The Jumping Couch

We chose not to know the gender of any of our babies before they were born, because surprises are fun. Then, about three weeks before Fiona’s birth, I had a pregnancy massage. Towards the end, the masseuse asked if I wanted her to “read the baby’s energy” to predict whether it was a boy or girl. (Remember, this was in Berkeley). Sure, what the heck, I thought. Based on the amount of rock ‘n roll that was happening in utero, Erick and I expected (for admittedly stereotypical reasons) that the baby would be a boy. Based on the way I was carrying the baby — all in front — everybody else predicted it would be a boy, too. Unsolicited opinions were flying my way daily; what was the harm in one more?

The masseuse held her hands above my stomach and concentrated very, very hard.

“Huh,” she said, “I think it’s a girl, but I’m also getting a lot of boy energy.”

And there you have it. To this day, I can’t think of a better way of describing all three of our daughters than “Girls with boy energy.”

Which leads me to the problem of the jumping.

Like most kids, our daughters like to jump. And, presumably because they have “boy energy,” they like to jump A LOT. Get them near any bouncy house or trampoline, and they’re happy for upwards of an hour. Unfortunately, all that our house has to offer are beds and couches.

I know some moms who have very strict rules about their big-ticket possessions: there are couches in their houses that the kids can’t even sit on, entire rooms that are off-limits, cars that can’t be eaten in, etc. etc. I am not that kind of mom, and even if I wanted to be, it’s too late — it would be like announcing one morning that from now on, we’re all going to be speaking Greek. The bottom line is: I just don’t care that much about stuff. It’s only stuff, subject to entropy like everything else. I don’t want our kids to care too much about stuff, either, and I want them to feel cozy and comfortable in their own home. But my bottom line is actually a fine line to walk: even if you don’t care much about stuff, there’s still a basic level of care or maintenance required for your stuff — otherwise it gets trashed quickly and you end up having to buy more stuff.

Getting our girls to understand that fine line has been a challenge.

Here’s how it is: I let the girls jump on their beds. They’re not allowed to jump on my bed, because it’s my bed and I said so. But I figure that in their own room, they deserve a measure of autonomy. So far, nobody’s gotten hurt, and the beds (cheap Ikea deals) have held up. But that’s because they don’t really want to jump on their beds; they want to jump on the couch.

In all honesty, it’s couches since we moved to Vermont, which still seems crazy to me. When Erick and I got married, his boss gave us the brown suede couch that had been in Erick’s office. Or, not so much “gave” as “begged us to take it,” since the thing was covered with drool stains from all the naps Erick took on it. And that was our couch, in our New York City apartment and all three of our Berkeley homes. We’ve all recuperated on it when we were sick, I napped on it when I was pregnant and exhausted, and Erick and I both took turns sleeping on it while holding newborn Fiona when she was fussy and couldn’t settle down. It’s been a great couch for almost a decade. And, when we lived in Berkeley, in a 900-square-foot bungalow with no yard, I wasn’t too strict about not jumping on it.

Our original couch. (I think the dark spot on the right is from repeated rubbing by Erick’s head during his many naps).

Then we moved to Vermont, where, in addition to a living room, we also have a sun room — a whole other family space that needed furniture. Our old couch ended up in the living room, and I ordered a slip-covered sofa and loveseat from Ikea for the sun room. I used the move to attempt to hit “reset” on our jumping policy: their beds were still okay, but there was to be no jumping on the couches in our new home. After all, we now had plenty of space to run, jump, and play.

It hasn’t worked. Every day I have to tell our girls to stop jumping on one of the couches. They’re getting older and smarter, so they’re starting to use semantics to try and get around the rules: “I wasn’t jumping, Mommy, I was diving/dancing/walking/practicing my cartwheels.” It reminds me of when we had a cat (pre-kids) who would always jump up on the dining room table. We tried everything to make her stop, and finally resorted to getting a “Scat Mat” — a plastic mat that delivers a little electric shock to the paws. Needless to say, she didn’t like the Scat Mat at all, but did it stop her from jumping on the table? No, it did not; she just jumped on the table and carefully walked around the mat.

There is a point, of sorts, to this post, and I’m coming to it now. Probably due to a combination of years of Erick’s naps, scratching by our former cat, jumping by our daughters, and neglect by me, our good old living room couch started to die earlier this year. It started as a teeny-tiny hole, which became a bigger hole, which suddenly became three large, gaping holes spilling white fuzz. Even Erick admitted that it was time for a new couch.

Given the amount of wear-and-tear that our furniture takes in a day, it didn’t make sense to get anything too fine to replace our old couch. So, based on a quick calculation of what would be cheap but durable, look nice but withstand three kids, and simplest for me (a combination of easy to find, quality assured, and delivered to my door), we settled on a basic light brown slip-covered couch from Pottery Barn. It arrived last month, and it looks great.

The ridiculous thing is that we now have three couches in our house — four if you count the loveseat. (Which is probably what I deserve after years of trying to keep life simple and downsized, and for probably judging people who live in big houses and own a lot of stuff just a little too harshly). This plethora of couches might just be the solution to our jumping problem, however. (Aside: Does anybody else out there have trouble using the word “plethora” without hearing El Guapo from The Three Amigos: “What ees a plethora?” Anybody?!? Besides my dad, I mean?)

So, here’s the plan: the old couch, the one with the holes in it, will be moved up to the rec room the next time we have family or friends visiting (family or friends who haven’t already broken multiple bones helping us with house projects, that is), where it will become “The Jumping Couch.” All other couches in the house, especially the new couch, are “No Jumping Allowed” couches. This has been clearly explained to the girls, who seem to understand. Fiona even proclaimed that the new couch was “too hard for jumping — you’d break your head on it!”

I hope this works, or else I’m going to start researching child-sized Scat Mats.

