The Po Show

It's Started Already

Last night as Ross was saying goodnight to Tessa, the following exchange ensued:

Tessa: "I think I should have a TV in my room."

Ross: "I don't think you need a TV in your room."

"Well, you and Mom have a TV in your room."

"But I think two TVs are enough for the house. Later, when you're older and need to do homework and stuff, maybe you could have a computer in your room."

"A computer! That's even better!"

So I'm sure she, at barely six years old, is expecting her own computer in her room any day now. When you have homework consisting of alphabet review (which is what I'm sure she'll have when first grade starts next week), a computer is pretty much indispensable.

Back in NY

We've been back for 4 days now. I was really hoping I'd never have to see this ugly house again. Instead, we're signing a new lease. Fuck.

It's been strange, being back here after 7 weeks. But it's all getting more familiar, more routine. Tessa keeps saying how she's so glad to be home, despite the fact that she cried bitterly for days before we had to leave CA. She even told the broken piece of tile in the diningroom that she missed it.

School starts in less than 2 weeks. Please, please, powers that be, make the transition okay for my sweet boy, who just had his meds increased by his shrink.

The Happiest Place on Earth

We're back from two full days at Disneyland/CA Adventure. It was hot, crowded, and intermittently great. I've loved Disney in all its disgusting, vapid glory, all my life, and the kids love it too. Ross (who was a polyester-clad balloon/popcorn/churro selling drone for 2 painful minimum-wage summers in college)despises Disneyland, so it's a testament to what a great dad he is that he sacrifices two full days of his limited vacation to CA to make his kids (and wife) happy.

The kids got tired and cranky at times, and we discovered that they had outgrown their tennis shoes (sneakers to you east coast types) over the summer, but on the whole they had such a good time. Matthew really did incredibly well considering how on edge he's been. Tessa was surprisingly timid about going on fast rides (where did my fearless girl go?), but she loved the things she did go on.

The best moment for me was when we were sitting on the ground watching the Electrical Parade (now the Disney Electrical Parade, brought to us by Sylvania, a Siemens company, as they kept telling us. I still remember when it was the Main Street Electrical Parade, and I saw the very very last outing it had, and I have a bulb from one of the floats. They had to bring the parade back to try and attract people to the floundering CA Adventure park, which sort of annoyed me because they had said that it was leaving forever. Anyway.).

Tessa waved and waved at all the characters on the floats, like she was the Rose Queen. The Blue Fairy saw her, waved back, and blew her a kiss. Tessa beamed, touched her cheek, and then fell back against me like she was fainting. I was so happy that tears streamed down my cheeks.

I always knew that the things I loved, like Disneyland and Christmas, would be even better seen through the eyes of my children, but I had underestimated the level of joy I would feel. My heart is filled to bursting.

Ten Years Old

My firstborn child, my miracle baby, my son, is ten years old today. My gorgeous, breathtaking, incomprehensible boy. Ten years ago, he awoke from the three hours of sleep that followed his 32 hour labor, and he didn't sleep for another two and a half years. Nothing has been easy for, or with, this sweet, beautiful, brilliant child. He is the child I dreamed of, the child I cried for, the child I had been afraid I would never have.

I have him, and I love him with all my heart. He is my angel.

High Life

Here I am, posting from a lovely room at the glorious Biltmore Hotel in downtown L.A. Ross and I spent the night here, SANS children. It's the second time we've been away (together) from the kids, overnight, in their lives. As in, in the almost 10 years since Matthew was born. The first and last time was when Tessa was 9 months old.

We had a wonderful dinner last night, walked around downtown, and sat in the jacuzzi this morning. And yes, we made very, very good use of the room. Now we're going to breakfast and then to the Museum of Contemporary Art (YES, we get to look at exhibits without the kids whining that they want to leave).

I'm so happy!

Greetings from Chez Grandma

So the first week we were here in Oxnard, I unsuccessfully sought to pick up a wireless connection from some unsuspecting neighbor's router. I morosely wandered about the house and backyard, carting the laptop, trying in vain to find a signal strong enough to hook up and get my email. No luck, so I spent four weeks Unwired.

