The Elmo Wallpaper

Rolling in the deep

2012-02-21T16:18:00.000-08:00

... deep doo-doo, that is.

The million-dollar dog, now just a whopping sixteen months of age, had major surgery in December. In January, he acquired tapeworms. Now, in February, he has giardia. Tonight, I had to give him his ORAL medication. Do you know how hard it is to get a syringe in a dog's mouth and squirt a bunch of white liquid into him when he doesn't want you to? In the meantime, he has been depositing piles of literally steaming dog diarrhea on the rug in the family room.

The sixteen-year-old cat, who has never really liked anyone but Husband and never emerges for anything but food and water, has taken to defecating all over the house. I was ready to put her down, with the support of even the craziest of my animal-loving friends, but my vet convinced me to bring her in for testing one last time and he believes she just needs her thyroid regulated better and her allergies to fleas managed. She's active, she eats and drinks, and I have no real reason to put her down... other than the fact that now I need to replace two rooms of carpeting because she has peed through to the sub-floor and because I gag every time I find the dog eating her poo. And the little fact that I am bringing a newborn home to the same master bedroom that she considers her very large litterbox in about ten weeks.

Saturday night, C. fell to the stomach bug going around the elementary school like a wildfire. By mid-Sunday morning, he was out of the woods. Monday, I decided to take advantage of the day off from school and get the kids to Legoland before I grow any larger or more unwieldy -- I am already huffing at the slightest exertion and swelling up like the fat lady at the circus. Apparently, going to Legoland was the idea of, well, EVERYONE on Monday, as we were joined by the rest of the universe there. Still, we made it through the day and started home, believing traffic would be light because of the holiday.

Yeah, no. Traffic was not light at all. And about twenty minutes into our trek, Firstborn started barfing into an empty Legoland gift shop bag in the back seat. Unfortunately, C. is extremely sensitive to smells and noise, and he started squealing like a stuck pig at the smell. My very mature mother, who was along for the trip, acted similarly. That left exactly one adult in her right mind -- yeah, me -- practicing Zen breathing from the steering wheel.

About an hour later, we were stuck in heavy interstate traffic, barely moving, when little B. woke up from a nap and started barfing all over himself from his carseat in the middle row. Repeat scene above.

My car smells like kid barf. My family room now smells like a mixture of dog diarrhea and orange Gatorade barf. My master bedroom smells like barf, cat pee, and cat poop along with sick dog. Who wants to come party at my house?

Stop telling me what to do.

2012-02-19T12:31:00.000-08:00

Don't take this the wrong way, Internet/world/news sources/Facebook, but... shut up.

After my initial reflex to read every pregnancy book imaginable, and after I figured out how to get babies to sleep, I mostly stopped reading parenting books. Over the years, I have perused a few... 123 Magic, How to Talk So Your Kids Will Listen and Listen So Your Kids Will Talk, NurtureShock, et al. I have found some value in them. But really, what they taught me the most is that no parenting book knows me or my kids. One size does not fit all.

Lately, it seems I don't have to read parenting books. Instead, on Facebook and on Twitter and on blogs galore, there are articles and book reviews and blog posts telling me how to parent instead. Or -- even better -- telling me why my parenting must suck and how to do it better. The voices, I tell you. They are loud inside my addled brain.

I was interested in the Tiger Mom stuff. I read a lot of what my friends pass on through Facebook. But when the latest, predictably sensationalized, articles came out recently about the new book Bringing Up Bebe about why French parenting is "superior," I just realized that I. Have. Had. It.

You know, it all sounds good to me. I have talked to enough Chinese high school students to know that the Chinese educational system has some very good points... and some not so good points. I can see why Amy Chua was motivated to parent the way she did. I can get behind some Tiger Mom tactics.

I can also see why the French culture and attitude could yield different behavior in their children. I like the French lifestyle. I especially like their food, if I am being honest. Hello, crepes. But I admire too the way their school day is set up and how education is handled in that country.

The thing is, I'm not Chinese. Also? Not French. I don't live in China OR France, either. My kids go to American schools, eat American food, and are raised by American parents, for better or for worse. And while I am open to hearing about other cultures and parenting strategies, I am dang tired of being told how much mine suck because I am an American.

While we are at it, I am also tired of hearing about how I am a lazy parent because my kids watch television, about how I over-schedule my children, how they don't get enough time to play outside, how I over coddle them, and about how our diet is terrible. Just, you know, if we are being honest.

Here's the thing: I am doing the best I can. I'm parenting by my own instincts. I'm parenting within the resources of what I have, what my skill set is, what I can afford, and where I live. I'm being the best parent I know how to be. But all these articles, books, and blog posts? They are not helping. At all. They make me question myself, they make me anxious, they make me feel like no matter how hard I try or what I do or what I say, I am a big, fat failure.

So to everyone out there who is so certain that the American mother is a disaster, I say: You're not the boss of me. Also, because I grew up in the '80s and graduated from high school in the early '90s, I say: We didn't start the fire. My kids do play outside, do take risks, do learn to behave, do have great thoughts, do understand what structure is, do drink organic milk and eat whole grains, do get down time, also do have to learn and master skills they might not want to. Not all the time. Not every day. Not with military-like precision, and not with just an arched French eyebrow, no. But they do. So step off.

Furthermore, I LIKE American children. I like the optimism. I like the cheekiness. I like the cocksure attitude. I like the "think different." Yeah, our economy sucks, our politicians are ridonkulous in both parties and at every level, our public schools are a mess, and we can shake our heads sadly at the evening news every single day. But if you look around, you'll see that we still have some freaking amazing children. I like them. I refuse to believe that every one of them is amazing despite their disastrous American-style childhoods.

I'm determined now to drown out the voices. It's clear to me, almost four children into this motherhood gig, that my society and culture has a self-loathing attitude they are happy to place on the shoulders of the country's mothers. I can't win no matter whether I "stay home" or work outside the home, whether I breastfeed or formula feed, whether I use a pacifier or not, whether I co-sleep or Ferberize. I'll be criticized for being a helicopter parent or for being too free-range. It's inevitable. So no offense, but again, shut up. I'm doing just fine, thanks.

No rainbows or butterflies here

2012-02-05T09:50:00.000-08:00

You know the women who wax rhapsodic about pregnancy? The ones who talk about the wonder of life and birth and the miracle of it all and how great they feel and they never felt more like a woman and...

Yeah, that's not me. I'm the antidote to that, I think.

I know, I'm not supposed to say it. I'm supposed to just be plain grateful the entire pregnancy -- grateful that conception is easy for us, grateful for healthy babies, grateful for my own health, grateful for the whole dang process. Well, I AM grateful for all of that. I know how very lucky I am in all respects. I hope to continue to be lucky -- and grateful that with this birth, I won't have to take that kind of Russian roulette shot at everything falling into place as I hope again. Conception and birth are tricky, tricky processes, after all, and nothing is ever guaranteed.

But in the meantime, I am just not a happy pregnant person. Whether that makes me ungrateful or whatever, I cannot help. My body has done me well in that I haven't had any major health issues in my pregnancies. Even so, pregnancy is no fun affair for me. Yes, I appreciate the baby kicks and the crazy miracle of it all. I get that. But along with the baby kicks and the miracle comes...

Heartburn. Oh my GAWD, the heartburn. This pregnancy and last, it has been unbearable -- the keep me up at night kind. I am so looking forward to eating food again without the looming threat of acid reflux.

The weight gain. My body blows up like a balloon. This time, I can honestly say I have eaten like crap. I have. I haven't followed the recommended diets, I haven't adhered to any regimens. I threw up the first twenty weeks, and when I felt good enough to eat, I ate whatever the hell I wanted to in any quantity I wanted to. I have craved powdered doughnuts, Slurpees, pizza, ice cream, candy bars. I have been in no way, shape, or form healthy or careful. But I have felt like I am simply surviving, and it just is what it is. But I will have hell to pay postpartum.

The swelling. It's HOT here, and it's only going to get hotter. My fingers and feet are alreasy swelling. I hate it.

