From Mom: “An Open Letter to my son Ozzie”

My lovely bride wrote this to O-Town.

Dear Ozzie,

I hesitate to tell you this but I think that it’s important that I’m honest with you. I feel like I have to tell you.

On mornings like this one when you wake up screaming your head off at 4:45 a.m., I am not a happy camper. When I go into your room and you are flailing yourself around your crib like a maniac, bouncing your head off the wooden slats, I am frustrated that you will not simply lay down, snuggle up with your raccoon and go back to sleep.

When I leave the room and you continue to scream, I feel panicked thinking that you might wake up Gus and am slightly desperate knowing in my bones that I’m up for the day.

When I finally pick you up and you cling to me like a koala bear, I forget about being thoroughly exhausted. When you push back from the big hug to look at me for a second and say “WOW!” in a much too loud voice, I can’t help but smile at your adorability. When I take you down the creaky hallway and down the stairs with you repeating my “shhhh” sound, I start to think that 4:45 a.m. might be an okay way to start the day.

But it’s not until I get you on the couch, under a blanket and snuggling up to me in the darkness where I can feel your hot breath on my arm that I realize that as much as I like to complain about being up way too early – that these are the times that I will always remember and pine for when you’re a teenager who only feels like mumbling and locking yourself in your room to play video games.

A few minutes later, you started yelling “Elmo” at the TV and scrambling up me to fiddle with the blinds behind the couch. But, even though our snuggling was short lived and even though I am beyond exhausted, I know that I’m lucky to have started my day just like that with you. I love you, my little monkey maniac.

Love,
Mom

President’s Day in Portland: A Living Hell with the Family

Okay, maybe the headline is a bit dramatic. A living hell is food poisoning in Mexico. A living hell is being stung by bees in the eyeballs. A living hell is a cross-country bus trip with Rick Santorum.

Our trip to Portland was something less awful, but pretty darned disappointing, especially to my lovely bride Bixie. She’s been dreaming of a family getaway for some time now, and we figured that rather than springing for airfare and a weeklong hotel stay in the tropics – with Ozzie and Gus sharing a room for the first time ever – a night at the Portland Harbor Hotel seemed like the path of least resistance.

Check-in at the hotel was 4 p.m. And since the boys typically sleep between 1 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., we rolled the dice and decided to let them nap in the car on the way there. They didn’t.

So, we checked in, set up their pack-n-plays in the adjoining room, and tucked the boys in for a nap. They didn’t.

Instead, they screamed bloody murder in the cacophonous hotel room for about a half-hour, each of them ratcheting up the insanity-level of the other one. This wasn’t crying: it was the noise little people make when they are absolutely certain a butcher knife will be used to slice to ribbons their stuffed Elmo toys.

So we pulled them out of the darkened “other room” and instead got them dressed for an early dinner on the town. How did that work out?

We wandered around Portland trying to find a place that wasn’t a) packed with a waiting list and b) reasonably kid friendly. After about an hour of schlepping we found a quaint little Italian place that had a few free tables. They sat us directly next to a youngish couple – about one foot between our tables – and that’s when the fun began!

Dude: “Ugh. Kids – should we move?” I heard him say quietly to his girlfriend.

Dudette: “Something-something-fine-something-something-leaving soon.”

Dude: “Whatever.”

Now, my initial inclination was to tell the guy “you know, you actually might want to move,” in a passive-aggressive way. I wanted to show him that I heard him, and that I was pissed off that he had no idea how well my kids typically behave when eating out.

But the thing is, my kids had had no sleep that day, and my wife and I were both clutching our utensils with white knuckles, knowing that this wasn’t going to end well.

It didn’t.

Ozzie, snots running down his beaming red nose, began smacking everything in front of him off the table, enraged for no good reason but exhaustion. Things got worse from there. Bottom line, my wife and I ate our meals back in the hotel room. Before leaving, Ozzie slapped a glass of water all over the floor, and our last view of the restaurant was a waitress throwing down what looked like sawdust on the spill next to some patrons’ feet.

Back at the room, we speculated that since the kids hadn’t napped, they might just sleep like champs come bedtime. They didn’t.

The hotel had provided a babysitter, a lovely young gal named Katie. She was right out of central casting as “America’s Girl Next Door.” We wanted to duck out for an hour or two for a precious bit of adult time, and she gave us confidence that we could do so and not have to worry. After all, we were just a few doors down. Not long into our outing we got a text: “The little baby darted (sic) crying.”

