Late Blooming Mom

Insomniac Mom: The Human Blackberry

2011-12-04T11:29:00.000-08:00

"You're doing it again," my husband said to me in bed the other night. "You're making lists."

This is what my mind does, compulsively, before I can fall asleep. I lie in bed and think about all the stuff that's gotta get done -- for work, for the kids, for my husband, for me, for the general maintenance of a family-of-four household. And I bet I'm far from the only mom who does this.

The reason I think so is a scene in the trailer for the recently came-and-went Sarah Jessica Parker movie, "I Don't Know How She Does It," which is apparently a so-so movie adapted from a novel of the same name, by Brit Allison Pearson, which I read and very much enjoyed awhile back. In the scene, Parker is awake in the middle of the night while her husband is fast asleep beside her; she's staring at the wall opposite their bed, and envisioning on it her very extensive, wife-and-working-mother to-do list.

Most of the time I catch myself making a list before sleep -- I don't want it to be a part of my nightly routine, but it crops up regardless -- I don't make my list out loud. But if my husband's awake, I can't help myself. This is what happened, the other night. I started vocalizing my list, because some of it involved questions I needed to ask him, things about which I wanted his input. And let's face it, between his job, mine, and wrangling the kids, the time I actually have to get him to answer these questions is minimal. I gotta catch him when I can.

The problem is, he has zero interest in my list or answering those questions when he's finally horizontal after an exhausting day. It ranks utterly last on his own list of stuff he likes to do in bed.

I don't blame him. But I go on asking questions, at least a few of them, till I can see his patience with them is about to run out. I'm a bit compulsive, but only to a point. And by that I mean, I eventually shut up, and return to making the list in my head, sparing my husband the rest of it.

I'd love to be rid of this habit. It's certainly not conducive to a restful night's sleep -- and as a mother of six-year-old twins, I don't get many of those anyway, between middle-of-the-night visits by those who have just had a nightmare or are in the middle of a nose-bleed ... and of course there are the way-too-early wake-ups just because, well, they want to be social withyou,whether you're awake yet or not. And who can blame them? It's one of the few times we working parents are a captive audience.

As long as the demands on my waking hours continue to be great, as long as I'm scheduling and taking kids to doctors and dentists, soccer and ballet and birthday parties, as long as I've gotta get dinner on the table, and do much of the household meal planning, shopping, and the lion's share of the cooking (dad pitches in on the weekends, god bless him), AND put in 40 hours a week at my job, I fear the compulsive list-making has become a part of my life.

I've become a human Blackberry.

I just wish I could find the "off" switch between midnight and six a.m.

Testing 1,2,3 ...

2011-11-20T10:19:00.000-08:00

He's testing me and his dad a lot these days.

He says he's not going to Hebrew School ... and waits for a response, lolling idly on the sofa. We ignore.

A few minutes later, he refuses to come put on his rain boots. I give up on those -- that's an argument I can afford to lose -- and coax him into his room, where I put him in a cozy sweater and rain jacket.

A few minutes later, at the door, it's "I hate this day," and "I'm not going." This time, he loses a sticker on his ready-for-school-on-time chart, and stickers mean something: once you earn 20, you get a dollar to put in your piggy bank and save up for toys.

He throws a mini-tantrum. Then, when Dad gets stern, he starts to laugh.

Dad has had it. So have I. It's been testing, testing, testing ever since he's been awake, and it's not even 9 a.m.

Dad gets down to his eye level and reminds him we've told him many times it hurts our feelings when we ask him to do things and he laughs instead of taking us seriously. Dad then proclaims, "No treat for you today. Your sister will get one." (She's been mostly helpful today.) "Not you."

Another mini-tantrum follows.

We ignore.

Finally zipped up and ready to go, he stands mid-way between the apartment door and the elevator, trying to see what happens if he stays there.

The elevator is leaving without him and so are we. Eventually, he comes.

We're in the car and he's buckled up and ready to go at last. I caress his cheek with my palm, give him a kiss, put my hand in his, and ask if we can push the "re-set" button on the day and start all over.

Sheepishly, a little sadly, he says yes. Then, in a soft, low voice, he says "I love you, mommy." Which is lovely. But he adds: "I wish I could hold your hand all day." This part, sweet as it is, I choose to ignore. Because I'm not getting into yet another power struggle when I gently disengage my hand and shut the car door. We're already late, and the last thing I want is for my six-year-old to put me through yet another test.

It's "Your Six-Year-Old: Loving And Defiant" all over again (see my previous post about the Defiant Ones). I marvel at how this little boy, not quite 42 lbs, but all of them stubborn, can turn from willfully exasperating to heart-breakingly tender in seconds.

Apparently he's almost NEVER this way in school, and when he does get a bit crazy, all the teacher has to do is look at him and say his name -- no doubt using patented Teacher Tone -- and he snaps right back into obedient, even enthusiastic, student. (We just had our Parent Teacher evaluation this past week, which is how I know this. Oh, to be a fly on the wall of that classroom and watch him fall back in line with such a minor admonishment; I wish the teacher would come to my house.)

Well, an hour has past since the boy was marched off to Sunday school, and I'm hoping our reunion later will be a sweet one. But the day will still be young. How many more tests are in store?

Stealing The Halloween Candy: It's Proust's Fault!

2011-11-06T10:37:00.000-08:00

I confess.

I did it.

After the kids were abed, I made my way to the plastic jack-o-lantern buckets on the kitchen counter, and dumped out both kids' hauls on the floor, on the pretext of sorting through any loose, unwrapped candy or candy they could choke on.

Looking at the bounty before me, childhood memories flooding back, mouth starting to water, suddenly craving artificial-tasting, factory-made, non-artisan treats, I lost all willpower. Within seconds, I'd unwrapped and devoured my first Fun-Size Nestle's Crunch bar in perhaps a decade. The Mounds Bar, we're probably talking 25 years. And this wasn't my first transgression. At the Halloween party, I ate one of the ghost-shaped cookies too -- smothered in orange frosting.

It's not that I haven't eaten any candy in years.
But aside from the occasional bag of M & Ms munched on a transcontinental flight or long California drive, I've pretty much stayed away from the mass-produced, non-Valhrona/Scharffenberger/Lindt variety of chocolate. As a proud foodie, I've disdained the items on the shelves of the supermarket in the check-out aisle, and opted for the kinds of candy made from well-sourced ingredients, produced in relatively small batches compared to the output of the Mars corporation, candy that comes with a serious price tag. For years I've looked down on waxy American chocolate, and candy bars loaded with artificial ingredients that don't even sound like food. I've also shied away for health reasons; suffering as I do from acid reflux, I've even limited my artisan chocolate consumption to rare occasions.

But Halloween night, my disdain and good sense, for once, could not trump my desire -- a desire for a taste of childhood that could only be satisfied by eating the stuff I'd forsworn. Nor did my guilt about stealing from my kids stop me. They had so much, I reasoned. They wouldn't miss a candy bar or two.

If Marcel Proust could be magically transported back to his childhood with a bite of a Madeleine cookie, then why should I deny myself the same wonderful sensation?

Or so I reasoned.

Those few bites of familiar candy tastes and textures brought me right back to happy memories of sorting through my own Halloween haul; of costumes donned, of parties attended and thrown, of tinkling coins in Unicef boxes, of the thrill of being out after dark, of the comforting ritual of watching "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!," and of having the candy stash last for days and days and days.

It's days later, and so far, my crime has gone undetected. This is one case where what the kids don't know (or haven't yet noticed) won't hurt them. They can live with a little less sugar. Apparently, though, I couldn't. But I don't regret it. It was my little Marcel Proust moment. And it was yummy.

The good thing is, once I satisfied the urge, it left me. I've since walked by those kitchen counter Jack-o-Lantern buckets, still brimming with sweets, dozens of times, without even being tempted.

But next year, no doubt I'll have my Marcel Proust moment all over again. Kids, I hope you forgive me. I once was a kid too. And that kid is still inside me. But she promises not to eat your last KitKat.

Uber-PTA Moms Vs. The Rest Of Us -- Read My Latest Post For Moms LA

2011-11-03T14:08:00.000-07:00

here's the link
Uber-PTA Moms Vs. The Rest Of Us: Can't We All Just Get Along?
and I promise I'll be back blogging here ASAP.

Mom On The Hamster Wheel

2011-10-16T11:43:00.000-07:00

You know that wheel the little furry pets run on endlessly, spinning and spinning and spinning in their cages?

I'm on the Hamster Wheel, and I don't know how to get off.

I read the phrase "Work-Life Balance," and I laugh. Because there is no such thing. Not around here. Around here, there is only the Hamster Wheel.

