With Apologies to Paleoanthropology

...over the last couple of weeks ellie has asked me a few times, "mommy, where did all of the people in the world come from?"...i'm not sure what's sparked her curiosity in the earth's population because each time i ask why she wants to know she just shrugs...ah, four year olds, dude...

...the first time she asked i said, "they come from mommies" thinking this question was a variation on "where do babies come from?"...was i quickly rebuked...

"no mommy," she said, "the first people. where did they come from, like a hundred years ago?"

...again, i let my intellect impede what should have been straightforward...she'd been watching pocahontas with her dad and some reruns of bonanza (yes, we encourage such wonderful TV time!) so i thought she was talking about european migration...

"the indians were here first," i said, "then people from spain and england sailed over the ocean and came here"

Look, Mom, no tails!

...frustrated, my little anthropologist sighed...clearly, i was being an idiot on purpose..."no mom. the first people. where did the first people come from?" she punched her fists in the air, punctuating each part of her sentence, as if trying to force her words into my brain the way she might force a quarter into a gumball machine that only takes nickels...

...finally i understood her quarter-sized question and was sure i didn't have anything but a nickel response...

"okay," i said, "i think you mean you want to know where the first people on earth came from?"

"yeah, like outer space or something?"

...oh dear...had my child somehow stumbled upon L. Ron Hubbard?...

..."okay, well," i began...i was stalling because i didn't know how to answer...how to explain evolution of species to a four year old?...should i instead recount the few native american creation myths i know?...did i need pictures and diagrams?...

...i broke into a sweat while my sweet girl sat patiently waiting for a response...i'm a pit of information in her eyes, the end-all and be-all...i'm google, a globe, encyclopedias, and jeopardy all rolled into one mommy package...if i fucked this up, she'd never trust me again...

"okay, well a long long time ago there were no people," i said

"what?"

...oh shit...

"yes, there were no people"...i waited for the obligatory skepticism, but she simply shrugged..."okay, so there were lots of animals"

"like dinosaurs"

"yeah, there were dinosaurs, but that was a long time before people"

...she gave me another shrug and waited...it occurred to me that "a long time" to my child was the equivalent of saying "last week" so for all i knew she could rationally believe dinosaurs walked the earth shortly before she was born...

"okay, there were a group of animals called apes, and they evolved into people who eventually became homo sapiens and then from there thousands of years passed and we got to where we are today, people like you and me" i let out a breath, knowing i'd completely fucked up...

...i made a mental note to get online and find an age-appropriate evolution book that would undo the damage i'd done...i pictured my daughter going to school the next morning and during recess huddling her little friends together around the see-saw, proclaiming, "we evolved from apes!"...i'd taken millions of years and compacted them into a little sphere of information...

...why couldn't she have just asked me where babies come from?...

...ellie chewed her lip, then her eyes brightened and she yelled, "you mean, we don't have tails so we're not monkeys!"

...say what?...

"if it doesn't have a tail it's not a monkey, even if it has a monkey kind of shape. if it doesn't have a tail it's not a monkey, if it doesn't have a tail it's not a monkey it's an ape!" she sang

"yes!" i said, finally realizing what she was talking about:

...thank you bob and larry, for saving my ass...now when she huddles around the see-saw proclaiming we're apes, i can shake my head and say, "where do they get this stuff?"

Founding Fathers

...this conversation took place between me and adam a couple of nights ago just as we had snuggled into bed...

adam: why are there so many kids named madison?

me: i know. you'd think there'd be more kids named lincoln. how come you never see that name on some silly little blond-haired girl? what did james madison ever do for this country?

adam: i'm pretty sure he's the one who wrote the bill of rights.

me: oh.

...silence between us for a good minute...adam wiggles around in bed...i begin to zone out as i'm prone to do whenever i'm too long in the horizontal position...

adam: i still don't get it.

me: didn't madison own slaves? all of these people are naming their little children after a slave owner.

adam: i'm sure that's why they're doing it.

...silence again...and i can't help wondering why there aren't any kids named lincoln, or abe, in our daughter's class at school, but there are three madisons...sure there's a kennedy, but the class roster is sorely lacking in other presidential names...

adam: how did that ever get started? who thought one day out of the blue that madison was a good name for anybody?

me: seriously, why aren't there more kids named franklin?

...silence...

adam: he wasn't president, you know.

One of These Things is Not Like the Other

...i loved being pregnant with my daughter...i'd never gotten so much sleep, felt so "glowing" or so loved...it was as if i finally understood what all of those birkenstock-wearing, hippie mothers were saying about the joy of pregnancy...that's how i was brave enough to do it the second time...this second, fateful time...this second, fateful, painful time...i know each pregnancy is different, and mothers-to-be can't judge one against the other, but i have a couple of bones to pick with the universe over this little misappropriation of justice that is my pregnancy with twins...

...first, universe, i have a girlfriend who is pregnant with a singleton (yes, that's the lingo we multiple moms use...only a few months into this crazy twin pregnancy and i've adopted the language as effortlessly as i did when i picked up spanish in a tijuana bar) and isn't sick, in pain, dizzy...she hasn't fainted, vomited, or spent days in bed because of the mammoth parasite that has taken over her body...she doesn't even LOOK pregnant yet...and she's two weeks farther along than me...meanwhile, i look as if a pinto has parked itself in my uterus and has decided to have a little work done to expand its interior...where is the justice in having her glorious pregnancy flaunted before me like so much single-baby chutzpah?

...second, universe, why must the nerve pinching pain explore all four appendages, sailing overnight to reach the next joint or limb like a round of marco polo...so that each morning, before i even move from a fitful night of sleep i have to assess what part of my body will need the heating pad, the ice pack...or if i have to simply go all in and put my entire inflamed body into the soaker tub...how to cope with five more months of crippling pain, of envy over my daughter's ability to touch her toes, over my husband's unobstructed view of his own feet?

...don't blame this on my tired body...i knew going in it would be hard on my thirty-five-year-old, overweight frame...i'm not out there eating whoppers and fries like i was the first time around...no, i'm sticking to carrots and watermelon and pickles...so why do i feel each morning as if i've downed a liter of lard, as if my body has swollen even more? what is it you're trying to prove, exactly?

...i'm waiting...

...and while i'm at it, quit bombarding me with all of these damned hippie-mother "motherhood is the most glorious thing in the world" emails, letters, and books that i loved the first time around...women who say these things clearly don't rely on the use of their core muscles as much as i do...nor have they ever taken part in the "glorious thing" i call "eating whatever the fuck i want to eat because i'm the only one who has to suffer for it"...

...and, yes, before i begin to sound like an ungrateful little witch-whore, i'm well award of the joys and miracles taking place inside my body (forgetting for a moment that those "miracles" are, really, parasitic pintos)...i know i'm insanely lucky to have even been given another baby, let alone two, when there are people in the world who've wanted one their whole lives, can't get pregnant, can't adopt, or have lost their children to illness or other fates...i get it...i'm grateful...really...

...i just want to be MORE grateful...so can you, please, lay off my nervous system, give me one day without pain...one day to play with my daughter, to make my own damned dinner so my husband doesn't have to come home from work and slave at the stove, to take a walk around the block and not have to call for a ride home because my feet have suddenly lost all feeling?

...is this too much to ask?...