emotional price paid by the baby and the mother by not experiencing a vaginal birth as well as a longer recovery period take a look at that and say …ok, sign me up! Why is that? Perhaps it is because we as a society have portrayed birth as horrific and filled with fear? And that some women just need more control over a situation and this is the answer? (um, good luck in the controlled slide of parenting). Or has it been painted in the media as an efficient and responsible choice?
When I found out that I was pregnant, I wanted to have the baby at home. Once it was determined they were twins, I would have had to go to the Farm in TN to have them naturally, or find a midwife willing to take me, and the one option I found did not gain my confidence. So I had to be comfortable taking away some of my preferred choices for the benefit of the babies. And although my doctor was seemingly a midwife in disguise (she let me go full term, didn’t do a cesarian even though I had HELLP, and encouraged me to remain drug free) I also knew that she worked within a system and she had to follow certain rules or otherwise risk her ability to practice. (And she was one of very few who took on high risk pregnancies). I would have been acting disrespectfully had I asked her to do this. But it was agreed that she would do whatever she possibly could get away with (not doing). Why then can’t a woman say that the best thing for my child is that I am going to have to be out of control for awhile? That measuring the risks of a vaginal birth vs a cesarean..ill take the one with the less risks!? I am not saying there are no risks in a vaginal birth, there are many. I guess I mean to ask, why are we so quick to hand over our power and control in an attempt to gain it? Is it the uneducated making these choices, or the wealthy educated woman? And why do we insist on normalizing surgical birth in this country when other countries with a strong natural birth percentage have better outcome statistics than we do? Is this statistic rising in countries with socialized medicine too?
My daughter and I have talked a lot about plastic surgery. She sees it a lot in young Hollywood, something a teen would find difficult not to notice. She asks me what I think, and I always joke that the two words that should not go together are “elective” and “surgery”. Who knew it would carry over to childbirth so easily?
Some good comments and discussion here at the Our Bodies Ourselves site.

A ferocious beast called the rotavirus hit my house this weekend. I did us all in, we were unprepared and had no ammo. It affected the twins first with them throwing up one night for about three hours. Then hit Tom like a Ton of bricks where he was completely incapacitated and vomiting for 6 hours. The next night I got my 9 hours of it in. We each had about two days of feeling like we had the flu. Today we ate oatmeal and celebrated. My poor friend Alison came to visit in Friday and is now in bed after being up sick all night also. There has been articles in the New York Times and the closely related norovirus (Norwalk Virus, named for Norwalk, Ohio) has recently swept across the UK in epidemic levels as reported in the London Times and Slate. Tom got a call from his friend Danny tonight who said he was out to dinner with his parents when it hit him and somehow he managed to will himself to drive home and made it as far as his yard.

Alison and I were food shopping and I suddenly felt as if I had taken sinus medication, my whole body was buzzing. Luckily I was home when it hit, and luckily Tom had it the night before so was able to look after him and the babies. I felt that I could relate a little better to the zombies in the movie I Am Legend. I really did feel as if I had entered a trance-like state. I felt as if I had taken some psychotropic drug and 9 hours of a low-grade fever and vomiting with brief dozes in the strangest places.We brought the kids to the pediatrician today and she just told us to look out of sever dehydration but that basically we had to ride it out, and the babies could have diarrhea for up to two weeks. I really can’t imagine that, but hopefully it won’t be the case. They seem in good spirits for the most part and are drinking a lot of fluids so they should be on the mend soon. I do not wish this on my worst enemy. I am not the type to wish anything on my worst enemy anyway. Nor do I have an enemy come to think of it besides maybe the rotovirus. Its no fun being sick as my Mom has been known to say growing up. She was right. It is completely fun-free. It is hard to watch your kids be sick too, you feel so helpless and want to help them.

Alison is in town to look at some Brooklyn neighborhoods, her plan is to move her in the spring. I at least was able to do that with her on Saturday. She really liked Fort Green and Clinton Hill up to Prospect Heights. She is moving here because her father who lives in Rochester, NY is in an assisted living home but is getting to the point where he needs help with more things and she has to be closer to him to allow for more visits. She is not an only child but her sister has her own health issues so the burden lies on her. My friend Suzy is also in town visiting with her sick mother. Suzy is an only child and her mother is past the point of being able to make decisions for herself and is quite horrible to Suzy and belligerent about it all and very lonely. Suzy’s husband works for the Olympics so they are stationed in Beijing but hate it there and her two little surfer boys are looking forward to returning to Australia soon. Suzy was considering moving the whole family out to NY (as her mum is in no shape to travel) But when we talked about it her motivation was that she didn’t want her mother to be alone when she died. I told her that she could move everyone out here, and be completely drained from caring for your mother and be out grocery shopping for her and she could die. The schlep from Australia is tough, 30 hours and thousands of dollars, so they are considering LA in the interim. Suzy loves it there, and there is surf and some friends and only a 6 hour flight from NY. As much as you feel that they are your family and that you have an obligation to care for them, they are also adults, not children and you hope that they were able to make decisions for themselves when they are able to. If they are living alone and isolated, it is partially a choice. Although I do know how hard it is to let go of what is familiar when you are old. It is probably very frightening.

