She is One.

Today is Josephine's First Birthday.

I have never been moved by anyone else's birthday. Sure they're nice whether they're mine or anyone else's, but at no time have I ever turned to Steve all teary-eyed and said, "I can't believe my mom is sixty-three!". So is quite a surprise to me that I have blubbered more than somewhat over these last two days. Really, me getting a bit misty over seeing our baby's picture and hearing a birthday greeting read on Breakfast Television this morning is something I would have laid odds against not too many years ago. Yet I watched for it with the same eagerness with which I always waited to hear my name called on Romper Room.(Cue violins) Except that no-one ever sent my name in and it's unusual enough that I couldn't expect to hear it otherwise and pretend that it was for me.

Last night, I held my arms out to Josephine, hoping she'd take more than the two or three staggers and lurches that she's been up to lately and said to Steve, "I always wanted a daughter who walked within a year because of that line from that Squeeze song "Up the Junction" (She gave birth to a daughter, within a year a walker, she looked just like her mother, if there could be another... and then the song gets REALLY depressing.). Josephine then dropped and crawled to me and I gave a big sigh. That in itself made me sigh again, because I am a sigher and a tsker and a grunter, and Josephine has picked up on the fact that bending, lifting, sitting and carrying things require making those accompanying noises. Unlike me, she is a hummer while she eats. That's pretty cute now, but it will have to stop by the time she's ready to go eat at other people's houses, because no one is getting my Flamingo Kid reference, which means I'm old and have bad taste in Matt Dillon movies. Within minutes though, she was back up and standing by the Art Deco dentist's cabinet we use as a bar (I'm just showing off here) and when Steve held his arms out to her, she took five steady, concentrated, businesslike steps with a look of pride on her face that wiped the floor with my petty aspirations. She went from baby to toddler in that minute, for herself and for her daddy and because it was her manifest destiny that it should happen then, not as a little performing monkey. I burbled and leaked a few tears and got a little verklempt (I actually did that fluttering hand over heart thing) and said "First they walk toward you, and then they learn to walk away" (except that it was more like, Fuh...fuh...furst they walk toward you and then they learn to wa...wa...walk a waaaaaaaaay! With the way part starting with a keening and ending with a sob and snuffle). And then Beauty got her head stuck in the leg opening of the high chair trying to get a sliver of Brussels Sprout and we snapped back into being tired parents who were trying to finish dinner at eight forty-nine, when we were interrupted by our daughter growing up and a dog with a flair for the anticlimactic.

View, Interrupted.

I hate when I'm being depressed and something cheerful happens.

This morning I was letting Beauty outside to have a dump in the winter wonderland that is our back yard (take that, Nature!) (and this would be a poop fueled by cous cous, canned pumpkin and duck and wide rice cat food left over from Homey because I didn't go shopping because I HATE LEAVING THE HOUSE) and I caught sight of one of the many platitudes that Steve printed out for me. We have them posted all around the place in an attempt to make me feel better. I manage to ignore them for months at a time. It says, "Life is Sweetened by Risk". Yesterday my friend L. drove all the way from Buffalo on an impulse and an opportunity, to spend the afternoon with us and bring presents for Josephine's first birthday, which omygod is Friday. So then I looked to the other one, which says "Woes and Complications are ongoing facts of life. We should embrace them and (some other crap that I can't be bothered to check right now) instead of seeking a cure-all (and then more crap about satisfacion and accomplishments)". Well, that one is coming down as soon as I can get enough courage to stand on the freezing cold mud room floor (perhaps when Beauty has her after lunch dump, which will probably be an assemblage of previously enjoyed cereal, left over broccoli and the last of Homey's cat food, since if I'm not leaving the house to walk less than a block to the Value Village's half-off sale, I'm certainly not going to get in the car and go get groceries).

