The Snake in the Spin Cycle:
And Other Tales of Family Life
For more than a dozen years when my children were growing up I wrote a monthly humor column for San Diego Family Magazine about the joys and hassles of family life. Regular readers would often ask, “When are you going to put these in a book?” And so I did. The Snake in the Spin Cycle: And Other Tales of Family Life can still be ordered through Amazon.com. It’s categorized there under “Humor” and “Essays” and “Parenting and Families.” But from my current vantage point, given all that has happened in the years since, it sometimes seems like “Ancient History” should also be on that list.
In another book on Amazon.com — Merry Wives and Others: A History of Domestic Humor Writing – I’m one of the writers featured on its pages. Published by McFarland & Company (2002) and authored by Penelope Fritzer and Bartholomew Bland, the book is a historical and literary survey of American humorists who have written about home. I feel honored to be included there among the likes of Jean Kerr, Erma Bombeck, Judith Viorst, and Anna Quindlen. The chapter that examines my work sums it up with these words, “Diaz’s quiet competence and thoughtful, wide-ranging humor typify her work.”
Of The Snake in the Spin Cycle Parenting Publications of America said, “It’s a delightful and helpful perspective on how to cope. Parents of San Diego are fortunate to see the world of children and families through Diaz’s eyes.”
Here’s an excerpt from The Snake in the Spin Cycle:
Last But Not Least
by Sue Diaz
My younger sister and her husband are expecting their second child, so I’ve been looking for a baby gift. I’ve always liked those books of “baby’s firsts” — page after fill-in-the-blank page bordered with teddy bears, choo-choos, and balloons. I like the way the text invites parents to record, for all time, the date of baby’s first smile and first steps, first words and first bumpy-edged tooth.
But as the mother of a daughter, 12, and a son, “almost 10,” I’ve become aware of another kind of book that doesn’t exist. And should. But never will. The Book of Lasts. It would be a place to magically keep track of all those milestones that pass without anyone realizing. The moments we don’t even think of as precious – until they’re gone. Those brief eras in a family that quietly shuffle out of sight like a kid in fuzzy-footed PJs.
I experienced one of those “lasts” a while back, though I didn’t know it at the time. And I only realized it the other night around 3 a.m. Our daughter, Anne, whom I tucked in earlier, walked into our bedroom and woke me up with a whispered, “Hi, Mom.” This wasn’t a case of her having a bad dream or a rising fever or a middle-of-the-night fear of that gnarly-fingered, hairy-armed creature that resides between children’s box springs and dust ruffles. No, for reasons that made a dream-like sense only because it was three in the morning, she’d simply come over to say “hello” and spend some quality time with us. My eyes fluttered open. I mumbled a greeting, rolled over, and fell back to sleep. Anne did, too, without bothering to head back to her room.
So I woke up a short time later, wedged between a very sound asleep husband and a snoozing, dead-weight daughter who had developed what seemed like an excess of elbows. It was time to carry Anne back to her bed where she belonged. I got up, slid my arms beneath her, and tried to lift. No go. Nothing. It was impossible. The little girl I used to easily hoist on my hip or bounce in my arms was gone. In her place was a mid-sized person with size-eight feet. And I could no sooner scoop her up and trot down the hall than I could arm-wrestle an alligator.
Sometime, somewhere, on a day I don’t remember, I had carried Anne for the last time. On that particular day, when I set her down, I had no way of knowing it was forever.
Other lost moments belong in my Book of Lasts. Like the last time my little boy, fresh from a bubble bath, said, “Warm me up, Mommy,” and I folded my arms in a terry-cloth hug around a pink and steaming toddler. Once this was one of our rituals. An everyday thing. Then one day, without a word, he began toweling off himself and dashing to his room so no one would see his Scooby-Doo underwear.
Those were the days I never knew, until now. I never knew I was changing the last diaper; wasn’t aware of the last afternoon nap. There was also the last time either of the kids drew a picture of me in the style of all early artists – a likeness with no neck or torso, just pairs of reedy arms and legs shooting directly out of a potato-shaped head. If I’d known no more of this genre would appear, I might have framed the last one, or at least left it hanging a while longer on the refrigerator door.
Each phase we’re in, while we are in it, tricks us into believing that’s how things will always be. There are days right now when I’m convinced I’ll always be reminding kids in the carpool to buckle their seat belts. Always be answering the phone and saying, “Anne, it’s for you.” Always be looking for new containers for my son’s latest catch of bugs or lizards or ribbony grass snakes. I carry the illusion that every Christmas season we’ll polish off at least one box of candy canes around here. And every Fourth of July, my husband and I will sit with two kids who clap and cheer at fireworks as if the night sky could hear them.
But I’m beginning to see that today’s moments are just that: today’s. And tomorrow or next week or next year, these small touchstones will make their way without fuss or fanfare into my mind’s revolving files of lasts, as surely as Big Bird is yellow. My sister and her husband will eventually find this out, too, with their little boy and new addition. To help, I’ve settled on a gift for this new niece or nephew, in lieu of the elusive Book of Lasts. I’m going to send them an item I now believe should be a wardrobe basic for the under-one set: a little crotch-snap T-shirt with the phrase “Carpe Diem” – Seize the Day – puffy-painted across the tummy.
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