The Play's the Thing

Well I made it. Made it through the first week of rehearsal. We started a week ago today.

Bean seemed to handle things pretty well. Aside from the whole pooping in her bed incident. That was kind of ugly.

And she's cutting some nasty nasty molars. So she's a little sniffly and whiny today. But she'll have a grumpy weekend with Daddy. And I'll have a weekend of rehearsal.

And I have to say...this whole working again thing...? It's super crazy fun! I'm tired, yes. The stress of arranging childcare and preparing the house for a babysitter every morning, then going to work, then coming home, is taxing. How have you all been doing this for so many years without collapsing? I'm kinda wiped after only a week.

I'm still pretty fracking (my new favorite word from "Battlestar Galactica") nervous too, yes. But they're called "plays" for a reason, I believe. And when writers are as wonderful as the amazing Sarah Ruhl, plays are play-ful, and challenging, and terrifying, and incredible to work on.

In the meantime, we eat Magnolia cupcakes tonight and tour preschool numero uno tomorrow. Life goes on, doesn't it.

Time passes. Listen. Time passes.

This is what happened the first day I went back to work

So I went back to work yesterday. For the first time since the Little Bean was born, really. I have worked a few days here and there. This is the biggie.

So my dear friend Becca was staying with Bean. Bean loves her. She loves Bean.

However...

Thinking a onesie would be a pain for diaper changes, I put Bean in some jeans that are a wee bit big. Becca put Bean down for her nap. Chattering ensued. Bean does this a lot. Sometimes she just chatters through her whole nap. I call it two hours of quiet time and we go from there. Becca checked for poop. She checked to see if Bean dumped her water all over herself. Neither.

Later...Becca checked again. Bean had removed said big jeans. Removed her diaper. Was sitting pants-less in her crib. May I say, this has NEVER happened before. Okay.

Becca put a diaper back on. Did not put on any new pants. Left Bean to try to sleep.

Later...chatter chatter chatter. Long pause... Then, very clearly, "Becca?"

Becca enters Bean's room to discover Bean has again removed her diaper. And very purposefully pooped on her mattress. Upon Becca's arrival, Bean grins ear to ear, points to her masterpiece on the sheets and exclaims "I did it!" Again let me say, she has never done anything like this before. Ever ever. Ever.

So my question. Acting out? Or merely getting ready to potty train.

And may I add, Becca is a very very very good friend indeed.

Thrilling Convo Now We're Back from Vacation

We have been gone for over two weeks. The city appears to still be here. This is what we're talking about on our last night of vacay.

Doc Hubby: How do you spell "a propos?"

Me: "A" space "P-R-O-P-O-S". Like a cappella without the cappella and with propos.

Scintillating as ever.

Like Something in a Movie

So last night Doc Hubby and I went to the movies. This is the first movie we have seen since "Star Trek" back in June. Which was totally awesome.

Last night we went to see "Cold Souls" starring Paul Giamatti and David Strathairn. Two amazing actors. Oh and me. Yup, just a few months after giving birth to the Bean, I went to Roosevelt Island at the crack of dawn on a cold winter's day to say:

Because I'm convinced he has a twisted soul. He does things...

Try to contain your enthusiasm. And imagine the brilliance.
I have hung around movie sets a little bit. For about sixteen months in 1998 or so I went to Yankee Stadium in the freezing cold at the crack of dawn to be an extra in the Kevin Costner baseball movie (don't get too excited here...) "For Love of the Game." Never heard of it? Yeah. Not his best. I did it because I was just out of school and it was something to do and it paid $75 bucks a day. But it was insane. First of all it was friggin' freezing. We bundled up in ski coats and stuffed those hand warmers down our bras, and then when it was time to shoot doffed all the winter gear, and stood up and cheered for Kevin Costner as a washed up...catcher was it? Pitcher? As if it were a balmy early autumn day. We ate masses of macaroni salad with ex-cons and folks running from the law (no joke, someone was found and arrested there) and wackos in the bottom level of the parking garage. We watched people steal entire aluminum tubs of pudding and take them to their cars. We (my friends I met there...Jenny, Angie and I) did all this because we wanted to be actors. And cuz as I have admitted in the past, Kevin Costner kinda does it for me. (I KNOW! I KNOW! What can I say...)
When the movie came out...I went to see it. And I think I caught a glimpse of my left arm at one point.
Cut to ten years later. I show up on set on Roosevelt Island. I hang with Paul Giamatti, David Strathairn and Lauren Ambrose in the green room. I say my line. I try to be cool.
I go and see the movie last night.
And you guessed it.
My line was cut.
It's like something out of a movie.
Take home message to all you would-be actors out there: this is why you don't have a big party and invite all your friends and your mom to see your big old big screen premiere until you have gone yourself to make sure your big line wasn't cut.

