Ssshhh! I'M HIDING!!!

Yes, the title of this post is a direct quote. It is in all caps because it was spoken in a yell by a not so sleathy 8yr old. I feel like things have been a bit on the heavy, rant-y side lately so leave to the kids to lighten the mood.

We discovered this little gated playground behind a church school recently. It's not the school's playground it belongs to the city. I like it because it's on the smaller side, gated, and it has a solid rubber floor. Anyone who has ever pushed a stroller or wheelchair through the sand or shredded tires at most playgrounds knows how exciting that is. Aside from the practical stuff that makes life easier on Mommy this playground has some impressive equipment for spinning, climbing and general playing. The kids love it.

One of Riley's favorites is the little play house. It has a fake fire place with roaring firing, a mailbox, a telescope, built in bench and flower box.

Here's the "living room"
Riley showing Mommy the red flower.

My Mom and I took the kids to this park over the weekend to run off the sugar after a trip to Dunkin' Donuts. They had an amazing time. At one point Isaac made a little friend and was playing hide-and-seek. It was Isaac's turn to hide so he dove into the play house. Riley was playing in it at the time. Unbothered by this he laid on the ground.

As you might have guessed Riley ran right over to her brother, laughing all the way. She pointed to him and looked up at us grinning. Isaac screamed, "No Riley! Ssshhh! I'M HIDING!" While Riley has no context for hide-and-seek yet she does know the Dinosaur Song and she thought he was resting in his nest.

Riley stopped laughing at this point and looked at Mommy and put her finger to her lips and ssshhhed. After all, Isaac was pretending to sleep or so she thought. She decided resting in your nest looked like fun and she should join him in that game.

After Isaac's friend found him and vacated the house Riley took his spot on the ground snoring loudly. Silly girl!

The silliness continued when the kids hit the nets. It's the same configuration of ropes on the top and bottom.

Here's Isaac up in the "crow's nest".

Riley wanted in on the action so she climbed into the bottom net. She stepped carefully through the holes by herself until she got to the round hole in the middle. When she saw that she turned around sat down on it and made peeing sounds! I'm not making this up. She pretended it was a potty. Guess who's Mommy is encouraging potty training?

Considering the hole...

Peeing on the "potty"

Hello, Dave.

I apologize for this not being "on topic", but sometimes even the best of us color outside the lines. I promise to talk about parenting and technology very soon, it's still percolating.

Let me preface this entry by saying how deeply and passionately in love with my G.P.S. I truly am. It is the great love of my life, as far as modern technology goes. I never would have survived my years in LA without it. It is an amazing gadget, 90% of the time. Every so often, it has a bad hair or doesn't get enough sleep or something. On those days, bad things happen.

Yesterday, we set off as a family in the afternoon, after nap time. We were originally destined for the splash pad to meet one of Riley's baby friends. I'd been there 3 or 4 times before, but it's been too cold to go for months now. I had vague memories of where it was, but it didn't matter because we had the G.P.S. We loaded up and punched in the address which seemed straightforward enough. I glazed over in the the passenger seat listening to the noise of a backseat full of excited children.

The next thing I knew we were exiting the highway early and weaving through unsavory neighborhoods. Mike's blood pressure started to rise as the strange commands to drive through neighborhoods on small side streets continued. I, having loved and depended on the G.P.S. this long, convince myself it's showing us a short cut.

After about 10 minutes of what felt like gratuitous turns I started to worry too. I double checked the address and the step by step directions. I didn't know what to think. That's when Mike asked (I'll spare you the expletives) if I had it set to no highways. Oopsie. Still, what a route!

The kicker was we arrived, finally, frazzled and irritable and had to immediately turn around and leave. That's a story for another day. We decided as long as everyone was in the car we'd run a few quick errands. We made our now weekly trip to Joann's Fabric and then debated whether or not to hit Toys-R-Us while we were in the neighborhood. We did and the kids made out like bandits. I felt so guilty about getting them all excited about the splash pad and then having to leave so they got an awesome kiddie pool with slide, squirt guns and a crazy caterpillar sprinkler guy. It was the last stop that was the problem.

Mike needed to go to a certain Lowes to get paint for his car. Apparently, ours is sold out and this one had a whole case of the stuff. Also, it's important to note Riley soiled her regular diaper and I only had swim diapers with me so we were on borrowed time there. Mike looked up the address on his phone and we eagerly punched it in to the G.P.S., everyone deserves a second chance.