L. spent two weeks knitting a twin bed-size (not a throw, not a baby blanket, not a toddler size - this is like four feet by five feet or more) blanket for Josephine (and in tasteful bright pastesl in a multi-textured fuzzy soft acrylic - not some loopy afghan in dayglow Polish Auntie pastels, mind you!). This is a woman who has five kids ranging from two-ish to seventeen, lives in a double-wide trailer in a suburb of Buffalo that you only hear about when there's a pile-up on the I-90, volunteers for MADD, fights custody and support battles with her ex and her new husband's ex in order to give all the kids a stable home, knits for Project Linus, runs her husband's business, got over an eating disorder, was formerly an abused wife, practices her religion religiously, cooks, cleans, chauffers to football and music lessons and doctors appointments and remembers people's special occasions like no other person I've ever known. We were good friends throughout middle and high school, and blew apart when at eighteen we both ended up dating assholes that did the old separate and conquer routine. We both went through our different hells, and found each other again as the one free meet up on Classmates.com. That damn pop up kept tempting me for years, and within a week after I bit, I heard from her. I only signed up because I wanted her to find me, and vice versa. The karma bus is a school bus sometimes. So here she is, back in my life, and the best thing about her is that she can do her thing (ALL her things, I mean) and not make me feel bad that I can barely function with one really rather good baby. By taking the risk to come and see me yesterday, she suffered all kinds of mommy guilt for taking the afternoon for herself, and for her troubles earned a three and a half hour drive home in the snow. The mystifying part of that is, she is so proud of herself for being a big girl and driving to Toronto all by herself. That made her feel brave, and was a major accomplishment in her life (in her words!) and here I am without enough letters in the word lazy to really spell out how lazy I am. I did not even leave to buy groceries in order to cook for her, although time was well spent shaving the bathroom floor and Swiffering the stairs. It's not like I sat and ate cookie and waited for her, and not only because the cookie was gone.

As I was watching Beauty do the crab dance in the back yard, I was checking out the recycling bin for the Mrs. Fields cookie box. It was covered with snow, and I couldn't tell the difference between which was the cookie box and which was the pizza box. No, I wasn't that desperate, I had already eaten the leftover chicken wings and pizza from L.'s visit and I just wanted to measure the round disc so that I could figure out the square footage of the cookie I ate. I can't believe that when Steve's co-worker offered him fifty bucks to eat it all he didn't go for it! Not like I'm calling him lame or anything, but to someone with my reduced income, that's good dosh for about forty minutes work. Now I'm exaggerating. Really I finished it off for breakfast on Saturday, but I could've done it in under an hour. I'll still take your bets.

The mommies enjoyed my explanation for missing the night out due to cookie intoxication. I was actually so full of cookie that I couldn't drink much bourbon! Another had also cancelled, and offered her explanation with a sincerely apologetic tone for it not being entertaining as mine. She was set to go, in the vehicle and driving around and couldn't find parking and couldn't walk far because she had forgotten her coat; so after a half hour, she went home in a sulk. This may have been in part because she was freaking out slightly after she found out she's not getting the day care slot she needs, a month or so after being told she doesn't have the same job to go back to and the new position is not quite right for her. She also dropped the p-bomb, but with the explanation that she with her history she may not be able to sustain it and was going to have her levels checked this week. That was just slipped in there. This brave woman, going about her life when in one week she's had two altering events and I'm slowly and vocally recovering from a self-induced mall cookie extravaganza?! Do I ever feel like a selfish jerk, sitting there last night surfing the Television Without Pity site to see if Moving Up had a forum (not that I could find) and I get her email with one paragraph saying more about her life than I've said in three months of noodling with this blog.

Today I have this image of that moment last night hovering around me like hangover fumes: One of my friends is driving home on the QEW last night, the cars in single file, slippery and scared. Another woman whom I'd expressed reservations about considering as a friend shared with the group what must have been a heart-hurting thing to have out in the open (and in a concise yet descriptive and friendly email - I should take lessons). There I was, Josephine asleep in the crook of Steve's arm, in a house papered with platitudes I'm planning to throw away, with the world glowing in front of me instead of all around me.

