Return of the Type B Mom

A few nights ago, a great friend came over to ply me with Riesling and keep me company in my current state of chef's widowdom.

I cleared a patch of cat hair on the couch for her, and grabbed some wine glasses I prayed weren't covered in Yo Baby. Then she watched with amused bewilderment as my two year-old dunked her fist in my wine glass and licked it (possibly several times before I caught her), my four year-old ate bread for dinner, I threw on Diego around 8 PM just to get them to stop jumping around like hyperactive chickens, and they both pretty much both refused to sleep until GothehelltobedalreadybeforeIkillyou o'thirty.

"I guess I'm not just the Type B mom I play on my blog," I shrugged, assuming she couldn't wait to run back to her boyfriend and say WHAT the heck is going on in that household?

I have come to this realization that all these years later it's not the parenting I still struggle with, so much as the parenting in front of people.

Here in the blog world, we can share only the stories we choose, draw them in such a way to elicit the requisite sympathy or laughs, then end the chapter. It's kind of a cheat if you think about it: The rawness and authenticity can give the impression that we're telling all, just because we tell it truthfully. You don't actually see us do all the so-called bad mommy things we talk about, like letting them watch Noggin for three straight hours, or taking the kids out on a hot June day without hats or sunscreen. Again.

I know in my heart I have awesome kids to show for the decisions Nate and I have made. Even the questionable ones. When Thalia asks Sage which placemat she wants before choosing her own; when Sage accidentally breaks Thalia's beaded necklace and hugs her in apology without being prompted; when they hold hands to walk down the street, I know we're doing something very very right.

Photo evidence

But somewhere in me, there's still this annoying, raging insecurity (go away, insecurity! Haven't I warned you?) that demands that people recognize me for doing okay. Particularly in a neighborhood where the other moms start their kids on violin prenatally, can afford housekeepers to get rid of the pet hair, and never seem to feed anyone bread for dinner.

God, I'm freaking old

I graduated high school on this date in 1986. I wrote a rendition of Forever Young called Forever Friends, changing the lyrics can you imagine when this race is won to something like can you imagine when high school's done. I also changed the chorus of Addicted to Love, to Might as well face it I hate Mr. Whartenbee.

That's when I knew I was destined to be a professional writer.

Also, I looked like this:

Me and the BFF, hopelessly Breakfast Club. Note the turquoise shoes and shiny, happy braces.

I just wanted to put both of those factoids out there for every 17 year-old who is convinced that she is awesome and life will never get better than this.

Also, if you think your hair is cool now? It's not. It sucks.

So what were you doing in 86? And please don't say "being born."

A heartbreaking post of staggering randomness

There are all these things floating around my brain that don't quite fit into 140 characters so I figured I'd get them all down here:

1. If you're not subscribing to Cool Mom Picks, this would be a dandy time. We're offering a ridiculous number of exclusive discounts and other goodies just for subscribers lately. Plus you could win $200 worth of cool stuff. Also? Got a shiny new Cool Mom Picks fan page on Facebook which is where I'm spending my time instead of saying hi to ex-boyfriends.

2. Fantastic interview on marketers and bloggers in AdAge today with the always awesome Danielle Wiley. (And I'm not just saying that because she mentioned me. Although I will buy her an extra free drink at BlogHer.)

3. I told Thalia I was sore from exercise (first in three years - whoo! But that's another post) and she said she was too. When I asked her which muscles were hurting, she answered, "Both of them."

4. Tickets from the Expressing Motherhood show that I'm in Sept 24-26 are now on sale! If you're going to be in NYC, please come? Pretty please? I will be your best friend, at least for an hour. Maybe more.

5. Thalia watched Wall-E the other night for the first time and the next morning she drew Wall-E and Eva from memory. I am looking forward to being the proud mother of a Pixar animator.



