This Metatarsal

My daughter is the Pied Piper of nudity. After thirty minutes in her presence even the most gently nurtured of children will find themselves trying to explain to bewildered parents what happened to their pants: "Well, Caroline said... ."

We had friends to dinner on Saturday night and the mystery of Lucy's leggings may never be solved. Caroline explained that she put her BFF's clothes in the dryer (isn't she helpful) but this story has yet to be corroborated by any evidence (like the finding of the leggings. in the dryer.)

And poor Edward, all pink and sturdy, keeps emerging from the basement with, "Mommy! I'm COHD!"

I say, "Of course you're cold; you're naked. What happened to your clothes, Edward?"

And he tries to crawl under my shirt as he explains, "Well, Cayayine said... ."

Every night I tuck in a pajama-wearing Caroline only to find her au naturel hours later, curled under the blankets with her pajamas hanging from the lamp. Now that she no longer requires a diaper this does not presage the laundry disaster it once did but it makes me cold just to look at her. And I hate being cold, so although I also hate trying to cram a sleeping child into footie pajamas (it's like trying to put the breakfast sausage back into the casing) I have dutifully done so every night for weeks and weeks. 

Recently it occurred to me that this maternal solicitude might actually be doing her a disservice. I mean Caroline (despite her older brother's dire predictions to the contrary) is no dummy dope. She can get herself dressed and undressed with firefighter speed and since she is almost too in touch with her own feelings

(Caroline: I was worried that Edward was going to take my butterfly wings and then I ran but he ran too and then he tried to take them and I said no Edward Swiper no swiping but he did and then I was mad and I knew I had to bam him but I did and now *fake sob fake sob* I feel so so sorry. But I will bam him again)

can't we assume that perhaps she takes off her clothes because she likes to sleep without any pajamas? Steve after all... well. He also shoves the electric blanket all the way over to my side of the bed and sleeps with his feet hanging out from his side of the special duvet we got that snaps in the middle and allows you to have two different levels of warmth: Normal Minnesota Weight and Steve.

So I have been fighting my instincts to get her dressed again at night and now I just cover her with four blankets. When she comes down in the morning she is back in her pajamas so... I think she's ok. She also has some great career options ahead of her. I hear burlesque is making a comeback and someone, somewhere, is always casting for productions of Equus. Or Hair.

And to continue this theme (not Nudity. the theme is One Should Try to not... oh what's the word? Transfer? Convey? damn it, it's eluding me... Project! onto One's Children) I feel kinda guilty because I inadvertently discovered that Caroline is shockingly good at puzzles but it had never in a million years occurred to me to give her one. She just never struck me as a sit-down-and-do-a-nice-puzzle type but Patrick brought some of his old toys up for the twinkles and Caroline was enchanted with them. She did three Melissa & Doug puzzles one after the other

and then the next day she dumped all the pieces together and did three at once

Oooh hey, maybe she'll be a naked brain surgeon! Or a naked architect, a naked air traffic controller, a naked particle physicist... good spatial skills are useful in so many fields.

I pointed out to Steve the speed with which Caroline was putting together simultaneous puzzles and he said, "Well, she'll certainly be able to parallel park." Then he ran because those are fightin' words.

He thinks he's so witty - making fun of my limitations - but lots of people cannot parallel park. In fact I'll bet if I backed my car into nine people in the Target parking lot at least seven of them wouldn't be able to parallel park either. So there.

+

Edward - like his brother and sister before him - was a little hesitant to use the toilet for all his toilet needs and - again like his brother and his sister - required something in the nature of a bribe at those critical moments of resistance to get him past the NO.

"Edward," I said in a manly, straightforward fashion that well became me, "you sit there and poop in that potty and I will drive you to Target to pick out a special present."

Although that might sound to you (and Edward) like I meant I would drive him right that minute I meant it more like.... keep it up and there will be a reward at some as yet unspecified time in the future.

This has been going on for a couple of weeks and it has worked in stages until Edward finally seemed on-board enough with the program that I decided yesterday we'd achieved success. Mission Accomplished. Special present acquisition team, ho! 

I was helping Edward get on his shoes and he said, "I go in the potty, Cayayine, so we're driving in the silver car to Target to get a special present!"

