5 big ones

this year was anniversary #5, so stephen and i wanted to do something special. we thought perhaps per se? or maybe wd-50? after much deliberation, we decided on....



the allentown fair!

it had it all, really.

first, there was the fine dining. we began with:


(eaten too quickly to get a photo of the actual item...)

and washed it down with:



then we started searching for our main course. first we saw this:



but it just gave us bad flashbacks, so we moved on.

and oh were we glad that we did. becasue we found this:



where we got this:



mmmm-hmm. in trying to sell us the ribs, mr. pigg told us that his ribs "aren't like what you'll get at applebee's or chili's". and while i'm not qualified to verify that statement, i can say that they were porcine perfection. he dry-rubs them with a spice mix and smokes them over an applewood fire, spritzing them occasionally with apple juice, which gives them a nice glaze. and his sauce was perfect—tangy and vinegary, not too sweet and not at all smoky.

and for dessert?



which are little mini fried dough pieces tossed with powdered sugar, which leave you (or at least, me) looking like this:



of course, the fair had more to offer than food. there was shopping:







and attractions? oh, were there attractions....


personally, i would have preferred if the woman was normal-sized and had a ginormous cat, but that 's just me....


bilingual freak show!


and where there's the smallest horse, there's also, of course....


taller than bigfoot!

we rode the ferris wheel, where there is

why? are they afraid of people choking? or, possibly more likely, spitting it down on to innocent bystanders?

and, last but not least:



all that, plus:


children on leashes.

and then, why, look who we ran in to!


hi gener! hi deaner!

oh, and look! it's....


WAYNE!!! hi wayne!!!







and then we went home. the end!

it's official

my status as a project runway fan can be upgraded to "obsessed": i dreamt that i was on the show.

perhaps this is because i spent the evening re-watching last week's episiode and then reading this. and this. oh and this. and this!

i have a little bit of a history of this.... example: i didn't start watching buffy until it was in it's sixth season and they were showing reruns on fx. they showed two episodes, back to back, from 6 to 8 every night. i left work at 5:15 every night for three months and didn't miss an episode.

so, if you didn't already know this about me, now you do: when i get into something, i kind of zero in on it. much like a bloodhound. or a junkie.

no wonder i scared so many boys in high school/college....

gut reaction

wile loves his aunt sar and uncle perry (aka "peggy").

observe:





unfortunately, they make him barf.

exhibit a
wile is three months old, we go over to sar + perry's apartment for football sunday. wile barfs more than he'd ever barfed before and has ever barfed since, soaking me and him. i'm able to borrow cothes from sarah, but wile isn't so lucky. i'd forgetten to bring him a change of clothes (what, i'd only been a mom for 3 months!), and as sar and perry only have cats, not babies, wile ends up wearing home.....a pillowcase. this was the first and most dramatic in a string of times that wile barfed at sar + perry's apartment in his first year of life. i learned to bring lots of extra clothes.

exhibit b
a double whammy, this one was. sarah's bachelorette weekend in manhattan (which i was co-planning) and perry's bachelor weekend in vail (which stephen was co-planning) were scheduled, of course, for the same weekend in january. on the thursday before the big weekend, with stephen already en route to colorado, all hell broke loose. wile and i were both sick for only 24 hours, but stephen didn't fare as well.... maybe it was the fact that his barfing was prefaced by a long plane ride (and a trip to burger king), but he was down for almost the whole weekend. he spent the entire drive from the denver airport to the condo in vail lying on the floor in the back of perry's uncle's suburban, praying for death. he tried to get out on the mountain, but had to be brought home by ski patrol. and then, of course, it spread.... not only to the other bachelors, but to the entire state: there was a flu epidemic in colorado in mid-january. back on the east coast, wile and i between us managed to only pass the ick on to uncle conner, who had come down with my parents to stay with wile.

exhibit c
two months later, the week of the wedding rolls around. we are getting on a plane on sunday to make our way down to miami, the site of the big event. on friday, like clockwork, wile starts barfing. he barfs on saturday. he barfs once on the plane. when we get to florida, he stops barfing and i start. by the day of the wedding, we're both recovered.

