Get a Grip

I just wasted an hour surfing the web, searching for ways to get my son to hold his pencil like a writing utensil and not a bludgeon. I’d just like to say up front that personally, I don’t give a shit how he holds the pencil. I don’t want to get all “my kid is frighteningly gifted” on you, but it is incontrovertible that Primo has some mad drawing skill.

So, since the art he produces is so impressive and since he’s so happy producing it. I haven’t quibbled about his process. I figured he’d get with the pincer program eventually.

Turns out, this was a bad idea. An expert told me so.

Upon the recommendation of his teacher, who have noticed his fist grip, Primo was evaluated by an occupational therapist, to make sure he didn’t have fine motor weakness.

“His fine motor skills are fine,” said the OT lady, “Better than fine. He scores off the charts.”

Great!” I replied, “I’m so relieved.”

“But his grip is terrible.” she continued, “Really bad, I mean, BAA-AAD.”

She went on to tell me that is was one of the worst grips she’d seen, and that if we didn’t fix it pronto, he’d have tons of trouble in kindergarten, writing and doing homework.

So, we’ll fix it, right? I mean, how hard could it be to get a kid to hold his pencil between his fingers?

The answer is: quite, quite difficult, if it is my progeny you’re talking about. Primo is, to use a term I’ve noticed educators like to employ, “resistant” to changing his grasp. These educators are being kind – either that or he is being kind to them, by showing just some “resistance.” Because when I oh-so-gently remind him that he might want to try using his fingers rather than his fist, he flies into a full-on, balls-out, no-chains-can-hold-him, rage-against-the-machine hell-no-we-won’t-go tantrum,

“STOP BOTHERING ME!” he bellows, “YOU KNOW MY FINGERS RUIN MY DETAIL WORK! NOW LOOK WHAT YOU DID! YOU RUINED MY PICTURE!”

This is invariably accompanied by him throwing his colored pencils to the ground and a temperamental wail, “FIIIIIIIINE! I WILL GIVE UP DRAWING!”

Its gotten to the point that if he sees me watching him use his fist, he will warn me gently, before I even say anything, “Please don’t make me angry, Mommy.”

So I did what any parent would do: I bought some shit to help me help him. We now possess every manner of grip-helper or writing-aid on the market. Every color, texture and variety. Totally and immediately worthless. Especially the one that the OT lady recommended, which is a kind of bracelet-type band that has a hole for the pencil and a little silver dolphin that he was supposed to curl his two bottom fingers around, to keep his hand in the right position.

“Look! You can hold the dolphin!” exclaimed the evaluator, like clutching a little plastic dolphin in a sweaty palm was some great thrill.

Primo looked at her like, “Let’s get serious, lady. I’m an urbanite. A dolphin isn’t gonna get this deal done. Now can we start talking or what?”

So we started negotiations. Bribing, I mean. The OT evaluator recommended that I replace the dolphin with an M & M that he could hold while drawing, and then eat afterwards as a treat. This worked like magic -- for one afternoon. In that afternoon, he drew with his fingers for two hours and ate a whole pack of M & Ms. After that, he had built an immunity to chocolate candy.

Sticker charts proved equally ineffective. I would throw out or hide all the writing utensils in the house until he surrendered but the thing is, drawing is the only activity he performs without bothering me constantly, so its become my salvation. Also, this is my son we're talking about. He's stubborn like a pigheaded mule, to use a term my grandmother is fond of. The kid would find something to draw with, and I probably wouldn’t like what he came up with. I saw the Marquis de Sade movie starring Geoffery Rush.

So I’ve done the only thing possible: Give up. Or rather, I’ve taken a moment of pause to let all my hard work sink in and let his willingness catch up to my resolve.

I mean, there’s a lot to worry about out there and the finger grip just can’t be topping my list anymore. Am I right?

Simply Scatological

Since I’m surrendering fully to the unapologetic glory of TMI, I offer you today this whopper.

