the year in review

with the end of each year comes lists in every magazine, newspaper, and website: the Hits and Misses, or Cheers and Jeers, or Bests and Worsts of ... whatever. politics. fashion. music. movies. tabloid headlines. i think they're ways of recapping the past twelve months in a format that appeals to the masses -- short, quick, and to the point. seeing all of these lists inspired to write one of my own. here's a summary of 2008 for the mann family, in the form of our five lows and five highs of the year that is about to come to a close.

#1 low: selling our house in asheville. the offer that was reneged for no reason. the inspector who has since admitted his report was wrong. the two months the house wasn't even on the market while all of it was kind of sorted out. the insultingly low offer that we eventually accepted. (which, now that the market has tanked even further, doesn't look quite so insulting. small comfort.)

#2 low: living in a third floor corporate apartment during the month of january, one of the coldest months in recent memory. there's nothing quite like herding two kids stuffed into winter coats down two flights of external stairs in 12 degree weather, only to find your car doors are frozen shut.

#3 low: repairs, repairs, repairs in our new house. two major leaks in the kitchen ceiling that have left temporary gaping holes right above our breakfast table. standing water in our basement that necessitated the installation of a sump pump. overhead lighting wired in our dining room where none had existed. these are not fun ways to spend money.

#4 low: massive layoffs at chris's employer. he, thankfully, was spared, but he watched as colleagues were escorted to their desk by security right after being informed that they had been let go. did i mention this happened the week before christmas?

#5 low: the trials and losses of dear friends: brain tumors, bone cancer, natal heart defects, pancreatic cancer, suicide, serious car accidents. if it weren't for God and faith, i don't know anyone can make it through.

but now, for our highs, in no particular order ...

#1 high: our move to raleigh. this is, undoubtedly, where we want to be, and where we want to raise our children. the city is great, the schools are wonderful, our church is amazing, having my parents a short drive away is so helpful, lifelong friends nearby is incredible ... i'm running out of positive adjectives.

#2 high: susanna, potty-trained right after her second birthday. enough said.

#3 high: liam reading a new book, cover-to-cover, for the first time. such an proud accomplishment for a young three year old, and one of the most exciting moments thus far as a parent. and it's kind of crazy he can now easily read the newspaper.

#4 high: our new house. despite the aforementioned repairs, it's still a great house. we love being at the end of a cul-de-sac, and especially enjoy the big covered back deck and huge private back yard. and the location can't be beat.

#5 high: we have love. we have health. we have supportive family and friends. we have food on the table and are able to help those less fortunate. and above it all, we have God. unfortunately, there will always be lows ... but you can't fully appreciate the highs without them. and if we focus on our faith, focus on our blessings, and focus on the people around us whom we love and who love us, then despite the grim forecast on a national and global level, 2009 is still looking to be pretty darn awesome.

happy new year from all of us!
xoxo ~ chris, sara, liam, susanna, and super

selective memory

it's amazing what liam chooses to remember about events. a recent history ... 1) he joined chris and me at his first non-kids sporting event, when davidson played nc state in basketball at the charlotte coliseum. the game was close, the victory was ours. liam's highlight: the ice cream. 2) i took him to disney on ice, where he watched in fascination as lightning mcqueen skated on the rink below us. liam's highlight: our parking spot. 3) he participated in his first christmas pageant, singing "go tell it on the mountain" in front of hundreds of people, and even went up to the altar for communion. liam's highlight: the tail on his horse costume. 4) he opened all sorts of wonderful christmas presents from his parents, his grandparents, his uncle, his aunt, and of course, santa. liam's highlight: his battery-operated toothbrush. 5) we just returned from a three-day trip to our friends' mountain cabin, where we hiked along the blue ridge parkway, checked out a great playground with a super-long slide, played lots of games indoors when the weather turned rainy, and visited the mast general store in boone. liam's highlight: the gummy worm he ate in the backseat. one of the e-mails that being currently forwarded around, full of insightful suggestions of how to live better in 2009, reminds us to "find the beauty in the little things". liam's obviously got this one mastered.

Why Must We Wait?

each year, our church publishes an Advent book, with Bible readings throughout the season and a daily meditation written by various parishioners. i contributed the following entry, and thought that christmas eve was the perfect time to post it here. from the mann family, we wish you peace, love, and happiness. Merry Christmas!

August 2003

My doctor turns on the ultrasound monitor. My heart pounds. Could this, at long last, be it? Will we have a viable pregnancy after all this time?

With every passing second of silence, I know my chances are diminishing. He moves the probe some more, searching for what they call that “fetal flicker”. He remains quiet. My eyes dart, frantically, around the room. I can’t stare at that screen any longer, with its green void glaring at me. I can’t bear to catch my husband’s eyes, as the tears well up in mine. I can’t look at the walls, covered with posters of the various stages of pregnancy, reminding me of what we cannot achieve. So my gaze rests upward. I know the pattern of the ceiling tiles by heart now.

“I’m so sorry,” my doctor says, as he shuts off the monitor and turns to face me, as he has so many times before. “There’s no heartbeat.” This is our fourth miscarriage. This is the fourth time that we had seen that glorious plus sign show up on the test … the fourth time we had begun discussing baby names … the fourth time I had started plans for our nursery. And now, this is the fourth time we face the devastating news that it is not to be.

My doctor is discussing our next steps, as stronger measures are necessary. I hear terms like follicle stimulation. Progesterone level checks. IUI, HCG, IVF – the letters swirl in the air around me. I hope that Chris is paying attention, because I can barely breathe.

In the solitude of my car on the drive home, I ask God aloud what His purpose is in all of this. Is it a lesson in humility, after a lifetime of things coming rather easily for me? Is it a reminder that I love being in control too much, and that there are some things that only He can control? Is it God telling us that despite having a rock-solid marriage, we're not quite ready for parenthood? Are we destined not to be parents at all?

Why, God? Why must I wait? What is the purpose of waiting for a child?

August 2004

Our son, Liam, is born. I am blessed with an extremely short labor – four hours, start to finish, without an epidural. After spending so much of my recent life being poked and prodded and tested and injected with fertility drugs, I had prayed throughout my pregnancy that God would give me the strength to achieve a natural childbirth. I wanted to be fully present in all that was happening; I wanted to feel every moment of this life-changing experience. God answered that prayer.

The nurse places our baby in my arms, and I am absolutely mesmerized. I cannot possibly put into words the love that I feel at this moment. He’s wailing, he’s red-faced and slimy, his eyes are squinched up, he has no hair – obviously, he’s absolutely beautiful. And, praise be to God, he is ours.

Staring down at his sweet face in my hospital bed, it suddenly hits me like a ton of bricks. This is why God wanted me to wait. All those years of heartbreak and devastating loss now make sense. I was put on this earth to be a mother to Liam, this precious baby born in the wee hours of August 14, 2004. Had my path been easier, Liam would not exist; I would have another child, but I would not have him. I think of Psalm 139:16 : “In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed." I know with certainty that before my life had even begun, God had a plan for me. And this particular little boy, our Liam, is part of His all-knowing plan. God is so wise.

October 2005

I stare at the same ceiling tiles as I did two years ago, bracing myself for the same experience all over again. Why should it be any different? We had been told that we would never have a sustainable pregnancy without medical intervention. We had accepted the fact that it would never happen for us naturally. So, after a plus sign turned up on a home pregnancy test completely out of the blue, I don’t allow myself to get my hopes up. I resolve that I will keep my composure even through the disappointment that is to come. I am ready for the news this time.