exhibit d
this weekend was shmergelfest, the annual wiffleball/bbq/pool party extravaganza thrown by perry and his brother. so, of course, last wednesday wile stared barfing. he barfed wednesday night. he barfed thursday. then, thankfully, no more barfing. stephen and i weren't taken down. and we all attended schmergelfest, where wile discovered the joys of "fwhutaball". but still, there was barfing.

it's like his insides hear me say "party...sarah....perry" and start a-churning.

e-z bake

as if wile hadn't brought in a big enough haul at his birthday party, this weekend stephen's parents brought him his own kitchen. it has almost as much counter space as mine. it really is a wonderful thing: stephen's dad made it for wile's aunt susie when she was little, then it got passed on to cousins marcus and julia, then back to stephen's parents, and, one fresh coat of paint later, on to wile.

wile has grasped the concept of pretend quite firmly. here you can see him preparing some lovely noodles for me:



after noodles, of course, what you'll want is some cake:



potholders? feh! potholders are for sissies!



why yes, it does look delicious



what, this isn't how you serve your cake?



and finally, one can enjoy the fruits of one's labors...




other notable news this week:

-- he's switched from wanting everything "big" to wanting everything "yodee diny" (trans: "little tiny"). we'll see how long this one lasts....

-- he has started to say okay, except it comes out "otay." i just about choke trying not to laugh every single time.

wile and the fine art of seduction

scene: a tapas restaurant in the mission, lunch with our friend ted. wile spots a pretty lady at the table next to ours and tries to impress her with his skillz....

diving in

for the most part i don't give too much thought to the whole "mommy wars" debate that has been running around for the past few years—you know, stay at home moms [sahms] vs. working outside the home moms [wohms], all the books and articles and sniping and blah blah blah. but then in the past week i stumbled across this and this, which begat this.

please take a moment to read or skim.

done? okay, moving on.

after reading and rereading both of these, it's been all i can think about. and i know this is unsafe territory to be walking in to. as a matter of fact, real life example: just a couple of weeks ago mona and i were sitting in a coffee shop having lunch with our friend stephanie (and all of our offspring, of course), talking mom talk, and stephanie said something like "i just can't imagine going back to work after 3 months," and the woman grabbing some straws and napkins from the bar behind us raised her eyebrows so high i thought they were going to merge with her hairline and turned to us and said "you're lucky you didn't have to!" to which stephanie replied, "i know." to which eyebrows mcgee gave us a sanctimonius smile and walked out saying "have a nice day, ladies...."

so lest you injure your eyebrows while reading this, let me start this whole thing by saying: i know. i know that i'm lucky that i didn't have to go back to work for economic reasons. i know that a large percentage of the mother who go back to work do so because they have to.

okay, so now that we're past the disclaimers, what's been stewing in my brain is this: what the hell is up with this (sometimes angry) backlash against sahms? why is working outside the home (you know, for money) seen as something that validates our existence, confirms our worth, and forms our identity, and working in the home (aka being a stay-at-home parent) so often pissed on?

the amy sohn piece that i linked to up there (on mr. nice guy's blog) has been all over the blogs (although if you try to follow the link to the original piece, on her site, you'll find it's been deleted. coward.), and while most of the comments have called her out as the ludicrous beyotch that she seems to be, there have also been a fair share of "sahm go home"–type comments. this is a response to a comment that calls sohn's essay the result of "a guilty conscience lashing out":

guilty conscience lashing out? maybe, but at least she has enough sense to be ashamed. unlike so many stay-at-home parents who've taken to parenthood without a trace of regret or doubt.

i'm sorry, i just hallucinated for a minute. what? the "sense to be ashamed" of....staying at home with her child part time? heh? and why exactly am i supposed to feel regret and/or doubt about my choice to stay home with my baby?

and sohn's essay itself, even though she starts off pissing and moaning about how sahms are "lionized", goes on to smack down the sahms, positing that staying at home with your baby makes you crazy, stupid, and a bad mother. oh and if you went to college, it makes you irresposible, because you're wasting your education by not working. which encapsulates the attitude toward sahms that i've been running into lately and that's got a bee in my bonnet: people feel that sahms are being lionized, but really they're being put down and patronized to; treated like a second choice, something you do with a heavy heart.

