Conversations with my Children

Cody came down yesterday and said gravely, "Mom, I have an important favor to ask. You do not have to pray for me today. Can you please pray for Bidi? She is very sick. She has an infection, in her eye. I will have to take her to the doctor to get her well. Let's say an Our Father for her right now?"

And later, as I'm reading to Cordelia, she's absentmindedly -- but not softly -- kicking my legs repeatedly. I say, "Sweetie, please stop kicking Mommy." She replies instantaneously, "I'm not! I was just bumping you with my feet over and over."

Isn't She Lovely

These are two of JVL's favorite snapshots of Birdie. To me, you can just tell exactly what she'll look like as a lovely, elegant adult.

I wonder if she'll still be shouting things like, "No! I will not do that! Don't tell that to me!" when she's 30.

What To Expect...

When I was pregnant with both Cody and Cordelia, I got a lot--a lot--of unsolicited pearls of wisdom from friends, family, passersby, strangers in the elevator. I have a few favorites:

Stranger: So you must be due, when, today? 
Me: Not for two more months, actually.
Stranger: You look like you're gonna POP! Girl, you should go sit down.
Me: Well, I can't, really. But thank you.

Stranger: Oh, wow, you're just huge! That your first?
Me: No, second.
Stranger: Oh! So, you're done then, right?

Many people: Get ready for your life to completely change...forever!
Me: Yes. Sure! Ready as I'll ever be.

It's this last that I think about most. Because there is no getting ready for it. You don't know how to do it until you're doing it. And you don't know how you're going to actually feel about doing it. And once you're doing it, you have no idea how you'll keep doing it, because you can't possibly do it for one more second, and then a second passes, and you find that it's done.

Before the fact, you can conceptualize--or should I say romanticize--what "your life is about to change!" means: I think I remember saying something naive and reassuring to JVL like, "We'll still do all the same exact stuff -- there will just be three of us!" You can imagine how tired you'll be by comparing it to an all-nighter you once pulled in college. You can suspect that the days of heading out to a movie, or dinner, or away for a weekend might take a little more work. Doing the easier among those things will take you 80 perent longer and leave you invariably frustrated. Attempting the harder ones--especially when it's all new--will be like planning the invasion of Normandy. At the end, you will not feel like the Allies. You will lie down on the beach and weep. And then pull your breast pump back out and plod on.

Which is why I couldn't help but screech when I read about the new CEO of Yahoo, who is six months pregnant, describing how she pictures her maternity leave:

As for maternity leave, Mayer, who recently joined the board of Walmart (WMT), expects it to be speedy. "I like to stay in the rhythm of things," she says, referring to the CEO job that she is starting tomorrow. "My maternity leave will be a few weeks long and I'll work throughout it."

I'm mean, because my first thought was: Does she have any friends, sisters, acquaintances who have ever had an actual baby? And then taken care of it during its infancy? To paraphrase Clint Eastwood, "Expect's got nothing to do with it." I mean, I realize I once thought I'd get a lot of reading done when I was on leave with Cody. I actually pictured myself nursing peacefully while reading the Shakespearean plays I never got to in college (cue uproarious laughter). I guess that's sort of like going back to being CEO of a major, failing company without missing a beat. Anyway, I laughed, because come on. "A few weeks" is just when the sleep-deprivation-induced hallucinations begin to set in!

I'm Sorry, Did You Say Hoof and Mouth?

Well, hello there.

It's been...a week. I'll spare you the pustulous details (yes, I think I may have made up that word, but I think you'll agree it's fitting) and head straight to the lowlights.

So last week, I got a giant--GIANT--freelance editing project from a brand-new client. By giant I mean the task was basically to edit about 57,000 words, complete with 250 totally wrongly-formatted footnotes, inside about a week. No problem, right? Once my official Bu hours are done on Thursday afternoon, I have alllll weekend to work on it -- mornings, evenings, naps, and daytime when JVL takes the kiddos.  It'll be tight, but reasonably doable. Right?

So Thursday night, out of nowhere, Cordelia wakes up with a 103.5 fever. Which shoots up to 105.2, where it stays for the next two days. We took her straight to the pediatrician Friday morning, who gave us the lovely news that it looked like she had...wait for it...

