Tackling traffic school

I'm excited to be posting at Our Mommyhood today. Please head over, check out my post, and leave a comment! 

I finished tackling traffic school tonight. The punishment that California doles out when you've been lucky enough to get pulled over by a motorcycle cop with a beer belly, bushy mustache, and yucky-too-tight-pants.

Here are a few not useful things I took away from traffic school:

The purpose of the windshield is to protect the driver from the environment
Fentonyl is a designer drug
Cocaine is a white powder that one inhales
Crack can be smoked
A green painted curb indicates temporary parking
The horn should be used as a warning device not as a way to draw attention to oneself or express road rage
A drivers license typically expires 5 years after being issued
You may not park your vehicle in the middle of an intersection or in the middle of a crosswalk
You must make a complete stop at a red light
A Do Not Enter sign means you may not drive onto that street

The drug breakdown was SO helpful. Being reminded that cocaine is a white powder will make me a much safer driver. I'm so glad I learned the proper way a horn should be used and extra so glad the Do Not Enter sign was clarified. That one really messes me up. And, bummer, guess I can't use my favorite parking spot in the middle of the Hollywood and Vine intersection.

Have you ever had to do traffic school? What did you take away from it? (If anything).




This post is participating in Tackle it Tuesday at 5 Minutes for Mom

Hair brushing causes seizures

I'm excited to be participating in Mama Kat's writing prompt for the first time. This post is inspired by: "A moment you felt truly relieved."

Did you know that brushing your child's hair can cause a seizure?  I didn't know this. But now I do.

When Caroline was in Kindergarten she had a quick shower every morning and Katie had one right afterwards. On this particular morning the house was an especially chilly 49 degrees when we got up and the shower was warm and inviting. Caroline asked for a few extra minutes to play and I promised her sister the same.

After her shower when Caroline was dressed I brushed her hair while she stood in between my legs, her back to me. As I pulled the brush through her shoulder length blonde hair, my mind wandered to the rest of the lunch that had to be packed, to the shoes that had to be retrieved from upstairs, to the field trip release I hadn't yet filled out.

So when Caroline said "I want to go back to bed," I offered a quick Mom response.

"I know what you mean, but we've got to finish getting ready and get to school."

Then she slumped down. Very gently. Very quietly. I thought she was being silly, pretending to fall asleep.

"Don't be silly," I said. "Come on, stand up."

She didn't stand up. She stayed slumped against my leg. She had just passed out. I gently lowered her to the floor, not quite sure how to react.

As I stood there, listening to Katie playing in the shower, and deciding what to do, Caroline began to jerk and shake. Violent motions that seized her whole body, that sent her arms and legs flailing. That seemed to move the entire floor. When her eyes opened and rolled back in her head, showing the whites, I froze.

My five-year-old was having a grand-mal seizure.

Before the seizure ended I started to, very methodically, plan out what needed to happen: I had to call 911; I had to get Katie out of the shower and dressed; I had to call Tim who was at his early morning yoga class; I had to get dressed myself; I had to call one of Katie's preschool friends to get them to take her to school.

Once the seizure stopped Caroline was so pale her skin was almost transluscent. I grabbed her up in my arms. I hadn't lifted her up like that in a long time; she was heavy. Her head slumped against my shoulder.

"You're okay, baby," I said. I never called her baby. 

I shouted to Katie to get out of the shower.

"Caroline is sick!" I said. I didn't want to scare her but apparently something in my voice did because she turned off the shower, got out, dried herself and was completely dressed, all in about one minute flat and she was only three years old and had never done all that by herself.

I raced back to the other end of the house, to the phone in the office, where I placed Caroline, still unconscious, on the floor.

I dialed 911 and explained my five-year-old had just had a seizure. I was put through to a paramedic who asked if Caroline was breathing. It hadn't even occurred to me check. I reached down and felt under her nose and saw her chest rising.

"Yes," I said. "She's breathing."

As I hung up Katie appeared, fully clothed, her hair dripping wet.

"Can you get Caroline a blanket?" I asked. She charged off and returned with a blanket from the family room sofa.

Caroline's eyes opened but she was not responsive. Her forehead was cool under my hand.

I called Tim and left him a voicemail. His yoga class wouldn't be over until 7:30 and he probably wouldn't check his voicemails until he was leaving the yoga studio at 8 am. I tried not to cry but when I said the ambulance was on the way I choked up.

The paramedics arrived. They were very calm. They explained this happened a lot. She probably just spiked a fever. Except she wasn't sick and didn't have a fever. 

When I called a friend who lived down the street to see if she could come get Katie I finally burst into tears.

The paramedics hoisted Caroline, now on the gurny, into the ambulance. I saw my friend, her car parked a little way down the street, running up the hill towards us. Some neighbors came out and asked if everything was okay. My friend picked up Katie, now crying, and carried her off. I shouted after her that Katie hadn't eaten breakfast.

By the time Tim met us at the ER the color had returned to Caroline's face and she was less groggy but when the doctor told us he wanted to do a CT scan I couldn't stop my tears. Tim and I watched through a glass partition as Caroline was pushed into the CT scan. She was so brave. She never complained or cried.

She was released shortly after the CT scan came back normal. We went home and spent a day playing games and watching TV. 

I checked on Caroline several times before going to bed. I had a hard time sleeping that night and many nights that followed. 

Caroline's pediatrician told me: "Every kid is allowed one free seizure." But she also recommended Caroline see a pediatric neurologist. 

Meanwhile, a friend of mine told her father, a pediatrician, about the incident. Amazingly, he asked if I was brushing Caroline's hair when the seizure happened. Evidently seizures caused by hair brushing are well-documented. He urged me not to follow up with neurologist.

So I did what anyone would do. I googled "hair brushing causes seizures." I got a lot of results. Apparently Caroline's morning was the perfect set-up. The extra time in the warm shower had her feeling a little light headed, brushing her hair caused her to experience vasovagal restriction and pass out and the lack of oxygen to her brain caused the seizure.

I cancelled the appointment with the pediatric neurologist.

I felt total and complete relief; her seizure was  a genuine "free seizure."

It's three years later now but I still brush her hair very carefully and she doesn't take showers in the morning. 