i feel like every time i read something about sahms, the writer is, often in the very same breath, saying how very awesome it is for women to stay at home with their babies but also how it is such a sacrifice and how by staying home you're missing out on, you know, life. example: the woman who writes the parenting column in our neighborhood paper reacted to sohm's article this week. and while she chastizes sohm for being so "nasty" towards motherhood and "putting down" sahms, she also says that she "found it exceedingly boring to be home with [her] one-year old", and only made it through because she was able to "escape" to her writers' group and therapist.

all of which, you know, is valid. you need a break from the 24/7 baby immersion, absolutely. but, as any writer knows, choice of words is powerful, and using the word "escape" makes being at home with your baby sound like a prison sentence. and, yes, life with a one-year old is definitely big on repetition and low on intellectual stimulation. but it's pretty big on emotional stimulation. and again, word choice! "exceedingly" boring? really? all the time? could you maybe mention the good parts too?

the parenting columnist called what sohn and others are spewing "mommy rage". i think a more accurate term—or maybe just a related symptom?—would be "mommy shame". in addition to her diatribe against sahms, sohn wrote a stupid article in new york magazine in which she dished about how her "goal is not to look like a mother so much as a still-young, still-cool person who just happens to have a child". like it's embarrassing to admit you like being a mom. it's like how i used to be embarassed to admit that i liked destiny's child because oh no, i don't listen to anything that's on z100, i listen to indie rock and hip hop. but you know what? i really like destiny's child. and my not admitting i like destiny's child doesn't harm destiny's child, or pop music in general. but moms being freaked out about admitting that they like being moms—or even that they are moms—is really damaging. it's like how "mommybloggers" have become a whipping post in the blog world: first off the term, which is slightly condescending, and then the attitude from other bloggers that parenting blogs are somehow less intersting/valid than other blogs, that mom blogs are just stupid women blathering on about how wonderful their kids are and woe is me how hard mothering can be and oh they should try getting out in the real world if they want to see hard. and that just pisses me off, because what it comes down to is the idea that if something isn't in the public sphere it's not valid, which is a bunch of bullshit. if only two people see a beautiful painting, is it not beautiful?

i think this is partially a failing of modern feminism (hello again, unsafe territory!). i know that the first step of second wave (60s and 70s) feminism was getting women out of the home, getting equal pay, equal opportunities, etc. but saying "staying home with the kids is for suckers! we want to be out in the world, doing important work!" made it so: staying at home with the kids was for suckers, and only work done outside the home, for money, was important.

now, before my stepmom gets in the car to come down here and smack some sense in to me, let me say: thank you, second wave feminists. we have choices. we have stay-at-home dads. we have female CEOs. we are free to be you and me. life would truly suck if the women's movement hadn't done their thing. (and i might not be such a blissed out sahm if being a sahm was a given rather than a choice, like it was back in the day, since lord knows there's nothing i hate more than being told what to do.) but! we also still have people clinging to the idea that staying at home with your child is a "sacrifice" and something to "regret".

and maybe another part of the problem is that there does exist this holier-than-thou picture of the sahm—it's better for the kids, you should love every second you spend with your children or you're a bad mom, etc. and so some women try to adhere to to the "ideal" even though they realize after a few months (weeks, whatever) that being a sahm is not for them. and then they do go kinda crazy, and get really frustrated, and, in venting their frustrations, perpertuate the idea that being a sahm is something done with many reservations. to which i say: then don't do it! go back to work! but don't slam being a sahm just cause it's not for you.

i love being home with wile. but i didn't quit or take time off from a career i adored to have my baby. i like being at home, puttering around the house. i like being by myself. i'm not all that ambitious. i've always been one for simple pleasures. but that's my story. i know it's not everyone's. but it's mine. and anyone who wants to tell me it's a bad story can fuck straight off. i hope all mothers can say the same.

essentials

gwen recently got a book about saying "i love you."

since then she has been saying:

"i love mommy."

"i love daddy."

"i love wile."

