Lawyerish

Glory Days

Now that the days are getting longer and the sun is shining more, I am starting to realize how badly I need some kind of Happy Light or similar seasonal dysthymia-fighting device to get me through the long, dark winters from here on out. I wouldn't say that I was depressed, exactly, but now that I have Sun Fever from spring's arrival, I can measure the vast difference between the constant irritability of the past six months and the soaring feeling of endless possibility that has now emerged. Of course, all winter I was also suffering from chronic sleep deprivation due to Joe's 4am training runs, so it's hard to say whether the crabbiness was seasonal or situational. With the Boston Marathon behind us, there is still early-morning spousal running going on, but it happens at a marginally more reasonable hour (4:45am) and somehow between the slight increase in REM sleep and the boundless clear skies, I feel almost giddy.

Plus, there is Felicity and her constant stream of hilarity, which buoys me on a daily basis. A sampling of recent vignettes:

Felicity: "I want to live in a tree!"
Me: "Oh? Would you be a monkey? Or maybe a bird or a squirrel?"
F: "I would be a squirrel so I could scamper!"

In Central Park: "Oh me, oh my! So many dogs I see!"

Upon seeing a pink blossom that had fallen off a tree: "I need to pick up that flower and say 'I'm sorry' to it." She picked it up and cradled it gently and crooned, "Oh, sweet little flower, it's okay! I will hold you now."

One Monday morning at breakfast, as she sat with her little ankles crossed under the table, she said in a voice laced with melancholy, "I'm just having a hard time today because I'm sad that you're going to work, Mommy. I will miss you." (Oof.)

A few days later, as I was getting ready to walk out the door, "Mommy, wait! I need to put kisses in your pockets to keep you company while you're at the office!" And she ran over and blew kisses into my coat pockets and then gave me more on my hands and face. (We now do this every day, and it's awesome -- until the moment I close the door behind me and hear her dissolve into tears, crying, "Mama. MAMA! Don't go to work, Mama! Stay here and play with me! MaMAAAAAAA!" as I wait for the elevator. (OOF.)

Hiding under a bush in the park: "Is that a Felicity hiding under there? Is that a Felicity tree? Do you live in that tree?"

One night at bedtime, after I'd kissed her good-night and turned off the light, her little voice pierced the darkness: "Mommy! May I please talk about chickens for a minute?"

As I placed a cut-up pear on her tray at lunch: "Is this a Bartlett pear?"

After stopping to pet a woman's dog in the park on one of her weekend meet-and-greets:
F: I have a dog, too! His name is Miles. He's a little dog.
Woman: Is Miles your best friend?
F: Yes.  [Miles would beg to differ.]
W: Is Mommy your best friend, too?
F: Um. Yes. But mostly only at Christmastime, and Christmas is already over.

She has figured out that a good ice-breaker is to compliment someone, so most mornings when I finish getting dressed for work, she'll pad down the hallway after breakfast and say, "Oooooh, MOMMY. I LOVE your pretty skirt! Look at your nice boots!" (and so on). And with friends or strangers, she really pours it on: "Oh, look at your nice pink shoes. I love them! They're SO beautiful!" or "Look at her sweet doggie. This doggie is so cute! Oh, he's giving you kisses!" And she really means every word, is the thing. She is incapable of guile or feigned enthusiasm. It is CRAZY CHARMING. 

While giving me a check-up with her medical kit:
Dr. Felicity: Make a sad face! You're sick!
Me (grimacing): My tummy hurts.
Dr. F, after a cursory examination: I can't do anything for you, honey. I'm sorry.
Me: ... [mulling my grim prognosis]
Dr. F: I have to be going home in five minutes. Another doctor will come and see you. I'm sorry I can't do anything for you, honey.  
(Just my luck to contract an untreatable disease at shift change.)

At the playground, holding out her favorite doll toward a much older girl (ten, maybe?): "Would you like a turn with Naked Baby? Please take a turn. I would like to share with you!" (The girl basically ignored her, and I sat nearby clutching the pieces of my shattered heart.)

Sitting down on a rock in the park (she must climb or sit on every rock and tree we pass) (there are a lot of rocks and trees in the park): "I call this a Cuddle Rock. Mommy! Come cuddle with me on the Cuddle Rock!"

Bustling up with Naked Baby in her doll stroller: "Naked Baby is ready to be polite now."

At home, taking Polka Dot Baby down the hall to the living room: "Come along, baby! I am going to take you on a wonderful adventure and show you all the beautiful things and the wonderful toys in the living room!" 

At the Fancy Nancy musical, after sitting stock-still through the entire show, she burst into tears during the curtain call and was inconsolable as all of the tiara- and boa-clad girls filed out of the theater. When I asked, "What didn't you like about it?", she choked out, "The stopping!"

On the train en route to Brooklyn, when the subway went above ground for a couple of stops: "The train is OUTSIDE. This is CRAZY!"

After visiting our friends in Brooklyn, she fell into a pit of despair when it was time to leave: "I don't want to leave! I want to stay at Brooklyn! I want to LIVE at Brooklyn! I want to walk ALL OVER Brooklyn!" (She did essentially the same thing when we went to an open house at an apartment in our own neighborhood -- we looked around and chatted with some people for maybe 20 minutes, and as we left she fell to pieces: "I want to live here! I want to stay and talk to those nice people! I want to have lunch at the big table! I don't want to go home!" (It was an awfully nice apartment, with a garden, so any sensible New Yorker would react that way.)

While walking with Joe and me and some friends of ours, she kept craning around like a herding dog to make sure we were all together: "Is everyone here? Where are my people? I need all my people!"

As if all this weren't enough, she has started spontaneously turning to me, in the middle of playing or eating dinner or what have you, and placing her little hand on my arm or circling her arms around my body and saying, with utmost sincerity, "I love you, Mommy." (Sometimes she tacks on, "You're so sweet.") 

If life gets any better than this, I don't know if I'll be able to handle it. 

Past...To the Back!