The little baby was Ozzie. Turns out his red sniffly nose was the prelude to full-on hacking cough that woke him up and, once crying, that genie could not be put back in the bottle. Two minutes later we were back in the room, and Bixie had Ozzie in her lap, his chest heaving as if working to push tears out of his eyes. Poor dude. Poor us.

I kissed my wife and son good night, and repaired to the other room, where Gus was still sleeping. It was 9:30 p.m., and it had not gone well. Bixie got virtually no sleep, as Ozzie kept waking up to cry, head butt her, coo adorably, and in general slap her about the face. I fared much better, but still had a fitful night of sleep because I didn’t want to wake up Gus, who occasionally moaned like the distant agitations emanating in the night inside insane asylums.

In the morning we gathered up the boys and stopped at Becky’s Diner for breakfast. This was the high point of our trip. Delicious food. My wife and I shared a mocha shake. The boys were adorable and remarkably well-behaved. All of the customers we encountered were kind and affectionate to the boys. Gus repeatedly praised the deliciousness of his meal; Ozzie giggled at everything and everyone. Love was in the air.

On the ride home my wife and I had a good laugh at the absurdity of our mini “vacation.” By any standard it was an abject failure – it was a blueprint for How Not To Have Fun.

But we do have a funny memory to share. And that’s better than a bee sting to the eye.

My wife’s bad hair day: “A Mom Haircut”

Bixie wasn’t happy with her new haircut. At all. Here’s what happened, in her words:

There are two words that no woman ever wants to hear. Two words that can cut any woman’s self-esteem to the quick. Two words that make a woman panic.

Mom Haircut

I fancy myself to be a pretty stylish person who, thanks to my cheeks, often looks younger than my 37 years. I occasionally get carded for liquor and, I’d estimate, 2 out of 5 times it’s not just a ploy from the waiter or bartender to stroke my ego and get a bigger tip. So, imagine my horror when I walked into a local salon feeling like a young-ish hip-ish girl and walked out feeling like a frumpy, old mom who “fancies” herself as being hip but really looks like she took a butter knife to her hair and then poofed it out for a ladies lunch.

I’ve always been pretty lax about my hair – I mean, it grows back, right? But, for whatever reason, this time – when I left the chair – I was riddled with anxiety and fear. Did I really just let a veritable stranger cut six inches off my hair? Did I really say “whatever you think would look best” to a person who I only know through Yelp reviews and a few fly-by-night colleague endorsements? Did I really say “Sure, I’m up for something new?” when really I wanted to keep my hair long and bangs non-existent? Did I stutter when I said “As long as it’s not a mom haircut?”

I realize this is petty and tops the list of first world problems but, for some reason, this haircut almost put me over the edge. When I walked in last night and Gus said “you still have a little hair that looks good” tears actually welled up in my eyes. Parry’s reassurance that the haircut was not, in fact, “mom-ish” was met with responses like “you have to say that” as a pit formed in my stomach.

Why was I taking this so hard? Why was I letting a haircut dictate my feelings and self-esteem? I think it has to do with the fact that, as a mom, it’s the little things that you look forward to doing for yourself that can get you through the day sometimes. The 45 minute bouts of pampering in the form of mani/pedis, a Zumba class, shopping excursions and, typically haircuts –that simply make you feel a little better and remind you that you’re really just a girl – who happens to be a mom. When one of those pampering events goes wrong, I’ll admit, I’m slightly irrational wondering why I ever bothered in the first place.

The good news is, after washing and blow drying my hair myself, I realize I was simply a victim of a Mom Styling and I was able to leave the house looking and feeling a little more like me. I’m guessing that 50% of that is attributed to the fact that my hair looks better and 50% is that I’m not as irrational as I was yesterday.

I can’t imagine I’m alone here. Anyone else have irrational fears of letting “Mom-ness” define you in the wrong ways?

My son can’t love me – when his Mom is around

Gus can’t love us both at once.

His squishy young brain isn’t wired that way. I’ve long accepted that his mom is the sun around which he orbits, as is the natural order of things. When I’m in the same room as Gus and my wife, I have to scrap for crumbs of my son’s attention.

My wife leaves the room and Gus throws himself to the floor and wails as if informed that all the miniature cars and buses in the world had been destroyed by me.

I grit my teeth and wait until Bixie comes back or Gus stops crying, whichever comes first. It’s not something I’m accustomed to: a human being crying because they are left alone with me.

