As the winter gloom lifts, the Dogwoods have their fifteen minutes, and everyone’s reminded they actually have neighbors, a ritual of another kind begins: spring cleaning. For me, it’s a little like therapy – a clean sweep of all my bad decisions, overzealous purchases, and an altogether healthy exercise in letting go. This year I decided to get seriously ambitious and ask my husband to start bringing down boxes from the attic. Most of them were labeled “Jack,” who is now nearly six—clearly it was high time to weed through them, and yet I couldn’t help but marvel at how quickly the time had gone. Regardless, I was determined to keep my nostalgic inclinations low and the to-give-away pile high.
After the maelstrom settled, I was drawn to the veritable land of misfit baby gear that dominated the pile headed for the door. While by any standard it appeared as if our purging exercise had been a success, it had also come at a price—both literally and figuratively—as the impressive stack before me was a massive reminder of just how much of the boys’ college money I blew keeping the baby goods industry in business. As we walked down that proverbial lane, I enjoyed a few laughs and a very large slice of humble pie.
First there was the head positioner for the crib—two separate little cloth covered sticks that, as I turned them over in my hand, I was downright puzzled as to how I’d ever been convinced they would work. By the time Jack’s nap was over, I’d find one down by his feet and the other wedged between the bars and the bumper. Sometimes I’d even find him holding one above his head like a tiny Olympic torch.
Then there was the crib wedge –its intended purpose was to keep a baby’s head upright and therefore ease congestion. In theory, it was a good idea but in practical application, not so much. I’d place Jack at the top, he’d slide down, and we’d continue our little dance until I gave up altogether. On rare occasions I’d get him up there at just the right angle and he’d stay still long enough for me to believe that I’d finally cracked the code, only to commence his slow descent, centimeters at a time until he’d gathered enough momentum to sail down the rest of the way and slump like a potato bug at the bottom.
Of course, I can’t forget the deluxe piddle pad. As anyone who has ever cared for a little bundle of joy, urine and poop knows, if the baby’s going to blow, you’re going to need a lot more than a piddle pad – and there’s nothing deluxe about it. Another winner, the portable toilet seat for his post potty-training days. I think it’s safe to guess what else found its way down the pipes after that purchase. I even bought baby knee pads for crawlers —or should I say glorified wrist bands. His legs were so chubby, that when I put them on he would neither crawl nor attempt a move of any kind because I’m fairly certain the elastic had temporarily cut off his circulation. I’m pretty sure I was more concerned about his little skinned knees than he was anyway.
Moving on to the car seat neck roll – this product is a little like the story of “The Old Lady who Swallowed the Fly.” I got the car seat to save his life, I got the neck roll to save his neck, but it was bulky and awkward, so he started to cry, I bought the pacifier to stop the cry. Why did I buy? I don’t know why.
I must have been critically sleep-deprived when I bought the battery-operated aspirator that was supposed to suck out Jack’s nose slime while ridiculous songs played in an effort to drown out the scary noise and distract him. I’m pretty sure the scary noise was enough of a distraction and I’m now convinced its real intended purpose was to distract parents from the fact that they’d just gotten the money sucked out of their wallets for no reason. When I returned to the site for a refund I found the words, “Due to health reasons, we’re unable to return this product.” Smart.
Probably my all-time favorite, ne’er do well purchase was the wipe warmer. Everything about it drew you in. Regal name. Nice design. The concept pulled on all your “new mommy” heartstrings. So when I noticed that the bottom quarter of the wipe stack had turned a crispy brown I realized that something had gone very, very wrong. I consulted the manual for the first time. Apparently it was right there in the directions that I had to wash it out once a week to keep the wipes from drying out. Wait, so am I to understand that, in addition to wiping the various unsavory items I have to wipe multiple times a day, I now have to wipe my wipe warmer? Suddenly I felt compelled to furnish Jack with his first important life lesson. Life’s hard. And sometimes your buns are just going to get cold.
After purging the unnecessary baby gear and facing the fact that our little boy was growing up too fast, you’d think I’d been through enough for one weekend. But just as I dusted off the regret and began to settle into 2009 with a renewed spirit and unbearable feeling of lightness, my husband called to me from upstairs. “Hey, hon, why don’t we start on YOUR closet?” Me, with panic setting in, but trying to sound as nonchalant as possible, “No, no – nothing in there we need to worry about, I clean it out all the time.” My husband, “Yea, but there are all these clothes with the tags still on that you’ve never worn.” That was it. I sprinted up the stairs and just as I rounded the corner to our bedroom, I saw him holding one of my most beloved items, a sassy red backless dress in my goal size six. A little number I couldn’t pass up at Banana Republic’s 2007 post-holiday blowout. Still panting, I snatched it from his hand and shoved it clumsily back into a cluster of its counterparts – all with their own personal bargain and delusional story to tell. One therapy session at a time, please.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
On Girl Scout Cookies...
It’s that dreaded season again: the GirlScouts are on the warpath to sell a few cookies and win a few hearts. When I was a kid, this time of year was one of the few during which my parents allowed foods in the house that weren’t whole wheat, homemade or downright good for us. And that was only to prevent awkward run-ins with our neighbors at the grocery store. It was either buy those cookies or face future chance meetings ending in a polite departure laden with the unspoken but clearly understood, “I’ll never forget that you didn’t support my daughter, and by the end of the week, the rest of the neighbors will know about it too. Okay then, bye, bye.” Well, few things have changed over the years, and despite the recession, these little rites of passage trudge on. So no big surprise a whole generation later, several of our cutest neighbors have hit us up for a little “donation” with the same promise of a neighborly outcast unless we cheerfully oblige.
