MOTHER LOAD

please join me on my NEW blog!

2011-08-11T22:17:00.000-04:00

Hi "Mother Load" readers- as of August 2011 I am now blogging at When Did I Get Like This? (whendidigetlikethis.com).

Both of the "Mother Load" URLs (motherloadtheblog.com and motherloadshow.blogspot.com) will redirect to my new blog- so if you're reading this, it's probably because you subscribe in a reader, via email, or through Google Friend Connect.

You can use any or all of those methods to rejoin the conversation over at When Did I Get Like This? --so please do join me there!

my co-speaker for BlogHer '11: Ann Imig

2011-08-02T11:29:00.000-04:00

Today I'd like you to meet Ann Imig, who will be curating the "From Page to Stage" session with me at the BlogHer '11 conference in San Diego this Friday. (My blood pressure just shot up from typing that: I have a fair bit to do before leaving Thursday morning.) Ann blogs at Ann's Rants about her life as a self-titled "stay-at-home humorist" and "'Sconnie Jewess."

She is also the creator of Listen to Your Mother, a show seen in five cities in 2011 (and coming soon to a city near you) featuring "live readings by local writers on the beauty, the beast, and the barely-rested of motherhood." It's amazing, and you can check out some of the performances here.

Ann was one of my first blogger-friend to in-real-life friends, and getting to know hilarious and thought-provoking women like her is why I'm so psyched to be heading to BlogHer this week. Read on to find out why Ann says rejections are like dirty gym clothes-- and consider: are you ready to share your big idea with the world and hear, over and over again, the word "yes"?

Hi, Ann. What inspired you to start blogging? What were some of the first blogs you read? How has blogging informed your other work?

Desperation inspired my blogging. Alone at home with a preschooler and baby, my Husband traveled constantly and I needed another outlet besides my loving but phone-weary friends and family. I found my first blogs through Amy of Bitchin' Wives Club (bitchinwivesclub.com). Amy was the first person to comment on my blog that I didn't know in real life, and bonus--she lived in my town. Following Amy's cues I gradually found readers, and if you take a look at her following, I still have a lot to learn! Blogging re-connected me with the audience I didn't realize how much I missed from my acting days. Blogging hasn't just informed my work--the writing practice I established online plus the creative connections I've forged along the way directly resulted in my work today.

Listen to Your Mother is such an amazing idea and has already been such a success. What gave you the inspiration to create the show-- and then to take it nationwide?

I always imagine reading my posts outloud--I guess the former actor in me always saw that as a goal--and I started thinking about a venue for my voice and voices of other women writers I knew. After seeing the BlogHer '09 community Keynote (brainchild of Eden Kennedy) my wheels started spinning. In spring of 2010 I decided to gather some of my writer friends and hold auditions--see if anyone would show up. I wanted to connect the creative vitality happening in my online life with my community, and give Motherhood a voice other than FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PUT WUBZY ON MUTE.

My vision grew from a coffee shop-style open mic to a fully produced show at an 850 venue (barrymorelive.com) within 24 hours. I've never experienced such synchronicity with anything in my life, and I've pretty much only heard the word "yes" with LTYM since then. As soon as the 2010 video went online, bloggers started asking how they could bring LTYM to their town. With the help of my business development/strategic planning guru Deb Rox of 3 smart girlz (3smartgirlz.com) and a national media sponsorship from BlogHer , LTYM had a hugely successful beta launch in five cities for 2011. We're planning for more cities in 2012.

How has being on the other side of the audition table for LTYM informed your writing and/or your performing of it?

Even from 2010 to 2011 I think being on the casting side has changed my experience reading profoundly. I see how the most important thing is loving what you read--that passion of your story. The best writer can walk through the door, but if they don't bring their passion I just tune out. I have a similar reaction if I feel people are performing for me instead of being themselves--I don't want anything to come between the audience and the authenticity of the reader and their story.

Also I'm learning about editing--about taking out things that get in the way of your message. Sometimes even your prettiest pretty words and funniest funnies take you off track and the action comes to a halt. In live readings all you have is your voice and a mic--no sets or music or backhandsprings, so the story's momentum is everything. For the same reason I prefer LTYM shows have no intermission. I don't want to break the energy and journey for the audience.

What do you hope the attendees at "From Page to Stage" at BlogHer this week will take away from our session?

I hope they embrace the challenge of going outside of their comfort zone by reading to the group. I hope they leave feeling energized--that is the goal for every LTYM event, to leave participants buzzing with a sense of shared experience and celebration. For the purposes of our workshop that shared experiences refers to a shared love of writing and a celebration of giving voice to our stories. Finally, I hope everyone leaves with this take away: make your own opportunities. Rejections are like sweaty gym clothes in your laundry--they are proof that you're doing work toward meeting your goal. Use them as fuel to carry you to your own destination.

Do you think the LTYM open mic at BlogHer will be different from the other shows you've had so far-- either because of the readers, or the audience, or both?

I think the Open Mic Salon will likely have the most passionate audience thus far about writing and sharing stories, because we are all bloggers and that is what we do. Because it is an open mic it won't be as neatly produced as other LTYM shows, but I think that unpredictability leaves room for excitement and possibly even more authenticism. Also, we've tried to make it as inclusive as possible--read a motherhood piece, read a letter to your mother, or read something completely off the motherhood topic.

What's next for you and for LYTM?

Plenty! Right now I'm preparing for a logo and site re-design (no more playing graphic designer for me **collective sigh of relief**) Also, Deb and I are working on an application process for cities interested in hosting LTYM shows in 2012. We've spent the summer taking what we learned from the beta year and applying it to the LTYM process, and preparing pitch materials for 2012 sponsors. One day I look forward to handing LTYM over to any and every interested city, but we are just not there yet. I like to talk about a slow methodical process, and then my own mother shrieks with laughter and reminds me that I just filed my LLC in October.

______________________________

Thanks, Ann! I have no doubt that we will all be seeing a lot more of Listen to Your Mother, and soon.

Speaking of site redesigns... I'm putting the finishing touches on some big changes for this blog, and I hope to be going live with them in the next couple of days. What I write about won't change, but it will sure look prettier. Hope you all like!

what happens when a kid's birthday doesn't live up to his expectations?

2011-07-27T11:51:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow is my middle child's seventh birthday, and Seamus has been humming to himself all week. This morning at breakfast, he informed me that he was "6 and 364/365ths," and I only wish I was half so sanguine about my own upcoming birthday, hurtling toward me on its tracks of doomed mortality.

Back to Seamus, who is literally quivering with anticipation. This has me more than a little stressed, because as you can see in the photo, once the actual birthday arrives, it can be a bit of a letdown. Last year, his birthday included a magic show, a trip to the candy store, and going out to dinner; he termed that "the high kind of medium." Going off that reaction, I fear that we could Troop the Colour tomorrow and it still might not live up to his yet-optimistic and extremely elevated expectations.

I always freak out the day before my kids' birthdays that I don't have enough presents for them. There are some mothers who have the presents thought out, wrapped, and hidden about the garden two days ahead of time. That is not me. I tend to hit Amazon three days ahead of time, searching for ...I'm not sure what, after I suddenly realize my God, I have nothing. Then I open the linen closet and find three presents I bought a month ago jammed behind the winter blankets. In this case, I have a collection of random things I have amassed for his birthday (a book, a Nerf football) and one BIG present, an enormous box that has been torturing him all week. It's a ping-pong table. I think Seamus likes ping-pong. I mean, he did last time I checked.

I have particular stress about Seamus's birthday because summer birthdays suck, and I speak from experience. Why bother with a birthday party? Your school friends aren't around, your summer friends are all taking turns not being around, and it's harder to feel like your birthday is a big deal. I remember the summer I turned six- my family was on vacation in the Poconos. We were staying in some sort of cabin situation, and we had a "party" for my birthday which involved other random vacationers stopping by to say hi before dinner. However I also remember being really and truly psyched when a nice man with a beard gave me a dollar bill. So maybe summer birthdays aren't all bad.

I had just managed to tell myself to stop overthinking when my (out of town) husband called this morning. "I don't know," he said. "Do you think we're set for tomorrow?"

Yes. Totally. Definitely. As long as Seamus still likes ping-pong.

awaiting baby O

2011-07-19T15:48:00.000-04:00

My sister is having her first baby on Thursday, and I am so excited I am having a little bit of trouble sitting still long enough to type this. In a way, it's even more exciting than the births of my own three children-- I am about to have a new baby to hold WHENEVER I WANT that I didn't have to carry around in this insane heat wave and then labor out of me beforehand.

My sister and brother-in-law don't know what they're having, a stance which I wholeheartedly support. Having done it both ways, I felt the delivery-room surprise was well worth waiting for. However, they do know that "Baby O" will arrive this Thursday, by hook or by crook, and that is because my sister is having the largest baby in all of Christendom.

OK not really; Gabriel Dake of Spotsylvania, MD, came into the world at twelve pounds just this week, and here he is at right with his exhausted mother. But I've seen some amazing 4D ultrasound photos of my new niece/nephew, and from what I've seen, Baby O has at least as much dewlap going as Master Dake, here. My sister's latest ultrasound suggests that Baby O is an impressive 9 pounds, 15 ounces- a full two weeks ahead of his/her due date, to boot-- and so the OB said, clear your schedule.

My sister and brother-in-law are doing just that, rushing about to and fro, and above all I think I am envious of my sister for getting to skip weeks 39 and 40. Who wouldn't take that trade, even with a few to-dos left over? But it does seem foreign to me, this idea of knowing what day your baby is going to come. Pretty cool. But still weird.

My sister is checking into the hospital on Wed night. I hope she manages to catch a few winks. I'm pretty sure I won't!

Did any of you have inductions/ planned C-sections, so that you knew what day your baby would arrive? I'm wondering how that changes the experience of awaiting a birth, particularly if you've also done it the old-fashioned "is that a labor cramp, or is that gas?" way. I've done both finding out / not finding out gender of baby, and have a clear preference; if you've birthed both on a scheduled day, and not, which worked better for you?

PS: Good Saint Ann, nine pounds, fifteen ounces?!

the sign on Leiby Kletzky's door

2011-07-15T12:47:00.001-04:00

I am excited to have had this post syndicated on blogher.com. Check it out here if you're so inclined...

If you're anything like me, you have been disgusted by every detail of the kidnapping and murder of eight-year-old Brooklynite Leiby Kletzky, and yet compelled to know more. I can't remember the last time I've had to hide the newspaper for three days running, or change the channel every time my kids entered the room. But I have to keep looking.

I raise my children in New York City. I have an eight-year-old son who is starting to long for his independence. My first apartment when I moved to New York was four blocks from where Leiby's body was found in a dumpster. This hits way, way too close to home.

I cannot stop thinking about Leiby's mother, how carefully she must have weighed whether Leiby was old enough to walk home from day camp by himself. Maybe she thought he wasn't ready. Maybe someone told her, oh, c'mon, we've got the lowest crime rate in all of Brooklyn. He'll be FINE. Maybe she agreed only when she saw how excited her son was to take that walk on his own for the first time. Maybe she thought, oh, I'm just being silly. Maybe she didn't even worry that much the first five, ten, fifteen minutes she expected him home. I go to sleep at night and think about her, and wonder if she will ever find a moment's comfort again, ever have another hour without an if-I-had-only to haunt her.

For her sake, at least, I take comfort in this: the entire Hasidic community is rallying around her and around Leiby's father, protecting them from all the details of what happened to their son. They know he is gone-- of what use is anything more? A sign has been posted on their front door, and what it says is something like this: there are things this family does not need to know. Do not be the ones to tell them. Everyone is working together to protect this broken family. I hope, in these days of murdered children's cellphone voice mails being hijacked, that the world will honor that request.

Someday, all too soon, Leiby's mother will want to know everything, will HAVE to know-- but I hope that even then, there will be arms on all sides to hold her up, and keep her safe. If you believe in a higher power, please join me in a prayer that Mrs. Kletzky's God will be her refuge.

going away to come back home

2011-07-07T09:04:00.000-04:00

This past week, David and I took a madcap, last-minute, not-sure-we're-actually-going-until-we-left trip together last week. He was going to London for business; I joined him, and then we had three days in Italy together, JUST US. Our in-laws watched the kids over the long 4th of July weekend (thanks again YaYa and Poppy).

The scenery (and the pasta) were amazing, of course, but the best part was the uninterrupted time together-- three days to really talk about who we are, what we want from our lives and our careers and each other, what our dreams are for our kids. Because really, our daily lives are at least as "madcap" as the scrambling we did at Gatwick Airport when our flight to Florence was cancelled. (I whipped out my smartphone- thank you Kayak!- and David worked his usual magic with the gate agents and we eked out another skin-of-our-teeth victory.) It feels like that's our usual reality, moving through life at a brisk jog, dealing with the kids and collapsing on the couch after they're in bed, getting each other's daily headlines, but that's it. Having to run through the airport in order to slow down with my spouse seems a little silly-- but it worked wonders, even if we might have saved ourselves the trouble of a nine-hour flight home in order to do it.

We missed the kids just the right amount. They seem to have missed us just the right amount. And I learned (once again) that I can be a better mother (and wife) for the time I spend away from my children.

When was the last time you and your partner had the chance to recharge your batteries- as individuals and as a couple? How often do you allow yourself to be away from your children overnight?

what you learn when you're with your kids 24/7

2011-06-22T15:00:00.000-04:00

School has been out for two weeks now, so I've been spending a lot more time with the kids than usual. A LOT. Which means we get to really drill down and talk about the stuff that matters. Here's a few things I've learned in the last two weeks:

crossing your fingers is good luck. Crossing your fingers on both hands is very good luck. But crossing your toes is BAD LUCK, like, don't-even-try-this-goofing-around bad luck.
if you want to play "Cheese Touch," somebody touches cheese, and then when you have the cheese touch, you have to touch somebody when they don't have their fingers crossed, and the only way to block the cheese touch is by crossing your fingers.
You have to really have cheese to play the cheese touch. Or sometimes you can just decide that you want to have the cheese touch.
In Kung Fu Panda 2, there's this peacock named Shen? And the kung fu panda has to fight them? And there's this weapon that shoots like balls of metal that are on fire, and then Master Shifu teaches the kung fu panda something called "inner peace."
If you want Chop Chop? He's any any any. But they all have to be dragon blossoms. Sooki-Yaki is purple pepper, red magic, yellow magic, OR, red magic, yellow magic, black pepper. Or purple magic. And if you REALLY-- Mom, listen. If you REALLY--

HELP ME. HELP ME, LORD JESUS. Eleven weeks until school starts. I don't think I can make it that long. You gotta help me get rid of this Cheese Touch.

for Father's Day: a proclamation of my almost entirely serious admiration

2011-06-18T14:58:00.000-04:00

Dad's special day doesn't get half the ink, fuss, or spending frenzy of Mother's Day, and honestly you don't hear fathers dusting up about that too much. But that isn't to say they are undeserving of recognition, even if they claim not to need the pomp and circumstance. This morning my husband saw me behind his back whispering and gesturing frantically (and subtly, or so I thought) to the kids that they should get to work on their homemade Father's Day cards. "It's okay," he said. "Seriously, you can skip it. I know you guys love me."