But the funny thing is, once Gus realizes that his crying won’t magically restore his mother to his side, he begins to look at me sheepishly, and then moves in for my affection. He’ll start saying off-the-charts cute things – “Dad, Gus wants to sit with you, okay?” – and then he’ll slide under my arm on the couch and snuggle up, peppering me with questions and laughing when I tickle his armpit.

He loves me. He really loves me. But something inside him prevents him from showing me love when his mom is present, as if he feels disloyal to her for showing allegiance to me.

Right now his mom is out with Ozzie (swim lessons!), and Gus is all over me as I type this. He’s holding my elbow as I type, making it hard to get this post done. But I love it, and him, and I know he loves me.

He just can’t love us both right now, at least not when we’re together. Mom will come home soon and Gus will jump off the couch to greet her, and from that moment on he’ll whine when I try to play with him or wrestle.
It’s a phase, for sure, and a difficult one for all of us. His mother feels terrible about the way Gus clings to her when she’s home, and about the way he gives his dad the stiff arm in her company.

We try to explain to him that it’s okay to love us both at the same time. His mouth says yes, he understands, but his actions demonstrate otherwise.

For now, I’ll just rewind this episode of Elmo’s World – “Dad, we should probably watch this again, don’t you think?” – and enjoy my son’s warmth and company until Bixie returns with Ozzie.

I’ll take it.

Working mother’s blues: guilt and a few guffaws

My lovely bride wrote this post. Enjoy!

These days, leaving the house for work makes me feel slightly schizophrenic, particularly on Mondays. The working mother’s blues.

After a weekend of “togetherness” Gus, our 2 year old, has a *really* hard time accepting the fact that it’s Monday and I’m going off to work again. Monday mornings typically involve him sitting in his high chair and, over waffles, looking up at me and saying something like: “Mom is NOT going to work today. Right, Mom?” There’s not much worse than that – except for when I answer that I AM, in fact, going to work. Then his bottom lip starts to tremble, just a smidge. What comes next is usually a series of mini pep talks and hugs as I try to cheerlead my way out of the house. But sadly, despite my cheerleading prowess, that simply doesn’t work and Gus breaks into full blown hysterics. I literally have to peel him off my leg to get out the door as he begs me to pick him up. It kills me to see him getting so sad, even though I know that within 5 minutes of my leaving he will be having a great time with our amazing nanny. I know that but, still, it’s not a great way to start the day.

What IS a great way to start the day? The way Ozzie, our 1 year old, is currently sending us off to work. Apparently oblivious to Gus’ meltdown, Ozzie stands at the door with a big smile on his face. His arm flails in a frantic wave and he yells – BAHHHHH! (his version of “bye”) at the top of his lungs. It’s crazy and cute and hilarious.

So, on one hand, I leave Gus screaming bloody murder and, on another, Ozzie happily screaming BAHHHH! Two wildly different reactions from two wildly different kiddos whose 16 month age difference seems insanely big right now. You’d think I’d be running from the house with glee but instead all I want to do is get back in there, calm things down and make them both happy.

Do you forget this?

A little while back Gus, our two-year-old, was acting up worse than ever before. Tell him to do something and he’d first ignore it, then test you, and then completely lose his wits when you performed your parental duty and enforced your instructions.

He was a red-faced, tear-streaked, stomping and wailing horror show to be around. Weekends were beginning to feel like we were trapped in the presence of a two-foot-tall heretic with curly hair and blood-like pasta sauce on its cheeks.

You try to do what you can to remain calm in the face of an angry little creature, like walking out of the room for a moment, massaging your own temples, breathing deeply to quell the anger welling up in your soul.

After all, we do nothing but love and care for this little boy. What could be the matter?
We tried “time outs,” in which Gus was escorted unceremoniously to a miniature chair in the corner. We’d keep him there for two minutes, watching the curtains shimmer with each stomp of his feet. We tried telling him that he had to listen to mom and dad; that his behavior was not acceptable; that he was drooling.

After several days of this, I decided to put on my doctor hat and ask him if his teeth were bothering him. No, he said. I asked if his tummy hurt. No, he said. Then why are you so grumpy all the time, I asked, urging him to “tell dad.”

He was quiet for a long time, but it seemed like he wanted to tell me something. I asked him if he was mad at mom and dad for going to work during the day. He faintly, very faintly, said “yeah,” his eyes looking at his own feet, his hands clutching his shirt.