I am at that age where my friends on the older side of the spectrum are facing the elderly parent issue. It is hard to see them go through it all. Hopefully most of it is worked out ahead of time, and decisions are not left for others to deal with. Whenever I ask my parents about their plans for when they are very old or if their health deteriorates, I am met with jokes that I just need to wheel my fathers wheelchair to the middle of the NJ turnpike. My father is a big planner so he must have something set up. But he should share it with us, so that we know what to expect. Its so hard to have that conversation though, and I have asked my sister to help me have it with them. I haven’t seen the Michael Moore movie Sicko about the health care system. It sounds pretty depressing. It is the one issue I wish was addressed moreso by the political candidates right now. There is no debate as to weather something has to change, it just has to.

We are so lucky to have healthy parents and be healthy ourselves right now all in all though. It was a really tough weekend, but we are through the worst of it.

- So while reading my usual blogs that I read. I noticed that many other bloggers are experiencing a dry spell. Either because they are busy with other things or they have a bit of writers block. I have had a combination of the two. I love to write, it has been something that I absolutely needed to do for a long time. Like nothing else really. I haven’t been at a loss for what to say or write in the past that I can remember. Usually before I write a post I think about the topic and spend a day or two drifting off into a daydream thinking about it. Then as it formulates it becomes more of an itch that I have to scratch. I have to write the words down. I usually carry a notebook around with me to stop the repetition of thought so I don’t forget something and am able to release the thought and think about something else. I can be in bed, nearly asleep and in the most comfortable position I could be in, and if I think of something I have to write, I get out of bed and write it down. So for the last couple of weeks I have been thinking about an idea for a fictional story that has been rolling around in my head for, well years and it has taken over my thoughts so much that it it really stopped things up. I have notes here and there about it but never started to write it. And I finally figured out why. I was afraid that if I started to write it wouldn’t come naturally and it wouldn’t be fantastic right from the start. Or, that it was going to be awful. And then I realized that this was absolutely going to be the case. That if I started to write it, it would be a puzzle and a battle and fun and frustrating and that was what writing really was. That I had to love that part of it. Not just the “ill write what i want and edit rarely” type of thinking. I know that many women, when they have babies think it will be their chance to write the novel they have been wanting to write. I am sure it is nearly all of them that realize it doesn’t work like that. That there isn’t any time for it. I didn’t have that expectation when the twins came around. But I think ill start writing it anyway. I never wanted to be a novelist. I would really just like to get it out of my head so I can move on to another thing to write about, there is only so much space in my brain. I suppose I might have to have some discipline about it to get it done. That part seems easy. Its the allowing myself to write something even if it is going to be a struggle thats the hard part. I guess at this point I have to not care if its going to be perfect and assume it won’t be. Maybe then I can just write the damn thing.

- I had 3 hours of sleep last night. Three. By the time I got home from my late night shenanigans of throwing the contents of my sack of rotten vegetables at the PTA meeting … I was wired…. No actually I have been an insomniac since I was a young kid. I do all the no-nos that insomniacs are supposed to avoid. Like the decedent read in bed thing. Like my dog who insists on eating her treats on the rug…its just nicer to read in bed. I got up to pee like 10 times, and woke up at 1am when Tom’s alarm didn’t go off at midnight. He had to be on a ship that sailed at 2am from the west side of Staten Island. He leapt out of bed and got there in 20 minutes. I tossed and turned and so did Jack and together we did the horizontal dance of the sleepless. The kiddies woke up at 6am and I was feeling pretty good despite the two big glasses of wine I had the night before. Just my luck they opened a new wine shop around the corner from my house. My dog Izzy (aka creature from hell) shat on the floor twice in protest after I took her for an abreviated stroll denying her her usual leusurely morning sniff, shit and shit (yes, my dog goes twice). The babies were in their cribs yelling at each other. When they are awake I only will take Izzy to the two trees in front of my house. I considered putting her up for adoption again and then it all just made me sad with frustration. I have tried everything with this dog. And I mean EVERYTHING. She is a purebread corgi (oh never ever again) and she is a bit dense.

But she is very sweet and good with the kids and her sweetness the only thing preventing us from turning her into a muff. No one wears muffs anymore but I think Id like to start. Retro forties being in style again would be a good choice since I think we are finishing the re-80’s now. Once I got my kids to sleep for their nap, I took a shower and jumped in bed, only to have Mr. dumbass mailman ring my doorbell 6 times. The package did say it was for apartment #1 (I am apt #2) but he told me that he rang both bells. And I told him some french words I know. Jack and Marlowe woke up and were in horrible moods and then Jack ate an entire adult sized piece of veggie lasagna, Marlowe ate not much less. I am lucky to have such good eaters. And  thank God Tom came home because I was running on fumes.  We took them to swing on the freezing swings and slide down the big red slide a few times and came home and we put them into some freshies (new diapers) and now Tom is giving them a bath. Shampoo horns and sudz beards. I love this stay at home mom thing, I really do. But without sleep it is tough. I don’t know why I am so wired at night. Yesterday I walked in the park listening to music for a couple of miles or so. I figured it would help me sleep, but it didn’t much. I am meeting my friend Suzy for some dinner tonight. We both have had 3 hours of sleep, her lack of sleep is from jet lag, she got in from China two nights ago. Hopefully we won’t fall asleep in our duck sauce.