When I was younger and my siblings and I were bound to our parent’s strict food policies, those seemingly innocent boxes—with their depictions of girls learning life skills and building their self esteem—may as well have been the last mouse among a herd of starving stray cats. We would tear into them the first chance we’d get, licking the crumbly remains from our paws before Mom even finished writing the check. For me, Girl Scout Cookies may as well be crack. The last thing I need is to have them lurking in my pantry when I’ve spent years trying to avoid them.
When the first Girl Scout arrived at our door and my five-year-old stood next to me, eyes wide and mouth open, I restrained my old twitch as I wrote the check and invited those salacious plastic towers inside. This is the first year that Jack is in tune with this annual ritual, and it’s the first year in a long time that I couldn’t buy them and immediately cart them off to my husband’s office to avoid a breakdown. I wasn’t a Girl Scout, but I had to participate in school fundraisers when I was young and I remember how awful it was to be met with rejection. Despite my teasing, I’m always on board when it comes to supporting kids fundraisers, as long as they’re the ones doing the work, of course.
Oprah’s Dr. Oz says that no matter what kind of food you bring into your house, you should never put a limit on how much your kids eat. To me this makes sense. My husband always had the worst garbage known to man in every corner of his home and today he’s not only one of the healthiest eaters I know, he doesn’t really care much about sweets. So we decided early on that, like my parents, we would buy only the healthiest of foods for our kids, but if one of those unfortunate high fructose corn syrup options found their way into our house - i.e. Halloween, play date offering, etc. – we would let it stay and run its course. So we didn’t put a limit on how many Girl Scout cookies Jack ate as long as he’d had a substantially healthy choice prior to digging into the box. It took every ounce of restraint I had at my disposal from stopping him as he mowed through eight cookies at a time. But after a week he did stop, and now we have a box and a half left in the pantry. Apparently I’m the only one who hears them incessantly calling my name.
Our decidedly unscientific methodology is to provide healthy options, while not ignoring all the poor choices our kids are bombarded with on a daily basis, and hopefully ensuring those choices don’t turn into cravings because they feel deprived. For instance, when we first moved to Arkansas for some reason Jack was offered a lollipop everywhere we went—from drycleaner to pharmacist. I got so tired of him acting like he’d never met a lollipop he didn’t like that I bought a clear, decorative glass jar and filled it with Dum Dums, keeping it in full view on the kitchen island. After awhile it became so much a part of his landscape that he stopped asking. Who knows if I’m taking the right approach or not, but he’s a skinny little thing and doesn’t seem obsessed with sweets like I was, er, am. I don’t know if this proves any theory, but for now, I’ll take it.
On a side note, I do think it needs to be said that while the Girl Scout big wigs were probably making their cookies attractive on yet another level by assigning cutesy names, you can’t help but see the irony. Shouldn’t “Tagalongs” really be “Can’t believe these Girl Scout cookies have been tagging along my thighs since February?” Or Do-Si-Dos: “I’m going to have to Do-Si-Do my buns off if I eat these.” Thin Mints: the oxymoron of the century. My favorite, however, is the company’s “Thanks-a-lots.” And so I humbly suggest an alternative to its given name: “Yo, Girl Scouts, thanks a lot for sabotaging my New Years Resolution diet in less than a month!”
When I was younger and my siblings and I were bound to our parent’s strict food policies, those seemingly innocent boxes—with their depictions of girls learning life skills and building their self esteem—may as well have been the last mouse among a herd of starving stray cats. We would tear into them the first chance we’d get, licking the crumbly remains from our paws before Mom even finished writing the check. For me, Girl Scout Cookies may as well be crack. The last thing I need is to have them lurking in my pantry when I’ve spent years trying to avoid them.
When the first Girl Scout arrived at our door and my five-year-old stood next to me, eyes wide and mouth open, I restrained my old twitch as I wrote the check and invited those salacious plastic towers inside. This is the first year that Jack is in tune with this annual ritual, and it’s the first year in a long time that I couldn’t buy them and immediately cart them off to my husband’s office to avoid a breakdown. I wasn’t a Girl Scout, but I had to participate in school fundraisers when I was young and I remember how awful it was to be met with rejection. Despite my teasing, I’m always on board when it comes to supporting kids fundraisers, as long as they’re the ones doing the work, of course.
Oprah’s Dr. Oz says that no matter what kind of food you bring into your house, you should never put a limit on how much your kids eat. To me this makes sense. My husband always had the worst garbage known to man in every corner of his home and today he’s not only one of the healthiest eaters I know, he doesn’t really care much about sweets. So we decided early on that, like my parents, we would buy only the healthiest of foods for our kids, but if one of those unfortunate high fructose corn syrup options found their way into our house - i.e. Halloween, play date offering, etc. – we would let it stay and run its course. So we didn’t put a limit on how many Girl Scout cookies Jack ate as long as he’d had a substantially healthy choice prior to digging into the box. It took every ounce of restraint I had at my disposal from stopping him as he mowed through eight cookies at a time. But after a week he did stop, and now we have a box and a half left in the pantry. Apparently I’m the only one who hears them incessantly calling my name.
