meanwhile...

Perhaps I Should Have Said, "Soon-ish"

2009-10-01T23:50:00.002-04:00

I know, I know, I'm lame. I promise blog posts and don't deliver. Guilty as charged, but I'm here now, aren't I?

Freya is now officially settled in at her new preschool. And despite the fact that it's costing us an arm and a leg (that's right, I'm a double amputee now) I'm pretty happy with it. Her teacher is from NYC, which warms my Yankee heart, and she doesn't let them get away with anything, which is awesome - not to mention perfect for Freya, who, as we all know, is inclined towards evil. (I'm not laying blame here, it's just who she is and we love her for it.)

The first few weeks Freya had a hard time making friends. She mostly hung out with her teachers and worked on her "homework." (A workbook I bought her in response to her complaint that "I'm not learning anything!") but now she has a long list of all of her friends and I've seen them on the playground. It's almost terrifyingly cute: five super-blond, very small, very smart little girls. They match: it's freaky. But totally awesome. She doesn't talk about them a lot; I think she still misses the one-on-one time with Matilda - after all, they had all summer together - but she also doesn't complain about not having any friends anymore, and even better, she doesn't feel the need to list the few friends that she does have; they're just par for the course now, and that's the way it should be.

Matilda is doing fine in second grade: she's adaptable. But so far the issues with her teacher are still unresolved. She did finally respond to my note by saying that she'd call when she had a chance, but so far nothing. I'll call next week if she doesn't call me first. We're getting into dangerous territory though. I don't know if you know this (okay, Mom, Dad, I know you know this) but I almost flunked out of third grade 'cause the homework was stupid. Last night Matilda's homework - while not quite as stupid as I remember the 100 problems I had to do 23 years ago - included one problem with two possible answers. Who writes this crap? I wrote a note. I had to! Come on, you're trying to teach a seven-year-old how to multiply and divide by two, right, and you're also teaching them - implicitly, granted - that each question has only ONE correct answer; and then you go and throw in a question that, if the directions are followed to the letter, has TWO correct answers? Not cool!

Just to be clear, I'm all for teaching kids that most questions worth asking have more than one possible answer, but let's be clear, too: that's not the take-away lesson in Matilda's second grade classroom, at least not from what I've seen so far.

I'll keep you updated, but the one thing I'm not willing to do, and have never been willing to do, is sit passively by and send my daughter(s) to public school without keeping an eye on what all they teach them up in there. It's apt to be, you know, crazy mainstream shit or something. The saga will continue...

Listen, Lady, Let Me Tell You the Moral of This Story

2009-09-15T22:01:00.003-04:00

Last week there was a combo welcome-back/PTA meeting at Matilda's elementary school. I hadn't realized it, but because of their emphasis on arts integration in the curriculum, Lee is a magnet school, which is one of the reasons turnout was so high. I went with one of our neighbors and listened to the head of the PTA for a few minutes (who I decided right then and there I could never work with - she managed to pull off a tone that was both patronizing and insipid), before we split up to go to each child's classroom.

Matilda's new teacher has been working with first and second graders for longer than I've been alive. I'm all for experience, but I can't help being wary of someone so embedded in an institution. She seemed very nice, very competent: she's got a system worked out for just about everything and I'm sure it helps the days go much more smoothly when she can keep her little ducks in a row. She showed the parents who were there the math materials and explained the reading schedule. She went over what the children are expected to do when they have questions and how discipline is handled in the classroom. I left that night with a pretty good idea of what Matilda's days will look like this year, and while she’s in no danger of thinking outside of any boxes while she’s there, I felt okay about how second grade was shaping up.

You can tell there's a "but" coming, can't you? Yeah, you know Steve and I too well to believe for a second that we could hand our children over to a ~~conformity factory~~ government-run institution without almost instantly making ourselves a pain in their ass. It's true. It's natural. It's right.

Matilda's teacher sends home a hand-written note every two weeks detailing Til's progress, or areas she's having trouble with. Which is great, and believe me, having just started teaching myself I am more than a little in awe of this woman's ability to remain committed to each individual student after teaching for 38 years.

This week she wrote about Til's reading assessment and how, although she read very well, and was able to summarize the story with plenty of detail, she missed the "moral or lesson" of the story. I don't know exactly which story she read, but according to the note, the moral was that "a small animal can help a big one, or that size doesn't matter." And apparently, when Matilda relayed what had happened in the story, she said it was about one character helping another character.

And yet, she "missed the point."

I wrote a note back. I had to; I couldn't help myself. I needed to know what the point of the retelling was, really. Was it to understand that size doesn't matter? Because if that was the point, then didn't Matilda's reading suggest a pre-existing, internalized understanding of the "moral" of the story? Is it really necessary to remind her that most of the time size does matter, simply to point out that the story is saying it doesn't? WTF? On the other hand, if the purpose of exploring the "moral" of a story is to develop analysis skills, then I'm all for it: make sure she sees all of the social and cultural elements that went into the writing of the story, think about who the author is and why they might have chosen to write such a story, explore things that might have been left out, encourage her to examine each characters motivation.

