A conversation between sisters.
Pie: “Hey Aud. Sit down here and listen to me.”
Peanut (running in circles around Pie): “I can’t. I’m too busy!”
Pie: “Why?”
Peanut: “I’m running! Run Maggie!”
Pie: “Okay!”
And then Audie pulled Maggie up by the arm and they ran and ran until they collapsed to the ground in a fit of laughter.
Hello World. Are you ready for Beans?
At 31 months, the Beans have been on more plane trips than their father had by the time he was 31. Now the count is 6 to 4, but only because Daddy Bean and I squired ourselves away for a little R&R to Puerto Rico last year and left the little ones with the grandparents. Otherwise it would be all tied up.
I’ve lived in three different countries in my life. Three states. For the first sixteen years of my life, plane trips were more common than road trips. Daddy Bean had never been to Chicago before I met him. Never stepped foot in Canada. He hadn’t even been to the northern part of Michigan, for God’s sake! His only trip out of the state was to South Carolina one year with his family. We were like night and day, this boy and me. He wanted to stay, I wanted to go. I won.
By the time the girls were born, we had been to Chicago almost every year that we were together (including the year that they were born, when he had to wheel my 25 week pregnant body around the Windy City - not as easy as it sounds). Toronto, Orlando. All over Michigan. What was supposed to be his first flight on our honeymoon in Vegas ended up being a road trip to Florida, due to the 9/11 tragedy and the grounding of all flights. Instead his first flight was to Las Vegas for my sister’s wedding. The Beans’ first flight was to Oklahoma last year.
He’s caught on to my need to go. Even if it’s just to Mackinac Island. Although he was resistant at first, he’s begun to enjoy traveling and he understands why I want to make sure that the Beans discover a love for it. The thought of flying still terrifies him, but he hides it well from them. He has to. I won’t have it. There is too much to see and do to be hindered by such a fear. And, before it has a chance to take one of them too, I want to go. I want to take them to my old stomping grounds in Virgina and Washington D.C. I want to show them the beauty of Big Sur. I want to introduce them to my mother’s sister and share some world-class food in the middle of the busy streets of Bangkok.
Tomorrow, we’ll be taking them on their next plane ride to Oklahoma to meet their new cousin. They are giddy with excitement. In September, they’ll be traveling to Vegas to act as flower girls in their aunt’s wedding. Next year - Disney and hopefully either Boston or California. After that, who knows. I hope Barcelona, Dublin, Phuket, Montreal. Wherever they want to go.
Little Miss Home & Garden
She loves watching Food Network with me. Markers are her screwdrivers when she checks to make sure that tables and chairs are properly built. Sweeping the kitchen includes, but is not limited to, dust bunnies, crumbs and doggies. And she waited with bated breath for the flowers that she planted to sprout so that she could use her new watering can.
Check please!!!!!!!!!!
When the girls were just infants and I took them to visit M and her boys, I was a bit disappointed that, instead of having a proper lunch in a restaurant, she immediately informed me that she’d be making us lunch. And, during our next visit, when tummies began to grumble, M again took the reins and had her sister run to get us carry-out at the local Applebees. Not that I don’t enjoy her cooking or am above Applebees’ carry-out. I just thought, since we don’t get together often and I hadn’t been to many restaurants since the Beans arrived, we could go to a place where the food was prepared and hot and we didn’t have to clean up a thing.
Now, I understand. I know exactly what she was doing two years ago. She was protecting her sanity, averting disaster, saving me from the ugly truth.
Toddlers and restaurants don’t go together well.
I shouldn’t lump the whole lot of them into one sticky, food throwing, hollering, defiant group. They don’t all become irrascible messes upon entering “eating places” (a Bean phrase). And even the most polite and well-mannered little human has her moment. Kids are unpredictable. I’m just now realizing this. It’s been two and a half years, give me a break.
The Beans arewere very well-mannered. We are were the parents that smile sympathetically at the table next to us, filled with screaming kids, while our little angels sit quietly coloring their menus. Of course, they’d have their moments, individually, and we’d easily quell the storm by whispering encouragements into their ear or taking them for a little walk to the restroom. And then we’d resume our delightful dinner in peace, able to carry on a decent conversation while the girls occupied themselves with people-watching and their own personal conversation.
