Bettie Bookish

Conversation on the way home from school

Me: Hey girls - what would you think about me putting on a movie for you to watch while I take care of the dogs and make supper?

Posey: Do-wa* (translation: "Dora!")

Bee: My princess video

Me: What princess video do you mean?

Posey: Do-wa!

Bee: Um. You know. My, um. Cinderella!

Posey: No! Do-wa.

Me: No, Posey, I think we watched Dora last time. It's Bee's turn to choose.

Posey: Do-wa, Do-wa, Do-wa.

Bee: Where is her Mom and Dad?

Me: Who? Dora's?

Bee: No - Cinderella's

Me: Well, before the beginning of the story, it says her mother died when she was little...

Bee: Did she have surgery or something?

Me: Um. I don't really know that it says specifically what happened. But her mother died, and her father got married to the Stepmother. Then the father died, so Cinderella lived with her Stepmother and Stepsisters.

Bee: Hmm. He shouldn't have married the Stepmother.

Me: You're right.

Bee: He should have married a NICE girl. Like Cinderella's mother.

Me: I agree.

Posey: DO-WAH! (Translation: Why do they even waste their time making any movie or TV programming that doesn't revolve entirely around Dora? What is wrong with the entertainment industry? Dora is the highest form of creative endeavor. All princesses must bow before her adventuresome glory!)

The best Christmas ever

I probably wrote that last year, too, but whatever.

Here's a quick rundown:

Best gift given: Krups Coffee Grinder & Brewer for HSH because he hates our coffee. And because I am the prototypical 1950s housewife, I find that equivalent to his hating my housekeeping skills or blowjobs. Because I'm a lady like that.

Best gift received: A small Guan Yin, which makes me think of taking both of my daughters to the Six Banyan Tree Temple for a blessing, one of which was cut short by a cell phone call received by the monk.

Two other amazing gifts: A phone call received from Xerxes before we had a chance to call him. The Soundtrack to Office Space, worth "Damn It's Good to Be a Gangsta," alone.

Best food consumed: Vegetarian lasagna on Christmas day.

Runners-Up for best food consumed: Trader Joe's truffles and Lila's chocolate chip cookies.

Best drink consumed: Tempranillo brought by Lila (help  me out here with the vintner, L), around which she tied beautiful red and green ribbon. Edited to add: It wasn't tempranillo - it was rioja. With Pure Spanish Character. (Thanks, Lila.)

Best feat of engineering and persistence: Four adults (two of them Ivy leaguers) assembling a kitchen playset at midnight Christmas Eve. I was not one of the Ivy Leaguers. But I was sharing the Tempranillo with one of them.

Worst gift decision: Buying a T-shirt online.

Best gift decision: Buying Superbad for my brother from Amazon, and then having to buy it again because it had not arrived in time. Special gift for me - Cash Back!

Bee's favorite gift: Real makeup from Grandma.

Posey's favorite gift: Four consecutive days at home with four adults = four consecutive days of lap sitting and death defying for an audience.

Photos soon.

In My Head Forever

After a long day at work, after driving 45 minutes (!) home, after supper, after two girls jumping all over me - literally and figuratively - about playing on the swingset, after giving in, we went outside. I pushed the two girls not quite as well as their Dad would have. But he was inside not feeling well.

They giggled and soared.

Bee found a red leaf - proof positive that autumn is unfolding.

Bee will start K4 next week. It's a new development, and I'll be working a bit at the school, as well. I'm going to teach them to blog. Seriously.

So Bee found a leaf, and held it out to me to show me that fall is here, and thus the "you're going to school this fall" should turn into "you're going to school now."

The sun set behind the still-green horizon of Panther Mountain, behind our house, and we all walked into the house.

Bee turned to me with her grown-up little hand gesture. "this song has been in my head forever..."

"What song honey?"

She hum/whistled something I did not recognize.

"And there's a man carrying a baby in a basket," she continued, as though she had seen it in a movie.

"A man had a baby in a basket?"