But my children's father deserves better. And just in case I can't find the card I bought at the drugstore a few days back (seriously, it must be here somewhere), I am hereby offering the below tribute:

A FATHER'S DAY PROCLAMATION

WHEREAS, the children and I wish to honor and acknowledge all the contributions you make to the greater good;

WHEREAS, you suffer the little children to come unto you and climb upon you, yea, even all at the same time;

WHEREAS, you have pretty much stopped playing golf (which you cannot do with the kids) and have started going fishing (which you can);

WHEREAS, you are not funny, but it is kind of funny how not funny you are;

WHEREAS, when a bird flew in the house today and it was throwing itself against the kitchen windows most pathetically, I came and got you and said "get it out," and you did not respond "why do you think I, as a man, am somehow more capable of this than you are?", nay, you let me hide in the next room while you got a broom and whistled at the bird until you could shoo it back outside safely;

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, by your wife and three offspring, that we hereby adopt, approve, and authorize your ninth Father's Day, to be observed by sleeping until you are no longer tired, or until it is lunchtime, whichever comes first.

Happy Father's Day! How are you recognizing the dads in your lives?

does anyone talk to their spouse on the phone anymore?

2011-06-08T16:55:00.000-04:00

My friend Erin over at I'm Gonna Kill Him has a hilarious post up on her blog listing all the acronyms she's going to start using while texting with her husband to save time. One sample:

YOU: ATNA? (At Target, need anything?)

HIM: NAEHTC (No, and empty half the cart)

I need someone to text me that while I'm at Target, for sure.

Read Erin's whole post because it's hilarious. It also made me think, since Erin said she and her husband have pretty much given up on trying to talk to each other on the phone. Who has time for a phone call? Texting is what they do instead.

My husband and I don't text that much; David carries multiple devices with him, and wherever he is, the smartphone that texts is not with him. Or so it seems. But phone calls don't work too well for us either. David claims I pick up my phone about every one in twenty times. "What's the point in calling you?" he exclaims. "It's not like you're gonna answer."

And who wants to talk anyway? We have in-laws who check in with each other all day long, lovey-dovey stuff like "How's your day going? What did you have for lunch?" but all that seems like a complete waste of time to two type-As like us. And so we don't bother. I will track him down if I really need something, but otherwise, talk to you tomorrow morning, or whenever I see you next.

The only time we DO talk on the phone is when we are on separate continents. Our hearts grow suddenly fonder of each another, we miss each each other, and the phone rings.

David is out of the country this week. The phone rang this morning at 7 a.m.

HIM: (on speaker) Hi! How are you guys? How are my kids?

Three children, munching Cascadian Farms Chocolate O's, ignore him entirely.

ME: Well, not so good, Daddy, we're already having time outs for biting and punching.

DADDY: Oh, boy. So let me ask you. Look at your calendar, week of--

8 YEAR OLD: I said get OFF me!

ME: (into phone) What?

6 YEAR OLD: I'm not DOING ANYTHING!

3 YEAR OLD: Mommy, I spilled a little bit of lot of milk.

DADDY: --thought we could make a long weekend of it and fly to--

8 YEAR OLD: I hate you and I HATE YOUR FACE!

6 YEAR OLD: (attempting a face rake) AGHHDHHHGHH!

DADDY: --so what do you think?

ME: I think... this isn't really a good time for me to talk.

My husband was offering me a romantic getaway. One that was HIS idea. And I was all, can you put it in a tweet? I'm refereeing right now.

I feel bad. I should call and say so. But he's in bed. (I hope.) Once again, the planets are aligned against a meaningful phone conversation.

Maybe we should try carrier pigeon?

How do you communicate with your spouse during the day? How often do you communicate? Do you find it is often not worth the trouble?

everything but the sunscreen

2011-06-06T14:34:00.000-04:00

You know how sometimes people say the funniest things when they're not trying to be funny? Or reveal the most about themselves when they're not trying to be particularly revealing?

This weekend I was Skype-ing (Skyping?) with a group of moms who had read my book, and we were talking about trying to let go and just enjoy being a mom. One of the mothers said:

"When we're with our kids, the fun should supersede everything!... Well. Everything but the sunscreen."

I LOVED this. She's right, of course: moms shouldn't ever be so let-it-all-hang-out that we skip the SPF 30. If you're like me, you've probably learned from experience. Nothing brings the Mother Load of Guilt than a toddler with lobster-red shoulders.

But what really struck me was what this mom was doing in this sentence: while telling herself she needed to do better and be more relaxed, she did a 180 and warned herself against getting TOO relaxed. IN THE SAME SENTENCE, she managed to feel stressed about not letting go, and about letting go too much.

That's not her fault, of course-- we mothers get blamed when our kids get sunburned, and snickered at when we bring them to the town pool dressed like this.

And there's only so long one's kids will wear a swim shirt anyhow, not to mention the Lawrence of Arabia type hats. This is Connor a few years back. Maggie is already saying hells to the no on that look, and she's three.

What I'm saying is, mothers can't win, and listening to this mom castigate herself as both too slacker-ish and too uptight in the scope of five seconds was pretty funny.

Here's what mothers need to remember: we ARE the ones who need to remember the sunscreen. The reason our kids (and our partners) can be so carefree is because they know we've got their backs. If it's important, we'll have thought of it already. Sometimes being the Responsible Grownup is a lot of pressure. But we shouldn't add annoyance with ourselves on top of it: why can't we ever relax? We should try to relax, we should try to let things go. Everything, that is, but the sunscreen. And then we should pat ourselves on the back when everyone makes it through another day without getting burned.

How strict ARE you with the sunscreen, by the way?

when it's time to change, you've got to rearrange...

2011-06-02T18:23:00.000-04:00

...who you are into what you're gonna be.
Even if it makes you a little nervous.

The Brady Kids said it best.
I've been in hiding a bit recently. But good things are comin'.

This blog is gonna get a lot more exciting, very soon- a lot prettier to look at, for starters. But I think I'm going to take the opportunity to relaunch it in more ways than one.

"Mother Load" is a great title- and I've used it a whole lot in the last five years- but guess what? So has The New York Times, and while "Motherlode" is an awesome blog to be sometimes mistaken for, it does happen. Then there's The Motherload, and motherload, and The Mother Load, and the other The Mother Load, and the other The Mother Load.

Sigh.

And so I'm considering changing the title of this blog to the title of my book: When Did I Get Like This?

Because I like it.
Because it isn't a not-as-original-as-I-once-thought play on words.
Because I do wonder that almost every day.
But also because, while I enjoy writing about the craziness of modern motherhood, I do sometimes have other stories to tell- like fuming in a hotel bed listening to a car alarm go off in the parking lot for an entire hour before I realized... it was my car.

I'd like this blog to have funny stories about all parts of my life, not just my kids.
I'd like this blog to ask the question that we all ask of ourselves- and maybe once in a while, suggest a way out- if only for a moment.

But I don't want to alienate the readers I have, or have you think that I'm changing direction in any serious way. This is just rearranging what this site is into what I want it to be. This would be motherloadtheblog dot com two point oh. I hope.

What do you all think?

new play "Cradle and All" tells the truth, warts and all

2011-05-27T12:30:00.000-04:00

I was recently venting about how people who aren't mothers assume we are mind-numbingly idle, and how that misconception of our lives is all too obvious in the portrayals of motherhood in popular culture.

This week, I saw a new play that gets it all refreshingly right. The Manhattan Theatre Club here in New York City is currently hosting the world premiere of Cradle and All, a play by father-of-two Daniel Goldfarb that explores the cost of having children-- and of NOT having children-- on two couples living right across the hall from each other in modern-day Brooklyn Heights.

Both couples-- one wondering if they should have a baby, one wondering if they'll ever get their old lives back now that they have-- are played with humor and searing honesty by Greg Keller and Maria Dizzia. This play shows it all, good and bad. This play shows what it's really like when you haven't slept a solid night's sleep in eleven months, when you don't have your body back (and maybe never will), and when one's child defies every expert's advice on getting her to sleep through the night.

The typically cantankerous (and presumably childless) New York Times reviewer called this play "slight" and "trivial" (before acknowledging that it was a enjoyable and often hilarious evening of theater). But it's not. I think most of the people who create popular culture, and review it, and review books, think that plays and TV shows and movies and books about motherhood are by definition slight and trivial. And sure, some of them are-- just like some of the quintillion books and plays and movies about men having midlife crises can be slight and trivial. But they don't have to be. And I think when someone says something about motherhood that needs to be said, and says it well, they deserve our praise, our world of mouth, and our ticket dollars-- just like a currently-running hilarious movie written by women and starring women and not all about men for a change does. Go see "Bridesmaids" if you haven't yet (SO funny) and go see "Cradle and All" if you're in New York City. We deserve books and movies and shows and plays that honestly reflect our lives-- and maybe it will happen if we support them when they appear.

Cradle and All is currently running at City Center, 131 W 55th St. You can get 25% off tickets by visiting NYCITYCENTER.ORG and using code 7554.

Disclosure: I received two free tickets to Cradle and All's opening night, which is how I came to see the show.

A girl called our house this weekend to talk to my son. He is 6.

2011-05-23T10:53:00.000-04:00

I knew this would happen someday.
I just thought my sons' ages would be in the double digits first.

On Saturday morning, I woke up to this message on our answering machine:

Hi Seamus, it's Emma. I really need to talk to you, and (muffled) you're probably asleep already, but it's about Moshi Monsters, and I REALLY NEED TO TALK TO YOU. (covering phone) What? Yeah, he must be asleep... he's not answering! (back to message) so call me back, okay? It's Emma.

Seamus is in kindergarten. Emma had called at 9:15 pm. Our whole HOUSE was asleep by then.

I played the message for Seamus when he woke up, and while he did not choose to call her back, he had to fight breaking out into a huge grin for the next several hours.

On Sunday morning, I found this mysterious note next to my laptop:

More Moshi Monsters. What's Moshi Monsters, you say? Well, it only has fifteen million members between 7 and 11. (Watch for THAT IPO.) Club Penguin? Hello, 2010! This is where it's at-- and it's completely harmless fun for my two boys. I think. Although I am not entirely sure.

"Seamus go to your frend tree as soon as you get on it."
"Do VV for your friends. It's Caroline."

A "frend tree" sounds harmless enough, but I'm not so sure what "doing VV" is. I hope it's not a euphemism for pulling one's pants down in the cafeteria or something, because Seamus is only too happy to do that already. I have a feeling this is but the very beginning of a new world of things that are going to sail completely over Mom's head. Hoo boy.

Anyone else have boy-crazy girls (or girl-crazy boys) after their kindergarteners?

I loved Mama Bird Diaries' post today about her twins' first birthday this weekend, and how very hard she tried to live in the moment for a change. She posted a beautiful quote from Anna Quindlen that I'd never heard before, and as usual, Ms. Quindlen nails it:

“But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.”

Here's to treasuring the doing, particularly when we notice just how fast our little ones are growing up.

kids at school? Time for soap operas and bon bons! right, Mom?

2011-05-19T12:28:00.000-04:00

Each morning, after I drop my three kids at two schools, I head home to start everything else I need to accomplish that day before pickup, clock already ticking in my head. We live in a hundred-year-old apartment building with an elevator that needs an attendant to run it. Elevator operators are a dying breed, to be sure, but our building has one, and most of the time it's pretty great (for security and peace of mind).

not my elevator operator, but a close facsimile

It does mean, however, that small talk is required each morning coming and going with the same person (Eduardo) since we moved in eight years ago. And while Eduardo is unfailingly pleasant, he has a limited repertoire of things he likes chat about. During each of my three pregnancies, I had to hear EVERY MORNING that I was "pretty big." (Pause.) "And going to get a lot bigger." (Finally, my husband took an elevator ride to nowhere just so he could gently suggest to Eduardo that he pursue an subject of discussion besides my hippo-like size.)

Now that I'm not pregnant, I don't have a size assessment each morning, but Eduardo's new topic is just about as bad. These days, this is how our conversation goes five days a week:

ME: (walking in to elevator) Hi, Eduardo.

EDUARDO: Hi, Amy.

(silence for a few floors)

EDUARDO: ... everybody at school now huh?

ME: (already starting to grit my teeth a little) Mm-hmm.

(silence for a few more floors)

EDUARDO: ...so now Mommy gets a break!

Eduardo is saying this TO BE NICE. Just TO SAY ANYTHING. And yet each morning it is getting a little harder for me not to take him down with my thirty-pound tote bag.

"A break?!" I want to scream. "No! My work STARTS now! I have two hundred and seventy-three things I need to do before eleven-thirty! I am not going to lie on the couch watching Judge Judy!"

But I do not. Since Eduardo is not a parent, he has no sense of what a SAHM/WAHM does all day. And it's not his fault: neither does anyone else. I saw a movie just last week about a couple with a young baby. They have a nanny but have to fire her. A few scenes later, the dad goes off to work, the baby goes down for a nap, and the mother, gazing idly around at her spotless kitchen, sits down at her kitchen counter with a magazine and a cup of tea.

I saw this and it was all I could do not to boomerang the remote control right through the TV screen. Yep! You nailed it, filmmakers! That's what every mom without help does when her baby takes a nap: puts her feet up with a magazine until he wakes up! What verisimilitude!

Nobody on that film set (including the actress) was a mother, clearly, or that scene would not have been filmed that way. It's not their fault they don't know, I guess, but it still makes me mad that people who don't get it... don't get it. They don't assume mothers are busy. They assume we're mind-numbingly idle. And I guess, as long as we allow that fantasy to continue, it will.

Should I say something (nicely) to my elevator operator friend? Am I way too sensitive here? Do you encounter people who can't possibly imagine what you do all day?

(photograph by JB Reed, taken from this NYT web page: a very interesting interview with an elevator operator about to be modernized out of a job)

why over-pushed children are like the Irish Elk

2011-05-17T14:57:00.000-04:00

I think the New York Times should just go ahead and rename their "Sunday Styles" section the "Sunday Stressballs" section, because anyone who even glances at it on what might (up until then) have been an easy-like Sunday morning will in short order become a tightly wound ball of stress. At least that's what happens to me.

