May 22, 2006

what’s in YOUR fridge?

One morning about ten years ago, Wade poured himself a cup of coffee and went into our living room, probably to read the New York Times (because we used to do that on Sundays, back in the day). A half hour or so later, he went back for a refill, and couldn’t find the pot. “Where’s the coffee?” he asked me.

We looked everywhere. And, eventually, we found the carafe in the refridgerator, right where he had left it. Ha ha, so funny!

It got even funnier when he did it AGAIN a few weeks later. And for all these years, I have teased him about that (oh and the time he put the cheese in the pantry, but I’ve kind of lost my edge about that these days. Anyway . . . )

On Saturday, I made coffee, drank some, and put the carafe in the fridge to have later iced. At lunch time, Wade opened the refridgerator and said, “After ALL THESE YEARS!”

“What?” I said, thinking he had finally figured out what was causing the funny smell in the crisper (because really, what IS that? can you smell it? yuck).

He pulled the coffee pot out of the fridge and said, “All these years you’ve been laughing at me for putting the coffee in the fridge, but LOOK WHAT I FOUND!”

“Yeah,” I said, “I put it there. I’m going to make iced coffee later.”

“Dammit. I thought I FINALLY had you.”

“Nope. Sorry.”

And we still have no idea what that smell is.

May 19, 2006

I think this calls for the sparkly espadrilles, don’t you?

I have a dinner playdate with my friend Molly and her sons tonight; this morning I got this e-mail from her: “The boys are excited about seeing Henry and Charlie, which will hopefully translate into mommies sitting in the library enjoying a cold drink while the boys run around and wear themselves out.” Molly, if you’re reading this, I hope that “cold drink” is code for “something alcoholic.” Please. Because what could be better than lounging in the library with a cocktail while the children play upstairs? Nothing. I may even dress up for this (by which I mean capri pants from Banana Republic instead of Old Navy).

This morning, to get myself in the mood for summer, I broke out the martini shaker–no, not to make a martini; first of all it was only 9:30 am and second of all, every fool knows that you never shake a martini (it bruises the gin–you pour the gin into a chilled martini glass, spray the top with a vermouth spritzer, and add a twist of lemon). No, I use the martini shaker to make iced coffee: sugar, ice cubes, milk, cold coffee (either left over from the morning or chilled in the fridge)–shake shake shake–voila! I put cinnamon in with my coffee grounds, which gives it a little kick, or you can put a splash of vanilla in the shaker. Or a shot of Bailey’s! Yummy.

Right now I need to get a shower and maybe shake up some more coffee, but you can entertain yourselves with A. O. Scott’s review of The Da Vinci Code. Skip the novel, skip the film, but READ THE REVIEW.

Just so you know: yes, I read The Da Vinci Code and found it completely uncompelling–I gave up 73 pages from the end (which I never do as I am always compelled to finish everything–remember when I was reading The Other Boleyn Girl?) because oh my god WHO CARES any more and what was Dan Brown thinking having chic Sophie Neveu show up in LEGGINGS and a big sweater? Frenchwomen don’t dress like that, even at two am! Look at what she’s wearing in the movie trailer! A fabulous suit and GREAT shoes. THAT’S how French women dress. All of Brown’s meticulous historical research into the alternative narratives of Christianity were completely undermined for me by those leggings. I mean really.

I stuck with the book for as long as I could and then when I got tired of hitting my head on the book every time I DOZED OFF which was after EVERY OTHER PARAGRAPH, I called my friend Amanda, who had finished it two days before, and said, “TELL ME HOW IT ENDS!” and she had to get her copy out and LOOK because the ending is THAT forgettable. So no, I most likely won’t shell out $15.00 to see the movie, plus the BABYSITTER, that’s like a whole new pair of shoes right there! But the review! So funny! I love A. O. Scott. Go. Read. I have cocktails to make. Er, coffee, I meant COFFEE. Yes, coffee.