6. More important than any of the other stuff here, Sheri (who is a real life family friend outside the blogworld so I promise she's not like that psychopath who made up the story about her fake sick daughter) has a dear friend whose three year-old was recently diagnosed with acute leukemia. I can hardly even type those words without stifling a sob. Check out Loving Taylor and do whatever you're inspired to do. Just leaving a comment of support will mean a lot.

7. Afterwards you might need a laugh. In which case, read this.

We'll resume our irregularly scheduled long-winded but more singularly minded posting after the break.

Hair! Everywhere! Bah!

So I'm kind of over the animals.

When Nate insisted on rescuing two cats. two cats (you know, for kids) on top of the dog on top of the two children, it was Christmas. I wasn't thinking about summer.

How a cat can seemingly shed more than six times its weight in hair a day I do not know, but ours miraculously achieve it daily. I can only dream that it is such an impressively freakish enough skill that some crazy animal person will show up with big bags of money and take those kitties off our hands, love them and hug them and build shrines to them out of their own fur. Maybe even the crazy animal person will be a crazy animal scientist who wants to conduct humane (humane!) science experiments on them, discover a way to reverse the trait, and create breeds of non-shedding cats for generations to come.

And by generations I mean working moms who are home alone in small apartments six nights a week with the two shedding cats (one with chronic diarrhea - did I mention that?), a dog who grows surlier and more incontinent by the day, two young children, and new pee stains that miraculously appear on various floor parts each day.

Do I love my animals? Well, I love Nate. And I love the girls. Who in turn love the animals.

Yeah, I'm kind of over the animals.

Not just for a short time but for a long time

This week Thalia has been reverting back to her old bedtime routine. And by routine I mean total lack of interest in sleeping in her own bed whatsoever and generally driving me crazy ape sh*t bonkers.

Unfortunately Sage is currently enjoying the same routine. So after much fuss and debate and whining and cajoling tonight, I carried Thalia back to her own bed with the promise to stay "not just for a short time but for a long time."

I wanted to get out of there. I wanted to get back to the post I was working on. I wanted to watch a movie or grab some wine or chat with Nate or wash a dish. I wanted to do pretty much anything besides lie in a toddler bed for ten minutes with my knees up to my chest thinking about what else I could be doing besides lying in a toddler bed for ten minutes with my knees up to my chest.

As I held Thalia's held her hand and stroked her back, I watched her facial muscles relax. I studied her plump cheeks and the curve of her lip and the way her hair curled over her ears. I examined her perfect, rosy skin and the shape of her nose. I thought about how much her eyebrows looked just like Nate's and how the puffy part under her eyes looked just like mine.

I found myself watching her like I did when I was a nervous new mom, captivated by the unfamiliar being in front of me, taking in every detail as if I'd be quizzed on it. As if I might never see it again.

Soon, there was that extra deep double inhale, the one that tells you that sleep has come and you may now creep stealthily out of the room.

Instead, I stayed a little longer.

Un(boy)friended

Eh, Facebook is pretty much useless if you can't track down old boyfriends from 20 years ago and say yo. Which is pretty much what I did when I tracked down the old boyfriend from 20 years ago and said yo.

It was an intense enough college relationship - we dated, we moved in together, we bought ugly furniture together, we endured his father's sad and sudden death together. When he wasn't a college student he was a musician with some local notoriety, and I spent countless nights nursing illegally procured White Russians in seedy Boston clubs while watching him materfully work the Zildjians, biding time until 3AM when he'd receive his $45 and I'd have the honor of helping him load his drum kit into his Isuzu Trooper. In return, he spent holidays being polite to my conservative relatives who garnered from his black hair and studded leather jacket that he would be stealing the silverware any minute now.

We never talked about marriage but we did joke that our kids would have great legs. We really did love each other. For a while. But we were young.

About three years into things and one unromantic trip to Italy later I had the sense it had all run its course. I remember crying progressively more than not each night, sneaking cigarettes on our cold terrace in the light of Fenway Park while he returned from shows later and later. It wasn't the life I wanted. I was on the yuppie track. I had even traded in the black hair and (eek) tail for a poofy 90s bob. Maybe the hair knows what the heart does not?

