Operation Single Parent is still going reasonably well, even considering that she woke up at 5:45 this morning and said "Watch Mommy do Pilates."  How's that for incentive?  So I decided to humor her, even though I then had to stop the tape 23 times to get her milk, get the sand out of her toes (?), pet the kitty, get her a toy, etc.  She also sat on top of me while I was doing sit-ups.  I got in the shower after all this activity only to see a little red head sticking in, ceremoniously dropping my bra and underwear into the shower with me.  "Mommy get dressed," she said.

There have been fun times, too, though.  Last night Kansas City had a BIG BIG thunderstorm.    Big BOOM BOOM ina clouds.  I kept my plans to have dinner with Goofy Girl and Goofy, Jr. despite my mother's admonishment to stay in due to the weather and the knowledge that the world would surely end today due to the date corresponding to the Sign of the Beast.  We ate lots of Mexican food and watched our children go from shy and crying to scaling me as I finished up my salad and some of the little angel's fries.  As we walked outside, it started to rain in the way it started to rain shortly before Noah loaded up the ark and called it a day.

About halfway home, the skies opened and small animals and locusts began falling from the sky.  It was raining so hard the streets were instantly flooding.  I was concerned that the little angel might be scared. I was sort of scared, considering I'm not a good driver anyway and I have an astigmatism that makes it hard to see in the dark, especially when it's raining, and did I mention I'm not a good driver?  I started singing songs, though, to ward off my terror that we might just float away and be eaten by frogs.

About three blocks from home, the rain increased to typhoon levels.  I heard a little voice from the backseat take a break from her show tunes to yell.  "Rain, be nice!" she cried.  "BE NICE!"  I looked in the rear-view mirror to see her shaking her tiny fist in fury at the sky. 

Surely the world can't end yet.  She hasn't even had a chance to yell at a man.

Scene:  12th Street YMCA, noonish.  I am putting on make-up after doing another kill-yourself-in-forty-minutes noon workout.  This is my new thing - I HATE getting up early and will do anything to avoid it, especially when the little angel wakes up at night, which she still does sometimes. 

Two frumpy-looking office workers in their forties are busy arranging mall bangs and pulling up their seersucker pants.  They are apparently going on a trip this weekend together to somewhere they have to bring their own food. 

Frumpy One:  "Well, I'm going to bring the pork chops and breakfast for Saturday.  No-cooky stuff, like maybe bagels."

Frumpy Two:  "Oh, I think you should get doughnuts. Screw the bagels.  I'm making my famous Mexican dip for Saturday afternoon.  June's going to bring her strudel, too."

Frumpy One:  "Do we have chicken tenders for the kids?"

Frump Two:  "Yeah, and Kool-Aid.  Speaking of that, who's bringing the Jello shots?"

At this point, I dropped my hairdryer on my foot.  Crazy redneck party people disguised as government workers have taken over the women's dressing room at the 12th Street Y.  Watch out, world.

I was just talking with the Editor Across the Aisle about how few surprises there in life.  The sex of your child (and no, it's not only a surprise if you wait -it's a damn shock whether you find out at twenty weeks or forty, folks), a really dramatic haircut, weigh-ins while dieting and...self-tanning.

I've discussed self-tanning several times before.  As I've perfected my technique, I've had shocking results less and less.  However, there are few surprises that bring forth as much trepidation for me as applying self-tanner before bed, donning my full-length pajama pants, then removing them in the morning to see what I've done to myself.

This morning, I noticed that while I did a decent job on my calves and knees (thank goodness, because this is really the only part most people will EVER SEE), I seem to have missed my inner thighs.  As a result, I now appear to be wearing chaps in some lighting.  I'm not sure how I feel about this.  On the one hand, it's not the worst mistake I could've made, but on the other hand, it smacks of either counter-culture or Western wear, neither of which have a prominent place in my wardrobe.

