The Mommy Behind the Scenes

This week, during one of my precious kid-free blocks of time (thank you, preschool!), I decided to tackle a task that had been looming over my head for months: cleaning out my email inbox.

 

I may not qualify for a Hoarders television show based on our house, but my electronic world is a hot mess, my overstuffed inbox bursting at the seams, full of items that I need to take action on, file away, or delete.

 

With a hot cup of coffee nearby, I decided to tackle my 300-plus emails the same way I tackle all "real" paperwork that comes into our house: mercilessly. I was hitting delete, delete, delete, and came thisclose to deleting an email from a photographer that had visited the kids' preschool last fall.

 

My hand hovering over my mouse, I had a flashback to that photo shoot, a day when I had managed to get the kids to their sitting relatively on time, but had barely had time to shower myself, let alone style my hair or do a decent makeup job. I had envisioned being able to watch the shoot from afar, mercifully out of range of the camera. But Molly didn't want to be put down, Joey didn't want to smile, and Clara wasn't listening. So, despite my vigorous protests, the photographer herded me onto the same bench the kids were perched on.

 

From that point on, the pictures were, in my mind, doomed for the garbage can. And when the company emailed them out later that week, I cringed as I scrolled through the slideshow, seeing only the circles under my eyes, the hair that was still wet from my shower, and those extra pounds I was carrying. Shuddering, I quickly closed the slideshow, pledging to buy under-eye concealer, do a better job of styling my hair, and get to the gym more often.

 

But I kept the email just in case I decided to return to it later and salvage some of the photos. Maybe, I thought, some could be saved if I cropped myself out.

 

"Later" turned into twelve months later, and looking at the subject line of that email, my mind returned to that awful slideshow. Were the photos really as bad as I had first thought? Before hitting delete, I decided to take a second look.

 

But this time, I was viewing it with a different perspective. I had just stumbled across this article about a mom who had vowed to make a concerted effort to "stay in the picture."

 

"I'm everywhere in their young lives, and yet I have very few pictures of me with them. Someday I won't be here -- and I don't know if that someday is tomorrow or thirty or forty or fifty years from now -- but I want them to have pictures of me. I want them to see the way I looked at them, see how much I loved them."

 

For a mom who usually has a camera in her hands, and who chronicles her kids' lives so religiously, I only manage to sneak into a photo every six months or so.

 

So, taking a deep breath, I opened up that year-old slideshow, determined to be less critical of myself, and more open to seeing the photos as a true snapshot of a time in our lives, however imperfect.

 

And from a year's distance, the pictures took my breath away. Yes, I still saw the bags under my eyes, and yes, the wet hair was still there. But this time I also saw the mom that I was a year ago, with 18 month-old Molly, still very much a baby, nestled on my hip, and Clara, a newly-minted 4 year-old, snuggled in the crook of my arm. I saw myself looking tired, yes, but also happy.

 

And that, more than anything, will matter to my kids when they, in turn, dig these photos out of storage, or page through them in a photo album when they are adults themselves. 

 

"I am not perfect to look at and I am not perfect to love, but I am perfectly their mother." - Alison Tate

 

 

 

September Superlatives

September passed us by in a flash, but there were so many moments -- and photos! -- that I don't want to forget, that I decided to throw them all together in one post. In the spirit of back-to-school, here's the highs and lows, the winners and losers, from the first month of fall, yearbook-style.

Most Likely to Walk a Runway Someday:

This little person is developing quite the sassy streak.

Most Likely to Still Be Friends in High School:

 Molly and her little buddy Dylan share a passion for ice cream and dance class, and their bond has only deepened with late-night barbecues and trips to Hawaii.

 

Most Avid Sports Fans:

Joey and cousin Tommy are both pretty obsessed with watching baseball games. Together, they know everything there is to know about the Bay Area's two baseball teams.

 

 

Most Likely to be Mistaken for Siblings:

None of our own kids resemble each other as much as Joey and cousin Marco!

