Tag Archives: family

May 10, 2011 · 9:12 am

Dear Mirena

Firstly, as a mother of three, I’d like to thank you for sprinkling a little amusement atop my harried-with-children sort of world. The television commercial for the birth control product you market is hilarious, depicting with remarkable accuracy the inexorable chaos that is parenting. That said, the grocery store scene was classic, wherein you nailed the idea that kids are kids are kids, and inherent within each smallish being is the irrepressible desire to poke and prod fresh produce until it topples to the floor. The watermelon was a superb choice, incidentally.

However, your writers crossed some sort of line between that which is refreshingly funny and that which has led to a profusion of child-generated questions for which I have no answers. Shame on you for that, my dear Mirena.

__________________________________________________

Imagine, if you will, my husband, our twin daughters (Seek and Destroy, who are soon-to-be fourth graders) and myself plunked upon our couch watching television one afternoon while an ad for your lovely product aired. Of course, we were greatly amused by the aforementioned supermarket circus as well as the other just-shoot-me-if-I-so-much-as-THINK-about-getting-pregnant-again portrayals.However a seemingly innocuous snippet of speech (i.e. “…you can try to get pregnant right away…or not…”) apparently piqued the interest of a certain nine-year-old, causing her to launch one of the most feared inquiries known to the parenting world.

“So how do you try to have a baby anyway?”

Stupidly, my husband and I sat there in stunned silence, slack mouthed and pitifully unprepared to respond with any semblance of coherent thought.

Again with the question–only louder and more insistent this time, “SO HOW DO YOU TRY TO HAVE A BABY?”

We glanced at each other with a look that shouted, “It’s your turn to field this one,” shifting uncomfortably in our seats and wishing like crazy the awkwardness would dissolve into our less-than-pristine-looking cushions. But it didn’t. If anything, it intensified. Like fools, we simply sat there and waited for a nugget of wisdom to fall from the sky–much like the time we expected the Difficult Question Fairy to swoop down from the clouds and address our child’s very real concerns (i.e. the much-heralded demand to know if daddy’s vasectomy involved removing all or part of his brain). Seriously. One of our dear charges actually asked this.

“Hey, guys!” I shouted, tripping over my pitiful inability to change the subject, “Look at the cardboard boxes! They’re MOVING! Doesn’t that look like fun?! Maybe we should scrounge around in the garage for some big boxes, and then we could cut windows and doors in them like we used to!”

Our less-than-delighted progenies promptly rolled their eyes and attempted to redirect the discussion, “Did you guys try to have us?”

“Yes, yes we did, in fact,” my husband offered, hoping to steer the conversation into the realm of that which was answerable. “We even went to a special group of doctors (Translation: we trekked to a faraway fertility clinic each and every time your mother so much as whispered the words, “Honey, I might be ovulating…”) and they were enormously helpful–those doctors–enormously helpful. So yes, yes, we DID try to have you and we couldn’t be happier about it!”

“Why’d you do that? Were you guys bored or something?”

Needless to say, the Difficult Question Fairy was nowhere to be found and nothing seemed to be falling from the sky–least of all wisdom. Ugh.

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Filed under Ode to Embarrassment, The Natives are Decidedly Restless

Tagged as birth control, children, family, humor, kids, Mirena, parenting

April 18, 2011 · 5:00 am

April Awakening

I’ve always loved the springtime—especially the warm embrace of April. Of all the seasons, I’m inclined to say that it is my favorite—partly because baseball is back and the school year is drawing its last breath, but mostly because it is an era awash with newness. Almost indescribably so. Wisps of green now dot the underbrush, as if God had been handed a paintbrush and was then asked to create something slightly magnificent. Likewise, daffodils and forsythia, bathed in brilliant yellows, have been summoned from the places where shades of gray have lived for far too long. Lilac and cherry blossoms, too, are poised to burst with a profusion of muted hues and the sweet scents of spring. Armies of tulips will soon follow, standing straight and tall in the midday sun. Never mind the rain that must fall.

Indeed, the creatures of this season move me, too. The melodies of more songbirds than I can readily name fill the air along with the serenade of crickets—legions of them, welcoming each night as the woods grow thick with darkness and alive with a symphony of sound. Before long, the yellow-green flashes of fireflies will entrance my children, prompting them to give chase, mayonnaise jars in hand—but not yet. This is springtime and the earth feels soft and yielding beneath my feet, rekindling memories of running barefoot as a child, the cool blades of grass and spongy patches of moss mingling intimately with my toes. The same toes, mind you, that have begged to be reacquainted with the deliciousness of leather sandals since mid-February. The calendar assures me that the time is nigh and that the months ahead are certain to bring both warmth and goodness to the land. Springtime, it seems, is pregnant with possibility, which is yet another reason I love it so.

