Washed Up

There's been a delay in posting beach pictures because we left the laptop in Florida. We always make a check of the rooms before we head out, but this bag must have been hiding very well. Perhaps it watched me take over a hundred pictures that weekend and decided that it needed a vacation. I'm not sure. Fortunately we noticed it was missing before the housekeeping staff had a chance to put it up on eBay, so it arrived back home today. First order of business was to load up pictures and post them all for you.

Helen had a LOVELY time at the beach. We got there around lunchtime on Friday, and immediately took all of our stuff to basecamp. Aunt C. headed down to the beach with Helen, but Helen was a little dismayed by the water and the waves.





She spent a few hours avoiding the water at all costs:







But she especially enjoyed it when her mommy left the beach chair for a minute to refresh her drink:



Our last day there, I went with another couple down to the beach for an evening photo session. I also got a chance to snap some good pictures of Helen, although by this point in the weekend, she was VERY tired of me taking her picture.





She crashed shortly after these pictures were taken, and my cousins will be pleased to know that I've shared the Cousin Trip Uno Rules with a brand-new group of converts. For those of you not in the know: if you play a 7, you have to switch hands with another player. If you play a 0, everyone at the table switches hands in the direction of play. (A word of warning: Cousin Trip Rules on a group our size means the game goes FOREVER.) But anyway, here is a picture of us playing, where D. is about to lay the smackdown on someone.

Beach Bummed

This weekend the Wyatts are packing up & heading to the Florida panhandle to spend some time getting crispy on the soft white sand, despite liberal applications of SPF 300. No, that's not a typo.

It's a regular trip for us with the same group of friends, and we do the beach well together. Normally it's 4 couples, but over the years, the group has grown. This time, we have 13 adults and 2 kids stuffed into 2 condos. It's our usual condo, across the street from the beach and a great restaurant.

We also have a regular local who handles our beach chair rentals. He looks like a cross between an old Malibu surfer and a fine set of leather luggage. George Hamilton would feel pale next to this guy.

It will be Helen's first trip to the beach. She was a mere week late for the last beach trip two years ago. I cannot wait to show her the beautiful shores of the Gulf of Mexico, where I spent all of my beach vacations as a kid. I'm crossing my fingers that she doesn't freak out and we don't end up at the pool instead.

But either way, I could really use a handy rip in the space-time continuum to get past the long drive with a toddler. I don't think there's enough Twizzlers in the world to get us there and back without a meltdown. From me.

Wish us luck - and I'll post pictures when we get back.

My Little Pony

On Saturday we went to the same community picnic where Helen took 1st runner up in the beauty pageant. No pageant this year - instead, we went with a friend of hers from daycare.

It was pretty advanced for a playdate. We had met at the mall once before on a weekend afternoon to let the kids run off some steam in a giant play area. These two are really great buddies and the daycare teachers have told me many times they have watched Helen holding hands with this little boy. His 2nd birthday was last month, and Helen still sings Happy Birthday to him at home.

The mom and I have been chatting at pickup and dropoff for months now, and the first playdate had gone so well, I followed up with the picnic invitation, which she eagerly accepted. I think she and I are trying to dance around the whole "making new friends" thing. As a married lady in my mid-30s with a kid, this is a lot harder than it looks. At first it was about the kids and the daycare, but we've ventured into talking about other things now, like work and family, and we're making plans for a get-together again soon.

The picnic was packed with booths for local vendors, animal rescue groups, and lots of political candidates. There were 4 stages for music and talent acts, and bouncy castles and climbing towers for the kids. They even had pony rides. It was $5 to put her on a horse and let her ride around in circles. I walked next to her, which made it hard to get pictures, but fortunately there were plenty of volunteers who snapped some photos of us.



Helen's friend from daycare did get on the pony but he lasted maybe two trips around the circle before he wanted off. Helen, on the other hand, wanted to ride TWICE. So I spent $10 on pony rides. She kept patting the horse's mane, and saying "Horsie? Good horsie!"

I think I know what she wants for Christmas.

We also went to the Children's Stage to see some of the musical acts. Saying this as someone who cannot carry a tune, that was actually quite painful to watch. Fortunately, Helen chose that moment to go completely nuts and try to take down the soundboard tent, so we moved on.

I think we were there for 3 hours, and Helen was completely exhausted when we got home. She crashed for a quick 90-minute nap. But I won't forget this moment for a long time, where Helen made every single parent standing in line for a pony ride laugh:

Woof woof woof woof woof!

Friday night Brian cooked ribs, and we invited a guest to join us for dinner: the Amazing Babysitter. Very soon she will be the Amazing Married Babysitter. So it was a good chance to relax and have fun before the wedding chaos descends.

Amazing Babysitter brought over her two babies: 3-year old German shepherds. Massive dogs - very tall, solid, and FRIENDLY. She had them on the leash at first, but took them off after a few minutes and they obeyed her instantly. Came when she called, didn't bark, and didn't get into any trouble.

Too bad I didn't get her to train Helen from the beginning!

Helen squealed with delight all evening. She was not the least bit scared of these dogs, who outweighed her by at least 50 pounds each. She patted them and barked at them and chased them everywhere. And she talked about the "puppy dogs" all weekend. Fortunately, they were good-natured, patient dogs who were so busy checking out the new backyard, they didn't even notice this little squealing child who kept patting them.

Presenting SCOUT and PATTON, the gorgeous German Shepherds:

Happy Mother's Day

Here's a poem that takes me right back to a picnic table by the lake, outside of Arts & Crafts. Fellow Camp Cosby kids, you know what I mean.


