I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up!

Friday was the confluence of negative health tides. I never get a head cold--I get pneumonia. In much the way contractors come to my house and shake their heads in disgust, doctors of all varieties look at my various barnacles, ailments and aches and mumble about how unusual that is.

Friday morning, I was making my bed. Yes, that mundane task I do every morning. As I was about to yank up the covers from the foot of the bed (why do I even put all those blankets on my bed? I invariably get hot and they all wind up down at the foot) when I saw a Lego lurking in the pile of my rug. I thought casually to myself, "I'm going to step on that sucker when I come back to this side of the bed. I should pick it up now and save myself the agony. I reached over to pick up that blessed block, and let me tell you, it was the last thing I thought for at least 20 minutes.

My whole world went tie-dye. Many people talk about whiteness or darkness when they experience harsh pain, but my world goes all frizzy. The world doesn't disappear, it just swirls and blurs. My knee had gone out and left me crumpled on the floor. Foot 90 degrees from front. A horrible, tangible grinding sound came from my knee when I righted it. I literally writhed on the floor grunting. There were no words, no profanity, no crying. Just some primordial "I am about to die" guttural sound.

Clooney, sensing pain, runs into the room and begins to lick my face frantically. You know how they say dogs sense our sickness? That's a load of crap. There was nothing WRONG with my face...would he PLEASE stop licking it, but I would not have been surprised to look down and see my knee joint parts sticking through my skin. It hurt that bad.

So, now my knee hurts like craziness. I immediately call CC, an expert in all things muscular-skeletal. Because, of course, her musculo-skeletal system looks freaking perfect, but also, incidentally, she happens to have a professional degree in the area. I go limping over to her house for an expert opinion. After checking it out, she has decided that all the important parts are still attached, but that, indeed, something not good at all happened to the knee cap.

Which is a bummer, because my mom was a carrier for FPS, and my sister and I have both manifested its symptoms. FPS, for you medical know-nothings, is Funky Patella Syndrome. While there doesn't seem to be anything anatomically freakish about us (per se), the knee bone is not well attached to the thigh bone in nursery rhyme verse. My sister, who survived years of elite athletics as a pole vaulter, was felled when she bumped into a piece of gym equipment. That ridiculous injury required weeks of rehab. My mother, strolling the beach as waves lapped at her ankles, was felled when a monster wave of six inches knocked her down and blew out her ACL. And while a bed-making injury was humiliating, it certainly won't go down as the craziest in my family. (It's August, and Dad is still recuperating from Christmas-Light-Hanging induced bursitis.)

Now that the knee was appropriately iced, and I was resting comfortably-ish on the couch, I was able to turn my attention to my other medical ailment: leprosy. I had this crusty, oozy, nasty rash crawling across my chest. I was, at this point, hoping the leprosy would spread and cause my leg to fall off right at the painful knee, but despite its menace, I didn't dare hope the rash would actually spread to the point of usefulness.

Of course, my doctor was out of town for the week.

I nursed my wounds all weekend. I limped about making pirate sounds, and vowing to spread my rash to anyone who pissed me off.

On Monday I, along with a thousand other people, called the doctor--desperate for an appointment. The leprosy was definitely out of hand. The knee was swollen, but usable, no longer my first priority.

Nurse Frantic calls me back, assures me that the office is in chaos, but if I am willing to sit there, they will 'work me in.' I go. I bring my Kindle. You never know how long you'll be trapped in a waiting room. Especially since, for a change, it wasn't the pediatrician's office. So I wouldn't be playing a marathon game of "Don't Touch That." I'm reading Chelsea Handler's book, Are You There Vodka, It's Me Chelsea, an appropriate work for someone of my sobriety level.

I'm sitting under the TV, which thankfully isn't tuned to Faux News, and I scan the waiting room. My internist is part of a large practice, and I always like to see what kind of patients he's seeing all day. Just to put myself in perspective.

The first thing I noticed is that EVERYONE had portable oxygen tanks. Already, I'm thinking, "look at me! Gettin' my oxygen from the air around me! Woohoo! He probably thinks I'm in amazing shape!" Also, since I don't have a BMI in the vicinity of rhinoceros, I'm feeling pretty good about myself. Now, I'm wondering if maybe I'm not too hard on myself and that maybe a slightly overweight one-legged leper might be able to go somewhere in this world.

I go back to reading Chelsea. I love Chelsea. Don't get me wrong, I'm never awake to watch her show, and I have waited however many years to read this book. Even though I'm late to the party, I'm definitely on board now. I'd like to consider myself a lot like Chelsea. Except the little people who have seen my uterus were, you know, fetuses. So, I'm laughing out loud at my book, and the guy waiting in the chair facing me hands me his Winn Dixie receipt and a pen and asks if I can write down the name of the book I'm reading. The guy has a wicked comb-over, is dressed like a shlump, and is affectionately stroking his octogenarian mother's shriveled hand.

This is the paragraph I was reading:

The problem for my dad with the suspenders my mother bought for him is that he hasn't adjusted the straps since he got them. So instead of attaching somewhere around his midsection, the suspenders clamp onto his pants three inches below his nipples. Now picture the suspenders attached to a pair of sweatpants. This vision is what first led me to coin the term "camel balls."

There is NOOOO way CombOver is going to like this book. But, I write down the information for him, vaguely entertained by the prospect of him reading about Chelsea's back and forth on whether to get involved with a red head and his clownish pubic hair.

Nurse Frantic calls me in, and the Dr, comes to look at my leprosy. I pull open my shirt neck and he visibly recoiles, "blech!" Really, Dr? Is that your official diagnosis? I've got a wicked case of the Blech? Is this like the Clap? He prescribes some unctions, snake oil and steroids.

The knee, he agrees (shaking his head, mumbling about my unusual FPS) is intact, but slightly screwed. (I knew that.) He insists on X-Rays, which even I know will reveal nothing, but whatevs. Chelsea and I can kill some time down in the lab waiting room.

The lab waiting room makes the Dr.'s waiting room look like a MENSA convention. We are talking liver spots and impending death. I briefly thought of mercy killing this bunch by switching out their oxygen canisters for CO2 tanks stolen from McDonald's fountain machines. I went through all the poses for my xray porn movie (spread this, bend this, move this way, hold it, great) and left the ebola-ravaged center in a shower of Purell.

Shockingly, the snake oil is clearing up the leprosy. I got no phone call regarding the Xrays, which means (not shockingly at all) that they showed nothing. So far, I haven't started bleeding from my eyeballs, so hopefully I didn't contract whatever nasty was floating around the clinic, and I survived.

Thanks to Chelsea.

Julie P: Live from the sandbox!

We are all trying to settle in to our new school routine. Things are different, not only from summer, but from last year. Obviously, there is only one carpool now: instead of dropping of E at 7:50 and S at 9 and picking up S at 1 and E at 3, M is taking the boys to school in the morning. Together. I stay home. That's a big change, kissing everyone goodbye and then turning back to pick up the kitchen. I don't have carpool responsibility until 2:15, when I go and sit in line for an hour. And, according to experienced moms from our school, even that is going to improve.