Caroline looked at me, like, ET TU BRUTE, and said, "I go to the bathroom all the time. And I haven't gotten a chocolate chip in... since more than yesterday."

I said, "Yes yes, fine. You too. We are all going to Target and you can both pick out one big kid special present for giving up diapers

("Edward wears a diaper at night," said Little Miss Viper-Tongue) 

for giving up diapers except at night and for being such a big boy and a big girl. I'm so proud of both of you."

I drove and they sang and then Caroline started talking about what her special present would be. She thought she might like her own car and I said I would see her in hell first (translate that into preschool: something like "Silly girl! Only mommies and daddies and responsible teenagers who have never climbed out of windows and who can pay for their own car insurance get to drive cars!")

Edward said, "I know my special present. I know what I getting!"

And Caroline and I said, "What, Edward?"

And Edward smiled beatifically and said, "I going to Target and I buying... a pacifier!"

D'oh!

[He got a dragon racetrack thing and he slept with it. Caroline picked out a Barbie. A FAIRY Barbie with a molded plastic corset, arms that stick straight up over her head and the most improbable fuckme heels since whatever designer it was tried to break all those ankles with en pointe shoes at Fashion Week. I would worry about what this doll might do to my pumpkin's budding feminism: but 1) I loved me some Barbie back in the day and Aphra Behn and I are like this; and 2) Barbie hadn't been in our house more than 30 minutes before Caroline had stuffed her headfirst into the mouth of Edward's dragon. I haven't seen her since.]

Edward. My sweet - only rarely and then developmentally appropriately psycho - Edward. He reminds me of a more balanced Patrick at this age. Like a young Patrick he digs letters and words and numbers and he understands how they work together. He can recognize some simple words like "big" and "go" and "car." He always wants to know how to spell everything, so a request for him to drink his milk can take five minutes: what does "drink" start with? what does "milk" start with? then what? He can count to 100 and he can add numbers as long as you don't go all crazy and ask about anything higher than five. When the woman at the carpet store asked him what his favorite color was yesterday he tapped his chin thoughtfully with one plump finger and said, "Ummmmmm, I yike... grey. A niceth grey."

He's incredibly good at throwing balls and dribbling them with his feet. He plays elaborate games with his cars and his trains and they always make sense, like, his cars are having a big race or the trains are trying to deliver balls to the airport. Caroline never plays like that and Patrick didn't either so I find it endlessly entertaining to listen to the conversations he creates. My mother observed that in a lot of ways he seems to be the baby of the family and I think that is true. He does things at his own pace and the fact that Caroline moved out of a crib or stopped using a bottle or diapers didn't faze him in the slightest. He was like oh how nice for her; now change my diaper, put me in my crib and I'll be seeing you at 4 am for my bottle of milk. Not now you understand, then - he just doesn't give things up until he's ready.

- someone in my comments last summer suggested that the reason I was depressed was because I had failed to sleep train my children and I live in the middle of nowhere. I was amused at the time and now that Celexa has helped to curb my crippling anxiety I am even more amused. I think I was depressed because I never left the house and I never left the house because I thought that monsters would eat my babies. Getting up with them because they were crying in the middle of the night? Not that big of a deal. And I like the woods. And believe your choices are the only valid choices much? -

Celexa. While we are on the subject, I suppose.

By last Fall my anxiety had gotten completely out of hand and I was making everyone miserable. The lightbulb moments for me (sorry if I told you this before; I don't remember) were two-fold. The first was when I asked Patrick to plug in the sewing machine and he looked at me in total horror. He sincerely believed (at eight years old) that putting a plug into an electrical outlet would kill him. The second was when I realized that Caroline kept saying everything (and I mean everything. like Cheerios and the hair brush) was dangerous. 

To be fair to myself and the extent to which I broke him, I do think that Patrick has a naturally cautious temperment. That said, it did not help him develop appropriate perceptions when I had spent his entire life freaking out about dangers; real imagined and always exaggerated. To this day he refuses to walk from one side of the produce section to the other if I do not come with him. My belief that he needed to be within arms reach at all time registered loud and clear and I feel terrible about that. But... we're working on it and I think that the fact that I feel so much better is making him feel better. Just the other day I convinced him to walk all the way to the bathroom by himself at the library and... nothing bad happened. Go figure.