Here's what life on the Hamster Wheel looks like:

>Make breakfast for kids, with husband as sous chef.
>Urge them repeatedly to get dressed so they can eat said breakfast.
>While they sort of eat breakfast while distracting each other, pack school lunches and fill water bottles and make sure the school library book that has to be returned is in the right kid's backpack -- again, with help from husband.
>Yell at kids for fighting, procrastinating, and in general, not eating breakfast.
>Give kids multivitamins and feel blood pressure rise as kids take five minutes to chew a single vitamin.
>Supervise teeth brushing, putting on shoes and jackets, and assist in application of sunscreen while husband showers.
>Feel stomach acid churning as kids delay all of the above.
>Get kids and husband out the door.
>Make breakfast, scarf it down.
>Make tonight's dinner and put in fridge to be warmed up later, when there will be no time for actual cooking.
>Exercise on home exercise bike WHILE reading material for work.
>Shower, resume work in home office.
>At some point, have a snack at desk while working.
>At some point, scarf down lunch and keep working. Alternate plan: use lunchtime to go grocery shopping. Forget the most important item needed and don't realize it until arriving home, with no time to go back to store and get it.
>Get back to work.
>Remember to make dentist/doctor/flu shot appointments for kids, self. Do so.
>Get back to work.
>Realize it's time to pick the kids up from school. Drop work and run to car.
>Endure exasperating search for parking within a few blocks of school, imploring the parking Gods to be kind.
>Get to school seconds after the bell rings, retrieve kids.
>Get half way to car, several blocks away, when one kid declares, "I have to go to the bathroom," and other remembers he/she left a jacket/water bottle/homework folder at school.
>Return to school. Deal with all of the above.
>Get back to car, drive home.
>Go through homework folders for notes from teachers and parent association/school forms/other info sent home from school and try to keep papers separate for each kid; deal with what is immediate; put other papers somewhere where they won't be lost and can be dealt with later (though some will get lost in the magical void of folders and papers on desk and never be recovered).
>Get kids settled with mother's helper (Thank God -- worth every penny) and get back to work.
>Endure multiple interruptions for nose bleeds, cuts, the settling of sibling arguments, and getting a kid who is throwing a fit over homework or nightly 20-minute reading requirement to calm down; return troublesome kid to care of mother's helper, who is, after all, not Mom, and therefore not capable of fully resolving all disputes and calming upset child back to the point of cooperation, because the kids won't let her if they know mom is here.
>Try, try, try to keep office door closed and keep kids out of hair.
>Fulfill a work deadline with seconds to spare.
>Take one kid to soccer practice while other stays with mother's helper.
>Start tomorrow's work in the gym while kid is at soccer practice.
>Return home with sweaty kid, and give superfast, car-wash-style shower as mother's helper gets other kid -- already showered -- into PJs (again -- Thank God for mother's helper).
>Warm up dinner and get it on the table, as mother's helper leaves.
>Eat with kids. Make up plate for husband, who is stuck in traffic on way home from work.
>Supervise brushing of teeth and flossing and picking out of books to read for bed.
>Greet weary husband, who scarfs down dinner.
>Read books to kids or snuggle with kids while husband reads to them.
>Stay in room till they fall asleep, because they still can't sleep without us. Sweet, but it's getting old, people.
>Clean up from dinner.
>Make tomorrow's lunch.
>Talk with husband -- there's a novel concept -- IF there isn't more work to be done that didn't get finished.
>Return email.
>If still awake -- watch 1/2 hour of TV or stare at a magazine in bed without really absorbing it but trying to anyway, because it's "me" time.
>Get ready for bed.
>Collapse.
>Toss and turn, going over everything that has to be done tomorrow.
>Eventually fall asleep.
>Be awakened by kids making loud mischief in their room at six-thirty a.m.
>Repeat ... from the top of the list.

But what about the weekends, you say? Surely they provide respite from the Hamster Wheel?

Surely you jest ... or else you're not a working parent. The weekend is when you cart your children around to activities, enrichment classes, playdates and birthday parties, or just try to spend time with them that isn't about getting them ready for school or bed, and because you feel so guilty about the time you DIDN'T get to spend with them during the week because you were, um, earning a living. If you're lucky, you have a few moments of the day in which you're reveling in your kids, and vice versa, and you temporarily forget about the next thing you have to do, the next place you have to go, etc.

Of course I realize I'm blessed to be on the Hamster Wheel. I have a job, in this economy, and so does my husband. I help pay our mortgage. We all have health insurance. My kids go to a really good public school, and while I fund raise and contribute, I'm not paying private school tuition. But mostly, I know I'm blessed because I have kids. I have dear friends who wanted kids and don't have them. I really, really, really wanted kids. How lucky that I got them.

The thing is ... I just never realized they came with a Hamster Wheel ... and I have to be the hamster.

The Sorest Loser

2011-08-22T12:00:00.000-07:00

"That's not fair!" - my son to his sister, while playing UNO.

"You're cheating!" - my son to his sister, while playing the card game WAR.

"You're a liar!" - my son to his sister, while playing Candy Land.

Is it any wonder when I got to the passage about six-year-olds being sore losers in Your Six-Year-Old: Loving And Defiant, by Louise Bates Ames, Ph.D. & Frances Ilg, M.D., that it sounded so familiar?

The wise lady authors say, "To lose with a smile requires first of all that you do not care too terribly about the game -- and that you must be able to take a back seat once in a while. The ordinary Six-year-old has neither of these abilities. His emotions are violent and he cares intensely about almost everything. It is almost impossible for him to take a back seat. One of the cardinal rules in his life is that he wants and needs to be first."

Yeah, that's my boy ... at least, that's him when playing with his twin sister, who is, of course, also six.

And therein lies the rub, I believe. Because his competitiveness at summer camp is clearly not as pronounced. Sure, he likes to win whenever possible. And if he keeps losing at something, he stops wanting to play it, convinced it's too hard for him. Yet this insistence that the other player beating him must be lying or cheating seems to be confined to instances when that other player is his sister.

I know this because I showed up a few minutes early to pick up my kids at sports camp one day this summer, when the campers were being awarded ribbons pertaining to their individual achievements at camp. Ribbon-giving was a weekly ritual at this camp, and every camper got a ribbon for something -- no doubt the pervasive influence of the positive self-esteem movement in American parenting. My son had come home with ribbons like "home-run derby champ," and "basketball passing MVP." But today he got one for "Best Sportsmanship." And according to the speech the counselor was giving, he'd been an all-around good sport all week -- which surely involved having to lose graciously to others.

I'd likely still be picking my jaw up from the floor if I hadn't had to get the kids home and get back to work on some deadline or other that day.

But it was that day when the light bulb clicked on for me. It's when he's playing against HER, his rival twin, that my son loses it.

And he's not wholly to blame. His sister, though mostly a sweet, gentle, kind child, even an empathetic one when her brother is injured or sad, can be downright Machiavellian if she thinks she can manipulate someone to her advantage. I've noticed her insisting on comparing and contrasting her height, her speed on her bike, her abilities in swimming, to her brother's.

Yesterday at lunch at a local deli, she and her brother both wanted my pickle. I didn't have a knife handy, so I split it with my fingers, and gave each sibling a pickle piece. It just so happened the piece I handed her happened to be a little bigger than the one I'd given to him, a fact I was hoping she wouldn't loudly trumpet to her brother once it was noticed. My hopes were immediately dashed, however. She simply had to point out that her pickle was larger, so she could relish (pun intended) this tiny triumph against the brother she nevertheless adores and from whom she draws security and strength by his very presence in her life.

Yes, apparently she, too, has to be first in everything.

The wise ladies who wrote the book suggest protecting little sore losers against playing competitive games with kids who do it better than they do, and when playing a game with them yourself, letting them win at least part of the time. So the other day, I made a point of playing a game with the boy -- luckily, it was a rare game his sister tends to lose, because it involves basic math, which he's particularly skilled at right now. She'd played one round with us both and given up. So it was just us two, which had been my original hoped-for outcome when we all sat down. I figured I'd have to let him win, but low and behold, he beat me anyway -- four times! It wasn't that I got the math wrong, but the dice seemed to favor the boy. He DID try to convince me he needed to re-roll the dice a couple of times when he didn't like what they gave him, and I nipped this in the bud on each occasion. But he won fair and square, again and again. He left the room triumphant.

As for me, I'm trying to remind myself that even grown-ups don't like to lose ... and practicing doing so with equanimity is a lifelong task. So I'll cut the boy and his sister a little slack, and hope, as six leads to seven, eight, nine and beyond, that losing AND winning with grace and respect for your opponent is going to come with maturity.

But till then, I'm damned if I'm playing UNO with those kids. They're ruthless.

Whassup With The Potentially Shorter School Year?

2011-08-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

This year the school year may wind up being seven days shorter, and I'm steamed about it. You can read more here: http://momsla.com/2011/08/the-school-year-may-be-seven-days-shorter-whats-a-working-mom-to-do/

The Defiant Ones

2011-08-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading YOUR SIX-YEAR OLD: LOVING AND DEFIANT, by Louise Bates Ames, Ph.D. & Frances L. Ilg, M.D. I don't have a PhD nor an MD, but I could have told them about six-year-olds being loving and defiant: after spending half a year with twin six-year-olds, I should be awarded my own PhD in six-year-old studies.

My boy nails that "loving-and-defiant" thing. Just this morning, he left the house blowing me a kiss and calling me his "true love." Okay, it's a little Oedipal, but I'll take it: it's really sweet.
I'll take it because it counterbalances those times when, say, he refuses to clean up the play room, slams the door, kicks the floor, demands "Somebody help me!" and repeats that for about five minutes. When that fails, as it invariably does, he'll whine, "Why is no one helpilng me?" If I make my usual mistake about this point -- which is to engage him -- I'll say, "You didn't need any help making the mess, so it's your responsibility to clean it up." You can imagine how well this goes over.

The best strategy, as recommended by the authors of YOUR SIX YEAR-OLD, is to ignore the tantrum. And usually, that does work, because it runs its course within ten minutes or so. The boy can back into that loving, sweet kid about that fast. But not before a few "I hate you's" have been screamed at the very mom he professes to be his true love, usually pepperred by a few "It's all your fault!" and "I'm never going to clean up this room! Never!"

Um ... until he does. Which, eventually, he does every time.

My daughter's not as overtly loving quite as often as her brother -- kisses and hugs usually are offered on her terms, when she's in the mood. But when she wants to serve me water in her tea set's cup, poured from the tiny ceramic pitcher, or when she insists on sharing her fruit with me, or when she sees her brother upset, and runs to get his favorite stuffed animal of the moment, she's tender and gentle and as loving as I've ever seen her.

Defiance on my daughter's part generally occurs in when the girl is tired. And if she's tired, things are not going to go well. They're going to go very badly, very quickly. As with her brother, often she has to be left to let the fit run its course, but because her fits only come when she's exhausted, they tend to be at bedtime. Since she shares a room with her brother, this necessitates moving her to another room and staying with her in that room to make her stay in it so as not to keep her brother awake. This entails listening to her ear-splitting wails and watching her flail around on the floor. She insists she will calm down when she's allowed back into her bedroom. I insist she get calm first. This goes on a bit like the recent debt ceiling battle in Washington, with me playing the role of the reasonable party, and my daughter, the tantrum-throwing, no taxes no how people. Luckily, however, I usually don't have to sacrifice any principles or compromise my values to end the tantrum. I just have to calmly wait her out.