After a while of this, amid a long hug, he told me that he really missed mom. Mom doesn’t have to go to work, he said, as if saying it would make it so. It was heartbreaking, really, to hear him put into words what he’s been conveying through his actions.

I held him close, his face in my hands, and told him that we know it’s hard, but we do have to work, and that mom really likes it when Gus is happy when we ARE home.

He looked me square in the eye, his face softening. I forgot, he said.
You forgot? What did you forget, buddy?

What he said next in a soft voice is the loudest sentence I’ve heard in a long time. On a micro-level it explained so much, but at the macro-level it applies broadly to everyone, now and again, as we soldier through the ups and downs of life.

He said: I forgot to be happy.

It sounds like some sappy Hallmark story, but the truth is that from that conversation forward, Gus has been a new toddler. Every now and again he’ll get grouchy, but we remind him not to forget to be happy.

And you know what? He remembers. And then he’s happy.

Would that we could all possess that power.

When whispers are the loudest words.

My sweet bride takes the wheel for this post. Off she goes:

The other night Parry put a fire in the fireplace after Ozzie went to bed. Gus, Parry and I just laid on the floor in front of the fire talking and playing. There were actually a few minutes of complete silence, which doesn’t come easy in our household these days – at least in the waking hours.

When I told Gus it was time for bed he, predictably, started crying. We are on this kick where we ask him to “use his words”– so after he calmed down he said “Sit by the fire for two minutes with the mom?” Now, we all know I’m not going to deny a request like that so, I obliged.

I was laying down on my side and he copied my pose, facing me. He was talking a little, but mostly quiet. I told him to listen to the fire crackling. His big brown eyes focused on the ceiling and a cute half smile appeared – I could tell he was listening. I whispered “can you hear it?” and he whispered back “yeah.” A minute or so later he whispered my line back to me: “hear it?” We stayed in that spot for about three minutes – nose-to-nose, in the dark, whispering a little and listening. It was one of the sweetest moments we’ve ever shared.

The smell of the fire was a little stronger than typical because it was pouring rain outside. In the kitchen, I heard Parry putting ice cubes in a glass for his evening cocktail. Gus heard the noise too, jumped up and ran into the kitchen to ask Parry if he wanted to “listen to the fire cackle with us.”

Those are the moments that I want to squish into a tiny little ball and put in a box for safe keeping. The ones that cheer me up on a rainy day. The ones that make us who we are.

Bats, bugs and boys. Life at the farmhouse.

We’re settling in. Tonight I hold Gus’ hand as we walk up to the tall picket fence at the back of the property. He’s barefoot, the ankle-deep summer grass sweet in the evening air.

Gus knows about a pile of sticks off to the right, where the compost pile slowly digests the yard trimmings of seasons past. I know he’s going to ask about the sticks, so I tell him I want to see how fast he can run back toward the house. He takes off running, his arms flopping around in an uncoordinated fashion. He’s laughing, I’m laughing, and the comedy of the moment causes him to tumble into the grass.

I love it.

Until recently I kept having the nagging feeling that my return flight to San Francisco was approaching; that I was caught in a purgatory of sorts, between places, neither here nor there, waiting to feel normal again.

The other morning my lovely bride asks me to identify the small gray lump perched on the curtain rod in our living room. She wonders if it’s a mouse, which I find amusing because everyone knows mice prefer to hang out on the blades of ceiling fans.

No, I say. It’s a bat. Bixie, who is feeding Ozzie a bottle on the couch, starts trembling a bit and is close to tears. It’s okay, I tell her, and she repairs to the family room (note: I’m not sure which is the living room and which is the family room) and closes the double-glass door behind her.

After three clumsy, frazzling attempts, I finally hit the bat square in the face with a rubber ball. It falls, an outstretched wing twitching on the way down, into a clutter of vacuum-cleaner-cord between a pair of occasional chairs. I throw a towel over it, grab its quivering body through the fabric, and listen to it shriek in horror as I chuck the whole thing outside.

I was glad I didn’t kill it. Bats eat bugs, and there are so many bugs here that, if anything, we need more bats – not fewer. Last night Bixie told me there was an insanely huge bug on the bathroom mirror that needed to be dealt with. It was the size of a guitar pick and crunched when I squeezed it with tissue. A few months ago that disgusting act would have made me feel queasy.

Now it feels normal. As normal as Gus wanting to start trouble with a pile of sticks, or a walk to the fence, or a bat in the house.

