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‘Family Life’ Category

  1. The Bittersweet March of September

    August 28, 2013 by admin

    The other day I was on the phone with my mother. My husband was out and I had just given my toddler a bath. She was standing in her bedroom, a towel draped around her little shoulders, her gorgeous, curly hair dripping water onto the rug. She was giggling and wiggling away from me as I tried to wrestle a diaper onto her bare bottom, her pudgy feet moving in place as I hugged her close around her belly, breathing in her freshly-washed baby skin.

    My two boys were howling with laughter, the sight of their sister’s bare butt and some silly game they had been playing clearly too much to handle.

    “Oh I miss those days, honey, when you guys were little,” my mother said over the noise, her voice a little wistful.

    But she stopped there. She didn’t go on and on – about enjoying it while I can or not taking it for granted – like well-meaning old ladies in the grocery store sometimes do. She left her longing hanging in the air, an emotion for me to catch at my leisure and contemplate later, on my own time.

    I smiled. The thing was, I actually was enjoying the moment, perfect in its imperfection.

    I wasn’t trying to do a million things at once. I wasn’t annoyed because my children’s antics were keeping me from completing the next task on my never-ending to-do list, the bills, the laundry, the spaghetti sauce that was hardening in the pot on the stove. I wasn’t responding to a text, checking email, lurking on Facebook or trying to perform a twisted combination of all three. I was just being with my kids, my mom happily listening in on our little version of animal house via speakerphone

    But I know someday, I am going to be my mother. (In many ways, I already am.) My kids are going to grow up quicker than I’d like and I’m going to long for those bare bottom moments with the howling laughter soundtrack. I’m going to look back and wonder where the time went, wonder what happened to those pudgy feet and smooth-skinned faces laughing their kids’ laughs and rolling on the floor in hysterics over nothing. It’s inevitable, I know this, but I’m looking for ways to stall.

    As I write this, the first day of school looms in our immediate future, just 24 hours away. At this time tomorrow morning, summer’s easy breezy ways will abruptly come to an end, it’s finality crushing. My oldest son will get out of bed, his eyes heavy with sleep, and ask to watch an episode of Phineas and Ferb, a cartoon about two inventive brothers on an endless summer vacation. “You don’t have time for that today,” I’ll say. “You have school.”

    And so we’ll begin September’s bittersweet march.

    We’ll start to chip away at the summer laze that has left us relatively unhurried. We’ll rush through breakfast. I’ll hound my son to brush his teeth while he studies his rock collection, still in his pajamas. I’ll tell him to put his shoes on three times before he actually does it. Remind him not to forget his lunch. Or his backpack. Then, we’ll all walk my newly-crowned third-grader around the corner to the bus stop. On the way, I’ll wonder if my kids had the epic summer I planned when June opened up seemingly infinite possibilities just nine weeks ago. Will he remember the lake house, the beach, Boat Camp and lazy summer afternoons?

    A swirl of emotions will hang above us in the air: sadness and excitement, uncertainty and anticipation, the nerves that cause that familiar ache in our stomachs, the ache my son thinks I don’t know about, but one I will be feeling right alongside him as he climbs aboard the school bus.

    I’ll hold my younger children’s hands and we’ll watch as the bus drives away, my son’s face pressed up against the window, waving goodbye. He’s still my little boy. But in my heart I know that he’ll return home that afternoon just a little different from the kid he was when he left that morning. I don’t want to say it, but his childhood is running away, faster than I’d like. All my kids’ childhoods are.

    As the days pass, our family will eventually fall into our busy school-year routine. Hockey season will start and we’ll be squeezing in classes at the dojo. There will be PTO and Youth Hockey board meetings, music class and homework and deadlines. My middle child will start his second year of preschool and I’ll go through the emotions all over again. The lazy days of summer will be firmly behind us.

    But this September, I’m going to try and do things a little differently. I’m going to worry less about the crusty spaghetti sauce or what’s going on in my virtual world. I’m going to open up my eyes a little more to what’s happening around me. Instead of hurry up let’s go there’s no time for that, I’ll focus instead on making the most of the little moments that happen between the big ones. Because it’s those little ones that actually matter. The ones that are bare-bottomed and filled with howling laughter and generally inconvenient to life’s daily duties, but so pertinent to the bigger picture.

    The great Ferris Bueller once said, “Life moves pretty fast. You don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

    And this school year, I don’t want to miss a single thing.

    This column appears in the September 2013 issue of Merrimack Valley Parent


  2. Bananagrams with an 8-Year-Old

    August 20, 2013 by admin

    It is very difficult for me to accept loss.

    That didn’t come out right. I am not talking about death or anything near as serious as that. I’m talking about board games. I HATE to lose. I was never good at sports (Remind me to tell you about the time I was running so slow during an indoor track meet that some bleary-eyed preschoolers were screaming at me to run faster so they could go home. Not. Even. Kidding.)  So I never did develop a true understanding of the whole competition thing on the field, ice or court. But open up a Scrabble board, and I’m all over that sh*t like white on rice. This is where I shine.