My doctor turns on the monitor and positions the probe. But this time, there is no uncomfortable silence. Instead, I hear, “You’re not going to believe this ... I hardly believe it myself.” Excitedly, he points to that same monitor that has failed us so many times before. “Check out that strong heartbeat, Sara! You’re ten weeks pregnant!”

No doctor is able to explain how this has happened. Given my history and diagnosis, there’s no way I actually have a baby growing inside me. Yet somehow, I do. Our perfectly healthy daughter Susanna is born seven months later.

* * *

As I write this, I look across the room to my two children, their little blond heads touching as they play together. I smile. For now I know that my family is living proof of the most important lesson that God taught me through all those years of waiting:

God does, indeed, perform miracles.

a hole bunch of fun

our Elf on the Shelf is named gofster. don't ask me the meaning behind the name, because i have no idea. we read the storybook, learned that we needed to bestow a name upon this elf who will be visiting us every day between thanksgiving and christmas for years to come, and contemplated his moniker as a family. susanna suggested gofster and we we went with it.

gofster, in case you are not well-versed in the Elf on the Shelf culture, observes the going-ons in the mann house from sun-up to sun-down. and then, as the kids sleep, he flies back to the north pole to report on good and bad behavior to mr. claus himself. the next morning, he's back -- but always in a different spot. the first thing the kids want to do as soon as they wake up is find him. he's been on top of the entertainment center, on top of the fridge, and even on top of curtain rods.

"on top of" are three very important words, for you see, gofster is not to be touched by little hands. he is here to quietly observe, which would simply not be possible if two certain people who are, oh, about 38-42 inches in height were to reach him. he needs some vertical distance to do his job. but he was running out of places to reside, until we were blessed with another leak in our kitchen ceiling.

i try to look on the bright side of things when i can. so i'm not focusing on the fact that this is going to cost us some serious money in repairs, or that we have a gaping hole in our ceiling right before family comes to town for christmas. instead, i'm embracing the hole.

and so is gofster.

GPS = Greatest Present for Sara

on my way home from my tenth college reunion a few years ago, i missed my exit. for those of you unfamiliar with north carolina geography, raleigh is almost exactly south of richmond; yet somehow, i wound up in virginia beach. (for those of you unfamiliar with virginia geography, virginia beach is, well, at the beach. in virginia. which is not south of richmond, but east. which makes sense, since we live on the east coast and all.) the saddest part of this debacle was not that i have made this same drive hundreds of times and should have known better, but that i didn't even realize i was off course until i looked out the window and saw the ocean. before i embarrass myself any further, i'll embarrass my husband. he once took a road trip with fraternity brothers from charlotte to chapel hill and wound up in south carolina. it goes without saying that neither of us has been blessed with directional sense. so i'm wondering now why in the world it took us so long to figure out that we are the prime candidates for a GPS system. chris gave me one for my birthday on wednesday, and installed it in my car last night. (one of the countless perks of having a birthday right before christmas is that he can always find great deals on a present for me. ranks right up there with two-birds-with-one-stone thank you notes.) i have already used it five times today, and i've only gone five places, one of which was our house. this device is going to revolutionize my life! no more need to print out directions from mapquest. no reason to store every possible number in my phone to call once i have absolutely no idea where i am. i might just chuck the tattered, torn, ten year old raleigh map out the window. i am in heaven. (i think. i should probably go consult the GPS to make sure.)

don't knock it

the newest craze in the mann house is the knock-knock joke. liam got a book of them for his birthday and enjoys reading them to anyone who will listen. of course, most of the humor he doesn't quite understand yet, but he laughs anyway, which in turn sends susanna into hysterics. you'd think jerry seinfeld had entered the building. so chris decided to teach them a knock-knock joke that they would understand. the classic banana/orange one -- you know it. "knock knock." "who's there?" "banana." (repeat 3-4 times until you about drive the other person crazy.) and then, "orange." "orange who?" "orange you glad i didn't say banana?" they actually got the humor this time. it was a huge hit. but one that was seemingly forgotten, as they advanced into a new stage of creating their own punchlines in the middle of supper last night. "who's there?" "ketchup." "ketchup who?" "ketchup bottle!" (peals of laughter ensue.) ... "cheese." "cheese who?" "cheese and crackers!" (now they're crying from laughing so hard.) ... "door." "door who?" "DOOR KNOB!" (they can hardly breathe.) and so it goes. from this wonderfully calm exchange at the dinner table, i felt we had regressed a bit a lot in the art of telling a knock-knock joke. there was no true humor involved ... until susanna and i were in the checkout aisle at the grocery this morning. as i was signing the credit card receipt, she was a few feet away from me in the cart, staring at a nice woman right behind us in line. out of the blue, susanna gives it a shot. "knock knock," she says sweetly. the woman gamely plays along. "who's there?" "orange." "orange who?" "orange you glad i didn't say door knob?" the woman gave out a genuine laugh. not at the joke, of course, but at this chubby 2 1/2 year old joke teller, her delivery, and the completely out-of-context punchline that made no sense. but no matter the reason behind the laugh, a laugh is what susanna was going for. and a comedienne is born.

the key to a great santa

we took liam and susanna to have brunch with santa at our club following church today. before he invited the kids onto his lap, he pulled out a keyring with three enormous brass keys on it, and explained to the kids what each key does. i found this all quite fascinating, and got his permission to share this information with all of you. the first key is his Chimney Expander. this temporarily enlarges each chimney so he can get himself and all the presents down. the chimney returns to its normal size after santa leaves. the second key is his Time Stopper. since 24 hours is certainly not long enough for one man to circle the globe delivering his loot, at some point on christmas eve santa inserts this key into his clock. time freezes, he gets his job done, and no one is the wiser. and the third key is, well, a key. to rudolph's barn. santa can't get very far without him!

miss independent

i have a theory that a child cannot escape the Terrible Two's without going through, and thereby succumbing their entire family to, the Independent Stage. liam went through it for a brief period, when he stubbornly resisted any help, but thankfully it passed quickly. susanna, on the other hand ... well, susanna is in a category all her own. for months now, she's been determined to do everything by herself, even when, most of the time, it's nearly impossible for her to do so. "DO IT MYSELF!" she mutters, as she tries to haul a bag of groceries up the steps. or to wash her hands when she can't even reach the sink on her tippy-toes. or to button her coat with mittens on. or to tie her shoes. of course, we always encourage her to follow through with her attempts, since the only way she's going to learn is from her mistakes -- and isn't one of our primary parenting goals to raise independent children? so we quickly learned to factor in additional time for even the most mundane tasks, because her way takes twice as long as if we did it for her. it's painfully fun (emphasis on the "painful") when it's below freezing outside, as her 35-pound body (stuffed like a sausage into her winter coat, mind you) insists on opening the door of our SUV herself and then scaling her car seat four feet off the ground herself and then fastening the buckle herself. start to finish time for said independent task: four minutes. (as opposed to parent-assisted time of ten seconds.) these are just a few of the daily occurrences we endure with our beloved second child. but nothing has quite compared to last night. she had climbed into liam's bed to give him a good night kiss, and as it was really late, i picked her up and carried her into her room for our bedtime ritual of rocking to "oh susanna". she kicked and screamed the entire way across the hall, and as soon as i had put her down, she gave me a defiant look and marched out. thirty seconds later, she was back, with a sweet smile on her face as she got into my lap. something had obviously happened in the interim to satisfy her, but i wasn't sure what. chris told me later how it had all unfolded. apparently she had returned to liam's room and beelined it to his bed. she climbed up, and then immediately, climbed right back down. dumb me! her hissy fit wasn't because she wanted to stay longer and read more stories. and it wasn't because she didn't get a kiss from her big brother. no, the grave error i had made was taking her out of the bed when -- shocker -- she wanted to do it herself. the phrase "fiercely independent" comes to mind. emphasis on the "fierce".

