I held my breath trying to think of something to say, should she notice. She noticed. Ellis sat up and rubbed her head.

“What dat?”

I didn’t want to say, “That’s your sibling jacking you in the cranium.” That seemed to harsh. So, I settled on a lie. “Oh, the baby inside mom is snuggling you.”

Ellis laid back down. The baby kicked harder. Ellis sat up.

“Mom, make dat baby stop right now.”

I put a pillow in between Ellis and the stomach. That’s when the reality of what had happened dawned on me. Only 31-weeks old  and this child is already tormenting his/her sister. I can’t even punish him/her because well, s/he still in the womb.  So in order to protect the toddler from being attacked by the unborn, I had to create a demilitarized zone. That’s what people do to keep crazy Koreans with nukes at bay. This little baby queso is going to be really, really fun.

We are trying to prepare Ellis to be a big sister the best we can. We are reading Ellis picture books about becoming a big sister and I’ve been reading books on parenting siblings. The only thing I Google more than “Illuminati plot” is “preparing your toddler for a baby.” Based on this advice, I’ve held off on tumbling and swimming lessons for the summer. Instead, I’m planning a lot of special play dates to the park and the pool so we can spend a lot of special time together.  We talk a lot about how special it is to be a big sister and all the awesome things she will do with the baby. We are creating her a room, that’s not so much a room, but a magical playland of wonder. This room is bigger than any room I’ve ever inhabited in my life.

But, in moments like this, I know whatever we do, it’s not going to be enough. This child will end Ellis’ orderly life as she knows it and kick her in the head.

Ellis still crawls down one-inch steps. She gets upset if I don’t pick up every cracker that falls out of her snack cup at the playground. She’s afraid of goats. And frequently tells us that “motorcycles are dangerwous.”

When I told Dave the story of baby queso kicking Ellis in the head, he laughed. “This kid is going to end her.”

“I know,” I said, “I can’t wait for the epicness of siblings.”

“That’s not even a word,” said Dave.

Nine more weeks.

Maybe you’ve seen me spamming my Facebook feed about it.

This is my first ever big event, besides my wedding, which had barely 100 guests. And when it was over, I wasn’t all misty-eyed and nostalgic. In fact, I swore I’d never go through that hell again. Why? Because who the hell cares what color tulle is? Why are there shades of pink? ISN’T THERE JUST ONE PINK?! Even if Dave succumbs to a freak combine accident and I’m left a widow who is seduced by a handsome rich man. If he wants to put a ring on this, he can’t. HE GET’S THE MILK FOR FREE.

This event has been more fun to plan because I don’t have to worry about a wedding dress. Also, through this process I’ve been able to meet people in town I never would have met and hear stories I never would have otherwise heard.  And the stories of our cast members are incredible–heartwarming, honest, hilarious and heartbreaking. And it’s all to support local moms, by raising money for Waypoint Services.

Technically, I am the emcee. But I won’t need to say much because the stories of our cast say it all.

I hope to see some of you there.  You can buy tickets here or at the door. 

I solemnly vow to take a Facebook hiatus once this is all over to cleanse your palates from my constant updates. I will say this: I have learned a lot through this process about PR. And I managed to get the show covered by most local outlets. Although, public radio evaded me. Which is baffling, because when I am not listening to Ke$ha, I listen to public radio all the time.

And the other day they did a story on pig manure and said “defecation” three times. Seriously, Iowa Public Radio,  I would have said defecation even more times than that! I think this all goes back to the time that I pissed off Terry Gross. Yes, that is a real story with a real Terry Gross.  I now imagine that all public radio affiliates have my photo along with the directive not to have any contact with me. Terry Gross is a powerful, powerful enemy.

UPDATE: NBC Covered the national event, so eat it, Gross.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

In a recent TODAY moms survey, 42% of mothers say that they “sometimes suffer from Pinterest stress.” According to Today.com, “Symptoms include staying up until 3 a.m. clicking through photos of exquisite hand-made birthday party favors even though you’ll end up buying yours at the dollar store, or sobbing quietly into a burnt mess of expensive ingredients that were supposed to be adorable bunny cookies for the school bake sale.”

