She woke this morning at 2:30, calling for us.
"Mom, I'm afraid I won't wake up on time and we will be late. So I am going to stay awake in my bed until morning, but I will be very quiet."
She left for Disneyland with Baga and Opa just now. I have never seen her so excited.
Dearest Lucy. This is official notice of me holding your teenage years hostage. Have a nice day.
My dears,
I'd like apologize to you for my ill temper these last several weeks. If I've been snippy, or thoughtless or irrational or hysterical, I'm sorry. Please let me explain.
You see, it's my pants. For at least a month, I have been squeezing myself into my "regular" pants. And apparently they have been cutting off the circulation to the happiness region of my brain.
I am realizing this now because I have on MATERNITY PANTS. Stretchy, cradling maternity blacks in a forgiving shade of black. I am reborn. The birds are singing more sweetly. The colors of spring are more vivid. Everyone is kinder and more attractive. I love you. And you and you and you.
But mostly I love these pants. Sorry I have been so awful lately. I am better now.
Sincerely,
Kate
P.S. I truly believe we could have a shot at peace in the Middle East if every person came to the negotiating table wearing these pants.
"Oh CRAB," Lucy exclaimed at dinner last night, glancing over at me and Jason as if to try on her new curse word. "I forgot where my locket is," she explained, then got up to go find it.
When she was gone, we cracked up and quickly debated the correction of an intended bad word that wasn't actually a bad word.
When she came back, I asked, "Lucy, what did you just say?"
"I said, 'oh crab.' Because I lost something."
"Well, a crab is a kind of animal. But if you meant to say 'crap,' that's like saying 'poop,' which is not a very nice word."
"Oh."
Lucy informed me this morning, between choking sobs and wails, "This is the worst day of my life." And I had to admit, it was looking like a pretty bad day. We sat on the couch at an impasse: I'd told her she was going to wear the shirt and skirt she'd promised to wear the day before, or lose TV for the rest of the day. She'd told me she would wear the shirt under a dress as a jumper, but would NOT wear the skirt.
I picked the wrong battle and I am sick about it. Here's what happened: she explained that she HAD to wear a dress or else. Or else what, I wanted to know. "Or else the girls will make me be a queen or a prince when we play princess — only girls who wear dresses get to be princesses." When I heard this, I dug in. I told her that nobody could tell her what to wear or what to do (except me and Dad), and she had all these new clothes and she'd told Dad yesterday she would wear this outfit today and that was that.
The morning dissolved into hysteria! Threats! Rage! (And this was both of us.) She pleaded, demanded, negotiated and pressed her proposed compromise to wear the new shirt UNDER a dress as a jumper, but I did not budge.
I won, but it was no victory. She went to school, her chest still heaving, wearing the @#$%ing skirt. Poor kid. She tried so hard to find a compromise. I should not have forced her to go to school wearing something that made her feel so miserable or would make things on the playground unnecessarily hard merely because I said so.
How humbling when the little person is the bigger person.
...that your insides are really yucky and scary, including your guts? But that you don't see them unless a doctor operates on you or you are hurt?
The first time you feel a baby move inside your body, you think, "Dang, those tacos are acting up on me." The second or third time, you think, "Wait, what was that?" Tapping? Fluttering? Does lunch flutter? Then, there's the first distinctive thump. And you think, "Ohhh," and recall with amusement the previous taco/lunch incidents.
I am pretty sure something is thumping around in there. And even though I have experienced this before, it is still a surprisingly sweet, alien experience.
Lucy had a fantastic 3-day-long birthday celebration that started with a family dinner party (guests included all the grandparents and sundry other family members) and ended with a kid party at Pump It Up.
L: "Mom, I know how you found out you were going to have a baby!"
K: "Oh really? How?"
L: "Well, you went outside and got a stick from a tree. And then you peed on it and it turned pink and that's how you knew you were going to have a baby." Pauses, a grossed-out expression crossing her face. Accusingly: "Mom, you peed outside."
K: "I did not pee outside. So who told you all this?"
L: "Janet."
K: "Well, I did pee on a stick, but not the kind from a tree. It was a special plastic stick. And I was in the bathroom."
L: "Oh."
Five years and 14 minutes ago...well, I won't go into gory detail, but it was BIG moment: Lucy arrived.
I still can't believe it. She's the best thing ever.