"i love bacon."


yup, that about covers it.

no comment

it has come to my attention that some people have been trying to comment but have been thwarted by some weird blogger glitch. while i'm happy to hear this because i was getting just a little bit sad that there had been no comments in the past month or so, i'm also pissed that blogger is being wonky. but i just tried to comment on the last post—disguised as an anonymous commenter, ha ha, take that, blogger—and it worked fine (you won't see it there now b/c it just said "testing testing" so i deleted it). so please, if you had anything at all to say in the past month, try try again.

the left coast

so i finally made it out to the west coast—passing my previous westernmost point, durango, colorado, where i spent a summer cleaning rooms in a 2-bit hotel and learning to play pinball while stephen went for the world record in consecutive days spent taking bong hits and playing sega hockey; ah, youth—and it confirmed what i already knew to be true: i am an new york girl through and through.

don't get me wrong, we had an absolutely, perfectly, wouldn't-change-barely-a-thing kick-ass time. and the land (and sea) is gorgeous out there, often breathtakingly so. but here's the thing: i remember once, back when i worked in an office, looking out the window of said office with my co-worker mike. the view was of a section of lower manhattan—rooftops, etc—and the brooklyn bridge in the distance, and i commented on how beautiful it was. mike replied that he didn't think so at all, that he'd much rather look out the window and see mountains and trees. so i asked him why, then, he didn't live somewhere where there were more trees and maybe some mountains, and he shrugged and said "you'd really rather see this than mountains, trees, maybe a river?", and i replied, with no hesitation, "yes."

for the first few days of our trip, we took driving tours of san francisco every afternoon while wile napped—at $3/gallon, the most expensive naps ever, but great because we really got to get to see and know the city. (i, the most directionally challenged human on the planet, even got my bearings and was able to tell stephen that we were heading west when he thought we were heading north! amazing!) and after three days of driving around and about and through, my reaction was a firm "meh?". i didn't get it. i got that the location of the city is amazing—drive 10 minutes out of new york over the george washington bridge and you're in some crappy jersey suburb; drive 10 minutes out of san francisco over the golden gate bridge and you're at a secluded little beach cove with a redwood forest behind you. i also got that half (more than half?) of the city has been taken out by the big earthquakes, so a lot of the old buildings, the old old buildings that are what i love about new york, that are what give a city it's character, are gone. and i also get that somewhere in a city in europe, someone is laughing at me for calling buildings in new york old old, so i'm going to shut up now. my point is this: i liked san francisco—especially the food (which will get its own post), and especially when we came back in to town for a few more days at the end of our trip and i saw the wonderful wood-frame houses that perch on russian hill and the cool shops in the mission and north beach—and i loved some the other parts of cali that we checked out: the mountains and beaches in marin county, berkeley (i am, after all, of hippie/anti-establishment descent), santa cruz. but i loved them as places to visit. and i was happy to come home to my city.

yeah yeah, you say, enough about you—what did wile think? wile had such a fantastic time, it makes me really sad to think that he's too young to be able to remember it except through pictures (or possibly hypnosis). so, without further ado:

wile's california top ten:

10. his first gay pride parade

we were on our way to the ferry building to check out the sunday farmer's market (what, you don't go to farmer's markets on your vacations?) when we realized that the parade, which we thought had been the day before, was happening at that very moment. and much to wile's delight, we came out on to the parade route just in time for....



dykes on bikes! wile was enthralled. mow-ah (motorcyles) and plenty of ba-boo flying around, what more could you ask for?

9. big bah-bah

when we were in half moon bay visiting with the wrubels, friends of stephen's parents, we took a walk down to the beach by their house and came upon a fully operational construction site: two big backhoes (bah-bahs), a bulldozer, and a couple of dump trucks were working to replace a sea wall. sadly, i have no pictures.

8. 826 valencia

did you know that dave eggers has a pirate store in the mission district in san francisco? well, now you do. and if you're under 12 and you draw them a picture, you get to do this:



you get to keep one piece of treasure. i bet most people, however, don't bring their own shovels....

7. bay-beees

wile likes to tell me now that he's a big boy. this fact was confirmed when he met, and "held", a couple of babies.

noah:



and charlie:



in comparison, it is indeed easy to see that wile is no longer a bay-bee. unless he wants to be.