I often think I don't like surprises, but the very idea that I can get worked up about the outcome of my drugstore self-tanning seems to contradict my self-observation.  I also like getting unexpected mail, wondering what movie just arrived in my Netflix envelope and checking my e-mail now that I've started getting my comments to this blog that way.  Suddenly!  Strangers!  It's as exciting as when a new kid moved into my hometown, population 5,000.  Everyone wanted to date or be friends with the new kid, regardless of how weird or dorky they were, just because they were NEW NEW NEW.  They weren't in our preschool class!  They didn't remember when our pants split during the second-grade track meet!  They didn't know our awkward stage last for five years!  NEW!!!

Anyway.

The reframing worked!  I feel better.  It's funny - I often know how I'm supposed to go about being mentally healthy, but I just consciously choose not to be.  Because sometimes it's just so much more fun to wallow around in a stinky, self-doubt-filled abyss of my own creation.

This morning I took the little angel with me to the dentist (because I love punishment).  No, really I took her because I wanted to get her acclimated to the idea before her first appointment.  She fell off a tricycle at Toddler High yesterday and has a fat lip with a white, hurt-lip-skin spot in the middle of it.  She eyed the dentist chair warily, and was even more freaked out when I donned AmberVision sunglasses and lay down on it.  Her injured lower lip began to tremble.  Only SpongeBob Squarepants in the next room could console her.  (It didn't console me - I hate SpongeBob with the same intensity that I reserve for the Wiggles, the Teletubbies and Barney, none of which she's ever seen).  It was SpongeBob or crying toddler, though.  So...SpongeBob.

On the way back to Toddler High, she took out her new toothbrush and brushed Tellie 1 and Tellie 2's teeth.  Tellie 1 and Tellie 2 are the children of Star and Roar.  All of these individuals are rubber dinosaurs from Target's $1 aisle.  The little angel named all of them.  They apparently had VERY dirty teeth, because she wore out her new toothbrush removing all of that ick from their rubber mouths.  Most dinosaurs eat cavemen and brush and such, but Star and Roar in particular are often treated to bits of the little angel's dinner.  And yes, I allow this, because the little angel eats corn and cauliflower and melon and turkey slices, unlike many other toddlers that I know.  If Star has to mess up her stegasaurus mouth in order to get vegetables in my child, so be it.  You have to pick your battles, people.  Dental hygiene:  It's not just for humans anymore.

So, this weekend I dropped my baby niece right on her head.  Well, not exactly dropped...she crawled off the sofa bed on which I was sitting.  Unfortunately, I was the responsible adult in the vicinity when it happened, the adult who didn't even notice the baby getting closer and closer to the edge of the bed.  The worst part of all of this is that I was videotaping my daughter and other nieces when it happened, so in the tape you can watch the progress of Baby J. as she enters harm's way.  It's like watching a simulation of the Titanic hitting the iceberg.

My first reaction upon hearing THWAP!  WAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!! was fear - what if she broke her neck? What if she's permanently disfigured?  (Witness how quickly anxiety can override my intelligence - she fell two feet, not thirty stories, and I was honestly worried she might have broken her neck.)  Once I saw that she was screaming and breathing, not bleeding with useless limbs hanging awkwardly from her torso, my second thought was:  "Her mother is going to kill me."

I've always been a little intimidated by my sisters-in-law.  I'm not quite like them, not that they are so like each other, but they all seem to have that big-family apathy that comes from years of deflecting simultaneous criticisms from multiple sources at the same dinner table.  I come from a small family with one sister, and I worry incessantly about her opinion and the opinions of my parents.  My beloved, sibling seven of eight (which translates into sixteen nuclear in-laws for me, along with fourteen nieces and nephews, versus three total human beings on my side's nuclear) doesn't give a rat's ass if one of his siblings momentarily disapproves of him, because chances are others would only approve of him if someone else disapproved.  It's a totally different world, and one to which after five years of marriage I am only partially acclimated.

