My second favorite subject these days, after The Bees, is food. Since CB travels every week I frequently eat alone at home so nothing makes me happier than discovering a new take-out item or something easy to cook at home.

I think I’ve mentioned that I food shop at three stores: Safeway on Sangamore, Whole Foods in Glover Park and Trader Joe’s in Bethesda. I like to say I get my staples at Safeway but there are really two reasons why I go there: Skinny Cows and Steamfresh veggies. Skinny Cows keep you from ordering dessert. They are fudgey and satisfying, especially if you eat two. I've eaten so many that I've definitely earned the second part of the name. Steamfresh veggies are frozen bags. They microwave in 4 minutes and are crisp and delicious. I drizzle some olive oil or soy sauce on mine (which defeats the purpose) and I can eat an entire bag in one serving. At Safeway I can also pick up organic ground beef and chicken for the Bees. It’s too late for me – I continue to sully my body with toxins and artificial everything, but we have only highest organic hopes for her.

At Whole Foods I get my ready-made soups. Every fall I turn to soups again, hoping to stave off those old holiday pounds lurking around the corner. Full and warm I am only truly satisfied if I end with a Spanish manchego cheese or a creamy French goat log. The cheeses at this store are amazing. Ask for Thistle Hill Tarentaise, an aged, rinded cheese similar to a mountain gruyere.  My brother John makes it up in Vermont. While shopping at “Whole Paycheck” I pick up three or four boxes of organic Elmo meals for The Bees (an inoffensive combo of pasta with steamed veggies). Believe me, the brand comes in handy: giving her the box alone buys you 20 minutes of solitude). On my recent trip to Boston I was introduced to American Flatbread found in the freezer section. This pizza is my new favorite thing. It’s a thin crust, with delicious toppings of mozzarella, tomatoes and herbs. If you are as picky as I am about pizza then you must try this. It comes in single servings (perfect for the lonely, part-time, single mom).

Finally at Trader Joe’s in Bethesda I find individually wrapped frozen cutlets of fish and pork (convenient to cook for the Bees), as well as turkey meatballs and a few prepared meals for myself.

As I'm reading this it all sounds quite healthy (but for the cheese). Of course, I don’t mention the peanut butter cookies I might pick up under the auspices of doing something nice for my husband. Or the one or two samples of brownie bites, or the occasional piece of chocolate here and there. Never mind. The Bees still loves me, holiday pounds and all.

So now that we have one we're part of this club. This exclusive group which, when we were single and/or had no child we had no interest in joining anyway. But here we are, and here comes the wave of holidays again, the parties, the family gatherings, the this, the that. And I can see how you can use your kid as an excuse.

When we go shopping why do I use my child as an excuse to talk out loud, to hear my own voice (and how that used to enrage me B.K. (before kid). And refer to myself in the third person in that irritating way, as in "Give it to Mummy".

But I do use her as an excuse, and not just to get out of doing the dishes, or cooking a meal. Having a kid is a nifty way to leave a soiree early, to arrive late, or to beg out completely. It's also a convenient means of making conversation especially if you're somewhat at a loss. I am also relieved to have an excuse to not talk about work all the time. Maybe that's because I myself am not working. I’ll talk another time about the tug-of-war between envy and guilt about staying at home.

When we’re out at a cocktail party I do usually ask about other people's children. But when parents start talking about how their kid did the funniest thing the other day my eyes just glaze over and I sort of space out and think about what is on that serving tray that was just whisked by my nose. And also who is that woman over there and how dare she have cuter shoes.

Sometimes I do wonder whether I'm hiding behind my child.

Do I blame it on The Bees so that I can escape chaotic gatherings? Sometimes I run out of a room at the first cry (hers, not mine) so I can sit in a rocking chair in the dark, her head heavy on my shoulder, listening to her breathe. If I’m not in a fit of pique missing out on the conversation downstairs, and if it’s not the 14 time that night that I’ve consoled her, then I think about all the centuries of mothers who have done that very thing. Sometimes (indulge me here) I even think of the mothers back in the 1800's riding the covered wagons crossing the vast expanse of our country, praying against assault of man, weapon, disease or famine. And I think of these women holding their wailing children, willing them to sleep, the wagon lurching and creaking along through the night.

