call for poetry

Here's a poem, one I sent to Brian Lehrer at WNYC on May 5 when they had a spontaneous call for poetry personifying New York City, beginning with the words, "I am..." followed by a place in the Big Apple. They said they'd call some entrants to read their pieces on the air and just as I decided they'd never call me, I moped down to the basement to gather my clothes from the dryer, and whaddaya know? They called, and I missed my big chance to be on the air. Nine days after I wrote it, my daughter was born. Here it is:

baby carrots

Hamish ate baby carrots for a snack today, of his own volition. I'm floored. His daycare teacher came to the door and warned me that there might be some orange pieces in his mouth, that he was savoring them like chewing tabacco, and my eyes popped out of my head like Large Marge, and before I knew it, he was asking for more. I will try not to expect him to repeat this feat, but I will buy a fresh package of baby carrots anyway.

And he's started pretend reading books, like his miniature version of "The Little Red Hen." It sounds Japanese: "Hoo waa Gee fuh ball!" I can't wait to hear how it all turns out.

Stella ate banana and peas over the weekend. Bryan's mom and Grace, another of my mom-figures out in the country, got to talking about how back in the day, they'd spoon-feed their three-week olds, doctor's orders. It got me wondering what our children will look back on in bewilderment thirty years from now. Maybe all the assorted vibrating chairs and seats and swings we stash them in so we can blog.

baddish to worse

Every time the weather threatens out there, I get this claustrophobic anxiety about survivng the afternoon indoors with a toddler and a six-month old. Usually the monster in my head is bigger than the one in the external world but yesterday we went from baddish to worse.

It started out innocently enough, Hamish throwing Play-Doh across the kitchen while I talked on the phone with an old colleague, picking up bits of hairy clay in vain. Either I wasn't in the mood to use the peppy distraction method that usually works wonders around here, or he had had just a few too many grams of sugar in his organic maple vanilla yogurt to go with his non-napping ways.

renovation envy

Everyone around me is renovating. Two of my many siblings, friends galore, and across the courtyard, the young childless couple just put in a new kitchen. And me? When I'm not asking my thirteen year old nephew to slow down and really describe the wedgewood blue finish on his mommy's new island cabinets, I'm spying on the neighbors' kitchen with my binoculars in the dark like a peeping Tom, muttering, "why, when you've done a complete renovation, would you bother with laminate countertops when you could have used stone and gotten an undermount sink? Are you insane?"

review

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smug

I was so smug this morning. Bryan forgot his cell phone and while I felt bad for him not being able to receive my possibly frantic phone calls wherever he might be, I also felt this shard of smugness. I thought, I wouldn't do that. I'm much more organized. And then I forgot to put the stroller frame into the trunk when I packed the kids inside the car to take Hamish to daycare. I got home and opened the trunk and was greeted by the lone Phil and Ted's double stroller and my heart dropped into my Uggs. I knew I'd used the stroller frame. And I looked up the street and there it was, untouched, unmoved from its place on the sidewalk where I'd left it twenty minutes earlier. Thank God I didn't go to Target like I'd planned. I'm saving that fun-tastic outing for the weekend.

Dear Lady Who Hit My Car This Morning,

Remember our little collision this morning? Remember when I was driving behind you down, what was it, 4th Street, just off of 8th Avenue? Remember that black Prius in front of your old station wagonish hatchback from the early 90s, a silver Subaru perhaps? That Prius who was looking for a parking spot? And it stopped and backed up so suddenly to double park that you backed up too, without looking, right into me? Remember that? And during the November 3, 2006 incident, I watched your reverse lights go on, and though my hands froze, unable to honk or reverse myself, my mind calmed, thinking, wow, this car is going to hit me. It's not going to be bad, and I won't get hurt, and neither will the five-and-a-half month-old in the back seat. But we're about to get hit. And then BAM!

dining out

Okay, so Bryan's parents came over last night to watch the kids so Bryan and I could eat dinner like adults at Cafe Steinhof before his Miller's Farm gig. Hamish fell apart as we were leaving, saying, "I want to go with you!" which caught me off guard since usually whenever his Grammom and Pop are around he can't knock us out of his way fast enough to get to them. But he'd missed his nap, and so I pried his little fingers off my face and bolted for the car. A night out was to be had! He would live.