Parenting Hack: Bread Heels

Last night I was preparing to serve Laura a supper of grilled cheese sandwich and applesauce. Yes, I know it sounds like a lot of work, but for my children I go the extra mile. I realized that I had two bread bags, each with both heels left inside and nothing else. Tell me truly, isn't it always the Mama in your house who eats a sandwich made from the heels? Sure, you may like the heels (such a grown-up opinion to have!), but the heelwich will not be eaten by children, in my experience. When I make myself a sandwich using the heels, I do so with a faint sense of noble sacrifice. Anyway.

So I thought, hmm, a grilled cheese sandwich made from heels is less-than-optimal, because the diminished porosity of the heel side makes for less butter absorption. It is also, I admit, less cosmetically appealing than a sandwich made from the mid-slices. Then I had a fiendish realization: I could turn the heels over and hide them on the inside of the sandwich. Then the child would not notice the heeliness, as it would be sealed inside by the melted cheese, and the bready side would be soaking up the butter in the pan. Why had this never occurred to me?

So I did just that, and the heels went unnoticed and were consumed whole. The real test will be whether Hank will eat a covert PB&J heelwich. Is everyone already doing this but me?

I just realized that I tend to post about grilled cheese a lot. Two times is a lot, I think.

Go check out more of these little problem-helpers at the Works for Me Wednesday round-up.

Not Totally Loving It

I think at this point it's safe to say, after three days of going, that Hank would rather just stay home and play Legos than go to school. I don't really blame him. Home is pretty fun.

I thought that the second day, last Friday, would tell the tale, and it did. When I pulled up in the drop-off line, Hank turned limp like a rag doll. He hadn't been fussing or complaining about going, but when it came time for the teacher to unfasten his car seat, he sat there unmoving, neither helping nor hindering the process, like he was practicing toddler civil disobedience. Matt picked him up that day, and apparently the teacher said he did fine, but later on, Hank said to me, confidingly, "I fussed a little bit in there."

Today it was the same rag doll/spotted owl protester, passive resistance routine--We shall not be moved--but no actual tears. When I got to the room at 1:00, both his teachers said that they had been to Spanish class, and that Hank had loved it. They prompted him to show me how he could say "Hola" and "adios" and "rojo." He seemed much livelier. They said that he never cries--he has a few droopy or lethargic moments, but then he perks up. I don't know, that's pretty much how I am all the time. So I guess we're doing okay for day 3.

He had a stamped "R" on his arm, in red, and I supposed it must stand for "rojo." I said, "What's that stamp, Hank?" And he said, 'Oh yeah, that's a letter. It's an 'H' for 'Hank's school.'"

I think it's all going to be fine, but I'm glad he has Tuesdays and Thursday off so he can have plenty of chill time. He loves his chill time almost as much as his mama does.

What I Accomplished on Saturday

Spoiler alert: It was not much.

Matt got up with the kids and I slept until 11:00.

I beeswaxed my dining room table and bench. As I did this, I kept muttering, "Yes it IS my beeswax." Not that that's especially funny.

I unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher twice.

I lay on the couch for two hours, from 4-6. About forty minutes was spent reading books to Hank (My Truck is Stuck and The Human Body), then I dozed while Hank took a bath with Matt in the big tub. Then Hank and Laura played upstairs. I think they were tumbling on my bed. I continued to lie on the couch downstairs and look out the big window.

I thought about people, places, and things. So, basically, nouns.

I dressed a child a lot.

I brought in the mail and threw it all away. That was the only time I left the house, if that even counts.

I messed around on the internet machine trying to deal with various administrative issues.

I warmed up leftovers for supper and we all ate together.

I took the side off of Hank's crib, turning it into a toddler bed for the second time in its life.

I read If You Give a Pig a Pancake aloud.

That is all. Nothing too taxing.

My advice to y'all is to keep it chill today.

Foot in Mouth Moment

In brief: Last night we had five people over for dinner, two couples we see regularly (hey y'all!) and a guy Matt used to work with. I don't really know him, though I had met him once, a few years ago. He is married with children, but he was flying solo at our house. When we sat down to eat, talk somehow turned to childrearing, and I said to to him, "So, you guys had twins!" It was the one fact I remembered about his family life. He said, "Yes, we had twins, but one of them didn't make it."

Damn.

Then I remembered this other, very painful fact. He went on to say that one baby boy had only lived for two days, and that now his brother was two years old. It all came back to me, and I couldn't believe I had forgotten that this was that man--Matt had brought me regular reports of his twins' premature birth and struggle, and had told me when the surviving baby boy had finally gone home. I said, "Oh, I'm sorry. I remember, I'm so sorry." And he was very gracious and we went on and talked about his other kids.

When I was younger, I thought that these kinds of conversational moments were equivalent to total social agony and failure. I prided myself (still do) on saying the right thing and making people comfortable. If I had put my foot in it like that, back in the day, I would have either gushed in apology until we were all even more uncomfortable, or just have brooded about it for the rest of the night.

