In Cambridge, if your kid turns 4 by March 31, he’s eligible for two years of Kindergarten (Junior K and K) and Aidan turns 4 in Feb, so we’re in for fall. Which means starting in Sept we get to stop paying way too much for preschool and Aidan gets to attend one of the many fine schools in the awesome Cambridge public school system.

The crazy thing about this town is you don’t just get sent to your local school like we did back in the day. It’s a lottery system based on what they call “controlled choice,” which means you tour a bunch of schools, pick your top three and then there’s a lottery to see where you end up. The aim is diversity or some such thing and I guess some choice is better than no choice, but it’s also a serious headache, especially for those of us who can’t make a decision for shit.

The good news is all the schools we’ve seen have been pretty great. When we toured the very first one, King Open, Harlan kept looking around, a goofy grin on his face, as if he’d just landed in Oz, saying, “This is free? My God, all this is free?”

Of the seven schools we’ve toured, I’d say we loved two, really liked two, and the other three were perfectly fine. There wasn’t a single one that sucked. And as I’ve spoken with parents on mommy lists, I’ve learned that people love even the schools we didn’t tour because no one we know sends their kids there.

So, we can’t go wrong. So, get on with it, right?

Anyone who knows me knows that is not going to be the case. Instead, I will agonize, I will get sick (there’s a kleenex permanently affixed to my nose) I will not sleep. Especially anything concerning my kid is likely to turn me into a total freak. (See: b’day cake post.)

The application is due on January 31. We still can’t decide. I took Ambien last night to silence the permachatter.

Here’s the story:

That first school, King Open, totally dazzled us from the start. BUT it has its drawbacks: It’s kind of far (we timed it at 12 minutes this morning, which isn’t that bad, but twice a day in rain, sleet and snow, it could be better). It’s also a huge, urban school that goes from K through middle school, which makes me kind of nervous when I think about my little angel there. Plus it’s scheduled to undergo a massive renovation in a couple years which would mean moving to a different building.

Still, the school is awesome, so part of me just thinks, put it as my first school! No duh!

The problem is there’s this other school. I felt ho hum about it both times I went to visit. It’s cute, it’s little, it’s fine. BUT it has many advantages: It is one of our “proximity schools,” which is nice for a couple reasons. For one, they encourage you to choose your local school and give you this big boost in points for doing so, so we have a better chance of getting into it. It’s one of the most popular and most competitive schools to get into, so that’s a big deal. (Why does everyone love it but us?) The other nice thing about choosing a proximity school is it’s a proximity school! It’s about a three minute drive from our house and in good weather we could even walk there.

Ultimately I want to do what’s best for Aidan, but in this case, I honestly don’t know which is: fine, cute, little and close to home or scrappy and dynamic and dazzling?

I’ve been losing sleep.

I started this post before I had the conversation I had a couple hours ago with my friend Leslie. She heard what I just said above and said there’s no debate: Put the local school first. Our lives will be so much easier at a closer school, a smaller school, a school where his friends will live in the neighborhood and, anyway, he won’t know the difference between an average, sweet school and one that his mom would really like to go to.

I didn’t even say, “but, but, but…” because as much as I love the other school, as wowed as I was by its arty, cool classrooms and passionate parents, I’d pretty much reached the same conclusion. At that point, the debate raging in my head was more about whether I was compromising somehow in making that decision. As a parent who drives over an hour a day and spends more than she can afford to send her kids to the schools she just had to send them to, Leslie says if she could do it over, she’d send them to her local school in a heartbeat. She says they would be just as happy, if not happier, because they could ride their bikes to school and walk over to their friends’ houses since they’d all live in the ‘hood.

That all sounded so logical and obvious, that when I got off the phone with her I was sold.

But then I started reading through the brochures again, looking at the pictures, remembering how much I loved King Open and wondering if I shouldn’t just choose with my heart.

How would I feel if we were assigned to King Open? Totally excited, a little bit scared. How would I feel if we were assigned to our local? Not as excited, but in a way relieved because I’d know my life would be a little bit easier.

