My Apologies

Dear Z,

Sometimes I am sorry you were born first. It just doesn’t seem fair that you were born to a mother who knew so little about babies, who was anxious and fearful so much of the time. There were nights when I would look down at you and just cry, from overwhelming love, yes, but also from fear and crushing responsibility and abject terror. I’m sorry to say that my tears have fallen on your face more times than any other person in the world, except probably my mom.

(I am sorry, Mom.)

I am sorry for loving you so much. Sometimes I feel the burdensome weight of my love for you, my first born, the way I sink into your good moments as if they have everything - anything - to do with me, the way I covet your hugs and kisses because I know they aren’t given easily and therefore, are so very precious.

I’m sorry too for the gaps and snags in my love. The moments when my best self is not in charge, when I just can’t find the strength to lead with love and care. The imperfections that make me human affect you in ways I wish they didn't. I know we are both good enough and that is good enough but damn, I wish I could be just a little bit better sometimes. For you.

I’m sorry for sometimes forgetting how little you are. For expecting you to always be my “big girl” and for letting your verbal abilities, which have always outpaced your emotional maturity, fake me into thinking you are older than you are. You should be allowed to curl up and be little sometimes, too.

I am sorry for that time I grabbed your shoulder roughly and you looked at me with fear in your eyes and my teeth were set so hard I'm sure you could hear my metal fillings grinding out a tinny percussive song. I hope you forget that moment and I promise to remember it enough for the both of us.

I am sorry for apologizing for things I shouldn't and missing things I should.

I am sorry to say that these apologies are only the ones I could think of today, while you watched a Dora.

Love,
Your Clueless But Hopeful Mama


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Dear E,

Sometimes I am sorry you were born second. It just doesn’t seem fair that you were born to a mother who felt stretched beyond her capacity, torn by her responsibilities for two little people who both needed so much from her. There were nights when I would look at you and cry when I realized I had pretty much ignored you for most of the day, dragging you around in your car seat, strapping you to my back for hours spent in the playground/playgroup/grocery store/kitchen. That I didn’t even have the time or energy to do anything differently made it even worse, somehow.

I am sorry for loving you so much. Sometimes I feel the burdensome weight of my love for you, my baby, the way I cradle you like you are an infant even though you are so big now, the way I greedily gather your kisses and hugs, so freely given and never, ever too much, and never, ever enough.

I’m sorry too for the gaps and snags in my love. The moments when my best self is not in charge, when I just can’t find the strength to lead with love and care. The imperfections that make me human affect you in ways I wish they didn't. I know we are both good enough and that is good enough but damn, I wish I could be just a little bit better sometimes. For you.

I’m sorry for forgetting how big you are sometimes. For expecting you to be “my baby" too often, for too long. I'm sorry for sometimes failing to see that you are getting bigger every day and are capable of handling the expectations and responsibilities of a big kid.

I am sorry for the time I left you strapped in your car seat, screaming, just closed the car door and cried myself for quite a while before I opened the door again and took you out. I know I did the right thing for myself at that moment but I really hate when the right thing for me is not the best thing for you. I know you won't remember that, as you were just a baby. And I know I will remember it enough for the both of us.

I am sorry for apologizing for things I shouldn't and missing things I should.

I am sorry to say that these apologies are only the ones I could think of today, while you watched a Dora.

Love,

Your Clueless But Hopeful Mama

Five

Dear Z,

Yesterday you got dressed in pants with a belt through every loop and slung your purse across your body and helped your sister into the car as we headed to Target. You were ready to receive a present and, as it was the day before your birthday, you had to wait an unbearable 18.75 hours. Luckily, you'd been saving your allowance for months and had quite a stash of bills wadded up.

You were sure you wanted a new outfit for your American Girl doll and after hearing that Target sold clothes that would fit her, were cheaper than the official clothes, AND you wouldn't have to pay shipping and handling, you were dressed and ready in a flash.

We did have to get you from the car to the store, which, since you're currently scared of bees and anywhere bees might possibly reside, required cajoling and vise-grip hand holding on our walk to the store.

Once inside, you broke free, skipped to the toy aisles and then walked sideways facing away from the toys so as to minimize exposure to other tempting plastic bits.

Your sister trailed you and did her very best to skip, to walk sideways, to keep up.

You chose a doll outfit.

You got distracted by a Barbie dog walker that was on sale.

Can I afford THAT?