Back to Katie

We named our youngest daughter Katherine. One of my favorite names. I love its old world elegance. It's thought to originate from the Greek word "katharos" for "pure." It's a name that's been around since the third century. Meaning aside, I love the way it rolls off the tongue. It's a classy name. And it's versatile. It can be Kate or Kathy or Kat or Katie.

We called our Katherine Katie. She was Katie for almost 5 years. After a bad experience at the Most Stinky Stupidhead Preschool (MSSP), we put her at another school where she introduced herself as Katherine and said she wanted to be Katherine from now on.

I tried to make the switch. I always referred to her as Katherine around school people and friends and here on my blog. Tim never made the switch and Caroline, well, she was the only one who was able to stay consistent and always call her sister Katherine.

Katie switched schools again this year. She loved Kindergarten last year but Caroline was going to a new school and Katie decided she wanted to go to the new school, too. Given that it was going to be just about impossible juggling two kids at two schools that had different start and end times and were twenty miles and four freeways apart we let Katie switch, too.

At some point last fall she began telling the teacher she wanted to be called Katie. She signed Katie on all her work. When Caroline called her Katherine in the schoolyard Katie's friends asked who Katherine was. Finally, Katie told me she wanted to be Katie again.

So she's Katie again.

Although last week she mentioned she might like to be called Kate.

Do your kids ever ask you to call them something different? Or, do they go by something different in school than at home?

Red hands

I have red hands. Red palms and fingers to be specific. Red, inflamed, tingly, numb palms and fingers.

It started two weeks ago when the palms of my hands started to feel tight, hot, and strange.

The following morning they looked like this.

I couldn't feel my finger tips. My hands felt like they do when they're really cold and are dropped in hot water. All the time. They throbbed. They hurt.

I couldn't open bottles or tie shoes. Two things I was being asked to do. Constantly.

Off I traipsed to the doctor. She was a little perplexed. She prescribed steroid cream.

The girls greeted me each day after school with. "How are your hands, Mommy?" followed by,"Ooh, they're still so red! That cream isn't working!"

Two days later and still no improvement. Back to the doctor. She ordered blood work to test for lupus. You know, just in case. I tried not to think about it a whole lot but lying in bed that night with my two girls asleep and my cat pressed up tight against me my mind wandered to some dark, lonely places.

The next day the red started spreading onto the tops of my hands, my back, my feet, my achilles heel.  I've had eczema most of my life so  I knew enough to know this was not auto-immune disorder but a skin issue.

The dermatologist diagnosed it immediately: Eczema that had become systemic. This type of eczema flare-up is usually triggered by high stress. She had no explanation for why it had flared up on my hands where I have never experienced eczema before. She put me on strong oral steroids. I didn't sleep for a week. Steroids do that to you.

A few days after starting the oral steroids the skin on my hands started to slough off. Big chunks of skin.

I find little piles of skin chunks, like this one on Katherine's drawing, everywhere.

I'm supposed to apply thick steroid ointment three times a day and wear cotton gloves 24/7. It's a pain and it's yucky. I take the gloves off in my sleep so now I put socks on at night. Those seem to stay put.

The dermatological gloves need to be washed regularly. Sometime I wear socks. It's easier.

Yesterday I went to the hair salon. Wearing socks. On my hands.
"Are you cold, Anne?" the hair stylist asked in the middle of discussing my cut.
"No, I'm fine," I said, wondering why he was asking me that when it felt like 80 degrees in the salon.
The hair stylist began trimming my hair but he looked bothered by something.
"Are you sure you're not cold?" he asked again. This time I noticed he was looking at my hands. In white cotton socks. Duh.

My hands are still swollen and red and sloughy.

But I'm looking on the bright side. Oral steroids are done with, I've slept for three nights in a row, and when this is all over I'm going to have the most beautifully exfoliated hands and feet in all of Los Angeles.

And I didn't even have to go to a spa.

Vegetarian or meat-eater?

Clip art from clker.com

Tim doesn't eat meat. He's been a pesco-vegetarian for fifteen years. He eats fish, dairy and eggs. The girls and I do eat meat, although we rarely eat red meat. We usually eat chicken, turkey and occasionally "the other white meat," pork. We also eat a lot of fish and vegetarian meals, too. The concept of vegetarians and vegans has frequently come up at meal times since Tim often eats something different.

Katherine's favorite school lunch of the moment is chicken teriyaki. She regularly orders chicken fingers and she loves turkey bacon. So it came as some surprise on Thanksgiving day when she announced that we were "really terrible people" for killing and eating turkey and she couldn't believe we were going to put turkey on the dinner table. Tim was having fish so we said she could eat fish for her Thanksgiving dinner, too.

As dinner time approached Katherine came into the kitchen, saw the turkey breast on the counter and began crying.
"Oh my gosh!" she shouted indignantly. "You already killed the turkey! I can't believe you killed the turkey! I can't eat dinner with you if you're eating turkey!"

This scene lasted throughout our entire meal, pretty much killing (pardon the pun) our Thanksgiving dinner.

We were completely perplexed. Hadn't she, just the day before, ordered turkey bacon at breakfast?

Caroline piped up in the middle of dinner with: "Mommy, why is it called turkey breast?" Not helpful.

A few days later I talked with Katherine about Thanksgiving dinner. I asked if a friend at school had said something to her about killing turkeys. She said no, it was just because turkeys were some of her favorite animals and if everyone went around killing turkeys and eating them they would become extinct and she didn't want them to be extinct. It didn't help her feel better when I assured her turkeys were not at risk of extinction. It struck me that it probably also wouldn't help to point out that some fish actually are at risk of extinction if we continue "to go around killing them and eating them."

The reality of raising animals for food is not a topic I am ready to broach with my six-year-old. The fact is it's not a topic I like to think about a whole lot myself. It's a lot easier to simply go to my local grocery store, buy the packaged boneless, skinless chicken breasts, preferably organic and free-range, or get the wild-caught salmon at the fish counter. Not anything to be proud of. But the reality of modern, urban living.

If I really thought about it or had to be involved in the process of farming I would become a vegetarian. Or maybe not.

When I was a little older than Katherine I had a good friend who lived on a farm where her family raised cows. They named all the cows and I thought it was rather fun to open the gate and let the cows back into the barnyard at night. One winter night as we ate steak for dinner my friend's mother announced, with an air of hilarity, that we were probably eating Bessie. I choked back tears and almost threw up. I never ate steak at her house again.

