First Fall

I never take Terza to the toddler playground. Its part of the price she pays for being the third child: she doesn't get baby-centered activities. But now that she's really running around, and its such beautiful weather, I am trying to make it more of a priority. Mommy Guilt has kicked in.

Last week, on the way home from dropping the kids off at school, I took her to the Tot Lot. It was a resplendent sunshiney day and Terza was over the moon to be amongst her fellow toddlers, squawking and yelping and sucking on pacis. I felt delighted with my ability to manage it all. Super Mommy, that's me.

As she toddler around the playground equipment, I trailed a few steps behind, relaxed and confident  letting her clamber onto the steps of the little toddler playhouse. I did not do this for Primo -- with him, I never let go of his hand, never let him experiment with anything that could result in a fall or a tumble, always swooped him up to avoid any potential accidents. I was the hover-iest of helicopter moms. I might have been the same way with Sec but as I was so exhausted, all my memory from those years has been lost forever.

But now, with number three, I am able to relax a bit, give her room to grow.

I was, that is, for about five minutes. Until, while on the toddler playhouse, she raced too fast towards the door and missed a step, falling face first onto the plastic playhouse floor.

I was right there, right next to her. I may even have been holding her hand. But she lost her balance and toppled so quickly, there was nothing I could do to stop it. I wasn't all that alarmed initially, because I say her fall, and it wasn't a bad fall, was the kind of wipe-out she has often, since she is still learning how to keep her equilibirum while standing, the kind that never results in more than a startled whimper. But this time, she started screaming, not the annoyed or angry scream but the blood curling pain scream that makes a mother start to have heart palpitations.

I scooped her up and carried her over to the bench, where I sat and lay her face against my chest. I pulled a paci out of my pocket and pipped it in her mouth, sure that would console her. It did not. So a minute or two later, when she was still shrieking, I pulled her away from me so I could take a look at her and I noticed a bit of red near her mouth. I remained calm. There were no open wounds on her face or anything.

But when I pulled the paci from her lips and blood just kind of oozed out in a vague blob around the perimeter of her mouth, I ceased to remain calm.

"Oh my God, you're bleeding!" I gasped.

She shrieked inconsoloably.

"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!" I'm not great with the sight of blood, particularly when it belongs inside of my children.

At this, two or three moms walked over and started handing me things -- tissues, wet wipes -- and talking in soothing voices: "Ok, here, let me help. She's OK. She's fine."

"Oh my God, Oh my God, why is there so much blood? Where is it coming from?"

It wasn't pouring out or anything, but there was a lot of it, viscous salvia-blood just kind of oozing from all sides. It was awful and bright and causing me to feel light headed.

"She probably just hit her lip," one mom said, handing me a wet wipe, "Or her tongue."

"Let's see," said another, peering at her face, "Yep, I think that's it, I think its her tongue."

I pressed in the general vicinity of her mouth and in a few seconds, the bleeding had stopped, though the baby continued to shriek in pain.

"Maybe she wants some water, to get rid of the blood taste," suggested one mom.

"Yeah, that's a good idea," I agreed, "I'll go to the bagel shop and get some."

It took me a minute to collect myself, though, so shaken was I from the sight of the blood.

Then I stood, slung the diaper bag over my shoulder and thanked the women, all first-time moms of toddlers from the look of it, though they probably assumed the same about me.

"The crazy part is," I told them, "This is my third child."

They laughed then, but not in a mean way. They understood that no matter how many kids you have, you never become immune to the shock and terror of having them bleed from the mouth.

As it turned out, it wasn't so much her tongue as her upper gums, which she hurt -- I found that out when I too her to the doctor later that day, to make sure she hadn't sustained a concussion or anything too damaging.

"Just a hematoma," he concluded cheerily, "And she'll have a bruise for a few days. Comes with the territory of learning to walk."

Terza's lip was mondo swollen for a day, looking like she's taken a hit from Muhammed Ali. Then it developed into a purple bruise which felt indicting when moms at drop off stopped to ask what had happened to my pretty baby.

After a week, the bruise has almost fully faded. As has my relaxed and confident approach to playground parenting. Yes, after a brief hiatus, I've been restored to my natural state of Helicopter Mom, and here I will remain for roughly three years, until the kid is in pre-school, and on someone els'e watch.