So basically I still have no clue. And I can’t wait for Harlan to get home so I can crack open a bottle of wine. (Doesn’t seem quite legal at 5 without him.)

Seriously.

It’s especially funny because, like those of every other writer on the planet, my resolutions included a vow to write everyday.

I have a decent excuse. Saturday night I got back to Cambridge after a month in L.A. I’m jet-lagged and fighting a cold. I spent a month socializing with the friends I miss there and playing with my kid. I was on vacation and writing did not fit into my agenda. We also spent four days with Harlan’s parents in Seattle and Harlan and I left Aidan for the first time ever with my parents so we could go to Vegas to see the amazing Cirque de Soleil show, Love, make a few bucks on roulette and blackjack and get hoodwinked into attending a time-share sales event.

(I already sacrificed my Vegas poolside lounge-time for being dumb enough to fall for those hucksters’ antics and don’t need any additional ridicule! What I don’t get is how everyone I told this story to immediately guessed the conclusion, while I honestly believed someone was just offering me free gambling money and gift cards!)

Anyway.

For me, 2012 started yesterday, on January 17, and I celebrated the first day of my own personal new year by dipping my toe back into my routine. I dropped Aidan off at preschool, battled the elliptical at the gym, and shopped for groceries, all with a cool but bright sun overhead and a muck of slushy, rapidly-melting snow underfoot.

And I purposely left myself an hour before preschool pick-up to plant myself at a coffee shop and write. It was just journal stuff, mainly about what I should be writing, but considering it was the first thing I’d written in a month and a half that didn’t have a photo of Aidan frolicking in the frigid Southern California surf attached, it felt good.

And today, by posting this online, I make it official.

I’m writing again! Writing everyday. I joined a new writing group that starts Thursday. I’m trying to figure out if I should plow forward with my memoir even though my agent is unsure of its viability or delve back into chick lit. Or articles about movies. Or a children’s book. Or maybe I’ll just mommy blog a lot.

It doesn’t matter really. I’m just happy to be back, refreshed, relaxed and back. And, strangely and uncharacteristically, I am feeling completely unstressed about it. Maybe because my husband keeps pushing this miracle herbal remedy on me called ashwagandha. Or maybe because one of my other resolutions involved meditation. But I haven’t yet found the time for that one. Maybe 2012 is just going to be the year of a calmer version of me.

Highlights from our trip: Me by the Mirage pool in Las Vegas

My boys on a hike in the Pacific Palisades (that's my dad on the left)

This is how we spent most of our days.

A slice of paradise

Huge poop in potty

Amazing!

I was even more thrilled at this development than I was an hour later when the Pulitzer Prize winning author whose fiction I’ve devoured for years signed two of her books for me.

It was one week ago when I wrote the following status update on facebook (instead of blogging about it, because I’m a lazy-ass and haven’t blogged since May):

My kid whacking me on the head repeatedly with a diaper shouting at the top of his lungs, “I want a diaper NOOOOOOW!” Then he sits on the floor and for the first time ever puts the thing on himself. Potty training is not going so well. I don’t know what to do.

So you can imagine how I thrilled to the picture of my kid happily pooping in his blue plastic Baby Björn potty.

I should probably back up now to mention the text message I received while out on a date with my husband Friday night. Between the screening of one Harlan’s colleagues’ trio of experimental docs downtown and a Cubano and a mojito at Chez Henri in Cambridge, we were riding the T and got the following text from the babysitter:

guess who pooped on the potty. (clue: not me)

That was the first-ever potty poop and, even though we weren’t there to witness it, we were so ecstatic we threw in a few extra babysitting bucks.

In one week, our little rascal went from whacking me over the head with a diaper; peeing all over himself and a restaurant chair while we were dining out with friends; screaming, “I don’t want underwear!” at the top of his lungs while pee drips down his legs, to wearing a pull-up only at nap and bedtime, peeing on the potty (with mom or dad counting, playing games, reading books or some other form of distraction), getting loads of Angry Birds stickers stuck on the potty chart to reward him, and now, the big prize: poop on the potty.

