GUEST BLOG - CCTB Mom on Strike - by Brooke Lefferts

 I ask very little of my boys (ages 6, 9, and 12) in terms of chores around the house. This is partly because you’re only a kid once and should enjoy it….and partly because when I ask them to do things, I often wish I had done them myself.

But I also believe in responsibility and independence. My mother never let my brother and me do household tasks. Her visions of overflowing washing machines, broken dinner plates, and untucked bed corners were too much to bear.

My house now is not as tidy as the one I grew up in. I’m trying to make my kids more self-reliant and maybe get a little help keeping the house from looking like an MLB locker room post championship celebration.

Responsibilities include making their beds in the morning, putting dishes in the sink and clothes in the hamper, and keeping their rooms neat. 

My reasonable requests are routinely ignored.  Every time I look in their rooms after they’ve gone off to school all smiley and cute, and I see their crumpled bed sheets and the floor littered with wet towels and dirty socks and underwear, I fume.

Why is it so difficult to do so little? Do they know how hard kids in other parts of the world work? Kids who have no home to clean or food to eat?

This line of reason is usually met with blank faces. “Here she goes again,” they’re thinking.  “I’ll just stare at her until the noise coming out of her mouth stops.”

Recently, I got so infuriated by the indifference, I decided to go on strike. I sat them down on a Sunday night and told them very calmly (I might have even been smug) that since they weren’t respecting my rules and fulfilling their family obligations, I was going to stop making their lunches and cleaning their rooms for a week.

While they could too easily live in an unkempt room, losing lunch making was rough. Nine-year-old Aden and six-year-old Eli like buying lunch twice a week but there are many school meals they don’t enjoy, so they prefer I make custom lunches most days. 12-year-old Jacob has not purchased lunch once this year because the line takes too long, cutting into his socializing.  So losing me as their sous chef was a blow.

On Monday morning, when I entered the kitchen beaming, Jacob asked me incredulously if I was serious about my strike. 

I was.

Forced to make their own lunches in the morning, there was less complaining and bitterness because I was not being ordered around like a servant and they were learning how challenging it is to make lunches come together quickly. (Since Eli’s only six and mostly has good intentions when it comes to cleaning up, I “helped” him make his lunch on the few days he didn’t buy.)

By the end of the week, all beds were made and rooms neat. They even accessorized pillows with stuffed animal displays, taking pride in their housework. 

But more important than the order, was the satisfaction of taking back the power. My boys were humbled.

It’s been several weeks since Mommy Strike 2012 and order has been restored to our land.  We all learned some lessons, but the takeaway was: don’t mess with the Mom or you’ll get the chores. 

 

Brooke Lefferts is a freelance journalist, wife, mother, and pop culture addict. A former producer for ABC and Fox News, her news and feature stories have appeared on foxnews.com, the huffingtonpost, Yahoo, thefrisky.com, cafemom, and several AOL/Patch sites.

Brooke has three boys who have made her an expert in playroom clean up negotiations, exceeding grocery budgets, and speaking at parent-teacher conferences. When not watching TV or looking for lost socks and overdue library books, she blogs about family life and pop culture at carpoolcandy.com.

GUEST BLOG - Ooh La Freakin La - By Stephanie Ila Silver-Silberstein

Why would I want to put down the third book of the 50 Shades of Gray series and pick up Bringing Up Bebe? My entire life is spent in the trenches of motherhood, so having the French tell me how to parent, in my precious spare time mind you, was not something my defenses could take.  Just the other day, I spent the better part of 45 minutes de-crankifying my 3.5 year old son after his nap, 10 exhausting minutes jamming my screaming, overtired 21-month-old daughter (who refused to take a nap at all that day) into her pajamas, and then another 45-minutes doing story drama to the book Go the F&%# to Sleep.  But, out of respect for my book club, I picked up Bringing Up Bebe to read about the calm, tantrum-less lives of French moms.  And now, all I can say is, ‘voulez vous, screw the French.’

Ok, so maybe that last comment was a tad harsh (and didn’t make any sense).  To be honest with you, I quite enjoyed this book.  And to be truly honest with myself, French parenting is genius.  The book is entertainingly written by the very relatable Pamela Druckerman, a Jewish American writer who shacks up in Paris and ultimately gets married and raises 3 young children with her beloved Simon (who was raised in about 12 different countries it seems).  We’d totally be friends with Pam and find out within 5 minutes of meeting her that she graduated from Columbia University, wrote a book about infidelity, studied improv at Upright Citizens Brigade and gave her husband a ménage a trois for his 40^th birthday.  But that’s because we’re American.  French women would barely learn her name.