I have a feeling that as soon as my note hits her desk it'll go right into a file labeled Problem Parents. My feelings about public education and its benefits and limitations are complicated enough without having to deal with teachers so entrenched in the system that they see no problem asking a question with only one right answer. I don't know yet what the moral of this story will be, but I'll keep you posted, and let's just all keep our fingers crossed that the moral isn't sit down and shut up, cause that won’t end well for anyone.

Coming Soon...

2009-09-10T22:36:00.002-04:00

If I write it in the title of a blog post it must be true! I, Nell H. McCabe, do solemnly swear to post very, very soon about the following:

Freya's demand for hardcore academics in her preschool classroom
My own classroom, in which I have been given young minds to warp, I mean mold, I mean teach
Matilda's second grade teacher who has been teaching small people for longer then I've been alive
Steve's crazy-ass, but kind of awesome, new job
our new car (!!!)
various neighborhood exploits
etc.

Until then: you're awesome, I love you.

-N

the BIG question(s)

2009-08-09T12:39:00.004-04:00

I'm having a lot of trouble being productive this summer: I haven't written much, haven't read enough (although what is enough? really?), haven't completed the work for the PhD applications I've been thinking about. On the plus side, our apartment has never been cleaner and the closets have never been more organized.

What I have been doing is thinking, and talking, and thinking some more. I'm feeling torn between the academic track and the life track. Here's the thing, I want to write the novel that I've had in progress for way too long now, and I just can't seem to do that while I'm in school. I need the mental space of not devoting my creative energy to academic projects in order to get back to the place where I can really work on it, really pull it apart and put it back together and move it forward. I know some people can do both, but it may be time to accept that I am not one of them.

Steve argues that if I don't at least apply to programs, I'll regret it. He might be right. In which case it would make sense to postpone decisions until March or so when I've gathered the latest batch of acceptance and rejection letters and have several options instead of just two. But on the other hand, applying to schools means polishing an academic writing sample that I feel lukewarm about, writing a personal statement that convinces not only admissions committees but also myself that this is what I want to do, and paying out hundreds of dollars in application fees. Is it worth going through all that (not to mention the months of waiting, waiting, waiting, a subject to which I have devoted more than one post on the blog in the past and which, for those of you who do not remember, I am not very good at) just to postpone my decision for a few months?

It seems to me that the question I need to be asking myself is this: if school X accepts me, do I want to spend five+ years there writing academic papers, submitting articles, attending conferences, reading for comps, writing a dissertation and still struggling to find the time to write the fiction that I want to write?

The answer is still I don't know, but I feel myself leaning towards no. It's not that I don't like academia, or that I think I'd be unhappy, or too stressed out (although I'm sure all of those things would apply intermittently); it's more that I just don't think I want to. And of course this isn't just about me. There are lots of other things to take into account, including the fact that uprooting my family again for another program and then a third time when (if) I get a job after graduation is a big deal. Moving across the country wasn't easy for any of us, but Matilda still talks about moving back to Massachusetts despite the fact that we've been here for a full year and she's made friends and loves her school.

I could use some advice here: should I apply to programs knowing that I might decide not to go, or should I figure out what exactly I want to be doing first and then take whatever steps are necessary? Some kind of list is probably in order here...

In unrelated news, here's a picture of Matilda with our neighbor Amelia:

Ferd's Been Taking Some Risks Lately

2009-07-23T14:52:00.003-04:00

Freya's been very supportive, but it's taking its toll.

First we caught her bungee jumping on the playground.

Her explanation was pretty weak: the cool kids?

Come on; heard it.

When she came home with her make-up all askew we confronted her.

She said she just wanted the Barbies to like her.

We said we understood.

Lately she's been keeping to herself a lot, just going outside, swinging.

We got her into a support group, but she stopped going after a week.

She's been sleeping a lot.

I suppose we should have known there was a problem two years ago in Maine.

She told us she had it under control.

Who are you going to believe?

Your seven-year-old photographer, or her plastic babydoll?

blurry

2009-07-23T14:50:00.000-04:00

It's All Good

2009-07-18T09:54:00.004-04:00

So it turns out that one of the things that happens when you don't get married is you also don't have wedding anniversaries (who knew?). It's actually pretty convenient; there's nothing to remember or forget, no disappointed partner moping around, waiting for you to remember that you forgot, and also, if you decide you want one, you can just have one whenever you want!

Yesterday was our anniversary.

We drank some wine and hung out and had a really relaxing evening. The weather here has been just perfect - we might not adore the state of Missouri, but it sure knows how to do summer - and the balcony off our bedroom is lovely in the evening.

The best part is that we talked, like really talked, about big stuff that we've been ignoring for a while now - my guilt over making everyone move to Missouri, what he wants to do with the future, where we might end up, or not end up - and it was good. I still feel a little guilty for dragging my family halfway across the country, but better, definitely better, and it's not forever; we might not end up home just yet, but it seems less and less likely that we'll be staying here.