Speaking of taxi drivers . . . .

It was a beautiful day yesterday, and Sec and I hung out in the playground for a long time. Now that its playground weather again and she is four years old, she has learned a thousand new ways to induce cardiac arrest in her mother. These categories include

Filth Immersion

High -Flying Feats

Talking to Strangers

And, of course --

Fleeing

I have come to think it is good for my cardiac health for my heart to get stopped and restarted a few times a day, the way its good to reboot your computer so programs don’t freeze up.

We hung out until she had nothing left in her bag of tricks and then I thought she might be hungry. Nothing like playing with glass shards in the dirt patch used by dogs to defecate to work up an appetite.

I suggested we get a slice at the new pizza place near the playground which we’ve been meaning to check out. I’m on an eternal quest for the best local slice and it was very possible that this joint had it.

I continued to believe in this possibility even after I walked in the place, past the only patron – a wackadoo waiting for a slice to go (small mercy) who was talking on the phone much too loud and staring at himself in the mirror intensely as he did so. I believed in the potential of the pizza even after I unloaded Sec into a dirty booth in the dingy dining area. Once I got a load of the dining area, I thought a more fitting name for the pizza place, which was something generic like Ray’s or Joe’s or Mama’s – would be “End of the World Pizza.” Or maybe, “Apocalypse Pizza.”

A less inviting dining area, I’ve never seen. It was lit like an interrogation room and covered in the kind of filth that has become too deeply embedded in plastic to ever wash off, which I found odd, since it was a brand new place. Oh, well, I figured – we’re starving, and it doesn’t take long to wolf down a slice. Better to have Sec contained at the end of the world than allow her to eat her pizza out of doors, where it was sunny and bright and limitless.

I was aware that the TV in the End of the World Dining Area was on, loudly, and playing some un-kid-friendly programming but it wasn’t until I ordered the pizza and came back to rejoin Sec at our table that I realized how un-kid-friendly the programming was. Sec was kneeling on her seat, staring open-mouthed at the television. I followed her eyes and saw a half-dozen blood splattered people in 70s attire.

“Look Mommy!” Sec exclaimed, “Those people have blood on them!”

“Oh honey!” I shrieked, turning her around so her back faced the TV, “That is a grown up show! It’s not appropriate for kids!”

She snuck a few glances but then her pizza came – on the low end of mediocre, as you might guess—and I was able to keep her attention away from the TV with stories about Rapunzel and Snow White and their girls getaway to New York City. I, meanwhile, store glances at the TV, trying to figure out what in the hell kind of movie these End of the World Pizza guys had seen fit to play in their dining establishment at lunchtime. A zombie movie, I thought at first, but then it was clear the movie had gritty realism and was shot in the 70s. Its general tone made you want to kill yourself -- bleak, bleak, bleak.

And then I saw a close-up of Robert Deniro and heard him say to the camera: “Are you talking to me? Are you TALKING to ME?”

Taxi Driver.

The perfect flick to watch while “enjoying” pizza with your four year-old on a lovely spring.

Trend-setter

Its been hot this week. Not comfortably warm. Oppressively hot. Your fingers swell up and you sweat like a pig kind of hot. So hot, in fact, that I've been bringing Primo's bathing suit to pick-up, having him change in the bathroom and then heading straight to the sprinkers. While at the sprinklers, I ran into my best friend from high school who is now my neighbor and mother of a 10 month-old. Its her first season of sprinker fun and the baby was there, splashing around, having a ball with all the other children who were soaking wet.

Meanwhile we mothers stood on the periphery, gasping for breath in the sweltering heat.

"When I got him dressed to come here, I thought of putting my swimsuit on, too," said my friend, "But I didn't know if people did that. I guess not."

"In my many years of sprinker-frequenting, I have yet to see a parent or babysitter in a bathing suit," I reflected, "But I'm guessing if you did show up in a swimsuit tomorrow, on the next day EVERYONE would be doing it. I bet every grown-up here has been debating the same thing for the past week."

Then I remembered that the only kind of bathing suit I own are string bikinis, because I used to look really good in them, and now that I don't look really good anymore, I figure its more appealing to show skin, even very pale somwhat flabby skin, than to cover that flab with very close fitting lycra. In any event, would not be appropriate for a playground, even one in Europe where people are more open-minded. Not that I'm not sill considering it. Check in with me in August and we'll see how far my dignity has fallen.