This is otherwise known as white girl problems. Mad because those Valentines you spent two weeks making for your kid’s party were outdone by another mom? White girl problems. Your teen refused to wear a coordinating shirt for your carefully crafted family pictures? White girl problems.

I’ll admit. I’ve been sucked in by the radiating allure of Pinterest and the joy it promises. My DIY bangs turned out to be a hack job. My super easy gingerbread men on a stick looked like the walking gingerdead. And that awesome no-fail dessert everyone was pinning, failed on me. It turned into soup. And our guests, because they are Midwestern, politely insisted on sampling it and sipping their cake from their bowls like stew.

“Well, it tastes like pudding,” our friend kindly said. They haven’t been over since. I think Pinterest is trying to kill me. But you know what? White girl problems.

I tell this to my daughter. She is two and blonde and beloved by a whole host of wonderful people. So when she cries because her strawberry pancakes have too many strawberries or because I turned off Mickey Mouse. And not just cries, but throws herself to the ground in a righteous rage, I have three words for her before I walk away: White. Girl. Problems.

Right after I got married, the Today Show ran a segment on post-wedding depression, a condition where brides sink into a malaise because they are no longer the center of attention. “You know what I call that?” My dad said when I showed him the article, “Whiny white girl disease!”Now, I’m a mom and we’re all whining over “mommy wars” and Pinterest stress and all those things that well-fed, middle class people with iPhones have to worry about.

Mommy wars? You know who has mommy wars? Women with enough time and disposable income to bemoan the fact that others are “judging” them for how they feed their kids? Pinterest stress? That’s what you get when you need a problem.

I’m raising children in a privileged world. We have food. Money to save for an education. At two, my daughter has a room that is bigger than any room I’ve ever occupied in my life. We can afford the fancy Easter dress. When we have a bad day, we can afford to get a special treat. I’m glad I’m raising a child in this environment. In fact, my husband and I waited to have kids just so we could do things like take vacations to Florida. But now that we are here, I wonder if we are doing things the right way?

I remember as a teenager, I was upset because my parents promised to let me see a movie and then back pedaled at the last second. I was like North Korea with a missile. “That is so unfair!” I whined. “At least have the decency to live up to your promises.”

My dad lost it. “You know what’s unfair? Having to make funeral arrangement s for your older sister who died at 17 because your parents were too grief-stricken to handle it.”

I should have stopped. But I didn’t. “That’s hardly the standard we should apply to this situation…”

“GET TO YOUR ROOM!”

I did. I lost. I’m glad I did.

And while I don’t ever want my daughter to feel the pain of real trouble, I wonder just how I can raise a human in this environment, where she is completely inoculated against such petulant whiny diseases? Pain of course is relative. And having financial security doesn’t protect against problems. Real problems.  But how do I teach my children that petty problems aren’t worth their time? That failure makes you stronger and that social media induced ennui means you should probably shut the computer and read a book. A real book.

I don’t know the answer. But I do know that as a parent it begins with me. I set the limits. We won’t do Elf on the Shelf because mom has enough trouble getting cookies baked over Christmas. The tooth fairy only brings a quarter. There is no adjustment for inflation.  Your birthday cake will probably always come from the store as will your Valentines for school. I didn’t buy baby moccasins because the ROI on that investment was one good instagram picture. Your food won’t be all organic. Yes, I used formula. Walk to school. There is no second breakfast or special dinner for you. I don’t do grocery cart covers or antiseptic wipes. I don’t care if that kid took your toy. Or if the neighbor sneezed on you. Time out occurs at anytime or anywhere, so be on alert.

This is where we begin. My refusal to compare myself with the other mother I see on the internet and to build a life that embraces the important and repels the petty. And I only hope that lesson extends. If not, I am building a backlog of “Oh, you want to see not fair?” lectures. Just in case.

