Flour on the Floor

Antique Curb Show

2016-05-04T17:35:00.000-05:00

Nine years ago, a medical exam table arrived on a truck of stuff from my husband’s OB/GYN father. It was part of a trio of furniture from his closing office--the other two pieces were sturdy cabinets with hidden drawers for cotton balls and tiny jars with old-timey typewritten labels saying things like “aromatic spirits” and “castor oil.” The solid wood exam table sported deco inlays and a leather top. The moment it arrived my husband began his campaign to dump it.

Found this similar table in a coal mining town museum.

My husband is what I would call a purger. I’m a saver. His heavy-handed culling makes me hold tighter. I made a case for the table: It’s antique! It’s valuable! It’s unique! I was like the guy who chained himself to a tree to stop its cutting--only somehow I’d tethered myself to a metal-stirruped table (let’s not dwell on that image).

Then last spring, as I was jockeying to keep our kids’ first Halloween costumes, my husband said, “We’d have more space for sentimentals if it weren’t for the table.” I had grown tired of my husband’s jokes about offering amateur exams in our basement and the thing hogged a lot of room. It was time. We attempted to donate the table to a medical museum. No thanks. We tried selling it online. No takers.

Luckily, once a year our town of Glencoe sponsors the wholesomely-titled “Spring Clean-up.” The name conjures images of windows open anew for the season and smiling neighbors beating dust from colorful rugs. We’re clearing out the winter darkness to make way for spring light.

The reality is that things hidden in attics and closets, items banned from the sight of even loving friends and family, are dragged outside for the whole neighborhood to see. For those weeks, it’s more than dirty laundry being aired--it’s bad taste and poor choices: a hot pink dress with giant shoulder pads, a neon Bud sign, long-ago broken-down wood dressers and dated entertainment centers. I spied a potty seat at the house of a family whose children are in college and an open-seamed frat house couch in front of another pristine home.

It’s one thing to note your neighbors’ (and your own) tendencies to hold things past usefulness, but it’s quite another to unveil antiquated medical equipment on your lawn. I worried that it’d look like we’d been conducting shady experiments or kinky sex parties. So while I said “Yes, it can go,” it was mostly lip service because I was pretty sure there was no way my husband would actually be able to move the hulking table out.

As I boxed up a collection of old tiles, an unshaven stranger in hiking boots strode down our basement stairs followed by my husband. He explained that the guy was there to help carry heavy items in exchange for first dibs. Our home has high light bulbs that need changing and a garage full of leaves and my husband was wasting his latent initiative on this!

The guy he brought down was an “early-bird picker”--someone who seeks out potentially-valuable items for stores, museums, designers or friends. As he looked around our basement--surveying a dusty hookah, an old carseat, and hundreds of CD’s by the likes of George Michael and Taco--I couldn’t help but feel he was being short-changed. I wanted to apologize to this man who was going to take our stuff for free. The two heaved the exam table up the stairs--speculum, forceps, and all. The picker returned to claim an old stereo complete with tape deck. .

There our table rested at the curb in all of its wood and metal glory, cold stirrups unfurled like spring leaves. My worry vacillated between hoping the table would get snatched before the gossip started and hoping it wouldn’t get taken by the metal guys who seem to have the town trip-wired to alert them when new stuff has been put out.

In the taxonomy of junk perusers, the metal guys are akin to the pickers. They hunt through our discards to make a living, but they lack a picker’s reverence for history. The metal collectors troll our streets in wide pick-up trucks teetering with precarious piles of rusted bike spokes, appliances, and lawn chairs--tetanus shots waiting to happen.

Our first year in town, we put out a old industrial work sink. I spun fantasies about it finding new life in a school art room or in an artist’s studio. Within moments our perfectly good, deep, usable sink was disassembled. Its legs were ripped off and its basin--broken in the process--was left behind. It looked like a crime scene. I started to hate the metal guys.

The following year, my husband dragged heavy-duty metal shelves from our garage at midnight. Within fifteen minutes they had disappeared into the darkness. The next morning as I was buckling our toddler into the car, a truck pulled up bearing our nine-foot shelves. When the driver asked if I lived there, I joked, “Yes but no returns.” He handed me a small magnetic compartment holding a key to our home. The prior owners must’ve latched it under a shelf.

The man could’ve broken into our home, thrown the key away, or sold it. But he returned it. I had made an offering and he made one back. I felt symbiotic joy.

Even so, I hoped that the exam table that my father-in-law and his own doctor father before him had used for five decades wouldn’t be reduced to merely parts. No, I was hoping for one of those cars that slowly troll our streets during our purging weeks, their windows rolled and brake lights ablaze. These amateur finders travel far to fill out their homes or wardrobes with our stuff and we count on them to cull before the trash trucks arrive. Every year after we put our things out, my daughter stands at the window waiting for a car door to open into our lawn then she smiles and yells, “We have a customer!” The scavengers make us feel better--our things will find a good home, we tell ourselves. I crossed my fingers that one would delight in our unusual offering and rescue it.

I wondered if there was anything I could do to make the exam table “show” better, to make it more enticing. One year I noticed that a friend had set up her donations like a store. Boxes were upside down with her husband’s shirts, shoes and ties laid on top in pleasing combinations. I was tempted to grab a tie, but it’s tricky to shop your own town. It’s fine if a friend gives you an evening purse she’s not into anymore but another thing altogether if you snag it from her yard. When it comes to possessions, there are unspoken rules between friends--you know: don’t buy the same pair of statement boots and there are things I will give a stranger that I will not give you. I learned that last one the hard way.

A few years ago, a friend of mine was redecorating and getting rid of a rug. I said I might take it off her hands and went home to measure my room. It wasn’t the exact rug I wanted and wasn’t the exact size I needed but would do as a placeholder and came from a good home. My friend was excited at my interest and said she’d give it to me--for $300. When I turned down the offer, she shrugged and said she’d put it out for Spring Clean-up.

When I told another friend the story, she said, “We have to drive by and pick up the rug.” We drove slowly past--casing the joint--and sure enough, there was a giant rolled-up rug on her lawn. We spilled out of the car giggling like schoolgirls about to TP a house. But it was just a piece of old carpeting.

What we keep, what we give away, how we offer it, how it is taken--our nature is revealed by our stuff. Last year, our “stuff” happened to be an exam table offered with breath held; it disappeared without me seeing who took it. Like the puppy I got as a girl then had to give away because of allergies--I prefer think of the table in a better place.

Finally Saying No

2015-12-17T16:03:00.001-06:00

I’m one foot in, one foot out. I go to temple with my husband and kids but won’t convert to Judaism. I was born in the south but lack an accent and Republican views. I’m adopted, related to my family but not genetically. Married, but still flirt. Some would say I’m open-minded; others would say noncommittal and indecisive. They’re all right. Or are they?

But there is one thing--one--that I’m all in on: saying yes.

I take opportunities; I try everything I can. And when it comes to the interests and dreams of those I love, my answer is always yes. Yes, try it. Yes, go for it. This bodes well for my husband. He rotates through flights of fancy like a teenage girl does boyfriends. He spent a year in college as a vegetarian before returning to full-fledged meat consumption then beginning his current trend as a “pescatarian.” He went for months not wearing underwear “just to try it out” and spent almost a year refusing to look at menus in favor of telling the server to “surprise me.” A stack of books on playing chess might grow on his nightstand before being replaced with poker tomes. Our garage holds a speed bike from his year of cycling while our basement houses his spandex. He drank gin exclusively then only tequila and now rye is his straight-up drink of choice.

I support him wholeheartedly, often showing him my allegiance in the form of gifts that say, “Even though this is [crazy, disgusting, silly, expensive], enjoy!” Like poker chips, a flask, an antique cigar lighter, a pipe--things that tell him that his gritty underside is just fine with me.

But a confluence of events has me questioning my accepting ways. About a year ago, my husband began talking about motorcycles. I listened quietly while thinking, “Sure, enjoy this dream now fickle boy, you’ll be onto something else by the time summer rolls around.” I didn’t object because I believed he’d never follow through. Instead, in true one-foot-out-fashion, I joked about pre-emptively shopping for hubby number two to take over when he gets a cycle. But we never had a real conversation about a bike.

In June, we took our kids on our annual road trip and ended up in Ithaca, New York where we happily spent our first two years of marriage. The four of us parked at Cornell and went into Willard Straight Hall--a magical space with soaring beamed ceilings and a fireplace with a hearth big enough to stage a one-act play.

It was the first time since my dad’s passing that I’d been in a place we’d once shared. Not even my own home fit the criteria. I had pictures of him in that very spot, inside the fireplace looking very serious and on the terrace taking in the hilly view. I stood rooted, overcome, tears streaming. My husband took me in his arms and said, “I know,” before I could say a word. He told me to take my time and took the kids outside while I sat in remembrance.

If you’re the product of divorced parents with a father who racked up as many wives as he did children (four of each), marriage can seem “nice for now.” I’ve loved and adored my husband without allowing the prospect of a long future together to unfold in my mind. I’ve been day-to-day. Yet in that moment, I felt the beautiful weight of our joint history and understood the depth of our bond. I realized that losing him isn’t something I can contemplate.

Two months later, I took the kids to visit my husband’s family in New Jersey and while I was gone, he took a motorcycle safety class. Hmmm, glad he’s planning to be safe with his imaginary motorcycle. Then, he texted me a photo of a bike. The location was familiar--cracked asphalt, beat-up garage door--the bike was sitting in our driveway! Ruh-roh.

Within days, he had “dropped” his new bike. That’s cycle-speak for “had an accident.” The language creates a deceptive distance the same way betting with chips at a casino instead of your own cold hard cash makes it easy to forget what’s on the line. The result of his drop was a broken collarbone.

A broken bone feels like a warning shot: proceed at your own peril. It turns out that it’s easier to live in a world of yes if you don’t fear loss; fear leads to “no.” When I got home from New Jersey, I told my husband that I was afraid of him getting injured, of him dying, of our kids spending their formative years without their father. My big finish was an urgent and moving call to action worthy of theme music, ba-ba-bum: “Sell the bike!”

He sat there, his shoulder at an odd, injured angle and said, “I’ve heard what you have to say.” Then he kept the bike.

In the months since, I’ve taken to viewing his black Motoguzzi V7 Classic as his mistress. “Guz” is a sexy Italian--a chromy curvy harbinger of doom. She lures my husband out of bed early in the morning for long winding rides through fall leaves. He sneaks out, turning my propensity to sleep late against me. I wake wondering if he’s okay. And our kids, instead of rising to the weekend smell of daddy’s homemade pancakes, wake to a roar in the driveway.

Our stalemate has caused me to ask my myself the big questions: What if his motorcycle keys go missing? What if my car accidentally tips the bike in the garage and it becomes unridable? Writing always helps me find answers so I penned a slight piece for a 30-word contest at Gotham Writer’s:

On Finally Accepting the Unpredictability of Life and

Giving Myself Wholeheartedly to the Man I Married Seventeen Years Ago

by Pamela Rothbard

He chooses now to buy a motorcycle.

When that didn’t quell my rising tide of anxiety, I wrote a pros and cons list, hoping to find a little positive in the situation:

PROS	CONS
He looks really awesome in his leather moto jacket and worn boots	Might result in major injury or death
	Might result in a minor injury that annoys the hell out of me (see: collarbone)
	Might normalize risky behavior for our children
	It’s expensive--what with the bike, the maintenance, and the subscription to “Iron and Air Magazine”
	My wasted time closing all of his open browser pages of rallys, rebuilt bikes and pics of craggy-faced old men happily riding roadsters (do parental controls work on pro-bike pages?)
	It’s hard to keep your daughter from dating bad boys when you accidentally married one

And now here I am, resurrecting my blog from its year-long slumber to write more; apparently when it comes to this topic, I’m prolific. I asked my husband a few questions in preparation for this post and he happily provided the answers, thrilled to be talking openly about Guz. He’s naively optimistic about what I might say. Others have plenty to say too--everyone has an opinion or a story for me. Their cousin/uncle/friend lost a foot/leg/life on a motorcycle. One doctor told me that at the hospital they call motorcyclists, “future organ donors.”

But the thing I’ve heard the most when I mention my hubby’s new purchase is “midlife crisis.” The assumption is that he’s chasing his youth--chasing it at 65 mph on the back of a bike. A friend of ours (who also happens to be a therapist) says that he thinks of a midlife crisis as nothing more than the cognitive recognition that our time is limited. It’s when we realize that, at best, we’re halfway through. This awareness can encourage us to do things we’ve put off, causing not panic but exhilaration in finally pursuing our dreams.

My husband similarly objects to the term “crisis” because he says he’s the happiest he’s ever been. Not just on his bike but in his job, marriage and family. Life is good, yet he’s risking it.

His midlife is causing a crisis for me though. Recently he was mooning over some beautiful hand-stitched leather cycle saddlebags; the old-Pamela would have wrapped them up for the holidays as a gesture of goodwill and acceptance. But I can’t make myself say yes this time. I want my husband have the opportunity to become whoever he is meant to be but I also want him around long enough to do it. He’ll be getting underwear this holiday season.

What I've Lost

2014-09-30T15:05:00.001-05:00

What do you call a dream-chasing, grudge-holding slicked hair salesman who’s always right? Dad. The same man was also incredibly witty, always up for anything, and a tender mush of a father. His dichotomies were Shakespearian--tragedy and comedy tightly rolled into one sharp-creased polyester pants-wearing man. That man passed away last month, leaving me fatherless.

Dad turned 90 this past January. His passing wasn’t a surprise given his age and the fact that he’d been in decline for years. Yet his loss, like all loss, still felt sudden and unexpected.

When I got the news, I couldn’t speak. My kids rushed to me and held me in a tight circle of small arms. Because Dad didn’t live near me and wasn’t part of my daily life, it didn’t really feel like he was gone. He could still be at the Veteran’s House in Charleston. I thought of him there, flirting with the nurses, making them laugh. Therapists would call this denial.

We were very patriotic.

As my post-divorce primary caregiver, Dad was the constant through my sensitive teen years--which is ironic given his inconsistencies. Dad was his own boss, his own man. He never suited up for a 9-5 job, choosing instead to be a distributor for network marketing companies. He hopped from one to the other in search of a payout. Financially, it was a bipolar existence.

Yet, I could count on Dad. As a high school sophomore, I was asked to the homecoming dance. At the time, our situation was bleak. We were spending our nights in an office complex in a family friend’s two-room rental that was between tenants. No phone; no television; no kitchen.

When I told Dad about the dance, he hugged me and said, “That’s great sweetie.” Great? We obviously had different definitions of the word. There was no way I could go. If the only place you can afford has you sleeping next to a copy machine, you don’t run out and buy a dress--even at fifteen, I knew that.

But that weekend, Dad steered his 1970 Caprice Classic toward a bridal store. “I came up with some money,” he said, “and you’re going to that dance.”

I stood in a circle of mirrors with a saleswoman gathering yards of extra fabric at my back so I could model each dress. I went with a powder-blue, square collared number (that made me look like Alice in Wonderland) because, when I put it on, Dad’s eyes filled with tears and he said, “You look like a vision.”

My memories of Dad are visceral. I remember the feel of his bony shoulders in a hug. The smell of Old Spice aftershave on his cheeks and the Halls cough drops he always had in his pocket. The tears that would well up whenever he saw me and the tears that came when he laughed hard and long at a story of his own telling. The way he danced his own two-step, shuffling his feet backward and forward, gesturing for me to join.

I worry now about what I will forget or what has already left me. What was his kiss on my cheek like? So wet it had to be wiped off? Dry and tight-lipped? Scratchy from his slight, fixed stubble? I don’t know.

Dad was already in his late 40’s when he and Mom adopted me. It was his second marriage and second family. This made him a generation removed from my friends’ fathers. He was from a time when dads were only called in to do the dirty work that followed, “Just wait till your father gets home!” But my dad was no part-timer--he was fully present.

Starting in middle school, at night I tried on the clothes I was going to wear the next day at school. Not one outfit, but two, three, four, complete with shoes and jewelry. Then I’d find Dad and make him pick his favorite. He’d look up from making dinner or scribbling out an order or washing the car and give an opinion. I never got a dismissive wave of his hand that they all looked fine.

I took Dad’s attentiveness for granted; I thought everyone had a dad who made them a hot breakfast every morning, handed them their clothes still warm from the iron, then sat and talked with them while they ate. I grew up thinking what I had to say was worth hearing because Dad was my listener.

When you have a parent who’s so much older, the fear of loss begins to make decisions for you: “Dad’s being a jerk but I’d better make up with him because you never know;” and “Let’s bring Dad here to visit again soon because it might be the last time he can travel;” and “I just called back because I forgot to say ‘I love you.’” Looming loss creates more kindness; it’s not a bad way to live.

But the flip side is the terrible waiting. Every single time my brother called me, my heart beat faster. When THE call finally came, I didn’t answer--as if avoiding the phone could reverse the sad news. I called back later but Dad was still gone.

My son told me, “I find sometimes the anticipation of something bad is the worst part. Now at least you just have all of your good memories.”

At one teenaged sleepover, Dad pulled all the cushions from the couch and even dragged in the mattress from my bed to make a giant bed on the floor for us girls. He made popcorn and gave us make-up kits from his leftover inventory. He always brought the fun.

The next morning, I was awakened by one of my friends screaming then laughing in our bathroom. She ran out, “There’s a chicken in your bathtub!”

My friends and I rushed down the hall--our hair in various stages of braiding, our make-up smeared, and our skinny legs tangling in the rush. There stood a five-foot papier-mâché chicken staring at us with pom-pom eyes. I turned to see Dad laughing in the doorway.

Apparently, our house had been toilet-papered the night before and the homecoming float prop had been left on our lawn. It was Dad who dragged that chicken into the bathroom and plopped a shower cap on his head for comedic effect.

Dad wore this shocked look the whole wedding.

Dementia long ago erased Dad’s memory of stories from my childhood; eventually he forgot my name too. On my last trip, his hair--that he had always preened like a peacock--had been given a buzz cut; his shirt usually pressed and tucked was loose and out; and my dad, who always strode ahead on to the next thing, was bound to a wheelchair. He was a man moving away from himself. And away from me. Theoretically, that should make this final loss easier. Theoretically.

On my wedding day, both my mom and dad walked me down the aisle. I was happy they had put aside their bad feelings toward each other. With a parent on each arm, it felt like I was holding onto my past as I strode toward my future. Mind you, all of these happy poetic thoughts were before we actually started walking.

When we began, people turned in their seats to watch. All eyes were on us. As we walked, I tried to match my parent’s steps but Mom was moving at a normal rate while Dad was so slow and faltering that I had to walk almost sideways, pulling Dad along behind me. It was awkward and unappealing--like walking down the aisle with a peg leg.

During our father/daughter dance, Dad and I swayed to Nat King and Natalie Cole crooning “Unforgettable.” Dad’s grip on me was nothing short of that a snake would give to a bunny. I could barely breathe. He didn’t dance as much as he held on for dear life.

A few days after Dad died, I was at the Atlantic City Boardwalk with my kids and my in-laws. They were all boarding bumper cars and my sister-in-law turned to ask if I was coming. Suddenly I couldn’t move. I was completely overcome by Dad’s absence. In that moment, I understood that Dad and I would never make any new memories together. This was the end of our story.

Happy grandpa.

I found a bench and started crying. Not pretty movie crying--but wracking sobs, dribbling mascara, running nose and strangers pulling their children away. Afterwards, my son said, “But I thought you were over it. You were laughing earlier today.” Oh, how I envy his innocence. I didn’t explain that grief isn’t linear, it isn’t a one-way train with some sunny destination; he’ll learn all of that on his own one awful day.

When I was born Dad began measuring his life alongside mine, adopting my milestones as his own. He said he just wanted to live long enough to see me graduate from high school. Once that marker was achieved, he wanted to be there when I became the first in our family to finish college. Then he wanted to walk me down the aisle and see me become a mother. That last one happened when he was 80. After that, he never recalibrated, never set a new goal. He seemed content that he’d seen me through.

We had more years together than either of us ever anticipated. But it wasn’t enough. It is never enough.

Aromatic Rice Pudding

Culinarily speaking, Dad was a hack. He’d say, “I’ve made you pancakes with fresh blueberries,” while a dented can with blueberry juice seeping down its side sat plainly on the counter. He was a fan of the over-processed, proudly serving canned ravioli and freely using Velveeta. His tastes were low brow and of the more-for-your-money variety. Oh the number of holidays we spent in buffet lines! He was like a catfish--willing to eat anything that crossed his path. But Dad’s favorite was a good pudding. This is for him.

10” square piece of cheesecloth

1/2 tsp allspice, whole

1 stick cinnamon

1 star anise, whole

1 bay leaf

3/4 cup good quality white rice

1 1/2 cups water

1/4 tsp salt

4 cups whole milk

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

Place the allspice, cinnamon, star anise, and bay leaf in center of cheesecloth and either tie opposite corners in a knot to hold items in sachet.

In a heavy saucepan, combine rice, water and salt. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat, then reduce to low, cover and simmer until the water has been absorbed, about 15 minutes.

Add milk, sugar, and sachet to pot. Cook, uncovered, over medium heat for 30-40 minutes. Stir frequently, especially towards the end of cooking. When rice and milk have formed a thick porridge, cooking is done. Do not overcook or pudding will be too firm when cooled.

Remove from heat and discard sachet. Add vanilla and stir. Serve warm, at room temperature, or cold.

Top with:

-dried cherries and cranberries that have been soaked in hot water for 20 minutes to reconstitute them; or

-a sprinkle of cinnamon; or

-whipped cream

This is my 50th post to Flour on the Floor! And my third one about my dad (see others here and here).

What else you might have missed on Flour on the Floor...
This time last year: 12 Days, 8 States, 2 Kids, 1 Me
Two years ago: Pampering Myself with a Closet-Cleanout
Three years ago: Pink Skin and Black Feet

Sibling Rivalry: It IS Fair

2014-08-31T10:28:00.003-05:00

Photo-bomb tears.