Or maybe it’s because all three of my children were born in the thick of

April. Aries babies. Tiny souls destined for equal shares of independence and optimism, despite the vast array of frailties that came with being frighteningly preterm. As one might expect, I worried about umbilical cords, fontanels and cries I had yet to decipher. I think it was there in the hospital, amidst the haze of becoming a mother again and again, where I first recognized how unspeakably euphoric this season of new beginnings made me feel. How I could look outside my window at the verdant landscape below, all the splendor of spring unfolding before me, and then marvel, in the very same breath, at the bundles of neediness I had helped create—the ones with fuzzy, sweet-smelling heads and impossibly tiny toes, the babes I would soon rock in the creaky chair that had been my great grandmother’s.

Somehow, seeing the buds and the birds and the medley of green filled me with a tangible sense of hope and enthusiasm for whatever the future might bring. The sleepless nights and

debilitating bouts of self-doubt I would surely encounter seemed almost manageable in the context of Mother Nature’s grand awakening. Deep within, I believed that no matter how ineptly I nursed the smallish beings in question or how spectacularly wrong I swaddled said infants, all would be well. My parenting days, though stunningly imperfect, would fill my cup, bind me inextricably to my brood and leave me wondering how I ever functioned without them. The spring had arrived after all, and the canvas of my world had been painted with broad strokes of vibrant color and punctuated with untold joy.

Of course, it could just be the birthdays we celebrate at this time of year that make the season so special. There are four if you count my husband’s—all within a span of three weeks—and I can’t help but indelibly etch in my mind all the cakes and candles, all the meals at fancy restaurants with friends and family and the countless parties with giddified bunches of little girls crowding around to see what bit of wonderfulness so-and-so happened to have unwrapped. And let us not forget the slumber parties. Lord knows I won’t.

Then again, it might simply be Easter, the mother of grand awakenings, that makes this time so very dear. Egg hunts and wicker baskets. Frilly dresses and shiny shoes. Palm fronds and penitence. Spiritually stirring events that cause me to ponder the true meaning of awakening, rendering me awestruck far beyond the month of April.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live (savoring every drop of spring).

Comments Off on April Awakening

Filed under A Tree is Nice

Tagged as children, Easter, family, kids, love, parenting, spring

April 15, 2011 · 11:08 am

Welcome to My Dysfunctional World

I have a confession to make. I suffer from a completely debilitating and utterly incurable fixation—with my kitchen counters. More specifically, with keeping them clean day and night. Maybe it stems from my well documented germ phobia, perhaps from my fanatical loathing of clutter or quite possibly it could somehow be traced to my never-ending desire to control my environment. There’s always the off chance I do it to mark territory, too—to send a clear message to those who would dare smear peanut butter, dribble jelly or toss junk mail upon that which is sacred.

Or maybe it’s simply because this particular space represents the last bastion of order that exists in my entire world (aside from my sock drawer) and I feel compelled to protect and preserve it with every ounce of my being. A bit theatrical, I agree. Dysfunctional, no doubt. But wouldn’t life be dreadfully dull without a touch of drama and dysfunction sprinkled here or there? That’s my motto. Welcome to my world.

What’s funny is that my obsession with cleaning pretty much ends there. In the kitchen. On the counters. And nowhere else. I just don’t seem to experience those overwhelming urges to dust and scrub and disinfect anywhere else. Not in the living room. Not in the den. Not even in the car or bathrooms. Nope. Genuine motivation (like knowing that guests will soon make landfall) must strike in those instances. Relentless nagging works too.

But my kitchen is a different story. I’m sure most would take one look and classify me as “thoroughly possessed” when it comes to the counter arena. It has that pristine no-one-really-lives-here look, like it had been snatched from the pages of Good Housekeeping under the featured article: Fabulous Kitchen Spaces for the Cleaning Fanatic in Your Home. Admittedly, I qualify as the fanatic in this family—at least as far as the kitchen counters go.

