Tag Archives: Little Ones

Kate and Oliver’s Excellent Adventure: Part I

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6:30 a.m. on the flight from DC to Miami
Bars Should Have Umbrella Strollers

I just walked into a parallel universe. Upon our 4:45 a.m. arrival at Dulles Airport, Oliver and I were both half asleep and more than a little anxious (as I’ve mentioned before, that’s just the way we are). All of the expected obstacles were there: the juggling act with bags and a stroller, the long lines, the tight time schedule, and of course the fact that even though we called yesterday to verify our seat assignments, my three year old and I were not seated together.

I kind of knew this would happen since we didn’t buy our tickets at the same time, and they were reserved on such short notice. But THAT IS WHY we (meaning Chris) called to actually talk to a person at American Airlines who could verify that we would be seated next to each other. Not across the aisle, not in adjoining rows, and not at opposite ends of the plane.

With a flight at 6:00 a.m. and check in lines wrapped several layers deep, I opted for self check in. So I was electronically informed of the problem. I was able to fix our seats for the connecting flight from Miami to Key West, but didn’t have any luck with the first flight. This is where I can’t get anyone’s attention for 20 minutes and then when I finally do get a frazzled ticket agent to look at me, I receive the kind of customer service that makes people pull out hunting rifles and start firing at will. Right? WRONG. The cheerful (at 4:45 a.m. no less!) and accommodating “Sharon G.” not only seemed interested in helping us, she didn’t say, “excuse me ma’am, please let me finish talking,” once. Alas, there was only so much she could do for us. Even Sharon G. could not find us seats together. The best she could do was to seat us across the aisle so that we could “ask another passenger to switch with one of us.” Oh Sharon G., you are so naïve… People traveling this early in the morning have their own agendas and priorities. And they’re cranky. I wasn’t willing to risk things not working out and have Oliver, who can change moods on a dime, have a grand mal seizure when he saw that I wasn’t sitting next to him. Besides, my neighbor had the same experience recently, and not ONE person on her full-size passenger plane would acknowledge her problem, let alone help.

So the one glitch in the process was that regardless of how much Sharon G. would have loved to charter a private jet for us, we had to pay to upgrade to first class. As you can imagine, I was devastated. Seriously though, I wouldn’t normally waste money on something like that – but I didn’t see any other option, and the upgrade charge was only $90 per ticket. I know, that’s not insignificant – but in light of the fact that we were willing to pay a lot more than we did for the reasonably priced tickets we bought, I considered it a wash. Since this upgrade fee would be higher if done by a ticket agent, it needed to be executed at a self check in station. And to put a cherry on top of what was already one of the best air travel check in experiences I’ve ever had, Sharon G. came around the counter and performed the seat reassignment for me. The world needs more people like Sharon G. I am going to write a letter to American Airlines. And I’m completely serious about that.

So far, Oliver has been an ideal companion. It’s kind of like traveling with a good natured drunk person. He’s a little out of it, but happy to follow wherever I lead. He can be a bit loud at times, but he’s also easily distracted by the action around him and utterly enchanted with any redirection I throw his way. He slumped in the umbrella stroller during the entire seat assignment process and I had to check him a couple of times to make sure he hadn’t passed out. There was a mild fracas when he had to relinquish his blankie at security (as in “give me my keys man – hey, I want my keys!”). But I was able to whisk him through quickly enough to avoid a full blown panic attack. He was generally happy enough to just sit in the umbrella stroller and go with the flow. With all of the check in hoopla, we boarded the plane minutes after arriving at the gate. And when we got to our seats, he flopped down and gave me a big goofy grin that basically said, “I love you man.” Yeah – aside from the initial confusion, it was pretty seamless. Makes me think that bars might want to invest in large umbrella strollers for their patrons who are saddled with dead weight drunk friends to carry home.

10:00 a.m. on the flight from Miami to Key West
Back Up In the Air, Please.

Okay – so it is actually closer to 11:30 a.m. now. But that flight was so short that by the time I thought I could take out my laptop, it was almost time to put it away. It has been a year since we last made this trip to see my parents. Oliver is currently splashing in the pool with my Dad. We’re going to the hospital at 1:00 p.m. to have lunch with Mom. She should have seen her cancer doctor by then – in fact he arrived on the same flight we did.