Our decidedly unscientific methodology is to provide healthy options, while not ignoring all the poor choices our kids are bombarded with on a daily basis, and hopefully ensuring those choices don’t turn into cravings because they feel deprived. For instance, when we first moved to Arkansas for some reason Jack was offered a lollipop everywhere we went—from drycleaner to pharmacist. I got so tired of him acting like he’d never met a lollipop he didn’t like that I bought a clear, decorative glass jar and filled it with Dum Dums, keeping it in full view on the kitchen island. After awhile it became so much a part of his landscape that he stopped asking. Who knows if I’m taking the right approach or not, but he’s a skinny little thing and doesn’t seem obsessed with sweets like I was, er, am. I don’t know if this proves any theory, but for now, I’ll take it.
On a side note, I do think it needs to be said that while the Girl Scout big wigs were probably making their cookies attractive on yet another level by assigning cutesy names, you can’t help but see the irony. Shouldn’t “Tagalongs” really be “Can’t believe these Girl Scout cookies have been tagging along my thighs since February?” Or Do-Si-Dos: “I’m going to have to Do-Si-Do my buns off if I eat these.” Thin Mints: the oxymoron of the century. My favorite, however, is the company’s “Thanks-a-lots.” And so I humbly suggest an alternative to its given name: “Yo, Girl Scouts, thanks a lot for sabotaging my New Years Resolution diet in less than a month!”
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
On Lessons in Futility
So I live in a house with three boys —which is ironic to say the least since I spent the majority of my career as a communications specialist. It’s like God’s playing some gigantic, humbling joke at my expense. “An expert, huh? Here’s a husband and two sons – see what you can do with that!”
On a near daily basis, my 20-month-old comes running up to me in earnest as he says, (I’m paraphrasing, of course), “mmfr-ppffft-zzzah-uumph, doe.” I feel like Marlin, the Dad fish in that scene from “Finding Nemo” where he was getting explicit instructions from a young sea turtle as to how to navigate the East Australian Current without injuring himself. Just before he was sucked into the vortex of 30 million cubic meters of warm seawater traveling at up to 4 knots per second, he said in frustrated oblivion, “You’re really cute, and I’m sure you’re saying something important, but I can’t understand a wooooord…”
Anyway, it went something like that. And for me, it usually goes something like this: Cameron utters something unintelligible all the while looking very cute and confident that he’s a genius, and I respond with a wide-eyed, “Really?” chock full of faux enthusiasm since I have no idea what he’s talking about. He excitedly nods his head, and then believing that we’re in synch quickly moves to his next endeavor which inevitably involves something I would have never agreed to had I truly been in on the arrangement — for instance, dunking my favorite decorative pillow in a tub of water until he was certain he’d killed it. These sessions, I’m totally convinced are all part of his master plan to ultimately claim my sanity. It’s very possible, in fact, that he’s just pretending he can’t talk. Just a theory.
Then there’s my five-year-old, “Mars” man in the making. Everyday I attempt to get a true read on what’s going on in his head, but I’m equally unsuccessful at solving the puzzle.
Me: “Jack, how was school?”
Jack: “Awesome!”
Me: “Great! What was so awesome about it?”
Jack: “I don’t know, it was just awesome.”
Me: “Yea, you, uh, said that.”
And by the way, I also have approximately 150 daily report sheets from his teacher saying, “Today at school, Jack said he felt: “awesome.”
I have to admit, I had big plans that one day I’d hear a gush of compliments from my future daughters-in-law, thanking me profusely for raising men who were not only in touch with their feelings but really knew how to express them. Well, girls, it’s been five years and I haven’t made much progress. I’m not completely ready to throw in the towel, but I am sure that the concept upon which I essentially built a whole career leaves me totally unqualified when trying to navigate the murky waters of the male psyche. I can help any company successfully launch a product, but I have no idea if my son is happy at school or if he goes just because he has no choice.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I’d been married to my husband for two years before I found out that he not only studied fine art, but had a deep appreciation for it. And even then, it was just by chance. On a trip to New York, we visited the Museum of Modern Art when, out of the blue he starts pontificating about the artist’s technique and meaning like he was an authority on the subject. Of course, I just stared at him like an alien had inhabited his body and said something brilliant, like “wha?” I suppose it keeps our marriage interesting. I never really know who’s going to walk in the door. That being said, I’m still holding on to the hope that one day it will be an eccentric millionaire who’s just been keeping up our thirteen-year budget bound charade to ensure I really loved him for him.
So maybe the only really effective communication strategy when it comes to boys is patience – not at the top of my list of virtues, but definitely in the mix. I just have to hope that all the men in my life will spill their guts when they’re good and ready. And when they do, I’ll be listening. And while I harbor this decidedly female wish to know everything my boys are feeling deep down in their souls, on the occasions when all four of us are cuddling on the couch —not a word between us—I think talking is definitely overrated.
On a near daily basis, my 20-month-old comes running up to me in earnest as he says, (I’m paraphrasing, of course), “mmfr-ppffft-zzzah-uumph, doe.” I feel like Marlin, the Dad fish in that scene from “Finding Nemo” where he was getting explicit instructions from a young sea turtle as to how to navigate the East Australian Current without injuring himself. Just before he was sucked into the vortex of 30 million cubic meters of warm seawater traveling at up to 4 knots per second, he said in frustrated oblivion, “You’re really cute, and I’m sure you’re saying something important, but I can’t understand a wooooord…”
Anyway, it went something like that. And for me, it usually goes something like this: Cameron utters something unintelligible all the while looking very cute and confident that he’s a genius, and I respond with a wide-eyed, “Really?” chock full of faux enthusiasm since I have no idea what he’s talking about. He excitedly nods his head, and then believing that we’re in synch quickly moves to his next endeavor which inevitably involves something I would have never agreed to had I truly been in on the arrangement — for instance, dunking my favorite decorative pillow in a tub of water until he was certain he’d killed it. These sessions, I’m totally convinced are all part of his master plan to ultimately claim my sanity. It’s very possible, in fact, that he’s just pretending he can’t talk. Just a theory.