Right now, the most emailed Sunday Styles story is on fast tracking to kindergarten--specifically, how the type of parents who name their children Huxton and Eze (yes really) are flocking to Kumon Learning Centers with those children in order to give them a five-year headstart on their future classmates. Times tables at two? Of course; doesn't YOUR toddler know how to divide yet?

Mind you, this is all what the kids want; the parents are there because they have no choice. As one mother explains of her three-year-old,

She used to cry at night because she couldn't read. It was so traumatic for all of us.

Traumatic, to be sure. But I'm not sure the thrice-weekly tutoring sessions are really going to be the calming influence that family is seeking.

Professor Alison Gopnik, professor of psychology at UC Berkeley, compares over-pushed children like this to the Irish elk:

"...they go around tottering, unable to walk, under the enormous weight of these antlers they've developed."

Yes, YES, I nodded to myself as I read that sentence, smirking, feeling so so superior to these ridiculous parents overthinking everything. (Which I think is what the New York Times kinda has in mind.) Until that little corner of my brain takes over and I become one of those ridiculous parents overthinking everything. It's a push me-pull you thing, and it goes like this:

These preschoolers could have forty minutes of homework a night! Ha! My second-grader has twenty!
(Is that enough? Should I make him do the bonus sheet?)
When are these parents ever going to learn?
(What if my kids aren't working to their full potential? How would I even know?)

My kids' schools are SO not like this, and that's why I picked them, and most of the time I am so very very thankful for that. But even as I roll my eyes at the Pregnant In Heels types, there is a little corner of my brain pondering whether I am fatally dooming my children to a Life of Less. I know that sentiment is ridiculous. That part of my brain is a LOT smaller than it used to be. But it probably won't stop me from pausing just a moment in front of Kumon's windows the next time I walk by, and that's what businesses like theirs-- and stories like this one-- are preying on.

what parents of disabled children wish the rest of us knew

2011-05-12T11:21:00.000-04:00

My friend Katy, who blogs at Bird on the Street, says she is not Superwoman. I disagree with that assessment- and so will you, once I tell you that Katy is the mother of a three-year-old with cerebral palsy, and is also 32 weeks pregnant. WITH TWINS. (Katy also says she is "living proof that God has sense of humor," and that much is undeniably true.)

But Katy's blog is not about "oh poor me, I have so much to handle." On the contrary, she's witty, and inspiring, and smart, and challenging- and she's written something that is required reading for any parent. "All I Ask" is Katy's open letter to anyone who's ever asked the parent of a disabled child "is there anything I can do to help?" Here are a few of Katy's suggestions:

Try to look people with disabilities in the eye.
If you meet a child with a disability, speak directly to them. A parent or guardian will let you know if they aren’t capable of understanding or responding.
Don’t assume that a person with a disability has a poor quality of life and don’t teach that misconception to your children.
Don’t assume I wish my child was different. Don’t assume he’s a burden.
Teach your children that different is OK and be sure to include not just those of a different color, but those who move around differently, talk or hear differently, and even those whose bodies are different.
If your child asks about someone in a wheelchair, don’t tell them to “shush.”
And teach them that looking is OK if it’s done with a smile.

There's more, much more, and you should go read Katy's whole post for yourself. What blows me away about what Katy wrote is that I thought I was doing a pretty good job, shushing my children when they asked about wheelchairs, telling them it was impolite to stare. And here I was doing exactly the wrong thing. I've given my children the appropriate platitudes about how you can't tell what someone's like inside by how they look outside, that God makes some people's brains differently... but I've never taught them to engage openly, to ask questions, to SMILE, for heaven's sake. I've taught them to politely avert their eyes. And starting today I'm going to do things differently.

Don’t worry too much about how I’m handing things and ask yourself if you’re doing enough to make this world a safe place for my child and all people with a disability. Do you live like the disabled are invisible? Are you inadvertently teaching your children intolerance because of your own baggage? In your desire to be “polite” have you crossed over into “rude?” ....God didn’t give me a special child to raise–he gave all of us the opportunity to be the best or the worst version of ourselves. I’m doing my part. All I ask is that you do yours.

Thank you, Katy. You have made me a better version of myself.

leaving the kids: it seems to get harder

2011-05-09T15:36:00.000-04:00

I went on a business trip this morning for two (maybe three, we'll see) days.
Maggie wore her "Pocket Full of Poseys" skirt from Rosemary's Cuppa on Etsy. Right now it's the one article of her clothing we are in violent agreement on: it rocks. It's adorable. It has a POCKET.

(this is not an ad or a paid link; I just love this skirt)

Whenever I go away, I fill Maggie's pockets with kisses that she can pull out whenever one seems called for. "I need five today," she commanded. I sat down at one of her tiny preschool tables and kissed my fingers five times, placing them carefully inside.

"Be a good girl for YaYa and Poppy," I said.

"I will! Bye Mama!" she answered, skipping away with her friend Ellie, both of them in pigtails. Not looking back. Not worried about the two days at all.

I was glad. But.

For some reason this really got to me.

For some reason this is still getting to me as I write this, thirty thousand feet in the air.

She's getting big on me. I won't see her for two days. I'll miss two days of the little bit of little-girl I have left.

Clearly I'm getting soft in my old age. Does leaving your kids ever get easier?

Happy Mother's Day!

2011-05-08T07:14:00.000-04:00

What a great mom you are.
You are exactly the mother you are supposed to be.
You do a much much better job than you give yourself credit for.
And if you don't believe me... check out my list of some of literature's truly bad mothers on Huffington Post.

Hey, you're not perfect... but you're no Olive Kitteredge, either.

Happy Mother's Day!

when's the last time you asked yourself "when did I get like this?"

2011-05-05T10:52:00.001-04:00

Lots of people are answering that question over on Classy Chaos, like Pauline, Ms. Classy Chaos herself, who asked herself that very question as she ran her Dyson right over the Barbie doll heads because she was just so sick of picking them up.

Then, after her husband untangled all the doll hair from the beater bar, Pauline took this fabulous photo of my book amidst the naked chaos, and I think it looks just marvelous there.

Classy Chaos has two copies of the paperback to give away, but "only to people that have purchased frozen chicken nuggets to their children." (I can think of maybe one person I know who hasn't... and even her... nah, she had to do it at some point.) All you have to do is leave a comment answering this question:

The last time I asked myself "When did I get like this?" was ...

So far there are some doozies:

You know how when you stay in a store 30 seconds too long and both kids go haywire? I was that mom with those kids today and I wondered, when did I get like this?!

Sunday I was vacuuming & had to stop every 2 seconds to remove Legos from the path, really tiny Legos & started fantasizing about a vacuum that would sense Legos and spit them back out. This is what my fantasies have become.

Had to be when I was sitting in the sleeting rain, watching a 5th grade baseball game, yelling to my 9 year old daughter behind me, who was covered with a sleeping bag because she was so cold that 'sure, she could buy another hot cocoa (by way of bribery), and asking my 7th grade daughter to please text her dad the score, as my fingers were frozen.

Definitely check it out for yourself because the chaos is darn funny (and, may I say, darn classy) over at Classy Chaos. That's something to strive for, isn't it? We can't overcome the chaos, but we can at least be classy about it.

And if you'd like to let me know, I'd love to hear it: when was the last time you asked yourself "when did I get like this?" I'll go first: this morning, when I was jamming my kicking and screaming 3 year old daughter's legs into her pants, because it was cold out and G dash D, she was GOING TO WEAR PANTS FOR A CHANGE.

Your turn...

I have an article over at babble.com this week that I'm pretty excited about. Did you know that the founder of Mother's Day, Anna Jarvis, spent six years of her life lobbying for it to become a national holiday- and then the next THIRTY YEARS trying to make it go away? Her story is fascinating (and more than a little funny) and you can read more here.

reclaim your mother "failure" as a success

2011-05-03T09:38:00.000-04:00

Is there a choice you've made as a mother that you were taught to see as a fail, but in reality, has made you a better mother, not a worse one?

My friend Stephanie at Adventures in Babywearing, one of the true mamas of mom blogs, is running a giveaway for When Did I Get Like This? this week on her blog, and she poses just that question. I think it's a GREAT question, a real thought-provoker, and one that can make us each feel a little better about ourselves. We're not half so bad at this as we sometimes think we are.

Here's mine, and it's one I've talked about before: family dinner is just not happening in my house right now, at least not more than once or twice a week. And I do feel guilty about that. But in our day-to-day lives, my three kids are really cranky at 6 p.m, and if I can let two out of the three eat, while I ask about their days, and then the other one eat, while I ask about his day, peace reigns in our home. If all three eat at once, there's whining and pushing and dancing around the kitchen, and Mommy yells, and no one eats.

Would I like to fix that? Yes. Will I? Yes. Am I going to force seven nights a week of that craziness on my family? Not right now.

Definitely check out the responses over at Adventures in Babywearing... everything from a bottle of formula, to Dora, to co-sleeping, to orange juice fortified with calcium, are being proudly waved as choices that can be overwhelmingly positive for a mother, and her child. It's really liberating to read.

And if you have one of your own, please leave it here: what's that choice you've made as a mother that you're *supposed* to be sorry about, but just aren't?

what Osama bin Laden's death means to an 8-year-old

2011-05-02T16:52:00.000-04:00

My three children, all New York City dwellers, had only the slightest understanding of what 9/11 was.

Until today, when I had to explain to my oldest child why everyone was so happy that our president had ordered someone killed.

Anyone else find this photo, by Pearl Gabel for the New York Daily News, a little troubling?

These are two eight-year-olds from Houston, up way past their bedtime in Times Square, holding signs (clearly not scrawled by them) saying "Yeah Osama is Dead!" You can see it in the face of the girl on the left: I don't get this, but well, the grownups seem psyched.

It's not the up-past-bedtime part that bothers me, so much as teaching kids who can't possibly understand the import of the moment-- and who SHOULD not understand-- to jubilate. I think it's a moment to savor, sure. It's a moment to reflect on and honor everything that's happened in the last ten years, and all of those who have died. But I don't think it's a moment that these children should participate in.

Two miles away from where that photo was taken last night, my children were nestled all snug in their beds (as was I, asleep before 10:30). It wasn't until my husband checked his bedside BlackBerry at 6:15 a.m., and shook me awake, that I first heard the news.

And it was a morning you just *have* to have the news on, right? (Kind of like last Friday, for an entirely different reason.) But I paid the piper when my own eight-year-old came out to the kitchen and stood silently behind me as the talking heads railed on about what a great thing this person's death was for America. I could have changed the channel, but he'd seen. And I knew kids would be talking about it at school. I wanted him to hear it from me first.

First I had to explain to him that Obama really did the right thing in killing this man. Then I had to explain just what it was that he did that was so horrible: killing three thousand people in our own city. That was why people were rejoicing in Times Square. "When people talk about 9/11, that's what they mean," I said, watching the new understanding of evil creep across his face.

"But how did he kill all those people?" my son asked, his face crumpled.

Was I supposed to explain about the airplanes as bombs, the poor people holding hands on those flights, the jumpers from the towers, the 377 firefighters who bravely climbed to their deaths?

I couldn't do it.
"He had helpers," I explained, turning the television off. My son let me leave it at that.

My son is still young. He sees things as black/white, right/wrong. He thinks harming another soul is never, ever justified.
Or at least he did until today.

a rainy-day activity boys can get behind

2011-04-28T11:18:00.001-04:00

My boys were quiet in the kitchen. TOO quiet.

"What are you doing out there?" I yelled. No response.
So then, certain of a disaster, like Miss Clavel, I ran fast and faster.

They were hunched over the kitchen table together, giggling and scribbling.

"Uh... what are you guys doing?" I asked gingerly.

"We're ruining people's faces!" Connor crowed.
And indeed they were:

I like the Yoda / Bob Dog from Mister Rogers thing happening here:

And this guy is saying "Hello" backwards, sort of a REDRUM homage, if you will.

Not sure what the "pkep" on his shirt is about though.

Ruining People's Faces! The next time your kids are fighting, throw them yesterday's newspaper and a couple of markers. Hope they enjoy it half as much as my kids do.

the Easter Bunny: hard to believe in, but let's keep trying

2011-04-26T13:46:00.000-04:00

When the Easter Bunny finally showed up at our Easter Egg hunt this past weekend, even my three-year-old could see through him immediately. "That's a costume!" she bellowed to the toddlers in line. "I can see his hairy arms," she added to me, sotto voce, and indeed she meant not the furry bunny arms, but the hairy and gold-braceleted man-arms sticking out from the too-short sleeves.

I shushed Maggie, telling her she shouldn't ruin things for the little kids. "I just telling them he's not the real Easter Bunny," she explained. "The real Easter Bunny is home getting ready."

"Yeah, where is the Easter Bunny's home?" my six-year-old asked, as if he'd been meaning to ask that very question. I rolled my eyes, because the Easter Bunny backstory is just so patchy I don't know where to begin the backfill. (For more on this, please read my sister Mollie's hilarious and scholarly exploration about "the total failure of imagination that is the Easter Bunny.")

8-year-old Connor piped up: "Some people say there is no Easter Bunny! And no Santa Claus either! I'm starting to think Santa is Mom and Dad!"

I froze. This wasn't the first time he'd thrown this grenade into a Santa/ Easter Bunny conversation, but in the past, he'd seemed eager to re-believe once I established that sure, there are kids who don't believe in such things-- but that's because Santa, or the Tooth Fairy, or whoever, only visits the homes of those who DO believe. I went through all that again, for the benefit of his two younger siblings, but not for Connor. He knew. I could tell he knew.
It was time to confirm his suspicions.

When we got home, I sat him down on my bed.

ME: So what do you think?
CONNOR: I'm not sure.
ME: Do you *want* to be sure?
CONNOR: (biting his lip) Yes. Is Santa really you and Dad?
ME: Yes.

He didn't seem as crushed as I had feared.

ME: Did you already kind of know?
CONNOR: Yeah. Pretty much.
ME: You'll still get presents.
CONNOR: Okay, good.

That seemed to settle it.

ME: Do you... have any other questions?
CONNOR: Yeah. Where DOES the Easter Bunny live?

So, to recap:
Man in red suit from North Pole? Fond fantasy.
Giant bunny who fits candy for every child in the world (and their baskets) in one giant basket of his own? Apparently, still going strong.

