Dancing Brave

I don't want to know.

Between the two of us, I think that by the time our book comes out, Jessica and I will have had every anxiety dream known to man. But I have NO IDEA what the vivid little play that came to me last night is supposed to mean:

I was at a fashion show that took place in a very small room, with chairs in an L shape and only about three rows' worth. Blake Lively was there, and so was Madonna. Off to the left, across from my row of chairs, was another room that was supposed to be backstage, but Katy Perry was sitting in there on a desk, wearing a catsuit, relaxing as if waiting to go on but leaning back and spreading her legs in a scissor position. As if that's really fun. (Well, maybe it is. I don't know her life.) Then Lady Gaga arrived and ran over to say hi to Madonna, and they greeted each other by rubbing each other's elbows with their hands and purring. Gaga, so moved by this introduction, broke into spontaneous performance art that involved writing on the wall. Katy Perry said, "Dude, FUNKY." Then, of course, who should sit next to me but actor Miguel Ferrer (except in my dream he looked like a cross between Real Miguel Ferrer and John Waters), who introduced himself as if we'd met once before and said, "Tell Kevin HE MADE GOOD."

Kevin's response to this was, "Miguel Ferrer is wise." My response is more along the lines of WTF. Miguel Ferrer is George Clooney's cousin, though, so maybe it's...

I don't even know, and maybe it's best if I don't try.

The busy get busier

The first quarter of 2010 just will NOT QUIT.

It started with the Golden Globes, and Jessica and me getting handed a March 15 rough-draft deadline for our novel. That was a two-chapter-per-week pace, and with two of us, it was twice as much work -- write a chapter, trade, work on the new one, trade back -- rather than half. Then we trucked through the SAGs, the BAFTAs, the Grammys, Fashion Week, the birth of my sister's first baby in the middle of a blizzard (she made it to the hospital), two family-and-friend medical scares that both turned out fine, and the Oscars, only to get spit out on the doorstep of Fug Madness with the really horrible sudden death of Kevin's father.

The details aren't mine to share, but suffice it to say everything turned on its head and my husband didn't get a chance to grieve at first because there was too much to do, to organize, to look into, to try and understand. Kevin is handling it all really beautifully. I'm proud. His eulogy was wonderful, and that's saying something, because I suspect other than putting one foot in front of the other on that first scary day of our boys' lives, this was the hardest thing he's ever had to do.

Dylan and Liam, though, are the magic sauce. They bring us so much joy every day, and having them with us the weekend of the funeral made all the difference to Kevin. Liam just cracked the 18 lb. barrier, and he's pretty much mobile, although he hasn't figured out how to get his stomach off the floor and tuck his knees under there. He just drags himself around military-style. He warmed up to movement by learning to turn himself in circles with his elbows and then combine that with rolling over; it got him from A to B, but via F and G and a pit-stop at C. Then, whenever he saw something across the room he wanted to go for, he'd smack his palms on the floor and grin really wide, then throw his limbs in the air and balance on his tummy with this really FOCUSED expression on his face that said, "THIS IS GOING TO WORK THIS TIME I JUST KNOW IT." 

And when it wouldn't -- because, in fact, that is the EXACT OPPOSITE of what a child needs to do to crawl -- he'd giggle, and be all, "JUST KIDDING THAT WAS PRACTICE," and try again. He still does it sometimes, but now I think it's just a combination of habit and wanting to see how long he can balance that way.

Dylan can drag himself forward, too, but he does it less often. He's 14 lbs., 13.5 oz., and so he's not quite as strong even though he's more muscle than fat. He seemed to let Liam do all the hard work in terms of figuring out the physics of all this, then just watched and learned. I think it's going to be that way a lot. 

Not that Dylan isn't curious and impulsive all on his own...

 

... but he's not as heart-on-his-sleeve.

Liam is also getting into wanting whatever toy Dylan has, even if he's holding a version of it himself. He also seems to think he can barrel through or over Dylan, if need be, and has a pathological obsession with my iPhone. Or any iPhone. He can spot one from yards away and will haul himself to it with a quickness usually reserved for genuinely awesome things like laminated airline safety cards. Dylan likes the iPhone, too, but Liam really goes apeshit for it. If you want to see him move, put an iPhone across the room, and he's gone. Dylan is content to gnaw on my sneakers. You can imagine how delighted I was to catch him licking the sole of my Skechers Shape-Ups. It really is true that you just have to throw up your hands and assume this shit's not going to kill them.