I have lunches to pack now. We are going through A LOT of snack-type food. I have less laundry as uniforms are the order of the day. Lots of small differences, but the biggest is that chunk of time I have to myself (sorta) in the middle of the day.

People have begun to ask me what I "do." Unfortunately, most of what I do is menial and not so mentally engaging: after the kids leave, I make beds, blog, pick up, run wash. I have been meaning to get on the treadmill for 15 minutes, but the pile o' crap testifies to my inactivity. I go to the grocery for dinner (yes, daily), run an errand while I'm out. Come home, eat a lunch, chop and prep whatever for dinner, pack the cooler for the kids in the car, and go sit in carpool for an hour. I usually take a nap during the carpool wait. I grant you, when someone says she has time for a nap during her day, it's not world's most stressful existence.

But, I think what people mean, is what do I "do" to bring meaning to my life. What do I plan to do now that I have two school-aged children? This is a challenging question. What is my next step? It is an identity crisis for sure. Am I likely to get all into working out and develop a rockin' body and run a marathon? Not so much. (Stop laughing, CC). A lot of my friends have creative or professional careers which have allowed them to go back to work and dictate their own schedule. I do not have a professional degree, and it's really hard to demand a 10 to 1 schedule at the Gap. Plus, I am lucky enough not to HAVE to go back to work just for the salary. If I found something rewarding that would still allow me free afternoons and summers, I'd be curious. But I'm not desperate. And I'm not complaining about that luxury, believe me.

I could become overly involved in my children's lives. I could stay home all day and make homemade pasta and homemade sauce and home baked bread and wear an apron and be chained to the stove. The only one who would appreciate that, though, is M and even he'd be like, "uh, you might wanna go out some more. This is great and all, but you're lookin' pasty." And, the kids STILL wouldn't eat their dinners, and I'd be bitter and fat from tasting.

I could hover around the school all day, and while I sincerely want to be helpful to my kids' teachers as well as to the moms who ARE dedicating themselves to the school, I can't bring myself to do it. I want the kids to have some domain of their own.

I could become a lady who lunches. One of those women who takes like 3 hours to get dressed in the morning and then meets her equally well-coiffed friends for a luncheon (with martini, natch) that takes 2 hours and then goes and gets her kids and does drive thru for dinner because she's "exhausted" read: "drunk." But, while that's a great once in a while activity for me, it's hardly my day-to-day.

This morning, at breakfast, though, I had a glimpse of what could become a career path. First, some background: Sunday night, M and I watched the Comedy Central Roast of David Hasselhoff. Mental note: No matter how much mock-celebrity I attain, I will never allow myself to be roasted. And while the whole thing was amusing, most of the show featured stand-up comics making fun of one another. Destroying each other, really. And while it was funny, M and I had to continually check the doorways for little eavesdroppers. Because funny, yes. Family-friendly, really Really REALLY no.

Back to breakfast: the boys and I were sitting around talking about whatever, and I mentioned it would be funny if Wolverine went on vacation. He'd pack, and then he'd get to the airport, and he'd put the 33 cents change in his pocket in the little tub at the security checkpoint. Then he'd go through the metal detector, which would freak out. He'd take off his belt, and then go through again. The alarm, of course, blaring. Then, he'd be subjected to the manual wand scan. The little wandy thing would start smoking as it moved over his entirely metal skeleton. He'd try to take out the TSA dude, but then there'd be a security breach, and the boys and I would be looking at our gate information and all the flight status would flicker down the screen, Delayed, Delayed, Delayed. Just our luck, we'd be at the same airport as our bezerk Adamantium-boned super hero. And I'd be all, "hey choppy hands. Wanna slice some limes for my margarita? We're gonna be here a while."

The kids LOVED it. They were rolling. So, I'm thinking there's a niche market for a kid-friendly stand up comedian. I could start with birthdays and bar mitzvahs and work my way up to my own prime time (the coveted 5 PM slot) Disney Network special. I mean, I KNOW I'm funny about pubic hair-dos, and martinis. Maybe I could be funny about Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers in a non-ironic way. I could open with some Phineas and Ferb references. Make fun of Grover, a total washed-up Sesame Street Has-Been. Get 'em rolling with my Gru voice. Do a little physical comedy with my "It's so FLUFFY" remix:

I mean Eddie Murphy went from "Raw" to "Dr. Doolittle." And Patton Oswalt does some FILTHY work, but also voiced Remy from "Ratatouille." I could be the next kid crossover star.

Friends with kids who have September birthdays: I will be testing some material and offering free shows through the end of the month. And to my friends, I'll be sampling some stuff with your kids. Tell them to be honest though, because I don't wanna bomb to an audience of 6 year-olds. I'll take on bigger audiences and maybe work the public school circuit during rainy days. Eventually, I'll be doing gigs for those parents who host first birthday parties and bat mitzvahs with $1000 cakes from the Ace of Cakes.

Then, one day, maybe I can host the Kid's Choice Awards. Trot on stage to cheers and applause. Give some gentle, no cursing ribbing to Spongebob. My kids will be all, "that's my mom. She totally wasn't room mom, but she ROCKS it." So, please. Book your birthdays now. When I'm big on national cable TV, I'll thank y'all. The Little People.

Motivational Me

This morning, before God was awake, S came running into my room, chasing Clooney in wooden dutch clogs, on steroids, followed by a herd of elephants, a gaggle of geese, a troupe of howler monkeys, and a 1980s hair band cranked to "11."
It was going to be that morning. So, I politely send him to his room, and advise him that there will be punishment for slamming the door.
And in his most adult voice EVER, he says, "Well, thanks for telling me!" and slams the door.



I'm in the shower. Nude. Soapy. Thinking, mistakenly, that perhaps the 7 minutes it takes me to shower could be moments spent alone. E comes in, snivelling and crying, with a touch of whine and cheese thrown in for good measure. "Please tell S to turn off my light and get out of my room so I can sleep." If, by sleep, he means silent kung fu against invisible opponents of a Bakugan/Pokemon/Ben 10 hybrid enemy, then sure. So, I scream out of the shower, "S! Get out of your brother's room. He wants to go back to bed! You've awoken everyone in this house by running around with the dog! LEAVE! YOUR! BROTHER! ALONE!" That'll do it. Screaming things from the shower, where children know you are incapable of quickly darting out and catching them in mid-evil doing, has always worked in the past. Right?
As I am drying off, and have slammed the door to the bathroom shut with my drippy foot, S comes barging in, T-shirt half on: "Did it ever occur to you that I was tired, too?"



I'm sorry, S. Was my sleeping waking you? While I have plans to entertain them with friends and food and swimming and everything unicorny and rainbowy and chocolate chip cookie and milky, sometimes I have to question why I torture myself? There comes a point when even the softest, newest, most naive, most emotionally invested, by-the-book social worker would understand seeing children bungee corded to the luggage rack at 65 on the highway outta town with me holding an open container and crack.
*Thanks to photobucket.