No parent likes to admit her child is behind developmentally. While I’ve spent months crowing about The Bees’ physical agility I have been noticeably subdued on the topic of speaking. It's not that she hasn't been talking. Vying for airtime with her parents, her observations become louder and more urgent, but it's nothing you mere mortals would understand. But after months of little to no progress in the English language department we seem to have made a breakthrough. All of a sudden, in this 19th month, The Bees has decided to throw us a few bones. In fact, this week alone we got “shoes”, “blow”, “flower”, “freeze”, and “soup”. And of course CB and I beam across at each other, each jockeying for a crumb of credit.

As we approach the holidays (and the prospect of larger family audiences) I imagine the language tumbling out of her. Let’s not discuss the little girl at the Palisades Library story time, who was uttering full sentences at 16 months. “I want to read a book now”, she said to her caretaker in a tiny sing-song voice. I smiled through gritted teeth as I congratulated the proud nanny. Meanwhile Bees was in my lap, turning around to say one of the 9 words in her repertoire: “Mama”. Somehow it made it worse knowing that these two girls had started out on the same level back when they were 3 months old at Jonah’s Treehouse.

Of course The Bees’ favorite word right now is “No”. Actually it’s with emphasis, like “Nyoh!”. Tired of this response to his every plea for affection, CB is dying for her to say “yes”. I’d like to hear that magic word “please” for once. But of course it stands to reason - she knows we want it too much.

And I guess I have to wait until Christmas 2009 before I hear, “You are simply the Best Mummy in the whole wide world”.

1)  Dress her in celebratory blue the day after your candidate wins

2)  Pump her little arms in the air several times throughout the day shouting “Yesss!”

3)  Buy cookies for her, and help her eat them with great exuberance

4)  Spend lots of time looking wonderingly up at the sky and the trees (while others in your family look grimly down at the ground and at the leaves)

5)  Show her pictures of her new role models: the black white house girls

6)  Wave and honk your horn at the mailman

7)  Take the “I Voted” sticker and paste it into her baby book with a note that she participated in a most historical event.

8)  Avoid whooping and beaming while your Republican husband is home

9)  Go to the toy store and do some serious wallet damage

10) Feel truly, for the first time since she was born at 2:08 pm April 1^st, 2007, a semblance of real hope for her world.

Shortly after The Bees was born a friend sent us a onesie depicting a half-elephant, half-donkey, that reads “Bi-Partisan Kid”. She wore it a few times, but after the primaries I pushed the shirt to the back of the drawer, believing in my heart that she’s a good liberal just like her Mom. Of course CB believes that she is a good Republican just like her Dad.

So this morning, on Election Day, The Bees went to the polls, twice. At 6:00am CB got up and gave The Bees some oatmeal. At 6:30 he carried her to the polling station around the corner at the Horace Mann School. They stood in a long line outside the playground for 55 minutes, at which time it was announced that names ending in S through Z could go straight in to vote. Our name ends in B so they had to wait. And wait and wait. The Bees clutched her Dora doll, pointed out airplanes and bestowed many kisses and hugs on her Dad. I'll bet he was whispering "Go McCain!" into her ear.

When they finally got inside the tiny voting room was a madhouse with no one in charge, and three different stations with confusing signs. People started arguing with each other and CB left without voting, utterly frustrated. "I think I was the only Republican there" he grumped.

By 11am the place was deserted but for a few local DC councilpersons and a shepherd puppy. I loaded the Bees into her stroller with her dolly and the dolly’s bottle. We strolled into a room with about 20 people in various lines.  I opted to vote electronically thinking that the pencil and paper would be too much of a temptation for the Bees to draw. The electronic version was more confusing than I expected, and The Bees was reaching for the screen and kvetching, but we still got out within 10 minutes.

Outside we smelled waffles cooking and saw a tent laden with home baked goods, the proceeds benefitting the school. “Mmmmm, cook-cook!” the Bees clamored. I’m easily persuaded to buy (and eat) cookies for a cause, so I picked out five and we both chomped away happily. “Yay Obama!” I murmured into her ear.