However, this incident didn't stop me from eating meat elsewhere.

So, I'm curious. If you're vegetarian do you raise your children vegetarian? If you do eat meat, how do you broach the subject of meat and where it comes from? Do any of you have children who decided on their own to become vegetarians? Do any of you live on farms where your children get a hands-on-experience of the food chain?

Thanksgiving post: This one's a troublemaker

I wrote about Caroline's birth in an essay on Literary Mama, but never wrote Katherine's birth story. Caroline got a beautiful first year scrapbook and Katherine's lock of hair, hospital bracelet and other keepsakes are still sitting in a box six years later.

So I'm sharing Katherine's birth story here, in Thanksgiving week, with you, because all birth stories are worth sharing and because I'm so thankful for Katherine's birth. After you read Katherine's, please share your childrens', if you care to, and link back to Sugar Bowl Mix. I love reading birth stories. Each one is its own extraordinary miracle.

When I was pregnant with Caroline I lived in fear of the delivery. I was terrified. I was a wimp for pain. At the birthing class at a San Francisco hospital I was the only one who stood up when asked who wanted the epidural in the parking lot. After watching a graphic, bloody birth movie starring a long-haired-Haight-Ashbury-1970s-hippy screaming in agony, the birthing instructor spelled out all the reasons why we should delay the epidural as long as possible and really, best of all, skip it altogether.

I tortured myself with Discovery channel's Birth Stories. One episode in particular haunted me: a woman whose birth plan dictated skipping the epidural changed her mind as she was pushing out the baby. She screamed and cried, pleading and begging in a high-pitched little voice: "Is it too late to get the epidural?" It was.

But then an extraordinary thing happened. My water broke, we went to the hospital and I endured back labor for nine hours with no epidural and it wasn't scary. Yes, it hurt. A lot. But I discovered I have a high tolerance for pain. And when I finally got the epidural it wasn't very effective and that last half hour of pushing was one major BURN-fest. But I survived. It wasn't terrifying.

I came to realize that for me the delivery was a piece of cake, though not chocolate cake. It was the nine months of pregnancy that was hard. When I was pregnant with Katherine I had to wear a pregnancy girdle belt for the entire pregnancy because of bad back pain. Not fun. When I was four months along I came down with a kidney infection and had to be hospitalized for two nights. Tim was in New York and we had no family in town. Not fun. The Braxton Hicks contractions started a a few weeks later and never stopped. Not fun at all. Sciatica set in at the same time. Maybe the worst thing of all. I still have it six years later.

After discovering the baby was breach at thirty-six weeks I decided against the C-section and had her turned. When my OB warned me it would be "a little uncomfortable" I knew I was in for it. Five minutes of my OB pushing and shoving my baby's bottom and I almost passed out from the pain. I'd go through fourteen hours of back labor again before I'd repeat that. But my baby was turned and the C-section averted.

When I was a week overdue I begged my OB to induce me. I couldn't take it a second longer. And didn't she know I had a wedding to attend in Carmel in ten days and my mother-in-law and niece were arriving in two days? I needed this baby out! I did everything I could to naturally induce the delivery short of drinking witch's brew. Still no baby.

Finally, eight days overdue and I got word that I could come in and be induced that afternoon. Hallelujah! By tomorrow I would no longer be pregnant! I rushed to Target to buy a last-minute changing table, I rearranged Caroline's room, rearranged the den, cooked, watered the plants, folded baby clothes and played with Caroline.

I rushed around all day, in major nesting mode, so elated at the thought of meeting my baby and not being pregnant anymore, but suddenly, as we drove to the hospital that afternoon, I remembered that while delivering babies wasn't terrifying, it wasn't a piece of chocolate cake.

At the hospital I waited for forty minutes while two women were checked in before me. One woman, in active labor, winced and groaned, paced, leaned over and finding no relief crumpled on to a chair, sobbing. A reminder of what lay ahead for me.

Finally, settled in to the delivery room, hooked up to various contraptions, with Tim-I've done-this-before-call-me-when-you-need-me reading a book by the window, a nurse came in to check me.
"You're five centimeters dilated and you're having major contractions," she said.
"Oh, these aren't contractions," I said. "I've been having these for months. They're just Braxton Hicks contractions."
"Honey, you're in active labor. How have you not gone insane with those huge contractions for months?"

Four hours later with no induction necessary, my contractions fast and furious, I was pushing hard. The OB arrived, ready to oversee the delivery.

Suddenly, my baby's heart beat dropped. A lot.

"Get the vacuum!" the OB shouted to the nurse.
"Vacuum needed in room **," the nurse called on the intercom.

I didn't want forceps or the vacuum. At any cost. Now, I lay there, helpless, a vacuum on the way.

The room was very quiet.

This is one of those moments. One of those defining life moments, I thought. What happens next will change everything. Everything. I breathed in hard. It hurt.

'Where's the vacuum?" the OB called out, her voice panicky.

The nurse called for it again. I appreciated her calm voice, her methodical movements. I breathed in long and deep again,  thinking the extra oxygen would help my baby.

Four people in surgery gowns charged into the delivery room in a blur.

The OB struggled with the vacuum.

"Shit, "I heard her say. Really? I remember thinking. Did she really just say that? Now? In this moment?

Then my baby was out. One of the surgery gowns grabbed her and flew over to an area I couldn't see under a bright light.

"We're going to make sure the baby is okay," I heard the OB say, in between heavy breaths. I didn't know who she was talking to.

 I haven't heard her cry, I thought. I waited, holding my breath, willing my baby who I couldn't see to cry.

I looked to Tim but he was watching the surgery gowns check our baby.

Then, just like that, a loud, forceful cry went up.

"There she goes," someone said.

I let my breath out. Hot tears slid down my cheeks.

They placed my baby, wrapped tightly in a hospital blanket, in my arms. I looked at her full head of black hair, her little, serious brown eyes and her round, red face. She didn't look anything like her sister. She didn't look anything like I expected she would, but I knew her already. I knew my baby who had  grown inside me, kicked me, punched me and hiccupped every night at nine o'clock. I knew her.

"Hi precious," I said.

"Watch out," the OB said, "this one's a troublemaker."

Hollywood: A scene from my life before kids

This is a creative non-fiction account of a day in my former life as a development executive in Hollywood for a well known actor's production company. It's told in the third person. Can you guess "Brian," the Hollywood celebrity's identity?

