State Fair

I love the State Fair. I have always loved the State Fair. I love the people watching, the smell of fried foods of all sorts, and all the animals. I love the textile displays, the fruit and vegetable displays, and the tractor vendors with their shiny Kubotas and John Deeres. I love how the cows are all pristine and nicely brushed, and the second any animal defecates, it's immediately cleaned up. Maybe it's because Charlotte's Web was one of the first movies I saw, and a lot happens at the State Fair. Maybe it's because Oklahoma! was one of the first musicals that I saw. Maybe it's because I'm genetically 1/4 redneck. I'm not sure. The bottom line is that I love the State Fair.

We try to go to the state fair every year. My husband gamely puts up with this penchant of mine. He was raised in the suburbs, and prefers his meat washed in cellophane and his vegetables pre-washed and pre-cut. He also hates the over-powering smell of livestock. I can't really blame him, but I still make him go every year. It's a little bit easier now that we live in Oregon. The Michigan State Fair was always held in Detroit, and you would have to park near the crack houses and walk several blocks- not really the most "country" experience in the world. But the Oregon State Fair is great. I'm especially fond of the 1,000 lb. pig, which has the largest testicles I have ever seen in my life. It's only50 cents to view this guy. The second year we saw him, I asked the lady if this was the same pig as the previous year. She said no, and then she further admitted that this particular specimen actually only weighed about 850 lbs. I almost demanded my money back, but it turns out, his testicles were also quite impressive.

This past summer, we went and when it came time to procure some vittles, we headed toward the food area. There was a stand selling free-range northwest pulled pork sandwiches that looked really spectacular. Next to the stand was a large pit, with half of a pig carcass roasting on it. I just love that. I can't explain why. I nudged Michael and told him to check out the pig.

• Michael: What's that?
• Me: It's a dead pig. They're selling pork sandwiches. Are you hungry?
• Michael: Why is there a dead pig?
• Me: Pork comes from pigs. You know, just like bacon and sausage.
• Michael (pauses): You mean they have to kill the pig?

Uh-oh. Visions of vegetarianism flashed through my mind. I'm perfectly comfortable eating tofu and meat-substitutes, but having one vegetarian while others eat meat can be more difficult. It's also hard to balance the proteins for growing children without including meat. Not that it can't be done, but it's difficult. Plus, Michael was the type of kid who potentially could become righteous about things, and start laying guilt trips about killing animals, etc. So I was kind of weighing all this against my general "brutal honesty" policy. Usually, when the kids ask a question, I give them the actual answer rather than a Disney-fied version of it. (Hence, both of my kids know that babies grow in the uterus. They know that a baby comes out of the V, unless a c-section is necessary. They have not yet asked how babies *get* into the uterus, thankfully. I'm not totally ready for that conversation, but I imagine I'll probably just tell them the truth.) Anyway, back to the dead pig.

• Me: Well, yes, they have to kill it. Just like they have to kill cows to make hamburgers, and they kill chickens before we eat the meat. That's just how it is.

I figured, no sense in beating around the bush. Let's just lay it all out. Just then, I noticed tears starting to well up in his big brown eyes. His chin quivered just a little. I braced myself for our family's future meals of soy and textured vegetable protein.

• Michael: But, if they kill the pig, how will they be able to get more bacon after it's gone?

I was speechless for a second. Seriously, he was more concerned about the pig being a non-renewable resource than losing its life? I explained to him a little bit about animal husbandry, and after we ate our delicious pulled pork sandwich, we went over to the pig barn and watched the sows nurse their little piglets.

It's a Beautiful Day for a Neighbor

Growing up on a farm in the midwest, I had a somewhat warped idea of what a neighbor was. Our neighbors were definitely not the neighborly types you see on TV. There was Rudy, an old Polish farmer whose property was just behind our farm. He had a very nice son who was just a little off. His eyes pointed in different directions, about 90 degrees apart. It was very disconcerting to talk to him. I remember one year Rudy was building a chicken coop, and had placed all the chicken eggs in large crates in his living room so they would stay warm until he was done building. He didn't quite get things done in time and the chickens started hatching. Eventually, so my father told me, his entire living room was filled with live chickens. There was also Jordan, the guy who lived on the property next to Rudy's. Rumor had it that if you went to close to his mailbox, he would come running out with his shotgun. He was very particular about his mailbox. It looked like an ordinary mailbox to me, but I always wondered what sort of package he was expecting.