At noon CB came back home to vote and we rewarded him with peanut butter cookies and some TLC. Needless to say, we will not be watching the results together tonight. He plans to drink away his sorrows downtown while I sit at home, The Bees on my lap, cheering away. 

We spent Halloween in Boston this year, in a small suburb called Wayland. When I was 8 years old we moved to the town next door, Lincoln, for 2-1/2 years. My mother was working on the ’76 Boston bicentennial celebration. Being in that area in the fall brought back vivid memories of biking alone down rural roads to see friends, of trick or treating in frigid nights, of apple picking, hot cider and haunted houses. Although the Bees was sick with a cold, (and tortured me with no more than 2 hours sleep each night) she was thrilled to have three little girls in residence and she readily crawled into their laps for a cuddle.

We lucked out with the weather – it was sunny and warm so we enjoyed an afternoon at the playground and Saturday morning at Drumlin farm, where the kids patted sheep, mules and goats, and enjoyed surveying the animals from a hay wagon. The Bees was astonished to see real roosters and she plopped herself outside the coop, egging them on (ouch) with crows of her own. Beautiful red, orange and yellow leaves surrounded us and crisp brown ones crunched underfoot.

For Halloween The Bees still refused to put on her black cat costume but she was perfectly happy to wear the Bumble Bee one again from last year. We took the kids trick or treating and Bees, youngest by far, caught on right away. With her small felt pumpkin sack over her wrist she tottered from house to house, going right up to the front door chattering away, and picking out her one piece of candy from the proffered bowl. 

Back indoors I let her spread out her modest loot and watched her eat a few M&M's and a few Skittles. High on her first real dose of sugar she giggled, drooled and shrieked, and never sat still enough for a picture. The next day I ate two pieces myself, and then three more last night to finish it off. (I rationalize it as being for her own good).

If only the end of the weekend had been as sweet -- the Bees was so sick that the flight home was excruciating. Big fat tears rolling down her face as she just howled, clutching her ears. It was awful, and made me wish I had given her a dose of that “bad medicine”, the one taken off the shelves, to assuage her pain.

Though neither one of us slept much we both had a great time celebrating fall in New England.

I have been thinking about Halloween. Normally this happens around the first of October, when I catch the first glimpse of candy corn and I begin to strategize how to get some of it without eating an entire bag at home.

This year I’m less concerned with sweets, knowing full well that there will be a large cauldron of it where we are going, and that everyone will be so distracted that they won’t notice my grown up hands sneaking wrappers into my pockets.

Right now I’m thinking about Halloween costumes in particular. When this festival first started in the 16th century, the Celtics were celebrating the end of their harvest season, and believed that wearing costumes would scare away the devils and the dead, thereby protecting their crops and livestock. It was an adult tradition.

These days costumes are worn mostly by children, though some grownups (myself included) still relish the opportunity to disguise themselves, for just one night, as someone or something else, preferably macabre.

The Halloween industry is a racket and they’re making costumes for younger and younger children. You can find thousands of toddler outfits, as well as infant outfits and even costumes for babies in utero (the ubiquitous maternity pumpkin, for starters).

Last year we thought we were very clever for finding a beautiful bumblebee costume for The Bees.  We popped it on her the first day of October and she wore it for weeks, bouncing wings and waving her antennae at everyone.

This year since the Bees is obsessed with felines I thought a black cat costume would be an appropriate garb for All Hallows Eve. I found the perfect one- it’s solid black, fuzzy, has a long tail, a hood with ears. Fetching. It arrived a few weeks ago, she took one look and just shook her head. As the big day looms I have been trying to put it on her, and I get as far as her legs before she is flailing and screaming. She pulls at the neckline and turns to me wailing to take it off. The hood has yet to grace her head.

So here it is Halloween tomorrow, we are off to Boston to trick or treat at a big block party in Wayland with scores of other children and she is refusing to put on her costume. Why do I feel like a failure. Why is it important. Is it because these kids look so cute? Is it a non-negotiable tradition like leaving a note for Santa or hunting for Easter eggs? If she is only 19 months and will have no memory of this occasion does it matter that she wear a costume this year? Does it matter if she ever wears a costume again.

