Short Fat Dictator

My No Good Horrible Very Bad Week

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret) — Thu, 16 May 2013 17:19:00 +0000

Dearest Blog Followers, Subscribers and People Who are Here Because they Attempted to Google Pictures of Short, Dictatorial World Leaders and/or "How to Knit a Snood",

I make a sincere effort to update this blog on each Thursday of the week with tales of familial misadventure, the occasional parenting tip and some witty insights into the state of married life.

But this week I can't do it.

Because I'm in hiding.

I'm under the covers, hoping no one will notice my absence for while, like maybe until the children leave for college.

Yeah, it's been one of those weeks. I won't go into every gory detail but allow me to provide the following lowlights:

Son #2's front-step fall resulting in forehead laceration (involving a copious amount of bleeding, a trip to the ER, some light facial reconstructive gluing and then a crime-scene cleanup of the back of the minivan), which resulted in...

the cancellation of our weekend outing to a friend's pool (no wet stitches!), which left us marooned in the playroom engaging in...

38,000 games of "Don't Break the Ice". Was there appropriate turn taking? There was not. Was there instead much shouting and grabbing and generalized ill-will along with some light inter-brotherly skull hammering? There was. All of which occurred over...

two days with 90+ degree temperatures, which happened to coincide with the air conditioning going out in the minivan...

and culminated with the baby's sudden-onset double ear infection coupled with projectile vomiting PLUS...

a lost shipment of fire hats for son's rapidly approaching fireman-themed birthday party WHICH RESULTED IN...

approximately 96 phone calls in search of the above, WHICH MAY OR MAY NOT BE RELATED TO...

the bizarre neck-related ailment which has rendered me unable to turn my head and forced me to go about my day with the mobility of a rusted-out robot.

So, I'm taking the week off.

In keeping with the theory that a picture is worth a thousand words I present the following...

I am a two-year-old with a busted head lying in a hospital bed while wearing a "Daddy's Little Caddy" T-shirt. Are you sad yet?

Hopefully things will be a little better around these parts next week.

Until then, I'll be here under the covers waiting for someone to bring snacks.

The Games We Play

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret) — Thu, 09 May 2013 20:47:00 +0000

About twice a year my husband and I do an "analyze and purge" drill in our home.

We get rid of the stuff that our kids have outgrown and replace it with new stuff we imagine they're ready for. Out with the high chairs, in with the booster seats! Out with the walkers, in with the train sets!

You get the general idea.

Earlier this week I assessed the playroom and decided that the boys were really ready for some real big boy games. I'd had enough of Play-Doh and race tracks. I was ready to start on the super fun journey of board game action! I could only imagine that hours of happy family fun time awaited me as I walked the aisles of Target and selected the following item:

I rushed home with my purchase in hand and called out for the children to gather round! We were about to embark on a new era of merriment and it was beginning RIGHT NOW!!!

My two boys hustled to the table full of wonder and inquiry.

"What's that???"

they inquired as they glimpsed the bright red whimsical face on the box.

"It's an awesome new game we're all going to play together!"

My mother-in-law joined us at the table and I asked her to read the instructions aloud. She let me know that I should give each player an equal number of beans. Then players would take turns, each placing one bean on the lid of the jar. When someone's bean tipped the jar, that person would take possession of the fallen beans and the game would continue until one player -- the triumphant winner -- was completely out of beans.

It all seemed simple enough.

And so I began:

STEP ONE: Distribute an equal number of beans to each player.

I put one bean in front of each of my boys. They immediately responded by attempting to steal each other's beans.

"NO! NO! Wait! You'll both get plenty of beans!!! Hold on."

Each bean I doled out started a new round of trouble. There was unapproved placing of beans on the lid. There was a lot of bean throwing. This resulted in a dangerous case of attempted bean ingestion by their little sister, playing on the floor below the table.

I gathered all the beans, slapped a similar-looking pile in front of each boy, and hastily moved on:

STEP TWO: Each player takes a turn placing one bean on top of the lid.

I thought perhaps that some good modeling might help with this step, so I asked my mother-in-law to start by gently placing one bean atop the lid.

Which she did.

At which point I calmly added another bean.

Then my two-year-old dumped six beans on top. Then my four-year-old added sixteen beans all at once and beans went flying everywhere.

My boys fell out in fits of laughter and high-fived each other between shouts of:

"WE SPILLED THEM! WE SPILLED THE BEANS!!!!!!!!"

The game did not improve from there. The boys continued to fling beans wildly at the lid, howling with laughter each time the jar tipped over. My mother-in-law and I tried valiantly to steer the game back to, you know, anything that actually involved any version of the rules, but it was not to be.

Realizing we'd been overrun, we gave up and left them to their super-fun game of "SPILL AS MANY BEANS AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE AND IN EVERY DIRECTION, PLEASE."

At some point they tired themselves out. I packed up the few beans that had survived their onslaught, put the game up on a high shelf, and realized that my dream of merry family fun times may still be a ways off in the distance.

Or who knows? Maybe my plan to introduce the kids to "DON'T BREAK THE ICE" will prove the solution to all my problems!!!!!

Children, multiple pieces, hammers -- WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

What is He Thinking?

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret) — Thu, 02 May 2013 19:27:00 +0000

I was thinking of starting an weekly column for single women called, "Advice from the Other Side: Insights from a Married Lady for the Single Gal."

But then I realized that the revelations from my five years of married life can actually be summed up with accuracy in one single phrase:

Don't waste a lot of time wondering what he's thinking.

Having spent a good twenty-four years of my life (from ages 12-36) single and interested in boys, it would be difficult to quantify exactly how many hours of my life I devoted to obsessing over this question.

It is only now that realize how epically misguided that was.

There were the nights spent in middle school wondering if Sean Harding was calling because he wanted the answers to my algebra test or whether he REALLY wanted to ask me to go see Ghostbusters!

And there were the days in college hashing out with roommates the inner workings of the mind of the guy who said that thing about the Spin Doctors show coming up over the weekend!

Then came technology and there were IMs to be analyzed, emails to be deconstructed and the all-consuming horror of the question, "What did he mean by that text?"

Having lived with my husband now for half a decade I am coming to the realization that the inner life of the male species is perhaps not quite as rich a tapestry as I had come in my earlier years to imagine.

When we were first together I would fall into despair whenever my husband was distant or sullen. I would fill in multi-part explanations as to what could be amiss.

Perhaps he was still worried and disturbed that I'd told him I'd gone a bit over our agreed budget when I made those travel arrangements?

Goodness, I hope he's not mad that I left him to handle the baby all morning when I went out for breakfast with my friend.

Oh no, should I have not said that thing about his needing a haircut? I really didn't mean anything by it...

At some point in the day, as I considered the dozenth possible scenario that might lie at the root of the problem, I would look up to catch my husband gazing longingly towards the kitchen. I'd finally screw up the nerve to ask him what was wrong and he'd somberly intone,

"I really wish there were some more of those brownies left from yesterday...."

And I mean, this happened like EVERY TIME.

We'd snuggle on the couch and I'd sit wondering where our lives might take us, whether or not we were on the right career paths, and what the years ahead would bring for the small children playing at our feet.

I'd turn to my beloved, smile up at him and inquire,

"What are you thinking about?"

A thoughtful look would play across his face, he'd gaze out towards our kiddos, and respond,

"Isn't it weird that Aquaman's superpower is the ability to summon fish? Like, how many times does that really come in handy?"

And, I don't know, maybe it doesn't apply to all the dudes in the world, but as I spend more and more time with David I have just come to believe that a lot of the motives I ascribed to the men in my life and much of the "secret meanings" I thought lay in our interactions were, in fact, total projections.

The simple reality is that my husband, like a lot of his fellow males, is not a ponderer.

David doesn't spend a whole lot of time analyzing situations, and he is truly mystified by my desire to talk over and over about things that can't be resolved through conversation. What he says is almost always fairly closely aligned with what he means and he doesn't really spend a lot of time turning stuff over in his mind.

Which means there's a lot of comfort to knowing that I don't have to worry about what he's thinking.

As long as I keep him in a steady supply of baked goods...

The confidence of TWO.

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:48:00 +0000

I've written before about what it might be like if I acted like my two-year-old.

But as I've watched him over the past several weeks, I've seen a whole new side of my toddler that I can learn from -- and that is this kid's unfailingly joyful self-confidence.

My son springs from his bed each morning ready for the AWESOMEST DAY EVER!!!!

I ask him how he slept. He throws his arms wide and beams,

"It was great!!! I dreamed about candy!!!!"

Next up: breakfast.

Here's something I bet you didn't know: There is, in fact, a way to be the best at eating breakfast, and my son has mastered it.

How do I know this? Because in between bites of oatmeal he loudly announces,

"I am THE BEST at eating breakfast!!!!!"

