24/7

The Partner was home all day with no big plans to fix all that was failing around him. We ate breakfast first, which he cleared as I nursed Number Two. Then the baby napped. The Partner and The Boss played a board game. I shut the door on them all and ran a bath. Later we watched home movies of The Boss when she was the age Number Two is now. I had no recollection. Was she really ever so tiny? I looked down to where she sat, nestled in my arm on the love seat, and I found it hard to see her as anything other than what she was at that very moment. The past, though vivid on the screen, was faded; the future, a blur. I patted the solid bend of her leg next to mine. Then we were diverted to a flea market, where we bought a camping chair for $2. At home again, I cleaned up breakfast pans I'd left sitting. The Partner kissed my neck from behind me. The Boss watched a movie. Number Two played in a pen of primary colors. The Boss's bath came before dinner. I lined up foam letters in sh...

The Boss has been down to one pair of shoes--snow boots, actually--for more than a month. Since the freezing New England temperatures hadn't done anything to contraindicate the use of fur-lined vinyl over plastic soles, I was not motivated to purchase alternate footwear when I first realized she had outgrown every other pair of shoes she owned. Things changed yesterday. It was at the track behind the elementary school that she found herself left in the dust (let's be honest here--it was mud; I mean, the boots weren't totally unjustified) when the two boys she was playing with took off running. She couldn't keep up. She could only clomp. Then she could only slump. Then she could only sit there, kicking a sad sole into the dirt as her hair hung in front of her face. My girl knows how to hang with the big boys. What stopped her from matching their stride this time was my bad planning and my inability to accept the ferocious pace at which young feet bust out of whatever tri...

The second half of any given 28-day span will find me with the hormonal urge to do nothing but watch HGTV and read crime fiction. I am more content to think than do . I don't plan ahead and I don't create. I'm a slave to the whims of estrogen. I envy men their even keel. My husband's brain chemistry is simple and safe. In my head, on the other hand, it feels as if a middle school student with poor grades is conducting a never ending science experiment. It's all Bunsen burners and volatile solutions and things that go BOOM. I'm menstrually manic. I fly high for the first half of the month; I creep below the radar for the second. More than childbirth or having to pee sitting down, it's these moods that make me wax bitter about being a women. If I didn't have a history of breast cancer in the family, I'd pop a pill to regulate those hormones faster than you could say YAZ®. Instead, I let nature take its course.

I bent into low balance on the balls of my feet as I hugged The Boss. "Have a great day," I said to the space between ear and cheek, then I kissed her there for good measure. "Don't forget to give your school picture form to your teacher." Even as I gave that parting message, I wasn't much concerned about my daughter's follow-through. Maybe she'd remember, maybe she wouldn't. She's three years old. Things have a way of working out whether one makes a formal declaration as to the presence of a $22 check in one's backpack or not. The Boss turned away from me and walked toward the end of the hall, where her head teacher waited in greeting. Per classroom custom, The Boss extended her hand and the teacher shook it. "Wait, I have something for you," The Boss said, bending with purpose over her kangaroo backback and pulling a folded sheet of paper from the pouch. Her confidence belied her age as she handed the paper to the teacher. ...

It was Wacky Hat Friday at the Catholic school in which I was a kindergartener. I wore a party hat--the cone-shaped kind with the annoying elastic digging into my chin--that my mother had covered with orange felt and decorated with construction paper dots. Bobbling atop the hat was a star on a coil. The class lurched into the auditorium for an assembly that I can only imagine was the culmination of yet another fundraiser. A raffle was taking place onstage. I remember nothing of the offerings except for two Precious Moments baby dolls. They had blond hair and huge eyes. They were huggable-soft. I held my raffle ticket in a hand that shook to the beat of my thumping heart. At five years old, I'd never wanted anything so badly. I didn't win, of course. The difference between then and now is that I actually thought I would. I probably cried. I'm sure I was sad all day. It is what I remember as my first disappointment. Now I have a three year old daughter and a real-life baby d...

There are some things a night light can do, and some things it just might. The list for The Boss's new Sylvania PalPODzzz™ Portable Nightlight looks something like this: CAN DO: Light a dark room with a soft LED glow when the ladybug is docked on its pod. It automatically brightens as the room darkens. Illuminate a path with a rechargeable LED flashlight beam when the ladybug is removed from its pod. Act as a backup light during power outages. Look really cute while it's performing the above functions (note: the photo does not do it justice). Ladybug model JUST MIGHT: Help you potty train your child through the night. I had high hopes that the novelty of the fun little ladybug flashlight would lure The Boss out of the comfort of her bed and onto the potty, but it didn't happen. It turns out, however, that there is a rational basis to my wishful thinking , and it's been supported by Surrender Dorothy's experience. The PalPODzzz just may work as a night-training aid...

Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses came on the cable screen the night my then-soon-to-be husband celebrated his bachelor party in Montreal. I was home alone, a fat goblet of wine threatening to overflow onto the coffee table in front of me as I chain smoked out the window with clandestine vigor. The fingers of my lift hand released their weak grip on the remote control and it fell to my side. I watched the whole horror show. Triumph of Death c. 1562 by Pieter Bruegel the Elder I have a confused fascination with the macabre. Sometimes I can't look away and sometimes I can't look. There's a canvas print of the Triumph of Death hanging on my living room wall; I asked for and received part of Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights for Christmas. The final painting in the room is a thrift shop find of a statue coming to life as decapitated heads watch with eyes and maws agape. I'm not sure most people notice. I know I generally don't. I want to write a novel tha...

Yesterday I left wet laundry in the washing machine. Today the whole load smells like a SweeTart. Yesterday I agreed to be a speaker at a meeting about emotional support for birthing mothers. Today I tell myself I'll come up with my talking points tomorrow. Yesterday I sat in our green, micro suede love seat while I fed Number Two. I looked down at him between pages of the book I was reading and thought "I need to just watch him, I need to slow down." He slurped a contented tempo. Today I sit in the same love seat, falling into a pillow, still trying to match his pace. Yesterday I found a stash of saved emails and a journal from my college days. The Partner spent two hours reading through my angst, which was all about him. He thought it was funny and sweet. Today is just like yesterday; it's nothing like ten years ago.

Today I interviewed The Boss about her perceptions of me in the hope of eliciting some blog fodder. It worked for Toyfoto when she turned her reporter's notebook on her daughter, Annabel . I did not have similar success. The long list of questions included ones like this, "what do you do that makes your mom happy?" (her answer: not doing something bad ) and this, "what do you do that makes your mom sad?" (her answer: doing something bad ). I almost threw in the towel completely when she cited "vegetables" as my favorite food. The exercise was shaping up to be a bust. I didn't know that The Partner was listening from his home workstation in the corner of the kitchen until question #13 came up. "What's your mom's job?" I asked The Boss. " Cleaning the house ," she replied. I made a self-conscious little tee-hee at my daughter's gross misperception as the background click of the computer keyboard ceased beneath The Pa...