The accidental tourist

I suppose there are a number of ways to tell that your husband loves you. For some, love may take the form of unexpected flowers, or breakfast in bed. For others, its a romantic dinner out, or a vacation getaway, or just a great foot massage after a long day.
Love from my husband takes on forms of its own: sometimes, it's expressed more clearly than others.
For example, this spring, I was eager to plan summer family vacations. M wanted very little to do with the planning of those trips--you may think this unsupportive. But, I could plan nearly any trip I wanted--anywhere, anytime.
I put together a very cool itinerary that included a road trip to Savannah and Jekyll Island, Georgia. I researched hotels and activities and he helped me process and purchase and the trip was done!
And M loves me.
Months pass, and the eve of our vacation arrives. I pack for everyone. I plan the driving route. I download and peruse restaurant reviews. I make reservations for Clooney at Chez Chiennes. We are ready.
As a sign of solidarity, M doesn't freak when everyone is an hour later than the planned departure. I mean what are the odds that the kids would sleep in on the one day I was counting on them to be my alarm clock? We are in the car without incident. The dog is delivered. We hit the highway. Nothin' but a curling ribbon of road ahead.
And M loves me.
We only had to threaten to kill the kids twice on the trip. We had a peaceful lunch and stopped at a roadside peach stand. Everything's coming along.
And M loves me.
We get to Savannah. It's coming up on bedtime, and we are hoping to check in, drop off the junk, grab dinner and go to bed. (One of the great bonuses of sharing a room with kids on vacation, is that I get to go to bed at 8:30, whether I want to or not.)
M enters the lobby to check in. The kids and I begin to unload the car. A moment later, M comes out with a grim face: "You're going to have to put all that stuff back in the car." What the what?
"Our reservations start tomorrow. They have no rooms tonight."
I guess maybe I was a little too eager for the trip?
And M loves me?
M disappears into the lobby again. The kids start their ever-so-helpful snivelling over things they do not comprehend. "We're going to have to drive all the way back to Alabama?"
I'm sitting in the driver's seat--literally and figuratively. I brought this fate upon us, and drove us to our fate at 85 miles an hour for 8 hours on the wrong day.
Nerts!
M comes out with directions to a new hotel. He seems okay. We drive a short distance and pull up in front of the Westin Spa and Golf Club. I remember this resort from my searchings. One of the top 60 golf courses in the country.
We walk in to the fine lobby, we check in, we go up to the 10th floor, (do they put Febreeze in the air up here?) which has a lovely view of the golf course, and South Carolina beyond. Apparently, I have a voucher for the spa tomorrow. And the kids can use the pool.
Not a word. He's in good spirits. "This is just going to give us an extra day of fun!"
Nothing. No comment.
So, in short, I know my husband loves me when he has trekked through every two lane, back-ass town in Georgia for 8 hours, listened to the kids argue about which clone trooper is cooler (clones, people, consider the definition) bought an unexpected stay at a fancy resort, and STILL had enthusiasm for a cheeseburger and beer dinner.
This morning, the kids sorta slept in. They're downstairs getting breakfast.
I'm on my way to the spa. Best. Mistake. Ever.

Today's Etymology Lesson

I love words. I love puns. Last night, the mascot from the Bay Bears rolled his googly eyes at me: kids eating pizza. Kids offer Ted D. Bear a piece of pizza. He shakes his head no. Kids insist. I say, he can't--he's stuffed.

Thanks. I'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip your waitress.

So, one word keeps resurfacing this week. Actually, it's just the root of a word. The Greek root of a word. Perhaps it should be my mantra.

Idio-.

Say it with me i-dee-oh. Doesn't mean what you think it does. It means "proper to one" or "peculiar." (Dictionary.com: the ultimate word authority.)

Here are some of its appearances this week:

Idiot: "Particular, skill-less agent" Or, the one of the imbecilic names my kids keep shouting at each other in the back of the car. Even when M and I are doing something phenomenally nice for them--taking them to Steak and Shake and a baseball game--name calling persists. What is their deal? Morons.

Idiopathic: "of unknown origin, particular to one." Or, the 'diagnosis' of Sam's not eating syndrome. (SNES) Idiopathic Constitutional Growth Delay happens to be one of those phrases physicians toss around that sounds like it means something, but doesn't. Shall we break it down? We have idiopathic. Constitutional--well, we could argue that the teapartiers have Idiotic Constitutional Growth delay, but that's something altogether different. Constitutional? His mettle seems above average. Growth? Well there does seem to be little of that going on. Delay? That implies that the growth will happen. Just late. Figures. I'm always late for everything.

Idioms: I do love watching kids explore language. And I LOVE it when they fall short on the idiomatic expressions. For example, Sam keeps asking if I'm grabbing his leg. It took me forever to realize that he meant pulling his leg, as in teasing him.

Idiosyncrasy: Um. Hello? In Chandler Bing parlance: Have ya MET me?

I found some other fun words prefixed with Idio: idiolatry (self-worship, inflated ego) idioticon (a dictionary or glossary of a particular idiom or sub-language) idiorepulsive (repulsed away from one's self, as in heat). Also, there were some fun idiot words: idiot pills (barbituates) idiot's delight (solitaire. Note: no mention of Bejeweled).

So, an informative morning. Let the idiocy continue.

Some thoughts on S's first day of summer, or the limitations of a capitalist society on the domestic manager

My dad used to say, "another day, another dollar." Which I have amended slightly: "...spent." Not having a grown up job that pays real green American dollars is depressing. When one is gainfully employed in the public or private sector (as opposed to the fantastically well paid and growing domestic sector), one showers, dresses oneself, consumes a breakfast, perhaps prepares a lunch to take along, and commutes to the appropriate place of business.


In the domestic sector, a shower is a luxury snatched during unpaid breaks, a breakfast is snarfed down in record time over the sink so as to minimize dishes, and the commute is just one long circular trip from one child's entertainment venue to the next.

In the real world, one interacts with adults, actively solves problems, resolves conflicts, fulfills responsibilities, sets goals, and is subject to a process of peer review. One's employment performance is rated by the efficiency of goals set and met, one's dynamic with coworkers and management, one's quantifiable achievements as put forth by the workplace expectations.

The domestic sector is an arbitrary process of occasionally succeeding. The expectations are vague at best, impossible at worst. The dynamic is a constantly evolving power struggle. Employment performance is based on whether or not your child matures to become an anti social psychopath or a stripper. Short term achievements (matching socks) are often overlooked.


That life, the external existence is the very core of human experience. Since Neanderthal times, the boundary between domestic and external has defined our very survival. In modern times, this process of offering labor in exchange for monetary compensation and marginal benefits is widely considered a benchmark by which we esteem our fellow humans.

WORK IS EVERYTHING.