I always figured that someday when I had my own house, it would be in a suburb-type of area, with neighbors and yards, and neighbors who mowed their yards. Maybe I didn't really have this daydream, but it certainly seems possible. My husband and I bought our first house in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was a small house in a cul-de-sac in a nice, modest little neighborhood.

Our next door neighbors didn't have any live chickens in their living room, but they had a lot of cats. Jan and Alex were a retired couple. Jan was spry but cranky. Alex was 80, and also somewhat cranky, with a heart condition. His hobby was model trains. He took it very seriously, and the entire basement was a model train track, complete with papier mache mountains, and little trees. He invited Michael down there once, to look but not touch. Once my mom was invited down there. She took one look, and declared,"Aaaah, NOT MY CULTURE!" and backed her way out while bowing. My husband is to this day bitter that she got off so easy. Usually it's a Gilligan's Isle-esque three hour tour that includes looking at the collection of train engineer hats on the wall. I might add that the hats belong to his train enthusiast friends who came over and played trains with Alex on a regular basis. Did I mention he was 80?

At any rate, Jan and Alex also felt the need to periodically comment on our yard if we weren't maintaining it to the neighborhood standards. Once after missing the Lakehurst Ct. Yard Maintenance Memo again, Jan got a team of like-minded neighbors to take care of our dandelions so that their yards wouldn't be compromised. Thank you..I think...

Jan and Alex made the evening news one year on an ill-fated Halloween. A group of kids was trick-or-treating with their dads, and one of the kids had the nerve to go back up to Jan's door and, her version, ask for a second piece of candy. Now, it's unclear whether this kid got his first piece or not- maybe she accidentally gave 2 pieces to his friend. Regardless, his request triggered something in Jan that made her stick to her guns. No sense coddling these ungrateful children and encouraging their already over-inflated sense of entitlement. Fair is fair, and frankly, sometimes life isn't fair. So Jan refused.

Now on the one hand, it was just a piece of candy, and the kids could have just moved onto the next house. No big deal. Instead, the kid's dad became enraged and threw a large pumpkin through Jan's front window. The front window shattered, a couple of cats escaped, and someone called the police. The dad was calmed, and eventually taken away. I'm not sure what happened, but Jan was very shaken. Alex retreated into his home and came back out wielding a pistol, and declared that he was going to shoot the dad if he came back around. At this point, I'm pretty much thinking, "Aaah, NOT MY CULTURE!" We were very concerned that Alex's heart was going to give out on our front yard.

The whole thing was on the evening news- A Halloween gone awry! Their window was eventually fixed. The cats were found. We moved to Portland. We found out later that Alex succumbed to a heart attack, and Jan moved into a senior citizens' home. Not sure what became of the cats or the trains, but if I were a kid trick-or-treating in that neighborhood, I would be very polite and just take one piece of candy or be prepared to face the sound of a ghostly train whistle...

More Candy

I was in Target today, a habit that I am convinced is cheaper than psychotherapy, and Allison was with me. Having Allison with me is less relaxing than going by myself, but more relaxing than going with both kids.

As we were parking, she exclaimed, "This Target has a princess aisle! Mommy, can we go to the princess aisle???" I started trying to think of reasons we couldn't go to the princess aisle, and wondered if "no because Mommy would rather stick rusty nails in her eyeballs than go look at all that stupid pink crap again" would suffice. I briefly wondered how it was that she remembered that this particular Target has a princess aisle, and then remembered that EVERY STORE has a princess aisle. Princess stuff is ubiquitous. How I missed her Star Wars days, when she liked to dress up as Darth Vader or pretend she was a jedi knight.

As we went past the little girls' dresses, her eyes were immediately drawn to the white frilly Easter dresses. "Oooooh, Mommy, can we buy that dress?" I'm nervous for her to have a credit card, and petrified of the day she discovers internet shopping. I'm also wondering how she suddenly became so interested in shopping, and looking at dresses, and wanting to buy stuff. Then I remembered that I had just made her spend 10 minutes in the purse aisle because Mommy needed to buy a new purse. Maybe I should just accept that it's one of the ingrained things on the X chromosome.

She was being her usual chatty self, but paused for a few minutes to observe a small boy coming from the opposite direction. He wasn't really that small. He actually was pretty big, slightly bigger than Allison in fact, and he was being chatty too. Except that he had a specific motive- his mouth was messy with some sort of dark food residue, and he was saying, "Ma...ca..." His mother briefly turned from the well-displayed items in the aisle to say, "You want more candy?" The kid nodded and thrust his grubby little paws out for more candy.