What I'm thinking is that that little sign in the front window that tells where the karma bus is going does say "Life is Sweetened by Risk". But whereas my life was enriched yesterday by a dear friend coming to my home at her own risk, and another one fearlessly opening herself up, perhaps I should remember I'm supposed to be taking risks too. Perhaps I'll start with groceries.

The Karma Snowplow Was Here.

The Karma Bus's Windshield is Frozen Over.

Yesterday I posted my distaste at the thought of having to leave the house. I didn't know that in a way I was praying for a way to avoid having to make a decision. Well, sometimes young female sales reps who think men like food baked in shopping centres are angels in disguise. Thank you, dear girl who couldn't know at your tender age with your lack of experience in the business world that you thank men with alcohol. Hence,

Dear Mommies Group,

Sorry I blew off the get-together last night. You see, Steve did a really great rush job on this ad for New York Fries, and to thank him, the rep gave him one of those Mrs. Fields giant cookies with a message written on it in frosting. (Nothing shows appreciation like mall pastry!) Despite the best efforts of the other members of the Zig studio team to devour it, there was still more than half left, which he brought home. He knows that I can smell cookie on him like stink on a monkey. Josephine has had diarrhea for two days and has been rashy and extra fussy, I've been a bit needy, and well, that cookie didn't stand a chance. So despite the fact that I'd made a fabulous salad and an asparagus, chicken and parmesan risotto for dinner, I still managed to eat WAY too much cookie and by 7 pm, I had the kind of gut ache I used to get when I was seven and I'd consume an entire box of Count Chocula cereal with warm chocolate milk on Saturday mornings while watching H.R. Puffinstuff and the Bay City Rollers at my Grandma Kowalski's house (God I loved that woman! She even let me eat on her white sofa!). And then, miracle of miracles, Josephine fell asleep by 7:30, and went right in her crib and STAYED SLEEPING. Since part of the pleasure of having a few brewskis with you ladies is that my dear husband gets a taste of what it's like to care for our daughter without having the back-up of my nearby breasts, it's no fair if she sleeps through it and he gets to do things he likes. The choice then became whether I show up late, or whether I take a really long bath, drink bourbon and eat more cookie. You know the answer.

Fueled by the breakfast of champions,
Marla

PS - The cookie left a grease stain that went through the box, through the brown kraft paper wrapping Steve brought it home in (because he would not carry a poorly designed aesthetically unpleasing Mrs. Fields cookie box the size of a small pizza home on the streetcar where people might see him), and onto the counter. Now that is not a cookie for amateurs!

Today it is significantly colder than yesterday, and I will be forced to leave the house at some point to take care of some necessary business. There isn't enough cookie in the world to make up for that.

The Hothouse Flower.

It's snowing AGAIN outside. Maddening itty bitty crystally flakes. It's the time of year where everyone says they've had enough winter, but I mean it. I am done with winter this year. I do not want to carry a twenty pound bag of de-icer from anywhere. I do not want to wear sweaters any more. I'm fatigued by layering. I'm tired of trying to decide if Josephine is warm or cold. I am sick of wanting to eat food that makes me feel cosy. I mentally exhausted with deciding whether or not we need something bad enough from the store to go and get it. I dislike having cold feet, and hate it when they're cold enough to make me go and find warmer things to put on them. I'm mad at the cold steering wheel. I curse the iced-over windshield. I am frustrated by always having to mentally convert celsius to farenheit. I never want to hear the term wind-chill factor again. It makes me angry to look out on a sunny day that's cold and think "At least it's sunny!". I am jealous of people who drag their butts out to the park with their dogs or out for walks with their babies more often than I do, those selfless do-gooders with stamina. It makes me so sad that when I'm in the nice warm shower it actually causes me physical and mental pain to get out. When I am tired I feel even colder, and I am always tired. I don't want to see my exhalations. I want it to be more temperate here because I don't want to have to move in order to be warmer more often. It sucks that we have to pay money to heat the air around us in the house we pay to live in just to be comfortable. It bites that we have to shovel stuff off the sidewalk and walkway in order for others to be able to walk safely even though I haven't really left the house. And it isn't even bad here -- there are no storm warnings and it's not even dangerously cold. It's just "seasonally average". I hate that there is a vernacular for those in cold climes. It's just me that's weak and lazy and thin-blooded and crabby lately and I don't even have to leave the house if I don't want to, not for days. But the mommies group is meeting for a couple of drinks later tonight, and I really do want to go...it's just that I have to experience a minor bit of coldness to make it to the pub and even that seems like too much to have to bear these days. The dilemma? A twenty minute walk to the pub or a ten minutes of cleaning and warming up the car plus a ten minute drive -- it's like hell has frozen over.

