There are times, as a MOM, when my head threatens to explode. I imagine great forces of steam and flames, emanating from my ears, will burn away all that remains of the aftermath.
It may not be pretty but at least it's efficient.
Now my experience may differ, but DADS, I've noticed, don't seem to have the same theatrical prowess. They are missing that certain je ne sais quoi ...
Case in point: As I'm trying to find my keys, recall the 15 things I will be forgetting (two of which I will return for; the remainder to haunt me all day) and pack up the car without neglecting to secure Ittybit into the carseat, all I want to do is give her the bag of M & Ms she’s been howling for these past 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, he tells her he's taking her to the car, and all crying and shenanigans stop. She wraps her arms around his neck and all is well with the world again.
Given all this suffering, all this juggling and tri-part negotiations, I'm at a loss. With hardly a word, my husband — THE DAD — has been getting the lion’s share of our little moppet’s attentions lately.
It used to be that if he could keep her from hanging from my left leg as I dragged my now numb, useless appendage from room to room, I was happy. I didn't care if he was teaching her to play with matches so long as I could fold clothes and get a shower.
But it turns out his trick is much more conservative.
HE JUST SAYS NO.
I swear it's as if I'm living in a reproduction of the Regan Whitehouse.
When she tells him she doesn't want to take a bath, he tells her it’s not an option.
When she tells him she doesn't want to go to bed, he tells her she can go to bed with or without reading four books.
I must admit, he gets results. While he's guiding her through the process of put her own shoes on, I'm tripping over the dogs and chasing her around the house trying to wrestle her to the ground and keep her feet still long enough to wiggle them into boots with silly faces staring back at me.
"But oh how smoothly things run when you are away," I think to myself, willing there to be a mute button for the morning mayhem; willing Kraft dinner to be placed on the government's list of best foods for a well-rounded nutrition; and dreaming that one day the surgeon general will come out and say kids who are bribed with candy are six times more likely to win the Nobel Prize in mathematics.
I mean, how do you think I get her into the car most mornings? The intrinsic happiness that comes from knowing her mother is pleased with her behavior? The realization that SHE is the child and I am the adult, and what the adult says goes?
Oh ye, silly believer of fairy tale endings.
I get her into the car with chocolate. Copious amounts of chocolate.
Oh sure we may get the same results, he and I. We both wind up with a clean child, who's well rested and strapped into the car ready to begin her day. But it's the attitude I dislike.
I hate the smugness: So what if HE can manage to get her hair washed and combed and into her pajamas before the Late, Late, Late Show ever starts? So what if he MAKES her put her shoes and socks on by herself on the mornings HE dresses her? At least when I help her dress her shoes are ON the correct feet, I grumble to myself.
Seriously, how many kids go to their college lecture halls wearing their pajamas inside out or slippers on the wrong feet because they didn't learn to dress themselves when they were tots?
Never mind, don't answer that.
Oh ... the hypocrisy.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Sunday, January 21, 2007
To sleep, perchance, this century
This third year (starting from say August on) has been a struggle. Food she used to eat without complaint sits untouched on her plate, her arms crossed tighter than even her lips are clenched. Baths, never an easy proposition, have become sideshows of trickery and deception, yet none too entertaining. But it is the sleep issue that may put us over the edge.
Since the new bed took up residence in our master bedroom, the idea of sleeping with us, starfish-style -- all spread out from the center -- has taken up residence in Ittybit’s head.
It all starts out good. We begin the bedtime routine: calming down, brushing of teeth, reading of books. Snuggled into her own bed, we give in to the extra story and the calls for water and lights dimmed only so low.
But the needs are endless. First its water, then juice then milk. She didn't really WANT any of these prohibited bedtime beverages; she wasn't hungry, she wasn't thirsty, she was merely stalling.
Eventually our routine got to be worthy of three rings:
PJs = check
Teeth brushed = check
Stories = read three, check
Lights dimmed = check
Monsters sprayed = check
One more story = check
I have to go to the potty = check
Music turned on = check
It's too dark = lights adjusted, check
I want a snack = goldfish procured, check
I want water = check
It's too cold = check
Now it's too hot = check
The monsters came back = spray again
I have to pee again = another trip to the potty, check
I need the hot water bottle ...
“THIS IS THE LAST TIME I'M COMING INTO THIS ROOM,” I warn.
“O.K., mommy,” she agrees, sheepishly.
HOTWATER BOTTLE = check
... Goodnight.
Truly, anyone with the least amount of time on the planet Earth can tell you what's happening here. It doesn't take Dr. Spock to figure it out.
She's testing us and we are failing.
In addition to this extended play of the bedtime routine, every night at midnight or so the monsters wake her up and send her into our room.
The seduction of sleep without the added cold shock of the hallway's hardwood floors makes letting her into bed an irresistible proposition. We tried it. At first she even fell right to sleep. But then, increasingly, she'd become restless. She'd poke and prod and play games.
No matter how cute it seems, no one wants to talk about the dietary needs of the Abominable Snowman at 4 in the morning, let alone having their eyelids raised manually by a restless preschooler.
The last straw was when she woke us four times one night, deciding to go back to her own bed twice.
"That's it! I need sleep. She's just playing now and it has to stop," I stammered as if my husband hadn't already reached this conclusion six weeks ago.
The next day we enacted operation LET’S NOT MAKE A DEAL.
Bath time at 7 (and she gets her hair washed when it needs to be) NO DEALS.
Bedtime starts at 8:30, she must brush her teeth, use the potty and change into pajamas. We read three to four books; she can have water and a hot water bottle and her music but she can not leave her room. NO DEALS.
As expected, the change was met with tears and tantrums.
By the time she fell asleep at 9:30 I was dreading the midnight call, which came early at 11:30 p.m.
I walked her back to bed but she had no intention of staying there, she claimed, with the monsters and dog effluvium.
The old me would have said 'who could blame her' but the new me said, "I'm sorry but that's the way it is, sugar plum. We all have to stay in our own rooms and sleep."
No sooner had I walked away than I could hear her little pajamaed feet following me, screaming as if I'd torn out her toenails.
I brought her back into her room and shut the door, holding it closed. She threw her little self against it and screamed. I imagine, had she been a little bit older, every second word out of her mouth would have been an obscenity. Eventually she calmed down and the bargaining commenced. She wanted the door open.
It seemed time for a new deal. The door would stay open as long as she stayed in her room.
We both went back to bed.
But all was not quiet in the western wing of the house.
She rolled her toys across the floor, tore her clothes from their place in the dresser and began yelling at the top of her lungs: YOU ARE MAKING ME VERY NERVOUS!!!!
When the ride-on-horse came rolling to our door I got up and investigated the damage.
It was less than I thought, but still impressive.
I put her back to bed, kissed her head and said: "That's enough for tonight. We'll talk about this tomorrow."
And with that, the sleep of exhaustion visited us.
It's been three days now and not one incident.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed and sleeping with one eye open.
Since the new bed took up residence in our master bedroom, the idea of sleeping with us, starfish-style -- all spread out from the center -- has taken up residence in Ittybit’s head.
It all starts out good. We begin the bedtime routine: calming down, brushing of teeth, reading of books. Snuggled into her own bed, we give in to the extra story and the calls for water and lights dimmed only so low.
But the needs are endless. First its water, then juice then milk. She didn't really WANT any of these prohibited bedtime beverages; she wasn't hungry, she wasn't thirsty, she was merely stalling.
Eventually our routine got to be worthy of three rings:
Teeth brushed = check
Stories = read three, check
Lights dimmed = check
Monsters sprayed = check
One more story = check
I have to go to the potty = check
Music turned on = check
It's too dark = lights adjusted, check
I want a snack = goldfish procured, check
I want water = check
It's too cold = check
Now it's too hot = check
The monsters came back = spray again
I have to pee again = another trip to the potty, check
I need the hot water bottle ...
“THIS IS THE LAST TIME I'M COMING INTO THIS ROOM,” I warn.
“O.K., mommy,” she agrees, sheepishly.
HOTWATER BOTTLE = check
... Goodnight.
Truly, anyone with the least amount of time on the planet Earth can tell you what's happening here. It doesn't take Dr. Spock to figure it out.
She's testing us and we are failing.
In addition to this extended play of the bedtime routine, every night at midnight or so the monsters wake her up and send her into our room.
The seduction of sleep without the added cold shock of the hallway's hardwood floors makes letting her into bed an irresistible proposition. We tried it. At first she even fell right to sleep. But then, increasingly, she'd become restless. She'd poke and prod and play games.
No matter how cute it seems, no one wants to talk about the dietary needs of the Abominable Snowman at 4 in the morning, let alone having their eyelids raised manually by a restless preschooler.
The last straw was when she woke us four times one night, deciding to go back to her own bed twice.
"That's it! I need sleep. She's just playing now and it has to stop," I stammered as if my husband hadn't already reached this conclusion six weeks ago.
The next day we enacted operation LET’S NOT MAKE A DEAL.
Bath time at 7 (and she gets her hair washed when it needs to be) NO DEALS.
Bedtime starts at 8:30, she must brush her teeth, use the potty and change into pajamas. We read three to four books; she can have water and a hot water bottle and her music but she can not leave her room. NO DEALS.
As expected, the change was met with tears and tantrums.
By the time she fell asleep at 9:30 I was dreading the midnight call, which came early at 11:30 p.m.
I walked her back to bed but she had no intention of staying there, she claimed, with the monsters and dog effluvium.
The old me would have said 'who could blame her' but the new me said, "I'm sorry but that's the way it is, sugar plum. We all have to stay in our own rooms and sleep."
No sooner had I walked away than I could hear her little pajamaed feet following me, screaming as if I'd torn out her toenails.
I brought her back into her room and shut the door, holding it closed. She threw her little self against it and screamed. I imagine, had she been a little bit older, every second word out of her mouth would have been an obscenity. Eventually she calmed down and the bargaining commenced. She wanted the door open.
It seemed time for a new deal. The door would stay open as long as she stayed in her room.
We both went back to bed.
But all was not quiet in the western wing of the house.
She rolled her toys across the floor, tore her clothes from their place in the dresser and began yelling at the top of her lungs: YOU ARE MAKING ME VERY NERVOUS!!!!
When the ride-on-horse came rolling to our door I got up and investigated the damage.
It was less than I thought, but still impressive.
I put her back to bed, kissed her head and said: "That's enough for tonight. We'll talk about this tomorrow."
And with that, the sleep of exhaustion visited us.
It's been three days now and not one incident.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed and sleeping with one eye open.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Proof positive
"So. ... When are you going to make a brother for that little Ittybit of yours?"
That indelicate question is broached more times that you might imagine.
The day we left the hospital with her, still bleary-eyed and shell-shocked, our attending nurse HUGGED me and said: "We'll see you again, I know it."
No. No way. No how. Not me, you won't. I am NOT doing this again. Are you crazy?
I had just spent 24 hours in the most excruciating pain EVER only to have an emergency cesarean section anyway and severe reactions to pain medication. Then three more days in the hospital trying to recover; mostly blind from swollen corneas and one pound heavier than I'd been the entire pregnancy, thanks to a 24-hour saline drip.
Who on Earth would do this again? No thanks. Not me.
A year passed and still the questions came almost daily.
"So, you gonna have another one?"
We had pat answers.
"N. O. We got it right the first time, why tempt fate?"
But of course, the real reasons not to have more are endless: money, space, money, the special-ness of being an only child and of course, money.
Yet, as I believe it is biologically encoded in our genes, Ittybit's slow turning from a baby to a toddler made me rethink the decision. Each outfit she outgrew became a decision I didn't want to make. Should I save this (for what)? Or should I donate it to Goodwill?
Money and the rest of it, especially the part about being an only child, didn't seem important anymore.
In fact the more I thought about her facing a future without a sibling 'round about her age made me regret having waited.
And as luck would have it -- nothing. Fifteen months of nothing. Fifteen months of peeing on $5 bills (the cost of home pregnancy tests) and nothing.
All of a sudden, the questions returned. Even the guy who tries to figure out what part of my car is responsible for the clangy-clang sound that haunts me as I drive was wondering when we'd be making the grandparents grandparents all over again.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to tug out my hair and say: "Never you mind. It will probably never happen, and I'll have to be OK with that.' Every time friends would tell me of their happy news, I'd be happy, too, on the outside. But only a little happy on the inside where my thoughts were swirling over the possible end of my own childbearing days.
I wasn't prepared for this. Everyone told me it might take a while, but with Ittybit it was almost instantaneous. When the doctors reaffirmed the potential for delay I scoffed. 'Yeah, I know. It may take a while.' I didn't expect a year to go by without positive results.
I gave up.
When it was time to take down Ittybit’s crib and replace it with a "big-girl" bed, I decided that we'd sell it at a yard sale to the first couple who took a second look. A young couple took it away in a tiny hatchback car for $10.
Ten dollars: The same amount I paid for a pack of home pregnancy tests one month later.
Wouldn’t you know it ... the result was positive.
And for the first time in a long while, I've never been more positive of anything in my life. It feels pretty good.
When we told Ittybit she was going to be a big sister, though, I could see the look of concern knot across her face.
My thoughts immediately went to guilt. Would she feel replaced? Would she be jealous?
I should have known she'd be a little more pragmatic.
"We need a new crib."
That indelicate question is broached more times that you might imagine.
The day we left the hospital with her, still bleary-eyed and shell-shocked, our attending nurse HUGGED me and said: "We'll see you again, I know it."
No. No way. No how. Not me, you won't. I am NOT doing this again. Are you crazy?
