I've been feeling a little overwhelmed lately. I've noticed I'm not alone -- a lot of folks in the blogosphere have been in a state of malaise for the past month or so.  I think my main problem is that I've been running on adrenaline -- I can almost feel it downloading into my veins on an hourly basis -- for about three months now.  In addition to my lovely full-time job, I've been planning this book tour (soooo not complaining, but let's be honest, it's a lot of work, but still, sooooo not complaining) in my "free time," and our family social schedule has kicked into preschool-ballet-class-recital-coming-up, backyard-barbecues, weddings-and-other-summer-travel, mow-the-lawn-every-week, full-on hypergear.  And my child!  My adorable child!  Who suddenly has started fighting me about every decision, every movement of her little finger, from which toilet to use when she has to pee to what she'll be eating for dinner to which barrette will go in her hair to when she can give Bella her treats.  EVERY DECISION.  EVERY TIME.  And lo, some days I am just NOT UP TO THIS. 

Yesterday I hit a big wall.  I called my husband crying after driving a half hour to my OB-GYN's office for the yearly appointment that apparently hasn't happened since 2005 (gulp - please cervical cancer, do not be there) and has been rescheduled twice, only to wait a half hour, get completely undressed, and then hear my doctor being paged to go deliver a baby as I sat waiting for him.  Ten minutes later, and I would've been done.  So I hopped off the table, rescheduled for the third time, and headed home.  Two hours wasted.  And I had SO MUCH TO DO.  My husband, rock star that he is, gave me a very firm pep talk about finishing strong, and how these book events are like replacing the door hinges and light switches when you remodel a room.  Why would you go to all the work to remodel a room and then ignore the details?  And I know he is so right.  I'm just so tired. 

After that, I was talking to Blondie when she got some bad news, and then my head started trying to figure out how to also fix Blondie's life in addition to attending to mine, even though I know she doesn't want me to fix her life and GOOD LORD, SHE IS AN ADULT AND DOESN'T NEED ME and all that, but I think my concern for her then pushed me completely over the edge.  I forced myself to focus on my job when I got back home (working from home again), and I made good progress, but I'm in the process of doing the technical equivalent of sorting a bale of hay into a new hay bale configuration.   I made like 200 changes and was still not done with even one tiny section.  FRUSTRATION.  Five o'clock came. I realized I hadn't written my BlogHer post for Monday yet.  By the time I was finished with that, I realized the little angel was going to be one of the last kids picked up at daycare AGAIN.  Failing, AGAIN.  Now I know some would say that is not a failure, but I hate how much time she spends at daycare, and if I hadn't had to blow two hours at the goddamn-someone-else's-baby (yes, I was in THAT frame of mind) doctor, MY BABY would've been picked up a lot earlier.

I brought her home.  She was not fighting me.  She wanted green eggs.  We watered the flowers.  She helped me make green eggs.  We ate our eggs, then we sat outside while she ate pudding and watched for my husband to come home from his guitar lesson. We decided to go across the street to the park.  I pushed her on the swing for a while, thinking how nice it was to have a park so nearby, and how much I really do love my new neighborhood, the neighborhood that I guess isn't new anymore, because we moved into Chateau Travolta a year ago next week, and how GOD WHY CAN'T I JUST RELAX ALREADY? 

The little angel broke my revelry.  "Push me higher!"

I pushed her higher.

"Push me higher!"

I pushed her the highest she's ever gone.

"Look, Mommy!  I'm getting lost in the sky!"

And then, like Bailey on Grey's Anatomy, I think I was able to see the big picture.

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Exercise makes you smarter.  Read the review at Surrender, Dorothy: Reviews.

For the past two weeks, I've though I might be pregnant.  This morning, I found out I'm definitely not.

I wasn't trying to get pregnant.  There was some carelessness on vacation.  Mistakes were made. But as the days without the familiar achiness slid by, I started to wonder.  I did a little mental calculation. I realized if I were pregnant, the baby would be due in December.  Of 2007. This year.

And though there was a little bit of disappointment this morning when I saw it was not to be, I realized I am not ready, not this moment, to do it again. 