Then there’s my five-year-old, “Mars” man in the making. Everyday I attempt to get a true read on what’s going on in his head, but I’m equally unsuccessful at solving the puzzle.
Me: “Jack, how was school?”
Jack: “Awesome!”
Me: “Great! What was so awesome about it?”
Jack: “I don’t know, it was just awesome.”
Me: “Yea, you, uh, said that.”
And by the way, I also have approximately 150 daily report sheets from his teacher saying, “Today at school, Jack said he felt: “awesome.”
I have to admit, I had big plans that one day I’d hear a gush of compliments from my future daughters-in-law, thanking me profusely for raising men who were not only in touch with their feelings but really knew how to express them. Well, girls, it’s been five years and I haven’t made much progress. I’m not completely ready to throw in the towel, but I am sure that the concept upon which I essentially built a whole career leaves me totally unqualified when trying to navigate the murky waters of the male psyche. I can help any company successfully launch a product, but I have no idea if my son is happy at school or if he goes just because he has no choice.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I’d been married to my husband for two years before I found out that he not only studied fine art, but had a deep appreciation for it. And even then, it was just by chance. On a trip to New York, we visited the Museum of Modern Art when, out of the blue he starts pontificating about the artist’s technique and meaning like he was an authority on the subject. Of course, I just stared at him like an alien had inhabited his body and said something brilliant, like “wha?” I suppose it keeps our marriage interesting. I never really know who’s going to walk in the door. That being said, I’m still holding on to the hope that one day it will be an eccentric millionaire who’s just been keeping up our thirteen-year budget bound charade to ensure I really loved him for him.
So maybe the only really effective communication strategy when it comes to boys is patience – not at the top of my list of virtues, but definitely in the mix. I just have to hope that all the men in my life will spill their guts when they’re good and ready. And when they do, I’ll be listening. And while I harbor this decidedly female wish to know everything my boys are feeling deep down in their souls, on the occasions when all four of us are cuddling on the couch —not a word between us—I think talking is definitely overrated.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
On Birthdays...
When it comes to birthdays, I have one word for you. Outsource. I’m old enough to remember when this concept first became the biggest buzz ever to hit the business world. At the time, I neither knew nor cared about why I should pay attention. But today, the very idea I considered with such laissez faire has become the single most cherished, mental-health-preserving strategy I’ve had the good fortune to come across. Well, Mom’s Day Out is good. And, of course, there is the well-placed glass of red wine…movies by myself…Girl’s Night. But you get the picture – it’s right “up” there with the best of them.
As with any good revelation, it came at a price. And here’s where you may as well know that before I began using “Mother of the Year” as a facetious moniker, I actually believed that the notion was within my reach. In my previous life, I’m pretty sure I was able to juggle complex events, multiple projects and whole groups of colleagues while using my “free hand” to have some semblance of a life. Despite all that heady corporate experience, I now find myself at a bumbling loss managing two diminutive humans who can’t even read.
But at the time, I had high hopes for pulling off my ill-fated attempt at an event of Martha Stewart proportions for my son Jack’s three-year-old birthday party. I thought that I could have my perfect mother, perfect entertainer, eerily-in-control magazine page moment in the sun. I spent months ripping through glossy periodicals, scanning the Internet, and revising “to do” lists that were too long in the first place. I’m not allowed to go into the details as my therapist has advised me not to, but let’s just say that the occasion was enough to snap me into reality and put me off home-celebrated birthdays forever. The bits of blood red icing from the themed sandcastle cake I botched, still embedded in my prize Persian rug, help to keep me honest, too. (My apologies, by the way, to the eight people I thanked for the wrong gift because twenty toddlers converged on all of your beautifully wrapped packages like a pack of hungry wolves.)
So that brings us back to today, cured of my delusions and happy to report that birthday years four and five – while not without their challenges —were pulled off without a lingering twitch in my left eye. This is because I outsourced the details to somebody else: People much more talented and better equipped than I to pull off a child’s birthday party of any proportion. Yes, there is a God. And sometimes He comes in the form of JumpZone, Pump It Up or Mid-America Karate. I mean, really, you’ve got to hand it to these places. If you can find the staff equipped with the iron stomach necessary to handle breaking up fights, teetering ice cream cones, regurgitating toddlers and flying cake, then you deserve every red cent you get to pull it off.
In fact, both birthdays ended with me thanking the poor high school students they hired to host the little rascals for two hours of sheer mayhem, while doing my cutest, shoulders up, wincing apology for all the little mishaps and colossal mess left for them to clean up. Then, after delivering the classic Saturday Night Live skit send-off, “Buh, bye” and sinking into my seat for the drive home, a satisfied calm came over me knowing that I wouldn’t have to spend the next three weeks digging smashed cake sprinkles out of the grooves of my kitchen table with a toothpick, rubbing greasy little handprints off my mirrors and windows, or gluing the heads back on Jack’s Star Wars action figures. Now, if only I could outsource getting back into shape…
As with any good revelation, it came at a price. And here’s where you may as well know that before I began using “Mother of the Year” as a facetious moniker, I actually believed that the notion was within my reach. In my previous life, I’m pretty sure I was able to juggle complex events, multiple projects and whole groups of colleagues while using my “free hand” to have some semblance of a life. Despite all that heady corporate experience, I now find myself at a bumbling loss managing two diminutive humans who can’t even read.