Read the numbers here. How much do you have again? So what do YOU think? CAN you afford it? Is that what you want?

I tried hard not to judge or sway you. Your dad and I want you to learn about money and buying and satisfaction on your own, now, when it's small bits of money. Money can't buy you happiness, we've told you, but it can be fun.

You were so excited in the toy aisle you kept having to calm yourself down. We want you to learn how to do that, too.

In the middle of the clothing/Barbie conundrum, your sister grabbed a plastic shopping cart full of food off the shelf and disappeared into the automotive supplies. Her fit upon having it wrenched from her fingers tugged your heartstrings and you started counting your money again.

E! I'll have some money left! I can buy you something too! You love dogs so how about we find a dog that costs less than five dollars?

We did. We found a stuffed dog that cost less than five dollars. I had to remind you to let her chose which one as she's going to need to learn for herself how to chose, too.


You were so proud of yourself, buying something for yourself and buying something for your sister. On the way back to the car, you forgot to hold my hand in a death grip, or really at all, but I didn't remind you, even as we entered the parking lot. You were close to us, your sister and me, and so proud of all your decisions, I knew you wouldn't go far. So I let you walk in a parking lot without holding my hand and this felt so big, as I remembered how much we battled over holding hands in parking lots several years ago.

That I can even say "several years ago" in relation to you, my very first baby, is still stunning to me.

That you grow and change and mature every day is just as miraculous to me as your birth, five years ago today.


Happy Birthday Z.

love,

Your Clueless But Hopeful Mama

Flying.

Dear Z,

Yesterday I did something that I wasn't sure I wanted to do. Something that I was worried was dangerous and wrong for a Mommy to do.

I went up flying with Daddy.

He hasn't gotten his license yet, so his instructor came too. It was a "cross country" flight so he stayed up late the night before looking at charts and maps, calculating every trajectory over the hills and freeways that crisscross southern California. What it really meant was that we went to San Diego for some sub-par Mexican food at the airport restaurant and then came right back.

I've been in small planes a fair amount and I've always enjoyed it. (Unless, of course, you count that time in Zambia where I was stuffed in the back of a 6 seater with cartons of eggs piled on my lap up to my chin and we tried to take off but COULDN'T because we were too heavy so we went back and left some of the eggs to TRY AGAIN.) This time was different though, because I've never given much thought to the training, ability, and level of caffeine of the pilot in command.

Z, your dad may be a born pilot. He LOVES it up there. He had so many proverbial balls in the air and he handled it all with aplomb. He was handling constant radio communications, navigating by sight and GPS, twisting all the vital doohickies and adjusting all the death defying whosamawhatsits on the dash. It was impressive to see.

There was, unfortunately a Moment. We were waiting for a 'handoff' to another control tower and we suddenly spotted a plane close by, TOO CLOSE BY. And then this rogue Daddy-and-Mommy-killer plane turned INTO OUR PATH. I could feel the anxiety of your Dad and his instructor rise but they quickly and easily navigated around it. They both said it was uncomfortably close.

I immediately thought of you. I wondered what would happen to you if our plane went down. But it didn't, and I didn't go THERE in my mind, not for too long anyway. I logically know that riding in a car on the freeway is statistically more dangerous than flying in a small plane. But flying is a new risk rather than the everyday risks I'm used to. So I still worry. Because I know that you would never forgive us if we were taken away from you. And I would never forgive myself.

I hope that one day, you read this and you think, "Mom, what's the big deal about going up with Daddy in a plane?". Because you will have gone up with him many times and felt how sure and strong and confident he is. How much he loves it. And you would never want to stop him from doing it or question why he does it.

You might even want to join in.

Love,
your Clueless But Hopeful Mama

Hillary, I'm sorry.

Dear Z,

I am sitting at the desk staring at the remnants of my vote-by-mail ballot for Super Tuesday's primary election.

This feels like a big election. But they all have felt big.

I imagine that one day you might ask me if I voted for Hillary Clinton, the first (viable) female candidate for President. You will know me as the feminist liberal I am and possibly assume that I voted for her.

And I will vote for her, if she winds up being our Democratic nominee. But in this primary, I voted for Barack Obama. And that makes me more than a little sad.

I love Hillary. I think she is smart, capable, articulate, and politically savvy. I respect her immensely; I think she can handle the stress, pressure and circus-ness of the Presidency with aplomb and grace. I find the prospect of a female President, of HILLARY for President, extremely exciting.