Let's rewind to the weekend leading up to the Boston Marathon, when I flew out to California and met up with Allison so we could (a) spend a three-day weekend at the Ritz Carlton Half Moon Bay, just the two of us girls, and (b) attend the wedding of another childhood friend of ours, whom we've known since first grade and who conveniently picked a super-awesome place to get hitched, thereby giving us the perfect excuse for (a).

Upon arrival, the solicitous staff did everything but lie on the floor so we could walk on their bodies instead of the ground, then offered us a glass of wine at check-in, and to cap it off they upgraded us to an ocean view room.

My only real complaint is that Northern California is highly misleading, what with the sunshine and the vast blue sky and the freezing cold winds. Never once have I been in the greater Bay Area and felt warm. Not once! I'm just saying, if you're going to fly all the way across the country and shift your body clock three hours, and go to a state that boasts unceasingly about its weather, you really ought to feel less than frigid.

Other than needing twelve layers to keep warm, we had a grand time. We strolled down to the beach and shrieked as our pants got soaked when the freezing Pacific waves rolled over our feet. We sat on a big driftwood log in the bright bright sun and talked. We went into the quaint little town to peruse the shops and had a phenomenal geriatric-hour dinner at a little Italian place that was hopping with Friday-night energy by the time we left. We slept eleven (ELEVEN) glorious hours the first night, away from our early-rising husbands and cotton-eyed with jet lag.

We eschewed the -- ahem -- NINETY-FIVE DOLLAR BRUNCH and 14-dollar bowl of Kashi offerings at the hotel in favor of snack-breakfasts in our room of fruit, crackers, and Hit cookies in our pajamas. We biked six miles up the coast (and back!), and thanks to our hazy understanding of the bike attendant's directions, ended up pedaling furiously along the shoulder of Highway 1, helmetless and on single-gear beach cruisers, as cars careered past us going sixty miles an hour. But the views and the hidden coves and the sound of the surf made our derring-do worthwhile.

Upon our return to the resort, we ate an enormous lunch and then got all gussied up for the main event.

The wedding was spectacular, given both the sea-side setting and the radiant joy of the nuptial couple. The only bummer was that we'd stuffed ourselves so much at lunch that we weren't even the slightest bit hungry for the wedding feast. I am sure our table-mates thought we were those annoying women who pick at their food out of vanity, but seriously, we were TOO FULL. Fortunately, by the time the cake-cutting and the patio-firepit s'mores-making rolled around, we were ready to have some dessert. After the sun went down, it was about 40 below zero outside, with gale-force winds (come ON, California!), so I could only bear to roast my marshmallow for about 30 seconds before hastening inside, looking like I'd just been discharged from a wind tunnel. 

The next morning, we took our time eating the last of our snack-breakfast and getting ready, and then we headed back to the airport and sadly said goodbye. 

Leading up to the trip, I'd had so much agita about leaving Felicity for three days -- not guilt, because I knew she was in great hands and would be fine, but sadness for myself that I'd miss my Friday-through-Sunday time with her, which I crave every week like a dying man crawling through a desert. I was nervous and achy with longing before I even left, but on Friday morning when I departed from home before she even woke up, I felt completely at ease as soon as I climbed into the taxi to JFK (well, I was at ease until my taxi was almost t-boned by a complete lunatic on the parkway, but nevermind).

The flight didn't even seem long; I watched two movies and read my book and did some work and attended only to my own needs, and while of course I missed my little girl, the missing faded to the background and I had a great time. A truly, really wonderful, much-needed time with my friends, in a new and exciting place. It was good for me, and good for all of us. Remember this. 

(In case you're wondering, Felicity had a more-than-ok time back home, with our sitter. Park, zoo, carousel, rowboats -- and that was just the first day.) 

Four Minutes, 11 Seconds

The Saturday before last, Joe flew to Boston to begin a celebratory three-day weekend with a group of college friends who gathered from Chicago and the Boston area to cheer him on in the marathon on Monday. He stayed with friends in Watertown, and his cheering section feted him with pancake breakfasts and evening cookouts. They'd bought truckloads of bananas, Powerade, Clif bars, and GUs to keep him sufficiently hydrated and nourished for the big day. With his friends' help, he had raised over $7,300 for ALS research, so they had ample reason to celebrate even beyond the generally festive mood of Boston as Patriots Day and its marquee running event approached. 

Monday morning, they drove him to the buses that ferry runners out to the starting area in Hopkinton. Their bus driver got lost, so the ride was long, but again the mood was jovial and upbeat. He met another runner from the UMass ALS team as they gathered in the rear corral and waited for their wave to start. He'd been training for so many months during the brutal winter, and now the day had finally come. He was a bit emotional, thinking of his mom and the race he was about to run in her honor. He'd never thought he would run this marathon -- THE marathon of all marathons -- even though he'd completed the 26.2 before. That was New York. This was Boston. 

He hoped to set a personal record and finish in less than four hours.

I had spent the weekend in California with Allison for our childhood friend's wedding. Originally, I had planned to go to Boston with Joe; we'd bring Felicity, stay with our friends in Watertown together, and cheer at several points along the route with his entourage. Maybe we'd even catch him crossing the finish line. But when my friend set the date for her wedding, we decided we'd go to our events separately, and Felicity would stay home with her sitter.

I got back to New York late Sunday evening and went right to bed. Monday, I went to work as always. I was thinking, of course, of Joe and how he would be waiting out the chilly morning until the starting gun, cycling through the Port-a-John line and gnawing bagels to keep his energy up. I pictured him moving along with the crowd toward the start, everyone discarding their throwaway sweats and setting their watches as the frisson of pre-race excitement grew to a fever pitch.

Around the time I knew his corral would hit the line, I set up the athlete tracker on the BAA website. It showed a little dude ambling along the course and told me Joe's pace as he hit certain distance markers. I had also set up an auto-alert that would text me when he hit 10K, half-marathon, 30K and the finish. I followed along on Facebook as his college crowd posted about their Joe-sightings along the course. He was looking strong, doing negative splits and on target, once he got out of the crowds at the start, to finish under four hours.