Turns out he even asked Harlan to leave the room for the occasion to give him a little privacy.

I am one happy mama.

And that’s all she wrote.

Aidan modeling his underwear

I’m not talking about the weight gain, as unsightly as it is, or even the new grey hairs I sprout every time Aidan races ahead of me down the sidewalk.

What I’m referring to mainly is this skin condition I’ve got called xanthelasma. It is a collection of fat deposits under the skin that cause yellowish growths around the eyes. I don’t know why I was cursed with this thing—it’s often associated with high cholesterol and my tests were clean—but there you have it.

Years ago a small one (about as big as a freckle) appeared above my left eye. I had it removed by a plastic surgeon and it came back. I had it removed again and all seemed well with the world…until I got pregnant. That’s when the thing spread like a fire, so now I have a huge, yellow, wrinkled mass over each eye—like evil mini-wings or a second set of eyebrows—and a yellow smudge under my left eye that people often mistake for cover-up and whisper to me at parties that I should rub it in.

How I wish I could.

When Aidan was little and my affliction still new, I got online to see if there was anything I could do about it besides go under the knife again (even though my dermatologist promised me that was the only way). I found a chat room full of people with the same problem. I was happy to discover a community—and sad to read about their shame. One woman said she was convinced everyone she spoke to couldn’t stop staring at her eyes. Another said she was so self-conscious she started wearing a patch.

While I never resorted to an eye patch, I know how these women feel. I used to think people looked at me because I was pretty; now I’m convinced they’re wondering what that strange cauliflower is growing out of my eyelid.

While I was in the chat room, one woman said she did the Master Cleanse (the lemon juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper one) and her xanthelasma started clearing up after 12 days. I have friends who have done this cleanse and always thought I could never survive it, but clearing up this mess on my face sans surgery? A doctor friend told me it wasn’t the craziest thing he’d ever heard; the Master Cleanse breaks down fat deposits in your body and xanthelasma is, after all, nothing but a big, pesky fat deposit. I knew I had to try.

The problem was I was breastfeeding (my acupuncturist said the xanthelasma might actually clear up naturally when I stopped, but he was unfortunately mistaken) and then I was pregnant, so I couldn’t do a detox. I tried acupuncture, colonics, taking a phospholipid called Phosphatidylcholine. I even saw a healer. Nothing worked. Although the healer said they would go away when I let go of my anger toward my mother!

When I was finally ready to cleanse, it was wintertime and friends told me I should wait till warmer climes, which made sense. During the New England winter, your body craves boeuf Bourgignon, hot chocolate and lentil soup, not lemonade.

And that brings us to now.

I have consumed nothing but lemon juice, maple syrup, cayenne pepper and water for 7 days. Plus Smooth Move tea to make me poop. And I’m here to tell you it sucks! I want to eat everything, especially everything Harlan and Aidan are eating. I want to eat oatmeal, bacon cheeseburgers, pancakes, ice cream and spaghetti Bolognese. I want to eat broccoli and black beans and apple sauce! Last night Aidan had mac ‘n’ cheese and Harlan roasted root vegetables and tilapia with lemon and capers.

I want to eat these things with every fiber of my being.

And yet there are benefits to my deprivation. For one, my energy is great. Surprisingly, I have more than usual. Also, and this is the best part, considering the other blow motherhood has struck to my beauty involves extra pounds and a puckered, fleshy belly that won’t quit…I’ve lost eight pounds! In seven days! And I’m supposedly doing this fast for another five! I’m having visions of being 120 pounds again, a weight I haven’t seen since my honeymoon. I’m thinking I might fit into my size 4′s currently filling bins in the basement. And who knows, maybe this fast, like centuries of fasts before it, will lead to some kind of clarity or transformation. Maybe I’ll be ready to write another book, maybe I’ll see God.

But the big question burning to be asked: What about the xanthelasma? Has it magically disappeared in a puff of smoke?

The answer is no, it hasn’t.

I’ve scrutinized it everyday and yesterday I thought it might have faded a bit. Today I thought the one over my left eye might have flattened out a little in one part. But I haven’t seen a dramatic change. And I might have been hallucinating.