    But since I’ve become a parent, I’ve obviously had to tone down that part of my personality, especially when playing games with the kids. Teach them about gracious winning and losing. About respecting your opponent. And all of those other behaviors that I no longer display when I am playing against my peers and out for blood. But we teach kids to be the antithesis of competitive because it’s more politically correct and it’s all about the fun and not the winning and we don’t want to make someone else feel bad and everyone gets a trophy. I get it. Sort of.

    Still, these types of lessons are easier – for me – with my 4-year-old (though it’s getting increasingly dicey as his inner competitor is starting to show himself). He mostly still likes to play games that require little to no skill and is just happy that I am on the floor interacting with him and including Bearbo, his beloved stuffed bear, who, by the way, sort of talks like Beaker on crack. With him, I manage to swallow losses in Candyland or Chutes and Ladders or his new favorite, Checkers, because it’s fun for me to see him happy in his victory and most of these games I lose by chance, anyway. So it’s not really a pride-swallowing act, which I can handle. He draws a double purple. I get stuck on a licorice space. There’s nothing you can really do about that.

    But my 8-year-old is a whole other story.

    Braedan, a hockey and lacrosse player and karate student, is the epitome of competition. He loves to win. And when he loses, he works harder the next time to try and make sure it doesn’t happen again. And board games are no different than sports for him.

    At the beginning of the summer, we went on vacation with some good friends and played round after round of Bananagrams. I never played before then, but was instantly hooked. If you’ve never played , Bananagrams is basically a crossword game in which you receive a number of tiles to start and race against your opponents to build your own crossword using all your tiles. When you have used all your original starting tiles, you say “peel,” and everyone pulls another tile from the pile. It goes on and on until there are fewer tiles in the pile than players, and the winner is the person who uses all their tiles first.

    So for the past couple of weeks, we’ve been playing this game a lot, Braedan and I. And he’s getting good. And this makes it really hard for me to concede victories. It makes it difficult for me not to want to win against an increasingly worthy opponent. Except when he’s being a little troll. Like today.

    We started out all fine and good. My meatloaf was baking in the oven and the wee ones were playing in the family room, so we started a game. Even though he was tired from an active day at boat camp, he was generally pleasant and happy.

    “Doesn’t my meatloaf smell good?” I asked him about midway through our game. My question was a little enthusiastic, maybe. But I was making an actual dinner, not the thing I usually do, which is wait until 5pm and panic because we have nothing to eat.

    Little did I know there was piss and vinegar boiling inside him.

    “It smells dis-gust-ing,” he said, the look of pure evil in his eyes, accentuating every syllable so he could be sure I heard him correctly. That came out of nowhere! I don’t know if his day had finally caught up with him, or if he was upset because he was having difficulty using his Bananagrams tiles. It didn’t matter. I saw where his mood was headed and for whatever reason – lack of sleep, the end-of-summer bickering with his brother – I didn’t have it in me today to pull him out of the rabbit hole the way I should have.

    Oh, Aight, you wanna go out like that?  It’s on, little man. 

    Now normally, when he was having trouble, I’d stop working on my puzzle and give him a subtle hint or two to help him get back on track with his. Not today. Not now. Instead, I was a magician, my hands as quick as lighting, creating words like nobody’s business. I was no longer nice mommy playing a word game with her 8-year-old to increase his learning. I was no-holds-barred mommy, out for blood. And admittedly, it felt good. (In my defense, though, I went about my business quietly. No boasting or bragging. Just pure, silent genius.)

    Peel. Peel. Peel. Peel. Peel.

    Done.

    And it was magnificent. My best puzzle yet. I wanted to take a picture.

    Braedan threw his hands up in defeat, shouted something about me creaming him on purpose. As you can probably guess, it was all downhill from there. And the whole ugly scene left a bad taste in my mouth.

    But the meatloaf, that was delicious.


  3. My Pantry is Bare, and I’m Happy

    August 16, 2013 by admin

    Right now, I’m sitting in my kitchen in the quiet of the early morning, enjoying a cup of coffee and admiring my bare pantry.

    I know. Totally weird, right?

    But you have to understand. Just two weeks ago, there was disorder and chaos. Among other unsightly things, there were half-full bags of chips, crackers and pretzels, small-house-sized boxes of Goldfish wedged between shelves, bags of awful leftover birthday party favor candy that I felt too guilty to throw away (I ate all the chocolate), 4 half-boxes of lasagna noodles (WTF?) and six cans of expired evaporated milk. (I mean 1. who has that much evaporated milk? and 2. who lets it go bad? That stuff lasts forever!)

    I mean it was bad. My pantry was the Sanford and Son of pantries.

    Sanford

    But where there was mayhem before, I now see organization and clean lines. Jarred things are grouped together by type like high school cliques. Boxes are aligned by size. It’s a beautiful thing.

    And just how have we reached such a food storage nirvana, you ask.

    We stopped buying snacks.