Once the cooking is finished I am literally driven to remove every trace of food, drip of water or dirtied dish instantaneously. To restore everything to its proper place in the universe in what many would deem record time; like it’s an Olympic event or something. Albeit an odd one. Beyond the basics of tidying up, the canisters and pasta jars have to be angled just so, fake fruit arranged perfectly in its bowl and the larger-than-necessary cluster of wooden spoons must somehow resemble a bouquet of freshly picked daisies. Maybe the term “odd” doesn’t adequately describe my dysfunction here.

I probably need therapy.

Strangely enough, those powerful impulses to clean and clear often hit me WHILE I’m actually cooking (not to worry, I don’t cook all that much). So in effect, the two rather diverse tasks become nearly simultaneous events—which for some reason drives my husband absolutely berserk. Perhaps it’s because he has a different approach to the fine art of preparing meals. I have affectionately termed his primary objective, “put-every-blasted-ingredient-dish-and-utensil-under-the-sun-on-the-countertops-and-leave-them-there-indefinitely-so-as-to-annoy-the-wife.” I find his habit of sprinkling flour hither and yon to be equally irksome. Maybe he’s the one marking territory. Not surprisingly, this master chef also subscribes to the theory: The bigger the mess, the better the meal. Needless to say, he has prepared a number of very fine meals over the years.

I suppose, though, I’ll continue to endure, as the payoff is decidedly delicious; and besides it’s not nearly as distressing as I found the insufferable Baby Bottle Era. Oy. At that time, our counters served as a veritable purgatory for plastic whateverness (i.e. drip-drying fucking forever). Sippy cups, teething rings, pacifiers, bottles, lids and those dastardly little valve-like components I never quite mastered blanketed our countertops night and day. I distinctly recall fantasizing about the disappearance of said ugliness.

Like I said, I have this fixation….

Planet Mom: It’s where I live.

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Filed under Home is Where the Weirdness Lives

Tagged as clean freak, dysfunction, family, humor, husbands, kitchen counters, parenting

April 14, 2011 · 10:51 am

I Believe in the Easter Bunny

One of my favorite holidays is just around the corner—Easter. Maybe it’s the egg decorating that gets me, with the pungent scent of vinegar wafting through the air, Styrofoam cups steaming and sloshing with the most glorious shades of dye and layer upon layer of newsprint draped over our kitchen table. The smell alone takes me back—decades.

Or perhaps this holiday tops my list because I love drinking in the moment, as my children become completely absorbed in their exhaustive search for eggs—lifting every leaf, turning every stone and standing on tippy toes to reach the unreachable. Never mind the fact that the “prize” happens to be a cheap, plastic egg held together with tape (to keep jellybeans and M&M’s from falling out in the mud). In their eyes, the treasure is as precious as gold—they gather and guard their bounty as if their very lives depended upon egg hunting success.

Maybe it’s the fact that I enjoy seeing everyone dressed in their Sunday best on Easter. I get an especially big kick out of watching parents’ futile attempts to keep their broods out of mud puddles, inviting birdbaths and grassy temptations—at least until church is over. While growing up, I spent so little time in “dress clothes” myself it’s no wonder my mom made a mad dash for the Polaroid whenever I gave in to her wishes. I even went so far as to clean the dirt from my fingernails and scrub the grass-stains from my knees. White gloves and a frilly Easter hat were thrown in for good measure. Ugh.

I might also especially prefer this season because receiving a palm serves to strengthen me throughout the year. Easter is a time for newness, awakening, celebration and most of all hope. (Lent is over, too! Pass the chocolate!) Or maybe I favor it because it brings to mind countless return trips from church, pestering my brother with the tip of my palm leaf. Back then my parents served as judge, jury and executioner—always siding with he who held the shortest palm leaf.

Most of all, I think Easter has become one of my top choices because, traditionally, it has been based upon the concept of “believing.” Of course, this is America, and we are free to believe in whatever or whomever we choose. I, for one, believe wholeheartedly in the Easter Bunny—right along with the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and the Great Pumpkin. Who am I to knock tradition? This floppy-eared, buck-toothed bearer of solid chocolate bunnies and yellow peeps has been hoppin’ down the bunny trail for centuries now.

All this talk of “believing” has caused me to ponder the great depths of my personal belief system—especially as it relates to parenthood. In fact, I have created a list (soon to be carved in Play-Doh) of the monumental beliefs I hold. Hopefully, they will echo the sentiments of parents everywhere.

I BELIEVE IN…

…long, uninterrupted naps from which I awaken to find neither my glasses in a tangled mess, my house a wreck or a face full of stickers.

