shocking revelation

I'm not a big Shel Silverstein fan.

Yeah, I'm really not. I didn't much like 'Where the Sidewalk Ends', and however many sequels it had (one?), when I was a kid. Now, I think it's kind of cute, and definitely imaginative ... but I found it gross and disturbing as a youth.

One Shel book I have always loved, though, is The Giving Tree. So do my friends. I've seen many copies of The Giving Tree on shelves at various friends' homes, and Lizzy received TWO copies of it for her first birthday. It always makes me cry.

Much to my surprise, I found out a few days ago that my boss hates the book. My boss is a really great guy, and we generally share similar views on most things. Naturally, he's allowed to disagree with me -- don't get me wrong. I was just surprised that our opinions diverge on this point.

His arguments against are that the story teaches people to give to dangerous, crippling levels. I think. As I recall, the word 'doormat' was used.

Funny. It reminds me an awful lot of parenthood.

I'd love to hear other opinions on this.

Maybe part of what shocked me was that I'm usually one of the first in line to be critical of something. Not that I'm overly negative -- at least, not usually, I don't think -- but I've been taught to approach things critically. Sometimes, though, I trip over something dear to me as a child. Something I don't particularly WANT to pull apart. Maybe this is one of those things. I don't remember it being in heavy rotation when I was a kid, but maybe it still fits in that category, in my brain.

Lizzy's new bed

We're taking this new house thing very slowly. Life, and budget limitations, intrude.
But we did manage to set up a new bed for Lizzy. No more toddler bed! We swapped beds with Pop-Pop (now in the basement), which was handy because we scratched up the wall getting the queen-sized bedsprings downstairs, and weren't looking forward to trying to force the thing back up. Pop-Pop gets a bigger bed, and everyone's happy.
We were pleased to find princess sheets in 'size full'. I guess a lot of parents spoil their kids (by giving them big beds, for one thing).
We plan to paint the walls and do lots of fun stuff to the room, but for now, here's Lizzy's new bed:

Hey! Who are those people in it? Oh yeah. Matt and Lizzy. Matt was kind enough to read Lizzy's second book last night, and he hung around until she fell asleep. (yes, our child is firmly in the 'spoiled' camp.) And fell asleep himself. And cruel, cruel Mommy sneaked in to take pictures. But, c'mon -- would you have resisted?
Take a closer look:



I was going to make some jokes about Matt sleeping with other women -- maybe label this post 'grounds for divorce' or 'infidelity' -- then I decided that maybe that's not quite so funny to everyone.

One last peek at Lizzy:


She looks like such a colt from that angle! She's our little growing girl.

It didn't happen. Again.

Y'know, this getting pregnant stuff is a lot harder than it seems like it should be. Particularly when one has an unplanned pregnancy under one's belt.
The irony is so thick, I'm choking on it.

Haven't given up hope yet -- I'm only 0 for 2 -- but starting to wonder... But still waiting, hoping and believing that God's timing is best.

It happened

We parents are often, if not constantly, thinking about our kids’ futures. How we will provide for them physically, emotionally, spiritually, etc. We’re generally carrying the burdens of today as well as all of the burdens we perceive will come along tomorrow, next year, etc.

(I can't find a better example that's scanned into my computer than the one at right, taken when she was about nine months old. You can't see the leg really well, but you can kind of tell that something strange is going on over there.)

We’re a paranoid lot. We fear and dread certain rites of passage. Or at least, to some extent. I generally hesitate to speak for others in this way, but I don’t know how one could be a human parent who loved and cared for one’s child without having certain hopes and dreams for them. And certain fears. Some are fairly universal, and others are specific to the child.

One that Matt and I have had since Day 1 has to do with Lizzy’s right leg. For any of you who knew Lizzy before the age of, oh, 3, you probably noticed an angry red blotch that completely covered the back of her leg from the knee down, and wrapped around the front just above the ankle. She was born with it; we never really knew what it was. Lots of kids have similar things. We were just glad it wasn’t in a more conspicuous spot.