feliz navidad

growing up, our across-the-street neighbors put up a life-size nativity scene in their yard every year. and slightly to the left of the scene, in quiet observation, was a hard plastic Frosty the Snowman and Santa Claus. if this juxtaposition wasn't bad enough, the whole conglomeration was usually up until valentine's day.

that memory was conjured up this morning as i watched susanna play with her creche. after she had carefully situated everyone around the stable, she stepped back to survey her work, and was obviously not quite satisfied with the presentation. she trotted off, and soon returned with her box of dora the explorer edition candyland. she opened the box, extracted the four plastic figurines, and inserted them into the group.

luke wrote in 1:17-18, "when the shepherds had seen Him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them." so i have no doubt that had they existed at the time, dora, backpack, boots, and diego would have joined the rest of the world in its amazement. but by the looks of it, they would've probably skipped the gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and brought balloons and party hats instead.

tight squeeze

after the debacle of carving pumpkins, chris and i weren't holding out much hope for trimming the christmas tree. having learned that having low expectations can often be quite helpful when dealing with unpredictable children, we thought that we'd give it a go for a few minutes, and if their interest waned, chris and i could finish up ourselves after they went to bed. but they loved it! we had the christmas music going, the candles lit, and the wreaths hanging on the front door and every window. as soon as we opened the box of ornaments, they dove in headfirst, oohing and aahing at all the pretty, fragile ones and especially enjoying the ones that are kid-friendly. they'd grab one at a time, march over to the tree, and do a fairly good job at getting each ornament attached to a branch. we do, however, now have a tree that has 80% of its ornaments within a few square inches. at a preschooler's eye level, of course.

driving me nuts

holidays and traditions are synonymous to me, and when i think about it, most of these traditions involve food. for example, by atkins definition, big family dinners include stuffing, not dressing. we always have mashed potatoes with my dad's famous gravy. and we leave cookies out for santa and a carrot for rudolph on christmas eve. (on christmas morning, only crumbs are left, accompanied by a hand-written thank you note from st. nick himself.) out of all the aforementioned foods, by far the most important are the cookies. as i composed my grocery list last night, gearing up for baking season, i made the mistake of asking chris if there was any particular variety of cookie he'd like me to make this year. "snickerdoodles," he immediately replied. i looked incredulously at him. snickerdoodles? i thought. surely he can't mean that bland dough-y thing with sugar sprinkled on top. he got defensive. "you asked me, so i'm telling you. i want snickerdoodles." i sighed inwardly. ever the loving wife, i reluctantly agreed to expand my repertoire. but then he had to follow it up with something much more ridiculous -- blasphemous, even. seven words that make me wonder how in the world i married the man. "i don't like nuts in my fudge." a woman must stand her ground on the significant issues, and here is where i draw the line. liam and i whipped up a batch today, using my mom's traditional recipe -- walnuts and all. when it comes to fudge, i will not budge.

lost and found

liam and susanna are infatuated with their fisher price nativity set. they'll play with it for hours, positioning the figurines in different spots around the stable and pushing the button so that the shepherds and wise men can rock out to "away in a manger" for the 212th time. i love to eavesdrop from the other room, to hear what susanna thinks the donkey would say to virgin mary, or to hear liam informing the motley crew that's assembled there that his middle name is also joseph. our only problem is that for a week or so now, the most important character has gone missing. keep this in mind, as i share with you a glimpse into a typical afternoon of the mann family.

it's 4 p.m. on a cold, dark monday. we're stuck inside because of the weather and susanna's late nap. liam is rummaging around all corners of the playroom in search of some elusive piece to his "five little monkeys" puzzle. the doorbell rings. in a matter of ten seconds ...

1) super races to the front door, howling.

2) i drag her out to the back deck so we're not sued.

3) susanna wakes up from all the commotion and begins her own howling.

4) i open the door to find a somewhat apprehensive UPS guy who needs my signature.

5) liam starts yelling, "I FOUND JESUS! MOMMA, I FOUND JESUS! JESUS IS HERE!"

by the time liam made it to the foyer, clutching his precious fisher price Baby Jesus who had been apparently resting on the floor under the armchair, that delivery guy was halfway down the street and never looked back. i never even signed for the package.

gratitude

during this week of Thanksgiving, i asked liam and susanna what they were thankful for. thankfully, they knew what the word "thankful" meant without needing an explanation. here are their responses, totally unedited, in the order they gave them. chicken nuggets. sand. cake. sippy cups. our house. cheese and crackers. flowers. not being sick. strawberries. the mailman. our family. super the dog. school. books. church. God. Jesus. and Nascar.

advent conspiracy

we're already struggling this year with the over-the-top commercialism of christmas. this concept is nothing new to the world at large (well, to the united states at large), but it's new to our children. for the first time, liam is really getting sucked in -- adding more and more toys to his wish list every day, and looking at the calendar to calculate how many more days until santa arrives. susanna, as with everything, is learning by her big brother's example. ironically, as i was online researching dollhouses tonight, i came across the video below. i love the message; i love the truth of it; i love how it inspires. i'm sure we'll still find ourselves at toys r us within the next few weeks, loading our shopping cart ... old habits are hard to break, and really, we would never want to deny our kids the joy of running down the stairs on christmas morning in eager anticipation of what might be under the tree. but my hope is that through this upcoming season of advent, chris and i will teach them that far more important than what's under the tree is what's around it: family. and love. and health. and hope. and faith. God bless.

it doesn't take much

we saw snow three times yesterday. three times! in november! in raleigh! it seemed to follow us wherever we went, first causing quite a stir in the parking lot as we left gymnastics; then again as we waited for our flu shots (thank you, God, for the distraction); and once more as we pulled into our driveway. each time, there was a whirlwind of flurries for about 45 seconds or so, before it died down completely. still, it was more than enough to get the kids pulsating with excitement. i took a picture to document this monumental event, since we just don't get much snow in north carolina in november. (to be honest, we just don't get much snow in north carolina, period. we lived in the mountains for five years and liam has yet to make a real snowman.) i grabbed the camera as quickly as i could, but we only managed to get to the edge of the deck (hence the scenic background of our half-covered grill) before it was gone. the picture doesn't do our blizzard justice -- but the looks on the kids' faces says it all.