The Lanyard
by Billy Collins
(as heard on "Prairie Home Companion")


The other day as I was ricocheting slowly
off the pale blue walls of this room,
bouncing from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word "lanyard."

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one more suddenly into the past --
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sickroom,
lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips,
set cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.

Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.

And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift--not the archaic truth
that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hands,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

I'm a Beta Mom!

Those of you who don't read a lot of "mommy blogs" might not know about the ungodly number of hours women spend debating hot-button parenting issues. You name it: everything from breastfeeding to co-sleeping to infertility can set off vast amounts of angry comments and hate emails across the internet.

A few women, however, recognized a desperate need for online parenting resources. One whipped up a website for a group of popular mommy bloggers and called it "Alpha Mom." Bloggers, unite! Form of, ice cube in my cocktail!

It turns out that Alpha Moms command a lot of attention from their loyal readers, and where Alphas go to shop for products, other parents will follow. Naturally, the corporate world jumped on the bandwagon immediately. Google "Alpha Mom" and you'll find tons of praise for these women from every corner of the boardroom. They're even getting their own TV channel soon.

But what is an Alpha Mom, exactly? There's a great article in USA Today this week describing this new marketing segment. To quote:

Alphas are educated, can-do types whose organizational skills bring a corporate mentality to their parenting and a technological agility to their problem-solving. These high achievers will often surf the Web and blogs for advice. They've also gotten plenty of media attention.

Okay, I've got the surfing part down pat, although I'm not one to follow a lot of advice. I'm stubborn like that. But organizational skills - does that mean I'm actually getting something in my house cleaned while I'm taking care of Helen? Yeah, that's not me.

The USA Today article went on to describe the recent anti-Alpha Mom movement, a sort of backlash against all these images of perfection in motherhood. These "rebels" take a much more relaxed approach to parenting.

Those moms have it together sometimes. They may forget to send back permission slips or lose track of their turn for team snacks. They don't necessarily have the catchy name, though some call themselves Beta Moms or even Slacker Moms as they urge their peers to chill.

I'm so glad there's finally a name for me. You Alpha Moms can have it all - I'll just sit right here while my child reads "Green Eggs & Ham" to me, and not think about running the dishwasher or setting out her clean clothes for tomorrow or paying a few bills online. In fact, I might even take a nap.

Zoo-topia, except for the train

The cousins had such a good time at the zoo together. Lions and tigers and elephants, OH MY!

The elephant's enclosure was being cleaned and readied for lunch, and the room where they keep him is accessible to the public. We went around to see him, and Helen waved to the big guy several times. The elephant didn't really notice. He kept pacing around his little room.






Suprisingly, the zoo also had a few buffaloes. I was impressed that I could get this close. Cousin M. wanted to ride one. Um, sorry, buddy.



We found a huge flock of pink flamingos, too. Here's Helen with her Nana. Grandpa is right behind her, and Cousin M. stayed in the stroller.



Most zoos have something for the kids, besides all the animals. This zoo is no exception - there's a train that runs around the woods behind the zoo. No viewing of any animal enclosures, although I did see a chipmunk scurry across the track. We started off just fine with the kids - here they are getting settled in their seats. I've included it because I had no idea I got the shot until I got home. Grandpa's face CRACKS ME UP.



But about 100 yards down the track, I'm not sure if the occasional "TOOT TOOT" of the train horn bothered her, or the noise of the engine, but Nana took a picture of how Helen spent the rest of the ride:



If the trip to the zoo taught me anything, it's that I need to figure out how to get my camera to focus on its intended subject, and I don't need to spend extra money on train tokens at the zoo. Thank you, Helen.

Sweet Ride

Aside from the Mustang project, there's another car in our garage that's not ours. The other day, Brian needed the room to move the engine stand around, so he pulled the Porsche out in the driveway. It belongs to our Navy friend W., and we've been storing it for him.

Helen decided it was time to take a drive.







If these pictures don't cause a cold river of pure fear to pulse through your veins, then YOU can give her driving lessons.

The One Without Pictures

This weekend I traveled home with Helen to visit the family. Helen and Cousin M. played together non-stop on Saturday. We took them to the zoo for a few hours. We showed them monkeys and elephants and giraffes and lions and tigers and even pink flamingos. Now that they're older, they're having more fun seeing the animals.

The only time they napped was during a short trip in the car. Fighting sleep every step of the way, they stayed up until 9 pm and then CRASHED. Their parents didn't last much longer than that.

I also got a late birthday present - a very special accessory for MY PRECIOUSSSS. It's a zoom lens (75-300mm, for the camera geeks), and a couple of memory cards to help with the maximum number of Helen pictures required to get me through the day.

But you may have noticed I haven't posted any of those pictures. I took so many this weekend that the laptop started laughing when I got home. Seriously. I heard, "Hahahahahahahaha! AS IF, LADY." It was a little eerie, actually.

So, I'll do some technical fiddling tonight. That's my word for it. I'm not the big geek in the family, so I fiddle and cross my fingers that nothing crashes. It usually works. But it probably explains a lot about why my laptop laughs at me.

The Paci Wars Have Begun

Yesterday I picked up Helen at daycare, and she had a meltdown as we got to the front door. I think she wanted to play outside, and I was wearing shoes that hurt, and a linen suit that I just wanted to get OUT of already, and if she could just pick herself up off the porch and come inside for a minute ... well, you and I both know she's almost two, so that didn't work. So I hauled her up and carried her in, and that's when the meltdown started. I changed my clothes in my bedroom while she laid on the living room floor, wailing.