...hand and foot and mouth disease.

Yeah. Gross, isn't it? Really, really gross. Also, terrible on a child. High fever, chills, aches and shakes and in Cordelia's case, severe vomiting (we're talking puking up water), a complete inability to eat, some delirium, and a failure to remember how to talk like a normal person....only whines emerged. Exclusively. I mean that in the most literal sense of the word. Thank goodness it was also heartrending, so that I could balance out my "I cannot take this anymore! This is so irritating!" thoughts with more compassionate ones: "It breaks my heart to see her like this! I would do anything to make her more comfortable...if only she would stop whining!"

We were hanging in, though.  She turned a corner Sunday morning and started to recover pretty fast. And I (stupidly) even quietly thanked God that she for having the foresight for once to not get sick on a Monday, just before my official work week starts. (I will never do this again--it turns out it has the exact same effect as saying, "Oh, the baby is finally snoozing so soundly -- what a great sleeper!"...two minutes later, you start to hear crying on the monitor.) Monday afternoon, Cody started to slump. Then he nosedived. By dinnertime, he was unable to eat, his tongue and throat and butt were covered with disgusting little sores, and he had a 105 fever. Awesome. On Tuesday, I nosedived. I'm not really sure if my fever, closed throat, and aches were the same thing, or just a product of being so run-down, but who cares, really.

Here are my sad little sacks, curled up in their rocket ships (that's what they call their Costco grocery boxes).

I'm happy to report that a week later, we have all picked our sorry selves up and are beginning to get our pep back.

And for the record, I will say: JVL, you are my eternal hero. There is no way I could get through anything--particularly a week like this--without the steadiest, most loving, most capable, most flexible, most unflappable (at least in these matters) partner in the world. The only reason Cody, Cordelia, and I are not lying today in a heap on the bathroom floor, wallowing in our own pustule-encrusted crapulence, with me reduced to catatonia from Cordelia's whining, is because of Jonathan. This may sound like an exaggeration, but I'm pretty sure it's not. Father/Husband/Nurse of the Year, hands down.

Happy Crackerfireworks Day!

We celebrated the Fourth of July with our neighbors -- a BBQ and potluck followed by ice pops and culminating in fireworks. A good time was had by all. Especially the mosquitos. 

 Check out the shiner!

Cody's first sparkler! Below, with our neighbor Rich, whom Cody calls "Wild Man" and who is more or less the Santa Claus of the 4th of July. 

Somehow, the bird slept through all this noise. It was pretty spectacular...and right in our front yard -- literally!

Happy Crackerfireworks Day!

Um, yeah...for some people, every day is Independence Day

Cordelia: You should see the other girl's face. 

In Which We Overcame Our Temptation to Leave Them at a Rest Stop

This was the plan: 

Thursday, break of day: Drive to NJ. Four and a half hours, right? (Wrong.) Friday: break of day, drive to Longmeadow, MA. Two and a half hours, right? (Wrong.) Saturday, after breakfast: drive back to North Jersey. Sunday, after breakfast: drive to South Jersey, visit Mary Beth and Walter for an hour, then drive home. Home by, say, 2:30, right? (Wrong.)

Looking back, I'm willing to entertain the possibility that perhaps this wasn't the best plan. Sub-optimal, you might say. 

So I will just skip over everything that implies, and refer you back to the headline, for which (the action, not the headline) I feel we deserve great credit. The quality of mercy--and everything else good in us--was most certainly strained after 20+ hours in the car together. I'll get right to the good part -- lots of visits with lots of people we love, but don't get to see nearly often enough! Cordelia, Cody, and their sweet cousin Campbell had a great reunion. There was much playing and splashing in the pool, and then we moved the party to the bathtub, where the girls had a tea party. 

Next, we had an amazing, happy reunion with the Fosters in Longmeadow. Cody and James took to one another just as I thought they would. They are like two old, wise souls who were just meant to be. In the middle of play and conversation, one of them would just say, "Oh, I love you, James/Cody" and the other would reply, "So do I. I am so happy we got to visit!" and then go back to playing. They'd just walk around holding hands, just because. Cordelia liked James and awful lot, too. I'm secretly hoping they'll marry, though I'm not sure I'd really wish that on James.