1544

the media coverage has begun. back in the headlines is little davidson college, chris's alma mater and school extraordinaire. i have become an intense wildcat through marriage, and have been anticipating basketball season ever since we (i do use "we"!) narrowly missed the final four last year. chris and i were fortunate to witness the magic from box seats here in raleigh, as davidson plowed through the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament. we have high expectations of the amazing stephen curry and his team this time around, and apparently we're in good company. but sports mania is not the topic du jour. instead, i'd like to highlight a formerly-little known fact about davidson. a fact that sports writers always managed to squeeze into their columns when introducing davidson to the rest of the country, after the school had put itself on the national map. a fact that never ceases to surprise people. the fact? davidson does the laundry for every member of its student body for all four years they attend, for free. (well, some might argue that paying a $33,000 yearly tuition makes the term "free" slightly inaccurate. probably true.) i am reminded of this each time i hang up many of chris's shirts and pants. he still has clothes that are labeled on the inside collar or waistband with the number 1544, which was the Personal Laundry Number assigned to him in the fall of 1992 by the davidson laundry service. i'm not quite sure what is more incredible ... that an institution of higher learning washes and dries and folds and irons the clothing of all of their students -- and did i mention it also includes free dry cleaning??? -- or that chris still owns, fits into, and wears some of the same clothing he did in the early 1990s. i guess that khaki pants and button-down shirts never go out of style. shoot, if we keep them long enough, i'm hoping liam might use 1544 as his Personal Laundry Number. oh -- and get a full-ride scholarship. preferably, a basketball one.

catalog complaint

dear toy manufacturers and vendors, 

 

congratulations! you've done it. you've obviously been working feverishly since last december 26, finding all the perfect gifts that no preschooler could possibly be without, and your efforts have paid off. what generous spirits you must have, to feel compelled to impart this wisdom on helpless parents by bombarding our mailboxes until they're filled to the brim with your bright, shiny, enticing catalogs! a pat on the back for enlightening my children about how poor and destitute they are, by sharing images of all the fun they COULD be having if they just owned ... those walkaroo sticks! that remote-control dog that barks and dances! that drift cars street team kit with a special carrying case free with purchase! i owe you a debt of gratitude for reducing my children's vocabularies to four simple words: "I WANT THESE, MOMMY" (repeat 570 times between now and dinner) while somehow at the same time increasing their voices in volume several decibels. you've just really outdone yourself. 

 

yes, you certainly have succeeded in providing countless hours of entertainment for my children. in fact, you've given me the best idea of all! i think i'll just wrap a few of your catalogs in pretty paper with a bow on top, put them in the kids' stockings, and call it a day. 

 

sincerely, sara mann

leaves add up

4 year old boy in a huge pile of leaves + a lost pair of shoes somewhere in that pile = a very, very long search hard-working husband with a fear of heights + wife who has no fear of heights

= wife walking on top of the roof, cleaning out the gutters with a blower a yard FULL of trees + autumn = calloused hands, aching backs, and a sense all this work might be a tad futile

you've got mail

when we were house hunting, the way i'd describe what kind of location i desired was always the same: i wanted our children to be able to go get the mail from the mailbox. in other words, i wanted to be able send out my young children to the end of our driveway without being concerned for one second about their safety. i immediately ruled out almost all of the houses we saw because i just wasn't convinced they weren't on a quiet enough street. truth be told, there really aren't that many lots like the one we have, nestled at the very end of a long cul-de-sac, where the only cars we see are those of our neighbors. the house itself certainly needs work (we are on a first-name basis with our electrician, plumber, and handyman) but as far as location goes, we couldn't ask for anything more. i had no way of knowing that the aforementioned mailbox would become such a part of our daily lives, however. our mailman usually arrives here in the middle of susanna's afternoon nap, so we're almost always at home, allowing liam to take on the role of Mailman Monitor. he watches in anticipation from the window, and as soon as he sees the mail truck making its way down the street, he shoves his feet into whatever shoes happen to be nearby and races out the door. it doesn't matter if it's freezing outside and he doesn't have on socks. he doesn't care if it's pouring down rain. in less than fifteen seconds, he's at the end of the driveway, waiting to say hello to our postman and eager for any letters or packages coming his way. it's his job, and he accepts his position with pride. i often wonder if all of this, in a generation's time, will be a thing of the past. it surprises me that we still operate with a system that relies on human eyes to read often illegible handwriting, and that uses real live people who drive from house to house to deliver it all. the postal service seems out of sync with the rest of our impersonal, technology-driven culture. at the risk of sounding like an old woman waxing poetic about years gone by, i actually still remember the days of having a milkman. i remember opening up our back door in the morning to retrieve the glass milk jugs that had just been delivered, as the Pine State truck pulled away from our house and ambled on down its route. my mind is especially adept at conjuring up these images on the days when i'm wrangling both kids, who are stuffed into winter coats, out of their carseats so we can dash into the grocery for another gallon of organic 2%. i hope that the whole concept of a postman won't seem as incomprehensible to the next generation as the milkman must seem to my children today. getting the mail -- the daily ritual, the sense of responsibility assumed by my four-year old, the banter back and forth between him and our mailman -- is truly one of the highlights of our afternoons.

sweet satisfaction

parents of teenagers have often warned us that coming down the pike are the days when our children will make poor decisions, and how we'll just have to bite our tongues and let them learn from their mistakes. i have many examples of just when this has happened in my own life ... times that i look back and initially think, how in the world did my mom and dad not say anything? but then realize that the lesson would have been lost had i not had the opportunity to learn it for myself. unfortunately, at the tender ages of two and four, our children have already begun making such poor decisions that, frankly, it worries chris and me. the issue? candy. they both have a bucket full of halloween goodies, hard-earned from parading up and down our neighborhood streets and remembering to ring the doorbell ONLY ONCE and saying thank you without being reminded. it's only fair they are allowed to enjoy the fruits of their labor -- even though we allow them just one piece after lunch and one piece after dinner, and only if they eat their meal. so what do they do after meeting all our demands? they bypass the good stuff. the butterfingers, snickers, kit kats -- ignored. instead, time and time again they dive into their stash, rummage around, and soon emerge triumphant, holding what chris and i refer to as Reject Candy: the stuff that would normally be left at the bottom of the barrel come mid-november. what child in their right mind chooses mike & ikes over a reese's cup? a box of dots over a nestle crunch? gummy worms over a milky way? chris and i watch in silent amazement as they make poor choice after poor choice. but then, behind their backs, we give each other a high-five. you know what they say ... their loss is our gain. i need to sign off now. i just smeared almond joy chocolate all over the space bar.

bzzzzz

i've written about how liam's halloween costume came to be this year -- a process that began a few months ago when he informed me of his desire to be a pirate, and involved a very thorough search online and in stores before i found the perfect one.

i neglected to describe how susanna's choice of costume came to be. let me elaborate.

1) i opened the box of halloween decorations.

2) i found liam's old bumblebee costume.