And then. Then, there are those of us in the domestic sphere. We, the huddled masses yearning to accomplish something which is recognized as an accomplishment. We, the downtrodden voiceless of the home maker, mother, wife. We, who cannot log on to the Internet or enter an automobile without spending (in varying quantities) money that we did not earn. We, who toil under the dictatorship of wee tyrants--be they toddlers, preschoolers, tweens, teens, or *worse* adult children at home. We, who thanklessly undertake Sisyphean tasks of unutterable futility. Laundry (because every 7 year old needs to change clothes hourly), feedings (because every 5 year old needs a processed carbohydrate every 33 1/2 minutes, cleaning (because no child or husband has discovered that the giant bin next to the door filled with shoes is there to deposit shoes into) and entertainment (because every child needs something to distract them every second of the day, unless he is watching TV, in which case he requires someone to deliver processed carbohydrates on a silver platter).

We, WE who defend Internet purchases because (hey, they sent me an email advertising a sale) and because we cannot take our dastardly mini-bosses out into public lest they humiliate us further. We, who agree that while a $50 pair of shoes may not be indulgent, the fact that this is our third pair this week might be. We, who understand that Lego translates from Swedish into "bare foot piercing pain most approximating the searing agony experienced when Romans nailed Jesus' foot." And that these mini weapons of podiatric destruction must be searched out and removed before inflicting this pain on dozens. And that should these Swedish foot piercers be trapped in the Dyson, they must be removed lest our bosses miss the one blue 2 dot rectangle that will irrefutably transform a rickety stack of bricks into the 3 ion-cannon blasting space ship driven by radical space pirates capable of destroying the universe if able to achieve hyperspace.

WE KNOW THESE THINGS.

We know the nuanced difference between the wanky plea for attention and the gut wrenching scream of an imminent ER visit. WE negotiate peace daily, re define boundaries and political alliances, WE keep the shoulders to the grindstone, desperate to keep our unyielding miniature bosses in relative calm.

WE pay ourselves in Land's End capris and Merona flip flops. WE award ourselves bonuses of TCBY and puffed rice treats. WE rationalize our self denials as necessary for the benefit of an entire family. WE have transitioned from a time of external perceived value to a current de-valued status:

MOM.

We are moms. And our day came and went. And our bosses continue. And like AIG and Goldman Sachs, our bosses have rewarded themselves with a 12 week vacation bonus. And we, WE pay for that most dearly of all. On your toes, moms. Summer's startin'.

Judge Julie: A Response to Surviving the Mommy Mafia

This morning, I read a post on CNN.com about surviving the "mommy mafia."
http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/wayoflife/04/13/mommy.mafia.jen.klein/index.html?hpt=Mid

While I certainly agree with the author's claim that moms and women judge one another, as the primary judger in my household, I feel compelled to offer my two cents. And judge her assessment of the underground mommy life.

It's a 'dirty little secret' that's 'not really a secret'? First of all, most moms are women. If, by the age that you become a parent, you haven't figured out that your female cohorts are judging you, then you have either been raised in a barn, or blissfully ignorant and mercilessly teased behind your back. Girls judge, tweens judge the most, high school girls judge, and even cultured young women of college age judge. Don't you remember? Being too thin/fat? I was too thin until some time in middle school. Then, not thin enough. Don't you remember having glasses/thick eyebrows/pimples/braces/poor fashion advice from your mother? We all went through it. Even that annoying head cheerleader went through it on some level.

I notice now, by the way, that one of my high school's class cheerleaders has a Facebook page that could illustrate a John Cheever novel.

Being judged is a widely known part of life. Who's judging you and why and how you cope with it...those are the dirty little secrets.

First of all, I'll be honest. I'm probably judging you. Whether you're a mother, or not, my first mental process upon meeting you is assessing you. I hope, to some degree, that you're doing it to me. That's why we have a term for it in our language: the first impression. I don't care if you're wearing white after Labor Day, what I care about is that crazed look in your eyes...is it the kind of crazy that instantly bonds me with others or is it the kind of crazy that says 'potential serial killer, beware'?

I can't instantly form an opinion of the quality of your character, but I start forming an idea right away. I can tell if you're health-conscious (are you eating a Snickers for breakfast?), trendy (iphone in hand?), have a regular babysitter (this, I infer from whether or not you have a professional-looking haircut and color. No one has fantastically coiffed hair unless they have time for it. And with kids, this means babysitter.) And, let's be honest, if you have a babysitter, there's a good chance I'll befriend you. Who would have thought that sixteen year old girls would become a commodity in parenting econ 101?

Of course, first impressions are often misleading. And mine remain pretty malleable until I know you better. Do I judge you based on the cleanliness of your children's clothes? No. Do I judge you based on the sparkle of happiness hiding in the corner of their smiles? Hell, yeah.

The mommy mafia author suggests that we judge based on a myth of the perfect mom. Does some one still think there is a perfect mother? In this, the 21st century, uber-tolerant social veneer, a digital age where you can find cohorts on the Internet for every niche of interest? No one, except my mother, still believes in The Perfect Mother. My mother thinks that she was clearly NOT perfect, and judges herself for it, which is ridiculous, because of course she wasn't perfect, but no one is.

June Cleaver is dead.

Judging is such a strange term for what we do. Certainly, we compare. We watch others, we learn from others. When we see that kid in Wal-Mart ripping stuff off the shelves, and telling his mother to shove it, we compare. We judge. It's part of how we learn to parent--don't we judge our own parents in our own minds?

I don't compare moms to this rubric of a perfect mom, as though I were grading an essay:
4/5 for children's fashion
3/5 for personal fashion
4/5 for consistent discipline
1/5 for publicly spanking
1/5 for having a cocktail with dinner in front of children
5/5 for child's use of napkin and cutlery

18/30=60%=D parenting. I'd prefer to think that judging is done on a curve. Wouldn't we all rather be a little more like some moms we know than other moms we know? Isn't that necessary role modeling? Isn't that how we strive to be better parents/wives/friends/people?

As I get to know you, I form judgements based on what I think is important in life. Are the things in my life the only things that are important? Of course not. My life lacks things that very clearly other people think is vitally important. The core things, though, are shared by nearly everyone in my life. Those are my friends, my frenemies, my circle, my peers. This is the cohort in which I am raising a family. Therefore, these are the things I judge my friends by. These are the things upon which I base my advice when it is sought, these are the ideals by which I measure and judge myself. This is how I own my failures and savor my successes.

There are few things that are absolute in the complicated life/job that is parenting. These are the ends. The means are variable. If you were to ask me for advice, (which I know you really want to do right now, after reading this. Your thoughts are undoubtedly running the gamut from A to B: what a bitch to what a megabitch) you would be asking me to make a judgement. And here is how I am judging you:

Is your child happy? Perhaps not at this particular, sitting in the corner moment, but overall?
Do you seem satisfied with your life? No, you are not running through meadows in a Massengill commercial. But, are you the black and white frowny face in the depression medication ad?
Are you making your parenting choices from a rational, well-informed place or are you hopping on the trend bandwagon? Trendy Parent Magazine's article on "The All-Kale Diet" is not a reason to change dinner plans. Especially when three months later, Trendy Parent prints a tiny retraction, noting that the "All-Kale Diet" may turn your child green
Are you doing what's best for your individual child, or are you signing up for competitive cheer leading to avenge Lucy Perfectpants from the 7th grade cheer squad?
Do you have a semi-objective support network? A partner who's around enough to have valuable input? A mother (in-law) who doesn't always second-guess? A sister who has kids older than yours who aren't in the juvenile justice system? A sister who doesn't have kids, but has the nerve to tell you that yours are wild hoodlums? No one can raise a child alone. A meaningful support network tells me you're not trying to go it alone.