In a recent phone conversation with my 7-year old nephew, he asked what my kids have been up to. Then he paused and said, “And are they fighting?” I wasn’t sure if he meant in general or at that very moment but, no matter, the answer would be the same: Yes. My children are always fighting. And even their cousin who lives 1,000 miles away knows it.

I was raised as an only child. Though I had three half-brothers from my dad’s first marriage, by the time I was born they had all left home to join various branches of the service. They were more like holiday uncles than day-to-day brothers. I yearned for a brother or sister in the room next to mine. I imagined us as conspirators--playing games, harmonizing on pop songs and pulling one over on our folks. I wasn’t just conjuring a sibling, I was fabricating a best friend. During my moves and school changes and when my parents divorced, I imagined how much easier it would all be if I had a sibling to share it with. Joy doubled; trouble halved.

Oh, what a gift I thought I was giving my own children when I had two of them instead of just one!

When my daughter was little, she idolized my son. He did silly dances and made faces to make her giggle until she’d tip over. She was his best audience. But, when she started talking and wanting him to witness her shenanigans, things changed. He wasn’t the lead anymore--the show had become an ensemble.

Now, my kids fight so much that they often lose sight of where they started. When they sat down the other day to play Clue, just that act felt like a victory because it took so long to get there--after the negotiation of which activity they would do (bike riding? video games?) and then the dickering over which board game. Finally, agreement. As they unpacked the box, my daughter said, “I’ll only play if I can be purple.” My son erupted, “I’ve been Professor Plum since I was four! It’s my good luck piece and I’ll only play with that one.” That was it, forty-five minutes to get to the table and they quit over a color.

I told them, “You two are like a match and a firecracker, when you get together you have the potential to make beautiful lights but it usually just ends in burns and lost fingers.” My daughter thought about it for a while then asked which one she was. I said, “A firecracker--with a very short fuse.” She smiled. My son pumped his arm and said, “Yes! That’s means I’m the match.” They toddled off arm in arm happy with their respective dysfunctional roles.

On our recent road trip, my friend met up with me and my kids in our last stop city which meant we got to caravan home and my children chose to ride with her. After 12 days of travel and 32 hours in the car with my kids, I was finally alone. I made a phone call; I cranked the radio; I cursed just for the joy of it. Sixteen minutes later, my cell phone rang and my friend said, “You’re son’s yelling. You’re daughter’s bawling.”

We pulled into an abandoned parking lot and when my friend’s door opened, my kids’ voices blared like a too-loud radio: she’s stupid, I hate him, it’s my turn with the ipad, it’s not fair! That last one was repeated over and over. It’s not fair. It’s not fair--the mantra of angry siblings everywhere.

Play fighting always turns to real tears.

In fact, midway through that very trip, my husband had laid down a moratorium on the the phrase. If those three words were uttered then the offender immediately got a 10-minute time out. Those punishment-induced silences were some of the most harmonious moments of the whole trip. Then my son came up with new ways to say “it’s not fair” such as “there seems to be an uneven distribution of screen time” and “there’s been a miscarriage of justice!” (which he would pronounce with his pointer finger aloft).

My children’s fighting stresses me out much more than it does my husband. He has two younger sisters and got used to constant bickering a long time ago. He tells of the time he went into his sister’s room to get a board game and she found him there going through her things. She started screaming, “Get out! Get out!” He told his dad who gave the classic parental response, “Work it out.” So my husband, being resourceful and vindictive, went to his sister’s room and said, “Fine, you won’t give me my game, then I’ll just take something of yours for my room.” He proceeded to pluck photos of his sister with her friends from her bedroom wall. She jumped from her bed and smacked his arm. He yelled, “Dad, she hit me!” Voila, sis in trouble, game retrieved.

I often find myself in the position of trying to figure out exactly how much my 7 and 10 year olds can work out on their own. Do they still need my coaching? Am I intervening or interfering? When I do push them to handle it alone, I’m often called in again after things have escalated and then trying to sort out who did what when it’s being told through tears and stomping and yelling is nearly impossible.

This spring, I was so tired of the unrest in our home that I dragged both kids to a therapist. Together. She asked both children to come up with 3 frustrating and 5 wonderful things about their sibling (note the distribution of more positive to negative). Then they each picked just one thing they’d like the other to work on. The therapist smiled and asked a question that I would never ask, that can never be recovered from if answered incorrectly: “If you could have each other or a different sibling, which would you chose?” I held my breath. My son spoke first. I knew he would set the tone and I feared his honesty; he said, “I’d want her.” My daughter leapt from her seat and hugged him hard saying, “I’d want him too.”

Dancing in harmony.

Back home, my daughter, still basking in the gloam of her brother’s love, perched next to him as he played a video game. He turned and said, “Don’t you remember, the thing you’re supposed to work on is giving me space. Can you leave me alone please? Oh, and shut the door on your way out.” Cue tears and slammed door.

This summer, there was a ceasefire in the sibling war when my son went to sleep-away camp for four weeks. My daughter’s life suddenly quieted--free of accusations and blame, yelling and hurtful words. Within a day she was in despair. Part of the problem has always been that she loves her brother too much. She loves him the way a toddler loves a hamster--sweet verging on dangerous. Because she’s so intensely enamored, any little slight by him feels monumental. Conversely, any little acknowledgement is heaven.

A couple of weeks into the honeymoon period of their camp separation, our son asked in a letter how his sister was doing, then said, “Tell her I will go on a bike ride with her.” That was it--eleven words in twenty-seven days--and she was elated. When he got off the camp bus, she rushed first into his arms and he gladly hugged her. They snuggled into the backseat of the car on the way to dinner.

I smiled with dumb contentment; I just knew that a corner had been turned: a sister who missed her brother so much that she’d be willing to overlook small injustices and a more-mature brother returning with a newfound appreciation of his sister. At the table, both kids clamored to tell their summer stories and pretty soon interrupting turned to anger. That’s when, two hours after her brother’s return, our daughter yelled, “I wish you were back at camp!”

I was disappointed that our utopia had been upended so quickly; my husband shrugged, “It’s normal.” I’m beginning to realize that perhaps the biggest part of this problem is me. My need for harmony and my immediate bristle when I hear the kids speak coarsely to each other--it’s grounded in not having grown up with and, subsequently, grown past that sort of interaction. When I was a kid, my parents would say, “What do you want for dinner?” If I said, “Chinese,” we’d up and go to Kona Village. There were no dissenting opinions, no it’s not fair. I think maybe I’m the one that needs to learn to “work it out.”

Most everyone I know has siblings and tells crazy stories of adolescent arguments, time having worn off their rough edges, and we all laugh at the absurdity of childhood. Even those who report epic battles are friendly with their siblings now. If I reframe my thinking just a bit, it’s easy to see the benefit of all of the discord. My kids--and all kids with brothers and sisters at home--are engaging in a little “on-the-job” training for adulthood. They’re being forced to listen, share, negotiate, and compromise daily. While they’re still young and soft and somewhat malleable, they’re learning how to foster healthy relationships. I’ll try hard to remember that the next time I hear a slamming door.

Cooperation Cookies

My kids recently got along long enough to kick me out so they could bake their own cookies. My son was the chef and my daughter, his assistant. No tears were created in the making of these treats.

Cookie Base:
2 1/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup (two sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

What they added:
Butterscotch chocolate chips
White chocolate chips
Milk chocolate chips
Toffee chips
Semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt in a medium mixing bowl.

Cream the cooled, melted butter and sugars together in a large mixing bowl. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth. Stir in the flour mixture until just incorporated. Stir in whatever fixin's you want. My kids' choices are listed above but other good ideas are: mini-m&m's, shredded coconut, walnuts, pecans, dark (semi-sweet) chips.

Put the bowl in the refrigerator for 10 minutes to let the dough firm up. Drop dough by heaping tablespoons onto un-greased baking sheets (I use parchment or silpat to cut down on cleanup), leaving about 3-inches between each cookie.

Bake until golden around the edges and soft on top--about 9-11 minutes. Enjoy!

What you might have missed on Flour on the Floor...
This time last year: If Love is a Loaded Gun, What's Marriage?
Two years ago: (Sleep-Away) Camp Crumblers & (Sleep-Away) Camp Crumblers 2
Three years ago: Traveling Long Distances to Make Irish Soda Bread

A Mother's Day Love Note

2014-05-11T10:49:00.002-05:00

At times, I think my seven-year-old daughter would happily climb back into my womb just to be with me every moment of every day. At the dinner table, she starts with her chair a respectable distance from mine but by the end of the meal she has inched over until our chairs touch and she has one cheek on my chair. On Saturday nights as I’m getting ready to go out, she watches my every move and makes suggestions about which necklace or shoes I should wear. She says, “You’re so pretty I just can’t stand it.” Item by item, she asks if she can have everything I own (at one point suggesting she’d like to pluck the eyeballs right out of my head); by now she “pre-owns” half of my closet and even urges me not to wear certain things because she doesn’t want them ruined before they’re hers.

Other times, I’m fairly sure that if we were shipwrecked on a desert island, my daughter would eat me first and without hesitation. Her dad can make a comment about how silly she is but the moment that I laugh along, she turns on me with, “Mom, that’s mean!” He can order her upstairs to bed in a stern voice and she’ll comply but if I affect the same tone, she crumples and cries, “Why do you have to say it so mean?” I am measured against some different--higher--standard, as perhaps all mothers are.

To be sure, when I was a child, my mom was the center of my orbit. Until she wasn’t. When I was ten, my parents divorced and--in some manipulated-by-my-father turn of events that’s too lengthy to go into--my dad got custody of me. Prior to that, Dad had been a travelling salesman and gone most of the time. After he got custody, Dad up and moved the two of us to four states away from Mom. Suddenly I was thrust into life with a peripheral parent just as I was on the verge of my sensitive pre-teen years.

This meant that it was my dad rushing to the store and talking to me through the bathroom door when I started my period. I used his razor to shave my legs for the first time (sorry Dad). And he was the one who took me dress shopping for my first dance. I had questions: When does one even attempt a tampon? Do I shave above the knee? Is this dress too little-girl cutesy? I yearned for my mother.

Mom has told me how she used to go sit in the mall to watch girls my age flit about in their legwarmers and fluorescent tops (ah, the glory of eighties fashion). And how she would imagine what I was doing at that very moment as she cried into her food court soda. She yearned for me too.

Time with my mom was relegated to Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and six weeks each summer. She was mostly spared my angsty eye-rolling drama because time with her was too precious to sully with a contrary attitude. I was myself, yes, but my better self. I used to dress up for my flights to see her, secretly wanting to emerge from the jetway as someone she’d be proud to claim.

We spent evenings watching TV and taking turns doing each other’s hair just because it felt good to touch each other. We sang silly songs into a tape recorder and played it over and over to my stepfather’s smiling annoyance. She taught me how to dance the shag, how to take care of my skin, and how to make delicious peanut butter fudge (recipe below). But Mom got the CliffsNotes version of my childhood. She knew my friends, boyfriends, and teachers only as filtered through me. Though not purposefully, it was all curated. She knew what I wanted her to know.

Now that I have children, I realize that we all cull. We choose what to share. Even at seven, my daughter’s not an open book; rather she’s like a mystery novel--with pages torn out. She routinely scribbles in a diary then clamps it shut, her thoughts tucked safe. She starts stories then retracts them with, “Oh, never mind, I forgot I wasn’t going to tell you that.”

I understand. It wasn’t until I had children of my own, that I became completely open to my own mother. Because I knew how unconditional Mom’s love was, I could become totally vulnerable with her. Her support was necessary as I bumbled through the first days and months and--who am I kidding--years of new motherhood. I could tell Mom about my anxieties and fears without judgement. I could also count on her to put me first while I was busy rearranging my life around a demanding new little person.

It was my mom who stayed with me in the hospital after my post-birth health scare while my husband stayed home with our baby. When my son was hospitalized and we were all worried about him, it was my mom who was concerned about me too and the long hours I was spending at her grandson’s bedside. She was the one who caressed my head until I fell asleep in the uncomfortable hospital chair.

Having kids also caused me to view my parents as fully-realized people--thinking individuals who just happened to have children. As I age, I find myself measuring my life alongside my mom’s. When I started college, I thought of her thwarted desire to continue school and how she met my dad when she was only eighteen and was married with three step-sons by nineteen. When my son turned ten this past year, I imagined how it would feel to lose daily access to him and the pain of him potentially being moved far away from me. Even writing these words brings me to tears. When my grandmother--my mom’s mother--passed away ten years ago, my sadness at her loss was compounded by the awful reality that one day I will lose my own mother.

My grandmother loomed large in my childhood, helping me buy my first bra from the Sears catalog and sitting with me on nights I couldn’t sleep before the first day of school. The legacy continues when I see my mom and daughter interact. There is an undeniable connection there. One not only bred from familial connection but from a mutual understanding; they just get each other. When Mom comes to visit, my daughter begs for sleepovers with her and I awake to the sound of their whispers and giggles. They have some secret club that even I’m not a member of. What I am part of is a legacy of loving mothers.

As Mother’s Day nears, cruel geography again separates me and my mom. Our relationship has been one punctuated by intense visits and tearful goodbyes. It makes me grateful for the reliability of the chair that slowly scoots towards mine at every mealtime.

I can’t say it any better than author Anthony Doerr: "When you watch your kids begin to grow up, you cannot help but sense the impermanence of your own life more acutely; you cannot help but see how you are one link in a very long chain of parents and children, and that the best thing you have ever done and ever will do is to extend that chain.”

Happy Mother's Day to the wonderful women in my life!

MOM'S PEANUT BUTTER FUDGE

13oz. can evaporated milk
4 1/2 cups sugar
1lb 2oz jar plus 2 Tbl creamy peanut butter (Mom likes Jif)
1 jar marshmallow cream

Spray a glass lasagna-type pan with cooking spray.

Combine milk and sugar in large saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly. Start timer for 7 minutes just as mixture starts to boil. Must stir constantly or mix will burn "quick as a wink" (according to Mom).

Remove from heat and add the peanut butter and marshmallow cream to hot mixture. Pour into greased pan and allow to cool. Cut and eat.

Lying is a Policy Too

2014-01-29T15:15:00.001-06:00

When I had kids I vowed that I would do things differently than my dad had. Specifically, I would be honest. My dad was a master at fudging the facts. As a salesman, he had learned to simply omit details that didn’t support his point.

My dad--don't make eye contact, he'll sell you something.

He told my teachers and friend’s parents that they’d make a mint by investing in his business ventures without telling them that he hadn’t made a dime. They handed their money over to man wearing threadbare pants shiny from wear and shoes with soles affixed with superglue.

Dad told lies small and big--like “I’ll pay you back,” and “I do.” He told me mom left us when she really left him. He said our live-in nanny was there to take care of me when she was really there to take care of him. He promised each move we made would be our last though we moved nine times in the eight years I lived with him.

When I had children, I pledged that I would tell them the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I would be sincere and direct about everything. And I’ve tried, I really have. But I’ve discovered that day-to-day life with kids is full of half-truths and small lies. A little dishonesty greases the wheels of interaction; it moves things along. I can’t explain everything all the time. Lies are shorthand.

Things I’ve lied about in the past week alone (and their more-nuanced truths): your brother is going to bed right after you do (he stays up much, much later); you’re getting really good at money math (you can’t tell a quarter from a dime); these are the only choices for dinner (this is all I feel like making); I can’t keep playing legos because I’m so tired (I’m hungover); that song you just played on the piano sounds great (it doesn’t); we can’t afford it (we can, but we choose not to buy it for you). To appease my kids, I routinely laugh at unfunny jokes and listen intently to painfully dull stories---artifice is part of being a parent.

Or is it? My husband tells of his mom dragging him back out to the ticket booth between movies to pay for the next in their double feature and driving back to the store upon realizing she’d been given too much change. I’ve had my own experience with my mother-in-law’s honesty. Sometimes it’s a comfort and other times it stings. Once, when I gave her a birthday gift, she shrugged, and said simply “Thanks,” before going right back to brushing crumbs into her hand from the kitchen counter. She didn’t gussy up her gratitude with comments like “I love it” and “I can’t wait to wear it.” My sister-in-law commented that she liked the shirt I’d given and my mother-in-law, still standing in the spot where she’d opened it, said, “Do you want it?” Ouch. But, that day my mother-in-law became the person to ask if this dress is too tight or if this haircut flatters my face.

While it’s good to hear a forthright opinion, all truth all the time would be a painful reality. I’m sure my daughter doesn’t want to hear that I can see her underwear through her favorite leggings and that each time she bends over the big monkey face on her panties smiles at me through the thin fabric. And my son wouldn’t want to know that this year’s school photo is his worst yet with a glint off his glasses and his hair looking like it was just rubbed by a balloon.

Our society places a premium on morality with platitudes like “honesty is the best policy,” but lying has its place. We dodge to save feelings, to keep friends, to inspire confidence--all things that spring from love. Yet even if my intentions are good, telling lies around my kids is tricky. No sooner will I hang up the phone after saying I can’t join some activity because I don’t feel well (instead of the more hurtful “I don’t want to”) than I’ll look up to see my kids staring at me expectantly, waiting for a sneeze or cough. They hear everything. All this talk about the government prying into our personal lives? Well, the National Security Administration could learn a thing or two about snooping from my kids.

I recently complained to a friend about the difficulty of teaching kids that lying is wrong while also, well, lying and she said that she doesn’t think small lies are a big deal as long as we are emotionally honest. She recounted how her father had routinely misrepresented her age to save money at movies and diners but how she never doubted his honesty on topics of importance to her.

I like the idea of emotional honesty. It leaves room for both embellishment and candor. I can assure my kids that they have great singing voices (insert cringe here) while also straightforwardly answering their big life questions. When it comes to honesty with our kids, maybe the bigger questions are: how much truth can they handle? And when?

My son put me to the test when he was only four. He sat in the back of the car in his booster seat, his sneakered feet swinging, still years from touching the floor. He kicked my seat a little as he asked, “Mom, how are babies made?” I was glad that the thrum of movement and the distraction of passing signs and cars offered me a moment to think. It also gave me new empathy for my dad’s impulse to control what I knew to prevent me from gaining some information before I was ready for it (though I also know he often withheld to serve his own purposes too).

That day, on California’s highway 210, I was honest and evasive. I pushed aside the idea of the stork and looked into the rearview mirror to meet my son’s eyes, “It’s call conception. Have you ever heard that word?” He shook his head. He was an early reader, already devouring chapter books; he loved learning. I spelled “conception” for him. I asked him to repeat it. I took the focus off of the act and put it on the word. We drove on to school with him chanting “conception”--a novel word new in his mouth. It was enough. I waited years until the question came up again to share the explicit facts and emotional complexities of sex with him.

My son has evolved into the most honest person I know. He’ll admit to any misdeeds; his untold doings gnaw at him till he fesses up. He’s the proverbial open book--a frank autobiography. My daughter, on the other hand, is more like a mystery novel. She lies with ease. Like the day I found six pieces of chewed-up purple gum stuck to the hardwood floor behind the chair in her room; she stood there straight-faced with artificial grape breath and denied knowing anything about it. My daughter also happens to be our household's master at the bluffing card game B.S. (you might remember it from college with it’s longer, more profane title).

If only this picture captured who was eating it...

Recently I found a bowl of chocolate chips resting on our couch. Who in our house thinks a bowl full of chocolate is an okay snack? When questioned, my son unequivocally said, “It’s not mine.” My daughter started pulling from a bag of tricks that included avoiding eye contact (she focused intently on an ipad), over-explaining (“I don’t even like brown chocolate, I like white chocolate like you, Dad, that’s what you like right, right?”), and exaggerated shrugging to show that she was as clueless as we were about how those chips got there. She didn’t budge.

Before I knew it, I heard myself saying, “Well, the video on my phone will show who did it, I’d just prefer if one of you told the truth before I watched that.” That’s right, I attempted to extract the truth by using a lie as bait. I’m not proud of it. Commotion ensued. What?! Your phone was videoing us? Does it video us all the time? Does it have to be in the room? Do you have to be in the room? The questions got increasingly technical until I shut them down by saying, “If the snacker owns up by bedtime, they’ll be punished less than if they wait until I learn the truth on my own (presumably by watching the nonexistent video).” At tuck-in, my daughter said--so quietly it was barely discernible--“I did it.”

The day after her confession, I started feeling badly about my own lie. I didn’t want my children to believe they were under constant video surveillance--I know from living under their watchful gazes how cramped that might feel--so I confessed to my son. He was relieved and forgiving. I still haven’t told my daughter because I can too easily imagine her dredging it back up in her own defense: “But you lied too.” I don’t want to normalize dishonesty for her; therefore my lie stands.

We have to be honest to gain trust and build relationships but sometimes a sweet lie is better than the harsh truth; it’s all about context and intent. It’s a carefully choreographed dance that parents do--knowing when to step in and step back, making mistakes, starting over. My dad had plenty of mis-steps, but I'm realizing that parenting is more complex than I assumed when I was judging him.

Freud Needed at the BH&G Photo Shoot

2013-11-25T15:32:00.000-06:00

The Better Homes and Gardens photo shoot of our kitchen was a day and a half long--but what it revealed about my psyche will take much longer to sort through. When we bought our 1930’s home, it featured charming original attributes like a galley kitchen with cabinets that swelled open in the summer and stuck shut in the winter. The kitchen was so narrow that I had to turn sideways when my kids came charging through. It was not a place for gathering. And yet, we’d all shoehorn in there.

My husband first knew he was in trouble when I lugged home Mick DeGiulio’s “Kitchen Centric” book. It’s heavy and so stuffed with glossy design ideas that merely carrying it to the couch builds muscle. I’d sit with a cup of tea and dream, dream, dream. Then I’d scribble my ideas and wants into a notebook.