3) i told susanna that this year she would be a bumblebee.

poor second child.

pumpkin imperfection

we carved our pumpkins last night. it was one of those times where chris and i got super excited in anticipation of the event, hyped it up to the kids ... and it flopped. liam preferred riding his bike all around the deck, giving us a sideways glance now and then, and susanna was totally grossed out by the gooey innards and wanted nothing to do with it. of course, you'd never know their lack of interest from the picture. amazing how they can perk right up when all the dirty work is done, making it look like they were quite the involved participants! i wish that i could say that liam was laughing hysterically at my creative jack o'lantern design, along with everyone else who stops by. alas, no one is really getting it. i guess not everyone channels their inner math geek like i do. chalk the entire experience up to a disappointment. what's the halloween form of the phrase "bah humbug"?

a study in contrasts

just a few contrasts between the last presidential election and this current one, at least on the super small scale of sara mann ... 2004: i voted in the final hours on election day 2008: i voted eight days early 2004: my voting companion was a sleeping 2 1/2-month old son 2008: my voting companion was a very-much-awake 2 1/2-year old daughter 2004: i voted in the united order of masons building, which had absolutely nothing interesting to look at while i waited 2008: hooray! voting in the local mall! what could be better? 2004: chris and i cancelled each other out (as we have also done in 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2006) 2008: chris and i agree! will wonders never cease? it only took chris and me twelve years to find some common political ground. maybe there's hope for some congressional bi-partisanship yet.

voting irony

life, as they say, is full of ironies. one prime example would be my voting history. i can vividly remember discussing current politics in my ninth grade social studies class and our teacher pointing out that the next time election day arrived, we'd all be able to exercise our civic duty and vote. at the time, the mere thought was thrilling. we tittered at our desks excitedly, thinking of the distant future, when we'd be adults and full-fledged citizens and off doing far more important things than sitting in a trailer being taught social studies by the football coach. and then, of course, it hit me: i would actually be six weeks shy of being old enough to vote in the 1992 election. as with anything bad that happens to a teenager, it was all my parents' fault; i cursed them for making me skip a grade and thereby inserting me into a peer group in which i'd always be the youngest, and swore that i would never inflict such pain on a child of my own. i cried myself to sleep that night -- melodrama was my middle name -- but by the next morning, it was forgotten. our social studies class had moved on to discuss the upcoming friday night game and the makeup of the judicial system (in that order) and i never gave it another thought. by the time 1992 actually rolled around, i graduated from high school and, on a hot day in mid-august, drove the three hours up to virginia to begin my freshman year at the university of richmond. besides being consistently rated as the most beautiful college campus in the country [i can see chris rolling his eyes now, as i remind him yet again of this fact], UR had the national spotlight for a week that fall. on october 15, 70 million people tuned in to watch george bush sr., bill clinton, and ross perot battle it out in the very first town-hall format presidential debate ever, all from our own small (but beautiful, mind you) campus. so the irony of it is, of course, that in the midst of this monumental event, where the national media descended upon us, where we walked past famous news anchors with their microphones and cameras, where we witnessed three powerful men and their secret service agents and bodyguards and entourages walk mere yards away from us, where the entire student body was rife with interest and opinions and emotions that somehow ego-centric college student bodies believe are theirs alone (and nowhere more so than where such an event is taking place) ... well, the irony is that i couldn't vote. on election day, i happened to find myself in the registrar's office, begging for mercy so i could drop my physics-for-majors class. really, just because you're a math major does not mean you should be a physics major, and whoever thought that if you're good in math then you must also good in science had obviously never met me, and i was pretty much drowning: this was my argument. (i could go on, but suffice it to say my pleas fell on deaf ears, i stuck it out, and wound up with a C+, which was the lowest grade i ever received in college. truth be told, i think it had to do as much with my lack of scientific prowess as it did with the fact that it was an 8:15 a.m. class, including fridays, which shouldn't even be legal.) anyway, in the middle of this futile conversation the registrar woman glanced down at my records, paused, and then informed me that to the best of her knowledge, i was the only student at the university of richmond who was not old enough to vote. "isn't that ironic?" she chuckled, as she gestured toward a copy of the college newspaper with a picture of the three candidates on the front page. i walked back to my dorm that afternoon, dejected for being forced to remain in this awful class, and then even more dejected since i was the only person within a five-mile radius without an "i voted" oval sticker proudly displayed on my shirt. ever since then, i have voted. i went to excruciating lengths to vote two years later while living in spain, when there wasn't even a glamorous or exciting national election to follow. i mailed off my absentee ballot across the atlantic and wore my very first "i voted" sticker, which -- here's a last bit of irony -- hardly anyone around me could even translate. but i did all of this. there's just something about being told you cannot do something that really makes you want to do it. i hope i never forget that sense of frustration. minorities and women dealt with that frustration for far too long for me to take it lightly now. no, i'll never forget my right and my duty as an american citizen. come hell or high water, i will always be a voter.

out of sync

a few weeks ago, i informed the kids that it was their aunt leslie's birthday. they understood that they wouldn't be seeing her to help her celebrate, since she lives on another planet in california. the next best thing? serenading her in a VIDEO, of course.

in the time it took me to get out the camera, they were ready to roll. they had positioned themselves in their play kitchen, had located the toy ice cream and toy cupcakes, and liam had donned his apron (incidentally, a christmas gift from the birthday girl herself). they had taken care of every detail without any parental input -- down to the blowing out of the non-existent candles at the end of the song.

the only thing they forgot was any sense of unison.

infinity

liam loves to quantify things. if we pass a busy parking lot, he wants to know how many cars are parked there. when he notices a tree becoming bare during this fall season, he asks how many leaves it's already lost. he's curious about the same things most children are: how many stars are in the sky? how many waves are in the ocean? and, the age-old question that's been asked of parents for generations: how much do you love me? of course, you can't quantify love. but i felt compelled to try. i got out the magna-doodle and drew a sideways 8, and then attempted to explain what infinity means. as abstract as this concept is, even for adults, i'm starting to think that a little bit has sunk in with him. sadly, death is weighing heavily on my mind these days. a good friend of mine's father is in the final stages of pancreatic cancer. another friend of mine's teenage son committed suicide last thursday. whenever i feel the tears beginning to well up in my eyes -- which is often -- i hug my children tighter. i'm reminded of what an amazingly miraculous gift life is, and how precious my family is to me. i find myself kissing their blond heads even more than normal and repeating several times a day, "you are the world to me. you are wonderful. you are amazing. i love you more than you can possibly know." liam looked up at me yesterday as i said this yet again to him, and replied, "i know, mommy. you love me infinity times infinity." he grinned. "you love me infinity squared." and i do.

buying in bulk

i love bargains. sad as it is to admit, the coupon section of the sunday paper is one of the highlights of my weekends. our family dinner menu plan is based on the advertised specials in the wednesday grocery circulars. and after almost a decade of marriage, my inner cheapskate self has even managed to convert my husband. he's always proud to show me his receipt after stopping by the store on the way home from work to pick up a few items, pointing out how much he saved with his frequent customer card. and let's face it, in this economy, it's foolish NOT to do all of the above. one of my favorite ways to save money is by belonging to a warehouse club. it's amazing how cheap certain things can get when you buy in large quantity. susanna and i made a trip there this week, searching for deals and ways to save. unfortunately, after we returned to the house with our wares, two glaring problems reared their ugly heads, both of the paper products variety. Paper Product Problem #1: in my euphoria that always comes from simply pushing that big red monster shopping cart, i forgot that we have downsized significantly from our last house. gone are the dozens of deep cabinets with tons of extra space. gone is the walk-in pantry with a few empty shelves. gone is the easily-accessible storage room. gone is our basement. of course, this all came flooding back to me as i shimmied through our front door, lugging about 52 rolls of paper towels. i stopped in the middle of the kitchen, searching for anywhere to store these gems, somehow expecting a magical solution to appear. nope. we now have at least one paper towel roll stuffed into every single nook and cranny of this house. there's even one crammed next to the DVR in our entertainment center. i suppose that the bright side is that no matter what kind of mishap or spill might occur, a paper towel is always within arm's reach -- a comforting thought with two preschoolers and new carpet. Paper Products Problem #2: imagine my elation to find that not only was toilet paper on sale, off of the already-low warehouse club price, BUT i had a coupon to boot! three-way savings! i was almost getting a high off this incredible deal ... until i got home with my 514 rolls (slight exaggeration) and put one of them on the dispenser in the bathroom. ugh. i have never seen such crappy -- excuse the language and the bad pun -- TP in all my life. it's thin and rough and one-ply and i swear it's worse than what you find in nasty gas station restrooms. i wiped liam's nose with some and he complained that it was hurting his face. of course, since i bought in bulk, we will quite literally be using this toilet paper for at least a year to come. with both of these Paper Products Problems, you'd think that i've learned my lesson. but as soon as we open that last paper towel roll, you can bet your bottom dollar i'll be back at the club, snatching up another load. and as uncomfortable and awful as it is, ain't no way i'm tossing out our toilet paper. i mean, come on. they are both such a great deal.

