Jun
07
2013

i’m lovin’ it

Posted by

I’d like to leave you this week with some bobs and bits of ridiculous stuff I found while trolling Facebook that might help you, too, waste valuable time today.

941755_10151641003932722_308371440_nFirst, if you spent a good portion of 2012 trying to figure out what all the fuss was over Breaking Bad and then about two straight weeks of doing nothing but binging on the AMC series, you’re probably starving for the tale of Walter White to resume in August. While you wait, have fun trying to find all your old friends in this cartoon. Already forgot about Gus, Gale and Tortuga? Here’s a cheat sheet:     http://studiostobie.com/studio/?p=1040

 

 

The limited release of Joss Whedon’s adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing has reminded me how much I love the Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator who also brought us one of my all-time favorites, Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esiIFLI3ryI

And I know I’m super-late to the Brene Brown party, but I can’t stop thinking/talking about her TEDX talk on vulnerability (just ask my therapist):

And finally, why can’t they just shut up and listen?

Jun
05
2013

fuck fear

Posted by

My girlfriend emailed me this video yesterday and had written “Fuck Fear” in the subject line and I was inspired not just by the whole “Lean In” thing but by the sentiment of those two words combined.

I’m tired of being afraid. Of not feeling good enough. And I have to keep reminding myself, “If not now, when?”

Luckily, just looking at myself in the mirror nowadays is a reminder that I am not the girl I used to be, when I see the slight sag in my belly while I’m sitting drying my hair or the deep wrinkle creating a slash down the side of my cheek.

And I will be very disappointed with myself if I don’t at least TRY to live the life I want to live before it’s too late.

So I started this year off by announcing to my therapist early in January (thus going on the record) that I was no longer fucking around and had three goals for my year:

  1. To concentrate on my writing.
  2. To go on an adventure.
  3.  To to be open to love.

And while, as noted previously, I haven’t been super-proactive in the love department, I’ve actually followed through on the other two.

Obviously, at long last I got it together and launched the blog and while I don’t post as often as I’d like to, I’ve been pretty regular with my writing. And now that I’ve conquered that part of the equation, I’ve decided to throw my hat into the official blogger ring and attend the BlogHer conference in Chicago and hobnob with fellow over-sharers in July.

(Sidebar: I knew it was a sign I should attend when BlogHer announced that Sheryl Sandberg would be their keynote speaker.)

And in August, right before I say hello to 47, I will spend a week sailing around the Dodocanese Islands on a small boat surrounded by strangers on what I hope is the adventure I’ve been longing for yet tired of waiting to find someone to share it with.

So, I say, “Fuck you” to fear (or try to, at least) and not only do I encourage my daughters to take risks and believe in themselves, but my boys as well.

My youngest son, who’s 10, learned that this morning when we found ourselves scrambling, once again, to get him out the door to an early saxophone lesson. It’s been the bane of our existence the entire school year, getting him to the weekly lesson and practicing at home a few times a week. It’s all led to him feeling inadequate as the other kids have improved and he continues to struggle with the instrument.

So I looked into his big eyes this morning as we sat parked in front of the school, — and really, you’ve never seen such bright blue eyes — just brimming with tears, and I assured him that he could be just as good as those other kids, he just needed to get serious and practice hard before next week’s concert.

And then I told him what I named this essay  and to dry his tears and get out there and give it his all.

Because life is an equal opportunity challenger, as we are reminded is this quote that I’ve been loving by Teddy Roosevelt delivered over 100 years ago:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again … who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

My little guy got out of the car and walked towards the school’s front entrance, weighed down by the instrument case in one hand and a backpack stuffed with about 20 pounds of text books and pretzels, hanging from his back. About 10 steps from the front door he turned around and gave me a little wave and then opened the door and entered the arena.

May
30
2013

stinky way to start the day

Posted by

IMG_2483I found it in the refrigerator yesterday as I was digging out the half and half for my early-morning coffee.

There it was, sitting quietly next to the pancake mix and Frank’s buffalo sauce, like a time bomb waiting to explode.

I had sent my son to the market the day before to pick up something we needed for dinner and told him he should also buy sandwich fixings for lunch this week. He’s starting his summer job working for a landscaper and I knew he could barely afford the gas to drive to work each day, much less buying lunch.

“Get some of their good ham,” I suggested. “Or maybe a container of pulled pork.”