In a way it was fabulously liberating not to be joined at the eyeball to the internet. I paid much closer attention to the kids. I read 8 novels! We spent loads and loads of time out doing stuff. I honestly didn't miss it all that much. There were a few times I had to run to my brother's house to get online (like when I was notified that Tessa's gardening camp was canceled due to lack of enrollment and I had to scramble, without success, to find an alternative). These days I just don't get much email, now that my ebaying days are over. I missed my online friends (and missed some messages from friends here who needed a few reminders to remember that I could not be invited to things via email :) ), but it was kind of like detox, to be offline for awhile.

Then the other day, as I was reading the four weeks of August list digests I had copied and pasted into an AbiWord document, the laptop was suddenly connected. It had searched for and found itself a very weak but nonetheless serviceable connection. I was dumbfounded. So I had been sitting here for weeks, and I could have been online?? I didn't have to run to freaking Starbucks the other night (I needed some emergency info)?

But it's okay. As I said, these weeks have been very good and it was healthy for both me and the kids to remain offline for that time.

They have been having a wonderful time, as they always do at Grandma's (aka heaven). What's not to like when your every wish and desire is instantly fulfilled for you? How can you not be ecstatic when you arrive and already the exact Wii game you've been wanting is waiting for you, when all your favorite foods and drinks are constantly well stocked, when your favorite cousin in the whole world is here to play with you? Nice work if you can get it.

Something miraculous has happened this summer. Both of my kids are learning to swim. This is a HUGE deal. Matthew has had swimming lessons twice, but as of the week before we left NY, he still couldn't bear the thought of putting his head in the water. Tessa was still convinced that she couldn't get her ears wet. Now they both can dogpaddle (Matthew can go for 30 feet without stopping!) and are dunking their heads. Tessa's floating on her back and doing a rudimentary backstroke. It's phenomenal.

As for me, I've been throughly enjoying visiting with my best homegirls every Sunday. There is just nothing in the world like sitting, in person, with friends who know me and understand me (and still love me) the way that they do. It's like regaining a body part, feeling my blood reoxygenate.

I've missed Ross particularly desperately this trip, though. We've been apart for four and a half weeks now. He comes in a week, so that will be five and a half weeks. By far the longest we've been apart. Usually it's around 3 weeks, so I just have to get through 2 weeks, and then look forward to seeing him in another week. This time, after 2 weeks, our separation wasn't even half over. I had really hoped that he'd be able to come for a long weekend in the middle of the trip (I was really hoping he could be here for our 19th anniversary, which was July 31. We've been apart on our anniversary for the past 4 years), but it just wasn't possible. Neither one of us is a phone person, so even though we've talked every single day, it's been sad. Not to mention the fact that the only time we've gone even close to 5 weeks without sex was postpartum Matthew (we barely waited 4 weeks after Tessa was born, and she was born vaginally!). We plan to go to L.A. and spend a night, which will be lovely. We have only gone away together and stayed overnight away from the kids ONCE, and that was when Tessa was 10 months old. She's 6 years old now. I think we're overdue, but that's what happens when you live away from family and only see them for brief periods of time.

It's always curious for me to hang out in my hometown, to stay in the house I grew up in. I see my high school (now empty, as they built 2 new ones), the movie theater I used to go to (now boarded up), the houses where my friends lived. I have no idea if their families still live there. I have not been in touch with a single person from high school in years, even my very best friend. I feel like a ghost, wandering around my past, my youth.

One thing's for sure, it's a hell of lot cooler here than in NY. And we'll be back there on Aug. 21. Nothing has panned out for Ross on the job front in L.A., so we have to go back. I've resigned myself to it, and am looking at the positive aspects (Matthew is due for his tri-annual testing this fall in school, which I wanted him to have, and I had been afraid we'd have to pay for it ourselves if we moved to CA before it took place). At least the kids never knew that moving here was a possibility, and it is still a possibility, so they didn't have to be disappointed. I still feel, in my heart, that eventually we'll be back.

In the meantime, we're looking forward to going to Disneyland :).