But at the time, I had high hopes for pulling off my ill-fated attempt at an event of Martha Stewart proportions for my son Jack’s three-year-old birthday party. I thought that I could have my perfect mother, perfect entertainer, eerily-in-control magazine page moment in the sun. I spent months ripping through glossy periodicals, scanning the Internet, and revising “to do” lists that were too long in the first place. I’m not allowed to go into the details as my therapist has advised me not to, but let’s just say that the occasion was enough to snap me into reality and put me off home-celebrated birthdays forever. The bits of blood red icing from the themed sandcastle cake I botched, still embedded in my prize Persian rug, help to keep me honest, too. (My apologies, by the way, to the eight people I thanked for the wrong gift because twenty toddlers converged on all of your beautifully wrapped packages like a pack of hungry wolves.)
So that brings us back to today, cured of my delusions and happy to report that birthday years four and five – while not without their challenges —were pulled off without a lingering twitch in my left eye. This is because I outsourced the details to somebody else: People much more talented and better equipped than I to pull off a child’s birthday party of any proportion. Yes, there is a God. And sometimes He comes in the form of JumpZone, Pump It Up or Mid-America Karate. I mean, really, you’ve got to hand it to these places. If you can find the staff equipped with the iron stomach necessary to handle breaking up fights, teetering ice cream cones, regurgitating toddlers and flying cake, then you deserve every red cent you get to pull it off.
In fact, both birthdays ended with me thanking the poor high school students they hired to host the little rascals for two hours of sheer mayhem, while doing my cutest, shoulders up, wincing apology for all the little mishaps and colossal mess left for them to clean up. Then, after delivering the classic Saturday Night Live skit send-off, “Buh, bye” and sinking into my seat for the drive home, a satisfied calm came over me knowing that I wouldn’t have to spend the next three weeks digging smashed cake sprinkles out of the grooves of my kitchen table with a toothpick, rubbing greasy little handprints off my mirrors and windows, or gluing the heads back on Jack’s Star Wars action figures. Now, if only I could outsource getting back into shape…
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
On Resolutions...
I have this recurring nightmare that hosts Stacy and Clinton from “What Not to Wear” are lurking behind every corner I pass just waiting to drag me into the car as it burns skid marks into the street careening back to their studios. Once inside, they hurt themselves trying to figure out which army of extreme makeover specialists they’re going to enlist to put me back together, but my case is so complicated I turn into a year-long series.
I used to have it together – or maybe I just remember it that way – you know, like how you perceive all your old relationships? There was a good reason it didn’t last, but once a little time has passed, you can’t remember why you broke up. You convince yourself that the “babe” with the stunning green eyes didn’t really mix-up the meanings of “monotonous” and “monogamous,” or that the witty marketing director was kidding when he suggested you buy your own birthday dinner with your Christmas bonus. But I digress…
The fact is, 2009 is a particularly powerful resolution year for me because I’m no longer hanging on the edge of 40 – the last pinky has been plucked off the cliff and I’m going to find myself free-falling into oblivion unless I get serious about re-introducing myself to myself.
Somewhere between “I do” and “Congratulations, it’s a boy!” I’ve forgotten almost everything I used to love about me. And it’s not my kids’ fault and certainly not my husband’s. I think as women, we’re just engineered to put ourselves last. It’s been years since I’ve arrived at a hair salon without an inch and a half of my “natural blonde” cascading out of my roots. And I can’t remember the last time my esthetician hasn’t had to navigate a jungle to reshape what used to be my eyebrows. Or for that matter, the last time I actually enjoyed wearing pants without an elastic waistband.
I think “Mom, Tate Emerson” is nice. But maybe “Tate Emerson, Mom, freelance writer, etc.” might be even more interesting. As it stands, once the lunches have been made, clothes are cleaned, everyone’s well-fed, and tucked into bed for the night, there doesn’t seem to be anything left. Time-wise or otherwise and I find myself depleted, collapsing into the sheets and muttering to myself that I’ll start tomorrow.
Well, my friends, tomorrow has come. There’s a reason that the word “her” lives inside “mother.” Come to think of it, it’s at the end there too. So forget the semantics. 2009 has to be the year that we Moms reconnect with ourselves, because the day our little ones go off to college – we should be able to enjoy our own company. Unless I start making progress now, one day you might find me wandering aimlessly in a field somewhere, uttering something unintelligible about the impossibility of keeping lunches interesting in a peanut-free zone.
So let’s get going! But, take it slowly. Don’t get overwhelmed with all that needs to change, just start here: commit to putting a little of yourself back into your life – in any way that means for you. It could be stealing 15 minutes a day for a cup of coffee and a few pages of the paper in silence. Joining an adult soccer league, or getting up an hour earlier to get the little exercise in that won’t happen unless it’s done before sunrise. Maybe it’s getting your hairstyle out of the 70’s. Come to think of it, I might want to start there. I wear a hat so often, I couldn’t even venture a guess as to which era my follicles align themselves. It could also be as simple as buying a journal so that you can remember the things you were passionate about before you had a family. Start small, but make 2009 the year you start to mother yourself. And if you’re still confused about where to start, take it from the top. Look in the mirror, and say, “Hi, my name is…” Then, just work on filling in the blanks.