I had to go into a meeting at 2pm, and I reluctantly left the little running dude cantering through Newton. I'd wanted to watch him finish, and I knew I'd still be in the conference room when that happened. I wasn't worried, exactly, but it's sort of like when a loved one is on a flight -- you just feel better when you know it's over and they're safely on the ground again. I wasn't thinking of the marathon itself as a potentially perilous activity, but with distance running there is the remote chance of pulling a muscle, blowing out a knee, becoming dehydrated, or collapsing from a previously unknown ailment. I was looking forward to knowing Joe was finished and could celebrate his awesome accomplishment.

At 2:46, my phone buzzed with the text that he had crossed the finish line in 3 hours, 57 minutes. I smiled to myself and tried to concentrate on my meeting. He had crushed that race! I was so proud and so pleased for him. Four minutes later, my phone started buzzing again. "Is Joe ok??" "Have you heard from Joe?" And then, flashing on the screen, a link containing the words explosions and finish line and Boston marathon.

My vision tunneled for a second. I leaped out of my chair and at first the choke of panic was such that I couldn't get any words out. I managed to stammer, "I have to go. There was a bomb. Marathon. In Boston." And I raced out of the room. I called Joe's number, but he didn't have his phone on him. When his cheerful voicemail message picked up, I had a sickening thought that maybe that would be the only way I would hear his voice again. My entire body was shaking. I sat down at my computer and refreshed Facebook. 

One of Joe's friends messaged me that they were waiting at the family area for him, that there had been an explosion at a building near the course. They had only a hazy sense of what was going on. My phone kept jumping with texts from more people, and my inbox was filling up with emails from people wanting to know if I'd heard from him, if he was ok. As I waited, the minutes yawning into what seemed like hours, I stared dumbly at the news on CNN. I peered at the race clock over the finish line, but I didn't know what the differential was between it and the runners' chip times. I just knew the timing was close. Horribly, terrifyingly close. 

Then, on Facebook: "He's here." Then, "He's fine, got diverted after the finish." They couldn't call me because cell phones weren't working, and I knew they all wanted to get out of the area. She posted a photo so I could see him, wrapped in his space blanket, unharmed. Still trembling and crying, I started getting the word out to family and friends that he was ok. I made the grave mistake of watching a graphic video of the first bomb going off, and after that I wanted to hide under my desk. The PTSD I have from 9/11 has lain dormant for years, but it came rushing back as the adrenaline surged in my body, with nowhere to flee and no one to fight.

Finally, when the suddenly somber group of friends got back to Watertown, Joe called me. I almost crawled through the phone to get to him. He told me he'd crossed the finish line, checked his watch, marveled over having just finished the Boston Marathon, contemplated how great he'd felt throughout the race, and thought about his mom and the cause he'd supported by running. He was feeling strong and proud, but emotional over the momentousness of it. He was at the water table when the first explosion went off. Everyone froze. Then, a second explosion. The runners were herded through the space blanket and medal area and then diverted off away from Boylston. He was close, but thankfully far enough to be unscathed; close enough to see and hear, but not to see and hear the particular horror that was unfolding. There was confusion and wandering, but he did find his friends. He did find his way home. 

His flight home was canceled because of the ground stops that evening, but late that night he hobbled onto an Acela train and rode home in a daze. He came in at 2:30am. I've never been so grateful to be woken up in the wee hours of the morning. 

Four minutes and eleven seconds.

I know it's unfair to be grateful that he is here and uninjured when so many people's lives were so grievously changed in those terrible moments. The what ifs linger -- what if he'd started a little further back, or stopped a couple more times along the course, or had to use the bathroom during the race, or...or...or. What if Felicity and I had gone, what if we'd decided to cheer him across the finish line...or...or...or. But those things didn't happen, and to some people for whom the timing meant the unthinkable, the torturous what ifs go in the other direction. 

We're both still sorting it all out, like everyone else. Whether or not you were there or knew someone who was, this belongs to all of us. But so does all the beauty in the world. The triumphs, the love, the celebrations, the moments when we soar. 

Next year, all three of us plan to go to Boston. If he can raise the money or time-qualify for the race, Joe will run the marathon. Our friends will gather. We'll have pancake breakfasts and cookouts. We'll cheer on the runners and be part of the enduring event that is the Boston Marathon. We will stay, and we will feel like champions. 

Quick Update

Thanks so much to all of you who have commented or emailed to see if we are ok after the horrific events in Boston yesterday. Joe had finished the marathon moments before the blasts, so he was very close by but he is unharmed. Felicity and I were in New York since I had been in California over the weekend for a wedding. I had a very long and terrifying stretch of time when I didn't know whether Joe was affected. Fortunately, he was able to locate his group of wonderful friends who had gone to cheer him on, and they got word to me that he was with them and was not injured. He got home at 2:30 this morning and I am beyond grateful that the three of us are all back where we belong.

I will write more soon, but I wanted to give y'all a brief status update since I've received so many kind inquiries. We are certainly shaken and our thoughts are with all of those whose lives changed in that one terrible instant. Love to all of you who join us in this space.

Hippity-Hop

After my parents departed, Felicity and I spent the better part of Good Friday consoling ourselves at the zoo. She visited her favorite goats, watched the glockenspiel ring the hour, shied away from the masses of people in the penguin house, and ate a hearty lunch in the cafe. Even though roughly one million people were there to share in the zoo experience with us, it was an enjoyable way to spend Mommy Day.

Easter Eve was one of the nicest days we've managed to eke out of this pathetic excuse for a spring, so I seized the opportunity to do something warm weather-ish and took Felicity for her first carousel ride of the season. Her enthusiasm for the carousel hasn't dimmed since last year. After riding it three times in a row, she gave her horse a prolonged hug, then insisted that we stand outside and watch the next several rides. 