To sum up: In France, kids are on an equal playing field with all other aspects of life from career and marriage to dinnertime.  French mothers view their children as an equal slice of the pie that is their life.  Patience is more than a virtue there – it seems to be the single most important thing for a child to have…besides an eclectic palate; whereas American mothers seem to sacrifice a whole lot (i.e. their bodies, their hobbies, their sex life, their careers, etc.) and gain a whole lot of guilt (and weight) in the process.  Hmm - put that way, motherhood sounds pretty awful regardless of which continent you live on. Let’s try it this way: American mothers put their children above all else. They consult experts, books, each other and the Internet to find the best possible parenting philosophy, and they use it to raise healthy, kind, talented, intelligent, successful people.  French mothers treat their children as rational miniature adults who are capable of behaving as such. They feel that as mothers, it is their responsibility to raise children in a cadre or framework that has defined boundaries but lots of freedom within those boundaries. The French mother’s goal is to keep her life balanced (and her body thin). And somehow, this innate approach to motherhood makes tantrums non-existent, meals dignified and delicious (not to mention devoid of any kid-friendly menu items), sleep training totally unnecessary and trips to the playground actually relaxing.

After the rather exhausting day I had, clearly, the French have got it all figured out. But do they?  It was hard to stifle my subconscious from peering up from her copy of Jane Eyre (ok, yeah, so I’ve since gone back to reading 50 Shades) and stop her from shouting anti-Parisian stereotypes that pretty much go unaddressed in the book. What about all the smoking?!  What about all the snobbery?!  What about all the infidelity?!  What about all the spanking (no, that’s not another 50 Shades reference)?!  Don’t all the kids use pacifiers ‘till they’re, like, eight years old?  No wonder all the moms are skinny and the kids are well behaved!

For all the praising, over-scheduling and helicoptering that goes on, don’t Americans turn out some pretty wonderful people?  So what if my son eats a limited diet of chicken fingers and PB&J?  So what if my daughter took eight months to sleep through the night? My kids are the sweetest, funniest, most expressive, confident and cuddliest kids I know.  There’s ample opportunity for them to realize they’re not the center of the universe.  So, isn’t it nice for them to know they’re at least the center of mine? 

Look, don’t get me wrong.  The French way sounds very appealing, and I have no doubt that French moms love and treasure their children just as much as we American moms do.  But whereas moms have the “hardest job in the world” here in the States, motherhood in France could be considered the “most pleasurable job in the world”.  It’d be nice not to panic every time I pull up to a restaurant for a meal with the kids.  It’d be nice not to feel obligated to go down the slide 50 times at the playground.  And it’d be nice to have reliable, inexpensive quality childcare that everyone else is using too. Then again, I quite enjoyed gaining 50 pounds with each pregnancy and losing the weight on my own terms and not society’s.  And I kinda like going down the slide with my daughter and cheering for my son each and every time he emerges from the tube-slide with a big smile on his face.  And I bet my kids kinda like that too. 

A friend of mine said it best: The French are raising their children to live in France (and be terrific houseguests here in the US).  We raise our children to live and thrive here in America.  To truly adopt the French way of parenting, our entire society would have to be on board – and that’s just not going to happen anytime soon.  But in the meantime, we can still learn from each other and be mindful of how another culture might approach this minefield that is motherhood.  Case in point - my son ate chicken teriyaki for the first time tonight. No, it wasn’t fois gras, but it’s a start. 

Stephanie Ila Silver-Silberstein is a Senior Editor and the Metro Mama / Metro Baby Section Editor for www.BeautyNewsNYC.com.  

GUEST BLOG - Thoughts About Graduation - by Deborah Goldstein

I know that I’m as old as dirt because I used to babysit for this toddler when I was in college who has now graduated from his own college and is a few years into a stellar journalism career.  I couldn’t feel more proud….and old.  I know I am of a seasoned age when I watched the live feed of President Barack Obama’s commencement speech at Barnard College, my alma mater, and realized that I had more in common with the parents of the class of 2012 than the graduating seniors.

And, like those mothers and fathers, I listened to the various students and faculty and POTUS address the graduates with a parental filter focusing on the nuggets of wisdom I could pass on to my own children. I tried to glean relevant and applicable lessons so that I could start slowly working in inspirational messages at the bus stop and sage advice on our way to Tae Kwon Do.  Forget about leading by example.  I was going to fortune cookie the way to my children’s success.

When Barnard’s commencement ended, and Barnard’s President Debora Spar escorted President Barack Obama off the stage, I thought, “That was good, but what else is there?  That was only one speech by one man addressing a graduating class of women, and I’ve got 2 boys.  What more can I learn from other commencement speakers?” That’s when I purposefully stumbled upon Huffington Post’s 17 Commencement Speeches by Awesome Comedians.  

