Since both giving and receiving this speech can become dull after a while, I work diligently to mix it up a bit, peppering the diatribe with comments like I HAVE NEVER WORKED SO HARD IN MY LIFE and YOU TRY ENTERTAINING A THREE-YEAR-OLD ALL DAY and—my current favorite—YOU WOULDN’T EVEN KNOW WHAT A VACUUM IS IF IT HIT YOU IN THE FACE. (I find that this last one has a certain 1950s fishwife je ne sais quoi.)

Adam stands at the counter patiently, removing his shoes and mixing a cocktail as I continue to remind him of how lucky he is. On his train ride to and from work, he can read the news, relax along with some music. At work, he can participate in intelligent conversation, make critical decisions, brainstorm with peers. The socialization! The lunch options! The utter and complete lack of Curious George and twisted car-seat buckles and bunny-shaped macaroni and cheese!

Yes, I like to suggest regularly that his job is easier than mine. But on days like today, days of sandcastle villages and sunblock-scented salt air and drippy plastic cups of watermelon slush and a little girl who roars with joy every time a wave splashes her, I remember something else: I would never, ever say his job is better.

I’m still not sure how it happened, except that I was driving and then there was a bunny in front of the car, and then…then there was no more bunny. It was as if it just suddenly materialized inches in front of me, in the dark. I’d make a reference to Bunnicula (oh, Bunnicula, how innocent you seem in these days of sparkly vampires and shirtless werewolves), but that seems a little disrespectful.

Anyway, I hit it and it was dead and the entire thing was beyond awful. (And, yes. I turned around on a nearby side street and drove back to check and it looked dead. Then when I went back two minutes later to check once again, this time to make sure it was a bunny and not a house cat that I should report to Animal Control, it was gone, which means it wasn’t dead but close to it, having dragged its little body, fur tacky with blood, into some nearby bushes ohgod ohgod ohgod.)

I’m telling you, you hit a bunny two days before Easter and it is factually impossible not to take it as a bad omen. It’s like plowing into Santa’s sleigh an icy week before Christmas, or accidentally smothering the Tooth Fairy with a pillow.

Plus, hitting a bunny is so much worse than hitting most anything else. For God’s sake, bunnies look like THIS:

The bad news: Unlike with Peter, one dose of chamomile tea at bedtime was not going to cure what ailed this bunny. The good news: Also unlike Peter, this bunny was not wearing a small blue jacket with brass buttons. If there had been one single brass button in sight, I would have driven to the nearest bridge and promptly jumped off it. A dead bunny I could survive. A nattily dressed dead bunny? I’m not so sure.

But back to the omens. While hell has not quite yet raineth down, someone on high has been screwing with me. Since that night, I have had four, FOUR, bunnies run across the road in front of me. Happily, I managed to not hit any of them. Such effort often requires Evel Knievel-type feats of driving,  involving much jostling of Aura in her carseat and much screaming from pedestrians. But for now, those four bunnies run unscathed, free to dart merrily in front of other unsuspecting cars.

Therefore and In Conclusion, given that I am putting such effort into not killing bunnies forevermore, I feel that it is only fair to ask the shortest person living in this house to STOP REMINDING ME.

Because, honestly? That green one with the bow tie is starting to freak me out.

I know that the getting-better is the important thing. And of course I know that a healthy-happy-Aura is the essential part. Yet sometimes I get so…tired. At the risk of repeating about 500,000 other momblog posts out there, this staying-at-home thing is often (for me, at least) bone-numbingly tired. I have edited entire teacher-edition textbooks, stayed up until all hours of the night planning conferences and writing sixth-grader-friendly recaps of the American Revolution. But nothing compares. Nothing.

And sometimes the exhaustion translates into times when I allow myself to wallow in self-pity, in these absolutely disgusting woe-is-me moments where I dwell on the time, the energy, the dedication required to raise a child all day, every day—and to do it the Correct Way. I listen to other mothers talk about how they can leave their children with nearby relatives, and I envy. I hear about husbands who never travel for work, and I sigh. I read magazine articles about children who can play by themselves for a full hour (happily! while dressed in designer corduroys!), and I rub my eyes out of sheer frustration.

Yesterday, that familiar overwhelming feeling of OhGodItNeverStops started to slither through me again. I was on the phone with Adam, who was regaling me with tales of the highbrow cocktail bars and restaurants he’s been sampling while down in New Orleans for a conference. As he was describing what he had ordered for dinner the night before, I was trying to get the vomit out of Aura’s sheets, since a coughing fit had triggered her delicate (read: pain-in-the-ass) gag reflex the night before.

