the life – Page 13 – the chelsea chronicles

trick or treat

Mad Eye Moody and Barty Crouch Jr. transformed into Mad Eye Moody

Halloween preparation at my house goes something like this: in February, one child will say, “I want to be [fill in the blank] for Halloween.” I will gently remind said child that he has plenty of time to think about it and plan accordingly. But then October rolls around, the idea from eight months earlier is all but forgotten, and a week out we have a mad dash of indecision-fueled panic over what “we” are going to be.

I do think the best costumes are homemade or in accordance with my skill level, home-altered. For example, since I am not handy with a sewing machine, two years ago when Jack wanted to be a Zombie Doctor, I bought a doctor costume and we zombied it up. Or back when Colin wanted to be a bloody ghost, I bought a white sheet and some gauze, and he quite artfully applied the guts and gore.

Last year we had utter costume failure when Jack, unable to pinpoint his idea until 15 minutes before we were due to meet up with our regular posse of trick or treating families, did not have all the supplies and materials necessary to execute a sufficiently festive getup. He looked like that teenager who pretends to be dressed up just to get candy.

Thus this year, I was the one who in February was encouraging the kids to commit to a Halloween costume.

I thought we had it settled when in July I made two Mad Eye Moody costumes (including the eyes) for the boys to wear to a Harry Potter party. Of course, I assumed we’d get multiple uses out of my uncharacteristically creative efforts. But no. Neither child wants to repeat the Mad Eye portrayal. Jack, having failed to make an adequate “army man” last year has decided he wants to go for perfection this year. As of Saturday, Colin was still opting between also being an army man (i.e. part of Jack’s squadron) or a werewolf. These are very different ideas with very different levels of stress-induced anxiety inflicted on this busy mommy. Luckily, by Sunday, Colin too had opted to be a solider, a decision that I believe was inspired by the fact that he gets to make use of the camo-face paint he got for Christmas last year.

Now I just need to remember to buy the Halloween candy.

farewell to running

Post Run Breakfast — At breakfast after the last race I ran: the Capitol Hill Classic 2010.

Today is the day of one of my favorite races, the Army Ten-Miler. It is also the day of the Chicago Marathon, a race I had planned to run as my qualifier for the Boston Marathon. It’s a beautiful day in DC, perfect fall running weather, and I’m imagining the same for Chicago, where my friends Corry and Jeff are running their annual marathon. This morning, I didn’t get up at the crack of dawn to make my way to the start line at the Pentagon like I have in years past. Instead, I slept in. Then I took a walk. An hour walk over the streets (read: hills) of Cheverly that I used to run every morning. An hour into the ATM, I would have been just over two-thirds of the way done (if I count by the time I set the last two times I ran it, when I clocked the exact same time for each race). But that was before my back betrayed me. That was before I had this conversation with the doctor on Thursday.

Me: So essentially what you are saying is that I can never run again?

Doctor: You can do whatever the fuck you want, but I highly recommend you never run again.

It’s true that I had been nursing this fantasy that one day he would say, “take a short run, Chelsea. See how it feels.” And I wouldn’t care how slow I felt or how hard the 5-mile course I used to practically do in my sleep seemed after a ten-month hiatus. But I’ll never again organize my day to the beat of my feet hitting the sidewalk. I’ll never again take aggression out on [fill in the blank] by charging up a particularly steep hill. I will never again be able to judge the outcome of a day by whether or not I managed to not step on any sidewalk cracks on my final sprint home. I will never be able to rely on a week of 5-mile runs to ensure that my favorite jeans will fit just right before the weekend arrives.

Well, I could do these things, but for a price. I assume it was accidental (and not some cruel calculation the doctor made to give me a preview of what I look forward to if I don’t take his advice) but joining me in the waiting room the other day were two people in wheelchairs and one man with two canes who sat in his chair moaning in agony until he was ushered into an examination room. My steady pain-level of three, while annoying and throbbing and limiting at times, seemed nothing compared to how these people felt.

I know there are other sports and activities, but I need time to mourn running. I was never a team sport person (unless you count cheerleading, which I know you don’t unless you were once a cheerleader too) and my horrible hand-eye coordination makes options like tennis and golf not impossible but a challenge (I have thought I could get really good at tennis though if I had a hot instructor). But those aren’t sports you jump out of bed at 5:45 and do for 45 minutes and come home ready to face the day.

