• Our family just joined Costco. First we had to make a trip to price out a bunch of items (writing down the price per ounce/pound/whatever) and then we came home and sat down to really think about it with the aid of old receipts and a calculator. Then I went back and we joined and I shopped. Yes, that’s two trips to Costco on a weekend, i.e., two trips into the mouth of hell. Seriously. Costco on a weekend is chaos to the nth degree only with samples. But on the products we buy a lot (popcorn, chicken breasts, brown rice to name a few) the prices are better than what we’re paying now and the quality is higher, too. (Organic brown rice! Multigrain unbleached flour for $.25/lb!) The key will be not splurging but I’m not a splurger. Give me a budget and I will wring every bit of value I can out of it.
• Today Madison asked me if I thought she would marry a white man or a black man. I said I didn’t know, what did she think? She said she thought she might like to marry a black one. I said ok then. It was kind of a random conversation.
• Speaking of random conversations about race, the other day Madison was asking about other people who we know and if they’re biracial. So we were naming biracial people. One of them is AmFam’s daughter M. Madison knows two M’s and she calls one (who is blonde) White M and she calls AmFam’s M (who has brown hair) Black M. (Only with their names not their initials, natch.) Anyway, during the course of this biracial discussion she said, “Maybe I should call her, umm, Hispanic M instead of Black M because she isn’t Black.” Noah said, “She’s not Hispanic either; she’s Chinese, remember?” And Madison smacked her forehead like, “Oh yeah! That’s right!” Then we got to a friend who is biracial and is also adopted and Madison was surprised to hear that he’s adopted. “Oh he has a birth mama, too?” she said. “I wonder if his birth mama misses him like MY birth mama misses me.” I said without a doubt.
• Then on Friday we were talking about inviting Pennie to something and I said I’d call her but then Madison said, “Umm, don’t you think you should check with me first?” I said, “I can invite Pennie to stuff without checking with you, can’t I? After all, she’s my friend!” and Madison said, “But she is my real mama so I get to invite her!” Then when we went to invite her Abby had already beat us to it. Dang that Abby!!!
• The kids went to a harvest festival on Friday and each won a pumpkin. Every year I forget to get pumpkins and every year the kids don’t notice or don’t notice until way after Halloween when they remember they like roasted pumpkin seeds. I’m glad that this year the pumpkins were secured without my extra effort.
• Today is the first day I feel normal and not exhausted. On the other hand, my neck is wrenched so I’m not entirely myself. But I’m more myself than I was yesterday. Honestly I think my life is just stressful enough that low-grade lousy is kind of a permanent feeling I’ve got. I was thinking about this driving home from Costco. I think I need to readjust my expectations so I’m not so unhappy and disappointed all the time because I can’t get everything done and I can’t get any time to myself, etc. etc. I think I’d be less frustrated if my standards were lower. I’m not giving up, mind you, I’m just giving in (for now). Or at least as much as I can. I’m tired of crying most every night and then having a great big breakdown most every weekend. I’m tired of trying to fight against the tide of my impossible life.
• We’re heading over for Lucia’s birthday party in about twenty minutes (my niece turned five on Thursday!). Madison picked out a purple Barbie for her and a purple sparkly Barbie dress. She really wanted that dress for her own Barbies but she told me, “More than one person can like purple.” She was telling me that because yesterday she was believing quite the opposite and was so unhappy with everything that she could get Lucia and could NOT get herself that we left the store with her in tears and had a long discussion about generosity. Today’s trip to Target with Daddy was much more successful because she is able to do that self-talk. I said to her, “Remember how you talked yourself into not being afraid going across the bridge? You’re going to have to talk to yourself at the store about being generous for Lucia’s birthday.” And she did and she was (more generous). I’m proud of her. She even picked out a sparkly purple bag, which I’m sure she coveted for her own self.
• Brett will not get to enjoy the party because Brett has to work. But he got to go on a jog this afternoon so he’s ok with that even if it means missing cake. So it all evens out.

Right at this minute Madison is swinging while wearing her velvet Thanksgiving dress (long sleeves, long skirt — it is hot out there) and a blue Easter hat that she got from Pennie’s dad in the dress up box and which is getting a little bit too small for her. It’s light blue and made of plastic straw. It makes an interesting contrast to the black velvet top and red satin skirt on her dress. Oh and she’s carrying a baton.

It’s 1:30pm and today is a without Noah day because he’s at Gram and Gramps camp (it’s a real camp — the park & recs department puts it on) with Brett’s parents this week. This has made for a much quieter morning.

