Your Own Private Freakout

This week, I want to hear your reactions to something posited by a good friend of mine. While she has no children of her own, my friend Julie developed my show Mother Load with me, and directed another wonderful one-mother show called BabyLove. Julie has put in her time studying our kind, like Jane Goodall among the chimps, and so I have come to consider her an expert of sorts.

Julie was telling me recently that a cousin of hers, as the birth of her first child neared, was completely and utterly freaking out about how she might have to have a C-section. “Why?” I said. “I don’t know,” Julie said, “something about how the baby might get too much of the anesthesia in its system?"

“I guess I read that somewhere too,” I said, “but I can’t say it was something I spent much time worrying about.”
“No,” said Julie, “but you had your thing too. And so that’s what I told Simone. Every pregnant woman has her thing.”
Come again?

“Your thing was what if you couldn’t breastfeed,” Julie reminded me. “And Simone’s thing is what if she has to have a C-section. Pregnancy and childbirth are such overwhelming events, so fundamentally unknowable, that a mother can’t process it all, so I think each woman picks one thing to freak out about while she’s pregnant, and funnels all her anxieties into that one thing.”

This, I have to say, blew my mind.

I certainly had freaked out about being able to breastfeed before Cooper was born, and I guess I must have bent Julie’s ear about it a few times. I did wonder, then, how it was that other mothers-to-be didn’t seem as singularly concerned. It never occurred to me that it was the anxiety of Impending Motherhood itself that was made manifest, in me, in this particular way, and when other mothers had other anxieties that I didn’t particularly share, it was because I had already chosen my Personal Freakout Issue.

In the end, I breastfed three children without a hitch (and believe me, I know how fortunate I am to say that). And Simone didn’t have to have her C-section. So Simone will probably not worry about that if she has a second pregnancy—which doesn’t mean she won’t find a new pitcher to pour her anxieties into.

I thought Julie’s theory was supremely interesting, at the very least, and so I’m wondering: was there one thing, large or small, that YOU freaked out about during your first pregnancy? What was it? And do you think my friend’s theory holds water?

Jill Lepore is very bored with all of us

In her critique of two recent parenting memoirs, and parent magazines in general, in the most recent issue of The New Yorker, I can just imagine author Jill Lepore rolling her eyes when she says,

If you’ve ever read a parenting blog, and I don’t say you ought to, you have a good idea what lies at the heart of these books: ersatz confession....Lots of people find this kind of thing winsome, I guess.... But as long as we’re trafficking in unsought revelation, reading these books made me think of nothing so much as traipsing to the playground with a twelve-month-old who merrily toddles off to the sandbox while I, despite hiding behind a newspaper and attempting to appear exactly as approachable as Napoleon Bonaparte, find myself cornered by a stranger: “You have a baby? I have a baby! Doesn’t parenthood beat all?”

Now, I certainly am predisposed to dislike Jill Lepore, dismissive as she is of the parenting blog oeuvre, but seriously: what is she talking about? Is there any mother reading this who is just SO sick of all the friendly parents striking up conversations with her wherever she goes? Because I'm not sure that has ever happened to me. I find the playground horribly boring precisely because it is so anonymous, because while Maddie can have a stare-down with any child of her approximate age and then fall into an amicable sharing of the steering wheel atop the toddler climbing structure, I have never spoken more than a few words to another adult there. I might murmur, "Sorry about that," as I redirect Maddie from flinging sand at some other kid, but I never get a response, let alone make a friend.

It is precisely that isolation that I think has made parenting blogs so successful. We want to read one another's experiences, and find common ground, and feel relieved that we're not the only ones committing each and every parenting transgression highlighted by the magazines in our mailbox each month.

And this is where Ms. Lepore's critique gets even stranger: she gets into the creation of Parents magazine, and how such titles prey on the increasingly uncertain mothers that they target, and that part of her essay is actually very interesting, and I guess I will even say you should check it out, although it has nothing to do with the ostensible point of her essay: parenting memoirs and why she is so disgusted with them.

I am particularly sensitive on this point because I have, for the last few months, been working on a book of parenting essays for Harper Collins that, God willing, will be on bookshelves by Mother's Day 2010. This requires an almost ludicrous timetable, but I didn't know that when they asked me, so I said yes. This is why my blogging has fallen off considerably. I will be back once the book is completed in the fall. Until then, I'm going to be posting here at least once a week, and I hope you will keep reading.