But now I feel that, in adult life, everyone is going to say the wrong thing sometime (surely it's not only me?), and you just apologize and move on. Bad things have happened to people, and bringing them up in conversation doesn't make them any worse, though it may lead to an awkward moment. I would tell my younger self, when you make a social misstep or hurt someone's feelings, be quick, warm, and honest with your apology. And then leave it. People get it. And if you are a third party witness to such a moment, do not remark on it, even to try to ameliorate it. Just let it be. A painful or awkward exchange is nothing shameful.

I am actually developing a whole theory of awkwardness as a productive force in social life, based largely on a block party that we had here on Labor Day. But more about that later. I hope y'all are having a good weekend, with few or no forehead-slapping moments.

Schoolboy

This was the scene yesterday. Hank loaded up and ready for his first day of school. The contents of that tote bag are: a ziploc bag holding a change of clothes; and his Star Wars lunchbox holding a PB&J, banana, cheese crackers, and sippy cup. Yet Hank could only hold his bag with his arm up high, because it was so heavy, he said. When I was making his lunch, I cut the crusts off his sandwich so, so carefully, in case there is a correlation between neat crust-removal and academic success.

At promptly 9:30, I was in the drop-off line and at the school's front entrance. His teacher saw me roll up, and she came over and opened Hank's door. She greeted him and chattered while she unbuckled his seat, and she had his feet on the sidewalk before he knew what hit him. I had told him how this would all go, and he seemed okay with all of it. We called out our goodbyes, and I then tried to simultaneously drive away and twist my body 180 degrees, to catch one more glimpse of his little white face.

Then I went home. Where I had time to turn around completely one time and drink almost a whole cup of coffee before I was thinking, "Almost time to go get the boy." I was holding my purse and keys twenty minutes before I needed to leave.

When I got to his room to pick him up, I could see him through the window. He was studying the faces of the moms, waiting for me to appear. His teacher said that he never cried, but that he said, "Can we call my mom now?" a lot, all day. He did play, though, and she thought he'd had fun. He told me that he liked school, but his chief complaint was that they hadn't been allowed to go to the playground where there are swings. But he also said, "The teacher did let me go with the music lady," and he liked that. I think overall, it was a good first day. He hasn't said anything about not wanting to go on Friday. The second day will tell the tale, I bet. He might be, like, "Wait, we did this once already. There's no need to do it again."

While he was at school, Pretty Neighbor called and said that her kids wanted to have cupcakes for Hank at their house, in honor of his first day. We did not need convincing.

They made cards for Hank, and generally made him feel celebrated. I feel good that the first day is behind us, but it is so strange, this feeling of our children having a world separate from ours. He now knows people I don't know, even if he can't remember their names. He said, "Mom, I made new friends! But I don't know who they are." Anyway, one day down, three thousand something to go.

Freak Flags Are Flying in the ATL

I am married to a nerd, I love nerds, and many of my closest friends and associates are nerds. Nerds pay our bills, in more ways than one. And yet I have a conflicted relationship with nerd culture. Or maybe "nerd culture" isn't a capacious enough label for what's going on downtown at DragonCon right now.

There are 30,000 people down there for the weekend, partying and going to conference panels and generally letting it all hang out. (Some of them are letting too much hang out.) Kirk and Spock are there, of course. And the kid who plays Draco Malfoy. But there's also a guy from the CDC and a bunch of astrophysicists. Hmm. And look! There's Adam Savage from "Mythbusters"! I am positive that if I weren't married, we would be dating.

As I mentioned the other day, our old friend Rick is visiting. He is selling his novels in one of the exhibit spaces at the conference. Matt went down with him yesterday to check out the action, and I went today.

My conflicted relationship with nerd culture stems from the fact that I don't know that much about most of the source materials that those 30,000 people are celebrating. I can recognize most of the superheroes, and I am devoted to "Lost" and a few other pop-culture monuments, but a huge portion of it all is unknown to me. Also, I have some kind of mild allergy to any kind of exuberant Renaissance Faire-ish costuming. You know, like vaguely medieval corsetry and buskins? (Okay, I don't know what a buskin is but just go with it.) Or Goth-pixie-naughty-Tinkerbell efflorescences? Not into it. Not not not.

That said, I do love a spectacle. And I love it when people try hard to make or to do things that they like. So I grabbed my camera and went down there. Keely, I needed you to be my wingman! (I also went to a panel discussion on the H1N1 flu virus, and an astronomy panel on looking for other life in the galaxy. Not that different from an academic conference, actually, except there were multiple people dressed like Harry Potter in attendance.) Here are some of my favorite folks that I saw.

I should note that Batman and his friends did not plan their outfits together. They just more or less converged on this shoeshine stand. And here's one for you, fellas.





I love her everyday blue hair peeking out from under her cat headpiece. And I was kind of sweet on this guy too.



And look who else showed up?



He's Klingon Elvis. Go on, love him tender, until he tires of you and destroys your home planet.