Don't tell the scientists...

Josephine is growing by leaps and bounds. She is now twenty-six and a half pounds (it only feels like thirty), and just under thirty-one inches tall. Or long. Whatever. At any rate, you can tell by how long it takes to type all that in words that she is in the 90th percentile for her age, which will be ONE YEAR in how shall we measure it? Just over two weeks. Ten loads of laundry. More underwear changes than I have underwear for. Three more big grocery shopping trips or about nine trips to Shopper's. Here is a list of just some of the smart and wonderful and brilliant and charming accomplishments to date; but don't tell too many people because she is so smart and wonderful and beautiful that we are afraid the scientists (otherwise known as the formerly mentioned ubiquitous THEY) will take her away and study her.

Oh, and according to my mother, THEY have discovered that the measles shot cures cancer, if you know of anyone with it and want to give them false hope based on a conversation with a nutbar.

So, about Josephine:

1) Can spot a duck in any form (book, rubber, tv), point to it and make an ack ack ack noise.

2) After watching me do it once, can make her rubber ducks in the tub squirt water out their bottom holes (that sounds grosser than it is).

3) Can point to any one or any thing's beep beep (nose).

4) Turns on and off the light switches (When we hold her up - she's not that tall yet. Maybe when she's three.), and then points to the lights themselves.

5) Can tell the difference between the Elvis and the bourbon and the armadillo and the "no smoking" refrigerator magnets when asked.

6) Can point to her own bellybutton, mine, and when asked "Where's Daddy's bellybutton" for the first time, pointed to it after slight consideration. (Meaning - she knows who Mommy is, who Daddy is, what I was asking her to do, and was able to deduce that because she has one and I have one, that if Daddy had one it would be in the same place! WOW)

7) Generally succeeds in feeding herself with the spoon.

8) Takes the comb and brush and combs her own hair and ours.

9) Tries to put her own barrette in.

10) Points to what she wants me to give her to eat next when I lay it out in front of her but out of reach.

11) Is working on stairs, and says "uh p" because we always say "UP stairs!"

12) Points at things and makes a two syllable noise that's loosely "whada?" in the same inflection that I've been saying "What's that?" back when she was only pointing, then I tell her what it is. Or sometimes just "dat?"

13) When I do "this little pig went to market", she pinches the toes on her other foot along with me.

14) Goes right to the page in her Amazing Baby activity book with the "this little pig" activity, and puts her foot on the outline of a foot there. All by herself!

15) Can tell apart Beauty, Homey, Mommy, Daddy, Baby, Duck and Pig on some little flashcards I drew. (Only now I hold the Homey picture upside down with his legs sticking up in the air.)

16) Initiates games she likes, like "put things on mommy's head", and "are the socks smelly or smell nice", and "catch Josephine" (when she's crawling away shrieking gleefully, she gets so excited she stops so I can catch her!).

17) Helps me shake out the wrinkles in laundry and smooth things when I fold them, helps me wipe the kitchen floor and clean the coffee table.

18) Can get the shapes correct in her Little Tykes shape sorting cash register.

19) Knows to hold all phones, toy and otherwise up to her ear and "talk". Hmmm.

20) Shares her food with everyone, and can tell if you fake eating it.

21) When I help her walk, and say "step step step" she goes "ep ep ep".

22) If she has one food in her mouth, and sees that she likes the next bite of something different that's coming up more, will spit out the mouthful to make room for the next.

23) If her mouth is full and she's not done swallowing what she has and you start moving toward her with another bite, will shake her head no.