Unless it's grass. If you judge by Dylan's reaction to being placed on the lawn for the first time, that stuff is BRUTAL and made of KNIVES that want to PIERCE HIM like a shish-kabob.

Liam didn't LOVE it either...

 

... but he was more willing to roll with it. Dylan was NOT HAVING IT. 

 
 

He flipped his tiny little shit, he did. We might as well have put him on the barbecue.

Next up: sand. Oh boy.

Boo

Liam is ALMOST THERE with the crawling. All he has to do is figure out how to tuck his knees under his bum, and the associated laws of propulsion. But when he sees something he can get to it without much hesitation. Case in point: the sneak attack.

Phase One complete

Well, we made it to Pittsburgh -- through two flights and a layover -- without too many bruises, and only one accidental pantsing.

Of course, we only got two hours of sleep before getting up at 3:45 a.m. to enable a 4:30 departure for LAX. But it is a surprising amount of work figuring out how many outfits the boys will need, might need, and should have; add burp cloths, toys, diapers, bottles, etc., and the timeless question of what to pack where and how to juggle it with our own stuff and car seats and strollers NEVER quite gets answered.

It turns out Dylan, by far the less committed napper of the two, inherited Kevin's ability to fall asleep before takeoff simply due to the plane's white noise. Kevin had him at that point, so he put him in the Baby Bjorn facing his chest, and D slept for four hours. Liam was a but more restless, but he snoozed in snippets and passed out during the landing. He also flirted with every man and woman who waited in line for the bathroom (we were in the last row, and while I usually loathe that, in this case it was a dream; with kids I recommend it).

On our second flight, Liam discovered the flight safety card, and that was IT. He was in love. I guess he likes his stories to invoke worst-case scenario scenes depicted with cheery cartoons. Kevin would brandish it, and Liam's whole face lit up and he'd go into this wide-mouthed laughing/panting hybrid. In one of the photos here, you can see the look of desperate sadness in his eyes when Kevin tried to take it away from him because we didn't want him to eat it. He obviously thinks we are crazy, because laminated cards are DELICIOUS MOM YOU HAVE NO VISION.

Everything Liam does or says is, to me, in unpunctuated all-caps.

Beans On A Plane

So, I have longer entries in my head -- stuff about how Liam tries to fly like Superman, and Dylan keeps trying to take up residence under the armchair in their play space -- but I'm pressing pause on those temporarily in favor of soliciting advice.

Our first plane trip with the dudes was supposed to be in June, but now we appear to be making an unexpected trip out east as soon as next week. Does anyone have tips on managing babies and planes and feeding and luggage and such?

Details: They eat solids once a day, though I am soon upping it to two; can't decide whether to do that before we go. We usually give them a bottle about 30 mins after their solid-food meal. Otherwise, it's still formula every 3-4 hours.

And we will likely buy three seats: one for me, one for Kevin, and one for a bean in an infant carrier; the other will be in one if our laps.

Any ideas on making this easier would be so appreciated. It's hard not to be intimidated by our first en masse traveling experience and all the attendant hoo-ha.

Anxiety About Having No Separation Anxiety

Am I a bad parent if I didn't pine for my boys every second that I was at Fashion Week?

For ages before we left for New York, my main concern was that Liam and Dylan would be confused in my absence, wondering where that lady with the long hair had gone, and whether she had ditched out on them for good. But everybody kept telling me that I should worry less about them and more about myself, because it was going to be really hard for me, and I should prepare myself for that. And after I got back, that's what most people asked me: "Were you okay? Was it so hard? Weren't you just dying?"

But I wasn't. And it wasn't hard. I was totally okay. Part of me feels like I should have an apology ready, an explanation for why am not afflicted with crippling inability to be away from my children. Because there's this feeling, this attitude, that it's not supposed to be okay to be comfortable leaving for a while. People question that you're going, and announce they could never do it. Not for so long. No way. And the excuses bubble up to my lips as if they pressed a button on a water fountain and I have no choice but to spew rationales.