In any case, I highly recommend anniversaries as excuses for just about anything and think that I like the flex-i-versary kind the best, because I (or he) can decide when they are, and that way they can come on just the right day.

Taking Shape

2009-07-16T11:48:00.006-04:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about moving, mostly since we'll probably have to do it again next year, and also because of the wedding last weekend. There are all these factors, things that don't really feel like they go together, but they do; they fit at awkward angles, jutting out, like a puzzle with no edges. So that's how this post will be too, a series of pieces with only a tenuous thread of recent thoughts and occurrences holding them together.

I moved a lot as a kid, always for different reasons: jobs, schools, neighborhoods, family. Maybe this has made me restless, I don't know. It's one of those facts of the past that is neither here nor there, one of those things that made you who you are and that you couldn't change even if you wanted to so there's just nothing to be done. I remember liking the new houses, exploring the best hide-outs and reading spots. I remember how moving made my Powell House friends that much more important to me, even though my parents had to drive me hours to visit them.

The ceremony this past weekend was held in the backyard of Elizabeth's parent's house. It was beautiful, everything done up just right - simple, elegant - for the wedding. A few of us stayed down the street at Tanya's parent's house. Both families have been in those two homes for longer than I've known them: since Liz and Tanya were babies, before that even. What would that be like - to have a place you can go that is overflowing with memories, a place in which you are more fully yourself than anywhere else in the world?

Of course I am fully capable of romanticizing the opposite, moving from place to place, never getting tied down, bringing the family you love with you wherever you go.

If I move again, for more school, we'll have to move again after that, too. In a field as competitive as academia, that's just what you do. And when you have these other people, these awesome kids, this great partner, who will just go with you - the partner because he's supportive and generous, the children because they have no choice - is both freeing and impossible. How can I ask myself what I want when the answer will affect so many lives?

There are people, some of whom I adore, who have a kind of knowing, a self-assured certainty about the way things could and should be. They seem to operate with this projected ideal in mind and in so doing they create for themselves a world in which the imagined reality becomes the actual reality. Of course it's more complicated, I know that, but I can't help wondering what it would be like to just know: to know what I wanted, to know who I wanted, to know where I wanted to be, or to end up, or any of that. I don't.

I move forward because I can't make time stop. My children grow older, more beautiful, smarter every day. My relationship shifts, changes, falters and strengthens, depending. My home remains miles away, waiting for me, and still I move forward: I fill out forms and send submissions; I write academic papers that I almost believe in; I read novels and love them; or I read novels and wonder why anyone ever thought they were worth publishing; I make lists and plans and diagrams; I think and talk and write down the future, I sketch it, I dream it. I think that soon - I hope soon - the jumble of pieces will begin to separate, I think that soon I will be able to see how they fit, and then, when I can see them all, when I've collected them all, I will put them in an order, in a shape that forms a path.

and Back Again

2009-07-15T09:30:00.001-04:00

My recent trip to the East coast has left me feeling more things than I can fit in a single blog post: my dear friend Elizabeth's (see Liz, I'm trying) wedding was absolutely beautiful; I saw family and friends who make me feel like I belong somewhere; I thought and talked about what I (we) want to do next; and didn't stop moving for more than 15 minutes during the entire week-long trip. It might be weeks before I can process all of this stuff.

I tend to feel isolated in Columbia; sure, I've made friends, but in Berkshire County, that's where my people are, you know? I don't know where we'll end up next, and probably won't for a while yet, but I do know that I am determined not to let the people I love slip out of my life. I need them (you) more than even I realize most of the time.

Why we're in trouble, and so forth.

2009-05-27T08:59:00.003-04:00

She's only seven, and yet...

This hair was stage two in a three part process - braids, kinks, and then cut. I'll post more pictures of stage three soon. Freya's hair is short again, too.

Matilda has only three days left of being a first grader, and then summer looms before us in all it's beautiful swimming pool glory. It really does promise to be a good one; I'll keep you posted.

N

How Graduate School Ruined Reading

2009-05-20T11:01:00.003-04:00

So I am now officially done with my first year of graduate school. Woo-hoo! The last of the papers is in and I can chill for a day or two. Yes, a day or two. Because soon the real work begins. Not only do I have a backlog of paid work to finish, but I have to polish a paper and gather the rest of my PhD application materials this summer so that in the fall, when I'm taking three classes, teaching two and doing an internship, I don't also have to go through the tedious process of applying to PhD programs.

But the summer here is looking beautiful and the girls and I are looking forward to hanging out outside and swimming and resting and playing as well, they'll be time for everything, right?

I have one brief East coast trip planned near the beginning of July so that I can attend my dear friend Liz's wedding. Part of my wishes I could bring the girls with me, but I'm not, and I have to say, I am pretty excited about having a week to myself.