While I balanced the phone between my ear and loaded the detergent into the washer, I found myself tearing up. I interrupted Adam. “This is not the life I pictured for myself,” I said. Adam paused, then said he understood. He said we’d work on making it easier. I sighed, said to ignore me, and wished him good luck in the talk he was about to deliver.

I left shortly after that to retrieve Aura from her two-and-a-half hours at preschool, making a quick detour to the Chamber of Commerce to pick up an end-of-year gift card for her teacher. I had to park a couple of blocks away, and as I was making my way to the office building, my shoulders hunched and head drooped, an enormous gust of wind came out of nowhere. I looked up in surprise, and at that moment a very large, mercifully empty Dunkin’ Donuts cup came flying at me, clunking into the side of my head with admirable velocity and commendable force.

Then the wind died down. The cup rolled to a stop at my feet. As I bent to pick it up and toss it into a nearby trash can, I heard myself laughing. I chuckled a little more when I got back into the car, snickered as I drove to Aura’s school, and mustered up a fully genuine chortle as I parked. And when I walked into her classroom, on the last day of school in what was her first-ever year of preschool, I smiled again.

Because as Aura, completely healthy and completely happy, reached out her still-small arms for a hug, it struck me: Maybe all anyone needs is to be hit in the head once in a while. I tell you, it snaps you right out of it.

That princess book was pretty much the only princess book Aura has ever chosen from the library. THANK GOD.     

This is how I feel about THAT ONE.

 Wait. It’s not just me, is it? There are others out there who hear princess stories and gag on the offensiveness and tiresomeness of it all, right? I mean, COME ON. Sure, pickings were slim in the Women’s Lifestyle Changes Department centuries ago, when most of these fairy tales were first penned.  But marrying well cannot possibly still count as true ambition, at least not in this day and age. You don’t find the quest for royal marriage in most of Disney’s “boy stories,” do you? Nope. In those stories,  talking cars win championship races and save floundering towns. I have yet to see one championship in a princess story, other than the breathless battle to get home by midnight without losing your other glass slipper. 

A GLASS SLIPPER, PEOPLE. Cinderella runs around in shoes made of GLASS. As in glass that SHATTERS and CUTS and MAIMS. Yet I’m the one going to jail if Aura rides her tricycle on the driveway without a helmet.    

ALSO. Real feet are not as small as a royal messenger's hand. I don't think. (I'm a size 9. So.)

Oddly, the princesses-are-always-beautful thing doesn’t really bother me. Of course I don’t think little girls should be obsessed with their appearance. But I enjoy an eyebrow wax and pedicure as much as the next girl, and I don’t think the unending global search for physical perfection is going to, well, end. (To clarify: I don’t actually enjoy waxing. As a matter of fact, I can think of approximately 472,000 things I’d rather do than have my eyebrows waxed. However, THIS IS WHAT SNOW WHITE TAUGHT ME.)   

There is no way those suckers got that way through simple plucking.

I guess all I’m saying is that when we’re auditioning for role models, maybe princesses shouldn’t be first in line. At least not until they bulk up their resumes. I for one am going to need something besides First twenty years of life: Scrubbed and cleaned; locked in room by evil stepmother/witch/absentee father; escaped through help of magic/woodland creatures/plot hole; found salvation in figurehead royalty. For pete’s sake, Rapunzel spent eons locked in that tower, doing nothing but growing hair. Couldn’t she have once thought, “Hey! You know what I’m doing when I get out of here? I’M GOING TO GET MY FREAKIN’ M.B.A.!”  

Perhaps I'm aiming a bit high in this case. If not the M.B.A., then at least a cosmetology license.

Recently, as we were running late for an appointment, Aura lingered in the hallway, trying to zip her jacket. “No, Mommy!” she cried out when I tried to help her, swatting my hands away. “I want to do it by myself!”

It was all I could do not to keep rushing her or tell her to forget zipping up altogether. Instead, for once, I forced myself to simply stand and wait. And after a couple of minutes, she did zip the jacket.

“Look, Mommy!” she exclaimed happily. “I did it all by myself!”

That? That right there is the only kind of princess story she needs. 

Aura has inherited a great many things from her father, including a love of coffee-flavored foodstuffs and an inclination to snicker at me when I am at my most threatening. She also shares his tendency to become completely and utterly submerged in the lyrics of a song. New songs, songs that especially strike their fancy, songs with an unusual tempo—one note and both Adam and Aura are goners, listening and memorizing with a fierceness last witnessed in certain Nordic warriors. Their posture goes slack, their mouths gape a bit, and conversation (at least on their end) screeches to a halt.