The other day, I was holed up in my office (read: whatever room the children are not in) working on deadline, with my grandmother “in charge” of the kids. Since our house is the size of a shoebox, with walls about as thick, I could hear every syllable of the detailed monologue my grandmother was delivering about my daughter’s dirty diaper.

“Jesu mio! Seconda, are you dirty? Uffa! You dirty! You very dirty! Che puzzo! Lemme change you diaper.”

I heard her rip off the diaper tabs, followed by a gasp.

“Dio mio! What a LOAD! Oh my God! Don’t move, baby. I gotta get da wipes. OK, don’t you move. Don’t move.”

Oh, come on, Nonnie, that’s a rookie move, I thought. You know better than to leave the kid unattended with a half-open dirty diaper

.

A minute later, I heard a piercing shriek.

“NO! NO! NO!” my grandmother yelled, “DON”T TOUCH THAT!”

With unsuppressed glee, I heard my daughter laugh, then exclaim: “I’m all MUDDY!”

It is in moments like these that it’s easy to believe we came from monkeys.

Epidemics, Lay-offs, Gunk-Eye and Other Reasons to Be Glum

I am feeling more than a little anxious this morning. Here’s why.

1. Husband reports another round of layoffs is in the works for his company, to break end of May.

2. Nonnie reports that the Po-Po buzzed her bell last night at 11pm, looking for the guy that lives in the apartment beneath her. I thought there’d be a punchline. No punchline. My 78 year-old grandmother resides directly above a crime den.

3. Since he’s been suffering extreme seasonal allergies for the past week and rubbing his itchy eyes like a madman, Primo now has a RAGING case of conjunctivitis which has made one eye swollen shut. Between this and the sneezing attacks, he's been up kept him up all night, and I've resorted to just sleeping with him with means

A.I am abso-friggin-lutely knackered and
B. I have been laying my head on his gunk-eye pillow.

His allergies also mean that he is a colossally bad mood and prone to yelling “I DON”T LOVE YOU ANYMORE” if I don’t draw Frankenstein adeptly enough for his taste. It also means that he is HOME FROM SCHOOL for the second day in a row.

4. When I updated my status on Facebook to say that reflect the fact that I “have a boy at home with very gunky eyes,” this update, which I found notable only in that it was perhaps the most boring one I’ve ever posted, elicited a backlash.

“TMI!” wrote one friend who has three children of her own.

“This is so GROSS, Nicole!” wrote my cousin, “You shouldn’t post it on Facebook – and I don’t
think Primo would appreciate it.”

Since I’m already feeling pissed and aggravated and anxious, this backlash sent me into a blind rage. Had my gunk-eye child not needed immediate attention, dragging me away from my computer, I would have written, “Oh, you want TMI? I’ll give you TMI! I was so fucking busy yesterday caring for my gunk-eye son and my shitty-britches daughter who enjoys blowing snot onto the floor and then sticking her fingers in it, that I forgot to put a tampon in! How’s that for TMI? More where that came from, folks.”

5. Last but certainly not least is the swine flu. Come on, man. This shit is terrifying. This shit scares me down to my toenails. How do I protect my darling gunk-eyed, snot-shooting children from what threatens to be an epidemic? It has gotten me down, down, down.

Happy Anniversary!

Yesterday was David and my six year wedding anniversary. Hooray for us! We like to joke that we’ve been together six years but it feels like sixty. If there was a “Which television couple are you?” quiz on Facebook, we would be the Honeymooners, for sure. But before my newlywed, non-parent friends get unduly alarmed about how kids crush the romance out of a marriage, let me hasten to say that feeling like you’ve been together sixty years isn’t a bad thing, necessarily.

Case in point: the terms by which David and I now address each other. When I’m not calling him “shithead” and he’s not calling me “nagshead” we usually refer to one another as “Mommy” and “Daddy” even when the kids are not present.

Now, I’m not proud of this. This is precisely the sort of thing I thought I would NEVER do before I had kids. I mean, its something people who have lost their selves in the process of becoming a parent do, something old, uninteresting people who never have sex do. It’s something my parents do.