So I accept my doctor’s advice, though not without tears and not without envy at all those runners setting PRs or just enjoying the camaraderie of a race. After all, the end of our conversation could have been worse.

Doctor: Your shoe choices don’t help your back any, but I know better than to tell you not to wear heels.

I don’t have running, but at least I get to keep shoes.

the boys of fall

Time to move the Red Sox shirts out of my drawer and really commit to football season. At least in the modern era of Red Sox choke lore, I can rest knowing that when I die, I lived to see the Red Sox win the World Series title. Twice. Generations of New Englanders died never experiencing that sweet moment when the last out is executed and the realization sinks in that you are world champions (well, North American champions). Still, it was hard to have this conversation when Jack woke up (uncharacteristically) at 6:15 this morning:

Jack (voice too enthusiastic for pre-alarm clock): Mommy, did the Red Sox win?

Me (eyes closed): No.

Jack: But Tampa Bay lost?

Me (pulling covers over head): No.

Jack (voice laced with a familiar disappointment): But I thought this was finally the season that I was going to see the Red Sox make it to the World Series.

Jack has lived through the same two World Series titles that I have, but in 2004 he was three and cared more about Tonka trucks. Even in 2007 he was only six and while he was watching games, I think the season takes on new meaning once you start playing little league, learn to keep score, and can identify players. But now in 2011, the poor baby has no idea that he has just joined the ranks of many an anguished sports fan. Yeah, it burns.

Now that baseball season is over for me, maybe the weather will finally stop acting like it’s August and remember it’s fall. I have a hard time making my very special warm cheesy bean dip that I’m known for by legions of football fans in multiple states when the temperatures are hovering around 84 degrees with 96% humidity.

I love baseball – and for an OCD person like myself I mean I love the ritual of baseball. (I make Nomar Garciaparra look well adjusted.) But I really enjoy the mechanics of football better. I prefer the faster pace. I prefer the presence of a clock. I prefer the element of strategy. And I certainly prefer Tom Brady to any baseball player to come along since Steve Sax (who played in the days before it was de rigueur to resemble a cave man under your batting helmet).

Football season. Fewer than 20 regular season games. Your teams plays once a week; there’s none of the being neurotic for 160+ days a year baseball inflicts. When people say about baseball that the first few weeks of the season don’t count, they’re wrong. If the Sox had won one more game in April, our guys would be on their way to Florida for a one-game playoff instead of to Boston to pack up for the winter.

So the Pats might have rolled over to the Bills this past weekend. Or maybe the Bills are for real. My original favorite football team is back on the rise, though I can’t look at a 49ers uniform without sliding into a reverie of the Joe Montana-Steve Young eras. I’m in one of those “easy” draft-free fantasy leagues where you just make your picks on the winners each week. This weekend will be comfortable football weather in DC. There’s hope for an exciting season ahead. Who needs baseball?

At some point in the doldrums of winter, I’ll be longing to hear an umpire call, “play ball” but for now I’m happy to instead be focused on false starts, two-point conversions and roughing the passer calls. Daydreaming, of course, about roughing my own favorite passer. I’m sure Gisele won’t mind.

the sweat equity challenge, week 2

Admit it. You didn’t think I would actually keep up my own challenge to myself. But I did. In spite of the fact that I had the kids this weekend, and that they were determined to help, and that the project I had in mind (again) involved paint, we got it done.

The room affectionately referred to as “the playroom” doesn’t really see a lot of play time. But it does house a number of the boys’ toys. It’s nice to have a room that I can throw all their crap into the weeks that they are with their dad. But this room, in its current state, feels a little like wasted space, and I have had it in my mind that I would like to de-emphasize the “play” and enhance the prospects of this room serving as a sort of office-slash-reading-room-slash-home-office.

Step one was to weed out the broken and long-ignored toys, chucking those that don’t work and donating those ready to move on to a new household. That step of the project absolutely has to be done when the kids aren’t home because there’s nothing more likely to compel a kid to find a new favorite toy than to threaten you are giving it a new home. So I had undertaken this step a few weeks ago when weeding out toys was a better alternative to whatever else it was I should have been doing.