24) Has definite song preferences. Quite likes Bluegrass and Brother Ray these days and always jumpin big band tunes.

25) When I'm sitting at the computer and she's at my feet, will take my foot on and off the footstool to match where the other foot is.

26) Watched Steve and I dip some chicken strips in mustard, then started dipping her toast crust in her cheerio bowl. Now, she likes to dip things in bits of yogurt or applesauce.

27) Can hit the same note on her toy piano after I hit a specific one.

28) Understands if you say "bang bangs" she can hit two things together to make noise.

29) When you tell her she has beautiful and magnificent feet, she holds them up to show you them. Even if she's standing.

30) Gets books out of her crib that holds her toys and brings them over in order to be read to.


At any rate, I won't bore you with the hundreds more amazingly cute things, and I'm too lazy to use better grammer because I'd rather go read some blogs; suffice to say I'm so enraptured by her personality and charm, along with the evidence of her great intellect, that I just might burst.

It all goes under the bridge...

Last night Steve came upstairs and told me, "In case you need to know, like if you're talking around the water cooler, the Patriots won the Super Bowl." and I said, "It's more like I'll be talking around the sippy cup, but thanks anyway."

The Spins.

So I've just, in the last week, had both ears filled from my mother's older and younger sisters and my head is spinning.

Let me preface this by saying that when I was growing up, my mom told me these amazing stories about how tough she was. "They" (this ubiquitous they that does everything from change the schedule of Antiques Bullshit show to telling you that pomegranate juice is the new best thing to drink for your health ever) used to call her Mighty Joe Young. She used to tap dance and all the boys would whistle at her sexy legs. One night during one of my grandparents' bridge parties, she clubbed an assailant in her parents driveway with a can of coffee and nearly blinded him. One time she punched a guy out and sent him flying across the skating rink because he offered her a cigarette. She led me to believe she was this combination of showgirl, paragon of moral virtue and WWF wrestler. Not a bad thing to envision your mother as in her younger days, eh? It was only within the past few years that I heard from my Aunt M that it ain't necessarily so. The driveway marauder was Aunt M's boyfriend who was sneaking around behind the house to talk to her at the back window. The cigarette pusher offered everyone a cigarette to be polite every time he had one himself - not just my mom. My mother the tag-along embarassed her older sister every where she was taken. So now there's this new vision - the irrational, paranoid version of arbitrary moral virtue who really truly did tap dance and have sexy legs. Now that I'm older, I find this characterization just as amusing, and more human.

It seems, that my mom has done some bizarre things lately. Her resentment of the vacations that her sisters take, her bitterness about the disparity in financial situations, her frustration at having to care for my grandmother, her greed, and her always hot temper have all flared lately. Everyone's head is shaking, and "What's with your mom?" has become a refrain I've heard too often this week.

The visit two Sundays ago was rather uneventful, except for a rather funny discourse involving a fight my dad is having with another cab driver that calls to mind Bum Fights. My mom and Aunt L (not really my Aunt - her best friend from childhood, and this comes into play) showed up in a cloud of cheap perfume (I buy her Chanel #5 and Shi by Alfred Sung - why doesn't she wear them!? She asks for them! They may retail for insane amounts of money but the testers are only $15 on Ebay! Christ!) and too much hairdo and polyester and not enough eyebrows. They brought tons of stuff. Fourteen cans of Luzianne, my favourite coffee. Fifteen boxes of Jiffy corn muffin mix. Oxy Clean Spot remover times three. Three EACH of Sun and Earth laundry detergents, dish soaps and spray cleaners. Ninety-two and more diapers, and hundreds of wipes. Cheap napkins. Two cases of Rolling Rock. PREMIUM TOILET PAPER.

Here I digress. Okay, I always digress but I'm stating it this time. I. Love. Fancy Toilet Paper. My god - the Cottonelle stuff with ribs? It's crazy good. It's like fabric. It is so plushy and soft and strong and it makes me feel so clean. We usually by PC green, which while not the cheapest, is ecologically more correct because it is in part recycled. It's also better for the plumbing, because it degrades faster than the premium. I'd love to use the really expensive totally environmentally friendly stuff, but really, considering what toilet paper is for and that it all basically does the job, like, you make your choices right? But it has been so long since I have used toilet paper that is luxurious that I may convert.

