February 28, 2006

how are you celebrating Shrove Tuesday?

I grew up Catholic, which meant that the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday was the day when my friends and I all had to decide what we were going to Give Up For Lent. In elementary school, we always gave up stupid things, like gum! and candy! which none of us really ever had anyway (and we certainly never had gum at school). But honestly, it’s hard when you are eight or nine or ten to really give up anything of significance. My father suggested, one year, that instead of giving up something that we wouldn’t be missing we try to do something instead, like pick up our rooms or make our beds before my mother had to ask us for the 200th time. I remember liking this idea, although I don’t remember if I actually followed through.

Despite the fact that I’m not a churchgoing person as an adult, I still like the notion of Lent as a time of mindfulness. After struggling with my dissertation for three years, I tried ‘giving’ it up for Lent; my insomnia went away and I was able to focus on reading and writing and teaching in ways I hadn’t been able to when I was ‘working’ on the dissertation. In the past few years, I have tried to see Lent as a time to focus on the details of my life and my day–to play more with my children, to call or e-mail friends I have lost touch with, to take time to meditate or just breathe.

This year, for the next 40 days, I want to consciously seek the peaceful moments in my day, the times when I am not feeling rushed or pulled in a hundred directions, the times when I am still and calm. I want to focus more on each moment instead of worrying about the future. I want to feel like my days are a series of connected occurrences rather than a blur of errands and tantrums and dishes. I can do that for forty days, I think.

I also have a writing project that I want to finish, which will require starting, as it is all still in my head. And no, I’m not telling what it is; you will have to wait and see, although I will say that it is something that started here. I will also say that you should read this (and if you really have some time to kill, you can read the comments too–all 1,000 plus of them) because any more, for me, writing is about the conversation not the isolated words on the paper.

Today, though, as it is supposed to be 80 degrees here, I am going to take the boys to the zoo, and then we are going out for donuts (although they will be Krispy Kreme, not proper beignets) to celebrate the start of forty peaceful days at our house.

February 23, 2006

when I die, I want to be burried with my iBook

Last night was a tough one at Casa Playdate. Various children who shall go unnamed were STILL awake and wandering the house crying and asking for water and lights and a snuggle at NINE PM. Which is WAAAAYYY later than anyone who started life in my uterus is permitted to be awake. After the four millionth time someone said, ‘MOMMY! Come snuggle with me!’ I snapped.

‘I can’t take it anymore!’ I told Wade. ‘I’m with those kids ALL DAY LONG! I have played with Charlie since 7:00 this morning! I’ve read Marsupial Sue fifteen times! I spent half an hour this afternoon trying to get Henry to do ANYTHING with us! And then when I tucked him in, he had the gall to ask if we could get on the computer and READ! After rufusing to do it every time I mentioned it today! I CAN’T TAKE IT!’

Poor Wade. He waited patiently until I stopped ranting and then, very logically, tried to help me think of solutions to the eternal question of what the hell do I do with these kids all day long? And he was, quite honestly, both sympathetic and helpful. Go figure.

I spend a lot of time during the day trying to find things that BOTH boys want to do (besides play Knock Me Down, which is just a trip to the ER waiting to happen). I am combatting both the difference in their ages and the difference in their brain structures. Charlie plays typical three-year-old games: he likes to pretend various things (kitchen, doctor, pirate) or build things with blocks, or do art projects. And he will bring me books throughout the day and ask to read.

Henry, on the other hand, lives in his head a lot–a LOT–of the time. He is particularly prone to this after a long day at school, where he is compelled to follow the rules and do his work and participate. By the time he gets home, his meds are wearing off and he is pretty much a constant fountain of chatter for the rest of the afternoon. Some days he just wants to play by himself, but on other days he will string together some elaborate pretend for he and Charlie to do together. But it’s never as simple as ‘let’s serve plastic food to Mommy and the stuffed friends,’ it’s more like ‘let’s walk in circles around the house hunting for a Heffalump and talking non-stop.’ And when Charlie gets tired of walking in circles or being told what to do, they start fighting. And I start looking into listing them on eBay.

So Wade gave me a much-needed pep talk (which included a reminder that it’s okay to let Henry go off and be alone after a long day of school, and it is also okay to ask him to do one thing–like read a small story–in order to earn the priviledge of doing something else–like hunting Heffalumps). I love that man.

But! Today! I was the best mommy in the world! For an hour, at least.