So far Madison has helped make coffee cake, eaten coffee cake, had a tea party, read her book, gone out on the porch to listen to the (very loud) music coming from the school across the way for their last day party, rediscovered the drink & wet doll that was mine when I was little and potty trained said doll, danced to Hairspray, dressed and undressed all of her dolls, eaten lunch and picked up her mess in the family room. She has not, however, picked up her tea party yet.

It’s hard to believe that she could be in kindergarten next year if we were gonna send her. On the one hand, she seems perfectly capable of anything academia could throw at her but on the other hand, I can’t imagine her sitting at a desk for any length of time. This child needs so much big muscle time, I’m telling you. She needs to run, dance, jump and spin spin spin. She is also a major grazer, rarely eating a full meal unless you let her spread it across an hour or two or three. She eats A LOT, mind you, but she doesn’t always have the attention span to eat it all at once.

Madison quotes:

“Ooh, that dress is tacky!” (As one would say, “Lovely!” proving that what I call “tacky” are things she most admires and that now she thinks it’s a synonym for beautiful.)

Madison: Do you know DW on Arthur?

Me: Yes, I think she’s kind of a brat.

Madison (thoughtfully): She’s not a brat, per se. It’s more that she gets very intense about people touching her stuff.

(Noah can’t stop quoting that — he thinks it’s hilarious.)

Upon looking out at a sudden and heavy rainstorm. “Wow, a cloud really broke out there!”

She’s become self-conscious lately and cannot STAND criticism from anyone besides her parents or Noah. Grandma, Pennie and her babysitter have all inadvertantly sent her into a sobbing crisis by suggesting she might perhaps not want to shove in line or could maybe clear her place at lunch.

“It’s embarrassing!” she says. “I feel like they’re yelling at me!”

Her recent art series was portraits of the family — Me, Noah, Peanut, Pennie and Tommy — as octopuses. (I looked that up; you can say octopuses or octopi, just so you know.) She’s also interested in writing letters and spent one happy afternoon playing school with her dolls and an easel. She is off and on about reading — picking out words and then losing interest. When she comes back to it after days away she’s always a little further along than the last time.

Her favorite toys are her dolls. Her baby dolls, her big girl dolls (Diosius and Kit) and her Barbies. She loves her Barbies to distraction, much to my dismay. She likes them best in the bathtub because she likes washing their “real” hair. She has only just begun disappearing into her room for long stretches of time to play house with all her babies and continues to enjoy making meals for all of us at her play kitchen, especially since we moved the wooden ‘fridge from the basement into her room.

Other favorite activities include: tap dancing on the basement’s cement floor, digging in the garden, standing on our front lawn to holler greetings to passer-bys, scootering on the driveway, playing with the trains on her map-like rubber mat, playing with the Fisher-Price little people and being at Noah’s beck and call. (In the evening he’ll get her to brush his hair with the good scratchy bristle brush while he reads out loud to her.)

She is really the brightest, shiniest thing around here and sometimes we three big people just sit on the front porch and admire her while she sings and dances in the frontyard.

Tracy’s auction chronicles post today reminded me of something — Evel Knievel owed his career to my dad. Ok, that’s an exaggeration because after all Evel had the idea, he had the jumps, he had the bones to be broken but he was working for my dad when he first got started; Evel was selling insurance with him. My dad helped him get the money for his first jump by vouching so he could get financing. My mom typed up his PR letters. (Or maybe they loaned him the money for his first jump — I’m a little high on caffeine and my brain is not remembering things properly.)

We had a framed, autographed picture of him on his motorcycle jumping over barrels that hung in our family room — our friends were impressed. But I never got to meet him. Rats. That would have raised my cool factor a few notches in elementary school.

My dad said Evel was a nice guy (my mom concurs) but crazy (my mom concurs again). He said that at the beginning he had this whole routine where he’d jump barrels and a very small man (a little person) would replicate the jump with very tiny barrels. They’d both be dressed alike.

My parents both grew up in LA and if you grow up in LA you will have stories about the rich and famous. My mom’s stories include being mauled by Denny Miller (Gilligan’s Tarzan character). I found this out while enjoying this semi-wholesome sitcom one day after school. My mom wandered by with a load of laundry and said, “I went on a date with that guy — he was only after one thing.” (Being about ten I pictured that like this: He rings the doorbell holding flowers. She opens the door. He hands her the flowers and tries to rip open her shirt.)

She also used to party with Louis Prima and his band when she and her girlfriends would head to Vegas for the weekend.

Now my dad, I’ve always thought he should have a blog called “I dated Barbie and other tales from 1950s LA” because he dated Barbie-inventor Ruth Handler’s daughter, Barbara, in high school. And he used to run around with Phil Spector back in the day.