So, yeah. I'm judging you. If you tell me that your child can only eat organic raw foods, I'm going to be skeptical. You tell me that you're buying an oxygen tent for your kid to sleep in because of pollution, I'm raising an eyebrow. You're telling me that your 3 year old is taking Latin because it'll help his understanding of English etymology, and I'm rolling my eyes.

These aren't problems. These are choices to make, and things to focus on to avoid thinking about the things that scare us all about being parents.

On the other hand, you tell me that your kids' obsession with candy is making dinner time a nightmare, I hear you. If you tell me you're worried about the quality of your kid's education and are investigating alternatives, I'm listening. If you tell me your doctor recommended a procedure, and you're just not sure, I'm on it.
These are dilemmas, and every parent agonizes over them. (If you don't agonize about them, I'm judging you) These are the things that take mettle. These are the things that evoke the judgement of others. These are the things for we seek out our friends, our families, our support networks to help counsel us. These are the very decisions for which we, and ultimately, our children will be judged.

This is your brain at school

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: kids are dumb.

This time, though, I mean it academically. My kids are home AGAIN for ANOTHER week of holiday. Because...it's....??? Friday, they got to stay home because of the threat of "wintry weather." I love this descriptor. Being February, wintry weather should be expected, no? It did snow on Friday. A little. It didn't stick, or freeze on the ground, or even really accumulate on anything at all. By all rights, the kids would have already been in their classrooms, snug and warm, by the time the snow arrived. The skies would have cleared by the time carpool started. Excessive risk--parents driving under wet conditions, children requiring jackets for the temperature--really was not a factor at all. Why not leave school open, and make it a parental decision whether to send the child? Why pre-emptively close schools at the mere suggestion of snow? (Hilariously, and to the note of science education in this country, the forecast was as follows: HI of 41, LO of 36 with snow.) This is, by the way, the second weather day that the school has called for this year. The first was the weekend before Thanksgiving Break. Yup, coincidentally, school weather cancellations have lengthened scheduled holidays twice this year.

Which brings me to this week's holiday: Presidents' Day (Monday) Mardi Gras (Tuesday)...the rest of the week--gravy! Why oh why do the kids need an entire week off in the middle of February? Ski week? Let's go trekking off to the Alps, shall we?

I counted the full school days during the 2009-10 school year. Keep in mind that E goes to private school, so I am really getting jobbed on value. I always feel like I shouldbe getting more bang for my buck. Using some research skills I learned in school, I came up with the following numbers illustrating school year lengths around the world:
Nation/School Year in Days

1. Japan 243
2. South Korea 220
3. Israel 216
4. Luxembourg 216
5. Netherlands 200
6. Scotland 200
7. Thailand 200
8. Hong Kong 195
9. England 192
10. Hungary 192
11. Swaziland 191
12. Finland 190
13. New Zealand 190
14. Nigeria 190
15. France 185
16. United States 180
17. Our School 174

(MSN, Speech by President Obama)

Now, using some mad math skills I learned in school, let me synthesize this information for you:

• Our school year is 6 days fewer in school than the national public schools'
• My kid spends 16 fewer days in school than the average kid in Nigeria, a country which: the majority of the population lives off $1.25 per day, has a life expectancy of 47 years, and 68% of the population is literate

How many kids in American schools can find any of these countries on a map? I, for one, had a tough time with Swaziland. Turns out, my beloved penguins from Madagascar might have landed there during Madagascar 2, Escape to Africa. If you need help, I posted a map.

Even better, how many kids can spell Luxembourg? According to this same speech, 33% of 13 year old kids here can't read at grade level.

View Larger Map

In a related note, ETS, those nasty people who administer the SAT (remember that?) have the following report:

• Estimates of high school completion rates tend to be inaccurate, and range from the official 69.9% (2000) to independent estimates of 66.6 to 69% (2000)
• The state with the highest completion rate is Vermont at 88% to the District of Columbia at 48%
• Alabama is at 65.1%, which was lower than 38 other states (including D.C.)

Now, I fully expect my kids to finish high school. But, these statistics are scary. Two thirds of kids in Alabama have something better (?) to do with a measly 2,088 days over the first 18 years of their lives. Sadly, they haven't realized that if they don't spend those 2,088 days in school, the next 23, 725 days of their lives will be spent scraping half eaten shrimp off plates at the Red Lobster. That's what Chris Rock did before he was 'discovered.' Which may be an inspiration to some, but what are the odds that a high school dropout in Alabama is fall off my ass funny?

So, to summarize:

• Kids are dumb
• Kids can't find countries on a map
• I couldn't find a country on a map
• Google Maps is useful
• The SAT people are interested in keeping kids in high school so that they may make more money by administering more SAT exams, although, I guess if the dropout rate remains high, they can recoup some losses by administering the GED to people in their early 20s who are filled with regret and loathing for their minimum wage McFrappe-making job
• Kids in Alabama seem to be dumber than the kids in more than half the other states
• My kids are home too much
• When my kids are home, I spend a lot of time on Google Maps finding Swaziland
• When my kids finish watching TV, I will let them play Where in the World is Carmen San Diego? so they can learn to spell and find Luxembourg
• My kids are home too much