And while he did take my advice and get the pork, he also bought something that is banned from my house. Like, even my ex-husband, who was not great with boundaries, knew it was off limits.

It’s fucking tunafish. There’s a big, oozing tub of it on the lower shelf of my fridge and I can’t stop thinking about it.

It freaks me out.

If I ever got, like, a piece of it on my hand, I’d have to chop it off.  It is my mortal enemy.

I worked in a deli in college and had made it clear that I did not get involved with the freaky vat of tuna for subs (or egg salad, for that matter). If you were working with me, you just knew that when an order for tuna-anything came in, you would be slathering the stuff on a roll and not me.

I found myself working with a friend one weekend afternoon our senior year, and although we were sorority sisters and had lived together the year before, she was having none of my tuna-bullshit.

An order came in for a tuna sub and she turned to me and asked me to make it. I balked.

“Make the fucking sub,” she instructed, and I knew I was being difficult and irrational, but I was actually afraid of the stuff.

In the end, it turns out I was even more afraid of her, and found myself scooping the smelly brown glop from a tub and smearing it on a sub roll.

Traumatizing.

On a recent flight to San Francisco with the kids, a family seated a few rows behind us – reluctant, it seemed, to pony-up the cash for inflight dining snackboxes – cracked open their lunches from home and the smell of tuna immediately filled the cabin.

It was all I could do not to turn around and give them the hairy eyeball for subjecting 20 rows of passengers to their lunch stench. Selfish.

And now it’s living in my house.

I’ve seen my son make a sandwich. I’ve witnessed the aftermath of debris all over the counter and sandwich matter caught in the teeth of a serrated knife lying in the sink. I don’t know if I could handle bits of tuna lying on my granite counter or perhaps dripping down the side of the container and threatening to infect the innocent pint of strawberries sitting nearby in the frig.

My first instinct when I saw the tub yesterday was to quickly wrap it up in a Target bag and throw it out in the trash in the garage.

“Don’t do that,” advised my daughter, who was almost as freaked out as I was by the discovery, but definitely more pragmatic. “It would be such a waste.”

And I know the tuna-buyer would certainly tell me I’m being a baby (which I’m sure he will after he reads this) and that’s possibly true, but he’s got his own list of of phobias (used Band Aids and hair in the drain, come to mind).

So maybe he should understand how bugged I am.

In the time it took for me to write this, I’ve heard him banging around downstairs making lunch and getting ready for another day working in the hot sun. I hope his sandwich is especially delicious when he eats it in a few hours.

And if he ever were to ask me how much I loved him, I wouldn’t say, “I love you from here to the moon and back.”

I’ll tell him, “I love you so much, I let you keep tunafish in my refrigerator.”

Because that is truly love.

Want to share on Twitter or Facebook? You can e-mail posts, too. Click on those little icon-y doodads down below. You can also receive emails alerting you to new posts by subscribing to A My Name Is Amy to the right of this post. Don’t say I don’t try to make your life easier.

 

May
24
2013

winter is coming (and it’s only memorial day)

Posted by

P1000028I was lying on a bed in a hotel room in the-middle-of-nowhere Virginia last week, waiting for my daughter to finish her final exam for the semester, when I posted the following on my Facebook wall: “Winter is coming.”

And I know that Memorial Day is here, and maybe I’ve been watching way too much Game of Thrones lately (hello, Khal Drogo), but I just couldn’t shake that imminent sense of doom.

Because like the good people of the House of Stark living in the north on the HBO series, I know that hard times are coming. On the show, they’re always ending conversations with the ominous, “Winter is coming,” tagline. Only now I totally get what it’s like to see the shadows quickly creeping towards you. I might start guzzling wine like Cersei before too long.

The summer months have always been challenging for me and now I fear the seasonal shift will be even more pronounced as I go from tending to the day-to-day needs of only two children back to the full load of four.

It’s like someone lifted a giant weight off my shoulders only to sneak it back on while I was folding laundry.

I don’t want to assume I’m doing what’s expected of me, just minding my own business while working on my laptop or turning ground turkey into one magical thing or another, only to turn around and get my head lopped off, Ned Stark-style, by some terrible enfant.