If I do see real evidence that this is working, I will stick with it, do as many days as it takes. But if I reach Day 12 and there’s no sign of success? I imagine I’ll throw the towel in. Admit defeat. Call it quits.

Until then, it’s me and my lemonade.

And a whole lot of faith.

Every day I close my eyes and repeat the words, “I am naturally clearing up my xanthelasma and I feel beautiful.” And I pray that they they come true.

Me, my son and my xanthelasma

Here is the email message I sent out last year to the moms in my life.

Hi beautiful mamas,

I hope you are all having a wonderful day honoring yourselves and the angels who have awarded you this most esteemed title.

What people without kids don’t realize is how courageous we are to become mothers. We are the brave, the bold…and the blessed. We made a conscious, crazy decision to embark on a journey that is at once the most gratifying and the most terrifying imaginable. It’s allowed us to reach heights of love and devotion we didn’t know was possible, but also new depths of vulnerability. I’m learning that when we hit a treacherous bend in the road, the best we can do is love the hell out of our little ones, treasure them, squeeze them tight and let them make us laugh — and swoon — the way they do so well.

It’s a tough Mother’s Day for me. I am full of mixed emotions, but foremost is overwhelming love for my little boy, the best, most beautiful thing I could ever imagine creating in this lifetime. When I look at him I know, in spite of the sadness, that I am one of the lucky ones. And I am also lucky to have such incredible friends.

I wish you a day of love and wonder.

Andrea

Harlan and Aidan in Ogunquit

The teacher, Jon M, beloved ass-kicker of many, is very proud of his extensive music collection, and he should be. It’s vast, eclectic and pumping.

I started cracking up and enjoying myself at a whole new level about half way through when he put on a Miley Cyrus song—that’s right, Miley Cyrus. He was playing her music with some ironic intent and joked around that we were all going to get the song stuck in our heads and told us he had it stuck in his head because he’d been hanging out with his buddy with three daughters last weekend.

I started cracking up because I remembered a moment with Aidan the other day. We were driving home from preschool and this song I dig came on Dog Days Are Over by Florence and the Machine.

I blasted it and said, “I love this song!”

Aidan goes, “Is this John Lennon?”

So friggin’ cute. The kid knows I love John Lennon!

Anyway, in class, Jon got us seriously working our butts to Miley Cyrus. For the entire class, we were doing four minute intervals at a 6 out of 10 intensity and alternating those with intervals at a 4. It was tough and I was seriously slippery.

Jon got into the idea of kid music and at one point took it a step too far with Rubber Ducky, the old Ernie version. It was almost the end of class and a couple people started wiping off their bikes.

“Rubber Ducky clears the room,” he said.

The music does have an effect on us. I think it’s half the reason that Jon’s such a great teacher. While we were still listening to Miley, he announced that he was looking for the perfect next song and it was going to be another artist from the “M” family.

He searched through his iTunes for a minute and turned a mischievous grin toward us.

“Miley, meet Metallica.”

Oh yeah.

I loved hearing from you all and wish I could give you all a free book! In fact, I called Caitlin and begged, but she had run out of personal copies.

So, in the end we’re giving away two copies, to Kirsten and Marilyn, both of whom have had their butts bruised by this mean, nasty economy. Here’s a note from Caitlin to both of you:

Dear Kirsten and Marilyn,
I am so pleased that Andrea and I have agreed to send you my books! (We decided that your stories were both so touching, we had to do two!) The journey is sometimes hard, but there are always lessons and always we have the chance to do them with grace and to smile even when it’s hard. You both inspire me so much. Keep on going. And write me when you’ve read the book.
Love,
Caitlin.

I’ll be dropping those books into the mail asap.

It’s been a long, hard road to joy since Nina’s death. I’ve spent more time heavy than I have light. My glass is more half empty than it is full. Many days have been entirely dark. Even now, almost a year later, I find myself suddenly gasping for breath, my eyes filling with tears, as they did last week in an exercise class, because I’ve thought her name or remembered that I did a yoga class in the room next door on the day I learned she was gone.

