Yet, (hopefully) not halfway there

OMG.

As if there weren't enough signs bombarding me with the fact that I am now old. Among them that my butt now has more dimples than the prepubescent Shirley Temple. But I digress. . .

People, The Matrix is celebrating its tenth anniversary. I might actually be a relic of the cretaceous period.

Which brings me to this week's (month's? What is time, anyway???) mantra:

THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON.
THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON.
THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON.
THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON.
THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON.
THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON.
THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON.
THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON.
THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON.
THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON.
THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON.
THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON.
THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON.
THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON.
THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON.
THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON. THERE IS NO SPOON.

I could've put the crib in the backyard

I just happened to be cruising around some baby-related websites and came across an article on letting newborn babies "cry it out" in the middle of the night. Written by a PhD from Children's Hospital in Philadelphia, it talks about how "sleep training," her term for allowing infants to cry for half an hour at two in the morning, teaches them (in just a couple of nights) the self-soothing skills they need to fall asleep on their own.

Isn't that special?

Immediately I had this flashback to early spring, 2005, when I was propped up in my bed at three in the morning flipping through my paperback copy of Babywise, trying to decipher the print through my hormone and fatigue-induced fit of tears. It's a strict, schedule-based sleep-training book complete with graphs. Full of facts: sleep statistics, success percentages, the requisite troubleshooting section. I followed its advice, TO A TEE. Problem was, my kid wasn't in any of its two-hundred-twenty-something, whip-cracking pages.

Then there was the first time I showed up at the hospital-sponsored Mommy and Me class when Bugglegirl was six months old and still not sleeping through the night. When I lamented to the instructor that "crying it out" just didn't work with my baby, she coolly responded, "Oh, it works if you do it right." I almost invited that bee-atch back to my place for a two-hour, middle-of-the-night screamfest, but instead I just never went back. I also never let Bugglegirl cry for hours in the middle of the night again. I didn't need some wannabe Dr. Spock to tell me how to handle my kid. Intuitively, I knew that my little bundle of joy was destined to be the exception to every rule.

[Sorry - I just glanced up through the French patio doors to glimpse Buggleboy streaking through the backyard. Bugglegirl in her panties, carrying a purse and chasing him. Excuse me for just a moment.]

My point is: experts, schmexperts. It took Bugglegirl ten months to sleep though the night completely (my pediatrician's assessment: some babies just get hungry). And Buggleboy woke throughout the night until he had tubes put in his ears at fourteen months.

It was a frustrating, exhausting process, but now both of them sleep regularly from seven to seven. Sleep training, indeed.

What if they grow up to be Picasso?

I'm sitting here at my desk and the smell of Barbasol is overwhelming. Right next to my laptop, at the apex of a toppling pile of preschool masterpieces (merely one of many such piles dotting my household landscape), sits an eleven by seventeen sheet of paper covered in a smelly, puffy, mint-green concoction of shaving cream and glue. And while I'm confident that Bugglegirl's preschool instructors could offer up a ten minute treatise on its developmental necessity in promoting tactile stimulation, fine motor skills and right-brain augmentation, one reality remains: I haven't the foggiest idea what the hell to do with it.

I'm drowning here, people.

How is it even possible for two children, with a combined age of only six and a half years, to generate so much paperwork? I've worked in animation, in publishing, IN STATIONERY, for God's sake, and I've never seen so many scraps and sheets strewn about.

The other day I was over at my neat friend's house. It is utterly immaculate - no dishes, no junk mail, no errant socks - which she will insist is due to the fact that they are trying to sell it, but I know better. She is one of those clutter-proof souls, those totally infuriating people who inspire me, after I return home, to dash breathlessly from room to room, frantically seeking something, anything, that I can throw into the garbage or donate to Goodwill to placate my inadequacy.

So I started quizzing her: What about the school artwork? The torn-out, half-completed coloring book pages? She winced, just a wee bit, and in a noticeably lowered voice she admitted: I throw it all away.

PARDON? My head started reeling. She might as well have told me that she'd shredded the Dead Sea Scrolls. Really? She proceeded to tell me that she does keep the special holiday projects, and that she expects to preserve more art as the boys get older. As I sat there listening, a curious wave of conflicting emotion washed over me - the same feeling I get when I'm watching the E! channel and Pamela Anderson flashes (practically) across the screen: horrified. . .yet, intrigued.