- I went to a PTA meeting last night at my daughter’s middle school. They had a workshop for parents about teen issues. They called it the “Juno Phenomenon” refering to the movie out in theaters called Juno (Diablo Cody its screenwriter has a blog by the way). I don’t think that teen issues are a phenomenon by any means. They happen generation after generation in similar ways. Teen pregnancy is not a new issue. Parents having no idea how to parent their teenagers is not a new issue. The workshop was interesting. Although I walked out of there with not a lot more than I walked into it, I did feel that the two teachers that presented it were wise and very aware of the real issues parents and teenagers face and I was really happy that they were women my daughter had access to. One was a gym teacher and the other a social worker from a local hospital who keeps hours at the school. We broke up into groups and listed our fears around friends, sex, family, curfews, & school. Then we were to discuss them with all of the groups and suggest positive ways of dealing with them. I was a little amazed that even parents who had older teens were there and not offering too much in the way of suggestions. Maybe thats why they were at the meeting, they still haven’t figured it out…or maybe their kids are very different from each other. I offered up a lot of things to add to the lists and was happy at how much I had figured out already. For the most part communication was key as well as showing your child that there are consistant rules and consequences. I am amazed at how many parents said that watching TV and Movies with their kids and discussing the issues addressed in them was easier than talking about issues directly with their kids. The kids were more likely to open up when referring to a third person instead of themselves. One woman suggested the series Saturday Night Lights. I have never seen it but she said that they leave no teen issue unturned. I am for that for the most part…let your kids watch what they want to watch, but watch it with them and discuss it. They will find a way to watch it anyway. I don’t mean to take them to see x rated movies, or severely violent movies. But chances are thats not what they are interested in seeing anyway. Luckilly the social worker hosts an after school group called Girl Talk that I will encourage Ruby to go to next year. They discuss teen issues mostly giving scenarios and discussing it together. For example: …hooking up vs. going out…how many boys can you hook up with before getting a label… There is new vocabulary and new rules since we were kids, and it is only going to get more complicated as they go into their high school years. One woman said that she couldn’t keep up with who was her daughter friends and what friends she had broken up with on what day. She said that she just listens and doesn’t get involved (a typical middle school embarrassment for the kids) and it resolves itself. I suggested that there would always be shifts in power between girls, but to keep a look out for kids abusing that power. Many parents of 6th graders were still seeing their son or daughter as still very young and far from the typical teen behavior you hear about. And many kids really are not there yet and will perhaps never break a curfew and be open about all of their feelings but thats likely going to change. My daughter is very mature for her age and already there are so many social dynamic issues that affect her deeply, and moreso this year than in previous years. Middle school is tough, its a lot of stress and expectation for perfection and acceptance. I remember it well from when I was a kid. Its only three short years but so much changes in them. I am glad that I went to the meeting, when our kids are babies parents search out each other and advice more, we are into Mom groups and read magazines and join on-line forums and ask friends and family members things like what products are best and when do you introduce solids and what is right developmentally and when should I take away the pacifier… but now that our kids are teenagers, we are disconnected from other parents. There isn’t much of a community of parents, most everyone has returned to work and most of our connection to adult communities is found there. The nice lady that I go see to help Ruby’s father and myself make decisions for her holds workshops on parenting depending on age groups. I heard her name mentioned a couple of times by parents in the room actually. I should go to one of her workshops. I think I have confidence that I am a good parent. It seemed from that meeting that I was on the right track anyway. But I can always learn more from those who have been through it I guess. I rebelled greatly as a child, but Ruby lives in a very different environment than I did. But my experience and memories of what I was lacking and what lead me to rebel are very valuable. I wish I could find that photo of me in 6th grade. I had spiked hair, and was wearing a ripped Psychic TV sweatshirt and wore a Pylon button….and listened to obscure British new wave. It was 1980, Pink Floyd’s The Wall and Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall were the best selling albums that year. My favorite song was this song called Doot Doot by Freur (who went on to form the band Underworld) 

Maybe its best that Ruby doesn’t see that. Do what I say, not as I did. 

-So regarding my car lust: Dodge has come out with a new concept (not on the market yet) remake of the Challenger. I have to say that my favorite muscle car era wasn’t the 70’s but I would make an exception here.If I had this car, I would make sure that I did a split AND a walkover on the hood in a skimpy dress like Tawny Kitaen did in a Whitesnake video.

I’ve only got a few minutes here, so its a short one (compared to the ridiculously long ones of late)

1. I had no internet for like a MONTH (it worked a few times) thanks to the geniuses at Time Warner Cable. Good thing I ordered a lot of stuff for Christmas on-line this year. It made tracking packages all that more fun. It also made blogging pretty much impossible. So …deep breath Kristin… and stick with your New Years resolution to let go of things I can not control….grrrrrrrr.

2. Tom and I went to an indoor play-space called Power Play with the babies a couple of days ago. It was really fun for everyone. Marlowe played a lot in the kitchen and Jack liked the learning to walk toys and ride the cars. The twins group I belong to meets up there on Fridays, this Friday is a meet-up with a smaller neighborhood sub-set of that group at someone’s house. Can you believe there are at least 4 sets of twins born within a few months of each other within a mile radius? They must be pumping fertility enhancers into the air around here. Actually I haven’t met these girls yet. I had been to these twin mom’s meetings before and about 3 minutes into it, it was somehow known who took fertility drugs and who didn’t and who had a c-section and who had them naturally. Birth was in fact an amazing thing, but lets move on in conversation OK?! I think it won’t be such a big deal with this group, we are all approaching the 1 year mark and we are more focused on basic survival and attempts to get your job/body/identity back. At Power Play we ran into a guy we had met in our childbirthing class. After awhile he told us that he and his wife had split up and this was his visitation with his daughter. We weren’t too surprised, they were a new couple and they had an argument outside the birthing class at one point and she was really…um uptight. But I don’t really know what it was. If there is anything that will take your relationships to the limit it will be two babies. I know there are many other scenarios far more stressful. But I know for a fact that twins will take it to the limit. If there was any crack in the foundation or it was weak to begin with, a baby or two will bring everything to the surface 10 fold. Tom and I  left there and had dinner at a fancy Italian joint with the babies. They were so good, but Jack filled up on a lot of bread before the raviolis got there. But he ate those too.

