Skipping Town

We’re in California. Again. Craziness! Insanity! It feels so surreal. All the time we were in California we yearned to be back in New York, and now we have a lovely New York apartment and are STILL living in California. We can’t get out. Or do we simply not want to be out? More on my suspicions about this another time. Our trip here went well. Lucia is a good traveler, but a six-hour flight plus an hour delay on the runway at JFK will tax anyone, and by the end she was quite fidgety. She had her own seat on the plane but still slept for only forty minutes. When we arrived, she fell asleep the instant we started up our rental car and woke only briefly at home when we zipped her into her sleep sack. She was up, confused, for the day, at 5:30am PST. We have slowly been working our way out of zombie land, but we’re not out completely. Our apartment here is nice—right off of Castro Street, the main restaurant artery, and directly across the street from a playground and a nice library. Over...

Another month, another issue of Parenting to dissect. This month, I’m annoyed anew by the section headings and tips, which include things like “mom {lovelife},” which instructs me to ask my spouse some “fun queries” to get to know him again; “mom {snacks},” which suggests I “Make schroom!” for frozen deep-fried mushrooms as an alternative to a chocolate bar for my “3 o’clock sweets craving”; and “mom {beauty},” which suggests I use a product called Shimmerskin to give my décolletage a shimmery sheen for holiday open houses. I’m sure Shimmerskin will look wonderful next to the smeared avocado and babyspit my chest usually sports. On to more pressing matters: family {play}. This month, the playtime game suggestions have a Thanksgiving theme. To be honest, they’re not as awful as usual. Collecting pinecones and leaves for a centerpiece: fun. Making placemats with pictures of things you’re thankful for and laminating them: fun. Drawing and coloring hand turkeys: classic fun. But rest assu...

We had Lucia’s one-year checkup on Wednesday, and her small size is finally a problem—or, rather, it finally elicited a concerned reaction. She’s been around the 25th percentile for weight ever since birth—growing steadily—but between her last checkup at ten months and this visit, she gained nothing. I was instructed to start weaning her, get more calories into her, and come back in five weeks for a weigh-in—and if she showed no progress we’d have to see a GI specialist. I do not think anything is wrong with Lucia’s GI system, mainly because when we saw the doctor at ten months, he told me not to give her anymore cheese or yogurt until her first birthday. She’d been greatly enjoying both things, and I’m hoping re-introducing them (plus cow’s milk) will get her back on track. Also, since that last appointment, Lucia has turned into a real playground-lover, traipsing around the equipment without a pause every single day. So not enough calories plus burning more calories—it seems to make ...

It was great fun celebrating Lucia’s birthday this weekend. We had a celebratory dinner at Fornino Friday night with Mom and Dad, where Lucia greatly enjoyed some focaccia and pizza crust. Sunday, with Molly, Ian, and some friends, Lucia was the guest of honor at her first birthday party, where she sank warily into her high chair during the singing of “Happy Birthday” then devoured part of a carrot cake muffin. She even wore a party dress—white with polka dots, gold ribbon trim, and yellow tulle—that had been a gift for my shower. She looked like a little birthday princess. Ridiculous, but also adorable. She played with some baby-friends and seemed to enjoy being the center of attention. Even as it was happening, Lucia’s birthday was being relegated to the second spot on my “things to think about” list, because at the end of last week we got some news: on Monday, we’re going back to California for a month—Andrew has to do some in-person work at his company’s HQ. We’re not exactly going...

Dear Little One, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Happy birthday Happy birthday Happy birthday. I feel such a sense of achievement today. I have kept you alive for one whole year—not only alive but healthy and happy. And I have not gone off the deep end with being both a first-time mom and a stay-at-home mom. Really, it’s a day-by-day thing, but so far, so good. I’m proud of myself, proud of you, proud of Daddy. It’s truly a day to celebrate. You are cuter than ever at one year old. Your new love is stuffed animals—you hold them and snuggle them and bite their noses. You love anything that makes noise. You seem to love chaos—our living room, always neat first thing in the morning, is very quickly a whirlpool of whipped-about newspapers, swiped-off items from the coffee table, and strewn toys and books. You move about with determination, your little hands slapping the ground, and you still love to stand up. You are now “cruising” along the furniture, and sometimes walking when we hold your hands, but so...

While Andrew toiled away in Frankfurt last week, Lucia and I journeyed south, to spend a few days with Andrew’s family. Our flight down was okay. We had an empty seat next to us, so Lucia could stand and sit and play the whole time—she seemed thrilled to crawl around under the seats, touch all the interesting venting, and pull all the in-flight reading from the seat-back pocket. She was so happy and calm that I allowed her to do all this even though I was, of course, horrified at the sheer filthiness of the things she was touching. I had no alternative, really. The only times she cried during the flight were when I forced her to sit on my lap: at take off; when I tried to get her to nap (who was I kidding?); and during landing. But then we were there, and got to see Granny and GrandBob, Great Nanny, and Great Aunt Thelma, and a couple of highly interesting cats. Friday we all—along with Katherine and Patrick—set out for Atlanta, to go to Andrew’s cousin’s wedding. This was the longest ...

It’s cold and wet here—true October weather—and, with Lucia’s birthday just two weeks away, I feel that old sense of anticipation and expectation. And though I’m not packing for a hospital stay as I was last year, I am packing for a trip—Lucia and I are heading to Jacksonville tomorrow, just the two of us, spending a few days with Granny and GrandBob and going to a wedding while Andrew is in Germany. If we can survive the three-hour flight, it will be a lovely weekend. I am, however, jealous of Andrew’s trip, even though it’s crazily work-intensive without much (or any) time for sight-seeing. Still, the thought of a long transatlantic flight, an eye mask, some wine, a darkened plane, makes me wish I, too, could have a Europe-bound adventure. We’re talking about a long weekend in Paris or Rome sometime this winter, but in the meantime, it’s just me and Lucia here at home, putting blocks and toys into a bowl and dumping them out again, knocking different toys together to hear the sounds,...

I was out until 10:30pm Friday night! Andrew got tickets from a co-worker to a great dance performance at BAM, so I ventured there while he stayed home with Lucia. It was a fantastic performance—Vollmond, by a German dance troupe, which involved copious amounts of water flung from buckets and pooled on the stage and falling as rain from the ceiling. Truly breathtaking; it left me with heart pounding. And I was so happy to be back at BAM. I feel hipper and more stylish just from being there. Until 10:30pm!! Lucia is eating vast, vast quantities of food. We met friends for brunch at Flatbush Farm on Saturday, and more friends today at Sarabeth’s on the UES, and I packed a great amount of food both times just to be on the safe side—half an avocado, bananas, a pile of mango pieces, a healthy serving of broccoli with fiore pasta. She ate every bite, plus a handful of cheerios. She eats with gusto. Saturday night, feeling on top of things and resourceful, I decided to whip together a homemad...