I have written extensively in the past about whether or not to have another child.  We were staunchly against it when the little angel was eight months old and we were still mourning our old lives.  We were against it at 18 months when she began the Six Months of No Sleeping Hell. We questioned our thinking when she went from a nonsleeping mess machine to a freakishly verbal, making-up-poop-jokes-and-helping-set-the-table two-year-old.  As we round the corner bumping up against three, we're on board with giving the little angel a sibling on whom she can blame all of her problems later in life.  It will give her someone else to blame besides us, and we're giving like that.

Somehow finding out I'm not pregnant made me think hard about where we are in our grand plan.  We know we want to move to a house with a safer yard, a better school district.  We've been talking about moving for years, and we even put our house on the market for a very unfortunate period of time in 2004.  I started thinking about being pregnant and moving and taking the little angel out of The Emerald City all at once, and how horribly unfair that would be to her.  I realized we have to start tackling these changes one at a time, so it doesn't all happen at once to her. I know kids are resilient, but as her parents, we should try to make her transitions as easy as we can.

Driving to work this morning, I noticed all the construction going on in downtown Kansas City. When I moved here in 1998, you could shoot a bazooka down Main Street at 5:15 p.m. and not hit a living soul. Now you can't move for all the cranes and shiny newness. For a long time, Kansas City was afraid to improve.  Change = scary.  I love the change downtown.  I love how vibrant it makes the city feel.  As much as my beloved and I can be cautious financially, I think it's time to start looking at making some of the changes we've known for years it's time to make. 

As the Editor Across the Aisle said this afternoon, "You are a woman of action!"  I called a contractor to get a bid on fixing the plaster, replacing the front door, doing the things we need to do to sell the house.  Let's get this show on the road. Someday there will be a baby, and I don't want to have to store it in the office closet.

We had a horrible night last night.  Read about it over at BlogHer!

The other day, the Parents As Teachers lady was over here. We were talking about the wonders of reality television as it applies to parenting.

Normally, I'm not a huge fan of reality television.  I don't enjoy watching people argue as a sport.  However, when it comes to parenting, there's nothing like a little reality television to show you just what will happen if you don't learn to say no to your children, and fast.

I watch Supernanny on a pretty regular basis, and not for the parenting tips. I watch it to make myself feel better.  I know, I'm horrible, but it makes me feel vindicated to realize for all my foibles, at least my little angel is not a complete basket case, and while most of that can be attributed to her sweet temperament, a lot of it can be attributed to the great parenting my beloved and I received - parenting that taught us, in turn, how to be good parents.

Last night on DVR I watched this episode of Oprah.  It was talking about how angry kids are today, and how overindulging them can make them even angrier.  Why?  Because kids need boundaries.

The other day I talked about the video recently discovered of toddlers smoking pot.  Obviously, the parents of those two teenaged boys failed them.  And in failing them, they failed those little children.  Failing your children extends beyond just the children themselves - you in turn fail everyone those selfish children come into contact with when they become adults.

On the flip side, good parenting also extends beyond your own children. I don't take a lot of credit for the parenting I give the little angel.  Sure, I read the books and try to be patient and all that, but I owe my parenting skills to my parents, my aunts, uncles, grandparents and friends.  Long before I was a parent, I watched others parent their children, and I paid attention.  During that conversation with the Parents As Teachers lady, I realized that watching my friends before I became a parent gave me a framework.  I remember hearing my friend A. talk to her daughter when her daughter was the little angel's age, and being amazed at how softly she talked, how she addressed her daughter as a human being, not a toddler.  I borrowed that style and have often been complimented on the little angel's vocabulary.  Wasn't my idea - I totally stole that from A.  Lesson:  you CAN treat your child with dignity and talk to them in a normal tone of voice from birth, and they will still enjoy childhood.

After the little angel was born, I did find myself gravitating toward other friends of mine who had similar parenting styles, and this has been so important to me.  Having friends who also believe in time outs, limiting presents, respecting naptime and bedtime, reading books and playing outside and making your child say "please" and "thank you" reinforces my good habits.  Having friends who also believe in adult time, good wine, the right to take a vacation without your children, respecting the choice to work for pay or not work for pay and bubble baths keeps me from turning into an uptight wench of a parent who doesn't pay any attention to her own needs.

