The upside-down house and other wonders

Its an upside-down building!!!! How freaking cool is that? Just one of the many wonders you can behold in Sevierville, TN. Actually, most of the other wonders are located inside this building, a science museum aptly named Wonderworks. David and I, along with his sister and her husband took the kids over yesterday and it was a real hootenany. Seriously, I thought this place was off the hook. I don't want to badmouth the Liberty Science Center but this place has an upside-down edifice, for God's sake, including dangling trees!! Other wonders included the tiled floor located ON THE CEILING:



The Hurricane Chamber was pretty wild. You head inside this mini subway-car-type thing and then winds up to 65 miles an hour are blasted in your face. Kids thought that was crazy fun, although after all the natural disaster this world has seen in the last few years, I found it a little scary:



Primo and Sec spent a good 20 minutes trying to pull themselves up on this seat attached to a pulley system.They now understand what an unsung hero our elevator is:



Then you enter Space Zone with a lot of computers asking what I considered to be exceedingly hard quiz questions about American space history. Also one super cool space shutle control chamber where you have to sit upside down:



And then there was this:



A bed of nails, you say? WHO would be crazy enough to lie down on a real bed of nails? Oh, I'll tell you who.

Primo saw the bed of nails and raced over, telling me he really wanted to try it. Now, this doesn't sound like my anxious, circumspect first-born at all, so I was a little surprised but I'm all about encouraging his bravery so we got on line. While waiting, I read to him the explanation of why it was safe to lie of the bed of nails, and the reason is basically that there are so many nails - 3,487 to be exact-- that each nail gets just a tiny faction of your weight and so your body doesn't get punctured. I was hoping for a slightly more convincing reason like, "Its safe because these are fake nails" or something similar. So its finally our turn and Primo has - what else - cold feet. He resolves them by instructing ME to go on the bed of nails, putting me in quite a predicament. I can't refuse because I don't want to show him there's anything to be afraid of but dude, spreading out on a surface of sharp pointy things made to hold lumber together is not my idea of fun. But I haul my ass on that table and lie there listening to them slowly raise the nails through the plastic table top with 3,487 holes in it and growing increasingly worried that it wasn't a prudent idea to take instructions from a five year-old. It wasn't painful, its true, but it wasn't NOT painful either. It was a definite all-over pinch, particularly on my bare legs.

So the basic idea here is never WALK on a bed of nails but if you must have some encounter with them, lie right on down. Wonderworks says its safe and Wonderworks knows.

This makes me curious - anyone else try this stunt? Swallow swords? Eat fire? I'd like some scientific explanation for those, too.

Moved to Tears

Got a new essay in the Park Slope Reader called Moved to Tears which I thought you readers might enjoy. If you're too darn lazy to click on the link, just read it below.

MOVED TO TEARS
By Nicole Caccavo Kear

Moving! What could be more exciting? A blank slate awaits! You arrange your old furniture in a new and improved configuration, find uses for things you'd deemed unnecessary, get rid of the crap that really is unnecessary and perhaps best of all, discover all those missing pieces to chess sets, puzzles, Lego creations and sock pairs.

Yes, the flood of satisfaction I feel when I find a missing puzzle piece, and can stamp "Case Closed" on that particular mystery, thus releasing Saint Anthony from his bondage, that satisfaction almost makes moving worth it.

Almost, but not quite. Because when you are moving, particularly with two little children in tow, perks like being reunited with lost earrings are short-lived. Sure, you could linger to enjoy these little victories...or you could slip into a three month-long anxiety attack. You could transform into a harpie hag, wildly berating your husband for not bringing home more packing tape, beseeching your children to "GIVE YOU A BREAK, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY!" and fainting - that's right, fainting - in the middle of packing your china (never, for the record, cracking a plate).;

Yes, I recently moved - for the first time since Primo and Seconda were born. And it nearly moved me to madness.

Before you have kids, packing is annoying and tedious but you can get it done: you just put other responsibilities on hold and hunker down. When you have a 2 and 4 year-old at home, this is not really an option. It helps to order in and let the kids watch near-toxic amounts of TV but you can streamline only so much. You can not, for instance, tell your kids "Change your own diaper!" and "Read your own books!" and "Take yourself to the playground!"

The other challenge that young children pose to packing is the fact that a toddler's greatest joy is to unpack boxes. To the extent that a smart entrepreneur could start an unpacking business staffed entirely with 2 year-olds. I can't tell you how many times I labored over a box - placing items carefully in so that all objects were protected and every inch of the box was used to its fullest potential - and when I turned around for a minute to grab the packing tape, Seconda would dart in like a ninja and fling the items all over the room.