3. I had dinner with my old pal Josh a few nights ago. We went to a local Thai joint. Williamsburg is so different from when I lived there. I only lived there for about 7 months but it looks like a different city now. The block I lived on now has art galleries and condos, no longer the spork factory and Porto Rican Evangelical church/gentlemans club. I had a great time with Josh, it was funny to talk about politics with him, we are such adults now. I need to visit him more often. 

4. Tom got me a tent for Christmas. No, not the most romantic gift, (well I won’t mention what I got exactly from Spoylt this year) but I totally loved it. It is a family tent that we all can use. Ruby will probably want to camp with a friend and so she can have our old 4 man tent. This one has a screened in section for us to set up a table. I am so psyched to go camping. I am such a sucker for putting tons of stuff in your car only to drive a couple hundred miles into the mountains and set it all out again. I love camping under the stars and cooking on the fire. I grew up doing this with my folks and look forward to doing this with my family as they grow up. Its a poor mans vacation but you can find some beautiful secluded spots if you try and it gets everyone away from the electronics and forces everyone to talk to each other too. It can also be a total disaster with noisy neighbors and bad weather, but you can always pack up and stay at a hotel and order room service if it all goes south. I can’t wait until Spring where I can open it up in my parents’ backyard and make sure all the pieces are there. No one wants to be the unhappy camper.

5. We watched the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind tonight. (What were the fist and second?) Anyway, Tom had never seen it. Ruby wasn’t too interested, too slow moving. I forgot how hokey it was at the end, although I was like 8 when I saw it first. And name one alien movie without a hokey ending? Richard Dreyfuss was so amazing in that. I didn’t realize he was in so many amazing things! Did you know he was the voice of the centipede in James and the Giant Peach?

6. So I bought my tickets to Brazil! Just Ruby and I are going though, Tom couldn’t get off of work My friends there are so excited that we are coming. We will be staying in Trancoso, a small town about 300 miles south of Salvador. We will have our own brightly painted bungalow (she calls it a chalet) by the ocean and will have bikes to ride around town with. The town has a lot of African influence and has not been over run with tourism yet. I will have a hard time leaving Tom and the babies. But Ruby and I need some time together without everyone and a chance to warm our bones and swim in the ocean together. I didn’t get in the ocean once last year, even at Fire Island. The babies were too little. Hopefully next year Tom and I can go on our honeymoon when the babies are old enough to stay with the grandparents. Alison warned me not to take any bracelets from Brazilian men. Ill have to look that up.

8. Jack at an entire slice of (vegetable) pizza and a banana for lunch today. He is nearly 11 months old and he has 11 teeth. 

8. Did I really volunteer to make scones? SCONES!? When have I ever made scones!? Hockey pucks maybe, but not scones.

9. OK, so is it possible to send out a psychic flare? I have been contacted by people I haven’t spoken to in a long time quite a bit lately. Is it just because we get sentimental through the holidays? Or did somehow I send out a homing signal? Um, of course not, but it seemed like a pretty strange coincidence. Every one I was super happy to hear from. But wow. We are all connected I believe somehow, so maybe I tugged a little harder than usual. Maybe it was the luck of the draw and my name came up in everyone’s memory cards that week like three lemons or three cherries. I should go to Vegas.

Yup, thats short.

- Being a Mother of a pre-teen isn’t always easy. You have to be the Mom standing there with one hand on your hip, angry again at the messy room and the ignored requests to keep it clean. Tonight I talked to Ruby and made her cry. I hate to do this, I really hate it more than I hate a lot of things. She is such a sweet kid, and works really hard. But I have found that enough is enough with this and this has to change and ultimately I had to threaten with consequences. Ruby wants to go on a trip in March that costs a lot of money (um, like try over $1,300) and there are 2 other trips in the spring, both over $200 that she wants to go on as well. Yes, its Park Slope so everyone assumes parents have money for this stuff. So, I am making Ruby pay for $150 of it…no, I am not. I am making her earn this. Hence the big bad Mom hat I am wearing. Yes, I am ruining her life! She is with me every-other week which makes continuity very tough. But I have spelled it all out in calendar form and she has to have things done on the list WITHOUT EVER BEING ASKED or she does not get her weekly allowance (or every-other week as the case may be). If she does everything required she will still be $60 short what she needs to go on her trip and to have me write a check for my percentage (thank you Judge Krause) of the rest. She can not use any savings or lunch money or gifts from relatives, she has to earn it and there is a list of possible chores and what they are worth for her to see what she can do to get her there. It gets even meaner: her Saturday room clean must be before everything: TV, phone, computer, play dates (why do we still call them that, she is almost 12?). And meaner still: if one week everything is not done, I get her iPod, if two weeks, I get her TV, third week I get her laptop and 4th week I get her cell phone whenever she is not at school or somewhere I may need to reach her….and I told her that I could think of all kinds of other things to take away but it should never get to that point hopefully. Now Ruby is a great kid, she is so smart and works really hard on her extra curricular stuff and her school work and this year is really demanding. And I know that she needs some down-time. But I am hoping that this will actually reduce stress. Ruby and I usually but heads every weekend with me getting more and more frustrated that she isn’t cleaning her room, and she will try and negotiate out of it or do a half-ass job and whine the whole time. I always am yelling on Sunday night and pissed that our limited time together is filled with conflict. This way, she knows what is expected and already knows the consequences of not doing them, no discussion required. She has a lot of school work yes, but I think that a cleaner room and more organized life will help her feel a bit more on top of things and hopefully she will feel better having more responsibility. I have two other new rules too 1. I do not wake her up for school anymore. It is a battle to get her out of bed. Now she has to wake up by her alarm, if she chooses to sleep in, I won’t wake her. 2. I also do not leave the house to drive her to school unless she has had a good breakfast. Being late stresses her out a lot (her school gives lunchtime detention) so the motivation is obvious there. Ruby cried and felt like she was being punished, but I am hoping this one harsh sit-down will be less stress in the long run. And hopefully will allow her more down-time, or at least not swimming in the mess of her room. I am always for the “you are her Mother not her friend” school of thought, but it can be rough when you just want to hug her and tell her she is wonderful. Ill make sure to make time for that tomorrow.