I had just spent 24 hours in the most excruciating pain EVER only to have an emergency cesarean section anyway and severe reactions to pain medication. Then three more days in the hospital trying to recover; mostly blind from swollen corneas and one pound heavier than I'd been the entire pregnancy, thanks to a 24-hour saline drip.
Who on Earth would do this again? No thanks. Not me.
A year passed and still the questions came almost daily.
"So, you gonna have another one?"
We had pat answers.
"N. O. We got it right the first time, why tempt fate?"
But of course, the real reasons not to have more are endless: money, space, money, the special-ness of being an only child and of course, money.
Yet, as I believe it is biologically encoded in our genes, Ittybit's slow turning from a baby to a toddler made me rethink the decision. Each outfit she outgrew became a decision I didn't want to make. Should I save this (for what)? Or should I donate it to Goodwill?
Money and the rest of it, especially the part about being an only child, didn't seem important anymore.
In fact the more I thought about her facing a future without a sibling 'round about her age made me regret having waited.
And as luck would have it -- nothing. Fifteen months of nothing. Fifteen months of peeing on $5 bills (the cost of home pregnancy tests) and nothing.
All of a sudden, the questions returned. Even the guy who tries to figure out what part of my car is responsible for the clangy-clang sound that haunts me as I drive was wondering when we'd be making the grandparents grandparents all over again.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to tug out my hair and say: "Never you mind. It will probably never happen, and I'll have to be OK with that.' Every time friends would tell me of their happy news, I'd be happy, too, on the outside. But only a little happy on the inside where my thoughts were swirling over the possible end of my own childbearing days.
I wasn't prepared for this. Everyone told me it might take a while, but with Ittybit it was almost instantaneous. When the doctors reaffirmed the potential for delay I scoffed. 'Yeah, I know. It may take a while.' I didn't expect a year to go by without positive results.
I gave up.
When it was time to take down Ittybit’s crib and replace it with a "big-girl" bed, I decided that we'd sell it at a yard sale to the first couple who took a second look. A young couple took it away in a tiny hatchback car for $10.
Ten dollars: The same amount I paid for a pack of home pregnancy tests one month later.
Wouldn’t you know it ... the result was positive.
And for the first time in a long while, I've never been more positive of anything in my life. It feels pretty good.
When we told Ittybit she was going to be a big sister, though, I could see the look of concern knot across her face.
My thoughts immediately went to guilt. Would she feel replaced? Would she be jealous?
I should have known she'd be a little more pragmatic.
"We need a new crib."
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Sometimes I just wish you could tell everyone to shove a sock in it
Our babysitter informed me recently that she was taking the binky away from Ittybit during naps.
It was just a fact. There were no do you want me tos ... or what do you thinks, just that her own binky-addicted daughter was also three when she pulled the plug, and when the screaming frenzy began it made her wish she'd never introduced the thing to begin with.
She’s apparently been waiting for me to tell her the time had come to return the offending device to the "binky fairy" or the "binky mommy," or to whatever corner of hell pacifiers originally hail. She's just been waiting for a "partner."
In other words: I've yet again dropped the ball.
My mother-in-law has been asking for more than a year (on and off, and sweetly) whether this was the year the binky was going to be sent to "Santa."
Remember me folks? The one who walks the path of least resistance? The one who looks around at her office mates and decides not to worry about such things? After all, no one here in cubicle land is sucking away on a binky.
But it's true: She doesn't need it anymore. She doesn't have it in the car. She doesn't take it to school. She doesn't even keep it in her mouth the whole night through.
To everyone's surprise, mine especially, the babysitter reported success. Ittybit showed only brief resistance to the news her beloved "oro (that’s Ittybit for orange) binks" had returned to its mommy. She slept with her tiny lamb pressed against her cheek for the requisite two hours.
And then it was suggested that it was now time for the binky to leave our house, too. (The message was delivered it what I refer to as the "Now-I'm-Not-Telling-You-What-To-Do' speech, which we all know means But-You'd-Be-Foolish-Not-To-Adopt-My-Way-Of-Thinking.) So I decided I'd try it.
That night at bedtime I dropped the bomb. I told her it was time to send the binky back home. Her special binky was needed elsewhere, perhaps on a special assignment, now that she was a big girl.
Instantly, there were tears and sobs of desperation.
"But I'm NOT a big girl, mommy. I'm still a little girl," she wailed.
"Well I think you are a big girl, but how about if we hang on to 'purple binks' until after Santa comes? Then he can take it home."
She agreed, but I'm sure it was the kind of hollow agreement that means she's appeasing the one who can be manipulated. She's biding her time, hoping I'll forget the whole mission.
Really, though, I don't know how to react. I don't know how to feel.
A part of me is angry. Part of me is feeling guilty about being a wimp. But a part of me is tired, too.
I am not a stay-at-home mom. I am reliant on a whole host of other people to help me get from morning to night, and yet my husband and I are ultimately the ones who are raising our daughter.
When I reach down into the core of my beliefs, I always come up with the same thing: I don't think a pacifier is the worst thing in the world for a child, and I don't particularly mind if it helps her get to sleep.
I am reminded about my husband’s need for "white noise," and how I've had to adapt my own sleep habits to compensate for the whirring of the small army of humidifiers and fans that he needs to get some shut-eye.
We all need something right?
I had a sinking feeling that maybe I should have asked Santa to bring me earplugs this year.
Yet the strangest thing happened. Christmas Eve, the last night with the binky came and went, and early in the morning I tiptoed into her room and snatched the pacifier from her parted lips.
When she awoke an hour later she didn't even miss it. That night she cried for a while, but she quickly went to sleep without the plastic plug. Perhaps she was just plumb tuckered from playing with all the loot Santa brought her.
In the week since Christmas, she's alluded to "wanting something in her mouth"” when she's all snuggled in bed, but there are no tears when I tell her it's gone.
Then I got to thinking: maybe I was the one who really needed that binky all along.
It was just a fact. There were no do you want me tos ... or what do you thinks, just that her own binky-addicted daughter was also three when she pulled the plug, and when the screaming frenzy began it made her wish she'd never introduced the thing to begin with.
She’s apparently been waiting for me to tell her the time had come to return the offending device to the "binky fairy" or the "binky mommy," or to whatever corner of hell pacifiers originally hail. She's just been waiting for a "partner."
In other words: I've yet again dropped the ball.
My mother-in-law has been asking for more than a year (on and off, and sweetly) whether this was the year the binky was going to be sent to "Santa."
Remember me folks? The one who walks the path of least resistance? The one who looks around at her office mates and decides not to worry about such things? After all, no one here in cubicle land is sucking away on a binky.
But it's true: She doesn't need it anymore. She doesn't have it in the car. She doesn't take it to school. She doesn't even keep it in her mouth the whole night through.
To everyone's surprise, mine especially, the babysitter reported success. Ittybit showed only brief resistance to the news her beloved "oro (that’s Ittybit for orange) binks" had returned to its mommy. She slept with her tiny lamb pressed against her cheek for the requisite two hours.
And then it was suggested that it was now time for the binky to leave our house, too. (The message was delivered it what I refer to as the "Now-I'm-Not-Telling-You-What-To-Do' speech, which we all know means But-You'd-Be-Foolish-Not-To-Adopt-My-Way-Of-Thinking.) So I decided I'd try it.
That night at bedtime I dropped the bomb. I told her it was time to send the binky back home. Her special binky was needed elsewhere, perhaps on a special assignment, now that she was a big girl.
Instantly, there were tears and sobs of desperation.
"But I'm NOT a big girl, mommy. I'm still a little girl," she wailed.
"Well I think you are a big girl, but how about if we hang on to 'purple binks' until after Santa comes? Then he can take it home."
She agreed, but I'm sure it was the kind of hollow agreement that means she's appeasing the one who can be manipulated. She's biding her time, hoping I'll forget the whole mission.
Really, though, I don't know how to react. I don't know how to feel.
A part of me is angry. Part of me is feeling guilty about being a wimp. But a part of me is tired, too.
I am not a stay-at-home mom. I am reliant on a whole host of other people to help me get from morning to night, and yet my husband and I are ultimately the ones who are raising our daughter.
When I reach down into the core of my beliefs, I always come up with the same thing: I don't think a pacifier is the worst thing in the world for a child, and I don't particularly mind if it helps her get to sleep.
I am reminded about my husband’s need for "white noise," and how I've had to adapt my own sleep habits to compensate for the whirring of the small army of humidifiers and fans that he needs to get some shut-eye.
We all need something right?
I had a sinking feeling that maybe I should have asked Santa to bring me earplugs this year.
Yet the strangest thing happened. Christmas Eve, the last night with the binky came and went, and early in the morning I tiptoed into her room and snatched the pacifier from her parted lips.
When she awoke an hour later she didn't even miss it. That night she cried for a while, but she quickly went to sleep without the plastic plug. Perhaps she was just plumb tuckered from playing with all the loot Santa brought her.
In the week since Christmas, she's alluded to "wanting something in her mouth"” when she's all snuggled in bed, but there are no tears when I tell her it's gone.
Then I got to thinking: maybe I was the one who really needed that binky all along.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
New Year's resolutions: But first a word from our sponsor
Sometimes your resolve just isn’t strong enough, and a resolution is in order ...
Dear Ittybit,
All the books say BABIES should NEVER under ANY circumstance watch TV before they are the age of two. NEVER!!!! And while there are ample studies to show early television viewing is rewiring our kids for the worse, new studies are showing we parents are using it more and more.
And so it is with complete mortification that I add the bane of the 20 and 21st centuries to the list of colossally bad parenting skills I’ve adopted in raising you: Television is sometimes your babysitter.
Your first friend — Elmo (who you quickly jilted for Ernie, and then Clifford, and now Curious George) — knocked on the door asking if you could come out to play when you were only one. I let him in.
While I hated his syrupy cloying voice, his insane giggle and his megalomaniacal insistence on referring to himself in the third person, I loved that with him around I could unload the dishwasher, fold laundry or use the bathroom in peace.
When you were sick, he comforted you. When you were sad he cheered you. When you were done with him, you moved on.
Did I teach you to be fickle, too?
Sure, there are a lot of hazards one might surmise that might come from television viewing, the least of which include eye strain and an insufferable urge to pester parental units into purchasing a veritable fortune of otherwise forgettable merchandise.
The television can literally kill them. This is not a joke.
On average, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, six children die each year as a result of televisions falling on them and thousands more are injured from falling furniture. Not surprisingly, 85 percent of the parents whose children were injured in this manner didn't know it was possible.
Let's face it, although serious and tragic, few of us parental unit-types are worried about a 40-lb hunk of plastic, metal and glass flattening our kids.
We're concerned with whether television viewing will lower your IQ while increasing your waistlines and violent tendencies.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, however, we're also worried about whether we'll have to miss Sopranos because of Sesame Street.
And to that end, we're putting television in our kids' rooms so we can watch our shows.
This just makes me want to throw out our TVs ... All seven of them.
Some, like your dad, blame their adult television addictions squarely on the shoulders of their parents, or more accurately their upbringing, which forbade television viewing early on and restricted it later in their development.
Yet, your father takes pride in his resourcefulness in overcoming the boundaries keeping him from pre-teen zombification — ruses which included writing a lengthy, scholarly paper to plead his case on "Why I Should be Allowed to Watch Television for the Good of My Education" and fashioning a replacement cable when his mother removed (and hid) the power cord while she was at work.
I imagine you will have some of his talent in this area when you grow older, Ittybit.
I, on the other hand, hail from a family of television connoisseurs — hearty people who relished every second of "Barney Miller," "St. Elsewhere" and "My So Called Life." Our television set was on non-stop whether anyone was watching or not. Oddly enough, television doesn't often hold my interest. I find myself turning it on as background noise so I can safely get lost in the warm glow of my computer. The computer, as you know, is my addiction.
The truth is, neither of us is good at pulling away from any form of media once our interest is caught, be they magazines, books or even the mail. ... But we're working on it, I promise.
Love,
Mommy
Dear Ittybit,
All the books say BABIES should NEVER under ANY circumstance watch TV before they are the age of two. NEVER!!!! And while there are ample studies to show early television viewing is rewiring our kids for the worse, new studies are showing we parents are using it more and more.
And so it is with complete mortification that I add the bane of the 20 and 21st centuries to the list of colossally bad parenting skills I’ve adopted in raising you: Television is sometimes your babysitter.
Your first friend — Elmo (who you quickly jilted for Ernie, and then Clifford, and now Curious George) — knocked on the door asking if you could come out to play when you were only one. I let him in.
While I hated his syrupy cloying voice, his insane giggle and his megalomaniacal insistence on referring to himself in the third person, I loved that with him around I could unload the dishwasher, fold laundry or use the bathroom in peace.
When you were sick, he comforted you. When you were sad he cheered you. When you were done with him, you moved on.
Did I teach you to be fickle, too?
Sure, there are a lot of hazards one might surmise that might come from television viewing, the least of which include eye strain and an insufferable urge to pester parental units into purchasing a veritable fortune of otherwise forgettable merchandise.
The television can literally kill them. This is not a joke.
On average, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, six children die each year as a result of televisions falling on them and thousands more are injured from falling furniture. Not surprisingly, 85 percent of the parents whose children were injured in this manner didn't know it was possible.
Let's face it, although serious and tragic, few of us parental unit-types are worried about a 40-lb hunk of plastic, metal and glass flattening our kids.
We're concerned with whether television viewing will lower your IQ while increasing your waistlines and violent tendencies.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, however, we're also worried about whether we'll have to miss Sopranos because of Sesame Street.
And to that end, we're putting television in our kids' rooms so we can watch our shows.
This just makes me want to throw out our TVs ... All seven of them.
Some, like your dad, blame their adult television addictions squarely on the shoulders of their parents, or more accurately their upbringing, which forbade television viewing early on and restricted it later in their development.