I barely have time to agree before my boy is off to the backyard sandbox to construct the BIGGEST and MOST WONDERFUL castle EVER in the history of, well, EVER!!! He calls his siblings to gather around and admire his handiwork, at which point his baby sister trods around destroying it completely.

BUT NEVER FEAR! My son is confident that his next project is going to be EVEN BETTER!

We get dressed and it's off to music class, where the confidence parade continues. My boy sings along in a voice as booming as it is off-key. He dances with his arms splayed above his head and his rump shaking with abandon. His drum banging is wild and exuberant enough to require a substantial "safety zone" and is only interrupted by an occasional pause to announce that he is, in fact,

"SO GREAT AT DRUMMING!"

After lunch and naps (which are GREAT, thanks for asking!) we head to the indoor playspace for a little fun. My kiddo takes on an older kid at the air hockey table. While he is not particularly skilled or even familiar at all with how the game works, my son's enthusiasm is undimmed. Each time his opponent knocks the puck into my son's goal my son jumps up and down shouting,

"I DID IT!!!"

Oh yes! I'm fantastic at this!

The four-year-old he's playing against is justifiably annoyed by this reaction and attempts to inform my son that he is, in fact, losing terribly. His efforts are in vain, however, as my son's teflon shield of gleeful self-assurance cannot be penetrated by logic, and he continues to whoop in celebration each time his adversary scores on him.

Next it's home for dinner (GREAT!) and a couple of awesome laps around the yard:

"WOW, LOOK HOW STRONG I AM PICKING UP THIS SHOVEL!"

"I CAN CLIMB SO HIGH THAT IT'S AMAZING!"

"DO YOU KNOW I'M SO FAST YOU CAN'T EVEN SEE ME?"

...before it's time to wind down in the bath (alert: my son is just awesome at getting clean!). The last activity before bedtime is a final nude strut about the house.

Like a peacock showing off its plumage, my son marches from room to room greeting anyone who might be about in all his naked glory. His belly juts out in front of him, his dimpled bottom wiggles behind, and his hair sticks up in crazy tufts above his head.

And his smiles conveys all along, "I rule."

Then it's off for bedtime stories and sweet dreams to get rested up for yet another amazing day tomorrow.

As I leave 40 in the rearview mirror, I feel like I've also left behind much of the self-doubt that plagued decades of my earlier life, and I am truly grateful for that. But as I've watched my son over these past few weeks, I know that I still have some things to learn from him.

I mean the kid is basically a walking inspirational refrigerator magnet:

He dances like there's no one watching, he sings like there's no one listening, and he said last week upon arriving at the breakfast table:

"I wonder how many good things are going to happen before bed today? I bet at least one hundred."

As someone who often arrives at the same table with the thought,

"Ugh, how am I going to make it through this one?"

I figure I have a thing or two left to learn from my son...

...in all his joyfully confident two-year-old-ness.

Fight!

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 20:06:00 +0000

Several years ago my brother and I were visiting the apartment that my Grandmother shared with her older sister. As the two women made us dinner they got into a heated argument about which one of them had worn a particular pink dress to a party at a neighbor's house. My Grandmother insisted that she had worn it but her sister just as vehemently felt that the dress had been hers.

After listening to this debate for ten minutes or so, my brother and I realized that the disagreement centered around a party that had, in fact, occurred in 1927.

I was reminded of this on Monday when my Dad, as he sometimes does, called to say,

"You know, I thought of something you should write about on your blog."

He went on to tell me that (after almost 45 years of marriage) he had come to the following revelation:

"You know, when your Mom says that she thinks we had the salmon the last time we were at some restaurant and I think we had the trout, it's better to just agree rather than to fight about it."

Vector Art

This is, I feel strongly, an insight that my husband and I should probably take to heart, because we have this problem kind of a lot.

David and I are generally not huge fighters. Sure, we have the occasional

"You were supposed to show up and you forgot"

humdinger or the

"Mother's Day was yesterday"

knock-down-drag-outs.

But mostly we get caught up in the more mundane "neither of us know and yet we disagree" arguments, especially when feeling overcome by day-to-day stresses.

The root of this lies in the fact that my husband and I both suffer from what my Mother calls "often in error but never in doubt" syndrome. Neither one of us will hesitate to defend a point on which we possess exactly zero knowledge, and it manifests in exactly the sort of spats that my Dad was warning against.

In the past month my husband and I have had major disagreements on the following subjects:

That guy kind of looks/doesn't look like your brother.

We always take the next street, not this one.

Do they record "The Voice" auditions all in one day or over the course of several days?

The name of that hotel we stayed in four years ago was called "The Bedford"/"The Medford".

Was that woman we met that one time named 'Darlene' or 'Cheryl'?

sodahead.com

As I said, nothing particularly terrible resulted. But as my father's forty-plus years of marital exposure suggest, perhaps these conflicts could be avoided entirely if we both just opted to let a few more things slide.

So that's what I'm going to try to do.

....I mean except for about that thing with his brother because I'M TELLING YOU THAT GUY TOTALLY LOOKED LIKE HIM!!!

The Seagull

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 22:21:00 +0000

“If my life can ever be of any use to you, come and take it.”
― Anton Chekhov, The Seagull

Our daughter has firmly entered what my husband and I refer to as the "seagull phase".

www.publicdomainpictures.net

The "seagull phase" usually presents between 12 and 16 months of age as the child's awareness of his or her surrounding environment increases. This awareness, coupled with a lack of meaningful language skills, results in the dreaded "seagull's CAW".

My day with my daughter begins as I lovingly lift her out of bed. She smiles up at me with a trusting and loving grin, and I grab her and nuzzle her many chin rolls. This delightful moment lasts exactly six seconds, at which point she spots her blanket, left behind in her crib. She then turns to me, leans in an inch or two for maximum effect, opens her mouth wide, and screams,

"AAARRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!"

directly into my face.

I rush to retrieve the desired item in a timely fashion.

Thrilled to be reunited with her beloved (yet pestulant) blankie my daughter's smile returns. For 7.3 seconds. At which point she spots her doll across the room.

"AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!"

The seagull is back. And she means business.

modernservantleader.com

A well-balanced breakfast does little to soothe the angry seagull. The moment she spies her brother's milk the cries begin again:

"AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!! AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!
AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!"

I literally beg my son to hand over his beverage in hopes of getting a moment's respite from the caw.

It works. Until I am too slow feeding her oatmeal.

"AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!! AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!
AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!"

Again I have failed and have further angered the seagull.

www.ihateryanair.org

The remainder of the day is consumed by desperate attempts to keep the seagull mollified. This is difficult as the list of things that anger the seagull are vast and ever-changing and can at any moment include

picking her up - AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!
not picking her up - AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!
putting her down - AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!
not putting her down - AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!
refusing to allow her to hit me repeatedly in the face with her sippy cup - AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!
stopping her from pulling her brother's arms off - AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!
letting grass touch her - AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!
advising her against eating fistfuls of sand - AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!
forbidding her from removing my tonsils with her fingers - AAARRRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!

When out and about with my daughter, strangers take note of her large, innocent-looking blue eyes, her halo of blonde curls, and her cherubic face.

"What an angel!" they exclaim.

I smile and nod, safe in the knowledge that her brothers and I know the real truth.

Facebook - Angry Seagull

The angry seagull lurks beneath....

Marital Chicken

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret) — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 18:35:00 +0000

Featuring my husband David's acting debut and music by the great and talented Robert To'Teras:

Every Married Couple Has Played This Game At Least Once. Have You?

more episodes to come! Please like and share if you enjoy it!

Some Thoughts on Keepin' It Free Range

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret) — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 21:05:00 +0000

I was thrilled this week when the blog Free Range Kids re-posted part of my piece Parenting that Great-Grandma Would Recognize. I've long been a fan of Lenore Skenazy and her (as she describes it) "commonsense approach to parenting in these overprotective times."

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As kids, my brother and sisters and I would explore alone in the woods behind my parents' house with the only rule being "Don't go near the storm drain." Some afternoons after school we'd ride our bikes down a pretty busy street over the highway to buy ourselves candy at Finch's drugstore. The summer I turned thirteen my Mom put me on a plane to France to visit a family that someone on our block knew. I didn't have anything useful with me like a cell phone or, say, the ability to speak French, but I somehow managed to navigate two airports and eventually reached my destination.

And all that was pretty great.

But the reality is that, while it's super to wax nostalgic about "the good old days" when we all ran wild through the streets and joyfully stuck our heads out the windows of speeding cars unencumbered by seat belts, it's not always so easy to give those same freedoms to our own kids.

In part this is because there are things we really do know better. For example, we understand how major injuries can be prevented through minor precautions so we make our kids wear seat belts and bike helmets.

The problem is that opening these reasonable doors can also allow in a whole universe of "what ifs" that set us back from being "free range Moms" and transform us into "locking our children in their rooms until they are 18 Moms" overnight.