The sleeplessness and the exhaustion. I am so. tired. all. the. time. Except at night, when I could sleep. Then I can't sleep, of course. Mostly because I am like a beached whale and can't get comfortable in bed and, oh yeah, the damn heartburn.

The nerves. I am on edge. It feels so hard just to lumber through my days. When other people don't cooperate in making my days easier, I get angry. Quickly. You can imagine how that goes around here.

The clothes. I am not a cute pregnant person. I gain weight EVERYWHERE. My bras don't fit, my pants are tight, and I am not comfortable. My face is a bloated, pale mess.

The questions. I am blessed that people care, but still. Over and over and over. Yes, I'm excited. May. No, I'm not ready. No, we don't have a name. I feel large and tired.

I feel so lucky to be having another baby. I just can't wait to actually HAVE that baby and start to get my body and life back in order. I feel like I am wading through molasses. With heartburn. And sometimes, hemorrhoids.

I think my distaste for pregnancy might have something to do with my laissez-faire attitude about childbirth -- unlike most of my friends, I really don't care how I give birth or where. I like hospitals and I like epidurals. I don't mind being induced. I've been lucky to escape C-sections, especially considering the size of my babies, but if I had one, I wouldn't consider it a failure or a disappointment. I just have never had surgery before, so I would be scared of that. But the "institutional" birth doesn't bother me at all -- I'm just happy to do it and be done and yeah, I even enjoy staying in the hospital. I don't have to clean up there. I don't have to do laundry there. I order my meals. I watch TV. It's kind of awesome. I stay as long as they will let me. I know, I'm totally weird.

Anxiety

2012-01-23T08:51:00.000-08:00

Over the past year, it has become clear that my middle son, C., is carrying around a family heirloom of sorts: anxiety. Anxiety runs on both sides of the family and is something that both Husband and I have faced, to varying degrees and frequency, in our lives, so this is not surprising at all, really.

It just kind of breaks my heart.

I have written before about how we have worried about C. He is a dear, sweet, tenderhearted child. He is the one who wants to please us, mediate, make people okay. His letter to Santa this year listed the toys he wanted Santa to bring his big brother, with just an afterthought mention of what he wanted for himself, and it was signed, "Your little friend, C." My heart nearly exploded out of my chest with a mixture of pride, love, and an aching, searing jolt of pain at his vulnerability.

In so many ways, he is the child I worry about the most. He is the closet introvert who hides his social anxiety with jokes and class clownery. He is the artist who thinks his drawing stinks, the 100-pound second grader who wears a size 10-12 in boys' clothes and still needs a Pull-Up at night. He is the one who treasures little things like baking cookies with me and absolutely must be read to every single night or he cannot fall asleep.

And he is the one with the anxiety.

At the beginning of the school year, C.'s well-intentioned teacher crowded us both a little with her concern for C., who did not seem to be engaged in class and outright admitted he didn't enjoy school. She was convinced he was depressed. Not depressed, I tried to explain to her. Anxious. She did not seem to understand, listing his class clown status and his outgoing nature and how smart he is. Yes, he is smart, I confirmed, and yes, he is outgoing, but it is a mask to hide his social anxiety in a class where he knew only one child at the beginning of the school year. He just needed time to settle in, I explained.

After some rough starts, he did, and he is doing better. But he still struggles. He blows up at me if I ask him to do something he should have done already. He gets nervous if he thinks we will be late to a practice or a game. He dwells and works himself up before he starts something new -- a team or a class -- in which he might not know anyone or have an anchor.

I know a little about anxiety, but I know more about how it has affected people in my family. I have a gut feeling that my little guy is going to be dealing with anxiety his whole life. Unlike his cocky, self-assured brothers, he doubts. He worries. He isn't sure. And I can't fix it. I can get him help -- we plan on eventually starting him with someone to receive some cognitive behavioral therapy to learn better coping mechanisms, and we are trying to find ways to support him otherwise. But my feeling is, this is part of who he is, and it might always be part of who he is.

More than anything, I want to tell him all the reasons he should be just as cocky as his brothers. He's tall. He's smart. He works hard. He loves. He's a fabulous little artist. He has an amazing imagination. People like him. He's a playground leader and he uses his powers for good. He brings people together and builds other people up. He's such a good little guy. He's going to be such a wonderful big guy someday. He deserves to believe and know how wonderful he really is. And I just wish I could fix that. I wish that was in my toolbox of Mommy Powers. But it's not, really. I can do my best, and I can tell him and show him and support him and love him and give him everything I've got. But it's no guarantee of anything.

And that makes me anxious.

Get OVER it already.

2012-01-05T16:36:00.000-08:00

This week, my wonderful friend Lisa Belkin published an article written by the very funny Dawn Meehan over at Lisa's new Huffington Post blog. I would give you the name of Lisa's new HuffPo blog, but... uh... it is kind of in name limbo after the NY Times took unkindly to her calling it a similar name to her old NY Times parenting blog. Helloooo... someone didn't learn all he or she needed to learn in Kindergarten, NY TIMES.

Anyway, Dawn's article is about, unbelievably, the ridiculously belabored question of who has it "harder" -- the Stay at Home Mom (as you know, a term I recently dropped from my vocabulary) or the Working Mom?

Dawn is a talented writer and she makes me laugh. But seriously? Are we STILL talking about this? It's so... depressing. As I said in my recent post, we are all MOMS. I mean, do we have to have a winner of the Who Has It Worst question? This parenting stuff is, hands down, the hardest thing I have ever done. And I am not even talking about the crazy amounts of laundry that have to be put away, the constant dirty dishes, the cleaning of the bathrooms, the existence of pee absolutely EVERYWHERE in my life (will my house ever not smell like pee?). I'm talking about the emotional difficulty of being responsible for another little human's existence, character development, physical health and well-being, education, and, you know, FUTURE. Every single mother, no matter what her circumstance, has this burden. Some take it more seriously than others; some don't have the capacity to give it as much mental and emotional weight as others. But we all have hormones and we all gave birth or accepted a child into our hearts somehow, and when we did -- boom. HARD. NOT EASY.

You cannot shoebox a mother into a label. I have a good friend who is not working outside the home, but she is staying home with not one but TWO special needs children under the age of five. Her youngest might never really walk. She might never potty train. She might not have a normal life span. Her oldest is allergic to so many things that she cannot go to anyone's house who has ever owned a pet. She cannot come in contact with certain foods. So this mother's life at home is very isolated and very emotionally difficult. Are you going to tell me that someone else has it "harder" because she works outside the home?

I have been working from home this past year, and it definitely sucked for me. I am not great at that kind of multitasking, not great at drawing lines between working and mothering when it is all happening in the same room at the same time. That's me. Someone else might thrive on it -- it might be her lifeline. I don't care who has it harder. We're individuals, and we have individual kids with unique needs and obstacles and circumstances. Moms are married, divorced, single. They have children with special needs. They themselves might have special needs. Maybe they have spouses with special needs. We live in a sucky economy with sucky consequences for many families. Parenting is HARD -- for the rich, for the poor, for the working outside the home moms, for the moms not working outside the home. PARENTING IS HARD. That's why there there is no solution to the "who has it harder?" question. The answer is, we all do -- at any given moment, in any given situation, at any given age.

I would be a happy lady if I never saw another woman try to assert who has it "harder." Every time that sentence comes out of another woman's mouth or from another woman's keyboard, it's like some mom out there loses her wings. When will we stop trying to put stars on our bellies and start banding together? We could do so much good if we stopped arguing this question and started arguing about why we need better family policies in the American workplace, better health care, better maternity leave, better support for ALL mothers out there. It takes all of us to make up the village that needs to raise our children. Let's acknowledge that and MOVE THE HELL ON.