Yet, your father takes pride in his resourcefulness in overcoming the boundaries keeping him from pre-teen zombification — ruses which included writing a lengthy, scholarly paper to plead his case on "Why I Should be Allowed to Watch Television for the Good of My Education" and fashioning a replacement cable when his mother removed (and hid) the power cord while she was at work.
I imagine you will have some of his talent in this area when you grow older, Ittybit.
I, on the other hand, hail from a family of television connoisseurs — hearty people who relished every second of "Barney Miller," "St. Elsewhere" and "My So Called Life." Our television set was on non-stop whether anyone was watching or not. Oddly enough, television doesn't often hold my interest. I find myself turning it on as background noise so I can safely get lost in the warm glow of my computer. The computer, as you know, is my addiction.
The truth is, neither of us is good at pulling away from any form of media once our interest is caught, be they magazines, books or even the mail. ... But we're working on it, I promise.
Love,
Mommy
Sunday, December 24, 2006
With a blink and a nod, Merry Christmas
I was reminded recently of all the earthy-crunchy, we-are-parents-hear-us-roar mantras that swirl around raising children these days when I read a story about a woman whose sister-in-law refused to lie to her children about the existence of such a being as the jolly old elf, Santa Claus.
"How can I expect my children to trust and believe in me if I tell them lies about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy?" she wondered with a tone that implied superior parenting prowess.
The worst part was that as the sister-in-law's children grew up, their mother's distain for lies made it imperative for them to tell their younger, Santa-believing cousins the "truth."
I could only imagine the dread of attending family gatherings after it becomes clear there's always someone waiting in the wings to rain on the parade. It's almost as though kindness must take a back seat to honesty at every turn, and "I'm just telling you the truth" are the magic words that erase the onus of responsibility for hurt feelings.
I have to be honest. I never gave too much thought about whether or not we'd tell Ittybit about Santa.
A benevolent grandfatherly gentleman, who, against the forces of nature and with the help of eight tiny reindeer, each year somehow manages to circle the globe on a single day delivering presents to children everywhere ... chimney or not ... milk and cookies or not. What’s not to love?
My mother told me once that she remembered seeing Santa Claus from the top of her staircase one night when she was a child. She told me how magical it felt to know, really KNOW, that Santa was real. Back then I thought she was probably the luckiest kid in the world to have seen the great and powerful Claus.
I never SAW the "real" Santa for myself. I knew that the men in the 70's era pictures with me and my sister perched on their laps were all stand-ins. The "real" Santa was much too busy at the North Pole getting ready for his big night to be sitting in a fir hut at the mall. But I believed.
I don't remember when I learned the truth about Santa. I think that must be because I never really felt Santa’s lack of DNA veracity was in fact proof a lie had been told.
At the age I found out that the portly man in a red suit I had previously known as Santa -- a guy with snow-white mustache and beard, not to mention that iconic twinkle in his eye -- didn't actually come into the house via the chimney to bring me and my sister toys was also the day I learned about metaphors.
It was the day I learned that the truth was colored with many different shades of gray not to mention all the colors of the rainbow.
Far be it from me to tell people how to raise their kids; For some Santa only means revenue for retail and they’re just not that interested.
But to call Santa a lie, and lobby against the retelling of his lore, seems to me lacking imagination. Perhaps what this world needs are more benevolent lies rather than fewer. Maybe we need more held tongues and gazes of kindness than glares of derision. We need to realize that sometimes our realities aren't always shared, and that one's lies are another's truths.
The truth isn't some inalienable object, it's not even static. But when we boil it all down into one or the other -- the truth or a lie -- we might as well throw away fiction and fantasy and dreams.
Why bother with metaphor at all? It's a tricky business and some people just never get it. Imagination, what's it good for anyway?
No, I'll always believe in Santa Claus -- the spirit if not the man.
And for those of you out there who believe, too: I wish you a Merry Christmas.
"How can I expect my children to trust and believe in me if I tell them lies about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy?" she wondered with a tone that implied superior parenting prowess.
The worst part was that as the sister-in-law's children grew up, their mother's distain for lies made it imperative for them to tell their younger, Santa-believing cousins the "truth."
I could only imagine the dread of attending family gatherings after it becomes clear there's always someone waiting in the wings to rain on the parade. It's almost as though kindness must take a back seat to honesty at every turn, and "I'm just telling you the truth" are the magic words that erase the onus of responsibility for hurt feelings.
I have to be honest. I never gave too much thought about whether or not we'd tell Ittybit about Santa.
A benevolent grandfatherly gentleman, who, against the forces of nature and with the help of eight tiny reindeer, each year somehow manages to circle the globe on a single day delivering presents to children everywhere ... chimney or not ... milk and cookies or not. What’s not to love?
My mother told me once that she remembered seeing Santa Claus from the top of her staircase one night when she was a child. She told me how magical it felt to know, really KNOW, that Santa was real. Back then I thought she was probably the luckiest kid in the world to have seen the great and powerful Claus.
I never SAW the "real" Santa for myself. I knew that the men in the 70's era pictures with me and my sister perched on their laps were all stand-ins. The "real" Santa was much too busy at the North Pole getting ready for his big night to be sitting in a fir hut at the mall. But I believed.
I don't remember when I learned the truth about Santa. I think that must be because I never really felt Santa’s lack of DNA veracity was in fact proof a lie had been told.
At the age I found out that the portly man in a red suit I had previously known as Santa -- a guy with snow-white mustache and beard, not to mention that iconic twinkle in his eye -- didn't actually come into the house via the chimney to bring me and my sister toys was also the day I learned about metaphors.
It was the day I learned that the truth was colored with many different shades of gray not to mention all the colors of the rainbow.
Far be it from me to tell people how to raise their kids; For some Santa only means revenue for retail and they’re just not that interested.
But to call Santa a lie, and lobby against the retelling of his lore, seems to me lacking imagination. Perhaps what this world needs are more benevolent lies rather than fewer. Maybe we need more held tongues and gazes of kindness than glares of derision. We need to realize that sometimes our realities aren't always shared, and that one's lies are another's truths.
The truth isn't some inalienable object, it's not even static. But when we boil it all down into one or the other -- the truth or a lie -- we might as well throw away fiction and fantasy and dreams.
Why bother with metaphor at all? It's a tricky business and some people just never get it. Imagination, what's it good for anyway?
No, I'll always believe in Santa Claus -- the spirit if not the man.
And for those of you out there who believe, too: I wish you a Merry Christmas.
Sunday, December 17, 2006
The mother of all fears
It's official. According to a Danish study, motherhood can make you crazy.
The study, based on medical records of 2.3 million people over a 30-year period in Denmark, found that the first three months after women have their first baby is riskiest, especially the first few weeks when the tremendous responsibility of caring for a newborn hits home.
In addition to postpartum depression, the analysis also found first-time mothers were more likely to experience bipolar disorder, with altering periods of depression and mania; schizophrenia and similar disorders; and adjustment disorders, which can include debilitating anxiety.
The study further notes that fathers are largely unaffected by mental illness as a result of the birth of a child, primarily because they are not likely to experience debilitating sleep depravation, tsunami-like hormone surges, isolation and a complete shift in identity.
Whew. I'm glad someone finally blew the lid off of that one.
Seriously, though, what surprises me is that it's taken this long for a "landmark" study to be conducted.
There's enough anecdotal information about mothers struggling with depression, anxiety and other forms of mental illness to fuel lively debates among friends, but few scientific studies that can help put the issues in perspective. Lo and behold, the stigma of mental illness persists.
From Andrea Yates and Christine Wilhelm to Tom Cruise and Brooke Shields, we participate so fervently in the dialogue about the consequences of maternal depression that I think we forget that not much is really known about the condition itself. We take sides. We bring forth our own experiences to prove our points, but we don't really know anything about what makes these women different ... if they are at all.
Many women, luckily, will never understand the astonishing depths of mental illness. They will never understand how a woman could hurt an innocent child or herself, because such abhorrent acts are so alien to their way of thinking, feeling and reacting. There will always be those who will say their "mother raised eight children and never complained, so grow up already."
Yet there will always be people, like me, who say "finally, some answers."
You see, I have on occasion suffered from bouts of prolonged sadness. And though manageable, I fully expected to descend into a full-fledged depression once Ittybit made her entrance.
But, I didn't suffer from postpartum depression. I had what I like to think was the opposite: I had an overall feeling of well being. It wasn't mania, or euphoria, it wasn't even worrisome. It was just a soothing little voice inside that made me believe everything was going to be just fine.
It wasn't until 15 months into my new life as a mother that the real adjustments took place.
Ittybit got sick and had to be hospitalized.
We didn't know at the time that her ailment wasn't going to be life altering. We were just petrified, as any parent would be. I handled the stress in stride. Aside from the few hours of internal turmoil between the car ride to the hospital and the assigning of a room, I was calm, collected and hopeful. The hardest part of the four-day stay – I recall now – was seeing other people's children who weren't as "lucky," and feeling the full weight of my helplessness as a parent.
After we got home and our lives returned to normal I noticed that that "good feeling" I'd once had was gone. And it wasn't coming back. Worry had taken its place and eventually overtook my place as a mother. It wasn't just run-of-the-mill anxiety. It was more of a not-wanting-to-leave-the-house fear. Only the darkest thoughts were permitted to take residence in my head. I was losing the struggle to keep them at bay.
I eventually sought help and was lucky enough to get it. I know others who did not (or could not), and I mourn them and the people they left behind, people who will always wonder: ‘What should I have done?"
Being a mother isn't easy, but just because it's a choice we make doesn't mean we are beholden to endure pain with grace and stoicism. It doesn't mean you're weak or defective; it just means sometimes you need a little help and support. The medical community is getting that message, it's time the rest of us do, too.
The study, based on medical records of 2.3 million people over a 30-year period in Denmark, found that the first three months after women have their first baby is riskiest, especially the first few weeks when the tremendous responsibility of caring for a newborn hits home.
In addition to postpartum depression, the analysis also found first-time mothers were more likely to experience bipolar disorder, with altering periods of depression and mania; schizophrenia and similar disorders; and adjustment disorders, which can include debilitating anxiety.
The study further notes that fathers are largely unaffected by mental illness as a result of the birth of a child, primarily because they are not likely to experience debilitating sleep depravation, tsunami-like hormone surges, isolation and a complete shift in identity.
Whew. I'm glad someone finally blew the lid off of that one.
Seriously, though, what surprises me is that it's taken this long for a "landmark" study to be conducted.
There's enough anecdotal information about mothers struggling with depression, anxiety and other forms of mental illness to fuel lively debates among friends, but few scientific studies that can help put the issues in perspective. Lo and behold, the stigma of mental illness persists.
From Andrea Yates and Christine Wilhelm to Tom Cruise and Brooke Shields, we participate so fervently in the dialogue about the consequences of maternal depression that I think we forget that not much is really known about the condition itself. We take sides. We bring forth our own experiences to prove our points, but we don't really know anything about what makes these women different ... if they are at all.
Many women, luckily, will never understand the astonishing depths of mental illness. They will never understand how a woman could hurt an innocent child or herself, because such abhorrent acts are so alien to their way of thinking, feeling and reacting. There will always be those who will say their "mother raised eight children and never complained, so grow up already."
Yet there will always be people, like me, who say "finally, some answers."
You see, I have on occasion suffered from bouts of prolonged sadness. And though manageable, I fully expected to descend into a full-fledged depression once Ittybit made her entrance.
But, I didn't suffer from postpartum depression. I had what I like to think was the opposite: I had an overall feeling of well being. It wasn't mania, or euphoria, it wasn't even worrisome. It was just a soothing little voice inside that made me believe everything was going to be just fine.
It wasn't until 15 months into my new life as a mother that the real adjustments took place.
Ittybit got sick and had to be hospitalized.
We didn't know at the time that her ailment wasn't going to be life altering. We were just petrified, as any parent would be. I handled the stress in stride. Aside from the few hours of internal turmoil between the car ride to the hospital and the assigning of a room, I was calm, collected and hopeful. The hardest part of the four-day stay – I recall now – was seeing other people's children who weren't as "lucky," and feeling the full weight of my helplessness as a parent.
After we got home and our lives returned to normal I noticed that that "good feeling" I'd once had was gone. And it wasn't coming back. Worry had taken its place and eventually overtook my place as a mother. It wasn't just run-of-the-mill anxiety. It was more of a not-wanting-to-leave-the-house fear. Only the darkest thoughts were permitted to take residence in my head. I was losing the struggle to keep them at bay.
I eventually sought help and was lucky enough to get it. I know others who did not (or could not), and I mourn them and the people they left behind, people who will always wonder: ‘What should I have done?"
Being a mother isn't easy, but just because it's a choice we make doesn't mean we are beholden to endure pain with grace and stoicism. It doesn't mean you're weak or defective; it just means sometimes you need a little help and support. The medical community is getting that message, it's time the rest of us do, too.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
We've got another mouth to feed -- and it's king sized
We recently purchased the first REAL bed of our together life.
IT'S HUGE. HUGE I tell you.
See, my husband's been itching to get a king-sized bed ever since he woke up one morning balanced on the edge of his side of our newly purchased queen-sized mattress and fell off with an unceremonious thud!
He's made no secret of the fact that I am a bed hog, cover thief and whatever other crimes come with the unconsciousness of slumber. Although I think we are polar opposites of our waking selves in the dead of sleep - I turn into a cuddler and he turns into a mollusk - I don't argue with his reasoning that even though I constantly feel cold, my body emits the heat of a furnace. It's probably true and I blame whatever crazy endocrine lottery I won for this dichotomy.