Crafty, Continued…

So as not to leave a narrative thread dangling, I want to follow up on my original post about my efforts to become more “crafty” by sewing a birthday dress for Fiona.

As it happens, I did succeed in sewing a dress for Campbell out of the remaining fabric.

Then, with winter winding down, I figured my crafting would slow down, too. Dark, cold nights at the sewing machine would be replaced by light, warm nights sipping margaritas on the deck.

I was wrong. My crafty days were just beginning.

Four-year-old girls and fashion are a funny combination. It amazes me how opinionated and stubborn Fiona is about her wardrobe; what she deigns to wear or rejects as unwearable follows no logic that I can discern. This can be heartbreaking for parents who have bought or made special clothes. Case in point: the mother of one of Fiona’s friends sewed her daughter an absolutely gorgeous dress — this is a dress that I would wear in a heartbeat. Her daughter refuses to wear it.

As the mother of daughters, you learn not to take their fashion choices too personally.

Fiona has loving and generous grandparents, and she’s also benefited from the generosity of friends here in Vermont who pass along clothes from their older daughters (figuring that, in our house, these clothes will get worn at least three times over). In other words, Fiona has a LOT of clothes for a little person. And I’d estimate that she wears about 1% of what’s in her closet.

A quick peek into the girls’ ridiculous (and horrifying) closet.

Fortunately, the dress I sewed for her made the cut.

Just as I’ve learned not to take the refusal to wear certain clothes personally, I also don’t take Fiona’s love for this dress personally. She wears her “pink Mommy dress” not out of any sentimentality over the fact that I made it with my own hands, or because it’s a unique one-of-a-kind creation just for her. No: she wears it because it’s the longest dress in her closet.

I used a 5T pattern for Fiona’s dress — a full size larger than what she’s currently wearing — because, frankly, if I’m going to the effort of sewing her a dress, that dress had better fit her for longer than 6 months. The dress does fit her, if a bit generously, but because Fiona is kind of a peanut for her age the skirt reaches nearly to her ankles. And the length of this dress happens to correspond with Fiona’s latest fashion goal: to popularize the maxi-dress for preschoolers.

Around the time of her third birthday, just about when life became all about princesses, Fiona decided to wear only dresses. And then, a funny thing happened: due to some curious combination of increased modesty and a desire to look as princess-y as possible, the acceptable hem length for these dresses became longer and longer.

They don’t make many long dresses for preschoolers, for the obvious reason that they’re completely impractical for running, climbing, bike riding, or most other preschooler activities. Then my dress showed up in the closet, and Fiona had suddenly found her fashion ideal.

“Fashion” joins “eating” and “Disney princesses/Barbies” on my (alarmingly) growing list of “Things Not Worth Fighting Over.” I don’t much care whether my girls match or look ridiculous; as long as they’re properly covered, my inclination is to let them make their own fashion choices. Being “properly covered” was not an issue with this dress; what became an issue was the 72-hour stretch during which Fiona refused to wear anything else. At all. She’d sleep in the dress, and then wake up and announce that she was going to wear the dress to school. At bedtime that night, she’d insist that the dress wasn’t dirty and was her only choice for sleepwear.

Clearly something had to be done.

So, I made another dress.

I used the exact same pattern, so that the skirt length would match. And I’m particularly excited about the fabric, which is recycled/found material from our house: the top is from the pillow shams that came with the girls’ bedding set (our family doesn’t do pillow shams), and the skirt is made from the duvet cover that Erick and I have used since we were first married, but recently replaced due to massive holes that kept tangling around our feet while we slept.

The plan worked: now, Fiona rotates between the two dresses. There was just one thing left to do:

Make a matching dress for Campbell.

Our Rock Friends

Fiona in our backyard on “Slide Rock.” (Baby added for scale).

Naming things is a common human activity. According to Genesis, naming things was the first human activity: before Adam got friendly with Eve, or made some poor choices, or had to deal with his sons’ sibling rivalry, his job was to name all the living things.

As it happens, naming things is also an important part of our family culture. Our family tends to name things, even inanimate objects that don’t really need names.

It seems to me that humans name things for two main reasons. The first is out of a feeling of affection, or gratitude, or ownership. We name our children, of course — there’s a whole industry built up around that. In our family, we’ve named our car “Greenie” and our wood stove “Woody” because we feel an affection for them born of gratitude and frequent usage.

The second reason we name things is more practical: for ease of navigation through our geography. It’s much more clear if I tell you, “Drive over the Green Mountains, follow Route 7 north to Burlington, park in the lot by Lake Champlain,” as opposed to “Drive over those rounded mountains, follow the big road north to the biggest city, and park by the biggest lake.”

It’s probably due to a combination of these two reasons — affection and geography — that our girls have named the rocks in our yard.

Our backyard looks peaceful enough right now. As I sit here typing, I can see beyond my computer screen to a thickly woven tapestry of tree trunks and branches springing up from the rock-strewn yard. Everything — the rocks, the trees, the mossy leafy ground — looks reassuringly strong and solid. But those rocks, some of which are deeply rooted in the earth and only extend a few inches above its surface, some of which tower over me at heights of 7 feet or more and might more appropriately be called “boulders,” are like clues left behind at a crime scene. These rocks are evidence that acts of great drama and violence once took place in our own backyard.

Our house sits on a geological border zone, a rocky ridge from which the Green Mountains slope up to the east, and the Champlain Valley spreads out to the west. This area of Vermont has been under glacial ice a mile thick, and then under water as Lake Vermont and the Champlain Sea formed when the glaciers melted about 12,000 years ago. The glaciers left behind the rocks and boulders that squat atop our yard. Any exposed bedrock we can see is part of a much older story, dating from the Precambrian and Cambrian periods (roughly 700-500 million years ago) when the proto-Atlantic ocean began opening, releasing sediments and volcanic material, and then reversed its motion in a collision of continental plates that formed the Green Mountains. The rocks in our area are a combination of Precambrian basement rocks, schists, and shelf sediments. (If you’re into this sort of thing, many detailed resources are available on the Vermont Geological Survey website).