Anyway, I've been working my ass off on this book, only to have Ms. Lepore say that she is SOOO bored with books like mine, and who wants to read them anymore? She blows off Ayelet Waldman and Michael Lewis' latest efforts thusly:

I used to like that conversation. Lately, though, it’s been getting old: all the mothers want forgiveness; all the fathers want applause.

But I don't think she's right about that. I think all of us who write about parenting, whether in essays, blogs, Facebook updates, Tweets, or emails to our old friends, are after something much simpler: it is about reaching out from the alienation and guilt that parenting brings us all, and taking the risk of saying, I feel this way. Do you, too? I still want to read those stories. And I hope, by May 2010, there will be a few others like me left as well, no matter what Ms. Lepore thinks.

It's Pop!

Today, via the Motherlode blog on the New York Times website (love the name), news that there is a two and a half year old child in Sweden named Pop, whose gender the 24-year-old parents of Pop are keeping a secret. From everyone. Except the handful of people who have changed Pop's diaper. Sometimes Pop wears pants, and sometimes a dress, and Pop's parents plan to keep this up for as long as possible, in order that Pop might "avoid being forced into a specific gender mould."

Holy cow.

But Yes the Hippopotamus

Maddie is obsessed with all books Sandra Boynton, as both boys were at her age, and perhaps that is because I have stuffed Boynton's books down all of their throats, but that is only because I find them the most beautifully drawn, funnily written, and sneakily thought-provoking books out there, and I am including adult books in that equation. Perhaps my favorite Boynton is But Not the Hippopotamus, the story of a hippo who is not in step with her companions:

A cat and two rats
Are trying on hats.
But not the hippopotamus.

A moose and a goose
Together have juice.
But not the hippopotamus.

The hippopotamus watches all these gay activities, and clearly wants to be included, but is not sure how to make her move. Her front paws hover near her face in a way I find nearly heartbreaking. And then, the conclusion--

But then the pack
Comes scurrying back
Saying, hey! Come join the lot of us!
And she just doesn’t know:
Should she stay? Should she go?

The hippo is clearly torn, but then takes after them, suddenly weightless, absolutely free, calling,

But yes the hippopotamus!
(But not the armadillo.)

Despite this eleventh-hour introduction of the newly tragic armadillo, I always find it thrilling when the hippopotamus casts off her indecision and runs off to play. I want that happy ending for the hippo, because I identify with her so well. I hang back, I am shy; I, too, will hide behind a tree if I fear I cannot do something perfectly.

Growing up, I hated sports, and I don’t remember if my parents ever asked me if I wanted to play “Missy League,” though I know I most certainly did not. I told my mother I had a stomachache every Friday in an attempt to miss gym class, taught by the dreaded Mrs. Loftus. I hated the ignominy of sides-choosing, in which I was inevitably second-last, ahead only of the boy who still wet his pants. I hated the queasy feeling I got when Mrs. Loftus got out the red kickball and announced we were, once again, playing dodge ball, hated standing at the free point line to miss another basket with everyone watching, hated the pressure of performing something that I would clearly never be good at.

Now that I'm an adult, it is perhaps my biggest regret that I am not athletic, that no one ever coaxed me to join in, that I have no idea how to even exist in that world. There is a conversant way that men (and athletic women) have when they pick up a ball, they have this common knowledge and understanding, and I always feel a little bad, watching them, that I am still not sure on which hand one wears a baseball glove. Every Saturday morning, David and I take the kids to the local ball field for a parent and child pickup game. He and the boys dash to the far one side of the fence, and Maggie and I sit on the near side, in the grass, and I hope she will not notice too soon that baseball is evidently a game where daddies and boys play, and mommies and girls sit and watch. (As soon as Maggie is old enough, and probably well before, I know David will demand that she get in there, give it a try, and I am certainly all for that.)

This is no hyper-organized Little League, but a very gentle and modern sort of baseball game, where the kids are on one eternal batting team, and a couple of dads do the pitching and fielding, and they time their plays carefully so that no one is ever tagged out, and everyone at bat gets to swing until they hit. I imagine, watching them, that things might have turned out differently for me if there was a game like this for me when I was my sons' age. Even so, after a few half-assed swings his third or so time around, Fergus walked around the fence to sit on my lap in the grass, rolling his eyes back until the whites showed, so that he would not cry. “I not very good at baseball,” he whispered.