The truth is, I don't think it means I am a cold fish, or a bad parent. I adore my kids. They are fun and funny and adorable and I want to hug them all the time. In fact, I do hug them all the time. I can't not kiss their little heads and pretend to eat their feet and stroke their hair. And I talk about them a lot, probably too much, because I think everything they do is hilarious. But for whatever reason, it didn't send me into spasms of agony to go to New York. Maybe it's because I knew they were absolutely fine here, with Maria and Kevin and Kevin's mother looking after them, and not as if I were leaving them in a shoebox in the living room and hoping they were still there when I got back. This is not to say that I have a problem with people who DO miss their kids too much to leave for any period of time; just that I guess I'm not wired that way. Maybe it's because I have a hard time even making JOKES about leaving them behind places (that shoebox comment up there? Totally hard to type). Like, sometimes, while we're packing the car or collecting all our crap at a restaurant, I'll grab one car seat and then say to the other boy, "OK, have fun, see you later," like we're going to leave. And then I look down at his little face, which is looking up at mine with such trust, and I have to say, "JUST KIDDING WE WOULD NEVER DITCH YOU," even though I know he doesn't understand what my dumb joke was in the first place. Because the idea of leaving him lost and confused and crying -- which some assholes DO to their little babies -- breaks me up so much that I can't even handle being facetious about it. 

So, you know, perhaps my awareness of how poorly I handle joshing about that kind of thing means that it's easier for me to go away on business, knowing I am leaving them in safe hands. It feels like no big deal. I remember the first time Kevin and I went out to dinner and left the babies with my parents. People were astonished that we never once called home to check on them. But why would we? They were fine -- if my parents aren't trustworthy, who is? -- and if anything happened, we'd hear about it. So we just allowed ourselves to relax and be who we are and enjoy the night. 

That's kind of how New York was. Being away didn't make me want to cry or run home or spend all day looking at pictures of them or count down the days until I could fly back to L.A. Did I enjoy hearing about how they were doing? Yes. Did I love it when Kevin remembered to send me a picture? Totally! Did I think about how fun it would be to scoop them up when I got home? Of course. But doing our thing at Fashion Week, hopscotching New York and catching up with people we only see twice a year and filing stories and eating bagels and falafel and sitting up at the second floor of the Zeytinz food market next to Bryant Park, looking out at the snow and the limos... I NEEDED that. So much of my life is consumed with Mom Duties that I liked having a nine-day vacation from it, in which the other half of who I am got to roam free. It wasn't that I was glad to leave, so much as I saw the value in relaxing and enjoying it.

And when I came home, and they smiled at me and kept wanting to see me that first weekend, it felt great. Not awful, or angsty. Just snuffly and right.

If Only All Tests Involved Playtime

Last Thursday, the boys had their developmental appointment at the High-Risk Infant Clinic, which is run by the nurse practitioner who is a big dog at the Providence St. Joe's NICU, and this gets all the referrals from the hospital. The purpose of it is to make sure the hospital's preemies are catching up to their age group in the important ways, or at the very least not lagging in really critical ones. 

We'd been nervous because of how small Dylan is. He SEEMS alert and bright and curious, and he's kept pace with Liam more or less, but there's always the fear that medical professionals are going to be like, MY GOD, WOMAN, FEED THIS CHILD. And then I'd have to tear my hair out and wave it in their faces and scream WE ARE TRYING, YOU DON'T KNOW MY LIFE, and then go wig shopping.

The first session is playtime on a floor mat with the two physical therapists. For reasons I don't entirely understand, they had us strip the boys down to their diapers for this, even though the medical evaluation wasn't until later, and of COURSE the room was cold. Our guys were fine, but it seems weird to me. I get that this is about how they engage with their environs; still, the strangeness of the room and the faces and the toys ought to be enough of a test, without also making them play pantsless and shirtless. I don't want these guys to get any ideas about stripping off their clothes in order to have fun -- not before they're at least 30.

Anyway, the boys were lain down on the mat and the therapist held a rattle over their faces. They're supposed to grab at it. At home, Liam and Dylan grab at everything. Here, Liam just spread-eagled on the mat and gazed at the ceiling, all, "AHHHHH." Like he was sunbathing. He could have cared less about the rattle. At this point Kevin and I were like, um, he totally grabs stuff at home. Dylan, meanwhile, took a swipe for it right away. And then tried to put it in his mouth. Point for the little guy. 