Resolutions for 2012:

2011-12-31T08:01:00.000-08:00

1. I will find a regular, adult, capable-of-staying-overnight sitter for my children. This will likely involve calling the local nanny agency and interviewing nannies and paying through the nose to find someone who won't end up on Dateline NBC. However, in the past year, it has become extremely apparent that my parents, who live two miles away, are not viable answers for even emergency childcare situations. I don't trust their judgment, their interest, or (most importantly) their health. I do have a regular sitter, but she has a family and a regular job, and I need a back-up. This will alleviate a lot of anxiety for me and allow me to envision future weekend trips for my anniversaries (we haven't even gone out to dinner the past two years!).

2. I'm going to get up the energy to make more food at home. This pregnancy has knocked me out. I have never before barfed until eighteen weeks. I am still taking Zofran to alleviate some debilitating nausea. But my children are going to be supersized if I don't get a handle on the situation (let's not even mention me). I do not enjoy cooking at all. I'm not particularly good at it, and then when I do it, at least one half of the residents of my household are unhappy with what I have made or chosen. It's demoralizing. But we are all going to have to suck it up before we all have to suck it in!

3. I WILL get this house in order. It might kill me. But women have died for lesser causes.

4. I will NOT allow anyone to convince me to volunteer in a classroom next school year. I love my children, but the weekly gigs absolutely kill my momentum at home. I'll be available to pinch hit or do special projects, but a regular assignment is just too much.

5. I will start one of two sure-fire million dollar ideas: either embark on an actual effective system for organizing and storing Legos (We put men on the moon, people. We can't do better than the current offerings?) and especially Lego *sets* or start my own PURELY RECREATIONAL sports league for children in my area. No pros, semi-pros, or children with biceps allowed. No fathers (or mothers) allowed to coach. Customers would pay more for third party coaches, but they would get less politics and Daddyball and ridiculousness. Families would have to sign contracts stating they are happy for their children to play, that winning *and losing* are part of playing sports, that every child should be able to get to play infield or quarterback. When they are ready for more competition, they are free to leave -- there are plenty of places to find that.I'm going to be rich, people. And my kids might actually be able to just play a game instead of having to worry that their uniforms might not get dirty all season.

6. Write more, obviously.

There are more, like getting my middle child out of nighttime pull-ups, but I will leave it at that. That's enough for now.

Happy and productive 2012, everyone!

Panic at the disco

2011-12-27T07:28:00.000-08:00

It's over. Christmas 2011, that is. All in all, it was an unlikely success, despite the Head Cold That Ate Cleveland (for me), various other assorted ailments for the little people, and the usual family shenanigans. I hope you and yours had fabulous holidays of the Hanukkah or Christmas (or Kwanzaa, Eid, Diwali... ) flavors. I, for one, am just incredibly grateful for the break in the regular programming!

But now, it's over. The decorations need to come down and, I hope, stored with some amount of organization or thought to aid in next year's effort. The kitchen needs to be restored, I hope better than I found it. But most of all...

My house is a total disaster.

I know that part of my panic is hormone, nesting related. I'm 21 weeks today, and suddenly, now that 2012 is this weekend, May seems a lot closer. Part of my panic is the fact that I spent yesterday at the home of my ultra-organized, completely anal brother and sister-in-law, where every single thing has a place and a home, they know exactly where that home is, and five minutes after gifts were opened, it was as if we had never been there. My brother's children automatically wash their hands before and after they eat, take showers of their own volition, and inspect glasses before they drink out of them. My children are staunch supporters of the five-second rule and have to be threatened to brush their teeth or observe daily hygiene.

But it is more than that. Our house is a disaster. I'm an organized person trapped underneath four completely anti-organization individuals, a dog, and two aged cats. We have too many clothes (hand-me-downs are overrated for the sheer amount of sorting and storing they require!), too many toys, too much paper, too much carpet (see: dog and two aged cats). Too. Much. Stuff. And I want it all gone, and I have no idea where to begin.

I wish we could go away for a weekend, come back, and find that some magic fairy (preferably Nate Berkus) had emptied my house of all the extra stuff, stripped the carpet and left hardwood or laminate floors -- I'm not picky, and painted the walls different colors. Oh, and finished the laundry.

For now, I am making 2012 the Year of the To-Do List. And I am hoping that once the fog of this neverending head cold lifts, I have some awesome second and third trimester energy surges to plow me through the mess.

My kids are not (always) assholes

2011-12-19T11:00:00.000-08:00

During my hiatus from the blog, I attended my fifteenth college reunion. As I have written many times before, I love my alma mater fiercely, and I adore my friends and classmates that I met there. I mean, for the most part. Ninety-nine percent of them.

While I was at my reunion this year, I was struck by how many people approached me and told me they read my Facebook status updates all the time. As I admitted below, I am not a natural Twitterhead, but I am a Facebooker. With friends spread out around the country and sometimes the world, it really keeps me in touch with tons of people I would otherwise lose in my life and it also keeps me in the loop locally with my mom friends and organizations, so I find it insanely useful. But see, the classmates approaching me at the reunion, with few exceptions, don't actually post on Facebook much if at all, yet they read all of my posts. Which left me feeling a little weird. Naked, I guess. I guess I usually assume that if people don't post on Facebook, they don't read Facebook either. Ding-dong wrong, apparently.

I bumped into one friend late one night at the reunion. She had obviously been partaking of some adult beverages, as is her prerogative. After we hugged, the first thing she said to me was, "Wow! So your kids are, like, assholes, huh?"

I was taken a bit aback. I mean, I post snippets on Facebook about my kids -- who give me plenty of fodder for Facebook status updates, as you might imagine. I try to mix in positive updates along with the sarcastic, the weary, or the downright done kind. I mean, my kids are kids. Sometimes they are sweet, sometimes they surprise me, and sometimes, yes, they are assholes. But they are kids. Kids can be assholes. I'm not one to sugarcoat my kids. I will tell you when they are amazing, when they are brilliant, when they are heartbreakingly kind and generous, and when they are douchebags. I am sure they would prepare the same reports about me if given social media accounts. We're all human beings, and we're all assholes sometimes.

But in that instant, I realized that all my friend -- a rock star doctor who travels the world -- knows about my kids are what she reads on my Facebook status updates. And all she had taken from that is that my kids are assholes. I stood there sort of in stunned silence as she went on: "I didn't really want to have kids, but your Facebook updates have totally confirmed it for me," she laughed. "No thanks!"

Luckily, she was tipsy enough that I was able to navigate away from her gracefully, but I felt shamed. It made me doubt what I write about my kids both on Facebook and here. Just for the record, my kids are not (always) assholes. My kids are kids. I love them more than anything on the face of the planet. I marvel at how freaking hard they are sometimes. I berate myself for not being good enough to them or for them. I think they are awesome.

Some locals were surprised when I showed up pregnant this fall. A few voiced that they were befuddled as to why I would have another kid when the ones I have are such a handful. They are an awesome handful. They do kick my butt all the time. ALL the time. But they are the best things in the world, too. I love my little kid gang. And I think they make each other better. One more is going to be fun. Hard as hell, but fun.

So before we move on, I just wanted to clear that up. It's been bugging me since June. And that childless rock star friend? She has since, with her husband, added two puppies to her household. I look at the (many, many) pictures on her Facebook status updates and chuckle to myself. Because puppies? Can be so much bigger assholes than kids!

Catching up

2011-12-18T14:35:00.000-08:00

Husband says it is insanely boring when I write posts about why I have not been posting. So I am going to let him be the voice of my (former? long-lost?) readers and just sum it up in one sentence: too.much.life. You can relate.

The truth is, I have struggled a lot since attending BlogHer in 2010. I haven't really known where I fit in this blogging world. I felt a need to jump in, to join the fray, to tweet and market and write elsewhere and... you know, it's just not me. It's just not. I am not interested in sponsored posts, not interested in tweeting (I do love the Facebook, though, and I read OTHERS' tweets), not interested in trying to get a book deal. This little space has been mine for four years now, and I guess that's just what I need it to be. A little space.

I needed time to come to the conclusion that it is okay, that I am no less a writer or a member of this blogging world, if I am just the writer of this blog, somewhat anonymous and completely small-time. I read a lot of others' blog posts, but I comment very rarely only because I am usually on Flipbook and it is a total pain in the rear. Am I still worth reading? Well, you'll have to decide.