Usually when she gets to wailing, she wants her pacifier. The pacifier is for sleep time only. She knows this. I tell her this whenever she asks for it, and a quick distraction usually works. This time, it didn't.

I tried ignoring the fit. I tried reminding her that she doesn't get anything by crying, that she needs to ask nicely, and to say "please" if she wants something.

Ah, who are we kidding? Toddlers learn to throw fits because that gets the attention - negative or positive, it gets the attention because parents usually react to a fit. Normally I use distraction and it has been successful in the past. But I think she's at the age where independence and a need for control is rearing its ugly head. Last night, distraction wasn't going to work at all. So I tried very hard to just ignore the wailing. Occasionally, if she seemed to quiet down, I would remind her that she needed to ask nicely for her pacifier, instead of screaming for it. Hearing my voice seemed to make it all much, much worse.

It was about 30 minutes of pure toddler fury. At times she was so upset, watching this little girl have a gigantic fit, complete with the stomping feet and the flying fists, was actually pretty funny. I hate to say that I laughed, but I really, really did.

She finally stopped crying and wandered into the kitchen. I came in, and she showed me something she had pulled out of the cabinet. She wasn't crying anymore. I asked her if she was ready for dinner. She was. She got whatever she asked for, as long as she said "please." And it worked. The rest of the evening was fine.

This morning when she woke up, she went into full-throttle fury mode again. The difference was, I had about 4 minutes to get out the door for work. So I didn't have time for the ignoring, or the patient reminding about asking nicely. Parenting books never tell you how to deal with a time crunch like this, and all I knew to do was to keep moving, with a struggling crying toddler who was furious at me for not giving her a pacifier. So everything was no. No pants, no shirt, no sandals. Oh, ESPECIALLY no sandals.

I had worked so hard to get a clean diaper and clothes on a squirming target fighting me every step of the way, and of course I was having my own little meltdown about starting the morning this way. Somehow, it wasn't nearly as funny as it was the day before. So I decided I'd head to the car, strap her in her toddler seat, and have some free hands to put the sandals on. We headed downstairs, and as I grabbed my purse, Helen kept wailing, "No sandals, no sandals!" through giant, sobbing tears. Walking toward the door, I replied, "Oh no, Helen, it's ALL sandals, ALL the time!"

I got the sandals on. I dropped her off at daycare. I MIGHT go get her tonight. We'll see.

Roommates I Have Known, Part 4

Once Olivia transferred, we managed to convince the Housing Office that Samantha could move from her room across campus to join us. They fell for it, and Samantha was in.

Samantha fit right into the room. A petite girl with blonde hair and blue eyes, she was originally from England, and came to America when she was 10. I remember one time she showed me her green card, which was actually a nice shade of pink. Who knew?

She and I got along very well. She was a quiet girl around new people, but once I got to know her, she had a really dark sense of humor that I loved. We stayed up late a lot our freshman year, getting to know each other and talking about all the things from our hometown. Since we both went to high school in the same town, she and I were convinced we knew each other before college and just forgot that we ever met. Maybe we did, maybe we never did. But today, knowing her as well as I do, I think it was because we were destined to become best friends.

She and Cari had both decided to rush a sorority our sophomore year, and I remember the sisters coming to Megan and I ahead of time to let us know they'd be breaking into our room in the early morning hours to get them. This struck me as really funny, because during our freshman year, the girl next door to Samantha rushed Chi Omega. The sisters made a HUGE racket, banging on her door and screeching loudly at about 6 a.m. I remember stirring in my sleep, thinking "What was that?" I didn't know that Samantha flung open her door and glared at all of them. One of the girls smiled and said, "Sorry!" in that sing-song girly voice that isn't really sorry at all.

Samantha slammed her door as hard as she could.

I tell you, if the girls hadn't woken up everyone up with the screeching, that door slamming did the trick. I was on the other side of Sam's room and holy cow, it rattled our windows. The Chi Omegas treaded quietly out of our hall and never made another peep.

Samantha was legendary that day. All of us on the hall were awed by her. So when the sorority came to get Samantha and Cari for their own initiation (NOT the Chi Omegas, thankfully), instead of the hoopla we witnessed the previous year, the sisters tiptoed in with flashlights and snuck both of them out quietly. What a contrast.

Our own Tuesday night parties in the Chalet continued. But with two sorority girls as roommates, I tagged along with them to the off-campus parties on the weekend. Most of our school's social life came from the Greek system. One fraternity in danger of losing its charter from dwindling membership attracted the attention of some of our guy friends, who saw it as an opportunity to rebuild the group as their own. So we joined their parties on the weekends, too.

The campus started a shuttle bus system that we used to travel to the nearby apartments off-campus. There was a theme song for these rides that a few people reading this blog will be able to sing along with immediately: "Ride the shuttle bus, get your money's worth ..." And now that I've reminded you of it, I DARE you to get this song out your head by tomorrow. :)

Both Samantha and I were dating "older" men, and late that spring term everything got really messy. Samantha was always there to listen and always knew the right thing to say. She was incredibly supportive. I can only hope I was the friend she needed then, too.

Both Cari and Samantha, who were taking German, decided to spend fall term of their junior year studying in Vienna, Austria. That would leave me without a roommate for one term. Cari's planned roommate for her junior year, a sorority sister named Jen, needed a roommate for that term, too. So she & I paired up in an off-campus apartment that fall, waiting for our roommates to come back to the USA.