- Marlowe has been scratching, swatting and hitting Jack like crazy. The poor guy pushed back a couple of times but he usually cries. He has scratch marks on his neck and both sides of his face. It is difficult because they are just beginning to understand words, so “gentle” is the one we have been saying and demonstrating mostly these days. She is competitive with her brother and will do this when he is in her way, or if she is jealous of him. I was sticking her in her crib for a short time-out but we have been working on the sleep training thing (yes, again, we fell back into the rocking habit) but didn’t want to confuse things. So now I have been telling her that no one wants to play with her when she hits, and I turn her around facing away from us, and Jack and I go play somewhere else, usually in the same room. Usually she cries and crawls over and I have her pet Jacks head and I say “gentle” and “sorry”. If she is belligerent and keeps attacking him, I put her faced away from the door in her room and walk with Jack completely away and into the other room and ignore her for about a minute. Shunning, it is harsh but it works most of the time. It must be so hard to be so little and not have words. I am hoping to give her a sense that he is not a threat to her. It is tough to give equal attention to both kids, I am not for that anyway, they are different people. But I try and reward her for good behavior as much as possible. She reminds me of myself a lot. She has a fighting spirit and dare I say “some major anger issues” as I had as a kid. But for some reason (I know the science thanks) she is my daughter and hopefully I can help her live with it and direct it somewhere positive. Many people along the way in my life felt threatened by it and did what they could to maintain control and squash my spirit. She is going to be tough, time to dust off my Raising a Spirited Child book I bought when Ruby was little. All the emotion is OK, but she is going to have to be taught to be kind to her brother. Jack is pretty mellow thankfully. I think as he gets bigger, and he already is bigger than her…he will just push her back. I am sure he will be protective of her though anyway. Maybe I can teach them a sign before they have the words to say “stop” or “don’t touch”. I shake my head No at Marlowe and she just looks serious and shakes hers back at me. Ill have to do some research here.

-Last night I was at the laundromat doing a ton of laundry until 12am. Strangely enough I enjoy this, it is me time. I read a bunch of the book I am reading now The Last Samurai (pssst, its not about a Samurai). There are 5 TV’s playing some Spanish language channel and I don’t know Spanish so I don’t pay much attention usually. But one station was on mute but showed the close captions in English. The show “Super Nanny” was on. I don’t watch much TV, so I am always amazed by how completely mind numbing it is whenever I see it. I have seen this show a few times, and honestly I have learned from it myself, but MAN, did I want to fly to Vermont or New Hampshire or wherever these parents in the family featured lived and kick them in the arse. I am so glad a show is on like this, staged or not. The parents are always surprised that they are part of the problem, every time…do you not watch the show before deciding to be on it? There should be more shows like this on parenting. Yes, it is sooo hard this parenting thing sometimes. But sometimes, people are just fucking idiots. There is one of my better quotes right there. No really. What are people thinking sometimes? I know it is hard to see something when you are in it, but surely there are obvious things. Like why aren’t my internet-schooled teenagers getting good grades when their computer is in the middle of the family room with the younger kids running around and they have no other social interaction other than each other? Hmmm? I would like that job, driving around in a black London cab pointing out things people are doing that are messing up their kids. I am sure I could use some perspective too (y’mean its not OK to let my teenager have chocolate milk and Coco Crispies for breakfast every day?), and I am sure these twins will make me eat my words here. But I am amazed that there are not more shows like this. No, I am amazed that there are not mandatory parenting classes. For one of the supposed hardest jobs on earth..why are we so alone in it and winging it all the time? We are raising human beings to be good human beings..thats pretty important stuff and should not be left to our best guess right?

- Holy crap this sounds like a Mommy-blog.

-Someone is sitting outside my house blasting some classical harpsichord. Toto, were not in Jersey anymore! No really, since I live on the fringe of a working class Irish and Italian neighborhood being slowly taken over by yuppies it is the Subaru with the NPR sticker on it parked next to the Mercury with the Mets sticker on it. We should have battles. Like a DJ battle or break-dance battle for the turf. One yuppie can blast harpsichord or some Renee Montaine and Steve Inskeep… and the other guys can blast some Bon Jovi, or trance or the Mets game. Marys on the half-shell, hair jell, Maclaren strollers and lattes lobbed across the streets. It’ll be a bloodbath.

