Potatoes in the Mist

This is one of my old dolls, wearing a jumpsuit crocheted by my late aunt. She made a lot of amazing outfits for my dolls, as well as afghans for the whole family. I'm reading Silver Girl by Elin Hilderbrand. Her books always taste like potato chips to me. She has another one coming out on June 25th. I can't wait.

I think some gender differences are innate. Eric was never very interested in clothes. Zoe brings me shorts and shoes daily. Her favorite shorts are pink with white polka dots. Her favorite shoes are pink Mary Janes with appliqued flowers on them. Her biggest disappointment is not being able to wear two pairs of shorts, or two pairs of shoes, at once.

So this blog will be eight years old in June. (They grow up so fast.) I got thinking about this because I looked up the yoga studio website where I got my teacher certification. It was a central part of my life when I started the blog - its teachers, its politics, its classes. Now I couldn't care less (about that studio). I do yoga at home and am busy with my two children. I wonder what changes the next eight years will bring.

Those little Table Talk pies you can get for 69 cents at Gristedes? Really good.

which she actually seems to love!

Today the organizer came. At first she came for free, because we won her services at an auction to benefit E's school, and then she started coming on a paid basis once a month or so. We have a walk-in closet near the front hall that was cluttered beyond belief, like an archaeological dig. Now you can actually walk into it and there are empty shelves! Yes. Today she did E's closet, which also looks beautiful. The non walk-in closets are a lot faster to clean. It looks like someone waved a magic wand over it. When she comes next, in late June, we will tackle one of the other three closets. (We do have a decent amount of closet space for New York.) If you do have the opportunity to hire an organizer, I recommend it.

A couple cute moments from yesterday. Eric walked up to me, beaming. "I look just like you!" he said, and then gave me a hug. Zoe was watching Funny Face (Fred Astaire/Audrey Hepburn musical) and was inspired to do a little dancing herself. She started twirling in little circles, then did a little moonwalk across the floor.

I finally caved and got Z a leash. It looks much better than it sounds. It's a little plush elephant backpack and the leash is the elephant's tail. She seems to love it. She did take a little spill while walking with it this morning, but the fall was unrelated to the leash. I figure it is just part of walking. I had really mixed feelings about getting it, but it was becoming necessary because she has learned to stand up in the stroller and climb out of it, even with the straps fastened. A few people commented on how cute she was, walking with it, so I guess it doesn't look barbaric.

So I do have strep. The doctor gave me some powerful form of penicillin that the "infectious disease people" recommend. It did start working right away. When I got to CVS, prepared for a long line, the pharmacist pulled me aside for a consult and told me, with a serious face, not to drink for the 2 weeks I am taking the meds, etc. I was a little startled because I know the pharmacist's name, he fills all our prescriptions as well as our in-laws', and I've never seen him looking so solemn. If I get strep again, I might have to get my tonsils taken out. I'm reading A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki (who also wrote My Year of Meats , which I didn't read), and Diana Gabaldon's Dragonfly in Amber (the second book in the Outlander series). I didn't really care for the first one, but this one is really pulling me in.

I'm pretty sure I have strep again. Yesterday, my throat started to hurt, and today I saw white spots on my tonsils. One of the glands in my neck is swollen. Grrr. I read somewhere about someone getting a penicillin shot and then they stopped getting strep over and over. Maybe that is more effective than the pills. I'm seeing the doctor tomorrow morning.

There is a girl in Eric's class whom all the boys like. They want to walk home with her and marry her. One of them is even talking about rings. One of the other moms asked Eric, who seems immune to her so far, "Who do you want to marry?" He thought about it and said, "I'm going to decide when I'm older." I'm knitting this : And got a springy pocketbook:

Reading a really good nonfiction book by Elinor Lipman - a collection of essays, most of them previously published, called I Can't Complain. One of the pieces appeared in the Boston Globe - an (erroneous) prediction of how Sex and the City would end, but she did neatly encapsulate the charm of the show - "a paper-moon land sans parents, inhibitions or comfortable shoes." She also described Aidan as a "hunky cabinetmaker," reminding me that he was my favorite of Carrie's boyfriends. Did anyone else find Big not appealing at all? Smarmy? Aidan was so sincere and genuine.

I'm sure I have talked about this before, but it keeps reaching new heights. E was a fairly cautious child; even at age 2, he was afraid to go down the "curly slide." Z immediately goes to the tallest, scariest curly slide and plunges right down. Until last night, D had an exercise bike in the living room and she would use it as a stepping stone to climb onto the windowsill. He moved the bike to E's room and shut the door. This morning, I saw her eyeing the windowsill - How can I get up there? After a few seconds, she pulled over one of the little green chairs from E's little blue table and used it to climb onto the windowsill. (She also, unfortunately, has long legs, so she can climb pretty much everything.) I don't really know what to do about fearless child syndrome. I try taking her to the playroom a lot, where the windows don't really have sills, but that gets boring after a while. I guess all I can do is hope that it will pass?

So this weekend I happened to be up near Columbia and saw this big concert going on. I had no idea who the performers were, but the students on the steps of the library were very excited to see them. So I asked E's babysitter (who goes to Barnard) who the band was. She said, "Oh yeah! Bacchanal!" I've never heard of them, have you? E is getting really into chapter books and I'm reading all these childhood favorites, like George's Marvelous Medicine and The Twits, with him. I like Roald Dahl's twisted sense of humor.

So I'm reading The Trail of the Spellmans . Very funny book about a snarky detective living in San Francisco. The series was supposed to end, and then the author decided to start it up again. There's a new one coming out soon. I'm currently hooked on old movies. Zoe loves to watch them with me. Basically anything with Cary Grant or Audrey Hepburn, or directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Almost any movie in those categories is good.

I remember when everyone said, "You'll forget the pain of childbirth." I never thought I would. But I have. I remember that it wasn't a picnic, but the sensation of pain has faded away.

So Zoe's "new" music class started today. It really just cycles on indefinitely, but every few months they say it's a new class, we pay a new fee, some new parents join and some others drop out. I found out that one of the kids is moving back to Australia. Two of the kids are named Heath and Walker, and a hipster dad showed up today, with a beard, horn-rimmed glasses and an anchor tattoo. Zoe no longer sits in my lap for the whole class. She moves around, dances, climbs on chairs and dances on them. Reading a new book called The Mothers by Jennifer Gilmore, about adoption. That topic has always held a strange fascination for me.

So it seems that Hillary Clinton may be running for President in 2016. I think it's about time to have a female President, but I don't think she will win. Too many people hate her. My brother's MIL, who is a staunch Republican, briefly registered as a Democrat so she could vote for Obama during the primaries (before Obama's first election). That was how much she didn't want Hillary to win. And I think a lot of people feel like that. I'd like to see Elizabeth Warren as a candidate. But I guess she has not been in the public eye long enough.

I saw on Amazon that a book is coming out about the Mary Tyler Moore show. Initially, network executives said that no one would want to watch a show about "men with mustaches," among other things. But of course the show was a success. This brought back memories for me of watching Mary Tyler Moore as a child. I was pretty young, so I don't remember much about it aside from how I spelled her name mentally. I had only ever heard her name pronounced with a Boston accent, so I thought it was Mary Tyla Moore.

So we've been getting a steady stream of rejection letters for our novel, some more encouraging than others. (One said it was really funny and spot-on, though the genre was out of her comfort zone.) I sent a few queries out yesterday and had a good feeling about one of the agents; she recently represented an interesting-looking author. Plus, she just seemed cool. Today there was a really nice email from her in my inbox, saying that our book looked really fun and she'd love to look at it. So keep your fingers crossed for us!