It was a terrible horrible no good very bad time. Jen was up to that point just a nodding acquaintance of some people I ate lunch with regularly. She seemed normal enough for the first few weeks, but it turns out she was a touch crazy in the head, and it all started coming loose that year. She had a boyfriend that I think enjoyed pushing all of her buttons at once and stepping back to see what happened. I sort of kept my head down and tried to ignore it.

But there was also some serious drama with the fraternity and boyfriends and good friends that all happened for no good reason whatsoever. And the whole time, my best friend was halfway around the world, speaking German every day. She and I wrote each other constantly, and sometimes saved up our money to call each other. I remember pouring out my heart in a very long letter about all the terrible things that were happening, and she called me very early one morning to talk about it. I had kind of gotten better by the time she called, but hearing her voice on the phone brought it all back right away and I think I spent most of our precious few minutes on the phone crying. I still have her letters, filled with lots of No Ways! and How Could Theys?! - as many as she could fit into the left side of a postcard. I tell you folks, that is a true friend.

Samantha came back to school in January, and we managed to secure the apartment next door. I remember the rent was something ridiculous like $400 a month for a two-bedroom. The place was originally built as government housing for returning Vietnam veterans. It was a dump, but it was OUR dump. We made the best of it with some of our parents' cast-off furniture and kitchen stuff.

Speaking of kitchen stuff, this is where the baked beans on toast figures in prominently. I'm sure she can chime in with all of my weird stuff, too. But this blog entry is about HER. :)

Sometimes we had our own parties in that apartment. But the best one, I remember her mom sent me some money to buy her a cake for her 21st birthday. Samantha was a little younger than the rest of us because of the age differences for grade school in England. So all of us had been 21 for quite a while, and we decided to celebrate her birthday in style. For college students, "style" is code for "get a keg." I had been to plenty of parties with kegs, but never had one in my own place before, and never had one since then. We bought ballons, made snacks, invited all the neighbors and cranked up the music. It was a great party and I know Samantha had a lot of fun, too. I can't wait to show her kids the pictures one day.

Six months after we graduated, I heard our apartment building burned down over Thanksgiving Break. I lived nearby and came back to town often, so I drove over to see the damage. Sure enough, there was a shell of a building left, surrounded by orange consruction fencing. It was shocking to see it. I just stood there, staring at it for several minutes, not saying anything.

The fire started two apartments away from ours. There were lots of rumors flying around, but that particular apartment was the home of two younger girls we knew from the fraternity parties, one of whom smoked constantly. However it started, though, I can't imagine coming back from the holiday and seeing everything GONE. This was a place where I had stored the precious few things I'd managed to collect and call my own. My computer, my entire music collection, my clothes, and those super bath towels my sister had given me. I couldn't imagine starting over with nothing.

I got some renters insurance for my own place, pronto.

Since graduation, we've both lived in plenty of different cities. We've called and written and emailed to stay in touch. I was in her wedding, and many years later, she was in mine. I've spent weekends at her house, enjoying her children and chatting with her husband. We've even had some very rare girl time to ourselves. She has morphed into a wonderful chef, a mother of two darling kids, and a very responsible homeowner. After a long career in the legal field, she stayed home to take care of her kids, and now teaches science to junior high students.

This is the dark sense of humor girl I spent so many nights in college hanging out with, laughing over something ridiculous at 2 a.m. at Dunkin' Donuts, or singing Nine Inch Nails in the car at the top of our lungs with the windows rolled down. I tell you, life takes some strange turns. I'm just so glad she's still here to laugh about it all with me. And also to help me remember it. :)

This is no ordinary love

For my birthday this weekend, I got a camera. A really nice camera. Is it possible to love a piece of electronics this much? Well, I do. I don't care who knows it. My camera & I are sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.

For the camera junkies out there, it's a Canon Digital Rebel XTi. It came with a lens kit for the zoom (18-55 mm). In two days, I took 70 pictures. Each of them are over 3MB. My laptop literally groaned when I uploaded them last night.

A few months ago I moved most of our pictures on our computer to an external hard drive, to give us a little breathing room on the laptop. And now I finally understand the point of all those terrabyte drives. It's so I can store 18,000 pictures of my child that I will take this year.

I plan on becoming quite the photographer of my child. Just look how good* the pictures already are!

Helen celebrates NFL draft day with her daddy in her new Tennessee Titans gear.

Helen needs a haircut. Really, really needs a haircut. But I can't bring myself to cut those curls. Also, I will laugh at whoever thinks she can sit still for a haircut. Ha!

At her cousin's birthday party, Helen contemplates which to smear on her face first - ice cream or cake.

Here we have a rare shot of the photographer, as she reluctantly lets someone else use her PRECIOUSSSSSSSSS.

* - "good" is my opinion.

Roommates I have known, Part 3

Megan, Cari & Olivia

About a week before fall term started, I found out from the Housing Office that I would be living in a converted study room in the basement with 3 other girls. Um, what? I didn't know any of the other 3 girls. We met as I moved my stuff in that first day. Samantha, meanwhile, was stuck on a freshman hall across campus.

For some strange reason that no one on campus could explain, this basement study room had a large bathroom with four separate shower stalls. To make it a room for us, they took out all of the study carrels and put in furniture - beds, closets, dressers & desks, all lined up in neat rows. Of course, we promptly rearranged everything.

One of the nearby freshman halls adopted us, and their RA nicknamed our room the Chalet. I think she was trying to be ironic, considering our room was at the lowest elevation on campus.

