Tag Archives: humor

April 20, 2011 · 9:59 am

Footloose and Fancy-free

Here we are—a mere five weeks into spring—and already it’s time. Time to fire up the grill and dust off the mower. To haul out the picnic table and spruce up the lawn chairs. To fish for golf clubs and ball gloves and those glorious little tubs of sidewalk chalk without which I could not effectively parent. Time to paw through our summertime wardrobe for the Bermudas we pray aren’t too snug and to put away the parka—for good. We’re tired of the wretched thing anyway.

What’s more, it’s finally time to bid farewell to those insufferable snow shovels and subzero temperatures. Time to embrace the sun’s warmth and to feast our eyes upon all-that-is-green-and-growing. We deserve it. Winter’s been long and unforgiving, and the ice it bore assuredly played no favorites.

Indeed, it is time.

Even without the aforementioned harbingers of summer, I know the season of suntans and sweet corn is nigh. My sandals tell me so. They beg to be pulled from the depths of my closet where they’ve gathered dust since late October—a Hippie-ish heap of worn and weathered leather that has been all but forgotten. Out of sight, out of mind. They long to taste sweet freedom, to feel the fresh air upon their hide and to soak up the sun like there’s no tomorrow. I don’t blame them. My toes have pined for much the same since the first snow. And now that the warmth has returned to the Northern Hemisphere, the vast majority of my sensible-and-sissified footwear is in effect history. It’s far too unadventurous for my taste anyway.

My friend, Kathy (a woman after my own heart), is equally smitten with her sandals. Tevas, I think. The ones dipped in kryptonite and steeped in wonderfulness. That said, unless measurable snow has fallen and happens to impede her path, she wears them year round—with woolen socks, of course, for those unbearably chilly mornings come January. For my spunky hairdresser, Deb, it’s the chance to go barefooted she truly relishes—whenever and wherever the mood strikes. Shoes, begone!

My kids, however, have a slightly different view on the subject. My oldest daughter has virtually lived in flip-flops forever, sampling all the lovely hues known to man. In fact, I struggle to recall a time when she didn’t own a pair—or a dozen—or when I didn’t feel compelled to tell her to pick the blasted things up and take care of them already. As for my youngest charges, it is their beloved Crocs that whisper to them unremittingly, demanding to be worn, beckoning from the recesses of our hall closet. Oddly enough, they’re not as impassioned about sandals or bare feet; although the flip-flop obsession has struck from time to time. And the prevailing weather is a non-issue in their imprudent little minds. Instead, the calendar is king.

“It’s spring, Mom! Now I can wear my Crocs!” Needless to say, my heathens have been schlepping around in the silly things ever since the lions of March roared in. Sans socks—gasp! Thus far, however, I have won the battle over wearing them to school. But I’m losing the war, which bears an uncanny resemblance to last spring’s Croc-related debate. Arrrrrg.

“Come on, Mom; it’s really HOT during recess. So-and-so’s mom lets her wear Crocs to school and nothing bad ever happened to her feet,” my charges allege, attempting to shame me into allowing that which will make me crazy with worry for the entire school day. (That, coupled with the completely unfounded fear that they will be trampled to death by a herd of third-graders en route to the cafeteria, many of whom will be sporting Crocs).

Naturally, I fight the urge to employ scare tactics (doused with sarcasm) in response: “Go ahead and wear your stupid Crocs! But if you break your ankles, don’t come running to me!” Instead, I opt for something more like: “So-and-so doesn’t live here, does she?”

“No, but if she did, she wouldn’t like it.”

Enough said. I am the most horrible mother on the face of the earth. One who has the audacity to wear less-than-protective footwear in front of the children simply to torment them.

Eventually, I will cave. The mercury will continue to climb and my argument will fail. They will wear their moronic, slippity-dippity Crocs to school and I will be forced to overcome the apprehension I feel over the fate of their feet. Woe is me.

Thankfully I can slip into my comfy sandals—a happy hypocrite—and forget about the whole ordeal.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live (in sandals much of the time).