The thing that I am most excited for this summer is reading. This sounds crazy, I know. You're an English major, don't you read, like, all the time? Well, yes, but not for pleasure. Luckily the last paper I wrote reminded me how much I really do love to read. I was writing about Richard Russo's Empire Falls (which I highly recommend) and as I was skimming through looking for passages that supported my various arguments, I kept getting sucked in. The language was so beautiful, the characters so compelling, the events so interesting... Multiple times I forgot I was writing anything at all and sat for long periods of time rereading scenes that I had forgotten all about, letting myself sink into the novel as if I didn't have a looming deadline.

So yesterday, first thing, I went and bought myself a new novel - something completely unrelated to school or the list of books I've been compiling to read this summer (a list designed to fill in the many gaps in my reading that I've discovered over the course of the past year). Today - right now - I will take my book outside, lie on a blanket in the shade, and read.

Again with the planning, always with the planning.

2009-02-20T08:44:00.002-05:00

I had thought I'd stay here to do the PhD, but now that we're here I'm not sure this is the place for us. The East coast calls to me and I don't think we should stay gone for so long.

The problem is that there really aren't any Creative Writing PhDs on the East coast and so if I want a PhD I'm going to have to get one in Literature, which isn't the worst thing I could do, I would just have to be careful not to let the creative writer part of me get lost along the way. I'd like to say it wouldn't, that it's strong enough, but I know that's not true, it'd be all too easy to let things slide.

The best would be if I could manage to get into Cornell University's MFA/PhD program, and even though I know that my odds are slim, I'm determined to do everything I can to be the best applicant I can. My list of things to do before next fall now look a little overwhelming, and that's why I'm going to put it here and then ignore it for a little while (but not too long):

retake GRE and GRE Subject Test (ugh)
write an excellent critical writing sample (in a class that I'm taking now)
publish my creative work (more than one story if possible)
write the best personal statement ever (this might be the hardest part)
review the work of Cornell faculty
find at least five other programs I'd like to be in

That's it for now.

In other news Matilda seems to have completely settled in to her new school now. She sold the most girl scout cookies of anyone in her group and loves loves loves her first grade teacher who told me yesterday that she was worried about living up to the high standards set by Matilda's kindergarten teacher but knew she had arrived when, about three months into the school year, Matilda hugged her and said, "You're as good as Mrs. Campbell." I don't know how long our great luck with teachers can hold out, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I know all kids say crazy stuff, but...

2009-01-31T17:44:00.001-05:00

"Oh sister, why are you so sad? Let's go see the Great Vagina."

Until tomorrow

2009-01-12T16:52:00.002-05:00

I was reminded today why I'm here. It was timely. In trying to figure out the next step, I've been doubting everything lately, wondering what I'm doing here: alternately pushing myself to get things done, then resigning myself to defeat when I fail.

But after exhausting all avenues of distraction today - playing scrabble on facebook, chatting with friends, driving around aimlessly for a while - I actually wrote. A lot. A new story that's about a lot of things - maybe too many - that has (at least for this afternoon) made me remember why I'm here and why it is the right place for me. At least for now.

My New Job at Burger King

2009-01-09T11:40:00.001-05:00

This post was written back when I had about three readers. This is different from today how? you ask. Now I have three different readers. So I'm reposting. Enjoy. Original post date: 6/8/07.

I have decided to go look for a job at Burger King, because at least then I would receive adequate training. They probably even have corporate training videos that I could watch in the manager's cave-like office that smells of greased pickles.

I'm not sure who to complain to about this, but my children did not come with instructional videos and I really don't feel like washing dishes that seem to breed every time I turn my back and that I sure as hell am not getting paid to wash.

At Burger King I would be trained to serve people crappy food, but damn, would I be trained well. The manager, let's call him Ronnie, would be in his late-thirties. He's wanted to be the manager of this particular Burger King since he was just a kid, so he takes his job really seriously. It actually hurts him deeply if an employee feels that he did not train them properly, and he's not afraid to make them feel guilty for upsetting him.

But Ronnie and I will get along great. I'm not like all those high school kids who think that this is just a place to make a few bucks on the way to the rest of their lives, oh no. Of course I can't bring the same kind of enthusiasm to my work as Ronnie, but I have a deep appreciation of the important work we all do here.

Of course the thorough employee training is a huge attraction, but there are other benefits as well. For one thing, no one breaks two glasses in a single day at Burger King because they have cleverly eliminated glasses all together. Brilliant.

No one knocks over the lamps at Burger King and then pretends they have no idea what happened, this is because the lamps are tied to the ceiling. I am thinking of stealing this idea for my home actually. Don't tell Ronnie, he might feel it was his duty to report me to corporate headquarters.

Also (and I'm guessing here because I don't have the statistics handy) I'd be willing to bet that children and kittens don't regularly pee and poop on the floor at Burger King. Oh sure, there might be the occasional accident, but I can smile sympathetically at the poor mother of the unfortunate toddler as I clean the floor with my over sized mop because, hey, it wasn't my toddler. Besides, I will be getting paid to clean that shit up.