My mom’s dishes. And not just any dishes, a crockpot with crusty potatoes in it. I didn’t really mean to do her dishes at 6am. It’s just that my little brother, who is special needs, came into my room to wake me up at six. Then, I stumbled downstairs to make coffee and while it was percolating, I started washing the dishes.

I don’t know at what point reaching for a scrub brush became instinctual–as much a part of my morning routine as banging my thigh against the bed or not being able to find pants. I probably wouldn’t have realized I was doing it, if my mom hadn’t come upstairs, and said “Thank you.” It took me a second to realize what I was being thanked for and by then the dishwasher had been emptied and filled, I’d had a cup and a half of coffee and I was scraping the last of the potatoes out of the pot with my fingernails.

I came home on Sunday. Ellis had one pigtail and a mismatched outfit. There was food residue on the counter and dirty silverware in the sink. I did my best not to notice those things or say anything. They had spent the weekend volunteering at church, going to a festival in a nearby town, eating hamburgers and ice cream. Those were the important things. Not the day-old spoon.

I’m nearly finished with Jeffery Eugenides’ The Marriage Plot. In the novel, the mothers’ cling to objects. Little things that they deem important as a way of exerting control over their children. These women come off as silly and a little foolish. Out of touch with the bigger picture of their children’s lives.  I’ve always thought of myself as not that person. As someone who thought about things instead of distracting myself with the meaningless dirty spoons of life. How silly Gertrude is to worry about a wedding to Claudius after her husband has been murdered.  Or Mrs. Bennett fussing about dresses and dinner when her daughter’s future is on the line. Don’t be a Martha, be a Mary.

And yet, in my first free moment, I grabbed the spoon out of the sink and wiped down the counter. I took out the remaining pig tail and finger combed Ellis’ hair.  Details are important.  They are the subtext of our existence.  Chekov has the rule about the gun on the mantle: “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don’t put it there.”

Details are the organizing principle of our lives. You may not believe in a god, but everyone believes in dinner. You may believe that clothes are the tools of the oppressor, but you still do laundry. But life is a balancing act of big and little. Knowing when to pick up the spoon and knowing when to leave it in the sink and go on a walk.

I’m still trying for that balance. Maybe I always will. But I no longer think it’s fair to castigate Martha for cleaning, while Mary sat at Jesus’ feet and listened. The details were just her language of love. Because sometimes finger combing communicates the fullness of a heart more than words ever could.

When people tell me what life with two kids will be like…

When I think about getting an epidural…

When Dave asks me if I want some ice cream…

When people tell me that not sleeping now is just preparation for two kids…

What walking is like…

How I feel when I clean the house…

When I have a deadline…

How I feel when I work out…

When I am left alone with cake…

When people tell me to cherish these moments…

How I feel about my weight gain, thus far…

When I think about giving birth again…

And on an unrelated note. This has been Dave and I versus our toddler all freaking week.

This post was inspired by my new favorite Tumblr, The Pregnant Husband.

Ellis is progressing out of babyhood and into little girldom. By which I mean, some moments she is 30 and wise. And then in other moments she’s on the floor crying for her pacifier.

It’s giving me parenting whiplash.

During the day, as we walk out the door, she reminds me to “pack my snack, mom!” and “get my dink!” But at night, she’s completely regressed and we are back in the world of sleep training. Except this time we are trying to sleep train a little person, who cries out from her bedroom, “DON’T WEAVE ME ALL AWONE IN HERE!” (I assume she means “leave” not actually “weave.” Although, both possibilities could be frightening.)