After guiding his spaceship-like Porsche into his private parking space on the Warner Bros. lot, Peter enters his company's office, in Building 81, just down the hall from Clint Eastwood's production company. A year ago Peter partnered with an A-list actor and acquired these hips digs in this much sought-after building. Peter walks through the lobby, past the framed black and white posters of classic films that he had nothing to do with, past the door leading to the bathroom that contains an orgy-size shower that Steven Seagal had designed when he occupied this space. He doesn't notice the new, overly-smily intern sitting at the reception desk.

Further into the office he nods a good morning to Greg, assistant to Anne, the VP of Development.

"Can I have a cappucino?"Peter asks.

"You got it," Greg answers, jumping up.

Greg beckons the intern to follow him. "This morning," he says to the intern in the kitchen, "you will learn to make the perfect cup of cappuccino."

"Great!" The intern exclaims.

"Making cappucino is a pain in the ass," Greg says, struggling to clean the steamer spout. The intern's broad smile disappears.

"Get me my brother!" Peter shouts out to Hannah, his perky blonde assistant who is attractive but not so attractive as to make the MAW (model, actress, whatever) wife jealous.

Hannah quickly dials the number, one of hundreds she has memorized.

"Tom?" She says. She's very polite, very proper, very efficient. "I've got your brother, Peter, calling for you." She places Tom on hold, swivels around in her chair, gets up and enters Peter's domain, a spacious office modeled after Sylvester Stallone's office, replete with a sink-in, big-enough-for-sex-sofa, German 1970s black leather and metal chairs and a glass desk perfectly organized for the day by the super-assistant.
"Tom's on two," Hanna says and then she closes the door behind her.

A day at Halo Pictures has begun.

The phone buzzes non-stop. The two assistants handle three or four calls at once. Anne doesn't allow the intern to answer the phones after she twice gave the incorrect name of callers. Anne will fire the intern later today when she has time. For now, she scrambles to put together notes for Peter's latest "great" idea: a romantic comedy set in white trash culture.

Greg and the intern reappear with the perfect cup of cappuccino. Hannah knocks on Peter's door, enters and places the cup on top of a napkin in the far right corner of the desk.

And then Brian saunters in to the office. He wears gym shorts, a black T-shirt and sneakers. He's been playing basketball on the set of the hit TV show that put him on the map.

"Hey! I'm Brian," he says casually to the intern. He offers his hand. The intern's jaw drops. She stammers but no sounds come out. "Welcome aboard," Brian says.

Hannah catches her breath as Brian approaches. He defines sexy. Even in his sweaty, post-work-out-mode, or maybe because of it. She stands up as he leans in to kiss her and offers him her mouth. Hannah always kisses him on the lips.

Anne is in her office, on the phone, fighting with an agent who won't give her the spec script that went out that morning. Brian knocks on her door, gives her a big smile and makes a comical gesture about the agent on the phone. He comes around her desk and kisses her firmly on the cheek.

"Brian just walked in," Anne says to the agent. "Should I put him on the phone so you can tell him yourself why you're not letting us have the script?"

Brian puts his hand out to take the phone, but the agent gives in and agrees to send the script. Anne gives Brian a thumbs up. He reciprocates and heads out to the assistant area.

In the assistant area, Brian chit chats with Hannah and Greg. Anne comes out to join them. Brian has a casual ease about him that almost makes those with him forget he's been People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive. For a few moments the office is filled with giggles and silly jokes, fun banter and Brian's charm. 

But then Peter emerges from his office. Hannah quickly returns to her desk and Greg turns back to his desk.

"Brian!" Peter says too exuberantly. Next to Brian, Peter seems small and nerdy in his tight black pants, tight black T-shirt and army boots. "How are you?" He laughs giddily.

Anne rolls her eyes and goes back to her office. Just last night Peter had whined to her about not being invited to Brian's party over the weekend.

Inside Peter's office, Brian throws himself onto the oversize sofa. He puts his hand up his T-shirt and plays with it, revealing his taut stomach. Does he notice the picture of Peter's nubile twenty-year old wife in the Demi Moore naked-while-pregnant pose? Or the naked post-baby picture of the perfectly whittled body with just a hint of pubic hair showing? Or the naked-with-two-year-old-child card that went out this past Christmas? If so, he doesn't comment.

Instead, he says, "so I've been thinking. I don't want to do romantic comedies. I want to concentrate on smart thrillers, dark dramas."

Peter's goofy smile fades. He's spent the last year looking for romantic comedies for Brian to headline. He spent all weekend working on his white trash rom-com idea.

"Hannah! Get Anne in here!"

Anne hears the desperate shout before Hannah summons her. In Peter's office she doesn't sit on the sex-sofa with Brian. She sits on one of the very uncomfortable chairs opposite to get a better view. She knows something significant must have happened because neither Brian nor Peter say anything.

"Great shoes," Brian finally says. Anne just bought the leopard skin shoes at the Nordstrom sale that weekend, her only respite from twenty scripts and two five-hundred page manuscripts she had to read.

"Thanks," she says.

"Okay guys, good to see you. Gotta run." And with that Brian is off, but not before kissing Anne and Hannah goodbye.

"Anne, we'll reschedule the white trash meeting," Peter says. "Hannah, cancel my lunch and get me Dr. Rosenbaum on the phone."

Everyone, except the intern, knows that when Peter wants Dr. Rosenbaum, his shrink, their day will be miserable.

After she gets the shrink on the phone, Hannah comes to tell Anne about Brian not wanting to do rom-coms. Anne shrugs.

"We'll make the white trash rom-com a white trash thriller," Anne says.

In Hollywood there are many ways to spin a story.

**All names except for mine, Clint Eastwood's and Steven Seagal's have been changed to protect the guilty.

(I posted a previous version of this before my blog went public.)

Hollywood premieres to cloth diapers and underpants

At one point in my life I used to go to Hollywood premieres on a regular basis. I saw a lot of movies for free that way and ate late dinners while milling through crowds of celebrities and other film industry executives.

My life has changed a lot since then.

Last week a friend and her son were over for dinner. In my effort to retain some kind of elegance amidst my general chaos I grabbed a linen napkin from the napkin drawer to line the bowl to hold the chicken tacos. As I was carrying the bowl  to the table I noticed the tacos were elegantly nestled in a cloth diaper.