Returning students spent months popping in the door, thinking it was still a study room. We had serious air conditioning problems those first few weeks. The maintenance staff came by nearly every day to take care of something new. It took some getting used to, but we managed to make the best of it.

The no-window thing turned out to be a giant blessing in disguise. I could nap for hours in the pitch-black dark.

Megan was a senior who wanted a single room on-campus. Instead, she got 3 sophomore roommates. She was an art major and spent most of her time in her studio, working on projects. She was kind of a strange egg at times, seemingly quiet and tuning us out - but genuinely nice. I learned everything I know about straightening a black woman's hair from her, watching her spend hours washing and drying and flat-ironing her hair once a week.

Cari was a very tall girl, with long blonde hair. She came from an all-girls school, and still wore her plaid skirt to class on special occasions. Cari had a huge music collection, and more importantly, a television. So now we could have our "90210" nights! She was incredibly fun to hang out with, but she needed her alone time. Living with 3 other girls, the room was rarely empty, but sometimes I would come home from class to see her sitting on her bed, with her headphones on and music blasting. She'd wave, but the headphones didn't come off.

I don't recall what the problem was one week, but I had been down in the dumps about something and my Chris Isaak CD had been playing for 3 days in row. Every time I came into the room, I turned it on. Finally, on the third day, Cari very nicely but firmly asked me if I could play something else - ANYTHING else. She was kind enough to let me mope for a bit, and she let me know it was time to MOVE ON, ALREADY.

Every so often, Cari would ask me to trim her long hair, so she wouldn't have to pay for a haircut. I'm not sure why she asked me, but it did make me realize I did not have a future in a beauty salon.

The four of us loved to take road trips off-campus with the windows down and the radio blasting a favorite tune. We usually ate dinner together, and kept each other company on a walk to the Student Center. Without any hallmates nearby, or an RA to sneak past, our basement room felt like real freedom. We were determined to enjoy it. Some of our guy friends would come over to hang out once a week and play cards or watch a movie. We called it our Tuesday night drinking club. Oh, we were so daring back then!

I've left Olivia for the end. Olivia was the odd one in the bunch. Moody would be the best word to describe her. She was either a little too eager, or completely miserable. She had a really crazy laugh that reminded me of a donkey braying. Sometimes she was so depressed, she turned into a little black hole in the room that sucked out all the energy. The mood swings came on suddenly, and without warning. It made it difficult to live with her, and eventually we just settled for having minimal contact with her. Well, as minimal as you could when you were all in the same room.

The final straw though, was when she started jogging at 5:30 a.m. None of us got up before 8 a.m., so having an alarm go off at that hour, combined with turning on a light, showering and getting dressed - well, it was rude. Asking her to jog later was like provoking an angry boar. She had to jog then, and no other time would work for her. She refused to get up without the alarm, the light, or the shower. So after a few weeks of this, the 3 of us had a meeting and decided Olivia had to go. She could talk to the Housing Office and find another place to live, but she couldn't live with us anymore.

Years later, as I watched the first season of MTV's Real World, I felt like I had already done that show in the Chalet. We were strangers in a new place, and having three roommates instead of the usual one magnified all of our attitudes and quirks. Virtually no privacy made it even tougher. If we had any other living situation, dealing with Olivia might have turned out very different. But at the time, we saw no other solution.

We told her the news at a McDonald's off-campus, and she ended up crying and running off to the parking lot. I went out there to talk her down and get her back into the car so we could go home. Over Christmas break, she transferred to a state school in her hometown. Maybe because I was the one who talked to her in the parking lot that night, she decided I wasn't part of the meanies who kicked her out, but for months I got letters and phone calls from her. It was all just idle chit-chat, keeping me posted on her new life. She seemed happier, or else she was determined to show me she was better off at her new school.

Samantha, who had been living across campus, replaced Olivia after the Christmas break. I'll save that story for tomorrow.

Roommates I have known, Part 2

Debbie

After the Christmas break, Debbie showed up to replace Holly. She was a sophomore on our freshman hall, probably after losing some kind of housing lottery. She had taken a break after her freshman year - the details were sketchy, but I always suspected she had a nervous breakdown. Now after a year and some change, she was back in school.

The first night back, a student group hosted a big Registration Night party for the entire campus. We went to the party together with some hallmates, and I left early, but Debbie didn't come home that night. She had left a number near the phone of some mysterious guy named Todd, and as I was leaving for my 8 am class that morning, I left a message on Todd's answering machine. I didn't know her very well, but I was worried about her and wanted to make sure nothing had happened to my brand-new roommate of exactly one day. She called me shortly after lunch to say she was fine, and to thank me for worrying about her. From then on, she let me know if she would be out all night, which was not often. I felt weird for calling at the time, but these days you never know. There can be some strange people out there.

Speaking of which, Debbie was a drama major. She taught me that actors do not practice; instead, they rehearse. I never understood the distinction, but she repeated it over and over, so maybe she was right. I would read lines with her a lot. She did some one-act shows that I thoroughly enjoyed, and performed in one A.R. Gurney play that I still look for in bookstores.

Debbie was rail-thin, with light brown hair and very dark brown eyes. I have loads of pictures from my freshman year, and Debbie is somehow missing entirely. But she reminded me of a character on Blossom called Six, with her trendy fashion clothes and permed hair. And she was a very thoughtful roommate - I still have some of her little notes or comic strips that she often left for me, encouraging me to do well on a test or to have a good day.