I landed back in New York after graduation and it didn't take long to accept that I had outgrown the relationship. Or perhaps we'd outgrown each other. And that was pretty much it.

God, that was a long time ago. A lifetime ago.

After my initial "yo" on Facebook, he told me in a couple paragraphs what he had been up to (wife of 18 years - the one he started dating after we broke up - new baby, new house in a new state) and I told him what I'd been up to (cat juggling, stint with the WWF traveling show). No reminiscing. No Hey, remember that time your band opened for Lena Lovich in Providence? No Hey, remember how your mom still bought you underwear? No Hey, remember how you used to want to spend Valentine's Day rehearsing with the band and it made me feel like crap for three years? It was fairly perfunctory.

So you can imagine my surprise to receive a curt response from him that it was nice to catch up but that his wife is uncomfortable with us having reconnected and he has to respect her wishes, the end, good bye, best of luck, see you later sucka.

I found myself promptly unfriended.

Unfriended!

It was probably a wise decision on his part. Because I am just that threatening, me with my saggy boobs and two kids and happy relationship. Really, I don't consider it a satisfying day until I've destroyed a marriage. I'm just that kind of a woman. Bonus points if they've got a cute four month-old at home and the wife is feeling flabby and insecure.

I live my life with one pinky toe in the past. I'm unapologetically nostalgic. I have some friends going back to infancy, and because I hate burning bridges, I am at least in occasional contact with the majority of guys I've dated. I'm not sure what I get from it exactly; sometimes it's a yardstick, a way of checking in on my own growth and seeing how far I've come. Sometimes it's more like a journey into a mental scrapbook, a brief visit with the past to jar good memories or funny stories, or help scrounge up some writing inspiration. Sometimes I think I just want them to tell me I turned out okay.

I did have a tail back then.

Pregnancy: So beautiful. On other people.

For some reason I've found myself surrounded by pregnant women recently. Not young nubile first-timers either, but women my age. Give or take a few white lies.

There's the mom of two who's sheepishly asking me if I'd ever consider a third, the telltale sign--if I've ever heard it--that she's already carrying one of them there fertilized eggs around with her. There's the mom with the size 0 body and the teeny baby bump who keeps complaining about howwww faaaat she is. And there's the friend who's stuck on bedrest so I bring over the kids and some chocolate once a week and we order in dinner.

What I've come to realize in recent weeks is that I do not miss being pregnant one single bit. Not a smidge. Not even a teeny little fraction of a microbe of an iota, if there is such a thing.

Spending time with these women, these beautiful, glowing paeans to fertility, it reminds me of those things about pregnancy I do not miss - little hairs that cropped up in mysterious places, the nipples the size of pancakes, the inability to order spicy tuna rolls. I forgot about how the humidity seemed to affect my ankles more than my hair (which is saying something). I forgot that I was supposed to feel guilty every time I ate brie. I forgot about the sleepless nights, the hormonal fluctuations that lead to the Random Bursts of Crying. I forgot that abject look of horror on my face the first time I spotted myself in our lobby's full-length mirror and realized that my ass was sticking out even further than my belly.

I was definitely not a good pregnant person. And oh, bless you women who are because I know there are more of your kind than there are of mine. Bless you bless you.

Of course I'd be lying if I didn't admit there were lovely, lovely aspects of those 40 weeks that I wouldn't have traded for all the Twix bars in the world - the generous smiles from strangers on the street, the first fluttery baby kicks, the joy of never having to suck in your stomach at a party. But while some women just wear their pregnancy like a bespoke red carpet ensemble from Milan, me, I mostly felt like a big, fat, teetotaling incubator.

But today, the further I get from those days, the fuzzier it all seems. Like some evil hazing ritual I had to endure to get to the joy on the other side.