picking pumpkins

there's nothing quite like making a trip out to the renowned local farm in the fall. a chance to enjoy a hayride, feed some goats, ride a diesel engine train around the property, and, of course, pick that Perfect Pumpkin ... all while breathing the crisp, cool autumn air and staying warm in a thick jacket with a mug of hot apple cider.

or -- wait. not exactly. i mean, we did all those above things on sunday, and had a grand time. but it was 83 degrees. global warming? indian summer? whatever you call it ... it was just plain HOT. and it's really hard to get into the spirit of the season when it feels more like the fourth of july than halloween. when we get around to carving our jack o'lanterns, i think mine is going to have a bikini on.

don't judge a book by its cover. really.

as much as i love the library, taking the kids there has become quite repetitive. they make a beeline to the children's section and navigate their way to their favorite areas: liam, things with wheels; susanna, dora the explorer. i'm constantly urging them to explore new library territory, pointing out all the areas they're missing by being so myopic. but my encouragement always falls on deaf ears, as i watch our basket being loaded up with more volumes on bulldozers, racecars, and our favorite little hispanic girl on yet another wild and crazy adventure. our most recent visit was no different. although i had managed to sneak in a few new storybooks that i thought might interest them, their same-old-same-old selections outnumbered mine by a ratio of 10 to 1. but as we were walking to the checkout counter, two titles, side by side, caught my eye. i snatched them up, marveling in my good luck. as soon as liam saw them, he couldn't wait to show them to my parents. he knew that my mom (or "nana", to him) would be so excited to read nana upstairs & nana downstairs. and fred stays with me!, he realized, would be perfect for his "pops" (since he knows that my dad's name is fred.) what a great mother i was, to have come across these treasures! my mom read nana upstairs & nana downstairs to the kids later that day, and it was such a picture-perfect moment that i just wanted to grab my camera. there she was, flanked on either side by her two enraptured grandchildren, bringing this story to life as their little eyes soaked it all in. i was so impressed that i failed to actually listen. after she finished the last page and they scampered off, mom informed me that the story was all about two old women named nana ( one who lives upstairs and one who lives downstairs, fittingly) who kick the bucket.

wondering how we fared with the second selection? the "fred" in fred stays with me! is the loyal dog who accompanies a little girl, providing comfort and stability, as she bounces from house to house after her parents divorce. if i had just been a tad more observant, i would have realized that both books were directly under the "helping children cope with grief and loss" sign. i guess that on future library trips, it would actually help if i were to, well, read.

misery

susanna is sick. nothing earth-shattering -- just a runny nose, cough, and a fever -- but definitely enough to keep her home from preschool. and our children are never sick; the last time i had to get the thermometer out was well over a year ago. i had kind of forgotten what it's like to have a child who's not bouncing around and full of energy. so we're housebound, but unlike being housebound because of weather when we can make our own indoor fun, we're housebound and there's no fun to be had. she's just plain miserable, and i'm starting to believe that she's actually enjoying her misery. i'm sure i sound like the most insensitive mother on the planet when i say this, but i think she's already learned how to milk this for all it's worth. how else would she get to watch more than twenty minutes of television in a day, and a lollipop to boot? this morning she was camped out on the couch catching a new episode of sesame street while i attempted to scour and scrub the kitchen free of any lingering germs. from the family room i began to hear a pitiful, "woe is me, mommy" repeated over and over. obviously, i knew that my two-year old daughter was not employing the term "woe" correctly in a sentence -- but i did know that that's exactly the sentiment she was trying to convey. when i reached her, i realized that she was actually requesting, "ho-wuld me." i eagerly scooped her up, ready to wrap my arms around her snuggly little body and soothe her in her time of pain. but she suddenly decided that i was the LAST thing she wanted and insisted on watching the rest of the show alone. and isn't that the way most of us adults operate when we're sick? wanting everyone else to know how uncomfortable we are, but the second someone offers some real assistance, we resist? nothing is quite as pleasing to us as wallowing in our own misery. so i returned to my cleaning. woe is me.

pump it up

i remember seeing an article in a parenting magazine years ago all about how to teach a child to pump his legs on a swing. at the time, we were in the midst of trying to teach liam how to crawl, so i didn’t pay it much attention. turns out, i’m no worse off – someone very smart somewhere actually invented a swing that encourages the pumping motion. genius! while i had lots of things i wanted to buy for our new house – furniture, fabric, rugs, etc. – chris’s mission was singular: a playset. he wanted the kids to have someplace to go outside so they could enjoy their first real backyard. he worked for a long time in determining the perfect configuration and, with help from some friends (thanks, bill and darren!) and my dad, transported it and assembled it. best decision ever! the kids race back to that playset as soon as we park the car in the driveway. they love the treehouse, the ladder, the climbing wall, the slide ... but especially the swings. and this one funky looking swing – it’s kind of a long bench with handles – has been such a great way for liam to learn the pumping motion. he’s figuring it out with his arms: if he pulls towards himself, he goes up farther. pumping his legs on a normal swing will naturally follow.

the best part is, of course, that it's no longer necessary for me to stand there and push him higher and higher. which frees me up to sit in my lawn chair, eat my bon-bons, and enjoy the easy and relaxing high life of a stay-at-home mom.

lulla-BYE

i posted earlier how it has recently become a nightly ritual that susanna rocks in her glider immediately before she goes to sleep. if chris and i are both home -- which, thankfully, is usually the case -- we tend to divide and conquer. it's just worked out that i have been the one to put susanna to bed for the past week or so, and she and i have it down to a science. i turn out the light, she climbs into my lap, and we rock. she'll then request, "please sing my song, mommy," and i happily oblige. her song is, of course, "oh susanna". i sing the three verses softly to her and repeat the last chorus slowly one extra time. she knows exactly when it ends, for she immediately gets down from my lap as soon as i've finished and walks over to her bed, ready for sleep. it is such a perfect way to end our day. thursday evening i wasn't home for the first time since we had begun our rocking routine. when i got back, i asked chris how bedtime, and her song in particular, had gone. i love my husband dearly, don't get me wrong ... but i only ever hear him sing during the hymns on sunday morning, and let's just say that those are not the most holy of times during the church service. i tried to imagine his off-key warbling of "oh susanna" and found the idea to be rather comical. "did you sing to her?" i asked. he looked rather sheepish, and i thought he might have forgotten, or perhaps skipped it intentionally. "well, i tried," he responded. "but i got halfway through the second line of the song and she turned to look at me and said, 'daddy, please don't sing anymore.'"