We weren’t too worried about it as an actual impediment, as she seemed to learn to crawl and walk at about the right times. That lower leg has always been slightly skinnier than the left one, but again, it never seemed to hinder her in any way. I took her to a specialist (not covered by my insurance company – THANKS, K@!ser) who didn’t know what the heck it was, so he (no joke) made up a term for it. It’s now a Rapidly Involuting Congenital Hemangioma. Translation: A skin blotch that was there at birth that appears to be quickly going away. Come back if it starts to get worse. That’ll be one hundred dollars, please.

So our much milder worry became: What would Lizzy’s reaction be to her slightly less than ‘normal’ leg, when she became old enough to be vain about such things? We figured that would be about the time other kids got old enough to point and laugh.

Fortunately, it has gone away at a really rapid clip. You can still see some small spider-type veins here and there, and it’s still ever so slightly skinnier than its neighbor, and there’s a weird vein indentation running up it (used to be an actual vein, when things looked worse), but otherwise, it’s cool. It's kind of like she's got one 4-year-old leg, and one 50-year-old leg. Kinda.

Yesterday in the car, Lizzy was squirming all around. Can’t blame her, the 4-year-old who shares her parents’ hour-plus commute each way.

We told her to put her legs back down in front of her – she was kind of sitting on them (those older-kid carseats allow for a lot more wiggle room) – and then she said, ‘Hey – what’s this?’ Matt and I darted a glance at each other, then looked down at her leg. ‘What – this?’ I said, pointing to the spider veins. ‘Yeah,’ says Lizzy. ‘Is this the first time you’ve seen that?’ I asked. ‘No,’ said Lizzy. ‘What is it?’ So Matt and I take a deep breath and sort of tell her the story, emphasizing that LOTS of kids are born with spots here and there, and things, and that there’s nothing wrong with her. That the leg works great. She told us it never hurt – something we used to wonder about when she was a baby.

So, there we are, for now. She’s aware of her leg, but doesn’t seem freaked by it. Please, Lord, make it go away completely by the time she’s a pre-teen, or give her a lot of confidence about it.

Matt used to say that he was kind of glad she had something funny like that. That it would help her be stronger and more humble about herself. Since she’s sure to be a great beauty, and all. :)

Now -- time to move on to bigger worries! First pimple, first heartbreak, first 'I'm fat!', etc. I'm sure it never ends.

presenting the May Sells

Matt, Kate and Lizzy May Sell:

it's July, so it must be time for ...

our car's air conditioning to stop working!

Rats.

Speaking of rats, we saw Ratatouille last night! It gets two paws up from me AND my 4-year-old. That Brad Bird guy (The Incredibles -- one of the best action movies, ever! If you haven't seen it, and you're over the age of three, you really MUST) knows what he's doing. Good times. Don't be scared away by the rats. He could animate a muddy puddle, and it would we worth seeing.

Speaking of movies (hey, transitions are easy to do when I'm the only one talking), Matt moved his dad into our basement this weekend. Well, his dad helped, too. Let me rephrase that: Matt's dad is now in our basement. And, most surprising for me, it's fine! I've been spending a lot of time griping about this over the past few months, which is ridiculous anyway because it's a situation beneficial for all parties (we get more respite from our massive mortgage payment, as we're splitting it three ways). So I'm feeling rather relieved that it hasn't felt awkward/oppressive/annoying. I hope his dad feels the same ... I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I think it will all be fine. And, honest, I'm not just saying that because Matt just gave his dad the link to my blog. :)

But back to movies -- Matt's dad, a bachelor, is accustomed to having access to the full complement of HBO channels and whatnot. So we are now movie'd to the hilt. I spent my yesterday evening, after Lizzy conveniently fell asleep for the night on a neighborhood walk at about 7:45, flipping around. Let's see: Do I want to watch Big Love, or Domino, or The Matrix: Revolutions, or Kuffs (Christian Slater -- oldie and a baddie. So why did I watch a half-hour of it? To enjoy the campiness, I suppose), or X-Men 3, or You, Me and Dupree, or Falling Down, or Wedding Crashers, or ... Actually, what I would have preferred is if I'd remembered earlier in the day to hit 'record' on the DVR, so I could have seen the five-set Wimbledon tennis final between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. Federer's got as many Wimbledon titles as Bjorn Borg now! Whoa. (yeah, I know. you're all thrilled to hear it.)