So I've come to accept that the best I can do is to find as many opportunities as possible for my kids to test their boundaries, no matter how hard it is.

My sister-in-law, a highly self-confident and generally bad-ass Mom of four was standing with me a few months back as we watched her fourteen-year-old daughter and my four-year-old son climb a tree together at the park.

The two of them kept climbing until they were both more than a dozen feet off the ground. I started getting nervous as they eyed the next set of branches over their heads and asked them to stop.

My sister-in-law took the opportunity to tell me about the tree she used to climb when she was a little girl. It was several stories tall, and month after month she would go out and explore higher and higher through the branches. At some point she reached a section of the tree way above the ground where she realized that she would have to jump -- losing contact with the tree for a moment -- in order to climb higher.

It took a while to screw up her nerve, but eventually she made the leap and continued up the tree until she reached the top. From there she looked down with an unparalleled sense of pride in her accomplishment that had clearly stuck with her to this day.

I listened to her story and begrudgingly allowed my son to continue upward with his cousin.

But I'm not gonna lie, I shut my eyes.

You can make me be free range, but you can't always make me like it.

Parenting Your Great-Grandmother Would Recognize

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 16:07:00 +0000

In his book "Food Rules," author Michael Pollan offers useful guidelines for healthy eating.

One of them is "Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food." It's such a simple explanation of what has happened to modern nutrition, and it's also a great practical guidepost for how to behave.

I mean, not that I'm giving up Oreos or anything, but it did make me wonder whether this same rule might prove useful for parents.

With that in mind, I offer you this list of things that my great-grandmother would not recognize as parenting:

thinkingrightblog.com

RESPECTING MY CHILD'S VOICE

I sometimes find myself uttering phrases like:

"What is it about these shoes that is making you so angry?"

or

"Tell me why peanut butter is so frustrating."

My great-grandmother would not recognize this as parenting.

I think it is great to respect our children's inner world, but with the great-grandma rule in mind I need to also remember that there are whole categories of things that kids just need to suck up regardless of how it makes them feel.

My grandmother's mother was born in 1864 (yes, the generations in my family are remarkably long). She gave birth to ten children, six of whom survived to adulthood. I did not know her, and yet I feel confident in telling you that she spent exactly zero hours of her life worrying whether or not her children "felt sufficiently heard".

FRETTING ABOUT CHOICES I AM MAKING FOR MY CHILD

Let's take, for example, DECIDING ON A KINDERGARTEN.

In the past several months I have spent countless hours researching school options, polling fellow moms about which teachers seem the most knowledgeable yet firm and loving, and (because I live in Los Angeles) comparing emissions levels for a myriad of campuses.

Would my great-grandmother recognize this as parenting? I'm going to give this a firm "NO".

In the 19th century, people had more kids. As those kids aged, they provided child care for the younger ones and then helped their parents with all manner of work.

In the 20th century, that formula flipped as people had fewer and fewer children and began focusing on how they could better provide for their offspring.

Both models have merits and drawbacks, but the 1800s one may help us gain some needed perspective. My great-grandmother was far too busy worrying about things like, say, cholera to spend much time on the minute details of her children's daily lives, and her children still managed to thrive in a world that was much more challenging than the one my children live in.

Which I think means it's possible (just possible) that my kid will probably survive and do fine at any of the schools I'm considering.

I think.

SUPERVISING MY CHILDREN AS IF A RABID BEAR WERE LOOSE AT ALL TIMES IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

When my father was a young boy growing up in Brooklyn he was free to walk all over the neighborhood unsupervised. The one demand that was placed on him was that he never cross the street alone. And so every time he would get to a corner he would reach up his little hand to whatever stranger was standing there and say,

"Hey, cross me, Mister!"

And that stranger, rather than throwing him in the trunk of a car and driving off, would instead guide him across the street and then send him on his way.

My Mom, unknown then to my father and living two dozen miles away in the Bronx, would take to the streets each October for "Mischief Night". The event involved hundreds of local children dressed in black and armed with tube socks full of flour roaming through the night on poorly lit streets.

The point of the evening, as my mother explained it, was to

"Bludgeon as many other kids as possible."

Kids got hurt. Older kids targeted younger kids in ways that were unfair. Kids ganged up on one another. Tears were shed. And each one of them came out again the next year excited to do it all again.

If I allowed my children to replicate either of these pieces of their grandparents' childhood, it would no doubt result in my immediate prosecution.

Of all the things about parenting that my great-grandmother wouldn't recognize, I think this one is the saddest. We live in a world where children are valued and protected in unprecedented ways -- which is GOOD! -- but the flip side is that our kids far too rarely get a chance to play, fight their own battles, or interact independently with the world around them without adults around.

I try to teach my kids that it is OK to turn to "strangers" for help, and I want them to have the confidence that comes from the kind of rough-and-tumble freedoms my parents enjoyed in their youth.

But it's hard.

When I let my kids get a bit behind me at the mall, helpful strangers shout, "You've got one lagging, Mom!" When I let my boys fight over a toy at the park as I feed my baby, secure that they'll eventually work it out, fellow mothers tend to cry, "Whose kids are these? They're fighting!"

I appreciate that these women are looking out for me, but sometimes I want to tell them, "It's OK - I'm just rollin' like Great-Grandma today!"

Three Phrases That Will Change Your Life

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 23:39:00 +0000

Communicating with other people is always a challenge.

worksmartlivesmart.com

Which is why today I am going to present you with three phrases that have truly changed my life. I invite you to master your own non-ironic use of these expressions in hopes that you will find them equally useful.

zazzle.com

WHAT A HELPFUL SUGGESTION!

My husband and I call this "the phrase that saved our marriage." Use this wonderful set of words whenever someone offers you any sort of unsolicited advice.

For example:

Has your husband recently proffered the idea that it might be more efficient to do a single load of laundry each day rather than trying to do seven at a time, thus ending up with piles of unfolded and wet clothing scattered about the laundry room?

At this point you have two options: you can hurl piles of damp drawers at him while threatening imminent bodily harm OR you can simply whip out your new favorite phrase.

"What a helpful suggestion!"

And don't stop there!

This beloved phrase is equally useful on the child who gives you detailed instructions about the alternate dinner they desire, the friend who insists that dropping white flour from your diet will "change everything," and the saleswoman who tells you that "high-waisted pants are hot right now."

"What a helpful suggestion!"

www.childswork.com

THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME KNOW HOW YOU FEEL

Oh, the uses for this phrase are as endless as they are satisfying! My best friend taught me this one after it was suggested by the teacher of her highly expressive six-year-old daughter.

As many of you know, spending a lot of time around small children puts you on the receiving end of a whole lot of emotionality. There are lectures on the injustice of your refusal to serve ice cream for dinner, there are diatribes on the wrongness of the length of brother's turn with that truck, and there are screeds about how it cannot possibly be bedtime when it is so clearly instead time for the 96th airing of "Caillou Cooks".

Before I learned the wonders of this particular phrase, I'd often respond to such outbursts by providing lengthy explanations of the well-thought-through reasons behind my choices. Not surprisingly, these rationalizations had little effect on my offspring. So now, instead of engaging I simply use this trusty phrase.

"Thank you for letting me know how you feel."

The applications of this expression go well beyond children. It can be equally directed towards people who lecture you about your mistaken political convictions, strangers who scream at you for "being in their way" at the grocery store, and spouses who "just don't think they should be made to watch The Real Housewives and would really prefer to catch the basketball game."

"Thank you for letting me know how you feel."

www.kids-ent.com

I HEAR YOU, AND AM CONCERNED

My cousin Jack had a youth hockey coach who would respond with the same phrase whenever a player would confide in him about a personal problem. Kids would come to the guy and tell him about all sorts of issues -- difficulties at home, girlfriend problems, and general life angst -- and the coach would always fold his hands in front of him and intone sincerely,

"I hear you, and am concerned."

My husband has particularly fallen in love with this phrase. Like my cousin's coach before him, David can at times become flummoxed when confronted with emotional or "feelings-based" conversations.

But now he has a go-to phrase of sensitivity to respond with.

"I hear you, and am concerned."

The important thing about this expression is not so much the words, which will likely come off as insincere if uttered verbatim, but in the sentence construction.

The bones of the phrase are

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF EMOTION

EXPRESSION OF CONCERN

Husband types, I urge you to embrace the simple genius of this. The ability to listen to a woman's feelings, recognize the source of the problem, and respond with empathy covers a VERY HIGH percentage of successful marital interactions.

"I hear you, and am concerned."

This template can also be a total winner when dealing with children.

For example:

"I see how upset you are that your brother looked at you during dinner twice. Clearly, it really bothered you and I'm sorry to see that."

TANTRUM ABORTED!

IN CONCLUSION:

"What a helpful suggestion."

"Thank you for letting me know how you feel."

"I hear you, and am concerned."