So when one of his buddies needed a bed to sleep on he eagerly volunteered our six-year-old mattress set. As he wrung his hands and told me of his plans, I could envision the football field-sized bed he was anticipating replacing it with.
"Do you realize this means at least two sets of new sheets and a new comforter?" I ask, exasperated. "They cost at least twice the price of queen-sized sheets you know."
"Sleep is a precious commodity; you can't put a price on it," he assures me.
Since we were biting the bullet, we decided we might as well buy a bed frame to boot. You know, finally get ourselves off the floor and into civilization. (We're not in college anymore, right?) So we spend a long hour and a half perusing a local furniture store, bringing with us our expert toddler bed bouncer to test stability, and with her help we decided on a mattress that will allow one side to do back flips and half-gainers while the other side is able to snooze, undisturbed, with a glass of wine balanced perfectly upon his chest. (I'll give you two guess as to who usually gets to corral the kid in the mornings.)
We also selected a terribly inexpensive sleigh bed to cradle the luxury sheep-sold mattresses.
The furniture store's people delivered the beast about a week later and had it set up in minutes. I never thought I'd say this, but the darn thing makes our GIGANTIC room feel more like a cave. Seriously, if any room should be able to accommodate a king-sized bed easily it should have been that one. After all, it was the one room in the entire house that we both agreed we could live in if the rest of the place became uninhabitable as a result of piecemeal construction projects or natural disasters.
I'm still a little surprised by the feeling of claustrophobia that came over me as looked at it from the doorway. My huge bedroom with seemingly unending space was gone. All I could see was a bed. It just got worse when I climbed up and tested it out. Not only did my feet not reach the floor sitting upright, but when I stared up the ceiling I felt as if it were closing in on me.
The man in our life even had to admit the new bed is a bit of a monster.
"Uhm ... Honey. ... The bed just told me he'd like steak and eggs for breakfast ... and possibly one of the dogs."
IT'S HUGE. HUGE I tell you.
See, my husband's been itching to get a king-sized bed ever since he woke up one morning balanced on the edge of his side of our newly purchased queen-sized mattress and fell off with an unceremonious thud!
He's made no secret of the fact that I am a bed hog, cover thief and whatever other crimes come with the unconsciousness of slumber. Although I think we are polar opposites of our waking selves in the dead of sleep - I turn into a cuddler and he turns into a mollusk - I don't argue with his reasoning that even though I constantly feel cold, my body emits the heat of a furnace. It's probably true and I blame whatever crazy endocrine lottery I won for this dichotomy.
So when one of his buddies needed a bed to sleep on he eagerly volunteered our six-year-old mattress set. As he wrung his hands and told me of his plans, I could envision the football field-sized bed he was anticipating replacing it with.
"Do you realize this means at least two sets of new sheets and a new comforter?" I ask, exasperated. "They cost at least twice the price of queen-sized sheets you know."
"Sleep is a precious commodity; you can't put a price on it," he assures me.
Since we were biting the bullet, we decided we might as well buy a bed frame to boot. You know, finally get ourselves off the floor and into civilization. (We're not in college anymore, right?) So we spend a long hour and a half perusing a local furniture store, bringing with us our expert toddler bed bouncer to test stability, and with her help we decided on a mattress that will allow one side to do back flips and half-gainers while the other side is able to snooze, undisturbed, with a glass of wine balanced perfectly upon his chest. (I'll give you two guess as to who usually gets to corral the kid in the mornings.)
We also selected a terribly inexpensive sleigh bed to cradle the luxury sheep-sold mattresses.
The furniture store's people delivered the beast about a week later and had it set up in minutes. I never thought I'd say this, but the darn thing makes our GIGANTIC room feel more like a cave. Seriously, if any room should be able to accommodate a king-sized bed easily it should have been that one. After all, it was the one room in the entire house that we both agreed we could live in if the rest of the place became uninhabitable as a result of piecemeal construction projects or natural disasters.
I'm still a little surprised by the feeling of claustrophobia that came over me as looked at it from the doorway. My huge bedroom with seemingly unending space was gone. All I could see was a bed. It just got worse when I climbed up and tested it out. Not only did my feet not reach the floor sitting upright, but when I stared up the ceiling I felt as if it were closing in on me.
The man in our life even had to admit the new bed is a bit of a monster.
"Uhm ... Honey. ... The bed just told me he'd like steak and eggs for breakfast ... and possibly one of the dogs."
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Spirit of the season ... or something
My husband and I don't really speak to each other in transit.
We could sit side by side in a car for four hours and the only words uttered would be "look, here comes our exit."
As odd as it sounds, it's one of those "healthy" relationships in which we are able to completely ignore most angst by merely willing the potential for strife into non-existence, and take pleasure in Car Talk or Prairie Home Companion instead.
I learned early on that reacting to the road hazards from the passenger seat was, in effect, calling into question his driving skills and would lead to nothing but hurt feelings. He learned that suggesting alternative routes from the one in which I had my heart (and my trip odometer) set was going to earn him the withering "if-you-wanted-to-drive-why-didn't-you" stare.
It's just that simple.
In the car, especially, we tend to shy away from all the party banter that gets non-habitating folks into trouble: politics, religion, the state of the environment, home maintenance, yard work. ... You name it, we’ve made an art form out of ignoring it.
The quarters are just too close for any sort of discomfort.
So, as we headed out to go hiking last weekend, (And for the record: Yes … hiking with a toddler is more like walk four steps, pick up leaves and rocks and yell Mama, UP-Y every fifth step, which has an appeal all its own, but I digress.) ignoring the first viable shopping day of the holiday season, I have NO idea what possessed me to break the traditional tranquility:
"So, what are we going to get your mother for Christmas?" I ask and then take a long drink from my coffee cup.
Silence.
I looked over toward his side of the car. He was sitting there with his mouth hanging open.
"With that one sentence you have made the whole Christmas shopping season thing real for me."
He wasn't irritated, just stunned.
And his stunned silence brought the whole thing home for me, too.
I've spent so much time kvetching about the early marketing of Christmas that it's just now occurred to me – counting only the days I could feasibly get out and shop before Dec. 25 (discounting days that have been blocked off for other holiday chores) – I've only got five shopping days left.
Since I have typically done most of the actual selection, wrapping and shipping of items for both sides of the family, I should mention that the question I asked of him was elaborately rhetorical.
I ask for his input but I don't ever expect to use it.
He'll say "let's get the family to chip in and we'll get mom a riding lawnmower" and I'll say "oh, a posh tea kettle sounds perfect."
But this year, with a toddler-turn-preschooler who refuses the comfort of a stroller and insists upon leisurely strolls (not to mention hiding underneath clothes racks and juggling the breakables at Bed, Bath and Beyond) I don't have the energy to shop.
It's true: I've dropped before I've shopped.
If he had said let's get her an automatic car wash with a seven-head attachment I would have ordered it from the internet access of my cell phone that instant. Our "Buy Local" mantra be damned.
Truth be told, I've recently done a single scouting mission to The Mall to see what's what, and sadly I didn't even remember what's where, not to mention the confusion caused by some of my favorite stores falling off the directory.
We didn't come to any conclusions about our shopping list during the outing, and the car returned to its usual silence. And even though the clock is ticking down and the stress is rearing up, it occurs to me I wished I hadn't mentioned a word about the holidays. Maybe then I could have staved off Christmas (shopping) until next year and this year, just enjoy the season.
*****
UPDATE: I received a letter from Edmay Mayers this week, thanking me for my contribution to her toy drive for Iraqi children and for getting the word out about the need for gently loved toys in that war-torn country.
I mention this because in the real spirit of Christmas and Eid ul-Adha, I want to remind you that Ms. Mayers is continuing her efforts to bring a little joy to children of Iraq and that your donations are still needed.
Again, please send gently used toys and clothes as well as hard candies and other non-perishable treats to her at:
Edmay Mayers, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Gulf Region South (GRS) APO, AE 09331.
We could sit side by side in a car for four hours and the only words uttered would be "look, here comes our exit."
As odd as it sounds, it's one of those "healthy" relationships in which we are able to completely ignore most angst by merely willing the potential for strife into non-existence, and take pleasure in Car Talk or Prairie Home Companion instead.
I learned early on that reacting to the road hazards from the passenger seat was, in effect, calling into question his driving skills and would lead to nothing but hurt feelings. He learned that suggesting alternative routes from the one in which I had my heart (and my trip odometer) set was going to earn him the withering "if-you-wanted-to-drive-why-didn't-you" stare.
It's just that simple.
In the car, especially, we tend to shy away from all the party banter that gets non-habitating folks into trouble: politics, religion, the state of the environment, home maintenance, yard work. ... You name it, we’ve made an art form out of ignoring it.
The quarters are just too close for any sort of discomfort.
So, as we headed out to go hiking last weekend, (And for the record: Yes … hiking with a toddler is more like walk four steps, pick up leaves and rocks and yell Mama, UP-Y every fifth step, which has an appeal all its own, but I digress.) ignoring the first viable shopping day of the holiday season, I have NO idea what possessed me to break the traditional tranquility:
"So, what are we going to get your mother for Christmas?" I ask and then take a long drink from my coffee cup.
Silence.
I looked over toward his side of the car. He was sitting there with his mouth hanging open.
"With that one sentence you have made the whole Christmas shopping season thing real for me."
He wasn't irritated, just stunned.
And his stunned silence brought the whole thing home for me, too.
I've spent so much time kvetching about the early marketing of Christmas that it's just now occurred to me – counting only the days I could feasibly get out and shop before Dec. 25 (discounting days that have been blocked off for other holiday chores) – I've only got five shopping days left.
Since I have typically done most of the actual selection, wrapping and shipping of items for both sides of the family, I should mention that the question I asked of him was elaborately rhetorical.
I ask for his input but I don't ever expect to use it.
He'll say "let's get the family to chip in and we'll get mom a riding lawnmower" and I'll say "oh, a posh tea kettle sounds perfect."
But this year, with a toddler-turn-preschooler who refuses the comfort of a stroller and insists upon leisurely strolls (not to mention hiding underneath clothes racks and juggling the breakables at Bed, Bath and Beyond) I don't have the energy to shop.
It's true: I've dropped before I've shopped.
If he had said let's get her an automatic car wash with a seven-head attachment I would have ordered it from the internet access of my cell phone that instant. Our "Buy Local" mantra be damned.
Truth be told, I've recently done a single scouting mission to The Mall to see what's what, and sadly I didn't even remember what's where, not to mention the confusion caused by some of my favorite stores falling off the directory.
We didn't come to any conclusions about our shopping list during the outing, and the car returned to its usual silence. And even though the clock is ticking down and the stress is rearing up, it occurs to me I wished I hadn't mentioned a word about the holidays. Maybe then I could have staved off Christmas (shopping) until next year and this year, just enjoy the season.
UPDATE: I received a letter from Edmay Mayers this week, thanking me for my contribution to her toy drive for Iraqi children and for getting the word out about the need for gently loved toys in that war-torn country.
I mention this because in the real spirit of Christmas and Eid ul-Adha, I want to remind you that Ms. Mayers is continuing her efforts to bring a little joy to children of Iraq and that your donations are still needed.
Again, please send gently used toys and clothes as well as hard candies and other non-perishable treats to her at:
Edmay Mayers, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Gulf Region South (GRS) APO, AE 09331.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
I'll never eat penguin again
We arrived an hour early but still the line snaked out of the theater, past the ticket booth and down the hall.
"Why do we do this to ourselves?" I ask myself as I haul all 28 pounds of Ittybit up back up to midlevel, shifting her weight from one foot to another. "Oh, yeah a free movie we can leave as soon as she gets tired of sitting still."
I'm not proud of this fact, but one of the perks of working for a newspaper is the possibility of free entertainment. Oh sure, there's usually a small price. I've had to sit through countless musical productions of Jesus Christ Superstar and Carousel, and spent hours trying to come up with reviews that were fair, honest and somewhat glowing when all I really wanted to do was muse maniacally about the possibilities of a Christ's Carousel. On the other hand, I've also seen dozens of stellar performances I'd never in a million years be able to afford on my own.
Of course, movies are a bit different. You may save some dough on the price of admission with the preview screening freebies but the popcorn and treats will still do some damage to the kid's college fund. I am reminded of this little fact as we s-l-o-w-l-y make our way past the concessions counter and Ittybit's eyes stay silently locked on the popcorn maker, willing it, I image, to pop on over to her side of the aisle and say 'hello.'
As we slowly inch toward the ticket taker, I nervously bite my lower lip, hoping we’ll get through and find three seats together. Ittybit has been talking about penguins since I showed her the movie pass for "Happy Feet" three days ago.
The line slows down to a crawl, and I mention that we might have to make other plans. Their may be no movie for us today.
She ignores me. Not even three yet, she has already pegged me as the alien being who obviously has no idea what life on Earth is all about. "Daddy will fix it."
When he hands over our tickets to the kid with the theater vest, I’m stunned there’s still room. "Over there; Theater 2," the kid directs with a flourish of his ticket-stuffed fist.
We climb up the near-vertical steps of the theater and find three seats in the last section in the middle. Ittybit settles into the seat between us and starts bouncing up and down.
"When is the MOOOOVIE starting?" she asks with the implied tone of the "Are We There Yet" game.
"Not for another hour," I grumble, getting out my trusty glue stick and ripping up that morning's junk mail so she can make a collage. It's a trick I've used successfully since she turned two, and it was working until three kids squeezed past us to their seats carrying monster tubs of popcorn.
"POPTORN? POPTORN!" she yells at highest threshold of indoor voice she can manage, remembering her mechanical friend from the lobby, and starts the dreaded chant: "I want poptorn, too. Pop torn, pop torn, pop torn, pop torn. … PEASE!!!!"