“But you are, honey! You hit so many times!” I cooed, smoothing his hair. As someone whom sports always made cry, I let him stay there in my lap, even though his father was disappointed. While he lay there, though, I prayed, God, let my son not be like me. Let him go back out there, and have fun, and not give a rat’s ass whether he’s any good or not. Let him say: But Yes the Fergus.

FERGUS EXPLAINS IT ALL: ARTS AND CRAFTS

After camp yesterday, the boys came home and were immediately, completely entranced with their toys, in separate rooms. It was a beautiful and sunny afternoon, the sort we have not seen around these parts very much lately, and I should have taken them to the park with their scooters, but they were too blissfully content to interrupt them. It also meant I had found time to do all my mom paperwork: school health care forms, playdate arrangements, blackout shade measurements, what have you. As soon as I was ankle-deep in my piles, though, a little head appeared in the doorway:

FERGUS: Mommy, I fink I feel wike doing arts n cwafts.

MOMMY: OK, Ferg. How about we get out your big coloring book and you color on the floor here while Mommy pays these bills?

FERGUS: Hmm. I said “arts,” but when I said dat, I was weawy finking “cwafts.”

OK, I was game.

MOMMY: What’s the difference?

FERGUS: Well. Arts? Is, wike, painting, or markewing, or cowowing and stuff. And Cwafts? Is somfing dat takes a weawy wong time, and your pawents do it wif you.

So we, together, created this 3D foam monkey tree out of a stash of Michael’s stuff I keep on hand for rainy afternoons. Even though it was sunny out. No matter what the weather, Fergus reminded me of the best way I could have spent such a lovely afternoon.

the mediumest race ever

Fergus, a man who until recently neither minced nor wasted words, has suddenly become a talker of the most prolix sort. All the observations he has kept to himself for the past 4 years and 11 months are now tumbling out, a few times a day at least, in a rambling monologue delightful to my ears because he seems so much happier to be saying it all out loud.

We were playing catch the other day, and he kept up a constant stream of coach chatter:

FERGUS: Dat was a good frow Mommy. Da way to frow? Is not too high, not too low, and not too in the middle.

MOMMY: Then where should I throw?

FERGUS: Well. In da middle. But not SO da middle.

That night, he picked up his guitar, and serenaded me with a song he has been working on for some time, "The Biggest Race Ever." Here is an excerpt:

And in the red car
There was a engine
And in the blue car
There was a trunk
It was the BIGGEST RACE EVER

Then, changing things up, he improvised a companion song, "The Smallest Race Ever."

FERGUS: You wike dat one Mom?
MOMMY: I really did.
FERGUS: Want to hear anudder song?
MOMMY: Do you HAVE another song?
FERGUS: Sure. Iss called? "Da Mediumest Wace Ever."

And gosh darn it, he sang a very long song about the Mediumest Race Ever, where nothing really happened, and there were no winners or losers. It was still at least as interesting as anything I've seen on TV recently.

Now that Fergus has a lot to say, I am noticing a fascination with things being in the middle or "mediumest." Since he is my mediumest child, this is perhaps not so surprising. I am happy that he finds it such a good place to be.

cupcakes will kill you

If you're a mom in New York City this week, you've probably been talking about the New York Times article by Sue Dominus (once a classmate of mine) on MeMe Roth, president of the one-woman organization National Action Against Obesity.

Ms. Roth believes that "obesity is abuse-- of our children, and of ourselves," and that radical action must be taken against it. So when her children, who attend a public school in my neighborhood, are offered a snack time cupcake for someone's birthday, they are obliged to deposit it in a Tupperware "Junk Food Collector" their mother has designated for such abominations.

This all apparently worked very well, until a hot day a few weeks ago (funny, I don't remember any hot days in 2009), when MeMe's daughter's teacher offered the class frozen juice pops. The daughter tried to deposit it in the Junk Food Collector. Teacher advised against, angry emails were exchanged, and before you know it, MeMe is being ripped a new one in the pages of the Gray Lady. Seriously, read it if you haven't yet. Ms. Dominus was not writing an op-ed piece, at least ostensibly, but she makes very clear what she thinks of Ms. Roth, and is most entertaining in the process. According to the article, Ms. Roth's family was already asked to leave one school in the past, due to her psycho harangues on Valentine's Day Sweet-Tarts and the like, and sounds like PS 9 will be showing them the door next.

