Yay North Carolina with your badass primary today. Go on wit’ ya bad self.

Zoe and Lucy and I went to vote before school this morning, and they enthusiastically helped me push the touch-screen buttons on my electronic ballot. I would say “touch the box next to Person ABC” and they would do it, clearly delighting in their power. I saved the president choice for last, just to savor it a little — the first presidential primary in my long NC history to actually matter, and matter a lot, at that. Plus, although I knew who I was going to vote for, I was still struggling, even at that 11th hour, with the conflict that comes from wishing things were different from what they actually were. I was excited about my choice, but I was still wishing that I was equally excited about the other candidate.

Finally I asked Zoe to touch the square next to Obama’s name. She did it, but she turned to me and said, loudly, “Mama, why are you voting for Barack Obama? Why aren’t you voting for Hillary Clinton?”

Quietly, I explained that I had decided to vote for Obama and that I would explain why after we left. As if I needed reminding that I had only just jumped down off the fence.

“But Mama,” Lucy chimed in, same volume as Zoe. “We want to vote for Hillary. Can’t we vote for Hillary and Obama?”

People turned toward us and smiled the smile. You know the one — the smile that says “I envy the innocence and outspokenness and conviction of a five-year-old.” Or maybe it says “Your kids are voicing the inner turmoil I feel too.”

Oh, or probably it was just because they could imagine how I felt standing there in the middle of Midwood Baptist Church while my private ballot was read aloud for all the world to hear.

Cute kids.

xo, L

Sk*rt is over. Yesterday. Old News.

No, we’re not shutting it down, even though that’s what some people might like.

Just the opposite. We’re aiming for bigger and better, starting fresh, onward and upward. A fabulous new name. With less hyphen!

And in true sk*rt fashion, we’ve decided to do it with a great big contest — The What’s in a Name contest — and turn the naming decision over to our clever readers (which hopefully includes you!). And y’all — the prizes are big. A fancy new cord-free/hands-free phone. A Magic Bullet blender/food processor. And a free BlogHer Registration. That’s over $700 worth of stuff. Just for helping us find a new name.

Entering the contest is super easy. Just leave a comment at the sk*rt blog or over here, at this sk*rt post letting us know what your favorite choice is from the list of new names — or you can even suggest your own. We like this option since all the brainstorming has left us a little brain-dead. Surely you can come up with something AMAZING.

Enter as often as you’d like. But you’ve got to do it fast. Because the contest ends this Friday. As in tomorrow. Sorry to be letting you know a little late. But you’ve got almost 48 hours left, and I know you work best with a deadline.

Thanks friends!
xo, L

Wow. And just like that, 2 months passes. By way of explanation, here’s a daydream:

Who’s with me? And, more importantly, who’s bringing the marshmallows?

xo, L

Senator Hillary Clinton and Partridge Family Mom, Shirley Jones.

Discuss.

xo, L

Happy Day After Valentine’s Day friends. Hope yours was filled with love — the exact kind of love you were looking for, whatever that may be.

Lucy and Zoe celebrated Friendship Day at school yesterday. Each student brought in valentine friendship cards to hand out to the other students — one for every kid in class. For Lucy that meant 23 cards. For Zoe, 22.

“Heck!” I said, back when we first got the notices about Friendship Day. “Why make plain ole cards? Why not make 45 hearts out of melty beads and hand those out instead?” And for some reason, everyone agreed with me. Silly silly family.

But thanks to the cheap child labor, we were able to complete this project without outsourcing. We started almost a month ago, and filled much of our plentiful spare time with making hearts. This consisted of filling a small heart-shaped tray with a hundred or so colored cylinder-shaped beads, arranged in a lovely colorful pattern, of course, and then ironing them. The heat from the iron melted the beads and fused them together so the heart could be removed from the tray and stand alone. Zoe and Lucy worked on them during the day. And at night, while watching Season 1 of The Riches on DVD, Bob and I worked on them.

Then Wednesday night after dinner we assembled them all, looping white tags festooned with Sharpie red and pink hearts. 49 total (we added 4 so the girls could give one to each teacher).