So I go off to get some non-buttery corn goodness as she sits and continues the art project with her dad. When I return 40 minutes later and $7 lighter, I barely get a chance to sit down when the plea comes for water. Ten minutes later and another $4 lighter, I'm back just in time to sit and watch the lights go down.
As the sound comes up, I realize that it's so loud I can’t hear the rhythmic munching to my left. Soon, however, I'm thinking partial hearing loss might be a worthy price for such splendid scenery: Icy blue water, amazing landscapes, and, of course, cute and fuzzy penguins.
Now I know as a parent I should be a little bit more vigilant about what my daughter watches. I noticed the movie was rated 'PG' and that the tickets mentioned that some language may be offensive, but I was willing to risk a little offensive language for cute and fuzzy penguins. After all, I'm one of THOSE types who feel that there are worse things in life than naughty words.
What I didn't realize, and was completely ill prepared for, was how completely horrifying it would be to watch an animated leopard seal attack the cute and fuzzy penguins. Circle of life or not, I had no idea something as lovable as a seal could transform into such a hideous looking creature.
Once the danger had passed and all was right in the movie again, Ittibit stood up and announced "I'm done here."
And with that we gathered our coats and bags, and washtub-sized container of popcorn and made our way down the stairs in the dark.
"Never fails," I grouse. "I'll have to wait for the video."
Until then I'll be picturing the hideous seal eating hapless penguins and dancing around in Joseph's Technicolor Dreamcoat.
"Why do we do this to ourselves?" I ask myself as I haul all 28 pounds of Ittybit up back up to midlevel, shifting her weight from one foot to another. "Oh, yeah a free movie we can leave as soon as she gets tired of sitting still."
I'm not proud of this fact, but one of the perks of working for a newspaper is the possibility of free entertainment. Oh sure, there's usually a small price. I've had to sit through countless musical productions of Jesus Christ Superstar and Carousel, and spent hours trying to come up with reviews that were fair, honest and somewhat glowing when all I really wanted to do was muse maniacally about the possibilities of a Christ's Carousel. On the other hand, I've also seen dozens of stellar performances I'd never in a million years be able to afford on my own.
Of course, movies are a bit different. You may save some dough on the price of admission with the preview screening freebies but the popcorn and treats will still do some damage to the kid's college fund. I am reminded of this little fact as we s-l-o-w-l-y make our way past the concessions counter and Ittybit's eyes stay silently locked on the popcorn maker, willing it, I image, to pop on over to her side of the aisle and say 'hello.'
As we slowly inch toward the ticket taker, I nervously bite my lower lip, hoping we’ll get through and find three seats together. Ittybit has been talking about penguins since I showed her the movie pass for "Happy Feet" three days ago.
The line slows down to a crawl, and I mention that we might have to make other plans. Their may be no movie for us today.
She ignores me. Not even three yet, she has already pegged me as the alien being who obviously has no idea what life on Earth is all about. "Daddy will fix it."
When he hands over our tickets to the kid with the theater vest, I’m stunned there’s still room. "Over there; Theater 2," the kid directs with a flourish of his ticket-stuffed fist.
We climb up the near-vertical steps of the theater and find three seats in the last section in the middle. Ittybit settles into the seat between us and starts bouncing up and down.
"When is the MOOOOVIE starting?" she asks with the implied tone of the "Are We There Yet" game.
"Not for another hour," I grumble, getting out my trusty glue stick and ripping up that morning's junk mail so she can make a collage. It's a trick I've used successfully since she turned two, and it was working until three kids squeezed past us to their seats carrying monster tubs of popcorn.
"POPTORN? POPTORN!" she yells at highest threshold of indoor voice she can manage, remembering her mechanical friend from the lobby, and starts the dreaded chant: "I want poptorn, too. Pop torn, pop torn, pop torn, pop torn. … PEASE!!!!"
So I go off to get some non-buttery corn goodness as she sits and continues the art project with her dad. When I return 40 minutes later and $7 lighter, I barely get a chance to sit down when the plea comes for water. Ten minutes later and another $4 lighter, I'm back just in time to sit and watch the lights go down.
As the sound comes up, I realize that it's so loud I can’t hear the rhythmic munching to my left. Soon, however, I'm thinking partial hearing loss might be a worthy price for such splendid scenery: Icy blue water, amazing landscapes, and, of course, cute and fuzzy penguins.
Now I know as a parent I should be a little bit more vigilant about what my daughter watches. I noticed the movie was rated 'PG' and that the tickets mentioned that some language may be offensive, but I was willing to risk a little offensive language for cute and fuzzy penguins. After all, I'm one of THOSE types who feel that there are worse things in life than naughty words.
What I didn't realize, and was completely ill prepared for, was how completely horrifying it would be to watch an animated leopard seal attack the cute and fuzzy penguins. Circle of life or not, I had no idea something as lovable as a seal could transform into such a hideous looking creature.
Once the danger had passed and all was right in the movie again, Ittibit stood up and announced "I'm done here."
And with that we gathered our coats and bags, and washtub-sized container of popcorn and made our way down the stairs in the dark.
"Never fails," I grouse. "I'll have to wait for the video."
Until then I'll be picturing the hideous seal eating hapless penguins and dancing around in Joseph's Technicolor Dreamcoat.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Do they have preschool night courses for mommies?
If you ever want to feel the true weight of your dreadful parenting skills pressing down upon you, spend the day at a pre-school. I promise you will learn a lot about your shortcomings.
Every so often I am called upon to attend lessons with my daughter and her classmates at the Marilla Cuthbert Academy for Unspeakably Charming Children (or MCA-UCC for those of you who insist upon academic abbreviations — you know, for the bumper stickers).
As a cooperative pre-school, the MCA-UCC relies on parents to take turns in all tasks relating to upkeep, maintenance and the supplying of wholesome snacks. Helping children struggle into painting smocks and elaborate costumes to fulfill their wildest dreams during their child's "Special Day" is just a bonus.
The MCA-UCC is a place where all the children stand in line, take turns and play with wild restraint. When they forget and play with abandon, the teacher sings a reminder that children are to use their "walking feet," or turn on their "listening ears," or sit on their bottoms.
It becomes clear how reinforcement and expectation becomes part of any behavioral outcome. No one ever says "No." Instead they say: "We don't throw toys." "We don't eat paste." "We use indoor voices."
Such wonderment must be experienced first hand.
As a parent whose experience with tantrums has resulted in chocolate for dinner, no hair washing for days and more television than the FCC censors have ever seen, I can tell you teachers of small children are genetically different from the rest of the human race.
Whereas, I have one tiny gladiator to wrestle into a coat, she has 10.
Kids who develop hearing impairments at home as soon as you remind them to wash their hands after using the potty, or wipe their feet at the door are happily obliging the kindly headmistress. Eventually, everyone at school starts using their listening ears and their indoor voices. The accounting alone is enough to make you nominate her to a high-ranking
position in the United Nations.
I've been through the Special Day drill twice so far this year, and each time I feel as if I need remedial intervention.
When one kid in my charge dips his hand into the paint and drags it across his paper, she zips over with a paper towel, apparently observing with the eyes in the back of her head, and reminds us "We use brushes," in the same jovial tone.
Oops. My mistake.
"I'm just going to hang this over here," she sings as she relocates artwork I've hung right above the walkway. "Otherwise you're going to get painted. And we wouldn't want that."
Uh. Sorry.
"We use one puzzle at a time," she reminds as I sit with pieces from at least six puzzles strewn between three puzzlers.
Oh. ... I didn't even think.
I sit in awe as the three children I've just spend an unsuccessful 20 minutes trying to costume in elaborate dancewear, disappear into the main playroom. Not one -- not even my own Ittybit -- heeds my beseeching to come back and reverse the process. I panic. Snack time is fast approaching and if it takes 20 minutes to untangle them from the plumage there will be trouble.
"Um… Miss Cuthbert?" I stammer apologetically. "I can't get the kids to take off their costumes."
With a knowing look, she conjures the magic words: "Oh, girls, when I ring that bell you’re going to want to be ready for snack. And that means you'll have all the play clothes put away."
And wouldn’t you know, before you can say "abracadabra" all three are back in the dressing room, tugging off their costumes and handing me their shoes. Proof, I have to believe, that teachers have supernatural powers.
Hopefully some will rub off on me.
Every so often I am called upon to attend lessons with my daughter and her classmates at the Marilla Cuthbert Academy for Unspeakably Charming Children (or MCA-UCC for those of you who insist upon academic abbreviations — you know, for the bumper stickers).
As a cooperative pre-school, the MCA-UCC relies on parents to take turns in all tasks relating to upkeep, maintenance and the supplying of wholesome snacks. Helping children struggle into painting smocks and elaborate costumes to fulfill their wildest dreams during their child's "Special Day" is just a bonus.
The MCA-UCC is a place where all the children stand in line, take turns and play with wild restraint. When they forget and play with abandon, the teacher sings a reminder that children are to use their "walking feet," or turn on their "listening ears," or sit on their bottoms.
It becomes clear how reinforcement and expectation becomes part of any behavioral outcome. No one ever says "No." Instead they say: "We don't throw toys." "We don't eat paste." "We use indoor voices."
Such wonderment must be experienced first hand.
As a parent whose experience with tantrums has resulted in chocolate for dinner, no hair washing for days and more television than the FCC censors have ever seen, I can tell you teachers of small children are genetically different from the rest of the human race.
Whereas, I have one tiny gladiator to wrestle into a coat, she has 10.
Kids who develop hearing impairments at home as soon as you remind them to wash their hands after using the potty, or wipe their feet at the door are happily obliging the kindly headmistress. Eventually, everyone at school starts using their listening ears and their indoor voices. The accounting alone is enough to make you nominate her to a high-ranking
position in the United Nations.
I've been through the Special Day drill twice so far this year, and each time I feel as if I need remedial intervention.
When one kid in my charge dips his hand into the paint and drags it across his paper, she zips over with a paper towel, apparently observing with the eyes in the back of her head, and reminds us "We use brushes," in the same jovial tone.
Oops. My mistake.
"I'm just going to hang this over here," she sings as she relocates artwork I've hung right above the walkway. "Otherwise you're going to get painted. And we wouldn't want that."
Uh. Sorry.
"We use one puzzle at a time," she reminds as I sit with pieces from at least six puzzles strewn between three puzzlers.
Oh. ... I didn't even think.
I sit in awe as the three children I've just spend an unsuccessful 20 minutes trying to costume in elaborate dancewear, disappear into the main playroom. Not one -- not even my own Ittybit -- heeds my beseeching to come back and reverse the process. I panic. Snack time is fast approaching and if it takes 20 minutes to untangle them from the plumage there will be trouble.
"Um… Miss Cuthbert?" I stammer apologetically. "I can't get the kids to take off their costumes."
With a knowing look, she conjures the magic words: "Oh, girls, when I ring that bell you’re going to want to be ready for snack. And that means you'll have all the play clothes put away."
And wouldn’t you know, before you can say "abracadabra" all three are back in the dressing room, tugging off their costumes and handing me their shoes. Proof, I have to believe, that teachers have supernatural powers.
Hopefully some will rub off on me.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Fighting the system for mine and yours
Phleff, phleff, phleff. Eeeeeeeeeerrrrr. Scrabble scrabble. Click. Click.
The sound you didn't hear, dear readers, was me dusting off my soapbox, dragging it across the floor and climbing up. I don't do this that often, so please bear with me as I stand here precariously in unfamiliar territory.
A few weeks ago I met a neighbor while I was out and about on weekend errands, and during our conversation I learned that she'd made the "agonizing" decision to take her son out of public school.
Although in her soul of souls it pained her to know her son was attending what she saw as a "factory" for churning out children who will sit still, line up in single file and ask permission before they go to the bathroom, the straw that broke the camel's back was when her already literate kindergartener came home from school and reported he pretended he didn't know the alphabet, because that's what the teacher expected.
Like many parents, she said she and her husband had wanted to stick it out with public education. They believed in its importance. And, like many parents with a certain amount of disposable income, they ultimately decided that they couldn't let their child's education suffer because they didn't want to fight a losing battle with the establishment.
I don't want to slam her decision. I don't want to look down my nose as the uninitiated mother of a preschooler — who will undoubtedly face the same choice one day soon — and click my tongue in disappointment.
And yet, I can't help but wish she'd stuck it out. We are not talking about an inner city school district struggling to keep drugs and guns from seeping in through the security hurdles; we are talking about a suburban school in a moderately well-heeled community.
"Wait for me," I thought. "We'll fight them together. Maybe we'll even find others."
I think that by moving our kids to the "better" schools, often outside of the community, we are choosing isolation, some might say segregation, based on individual values, ideals and the ability to pay for them.
And why shouldn't we choose the best we can afford? We live in a society in which we are not only free to make such choices, we are encouraged to do so. Why shouldn't we take advantage of every opportunity life and budget allow? Why not advocate for our kids in the most expedient way? Don't our children deserve the best WE can offer?
But I still can't help feeling as if we are losing a sense of responsibility to one another and our communities, and this weighs on me, too.
I think about a different situation. What if we were talking about a school in a relatively wealthy district, where only the poorest of the poor attended because the affluent had other options? Or what if we were talking about a school in which education came second to security?
It wouldn't even be a question for most parents. Their child's safety is just more important than any ideology. But what about the children left behind? Does that mean they're less important?
I don't know the answers, but I know that we need to think long and hard about the question.
I just hope I am strong enough, when the time comes, to stick it out for Ittybit's sake. To make sure that the public school she attends will be a better place for everyone because we did our best to make it that. Or at least that our participation, for her, no matter how many stupid rules she's expected to follow, will have the most lasting effect.