Of course, I wasn’t thinking about geological drama the first time I saw this yard; I was thinking, “Our girls are going to have a blast climbing all over these rocks!” And they do. They’ve also given names to their favorite rocks, and it’s my pleasure to introduce you to those rocks now.

The most important front yard rock is Firecracker Rock.

Firecracker Rock is named after the original Firecracker Rock, which juts out over Merrymeeting Lake in New Hampshire on a camp property that’s been in Nana’s family for generations.

With Boom and Nana on the original Firecracker Rock, circa 2010.

The original Firecracker Rock comes by its name honestly: it’s the site where firecrackers are set off over the lake on July 4th. There have been no firecrackers released from our Firecracker Rock — yet — but it’s the girls’ favorite rock to climb. The two oldest Gong girls can scale it by themselves in a matter of seconds; then they like to stand on top and survey their kingdom.

The other significant front yard rock is Chair Rock, so named because of its shape: it has a deep crease right across the middle, which makes it look like an overstuffed easy chair. On nice sunny days, the girls and I will take books out to Chair Rock and have our storytime snuggled into its warm lap.

Now, let’s move around to the backyard. The rock that dominates the backyard landscape is also the most fun to climb: Pride Rock. Pride Rock is named, of course, for the rock that towered above the African savannahs in The Lion King. Campbell is so enamored with lions, and so steeped in the story of The Lion King, that she spends most of each day pretending to be Simba the lion cub. She gets the whole family in on the action, and Pride Rock is the perfect place to stage these scenarios. Pride Rock has a gradual slope on one side, and a steep drop-off on the other, which makes it exciting to climb and slide down in all weather — when it’s covered in snow, it becomes a mini sledding hill.

Fiona at the steep end of Pride Rock, for scale.

Pride Rock has some nice satellite rocks. Right next to it is Castle Rock, which has a flat top with a small tree growing out of it. This creates the perfect setup for lion-princess interaction. Just assuming, of course, that you like to pretend to be a lion and your big sister always wants to be a princess.

Then, there’s Boat Rock, which stands on the other side of Pride Rock and is the rock you’d usually step on after descending Pride Rock. For this reason, it’s a handy rock to use as a boat if you need to make a speedy getaway from Pride Rock or Castle Rock. Speedy getaways by boat are crucial if you’re being chased by witches or mean lion uncles.

Across from Boat Rock is Refrigerator Rock. I am told, with a slightly disgusted expression which suggests it was silly to even ask, that Refrigerator Rock was named for its resemblance to a refrigerator. Obviously.

A stone’s throw from Pride Rock and its satellites is the rock that Campbell calls Pride Rock’s Cousin With The House On It. This is a mossy, flat-topped rock close to our house, so in the warm months we put a little bird house on top of it. The girls don’t usually play on this rock, but I suppose it makes a good landmark.

If you walk much further back in the woods behind our house — deep enough to require an immediate tick check afterwards — right at the edge of our property you’ll find Campbell’s Cave. Campbell discovered this little nook in the base of a large boulder during a family hike this past winter. Now that the weather is warmer, she and Fiona are fixing up the cave for fairies or bears to use. Apparently fairies and bears LOVE big piles of dead leaves and pine cones.

As I sit here writing, Pride Rock, Pride Rock’s Cousin With The House On It, Boat Rock, and Refrigerator Rock are all clearly visible, grey-green in the early morning light. I’m thinking how fortunate we are to have this yard full of rocks, and this house full of girls who love to climb them. I’m also thinking about the similarities between these girls and these rocks: that to create something beautiful, and strong, and fun usually requires some explosions, collisions, and erosion.

Brinkley and Us

I’m amazed that it took this long, but our two oldest girls have finally made the connection between parents and stuff. Expressed as an equation, it would look a little something like this:

Erick + me = can buy them stuff

Thankfully, we don’t go shopping with the girls very often. That’s not because we’re virtuous anti-materialists, it’s because we live in small town Vermont: there just aren’t that many stores to shop in. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you already know that we have to drive at least an hour to reach the nearest big box stores. (And even dollar stores are causing a brouhaha lately; check out this article, flagged by astute reader Melissa, which includes excellent use of the word “Vermontiness.”) From a kid’s perspective, the offerings in our town are pretty sparse: there’s a great local bookstore, and a fantastic children’s resale clothing store, but that’s about it. The remaining stores are geared more towards the visiting parents of the college students: lots of women’s clothes and charming home furnishings. There isn’t even a toy store; a few stores sell children’s toys along with their other offerings, but diffusing the wares also diffuses our girls’ interest.

Nevertheless, we are being lobbied heavily for stuff. And perhaps because our girls’ imaginations aren’t limited by what they see in the stores, we’re mostly being lobbied for Big Ticket Stuff. Like a hot tub. A trampoline. Bunk beds. An aquarium of fish. A cat. Chickens. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time until horses enter the conversation.

For a while, there were repeated requests for a dog, but that’s stopped almost completely. And for that, we can thank Brinkley.

We have wonderful neighbors, and among the best are our next-door neighbors. (He’s the doctor who walked through the woods to our house after dark when my dad fell in our yard and broke multiple bones, and who correctly diagnosed my dad’s condition without the aid of any medical technology). This past December, they got a golden retriever puppy named Brinkley. Mrs. Doctor brought Brinkley over when he was a few weeks old to introduce him to the girls. He was absolutely adorable, still tiny enough to be carried like a baby. The girls cooed and petted him, and that was that. It was winter; everyone takes to their homes. We didn’t see our neighbors, or Brinkley, for several months after that.