Muppets and the Electric Kool Aid Acid Test

I've written about children's TV programming before: my confusion about Oswald the Above Ocean Octopus, Wow Wow Wubzy, the giant phallus of Yo! Gabba Gabba!. Apparently, for the last seven years, a show has been stealthily lurking under my radar. A show so strange that it cowered in its early time slot, lest I discover it. A show that left me shaking my head in confusion.
Jack's Big Music Show.
Or, as I would have called it: Muppets Take Acid.
This is Ms. Piggy on drugs. The puppetry is dizzying. The lips of the puppets move so quickly, that Marlee Matlin, were she to be interested in Muppets on Acid, would be convinced they were speaking another language. And that they were on fast forward. Also, and this is something the talented Ms. Matlin would not notice, is that these crazy-fast talking puppets are SCREAMING AT ME ALL THE TIME.
I hate being screamed at. I hate it, hate it, hate it. Why can't they have a normal conversation? Why do these puppets have to jibber jabber all at the same time, all desperate to be heard over the scream of another, so that like some kind of verbal cold war, everything escalates to super loud atomic screaming? WHY, I ASK YOU?
Then, of course, are the psychedelic colors of said Muppets. All of them are multi-toned, fuschia, cobalt, electric yellow, shocking chartreuse, every color bolder and louder than the next to contribute to the overall sense of chaos on the show. And there aren't just a couple of little ratlings. Scads of puppets fill every shot, such that one wonders if they could all possibly have names and identities. I suspect that Oswald the Eight Legged Octopus and his octo-pod friends are required to be the puppeteers. How is there room under that set for 16 people and their frantically waving puppet-mittened arms? Is this why the puppets have to be centimeters away from the camera? There's just not enough room on the set, so the one who is YELLING the loudest has to be doing so directly AT the camera? Why is this androgynous Muppet up in my grill at this hour?
The background, too, is obnoxious. Bright pink walls are pasted with miniature fake musical instruments. The impression is pell-mell insanity, as though set decorations are the work of a Charles Manson and Dizzie Gillespie lovechild. Awful.
Finally, the show relies on a gimmick that is one of my (many) pet peeves. Elmo does this, too, and it has chapped my hide for years: the characters turn on their own fake TV. Really? We need the metafictive device of children watching puppet children watching TV? Holy crap, Sesame Street and this drug-infested, rat occupied tree house of Jack are some complicated fictional worlds.
So, the zany neon yellow Muppet turns on a TV that seems to be powered by accordions. (I wish I were making this up.) We are taken to some poorly digitized world where 8 or so singers (who desperately wish they HAD slept with that recording studio executive all those years ago, because maybe then their careers would not have led them to Jack's den of hallucinations) are dancing and playing a quasi-rock song. But, the thing is, the singers look like a combination of Jonas Brothers and Pussy Cat Dolls. The females are dressed in red rubberized trench coats and green wigs, and Jonas #1 is wearing human sideburns emerging from a fuscia afro. (Again, all true.) Their song, dubbed so poorly that the visual song and the auditory song are contrapuntal and disorienting, seems to be about super spies and private eyes. Which sounds like it should be a Kim Carnes Top 40 hit of the early 80s. Jonas #2 is talking about bronzing the super sleuth's shoe? And asserts that the whole place is lousy with clues? Does that rhyme with I'm so effing confused?
Anyhoodles, after that musical number within a musical number, I grew weary and left S alone with the close-talking Muppets. Never again will the TV be tuned to that station before Toot and Puddles comes on. Ever. Again. I can handle globe-trotting piglets.

Reach out and touch some one

Yesterday, I talked with a couple who were our best friends from Columbia, MO and are now our best long distance friends.
Not really significant in and of itself, but the conversation was striking to me in a couple of ways. First, I realized what great phone etiquette WB has. Not only did he ask about us, listen earnestly, and laugh at my jokes (perhaps most important of all), he put his wife, EI on the phone to speak as well. It seemed old fashioned sort-of. Like in the black and white TV shows when the whole family huddled around the rotary phone to participate in the rare long distance call. But it was lovely, and a rarity that I could chat with both partners of a couple. In this world of caller ID and personal cell phones, I never call some one's house and talk to the members of the household. My sister, who doesn't have a landline, often talks about this. If her husband's father calls, he calls her husband, they chat and they hang up. She could go weeks without talking to him. However, if there were a landline, most times, she would pick it up, chat for a moment and then put her husband on the line. With caller ID, we NEVER talk to people we don't want to, or people who we assume are calling for other members of our household. So, I chatted with both EI and WB about their individual careers, their individual relationships with their new pets, and I enjoyed it very much.
The second thing that really struck me was how misled we are by social networking sites. EI and WB post daily to their Facebook pages, and WB maintains a very compelling blog. I feel as though I'm pretty au courant about their goings on. And yet, talking to them in person was like looking through a clearer lens. I realize how inadequate FB is. Certainly, it is a great advance in keeping tabs on friends, and will probably (thankfully) obviate the need for live high school reunions, (Will this singlehandedly kill the diet products industry?) but isn't true social interaction. It doesn't offer the richness of some one's conversation. LOL doesn't cover WB's hearty laugh, which has always been one of my favorites or EI's perfect diction and grammar (which are art form in this day and age). Social networks are certainly a well-covered topic in the media and blogosphere, but this one little incident reminds me to pick up the phone, call a friend and make an actual appointment for lunch or coffee.
And though it wasn't really my favorite part of the film, the second half of Wall-E really does present us with life dominated by social networking. Rather than devolve down that road, I'm going to look out the window, make a phone call, write a letter, and reach out to my friends in real ways. A pre-new year's resolution. Coffee, anyone?

BA--Bejeweled Anonymous

I have never been much of an addictive personality. I like certain things, don't get me wrong. I mean my nightly cocktail is pretty essential. Of course, I have my obsessive crazies, but addiction has never been one of them.
But tonight, I post out of fear of addiction. I have that hand-trembling, stomach churning need right now. I am worried about myself. I am worried that tonight when I go to sleep I will be dreaming of my next fix.
One of my Facebook friends got me hooked. I blame her completely. I will forever be an addict. Even if I stop tomorrow, I will be an addict.
I am not trying to make light or minimize the pain of addiction. I think there are places where the symptoms of addiction are enumerated.
A frequent symptom cited is an "inability to perform normal responsibilities." Well, there is a pile of dishes in the sink, a heap of laundry in the laundry room, my house is a mess, and M tells me it is very hot in here as I forgot to adjust the thermostat when I came in this afternoon.
Another symptom is that the sufferer continues to use substances or engage in behavior even when it is dangerous. Ok, maybe not dangerous, but certainly negligent to my children.
Suddenly, I have a fresh empathy for gamblers or compulsive porn watchers.
I want to come clean now. I want the cycle of addiction to break.
I am hooked on Bejeweled. I need help. Some one has to remove that tantalizing bookmark icon from the bottom of my Facebook page. Hours, days of my life are going to swirl down the drain of Bejeweled. The eternal challenge of a higher personal best--the humiliation and disappointment of all-time lows. This is my future--unless something can be done, I will be lost to Bejeweled.
This is a cry for help.

Do as I say, dammit!

In my life, B.C. (Before Children) I was relatively competent. I ran an office alone, set sales records in my region, and was on track for consistent promotion.

I do not say any of this to brag, but rather to say that my prior success makes my current situation all the more lamentable.

Currently, I am in charge of three "issues" we're having at the house. These are issues I do not usually cover, as they involve bills, contractors, or things usually under the purview of M. But, for whatever reasons, (I answered the phone, got indignant and said, "OF COURSE I can handle it, what do you think I am, INCOMPETENT?) I am shepherding these projects.

Issue number one is the pool. The pool is green. Not tinged green, not green-ish, I mean completely opaque neon pea soup green. According to the dude at the pool store, the chemicals are not far enough off to create said lime jello pool, so that it must be the sand in our filter requiring change. I contacted the pool guy. No response. I left another message. No response. I am in charge of making the pool swimmable, but I can't even get the cleaner guy on the phone! (It's disgusting, no?)

Second issue is a fraudulent charge on the credit card. I have been sitting on hold, arguing with operators, demanding supervisors for two weeks. I am getting the brush off. No refund has appeared on my statement, and I'm getting pretty testy. I felt like I was being intimidating and demanding, but obviously I have not. I kind of thought that even if I am unable to make my kids follow directions, I still had some sway over grown ups.

Third, is the water delivery service. We have ten, count 'em ten, empties in the back, and NO WATER to drink. Granted, this is no huge catastrophe given that there is, you know, water coming out of every spigot in the house (apparently, I have nothing to do with the utility payments). So, it's fine. But, since we're paying for the service, it sucks not to have any of its benefits, for however short a time.

So, what the hell? Am I totally ineffectual in all things not related to laundry or kids? Have I fallen out of professional authority, and lack the skills necessary to generate results from other people? Is it a strange confluence of events where it's not me, it's them? (A statistically unlikely, but more attractive option at this juncture.) What am I failing to do? Why am I tempted to quit altogether and let a man handle this? I concede, I AM incompetent. You fix it!

Maybe I should stick to the laundry, it never questions my authority.

BioRhythmic Disonance

Are biorhythms real? (My spellcheck doesn't think so.) I don't mean natural cycles of sleep and wakefulness and morning people versus night people. I mean butterfingery, forgetful, walking into walls biorhythms. The ones that are completely out of whack with me for the last few days.
First, there was the ferocious PMS. Not that you, gentle reader, need to know the full details of my monthlies, suffice to say I was a horrible person last week. I saw red at the slightest irritation. The boys and M were cowering in fear. Even my friends politely pointed out (from afar) that I was not my social self. I found myself, on more than one occasion, sitting in a chair and growling at the world. That's not healthy.
Since then, though, I have been incredibly clumsy, forgetful, and altogether out of synch. There was the nightmarish experience of getting dressed for dinner the other night. Not a single thing in my closet was 1) appropriate for the occasion 2) fitting properly 3) cleaned 4) comfortable. I wound up in a standard shirt and nearly sweatsuit-fashioned linen pants.
Then, there was the scraping of the hand on the inside of the washing machine, of all things. So that now, despite the trash compactor incident scrape healing nicely, I have a whole new scrape on my hand.
Then there was a mysterious charge on my credit card that took hours to sort through. I explained to the woman thirty times that I did not know what an Acai Berry Colon Cleanse pill was, nor did I particularly wish to know (it sounds horrific), nor did I pay for it ($80, please!), nor did I receive it (thank goodness), nor do I wish to receive more (the horror!). Eventually, I broke down, yelled at her, and begged for a supervisor. He told me that per the terms of agreement, I had elected to receive another shipment. At which point I thought I was going to have a psychotic break. I explained to him that I had not agreed to the terms of agreement as I had not paid, received, or heard of his blessed product. Grrrr.
Yesterday, friends came over to swim. Which in and of itself did not really trigger any emotional anxiety on my part. But, when they left, I neglected to put the auto-vacuum-R2D2 thingie back in the pool. So, this morning at 4 AM, or whenever the timer kicks it on, all the water started flowing through the vacuum as it should, only it flowed out of the pool on to the yard, as it should not. By the time I got there at 6:30 (S slept in), the water level was tremendously low, the syphon in the filter had lost its suction, and the flower bed was flooded. Not good. Not good at all.
Then, there was the whole camera trauma. My SLR camera has been taking strange pictures lately. Or, rather, I have been taking pictures with strange light effects occurring in them. (It would be truly bizarre if the camera were taking pictures by itself.) A perfect halo forms on the left hand side of the prints. I searched on the Interwebs that all the kids use these days (and apparently, I searched inefficiently, as it took me forever to find a photographers' forum) to find experts who generally agreed that the shutter mechanism in the camera was failing. Canon assured me this would be fixable for $250. Which is not a good price, considering the problem would not be permanently fixed. I learned that shutters on my Canon model are only scheduled to last approximately 8,000 clicks. Mine crapped out at 6700. Figures. So, then I had to struggle to search for new camera, compare models, verify compatibility with my excellent lenses, and mire myself in technical specifications which I barely understand because technology changes moment to moment these days. In the end, M learned more than he ever wanted to about cameras and shutters and Canon so that he could order, pay for, and arrange for shipping on a new camera for me. I just couldn't cope. Bad development (haha. Pun).
Needless to say, if any of my doctor friends are reading (and I don't mean all you competent PhDs or academic "doctors,") although you are my friends. I mean those doctor friends wielding the almighty Rx pad--if you could just write me a script for like a thousand Xanax and wake me when school starts, I would appreciate it. Thank you.

Don't invest in a car -or blog- made on Friday

Once, M had a student who failed to turn in an assignment for his class. When he asked her about it, she said only, "I'm just not feelin' it, Dr. P."
Today, I echo her sentiment. I was not feelin' it when S came into my room at 5:30. I was not feelin' it when I sat outside for half an hour waiting for Clooney to poop. I am not feelin' it now, as I struggle to find some creative impulse that is active this morning.
Today, I am looking forward to yet another day in and by the pool, begging my children to entertain one another, and praying that the mosquitoes do not suck the blood completely out of me.
I feel that I am shirking my responsibility to synthesize my life experience into a short, entertaining essay each day; but I'm just NOT FEELIN' IT.
It's hot. I'm still groggy. I'm cranky. My mother told me that if I didn't have anything nice to say, not to say anything at all.
Mum.

Memory Loss

An all time first: S fell asleep on the sofa last night while the rest of us were hanging out. By himself. At 6 something. No, no, no--you don't understand--he fell asleep. By himself. Early. Before he even made it to bed. The child who "just doesn't like to sleep." My night owl.
At first, I was worried. I was thinking cold, swine flu, sudden onset death. But no, as it turns out, four hours of swimming, two hours of running around like a monkey, and a crappy previous night's sleep will actually result in an S so tired that he will put himself to sleep.
Amazing.
I carried him up to his bed, tucked him in and was completely struck by how simply beautiful he looked. His little lips were just slightly apart and his little freckles looked so cheerful on his cheeks. Feeling thus inspired by the wonder of a child, I went into E's room: nope. Still awake. And talking. No magic there.
It wasn't until my bedtime that I could go into E's room and see his simple beauty. He sleeps with limbs flailed out as though he's parachuting in his dreams. His long eyelashes brushed his cheeks, and the gape of his missing tooth could just barely be seen between his perfect lips.
Much like there are chemical processes in the brain that help to conceal the agony of childbirth from our memories, there are processes that allow us to appreciate our children in rare moments of sleep or silence and forget how completely obnoxious they are to be around nearly all the time they're awake.
I know, I know. It's mean to say they're obnoxious. It's only partially true: if I could be with each of my children separately, and alone, I would enjoy it. Each one is funny, clever, curious, bright, and wonderful. Put them together, and it's like a territorial battle to the death a la Discovery Channel. Together, they spend a day locked in endless struggles of "am not, are too" and "not me, he did it." Not to mention the chronic complaint of the child: "it's not fair." Only at night when they are sleeping, or if I sneak into their rooms and spy on them as they read intently, or are absorbed in play can I see that sweetness, that near angelic perfection of childhood. Instantly, I can forget the irritations of the day, and I sincerely wish that I could freeze each of them at this ideal moment in time.
Unfortunately, as parents, we don't get to see those moments often. When my kids are quiet, I usually run in the opposite direction: why question silence? I hardly ever check on them in their sleep, as they have laid landmines of Hot Wheels and Bakugans that result in calamitous noise and god forbid I wake them. When they are playing nicely, I usually thank the powers that be and promptly make a cocktail. Because the little spawns of evil are likely to rear their nasty heads at any moment and I had better be prepared.

Crazy is as Crazy does

I think I am a little masochistic. Again, I throw around psychological diagnoses like I'm somehow qualified to do so. As I've mentioned before, I have a family practice license: I'm practicing on my father's license. (My sister does it too; ergo FAMILY practice.) But, one of the things I really like is having people in my home.
I like the sound of laughter and clinking glasses and music. I like to know that people are enjoying the hospitality I am offering. I enjoy making the best food I can and extending the best service I can, and making people feel completely comfortable.
UNFORTUNATELY, I inevitably go overboard. I worry too much. I make too much food. I spend too much money. I stress out WAY too much. All of this anxiety beforehand, but then I LOVE the party. Sadly, this is a vicious circle: if I don't stress out, then I don't enjoy the party, because I feel as though I could have done better. If I do stress out, then I'm stressed for the whole day and tired for the party.
Remember that episode of Friends when crazy Monica bet her entire apartment on a trivia contest hosted by Ross? (Right answer: Ms. Chenandler Bong) And she and Rachel had to move across the hall? Then, Monica spent days cleaning, refinishing floors, and decorating only to have everyone over at her apartment while she slept on the couch? That is totally me. So, today I am having some people over for a "casual, outdoor barbecue." Which means, I will be cleaning the INSIDE of my house (just in case) and cooking, and baking (I'm really not a baker) and if I get time, I'll be pressure washing the pool deck.
My guests asked if there's anything they can bring. I suggest: lawn chairs and Xanax. Thanks. I appreciate it.
It's 8:30. I have until 3. Crazy's gotta get moving.

Functionally Illiterate

Since I am in full denial about another birthday, I asked M for something to make me youthful and cool again: an iphone. But then, I realized that the phone itself is not only blisteringly expensive, the required plan for it would break the bank. So, instead I got a "smartphone." Which, apparently, is an apt name because the thing is crazy intelligent. Not so shocking is that it's smarter than I am.
The manual, which I DID read, is the longest book I've read in years. Apparently, it's theoretically possible to go online, check my email, update my Facebook profile (ergo, very useful for small business?) all with the 30 minuscule buttons on the slide open full QWERTY keyboard.
BUT. I am a slow to learn all the functions of this little pocket computer. I have figured out how to text (although apparently, I need to re-sort my contacts, because I was insanely frustrated to find out I had mistakenly been texting my friend's home phone.) Also, I find in my chronic stodginess that I am resistant to using text as a verb. I can answer the ringing phone, which is actually something, since there's not actually a button for that. I figured out how to use the camera on the field trip yesterday (although I am not sure what happened to the picture.) I am helpless about the rest of the features.
M is giving me a hard time because he says my family will never see me again as I will be addicted to my new device. But, right now, I am only questing for answers. I press buttons, and things beep and ring, and glow. What DOES that mean?
It's so frustrating to me. I realize that computers surpassed my tech capacity some time ago. M now buys, installs, fixes, and handles all computer related issues. He even does phone tech support for his dad and mine. (He does charge $2 a minute, for those of you who are interested.) But the idea that the telephone is now too technologically advanced for me is rather depressing. How could something invented like a hundred and ten years ago be so freaking complicated now?
DAMN. Instead of making me feel young and hip, this phone makes me feel old and out of touch.
Kids these days.

Statistics Never Lie

Sometimes, it's important just to admit you were wrong and move on with life. E's class is taking a field trip today to Pensacola. That's far. And long. And there was NOOOO way I was going to either A) ride a school bus with 60 screaming kids for that long or B) drive behind said school bus for that long just to herd a bunch of wild midgets around a bunch of overfed semi-wild animals. And the kids are going all that way in a school bus without seat belts. Which, of course, being a negligent parent, never occurred to me until MK called. And reminded me that it was a long way from here. And it was far. And there were no seat belts. And who would be there if something happened?
After our phone call, I was feeling alarmed, and agreed to keep E home from school today and take him to see Disney Earth instead. After all, we were just at the zoo two weeks ago in New Orleans, he's been to the Pensacola Zoo before, and he really likes playing hooky. Then M and my dad started in with their "facts."
As it turns out, in the decade from 1991 to 2001 there were just over 400,000 traffic accidents involving school transportation. Of those, there were 26 fatalities. Of those, 19 were kids as pedestrians leaving the bus and getting hit by another vehicle. So, really saying that the 3 hour ride without seat belts is unsafe violates all statistical likelihood. In fact, saying that it is statistically unlikely for something to happen on that trip is a significant understatement. Shoulda listened to those rational men.
And now, MK calls me to say that her son, E's cohort in overprotectionhood, has pink eye and will be home alone today. And E is behaving like a butt-faced penguin this morning. I would love for him to be gone until 4 o'clock today.
Should have bet on the odds. Dammit.

Full Flight

You know how airlines always overbook seats and then give passengers incentive to not board the flight they'd planned on, and instead take $200 and a voucher for Chili's, TOO! to wait for another 6 hours in the airport?
Well, I'm offering incentives. I accidentally triple booked myself and M tomorrow. I'm offering $1 and your choice of either going to S's last music class or spending time with E who is staying home from school tomorrow to watch Disney Earth or admistering a make-up final to one of M's studentS. I goofed. Totally goofed. Why do I even bother to keep a calendar? Gripe, moan groan.
Crap.

This is the Question

Ambivalence is a big thing in my life. Sort of. I mean, I have never been perfectly happy with any decision in my entire life. Has anyone?
Not that I am not happy; I am. Many series of near-misses, and mostly satisfieds have led me to a place where I am happy. I love my children, my husband, my home, my city, my life. Mostly. I always second guess, though. The what-ifs nose in.
When my first son was born, I actually told my husband that we could leave the infant at the fire station. When my second son was born, I was sure it was the worst mistake ever. When I find myself lying next to my snoring husband, I wonder if that is what I had bargained for. I am ambivalent about my E's going to Kindergarten (he's so ready; he's still my baby). About S going to preschool every day (he really does well there; am I pushing him away?) I feel that way about Clooney now, too (cute canine, more responsibility.) Is there anything I am sure about? Is there any feeling of which I don't feel the flip side?
I wonder if there is some self help guru out there who would help me channel my mixed feelings into a single emotion. Is ambivalence enlightenment? Am I more "self aware" because I can connect with both sides of single emotion? Or is it neurosis--a way to constantly rehash and revisit decisions? Surprising no one, I am not sure.
So, I have a dog now. The dog is sweet and has proven himself to be a quick learner. We are moving forward in his housebreaking and he seems to be a quiet, unobtrusive member of the family (that is for sure a change!) On the other hand, I am enlisting in years more of responsibility, of finding petsitters and groomers and vet appointments at a time in my life when I was emerging from all those similar responsibilities of infancy and toddler-hood. Hmm. I am not sure. And poor Clooney must think he belongs to Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde. I am often cuddly attentive. Other times, I am just this side of icy.
The only thing for certain is that a Danish Prince obsessed over decisions less than I.