I started with the functions I’d like in a new kitchen (if you’ve read prior entries about my alphabetical spice organizing and my obsessive Disney planning, my need to list isn’t a surprise). I detailed things like: a place for kids to do homework; a baking area; low storage for kid’s snacks. My mistake was in leaving the list out in easy view. When I next saw it my husband had oh-so-helpfully added: a place to store food, a place to cook food, a place to eat food, and so on.

Now that we had a good list, we needed some help making it happen. Enter Houzz.com. It’s a home design website that a friend told me about it and I became instantly hooked. If you haven’t visited the site, finish this post first because once you go, you won’t come back. Houzz is a rabbit hole. I typed in “vintage white kitchen” and within minutes, I had opened seventeen tabs of lighting fixtures, countertops and old-timey knobs. I tagged kitchens I loved and soon I noticed something: many of them were by the same designer.

We met Rebekah Zaveloff and signed her for the design job before she could have second thoughts. 913 emails, 30 drawings, 8 months, and three ranges later, our new kitchen was complete. Rebekah then sent Megan, a photographer, over to record the results for her own portfolio and for my good pal, Houzz. The next time I heard from Megan, she was politely asking if she could pitch our kitchen remodel along with my blog as a magazine story. Um, let me think about it...two seconds later...Yes!

She emailed to say that Better Homes and Gardens: Kitchen and Bath was interested. The shoot was scheduled. Then rescheduled. Then rescheduled again with the new date almost one year from Megan’s first visit.

When Megan arrives on Friday, October 25th for the first day of shooting, I feel almost surprised to see her. The wait was so long for this event that it had ceased to seem real; sort of like losing your virginity. And, like first sex, the magazine shoot was exciting and humbling in equal measure.

It starts for me when I find myself obsessively preparing for the photo shoot. I clean the kitchen beyond reason, touch up spots where the paint is dinged, and throw out all of the “ugly” stuff in the fridge (even though its innards aren’t even on the planned photo list). I. Can’t. Stop.

Re-styling of my styling.

And that’s before I start “styling” the space--refilling my glass chocolate chip bins, buying the prettiest sweets for my grandmother’s candy dish, ridding the shelves of beat-up cookbooks, and swapping bland tortilla chips for a bright splash of Goldfish in the kid’s snack canisters. If my husband were here to witness my frenzy, he’d forcibly drag me from the kitchen. I’m glad he’s not though, because I just found a Cheez-it under the fridge. It’s a small, pathetic, nuclear-orange vindication.

When my daughter was first learning to make her bed, she wanted it just right. Not wanted--needed. She bawled over each wrinkle. She angrily tore the bed apart and started over. I would tell her it looked beautiful; that it doesn’t have to be perfect. As I crawl around the kitchen floor inspecting for crumbs, I realize that I haven’t set the best example in that department.

For the shoot, I was asked to bake so that the goodies can be used as props. I spend a day and night making: two apple-walnut cakes with caramel icing (recipe below); fat sugar-crusted blueberry muffins, and oversized sea salt chocolate chip cookies. When I usher Megan in, my kitchen looks great; I look as wired and overeager as Crazy Eyes from Orange is the New Black.

Welcome to my kitchen; I made a cake for you.

As Megan brings in prop after prop, my den starts to look like World Market. And little by little, my careful styling choices begin migrating from my kitchen into my dining room. Among the rejects: grandma’s candy dish, two chocolate chip bins (newly filled to the brim), and a teetering stack of cookbooks. Megan dumps the goldfish into a large Ziploc and replaces them with a more muted and healthy granola mix (that my kids would never actually eat). I feel like the novice model who shows up for her first day of work proudly having done her own makeup and is promptly handed a washcloth to scrub it off. It stings my pride a little.

As my kitchen’s non-photo-worthy items begin to fill the dining room, there seem to be more things out of my kitchen than in. The countertop does look better with ceramic bins of fresh blueberries. Different cookbooks take the place of mine--recipes from “Coyote Cafe” and “Canyon Ranch” representing wonderful places I’ve never been. My kitchen has ceased to be mine and has become a set--the sort of staged place where people pretend that their lives are better than ours. It looks great; makes me wish I had a kitchen like that.

The photographer Werner and his assistant Dustin arrive and more hours pass as they take test shots and make adjustments: show more sconce, straighten the stools, light on, light off, fix crooked towel, move the too-prominent dark utensil, swap droopy tulips for perky sunflowers. The first real photo isn’t snapped until almost four hours into the day.

At this point, my house is a mess--extra props everywhere and a tangle of wires leading to lights and computers. The viewfinder of the camera is a moving circle of beauty; when it scoots even an inch, the new space it points to is gussied while the bit it has left behind falls into disrepair. This bears true even in the micro-detail of the sunflowers--those facing the camera are giant and happy while the unphotographed ones at the back are droopy and only serving to hold the others in place. But what appears on those computer screens is art. It is my kitchen as gleaming and bright as it’s ever looked. The staged world is better than the real one; we all like our reality edited.

Tomorrow, my kids and I will be part of that “reality.” Megan begins reviewing my clothing choices for the next day. Pants, skirts, dresses and shoes are laid out on our pool table. Everything is too: bright, patterned, dark, white, baggy, red, casual, dressy. I make trip after trip upstairs carting options down. No. Nope. Not gonna work. It feels so personal, this combing through and rejection of the very clothing I own. Megan has successfully restyled my kitchen and it appears that I am next on the list.

When we finally agree on an outfit, I am ashamed to admit that I blurt out defensively, “For the record, I would never actually wear this outfit together like this with both the pants and top so loose and shapeless.” Megan responds with, “You might be glad to be wearing something more loose--the camera can catch some really unflattering side angles.” Touche. Now I’m left wondering what exactly she’s noticed about my side angles.

As she leaves for the day, Megan reminds me to iron all of the clothing selections. Iron? Oh, you mean that thing I use to melt Hama beads? Ever the procrastinator, I’m ironing the next morning as the kids and I are called to “the set.” We wriggle into our still-hot clothes as I offer some stern words to my kids: “Just for the next two hours I am asking you to be cooperative. Just listen and do what you’re told. Can you do that?” They both nod. My son is lying.

Kids and dogs. That’s the old joke, the retort to “What’s the hardest thing to photograph?” And yet, the very first picture taken that morning is a gorgeous one of my daughter perched on the library ladder with our Boston Terrier staring adoringly up at her. They are naturals and I feel pride as if they are some reflection of me.

Then my son is called into frame. He whines at having to put down his video game. He half-listens to the direction he’s given then immediately offers alternatives for “better” pictures. I shoot him a look and remind him to smile. He smiles that annoying grin of his that makes it hard to accuse him of non-compliance because after all he is smiling but it’s one that blares sarcasm, “You wanted a smile? Well, here it is.”

I use my grocery store voice, pleasant but delivered through clenched teeth, ”Sweetheart, please try to look like you are having fun. Or else.” Each time he’s called in for a photo, it’s the same sequence: complaining from him, threatening from me. By the end of the morning, I hate him. And I’m pretty sure the feeling is mutual.

My son has a few suggestions.

If I can swell at my daughter’s behavior on this day then I can also deflate at my son’s. I question my mothering skill. I wonder why I didn’t instill a better spirit of helpfulness in my child. I worry about the opinions of the strangers in my home.

When I later tell a friend about the process, he tells me not to take it so personally. He reminds me that, “They’re not interested in you; they’re interested in your kitchen.” And he’s right--the kitchen is the star; I’m a bit player included only because of my association, like the director’s cousin they let stand in the background as DeNiro robs a bank. I had allowed the role to go to my head.

My quest for perfection had pointed out all about me that is not. I felt frustrated at my inadequate props, closet, and worst of all, kids. That short day and a half exaggerated my worst traits and has left me with plenty to consider in terms of self-improvement.

The magazine editor lets me know that our kitchen will be featured in December--of, um, 2014. It gives me twelve months to take a step back and remember to give myself and those around me a break; to care less about what others think; to enjoy more and worry less. I have enough time to adjust my attitude before I get to gaze upon glossy images of my “perfect” kitchen and family.

The day after the shoot, my daughter and I bake cookies just for fun. And our family spends the afternoon playing games. We act silly and laugh. Those genuinely happy moments look a lot like the ones we tried to contrive for the cameras.

Betty Crocker’s Apple-Walnut Cake

2 cups packed brown sugar

1 1/2 cups vegetable oil

3 eggs

3 cups Gold Medal® all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground ginger

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1 cup chopped walnuts

2 large apples, peeled, shredded (about 2 cups)

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease 12-cup fluted tube cake pan with shortening; lightly flour.

In large bowl, beat brown sugar, oil and eggs with electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add remaining ingredients except walnuts and apples; beat on low speed until smooth. With spoon, gently stir in walnuts and apples. Spoon batter into pan.

Bake 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes or until toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Place heatproof plate upside down over pan; turn plate and pan over. Remove pan. Cool 30 minutes.

Caramel Icing

1/4 cup butter, cubed

1/2 packed brown sugar

1/3 cup heavy whipping cream

1 cup confectioner’s sugar

In a small saucepan, combine the butter, brown sugar, and cream. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat; cool for 5-10 minutes. Gradually beat in the confectioner’s sugar until smooth. Drizzle over cake.

12 Days, 8 States, 2 Kids, 1 Me

2013-09-12T10:42:00.002-05:00

“Are you (insert appropriate curse word here) crazy?” That’s what I hear when I tell my friends I’m going to take my kids on a road trip without my husband. A few say, “Good for you,” in the congratulatory yet pitying tone you might reserve for someone who has just announced they’re giving up technology or plan to do a 30-day lemon cleanse. One friend suggests that, since the FAA 3-ounce packing limits won’t apply, I bring lots of wine for the evenings. More than once I’m told, “You are my hero.” Jonas Salk for preventing polio; Neil Armstrong for his moonwalk; and me for traveling with my own kids.

The clear misgivings of those closest to me worm their way into my psyche. Am I the only one too crazy to see that this plan is crazy? I’ve carefully planned our trip with enough quirky stops to break up the monotony of hours on the road. Yet I do worry about specific things like sending my nine-year-old son into a rest stop bathroom alone, getting mugged in the parking lot of the West Virginia State Fair at night, and--my biggest fear of all--getting lost.

When I used to drive home from work, I’d get engaged in some train of thought or into belting out a song and the next thing you know I’d have missed my exit or gotten off at the wrong one altogether. I made that drive five days a week, twice a day, and still I got lost. Once, when my husband was working at the Sears Tower, I was headed into the city to meet him for dinner. On my way I got turned around and had to call him for directions. He responded with clear exasperation, “Look into the sky. Find the tallest building in the United States. Point your car towards it.” Click.

When my husband announces that he’s going to join me and the kids for the first two days of our trip (so that he can be part of our Cedar Point Amusement Park day), I’m filled with relief. It’s like a stay of execution. It doesn’t change the inevitable that at some point I’m going to be the lone adult with two under-tens driving around unfamiliar states and towns wandering out of GPS range, but it delays it.

We don’t have family in the Midwest so for holidays and vacations, we often fly. I find packing for our car trip to be easier--you can pretty much cram as many liquids, sharp objects, and aerosol cans as you want into any size bag. The whole feel of this trip is different. When you drag children onto a plane, you imply that the destination is the goal and you’ve chosen the quickest way to get there. When you drag them into a car for two weeks, you make a different declaration: there’s value in the journey. You have set your sights on discovering the hidden gems, stumbling into the happy unknown, and embracing the zen-like qualities of the open road. Good for you. You poor, poor fool.

My own childhood was chock full of road trips. Mom lived in North Carolina and Dad in Florida; our tires burned a rut between the two states. Those were the days of Fuzzbusters and CB Radios (my handle was “Sweet Cotton”) and before my dad trusted seatbelts. It was a free-floating, soda-drinking, fast-food-eating good time. Time dragged, yes, but that boredom bred real conversation, silly games and earnest harmonizing with Debby Boone and Dolly Parton. I know everything seems better in my misty-eyed memories, but worst case, even if this trip is a disaster, my kids will likely remember it fondly in 30 years. Best case, I get some of that unstructured bonding with my children. After all, the chants of bored children rising up from the back seat, the choruses of “Are we there yet” and “I need to go to the bathroom” are an essential song on the soundtrack of parenthood.

Our road trip begins on a sunny Monday. The kids are thanking us over and over. Birds are singing. Flowers blooming. The glint from Chicago’s skyscrapers is blinding as we speed past. Look at all of those suckers stuck in those cubes working while we hit the open road. Whoo hoo!

Within an hour, we devolve. Everyone is interrupting everyone. Turn that song up. Can you stop singing, you’re ruining the song. It’s no fair that he’s on the sunny side. Be quiet, I’m reading. She ate the last Pirate Booty. Where do I turn next? Where do I turn next? Where do I turn next? Then it happens: my husband loses it. EVERYONE QUIET NOW! We all freeze. He takes a deep breath and explains, “I need directions from mommy and I can’t hear her with all of the bickering.” My daughter starts crying.

We’re not even out of Illinois yet. How likely is it that I’ll hold it together for 12 days? I’m no oddsmaker but I can tell you where to put your money on that one. But then I also think, hmmm, he’s yelling before we leave the city limits--I think I can do this better. I’m sure that at some point, I’ll lose my temper, but I can hold out longer than this guy.

The two days with my husband pass quickly. We laugh and ride coasters and have fun. Then the moment comes when I pull into the “Departures” gate at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and drop him off. As we get back onto the highway and it’s just me and the kids I feel something unexpected: Freedom. Now if I could only ditch these kids.

We pass a sign that reads, “After you die, you will meet God” and we’re in West Virginia, three states from where we started, and it’s my show now. The kids ask to stop at McDonalds. Yes. They want soda. Yes. They want to watch Teen Beach Movie for the fourth time. Yes. Everyday at home, I tell my children what they can’t do--snack before dinner, watch TV before doing homework, wrestle each other--but suddenly we’re in a world of yes. It feels good. At one point, we’re driving along, all three singing in unison to Maroon 5’s Love Somebody and I feel so very lucky. It’s my magic moment.

As we age, we jade. This trip gives me a chance to see the world through my kids eyes. At this point, a hotel room has to be pretty fancy or different to impress me. For my kids, any room with a bed they haven’t slept in is exciting. Two beds close enough to jump back and forth on! We all get to sleep in the same room! A safe that can be locked and unlocked 72 times! The fun is endless. They also love towels that have been twisted into swans, crabs, and frogs. My daughter sheds actual tears when I untwist a fan-shaped washcloth to use it. The windmill fields we pass that generate power also fuel awe in our car. Every cow, horse, sheep or goat merits a point out the window.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all roses and daisies; there are plenty of tough spells. We pit-stop so many times in Ohio that I begin to understand that woman who drove from Texas to Florida in Depends--slapping some diapers on those backseat jokers in order to make up some time suddenly seems reasonable. Midway through Virginia, my kids announce that every third time I curse, they’re going to put me in time out. I discover that I don’t mind time out. By Tennessee, I start to answer “Are we there yet?” with “Yes,” no matter where we actually are. And after one rough morning involving a credit card left at a restaurant, a 3DS game system left at a hotel, and scalding tea spilled on my arm, I sit in a North Carolina parking lot and cry.

Along the way, my kids learn: how to steer a horse and buggy, that the West Virginia State Fair is just like the Wisconsin State Fair (but with accents), how to line dance, that bats will fly at you when you enter their cave, how furniture is gold-leafed, what it’s like inside a coal mine, and how Louisville Slugger bats are made. I learn: that my fears were unfounded, that I should trust my own instincts more, and the lyrics to every song in Teen Beach Movie.

For me, the trip was worth all the bumps in the road (bad pun intended). But I had to short my kids two weeks of summer camp to make it happen. I wonder if my kids enjoyed it more than twice-a-day swims and popsicles. I don’t have to wonder for long. The day after we return home my son asks, “Can we go on a road trip again next year?” He’s already planning our 2014 drive to Florida.

Our time on the road gave me the opportunity to appreciate who my children are becoming. When you first have kids so much time is devoted to business. Sleep schedules. Nutrition. Manners. Values. Then something happens. These babies we’ve labored over, poured our lives into, suddenly become people. And, if we’re lucky, they become people we like being around. People who surprise us and make us laugh and think. We don’t always make the unscheduled, untethered time to notice and appreciate each other. It’s the journey that makes us grow.

If Love is a Loaded Gun, What is Marriage?

2013-07-19T10:58:00.001-05:00

Seventeen years ago, I met a stranger in the park. It was a Saturday and I was on the shore of Lake Ivanhoe in Orlando trying to get some sun before going out with friends that night as a newly-single. Six days prior I had broken off a year-long engagement. I wasn’t looking to meet anyone when a guy started playing fetch with my poodle--that’s no euphemism, the dog my ex had given me was running around unleashed in and out of the water, a soggy, sandy, poodle mess. His ball whizzed past me and I looked up to see a scruffy guy I didn’t know bending down to wait for my dog to bring it back.

He caught my eye and asked if the pup was mine; considering that we were the only two people in that part of the park, it was a pretty safe bet. He started talking to me and finally asked if he could sit down. As I sat there in my bikini, my first thought was: crap, I haven’t shaved. My second thought was: how quickly can I reach the keychain tear-gas in my bag? We struck up a great conversation about grad school (I was days from finishing my Master’s) and Boston (he had just moved to Florida from there). Nine months later we were engaged.

It was a short courtship but I had no doubts about marrying him. What I did have doubts about was how long it would last. It wasn’t Austin-specific, it was just the way I had learned to approach all romantic relationships--as short-term and fun while they lasted. It’s not you, it’s me. We planned our wedding with me all the while thinking, “He’ll make a nice first husband.”

I was not a little girl who cut out pictures of wedding dresses or scribbled my first name with different boys’ last names. My Barbie and Ken never tied the knot; they were perpetually dating, him needing to work to keep her interested. My list of crushes was too long for even my best friends to remember.

I didn’t imagine marriage as something aspirational. I’m logic-driven and there were just too many data points suggesting a weak link between matrimony and long-term happiness. In the early eighties, the United States divorce rate hit its peak. My parents contributed to that statistic when they split In 1981. In fact, my entire family was a mixed mess of marital examples. One brother married before I was born and has stayed that way while the other strode the aisle five times. My mom remarried only to be widowed while my dad said, “I do” four times.

Overall, it seemed that there were so many ways for things to go wrong and so few ways to get it right. What are the odds that over a lifetime you will grow and develop at the exact same rate and in the same direction as the person that you chose so many years ago? Undoubtedly, the characteristics you look for in a partner in your 20’s are different than those you’ll want later. Being compatible before life applies pressure--when it’s light-hearted fun and late nights and starting new careers--is much easier. But years pass and parents age, kids get sick, jobs are lost; this is when true nature is developed or revealed. By then it’s too late, you’re already married.

When I confessed to my dad that I didn’t have much faith in the idea of growing old with someone, he said, “Sweetheart, marriage is wonderful,” before smiling and adding, “In fact, I like it so much I just keep doing it over and over again!” I marveled that Dad could still be so hopeful about the enterprise; it seemed foolhardy. I feared ending up like him. I maintained control in my relationships, choosing men that I thought were incapable of hurting me, giving less than I got, loving less than I was loved.

I read once that love is like a loaded gun that you hand to someone else, telling them, “Shoot me if you must.” I think it accurately conveys the vulnerability and leap of faith (and with those statistics, the leap past common sense) necessary. I joked to my boyfriend at the time that I’d hand over the gun but only while secretly wearing a bulletproof vest. He corrected me and said, “Really you’re just wearing a ghost shirt.” Um, okay. I had to look that one up (I do so love the smart ones!), to discover he was referring to clothing that the Lakota Sioux wore into battle that purported to provide spiritual protection from bullets; more than 150 Sioux died in battle wearing them. My boyfriend was telling me that though I could fool myself, I wasn’t really protected from loving deeply.

Fifteen years into my marriage, I know that he was right. I’m still a little gun-shy--I don’t forecast too far into the future but I also can’t imagine my life without my husband. Like my girlhood Ken doll, Austin still woos. He makes me laugh and think. We stay up late sharing conversations after parties, filling each other in; we play games and trash talk each other relentlessly; we make up funny new lyrics to pop songs and dance with our kids; we have inside-jokes and serious talks. He’s still my best audience--I am my most smart, funny, silly, pretty, happy self when I am with him. And though I don’t think about 10 or 20 years from now, everyday I keep choosing him over and over again.

The same week that we celebrated 15 years, my writing group leaders, Steve and Sharon, toasted their 30th. Being around them and seeing the pleasure they take in each other’s company, their give and take of ideas, their laughter and eye-rolling, it’s easy to see how 15 years becomes 30 and eventually a lifetime. They are a good example.

I’ve spent just about every Tuesday night of the past four years in Steve and Sharon’s living room, drinking up their tea and encouragement. It’s only fitting that I finally bake for them. And what dessert to better evoke nuptial bliss than a mock wedding cake? I make Baking Illustrated’s classic white layer cake with butter frosting and raspberry almond filling (recipe below). Wedding cakes are traditionally white to signify purity. But let’s face it, after thirty years of marriage, everyone’s bound to be a little bit sullied. Even more reason to eat cake.

Before you glance at the photo of the finished cake I produced, allow me to offer a disclaimer: I have no idea how to use the decorating kit my son got me. None. That’s why my cake yielded the following questions:

-"Why does it say 3-D?”

-"OM as in the meditation chant?”

-"What does OE stand for?”

-"Mom, can’t you make anything but those little stars?”

My response is the same for all: that sounds like a question someone who doesn’t want a piece of cake would ask. When I present the dessert at our writing group, Sharon says that she and Steve never actually had a wedding cake. I’m so happy to be able to offer this innocently white and deceptively delicious stand-in. They send me home with some leftovers which I spend the next three days eating. Isn’t that a perk of wedlock--not worrying as much about how you look?

Marriage, with its mix of joy and compromise, takes work. Every milestone is hard-earned--Steven and Sharon’s, mine and Austin’s. It’s impossible to predict the person I would have become without Austin’s tender guidance. So I tentatively say to my ever-patient, ever-loving husband, “Here’s to another 15, my love.”