It was triumphant. Jubilant. A huge undertaking with a beginning, a middle and a proud, celebratory end. We’ve never done a long, drawn-out project like this with Lucy and Zoe and they did great. They were excited about the initial idea; they didn’t get tired of it, even after weeks of making hearts; and they saw it through to the very last white tag. And they were so happy to be giving the hearts away to their friends. I don’t know how they came by such a zen approach to belongings, but they love sharing things they love with people they love. Bob and I spent lots of energy talking about the hearts — our favorites, the most unusual, the amazing diversity of them all. Every single one was precious to us. But Zoe and Lucy had no hesitation giving them all away — not one word of reluctance — and came home talking about the next melty bead project we were going to undertake.

I, with my pack-rat ways, could learn a lot from them.
As usual.

xo, L

When I was in the 11th grade I lived in France for the year, on a sort of exchange program. 60 of us Americans lived with French families and went to school in Rennes, a smallish town in Brittany, 3 hours west of Paris. I was deep in the throes of being a teenager and life was full of extremes anyway, all highs and lows with nothing in between. But living in another country, learning a new language, thousands of miles from my family, every day was downright fecund with potential adventure. The amount I learned that year still awes me, and the fact that I made it home in one piece, despite being a sensible girl with a good head on her shoulders, makes me shake my head in disbelief. Oh the bullets dodged.

This was, amazingly, also the only period of sustained journal keeping I have ever achieved. In addition to recording the life-is-awesome ups, the life-is-scary-downs and the gosh-but-aren’t-adults-annoying bershon of being a teenager (and living abroad), I made many lists in these journals. Things I would do that month. People I missed back home. People I didn’t miss back home. Things I would do once I got back home. Things I would miss about France. etc etc etc.

One of my favorites is a list called “Things I Like” that I wrote when I was supposed to be working on an Art History paper. It is clearly the list of a 16 yr. old in its bald declarations of newly acquired self-awareness. It bridges the gaps between being young and grown-up with an utter misunderstanding of what being grown-up is all about. But it strives so hard to be happy, about everything. And I like how it gets more earnest toward the end. Here it is, without editorial interruption (the parentheticals here are actually in my journal):

THINGS I LIKE:
• Friends
• Mom, Dad & Mike
• whipped cream
• music I know the words to
• orange t-shirts
• people who dress well
• responsibilities (the fun kind)
• neat handwriting
• being tall
• big sweaters
• worn, ripped Levi’s
• new sneakers
• old bluchers
• feather pillows
• good talks (interesting, deep, etc.)
• pierced ears
• being in control of myself
• fresh squeezed orange juice
• warm summer nights w/a breeze and sailboats bouncing in the water
• nicknames
• flags
• acting grown up
• snowfalls at night
• being and feeling safe
• ragg-wool socks
• bring so tired i can hardly keep my eyes open & then being able to go to sleep
• microwave ovens
• long hair
• big, soft towels
• waking up early on a weekend & realizing I don’t have to get up
• chocolate milk
• my bedroom
• vacation
• thinking I’m not going to like something & then being wrong
• crying when I need to
• being able to say what I want to somebody when I need to say it
• straight teeth
• pictures w/great memories attached
• watching a really good skier on a hard slope
• perfect plans working out the way I wanted…
• L.L. Bean Catalogs
• salty, unbuttered popcorn
• not having to put on an act in front of people
• good looking people (girls &/or guys)
• laughing uncontrollably
• pretending
• cream of wheat
• red
• diet coke
• fires
• little kids (of any age)
• inside jokes
• smiles : )

I love how the innocence of the list is punctuated with brief but sharp depths: - pierced ears - being in control of myself - fresh squeezed orange juice -…

I love the magnanimousness of “little kids (of any age),” spoken as only someone who has just gotten a taste of life as something other than a little kid can. Like, “Aw yeah, little kids are great. Just look at em all runnin around, doin stuff. Not carin about anything. Aren’t they great?”

But mostly, I like imagining myself spending so much time poring through my head, coming up with the things on this list. I’m sure it felt good to write some of the more confessional items here — deep thoughts are exhilarating for a 16 year old girl. It’s thrilling to have words to go with all the new emotions. But it’s also exhausting, so once those were written, it must have felt just as good to write the less serious ones. Lighthearted and simple. A point-counterpoint chicken soup for the teenage soul.

And I still like orange t-shirts.

Are you a list-maker? Do you have any journals or other “snapshots” of your teenage years that reveal your childhood giving way to adulthood? Do you remember when you were 16?

xo, L

Remember how Barack Obama invited me to dinner?
And then wanted to be Twitter pals?
And then Michelle found out about us?