MeMe Roth (photo by Andrew Testa)
Here is Ms. Roth. I wouldn't want to take her on at a PA meeting; she looks like the love child of Anne Coulter and that lady from The Weakest Link.

I do think, though, that she... kind of has... a point? We picked a day to celebrate Fergus' summer birthday in pre-K last month. I brought in cupcakes for the whole class, which were consumed as morning snack, at 9:45 am. Less than two hours later, they went to the cafeteria for lunch, and since it was "Dessert Day" (Friday), they all received... another cupcake. Then afternoon snack was individual yogurts, with the equivalent of 5 packs of sugar in each container. When I picked Fergus up, the kids were running around the classroom, dazed, muttering to themselves. I didn't say anything, so as not to be perceived as a wackadoo, but I did wonder if the children could not have had their birthday celebration for Fergus with their lunchtime cupcakes, or at least, have had the lunchtime cupcakes removed from their trays since they had all HAD cupcakes that day already. It wasn't worth sending a nasty email over, let alone starting a national organization out of my apartment, but it did seem slightly excessive.

By the way, this is a school that serves only organic, locally farmed produce in its cafeteria, so overall, my kids eat better there than they do at home.

Anyone else seeing an excess of sugar at school? Have you ever said anything about it?

(PS: If you can't get enough of Ms. Roth, check out this article in the London Guardian last month. She doesn't eat breakfast! Or lunch!)

Kate Update

Since there are so few outlets out there sufficiently covering all things Jon and Kate, and so few bloggers offering their opinions thereof, I thought I would attempt to correct that unfortunate paucity by bringing up the hate of Kate, again.

As of last night, my husband David still had no idea who Kate Gosselin was. "Why do I keep seeing this lady's picture?" he said, holding up the newspaper. This is, by the way, one of David's most attractive qualities. He has no idea who anyone supposedly famous is; I, while having never watched The Hills, can still tell you a lot about "Speidi," and I am not proud of that.

Anyway. I was giving Rip Van David a download on the whole Jon and Kate sitch, which honestly I don't know how he managed to not stay abreast of.
I assume even these people, the Amazon tribe heretofore uncontacted by humankind, could give him a thumbnail sketch, at this point. I patiently explained to David that Jon is probably cheating on her, and she may even be cheating on him, and everyone hates Kate. "Why?" he asked.

"Imagine someone," I said, "with all of my worst qualities, but none of my better ones."

He thought about that for a moment. "Whoa," he said, clearly getting a scary picture.

Frankly, I have been haunted by the same scary picture ever since, because I'm right. There are times when I am a lot like Kate: eye-rolling, sarcastic, and utterly without patience, even with my children. Not every day. But I can go there. While I dislike Kate as much as everyone else does, I am also aware that if my life were filmed 24/7, you could put together a highlight reel of me that would be less than flattering.

If you haven't yet seen the compilation of Kate Gosselin's Top 10 Angry Moments, it's a sobering look at the times when Mommy can be Not So Nice. I've been going around imagining the highlight reel they could create from me, and vowing not to give the editors any more fodder. It's kind of like when our mothers had those pig magnets on their refrigerators so they wouldn't snack. Powerful, powerful stuff.

who couldn't use a little more freedom?

If I am a little more spare in my blogging these days, please forgive me. I am hard at work on a top secret assignment that I hope to soon enough be able to share! In the meantime, I'm spending most of my computer time logged on to Freedom, the most wonderful software ever invented. And it's free! (OK, they suggest a $10 donation if you love it, which you will.)

Basically, you log on, and the software asks you, "How much Freedom would you like?" and you can say anywhere from 5 minutes to 5 hours. "Enjoy your Freedom," it will say, by means of farewell, and for the prescribed interval you have just set, you will not be able to access your email, or Facebook, or anything on the internet. Unless you force quit and restart your computer. And I hope you will have enough self-love not to do that.

Freedom has changed my life, and made me aware of just how much "work" time I spend screwing around, taking "Which Real Housewife of New Jersey Are You?" quizzes. (I'm Jacqueline, by the way, though I like to "be" Dina while I'm watching.)

Do yourself a favor and get some Freedom. It's available only for Mac, though. Sorry, PC suckers!