As for step two, if you have painted a room before then you know how time consuming it can be to prep a room. And let’s just say that these next steps (cleaning, taping, tarping, preparing tools) were made all the more painful when every ten seconds a kid asked, “can we paint now?”

But we got the room cleaned, taped and covered in a drop cloth in less time than it would have taken me to do it alone. (Jack is a master with the blue tape.) I was still a little nervous about letting them paint, but of all the rooms for them to “help” in, I figured it was this one, the one room with carpet, carpet that will (on a more ambitious day) be removed and replaced with bamboo flooring.

As it turns out, Jack is quite the master painter. He is a little heavy handed with the amount of paint he puts on his brush/roller, but then again so am I. Colin, as I suspected he would, gave up after one wall and instead focused on keeping the kittens out of the room while we worked. Everyone has to have a job.

When we were done, the kids quickly proclaimed their love for this room. Of course, at this point I had been envisioning it as sort of a mommy cave, where mommy friends and I will drink wine when our kids have co-opted the living room to watch a movie. But regardless of who is using it when, it felt good to cross another item off my to do list.

If only Jack hadn’t felt the need to cut the paint out of his hair. Next step, schedule kid haircuts.

the sweat equity challenge

It all started with a hurricane and peeling textured ceiling paint in the guest room.

The textured ceiling paint was not peeling as a result of Hurricane Irene; no, it was gratis the previous harry homeowner, or maybe two harry homeowners ago. who made a number of sloppy sweat equity decisions back in his ownership days. When my brother Nathan (a professional) was here refinishing my downstairs bathroom, he checked out the peeling ceiling for me, reported that it was the result of the person who applied said textured paint without sanding or priming ahead of time.

“Even you can remove it easily,” he assured me.

Since I mostly keep the guest bedroom door closed though, it was really out of sight, out of mind. But then we were stranded in the house without power, and I needed something to do that didn’t involve electricity. Since I love to peel, be it sunburns, beer bottle labels or old wallpaper, a little light bulb went off in my brain. Surely textured ceiling paint would provide the same satisfaction.

Six hours later, I was barely a third of the way done and it was getting dark. A few more hours the next day did not yield much more progress. I have found oddly that letting the ceiling “rest” helps loosen some of the tougher spots. I’m not done yet, but I am determined to finish it soon. By next weekend. Or next month. At least by the next time I have guests.

All this Tim “the Tool Man” Taylor work got me to thinking, why not take on one project a weekend, no matter how small, between now and Thanksgiving. It isn’t like there’s a shortage of work to be done around my old house. This weekend I was ambitious; the ceiling continues to be peeled during my “breaks” from other activities, namely applying a fresh coat of paint (or three) on the backside of the kitchen door and stairwell that leads to the basement. Other jobs on my personal honey do list: painting the exterior backdoor; replacing some ceiling tiles in the basement; converting the playroom into an office-homework station; power-washing the side of the house; and well, I will stop there or my friends will be scared to come over lest I put them to work.

I could hire someone. But let’s be honest, there is plenty of work on that list too. (I don’t do electrical. Or pipes. Or floors.) So why not test my homeowner skills on this easier set of tasks and realize some immediate progress? After all, I at least can meet my own cost estimates and I guarantee myself I will get the job done in the time I have available.

Break’s over. Back to the ceiling.

ten lessons I have learned in my first ten years of being a mother

Let me get one thing straight: I have learned more than ten parenting lessons. But on today, the day that marks ten years of my being a mother, a day when my friend Angie is likely to give birth to her first child (I hope I didn’t just jinx the pace of your labor, Angie) I offer these lessons as a good cross-section of those things that the books don’t teach you.

In no particular order:

1. Band-aids are required for booboos that do not necessarily involve bleeding. As a parent, you just have to accept that you’re going to blow through a box of band-aids in a week, whereas when I was single the same box would linger in my medicine cabinet for over a year. A bruise, a bump, it doesn’t matter. Band-aids are accessories.