It was a nightmare once again. Weird commands to leave major roads and make strange overly complicated sets of turns. We double checked avoidances to make sure we were having the same issue twice, but it turned out the route was just ridiculously over complicated. The kids were tired, Riley had finished her water and was demanding more which I didn't have and traffic was increasing every second. Maybe there used to be construction on that road or something...

As the stress level in the car was reaching critical mass the G.P.S. ordered one last ridiculous set of 5 turns where one turn the other direction would have put us in the parking lot and we were now sitting on the wrong side of a busy 4 lane road staring at our destination. I turned the G.P.S. off with gusto at this point. Stupid thing.

The time before that was so much worse because we were in an unfamiliar state(s). We had driven from LA to Georgia with no problems. I even remember thinking, "Gosh, I guess trip-tics are obsolete now." I once misread one and drove 3hrs out of my way, but that couldn't happen with my lovely G.P.S.. I've been wrong before. It was the last leg of the journey and we'd come so far unscathed.

The trouble started when we realized we'd be driving through Atlanta at rush hour (YIKES!). We set it to avoid highways and checked the route, scrolled through the whole route zooming in on the map and passed it back and forth between us. When we were satisfied we'd done it we were off. The miles and hours ticked by. I may even have slept, but at some point I noticed signs saying Alabama. "Mike, why don't any of the signs say Georgia?" He wasn't sure either. We kept going for about 20minutes and then we were sure something was wrong and Isaac had to pee (or had an accident or something I'm fuzzy, but I remember urgency).

When we stopped I took the opportunity to ask where in the heck we were. We'd been driving almost exactly the time it should have taken to get home and we weren't there. It turned out we'd been driving the wrong direction this whole time. We were stunned.

It turns out all that trying to avoid Atlanta tapping of the screen somehow added Sneaky Pete's Hot Dogs in Alabama as a via point! So Mike had been taking surface roads the opposite direction of where were headed for hours because the G.P.S. thought we really wanted hot dogs! Don't you think there should be a confirmation message if you set a via point over 20 miles in the opposite direction of your destination? My email makes me confirm like 10 times if I call something junk and that's reversable. Geez, G.P.S.!

The detour was traumatic and we did end up driving through Atlanta in horrific traffic after all. There were times in LA when the G.P.S. would insist I get on the highway somewhere and there was no longer an on ramp or there was construction and no matter what buttons I pushed or which way I drove it sent me back there. Usually only when I was running late for an important audition.

I find myself laughing at the car insurance commercial where the G.P.S. commands a turn and the guy smashes into another car because it seems so silly. We're still the drivers, we have eyes and brians. If the G.P.S. is wrong we should ignore it with confidence.

I think the issue is people have never trusted an earlier piece of technology the way we trust our G.P.S.. Maybe our cars, but we generally control the vehicle, and not the other way around. The G.P.S. barks orders and we happily follow, trusting it to take us where we want to go. It's a big responsibility. So, I guess it makes sense that 3 or 4 times in the last 5yrs mine has buckled under the pressure.

Just When You Think You're Not Changing the World

After several frustrating weeks of consistently disappointing behavior at school, the clouds parted last Friday. Since Friday the turn around for Isaac has been amazing. I don't know if the promise of starting TaeKwonDo, Aunt Jessie's visit or the after school science program starting soon motivated him, but wow!

This week he earned blues at school everyday except one. The color system works like this: Purple-an award for exemplary behavior. When they get 5 of these they earn a book. Blue-for best behavior. Green-for good behavior with warnings, which meant you couldn't remain on blue. Yellow-bad behavior with multiple warnings (defiance). Orange-very bad behavior. Red-terrible behavior that required a trip to the principal/referral. This has been the year of greens and yellows because of emotional outbursts, but not this week.

When I picked him up from school, before he even climbed in, he was proclaiming "I did it! I got a blue!" I always know when he's had a bad day because he slinks in quietly instead of throwing the door open and bounding to his seat. He went on to explain that he almost made a bad choice at P.E. because "J" was making fun of him.

I had to press for details because Isaac is not a master story teller, he gets that from his dad. He told me they were running laps and J told him he was slow. I laughed so hard I snorted. If you've ever met Isaac you know that is not a befitting description of him at anytime, but especially running. I regained composure and asked what he did about it. He told me he was upset and told the teacher who separated them for the remainder of the P.E. class. I was proud of him for not turning it into a screaming match as he's in the habit of doing. He then admitted that he did yell first, but decided he didn't want to fight.