Luckily, I did not pay attention to the amount of time I actually spent watching video after video (but if you go to the article and add up the minutes of, say, 14 of the 17 videos, you can figure out how much time I wast…invested).  Granted that’s a boatload of time I’ll never get back again, but that’s how committed I am to my children.  That’s how determined I am to dig deep and do the proper research to become the best guide a mother can be.  Also I’ll do anything to get out of cleaning the kitchen.

After a morning or two spent with the likes of Stephen Colbert, Ellen Degeneres, Amy Poehler and Conan O’Brien, I distilled all the necessary advice and recurring themes to provide the highlights you need to deliver a comedian’s perspective to your own graduates-to-be.

-          Even though you’ve spent (or borrowed) tens of thousands of dollars attending an institution that requires you not to fail, at some point in your life you will fail.  Failure is the greatest gift you’ll ever receive because, as they say, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

-          No one succeeds on his/her own.  Surround yourself with people who believe in you.

-          Listen to your inner voice and do what makes you happy as long as the inner voice does not tell you to commit a crime.

-         You will move back home and live in your basement after college, so be nice to your parents who will most likely not charge you full rent.

-          Don’t worry if you didn’t do that well in school.  Average students rule the world.  Well, average students become comedians or Republican politicians who rule the world.

-          Study improvisation so you can learn to embrace the unexpected.

-          You don’t have to work hard in school to get a diploma if you become a wildly famous celebrity who is handed a degree by colleges who need a good headliner at commencement.

There were other pearls of wisdom I neglected to include, but these, I felt were particularly poignant if not the ones that were repeated the most often.  I realize that comedians may not be the most appropriate people to be shelling out advice to a graduating class.  I’m sure that had I watched 17 Commencement Speeches by Awesome Hedge Fund Investors, I would have taken away completely different messages like Work your ass off, and you’ll be fine or Keep your friends close and your tax lawyer closer or You can always find good help to raise your children for you.

Perhaps that’s a bit judgy and unkind.  It’s possible that the hedge fund investor has benefitted greatly from improv classes and has rebounded from failed investments only to find unexpected financial reward elsewhere.  But the fact of the matter is, they’d probably give a lousy speech.

So in conclusion (as sayeth all commencement speakers), I’d like to wish all the graduates of 2012 and young graduates-to-be rent-free living and much failure.  You’ll thank me later.  And to all the parents of skiving graduates, who seem to lack any kind of ambition, be kind to your kids.  They’ll make good one day, and they’ll never forget your loving support.

Deborah Goldstein is a freelance writer and author of the humor blog, Peaches & Coconuts.  She began blogging after relocating to the UK where she worked in media sales, traveled, got married and had her first child.  Now she’s back in the US at home full-time in suburban New Jersey trying to convince herself that she's living every Jewish, gay mom's dream.

PregnOt

Scrolling through my twitter feed today I came across @babycenter's tweet:  10 dresses that make me wish I was pregnant! http://bit.ly/LACHbJ

I scuffed out loud.  There is not a dress in this world that could make me wish I was pregnant. 

Yesterday, I celebrated my little guy's 3rd birthday.  Here he is the morning of his birth:

What a total joy he is.  Curly haired and smelly good and smiley faced.  His cheeks taste like love.  His smile makes my insides floppity flip.  The way his chubby hand unconsciously squeezes my collarbone when I hold him makes me feel definitively Mommy.  And my older son, so tall now that there's nothing in the house he can't manage to reach with the help of a step stool, has magical eyes that can remind my heart in one glance that this world is a miraculous place.  Those boys were worth the pregnancies.

They are worth the unconscionable gas.  The crotch pressure that I will never forget despite the fact that everyone said, "you'll forget it."  The transformation I made into a hungry hippo game piece.  I puked on the same tree on 102nd street for 3 consecutive months.  I sweat throughout both pregnancies like Jackie Joyner Kersee.  My fingers swelled beyond the fittings of my wedding bands.  Pregnant in the spring, sans allergy medication, I sneezed so intensely that I broke a rib.  For non feminist reasons, I boycotted bras - which was not a good idea.  Needless to say, I was not a comfortable pregnant lady.

Euphoria and relief struck immediately upon the births of both my sons.  I am not a particularly religious person, but that moment when there is suddenly a new life where there was none, is the closest to God I imagine I'll ever get.  I remember feeling like the world had literally opened up and light was shining just on me and my new baby.  There has been no greater feeling in the world.  Add to it, the fact that no one's elbow was jabbing my spleen anymore and my body relaxed into post-partum bliss. 

I loved those babies.  Their gurgles, those first few gifts of extended open eyes, the comfort of privately nursing as the sun rose - or set.  I would be pregnant again - for those babies.  But for a dress?  NO FRICKIN WAY. 