In the past month or so, that pretty little picture of dining enjoyment has been scribbled over with a non-washable marker. If it’s not the fact that they don’t want to sit in their booster seats or high chairs, it’s that their BLUE crayon has fallen to the floor for the eleventy millionth time. Food is boycotted, milk is spilled, threats are ignored. If we’re lucky, that’s the end of it. If we’re unlucky, there is crying, defiance, even yelling. It’s only happend three times but we’ve quickly learned our lesson. The kicker is that the minute we leave the restaurant, exhausted and beaten, M&A revert to their usual well-behaved selves.
Today I mentioned to J that I felt like Italian. He looked at me like I was nuts and reminded me that the night before the girls had made a quick mess of things at a very family friendly, loud, balloon and ice cream sundae chain. I remembered telling my dad, who we had invited to come along, that I was glad that he was able to see his perfect little angels like this.
Fine. Carry-out it is. I placed the order, more than a little bit resentful. And then I remembered the look of terror that flashed on M’s face two years ago when we began discussing lunch. This is what had frightened her so much. I get it now!
I’ve finally resigned myself to the fact that dinners out would have to be saved for date nights or until the girls are out of this phase. Hopefully the phase is short because date nights are few and far between.
Babysitter Fees
After I got off the phone, I emailed J.
“Can you call me? I need to talk to you about the Bean.”
“Which one? Calling now…”
As I replied, “The ice ice baby,” the phone rang.
J: “What’s up?”
MB: “I talked to Rose at Dr. K’s. It was so sweet; because the first thing she did when I gave my name was to ask me how the girls were.”
My eyes began to well up immediately, as they did when she had asked me and I stammered a reply about how big and wonderful they have become. I don’t know if the women at that office experience this with all the patients that they treat, but whenever I have any interaction with them, my heart swells and my eyes brim with tears. They could just be asking how my day is, or sending me their new office information. They just have that sort of effect on me.
MB: “I told her that we discovered that both of our Flexible Spending Accounts covers the fee. She was happy to hear that but warned me that the fees are going up this year.”
J: “How much?”
MB: “Four hundred dollars.”
J: “Okay. How much were they before?”
MB: “Two hundred and fifty per year.”
J: “Pay it.”
MB: “Oooohhhkaaay….Pay it? And then what?”
J: “What do you mean? Pay it.”
MB: “It’s just…I mean…What are we doing here? What’s the plan?”
J: “I don’t know what the plan is but I know that I want us to keep paying it until we do.”
MB: “Okay. Okay.”
J: “I’ve got to go. Love you.”
I mumbled something and hung up the phone. This time, hot tears were spilling onto the desk and I couldn’t catch them with just a swipe of the hand.
You see, I technically have three Beans. On that day…January 13, 2005, I was asked to decide whether I wanted two or three. I chose three. J and Dr. K disagreed. Dr. K said that with my diagnosis, the chances of all three of them sticking around were better than most. And, because of my size, the chances of me having a smooth pregnancy with three were slim. All that I remember Jim saying was, “No, no, no…” And when Dr. K used the term, “selective reduction,” I began to fade.
Two then. I chose two. The “best” you could say, as these two looked to be the strongest and most developed of the three. They received an “A” on their report card, while the third Bean received a “B”. Still above average but not good enough? Not to me, but I went along with it. So, while the two As were being prepared to return to me, the B was sent back to the lab, to be frozen and labeled and stowed away to a day yet to be determined. For when my arms would begin aching again and my heart would resume longing for the fullness of a child’s body in my own.
Every year, when I receive the bill, I am reminded that I left one behind. And that I must make that decision eventually. The choices are these: to thaw it and hope that it survives the thaw and implants into my womb; to donate it to another couple; to donate it to science or to simply destroy it. Destroy. It’s such a cruel word and made even worse when I look into the eyes of my girls. Part of them. Conceived at the exact same time with all of the hope and the love that we had to give. Saved, just in case the first time didn’t work. And, now, in case we want another.
It’s a political matter, what to do with these frozen little ice cubes. One that, if I were another woman altogether, who didn’t go through what I have gone through to have my children, may be a simple matter. Destroy might not be as soul crushing a word. But I am not that woman. I am the woman that believes that the miracle that happened to us twice could still happen again. I am the mother that believes that my other child could still return to me.
And so, every year, when I receive the bill. I am reminded that I left one behind. And that one day it will be the right time for it to return to me.