I can offer the same exact smile for the following: screaming children, crying children, unfuckingbelieveably whiny children, and children who are served food and then refuse to eat it. My calm and sympathetic demeanor will be absolutely zen. Ronnie will probably want to promote me to assistant manager, but unfortunately he already promised the position to eighteen-year-old girlfriend Veronica.

But this too is okay, because I don't want to be a manager, in fact, part of the attraction of my new job is the total lack of responsibility. I know Ronnie tells me I have an obligation to make our customers happy, but I don't have to balance the books, keep the fridges in the back stocked with an assortment of meals and snacks, wash every one's uniforms, or clean the whole place all by myself without so much as a thank-you. Ronnie will always say thank-you.

Maybe if my children had come with a few of the benefits that my new job includes I might feel differently. But as it is I think that everyone will be happier if I am happier, and so I have decided to leave my family and work 12-18 hours a day at Burger King. I think I will be a more relaxed and balanced individual and I'm pretty sure that if I am relaxed and happy, I will be a better mother as well.

Settling Back In, Making Goals

2009-01-07T16:48:00.003-05:00

Every few hours I stop and sigh. The trip east to the Berkshires was lovely, relaxing in some ways, stressful in others. It felt odd to be wanting to come home - home being Missouri - having wanted for months to go home - home being the Berkshires.

I've started thinking about The Future. There's this whole progression of grad school stuff that creeps backward from admission into a PhD program to now, meaning that even though I could probably put off thinking about stuff until the summer, I sort of forced to start now: choose an advisor, based on what my thesis will be about; choose a thesis topic, based on what kind of PhD program I want; choose a PhD program, based on?

There are so many questions. Some - many - of them without answers. East Coast, West Coast or middle? Creative Writing or Literature? PhD, MFA or both?

Last year at this time I was waiting. Waiting, and planning my cross country trip with Fionn and Matilda to check out the places I'd decided on. I had decided on them. I thought I knew, and I did: what I wanted was set, the wheels were in motion, I was waiting, that's all.

Now, again, I have to choose. I have to sit down with Steve, mull over the many options - how close is too close to family? How far is too far away? Where will be best for us? For the girls? It's not like we're starting from scratch, as now have the experience of living here for a few months to balance out our thinking. Since we can't really ever know what the future will hold, that will just have to be enough. For now.

Day of the Fiscal Rollercoaster

2008-12-24T16:16:00.003-05:00

So it turns out that being a grad student means you are poor.

This morning, while looking for a bag to bring with me on our trip, I found a one hundred dollar bill. For real! It doesn't get any better than that, right? And it was timely, man was it timely. So the girls and I dropped Steve off at work, deposited half the money in the bank and took the other half to the evil empire (aka WalMart) where we bought some coloring books for the plane and a few last minute Christmas items.

Then we went across the street to the grocery store where we picked up a few things for Christmas morning and snacks for the trip.

Oops! Card declined.

We tried it twice. The cashier was super nice about it, but we had to leave our food and go back to the bank to find out what had happened to the fifty dollars I had just put in our account.

Oops again. They closed at noon today. Damn. That meant that the money was unavailable, for whatever reason, until after Christmas, which meant not enough cash left to put gas in the car in order to get to the airport tomorrow afternoon. Damn. I checked my balance at the ATM: 84 cents. Damn, where was my fifty bucks?

Swearing at the bank under my breath, we turned around and drove back to the evil empire, where I returned everything I had just bought and got my money back. Just how I wanted to spend Christmas eve. The return process was actually fairly simple, for which I was grateful. I don't like being grateful to the evil empire, but hey, it was a grudging kind of gratefulness. Back across the street to the grocery store I scaled down our purchases to the bare essentials and then filled the car with gas. Heading home all I could do was hope that nothing else would come up that required money in the next day and a half.

In the mailbox was a letter from the bank. Our account had been overdrawn by $49.87. The letter did not offer any further explanation.

Sigh. No money. Oh well, I'm pretty much used to it. Shopping this Christmas has been an exercise in frugality, and to tell you the truth, I think I'm getting pretty good at strategic gift buying.

At home the girls and I ate leftover macaroni and cheese and I sat down at the computer to check my email and the weather. Again. Not thinking there would be anything there, I checked the other bank account, just to see. And guess what? We have money! Not a lot, but my assistantship check went through, so we're not totally broke, yay!

As relieved as I feel, I am also exhausted. When Steve gets home from work I am going to the store and I am going to buy us a nice bottle of wine, and we'll drink wine and eat cheese while we relax by the Christmas tree... okay, fine, while we wrap presents from Santa and steal his cookies.

I need at least a few hours before tomorrow's Day of Traveling Alone with Two Small Children.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

And since the rate at which I have been posting really is that slow:

Happy New Year!

Doesn't every party need one of these?

2008-12-20T13:29:00.003-05:00

Me: Hey girls, let's finish cleaning and make tonight really special for Daddy, we'll make the house all nice and serve hors devours and everything!

Matilda: I want to be the girl who is the waitress!

Freya: I want to be the girl who tells people what they want!