I loved being pregnant because I'm a results oriented person.  The promise of the baby was enough for me to set aside the booze and cope with the flatulence.  A cute summer empire waist Pea n' the Pod ditty?  Uhhhh ... Not so much.

So, heed this warning Mommies-To-Be:  If you are getting pregnant for a cute maternity dress you see on Babycenter.com, you can bet you'll have 40 weeks of not looking as cute in it as you'd hoped, coming your way.  Get pregnant for the baby.  Cause nothing else is worth it.

Lounge Chair Lady

This was my Mother's Day Gift.

I love it.  Those wooden slats represent the promise of a Lounge Chair Lady's life.

Women who have lounge chairs read the latest issue of Elle Magazine while letting their toe nail polish dry.  They sip pink lemonade out of plastic cups that look like they're glass cups and mosquitoes don't pester them and the sun never overheats their iPhones.  Women in lounge chairs don't have children.  Or, they do have children, but they're wildly independent.  Women in lounge chairs have something in the oven.  It smells so good, you can smell it from the lounge chair.  Their cordless house phones get perfect reception from their lounge chairs, so they don't have to get up to answer calls.  While they lay with their feet up, someone else puts away the breakfast dishes and folds the towels.

I bought it a big fluffy white cushion.  While the saleslady was ringing it up I pretended to myself that I am a person who can keep cushions white.  I chose to suppress my knowledge of impending muddy shoes, fruit punch splatters, and melty ice pops.  "Not on my chair," I thought while she swiped my debit card.  "I'm a Lounge Chair Lady now."

This week I started a stack of "things to read when I'm in my lounge chair."  I cut out a recipe of a fruit smoothie I want to drink while I'm in my lounge chair.   I made a mental list of shows I'm going to watch on an iPad in the lounge chair. 

I have been the owner of this coveted lounge chair for one whole week.   I have laid on it once.    It was dark out, but those 3 minutes were really nice. 

That's not to say I don't use my new lounge chair.  Quite the contrary.  I had hoped to use it to sip Chablis in silence, but I am not a Lounge Chair Lady.  Yet.  Turns out, I now have a place to sit while applying sunscreen to little boys' noses.   I can be comfortable while I pull ticks off my dog's rear end.  We finally have the perfect spot to set the soccer ball during pee breaks.   Also, it's a perfect pirate ship.

One day, in the not too distant future, I'll fall asleep on that lounge chair and there will be no one to wake me up by poking me in the eyeballs.  My boys will realize I can't play soccer.  They'll lose the taste for fruit punch.  And when that day happens - when I evolve into a Lounge Chair Lady - my heart will ache for the drips of an ice pop.

Hands Free(ish)

My friend and new mom, Danielle, posted this article http://bit.ly/J5eMKX on Facebook this week.  She said it is a "must read" for parents and I agree.

Rachel Stafford, the Hands Free Mama, shares her insight about parenting amidst the constant demands of technology and hand held devices. 

While reading it, my heart started beating quickly.  My palms began to sweat.  How often have I interrupted my kids - mid thought - to answer the phone?   The sound of the email beep is magnetic.  Even if it winds up being Drugstore.com's latest offer for 10% off, by the time I've glanced at my phone to realize it's nothing, I've already lost precious kiddy eye contact.   Sure, I play with my kids all the time.  We do lots of fun stuff and I love being with them ... but we are rarely alone.     

I  have a Pavlovian response to my iPhone.

The distraction is bad enough.   But what's worse is the obligation to respond.  Sure, sometimes it's nothing.  Or sometimes it's my mom.  But sometimes, it's "important."  A call I "have to take."  An email I "have to reply to real quick."  And sometimes, the email I glance down to read, completely shifts my mood.  Maybe I had just offered to play catch outside, but now I'm suddenly aware of 27 pages of dialogue I have to memorize and 3 days worth of babysitters I need organize and oh shit I was supposed to go the grocery store ... and blah blah blah.  If I just hadn't looked at my phone, I'd be outside playing catch right now. 

What starts out as an innocent glance evolves into a full blown affair.  And the causality is the kid in the yard with the catcher's mitt on - waiting.   

Hands Free Mama made me ask myself - when did I become a slave to this device?  And what am I teaching my children with every text tone? 

For many parents the pressure to be available feels intense.  Everyone knows we are all walking around with mini-offices in our pockets, so there is no longer an acceptable excuse for not picking up, texting back, or replying to an email right away.  It used to be if you weren't at work - you didn't work.  And if you weren't at home - you couldn't answer the phone.  Now, the line between work and home is ill defined.  Even more so for those of us who work from home.  People can't even take real vacations anymore!  I had three conversations just yesterday where I heard myself saying, "Well, I'll be on a family vacation, but I'll have my cell, so I'm available if necessary."   WHY?!!  The fear of unplugging - whether for 5 minutes or a week - is palpable.  