"Yes. He had a baby in a basket and then he turned like" she cartoonishly turned quickly and looked over her shoulder "to see if there was a car.... Maybe that all came from my mind. It's been in my head forever."

She hummed the song happily. "The man was whistling the song," she said.

A man was whistling. He carried a baby in a basket. He was looking over his shoulder for cars.

It has been in her head forever.

Happy Bee Day

This job of mine is really getting in the way of my blogging. Which reminds me.

Last weekend was Bee's birthday party. We held it at a living history museum. There's also a carousel there.

She loved it.

The other kids loved it.

It was a perfect day - sunny, but not too cold or too warm.

The museum has a working farm, and we got to see a sheep being shorn.

There were some lambs who had been born that morning. This isn't one of them (I don't think). But it's awfully cute.

This is one of the new lambs. It's knees were so wobbly. I wanted to put it in a tote bag and bring it home and start my new life as a sheep farmer.

There also are oxen on the farm. This one was eating grass under the fence line right behind one of our guests, who had bent over to look at his shoes or something. The ox bumped the little boy's backside and toppled him. And of course, that kind of thing never happens to the hale and hearty party guest. It happens to the shy, fragile, skittish party guest. Eff you, Fate. That's what I say.

The boy was fine - just dusty. And he'll probably never attend a birthday party again. Nor will he become a farmer.

We took one last ride on the carousel.

Then we drove home.

(Yes - that box in her lap is a toddler makeup kit.)

It was a great birthday.

And also, she could fly and move things with her mind

Clearly, I should have already completed Buttercup's lifebook, because she is now creating one in her own head - without the benefit of, well, any resemblance to the truth whatsoever.

To be absolutely clear to all the adoptive parents out there who might get the impulse to kick me in the comments for not being more pro-active on this, you should know that we talk about it all the time. All the time.

We talk about China and the city where she lived. She have four large photo albums on shelves that she can reach of our trip to meet her, including photos of her orphanage, her nanny, her best friend and her bed. I don't think a day goes by without some conversation about it.

So maybe she's just trying to come up with something new and sparkling to say when she tells me she likes sushi.

"You do?" I said with so small amount of surprise, because this child hates fish and anything that has been prepared in the same kitchen city as fish. But our cousins here made sushi - including some vegetarian - on Christmas Eve, so I thought maybe Bee had tried it there.

"Where have you eaten sushi?"

"In China. With my nanny. She used to make it for me all the time."

"I don't think so sweetie. But she did make you congee and banana and steamed egg, and you ate a half a steamed bun every morning for breakfast. That's what she told us."

"And I ate sushi."

"Sweetheart, I don't think you had enough teeth for sushi. And you were a pretty little baby - littler than Posey. Babies don't eat sushi."

"I did. I was a very special baby."

Mmmmm, tasty

Not long ago, Angela Marie wrote about the notoriously underdeveloped palates children have when it comes to fine baked goods, and she offered as evidence the fact that her child's classmates enjoyed a batch of chocolate cupcakes that were less than perfect.

The description she gave of the cupcakes was so intoxicating that I begged for the recipe, promising never to make or distribute them in her home state.

She was generous enough to oblige, and yesterday, Bee and I made a batch.

That's my son's ladyfriend, who is unanimously adored around Bookish Farm.

Also, she has been known to read this here Internet Thingy, and even has the charming decency to be mildly shocked at how often I use the word fuck.

She's a sweet girl.

I'm not a seasoned pastry chef. Cooking is just not among my meager talents. I'm not even a very good eater, for that matter. I'd be perfectly happy eating the same two or three dishes* every day for the rest of my life.

*Dishes that, ironically, are not available in any restaurant in a 60-mile radius of our home.

The point is that I don't cook often or particularly well, which speaks volumes about Angela Marie's cupcake recipe, because (cover your eyes H-------) holyfuckingwiltonpans those cupcakes are delicious.

Bee and I made them to welcome home our Hot Shot Husband/Papa, who returned last night in lake effect snow warning conditions from Florida, where his sister has surgery last week.