going around in circles

my life is full of circular conversations. take this morning, for example. liam: "i spilled my yogurt on the table at breakfast." sara: "did you clean it up?" liam: "oh, yes. daddy and me cleaned it up." sara: "daddy and i cleaned it up." liam: "no, you didn't, mommy. daddy and me cleaned it up." sara: "i understand that. but the correct thing to say is, 'daddy and i cleaned it up.'" liam: "but that's silly! you weren't there." i think that before abbott & costello wrote their "who's on first?" routine, they must have consulted a preschooler.

strategy

we are a game playing family. we also are a fad game playing family -- meaning, we play whatever game liam has deemed the fad for the week, and we play it non-stop. at the height of the summer it was candyland. we then moved on to chutes & ladders. next up was cariboo (a fabulous preschool game, for anyone unfamiliar with this gem.) liam was kind of getting bored with all these, itching for a little more intellectual stimulation, so he found boggle and dragged that out. scrabble followed. those two are really his love, since he's crazy about reading everything and anything. it's fun to see him create words with the letters he has, often reaching over for an extra letter from an opponent to aid his cause. (we follow the game rules rather loosely.) recently, liam discovered uno -- you know, the fancy version of crazy 8's that of course now comes in a dora version, an elmo version, and even a hannah montana version. we are lucky enough to have the plain old 1980's original version, complete with my 5th grade handwriting on a few of the cards with my future married name of mrs. michael j. fox. anyway, uno is the current fad in our house; as soon as he finishes his breakfast, he's asking to play. his hands are not yet big enough to hold seven cards, so we always lay them out on the floor in front of us. visual access to his hand also allows me to keep track of what he has, so i can play a card of mine that will help him out. my ingenious plan was quite successful up until yesterday, when he wised up. i won't bore you with the details of uno round #17 of a rainy afternoon, but suffice it to say that i had two play options: one would cause him to draw two cards and lose a turn; the other gave him a surefire path to victory. because my inner competitive streak stays dormant when playing with my children, i went with the latter. but as soon as i placed down my sacrificial card, liam looked at me as if i were losing my mind. "mommy," he admonished, "that was silly. you should play the yellow Draw-Two!" i thanked him for his sage advice and then corrected my less-than-strategic move, but i began to wonder if my winning was going to backfire and result in a sore loser. however, true to his easy-going personality, he rolled with it. "great job, mommy!" he said. "high five!" and then ... "winner cleans up!" he yelled with a glance behind him, as he scampered off to the playroom. momma didn't raise no dummy.

wokkin'

liam's always been a champion sleeper. i cannot remember the last time we heard a peep out of him after we turned out the light and closed the door at 7:50 pm. susanna, on the other hand, has been a bit more challenging. i hate to complain, especially since i have friends whose children have real sleep issues ... but rarely do we have an evening where she goes down without at least a small whimper.

the other night, chris was single-parenting while i was at a meeting. about ten minutes after he had finished up bedtime with the kids and come downstairs, susanna started to wail. this time it was apparently at such a fevered pitch that he raced up there to see what in the world was going on -- was her hand stuck? had she gotten sick in the bed?

he opened the door to find her standing there in the dark, smoothing her hair out of her eyes. "i want to wok," she declared, very matter-of-factly.

chris: "what, honey?"

susanna: "i want to WOK."

chris: "you want to walk?", thinking that an upcoming march around the room might be in order.

susanna: "no, daddy!", exasperated. she then points to the rocker in the corner of her room. "I. WANT. TO. WOK."

i'm surprised susanna's pinky hasn't turned blue, the way she's got her daddy so tightly wound around her little finger. following his daughter's command, he sat in the rocker, placed her on his lap, and rocked. after a minute or so, she informed him, "i'm all done now," and then got down, plodded over to her bed, and climbed in.

this obvious stall tactic has now become a nightly ritual, but one we can live with. especially when we consider the fact that in ten years or so, "i want to rock!" is going to have an entirely different meaning.

not to be outdone

as i was showing liam his pictures on the last blog post, susanna, ever the nosy little sister, barged in. "where is 'sanna?" she asked, her eyes scanning the screen. "i don't see 'sanna anywhere!" i had planned on having some close-ups taken of her as well, until she scratched her cheek, got a huge mosquito bite on her forehead, and snot started pouring out of her nose. still, we managed to get a few from afar. i promised i'd also upload a few of her to satisfy the diva. hopefully she'll be pleased.

finally, picture perfect

you know how i posted earlier on how it's absolutely impossible to get a good picture of my children? seems the problem didn't lie so much with the subjects as it did with the photographer. i learned that this morning at the raleigh rose garden, when i watched in awe as a professional captured the most fantastic images i could have ever hoped for.

artists advise that the best time to have an oil painting done of your child is around age four or five, because by that age, kids have moved past the toddler look but haven't yet lost any teeth. i knew i needed to go ahead and have some good professional pictures taken of liam to give to an artist, since a) many artists have at least a six-month waiting list; and b) i knew that liam would insist looking like a darn goofball by sticking his hands in his mouth, and we'd have to reschedule (and probably reschedule the rescheduling.)

but much to my surprise, he was an angel. (and i have to say that as much as i love him, the words "angel" and "liam" rarely go in the same sentence. a much more likely combination might be "mischevious little rascal" and "liam".) the attached pictures are just three of hundreds that i totally love. my friend sara grow of growphotography met with us this morning and snapped her camera for over an hour. God has so obviously blessed her with such a special gift. the last picture is one of my favorites ... certainly not a contender for an oil painting, but it just captures liam's personality so well. so, i've gone from one end of the spectrum to the other ... from having zero good pictures when i take them myself, to having an abundance. my problem now is -- how do i choose just one?

running on empty

i often look back on specific things my parents did while raising me and think, wow, that was pretty ingenious. i was reminded of this on thursday when i ran out of gas. during rush hour. with both kids. and the dog. and no cell phone. my parents, when they bequeathed to me my late grandmother's 1985 buick skylark on my sixteenth birthday, warned me of its one serious defect. (well, besides the glaring defects of being a navy blue senior citizen's car without a working FM radio.) somehow missed by the manufacturer, they informed me, was that the tank was actually empty when the gauge read quarter-full. the lesson was obvious. for the year that i drove that car before i headed off to college, i hightailed it into a gas station as soon as that needle started going southward of the halfway mark. i wasn't taking any chances. the good thing was that i never ran out of gas. the sad thing was that it took so long for me to realize how masterfully my parents pulled the wool over my eyes. i was almost 30 when it hit me that they hadn't been entirely truthful with the whole "aren't-you-so-glad-we-figured-this-out-before-you-got-stranded-somewhere?" routine. but if i've learned anything in the past four years of parenting, it's that you do what you gotta do -- even if it involves a little white lie every now and then. will i do the same thing in twelve years, when my children start driving? after being stuck on the side of the road last week, i've learned my lesson. i'd simply be a fuel fool not to.