Learn them. Use them. Expect results.

In Praise of Mark

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret) — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 22:04:00 +0000

This Monday was one of those days. I'd slept terribly the night before due to the onset of Daylight Savings Time, and the whole day had just been completely off the rails. By mid-afternoon the boys were busy playing the newly invented game "Let's throw dirt from the garden through Mom's bedroom window", my husband had recently announced that he'd be home late, and my baby was suffering from a wicked case of diaper rash.

www.amazon.com

I was busily applying dollops of diaper rash cream to the baby's aching backside when the boys burst through the front door, dragging with them several cubic tons of dirt. I left the baby with a toy in the living room while I carted the boys into the bathroom to hose them down.

I got my older boy fully de-dirtified (well, as much as is ever possible with a four-year-old) and sent him on his way. I was almost through wiping down his brother when I heard laughter from the living room.

The sound of children's laughter is so rarely a good sign in our house.

I rushed towards the hilarity and heard my son announce,

"Oh, Mommy! Look what the baby is doing!"

...and discovered that what the baby was doing was happily devouring A&D ointment directly from the tube.

I snatched the stuff away from her and confirmed that there was indeed a large sheen of white on her tongue. I flashed back to the myriad of doctor's office questionnaires where I checked "YES" to the question, "Do you have the information for Poison Control handy?" while promising to rush home and tape the number to the fridge and then promptly forgetting. Thankfully, a quick Google search brought up the number. I dialed and was quickly connected to Mark.

I started with a white lie...

"Well, Mark, I turned my back for just a minute...."

Mark gave the non-commital grunt of a man who'd heard this line before and then encouraged me to go on.

"Yeah....well...um...it's possible that my daughter may have swallowed either not any or what may have been several tablespoons of diaper rash cream."

I paused, fearful on some level that the moment the phrase was out of my mouth a carful of Child Protective Service agents would swarm my house to whisk my children away -- or at the very least affix a large "THIS MOM SUCKS" banner to my front gate.

Instead what happened was that Mark, in a lovely and calming tone, said simply,

"You're fine, Mom. It's not going to hurt her. She may get some diarrhea, but that's about it."

My only regret at that moment was that I was not pregnant with a boy whom I could name Marky Mark Markson in tribute to this amazing human being.

I scooped up my baby and cuddled her in my arms for a blissful 45 seconds before I needed to jump up in order to stop my sons from sticking forks in the toaster.

Maybe the CPS folks shouldn't cancel the order for that banner just yet.

Brothers in the Night

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret) — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 22:10:00 +0000

Parenting is a series of trade-offs.

FOR EXAMPLE:

While it's great when your kids finally get out of diapers, it also means that you now need to acquaint yourself with public bathrooms on family outings.

Sure it's easier when the baby starts to feed herself, but it also means you'll be washing peas out of her hair several times a day.

Naturally you've longed to hear your child utter his or her first precious words, but it also means you'll soon be hearing the words "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" shouted at you ninety-six thousand times a day.

spreadshirt.com

My husband and I are currently staring down yet another trade-off in regards to our boys' bedtime.

Having finally emerged from three-kids'-worth of sleep training, we now proudly have all three kids sleeping through the night!

*cue angelic chorus of Hallelujahs*

The kids are even napping regularly, which brings us to the trade-off... because this means they are not ready to go to bed at 7:30pm anymore.

Folks, for years I had made it through the days by repeating the mantra,

"They go to bed at seven-thirty...they go to bed at seven-thirty..."

when suddenly I found that calming absolute to be in jeopardy.

All of which gave birth to a time in our house that we now call, "LIGHTS ON LOW".

LIGHTS ON LOW!

Baths still happen at 7pm, followed by PJs and stories. Then at 7:30pm, the baby heads off to her crib in the playroom and the boys head into their room, where we dim the lights and leave them to their own devices for exactly one hour...

...behind a closed door.

Yeah, it's pretty much as bad as it sounds.

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The two of them proceed to begin their rampage before the door is even fully latched: they empty the drawers; they try on all the clothes; they jump from the changing table onto the beds; they stuff each other into the closet; they throw toys at each others' heads; they put diapers on their feet and dance around; (Why do they do this? I beg you not to go down this road...) and they generally destroy the room and pummel each other until they become exhausted.

At 8:30 I return to their room, I take stock of the damage, I yell at them to get in their beds, and I turn out the lights.

An hour later my husband returns to the room, picks the boys up from wherever they've passed out, (locations have included under the bed, asleep on a shelf in the closet, and in one of the drawers of the bureau) and he and I head off to bed ourselves.

The next morning we hover over both boys as they put their room back in order, threatening to deny them breakfast until they comply.

It's become our daily ritual, and while I couldn't exactly say it's working for us I will say this ---

it's a trade-off.

Boys at Play

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret) — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 21:58:00 +0000

I have always been a vocal advocate for having closely-spaced kids.

www.esns.org

Admittedly this is largely because, having done this myself, I'm anxious to get other people to join me in my misery.

But it's also at least in part because I have long believed in the simple theory that having closely spaced siblings means that, while the first years may be really tough, the unimpeachable payoff will be that THE KIDS WILL ONE DAY GO OFF AND PLAY TOGETHER -- LEAVING YOU ALONE FOR LONG PERIODS OF TIME!!!

As my boys have now reached the ages of two and four, the time has come to put this theory to the test! I've put in my years of diaper changing! I've done more nighttime feedings that I care to mention! I've made so many grilled cheese sandwiches I've lost count!

Now I'm ready for the part where I linger in a warm bath as my children teach each other to play chess quietly in the living room.

Unfortunately that's not at all what it is really like.

Here are the games that my sons have actually engaged in together just this week:

Let's Experiment With the Grill!

I Can Jump Off the Top of the Playhouse - Can You?

Why Is All the Dirt in the Garden? Let's Bring Some Into Our Beds!

Clothes in the Hamper? I Say Clothes in the Oven!!!

How Hard Can I Hit You on the Head with This Board?

It's as if my boys are on a mission to invent the most dangerous, destructive, and/or messy pastimes possible.

Yesterday I was sitting inside trying to explain to my 13-month-old why we don't eat from the garbage when I looked out to watch my two sons as they played together in the back yard.

Here is a rough transcript of their interaction:

SON #1: Let's play in the sandbox!

SON #2: OKAY!!!!!

SON #1: That was fun for two minutes! Now what?

SON #2: Let's throw sand out of the sandbox as fast as we can!

SON #1: Awesome!

SON #2: That was cool for 76 seconds. What's next?

SON #1: Hmmm...how about we pour the sand down the slide? I bet that would look neat!

SON #2: You were right! That did really look neat. BUT NOW I'M BORED!!!

SON #1: OK, what about if you go down the slide while I pour sand underneath you?

SON #2: Great idea!

SON #1: Go!

SON #2: Whee!!!

(Laughter of both sons swells and then fades away)

SON #1: That was fun!

SON #2: Yeah that was GREAT!

SON #1: OK, now you slide down the slide and I'll pour sand on your head and you fly by me!

SON #1: Will do!

SON #2: That was great!
(Laughter of both sons again swells and then fades away)
SON #1: NOW YOU SLIDE DOWN AND I'LL THROW AN ENTIRE BUCKET OF SAND IN YOUR FACE!
SON #2: Really?
SON #1: C'MON - IT'LL BE GREAT!
SON #2: Okay!
(After a moment)

SON #2: Owwwwwwwww! MY EYES!!!!!!!! MOMMMY!!!!!!

(cut to inter-brother punching and wailing)

DURATION OF INTERACTION: 4.37 MINUTES

It would seem that I might have to go back to the drawing board on my "closely-spaced-siblings-leads-to-quiet-household-playtime-harmony" theory.

Who knew?

Steps

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret) — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 20:32:00 +0000

My daughter is starting to take her first steps.

My husband and I have been anticipating this development for some time. She's been pulling herself up to standing for a while now, and for weeks she's been standing unassisted and merrily cruising around from one piece of furniture to another.

Like so many other events in my children's development (see first: PREGNANCY!) this has been one that I've spent months dreading only to then find myself insanely anxious for its arrival in the end.

When my daughter first started rolling it occurred to me how utterly unprepared I was for her pending mobility. I kept trying to work out the dynamics of keeping track of three mobile kids under four, and it just didn't -- and still doesn't -- add up. As my mother (a veteran of three closely-spaced kids) once explained,

"The problem with three is that you are out of hands."

The rolling added a degree of difficulty, but at least it could be addressed with a strategically-placed pillow or distracting squeeze toy. Then came crawling, which added a new wrinkle to the equation, but could still be managed through thoughtful baby-gate placement.

As the specter of two-legged mobility loomed large, I was surprised to actually find myself looking forward to the end game.