Wacky Wednesday: great for those who are already bizarre

2011-04-22T10:43:00.000-04:00

This week was W week in kindergarten M, and Wednesday was "Wacky Wednesday," which is (it seems) celebrated by putting the blocks on the coloring table, and hanging the weather calendar upside down, and by all the kids coming to school totally wacky! Because I am a terrible mother, and because my email filter likes to prevent me from getting whatever messages my kids' teachers send that way, the first time I heard about "Wacky Wednesday" was when we arrived at school on Wednesday morning. All the other kids were running around with socks on their hands and witch hats. One even had a tam-o-shanter.

this is a tam-o-shanter, although not a kindergartener

I was pretty sure this was going to be a real problem. Seamus has a real hair-trigger on his sobbing reflex these days, and being unprepared for such a momentous event as Wacky Wednesday was sure to ruin his day. And mine. I proceeded carefully.

ME: Seamus, I'm really sorry I didn't know about Wacky Wednesday.
SEAMUS: (sighs) It's oh... kay...
ME: I wish I had something wacky for you to wear. Do you want me to make you a head wrap out of my scarf?
SEAMUS: (eyes downcast) I don't need anything.
ME: Okay, sweetie. Have a good day.

I give him a quick kiss and start to move for the exit before he decides to melt down.

SEAMUS: Well. I'm a little wacky.
ME: You are?
SEAMUS: I do have two pairs of pants on.
ME: Huh?
SEAMUS: I have two pairs of pants on.

I check. He does. Two pairs of Gap khaki-style pants.

ME: Seamus, did you put on two pairs of pants because it was Wacky Wednesday?
SEAMUS: Nope. I forgot.
ME: So... why are you wearing two pairs of pants?
SEAMUS: You said it was a little cold outside.

(By a "little cold," I had meant 58 degrees. Grab-a-sweatshirt cold. Not ice-fishing cold.)

I encouraged my son to remove his extra pair of pants, for comfort's sake, but he wore them happily all day long, right up until bath time after dinner. Takeaway: Wacky Wednesday can be a great holiday, even if you've neglected to officially observe it, as long as you're the kind of kid who is always doing something really weird anyway. Hoo boy, that is my child.

Thanks to all of you who are helping me spread the word about the paperback release of When Did I Get Like This? this week! There are currently three, yes three, giveaways running where you can win a copy: at Short Fat Dictator, Wonder, Friend, and The Well-Read Wife. If you buy a copy and would like a signed bookplate for Mother's Day gift-giving-- or for yourself-- drop me a line at amy at amy wilson [dot] com. thanks!

it's paperback publication day!

2011-04-19T14:10:00.000-04:00

Doesn't that have a nice ring to it?

My bouncing baby book, When Did I Get Like This? (The Screamer, The Worrier, The Dinosaur-Chicken-Nugget Buyer, & Other Mothers I Swore I'd Never Be) is out in paperback today. Rumor has it that it will be on the "New Releases" table at Barnes & Noble through May 2, and of course your local indie can get it for you lickety split as well.

Giveaway alert! My friend Missy is giving a copy away on her blog Wonder, Friend, and there's an interesting conversation starting over there about whether moms discuss their less-than-stellar moments with each other or not. Here's what I have learned since the book first came out a year ago: we all have moments when we wonder when we got "like this," when we feel deeply inadequate. And because most of us don't ever talk about it, we think we're alone in feeling this way. But we are most certainly NOT alone. Although we are way, way too hard on ourselves.

If you purchase a copy of the book for Mother's Day, I'd love to send you a signed, personalized bookplate to go inside- just leave me a comment below with your email.

If you already read the book (and hopefully, enjoyed it!) here are a few ways you can help me launch the paperback out of its nest during these extremely-limited-budgets-for-book-marketing times:

--"like" the Facebook page for When Did I Get Like This?
--link to the Facebook page for When Did I Get Like This? on your own Facebook status
--send out a Tweet linking to bit.ly/whendidi-paperback or #whendidigetlikethis

If you do any of these things I've got a little somethin' for ya. Okay it's a refrigerator magnet. And it's adorable:

Wouldn't that be some nice mom-bling for your fridge? It's kind of like the "stop pigging out" magnets our mothers had back in the day. Only it's not macraméd. And, yes, it doesn't oink when you open the fridge. But mine's not nearly so judgmental.

Leave a comment with whatever you did to shout-out and a magnet is yours, or a bookplate, or my everlasting gratitude. Your pick!

weather-related air traffic delays: a blessing in disguise

2011-04-18T12:47:00.002-04:00

A travel tip: if one airline cancels your flight because of bad weather-- and another airline says screw it! we'll get you there!-- it might not be as good an idea to buy that ticket as it seems in the moment.

(A secondary tip: don't read this while eating.)

I was flying home Saturday evening from the absolutely fabulous Mom 2.0 conference in New Orleans, where I met tons of other bloggers and parenting professionals and walked Bourbon Street after 11 p.m., which is decidedly not recommended.

I was exhausted and ready to get home by Saturday evening, and of course it was only once I got to the airport that the FAA announced a four and a half hour delay into JFK airport because of the crazy storms passing through. Sighing, I got a boarding pass on the 6 a.m. flight out the next morning, and was trudging out of the airport to go find a hotel when I passed the always discerning A-List Mom.

ME: Can you believe it? Want to share a cab back in to the city?
A-LIST MOM: What are you talking about?

Turned out she was also flying to NYC, but on a different airline, into LaGuardia, with no delay at all. Then it turned out that a walk-up ticket on that flight cost less than two taxis and another night in a hotel would have. I couldn't believe it! My Sunday with the kids was saved! I skipped down the jetway and boarded, caring not that I was in a middle seat of the narrowest row I had ever seen. I was on my way home, and after a slightly cramped two hours, the pilot intoned, "We have about 20 minutes till we land. It might be a little bumpy. Flight attendants, please be seated."

You know those old wooden roller coasters that hurl you from side to side in a way that is really not all that fun, it kind of hurts, and their ricketiness starts to frighten you a little?
Imagine riding one of those. For NINETY MINUTES.

For the first half hour, I sat there with my eyes scrunched shut, saying Iwillnotthrowup Iwillnotthrowup Iwillnotthrowup. Then my seatmate, who had been gripping her armrests all this time, said "wait a minute! The airport was right there and now we're flying up again!" and I couldn't wait any longer. Clearly it was going to be a while. I lost my lunch.

I felt better afterwards, if a little awkward, sitting there with my airsickness bag. I rolled it up carefully, not sure what else to do with it, and pulled out my iPhone- if I couldn't read or look at anything, I could at least listen. I put on The Longshot Podcast, my absolute favorite, sure to have me laughing and forgetting my woes. And it did, until about ten minutes in:

GUY ON PODCAST: So, I was at Ikea? And you know how they have those meatballs? Man, those meatballs are disgusting. And they're right by the exit so you have to LOOK at them. And they just smell so disgusting.

I pull off my headphones. Too late. I vomit some more. Take a deep breath. Wait until that topic of discussion will have passed. Put my headphones back on.

OTHER GUY ON PODCAST: ...those meatballs really ARE disgusting. That freaking gravy? It's like...

Pull off the headphones. Yak a little more. Wait ten seconds. Put headphones back on.

GUEST: Wow, that's an interesting question... what are my favorite kind of disgusting meatballs. Hmm...

I pull off the headphones for good, and sit there for the rest of the flight, between two strangers, with my big bag of vomit. We circled the city for another white-knuckled thirty minutes before landing in the hardest rain we had seen yet.

Still, my flight experience could have been worse. Mamabird Diaries was on that same flight, and she thought she was going to die. I didn't give that too much concern- I was more focused on what would happen if my airsickness bag wasn't sufficiently reinforced. Oh, and being grateful that I didn't have my kids with me (again, not because they'd die, but because no way they wouldn't have hurled.)

Lots of hooting and hollering when we landed. There's no place like home.

The paperback version of When Did I Get Like This? hits stores tomorrow! You can pre-order here if you can't wait even one more day: bit.ly/whendidi-paperback.

Support Japan! Fold paper!

2011-04-12T15:06:00.000-04:00

I am staring at a letter sent home from my sons' school last week about the school's relief efforts in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Efforts have included a bake sale and an art sale (the kids' art). Great ideas. Love that they're getting the kids involved.

But the school says, why stop there?

We know that our students like to express their support in more creative and tangible ways. With this in mind, our school will observe the Japanese tradition of making 1,000 origami cranes.

I actually know about this tradition, having been in a play called "A Thousand Cranes" just out of college. I played a nine-year-old Japanese schoolgirl. I know, SO me, right? Anyway, Japanese tradition holds that folding one thousand paper cranes will give the person who folds them a granted wish for luck or healing. My sons' school liked the sound of this:

Enclosed in this envelope is paper for each student to make three cranes, along with directions for their creation.

I read that sentence, and then cried "NOOOOOO!!" loudly enough to be heard in the next county.

Why do schools do this to mothers? "Here's something we want your kids to do. Of course, it's way beyond their capabilities--and ours-- so we'll let you handle it. Have a great weekend!"

I'm not doing it, I said to myself. I do not have time for this. I actually used to know how to fold an origami crane (I had to do it onstage as part of the play). But that was 1994, and all I remember now is how freaking hard it was to learn to do it when I HAD NO CHILDREN TO TAKE CARE OF AND I WAS BEING GIVEN A SALARY TO SIT THERE AND LEARN HOW.

I maintained my resolution for about three minutes. Then, with a great sigh, I pulled out the instructions and started folding. I wasn't going to be that mother. I would do what was expected of me, of course I would.

After a few minutes of pleasant-enough folding, I got to step 5:

Bring all 4 corners of the paper together, one at a time. This will fold the paper into a flat square. This square has an open end. It also has two flaps on the right and two flaps on the left. Lift the upper right flap, and crease along lines A-C.

And then Mommy said some bad words.

WHAT? An open end with two flaps on both ends? Crease along what?

I looked at my "crane." Then I looked at the instructions.
The steps go up to TWENTY-SIX.
A liver transplant would be simpler.
And once I finally taught myself how to do it, I'd have to teach my six-year-old.

I stuffed the instructions, the paper, and the letter back in the envelope they came in. It's sitting here on my desk. And I'm not doing it. I am just skipping this assignment, and if my kids get any beef for not having folded their three cranes, I am ready. Kind of.

Of course, I'm also feeling really guilty, and certain this will somehow be the exact wrong mommy assignment for me to have opted out of. But I do think there are many more productive ways for me to display my concern for the people of Japan. And I also have a family to raise.

What do you think? Would you do it? Is there any point at which it becomes acceptable to say: yes, I care, but this is ridiculous?

suck it up, say you're sorry

2011-04-07T15:38:00.000-04:00

I am not my best self when my body does not want to be awake. As I have previously established.

The other night. 2 a.m. 3-year-old Maggie appears in my darkened doorway.

MAGGIE: Mommy. I'm firsty.
MOMMY: (rolling over) Maggie, it's the middle of the night.
MAGGIE: But I'm FIRSTY!
MOMMY: Do NOT wake your brothers! Shhh!
MAGGIE: (sobbing) I'M SO FIRSTY...
MOMMY: (hissing) Stop it! Stop that whining right now! Go back to bed!
MAGGIE: But I--
MOMMY: GO BACK TO BED!
MAGGIE: --I think I have to throw up!

Even then, even then, dear readers, I was not a great mother. "Then get in the bathroom!" I hissed, throwing my covers off and hopping into action.

Then she really did throw up. And God bless her, my little girl made it to the toilet all by herself. Doing as she was told.

I've had a few of these moments in my mothering career-- most, like I said, when I'm half-awake and really annoyed about it. The least I can do, I figure, is give my kids a true, deep, heartfelt apology, and show them 1) I know I was wrong and 2) it's good to say you're sorry.

So I did, at 7 a.m., after getting up four more times with my daughter during the night.

MOMMY: ...Maggie, I didn't mean to be angry at you. I'm really sorry.

Maggie eyed me carefully.

MAGGIE: You yelled.
MOMMY: Yes, I did.
MAGGIE: And you weren't listening.
MOMMY: No, I wasn't.
MAGGIE: And that's not nice.

Then she patted my hand.

Sometimes I wonder who's the adult around here.

who gets the blame for the worst night's sleep ever?

2011-04-05T15:32:00.000-04:00

I stayed in a hotel this past weekend, while doing three performances of Mother Load and speaking at Project Mom in Dallas. All of which was a great time. I got to bed a little too late on Saturday night, considering my 6:30 am wakeup call to get back to the airport, but after all that activity, I fell asleep quickly and soundly. Without any of the kids with me for middle-of-the-night visits, I figured, it would at least be a blissful six hours' rest.

After what felt like three minutes, I was awoken by a droning, insistent EHH- EHH- EHH--
which I assumed was my alarm clock. God that was a short night, I thought groggily. Then I looked at the clock. It was only 1:30. And it wasn't my alarm clock making the noise.

The sound, whatever it was, was coming from inside my air conditioner, one of these forced-air type things you see in your typical pretty-good hotel. Why the hell would that have an alarm in it? I wondered, as I powered it down. That's annoying. It stopped as soon as I turned it off, at least. I took that trip to the bathroom one always takes when you're up in the middle of the night anyway, and while I was in there,

EHH- EHH- EHH.
It started up again.

Now I was annoyed. I went back in the room, turned it on, turned it off again, and the alarm stopped. Ten seconds later, it started up again.

After a few minutes of attempting to ignore it, I called the front desk.

ME: I need you to find me a new room. My air conditioner's alarm is going off.
FRONT DESK: What do you mean, ma'am?
AIR CONDITIONER: EHH. EHH. EHH.
ME: That's what I mean.
The air conditioner stops.
FRONT DESK: ...It seems to have stopped, ma'am.
ME: Uh-huh. Give it a second.
We do.
AIR CONDITIONER: ...EHH. EHH. EHH.

The befuddled person at the front desk told me she'd find me another room. I got up and packed everything so I could switch. When I was all ready, shoes and coat over my pajamas, and she still hadn't shown up, I lay down on the bed to await her arrival.

AIR CONDITIONER: EHH. EHH. EHH.

I turned it off twenty minutes ago, I thought. If it were overheating, it would have cooled down by now. So why's the alarm still going off?

Then I thought: Because air conditioners don't have alarms.

Up I leaped out of bed, putting my ear to the unit.

NOT THE AIR CONDITIONER: EHH. EHH. EHH.

The noise was actually coming from outside, through the window above the air conditioner. I had been listening to a car alarm go off for the last half hour. Okay, I was half asleep-- and it sounded like an alarm clock, not a car alarm-- but I mean, DUH.

I called the front desk back.

ME: Sorry, I don't need a new room. It's not my air conditioner.
FRONT DESK: (not sure what I'm talking about) Okay.
ME: It's a car alarm, which has been going off for the last half hour, which is totally preposterous. It's probably woken up the entire hotel by now.
FRONT DESK: Oh, no.
ME: I mean, can you go look and see if you might be able to tell whose car it is?
FRONT DESK: (no way) Sure, ma'am, we can take a look.