    Fig Newtons. Pirate’s Booty. Potato chips. Even the Goldfish, my children’s crack. We stopped buying them all.

    The Martha Stewartization of my little pantry is just a pleasant bi-product of a decision that was made because 1) my husband and I were getting too fat and 2) my kids spent most of their waking hours asking for snacks. Snacks to go to the grocery store. Snacks for the park. Snacks to drive to hockey practice. Snacks to eat at the dojo. Snacks because they hadn’t snacked in the last 45 minutes. Snacks, snacks, snacks, snacks and more freakin’ snacks. And I gave in. All. The. Time.

    And then I’d yell at them when they wouldn’t eat dinner. (Mealtimes could be a shit show.) Or get frustrated when they balked at my suggestions of fresh fruit or veggies. We don’t want THAT!

    So we stopped buying the admittedly delicious snack-y foods. (And I stopped making those “special” weekly trips to Dunkin’ Donuts for munchkins too.) Not because of High Fructose Corn Syrup or Gluten or GMO’s or Monsanto. Not that I don’t care about those things. It’s just that I can’t keep up or keep track. Not with three kids. I have a hard enough time just making sure my toddler is not eating sand or Legos.

    We stopped buying the snacks just because we wanted all of us to eat a little better. A little fresher. I wanted my kids not to gag when I tried to feed them zucchini and summer squash. I wanted them to know that a snack or a treat doesn’t have to come out of a box or a Dunkin’ Donuts bag. That it can come from a tree at our local farm. And we started to feel like all these foods we were giving them were getting in the way of that.

    It’s been a couple of weeks and so far so good. Actually, it’s more than good. I’ve already lost a couple of pounds (God only knows how much I was consuming with the handfuls of potato chips snatched during frequent pantry flybys or the spoonfuls of Nutella inhaled before bed.) My husband – damn him – has lost even more. And while I expected a Linda Blair-type reaction from my kids (Wow, that picture really freaks me out), it only took a couple of days before the kids stopped whining about what we didn’t have, and instead started reaching into the refrigerator for a healthier alternative. Even if they are doing it out of spite or to halt starvation, I figure we’re still winning.

    I’m not saying I’m never going to buy Goldfish crackers again. I’m not going to start sending anonymous crazy-lady posts to message boards lecturing other moms about the dangers of high fructose corn syrup or about the necessity to buy organic. I’m not going to tell my kids that they are banned from eating Doritos or potato chips on playdates. I’m just going to try and be better about what we eat as a family at home. And if that means no more Nutella, well, I’ll just have to eat it behind closed doors. Kidding! (Kind of.)


  4. A Modern Day Julie McCoy

    August 7, 2013 by admin

    Welcome aboard, you little shits. What can I do for you now?

    JulieMcCoy

    I’m sure Julie McCoy, cruise director of the Love Boat, never spoke to her passengers like that. (She probably would have been thrown overboard by Captain Stubing.) But she only had to entertain an entire cruise ship. I am the point person for occupying an 8, 4 and almost 2-year-old for the entire summer.

    But seriously, us SAHMs (and dads) are totally the modern day Julie McCoys, trading the navy suit with white piping and clipboard for yoga pants (or, in my case, sweatpants) and smartphones. We make sure all the passengers aboard our boat – or Minivan or SUV or whatever it is you captain – are happy and satisfied with their entertainment. I find it completely exhausting. And, to be quite honest, a little over-the-top.

    At dinner, I’m already planning what we’ll do the next day and asking the kids – I’m asking the kids, for f*ck’s sake! – if it all sounds acceptable to them. I was thinking of going to the beach tomorrow. Is that all right with you, sirs? You won’t have to do a thing. Not a thing! I’ll take care of it all. I know the basket of beach toys is sooooooo heavy. I’ll carry everything, including the 25-pound 2-year-old in the Kelty on my back. I’ll put on your sunscreen and pack a nice lunch. And after, we could stop for ice cream. Does that sound good? And then when we’re ALL good and tired and have sand stuck in places where it won’t come out for days, I’m going to carry everything back to the car while you whine and complain that you’re hot and hungry. And then when we get home, YOU can relax with a movie while I do the chores, try and fit in some work and start dinner. How does that sound? Good? Good. 

    Then, I go to bed making a mental list of all of the crap I need to pack for our outing and setting my alarm for some ungodly hour so I can be sure everything is in order before we leave. Because all hell will break loose if I forget the goddamn Goldfish crackers.

    Now I know what some of you are thinking. How could you say such things? Being a SAHM is the most wonderful thing in the world. It’s a gift. 

    And I know this. Really. I do. And I am grateful and blessed that I can stay home with my children – who I love unconditionally. Honest. I do. That’s why I had three – and spend my summer entertaining their every childhood whim.

    The truth is, I really don’t mind being the family’s Julie McCoy. (I know you think I’m lying, by the way.) I mean, I could be stuck in an office studying spreadsheets. But instead, I get to see the little people that mean everything in the world to me enjoy themselves and make memories. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t get to me sometimes. That doesn’t mean it’s not completely exhausting and totally overwhelming.