Moving with children also means that you have to confront your conspicuous consumerism, particularly as it relates to the insane amounts of crap your kids own, all of which they find utterly indispensable and which they want to be able to retrieve at a moment's notice. If you think arguing with a spouse over what to keep and what to toss is tough, try negotiating with a 4 year-old. When I asked Primo if we could perhaps discard a shoebox full of acorns, he was shocked and chagrined.

"Not my LUCKY ACORN COLLECTION!!!!" he shrieked, "I'll never find a hundred lucky acorns like that again!"

And even after you've conceded to take along the stuffed animals they haven't played with in three years and the dozen empty toilet paper rolls that have suddenly acquired special meaning, the trouble is not behind you. Because as soon as you pack something and shove the box somewhere in a teetering pile of boxes, you child will experience a desperate need for the exact item you have just packed.

"Where is my GREEN MARBLE???" Primo would yell, and heaven help the poor soul who did not think to label that particular box "Toys, including one green marble."

The night before the move was, without a doubt, the worst. I'm not proud of the things I said that night but I do maintain that when I said them I was under the influence of moving.

We shipped the children off to my parents' for a weekend of non-stop fun (or if not fun, at least non-stop guardianship) and David and I packed like fiends. Emphasis on "I" and on "fiends." I morphed into a mini Mephistopheles, with an insatiable appetite for packing tape. Besides the occasional string of hardcore, multi-syllabic expletives, I spoke only to bark directions like "More tape!" and "Hurry!" and frequently, "WHERE'S MY SHARPIE?" As the hours passed, my impeccably-filled boxes became haphazard, desperate. I threw my meat tenderizer in my Uggs and stacked those on top of David's CDs and threw in a handful of stray bath toys on top. Sec's potty went in with the toaster which went in with my wedding album.

You know your packing has reached the point of no return when you trash things that you love, treasure even, because the thought of finding a box to put them is literally nauseating.

"What about this?" David asked, pointing to our blender, which I'd lugged home on the subway at 39 weeks pregnant with visions of postpartum smoothie-making dancing in my head.

"Too heavy!" I snapped, "Garbage!"

"And this?" he asked, holding the kids' autographed copy of Babar.

"Already packed the books!" I panted, "Books done. Garbage!"

When I told him to throw out my favorite childhood cup, he deemed me unfit to pack and sent me to bed where I stayed awake for over an hour, yelling orders at him.

Miraculously, when the movers came the next morning we were more or less ready and in three hours, we had changed homes. When my parents dropped the kids off the next morning, Primo and Seconda found their bedroom fully furnished, with ogre-green walls, outer space nightlights and Trofasts filled to the brim with lucky acorns, superfluous stuffed animals and one very precious green marble.

Slowly, my devil horns shrunk until you couldn't see them at all. My shoulders eased down from their position next to my ears. My furrowed brow softened and my craggy haggy voice began to resemble a human's again. By the time the cable man came to hook up the Tivo, I was my happy, perky self again. Happier and more perky in fact, because now I have a dishwasher and an elevator and more electrical outlets in the living room. And all the pieces to every single puzzle.

Chillin with Sufjan

Spring break, woohooooo, and we’re spending it in Tennessee with the Southern family. We flew in Friday morning and GUESS WHO was on our flight?

Sufjan Stevens. And the members of the National. Between the band and their managers and crew, half the seats in the puddlejumper were occupied by hipsters in skinny jeans, hoodies and knit caps. I would never have recognized old Sufjan but my husband knows this sort of thing, just like he knew about the special show they’re doing together in Knoxville.

The only thing I could really remember about him was that David bought his double Christmas CD a few years ago and for some reason it’s the only one we haven’t lost so every year when its tree trimming time, David puts on the Sufjan Christmas album which is a very nice and pleasing album, but doesn’t exactly conjure the yuletide spirit, and I say, “Would it KILL us to listen to some Dean Martin while I string this freaking popcorn????”

I tell you one thing -- made me feel old as sin, to be chasing after my two rugrats in the baggage claim area of McGhee Tyson airport while soft-talking Sufjan and his pals collected their equipment. But here we are in the Smoky Mountains and loads of sweet tea, put put and ranch dresing await!

Half-naked

Primo’s Kindergarten class is doing this unit of study called “Family Study” and every week one student’s family comes in and gets interviewed by the kids. You talk about the members of your family, what your child was like as a newborn, a toddler, a preschooler. You bring in photos, baby books, even video footage.

When I heard that video footage was admissible, I got very excited. That’s because David edited this amazing video of Primo’s first three months. It is not your everyday home video. The soundtrack features Tom Waits, the Flaming Lips and the Drive-By Truckers, there are all sorts of visual effects edited in, time-lapse work: it’s some serious stuff. There is a scene with me sitting on top of the radiator, with newborn Primo on my lap, staring out at the blizzard outside, and every single time I watch it I begin to sob hysterically because it takes me back to the wonder and the joy and the insanity of those first few months of motherhood. I love this video and I want the world to see it. But I will settle for Primo’s Kindergarten class.