6. bow-die and vih-shee

our friend bradly has a very large black lab named bowie. when we were in college and bowie was in nis un-neutered prime, i wouldn't have let him in the same room as my child, god forbid i had had one at 21. but now bowie is 10 years older and has mellowed out, and was the perfect friend for wile.



wile lurved bowie. we stayed with bradly two nights, and wile spent the whole time we were there talking about bowie or playing with bowie or taking bowie out in the yard or talking about bowie pooping in the backyard or bringing bowie his toys to play with.... at one point i was in the kitchen making some bunny pasta when i heard from the living room wile yell "hoe-shee!"



good dog, bowie. good dog....

and our friends kevin and jill have a beautiful lady kitty (or, as wile would say, "maow") named vixie, who wile also tried to befriend, but with slightly less success:





thankfully, jill was able to step in and mediate a bit:





in fact, i think that part of wile's fascination with vixie had to do with his fairly obvious crush on jill....

5. steam train

as we were driving through tilden park, up in the hills of berkeley, we saw signs that read "steam trains", with an arrow. so we followed the arrow. and we found a miniature little "station", with minitaure little tracks, on which ran an authentic steam engine, only in .25 scale. it pulled three open cars filled with benches, and for $2 each—and wile was free!—we caught the last ride of the day, out into the woods, through tunnels, over little bridges, past magnificent views of the valley and town below.



before we left for this trip, i spent hours on line researching things to do in the bay area with kids. i did not read the words "awesome steam trains" anywhere. get on this, tourism people.

4. and more trains

technically, cable cars. but wile called them trains, and who am i to argue?





3. o-shee!

wile has been to the beach before, but not since he could walk. or, more importantly, run. as in, run straight into the rip tide. we first took him to ocean beach, on the west (duh) end of san fran at the end of golden gate park. he put his little toes into the damp sand and stood there for a minute, i could see him thinking "this is either awful, or the best thing ever...." then he took a tentative step forward. then he looked over his shoulder at us, grinned, and turned and ran straight for the waves. so, yeah, i guess we don't have to spend money on those baby swimming lesons to make sure he's "comfortable in the water".....





so after that we hit a beach as often as we could, in mill valley...



half moon bay...



and santa cruz, where it was too cold to go in the water but still fine weather for digging:



2. sea lions

when we were talking about what we wanted to do in san fran, before we left, i told stephen that i wanted to take wile to see the sea lions that lived on the coast. i'm pretty sure he thought that maybe i was making this up. but they're there! you have to go through hell (aka fisherman's wharf, a mall-ified series of blocks filled with overpriced crab "shacks", tchotchka stands, and crabby families toting around large cameras) to get to them, but the speechless joy that overcame wile when he saw them was worth it.

on the way to the wharf wile was getting a little impatient, so stephen kept telling him about how we were going to see the sea lions, which wile calls "auh-auh" (as in the noise that they make. obviously. and accompanied with a hand (fin) clap). part of stephen's patter was as follows: "and they're called sea lions, right? lions? and lions are big kitties, right? so sea lions are kind of like the kitties of the sea...." after which wile was silent for a few minutes, then turned to stephen and said "maow auh-auh?". and so they have been called ever since.



(i know, not the greatest picture. the maow auh-auh are those blobs on the docks.)

1. drums!

the most important reason for our trip out west, besides to see friends and for me to get my first taste of california, was for kayce and grace's wedding. it was an early-evening wedding, so wile skipped the sitter, put on a party shirt, and came along. he had a fantastic time. some highlights included giving his personal benediction to the happy couple...



listening to kevin and nate whenthey told him, "put rocks in your hair!"...







and the ultimate highlight of the wedding, and of the entire trip...