I went back to bed, seething as the minutes ticked past, listening to this car alarm drone on. Seriously, who would let their car do that all night? I lay there for half an hour, trying to go back to sleep, getting angrier by the moment. Then I jumped up from bed and marched back to the window. If I could figure out which car was going off, I was going to go down there and take matters into my own hands.

I threw open the curtains and looked out the window.

What kind of asshat lets their car alarm go off for over an hour and wake up an entire hotel?

I do.
It was MY CAR.

How many lifetimes do you think I'll need to pay off all that bad karma?

idle hands are the devil's workshop

2011-03-28T09:51:00.000-04:00

We are currently at the halfway point of my children's two-week spring break. Ten days ago, I was so excited for all this time together. This morning, my thoughts run more along the lines of: sweet heavens, can't they just go back to school already?

Who ever decided that grade-schoolers needed two weeks off each spring? I had exactly zero spring break as a youngster; all we got off was Good Friday, and I had to spend half of that in church. But somewhere along the line, in parts of the Northeast at least, the second half of March became extended vacation territory for children, although it's the rare grownup that can take that time off with them.

I can, and I am so so grateful for that, seriously, but my husband looked just a little too happy going off to the office this morning while the caterwauling and "weenie-kicking" continued in the background. Idle hands are indeed the devil's workshop, or at least the devil's haircut, and I can attest to that because I was interrupted by each of my three children while I typed just this last sentence.

When people have nothing else to do, bad bad stuff can happen. Case in point: when my third baby was 11 days late arriving into the world, I cut my toenails way, way too short. I could hardly walk (not that that was so easy already, with an 11-day-late baby). I thought I learned my lesson that day about doing personal grooming as a last-ditch effort to stave off existential ennui. But apparently not, because this weekend I found myself in the waiting room of my local urgent care facility because I had, while "cleaning" my ear with a Q-Tip, lodged a ball of wax so deeply in my hair that I was deaf on one side. Deaf to all, that is, but the insistent ringing/tinnitus that resulted.

It was kind of nice not to be able to hear my kids fighting to my starboard side, but definitely unsettling. So then I did something else that 1) is bad and 2) one only does when really bored: I sought a self-cure on the internet. After pouring a bunch of olive oil in my ear, and only then reading it would take about five days for it to work, I decided to quit putting anything else in my ear, at all, and seek professional help.

It took two professionals, forty minutes, and multiple techniques to unblock my ear. But hey, it was a whole morning's excursion! (what finally worked: a combination of hydrogen peroxide and a Water Pik, set on high.)

Today it's pouring rain, which is actually kind of nice, for a change of pace. Once I finish typing this we're all off for a field trip at Target. Anything to keep me from sticking another Q Tip in my ear.

Have you ever done anything regrettable out of complete and total boredom?

picture from organizedmom.net, who says when her kids get bored, she lets them fingerpaint the inside of the dishwasher. Totally doing that when we get home from Target.

one of my all time favorites

2011-03-21T09:04:00.000-04:00

I'm on vacation with my kids this week, and so I'm posting a rerun of one of my all-time favorite kid stories, this one from almost four years ago. Hope you enjoy!

Connor and Seamus were sitting together at the picnic table, eating dinner, calmly munching their corn on the cob.

SEAMUS: I hafta get something.

He goes inside. A moment later he sticks his head out the screen door.

SEAMUS: Connor. Did you know I touched a poop?

CONNOR: Really?

SEAMUS: Yep.

MOMMY: REALLY?

SEAMUS: Yep.

Connor and I wait for the rest of the story. But apparently, that is the whole story. So after a moment:

MOMMY: Seamus. Did you REALLY touch your poop?

Seamus looks at me like that's the dumbest thing he's ever heard.

SEAMUS: Not MY poop, Mommy. Somebody else's poop.

MOMMY: WHAT?

SEAMUS: Yep.

MOMMY: Somebody else's poop that was in the toilet?

Seamus starts to lose his patience.

SEAMUS: NO, Mommy! Somebody else's poop that was AT CAMP!

MOMMY: (processing this) In the toilet at camp?

Seamus loses it.

SEAMUS: NO!! Somebody else's poop that was at camp ON THE FLOOR!!

CONNOR: There was poop on the floor at camp?

SEAMUS: That's what I was trying to TELL YOU!!

MOMMY: Whose poop was it?

SEAMUS: I DON'T KNOW!! I just touched it!

Connor and Mommy take this in.

MOMMY: And then what happened, Seamus?

SEAMUS: Nuffin. Nobody said anyfing.

Seamus goes back inside. Connor and Mommy contemplate all of this in their hearts.

The End

Seriously, that's the end. Seamus won't say another word about it. He gets furious if I bring it up; he has said everything he intends to on the matter.

I, on the other hand, can't stop thinking about this incident. I am haunted by its ramifications, both hygienic and psychosocial. Not to mention, wondering how a turd ends up by itself on the floor. I told my mother this whole story, and she, with nearly forty years of mothering experience, had this pearl of wisdom to offer:

"Sometimes, you just have to accept: you're never going to get the whole story."

my culturally deprived children, part two

2011-03-17T13:22:00.001-04:00

A mom sidled up to me at a baby shower yesterday. "So, tomorrow's a big day for you guys!" she said.

"Totally," I said, sipping my peach nectar, hoping she'd enlighten me a little more as to just what we were both talking about.

"With Seamus and all," she added, seeing my confusion.

**blank stare**

"With it being St. Patrick's Day tomorrow," she said slowly, wondering if I was possibly having some sort of brain malfunction right there in the dining room.

I seriously had no idea today was going to be March 17th until that moment.

"So what do you guys do?" she asked.

"Uh. Not much," I said. "We're not really that into it."

"Into being IRISH?" she said. "But your kids' names..."

"No, we like being Irish," I said. "It's just that St. Patrick's Day... doesn't have that much to do with it."

And really, does it? I could have kept my kids out of school today-- as I write this, I sit about two miles from the largest St. Patrick's Day parade in the world, happening right now.

But it is about the least child-friendly place I can imagine (and I'm saying that freely admitting I've never been there-- please no hate mail). Parade day is more about being rip-roaring drunk than being Irish, if you get my drift. In fact, I'm going to go on record: a lei is not traditionally Gaelic, either, and so that man in the picture at left with the green 'fro may not even be Irish. Except every March 17th.

Still, I feel the pressure to step up and do something today- after all it was just last week that I was publicly shamed by my family's lack of culturally significant object. I managed to get Seamus out the door in a green T-shirt this morning (totally relieved he owned one), and Maggie wore some shamrock ponytail holders I scrounged up from the bottom of a shoebox of hair accoutrements. But that hardly seems sufficient. I could just buy some shamrock cupcakes or something, but I already hate how St. Valentine's Day has become a week-long parade of candy and baked goods, and if it's Gaelic traditions I'm after I don't think St. Patrick ever ate a cupcake.

Besides the wearing o' the green, Wikipedia's traditional St. Patrick's Day suggestions are church-going (whoops) and a 24-hour ban-lift on whatever you gave up for Lent. OK, so everybody can have some chocolate. But that doesn't seem very culturally significant either.

Anyone do anything fun with their kids for St. Patrick's Day? I want to have a better answer (as the mother of Connor, Seamus, and Maggie) for next year...

If you are so inclined, might you consider clicking below and voting for this blog as one of Circle of Moms Top 25 Funny Moms? There are some other great blogs on there (like my friend Margaret's Short Fat Dictator) but Mother Load could use a few clicks, if you know what I'm saying. Slainte!

I'm the kind of sick that means I can't go to school

2011-03-15T10:27:00.001-04:00

"NOT the kind of sick that means I can't go to ballet," my 3 year old clarified, standing in the hallway yesterday morning. "Just the kind of sick that means I can't go to school."

Just so you get the full picture, this is how she looked when she said it.

This is how my daughter likes to roll these days: backpack, purse, lunchbox, baby. She watches me trudge around New York City like a sherpa with my laptop and Seamus's soccer cleats and fourteen other bags, so it's my fault.

I had a LOT to do yesterday. This was not what I wanted to hear. "Never mind, you are going to school," I said.

"But Mommy," she whined, "my tummy hurts."

Connor (my 8-year-old) overheard her. "My tummy still hurts too," he said, which he had been saying since Friday. He seemed fine to me. Then he threw up Saturday night. But 36 uneventful hours had passed since then.

"We are both staying home," Maggie announced with great finality, "since we have two sick tummies."

Then they frittered away a pleasurable day watching TV and playing with their toys while I got about 25% of what I needed to accomplish done. And while they didn't eat much, they didn't complain of stomach pains once, either. (And Maggie was right: she wasn't the kind of sick that meant she couldn't enjoy ballet class as thoroughly as usual.)

This morning, after a full night's sleep and a toaster waffle with syrup, Maggie said, "I think my tummy hurts again."

"Mine isn't really good either," Connor offered, having just finished an absolutely enormous bowl of Raisin Bran.

"You are GOING TO SCHOOL," I growled, because I couldn't take another day of moping around. So I took them, and I dropped them off, trying to ignore that Connor did look a little peaked under the eyes.

Now I'm sitting here trying to get work done with 1 1/2 eyes on my cell phone, waiting for the school nurse to call.

With my luck, it'll be Seamus that yaks.

How do you decide whether your kids are sick enough to stay home, in the absence of any measurable symptoms?

If you live in the Dallas TX area-- or know someone who does-- please spread the word: I'll be doing my one-woman show MOTHER LOAD at the Uptown Theatre in Grand Prairie, TX on April 1 and 2 (get your tickets here). I'll also be giving the morning keynote address at Project Mom in Dallas on Saturday, April 1. Hope to see some of you there!

the first day your child gives YOU advice

2011-03-10T16:01:00.000-05:00

I pretty much hate skiing. I'm trying, but there it is. I've done it three times now, and as I explained here and here, I was doing just fine without Chamonix on my bucket list, but my 5 and 7 year old boys were learning, and I wanted them to see that it was a worthy enterprise to step out of one's comfort zone. And so last winter, I vowed to learn with them.

Then I let them go a time or two with Daddy (and without me, for whatever lame reason I could make up) and now my two boys are crazy good, doing jumps and black-diamond runs while I do a white-knuckled granny trip or two down the bunny slope with a ski instructor. Last Saturday, they kept breezing by on their way to the "Iron Horse" run to watch me, and I kept gritting my teeth and trying to look like I was having fun, but it was icy and the instructor was giving me twenty things to concentrate on at once, and I just wanted to be done.

I got my reprieve when Connor said his gloves were all wet and I sooo unselfishly offered to take him into the lodge for lunch while my 6 year old and my husband did another run. As we sat over our french fries, Connor asked me if I had had fun.

ME: No. Not really. Is that okay to say? My hands hurt from gripping the poles so hard. All I'm doing is trying not to fall.

My eight-year-old nodded sagely.

CONNOR: Yeah. If you worry too much, sometimes it can be hard to focus.

What?

ME: Yeah. Yeah, that was it exactly.

CONNOR: And you need to focus. The next time you go up there, I want you to say: I'm going to do a really good job. I'm going to do a really good job.

ME: ... okay.

CONNOR: I want you to focus on just that. And then you won't worry anymore. Okay, Mom?

Here was why I had come up to the mountain that day, why I had spent a hundred dollars on a ski lesson and skis and poles and helmet and a new set of mittens. It was to have the enormous privilege of having one of my children give me wonderful advice. It was to have that brief telescopic look at why it's going to be okay when my children are all grown up: they are going to be such delightful people to know.

do you read, watch TV, or text while breastfeeding? Bad, bad mother

2011-03-08T11:20:00.000-05:00

It seems like whenever we mothers manage to do something right, the media simply nudges the bar a little higher- just enough to put it safely out of our reach once again. Oh, you bought organic milk, huh? Was it from grass-fed cows? I didn't think so. Back to the end of the loser line, mom.

Last week, author Sherry Turkle gave this radio interview on NPR's Science Friday to promote her new book, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. Overall, her book sounds like (full disclosure: have not read) a fascinating exploration of the fracturing of our attention in our newly screen-dominated world. This is something I think about all the time, and when I catch myself, in Turkle's words, "pushing the swing with one hand while texting with the other," I stop, I put the smartphone away, I give my children the gift of my full attention for those few minutes.

I also worry about what that screen dependency will create in our generation of little ones, raised in a time when Nintendo can freely admit their new 3D gaming system might negatively impact developing brains without anyone batting an eye. And if our children never learn to entertain themselves without screens, to experience the gift of boredom, what else may they lose? "If we don't teach our children how to be alone," Ms. Turkle says in this interview, "they'll only learn how to be lonely."

But then Ms. Turkle built what was, for me, at least, a bridge too far. As her ultimate example of just how distracted parents have become, she gave the example of a breastfeeding mother who dares to text while nursing her child. "This is the time when bonding between mother and child is the most consequential," Turkle scolded. And here's this mother being so selfish. Turkle suggested a nursing mother should be making eye contact with her baby while nursing, and doing nothing else.

Maybe it's been a while since Turkle breastfed, but I can still remember those early months with each of my three newborns. They nursed eight times a day, for thirty minutes at a stretch, and that's if I was lucky; on bad days they just nursed all day long. I would not have survived those hours without Dr. Phil reruns, the phone to call my mother, and a My Brest Friend Pillow so I could read Us Weekly with one hand, or something else not too taxing on my sleep-deprived brain. There were many, many moments that I gazed down into my newborn's eyes with great love, eyes that probably couldn't even see me clearly yet. But there were other moments that I saved my sanity by daring to multitask.

I think this is an unfair expectation of nursing mothers, and this silly stakes-raising is all too common in our experiences as modern parents: you're not a real mother unless you breastfeed exclusively. And oh yeah, for six months, no rice cereal till then. And oh yeah, you can't do anything else to ease your incredible isolation, loneliness, and exhaustion while you're sitting there.

At least one phone caller to NPR's Science Friday agrees with me:

Unidentified Woman (Caller): Hi. I just wanted to call to comment about the statement that women should not text while they're breastfeeding their infants. And I just think that's pretty ridiculous. I don't myself text, but I do a lot of other things while I nurse my child. We spent a lot of time nursing. And if I didn't do other things, I would be bored senseless and resentful about breastfeeding... All the while I'm still checking in with my child. And I just think it's silly to say that women can't do something else while they're nursing their child. It does not interfere with bonding. Thank you. Bye-bye.