Flash forward to April. One sunny spring Saturday, we were all out in the yard when suddenly an enormous golden dog came tearing through the woods into our yard. He bounded right up to the girls, ready to play. They got it right away; Fiona picked up a stick and threw it, and because he’s a retriever, he retrieved. “Is that Brinkley?” I asked. I’d almost completely forgotten about the tiny puppy next door. This 100-pound bundle of energy bore little resemblance to the Brinkley we’d first met, but it was him all right. And, for our girls, it was love at second sight.

All afternoon, Fiona and Campbell romped around the yard with Brinkley. They kept each other completely amused playing chase, catch, and boss-the-dog-around. Even Georgia, who is about five times smaller than Brinkley, was charmed. Brinkley would run up to her and lick her all over, and she’d scream with delight and wobble after him.

And so it came to pass that we adopted our neighbor’s dog. Mrs. Doctor even brought us over our own Mason jar full of dog treats, so that the girls can reward Brinkley for following commands. This week, they’re installing an electric fence to keep Brinkley contained, but they’re extending it to include our yard. (This is partly just nice, and partly practical, since Mrs. Doctor has told me that whenever Brinkley hears our girls shrieking in the yard, he barks his “protective bark” and rushes over).

It’s an ideal situation, really. An early taste of grandparent-hood: all of the fun, none of the responsibility. These days, whenever we go outside to play, the first thing the girls do is to climb up the rocks that border our neighbor’s yard and holler, “BRINKLEY! BRIIIIIINKLEEEEEY!” Chances are that Brinkley will come bounding over, and everyone will have a good frolic. In fact, the only problems occur when playing isn’t possible: sometimes Brinkley will come up to the screen door in our kitchen during meals, and sit there staring forlornly at the girls, wanting only to play. And the biggest temper-tantrum Georgia’s ever had happened because Brinkley was running around our yard looking for a playmate, and I wouldn’t let her run outside alone to join him. “BINK-EEEE!” she screamed, pounding the window, “BINK-EEEEE!!!!!” (This child still doesn’t say “Mama” or “Daddy,” but she says “Brinkley”).

So, just a suggestion to anyone else whose children are petitioning for a canine companion: try convincing your neighbor to get a dog. It’s working for us; whenever the girls start mentioning pets, I just say, “But what about Brinkley?” and the whining ceases. So far.

Why I Had Kids

On the Willows published my little reflection on why we’re keeping these three. Click here to read it.

And Down Will Come Baby

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day, so I’m thinking about motherhood.

I remember reading (sometime, somewhere) about the different mothering trends of the past few decades. There was the ultra-competitive power mothering of the 90s and early 2000s (Get your child the right stroller! Get them into the perfect school!). This was followed by a backlash that the author termed the “bad mother” trend (embodied by Ayelet Waldman’s memoir Bad Mother — which is, by the way, an honest and funny and touching read). “Bad mothers” proudly confessed to their failures, forgetfulness, selfishness, and use of vodka shots to get through the day. I’m not sure what you’d call the current mothering trend, but between last year’s hot mothering book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, and THIS year’s hot mothering book, Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting, I’d call it “comparative multicultural mothering” (“Here’s how Asians do it!” “Oh yeah? Well here’s how the FRENCH do it!”).

I don’t really fit in to any of the above categories. I think I’m a mom who shows up every day and tries my imperfect best (with the help of God and coffee). A pretty good mom.

But I’m a pretty good mom who dropped my newborn.

I still remember vividly the first time Fiona got hurt. She was around 6 months old, and we were sitting on the floor of her room looking at books. As she was pulling out books from her bookshelf, a book from a higher shelf fell out and hit her right next to her eyebrow. It left a nasty red mark, and Fiona screamed for a few minutes, then recovered and forgot all about it.

I, however, did not forget. I cried harder than Fiona over her pain and my helplessness. How could I let such a thing happen to my child and not prevent it?!? That book COULD have landed in her eye! She’ll never forgive me for sitting there and letting her get hurt! I am clearly an unfit mother.

If you’re expecting me to tell you that things got better with time and additional children, you’re wrong.

Because when Campbell was about 4 days old, I was nursing her in bed late one night. I always read during late-night feedings in an attempt to stay awake, and I was reading that night. But despite my best efforts, worn out from the challenge of caring for a 20-month-old and a newborn, I nodded off with Campbell still in my arms. And woke up to a loud THUD and my baby wailing.

Campbell had fallen off the bed; more accurately, since I’d been holding her when I nodded off, I had dropped my newborn. I was completely beside myself. How COULD I, a second time mother, be so stupid?!? How would Campbell ever recover a sense of safety or trust after being dropped by her own mother at 4 days old?! Thankfully, our bed was only about 18 inches off of the floor, or it might have been a lot worse. We took her to the doctor the next day (where I was sure they’d call Child Protective Services on me), and she checked out fine. As far as I know, Campbell has no memory of the event and doesn’t hold it against me, although lately she has taken to saying, “Mommy, I wish I was back in your tummy.” I don’t know what that’s all about, but I’ve wondered whether she’s thinking, You know, things were a lot better back before she could get her hands on me.

And THEN, when Georgia was about 5 months old, I was trimming her fingernails one morning and nicked a little chunk of skin out of her tiny finger. She cried, and bled, and bled, and bled. She bled for the better part of an hour, through two washcloths and countless tissues. The only reason we didn’t take her to the doctor was because Erick was home, so he did his research (when there’s a family crisis, I handle the emotions and Erick handles the research) and determined Georgia was probably fine. Which she was.