It was a nice enough day for al fresco dining, so we had a European-style (i.e., with rather leisurely service) lunch at the Ballfields Cafe. Their single waiter was a bit overwhelmed by the fair-weather popularity of the place, but it gave Felicity time to savor her hot dog and chips and to draw all over the plastic tablecloth when I was distracted by the unfamiliar feeling of sun on my face (mercifully, with a washable pen). After (finally) getting our check, we strolled all the way home, stopping to look at every daffodil, crocus, and carriage horse we could find. 

On Easter morning, I was wakened in the wee hours, not by a sign of our risen Lord, but by the bedroom door banging open and a small but urgent voice saying, "I NEED A NEW PULL-UP!" As I changed her, I explained to Felicity the glorious utility of a Pull-Up, which is that it doesn't have to be changed in the middle of the night as the sole purpose of the Pull-Up is to be able to NOT have to get up or get anyone else up when nature calls in the middle of the night. Fortunately, she went back to sleep and, with any luck, has internalized my groggy lecture by now. 

Later, we rose at the normal time (still earlier than I would like it to be, but I am making my peace with this), to discover that a certain someone's Easter basket had been filled! 

Felicity took each gift out and admired it in turn, then slowly placed the items into a careful line on the edge of the coffee table. 

After breakfast, it was time to get gussied up in a Grammie-made dress.

She was very excited to go to church, and she stayed with us for the opening hymn and processional, then went to the playroom with her friend to "play with the bears and maybe the soft Piggie." After the service, the children had an egg hunt in the fellowship hall. This time, Felicity didn't limit herself and grabbed a good number of candy-filled eggs. Then, for reasons that remain mysterious, she flipped her basket upside-down in a moment of exhilaration, and the jelly beans scattered everywhere. This, of course, led to tears, but fortunately her friend stepped in and offered her some candy from her own basket. A true friend, indeed.

After lunch at home and some frigid playground time with her new sidewalk chalk, we headed downtown to an Easter party thrown by our dear friends. There was great food, lots of Champagne, egg-coloring for the six children in attendance, and Easter bags of goodies to boot. There was also a baby for Felicity to man-handle, which she did with her usual glee: "He's so CUTE! He likes to eat snacks. Look at his sweet cheeks!" 

Felicity was so drained by the time we got home that she dissolved into tears at the suggestion of her bath, so we trundled her off to bed. As I tucked her in, I asked what her favorite part of Easter was. She sang a few "alleluias" (which she had picked up from the single Easter hymn she heard that morning) and said, "Going to church and singing the Easter song!" Then she said, referring to our rector, "Father B. was there. He's someone's father!"

And with that, she was asleep.

Little Bunny

Two weeks ago, my parents arrived to much fanfare and many hugs from Felicity. A couple of days before they got here, I asked Felicity who her best friend was, and she said, "Grammie and Granddad!" Well, after the spring break o' fun they gave her, their approval ratings have soared even higher. I am pretty sure Felicity is ready for Joe and I to move out to make room for her grandparents. "Mommy, I miss Grammie and Granddad," she said yesterday morning when she first woke up. "I want them to come live with me." 

You can see why:

The day after they arrived, my mom went to Felicity's classroom to read a story during circle time. When the teacher asked Felicity who she had brought with her, she said, "Graaaaaaammie" and then she looked around and saw my dad and me skulking about in the back of the room. "Oh! And there's Granddad! And look! Mommy's right over there!" She was not nearly as pleased when it was time for us to leave, but since we left the class some delicious jam bars for snack, her sorrow didn't last long. 

When visiting grandchildren, my mom brings with her a large duffel that contains all sorts of mysterious and thrilling items to be revealed at strategic times during her stay. It includes Montessori materials -- like cut-out pictures for making a "sounds book" for each letter of the alphabet, or small items that can be identified by feel when placed in an opaque bag -- plus craft supplies, stickers, books, doll clothes (handmade by Grammie for yours truly, when I was Felicity's age), and toys. By the end of the first day, Felicity had caught onto the magic of the Grammie Bag. "Grammie, I think it's time for another surprise," she would say coyly. The day before they left, taking an "it never hurts to ask" approach, she carefully inquired of my mom, "So...does the Grammie Bag stay here when you're gone?" 

That Saturday, we pried Felicity away from the Grammie Bag and took her to her first outdoor Easter egg hunt. It was held in Carl Schurz Park, which I somehow had never been to in all my years in New York (despite the fact that it's a major site of the action in Harriet the Spy), just outside the gates of Gracie Mansion. I had wondered how they could organize an egg hunt for what was sure to be thousands of children, and it turns out they basically carpet the lawn with plastic eggs, and then let the mob descend for fifteen minutes, then re-populate the area with eggs and send out another wave of kids, and a third one after that. So scarcity was not an issue. 

Felicity somehow had it in her head that she was only allotted a certain number of eggs. Once the crowd was unleashed onto the field, she picked her way around the periphery, looking for pink ovoids, and carefully selected a few for her bag. "Mommy! Look! I got my one-two-three Easter eggs! I'm all done!" she said proudly. I looked out at the phalanx of bodies, and at all the kids throwing elbows to fill their baskets. Felicity told me she wanted to make sure there were enough for everyone. As my heart broke into hundreds of pieces, I assured her that she could take as many as she could find, and Granddad led her back out into the fray. 

After our wave was over, we found a spot of grass where we could open a few eggs to see what treats they held. The first one contained a giant plastic ant (nothing says Easter like entymology, right?), and when I opened it, Felicity leapt backward like it had tried to bite her. But soon she warmed to it, and he has become her "special Easter ant." She carried him in her pocket until we got home. Other eggs revealed some extremely nasty hardened taffy candy, which Felicity loved until the second piece got stuck in her teeth and I had to fish it out with my finger, and a rubbery hand on a sticky string.

Felicity was completely bowled over by each item, like it was the best thing ever to have existed. She played with that "sticky hand" for hours, until the stringy part inevitably broke off, and then still she clung to the little grimy hand. 