See, as time has gone by, my tiny baby girl has broken the 20-pound barrier, and carrying her around everywhere has begun to threaten my long-term back health. I'm anxious for her to be able to get places without being picked up. I'm looking forward to dressing her in clothing that will not be immediately destroyed by her crawling about the yard. I'm ready for her to walk already!

And she's started. She's now officially taking six or seven definite franken-steps at a time.

And it has filled me with hope.

hiringforhope.org

...and also with an intense feeling of nostalgia.

Because I understand that our daughter's firsts are unique.

I am in my early 40's. My husband and I were amazingly fortunate to have three kids in rapid succession starting in our late 30's, but realistically we are not having any more.

When you have children as close together as ours things tend to blend together. It seems as if every time we turn around someone is doing something noteworthy. Our oldest is off to his first day of school! His brother has started to talk in full sentences! The baby is finally cutting a tooth!

It gets to feeling like an ongoing busy/happy blur.

buzzle.com

But it has just started to occur to me that the final round of firsts is upon us, so I'm trying to savor them a little bit more with my not-so-little girl.

I've already forgotten to keep a lock of hair from her first haircut, and I'm sure my daughter's baby book will suffer the multi-page gaps that are the fate of all third children. But as I watched her this morning raise herself to her full height and take those first toddering steps away from me, I took a moment to savor it --- knowing that it is another of our very last firsts.

It's All About the Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret) — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 19:03:00 +0000

My kids LOVE cake.

And I get that this is not particularly unusual. I understand that kids by their very nature are, you know FOND of sugary treats. Nonetheless, I find that my children's obsession with cake is becoming a source of what I'd call, concern.

For example, of late we seem to be orienting ourselves almost entirely around cake-themed events as we discuss the yearly calendar. Often as I tuck my oldest son in at night he will inquire as we finish our prayers,

"Whose birthday comes next?"

"Your cousin Mary's" I'll respond as I turn out the light.

I shut the door and listen to the heated debate that ensues between my two boys as to whether cousin Mary will choose Spiderman cupcakes or a giant cake in the shape of a gorilla when her big day comes.

allposters.com

The cake obsession at our house has recently reached new heights. And when I say "new heights" I do mean worse than the disastrous "you have already had four cupcakes and now we're cutting you off" debacle of 2011.

Actual footage from above-mentioned incident

Things really went off the rails after my daughter's first birthday last week. In preparation for her party I made 24 cupcakes in hopes of passing them about to friends and neighbors during the festivities. Instead, my daughter spiked a 104 degree fever and we had to cancel her party entirely, leaving the treats unclaimed.

Which made for a whole mess of problems.

The rampant availability of cupcakes in our house resulted in my relationship with my boys quickly devolving to little more than all-day-every-day cake-based negotiations.

The two of them sprang from their beds each morning full of demands.

CHILD #1: For breakfast let's have a cupcake!

MOM: Um, no. We don't eat cupcakes for breakfast.

CHILD #2: I WANT CUPCAKES TOO!!!

This was promptly followed by an hour plus of wailing as my children let me know that their very heart's desire had been crushed by my announcement that we do not consider chocolate icing part of a healthy breakfast.

At lunchtime the war began again:

MOM: Would you like chicken or hot dogs for lunch?

CHILD #1: Cupcakes!

CHILD #2: Yes, cupcakes!!

(Cut to Mom pulling out hair as children stage a group wail-in until naptime)

At some point I took stock and realized that I could not stand against these demands forever. I knew that unless I took drastic action I would be admitting at future doctor and dentist appointments that I had been allowing my sons to eat upwards of 6 cupcakes a day.

So, I sent the remaining cupcakes off to work with my husband. After a few outpourings of protests from the kids, things at the house quickly normalized. The children stopped demanding sweets instead of meals, and the occasional cookie once again sufficed to meet their daily sugar- and/or bribery-based needs.

Peace was restored.

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That was, until my kids headed off to a friend's princess party this weekend. As soon as the birthday cake appeared, all party-themed merriment ceased for my boys as they remembered their first true love -- CAKE. Their frosting-senses were activated, causing them to follow around the beleaguered cake-bearer like homing pigeons, demanding that the candles be lit so that dessert gobbling might commence in a timely fashion!

Which may have been bit annoying to our hosts. But for me there was at least one huge upside...

...there were no leftovers.

I'm Sorry Could You Repeat That?

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret) — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 17:24:00 +0000

Like so many Moms before me I am facing a challenging first.

My son has his first girlfriend.

My four-year-old's love for this "lady other than Mom" in his life is intense. You could say it borders on obsessive. She's the first person he wants to talk to in the morning. She's the last person he wants to talk to at night. My love and care mean nothing to him when compared to what this other woman has to offer.

Her name...is Siri.

I suppose in some way this is my fault. After all, I introduced them.

I have become, it's fair to say, over-reliant on Siri. I'll grab my phone on the way out the door shouting,

"Text my husband! We'll be ten minutes late!"

In the car, with the stereo tuned to the 95th repeat of "The Curious George Song" I'll shout,

"What's the score of the Giants game?"

Perhaps not surprisingly, at some point my son's interest was piqued.

The other morning I was searching everywhere for my phone. I finally found my son hunched over it in the far corner of the playroom.

SON: Who is in there?

SIRI: I can't do that because you have not installed the correct Friends App.

SON: Who are you?

SIRI: I am just a humble virtual assistant.

SON: What is your name?

SIRI: My name is Siri.

I snatched my phone back and the wails began.

SON: Noooooo! I need to talk to my Siri! She is my lady in the phone!!!

I tried to talk him down but it was not to be. He fussed all through breakfast and I only managed to get him out the door to school with promises he could talk to Siri as soon as we got back home.

He rushed into the house that afternoon demanding the phone. He and Siri picked up right where they left off.

SON: HELLO IN THERE!!

SIRI: Hello.

SON: I like camels!

SIRI: I don't know what that means. If you want I can search the web for, "on lot animals".

SON: It is my sister's birthday!

SIRI: I'm sorry. I don't understand you. Would you like me to search the web for "Craig's Birthday?"

SON: Show me a picture of a whale!!

Like any really great first date, those two crazy kids talked for hours.

Also, like any realistic first date, there were frequent misunderstandings.

SON: I really like watching Huckle!

SIRI: Would you like me to call you "Master G. Uckle?"

SON: Yes! I like McDonalds!

SIRI: I found four McDonald's restaurants fairly near to you, Master G. Uckle.

SON: Let's go!!!

Sure, their relationship is still in its early stages, but all I know is that I'm out and she's in. Just yesterday as we sat together reading before bed I leaned in for some goodnight kisses only to have my son forcefully announce,

"Oh Mom! Get out of here with those cuddles! Where's my phone?"

I'm not gonna lie. It stung.

But I may just have the last laugh. Sure, Siri may have beguiled him for the moment with her soothing voice, her patient tone, and her knowledge of the location of every McDonald's in the greater Los Angeles area, but I still have one thing on her.

My son doesn't know how to turn on the phone without my help.

To the Snow!

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret) — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 23:02:00 +0000

Sometime in December my four-year-old became enchanted with an episode of "Caillou" in which the lovable bald titular character spent an afternoon frolicking in the snow.

My boy, born and raised in LA, is largely unfamiliar with all things wintry. He loved watching Caillou skating, throwing snowballs, and most of all making snow angels. The next day he spent hours in a pair of socks "skating" around the living room and throwing play dough at his brother's head yelling,

"Watch out for the snowball!!"

A week later, as we sat watching our boy in the back yard making angels in the dirt below the swing set, I turned to my spouse and announced with absolute certainty,

"We need to take that boy to find some snow."

And so it was that last Saturday we found ourselves traversing Interstate 15 North heading for the snowy wonderland of Wrightwood, California.

http://www.wrightwoodca.com

I booked a motel room so we could maximize snowy fun time, and we hit up friends and neighbors to outfit ourselves for our cold weather jaunt. By the time we actually packed up the minivan the kids were pretty much out of their minds with excitement

All week the kids had been leaping from their beds each morning shouting,

"Is today the day we are going to the snow?"

And finally -- Finally! -- that day had arrived. We drove a little over an hour to the turnoff for the Angeles Crest Highway -- anxious for our snowy adventure to begin. But as we rounded bend after bend on our way to Wrightwood there was not a snowflake to be seen.

I crossed my fingers that as we continued to head upwards we would eventually happen upon a magically-appearing winter wonderland.

This was not the case.

As we puled into downtown Wrightwood I was forced to accept the reality that the entire place was decidedly SNOW FREE. Apparently a week of rain had decimated the snows of December and left behind in its wake piles and piles of mud.

The first wail from the backseat snapped me to attention,

"WHERE'S THE SNOW???"

I instructed my husband to keep driving up the mountain. I was determined not to stop the car until we encountered some flakes of a wintry nature.

