Put up or Throw up

High-speed projectiles of various bodily fluids are an on-the-job hazard of parenting, just one of many. I think Colorado even has a statute informing everyone that parenting is a hazardous activity, and that you undertake it at your own risk.

Or maybe that's skiing. But for either, it's a common sense issue that it can get messy, even dangerous. Toddlers are a particularly perilous incarnation of children. They can walk, run, say "NO!" till the cows come home and get into all kinds of stuff, but by and large they are not particularly eloquent speakers.

Riley speaks better than many, but she's still not up to full sentences. Take yesterday, for example. I would've really appreciated it if she could've said, "Hey Mom, just wanna let you know that in the spirit of Halloween, I'm doing a scene from your favorite horror movie. It's the one where Linda Blair honks demonic hurl all over the place. I'm giving you a 10-minute warning so that you can cover the interior of the car with plastic and have your vomit vac ready."

But she didn't. We were 45 minutes from home on the way back from Denver when she started crying. Then she called for Daddy shortly before she blew milk/yogurt chunks all over herself and everything else within 8 feet.

Fortunately I keep an extra outfit in the car as part of our haz-mat kit, but all the wet wipes in the diaper bag could not combat the smell of dairy puke. That was a long, long drive home. When we finally pulled into the driveway, my husband tackled the car while I bathed Riley and put her to bed. He disassembled the car seat and threw everything he could into the washing machine.

This morning I set about putting what should've been a floral-fresh seat back together. But the noxious fumes lingered. At first I thought it was my imagination. Maybe I was having olfactory flashbacks to the previous day's trauma. I felt my gag reflex flutter and steeled myself. I drew strength from what I consider to be the most inpsirational Patrick Swayze quote of all time, one from "Roadhouse": "Pain don't hurt." Spew don't smell, I told myself. (Incidentally, Riley's favorite Swazye quote is "Nobody puts Baby in the corner!")

I turned the seat over and over as I took shallow breaths through my mouth. Still nothing. It wasn't until I closed my eyes and started feeling around the various nooks and crannies that my fingers finally did the walking over the crusted remains of yesterday's yogurt. It very nearly incited me to produce a fresh batch. After copious amounts of two kinds of cleansers and scrubbing that would've made even Mommy Dearest proud, I finally conquered the chunder.

I reassembled the car seat and strapped it in only to find three extra pieces sitting on the front porch. This was almost as frustrating as my hunt for heave. That's because child safety products rank in the top five of parental perils; they're under the subcategory for "Some assembly required."

But hazards aside, it's still the best job I've ever had. Not that I enjoy being showered with excreta. But it's all relative. I used to shudder at the thought of nasty diapers and curtailed freedom. Now I pick out old puke with my bare hands. Now I escape for a couple of hours to catch a movie that came out four months ago by myself -- something I used to find almost as horrifying as other people's bodily fluids -- and am disappointed to find when I get home that my girl has already gone to bed.

Of all my grand adventures, mistakes, triumphs and near-death experiences, nothing has changed my world view as dramatically as motherhood. My world is now both bigger and smaller, scarier and more delightful, more constraining and more liberating. And just better. Much, much better, barf stains and all.

It's Snow Fun

I love Colorado weather. Yes, I know the cliche: "If you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes." But every state I've ever lived in has made that claim.

Cold weather is my favorite, especially the snow. I grew up in the tropics of south Texas. I spent the first 20-plus years of my life being hot. So to this day, snow is exciting to me. Even though this will be my third winter here, I consider a snow day cause for celebration. The rule is Riley and I stay in our PJs all day and I do as little work as possible.

I did pretty well with that today. Judging from the buildup on various spots around the house, we must've gotten at least 3 inches. To add to the slumber party/grrrrrl power atmosphere, my husband is out of town all week, and both our cat and puppy are female.

Speaking of the puppy, Bailey was less than pleased to spend most of her day in the nice, warm house. She went nuts in the snow as it built up in the yard. She dug her nose down in it, then ran zig zags all over the place in doggy wheelbarrow fashion. She was less than pleased when I brought her in. (Notice her poignant pathetic look in the photo following her bath below.)


She was downright surly that she had to go straight to the tub. Before I brought her in she'd managed enough quality time in the unfinished bottom of the yard to cover her semi-shaggy coat in mud. So she had to have a bath. Riley enjoyed this much more than Bailey did. Bailey really worked the pathetic angle. When she started whining, Riley voiced her sympathy with echoing "oooooowooooowooooo"s.