At the end of the year, Debbie & I talked about rooming together again. We lived next door to two girls that we had clicked with, and we decided that the four of us would sign up to live in a sophomore suite together. About a week before the deadline, I found out that Debbie & one of the girls next door had secretly abandoned that plan and signed up to be Freshman Advisors together. FRADs lived on a freshman hall and helped the Resident Advisors. Samantha (the other girl next door) and I were stunned.

So the two of us scrambled to get a room together, and ended up on a very long waiting list. We spent all summer calling the Housing Office to find out our status. As a result of their decision to live together and leave us behind, Samantha & I were thrown into what would become unprecedented housing chaos on our campus. Turns out there was a giant shortage of rooms that year. We cursed Debbie and our neighbor often. Somehow, we manuvered through it all, and Samantha would become not only my roommate, but also one of my very best friends. With the benefit of hindsight, today I can be thankful for all of that chaos.

Late in my sophomore year, I heard Debbie left school again. There were some roommate struggles and grade issues, and perhaps the college experience just wasn't what she wanted it to be. I don't remember staying in touch, but I must have, because a year later, I was invited to her wedding. She got married in her tiny hometown's theater, up on the stage.

I was the only one from our school who showed up. I don't remember who she married. But I vividly recall the flower girl spent the entire ceremony running back and forth on the stage, crying. The reception was small and awkward. It was far too warm to be outdoors, and yet we all were. But I'd never seen her happier or more beautiful. That stage was the perfect setting for Debbie, and she played her role flawlessly that day.

I haven't heard from her since then. I keep meaning to dig up her last name and look her up on IMDB.org, to see if she ever made it big in acting.

Roommates I have known

One of the blogs I read regularly posted an entry about his old college roommates. It's inspired me.

Holly

My first roommate was a blue-eyed, blonde-haired pale girl from Ohio. Both of us came from small church schools, and both of us were a little anxious about our transition to a college campus. We channeled that anxiety into discussing the color theme for our first dorm room. The floors were tiled, but they sold small carpets to fit the room. We spent hours trying to pick a carpet color to match our comforters. Mine: blue with white stripe. Hers: large pink & blue flowers. We settled on a dark rose carpet. We figured it would hide the stains better than beige.

Rose-colored carpet? Who does that?

Fast-forward to Orientation Week. Each freshman girls' hall matched up with a boys' hall to give us a "brother hall" for the year. That first night on campus, we paired up with a boy from our brother hall for a square dance. In the fall of 1990, as pop was falling out of favor and grunge was knocking on the front door, we were far too cool for square dancing. For some reason I'll never understand, we did it anyway.

After the dance, some of the guys came back to our hall. Holly was out with some of the girls, so I invited the crowd to hang out in our room. There were about 8 of us in that very small room, playing music and getting to know each other. When she came in later that evening, you'd think she had walked in on a naughty game of Spin the Bottle. Her frosty demeanor threw a chill on the room.

I don't think she ever got over that experience.

But on the whole, she was a pleasant person, although far more conservative than I was. She called me a "Whiskey-palian" as I left for church with a hallmate, which was pretty irritating. And she didn't like my bed lamp. I got down to a 15-watt bulb before the complaints stopped. Little did I know how much a lamp would factor into my college living conditions the next year.

Holly enjoyed the cafeteria more than most of us did. It was as much terrible food as you wanted to eat. One redeeming quality: a soft-serve ice cream machine. The dreaded Freshman 15 was a very real fear for most of us, and after noticing Holly eating two or three cones, some of the girls on our hall took it upon themselves to strictly ration her to one helping per meal. She would sneak an extra cone out of the cafeteria on her way out, but they still caught her. She was teased mercilessly about all that ice cream. I probably should have stood up for her a little more than I did, but I kept thinking, "Three cones, Holly? That's just asking for it."

So I shouldn't have been surprised when Holly told me a week before Christmas vacation that she wasn't coming back. She transferred to her older brother's college closer to home, a Christian college where she wouldn't be allowed to have boys in her room. I sent her a Christmas card when I got home, and never heard from her again.

I wondered if she had any fun at her new school. I hope no one teased her about eating too much.

For her next trick, she'll floss her teeth.

Like any good mother, I cut up Helen's food and give it to her in tiny, kid-sized bites. All the experts say parents should do that so they don't choke on their food.


Really, and I'm telling you the God's honest truth here, all it does is encourage Helen to see how many of those little pieces she can fit in her mouth at one time. Turns out IT'S FAR TOO MANY, HELEN.


One night I made corn on the cob, and out of curiousity I handed her a half-cob to see what she'd do with it. It took some explaining, but she finally believed it was corn. She must have thought it always grew in tupperware containers.


After I showed her how to take a bite, she proceeded to eat 2 whole ears all by herself.

Little Backpack

A quick shout-out (with pictures) to Helen's Uncle K., who came back from his Spring Break with a Hello Kitty backpack for her.

I do not have any pictures of Cousin M wearing the backpack, which is a shame, really. He loved that thing.

Ladies, you know nothing goes with a new purse better than a gorgeous new outfit for spring. She even has new sandals, too. You can see she's thrilled about it. (/sarcasm) I'm having a hard time getting her to ever wear the sandals. She really prefers her sneakers.

And here she is, just being a cute kid.

Munchkin Land

One lazy Sunday, Brian volunteered to pick up lunch for all of us at McDonalds. He came back with a Happy Meal for Helen that had a TOY. The TOY turned out to be a tiny Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz, made by Madame Alexander.


My sister had a Madame Alexander doll that was well-loved in its day. She called it "Bah-bee" and took it with her everywhere. She would rock it and put it to sleep in the toy cradle. It was a beautiful little baby doll, albeit a little dirty, and when I saw that Madame Alexander tag on Helen's new TOY, I had to get the entire Wizard of Oz set.