Classic White Layer Cake with Butter Frosting and Raspberry Almond Filling

ingredients

Cake-
2 1/4 cups flour, plus more for dusting the pans
1 cup whole milk, at room temperature
6 large egg whites, at room temperature
2 teaspoons almond extract (or slightly less to taste)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon table salt
12 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened but still cool

Frosting -
16 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened but still cool
4 cups confectioner's sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon whole milk
pinch table salt
extra sliced almonds for garnish

Filling -
1/2 cup blanched slivered almonds, toasted and coarsely chopped
1/3 cup seedless raspberry jam

preparation

1. Set oven rack in middle position and pre-heat to 350.

2. Spray 2 9-inch cake pans with non-stick spray, place parchment rounds on bottom of pans, spray parchment rounds, and dust whole pans with flour, tapping out excess (I used non-stick spray with flour)

3. Pour milk, egg whites, and extracts in 2-cup measure, mix with fork until blended
4. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in bowl of electric mixer at slow speed. Add butter, continue beating at slow speed until mixture resembles moist crumbs.

5. Add all but 1/2 Cup of milk mixture and beat at medium speed for 1 1/2 minutes. Add remaining 1/2 Cup of milk mixture and beat 30 seconds more. Scrape down sides and beat another 20 seconds on medium.

6. Divide batter evenly between 2 pans, making sure batter is spread to sides and top is smooth. Arrange pans at least 3 inches apart and bake until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, about 23-25 minutes

7. Let the cakes rest 3 minutes, loosen cake from sides of pan if necessary and invert onto wire racks. Reinvert and let cool completely, about 1 1/2 hour.

8. For the Frosting: Beat butter, confectioners' sugar, vanilla, milk, and salt in bowl of electric mixer at slow speed until sugar is moistened. Increase speed to medium-high, beat, stopping twice to scrape down bowl, until creamy and fluffy, about 1 1/2 minutes. Avoid overbeating

9. For the Filling: Combine 1/2 cup of frosting with the toasted chopped almonds and spread over the first layer. Carefully spread the jam on top, then cover with second cake layer. Spread frosting over top and sides of assembled cake. If enough frosting left over, pipe around perimeter of cake at base and top.

No Gluten, No Dairy, No Taste?

2013-06-28T12:51:00.002-05:00

A little over a year ago, I was driving my daughter and her friend from ballet to pre-school. They were in the backseat dying from hunger so I passed back packets of mini-Ritz crackers stuffed with something masquerading as cheese. A few minutes later my daughter’s friend said, “Why do my crackers have peanut butter in them?” and immediately began gagging. I swerved to the side of the road and launched myself into the backseat like Nadia Comaneci.

The little girl had a nut allergy and was already crying and saying her throat itched. I fished in her backpack to pull out her allergy kit--Benedryl and an epipen. Allergies are not to be dithered with but as I imagined jamming a needle into her tiny thigh, I realized that I needed to suss how serious the situation was. After all, kids overreact when adults overreact and there I was blocking traffic and straddling the car’s center console with a Ritz stuck to my thigh. If I saw that, I’d cry too.

So I did what smart moms do--told a small lie to get at the big truth. I gave her the Benedryl and told her that it would work immediately. She dutifully swallowed, took a deep breath and said she was all better. No itching? No throat closing? No emergency room? Whew. With the epipen resheathed and the girls already happily singing along to a pop song, we continued on to school, my hands shaking and heart racing.

My daughter’s play-dates often come with dietary instructions. Kids are dropped off with hugs and epipens. You need a decision tree to give a snack. I’m almost exclusively offering fruit.

Childhood food allergies have been on the rise for the last fifteen years. Luckily, many kids outgrow them--my son shed his toddler egg allergy. But I’m noticing another trend, one with my adult friends: a combination of food sensitivities, religious dictates, health-based choices, and cause/ethics decisions that make dining out tough and hosting a dinner party nearly impossible.

Among the friends I regularly dine with, eating restrictions run the gamut--gluten-free, vegetarian, dairy-free and kosher. My gluten-free pals bring their own vodka to parties, a kosher friend relaxes her rules when not in her own house, and my vegetarian buddy ate meat when pregnant. Frankly, it’s hard to keep track and sometimes it can feel a bit arbitrary.

Full disclosure: I count myself on that list of discretionary eaters. In 1998, after reading about how bright pigs are, I gave up pork; my husband suggested I give up reading instead. He was in no position to judge having quit all meat for a year after waking up with a self-described “meat hangover” in college. For me, it suddenly didn’t feel right to eat something smarter than my poodle. I gave up beef a few months later when a cow stared at me with big, sweet, baleful eyes that said, “Hi there, wouldn’t I make a nice pet?” In lieu of buying a farm, I stopped eating her friends.

That year at the holidays, I dug into Mom’s chili until I noticed chunks of ground meat swimming with the beans. I pressed Mom, “Um, this isn’t beef, is it?” She shooed the air with her hand as if brushing away my concerns, “Oh yes, honey, it’s okay, just a little bit adds so much flavor.” As I said that no, a little bit isn’t okay, my grandmother broke in incredulous, “Not even in chili?” I could only imagine how my refusal of pork gravy on my biscuits the next morning was going to rock their worlds.

We eat certain dishes to tie us to our families and to carry on tradition (that’s why gefilte fish goes uneaten 364 days a year). Our personal histories are laced with meals shared. The table is where we gather with friends and family. We learn about each other as we pass the bread basket or split a dessert.

At its heart, eating is social. Those little girls in the backseat sharing crackers? Social. As we age, our tastes, our beliefs, our bodies, and food fads change. Going to dinner together can get complicated. Sometimes our food rules can impose upon these situations, creating an environment of accommodation instead of conversation.

Recently we went to dinner with another couple; he keeps kosher, she’s a vegetarian, and I still don’t eat pork. As we sat down and perused the “sharing menu,” all of our talk focused on what we could and couldn’t have. Ingredient lists were verbally dissected and discarded and agreements were made: if I get this, will you have a bite even though she can’t or who could share this one with me, anyone? Anyone? Finally my husband told the three of us that we were on our own as he ordered himself a Canadian bacon and cheese sandwich, flouting all of our rules at once.

Many of our eating preferences collapse under close scrutiny. When examined, kosher rules seem outdated. Many vegetarians will give up meat but still wear leather. Our choices are rife with contradiction. If pressed on why it’s okay for me to eat chicken but not pork, I utilize emotion and hearsay and gloss over things not necessarily based in fact (the same approach that keeps religion going strong). I avoid over-questioning my pals on their edicts, just as I hope they don’t purposely expose the ridiculousness of my own. For them, I’ll buy rice crackers and tofu, and Tito’s vodka. And I’ll bake a gluten-free, dairy-free cupcakes.

Two close friends recently shared a birthday. They share another thing too: their adherence to a gluten-free lifestyle. For good measure, one threw out dairy too. I want to bake for them, to make them feel special but am hamstrung by their diets. The cookbooks lining my shelves don’t account for this occurrence--I think the Barefoot Contessa might actually add extra gluten. I turn to the more current online community to find what is supposed to be the “best” gluten-free cupcakes. To me that sounds like the “best” matzoh--no matter how good it is, at the end of the day, you’re still eating matzoh.

As cupcakes go, gluten seems like an important ingredient. But I figure my friends must be used to tasteless food by now and they’ll appreciate my efforts anyway. I buy a host of substitutes for the real thing: gluten-free cake mix, almond milk, and Earth Balance ”natural buttery spread” (which sounds super-healthy but is actually more caloric than regular margarine) and get to work on the Snickerdoodle Cupcakes. I am dubious.

My choice of cupcakes is strategic. In general, when I'm baking for others, I try to make things that I can sample before delivery. I like to know that what I'm offering is worth having. It’s hard to bring a cake or pie with a piece missing, so I choose bar desserts or cupcakes to share. In that spirit, I sample the frosting and am heartened to find it really good. Not, “tasty for a frosting made with almond milk and Earth Balance” but downright delicious. I spread it on a cinnamon-spiked cupcake and wow. Gluten-free baking, where have you been all my life?

I hold back a few for my family and my kids love them. My sister-and-brother-in-law visiting from New Jersey finish them and ask for more. I am proud to deliver these cupcakes to my friends and both are touched at the time I’ve put into honoring their choices.

Feeding others is one of the surest ways I know to show I care. Being respectful of the choices and limitations of those I love is merely an extension of that. It allows us to continue to relate across the table through the medium of food.

Money-Making Schemes Skip a Generation

2013-04-24T16:38:00.001-05:00

My son got in the car after after school the other day awash with enthusiasm. He talked over his sister to say, “Hey mom, can we do an experiment when we get home?” I thought of our playroom shelves lined with experiment kits--food tests, pop bottle activities, chemistry sets, snap circuits, etc. Just as I started to smile at the idea of cracking the seal on some of these gifts, he added, “And I don’t mean with the kits.” Sigh.

What he proposed, instead, was that we just run right home and create, in his words, “a healing potion.” “Let’s mix some things together and keep trying them on my scratch until it disappears then we can sell our potion for, like, a lot of money.” He wanted to be rich by bedtime. I tried not to take a needle to his balloon but explained, in gentle terms, that we are not chemists. I told him that mixing random ingredients together then applying them to skin are more likely to create injuries than to cure them. He sighed at his defeated prospects and my lack of vision.

I’m a realist--the worst person to run your business plan by; I will point out its flaws and defeat your eager demeanor. I do try to temper my cynical tendencies when it comes to my children. Sometimes it’s a challenge, especially with my son. He’s the type of kid who proposes new rules to well-established board games and is eternally disappointed in me for following a recipe even when the dish is delicious. I think things are fine the way they are; he hates convention. His mind is alway working--I can almost smell the smoke. This past year, I’ve seen him become fixated on novel ways to make money. Every week, a new idea.

While I have some parental pride at his creativity and confidence, his zeal dredges my childhood in an unhappy way. My dad was a wheeler-dealer and a dream chaser. He never met a product he he couldn’t sell; well, for a little while, until he got bored or dissatisfied with the cash flow and moved on.

Dad was married four times but his true love was multi-level marketing companies. You know, those organizations where you sign up then immediately recruit twelve of your friends who enlist their friends and so on until you have a teetering pyramid of naive hopefuls. My father got his pals (and my friends’ parents and my teachers) to invest their savings in: soaps and shampoos, weight loss shakes, legal insurance, milk-culture cosmetics, ionic air cleaners, anti-aging vitamins, and Viagra for women.

I have a vivid memory of coming in after school one day to find a giant metal tube with a swinging door dominating the space where our couch had been. It looked like a time machine; Dad informed me that it was an upright tanning machine and that he was thinking of selling them. We lived in Florida. Also known as the “sunshine state” where tans could be had daily for free.

Dad insisted I “take a tan.” I put on my swimsuit, affixed small guards over my eyes, and stepped blindly into the machine. The door closed and I startled when suddenly the floor began to move beneath me. I peeked and saw a circle of lights around me as I rotated. Around and around I went, getting hotter and hotter. I was being cooked like a pig on a spit. Afterwards, my skin sported a flush and a clinging burnt toast smell.

Because of my father’s cockamamie schemes, my son’s ideas create a pavlovian response in me to counter them. I am a cons lister. But my son keeps trying. By the time we pulled into the driveway that day after school, he had already abandoned his healing potion plan and had a new one--to create a DNA home testing kit. Before I could question what he was hoping to discover with said DNA test--ancestry? paternity? who stole the last cookie?--he was on to the next. That’s the thing about both my son and my dad, they lose interest fast.

The list of my son’s ideas is endless: selling hand-drawn comic books at a street fair booth (abandoned after he crafted one comic); sports cards collecting and reselling (stopped when he realized he might have to actually do research to not get suckered); garage cleaning service (shut down when I suggested that he clean ours first).

My son and his pal have hatched an idea for a business they’ve named “TEV.” Their plan involves going door to door collecting video games that kids have outgrown then selling them on EBay to garner a tidy profit. So far, they’ve culled a total of 4 games--two from each of their own homes.

My son isn’t content to up his own profit-making, he wants to monetize me too. He wants me to charge for my blog; sell the goodies I bake; write a kids book and get it on out to a publisher while he’s at school today. Recently he decided that if I’m too lame to exploit my own skillset, then he will--he planned a bake sale.

As a lemonade stand veteran, I’ve learned this: charge overhead. In the past I’ve spent mornings mixing lemonade, dragging tables, and buying paper goods all for the kids to swoop in and get bored within 10 minutes. Now I charge for time and supplies and they take the whole venture more seriously. They assess foot traffic and weather. They hold signs and accost passing cars. This past summer, a car pulled up and the man driving said, “My daughter insisted we come. She said your son made everyone on the camp bus promise.” We sold out.

It’s spring but we haven’t had a sure-footed warm or sunny day since last summer. Finally the sun peeks through the clouds for a few glorious hours and we start a batch of my favorite sea salt chocolate chip cookies (delicious recipe below) and everyone else’s favorite gooey toffee butter cake. My children have their friends over and they roam in and out of the kitchen to “help.” They set up a table and create an overly-optimistic pricing structure: $4 per treat and $7 for two. I talk them down.

The sidewalk is empty of passers-by so, taking a cue from my son, I send a text to everyone I know in Glencoe. People start arriving on foot from neighboring houses and by car. Girls from down the street bring paper and pens to make more signs. My son pays them. Another boy yells from the curb at cars. My son pays him. One dad comments that since his son helped make the cookies that he should get paid too. Pretty soon every kid handing over a few bucks to buy a sweet is getting a percentage of it back. It’s backroom capitalism in action--everyone’s on the take.

I’m fond of saying that I like the idea of happy chaos but sometimes a lot of kids in one place can just feel like chaos--skip the happy. Not this. It’s bedlam sure, but I love it. There are little girls riding scooters up and down the driveway; dads with arms crossed talking about basketball; boys counting money and conferring; older girls doing cheers on the lawn; and moms asking for the recipes. My son’s money-making scheme lined his pockets and brought a bunch of people together on a random Saturday. I take note to remember this when he makes his next pitch.

I don’t have to wait long. His most recent brainstorm involves charging Six Flags for roller coaster ideas. He says, “Do you think I could call the head of Six Flags and offer to work for him for $10 a week? I’ll give him one coaster idea per week. I already have one called ‘The Energizer.’” I peer at him in rearview mirror and think about how he really doesn’t have any idea how the world works. Good for him. He’s not limited by past failures, not hampered by common sense, not inhibited by wisdom. His whole world is opportunity and ideas. One of these days he’ll have a great one--hopefully it won’t involve tanning machines.

Chocolate Chip Cookies with Sea Salt

from Moms Big Book of Cookies

2 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp kosher salt

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

2 tbl Maldon Sea Salt or other best quality sea salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium-size mixing bowl. Cream the cooled melted butter and sugars together in a large mixing bowl with a wooden spoon until smooth. Add the eggs and vanilla extract and beat until smooth. Stir in the flour mixture until just incorporated. Stir in the chocolate chips. Place the bowl in the refrigerator for 10 minutes (or up to 6 hours) to let the dough firm up.

Drop the dough by heaping tablespoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets, leaving about 3 inches between each cookie. (Balls of dough may be placed next to each other on parchment paper-lined baking sheets, frozen, transferred to zipper-lock plastic freezer bags, and stored in the freezer for up to one month. Frozen cookies may be placed in the oven directly from the freezer and baked as directed.) Sprinkle each cookie with 1/8 tsp sea salt.

Bake the cookies until golden around the edges but still soft on top, 9 to 11 minutes (a minute or two longer for frozen dough). Let the cookies stand on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then remove them with a metal spatula to a wire rack to cool completely. Cookies will keep at room temperature in an airtight container for 2-3 days.

Pretending to be Italian

2013-03-15T00:01:00.001-05:00

When my parents--20 years apart in age--were married, my dad asked my mom to promise one thing: no children. At thirty-nine, Dad had already raised three sons with his first wife and was done. My mom, a nineteen-year-old fresh from a small West Virginia mining town making her way in the big city of Richmond, happily agreed.

I was two weeks old when they adopted me.

Over time, the fact that I’m adopted has faded into the background music of my life--the song is there but I mostly tune it out. This month has caused it to swell to full refrain, a volume 11. At my daughter’s school, the social/emotional learning theme for the month is “honoring our past.” Meanwhile, my son comes home with a fill-in-the-blanks form about the lineage of his parents and grandparents. Both are filled with questions about their heritage. I shirk their inquiries by saying simply, “Call your grandma.”

When they get off the phone with my mom, they are filled with exciting lineage tidbits. We’re Scottish! We’re English! We’re related to Daniel Boone! Oh, and who’s Daniel Boone?! They eagerly look up their new homelands on a map and I feel nothing.

Because I’m adopted I don’t know if I’m Scottish or English and I’m pretty sure Daniel Boone’s blood does not throb through my veins. By extension, all of this is true of for my children too. And though they know about my adoption and understand what it means for me, they don’t connect it at all to their own genetic backgrounds. They are content in their own histories--a confidence that has clearly skipped a generation.

The mother and father who raised me are my only parents. I don’t long for the mother who gave me up. As far as extended family goes, I’ve had off and on relationships with my much older half-brothers; I have an aunt and an uncle that I enjoy at the holidays, a few nephews, and a beloved grandma who passed away. That’s it. In my view, my family stretches only a generation or two. I didn’t know and love those who came before therefore I’m not really related to them.

At temple my daughter recently had to construct a family tree. She put me on one side and her dad on the other. His half was leafy and full, a shady wonderland. My side looked like dutch elm disease had struck. I helped my daughter add extra names of people she’s never met, just so the tree wouldn’t lean to one side.

Everything about my identity is co-opted. I’m Southern because my adoptive mom and dad grew up in West Virginia and Virginia respectively. I’m Jewish because I practice it for my husband and children though I’ve never converted. My maiden name was on loan from my adoptive parents while my current one is borrowed from my husband. I have an unsettling sense of free-floating. None of it feels like it’s mine. I lack many of the labels we use to define ourselves.

It's especially difficult to not have a traceable history in a place like Glencoe. Many of the people here are like boomerangs--they grew up here, left for college and explored life elsewhere for a bit then turned around and headed right back. A quick list of 20 Glencoe women I know well, yields 12 who grew up on the north shore, 6 more from the midwest, and only two who moved here from somewhere else entirely. As an outsider, I envy the sense of continuation they’re offering their children even though it’s something they likely seldom think about. For most, geography ceases to matter as a defining characteristic but it’s all I’ve got.

I spent 16 of my first 25 years in Florida so the only identifier I can rightly claim is that I am a Floridian. Yet, Florida itself is ill-defined. It’s not “the east,” though it’s boasts a large eastern coast. It’s not “the south,” though it’s holds our nation’s most southernmost point. So what image does “Floridian” even conjure? The state is host to so many Northern transplants that it possesses no culture of its own. If you’re seeking an identity to cling to, the sunshine state offers no warm assurances.

My husband and I went to Italy on our honeymoon and I fell in love--with the place. I proclaimed it my homeland (I might have been tipsy on grappa at the time). It’s possible, I reasoned--I have dark hair and dark eyes, though my husband has refuted my claim to olive skin. And I love Italian wine and food. For lack of a verifiable cultural heritage, I’ve decided to adapt a culinary one.

This month, in honor of my psuedo-Italian status, I decide to make one of my favorite desserts: tiramisu. Tiramisu is not for the calorie-counter or the gooey-sweet lover; it’s taste is decadent and understated at the same time. It’s caffeinated and boozy--a little like me. It is also not a dessert for the impulsive as it has to sit for several hours so the flavors of espresso, brandy, mascarpone cheese, and whipped yolks can sink into the delicate ladyfingers (a creepy name for something edible).

I allow mine to soak overnight then have it for breakfast with tea. And for lunch. Oh, and as an afternoon snack. By the time I attend my writing group that evening, I’ve had four delicious pieces and am a little ill. I bring the leftovers to share and end up eating a fifth piece. If I’m going to be Italian, I need to learn a little willpower or I won’t have room for the pasta. My kids have no such problem; they try one tiramisu bite each then outdo each other with descriptors: yuck, blech, terrible, gross.

When it came to having children, I eagerly anticipated finally knowing someone who resembled me. I pined for a mini-me--a brown-haired, dark-eyed, round-faced baby. Instead, my son was born my husband’s doppelganger, who in turn is already his own father’s twin who happens to resemble his father. Pre-marriage I should have bolted after seeing photos of the trio lined up looking like versions of the same person at different ages. I never had a chance--those Rothbard genes barrel through anything in their way.

When I discovered that my second child was to be a girl, I had some anxiety about my sweet little daughter looking like her father. Sure, he’s handsome--but a female version? I imagined some half-monkey baby with a pink bow in her abundant hair. Upon birth, she looked like an old man, yes, but not like her father; she was a baby Harrison Ford in his Blade Runner days complete with a dark pointed hairline and sour expression. But within months she grew into her Rothbard looks. Even now, every time someone remarks about how our kids favor my husband, it’s a dagger to me. I do realize that my children are me in lots of ways from their interests to their personalities, but it would thrill me to have a stranger remark, “You’re daughter looks just like you,” rather than, “Are you the nanny?” This small thing I was hoping would connect me--a resemblance--didn’t come to pass.

Though I can’t make my children look like me, there are other ways I could nail down an identity. I could mount a birth parent search or petition to have my health records released. I could get a cheek swab to determine my maternal side ancestral origin. I could commit to a religion via conversion. I haven’t done any of these because though there’s unease in the unknown, there’s also freedom. I’m loathe to commit. Each choice narrows our path. Right now I can be whomever I want to be. Next, I think I’ll be Buddhist or maybe Greek. I do so love baklava.