-A caucus, however money-making as it is to a city, could never happen in Brooklyn. Now THAT might get some good reality TV ratings however. First of all, it is the old system designed for places that had, well thousands less people. These few people could meander over to the other candidate’s supporters and have a nice discussion about opposing views. Could you imagine this in Brooklyn? If anyone has ever attended a PTA meeting at any of the schools in Park SLope, this would be that times ten. Add in the feel of an MTA transit strike meeting, mixed with the friendliness of a Saturday shopping at the downtown Brooklyn Target, and throw in a little Brooklyn Division of Motor Vehicles in there and I am sure I am not even close to the warmth and gleeful feeling you would get while in attendance. We could hold it at the new sports center being built in the center of town. Driving there would be impossible since they are sticking it in a place already unable to handle the traffic, so we could take public transport. We could be corralled onto the floor of the basketball court and wear out Uncle Sam hats and wave our little pendants supporting our candidates. Then, the riot police would need to be called in with horses and hoses to control the situation. But maybe I am wrong, thanks to the Gulliani (Mayoral) administration we are much more accepting and familiarized with living in a police state. Looking back the Democratic National Convention at Madison Square Garden, only a wee little bit of pepper was needed in the eyes. I just don’t see the masses of New Yorkers being able to tolerate being challenged by opposing views. This city can be accepting and tolerant of characters, opinions, lifestyles & cultures like nowhere else in the world. But as long as you keep it to yourself. We are passionate but stubborn people us New Yorkers and I can’t imagine there would be much winning over.

-Holy crap, this sounds like a Brooklyn-blog.

…so, here is a Brooklyn/Mommy photo… Marlowe and I grabbing “a slice” as we say here.

When I lived in San Francisco I missed the seasons most of all. I didn’t miss the cold, cold winter or the baking heat of the summer. I missed something that marked the passage of time. I missed knowing a year had gone by and somehow, I was making progress, toward what I don’t know but if I could control nothing at least the year ticking by could be counted on to happen no matter what. Maybe that is why we make such a big deal out of New Years Eve, its a way to put the past behind us and start fresh where having a birthday is only a reminder of your aging without any closure to the year before. Maybe birthdays should be a celebration of the year past and done with.

We look to make peace with what we have lived through and absolve ourselves for all of our mistakes and the things we do as humans, and give ourselves another chance. C’est la vie, and lets move on and celebrate. I think we need to have resolve about our past in order to move forward in a healthy way. But a toast of champagne and a song we only barely know the first verse of sung drunkenly once a year doesn’t usually get us there. New Years Eves should be spent alone camping in the woods, making a fire pit in witch to burn sins and mistakes of the past in. That should be what we are driven to do, instead of an excuse to drink more. Drinking could be a part of it too I suppose. The summers I spent drinking Jeremiah Weed (a honey whisky with alleged hallucinogenic tendencies) around a bonfire come to mind as something that could have worked the same way. Maybe my former ancestors, the monks in the hills of Scotland, would celebrate the winter solstice the same way. This year in Manhattan there was a flatbed truck carrying a huge paper shredder. People lined up to shred things small and in bulk. Divorce agreements, bills after declaring bankruptcy, secrets, evidence and memories. 

It is not easy to let go of the past, it can get its claws into you pretty good. It is a part of you, it is what makes you who you are and imprints on your psyche enough to change all actions in the future. Its how we learn. We make mistakes, and make correct choices by accident or on purpose. Some of it is just what randomly spiraled into your life that day amongst the chaos,  but most of it was attraction. You drew to you the people and scenarios likely to fit. Like an SSRI, you fit in there. You matched, even if it was an unhealthy place, you were unhealthy then too. It is no chance that I am surrounded by the people I am surrounded by now. Some of them know everything about me and love me anyway and because of. Others I selectively share my past with, and still others are all about that moment and possible moments in the future. They do not know the long, long story I have watched, witnessed while my heart beat in my chest reminding me that I was standing there. I have been able to loosen the claws of the past, but still…they are always there these memories. Like in the movie “A Beautiful Mind”, he still sees the people in his imagination. But he doesn’t talk to them anymore. Yes, for some things in my past have, for lack of a better word…haunted. Some memories are just that vivid still.

I do not regret however, not a single thing. I do not wish to go back in time and do things differently. The fact is I wouldn’t have done it differently, I did what I did then because I really didn’t know any better, and made decisions based on whatever info and tools I had to work with at the time. I can understand saying that if you knew now what you new then you would have done it different, but who is to say that you wouldn’t learn what you knew now had you chosen differently at the time. I think we do the best we can, and if we have the capacity to make wise decisions, we do. Thats just the way it goes. So I guess I could say that I wish I had had the ability to have chosen differently at the time.