Once again, I was the one who wasn’t fine. How many hundreds of fingernails had I trimmed with our previous two children, and I slice open our third daughter?!? How could I be so careless?!? Would Georgia ever trust me to cut her fingernails again?!? Happily, Georgia continues to submit to manicures, so I assume she’s let bygones be bygones. (I can’t say the same for her older sisters, who witnessed the event and remind me of it every time I go to trim their nails).

It goes without saying that this will NEVER be a parenting-advice blog. In fact, I no longer read parenting advice books or websites. (I know there are many excellent parenting resources out there that have helped countless people, but I started to notice that reading this advice made me anxious and confused). Not that I don’t need any input or advice, but these days I get it by talking to friends — friends who are in the trenches with me, or friends who are further along the parenting path and have great kids to show for it. Sharing stories, I’ve found, is the most helpful.

So that’s why I shared these stories with you: because I hope they might be helpful to other moms, especially moms who are struggling. (Is there any other kind?) I shared these stories precisely because they were stories I thought I’d never tell. They were too embarrassing, too traumatic. Back when they happened, I never would have predicted that I’d write them up and post them on the internet, let alone be able to chuckle over them a little.

GongGirls05 — Still happy, despite the blood loss. (Photo by Zoe Reyes).

Here is my Mother’s Day thought: I don’t think that time, experience, or more children necessarily make you a better, more competent mother. They just make you an older mother. Personally, I’m just as capable of dropping my third child as my first (maybe even more so, because I’m more tired and distracted). BUT, I DO think that time and experience can give mothers the gifts of perspective and humor. Things that seem so crucial — even shameful — at the time, later turn out to be things we tell virtual strangers with a chuckle. I’m only four years into this game, but if this is how I now see some of my darkest mommy moments, I’m guessing that in another four years we’ll all be chuckling about naps and potty training and kindergarten — the things that seem so important right now.

Bottom line: I think that it’s possible to be a pretty good mother and still drop your baby (metaphorically or actually). We are human, and imperfect, and all the love that we have within us will never be enough to make our children feel completely whole. All we can do is show up every day and try our imperfect best. Love — and laughter — and especially grace — really do cover a multitude of sins. And usually our children bounce back from our mistakes more quickly than we do.

So, Happy Mother’s Day. I wish my fellow mamas the gifts of perspective and humor. Remember that you’re still a pretty good mother, even if you drop the baby once in a while. And when it comes to motherhood, pretty good is good enough. Maybe it’s even great.

Porch — *Check out my beautiful Mom (she’s the one on the right, of course). She’s one of the greats, and I’m pretty sure she never dropped me. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom! I love you!*

ADDENDUM: My mom just read this, and has informed me that I fell off the changing table when I was a baby. So there you go!

Tick, Tick, Tick….

If you set foot in Vermont these days, within 5 minutes somebody’s going to warn you about the ticks.

According to everyone — my friends and neighbors, the local papers, the town website — 2012 is going to be the Year of the Tick. Tickageddon. Tickpocalypse.

But don’t panic or anything.

Here’s the story: Deer ticks, which notoriously can carry Lyme disease, have been steadily spreading northward in recent years. These ticks used to be rare in Vermont; one of my neighbors, who grew up here 50 years ago, says she never saw a tick as a child. (This weekend, she picked three off herself after working in her yard). But now the deer tick population is exploding — and with it, the incidence of Lyme disease in Vermont. In 2000, the Vermont Department of Health recorded just 40 cases of Lyme in the state; by 2011, that number was topping 500.

There are several possible explanations for the tick-festation. It seems that a bumper crop of acorns in 2010 caused an increase in the population of white-footed mice, which carry deer ticks. But this year the acorn crop didn’t do very well, the white-footed mice population declined, and a lot of hungry ticks are looking for somebody else to munch. Another theory is that the unseasonably warm winter of 2011-12 allowed the ticks more time to breed and find hosts. OR it could be due to an increase in the deer population as a result of the reforestation of Vermont’s agricultural land.

Whatever the reason, the Big News in Vermont is that the ticks are on the march, they’re hungry, and an estimated 20% of them carry Lyme disease.

All of which has certainly gotten my husband’s attention. You don’t read much about Erick here, mostly because he’s the most normal of the five of us, which makes for less entertaining stories. BUT, when it comes to the health and safety of his family, Erick becomes what some might call…”obsessive.” (Which is probably a good way to be). So, he’s been emailing me links to informational websites and videos, we’ve stocked up on Deep Woods OFF and Skin So Soft, we’ve purchased “The #1 Tick Remover in the World,” and every single night he does a thorough tick check on each of our girls. (They’ve taken to calling it “a tickle check.”)

By the way, these ticks that we’re checking for are about the size of a sesame seed, and can latch on to any part of the body.

We felt like the clock was…ticking. We live in the woods. I do yardwork in the same area where my neighbor was jumped by three ticks. The girls are outside much of the time now that the weather is warmer. We’ve even received a late night phone call after returning from a cookout, informing us that two other attendees found ticks on themselves.

And then, just last week, we pulled our first tick of the season off of the back of Fiona’s head.

In some ways, it was a relief: we could finally lose that fearful expectation of the inevitable. It’s like in horror films, where the scare itself is less frightening than the anticipation of the scare. At least when we finally found a tick, we knew that we could spot the things. Now, we just have to watch Fiona for flu-like symptoms over the next month. In the meantime, I keep telling myself what I told our girls when I sat them down for a “tick talk:” “We shouldn’t be scared, we just have to be smart.”

It’s a rough world out there, I tell you. I mean, just last month our governor was charged by a bear. Life in these woods is teaching us that nature is beautiful, and difficult. But then, to quote my ever-vigilant husband, “Feeling safe all the time probably isn’t good for your soul.”