She is also incredibly polarizing. There are many, many people who hate her; some because she is a woman, some because of her husband, some because of who she is. I have always loved her for those very same reasons but the fact that she is so hated makes me think she would not fare well in the general election. Her very existence could mobilize forces against her very, very fast.

I have decided to vote for Obama simply because I think these two candidates' policy differences are insubstantial. What ARE very different are their personalities and how people respond to them. Clinton is a work horse, an executive, a nose-to-the-grindstone policy wonk (which I LOVE. But I also loved Al Gore and John Kerry for the very same reasons and look what happened to them). Obama is a visionary, a truly gifted orator, a young, passionate trail blazing candidate. He is green and inexperienced but he really, really excites people. He seems like a fun, positive, self-assured guy who would put you at ease.

For some annoying reason, people tend to vote for fun guys more than policy wonks. And now I am one of those people.

Maybe I'm just tired of the policy wonks losing.

So if Hillary wins the nomination, I will get behind her. I will possibly campaign for her, send her money and definitely vote for her in November. The potential of another ruinous Republican Presidency has me in cold sweat. Part of me hopes that she does win. Win it all.

But the rest of me (you know, the part with the PEN) is voting for Barack. This was a tortured decision and I hope you understand.

love,

Your Clueless But Hopeful Mama

I'd love to blame the curb.

Dear Z,

Yesterday, we took a fall.

I was pushing you in the stroller, without Sweet Dog for once (she had her very own playdate which you didn't quite understand). It was sunny but cool and we were headed back home because your aunt, uncle and cousin were coming over for dinner. We were rushing.

(Is it ever a shock when these stories include "we were rushing"?)

I had taken one of our longer loops which I knew was a risk. All day you'd been tired, a bit fussy, not terribly agreeable. A 45 minute walk was ambitious given your mood but I chose it anyway because it was such a beautiful day and I wanted the exercise.

My first mistake.

I was singing (our one and only effective distraction technique for your impatience) and my out of breath, slightly off-tune rendition of the "Wheels on the Bus" was wearing thin with you. "Almost home" I said as I navigated a nasty tree-root-created sidewalk hazard a few blocks from home. The same hazard that tripped us up last summer. The one that sent us both flailing on the sidewalk, your face and my leg bruised but okay. The one that causes me to shudder and relive that moment EVERY single time I pass it as I remind myself to PAY ATTENTION (bleepity bleep) and keep you safe.

We were "almost there!". I was "looking both ways!". I was taking a oh-so-slightly different angle off the curb because I was rushing and you were impatient and out of snack and I was out of breath and out of things that make sounds on the bus.

I didn't notice that there was a section of curb missing. My second (fifty-first?) mistake.

We went down.

You first.

Me on top of you.

There were no sounds.

(There are NO WORDS.)

Gasping. Pleading. Lifting you up.

Blood on your face.

"OhmyGodOhmyGodOhmyGod."

You cried, shocked, and licked your bleeding lip. I reached for my cellphone and called for backup- your dad- telling him to meet us on the corner.

We checked your teeth, your tongue, your pupils. You had some road rash on your chin and a cut on your lip. I started to cry.

At home, Dad cleaned you up while I hid my tears from you. Within a few minutes you were off playing with your tea set and I was still crying, filled with guilt and terror.

I will be more careful. I will buy a safer, longer jogging stroller. Maybe I'll just stop taking long walks with you entirely since you are getting impatient with the stroller and your impatience gets to me. I lose focus, cut corners (literally), go just a little too fast.

I will not be able to get the tumbling, sickening image of the fall out of my head.

I will not sleep well for a while.

You are okay and I am so grateful.

And I am so, so sorry.



love,

your Clueless But Hopeful Mama

18 months.

Dear Z,

You are 18 months old today.

Sometime very soon, I will stop referring to your age like it's a high school relationship. Sometime soon, I will say you are 2 years old and then 2 and a half and then all of sudden you'll be in (real) school and then moving away and having your own life so totally separate from us. (All of that sappy, you're-growing-up-too-fast blather helps mollify the mounting dread at your inevitably increasing defiance. It helps to think that the passage of time is actually really, really fast. You will not be this small- and the parenting this intense -for very long. Um, right?)

At 18 months, you are big into your books, Sweet Dog, Dolly, all your stuffed animals and, lately, brooms. The dust brush and dustpan are getting a bigger workout then they've had in their whole life.