As I understand it, the brain has a very old part to it, a part we needed when we lived long ago that became a part of us for survival. If I lived as a cave woman, and would be walking along the path and a snake in my peripheral vision would leap out and bite me, then the next time I walked on that same path, a long straight thing would catch my eye and I would jump in reaction to it, my adrenalin would begin flowing, but it was only a stick but I would have reacted as if it were a snake nonetheless. If I kept walking along that path every day for the next ten years, eventually I would learn that not all straight things on the ground are snakes and my reaction would not be the same as it was. Over time you would re-learn what was realistic, probable or likely and you would gain confidence in its statistics every time, to the point where one day you didn’t think about it. And if a snake jumped out at you again, you would call upon that old memory and instantly know to leap out of the way, your fight or flight response would kick in again…and once again over time this reaction would fade. What happens for some people is that over time this fight or flight reaction does not fade and is constantly under the surface and triggered easily. Another example is say you were cut off while driving and you swerved and almost got in an accident. Your heart would race and you would sweat and the big muscles in your body would tense up ready to run or lift if it had to. The next day you may recall it to someone and have a feeling of upsetment but you would not feel as you did when it happened the day before. And over time, you would forget about it or be able to recall the instant without feeling any upsetment or adrenalin at all. What happens to many people is that somewhere along the way, an event happened, or series of events happened and there was no resolve. Somehow it did not fade and did not be put in the filing cabinet of your memories as something in your past and something no longer a threat to you. It is often when the event is so traumatic that no matter how often you think about it, you can not get passed it. And life goes on and you are stuck repeating the event in your head, if only just repeating the emotion of it all. For some it was like it happened yesterday all the time. There are so many guys coming back from Iraq right now with PTSD, for them they are still there, unable to make sense of and get passed a lot of what they saw there, and its claws are in deep and the memories grow more distant but the emotional experience of them doesn’t, and it takes one of any number of triggers to bring it all back again. You do not have to have lived through a war to have PTSD, for some people their home life can be just as traumatic. Weather it be years of emotional and physical abuse or just one traumatic event, there is no peace from it.

For some this happens on a small scale, and they repeat over and over again things in their head to try and get control over it. I see friends of mine do it a lot. We obsess and try and remold things into something graspable. I always think of the U2 song Stuck In a Moment, written about former INXS singer Michael Hutchence upon his death. Without flow there is pain. What I wish for everyone I care about for the new year is not just peace in the world, but inner peace. I don’t mean the new-age version. I mean that I wish people to have resolve from their past. I don’t wish for people to lie to themselves or cover it all up or forget about it. I just wish people to have peace with things and to be able to let go of things they could not control and find peace in that. There is a great book by Pema Chodron called When Things Fall Apart. I recommend this to everyone. It is all about this specifically.

Several years ago I went to a New Years Eve party with about 30 or so strangers, where just before midnight, each of us wrote on a piece of paper one thing we were most proud of, one thing we most regretted and one thing we wished for our future, then we would read them all aloud and then burn the paper in the fire. One guy said that he was ashamed at how he had been treating his brother, was proud of sticking it out at a company that made his job hard for him and resolved to start his own line of clothing. A woman said that she has been drinking too much, was proud that she had gotten up the guts to go out that night and wished she would write more in the future. People were amazingly honest and revealing. And I have never felt so closely connected to a bunch of strangers so quickly. We all seemed so fragile in a way. After we were all done, everyone sat there quietly for a second and then one person broke the ice and made a joke, the music started again and we all had one for the road and piled out the door to a nightclub. I never saw any of those people again.

So following that format sans the incineration, I would say that my biggest regret of the year was that I did not ask for help more than I should have, my pride got in the way. I am most proud of myself for having found the strength to have two babies naturally and have worked really hard at being a good parent and I made a huge commitment to Tom. The children and the marriage are both a huge responsibility I don’t take lightly. My hope for this year and I guess you could say my New Years resolution is not to never eat brussel sprouts as I like to joke. But it is to compartmentalize my memories, put them on a shelf and leave them there and move on. And I want to have resolution about any thing broken I can not fix by choosing to not try and keep fixing it. So I guess you could say my resolution is to have some resolve. And have all of those old memories and decisions I have made to be just that… stuff of the past to choose to repeat or never, ever to do again.

For New Years Eve Tom and I put the kids to sleep and made dinner together and opened a good bottle of red wine and lit candles and talked about some of the memorable things we have done over the last 5 years together. Like old people we were in bed asleep by 11, we couldn’t keep our eyes open. But we woke up to the neighborhood wide calamity at midnight. I have never heard such an enthusiastic bunch of people, this block went crazy for a half an hour straight. Lighting fire-crackers, banging pots and pans, lighting m-80’s, blowing air-horns, yelling Happy New Year! Every age little kids up to old ladies in the street wearing pointed party hats whoopin’ it up. What a strange thing we do! And to do it all so publicly? The next day it rained and everything was closed so everyone stayed in and nursed their hangovers privately. Not much had changed, another day in the calendar had ticked by. But I guess now we had closure.

A few days ago my husband turned 31. I had forgotten how young he was, he is such an old soul sometimes and a kid some others. I am amazed at how he can pull both of them off. Last night he played with his new x-box for an our after the babies went to sleep. His friends from work play it and when they heard he had opened his present, he got a text on where to meet on-line to play each other. An hour before he sung some Frank Sinatra softly to Marlowe while rocking her to sleep.