…real sit-down dinners with my family during which no bickering matches between siblings erupt, no arguments with teenagers ensue, no food becomes airborne and especially—no one phones to ask that I donate money to build a Wal-Mart on the planet Mars. I’m not ready to fork over cash to my college alma maters either. I have yet to see evidence of my success.

…romantic weekend getaways and candlelit dinners for two which are totally devoid of children—namely, mine.

…truly enjoyable family vacations that don’t break the bank, destroy our faith in weather forecasting or leave us wondering what on earth made us think we could endure seven solid days of togetherness.

…forgiveness and flexibility—because without those things, none of the aforementioned would be remotely possible, even with the Easter Bunny’s help.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live.

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Filed under "N" is for Nostalgia, Holiday Hokum

Tagged as children, Easter, Easter Bunny, Easter eggs, family, kids, parenting

March 16, 2011 · 5:00 am

Write from the Heart

There is a special space in my children’s baby books devoted entirely to the development and delivery of a priceless collection of words. A place where parents are encouraged to share how having a baby—this baby, in particular—rocked their proverbial world. A sizeable square into which moms and dads pour a bit of themselves—giving thanks, chronicling ordinary and not-so-ordinary events, articulating hopes and dreams for the future and communicating, above all else, the infinite wonder said child has brought to this place simply by being born. With any luck, most will get a glimpse of it before they become parents themselves.

And it makes perfect sense—this opportunity for crafting a message of boundless love and gratitude—to be presented when parents are fairly awestruck by all that relates to their bundles of neediness. More specifically, before our infants morph into toddlers and tweens, and the urge to snap photographs every hour of every day dwindles to a fleeting desire to fetch the camera when something truly extraordinary happens. Guilty as charged. We all do it, though—we attend less and fall behind more with the passage of time and with each new addition to the family. Not because we become less enamored with our children and feel that documenting every nugget of minutia in their lives is no longer necessary. It’s just that we get caught up in the frenetic, nearly suffocating pace of life.

Well at least I do. And I feel slightly horrible about my failure to record, digitally or otherwise, a goodly portion of my children’s lives. Like the first time Thing One dared to fling her smallish body off a diving board and paddle to safety without a smidgeon of assistance from anyone or anything. Nor did I capture the priceless look on her face shortly thereafter, as she stood on the deck wrapped from head to toe in a beach towel, cheering on the others in her swim class. What’s more, I neglected to take a snapshot of Thing Two while she was missing both of her front teeth. Of course, I took dozens of pictures to preserve that memorable wedge of time for her sister, several of which are prominently displayed on the fridge. Let us just say that I’ve been reminded of said faux pas more than once. I suppose it’s a moot point now, however. The endearing little gaps along her pinkish gums have long since been filled. Indeed, there’s no going back.

Likewise, I failed to listen to the little voice inside my head that insisted I help my oldest move into her college dormitory. “Meet the roommates,” it cooed. “Take a pile of pictures and throw them together in a collage for her birthday,” it smartly suggested. Instead, like a fool, I honored my co-ed’s wishes for independence, allowing her to bridge the gap from home to campus life entirely on her own. In retrospect, the lugging of boxes teeming with all-that-is-vital-to-college-freshmen was a little thing that would have perhaps meant a lot to her—no matter how desperately she wanted to feel grown. No doubt, a do-over in this instance is a virtual impossibility and no one is more keenly aware of that than I. Shame on me.

As delusional as it sounds to suggest that my brood may feel slighted or even devalued as a result of the aforementioned transgressions (never mind those I failed to mention), I still lament owning them. But at least I have their baby books—and the personalized notes I scrawled therein. Better still, I have tomorrow—Absolutely Incredible Kid Day—a chance to formally redeem myself once more.

That said, this Thursday is a date set aside for the purpose of letting the impressionable youth in our charge know how truly remarkable they are. For years Camp Fire USA and Alpha Phi Omega have orchestrated a nationwide letter-writing campaign to do just that. It gives those who play an integral role in the lives of children (parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, as well as adults from all walks of life) a chance to say what they need to say. To put it on paper, as it were—a mere smattering (or a profusion) of words that speak directly to the heart, quietly, yet effectively, conveying the message: “You are special, and valued and loved unconditionally. You add sunshine and meaning and a wealth of good to this world. Ergo, you are an absolutely incredible kid. Please, never forget that.”