Why We Are Not Rich

I am concerned that Jason is lost at Target. I sent him there about an hour ago with a list of three things:

• Kandoos. These are flushable, transition wipes for potty-trainers and maybe people with hemmorhoids. The most insipid and unnecessary product ever, and yes, we are buying it. These dumb things and her reward stickers (unicorns, happy faces, the usual) are the only things worth pottying for.

• Beach towels. One for Lu, a couple for us. She will be having "splash days" at school, which I think is just a nice way of saying they turn a hose on the kids. But she will need some paraphanelia with her name on it for that, and if it has her name on it, it can't be some ratty mauve towel. Her teachers might think we are ratty, or that I like mauve. So she is going to have a 60-inch Hello Kitty towel. Which will maybe make up for that the fact that she had to take her lunch in a portable wine cooler for a few weeks before we found her a proper lunchbox. And she still tries to steal some kid's Dora or SpongeBob lunchbox everyday.

• A swimsuit. Size 3T, but only if it's really cute. Related to above item on the list. If they are going to have hose-time once a week, we need to have a decent suit rotation. Plus, she has been doing lots of swimming lately, and her seventies-leotard swimsuit (with horizontal pink and gold stripes that make her look like a fat little aerobics instructor) and green and white eyelet bikini (think round, demure Brigitte Bardot) will get old. A girl has to keep it fresh by the pool/lake/beach/hose.

As I have written this post, another half hour has passed. The man has been at Target for 1.5 hours and probably spent $100 on a bunch of things that weren't on the list, which is exactly what I would have done, which is why I sent him and not me. He hates to shop, but he likes to buy stuff for Lu. Especially stuff that is nicely packaged and cheap enough not to give you pause.

Evil marketing geniuses. Target: a giant red bullseye on your wallet.

P.S. He is home now. Shopping results:
• "Look at how cool these beach towels are!" $10x2, $8 for Hello Kitty (ON SALE)
• Admittedly DARLING white smocked top and hot pink skirt. $12
• Totally cute terry cloth cover-up sarong, which she doesn't need because she doesn't have a butt you would want to cover up. $5.99
• Callaway golfballs, "most of which will end up in the lake with my sand wedge." $40
• Kandoos. $3.79/100. Which doesn't sound that bad but is like 100 times the cost of regular TP. Even fancy, soft TP.

Tasks

For weeks I have been immersed in a Web site redesign for one of our clients. We developed three prototype designs that users would evaluate after performing five specific tasks: Try to buy X using this site. Now buy Y using this site. Now tell us, in Freudian detail, how these sites made you click/feel. We were ruled by these tasks and our test users' success in achieving them. We watched from another room as people navigated our sites and commented on them. It was useful and brutal. Like watching people eat a meal you've prepared of your own organs. Did I mention we'd all had about 8 hours of sleep over 3.5 days?

So I have seen little of Lu this week, after a work-filled Memorial Day weekend and three days in Dallas. Jason, the saint, has been a single dad, handling all the tasks that move our lives forward...

Good morning. Elmo, yogurt, put the Os right there. Find Duck, more yogurt. Change diaper, try to sit on the potty, only flush once. Don't eat that. Make lunch, brush teeth, let Dad brush your teeth. Yes, you have to wear a shirt to school. Turn off the TV, grab your lunch box. Give me five kisses and have a great day, [INSERT CLIENTS/JOB/ADULT LIFE] Pick up. How was your day? Do you need a time out? Signing Time. NOOOO — 'nother Signing Time! Dinner. Bath? Okay, you don't smell unless you get really close. Only three books, night-night music, say prayers, night-night crib. [INSERT MORE WORK/ADULT LIFE. FEEL RELIEVED THE BABY IS IN BED, BUT THEN MISS HER BECAUSE YOU DON'T HAVE ENOUGH TIME WITH HER. ]

Too often, I hurry through the tasks, craving the mental checkmark at the end. Breakfast: check! Clean clothes: check! And that is what I saw this week as we remotely observed people while they hurriedly clicked through our Web sites without taking note of the loving detail in each one. I wanted them to slow down. IF YOU SLOW DOWN YOU WILL LIKE IT BETTER! I was sleep-addled and oversensitive. I hated all of them, except the ones I loved and would have happily leapt through the two-way mirror to hug.

I really, really wanted to go home to my husband and my baby. My untidy house and undone laundry. I realized the tasks are not things to click through in a rush so that life can proceed. The tasks are life.

[I know how serious and sentimental these blogs have sounded lately. I will be snarky again when I have more sleep. Wit is only for the well-rested.]

Some Things She Has Said Since 5 p.m. Today

While wearing a cowboy hat, Elmo panties and sunglasses: "I'm going running, Mom."