After taking a stroll along the river, we came across the Easter Bunny herself. At first Felicity wanted to stand a safe distance away and just wave, but moments later she declared, "I LOVE the Easter Bunny!" and she went over and glued herself to her side. The organization of this part of the event left something to be desired; it was evident that the Bunny was going to settle in a nearby playground for photo ops, and she even had a handler carrying a sign that said, "Follow Me to the Playground for Photos with the Easter Bunny." Since Felicity wasn't willing to leave the Bunny's side -- never mind that the towering animal had scarcely acknowledged her -- we joined the entourage as the Bunny, the sign-carrier, and a hapless person carrying a large box caravaned over to the playground. Great!, we thought, we'll be first in line for photos!

Once we got there, however, the Bunny disappeared into the restroom and her handlers told everyone that the Bunny was taking a break for a few minutes. So we lingered around and watched a band set up for a seemingly endless period of time. Finally, the band started playing -- by now there were at least 150 kids waiting around for the Easter Bunny's reappearance -- and Felicity danced a little bit to the music, but remained on high alert for the E.B. Half an hour passed, and we were getting very cold, so finally Mom and Dad and I made the executive decision to cut our losses and head home for lunch. Felicity was sad about missing the Bunny. She said in a woe-filled voice, "Maybe we'll come back another day." (Oof.)

That night, Felicity got to have a special Grammie and Granddad dinner at a neighborhood Belgian place while Joe and I went to dinner all by ourselves at the Bar Room at the Modern (delicious!) and then saw Book of Mormon (hilarious, if you are fine with copious profanity and extremely un-PC humor -- which we are, and we loved it). After they got home, Felicity said to my mom, completely unprompted, "I appreciate you taking me to so many special places, Grammie." 

The next day was Palm Sunday, so we went to church in the morning and then hurried off to an hour-long, kid-friendly ballet performance of Sleeping Beauty. The afternoon involved more Grammie Bag surprises and a trip to the playground with Granddad to get some ya-yas out. When I was giving Felicity her dinner, she said, "I had a fun Palm Sunday!" 

The rest of the week was a whirl of gaiety, to borrow from Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Grammie and Granddad took Felicity to two ballet workshops (one to learn Peter Pan and one for the classic (non-Disney) Little Mermaid, a nod to her Danish roots), treated her to two special restaurant lunches, made Rice Krispie Treat eggs, crafted an Easter garland and sparkly window decorations, took her to see the Nick Cave horses perform at Grand Central Station, played countless rounds of Zingo, taugh her to play Go Fish, read The Littlest Matryoshka and played with her very own matryoshka dolls from the Grammie Bag, baked pretzel-Hershey's kiss-M&M treats, and made lots of Fancy Nancy sticker art. Whew! 

(A side note: when Felicity saw the bag of pretzels on the counter one morning, she asked Joe during breakfast, "What are those for?" and he said he didn't know. She replied, "Maybe they're for my mouth!")

By Thursday, Grammie and Granddad's last day with her, Felicity was already upset about their departure. "I will be so sad to see them go," she said morosely when she woke up that morning. 

And indeed, we were all sad to see them go, as we always are. 

I'm just going to lie here until my best friends return.

Rise Up

I'll get to my exhaustive (possibly exhausting) chronicle of Felicity's spring break and Easter next time. For now, I invite you to support my hard-working husband in pursuit of a noble cause:

On April 15, Joe will be running the Boston Marathon for the Team ALS Champion Fund, which supports ground-breaking research on Lou Gehrig's disease at UMass Medical School. Joe lost his mom to ALS in 1999, one year after she was diagnosed. Along with this swiftly moving motor neuron disease, she also suffered from frontotemporal dementia, a likewise-devastating deterioration of the frontal lobe of the brain.

From everything Joe has told me, his mother was an incredibly smart and vibrant person, and her absence is felt from his family every day. It pains us that Felicity will never know her grandmother, but ever since her death Joe has done everything he can to turn his grief over his loss into something positive -- both for himself, through his passion for running and fitness, and for others, in the hope that this disease can be eradicated. 

Over 5,000 new cases of ALS are diagnosed each year -- that's fifteen per day. The precise cause is unknown, but the UMass team is working to unlock the secrets of the disease and, we hope, one day find a cure. They are currently treating former Massachusetts Governor Paul Cellucci, who was recently diagnosed with ALS and who is raising awareness about the disease as he fights it himself. The NFL has also taken up this cause; its players and coaches issued a commercial about ALS before the Super Bowl that starkly illustrates the effects of the disease.

Joe has run the New York City Marathon twice before, in 2000 and 2002 -- both times raising money for ALS causes. This time around, he has committed to raising $6,000 for the UMass fund -- and he has already surpassed that goal -- but of course, we'd love to continue to raise as much as we can. Joe has really amped up his training, too, working with a coach and doing lots of speedwork and hill repeats in addition to many, many long runs. He has logged over 500 miles in just a few months, getting up at truly unholy hours (I firmly believe that nothing in life should happen before 5am, but my husband is made of stronger stuff) to get out and pound the pavement every day. He is ready!

Through all 26.2 miles of the storied Boston course, I know he'll be buoyed by the support he's gotten so far in donations and words of encouragement from family and friends. If you would like to contribute to this cause, any amount is appreciated: please donate here. Thanks to all!

Triple Play

I have a summer birthday, so I never had a school party (nor do I remember school parties being a thing, other than having your name read over the intercom during morning announcements); my birthday was typically celebrated with a very small, rather loosely defined "party" (i.e., a sleepover with Allison) and an evening of cake and presents with my family. There was also my eighth birthday, when I threw a sticker party that almost no one came to, despite having said they would, so really I try not to think about my childhood birthdays too much. Well, except there was this one, which made up for much of the angst of other years:

If I can get Felicity a gift at least once in her life that inspires this same face, I will have succeeded as a parent. And yes, that is a (homemade) Annie dress.