Riley did plenty of whining herself. She loves to go outside. She times her requests for hitting the great outdoors with crying episodes, usually ones brought on by minor injuries. She starts wailing, then looks me straight in the eyes and howls "ow-ti-eeeee!" (outside)

Today I heard this refrain over and over again. I tried to explain to her that it was cold, there was snow everywhere and we just couldn't go out. None of these was acceptable. Even when she woke up tonight crying from a bad dream, she demanded to go out.

In my efforts to convince her she was asking the impossible, I opened the door and stood there with the wind blowing snow on our faces. I respect my daughter's intelligence enough to let her reason things out, you see. It was all part of my brilliant plan to enable her to come to the logical conclusion I wanted her to reach all on her own. It's a tactic commonly used on husbands.

So we stood in the door in our pjs for a few brief seconds, snow sticking to our eyelashes and blurring our vision. Then Riley started squirming and pointing across the street.

"Gooooo-walk!" ("Walk," as in "I want to walk down the street.")

Hmmm...it appears my husband-reasoning tactics are just as efficient with her as with John. She must get that from her daddy.

Glue Guns Ablazin'

Halloween is in the air. It's not just the cooler temperatures, the fall colors and the opening of that huge, obnoxious, temporary Halloween store. The haints and spirits of the underworld are among us. I know this because I have fallen victim to demonic possession.

No, don't call Fathers Karras and Merrin just yet. They're not the appropriate point men to battle the ghoul that's after my soul. This is a case for Daniel Faneuil and the U.S. Justice Department, because I have been possessed by Martha Stewart.

For the first time in my life, I am enthusiastically decorating for a conventional holiday. This is not something I do. I am not girly. I am not craftsy. I am not even vaguely artistically inclined. I'd get along much better with one of Martha's felonious former cellmates than the domestic diva herself. To date, the closest I've come to home-made, original decor was an ill-planned attempt to turn a West Texas tumbleweed into a tinsel-bedecked marker of a high Christian holiday. It didn't work.

But I spent all of Saturday devising and creating fall froofiness for our front porch. I started with a pumpkin carving kit and stencil. I ended up with a good enough version of a Halloween cat face that Riley pointed at it and exclaimed "OW! OW! OW!" (That's how she says "meow.")

Martha must've been poking my voodoo doll, because I found myself consulting her Web site. It actually inspired me to decorate a second and even third pumpkin.

Then I went to the aforementioned huge, obnoxious, temporary Halloween store, followed by not one but TWO crafts stores and a stop by the grocery store to pick up pumpkin no. 3. In the height of my shopping insanity, I even decided I'd make a wreath. For real. So I am now a first-time (glue) gun owner. I'll be looking for my NRA membership card in this week's mail.

I came home and applied a bone-shaped cookie cutter to my second pumpkin in honor of Bailey the border collie puppy. It is her first Halloween, after all. After poking out chunks of pumpkin to create a whimsical pup-o-lantern, I installed a light that flashes different colors.

Then I attacked my third pumpkin. I first saw this idea in this month's issue of "Parents," so Martha can't claim full credit for this one. But she was on the Today show recently showing Matt Lauer how to bling up a pumpkin. So I brushed on glue and two different colors of glitter for a disco squash.

Then I hit the wreath. After reading the instructions several times, I figured out how to plug in my glue gun. My trigger finger starts itching just thinking about it. I placed all of my autumnal wreath paraphernalia in my grapevine frame, then I broke out the heavy artillery.

I'd never used a glue gun before. I used to tease my sister-in-law about her glue gun marksmanship. She actually kept one in her college dorm room just in case a decorating emergency popped up. I believe she even had a concealed weapons permit for it. I thought about calling her last night just so she'd know exactly how far into home making I've finally fallen, but at that point, it was past bedtime in her time zone.

The nice man at the crafts store who told me how to make my wreath made it sound like any idiot can operate this home crafting tool. He was wrong. I'm going to lobby my congressman to pass a three-day waiting period for glue gun purchases so adequate background checks can be performed. If such legislation were in effect now, I'd never get my hands on the weapon.

Fortunately I'd had the forethought to lay newspaper down on our table. The first pump of the gun shot a giant inferno of clear adhesive. This must be a 30-caliber glue gun; the package didn't say. But I could've brought down an elephant with that first round. Then I pushed on the glue stick to make sure it was secure. I should've clicked on the safety first -- more hot ooze shot out onto the newspaper. That's when I realized I needed a Kevlar vest.