And so far, it hasn’t been terrible. My oldest son, at 20, seems to have come to terms with many of the conditions for living with his family and has been seen clearing dinner dishes and wiping counters and I’ve heard he might have even pet the cat once or twice. And his sister, who’s 19, has come in handy picking up and dropping off her younger siblings to work or baseball or sometimes she even drives me if I want to have a cocktail or two. I have also hired the older two to handle the cleaning of our pool,which  currently resembles the Black Lagoon, a task that has always fallen under my purview. It’s time to pass that time-consuming baton to those who actually have time.

Don’t get me wrong, though. Things aren’t like all rainbows and puppy dogs over here. I came down this morning to find a number of shoes lying around the family room floor and a pair of bunched up socks stuffed behind an ottoman. There’s generally a few bowls sitting in the sink, the remnants of a late night snack of ice cream or spaghetti and sauce caking the surface and much of our stainless steel sink, to greet me each morning.

And I hesitate to mention the big dent that recently appeared in the rear of our car.

It could be worse though, according to a girlfriend, whose two college kids brought home ants and mumps, respectively.

And I know it pissed the older kids off when I wrote about this before, and although they are the divas of the brood (NOTE: If you are reading this, my loves, don’t even pretend this isn’t true. It’s part of your charm.), it’s not really the specific people. It’s quantity over quality in this matter.

There have been some bright spots. I looked out the kitchen window one day earlier this week and saw the two older kids sitting in beach chairs in the backyard with their noses buried in books, and for some reason, I was not annoyed. If they were sprawled on the couch in the middle of the afternoon watching Vampire Diaries or Adventure Time, I think I would screamed the way I did when I found a certain someone still asleep at 12:30 yesterday afternoon.

But it was nice to see that all those nights of reading to them when they were young, learning for the thousandth time what happens when you give a moose a muffin or put a sister up for sale, weren’t for nothing.

So I’ll put up with the shoes scattered all over the mudroom and the daily “What’s for dinner?” because it’s a part of the package of being their mom. And aside from the fantasy of shipping all, maybe a few, okay just one of them off to the proverbial Wall, Nights Watch-style, what are my options?

Oh, the things I do for love.

 

 

 

 

May
14
2013

Five Reasons Mother’s Day Was Pretty Okay

Posted by

IMG_2445 I used to joke that Mother’s Day was not for mothers. If it were, I reasoned, moms would be able to slip away, guilt-free, and spend the day free from butt wiping and nugget baking or whatever was the urgent-need-du-jour.

But that never seemed to be the case. There were brunches to attend and pasta necklaces to wear.

I went to visit a college friend over Mother’s Day weekend a few years ago and my kids and their dad were, like, totally insulted. How could I choose a weekend of shopping, glasses of wine and catching up with a dear friend over them asking me, repeatedly, what I wanted to do on Mother’s Day?

If Mother’s Day was truly all about giving moms a break, we would just be able to switch our OFF DUTY lights on like yellow cab and ignore all those frantically waving arms trying to get our attention.

But somewhere along the way, Mother’s Day has started to seem a little more special to me. I look forward to seeing what the kids have up their sleeves. And I don’t know if it’s because they’re older or that their dad’s not around to pick up the holiday slack, but the kids have really stepped up their Mother’s Day game.

Or maybe it’s just that I’ve learned to keep my expectations low. That could be part of the equation, too.

But even with only two kids living at home this Mother’s Day, I felt loved and appreciated – if only for a day – by my people.

Forthwith, the top five reasons why my Mother’s Day was pretty okay this year:

IMG_2439REASON #5: My house did not catch fire.

He might have had to get up at 6:30 a.m. to pull it all together and in the meantime, put everyone in the house at risk while we slept, but my 10-year-old son can whip up a solid batch of scrambled eggs for breakfast in bed. They may have been served cold and arrived earlier than I planned on waking, but I could feel the love rising off the plate. And, he remembered I liked hot sauce.

IMG_2436REASON #4: Love and candy from miles away.

Although they weren’t home for the big day, my two college kids had the foresight and wherewithal to send me flowers and candy that arrived Saturday. Was the effort likely spearheaded by my daughter? Probably. Were the flowers ultimately bought with money I had deposited in their bank accounts? Of course. But could you ever put a price on the enclosed card that declared, “We miss you so much mom!”? No way.

IMG_2442REASON #3: I was a happy guest.

My sister hosted our family for lunch and it was lovely, filled with lots of siblings, our mom and steak. I even brought along a cake. But the party prep and cleanup were handled by my sister and her husband and for that, I was supremely grateful.