Honestly, the trance can be a bit startling the first time you witness it. But once you get used to it, you find yourself almost impressed by such pure, unadulterated absorption. Seriously: I’ve mentioned rogue rocket ships and flying cows and free milkshakes, with zero response.  I did once snare Adam’s attention by yelling, “Look! Megan Fox is driving the car next to us, NAKED AND HANDING OUT BEER!” but later efforts proved that was a one-trick pony.

Given all of this, I really have no excuse for what happened a few days ago. In  my limited defense, it was a beautiful day and I had just picked up Aura from preschool and we had the car windows down, encouraging the spring breezes to mess up our hair. When a hip-hoppy R&B song came on, I just left it, and we car-danced, or at least I did. I knew the song wasn’t going to be age-appropriate, but she was distracted and we were happy and there might have even been a rainbow and some frolicking elves. It was that nice of an afternoon.

Then we parked. As I was releasing my seatbelt, Aura piped up, “Mommy, what does sex mean?” For a second, the whole thing was a bit like a paper cut, when the shock of the unexpected pain makes the world go momentarily silent. Still in the driver’s seat, I swooned as images of second-grade navel piercings and a prepubescent subscription to Cosmo flooded my brain.

Then I recovered, for that is what GOOD PARENTS DO.

After a few unsuccessful starts, I found an explanation that satisfied us both, at least temporarily. “Oh! Sex? Sex is just a silly way some people say the number six. Isn’t that SILLY?” Once I started, it was like I couldn’t stop. “Just like some people say foove for five! One, two, three, four, foove, sex! IT’S SO SILLY, ISN’T IT?”

Days later, I don’t know what scenario scares me most: that Aura sees through the deception and asks again, or that she presents her newfound counting schema at school. As much as the resulting preschool progress report will pain me, I’m rooting for scenario #2. So what if she gets an Unsatisfactory in the Number Identification category? Screw ‘em. When she gets homes that day, I’m so going to give her a high foove.

A minute or so into our tour, Aura had already stopped listening to my speech on the importance of higher education, preferring instead to climb staircases and run on the lawns. I was soon reduced to talking to myself, raising my voice during the important parts to regain Aura’s attention. “Schools like Harvard are certainly a possibility IF YOU BUCKLE DOWN,” I yelled. “Never forget that MERIT SCHOLARSHIPS can be yours!”

It was somewhere around the time I was explaining college’s potential for “LIFELONG FRIENDSHIPS!” and “SELF DISCOVERY!” that I first noticed the many flyers dotting the campus. The more of them I read, the softer my diatribe became.

By the time I finished reading these, I was starting to change my tune. “But there is certainly nothing wrong with smaller, lesser known schools!” I called to Aura as she whipped back and forth in front of the famed Widener Library. “Many state schools produce a DIZZYING array of successful graduates!” I cried out,  pulling Aura back toward one of the campus gates. Every time a passing student smiled at Aura, I glared in return, muttering things like “Sexual deviant!” under my breath.

Then I saw this flyer.

It wasn’t until Aura started tugging on my hand that I realized I had been standing in front of this particular flyer for an unnecessarily long time. But…vajazzled? In a legendary place of higher learning? The editor in me took offense with the j in place of a g, the proofreader in me bemoaned the underline in place of italics, the music lover in me reared back in horror by the bastardization of jazz.

And the mother in me? “FORGET WHAT I SAID,” I announced to Aura, scooping her up and racing for an exit as fast as my legs could carry us. “THIS IS NOT THE SCHOOL FOR YOU.”

Another day, another $48,868 per year saved. And Aura will never touch a stick-on jewel again.

(Great. Freakin’ fantastic. Now I used the word plug in a post. As if using jailbait and mom porn wasn’t bad enough. With plug, it shall be like the Trifecta of Filthy Search Terms. Oh, THE LENGTHS I GO TO FOR THIS BLOG.)

Now I just don’t know. Without diminishing in any way the tragedy of families who have lost a child to a choking accident, I’m not convinced that a redesign is really necessary here. Some chopping into bite-size pieces? Sure. Some careful observation of your child when eating? Of course. But a redesign? Maybe for Toyota accelerators, yes, but not the hot dog.

I’m not sure if today’s parents have actually lost their common sense or if manufacturers, government officials, and the medical community just think we have. For instance, this is Aura’s current favorite toy.

Yep, it’s slime. Yep, it’s gross. And yep, it makes the most terrifically awesome disgusting sound when you slap it. But despite what you probably might not think, you are NOT supposed to eat it. See? The bottle says so.

