The New School

Lucy is going to start Montessori school next Wednesday. Full time. I am sad to think of her spending more waking hours with strangers than with us, but it does make me feel good to think that those strangers will be teaching her things like math and brass polishing. Apparently brass polishing is considered a "life skill" in Montessori. Is this really vocational school for housekeepers, rather than the academic fast track I had hoped for?

We took her to visit the school today, so next Wednesday would be easier for her. Or us. She wasn't crazy about the Music Man (bearded dude with guitar), but she did seem interested in the Montessori puzzles. And the playground? She's freaking expert at playground. So when I told her it was time to leave, she looked up at me casually and said, "Bye, Mama," as though she fully hoped we would just leave her there, right then. Glad we made it easier on her.

Someone's in the Kitchen with Lucy

Cooking is productive. The thing to do when you're stewing about something? Stew something. Or bake it or braise it or roast it. Cook the food into submission, and exhibit a level of control over ingredients that you don't have over your own life.

Or your own nearly two-year-old. I won't continue my griping about Lu, but the kid is running this joint like Margaret Thatcher with a slightly better haircut. Iron Lu is exhausting. She entertains herself creatively — magnificently. Until the precise moment she stops wanting to do whatever it is she is doing. HARD STOP. This activity is dead to us. We hate it. Damn blocks. We never liked these blocks. Banish them. Cast them from our sight. We're done, just like that.

So, as Lu approaches the Terrible Twos (I shudder to imagine the molten fury that will erupt from her skull come March 12), and work-related stress mounts, and house chores pile up accusingly around us, my solution is...cook. We need to eat, don't we? Cooking is the perfect stalling task — necessary, creative, repetitive, productive. In two days, I have made salmon with tomato vinaigrette, two variations of roasted asparagus, an unfortunate chocolate gingerbread, braised chicken in tomato sauce with olives, lemon garlic spaghettini, peanut butter cookies, a crude capellini alfredo and the jewel in my culinary crown: cheddar apple muffins.

Sure, the muffins themselves were indecisive and dense, but their key ingredient? Enthusiasm. Lu stood on a stool and mixed the batter herself, earnestly dumping ingredients and whisking it all together — with some help from Chef Mom, but I eventually gave in to cries of "No, MY mussins! Lucy do it!" After I settled into the role of sous chef, we got the batter into the pan, watched them cook with great anticipation ("Mussins cooking? Hot?"), took them out of the oven and...lost interest. Lu, like her mother, hates the food once she has cooked it.

Today her snack tray from school was, as always, nearly as full as when we prepared it. Lu is way too busy running things at school to eat. There are people to SEE, problems to SOLVE, sticks to GATHER. So when I opened her snack tray, it appeared she had eaten nothing as usual. But upon closer inspection the muffins were gone. She even asked for more on the way home. "Lucy mussins? Lucy and Mama mussins?"

There are like 8 mussins left. Come and have one. Even though they taste kind of weird, I promise they will make you smile.

While the cat's away...

... The mouse will completely take advantage of the other cat.

Kate has been out of town so it has just been Lucy and dad. It's been fun. It really has. But Lucy has learned a couple of magic words that will haunt me for the rest of my days.

"Please Daddy!"

Of course those words come with the requisite pouty lips and half-moon, smiling eyes. And I fold like a taco. Smart kid.

You'll be happy to learn that with mommy away, Lucy and can focus on the important things in life. What is an ERA? And, what is the real value of a scrambling quarterback in the NFL? I'm still working on getting her to hum the ESPN theme song.

Kate comes back today and I think she'll be happy to see that I haven't let the dogs eat her or turned her into a NRA member.

For days she has been throwing around "I love you!!" Lucky recipients have been Granny, Mom, Clifford, Baby Rosie (christmas gift baby doll), Mary Ellen West and of course Mary (her rag doll). But no Daddy.

Until this morning. "I love you daddy!" The words came out of her mouth in a sweet, bronx-accented babble. Of course I went weak in the knees.

The moment was quickly ruined when it became clear she wanted to eat Goldfish crackers in front the TV. Smart kid.

Only Children Are Not That Strange

The pressure's on. Many of my mommy friends are pregnant with their second children. You know, Gwyneth Paltrow and Brooke Shields. Emily Rankin and Beth Wardy (who both have babies younger than mine).

It is distressing to me. Because I don't want to have another baby (I can hear the collective gasp from the grandmothers and aunts in the audience). I am not saying I NEVER want to have another baby. I just don't want to have one yet. And I might not. I just don't know. Is that okay?

Lu is perfect. I largely enjoyed being pregnant, except for maybe the very beginning and the very end, when Maggie informed me, "Those don't even look like your feet." And they didn't. Strange feet aside, pregnancy was pretty much a glorious, princess-y experience (if you were going to be a kind of puffy princess). Delivery: also good (at least as good as pushing a piano out of your privates can be). Infancy: good, and when it was not good, it was hilarious, which has always been good enough for me. I can safely say there is no trauma that I fear repeating.

Maybe I fear the second one won't be as great. Maybe I am afraid my slightly more slack stomach will collapse into complete matronly squishiness. Maybe I like this precious, perfect life we have, balanced like a Jenga game on a windy day.

Whatever. I have my reasons. Don't give me a hard time. I am an only child, after all. As everyone knows, we are very defiant.

Not a Moment Too Soon

Lucy is not yet two, but, man, can she be terrible. I won't list her whole rap sheet, but the shrieking, fit-throwing, and hitting are making her less lovable (or at least less likable).

Until yesterday. We were sitting in her bathroom and she was proffering different body parts for me to kiss. "Mama kiss arm. Mama kiss elbow. Mama kiss foot." Then she sweetly took my face in both her hands and said, "I love you." It was the first time ever, unprompted. That moment erases countless other hard ones. I am a sucker for her.