We parents are not saints.  Sanbreakity pointed out in response to my post that not all parents are disgusted by their own bad behavior.  I knew that, but it was hard to really let it sink in.   Everyone gets frustrated, and it's not evil to wish the whining child would just stop, to want to give the child whatever so they will just shut up already.  It's hard to be patient at the end of a long day after you've had your hair pulled by a toddler or been peed on by a potty-training preschooler. It sucks to have your beautiful house ruined by pitter-pattering little feet.  I mourned the loss of my freedom well into the second year of the little angel's life. It made me very angry to have to be so responsible for someone else initially.  This parenting thing is fucking hard.

And that's why we really have to take advantage of the lessons floating around out there - in cyberspace, on television, and in the good examples of our friends and family.  It's easier when you realize that other people do this, too. You're not alone.

My own mother is always saying she wasn't a good parent, or she wishes she would've done things differently, not gotten angry, blah, blah, blah.  Sure, she got mad.  Sure, spanking was more popular back then.  It is obvious to me in my instincts with the little angel, though, that my parents did a bang-up job of parenting - otherwise I wouldn't know how to do it.  My daughter is doing great, and I owe a lot of that to the examples set by those around me.  And that's why I didn't let the little angel play with the candy necklaces I bought for my mom, her and me to play with this weekend.  She won't die if I say no, and I know that. Thank the good Lord I know that.

I'm sure you've all seen this story about two teenaged boys who taught a two-year-old and a five-year-old how to smoke pot.

I saw this news story last night while my beloved and I were making tacos and discussing the little angel's day.  (She had a good one, but as usual when she has a good one at school, she falls apart when she gets home. I've been told this is quite normal, so we send her to annoy the cat.)  I nearly dropped food on the kitchen floor. 

I don't know where to begin. 

We all fear our teenaged kids will discover pot.  I actually anticipate this happening. I've seen that commercial where the parents practice role-playing how their daughter will scream at them and slam the door when they tell her not to toke up with her friends.  I've heard of colleagues who got the call from school when their children's stash was discovered. Or whatever.  And really, though I don't approve, I do think teenagers are going to be just a new brand of challenging, whether it's pot or alcohol or steroids or extreme dieting or really just skateboards.  But teenagers, though still children, have grown a little closer to developing their brain cells more fully and are usually at their adult height.

Two-year-olds and five-year-olds are not.  No toddler walks down the halls at daycare and thinks about how he can sneak a smoke on the potty chair.  No five-year-old wants to resist authority to the point of buying a dime bag.  This situation involved teenagers - those very challenging teenagers - using their own bad judgment to the detriment of somebody else.  And they don't even probably realize just how wrong and scary it was.  I'm sure they don't realize that every parent in America almost threw the fuck up when he or she saw that news clip, because we, as adults, realize just how goddamn fucking stupid that decision was - that decision that was obviously made more than once, because those little children inhaled without any encouragement or coaching.

They were apparently charged with a third-degree felony.  My beloved and I both say lock them up.  For the most part, I don't believe in criminalizing marijuana for personal use.  I don't believe in giving a small-time drug offender a worse sentence than a rapist.  But any time someone fucks with a two-year-old and a five-year-old, they should be given a very stiff sentence.  They need some time, in a very small, very dark, very stinky room to sit and think about how they very well could have ruined some young child's brain, some young child who trusted them.

I am disgusted. 

We are full-on into the world of potty-training.  The little angel requested to go to The Emerald City in her Cinderella underwear on Friday.  She made it through the day with only two accidents. The afternoon teacher told me this was something akin to running a marathon after having done a 5k, so we decided that she should wear underwear pretty much all the time from now on.

And thus began my adventure.  Right after I picked her up on Friday, we went to Target, because we have fascinating social lives.  I was looking for a padlock that could save my beloved computer backpack from the dustbin. It's the perfect backpack, JUST the right size, and though I and many of my envious colleagues have searched the Internet high and low, no one can find one this small.  So when the clasp broke during my business trip, I knew I would have to find some way to save it without buying a new one.  My salvation came in the form of an oddly shaped padlock that will be replacing the broken clasp.  People will think I'm a total idiot or impossibly hip. 