 

IMG_2443REASON #2:  The ultimate gift from a teenager.

The 15-year-old handed me a card with an envelope addressed “Mother Dearest” in kidnapper-style cut out letters (she knows I am a sucker for that form of correspondence).

Inside was a post-it note announcing I was about to embark upon a scavenger hunt, and off I went, searching for the next post it note marked with a clue and a letter. Once they were all collected, I unscrambled the letters and found they spelled: “Check your Facebook.”

525736_10151589668497173_1625768403_nI grabbed my phone and found a friend request from this daughter who had made it her mission to avoid being linked to me on social media, despite her two older siblings succumbing over the last few years. And while she also got me a gift card for a massage, don’t tell her that that was just icing on the cake. She had me at Facebook.

REASON #1: A crack in the wall.

My ex husband and I have had a less-than-ideal split. We married way too young and had different visions of what a committed relationship should look like but somewhere in between the arguing and long stretches of silence, we brought four children into this world. And he held my hand and fed me ice chips and loves those people as much as I do.

While we were married, he had to buy me flowers and have the kids make me a card. It was part of the deal. But now, with all that obligation long out the window, any gesture from him is seen in a different light.

So when I saw the text from him wishing me a Happy Mother’s Day first thing Sunday morning, I felt that maybe there was hope for us after all. Like Reagan and Gorbachev, maybe we could find a way to tear down that wall, if not for us, then for the good of our people. And that, would be the best gift of all.

IMG_4798

 

 

May
08
2013

mommy math

Posted by

images-3I have a confession to make: although I purport to be this harried mother-of-four – making a sandwich with one hand while blogging with the other — the truth is that over the last nine months two of those kiddos have been far away at school.

The brother and sister are back-to-back grade-wise so he graduated and left for college in 2011 and she followed suit the next year.

And do you know what I’ve learned in that time?

That basically I was a fucking asshole for carrying on the way I did way back when about NEEDING four children. Seriously, ask my former husband, I cried.

Having two kids is AMAZING. Seriously, hats off to all of you who had the good sense to stop at a pair. It’s easy street.

There’s just less of everything: laundry, shoes scattered in the mudroom, food crumbs in the pantry, plastic water bottles in the recycling and definitely a reduction in personalities. That right there is worth the cost of two college tuitions.

So I read with interest a newly-released survey by the geniuses at the Today Show this week reporting that parents with three children are seemingly more stressed out than parents with four or more children.

“Call it the Duggar effect,” the article on Today.com proclaims. “Once you get a certain critical mass of kids, life seems to get a bit easier.”

Please, somebody, help me do that math. Because as far as I’m concerned, it’s a numbers game, people. And even though I majored in English and couldn’t convert a fraction to decimals if you paid me, I clearly understand that 2 children + 2 children = more of everything.

Like, get in a cage with three monkeys and throw another one in and it just compounds the amount of poop, screaming and jumping around you have to put up with.

Here’s the kind of math I understand: Remember Schoolhouse Rock’s Four-Legged Zoo? Just like the animals in that cartoon zoo, all those feet (that need expensive sneakers), mouths (that need palate expanders and braces) and ears (that don’t hear a fucking word you say) just multiply with the more children that you add.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGfKbo770uw

And things get dangerous (usually for the children) the more you have if,  like me, you tend to leave one behind every now and then.

Like once I drove off in our minivan and about 10 minutes into the drive told the oldest (probably 7 at that time) to sit up in his seat way in the back, only to hear his sister say, “He’s not here.”

Another time I took the two girls to Petco to stock up on dog food and we loaded the giant bag into the car and my older daughter and I got in and I started to drive away. We drove right past the other sister, who had gone to return the shopping cart. She just stood there, watching us drive.

“I was kidding!” I assured her as she climbed in the car teary-eyed. I could tell by her face she wasn’t buying it.

But the fourth kid is the one who always seems to be slipping through the cracks. To date, I have left him alone in a neighbor’s basement while we all went out to deliver Thanksgiving dinners to the needy (he said he alternated his time between watching television and going outside to bounce on the trampoline). And two years ago we dropped him off for baseball practice only to discover two hours later when I picked him up that there had been no practice (he spent some time at the playground, apparently).

So, do I regret having four children? Don’t be silly. Being their mom has made me a better person and my life feels full and blessed with them in it.