So, although I did ask my mom to pick up a few things, in no way did I ever say "Don't come here unless you're smuggling at least $500 worth of merchandise over the border and the most expensive toilet paper ever or you won't get to see your granddaughter!". Oh, and two baby stair safety gates. Just like at Christmas, they were overly generous and brought more and better than we asked for. Steve and I had discussed "Mompromising" - the exchange of allowing certain distasteful behaviours around the child in exchange for these gifts. It was not too bad this time, to just let her have a few tickles beyond my comfort zone and stuff and to not criticize those squeaky kissing noises she makes CONSTANTLY in order to get Josephine's attention. We wanted to avoid a repeat of the Christmastime episode called "After all I do for you this is what I get?!". The conversation where she stated that "There is no place safer for a child to be in a car than in her mother's arms" did call for a rebuke. Admittedly, "What are you on?" was only the precurser to my version of a gentle contradiction until I realized she had tuned out and was watching Josie eat lint or something. I will admit that I did say at one point to Aunt L (ohmygod I accidentally typed Aunt LOUSE! how funny! then Aunt Lousie! HAH! I may not change the next typo!) that LeapPads were for parents who don't read to their children, and that we felt guilty enough about frequently using the neglectomatic (Swing) when she was little, let alone installing more electronic babysitters... But for the most part, except when I left in a huff to go upstairs and get my dad the bloody Antiques Crapshoot schedules off their websites because he will only watch them when they're on despite the fact that I bought him a really expensive VCR that he will NOT learn to use even though I paid extra for this one kind of easy programming feature because I KNOW they are technologically inept...oh, that's a whole other bitchfest. Anyway, I was pretty good and there were no arguments until...

We were discussing Josephine's upcoming first birthday, and the wherewhatwhenhow and then the who's and...Aunt M's name came up, and my mother was so very bitter. She spat out something to the effect that she doesn't care what SHE (uttered as if it could only be said along with a mouthful of dog shit) does anymore as long as she doesn't have to take over her days with Gram. And that if we were having a party for Josephine, that she wasn't going to make it easy for everyone else, it's her party for Josie (essentially). She will have it when she wants to have it and will send invites and who cares if they will arrive when people are in Florida and they won't get them until it's too late and if simply holding the party a week later means everyone can attend instead of just the people she likes. See why I write so many run on sentences! There is so much in one thought that my brain explodes! Cripes!

So, to make this shorter and less irritating because really I shouldn't be giving this more energy than it's already sucked out of me, I heard from my Aunt M today that my mom was such a witch to the nurse that was hired to bathe and help my gram that she quit. My mom resented that they were paying her $25 an hour, one hour minimum, a few days a week to keep an eye on my gram for her health's sake (checking for bruises from falls and stuff) and for bathing her. Um, with my gram's own money - not like it was out of pocket! She was asking the nurse to clean the toilet and change the bedsheets do dishes and stuff. HOW VERY EMBARASSING! At one point, my mom said to her sisters she would take the nurse's hours, and wanted to be paid $15 an hour for them. The nerve of being asked to be paid to care for her own mother - it's galling. She honestly does not see why this was awful of her. She does not know how lucky she is to even have sisters, however they don't get along, because as an only child I am going to be really stuck when it's her time. Don't make me repeat that fable, Mom. You know, the one about the grandparent who had to sleep in a box of hay behind the stove and eat gruel out of a bowl with sub-standard flatware and then the he dies and the grand child says to his dad "Don't throw the box of hay and the tin spoon and cracked bowl and mouldy gruel away because I'll need them for you when you're old" or whatever version is floating around these days...hopefully starring Family Circus. I forsee that I will have the choice between saint daughter or neglectful jerk - no in betweens. I'm not using hyperbole here. During my bouts of insomnia, I worry about what is worse, my dad dying firt or my mother, and then I play out the horrific potential scenarios. But I digressed again. Further to this, Aunt M said that my mom had a shitfit when she asked if Aunt Lousie could visit Gram in her place for a day or two while she's away. My mom literally shrieked that Aunt L was HER friend and how DARE she. Well, they were all friends at one point, growing up from little girls together, so I don't know when that shift occurred. What, is she TWELVE?