On Sunday night, we moved Ellis into her “big girl room” and shuttered the nursery so she can get used to her new space, before the baby moves in.  Ellis now has a big room, with toys, and pink sheets and it must be too much responsibility, because she has gone over to the dark side. The first night was terrible. At 2, 2:30, 3, 3:30 and 4. I woke up to icy toddler fingers on my arm. And by woke up, I mean I never went back to sleep. Monday morning, I sat with her in the car drinking coffee and waiting for Target to open so we could buy a baby gate. The baby gate helps. Having the gate up means that my toddler is no longer wandering the halls at midnight. But she’s still not sleeping. Despite discipline, threats, executed threats, and attempts on Curious George’s life, she spends at least two hours climbing in and out of bed yelling for mom to help her, snuggle her, DON”T WEAVE HER! Doesn’t she know bed time is when mommy sits on the couch, watches murder shows and eats ice cream? I can’t parent after 7:30.

And then, she’s up again at 4:30, kicking the wall and crying for someone to snuggle her. It would be sweet if it weren’t so immensely frustrating.  Mommy can’t snuggle you right now, mommy is too busy repressing her anger, honey.

Dave is doing his part. He’s been reading parenting manuals and coming up with tatics and strategies for getting our child back to sleep. But last night, at 9:30 as we heard her rattle her gate and say, “Somebody come gets me!” Dave turned to me and said, “I think we deserve this.”

He’s right. Both Dave and I were childhood insomniacs. My mother in law tells stories of Dave staying up until all hours of the night and scaring his dad, who often left early for work. I too  remember walking the halls at night and hovering over my mom as she slept, waiting for her to wake up. In hindsight, from my mother’s point of view, it must have been haunting to wake up to the pale face of your child breathing your air.  Also, my brother is 16 months younger than me. Between juggling an insomniac toddler and an infant, it is a small wonder that my dad encouraged my belief in monsters.

My sister reminded me of this, as I called my mom to complain about our sleepless nights and whiny days.

“Just do what dad did,” my sister Cat interjected. “Tell her monsters will get her if she tries to get out of bed.”

“He did tell us that, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, he scared us just to keep us in bed. What a parent.”

“Yeah…he’s…the worst.” I said, but deep down, running on only four hours of sleep, I was wondering if perhaps, I couldn’t hide some sort of dinosaur under her bed.

And this is the crux of parenting: Balancing your will to survive with the inevitable therapy bills.

In that moment, I remember thinking, “Why do people choose to do this?” I was only nine, you were barely one. A year later, you started biting and declared that a toy lobster was your best friend. That year, I explained to you that no one could possibly be flushed down the toilet, even if they fell in. And to demonstrate, I pushed you in.

Have you forgiven me, yet?

Let’s hope you don’t remember.

This is your first week with your daughter and I know it seems like little consolation right now when you are so sleep deprived that the thought of being alone with a pillow makes you cry until you can taste your snot, but believe me, she isn’t going to remember this. She’s not going to remember how you swore when your nipples bled or when you said, “Screw it!” and gave her a bottle. She won’t remember if she got formula or if she was cloth diapered. She won’t remember that you let her cry for ten minutes so that you could take a shower or that you let her wear her pee-stained clothes a little longer because you were too exhausted to do the laundry, or that you told her to “Please, shut up!”

Kids don’t remember things until they are two. And even then you can probably convince them that their therapist is implanting false memories. I imagine you have until four before you are completely screwed. I don’t know, I’ll let you know when I get there.

These are the dark days. When the mewling 8lb tyrant kicks the ever loving crap out of you every day and you wonder how something this small can alter your life so permanently. You will crawl out of the tunnel. She will let you sleep. No child goes to college still waking their mom up every 45mins for a snack. And then, one day, after two weeks of sleeping more than four hours every night, you will wake up and look at your child and wonder how something so small can change your life so permanently  Except this time, the observation will be tinged with wonder instead of fear (although there is always fear). That’s the difference of sleep. And I can say all of this because I am well-rested. Well, better rested than you at least. Toddlers can be jerks too, but that’s not something you need to worry about just yet.

In the meantime, do what you have to do to keep hold of your sanity. You are the mom now. You are in charge. Don’t let anyone (even me) make you feel bad for any of your choices. Not how you feed, dress, sleep train (or don’t sleep train), or discipline her. Those are all immaterial. No one became a serial killer because their parents co-slept or made them cry it out.