Same outfit, posing by the couch, no camera in sight: "I'm so cute. Cheeeeese."

As she lay down next to the dog, petting him: "Go to bed, Clifford. You tired."

With a very stern look on her face: "STAY RIGHT HERE. I be right back, okay?"

Wearing a stethoscope: "I'm a doctor. I need to take your tempachure."

To Jason: "Hey Dad, I have a question — can I have some money?" After she got the money she took her dolls shopping.

Pushing a stroller, carrying a set of spoons (the kind you'd play in a jugband), when asked what she was doing: "This."

Somebody's Baby

Since Mother's Day, I have been wanting to write some meaningful bit about motherhood: the weight of it, the change it brings in you as a person, all that stuff. But for the life of me, I can't so much see what change motherhood has made in me, as what is has done to everyone else.

At the risk of sounding dumb, it only recently occurred to me that every single person is BORN. Born eventfully (or not) to some parent(s) who look(s) on him/her as a personal miracle. Excepting tragic circumstances, everybody arrives with love. Even Britney Spears' unplanned second baby will arrive with love...if not proper infant safety and parents with good taste. And those who don't have love, well, those are the people who do the bad stuff in this world.

But, naively, I believe that most of us arrive here in love. Motherlove and Fatherlove, the kind of feeling that forgives almost any trangression, will do almost anything to ensure the happiness and safety of a child. Hopeless and tireless and, yes, stupid love. Most of us in the world have someone who feels that way about us. Shortly after we'd had our babies, my no-nonsense friend Christie and I were talking about the Iraq war and she said, "We didn't push these babies out of us so they could go kill each other." Which is not a statement about the Iraq War, but about war in general. Every person who dies is somebody's baby. Can't we, as mothers and fathers, agree that it is a bad idea?

And every person who lives is somebody's baby. Even you, the wicked, wicked person who cut me off in traffic and then FLIPPED ME OFF yesterday. Someone feels about you the way I do about Lu. I am not sure who, but someone must love you. And the homeless people who live under the bridge near our house: sad, polite people whose bad luck and worse choices have let them wander away. Do their mothers know? When I think of Lu living under a bridge, I wonder what will have happened to me. How could she have gotten so far away from us that she doesn't have somewhere safe to be? I want to call the mothers of these people, commend them on their children's good manners and demand that they rescue their babies.

I know it's not that simple. But motherhood has changed the world for me. Even in the worst traffic, motherhood casts a tender light on humanity. If I imagine that someone loves you like I love Lu, then I am less inclined to give you the bird.

The Mother Load

Kate's daily schedule:
1. Get up.
2. Feed the baby.
3. Dress the baby.
4. Pack the baby's lunch.
5. Now that Jason is up, fed and dressed, it's Lucy's turn.

This is officially our second Mother's Day. Shoot, it's one of many unofficial ones.

This mother's day I am thankful for Kate: the blog posts, the patience, the great cooking, the fact that she's my best friend, my biggest supporter, toughest critic, and, of course, the fact that she does this without pay.

Really, there is a reason men aren't mothers. Frankly, we just don't have the stones - read into THAT what you want. They love us unconditionally. They care for us with every breath. I had a stomach bug this week and my mom must have called me about a hundred times to see if I was ok. My mom, she's alright.

Granny (Kate's mom) visits every week and takes Lu to the museum. The kid talks about it for three days before the trip. Now she also talks about cookies from Granny all the time too. But it's all about love...and lemon cookies.

So thanks to Kate, Granny, Baga, GG and all the mothers out there. I couldn't have done all this without you. Literally.

Sometimes...

Sometimes, when you have had a series of long days, and you're too tired to make dinner, and there's laundry everywhere, and all you can do is lie on the couch and hate everyone...the baby will ask, "Are you tired, Mom?" and insist on covering you with HER blanket, and give you Duck, and pat your back very sweetly. Sometimes that is what gives you the strength to get off the couch.

Little Miss Manners

Manners are important. They make meals nicer. They help people get along better. And sometimes, they're only thing that allow Lucy to live at our house.

She says "thank you" in a sweet, slightly lisping way almost every time you hand her something or do something for her. She says "please" more often than not. She guffaws and says "escuse me" when she passes gas (and will prompt others to do the same if they forget). We haven't been strict about teaching her these things, but she's caught on. I'm grateful, because it seems to me that good manners can disguise a whole host of flaws.

Even in a total meltdown, she understands the power of these words enough to muster a few of them. "NO, THANK YOU, MOM. NO, THANK YOU." She screams this when I am violating her by...changing her diaper. Or moving slightly outside her narrow margin of error. "THIS ONE, I WANT THIS ONE. PLEEEEEASE," she shrieks, collapsing into sobs because I have chosen the wrong book (life was clearer before pronouns). She knows the words but has not yet grasped the subtleties of tone or even volume. I want to explain, "It's nice when you say 'no thank you,' but when you scream like that it makes Mom's ears bleed."