You are quite the flirt and love to bat your eyelashes and smile sideways at men, especially your uncles. It's so overt it's almost silly but it makes me strangely proud of you. (Okay, fine. Your poop sometimes makes me proud of you. I'm easily.... improuded.)

You're a big collector these days; seeds mostly. You cram as many into your fists as you can and relinquish them to my pockets only when you are convinced you can truly hold no more.

You crack yourself up often and get into crazy moods, mostly when we're playing with Sweet Dog or when you're flopping into pillows in the living room, over and over again.

Your world is exploding in front of our eyes and it's quite a wild ride. New words are coming to you every day which excites us all greatly. (Yesterday you said "Emma" when you saw your new friend and we all got so excited you said it over and over again all day long). You can literally see your chest swell with pride when you're understood.

Can you see our chests swell with pride as well?

love,

Your Clueless But Hopeful Mama

Kiwis of death.

Dear Z,

On behalf of the Parental Committee on Food Consumption, I would like to thank you for your recent interest in, and ingestion of, kiwi fruit. As you may know, kiwi fruit is a very nutritious food, full of vitamin c and antioxidants, and we were all quite pleased that you took such an avid interest in it.

Unfortunately, we were unaware of the kiwi's laxative effect.

We regret to inform you that there will be no more consumption of kiwi fruit (at least, not in such large quantities) until you are capable of dealing with the intestinal output with no help from the Committee. We were dismayed to see said output and wish to forget it's quantity and quality and pungency as soon as possible.

As you have noticed, the remaining fruit in question have been hidden from view. This is for your protection. Your earnest requests for them at the supermarket, while cute, will most certainly continue to be denied.

Regretfully,

Your Clueless But Hopeful Mama
Co-Chair, Parental Committee on Food Consumption.

The last days of Hema.

Dear Z,

About four months before you were conceived, I went to the Netherlands to stay for a week with our friends and their 5 month old baby. We walked the baby through the red light district (where the ladies waved to the baby from their red doorways), we devoured stroop waffles, we wandered solemnly through Anne Frank's house, we pondered modern art and we marvelled at 1,000 kinds of licorice packed into one tiny licorice store.

We also spent considerable time in Hema, the Dutch equivalent of Target. Specifically, the baby clothes department.

This was the first time that I really spent time with a mom and a baby and I was not so discretely wondering if this was really what I wanted, if this was really something I could do. My friend made it look lovely and was an adventurous, generous hostess. And I didn't do NEARLY enough to help her (for which I hereby officially beg her forgiveness).

I came home with a hopeful and slightly-less-clueless idea of new motherhood and a bag full of adorable baby clothes that I told myself and my husband were for friends. Of course, I secretly planned on keeping most of them for my "someday" baby. The smallest thing I bought was a cute flowered onesie that I knew I would keep because I always hoped that I would have a baby girl. The largest thing I bought was a bright striped onesie that I thought could be unisex. As far in the future as having a child seemed to me at the time (ahem, not so far in the future, as it turns out), I bought them anyway. Little wishful talismans.

You are now outgrowing the last of your Hema clothes. So today, I pause and think back to my time in the Netherlands. When I couldn't possibly imagine the little torso and limbs that would fill these clothes. I didn't know how sweet this would be. I didn't know how hard it would be either.

I DID know how cute it would be.

Love,

Your Clueless But Hopeful Mama

Dispatch from Vermont #7: Cheeks.

Dear Z,

If the number of bites on your face are any indication, the mosquitoes and I are in complete agreement: your cheeks are the most scrumptious snack around.

love, Your Clueless But Hopeful Mama

PS. I take full credit or blame for the outfit. What can I say? I love stripes.

Dispatch from Vermont #6: Touching base.

Dear Z,

My mom called yesterday. For the last four weeks, she and my dad have been unreachable, on safari in the most remote corners of Zambia. We are very close, and this was the longest time I've ever gone without speaking to her. I think a large part of my self-pitying post of a few weeks ago was an unnamed sense of loneliness. Clearly, I was missing my mommy.

As soon as you started walking, you've been very independent. You walk away from me without looking back, intent on finding the most dangerous thing in the room on which to chew, impale yourself or feed to the dog. But there are always regular returns to home base. You'll get freaked out by something and run back to me with your mouth wide open in a giggle or a shriek and you'll close your eyes and thrust your arms forward, lunging for me. We'll hold each other for a sweet, fleeting, heart-exploding-into-flowers-and-puppies second and then you're off again. Just want to know that the comfort and support of my mom is right here when I need it. Just touching base.