Do you know what matters, in the end? Having a good parent. And you are already that. I know that because I am your sister. I wiped neon crayon remnants from your butt. I’ve seen you good, bad and ugly. True, there are many things I don’t know about you, because you are an adult and we’ve never discussed your feelings on brie v. gouda, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is your heart: And you are an imaginative, funny, smart, brilliant woman. Your daughter is lucky to have you and you are lucky to have her.

Will you screw up? Sure. But screwing up isn’t defined by whether or not you put cloth diapers on her little buns or that time you put the bouncy seat in the crib because she slept better that way. Real screwing up comes later, after four years old, remember? Right now, you need to know a couple of things, she will sleep and you are wonderful.

I love you.

I remember being in a bar and having some guy yell at me. “Hey, are you a professional biker?” And I yelled back, “Sure, what gave it away, the fact that I’m riding the Tour de freaking France right now? NO!”

And my friend, a native of Massachusetts, shook his head and said, “That guy was hitting on you.”  Then the guy gave me the finger and I thought that I should kiss him. Instead, I ate a lobster roll and drank beer and talked about Jonathan Latham and just thinking about it makes me homesick for a place that’s not my home.

Dennis Lehane wrote in the New York Times:

I love its atrocious accent, its inferiority complex in terms of New York, its nut-job drivers, the insane logic of its street system. I get a perverse pleasure every time I take the T in the winter and the air-conditioning is on in the subway car, or when I take it in the summer and the heat is blasting. Bostonians don’t love easy things, they love hard things — blizzards, the bleachers in Fenway Park, a good brawl over a contested parking space. Two different friends texted me the identical message yesterday: They messed with the wrong city. This wasn’t a macho sentiment. It wasn’t “Bring it on” or a similarly insipid bit of posturing. The point wasn’t how we were going to mass in the coffee shops of the South End to figure out how to retaliate. Law enforcement will take care of that, thank you. No, what a Bostonian means when he or she says “They messed with the wrong city” is “You don’t think this changes anything, do you?”

I’m not a news blog. I’m not a pundit or a journalist. I don’t think people should look here for analysis of current events, because really, in the end, what do we know? What do I know? The answer is self-evident.

But this isn’t about me. It’s just me, trying to express, in some weird random way, like that guy in the bar, that I love this town.

Also, those city council meetings were the only other place besides a Hawkeye game, where I’ve seen Iowans actually yell.

This week, our lesson was on the SWAT team or as they are called here, the Special Response Team. The commander of the SRT used to be a teacher for 4-year-olds. And when someone in the class mentioned what a switch that was, he shook his head. “No, I always say the jobs are the same. I’m just better armed at this one.”

And the older my child gets, the more I realize how accurate he is. Being a parent is like being the police, judge, jury and warden in your own little Western town, where lawlessness prevails and people poop on the floor because they can. So, based upon my now encyclopedic knowledge of the long arm of the law, I am writing a list for you on all the ways parenting is like being a police officer. But with fewer weapons.

1.  You never know what the day will bring: You could have a placid day of donuts and thank-you-ma’ams or you could be wrangling a naked person to the ground at a Kwik Trip. You just never know.

2. You are never off duty: Even off-duty police officers carry guns. I now know why. It’s the same reason I always have band-aids and snacks with me, even when I’m sans child. You never know when shit is gonna go down and someone just needs a handful of cheese crackers.

3. You attract the crazies: One of my favorite parts of class is hearing the stories about the people who constantly call in to the Police Department with their crazy requests or the lady who would fake a seizure every time she had to pay a parking ticket. Do you want to know how crazy humanity can be? You have two choices, get knocked up or carry a badge. Today a strange woman at Chik-fil-a told me that I needed to cut my daughters hair and not be so vain about my child. Last week, a man at a gas station told me kids were great until they take your money and give it to the cat. The sad part is, I kind of understand what he means.