2. Sleep begets sleep. Early on as a parent, you may think to yourself one night, “we are having fun, drinking good wine, having conversation. Let’s let the kids stay up later, then they will sleep later and we can sleep in.” It doesn’t work that way. Kids who stay up later wake up at the same time in the morning, but are sleep-deprived, or in other words, cranky. But by some miracle, kids who go to bed early (and/or have a good nap) will sleep until their usual wake up time — or sometimes later.

3. On a related note… no amount of fun the night before is worth the pain the next morning. Now that my kids are of an age that they don’t wake me up in the morning, it doesn’t matter quite as much, but back when they were younger, I would have loved to hire someone for the morning after even more than being able to have the evening out.

4. If your child gets him or herself dressed, you look the other way if it doesn’t match. For several months, Jack’s “go to” outfit was a pair of bright red athletic pants and a kelly green tee-shirt. It hurt my eyes to look at him. But as long as that outfit was clean, I didn’t have to pick out his clothes or get him dressed. Then one morning, he was in said outfit at the table having breakfast, looked down at himself, and exclaimed, “I look like Christmas! I have to change.” In other words, he eventually figured it out.

5. Kids tell the same jokes and play the same annoying games we did as kids. You have to pretend you haven’t heard the banana/orange knock-knock joke a gazillion times. You suddenly understand why your parents wanted to leave you at a roadside stop after two hours of you and your sibling playing the copying game where they say what the other just said. Where they say what the other just said. Mom, he’s copying me. Mom, he’s copying me.

6. If there is anything worth crying over, it’s spilled milk. I forgot about this one until the other day when Nancy’s daughter spilled a whole pint of strawberry milk in her car. Neither of my boys really drink milk anymore, but back in the day, a cup of spilled milk seemed like it took longer to clean up than the oil spill in the Gulf. In other words, it’s no laughing matter.

7. Kids always know how much money they have in their wallets. So if you have to borrow some (like when you have to call the emergency locksmith because you grabbed the wrong set of keys while simultaneously closing the locked door behind you and you don’t have the required cash to get him to then leave your house once he has broken you back in) you must replace their money immediately (before you forget) and in the same denominations you took. You should also try to crinkle the bills up like they have been in the grasp of a sweaty hand.

8. Reverse psychology was invented to be used on kids. You want them to do something? Pretend you think it’s too dangerous or complicated or that they aren’t old enough, and before you know it they will be fighting over who gets to do it.

9. Kids cannot keep secrets. Ever. Not even small ones like, “don’t tell your brother I let you ride shotgun (watch TV, lick the bowl, stay up late).” And the bigger deal you make of the secret, the faster they will reveal it.

10. When you are having a bad day, your kids will inevitably make it worse. After a long day, coming home to cook a dinner that they won’t eat (even if it’s their favorite) and argue with them about bathing (“but I’m clean!”), teeth-brushing (“why?”), reading (“one more chapter?”) and bedtime (“I’m not tired!”), just when you are at your wits end, one will say something to make the day better. My favorite is this:

Child: “Mommy?”

Me: “Yes?”

Child: “I love you.”

And suddenly all the drama is worth it.

9-11

It seemed that as the ten-year anniversary of 9-11 grew nearer, my writer’s block worsened. I started and restarted this post a dozen times, but everything I put down felt trite and inadequate. Then tonight I realized that I struggled with exactly what to write because I’m not sure what can I say that hasn’t been said already.

Then I decided that it doesn’t matter if it’s been said. 9-11 is a day that changed America. It’s a day that changed me.

On Friday night I wept uncontrollably as I allowed myself the emotional indulgence of watching a 9-11 retrospective. For the first time, I let my children see for themselves the footage from that horrific day. They know the basic history of 9-11. They’ve heard the story of how their very pregnant mommy was working in the Senate that morning. They know about the 18-wheeler FEMA truck that shared the road with us as their dad and I drove to Sibley the night I went into labor. I can’t really tell the story of Jack’s birth on September 15, 2001 without including the details of the 4 days that preceded it.

I knew if I was going to let them watch 9-11 footage, I would have to keep my emotions in check. More than once, I covered my eyes and Colin’s too. Jack squeezed my leg. I cringed at the footage of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center. I had forgotten how fast the plane was flying, how low to the ground it was, and how very much like a weapon a commercial airline could appear. In that moment of the second hit we knew unconditionally that our country was under attack. The other night, seeing the footage was like feeling it for the first time.