    And at least Julie McCoy got paid for her troubles.

    I know. I know! My reward doesn’t come in monetary form. I know that it’s so much more than that. But when you’re in the thick of it, and you’re running yourself ragged doing everything humanly possible to make sure everyone is happy and having THE SUMMER OF THEIR LIVES, sometimes you have to remind yourself of that. And I guess I am. Right now.

    For the remainder of the summer, the days of which are dwindling faster than I’d like, I’m also going to remind myself that the kids’ happiest times are the times when I actually do the least amount of work, Squirting each other with squirt guns. Splashing together in the blowup pool. Playing a game of Bananagrams. Taking a walk through the park. These may not be the events that kids will write about in their What I Did Over Summer Vacation essays once seated at their desks back at school but they are the times when happy moments come easy and stress-free. And these are the ones I want to make sure we have more of before the start of school.

    I’m sure even Julie McCoy got pissed off at her passengers once in a while. (And, by the way, I am totally being her for Halloween now.) But for my sanity – and for my kids’ – I have to stop playing Julie McCoy once in a while. I’m not a cruise director. I don’t even want to play one on TV.

    I want to leave you with a scenario to ponder. What if Julie McCoy, cruise director extraordinaire, jumped ship and rowed ashore on a lifeboat one day, leaving her passengers to their own devices. What if she threw in her navy suit and clipboard and syrupy sweet smile and said F-U, I’m not doing it anymore. Find your own f-ing fun. What then? Would her passengers turn into a boatful of lifeless a-holes, floundering in their own boredom? Or would they rally and find their own fun?

    I hope it’s the latter, because THIS Julie McCoy plans to row ashore, at least a couple of times this summer.


  5. Kids, Like Parents, Just Can’t Have it All

    July 30, 2013 by admin

    Kids, Like Parents, Just Can’t Have It All

    (From the August 2013 issue of Merrimack Valley Parent)

    By Michelle Xiarhos Curran

    As parents, most of us want our children to have full and engaging lives, to have experiences that we may have never had. We want them to explore their interests and eventually find their niche. We want them to have fun and learn and grow, to be good at something, and enjoy doing it. We want them to gain the life skills they’ll need to live happily in this ever-changing world.

    But we also want them to play outside, because we know it’s good – not to mention necessary – for them. We want them to come up with their own games and ideas, to entertain themselves instead of whining about boredom when there is no organized activity – or mobile device – to keep them busy. We want them to be happy and carefree and twirl in circles in the back yard under the shining sun. We want them, well, to be kids. Essentially, as parents, we want them to have it all.

    But how do you know when you have achieved equilibrium? And does that even exist? Or is it an elusive wisp of a thing that slips through your fingers just when you thought you finally had it right?

    As a parent to three children, ages 8, 4 and almost 2, it’s only recently that I have had to pay closer attention to that delicate balance between too much and not enough, to finding that sweet spot of extracurricular activity that’ll keep my kids involved but not worn out, enriched but not overtaxed.

    The whole process of finding that balance, however, can be emotionally, physically and financially taxing – not to mention maddening when you add in the slew of outside factors that can cause even the most sane and rational of parents to balk at their own instincts. There’s the pressure to make sure your child is keeping up with his peers, the built-in parental guilt that, no matter how hard you try, you’re never doing quite enough, and the recurring thoughts in the back of your mind that your child might just be a prodigy at something, if only you could help him figure out what that something is.

    Our oldest started with baby music classes. Later, it was soccer, a sport all the other kids were doing. I think he was 3 years old, right around the time we started paying tuition for preschool. He took to it right away.

    But from the moment we found out our first-born was to be a boy, we knew he would play hockey, or at least my husband, a former college hockey player, did. (And if he had turned out to be a she, well then she likely would have tried hockey too.) So after some skating and basic skills lessons, we plunked down the money for our son to play and crossed our fingers. He was 5. He loved it. And he still does, rigorous schedule, intense competition and all. And he’s having fun. We all are.

    But hockey put an end to soccer, a sport he still thinks about wistfully when he plays with his dad in the back yard. While some of his young friends were managing both, we told him he had to make a choice. I certainly wasn’t going to be one of those moms. I wasn’t going to schedule my son so that his only free time consisted of snacking in the car between activities.

    But then came karate, another sport that requires a hefty time commitment. We signed him up for the discipline and focus that martial arts can teach; he wanted to wear a ghi and learn to break boards with his bare hands. Other moms looked at me with a mix of sympathy and incredulous doubt. Good luck, they said. Hockey and karate don’t mix. There’s just no time. We’d either be freezing our butts off at the rink or stuck inside the dojo dodging front two-knuckle punches.

    But between myself and my husband – who coaches the hockey team – we manage with little trouble except the occasional frenzy of making it from one place to the next, changing out of a ghi into hockey pads on the fly. And littering the car with Goldfish crumbs.