I used to have it together – or maybe I just remember it that way – you know, like how you perceive all your old relationships? There was a good reason it didn’t last, but once a little time has passed, you can’t remember why you broke up. You convince yourself that the “babe” with the stunning green eyes didn’t really mix-up the meanings of “monotonous” and “monogamous,” or that the witty marketing director was kidding when he suggested you buy your own birthday dinner with your Christmas bonus. But I digress…
The fact is, 2009 is a particularly powerful resolution year for me because I’m no longer hanging on the edge of 40 – the last pinky has been plucked off the cliff and I’m going to find myself free-falling into oblivion unless I get serious about re-introducing myself to myself.
Somewhere between “I do” and “Congratulations, it’s a boy!” I’ve forgotten almost everything I used to love about me. And it’s not my kids’ fault and certainly not my husband’s. I think as women, we’re just engineered to put ourselves last. It’s been years since I’ve arrived at a hair salon without an inch and a half of my “natural blonde” cascading out of my roots. And I can’t remember the last time my esthetician hasn’t had to navigate a jungle to reshape what used to be my eyebrows. Or for that matter, the last time I actually enjoyed wearing pants without an elastic waistband.
I think “Mom, Tate Emerson” is nice. But maybe “Tate Emerson, Mom, freelance writer, etc.” might be even more interesting. As it stands, once the lunches have been made, clothes are cleaned, everyone’s well-fed, and tucked into bed for the night, there doesn’t seem to be anything left. Time-wise or otherwise and I find myself depleted, collapsing into the sheets and muttering to myself that I’ll start tomorrow.
Well, my friends, tomorrow has come. There’s a reason that the word “her” lives inside “mother.” Come to think of it, it’s at the end there too. So forget the semantics. 2009 has to be the year that we Moms reconnect with ourselves, because the day our little ones go off to college – we should be able to enjoy our own company. Unless I start making progress now, one day you might find me wandering aimlessly in a field somewhere, uttering something unintelligible about the impossibility of keeping lunches interesting in a peanut-free zone.
So let’s get going! But, take it slowly. Don’t get overwhelmed with all that needs to change, just start here: commit to putting a little of yourself back into your life – in any way that means for you. It could be stealing 15 minutes a day for a cup of coffee and a few pages of the paper in silence. Joining an adult soccer league, or getting up an hour earlier to get the little exercise in that won’t happen unless it’s done before sunrise. Maybe it’s getting your hairstyle out of the 70’s. Come to think of it, I might want to start there. I wear a hat so often, I couldn’t even venture a guess as to which era my follicles align themselves. It could also be as simple as buying a journal so that you can remember the things you were passionate about before you had a family. Start small, but make 2009 the year you start to mother yourself. And if you’re still confused about where to start, take it from the top. Look in the mirror, and say, “Hi, my name is…” Then, just work on filling in the blanks.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
On Christmas Cards...
In 2003, I received a Christmas card from my son Jack. This was only odd, because at the time he was about four months old. There he was—not the best picture of him mind you—in one of those typical drugstore slicks with a framed heading that read, “Baby’s First Christmas.” Underneath? Nothing but “Jack Emerson.” Apparently, I had not sent my Christmas cards out in a timely enough fashion for my mother-in-law, so she had taken it upon herself to convert a photo we’d shared with her via e-mail and sent them to our entire collection of family and friends. The big kicker was that our baby announcements had yet to be sent, so this was Jack’s very first introduction to the world at large.
It’s been years now, so I’m over it, but I can say with conviction that in the moment I wanted to muster up the little energy I had left from months of sleepless nights, and max out my credit cards for an airline ticket home so I could see her face when I called her every name I could eek out without taking a breath. I’d also rehearsed giving her permission to queue up child services, because I was pretty sure his baby book wouldn’t be filled out by the time he was 16 either. The fact is, my mother-in-law is one of the sweetest women I know…and me? I’m not usually that insane, so I can only conclude that the subject of Christmas cards just has a tendency to bring out a little of the crazy in all of us.
Christmas Cards. Just the mere mention of the phrase has the little hairs on my neck doing their best tiny soldier impressions. I literally start to panic sometime toward the end of summer, suddenly desperate to find a beach, crisp linen shirts and bribe my boys to hold hands for more than two seconds while my digital camera pauses between takes and misses every perfect shot. Then I think, “No, a Fall setting would be nice,” but before I know it, it’s December, the trees are bare and I’m dragging the both of them to the mall hoping that the Santa on duty has a good sense of humor.
In any case, Christmas card season calls for a special group of coping skills, and in order to survive it with any modicum of success, I believe you must first decide who you are. For instance, you may fancy yourself a determined idealist and therefore will cling fiercely to the hope that all the stars will align and you’ll find that perfect smiling, good hair day, stain free moment regardless of how long it takes. Or maybe you aspire to be the carefree technologist. In this case, capturing the perfect moment holds no anxiety for you because your computer skills allow you to fabricate it. These folks simply find the best faces out of the year-long photo library, pair them with bodies that are all facing forward and Photoshop them together to simulate perfection. Of course if you want to go this route, I would highly suggest that you’re already competent in this area to avoid ending up somewhere between Joan Rivers and a Picasso. Now if you’re a true realist, you’ll simply commit to the inevitable failure of it all and use a card that has separate spots for each child. I’d like to meet the designer who came up with that idea first. I’m thinking it was a woman. Whoever it was, their bonus was NOT big enough. But my personal favorite and own tendency is this: embrace the comedy. Put out whatever tragic attempt you’ve made with all the kids on Santa’s lap and send out the card with little Susie bawling, the baby spewing something green on Santa’s beard, and wee Johnny making an extra special mug for the camera.