Well now Michelle and I have competition. Lookit:

Can’t see the embedded video? Here it is.

+ + + + + + +

Getting excited about Super Tuesday?
And Fat Tuesday?
Hey, it’s Super Fat Tuesday!

We’re celebrating over at sk*rt this week with a new contest: The Super Fat Tuesday Contest.

Basically it’s a two-step process:

1. You commemorate Super Tuesday by voting for 10 stories on sk*rt (and in your primary if you’re lucky enough to live in a state having a primary election tomorrow).

Tell us you did by leaving a comment on this post at sk*rt. Then you’re registered to win some super phat prizes.

2. Then you go celebrate Fat Tuesday by eating all the Red Beans and Rice you can get your hands on. Frequent Upside Up commenter, Debbie, makes the best I’ve ever had, so let me know if you need a recipe. I have an in. Wink wink.

That’s all y’all.

xo, L

(I)

Zoe: “Mama. In school yesterday we watched a movie about Philippe Petit.

Me: “Who is Philippe Petit?”

Zoe: “He walked on a tightrope between two big buildings. Did you know him when you lived in New York?”

Me: “Sadly, no.”

Lucy: “Did you know The Snowy Day won a gold medal for best drawing? Really. It did. It’s on the book. A gold medal. It’s called the Cawldercat.”

Me: “Yes. I love that book. It’s been one of my favorites since I was a little kid.”

Pause.

Zoe: “Philippe Petit won a Cawldercat Medal too.”

+ + + + +

(II)

Zoe and Lucy have emptied their piggy banks and are very busy counting the coins.

Lucy: “Wow! I’ve got a billion coins!!!”

Zoe: “Awwwwww. I’ve only got 68.”

Things have been hopping chez Upside Up — we’ve lost our first tooth!!

As the 2nd of 3 possible shoes drop in the fallout from Lucy’s accident a couple of years ago, the dentist had to wiggle Lucy’s top front tooth out on Tuesday. She was very brave, and now she’s very very proud. I’ve caught her a couple of times standing in front of the mirror, smiling at herself. And she’s fascinated by the way the hole in her mouth has altered the way she speaks (or “thpeakth” as it would now be said). And the gold Sacagawea Dollar was a nice bonus, plus a note from the tooth fairy. Written in silver.

And I’m excited about it too. But I have to admit to feeling a little wistful about it as well. One of the things that has surprised me about being a parent is how attached I feel to the particulars of any given age or stage Lucy and Zoe are at. And then when they grow out of that stage, as every kid does (and in ways I would not have thought momentous before I had kids), I feel an elemental sadness at bidding that stage farewell. Their growth feels more like a falling from grace. An innocence lost.

I’ve been aware of this feeling since the first time we fed the girls rice cereal. Previously, their mouths had never touched anything that didn’t come from my body. And the cereal felt like such a besmirching of their purity. Like it was something that could be avoided. If I were a better parent, for example, I would have been able to prevent this contamination from happening. It’s completely irrational, of course, and I know it makes me sound unstable. So I came to terms with it and learned to love the freedom from having kids strapped to my chest 24 hours a day (duh). Just as I came to terms with their gummy mouths filling with cute little tiny chicklet teeth. Just as I will come to terms with (and eventually fall in love with) Lucy’s new gap-toothed smile. To help me with that coming to terms, I share with you now:

Lucy’s Mouth: Five Years in three snapshots

8 mos. old. Big gummy smile. Like a capital D on its side.

3 1/2 yrs old. Bucky beaver. Bangs by Lucy.

5 yrs old. Toothless (”toothleth”) and proud.

If you have kids, which of their stages have been difficult for you to say goodbye to? What were you grateful to leave behind?

And for everyone (those with and without kids), do you remember losing your first tooth? I totally don’t, which is both uncharacteristic and unsettling. Tell me your story to see if it jogs my memory. Lucy wants to hear the story.

xo

Whoa — where has the time gone? Life, as I believe I’ve whined before, has resembled an avalanche lately. And since my little blog carries the smallest return-on-investment of my many projects, it has been relegated to the back burner, of the neighbor’s stove, across the street, diagonally. And it’s a tiny old 2-burner stove that takes forever to heat anything, if it works at all. Which I’m not sure it does. Sorry.