What are we - what am I - so afraid of?  If Steven Spielberg ever really calls, I'm sure it'll actually just be his assistant (who will be used to leaving messages anyway).   

I read Rachel's article and decided - in that moment - to put my phone away for the rest of the afternoon.  When I am working (in rehearsal, writing, in the VO studio) I put my phone away.  I check messages on 5 minute breaks every 90 minutes or so.  Why should playtime with my kids garner any less respect?  Though dinner time and bed time have always been "phone free" - I was inspired to add play time to the list.

I put my phone upstairs and turned the ringer off.  I played.  Uninterrupted all afternoon. 

We had chocolate milk and strawberries outside.  We made up a game called base-dodgeball which inspired high pitched squealing from all 3 of us.  We evaluated the blooms on our rose bushes and measured the boys' heights against the tomato plants.  We rode bikes and scooters into town for a family pizza party and played tag on the way back.   I was fully present the entire time.   I didn't miss any calls from Steven.

When bedtime approached, two things happened.  First, my older son said, "Mom that was an awesome day."  Second, I had 32 emails, 8 texts, and 3 phone messages waiting for me.  

It took me 2 hours uninterrupted to respond appropriately to everything.  Not bad at all.  It's worth noting that not one person asked, "what took you so long?" 

As a stay-at-home/work-at-home mom, delineating time and space for work and time and space for play, is critical.  My afternoon experiment proved to me that I can control my own accessibility, it's simply up to me to make it happen.  I don't expect to live hands free overnight ... but I think I can manage hands-free...ish.  

(DISCLAIMER: This blog was written during nap time).

Great Job, Honey!

Fairly early on in my art class career I discovered that I can't draw.  Or paint.  Or "work clay."  My fine art skills are lacking, to say the least.   Discouraged that some of the other girls had a natural knack for craypas, I remember sharing my disappointment with my Dad.  We evaluated an art class "masterpiece"  I'd brought home that was not masterful at all.  After a minute he said, "Yeah.  I'm not good at art either.  I'm a really good doctor though."

Tonight, as I sweat my way through the aisles of the K-2 art show at my son's school, I was reminded of that moment when my Dad affirmed for me that not only was I right, I did suck at art, but that he did too.   And more importantly, that people who suck at art, can be really good at other things.

If tonight's art show was a pop song, the chorus would go "Great Job, Honey!  That's so awesome!  You're an amazing artist!"  (I have the tune in my head).  The choreography would be excessive hugging moves interspersed with high fives.  And I must admit, I would be singing back up and playing the tambourine. 

Something must have happened between the time when parents and children admitted strengths and weaknesses freely, and now.   There was not a parent on the premises tonight who looked at a watercolor of an alien and said "That's ok, Kiddo.  You're great at math." 

I fear that the pressure for our children to be good at everything diminishes their ability to uncover that they're good at something.  If my dad had looked at the "Queen's Head With Crown" I made out of clay in 4th grade and had not said, "It looks like Mel Brooks in drag," perhaps I wouldn't have asked who Mel Brooks was.  Perhaps I never would have discovered the 2000 Year Old Man and thought to myself - I want to be like that one day.  Perhaps I would still be sitting hopeless with a box of sharpened colored pencils and a pout. 

My father's ability to casually allow me to relax about my shortcomings, gave me the space to seek out my passion.  But I can bet, you'd be hard pressed to find a parent from tonight's event doing anything other than encouraging their budding artist.  Even if their child is a budding anthropologist. 

"I'm so proud of you," I heard myself saying as we left the school. 

"Why?" my son asked.

 "I've never gone to my kid's art show," I replied, "that was cool!" 

"Yeah, I guess," he said.  "I don't think mine was that good."

"Well..." Mel Brooks in drag flashed before my eyes. .. "I had fun anyway.  Now, tell me about science class today." 

His face lit up as he relayed every last detail of their lesson on habitats. 

The "Great Job, Honey" pop song comes easily to me.  It feels so natural, so encouraging, positive, nurturing.  But, I think I'm taking it off my shuffle list.  When my kids make a sculpture of Mel Brooks in Drag and call it "Queen With Crown," I'll need a different chorus.  One with slightly alternate lyrics like, "Sucking at Something Means You Might Be Awesome at Something Else."  (I have the tune in my head).

Old Lady Box

Growing up, if ever I made something special, my mother stuck it in her "old lady box."   (Insert crass joke).  When I was young, the box contained things like unrecognizable penguins made of cotton balls. As I grew up, she stashed away poorly executed still life drawings of fruit and ultimately college essays that touted my folks as the most influential people in my life.  If memory serves, the original box was from Lord & Taylor.  Now, "the box" is also known as "the basement."   