In my haste I had apparently opened the rag drawer, not the linen napkin drawer. My friend was so amused she told me I had to leave the tacos in the diaper for dinner.

A few weeks ago the chain that turns Katherine's bedside lamp on broke off and was lost. So I took a pair of her underpants - clean ones - and unscrewed the lightbulb to turn off the lamp. This works well. I don't burn my hands and the light gets turned on and off.

For now I'm not going to fix the lamp or replace it. There's a wonderful humor, a zaniness in using underpants to switch her bedside lamp on and off.  I don't want to give that up just yet.

Do you do anything zany that makes you laugh that you never would have considered pre-children?

Crack Pie: Tim's Thanksgiving alternative

I’m not a pie person. I don’t have the patience to make pie crust and I really dislike pumpkin pie. In previous years I have made apple pie for Thanksgiving dinner. But when it comes right down to it, I’d really rather have something chocolate. Even if the pilgrims never ate chocolate.

So earlier this year, when Tim came across this recipe for Crack Pie in The Los Angeles Times he told me he’d found me the perfect Thanksgiving pie alternative.

Momofuku Milk Bar in Manhattan puts a few twists on the old-fashioned chess pie of Tim’s Tennessee youth. First, there’s the name: Crack Pie. A daring, attention-grabbing moniker for an addictive dessert that Momofuku has gone so far as to trademark. Then, there’s the crust. This is no normal pie crust. It’s an oat cookie baked to perfection and then crumbled together with more butter and pressed into a pie dish. No rolling out the dough. Even I could make this crust! And finally, the combination of the cookie crust with the buttery, gooey pie filling is like candy in your mouth.

It’s totally crack. Perfection in a pie. I’m hooked. How about you?

You can order these pies for a mere $44 per pie (Fed Ex shipping not included) direct from the bakery but it’s much more fun and cost-efficient to make your own.

Or, have your husband make one like Tim did this past weekend. 

This recipe is for two pies. Email me at sugarbowlmix at gmail dot com if you want to know why. (Or, cut the recipe in half to make only one.)

Cookie for crust

2/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon flour

Scant 1/8 teaspoon baking powder

Scant 1/8 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) softened butter

1/3 cup  light brown sugar

3 tablespoons sugar

1 egg

Scant 1 cup rolled oats

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Beat the butter, brown sugar and sugar until light and fluffy. Whisk the egg into the butter mixture until fully incorporated.

With the mixer running, beat in the flour mixture, a little at a time, until fully combined. Stir in the oats until incorporated.

Spread the mixture onto a 9-inch-by-13-inch baking sheet and bake until golden brown and set, about 20 minutes.  Remove from heat and cool to the touch on a rack. Crumble the cooled cookie to use in the crust.

An exciting aside: Tim removed the cookie from the oven and set it on the stove top where I was, unbeknownst to him, boiling water.

“Watch out!” I shouted, but it was too late.

The parchment paper caught on fire! With shrieks and yells from both of us, Tim grabbed the oven glove and put out the fire, but the glove caught on fire. Tim got the burner turned off, the glove in the sink and the cookie was saved. And me? I was taking pictures, of course. (Note the burned parchment paper below.)

Crust

Crumbled cookie

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter

1 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

Combine the crumbled cookie, butter, brown sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse until evenly combined and blended (a little of the mixture clumped between your fingers should hold together). Divide the crust between 2 (10-inch) pie tins. Press the crust into each shell to form a thin, even layer along the bottom and sides of the tins. Set the prepared crusts aside while you prepare the filling.

Filling

1 1/2 cups sugar

3/4 cup plus a scant 3 tablespoons light brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup plus 1 teaspoon milk powder

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, melted

3/4 cup plus a scant 2 tablespoons heavy cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

8 egg yolks

2 prepared crusts

Powdered sugar

In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, brown sugar, salt and milk powder. Whisk in the melted butter, then whisk in the heavy cream and vanilla.

Gently whisk in the egg yolks, being careful not to add too much air. Divide the filling evenly between the 2 greased pie shells.

Bake the pies, one at a time, for 15 minutes at 350 degrees, then reduce the heat to 325 degrees and bake until the filling is slightly jiggly and golden brown (similar to a pecan pie), about 10 minutes. Remove the pies and cool on a rack.

Refrigerate the cooled pies until well chilled. The pies are meant to be served cold, and the filling will be gooey. Dust with powdered sugar before serving.

Enjoy!

Find the recipe to print here.

#BlogBoycottDay

So yesterday I went to the zoo with the girls and a friend and her child. The kids were so excited running from exhibit to exhibit. It all disintigrated thirty-five minutes into our visit when my friend's child started demanding popcorn and Katherine decided she was going to die, did you hear me? DIE, if she didn't eat immediately.

So we lined up at one of the zoo's eateries and ordered $7 per slice pizzas and a purple drink that came in the shape of a lion and we didn't get the cheetah head that came with total junk food inside it. We sat down in front of the Okapi exhibit where two adorable babies were running around to lots of "oohs" and "aahhs." Caroline ate her entire slice of pepperoni pizza and guzzled three little bottles of water.

After lunch we slowly started to make our way back to the entrance, stopping to see glimpses of the snow leopards, the hippo peeing in the water, the lemur peeing and some amazingly strange goat animal with fabulous spiral horns. That's when Caroline started to say she was SO tired. She couldn't walk all the way back to the front of the zoo.

We did walk all the way back to the front. The girls sat down in the shade outside the zoo entrancce so Caroline could rest. Quite suddenly, she stood up, spread her legs wide, leaned over and vomited everywhere. The entire slice of pizza, all three bottles of water. Right there on the pavement in front of the Los Angeles Zoo.

Katherine ran away with cries of "EEEEEWWW" and "I'm really grossed out!"

All of this to say that today I am home with poor tummy-virussy-Caroline who had another episode last night.

SO I am taking a day off blogging, reading and commenting to participate in Liz's (a belle a bean & a chicago dog) BlogBoycottDay (and tend to Caroline).

Meet me on Twitter, tweeps:  @sugarbowlmix.

Going on a lizard hunt

There's a tasty lizard with a long tail behind this TV cabinet. If I weren't so big I could get it!