Staying calm during the fit isn't easy for me, and I've made the mistake of engaging more times than I'd like to admit, which ONLY has the effect of prolonging the fit. But eventually, my refusal to let her out of the room until she's calm wins out ... along with a drink of water and a few moments spent with her perched on my lap in front of the computer, while I scroll through a few photos on CAT OF THE DAY with her. Just a few moments of my solo attention, and she turns back into a cuddly, soft, warm bundle who can be gently walked to her bed.

It never ceases to amaze me just how kind, compassionate, empathetic and loving my children can be towards their dad and I, each other, family members, friends, small animals. But ask them to do something they don't want to and Shazam! They instantly transform into the Defiant Ones.

According to the book, that's pretty much the norm for six-year-olds, so I guess I should take comfort in that. Whether they're showering me with affection or adamantly refusing to clean out their lunch boxes, they're right where they're expected to be in terms of their emotional development. The only thing that worries me, though, is what the authors say about what's to come. Eleven, they claim, is a lot worse. And I'll have two eleven-year-olds at once. I wonder if it's too early to order the book on that.

Where Have I Been Lately?

2011-08-03T07:00:00.000-07:00

Not posting here, my faithful readers, and my apololgies for that. You'll find an account of my so-called "summer vacation" on the momsla website, here: There's No Such Thing As Summer Vacation. And I'll have an article featured soon on the MotherhoodLater site and/or its spin-off webzine, BabyBloomer.

But writing elsewhere is no excuse not to keep faithful with my faithful. So a brand new post is underway...
coming very soon. In the meantime, happy midsummer.

The Drill Sergeant Takes A Vacation

2011-06-10T17:19:00.000-07:00

A strange and amazing thing happened not long after I wrote my last post. I only had to get one kid ready for school and out the door -- Thing 2. Thing 1, poor lil' guy, was sleeping in after being up much of the preceding night with a cough. Thing 2 got herself up and dressed, brushed her hair, and appeared in sprightly and cooperative manner at the breakfast table. She ate what was put in front of her with nary a complaint. She had a pleasant breakfast, but didn't dawdle to the point where she had to be nagged to finish. She brushed her teeth when asked, cooperated for the application of sun screen, got her shoes and backpack on, received a reward sticker, and popped out the door with Daddy, right on time.

I thought it was a fluke, this oddly helpful behavior, this smooth morning vibe, this easy-peasy morning routine. But then it repeated itself a second morning, while Thing 1 remained in bed again.

My inner Drill Sergeant had been granted leave, and happily went on vacation.

In the meantime, a good friend of mine from our kids' preschool days, who now has a toddler and a kindergartner, wrote to me with all sorts of helpful suggestions and recommendations for handling the kids in the mornings. Her first suggestion didn't work for us: she tells her older kid he won't have time to play Wii in the morning if he doesn't get dressed and eat breakfast, and it's his choice what to do. Great idea, but we are a Wii-less household, at least for the moment, in part because I believe if we had Wii around, we'd never leave the house -- at least not for something as mundane as school. Late Blooming Dad and I hope to keep the kids content playing Wii at other people's houses; it's a lot cheaper than buying one, and oh, the fights it avoids! (I know one dad who fights his kids over Wii time. The man can't get enough. I secretly believe this would be our fate too if we had one -- or an IPad for that matter.)

But other things she mentioned were highly useful to everyone. She passed on tips from what I later realized is now somewhat of a latter-day parenting classic: How To Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk, by Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish. The book is chock full of useful ideas, and some of them are so damn simple, you wonder why you haven't thought of them yourself, like this one: instead of repeating yourself six times until you're so frustrated you're about to turn into a six-year-old yourself, just say a word or two to remind the kids of what you want them to do. "Kids, pajamas!" turns out to be a whole lot more effective than, say, "How many times do I have to stand here and tell you to put your pajamas on already, people!"

The nice parenting ladies recommend things like answering a question with a question, e.g., "I don't know why that kid in your class is always teasing you. Why do you think he does that?" Or, "I need you to get ready for school in the morning on time, but you want to play. What do you think is a way we both could get what we want?" The idea is to let kids figure out their problems and come up with their own solutions.

It's a good read, full of common sense solutions to many common parenting problems. I'm glad my friend recommended it. I'm using a few of the tricks I've learned already. But there's one thing that I learned from my drill sergeant's vacation, and it's that wrangling one kid, at least in my house, is WAAAAAAAAY easier than wrangling two.

Thing 1 has since recovered from his illness, thank goodness. And we're making a concerted effort to get both kids abed earlier, theoretically allowing them to get a full ten hours' sleep before having to get up and go. I've tried, when I've gotten enough sleep myself, to incorporate my friends' suggestions, and the best of those from the parenting ladies. Some mornings have gone a bit better. But not all.

The sibling factor, or perhaps in my case, the twin factor, makes what should be a rather simply morning routine turn into a highly complex operation, requiring constant readjustments and mission creep ... it's beginning to sound a bit like the U.S. in Afghanistan, isn't it? One thing I suspect about the nice parenting ladies: they never had twins.

What We Say, What They Hear

2011-05-11T17:23:00.000-07:00

Years ago, FAR SIDE cartoonist/genius Gary Larson drew a cartoon in which a man was talking to his dog Ginger about her habit of rifling through the garbage. The cartoon was captioned, "What We Say To Dogs" and "What they hear." The man went on about how Ginger had better not get into the garbage again, or else, but all the dog heard was, "Blah blah blah GINGER, blah blah blah GINGER." (You'll find the cartoon here.) But you can already guess my point: this is pretty much how six-year-olds hear their parents.

Or at least, it's how MY six-year-olds hear myself and Late Blooming Dad, whenever we're asking them to do anything they're not interesting in doing, like, say, get dressed or get undressed; pick out their clothes for tomorrow or pjs for tonight; or, god forbid, actually finish breakfast so we can get them to school on time. For some reason, this latter request falls on completely deaf ears. Either that, or what Thing 1 hears is this: "Go ahead,take a single bite of the pancake lovingly prepared for your consumption, decide you don't like it, and spit it out but be sure and get some of it on the floor, and the rest on your shirt. Oh, and while you're at it, pick a fight with your sister." Meanwhile, Thing 2 has a completely different interpretation of what she's been told: "You might as well take twenty minutes to masticate that vitamin, and feel free to ignore all requests to finish it and brush your teeth until you've ensured beyond a doubt that Daddy will be late to his nine o'clock meeting after dropping you off at school."

Recently, the unerringly accurate daily comic strip BABY BLUES(by Rick Kirkman & Jerry Scott) had a whole series on this "what you say/what they hear" concept.  You'll find a good example of it here. The parents, Wanda and Darryll, are just as exasperated by their spawn's selective hearing as the rest of us frustrated parents.

Back in the fall, I attended a free parenting workshop at my kids' school, taught by a psychologist. This lady was also a mother of two now-grown children, so presumably she knew what she was talking about from personal as well as professional experience. She asked if parents were having trouble getting their kids to do what they're supposed to do in the morning before school, to get ready, or at bedtime. Duh. Then she informed us that our kids already know exactly what they're supposed to do by now, since they're in elementary school. They've been getting ready for school in the mornings since preschool, and they've known all about what they're supposed to do at bedtime for even longer than that. So why don't they cooperate?

The psychologist said they've got lots of more interesting things to do, but that's not the only issue. We keep telling them what to do. A longtime dog owner, she brought up the subject of dog training, and asked, "If you tell a dog to do something six times, but there's only a consequence the last time you tell the dog to do it, what does he hear? That he only has to take you seriously the sixth time you say it. Why should your kids' reaction be any different?"

Okay, I was with her up to this point. But then, when it came time to figuring out some solutions to get our kids to actually do what we want them to, she lost me. She said we could tell our kids to do something once, and once only. And if they didn't comply, we should stand over them, arms crossed, looking firm, until they do it.

When that fails (and boy, does it -- believe me, I've tried it), she suggests doing things like letting a kid come to school late, with the stop in the office for a late slip and the coming-in-late-to-the-classroom walk of shame that will embarrass them so much they won't want to repeat the experience. Maybe that works. But we've never quite managed to find out because somehow, when we've suggested to Thing 1 or 2 that they're going to be late, the errant child in question reacts by throwing a fit, thus even further delaying our departure -- yet somehow not quite enough to qualify for that walk of shame. We always manage to make it in the nick of time. By then, however, Late Blooming Mom and Dad are in foul moods that color our entire mornings at work, churn up mom's acid reflux or put dad's lower back into spasm, and make us hate ourselves as parents because, of course, we lost our tempers at the little manipulators, and threw our own fits.

My solution to the get-to-school-on-time problem has been a sticker chart, which worked decently for about a month and a half, but has now gone off the rails. It was meant to be all about positive reinforcement: you get ready for school by 7:45, you earn a sticker, and if you earn 20 stickers, you get to shop for a small toy. The 20 stickers were earned in that month and a half or so, and toys were selected and dutifully purchased.    But since then, the thrill of earning stickers seems to have gone, and the taking away of stickers has become the consequence of choice when Thing 1 or Thing 2 misbehaves. This has resulted in several unintentionally comic races to the sticker chart, where the misbehaving child tries to shield the aforementioned sticker chart with his or her body, so that the sticker(s) cannot be removed by the determined parent. The determined parent nevertheless prevails, but the tears come too.

Variations to the sticker earning process have been introduced: unpack your lunch box and wash your hands within five minutes of coming home, and you earn a sticker. Get ready for school by 7:30 instead of 7:45 and you earn a whopping TWO stickers.

But misbehavior -- and more sticker removal -- continues.