And in honor of our trip from the Garden State, where as you know "they're breaking out the tractors to build more interstates," it turns out that James's grandpa has...a tractor. A real one, I was told. Not the kind you can get at Costco but a real John Deere.  

 And Cody got to drive it! 

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 As soon as it revved up, Cordelia shrieked, took off like a shot, and ran "over by that tree far away over there, where it is safe!" James sweetly joined her, much to her absolute delight.

Here's a great one of "the dudes" before bed.... 

 ...and one of those dudes, reading a bedtime story to the other. Does it get sweeter?

Saying goodbye was really, really hard. Cody issued about 17 invitations for James to come visit him in Virginia and sleep in whichever bunk bed he wanted. We can't wait. 

 We love and miss you!

Once back in Parsippany, Cordelia decided to watch some Wimbledon with the guys.

But I saved the best for last...we had an amazing visit with Aidan, whose hair makes him look like a Young Republican, and who is unspeakably sweet and gorgeous. If you didn't know what was going on inside him, you'd think he was a totally healthy kid, because he's so beautiful. We got him in a good moment in a good day -- lots of smiles, lots of engaging with us and toys, and lots of cuddles. I was walking on air for days. 

When we got back from our visit, we found Cody and Cordelia on the porch with Granny and Pop-Pop, enjoying lemon sherbet. 

 My daughter: "I'm ready for another ice cream, Mommy."

Then it was back home. The only thing that made them willing to go was the promise of what awaited Monday morning:

...The End.

Classic Cordelia Tweets

Cordelia seems to have mastered the English language many months ago. She even skipped entirely over my favorite phase--which for Cody lasted months--where they speak in the third person and reverse pronouns (when you say "I love you," they then refer to themselves as "you" and to you as "I" or "me" or "my"). She does have two awesome quirks, though. One is of language, the other of logic.

She gets he and she right all the time, but keeps them for the possessive. So, she'll say, "Cody is getting dressed! He is getting he's socks on!" Or, "Mommy is thirsty! She is going to drink she's water!" Or my favorite--mostly because she grimaces and clearly knows it's not quite right, but hasn't quite gotten it: "Let's go to the pool! We will put on...we're...bathing suits!"

The logic is either funny or willful. Because I think she actually knows how to structure it, and mostly does, but sometimes decides not to. The other day, knowing she had a rough one, I asked how the morning went. She replied, "I kicked Daddy, because I had to go to time out." I said, "Do you mean you had to go to time out because you kicked Daddy?" "No!" she exclaimed. "I kicked Daddy because I had to go to time out." Or this: "I was so tired because I took a nap!" "It is so hot out because I went in the pool." Or my favorite, "Cordelia, can you come give me a hug?" "No, I can't. Because I am too little. I am so little because I can't hug you right now. Also I am busy." See what I mean about the will?

She says these things with sagacity and authority, usually nodding her head and pursing her perfect little lips to make her point. I'd say I couldn't love her more, but that would be a lie. I will. Probably by evening.

Meanwhile, Cody's vocabulary continues to surpass mine, and his logic, while sometimes mystifying from my perspective, is always excellent on its merits. He now can read about 50 words (that I know of), and it would be more if I could make more time to do his word box with him...somehow summer is not at all slower than the rest of the seasons.

Parseltongue

CJP: Mom?
Me: Yes, buddy?
CJP: Do you know what my favorite animals in the reptile house are?
Me: No, tell me.
CJP: The anaconda, the python, and the tortoise. But not the crocodile. Not one bit.
Me: Really? Why not the crocodile?
CJP: Because he is not friendly at all. At all!
Me: I see. So, is the anaconda friendly?
CJP: Oh yes. Not as friendly as the python. But very friendly. Well, sometimes by accident they accidentally might bite you. Or sting you. But that's okay. We would just get a band-aid for that. It's no big deal. 
CML: It's no big deal!
CJP: Cordelia? Next time we go to the reptile house, if you are a little bit nervous, I will hold you up. That way you can see.
CML: Okay! You will hold me up so I can see them. And I won't be scary! Mommy, can I have some watermelon tonight?