May 18, 2006

today was a nice periwinkle blue

Today was Henry’s End of Year Music Performance, which may explain yesterday’s mood. But! This time it was good! Fine, really! Okay, Henry was great, if by great you understand me to mean that he stood where he was supposed to and didn’t flail his arms or yell. In fact, he actually SANG some of the songs, although it was a lot for him to sing AND do the hand motions; not surprisingly, he opted for hand motions on about half the songs. But! Still! I didn’t feel like I needed a sedative when it was over, although I really did need a tissue. Another mom said to me afterward, “I bawled the entire time. I knew I would cry, and then I would have a headache. And now my head hurts!” And she laughed and I laughed too, which was HUGE for me.

You know my big fear is always that Henry will be The Kid Who Stands Out, But Not In A Good Way. Today I got to be the mommy of The Kid Who Stands Out In A Really Great Way. Henry’s class sang the Days of the Week song (to the tune of the Addams Family theme, complete with pretend snapping) and then the teacher said, “Can we sing it in Spanish now?’

And Henry said, “We can TRY!” And everyone laughed.

The real surprise, though, was that Henry can DANCE. They played a song about different kinds of dancing–the Pony and the Twist and the Swim–and the big kids danced along. It was a riot, but nothing was funnier than Henry’s twisting, or his really concentrated pony, or–best of all–his free-form jamming. He wound up front and center, rockin’ out, and the boy had his groove thing on.

And I cried. Of course!

After school I took the boys to the video store, because tomorrow is THE FIRST DAY OF SUMMER and I told the boys I would take them to the zoo (you know, three days ago when the weathermen were still saying it was going to be in the 70s all week instead of in the 90s like it REALLY is–where am I going with this? Oh, yes VIDEO STORE). So we’re in the video store and Charlie picks out Spy Kids while Henry goes with Winnie the Pooh: Springtime With Roo. After our huge day of school and play and poking each other with K’Nex, we watched movies: Charlie watched Spy Kids in his room while Henry watched Winnie the Pooh in the family room. I mostly sat with Charlie, as his movie seemed more likely to be scary (and, honestly, how many times do I have to watch the Pooh version of A Christmas Carol–okay, but it’s about Easter, not Christmas, and it’s Easter Bunny Easter not Jesus Easter. Again, where was I going with this? No idea). Once when I came out to check on Henry, he said, “Is Charlie still watching the movie? Is it scary? Maybe I can ask him to tell me about it when he’s done watching it and then I can watch it with him.”‘

I just stared at him because that was such a good solution. They spent all of dinner talking about the movie–Henry would ask a question and Charlie would answer, or, more often, would say, “Mommy, what happened when . . . ” and I would have to admit that I had no idea because I was browsing at the JCrew web site for most of the movie (is summer weight cashmere REALLY practical? Because its SOOOOO pretty). Oh, and ordering a new camera at Amazon! And springing for the overnight shipping because my god how much longer can I go without a camera! Only one more day, apparently.

When Wade came home, Charlie met him at the door yelling “We watched Spy Kids and it’s the COOLEST MOVIE EVER!”

“It’s really cute,” I told Wade.

“NO!” Charlie yelled as he raced out the back door to play spies in the back yard. “It cannot be cute! It has to be COOL!”

Tonight, instead of putting his pajamas on, Charlie was hopping around the room in his t-shirt and underwear, telling me what color each of his stuffed friends was. “Froggie is green AND yellow! But Red Bear is ALL RED!”

“What color are you?” I asked.

“THIS color,” he said.

“What color?”

“I’ll SHOW you!” he said, pulling his clothes off. Then he broke into a manic dance and yelled, “I’M CHARLIE COLORED!”

May 17, 2006

apparently, a good night’s sleep just makes me crabby!

Everyone at my house slept all night, in their own beds, which SHOULD mean that I am well-rested and cheerful today, yes?