We’re settling into the here and the now. I’m not waiting for a phantom flight back to the past. I’m tickling my kids, kissing my wife and thinking about what we’re going to do as a family tomorrow.

And it feels good.

A Patriots pre-season game is on tonight that I’m half-watching. I remember when we were in San Francisco I used to get so frustrated that we couldn’t get these practice games. My wife is out having dinner with our friend Peggy, and the kids are snug as bugs.

Ozzie, whose teeth are sprouting like some out-of-control jack-o-lantern, will start wailing in his crib tomorrow at the normal time: 5:30 a.m. I’ll pull the trash barrels out to the mailbox like I do every Friday morning, and then Bixie and I will head off to work, our terrific nanny (Kayla) having taken over at 7:45 a.m.

I need to mow the grass, but the tractor mower needs a jump. It’ll be knee-high on a toddler before long.

Our 9-month-old baby is like a puppy.

Ozzie is now nine months old. Such a little nugget of fun.

If I put floppy ears and a tail on Ozzie he’d basically be a hairless puppy. He crawls after anyone walking out of the room, panting and yipping excitedly. Like a pooch, he resists being put on his back (for a diaper change). He flails and screeches and wrinkles his nose in defiance, his soft belly twisted toward whatever he perceives to be “the action.”

As I once wrote about Gus, Ozzie has morphed from an immobile spectator, blubbering and whimpering on his rump, into a vocal, full-fledged, rumbling participant in the household. If social interaction is a light, Ozzie is a moth on a collision course with the action. No barrier is sufficient. He will break through or wear you down until you remove the obstruction.

He will laugh and crawl over your face, and perhaps claw at your lips and eyes for good measure, on his way to a livelier party. He’s very much the opposite of Gus, now two years old. Our boy Gus asks for a permission slip for nearly everything he does. He’s cautious and calculating, and tries hard to win our endorsement for his every move.

Ozzie is governed entirely by his id. He wants to go where he wants to go, touch what he wants to touch, lick what he wants to lick. And it’s hysterically funny to watch. Gus howls at Ozzie because he can’t believe this little plump baby has the “balls” to just do whatever he pleases. Ozzie will giggle as he crawls over to Gus and pulls his hair. Gus is amazed and, let’s be honest, a bit intimidated by his little brother’s moxie.

And things are about to get more interesting, because Ozzie has pulled himself into the standing position a few times already. Once he has his legs under him, it’s time to batten down the hatches: nothing will be safe from Ozzie’s iron will.

But he does have a soft streak. In the morning I’ll pluck him from his crib at around 5:30 a.m., and take him downstairs for some “dad time.” I’ll sit on the couch, tuck him under my arm like a football, and we’ll just hang out like that for about 20 minutes. He doesn’t fight me. He doesn’t resist. Instead he’ll turn his fat little face up toward mine and just blink earnestly, those blue eyes sparkly in the light of dawn. I feel so close to him during those times, so happy. I think he feels the same way about his old man.

It’ll be interesting to see how things shake out between him and Gus in coming months. My sense is that Ozzie’s daredevil ways will rub off positively on trepidations Gus. And hopefully Gus will instill in Ozzie a bit of caution about the treachery of shiny objects and forbidden fruit.

As for Bixie and I, we can’t believe how fun it is to watch our boys turn into thinking and feeling humans. The hard work is so worth it, every minute of it.

Cooler still is that with Ozzie, we don’t need a dog. When we come home he’s panting at the front door, wagging his little butt and grinning ear to ear.

Leaving Sausalito. Don’t know when I’ll be back again.

Bixie’s parting shots as we officially leave California:

This is it. We’re leaving. And while I’m sure this feels like the long goodbye to most of you, for me, it still feels like it happened too fast. By the time you read this I will be on a plane with our two little boys and Livy (our kick ass nanny) and flying away from the place that we’ve called home for the last 10+ years. I’m excited and scared and hopeful and honestly a touch insane after all this packing and organizing nonsense, but mostly, I’m thankful to have had such an amazing time in such an amazing place. For those of you who have been to Sausalito, you know what I’m talking about. For those of you who don’t, here’s a taste of what we’ll be missing and what we are amped to get back to someday.

View from our patio in Sausalito

Our favorite restaurant, Buckeye Roadhouse

Our morning walk, along Bridgeway in Sausalito

In closing, I’m calling on my boy John Denver:
I’m leavin on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go.