I remember the psychologist at the meeting back in the fall discouraging physical rewards for doing what kids are supposed to do anyway. She referred to that system as "a token economy."  Instead, she encouraged rewards like, "a special lunch out with mommy," or "book time with daddy," but those rewards aren't immediate, and they don't seem to get the kids' attention nearly so much as something shiny and plastic and made in China.

To bastardize a phrase of Winston Churchill's, our sticker chart is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.

Something tells me that whenever Churchill's Brooklyn-born mother Jennie told young Winston, "You mustn't," he heard, as they say in Brooklyn, "fuggetaboutit."

He turned out all right. But I'll bet it was no fun being his mother.

Life Is Too Short For Birthday Party Pizza

2011-05-06T07:00:00.000-07:00

To all whom I'm about to offend -- especially parents who have graciously invited my kids to your kid's birthday party -- I apologize. But I cannot help myself.

Life really is too short for Birthday Party Pizza.

By Birthday Party Pizza, I mean the super cheap kind that comes from a national fast-food chain and is meant to inexpensively feed a horde of small children who'd rather get right to the main event -- birthday cake -- and is also meant to feed parents who attend the parties too and find themselves in need of a little more sustenance than the precut carrots, celery sticks and ranch dressing.

In this day and age of slow food, locally grown ingredients, organic this and free-range that, there is some awesome pizza to be had out there.
I'm thinking of pizza dough that's made from imported Italian flour, hand-stretched by a pizzaialo trained in Naples, whose pizzas could be certified as authentic by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana. I'm envisioning pies adorned with Buffala mozzarella flown in twice-weekly from the Campagnia region, the cheese sitting on a bed of sauce made from San Marzano tomatoes, topped off with fresh basil, and made in a wood-burning pizza oven that can reach 800 degrees.

But let me be clear: I absolutely do NOT expect to see that pizza anywhere near a child's birthday party. Not even once. And let's face it, at ten dollars for a dinner-plate sized pie, what parent in their right mind would serve that to a child, let alone a house full of hungry parents? What parent can afford to?

However, on the other extreme, there's always some national chain down the street with the processed cheese and the rubberized dough, a chain that spends far more on TV advertising than it ever does on ingredients. And it's that chain, or one like it, that seems to be getting the lion's share of the pizza party dough. That, my fellow parents, is a crying shame.

I don't know about your kids, but my kids don't even like that national chain stuff. I've seen them give up on that chain pizza after one or two bites, and leave their slices lying forlorn on their party-themed Hello Kitty or Spiderman plates. I've seen your kids do it too. That's why you have so much left over pizza after the party, people.

Maybe all that artisan pizza has turned me into a picky pizza eater. A pizza snob. I admit it. Guilty as charged. I've been willing to scour the web for a great slice or pie. If I go to NY and don't eat pizza, I'll weep. My devotion to great pizza has even affected my kids, who can't go any more down-market than CPK (which is acceptable as kid pizza goes, though not ever going to be memorable).

But all that said ... Birthday Party Pizza doesn't have to be bad. And it doesn't have to be artisan, either.

For just a few more bucks, -- and I'm willing to pitch in those few more bucks -- I'll bet you can get a pizza from a pizzeria that's local, not national; maybe it's a single, family run pizzeria, or maybe it's a mini-chain, with a few local stores scattered around town. These places are worthy of our support. And their products are generally actual food. So call me, parents. I'll find one near you. One that uses actual cheese, and still makes the dough by hand, or at least uses a trusty old mixer with a dough hook in the back room, before cousin Joey, up front manning the pizza peel, stretches the dough, slathers on some home-made sauce, and tops it with some real cheese. I assure you, two or three large pizzas from these places won't break the bank. And they're a far, far better thing.

I realize I've never ordered pizza for ten or twenty-plus kids and their parents; the two times I've thrown birthday parties for my kids, it's been brunch: bagels and cream cheese and fruit affairs, with juice and coffee and not much else thrown in beside the requisite cakes. Bagels and such is easy peasy, and won't cause the wallet to break out into a cold sweat.

So I took the easy way out. And I know, instead of criticizing, I ought to be a grateful, gracious guest and thank all those parents who've had my kids to their kids' birthdays, and even put out food for the adults. So let me take a moment right here and now to do that: thank you for entertaining my kids for two hours' plus; thank you for enduring the mess they made in your home; thank you for the goodie bags that they loved (and fought over on the way home, but that's not your fault). And thank you for the thank-you cards we got later for the gifts that we brought.

All that said ... next time, can we get some decent, non-chain pizza? I'm willing to fork over cold, hard cash to support the cause -- and your party budget -- really I am, even if it violates Emily Post party etiquette. Because I don't think I can face another Birthday Party Pizza.

P.S. I can't get through this without plugging my favorite place to munch a quick slice: the Santa Monica location of Joe's Pizza (the original's on Bleeker St. in NYC). It's not artisan, but oh, baby, it's good.

Attack Of The Mom-Brain

2011-05-01T10:17:00.000-07:00

The other day, I ran into a pregnant mother of two at the mall, trailing the kindergartner who's in my daughter's class, and her preschooler. I mentioned Thing 2 and I were looking forward to the playdate we'd scheduled with her kindergartner the upcoming Saturday, and she got a puzzled look on her face. "Wait, is that the 7th?" she asked. I nodded. "That's her birthday," she exclaimed, pointing to her preschooler. The mom had actually suggested the date to me about three or four weeks back in an email, when she wrote about making a playdate. Now it was suddenly occurring to her that she'd double-booked, and not just on any day, but her other daughter's birthday. She turned a bit reddish and then said something to the affect of, "You must think I'm a total space cadet. But see, I have three calendars. I know I shouldn't but ..." And on she went until I interrupted with this: "It's fine, I get it. I have Mom Brain too. You not only have Mom Brain, you have Pregnant Mom Brain." She knew what I was talking about: moms have too friggin' much to remember. And it's to the point where, yes, you could actually FORGET the date of your own kid's birthday in a moment of well-intentioned, over-scheduling madness.

For some of us, being a mom means suffering from Mom Brain attacks, on a fairly regular basis. The Mom Brain Attack turns previously meticulously organized, Type-A Virgos like myself into Gracie Allen. Gracie Allen, if you're not well-versed in vaudeville, radio and early TV stars of the last century, was the dizzy-dame on-screen partner (and savvy off-screen wife) of straight man husband George Burns, a guy who made a living for the first half of his lengthy career standing next to Gracie, holding a cigar, and asking her questions designed to show off just how dizzy she could be. Gracie's persona was a woman who constantly mistook one thing or person for another, and operated on a logic system that only made sense to her. She always had the best of intentions -- just like the mom who'd booked the playdate on her other kid's birthday -- but things got impossibly mucked up anyway. In real life, Gracie raised two adopted kids who apparently turned out fine. But I'll bet she had her Gracie moments, her Mom Brain Attacks, with them, because I suspect all moms do.

Mom Brain attacks can come at any time, but one thing I've found certain to bring them on is a pre-six-thirty-a.m. in-the-bed visit from Thing 1. My little boy insists on being the Herald of the Morning, popping up bedside and then tumbling onto mom and dad no matter how deeply asleep we are, and invariably rousing us to the point where we cannot return to slumber even after we've sent him back to his own bed. The resulting lack of a full night's sleep is liable to produce all sorts of Mom Brain attacks in the coming hours. Here are some examples I've experienced:

-Pouring orange juice instead of milk over breakfast cereal.
-Letting the oatmeal boil over because I've forgotten I'm making oatmeal, because I stepped away to check my email ten minutes ago.
-Unloading the dirty dishes from the dishwasher.
-Forgetting to dry the clothes I stuck in the washer ten hours ago.
-Going to the grocery store to get one specific item, buying four other items, then getting all the way home before I realize I didn't get that one specific item.
-Reflexively getting on the freeway to go to a staff meeting that is actually scheduled for the next day.
-Reflexively heading home after school drop-off INSTEAD of getting on the freeway to go to that staff meeting the next day.
-Teaching Thing 2 to cook by following a recipe for something utterly simple -- grape juice gelatine, so Thing 2 could make jiggly Jello shapes -- and somehow being convinced it read "Four cups of grape juice, One Envelope Unflavored Gelatine" ...and noticing, three hours later after the gooey stuff still refused to set in the refrigerator, that the recipe actually called for FOUR envelopes of unflavored Gelatine.

You get the idea. Perhaps you've experienced some Mom Brain Attacks of your own recently -- you know, that time you showed up with child and wrapped present at some other kid's house at what you were convinced was the appointed day and time for a birthday party, only to find out you've missed the party by a full week. Feel free to share your stories -- I will empathize and commiserate.

My point is, something happens in our neural wiring when we become moms, and our software turns as kluge-y as a Microsoft update of Windows. The more we try to do our very best for our little ones, the more details we have to keep track of, the more responsibilities we take on, the less space there seems to be in our overtaxed grey matter to keep it all straight. If only we could add more memory, the way I can to a laptop computer. But then again, more memory probably wouldn't solve the problem. Even if our capacity to store more information was expanded, we'd probably just have more stuff to mix up.

I count myself lucky that I've only two kids' schedules to keep track of, plus my own and my husband's. I only have to worry about keeping track of school events for two classrooms, plus T-ball, ballet, swim lessons, Hebrew School, etc. Imagine if I had another kid to add to the mix. Honestly, I don't know how Maria Von Trapp did it without an Excel Spread Sheet program. Of course, she was Austrian and her husband was a Naval Officer, so that might've helped. But somehow, I suspect even Maria showed up on the wrong day to Liesl's yodeling lessons.

To all who suffer the consequences of our mom brain attacks (and honey, I'm really sorry about the Bugs Bunny collector's item mug I broke last night trying to hang it on the mug tree on the same branch where another mug was already hanging), here's a plea from a mom who seems to channel her inner Gracie on a regular basis: a little forgiveness, please. We mean well. We're just, well, moms.

The Republican War On Children

2011-04-07T21:07:00.000-07:00

Half the teachers at my kids' school got pink-slipped.