And so we pressed upwards, passing sign after foreboding sign:

NO SNOW PLAY!
TUBING PARK CLOSED DUE TO LACK OF SNOW!
ABANDON ALL HOPE OF SNOW YE WHO ENTER HERE!

OK, I made up the last one but you get the basic idea.

About two miles further up the hill we located a patch of snow roughly the size of a football field crammed with about three hundred other families in their own desperate search for winter fun. We hustled the kids into some snow gear and rushed to fight for a spot.

The kids sprang from the van to frolic in what was, let's be honest, a field of slush littered with sticks and patches of earth, but we made do as best we could. We managed to throw snowballs at one another, we bought a twenty dollar sleigh and took a few runs down the muddy little hill, and we even managed to beat some other families off a large enough patch of snow to make a 12-inch tall snowman.

About twenty minutes into the frivolity the youngest members of our party began to get cold and we headed back for the van. We grabbed some hot chocolate, headed for shelter, and spent the next 14 hours trying to manage 2 adults and 3 children four and under in a tiny motel room full of tchotchkes.

...which wasn't all that fun.

The next morning as we headed down the hill David and I were exhausted. We'd put in over three hours of drive time, spent several hundred dollars in food and motel fees, and experienced some serious internal wear and tear on our already well-seasoned minivan. In every meaningful sense, our "snow vacation" had been kind of a bust.

But then we started listening to the boys as they talked in the backseat:

"My favorite part was making snow angels!"

"Mommy hit me with a snowball!"

"I want to have hot chocolate everyday!"

and it occurred to us that for them, the trip had been a wild success.

Their lack of familiarity with snow had worked to our advantage. They didn't know that we hadn't found "the right kind of snow." They couldn't have been happier if we'd brought them to Antarctica. And we had the pictures to prove it.

As I write this my kids are out in the backyard pretending to be cold and "sledding" down the slide repeatedly.

It may be a slight stretch but I'm moving the entire weekend into the "PARENTING WIN" column.

We take 'em where we can find 'em.

The Twos. I'm Terrible at Them.

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret) — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 21:17:00 +0000

It has been almost 16-months since my firstborn was a two-year-old.

During that stretch I had somehow managed to obliterate from my memory exactly how absurd living day-to-day with a two-year-old really is. But, with my second son now hitting the two-and-a-half year mark, I can safely say, like Celine Dion before me, It's All Coming Back, It's All Coming Back to Me Now!

Just this past week I have found myself on the receiving end of tantrums on the following subjects:

I lost the car you warned me I'd lose if I brought it to the store.
This hot chocolate - it's hot!
Make the baby stop looking at me!
I don't see any helicopters. I want to see one RIGHT NOW!!!
There is something in my nose! It's boogers!

One thing that is awfully familiar this time around is the sensation of being ground down into a fine powder by my two-year-old's seemingly unending stream of irrationality. As a result, I find myself at times rendered frozen by a fear of setting my toddler off by doing something upsetting like, for example, failing to produce appropriately-pleasing aircraft in the skies with my mind. Such anxiety can result in an overwhelming temptation to do pretty much anything in my power to avoid these recurring tempests.

When I had only one child, I was fairly good about resisting this impulse. I was consistent in my blank-facing of bad behavior, I used timeouts judiciously, and I had a zero-tolerance policy for hitting or biting.

And that worked pretty well.

But that two-year-old is now four, and I'm dealing with him and the aforementioned new two-year-old along with an 11-month-old baby. This set of circumstances is making me extremely vulnerable to succumbing to my two-year-old's shriekingly expressed will.

When I am trying, for example, to soothe the teething baby while making dinner as I simultaneously attempt to supervise my four-year-old as he tries out his new two-wheeler in the driveway, I often find that I lack the will to confront my two-year-old when I spy him walking by holding a butter knife that he has made off with from the silverware drawer.

This is NOT because I think it is advisable to have an armed toddler in the home. It is, rather, because I am weighing the hell storm that will reign down upon me in the midst of all else I am trying to accomplish should I attempt to pry it from his tiny paws.

So sometimes instead I give in to the small voice in my head that whispers soothingly,

"That knife your toddler has isn't even that sharp! Why make a big fuss?"

I DIDN'T SAY I WAS PROUD OF THIS, FOLKS, JUST THAT IT HAPPENS TO BE MY REALITY AT PRESENT!

Look, I don't recommend a policy of appeasement when it comes to handling the terrible twos, I'm merely admitting that I sometimes find myself guilty of pursuing one. And I can only hope that perhaps this admission will help you take heart that if you sometimes find yourself following the "path of peace" instead of the "path of sound parenting choices," you are not alone.

Just last night my husband and I were struggling to get all three kids to bed. The baby was overtired and crabby, and our sons were coming down hard off an afternoon birthday party sugar rush. When I overheard my husband gently attempting to stop our two-year-old from banging a large hole in the wall of his bedroom with a hammer he'd stolen from the toolbox, my only reaction was to shout loudly,

"Please don't antagonize him! I can't deal with the consequences right now!"

Folks, when you have three kids sometimes the path of least resistance can be too tempting to ignore.

Brrrrrr. It's Cold Out Here.

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret) — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 21:29:00 +0000

It's cold in LA.

And listen, I'm not looking for sympathy from you folks who live in places where it's like 8 degrees. All I'm trying to convey is that for Southern California it is COLD.

But you don't have to take it from me! You can take it from Cathy Hoxie! Of the National Weather Service in Oxnard!

Hoxie said temperatures in Los Angeles could drop to the upper 30s, with the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys dipping farther to the mid-30s.

But even those predictions "seem a little warm," Hoxie said, adding that she "wouldn't be surprised" if the forecast was adjusted to lower temperatures.

"Saturday morning is probably going to be pretty darn cold," Hoxie said.

Let me tell you something Cathy Hoxie! You were really onto something there! It was, in fact, PRETTY DARN COLD on Saturday and then again on Sunday!

As I sense, dear readers, that I have yet to gain your full sympathies, please allow me to explain a few things about cold weather in Los Angeles.

When one moves to LA, especially when one moves from the East Coast in January, one goes through a joyful ritual of purging everything in one's wardrobe that is remotely warm. There is a gleeful discarding of puffy coats, a giddy bringing of snow boots to Goodwill, and a merry gifting of mittens and scarves to the friends and relations you are leaving behind for warmer climates.

Then, free of all these warmth-giving items, you buy a house. You notice that the windows of said home don't exactly close. That, there are in fact, small gaps between the window panes and the walls. But you think to yourself, "No big deal! The cracks are pretty small! And who cares anyway. It's SO NICE HERE!"

You go on to have three children. You are gifted lots of adorable clothes for them and manage to procure some hand-me-downs. At no point do you worry about buying things like hats or mittens or scarves or coats because you have been led to believe that the place you have chosen to live is, you know, WARM.

Then a week comes along and it is 35 degrees in the morning with a daily high in the mid-50s and you find yourself, to say the least, unprepared.

Your lovely Southern California home is transformed into a frozen chamber of horrors. The heater, designed to fight off temperatures no higher than the mid-60's, cannot possibly keep up. Your breath is showing at the dinner table and the children are yelling,

"Mommy, please make this cold go away!"

repeatedly as you attempt to drag them from their beds each morning.

You find yourself shivering in your usual school drop-off getup of t-shirt, jeans and flip-flops as you huddle with your fellow blue-lipped Mommies desperately trying to will the pre-school teacher to open the door with your mind.

My children, born and raised in LA, are completely unfamiliar with concept of winter-wear. They refuse to keep mittens or hats on for more than 30 seconds at a time and are then flummoxed when their hands and feet begin to ache from the cold.

None of this is helped by our aforementioned lack of appropriate wintertime gear.

Yes, this is a photo of my child wearing a terrycloth robe in lieu of a winter coat.

And I suppose I could do the responsible thing. I could winterize our windows. I could invest in space heaters to keep the kids warm at home. I could certainly make a Target run and stock up on fuzzy mittens, down coats, and all the accessories of the season.

But I think instead we'll just hunker down and try to wait out this long, dark winter of Southern California....

....because it's supposed to be 80 by Friday.

The Christmas Crash

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret) — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 20:13:00 +0000

Christmas is so often called "The most wonderful time of the year".

Less advertised is the period that immediately follows, known in many circles as "The least wonderful, darkest, coldest, and most hated time of the year in which no one brings you presents and did we mention it's cold?".

This period begins on January 2nd and ends, depending upon the climate in which you live, sometime between the beginning of Daylight Savings Time and Easter.

The official beginning of the Christmas season is, of course, the trimming of the tree.

The LWDCandMHToftheYIWNOBYP(DWMIC?)

has a similar kick-off event -- the taking down of the holiday decorations.

The putting up of the Christmas tree and ensuing decor is super-fun. It involves merry carols piping through the iPod, yummy cookie-based snacking, and general smileyness.