OK, we all have it already

My sons' school was closed last Friday, due to a "potential" case of swine flu in the 3rd grade (it had only been confirmed as influenza A). The school was thoroughly scrubbed, and reopened Monday, much to all parents' relief. But I couldn't help wondering: really? That was it?

I was at the pediatrician on Monday with Cooper, who had developed strep throat (and I called it! I was so proud of myself and my instinctive diagnostic skill). His doctor at first suggested the flu. "No coughing or sneezing," I said. "He did have a case at his school, but it was just one."

His doctor looked at me over her glasses, as if to say, bitch, PLEEZ. "It's everywhere," she whispered. "EVERYWHERE. It's just that no one is telling you."

Well, why not? At this point, I think the knowledge that it is everywhere, and yet the world isn't ending, would be a calming message.

I received the email below from the pediatrician's office this morning. In our world of parental misinformation, I find it a bracing dose of common sense, and so I am passing it on. Basically, if you live where I live, you have swine flu right now. So don't worry.

I am writing this as an effort to keep our members well informed. All Influenza A can safely be considered Swine Flu, as the general Flu season has long since passed. So when a school says they have cases of the flu in the school, it is Swine Flu.

In fact, postive Influenza A tests are not reported or sent to the CDC and many physicans do not have the capablites to do testing. Both of these factors make for a severe under-reporting of cases. I have seen a dramatic increase in the number of Flu cases in the past two weeks. I have treated about 10 to 20% of the practice for the Flu. I have had or heard of positive flu tests from most schools and play facilities in NYC. These statisitcs seem to be in line with today's NYC statistics which point to about 7-10 % of New Yorkers (550,000 people) reporting Flu like symptoms in May.

I have reached the conclusion based on the current prevalence and the increasing rate of new cases of the Flu that avoidance of exposure is now almost impossible. This, however, does not mean that everyone will contract the Flu. The good news is that most cases have been similar to seasonal flu and Tamiflu used early (with positive tests) has appeared to be very effective.

None of the patients from the practice have fared poorly. Only 500 people have been hospitalized which is one-tenth of one percent of those who became ill. There have been 12 NYC fatalites. It is also possible that exposure to the Flu now might provide protective immunity should it return this winter in a more virulent form. My recommendations remain the same: anyone with fever, muscle aches, excessive congestion or unusual fatigue should not attend school/playgroups.

Fergus Facts: I'm Good

I learned, upon picking up Fergus from school on Thursday, that he had not had a Very Good Listening Day. This is his very gentle and lovely teacher's favorite euphemism. When pressed, she admitted that that included grabbing things from other children, unexplained crying jags, and general willful disobedience.

Yelling at Fergus is copout parenting, the books would say, and besides, it affects him not a whit. So I tried the serious, quiet conversation route, which seemed to work very well. As I was summing things up:

MOMMY: So Fergus. Are you going to be a better listener from now on?

FERGUS: (sighing heavily) YEEESSSSSS...

MOMMY: That's great news.

Pause.

FERGUS: Mommy?

MOMMY: Yes?

FERGUS: When I said YEEESSSSSS wike dat?

MOMMY: Yes?

FERGUS: It meant I'll twy. But I pwobby won't wenember.

MOMMY: I see. Should I keep reminding you?

FERGUS: (waving his hand) Naw, I'm good.

the plague has arrived

On Thursday night, around dinnertime, I received the news in my email inbox: we were to become part of history.

Our kids' school has been closed because of swine flu.

There is one case of Influenza A in the 3rd grade, and a parent of a 5th grader has it also. Apparently, one cannot be diagnosed with True Swine Flu unless hospitalized; swine flu is a type of influenza A, that's what doctors' offices can confirm, and for our school's principal, that is close enough.

I turned on the evening news, expecting to see live coverage of this latest school closure. There was nothing. I checked the New York Times in the morning. Nothing. Apparently, schools across NYC have been closing quietly for the last week or two, and the news has stopped covering it either 1) so as not to terrify us, or 2) so as not to bore us enough to change the channel.

I think we're all sick of being terrified by the Latest Plague, whether it's ebola or E. coli or avian bird flu or SARS, and I, at least, am giving swine flu a big yawn, even as it has shut down my child's school, possibly for the rest of the year. Whatever, I think. They probably all have it by now anyway.

This is probably not the proper attitude to have, but here I am in the midst of an apparent epidemic and it has not-- yet-- changed my life, besides screwing up my weekday routine all to hell.