By the way, we hope you’ll still come visit. 🙂

Ode to the Library

Ilsley Library, the main library, in downtown Middlebury

I do not want to imagine what our family’s life would be like without the library. The Library. The Library is the North Star of our weekly schedule. We — the three Gong Girls and myself — go there at least once a week, as we’ve done since Fiona was less than a year old. Other activities may come and go with the seasons or stages of life, but The Library is always there.

I have my own fond childhood memories of libraries. Growing up, the library in our town ran a film for children every Saturday morning, and my father always took me to see it. My mother took me to the library weekly while I was growing up, too, and later I went there with friends to work on research projects for school. I still remember the smell of old books and paste, trying not to giggle too loudly in the stacks, and using the card catalogue to look things up. (Remember the card catalogue?? The one with the actual cards???)

In college, the library took on less cozy connotations. I spent hours there, but it was now associated with late-night studying, caffeine headaches, undergraduates holed up in carrels for days on end. Post-college life coincided with the mega-bookstore boom (Barnes & Noble and Border’s) and the advent of Amazon. It was suddenly more convenient to just buy your books. So, it wasn’t until the end of my years in New York City that I finally stepped back into the public library. The New York Public Library, at that.

It was a revelation: all these books! Every book you could possibly want, and you could take them home with you for FREE! Not just books, either, but music and movies. Why didn’t more people KNOW about this?!?

I became re-addicted to the library. And then I had kids, which sealed the deal for good.

I love taking my girls to the library for so many reasons. The Children’s Room in most libraries these days is much more fun than when I was growing up: not only books, but TOYS! Which means that the library is one of the few places where all three of my children, aged 1 through 4.5 years, are happy. The library is (usually) indoors, which means that you can go there in all weather — particularly important in Vermont. Finally, there’s the social aspect; libraries tend to have many children’s programs, which create opportunities for 1) learning and entertainment, 2) children meeting other children, and 3) parents meeting other parents.

Am I forgetting anything? OH, the BOOKS! Obviously. We love going to the library every week because we can check out books: new books, old books, a tote-bag full of books. Our girls love to read. They also have relatively short attention spans and ever-shifting tastes and interests. We have a house full of books, but I often wonder why we bother to own any; the truth is that our girls mostly read the books they check out from the library each week. These are the books they’re excited about, because these are the books they’ve chosen for right now.

There are also (ahem) the videos. We’ve decided not to own a TV, but we are not above using our laptops to watch DVDs. (Back when Fiona was born, I was so good, SO GOOD, about not letting her watch anything on a screen until she was a full 2 years old, as mandated by the American Pediatric Association. And then I was pretty good about making Campbell wait…except that by then Fiona was already watching videos and I was pregnant with Georgia and just exhausted. And Georgia, frankly, doesn’t stand a chance — she’s already sneaking peeks at her sisters’ DVDs). I don’t love the idea of my kids spacing out in front of a video, but sometimes survival trumps ideals. For me, not using the occasional DVD to buy some peaceful time (we allow four 30-minute “video tickets” per week) would be like choosing to forgo indoor plumbing because trudging to the outhouse builds character. I could stick to my principles, and brag about them to the orderlies at the asylum when they slip my meals through a slot.

So, the girls also get to check out DVDs.

(Sorry for the crummy picture -- taken with my phone camera during our first visit to Middlebury.)

Middlebury has two libraries: there’s the Ilsley Library in town, and the Sarah Partridge Library in East Middlebury. The Ilsley is the main library. The entire lower level is dedicated to children and young adults: there’s a train table, a puppet theater, a craft table, a fish tank, and an old-fashioned claw-foot bathtub filled with stuffed animals. Sarah and Kathryn are the children’s librarians, and they do an amazing job putting together programs for almost every day of the week. There are two story times per week, a music hour, and a rotating selection of special events. Last summer we lived at this library because, in addition to story time, there was a weekly performance for children and an “Itsy-Bitsy Yoga” class for children and parents.

The Sarah Partridge Library is closer to us, but we don’t go there as often because it’s only open three half-days a week. Nonetheless, it’s the girls’ favorite. It was recently adopted as a second branch of the Ilsley Public Library, but it’s served East Middlebury as a library and community house since 1924. It has three small rooms: a community room, a children’s book room, and an adult book room. The book selection is much smaller than over at the Ilsley, but there are even more toys and stuffed animals packed into the children’s room, and usually our girls are the only children there, so they have the run of the place. Mona Rogers is the librarian at Sarah Partridge, but it’s more accurate to say that Mrs. Rogers IS the Sarah Partridge Library. I start sounding like Eloise whenever I talk about her: “Oooooooh, I just LOVE Mrs. Rogers!” Fiona’s preschool walks over to Mrs. Rogers’s weekly story time at the library, and Fiona adores her. Most Thursdays, Mrs. Rogers also brings along her Bassett Hound, Harry, who sits next to her desk.

Sarah Partridge Library, in East Middlebury.

We went to the library every week back in Berkeley, too. Berkeley has a much larger library system — 5 branches throughout the city — so there are always story times and special activities for children. Apart from size and number of programs, the main difference I notice between the Berkeley and Middlebury public libraries is that the Berkeley libraries all have self-check-out computers. The Middlebury libraries do not, but then again, we usually don’t even need our library card to check out here. Often, before I reach her desk, Mrs. Rogers has already pulled up our account on her computer. Life in a small town.

Fiona and her newly-acquired library card.

This will never be a political blog, but regardless of your politics (and, as I’ve spent my entire adult life in New York City, Berkeley, and Vermont, you might be tempted to draw some speedy conclusions about mine), there is much to be distressed about in our country these days. Whenever I start feeling depressed about where things are heading, though, I think of this: wherever you go in the United States, there are public libraries. As long as a country has public libraries, I’m pretty sure that there’s still hope for it.