But now I do it too, and there’s just no way around it.

David told me about one time when he was at the corner bodega, and the guy who works there and knows

David from his Friday night beer-runs, asked him why he was also buying Ben and Jerry’s this time.

“Just picking up something for Mom,” he replied.

“Is your mother visiting?’ the man asked.

But of course he was talking about me.

I’m not going to lie, That was a blow.

But it was also a year or two ago. And since that time, we’ve moved past the newness of this stage of our lives, and into the dense, deepening madness of it, And I have realized something.

Who gives a shit what we call each other? Who really has the energy to make sure that we’re addressing each other in quirky, romantic ways that keep our essential characters intact and shows respect for the people we are, apart from our roles as parents?

Its worrying about that crap that makes you old before your time and sucks the joie de vivre right out of you. Or at least that’s my position. What matters is that we are here, together, addressing each other at all, coming together even if in haphazard, clumsy ways, even if a trip to the dentist’s office, without kids, is considered a hot date, even if sex is accompanied by a Dora the Explorer soundtrack, even if the sentence “I love you” is too long to make it out without an interruption half the time. The joy of being together for six years going on sixty is that we don’t have to finish our sentences. David knows what I’m trying to say even if all I get through is, “Daddy, I love---” before an airborne Lego collides with my forehead.

When you’re married with young kids, the fastest way to ruin, I think, is to compare your marriage to any of its past incarnations. It’s a whole new paradigm. Less desirable in many ways, sure, but a hell of a lot better in others. At our anniversary brunch yesterday, I glanced over at this early twenty-something couple sitting at the table next to us, on a first or second date.

“That was great, thank you,” said the woman, who’d clearly blown out her hair that morning and had taken pains to pick out an appropriate not-too-skimpy-but-revealing-enough sundress for the occasion.

“No, thank you,” said her date, a man with no wrinkles in his button-down shirt.

Watching them, I felt exactly what they must feel when they pass me yelling at my screaming, snotty-face kids.

“I am SO glad not to be them,” I said to David.

“Me too,” said David, “I hated dating.”

“Well, I didn’t hate it. I liked it just fine. But been there, done that. I wouldn’t go back for anything,” I sipped my Bellini, “Honestly, I would rather sit here, arguing with you, than be on a first date again.”

And just like that, with the help of a little eggs benedict and a morning drink, we went from the Honeymooners to the other couple in When Harry Met Sally.

It’s the truth, too. We are, I'd dare to say, still crazy after all these years. David is my best friend and I’d rather be doing jack squat with him, I’d rather be wiping up vomit by his side than lounging in Rio with someone else. Sure, those singles at the restaurant get to look forward to hot, mystery sex, and breathtaking turns of romantic fate, the thrill of discovering someone and being discovered themselves but they also have to wade through all that awful not-knowing, the unbearable lightness of being uncommitted. And though the weight of my family sometimes feels like a ton of bricks dragging me down, its an anchor. And I know. I know that Big Daddy—I mean, David -- and I are tied together, old-school style, by which I mean irrevocably and forever. Maybe not the way I imagined it six years ago, but exactly the way I like it today.

Gut-sucking

If you can still suck the gut in, you’re not fat. I came up with this rule of thumb today, when I realized that if I sucked in my big ole baby belly to the extent that my ribs protruded a bit, then twisted and turned different parts in strategic ways, I could almost pass for my pre-baby hot self.

“Still got it.” I said to David as I showed him the results of my labor.

That was heartening. The problem is, when I un-suck, my whole abdominal area balloons out like I am being inflated. It just really looks like I am 3 or 4 months pregnant. In fact, if I was 3 or 4 months pregnant, I wouldn’t look bad at all. I’d look kind of fantastic. I fleetingly considered just pretending that I was preggo so that all of my body issues would evaporate and people would think I was hot again. But then I realized that was psychotic.