Tonight's Conversation with the Small One

2008-12-05T09:03:00.002-05:00

Freya has adopted the official position that there are exactly three reasons why people might not eat all or part of their dinner.

1. They have a tummy ache.

2. They are full.

3. They are not hungry.

(After listing these off for us a few nights ago she then firmly announced, "and I do not have a tummy ache.")

Sometimes, when she's not eating her food (which seems to be more about power and control than any of the above reasons) she will perform magic tricks, illusions, if you will, during which Steve and I must close our eyes and wait for her signal. When we open our eyes - get this - the bite in question has disappeared!

Tonight was not a magic show night, however, so I decided - after telling her in no uncertain terms that her three ultimate reasons were not going to cut it - to try to explain why her body needs different kinds of foods to grow and be healthy.

"I am four," she says, holding up two fingers on each hand "and on my next birthday I will be five," she adds a finger, "that is how I grow."

"That's how you get older," I say, "but to grow and be healthy your body needs all different kinds of vitamins and nutrients."

"People get bigger because they grow, soooooo.... and I am up to here," she puts a hand just below her eyes, "on my sister and soon I will be up to here." The hand moves up about an inch: right in front of her eyes.

I agree that she is getting big, but insist that this is not a valid argument for avoiding her vegetables.

"Okay, Mom, okay," she says, holding up her hands, "how about this. You close your eyes and dream that I am eating kale and spinach and lettuce and..." she pauses to consider her options, "carrots... and apples-"

"-and oranges," Matilda adds helpfully.

"Matilda! I couldn't eat that much! Okay, Mom, you can just dream that I am eating all of those things, okay?" She settles back in her chair, apparently confident that she's wrapped up this particular argument quite nicely.

"Uh, Frey? Do the things that we dream really happen?" I ask, clearly with a right answer in mind.

She give me an exasperated sigh, "Just use your imagination!"

I didn't have a rebuttal for that one and resorted to the tried and true (and often inadequate), "Just eat your greens, Freya."

"Okay," she says, "I will, but first can we keep talking about this for a little longer?"

I think that in the process of choosing a preschool program we might want to find out which ones has a debate team.

And Then She Was Four

2008-11-26T10:38:00.010-05:00

Freya is four today. Of course she woke up early and, having slept in her dress, she was ready to open birthday presents. First though, she let Matilda read her the cards.

Then she got down to work.

It's a pigeon!

And she loved her puzzle.

Even though it took a long time to put together since she had to try every piece in every spot regardless of color or shape.

It was still good.

And so it goes: I have no more babies to call my own, which is fine with me since our new neighbors (who will be joining us later for make-your-own pizza night) have a very cute one that I can borrow and big girls are way more fun than babies anyway. Especially when they play for hours with their Barbies, fairies, pigeons and Transformers in a game that involves cross-dressing, evil stepmothers, pirates and clowns.

Happy Birthday, Freya!

Late Friday Night

2008-11-19T09:02:00.001-05:00

In the wee hours of the morning, the apartment complex is cloaked in a weak darkness, its rectangular buildings glowing across the hillside, illuminated by automatic lights outside every door, streetlights along every section of the curving drive. In one apartment someone wakes, frightened, to hear a rattle at the door: someone is trying to get in. They call the police.

Steve and I are asleep: Steve on the couch, me alone in our bed, still recovering from the cold that has been hanging on for a week. The girls are sleeping too, each in her own bunk. None of us hear our own apartment door open and shut again. We don't hear someone bump into the wall and take off his shoes, and whether he falls to the floor, or eases himself down, we don't hear that either. Even Steve, only a few feet away from the stranger, is still sleeping soundly.

Until six police officers also let themselves in. They are alert, their guns are drawn and they survey the living room, assessing the situation. They don't know who is supposed to be here; maybe the man asleep on the floor belongs, and the one of the couch does not. Suddenly Steve is awake. Six guns are aimed at him.

In the bedroom I begin to wake more slowly, I think I hear something happening in the living room: people's voices.

"Stay where you are!" Someone says, and I get up quickly and walk out to the living room. The police have decided that Steve is the one who belongs here, and that the man on the floor is the stranger.

"Is there anyone else in the apartment?" one of them asks me.

"Just the children," I say, and then, less sure, "I think."

They check the rest of the apartment, peering into our bedroom and the children's room where the girls are still fast asleep, two lumps under their covers, barely visible as the beam of the officer's flashlight dances across them. I watch, try to will the officer to be quiet, the girls to stay asleep. When he's done I close the girls' door behind him and we walk back to the living room to join the others. And the stranger.

A woman officer ask me if I know him, but the rest of the police are standing in a huddle around the man, putting him in handcuffs and trying to wake him up.

"I can't see him," I say, and step over his legs to where I can look at his face. He is white, he has brown hair, and he is out cold. He is in his twenties maybe, wearing blue jeans and a t-shirt. His hands are bound behind his back by the handcuffs and his right elbow is bloody, scraped on something before he got here, I guess. I look at him carefully. No. I don't know him, I tell them. One of the police has taken the man's wallet out of his pocket and reads me his name. I shake my head, I don't know him.