Perhaps some warnings are a little too much, even possibly weakening the value of warnings that are really needed. Also, where are those other labels, the ones parents themselves would write? Where, I ask you, is the BEWARE! DANGER! sticker on parking lots, where Aura has now fallen once for every month of her life with forehead gravel-imprint marks to prove it? Door hinges, tile floors, wheels on shopping carts, the occasionally sharp-edged, lawsuit-worthy Lego block…hell. I’m going out tonight and getting me a label maker.

And if anything needs a stern cautionary sentence or two, it’s these kids themselves. Something like “CAUTION. THIS SMALL PERSON HAS COME IN CONTACT WITH APPROXIMATELY ONE MILLION BILLION OTHER SMALL PEOPLE. IT IS GUARANTEED HE OR SHE WILL GET SICK, GET YOU SICK, AND GENERALLY SERVE AS AN EXAMPLE OF WALKING PLAGUE.”  That would work nicely, I think.

In the meantime, I’m so capitalizing on the hot-dog fear. I hear that the first person to come up with a plausible redesign wins a lifetime supply of foam wall coverings. You know, because walls hurt you if you run into them.

Three Stupid Things That Came to My Attention This Weekend

Stupid Thing#1: My Chocolate Boycott

So, this giving up chocolate thing. It was just about as smart as swearing off turkey in November, or deciding to really, really hate bunnies right around Easter. Maybe next time I could NOT give it up immediately before Valentine’s Day. You know, the holiday when every single thing you see is made of chocolate. While running errands this weekend, I witnessed chocolate lollipops, chocolate roses, chocolate puppies. I tell you, if I see one more piece of chocolate, I’m going to eat a real puppy. But first I’ll squirt some chocolate sauce on him.

Stupid Thing #2: Unnecessary Instructions

The warnings and useless instructions that many manufacturers put on their products to cover their butts often kill me. For example, a couple of months ago, Adam noticed the following boldface sentence in our new car seat’s instruction manual: “This child-restraint system is to be installed by adults ONLY.“ 

I wonder. Do you think there are families out there who send their three-year-old down to the garage with a 40-pound car seat and a brief lecture on the LATCH system, only to stumble upon this warning while their child is at work? “Hell’s bells, Martha! Get down there! WE’RE supposed to be installing that sucker, not Junior!”

Here’s another one, from this weekend. My dry-hands situation only continues to worsen, so I finally consulted a dermatologist, who prescribed the following steroid ointment.

I really can’t imagine looking at that tube, applying some steroid cream to my hands, and then thinking, “My eyes! I should inject this into my eyes! It will make them so STRONG and MOIST and NON-DRY.” But apparently someone did. Someone stupid.

Stupid Thing #3: The English Language

Lately, Aura has begun expressing more of an interest in learning to read and spell. As I try to help her weave her way through the thorny world of phonics, I am beginning to realize just how much of the English language is  imbecilic. How am I supposed to justify the existence of irregular verbs, never mind the fact that yes, the Moon in Goodnight Moon makes a long double-consonant sound, while book itself has a short double-consonant sound? Or cough versus enough? Diphthongs? IT GOES ON AND ON.

You know the English language had to be invented by a man. Some German tribal guy, back in the fifth century, freshly arrived on the continent that would become Britain. He was probably looking for Plaque Street, got lost, and being too stubborn to ask for directions, made up a new road and called it Plague Street, changing the vowel sound for good measure. And so it began, all because the GPS industry took about fifteen centuries too many to get with it.

The Giveaway!

Remember that cute hair clip Aura was wearing a few blog posts ago?  Well, how would your favorite little girl like three of her own—or, alternatively, how would you like a key wristlet? Jen of Linaloos.com has generously offered you all those very options. All you have to do to enter is go to her site, find three clips or one wristlet you would like, and list them in a comment here on my blog. The winner will be chosen at random next Tuesday, February 16.

Really, you should do it.  Jen makes a great product, repurposing vintage sweaters to make her felted creations. Her designs are superb (cupcake pigtail clips, anyone?) and she gives back ten percent of every purchase to various,   well-deserving charities.

So, DO IT. 

Thank you, and have a very non-stupid day.

Case in point: As I was grocery shopping last night, I caught myself singing and dancing in the middle of the bread aisle. And when I say dancing, I mean I was really breaking it down, snapping and then twirling, Michael Jackson–style, smack in front of the English muffins. I have no idea how long it had been going on before I realized what I was doing. I can tell you that there was a gaggle of stockboys gathered at the other end of the aisle, all of whom were clutching their scrawny teenage sides in hysterics while holding onto a nearby shelf of pumpernickel, lest they collapse completely.