But do I enjoy only having to cook for two kids every night and clean up our little end of the kitchen island that we can now comfortably fit around?

Well, you know what they say: Three is a magic number.

 

 

 

 

May
02
2013

bad karma

Posted by

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few years trying to make sure the universe and I are on the same page.

The universe?

You know, the “universe” which, according to sources like The Secret, a certain Tarot card reader I know and my therapist, returns to you what you put out into the world. Like a great cosmic boomerang, the universe’s law of attraction throws you what you ask for, even when you don’t realize that that’s what you ordered.

Accordingly, not only does douchy behavior beget douchy circumstances, but thoughts and words can become self-fulfilling prophesies. So while I try to make it a priority not to act like a douche bag to others, it can be challenging having all bright and sunny thoughts and conversation when my default mode is self-deprecation.

So, since my divorce I’ve tried to be clear about what I want. I’ve written down where I see myself professionally/romantically/personally a year from now, five years from now and so on.

I even cobbled together a list in my journal of qualities that I am looking for in a partner. It’s kind of great, actually, like placing an order at a deli.

“I’ll take smart with a side of respectful, hold the bully. And maybe some integrity on the side. Oh, and funny. Definitely extra funny. (You can slather that on, it’s like the secret sauce).”

But as I close in on the three-year anniversary of my divorce, my still-single status is making me wonder if perhaps the universe and I are not speaking the same language. Like I’m screaming “Hey! I’d like a really good man in my life!” in the universe’s equivalent of Mandarin when I really should be using sign language because the universe is fucking deaf.

I mean even a friend who recently announced, out of the blue, that she was leaving her husband is already madly in love with someone else.

Clearly, it’s me. Maybe I’m just too happy being single.

My eyebrow girl, who has served as a sounding board for me over the years while she tends to my brows and moustache, suggested I try making eye contact and smiling at strangers, which is the opposite of my natural inclination to quickly look the other way and pretend I’m invisible.

She even helped me create a mantra, “I am open to romantic love with a good man,” to let the universe know that I meant business (witness “romantic” love and “good” man).

I briefly considered working with that Tarot card reader a few months ago after being told that my heart chakra was blocked, thus preventing love from entering my life. I was actually going to fork over a few hundred dollars for three hour-long sessions for her to help me pry that thing open. But then I got a hold of my senses and realized I’d really rather just buy a great new pair of shoes.

So it was the universe I was worried about sending mixed messages to the other day when I found myself writing my phone number down on a blank piece of register tape for the check out guy at Trader Joe’s who told me I had a nice smile.

I had thought he was pretty chatty as he asked me about my day while bagging my faro and frozen fruit, but I didn’t really see where things were heading. But then he asked me if my husband worked from home like me, and I thought, “That’s a weird thing for a checkout guy to ask.”

Still, I was blindsided when he asked, while waiting for my credit card authorization, if he could contact me some time to “talk.”

Number one: As noted, that does not happen to me every day. Check out guys hitting on me. C’mon. I was so surprised I didn’t have time to react. I had to make a quick decision and slink away before he started ringing up the woman behind me.

Number two: I don’t want the universe to think that I’m not open to love when it was so clearly showing me, right there at the cash register, that at least the check out guy thought I was. Maybe this was some kind of a test.

I kept a straight face long enough to get out to my car and hide inside until my girlfriend answered the phone and I started howling with laughter. I think she thought I was crying at first.

I mean, seriously, I make a list of like 100 attributes I’d like in a mate — everything from his height to the absence of a felony charge or conviction — and this is the best the universe can muster?

And don’t think he hasn’t already texted. And called. Twice.

But I think I’m just going to have to tell him that while I was flattered by his interest, I just can’t run the risk of having to hide every time I need to pick up chocolate covered almonds or Greek yogurt. Because love and companionship may come and go, y’all, but Trader Joe’s is forever.

I hope the universe is listening.

Want to share on Twitter or Facebook? You can e-mail posts, too. Click on those little icon-y doodads down below.

 

 

 

Apr
26
2013

too much information

Posted by

It happened one day last week.

There I was, minding my own business in my kitchen while frittering away precious moments on Facebook, when I heard the ding of a text hit my cell.

I looked and saw my ex-husband’s name pop up and felt that familiar spark of adrenaline as a panic attack began to spread through my chest. He can be a serious text bully, and had spent a lot of time sending me venomous thoughts wirelessly during our divorce. To this day, I experience PTSD symptoms every time I see a text come in from him, even though nowadays most of our exchanges are benign and sometimes even pleasant.