Keeping it Weird

Our town’s sporting goods store sells t-shirts, which I’ve seen locals wearing, that read “Keep Vermont Weird.”

This message, although cute, has always confused me. Now, bear in mind that I moved here from Berkeley, California — I KNOW WEIRD. When I think about Vermont, “weird” is not the first description that comes to mind. Vermont is pretty much like you’d imagine: red barns, green mountains, lots of good dairy products and maple syrup, plenty of outdoor romping year-round. Bucolic? Sure. A slow pace of life? Definitely. Like living in a Norman Rockwell painting? Often. Weird?!? Gosh, I dunno.

That is, I didn’t know, until we left Vermont.

Erick had a week off from his teaching duties for Spring Break, so we decided to take a 2-day family vacation. This trip was significant because 1) it was the first vacation we’d taken with three children (moving cross-country does NOT count as a vacation), and 2) with the exception of a 24-hour jaunt that Erick and I took to Montreal for our anniversary in July, it was the first time the girls and I had left Vermont since arriving here 10 months ago.

Our destination was the Six Flags Great Escape Lodge and Indoor Waterpark in Queensbury, NY. This is a massive hotel complex near Lake George that is focused on whipping your children into a state of chlorinated hysteria. Attached to the hotel is a 38,000 square foot indoor water park, featuring water slides, a “river” you can float along in inner tubes, and a kiddie pool with fountains and swings. The scene is Dante-esque: hundreds of people in bathing suits, parents clutching enormous drinks, overstimulated children, noise, humidity, tepid chemical-smelling water. As Erick pointed out, “it’s kind of like Las Vegas for kids” — the water park even has that sense of casino timelessness: artificial light and NO clocks anywhere.

It is the sort of place that seems like a GREAT idea by about mid-March, with four months of housebound winter behind you.

Campbell meets the bear in the hotel lobby.

The Gong Girls make themselves at home in our hotel room. (Note that Fiona thought to pack her dress-up clothes).

And really, it was a great idea. The kids had fun, family memories were made, and everyone was successfully exhausted after two days of “vacation.”

How Campbell fell asleep after a day at the water park.

My point here is not to comment on our vacation; my point is that the moment we left Vermont, we could tell.

This was surprising, because we were traveling a mere two hours from our house, to a region of New York State famed for its rustic scenery: the Adirondack Mountains, Lake George, log cabins. And the scenery as we crossed over the New York border was lovely, really no different from the rolling Vermont farmland we’d just left behind. But then we noticed the increased amount of trash along the highway. Not that Vermont highways are trash-free, but until we drove to New York I hadn’t realized how little trash there is blowing along Vermont roads.

The next thing we noticed were the billboards. I’ve lived here less than a year, but I realized that during that time I’d seen no billboards in Vermont. I’m not talking about signs next to the road — we have those — I’m talking HUGE advertising billboards. This got me wondering about Vermont’s zoning ordinances, so when we returned home, I looked it up. Turns out that, yes, Vermont is one of four states (the others being Maine, Alaska, and Hawaii) to have banned billboards entirely. Vermont’s law was the first to be passed, in 1968.

As we drove further west into New York, the landscape became more and more developed. Suddenly we were in the land of strip malls, big box stores, multiplexes, putt-putt golf, roadside hotel chains, and Drive-Thru Starbucks.

It was shocking.

But when in Rome, right? We ate at Panera Bread and Johnny Rockets, we stocked up on diapers and trash bags at Target. These were the types of things I was sure I’d miss when we left California. Instead, we felt like we needed some fresh-veggie transfusions after two days of chain-restaurant food. And Target? As soon as I walked in, grabbed an enormous cart, and inhaled that familiar powdered-butter-popcorn smell, I felt a sense of panic. There was so much to buy! I should’ve made a list! SURELY I needed ALL of these things!

Campbell tries her first Margarita (don't worry, it was virgin), declares "I like it!"

As we pulled out of the shopping mall parking lot with our meager Target plunder in the trunk, it hit me: Vermont is weird! Because, as far as I can tell, these concrete temples of consumerism, this multiplex-entertainment-land, ARE WHAT IS NORMAL IN THIS COUNTRY. It’s where we used to live, it’s exactly what my hometown and my husband’s hometown now look like. In fact, we could have been just about anywhere in the United States at that very moment. There was nothing weird about it, just normal people doing their normal shopping, eating their normal food, having their normal fun.

What’s weird is that somehow Vermont seems to have kept most of these “normal” things out. Because, you see, Vermont doesn’t have a single Target. Or an Ikea. There are 3 Wal-Marts, one Costco, and four Starbucks in the entire state of Vermont, and to get to any of those I’d need to drive at least one hour. Our movie theater in town has two screens; to get to any other movie theater, I’d also have to drive at least one hour. What we saw at the southern end of beautiful Lake George was a summer vacation honky-tonk paradise, including a tiki hotel, a wax museum, and more putt-putt courses than I’ve ever seen in one place. Vermont has lakes, too, but I’ve never seen anything remotely approaching this kind of commercial development along them; usually the most you get is a deli and a bait store.

Which got me wondering some more about Vermont’s zoning laws. How have they kept so much of this commercial development out of the state? Did Vermont enact some sort of “anti-tacky” legislation?

As it happens, in 2006 the Vermont Senate passed Senate Bill 175, which requires any proposed retail store over 75,000 square feet (about half the size of a typical big box store) t0 pay for an economic and community impact analysis. I’m guessing that’s a lot for large corporations to stomach, especially when they’ll have to get it by a local group of Vermonters.

I’m hoping that this doesn’t come across as judgmental and self-righteous. If I were truly righteous, I wouldn’t ever shop at Target, or order things from Amazon, or (sometimes) crave Chipotle burritos and Starbucks lattes. I’m just saying that the difference between Vermont and what I would classify as a pretty normal, mid-sized American town was dramatic.