If my kids start coughing, I will probably rue mentioning this.

just what you always wanted!

Yesterday was Daddy's birthday around here, and the boys and I hid behind the kitchen island when he came downstairs and absolutely terrified him when he jumped out, pleasing Cooper to no end.

After the presentation of the Handmade Birthday Cards, which I am sorry to say I forgot to take pictures of to post (I will correct that later), it was time for Daddy to open his presents, since it was after all 7:45 am and we had all been waiting for him to wake up for an hour and a half already.

"Mine first!" Cooper screamed. He couldn't wait for Daddy to open it because it was "just what he always wanted." Of course, by "he," Cooper actually meant the royal "he," as in, himself:



Yes, Cooper's gift to his father was the Indiana Jones Legos Wii game, which, once David ooh'ed and aah'ed over, Cooper took to the TV and played and/or talked about for the rest of the day. "There's this guy? And Indiana Jones goes over to him? And there's smoke? And then? You go like this with the whip and he turns into ALL LEGOS."

Fergus got Daddy a tie. Maddie got him a windbreaker. Cooper also got Daddy a T-shirt. Fergus also got Daddy another T-shirt.

"Didn't YOU get him anything, Mommy?" Cooper said, accusingly, once all the wrapping paper was on the floor.

I really am a terrible person. Upon reflection, I am even worse, since Cooper's "gift" of the Wii game is suspiciously like my own birthday gift, 30 years ago or so, to my mother, of one pound of red licorice. She hid it in her nightstand so we kids wouldn't eat it all. However, I discovered it there, and ate it, two pieces at a time, until it was gone. Sorry, Mom!

a brief plug

For those of you who have been asking me, for the last two years, when MOTHER LOAD would be returning to New York, here's your chance!

I'm going to be performing MOTHER LOAD on Thursday, June 18th, at the Soho Playhouse in NYC, to kick off their Summer Solo Series. Information, and tickets, may be found at www.sohoplayhouse.com (click "buy tickets") or, once I get my website updated, at motherloadshow.com.

This is a one-night only thing, so please tell all your NYC friends!

liar, liar, pants on fire

I have always taken solace in the fact that while my children can be total handfuls, they do not lie. I figured it was a maturity thing, and the day would come when they could lie to my face without compunction. But up until now, they have had a complete inability to do so, even when they knew the truth was not something I wanted to hear.

MOMMY: Cooper! Did you dump out this hot cocoa all over the floor?
COOPER: (his face crumpling, in anticipation of what is to come) Ye-essss.... (abject sobbing)

But those halcyon days are, apparently, over. As of this week, all three of my children have become pathological fibbers. Exhibit A, from yesterday morning:

MOMMY: Fergus, did you brush your teeth?
FERGUS: Yup.

His toothbrush is completely dry.

MOMMY: Fergus, I KNOW that you didn't.
FERGUS: Why? Were you wooking?

I convinced him that it was my mommy superpowers of perception that tipped me off, and that I had seen him through the door.

MOMMY: We don't lie in this house. What should your punishment be?
FERGUS: (not too concerned) Hmm. I not sure.
MOMMY: How about we say no TV show before school today?

Fergus felt that this was excessive. I disagreed. It wasn't the lack of tooth-brushing that got me, it was the baldfacedness of his denial.

Cooper overheard me talking to David about this, and as the eldest, felt obliged to put in his two cents:

COOPER: Mommy, let me just tell you one thing. If you wonder if Fergus is telling a lie, don't wonder. Because he lies ALL THE TIME.

He was being a tattletale, but I couldn't resist.

MOMMY: What does he lie about, Cooper?
COOPER: Well. Every time he says I hit him? It's a lie.

Clearly, Cooper was himself turning out to be an unreliable source. Then, this morning, Exhibit B. Cooper had not seen bath water in a couple of days, so I shooed him off to the shower while feeding his sister. Ten minutes later, he emerges in a towel.

COOPER: I took my shower, Mommy!

He is completely dry. His hair has a few wet spots on top, apparently added in haste from the bathroom sink.

MOMMY: No you didn't.

COOPER: Yes I did, Mommy! Look, my hair is wet.

MOMMY: Your hair is like one percent wet. I don't think you can take a shower and have your hair only get that wet.

Cooper's eyes dart around madly, searching for a backup story.

MOMMY: I think you're lying to me.