Their cart wheeled closer until Allison and the other child were even. They stared at each other in that way that little kids do, checking each other out, ready to be challenged or to be best friends. The kid started grunting again, "Ma...ma..." and pointed non-specifically. Allison interpreted this as a challenge, and informed him,"No, that's not your mommy. That's MY mommy." Then the kid changed his tactic. Obviously he was not impressing this sophisticated little girl. "Tu...tu!" Allison replied, "Yes, I am two. That's correct." I started laughing. His mom looked up and started laughing too, and then said,"What did she say?" I told her, and this time she laughed more meaningfully, but suddenly became serious. "He just turned two." I interrupted before she had to ask, and told her that Allison would be 3 in a few months. I didn't want her to feel bad.

It reminds me of a time that we were on a plane when Michael had just turned 2. Both kids have always been good travellers, and this trip was no exception. With only one kid at the time, we had extra free hands, and were in the habit of bringing his carseat on the plane and strapping it in. It worked great; the theory was that they were used to being strapped into their carseats and therefore did not beg to be let out of the seat so much. Michael could generally be entertained with the in-flight safety manual, and he was holding this up as if he were reading the paper. In the row in front of us was a slightly younger child, who was quite loud and basically bouncing off the walls. He was looking over the seat and trying to climb into our row. Michael noticed the ruckus, and peered over the top of his safety manual, shook his head, and went back to his reading. He may as well have been smoking a pipe, and wearing a robe and spectacles.

I suppose there are worse things than two-year-olds with ostentatious vocabularies and penchants for the in-flight reading material. I wheeled Allie off to the bedding aisle. I was hoping that the princess sheets and throw rugs would qualify as the "princess aisle" so I wouldn't have to schlepp all the way to the actual princess aisle. Maybe I could convince her that that was at the otherTarget...

V

I thought it might be a while before I would have to deal, but as it turns out, kids discover their genitalia a lot sooner than we anticipate. Because of my profession, I find it unacceptable as a general rule for kids to refer to their body parts with slang or improper terms. There are exceptions to this- for instance, we do say belly button instead of umbilicus or navel. (Although I think Michael knows the word umbilicus.) And we have taught both children the term "philtrum," which is the indented area on the upper lip right under the nasal septum. Nobody ever talks about the philtrum. Or the tragus, which is the triangle shaped cartilage on the ear. I am perversely delighted when I hear my kids say something like, "Mommy! I have a booger on my philtrum! I need a tissue!" My enthusiasm for teaching my kids anatomy is somewhat restrained by social norms, however. I don't want my kids to be *too* weird on the playground. It might already be too late for that, but I digress.


When we found out we were having Allison, I had to think about what we were going to call "down there." I have heard all sorts of names for female genitalia, from women of all ages. That's a whole other blog entry, maybe for when I retire, to be accompanied by "pubic hairstyle trends through the ages," but again, I digress.


It seems generally common for young girls, if they are going to use a proper anatomic term, to say "vagina." Anatomically this is incorrect. To a toddler, or very young girl, the vagina is really more of a concept. It's a potential space. I don't necessarily want my daughter to know about her vagina per se until she's a little older. I remember during residency one 4 year old girl who had to be taken back to the operating room because she had placed a bead in her "cootchie-coo." The vagina should not be used as a place to store things. She has pockets on her clothes- she can use these for storage.


Vulva is really the best term to use. That's what kids see, that's what they mean when they say vagina. The problem is, and maybe it's because of that Seinfeld episode (remember Mulva? Oh right, Delores!), or maybe it's just too weird of a word, but kids and their parents are not yet ready to accept "vulva" in common usage. I don't want her to be the Vulva Girl. One of the physicians I trained with is a nationally-reknowned expert on the vulva. Correctly assuming that she taught her daughter the word vulva and made her use it at a very young age, I asked her how that went. It didn't go well for her daughter. Another obgyn I know has a daughter who went by the nickname "Pap Smear" for years and years, until her friends started needing them, and then it wasn't so funny. So, I wanted to spare Allison as much of this as possible.