So Patrick was afraid I was trying to electrocute him and Caroline - who does not have a drop of fear in her entire body - was going around talking about how dangerous things were. It horrified me. I know it's all very Mrs Lovejoy but I suddenly heard myself through the wee mouths of whatsits and I sounded like a looney. Worse, I was making a timid child more timid and I was on course to wreck an amazing, courageous spitfire spirit. Not that Caroline doesn't need some major boundaries, just that she doesn't need someone telling her she cannot do something simply because it scares ME. I mean, seriously, there is no reason why Caroline cannot be a naked roofer if she wants to be. Sure she needs to be older than two when she goes out there again but if she wants to walk the naked high wire it doesn't matter that I have a fear of falling. 

So I knew these things but I still couldn't get past my visceral responses to the contrary (in much the same way you can assure me that the snakes in the pit into which I am being lowered are all non-poisonous but I will still die from the mortal heebie-jeebies) and I wanted to change. So that is when I took Steve with me to the doctor and got a prescription for anti-anxiety meds.

To recap I started on Paxil and I took it for a month during which time I was sleeping 18 hours a day. I asked for something that might enable me to stay awake long enough to enjoy all that new anxiety-free time  and I got Celexa, which I have now been on for about six months. At first it was AWESOME. Like... I have never felt that good in my entire life, felt like a pop song, wanted to have sex all the time, AWESOME. Apparently that was a side effect - a really really nice side effect - appropriately called euphoria and it wore off after about two months. Then I was like, well, this sucks. Where are my rainbow marshmallow unicorns? But gradually I noticed that I am, just, better. Calmer. Able to take children to the indoor playground without having honest-to-god panic attacks about the climbing and the falling. And I noticed that I am making new friends and seeing old ones more. It felt totally normal to suggest meeting a local blog reader; to have people to dinner more often; to send out a mass email saying we had a babysitter and were going to a wine bar, did anyone want to meet us there? It's not the sugar-high I was on in the beginning but it feels pretty great. 

And if this were a real Celexa advertisement I would now show you baffling images of butterflies in meadows and people running on a beach and puppies frolicking and snowflakes glistening and I would race through a list of potential side effects that would make your blood run cold. But it's not so I get to just tell you I like it.

PS I picked Caroline up from preschool today and her teacher said, "Does Caroline know Spanish? We did Spanish today and she was just amazing."

I modestly admitted that it is true. Caroline is fluent in Dora and she can totally get by in Diego. Recently she has expressed interest in doing an exchange program to Kai-Lan so we expect she'll be picking up Chinese too. 

As we left the class she waved and shouted, "Goodbye! Goodbye friends! Good luck! Adios! ADIOS!"

She is such a fraud.     

Comments

[Lora]

I have to say, I started Welbutrin last fall and felt the same way you did about Celexa. A couple months of feeling invincible and then...huh. Well, that was a letdown. But when I really thought about it, I was so much better. More even-keeled. Less likely to go on a screaming rampage because my son was .01 seconds late getting out the door in the morning. I finally feel like myself again. Yay for pharmaceuticals!

[QoB]

I love LOVE LOVE Caroline, and I will bam anyone who says different.

[Melina]

I'm missing my drugs listening to you talk about yours....

[Clarity]

Toldja the sparkly pink unicorns would wear off eventually, lol. Glad you're still keeping the rabid brain-eating worry-rats at bay though. Better living through pharmaceuticals, hurray!

I was writing some clever comment about being the proud parent of a budding nudist myself but I totally lost that train of thought when my son's naked butt just streaked by me. I consider it a success when he at least keeps his boxers on, and if he spent an entire playdate in nothing BUT his boxers last week well it's better than the alternative!

[VHMPrincess]

you are so FUNNY I can't stand it!

[victoria]

to file under TMI - I HATE wearing pajamas, and always have....they make me feel all claustrophobic and stuck, and sweaty and ugh!!! So good for you for letting her sleep without them.....she'll make sure she's warm enough!!

[babelbabe]

you make me howl with laughter. and i am glad you feel better. that is all. also, if I ever travel to the middle of nowhere, will you meet ME? ENVIOUS.

whoops, that wasn't all - Caroline slays me. routinely. "I knew I had to bam him..." hahahahaaaa!!!!!