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Filed under Spring Fling

Tagged as children, Crocs, humor, kids, parenting, sandals, 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 11, 2011 · 9:34 am

A Desk of One’s Own

There are few things on earth that can make a first grader giddier than being treated like a big kid in the classroom, or so my charges have stated time and again. And nothing but nothing even comes close to creating more joy within and among said creatures than conferring upon them their own special school space—a desk. The sort with a cavernous interior for squirreling away all-that-is-precious and good—treasures worthy of eternal possession. The sort with a smooth and spacious writing surface that sparkles and shimmers in the light. The sort that smells of wood and polish, although neither may, in fact, be present. The sort that stands solid and sturdy among the masses and boasts that all-important name tag on its face—one that proudly proclaims to the world, “This is MINE! I live here!”

I can certainly relate to experiencing such joy as I was once a first grader—with a shiny big kid desk I could call my very own. I had graduated from the rainbow of carpet squares upon which we kindergarteners napped, and from those oversized, odd-shaped tables that seemed better suited for a business conference than for learning. Needless to say, I was more than thrilled to move on to bigger and better things down the hall in Mrs. Davis’ first grade classroom, where there were spaces in our togetherness.

But independence didn’t come without cost. Duty tagged along. Our desks were our responsibility and keeping them neat and tidy (or at least tolerably so) was of utmost importance. Thankfully my neat freak tendencies (read: my ridiculous obsession with ordering my world) had already surfaced, so the task at hand was barely a challenge for me. Everything had its place and I liked it that way. But I remember others who struggled mightily with the chore.

You know the ones—the kids who couldn’t find anything to save themselves. The ones who never took anything home and who crammed an ungodly pile of papers, projects and pencils inside their desks, impossibly, as if stuffing a Thanksgiving turkey. Scissors and paste. Crayons and coins. Wadded masses of homework, at various stages of completion, and those lovely little Pink Pearl erasers. All of it came tumbling down like a landslide on occasion—especially if the delicate balance holding the contents in place was somehow upset. A sneeze was often to blame. A seemingly simple and innocuous event that sent everything crashing to the floor at once. Then the cavalry was sent in to rescue the sorry soul from himself (i.e. a lucky classmate was instructed to “Help so-and-so get his desk organized, would you, please?”). Sheez, I’d forego recess for such good fortune.

Even then I found it liberating to bring order to chaos. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t my chaos per se. It was someone’s and it begged to be restored. However, at that juncture in my life the task was far more manageable, and it did little to prepare me for the insanely disordered existence I now face as a parent. But success is relative. I consider it a major accomplishment that most of the people living under this roof have matching socks, some of which are clean. Never mind that our garage is roughly three sleds, two bicycles and a kiddie pool away from being a home for wayward toys. Our socks match. Mostly.

The day I received my first grade desk, along with a host of other meaningful events on the path to independence, may have long since passed for me but my children serve to remind me just how wonderful the experience truly was. And although they now have cubbies and backpacks (glorified means in which to house their beloved school possessions), I doubt any will be as memorable or as significant as having a desk of one’s own.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live.

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Filed under "N" is for Nostalgia, School Schmool

Tagged as children, humor, kids, parenting, school, school desks

April 3, 2011 · 5:00 am

Training Wheels

My oldest daughter, more affectionately known as the woman-child, recently adopted a hamster—which is all well and good I suppose. She’s away at college so, theoretically speaking, the whiskered beast won’t add appreciably to the chaos that lives and breathes here. To date, we house a pampered dog, a self-absorbed cat and, ironically, five smelly hamsters—which is plenty, given that a number of children and house plants also reside here, making demands and a profusion of noise as a matter of course.

Well, not the plants so much.

At any rate, the aforementioned co-ed is a fairly responsible twenty-something who has waited a very long time to welcome a pet of her own—to feed and water said creature without fail, to scrub away stench and eradicate poo with glee, to know the horrors and complexities of cage assembly and the sheer panic of “misplacing” the dear rodent in question. But, in all fairness, she couldn’t be happier or more eager to embrace the notion that such a tiny (and admittedly adorable) being is now entirely dependent upon her ability to perform such tasks. There’s something to be said for delayed gratification, methinks.

However it has come to my attention that a certain couple of somebodies (namely Heckle and Jeckle) have a problem with their big sister’s new role as a bona fide pet owner. It seems that someone’s panties are officially in a bunch over the matter of obtaining (or not) parental consent for the purchase of the abovementioned hamster.