Maybe if I try around the other side. Darn! It's just out of reach.

45 minutes later: Maybe I can lie here and just keep on an eye on it.

Okay. I give up. I'm going to nap.

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Tobacco stops the bleeding

Last week I cut the top of my thumb.

I was showing a contractor, working at the house for the day, a toilet that needed to be fixed. Somehow, with my expert ways around toilets, I managed to drop the top of the toilet onto the marble floor. It broke with a loud crash. I reached down to pick up the broken piece.

"Be careful!" The contractor shouted.

He was too late. I sliced my thumb across the top on the very sharp edge of the ceramic toilet top. I swore. Loudly. Then I turned on the tap and placed my thumb under cold running water. The blood poured out an alarming rate.

The young contractor's eyes widened when he saw the red run off in the sink. He got me the Band-Aid box and wrapped my thumb in several Band-Aids but they were soaked through before he was even done.

I wrapped my thumb in a white rag. After half an hour the contractor checked in on my thumb. It was still bleeding.

"You need tobacco," he told me.
"Tobacco?"
"Tobacco stops the bleeding."

He went out to his truck, got a cigarette, broke it in half and emptied the tobacco. He took a small clump of tobacco and pressed it against my bleeding cut. He wrapped another Band-Aid around the tobacco.

(Then he asked why I was taking pictures of my bloody thumb.)

I had my doubts. I really did. So I googled "tobacco stops bleeding" and was surprised at the results. Apparently tobacco really does stop bleeding. In my case it took twenty minutes.

It's hard to know if it was the tobacco or just the fact that fifty minutes had passed since I first sliced my thumb. I like to believe it was the tobacco.

Have you ever used an unusual first-aid treatment?

Ten anecdotes in defense of higher waistbands

1. Caroline is four weeks old and we're at an organized baby playgroup. We're all sitting on the floor, trying to keep our babies entertained while we discuss every aspect of breastfeeding. When we get to the rules of thumb for storing breast milk my attention wanes. I count out of a possible twelve, there are nine behinds, or nine portions of behinds, on display. And they aren't baby behinds.

2. I'm seven months pregnant with Katherine, my second. I'm pretty elephant-like and am co-teaching an undergraduate English class. I introduce a new plan for discussion where everyone will sit on the floor and discuss the week's reading in a more casual setting - an attempt to encourage the shy students to participate. The plan is met with great resistance. "That's gonna be really hard for me with the pants I wear!" one student exclaims. Other students join in, saying their pants are not made for sitting on the floor. "If I can sit on the floor, you can," I answer. I suggest next time they wear long shirts. We all sit on the floor and I avert my eyes so I won't count the number of cracks.

3. Katherine is two and we're driving home. Out the car window she sees a gardener leaning over a flower bed, half of his behind hanging out of his jeans. "Poopy!" she says, giggling.

4. I'm at a playdate with four-year-old Caroline who is sporting a new pair of snazzy jeans. Suddenly, I hear the playmate shouting, "I can see Caroline's butt!"  When we get home we put the jeans away, never to be worn again. They end up in the bag for Goodwill four years later.

5. In a PTA meeting, the mom sitting next to me stands up and leans across me to pass a handout to someone in the row in front of us. Her lacy black thong and the top of her crack jumps out of the top of her conservative pants.

6. I'm pushing my grocery cart through the parking lot. A teenager, jeans belted below his behind, comes across a curb in the parking lot. He stops and contemplates the situation. He tries to lift his leg over, but his pants restrict his movement too much. Eventually, he swings his leg on top of the curb and then awkwardly swings the other one up. As he steps down on the other side he trips and falls.

7. I'm volunteering at the Kindergarten Valentine Day's High Tea. The girls wear their best dresses and the boys sport ties and jackets. As I pass out the tea sandwiches I catch a glimpse of another mom volunteer reaching up to get something from a high shelf which results in her shirt being hiked up and her flesh-colored thong and top of her crack getting a full view of the Kinders elegant High Tea.

8. I'm walking Caroline into second-grade. Students are busy putting their jackets, backpacks and lunches away. One boy throws his lunch box, missing the lunch bin. When he reaches down to pick up the lunch box, the back of his pants drop down, revealing the entire back of his checkered underwear.

9. I'm at Home Depot inspecting door handles when a gentleman next to me leans over to get something on a lower shelf and his already low-slung jeans slip all the way down, revealing his entire hairy, white behind to all the other door handle shoppers.

10. When I bring home some new pants for Caroline to try on, she immediately sits down with her legs crossed and asks, "do they pass the test?" which is code for "is my crack showing?" After the pants pass the first test she leans over, touching her hands to the floor, and says, "how about this test?"



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Taming long car rides

We've given up the carpool. For now. It's temporary. It simply wasn't working very well. So I'm driving to and from school twice a day. Most mornings it's thirty minutes. An hour round trip. In the afternoons it's faster but then there's the carpool pick-up line to contend with. 


Katherine has a hard time riding in the car for more than ten minutes. So this is three times her limit. Let's just say we've had some difficult car rides. On long car trips the girls bring the dvd player and watch movies. That usually entertains Katherine for at least an hour or so. But given that we have strict TV and movie-watching rules I can't bring myself to let them watch movies before school and after school. Every day. 


Besides, thirty minutes seems like it should be manageable. We've tried bringing activities like paper and crayons, books, Benderoos. We've tried listening to different kinds of music. Everything works well. For about five minutes. 


So last week Katherine and I had a talk about it. What could we do about this problem that was becoming a bigger problem every day? She came up with the idea to call a relative who always has great ideas for fun things kids can do in different situations. And this relative came through. 


She sent Katherine the following suggestions for games to play. So far we've played the Alphabet Collection, I Spy, Going on a Trip, Going on a Trip (We came up with some very funny sentences - "I'm a tree, wearing a pink scarf, making soup, going to the moon.") and the 100 challenge.  Tomorrow we're going to try Virtual Hide and Seek.


So far our car rides to and from school have been much more pleasant. 


Do you have favorite games that you play in the car with your kids? Share them in your comments!

Alphabet Collection

Work together.  Find objects that start with every letter of the alphabe beginning with A -- such as Auto, B -- bus, C -- cloud etc.

Animal Alphabet

One player calls out a letter.  Then, everyone has to name animals beginning with that letter.  When no one can think of any more animals, another player calls out a different letter.