    This year, our middle child has also started taking karate, a small detail that complicates things, but just a little. And last year, our oldest added lacrosse into the mix, an activity that starts up just as hockey – a sport with a seemingly never-ending season –  is winding down. But then there’s all those things that are on his bucket list that we just have no time for: Boy Scouts, guitar lessons and learning Spanish. We are discovering, as parents, that none of us can truly have it all. More importantly, we’ve come to the liberating understanding that we wouldn’t want to.

    As summer – that last bastion of freedom – winds down, thoughts turn to the fast approaching fall and the start of school, to ramped-up schedules and homework and chilly weekend mornings at the rink.

    And as daunting as that all might sound, we have just begun to discover that finding our way to happiness is about making choices, a lesson we are all learning together as a family, because as a family, one person’s decisions affect us all.

    The delicately balanced scales are still holding steady. So far. But soon, they will start to tip, and we’ll need to do something to restore the equilibrium. It doesn’t correct itself. Eventually, we may have to let things go. Maybe that’ll be next year, when our middle son is eligible to start hockey. Maybe it’s in two years, when our youngest, a girl, wants to sign up for soccer, dance or learn to play the drums.

    Maybe it’s when my husband or I decide that our interests will take center stage. I doubt that, but maybe.

    But what will most definitely bring things to a screeching halt is if any of these extracurricular activities take away from the things that are most important: responsibilities, enjoying life and spending time together as a family, exploring new things and sometimes – just sometimes – living life outside of a rigid time schedule.

    Right now, my boys are outside drawing in the dirt patch at the side of our yard, pretending it’s a road in an ancient city. I catch them doing things like this sometimes. Role-playing with Legos or writing a story or having a picnic on the family room floor with their baby sister. They still have time to play with their best friends. Sometimes, they even have time to just sit around and do nothing. And that’s okay. In fact, it’s more than okay. It’s how it is supposed to be. And so long as there’s still time for nothing, I know that we’re doing alright.

    Michelle Xiarhos Curran is a freelance writer and mom of three in Newburyport.


  6. The 3:30PM Text

    July 23, 2013 by admin

    Everyday around 3:30pm, my husband texts me from work.

    “Everyone doing ok?”

    It’s a simple enough question, but with very complex undertones.

    What he’s really asking with those three little words are a variety of questions, the answers to which will determine how he should prepare himself on his commute home from Boston. Should he armor up for battle? Or will he be plastered with kisses and hugs? Will I give him the cold shoulder or tell him about my wonderful day with our 3 little cherubs?

    The simple fact is that the question: “Everyone doing ok?” really is code for one – but usually more – of the following:

    • Have the kids behaved like human beings? 
    • Did you drink enough coffee to sustain yourself through the afternoon?
    • Did anyone require a trip to the emergency room?
    • Will I be able to actually open the front door or will it be barricaded with shoes, crafts, legos and various other toys?
    • Will there be any dinner or will we be having cold cereal?
    • Was anyone’s head bashed into the wall?
    • Were you able to converse with any other adults today?
    • Did you leave the house?
    • Did anything in the house fall apart, fall off, or break down?
    • Should I look at, hug, kiss or otherwise acknowledge you when I walk through the door or should I proceed directly to the kids?
    • Have you googled “giving kids up for adoption?”

    The honest truth is that the majority of our days are good, or at least they start out that way. But by the time 6:30pm rolls around, I have to admit, I have pretty much had it (especially during summer break), and am looking for some relief.

    Here was today’s response to the 3:30pm text:

    Husband: Everyone doing ok?

    Me: Ok. It has rained all day. Tried to nap with the boys, a no go of course. The wood stove pipe leaked and there was a random puddle of water on the floor in the basement. Col slammed the doorknob-less door and got stuck in his room for 1/2 hour while I rescued him. The boys are still in their underwear. Just a regular day.

     


  7. The Summertime Roller Coaster

    July 9, 2013 by admin

    This morning, as my two boys were sitting nicely at the table drawing and creating and complimenting each other on their works of art, I looked at them with eyes all loving and misty, and said, “I sure am going to miss you guys when you go back to school. I like having you both home all day.”

    Aria, age 1.5, was in her high chair eating some dried Apple Jacks – well, Apple Dapples, the Market Basket version of Apple Jacks – looking all cute with her headful of messy curls. I didn’t even mind that most of them were on the floor. It was nearly like a picture print by Currier & Ives: summertime version.

    That was 9am.

    Flash forward 5 hours.

    It’s now 2pm and both boys have had separate playdates – one home, one away – and have eaten lunch. I’ve cleaned up the mess of toys and a table full of dishes and half-eaten cheese sandwiches and squished blueberries off the floor. The baby is napping, so I agree to let them play some Wii and decide to sit down so I can get some writing done. I set up the Wii and leave the room and at the exact moment my butt hits the chair and I open my laptop, there is a problem with the Wii. Problem solved, I sit back down. Immediately after, bickering ensues. My 4-year-old is screaming at my 8-year-old who is screaming for me. WTF. I stomp into the family room, wielding a silent fury that seems a tad too extreme for the situation. In the background, some a-hole is running a chainsaw.