The first flight was absolute heaven until the moment we were told to turn off all authorized electronic equipment. I knew that when I informed Oliver that we would have to put the Wiggles away for a while, he would be most distressed. And if you’d call five minutes of hysterical screaming “distressed” then that pretty much covers it. He simply could not understand why I would pull the plug on Captain Feathersword like that. It was so uncool! In between exclamations of “Wiggles!”, “On please!”and “Boat!” – I decided it was time to be a responsible parent and end the madness. So I tried giving him candy. He must have been really upset, because he will usually come running if someone two floors away whispers the word candy. But he was so irate (that I thought I could BUY him like that!), he wanted nothing to do with the lollipop. Finally I managed to get him interested in the fact that we were landing, but that kind of backfired when he decided to associate landing with the end of his Wiggles viewing. So then he started pointing his finger in the air and yelling, “back up in the air! Please!” (though in between sobs it sounded more like, “back-gasp-up-gasp-air-gasp-please!”). Finally, the excitement of landing was just too much. All of those tiny houses and cars – how could he stay mad? He kept yelling, “uh oh – watch out!” to the innocent bystanders since it was quite obvious that we were bearing down on them. At this point, I offered him the candy again (why not? It was out.) and he said “Oh, a lollipop!” – like he hadn’t just thrown in my face minutes before.

Our next flight boarded fairly quickly after that, but I don’t even know if it would have mattered. Oliver was back to looking comatose in his stroller with his blanket wrapped around his head. Travel is exhausting. But he perked up when he realized that we were getting on another plane. That must herald the return of the Wiggles. Yeah planes!

Our connecting flight was on a prop plane – but NOT a puddle jumper. I will never fly on a cessna again – that was like being in Herbie the Love Bug. No, it was one of those little American Eagle planes. So this was also very exciting. We got to ride on a shuttle (look at ALL the planes!) and then walk up stairs (we LOVE stairs!) to get onto our little plane. As we all started boarding from the back of the plane, the pilot instructed us to sit in “the middle.” Since our seats were already in the middle, this worked for us. I guess they REALLY didn’t want anyone in the front of the plane because a formidable looking flight attendant was standing sentry at the threshold of what I assume must be “the front.” She very sweetly told everyone that they could really sit wherever they wanted since there were many empty seats (as long as we remained in the middle damn it).

Actually, our flight attendant was very nice and made a point of saying hello to Oliver before politely asking me to do a better job of tightening his seatbelt. But what was probably most interesting about our flight attendant is that she was (for lack of a better word), a tranny. That is to say that she was a man either going through transition or fully transitioned to becoming a woman (I’m not presuming that you don’t know what a transvestite is – I’m just trying to be specific about which direction the transition was taking). ANYWAY – I have to say, I just love Key West.

Oliver made a valiant effort to rally for round two of the Wiggles, but he started falling asleep as soon as we were in the air. I perused Us Weekly until I thought it looked like it was okay to use the computer (must have missed the announcement), and had just barely read through some things before it was time to shut down again. Poor Oliver, I had to shake him awake when we landed, and he was very anxious about where we were and what my Dad wanted with us (he’s still little – so when people are out of context, he doesn’t always recognize them right away). And he looked fairly stricken when we pulled into the driveway of my parents’ house (because you know – I might leave him there). But the minute he could see through the front door, he was home. And so am I. I don’t blame him for being apprehensive about landing in this initially unfamiliar place. He doesn’t know what to expect here. And neither do I. We don’t know what the doctor will say – but we know what we want him to say. We are past hoping for the best case scenario – but we’re now praying that it’s not the worst. But for the next hour or so, we’ll splash in the pool, enjoy the sun and rediscover all of the things we loved when we were here last year. For now, we’ll just live for now.

Mini Me

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Now that my toddlers are becoming little people and aren’t little babies anymore, they’re really starting to pick up on our behaviors and mannerisms. Initially, they’ll have inherited traits that will provide the foundation for their personalities – like Oliver, my three year old’s tendency to fight change. But it’s the little day-to-day quirks that most surprise and amuse us.

Just the other day I caught Oliver doing something that I now realize I do all the time. He wanted something out of the refrigerator and when I said no, he pretended that he didn’t hear me and opened the door anyway. Then he very seriously put an index finger to his chin and said, “Hmm. Let’s see….” And then I couldn’t escape it – every time I opened a door or a drawer to select anything, I’d catch myself saying, “Hmm. Let’s see…” He definitely got that one from me. He’s also taken up a quirk of mine that goes back to my college days. In my junior year, I lived across the hall from a group of lacrosse players. They were pretty friendly even though I didn’t know them well. A few weeks after moving in, I noticed that whenever I would see one of them, they’d always say, “Oh, HI Kate.” I’d just return the pleasantry – but after a while, I realized that they were making fun of me. When I finally asked what this “oh hi” business was about, they explained that I never just said “hi” or “hey” – it was always, “Oh, HI.” Since I’ve never much enjoyed being the butt of a joke, I made a concerted effort to stop saying that. Apparently it didn’t work. Whenever someone of note enters a room, Oliver will look up and say, “Oh, HI!”