So not only did I worry that my niece was seriously injured (she wasn't), I worried that my reputation as a fit parent was, too.  Even though I would've been HOLDING my niece if she would allow me to do so without screaming.  Even though I wouldn't have hurt her for the world and everyone knows that.  I know, intellectually, that it's impossible to watch everyone at every moment.  There were four other children competing for my attention at the moment it happened.  But I still feel like somehow I should be able to - and this comes from the same deranged part of my brain that tells me I should be able to bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, recycle the grease, stop global warming, raise my child, romance my husband, publish a book and exercise four times a week, all while avoiding wrinkles, traffic accidents and nervous breakdowns. 

Fortunately for me, the sister-in-law whose child I neglected - the same SAHM sister-in-law who bakes well and makes her own greeting cards - didn't make me feel bad for the accident.  She was actually extremely cool about the whole thing, which reminded me of the benefit of marrying into a big family - there are a whole lot of people who have your back when you screw up honestly. And unlike in my family, where as the oldest child I've been the first to do a lot of things, there is always someone else who did the exact same thing between two months and fifteen years ago.

Even if when I did it, I did it on camera.

Scene:  The Mall.

We're just getting ready to exit Target when I hear a little voice coming from near my knees.

Little Angel:  "Pinnies!  I wanna throw pinnies ina fowntain!"

Shit.

I decide to go for it, considering a) this is a innocuous request, b) I actually, for once have pennies and c) any aerobic activity will make the little angel sleep better.  Plus, she's slept the last three nights in a row, ever since the fever vanished.

But we must jog.  That is the rule.

She starts to trot down the mall, past the Bath & Body Works, past Foot Locker.  She picks up speed when she sees the fountain. 

After tossing five pennies in the fountain, we head back. 

Me:  "Let's run!"

She takes off at a good clip, training in her head for the Toddler Olympics. 

Little Angel:  "You run, too, Mommy!"

I begin my Mommy Shuffle.  This does not really constitute running, but she thinks anything above a walk is high-speed MADNESS.  As we pass by a flock of middle-aged women holding enormous Starbucks megadrinks, one of them peers over her sunglasses at us.  "What I would give for that energy," she says.

I think to myself, rudely, well, all you have to do is move - it does have this funny side effect of giving you more energy.  Put down your green-strawed heart attack and bust it, sister.

The little angel jogs the length of the mall. By Target, she seems to be getting winded.  I wait for her to slow down.  As she enters the final Target stretch, she's tiredly weaving past the aisles, nearly clocking lawn ornaments in her exhaustion.  She looks back at me.

Me:  "You know, you can stop running any time you want."

She stops dead in her tracks and holds her arms up.  I feel horrible, realizing she was thinking that "run" meant you have to keep running until you drop.  Stephen King would have a heyday with this one.

I pick her up, and she lays her head on my shoulder, pooped.

Me: "I'm sorry, honey, I thought you understood how exercising worked."

Little Angel:  "Wow, Mommy. Good workout."

Okay, let's revisit this. Last week, I commented on some points one of my students made about virginity and whether or not protecting it is necessarily a good thing.  This inspired some thoughtful commentary both on- and offline.  In fact, my friend Cagey and I ended up talking about it for a while at lunch on Saturday.

While I don't want to go too far into what she said (because that is her commentary, not mine), one of her central tenets involved Sex and the City.  She said it hasn't done anything for thirtysomething women.  She also said that she knows several people who have clung to their virginity until marriage (or they intend to) and it hasn't negatively impacted them in any way.

This is in line with the comment Carrien made - she felt it would be a mistake to advocate sleeping around.  In response to these comments, I realized I hadn't probably been clear with my opinion.  I also realized that this is a really interesting and important conversation, and I think we should discuss it further.