Going on a Trip

The first player starts off by saying, "I'm going on a trip and I'm taking along. . . "  That player then has to state an object beginning with the letter A.  The next player repeats the first players statement but adds an object beginning with B.  The games dontinues with each player in turn adding an object that begins with the next letter in the alphabet.  Keep going until some can't think of an appropriate object or forgets any of the items.

Say it Backwards

Can you say the alphaget backwards without making a mistake?  One player can say Z, the next Y, the following person X and so on.  For an extra challenge, try singing the alphabet backwards to the tune of the alphabet song.

100 Challenge

Try to spot the numbers from 1 to 100 in order. look at road signs, addresses, license plates and other sources for the numbers.

String Games

You will need a cotton string (24 to 30 inches long) knotted to make a circle.  It is fun to learn to make crow's feet, cup and saucer, Jacob's ladder etc. Check this link for specific directions.

Virtual Hide and Seek

Think of some place to hide inside your house.  You can be any size.  For example, you could hide in the silverware drawer.  The other players ask questions that can be answered by "Yes or No" to figure out where you are hiding.

Spelling Bee

Have the adult call out words for each player to spell.  See how many you can spell correctly before missing one!

I Spy with My Little Eye. . .  Something shaped like an triangle and is yellow.

Favorite

Ask each person to name their favorite color.  Then someone else can ask for favorite songs, movies, toys, games, animals, books etc.

Story

Begin a story. Each person has to add a sentence.  At some point someone has to put a closing to the story.  One day I was walking down the street with my friend.. . . . .

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The Tryst House

When we first moved into our house some five years ago we met most of our neighbors on our family-friendly street quickly. There was one house on our street, however, where no one ever seemed to be home.

One day I saw a man working there and went up to him, introduced myself and asked who lived in the house. He told me he was a handyman who did odd jobs in the house occasionally. He explained this was a second home for the owner who used it as a guest house for out of town visitors.

"A guest house?" I asked. That seemed a little strange to have a full on whole second house to use only for out of town guests. How many out of town guests did this owner have? Clearly not that many since we had yet to see any.
"And other things," he said.
"Like what?"
"He uses it for his hobbies."
"Hobbies?"  Now this conversation was getting downright weird. Who uses an entire house for their hobbies? At this point the handyman wanted out of the conversation but I wasn't about to let him go so easily.
"What kind of hobbies?"
"Uh, he collects things."  And with that the handyman made a quick exit.

Tim shrugged his shoulders when I told him about the exchange. Life in Los Angeles is sometimes strange.

The following Monday I noticed a red Lexus sports car parked near the house with a woman sitting in it applying make-up. She sat in the car for a full half-hour applying make-up before getting out and walking to the house where a fire was burning.

That Thursday another Lexus, this time a silver SUV, parked near the house. This woman didn't spend any time applying make-up. She got our immediately, walked to the house and disappeared inside where there was once again a fire going.

I started to get an idea of what the owner's "hobby" might be. As Tim and I got to know some of our neighbors better, the truth came out:  The house was known as "The Tryst House." The owner had two "hobbies." One met him every Monday evening and the other met him every Thursday. No one had ever met the owner himself. In fact, no one had ever even seen the owner.

This went on for several years, making for a funny story in the appropriate circumstances. One summer day smoke surged out of The Tryst House's chimney while we were hosting Katherine's third birthday party. The temperature was pushing 110 degrees and almost everyone commented on how bizarre it was that someone on our street had lit a fire in the middle of a heat wave. My three-year-old's birthday party didn't seem like appropriate circumstances to share The Tryst House story.

The following winter Los Angeles experienced record lows and several nights in a row of below freezing temperatures. Yes, it does get cold in Los Angeles sometimes. During this cold spell we noticed water pouring out of Tryst House's yard. We ventured into its back yard and discovered a burst pipe, a casualty of the freezing temperatures. With the help of another neighbor and amidst various tryst-type jokes we turned the water off and stopped the water flow.

A few days later I had the amazing good fortune to see The Tryst House owner himself. He was in his late sixties, portly, heavily bearded. Not what I imagined he would look like. At all.  I hurried over to the Tryst House where he was unloading wood from the back of his car and transporting it into the house, no doubt preparing for a rendez-vous with one of his "hobbies." I introduced myself and explained that we had turned off the water and could I please have some contact information for him so that we had a way of getting in touch with him should something similar occur again.

He was very taken aback. He didn't seem to know what to do. He stood there, holding the large bundle of wood in his arms and stared at me. He looked caught.
I smiled genially and suggested I go back to my house and get a paper and pen for him to write with.
"No, no" he said. "I've got pen and paper inside."

He went into the house to retrieve the pen and paper. Meanwhile, the Lexus SUV arrived and parked across the street. When the owner returned and saw the Lexus, his eyebrows arched. I continued smiling genially. A well-dressed woman in her fifties crossed the street from the Lexus and entered the Tryst House. The owner nodded to her, muttering a quick "hello."

He scribbled his name. First and Last. He hesitated with the phone number but finally wrote down his office number and scrawled "office" next to the number. Interesting. Apparently he did not want anyone at home to know about the goings-ons in the Tryst House. Shortly thereafter the smoke billowed out of the chimney.

I have since discovered that he lives in the neighborhood, a few blocks away. And then, a few days ago I met his wife, or rather, a woman I assume is his wife. She was driving the same car the owner drives. At least it was the same make and color. A pest control truck was parked in front of the Tryst House when I arrived home from school with the girls and I used this as an opportunity to do some further investigation.

A round shaped woman in her sixties said hello when I walked up to the front door.
"Rats," she said. "Just discovered them a few days ago."
"Rats," I said.
"Uh, huh, we're setting traps," she said.
"Great," I said.
"Have you had rats?"
"Yes," I answered. "We've had them, too."

Rats. Rats, indeed. It occurred to me as the girls and I walked back to our house that the poor woman was perhaps after the wrong rat.

And then the police banged on my door

The chaos all started around seven twenty-five in the morning as I was scooping the goopy, organic all-chicken cat food out of the can, trying to avoid getting it on my fingers. I love my cats and want them to eat healthy food, but something about that food seriously grosses me out. So I was concentrating on exactly where the cat food was going- into the cat dish- when Katherine came racing into the kitchen.
"Mommy, I'm bleeding!"