[Doug]

I think they're making Little Keeper Sleepers up to 6T now.

[Cat]

You kind of make me wish I had anxiety issues just so I could experience the euphoria.

[Susan]

She is twelve-and-a-half hoots, is what she is. "and I would bam him again ..."

[Susan]

Also, oh bite me, Steve. I am freakishly good at puzzles and I refuse to parallel park on the grounds of not wanting to pay for a new paint job, mine or his or hers or, once, the building's ...

[SarahB]

The pacifer! The fuckme heels! Rolling with laughter here.

[amanda]

Love and adore you all SO much.

Am THRILLED that you have found the right medication and dosage. It changes everything, doesn't it?

My niece will be 3 in April. Reading your blog made me realize a long time ago (like, last year) that she has a speech delay. She cannot be understood by any stranger. Mayyyybe 5%. My husband can't understand her words at all. Even her parents and grandparents can't understand her all the time. She doesn't use the letter s. Wing for swing, tink for stink, tuck for stuck, wink for drink, etc etc.

I finally got the nerve to mention it to her parents, who are having difficulties on their own. It didn't go over well. I was rebuffed. So now I am just hoping she grows out of it quickly. Ugh.

Anyway, reading your transcripts of twin dialog got me thinking of it.

Speaking of twins... Ollie's little brother and sister will be ONE YEAR OLD next month. There are enormous party plans afoot, including the arrival of one grandparents that has been too sick to travel and meet them... ever.

[Kate (Bee In The Bonnet)]

You make me think more and more about medication. I could do with a little euphoria. I think last night as I was falling asleep and I was freaking out because I had a slight cramp in my calf and was fully convinced that I wasn't going to wake up and my twins were going to grow up without a mother, replaying a friend's comment about one of her friends, that she could've survived the pulmonary embolism, if only she hadn't been asleep when it happened, over and over and over again, I kinda thought that maybe I might consider getting some help with that.

Of course, your Caroline stories do some great work toward a general perk-up. Thank you.

[Jen]

Yours is the only blog I can read aloud and have the 47 yo husband, the 17 year old son and the 8 year old son actually listen and be amused. Now, that's some fancy pants writing!

I love the description of Edward's lack of concern to keep up with Caroline's latest skills. It's so my oldest (who's going to be 20). He was cautious and generally cheerful and if someone else wanted to do something like potty train, well, that was certainly their perogative, but it had nothing to do with him. And he'd have wanted a binky too. He still remembers the unholy love he had for them.

[Jen]

I did bleep the shoe description for the sake of the 8 yo. ;-D

[Anjali]

I have 5 yr old twins (boy/girl) and their twin dynamic is pretty much like yours. I was laughing loudly at "Ms. Viper-Mouth" since it rings so true here.
Have been a reader for years. Absolutely love reading it.

[Sara Neyer]

Please tell me more about this magical marriage saving duvet that snaps in the middle. Where does one locate such a thing?

[ksmaybe]

I too love Caroline....but am glad she's yours not mine :) Ms. Viper-Mouth :) She's awesome. I also think Edward and Patrick are pretty dang cool too, in much more book-ish, me, kind of way. Caroline is everything I wish I had been as a child. And somehow, what I fear my daughter might be. I'll be locking windows as soon as she's out of a crib.....

[Kate Buker]

Dearest Julia,

I love you madly. I (that's a bolded or italicized I but I don't know how to do that in this comment text box) do not want you to write a book. People who urge you to write a book have not thought this through. We all want you to keep writing frequent blog posts. I know that if you take to book writing it will necessarily reduce your blogging, and we all (but especially me me me) will be deprived of tremendous pleasure administered in regular doses doing us so very much good. The eventual book will not make up for it. I will pre-order the book from Amazon and it will come by special owl the minute it's released and I will sit right down and devour it and then it will be all over and there won't be another one for at least a year even if you really take to it and keep them coming. I do not want to trade that for even one installment of The Continuing Saga of Hippogriff Family Adventures. So there.

Like I said. Love, love, love every word, every photo, every post.