    Suddenly that picture print by Currier & Ives is looking more like Munch’s The Scream

    I want school to start. Now. I don’t care that we’ve only been out since June 25. I don’t care that most of the summer lies ahead of us in all its unbridled freedom. We’ve already been on our vacation to Maine, where we spent 7 glorious days kayaking, fishing, hiking, rockhounding, swimming and just having some old-fashioned fun with good friends, good food and good wine. The kids have had some playdates. They’ve enjoyed their fair share of sun. Bring on 3rd grade and pre-K. What time is bus pick-up?

    But wait. What is that I hear? Talking. In normal voices! Not screaming, at least not at each other. The boys are conversing nicely and complimenting each other on their Wii playing. They are working together to to conquer Mario’s enemies and collect Power Stars. They are cheering in unison. How wonderful, the brotherly love! I sure am glad it’s summer vacation.

    Until I’m not.


  8. This Just Can’t be Normal

    May 15, 2013 by admin

    Sometimes I think we’re a fairly normal family. Other times, I wonder if we are fit to socialize with our fellow human beings.

    You tell me.

    Here was the scene at my house this morning:

    Everything was going along smoothly. People were eating breakfast. Others were getting dressed. No one was screaming or crying or knocking each other’s heads into the wall. So I sat down to take a sip of coffee and get a couple of quick things done on my computer.

    Then I looked up at the time on the screen.

    Then I went into drill sergeant mode.

    “We’re going to miss the bus! Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go!”

    Our bus routine is timed to the minute. We walk out our door at exactly 7:41, by the kitchen clock. My computer screen said 7:41.

    I sprung into action, checked the kitchen clock. 7:44.

    My crowning achievement has been that we have never missed the bus. And now we were in danger of doing just that because EVERY FREAKING CLOCK IN OUR HOUSE IS SET TO A DIFFERENT TIME! And because I let my guard down. NEVER let your guard down.

    The time on my phone is different from my computer is different from the kitchen is different from the family room.

    It’s only by a matter of a minute or two, but a minute is critical to our success. Stray just a little and despite our best efforts, despite huffing and puffing and flailing our arms, we’ll see nothing but tail lights as we round the corner. And drop off at the elementary school is something I have absolutely no interest in. Not the way I am dressed (flannel snowman pajama pants). Not the way my hair is matted on one side, sticking straight up on the other, in true Flock of Seagulls fashion.

    I start screaming.

    “We’re going to miss the bus!!!”

    This doesn’t raise an eyebrow with my 8-year-old. At first. Mostly because I say this EVERY morning. Then we get to the bus stop and 99.9 percent of the time, we are the first ones there and my son looks at me with great disdain.

    Then I scream again. Louder. I am not acting like a sane person whose child is about to miss his bus to school. I am acting as if there is a wildfire burning in the middle of our dining room and we are all in serious danger of perishing. And if I have learned anything about raising a family, it’s that the children pick up whatever the mother is dropping.

    And I am dropping a lot of craziness.

    My son begins to exaggerate his movements in anger. He’s “trying” to put his coat on really fast, but puts it on backwards, while he is also trying to put his shoes on while I am running around, flinging random food items into his lunchbox for snack. I imagine I hear the school bus roaring down the street.

    “Come on! Let’s go!” I yell.

    “What do you think I’m doing? What the heck?” My son is also yelling now. My 4-year-old is covering his ears at the breakfast table. My 18-month-old is just smiling, but it’s one of those smiles she’s giving me in the hopes that I’ll smile back at her. She’s hoping beyond hope that her family hasn’t finally just lost it.

    “Why are you freaking out?” I yell at the 8-year-old.

    Hold up. I know exactly why he is freaking out. Because I am freaking out. Big time. But in the moment, I can’t get a grip and I am barking orders at him, glaring while he tries to straighten out the back of his shoe to fit his foot in and sling his backpack over his back.

    “This is the latest we’ve ever been!” I say predictably. Me with my Flock of Seagulls hair and snowman pajama pants.

    And in this exact moment, I believe – no, I know – I have lost just a little bit of my children’s respect. And respect is hard to come by.

    We finally get out the door.

    “Run!” I yell, and I begin to run down the street in my flip flops. My 8-year-old jogs behind me.

    “Why did you call me a freak?” he’s yelling.

    “I didn’t!” I call behind me. “I asked why you were freaking out! Let’s go!”

    We round the corner and there is no one there. “See. We’re the first ones! We’re not late!” my son yells spitefully. The bus pulls down the street. We walk up to the stop. I take a deep breath and give my son a kiss on the cheek, as sweetly as I can. “Have a great day!” I say cheerfully. The other children run to catch the bus while my son sits down, begins chatting with a friend.

    The bus starts to pull away.

    But not before I notice that there is a little girl staring at me through the window. She doesn’t look happy. In fact, she looks a little angry. Then I remember my Flock of Seagulls hair and snowman pajama pants and turn to walk home. Laughing all the way.