So that's where I was today. It was pretty fun, and I have a feeling that after that, Halloween is going to seem kind of boring.

We Got Married in the Last Century

Today is our 14th wedding anniversary. Sometimes I tell people that I was a child bride, and it's basically true.

Note the no-nonsense ponytail. I would like to go back in time and work that hairstyle a little more. And here we are a few weeks before our wedding.

I look at this now and think, "Oh my lord, somebody tell those people that they are CHILDREN." Our friend Rick, who was with us on this day fourteen years ago, is here visiting, and last night we were reminiscing about the high-powered careers we had when we got married. Matt was cutting grass, and I was unemployed. Our fortunes took a turn for the better when I got a job as a temp at the local medium-security prison. I am not even kidding about that. And they loved me there. They offered me a permanent job. AS A GUARD. Again, I am totally serious. So it's been a long and interesting journey for the two of us. When I hear people say they can't get married because they're not financially ready, I don't understand what they mean. It seems the opposite to me. Pick the right person and then join forces with him or her, just as soon as you possibly can.

So today while Laura was at school, we had a romantic lunch, with Hank in tow. A romantic lunch for three at Chipotle. I'm not sure what we'll do to celebrate properly. We agreed that we're still feeling the celebratory effects of our trip to Australia and to Vanuatu, and that we've had a lot of good couple-time this summer.

That lunch was the high point in the day. A not-so-high point was when Hank pooped in his pants at Home Depot. It's the first time we've had a Level 2 Event in public. I will spare you the clinical details. I'll just say that we avoided major public embarrassment and nobody cried. I called Matt from the car and told him I was incoming with a bio-emergency and to please clear the decks and give me everything he had. And we all made it through. Also, while I was pushing a toxic Hank to the car, a dude who worked at Home Depot told me, "Hey, I like your top." So, I guess we put that in the plus column? And I got a gorgeous huge pot of white mums.

I need a cocktail now. Please enjoy a long, langorous weekend.

What, Me Worry?

School? Who's going to school? I'm going to where? WhoBob WhatPants?

Today I took Hank, Prince of the House, to a teacher meet-and-greet at his new preschool. He'll be in a class of three year-olds for a few hours every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Any time that this subject has been broached in the last few weeks, he has allowed that while doesn't want to go to school, not really, he will go later. Okay. Later is fast approaching.

Last week I had him riding in the buggy at Target when he espied the sale lunchboxes in the school supply section. Thinking this might be a new marketing strategy, I let him pick one out and told him he would be carrying it to school. He gripped the lunchbox handle and said, "Can I go to school right now?" I thought, hmm, surely that was too easy. In the days since then, I've been weaving a beautiful narrative about his matriculation at preschool, but the lunchbox is the only part of the story that holds any appeal for him. We've packed it with a sandwich and a banana many times in our imaginations. What happens after that is a little fuzzy.

This morning, though, I dressed him in his favorite t-shirt, the one that says, "Pow!" and off we went, into the very belly of the beast. There are two teachers for his class of 12 kids, and they are both very warm and welcoming. We spent half an hour in the classroom--Hank playing with racecars and me chatting up the moms--and he seemed perfectly happy to be there. He brought his Star Wars lunchbox to show the teachers, and he gave one of them a full tour of its features, pointing out "the Stormtroupers, who are bad guys, and Yoga." Then he came up to me and said, "Can we get out of this room?"

We went out to the playground, where another half hour of fun was had. Then, of his own accord, he told me he was ready to go home. That just doesn't happen on the playground. He said, "When we get home, can we have some juice and play a TV game?" I said sure. He added, "And maybe we can take a little rest?" I think his one hour of school visiting wore him out, but somehow he's gonna have to make it from 9:30-1:00.

Matt and I went to the parents' meeting last night, and we like the program. It's long-established, it's not far from our house, and people love it and send all their kids through there. My only concerns are:

• Their car drop-off routine in the morning is that the parents pull up, the teachers get the children out of the cars and escort them to their rooms. The kids carry their own little bags and eventually learn the way to their rooms. The parents don't come into the classrooms in the morning, but only at pick-up time. This will make it harder for us to spend twenty minutes hugging goodbye, which is the minimum amount of time I need.


• Pottytraining is a requirement for the 3 year-olds, which we've got covered. Whew! But the children are expected to pretty much be pretty self-sufficient with all the toilet-related behaviors: wiping, dressing, washing hands. This set of expectations may put a damper on Hank's practice of emerging from the bathroom twirling his undies and pants in his hands, yelling, "I'm a naked boy! I just pooped! I want a treat!" They may not look as benevolently on that behavior, and I would hate for his little spirit to be stifled, you know.


• Mostly I'm worried that they won't know he is the Golden Child--that they might not see the subtle glow that shines from him at all times. But that's silly! They'll see it, won't they? WON'T THEY?

So next Wednesday is the day. I've got a week to sell the idea to him. I've got the Stormtroupers and Yoga on my side. Do not doubt that I will keep you posted.