Why My Two Year Old Will Most Likely Be Rejected from Kindergarten

So I fancy myself a pretty responsible gal. I always handed my homework in on time. I took hot meals to shutins with my church youth group. I was a girl scout. I pay my bills on time and help old people get things from high shelves (no joke, I can't tell you how many times some old person in my apartment building has asked me to get something off a high shelf for them because I am ginormous).

But when it comes to my baby's medical care, I am so totally paralyzed by fear that I border on negligent. I guess it's fear. Maybe it's laziness. But I think the odds are a lot greater that it's fear.

I forgot her 18 month appointment. I guess...? I mean, honestly, I'm not sure I knew that she needed to have one. Did the doctor actually mention that at her 12 month appointment? Was I so preoccupied with our personal vaccine schedule that I didn't listen? Because usually, I'm pretty genius at listening when people give me instructions. I'm fairly certain the leading contender for my epitaph is currently "Follows Instructions Well." So how is it that I can't kinda get my shit together with getting medical things done for the baby at the right time?

I do, I must admit, lean on the fact that Doc Hubby is in fact, a doctor. Part of me thinks that all of this stuff should just be his responsibility because he has seen the inside of a human body and understands things about it, and it just grosses me out. So despite the fact that "I'm the Mom" I want all that medical stuff to be his department. I don't think he even knows we have departments in this relationship. Except that he always makes the pancakes. And since he never reads my blog, the odds are not good that he is going to become aware of it any time soon.

The day of my daughter's one year doctors appointment (which, if I can read my own handwriting correctly, was well over a month after her first birthday...see what I mean? What is wrong with me?) we took her across the street to a house of vampires where some guy who claims to be a phlebotomist (yeah, that's the kinda vocab I can just toss around because Doc Hubby is in fact, a doctor, and I'd have to be an idiot not to pick up a thing or two over the course of 19 years)stabbed her repeatedly in the arm while she shrieked until finally I grabbed her and fled. Fast forward to a month ago when we happened to see Dr. McJerky in our Peds practice because our wonderful French doctor wasn't in. He managed to make me feel like a total ass because I had staggered my baby's vaccines (it was like he could see the baby slings and BPA free bottles and organic yogurt spewing from my mouth) and never got that blood draw. Which, he insisted, she'd absolutely need for kindergarten. What is with the City of New York? That I can't just enjoy my one year old without worrying about kindergarten. And, by the way, the place they sent us to have it done sucked. And, no one told me I needed it for kindergarten, though I can't say I would have been listening anyway.

So we had the one year blood draw today. Several days after the Bean's second birthday. She screamed bloody murder the entire time. Doc Hubby took one for the team and held her down while the excellent phlebotomist took baby girl's blood (Doc Hubby just had to point out that she did go too deep at first and then had to pull back to hit the vein and I could have lived my whole life and not known that). Then the Bean proceeded to sulk the entire time that Doc Hubby tried to show her off to all the nice people he works with.

Note to self, do not begin this whole path of allowing the Bean's behavior to reflect upon me. I am not responsible for her being two. Or having just been jabbed with a needle.

So Lonely...

My baby girl is so lonely. She is so starved for friendship. She is so aching for any kind of human contact besides Mama...that every day she stands in the living room and points to the window and says "Up in the 'indow? See peoples?"

Desperate.

Simply to catch a glimpse of another human being besides myself.

That she looks out our fifth floor window, waaaaaay down to the street below, and yells "baby!" every time a stroller rolls by.

When the babysitter arrives...any babysitter arrives...she immediately stands next to her, looks up at me, waves, and says "bye Mama!"

So either I have done something really right. Or I have done something dreadfully wrong.

Blaine isn't a name...it's a major appliance.

This is so much better than anything I could have written today.

Read it.

Sincerely, John Hughes