COOPER: (sighing heavily, and returning to the bathroom) Ohhh-kayyy.

Anyone want to tell me what the hell this is about? And how long have they been opting out of showers and tooth-brushing? Are they really such onerous tasks, so oppressively burdensome, that my children need to resort to subterfuge?

Maybe they learned this from Maddie. She's been lying for months now:

Maddie stands pushing against our coffee table, red-faced.

MOMMY: Maddie, are you making a poopy?

MADDIE: NOOOO!!

the power of princess

When cnn.com published an essay of mine a few weeks back, about my apprehension at having a girl after two boys, it got extremely varied reactions. (If you're here now, you probably know that already, but in case you don't, you might want to read this first. Things were lively around here for a while.)

People took issue with what I said for so many different reasons I stopped keeping track, but the one I found the strangest was the women who wrote me saying, "WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH PRINCESSES?"

Nothing's wrong with princess play, if it becomes merely one of my daughter's interests-- but I thought just about any mother today would feel, as I do, that the focus on princess play for little girls today has come to exclude any other kinds of play, or toys, or dress-up, or behavior, for girls between 2 and 5, and that that was perhaps a little restrictive for our daughters. I was really surprised that some women thought that was even subject to argument.

Today, yahoo news has a story by Martha Irvine discussing the princess syndrome, and some other parents' misgivings about it. If you are someone who is offended by my "problem with princesses", take a look- I think Ms. Irvine, and the people she interviews, make some interesting points.

who I'd most like to punch in the face

If you're like me, you spend much of your free time these days on Facebook, being seduced by quizzes like "Which animal is your spirit guide?" or "What is your cute Japanese name?" (skip the latter, that's five minutes I'll never have back.)

Most of these quizzes are not worth the time to find out the answers for oneself, let alone some guy you went to grade school with and haven't seen since. (His spirit guide, in case you're wondering, was "CHIMPANZEE!")

But there is one Facebook quiz that I think is the jam, and it is "The Top 5 People You Would Most Like to Punch in the Face." It is a cleansing exercise for the self, and a most eye-opening look at your psyche for everyone else.


My five, chosen a few weeks ago, were Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johansson, Dave Matthews, John Mayer, and Kate Gosselin. I'm not sure those are, upon further consideration, the five people in the WHOLE WORLD I would most like to punch in the face, but they were certainly a list easy enough to come up with, and Kate was at the top of my list.

OK, I stole her from my sister's list. But how could I not? Who wouldn't punch Kate in the face? It was so obviously correct that I could not resist. Let's all hate Kate! She isn't very nice to Jon, or the kids, and she's germaphobic in a really inconsistent way, and her hair is just weird. I've only watched Jon & Kate under duress (read: the only thing on Jet Blue that was at all appealing), but I had seen enough to agree with my sister: Kate deserved a good punch in the face.

But the revelations of the last few weeks have made me penitent for crowning Kate as the pinnacle of punch-worthy. Who wouldn't be snappy, if her husband was stepping out on her with some early 20 something tart, leaving her home with the 8 kids, and then was sitting there looking all puffy-eyed and tired from his nights out while the cameras rolled? It's remarkable that Kate hasn't punched HIM in the face yet, and I think, with what we all know now, she would have raised herself considerably in our estimation if she had.

So I have learned the lesson, again, that we mommies should not be in the position of judging one another. If Kate's marriage is really disintegrating before an audience of millions, that's just sad, and she should be able to behave however she damn well pleases. Still, if she's going to have a fresh start, I would really feel better if she would do something about her hairband of Rod Stewart she's got going across the top. If there's anyone who deserves to be punched in the face, it's her hairdresser.

who are you being?

Fifteen years ago, I worked as a personal assistant in the home of a little girl named Nunny (don't ask) who loved reruns of Full House. Every afternoon, Nunny would clamber up onto the cushy velvet couch while I tapped away nearby on her mother's computer. "Who are you going to be today, Amy?" she'd ask. "Hmm, I'm not sure, who do you think I should be?" I'd hedge. "Well, I'm Michelle," she'd say (she was always Michelle, which is who I suppose anyone would pick, if they got to go first). "Then I'll be Uncle Jesse," I'd respond.


"No," she'd say, "you should be Kimmy," and although I don't think anyone would freely choose to be Kimmy, Nunny saw a resemblance between us I could not deny.