You read that right. Half.

Some of those pink-slips MIGHT be rescinded, but they wouldn't have come at all if less than a handful of Republicans in the California State Assembly had allowed Gov. Brown to try to extend some tax increases that were due to expire, by holding a special election in June. They offered him the kinds of "compromises" that nobody should take -- gutting environmental regulations in the state was one of them, and by the way, dirty water and dirty air hurt kids too, not just cuts to education. The Gov. had already agreed to all sorts of cuts in programs that help the poor and the elderly, concessions to public employee unions, etc. But no, the greedy bastards couldn't muster a few votes, and now it's pink-slip time at LAUSD.
The principal told us the other night that class size could balloon to 29 kids per class in first grade. She MIGHT be able to buy some positions back -- if the parent association can raise, oh, say, a ballpark $200,000 more atop the $300,000 or so already raised, money that's supposed to cover the library, physical education, art, music, and teacher aides, as well as teachers already hired to keep fourth and fifth grade classes from ballooning past, um, 33 students. That's because LAUSD doesn't cover ANY of those things.

The pink slips are happening throughout LAUSD, and probably all over the state.

But no, Republicans wouldn't let the voters go to the polls and decide whether or not to extend tax increases that would have avoided all of this.

You can whine and stamp your feet and say Democrats in California spent too much money over the years. On some things, yes. But they also prioritized things like funding education, keeping the air and water clean, and trying to at least extend a safety net to people for health insurance.

The main reason everyone is suffering in California and every other state is that irresponsible types on Wall Street sold bad investments -- derivatives of crappy mortgages the banks shouldn't have given to begin with -- during the Bush years, when oversight was basically abandoned as a government policy, because the big corporations and investment banks that back Republicans don't like oversight. The two wars we got into -- and you can argue whether they were both necessary, don't get me started on that -- didn't help. But when the market got wise to those crappy deriviatives, the housing and stock markets crashed as a result, and the property taxes that are supposed to maintain our schools took a huge tumble.

Stop whining, people, about union pensions for public employees. Some may be bloated, sure, we should implement some pension reform, but they're a drop in the bucket compared to how Wall Street screwed us all.

Kanye West famously said, post-Katrina, that George Bush didn't care about black people. Well, it's pretty clear to me that Republicans don't care about kids. Just look at what's going on in D.C. The House is in Republican hands, and their Budget Chairman's budget proposal asks for: tax cuts to billionaires and big corporations, while drastically cutting programs for low and middle-income families. Two-thirds of the cuts the Republicans are proposing come from programs that serve low-income families, like health-care, nutrition, child care, home energy assistance, Medicare, Medicaid, Pell Grants (to help poor and middle class kids go to college), food stamps, Head Start, housing, and yes, K-12 education.

In Wisconsin, Republicans already outlawed the public employees' right to collective bargaining -- the main reason anyone joins a union, so they can make a living wage. Not get rich. Just live.

I'm tired of the Tea Partiers and Birthers and their holier-than-thou, righteous attitude about taxes, as if paying taxes, or God Forbid, paying MORE taxes, makes you a Socialist. You know what? Under Dwight Eisenhower, tax rates could go as high as 92% for the richest Americans, and he wasn't any kind of Socialist.

I pay my taxes, and I'd willingly pay more if it meant my kids' teachers could keep their jobs -- jobs that are so low-paying now, some of them are on the school lunch program. And yes, I think even if you DON'T have kids, you oughtta pay the same taxes I do. Because there's something called the social contract. It's not about handouts. It's not Socialism. It's about taking care of your neighbor so they don't fall into poverty. It's about something bigger than just you and your bank account. It's about responsibility to others. That's not socialism. That's having a heart.

Democrats gave us Social Security. Democrats gave us Medicare and Medicaid. Democrats defend the rights of workers to be in a union. And it's Democrats who try to keep our air and water clean. They're also trying to impose some consumer protection on banks and credit card companies, and yes, they're responsible for that healthcare bill that, oh, does things like allow me to keep my kids on my policy till they're 26, and keeps them-- and everyone else -- from being denied coverage due to a pre-existing condition. Some Democrats are in the pocket of corporations, sure; some are into earmarks and pork, and I wish they didn't compromise so much right out of the gate.

But one thing's for sure. Democrats -- at least most of them -- don't act like they hate our children. Republicans, on the other hand, it should be crystal clear to anyone who's even barely paying attention that they've declared war on kids. So as soon as any of you get the chance, please, I beg of you: Fire Them.

Of Fast Pokes, Cupid, And True Love

2011-03-02T17:08:00.000-08:00

The other day, I was walking the kids to school from our parking spot nearby when they accused me of making them late, insisting I was a "slow poke." I pointed out this could not be true because I was, in fact, many strides ahead of them, at least a quarter of a block ahead, when they said it. At this point, the girl, AKA Thing 2 (because she's the second born of twins), took off on a tear, zipping in front of me and gleefully shouting, "I'm a fast poke!"

I asked her where she'd heard that before. "I just made it up," she said. At which point, the boy, AKA Thing 1, tore past me, shouting, "I'm a fast poke too!"

I had to write it down because I'm afraid if I don't, I won't remember this stuff; it'll too easily get lost in the shuffle of filling out permission trips for field trips, making the 100th lunch of the school year, and tying yet another loose shoe lace.

When I picked them up from school the other day, I stopped the car at the corner and noticed the puffy clouds, covering a swath of sky in cotton-ball softness. I pointed them out to the kids. "I wish I could go up there and touch them," said Thing 2. Thing 1 then commented, "I wish I could stay up there and meet Cupid. Is Cupid real, mommy?"

I think I'm in love. So I guess the answer to that would be yes.

Of course, this was followed quickly by the same question about Zombies. It's not all sweetness and light around here.

But I am trying to savor the moments that are ... and forgive my kids or myself for the moments that aren't.

The kids often put me in mind of those car commercials where the announcer brags that the car can go from 0 to 60 in X number of seconds. Only in my kids' case, they go from adorable to impossible. You'd think, by now, I'd react by not being impossible too. After all, I've had this mom gig for six years. But I can turn on a dime too.

Getting them to get dressed, eat breakfast, brush their teeth, get their shoes and jackets and backpacks on in the morning turns me into a drill sergeant, and I really don't want to be. Neither does Late Blooming Dad. But some mornings, it takes the two of us, barking at both kids, threatening to take toys and privileges away, to get them out the door in something approximating on time. The other day, after Thing 1 had been dawdling and refusing to listen and preferring to take his sweet time with every task, or just plain refusing to do them, the parental haranguing escalated, with raised voices, and suddenly it was too much for the kid to take. He burst into tears and declared, "I feel hated." Late Blooming Dad responded by taking everything down and delivering a heartfelt hug. I joined in briefly. But I couldn't help feeling guilty for hours after. All I'd been trying to do was get the kid ready for school on time, and he felt hated.

Tomorrow morning, the sticker chart goes up and we try a new approach: twenty on-time days -- a sticker for each -- will mean a new toy. But the real change has to be in our attitudes as parents. Yes, we need to get to work on time, and that means getting the kids to school at least close to on time. But the haranguing only led to stress for all concerned, and a decidedly sad family moment.

I did feel better that afternoon, when I got to school and the door to Thing 1's classroom opened as the bell rang. Thing 1 zoomed out of his classroom and into my arms, declared me his "true love," and gave me a kiss. His quickness to forgive is another thing I don't want to ever forget.

Powerless To Resist The Princesses

2011-01-30T10:10:00.000-08:00

Journalist Peggy Orenstein's latest book, CINDERELLA ATE MY DAUGHTER, was prompted by her own daughter Daisy's infatuation with everything Princess, brought on almost immediately upon Daisy's beginning preschool. According to Orenstein, who is interviewed in this Sunday's Los Angeles Times, after a week of preschool, Daisy "had as if by osmosis learned all the names and gown colors of the Disney princesses, and that is all she could talk about."  By age three or four, Daisy's peers had already been reached by the Disney Princess marketing machine, which ten years ago began marketing Princesses together who'd never been marketed apart from their individual movies.

Just yesterday, Late Blooming Mom's daughter attended a play date at which one of the main activities was dressing up as, you guessed it, Disney Princesses.

My girl happily spent most of the play date in Snow White garb, despite that fact that see has seen only parts of Snow White (it's too scary, she insists, to watch all the way through), and though we own it on DVD, she never requests it. She's only made it through THE LITTLE MERMAID once (also too scary), and the same is true of SLEEPING BEAUTY (after which she nervously asked, "Why does Maleficient live in fire?").  She is a big fan of Belle's though she's never seen BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and knows it only from a book. She portrayed Disney princess Tiana (THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG) this past Halloween, clomping around in wildly uncomfortable plastic light-up shoes all evening and willing to endure the pain because they matched the gown.  Thanks, Disney, for introducing her to the idea that painful shoes are worth wearing if they look cool. Her new bike with training wheels is TANGLED-themed, and even came with Rapunzel's comb and a kit of other hair accoutrements (she now wears the hair clip almost daily).  She frequently dons a Cinderella nightgown (the one Princess movie that isn't really scary, so she's seen it multiple times), and has Jasmine underwear (she saw ALADDIN at a kid's night out at her preschool).  And when she was learning about Thanksgiving in kindergarten this year, I'm forced to admit I found myself educating her about Native Americans by popping on the computer and yes, showing her bits of POCAHONTAS. Such is the pervasive influence of the Disney Princess marketing behemoth.

The princesses are generally marketed to the 2-6 set, so maybe my girl is at the upper end of the everything-princess phase. But somehow I doubt it. When I was a kid, I portrayed a princess in a summer camp play, and I enjoyed the brief bout of attention I got for this, but it did not make me want princess dolls, princess dress-up clothes, a princess bathing suit and beach towel (my daughter possesses all these). When I was a kid, there were nowhere near as many princess products paraded in front of me. As Orenstein points out in the LA Times, "People always say, I played Princess when I was a kid.  That's kind of like the difference between having four TV channels when you were a kid and having a satellite dish now."