Tears streamed silently down my face. Silently, that is, until Tom Brokaw moved to the story of United Flight 93. Emotion check failure.

Jack: “Mommy, why do you watch this show if it makes you cry?”

Because I have to. I’ll never know what would have happened if United Flight 93 hadn’t crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. I’ll never know whether my life and the life of my beautiful ten-year old son would have been in danger if Flight 93 had crashed into the Capitol – or more likely, been shot down over our city. Amid all I don’t know, I do know that the passengers of Flight 93 were heroes. And when I see their widows and children and loved ones recounting those last minutes on the flight, piecing together the story of their act of bravery, I just hope that I deserve their sacrifice.

I expected the moment of silence at 8:46 this morning to be heart-wrenching. But while somber, the silence allowed me to hear – coming from outside – the jubilant (and loud) voices of the 8 little boys who had slept over last night to celebrate my son’s upcoming tenth birthday. 9-11 robbed us of our innocence, but children still play and tell knock-knock jokes. They still skin knees and fall off their bikes. They even play Capture the Flag. And they laugh. The “post-9-11 world” for me was marked first and foremost by my entry into motherhood. I don’t need to be reminded to never forget.

desperately seeking…

Today I wore the J. Crew Minnie Pant. I like the Minnie and was told by Rosanna at DC Style Factory that I look good in Minnie when she audited my closet last spring and advised that I should buy a pair in every color. (By the way, I highly recommend a closet audit.) But really, while the Minnie is good for what it is, it is not my perfect pant. And I want the perfect pant.

In June when I was vacationing in New England (I love the way that sounds) and spent a day at Crane Beach with my friend Nicole, I noticed that she was wearing the Minnie. My mention of the Minnie led to a discussion about our own personal experiences in pursuit of the perfect pant.

We dubbed the perfect pant the Audrey pant, envisioning something that Audrey Hepburn would wear. But when I googled “Audrey Hepburn pants” I didn’t actually encounter any photos of her wearing what I think Nicole and I both seek.

What is the perfect pant? Well first of all, it’s black. And it has a flat front. And it has a straight leg. But it isn’t capri, which for us shorter women does not hit at the right point of the leg since all pants seem to be designed for the woman who is 5’11”. It isn’t that I am afraid of the tailor. I like the tailor. I use the tailor. I need to visit the tailor and soon. But the tailor, while good, is not capable of hemming my pants to that perfect fashion forward length that Nicole and I both desire. I don’t want the hem to drag. I don’t want the hem to be too high-watery. No floating hems (ugh!) or worse, a mullet scraping the ground behind your shoe when you walk. (Actually, maybe the floating hem is worse.) Essentially, we want an inseam that is longer than 27 inches and shorter than 31. No flare. No skinny. No bootcut. Just straight and classic. Oh, and please. I have birthed two babies so I prefer that the waistline fall somewhere between a high-waist reminiscent of the 80s and hang-off-your-hips-navel-revealing.

Nicole’s method for finding this perfect pant is to write to J. Crew and hope Jenna Lyons listens. My method is to appeal to my female readers to see if anyone is enlightened (and lucky) enough to own this pant. I’d be willing to buy the perfect pant in multiples just to ensure I always have it. If you direct me to the perfect pant, there is most certainly a reward. Or at least, a shout-out.

hard as nails

When the going gets tough in this city, well, often, the tough get a manicure. I know it seems like a shallow thing to think, do and write about in these dark and sweaty times. The world economy is on the brink of collapse due in total part to the partisan posturing of political leaders in DC. This weekend, bombs rocked Norway, the home of the Nobel Peace Prize. And in case you hadn’t noticed, a massive heat dome has been sitting menacingly over our country.

Sometimes you just need to get away, even for 45 minutes.