  9. When the Tooth Fairy Forgets – Twice

    April 13, 2013 by admin

    Seriously, WTF is wrong with the Tooth Fairy?

    Wednesday, my almost 8-year-old son had a tooth pulled, and the only thing getting him through the hours leading up to the intimidating experience was that the Tooth Fairy would come that night. He sat in the vinyl, reclining chair, shivering with a bit of fear, holding my hand. The dentist shot him up with novocaine. He wiggled out his tooth. We went for ice cream. Before bed, he put his cute little tooth all nestled in its cute little tooth-shaped case underneath his pillow, surely thinking about all the riches he’d receive in return for his lower lateral incisor.

    Then, morning came. He walked into our bedroom.

    “The Tooth Fairy didn’t come,” he said sleepily.

    Fuck. I looked at my husband. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.  

    I know in the GRAND scheme of things, forgetting about the tooth fairy isn’t really that big of a deal. But I don’t like to disappoint my kids. And Braedan’s on the cusp of believing in such things. He’s asking questions. I try my best to keep the kids small and naive and innocent and believing in all these fairy tales. But here I am planting the seeds of doubt with my own hands, right on my very own soil.

    “Oh, you know what? There was this thunderstorm last night,” I say casually. Cooly. Believable. “I bet the tooth fairy got holed up somewhere and couldn’t make it through. She’ll come tonight, I bet.”

    I’m telling my son this even though he’s seen Rise of the Guardians. He knows the shit the Tooth Fairy goes through to protect kids’ teeth and knows she’ll stop at nothing. Luckily, he seems satisfied.

    I vow to never forget the Tooth Fairy Again.

    Until I do.

    While Braedan is in school that day, I run to the store and pick some toy off the shelf, a toy I know he’ll discard after a few days, but one that in the moment, he’ll think is cool. I’ll make this right, I think. That night, Braedan puts his tooth under his pillow again. My husband and I stay up too late watching episodes of The Walking Dead. As soon as the television is off, I run into my room, get into bed, and huddle under the covers, as I always do after watching that show because it scares the hell out of me. I dream of zombies and remote farm houses.

    Morning comes. I am awoken by a small, spiteful voice.

    “Hey mom, look what the Tooth Fairy brought me,” Braedan says.

    Fuck. Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck. 

    He holds up the cute little tooth-shaped case with his cute little tooth still inside, a sarcastic look on his face. (God, he is his mother’s son.) The Tooth Fairy is on his very short shit list.

    “What the….?” I say. I am on his side. WTF is going on with the Tooth Fairy?

    I go into the kitchen, where my husband is making coffee.

    “The Tooth Fairy forgot to come. Again.” I say, incredulous.

    “Someone needs to be fired,” Rich says.

    I look at my son, who is simply defeated. “We’ll get to the bottom of this, Braedan. We’ll find out what’s going on.”

    “We’re going to send an email to the Tooth Fairy’s people,” Rich says.

    “Was there another thunderstorm last night?” Braedan asks. He seems so small. So unlike the little tough guy who dons hockey skates and mounds of equipment and races like a phantom across the ice and earns MVP trophies. He is straddling two worlds. On the one hand, he is growing up. So fast. Too fast. On the other hand, he is still my little, tiny baby boy who depends on me. I want to crawl into a hole and stay there until the Tooth Fairy does decide to get her shit together and leave something underneath my kid’s pillow.

    “I don’t think so. Something is going on though,” I say.

    “Or the Tooth Fairy just doesn’t care about me,” he says, sitting at the kitchen island, his head in his hands while he waits for his breakfast.

    I. Am. Such. An. Asshole. 

    This is a big thing to him. Huge. And I have failed. I didn’t even try to blame my husband, who I asked to remind me before bed about the Tooth Fairy. This is my job. It always has been. And I like it that way. And I have to make it right.

    So that day, while Braedan is at school, I come up with a plan I think will work. I run to the store – again – and purchase something I think he actually will like. A pouch of crystals and minerals from the local toy store. Then, I sit down with my phone and compose a fake news story.

    Subject: Re: Breaking News: The Tooth Fairy Apologizes for Disappointing Children

    AP Newswire

    By Brandon Jones

    The Netherlands – In a statement released earlier today, the Tooth Fairy apologized to the thousands of children who woke up the past two mornings with their uprooted teeth still under their pillows.

    Since Tuesday, a drastic increase in the number of falling teeth has been reported in The Netherlands, sending the Tooth Fairy and his people into tooth containment overdrive.

    The dental community is speculating that the increase is due to the recent Easter holiday, and the extra chocolate and jelly beans children in the area have been eating. Some are further speculating there has also been a severe decrease in proper brushing habits, though that had not been confirmed as of press time.

    “I sincerely apologize to all of the disappointed children, especially those in North America. I can promise you that in the next 24 hours, you will find a little something extra underneath your pillows,” said the Tooth Fairy at a press conference held this morning at The Hague, where protesters assembled and held signs and chanted, “Take our teeth. Take our teeth.”