I admit I haven't dissuaded my daughter from all this. In fact, I even encouraged her interest in Belle, whose favorite thing to do is read books (what parent could object to that?) and in Tiana, who is the first African-American Disney princess, and who succeeds not by marrying a prince (though she does that), but by having an ambitious dream of opening her own restaurant (entrepreneurship) and working damn hard to make it happen. I was excited to see TANGLED, and we all thoroughly enjoyed it, even our boy, thanks to the savvy Disney folks making it as much male lead Flynn Ryder's story as Rapunzel's. The movie is smart and funny and entertaining, start to finish. This is the problem with Disney entertainment in general: when it's done well, resistance is, I'm afraid, futile.

As a family, we're frequent Disney Store visitors, even if it's just to kill some time at the mall: we limit what the kids are allowed to purchase there and mostly leave without buying ... but when it's big ticket item time, e.g., for birthdays or Hannukah, we do let them shop there.   We also watch the Disney Channel on TV (though that's not so Princess-y, thank goodness). Therefore it's not surprising that my son is no less immune to the marketing than my daughter. Thing One, AKA the world's biggest CARS movie fan, says he wants to be a race car driver when he grows up. And he owns a HANDY MANNY truck with tools, as well as TOY STORY character-themed toys Buzz and Woody, and scads of Disney-themed clothes. There are defintely some arguably negative affects on my boy, e.g., the general materialism it engenders (more toys, more!) and the reinforcement of traditional gender interests (cars and tools, cowboys and space). But there is one thing the Disney marekting to my boy does not do: it does not fixate my son's attention on his appearance.

For girls, there are definite downsides to the Princess phenomenon. You can't lay them all at the feet of Disney's inescapable marketing machine. Our entire culture has been sexualizing girls much earlier. Orenstein talks of how "40% of six-year-old girls regularly wear lip gloss or lipstick," and cites her own hypocrisy: "I'm ... telling my daughter that looks are not important while I'm looking in the mirror." Society prizes youth and beauty, and the emphasis on body image has been only going up in the last thirty years. Yes, Disney's Hannah Montana has grown up and image-wise, the actress who played her is looking something like a pole dancer these days. But is that really entirely Miley Cyrus' fault (and her parents' fault for depriving her of a normal childhood)? Take your daughter shopping at the mall and she can't help but see the revealingly clad mannequins, the once trashy, now fashionably revealing, flimsy, loud, brazen, even hooker-like attire in every women's clothing store window.

Let's face it, ladies. There is nothing secret about Victoria anymore.   And as soon as my daughter can read (she's on the verge), she'll see there's a store called "Forever 21." What is she supposed to make of that?

I'm also dismayed that, because none of the Princesses marketed together on, say, a t-shirt, nightgown or plastic drinking cup ever look at one another -- per a Disney directive (they don't appear in the same movies so they don't "know" one another in the Disney world) -- the underlying message is one of competition, not friendship, between women. I want my girl to have her girlfriends, girlfriend.  When it comes to emphasizing the importance of female friendship, even SEX AND THE CITY is more positive for women then Disney Princesses.

So what's a modern mom to do with all this stuff? It's way too late in our house to just say no, that's for sure. I haven't yet read Orenstein's book, but I am itching to dive in, just as soon as I have a kid-free, chore-free, work-free moment. In the meantime, I'm going to start paying closer attention to my little girl's fascination with appearance, clothing, any form of make-up and jewelry -- and try to encourage moderation in all things Princess.

Dear Tiger Mom: I Don't Need Parenting Advice From The Wall Street Journal

2011-01-24T18:00:00.000-08:00

Unless you've been in a media blackout -- which is something that can actually happen to moms who are too busy cooking, cleaning, feeding, bathing, and clothing their kids while trying not to neglect their husbands, and maybe working full-time too -- you probably know all about the Tiger Mom. But in case you don't, here's a quick refresher: Amy Chua is a Yale law professor whose parenting memoir, The Battle Hymn Of The Tiger Mother, was recently excerpted in the Wall Street Journal. It's caused a bit of a dust-up over parenting methods, at least in the print and online media, with subsequent articles about the book appearing in The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times, and it was even mocked satirically in the Huffington Post.

The controversy it's generated seems to focus mostly on Chua's strict parenting of her tween-age girls, e.g., she didn't allow them playdates or sleepovers, they couldn't participate in school plays, they had to get straight As. In one instance, her elder daughter was forced to perfect a challenging piano piece while her mom threatened to take her dollhouse to the Salvation Army, and then Chua deprived the girl of dinner and even bathroom breaks.
Chua is the striving, successful Chinese-American daughter of immigrant parents. She's married to a Jewish dad (another Yale law professor) who's more permissive, but also less heavily involved with his daughters: he's there, but doesn't put in the same hours and effort Chua does.   Chua has garnered praise in the media for setting clear goals and having high standards, which has no doubt helped her produce high-achieving kids, but she's also getting drubbed for having kept her kids from the kinds of non-academic interaction with other kids that can help them master social skills which would undoubtedly help them succeed in life too, especially when it comes to relationships and working with others. (By the book's end, when her youngest daughter rebels, Chua finally -- and sensibly -- loosens on up things like the no-playdate rule.) She's being lambasted for being such a no-fun, hard-ass mom and accused of depriving her kids of having a real childhood, at least by American standards.

Here are a few points Late Blooming Mom hasn't seen made about the Tiger Mom controversy.

A)Chua's book was excerpted in the Wall Street Journal, where it first garnered notoriety. Nobody should look to the Wall Street Journal for parenting advice.

Nobody on Wall Street has behaved like a grown-up for years. I realize Chua's book was not published by the WSJ, but she chose to have it excerpted there. The WSJ is in the business of covering business first and foremost -- but I use the term "covering" loosely, because it is really the voice of Wall Street.   It's the utter lack of ethics and a sense of responsibility to one's fellow man exhibited by large and often sociopathic-acting American companies -- especially the big Wall Street investment banks -- that has led us into the mess that is devastating the American family every single day. The WSJ is the mouthpiece of corporate America, which has done its level best to destroy the security of middle class families by selling crappy bundles of crappy mortgages and continues to rake in huge profits thanks in part to all us tax-paying families who bailed them out. Corporations are sitting on piles of cash and not hiring back any of the workers they've downsized or outsourced. The values reflected in the WSJ make it a very odd place to publish an article telling us how to raise our kids.

Chua is not a corporate CEO, but agreeing to have her book excerpted there smacks of, at best, a poor choice on her part, and a decidedly inappropriate one.  Good moms would not let their kids get away with the kind of legalized thievery we've seen on Wall Street in the past ten years. If you've seen the kids' movie DESPICABLE ME, you might remember that the would-be supervillain protagonist goes to the Bank of Evil to apply for a loan for his latest evil scheme. The sign above the Bank of Evil's door says: "Formerly Lehman Bros."   Leave it to the writers of a kids' movie to sufficiently skewer the powers that be; I'd rather take my parenting advice from them. (For the record, those writers are: Ken Daurio, Sergio Pablos and Cinco Paul. And by the way, by movie's end, that "supervillain," Gru, makes a great dad.)

B)Sure, it's good to make your kids tough things out sometimes, so they can learn they're capable of doing something they think, at first, they can't accomplish. But depriving them of dinner and bathroom breaks is the kind of borderline abusive tactic that's going to send many kids into therapy as adults. All parents mess their kids up in some way or another. It comes with the territory. But I know I didn't have kids for the central purpose of grinding them into high achievers so I can bask in those achievements. I will want to do what I can to prepare them for a competitive world, and I'll kvell when they do well in school or at music or on a sports team, etc.. But being potential prodigies is not their reason for having been created. I made 'em to love 'em, and not to be perfect.

As for discipline, sometimes I take toys away from them if they don't behave well, or offer them a reward of some kind they can earn through good behavior. They're still in kindergarten, so there are no grades for me to get hung up on, though one day I will for sure be paying more attention to their academics beyond simply encouraging them to read and write. I know they'll have to practice some things longer than they are inclined in order to get good a those things, and I'll try to coax them to do so. I can still remember my mother drilling me in long division. But she never deprived me of dinner or the bathroom. And I won't do that to my kids either. That would teach them to be cruel. I'd rather they be kind than academic superstars or music prodigies. Kindness will come back to them again and again in kind, and make them a lot happier, if not necessarily wealthier.

C)Chua has a good point or two. The current generation of American-born parents are soft on their kids compared to parents born into other cultures, and over-emphasize self-esteem. But not making them strive as if their lives depended on it is okay too. In fact, it's one of the great blessings of American life. Even in the midst of this recession, when everybody we know in the battered middle class seems to be having to make some sacrifices, and the poor are getting no richer, living standards for most American families are much higher than when my immigrant grandparents arrived from the shtetl, and needed to learn English and get educated in order to secure decent jobs, a living wage, and potential futures for their families. Having our kids take it a wee bit easier is, well, part of why their ancestors worked so damn hard.

My parents each had one immigrant parent and one who was born here but was the child of immigrants. Following their parents' dreams, mine moved on up, a little like the Jeffersons, though in their case, from Brooklyn to Manhattan, where they found their rent-controlled apartment in the sky. My folks had high expectations for my brother and I, and in many ways, we've realized those. Like Amy Chua and her husband, we too are Ivy League graduates. But there's a down side to all that pushing. Sky high expectations can cause pain that lasts for years. One time I can still remember my brother and me, as adults, sitting down with my parents and asking why we felt that nothing we did would ever be good enough for them. Years and years later, I'm still feeling like I'm not quite living up to my potential. The striving part of that is fine; the restless lack of satisfaction with my accomplisments, though, can be paralyzing. I want something else for my kids.

It took the Tiger Mom for me to realize I'm more of a Teddy Bear mom, doling out a lot more hugs and considerably less humiliation. I can still be tough and put my foot down when my kids need rules enforced and stick-to-itiveness emphasized. They need to work toward some goals and have to do some stuff they'd just as soon not. But not all the time.