Caught in the rain

You must know by now, readers, that I’m not a Hallmark-moments, chicken-soup-for-the-mother’s-soul kind of person. Its not that I’m against living in the moment and being grateful for the little things – on the contrary, I think it’s commendable. I just don’t usually have it in me.

But the great thing about life on earth is that every so often we end up surprising ourselves. Which happened to me just yesterday.

Primo’s been having a tough time going to school lately, and I’ve been taking extra measures to help him feel more comfortable saying goodbye at drop-off. One of these measures is bald-faced bribery. When he flatly told me yesterday that he was NOT going to school, “end of discussion,” I told him that if he did, I’d get him this Ed Emberely Halloween drawing book he’s been wanting. I promised I’d have it for him at pick-up. I’m very serious about keeping my promises to the kids, so there I was at pick-up, perky as can be, with the book in hand.

As it turned out, the book backfired. He was so excited about it that he ended up crying and miserable because his drawings didn’t look exactly like Ed Emberely’s. Then I tried to draw the pictures for him and he ended up crying because MY drawings didn’t look right. The entire meltdown happened on a bench in front of his school, with Seconda pressing buttons on a nearby ATM machine, petting ferocious-looking dogs without my permission and playing dangerously close to traffic.

It was clear that I was in for a long, awful afternoon with unhappy son and untamable daughter and I was pretty pissed about the prospect. In an effort to turn things around, I tried to take the kids to the playground but sad sack Primo refused to walk because “stuff” kept getting in his Crocs and this was very disquieting to him.

Furthermore, he informed me, I was being “selfish.”

He hastened to explain himself when he saw the look of disbelief flicker across my face.

“First you brought me this book I wanted after school," he started.

“Yes, I did.”

“That was nice.”

“Yes it was.”

“Then you drew pictures for me.”

“Yes, yes, that was nice, too.”

“And now you want to take me to the playground,” he concluded, having done a lousy job, in my opinion, of defending his position.

“Yes, I do want to take you to the playground,” I said, trying to manage my frustration and failing, “Because it is a BEAUTIFUL day and I want you to run around and have fun and leave me alone and be happy, LIKE A KID IS SUPPOSED TO DO!”

He grumpily conceded, and we, very slowly, walked to the playground. By the time we got there, the beautiful day was not so beautiful. In fact, it didn’t even look like day anymore. In fact, it was dark as Hades.

“It’s NIGHT,” Seconda noted.

“It looks like nighttime but it’s not night yet,” Primo corrected.

Raindrops had begun to fall. We could feel them. It didn’t just look like rain was coming. The rain had started. But it had taken us a flipping hour to get the playground, and we had done it, by God, we’d made it there, and nothing was going to make me turn around.

The kids played for about two minutes while the last, foolhardy caregivers fled with their charges in tow. We were the only people in the playground and it had become so dark, as Primo put it, it looked like we were “in a forest of darkness.”

And then it started to pour. A biblical rainfall that leaves you wondering if there’s an ark somewhere you could hitch a ride on.

A quick assessment of the stroller confirmed that there was no rain cover, no rain jackets, no umbrella, nothing in the way of deluge protection. And that’s when my Hallmark moment happened.

“Fuck it,” I thought.

“IT’S RAINING!!!!!”” I threw my head back and shouted.

“IT’S POURING!!!!” Primo sang

“DA OLD MAN IS ---- SNORING!!!!!!” Seconda brought it home.

Incredible sheets of water fell out of the sky so that within a minute we were sopping. The more it rained, the louder we sang.

“Let’s run to the awning!” Primo shouted.

“AWNING-HOPPING!” I yelled.

“HOPPING HOPPING HOPPING!” Sec shrieked.

“I AM WEEEEEEEEET!” yelled my son, laughing so hard he could hardly speak.

And we went on like this all the way home, yelling and whopping and laughing and loving the rain and life and each other. Especially each other.

When we got home, we peeled off our dripping clothes, wrapped ourselves in towels, and curled up on the couch to read a long book.

Turns out it wasn’t such an awful afternoon after all.