She saved everything.

"You're saving that?" I would judge her as my eyes rolled. 

She'd tuck away my research paper on Rogers & Hammerstein musicals and their effect on the post World War II audience or she'd hoard my highlighted script of the painfully abridged high school version of "Romeo & Juliet" and say, "this way, when I'm an old lady, I'll have a box of treasures."

The concept was lost on me.  And then, I had children.

Know what's on the top shelf of my closet?  Old lady box; The Next Generation. 

Now, whenever the pang of guilt hits me ("I can't throw this drawing of .... what is this a drawing of? ... away!") I know just what to do. That mother's day worksheet that came home on Friday that says I'm "sweet as candy and pretty as a butterfly," has a special spot above my sweaters.  There is an astronaut made out of tinfoil currently pinned to the bulletin board.  That thing's gonna blast off to my closet in 10 - 9 - 8 ...

That box saves the tangible memory of the intangible age.  My older son and I have the same size feet now.  Our socks get mixed up in the laundry.  But buried in my old lady box I have his toddler footprint on construction paper.   It's a box of proof.  My children were little once.  I don't want to stop them from getting older.  Watching them develop into themselves is, for me, the very best part of parenthood.  However, I don't want to lose sight of where they started.  Birthday cards my husband wrote on behalf of their baby selves are precious cargo now, because their baby selves have evolved into children who can write their own cards.   

My son came home from school last year with a worksheet that said I AM PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN BECAUSE ... - He had filled in the empty box with a drawing of the American flag on a pole waving in the breeze on a sunny, blue sky day.  And on the dotted lines beneath, he had written - "Of the American Fag."  That one has premiere real estate in my box.

The buzz of Mother's Day weekend has passed.  My new lounge chair was a huge hit and I bought just the right amount of lox for brunch.  My parents and grandparents have made their way back to Chicago, the sheets and towels have been washed and folded and put away.  On the kitchen counter by the coffee maker, sits a stack of cards.  One says in red crayon, "I hope you have the mother's day."  I did.  I had THE mother's day.  And I know just where to put that card.

The Blue Lady

I don't really believe in ghosts.  Which is not to say I'm not completely fascinated by people who do.  A solid ghost story commands my full attention every time.  You saw your Great-Aunt standing at the foot of your bed the night she died?  I wanna know what she was wearing.  The lights flickered right when you put on your grandmother's necklace for the first time?  I wanna know where that necklace is right now.   But, you won't hear me sharing tales from the underworld.  Once I thought my apartment on 93rd street was haunted, but in retrospect mice were probably living in the radiator.  I don't hold my breath when I drive by a cemetery.  When my son asked me if there was a heaven, I did the old "question the question" technique and replied with, "What do you think?"  

My easy dismissal of ghosts as reality however, is coupled with my heartfelt and total belief in imaginary friends.  

When I was little, my brother had an imaginary dog (Brandon, from Punky Brewster) for a solid year.  We set out water for him every morning.   My brother was so invested in Brandon, that if he didn't think you could see him - he would lick you and blame it on the invisible doggie. 

 

My first son, had a roundtable of imaginary friends.  No one consistent, but consistently someone.  The details he could conjure up when I'd question him about his friends, rivaled the specificity of Chekhov.  He had one friend, Max, who only appeared when we rode the city bus.  He would sit in the seat next to my son.  Once an elderly lady, sat down on Max, and my child cried for 30 blocks and then announced that Max was dead.  Max never rode the bus with us again.

In my experience with imaginary friends, never has one collided with the ghost world. 

Until now.  My little son has developed a relationship with a blue lady he sees in our home.  He's seen her in our hallway, the garage, the upstairs bedroom.  He told me the other day that sometimes he thinks she is me - but then he realizes it's just the blue lady.  She is all blue.  Including her hair.  She wears a blue dress too.  According to my son, she's "really nice and likes to be in our house."  He sees her and follows her.  Just now, I lay him down to nap.  Not two minutes later he called me in his room to tell me the blue lady just stopped by to fly a little bit around his room and show him some beautiful leaves and an amazing helicopter. 

THAT'S A GHOST, RIGHT?!? 

I am much more comfortable with traditional imaginary friends.  This floating blue lady is freaking me the f*&% out.   Is my son gonna end up on one of those "I talk to ghosts" shows on the Discovery Channel?   As I said, I don't really believe in ghosts.  But you'll notice the "really" leaves room for moments like RIGHT NOW.

Pause while Sandy  takes a breath.

I just did some imaginary friend research.  I still don't know if it's a ghost or not.  BUT, I did learn that a shrink at Yale  (Yale professor emeritus of psychology Jerome Singer with research scientist Dorothy Singer) think that "children with make-believe friends tend to be imaginative, have rich vocabularies, and are able to entertain themselves. "  I'm going with that.  If I have to choose between a ghost stalking my baby or believing that he is extra specially creative ... I'm going with the uber creative choice.  Hands down.