Anyway, this whole padlock-comparison affair took so long that when the little angel announced she had to pee, we were at least 200 yards away from the restroom.  "Let's run!" I cried.  "You can do it!"  So there we were, sprinting across Target with the little angel howling, "I can't hold my pee in!  I can't hold it, Mommy!" I refused to carry her, because, well, I'm evil and didn't want to be covered in urine.  By the time we reached the restroom, I could wring out  her little sweatpants.  She made a valiant effort, though, and I was not upset with her.

Until she locked herself in the bathroom stall with my purse in there with her when I went to wash out the cuffs of her sweats in the sink and left her sitting on the potty.

And then she crawled off the potty and stuck her head under the door. "Hi Mommy!" she chirped.  Then she crawled out of the stall.  I'm not sure how she got the door locked.  I had to shimmy under it to fetch my purse.  I guess I shouldn't have worried about being covered in urine, because, at least in my mind, I was anyway, along with who knows what else a swab test of that bathroom floor could find.  GAH GAH GAH

After all that, I headed into Saturday with a little fear in my heart.  She made it through all day Saturday, even when she screamed in terror after we took her to the new dinosaur restaurant out west (it's like the Rainforest Cafe, except with frighteningly realistic dinosaurs).  My beloved kept insisting she'd be okay, though I had my doubts.  Not two minutes inside the restaurant, the dinosaur dropped his head, opened his four-foot mouth and gaped at the little angel, fixing her with his mechanical eyes.  She screamed like a banshee. "He's going to eat me, Mommy!" she cried.

I pulled her off to the side, taking my beloved's name in vain. Of course, he was parking the car and not there to witness the event.  I reassured her that the dinosaur was just Roar's older brother, and he didn't mean to scare her, but he was just, so, well, BIG, just like the baby whale in the Ariel story.  Remember how the whale ruined choir practice with his big voice? This is just like that!  (In the background, the dinosaur roared again and I damn near wet MY pants - I couldn't even watch Jurassic Park with surround sound.)  In the midst of all this drama, it occurred to me that the little angel might have wet herself.  "Did you pee?" I asked.

"No," she said. "Not even when Roar's brother tried to eat me."

"Good girl," I said.  "You'll be very good at slumber parties."

We ended up taking her to Dave & Buster's, a Chuck E. Cheese for adults.  The little angel, as it turns out, is a game addict.  But still, no accidents. Not one in the three hours it took us to get in, eat, play games, fight our way through the Lord of the Flies ticket redemption center, and walk out with a large stuffed dog and a flashing princess necklace.

Sunday she made it through church, lunch and a nap before we went to the park.  She rode her tricycle around the park, drunk with speed, until we said it was time to go.  She threw a fit. After two days of relentless urine inquiries and restroom locating, I admit, I was at the end of my rope.  I still had to turn-down chocolates from the hotel in my pocket.  They were shaped like little stars. I held one up.

"If you can get in the car and go to the grocery store without complaining or crying, I'll give you this," I said.

She agreed, and she made it. I gave her the chocolate.  Such a waste. It was good chocolate, and the little angel, she has such low standards.  As she inhaled it, she looked at me and said sweetly, "I like this chocolate.  I don't even have to sleep all night to get this kind."

I was on the East Coast for business from Tuesday through yesterday, hanging with some colleagues I don't usually see.  Good times and productive meetings were had by all. 

Yesterday we were at lunch, and we got to talking about this blog.  Some wanted to know what I wrote about.  When you say, "I write about parenting," I think it conjures up a bunch of images of poop stories and birthday party photos.  I felt the need to clarify that while I do that all the time, I'm also interested in parenting as an art and science. 

One of the women I work with has five children and is a single mom.  Her kids are all above the age of 10, but her hands-off approach is still fascinating to me.  Her mantra is, "when you're old enough to reach the spoon drawer, you're old enough to feed yourself."  This extends to a lot of other areas, and she said you could plop her 17-year-old down in the wilderness and he could fend quite well for himself.