The sound you didn't hear, dear readers, was me dusting off my soapbox, dragging it across the floor and climbing up. I don't do this that often, so please bear with me as I stand here precariously in unfamiliar territory.
A few weeks ago I met a neighbor while I was out and about on weekend errands, and during our conversation I learned that she'd made the "agonizing" decision to take her son out of public school.
Although in her soul of souls it pained her to know her son was attending what she saw as a "factory" for churning out children who will sit still, line up in single file and ask permission before they go to the bathroom, the straw that broke the camel's back was when her already literate kindergartener came home from school and reported he pretended he didn't know the alphabet, because that's what the teacher expected.
Like many parents, she said she and her husband had wanted to stick it out with public education. They believed in its importance. And, like many parents with a certain amount of disposable income, they ultimately decided that they couldn't let their child's education suffer because they didn't want to fight a losing battle with the establishment.
I don't want to slam her decision. I don't want to look down my nose as the uninitiated mother of a preschooler — who will undoubtedly face the same choice one day soon — and click my tongue in disappointment.
And yet, I can't help but wish she'd stuck it out. We are not talking about an inner city school district struggling to keep drugs and guns from seeping in through the security hurdles; we are talking about a suburban school in a moderately well-heeled community.
"Wait for me," I thought. "We'll fight them together. Maybe we'll even find others."
I think that by moving our kids to the "better" schools, often outside of the community, we are choosing isolation, some might say segregation, based on individual values, ideals and the ability to pay for them.
And why shouldn't we choose the best we can afford? We live in a society in which we are not only free to make such choices, we are encouraged to do so. Why shouldn't we take advantage of every opportunity life and budget allow? Why not advocate for our kids in the most expedient way? Don't our children deserve the best WE can offer?
But I still can't help feeling as if we are losing a sense of responsibility to one another and our communities, and this weighs on me, too.
I think about a different situation. What if we were talking about a school in a relatively wealthy district, where only the poorest of the poor attended because the affluent had other options? Or what if we were talking about a school in which education came second to security?
It wouldn't even be a question for most parents. Their child's safety is just more important than any ideology. But what about the children left behind? Does that mean they're less important?
I don't know the answers, but I know that we need to think long and hard about the question.
I just hope I am strong enough, when the time comes, to stick it out for Ittybit's sake. To make sure that the public school she attends will be a better place for everyone because we did our best to make it that. Or at least that our participation, for her, no matter how many stupid rules she's expected to follow, will have the most lasting effect.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Paging Dr. Google ... paging Dr. Google ...
What did our moms do without the Internet?I've been wondering about this a lot lately as I have taken to parenting via Google.
Ideally and historically, women have turned to their own mothers for sage advice about the trickiest troubles of childrearing. Sociologists would tell us that we learn how to be parents by a lifetime of being parented. If we’re lucky enough to still have our parents when it's our turn for midnight feedings and early-years wrangling, we count on them to be a fount of wisdom.
Of course that hope goes right out the window the second you take that first drive with your mom (or mother-in-law) and the baby cries herself blue in the face.
"I'll just take her out and sit her on my lap," she'll offer.
"Oh, don't do that. Car seat laws, you know," you'll reply in horror.
"When my kids were little we didn't have those," she'll retort with a long sigh.
It would also seem that the laws of man don't hold the same weight with some mothers hailing from the 60s era, who would rather have a cooing child in their laps than the distraction of non-stop screaming for a half-hour ride. After all, they burned their bras, got male-only jobs, shut down government and helped end a war, damn it.
"How can this be safer than my strong and loving arms," she'll ask in earnest.
"It just is. Believe me," you'll say with the full conviction of possessing overriding vote.
Between the time when I was a child and now everything about childrearing has changed.
Car seats have gone from tubes of metal slung from a backseat, with little more than a tiny lap belt for restraint and a steering wheel for distraction, to space-age capsules with astronaut-quality harnesses. Walkers have lost their wheels; crib slats have become more tightly spaced and hard-soled shoes have gone the way of the dinosaur.Modern moms have hundred's more experts willing to sell us their books than merely Dr. Spock.
It almost seems as if mothering has moved as far away from instinct as one can imagine.
In addition to a shifting understanding of safety, parenting styles have shifted right along with changes in social mores, and the fallout can even set modern mothers on a head-on collision course. Studies upon conflicting studies are pitting us against each other.
Circumcision, breast feeding, room-in or nursery, kangaroo-carry or cry-it-out, stay-at-home or working mothers; every potential decision is a landmine waiting to explode. It really shouldn't be surprising since we've all come to accept our children as the most important aspects of our lives. How could we NOT do what's best for them every second of every minute of every day?
While my own mother has eagerly soaked up all the changes of 21st-century mothering; often telling me about the trends before they happen, I know I'm in the minority.
I've got friends who's moms are mortified that their two-year-old grandchildren are still nursing or aren't potty trained. As soon as the bygone mom opens her mouth, eyes roll and fingers open and close in puppet mimicry.
All this study, it seems, is also causing us at times to mistrust our instincts, even though that's really we make most of our decisions on parenting: We go with our gut and when what we try fails, we try something else.
But even though my own mother is a font of medical wisdom, whenever I have a question about what to do about the behavior or some other situation, I still find myself asking Dr. Google's advice.
Within nanoseconds Dr. Google comes through with 18,000 or so answers, and I do what comes natural. After I've trolled all my on-line mom's groups and decided a course of action, I pick up the phone.
"Hello, Mom?"
Sunday, October 29, 2006
The twain meets, we just won't admit it
Why is it that Packrats and Would Chucks often dwell in the same habitat?
Is it because during the first blush of romance the female Would Chuck looks at the newspapers and magazines piling up on the chairs of a Packrat's bachelor pad and thinks, 'Finally! a man who reads?'
I know that there are many, many, many people out there who think they live with the king (or queen) of all packrats, but let me tell you, as politely as I can, that you are wrong.
That distinction, I'm afraid, belongs to me and the 5,600 square feet of space underneath my house that allows my husband to collect thousands upon thousands of very important things.
And for those of you who think a Packrat can be reformed, let me explain why they call us Would Chucks: We would chuck if we could chuck, but the Packrat just finds it, fishes it out of the trash and restores it to its unnatural habitat. Otherwise we’d be heralded worldwide as Do Chucks.
Yet the thing I didn't realize until recently was how Would Chucks who are also consumers -- folks who would normally throw out two items for every one they bring home -- enable their Packrat counterparts by adding to the inventory of things that will never go away.
In the end, most Would Chucks wind up being Packrats by proxy.
So it is with this in mind that I tell you, dear reader, although I love my husband, I also love when he's away on business for a few days.
For those 24 to 72 hours I am a free woman. Free to let my inner Would Chuck out. I am free to toss with wild abandon (the things that I buy) and straighten up without the eyes of consternation (and futility) upon me.
In 72 hours I can empty the cupboards in the kitchen of three-year-old spices; cracked cups, which followed us from apartments to house but have not seen a drop of coffee in their tenure in our employ; and nearly empty containers sitting on the shelves alongside their most recent replacements. I can rid the refrigerator of things we will never eat but seem a shame to waste.
During those precious 72 hours I can find appropriate boxes and put things inside of them. And where I put these things they stay. For three days the scissors are in the drawer with the utensils (where I always look for them) and the mail is sorted in the bins with our names. For three days nothing piles up on the counters, nothing is draped on chairs and everything that has a place is in it.
In that long weekend of casting out I reclaim my inner soul.
"What is that? Who cares, it's gone," I sing to myself as I pitch another little bit of something that mysteriously appeared and that we never use. Only the recycling piles up: Seventeen half canisters of ground cinnamon await reclamation, their long-stale contents down the drain and rinsed away. I vow to shop more wisely and resist impulse. I feel lighter and the weight of the chores seem lighter, too.
Of course when he finally comes home, kicks off his shoes and flings his coat toward the chair, missing it by mere inches, I'll be glad to see him, but I'll also be ready.
"Hey, where are you going?"
"To Target; apparently we need another coat rack."
Is it because during the first blush of romance the female Would Chuck looks at the newspapers and magazines piling up on the chairs of a Packrat's bachelor pad and thinks, 'Finally! a man who reads?'
I know that there are many, many, many people out there who think they live with the king (or queen) of all packrats, but let me tell you, as politely as I can, that you are wrong.
That distinction, I'm afraid, belongs to me and the 5,600 square feet of space underneath my house that allows my husband to collect thousands upon thousands of very important things.
And for those of you who think a Packrat can be reformed, let me explain why they call us Would Chucks: We would chuck if we could chuck, but the Packrat just finds it, fishes it out of the trash and restores it to its unnatural habitat. Otherwise we’d be heralded worldwide as Do Chucks.
Yet the thing I didn't realize until recently was how Would Chucks who are also consumers -- folks who would normally throw out two items for every one they bring home -- enable their Packrat counterparts by adding to the inventory of things that will never go away.
In the end, most Would Chucks wind up being Packrats by proxy.
So it is with this in mind that I tell you, dear reader, although I love my husband, I also love when he's away on business for a few days.
For those 24 to 72 hours I am a free woman. Free to let my inner Would Chuck out. I am free to toss with wild abandon (the things that I buy) and straighten up without the eyes of consternation (and futility) upon me.
In 72 hours I can empty the cupboards in the kitchen of three-year-old spices; cracked cups, which followed us from apartments to house but have not seen a drop of coffee in their tenure in our employ; and nearly empty containers sitting on the shelves alongside their most recent replacements. I can rid the refrigerator of things we will never eat but seem a shame to waste.
During those precious 72 hours I can find appropriate boxes and put things inside of them. And where I put these things they stay. For three days the scissors are in the drawer with the utensils (where I always look for them) and the mail is sorted in the bins with our names. For three days nothing piles up on the counters, nothing is draped on chairs and everything that has a place is in it.
In that long weekend of casting out I reclaim my inner soul.
"What is that? Who cares, it's gone," I sing to myself as I pitch another little bit of something that mysteriously appeared and that we never use. Only the recycling piles up: Seventeen half canisters of ground cinnamon await reclamation, their long-stale contents down the drain and rinsed away. I vow to shop more wisely and resist impulse. I feel lighter and the weight of the chores seem lighter, too.
Of course when he finally comes home, kicks off his shoes and flings his coat toward the chair, missing it by mere inches, I'll be glad to see him, but I'll also be ready.
"Hey, where are you going?"
"To Target; apparently we need another coat rack."
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Muppets get their marching orders
Another piece of sage advice that I disregarded: Never, under any circumstances buy toys in a child's presence.
The idea is that if you NEVER buy toys or candy or colorful trinkets while your kids are with you, even if they're NOT begging for them, they will eventually understand that you are the brick wall between consumerism and their overflowing toy chests, and that asking is futile.
My resolve to this parenting style lasted all the way up until Ittybit learned to talk, and asked oh-so-syrupy sweetly for a stuffed cat. She named him Fudgy and my fate was sealed.
I am a pushover.
So when we recently visited an apple orchard — that for some strange reason (possibly a result of the fact that farmers don't live by apples alone. ... You know since China surpassed our apple production in the '90s) harbors an entire gift shop of overpriced toys and novelties that have nothing whatsoever to do with apples — and Ittybit started begging and pleading for a stuffed cow that chimes moo (three times) when you press its middle, we struck a bargain.
If we bought the $10 bovine she would choose two toys in her collection that we would ship to an underprivileged kid somewhere in the world. She quickly agreed.
Back at home, and before her afternoon nap, we make room for Moo on her bed. Buffy Bunny and two more of Bunny's friends (Ittybit was insistent they travel in threes) are selected for a second chance at love, and we box them up.
"Where are they doing to do, Mama?"
"Well, babe, there's this nice woman in Iraq who is collected toys for kids who don't have anything. We're going to ship them to her in the mail,"
"That will make somebody very happy, right?"
"That's right."
As she drifts off to sleep, clutching Moo, I am relieved that the transaction went so smoothly. However, what I didn't count on was just how big this notion would grow inside her preschooler mind, taking over all of her bedtime thoughts.
That evening at bedtime: (This is the part in the story when most parents will realize that preschoolers don't read fine print.)
"Mama? Where's Kermit?"
"Don't you remember, we're sending him, Zoe and Buffy Bunny to Iraq so they can make some children happy."
"Why?"
"Because you have so much and there are some boys and girls there who have nothing."
"Why?"
"Because there's something called a war there, and it's very bad. Some of the children who live in Iraq are alone and scared. Your toys might help cheer and comfort them."
"Oh. ...
Are they standing up or sitting down?"
"Um ... standing up? What do you mean?"
"We dotta put that in a cage!"
"Uh. ... What I don't understand?"
"We have to get that raccoon out of there so the kids can play with Kermit. We need a cage to put him in."
"Honey? ... What raccoon?"
"You said we're sending Kermit to a raccoon for a childrens because they're lost and lonely. Isn't that what you said?"
"I said e-rack, not 'a raccoon.' We're sending toys to Iraq. It's a country in the middle ... oh, never mind. We'll talk about this when you're three, OK?"
The next morning while looking at the box, which is now addressed and ready for shipping, the excerise starts again.
"Ma-ma. Is Kermit in there? Where is they going?"
"They ARE going to Iraq. Remember. We discussed this yesterday."
"Oh, right, right. But I don't shink the raccoon needs any something. We need to send them to the big giant moose."
NOTE TO SELF: Invest in a world map.
Do a good deed today: United States Army Corp of Engineers Officer Edmay Mayers is taking it upon herself to distribute playthings to impoverished children in Iraq. Until recently she's been buying stuffed animals and candy with her own means, but the need has overwhelmed her resources. If you have gently used toys that need children to love, send them to her here: Edmay Mayers, USACE-GRS, APO AE 09331.