Kate, harmless but devoted and grateful fangirl

[Jackie]

Loved this post, and that little Viper-tounged girl you have :)

[bethany actually]

A niceth gray...Edward slays me. :-) I'm so glad to hear you're feeling more or less normal, though! I wish I were a local blog reader so we could meet up. I bet Annalie could give Caroline a run for her money and it would be highly entertaining to watch.

[Robyn]

Can I just hug you? *HUG* There. Thanks for posting, you lovely woman. Love it! Thank you for sharing with us!

[JP]

Oh, how I love to read your writings! So glad that you are feeling better.

[Trista]

My kid is crazy for Dora, so your references make me snicker - we often hear her counting in Spanish. Sje also loves Kai-Lan, it's a pretty adorable show. The only drawback is that the formula of the show - a character misbehaves and the group of friends works together to show the appropriate response to the situation that led to the initial problematic behavior - often totally backfires. The only thing my daughter learned from Ho-Ho the monkey kicking one of his friends was how to land a well-aimed kick. "Use your words" indeed.

[Chris]

I.can.not.parallel.park. There, I said it! I have been driving for 24 years and I will never be able to parallel park.

[Angie]

Oh PLEASE!!! I sleep trained my almost 2 year old AND I live in the middle of city (southeast corner of that crazy redheaded-step child state right next door -- you know, the one with the cows?) and I now take Zoloft. So, that "theory" is crap.

I heart you and every time I read you, it makes me wish that I still lived in your neck of the woods and could come hang out with you. :)

[jen]

You know, I hate to alarm you, but I think you have managed to produce two more super genius kids. There are also charming and beautiful. I'm glad the celexa is working - I think I may need to go that route again.

[Cris]

The perfect end to a very busy (three schools, two airports, one medical appointment, and the job downtown) day. Thank you for writing and being so charming. And Kate, I'm a book writing urger, but you have a good point. A very good point.

Aphra Behn!

[Shana in Texas]

Caroline - naked ruler if the world obviously. I foresee world peace on her watch.

Edward makes me swoon with his niceth grey and that face!

[Sharon]

OMG, best laugh I've had in months. I don't think month's ago you could've EVER pictured yourself making a joke of Caroline's (truly terrifying) roofing escapade. SO glad you're feeling better. SO GLAD to read about your hilarious kids. I really love reading your blog, and I've been reading for a long time. I figure as a blogger it probably never gets old to hear that you're funny, entertaining and witty, so there you go :-).

[Sharon]

Oh, dear Lord - I can't let that grammatical slip go by... months, not month's. See, your wit and grammatically correct posts even intimidate me a little ;-)!

[Jacqui]

I have a 5 year old nudist - I'll have my mum's group over, the kids head off to Hazel's bedroom and generally within 20 minutes they are all down to their undies and possibly starkers. She mostly lives in her undies, removes her clothes at every opportunity, sleeps in the least she can get away with and kicks off the sheets. I've given up judging what she's wearing based on what I'd wear as she is the warmest individual I know. If I need a sheet and two blankets on the bed, she wants a sheet and sleeps with her feet sticking out from under. To be fair I was like that too, but I seem to have grown out of it and now I just get cold looking at her!

[Heather]

Hmm, perhaps I need to worry MORE. I have two kids who have never slept in pjs since they were able to get out of them (and one who sleeps in full pajamas AND a thick fleece bathrobe), and I have never ONCE even thought about putting pjs back on a sleeping child. Although I don't live in Minnesota; I'll use that as my excuse.

[Sara]

I am also a naked sleeper and would gladly go round in short shorts and strappy tank sans bra if only I were thinner or less chest-y.

I have been a naked sleeper since I was a child and I was very much like Caroline as a small child. I used to go round in just a pair of shorts all the time... ( I grew up in south florida) When I was 7, I had ONLY little boy friends and I was outside playing ( ball? hide n seek?) and my mother glances out the window and sees 8 little boys and ME. I was yanked into the house and firmly reprimanded and punished and have been made to wear shirts ever since.
SOB!

That said... I die when you tell stories of her... she is delicious and wonderful and OMG do you have your hands full with her.

And Patrick and Edward are so funny too! I hope Patrick feels better and Edward... oh he is the next great thinker I believe. With those dreamy eyes and pretty features he will be on the cover of all the magazines with his thoughtful quotable quotes whilst Patrick is busy winning the Nobel prize and Caroline cures cancer...naked.