Tomorrow, when I pick my parents up at the airport, I will mostly likely be recreating this scenario. Only this time I'm the daughter.

Love, Your Clueless But Hopeful Mama

Dispatch from Vermont #5: Today's tip

Dear Z,

When cramming your mouth full of strawberries, remember there's always room for storage on the table, your lap or, you know, THE BOWL.

Love, Your Clueless But Hopeful Mama

Dispatch from Vermont #4: Family.

Dear Z,

Some family we are born into. Sorry to say that you have no choice in this department. We're your parents for better or worse.

Other family you can choose. This is your "Aunt" K. She loves you and if this past week was any indication, you love her too.

She knows me very, very well. She and your "Uncle" P gave us so many gifts last week- their time and energy being the highest on a long list. I hope that you will know and love them for a very long time.

Now if we could just smush the two coasts of this country together.....

Love, Your Clueless But Hopeful Mama

Dispatch from Vermont #3: Doll stroller as toddler smack.

Dear Z,

I was under the impression that this doll stroller ("every girl's dream!" says the package) would be a great addition to our time here in Vermont. You love to push things and we're totally out of great creative ideas for what to play with around here.

Little did I know that it would turn you into a crazed, growling, whining psycho-baby. You must have it. But when you have it, it makes you crazy. You must push it. But when you push it, it gets stuck! Or falls down! Or runs into things! Oh the horror! Oh the injustice! Let's whine and cry when we have it and then SCREAM when it is taken away. Why? Why not!

Seriously. Do they make a Stroller's Anonymous? 'Cause girl, you are ADDICTED.

love,

Your Clueless But Hopeful Mama

What a difference five years make.

Dear Z,

Five years ago today, I was stressed out, blissed out and about to marry your father. What I remember most about that day is how much in love I was (am!) with your father and also how completely clueless I was about what was to come. Our deep partnership is more of everything- more challenging, more satisfying, more supportive, more exciting, more forgiving- than I could possibly have conceived of on that day five years ago. That day, we mostly ate a little food, danced till we literally dropped and smiled till our eyebrows ached. You, or the possibility of you, were the furthest thing from our minds.

Today, our lives revolve around you and the family we have created. Today, I am driving you and me from Vermont to Woods Hole Massachusetts so that we can all spend our fifth anniversary together. Today, I love you both enough to take on such an onerous drive when I hate driving, fear getting you off your schedule, and dread the many, many verses of "Old MacDonald" I will have to sing to keep down the whining that comes from your carseat at regular and increasingly intense intervals. Today, I love you both so much I struggle with a glutton's guilt that I don't deserve such bounty.

Love,

Your Clueless But Hopeful Mama

PS. (Happy Anniversary, Chic Geek)

Dispatch from Vermont #1: The queen and her courtiers.

Dear Z,

May you one day have another audience as rapt and adoring as this.

Love,

your Clueless But Hopeful Mama

Your daddy was a rock star.

Dear Z,

In the history of all the asinine things I've ever thought and said, one takes the cake. In my early 20s, I declared that I would like to have kids but I didn't really want a husband. I didn't glamorize single motherhood so much as doubt my desire for, and ability to sustain, a life-long marriage. But I had wanted to be a mother for as long as I could remember so I wasn't going to let my anger at the patriarchy (aka. my, cliched but true, fear of commitment) keep me from one day having a child or two. With a great group of friends and my parents to support me, I could certainly handle children without a doofus husband lurking around, right?

News flash --- I knew NOTHING.

It is ridiculous that I even thought those things. It is impossible to imagine doing this without him, because your Daddy is the person who keeps this whole thing running. He's the one who not only planted the seed (heh heh) but also tends to us both with the love and care that feel as essential as soil and water and air. Someday, when you are much older, I will tell you about the countless times he has talked me off the proverbial ledge. Perhaps his greatest, most loving fatherly gift to you is the way he loves and supports me.

And- wow!- how he loves you. What won't you remember when you are old enough to read this? He sings you silly, made up songs, where rhyming "girl" and "squirrel" is a common theme. When you were an infant, he used to use you to play air guitar, strumming your belly through your tight swaddle, making you giggle. He makes endless loops around the backyard with you, pushing your trike, telling you about the trees and grass and sky. This rational, practical, scientific man has wept with joy countless times since your birth just because he loves you.

