The Effing Fours

Too. Damn. Long. That's how long it's been since I updated this thing.

What have I been doing? Excellent question.

Well, for starters I have this kid. Maybe I've spoken of him? I've also spent the past year trying to figure out what the heck I'm going to do with my life. Callbacks are a nice temporary ego boost, but begging to shill for products that I'd never purchase in real life (I'm talking to you, artificially flavored macaroni product) can start to feel feel a little demoralizing. So this summer I took an internship at Big Duck - check it out, non-profits - and am now lucky enough to be freelancing for them. The learning curve has been steep (OXYGEN!) but it's nice to feel like I'm doing something that helps someone, somewhere. I was also name-checked in the HuffPo last month which was pretty awesome, and I might be writing a feature for a Big Magazine. I've also been playing a lot of Angry Birds.

So the kid! He's almost four, which is great? When he's not being a little jerkface? I thought three was tough, but this almost-four bullsnit has got to go.

*Universal disclaimer: I love my son more than anything in this world. Being a parent makes me happier than I've ever been, and gives me more joy than I ever imagined. But there are times when I want to leave him by the curb with a "Free To Good Home" sign.

Parents of four year olds - any of this sound familiar?

- Dropped your toast? Don't like your socks? Dripped some water on your shirt? Why not scream like you just put your hand in a working blender! When your parent runs in to help you, either:

A) immediately start kicking and hitting because you "don't WANT help!"
B) start screaming louder when irritated parent walks away.
C) when they return, scream that you don't want them, you want the OTHER parent.

- Refusing to eat. Or nap. Or do anything that might put you in a better mood.

- Trying out fancy new words and phrases like "hate" or "go away" or "stupid." Particularly with strangers on a crowded elevator.

So four. Yeah. Brutal.

A lot of this ugliness is due to the fact that he's given up his nap, which is why I'm able to write this a 8:23 pm instead of playing Scooby-Doo. With no nap, his sleep schedule is all buggered up. Most nights he's asleep by 6:30 pm, which is awesome for Matt and me,* but he's also up every morning at 5:30 am which is just a kick in the balls.

I know what you're thinking: Make him go back to sleep! Tell him he can't get up until 7! Do something to make that kid sleep later!

Trust me, we've tried.

The big trouble is his bladder. After 11 hours, that puppy's full. By the time he gets out of bed, goes to the potty, turns on the light, tries to focus on aiming towards the water (towards the water! TOWARDS THE WATER!), he's awake. We've instituted a rule that he's not allowed to play until the sun comes up. Recently he's taken to crawling into bed with us and staring at the new Christmas lights, but he doesn't go back to sleep.

By 1:00, he's a little cranky. We make him have quiet time. He just lays in bed and talks to himself.

By 3:00, he's really cranky.

By 5:00, he hates daddy. And dinner. And books.

By 6:00, he's DONE.

The advice givers tell me to make him nap, but how exactly do I do that? You can't exactly force a kid to go to sleep. I keep hoping that it'll get better as his body adjusts, but it's taking forEVer.

Parents: how did you get through nap transition? Do I have a full year of jerkiness ahead?

(*I know that "me" is the proper word choice here, but it still feels wrong.)

The one with the F word in it

Not a big post today because A) I have a sink full of dishes and no magic fairy, and B) I think I'm coming down with something, and if you think I'm missing Wednesday's Very Special Visit to Sesame Street, you don't know me at all, but I wanted to let you all know that the second this book comes out, I will own it.

(Thanks to Meredith for this. Psst, NYC parents: she teaches the best classes.)

The one where I traumatize my kid

My son has a blankie. Seven of them, actually. Seven soggy, satin edged lovies that he can not, will not, live without. Overtired from a long day at preschool? Blankie in the mouth. Sad because you got a time out for hitting your mama? Blankie in the mouth. It's not that I mind. Being 3 is stressful! You've got potty training, school, the frustration of wanting to do things that you can't! quite! do! Sure it's causing a really cute overbite, but judging by the large, non-blankie induced spaces between his teeth, there's no way this kid's gonna escape braces anyway.

So here's the question: Do I have to take it away?

My gut says that this is not a big deal. That he'll give it up when he's ready, and who am I to determine how he self-calms? But then I think, What if it were a pacifier? Would I be so easygoing if he stuck a plastic binkie in his mouth every day after school? Because that is essentially what we're talking about here. And if by letting him decide when he's ready, am I opening him up to ridicule? Let's face it, kids can be assholes. I still remember the Jack, the 2nd grader at my school who sucked his thumb. He would have been ridiculed if he hadn't been such a shit-kicker. (Of course as an adult I get all kinds of heartbroken thinking about this little kid who knew how to fight but still needed to suck his thumb.)