But I’d been waiting for this one.

He  was wondering, via text, what our children must think of my newsletter “or whatever u call it.” He’d been hearing about it “week after week”  from others, asking him how he felt about his ex-wife writing about him and the kids.

That’s funny, I thought, my friends had been asking me the same thing. Well, now we know he’d at least heard about my blog.

“Thanks 4 that. I’m sure the kids will thank u 4 that some day too,” he finished, adding what time he’d pick up our youngest for baseball practice.

Here’s the funny part: My children are my blog’s biggest fans. They are usually the first ones  to like a post on Facebook. They always send encouraging notes after reading a post and get on me when it’s been a while since I’ve written something.

Yesterday, my oldest told me my most recent post had him “crying lol.”

“Great writing,” he texted.

When I wrote recently about my gift for getting pregnant and several subsequent miscarriages, he told me how “emotional” he felt reading it and was promoting my blog to all of his friends via Facebook.

“Writing too good for people not to see,” he wrote.

My heart swelled inside my chest, Grinch-style.

This, from the child who challenged me from Day 1. Who at times made me question myself as a mother and a person. But to be honest, he’s the oldest and had always been under my mommy microscope. Nonetheless,  I was thrilled.

But I admit, I am always nervous before posting something for all the world to see. I never want my children to feel like I’ve thrown them under the blogger bus. And though I know I have the propensity to overshare – to friends, family, complete strangers – I feel like I (usually) have a good sense of what really should stay private.

Things no one needs to read about online.

I went to hear Anna Quindlen speak at the 92Street Y a few months ago and someone in the audience asked her what her rules were for writing about her children. Quindlen said she was sensitive to it and as a rule has the subject review the piece before publication.

I, on the other hand, am not so democratic.

Of course, I have gotten a couple of texts from my college son complaining that I’d crossed the line (one time was valid and the other he completely misread). Even my post – complete with photos – about my daughter’s pigsty of a bedroom didn’t elicit any e-message to cease and desist. And that girl can be very intimidating when threatened.

My little guy walked by me while I was working on my laptop recently and spied the photo of his handywork mutilating the sheetrock in our garage as the picture accompanying one of my posts. He stopped, stared over my shoulder, and said, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

As for my former husband, well, therein lies the rub. On the one hand, the man has provided enough copy, as Nora Ephron would say, for a lifetime of blog posts. But we had a whole herd of children together and although our marriage didn’t last, I believe in my heart that he truly did the best that he could at the time.

I mean, don’t we all?

And I don’t want to speak badly about him for my kids’ sake, too. Who wants to be that ex-wife? But that doesn’t mean that sometimes I don’t want to take a little swipe. Like, I’m not perfect.

I think I subscribe to what Epron wrote in Heartburn, “Because if I tell the story, I control the version. Because if I tell the story I can make you laugh, and I would rather have you laugh at me than feel sorry for me. Because if I tell the story I can get on with it.”

Interestingly, my 19-year-old daughter and I were chatting on Facebook yesterday after she read my most recent post and she started getting all Jan Brady and complained, “You only write about the boys.”

“Really?” I asked. “You really want me to write about you?”

“Of course,” she replied. “But only the good things.”

Apr
23
2013

growing up and liking it

Posted by

Recently, conversations about STDs and the regular use of deodorant reminded me of the two worlds of parenting I straddle with my four children.

My two sons bookend their sisters as the oldest and youngest of the brood and with 10 years between them, the only thing the boys have ever been on the same page about simultaneously is their mutual fascination with lizards (one has one, one wants one).

Early one day, I spoke with my oldest guy who’s 20 and away at school. It’s cute now, how we check in every once in a while and he tells he about his life in college and sometimes that he’s feeling blue. I love that we’ve finally moved away from being on the defense with each other like we’re the Knicks and Bulls (obviously I’m Carmelo in this scenario) to practically being on the same team (he can be Jason Kidd). Although if I really wanted to get this NBA metaphor right, it’s more like I’m the team owner and he’s the star player, because he’s always looking for a raise.

So he called one morning and we chatted about classes and his health and he told me that his fraternity had hosted a bunch of other chapters over the weekend for various activities (the details I did not ask).