It isn’t you, it’s me. I swear.

I’ve missed you though. And I think about you often. And I’ve been stockpiling some things I wanted to share with you. So hold onto your hats, friends — this is your lucky day! It’s an Upside Up Clearing House! Randomness galore. With pictures!

First things first:

I’m especially pleased with the BACON VIEWING WINDOW because it means you can get a really good look at Uncle Elmer’s STRAWBERRY FLAVOR! Gummy Bacon. FOUR SLICES!

Three blocks from our house, there’s a great little market called The Common Market. It’s like a cross between the newsstand where we bought Mad Magazine when we were kids (remember the huge candy selection and novelty toys?) and a mini grocery store. From April to November, there’s a small farmers market outside called the Tailgate Market — an appropriate name because many of the vendors of beautiful organic, local produce actually sell their stuff off the back of their trucks. Inside the store there are fine wines, a huge beer selection, a wine bar, a deli, snacks, coffee, and funny novelties and toys. And lots of bacon stuff.

In addition to the Gummy Bacon, I also found these:

They smell exactly like bacon, and taste smoky. Yummy in the morning for picking eggs out of your teeth.

+ + +

When we lived in Durham, there was a small old grocery store called the Red & White. Walking in there was like walking into 1962 — little shopping carts, little aisles, a real butcher, local produce, cashiers who called you “hon.” It was right up the street from our house and I shopped there whenever I could. One day I found this hanging out in the refrigerated section:

It leaves me a little speechless, but processed meat is, in general, a confounding issue for me, so that’s not surprising. I’ll let you form your own conclusions.

+ + +

Moving away from the pork products and on to the little dumplings in my life, there’s this:

At Costco one day, I had Zoe and Lucy with me and they were both, miraculously, sitting in the cart for pretty much the whole journey. Sometimes at Costco, rather than navigate the doublewide cart around every corner (especially in the food area, where it often looks like one big cocktail party with people milling around the hors d’oeuvres tables), it’s easier for me to park the cart in a spot and run over to grab something quickly. When I do this, the girls and I have a little joke where I say, “I’m going to run over there for a sec. DON’T DRIVE AWAY!” And while I dash off, they work their hardest to get the cart to move. When they succeed, hilarity ensues.

One of these times I glanced down at their feet while I was walking back to the cart and the two feet in the middle — one zoe foot and one lucy foot — were intertwined and swinging back and forth, as though the two feet belonged to one pair of legs on a coy girl sitting on a porch swing in a poodle skirt. See how the two middle feet in the picture are blurry? And how the two outer feet aren’t moving?

The incidental twin-ness of this took my breath away. These two people have spent so much of their life together that their bodies don’t even know they’re separate. One brain goes “My dangling legs need something to do. Hey! Let’s swing!” And the other one is all “Yes. Let’s.” And two of the legs start to swing, but they don’t happen to belong to the same body.

If two 5-yr-old friends were doing this, it would be the activity. Like, “Hey, let’s hook our ankles and swing our legs together.” And they would giggle all the while. But Zoe and Lucy weren’t even conscious of doing it. Their attention was completely focussed on moving the cart as far and as fast as they could. I love this.

+ + +

Also, I tried to write a whole post about my sk*rt trip to Houston in December, but it never got finished. So I’m just going to show you the awesome picture taken by the stunningly talented and beautiful Karen Walrond of the sk*rt chicks, together in Houston.

Gabby, Me, Laura.

Big things in the works for sk*rt in 2008, so stay tuned. This picture was taken at the end of a hard-workin day. Our brains are actually larger here than they were that morning.

+ + +

Last but not least, a shot of the prep for our big New Year’s Day party (where 118 people tromped through our house on a beautiful 60° day and ate collard greens and black eyed peas con queso. For the second year in a row our good friends the Whetstones spent NYE with us, en route from Chattanooga to Durham. This means not only do we have people to drink champan-ya with, but we also get help with the NYD party prep. It takes a lot of collard greens to make 118 people lucky and wealthy for a whole year. Here’s the evidence:

De-stemming collards on the living room floor.

That’s it for the clearing house. I think I have shown you all the photos I’ve been wanting to show you over the past few months but never got around to. Thanks for watching. More life-y stuff coming soon.

xo