Here's my position (Ma, stop reading now):  I played the field.  And I was on the JV squad, in training very early, earlier than I would EVER want the little angel to be in training.  My student's position was that playing the field exposes a person to the fact that hot sex alone can't carry a relationship if the love and trust isn't there, thereby enhancing the value of love and trust even when, inevitably, the passions cool over the course of time.  I'm sure there's at least someone out there in cyberspace who will try to convince me they're still having hot sex twenty years into their marriage, and I'll believe them, but I won't believe they've had consistently hot sex for twenty years. My guess is that the passion ebbs and flows, spiking after a long separation, a near-death experience, a huge fight or a fabulous, margarita-drenched vacation.  It ebbs when you're tired, overworked, up late with small children, sick, worried about an aging parent or sick child, feeling unattractive or unfilled professionally or emotionally or just plain bored. 

Scientists discovered recently that the chemical reaction that causes romantic electricity lasts about a year.  After that, it's just like drugs - you need more and more to get the same high. Unfortunately, at the same time, you know your partner better and there are fewer new discoveries to elicit that chemical reaction.  My point, then, about the virginity thing - I feel better knowing that just because I had an amazing chemical reaction with other men doesn't mean they were right for me.  I didn't choose to marry my beloved purely 100 percent on physical attraction, though it's there.  And I don't think we need to get divorced if a month goes by without a quickie.  And yes, we have a toddler - they are all quickies.  True love is about more than the sex, but if you've never had the sex with people you didn't love, is it more likely you would mistake a new physical attraction for love?  Might you think, perhaps, you'd perhaps chosen wrong - how could you possibly be attracted to someone else?

I know that I can tell these things to the little angel.  I hope that she listens and holds on to her virginity until she meets a boy or man whom she loves and trusts completely.  I do believe premarital sex is considered to be a sin by my church.  I also believe lying is considered to be a sin by my church - my point on religion is that our American culture seems to weigh sex as worse than violent crime, and I have a huge issue with that.  Sin is sin, and if you believe in grace, you also believe it is not through good works that you are saved, but that we're all human fuck-ups and without grace, we'd be dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight, bar none.  Bar none.

So let's talk about sex, and what can be learned from it.  Can these lessons be taught without experience?  Or is the experience more detrimental than the learning that might come from it?  I don't claim to have the answers.  I only know what I learned from my own experiences.  I certainly will never encourage the little angel to have empty, Samantha-style sex - animal sex.  However, I don't know that I would necessarily be broken hearted if she loved and lost only to learn.

Children, when they are ALMOST but NOT QUITE well, become possessed.  The little angel came home yesterday with a 102 degree fever at noon.  By four, she had poo running down her legs, out of her saturated diaper and onto the floor, right in the middle of my conference call.  By seven, she was running around the house trying to get Sybil to take her thyroid pill.

Last night, she woke several times, and, after some debate, we treated her a sick child instead of a well child. In the morning, she had a 101 degree fever.  Now she's napping. Her fever broke around 9:30 this morning, but it's been up and down all day.  I HAVE to go to work tomorrow, as does my beloved, so I'm humoring her this afternoon even though she's already spilled an entire container of rice on the back patio, killed three flowers by ripping their petals off when I wasn't looking, threw melons on the freshly washed kitchen floor and drank fourteen gazillion half-finished cups of milk.  I want her to get better so that I may then kill her.

Just kidding.  JUST KIDDING!

So, we've got to wait another day for the virginity talk. I promise, it will happen this week.  I think.

I have this whole post revisiting the discussion of virginity, abstinence and whether or not we should be thinking about it already when our kids are only two, but I just came home to be with the little angel, who has a 102 degree fever.  Oh, and I have a spec to edit.

So...instead I'm going to show you this AMAZING drawing that my friend Bill Rose just did for no reason at all, other than he is a rock-star artist with a generous streak.  Oh, and he does work on commission, if ya'll want one, too.  For extra credit, go to his site and see if you can find my beloved and me.