While I'll never be quite that hands-off, I do hope I won't be like the mom on Supernanny the other day still brushing her six-year-old's teeth for him.  It is hard to know when to help and when to step back and let your child sort of struggle through on her own.  I imagine if I had five kids and was doing it on my own, I'd probably just rock beneath the stairs in the fetal position most of the time, but I did think a lot about what my colleague said this morning when the little angel announced she was going to wear her Cinderella underwear to school today for the first time ever.

We've made it through our share of Target trips and dinners out wearing the underwear, but any time the little angel puts them on and then, oh, sits on the couch, I have to take deep breaths.  This is not because I have fabulous furniture - I don't - or because I'm afraid she's going to poop - she almost never poops anywhere but the potty, even when she is wearing her diapers.  I'm not that frightened by a little urine.  It's mostly this idea I have in my head that somehow I can control whether or not she has an accident by asking her incessantly if she has to go, or seeing the change that comes across her face when she's about to let it fly all over the hardwood floor.  I need to get over that, and the spoon drawer conversation was useful in that way. 

We talked a lot about how your children are their own little people, and not necessarily the reflection on ourselves we tend to think they are.  My new boss told a story about how his now MIT-attending son went through a phase during which he had to wear five t-shirts at all times.  They just went with it, and eventually he wore less clothing than a homeless person.  It does make you think.  Some things, like using drugs or alcohol or beating up other children at The Emerald City because they won't share the coveted pink ball, are bad and something we don't want reflecting on our parenting skills.  While our children may still do those things, those behaviors may be symptoms of a larger problem we could help with.  Other things, though, like the little angel's need to wear her clear Cinderella heels (gah) to a restaurant on Saturday night or having to take her out to eat with friends when she's covered from head to toe in tempura paint are not necessarily a reflection of me, my personal hygiene or my fashion sense.  They are simply her being her, and I can't force her to wear matching clothes of my choosing forever. Eventually she's going to go Goth or shave her head or insist on piercing her nose, and those things may not be worth the battle.  They may be her needing to express herself in her own way.  While I don't intend her to leave the house looking like a streetwalker while she's under my roof, I will need to work on my need to have other people think she looks cute.

I'm sure most mothers want their kids to look or behave in a manner consistent with their own style of dress or speech.  It's not evil or wrong to feel compelled to spit-shine your toddler's face.  But there is a fine line between wanting your child to look presentable and clean and dressed appropriately for the weather and needing to exert control over their appearance.  I probably won't be the mother who refuses to drive her children to school on a cold day because they have hats, dammit, but I don't want to be the mother who insists her daughter wear a dress on Christmas because THAT'S WHAT YOU DO.

So anyway, I didn't have time to shop for the little angel, so I brought her one of the plastic seafood table decorations from a big group meeting.  She promptly named the crab Sebastian and took him to The Emerald City with her today.   He can't reach the spoon drawer yet, so she shared her banana.  I think it was big of her.

Scene:  The end of dinner.  The little angel is still picking lethargically at her heart pasta dipped in cheese, refusing to end her meal. 

Me:  "Remember, as soon as you get done, we can color on the valentine cards for your grandparents!"

Little Angel:  "I'm not done eating." (takes tiny bite)

(Ten minutes go by, during which the little angel smears cheese on the tile-topped table, then begins to draw abstract designs with her Hello Kitty spoon.)

Me:  "I think you're done. It's time to color on the cards."

Little Angel:  "I'm still eating!  I'm really hungry!"

(Five more minutes go by. I am increasingly agitated.)

Me:  "Honey, you're not eating. It's time to end this charade."

Little Angel:  "Stop talking to me about the cards, MOMMY, I already heard about the cards, and I'm going to color them, but I'm not done EATING NOW, and you should stop talking."

Me:  (stunned silence)

Beloved:  "I guess she gave you the business."

This morning at The Emerald City, little S. didn't want to eat her Cheerios.  A tired Miss W. told her that all she had was Cheerios.

S. did NOT want the Cheerios.  She threw them on the floor.

Me:  "Hey, did you know Cheerios are magic?  If you put them on your tongue, they'll dissolve in a while."

The little angel's pal L. looked up at me solemnly with her deep brown eyes.  "Yes, we should eat Cheerios," she said.

She fixed S. with her dark gaze.

L.:  "You should eat your Cheerios, S.  Jesus died on the cross."

That L. She takes no prisoners.