Shortbread Cookies are Not for Kids

2013-02-28T14:19:00.000-06:00

Despite it’s current romantic incarnation, Valentines Day began as a religious holiday. It was cause for a big feast celebrating the life of Saint Valentine. Like most major holidays--at least in America--it has slowly been eroded by consumerism. Now it’s mostly a boon to the to the chocolatier, the restaurateur and Charles R. Walgreen. Yet the high school me used to delight in the day.

Oviedo High’s enterprising student council concocted the brilliant plan of selling single roses on Valentines Day. Better yet, they delivered them during class and one-by-one. So each time Mrs. Michaud would lift her hand to write on the board, there’d be a knock, then a twitter of excitement when a council member walked in bearing a rose. Who was it for? Who was it from? Then just as we’d quiet down, there’d be another knock. Between classes, there was the attending cacophony of female chatter about their own roses and about all of the others that had been delivered. Now, that kind of thing would be instantly transmitted via facebook, twitter, instagram, google+ circles, and others that I am too old to know about.

But back then, when we were still passing notes in class and eagerly awaiting yearbook inscriptions to see how boys felt about us, the public nature of the rose delivery was a thrill. With no status to update online, this was as close as we got to announcing new, young love. By my senior year, tribes of girls had also started sending roses to each other so that by the end of the day, everyone had nearly full bouquets sticking out of their backpacks--a declaration of popularity among friends as well as desirability to the opposite sex. The roses could represent anything from friendship to a tentative romantic first step to the marking of territory. That last year of high school I received roses from: Dana, Katie, Gray, Tisha, Katrina, Kristin, Dave, Russ, Chris, and one anonymous sender (if you read my last post about my propensity for recording things, you’ll know this is accurate). It was exciting.

Post high school, on Valentines Day, I’d get a card or chocolate or flowers from whomever was my current flame. We’d go to dinner or a movie or both. It was nice but predictable. When I met my husband, he announced (six months in) that he didn’t “believe” in the holiday. What he said: if I’m doing my job as a boyfriend/husband for the rest of the year, and being romantic, considerate, and spontaneous, then I don't need to conform like all the other schmucks out there and I would rather buy you something you love when you don't expect it than red roses when you do. What I heard: I am cheap.

I have to hand it to him, though, he has put his (romantic) money where his mouth is: presenting me with jewelry for no reason; hiring a courier to stand in the never ending line at Garrett’s popcorn then deliver it to me when I was pregnant and craving and he was out of the country; and spontaneously putting our wedding song on and dancing with me in our kitchen. He’s right, he doesn’t need Valentines Day.

But I’ll admit that, over the years, there was still some part of me that mourned a little when the day slipped by unnoticed--or rather, willfully ignored. I’m far too pragmatic to be happy about a presentation of flowers that cost double their value and I’m uninterested in jockeying others for a restaurant table on the busiest day of the year. So what kind of Valentines Day would meet my fickle needs? Enter my son.

When my son was five, he asked what his daddy and I were going to do for Valentines Day as he carefully printed his name on valentines for his classmates. As I tried to explain that we didn’t really celebrate that way, he looked up at me with his big, innocent blue eyes until I finally just said, “I need a Valentine, wanna be mine?” He said “yes” and immediately began talking about how we could spend the day. Now, four years in, he begins plotting it months in advance.

As is always the way with children--well, with my children--a sweet, small idea quickly becomes overblown. If I say to my son on a random Saturday that I’d like to spend a little time with him and that we should walk to Starbucks for a doughnut, he immediately begins wondering aloud what time Six Flags opens. Each year, we spend forever going back and forth on our Valentines Day plans. His typical proposal involves starting the day with breakfast out then some sort of activity like ice skating at Millennium Park then lunch out then maybe a movie or a museum or a quick plane trip somewhere before rounding the day out with dinner someplace special like Rainforest Cafe.

Inevitably, I find myself in the position of reeling him in. By the time we start our outing, he’s disappointed in its small scale (and its lack of talking animals) and I’m exhausted from our negotiation; it can leave me feeling like a failure before we even start. I remind myself that the day is all about the tradition we’ve started and the time we get to spend together. When I mention this to my son, he helpfully suggests that he could stay home from school on Valentines Day so that we’d have even more quality time. Thus putting me in the position yet again to have to say “no.” Sigh.

Despite the frustrations that go into its planning, we always end up doing things we wouldn’t have without the set-aside time the holiday affords. We’ve attended the New Year’s parade in Chinatown (and inadvertently marched in it), battled each other in laser tag, and spent an afternoon in an arcade. This year, we went to the Legoland Discovery Center and raced our homemade lego cars against each other and attended a workshop on building a T-rex.

Through it all, we talked (and trash-talked, when it came to the lego car race). I learned about his crushes, the plot of a story he’s planning on writing, and why he sleeps so close to the edge of the bed. The number of times he said “Thank you” and “I love you” that afternoon are far too many to count.

I realize that our tradition is fleeting. That his ever-changing list of crushes will, in a few years, result in a real, live girlfriend. He’ll be too cool for legos and laser tag and long dinners with his mom. I spend much of my time as a parent reminding myself--with relief and despair--that he won’t be this age forever. And then my Valentines Day will change again as it has from young love to married love to parental love. I wonder what will be next?

As is also the way with my children, they seem to have some delicate scale they weigh time on. As in who gets more with me. The whole Valentines Day venture--and the seemingly millions of conversations about it with my son--doesn't sit well with my daughter. She suggested that she could be my valentine next year to which my son replied, eyebrows raised to indicate her naivete, “Um, you are not a boy.” My daughter told him, “So what, girls can marry girls!”

As a consolation prize, I baked heart-shaped shortbread cookies with my daughter on the actual holiday. The cookies are a Barefoot Contessa recipe and, in general, I think you can’t go wrong with her. The mistake I made was assuming that kids might like shortbread cookies. They are neither gooey nor sweet enough to satisfy the under-20 set. To quote my son: “Eh, they’re not your best.” I found them yummy with tea, but even I can’t eat 30 shortbread cookies. But perhaps with baking a Valentines dessert together, my daughter and I have started our own tradition.

I find it important to mention that, now that we have a daughter, my husband has reformed his view of the holiday. He took her out to the dinner his belief system wouldn’t allow him to take me to. He made our daughter smile this year with a single red rose. He made me smile this year when he told me that he got the rose free at the dentist that morning. Some things never change.

Flour on a New Floor

2013-01-27T20:23:00.001-06:00

To say that I am organized is an understatement. Neurotic might hew closer to the truth. I was the only twelve year old I knew with files. My cassettes were alphabetized; my stuffed animals ordered by size.

On a recent trip to my mom’s, I gave my son a box of dog-eared comic books that had been mine at his age. He dug in. A few days later, he presented me with an index card listing the comic titles, condition, and expected value of each. Oh no, collecting and cataloging like his mom? Poor thing. But upon closer exam, I discovered the handwriting to be my own overly-neat first tries at cursive. It was I who had listed Mighty Mouse #169, Sept 79, $2.50-6.00, perfect and Richie Rich #92, $1.50, less perfect.

My father was the master “organizer”--as in he spent hours shuffling and re-shuffling papers, typing folder labels and making logs of activities. I can see him so clearly, hair sprayed into neatly combed tracks, licking the pad of his thumb and leaning his sweatered paunch over a tall stack of papers, a look of determination on his face. He sorted things in lieu of making an actual living. Always appearing busy but actually getting very little done. I vowed to not be like him.

But, like radiation, my early exposure to obsessive organizing has left some lasting effects. My husband and I have a recurring argument wherein he tries to organize our spices by “frequency of use” rather than by name. His argument? Pepper should be handier than marjoram. My argument? Yes, but “M” comes before “P”--as I elbow him out and reshuffle the cabinet.

My mom is fond of saying that I’ve always needed “my ducks in a row.” It’s a great image, all of the facets of my life as little happy fuzzy ducklings lined up neatly and marching behind me wherever I go. But more often than not they are straying off to play video games or crying about the knots in their hair and leaving a trail of dirty, inside-out clothes behind them.

The truth is more complicated than my need to have pencils separate from pens; it’s my craving for stability. Yes, I like the simple pleasure of knowing where to find things and of a clean room and of an up-to-date calendar with everyone accounted for. They all put my mind at ease. But my underlying need is routine and knowing what’s next--the things I lacked in childhood. I go overboard trying to create them now.

Friends are always surprised to discover how deeply these desires run and how ridiculously important order is to me. They seem at odds with the parts of me they know well. I happily dance in the living room with my kids, trash talk their friends during board games, stay latest at a party, whip up impromptu playdate cookies and engage in nerf gun wars. I maintain that these free sides of my personality can flourish only because the other areas of my life are so controlled.

But what happens if those areas of order collapse? What if my metaphorical ducks just up and leave the building? This fall, all of my efforts at creating predictability were crushed under the heel of some big changes. Our home went under construction; our missing kitchen left my blog on hold because of the lack of baking to write about; my husband accepted a new job entailing longs hours and lots of travel; and I spent almost three months really sick.

At first, it all felt like freedom. Eating out every night. Not having to write. My husband out, opening up quiet evenings for my own reading and writing. Even bedrest offered its own exemption from the day to day drudgery.

It didn’t take long to tire of Subway (one visit) and Potbelly’s (more); and having my home filled with people who called me “Mrs. Rothbard;” and of doctor visits and prescription refills and testing; and of being a single parent. Surprisingly, the thing that might have affected me the most was my hiatus from writing. I used to always joke that I didn’t know what I was thinking until I wrote about it; it turns out that it’s true. I began to feel totally out of touch with myself which caused me to pull away from family and friends.

At one point a friend dragged me to lunch “to talk.” She’s a therapist who also does volunteer work for a charity called, “A Home Within” that seeks to help foster kids learn to rely on their own inner strength through their ever-changing situations. As we’re talking, she invokes that language to remind me that, despite my morphing environment, I need to find my “home within.” I say, “Yeah, I think it’s my kitchen.” She reaches across the table and takes my hand and says with all seriousness, “I think we need to be a little less literal.” We both start laughing and it feels great--a bright spot. It’s the first step back to my lost light-heartedness.

Next, I know I need to write. In general, my ducks have to be in lockstep for me to compose a single sentence. You will never find my home cleaner than before a deadline. I will paint a room and upload thousands of photos that have lived on the camera for months, all in the name of preparing to write. Now, sitting down amid the chaos, I flounder. The words don’t come.

After almost four months, the workers trickle out and the kitchen is done. But I feel disdain for our new space as it reminds me of upheaval--like the pang of hearing the song that was playing when you broke up with your first love. My infatuation with the kitchen is over. Who was the girl who used to bake then jot down thoughts about food and life, puzzling through her own anxieties and desires? I don’t know her anymore.

As the rush of the holidays takes over, I push away thoughts about baking and writing and focus instead on getting through the season. By rote, I order gifts and attend parties and pack for our trips. Then comes the first night of Chanukah. I haven’t made a challah, or even dinner. We light candles hurriedly and without feeling, another thing to check off the list before the quickly-approaching bedtime. Gifts are doled out.

After opening his present, my son says, “Wait right here Mom,” and disappears upstairs. He comes back holding a very clearly wrapped-by-him gift and hands it to me proudly. Before I can even open it, he gushes in his eagerness, “I hope you like it! I picked it out and ordered it myself and made sure you didn’t get the mail when it came and wrapped it up and paid for it out of my own allowance money.”

I unwrap it to find a cake decorating set. He has hand-picked fifty-three pieces of Wilton magic, “the perfect foundation for any decorator.” I realize then that even though my perception has been skewed lately, to my son I’m still the same. He looks at me, happy and expectant, and asks if I can decorate a cake right now.

Eight o’clock on a Sunday night and I’m running to the store for cake mix (blech) and canned icing (double blech) because I haven’t even bothered to unpack my baking stuff yet. By the time I’m actually decorating the resulting cupcakes, it’s almost ten and my son is there asking me to try a ribbon, a leaf, a basket weave. We are working together in the new kitchen. It’s a joy. I’m touched by my son’s forethought, his consideration, the generosity of this gift.

In all of the disruption, I somehow overlooked that my constants were there all along. I’ve worked so hard to give my kids the stability I lacked as a child without realizing that that’s what they offer me. How can I not write about that?

Oatmeal Cookies--Hold the Raisins

2012-10-07T23:23:00.001-05:00

It has been one year since I’ve seen my dad. Twelve months is a long gap between father-daughter visits in even the best of circumstances. And these are not the best of circumstances. My dad is 88 and has dementia. I’m traveling from Chicago to Charleston, South Carolina to visit him at his nursing home and I have no idea what to expect.

The last time I saw him, his jeans hung loosely from his hips and his cheeks sunk in where his dentures should have been. He was thin and toothless. Mentally, the things he’d retained seemed to be rooted in long ago, his more recent history gone. I felt like an archaeologist sifting through the crumbling remains of my father’s psyche, looking for something of worth. I am ever excavating and ever hopeful.

On that trip, I asked him, gingerly, about what he remembered. Any of his wives’ names (one of them my mother)? “Not a one,” he said without remorse. Then he smiled and held up a finger, “Oh, wait, I do remember--they were all named Mrs. Hobson.” He laughed hard, his sense of humor still intact.

Then I asked, needing and wanting it just a little too much, “Do you remember when I was little?” He shook his head quickly, “Lord no.” In that moment my childhood became fixed; he would never add a new detail. By then, he had already lapsed into assuming my brother was his uncle Jack. But he still knew me. He knew me.

Now, one year later, I enter the memory care unit of Dad’s sixth nursing home in three years (due to evictions for attempted escapes, fights, and romantic interludes), and see my father at the end of a long corridor. His belly is round and he is smiling, teeth intact. It’s encouraging. As I start down the hall, he looks up and catches sight of me. With each step I take, his expression softens. By the time I reach him, fat tears are channelling his wrinkles.

He says, “Oh my, you’re beautiful,” then takes my hand and adds, “I’d know you anywhere.” I exhale the breath I didn’t even realize I’d been holding. We sit like that for a bit, hand-holding in silence while he gazes lovingly at me. A nurse happens by and says, “Why Bill, who’s this pretty lady with you?” Dad beams and pulls me close then says, “It’s my sister.”

And there it is: heartbreak.

He believes he has no children. I’m not his daughter because she doesn’t exist yet. In prior trips, I have found Dad’s pendulum in time to be ever-moving. Sometimes it’d swing to his working years with him selling medical equipment at the very nursing home he lived (and complaining about the long hours) then other times he’d think his fellow residents were passengers on the same train heading home from war. He has been a boy and a pilot, a soldier and a businessman. Now I find that the pendulum has stilled. He is static--resolutely young and in the service. He doesn’t yet know who he’ll marry but he wants kids someday so he’s hoping someone will have him. His whole life is ahead; he’s eager and sunny.

In my sorrow, I also feel a little envy. Imagine being elderly yet feeling the hopefulness of the young. In a recent conversation with a friend, I posed the question: would you rather have a sharp mind and a spent body or unmoored memories and your health? She pointed out that the first is harder for you while the latter is much more difficult for the others in your life. As my dad sits happily and I sulk, I have to agree with her.

In some ways, my dad’s dementia is like reverse karma. He has done many things I’m sure he’d rather not relive. He has cut off communication with his children for long periods of time out of stubbornness. He has bilked friends of their savings. He has married four times, each ending badly. For him, these things have disappeared. Those of us with keen memories are left chock full of unresolved emotions leading up to the final insult of being forgotten altogether. It’s bleak.

And yet, there are moments of clarity--even insight--that are heartening. There is new information to be had. For example, at one point, Dad registers shock at the number of years (ten) that I’ve lived in the Chicago area. He says, “If I were in one place for that long I’d...,” as he holds up his fingers in the shape of a gun and points it at his temple. When I ask why he’d want to move around so much, he says, “When you stay in one place too long, people really get to know you.”

It’s the clearest--and only--explanation I’ve ever been given of my circus childhood of relocating from town to town. Then, just as quickly, that moment is followed by nonsense with, “That’s why the Army is perfect for me.”

Time stands still in a nursing home. It feels like I live a whole day in an hour. The nurses talk to each other; the residents mostly sit quietly. One woman thinks I’m her daughter and is thrilled that I’m here to visit her. Another woman shouts at me, “What?! Who did you say just died?” The television drones. Residents nap sitting up; their heads loll as Dean Martin rolls out old tropes like, “I packed light for this trip; I left my wife at home.” Ba-dum-bum.

I can’t bear to stay for meals but I do bring Dad ice cream from the drugstore around the corner and butterscotch oatmeal cookies from home. Before my trip, I did what I always do--I baked. I made my father homemade cookies. I wanted something that would evoke his childhood and cookies seem to exist in that magic place before adolescence. Why don’t we see cookies on our grown-up dessert menus? In preparing Baking Illustrated’s classic oatmeal cookies, I decided to leave out the raisins in consideration of the fact that on my last visit dad had lost his teeth.

Dad is thrilled with my efforts. He sits at a table against a backdrop wallpaper depicting a jaunty french cafe scene, the Seine rendered in blue brush strokes over his shoulder. Between sloppy spoonfuls of ice cream and the crunch of cookies, he peppers me with the same questions over and over. Granted, he thinks he’s asking these of his sister but he’s an attentive audience nonetheless. How many kids do I have? What are they like? How’s my “old man” (meaning my husband but invariably reminding me of himself)? Am I happy?

It’s exhausting to keep rehashing my same responses, but something happens in the repetition. As I describe my daughter as a hoot (a little girl who can’t leave a room without a wiggle and who can’t resist “helping” when she sees work happening) and my son as a card (an overtly loving boy with big thoughts and a quick wit), I start to miss them intensely. I talk about my husband and long for him too. I feel a welling of gratefulness that I am too busy in the day-to-day to notice. I realize how happy I really am.

Take this trip. I stay in a quiet hotel room by myself. I sleep in. I write at a local coffee shop. I have iced raw oysters and a cold beer at a bar while paging through a magazine. Any mom will recognize these experiences for what they are: pure luxury. In fact, I once accidentally referred to an upcoming Charleston trip as “my vacation” to my husband. (I quickly retracted it lest it be counted against my down time in the cosmic tally of parenting).

On each visit, I also share a meal with my brother. Prior to Dad’s illness, we had been on the outs for so long that we were like strangers across the table. But gradually, trip after trip, that has changed and I find us connecting in new ways. In Charleston, I have one man who’s getting to know me and another who’s forgetting me. It’s a beginning and an ending. My visits have come to represent an opportunity to reflect, to rejuvenate, and to grow. I’ve come to realize that these trips aren’t for my father anymore; they are for me.

Dad finishes his dessert. I pat his swollen belly and comment that it feels full of cookies and ice cream. He responds with, “No, but I’d like it to be.” Just like that, the treats are gone and so is his memory of them. When I walk through the double doors out into the sunshine, it will feel to my father as if I was never there at all.

Pampering Myself with a Closet Clean-out (DailyBuzz Moms 9x9)

2012-08-28T16:46:00.001-05:00

I’m a keeper. I like to hold onto things. My husband hates it but I remind him that I’ve kept him around for 15 years, so perhaps he should embrace my saving tendencies. I grew up with a father who liked to winnow our belongings with each frequent move so you don’t have to be Freud to intuit my desire to keep mementos.

I lack experience in culling my own possessions. Recently I was at Ravinia with a group of friends and one lamented that she’d lost her ticket and now wouldn’t be able to put it in her scrapbook. I offered her one of mine before she told me she was joking. But the punchline was that I was actually planning to toss mine in the box that holds every other concert and play stub we generate.

For the most part, I’m ruthless about routinely weeding the kids’ toys and clothes, books and newspapers, kitchen gadgets and other items. If it’s outlived its usefulness, it goes (husband aside). But, my own closet has somehow escaped the ax.

Yes, some things should be purged. Like a never-worn cold weather contraption (it’s a scarf! it’s a hood! it’s both!) that my dad bought off a TV ad. While other things deserve to be kept and used fondly. For example, a Harley Davidson belt with a giant silver eagle buckle that my late step-father gave my mom. Then there are the countless “in-betweens.” My closet has become a timeline of my life rather than a useable space.

As a birthday gift to myself, I decide to participate in the DailyBuzz Moms August challenge to “pamper myself” and hire someone to help clean out my closet. It’s an imperfect time for such a luxury--the weeks after summer activities and before school starts that my friends and I call “mom camp.” Long days filled with to-dos and whines for “what’s next?” and “play with me.” But I can’t control my birthdate and rather like the idea of wedging a little pampering between the string cheese and relentless playdates.

I’m not interested in closet organization nor in being totally on trend. I just want to pare it all down so I can see my options. I have a lot of choices yet a small subset that I regularly wear; I’m in a rut. I want help from someone with solid fashion sense who is also painfully truthful. Basically, I need a stylish Larry David. I need to curate instead of collect. Enter Mollie from StyleSpies, a closet consultant and ex-ShopBop buyer, who “knows what to keep, what to donate, and what to tailor.” Perfect.

Mollie sends me a survey and instructs me to avoid deliberation and just jot down my gut responses. Still, it’s a struggle. “What shoes are your favorite?” A peek in my closet reveals brand schizophrenia--no repeats, just a collection of random stuff I like. I leave the question blank. “Who’s your fashion muse?” Um, Jamie. Angie. My friends’ names are meaningless to Mollie. For my own style, I finally write: winter = flare jeans/sweater and summer = white pants/navy tank.

Since our 11am-2pm appointment time will eclipse lunch, I decide to bake a snack for us. I choose Glazed Maple-Pecan Oatmeal Scones from Baking Illustrated. The scones seem to offer the right amount of sweet maple reward and oaty sustenance. They are edible motivation. Both my son and daughter are in the kitchen with me and, as usual, I try to do too much at once. My daughter mis-cracks an egg while I run upstairs to get dressed. The nuts and oats burn while I get my closet ready. Our scones are black-bottomed. It’s a metaphor for my life: crowded and overdone.