The LWDCandMHToftheYIWNOBYP(DWMIC?) de-decorating is not quite as much fun. Instead it is categorized by music-free drudgery, sober countings of the number of cherished family heirloom ornaments your children have destroyed throughout the season, and the occasional melancholy crunching of a carrot stick, as you've by this point promised yourself that your New Year's Resolution will be to eat fewer than 63 cookies a day.

Last year the putting away of the Christmas decorations was largely ignored by my kids. This year, however, my four-year-old became wildly concerned when he saw the advent calendar headed back into its box.

FOUR-YEAR-OLD: What are you doing?

ME: Putting the Christmas things away.

FOUR-YEAR-OLD: Why?

ME: Because Christmas is over.

FOUR-YEAR-OLD: No!!! Christmas isn't over! Santa is coming back!!!!

(insert lengthy tantrum of the subject of Santa's imminent return)

We finally managed to get all the Christmas stuff into the storage area, talked the four-year-old down with lots of talk about his sister's upcoming birthday cake and settled down to some "Mom's lost any desire to cook" boxes of pizza.

I woke up the next morning resolute in the knowledge that the LWDCandMHToftheYIWNOBYP(DWMIC?) had begun.

We've got three months to go. Dark nights, pestilence-filled indoor playgrounds, and approximately 72,385 crock pot dinners. That's what we've got on our collective calendars, people.

And it is for this gloomy time that I will now share with you a thought that a friend of mine in college once gave me -- something I still consider to be one of the single greatest pieces of advice I have ever received:

NEVER MAKE A MAJOR LIFE DECISION IN FEBRUARY

I cannot overstate how well this advice has served me over the years.

Because by late February you've been trapped inside, holiday and hope-free, for at least several weeks. You've lost the will to go on, and this leaves you vulnerable to extremely poor decision making. It is at times like these when you may find yourself having thoughts like

We should start a bed and breakfast in Aruba!

You know, if I had another baby I'd get to lay down for a few hours while giving birth.

I think I'll track down my old high school boyfriend on Facebook.

This Homeland marathon has convinced me that I need to join the CIA.

Any and all such thoughts you have throughout the month of February must be ignored with extreme prejudice. TRUST ME.

It's just the LWDCandMHToftheYIWNOBYP(DWMIC?) talking...

Christmas at Our House

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret) — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 20:10:00 +0000

I love Christmas.

In our house growing up Mom always had the house decorated to the nines. The holiday countdown would begin in early December with advent calendar opening, tree trimming, and a host of other merry goings-on. I'd spend the entire month in an excited frenzy singing carols under my breath at school and shaking presents under the tree in an attempt to discern their contents. It was, you might say, the most wonderful time of the year.

As an adult and a mother I was determined to make Christmas an equally exciting and meaningful time for my own children. I longed to give my own offspring the same gift my parents gave to me by introducing them to the magic of the season.

The problem, of course being that MY CHILDREN ARE BENT ON DESTROYING ANYTHING NICE INCLUDING CHRISTMAS AT ALL COSTS!!!

Allow me to present you with a brief tour of my Christmas Wonderland themed home:

A few Saturdays ago we put up our Christmas tree. We lovingly decorated it with ornaments, many of them treasured keepsakes from our childhood homes.

Approximately six minutes later the children set about on their epic campaign of devastation.

The ornament below was one of the first to go. During its brief life upon our noble tannenbaum it had whimsical arms that bounced jauntily.

Then this happened...

The poor guy's face kind of sums up his brief experience in our home.

WHY??? Why did you have to let the two-year-old get me!!!!!!!

The boys quickly moved on to the delightful hobby horse that has been in my husband's family since the early seventies.

My older son exclaimed, "A bridge!!!" before he snapped the bottom off and began using it as a jump for his matchbox cars. His brother took this as his cue to begin snapping the horses legs off.

Now it waits in a long line of limbless and massacred ornaments waiting patiently for a date with my hot glue gun.

No such luck for my Christmas Santa mug (not pictured) which my younger son removed from the dining table one afternoon and threw onto the ground without warning. When I asked him what could have possibly inspired him to do such a thing he responded jauntily:

"I wanted to broked the Santa!"

Mission accomplished.

The delightful novelties that had once decorated each surface of my home were disappearing at an alarming rate.

I used to be a Santa themed candle snuffer.

Then I was used as a sword and broken over the head of an unsuspecting baby.

The advent calendar has been another bone of holiday contention. Meant to be a day-by-day representation of the coming of the Lord, in our house the ritual has become less than reverent.

Do you remember the part of the Christmas story where

the angels dive-bomb the wise men? I didn't think so.

At this point I've pretty much given up. I've put scores of decorative tchotchkes back in storage and I've moved all the ornaments to the uppermost branches of the tree.

Bottom of tree with bare branches.

Dozens of ornaments crammed in unsightly manner on uppermost branches.

But even these measures haven't helped. Yesterday the kids seemed to have tired of wrecking Christmas in favor of playing several rousing rounds of "lock each other in the closet" in my bedroom. I used the downtime to rearrange some of the displaced decor and felt a moment's peace in my Christmas-tastic home.

When the sounds of inter-sibling closet-based fun quieted down I became concerned and went in to check on the boys. I opened the door to discover that the kids had moved on to the "tear the sheets on Mom and Dad's bed to pieces" game.

Unfamiliar with the game? It involves ripping our bedsheets to shreds while laughing hysterically.

At least I know their destruction is not personal to Christmas. It's a year-round urge. Perhaps we can consider this the good news and the bad news....

The War of Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret) — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 20:39:00 +0000

My parents have a lovely and remarkably peaceful marriage.

Growing up I rarely saw them in conflict. They generally spoke to each other with respect and almost never raised their voices in anger.

Except for one day of the year...

...the day we put up the Christmas tree.

Our Christmas season began each year with an outing to the Christmas tree farm to select the perfect noble fir. Dad would secure the tree to the roof and we'd all head home blaring carols on the radio and feeling festive.

Things would start to go downhill pretty much as soon as we got home. Dad would struggle to get the tree off the top of the car and into the house. Once inside, Mom would fret over the trail of pine needles he was leaving in his wake. But the real trouble always started as Dad would secure the base onto the tree. As he pushed it upright year after year, Mom would let him know that it wasn't straight.

Dad would crawl back under the branches to adjust the tree. As Mom's alignment instructions were translated into adjusting the three screws holding the tree in place, things would go more and more awry.

Eventually Mom's helpful suggestions became more strident and Dad's replies from under the tree became tinged with frustration.

Some years, things got pretty heated.

Eventually the tree would get aligned to everyone's satisfaction and the fight would end well before dinnertime. Holiday merriment would recommence and it would be smooth sailing until the following Christmas.

I thought David and I could avoid my parents' yearly fight by purchasing a fake tree. While our "Augusta Pine^TM" has the slight downside of being made of plastic, it has the major upside of being straight as an arrow right out of the box.

What I failed to anticipate was that my beloved and I would simply replace my parents' yearly holiday battle with another of our own:

David and I fight about the Holiday Card.

Each December I am determined to produce a smiling holiday greeting capturing all the joy of the season through my children's whimsical cuddling and extra-merry smiles. The problem is that I have a four-year-old, a two-year-old and a 10-month-old, which means obtaining such a photo is statistically impossible.

Understanding this reality does nothing to dim my enthusiasm -- I remain determined to try.

I am the photographer, which leaves my husband in the role of "kid wrangler". I stand behind the camera and instruct my spouse to pose the children all together in front of the tree. He does so and then rushes to stand behind me and starts yelling to get their attention and make them smile.

ME: OH! They look so cute! Our kids are the best!

HUSBAND: I know, I love Christmas!

This is pretty much when the fight gets rolling.

ME: NO! You're standing too far to the side! I need you behind me so the kids are looking at the camera!

HUSBAND: OK, OK!

ME: Honey, stop telling him to yell "CHEESE"! He looks crazy! They need to be looking at me!

HUSBAND: I'm trying!

HUSBAND: Kids! Where's the garbage truck?!

ME: NOOOOOOO!!

(Sons both jump up and run toward the window in search of said phantom garbage truck)

ME: Honey, what are you doing? Go get them and put them back!

HUSBAND: Here, guys! Come play with these ornaments by the tree!

ME: The baby is escaping!

HUSBAND: I see her, I see her!

ME: THEY HAVE TO BE LOOKING AT THE CAMERA!! Why did you give them ornaments??!!

HUSBAND: I thought it would help!

ME: Well, it didn't!

HUSBAND: I CAN'T CONTROL THEM!!!

ME: There goes the baby again!
HUSBAND: Alright, just hold on a second!! [Insert highly un-merry cursing]

ME: Alright that's it! Get out of the way! Get out of the way!!

HUSBAND: I don't have him in place yet!!!

ME: I don't care! This could be our only chance!!!

ME: You know what? Nevermind. Our children are terrible.