(And by joy I mean joy plus being kicked in the head all night by a crazy non-sleeping two year-old. )

I can safely say that the ovaries have waved the white flag and the fallopian tubes are well into enjoying their retirement, despite depleted 401(k)s and the iffy June weather. You could waterboard my uterus and it would still refuse to go back to its intended biological use. Mostly I think it's just happy to hang out and support my bladder. Maybe catch up on reality TV.

There are twinges you feel when you get to a certain age (ahem) and realize that soon, it won't be your own choice to have another child; it will be up to your body.

It's nice being okay with that.

Blogging - your very own digital ginkgo biloba

Sometimes there are just moments I want to remember, even though I don't have a whole post's worth to say about them.

Thalia at about two years old, looking at a beer and calling it "Daddy Juice."

The look of absolute joy on Thalia's face the first time she saw Pinnochio reunite with Geppetto.

Sage's face when she eats lemons. And yes, she eats lemons.

Sage taunting Thalia by calling her "Thali-yuck," as I realize that we didn't create a nickname-proof name after all.

The kids eating chapstick.

Thalia receiving a box as a gift, and geniuinely exclaiming, "Oh, thank you!" and fondling it and holding it to her cheek - before she realized there was actually something inside the box.

Watching Sage stick her fingers in a dead fish's eyeball.

Tricking Thalia into eating fried calamari by calling it Chinese french fries. (It worked.)

Tricking Thalia into eating turkey meatballs by calling them Kidballs. (It didn't work.)

Sage putting on my sunglasses and saying, "I'm Bob Dylan!"

The endless (endless!) renditions of Little Rabbit Foo Foo.



(One day the video might actually work. Sigh.)

Sometimes you just have to write them down and hit publish. Because you think you'll remember, but you won't. You really won't. And that would be a shame.

Making her feminist mama proud

The fairy princess doctor races off to save her next patient. Possibly with magic. More likely with Dora band-aids.

Eating well? Well...

I have spent the last three months learning how to be a chef's widow. Or really, if we're going for accuracy, a culinary student widow. (As a real chef's widow could tell you.)

Oh, don't feel bad for me. It's not like restaurants won't be lining up to hand him an awesome $9 an hour line cook job when he graduates in January. Good ones too!

I take comfort in Nate being away six nights a week by reminding myself that I've got nights to myself with no one criticizing my TV choices. I've got time to write. And of course, I've got those delicious, delicious class assignments to surprise me each morning when I wobble to the kitchen and crack open the refrigerator door.

Let's just say he just finished the pastry section of the curriculum. And he earned a 98 on his recent evaluation.

Yeah, baby.

(That's my thighs talking. Sorry, they've got a thing for quoting Austin Powers. Annoying, I know.)

This week though was something different. Nate came home from his nutrition class like an atheist who found Jesus, ranting about high fructose corn syrup and overprocessing and Michael Pollan and carbs and and type 2 diabetes. And how our children are pretty much the worst eaters in the world and how we need to do less Cheerios and more eggs, less mac and cheese from a box and more fat peas from the garden. Hallelujia, for Mr. Let's Introduce The Kids To Marshmallow Fluff himself has seen the light.

I am all for my children eating better and not getting major diseases because man, if I think I feel guilty now about not signing them up for ballet lessons, imagine how I'll feel about having them on insulin the better part of their adult life. I do my best to read labels and ease up on the sugar and buy the organic products that matter (with help from Food Momiac). I try to be the mom who says "no dessert unless you eat your dinner" and to make sure they don't eat peanut butter for every meal, which believe me, they could do.

But I had this odd sinking feeling at the same time that Nate was ranting about the sweeping dietary changes about to befall this household, and how there would be no more boxed cereals and no more white flour pasta, which pretty much wipes out two of the three food groups in our home.

Ricotta cheese, mercifully, remained.

In part I'm feeling guilty and defensive and kind of annoyed. Mostly defensive.