All of these connections that I find between Oliver and me have been a pleasant surprise since before the twins were born we all thought he was exactly like his father. But that just goes to show how young personalities develop and change over time. I’m sure that in a few years, when he’s more of a little boy playing on sports teams and doing guy stuff, we’ll think he’s more like Chris again. And that can continue to change – it’s impossible to get everything from one parent. This is the reason that it drives me absolutely crazy when people insist that one of my twins is more like me and the other is more like Chris. George and Eleanor are still three months away from their second birthday and they have already changed so many times. I just let people say whatever they want and agree with them. It’s not worth the effort to correct them, but whenever possible I say that my children are going to try out a lot of different roles as they grow up and I’m always going to support them in that. Especially if they resemble me.

And I love now seeing the circularity of this in how I resemble my own parents. I swear that when I hear my never ending voiceover in the hours of video footage we take of our children not doing the adorable thing they were doing five seconds ago, I sound EXACTLY like my mother. In fact, while growing up I always identified more with my mother. I was more artistic and less athletic, I was a little reserved, I tended to think a lot about what I was wearing and I was creative with my accessories (I’ll have to post some embarrassing photos of that sometime). But Dad had to get more than just his genes in there.

Now that I’m older I see SO many behaviors that make me Terry Coveny’s clone. Just like my Dad, I must provide a solution for any given problem I hear. If you told him that you felt like you may have missed out on some opportunities in life, Answers Man will ask you a few questions and then take you through a step-by-step plan for how to think positively, take some risks and get more out of your future than you did in your past. There’s no venting with us – we are a strictly problem-solving operation. I also make it my mission in life to carry every shopping bag into the house in one trip. If I have a pile of ten items to transport from one room to another, I will engineer a construction that I can carry all at one time. I may not be able to see where I’m going, but damn it, I won’t waste precious minutes running back and forth. I need that time to clean up the mess when I inevitably drop everything. And of course, as implied above, I take myself VERY seriously . I will not be mocked (I’m getting a little better about that one – it’s all about growth).


So it will be interesting to see which of my children comes down the stairs wearing a rhinestone pin on a vintage scarf (hopefully it won’t be George – but you know I’ll be supportive if it is) or crashes around a corner with something that resembles the leaning tower of Pizza. Even in their most infuriating teenager phase when Chris and I want to move away and not leave a forwarding address – We will never feel completely honest in any form of criticism. Secretly, we’ll always know that they got it from us.

Babies Are the New Black

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Lately, I feel like every time I turn around, I see another picture of a celebrity mom either bursting out of her designer maternity tube top or baring her third (or is it fourth?) baby bump for the cameras. (Is it me or is that “baby bump” thing getting kind of annoying? I can’t decide if I think it sounds more like a tumor or like something dirty.) So I have to wonder, is this a current trend or am I only just noticing it because I have now been pregnant and like to “tut tut” over how much weight the celebrity mom-to-be is gaining or speculate on how she’s letting her anorexia threaten the health of her fetus. That’s what suburban moms who read Us Weekly do. We judge. In our stained sweatpants.

So I decided to do a little research using the most prestigious resource available: People Magazine. In reviewing their archive of online covers, I have discovered that on the People Magazine barometer of “what’s hot,” pregnancy and babies are now the it girl of the tabloids. Of course celebrity weddings, affairs and divorces will never go out of style, but celebrity babies are the current up and comer.

Need stats? My calculations show that from 2005 to 2007, an average of eight People Magazine covers per year were devoted to celebrity pregnancy announcements and updates, birth announcements and of course, the multi-million dollar pictures of mom and baby. Examples are Halle’s big news in 2007, Angelina and Shiloh in 2006 and Julia with her twins in 2005. This increases from an average of four covers from 2003 to 2004. My personal favorites are Julia (again) and her “twins” announcement in 2004 and Brooke and her firstborn in 2003. Prior to that, only about one cover per year headlined a story related to celebrity pregnancy. And those that I saw – for example, Gina Davis in 2002, Melissa Gilbert in 1996 and Deirde Hall in 1992 (I’m embarrassed to say that I’m familiar with this last one since I once watched Never Say Never: The Deirdre Hall Story on Lifetime) – seem to report on miracle babies or pregnancy after 40. Those stories were strictly filler for a slow news week. Prior to 1982, the celebrity baby cover genre was non-existent.