In contrast, Felicity had no less than five birthday celebrations to mark her arrival at age three. We hosted a party for all the kids in my moms' group (they all turned three in Jan, Feb, or March); then last Monday Joe and I went to Felicity's school for her classroom song-and-dance-and-treats (and I managed not to cry while showing the class the poster we made of photos of her life so far, but I did tear up when I saw how much she BEAMED as her teacher put on her special birthday crown and let her pick out some stickers for her shirt); then on her actual birthday she opened presents (clothes, a Calico Critter ballerina bunny, a lighthouse puzzle from Nantucket -- purchased last summer before our ice cream cruise and then promptly forgotten in my closet -- a stuffed snowman from my brother and his family, and a personalized placemat); then on Saturday we had lunch with her honorary auntie, who gave her TWO tutus, a magic wand, a pink leotard, a book, AND two flower headpieces; and FINALLY, this past Sunday, we hosted her Nutcracker-themed ballet birthday extravaganza (complete with non-artifical-pink frosting on the cake, thanks to Smitten Kitchen's Golden Sheet Cake with Berry Buttercream icing, from her cookbook -- perfection). 

None of it was Pinterest-perfect, but it was all perfectly imperfect, which is exactly how I like things to be. 

Even if her face didn't cave in on itself like mine did re: the Annie dress, she lit up over every single gift she got, and each time she would say, "Oh! What a wonderful gift! We have to write them a nice thank you note!" My grandmother, a lifelong devotee of the thank you note, would be so deeply proud.

When her guests started to arrive for her ballerina party, she ran into her room and I followed her, only to find her gathering every single one of her stuffed animals in her arms. This, clearly, was her ploy to keep any of her friends from playing with her beloved toys. We had a brief talk about sharing and being a good hostess, and after that she was mostly fine. Plus, the sharing was mostly moot since the ballet warm-up started shortly thereafter.

At first, Felicity was a little hesitant and refused the hand-stamp that was offered to her by the teacher -- but when she found out it was a Sugar Plum Fairy stamp, she changed her tune and strode right to the front of the pack. She doesn't settle for minor-player stamps.

After some plies and stretching, she and her friends were led on a magical tour of our foyer and living room as they sought to save a unicorn from the tower of an evil magician's castle. Each partygoer was given a chance to hug the unicorn after triumphantly retrieving it from the back of our armchair. 

Then they all sat raptly listening as the teacher read the story of The Nutcracker. It's important to keep your face as close to the book as possible at storytime; you don't want to miss any of the subtle nuances of the illustrations.

Finally, our bevy of ballerinas and our one heroic prince (plus Daddy, who gamely set down his camera for 30 seconds to promenade some ladies around the room during the party scene) danced out the story of the Nutcracker, with a variety of costumes, headpieces, props, and music for each scene.

Then our hard-working dancers stuffed themselves with pizza and cake, and Felicity ripped into her presents. She opened a pair of pink, polka-dotted, ballet-shoed, glittery pajamas from a friend, and I said, "How cute!" Felicity looked at me gravely and said, "Mommy. They are not cute. They are beautiful." (She has worn them every night since. All other pajamas are dead to her.)

She also said to her cake topper as she gave it a warm hug after blowing out her candles, "Don't worry, little baby, we will be your family."

As with Clara's (or Marie's, or Mary's -- why so many names, Nutcracker heroine?) stint at the Land of Sweets, Felicity's birthday week was both too much and too little all at once. So really, it was just right. 

Farewell, birthday! We'll see you again next year (but not too soon -- three is shaping up to be all kinds of excellent).

Three is a Magic Number

This little one turns three next Tuesday. 

We got her progress report from school, and I tear up every time I read it, even as I beam like a proud fool. Her teachers say she is calm, focused, independent, friendly, and affectionate. She knows letters and numbers and is developing fine motor skills. She has an extensive vocabulary and expresses herself clearly. She is learning self-reliance. She enjoys their weekly yoga sessions and is starting to develop friendships with her classmates. She is sometimes shy when they go to the play area that's shared with other classes, preferring to stay close to the teachers, but more recently she has started to engage with the other children out there, too. 

I'm sure it says all sorts of unflattering things about me, but when I read her report I felt like I had been given an enormous gold star and, in a way, my first report card as a parent. I am sure all of her friends' reports are equally positive, and it isn't as though they declared her the most excellent, perfectly behaved, angelic being of flawlessness they've ever encountered at her school, but I couldn't help feeling gratified. I know she's a great person, and I don't need anyone to tell me that. I never will. She will always be enough; the evidence of her wonderfulness speaks for itself, and it would even if I were the only person on earth who thought so.

Nevertheless, it is an unfamiliar, thrilling thing to get to see your child through someone else's unbiased lens. I'm sure I would think this even if she were identified as the Class Biter or as a bit of a wallflower. I'm relieved that she doesn't, in fact, display some of her less endearing behaviors (which, as with all children, do arise from time to time, especially around me), or at least not with a frequency that merited discussion in her report. What I felt as I read their description of her was that they get her. They see the real Felicity, which means both that they appreciate her finer qualities and that she is comfortable enough in school -- what was a mere six months ago an entirely unfamiliar environment for her -- to be herself. 

Last week was parent participation day, so I got to accompany her into her classroom. She gave hugs to many of her classmates and practically climbed up her favorite teacher's body to embrace her. She worked alongside another boy and they chatted companionably until some other girls bustled up and crowded her out (not in a mean way; more in an oblivious three-year-old way). When one of her friends yanked a material out of her hands, she sat quietly with a look of surprise on her face, and tried again to share with him. At circle time, she piped up with answers to questions and got right up to try out a stethoscope that a parent had brought in to show the class. She was completely at home there, and it was such a treat to get a glimpse into her school life, which I otherwise only experience at drop-off and pick-up on my Fridays off from work.

I fear that this is veering into obnoxious boasting territory, so to deflect that (possibly valid) criticism, I feel like I should explain why all of this fills me with such joy. But why should I explain, and why shouldn't it? I am her mother, and to see her become this functioning, self-reliant, composed human being a mere two years after she emerged into the world as a squalling beanbag feels like the greatest thing that's ever happened in the history of the world, even if it is happening to a billion or so other people in the world every day.