So we unearthed the DVD and, since we haven’t seen it in awhile, we took a look.

Hey, here’s something I forgot.

I am half naked in this video. That’s what I said out loud when I saw it, “Oh my God, I’m HALF NAKED!!!”

I will hasten to qualify.

The aforementioned partial nudity takes place in a scene where David and I are giving one-week-old Primo a bath. I am not actually naked, I am just not wearing a shirt. Instead, I am in this maternity/ nursing bra. It’s not indecent because it’s not lacy or anything, more like a sports bra, and plenty of coverage but still – I am NOT WEARING A SHIRT. I normally don’t agree to being filmed topless but in this particular instance, I was actually deranged by severe, ruthless sleep-deprivation. The baby was a week-old. I probably didn’t even register what the word “camera’ meant.

But it’s really not just the indecency of me not wearing a short that makes the video objectionable. It is the fact that, seeing as I just had a baby, I am also sporting a big old postpartum flap of stomach flab which literally hangs over my sweatpants as I lean over to bathe Primo on the coffee table. It is incredibly gross.

Primo thinks it’s amazing, of course, and can’t wait to show everyone the whole video. I tell him that as long as we advance through that section, it is ok to screen. Great plan, Nicole. Way to trust a five year-old.

So we get up in front of the class and I open my computer to play the DVD and Primo announces to his whole class, with total glee, “We’re go9ng to show you a video and my mom is NAKED in it!””

Huge wave of laughter from the 5 and 6 year-olds. Not tittering. Chortles.

“Primo!” I exclaim, laughing nervously, “That’s not true.”

“Oh, yeah, she’s HALF naked,” he added, “Play it Mommy!”

I managed to skip over the nude part but the whole time the kids were wild and out-of-control, exclaiming, “nude!” and “booty!” and “underpants!” And Primo’s teacher was looking at us like we weren’t the wholesome folk she always imagined us to be. I wanted to explain about the nursing bra and the postpartum flab flap but it seemed better just to say nothing.

Fun times in the old Kindergarten classroom.

Shit my 3 year-old says

The other day as we were walking from the elevator to our apartment door, my daughter's knees began to buckle and she whined, "Mommy, pick me up! My legs are bored of walking."

What I love about this is she didn't even bother to lie or blame fatigue. I guess she thought this was a legitimate complaint.

Is there even a comeback to something so ridiculous?

A little piece of hump day advice

Hey, a little decolletage never hurt anyone, especially on a Wednesday. Its what I call my Post-millennial Liasions Dangereuse look. I find any outfit is improved when you think of a really pretentious name for it. Check it out at All Kinds of Pretty

I'm married to my daughter

The whole princess thing is gaining momentum with Seconda. I don’t love it but there’s not much I can do to stop it so I’m trying not make too much of a fuss. Up until now, the element of these stories that really fascinated Sec hasn’t been the prince or the romance but the evil characters. Most of the time she’s dressing up as the evil stepmother or Maleficient or Ursula, and I get it, completely. They are the only women in the stories who DO anything of interest. They are, in fact, incredibly powerful: they work magic, and wreak havoc and have a real impact. I’ve secretly been proud that she’s so into the evil villanesses and unconcerned with the princesses, who are, for the most part, big old ditzes.

But a few days ago, something changed. Sec walked over to me and said in an incredibly solemn voice:

“Mommy, will you marry me?”

“Will I marry you?” I repeated.

“Yes,” she repeated softly, gazing into my eyes, “Will you be my wife?”

I’m not sure where she’s got this from, since the fairytales we read and watch don’t cover this verbiage: no one really asks anyone to get married, it’s just a forgone conclusion seeing as how the prince saved the girl from a gruesome death.

But wherever she got it from, the question was pending, and I replied with the only possible answer: “Of course I’ll marry you.”

Then she ever-so-slowly brought her face to me and gave me a kiss.

Have I told you how affection-starved I am by my whirling dervish of a daughter? She almost never even accepts a kiss from me, much less offers one herself. She has literally WIPED OFF every kiss I’ve given to her for the past year. I was so heady from the affection that I found myself continuing the game by asking, “Seconda, will you marry me?”

“Yes,” she said, absolutely breathless, “I will marry you Mommy. And now I will give you the kiss of love.”

Funny, I figured Sec would want to marry her Dad, since he more closely resembles Prince Charming and since she so clearly adores him and all. But no, she’s chosen me.

My sister came over this weekend, and witnessed one of our unending proposals of marriage. She, too, is utterly deprived of Seconda kisses and hugs, so she thought maybe she could get in on the action,

“Hey, Sec,” she ventured, “Will you marry me?”

‘I CAN”T MARRY YOU!” Sec shouted, chagrined, “I AM MARRIED TO MY MUDDER!”