I once came up with a genius weight-loss-illusion idea. It was called the “lie-down diet.” On the lie-down diet you just recline fully and let gravity do the work to make yours a flatter stomach. It was a wonderful idea but the catch was that gravity also makes your tetas looks flatter and that was too high a price for me to pay.

So now I am back to relying on Spanx, gut-sucking and the hope that one day I will spontaneously decide that sit-ups are my cup of tea.

And I’d just like to note that although I curse copiously in front of my 2 year-old daughter -- enough that she mutters “shit” whenever she drops Goldfish from her snack trap -- I do not use the word fat in front of her. So although I don’t have enough discipline to actually make myself un-fat, I have enough not to talk about it in front of my impressionable she-child. And for those keeping track, please add this to the list of reasons why I should at least be considered for Mother of the Year.

Eat your blockley

Happy Saturday, folks! What I’ve got for you today is just a funny story.

I was feeding Seconda lunch yesterday and urging her to eat her broccoli. OK, nagging is more like it. She wasn’t having any of it, my pestering or the greens. So I gave up and read her a book.

When the book was over, Sec observed, “I no like blockley.”

“What’s blockley?” I asked, genuinely puzzled. I guess I have short-term memory loss.

She giggled exactly like I do when she’s said something super-cute. With delight and pity, she said, “Oh Mommy, you don’t know how to say it!”

And she threw a spear of broccoli at my head.

Close Quarters

My daughter is currently sleeping in the living room. Raw suckage. It might not be so bad if we had a house with a living room and a dining room, or a living room and an eat-in kitchen, or a living room and a large bathroom, or any alternate space where David and I could shut the door and eat a little food, watch a little TV. But our place has just has a living room. Which means when Seconda is in it, there is no quality living going on.

It reminds me of when David and I took Primo to Rome when he was 18 months old, and we stayed with my aunt, my cousin and their dog in a one bedroom in the heart of the centro storico. It is a beautiful apartment and it’s got some serious location going for it, but for five people and a dog with separation anxiety, it was a little . . . tight.

Being resourceful New Yorkers, though, we made it work. My aunt generously ceded the bedroom to us, so we put the baby to sleep in there first and all hung in the living room until about 11 when my aunt would crash with my cousin on the fold-out couch, I would hit the sack with Primo and David would retire to the bathroom.

Yes, for two weeks David’s nightlife consisted of sitting on the toilet (lid closed, there was just no where else to sit) and drinking a Peroni while reading his book. It wasn’t the Rome we’d experienced before we had kids, but it was about as much fun as my jetlagged, beleaguered husband could stand anyway.

So my brood is familiar with living in tight spaces. But this current sleeping arrangement is for the birds.

It’s not like Seconda starts out in the living room. She starts out in her crib in the room she shares with Primo, a perfectly normal set-up. But lately she’s been getting kicked out of there because she is prone to shrieking “WAKE UP PRIMO!” continuously, throwing toys at her brother and sometimes even leaning over far enough to grab hold of his hair and pull hard – all when he is trying to go to sleep (a tough thing to manage in and of itself seeing as Primo has become an indefatigable soldier in the war against bedtime). So when she pulls that crap, she’s booted to the pack n’ play in our bedroom, which adjoins the kids’ room.

There are any numbers of reasons why she is relocated out of our room, and they become more hazy as the hours creep past midnight. Usually its because she pulls the same shrieking, throwing routine as she does at bedtime, except in the middle of the night, and directed at David and I as we huddle under our duvet cover and pray for mercy Mercy, in this respect, is rare. So we drag that old pack n’ play into the living room and then when David passes through to get his stuff and head out of the house at 5:30am, she wakes again and when Primo wants to watch the Magic School Bus or draw with his markers or eat something at 6am, I tell him that wing of the house is off limits and the screaming that results wakes the baby. And then we are all miserable.

But, enough griping, although I know it’s what you come here for. If I wanted easy living, I’d move to California. I love this hard-knock, inconvenient, tough-shit, stinky, uncomfortable city. Sleeping in the living room builds character, I say.