In the meantime:

1. I'm pregnant. Yes! Seriously! I'm halfway done, actually. I know, how could I keep it off the Interwebz for so very long with my huge mouth? I will tell you the truth: I don't really love when my favorite bloggers conceive and then their blogs become all about pregnancy and butterflies and roses and whatnot. I didn't know how to present this and also say, dude, this blog is NOT going to be all about my pregnancy. But here it is. A few common answers to common questions...

-- Yes, this was planned. We have debated for years, and if you have been reading here, you know it has been bouncing around in my brain. We finally decided to go for it.

-- No, I'm not "going for a girl." I'm not a huge gambler, especially when odds are not in my favor. I would love to have a daughter; I think that is well known. But I also think four boys would be pretty darn special too. When I was pregnant with B., I was desperate to know what his gender was. Like, manic. But this pregnancy, I am oddly at peace. I don't care. I know that sounds ridiculous given everything I have written, but I think I have finally come to the realization that what will be will be, and I am not in charge, and no matter what, it's okay. Which is good, since, you know, what will be WILL be, I am NOT in charge, and no matter what, it IS okay. Ha. Maybe I am growing up.

-- Yes, this is IT. I am crazy, but not THAT kind of crazy. And yes, for sure. Husband and I do know how to prevent these things. Ten years of baby-making and a now advanced maternal age are enough. I'm tired and I have a lot of heartburn and I'm old. This is it. The end. All she wrote. Shop's closed. And... scene.

2. I have made a decision. I will no longer call myself a Stay at Home Mother. I cannot claim this idea -- I read it on Twitter. Another mother made the statement. I can't remember her Twitter handle, which is probably like the worst breach of conduct ever, but... at least I'm honest? Anyway, as she said, we are ALL mothers. We don't call dads "Work Outside the Home Dads." I'm over the labels. I am a Mother. Period. I also now like to fancy myself a Writer. So I am a Writer and I am a Mother, but I am not a Stay at Home Mother who writes. Just in case you were looking to give me business cards for Christmas or whatever. I don't know why, but this decision to reject that label has really affected me the past few days.

3. I have been writing for pay. Or, at least, assembling writing. I completed two first drafts of books between April and October, and it kicked. my. butt. I kind of hated the struggle to balance my kids and my employer. My hat is off to the better multitaskers than I am... I sucked at it.

4. I miss my people. I'm feeling very disconnected from my kindred spirits right now, for whatever reason. Suburbia is getting to me. I am feeling smothered and yet lonely all at the same time. Does that even make sense?

5. I want to write. For ME. So I am pledging to myself that I will write more and more frequently. I am not sure I will ever be a daily blogger, but I can try. It's good for my soul.

I've missed my space. It's good to be back. The adventure continues!

I just want them to be happy.

2011-10-13T09:00:00.000-07:00

The school year started and I was caught in the undertow. Between a part-time job writing (from which I am happily taking a break!) for pay, my school volunteer commitments, and my children, I have been just treading water for a long time now. But the main thing keeping me overwhelmed: that elusive goal of happy children.

I'm not even sure if "happy children" is a goal I can attain. What do happy children look like? Are they okay with going to bed a little earlier than they hoped? Are they pleased to go to school every morning and happy campers at the end of the school day? Do they acquiesce to homework management without resistance?

If so, my children are NOT happy. But if "happy children" can be grumpy, grouchy, moaning kids, say, 50-60 percent of the time and happy or at least content the remainder of their days? I have at least a shot.

Before this school year began, I will admit I was feeling a little cocky. My kids scored the reputed "very desirable" teachers. I was feeling on my A game. And then, as it usually happens, everything really got underway and the cracks in my system started showing up.

Firstborn is happy in class. His teacher is attuned to him, impressed by him (maybe a little TOO much), and he has friends in his room. He defines school as a happy place. But after a year of struggle, I finally let him drop violin and swimming in favor of a fall season of baseball.

Firstborn LOVES baseball. But baseball doesn't always love Firstborn. And the league we have played in before and now is very competitive and very much Daddyball: political and hotheaded. When sitting in the stands, watching the men huff around the field with their chests puffed out and their middle -aged butts stuffed into uniform pants, I often hear Springsteen songs in my head.

This season, Firstborn aged up into kid-pitch (because third and fourth graders' arms are so ready to pitch seven-inning games) and finds himself among eight, nine, and ten-year-old Athletes. This is basically the pros compared to what he has been doing. Needless to say, he's been in left outfield, kicking the grass. But even more, his coaches have been instructing him not to even swing at the ball, because he has a better chance getting on base if he walks than if he tries to hit.

So we have been struggling with how much to intercede, how much to let it ride, how much to let him figure out for himself that he's not going to play infield or be a star -- maybe ever again. The kids he plays with now have, like, muscles. And Firstborn, despite his armpit hair and increasing need for deodorant, is still gangly and sorting out his limbs. After his first game, in which his coaches sat him out two innings and he hit nothing, he came home and cried, and my heart broke off into eight thousand pieces, but somehow we have survived. I'm beginning to see that disappointment might be not only an inevitable part of the next phase of his childhood, but a necessary one. And I am fortifying myself.

And then their is C., my middle child teddy bear. He was assigned to the "nurturing, sensitive teacher," but that has turned out to be something of a curse. She is certainly sensitive -- sensitive to the fact that C. is not at all engaged in her classroom and that he doesn't like school. C., unlike Firstborn, finds school a drag. He does have friends, and he works hard at that. But the worksheets and the smartboards completely bore him. After two conferences already this year in which his teachers wondered if he is a "gifted underachiever," depressed, an enigma... you name it, I am coming to the conclusion that his teacher has a need to be liked and given attention (by her students) that C. is not giving her, and C. might not thrive in a typical public school classroom. Stay tuned. In the meantime, I don't think he's particularly happy at school, but putting him in a karate class is one of the best things I have done for him lately. It's a work in progress.

The littlest guy just struggles with not wanting to go to school at all. He talks my head off, he wants to hang around the house, and he doesn't want to have to behave himself. Details. He is, overall, happy at the moment. I'll take it.

This parenting thing, it never. gets. easier. It does get different, but it never lets me coast. I don't want to coddle my children, I don't want to spoil my children, I don't want to over-analyze my children. I just want happy children. Could someone please hand over the instruction booklet?

Stuck in the middle

2011-07-10T16:25:00.000-07:00

I'm about to turn 37 later this month. Oh my God, that sounds so old. It's not an age I ever imagined myself actually being. Yet here I am -- closer to 40 than I am 30, almost through my childbearing years, inching ever so much terrifying closer to the word "mature." I have never had much of a problem with aging... but maybe that's because I wasn't yet aged. I'm starting to take issue with the whole process.

The worst part of all of it is that I am finding myself smack dab in the middle of two generations of maddening, obstinate, unruly people: my kids and my parents.

My kids are... my kids. You know what I am talking about. They are growing up, messily, loudly, and not without a whole lot of laundry. My parents, though, are a whole different steam train that I will confess I never saw coming when I was younger.

My family has had its share of messes and lovely dysfunction. In my early 20s, my parents fell -- hard -- off their pedestals, and the curtains came down and revealed that my "normal, average" childhood was more facade than reality. I dealt with that with some therapy and a lot of hours logging time with the Indigo Girls.

But seeing my parents as senior citizens now -- my mom is 65, my dad 64 -- changes everything. In the past year and a half, my father has collapsed four times. He still works seven days a week and has nary a hiccup in his work performance, but he drives himself into the ground otherwise, and nothing I say or do can stop him. My mom, with her own varied set of health issues, tries to prop him up. They are stubborn, and reckless, and they drive me absolutely batshit crazy. When I raise issues or ask them to take care of health issues, they tell me to step off. Then I get the hysterical midnight or 6 AM phone calls and I have to race to the ER to meet an ambulance. It's wearing on me.