I hopped online to see how many other characters they had. Turns out there were eight, and Tin Man was somewhere in the middle. So I had missed some, and I would have to visit McDonalds often to keep up with the new toys coming out.


That sounded like way too much work. So I went right to Ebay, where I found about a zillion auctions of the entire set, unopened. One had a very reasonable Buy-It-Now price, so I Pay-Pal'd the seller with my lightning quick internet reflexes. Within a week, the dolls arrived. But since we're so diligent about checking the mail around the Wyatt House, we didn't get them until yesterday.


They are just so darn CUTE. It appears the Tin Man is an early favorite with Helen, but I think they're all fantastic. Oh yes, I will be playing with these for the next few days.


In fact, after Helen went to bed last night, I set up a photo session so I could show you the dolls!


Here are the sisters - the Wicked Witches of the East and the West - see the red shoes?



Here's a tiny Munchkin with Glinda, the Good Witch of the North -



Here we have Cowardly Lion and Tin Man. The Lion has a long tail which you can barely see.



And at last, here's Dorothy, and the Scarecrow she'll miss most of all -



I talked with Brian last night about all the characters they could have made. Oh, say for example, I don't know, but maybe the FREAKIN' WIZARD OF OZ. Also, I suggested the Flying Monkey, but Brian told me he wasn't interested in giving Helen nightmares just yet. Good call, Brian.


Little-known fact: when I was about 12, the youth group in my church held a performance of The Wizard of Oz. It's all pretty fuzzy in the memory banks, but I sang one line as the "Munchkin Coroner." (YES, I SANG IN PUBLIC, STOP LAUGHING!!) In case you've forgotten the line, it goes as follows, very heavy on the vibrato:


As Coroner, I must aver, I thoroughly examined her,
And she's not only merely dead, she's really most sincerely dead!


Please, please hold your applause until the end. Thank you.


I remember watching this movie as a kid, when I must have been about 5 or 6 years old. You all may remember that it used to air once a year, and every kid got to stay up late to watch it. I was in my pajamas, with a big bowl of popcorn. I hid my face in the pillow when the Flying Monkeys showed up. And Mom could do the perfect Wicked Witch cackle, which would make your skin crawl. It's amazing how the scary parts of that movie pop out now, even thought it's nearly 70 years old.


I'll get the DVD someday for Helen to watch. We'll stay up late, with popcorn. And when she comes to me later with a nightmare about a Flying Monkey, I'll know why.

Bubbles

Helen got a new toy for spring. Unlike real mowers, it isn't very noisy, it doesn't cut grass, and it makes a lot of bubbles.

She took her new mowing duties very seriously.



Her daddy was very excited about her first lesson in yard work, until she started mowing in circles. We'll have to work on making nice, straight rows.

We live next door to some homeowners who've started their own Crabgrass'R'Us store, so we've had to be ever-vigilant with our lawn. Helen's new skills may come in quite handy.

Kiss Me

Remember Easter morning, when your parents let you have CANDY for BREAKFAST?

Helen had 3 Hershey kisses before I hid the rest of the basket. While she napped, I ate the rest of them. I don't think she'll fall for that trick next year.

And hey, look, mom! It's her Easter dress! With hairbows!

Mine-field

Two-year olds are something to really admire.


No, really, stay with me here.


They are single-minded in their pursuit of whatever occurs to them at that moment. Juice? Toys? Hair pulling? They have a laser-like focus on it. It's refreshing really, in this world of ADD and 200 channels and drive-through wedding chapels, to find someone who's devoted to carrying out a task from start to finish.


This weekend, the task was "mine." As in, that's mine, what's yours is mine, Mine Mine ALL MINE. Oh, and in case you weren't clear on that, right over there, I don't what it is, but it's MINE!!!!


My sister and I tried teaching them the concept of sharing and taking turns but a toddler will not be deterred for long. Sometimes it worked, but then a few seconds later, they remembered that the toy was MINE and suddenly it's right back to mothers mediating again. They had meltdowns over balls and rocking buffaloes and Legos. I think sippy cups were involved at one point, but I'm not really sure. I've kind of blocked it all out with wine.


So, as long as we had two of something, we were good. Two books, two balls, 800 legos - they played like champions, running around and laughing. I loved watching the sheer joy on their faces as they saw each other in the morning.


The weather did not cooperate this weekend. In fact, like most lawns in our neighborhood, our newly green bushes are now a frozen, withered brown. So instead of taking the kids for a planned outing to the zoo's annual Easter Egg Hunt, we had an Easter Egg Hunt in our living room. Helen got it immediately. She zipped around the room, snatching up eggs. Cousin M sort of trailed along behind, picking up a couple that she missed. He definitely picked up speed in Round 2. I can't wait to see them in an official hunt with a couple hundred more kids.

Later that day, we took the kids to the mall and let them play in the kids' zone near the food court. Then we took them to the bookstore to pick out their own Easter presents. Yes, you read that right. They chose a bunch of books, but when we got home, the books had magically disappeared. Toddlers are SO EASY to fool!


They're also easy to wear out. After two full days of playing, Helen took a FOUR HOUR NAP on Sunday.


Maybe Cousin M can come back next weekend, too!