I rush to gather garbage bags for donations and shopping bags for items to be sold at consignment as Mollie suggested. My lack of high-end brand focus makes me leery about the consignment bit, but I gamely provide the bags. The “StyleSpy” arrives and the greetings are easy; within moments we are on task.

It takes twelve minutes for Mollie to whip through my shoes and create a stack of get-rid-ofs. I have 14 pairs that are “too.” My black heels are too worn. My red patent flats are both too shiny and too square. My Aerosoles, too “mom.” Ouch. But the purge feels good. I am able to save pink kitten heels by holding them next to the dress I wear them with and lime green wedges by promising never to match them.

When my home phone rings, I ignore it. Then my cell. Then my home again. I don’t know who’s calling but I hate them; I’m getting pampered here! I answer and it’s my husband. He says, “I know, you should describe your style as ‘bohemian.’” Only, that’s not my style, that’s the style my husband wants me to have. He has clearly defined tastes and opinions, not just about my clothes but also about his own; he has proclaimed--cocktail aloft--that if he ever opens a men’s clothing store, he’ll call it “The Hawaiian Cowboy.” Cheers. Before I can hang up on him, he and Mollie are chatting it up and I start to worry that my closet’s going to look like Nicole Richie’s--all hippie prints and head necklaces. But, post-call, Mollie gets back down to business.

She has catch-phrases. For example, an orange wool poncho already “had its moment.” My friend says later, “But what if it has another moment?” I’m not worried because of another of Mollie’s quips: “If it comes back, it will be different.” For a khaki cotton blazer, she says, “I know what you were going for here.” In other words, I know the address but I’m still lost.

She holds up an old corduroy shirt and says, “Now, tell me about this.” It’s a nice way of saying, “What were you thinking?” Then at another find she exclaims, “Wow, I remember these dresses!” My closet is a museum. I should charge admission.

I defend multiple items with, “That’s for Vegas.” She notes that I have a lot of pieces earmarked for that annual trip. I shrug, Vegas demands a lot of costume changes. She relents. After the first hour or so, Mollie becomes so tuned into my overall style (whatever it is), that she points to two skirts and says “they just don’t look like you.” She’s right--they’re my mother-in-law’s.

Easy targets are any whites with yellow spots, sweaters that are too “bally,” lacy tank tops, and Gap jeans. When I tell another friend about the process she stands and says, “I’m wearing Gap jeans right now.” I forward her the link that Mollie sent me proclaiming that “Gap and Old Navy make mom jeans.” We make stacks: to ditch, try on, alter or dry clean. Not surprisingly, my consignment clothes bags are still neatly folded.

Before she leaves, Mollie gives me three checklists of top tens--shoes, accessories, and clothing items that every woman needs. We identify my gaps. All in all, we weed out 14 pairs of shoes, 8 scarves, 9 belts and 79 pieces of clothing. 110 items gone. Actually, make that 109 since I rescue a white linen skirt after Mollie leaves. My closet swallows the space as if it never existed. But I feel lighter.

The next day she follows-up with a list of specific things that if added to my closet would help me pull disparate things together: a colorful skinny belt, charcoal leggings, navy or black blazer, dark skinny jeans, bold-colored flats. The pampering continues when she creates a pinterest board with suggestions and photos for me.

This time of year tends to go in a blur. I have one child starting Kindergarten and another stepping up to a new school. It’s a lot of change but also a time for new beginnings. There are enough real-life events to tether my emotion to that I don’t need a closet full of memories. As Mollie said when she ditched a shirt I got on my engagement trip to Germany, “You can still remember it and love it but you don’t have to keep it.” It feels like growth to let go. Maybe I can throw away my Train concert ticket after all.

(Sleep-away) Camp Crumblers PART 2

2012-08-08T19:57:00.002-05:00

With my son at sleep-away camp, there’s only one way to describe our house: quiet. I had no idea how much space that one little eight-year-old took up with his questions and negotiations and laundry. Then something happens--our daughter grows to fill it.

With her brother home, she’d wile away mornings watching television; now, she seeks us out. It turns out that she really has very little interest in TV shows, computers, or games on my phone. She has merely been the shill in her brother’s electronics obsession. Her preferences emerge. She likes: sleeping late, a good board game at breakfast, evening walks around the block looking for fireflies, gymnastics on the front lawn. With her brother around, we often see a yelling, stomping, arm-crossing little girl. Now, we find her to be a total delight.

I savor the time with my daughter while also acutely missing my son. I become obsessed with the online camp photos. They are instant gratification. They are mom-crack. The day after my son arrives at camp, his first pictures appear online.

In one pic, he’s sitting at a long table with other kids filling out a form to choose his activities for the first week. And there he his with other campers, his arms slung around kids I’ve never seen before. It makes me feel incredibly distant from him to see him having these experiences as they unfold and know that I’ll never be part of this new world of his.

I study each photo like it’s a treasure map. Or maybe a crime scene. I am Sherlock Holmes and I will solve the mystery of my son’s happiness at camp. Though his face isn’t tear-stained, his expressions are cryptic. Why, oh, why didn’t I create a system like my friend’s? She told her son to give a thumbs-up in photos if he was having a great time and to give a peace sign if he was miserable (she assumed the camp wouldn’t post a photo of a kid giving the obvious sign of displeasure of a thumbs-down).

In the absence of ready signs, I am forced to scour each photo. I notice that our son keeps wearing the same shorts over and over though we’ve sent him 12 pairs. For one whole day he’s the only kid wearing a rain slicker and I feel some small pride that he’s caring for himself. My husband nips that pride in the bud when he says, “He’s clearly the only schmuck who doesn’t know to take it off when the rain stops.”

In fact, it’s impossible to intuit the weather from the photos. Some kids wear sweatshirts while others are bare-chested. There are shorts and pants, boots and flip flops, and one kid decked out in fishing gear. It’s total chaos--motherless boys running around in whatever strikes their fancy. These are kids being managed by other, older, kids. I can only imagine the sheer quantity of mouthwash that’ll be needed to overcome a month of unsupervised teeth-brushing (summer might be a good time to buy stock in Listerine). I wonder about the little savage that will be returned to me in four weeks.

I sleep with my laptop. I begin waking up in the middle of the night, during those magic hours of midnight and 5am when CampMinder spontaneously uploads the photos from the day before. My husband’s eager too, blearily grabbing his glasses if I report a new photo batch online. We flag every photo of our son, even those with him blurrily in the background.

Finally, on day four, I see a photo that is a such a display of total bliss that my worries disappear. My son is standing on a dock in his swim trunks and is soaked. On his face is a genuine, joyful grin. Over the next few days the camp slowly weans me like an addict by spacing out their photo posts--every other day then every few days.

I turn my attention to the anticipation of a letter. I don’t expect one for the first five days. The camp brochure touts that the kids will write home twice a week so when we round the beginning of week two, I start expecting letters chock full of details about the events I see online. In addition to cyber-stalking our son, I also begin shadowing the mailman.

It takes ten days for the first note (of the four we'll receive) to arrive. It’s underwhelming. It’s Business Writing 101: a formal opener, a reporting sentence, a closing sentiment. The P.S. is the only part of the letter that has information not readily available through the online newsletters--it says,

“I heart u.”

A friend shares a camp letter from her daughter. It’s neat. All the words are miraculously legible; there aren’t arrows pointing to other words further down, or scratch-outs, or words squeezed into where they’ve been forgotten. She writes like a girl and her letter is beautifully full of actual emotion. I’m envious.

Another seasoned camp mom tells me that the whole family will go through “stages” of acceptance of our son’s absence. First, heartache--which I started before camp did. Next, we’ll find homeostasis as we settle into a groove as a family of three for a bit. Last, as we near the end, our eagerness to have him back will overtake us.

My daughter starts and stays in the second stage. She’s gotten a taste of one-on-one attention and she wants more; her appetite for us is insatiable. After a marathon afternoon of baking together, coloring and painting, and starting a science project, I say, “Okay, mommy needs a break.” “Why?” she demands. “Well,” I explain, “I have to go potty.” She shrugs and says, “Just go in your pants.” She is serious.

Three impersonal letters from camp later and it’s time to drive eight hours to retrieve our son. We park and walk on a dirt road under a wood sign carved “North Star Camp.” I can hear boys’ voices--lots of them. They’re still at dinner and we wait outside as they sing/shout some skewed version of “happy birthday” (I make out the lyrics: “misery and despair, people dying everywhere, happy birthday!”). It’s all so foreign to me.

I’m eager to see my son but also anxious about how much he might have changed. The doors burst open and out comes some teenage version of my son. His hair is long and he’s vaguely dirty. When he sees us, he yells “Yes!” as he breaks into sprint. He jumps into my arms and he’s my little boy again. Our reunion takes 3.5 seconds. He’s eager to show us around. We’re treated to the camp’s Friday night lakeside service. This week’s theme is “character” and though one counselor leads the collage of poems, responsive readings, and songs, everyone is involved.

As we sit on log beam benches and watch the sun slowly set, a group of boys play guitars and sing Crosby, Stills, and Nash’s “Teach Your Children (well).” I have a child snuggled on each side and life feels pretty good. All of a sudden, our son hops up and rushes to the front of the proceedings for a tradition they call the “Key Log Ceremony.” Any boy who has a gratitude to share can go and throw a small log on the campfire.

Our son steps up and says to the assembled group of about 200 , “I would like to thank my counselors, the awesome cabin of J1, and my parents for being there when I need them.” By the end of 80 or so such pronouncements, the fire is roaring from all of the appreciation. It’s a great way to end our son’s first camp experience.

With our son away, our daughter was content. With him back at her side, she’s downright giddy. They laugh and chase each other; they hold hands. The son returned to me has a new positive attitude. When his sister reminds him to pick up his dirty clothes, instead of saying, “Stop bossing me!,” he says, “Thanks for the reminder.” He has new jokes, telling his dad he “caught a musky” when he lifts him up in the pool. And he has new underwear. I notice unfamiliar underwear as he gets undressed and pick them up to discover another child’s name stamped into them: “Sam.” Even with my son’s burgeoning independence, my career as a mother is secure for a bit longer--he still needs me, even if it’s just to make sure he’s not wearing someone else’s underpants.

(Sleep-away) Camp Crumblers

2012-08-02T21:56:00.001-05:00

The buses huff their exhaust into the morning air as clumps of kids and their parents dot the hotel parking lot. Siblings cling and moms reunite with other moms they only get to see at camp events. There are hugs and smiles. It’s not what I anticipated. Specifically, I expected tears--mine and my son’s. After all, he’s leaving home for the first time; he’ll be gone for four weeks; and the only other kid he knows is one he met briefly at a pizza party months before.

My mother-in-law told me I’d be able to tell the first year camp parents from the more seasoned ones and, looking around, I see she’s right. Worried grimaces on the newbie faces aside, wardrobes offer another clue. Parents in-the-know are dressed for tennis, golf, lunch--their post send-off plans firm. They are sneaking glances at their watches. First years, though, are a tired-looking bunch. They rub their sons' backs and offer reassuring smiles as much as to calm themselves as their children.

This scene is a yearly rite for many but is completely new to me. You see, my childhood fails both of the two “if-then” statements that would have put me here: if you live in the Northeast or if you are Jewish, then you go to sleep-away camp. My summers were not organized affairs. They were downright listless--days full of bad 80’s movies (cue Christopher Atkins in a pirate costume or Michelle Pfeiffer pining for a cool rider) punctuated by swims in the neighbor's pool and the occasional family trip to Grandma’s. It was wonderful.

But even if left my own children’s schedules open, their summers still wouldn’t look like mine. Sure, I can keep them home, but there’d be no one to play with--all of their friends are at camp. I’ve had to recalibrate my own expectations of what summer should look like and it hasn’t been easy.

My husband has been talking up camp since we met. Even my mom, though she grew up in a West Virginia coal mining town, went to one. They both still keep in touch with friends they made those summers away from home. My mom still tears when she hears “Taps” which was played at the end of each camp day. When my husband sees his pals, they reminisce about people with nicknames like “Shuffles” and “Almanac” and re-tell old stories about sneaking out or camp owner Arnie wearing a t-shirt that said “I got baked on the Vineyard” (without knowing what it meant) on parents’ weekend.

Even with all of the good press, I’m uneasy about four weeks of sleepaway camp for an eight-year-old--specifically, my eight-year-old. I know, I know, camp will foster his independence, he’ll make friends outside of our insular neighborhood, and he’ll try new things; still, I’m unconvinced. I get steamrolled when my husband invites a camp director to our home. His presentation is low-tech--a binder with photos and a list of activities. By the time he leaves, my son is ready to move in with the guy. NorthStar Camp for Boys it is. It sounds like a correctional institution.

In the weeks leading up to camp, my son confides his concerns about missing home. He looks at me with sweet innocent eyes and wonders aloud if this whole thing is a good idea. Outwardly I reassure him, but my own list of worries is long: what if he doesn’t make friends or there’s a bully or he gets injured.

I decide to call camp and speak to the director. “He’s an anxious kid,” I say. It takes me a moment to realize the irony. I imagine the camp director noting my son’s file: “anxious mother.” It reminds me of when my son was an infant and woke up one morning breathing funny. My husband and I bundled him and walked the two blocks to Children’s Memorial. The nurse gave him a once-over then discharged him with paperwork, the printed diagnosis was “normal child.” The unwritten bit was ”crazy parents.”

The weekend before my son leaves, he makes a special request: to bake something with me--alone. Meaning his sister, my usual baking companion, is out. I agree and even let him choose the recipe. Unfortunately he chooses a made-up one, a cupcake/muffin concoction he made with a babysitter while my husband and I were on a trip once. He calls them crumblers. What he hands me is a list of ingredients written in different colored markers. No measurements. No instructions.

The thing I really like about baking is my level of control. If you measure the ingredients just right, if you set the oven to the right degree, if you cook for the specified amount of time, you generally get a good result (though there are exceptions). With baking, unlike summer camp, I know what to expect.

I would hope that after a year of my baking/blogging project, I’d be savvy enough to look at a list of ingredients and have some idea about the relative amounts needed to cobble together a passable dessert. I can’t. I would hope that after eight years of being a parent, I’d be confident enough in the lessons I’ve imparted to be able to send my child out into the “world” (if sleep-away camp represents a microcosm) without concern. I can’t.

To my son’s frustration, I cross-reference cookbooks and baking sites to get some idea of how to bake using his ingredients. He crosses his arms and says, “Mom, come on, just guess.” He wants me to let go a little; to stop planning; to stop needing to know. I try to follow his lead. We add silly ingredients to the middle of each cupcake before baking: mini M&M’s, Heath toffee bits, chocolate chips, rice krispies, Hershey’s kisses, strawberries. Once we pour the batter on top, we have no idea which is which.

I savor every moment in the kitchen with him in anticipation of his absence. I also write his first letters to camp while he’s still home so that he'll get mail upon arrival when he might most need to feel connected. You can’t imagine how complicated it is to draft a simple letter to a child at camp. Advice abounds. Don’t be too overt about missing him (it might make him feel guilty that he’s having so much fun without you). Don’t tell him too much about the fun things you’re doing while he’s gone (it might make him feel like he’s missing out). Don’t talk about anything sad (it might make him, well, sad).

My letters are rollicking. At home, my son is a big fan of “yo mama” jokes. He especially loves when I tell them because I’m talking about myself. Yo mama is so ugly that people dress up like her for Halloween. Yo mama is so dumb that she tried to put her M&M’s in alphabetical order. I include a yo mama in each letter. One letter I write entirely in a numerical code with an attached decoder. It’s easy to write a letter without dwelling on missing your child when that child is right next to you.

At the makeshift bus-stop in the Renaissance hotel parking lot, he grips his backpack which holds surprises for his eight-hour bus ride: comics, Spy vs. Spy books, puzzle magazines, Mad Libs, and a tupperware full of camp crumblers. He pulls me to him and whispers, “What if I’m not ready?” I take his chin in my hand and tell him, “If you weren’t ready, we never would have agreed to let you go. You’re ready.” He smiles, relieved.

The boy that my son met at the pizza party spots him and comes over to say, “Hey, wanna put your backpack on the bus? I saved us a seat.” I feel joy. When our son emerges from the bus, he’s already holding a Simpsons comic. I imagine his bus seat filled with the dumped out contents of his backpack, an extension of his room which often looks like his dresser exploded. He has already rifled through all of our “surprises” and is suggesting that we should have gotten a “Spy vs. Spy” book by a different author. I’ll admit that it’s easier to say goodbye when you’re being chastised rather than thanked.

When they make the announcement that it’s time to go, our son turns and darts for the bus. My husband yells, “Dude, get back over here and say goodbye!” He rushes back and solemnly shakes my hand like a Senatorial candidate who has just earned my vote. Then he’s off again.

My husband and I position ourselves on the side of the bus we think he’s on and wave dumbly at the row of darkly-tinted windows. Our daughter asks which window is his and I have to admit, “I’m not sure.” She says, “Then who did you just blow a kiss to?” Again, “I’m not sure.”

Then, for just a moment, our son presses his face to a window and comes into full relief. We see the white of his headphones and realize that he’s found his ipod shuffle and is already listening to tunes (no video games allowed). It’s heartening to see that he’s made himself at home so quickly. The kid can’t pour his own lemonade, but here he is on a bus pulling away from us for four weeks, sitting next to a new friend and jamming out with a smile. Maybe we don’t give him enough credit.

As I pull out of the parking lot, I’m already anticipating hearing from him, imagining his first letter crammed full of details about the bus ride he’s on now. I go home and wait.

(stay tuned for Part 2 early next week)

Camp Crumblers (with measurements!)

3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup oil
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup milk

Special ingredients (you choose your own): M&M’s, chocolate chips, white chips, toffee chips, fresh fruit, dry cereal, etc.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Either spray muffin pan with nonstick spray or put liners in cups. Mix all of the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking soda, salt) together. In a separate bowl, mix the wet ingredients (eggs, oil, vanilla, milk). Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until mixed. Fill each muffin tin about halfway with batter. Add one of the “special ingredients” to the center of each tin. Finish filling each tin with batter to cover center ingredients. Bake 15-20 minutes. Have fun guessing what’s inside each and having taste tests to decide which flavors are best!

Mired in Mayberry

2012-07-12T21:33:00.001-05:00

I spent most of my childhood in a sprawling pre-planned community where every third home looked the same. There were no front porches, no downtown, and fences separated each yard from the next--wood or metal barriers between neighbors. I preferred the towns I saw depicted on television.

We all talk a big game now about how kids need to be outside playing and exercising, but I’ve gotta say that I loved whiling away a sweltering summer day parked in front of the tube. HBO was new and had it charms, but network TV shows from decades before were my favorites: Leave it to Beaver, I Love Lucy, The Dick Van Dyke Show and, best of all, The Andy Griffith Show.

My dad used to come in from washing his car or mowing the lawn or engaging in some other enterprising outdoor activity and shake his head in disgust at me, “Are you watching those old shows again? For God sakes, Pam, they’re not even in color!” Sure, the shows were old, but they were new to me. And I really wanted to know if Andy was going to uphold Gomer’s citizen’s arrest for Barney’s illegal U-turn (he did) and if anyone was going to tell Aunt Bee that her homemade pickles tasted like “kerosene cucumbers” (they didn’t).

I thought Dad should be glad I wasn’t watching Luke and Laura make out or pop stars gyrating on MTV. But perhaps the truth was that what I was actually tuning in to was far more dangerous for my adolescent psyche because those shows made me yearn. My post-divorce world featured stepparents and half siblings--it was complicated. I craved the simplicity of a nuclear family and the predictable rhythm of small-town life. I wanted to go down to the fishin’ hole with Andy and Opie or hang out at Floyd’s barbershop and listen to the menfolk gossip.

Instead I grew out of the innocence that drove that desire--that life was never going to be mine. I graduated from high school and left for college; I went to graduate school, then got married and moved a few more times. My unrequited crush on small-town living remained dormant until Gilmore Girls hit the air. Stars Hollow! It featured a town square with a gazebo and a statue of Casimir Pulaski. Better yet, it was in color. And this world was one I knew more intimately--it’s main characters a divorced mother and her daughter figuring out their complicated familial relationships--all against the backdrop of charming buildings full of eccentric residents.

Enter Glencoe. It’s a town of about 8,000 residents nestled on Lake Michigan with a downtown so compact that if you glance at your GPS while driving through, you might miss it. The village has three schools and three stoplights and my husband and I moved here with our children a few years ago. I’m finally living the television dreams of my youth.

Glencoe’s a town with character and full of characters. There’s the pharmacist who’ll climb out of bed and reopen the store to get your kid’s meds. And the woman who rings you up in the boutique with tags hanging off her because she’s wearing clothes right off the racks (and will put them back there for sale). We have competing coffee shops and a world-class theater group that happens to do some performances in the back of the town bookstore.

There’s no better holiday than the Fourth of July to show what Glencoe is made of. Sifting through my own childhood, I came up empty on Independence Day memories. I asked my mom how we used to commemorate the day and she said, “Your dad didn’t care for the holiday and he was the law around our house.”

Imagine my thrill, then, to finally live in a place where the entire day is crammed with activities and the freedom to do them. Other holidays mine the spirit of family and religion but on the Fourth, we celebrate not just our independence but our unity as a nation and, on a smaller scale, as a community. Since moving here, it has become my favorite day of the year.

We don red, white, and blue and hit the streets for a fun-run, family games, children’s carnival, craft fair, magician, live music, and a watermelon-eating contest. We’re wilting in the heat but sweat it out to see the local talent show called “Glencoe’s Got Talent” (which I maintain should end with a question mark).

This year’s show features a four-year-old violinist, a suited elderly man crooning show tunes and three preteen girls fighting over the microphone to sing a Katy Perry song. Watching those girls wiggle and strut reminds me of being nine and standing with friends Kim and Kathy on the latter’s diving board to sing, “Stand by Your Man” in our best twangs. We had a group name (the Bathing Beauty Sisters) but no audience. Oh, to have lived in Glencoe then! The acts feature talents only a mother could love, but we all clap enthusiastically.