...joining the band.

kibbitz and bits

hi, we're back! in case my last mysterioso post was too mysterioso for you, the san francisco bay area is where we're back from. and we had a kick-ass time.

alas, this is not the vacation wrap-up extravaganza post. oh no no no. i'm too jet-lagged for that—we arrived home at 6am. which is 3am california time. which means yes, god help us, we flew the red-eye with a toddler. and we didn't get him his own seat, as this was our last chance for him to take advantage of the kids-under-2-fly-free rule. which means that he slept on my lap. and have i mentioned in the past that he's a crazy sleeper? a flailer and flopper and twister? at home, he always ends up sideways and upside-down in his bed. in my lap, sideways and upside-down is less of a do-able task, so he'd come to when he tried to accomplish some feat of nocturnal gymnastics. he'd only fuss for a minute then go back down, but the problem was that once he got "comfortable" (head in my armpit, butt up, left leg resting on the edge of my upright-and-locked tray table, right leg extended with my headphones dangling from his toes, left hand stuffed down my bra) i was generally not comfortable, and afraid to move lest i awaken him again. so i got about....oh....15 minutes of good sleep.

plus i'm still waiting for my approximately 1335 photos to load in to the computer.

but here's a little anecdote to hold you over:

it was our second-to-last day in san fran, staying at a british-type bed-and-breakfast/inn place that was just ducky. we had been out all day gallivanting, and were making a quick pit stop at our room before heading out for dinner with aunite tam, aunt sadie, kramer, and baby charlie. we were standing at the door to our room, getting out the keys, and laughing about something silly that wile had just done or said, when we hear a voice from the room next door say "stop laughing!" i looked at stephen for a second, then, of course, laughed. and again, the voice said "stop laughing!" i looked in the direction of the voice and asked, "are you talking to us?" the voice said, "yes!" to which, of course, i laughed again. and the voice said, "stop it! you've been out there all day making noise! stop it!" i replied, "we just got home and have been in the hallway for about 20 seconds, unlocking our door." the voice begged to differ: "i've heard you out there all day, kibbitzing! stop kibbitzing in the hallway!" kibbitzing!!! i almost fell down laughing. the voice, predictably, told me once again to "stop it!" i managed to catch my breath to say, "honestly, if you don't want to hear other people, perhaps you shouldn't be staying in a hotel." by this point stephen had gotten the door unlocked and he and wile had retreated in to our room, so i was the only one left in the hallway to hear the voice say, once more, "stop kibbitzing!" i picked up the last of our bags, said "lady, you need to get a grip," and went in to our room. and locked the door. just in case.

up! down! big hill! ocean!

these are wile's new words.

can you guess where we're spending our two-week vacation?

[bonus hint for a portion of the readership: he also says vixie! and bowie!]

a moment of silence, please

as we have no tivo or tivo equivilent, my television viewing is limited. what i mean more precisely is that i conciously limit it, because there's really no use getting all invested in a show if there's a decent chance that when said show airs, i will be putting someone to bed or giving someone a bath or cleaning up someone's barf or—until recently—running upstairs to put someone back to sleep. i won't name any names.

yes, i could set the vcr to tape a show i wanted to see, but that means actually remembering to set the vcr to tape the show i want to see, every time it's on. not bloody likely.

so i've basically whittled my tv time down to baseball games and two shows. okay, for a while there it was three shows, but halfway through this season i had to throw in the o.c. towel. it was somewhere around the point that marissa's sister came back from wherever they'd been hiding her, and sandy was involved with some hookers, and....yeah. i had to back away. i am a little sad that i missed marissa doing the coke. but, c'est la vie.

anyway, i was down to two shows. one was project runway, and, when that ended, top chef. but, though i love them, those are reality shows, which are the summer flings to the going steady of a network series. and just who was i going steady with? everwood. yes, everwood. yes, on the wb. look, i don't go to the tv to think. i've got npr and the new yorker for that.

last week, i kept seeing ads (during one of my baseball games, which air on the wb on the weekend) for what i thought they were saying was the season finale of everwood. but then about the fifth time i saw the ad, i realized that they were really saying series finale. series! finale! no more everwood! and this isn't like when buffy ended, when the show had gotten so mind-bogglingly bad that i was marking off the days on my calendar till the last episode (but, after 7 seasons, four of them brilliant, couldn't give up so close to the end.)

but though the quality was still there, i can't say i'm surprised that everwood got canned, since i didn't know anyone else who watched it except me. but i am sad. so a moment, if you would, to say goodbye to ephram, amy, bright, hannah, dr. brown, delia, nina, edna, rose, and the totally awesome dr. abbot. rip, little mountain town.

and so begins the search for a replacement....