And this trend is not limited to supermarket line reading. (That’s right – I’ve done MORE online research!) There are actual websites devoted to celebrity pregnancies. A single google search for “baby bump” resulted in the expected links to pictures and products; but one of the top links was for iVillage’s Celebrity Baby Tracker. My first thought was, “this is someone’s JOB? I wonder if they make more money than I do…” Then I started to consider how many other similar sites would result from “celebrity baby bump.” Let’s see… We get Celebrity Baby Blog (straight from the source: People Magazine), the iVillage Baby Tracker, Celebrity Baby Scoop, Fame Crawler Celebrity Fix (a daily feature on babble), The Latest on Baby Bumps (a feature on omg!), and – get this – The Baby Bump Project (an actual blog that seems to cover research on the subject). There’s more, but I for one think that is plenty, thank you very much. Goodness, I had no idea that this was such a global issue. I feel that I am now a better person for having spent time reading up on the topic. And I will be 100% more interesting at cocktail parties.

So does this mean that I’m now fashionable? I can head over to Bungalow 8 and chat with Gwyneth and Madonna about potty training and pre-school waiting lists? Good to know – I’ll inform the rest of my suburban mom neighbors. But is this a passing trend or proof of a new age in celebrity news? My guess is that we will definitely see a pregnancy cover shot of Hannah Montana (hopefully far in the future of course). I predict that celebrity baby news is here to stay. Babies are the new black. And you know what they say, “once you go black…”

I Love Things Just The Way they Are

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Billy Joel could have written his tribute to change avoidance with me and my boy Oliver in mind. At a little over three years old, Oliver has fully dedicated himself to rejecting change whenever it rears its ugly head. For example, he loves school and he loves us – but god forbid the stars become misaligned and we happen to be in the same place at the same time. Chris and I brought him to an end-of-the-year preschool picnic at a new playground last month and he astonished us by throwing an absolute fit when his teacher and the other kids in his class began to arrive. You would think that they were all brandishing rifles or flame throwers or even worse – vegetables. He wanted nothing to do with them and repeatedly asked to leave. We could not figure out what was wrong with this boy who had been happily playing with us just minutes before. The answer of course was simply that they were not expected.

Oliver has some speech delays and qualified for our county’s early intervention preschool program. He started last October with a teacher coming to see him at daycare one day a week. But he didn’t like the infrequent disruption of his day by this “stranger,” and we all agreed that he would do better with more consistency. This meant that he would go to a morning class five days a week at a nearby public school. And as we expected, the change in routine was a bit rocky at first. He needed a few days to assimilate to the new classroom and new friends, and a bit longer to feel comfortable with all of the transitions throughout the day. Wouldn’t a child so adverse to this new hell hole be happy to know that his torture was coming to an end? Apparently not. For several weeks he would spend the entire “goodbye song” quietly sniffling with fat tears sliding down his cheeks. Finally, once he became accustomed to the new routine, he not only accepted it, but embraced it with the enthusiasm that he brings to everything he loves: dogs, finger painting, spontaneously leaping off the stairs into my unsuspecting arms – did I mention that he weighs 43 pounds?

One perk of his daycare situation – which has also caused me just a small amount of guilt – is that I haven’t had to be there for the early days of this drama. I drop the kids off at daycare at 7:30 a.m. (I have to get Chris to the metro by 7:45 a.m. – yes we are a very green family that commutes together, and it has absolutely nothing to do with gas prices or HOV lanes on the Dulles Toll Road). So he is there for a full hour before the bus comes to pick him up. Now that he loves school, he races to the door shouting “My bus! My bus!” when it’s time to depart – but this was not always the case.

The third morning of Oliver’s new school schedule, I was working from home and got a call from Gordana, our beloved and we suspect magical daycare provider. She said (and you must imagine a thick Eastern European accent), “Hello Katie, this is Gordana. Oliver does not get on the bus today.” To paraphrase, she took him out to the bus, he threw himself in a puddle and refused to get up, and then the bus driver said that they wouldn’t be able to take him like that. This is where I started to feel pangs of remorse for putting my baby through something so traumatic. Then Gordana told me that, “it was so cute when we go back inside. He says, ‘Bye Bus,’ and starts back to playing.” So who exactly is running the show here…? After I made a call to his teacher, it was agreed that reinforcing the little dictator’s behavior was not a great plan, and that I should pick him up from daycare and bring him to school myself. I won’t get into the details on that – it’s not my favorite memory. But after a quick trip to Target to buy a second booster seat (Chris had the “car seat” car), I made sure that he went to school that day.