Still, I appreciate her effort at civility. Politeness is crucial to her survival at our house and beyond.

Odd Duck

I came home today to find Lu wearing a dress with a bikini top over it and a striped visor on her head. She looked like an Alzheimer's patient on her way to a bridge game. Nini explained that it was what she'd wanted to wear. How can you argue with such a distinctive fashion sense?

I took her to a party on Friday where she acted pretty civilized — worshipfully following Jamie's nieces around, dancing and making friends. Then she discovered the dog cage...er, crate in the upstairs bedroom. She busily crawled in and out. And in and out. And in and out. She'd make a sidetrip to steal change from a dresser or strum the banjo in the corner, but she was, oddly, lured by the cage. Which made me wonder, could it be this simple? A cage?!

She's been singing weird songs, and the dressing in strange outfits, and you know, the fascination with the cage. I think maybe she is odd. I say that reverentially, if not a little fearfully. I am odd, and so is Jason, but only in the hidden, apologetic way of people who want others to like them. I was so odd as a fourth grader that I gravely told my only friend, a Vietnamese refugee named Thuy, that I was an alien, but not to worry, because I was a really nice one. She raised her hand and asked to be moved to a new chair — but she went on to be a cheerleader. I made her, really.

My oddness got better (or more discreet), and mostly I am only odd on the inside. I look for the hidden odd in other people. Odd is not be confused with eccentric or interesting (or arty or cool or affected) — those are totally at odds with odd. I could do a whole point/counterpoint list about what is and isn't odd, but it makes no sense. No one wants to be odd. You just are. Sadly.

And I think Lu might be. In which case, she will resent her parents less.

Too Many Syllables, Too Many Nice Things to Say

There are these women I know, and we had a get-together to celebrate and mourn the departure of Veedub. Yes, Veedub. Like the car. Only she is a Lady. Using the capital L seems serious, but Veedub is not. Her name is Virginia Welford Taylor — now Virginia Welford Taylor Miracle, married to a charming man with the very Old Testament name of Jedediah Miracle. He has not seen a burning bush that we know of, but I have not given up. Anyway, Veedub is not "Virginia," she is "Virginia Welford." I would no sooner call her "Virginia" than I would call my Aunt Mary Jane "Mary." I am not sure of the origins of "Veedub," but it has a locker room quality that is sweet and incongruous.

Despite the genteel inconvenience of having a five-syllable first name, she is an amazingly practical girl. She tells it mostly like it is: she's smart, decisive, compassionate and full of humor (when appropriate, which is almost always). The only clear betrayal of her Southern upbringing is...manners. She writes thank-you notes on embossed stationery. When you invite her to your quasi-adolescent holiday party year after year, she always brings a PRESENT. A good one. Not some dumb bottle of wine (which is always welcome here, by the way).

Veedub is a good woman, with good manners and an even better mind. I have decided that I might not pay for Lu's MBA, but I will pay for her to go wherever Veedub is and learn to be a marketing bad-ass. And more importantly, learn to be a good woman.

Tonight, some potential object lessons for womanhood emerged. Can Lu learn from MacKenzie how to overcome a shitty fashion moment and still be the toast of the fourth grade? Learn from Mary Ellen how to survive sex-starved prison thugs? Learn from Lauren how to persevere, even though an Ivy League education might be disappointing to certain parents? Learn from Abby how headphones — and an EYEPATCH — can manage unwanted social contact at the office? Learn from Wendy how to make a perfect (and EVIL, EVIL) brownie? Learn from Kelly how to live in 900 stylish, organized square feet?

These are good skills, and I hope Lu will learn them all. In the meantime, the very least she can do is write thank-you notes. They make everyone happy.

Curious

"What's this, Mama?" This question comes up all the time, because, you know, she is two and doesn't know what most things are. And when your answer doesn't make sense to her, she repeats and repeats and repeats the question. Sometimes I lie or grossly oversimplify just to make her stop asking. A backhoe is "a big truck that digs." The little cartoon jockeys printed on my blouse are "some guys with hats."

"Who's this, Mama?" She wants to know everyone. People in pictures, on TV, in the grocery store. For now, she seems satisfied with general labels like "a lady," "a man," "the cashier," "a family." I have not yet resorted to making up actual names for all these strangers.

"Where are we, Mama?" She asks this at odd moments. Like when we are at home. "What do you mean, where? Austin? Earth?" It strikes me as a strangely existential question.

For now, thankfully, she has not asked "why?" That's when the real lies start.