Those who see me on a regular basis probably have not missed that I like dark nail polish. I can’t quite go as far as the black shade that my friend Kara carries off so well, but I usually wear polish as dark as I can get that isn’t black. This obsession started nearly 20 years ago. I was recently out of college and read in some fashion magazine about Chanel nail polish in Vamp. Oh, how I coveted Vamp. But my post-college budget did not have room for a $25 nail polish. So I admired from afar. Then a friend of my dad’s heard me mention Vamp and surprised me with my very own bottle.

Even today, equivalent shades at a better price point like Essie’s Wicked or OPI’s Lincoln Park After Dark are my go-to when I am having my nails done. But in the summer, sometimes I feel pressured to at least try to embrace a brightness of color. Sometimes that color is coral. Sometimes red. But usually after a few “happy color” manicures, I revert back to my old ways. After all, I am a self-professed creature of habit.

I had just that kind of manicure a few weeks ago. I loved the bright purple in the salon. It looked great on my toes with sandals. (I am one of those people who wears the same nail color on toes and hands.) But after about two days, I was done with it. I was sitting in a meeting, distracted by my own nails, wishing I had taken the polish off that morning. As if to torment me more, I then ran across a post announcing Chanel’s new limited edition fall nail color line-up. I became singularly focused on wanting the greenish color pictured in the middle. Peridot. I’m no more a green nail polish wearer than I am watermelon, but I had to have it.

After about three days of thinking such, I gave in and on a whim, drove out to Nordstrom to buy Peridot. I didn’t even try the sample on in the store (was still wearing the hated purple). I contemplated a manicure on my way home, but it was getting late and I wanted to get home and cook dinner. I was slicing a baguette to toast into croutons when the great slip of 2011 occurred. Let’s just say multi-tasking with a serrated knife is not smart. That knife cut right through my thumbnail, about half way down the bed of my thumb. It took days to stanch the bleeding, and even now, two weeks later, despite all my yogurt eating, my nail is not yet in a manicure-able state.

So Peridot, along with tall boots and sweaters, will have to wait a little while longer. Let’s hope in the meantime for a deal on the debt ceiling and a break in these sweltering temperatures.

the boy who lives

Why am I so obsessed with Harry Potter? Long before I gave birth to two equally-obsessed mammals, I devoured Harry Potter like I did Sweet Valley High romances when in the sixth grade. I had the advantage of the first two Harry Potter books being out when I first discovered the world’s most famous wizard, then I waited with great anticipation for each sequel that followed. Every time a new book was about to be released, I reread the entire series. That means I have read The Sorcerer’s Stone approximately six times (okay, seven if you include the time I read it to Jack and Colin).

The one book that I had not read multiple times was the long-awaited last book in the series, The Deathly Hallows, which I had read (until this weekend) a sum total of once. Of course, I meant to reread it before the first half of the movie came out last November, but decided instead to reread The Half Blood Prince, one of my favorites. Then kids, work, and other books consumed my time and before I knew it, we were on the cusp of the hallowed (no pun intended) release of part two (otherwise known in my house as “the eight movie”) without my getting in a repeat read.

That did not diminish my spirit. The boys and I re-watched a movie a night leading up to the premier. I cried at scenes I have seen scores of times. I prepared costumes for myself and the boys to wear to the movie and a costume party afterwards. I continued to read The Goblet of Fire to Colin, but found myself weepy for no reason. When my friend Amy told me that her 14-year old daughter had proclaimed the movie release of Deathly Hallows, Part Two as the end of her childhood, it struck a deep chord.

I know Harry Potter lives happily ever after, so why all the emotion? I’m too young to look at Harry, Ron and Hermione as my children, but obviously am too old and too muggly to regard them as peers. While the Harry Potter series depicts a world that either doesn’t exist or we are not a part of (depending on your hopes and dreams) there are profound lessons in the experiences of these fictional characters. In a time marked by a serious lack of cooperation being displayed by political leaders, our elected officials could learn to rally together to confront a crisis. In an era where people believe what they are told without putting in the extra time to investigate, we could all learn to double-check sources and put critical thought into our positions. And in a world where friendships are maintained via text, tweets, and Facebook posts, we could all stand to remember that our personal connections make us stronger and need to be nurtured.

It is safe to say there is no book series from my own childhood that impacted me the same way Harry Potter did. As my kids grow older, I hope they will continue to reread the books, learn new lessons, and of course, memorize new spells.