She was bleeding. A lot.

I pulled her over to the sink and held her bleeding finger under the running water but had to turn the water off almost immediately because she started screaming, "it hurts!"

A straight slit ran vertically down the tip of her middle finger. I looked back and saw a trail of blood coming from the family room.
"What happened?"
"I was crawling around pretending to be a kitty and then I felt something and then it just slitted my finger."

I applied a band-aid and it immediately bled through, leaving a red line running down her hand that she was holding up. I removed the bloody band-aid and applied another and that one soaked through, too. The third band-aid seemed to stay.

At that point we had exactly fourteen minutes before we had to pick up Max, the carpool boy, and we still had to eat breakfast, pack snack and water, apply sunscreen, pick books for the carpool ride, change the cat water and use the bathroom. So I got Katherine sitting down, holding her finger in the air, eating a yogurt, thanked Caroline for cleaning up the blood on the kitchen floor and went into the family room thinking I would find glass on the floor but instead I found sharp scissors at the craft table.

The scissor conversation didn't go well.
"NO! I TOLD you. I was crawling and then it just got slitted."

And then Cooper, our one-year-old cat, pounced through the air, landing on a big fat-bellied lizard.
"A lizard!" the girls screamed in unison.

Caroline corralled Cooper into her bedroom, Katherine opened the patio door, still holding her bloody finger in the air and I reached for the dust pan and broom. Charles, our seventeen-year old Siamese, came over to see what the commotion was all about and stepped right onto the lizard without even noticing it. The lizard froze, making it tricky to get it onto the dustpan. Eventually, I shoved its front end on and lifted the dustpan. The lizard clung on, its fat body dangling to and fro.

I deposited the lizard outside. Mission accomplished. This past summer Cooper snagged another lizard in the house and that lizard dropped its tail. There's something very creepy about a lizard tail flip flopping around on the floor not attached to a lizard body. I was glad I saved this lizard's tail.

We managed to get everything done, although not in fourteen minutes. Finally in the car we flew down the hill and around the corner and two older ladies out walking waved their arms at me crazily. They thought I was going to hit them. I wasn't. They didn't know we were late to pick up Max and had a slit finger in the back seat that had bled through three band-aids.

We collected Max and zipped onto the first of four freeways and Katherine said, "Mommy, what if all the blood in my whole body comes out through my slitted finger?"

In the afternoon I returned to school for the pick up. Normally I only do the afternoon run but Max's mom is in New York so this week I'm doing both drop-off and pick-up. The kids piled into the back and the girls immediately started shouting in high-pitched voices.
"Give me water. MOMMY! I'm going to die if I don't get water like in the next second!"
"Give me water! Open it! Where's my gum?"

I pulled over and we had a conversation about patience and manners and got everyone buckled in and the waters were opened and distributed.

We were almost at Max's house and had managed to avoid potty talk for most of the ride when the phone rang. I have a bluetooth but don't use it. I can never figure out how to synch the sound to the bluetooth so it always comes through on the phone when I want it in my ear and when I want it on the phone it comes through the bluetooth which is never anywhere near my ear. A gut feeling told me I should answer the phone and after reading Malcolm Gladwell's Blink I try to always trust my gut so I asked Katherine to answer the phone because there's a law in Los Angeles that you're not allowed to touch a phone while driving. It was Max's dad. After a lot of giggling and "whats?" Max's dad came through on the speaker phone. Did I have Max? Yes, I did. I wasn't supposed to have him. Right then his nanny was at the school in a panic because no one could find Max. Apparently Max's dad had left two voicemails for me. Oops.

So Max came home with us. As the kids were getting out of the car the girls started yelling.
"Eewww! It smells like pee back here! Do you smell pee? Did someone pee their pants?"

In the house they disappeared into Caroline's room. Caroline reappeared shortly thereafter to tell me that Max had peed his pants. He had a big wet stain on his pants and she didn't want him sitting on her bed or rug. I told her to be careful not to embarrass him and suggested she entice him outside to play. After Max's nanny came to collect him Caroline wanted to know what we could do about her car seat cover because that's where Max was sitting and she didn't want to sit on a car seat that smelled like pee. She got the car seat from the car and I washed the cover.

For dinner we had chicken salad and Katherine shouted out that she was "dead with chicken salad, that's how much I love it!" That reminded me that the girls love the chicken salad sandwiches at school which then reminded me that I had forgotten to place their lunch orders for the week which had to be done by six o'clock and it was five minutes before six. We all ran to the computer and the girls made their choices and we were done with a minute to spare.

Part way through dinner thunder crashed. Loudly. Very Loudly. And very suddenly. We all jumped. It rumbled again. Katherine said she was scared. We almost never get thunder in Los Angeles. The sky was covered with dark clouds and there was an eery calm before the storm feeling in the air. Katherine wanted to know what would happen if the thunder crashed right through the house. What if the thunder crashed the trees into the house?

So we put down our forks and went outside and looked up at the clouds and talked about clouds banging together and how thunder happens and as we were talking a plane flew overhead and Katherine said, "what if the thunder crashes the airplane right out of the sky and it lands right over here and deads the tree and the squirrel that lives in the tree?"

Several hours later, the girls were in bed, Tim was still at work and I was reading a book with CNN on TV. Cooper jumped straight up in the air from his perch on the sofa arm. I got up, thinking he was after another lizard. Two lizards in one day seemed like a lot. But I didn't see another lizard. Cooper's tail got all poofy. Charles is deaf and didn't stir from his prostrate position on the sofa.

Suddenly I heard a fierce knock on the back door. I called Tim.
"Someone's banging on the door."
 They banged again.
"Don't answer it," Tim told me.

More banging on the door. A flashlight beam danced around in the garage.

"Oh my gosh, they're shining a flashlight in here!"
Cooper was in hiding at this point. I made a note that I'd really like to get a dog.
"Call the neighbor," Tim told me. More loud banging.

But then rational thinking kicked in. I thought I heard a police radio. I turned off the TV and listened again. I heard two voices. I calmly walked to the back door and swung it open.

Two policeman with shiny shoes and shiny hair were standing on my driveway in front of their cruiser.

They had the wrong address for an alarm.
"Don't you guys say you're the police when you knock?" I asked.
"Never!" One of them said. "What if you were a bad guy!"




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