I don't know what the future holds for either of them, but I am filled with dread. I want to shake them and tell them how much I love them and don't want to lose them, but it's not that easy, is it? It never is. Because we have electricity between us, charge in our air that spans the past almost 37 years -- expectations and disappointments and criticisms and sadness -- and I don't know what to say anymore. I force myself to face the fact they they will decline, whether it will be sudden or slow, and I will lose them. How do I want to spend this remaining time together? When will it be time for them to downsize? How will it all go down? And I have no idea. It makes me sad.

Part of me wishes I didn't live two miles away from them so I didn't have to live out every second of this process. Part of me knows I couldn't have it any other way.

With my children, I feel that I gain something of them every single day. With my parents, I feel a daily loss instead. Here in the middle, I just know my mid-section is softer, my knees weaker, my boobs saggier.

... my heart heavier.

Nine

2011-07-01T05:47:00.000-07:00

A week or so ago, my firstborn child turned nine years old.

At my college reunion, there were many, many babies, many, many toddlers, and more than a few tummies swollen with the promise of those to come. But nine year olds were far fewer in attendance. I walked past the former lacrosse players toting baby strollers and wondered how I had managed to reach this place where I had no stroller at all -- just three sure-footed, mostly (sigh) potty-trained little boys who are gaining on me in height.

Nine years ago, I was struggling. I was sleeping in a La-Z-Boy with a colicky baby who refused to sleep by himself no matter what Harvey Karp-Dr. Sears-Marc Weissbluth method I tried. I was nursing around the clock and showing off my new party trick: a milk supply that turned my breasts into Rocket Boobs, capable of hitting distant targets like the opposite wall of a restaurant or passersby.

Nine years ago, I looked at this beautiful baby boy with expressive eyebrows and huge blue eyes, and I worried. I worried about the responsibility of raising a little person whom, someday, somebody would love. I worried about being a good enough mother, about doing right by this little being who was obviously so cranky to have been born. I wondered what I had gotten myself into. I cried myself -- not to sleep, because I wasn't sleeping. But I cried along with this little baby that I loved so completely.

Nine years later, I have four feet, nine inches of boy by my side. He still has sandy, light brown hair, still has the same huge, light eyes and the same laughing eyebrows. But all traces of pudgy baby thighs are long gone, replaced by knobby knees and impossibly long shins. He comes up from behind and takes my hand when we walk out of restaurants. He squeezes my hand hard when he has to get a vaccination. He no longer demands to sleep in my armpit as he did as a baby, but he still thrills at the every once in a while opportunity to sleep in our bed.

Nine years later, he's brave beyond my belief, confident beyond my expectations, and surprisingly reasonable given his toddler years. He is still my most challenging child emotionally, but he surprises me with growing maturity every day. He's competitive but not without generosity. He loves his friends.

It has been a long, long journey, mothering this little boy. He made me a mother, and then he taught me what that meant. It was nothing like what I expected. At. All. But instead, it has been an adventure -- sometimes complex, sometimes beautiful, sometimes devastating. I have not always been certain I was cut out for this, that I was made of the stuff he needed. But nine years later, I think I can say that I am.

Nine years later, he loves baseball so passionately that he happily goes to baseball camp for five hours a day in the relentless 90-degree heat. He's excited to receive the latest Rick Riordan tome in the mail for his birthday. He makes homemade trading cards for the Greek gods. He's waiting breathlessly for the final installment of Harry Potter on film. He sleeps in a little gabled room with a window looking out into the trees, his treasures tucked into his bedside table, his shelves littered with trophies and game balls and Lego figures. He talks smack to my classmates from college when challenging them in chess. Then he beats them (sometimes).

I am insanely proud of, a little apprehensive about, and always challenged by this boy. The next nine years are going to be crazy. I can't wait.

The patch seen 'round the world

2011-06-25T09:21:00.000-07:00

Summer has been crazycakes around here. The book I am working on is due in two weeks. The campaign I have been working on for my alma mater ends this week. I have already started working on projects as our elementary school PTA's VP of Ways and Means (read: fundraising, a specialty I never knew I would hone). We've had one week of camp and several weeks of Oh My God I am Going to Lose My Shit.

This past week, I took Firstborn to the pediatrician for a camp physical in preparation for his first sleepaway camp experience later this summer. Everything was going routinely until my long-legged offspring stretched out on the examining table and folded his arms under his head. I am not huge on sleeveless shirts for my boys, but I did buy Firstborn one tank for the summer because it says "Baseball Legend" on it -- something he definitely believes he is. My point is, I never see my child's armpits.

And there it was: a patch of hair.

Not fine little blonde body hairs. This was a patch of longer, brown, still fine and delicate hair. In his armpit.

Firstborn turned nine last week (another post I have yet to write). He's only just nine years old. I didn't really expect patches of anything to be growing on his body yet.

I wasn't able to contain myself. I audibly gasped, and I called his pediatrician over to him. "What is THAT?!" I demanded.

"Hmm," he answered. "Nine is a little young for puberty in boys. But yeah, that looks like the beginning of something right there!"

He asked Firstborn if he could check "under the hood" one more time, and he confirmed that nothing else was growing patches. Which is reassuring, yes, but... still. There is a patch. In his pit.

The doctor told me to watch for any more signs of things revving up, like body odors or growth spurts, but explained that sometimes these things pop up and go nowhere for a while. That would be nice, since we haven't even tackled fourth grade yet.

Shocked, I walked zombie-style through the rest of the exam, left with our completed camp physical form, and piled the kids back in the car. "Mom, why did you get so upset when you saw that hair under my arm?" Firstborn asked from the back of the van as we pulled out of the parking lot.

I paused. "It just means you are growing up," I answered slowly. "And sometimes that is hard and a little scary for mommies to see their babies grow up."

He snickered softly from the back, and he said nothing more. Since then, it's been like Poe's Tell-Tale Heart, pulsing from beneath his clothes and glowing in my brain: pit hair. Pit hair.

Puberty.

Here it comes, ready or not.

Home Base

2011-05-30T18:15:00.000-07:00

I'm back from a ridiculously wonderful, way too brief trip back to my alma mater's reunions weekend. Every year, the day after I get back is one steeped in bittersweet melancholy: I am hung over on several levels, most of them emotional.

This was my 15th reunion year for my illustrious class, so although Husband and I attend reunions every year, this one was all about US and full of our friends, our classmates, our music, our memories. It was almost like having another wedding, with every face we have loved our that loved us in the virtual room at the same time.

While I cherished every second, I can't help but feel brokenhearted that it will take another five years to get everyone in the same space again. I am wondering if I can somehow pull off an initiative to get my entire class to agree to return every year instead of waiting until 2016. Unlikely, I know, but I am not one to shy away from a challenge. I'll work on that... tomorrow.

For me, going back to this place, to these people, is like tagging home base. I have been so many places since my four years on that campus and I have met so many people, but that is the place I loved, the place I grew up, and those are the people I loved and grew up alongside. Going back reminds me of who I was before all this and who I still am beneath it all. It is so, so valuable to me. It brings me both an aching longing (oh, the choices I would make differently!), an overwhelming sense of gratitude (how lucky I am to have this, and to have had it), and a full-to-the-brim kind of happiness.

There are funny observations, especially as we age -- the once-hotties who are now bald, or a little pudgy, or much more willing to stoop to talk to the likes of me and the former playas who now carry pacifiers in one hand and push a stroller in the other. Parenting small children outside, in heat, during a several-hour parade turns out to be a remarkably universal equalizer. No one looks suave and accomplished while surviving such a challenge, be he or she a hedge fund manager or CEO or regular stay at home parent. The older we get, the more we have in common, it seems, along with our common histories.