What, if anything, did you do to pass the time while breastfeeding? Do you think it's an acceptable time to multitask?

do you have a family heirloom? cause we don't

2011-03-02T14:12:00.002-05:00

I have a "Person of the Week" at home this week, and my son is as proud as any kindergartener would be, as proud as his older brother was two years ago. I have learned a few things since I did this the first time, and as Parent of the Person of the Week, have remained relatively calm even as I am presented each evening, ten minutes past bedtime, with a due-tomorrow project requiring glue sticks (dried out) or reams of family photos (none printed out) or nineteen servings of his favorite snack. We had to do the scrapbook with the class stuffed animal mascot, which I absolutely hate, but this time I was wise enough to have my six-year-old do all the writing, which kept it all suitably brief:

I mean, that was pretty much it. That was our Saturday, and Herbert the frog brought absolutely nothing to the table. Might as well be honest about it.

But this afternoon, I am stumped. For tomorrow's Person of the Week activity, Seamus has to bring in a "cultural family object." Huh? I asked the teacher what this meant this morning at dropoff.

"Oh, you know," she said breezily, "some object of cultural significance to your family."

Prodded by my blank stare, she expounded: "An heirloom of some kind. Something that's been passed down."

I continued to stare at her.
"An ornament?" she offered. "Some kids bring in ornaments that are special to their family. Anything that indicates a family tradition."

I've been thinking all day, and I mean, I got NOTHING. Seamus wants to bring in an ornament, but I have them all in boxes in the basement, and even if I was in the mood to dig one out, it's not like any of them are that significant to our family history. To him. I think I have a silver baby spoon of his in the back of the closet somewhere? But even that's a lie: it's not like it means anything to him. It was never even used.

So today's maternal failing is that our family basically *has* no traditions, of objects of cultural significance, and by God we're going to have several, starting right now.

Hoping you all have some ideas of where to start.

Yipes! Just realized my commenting software is on the blitz. Off to fix that now...

Mom! Want to play a game?

2011-02-28T14:16:00.001-05:00

6 year old Seamus has been hard at work after school lately, scribbling notes to himself on the coffee table in our den and muttering under his breath for up to an hour. None of us are sure what he's up to, but by now we all know better than to interrupt him.

Last Thursday, he asked me if I would like to see what he'd been working on. I said I'd love to.

I nodded calmly, surveying his work like Shelley Duvall in The Shining when she discovers that Jack Nicholson has been typing reams and reams of doggerel while insisting he not be disturbed.

Oh my God OH MY GOD MY SON IS INSANE. Please review the answer to number six with me: yes, eleven A's, a four down and up, an eight up, a one up, then A+++. for the love of all that is holy: what was the question?

I looked up at my son's expectant face. "Uh. What does this mean?" I asked, gingerly.
Seamus smiled-- he thought I'd never ask. "It's a GAME! Want to play?"

When a child asks a mother if she wants to play a game, there is always the truth (no) and what she is obligated to say (golly, sure). And so I "played" that game with Seamus for a while, which consisted of me sitting and watching him scribble and talk to himself. I still have no idea what was going on, but number 13 had twenty-four A's. And that meant he won.

I am thrilled that my son is able to occupy himself so contentedly. However, I am still a little concerned by his proximity to A Beautiful Mind territory. More the loco part than the genius part.

His godmother has pointed out that Seamus's "game" looks like a series of increasingly positive eBay seller reviews. And hey, all eBay sellers are completely well-adjusted, right?
I don't think Seamus has ever been on eBay, but all those A+'s must at least indicate a child who sees his glass as half-full.

Have you a scribbling genius in your home?

changing the world, one month at a time: meet lovedrop.us

2011-02-23T12:48:00.000-05:00

This week, I've fallen in love with a website that is changing lives.

Love Drop is a micro-giving community that unites to make a difference in the lives of one person or family a month. With each member giving $10, $5, or even $1, they make a huge difference in the life of one deserving family every month.

This month's love drop is for Ethan and Alex, two severely autistic boys who are (for the most part) non-verbal. Their family wants to get them a service dog from 4 Paws for Ability, not only for companionship and therapy, but also to keep the boys safe (seven-year-old Ethan often tries to run away). The dog itself is free- it's the training that is very expensive.

Watch the short film below to learn a little more about their family:

This Saturday, Love Drop is going to Ethan and Alex's house to present them with the funds that have been raised. They are thisclose to having enough money ($13,000) to get Ethan and Alex their service dog. And then it all starts over again next week, with a new family, a new story, a new way to help.

I hope you'll consider joining Love Drop with me.

what all kids need: someone to push them, someone not to

2011-02-21T15:52:00.000-05:00

This morning, we awoke to nine inches of freshly fallen snow at my in-laws' house, which is just ten minutes away from a ski mountain. We had decided to spend the long weekend here in hopes that the kids might ski; after the freakish 67-degree February day we had last week, we weren't so sure. This was almost too good to be true.

The boys dragged me out of bed early so I could show them where I had packed all their ski stuff (in plain sight, by the way), and they were halfway dressed when Connor suddenly started complaining of a stomachache. "I wish I could ski SOOO MUCH, but I c-can't, because my tummy REALLY HURTS," he whined.

My husband wasn't having it. Neither was I, really; Connor is the Boy Who Cries I-Don't-Want-To-Go, and then he always has the time of his life. "You are GOING," David growled, and I was totally with him, until I remembered that my son has been taking antibiotics for the past five days. And not really eating. Which can cause stomach pain. And maybe, just maybe, in this particular circumstance, he was telling the truth.

Next stop: a classic mother-father standoff, with David saying this was nonsense and put your ski pants on and we are going RIGHT NOW, and Connor crying, and me saying will you calm down he is SICK. Maybe. And are you really going to *make* him go skiing, is that the kind of memory you want to create?

And what was weird about it all is while David was saying "This is IT, I am drawing a line in the sand," I could tell he wasn't 100% sure he was right. And when I responded, "You are being ridiculous," I wasn't so sure he was wrong.

I had one card left to play, and so I did: I told the boys that if they went skiing, I would too. And I REALLY did not want to go. I never ever downhill skied until a year ago, and while I was at that time quite proud of myself for mastering the bunny slope, I'm in no rush to repeat the experience. But Connor didn't budge-- not even laughing at Mommy on skis was enough to sway him-- and that's when I was pretty almost definitely sure that he really was sick.

In the end, no one skied, Daddy went to the gym, and now everyone's playing Legos while Maggie naps. I got Connor some probiotics at the drugstore; on the way I called my mom and told her the whole story. "That's why kids need a mother and a father," she said. "They need someone to comfort them, and someone to push them."

In other words, that disagreement is at the center of what parenting is all about. My God, she's right. Kids need the yin and the yang. And while neither I (nor my mother) think that only heterosexual couples-- or only two-parent families-- can provide that for their children, I do think that all children need someone fulfilling each of those roles in their lives: someone to say "Be careful on those monkey bars," and someone else to say, "Let me see how high you can climb."

Which one are you?

how many chores can kids really handle? Eloise Wilkin's point of view

2011-02-16T12:18:00.000-05:00

Last week we had a lively discussion sparked by my meeting a mother who claimed her five and seven-year-old sons do all her family's laundry without any supervision on her part. Here's the consensus we seem to have reached: while it is very important for kids to have responsibilities so they don't go off to college not knowing how to turn a washer ON, it is also very important for them to be kids, and not do too much of the heavy lifting. But how to find that balance? How much is enough responsibility, how much is too much?

Last night, I was reading to Maggie from one of her very favorite story collections- the "Eloise Wilkin Golden Book Treasury," a collection of that author's apple-cheeked children first drawn fifty years ago. Maggie chose the story "We Help Mommy," and while I have read that story many times-- not just to her, but to myself, many moons ago-- last night I saw the book with new eyes. Won't you read along with me?

Here's the cover. Look at them, with their wee broom and dustpan, Sally in her starched apron! Maggie does that very thing with a play Dustbuster. Although it doesn't actually bust any dust.

They help their Mommy every day. Doesn't that sound nice? They take off their jammies without even being asked! (That's more than I can say about a certain six-year-old.)

Sweet Mother of God, is that three-year-old using a TOASTER while her four-year-old brother fries eggs on a hot plate? A hot plate which would be pulled from stores in 1962 after a rash of horrifying house fires? "You two are a big help," says Daddy, and by "help," he apparently means, "make my breakfast while I take my morning seat in the bathroom down the hall."

"Pull the sheet tight," Mommy says, standing in the doorway, in her kind-of-mad voice. Sally and Bobby pull until there's not a wrinkle left because the last time Mommy tried to bounce a quarter off her bed, and it didn't bounce, she made their tummies feel a little funny inside.

Then they dust and vacuum and mop, under all the furniture, EVERY DAY, while Mom surreptitiously texts her friend: "3 pm martinis my hous B THER."

Actually, it's a toy soldier in the mother's hand. But may I point out to you: that is the first toy we have seen in this narrative, and it is not being held by a child.

After that, it's a quick trip through the grocery store. Apples and raisins! Criminy, is it Christmas morning?

Then it's lunchtime. Sally and Bobby make their own sandwiches, and then, Slap! Mommy puts them together, sprinkling some ash from her cigarette on top. What yummy sandwiches!

It goes on from there: setting the table, washing the dishes, reorganizing the kitchen, doing a few loads of laundry (with parental supervision, it must be stated), hanging the wash out to dry on the line, the three-year-old with her mouth full of clothespins.

Soon, it is time for them to put away their books and toys, after their allotted "play time" from 5:57 to 6:00 p.m. Then they retire to their slave-barracks, where Daddy reappears just in time to tuck them in. "I'm so hungry, Daddy, "Sally tells him. "That's all right," Daddy responds, patting her arm. "I sure enjoyed the dinner you made for me. It was a delicious treat. For a servant's heart, that is its own reward." Sleep tight, Sally and Bobby! Tomorrow you have to beat the carpets and mulch the front lawn.

James Lileks is the king of reinterpreting found texts, and I owe him props here. If you've never read his work, start with his interpretation of the 1973 Sears catalogue.

is your dad funny?

2011-02-09T15:37:00.000-05:00

While in kindergarten, each of my sons has participated in a daily classroom poll, giving them a chance to state their opinions and practice writing their names in one fell swoop.

A few years ago, when Connor was five, the question was: Is your dad funny?

David was not amused, but his co-workers sure were (when I emailed them the photo).

Yesterday, it was Seamus's turn.

Now the kids are signing in on a Smart Board instead of a piece of paper, which is soooo 2008. (By the way, there is no kid named "Hug to" in my son's class; admittedly boys' names are getting a little more unusual these days, but that is the Smart Board deciding, in a Damn You Auto Correct sort of way, that "Hugo" was spelling his own name wrong.)

But while the times may have changed, the answer remains the same: my sons are in fervent agreement that their father is not funny.

"Shea, really? I'm not funny at ALL?" David asked this morning, with puppy-dog eyes.
Seamus considered his Raisin Bran, chewing thoughtfully.
"Nope," he said, all the more certain he had chosen correctly.

I'll admit my husband is no Jim Gaffigan, but he was pretty funny this morning, trying to prove that he was, and getting nowhere.

"What about Mom? Is she funny?" he asked, after trying a few silly dances, to no avail.

"Yep." "Uh huh," the boys agreed.

This is because I'll do anything for a laugh at my house. I'll do poop jokes at the dinner table. I'll belch and then pretend it was Maggie. I have no shame.

Still, it's a big relief, since I have a lot more of my self-esteem and career wrapped up in being funny than my husband does. But it bothers me that the teachers never ask if moms are funny. That's not even an expectation. They might ask "Is your mom a good cook?" but funny? Why, Christopher Hitchens settled that question way back in the pre-Smart-Board years: women aren't funny. Quod erat demonstrandum.

I would like to put Hitchens's theory to the test tomorrow, and settle this matter on the Smart Board once and for all. But. If Seamus said I wasn't funny, I might never recover.

Though it would be pretty funny.

If you're home tonight, please tune in to Blue Bloods on CBS at 10 pm. I play Elaine Carson, a mom who is having a regular day until her daughter gets kidnapped. I cry a LOT. Lucky me-- I got to play out every mother's worst nightmare!

Also, you may have noticed that I've installed "Disqus" commenting software on the blog, which allows things like threaded comments, meaning I can respond to comments individually- and so can you. It also makes it easier to comment-- and I think it's a big improvement. Hope you like it.

wait, a five-year-old can DO that?

2011-02-07T10:44:00.000-05:00

I recently had the chance to take a sneak peek at GE's new Profile washer and dryer while at the Blissdom conference. I'm not one who usually waxes on about appliances, and I'm sure you like me that way, so all I will say is this washer/dryer setup rocks and I want one.
Oh and they gave everyone who came to check them out free manicures and massages. So, there's that.

I was sitting next to another mom, soaking our cuticles in whatever's in those manicure bowls, and she said she wanted this particular washer because it pre-measures detergent. You just snap one of those econo-size Tides into the bottom compartment and you don't have to think about it for another hundred loads. (See what I mean?)

"My 5-year-old son puts too much detergent in," she said, "so that would help."

"You let him help you with the detergent?" I asked, smiling indulgently. "I bet he likes that."

"Nooo," she responded calmly. "My 5 and 7-year-olds do all our laundry."

My brain short-circuited.

"They... wash all the clothes?" I stammered.

She nodded.

"And you fold them?" I asked.

"No, they do," she answered.

(shocked silence)

"I mean, every family is different," she said, since I was clearly making her a little uncomfortable. "This is just what we do in our house--"

"Nn-no," I interrupted her, my mouth dry. "I think that's great. I just... had no idea that it was POSSIBLE."

I had her walk me through it all, just to make sure I was getting it right. Her kids sort the clothes. They wash the clothes (maybe with a little too much soap; she's not sure because she DOES NOT SUPERVISE). They dry the clothes. They fold the clothes, and put them in the laundry basket, and return them to their proper rooms.

I took over *some* of my family's laundry when I was thirteen, and my mother had my two younger sisters eleven months apart. I thought it was completely outrageous, at the time-- like how was I supposed to manage doing laundry when I was just a KID? But I did it. And here I was finding out that I could have been put on duty a whole lot sooner.

This has forced me to reconsider my 6 and 8-year-olds' chore load. They hang up their stuff when they get home from school, they scrape their dishes and put them in the dishwasher after dinner, and once in a while, I'll have them do a huge Tupperware sort or something. But they don't go near our washing machine, or our vacuum cleaner (though they do know their way around a Dustbuster). They don't shovel the sidewalks (we live in an apartment building, so we are all off the hook there). But what else could I have them doing around the house? We're not the Duggars; we manage without hard child labor. But maybe they should be doing it anyway.