Now, I am a firm believer in taking responsibility for my own decisions (well, most of the time), so I told Gordana that I would come the next morning to make sure that Oliver got on that bus. It was to be a stake out of sorts. I sat in my car outside of daycare at the arrival time and saw the bus pull up. Then I saw Gordana and Oliver walk out the door. Then I saw Oliver start flailing and protesting as Gordana led him down the path. Then – as expected – I saw Oliver pull out his power move of firmly planting his bottom on the sidewalk (I did mention that he’s 43 pounds, right?). That is when I swooped in, lifted him up, dragged him onto the bus and belted him in. I left so quickly, I can only assume that he said, “who was that masked woman?” Anyway – that seems to have done the trick. There were a few more mornings with tears, but his stubborn little butt was on that bus every morning until the last day of school.

This really mirrors my own experience with change. Like Oliver, I don’t care for it. It frightens me, it confuses me, it makes me feel like there is a big crack opening in the ground under my feet. The difference is that as an adult, I have learned to deal with it and I don’t fight it anymore. I acknowledge my feelings but then power through. It doesn’t make the transition easier – but it does make it faster. And Oliver will learn to do the same. Instead of leaving that playground at the end-of-the-year picnic, I asked his teacher for her help. Then we each took one of his arms and physically propelled him up the ladder and down the slide, over and over until even he had to admit that he was having a good time. And then as with everything he finds fun, it was the best end-of-the-year picnic EVER. It took a while and I’m sure we’ll be enacting this method at many parks, pools, and birthday parties to come – but just like he learned to ride the bus without fear, he’ll learn to ride out the many new situations life throws him with the same reluctant acceptance that I do.

Falling Down the Mommy Hole

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So what now? Now that I’m done with the whole finding a domain name debacle – and now that I’ve associated myself with bad eating habits – what am I going to do with this blog? I liked the idea of doing something very organized with it like those blogs devoted to fashion, music, design, kids – but much like my many other intentions in life, I just don’t think I’ll be able to get it together.

I’m really not an expert on anything. And it’s even worse since I had kids and decreased my free time by about 99%. I love reading about clothes and style, but these days I spend more money on my kids’ clothes than anything else. I can’t pretend to be even a little bit cool when it comes to music, so that was never going to be a consideration. Most of my CDs seem to be labeled “Best Of”, “Greatest Hits” or “Gold” – or even worse, movie soundtracks or those compilation CDs like Jock Jams or Time Life purchases made while watching late night TV. And in the spirit of total disclosure, I must admit that the last time I expressed appreciation for music, it was a Wiggles’ production of Move Like an Emu (Have you seen some of their trippier techno renditions with the puppets? They’re excellent – and I think they kind of brainwash you.).

As for design, even though I grew up with a mother in design and a love of all things beautiful, I just don’t think I’d have enough to say. I’d rather buy a magazine or read my favorite design blogs. I can’t even fantasize about living in one of those magical magazine houses because I automatically envision my children leaving trails of crumbs and sticky hand prints all over everything in their wake. OR I think about how I’d have to baby-proof all of those French doors leading out to the infinity-edge pool – or some other mundane bit of paranoia.

Ultimately, I’m just not interested in writing another mommy blog. This is nothing against them since I currently enjoy several. But I’d feel like I was a big fake writing posts on great developmental toys and parenting advice, when I generally feel like I never quite do anything right. To be honest, I originally did plan to write about my experience as a struggling parent. Much like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, I often feel like I’ve fallen into a parallel universe. One where chaos reigns, logic is rotated 180 degrees and decisions are based on “whatever will make them stop crying.” I even had an idea for a blog name: mommyhole.com. Chris (my husband) just looked at me for a minute and then said, “please don’t do that.” Apparently, it wouldn’t reflect my PG-13 subject matter.

So what am I going to write about?…..What’s “my thing?” I guess I don’t have one – so my personal blog is just going to reflect that. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, a cute story about my children, something I’m currently reading, yet another complaint about my husband’s inability to put his dirty socks in the hamper….I guess I’ll just have to see what develops. But at the very least, I’ll give anyone reading this a great sense of superiority when they see how much more knowledgeable they are on any given subject. Maybe even inspire them to write their own more informed blog. And just in case you’re interested, mommyhole.com is currently still available.