Of course there are certain moments that you can't predict or avoid. A friend of mine has a daughter who is about Allison's age. Her father was changing her diaper in a public restroom, and she yelled out in a clear little voice, "Papa! Stop touching my vagina!" Bathroom acoustics plus the 2 year-old's inability to modulate her voice are not a great combination in this instance. You just hope that if you find yourself in that sort of situation that there is no one else in the restroom at the time, or that if there is another person, they don't work for Child Protective Services. Another friend of mine noticed her daughter, who was about 5 at the time, furtively running straight for her bedroom with something in her hand, slamming the door behind her. Shortly thereafter, she heard a lot of noise in her bedroom, and went up to investigate. All of her daughter's dolls and stuffed animals were strewn about the room, in addition to an assortment of feminine hygiene products. And then she saw the scissors, and asked what they were for. (I love that age when kids don't know enough to lie yet, or when they can't think fast enough to come up with something good.) She said, "They're to make vaginas in my dolls and animals. None of them have vaginas." Nevermind that animals don't really need tampons.


So, it became obvious that you can definitely take a little anatomical knowledge too far. My brilliant solution was to refer to her genitalia as her "V." It can stand for vagina or vulva, and I figure we can separate that out later. People instantly know what she is talking about, but it's not vulgar or overly cootchie-coo cute. Now when I'm getting ready to head out the door, she asks me in her clear little voice, "Mommy are you going to work?" (yes, sweetheart, I am.) "Are you going to check ladies' V's?" (sigh. yes, sweetheart, I am.)

The Third Hand

The other week when I went to pick up Michael from his piano lesson, his teacher came out of the room with him and said to me, "Ask Michael what he would do with a third hand." I was a little confused, so he said, "You know, where he would attach it on his body and what he would do with it." But when I asked for clarification, he answered, "I really can't do it justice. You'll have to ask him." In retrospect, the other innocent parents there may have forced him to be circumspect. Regardless, when we got in the car, I braced myself for the worst, and asked Michael, who already had his nose in a book, "What is this about a third hand?"

Michael looked up and grinned. He told me that he would place it so that he could reach the toilet paper and wipe, and continue to hold a book without interrupting his reading while he was on the toilet.

After a moment of silence, as I was not sure how to respond, he started going through the various places he could attach it, and which one would work the best for reaching the toilet paper and wiping. He finally settled on attaching it to the end of his elbow. I had been hoping that he was going to say something about using a third hand to play the piano better, or to reach more notes, but somehow, I knew there was no chance that this was his answer. I guess I'm thankful that he's 6 and not 16, because I can think of worse places to attach and worse uses for a third hand.

I told his father that evening. His only response was, "Well, that's practical." I suppose it is.

Making your dreams come true

Michael and Allison are now 6 1/2 and 2 1/2, respectively. Michael continues to vascillate between syrupy sweet, focused busy, and teenager surly. Allison is finding that she is able to manipulate people with phrases like, "Mommy I love you" and "I need to go potty" and "I need a hug," and frequently uses them to sabotage her naps. Not too long ago, Allison said to me, while literally batting her eyelashes, "Mommy, can you make all my dreams come true?"

Now, I am the type of mom who carries ground flax seed in her purse, so that if we are at restaurants, I can sprinkle extra fiber into their food in case there are no vegetables. With enough notice, I will bring cut fruit to snack on, and I often bring chopped spinach to mix along into their food, in case the flax seed powder is not enough. They get candy and dessert, but generally if there is an opportunity to use said treat to get them to do something they might find onerous. We like to infuse our dinners and outings with little math problems for Michael, and reading practice for Allison. Our poor kids are tortured with teachable moments and health opportunities. So, when Allison asked me if I could make all her dreams come true, it was like the world stopped and a flashing neon-sign started shouting at me in a deep booming voice (if that's possible) "DO NOT MISS THIS OPPORTUNITY TO TEACH A LIFE LESSON!" I thought quickly, and told her that I could try to make her dreams come true, and that I always want her and Michael to be happy, but that she could make her own dreams come true if she just did three things.

1. Work really hard.

2. Read lots of books.

3. Do a good job in school.

Since this conversation, I've had time to think about my list, and I've not altered it. Someone told me that they had heard a similar list on "how to be successful," and the only thing that was different was "find something you love to to, and work hard at that." My perspective here is that at this point, my kids are going to have to do quite a number of things that they hate doing, so maybe I'll just save that little pearl for later. After they've picked up their toys, practiced piano, and eaten all their flax seed and spinach infused miso soup and rice.