A cynical explanation might be: Vermont’s economy depends on tourism, so Vermonters have an economic incentive to keep things charming and pristine, the way tourists expect Vermont to look. Big box stores are about economics, too, and I was willing to be forgiving; surely these stores are great job-creators for a region of New York that is booming over the summer but depressed the rest of the year, right? So I looked it up. Unemployment in Glens Falls, NY (where most of these malls were located) was 9.5 for January 2012; statewide unemployment was 8.3. During the same period, Vermont’s unemployment was 5.0.

Huh. So I don’t know. I’m not an economist, but I do live with one and I hear from him that these things are complicated.

I do know that I was SO HAPPY to get home to Vermont; this was the trip that really made Vermont feel like home to me. On the way home, we stopped by the New England Maple Museum in Pittsford, VT. We were the only people there. We took a self-guided tour that probably hasn’t been updated in 25 years, watched a slide show (just like the ones you used to watch in elementary school) on how maple syrup is made, and sampled some maple-y goodies. The girls had just as much fun as they did swimming in a chlorinated pool under fluorescent lights.

The dairy farmer mannequin that greets you at the New England Maple Museum.

That’s pretty weird, right? Vermont is weird. I think I may have to pick up one of those t-shirts.

Letting Go

If you know Campbell, then you know the Sweeties.

The Sweeties are two little blankie animals (I believe they’re often called “lovies”) that Campbell carries with her EVERYWHERE. Looking through our photos, I was actually shocked at how seldom the Sweeties appear — I must do a better job editing than I thought — because Campbell seldom allows them to be more than arms-reach away. The two Sweeties are differentiated as “Pink Sweetie” and “White Sweetie” based on their original colors, although by now they’re both just a dull grey.

Here is Campbell holding Pink Sweetie:

And here she is with White Sweetie:

The Sweeties were originally given to Fiona when she was born. But her level of attachment never even approached Campbell’s; shortly after Campbell’s birth, Fiona decided it was time to pass along the Sweeties to her new baby sister, so she put them in Campbell’s crib. The rest, as they say, is history. (This is actually interesting, because if you asked the people who know our daughters which one would be most likely to form a strong attachment to a security object, they probably wouldn’t guess Campbell. Campbell is louder, more secure in who she is, and throws her body around a little more than Fiona, so people tend to assume she’s the tough one. In fact, it’s not that simple. Campbell is afraid of random things like automatic hand dryers, she’s the one who wakes up with nightmares… and the Sweeties are her equivalent of Samson’s hair. Which just goes to show that people are complicated).

What Campbell likes to do with the Sweeties is: bury her face in the silky material on their undersides. Or, more accurately, she inhales them. Because they come with us everywhere, I see the Sweeties as a convenient form of immunotherapy — and Campbell is the healthiest of our girls. (Check it out: science via NPR validates my dirty kids!) Erick, on the other hand, is always looking for opportunities to steal the Sweeties and throw them in the wash. So he’s not Campbell’s favorite parent.

Of course, there are some boundaries imposed on Campbell’s relationship with the Sweeties. She may bring them along in the car, but — assuming our destination is Sweetie-friendly — she’s only allowed to bring ONE Sweetie out of the car with her. The winner in this daily Sophie’s Choice is always: Pink Sweetie.

So it was a pretty big deal the day she left Pink Sweetie at home.

Here’s how it happened: I was taking Campbell and Georgia to the weekly playgroup that the Addison County Parent Child Center hosts at our church. In addition to the Sweeties, Campbell had collected a couple of stuffed animals that she also wanted to bring in the van. She had such an armful that, somehow, Pink Sweetie slipped through the cracks. We drove happily all the way into town, parked the van, and as I was unbuckling Campbell from her carseat we both realized that Pink Sweetie was missing!

I can’t think of any fitting metaphor to capture the magnitude of Campbell’s trauma at this realization. Imagine the most dramatic movie scene in which two lovers are being torn apart — something from Titanic, say — and that’ll just about do it. She was completely prostrate, screaming unintelligible words punctuated by “NOOOOO!” I tried reason: You still have White Sweetie, if we go all the way back home we’ll miss playgroup, I need to get Georgia out of the car. Nothing worked. I did one of those quick parental cost-benefit analyses in my head, and then said: “We’re going in. You don’t need Pink Sweetie to have fun. You’re going to be okay.”

And I repeated that over and over while I dragged my screaming child the longest 25 feet of both of our lives towards the door. Do you ever have a moment when you think: “Someone is going to assume I’m abducting my own child and call the police on me?” This was one of those moments.

In the end? She was fine. By the time we made it through the door, she’d settled down. When she saw all the children and toys at playgroup, she hesitated for a minute and then jumped right in as usual. When we returned home, Pink Sweetie was waiting on the Mud Room stairs.

At dinner that night, I told Erick how proud I was of Campbell. Campbell’s version: “I cried. I stopped crying. Happy!”

It was a good moment, and I was hoping she’d hold a little more loosely to Pink Sweetie afterward, figuratively speaking. And so far, she has — literally speaking. The next day we took some visiting friends (Manny, Zoe, and daughter Sofia from Maine — click here to read Zoe’s generous account on her own blog) to the Salisbury Fish Hatchery, which produces trout to stock Vermont water bodies. Pink Sweetie came along, and right at the very end, as Campbell leaned over one of the pools of trout — the one with a “No Hands in Water” sign right above it — she held Pink Sweetie so loosely that Pink Sweetie fell into the water. Guess who had to fish Pink Sweetie out? So between my hands and the germs on Pink Sweetie, if the Vermont trout population dips steeply this year, you’ll know why.