Somehow I feel with conviction that it is. I envision myself the lone forlorn parent off to the side, her child dressed as an ordinary child, wearing just a parka and pants on Halloween. Sad faces searching mine. And why would anyone give her candy if she hasn’t dressed up.

No, I can’t allow it. I am already scheming of ways I can distract her with tv or bribe her with a lollipop so I can get that wretched itchy black nylon thing onto her squirming little body. I want to hear the appreciative noises from other parents even if it means howls and rages from my child.

I have just returned from my first weekend away from The Bees. Contrary to my expectations, I did not weep upon takeoff, I did not rail my fists on the floor upon arrival, I did not despair in loneliness and rush for the Doubletree hotel door. It was really a lovely time, and though I checked in frequently by phone I had no trouble enjoying the freedom of being childless in Manhattan.

We drank multiple cocktails, ate enormous bistro meals, cackled at the drag queens, and scampered around Soho. We were dutiful tourists watching an enormous crane hoist a prefab penthouse onto its perch. We ran into fashion houses and tried on clothes we couldn’t afford. We took in a hilarious play (“Boeing Boeing”), admiring the 60’s stewardess costumes and talked about copying them.

On Sunday we walked and walked up Fifth, down Madison, raced around the Metropolitan Museum, and fortified ourselves with a hearty brunch afterwards. The afternoon sun blazed down upon us and sitting on a bench in Central Park, under falling leaves, facing the lake, I remembered what it was like to live there.

It was a wonderful weekend, a joy to see old friends, and a good respite from full time motherhood.

Best of all, my husband CB did not complain about his sleepless nights with the Bees. He even offered to do it again sometime.

I'm doing it.

I'm leaving my child. I will be far, far away, sipping a cocktail, dining until late, sleeping in, browsing shops at my own pace, seeing a few exhibits, even taking in a show! I am going to a family town, the best one on the East Coast, a place that has everything to offer a child – toys, music, zoos, museums, lights, rides -- and I am leaving my child behind.

It's time. It has been 18 months (and 23 days) that I have been with The Bees. I need a break, and she needs to bond with her daddy who loves her so much that it hurts.

I'm heading back to my home town, my stomping grounds when I was young. My old haunts, now replaced by new, swanky, newsworthy places, much too cool for Old Mum.

I will walk blocks and blocks until I’ve worn down the soles of my patent leather tortoise shell clogs. I will bounce and dance until my creaky knees are sore. I will talk and laugh until my throat is hoarse. I will sift through racks and piles of clothes until my eyes glaze over.

I am meeting two of my dearest friends in the world. It's "Girls Weekend", but they're boys. We’ve going to have a blast.

And I will miss my baby fiercely.

I was one of those mothers who insisted my child would never watch television before the age of 6, when she could take in the series of “The Tudors” or “I Claudius”, or if she were very good, maybe a performance of “The Three Tenors at Carnegie Hall”. I was sure TV would numb her senses, zap her of her love of books, and poison her little brain with the toxins of material desire.

When The Bees first discovered the cartoon character Dora in a bookstore, she would shriek every time she spied that familiar helmet of brown hair and the pink shirt with purple backpack. When she was just a year and starting her worst fits my husband discovered the loveable character on tv and ever since then we rely on good old “Dora” for a panacea of ills, whether it’s a tantrum, sleepiness, hunger, teething or general malaise.

CB is a softy and whenever The Bees looks up at him asking for “Dah?” and pointing to the TV room he has a hard time resisting her. Seeing The Bees curled up in a chair, the blue light flickering on her face, her brow softening, her eyes brightening and her mouth turning up I sigh and turn back to preparing her dinner. I’ve now backed myself into a corner where I feebly mandate “no commercials”, and “TV no more than once a day”.

With our recent school applications (and parent-only school tours) I’ve had to ask my parents to watch The Bees for an hour or two here and there. Even my father, a scholarly type, weary from his babysitting duties, has extolled the virtues of the cartoon network, noting that it occupies The Bees for more than 3 seconds at a time.

And when I need to get something done, get a load of laundry in, finish an article, write out some checks, make a phone call, I know I can get a good 4 or 5 minutes to myself by simply turning on the enticing, enthralling, noisy, wretched box.