The idea is that if you NEVER buy toys or candy or colorful trinkets while your kids are with you, even if they're NOT begging for them, they will eventually understand that you are the brick wall between consumerism and their overflowing toy chests, and that asking is futile.
My resolve to this parenting style lasted all the way up until Ittybit learned to talk, and asked oh-so-syrupy sweetly for a stuffed cat. She named him Fudgy and my fate was sealed.
I am a pushover.
So when we recently visited an apple orchard — that for some strange reason (possibly a result of the fact that farmers don't live by apples alone. ... You know since China surpassed our apple production in the '90s) harbors an entire gift shop of overpriced toys and novelties that have nothing whatsoever to do with apples — and Ittybit started begging and pleading for a stuffed cow that chimes moo (three times) when you press its middle, we struck a bargain.
If we bought the $10 bovine she would choose two toys in her collection that we would ship to an underprivileged kid somewhere in the world. She quickly agreed.
Back at home, and before her afternoon nap, we make room for Moo on her bed. Buffy Bunny and two more of Bunny's friends (Ittybit was insistent they travel in threes) are selected for a second chance at love, and we box them up.
"Where are they doing to do, Mama?"
"Well, babe, there's this nice woman in Iraq who is collected toys for kids who don't have anything. We're going to ship them to her in the mail,"
"That will make somebody very happy, right?"
"That's right."
As she drifts off to sleep, clutching Moo, I am relieved that the transaction went so smoothly. However, what I didn't count on was just how big this notion would grow inside her preschooler mind, taking over all of her bedtime thoughts.
That evening at bedtime: (This is the part in the story when most parents will realize that preschoolers don't read fine print.)
"Mama? Where's Kermit?"
"Don't you remember, we're sending him, Zoe and Buffy Bunny to Iraq so they can make some children happy."
"Why?"
"Because you have so much and there are some boys and girls there who have nothing."
"Why?"
"Because there's something called a war there, and it's very bad. Some of the children who live in Iraq are alone and scared. Your toys might help cheer and comfort them."
"Oh. ...
Are they standing up or sitting down?"
"Um ... standing up? What do you mean?"
"We dotta put that in a cage!"
"Uh. ... What I don't understand?"
"We have to get that raccoon out of there so the kids can play with Kermit. We need a cage to put him in."
"Honey? ... What raccoon?"
"You said we're sending Kermit to a raccoon for a childrens because they're lost and lonely. Isn't that what you said?"
"I said e-rack, not 'a raccoon.' We're sending toys to Iraq. It's a country in the middle ... oh, never mind. We'll talk about this when you're three, OK?"
The next morning while looking at the box, which is now addressed and ready for shipping, the excerise starts again.
"Ma-ma. Is Kermit in there? Where is they going?"
"They ARE going to Iraq. Remember. We discussed this yesterday."
"Oh, right, right. But I don't shink the raccoon needs any something. We need to send them to the big giant moose."
NOTE TO SELF: Invest in a world map.
Do a good deed today: United States Army Corp of Engineers Officer Edmay Mayers is taking it upon herself to distribute playthings to impoverished children in Iraq. Until recently she's been buying stuffed animals and candy with her own means, but the need has overwhelmed her resources. If you have gently used toys that need children to love, send them to her here: Edmay Mayers, USACE-GRS, APO AE 09331.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Variety is the spice of life
Recently the husband and I, with grand-parental intervention, stepped out for a night on the town. Alone.
A friend of ours was having a comedy show at a local venue and we were prepared to go and laugh until our sides fell off, have a few pricy beers and partake in conversations that didn't hinge on inquisitive primates, purple dinosaurs or colossal red dogs.
We made our way to the address we'd been given and found the Basilica Industria, a former knitting mill-turned-performance space along the Hudson waterfront. Since we don't get out much, it should go without saying that we were beyond early. On this evening, however, we expected to be right on time.
"I thought his e-mail said 8 o'clock," I say as we arrived to a hive of behind-the-scenes activity. Tattooed women and ponytailed men were busily performing sound and lighting checks. Some were still setting up chairs. A tall, lanky man wearing a full-length blue leotard, spangled rabbit ears and eight-inch stiletto heels was roaming amid the chaos.
"At least we have the right place," I say.
We go and find someone to take our money and realize our second surprise of the evening.
"Fifty bucks! I thought this show was supposed to be $15 apiece." No matter, I'd gotten the time wrong I'd probably misread the ticket price, too.
We hand over the cash and staked claim to two seats on a dais facing the stages. While he goes to get two brews from the concessions, I peruse the flyers on the cabaret table in front of me.
"No wonder everything's wrong," I say when he returns. "He's not performing until next week."
I can see a game of rock, paper, scissors forming in his head -- the winner of which will sit and finish their beer while the loser goes off to try and get back our picture of Ulysses S. Grant -- when more of a crowd trickles in.
"Pssst. Excuse me, sir?" I ask of a man who plunks himself down next to us. "It seems as if my husband and I are accidental hipsters tonight. What are we about to see?"
"Oh, dear friends, you have bought yourself a ticket to the other greatest show on Earth. You, my dears, are in for an evening of revelation and rejuvenation. Amazements the likes of which you've never seen before await you. (Cue echo chamber:) This is the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus.
(Actually the man said, "Oh, it's a really a cool circus act or something," but since we had decided the better part of valor would be to stick around, I amended the description when it turned out he had, in fact, undersold it.)
When the lights finally went down, a hobo clown trudged into the audience to bum a smoke. I knew right away from the expression on his face -- a fluid, indescribable look that marks a good actor even when he doesn't speak -- that this wasn't going to be amateur night.
Co-founder Keith Nelson's Kinko the clown moved imperceptibly from what at first appeared to be stiff and awkward attempts at slinging cigar boxes to a masterful display of diabolo juggling during his lengthy performance. Later, as Mr. Pennygaff, Nelson swallows swords in a display so terrifying I could barely watch.
About a dozen equally skilled performers added more astonishing feats to the bawdy act.
Ringleader Philomena, the troupe’s other founder Stephanie Monseu, in addition to her role as MC, swallows fire and gives school marm a new definition -- two things that I think should make her a shoe-in for public education should she grow weary of this particular circus of the bizarre.
More glitter follows as aerialist Una Mimnagh hurls herself from a trapeze dangling only a few yards from the stage, and is caught midway by a rope she'd curled around her torso; a burlesque troupe out of Albany, The Lipstick Lovelies, gyrate lasciviously as the laughs continue; Una returned to share the limelight with cowboy Angelo Iodice, and their dueling bolos routine ricochets in unison against the hollow stage to the delight of the crowd; and the aforementioned rabbit -- Scotty the Blue Bunny -- who as it turns out plays violin, did whatever it is that homosexual turquoise bunnies do best under the glare of a spotlight. All of which was accompanied (or orchestrated, not sure) by The Amazing Sxip, (pronounced "Skip") billed as a one-man Mutant Harmonica band.
When the lights came back up and we made our way to our car, suffice it to say I actually felt good about being parted from my money.
I know we all want to get something for nothing, and this particular raucous cup of tea isn't for everyone, but it reminded me how distanced we are from the real magic of entertainment.
We shell out comparable amounts of money for Hollywood special effects and larger-than life celebrities smoothed by gel filters, and in doing so, without even knowing it, we lose an understanding of what real talent looks like on a human scale. To be reminded seemed a bargain at twice the price.
Variety, after all, is the spice of life.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Good cop, bad cop ... or accomplice?
I've seen the future, and her mother is wearing thigh-high go-go boots and short shorts, too.
Standing on the street corner with a boy I can identify by name as well as age are two girls I don’t know. Both are wearing form-fitting striped sweaters, hip-hugging belts, short shorts and high-heeled boots.
Had I not just come from the local library and been on my way to the farmers' market, I might have thought I was visiting Hunts Point in the Bronx. I've never been, mind you, but I've seen the HBO special on its prostitutes.
My husband, trying to balance borrowed books while choosing vegetables, pretended not to notice. He was, no doubt, unable to determine which was worse: the looking or the seeing.
"That's the style in Manhattan, you know," he says off-handedly when I mention the girls' attire later as we select apples from a vendor. "I bet their mothers are wearing the same thing at home."
Oh, the horror.
One way or another, like it or not, this perennial battle of parenthood will be ours one day.
The day will come when we will have to decide whether or not Ittybit leaves the house wearing ... well ... something I'd rather not describe. But until seeing the local street-corner gals, we had thought we'd be in the good-cop side of the fashion patrol.
As two people raised by parents who respected our decisions (to a certain degree) and whose collective teenage fashion faux pas amount to the Miami Vice look (him) and pink-streaked hair and combat boots (me) I can safely speak for him when I say we are feeling ill-prepared to deal with a potential Lolita.
I may be jumping the gun a little since Ittybit has only recently started preschool, but our clothing wars have long-since begun. And horror of all horrors: The seeds of destruction may have already been planted by yours truly.
It turns out her favorite dress -- a backless halter number acquired for $3 over the summer in a Target sale -- has already raised the eyebrow of at least one grandparent.
During a family party I watched in ignominy as the grandma tried her best to cover up Ittybit's naked shoulders. And I had to wonder. Was I one of those moms who thought sexy on a baby was cute? Of course I have trouble putting sexy and baby together in a sentence, but I understand there are people out there who will and do.
My thinking in buying the dress -- aside from its color and rock-bottom price -- was along the lines of: she spends half the summer wearing only a diaper and sunscreen, any piece of cloth would be an improvement. That she clutched the t-shirt soft material to her chest and didn't want to part with it long enough for the cashier to scan the price tag made it all the more attractive. When every outfit is a battlefield, it's nice to have one that’s a coup.
But with one sideways glance -- and the mention of indistinguishable posterior views of mothers and daughters at the shopping mall these days -- part of my world turns sideways.
I'm not sure which team I'm supposed to root for. The navel showing above low-rise pants, the distinctive sound of flip-flops clapping their way through Juniors' departments everywhere might very well belong to someone's mother. The part of you that hates getting old cheers her on, while the part of you that wants your daughter to respect herself jeers in her general direction. Where is the line?
Let's start by some admissions, shall we?
I am hardly ever an appropriately attired grownup. I have worn the same uniform -- Levis jeans, long-sleeve jersey top, bulky sweaters and some form of low-heel boot -- since I was in high school. Now, my clothes are not fashionable but all of my parts (save an ankle here and there) are covered.
I cringe a little every time my husband returns from the grocery store commenting on the latest middle aged woman he thought was a teenager. "PA-thetic," is his assessment.
"Am I any different?" I want to ask. I know I don't look like any of those moms in the commercials: the ones in khaki trousers and pastel blouses with their tasteful three-quarter sleeves. Those women are all happily cleaning the floors with the latest Swiffer product, so I know I'll never look like them. But I don't think I look like the ones vying for the position of prom queen, either.
I suppose we'll just have to wait and see, and hope that parkas will be back in fashion when our day of reckoning comes.
"You won't believe what I just heard," said the husband, munching on a cider doughnut. "A woman at the farm stand was talking about buying her daughter a $300 pair of jeans. She saw my jaw drop at the price, and she said 'yeah, but you should have seen her in them'."
"Thanks, I think I'll pass."
Standing on the street corner with a boy I can identify by name as well as age are two girls I don’t know. Both are wearing form-fitting striped sweaters, hip-hugging belts, short shorts and high-heeled boots.
Had I not just come from the local library and been on my way to the farmers' market, I might have thought I was visiting Hunts Point in the Bronx. I've never been, mind you, but I've seen the HBO special on its prostitutes.
My husband, trying to balance borrowed books while choosing vegetables, pretended not to notice. He was, no doubt, unable to determine which was worse: the looking or the seeing.
"That's the style in Manhattan, you know," he says off-handedly when I mention the girls' attire later as we select apples from a vendor. "I bet their mothers are wearing the same thing at home."
Oh, the horror.
One way or another, like it or not, this perennial battle of parenthood will be ours one day.
The day will come when we will have to decide whether or not Ittybit leaves the house wearing ... well ... something I'd rather not describe. But until seeing the local street-corner gals, we had thought we'd be in the good-cop side of the fashion patrol.
As two people raised by parents who respected our decisions (to a certain degree) and whose collective teenage fashion faux pas amount to the Miami Vice look (him) and pink-streaked hair and combat boots (me) I can safely speak for him when I say we are feeling ill-prepared to deal with a potential Lolita.
I may be jumping the gun a little since Ittybit has only recently started preschool, but our clothing wars have long-since begun. And horror of all horrors: The seeds of destruction may have already been planted by yours truly.
It turns out her favorite dress -- a backless halter number acquired for $3 over the summer in a Target sale -- has already raised the eyebrow of at least one grandparent.
During a family party I watched in ignominy as the grandma tried her best to cover up Ittybit's naked shoulders. And I had to wonder. Was I one of those moms who thought sexy on a baby was cute? Of course I have trouble putting sexy and baby together in a sentence, but I understand there are people out there who will and do.
My thinking in buying the dress -- aside from its color and rock-bottom price -- was along the lines of: she spends half the summer wearing only a diaper and sunscreen, any piece of cloth would be an improvement. That she clutched the t-shirt soft material to her chest and didn't want to part with it long enough for the cashier to scan the price tag made it all the more attractive. When every outfit is a battlefield, it's nice to have one that’s a coup.
But with one sideways glance -- and the mention of indistinguishable posterior views of mothers and daughters at the shopping mall these days -- part of my world turns sideways.