One big revelation this weekend was that part of my need to go back to my reunion every year is to see my guy friends. In college, I had many, many guy friends. In my career, I had many, many guy friends -- probably sometimes more than I had girl friends. As a stay at home mother, I really do not get the chance to interact with men very often, and when I do, it's kind of inappropriate for me to grow close to them. So my remaining guy friends from college, and these few chances to see them, have become incredibly important to me. Maybe that is why I enjoy Facebook so much -- and yes, I received tons of remarks about my Facebook activity this past weekend -- there, I am still allowed to talk to men! I felt so much more in balance this weekend, so much more able to engage both sides of my social personality. I love women and I cherish and adore my female friendships, but it was so nice to get to hang with my homeboys too.

I miss it all already. I am already upset about the people I missed or didn't talk to enough. I am dreading the long, hot summer ahead. I want nothing more than to scoop up my kids and go back now, reveling in the old sidewalks and the ice cream shops and the surreal green grass. I wish I could spend every day tagging home base.

Until we meet again, my friends, take care. I need you.

The Diet

2011-05-23T06:47:00.000-07:00

This week, I go back to my alma mater for my fifteenth college reunion. I am trying not to think about how old "those people" seemed to me when I was a college undergrad -- how I snickered at the strollers in the courtyard, guffawed at the double strollers, and smirked at the placid, docile crowd. Our reunions are not known for being docile, but the denizens of the fifteenth reunion seemed to just be at that place in life.

And now I am one of them.

I am reveling in the fact that in the past few weeks, not one but TWO different people insisted I had to be in my twenties. They couldn't believe I had a child, much less three. Those were some awesome moments I had there. I have a notoriously young face, to which I credit my apple cheeks (read: plump cheeks). When I was younger, it annoyed me to be carded. Now, I want to kiss the person asking.

If you had asked me a month and a half ago, I would have told you that I was excited to go to my reunion, but I would have been a little bit lying. As a relentless extrovert, I usually love going to our annual reunions. I love seeing people, talking to people, standing in the crowds, seeing the familiar faces. I have loved it when employed with fabulous jobs, unemployed with no job at all, staying at home with children, newly postpartum, toting toddlers. But I had never gone back to a major reunion overweight before, and this year would be the first time.

Weight. It's such a tough subject for me to write about. Weight and I have been frenemies for lo these almost 37 years. In my adult life, we have mostly been on friendly terms, but in the past three years, it had turned ugly.

I gained a lot of weight with my third child. An unfair amount of weight, in my opinion, for how sick and awful I felt that pregnancy. Afterward, I lost a fair amount, but then my weight didn't budge at all for the past three years and change. Not at all.

I have tried to be healthy, but the truth is I have a sweet tooth and three small children who attract sugar like magnets. My sporadic attempts to work out and my third baby/toddler, he of the Hell-No-I-Won't-Go-to-Gym-Childcare, kept me firmly in a five-pound range of misery.

I am unhappy overweight. It doesn't feel like me. I'm a Leo and an extrovert, and I like to be seen, literally and figuratively, in the world. But when I am overweight, I don't just want to disappear, I feel like I actually am invisible. I feel like men do not look at me at all and women don't respect me. It's tough to write that, but that is how I feel. Less than. Ironic, when I feel "less than" only when I am actually "more than." The truth is, when I am overweight, it's probably the vibes I am actually putting out into the world that lead men to overlook me and other women to dismiss me, at least in part. But the result is the same, and I hate it.

Four and a half weeks ago, Husband and I started a diet. I don't want to proselytize, because diets are very personal, and all sorts of things work for all sorts of people at different times in their lives. My favorite "diet" is simply eating less and exercising more, for the record. But this time, we went on a medically-supervised, lower carb, lower calorie diet. It doesn't require exercise, which was what I could manage best right now. In the four weeks and change, I have lost twenty pounds. Husband, in typical male style, has lost more like thirty. (Bastard. Sigh.)

Now, I am really, really excited to go to my reunion. Not because I think I now look "acceptable" or thin -- because I still have a ways to go for that adjective -- but because now I feel like I look more like me. I feel more like what I am displaying to the world is more reflective of who and where I am in life. I still look very much like a mother of three children, with the muffin top and the somewhat depressing breasts to prove it. But now my face looks more like what I expect to find in the mirror. It's a face I haven't seen for a while.

I'm so glad my face is back.

The conversation

2011-05-04T18:19:00.000-07:00

"Have people at school been talking about Osama bin Laden?"

Firstborn and C., in chorus: "Who?"

"Oh, nothing."

F: "No, who is that?!"

"Just a bad man who died a few days ago."

F: "Why was he bad?"

C.: "Did he hurt animals?"

"No, he hurt people. A lot of people. He was a terrorist."

C.: "Oh, I know what a terrorist is."

"Do you guys know what happened on 9/11?"

(in chorus) "No."

"Do you know about the World Trade Center? The Twin Towers?"

F: "You mean when the airplanes flew into the buildings and they fell down? And everyone in them died?"

"Yes. Osama bin Laden was the man -- the terrorist -- who made that happen. He ordered that to happen."

C. : "Then it is a good thing he is gone."

"Yes."

C.: "Mama, when there are bad men like terrrists, if we find them can we just pick up a shotgun and shoot them?"

"I don't know. I mean, I think it's probably better if you try to take them to prison alive. But that is what happened to this bad man. The soldiers found him and shot him."

C: "Are all terrrists bad men, Mama?"

"Yes. All of them are bad men. They try to scare people with violence. That's why we call them terrorists."

F: "Mom, didn't the Twin Towers fall down, like, a hundred years ago?"

"No, honey. That happened just ten years ago. Right before you were born."

And now they know. They know that there are real bad men in the world, and that they hurt real people. I had no idea that conversation would happen today.

Work

2011-05-03T16:52:00.000-07:00

So, I got a job. I know, I know, I haven't told you anything! It all happened kind of fast. Long story short, I am helping another writer assemble a memoir for a celebrity. It's not writing my own book, but it certainly is a lot of writerly thinking and process. I'm enjoying the brain exercise and the material. I am learning a lot about a certain someone whom I cannot name!

This isn't the first time I have worked for this writer, and it's not the first time I have taken work since I have had children. But it is really the first time my children are old enough to appreciate that Mama has a job. I get to use nifty phrases like, "No, you can't play on my computer, because I have to work." These are not words they have heard from me before. It's kind of fun.

But sometimes, it's not fun. "What do you mean, you have to WORK?" Firstborn says. "Since when do YOU have a job?" Yeah, ouch. Nice. Sometimes it's not so fun when I have both a deadline for a man who pays me and deadlines for people who most certainly do not -- PTA obligations. Teacher Appreciation Week gifts to buy. Laundry to do. Bills to pay. Cleaning for the cleaning person (I know you do it too) who only comes every blue moon. Expectations.

I like this work because it's temporary -- the book is due in July -- and I can do it in chunks each day. But I don't like that when I feel like I COULD be putting clothes away, I feel like I REALLY should be doing work. I don't like that on Little B.'s days off from preschool, I feel relieved if I can work while he watches Nick Jr. instead of playing with him. That's not really ideal.

This is just a taste of what "real" working-outside-the-home or from-home moms experience. My hat is off to you. Because this whole juggling act is super hard, and my brain hurts from the thinking. I sure do sleep well at night, though!

Surprising myself

2011-04-14T06:37:00.000-07:00

When Firstborn was a baby, I literally would stress myself to tears thinking about sending him to Kindergarten. I could not imagine ever being okay with leaving him somewhere, out of my sight, in the care of others, for a whole school day. It seemed completely out of my capabilities. I literally started to cry thinking about the panic and the anxiety of not knowing what he was doing all day long.

This week, I applied to send him to sleepaway camp this summer, several states away.

Now, I haven't entirely revolutionized. I plan to drive him to camp, to drop him off and pick him up myself, and to stay relatively nearby while he is there (it helps that we have family close). I declined to send him for the two weeks he wanted and stood firm that one week is plenty for his first time away. He will be nine years old when he goes, and that in and of itself has me both gasping in disbelief and wiping away tears. NINE YEARS OLD. The baby that made me a mother is almost nine whole years old.

In these nine years, I have obviously changed and evolved so much as a mother (and, of course, as a person in general). My increasing ability to let go is probably the quality that surprises me and makes me the most proud, because there were times there at the beginning that I feared I would never get to this point.I feared more than anything the searing pain of figuring out how to let him grow up.