I told him that it takes practice to make good choices and next time he wouldn't yell at all. I also pointed out that what J said was ridiculous and obviously he was just trying to make Isaac mad.

Isaac pondered this briefly and then sadly stated, "But, today I was slower than J, R and B!"
I replied, "Oh, Isaac! No one can run the same speed every single day, not even professional runners. Some days you have more energy. Some days you're sleepy. Some times it's the end of a long week or you're stiff from sitting all day. So, some days you're faster and some days you're slower.
He ponders this new information in silence.
I use the opportunity to add, "But, you are never slow!"
He's still thinking about this so I also add, "What a great week, buddy!"
Now he chimes in, "I know!"
"So maybe next week you'll get all blues"
"Yeah, maybe. I used placebo."
"Placebo?"
"Yeah!"
"Isaac, I don't think you're using the word you mean"
"Yes, I'm saying the right thing placebo."
"Placebo is when the doctor gives you a pill that's supposed to be medicine, but it's just a sugar pill. The placebo effect-"
"Oh yeah! The placebo effect! That's it."
"Let me finish. It's when the fake medicine works because you believe it's real."
"Oh. Well, I didn't do medicine"
"No, you're talking about something more like self-fulling prophecy. That's when you believe something will work and it does or that it won't and it doesn't because you already decided the outcome"
"Ok, that then. I believe you'll buy me a book so you will"
"No, buddy that's not how it works. You believe you'll get all blues so you do. What happens after that isn't up to you."
"Ok, but I'm getting a new book for my blue, right?"
"Yes, Isaac. That was our deal."
He laughs like a cartoon villain. "Let's pick it as soon as we get home."

Later that night I took him to TKD. He was so excited he was coming unglued. He put his brand new gee on right in the middle of the floor because he was too excited to walk the 20 steps to the dressing room. I got him all signed up and got all his patches (even his academic achiever patch for his excellent report card.) and picked out a front row seat.

After lining them up in belt order the instructor asked everyone (there are 6 other kids in his class) to go say hi to Isaac. I was on the other side of the room watching. I heard mumbled greetings and after a minute Isaac exclaimed "Some days I'm faster, some days I'm slower." and then he ran the perimeter of the mat. It was one of those bucket filling moments for Mom. He was listening. What I say does matter.

He did amazing the rest class. He got a little confused and started to have a meltdown, but the other kids were so kind and supportive he just couldn't. I wish I had video taped it, it was really remarkable. It flooded me with stage combat memories. I may never have studied martial arts, but I learned all the blocks. Surprisingly, I was almost always cast as the defensive role in my stage fights. I wonder if I could still do the falls with my fused spine? It might make it easier.

It was a warm, fuzzy, maybe I'm not doing such a bad job after all, day. Don't you love those?

Everything You Leave Behind

How come every time I'm suddenly forced to think of "the before life" recently it's because someone has died? I mean I'm 29 not 89. Seriously, though it's scary.

In December I lost an important mentor from college. I was unable to attend his memorial in February. Even though it pained me deeply, I could not travel. The experience left me grieved for his loss and frustrated by my physical limitations preventing travel. As well as annoyed at my place in the world all these years since college. I've healed a little since then (emotionally, physically I seem to be falling apart).

Last night I came home exhausted and in pain. I was greeted by an invitation to a memorial for my friend who passed away. She actually passed in December, but the memorial the theatre company we were part of is throwing is next month.

How did my world get so small that I wouldn't know something like that had happened for months? I hate cancer. I hate how far away alot of my friends are. I hate that I don't know if I'll ever be able to get on a plane and see them while they're still living.

I want to go, but I am not doing well physically right now. New York City was too rough for me right out of college. I only lived there a year. I do miss it. I long to see my New York theater friends. I want to take a break from being Riley's mom and just be me. Change of scenery would do me good.

On the other hand what would I say to them? They knew me when I could do two shows a day and then go out to dinner. I miss that me. I'm sure now it would go something like: "Hi, how are you? I don't act anymore and my spine is fused. Want to see pictures of the baby?"

I'm dizzy just thinking about it all...Am I the only mom's who feels like she lived several separate lifetimes before ending up here?

What's the Deal With All the Hedgehogs?!?

People ask me a lot, and not uniquely in reference to the blog, Why hedgehogs?