Then we sat up the boys and positioned ourselves behind them(they did this individually) and were told only to offer a supportive hand to avoid them tipping over, but not to clasp them around the midriff. They then brought a little desk up to them, the kind that fits right up against them and extends back behind them to the left and right, so they can lean their arms on the table. Liam was totally on board with this; Dylan, a little confused. She introduced three red blocks, one at a time, presumably to see if their curiosity made them ditch the old in favor of the new (but I'm not sure). Liam kind of wanted all of them, and Dylan.. started crying. Then SOBBING. He was MISERABLE. I think it's because, even though we do sit him up, we usually brace him better and he's still not super comfortable like that, so it was a melting pot of crazy. He also is the one who, when he gets the least bit unsettled, suddenly goes from zero to WTF in about two seconds. It's rare but it happens. And on this day he was wiggy. So Kevin picked him up, patted him, got a burp out, then triumphantly sat him down again. 

No dice. So they cuddled, he calmed down, and we tried a third time. The next tests: a bell (they both followed the sound; Liam tried to eat it, Dylan looked at it like it wanted to eat his liver), a small clear glass bottle (presumably to test if they can see it despite its lack of color), and a tiny pink pellet, which is supposed to discern whether they can make out objects that small. Liam reached out his hand and plopped it right on the pellet like a giant squashing a bug. Dylan acted like nothing had happened, and I don't know if it was residual wigged-out-ness, or just that he didn't know it was there. But the Koosh ball, oh, the Koosh ball. Both of them WANTED THAT THING. The therapist was like, "Hmm, most babies are freaked out by the texture," but no. Mine wanted it in their mouths immediately. Liam's face said, "This tastes terrible, but perhaps if I keep eating it, it will taste better... not yet... not yet... not yet..." Kind of like banging your head against a wall to see when it stops hurting. Dylan chomped away without revealing his thoughts. 

So the little guy spazzed, and the big guy chilled. While we waited to see Debbie, the nurse, they got weighed (Dylan: 12 lbs, 12 oz; Liam, 16 lbs, 6 oz) and measured (Dylan, 25.5 inches; Liam, 28 inches, although I think that might've erred on the long side) and generally flirted like crazy with the lady nurse doing the work. Then Debbie came in and they pulled her hair and tugged at her chin and gazed into her eyes and said something along the lines of, "Come here often?" before inviting her to dinner. She checked them out and seemed delighted with how they looked -- references were made to Dylan being skinny, but nobody seemed concerned, just... observational -- and said they passed the therapy tests with "flying colors." 

Well. THAT was a relief. In truth, they are grabby and interested and rolling all over the place and acting annoyed that they can't crawl, and all of that good stuff. So we suspected, even hoped, that everything would come out fine. And I guess it did.

Our project is to get their torsos stronger; they're a bit behind on that, but Debbie said it was in all the ways they expected. So we have to sit them with the Boppy breastfeeding pillow wrapped around them, supporting only their lower backs, thus forcing the torso to adapt. Dylan is so skinny that he doesn't really fit it too well, but we can improvise. I hope it helps. I'm VERY proud of how far the little guys have come. Here's hoping they'll do as well in June at the next appointment. I can't believe it's already almost February. They're seven months old and counting. 

The OTHER ticking clock is how much time we have in this wonderful period in which they're noticing the world and smiling at us all the time, excited by everything, yet unable to move themselves in any way except by wriggling and rolling and accidentally shifting around from A to C to F to B. Once these guys have their wheels on, forget it.

[Liam] 

 

Time To Check Angie's List

This is what four days of unusually hard L.A. rain has done to one of our walls:

 

The water is collecting in that bottom bubble. 

Home-ownership is, at times, deeply overrated.

So Sweet

This morning, I stretched out on my back on the carpet for a quick breather while Kevin bounced Liam on his knee. But he had to go to work, so just for giggles, he put Liam tummy-down on my stomach. 

Liam pushed up with his arms, looked around, looked down at my face, and cocked his head with what appeared to be curiosity.

"What are you thinking, Liam?" I asked. "What's your opinion of the view?"

He scrunched his lips, then curled them. 

"Ugh," he said.

Intro to Kale

What a gorgeous day in Los Angeles: gray, rainy, the kind where you turn on your interior lights to add a glow of warmth to an otherwise dreary afternoon. My "gorgeous" compliment was sincere; to me, that IS an awesome day of weather. I'll change my tune if people's homes start washing down the hill, but right now, I'm loving a whiff of seasons.