I glance at Steve who is still over by the couch. We lock eyes and for a moment are both just thinking how weird this all is. I almost smile, but then one of the officer's says, "He's not wearing any shoes," and with insight that must only come from a rigorous training regimen continues, "but his socks are clean, he must have worn shoes to get here."

All eyes fall on a pair of men's sneakers tossed one on top of the other near the back of the couch. They ask if the shoes belong to us - to Steve - and we say they don't, they must be his.

The stranger on the floor still hasn't moved. I begin to feel sorry for him, the poor guy is so drunk he doesn't even know he's handcuffed and sleeping in someone else's living room. On the floor. Two of the officer's reach down and grab the man under his arms, hauling him to his feet. He looks around, obviously confused, but says nothing as they maneuver him, stumbling, around the corner and out the door. They don't put his shoes on for him.

The next few minutes are full of explanations on both sides, Steve and I give our personal information to separate officers who each write it down in separate spiral notebooks. The officer's explain that our neighbors called the police when they heard someone breaking into their apartment and that when the police arrived the followed the drunk as he made his way through the parking lot and up the two flights of stairs to let himself into our place. Unsure if he belonged, they had followed him in, just in case. They said they were planning to charge him with two counts of burglary: one for trying to get into the locked apartment, and one for falling asleep on our floor.

When they had gotten everything they needed and made sure we had no more questions they left and Steve and I sit down on the couch to say things like, "dude," and "wow," for a while.

"Guess we should start locking the door at night," I say.

"I usually do," says Steve.

We agree that if the police need us to press charges we shouldn't do it. Burglary? The poor guy just wanted to go to sleep. He was too drunk to know where he was, probably thought he was passed out on his own living room floor. He even took his shoes off at the door.

Having been woken at gun point, Steve needs more time then I do to come down from the adrenaline high, so I return to bed alone to try to sleep. I lie awake feeling sorry for the stranger and thinking of all the what-ifs that come so easily after something like this. What if he'd stumbled all the way into the bedroom and climbed into bed with me? All the officers had seemed so young, what if it was all some elaborate hazing thing, a prank? What if he had been someone more sinister than a passed out drunk who takes his shoes off at the door? What if he had spent the might on our floor and the girls woke first to find him there in the morning? I imagine waking him, asking if there's someone we should call...

In the morning I wake feeling I had lived a dream. Sure, the business card one of the officers gave me is on the fridge, but were they really here? I think about the stranger all day as I read and research and revise a paper for class.

That afternoon the sun has warmed things up a bit and the girls and I put on our shoes and coats to go outside and play. As we leave the apartment I notice for the first time a dark red smudge on the wall near the door and realize that the stranger's bloody elbow must have grazed as he came in the night before. I hurry the children outside and close the door behind us. I haven't told them about the stranger; they don't need to play the what-if game like I do.

Motherhood: Three Hours in Line for This?

2008-10-31T13:59:00.004-04:00

Last night Matilda and I went to a rally for Barack Obama at my university. Coming from the decidedly non-swing state of Massachusetts, I was excited by the prospect of being a part of the political process in that way and of letting Tilly feel like she's a part of it too.

All day people were talking about whether there would be enough room for everyone and some students actually started lining up eight hours before the event. By the time Til and I were able to join the line at 5:45, it was already 6 blocks long and still growing fast. We waited with a few of my fellow students and ate pizza and stood around. Tilly drew in her notebook that she brought and played tic-tac-toe and hangman with people.

She was so excited to be going. We've talked about Obama before and although she's not exactly well-versed on the finer points of his campaign, nor is she really aware of McCain as a possible alternative, she knows that war kills people and that her parents think war is wrong and that George Bush has made a lot of lousy choices that damaged our country and that Obama wants to change all that and make our country a better place. To tell you the truth I'm not sure I could tell you exactly what she was thinking or why she wanted to go, but she did.

Of course the reality of standing in a line for three hours wasn't quite what she had imagined us doing. Still, she was a good sport, and even though there were a few times when I didn't think she was going to make it, she always pulled through.

We passed the protesters, all ten of them, ("I'm NRA and I'm not voting Obama," "Obama roots for Kansas" - which apparently is a football reference, that's a serious game out here) and the counter protesters, all three of them, ("I'm not with stupid --> I'm voting Obama"). We went through the metal detectors and walked around among the university students and local people who had turned out to support Obama.

Til was really excited at first, jumping around and wanting me to push through the crowd with her so she could see better (she settled for being on my shoulders). But Obama wasn't scheduled to start speaking until 9:30, and she was already tired. Each time she complained I asked her to hold out a little bit longer, reminded her how excited she had been to see him and how long we had waited in line.

But by 9:15 she'd had it. She was done, bursting into tears before I could even try to convince her to stay. "I'm just too tired," she said, "I just want to go to bed."