So, in the end, maybe television isn't such a bad thing after all.  

In the throes of fall fever we took the Bees up to Germantown to Butlers Orchard. This is a pumpkin patch taken to the next level. Entering is like going to a concert at Wolftrap with triple parking lines and multiple levels of parking lots.  They charge $10 a head (kids under 2 are free). You park your car in a field, then you have a choice of activities. We hopped right into a tractor-pulled hay wagon with five other families. Sitting in the sunshine with a close view of the tractor’s huge wheels, we sniffed the diesel fumes and enjoyed bouncing over the bumps as the tractor led us up to a neighboring hillside. Here we unloaded, hay itching in our pants and up our sweaters.

We all trundled around the field looking for the perfect pumpkin. It looked to me like they had just rolled a bunch of mature ones onto the field to look like they had sprouted right there, though much further down I did in fact see a few green ones still on the vine. I think they replenish the stock after the grounds have been well trampled on.

We selected two, one orange and one small pretty green one and got the obligatory pose-with-the-pumpkin photo, then hopped back in the wagon and bounced back to the main grounds. The Bees kept offering stalks of hay to a nearby girl who, unimpressed with the offering, ignored her.

We got out and learned we would now have to purchase the pumpkins we just “found”. Knowing we have two nice ones framing our door at home I just set them down and continued on.

The Bees crunched on an apple as we toured the grounds. We put her on a pony ride which she did not enjoy as much as she does riding our dog Jemimah around the living room. We watched bigger kids jumping off hay bales and chasing each other around a barn. The Bees climbed into two tractors, small and big. We ate lunch at a picnic table with a view of the Pumpkin Blasting field (they shoot them out of a cannon). A band started up, playing old 70’s country songs.

Just then CB turned and said “I think that’s my ex wife over there”. “Where!” "Yes, I think that’s her”. Such an exciting moment! He hadn’t seen her in over 7 years and I had only seen pictures from the early 90’s showing a curvy girl with long, wavy brown hair. This woman was slight, slender, with straight hair streaked with blond. She came over and we shook hands. I gave her an extra squeeze as if to say – what - “think what we have in common”? or “I know you were unhappy but I’m not”. How odd, I thought. And here is my child who could have been your child. And there are your children who could have been his children. Sort of.

We said goodbye and moved away, over to the snack shack to get The Bees a pumpkin-shaped cookie. We climbed into the sun-warmed car and drove away, Bees clutching her cookie and snoring before we’d gone a mile. As we drove back home I closed my eyes, wondering if CB was thinking about the old days, memories of college when everything was light and fun. Or was he recalling the reasons they got divorced. I doubt we will see her again any time soon, if ever. Somehow I'm glad we did, once. It feels final. 

CB and I have decided we’re not having a second child. I’m turning 43 in a week, we don’t have help and he’s traveling 3 to 4 days a week on business. It just seems too much. Having always imagined a large boisterous family I’ll have to make do with the boisterous part, though it makes me a little sad that The Bees won’t have a sibling. Other than Jemimah the dog of course.

So lately I’ve been taking a hard look at her, her expressions, her mannerisms, trying to memorize this time as a toddler. I have a camcorder but it doesn’t capture the best moments: the spontaneous outbursts, the bond between us (since I’m filming) and it certainly doesn’t capture smell.

People are remarking at how tall she’s getting and I can’t stand it. I don’t want her taller! I don’t want her to grow. I want her to stay small enough to embrace her whole body in my arms, small enough for me to swing up and throw like a sack over my shoulder. Small enough that she can run up to my legs in excitement and bury her head in my thighs. Small enough to lean her head into mine when she’s feeling affectionate. Small enough that she allows me to sniff and sniff her neck and hair.

Because by the time she’s 6 she’ll be too tall. By the time she’s 7 she’ll be too heavy. By the time she’s 8 she’ll be too cool to kiss me on the lips goodbye in front of school. And the sniffing sessions will certainly be over.

The whole point is to "grow" them, to rear them up to be fully functioning, independent, contributing members of society, I suppose. So why do I feel like I'm losing something along the way. 