I'm still trying to process this idea, that my kids may be capable of a lot more than I realize-- and not just around the house, either. Do your kids have responsibilities and jobs that some would consider beyond their years?

my new mantra: Do What Matters

2011-02-04T12:01:00.000-05:00

This week I was given an assignment: make a mantra for myself. I got this assignment because I signed up for an online course with Brené Brown, who I have probably talked up enough lately, so I'll just say the "Dream Lab" course is available here and it's not free, and it started almost a month ago, but I joined late too and I'm not sorry I did.

So my assignment was to find a mantra for my life, one that replaces the mantras I might have used in the past, words that represent the way I want to live my life going forward. Here it is:

do what matters

This year, I am going to try to life my life doing what matters.

I keep a running to-do list in a notebook (haven't found software as easy to use yet). I have columns marked to call, to email, errands, to do, to do online. I've just added another: do what matters.

I'm going to give more of my time and energy to things that matter-- to my kids, to my marriage, to my work, to me-- and less to things that don't.

When the kids are at school, and I sit down at the computer, I'm going to check my "do what matters" list before I go on Facebook.

Instead of spending an entire morning answering the first ten emails in my inbox (since the more emails I send, the more emails I get), I'm going to check for true emergencies, and then do one thing on my "do what matters" list before falling prey to the tyranny of the urgent.

Instead of hitting the couch with the remote as soon as the kids are in bed and getting caught up on the Real Housewives, once a week, I'm going to call a friend who lives far away, and get caught up on her life.

"Doing what matters" doesn't always have to mean being more productive.

It means I'll stop whatever I'm doing when my husband comes home from work, and take a moment to greet him with a hug.

It also means that when I drop my kids off at school and find out that they're celebrating Chinese New Year, I will stick around to watch Seamus sing (in Mandarin) about rabbits- even if I miss precious writing time.

More read-aloud time, more Monopoly, more art projects.

And probably fewer situps.

My friend Meagan Francis over at The Happiest Mom also declared a new mantra this week. Hers is: Do fewer things. Do them better.

I like that one too.

Do you have a mantra?

on Groundhog Day, and making my own early spring

2011-02-02T12:00:00.000-05:00

So does this winter blow chunks, or what? This Groundhog Day feels like this Groundhog Day: haven't we had this snowpocalypse already this winter, like a hundred times?

This was how I looked waiting for the bus this morning:

while my three kids skated around me, saying "wheee!" and "look at the icicles Mommy!" I mostly ignored them, except when I hissed to get off the snow RIGHT NOW because I do not have an extra pair of pants for all of you. I was getting drenched in frozen rain standing there at the bus stop, and if my kids were going to find a way to make it all fun, by God, I was going to be Mean and Cranky Mommy and squeeze all the joy right back out of it. There is nothing fun about this winter, nothing at all, and apparently Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow this morning, which means an early spring, but all you have to do is look out the window to know that that is complete and utter groundhog poop. It will be winter forever, it is going to precipitate on my head every morning at the bus stop, and the sun will never shine again.

I fear that Bill Murray wears this bad attitude better than I do.

There is always a silver lining: I am off to move Groundhog Day to the top of my Netflix queue, since it just might be the best movie ever. (Here's someone who agrees with me). And it's PG, and I think 6 and 8 just might be old enough to have a nascent appreciation of the genius of this motion picture. Just thinking about Seamus cuddled up with me on the couch, giggling helplessly, is melting my sleet-encrusted heart a tiny bit. Maybe spring really is on the way.

Are you doing anything to pick up your spirits during this long winter of our discontent?

join me for a live chat this Thursday

2011-02-01T14:18:00.000-05:00

I'll be chatting with the Cleveland members of momslikeme.com about When Did I Get Like This? this Thursday, Feb 3, at noon EST. If you'd like to join us, log on here. This is my first web chat so come ask me something really hard-hitting. All are welcome!

getting to Blissdom

2011-01-31T21:07:00.000-05:00

Last week I attended Blissdom, a conference for female bloggers, for the first time. I had been kind of on the fence about going until I heard that the opening keynote would be given by Brené Brown. Brown is a self-described "researcher/storyteller" who studies vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and shame. I saw her talk on ted.com a few months back, and it floored me. So much that I grabbed my husband sat him down, and watched it again with him right then. If you haven't seen it, check it out, I'll wait here.

Brown speaks so clearly about our need for human connection and how it is stymied, for every single one of us, by shame-- what Brown defines as our fear that we are not worthy of love and belonging. Walking into a conference where you know basically no one will certainly test your feelings of belonging. As I scanned the massive ballroom at breakfast on day one, looking for a friendly face not already engaged in conversation too animated to interrupt, the voice inside me said: Who do you think you are? Why did you come? You're not a real blogger. You don't belong here.

Then Brené got up in front of all of us, and said she too felt like an imposter, like she didn't belong up on stage, like she wanted to run. But at such moments, she argued, we need to be more authentically ourselves, not less, because the feeling of belonging can only come when we accept ourselves as we are. Because Brown’s presentation was the first thing we heard at the conference, all of us at Blissdom received a great gift: the freedom to be more honest, and authentic, and fully ourselves, for the rest of the conference, even when (especially when) we feared that vulnerability. I learned so much. I am so glad I went.

I came back from Blissdom just in time to attend my eight-year-old’s First Penance ceremony on Saturday morning. For you non-Catholics out there, this is the sacrament more popularly known as “Confession,” where you go into a small darkened room, kneel, and catalog your sins for the priest listening on the other side of the privacy-giving yet intimidating screen. When I was in Catholic school I went all the time, but it has been twenty years since I went to confession, and I have never missed it. The farther removed I became from it, the more archaic and unnecessary it seemed. Why say my sins out loud to some stranger? Why not make my peace directly with my higher power, resolve to do better, and move on?

One has to have had First Penance in order to receive First Communion, and so I had no hesitation as to whether my son should take part—but I did fear that, sensitive soul that he is, the stress of having to admit his faults to a faceless authority figure, and then say a memorized prayer or two to boot, might take its toll on him. We drilled his Act of Contrition on the way over in the cab. I hoped it wouldn’t be too horrible.

And then, once we got to the actual ceremony, surprise after surprise:

a play about God's joy when we return to God's flock, acted out by twenty giggling second graders.
a homily from a kindly priest who explained that just like beautiful snow (of which we have seen a LOT lately) can become dirty and yucky, so can our souls, due to sin. But while snow cannot be made clean again, we can be-- because God is our washing machine.

I’m sitting there thinking: God is a washing machine? My old-fashioned Catholic ideas of laundry tended more toward we poor humans attempting to scrub our dirty, dirty garments clean with a couple of rocks. And NEVER SUCCEEDING. Because they—we—were stained beyond repair, and only God’s mercy could save us, despite our dirty, dirty clothes. Now I was hearing that I wasn’t the washerwoman—I was the clothes, and being set free of the things that weighed me down could be nearly pleasant. Gentle cycle.

I watched Connor as he sat on the bench, waiting his turn in the confessional. Maybe a little nervous, but not really. Then he was gone, for two minutes, and then he came out, bounding toward us, free of his burdens. Light.

Brené Brown says she has discovered three truths about shame:

Everyone has it.
No one wants to talk about it.
The more you don't talk about it, the more you have it.

The corollary is that there's only one way to end shame: to speak it aloud. Telling our story, bringing it to light, can make the darkness go away. Watching my son walk toward me, so happy and free, I saw what Brown meant. My tectonics shifted a bit.

After the First Penance, a few more surprises:

refreshments! Coffee! Cookies! Munchkins!
Kelly Ripa was there.

That's the way life is in New York City: sometimes it's a real pain in the ass, but it's the only place to get really good black-and-whites, and maybe Kelly Ripa's kid is in your kid's First Penance class.

I actually talked to her for a few minutes. She is utterly lovely and approachable and authentic. She said that this wasn't at all how she remembered her First Penance being. "Mine either," I said. We both grinned. We were both happy at how things have changed.

Then David and I took Connor home and our whole family changed into snow pants and went sledding in Riverside Park. The hill was steep-- too steep, as far as this mother was concerned-- and quite icy, after the first few thousand toboggan runs.

My children's faces at the top: worried, vulnerable, not sure they were brave enough.

My children's faces at the bottom: euphoric, joyful, full of love and belonging as they pulled their sleds back up to the top to try again.

Another lesson in facing your fears and being richly rewarded in return.

Blissdom, indeed.

how to hold the attention of 38 kindergarteners

2011-01-25T16:41:00.000-05:00

Today, I stared down three-dozen-and-two five and six-year-olds, and survived.

It was "Creativity Week" at my children's school, and I had been asked to come in and speak to the kindergarteners (and the second graders) about how I use creativity in my work. One of the teachers took this photo this morning, and I thought I was pretty calm throughout my presentation, but pictures don't lie: I am clasping my hands together tightly enough to make diamonds. My knock-knees also suggest a certain unease. What you cannot see in this picture is my flop sweat. I tend to sweat a lot whenever I perform (or audition, unfortunately), and I guess today's presentation was a similar adrenaline-raiser, because I seriously had stains halfway down to my waist on both sides afterwards. I was supersized-spinning-class sweaty.

Thanks to all of you, though, and your excellent suggestions last week, I think I did pretty well. I went to the kindergarten first, and talked about what happens when authors were stuck for ideas. Some of them were apparently a little let down that I wasn't talking about life in Hollywood, because when I opened up the floor for questions, this was what I got:

-when people are eating in a movie, are they really eating?
-when people fight with swords in a movie, are they really swords?
-when people wear crowns in a movie, are they really metal?

The answers, in case you're wondering, are yes, sort of, and only if it's funded by a major studio.

Then we moved on to a "brainstorm" art project, one of but many excellent suggestions from my awesome readers. This one came from Lynnelle, an elementary school literacy teacher (hope I'm getting that right Lynnelle) who blogs at Bohemian Teacher. Lynnelle's blog is full of amazing ideas for teachers-- and moms with bored kids-- but the one I used was the "hand brainstorm," which Lynnelle attributes to Donald Graves' book "My Quick Writes: For Inside Writing."

All you do is trace your hand, then brainstorm all the things your hand has touched, or felt, or done. I loved this idea for kindergarteners because they could either write or draw their ideas, based on where they are at in their literacy journey. Here's the hand brainstorm I showed them:

It lists playing the piano (I used to), water skiing (once in high school), and my less successful visit to their class last month to make gingerbread cookies, among my other notable achievements. After a few hiccups with children in tears that they couldn't trace their hands prettily enough, and me gritting my teeth a little that that was not really the point of the exercise, everyone made their "hand brainstorms," and then those who felt so moved shared with the entire group.

I suggested they follow up with one of these ideas for their next "journal entry," which happens every week or so. Their teachers seemed pleased by that idea. Then I was on to second grade, and this post is already long enough, so I won't go into detail-- except to say that my 8-year-old gave me a big hug in front of his whole class afterward, which thrilled me, since I wasn't sure he'd even acknowledge my presence. So I figure that MUST have gone well.

Have any of you been "guest speakers" in your children's classrooms recently? How did it go?

how to teach creativity to kids: if anyone has any idea, please let me know

2011-01-21T13:02:00.000-05:00

"You're creative!" wrote my children's principal, in a cheery email to me a week or two ago. "Won't you join us for Creativity Week?" Well, that sounded fun! I may not be the mom you want around for gingerbread man-making, but I'm a artistic sort! Sure, sign me up! I responded, figuring I'd be helping pass out the cray-pas to the second graders some afternoon.

Here, a lesson: read all fine print before signing any contract. It was only after my casual acceptance that I learned what the honor of being chosen for Creativity Week really meant: my second grader's teacher hands me the reins for thirty minutes, during which I creatively teach seventeen children about being creative. "Let me know if you need anything," that teacher said kindly at pickup yesterday, and I wanted to say "um, a lesson plan would be good," but I get the sense that I'm supposed to show up with one of those.

Then I got an email last night, saying my other son's kindergarten class would love to have me also. Then this morning at dropoff, the kindergarten teacher told me that the other kindergarten would be there as well, and wasn't that a great idea? That's THIRTY-EIGHT CHILDREN in one room, which is such a bad idea, actually, that they have two kindergarten classes to keep the numbers under control- except for half an hour during Creativity Week, when they are someone else's problem.

I don't think my kids' teachers are going to LEAVE, necessarily. (God I hope not.) I do think they are putting way too much confidence in my abilities. I've worked some tough crowds- dads on Blackberries, moms who have downed a pitcher of margaritas each- but never forty five-year-olds who haven't played outside very much lately.

Sure, it can be done. Little Bill's dad spoke to his son's class, and turned what Little Bill feared would be a yawn-fest about life as a housing inspector into a fascinating exploration of the three little pigs and their citations for structural infirmities. But if you watch Little Bill, you know that he basically has like three other kids in his whole kindergarten class, so clearly any similarities to real life stop right there.

Panic leads to procrastination, so I don't have much so far, but I'm thinking for the second graders, I'll talk about how to make room for creativity in a life with way too much screen time, and then have them do a writing exercise or something. But the kindergarteners are harder: they can only "write" with one-on-one adult assistance, and we will be approximately thirty-four adults short. That means we will have to do "theater games," which I give five minutes tops before they devolve into "let's say 'poopy'" games. Hack choice, but always hilarious. Then I'll never get 'em back.

Anyone care to give me some words of advice about speaking to their kids' classes?

no truce in the Tiger Mother wars yet

2011-01-18T11:04:00.000-05:00

Despite Obama's stirring call for civility this past week, the battle rages on: those who are aghast at the Tiger Mother, and those who defend her principles at all costs. An anonymous commenter appeared on this blog just yesterday to throw down this gauntlet:

Say what you want, but the fact remains, asians score higher SAT scores, achieve more in college, and have a lower level of serving prison terms than most other "cultures" in America.

Taking personal responsibility for ones own success, as well as failures, certainly is almost unfathomable to the typical american mindset, and that's why the asian stats will remain superior to all others in the foreseeable future....

Having a fat kid should be the same as having a kid who is smoking pot, since the eventual rendevous with a brick wall by the addict, is essentially the same. Parents who consistently "break down" and buy their kids happy meals are weak.... You're weak. Your kids are fat. Your kids are mediocre in school. You don't have the will to make it change. Just be honest and say you're overwhelmed, or deal with it.

Don't point fingers at your betters and say, "well, they aren't as happy as we are," because on closer, honest examination, this will be a lie, and as many of you have experienced, families that lie, eventually disintegrate.

Support your family. Stop lying.

OK! OK! *sob* I have been lying. My kids are weak, fat, and mediocre in school.

Kidding. Actually, my 8-year-old can do 20 perfect pushups, my 6-year-old is so skinny you can see through him, and my 3-year-old runs her preschool (and the Upper West Side) with an iron, princess fist. All three of my children are strong, intelligent, and just-so sized. All of this has happened without me calling them names or depriving them of joy. All three of them are exactly where they should be, neither pushed nor pulled (except when it's three minutes after eight and they don't have their coats on).