Henry has decided that he’s all about Egypt. Just today! Just this afternoon, in fact. We stopped at the bookstore on our way to get Charlie, and he picked up this book. When Charlie got in the car, Henry said, ‘Charlie, when we get home, we’re going to play Ancient Egypt. You can wear sandals or be baretoes. What do you want to do?’ And I though, oh god, my head is going to fall off.

And then I had a Miracle Mommy Moment: we would make mummies! And a tomb! It would fill the time until Daddy came home, or at least until Clifford came on.

The boys each mummified a stuffed toy–Charlie chose Hedwig the Owl, and Henry picked SuperBear, his U. S. Open commemorative beanie bear. We wrapped them in toilet paper and made death masks for them and decorated them with stickers.

We put the tent up in Charlie’s room and I asked the boys what they thought Hedwig and SuperBear might need in the Next Life. ‘BOOKS!’ Charlie yelled, gathering up a pile. ‘Flashlights,’ Henry said, ‘in case it’s dark.’ They piled in plastic food and the pillows and blankets from Charlie’s bed, and their superheros, ‘to guard the tomb.’ And Charlie threw the LeapPad in, saying solemnly, ‘They might want their laptop.’ Smart boy, that one.

When we interred the mummies, Charlie pretty much just plunked Hedwig down on the floor, but Henry made a little bed for SuperBear and tucked him in with Charlie’s fleece binkit, ’so he doesn’t get cold.’ And for one shining moment, I was the World’s Best Mommy.

Then we sat down for our snack and Henry put his foot up on the table and I said, ‘No feet on the table, please,’ and then Charlie put HIS foot on the table and I said, ‘NO FEET ON THE TABLE, PLEASE‘ and the moment was over. Sigh.

All in all, though, I would call today a success.

February 22, 2006

Wade: What are you eating? Me: Asiago cheese brea…

Wade: What are you eating?

Me: Asiago cheese bread with pesto.

Wade: A hot dog with cheese and pesto?

Me: Yes. Do you want one?

Wade: Uh, no. What are you really eating?

Me: You don’t think I would eat a hotdog with cheese and pesto? That sounds kind of good.

Wade: No.

Me: Yeah, you’re right.

February 21, 2006

it’s not possible to get fired from this job, is it?

Has anyone else realized how terribly this website exposes the lie of my assertions that I’m not sporting nice shoes and a manicure? Look! Picures of my shoes! And my hair! Twice, even! I would show you my unmanicured fingernails but I have some horrible dry skin thing going on that no one needs to see. Or hear about! Sorry.

Clearly, my life is just one big spa day. Here are yesterday’s highlights:

Charlie and I went to SuperTarget because we were out of all the essentials like milk and frozen spring rolls and zit cream and we ran into my sister-in-law’s friend M (who I only ever see at SuperTarget and the country club, which also confirms that my life is one of neverending glamour). I told her that my sister-in-law is expecting baby #4 and we chatted about M’s three girls, and it was on the TIP OF MY TONGUE to ask if she and her husband were thinking of another baby. But then Charlie said he had to go potty, so I said goodbye and went on my way.

And then, in the bathroom, I remembered that M and her husband are getting a divorce. Whoo, glad I didn’t ask about another baby! Of course, that got me fretting about not having said how sorry I was to hear they were divorcing, which reminded me that I only knew about the divorce through the grapevine and not firsthand so it was probably a good thing I didn’t say anything and . . .

And then Charlie said proudly, ‘I pooped! In the potty! Wipe my bottom.’

After SuperTarget (where I bought NOTHING that wasn’t on my carefully preplanned list) Charlie and I headed home. The garage door on my side is all whacked out from the cold weather and has to be opened and closed manually, which is a bitch in the snow and requires locking the door from the garage into the house because the door can’t be closed the entire way from the outside. I slogged through the melting piles of ice in my driveway while Charlie yelled, ‘It’s COLD! Hurry up!’ which was nice in an annoying kind of way and lugged all the groceries in while Charlie stood at the door yelling, ‘It’s COLD! Hurry up!’ which was still annoying but no longer nice and put them all away. Of course that was when I realized that I had forgotten to get apple juice, dates, hummous, and trash bags because even though we needed them, they WEREN’T ON THE LIST. Dammit.