Once the news broke (i.e. the furry beast was deposited upon the coffee table for one and all to behold), the vociferous rant conversation unfolded thusly: “Does MOM know you got this!?” one of my soon-to-be-ten-year-olds shouted with indignation. “Yeah! You can’t just walk into a store and BUY A HAMSTER without Mom’s permission! She’ll freak! She’ll absolutely FREAK when she finds out!” my other soon-to-be-ten-year-old barked, visibly outraged by her sister’s alleged failure to follow family protocol.

“Hellooooo, I’m 22. Okay, almost twenty-THREE and Mom will be perfectly fine with this. You’ll see,” my oldest defended, almost comically.

Indeed, I was perfectly fine with it; but I was then faced with a thorny task—that of explaining to my fourth graders the

particulars that encompass perhaps the grayest of parenting areas: when, how and under what circumstances should we relinquish authority—great or small—to our children, especially to those on the cusp of adulthood. In doing so, I found myself wrestling with the intangible nature of age as it relates to maturity, struggling mightily to define the indefinable and ham-handedly muddling through the whys and wherefores that drive nearly every decision that ultimately leads to the conferral of independence.

Somehow (perhaps because the gods were smiling upon me that day) I managed to field the barrage of unanswerables to a satisfactory degree. That said, Heckle and Jeckle seemed reasonably content with the outcome of the Great Hamster Debate, and with my rudimentary manner of defining what constitutes the fringe of adulthood. Translation: They were slightly enthralled to learn that one day (albeit not particularly soon) they’ll likely be carrying iPhones and able to adopt a herd of llamas, with

or without my blessing.

However, this exercise in frustration got me thinking about the process itself, about the supreme challenge of knowing when and how much to surrender in the way of sovereignty, about what an inexact science it truly is—as if we, as parents, needed one more reason to second guess ourselves. It’s not enough that our grasp on the vestiges of control is tenuous at best; we must also deal with the uncertain nature of when to give it up. Naturally, the training wheels are the first to go, then it’s our presence they no longer require as they careen around the block, oblivious to the fear we routinely invite. Finally, it’s out into the world they rush, headlong, eager to make their own way and to cast aside the likes of training wheels.

Nevertheless, I’d like to think I’m on the right track, no matter how inordinately awkward I feel at times, doling out freedom in embarrassingly small chunks, gauging success one child and one liberating event at a time. It’s like loosening the reins or fishing in a sense; only the goal is not to reel in the prize, but to gradually—in fits and starts—release more line, enabling said prize to strengthen and to govern its own path in the waters of life. Inconceivably, we are then called upon to snip the line and watch in wonder from afar, which is perhaps the most difficult task of all.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live (lamenting the finite quality of childhood).

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Filed under The Natives are Decidedly Restless, The Woman-Child

Tagged as children, growing up, humor, kids, letting go, love, parenting

April 1, 2011 · 2:43 pm

It’s All Relative

Tomorrow is Reconciliation Day–a special square on the calendar set aside to celebrate the fine art of patching up relationships. A day to make amends and to rekindle the bonds we share with family and friends.

So it’s only fitting that you march to your local book store and pick up a copy of Wade Rouse’s latest memoir, It’s All Relative, a brazenly amusing collection of essays cleverly arranged around 34 holidays (some of which border on the bizarre) and, of course, family (which, for most of us, is DECIDEDLY bizarre). Indeed, an inspiring read just in time for this strange and wonderful holiday.

That said, Rouse has an uncanny knack for sharing that-which-is-obscenely-funny, deeply personal and refreshingly genuine all in the same breath. Time and again, he embraces irreverence, pokes fun at his beloved clan and sprinkles a wealth of self-deprecating humor on nearly every page.

I, for one, will never view Secretary’s Day in the same way, having read the 16-page romp in which Rouse masterfully recounts his very first JOB FROM HELL. Nor will I wander the aisles of Home Depot on or around Arbor Day without conjuring an image of the priceless tree-drama he described so well. Furthermore, I’m quite certain that I will develop a debilitating obsession with Pez dispensers in the very near future. Oy.

But woven deep within the fabric of his tales lies something far greater than his patented wit and delicious delivery–a profound and inordinately palpable sense of his humanness, his hopes and fears, loves and losses, joys and regrets. It’s all there in black and white, catching us unawares on the fringe of literary brilliance. Perhaps most notably, Rouse not only makes us laugh uproariously, he also tackles topics that are far-from-neat-and-tidy. Ones that break our hearts and make us think about what matters most–family.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live (enjoying It’s All Relative once more).