Parents, especially mothers, are supposed to act as if we had nothing at all to do with it if our children perform well at something or are generally pleasing, smart, well-behaved, or anything else that's perceived as good. Which is completely absurd. OF COURSE you had something to do with it! And OF COURSE lots of other people did, too. And OF COURSE the child is still entirely his or her own person, independent of you and worthy of praise that isn't also directed at you. But you know, it is completely fine to give yourself some credit in this job of parenting every now and then.

Whew. Back to the MY BABY IS TURNING THREE ARE YOU KIDDING? portion of the evening.  

We went back to the indoor petting zoo recently, and Felicity remembered every single animal in the place even though it's been over a month since we were last there -- and I don't mean she knew that those were rabbits and this was a guinea pig; she ran over to a hutch and exclaimed, "Hi, Charlie the rabbit! Where's your friend Honey? Is she sleeping?" and then she greeted the chinchillas and the guinea pigs like long-lost friends: "Look! It's Peanut! You got to hold him last time." Then, over by the glass tanks of reptiles, "It's the blue-tongued skink!" For a minute I wondered if she had spontaneously learned to read, but no. She just has a memory like a steel trap. I'm going to start teaching her all the passwords to my various accounts since I am already in the early clutches of senility and that will come in handy quite soon.

Her favorite things are ballet, animals, and babies, the latter two of which can be either toy or real (but preferably real). She ADORES babies, and has lots of access to them in the form of her friends' younger siblings. If there's a baby in her general vicinity, she wants to touch the baby, kiss the baby, maul the baby with hugs. "She's so CUTE!" she'll say. "Look at her little tiny hands!" Or, "he's so cheeky!" Then she goes into nurturing mode: "Oh, the baby is crying. He must be hungry! Or maybe he wants a toy! Here baby, here's a toy!" And later she wants to recap any baby-related encounters, "That baby was sad. She wanted her mommy. Next time you will give her a hug!"

One day in the museum cafe, there was a baby in a high chair at the next table and without preamble she went over and started rubbing his head and cooing over him. I tried to explain to her that people don't always want their babies to be touched by strangers (especially germ-ridden preschool-age strangers), but fortunately the mom was cool about it. 

(Go ahead and say that she needs a baby brother or sister of her own! Sure, it would be cute, but just as I love to hold our friends' babies and give them back after a good head-whiff, I believe Felicity's perfectly content to have baby access on occasion, but return to a home where she holds sway as the only baby on the premises. Note that we also did not bring home any chickens from the indoor petting zoo, even though she wanted to after hugging them and talking to them in sweet sisterly tones.)

Felicity brims with empathy and tenderheartedness; if she perceives someone else's emotional or physical pain, she immediately wants to comfort them, or sometimes she simply dissolves into tears herself. I can't clip the cat's nails in front of her, because he meows and flails, and she thinks it's hurting him so she becomes completely inconsolable.

Recently we went to a birthday party for one of her friends, and they had a magician who did an amusing little show for the children. One of his tricks, though, was to pull pom-poms out of his mouth over and over again, and as his eyes widened in mock-surprise over all the fuzzy balls he was regurgitating, she started sobbing and we had to leave the room. I explained that he was fine and it was just pretend, but she was so upset that she talked about it for days afterward. "You didn't like the mouth trick. You cried and ran away!"  

I remember when Felicity was a baby, I knew that she needed me in the way that all helpless infants need a nurturing caregiver (and food source, not incidentally), but I wondered if what she felt toward me could really be described as love. Yes, she clung to me like a bald monkey, but did she really connect with me and love me as her mother? We talk about babies loving us, yet for me it felt a little like projection -- I loved her with all the matter and non-matter in the universe, but how could she love me when she sometimes jabbed herself in the eye because she didn't have control over her own limbs?

But now, I absolutely feel every bit of the love that radiates from her, and it's about so much more than having her needs met. I see the way she looks up at me as a singular person in her life: Mama, Mommy, sometimes (but not often, thankfully), Mom. Her gaze is adoring and infinite. She takes my face in her hands and says, "Moooommmmyyyyy" to which I reply, "Baaaaabyyyyy" and her eyes lock with mine, reflecting our selves back to one another. She has lots of people she utterly adores in her life, and I see her exquisite face beaming love at them, too. She has plenty to go around. Still, it feels like an incomparable privilege to be her one and only mother. It's eternal and vast and I feel it every moment of every day. And I think, thank you God, for this one perfect life. 

Books of 2013: Part One

I thought my last books post was maybe a month ago, but in fact it was just after Thanksgiving. Jeez, time! Slow down.

Here's what I've read since then, and of course I want to know what you've been reading, too:

Looking for Alaska by John Green. On y'all's advice, I read this after The Fault in Our Stars, and I really liked it. I didn't swoon and weep as I did over TFIOS, but it was still very good. Although it was a pretty straightforward story about realistic characters, for some reason I found myself getting lost from time to time and had to backtrack. Probably this was because I was reading it during a hectic time at work and in the throes of Christmas madness, and had nothing to do with the book at all.

It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini. This was one of those "if you liked TFIOS, you'll love..." Amazon recommendations, and I have always enjoyed reading about mental hospitals, so it seemed like a good fit. It's also either already a movie or is soon to be made into one, and it's the type of thing I will want to watch when it comes out for home viewing, but I have to read the book first. I liked it a good deal. It wasn't Girl, Interrupted (one of my favorite books); still, I liked the narrative voice (realistic, non-grating, non-self-indulgent), the plot (same), and the New York setting (always enjoyable to me). 

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. (You can sense a certain theme here.) This book was SO interesting to me, and the voice was unique but utterly believable. Maybe this sounds weird, but you couldn't see or feel any of the author's effort, even though I am sure it took tremendous work and lots of revisions to make this book work and to get the voice exactly right. I loved it. I could think of people I have known in my life who probably observed the world much like the narrator does, and this book made me feel like I understood them better. That's what good fiction does, right? It gives us insights into people and stories different from ourselves and our own lives, and thereby gives us greater compassion and connection. I was sad when this book ended. I have the DVD from Netflix right now, and I think it's been long enough since I read it for me to watch the movie without wanting to burn things down if it isn't right.