Charlie wanted to watch Charlie and Lola, which gave me time to read my e-mail make the beds, so I turned the TV on for him and said, ‘When this is over, we will need to leave to get Henry.’ We pulled out of the garage with EXACTLY enough time to get to Henry’s school, and then I noticed that Wade had taken the trash out, as today is trash day, except instead of taking the TRASH to the curb, he had taken the RECYCLING, which the trash guys will NOT pick up. This isn’t the first time this has happened; usually we say, ‘Whew, good thing we have two trash cans!’ Today, though, BOTH trash cans were full. Overflowing. Barely containing the detrius of our life. And if we missed this week’s trash pick up, it was going to get ugly.

But! No time to switch the cans! Time to go get the boy!

I pulled up outside Henry’s school with three minutes to spare, and thought oh good, I can call and get a hair appointment (yes, I’m cutting it; don’t act so surprised) only to discover that the battery on my cell phone was dead. Thank god Henry’s teacher didn’t need to find me. Of course (OF COURSE!) when I went up to the door to get Henry, his teacher said, ‘Henry had a really hard morning. I almost called you to come get him.’ I almost said, ‘But you couldn’t, see, because MY CELL PHONE WASN’T WORKING.’ But I didn’t say that; I said, ‘Really, any time you think he’s struggling too much, just call me. I ALWAYS have my cell phone.’ Whew–that was close.

The boys argued all the way home about where they would eat lunch and what they would watch on TV (Higglytown Heros! No, the Heffalump Movie! No, Robots!) and I said, ‘We’re going to eat at the TABLE and NOT watch TV,’ over and over and OVER. At home, I sent the boys in the house, dragged the recycling back to the side of the house and dragged BOTH trash cans to the curb (they have wheels, but still). By the time I came in, I was covered in mud and snow and the boys were fighting. It was just like a Johnson&Johnson commercial. Really.

The rest of the day was filled with loving, cooperative play is a blur of flying blocks and timeouts, capped by repeated bedtime demands of ‘WHERE IS DADDY? WHY ISN’T DADDY HERE? I WANT DADDY TO READ TO ME!’ Daddy worked late, by which I mean that Daddy went out to dinner with the out-of-town consultants while I duct taped the boys into their beds and started drinking cooking sherry. And yes, I got some small joy out of the news that the tilapia at dinner was overcooked. My Cheerios, on the other hand, were delicious.

When I tucked Henry in (after some protracted debate about who Mommy would snuggle with first–both boys were yelling, ‘NO, I don’t want to be first! Go in his room first!’ which made me feel loved) he started to cry because he has decided he’s afraid of the dark and needs ALL the lights in his room on when he goes to bed. I am fairly sure this translates to ‘I want to stay up and play in my room after bedtime,’ and so I told him gently and kindly that while he could NOT have the lights on he COULD have a second nightlight. Which made him cry harder as this is a deviation from The Routine. Meanwhile, I can hear Charlie jumping on his bed and thunking into the walls. And then Wade came home. The end. (No, not really, there was more crying and insisting that Daddy’s closet is haunted and Mommy needs to come lay down with me and blah blah blah but you get the picture).

Yes, this is the life everyone is dying to have. Right? Riiiight.

February 20, 2006

it seems so appropriate to have Judith Warner in the sidebar for this

Last night I sat and read all of your comments and suggestions about my hair and Charlie’s sleep, and I can’t thank you enough–certainly for your thoughtful feedback about Charlie and all those nice things you said about the hair, but more importantly for being so respectful and kind to each other, even when you disagreed. I don’t know how it is but the comments here at Friday Playdate always have the tone of a lovely cocktail party, where everyone is wearing a nice dress and some fantastic shoes and using their party manners. I’ve been reading around at other sites where, well, that’s just not true, and I am deeply grateful to all of you for just being so darn nice. Thank you.

I was particularly aware of your niceness this weekend because while I was trapped in the house with my family for two days watching the sleet fall and fall and fall outside (we’re still trapped today! because the schools are closed! and the roads are icy! isn’t that terrific!) I had a chance to read our local newspaper, which I try so very hard not to do because it never fails to irritate me. And look! It’s happened again.

Saturday’s editorial page included a piece titled What Working Moms Do, by Jennifer James McCollum. I don’t know this woman and have no bones to pick with her personally; instead, I want to think about the way she talks about being a ‘working mom’ and why it irritates me so much.

We are all aware of the ‘Mommy Wars’ if only because the media has stoked the fire with, among other things, stories of career women who gave birth and left work and now wake up every morning wondering if they did the right thing. Recently, the talk has been about ‘opting out‘ and how this is related to my generation’s commitment to the feminist ideals of our foremothers.