Here's what I don't buy: I don't buy you either have successful, berated children, or loser, well-loved ones. I was the valedictorian of my high school class, and I have the softest pillow of a mother. I never strived to do better because I thought she'd break my dollhouse if I didn't. I was self-motivated. I was happy. I believe kids can be both.

I also don't buy that having a kid who plays Carnegie Hall, or goes to college when he's eight or whatever, is ipso facto better than having a kid who doesn't do those things-- and that is where the Tiger Mothers and the rest of us will probably never see eye to eye.

Ms. Chua has spent the last week furiously backpedaling on this essay, claiming that the excerpt is not the whole story of the book, and that some of it was meant to be a joke. I know too well what can happen when a news agency gives something you wrote a way-off, sensationalist title and throws you to the wolves. But when that happened to me, and I started getting the hate mail, I didn't try to argue "you didn't get it, I was just kidding." For better or worse, I figured that I wrote what I wrote. I needed to let it stand as is and take the heat. Saying "I was only joking," as the inimitable Seth Godin has explained, is "an incredibly lame excuse for a failed interaction." Plus, as Kate Zernike pointed out in her overview of this whole kerfuffle in the New York Times this past weekend, Ms. Chua's writing doesn't actually sound like she's kidding, and in interviews, she has seemed "unresolved" at best.

Part of me feels sorry for Ms. Chua, since she's apparently getting death threats, and part of me thinks she is crazy like a fox, since her book is currently #5 on Amazon. We're all talking about it, clearly people are buying it, and that conversation would not have happened if she hadn't thrown a grenade into the weekend section of the Wall Street Journal. Anyone who writes about parenting can tell you that such writing usually gets the eye roll. It might get a nod in the family section, but it's not going to be reviewed, and it's certainly not going to be given such prominent real estate in our nation's leading financial newspaper. The sad takeaway from this controversy, for authors, is that if you want to sell a book, you have to dial up your rhetoric, scorch the earth and point fingers, sensationalize and create controversy. The opposite of what all of us should want. If Chuck Schumer and Tom Coburn can sit together at the State of the Union, then mothers should be able to feel good about their parenting priorities without ripping down someone else's to get there-- or to get their book read.

(I must add a side note here to Ms. Zernike, should she read this: please acknowledge the authors of the blogs you quote in articles like this. Yes, they're great punchlines. But someone worked hard to write them. They're not anonymous scribblings, there for the taking. In fact, they're probably copyrighted.)

don't count your snow day before it... snows

2011-01-12T13:08:00.000-05:00

We were so totally supposed to have a snow day here in NYC today. I mean, it was going to snow all night, starting at 7 pm, and not finishing until noon today. No school FOR SURE, right? Outside chance of a two hour delay. But I mean come on.

I became a little too pre-attached to this outcome last night (always a mistake for a mother) and sold the kids hard on the whole inside-out and backwards pajamas thing. It is a belief widely held among kids of this generation that if you flip the jammies, a snow day will come. I love anything that has my kids believing in magic and hope and wishes really coming true. Therefore, since the weather reports had me certain Santa Snow would come through, I made them all change into their lucky pajamas as soon as we got home from school, scratchy backward collars and all. Then we pre-planned our morning: pancakes, Star Wars Monopoly, hot chocolate, Legos.

Maybe getting outside eventually, if and when we felt like it.

When my husband got home, he was so taken by our exciting snow day preparations, he declared that he would play hooky from work and take a snow day with us, since it would succeed! Yes, it would, indeed! 98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed!

I woke up around 6:15 am, the first in the house. Looked out the window. Huh. Not a LOT of snow. And not currently snowing.

Then I checked my Notify NYC text messages, which I love having on my phone because I get school closing info half an hour before the news channels are reporting it:

@NotifyNYC

NYC OEM

NYC public schools are open. All field trips are cancelled.

6 hours ago via web Favorite Retweet Reply

Field trips? No! But- no! There must be some mistake! I turned on the TV only to hear the announcer say, with a raised eyebrow, "New York City public schools are open today."

Even then I wasn't sure. I kept watching in case, you know, she'd get handed a piece of paper from off camera and say "we have breaking news! A further snow emergency has been declared..."

Connor shuffled into the kitchen. One look at his face and I knew: he knew.

"There's school," I said.

"I knew as soon as I looked out the window," he said. (Much less in denial than I was.)

"I'm going to work," David sighed. Magic morning? Cancelled.

I don't know why I'm so bummed that I didn't get a extra winter's day of three kids stuck in this apartment, rather than the pleasant silence I am currently enjoying before preschool pickup in fifteen minutes. I guess it's that the magic let them down-- and by extension, so did I, since I encouraged them so hard to believe.

There's one reason to keep hope alive, at least: according to this "Talk of the Nation" story, you're supposed to do the inside-out pajamas, NOT backwards, plus lick a spoon and put it under your pillow. I didn't know about the spoon. Next time we'll get it right.

Why this Chinese mother says she is better than the rest of us

2011-01-10T10:35:00.002-05:00

I don't usually look to the Wall Street Journal for a dose of parental perspective-skewing, but they printed a doozy over the weekend: an essay by law professor and mom Amy Chua explaining, for the record, Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior. I never felt like they were, necessarily; I can't say I gave it much thought at all. But Ms. Chua is here to tell us moms like her (Chinese or not) are right, and the rest of us are wrong. To wit:

The fact is that Chinese parents can do things that would seem unimaginable-- even legally actionable-- to Westerners. Chinese mothers can say to their daughters, "Hey fatty-- lose some weight."

Don't you wish you could do that, Western moms? Isn't that so clearly superior to the way you might do things?

By contrast, Western parents have to tiptoe around the issue, talking in terms of "health" and never ever mentioning the f-word, and their kids still end up in therapy for eating disorders and negative self-image.

Right. Whereas if you just berated and shamed your child yourself, rather than letting society do it, she'll still have an eating disorder but your own personal shame will prevent her from getting that embarrassing therapy, yet she'll be skinny enough to be perceived as perfect. Can you not see how much better that is?

How about grades? Are you screaming and tearing your hair out when your child comes home with B's? Well, WHY NOT? Get on the superlative Chinese program:

If their child doesn't get [A's], the Chinese parent assumes it's because the child didn't work hard enough. That's why the solution to sub-standard performance is always to excoriate, punish, and shame the child.

This essay is full of bons mots like these that will have you flipping back to the front of the paper to make sure you aren't reading The Onion. Yes, Ms. Chua's daughter has played Carnegie Hall. She also never went on a playdate or watched television. EVER. Not once. According to Ms. Chua. Wonder if the kid thinks it was worth the cost.

But let's not make the Chinese mother the enemy, because Ms. Chua thinks that's totally unfair:

There are all these new books out there portraying Asian mothers as scheming, callous, overdriven people indifferent to their kids' true interests.

Yeah, you authors, stereotyping Chinese mothers! Cut it out! There's no need for you to vilify mothers like Ms. Chua. She seems to be doing a pretty good job of it herself.

Thanks to sheposts.com for including this blog in its roundup of the blogosphere's response to Ms. Chua's essay. Check it out- more interesting reading...

New Nintendo 3DS! Now with permanent eyesight damage!

2011-01-03T11:43:00.000-05:00

This month, Nintendo plans to release its new 3DS player with a special bonus (mentioned in Japanese on their website): a "potential impact on the growth of children's eyes"! Hooray!

Because children under six have eyesight that is still developing, Nintendo recommends that they not use this system-- AT ALL-- unless they are playing it in boring old 2D mode. And no one, even adults, should play in 3D mode for longer than thirty minutes. (Which is totally fine because adults who play video games would never overdo it or anything, plus they always have their moms around to make them turn them off.)

So does Nintendo want me to think that my six-years-and-five-months-old son is totally in the clear? Can he play for say, eight minutes, then get off without screwing up his neural pathways for life? And what about when he leaves it around and my three-year-old picks it up? I mean, she's not an infant, so she's got a good forty safe seconds, right?

The Wall Street Journal's health blog is asking this morning whether this news will make parents less likely to buy this game system. I think not. Who reads warning labels? Hell, dropside cribs just got outlawed last week, and they've been smothering babies for years. No, I think Nintendo will bring this to market, and kids will beg their parents to buy it, and most of their parents will have no idea that it is a product that Nintendo is saying, up front, is an unsafe one.

Here's my question: does merely saying "this product will screw up your kids' eyesight" absolve Nintendo of any responsibility once that actually happens? Is the 3DS the next Happy Fun Ball?

And do you think maybe Nintendo shouldn't release this eye-warping product at all?

the amazing size of a three year old's bladder

2010-12-30T09:04:00.000-05:00

In these waning days of 2010, I have been taken to task by certain readers for not having posted at all during the Christmas season. This is not because of any shortage of reflection-worthy moments, but rather a dearth of moments in which to reflect. Nonetheless, my apologies.

Oh sure, Santa came and all that, but what's really been keeping me busy during these twelve days of Christmas is my daughter's bladder. Even though Maggie is barely three, she goes to preschool five days a week (world-savvy third child that she is), and so it has taken this extended stretch of no school no babysitter hard-core togetherness for me to realize that my daughter never goes to the bathroom.

Maggie can go sixteen hours without "making peeps" (as we call it around here) no problem. The only time there's trouble is when her mother gently broaches the topic that she should perhaps go and sit on the potty and "just see what happens." Then there is wailing and breath-holding and tantruming like it's 1999. Or like Rumpelstiltskin, who met his end in the version of the fairy tale that I read growing up by stomping his feet so hard the ground opened up beneath him and swallowed him up. Then he tore his own arms off.

Her extreme anxiety is of course probably caused by her bladder being so full she can't think straight. And her outlook on life usually improves immensely once she has voided herself. The challenge is getting her there. These are a few methods that have worked, if briefly:

-a phone call from Santa (me calling our house phone from my cell phone) saying she will not get her princess bike unless she sits on the potty for Mommy

-a princess bike from Santa with a note attached to it saying this means she now has to sit on the potty for Mommy

-a sudden, mock realization by me or her older brother Connor that her eyes are turning yellow because the peeps have backed up to her eyeballs (this sends her running to the bathroom)

But now the Santa thing is used up until next December, and I have a feeling she's catching on to the yellow eyes thing. Or she will as soon as it occurs to her to look in a mirror. Then I'll be back to the starting line.

Seamus was like this too, and I always take some comfort when I remember that I've gone through something before. Even if I can't recall how it ended, the point is that it DID end. I know the right answer is to make sitting on the potty part of a routine for my daughter, something that seems non-negotiable because we do it at the exact same times every day. Good luck doing that in this crazy house.

Anyone else have a kid with an amazing bladder?

how to throw a kick-ass LEGO birthday party

2010-12-16T15:59:00.000-05:00

I may not be much of a baker, but if you want to throw your kid a fun birthday party at home, come to Mama. Having 17 six year olds in one's apartment is not something I can necessarily recommend, but I have survived it. When Connor turned eight this month, despite my repeated suggestions that we have his party anywhere else but our apartment (a bowling alley? a movie theater?) he was adamant: he wanted a "house party" again this year. "I've already told everyone," he explained calmly. "It's going to be a LEGO party."

I had to admit, this seemed like a very good idea. I got a bunch of Legos out while his many guests arrived for his 7th birthday last year, and I had to tear most of the boys away from them 45 minutes later. They hold kids' attention; they have to sit down to use them; sounded good to me.

The only real requirement was lots more Legos, since most of my boys' collection has been fashioned into creations like this zoo--

which cover every surface in our home and must not ever, ever, be taken apart. Good news- my centerpieces were already complete. Bad news- I needed to restock. I had great luck on Ebay buying people's only slightly dusty collections of random Lego parts. Even on Ebay, Legos are not exactly a bargain, but I still spent a lot less buying two thousand or so of them than I would have taking a dozen kids to Chuck E. Cheese.

Connor assured me he and his friends would just build Legos the whole time, but I knew from past experience that Plans C through Z need to be complete, lest you have a pack of idle boys stirring up trouble in a home without a basement rec room or backyard. That's why I am so grateful to online resources like Under the Sycamore, another mom blog written by a truly spectacular photographer and crafty-minded mother. Seriously, her crafts and her pictures will make you feel quite inadequate, but she's got lots of great ideas- like using hot glue to make your gingerbread houses stick together. Not that I have a glue gun around.

Anyway, Ashley (author of that blog) threw a Lego party for her six-year-old, and it was from that jaw-droppingly perfect party post that I got the idea to print out Lego coloring sheets from the internet to have the guests color as they arrived.

By the time everyone got there, the party was already 25% over and no one was bleeding from the nose yet. Success!

We then dumped out the Legos and told the kids that they should build something awesome because there would be a contest. They took to this idea most enthusiastically, and came up with the idea that they should work in teams. They chose their teams peacefully and got to work.

They were really sweating the contest part, so I kept dropping hints that everyone would be a winner. The truth was, I had Lego minifigures for everyone, and my categories for judging had not been made up yet.

After half an hour or so of building, each team gave us a complicated description of their space station, or whatever it was they created, and I nodded solemnly, pretending to take copious notes. Then prizes were awarded, for categories such as Best Moving Parts, Best Pirate Ship, and Awesomest. As predicted, everyone was a winner.

From there, we were on to pizza and cake. I made a Lego cake. It was not pretty. Connor loved it anyway.

Just when the kids were starting to surf a sugar high, I pulled out my list of activities cribbed from LEGO.com and announced another contest: who could pick up the most Lego pieces with a pair of chopsticks in 30 seconds? 3 sets of chopsticks, 3 kids played at a time, and by the time they had all had a turn, the dads were ringing the doorbell for pickup. (Yes, all moms dropped off, all dads picked up. Seemed like a good system, even though I had nothing to do with it.)

On the way out, each kid got to take home a sizable chunk of their team creation and some Mad Libs, which have nothing to do with Legos but were a big hit.

And now we still have mountains of Legos to play with.

This was an easy party and the kids really seemed to love it. If you have a Lego lover, I recommend giving it a shot!

Anyone else still braving birthday parties at home?

Holidazed

2010-12-16T12:01:00.000-05:00

Are you ready to kick your neighborhood sanctimommy in the teeth this holiday season? Drop the tinsel and watch this hilarious video by Jen Singer from mommasaid.net.

>

Here's one choice selection:

"I have to finish putting up my Christmas trees."

"Trees? You have more than one?"

"Of course. One tree is for Santa. One represents my family's Irish, Native American, Chilean, and Tutsi heritage. One simply has white lights and candy canes. One is in my husband's bathroom."

Scarily accurate satire!