I wish there was some grand tale behind it, but there really isn't. When I was pregnant I spent alot of time on bed rest which meant a lot of on-demand TV and internet. The first baby item I decided to online shop for was a mobile.

It was a frustrating venture. They were drab colors, oriented the wrong way for the baby to see anything or just plan ugly. I was bummed. I had already decided the nursery theme would be dragonflies and we would tweak colors once we knew the gender.

After a few hours I found a hedgehog mobile. It didn't match my nursery plans at all. It was in all shades of brown, but they were adorable. While I didn't buy the hedgehog mobile (instead I commissioned Mike's artist mother to make me a dragonfly mobile), but that is when hedgehogs become the official mascot of my pregnancy.

I decided for the baby shower invitations I'd have a stork carrying a pumpkin in its beak because Riley was due in October. Mike designed a tri-fold card so that when you opened it the stork had dropped the bottom half of the pumpkin and a baby bounced out. I didn't want a picture of a strange baby on my shower invitation so we used a baby hedgehog in a diaper. No, the baby shower was not hedgehog themed.

So, there was my shower invite, my baby website and blog, and Reggie! Mike picked up this incredibly soft curly brown fabric and exclaimed "I'm gonna make the baby a teddy bear." I shook my head at that plan because you can buy a bear anywhere if you're going to make a stuffed animal you should make something harder to find. That way when the baby grows up and people ask where she got her usual animal she can tell them her daddy made it. Three guesses what the animal of choice was. Remigius, Reggie for short, the hedgehog turned out super cute. Photo Credit: Lara (Horn)Coughlin. Reggie even stayed with Riley in the NICU once she made it to the step down unit. Reggie came home and sat in the corner of her crib. He has since been given a prominent place on her big girl bed. The bedding on her big girl bed features owls and other woodland creatures including a happy little hedgehog.

People gave me things here and there like a little newborn size outfit with blue and green hedgehogs on the shirt from her Aunt or a wooden set of adorable Hedgehogs to display. The Mommy hedgehog is the one Riley's examining on my blog banner. I just want to be clear Riley doesn't have a hedgehog themed room, wardrobe or toy collection. It's more like an inside joke type of thing. I'm glad I landed on hedgehogs because they're difficult to find so people don't tend to bombard us with them. We only get the cutest stuff.

When Riley was 3mo old her Daddy proposed to me on Christmas Day by putting the ring in the smallest of a set of Hedgehog nesting dolls. Which was amazing and special, but then came the ultimate hedgehog-centric event...

Riley's first birthday! I actually titled the blog about it Hedgehogs, Hedgehogs Everywhere.. I knew I wanted hedgehogs so we started with the invitations. We did homemade pop-up purple and green hedgehogs. I wanted the party to be bright colors. I also wanted the invitation to look like a child's drawing. Here's the front, he's playing peek-a-boo. Mike drew him based on my specifications and designed the pop-up hedghog inside. The poem inside said: "Come have a roly-poly day with me. We'll tumble and laugh and play with glee.
I'll have some cake to share and wear. So don't get prickly, don't despair.
With the 52 weeks of life I've had, I'm pretty sure I'm as old as dad!
Don't curl up and hide in three quarter's crescent. Come to the park on the fifth and bring me a present."

I wanted to order her this little red hedgehog dress I found on Etsy, but it was shipping from another country and shipping would cost as much as the dress. It's cute, right? Well, it became our inspiration when Mike decided Riley would have a red hedgehog party dress after all. He bought a pattern, some light corduroy and a hedgehog patch. As you can see from the post about her birthday it turned out beautifully. We also used the dress again for her professional one year photo session, which was the last time it fit her.

We recruited a talented friend of mine (and her in-laws) to make our gorgeous hedgehog cake and smash cake. I really can't express how much I loved the cakes. I was like one of those weepy people on Ace of Cakes when I saw them. We also had a watermelon carved like a hedgehog, with straws instead of tooth picks for baby safety, care of Mike's Mom. The cakes and watermelon are also pictured in the birthday post.

We had a whole picnic shelter to ourselves, potentially room for 3 birthday parties. So we pushed all the tables around the perimeter and put the Superyard up in the middle. Creating a baby play area inside the Superyard that included a hedgehog fort. We bought a fort structure which we built into the igloo design (which resembled, you guessed it, a hedgehog). We got some soft, pretty purple and green fabric to drape it with and foam for Mike to carve into a hedgehog head. The kids loved it.