I couldn't refuse, and really, as a mother bringing my young daughter to a late evening rally, I'd known this was a possibility. So we said our goodbyes and headed home. In spite of how tired she was, I could tell she was torn. She did really want to see him.

"Come on," I told her, "let's run and we can be home in time to watch him on TV."

And we did. And even though we didn't actually get to see Obama in person, and even though it could safely be argued that we stood in line for three hours for exactly nothing, I'm still glad I brought her. She got to see how many people around us want things to change, and to be a part of it, and I think that's worth three hours of playing tic-tac-toe and eating pizza on the side of the road.

E Sitting Instructions

2008-10-17T08:40:00.002-04:00

e will stay here with you today.

ok

if she gets hungry, you can feed her. she eats snake food.

snake food?

yes, it's under my bed.

Gearing up for the most funnest debate of all time and how I've been totally neglecting you people in the meantime

2008-10-02T10:58:00.004-04:00

So, hi! I feel this impulse to start this post the way I started every letter I ever wrote as a child:

Dear Reader,

How are you? I am fine.

But you deserve better, don't you? I know I've been shamefully absent lately, and honestly the most I can hope at the moment is that I have not been shamefully absent in the rest of my life as well. Have I? I don't know.

The point is this: thing are going well. Each of my classes is teaching me new and sometimes unexpected things (well, with one exception - the "intro to grad studies" is the biggest waste of my time, evah!) and I've even started cultivating a social life, and here's where the politics comes in: watching the debates with smart, literate people who drink beer and yell at the TV? Awesome.

Camp Grad School is fun. I have made new friends.

So besides watching the debate (and all of the Katie Couric interviews I can find online) what have I been up to? I'm working on a new story, reading lots of fiction, rediscovering the hilarity of Vladimir Nabokov, navigating departmental politics, figuring out what rhetoric actually is, making connections, tutoring in the writing lab, reading for a literary journal, thinking about teaching next year, exploring, and trying to find time for my family.

Steve and the girls are fine, too. We're keeping busy.

One of the things that has thrown me into rethinking just about everything is the scope of this whole grad school/career in academia thing. I'm not much of a planner. I realize this may sound odd to some of you know who know that I almost always have a plan, but what I mean is that this thing that I've undertaken now involves a kind of long term plan, a looking ahead, that I've never been particularly good at or inclined towards. It seems to involve a kind of shaping of my life that is both a retrospective analysis and a projection into the future. It's made me realize that in the past when I've "had a plan" what I really had was the beginning of a plan, the first steps. The plans I made never had an end, or even a middle, and they certainly never extended more than a year or two into the future. More like a direction than a plan, per se.

Whatever happens next, it will be an adventure!

I don't know where all of this planning and thinking will lead me, and I have a feeling it will all come full circle and I will realize that I'm doing what I want to be doing and I should probably just stop over-thinking and get on with it already.

Meanwhile there are plots and counterplots, politics and fluff, school work and family, elitism and absurdism, hell in a hand basket and whatever the alternative to that is. (Is there an alternative to that?) It's much easier to focus on how Sarah Palin apparently reads everything and somehow knows nothing and how funny that is, than to take anything seriously.

How about this crazy election, huh?

And I'm afraid after all that, all I have to end with is:

I will write soon. (Which I think we all know is a lie.)

and:

I miss you. (Which is true.)

Love, Nell.

I Like You: Here's Why.

2008-09-10T21:58:00.003-04:00

Freya and I took a bath together tonight. Well, it was my bath originally, which is not important except that I like to put oil in my baths, so it was slippery and also very, very hot.

Freya was standing, holding the bar on the side of the tub and sliding down into a split, over and over and over...

Idly, I held her other hand and read aloud to her from a short story by Jorge Luis Borges - with feeling! - "...theological and metaphysical arguments, all clearly stated, coherent, without any apparent dogmatic intention or parodic undertones. The eleventh volume of which I speak refers--"

One of her splits turned unexpectedly into a pirouette.

"Careful, Frey," I said, "I don't want you to die, I like you."

"I love you, too," she said, intent on returning to sliding splits.

"I didn't say I love you," I corrected, "I said I like you. I mean, I love you too, but, it's different. Do you know what the difference between liking someone and loving someone is?"

Blank look - well deserved.

"Well," I persisted, "what does it meant to like someone?"

"People are not stupid," she offered.

"Debatable, but not the point. What does it mean when you love someone?"

She looked thoughtful for a minute, "You don't call them stupid or idiot."

"Well, yeah, you're nice to them, right? Because you care about them. So what does it mean if you like someone?"

"You give them stuff," she paused, "stuff you don't want anymore."

At this point we were interrupted, which is almost definitely to the good. When we returned to the question I took a more concrete approach: "Who do you love?"

"Um, Aurora, and Oscar and Kehr," she paused, "and Riva. I love you and Daddy and Matilda, too, but not as much as Riva. She took me to a museum."

Not sure where to go from here, I made an executive decision and ended the conversation.

Clearly Freya is not quite ready philosophical conversations about the nature of love and while I wait, I should maybe take her to some museums.