"Dada" was your first word. People say that's because it's easier to say than "Mama" but I see the way you look at him when he walks into the room. Alas, I know the truth: I am the wallpaper (with boobs), Daddy is the rock star. You need me, but you adore him.

You look like him. You have his eyes, a strong starburst of brown in the center of a blue-green sea. I love watching your eyes twinkle when you smile and laugh, because every time you do, I see a reflection, a refraction, of him and I love you both all the more.

Love,

Your Clueless But Hopeful Mama

(ps. Happy Father's Day.)

Reading between the signs.

Dear Z,

Okay so maybe we've bought into one more fad. But for us, teaching you sign language isn't just a fad.

When I was a sophomore in college, I spent a summer at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC studying American Sign Language. I was always horrible at foreign languages and after 6 years of French in middle and high school, I still couldn't speak a word of it. I was too terrified to take the proficiency test to try to fulfill my college's foreign language requirement and too lazy to wake up at 8 am 5 days a week to take French 1 all over again. I was obviously missing the gene for foreign language acquisition. When I studied sign language in my psychology classes, I became convinced that this was the language for me. After all, I remember pretty much every dance I ever learned, including the ultra complex wriggle-around-the-stage water droplet dance from "the Sorcerer's Apprentice" when I was 5. Remembering movement has always come naturally to me.

My summer at Gallaudet was enlightening. Mostly I learned about Deaf culture and as one of a few hearing students living on a Deaf campus, I found myself understanding, for the first time, the challenges of being in a new culture with a new language. The ASL acquisition went well too and I fulfilled my language requirement.

When I read that parents were teaching babies sign language to help them communicate without screaming (No screaming? ME LIKEY.), we jumped on board. Starting at around 6 months, we would sign "eat" and then feed you. We would sign "all done" and pull you out of your high chair. You took awhile to catch on. But when you did, we were so excited and proud. "That's right, Zoe. It is a DOGgy!" we'd chirp and beam and pat each other on the back. "Yes, brilliant child, you are EATing!". You'd think you were expounding on the finer details of particle physics.

Unfortunately, now that your vocabulary is expanding, it is entirely unclear what you are trying to say.

Your versions of "shoe" and "more" look exactly alike. Perhaps this is a commentary on my meager shoe selection. "More shoes"? Hey honey, Z says I need more shoes!

Further confusing things, you sign "more" and "eat" indiscriminately. The concept of "more" seems entirely lost on you. If you are riding around on your trike and we ask "more?" you'll look around for the food. And sometimes the sign for "eat" seems to mean pacifier. or "I want that". or perhaps "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny".

Your signs for "light" and "milk" are identical. When you are in the kitchen and you rub your thumb over your fingertips ("miserly"?? "penny-pinching"????) we flick the lights on and off and then offer you milk. We are, in a word, clueless.

Your sign for "book" is my favorite right now. A simple opening and closing of the palms has been turned into this elaborate hand-jive. Too bad it also looks exactly like your sign for "fish".

Perhaps I should have taught you what little French is left rattling around in my brain. Oui? (Yup. That's pretty much it.)

Because here in Southern California, what could be a more useful second language than French?

Love,

Your Clueless But Hopeful Mama

PS. Did you not get the memo about no screaming?

Dancing queen.

Dear Z,

Be still my heart! You have started dancing! True, it is mostly a little bobbing of the knees and flapping of the arms but STILL!! Dancing!

Despite all my declarations thus far about how I will NOT push you to dance, will NOT enroll you in classes (unless you beg), will NOT buy you little ballerina dolls in the hopes of brainwashing you into a love of dance, I must confess I had a brief, fantasy flash of the future. You, in a frou-frou tutu, grand jeteing across a stage and me, in the audience, proudly clucking to my unlucky neighbors and clutching snot-soaked tissues to my wrinkly, sun damaged, sagging-and-yet-flat chest.

Don't worry, I'm not preparing for stage mother insanity just yet.

Love,

your Clueless But Hopeful Mama

Lesson of the day: conformity.

Dear Z,

That's right, we have officially bought into your very first fad.

In our defense, there appears to be a law here in L.A. that all children under the age of 10 must own at least one pair of these Crocs (tm).

Love,

your Clueless But Hopeful Mama

Thirst quencher.

Dear Z,

When Sweet Dog needs a drink, she can always go to her bowl in the laundry room.

I'm just saying....

Love,

your Clueless But Hopeful Mama