It's almost enjoyable, and you have to treat them like characters in books until it gets ugly. Like...

From the other aunt I heard about how my mom yells at my gram and makes her cry. Gram's had some hallucinations lately as part of her dementia, and my mom belittles her and argues about them. She gets frustrated when my gram asks what day it is constantly and raises her voice when she gets confused. Gram always calls Josie "He" or "Him" and I never bother correcting her, but it gets my mom all riled up. So it's been more of the same lately, and my Aunt C has had to have a sit down with my mom about it. Aunt C's been doing five days a week to my mom's two, and she's exhausted. She's tired of my mom transferring her frustrations with Aunt M onto her, tired of the yelling and tired of the embarrassment. The "I just yell, I'm loud like Papa was" refrain is so weak, and I hate it.

Now, I have been excused, as have all the grandkids from taking part in Gram's care. Another cousin has been doing some of the shopping, but only under duress and with a minimum of quality time spent with Gram. She has the two little boys who are in school full time, and doesn't work; yet, strangely is always busy. The other cousin is always working, but sees Gram frequently for lunches or dinners. I try to spend time there when I visit, but shamefully I haven't always tried very hard to. The boys are out of state, except for one, who does visit for lunches and dinners of his own accord; but the two are write-offs since they don't call or even drop a card in the mail. Since Josephine was born, I've spent entire days on my infrequent visits there, for both of their sake. I try to mail at least one card with pictures of Josie a month. But I think it's time to do my share. I need to take it upon myself to just take a few days out of each month and go there and stay there and spend quality time and help care for her. I love her in a way I don't love my mom, and I want to do the right thing. It all makes me unbearably sad.

I don't ever want Josephine to feel about me the way I'm feeling about my mother now.

How awful is to to feel the way I do? It seeps into every interaction I have with Josephine. It's a desperate, gasping hurt when I think how awful humans can be, and that one of them is my own mother. It's a burning shame - that everyone in my family except my mother is aware of her behaviour.

It's so profoundly upsetting that I lie awake for hours asking the universe to please help me to step up so that I can be a mother Josephine can be proud of. I have said to my own mother so many times "I do not let how others are be the measure of the person I want to be" and now the fates are calling me on it. No one is perfect, I know. There are little rights and wrongs on all sides here, but I've just got this sinking feeling that it still boils down to the fact that my mother just doesn't have what it takes to stand outside her own little world she's created for herself. It's not that I can make up for my mother's actions, or that I can save anyone here. Because though I'd never question my mother's love for any of us who are involved, I do question her abilities, her intentions, and her capacity to just suck it and do the right thing. And I'm going to have to trust mine.

So, as it stands, we are having a birthday party for the two Josephines on March 6. Ages one and ninety-four. Wow. I asked for as much of the whole family as possible(Three sisters, their husbands, four of six grandkids and respective spouses, and the three great-grandkids) to be at Gram's house and to BE NICE for a few hours for a light meal and cake. This may be the last birthday Gram remembers, let alone has, and I want it to be a happy one, even if it's superficial. Josephine will believe whatever we tell her when she grows up, until she gets the finer points of the story when she's ready to handle them. So even though the C's don't talk to the C's and the K's don't talk to anyone and the G's thankfully live far enough away not to really give two shits (three now), there it is. Because, even though we are all adults for the most part, I can't guarantee there won't be a floor show and I will spend the whole party doing damage control and will probably end up ashamed that this is what my family has become. But I understand, that whatever happens, it's because we are all only human and it's just that some of us are big spenders at the DOTHERIGHTTHING store, some are lowly clerks, and some are shopping in the discount bins.

