Kit yanked a wiggly tooth today, her first loss since the mass exodus of ‘05. I am the type of weirdo who keeps the baby teeth I pick up while executing my tooth fairy duties. While adding today’s lost molar to my macabre little collection, I found this gem. (Probably written in 1st grade, same time period as afore mentioned exodus):

It seems I am raising a very polite little empiricist.

You know, I’m starting to think all this “attachment parenting” stuff is utter bullshit. I nursed and I co-slept like a champion and what has it gotten me? Two children who are stuck to me like white on rice. These sticky, albeit healthy and confident children will not go to bed without me. Nor can they bear to be parted from me for more than a nanosecond. I admit, it’s late at night and I have just finished getting The Boy to sleep after a prolonged struggle so my description of them is somewhat less charitable than is accurate.

I know I need a schedule. A robust, fairly inflexible waking/napping/bedtime schedule and schedules have never been my thing. But let’s look at the facts: the first child I raised has almost always gone to bed with minimal fuss. The children I am currently teaching to sleep suck at it. The difference? The oldest had a goddamn schedule that I had to adhere to because I was working and was in school. Now that I’m at home, we pretty much wake when we please, nap whenever and go to bed sometime after 11pm. The oldest got a healthy dose of “cry-it-out”. I totally whiffed on that one with the younger two. Breast-feeding on demand and co-sleeping worked great when they were infants. It kept me sane. Now those same behaviors are the bane of my nighttime existence. I imagine I could have done things differently - nursing till sleepy, not asleep. Letting them cry more. Moving the crib out of my room. Neither of the little kids ever found a favorite stuffed animal. Why, when they have me? I know, in theory, that having small people more attached to their mother than to a few pieces of soft cloth and fluff, is a good thing. But, damn, does it ever make nighttime settling difficult.

Tomorrow, I wake at 7am. I am a grown-up. I will conquer that last rebellious shred of my adolescent soul bridling at the thought of waking before 10 everyday. At the thought of schedules. I will get these little monster in line and I *will* enjoy a few hours of peace every evening.

We were only gone for a week, I swear! It seems that in those seven days Mr. Boy grew 5 feet and gained 100 pounds, started smoking and referring to his father by his first name. I’m sure there’s a secret motorcycle stashed somewhere.

A non sequiter: at dinner at Pearl in the MGM Grand, I sat 2 feet away from Nigel Lythgoe, American Idol producer and illustrious judge of “So You Think You Can Dance?”. If he had not been having dinner with a complete wackadoo, I would have pestered him for an autograph (Kit and I are big fans of “..Dance”). As it was, I was too embarrassed for him to even consider acknowledging that I knew who he was.

I spent the 1st day of my thirtieth year in Las Vegas. A morning at the spa, afternoon poolside. The Red Wings won the Stanley Cup a few hours before we left for dinner at Joel Robuchon.

Pretentious as it might sound, it is utterly accurate to say that eating the food served at Robuchon’s was like consuming a soul free of it’s body. We went for broke (somewhat literally) with the 12 course tasting menu. Rather than the complex, esoteric combinations of ingredients I was expecting, we were served relatively simple dishes that tasted precisely like whatever the main ingredients were. Only more so.

I ate caviar, langoustine ravioli, scallops and sea urchin. SEA URCHIN. I am normally repulsed by seafood - yet it was delicious. Even standards like split pea and ham soup and tomato, mozzarella and basil salad turned elegant. Precise. They made me a meringue, vanilla ice cream and raspberry sorbet birthday cake and packed us a box of petit fours. All of my meals the following day were disappointing.

The whole trip was great but that day was special. I’m a very lucky girl and an extraordinarily happy foodie.

I want this bunny. Real bad.

from grumble toys

Part of me wants shelves full of all my favorite adorable toys. Part of me (the part that controls my credit cards, sadly) says, “No. You’re an adult. And you hate clutter”.

I’ve got three kids. 18 months, 3 and 10 years old. Almost everything I write is about the two youngest but not for lack of interesting material about the oldest. It’s just that when it comes to Miss Mitten I feel the need to really, really watch what I share. She reads my blog, her friends read my blog.

I could spend some quality time deconstructing the part played by Mrs. Coulter (Marisa Coulter, Golden Compass - not Ann) in two of her recent dreams. I could talk about the pressure I’m sure she’s feeling to keep her A average. The upcoming transition to middle school. How trying new things is often difficult for her even though she usually succeeds with some effort and encouragement. The challenges of parenting a pre-teen girl. I let all these things roll around in my head but when it comes time to put fingers to keyboard, I hold back.

I’ve been thinking lately about whether mommy blogging will survive this necessary sensitivity and discreetness. Most famous mommy bloggers have children around the age of my two youngest and are looking at years of relative freedom when it comes to content. (There must be parents of older children making these very negotiations online today. How do they resolve this?) I worry that the nakedness inherent in truly great writing and blogging is deeply incompatible with the needs of adolescents and will close the door of our confessional. A small price to pay to respect the privacy of our growing kids but sad, nonetheless. Although - a new generation of storytellers? That will be wonderful.

Today is our neighborhood garage sale. As I drove through the subdivision, looking for a slide/climber for Toot and The Boy, several things dawned on me:

1. With the amount of stuff people keep in their garages and basements (at least in my ‘hood), just waiting for this annual sale, one could easily furnish and a clothe a small country. That said, if my things don’t sell (and I have a lot less than most, being allergic to clutter) I’m going to find a way to box it up and send it off to China or Burma, via some charitable organization. Maybe they will actually enjoy the giant Korean vase (topped by a golden jindo!) my MIL foisted on me last year.

2. Older people/couples have all the good wares. I found 3 white pyrex dishes, 3 oven safe white rammekins and a stack of adorable melamine plates (pics to follow), for 4.30$ in the garage of a man who enjoyed a hearty chuckle when I used the word “mid-century” in conversation with him.

3. Something happens to the neighborhood about 2 blocks east of my house. The houses look the same, same diverse mix of inhabitants, number of trees etc. I can’t properly express it, things just feel different once you turn left on James Street. (cue eerie music)

So far, I’ve made 9 dollars. We’re eating steak tonight!

From this morning’s chat log:

CM: also, have you heard about the maxi dress?
Kate: I have
CM: i’m berry excited about the maxi dress
Kate: yeah, they would look v. nice on you!
CM: i’m excited about the idea of not having to deflect comments about my pasty white legs
Kate: I’ve forsworn longs skirts. Too much time dressed like a FLDS wife as a girl.
CM: ha!
Kate: I mean, I’ll go past the knee but no where near the ankle
CM: well if it goes past the knee it has to be less on top
it’s like it has to crawl
Kate: yeah, that’s a good way to put it
CM: because yeah, especially with some of the “prairie” prints out there, there’s a total FLDS vibe
Kate: And I totally had that hair
CM: when did you have FLDS hair?
Kate: blame Anne of Green Gables
when I was like 9-12
I wouldn’t wear it like that all the time or anything
CM: ha! i LOVED anne of green gables
Kate: but the puff sleeve thing? and we’ll call it “Anne Shirley” hair - I was all over it

If someone could tell me how to change my template so that it has flexible width, that would make me very happy.

I feel in love with Jonathan Adler’s pottery when I saw his aorta vases. Sadly, I could never bring myself to lay out the cash for one (which ended up being ok, since I found a very similar vase on a Navajo reservation in New Mexico and snapped it up). This salt and pepper set was on sale on his website a few months ago and I couldn’t resist. They sit on my kitchen window sill and keep me company when I’m doing dishes.