In the Mommy Wars, ‘we’ are pitted against ‘them.’ Who are ‘we’? Well, what group do you identify with–working mom, stay home mom, working from home mom? Single mom, married mom, older mom, younger mom? Pick a group, please, because otherwise how will ‘we’ recognize you as one of ‘us’ and not one of ‘them’? And ‘we’ are better than ‘they’ are, in some essential way. My favorite parenting book ever is Jennifer Conlin’s The Perfect Parents Handbook. In in, with a mock seriousness similar to that in Spinal Tap, Conlin asserts that the most important part of being a good parent is identifying your perfect parent group in order that you and your children will associate with the right people. She offers each group tips on maternity fashions, what to name the baby, how to announce the birth, how to chose a preschool, what sports to play, and so on. While Conlin is being funny (and she is, truly, so very funny), her parody works because it strikes at the heart of the Mommy Wars: unless you are part of the ‘right’ group, you are a failure as a parent.

Which brings me back to the essay in the Oklahoman. McCollum, a working mother of two, lists the things working moms do: ‘buy in bulk and wear ugly shoes so they get there quickly and come back faster. . . . file their nails at stoplights and have messy cars full of things like straw wrappers, school papers, missing pacifiers covered in goo and hair, pen caps, empty packets of coffee creamer, bills that needed to [be] mailed two weeks ago and ATM receipts. . . sacrifice their locks for wash-and-wear hair . . . cry when their toddlers crush blush into the bathroom rug. . . melt when, after such episodes, their children say, “You know what, mommy? I shoooore do love you.”‘ And I found myself thinking, okay, but I do all of those things as well. And I am not a ‘working mother.’

Does McCollum really think that, as a stay-home mom, I wear pretty shoes every day? That I have time for weekly manicures or an elaborate hairstyle? That my car is always clean and free of kid junk? That I am not angry when my children destroy my things? That I don’t ‘melt’ when my sons break out the ‘I love you, Mommy’ apology? McCollum seems to be imagining the stay-home mom as some combination of Mary Poppins, Sister Theresa, and Princess Diana. And yes, I would love to be that woman, to have that life. But I don’t, nor do any of the stay-home moms I know.

For McCollum, however, the biggest distinction seems to be that ‘Working moms . . worry, cry and buy’ too much. And again I found myself wondering what precisely made the working mom different from the stay-home mom. Am I doing this wrong? Is not working supposed to free me from worry? From tears? From some sense that a stop at the dollar store just might make up for all the ways I am failing my children? If so, then I am doing a worse job than I feared I was, because not only do I not wear nice shoes most of the time, but I worry and cry more than I ever expected to. But I always assumed that this was because I was a mother, not because I worked or stayed home. ‘All these working moms know the hardest job in the world is being a stay-at-home mom,’ McCollum writes. ‘They wish, sometimes, they could be one.’ I think McCollum has completely missed the point here: the hardest job is not being a stay-at-home mom; the hardest job is being a parent. And what makes it so hard, particularly for women, is this sense that we are not all on the same side, that we are battling it out to see whose job is harder, who is making the most sacrifices, who does this best. To have our side declared the winner of the Mommy Wars.

I am so tired of this rhetoric–that working mothers desperately desire to be home with their children, that stay-home mothers are one step away from saints. I don’t believe either of these things. I think women who work have days where they are relieved to go to work rather than spending the day with a teething or sick or crabby child; I know that women who stay home full time are occasionally (dare I say often?) bored by the company of their beloved offspring. No one can live up to the ideals McCollum holds out in her essay; no one should have to. But we are clearly asked to identify with only one of these groups, and our response to the essay is clearly proscribed: if you are a working mommy, you are supposed to envy those stay-home mommies, and if you stay home you are supposed to pity the women who work. What disturbs me the most, though, is a clear sense that readers are supposed to identify with the working mother, who is knocking herself out and beating herself up in the service of her children, and not with the stay-home mothers, who have probably dropped their kids at Mothers Day Out so they can get their nails done and their hair cut. Because in the Mommy Wars it is always US against THEM, and only one side can win.