Why should life have to be such a chore and a struggle simply because it was for another generation? Let's honor our immigrant ancestors' hard work by, um, living a little. A day without homework or piano practice can be a good thing. It leaves time for daydreaming -- something there's less and less time for in adulthood. As Einstein said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge." My grandparents and great grandparents worked their butts off. But I know if they were here now they would want my kids to enjoy a little more childhood fun, and less childhood labor.

A Three-Week Winter Break? Really, LAUSD?

2011-01-10T07:00:00.000-08:00

We have -- just barely -- survived the three-week winter break that is mandatory in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Dear LAUSD school board, what are you thinking? A three-week winter break? REALLY?

My friends with kids in other school districts gasp in amazement. Not one of them can believe it when they hear about it.

Taking kids out of their routine and plunging them into the hands of their exhausted working parents, NOT ONE OF WHOM HAS THREE WEEKS OFF over Christmas, is friggin' nuts.

Here's what happened around here. Late Blooming Mom and Dad enrolled our kids in winter break camp, which while not outrageously expensive, is still an added strain on the family budget. Winter camp was held the week before Christmas at a school that's not far, but still isn't our home school, necessitating our kindergarteners getting used to a new campus ("Where's the bathroom, mommy?"). Luckily, our workplaces were closed Christmas Eve day and New Year's Eve day, so we didn't have to pay for childcare on those days. But there was no camp the week between Christmas and New Year's. What, exactly, are working parents supposed to do?

Thankfully at least one parent (Late Blooming Mom) had the week off this year, thanks to the company doing well enough to close down for a few days. A four-day visit from aunt, uncle, and twelve-year-old niece kept the kids happily occupied at least some of the time. Late Blooming Mom also held her second-annual cookie decorating party during that Xmas/New Year's week, managing to entertain thirteen children six and under, as well as their moms, for three-plus hours. As I only do this sort of thing once a year, it's actually fun, except of course for the massive clean-up. I am still finding sprinkles in the oddest of places.

Over the course of the week, there was much parent-kid, quality time bonding, and while there was some crankiness and crabbyness on everyone's part, we were all doing pretty much okay in each other's proximity. It helped that Late Blooming Dad at least had the three-day weekend over New Year's off.

Then came Week Three.

Again, I must ask LAUSD: three weeks? REALLY?

More money was shelled out, for MORE winter camp, this one mercifully held at the kids' regular school. But it was back to work for both parents now, and though we enrolled the kids in the cooking activities at camp, these activities all seemed to consist of finding novel ways for kids to ingest as much sugar as possible.
By three days into Week Three, we were all acting like three-year-olds who'd missed their naps. No one was getting along, and grouchiness reigned supreme.

We had a reprieve on Thursday, the kids' sixth birthday. Late Blooming Mom and Dad finagled the day off and took the kids to Knotts Berry Farm, where canned food donations for the local food bank got adults in for the almost reasonable kids' price (parents take note, this offer is good till Jan. 30th), and we escorted the kids to Camp Snoopy, where they giddily spent the entire, crowd-free weekday, traipsing onto some of the same rides again and again without a wait, just because they could. This is about the ONLY positive benefit I can think of when it comes to the three-week break: an amusement park that isn't jammed.

But on Friday, it was back to work for mom and dad again, and by now, the kids were wildly ancy and starting to ask, with plaintive longing in their voices, "Is it a school day?" Because the camp was charging a premium that day to shove kids on a long bus ride on a bus without seat belts, after which they'd be "treated" to Disney On Ice, more sugar, and another long bus ride, Late Blooming Mom opted to instead take advantage of the company's access to a back-up childcare center. This less expensive option meant the kids could play in a school-like setting for the day, near Late Blooming Mom's company. Thank the corporate gods for that one, for sure. But the center also happens to be located far from where we live, so it meant dinner out on a Friday night, involving a long wait at the pizza place and LOTS and LOTS of cranky kids and parents who were all just itching for the damn three-week break to be over already. By the time we rolled home, they were hyper, overtired, and just shy of insane. And Late Blooming Mom could do nothing but turn them over to Late Blooming Dad, relief pitcher, and take Advil.

The by now seemingly unending winter break next saw us at our breaking point. The worst played out on Saturday morning, when the kids woke each other up (and we parents, not to mention, apparently, the neighbors) far too early, and were behaving as if magically transported to adolescence (sullen, rebellious, full of attitude). Their lack of cooperation and utter disdain for every request made of them turned both Late Blooming Mom and Dad into Ogres, and not of the cuddly, Shrek variety. Toys were taken away, privileges too. Sunday proved a day without any television or sugary treats, and the kids' being denied the wearing of their recently purchased, way cool sneakers. But apologies were given -- by kids and by mom and dad -- for bad behavior all around, and everyone was more or less civilized, in part because that afternoon, mom spent time alone with daughter, and dad spent time alone with the son. Apart from each other, with one adult solely focused on them, each of the kids behaved well, and even did chores without complaint (well, kinda sorta). It was a third-week-of-winter break miracle.

But it was truly only Monday morning, when everyone had had a decent amount of sleep, and the getting-ready-for-school routine had kicked into gear, when peace felt fully restored to the home kingdom.

So once again, I must ask: a three-week winter break, LAUSD? Really?

Why The Grinch Compels

2010-11-29T21:24:00.000-08:00

This piece is going to appear in some form or other in the next issue of the Editor's Guild Magazine, but since most of my blog readers don't get it, I reprint it here for holiday enjoyment:

I know how it begins. “Every Who down in Whoville liked Christmas a lot, but the Grinch, who lived just north of Whoville, did not.”

I know this Scrooge-like, green fellow will try to stop Christmas from coming.

I know he’s going to show up on TV every year, and get his “wonderful, awful idea.” He’ll disguise his dog Max as a reindeer and suit up as “Santie Claus.” He’ll steal everything from all the Who houses, even the Who hash.

I know every clever Seuss rhyme, every flawless inflection of Boris Karloff’s narration, every simple yet perfectly story-boarded Chuck Jones’-directed frame.

Yet I watch it again.

I grew up a cultural Jew on New York’s Upper West Side. I was taught by my parents to be mistrustful of organized religion – even our own - because religion can divide as much as it can unite. But I also went to a Quaker school where tolerance was taught. The holiday lights of Manhattan were hard to resist, whether on Hanukah menorahs or the Rockefeller Center tree. As a child no bigger than Cindy Lou Who, I reveled in watching the Grinch take his triumphant ride down Mount Crumpet.

The story analyst in me gets why “The Grinch” is so damned effective (and far better than the movie-length, live action version). There’s the brilliant use of language, whimsical humor, Seuss-inspired animated world. But what makes it resonate is the Grinch’s character arc. What could be better than to see a character whose heart is two sizes too small, believably grow that heart three sizes, and find the strength of ten Grinches, plus two?

Each time I watch – now with my own kids, Thing 1 and Thing 2 - I am as a child, struck anew with hope. People can change. Even Grinches.

Our "Almost" Readers

2010-11-07T10:17:00.000-08:00

This week, Late Blooming Dad had two amazing moments with the kids. The first one was when he went to pick up the kids from school because I couldn't, and happened upon the Girl's kindergarten teacher sitting alone with her, reading a book with her. The teacher motioned dad to wait a few moments till they finished; then she excitedly gushed, "She's so close!" Yes, the girl is about to become a reader. And this excitement came from the school's most veteran teacher, who has certainly seen this happen hundreds of times. Late Blooming Dad was thrilled.

The second moment came with the Boy.
His kindergarten teacher had sent home a homework game involving flashcards -- half a dozen or so words the Boy will be tested on in a couple of weeks. Every card dad flashed, in different order, over several tries, the Boy recognized; he knew each word by sight. Late Blooming Dad was teary-eyed.

When I picked the kids up on Friday and said we were going to the school's Book Fair, they broke into a run to get there. I had to limit them to three books each.

Yesterday, the Boy was insistent on a trip to the "liberry."

So we are on the cusp, my friends.

It's going to be a whole new world around here soon.

One of nights in the not too far distant future, I'm going to have to tell each of them, "Turn off your flashlights and go to bed already!" "Just five more minutes!" they'll beg. Because they can't wait to find out ... how will Alice get back up the rabbit hole? Will the Grinch actually steal Christmas? Is Severus Snape a good guy or a bad guy? Will Frodo destroy the rings? And a million other questions that simply MUST be answered.

I can hardly wait.

When Is The Make-The-Lunch Fairy Coming To My House?

2010-10-31T09:33:00.000-07:00

The kids were tucked all snug in their beds, visions of lunchboxes packed with delicious food filled their heads ... and I was standing in the kitchen, post-work day, after supervising homework/showers/changing into PJs/picking clothes for tomorrow/eating dinner/brushing teeth/reading books, and finally tucking them in, with some help from Late Blooming Dad. But now I was alone in the kitchen, eyes scanning the fridge forlornly, searching for inspiration.   What to make them? What to make them they'd actually eat some tomorrow if I made it for their lunch boxes tonight? It's then I had a vision: a vision of the Make-The-Lunch Fairy.

Our kids get visits from the Tooth Fairy whenever they lose a tooth. Why can't we weary moms get a visit from the Make-The-Lunch Fairy whenever we are overwhelmed by life, and underwhelmed by the prospect of making yet another round of lunch box lunches?
Ah, if I could only stick a note under my pillow -- or perhaps an empty Tupperware container -- and wake up the next morning to find two beautifully prepared, appealing-looking, nutritionally sound lunches-- well, at least not food that would get me a justifiable reprimand from Jamie Oliver -- that my kids would devour. Scratch that, devour isn't necessary; just not waste half. I'd gladly clap my hands to revive Tinker Bell and proclaim to all that I do believe in fairies if only this vision of blissful lunchbox heaven could come true.