I don’t know if you ever fully recover from the loss of a child, even one whose laughter and cries you were never lucky enough to hear.

But joy seeps through in spite of your sorrow, in small spurts, especially if you have another, living child. Even in the days following Nina’s death, Aidan would lie in my lap and play with my hair and I would catch a glimpse of what happiness would feel like again someday. Sometimes he made me laugh, often he made me smile. This in the darkest period of my life.

As that period grows farther and fainter from the present, so the moments of joy grow more frequent, more persistent, more palpable. One day I did a yoga class and found true pleasure in poses I mastered that I hadn’t been able to for many months, and I felt a long-forgotten love for myself and my body as it reached and stretched in ways that felt primal and necessary. I did arm balances and twists and almost wept as I remembered what my body could do and how strong and flexible it had once been and could again be.

Aidan and I are in Los Angeles now, and wistfulness washes over me as I visit the neighborhood where we lived when I was happiest. Today we went to the beachside playground where we played almost every day when we lived in Venice. I remembered those days walking the succulent and palm-lined street with him in his stroller, my flip-flopped feet strong and sturdy as each step landed on the hot pavement that led us to the sand. I loved the pastel cottages and the sun-kissed, beaming faces of my neighbors. I loved watching waves crash as I pushed my son in a swing or smiled at him taking the slide on his tummy, as he did till he was almost two. And most of all I loved my beautiful husband, such a gentle, attentive, natural father, and my new son, who taught me what real joy was, making me realize the pleasure I’d felt until then was damp in comparison to the gush of joy that constantly washed over me since his birth, even as I lost sleep and stressed over parenting concerns.

Harlan was very worried about money in those days. The economy tanked and jobs were hard to come by, but I said to anyone who would listen, “We have the perfect life!” It drove Harlan crazy, because he was worried about being able to provide for his family.

But joy is a powerful force and the joy I felt in those days made me believe that we would find work and make lots of money if only we had faith.

Joy is essential and I feel lucky to be experiencing it again, even in small spurts. When my son throws his arms around my neck the way he does and says, “I love you, Mommy! I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you!” When my husband texts me to say, “I love you guys. Wish I could be with you out there.” When I lie in bed listening to my son snoring softly in his. When the sun hovers over the Pacific as I’m speeding down the highway listening to My Sweet Lord, the song that was playing when my sweet baby made his way out of my body and into my life.

That day back in Cambridge, I turned off of Mass Ave and parked in front of my house. When I turned off the car, Aidan said, “I want to hear that,” so I turned on the ignition and we listened to the rest of the song. “Summer day, as I recall, you came in to my life and you gave me hope and love. I just want to be what you want me to. Summer day that changed it all, you came into my life and you made me fall in love. Baby, I just want to be with you.”

I wondered if Sheryl Crow had written the song for her son. I turned around in my seat and smiled at my own son grinning back at me. When the song ended, I undid the straps on his car seat. He threw his arms around my neck. I squeezed him and felt the same surge of love I do every single time. I put him down and followed him as he scrambled up the steps to our house.

***

What is your greatest joy? What are the joys that sustain you when life gets you down? Please share your stories, share your joys, or just write any old comment below… and you could win a prize!

What’s the prize?

I’m giving away a copy of my friend Caitlin Shetterly’s book Made for You and Me: Going West, Going Broke, Finding Home. In this moving and timely memoir—a story that echoes my own and that will resonate with so many readers—Caitlin and her husband Dan move from Maine to California to seek great fortune, only to be slammed by the faltering economy and forced to pack up their belongings and haul them back again to Caitlin’s mom’s house in Maine. Their confidence and their marriage took a serious beating. But along the way, they learned what mattered most: home, family, simple pleasures like walking the dog at dusk and sharing a home-cooked meal, each other, and the beautiful son they had when Caitlin unexpectedly got pregnant, the beautiful son who provided them with moments of deep joy, even when life seemed to be throwing fireballs at them nonstop for months on end.