I grapple with the degree to which my kids are picky eaters because they're two and four, or the degree to which they are picky eaters because we've let them be. I'm sure it doesn't help that now I'm on dinner duty six nights a week, even as I've let my cooking skills atrophy--thanks to a partner who can whoop me silly over a Viking range and doesn't think twice about criticizing my boiling water ability. (Not enough salt.) I think boneless chicken breast, but somehow I reach for the mac n cheese when I'm too tired to see straight, let alone make a marinade. And if you want to assuage the mac n cheese guilt with the organic kind? You'd better be prepared to shell out three tiems the price.

So I'm sitting at the family dinner table over Nate's outrageous ravioli with a homemade lemon herb sauce with spring peas, grappling with how I might transition from the ease of Cheerios to me actually having to stand my tired arse over a pan of eggs first thing in the morning.

Slowly, I come around. I'm imagining that with a little work, I might actually be able to deliver on Nate's Great Nutritional Ephiphany of 2009. It wasn't an attack on me specifically - it was an observation about the way we live, and the way food is sold, and how we might work together to change it for the benefit of our kids.

Yes! I'm thinking. I'll totally start making all those vegetable purees to hide in the pancakes and freeze them for the week. I'll start scouting out the "nutritious family meals you can in 4 seconds" blogs and Nate and I will work together to figure out how make some changes around here. This will be a really good thing.

I let my shoulders down. I breathe deeply. I manage to smile. We're in this together.

Then Nate looks down, and seeing my utensils in the all done position says, with his most condescending voice possible:

You are going to finish your peas, Mommy. Right?

And I nearly jumped out of my seat and stabbed him with my fork.

They're not good dancers, they don't play drums

Last week, I was informed that one of Thalia's 4 year old classmates was taking violin lessons. Because as we all know, any child not taking violin lessons in pre-k is doomed to grow up to work in the service of those who did take violin lessons in pre-k. Most likely by uttering the phrase "Would you like to super size that for 59 cents more?"

Thalia is not in fact taking violin lessons. Or ballet lessons. Or Mandarin Chinese. In fact she's not taking any lessons right now because we can't afford it and I'm only 85% totally bitter about it. The other 15% is sort of this proud rejection of the over-parenting syndrome that's ubiquitous in Brooklyn.

If you twist my arm and deprive me of Real Housewives and force me to admit it, I'd blurt out that that I wish we were in the position that we could pass on the overscheduling on pure moral grounds; and not simply because we have to pay Con Ed these days on a single recession-era income. That income being mine.

So instead, we do what we can around here. We put on classical music and I teach the girls grand jetés and pirouettes. We page through the birdwatchers handbook and learn the difference between cranes and pelicans. We read One Fish Two Fish and talk about which animal we'd most like to have. (They like the wet one.) We go to Grandma's house to pick fat peas and come up with words to describe the flavor of fresh basil.

And perhaps best of all, we put on You Tube, grab some empty paper towel rolls-cum-microphones, and sing off-tune, with all the passion we can muster.

Thalia may not be able to play Twinkle Twinkle on a 1/8 size Franz Meuller, but she does know all the words to Fish Heads. At least in this household, that counts for a lot.


(Actual music starts at 2:10. Start at the beginning if you like the creepy weird new-wave artsy stuff like my kids.)

School's Out For Summer

Yesterday was Thalia's last day of her first year of school. It seems like moments ago that she put on her little gray jumper and grabbed her big girl backpack and skipped out the door--and only in part because insisted on putting on the very same, now kind of too small, jumper.

I realize there are quite a few things she's accomplished this year, like the ability to dress herself and write her name and achieve just the perfect whine when I won't let her have Lucky Charms. But what I really like is that she's learned:

-All the words to Mama Mia.

-When you get stung by a jellyfish, someone has to pee on you.

-The endless joys of mean girls.

-"Leo pooped chocolate."

And just yesterday, she whispered to me that babies come out of a mommy's butt.

I'd say preschool was 5 figures well spent.

And yeah, I joke only because if I stopped long enough to think how proud of her I am right now, I'd be bawling the rest of the weekend and stuffing my face with Reeses cups.