We made regular cupcakes, and we also made a pan of heart-shaped cakes. Those were Bee's favorites, and she sighed blissfully as she frosted one of them: "They make me want to love."

These cupcakes are, without exception, the best cake product I have ever eaten. My only dilemma is deciding what to call them.

• Angela Marie's Effing Good Cupcakes

• Blogcakes

• Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

• Internet Strangercakes, because every time my husband sees me reading a blog or hears a story about something I read, he asks if I'm checking in with my Internet Strangers.

Thank you, Angela Marie. You've changed my life. And probably my jeans size.

I AIN'T SAYING SHE'S A GOLD-DIGGER

Last week, Bee announced over dinner one night that she and a little girl in her class named A---- had gotten married that day.

"That sounds like a lot of fun," I told her. "Is A---- one of your really good friends?"

She didn't answer because she was too busy humming the wedding march with her mouth full of pierogie.

"Why did you and A---- decide to get married?"

This is going to be great, I thought. In her little girl innocence, she's going to say something about the nature of love that we adults should all take to heart. I opened my mental notebook and prepared to take dictation.

She shrugged. "A---- and I got married to N------- because he was a prince."

TEETHING, CLIMBING, RENOVATING

Baby Posey has had a fussy week, what with her HSP being out of town. In his absence, she latched on to me even more forcefully. You should see the bruises.

The constant trail of saliva that has been hanging from her mouth like a fire escape ladder tells me that she's also teething, which couldn't have helped matters.

When she's not drooling or clenching one of my nipples in her vicelike little manhands because I threatened to put her down, she has been climbing. She climbs on the chairs. She climbs onto the dowels under out trestle-style dining table. She climbs onto the base of her highchair and looks like she's sailboarding.

She is not afraid of anything. Yesterday, she tried to climb onto the front of the Dyson - while I was vacuuming.

She and Bee are such different creatures. Bee covers her ears and flushes the toilet with her elbow. Posey wants to ride the vacuum.

She is not only fearless, but amazingly strong as well. Here she is crawling away after pulling up a slate tile from our entry hallway.

And while Bee likes to lick the chocolate batter from the beaters

Posey drinks hot sauce straight from the bottle.

I'm a good mom.

Good, good, good, good, good

I hate bedtime.

Mornings are tough, but they're manageable, thanks to my patented trick of training my children to stay in bed later than they might ordinarily enjoy.

Me: Oooo - it's snuggle time. Let's get under the covers and talk about what we want for breakfast.

Bee: Yay! Snuggle time. I want oatmeal and pancakes and sausage, no, bacon and marshmallows shaped like Christmas trees and pretzels and....

Me: Zzzzzzzzzz.

I've never said I was a good parent.

So that's how I deal with mornings. That and copious, stomach-eroding amounts of coffee and other caffeinated beverages. And just the teensiest bit of crank with my marmalade toast. Mmmm.

The rest of the day usually goes pretty smoothly. And even if I can't exactly get anything accomplished, at least we all have a decent time of things.

MM has taught me that I too easily confuse her near-constant happiness with ease of care. The truth is that she is almost as demanding as Bee was at the same age, she just smiles and coos a lot more. Bee was much quicker to express frustration, leaving us feeling like parental Carrottops, furiously running through our big box of props in a fevered attempt to quell her displeasure.

Instead of a crying baby who won't allow me to set her feet on the floor, I have a grinning baby who won't let me set her feet on the floor.

The net result is largely the same: The kids' daily functional hours exceed mine. By 7 p.m., I am so thoroughly done, I would hire Tara Reid to come be our evening nanny if it would mean I could go take a bath. Alone. Without anyone throwing toys into the tub.

But no. At 7 p.m., we still have at least one hour to go, and possibly more.

Provided that we can get Bee in and out of the bath and into her pajamas without a critical 3y/o meltdown over something life-altering like turning the water off too soon (or not soon enough) or discovering that the preferred PJs are still in the dirty clothes hamper, her bedtime ritual is pretty simple. Brush teeth. Three stories. Smooth blankets.