This does us all a disservice, not only as mothers but as women, and I wish we had some kind of cultural exit strategy from this conflict. And that is why I am so perpetually grateful to those of you who read and comment here. You are working mothers and stay home mothers and women without any children at all. Some of you are actually not women but men. You don’t all share my worldview or my experiences, but you are kind and sympathetic and able to disagree or offer a differing view with respect and humor. I think the Mommy Wars would be over if we all behaved this way; I think it is reprehensible of media outlets like the Daily Oklahoman to perpetuate this divisive rhetoric. I want to like Jennifer James McCollum, I want to respect her effort to articulate how hard it is to raise children and have a career and balance those things, but I am put off by the idealized picture she has in her mind of what my life as a stay home mother is like. And I think that is so unfortunate.

February 17, 2006

it’s Friday, so let’s talk about my hair

This was my hair when I was in Houston, which was, oh, a month ago. And yes, I’d had a glass of wine (or three), thus my Extra Happy Face. Party on!

This was my hair (and my vintage 1997 geek glasses, which I love, so don’t mock them) on Monday. I had to take like three dozen pictures to get two halfway good ones. Really! I probably should have had a glass of wine then.

Please note that the photos are black and white to disguise my roots, which I have not had time to touch up. And yes, they still make SunIn, although when I looked at the bottle I realized that I actually use Clairol Touch of Sun because it costs less. And it works! Okay, although it doesn’t hide the grey. Oh well.

Glad we’ve got that out of the way–watch this space on Fridays for Hair Updates. Or for the (inevitable) news that I’ve caved and cut it.

I have so much else to tell you all, like about all the fascinating conversations I overheard at Starbucks this week, but Charlie has been coming in at 5:45 am to get in bed with me, which is very cute until I try to get up and get in the shower and he cries and says, ‘I don’t WAAAANT you to take a SHOOOWWWER!’ He also cries in the afternoons because he’s tired and doesn’t want to nap. Except today, when he DID want to nap, but on the floor, and he INSISTED that I lay down with him ON THE FLOOR. I said no, and he cried. For half an hour. At bedtime he gets up like 200 times because he’s so tired that he can’t settle himself to sleep and enventually he falls apart and cries until I lay down with him (in the bed, not on the floor). So I’m feeling a little tired myself, and I could really use a long shower. And any advice the Internets might have about how to get the boy to stay in bed and go to sleep would be welcomed. We’re open to anything, including bungee cords and duct tape, just so you know.

Edited to add . . .

Hey, it’s 8:30 and I’m back to say look at you all, ignoring the complete narcisscism of this post (good lord, who needs to see all those pictures of my head?) to offer ACTUAL USEFUL ADVICE and sympathy about my demon spawn son! On a Friday night, even! Thank you, Internet. Keep the suggestions coming.

To help you out, here are Things We Have Tried (With NO Succes) To Keep Charlie In Bed:

1. Closing his door; he opens it and come out into the hall SOBBING. And then comes to find me, still sobbing.

2. The doorknob cover on the inside of the door. We did this with Henry and it worked like a charm. But Charlie can take it off! Because Henry taught him how! Whose idea was it to encourage them to like each other? Dammit.

3. Bribes. This didn’t work for the potty either, which is wierd because Charlie loves him some candy so you would think he’d be ripe for the bribing. But no! Last night, for example, I offered him a lollipop in his lunch–his favorite treat ever–and he STILL got up. Repeatedly. And then this morning had the gall to REMIND me to put a lolly in my bag for him. I think not, son.

4. Threats. I am all about the threat. Which may actually be part of my problem. Hmm. Anyway, at some point I wind up saying some verson of the following: ‘Go back to bed or we will take your stuffed friends/binkie/pillows/food/you name it away.’ And I actually have made good on some of these threats (the stuffed friends and pillows, and the binkie, although we return that to his bed once he’s calm, and of course we wouldn’t take his FOOD away, in case you’re worried. Although someone should probably do that to me).

5. Oblivion. We have actually had the most luck with the very simple strategy of ignoring him when he comes to find us. We either keep reading or surfing or loading the dishwasher or we have the MOST BORING conversation you can imagine. One night Wade told me EVERY SINGLE DETAIL of an internal review board meeting he had been to that day. I thought my brain was going to start leaking out my eyeballs. But it worked! Charlie laid down on the floor and was half asleep by the time the meeting was over. And when I said, ‘Are you ready to go to bed, buddy?’ he said, ‘Yes PLEASE Mommy.’ I kid you not.

The problem right now is that by 7:30 or so, Charlie is beyond exhausted and I have had enough of his whiny company. And so we are at an impasse.

BUT! Continue to help and sympathize. Or at least make me laugh.