Ill-Defined Sound Cue Here.

Shit.  What was that?

Time Out for Time

Ya' know who needs five minutes on the naughty step?  Time Magazine.  Jeepers Creepers what a debacle.  

Any mom who's ever dealt with a whining child in aisle three of the supermarket ("But .... I neeeeeeeeed those cookies nooooow!!!) knows the cardinal rule of communication.  It's not WHAT you say ... it's HOW you say it. 

Is an article about attachment parenting worthwhile?  Absolutely.  Is an article about extended breastfeeding in the United States intriguing?  Sure.  Is a sexy woman in skinny jeans, one titty out, all smoky-eyed attention towards camera while her mega-tall toddler nurses during his apparent break from changing a light bulb (why is he on a chair?!) - an image that should accompany either topic?  "No, no, Time Magazine!" I say with my Outside Voice.  "Please, go to your room."

Sexualizing nursing is gross.  However long a mother chooses to nurse (in some parts of the world it is considered normal to nurse until a child is as old as 6 when their immune system is fully developed) the primary function of her breasts is to nourish her child.  Sure, they're available for private time with her sexual partner too, but for crying out loud, let's not undo all of Gloria Steinem's work in one photograph. 

What is that image trying to convey anyway?  Hot moms nurse tall kids while seeming completely disassociated?  Cause, if that's the point - then point taken. 

Of course, that is not the point.  The article discusses a gentle and nurturing style of parenthood that is gaining popularity in the United States.  You'd never know it though, from all the hoopla that horrendously inappropriate image has caused.  I find it irresponsible journalism to introduce one topic with the image of another.

What is happening in our media today that in order to sell anything we must sexualize everything?  It was hard enough to nurse in public to begin with;  now everyone's gonna be expecting us to look like Playboy models while we do it.   I thought the swimwear competition in Toddlers & Tiaras was bad ... but this takes the cake. 

I'm all for being sexy.  And I'm all for nursing babies as long as the mother and baby see fit.  I am not in a position to judge any mother's loving choices.  Just as I am not in a position to judge any mother's sexy poses.  However - I cannot help but judge this mother's sexy pose during her loving choice.  

How about this for an image of a nursing mother?   She's nursing lots of toddlers and appears to have fallen asleep while doing it.  Not sure if it'll sell a lot of magazines, but it seems much more on the mark to me.  

Mother's Day?

I wake up leisurely.   I don't need my glasses to see the clock - it's 10 am.  The fresh ranunculus by the side of my bed are fragrant in their colorful blooms.  Anna, from Downton Abbey, stands at the foot of my bed.  "Morning M'Lady," she curtseys and fluffs my pillow as I sit up.  Sunlight streams into my bedroom and the scent of Dunkin' Donuts coffee and Cinnabons overpower my senses.  A tray is all set up for me and Michelle Obama who is awaiting my company for breakfast.  She's spending Mother's Day visiting Moms across the land, just to say "thanks."  She's already been to all my girlfriend's houses - she's invited us all back to the White House later for a party where Vera Wang will greet us with party dresses. 

Anna gets me dressed, and after breakfast with the First Lady, Julie Andrews brings my children up to see me.  They're wearing matching outfits made out of curtains.  They sing a precious little song and call me Mother with a British accent.  They give me necklaces made out of Macaroni & Diamonds.

Meanwhile, downstairs my husband stands in a tuxedo.  A limo is just outside.  Coach Taylor from Friday Night Lights is our chauffeur.   We drive to the beach.   We windsurf in perfect waves - we don't pull a single muscle.  When we get out of the water my hair dries in non-frizzy beachy waves.  I'm a little tan and un-self conscious in my bathing suit.

Suddenly my whole family shows up for a beach picnic.  Everyone is healthy.  They're all wearing white with simple vibrant accent pieces.  No one is swatting away flies or worried about when the tide comes in.  Sand gets in nothing at all, as we all spread out easily to drink pink lemonade and eat roasted veggie and mozzarella sandwiches from Crain's Sandwich Shop with Salt & Pepper potato chips.  My grandmother has brought banana cream pie from Chicago for dessert.  It has no nuts and everyone can eat it. 

My kids and I build the world's biggest and strongest sand castle and the Guiness Book of World Records record keeper is there to give us an award.  Julie Andrews keeps it in her pocket so it won't get lost.

Meryl Streep and her family are having their picnic a little ways away.  We make eye contact and are instantly friends.  We all barbeque together.  Oprah stops by with Gayle to say hi.  We all agree to meet up later at the White House party.