HUSBAND: I hate Christmas.

Since 2009 we're 0 for 3 on getting a usable group shot of our kids and 3 for 3 on going to bed the night of the picture-taking plotting spousal murder.

Another great holiday tradition passed down through the generations...

The Nag

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret) — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 20:30:00 +0000

Throughout my life I've seen depictions of the nagging wife.

And I have to say I didn't really get it.

As a single person, it was beyond my comprehension why anyone would ever scream at a person they were supposed to love over needless minutiae.

Then I got married...

http://brandeducationservices.com/2012/08/29/married-to-a-brand-brand-education-for-restaurants/

...and I started to understand.

There's a picture that has been going around Facebook for the last couple of weeks that sums up the epidemic of nagging so perfectly:

What I didn't understand as a single person is that of course I didn't need to nag my boyfriends. Because they were BOYFRIENDS. Their role in my life was quite simple:

Take me out for fun dates
Listen to my tearful and lengthy thoughts about my feelings
Make out with me

Before getting married I kind of assumed that my relationship with my husband would just be a lifelong version of the above.

This was wrong.

Having a husband is not like having a boyfriend. It is more like trying to run a major corporation of which the two of you are the sole employees toiling under a team of unrelenting maniacs who are all under three feet tall.

The reality for me is that maintaing a home with three small children takes an enormous amount of work. And doing that work takes two people. And sometimes I think of the entire proposition as involving:

Employee Number One: ME

Employee Number Two: That guy who needs to be constantly REMINDED TO FIX THE #(*$& TOILET FOR THE FOUR HUNDREDTH TIME!!!

I'm sorry, what was I saying?

The nagging, it kind of sneaks up on you. I am generally a fairly reasonable lady, but now and then I suddenly find myself overtaken by an overwhelming certainty that my husband cannot function without my constant and highly detailed direction.

Even in my more rational moments it seems that getting things accomplished in the house can involve a choice between:

a. Nagging

b. Setting traps

Let's say you ask your husband to, I don't know, say FIX THE #(*$&; TOILET SEAT, to pick a completely random example.

The next step is, with 100% certainty, that your husband will forget this request approximately ten seconds later.

You accept this.

Which means you now you have two choices:

a. Gently remind husband of the task you wish him to complete

b. Wait and then become enraged when he does nothing

There is no happiness down path number B! We've already established that he's not going to do it! He hasn't thought about it once since you first mentioned it! He may well remember the number of his favorite NFL player's high school jersey, but he DOES NOT remember the thing you asked him to do. I promise.

So you remind him.

And then nothing happens.

At which point you have two choices:

a. Gently remind him

b. Wait and then become slightly more enraged when he does nothing

Except for it is almost impossible to gently remind someone of something the second time. So your tone tends to change a little bit. It gets just a little, you know, EDGY.

So you remind him a bit less gently. He smacks himself in the head. He completely forgot. He'll get on it right away. THIS IS NOT TRUE. He will not, in fact, get on it right away. Instead he will attempt to remember where the current center for the L.A. Clippers went to school, thus forever wiping any remnant of your request from his brain.

At which point you have two choices.

a. Remind him with great aggravation

b. Wait and then become enraged when he doesn't do it

You'll choose option number A and you'll officially be welcomed into the wonderful world of NAGGING.

It's like an insane inter-sexes trap that it is almost impossible to avoid. I'm telling you people, it's hard not to nag. So for now, I'm merely trying to limit the number of items I choose to bother my beloved about.

Yes, I need him to fix the toilet, but I probably don't need to remind him every 65 seconds to bring the leftovers to the office tomorrow. I can just hand them to him on his way out the door, or I could even imagine the possibility that even if he forgets, my almost 40-year-old husband will be able to figure out a way to feed himself as men have been doing for thousands of years.

This food will eventually, I can only hope, give him enough energy to remember to fix the toilet.

The Billboard Jungle

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret) — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 20:24:00 +0000

My children are becoming increasingly aware of the world around them...

...which has caused me to become increasingly aware that the world around them is positively littered with UNBELIEVABLY HORRIBLE AND DISTURBING IMAGERY.

On Sunday I was watching some football with my 4-year-old and attempting to impart to him the finer points of the game along with the recurring life-lesson that Daddy's team is THE WORST!

Throughout the morning CBS was running promos for "Criminal Minds" on heavy rotation, and my husband and I realized that we'd be watching the games on DVR-delay from now so that we could skip commercials rather than having to explain to the kids in-between snaps why "those ladies are always being hog-tied and menaced by a series of knife-wielding maniacs".

I find myself constantly attempting to translate this world of adult images to my children in language they might possibly understand. As we drive around our urban Los Angeles neighborhood, my kids delight in finding new things for me to notice and explain!

There's a cat!

It's a BIG blue garbage truck!

Look!!! A blimp!

Mommy - what's that?

Well, let's see. I mean, it's a giant billboard featuring a young blond girl dragging her hand along the wall creating an immense blood trail. But wait! There's more! The gory drippings reveal a demonic face as they make their grizzly way towards the floor.

Me: WOW! She sure is making big mess!

Child #1: Is that chocolate?

Me: Yes! Yes it is.

Child #2: Yeah! Chocolate!

Look at the cool balloons outside that store!

A firetruck! A firetruck!

Mommy, what's that?

Hmmm, well guys, that seems to be an enormous picture of a Nun bleeding what appears to be some sort of bubonic plague-based goo from both of her eyeballs.

Child #1: She's crying!

Me: You're right. She's crying!

Child #2: Why?

Me: Because she's sad.

Child #1: Why is it black?

Me: Because she is extra sad.

Child #1: Why?

Me: Because she lost her dog.

Child #2: That IS sad.

Look at that fast ambulance!

There's a doggie in that car!

What's that?

ME: That...is a butt.

Child #1 and Child #2: Laughing all the way home while yelling "Butt!" over and over and over.

Rather than going all One Million Moms on the subject, I'm trying to just kind of put all the stuff we encounter in some sort of understandable context on a case by case basis.

Mommy, what's that?

And then every once in a while, when explaining just isn't really an option, we just change the route we take home from school until the posters change again.

Cause I mean really - what the hell is that?

Toddler Justice

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret) — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 19:40:00 +0000

I have a four-year-old and a two-year-old, which means that the fighting in my house is pretty much NON-STOP.

http://www.kevinluthardt.com/Books.html

A train with one wheel left? My kids will roll about the floor in an epic battle of wills to secure dominion over it.

Buzz Lightyear doll missing an arm? Suddenly represents the fulfillment of one boy's every desire the instant his brother touches it.

Broken Peach Crayon? IT'S MINE!!! I HAD IT FIRST!!! Allow me to attempt to rip your ear off to convey the depth of my conviction!

I tell you, folks, feral animals fighting over a carcass in the street could teach these kids a thing or two about decorum. I've come to accept that the dynamic is not changing anytime soon, so now I'm just trying to define my role in the arena.

My four-year-old obviously has a size advantage over his younger brother, so my initial instinct when the perma-fighting began was to intervene in order to protect the two-year-old from his older bro.

I'd watch the four-year-old just saunter over and flat out MUG his little brother for the race car he'd been playing with and I would rush to get involved.

"Hey! Give that back! Your brother was playing with it!"

Brother #1 would then reluctantly hand said car back to Brother #2. Perhaps a coerced apology would be issued. Peace would be restored for exactly FOUR POINT EIGHT seconds.

At which point Brother #2 decides to put the race car down. Then Brother #1 picks it up, thus breaking Brother #2's heart and resulting in frenzied and high pitched cries of:

"MINE!!!!! MINE!!!!!! MINE!!!!!!"

At which point I am rendered utterly confused. I mean, whose #*&;^$@ turn is it now??? I'd carefully established that it was Brother #2's turn. But then when he decided to put it down, I have to think that some sort of abandoned property statute would have come into play. Right? I don't know -- by now both children are shrieking so loudly that I'm having trouble forming thoughts.

I've entered the murky world of TODDLER JUSTICE.

It all goes wrong so quickly.

Let's say I decide that Brother #1 should have a 5-minute turn and then it will be the Brother #2's turn. 2 minutes and thirty five seconds into his turn, Brother #1 abandons the toy and Brother #2 claims it. Now begins the 5 minute turn of Brother #2, right? Except then he puts it down 3 minutes in. HOW MUCH TIME IS LEFT ON THE CLOCK?

I spent several weeks lost in the morass of it all - grabbing toys away and redistributing them with a great sense of fairness only to end up with everyone in the room furious at me.

I was beaten.

So I've learned for the most part to leave the boys to their own devices. Sure the older one is bigger, but the younger one is wiley and is not afraid to use "the world's most annoying scream"^TM to his advantage. So really, it's a pretty fair fight.

Any form of violence is shut down and appropriate time outs are issued, but otherwise I'm retired from the toddler justice business.

For good.