Still, I loved this curious idea that while watching a show, you could "be" one of the characters. It's kind of a "Blue Skidoo, you can too," kind of thing, and those of you in the know will know what I am talking about. And I've been waiting for six and a half years for one of my children to play this game. In fact, I've even asked, "Which toy are you going to be?" when putting Toy Story on for the seven hundredth time. "Are you Mr. Potato Head?" In return, blank stares. I thought maybe it was a girl thing.


Then, this morning, I put on a show for my boys I had never seen before--Bigfoot Presents: Meteor and the Mighty Monster Trucks. The title is less than promising, to say the least, so I did not have high hopes for the programming, but as soon as it came on, Cooper and Fergus went nuts.

"I'm Bigfoot!"
"I'm Meteor!"
"I'm the blue monster truck!"
"That IS Meteor!"
"No, I mean the other blue monster truck!"

and so on.

I have nothing to offer in terms of the larger significance of all this. I just think it's really, really cute. And all too fleeting.


I don't remember ever doing it at all, except that when I watched Say Anything, I was totally Ione Skye.

thanks, USA Today

Maddie and I are on the road in Florida this week doing Mother Load in Florida, and one of the chief reasons I love the Marriott Residences and Hampton Inns of this fine country is that I get to wake up to a USA Today on my doorstep. Who doesn't love USA Today? As with Sara Lee, I believe the correct answer is, "Nobody."

I suppose I could get USA Today delivered to my house as well, but mightn't that ruin some of the fun? It is something best enjoyed when one is not in one's usual environs, and I want to keep it a treat as special as the Doritos Snack Mix I never allow myself unless it is explicitly offered to me aboard Jet Blue.

I love USA Today because it boils things down to the need-to-know essentials, and yesterday's book review was no exception.


Meet Panicology: Two Statisticians Explain What's Worth Worrying About (and What's Not) in the 21st Century. Doesn't that sound like a book we could all use? It sounds like they get down to the nitty-gritty in the book itself, but USA Today boiled it down even further:

Only six topics got the highest risk rating: overpopulation, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, indebtedness, high house prices, effect of globalization on the workplace, and freak weather.

There, don't you feel better already? I do. Whether Fergus is ready for kindergarten yet is NOT ON THIS LIST. Whether I will ever get Maddie out of our bed is NOT ON THIS LIST. And I don't even *have* a workplace, strictly speaking! So I'm down to a mere five things that are worth worrying about. Not bad.

who's in YOUR Facebook photo?

If you're anything like me or 95% of my personal sampling of Facebook moms, your status picture is either a picture of you and your kid(s), or a picture of said kids without you. I did recently think it was time to change up my photo, and wondered whether I should post a picture of myself without the kids. Do people without kids find the here's-my-adorable-three-year-old pix annoying?

Well, wonder no more. On the new women's issue website www.doublex.com, the always irascible Katie Roiphe has an essay posted called Get Your Kid off Your Facebook Page. I won't question her inflammatory title, since as I now know too well, she may or may not have actually written it. But the essay, title notwithstanding, follows Roiphe's usual cranky style of blanket assertions and button-pushing assumptions.

Basically, Roiphe says that a woman posting her child's picture on Facebook, instead of her own, is a form of "ominous self-effacement," a "voluntary loss of self" that leads one to neglect haircuts, wear sneakers, and bore everyone she meets, even though she once made law review.

I think the loss of self, once one becomes a mother, is real and something we all grapple with. However, I think Ms. Roiphe is overlooking a few points here:

--Plenty of fathers also post pictures of themselves with their children, or just their children, on Facebook as well.
--Many of my friends without children don't post pictures of themselves at all, opting instead for ferrets and cartoon characters, or perhaps a closeup of only their left eye. A ferret seems like a much more ominous form of self-effacement to me, if you're keeping score.
--The reason many mothers post pictures of themselves with their kid, or just their kids, is that once you have kids, you're behind the camera instead of in front of it. If you're like me, you have about six photos from the last six years that you are in, and in half of them, you're in the hospital bed, having just given birth, and Lord knows you're not using THOSE.
--If you're like me, you think, "Hmm, I'm going to change my photo," and then leave the same one up there for another six months, because you have a hundred thousand more pressing things to do than dick around with your Facebook photo.

By the way, can't we also look at Facebook as taking a giant feminist step forward, since most women include their maiden names as part of their Facebook names, in order to be *more* visible and found?