4. Late nights: This one is a given, but honestly the night shift is the worst. It makes you begin to believe things you never thought possible, like the Illuminati constructing the pyramids. Coincidentally, I met a police officer who thinks the Illuminati did construct the pyramids. He may not be wrong.

5. The Uniform: Even when police officers aren’t in uniform, you know who they are. It’s the same with parents. When I was pregnant with my first, I got a lot of suspicious stares like, “Why are you teenage and pregnant?” (Note: Pregnancy makes my skin get rashy so I never wear my ring.) Now, I don’t get that look. The looks I get instead are just sad and marginally sympathetic. Probably because no teenager would willingly wear the clothes I’m wearing and dark circles like this don’t come from a late night of fun. I’m beginning to realize that even if I donned a sequined tube top and dropped acid in the…I don’t know, where ever the cool kids are…I’d still be outed as a parent. Probably because of the Cheese Nips falling from my purse and because I say things like “cool kids.”

I think I need a taser.

At the end of every day, Dave and I ask Ellis what made her happy and what made her sad. The answers for happy range from cookies to puddles to Elmo. And the sad things are the people or animals who threaten her snacks–a little boy named Aidan, birds and dogs. But this week, the answers have all be the same.

What makes Ellis happy? Princesses.

What makes Ellis sad? Dinosaurs.

My 2-year-old’s fear of dinosaurs is funny, in that condescending way that adults feel about childhood things. But it is also not funny, when you remember what it is like to be afraid as a child. I used to lie awake at night imagining the swirls of black that I saw in the darkness were demons battling angels in a spiritual warfare our pastor said was happening all around us. My friend KT, tells me children raised less Evangelical were afraid of the Artax in “The Never Ending Story.”

I want to reassure my daughter.  So, we read about dinosaurs and discuss them, how they have babies like us, how dinosaurs probably like broccoli and are related to birds. I try to tell her that dinosaurs are a beautiful mystery–creatures discovered by scientist that still baffle and fill us with wonder. She nods and asks for a cookie, which I give to her, because I feel bad that I tried to make her say, “Paleonlogist.” And I’m pretty sure I’ve given her a meteor complex.

Last Saturday, I came home and Ellis was sitting at the kitchen table with Dave. They were eating lunch. A matching pair of peanut butter sandwiches and unbrushed blonde hair. “Hi, mom!” Ellis said waving a jelly-sticky hand. “Wook, it’s Dinosaur Steeb.”

She was pointing to a picture propped up on the table. It was a drawing of a dinosaur, with a pool, a slide, above that Orion, and the planet Saturn,  In front of the picture was a sandwich made of play food. This is Dinosaur Steve. Like Ellis he likes to swim and loves to find Orion in the sky with his daddy. Steve is on our refrigerator. And everyday, Ellis comes to take a peek at him. Sometimes she brings him gifts of plastic food. Other times she just takes him off the refrigerator and shows me that Steve has a slide and a pool, “Just wike Ellis!”

And then, yesterday, Ellis announced, “I not scared of Dinosaur Steeb!”

I guess dinosaurs just needed a pitch man.

I don’t know why it’s dinosaurs that scare my daughter. But it doesn’t matter. Every child finds something that represents the blackness they see swirling above them at night. Even so little, so protected from everything around her that when she hears the word “target” in an NPR story, she laughs and says, “Dey say ‘Target.’ I get cookie at Target.” Even now, she knows that something is out to get her.

I sometimes volunteer at a local shelter for women, where someone told me once that no matter how well your parents raised you, how perfect your life is, in the end you are broken by this imperfect and dangerous world. That’s the truth that sometimes wakes me up at night, and I fall asleep again watching what I used to think were demons, but now I know is just an optical illusion. I’m afraid of something else now. Something I can’t talk myself out of.

What you are afraid of is never the thing that gets you, I want to explain to my daughter. So, don’t live in fear.  And I will tell her this one day. But now we have Steve: the ambassador of dinosaurs. Steve who loves Saturn and slides into his pool. Who reminds me that even with monsters, it’s never black and white.