 

 

Most Often Mistaken for Triplets: On a trip to the San Francisco Zoo with the youngest Stecher cousins, Molly and her twin cousins Annie and Tessa turned heads more than once with their lookalike white-blonde hair and blue eyes! And yes, we were asked if they were triplets despite their difference in height!

 

 

Most Awesome Accomplishment: 100 reading lessons! 'Nuff said.

 

 

Most Impressive Pencil (And Paintbrush) Grip:

Seriously, Molly has a better grip than many of the kids in Joey's first-grade class!

 

 

Prettiest in Pink:

Clara may still be getting her cartwheel down, but she has the snazziest leotard in her gymnastics class (thanks Grandma and Grandpa Cecchin!).

 

 

Most Serious Goalie (And Most Crazy Bedhead!)

 

 

Most Likely to Be Surrounded by Girls at All Times

Most Annoying Birthday Present:

We have no one but ourselves to blame for this one! That's Doc McStuffins, and she's in need of some stealthy surgery herself. Like the battery-removing kind.

 

Most Birthday Celebrations in One Week

Our birthday girl got to celebrate with her preschool class at school, with us on her actual birthday, with the Raley cousins the next day, her Cecchin cousins the day after that, and 24 little friends a few days later! Phew!

 

 

Most Cousins Around One Table

Joey looks waaaay to excited to be seated at this table.

 

 

and finally...

 

Embrace Most Likely to End in Injury

 

 

"Little Miss Molly May" at School

When we named Molly May, we expected that she would be just "Molly" to friends and schoolmates, but we didn't count on her very first teachers falling in love with her full name, and calling her by it at every opportunity. In fact, they've made it even longer, and usually call her "Little Miss Molly May."

Will our little "M & M" go by both names all through preschool and beyond? We're not sure, but it sure is cute hearing little two year-olds holler, "Hello, Molly May!" or squeal, "It's Little Molly May!" when she arrives at school.

"Little Miss Molly May" is by far the smallest in her preschool class this year -- and the most happy to be babied. She found her way into Miss Sandra's arms on the very first day, and can often be found on Miss Janet's hip. Not because she's upset or wants to be held, but because she's the kind of feather-light baby that gets swooped up, picked up and hugged... just because.

But make no mistake, she's also one of the feistiest in her class, and stands her ground against even the burliest boys in her class. Luckily, she has one little man solidly on her side. When we ask her about her day, she unfailingly reports with a slow, mischievous smile, "Um, I played with Michael," and then puts her thumb back in her mouth.

Luckily, her teachers take pictures every week and post them to a shared website, so we can see just what it is she does for those few hours every Tuesday and Thursday... besides playing with Michael!

Little Pumpkins

For the sixth year in a row, last weekend we celebrated Lorelai Miller's birthday, pumpkin-patch style, at a fabulous farm in Wheatland.  Between a train ride through the farm's fields, a hay ride to pick out our own special pumpkins, a chance to get up close and personal with baby goats and chickens, and generally rolling around in the dirt and having fun, this is a party that we never want to miss!

This says it all!

 

But if you want the long version, you need only consult Joey's weekend recap, which he wrote up on Monday morning in class. For a little man of relatively few words, he is surprisingly verbose when he's writing. According to his teacher, this weekly exercise nets a couple of sentences, tops, from most of the students in the class, but Joey routinely fills two pages... and needs even more room than that sometimes! Here's his account of the day:

 

 

Here's all those "grles."

 

 

Luckily, Joey likes the birthday girl enough to hang with this crowd!

 

 

Plus, isn't that pretty much the story of his life? ;)

 

 

 

 

Joey flexed his boy muscles and picked out the biggest and roundest pumpkin of the bunch...

...while Clara chose, fittingly, a "medium-size" pumpkin.

And finally, our littlest pumpkin got in on the action for the first time!

 

 

 Happy birthday, Lorelai! We sure love celebrating with you every year!