But at least Josephine can be proud of me wherever I fall in there, and Steve is a saint for his part in having to deal with me amidst all this for sure. And Beauty will stay at my parent's house, sulking on the sofa because she's not invited, never knowing how lucky she is.

Duh...

If you don't want the baby to play with the sub-woofer, don't put the shiny plastic dome with the flashing green lights that makes a boom boom noise under the desk. After an hour or so of mommy ignoring her while she reads blogs and poetry, it's going to look very tempting.

Oops there goes another rubber tree plant...

I enjoy other bloggers, because it is as personal as if I were having a cup of coffee with them in their living room - as a fly on the wall. Finding other snarky, witty, tired, excited, frustrated, elated and intelligent people who also write run on sentences and misuse punctuation during the strange hours that parents keep is like compensation for what I've just been through and affirmation that what's ahead is worth going through; and it's wonderful that it can be done without having to hold up one end of the conversation. That's what comes later, when the mood strikes, in comments or in one's own blog. It works. That's why I blog. Because I want to share, just not necessarily with someone right there in front of me. Because I don't want to forget whatever is important enough for me to write about. And because I can type faster than I can write, and almost as fast as I can think.

Once upon a time, I wanted to be a journalist. By various definitions, someone who writes for a magazine or newspaper. A writer is defined as someone who writes for pay. I didn't know the difference. Now, I thank goodness I'm not paid to write about other people writing, for any source. Is that what David Hochman wanted to be when he grew up? Because if the fates hadn't had their way with me...if I'd let that mess of delusions and aspirations simmering in naivety lead me to Hampshire College...

In eleventh grade, my dad started his series of heart attacks, which have led to accidents and other episodes of ill health. Years of poor eating habits, no exercise, the stress of raising a spoiled daughter and wife and making horrifically bad business decisions on his part have altered the course of my life. Hundreds of thousands of dollars lost, and me too lazy to pull myself up by my bootstraps (it was the eighties - they were either the custom made slouchy boots from a trip to NY or my pointy black Tony Lama cowboy boots at that time). Instead of being one of those go-getters who works hard and gets what she wants, I took what I could get.

Miles of bad road and years later, somehow I earned Steve and Beauty and Josephine and I still don't know how I got so lucky. Everything is as it was meant to be, and instead of forming provocative speculations about parents who blog, I happily and gratefully join in.

My parents, with their revisionist memories, skip over their responsibility in part for my eighteen year old bad choices. When Josephine was born, I joked that nothing I did before having their grandaughter mattered. Eventually running a department that generated over half a million dollars a year with only a high school education was not as important to them as the fact that I had squeezed out a grandchild. And now, it's like they want to skip over the fact that I was never the daughter they had hoped I'd be and get to the having the granddaughter they always wanted part of their lives. Now, the joke is funny because it's true. Although what came before has its place, it isn't as important as right now. It just surfaces from time to time.

The seething, bewildered rage I feel when my dad watches Antiques Crapshow with his bizarre combination of skepticism and wonder still surges despite my happiness with my new position as Josephine's mom. All those years when I was a jewellery appraiser at an auction house or selling museum quality antiques and jewellery never register with him as being the same thing as what he disparages yet eagerly watches on the idiot box - and yesterday instead of enjoying watching me and Josephine playing he was glued to that damn show again. No, I don't write this blog attempting to find a replacement for his or anyone else's attention. I write it because I want to pay attention to myself. I don't see this, or other blogs as being about me me me - they're about this and that, and why why why and ouch ouch ouch and ha ha ha. Those minutes (okay, hours) I steal reading and writing blogs when Josephine is asleep are just another way of exploring myself and enjoying her babyhood.

I went through a lot to get to where I am now, and all of it was as it was meant to be to lead me here. I deserve what I get, as I've stated before. So none of it matters, really. What never happened is that I never became a journalist who writes about things - I became a person that does things and then writes about them. Which is all I could ever hope to be. But blogging makes you care about people you don't really know - which, on some days, I find preferable to ramming a hole in a million kilowatt dam.