arrrrrgh

up until now, i've been fortunate to be able to do halloween my way. i've always decided what the kids were going to be, and that's just how it's worked. no extra input by any participating party needed, thank you very much. for susanna's first halloween, they were a bumblebee and a spider. last year, they were a cow and cowboy. i was busy dreaming up another dynamic duo when reality reared its ugly head: liam now actually has an opinion. out of the blue last week -- we hadn't been discussing the topic at all -- he informed me, "i want to be a pirate for halloween!" a pirate? i thought. well, hmm. i suppose i could live with that. over my dead body will he ever be a vampire or football player or any other such nasty thing ... but a pirate could actually be cute. so i agreed. now, i consider myself a fairly crafty person, but after sewing my own dress for a wedding a few years ago when one long sleeve was a little more gathered than the other and i wound up with my right arm bent at a weird angle all evening long, i swore i'd never again make another piece of clothing. n-e-v-e-r. so, i started looking online to buy a cute ready-made pirate costume, perusing all sorts of websites. but for whatever reason, i couldn't find anything i liked. and then, as i walked into the local warehouse club last week to pick up get another 5-pound block of cheese that my children will devour in three days, i saw, front and center, the most adorable halloween pirate costume. it was practically calling my name. and it was for a boy. and it was in liam's size. and it was cheap. i just couldn't pass it up. is it great quality? heck no. was it available and easy and what liam wanted? yes. he immediately tried it on as soon as he found it hanging in his closet, and fell in love. he greeted chris at the door that evening with a "shiver me timber!" and muttered a few "arrrrrgh"s during dinner (although that probably had as much to do with his new alter ego as it did the veggies that were on his plate.) we had to convince him to take it off to go to sleep that night. as we were driving to school the next morning, i told him that his teacher would probably love to know what he's going to be for halloween. in the rearview mirror, i could see his face light up. "oh, yes, mommy!," he exclaimed, beaming. "i can't wait to be a racecar driver!"

storytime

after their bath last night, i was putting laundry away for a few minutes before i realized that i hadn't heard a peep out of the kids. silence is often not a good thing with preschoolers, so with a bit of trepidation i tracked them down in liam's room. what i saw from the doorway made me melt. there was susanna, lying in liam's bed next to him, gazing adoringly at her big brother as he read her a story. i immediately grabbed the camera. as someone with two pesty and annoying younger siblings (well, they were pesty and annoying while we were growing up ... they've actually turned out to be quite cool in adulthood), i know that this time of mutual affection will be short-lived. pretty soon they're going to be screaming at each other about the remote and fighting over the imaginary line in the middle of the backseat. so, i really wanted to document this sugary-sweet moment, as proof that at one time in their lives, they truly did love each other. the footage i got conjures up that billy joel song "leave a tender moment alone". funny? yes. tender? well ... you decide.

lipstick on a ... girl

there are innumerable things that amaze me about children -- all children, not just my own -- and two such things relate to susanna's most recent exploits. first, it amazes me how much mischief kids can get into in a matter of seconds. before i was a parent, i'd see those pictures that float around from time to time on mass e-mails -- you know the ones, like the boy who drew all over his little brother's face with magic marker, or the girl who dove headfirst into a cake in the fridge -- and shake my head at the detached parenting that was obviously to blame. of course, now that i'm a parent myself, i've wised up, and know firsthand how quickly things can spiral out of control. in the blink of an eye, disaster can occur from which your walls, or upholstery, or floors will never recover. and second, it always amazes me how much kids soak in by silent observation. susanna is infatuated with all things cosmetic, and just by watching me when i wasn't even aware of it, knows just what each product or device does. a few days ago she got a hold of my eyelash curler and immediately placed it ever so gingerly over her closed eyes. yesterday she grabbed an emery board and started "filing" her nails. and lipstick ... well, don't get me started on lipstick. she requests some every morning after she brushes her teeth, since she cannot possibly approach a new day without applying a fresh coat. i was so clever, i thought, in convincing her that clear lip gloss was the same thing. evidently, she wised up.

hip to be square

liam, has i have posted before, has a knack for numbers. he recently discovered the scale in our bathroom and loves to stand on it and announce his weight. he likes to do this several times a day, and seems to be disappointed when the number stays the same. a few days ago, i saw him loading his pockets down with matchbox cars, trying to get that needle to go farther up the dial. (needless to say, a few extra ounces of cheap metal did not achieve his goal.) as we were walking into his preschool classroom this morning, he noticed a height chart on the wall next to the door and asked me to measure him. he proudly squared his shoulders and waited patiently for me to read out the number. when i did, any previous disappointment in his personal stats melted away. he excitedly exclaimed, "FORTY inches? just like FORTY pounds! mommy, that means ... ... i'm a square!"

skeeters

the current bane of my existence is the mosquito. i have asked God on many an occasion what caused Him to decide, on the sixth day of Creation, that he'd put these things on the planet. i mean, seriously, God. far be it for me to ever challenge Your wisdom ... but what were You thinking? "hmmm. I've made the ox and the lamb, the peacock and the polar bear. time now for a blood-sucking insect that serves no other purpose than to annoy the mess out of people." for some reason, our back yard is infested with these things. they live near water, but there's no water back there. no creek, no puddles, no nothing. just dadgum mosquitoes. my two sweet children seem to be magnets for these things, but try as i might, i cannot keep them away -- even with three huge citronella candles lit on the deck and two ceiling fans running at full speed. and don't even think about going out to our new playset back in the wooded section without being doused head-to-toe with repellent. they're everywhere! tonight chris washed his hands before returning to the grill, and immediately got three bites on his palm, the one body part that didn't still have spray on it. there is one very interesting part of this increasingly frustrating issue. liam and susanna are both devoured on every square inch of their limbs, and yet, i have never once seen them scratch at them. they've never even complained of them itching. how is that possible? i get ONE bite and it takes every ounce of my willpower to refrain from tearing my leg off. they seriously don't notice the bites at all. the thing i'm sure they do notice is their crazy momma running around the kitchen, armed with a rolled-up newspaper swatting at the air and yelling at these evasive suckers. years down the road if i wind up in an asylum (which is not outside of the realm of possibility on trying days -- you moms of young ones know what i mean), that might be how my children answer when asked if there were any early signs of my mental demise. "yeah, mommy just started to go crazy one summer. screaming at bugs and wielding wadded-up weapons and smacking any flat surface she could find. it was really all downhill from there."

not so picture perfect

i yearn for those fleeting days of the past when we could get a good picture of the two kids together. we were lucky to get an excellent portrait of them this past christmas, but i think that was the last time we've taken anything worth putting in a frame. nowadays, they know exactly how to drive me crazy. how much fun they obviously have -- who needs toys, when you can play with your mother's sanity? on thursday morning, for liam's second day and susanna's first day of school, they were wearing coordinating outfits and looking so sweet. i stood them right next to each other on the front porch and backed up to focus the lens. and as soon as i was ready ... susanna looked to the left. liam looked to the right. susanna squinted, told me it was too bright outside, and asked me to turn off the sun. (hey, i'm good, but not that good.) one of them would step away, i'd re-position them, and then the other would walk off. and then my favorite: liam put his hands in his mouth and stuck out his tongue. (i would just love to know what genius on the playground taught him that move.) of course, seconds later, susanna followed suit. yes, it seems that right as i'm about to push the button ... they know just what to do to push my buttons.