My husband CB recently complained that I was singing a lullaby too loudly. This while we were both awake at midnight in an inn on an island in Maine. The Bees had been waking up hourly, crying, kicking and screaming since 10pm. Next door were a French couple, presumably muttering “Mon Dieu!”, with ear plugs in their ears and pillows over their heads. Downstairs another two rooms of guests probably cursing, glaring at the ceiling and shaking their fists.

At one point in the night I took The Bees downstairs (bouncing her a bit too much out of total annoyance). She cried harder. I took her to the inn’s sitting room where the embers of a fire crackled and hissed, hoping the light and warmth would distract her. It didn't. I opened the back door and stepped out into the chilly night onto the deck, pointing out the moon, the stars and ALL the SLEEPING people in their dark houses. She howled on. I carried her back into the inn's dark ticking kitchen and swiped a very unripe pear from the basket on the counter. "Dapple Dapple!" she sniffled.

We tiptoed back upstairs and into our unheated room. I plopped her on the bed where she chomped noisily away. My husband propped himself up on one arm in support, eyes closing, his chin drooping. I was desperate for sleep. Bees crunched into the skin, munched some bitter bites, spat them out and kept gnawing. I scooped up the detritus from the bed and put them on the bedside table. About halfway through the pair she asked for water. A few sips and I said firmly "it's bedtime". I pushed her head down on my shoulder and sang "Three Jolly Gentlemen in Coats of Red". Bees insisted that I make the horses sound, nickering and snorting. Again and again and again. I tried other songs like "Bobby Shaftoe" and "Minnie and Winnie" but she wouldn't have any of it. Horses, horses. I must have sung that song 25 times before she was ready to doze off.

Her head heavy and her breathing deep, I laid her down in her crib and went back to bed. An hour later she was crying yet again, and I carried her back to our bed.  She wouldn't let me lie down so I sat up, leaning back on the headboard, rocking and singing. She fell asleep on my shoulder, CB dozed alongside and I sat for another 2 hours waiting for dawn to arrive. At 5:30 CB woke up again, and at 6 he took her downstairs so I could sleep an hour.

When I went down for breakfast I carried the Bees around table to table apologizing for the noisy night. A few nods from some, a few smiles from others and a dirty look from the French couple.

We thought the worst was over, but the next night was more of the same. She awoke three times, ending up between us where again I waited for dawn to arrive.

I still don't know what it was all about. A stomach ache? An earache? Teething yet AGAIN? It’s still a mystery. 

I met a friend for coffee along with her 18 month-old daughter. We played outside Starbucks and then took the girls for a walk down the hall to the toy store. While we were there she mentioned that the train are was where al the sick kids come. We stopped at the ladies’ room to wash the girls’ hands. I discovered that The Bees had a dirty diaper.  I had forgotten to bring anything with me, so luckily my friend had spares. I cleaned up the Bees (a herculean job). Wiped everything down, washed my hands and left the restroom.

At the pharmacy I noticed (horror of horrors) that I was now sporting some of the residuals of the diaper on the front of my shirt. How could this have happened when I used 22 wipes on her and on me and then washed my hands with hot water and soap? I don’t know. But there it was for all the world to see.

I held my CVS bag in front as I walked outside. I didn’t know whether to hide the stain from my friend or just tell her. She suggested we take a walk down the street so I just came ‘clean’ and said I needed to head straight home to change my shirt. Well how bad is it she asked.  I showed her the stain and she turned a shade of green. We walked together to my house and I ran upstairs to change, spraying my shirt with Oxy Clean and leaving it in the tub.

I came back downstairs and the girls were playing with toys. After a time her daughter wandered off into the den and into the kitchen. Moments later I noticed a black triangular box sitting on the coffee table. “Ugh!” I screeched and snatched it up. “What is it!” asked my friend. And before I could clap my hand over my mouth the truth just slipped out: “it’s for mice”.

On hearing this news she scooped up her child and ran into the kitchen, I rushed to get the antibacterial gel and then there was another scrubbing with soap.

That night I lay in bed and wondered whether I am the only one in our neighborhood who is losing the battle against germs. I have a sinking feeling they will not be back to our house.