Can I let him love what he wants to love, or am I just infantalizing him? Is it time to call in the "pacifier fairy"? (We tried a gentle mention a few months ago. It went about as well as you'd expect.) Where do you stand, parents?

The one where I take on the New York Times

Living a stone's throw from the Theater District (and, judging by the recent influx of barely legal stunners roaming my block, some sort of model housing) I'm often blown away by the sheer gorgeousness of the inhabitants of this city. There was once a time when I cared about what I wore. Scratch that. There was a time when I had disposable income to care about what I wore. I'm pretty sure I even had something resembling A Look. But guess what? Looks are time consuming. Looks require patience and attention to detail and really cute tights. None of which I have. You know what I do have? Clogs. Which might be why I get a little itchy whenever I read this one particular column in the New York Times. Don't get me wrong, I love the Grey Lady. I also love voyeurism and minutia, so a column called "What I Wore," wherein famous people describe - wait for it - what they wore during a given week, seems like a tasty treat. So why do I want to punch it in the face?

I mean, I get it. Celebrities are different than you and me! They go to the library in Chloe pants and Prada shoes! But no matter how adorable and self-effacing you are, actress Lake Bell, anyone who does anything in a "Carven chartreuse mohair oversize vest" earns my misplaced scorn.

But since I have yet to meet a chance to talk about myself that I didn't like, herein is my week's "What I Wore." Scratch that. I don't have time to chronicle my weekly wardrobe. I've got Play-Doh to dig out of the rug. Here is today's "What I Wore." Multiply it by seven and you'll have a pretty good idea of what this chick's bringing to the table, style-wise. Think you can handle it?

MONDAY, APRIL 11.

6:04 a.m. My 3-year-old starts his daily yell. I really hope our downstairs neighbor is deaf. I haul myself out of bed in my husband's "Zombies Hate Me Because I Am So Awesome" T-shirt and help the kid to the potty. I pretend that I'm actually going to be able to go back to sleep but instead spend the next 20 minutes fielding questions about a recent episode of Blue's Clues. I cave, throwing on a gray poly-cotton robe from Old Navy, and set to work making the breakfast my son will refuse to eat.

I have an early audition, so I throw on my signature "mom" outfit - the organic cotton Gap jeans with re-patched knees, an olive green and white Old Navy blouse that I dug up at Housing Works topped with a lavender J. Crew cardigan that almost always garners me a callback, and of course the all-important Spanx - while Owen sings along with the TV. I'm sure Joe's great, but my heart belongs to Steve.

After the audition (it went well, thanks) I change into something a little more suited to springtime temps: lightweight Old Navy cargos and a sheerer-than-I-thought gray shirt from Banana. I decide to throw on some wooden bead necklaces from Columbia that a former student gave my husband. Lucky for me, Matt is a decidedly non-necklace guy. The oxblood Dansko clogs make their inevitable appearance because A) they add vital inches to my height, and B) they hide my bunions.

10:07 p.m. Back in one of my husband's T's. Superman this time. The zombies will live to fight another day.

Who doesn't want to read about this, huh? Where's my freakin' feature?

The post where you wish you were me

In 3 weeks I am going someplace so very, very awesome it's going to make you want to punch me right in the nose.

"No way," you say.

"Hyperbole!" you thunder.

Friends, I'm headed to somewhere so wonderful, so jaw-droppingly exciting I can barely squeak the words out.

I'm going to Sesame Street.

That's RIGHT! Me! On Sesame Street! Well, not "on" Sesame Street - I'm not performing. But after years of begging and pleading and whining and harassing, I finally managed to snag my very own Golden Ticket. (A fella I know is a puppeteer on the show. He's also a fine director and a hell of a guy, if you're hiring.)

For the record, there will be no playing it cool. My ability to feign indifference went out with Y2K. Most likely I will spend my allotted hour either A) welling up, or B) trying to weasel my way into a writing job. And for those who are wondering, no, Owen doesn't get to go with me. Kids aren't allowed on set until they're 4, and honestly, I'm not sure I'd want to spoil the illusion. There are so few years where things are magic.

But back to me.

My Visit To Sesame Street Wish List:

- Meet Carrol Spinney
- Peek inside Oscar's trash can
- Sit on the steps of Apartment 123
- Exchange words with my personal favorite, Telly Monster (note: this is a wish list)
- Convince the writing staff to add more human characters. Preferably redheaded ones.