The worst part? The song that inspired all this was by…Hall and Oates. It wasn’t like I was making a fool of myself to Lady Gaga or Jay-Z or any other musician who was at least BORN IN THE LAST FOUR DECADES and who performed WITHOUT A MULLET. While I’m sure John Oates is a perfectly wonderful man, I feel that it is not terribly farfetched to postulate that he used to look like a serial killer. A serial killer WITH A MULLET.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that this kind of thing has happened more and more since Aura arrived on the scene.  And after hearing another mother’s take on the unexpected joys of parenthood over at A Day in the Life of a Surferwife, I’ve been throwing around the idea that my widening dearth of self-pride, my newish ability to unconsciously make an ass out of myself, might actually be one of these joys.

Think about it. Even if you are the most self-absorbed, self-conscious person in the world, you won’t be once you have a kid. The math is simple: There’s just not enough time, and there’s definitely not enough energy. It’s just easier to squeal at the toy store than remain composed, less work to race your child down the slides at the playground than insist you’re happier sitting on a nearby bench.

As someone who used to worry compulsively about her appearance and behavior, a little—and maybe a lot of—complacency is actually pretty welcome. Aura has put things in perspective. While it’s highly unlikely that the neighborhood stockboys will remember my dance a month from now, I like to think that Aura will remember, in some hazy, nebulous way, that I used to make up loud, silly songs with her in restaurants, that we galloped like horses, side by side, in very public parking lots. And I hope she’ll never realize that before she came along, I was afraid to do all that.

In the meantime, I’m hedging my bets and trying to save most acts of potential stupidity for situations where they won’t draw too much attention. Like bowling. When everyone around you is also wearing the world’s ugliest shoes, it’s impossible not to blend right in.

Cutest hair clip ever, yes? Made by friend and fellow mom Jen at linaloos.com.

“I just want her/him to play and have fun!” was a common refrain. “It’s all about socialization and forming new attachments!” was another.  I think I may have even offered up some load of crap along the lines of ”I want Aura to be able to exhibit the confidence she shows at home in other environments!” (Even I couldn’t stomach that one, though. I think I apologized for making the world’s most eye-rollingest statement shortly afterwards, then burned all my parenting magazines in a really huge bonfire. Or at least I hope I did.)

Look at her, exhibiting.

Yes, we were a thoughtful group. And we really did want to find schools that focused more on play than structured academics. But while we were all expressing what we kind of wanted, none of us said what we really wanted: NAPS. We wanted a school that offered so many opportunities for play, such thoroughly exhausting activities, that our kids would come home, throw back a lunchtime bowl of mac and cheese, then promptly march themselves straight to bed, where they would sleep for approximately four hours.

So far, the preschool we chose last fall has worked out well in all regards, naps included. Aura loves the place, has grown much more comfortable interacting with other children and being away from me, and shows a lot more confidence in physical activity. I feel great when I drop her off those two mornings each week, knowing that she is safe and cared for and entertained.

But. I’m starting to feel a little squirmy by just how much playing there is. Should preschool really be this fun? Shouldn’t it involve a bit more about numbers beyond 10? How many times does Aura have to hear about shapes and colors and sharingblahblahblah before she gets to take a stab at writing an actual letter? How about telling time? Identifying coins? TACKLING QUANTUM PHYSICS?!?

I’m not sure why I’m suddenly so fixated on the academic aspect of preschool. We already work with Aura at home on writing and phonics and all the other stuff that will soon lead her to book her own early-childhood, I-hate-my-parents therapy sessions. (Which I will have to drive her to, of course, making the entire thing so much more inconvenient.)

Honestly, it was last week’s mittens theme that really got me started on this academics tangent. The kids painted paper mittens, brought mittens for Show and Tell, read books about mittens. I suspect they would have had mittens for snack, too, if the teachers could have figured out that one.

I admit: I'd wear these.

All I could think of: Why mittens? Why not gloves? At least with gloves you can count up to five, or ten, or maybe learn about the names of each finger. I mean, seriously: Why have I sung along to ”Where is Thumbkin?” 650 times if not for Aura to be able to show off her knowledge of Ringman and Pointer and Pinky? With mittens, you get, what? A thumb? A bunch of other fingers mashed together? Unimpressive.

Yet I’m thinking this is one of many times when I need to back off and forget about it. Preschool is preschool is preschool. And for all I know, last week’s foray into the world of mittens led to profound Circle Time discussions on warmth and seasons and perhaps the utter frustration of global warming.

Plus Aura already knows the one word that counts the most: