Tag Archives: parenting

June 15, 2010 · 10:33 am

Crutches

I never completely committed to memory the instructions for making hard-boiled eggs, which doesn’t say much about my prowess in the kitchen—or the lack thereof. Generally speaking, I know what’s involved, but I struggle mightily with the specifics (i.e. how much water is required, whether it should be hot or cold to start and when, exactly, the boiling should cease and the simmering should begin). I’m challenged in the culinary arena to say the very least. (Confession: Some days I need a compass, a map and volumes of inspiration just to find the fricking stove).

Oddly enough, though, I know that on page 267 of my faithful Better Homes & Gardens cookbook those elusive egg-related answers await me. Go figure. I can’t remember a stupid recipe (that’s all of three steps long), but the page number I’ll need to get the job done is etched in my head permanently. It simply defies all logic and understanding—especially given the rarity of my kitchen-related ventures.

Interestingly, two-hundred sixty-seven isn’t my favorite number. Nor do the individual digits hold special meaning for me in any other context. And yet there it is, appearing instantaneously in the clearing of my mind, having made its way through the tangled forest of facts and figures housed there. A prized nugget of information that, intentionally or not, I tucked away at some point in my illustrious hard-boiled egg-making career. A crutch I turn to in times of need.

Likewise, I have difficulty remembering the exact wordage for Confession and Forgiveness, so each Sunday I mumble and stumble my way through the first few lines, hoping like crazy that my brain will eventually kick in and send the correct message to my lips. The Nicene Creed sometimes stumps me, too (hence, the moronic mumbling). But invariably—almost without thinking—I can churn out the page numbers on which each of the desired passages can be found—which is strangely wonderful, I guess. An uncannily remarkable and hugely perplexing talent all rolled into one (like reading upside-down and sideways to kids so they can see the pictures). But it’s not as if I deliberately tried to emblazon those numbers there. I can’t even rattle off my stinking cell number without first tapping my husband (the human Rolodex) or scanning the skies for some sort of cosmic clue. Nor can I readily recall which of my brood is allergic to the cillin family—which, needless to say, helped me capture the World’s Most Pathetic Mommy Award last year.

So what should I make of all this—that I’m lazy, exceedingly dependent or perhaps, just plain stupid? Then again, maybe my adeptness is a sign of brilliance and/or extraordinary resourcefulness in the face of adversity. Who knows?

Regardless of why it happens, the fact remains that it happens. There is absolutely no denying that when all else fails, I rely on my crutches to save the day. I’ve found that people can be crutches, too. I can’t put a price on the deluge of desperate phone calls I made to my mom as I clumsily managed motherhood for the first time—stressing obsessively over every little and not-so-little thing, like a blackened umbilical cord dangling by a sinewy thread.

“What have I done wrong?! Is that SUPPOSED to happen?! And why, oh why, won’t she stop crying…sleep through the night…smile on cue…and somehow TELL ME WHAT SHE WANTS?! And what’s with the mustard-y poops and the geysers of spit up and the white bump-ish things on her nose and the crusty stuff on her head and the tiny red spots she’s peppered with?! (Furthermore…) I can’t figure out the car seat straps…I can’t get rid of the bags under my eyes…my shirt gets soaked whenever she (or any other bundle of neediness) cries…my diaper bag is big and bulky and already I’m sick of hauling it around…I feel fat and frumpy and about as interesting as dirt…I can’t find time for a shower…a sandwich…a decent nap…or even three minutes to flip through a stupid parenting magazine—which, by the way, does nothing more than make me feel like a complete failure—I can’t even RELATE to the perfect little world they live in…oh, and the baby choked on a cracker this morning…fell out of her crib…rolled off the bed…licked the cat’s tail (and so on)…. I’m sure I’ve ruined this child FOR-EVER!!!”

Mom, sage and savior that she is, must have sensed the panic in my voice and so with each little (and not-so-little) catastrophe I presented, she spoke clearly and calmly, guiding me through the storm, filling me with the sense that I could do this and that the world really wasn’t crashing down all around me. “Things will get easier,” she promised, and I would be a good mom—despite myself.

Well, I have yet to see hard evidence supporting the entirety of that statement, but I remain hopeful that some day—with or without crutches—I’ll get there. In the mean time, Mom’s on speed dial.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live (STILL doubting my ability to mother).

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Filed under Me Myself and I, Meat & Potatoes, Mushy Stuff

Tagged as family, humor, identity crises, kids, little things, love, Mommie Dearest, moms, parenting, self-doubt

June 11, 2010 · 6:00 am

What a Croc

There were lots of unreasonable requests in the closing days of the school year. Most of which involved smuggling something there that ought not to be (like “…my dog,” “…my three thousand-pound rock collection—so my teacher can choose one,” “…my caterpillars and wormies,” and “…my gigantic squirt gun!” Another entirely different set of pleas were made for wearing some sort of inane getup that would in all likelihood ban them from the establishment for life (like “…my bathing suit,” “…just my underwear, Mom,” “…my flip-flops,” “my cheetah pants,” “…my big sister’s dreadlock wig.”)

All but their demands for caterpillars and flip-flops were shot down handily because, of course, Mommie Dearest reared her ugly head. I did, however, eventually soften on at least one other matter—that of the blasted Crocs.

“Mom, can I wear my new Crocs to school tomorrow?! Pleasepleasepleaseplease!? CanIcanIcanIcanI?!”

I paused briefly to contemplate the hell I’d surely pay if and when I denied her request. Like a fool, I decided it was worth the wrath I’d suffer at the hands of a seven-year-old obsessed with Croc-O-Mania.

“No, Hon. I’m sorry. Your aunt and uncle were kind enough to give them to you and they’re adorable. Really, they are. But they just don’t fit you well enough. Not for school. You’re swimming in the stupid things.” Read: they’re big and sloppy and your feet look as if they’ve been shoved inside Kleenex boxes—Pepto-Bismol-hued Kleenex boxes festooned with functionless air holes, more specifically. “And besides, you’ll fall down on the playground and knock your teeth right through your lip (banking on the graphic visual to drive home my point).”

“No I won’t! I can run in my Crocs just FINE, Mom—and I won’t even fall down all day!” she defended, shuffling across the kitchen in the silly things just to prove it. “Kasey (along with 37 other names she rattled off) wears ‘em to school because her mom lets her.” (Translation: Kasey’s mom is the best mom in the Universe. I, by contrast, suck.)

“The answer is still ‘no’ and besides, Kasey doesn’t live in this house—you do,” I countered, fighting the insanely overwhelming urge to cave. Still, I just wasn’t convinced that she’d do anything but scuff and skid and skate through her entire school day, exhausting her little gripper toes in the process. Privately, I hemmed and hawed, seeing myself as a merciless tyrant—denying that which I know would make my child infinitely happy. At the same time I envisioned giving in, feeling horrible as a result. Neglectful. Like a pitiful excuse for a mother—one that couldn’t even send her poor waif to school with the proper foot attire. Oh, the horror!

I then snapped to my senses, “They fall off even when you’re on the toilet! It’s craziness to wear them to school. I think you should just wear them here. At home. Where it’s safe—at least until your feet grow.”

“I’m DYING then!” she wailed with the sort of woe-is-me drama that would have won her an Oscar. “Or else I’M MOVING TO CALIFORNIA where you’ll NEVER find me and I’m taking JACK with me!” Mr. Fuzzypants then perked his ears and tilted his head quizzically, thrilled to have been included in the discussion. Although, I suspect he was mostly interested in learning whether our incessant blathering meant he’d be getting a treat anytime soon—or at the very least, going for a walk. He then glanced at the leash and studied our faces, his blackish eyes dancing with the notion of “MOVING TO CALIFORNIA.”

“Will you be taking your Crocs to California?” I asked as if I were inquiring whether she wanted bologna or peanut butter in her lunch.

“YeeeeEEEEEsssssSSSSS!” she fumed, her face pink as those Pepto-Bismol-ish shoes. “And I’m wearing them TO SCHOOL and EVERYWHERE ELSE I want to. And you can’t stop me. Hrmph!”

“But what will you do in the mean time?”

“I’ll just hide them in my backpack—inside a secret pouch that’s invisible even to YOU. Then you’ll neeeeever know I’m wearing them at school all day,” delivered with that “So THERE!” tone with which I am becoming increasingly familiar.

Weary from the battle and shamed into giving in, I conceded defeat. “Wear ‘em already. Croc yourself out!”

Planet Mom: It’s where I live (where Croc-O-Mania has hit with a vengeance).

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Filed under Daily Chaos, Kid-Speak, Rantings & Ravings, School Schmool

Tagged as Crocs, guilt, humor, kids, Mommie Dearest, moms, parenting, school

June 9, 2010 · 9:53 am

Opportunists Never Sleep

My children are opportunists. I know this much is true. Said seizing-of-the-proverbial-moment unfolded thusly.

My husband, the brood and I sat down to dinner one evening not long ago. The delectable fare was chili, I believe, sprinkled with voluminous quantities of idle conversation. Par for the course in this household.

More specifically, there was talk of tadpoles and those dastardly Bakugan toys, discussions involving loose teeth and dog breath, and naturally (NATURALLY!) there was a remarkably gruesome retelling of an Animal Planet feature on polar bears–one in which a woman was horrifically mauled at a zoo. Lovely. Just lovely. My appetite thanks you, dear offspring from hell.

What’s more, my co-ed daughter starting texting her boyfriend obsessively DURING THE MEAL. Did I mention that it was during the meal and that it was OBSESSIVE in nature? Not surprisingly, she was entirely unaware that the rest of us even existed. Translation: it was as if we had slipped in pig shit and fallen off the fucking planet. All that truly mattered was that beloved Blackberry of hers and the stupid little messages that kept popping up on her screen, making her giggle uncontrollably.

And laugh out loud.

And roll her eyes.

And fervently punch those teensy tiny keys in an effort to top the boy’s witticism in 160 characters or less.

Gag me with a spork!

At any rate, Thing One and Thing Two (my wily eight-year-old twins) took note of said heinous crime, scolding their big sister for interrupting the meal with something so completely frivolous.

“That’s reeeally annoying. You ought to stop it,” Thing One chided as she took a bite of cornbread.

“Yeah, put the cell phone away or Mom’s gonna get mad. REALLY mad,” Thing Two echoed.

Of course, the Texting Queen was totally oblivious of their impassioned demands–so absorbed was she in crafting the next 17,000 messages to the Boy Wonder.

“Hon,” I felt compelled to join the fray, “you need to stop texting. You really do. We’re trying to eat dinner here together, remember?”

“But Mom, HE keeps texting ME,” she lamely defended.

“So. Stop answering him.”

“I can’t do thaaaat. It would be rude.”

“And this isn’t rude?! Helloooo!”

“Well that’s different.”

“No it isn’t.”

“Yes it is.”

“Okay then…why don’t you tell him something catchy like, ‘STOP TEXTING ME. We’re having dinner right now and MY MOM ACTUALLY COOKED, so technically speaking that qualifies as a SPECIAL OCCASION!’?” Of course, I suggested the use of capital letters as needed.

For a time, a cloud of silence hung in the air. No one so much as chewed a morsel of food or touched a key. Everyone knew I was right. It WAS a special occasion.

Enter the opportunist…

“Mom,” Thing One tentatively offered out of the blue, “can I have some of your wine?”

“Whaaa?” I asked, completely taken aback by her request.

“You said it’s a special occasion, right?”

“Right. So???”

“So I should be able to have wine.”

Indeed, opportunists never sleep.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live (eating my words on a regular basis).

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Filed under Daily Chaos, Home is Where the Weirdness Lives, Kid-Speak, Rantings & Ravings, Techno Tripe, The Woman-Child, We Put the Fun in Dysfunction

Tagged as dysfunction, family, humor, kids, moms, parenting, techno-whateverness, texting

May 24, 2010 · 10:10 am

Armadillo to Zebra

Listen closely. That’s the sound of someone gasping for breath, suffocating beneath a deluge of fuzz and fluff. A wretched soul inundated with more stuffed animals under one roof than any sane individual could reasonably imagine. A sucker for a sale on all-that-is-warm-and-fuzzy YET PROMISES NEVER TO EAT, POO or SHED. Needless to say, that someone is me.

Eternally, it seems, my brood has been consumed with faux faunae of one kind or another—mesmerized by creatures great and small, enthralled by those deemed weird and wonderful, charmed by the frighteningly fancy and the perfectly plain. That said, wooly beasts from A to Z abound in this household, atop beds and bureaus, spilling from trunks and lurking in corners, stuffed behind couches and propped up in chairs—much to my chagrin.

Translation: I’m tired of cute and cuddly—the stuffed-with-fluff blobs of whateverness that threaten to rule my world. More specifically, I’ve had enough of the dogs that howl at the moon, yap incessantly or fart on command. I’ve tolerated more than my share of earsplitting monkey shrieks, the frenzied slap of hooves on cobblestone and frog-ish croaks that sound more like a chorus of booze-inspired belches than anything. And aside from being fairly adorable and infinitely dear, those fancy-schmancy, computer savvy Whatever-kins have yet to truly wow me. Maybe it’s because I think kids should spend more time climbing trees than climbing levels online.

Yes, I kick my dear children outdoors on a regular basis and ration the time which is spent utterly fixated on the deliciousness of Poptropica and the like. Color me an ogress.

At any rate, the collective toll of all the dot-com nonsense, the pseudo mewing, hissing, chirping, bleating, barking, mooing (and whatever maddening little noises guinea pigs make) that I’ve endured interminably has driven me to seriously consider the notion of gathering the reprehensible bunch together and heaving them into the lawn.

It would be cathartic if nothing else.

But truth be told, I am part of the problem. Whenever I stumble upon something entirely irresistible, something that speaks to me for whatever reason, something my eight-year-old cherubs would deem drool-worthy in every sense of the word, I cave—feeling compelled to buy yet another bit of warmth and fuzziness for my motley crew. Despite knowing there is no room at the inn. Despite acknowledging there is no real need for such an indulgence. Despite understanding full well that I will regret having made said purchase—either immediately, or when my vacuum cleaner chokes on an errantly placed armadillo, on one of Skippyjon Jones’ enormous ears, on Walter’s hapless tail. I will then curse the day it was stitched together and stuffed with love.

I know this much is true. But I cave anyway, adopting yet another fuzzy companion for my charges. One that will be loved without end, humanized beyond all imagining, bent and twisted so as to squeeze into book bags and burrow beneath pillows. One that will be privy to innumerable secrets and included in countless conversations, eager to listen, inclined to agree. One whose care and conditioning will be entrusted to me for hours on end.

“Mom, make sure you feed Frank, and play with him while I’m gone. Remember, I’ll KNOW if you don’t do it and I’ll be really, really mad.” (Waggles finger at me as she boards the school bus and waves goodbye to Frank and me).

Even still, I continue to feed the beast, as it were—adding just one more stuffed animal at a time. One that will sit at the dinner table and oversee baths, help with homework and dangle from monkey bars. One that will be demanded at bedtime and searched for, high and low. One that will journey near and far, be read to, prayed to, listened to and befriended above all else.

Another bit of fuzz and fluff that will be welcomed into this world, unconditionally.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live (suffocating beneath a deluge of stuffed animals, every one of which has a name).

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Filed under Daily Chaos, Rantings & Ravings, We Put the Fun in Dysfunction

Tagged as disorder, dysfunction, guilt, hoarding, humor, kids, little things, Mommie Dearest, moms, parenting, toys

May 21, 2010 · 12:30 pm

Hello, Misery…Your Company is Here

Lately I feel like the overstuffed mitten in that aptly titled children’s classic, The Mitten. My world, quite literally, is falling apart at the seams and I guess I’m whining because it feels good. Little else has proven effective thus far.

Of course, this is nothing new. I’ve always subscribed to the theory: When in doubt, whine it out. There’s just something about going on and on (in horrific detail) about personally troubling issues that contributes to coping—or maybe it’s the truckloads of pity I find especially therapeutic. Either way, I win. Whining also happens to deliver another benefit: It triggers within others an irresistible urge to vent in response (an enormously dysfunctional “pity party” of sorts).

You’re cordially invited.

Naturally, the venting process itself stirs the competitor within and causes a great number of individuals to spit out an I-can-top-that-train-wreck-of-an-experience-in-300-words-or-less! In short, I wind up feeling soooooooooooooooo much better after learning there are throngs of people out there WAY more miserable than I am. Thanks, in advance. I hope you share.

To spell it out… in refrigerator magnets, Seek and Destroy have been afflicted with one blasted illness after the other—FOREVER. Well, since the beginning of time anyway. It started with rotten colds (which each of the germ magnets managed to attract oh-so-handily) and progressed to a nasty ear infection—that positively refuses to go away. Then Seek, of course, felt left out and dreadfully bored with all that sneezing and coughing so she contracted strep throat to keep pace with her sister. Sprinkle an especially vile bout of pink eye into the mix (which they most generously shared with one another and God only knows who else) and that about sums up Sick-O-Central—with one exception: HIVES.

We discovered that Destroy is apparently allergic to just about every drug that contains any of the letters, A through Z. Not really, just the “cillin” family. Joy. And, as expected, we learned this key bit of information not during the week, during office hours or even where we reside. Nope. We became enlightened OVER THE WEEKEND while at a conference, AT NIGHT and roughly FOUR HOURS FROM HOME. Oh, happy day.

“What the hell are those spots?!” I grilled my husband who had spent all afternoon with the girls, swimming in the hotel pool, checking out the cool pond stocked with goldfish, and throwing rocks at the ducks. Yes, the man taught our dear children how to throw rocks at ducks. Modeled the behavior, even. That said, the ducks are okay. Really, they’re perfectly fine. Please don’t write to rail him. That’s my job.

“I don’t know. Looks like a rash,” he stated in a pitiful attempt to sound like a concerned medical professional. Damned quack. Stick to ducks already.

To make a long, boring story short and exciting, within about 38 seconds the hives grew to the size of watermelons and spread pretty much over her entire body—head to toe. For the record, they were red, and raised, and itchy and it was scary as hell for me to watch them multiply like some deranged polka-dotted plague. Thankfully, Benadryl saved the day and we didn’t have to tour Allegheny General Hospital that night, although for a time we seriously entertained the idea. At any rate, we’re home now and still up every night with one or both sicklings for one reason or another—which is painfully reminiscent of the sleep deprivation era we endured forever and a day.

With any luck, the new antibiotic will do the trick—minus the hives. Time will tell.

“Can I take a look at your belly? Yes, I know, I know, I’ve looked at it 427 times today, but I like it. It’s a nice belly and I am especially fond of the ‘innie’ you’re sporting there. No, really—I just need to see your belly. I won’t tickle you. I promise. Just humor me please, Hon.”

Of course, I am now ridiculously suspect of each and every itch, bump or red mark that appears on her skin. I’ve even tiptoed into her room at 3 a.m. with flashlight in hand to examine that belly—yet again. My husband thinks I’ve become obsessed. I simply continue to advise him that he should worry about the poor, defenseless ducks—not my middle-of-the-night traipsings.

Quite frankly, I’m sick to death of administering medicine too. I’ve been driven nearly berserk trying to keep track of who gets what, when—and my kitchen counter is starting to resemble a pharmacy. We’ve got gooey grape stuff, bubblegum-flavored chewables, terrific tasting cherry liquid, a nasal spray and eye drops that promise to end that oh-so-wonderful eyelash super-gluing phenomenon nearly instantaneously. Good thing. I’ve grown to loathe the unsticking process each morning.

Hello, Misery…your company is most definitely here.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live (answering the door).