Regardless of where it all ends up, I wish you more success than failure. But for those of you who do have success, God forbid you get it totally right, because come January 1st you’ll be the ones wondering how you’re going to top it next year. Good luck with that and the happiest of holidays to yours from ours.
It’s been years now, so I’m over it, but I can say with conviction that in the moment I wanted to muster up the little energy I had left from months of sleepless nights, and max out my credit cards for an airline ticket home so I could see her face when I called her every name I could eek out without taking a breath. I’d also rehearsed giving her permission to queue up child services, because I was pretty sure his baby book wouldn’t be filled out by the time he was 16 either. The fact is, my mother-in-law is one of the sweetest women I know…and me? I’m not usually that insane, so I can only conclude that the subject of Christmas cards just has a tendency to bring out a little of the crazy in all of us.
Christmas Cards. Just the mere mention of the phrase has the little hairs on my neck doing their best tiny soldier impressions. I literally start to panic sometime toward the end of summer, suddenly desperate to find a beach, crisp linen shirts and bribe my boys to hold hands for more than two seconds while my digital camera pauses between takes and misses every perfect shot. Then I think, “No, a Fall setting would be nice,” but before I know it, it’s December, the trees are bare and I’m dragging the both of them to the mall hoping that the Santa on duty has a good sense of humor.
In any case, Christmas card season calls for a special group of coping skills, and in order to survive it with any modicum of success, I believe you must first decide who you are. For instance, you may fancy yourself a determined idealist and therefore will cling fiercely to the hope that all the stars will align and you’ll find that perfect smiling, good hair day, stain free moment regardless of how long it takes. Or maybe you aspire to be the carefree technologist. In this case, capturing the perfect moment holds no anxiety for you because your computer skills allow you to fabricate it. These folks simply find the best faces out of the year-long photo library, pair them with bodies that are all facing forward and Photoshop them together to simulate perfection. Of course if you want to go this route, I would highly suggest that you’re already competent in this area to avoid ending up somewhere between Joan Rivers and a Picasso. Now if you’re a true realist, you’ll simply commit to the inevitable failure of it all and use a card that has separate spots for each child. I’d like to meet the designer who came up with that idea first. I’m thinking it was a woman. Whoever it was, their bonus was NOT big enough. But my personal favorite and own tendency is this: embrace the comedy. Put out whatever tragic attempt you’ve made with all the kids on Santa’s lap and send out the card with little Susie bawling, the baby spewing something green on Santa’s beard, and wee Johnny making an extra special mug for the camera.
Regardless of where it all ends up, I wish you more success than failure. But for those of you who do have success, God forbid you get it totally right, because come January 1st you’ll be the ones wondering how you’re going to top it next year. Good luck with that and the happiest of holidays to yours from ours.
Friday, November 7, 2008
On Thanksgiving...
I can’t help but laugh as I thumb through the truckloads of catalogs that find their way into our mailbox this time of year. I especially get a kick out of retailers like Pottery Barn Kids who portray the darling —and let’s face it, they ARE darling —place settings, Turkey headbands and themed utensils amid fresh-faced, squeaky clean, equally attractive children playing nicely alongside the idyllic setting. We all know the parallel, more realistic universe finds my son Jack and his cousin Cole playing swordfight with the forks or using the newly ironed napkins in a phantom bullfight. The centerpiece cornucopia has been dumped for its much more entertaining use as a makeshift bull horn. My toddler is busying himself pulling the remaining placemats off the table and subsequently wearing a path on the floor from the dining room to the kitchen, on his way to hand them to me one by one. And last but not least, one, if not all four have somehow managed to stain their holiday best in the first five minutes. And by fourth I mean my 41-year-old husband.
But it’s a tradition, right? Perhaps not what I had imagined when I gave birth and flashed forward to all my perfect holidays and Christmas photos, but a tradition nonetheless. Most of us have family traditions that warm our hearts – like my tiny grandmother painstakingly making at least 15 yummy pumpkin pies from scratch every Thanksgiving. And then there are those you’d rather forget, like at least two of my cousins ending the evening not speaking to each other over something as silly as duplicating efforts on the deviled eggs. Some traditions we’d like to keep and others, well, we could do without. Regardless of where you fall on that spectrum, it’s never too late to start a family tradition that’s all your own.
Like many in Northwest Arkansas, we live far away from our families. But it only took one painful trip back home for us to decide to permanently avoid the busiest travel holiday of the year. While peaceful, it made us a bit lonely so we invented the Thanksgiving “Leftovers” dinner—a tongue-in-cheek reference to all the leftover friends who also stick around and have no plans of their own. Our friends here are like family, so we couldn’t imagine a better swap. I also dug up a number of other good ideas for starting Thanksgiving traditions. Here are a few of my favorites:
Write Your Children a Letter: Spend some time thinking about all they’ve accomplished, how they’ve changed and all the reasons you’ve felt blessed to have them in your life the past year. If they’re old enough, read them aloud after dinner, and if they’re still in diapers, put them away for safe keeping.
Keep a Blessings Box: It’s too late this year, but you could at least decorate a special box and paper cut outs with your children in preparation. All year long, write down every wonderful thing that’s happened to the family – the baby finally slept through the night, Lucy got her first “A,” Dad earned a promotion — then date it, and put it in the box for reading aloud on Thanksgiving. It’s also a good way to keep a record of the year if you’re anything like me and still can’t seem to finish the baby book.