See if you can spot the kids hiding in all the toys:



Cousin M says the buffalo is MINE:



And Helen's got a BIG smile for everyone here:

TWO toddlers = TWICE the fun

Aunt M. and Cousin M. are visiting us this weekend. They arrived last night and as Cousin M. walked in the door, the two kids shrieked with excitement. They both began running around the house at full speed, with Cousin M. saying "Come on, Helen! Come on!" Occasionally, Helen would stop to scream at the top of her lungs. I had to pull out the typical mom-line, "Helen, inside voices, please." They were just so excited, and it was really fun to watch them so happy together.

Later, after everyone had settled down a bit, the kids started dragging out the toys. At one point, while he was moving them around, Cousin M. tripped and fell, and from the behind the sofa we heard a voice say, "I am OKAY."

My sister and I could NOT. STOP. LAUGHING.

There's lots of Cousin Fun planned for the weekend, if the weather cooperates. I'll be sure to post pictures and hopefully some more good stories, so be sure to check back here on Monday.

And I hope you all are OKAY, too.

The Long March

Last month, Brian spent a Sunday walking 26.2 miles with a 35-pound backpack.

On purpose.

Several months ago, our Navy friend W. mentioned a marathon march in New Mexico that commemorated the Bataan Death March from World War II. Brian, being male, said "Sure, that sounds great!" He got a pair of boots and a backpack like the military guys wear, and went out for a breezy 6-mile hike near our house.

He came back with no skin on his heels. Seriously.

So, after a trip to the podiatrist and a sporting goods store for hiking shoes, and SEVERAL bandaids later, he continued with the training hikes. He got up to 19 miles before the actual marathon event, and that particular one left him feeble for a few days.

I made lots of jokes about making sure the life insurance was paid up, asking our agent if something called Bataan Memorial DEATH March would invalidate our policy, speculating as to how I would spend the life insurance proceeds, etc. It was endlessly amusing (to me, anyway), and at the same time a little bit worrisome to realize that Brian would be hiking a marathon with a giant pack on his back. Athletic events like this can cause heart attacks, strokes, dehydration and serious sun damage.

So I did what any loving wife would do. I reminded him to use sunscreen.

Brian got to town early to register, but everyone else was getting in late at night. Late arrivals meant very little sleep the night before the race. Everyone knew this ahead of time, and then Brian learned at registration that participants would have a long wait at the security checkpoint before parking on the military base. They recommended leaving the hotel around 3:30 am.

Which meant NO sleep before the race. Optimal, don't you think?

Despite all of this, they managed to have a good time. No bad attitudes, no complaining, just set out and hike and get it done. And all three guys finished the race. W. called me afterwards to mention that I shouldn't go spending the life insurance just yet. A few days later, Brian came back with gorgeous pictures, aching calves, and a strong desire to do this again next year.

(I mentioned the part about him being male, right?)

This is W. and T. setting out at first light - W. has the orange camelback:

This is a bagpiper that kept up with them for the first 7 miles, without a break:

This is my favorite picture - I love the view in the distance, and all of the footprints in the dirt:

Trouble, with a capital T

This morning, I came in to get Helen out of her crib. As I leaned in to pick her up, I noticed her bare bottom. It's cute and adorable, in that special way that only baby bottoms are, but it also means something very important is missing.

I found her diaper on the floor next to her crib. The bars are pretty close together, so she had to either stand up and toss it over the side, or shove it between the bars. In other words, it didn't just FALL off and SLIP OUT of the crib.

So I (naively) asked, "Helen, did you take off your diaper?" She looked up at me with a big grin and said, "No-oooo."

I think this is where the robot starts screaming "DANGER, WILL ROBINSON, DANGER!"

The one where I get teary-eyed

I went to our local pizza place on Sunday night to pick up dinner, and discovered that's when the local high school shows up to eat together.

The noise hit me in the parking lot. But I waded in, knowing that I had a to-go order ready and waiting.

The line was a mile long. I got nervous that our pizza would be cold toast by the time I paid for it. But an alert cashier herded me up to the secret extra register, ahead of all the teenagers. As I stood in line, Helen watched everyone. She didn't even seem fazed by the decibel level. I guess it's nothing compared to a room full of 2-year olds.

I literally got antsy just standing there, waiting in all of that crowded noise. I wanted to pay and leave and just breathe. Finally, I scored my pizza and as I headed out, another older lady was taking her pizza to go, too. We both smiled as we made it out of the door. "Wow, that was crazy, huh?" I said to her as I headed to my car. "I thought I had it rough today with a fussy toddler, but that was so much louder."

"It won't be long until she's one of them," she replied, pointing to Helen.

I recoiled in horror. Helen? A teenager? NO WAY.

And then it occurred to me, YES WAY. She's getting older every single day, and one morning I'm going to wake up and take her to the nail salon so she can get a manicure for her prom. I'm going to freak out when I look at her, all dressed up and ready to go. When she trips a little coming down the stairs in her high heels, I'm going to remember the time she first crawled up those stairs. Or the first pair of shoes I bought her. Or all the times I put her hair in pigtails.

I'm also going to be wondering why Brian is muttering in the corner, cleaning that shotgun.

But really, she's growing FAST. I see little babies at daycare and can barely remember bringing her at that age. I've looked at hundreds of pictures of her during that first year and it's such a blur. None of it seems real. Did we actually buy a house and paint and put in new carpet and move in, while I held her the entire time? The second year is whizzing by even faster. Talking, potty training, Barbie. There it goes. Don't blink!

So my question is this: if I buy her prom dress now, will it cost me less because of inflation, or will it cost me more, because geez Mom, that's like, SO not the style right now? (eyes roll, heavy sigh) Because at this rate, it'll feel like she needs it next year.