"Goodnight, Mama."
"Goodnight, Bee. See you in the morning for snuggling."

MM is proving to be the bedtime wildcard.

Some nights, she drifts softly and immediately into a sweet, smiling sleep. Other nights, she fights it - twisting and turning and sitting up to giggle and scrunch her nose and make other hilarious faces so her parents will totally forget why they brought her in the bedroom.

Tonight's slumber was 1.5 hours in the making. And by the time she fell asleep and I made my way downstairs to get cracking on all those little projects that are completely impossible when small children are awake, I used my last sliver of energy to make myself a bowl of ice cream.

See you in the morning for snuggling.

Boy, that guy likes velvet

Thanksgiving 2006 will forever go down in the Bookish family lore as the year J-- S----- tried to kill me.

It started cordially enough when I mentioned that, ever since undergoing chemotherapy, my alcohol tolerance is much higher, and my hangover rate is much lower.

J-- took this as some kind of challenge, and asked, "What are you saying? Are you issuing a challenge?"

I hadn't been. But suddenly it seemed like the thing to do.

He spent the next two and a half hours refilling our glasses. Sometime after dessert, I managed to find my way to the sofa, where I fell asleep (or something like that). I woke up and found Lila and her mom watching an interview with Mel Gibson about Mayans.

I hoped I was hallucinating, but an ad spotted on TV today tells me I wasn't.

And J-- thinks he won. That's OK - I'll give it to him.

Dear J--, you can officially outdrink a 120-pound cancer survivor.

PACKING MORE DAY IN YOUR DAY

Today was my brother Thor's 32nd birthday, so the whole family came over to our house, and we ate leftovers and soup and sandwiches. (J-- quietly recovered on the sofa most of the afternoon. Me? I've been fine all day.)

We had cake and presents, and then all the women ran giggling upstairs so we could put together our baby bed and make it up with the pretty, pink, ovulation-inducing crib set that Sunshine gave us.

No sooner was the bed together than we all had to pack up and head into the village for the big annual Christmas "parade."

Bee had two invitations to ride in the Santa entourage, so we bundled up and stretched our waving hands.

Santa and Mrs. Ms. Claus arrived, and took their seats on a sleigh that was sitting on a platform-type wagon being pulled by two Belgian draft horses. The sleigh sat in the center of the platform, and was surrounded by hay bales, upon which all the children were going to sit.

Bee didn't want to ride on the wagon, so she opted to ride on the fire engine.

She sat in my lap, and sighed. "I wish my sister was here."

Abot halfway down Main Street (which is all of 6 blocks long), she turned toward me and asked, "Can we do this again sometime?"

The village's mayor, who also was riding on the truck, told her that, yes, she can come back next year - WITH her sister.

SPEAKING OF WHICH

The travel agency called today to let us know that we are leaving one week from tomorrow.

Everyone we tell squeals in excitement. Our stomachs hurt. Oh - we are so unprepared.

We do have an assembled baby bed now, though. So our little one will have a place to sleep without disturbing my dresser drawer full of novelty socks.

Tomorrow we travel to the Big City to load up on supplies such as saline nose spray, baby prunes and glycerine suppositories. We might get some stuff for the trip, too.

And we will definitely partake of some restaurants.

My daughter the horrormeister

(I am not going to write about snow. I am not going to write about snow. I am NOT going to write about the fact that I saw snow falling from the sky today because that is EXACTLY what the snow would WANT me to do.)

Every night we read three books to Buttercup as part of her bedtime ritual. My Hot Shot Husband - who is a secret speed reader - will sometimes endear himself as the BEST bedtime reader by reading The Lorax and Cat in the Hat and Ulysses. I'm more likely to push for three little board books. And yet somehow, he always accomplishes the bedtime story thing in about 2/3 the time it takes me.

Maybe Little Bee spends more time talking with me. I'll have to spy on them to see what the difference is.