Remember: Spend time remembering family members who have passed. Talk about all the things that made Grandma Dorothy special or tell funny stories about crazy Uncle George. Bring pictures of them out to share. This is a great way to give your children insight into their family history, and the lives of people they may have never had the opportunity to meet.
Giving Thanks Turkey: Have your kids cut out the head and body of a turkey with construction paper. Art degree not necessary. Hang it on the wall. Make several feathers in fun colors and set aside. Starting November 1st, after dinners each night, have all members of your family take a feather and write down or tell you what they’re thankful for so it can be written on a feather and attached to your turkey. On Thanksgiving, read them all again. If you’re really ambitious, you could date and laminate the feathers as a fun reminder of how your kid’s answers have evolved. This year, I’m pretty sure my five year old would say that he’s thankful for “snack.”
Focus on the “’Giving”: Have a family vote on which local shelter (battered women, homeless, animal) or nursing home you’d like to give and spend time collecting warm clothes, toys, food, etc. to donate. You could even spend a little time for a visit. There’s nothing more healing than a dose of happy children on a day that can often be quite lonely.
An Oldie, but Goodie: Find a soup kitchen that needs volunteers and as a family help cook and serve meals to those less fortunate. My mother had us do this as children, and it really helps to give a “face” to the lesson. Make sure to call ahead and find out if they still need people and/or there’s a prior orientation of some kind.
While you’re all deciding if any of these sound good to you, I’ll just look forward too fluffing the dressing while intermittently checking the temperature on the turkey. Oh, who am I kidding? I can’t go on with a straight face. I admit it. I can’t even touch a naked chicken. My husband does all the Thanksgiving cooking – and quite frankly, it’s the reason our holiday doesn’t come to a rousing end at the local emergency room for a stomach pump. Now that’s a Thanksgiving tradition I’d like to keep!
But it’s a tradition, right? Perhaps not what I had imagined when I gave birth and flashed forward to all my perfect holidays and Christmas photos, but a tradition nonetheless. Most of us have family traditions that warm our hearts – like my tiny grandmother painstakingly making at least 15 yummy pumpkin pies from scratch every Thanksgiving. And then there are those you’d rather forget, like at least two of my cousins ending the evening not speaking to each other over something as silly as duplicating efforts on the deviled eggs. Some traditions we’d like to keep and others, well, we could do without. Regardless of where you fall on that spectrum, it’s never too late to start a family tradition that’s all your own.
Like many in Northwest Arkansas, we live far away from our families. But it only took one painful trip back home for us to decide to permanently avoid the busiest travel holiday of the year. While peaceful, it made us a bit lonely so we invented the Thanksgiving “Leftovers” dinner—a tongue-in-cheek reference to all the leftover friends who also stick around and have no plans of their own. Our friends here are like family, so we couldn’t imagine a better swap. I also dug up a number of other good ideas for starting Thanksgiving traditions. Here are a few of my favorites:
Write Your Children a Letter: Spend some time thinking about all they’ve accomplished, how they’ve changed and all the reasons you’ve felt blessed to have them in your life the past year. If they’re old enough, read them aloud after dinner, and if they’re still in diapers, put them away for safe keeping.
Keep a Blessings Box: It’s too late this year, but you could at least decorate a special box and paper cut outs with your children in preparation. All year long, write down every wonderful thing that’s happened to the family – the baby finally slept through the night, Lucy got her first “A,” Dad earned a promotion — then date it, and put it in the box for reading aloud on Thanksgiving. It’s also a good way to keep a record of the year if you’re anything like me and still can’t seem to finish the baby book.
Remember: Spend time remembering family members who have passed. Talk about all the things that made Grandma Dorothy special or tell funny stories about crazy Uncle George. Bring pictures of them out to share. This is a great way to give your children insight into their family history, and the lives of people they may have never had the opportunity to meet.
Giving Thanks Turkey: Have your kids cut out the head and body of a turkey with construction paper. Art degree not necessary. Hang it on the wall. Make several feathers in fun colors and set aside. Starting November 1st, after dinners each night, have all members of your family take a feather and write down or tell you what they’re thankful for so it can be written on a feather and attached to your turkey. On Thanksgiving, read them all again. If you’re really ambitious, you could date and laminate the feathers as a fun reminder of how your kid’s answers have evolved. This year, I’m pretty sure my five year old would say that he’s thankful for “snack.”
Focus on the “’Giving”: Have a family vote on which local shelter (battered women, homeless, animal) or nursing home you’d like to give and spend time collecting warm clothes, toys, food, etc. to donate. You could even spend a little time for a visit. There’s nothing more healing than a dose of happy children on a day that can often be quite lonely.
An Oldie, but Goodie: Find a soup kitchen that needs volunteers and as a family help cook and serve meals to those less fortunate. My mother had us do this as children, and it really helps to give a “face” to the lesson. Make sure to call ahead and find out if they still need people and/or there’s a prior orientation of some kind.
While you’re all deciding if any of these sound good to you, I’ll just look forward too fluffing the dressing while intermittently checking the temperature on the turkey. Oh, who am I kidding? I can’t go on with a straight face. I admit it. I can’t even touch a naked chicken. My husband does all the Thanksgiving cooking – and quite frankly, it’s the reason our holiday doesn’t come to a rousing end at the local emergency room for a stomach pump. Now that’s a Thanksgiving tradition I’d like to keep!
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