We're also starting to feed the boys pureed sweet potato, which feels so cozy on a drizzly day. My mother hates sweet potatoes, and until I was an adult, I thought I did too -- because I'd never had one. Funny how influenced we are by our parents' tastes, maybe even more so than we realize. My Dad doesn't give them the time of day, my mother hates then; thus, I assumed they were Bad Food. Kind of like how brand loyalty often starts with what your parents use. If your Mom buys Crest, you're probably going to grow up thinking Crest is the best. Take that a step further and it becomes, "Nice try, COLGATE, but I SEE RIGHT THROUGH YOU." Or, "GET YOUR DEMON WASHING POWDER OUT OF MY FACE, TIDE, YOU MONSTER. I USE CHEER BECAUSE IT'S MADE OF ANGEL WINGS." 

So of course I'd never had a sweet  potato. I just assumed my mother and father knew everything, and that their life learnings had taught them that sweet potatoes were sick and wrong. Why let all their experience go to waste by allowing one to cross the threshold of my teeth? The idea sounded so awful. A SWEET potato? Ew. Potatoes were perfect as they were. 

Culinary curiosity never got the best of me until I tasted some sweet-potato fries, and then mash that had brown sugar stirred in, and that was all it took to convert me. Now I'll have them baked, roasted, whatever. And so far the dudes have responded really well to the new flavor in their tiny repertoire. Just wait until they discover the glories of what deep-frying does to food. Maybe when they're older and refusing to eat, I'll deep-fry everything at first, as a way of backing it into their hearts. That's a completely flawless, fantastic plan, right? Yeah. 

The other night we made the yummiest vegetable side dish that I think we'll do again tonight, because it's perfect for this kind of bipolar Los Angeles weather. It was kale and sweet potatoes, with both lemon hints (evoking warm weather) and spices I associate with the cold. Kale is a green I've not experimented with before, because I tend not to like stuff one might describe as "wilted" when it hits the plate. But I saw this recipe in People as part of a quick feature on White House Chef Sam Kass and thought it sounded like a great gateway to a new veg. Of course, I threw out the magazine, so I had to surf the Web for a transcription of the recipe, and naturally a couple people had slightly different takes on it, but here's what it is more or less:

2 large sweet potatoes

2 bunches of kale, collard greens, or swiss chard (I used one bunch of kale)

2 cloves of garlic

1 T honey

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp cloves

juice of half a lemon

salt and pepper

1/4 cup olive oil or vegetable oil, split

1) Peel the sweet potatoes and chop them into bite-sized pieces. I cut them into rounds of moderate thickness and then quartered them.

2) Heat oil in a pan over medium heat and then add the potatoes, sauteeing (and stirring/flipping every so often) until all sides are browned and soft (about 12-15 minutes). The original recipe said to use about 1/8 cup of oil for this but I just eyeballed it because I didn't want to use that much. 

3) While the potatoes cook, wash (but don't dry) the kale and trim off the stems. The recipe also says to cut out the "boning," which I just took to mean the part of the stem that goes all the way up through the leaf. Then chop the kale loosely into smaller pieces. I washed the kale and removed the stems beforehand, because I wanted to watch the potatoes cook; I chopped it with an eye on the stove.

4) When the potatoes are done, put them in a bowl and toss them with the cloves, cinnamon, and salt and pepper (to taste). 

5) Heat another 1/8 cup of oil (again, I preferred to eyeball it and use a bit less) over medium heat, add the garlic, and cook it for a minute before adding the kale. Saute that, stirring frequently, until tender -- this took me about two minutes, but I really feel like it's down to whatever your personal tastes are for the tenderness of your greens. It's very quick, basically.

6) Add the kale to the potatoes -- or vice versa -- and then add the honey and the lemon juice. Toss and serve.

This recipe makes quite a bit, even with the reduced amount of kale. But I loved the colors and the aroma and the tart lemon combined with the wintry cloves and cinnamon. Now, it might just be that I didn't get everything evenly distributed when I tossed it, but I did find that the lemon and the cloves were dominant tastes. Which I don't mind. But if you are more cautious with those, I'd say start with a bit less of each ingredient, with the idea that you can add a bit more if you want more intense flavors.

It was REALLY tasty, though, and a very positive first experience with kale. It's hard to say what the kale's own flavor is, since there were enough other embellishments in this dish, but that's not all bad to me. Whatever tricks my palate into letting a vegetable in, you know?