Mike wasn't the only one to attempt an unfamiliar sewing project for the party either. I decided to sew little hedgehog finger puppets for the babies party favors. It was my first sewing project as an adult. I think they came out great. Not bad considering my complete lack of experience. They went into goodie bags with bright colored, light-up, squishy, spiky balls (one of the other Mommies dubbed "Hedgie") and twisty straws for the babies. Big kids got mini koosh ball critters that may have been hedgehogs and temporary hedgehog tattoos.

For her birthday Riley got a little stuffed hedgehog, a hedgehog puppet, a hedgehog Zhu-Zhu pet and an absolute ton of non-hedgehog related toys, books and clothes.

There you have a very detailed answer to a very simple question.

Partners in Time

My sister's been visiting from out of state and we had a little reunion today. We met up with the woman who used to take care of us and her daughter. It was crazy to introduce my daughter to my former daycare provider. A little more time displasia.

She is now a grandmother of 5 and I am a mother of 2. Her Daughter "Bell" was my sister's best friend when she was little. I cried laughing at the stories of what the two of them got up to. Apparently, when one of them would do something wrong and an adult would confront them they would hug each other. United we stand, priceless.

It occurred to me that Jess and Bell were the Boo and Roo (Riley and her best friend) of their time. I'm so glad Riley has her best friend to get into trouble with like her Aunt did. All these years later and they picked up right where they left off.

It took me a while to realize that one day I would be sitting at a table with adult versions of Boo and Roo laughing at stories about the silly things they did. Whoah...

Invasion of the Toddler Snatchers?!?

Yesterday was a bad, bad day. I kept Riley out of daycare because her Aunt is visiting and there was supposed to be a play date. Fast forward through one of the longest mornings of my life, I wish I could have, nothing had gone according to plan by nap time.

I was crying by late afternoon out of frustration. It seemed someone had come and kidnapped my sweet, loving, docile, little girl who communicates so well and replaced her with a shrieking, defiant, tornado of destruction and tears. Mental note don't keep Riley home from daycare on Mike's office day until plans have been confirmed in the future.

My nerves were shot by 3:00 when Isaac got home from school. Riley reacted to big brother's reappearance with the same whiny fussing she'd been serenading me with all afternoon. It was abundantly and painfully clear we were not having a one nap day at this point.

On a normal day I would say "Ok, Riley let's go get a book." and she would pick up her water cup and follow obediently behind me baby duck style. After more struggle then was necessary we cuddled together in her big girl bed with How do Dinosaurs Eat.

She listened to all 3 readings and then snuggled me sleepily for a minute before I attempted to take my leave. It was an unsuccessful attempt she howled like she was on fire. It didn't bother me that she was screaming because that seemed to be the day we were having. It was the moment after that when she bounded off the bed and followed me to the doorway.

I put the baby gate in her doorway and told her to get her cranky butt back in bed. She didn't think that was a good plan. She played quietly for about 15mins during which time I decided any break was well worth it and I was too tired to fight with her. Pretty soon it occurred to her that she needed to be upset about the baby gate.

She stood and screamed for endless torturous minutes. I walked over to the doorway and she turned her tear-stained face to me and grinned. I took the baby gate down (can't step over with my bad hips) and took her hand and led her to her bed. The shades of confusion that passed over her features were almost comical.

I reassured her that it was, in fact, nap time. Just a short nap I kept saying, but what she heard over the screaming I'll never know. I left and she got out of bed, screaming all the while. When I went back in I led her back to bed, tucked her in and sat on the end of the bed for several minutes. After she had stayed put that long I stood next to the bed reminding her to lay down every time it looked like she was gonna make a break for it. Eventually, I made it to the doorway and then the hallway always reminding her to lay down as needed over her cries.

When she finally feel asleep I locked myself in the bathroom and cried. It always seems like giving the kids independence will make our lives easier, but it is always more work on our part. I knew that I had to be clear about nap time rules so early in the big girl bed experience. I was pretty proud of myself later for channeling Super Nanny(which I used to watch all the time, but haven't since I gave birth) and staying tough.

It was a horrible, count to 10, breaking point, kind of bad day. I know next Monday Riley will be happily back at daycare and before then we'll have overcome the growing pains of the big girl bed transition. It's funny I researched every major decision I've ever made even if it was just by talking to other moms, but I didn't research switching to a bed at all.

I went by what Riley needed and what I could handle, alone. Huh. After Mike came home I cried in the bathroom some probably out of relief and prayed for the strength to survive until bedtime.