Then on to the parade--an exemplification of America with its homespun joys of floats festooned with tissue paper and convertibles with waving mayors. The onlookers for Glencoe’s procession are an aged group. That’s because every kid in town is marching or riding in the event itself. Bikes are spun with streamers and children hang out of the town fire engine as it inches its way down Vernon Ave.

For the first time, my daughter decides to watch with me instead of riding with her preschool pals. She catches candy thrown from realtor cars, happily gets flags from the temple’s float, and puts a sticker that reads “Brad Schneider for Congress” on her belly. An endless stream of Corvettes crawls by and the Men’s Library Club (MLC) hands my daughter a stack of books. I’m nudged by a neighbor and told that the MLC is a group of men that meets at pubs and rarely talks books, their name an inside joke--and that’s how small-town rumors get started.

A moment later, a man approaches my daughter and points to her tummy. He says, “I really like that sticker!” She smiles shyly. He continues, “Do you know why? Because I’m Brad Schneider!” My daughter is five and doesn’t read yet; her sticker could just as well say, “I love gummi bears.” But she smiles gamely for a photo-op.

I watch my daughter standing at the edge of the parade with a red, white, and blue lei around her neck, a poitical sticker on her belly, two flags gripped in her tight little right hand, a “Beiber Fever” book crooked under her arm, and a rapidly-melting electric blue push-up popsicle in her left hand. She’s as happy as I’ve ever seen her.

Next we prepare to attend a BBQ with eight other families. My daughter and I dip strawberries in melted white chocolate then roll them in blue sprinkles for the kids and make rhubarb pie for the adults. The pie features a beautiful fluffy white meringue on top and while we’re whipping it, my daughter keeps sneaking fingerfuls from the edge of the bowl. When I chide her, she says, “My hand is getting tired but I just can’t stop eating it!” She stirs; I scrape. We’re a team, shoulder-to-shoulder in the kitchen. Baking finds us bonding. And baking for friends and neighbors deepens the experience. At the BBQ, my daughter runs off to be with friends, her own independence blossoming.

We close the day with fireworks at the beach. We nestle on blankets with our friends and let out synchronized ooh’s and aah’s when a particularly beautiful chrysanthemum bursts overhead. These technicolor moments are the ones I imagined when I propped dreamily in front of hour-after-hour of those black and white shows.

But life here isn’t scripted and therefore isn’t perfect. It can be tricky. Circles of friends overlap in an indiscernible pattern. There’s always something going on, and thereby always something to potentially be left out of. There are hurt feelings.
Another thing they don’t show on TV is that everyone knows your business. For example, I will get asked on Monday about my weekend dinner at Kansaku by someone I never discussed my plans with. I will get honked at when out for a walk--not in appreciation of my fine form but by a friend, and at least three additional people will later say they saw me out and about .

Also, don’t drink too much at a party or linger too long in a conversation with someone else’s husband. People talk. Things you say and do become part of the collective consciousness, part of your permanent record. Town opinion is formed and communicated before you take off your heels.

Even with all of its un-televised complications, I would still choose this place to raise my children. In light of my own adolescent desires, I do wonder what my own kids will feel they’ve missed as they get older. Will they chafe at the confines of small-town living? Will they find the closeness comforting or stifling? After all, Mayberry and Stars Hollow aren’t right for everyone.

Circle-of-Life Cake

2012-06-22T02:05:00.001-05:00

It’s finally summer and we are living outside. The trees have unfurled their leaves and our yard is shady, filled with bikes left to fall in their spot as the kids eagerly run off to play. This particular warm evening finds us standing outside talking to another family who has happened by. Their kids run with ours, barefoot on the grass, between the houses, and down the drive. Half the kids hide while the other half seek, allowing us to string a few sentences together uninterrupted. We are having an actual adult conversation--likely riddled with curse words, giddy as we are with our freedom--when our Rabbi and his wife stroll by. He delivers the news that the man who used to live in our home has passed away.

Ed lived in this house for 43 years. Here, he raised his own family with his wife Elise. Their three children as well as multiple grandchildren grew here, all living under this roof at various times, a place for whomever needed to stay. Several family members have visited in the three years since we moved in and their stories allow me to imagine what their life here was like. I can see Elise using bleach to scrub the wood counters clean every morning; I know how the small attic room that is my office must have looked when in a fit of teen angst, one son painted it all black; I can conjure Ed using his knowledge of commercial HVAC to cobble together the complex cooling and heating system that leaves our home with both radiator and forced-air components controlled by no fewer than six thermostats (some overriding others, some controlling a single room). This home has been lived in.

In our house search, my husband and I toured every available place in Glencoe and this was the only one we visited a second time. By chance, Ed and Elise were home when we came back. Ed was an artist and the walls were crammed with his work, lending the place a homey, college-professor feel. I connected with him right away and instead of taking a closer look at the house, ended up talking to him about when he first saw the home and how his wife’s happy expression caused him to make a deal on a handshake before even walking through it. When I got home I wrote him a letter, followed by a bid.

Ed and Elise seemed as concerned with our move as they did their own. They offered to leave items they thought our kids might like such as wooden blocks and a small rocking chair their own daughter had used. They left us new bars of soap and towels so that we didn’t have to hunt for our bathroom box first. And in an old-fashioned bit of welcoming chivalry, Ed penned a letter to the block announcing our arrival.

I have some experience with moving. In fact, I’m an expert. In my first 18 years, I moved 14 times. I can tell you how many hours of sleep a child will get before her first day at a new school (none) and which box she’ll unpack first (her books, because she hasn’t met anyone to play with yet).

As an adult, I vowed that I didn’t want my own kids’ things continually paired down to what could fit into a U-Haul; my husband and I decided that our move to Glencoe would be the last. Our decision was affirmed each passing day in our new neighborhood. Welcomes arrived in all forms: homemade cookies and cupcakes, bottles of wine, a book about the town’s history, cards bearing cell phone numbers and the words “call if you need anything.”

Ed took me to lunch at his favorite deli (Big Apple) and then on to the place that made the “best” hamantaschen cookies (Leonard’s Bakery) and even drove me to the butcher (Elegance in Meat) where he suggested I order my Passover brisket. At his art studio, he urged me to pick something just for me. In the midst of unpacking and new school registrations, it was a treat to do something that wasn’t for others. I spent a lot of time comparing watercolors to oils and torsos to landscapes before picking a painting that felt like me on my best days, the me I want to be more often--not simply daughter, mother, or wife, but a woman. It hangs on my living room mantel now.

We aren’t the first family to live in this home and we won’t be the last. Other children will have their first steps here and their special meals celebrating a ballet recital or college acceptance. The thing I love about old homes is the history that has already taken place between their walls; the sense that our lives here represent just a moment in time and that it all just keeps going. Ed understood this and was genuinely happy to see another young family move into his home.

When I heard of his passing, I knew I wanted to honor him in some way. And how do we pay tribute to those who are gone? By doing something nice for the people they loved who are left behind. For me, that means baking. The forethought, time spent in preparation and execution, as well as the delicious result is one of the clearest ways I know to show I care.

I choose to make Elise a cake I’ve seen made dozens of times. My mother-in-law prepares this cake for every birth, birthday and bereavement. The recipe is tattered and vanilla-stained. It’s a chardonnay cake--basically a yellow bundt cake with a little wine in it that, once baked, has a wine, sugar, and butter mixture poured over the top. Recipients of the cake often fight over the “mushy” parts where the topping has really soaked in its boozy sweetness.

The idea of a round cake--rather than brownies or some other bar treat--appeals to me as a symbol of the cycle of life. And wine is a mainstay in ceremonies affirming life; in fact, our son got so drunk on it at his bris that he hiccuped for fifteen minutes with a big, dumb smile on his face (better than the painful alternative of realizing what had just happened).

My mother-in-law can make a chardonnay cake with one hand while preparing a Thanksgiving turkey with the other and having a conversation with you about a trip she just took. I figure if she can do it, I can too. It seems easy. After all there’s no fussy frosting and no layers to stack. I discover that it’s kind of like watching your parents drive when you’re a kid. Driving looks simple. What you don’t get yet are the nuances like accelerating in a turn to hold it tight or the right moment to reverse the wheel while parallel parking. It takes time to be good at it.

I gather my ingredients and notice that we happen to have an uncorked chardonnay in the fridge. I don’t know when it’s from and am not even sure it’s still good. My wine “test” looks something like this: uncork, bring bottle to lips, swig. It’s not pretty. But it’s quick and doesn’t leave dirty glasses.

Glencoe is laid out in a pretty tight grid and my kitchen window happens to look across my driveway into my neighbor’s kitchen window. It’s close. Really close. Like “gosh that pink sweater that Sally’s wearing today looks really nice” close. This means that I have been unwittingly witnessed guzzling wine directly from a bottle. Twice. Once on a Sunday morning (hey, I was cleaning out the fridge).

My test finds this bottle bad so I open a new one and start the cake. I work fast because Ed and Elise’s son is stopping by to pick up mail and I plan to give him the cake to deliver back to her. My timing is off because the cake goes into the oven just as the doorbell rings. Their son promises to stop by the next day when he’s back in Glencoe to retrieve the cake. He doesn’t.

The cake sits for three days on my counter, waiting, sinking. I finally give up and cut into it, eager for a slice. I offer my husband what I have now deemed “dead man’s cake” (humor is my favorite coping mechanism). The cake is bland, dense, and seemingly undercooked. My husband jokes that it’s “lifeless.” We are full of off-color puns.

In my haste, I had taken shortcuts by not adding the eggs one at a time, not beating for a full six minutes, and eyeballing for doneness. It turns out that with baking I’m still in the learner’s permit stage; my next chardonnay cake is best made with adult supervision. I throw the cake away.

A few days later the cake is pulled from the outside bin by animals then left--intact--on the ground. It bears mentioning that last fall we decorated our door with dried Indian corn cobs only to find them picked clean the next day. The squirrels, racoons, and rabbits would rather eat old, dusty corn than my cake. So while I regret not being able to show Elise my sorrow with a baked good, I am grateful that her mourning wasn’t compounded by the awful cake I turned out. Perhaps the best way to show my affection for Ed isn’t my baking after all, it’s with my words: he’ll be missed.

Upon his death, Ed asked that a scholarship be created to support and nurture young people who are following their passion for art of all forms. His desire to help those young people who were less fortunate or who did not have the family structure to support their dreams was a strong and abiding goal for the last several years of his life, and one which his family is committed to fulfilling. His idea was to sell his remaining artwork to fund the scholarship.

Art Sale benefitting the Ed Rosen Memorial Scholarship For Students of the Arts
Saturday, June 23rd 10am to 5 pm
Sunday, June 24th 12pm to 5 pm
Join us for a retrospective look at Ed Rosen’s Art through the years and many genres: Abstract, figurative, florals and more.
Located at 400 Anthony Trail in Northbrook, off Pfingsten and between Dundee and Lake Cook.
http://edrosenart.com/

Gail’s Chardonnay Cake (delicious when not made by me)

For Cake:
1 cup (2 sticks) sweet butter, cut up
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
3 cups cake flour
1 pkg instant vanilla pudding (3.5 ounces)
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup chardonnay
1 tsp vanilla extract
Baker’s Joy spray or Pam with Flour
9” bundt pan

Preheat oven to 350. Spray pan with Baker’s Joy or Pam. Cream butter and sugar in a mixer. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each. Leave in the mixer. Sift together remaining dry ingredients (cake flour, vanilla pudding, baking powder) in a bowl. In another bowl or large measuring cup, add all wet ingredients (wine, milk, vanilla). Alternate adding dry and wet ingredients to the mixer (beating after each addition). Beat at medium speed for 6 minutes after all ingredients have been added; then pour into bundt pan. Cook for 50 minutes.

5 minutes BEFORE you take the cake from the oven, make the following...

For topping:
1/2 cup (1 stick) sweet butter
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cold water
1/4 cup wine

Mix the butter, sugar, and cold water (NO WINE YET) in a small saucepan over low heat and let it come to a boil. Take the saucepan off heat and pour in the wine.

Remove cake from oven and slowly pour topping over cake while hot. Let it soak in (be patient). Turn cake onto a plate and turn back onto dish for serving. Enjoy!

Guilt Baking

2012-05-31T08:09:00.000-05:00

For the past eight years, my husband and I have taken one trip a year away from our children. When we were younger, we yearned to explore far-flung, exotic places. We’d walk till our feet hurt and stay up late. Now our trips away are usually a weekend in some warm place where we skip the pool in favor of a nap in the room. My post-children vacation needs can be boiled down to this: an air-conditioned room, a comfortable bed and thick curtains.

This year has seen a dramatic increase in my sans-children travel. It’s been an off year filled with two planned trips and two unexpected ones in five short months. All of this means lots of planning and a very acute leaving-the-children-behind guilt. “Why do you even have to go?” and “Why can’t Igo?” are the whines that greet the retrieval of our suitcases from the third floor. After many long-winded explanations met with more pleading and negotiating, I have finally reduced my response to this: because.

The unspoken reasons? Because sometimes I like to be called “Pamela” instead of “Mommy.” Because I enjoy a meal without the threat of spilled lemonade dripping off the edge of the table onto my new skirt. Because when daddy goes to bed, he doesn’t ask me to check on him in five minutes, then four, then three, two, one.

It’s important to get away, but even I can admit that this year it’s verging on overkill. Though it’s billed as pure escapism, travel is stressful. In fact, on stress measurement scales, vacations rank just above Christmas as an event that can negatively affect your health. More stressful than the gaggle of relatives around our holiday table? That’s saying something.

For me, planning a trip without kids means the work of crafting a quilt of activities and childcare provided by a combination of paid sitters and volunteers and sometimes family (they aren’t local and our travel is most often to visit them). I spend a week preparing supplemental notes, maps, diagrams, and powerpoint presentations.

My last task? Baking. I conceived the idea of baking before my child-free trips as twofold: first, it offers a little one-on-one bonding time before the separation and second, it leaves something behind to remind the kids that even though I’m not there, I still love them. I can provide sustenance even in my absence. Another friend tells me of her own pre-trip baking which yields chocolate chip pumpkin muffins for her kids. We both agree, it helps ease our conscience at leaving.

I think it’s a gender-specific concern. My husband experiences no such feelings. He doesn’t cram in last-minute connections with the kids and he doesn’t leave anything behind (except the seat up). Moms seem to feel responsible in a way that most fathers just don’t. My husband is an engaged father in every way from silly dancing to discipline. He tucks the kids in at night and plays cards with them in the morning before work. But when he leaves, he doesn’t look back. I, instead, run myself so ragged in those pre-trip days that the baking is often done on the last evening and at the expense of packing which will keep me up till 2am before an early flight.

For this specific trip, my husband and I are going with several other couples to Las Vegas. Because it’s such a hedonistic vacation--eating, drinking, gambling, dancing, napping, spa-ing--my guilt is especially acute. It will take quite a yummy dessert to take the edge off of this. I let the kids pick the treat they want to make and they choose blondies--basically vanilla brownies. They don’t love chocolate desserts but they do love anything with chocolate chips. These blondies also happen to have white chocolate chips and pecans.

We gather all of our ingredients and the kids are so silly and animated that I silently congratulate myself on my excellent idea to carve out this quality time. My son eyes the mound of flour and brown sugar in the mixing bowl and notes that it looks like Disney’s Thunder Mountain Railroad. My daughter suggests a chocolate chip taste test since we’re using two kinds of semi-sweets in an effort to use up several bags. We have Nestle and Ghirardelli. Out of habit, I almost always buy the former but the test is an eye opener. Where the Nestle chips are simple and overtly-sweet, the Ghirardelli ones are deep and rich and worthy of eating alone. I am swayed. We are having fun.

I toast the pecans per the Baking Illustrated instructions and, of course, burn them. I offer a sample to my kids so they can see what happens when you cook them too long and my daughter says, “I’ll try a burnt nut the next time you bake.” In fact, she’s always keen to remind me of the time I started a kitchen fire with a toaster oven full of pine nuts. My husband, in an effort to smother the fire, grabbed the closest thing he could find which just happened to be my daughter’s constant companion--blue blanky. Blue blanky bravely fought the fire for about 3 seconds before it, too, burst into flames. Our first week living in the small town of Glencoe had the fire department at our house twice and my daughter bawling at the sight of her newly-black blanky. Good times.

Now, older and without dragging stuffed animals and blankets behind them, the kids are all about helping in the kitchen. And arguing. They bicker over who gets to stir, whose turn it is to read the numbers on the scale and which one of them got more licks of batter from the spoon. When my son cracks our last egg on the edge of the bowl and it slithers down the outside of it, sending us to the store to buy more, I find myself counting to three to calm down. I realize then that I need a break. A funny thing has happened: I no longer feel quite so guilty about leaving. Furthermore, I stowe some blondies to share with my Vegas friends. What’s better than homemade decadence in an already decadent city?

After days of exhaustive preparation and bear-hug goodbyes, I am a limp noodle in the back of the airport-bound cab. By the time I am in the security line though, I am happily marveling at how everyone holds their own tickets like such big boys and girls. No one is asking for a snack or to go potty.

As we sit by the Vegas pool, four moms surrounded by young girls in heels and makeup with their swimsuits, one friend’s phone starts pinging with texts from her daughter. On the other side, my friend squints at her watch and adds the two hour time difference till her daughter gets home from school so she call call her like she promised. Even when we are off, we are on.

I debate touching base with my kids but remember that in the past it has really upset their apple cart to hear from me in the middle of the day like this. It makes them remember I’m gone. Instead, I’ll wait for them to call. I’ll let them provide the cues about their need for me. Besides, a guy who looks like a “Talented Mr. Ripley”-era Jude Law in mirrored sunglasses just sauntered by. I decide to let the kids stay in their moment while I stay firmly in mine.

The first time my husband and I went away, we left our son with my in-laws. I fretted about his missing us. I imagined him miserable. When we walked in the door at the end of our trip, I saw my son and bent down on my knees, arms outstretched for him to run into. He took a look at me and ran to his grandma instead. I was shattered. It seemed to be some indictment of me as a mother when really it was just the impulsive reaction of an overwhelmed 18-month-old.

What I didn’t appreciate at the time--as I cried and cursed--was that we all need time away from each other. When I’m gone, these two rapidly-growing little people learn to rely on others, even themselves more. They need a break from me too.

Now I am back home and there are no vacations on the horizon. Our next separation (and its a BIG one) will be in three weeks when my son leaves for sleep-away camp. Then I’ll get to see what it’s like to be the one left behind. I wonder what he’s going to bake for me.

A Vacation or a Trip?

2012-05-02T21:47:00.000-05:00

We are at the rental car desk in San Francisco after traveling for seven hours with two young children, it’s almost midnight Chicago time and we’re hungry and impatient. My husband and I are exhausted; our kids are not.

Our son is climbing on our luggage, knocking it over into a mountain and sitting on top; he is drinking from a water fountain with his mouth hugging the spout. I am too tired to care.

Meanwhile, my daughter continues a line of questioning she started a full ten minutes ago: “But,why is she giving us her car?”

“Who?” I ask, distracted by my son biting his grimy fingernail.

“Avis.”

I sigh and explain for the fortieth time, “Avis is not a person, it’s a company. We are paying to borrow a car from a company.”

“Oh, okay, so we’re not keeping it.”

“That’s right.” Relief. Finally, she’s got it. She starts wrestling with her brother. I know as sure as I sit here on this sticky vinyl chair that this match will end in tears.

My daughter pauses, mid half-nelson, to ask, “But will we get to meet her?”

And we’re back to talking about Avis again--like she’s some long-lost Aunt we’ve come to California to visit and frankly I don’t have the stamina for it. I tell her, “It’s late. Avis is sleeping.” Note to self: next time rent from Enterprise.

My son’s head hits the metal chair base with an audible conk. Tears.

If you were to walk past me at this moment, you’d see a mother wiping her son’s tears with her sleeve; you’d hear her say, “I know, that hurt. It’ll feel better soon baby.” But if you could zoom past my empathetic expression and move into my thoughts, you’d hear: of course you got hurt, you’re treating the waiting area like it’s the WWF; enough with the crying already, it doesn’t hurt that much and I can see your sister starting to calculate the uneven distribution of attention and preparing to cry herself; when, oh, when will I get the break that is the hallmark of vacations?

The tears reach a crescendo with both children crying now, overtired and irrational (which also describes my state). Then I realize that this is it--this is what a vacation with children looks like; there is no break. There are questions, negotiations, nonstop interaction and tears. In fact, it looks suspiciously like being at home.

My husband jokes, “I’m having second thoughts.” About this trip? I ask. “No. About having children.” In this moment, in the hum of the fluorescent lights and the drone of the rental agent’s apology for the wait, the next nine days look a little bleak.

Prior to our trip, my daughter and I made homemade granola bars in anticipation of long drives up and down the coast with very few places to stop for snacks. Granola bars are exactly the sort of thing I always imagined I’d make as a mother--that, and my own baby food. I’d love to be the type of mother that mixes her own cleaning supplies and buys only organic produce. Instead, I pack artificially-flavored Cheez-Its and environmentally-unfriendly Capri Sun foil-packs for snacks. On a daily basis, convenience trumps wholesomeness.

I decide that I can be that mom, if only for spring break. My daughter and I mix old-fashioned rolled oats with oil and salt for toasting. We are supposed to bake until they are “pale gold” like fall leaves but when we pull them from the oven they are dark brown like dead, fallen leaves that have been flattened by my car. I also cook the honey/brown sugar mixture a tad too long. Yet, I still have hope that the oats, nuts, vanilla, cinnamon, and syrup will yield a tasty, nutritious snack.

It turns out that homemade granola bars are surprisingly easy to make. Good homemade granola bars? You’ll have to ask someone else. Mine taste awful. There is a burnt flavor; not smokey, but burnt. Their aftertaste requires a chaser and they smell strongly like sugared leather--like a sweet, worn saddle--not bad, exactly, but not appetizing either. And I have 36 of them.