That reminds me, I will never, ever, EVER forgive the world for the travesty that was the movie that purported to be based upon Harriet the Spy. It made me want to boycott anything produced in Hollywood for the rest of my days, and deface that smug, stupid Hollywood sign once and for all. I avoided the movie when it came out, knowing based on the casting alone that it was going to be a horrific bastardization of THE book that got me through childhood and adolescence (I still read it from time to time, the book equivalent of comfort food), and only saw it a few years later, when it was on a cable channel and I was terminally bored or perhaps bed-ridden with the flu.

The only way I could keep getting out of bed in the morning after watching it was to think to myself that, much like the Little House TV series, the movie only shared a name with the book, and had some of the same characters, but other than that it wasn't even a derivative work; it was entirely unrelated to the literature of the same title.

Ok! Back to the list.

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed. Whoa. Whoa, whoa. WHOA. This book blew me away. You think you've read advice columns before, but this was something else entirely. Strayed is on a higher plane than anyone else who's ever sought to advise another human being about anything. Her words soothe and inspire, and she comes up with the most humane things to say to people grappling with a wide range of issues, from the pedestrian to the soul-shattering. I haven't yet read Wild; I'm saving it because I know it's going to be a barn-burner of a read, and I want to give it my fullest attention. I highlighted about 80% of Tiny Beautiful Things and I know I'm going to go back to it hundreds of times, to let her words and wisdom wash over me again.

Feeling Good Together by David Burns, MD. Since I enjoy cognitive behavioral therapy so much, I thought it might be worthwhile to read about its application to relationships. I thought a lot of the theories and advice made sense, and as I read it, I had some moments when I thought, "Hmm! I hadn't ever thought of it that way before!" The doctor-author lays out his practical advice in charts and lists that are easy to follow, and he includes lots of written exercises you can do to work on the techniques he propounds.

However. He also uses such facile examples of bad relationships and poor communication that it was difficult for me to mentally apply his ideas to the far more complex and nuanced challenges of my own daily life. (By the way, the techniques apply to all interpersonal interaction, not just to romantic relationships -- reading this book wasn't a cry for help about my marriage or anything.) For example, he uses as a case study a married couple in which the wife complains that her husband never opens up to her, but after having sessions with them both, the doctor sees that every time the husband tries to speak his mind, the wife shuts him down immediately. Many of the examples in the book were like that, where the people were almost cartoonish and the solutions to their issues were of course as easy as 1-2-3. Nevertheless, I could see how the advice would be useful in making conversations and potential fights more productive and less erosive, so to that extent it was good. I just don't think its application would solve ALL problems in a relationship (which, duh -- but the book kind of purports to do that, so in that sense it overestimates itself).  

How Children Succeed by Paul Tough. I read this for a book group. It offers some new thoughts about character and what traits predict educational success (i.e., graduation from four-year college) in children, regardless of their socioeconomic background or relative educational advantages. It was interesting, with some useful points that I plan to keep in mind in parenting and, in a few years, in sussing out the right elementary school situation for Felicity. On the other hand, it was another depressing account of how gravely the public school system fails so many kids, and how incredibly hard it is to fix a system that's so terribly broken. It also ended VERY abruptly, without any really concrete solutions, so I was left feeling a bit helpless and pessimistic.

The Cranes Dance by Meg Howrey. This is a novel about a dancer with a fictional New York City ballet company, so it was basically written for me personally. I was not expecting much, because so many books about dance get it all wrong or rely too heavily on stock characters and cliches, but I was more than pleasantly surprised. The writing was really excellent -- funny, lyrical, real -- and the plot and characters rang true. I wanted it to go on and on. 

Bunheads by Sophie Flack. I am reading this now, and aside from also being about a dancer with a fictional New York City ballet company, it is the opposite of everything I just said about The Cranes Dance.

The Master's Muse by Varley O'Connor. As you can see, I have been sucked into a ballet book vortex. This novel is an imagined memoir of Tanaquil LeClerq, the NYCB dancer who contracted polio on a company tour in Europe in the 1950s and became wheelchair-bound. She was married to Balanchine at the time when she was stricken with polio, and the book is a fascinating, well-written imagining of their life together and the ultimate dissolution of their marriage. It was clearly researched to the hilt, but I didn't feel like I was just reading someone's research, if you know what I mean. It felt like a real memoir. I wished it were really her memoir, in fact (she was extremely private and only did a few interviews after battling polio, then lived fairly obscurely until she passed away in the 2000s). Really good, possibly great book.

I Was a Dancer by Jacques D'Amboise. Ooooh, this was sooooo gooooooood. This really was a memoir/autobiography, and I adored it. He writes in a chatty, candid way that makes you feel close to him, somehow. And what a life! He started dancing around age 12 and was with NYCB until the 1980s, amazingly enough. He was close to all the important people in NYCB history, so there is some good dance-world gossip in there and a lot of insight into what Balanchine, Robbins, and lots of other famous folks were really like. He also crammed in lots of interesting anecdotes about his family, his neighborhood growing up (Washington Heights), and the non-profit he started (National Dance Institute, which teaches dance to public school kids). He's very passionate about the arts (obviously) and about using the arts to educate and inspire children, which is fun to read about. He also has four grown children and was married to a former dancer who passed away in 2009. It's not the most organized book in the world, but I didn't mind that. It's sort of like getting pulled into the archives of a really fantastic blog. Loved it. Want to get it in hard copy to add to my dance book collection.

Balanchine by Bernard Taper. This is sort of the authoritative biography of Mr. B, and I've had it for years but never read it. Now it's time, so I am using it as my bedside book while I read fiction on my Kindle. I'm liking it so much already. Whether you're into ballet or not, GB was an utterly fascinating person, and it's got lots of photos throughout the book (not just that glossy insert they stick into the middle of biographies so you have to flip back and forth to them whenever you want to get a visual). 

I'm not sure when I'll emerge from the ballet genre, but probably soon, so I'll be ready to add whatever you recommend into my queue!