But I just can't get rid of it all. I harbor a guilty sense of sentimentality that results in my reluctance - and often, my downright inability - to part with mementos (have I told you about my cocktail napkin collection from elementary school?). At the same time, I can't function in this never-ending ticker-tape madness any longer.

So, myself and I have reached a compromise: stash some, trash some, send the rest to the grandparents. I'm going to curb, if not purge, this needless nostalgia.

It's downright nauseating

So I've come down with a minor case of pregnant envy. Let me just peel off the Bugglehubs and explain that, no, I'm not really interested in actually being with child at the moment. What I mean is that several of my friends are currently expecting and each of them still appears to be a fully functioning, normal-looking human being.

I went walking this morning at the Rose Bowl with my friend who's due in June and she's finally looking the part. She is tall - exactly the height I would have chosen for myself, if anyone had bothered to ask - and is gracefully pregnant, whereas I appeared for several months to have a basketball lodged in my lower esophagus. Earlier in her pregnancy I kept drilling her during our strolls: Any cravings to report? Not really. How about nausea? Hmm, not too bad. Shooting pains? Nothing so far.

Damn. I don't want to see anybody suffering, but COME ON. Can somebody throw just a smidgen of acid reflux her way, please? It did occur to me that perhaps she's just not a complainer - that maybe she's been totally miserable but just doesn't want to spread it around (which, I know, would make my pregnant envy even more despicable). But then she tells me today, as we're talking about cooking and eating, that she overindulged this week. FINALLY, I thought, anticipating the worst: an entire chocolate lava cake? A family-sized bag of Cool Ranch Doritos? No, people. It was these chocolate covered almonds from Trader Joe's. ALMONDS? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I wouldn't have eaten almonds if they'd told me my kid would pop out reading. When I was pregnant with Bugglegirl, for dessert I used to chase a half a pound of spice gumdrops with a bag of salt and vinegar potato chips.

OK. You know how sometimes you write something down, and all of a sudden everything appears in perspective? Like where heartburn and fat thighs come from?

Damn.

Who you calling "Toxic"?

I can't seem to recall exactly how the stars aligned recently to allow me a few spare moments to peruse an old issue of People magazine. Probably has something to do with the fact that Oprah was taking yet another vacation. At any rate, I managed to catch up with the likes of Jennifer Garner (battling a stalker!), Nicole Richie (debuting a jewelry line!) and Michael J. Fox (not cured!).

I skimmed most of it, but I got sucked into an article about Britney Spears and her "I hate when people call this a" comeback. There she was, all depressed-looking in the full-page photograph, followed a page later by a shot of her juggling a bunch of music awards. And while I delved into the article ready to mock the stupid redneck rich girl, it became immediately obvious: this chick is really miserable. All the money and hair extensions in the world can't change the fact that she went nuts, lost her kids and now, isn't even allowed to buy a pack of Hubba Bubba without an OK from Jamie Spears (the dad, not the loose little sister).

But for some reason, I still had this nagging suspicion that all that cash must cushion the crazy just a teeny bit. Isn't driving to your court mandated prescription drug rehab in your Ferrari better than taking the Big Blue Bus?

I had forgotten about the article until a couple of days ago, when I watched a Diane Sawyer exposé on 20/20 about the Appalachian "mountain folk." These people live in trailers surrounded by garbage. They have no teeth because they put Mountain Dew IN THEIR BABY BOTTLES. Many of them are addicted to prescription pills and the ones who aren't spend their black-lung-shortened lives buried in the coal mines. I spent a summer during college delivering pizzas to people just like this, in the Appalachian foothills. An otherworldly combination of stunningly beautiful scenery inhabited by stunningly impoverished people. I got lost a lot, tooling around the backroads in my Subaru wagon with directions like: Turn left at the crossroads. About four miles up the hill, take a right. Follow the path to the clearing, third trailer on the left. A gaggle of dogs, chickens and barefoot kids would come running up to the car. Their dad (brother? uncle?) would offer me fourteen bucks for a thirteen dollar and sixty seven cent pepperoni pizza and a two liter of soda (Mountain Dew, natch).

Point is, it reminded me of my roots (well, if not exactly upper-middle-class suburbia, my brief foray into the real world) and how I used to imagine what people in California might be like. With their fancy cars and their five hundred dollar haircuts. And it made me realize that to somebody in the Appalachian wilderness - darkest dark I've ever seen - I might as well be Britney.

So now I'm gonna spit out my gum and say a little prayer.