I'm not sure which team I'm supposed to root for. The navel showing above low-rise pants, the distinctive sound of flip-flops clapping their way through Juniors' departments everywhere might very well belong to someone's mother. The part of you that hates getting old cheers her on, while the part of you that wants your daughter to respect herself jeers in her general direction. Where is the line?
Let's start by some admissions, shall we?
I am hardly ever an appropriately attired grownup. I have worn the same uniform -- Levis jeans, long-sleeve jersey top, bulky sweaters and some form of low-heel boot -- since I was in high school. Now, my clothes are not fashionable but all of my parts (save an ankle here and there) are covered.
I cringe a little every time my husband returns from the grocery store commenting on the latest middle aged woman he thought was a teenager. "PA-thetic," is his assessment.
"Am I any different?" I want to ask. I know I don't look like any of those moms in the commercials: the ones in khaki trousers and pastel blouses with their tasteful three-quarter sleeves. Those women are all happily cleaning the floors with the latest Swiffer product, so I know I'll never look like them. But I don't think I look like the ones vying for the position of prom queen, either.
I suppose we'll just have to wait and see, and hope that parkas will be back in fashion when our day of reckoning comes.
"You won't believe what I just heard," said the husband, munching on a cider doughnut. "A woman at the farm stand was talking about buying her daughter a $300 pair of jeans. She saw my jaw drop at the price, and she said 'yeah, but you should have seen her in them'."
"Thanks, I think I'll pass."
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Yard Sale - The totally authorized biography
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"The weather guy always lies," I grumble as I sort tiny shirts, pants and dresses and arrange them into lumpy piles. I leave some articles in the bag; they were destined for the trash bin anyway.
I hate yard-sale day. I hate feeling an obligation to purge my life of mistakes and recoup some of the misspent cash. I hate how the idea of it pulls me in with a do-it-yourself entrepreneurial air, but how quickly its atmosphere dissipates into something less desirable.
You can tell a lot about a person by their yard sales. Like that other roadside attraction -- bumper stickers -- yard sales are authorized biographies. While bumper stickers offer onlookers detailed tables of content, yard sales offer the annotated autobiography.
Both can tell you a lifetime worth of information in short order: Religious affiliations, favorite bands, who they supported in the last two elections, even what their kids are doing in school -- either they're honor students or they're beating up your honor student.
In my neighborhood the lives are fairly similar. We all have clothes we've held onto for sentimental reasons that wind up hanging from ropes when we forget what they were. You can find beat up toys and playthings that never got much attention; impulse buys that became instantly obsolete; exercise equipment picked up no doubt at last year's events, which will circle the block for at least a decade more; cassette tapes, sitting unused since you bought that new car with the six-CD changer six years ago, and mix tapes that might as well be torn pages from a diary. There is usually something that defies logic. In our case that something would be a half-dozen paper napkin dispensers.
I would wager there is also the something that its owners don't really want to sell but will offer up because they know someone will buy it. It's the loss leader: the item that makes certain that our sale -- when snubbed by the throngs of strangers who paw through our things with left eyebrow raised and upper lip curled in symmetry -- doesn't become a negative review of how we live. Of course, if someone does buy this once-treasured possession, we tend to mourn its departure from our lives.
On my hour off, I make my way to the farmers' market to buy Asian greens and soy beans checking out the sales in front of historic homes and manicured lawns along the way. I notice these sidewalk shops show the difference between us: Not as much impulsivity to the buying in these-here parts. I find antique baskets, with antique prices; etchings, prints and pieces of furniture that require houses with "libraries' (pronounced with an English flourish).
Even the Jones families on the side streets are keeping up. They offer designer clothes and tasteful handbags in their yard-front shops. There’s not a sign of kitsch anywhere; nothing that says "what one Earth possessed you to waste the kids' college education on that?"
Everything offered in these curbside boutiques is neat and tidy. You can almost see generations of children, sitting around a card table, sipping lemonade as they play the parlor games that are now gently worn and carefully stacked, awaiting new homes.
In a few hours I'll be bundling the remnants of our lot for Goodwill and wondering why I bother with this mid-step at all.
But by the time I get back with my bags of unpronounceable produce, my partner in slime has a full smile and is waving six dollar bills in my direction.
"Imagine that, hon -- I just sold all those napkin holders."
Sunday, September 24, 2006
New shoes are bound to cause blisters
Some people like to tell me that I've changed now that I've become a mother.
They say this gleefully, as if they always knew my softer, nurturing side would win out over my acerbic, cynical side. I don't have the same zest for off-color humor I once had, or so they say. I wax nostalgic about just about everything, even wax.
But as I stare into this empty white page, I wonder: What happened to me?
Did I just become a mother and all the other aspects of life faded into unimportance?
Did I buy into the notion that raising a child was the most important thing I would ever do in my lifetime, all the rest be damned?
Had I gone over to the dark side? The one I had eschewed from every precipice of my adult life. It was possible; my new wardrobe was starting to show pinks and other airy hues from beneath its comfortable layers of black.
One thing is true, where once all roads lead to my hatred for (but undeniable urge to watch and take in) morning talk/news shows or national politics or pretty much anything that comes from a spigot at Starbucks, my love for this little creature growing (too fast) before my eyes overshadowed it all.
But that does not mean I ceased to exist, does it? The world as I knew it wasn't an illusion.
I propose what might have happened is that I ceased to be an expert.
All of a sudden, I didn't KNOW anything. I had to feel my way through one problem to another with little by way of guidance. I had to stop and ask for directions. I learned what worked for someone else didn’t necessarily work for me.
I had to admit when I was wrong, because clearly my mistakes were increasingly visible.
Neighbors, you know, they talk:
Other things are only visible to me:
I once had a globe trotting friend who told me that life, when you are unsettled, is always the most challenging to your sense of self. It almost always takes you away from the person you thought you were and hands you to someone you hardly recognize. And for a time you don't even realize what’s really changed.
When you are trying to figure out the ins and outs of a new city, trying to get the business of living all squared away — get a job, meet new people, learn a new language and customs — you forget that you once wrote poetry or enjoyed nature walks.
When you finally remember, and mourn the loss, the new challenge will be to fit bits of your old life into the new one.
Until you make the business-end of life fit like comfortable shoes, it seems, blisters are an unavoidable part of the process.
They say this gleefully, as if they always knew my softer, nurturing side would win out over my acerbic, cynical side. I don't have the same zest for off-color humor I once had, or so they say. I wax nostalgic about just about everything, even wax.
But as I stare into this empty white page, I wonder: What happened to me?
Did I just become a mother and all the other aspects of life faded into unimportance?
Did I buy into the notion that raising a child was the most important thing I would ever do in my lifetime, all the rest be damned?
Had I gone over to the dark side? The one I had eschewed from every precipice of my adult life. It was possible; my new wardrobe was starting to show pinks and other airy hues from beneath its comfortable layers of black.
One thing is true, where once all roads lead to my hatred for (but undeniable urge to watch and take in) morning talk/news shows or national politics or pretty much anything that comes from a spigot at Starbucks, my love for this little creature growing (too fast) before my eyes overshadowed it all.
But that does not mean I ceased to exist, does it? The world as I knew it wasn't an illusion.
I propose what might have happened is that I ceased to be an expert.
All of a sudden, I didn't KNOW anything. I had to feel my way through one problem to another with little by way of guidance. I had to stop and ask for directions. I learned what worked for someone else didn’t necessarily work for me.
I had to admit when I was wrong, because clearly my mistakes were increasingly visible.
Neighbors, you know, they talk:
- The kid leaves house looking like blind person dressed her.
- She hasn’t combed her own hair now, 8 days.
- She washes floor with sink hose? (ok, I’ve done this forever, but I’m blaming motherhood now).
- When was the last time Ittybit had her hair washed? I think a forest is growing in there.
- When she drags the recycling to the curb its mountainous terrain threatens to blot out the sun.
Other things are only visible to me:
- I can remember the last book I read because it was only one of three in the last three years, although I can’t remember how it ended.
- I haven’t been out with friends for more than a year.
- I miss my old self sometimes.
I once had a globe trotting friend who told me that life, when you are unsettled, is always the most challenging to your sense of self. It almost always takes you away from the person you thought you were and hands you to someone you hardly recognize. And for a time you don't even realize what’s really changed.
When you are trying to figure out the ins and outs of a new city, trying to get the business of living all squared away — get a job, meet new people, learn a new language and customs — you forget that you once wrote poetry or enjoyed nature walks.
When you finally remember, and mourn the loss, the new challenge will be to fit bits of your old life into the new one.
Until you make the business-end of life fit like comfortable shoes, it seems, blisters are an unavoidable part of the process.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Tantrum yoga
She wanted to draw.
After breakfast, before work, she wanted to "draw a pisher." But there wasn't time.
Her body is board straight: legs pressing agilely against the back of the driver's seat, arms stock still and clamped to the rim of her car carrier. Her bottom will never make contact with seat.
Her ability to wedge her tiny weight against me, leveraging it against my will, is a sight to behold. No matter how I beg, plead or push there’s no physical way to for me to buckle her in.
Regardless of our divergent goals, we sound alike.
As crazy as it sounds, this is nowhere near as dangerous as the Lunch Strike of '05, when Ittybit refused to eat anything put on a plate in her presence, unless the sustenance in question belonged in the ice cream family.
Nor is it as frightening as the early Sleep Strikes of '04, when her tiny infant body, worn in a Snugli frontpack by a sleep deprived mommy, writhed uncontrollably amid cat-like sobs until suddenly falling slack-limbed into a scream-induced sleep. The immediacy of which caused a hand mirror to be placed under her nasal passages to assure life signs.
In some ways, I suppose, the latest incarnation of histrionics – this real, honest-to-badness frustration fest — is just more entertaining. I'm beginning to think of it as TANTRUM yoga.
For those of you unaware of the persistence that is necessary to perform such feats, let me go over some of the poses:
Sitting poses are especially appealing for capture avoidance. In them, toddlers can easily avoid interception by one of two variations. First, they may ball up into a tight little package. If the sheer force of will were enough, giant spikes would protrude up from their overalls and onesies to repel meddling parents. Another option at their disposal from this position is to turn into a noodle. This is when the toddler relaxes every muscle in her body at the very same rate as each and every one of yours tenses.
While neither variation will aid the child in staving off the inevitable, it will throw a parent off long enough for them to bring out the big guns, known to all grown people as the "wriggling fish."
This is the pose, in which you finally are able to get the child into your arms, they struggle with the vim of a brown trout trying to get away from a black bear.
Tantrum yoga is an art every toddler tries to perfect and every parent tries to counteract. It’s the yin and yang that brings us together.
Sometimes when I witness these escalations — usually before work, going out to dinner or even just to go to the bathroom by myself — the positions I find her in, and often have to extract her from, are truly astounding. Each episode, I think, would make a good exercise program. Before I can plan my cable access debut, however, I realize the routines are really too taxing and should be less routine.
Every parent finds themselves in the position of defusing these minor catastrophes. We decide which battles to wage, which to relinquish and which to handle diplomatically. Sometimes we win. Sometimes we lose. Sometimes we draw.
After breakfast, before work, she wanted to "draw a pisher." But there wasn't time.
Her body is board straight: legs pressing agilely against the back of the driver's seat, arms stock still and clamped to the rim of her car carrier. Her bottom will never make contact with seat.
Her ability to wedge her tiny weight against me, leveraging it against my will, is a sight to behold. No matter how I beg, plead or push there’s no physical way to for me to buckle her in.
Regardless of our divergent goals, we sound alike.
"I. Have. To. Go. To. Work."
"NOooooooooooooooooooo!"
"But. I. Have. TOooo."
"But. I. DON’T WAAAAAAAAAAANT you TOOOOOOOOOOO! I wanna DRAWWER!"
As crazy as it sounds, this is nowhere near as dangerous as the Lunch Strike of '05, when Ittybit refused to eat anything put on a plate in her presence, unless the sustenance in question belonged in the ice cream family.
Nor is it as frightening as the early Sleep Strikes of '04, when her tiny infant body, worn in a Snugli frontpack by a sleep deprived mommy, writhed uncontrollably amid cat-like sobs until suddenly falling slack-limbed into a scream-induced sleep. The immediacy of which caused a hand mirror to be placed under her nasal passages to assure life signs.
In some ways, I suppose, the latest incarnation of histrionics – this real, honest-to-badness frustration fest — is just more entertaining. I'm beginning to think of it as TANTRUM yoga.
For those of you unaware of the persistence that is necessary to perform such feats, let me go over some of the poses:
Sitting poses are especially appealing for capture avoidance. In them, toddlers can easily avoid interception by one of two variations. First, they may ball up into a tight little package. If the sheer force of will were enough, giant spikes would protrude up from their overalls and onesies to repel meddling parents. Another option at their disposal from this position is to turn into a noodle. This is when the toddler relaxes every muscle in her body at the very same rate as each and every one of yours tenses.
While neither variation will aid the child in staving off the inevitable, it will throw a parent off long enough for them to bring out the big guns, known to all grown people as the "wriggling fish."
This is the pose, in which you finally are able to get the child into your arms, they struggle with the vim of a brown trout trying to get away from a black bear.
Tantrum yoga is an art every toddler tries to perfect and every parent tries to counteract. It’s the yin and yang that brings us together.
Sometimes when I witness these escalations — usually before work, going out to dinner or even just to go to the bathroom by myself — the positions I find her in, and often have to extract her from, are truly astounding. Each episode, I think, would make a good exercise program. Before I can plan my cable access debut, however, I realize the routines are really too taxing and should be less routine.
Every parent finds themselves in the position of defusing these minor catastrophes. We decide which battles to wage, which to relinquish and which to handle diplomatically. Sometimes we win. Sometimes we lose. Sometimes we draw.
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