Then I actually started applying the glue to all of my autumn finery. I'd already secured them in the grapevines, so this seemed superfluous to me. But the nice man at the store assured me I needed this glue, so I applied it. I started shooting various points of each decoration, one after the other. After about the 12th shot, I realized I had thin lines of glue running like Charlotte's web all over my creation. All that was missing was "SOME PIG" across the middle.

I put the gun down, picked off the glue web and surveyed my handy work. When I hung the wreath on the door, I was more than a little impressed with my efforts. This is a whole new side of me I never imagined could even exist.

But I never had a toddler who'd become so enthused over my amateur artwork that she'd attempt to engage it in conversation. It's been more than 31 years since I've approached Halloween with the mindset of a 15-month-old who found even a pumpkin seed on the floor is an amazing discovery. I can't remember the last time I was transfixed by flickering light in a hollowed-out pumpkin or marveled at the crunch of a fallen brown oak leaf.

So I guess this holiday season does deserve extra effort. As Martha herself would say, "It's a good thing."

The dit hits the fan

I am very proud of Riley's vocabulary. It's just one of the many zillions of things that I'm happy to brag about, so here I go. At 15 months, she says about 70 words in English and Spanish. She usually adds a new one every day. About half of them are even intelligible to civilians.

Words like "agua" and "apple" are crystal-clear. "Bubber" is translated to "Butter" (the bear, not the saturated fat) fairly easily, as is "deche" for "leche." Then there's head-scratchers like "wo-wo." When I consulted my Rileyese-to-English dictionary after she pointed to a shelf in the fridge, I realized that was "yogurt."

Her verbal acuity coupled with the fact that her favorite song is the ABC ditty are great indicators that she'll follow in her mother's wordsmithing footsteps. While that also makes me proud, I can't help but wish she showed early promise at playing the stock market or developing software, just so she won't follow in my financial footsteps.

But back to her vocabulary. She's entering the parrot phase of toddlerhood, much to my potty-mouthed chagrin. My language is much, much better than it used to be back in my single days, but I'm still not as watchful of my words as I should be.

But Riley the Repeater is now helping to remedy that.

I was driving home last week when some other driver did something aggravating. I can't remember what it was, but my self-righteous-ometer dipped into the red, so it couldn't have my fault. Before I could stop myself, I spat out a scatalogical expletive. Half a nanosecond later, a high, cheerful voice chimed in from the back seat:

"Dit! Dit! Dit!"

As funny as Riley's first attempt at cursing was, it was also sobering. This was one of the many points in the day I realize the profound, fundamental impact my attitudes and behaviors have on my daughter. With everything I say or do, I'm teaching Riley how to be human.

Yes, there are much worse things in life than forgetting my good mommy language. And it's inevitable that Riley will eventually learn how to say that particular word correctly and pepper her conversation with it.

But the "dit" episode is a good reality check. Shaping a little person is serious business. Perfection is impossible, but really, really good is an attainable goal. But I guess I should start with myself first.

Supergran Returns

My mother, Supergran, with Riley

I have been sick. Really, really sick. The sickest I've been in modern history. Though I have no formal medical training, I have seen several episodes of "House." So I feel qualified in my self diagnosis of a new strain of tuberculosis-beri-beri-ebola-scurvy-beubonic-pneumonic-simple-chronic-halitosis. But rest easy, John Q. Public, because I definitively ruled out avian flu.

I was in fact so sick that my husband was staying home from work to watch Riley because I couldn't get out of bed. So I lit the bat signal to Texas. My mother, known to her grandkids as Gran (or Grrrrrrrrr, according to Riley), stepped into her phone booth, donned her cape and hopped on an airplane on a day's notice to fly faster than a speeding bullet to our outbreak hotzone. A couple of days after she arrived Riley got sick and my husband started wilting, so her Florence Nightingaleness tripled.

She did all the wonderful Mom/Gran things she always does when she comes. She cooked, cleaned, shopped and played with Riley simultaneously and nonstop. If only I hadn't felt like I was dying, it would've been a dream vacation. This time it really didn't bother me that my mothering/wifing doesn't measure up to hers. I was too busy benefiting from her manic multi-tasking to feel overshadowed and incompetent. OK, so her skinniness always has and always will make me self conscious, but this time I was too grateful to her to dwell on it. Much.