No. Oh, I got plenty of sleep–including a little nap in Henry’s bed, where I dozed off at 6:00 last night (I fell asleep to the sweet sound of Charlie playing on the floor and telling a story and woke up to the sweet sound of Henry playing in the SAME spot and telling essentially the SAME story. It was weird, like I had traveled through some sort of time warp). Perhaps because I AM so well-rested, things are pissing me off more than normal. Thank GOD I have you all to share my aggravation with. Here’s the short list of Things That Are Irritating Me Today:

1. Oklahoma’s archaic liquor laws. Seriously, would it be THAT bad for society if I could pick up a bottle of wine in the grocery store instead of having to go to the liquor store? Frankly, I think it’s WORSE that I am left to beg my husband to stop at the liquor store because I can’t take the kids in with me (no one under 21 permitted, and the mangers of the very chi chi liquor warehouse closest to us are sticklers about this, as I suppose they should be). People in Wade’s office are convinced that I have A Problem, because Wade thinks it’s funny to put me on speakerphone when he KNOWS I’m calling to say “Stop at the beer store on the way home! And hurry!”

2. Parents who think its just fine! to let someone else entertain their kids at the park or bookstore. Please don’t assume, just because I’m playing with MY kids (digging in the sand or reading stories), that I am willing to entertain YOUR kids, too. Oh, sure, I’m happy to have other kids join us, and yes, I will probably stick around because I have a son who is still honing his social skills and sometimes needs a little coaching, but that doesn’t mean that you can TURN YOUR BACK and start talking to your friends or on your cell phone or LEAVE THE CHILDREN’S SECTION to go look at magazines in another part of the store. You should also know that while I will, absolutely, rescue your toddler–TWICE–when he gets stuck on a climber that is WAAAAY too big for him, or read your daughter a My Little Pony book even though my own children are asking to hear superhero books, I would really like it if you would say thank you. Or notice. The first time it happens.

3. People who say, “I don’t believe in ADHD.” I am sympathetic to this, I really am, because until Henry was diagnosed, I, too, was skeptical. When I taught high school, I had more than a few students who had been diagnosed with this thing or that thing or the other thing, and they were forever saying, “Oh, Ms. Wagner, I CAN’T take an essay test, my psychologist says . . . ” or “Ms. Wagner, TEN PAGES of The Red Pony is TOO MUCH READING” or “But haven’t you seen my FILE? I have a LEARNING DISABILITY!” I felt, frankly, like these girls were just trying to get out of doing their homework (and, a lot of the time, I was right). But then I had Henry, and I saw what a kid who is truly–TRULY–hyper and distractable is like. So yes, I can see how you might doubt the label, especially as the media are constantly harping on the “over prescription” of ADHD meds, but before you speak, remember this: saying, “I don’t believe in ADHD,” is the equivalent of calling me a bad parent, because what you are implying is that my son’s behavior is the result of something I am doing or not doing. Too much TV, too much sugar, too little sleep, too little discipline, too little exercise. And while I like to assume that you would never say, to my face, “I don’t believe in ADHD,” leaving a comment at a popular parenting website saying it is essentially the same thing.

Now I’m really mad about that liquor law thing, because I could really use a drink.

I have days where I feel like it might be better if I were a little more thick-skinned–if I didn’t worry so much about my kids and how they behave and how they play with other kids, or if I took people’s toss-away comments less personally. But the truth is, I’m not. Raising my kids is a lot of work, and god knows I am sympathetic to that urge to just have FIVE MINUTES to talk with another grown up or flip through the new Vogue, but it’s not my job to pick up the slack. And I spend a lot of time worrying that I’m NOT doing a good job and that I’m somehow falling down on the job (you know, for wanting that five minutes to do something NOT kid related). In my real life–the one where I interact with ACTUAL people, not just commenters at a web site*–everyone is very sympathetic and supportive. But I know that there are people who think differently, and when I am reminded of them, even when the comment isn’t directed at me, it aggravates me. Because dammit I’m doing the best I can here.

Today wasn’t a total loss, though–I met two very nice women at the park who made a point of introducing themselves when their sons came over to play with my kids (who had a big bag of sand toys and were happy to share), and this afternoon Leslie brought her kids over and the big boys all played nicely while she and I visited and tried to convince Jake to SIT DOWN and eat at the table instead of wandering all around my house with a fistfull of Teddy Grahams. But still–sometimes those little things just get under my skin, in ways that they shouldn’t. And they make me crabby.