[suz]

Thanks. A post on the updates about your crew was just what I needed today. Glad you're feeling better and less anxious. :-)

[Terri C]

OMG!!! Just *love* the twin conversations--all 3 of the kids are beyond wonderful--

[Margot]

Love this post. Love them all. Thank you!

[Mizasiwa]

so glad your feeling better - that feeling is something i wish i could get rid of its horrible to live with so much anxiety...thankk for a wonderful post!

[sueinithaca]

let her be naked. We live in upstate NY and both of my kids are devoted nudists. Doesn't seem to have hurt them a bit, except they get extra-indignant when their teachers tell them to put on coats. Unless the temp around them is 25 degrees (F) or less, I just don't worry about it. In fact, yesterday, my husband came home to find me huddled in the corner, in sweats, a robe and drinking tea. "Honey. I think I'm sick. I can't get warm," I said. Both kids were frolicking, naked as the day they were born (well, not quite. Those nurses do bundle them up right quick, don't they?). Husband pointed out that it was, in fact, about 50 degrees in the house. Third day of spring notwithstanding, maybe I should turn on the heat. Oh.

[TeacherMommy]

MTL and I enjoy pajama-free sleep all night every night, at least since we were able to convince all the many kidlets that our bedroom is a No Go Zone. We are blissful in our nocturnal nakedness and will remain so, at least until, God forbid, there is some emergency and we find ourselves on the lawn clutching the remnants of our dignity and, if we are lucky, a blanket around our Gardens of Eden.

[Amy]

I would so love to have a play date with you. Nick (who turns 3 tomorrow) would love to play with other children his own age. Especially ones who appreciate Dora and Diego. Caroline is a trip. Thanks for the laugh :)

Also, I'm so glad the Celexa is working for you. It's been fantastic for me. Not just for my anxiety, but also my depression. It's just a matter of finding what works.

How is Patrick? Are the antibiotics working?

[Emily]

I think I want to be Caroline when I grow up!! Out of curiousity do you pronounce it CaroLYNN or CaroLINE???

[MJ]

So glad to hear that the Celexa is working for you and love your stories. I'm also hoping that your focusing on the twins instead of Patrick means that he is doing well. It's always great to see that there's a new post from you.

[Lisame]

True story. My mother tells everyone that when I was three to six she would open the front door to call me to lunch and there would be my clothes.

No Lisa. No. Not anywhere.

More than once the local police brought me home from the park wearing only their jacket.

I wear clothes now. I just don't want to.

[Christine]

I kind of love Caroline. I "knew" Spanish from Sesame Street too. Still am pretty good at picking up the romance languages. I wonder if they make a twee Rosetta Stone. When I was younger they had Muzzy, which were video format and therefore no longer exist anywhere (probably), but they might possibly be on youtube. Totally worth it to get her speaking Spanish now.

[K]

Oh, your family and your updates. I love them!

[AnnaN]

Your kids are so adorable!

I had to laugh at Steve's parallel parking dig. And it made me think of being 16 again, behind the wheel of a car and taking my driving test. For the final maneuver, the instructor pointed me to the orange cones which represented cars and which I had to parallel park between. I stopped for a moment and looked at her. She looked at me and said, "yes?"

"If I hit the cones it's an auto-fail, right?"
"Yes, afraid so, just go slowly though, you'll be fine."

Long pause.

"How many points do I need to pass?"
"94."
"How many do I have?"
"96."
"Okay, I'll pass on the parallel parking test."

I didn't learn how for another 8 years. Some people just don't understand the difficulty. Solidarity, sister!

[Liz S]

I love naked babies!!!! I was a nudist myself as a child but today, I prefer to be clothed-stretch marks and flab will do that to a girl.

Your decription of your anxiety reminded me of my mom. She wouldn't check the mail when we were young because the mailbox was on the curb, it was too hard to take three kids out to the mailbox because one of us might run out into the road and get hit, she couldn't leave us inside alone because what if the furnace blew up while she was outside and we were all killed?! She couldn't have lived with herself. I kid you not on that story. Glad you got medication, my mom refuses and 35 years later her anxiety is worse than ever.

[AnnaN]

Laughed at Sara's comment. Caroline: Marie Curie, sans pants.