The "I Dream of Jeannie" theme song plays as I cross my arms and blink everyone home.  My kids smell like peaches and are thrilled it's bed time.  I sing to them, and Julie Andrews compliments my voice.

"Happy Mother's Day, Darling," my husband says, as he whisks me off in Airforce One (Michelle is so thoughtful).   Vera Wang is super friendly, and my friends and I look great.  I dance with the president until Tina Fey is ready to give her speech.  She thanks all the hardworking, loving moms for coming tonight.  She winks at me.  She's read my blog.  "Call me," she mouths as Barbara Streisand gets up to sing.

As we listen to Babs, my husband hands me a little blue pill.  "What is this?"  I ask.  "It's a Mother's Day pill," he answers. " It will keep us healthy and strong & our children safe and happy."  "There's a pill for that?!"  "It's your Mother's Day fantasy," he says, as we duck away to find the Lincoln Bedroom.

Lego Land

There has been some recent discussion in cyberspace about which hurts more; childbirth or stepping barefoot on a lego.

Full disclosure: I am a huge fan of these kinds of debates.  Playing "Would You Rather" took up much of my time from 1994-1998 and I am left with a residual love for nonsensical comparisons without scientific evidence.  For example, would you rather your nose be a ketchup dispenser or a pencil sharpener?  Ahhhh!  Who wouldn't want easy access to ketchup, but don't I more often wish my pencil were just a little pointier?  What to choose?!

When I first heard the birthing/lego conundrum, I was tickled.  When my oldest son was born, I had a very visual image of the pain.  It seemed to me that a little man, a troll really, had made his gnome home in my uterus.  I pictured him washing his dishes with my intestines.  He was really scrubbing.  "Oh, this old intestine," that demon would say, "watch how it gets all the gristle out of this pan!"  When the dishes were done, and I was already more breathless  and sweaty than I had imagined possible, that damn ogre decided to dry those dishes.  He took hold of my abdominal muscles and shined up his silverware - ringing out my insides with his bare, calloused hands, every 30 seconds or so until at last, my husband screamed "I see the head!" 

So to me, the current debate sounds more like - Would you rather a hairy, mean troll does the dishes with your guts for hours on end until a 7 pound human emerges from a hole slightly larger than a nostril OR would you rather step on a little piece of plastic for a second and yell "ouch!" 

No brainer.

This morning, I stepped on a lego.

All bets are off, folks.  That shit hurts.  And I was wrong, it's not just second, and I didn't yell "ouch."  I swore like a NJ Transit passenger after the Rangers lose at Madison Square Garden.  The sharp twinge went straight to my core as I broke out in a cold sweat.  I was down for the count - on all fours - and no one was by my side to give me ice chips or tell me that I was doing great.  That bastard of a green diagonally pointed 4 topper of a lego gave my "childbirth" theory a run for its money.

My friends, the debate has legs.  If I had to choose right now which is worse - I think I'd pick that frickin' lego.  At least when the ladyparts goblin is done ... you get a baby.  All I got from the lego is a limp.

Making Mischief

When Max gets sent to his room without supper, he sports an expression I am familiar with.   His "arms crossed, angry brows" look resonates with me.  And I would guess, I am not alone.  In fact, I would argue that it is not the monsters gnashing their horrible teeth (though they are quite monsterrific) nor is it the exquisite jungle artwork (though it is imagined perfectly) that made Where the Wild Things Are a household name in 1963.  I would argue, that it is Max's perfectly pouty punim that made that book - and Maurice Sendak - a household name.

In my house, if one child builds a block tower, inevitably the other knocks it down for sport.  I have found lipstick on stuffed animals.  Milk poured into the fish tank.  A scissors lodged in the radiator slot.  A wire hanger in the electrical socket (cliche, but true), all the buttons pushed in my car, my wallet under the sofa, children upside down in trash cans, the broom without a handle, holes in my wicker back chairs, busted legs on my coffee table, "dinner" made of found condiments.  I know about mischief of one kind or another.   I have sent my children to their rooms.

Mr. Sendak, may he rest in peace, could not have found more universal truth to highlight.  Mischievous children are punished ... but their mothers love them nonetheless. 

  

So tonight, when my boys are wrestling, and water gets spilled or a cheek gets kicked, and I yell "Enough!" and send pouty punims to their rooms, I will stop and smile and remember Max.   

Banished, but safe, little boys in their bedrooms have the freedom to imagine themselves elsewhere.  22 foot chicken monsters exist in a playground of parentless pretend. 

And so, while my exiled boys disappear on magical adventures to become Kings, I will anticipate their return and make them dinner.

Today's New York Times Announcement of Maurice Sendak's Death: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/books/maurice-sendak-childrens-author-dies-at-83.html