I never had the chance to go away to summer camp, and it is something I always wanted to do. A few people mentioned that others were sending their children this year, some with horror and some with awe, and I started to think about it. I brought up the subject to Firstborn, thinking maybe next year would be a good time to try it. "What would I do there?" he asked. I listed the activities from the camp websites: archery, canoeing, swimming, pottery, art, hiking, climbing... "I want to go this summer," he stated with no hesitation whatsoever. And thus, I had to readjust and recalibrate and start researching camps.

I watched the camp video this morning. It made me cry. This time, the tears are not at the thought of having to leave my child with someone else; instead, they are because my child has the chance to take such an adventure and explore the world by himself for a time. I am going to miss him, but in some ways, I miss him all the time -- his little baby toes, his sleepy baby head, his stubborn toddler face, his little boy body. I bought him deodorant, much to his indignation, last week. This letting go, it doesn't just mean summer camp. I'm proud of both of us for getting this far, I am excited about what's to come, but it doesn't mean it doesn't still make me cry. A little.

Sending you elsewhere...

2011-03-30T08:22:00.000-07:00

while my family and I recover from the dreaded Stomach Bug from You Know Where.

Heather Spohr is posting about this year's March of Dimes walk and how you can join Team Maddie. The March of Dimes is a cause close to all our hearts because it is about babies, but Maddie was a very special baby and Heather is a very special mommy. To march for Maddie or support Team Maddie, click over to The Spohrs are Multiplying and sign up.

My heart dropped to my stomach when I clicked on Amalah and saw that Amy's father passed away a few days ago after a very brave fight with cancer. Amy's pregnant with her third boy and she is sort of a rock star. Her sense of humor and her writing are enviable. This is an unimaginable loss and way too early. You might want to show her some love.

Finally, I know it might shock you, but I do love me some non-mommy and family blog action as well. I met a blogger who calls herself The Zadge at BlogHer last year, and let me tell you something: she's awesome. She's not a mommy to humans, but she is a mommy to some furry people, and she is freaking hilarious. She has become one of my favorite people to read, so check her out at Blue Skies and Yellow Dogs. Also? I LOVE her decorating and home renovating skillz.

Hope to be back in fine form soon... the carpet cleaner is on his way!

Facebook friends I no longer relate to, part deux:

2011-03-20T06:42:00.000-07:00

The one who lost her college baby weight, not that she was ever in any way even remotely pudgy, and now looks like a skinny Barbie doll, who spent the past few weeks posting status updates from the Paris fashion shows and reviewing the clothes of designers including Gaultier and Chanel.

Um, I could give a kick-ass review of Old Navy yoga pants and the current selections of the Merona line at Target. Look for my updates from there. And yes, it was a sobering day when I realized that in the Target world, I am quite decidedly not a Mossimo or a Converse One customer. Merona is my section. It was more defining and shocking than the day my OB gave me a scrip for a mammogram. Welcome to "maturity," Mama.

Man and the Moon

2011-03-19T21:22:00.000-07:00

Tonight we piled into the car, the older boys and I, and C. gasped at the sight of the moon. "The moon! It's huge and it's gold!"

It was a gold moon, at least at dusk. As the night wore on, it became big and bright, the super moon that people have whispered about for weeks. As we drove home, we looked at the moon.

***

Last week, I chaperoned a field trip to Kennedy Space Center for Firstborn's third grade class. We don't live very close to the center, so it was a big field trip requiring about nine hours of time including travel and about a zillion components to the child care arrangements I had to make for the other two children and the puppy, but it was worth it. I hadn't been to the center since I don't even know when -- probably since my very early 20s -- and Firstborn had never been.

I walked Firstborn and his friend around the exhibits, and I enjoyed how much the two of them really appreciated the magnitude of what we were seeing. We walked into the Space Shuttle Explorer, and touched the walls with the kind of halting, hesitant touch one usually uses in holy spaces. They giggled and squealed in the simulator that made us all feel like we were actually blasting off in a shuttle (including incredible gravity effects that made us lose our breath). They stood in awe of the giant Apollo rocket that hung above our heads while we ate overpriced hamburgers at one of the cafes.

After taking a bus out to the launch pad area, our eyes glued to the peaks of the rocket boosters of the Space Shuttle Endeavour, already on its launch pad, we piled into a screening room to watch an introduction to the Apollo program exhibits. The theme of the screening was 1968, and my two little charges' minds were blown by the examples of how much has changed since then -- the price of gas, the price of movie tickets, the price of a Whopper.

Towards the beginning of the short movie about the Apollo program was a clip of JFK, talking about why Americans were trying to go to the moon. The Soviet Union had beaten us to space, after all. But now, even though our first attempt was not successful, we were determined not only to go to space, but to the moon. It was the stuff of fairy tales and The Twilight Zone, I imagine.

President Kennedy was speaking to a football stadium full of people at Rice University in Houston, Texas. It was September 12, 1962.

But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

The words struck me, and I hoped that Firstborn was listening to them the same way I was. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that's what we do. We choose to do the hard things. We choose to go to the moon.

You can tell me that our country is a hot mess. You can say that politics are polarized beyond functionality, and they are. You can bemoan the youth of today, the broken education system, the pathetic and ridiculous state of health care. We have so many problems. And today, with so many American service men and women still in Afghanistan, still in Iraq, and still in Japan under threat of radiation, we bombed Libya.

I look at my child, and I see hope. Because when I told him the space program is ending, and when he heard the tour bus driver remark that although a summer launch is planned, there is no funding for it, he blanched. Of course we can't end the space program, he protested. We can't. Why would we do that?

Money, I told him. We cannot afford it. It is an answer he, like so many children in our country, has come to understand and know well these past few years.

But we can't, he said firmly. We have to keep going to the moon. Of course, he is right. We have to go to the moon.

If we have to go to the moon, I have to believe that we will figure out a way to make the rest of things things right. We have to do better, because we -- under the hairshirts of so many issues, so many problems, so many hurdles of late -- we are still that country that said, we are going to go to the moon because it is hard. And we did.

We have it in us. Right now it is dark. Japan is under an ominous, huge dark cloud of despair. The Middle East is a field of land mines. Our country -- a country full of people that I believe, at heart, are still dreamers and doers -- is a mess. But over us all tonight shines a crazy bright moon, beckoning us to remember how small we are, how big the universe, and how very essential it is that we remember we are all in this together. We owe it to our children to remember.

Walking on broken glass

2011-03-06T21:10:00.000-08:00

Today was not a great day. We stayed home all day, and instead of decompressing and enjoying the staying-homeness of it all after a very busy Saturday, my kids fought and destroyed things all day long. Husband was at work, and after struggling to do some housecleaning amidst the house-uncleaning efforts of my children, I decided to lie down and rest for a bit. It is Sunday, after all, I reasoned. I'm SUPPOSED to rest on Sundays.

No sooner had I been lying down for all of ten minutes, but I heard my older two children fighting, screaming, chasing one another down the stairs. And then it came. Glass shattering.

After my middle son's accident this fall, when he went arm-fist through my kitchen window, I take shattering glass seriously. Luckily, this time it was a glass IKEA vase and I managed to get in there before he or the three-year-old could walk on any of it. But let's just say that by 5 PM tonight, my nerves were completely shot.

This was compounded by a nagging heartache I have had for several days now. On Friday, C. went to my friend's house for a playdate. That night, she was over for dinner en masse with all of our children when she told me, laughing, about something C. had said at her house. Somehow, the subject of marriage came up, and C. told her very matter-of-factly that he would not be getting married when he grows up. "Why?" she asked. "Don't you want to have children?"

"Noooo," C. answered firmly. "Children are too much work, and my mom is mad a lot. I just want a job and a dog."

My friend thought C. was clever and funny. I laughed along with her, but inside I died a little. C. is just turning seven this month, and apparently I have already ruined him. I'm mad a lot? That's all he can see?