And if you think I'm not going to try to touch Grover, you don't know me at all.

G is for Grumpy

Things have gotten a little grumpy around here lately. 3 is a tough, tough age. Did I mention that Owen has stopped napping? I knew it was coming - most kids stop napping between 3 and 4 - but I figured we had another 6 months at least. Nope. No taper. No "some days yes, some days no." Just - over. One day I put him down the same way I always did and instead of dozing off he... didn't. Same thing happened the next day. And the next day. And the next day.

Knowing it was useless to try to force the kid to go to sleep, I started issuing a mandatory "quiet time." The rules: No sleep. Just some approximation of silence.

First there was the chatting. Then the singing. Then came the escapes. I'd hear the tell-tale rustling followed by a triumphant shuffling of feet. I'd open the door and see him hopping around his room like a sparrow.

Me: "Owen, you need to stay in your bed."
Owen: "Why?"
Me: "Because it's Quiet Time."
Owen: "But I'm not sleepy."
Me: "But your body is. Your body needs to rest so that you can play."
Owen: "But my body wants to play now. It's not tired."
Me: "You have to stay in bed. You can have a toy or a book, but you need to stay resting."
Owen (pointing to toy box): "My body can rest over there."
Me: "No. You need to say in bed."
Owen: "But why?"
Me: "Because."
Owen: "Why?"
Me: "Because."

This went on awhile.

Finally I realized that I could either spend the next hour putting my kid back in bed which would A) get ugly quick, and B) guarantee rest for no one. Or I could let him win. Because really, if he was content to be quiet and play by himself (the operative phrase) so that I could attend to laundry/dishes/emails/lunch, what was the harm? I mean yes, maybe I'm teaching him a terrible lesson about Who's Really In Charge and when he's 15 and rolling his eyes while I mew about how terrible it is to drink and drive I'll regret not forcing him to obey, but I feel like sometimes it's okay for little kids to win things. I spend a good 97% of his life telling Owen to stop it. It can't be all bad to pick my battles.

And to be honest, the lack of midday sleep? Kind of awesome. Owen's bedtime had been inching towards 10 pm which was completely uncivilized. Without nap, he's unconscious by 7:00, tops. Friends, my husband and I have evenings! We can eat dinner! Together! We can have actual conversations and hog all the chocolate covered raisins and watch "Being Human" WITHOUT INTERRUPTION. I love my kid more than life but at the end of the day, I am done. I miss the midday break, but four hours of nightly decompression? I'm in.

The Big Ask

So it finally happened. The question. The one that almost every parent of a singleton has had to wrassle with, and yet I still didn't see it coming.

"Mama, why don't I have a brother?"

Oof.

For the record, there's no good answer to a question like this. I know because I tried my damndest to come up with one. You don't have a brother because our family consists of three people in it instead of four. You don't have a brother because we live in a tiny apartment in New York City. You don't have a brother because I got a BFA instead of a BA and have few career prospects unless I return to graduate school, which is a daunting prospect regardless of the fact that we cannot afford childcare. You don't have a brother because the first year of your life was a misery cocktail of colic, breastfeeding hell, 40 minute sleep sessions and postpartum depression. You don't have a brother because, contrary to what I'll tell you when you're 15, it's actually very, very hard to get knocked up.

I settled on, "You don't have a brother because you don't have one." I mean really, what else is there to say?

Of course the punchline to all this is that I don't appear to be ovulating this month. I recently turned a year older and I can't shake the fear that this is the beginning of the end of my fertility. I may still get carded (occasionally) but bottom line, Nature doesn't want us getting knocked up past a certain point. According to the internet, I'm more likely to give birth to basket of chicks than a healthy baby. (Totally unverifiable facts: At 30, there's only a 15% of getting pregnant each cycle. By 40, it's down to 5%. By 45, experts say it's almost impossible to get pregnant using your own eggs.) I'm not opposed to a medical intervention; most of my friends have had to go that route and have beautiful babies to show for it. Unfortunately for many stupid reasons that's not an option for us. And before someone sends out the hate mail, I know how lucky I am to have one healthy child. Trust me, no kid (except yours) is more wanted or loved.

I hope it changes. I hope this month is a fluke. I hope that the fact that I was really, really sick last month caused my cycle to go wonky and the years of set-your-watch-by-it ovulation days aren't over. But it all still feels like a punch to the gut.