    “We are working double time to make sure the children of the world are not disappointed,” said a clearly distraught Tooth Fairy, whose wings appeared tattered and stained.

    The last time a tooth event of this magnitude occurred was in 1982, when thousands of children in Eastern Europe went 6 days without teeth being collected. That incident is still under investigation.

    *******

    When I’m done writing, I am quite proud of myself. I read it over and am impressed with my commitment to making things right. When Braedan gets home from school, he reads the story, which I tell him I came across on the Internet while I was reading the day’s news. His reaction is hard to decipher. But he reads every word and then marvels over the Eastern European part. The year 1982. “Wow, 1982. That’s a long time ago, Mom.” He says this as if I had written 1782.

    That night we stay up too late watching Walking Dead. Again. I am about to get into bed, when Rich makes some casual and unrelated comment that reminds me of the Tooth Fairy.

    I. Am. Totally. Losing. My. Edge.

    But I slip the pouch of crystals,  a $5 bill and a note under Braedan’s pillow. When he wakes in the morning and finds them under his pillow, he is ecstatic. He takes the crystals out of the pouch and is sorting them on our bed while we are still trying to sleep. He’s telling us about the crystals and reading the note the Tooth Fairy left him. He believes. And all is right with the world.

     

     

     

     


  10. Moms are Superhuman Too

    April 9, 2013 by admin

    Becoming a mother is kind of like becoming Spiderman. Only instead of being bitten by some radioactive arachnid, you’re injected with…well, presumably you know what you’ve been injected with and I SO totally don’t need to go there. But the end results are similar: Superhuman Powers. Because let’s face it, once a woman begins to GROW ANOTHER HUMAN BEING INSIDE HER OWN BODY, everything changes. I’ve been a mom for nearly eight years now, and the side-effects of motherhood still never cease to amaze me. My abilities – like all moms I know – are endless and constantly evolving. Spiderman may be able to sense danger, cling to skyscrapers and possess cat-like reflexes, but here’s some of the things I can do.

     

    • I may not be able to crush a car with my bare hands, but I can carry six grocery bags, a gallon of milk, a cup of coffee and a writhing toddler from the car to the front door with no casualties.
    • I often moonlight as a human lie-detector, able to detect kid bullshit with almost 100 percent accuracy. (One percent fail rate due to 4-year-old’s recently-aquired and surprisingly powerful ability to fib.)
    • I can decipher who has not flushed the toilet by quick visual analysis.
    • I possess superhuman focus, and by that I mean I can tune things out as well as a pair of noise-cancelling headphones. Applicable “things” include cries, whines, screams, screeches of terror (obviously fake) and other obnoxious noises, plus ridiculously outrageous pleas and requests, bickering, tattling and many other forms of verbal diarrhea. This power is used only when absolutely necessary and when no one is in imminent danger.
    • When not picking up, trying to donate or hide old toys under leftover pasta in the trash, I sometimes use my superhuman Toy Detector power to help the kids find things.

     

    – “Mom, where’s that microscopic Lego headlight that goes on my 2,000-piece Lego race car that keeps falling off into random and hard-to-find places?”

    – “In between the left and middle cushions on the smaller couch in the family room, honey. Under the dirty sock and banana peel.”

    (This power also works for finding additional things, such as articles of clothing, homework assignments and other school-related things and sports equipment.)

     

    • When not cooking an actual meal (which admittedly is more nights than not lately) I have the unique ability of presenting food in such a way as kids still think they are eating an actual meal so that the next time they do, in fact, eat an actual meal, they won’t know the difference. (Please, please comment if you get what I’m saying here.)
    • Despite how weird it sounds, being shameless is a special Superhuman Mom Power too, one that I most definitely possess. Since bearing three children, shame has totally gone out the window. Thank God too, because how else would I be able to walk my son to the bus stop in my pajamas or scream like a banshee from the stands at a Mite hockey game?
    • The ability to always make my kids laugh. Am NOT adverse to using potty humor when necessary. But other tricks include:

     

    Making random faces and asking if they’d let me volunteer at their respective schools looking like this:

    image

     

    Showing them funny pictures of their baby sister, like this:

    image

          Dancing uncontrollably across the kitchen floor, like M.C. Hammer on Crack. (Definitely no photo available of that.) Admittedly, this method sometimes backfires and I end up the victim of comments like, “Mom, you are so weird.”

    • The ability to be in a thousand places at once. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but you know what I mean. School, grocery shopping, errands, activities, practice, games, work. The liquor store.  That kind of commitment takes more than just a GPS. 
    • I’m about to get serious on you with this one: I have the ability to comfort my children when no one else can. A tight hug. A soft kiss. A gentle pat on the head or brush of the cheek. Three little words. I love you. Coming from a mom, nothing is more powerful. Not even Spiderman swinging between skyscrapers.

     

    Moms – and Dads, because they have superpowers too – what amazing abilities have you developed since becoming a parent?