I pack them up anyway, hoping that if I pretend to like them, the kids will be tricked into enjoying them too. Look, the Emperor’s fully dressed--now have a granola bar! The smell of the bars is seeping through the soft sides of our luggage as we wait at Avis (and my daughter waits for Avis). My children are running around like animals and my bags smell like a zoo.

My husband and I have a code word that we use when our tempers reach a boil, when we are about to say something to our kids that might thrust them into psychotherapy: man-down. Man-down tells the other spouse that it’s time to take over; tag, you’re it. The first couple of days of our trip has us uttering “man-down” so much that you’d think we had word-specific tourette's.

But then something happens to our children--they break. I somehow forget in the first frustrating days of any trip, that our kids are disoriented. They crave routine and theirs has been upended. They need reminding for everything. Brush your teeth. Yes, of course you have to wear underwear. Yes, seatbelts too. In a new environment, they are seeking re-definition of their boundaries.

There is an almost tangible moment when the kids snap into their vacation selves. Finally, they stop whining and start noticing what’s around them. They ease up. And once they realize that the rules of behavior haven’t changed, we are able to start the small indulgences that vacations are all about. With no schedule, we can linger in the magic shop or turn back for ice cream at that quirky hippy place we passed earlier (the one where we are the only patrons and “Hey Jude” plays on repeat). By the time my daughter is squealing over the hills in “San Fran-six-go,” I am in love with her all over again.

At home, my kids don’t play well together. They are a boy and a girl separated by three years. But on this trip, I see them shedding their roles--or at least setting them aside for small stretches of time. They collaborate in the backseat of our rental car. My daughter says, “I’ll be the baby and you can be the dad.” My son says, “Yeah, but you don’t know I’m a spy.” Spy and baby play quietly and happily.

That’s how our vacation goes: moment to moment. There are happy surprises like Big Basin National Park, which finds them balancing on logs and jumping off of stumps and in general acting like free-range children. By this point in the trip, all of our clothes reek of burnt, oily oats. I momentarily worry about bears, walking as we are, smelling so pungently of food. But even they are discerning. Indeed, when my children perch at the bottom of a skyscraper-high redwood to rest, my son takes one bite of a granola bar and says conspiratorially to his dad, “These are terrible.” I realize that my children know more than I give them credit for.

Travel gives me an opportunity to see who they really are. At home, they are dependent upon their physical space to cue their actions--this is what is okay at home, this is what we do at school. Going to new places teaches them how to be in the world. It need not be expensive or extravagant, the important part is the away.

A friend recently commented after traveling with her kids: “It wasn’t a vacation, it was a trip.” A trip is something you take for work; it infers long exhausting days filled with tasks you wouldn’t necessarily choose to do. Check. A vacation, on the other hand, requires sunblock and implies levity and laughter. Check.

Our travel unfurled the luxury of time together without television, email, phone calls, and the relentless crush of the everyday. There were tears but also inside jokes. We bonded. In the end, ours was a trip and a vacation.

Tweaking Tradition

2012-04-23T06:47:00.000-05:00

You have to love a holiday tradition that teaches kids the skills of either stealing from or negotiating with their parents--both things we would discourage any other time of year. This is the construct of the Passover afikomen custom.

At Passover, Jews gather for an extended orderly dinner called a seder to commemorate the story of Exodus when the Israelites were freed from slavery by the Pharoah. Most religious practices seem kooky to the uninformed, but Passover especially so: there is a place set for an invisible guest named Elijah, lumps of minced fish bullied into oval shapes, and a plate containing random items like a shank bone, a sprig of parsley, and a puddle of salt water. Judaism wrings meaning from these things. There is also wine--lots of it--as the ceremony calls for the drinking of four glasses each.

Whereas adults have wine to grease the wheels of ritual, the kids have the excitement of the afikomen. In fact, when I tried to suss the origin of afikomen hiding, I found one source after another pinning it on the need to jazz up the seder for the kids--an acknowledgement of the difficulty of keeping them planted in their seats during the recitation of bible stories. “We know, this is boring, but there will a scavenger hunt and some cash in it for you later.”

The afikomen is a piece of matzoh that is ceremoniously drawn from the middle of a stack of three during the seder. Then either this matzoh is stolen by the kids and ransomed back to the parents (turning your children into greedy warlords), or the matzoh is hidden by the parents for the kids to find then sell back at a negotiated price (creating mini-bounty hunters). The seder may not conclude until the afikomen is back in adult hands; trust me, after several hours of shushing children then alternately encouraging them to read aloud from their prayer books, everyone wants the seder to end. What we have are motivated sellers and motivated buyers--it’s a quick transaction.

Passover seders are generally held the first two nights of the eight-day holiday. This year, we spent the first night at a friends’ house. They tweaked tradition by hiding seven pieces of matzoh--one for each child. I initially felt conflicted about this endorsement of the “everybody wins” philosophy that permeates modern parenting. Then I thought of my son’s room--littered with sports trophies when the only basket I’ve ever actually seen him make was for the other team--and I felt heartened by the idea of focusing on the effort rather than the result.

In advance of our second-night seder, this one held at our home, my husband and I discuss his family’s tradition of kids clamoring over one another in a race to garner the hidden cracker. He’s partial to his own custom. But is a religious holiday really the time to teach tough life lessons? “Life isn’t fair kid, get used to it. Oh, and Happy Passover.” At least in the Easter made-up tradition of a giant bunny hiding eggs, the kids get chocolate. On the other hand, without competition, the afikomen hunt has no excitement. It’s like watching a lion fed at the zoo versus seeing one chase a gazelle.

My husband and I discuss the interpretations of the tradition beforehand and choose the Serengeti: one afikomen, one finder, one prize of one dollar. Done.

Imagine my surprise, then, when after dinner I look up to see my husband and the other parents frisking their purses and wallets and so much cash waving that it feels like we’re at the track. They’ve decided that each kid will get a dollar just for searching while the finder will receive two dollars. So now we have one matzoh hidden but seven payouts--you don’t even need to find anything to garner a buck. It’s like paying unemployment benefits to someone who was never employed. Major policy change has been instituted without me.

My husband has forgotten that in parenting, there is no backsliding. You can’t, one year, give everyone a dollar then the next year go back to paying only the finder; that’s a recipe for anger and tears. That’s why, when my daughter asks if she can have a sleepover in our bed, I know my answer it isn’t just for that night but for all the nights to come; my response in that moment will fuel every coming negotiation.

We don’t usually have the luxury of making well-thought out, advance decisions; most parenting is done on the fly. Kids can’t possibly grasp the complex interaction of stress level, sleep deprivation, and mood that fuels parental choices. “But you let me have popcorn for breakfast that one time.” Yes, but then mommy was tired from being out late the night before and now I have just read an article on childhood nutrition and you must have a quinoa egg-white omelet for breakfast. It’s understandably difficult for kids to keep track of it all. Which is why, having a considered, pre-made decision going into a night like this is a plus. Unless, your husband is caving to his own set of unseen rationalities.

During the afikomen search, the kids run around in no discernible pattern, searching and re-searching places that have already been checked and ignoring other potential spots. One child checks the fireplace, then the next child peers into the same fireplace while both ignore the card catalog containing 50 drawers next to it. Their search is so haphazard and without reason that I wonder how any of them will make it in the world at all.

Finally, thankfully, and with many hints, the eldest child finds it. His negotiation with my husband goes something like this: My husband--“I’ll give you a nickel for it.” The kid--“Sure.” It’s the opposite of a hard bargain; it’s downright soft. We can cross “sales” off of his potential future career options. My husband shakes his head and hands the kids two bucks while the other children line up for their dole. Then, dessert.

My daughter and I have prepared what has become a passover mainstay in our home: caramel matzoh crunch. A quick online search reveals hundreds of recipes and as many names (matzoh brittle, chocolate caramel crackers, toffee matzoh candy) but almost all of them give a nod to what has become its street name: matzoh crack. It’s that addictive.

All feature four simple ingredients: matzoh, butter, brown sugar and chocolate. First, a crispy cracker layer, next buttery caramel, then a layer of bittersweet chocolate before the topping fun begins--the combinations are endless. This year, my daughter and I make dark and white chocolate versions, some with Heath toffee crumbles or nuts, and others with mini m-and-m’s.

The result is a fast-disappearing mound of colorful, crunchy deliciousness. Why do we only eat this once a year? We more than make up for the time by gorging ourselves. The kids dip theirs in ice cream and eat like they’re being timed. They run from the table with fingers still chocolate-coated, rejoicing at their freedom; we, their captors at the table for the evening--their evil pharaohs--linger at the now-childless table.

The kids strike up a quiz game in the next room. They, in turn, encourage and taunt each other. Answers are whispered; alliances are formed; there are winners and losers. These kids are going to be just fine. Someday they will look back at their trophies celebrating little more than participation, and wonder why they took such pride in them. Soon enough the competitive realities of the world will bear down upon them. Soon enough. But for now, it's right that they appreciate the uncomplicated joy of rummaging through fireplaces and sofa cushions and getting one over on the adults.

Sex and Santa

2012-03-24T09:54:00.001-05:00

St. Patrick’s Day is a religious holiday commemorating the arrival of Christianity in Ireland and a catch-all celebration of Irish culture. In our pre-kids, city days this meant a dyed river, crowds and subsequent cursing over parking, and witnessing morning-after men and women stumble home still wearing green. Now, our suburban family holiday is filled with crafts covered in green glitter (my car looks like I gave a lift to an Irish stripper) and my kids’ excited talk of the leprechauns’ yearly visit to our home--our excuse to trash their rooms like they do our whole house then blame it on imaginary creatures. Finally, parenting gets fun.

I stoke the leprechaun fire when I visit my daughter’s classroom right before St. Pat’s. Each parent (read: mom) is invited/expected to visit the class as “chef of the day” during the year. It’s an opportunity to observe your child in her natural school habitat and for her to thrill at the novelty of having you sit in a tiny tiny chair while trying to corral her schoolmates into participating in a food-prep activity.

I lead the class in making rainbow cupcakes--basically cupcakes hopped up on food dye--with green frosting and a chocolate-gold coin on top. Thus creating the rainbow and the imaginary pot of gold at the end of it. The kids are eager to help. They want to measure, pour, stir, and sit next to me; in fact, an argument breaks out on that last point, the same as unfurls everyday in my house at mealtime. My husband and his siblings used to fight so much over sitting next to their mom at dinner that finally his dad outlawed anyone sitting there; his mom sat luxuriously alone at one side of the table while the three kids crammed onto the other, with dad at the head. Apparently, in the case of my daughter’s class, any mom will do. They clammer.

I discover that the two most coveted jobs are turning the mixer on and off and adding the color to the cupcake batter. I witness some leprechaun-like mischievousness when one boy adds more than the prescribed eight drops of food coloring. Then the next boy adds even more. By the time we’re at the last boy and the last bowl, he’s glancing at his friends and smirking as he squeezes the entire tube into the bowl, turning the batter and his hands and his shirt blue. It doesn’t take much to thrill kids; bright colors and frosting are winners--add a gold coin you’ve got yourself a trifecta.

At home, our kids eagerly await their leprechaun visit with a mix of fear (from my five-year-old) and skepticism (from my eight-year old). Several months ago my older child pressed me for the umpteenth time on the improbable existence of Santa and the Tooth Fairy. His logic was hard to deny. He raised valid points about Santa fitting into the chimney and the unlikelihood of someone actually wanting our discarded teeth, much less paying for them. The cincher in his argument was a comment about the creepiness of the fat man and the fairy sneaking into our homes in the middle of the night unwitnessed and undetected by our senses or alarm system. Creepy, indeed.

After the latest interrogation, my husband chastised me for continuing the ruse. He said, “our son is asking you, point-blank, if we are Santa and the Tooth Fairy and you refuse to level with him--it seems wrong.”

I am forced to ask myself, where is the line between whimsy and lying? It lies somewhere between encouraging make-believe and willfully discouraging our children’s inquiries about these improbable characters by stacking detail upon false detail. That’s right, darling, Santa not only fits down the chimney but magically goes back up it; the Tooth Fairy is a miniature sprite but somehow manages to tote a sack of heavy coins around with her.

I remember the year I discovered that Santa and my parents were the same. I was nine when I spied my Christmas gifts in the closet a week early. I closed the door and walked quietly away. Cue Christmas morning and my surprise to find the same gifts under the tree with tags marked “from Santa.” I kept mum, mainly to keep the present pipeline a-flowing. But I it gave me the feeling that my parents were in on something that I was left out of. I didn’t, however, feel robbed of my sense of wonder, which is the argument I use now to fend off my husband’s urgings to tell our son the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

This push-and-pull plays out daily in our house. My husband tries to speed up our kids growth, while I sneak my foot onto the brake. He encourages the kids to cross the street alone as I follow them to the door reminding them to look both ways then watch them longingly from the window. He makes them get their own drinks while I ask them if they want ice with that. With only my husband as a parent, the kids would be grilling their own dinner and juggling fireballs. With just me, they’d be little Veruca Salts. It takes both of us to bring a measured approach to our parenting. This is why I give serious consideration to his suggestion to confirm our son’s suspicions.

It forces me to confront why it’s so important to me to uphold our children’s magical thinking. Why do I need them to keep believing in these adult-constructed fairy tales? Upon examination, I think the answer lies more in my own needs than theirs. Motherhood is a job that’s ever-devolving--with a mother earning less and less authority as the years pass. At the start, the job is critical to the operation, by the end it’s mostly advisory in nature. Thankfully, there’s no pink slip but the position does get seriously downgraded. As long as the children are still young, and by proxy, innocent, I am still integral.

Ultimately it is my one of my own parenting principles that convinces me to confess to my son. I have always encouraged my children’s intellectual curiosity. I patiently answer questions and levy my own to stimulate thinking. I listen. I explain. I don’t rely on, “because I said so.” I offer a full briefing then rebuttal, often leaving myself exhausted from the sheer quantity of interaction I have with my kids. And now I have a child coming to me with legitimate, well thought-out questions and I am basically saying, “believe what is unbelievable because I said so.”

So I sit my son down, away from the prying ears of his blissfully-unaware sister, and tell him that, yes, Dad and I are Santa. “I knew it!,” he exclaims. “I mean the writing on the gifts is always the same as yours.” He hesitates, “And the Tooth Fairy?” Yep, us too. I sense a little deflation in his demeanor now.

“So you guys come in while I’m sleeping and leave me money?” Yes. He seems unconvinced and remains skeptical until I show him my jewelry box, filled with his his and his sister's teeth, all jumbled together. This is such a dramatic departure from his Tooth Fairy book that depicts her carefully labeling a box for each child--walls and walls of boxes surround her--before gently placing the teeth in. The reality is so much less spectacular than the myth. Isn't that always the way?

He sits back on the bed with me, his palm still full of tiny teeth, and announces, “But I still believe in leprechauns.” He looks at me expectantly, daring me to respond. It’s a make or break moment. I smile and say, “Me too.” He lights up.

With this being all he has left in the department of holiday fantasy, I’ve gotta make it good. On St. Patricks Day, my husband and I compare notes with another couple. In the past, our leprechaun has made a mess in the kids’ rooms and left a trail of hand-cut-out shamrocks on the floor. Our friends’ visitor takes it up a notch, spilling Lucky Charms cereal on the table and peeing green into the toilets; theirs is a Chris Farley version of a naughty gnome--eating and drinking his way through their home. I ask if he also leaves lines of green coke on the table.

Our PG-rated leprechaun adds gold chocolates and 3-D glittered shamrocks to his repertoire this year. He gets more creative, hanging stuffed animals from lamps and fans and twining toy snakes around bedposts. The kids are thrilled, running around the next morning with chocolate mustaches before breakfast and excitedly showing each other their overturned rooms.

I realize that their inquiries--their desire to make sense of the world--are not going to stop. Instead, the frequency and difficulty of their questions will increase. At each juncture, it will be up to us to figure out the way to answer truthfully without dashing their hopes or revealing more than they can handle. The adolescence train just keeps rolling along, picking up speed; next stop: the sex talk.

Outsourcing our Snark

2012-03-11T20:40:00.002-05:00

Some things are best watched en masse: football games, royal weddings, any cheesy reality show (which is all of them), and the Oscars. Men don’t seem to dig the self-congratulatory, over-hyped, uber-styled, singing, crying, tribute-deluged event; that’s why my Oscar invite-list is female only.

Planning a party for women is easy, it goes something like this: invite them; accept their immediate offers to bring food; sit back and enjoy. I like to theme the food to the movies--a task made harder now that Best Picture nominations have gone from 5 to 10 movies--so I issue vague assignments to my guests: bring something black and white for “The Artist,” Hawaiian or with nuts to symbolize the kooks in “The Descendants,” and something with alcohol, preferably French, for “Midnight in Paris.” One friend makes delicious chocolate cookie sandwiches held together with vanilla frosting. Another brings a yummy macadamia and coconut-encrusted ice cream cake. When it comes to desserts, these girls aren’t fooling around.

I decide to make mini-chocolate tarts to invoke a seminal scene in “The Help” (though my ingredient list is different from that in the movie). I can’t find a single suitable recipe in my hardback cookbooks so I turn to the Internet to find delectable-looking bittersweet chocolate tartlets on a food blog called Dessert First Girl.

My daughter loves pressing the dough into the pan of little tart cups. For her it’s not about the end result. In fact, neither of my children will even eat chocolate desserts though they’ll practically take off your finger if you hand them a Hershey’s kiss or candy bar. For my daughter, baking is about the joy of doing it, not what it yields.

The tarts end up being dark and rich with a deep cooked chocolate flavor and a great buttery crumb in the crust. Dessert First Girl lists suggestions for toppings to increase the complexity of flavor. I leave some plain but dust some with cinnamon, others with chili powder, and the rest with sea salt. The problem with this plan is that I am obliged try each iteration. My favorite is the sea salt one since I'm always one to prefer salty to sweet--both together? Heaven.

Our spread of food omits anything found near the wide good-for-you bottom of the food pyramid and anything even appearing on the government’s new “choose my plate” program--we’re talking all fats and sugars here. My friends and I squeeze onto the couch, making room for everyone, and turn on the red carpet coverage. We split our attention between the big screen main event and the ipad on my coffee table displaying an E! app with a Twitter feed and live video.

When “The Dictator” Sacha Baron Cohen spills “ashes” all over Ryan Seacrest--aside from being secretly happy that his shellacked demeanor has been dented--we are delighted to see it play out in real time in a ticker of twitter messages. Tweets are asking if Ryan has another tuxedo to change into and if the security that whisks Cohen away is real or part of his scheme. These are the same questions volleying around my living room. (I will note, however, that no one actually laughs at the supposedly-funny antics).

By the time J-Lo and her low-cut dress take the stage, half of the women have out their phones. It starts with one girl checking Billy Crystal’s age because it’s simply impossible to tell from his unnaturally air-brushed appearance (I am as uncomfortable looking at him as I am Barry Manilow or Meg Ryan). Another friend snaps a picture of our group and uploads it as her Facebook status. One uses her phone to look up what other movies Juan Dujardin has been in, while another searches online to make sure that the annoying beeping we hear is from the telecast and not my sound system.

Pretty soon a friend announces that we have “Twitter confirmation” that there has, in fact, been a nip slip while yet another reads a text from her husband aloud: “is that an areola I see?” After we all marvel at her husband’s grasp of anatomy, we tune back in for Angelina’s awkward right leg out pose. Again, phones are lighting up with mocks and snide comments being read to the group.

Before the show is over, the following Twitter accounts have been created and are actively participating in the national conversation: @JLosNipple, @AngiesRightLeg, and @AngiesLeftLeg. JLosNipple is by far the most prolific with 141 tweets since the broadcast, saying things like, “I was a quarter-inch from being famous, do you think I need a publicist?” AngiesRightLeg has more than 48,000 followers reading tweets like, “Check me out!” and “I’m right here.” Poor AngiesLeftLeg fares the worst with the least actual attention and the fewest followers with posts like, “Perhaps I’ll be nominated for Best Supporting Role.” Before the sun rises post-Oscars, photo-shopped pics of Angelina Jolie in all sorts of awkward positions involving her lower limbs have hit the web.

It strikes me that we have stopped creating our own snark--we have outsourced it. We are no longer lauded for a fast, witty aside but for the quickest search engine and the best choice of funny post to share with the group. Perhaps the idea is that comedic minds better than ours are already on the task.

Whereas, in years past, we might have collectively brainstormed Dujardin’s prior movies (if we had ever heard of him before to this year), now we don’t bother with the discussion. How many other things have we stopped thinking about in favor of quick thumbs tapping it out on mini-screens? No more sleepless nights trying to figure out that the freckled girl from Little House who dated Rob Lowe was--um, I think I have it now, it’s on the tip of my tongue, she wore that shockingly low-cut-yet-primly-netted dress a few years ago--Melissa Gilbert!

We want instant answers. We also want to share our own impressions, comments, photos, likes and dislikes and what we are doing--right now (but not necessarily with those in the same room). Our era is one where telling a joke is as easy as hitting “forward” and reacting to said joke is as easy as hitting “delete.” We are part of a collective, if impersonal, conversation. We are connecting more and less. Is it sentimental to wonder if our experience is being enriched or diluted by technology?

In years going forward, will my friends and I tune in to the Academy Awards from our own homes and share the experience virtually? Will we watch each other watching? If so, I’ll miss the face-to-face, un-pixelated camaraderie and the cookies (not the kind my computer rejects).

It’s difficult for me to be too critical of technology as I eat my second/fourth/seventh delicious bittersweet chocolate tartlet made from an online recipe and as I write my blog--a form that doesn’t even exist without the Internet. Instead of fighting it, I’m going to try to harness some of its power for good--so if you enjoyed this piece, please tweet it, like it, pin it, digg it, favorite it, plus-one it, share it on tumblr or flickr or reddit, or simply forward it along with a joke or some warning you’ve already vetted on snopes. Thanks!