Last night, we were reading Dora's Spooky Halloween, which features our young heroine trying to decide on a costume. It's a struggle with which we are painfully familiar here at Chez Bookish.

In the story, Dora scores a witch hat from a scarecrow. We read the story three times (no that is not cheating), and each time Bee grew progressively more anxious about the scarecrow.

"I don't like scarecrows," she told me. "They wave all around and flap outside my window."

FUCK! AAAAAIIIIIIIIGHHHHHHH!!

That shit it terrifying. Scarecrows flapping outside your window? Criminy.

This morning, we were driving to school, and she started talking about her dreams.

"Last night, I had a dream and I can tell you what it was because it isn't a secret and in the dream there were underpants in the potty and a SHARK. ATE. THEM. There were sharks in the potty."

That may not seem so scary to you and me. Sharks in the potty, hahahaha. Knock, knock - Toilet shark!

But our little girl has just in the past month decided that the potty is a trustworthy place to leave her precious poop. And now there are sharks in there? Eating underpants?

Blame my daughter if you find yourself unable to sleep tonight, hounded in your fitfull attempts at slumber by flapping scarecrows and toilet sharks.

HI, MY NAME IS DORCAS

So I went yesterday for my big college interview. The school is about 2 hours from my home, so I set out in the morning, sure to give myself plenty of time for inevitable mishaps along the way.

I was so ahead of schedule that I decided to stop into Macy's and look for a pair of boots that would match the outfit I was wearing. Luck was on my side, and I found exactly what I wanted, and they were even on sale.

Go me.

I got to the campus with plenty of time to spare, so I scoped out the college bookstore. That's where I realized my new boots were snagging the threads of my skirt's hem, so that with every step I was either pulling my skirt in an awkward fashion around my calves, or I was ripping out the hem.

Lovely.

I ducked into the ladies room to remedy the problem. And while I was in there, I figured it would be the perfect time to have an utter effing mental breakdown over my hair. Up or down? Half up? Which style would better show off the giant blemish that erupted on my chin two days earlier?

Why did I wear a jacket? A red jacket? Holy crap, I looked like I was wearing a horse-riding costume, which was especially unfortunate given the fact that the college is in a town whose economy is largely driven by horse-related tourism.

What was I thinking? And why did I think I should - or COULD - go back to school in the first place?

It was pretty grisly. I texted Lila.

"I'm about to go into my interview. Wish me lots of luck. It's not easy to fool college officials."

She responded right away.

"Sure it is! Good luck."

She was right. The advisers were very nice, and the interview was even fun. Halfway through the interview, we were trading jokes about Episcopalians.

I'll find out for sure whether I've been accepted in the next few weeks. In the meantime, I've been assigned the task of deciding what to call my major, and whether it falls more under the auspices of communications, business, non-profit management or what.

On the way out, I stopped back into the bookstore and bought a coffee mug with the college motto on it. So when you think about it, I've got the coffee mug. Do I really even need the degree now?

Impolite noises

After lunch today, my Hot Shot Husband was driving me back to work, and our Little Bee was sitting in the backseat.

"We're not sitting at the dinner table," she observed, "so I can make this noise: Schkrunnnnq*."

*Sound of toddler making weird nasal, throaty slurpy noise that would, indeed, be disruptive at the dinner table.

She's a smart one, my girl.

And she probably updates her blog at least once a day.

But then, she doesn't have a real grownup-type job.

I do.

And I'll admit that it has been difficult for me these past couple weeks to keep everything neatly in its row and marching along. Some things have fallen by the wayside as I have recalled just how exhausting a real grownup-type job can be. (Hint: Pretty exhausting.)

There were more than two days in a row this week when I found myself too tired to wash my hair.

And now, after a couple months of waiting and basically giving up any hope of progress, I have gotten a call from the college to which I applied, and I am scheduled for an interview on Thursday.

Holy crap. What am I thinking?

Meanwhile, I think I may know what I want to be when I grow up.