*As odd as it may sound, I think of the readers of THIS web site as part of my real life, particularly those of you who comment and e-mail me regularly. Nobody HERE has made me crabby; it was someone somewhere else, and in that other commenter’s defense, she had no idea that she would touch a nerve. But she did, and there it is. But you people! I love you all! You know that, don’t you? Because you are supportive and sympathetic, and when you disagree with me you do it in ways that are both civil and constructive, and I appreciate that so very much.

I just wanted to be clear about that.

May 16, 2006

in which my rock-n-roll lifestyle finally catches up with me

Happy day after the day after Mother’s Day! I didn’t mean to leave Caitlin Flanagan up there for so long, but I kind of lost track of time. How on earth did it get to be TUESDAY already? And where have I been for the last four days?

I’ll tell you where: NOT SLEEPING. That’s where.

My children seem to have entered into some sort of conspiracy whereby only ONE of them sleeps through the night, while the other comes in at 3:00 am to request that I snuggle. “Snuggle” is, of course, code for “let me kick you repeatedly for the next hour or three while you smash into my teeny weeny little bed.” It’s killing me, it really is.

The deal is this: last Wednesday, Henry was getting sick and was up all night; Thursday everyone slept all night in their own beds. Friday night, Charlie came in at 3:30 and climbed into the big bed next to me; we don’t typically let the boys sleep in our bed, but I wasn’t sure that Charlie wasn’t sick, too, and it seemed easier to let him stay in my bed (which is a king) than it would be to get in HIS bed (a twin). And no he’s not sick but MY GOD does he snore. And when he’s not snoring he’s sucking his thumb, which is totally noisy.

Saturday night we had dinner with some friends who live in Norman, which is a bit of a drive from here, and so we didn’t get home until nearly 9:00 (okay, and we were also slurping margaritas while the kids all played nicely in the upstairs playroom, which really took away any incentive to leave earlier). The five of you who know me for real will understand how crazy it is that my kids were STILL UP at 9:30 on a Saturday night; the rest of you should know that lights out Chez Friday Playdate is always no later than 8:00 pm, and usually closer to 7:30. At 3:00 am, Henry came in and announced that he was afraid of the dark, so I got in bed with him and was awake until 5:00 or so. He went to sleep, I went back to bed until 8:00 and he slept until 9:00.

Sunday night both kids were asleep at 7:15. Not just in bed, but ASLEEP. There was much rejoicing. There was also much discussion of the fact that Henry had not had his Focalin that day, and much deciding that the two things were probably NOT related.

Yesterday, Henry had his meds. Charlie took a nap at school, which he NEVER does, thus confirming the theory that the boys were tired from the weekend. Bedtime went on forEVER last night, and included a long stretch in which Charlie lay under the ottoman (or “otto-MINT” as he likes to say) in our family room, sucking his thumb and watching Wade work, so once again the boys were awake late. Everyone finally fell asleep around 9:00 and slept right through until 2:30, when Henry came to get me up. This morning I feel like my eyelids are made of paper mache. I may die before lunchtime. Seriously.

Oh, and! yesterday was the last day of Everyone In School At the Same Time until school starts in the fall! I spent the morning editing this post to submit for a book on special needs kids and shopping for flip flops at JCrew (big sale!). Last night, just as I was starting to think OH MY GOD I’M GOING TO DIE THIS SUMMER, my friend Caroline called to say that she has quit her job because she so desperately missed playing with me (no, that’s not really why she quit, but not working WILL free up more time for us to play). We have a playdate next Friday, her first work-free day, and I can’t wait–although I may not live that long unless people here start sleeping.

That is all. Tomorrow I’ll tell you all about how I’ve been beautifying myself with various peroxide-based products! I know you can’t wait.

May 12, 2006

it’s not a mommy war, it’s a culture war; or, Happy Mother’s Day, Caitlin Flanagan!

My housekeeper didn’t show up today; she called after lunch to say that her daughter had broken her arm and she had just gotten home from the doctor and could she come tomorrow instead? How about Monday? I asked, thinking that this would be easier for her and for us. Yes, she said, Monday.