I am mad a lot. The five men I live with, big, small, and furry, are very frustrating. They break things. They fight. They complain. They don't clean up after themselves. Children are a lot of work (at least he recognizes that part). But once again, I had it hammered into me that somehow, I am not making this work. My kids are not supposed to feel like they are my work, that I am mad a lot and it is because of them.

I'm feeling really beaten down and defeated right now. I want to be positive and creative with my kids. I sit on Firstborn's bed at night and talk to him, and I am kind of amazed at what a cool kid he is. He's so articulate and so perceptive and I feel like I don't want to jinx it but look! He is kind of turning out well after all! And then we have a day like today, and I am trying to go to bed and yet dwelling on the times I yelled today, how I am damaging their psyches, how frustrated I am that my kids argue and fight and berate and bicker over toys. On days like this, I want a do-over. On all of it.

My children are not the only thing in my life, and being a mother is not my only basis of my identity, but my honest truth is that, as Jackie Onassis said, if I mess up this whole parenting thing, nothing else much matters to me. And I am being honest when I say I truly worry that I am, in fact, screwing it all up royally.

[ I feel really guilty that so many of my posts are angsty. I try to write when I am feeling good and positive, too, but more often I feel all writealicious when I am emotional. So just know I am not phishing for "You're a great mom!" reassurance or always throwing quite as much of a pity party as it may seem, but this is my outlet and here I get it all out. Flipside to today's post:this morning we finally put Just Dance in the Wii and Firstborn and I danced to "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and "Eye of the Tiger" together and we have not laughed that hard in a long time. So it's not all bad, it isn't. It's just that what weighs on my mind are the heartaches more often than the hilarities. Bear with me.]

Minutiae

2011-03-06T10:03:00.000-08:00

Dirty dishes -- including a milk glass -- on the kitchen countertop.

A pile of candy wrappers on a bedroom floor.

A mound of wet bedding to wash -- AGAIN -- just like yesterday. Despite pull-ups.

Said wet pull-ups still in pajama bottoms on the bedroom carpet.

Traces of poop on the bathroom floor, and I haven't even looked to see what the toilet bowl holds for me yet.

A wet, wadded-up hand towel in the same bathroom. On the floor. In the corner.

Clothes on the floor -- in the MASTER bedroom -- that are not mine.

It's not the big stuff, not the over-arcing traumas or the nagging issues of marriage and parenthood and stay-at-home-momhood that bring me down. It's the minutiae. The constant, never-changing, daily, they-never-learn-or-change-minutiae. When they cart me off to the asylum, tell them that's what did it. And put me in a clean, white, padded room free of anyone else's body fluids PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY.

Passion

2011-03-03T11:23:00.000-08:00

I have made it pretty clear in the past that of all the sports and activities my children have tried or engaged in, baseball? Not number one on my list.

Truth be told, I just have a really hard time getting super worked up about children's sports, and baseball parents -- in general -- tend to be a little hardcore. At least, the baseball parents in my neck of the woods. I am sure part of it is that my kids are not, so far, athletic prodigies. And, you know, neither was I. Husband was an athlete, but he didn't get serious about his sport until middle school. So, at this point, I see athletics as great for conditioning and burning off ya-yas, but I'm not counting on college scholarships here. Secretly, I might be hoping we can snatch a scholarship for chess or violin. That would thrill my nerdy heart.

Firstborn is playing his third season of baseball now. After our disastrous first season when he was five, I tried to distract him with any host of other activities, but we came back to baseball last spring and had a better season. This year, he's playing in the same pretty crazy-intense league, but he's in the B league for his age group and he's one of the oldest in his division, so he's finally kind of a big man on campus. Keeping in mind that he is turning nine this summer and he's tall for his age, picture that one of his teammates is five years old, in Kindergarten, and is the same size as my three-year-old. Firstborn is finally the supahstar he has always believed he is.

The thing is, Firstborn is not naturally talented in baseball. He looks like a foal out there in the field -- all legs and knees and limbs akimbo. He has a decently strong arm, but his accuracy is sketchy, in part because those legs never set -- they just wobble. Sometimes he hits really well; other games, he can't hit the nose on his face. He doesn't always make the best decision about what to do with a ball he has successfully fielded. But baseball is the first and only thing we have ever found that Firstborn will work on, happily, whenever he is asked. He never flinches about practices or games, and heaven knows there are plenty of both. He is always up for a game of catch or a trip to a batting cage.

He loves baseball.

And so here we are, knee deep in practices and games and oh my God, how does one successfully wash white baseball pants? HOW? We spend hours at the elementary school field, the littler ones running around messing with the school garden (oops) and picking weeds, my seasonal allergies having a field day -- literally -- with my sinuses. We sit in the metal bleachers for hours at games, eating hamburgers grilled at the ballpark for dinner followed by Ring Pop chasers, chasing after wayward three-year-olds, hoping that we will get home before 8:00 PM.

I want to support Firstborn's dream. It's killing me, for several reasons, among them bedtimes and siblings who like to run right where foul balls might whack them dead. But after years of trying to skirt it, I am finally realizing that until he tells us otherwise, this is his dream. It makes him happy. Better get used to it. The look on his face when he brought me the game ball from the first game this season -- his name etched into it with the date -- sealed my fate. It's not what I would choose, but the past almost nine years have given me something of an education on not getting my way. I'm starting to mature myself and let my kids be the people they are, both when it thrills me (Firstborn made trading cards for the Greek gods this week! Swoon!) and when it doesn't (two games and a practice in the span of five days).

Now, the almost-seven-year-old is saying he wants to try baseball. Over my dead body. Well, maybe.

Beaches

2011-02-23T17:25:00.000-08:00

Confession: When I was in high school, I went to see the movie Beaches in the movie theater around fourteen times. True story. Can we still be friends? Wait, where are you all going?

I saw Beaches on some channel -- probably Lifetime -- some Sunday morning recently, and while I still loved it out of pure nostalgia, I have to admit it doesn't quite justify fourteen theater viewings.

But when I was fourteen and couldn't even drive myself to the theater, that movie provided the perfect cathartic release: it featured my beloved California, it focused on female friendship, it gave me a darkened room in which to cry and process a whole bunch of hormones and emotions. It filled a need.

This past weekend filled another need. One of my very best friends from college, one of my touchstones, came to visit me. She wasn't here on business and she wasn't here to go to a theme park. She just came to see me.

I met her the first day of my freshman year. She was a big, know-it-all sophomore on my hallway. I thought her very glamorous with her long legs and her boyfriend. Soon, we were fast friends. I was a sheltered, naive, clueless kid from the suburbs, and she was my wise and profound friend from the Bronx. She taught me a lot about music and a lot about beer. I am forever indebted.

Flash through a montage of smoky, beer-soaked parties, skipping classes lying out on beach towels on green lawns, a birthday dinner at Tavern on the Green, sultry summers in the humid city, late nights in taprooms dancing to Van Morrison. And then it -- college, the golden hour -- it was over. She moved on to law school, I graduated and moved on to New York. We moved on to our own romances and marriages, our own trials and hours of desperation and sadness. And since college, we have only briefly even lived in the same time zone. But there was always us, good or bad, frustrated or elated, weary or thrilled. Us.

And now she is godmother to my Firstborn, the perfect audience for his best baseball game ever. She cheered for him when he won his first game ball this past weekend. Better yet, she and I were able to spend one lovely, languid night together at the beach. Awash in a sea of Nascar fans, we drank 20-ounce Yuenglings and talked about marriage and life and how far we have come and how much and how little some things change. We walked for two hours on a sunny beach, earning taut sunburns for the effort, and we passed out on the couch. We've been going to beaches together for almost twenty years now, I realize.

Hooray for friends who really are like sisters, for beaches that remind us of who we were at 18 and 19 and the dreams we still have room for even as we turn 37 and 38. Hooray for weekends -- even moments -- that give us respite from the grind of our daily lives, so vastly different in their details. How lucky I am, and how lucky my children are, that I have her in my life.