When I first met Tom we both were in pretty bad places, we both spent a lot of time at the bar nursing some wounds and were not being very kind to ourselves. One would have thought that we would have brought each other down, but we did the opposite. We ended up being healthy for each other and 5 years later it feels like a lifetime ago when we were at that low - low place. When I met Tom (at a bar) I told him that I frequented the place often. He showed up every day for three weeks before abandoning hope that he would see me again. On his way out that day I saw him and said hello and we made plans to meet for a drink again. Another week went by and I met him and we talked and talked. I felt that I had so much to tell him as if I had been waiting to meet him all my life and had to catch him up on everything, we shared a common interest of music and we both had so much we wanted to play for each other. I told him that I had a daughter and he didn’t flinch, he just smiled and said “wow, tell me about her.” We spent that night listening to records until the sun came up. I left for Australia the next day and 3 weeks later we arranged to meet again. He was working on the pilot boat which meant he slept on a boat 12 miles out to sea for a week and was returning that night. There was a blizzard expected and my plane landed just as it hit New York. Tom circled the neighborhood looking for parking and eventually drove his car into a huge snowdrift so as not to be late for our date. And from that day forward we never wanted to be apart. I didn’t believe he was serious about me, he was 25 after all and I was nearly 8 years older, divorcing, with a kid who just turned 7, I was working at a job that would take me nowhere, and I had a good amount of debit. This young gorgeous rockabilly lad from a good Irish Catholic home must just be playing around. And I figured that he wouldn’t be around long. But he would not leave. It took me a long time to be convinced that he was completely serious. Introducing him to Ruby was a big step for me. I felt that she would fall for him like I did, and knew that if he broke my heart, he would break hers too. I got a feeling from Tom that he was an incredibly kind soul and was someone who was genuine and generous and I would be out of my mind if I did not take a chance on him.

At the beginning of our relationship he was an apprentice harbor pilot (navigates ships in and out of the NY port, he actually drives the ships, not drives a tug) and lived out on the pilot boat (kind of like a floating traffic control/hotel) for a week every three weeks. Most relationships would have ended there but I took that time to be alone and mourn the loss of half of my daughters childhood (does that ever get easier?), and the loss of a family I had tried for many years to keep together. Many of my friends suggested that I take time to be alone and heal, but because I was not willing to give up Tom, the time he was away was dedicated to this. It is impossible to feel all of the pain associated with loss and open your heart up and begin to trust again at the same time so it was important to allow myself time for both. But unfortunately it isn’t something you can really schedule and there was much overlap of feelings. Tom stayed with me night after night while I cried and cried. Most men would have run like the wind, taken the first bus out of there. But he stayed. In time, it got easier and more time was spent getting closer and creating our own memories. Tom put a deposit down on an engagement ring and the jeweler got to know him well as he would stop in and put down $20, $30, $40 at a time. He proposed with tears saying that he would be honored. I didn’t have to think twice.

Tom stuck with me through 4.5 years of a grueling battle in the court with Ruby’s father. He came with me to court all but one time when he had to work. We were engaged for 3+ years and still the wedding was delayed because of the seemingly endless court process. But with every delay and roadblock, Tom would tell me that he knew I was doing the right thing and that Ruby came first and that he believed in me. I would not have made it through without him. He was my rock through it all and would always have a way of bringing me back to focus on where I wanted to go whenever I got overwhelmed with it all. When we were finally able to get married last July, we had 4 month old twins. We had fun planning a wedding and the day couldn’t have been better. We were married outside overlooking the water at the Alice Austen House in staten Island, it was a beautiful but hot day. He was so happy and when he read the vows he lost it and cried, we were so happy to be able to celebrate with our friends and family. He looked so handsome in his suit and pink shirt. It was so amazing to see him get so excited about it and be so happy. If friends are a reflection on you, he has the most amazingly lovely friends. He welled up with tears as Ruby sang at the wedding, it was so important to him that she didn’t feel left behind in any way. We had written her into the vows and had given her a necklace as a token of our promise to always be good to her. When I danced with my father he told me not to ever let this one go. I told him not to worry, that I wouldn’t.

Through the pregnancy and birth of our twins Jack and Marlowe he was an amazingly supportive partner and its no surprise he turned out to be an amazing father. He was so understanding and loving and I felt safe feeling so vulnerable and he let it be OK to ask for help…something I don’t do too easily. At their birth he spoke to the doctor and nurses and was my voice, intuitively knowing what I wanted and what I needed to have happen. Watching him hold his newborn children will always be a favorite image in my mind. He has handled fatherhood with such grace and is natural at it. Through the blur of the first months and into the window of their personalities opening in the third month he spent many sleepless nights rocking and shushing his son and daughter. As they grew bigger and began to react his face would light up with every little new thing they did. He was so proud of them and filled with so much love for them it was beautiful to see him with them. At 2 months old he took Marlowe to Easter Mass by himself, Marlowe with her little Easter hat on strapped to his chest with his coat wrapped around her. As the babies are fast approaching toddler-hood, he runs around the house with them making them laugh, chasing the dog, chasing and tickling, kisses on the chins. He pushes them around in their ride-on toys and stacks blocks for them to topple. He set up the train set under the Christmas tree and sat with Jack on his lap while he blew the trains horn and encouraged him to say “choo-choo” (Jack calls it a “chuh”), I couldn’t tell who was more excited.

One thing that made me fall in love with Tom most of all was how he became Ruby’s step-father. He never assumed the role, and was never handed it either. Over time, he consistently chose to put what was best for her first…so he earned it you could say. His relationship with her developed over time naturally by him being fair and honest and respecting her parent’s role and understanding his. He showed Ruby what it was to be a person who is good to others and he set an example of a man who is kind and very loving to his wife, and one who wholeheartedly loves his family. I hope Ruby will choose to be with someone such as Tom someday, someone who treats her well and with love and respect and she does not ever settle for anything less. Tom has a fun side to him and they can act like friends and be goofy and immature together, but Tom is always clear about how rudeness and inconsideration is not tolerated and she knows that good behavior is expected of her. Tom follows my lead on parenting her, we talk about the big issues together privately as everything ultimately effects him also. Tom and I both agree that it is hard enough having 2 parents let alone 4 so we try and