But of course this morning I had done MY half of the housework to get ready for the houskeeper to come and do the OTHER half, and because this week I wanted her to do some extra things, I had gone ahead and stripped the boys’ beds and cleaned the kitchen–you know, to make up for the extra things. So this afternoon, I had to finish what I started, because despite their protestations, the boys can’t sleep on bare mattresses tonight, and then I thought that while I was at it I could take a Clorox wipe to the fixtures in our bathroom which made me think that, really, it was the BOYS’ bathroom I ought to be wiping up and maybe spraying with Lysol before I put out clean hand towels and bath rugs. I did all that, and now my house is in some funny limbo where it’s not REALLY clean, but it SMELLS kind of clean and the bathrooms are fairly germ-free–in other words, I spent an hour doing the kind of half-assed houskeeping that led me to hire the cleaning lady in the first place.

All of which made me think that I should finally write about To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife. Caitlin Flanagan has been taken to task by liberals and Democrats and feminists (and liberal Democrat feminists, which is where I put myself on the spectrum) for being classist and racist and sexist, and I agree with all these criticisms. But honestly, they weren’t what struck me the most about this book.

Flanagan writes that this book “is about the stubborn longing for an earlier way of life, and about the way that longing manifests and reasserts itself in the imagination of so many modern women. It is less a book about what we have gained than it is a book about what we have lost” (xxiii). In her exploration of “what we have lost,” Flanagan offers some really insightful observations about the cultural swing towards idealizing domesticity (the return of the BIG white wedding, the middle class adoption of the nanny, the deification of Martha Stewart); these parts of the book–the historical and sociological readings–are fascinating and spot-on. But each of these observations is followed by a story from Flangan’s own life–my personal horrific favorite being the one in which she encourages her nanny to protest the government’s treatment of domestic workers, but refuses to pay the nanny when she wants the day off to participate in a strike.

Through all of this, I kept waiting for Flanagan to make some larger connection to other cultural trends, because I think there is a clear link between this longing for Donna Reed and bans on gay marriage and abortion, and fears about sexual predators and the safety of our public schools, and our obsession with SuperNanny and plastic surgery shows–all of which evidence, to me, a longing for the kind of past that Flanagan mourns. But instead of following through and reading this in some definitive and useful way (the home–and by default the, wife and mother, who is always identified with the home–is the site of the new culture war, for example, which I think it is), she writes about how she responded to her son’s bout with stomach flu by summoning the nanny to clean up the mess. No wonder the feminists are angry.

Flanagan is dead on that what we are seeing is a nostalgia for a bygone era, but her happy claims about how she is embracing her traditional marriage don’t do anything to allay–or even identify–the fears that are causing this nostalgia. In the wake of Columbine and Elizabeth Smart and 9/11, we are all desperate for a time and place where home felt like a safe haven, and we are looking to women–to mothers–to make the world safe again. When things go wrong at home–in the house, in our schools, in our country–women are blamed. After the Columbine shootings, the media asked over and over how it was possible that the shooters’ parents–particularly their mothers–didn’t know what was going on. When Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped from her own bedroom, it was her mother’s fault because she was the one who brought the crazy man into the house in the first place. And most wrenching of all is the story of Laura Manning, who was badly burned in the 9/11 attacks at the World Trade Center and spent nearly a year in hospital recovering–a year in which, media reports emphasized over and over, her infant son learned to walk and celebrated his first birthday without her–because, see, she risked her life to go to work instead of staying home with her baby.

We live in a culture of fear and the media’s obsession with the “Mommy wars” plays on this fear by insinuating–or, really, saying right out–that women are failing their children no matter what they do. The domestic sphere has always been associated with women, while the public sphere is the province of men. When women leave the home and step into the public sphere, bad things happen. Likewise, when men settle too comfortably into the domestic, the world goes to hell. I think Flanagan is absolutely right that we are longing for a time when things were simple–but she is overlooking the reality that “simple” often meant “unjust” and “oppressive.”

To Hell With All That is well written and often funny, but it was a baffling read for me. Over and over, Flanagan seems to be on the verge of some fascinating revelation about our society–about how living in a credit-based culture means that anyone can buy class, about how nannies walk the line between members of the family and hired help, about how breast cancer threatens to rob women of their essential femininity–but she doesn’t follow through. And this, more than her politics, was what I found so disappointing.