So I guess technology, and large bills to your cable company, can't accomplish everything.

sartorial scarcity

I am fortunate to be married to a man who has a fairly good sense of style. He provides actual, useful assistance when I ask him which outfit is best (the preferred type of request), or whether something looks acceptable (dicey, but we manage). And, when we can manage it, he’s fabulous to have along when I'm clothes shopping.
His mantra, which I’ve found hugely useful: “DON’T SETTLE.” If it doesn’t jump right out at me as being great, I don’t get it. It’s a more confident way to shop. It assumes that there WILL be fabulous-looking clothing out there. (we’re talking more about ‘fit’ than actual style here, though style, of course, is part of the equation.) All too often, I’m willing to go with something I can merely stand the sight of myself in. But Matt helps me aspire to greater things.

He even went so far recently as to buy me some clothes from a casual clothing store we go to from time to time. To turn a phrase coined by a friend, apathy has been the enemy of the pants lately, and I’ve gained a few pounds. I think I’ve not-exercised my way out of most of my clothes. Not a good scheme, since I find it preferable to go about my public business fully clothed, and preferably not in super-tight, ill-fitting garb.

So we got a few things, but we didn’t find any shorts on that pass. We returned to the same store a few weeks later, which was a couple of nights ago.

Again, no shorts. Sadly. You’ll not be seeing much of my chubby, pasty legs any time soon.

Our outing did have a happy outcome, though. What to my wandering eye did appear … but cute cute shoes! Lizzy thought they were precious, too, and that girl definitely has a sense of style. We eagerly modeled them for Matt.

As I’ve hinted, Matt elects to use sweet, encouraging, subtle forms of communication to get his opinion across. So when he doesn’t say much right away, I jump to the conclusion that he doesn’t like something. Most of the time, that’s fine. But for these shoes…

(me) “What’s wrong with them? Don’t you like them?”
(Lizzy) “Yeah, what’s wrong with them, Daddy? Don’t you like them?”

(Matt) “Well, they’re … PLAID.”

I bought them anyway. Rules are meant to be broken, right? And opinions meant to be ignored. After all, a woman mustn’t cede ALL fashion rights to the man. Am I right, ladies? Or am I the only one out there with a worse fashion sense than my husband?

Demolition Fam

This weekend, we began the scary, scary business of prepping the basement for a bathroom installation.
Matt thought it would be cute to get Lizzy in on the act. I think he just wanted cheap labor!
Here's what we did, in photos:

We started with this back room, around the corner in the basement. Matt (with help from plumbers, etc.) is putting in a bathroom on the right side, and he's making a deep, much narrower closet on the left.

Start point:

Matt had already removed doors and doorframes and such. Now for the fun part!

Here's Lizzy, sizing up the job:



Here's Matt, providing a little coaching and adjustment:

Lizzy's getting into it! She was grunting and everything. I foresee a promising future in tennis, or perhaps softball:



A heroic young demolition girl displays her prize:



(we tried to get her to wear sensible shoes, Dad, but she was sold on the sandals. At least we managed to talk her out of bare feet.)

We couldn't resist this opportunity for cuteness:




Even Mommy got into the act! Someone had to get the high spots, after all.

End point:

I don't think Matt ended up doing more punching through the wall (with the hammer) than just getting Lizzy started. We girls had too much fun doing it ourselves. We left Daddy the clean-up duties. :)