One program of note was that the guys had a speaker come to talk to them about STDs. The presenter was really funny, my son said, “But Mom, you should have seen the pictures.”

He didn’t even try to describe them to me, they were that bad.

They were so profoundly horrifying that he said a bunch of the guys was considering going to the infirmary to get tested, just to make sure their situations never appeared in a future slideshow.

Later that day, I made my way over to our elementary school to preview a film that my younger son would be shown later this school year. You know, “THE MOVIE.”

It’s called “Growing Up And Liking It,” and it’s what’s shown to all the fourth graders at our school at the end of the school year:

A: as a public service to all those teachers trapped in hot classrooms with incredibly moist and stinky children to encourage regular deodorant use and,

B: to give these little guys teetering on the edge of puberty a heads up that some stuff is about to go down both on the inside and the outside of their bodies and not to be alarmed.

So, the girls get a lesson on their developing bodies and that exciting monthly event that they will grow weary of managing some 40-something years later. It even requires two DVDs to tell them all about it. And boys get the great news — spelled out in about five minutes — that their junk will grow (maybe this distinction is what put women at a disadvantage at the dawn of time).

Of course, I’ve already had three kids see THE MOVIE and I joked to all the other fourth grade mommies there that I was taking a refresher course in puberty. And there was a part of me that wanted to know just what it was my son was about to be told. But there was also a strong desire to just go back in time. My little boy lets me do that. To turn back the clock to a time before sores and pustules, bongs and Fourlouko were a part of my parenting landscape.

It turns out, it’s still the same movie that his brother saw 10 years earlier, populated by little kids in late 80s playwear and the music kind of drags, like it would get caught and needed to even out.

It starts softly, the voiceover telling the kids, teetering on the edge of middle school, that they are about to go through some changes and start thinking about things in a new way and before I know it, tears are filling my eyes.

It’s been such a long road with this little guy, who’s six years younger than his closest sibling and practically an only child, that I can’t believe he’s just moments away from becoming as grisly and ornery as the rest of them. I see glimpses sometimes of what the future holds, him balking at doing something he’s told or saying “Mom” in a certain tone, and it reminds me that even the sweetest of children falls prey to teen spirit. My house stank of it for years.

I’ve been so lucky to have been able to stay in childhood for as long as I have as a mom.  But pretty soon, I know, I’ll have to pack up Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the pogo stick and the assortment of plastic cups that have taken up valuable space in my kitchen for the last 20 years.

One of the other moms who came to see THE MOVIE arrived pushing a stroller. She had the baby in the fall and he happened to be about 10 years younger than her oldest child in fourth grade.

The other moms and I joked that she’d be back at school in a decade for her refresher course and cooed at the baby, and all I could think about was what a long road she had ahead of her.

And how lucky she was.

Apr
14
2013

take the plunge

Posted by

I know I’ve said in the past that one of the few times I missed having a man around the house was when it snowed.

That is not true.

I also wish there was somebody else around here (there doesn’t even need to be a penis involved) to help out when I see dead things floating in the pool and when a toilet starts to overflow.

Which seems to be happening around here a lot lately.

Now, I’ll take responsibility for failing to mention to my children that toilet bowls aren’t like really fancy trash cans. You can’t just put anything in there and flush without thinking there are going to be repercussions months, or sometimes even seconds, down the line.

I walked into my own bathroom last week (which now everyone uses because of the kitty litter box lurking in the kids’ bathroom) to find mounds of paper towels filling the bowl. One of the kids had cleaned something off the bathroom mirror and instead of tossing it into the trashcan literally one millimeter away, she opted to dispose of it in the toilet (yet failed to seal the deal with a flush).

Having grown up living with a temperamental septic tank, I was incredulous that anyone would even consider flushing anything but toilet paper.

“How was I supposed to know?” asked the culprit, rather nonplussed, and more than a little irritated that her mom was being such a freak about the toilet.

I also didn’t think I had to mention to the girls, in this day and age – what with all the signs posted in like every goddamn public restroom stall you sit down in – that only toilet paper should be disposed of in the toilet.

The girls were shocked to learn that feminine products, no matter how small and seemingly streamlined they may appear to be,  cannot be disposed of through the toilet. “Wait, what?” said one. “That’s stupid.”

Stupid, perhaps. But only until toilet water is starting to pour down the sides of the bowl. Then, as you are trying to remember where the fucking plunger is, it starts to make perfect sense.

.