 

 

Media Darlings (Or, the Day Joey Got Caught on TV Playing Hooky)

"October Madness" Parenting Lesson:  When calling your son's school on the day of a major playoff game and informing them that he has a fever, know that he just *might* be captured in pictures and video on six different media outlets, looking quite healthy and holding a sign reading, "Dad Said Skool Can Wait."

 

Yes, a sign that almost wasn't  -- Tim decided to make it at the last minute before heading to the last regular-season A's game, where the team clinched the AL West division title -- landed Tim, Joey, his best friend Andy and Andy's dad Eric in the media spotlight.

 

 

 

It turns out Tim may have missed his calling as either a master sign maker, or a PR guru.

 

The boys knew their sign was going to resonate with a lot of people when they were barely twenty feet away from their car in the parking lot, and random fans started taking pictures of the two hooky-playing 6 year-olds.

 

Minutes later, they were interviewed by the KTVU morning news, and a crowd of Oakland fans waiting in line for the Coliseum to open started chanting, "School can wait! School can wait!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

Click here to see the beer-swilling fans applauding our little truants. One of our finest parenting moments.

 

That was just the beginning. Soon after, their photo was posted on Oaklandish's Facebook feed, with the caption, "We've got goosebumps over here." It garnered almost 4,000 "likes" and 90 comments. That's a lot of street cred for two Moraga boys!

 

 

 

 

Once in their seats (right above the A's dugout!), they made the Comcast SportsNet pre-game show coverage and were featured later in the game, too, after they caught a glimpse of themselves on the Jumbotron. We were even told -- but haven't confirmed -- that they were on SportsCenter that night!

 

They excited a lot of fans at home! We were texted or emailed a lot of images of our friends' TVs:

 

 

 

 

At that point, the cat was REALLY out of the bag. But we figured there might still be a chance that the boys' school principal had missed the hoopla. We didn't count on the Contra Costa Times featuring them in the Local news section the following day!



 

 

 

The newspaper clipping -- of course -- made it to the bulletin board at the boys' school, and their principal took a look at it and laughed at the poster.

 

Then she did a double take: "What, those are OUR boys!!" 

 

Luckily, she has a sense of humor, and, even better, is an A's fan!

 

 

A Tempest and her Teapot Party

 

Despite routinely burping at the table, littering conversations with words like "poop," "diaper," and "fart," Clara has been obsessed with teapots and teacups for quite a while, thanks mostly to Fancy Nancy, Pinkalicious and Strawberry Shortcake.

 

So against all china-preserving instincts, I decided that cultivating this interest in manners and propriety couldn't be a bad thing. After much hemming and hawing (a gymnastics party at the gym seemed so much easier!), I agreed to throw our brand-new 5 year-old a "teapot party" in her own backyard, complete with tea sandwiches, faux tea and 24 china teacups.

 

Miraculously, all the little girls were on their best behavior, and no teacups were harmed while producing this party -- not even when we broke out a metal baseball bat to bust open the star of the show, a teapot pinata.

 

 

 

 

We had the party on a Thursday afternoon, capturing the after-preschool crowd and any moms who wanted to stay for the madness, and simultaneously saving a score of dads from two hours of pink frilly craziness.

We kept the girls busy with crafts, including decorating teapot frames (thanks to Uncle Kyle for speedily printing out photos of each girl in their party finery!), and personalizing goodie bags to hold candy from the pinata.

Speaking of that pinata, these ladylike little girls had a blast abandoning their teacups and taking turns with a bat.

The teapot turned out to be a formiddable candy-holder. Luckily, Clara has a Daddy who was only too eager to impress all of these little ladies with his baseball skillz.

 

 

Clara had quite the assortment of preschool buddies, cousins and second cousins, girlfriends and smaller siblings to help her gobble up cupcakes, down raspberry "tea," and smash the pinata. Thanks to all who helped celebrate!!