Alas, I know it is not to be. But is there anything more disheartening to the perpetually tired mom on a work-a-day school night than that prospect of making their lunches after everything else is finally done, and all you want to do is have a few moments to yourself (or, here's a novel idea, a few moments to actually be with and maybe even touch your husband, in interesting places, if you're not quite unconscious with exhaustion yet?) We really do need some real-world form of the Make-The-Lunch Fairy. And she shouldn't just confine her magical duties to making the lunches. She ought to plan for it and shop for it too.

Saturday night, Late Blooming Dad made dinner and it was awesome. Oh, the food was good, but I'm not so much talking about the food.   I'm talking about how he looked at what we had in the house, decided on a menu, made a main course for himself and Late Blooming Mom, and another entree for the kids that was kid-acceptable (we manage to have an entree kids and grown-ups can agree on about 50% of the time), plus sides we could all enjoy. Late Blooming Mom entertained the kids while he cooked, actually had fun playing with her own children, and gave not a thought to the coming meal. It was awesome.

The only thing that might have been better would have been if he'd made it on a weeknight, but Late Blooming Dad's work schedule doesn't often permit this to happen. So I'll take what I can get.

On weeknights, it's usually me putting dinner on the table, and it's also usually me lunch-making. Though now that I think of it, that happens AFTER the kids are asleep and work is (mostly) done, at least on most nights. Perhaps Late Blooming Dad could be persuaded to be the once-in-a-while Make-The-Lunch-Fairy? I know, I know, this means me accepting without criticizing whatever lunch Late Blooming Dad throws together, which may not look like, or be comprised of, the precisely balanced meal Late Blooming Mom feels compelled to pack (e.g., a mix of protein, carbs, fruits and veggies, in appropriately kid-sized small portions). Late Blooming Dad's lunch box offerings may wind up looking a little different. But neither is he going to a pull a Bill Cosby, who famously, at least in a comedy routine, confessed to giving his kids chocolate cake for breakfast (because it contained eggs and milk, so why not?).

The thing is, whatever lunch he makes may come back less than half-eaten ... just like the ones I pack. It's the kids who make this so damn hard. I've taken to sitting down with them on occasion and making or revising a list of the lunch items they consider acceptable. And that list is far too short, particularly when it comes to Thing 1, whose range of consumption-worthy food items wouldn't even fill the screen of an i-phone. Still, it's what I've got to work with. The list leads to a lot of repeats, and the problem with too many repeats is, those frequently appearing items soon lose their lunch-box appeal, and the acceptable lunch list grows ever shorter. If only Thing 1 would replace one removed item with something new. But alas, he is infamously reluctant to try new foods. I thank the taste bud gods that at least Thing 2 was born with a somewhat more adventurous palate. Her "I will eat" list runs half the length of a notepad page -- an almost reasonable length -- and she occasionally deems something worthy to add to it.

I try to be comforted by first lady Michelle Obama's admission that for a year or so of her childhood, all she ate were peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Now she's growing a White House vegetable garden. So I know there's hope for my kids. They will no doubt grow up to be good eaters as adults, or at least, eaters who consume more than a handful of things over and over again. But the evolution of their appetites can't come soon enough for me: just think of how many lunches I'll have to pack between now and then? The mind boggles. The mom weeps.

I guess for now I will have to make do with nudging Late Blooming Dad to pretend he's the Make-The-Lunch-Fairy once in while. The rest of the time, I'll be back to my planning/shopping/and bleary-eyed, exasperated weeknight lunch box prep sessions.   But if anyone really does get a visit from a Make-The-Lunch Fairy, would you please send her over to my house?

Advice For Twin Moms, Nearly Six Years In

2010-10-10T10:36:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, at a kids' birthday party, I was standing by the bouncy house watching my boy/girl twins, now five-and-three-quarters,  bounce themselves into a gleeful state, when a pregnant woman approached me.  Her own kid, a three-year-old girl, was bouncing along with mine, and she'd ascertained mine were twins. "Any advice?" she asked, explaining, "I'm about to have twin boys."

I was instantly transported back to those early days of twin momhood, when I felt as if I'd been instantly propelled into a giant bouncy house the moment the c-section began.

At nearly six years into being a mother of twins, I am only just beginning to realize I've landed from all that bouncing, and can feel solid ground beneath my feet again.  But those memories of the first days are sharp, and though much of the past few years has gone by in a flurry and a blur, I do have a few suggestions to share that may make the experience of raising twins from babyhood to kindergarten a wee bit easier.

1)In those first months, when you get up to feed one, feed the other right after ... even if you have to wake up Baby #2.

I know it sounds like it's against the "never wake a sleeping baby" wisdom, and the dictum, "feed on demand," but the truth is, the person who needs sleep the most and isn't getting it is MOM. The only way to ensure mom gets some is to feed those babies one after the other. I'd also suggest, if you're breastfeeding, to hand off the babies to someone else to either "top off" with a bottle, or let someone else -- dad or grandma or a night nurse if you can afford that luxury -- do a middle of the night bottle feed so you don't have to. Some breastfeeding experts or proponents may worry your kids will have nipple confusion and reject the breast or the bottle. Mine got the bottle as early as the hospital and still latched on fine for the brief time I breast fed both kids. And that leads to my second piece of advice:

2)If you wind up not breastfeeding, don't have a guilt trip.

I say this because I did. Six days after we got home from the hospital, my daughter, AKA Thing 2, developed a fever and had to go into the NICU for ten days. We theorize she might've been exposed to something while still in the hospital before we got her home, as we were excellent about hygeine when we got our babies home, and her little brother never caught whatever virus she had. But the main point of this story is, my breastfeeding when to hell after that. I tried pumping in the NICU, I tried keeping up the feedings of Thing 1 at home, but milk production dropped and I wasn't up to all the steps I'd have had to take to get it back up. I was too worried. I also managed to beat myself up and feel like a failure when the breastfeeding ended within four weeks of having my twins. That did nobody any good whatsoever. And as soon as Thing 2 came home, she proved a great eater. Both kids were formula-fed for much of that first year, and they've done just fine. In fact, Thing 2 is less prone to catching those preschool and now kindergarten colds than her brother, despite that first virus, and in general, both are very healthy kids.

3)Give your kids separate time with each parent.

This advice should kick in when they're a little older. Though some people can do it right away, I think that first year or so you're in survival mode, and you don't have this luxury very often. It's especially hard if, like Late Blooming Mom and Dad, both parents work full time. But as the kids get mobile and start walking and talking, it's key to both individual development for your twins, and sanity for you as parents. I've hit on this theme before (see my blogpost Two Kids? Divide And Conquer), but can't say enough in favor of doing this. Just about every Saturday for the past two years, and intermittently before that, my husband and I have each taken one kid and spent a good part of the day alone with that kid. We've also sometimes separated the kids for baths, for bedtime stories, for doctor's appointments, etc.

Every time we've done it, it's been sooooooo much easier than being with both of them at the same time. It's almost like a vacation. There are little things, like when you're only out and about with one kid, getting them in and out of the car seat multiple times and making multiple stops with them is so much quicker and less of a hassle than with two. And taking one ot the park, without having to worry about losing sight of the other just when they're about to take a fall and break a tooth, is actually relaxing. But the bigger thing is simply that one kid can bask in 100% of one parent's attention without having to fight for it. And you can get to know your own kid in a way you just can't when he or she is always with the other twin. Time slows down and so does your pulse. The little moments can happen; you can both just breathe. We found the fits and temper tantrums almost magically disappeared on many of our separate Saturdays. Each kid was mostly a perfect little angel, and when they were not, each parent was far more patient and understanding and better able to diffuse the situation.

4)Take the kids to separate enrichment classes and playdates when you can.

This was probably a bit easier for me because my kids are not of the same gender, and very naturally have had different interests. And again, it's easier to do, and more important, after they get a little older, certainly by four. When they were babies and toddlers, taking them to a music class or gym class usually required two hands on deck. But now that the classes don't require parents to be in the class with the kids, it's easier to manage taking them to different classes. Thing 1 is in her second year of ballet, now ballet and tap, and it's all about the clothes and the shoes and the hairdo. She couldn't be more of a girly girl. Thing 2, after spending much of the last school year Saturdays in various sports/gym classes, has gravitated toward music, and is happily getting his musical foundations in a Saturday morning class. It's been delightful watching them develop their own interests and seeing their enthusiasm at pursuing these interests.

Both kids have also had a few playdates on which the other sibling did not come, or had a friend over to our place without having sibling interference. One thing this really helped was the transition to kindergarten, where my twins are now in separate classrooms; in preschool, my kids were in the same classroom for three years. They took to kindergarten like ducks to water, and with only minimal anxiety about being separated.

5)Get to know some other parents of twins, and play with at least one twin family with kids the same age as yours.

In these first five years, it's been really helpful to have people to talk to in support meetings, and to exchange message board questions and answers, and I've done this via the West Los Angeles Parents of Multiples. There are similar twin or multiples parent clubs all over the country. There's great comfort, a feeling of solidarity, a sense of validation and occasional necessary commiseration that comes with knowing people who are going through pretty much the same thing you are going through, at the same time. If you're going through something twin-specific, chances are, another twin parent is going to "get it."

I also met another family with twins around the same age via a toddler music class, and it's been a great thing to have playdates with them. Each of my kids gets a playmate (like us, this family has boy/girl twins), and the parental friendships have kicked in as well.  Twin parents aren't the only ones in the family who need to be with people who "get it." If your kids can develop a friendship with a playmate who gets what it's like having a twin, well, that's a good thing too.

Kids And The Culture Of Cruelty

2010-10-04T18:05:00.000-07:00

Maybe it started with the sniping between roommates on MTV's THE REAL WORLD, the grand-daddy of today's mis-named "reality" tv shows. Or maybe it was SURVIVOR, which featured a weekly climax in which someone was always "voted off the island." But whenever it started, it seems as if every "reality" show has one thing in common with every other "reality" show: somebody's always getting eliminated. Along the way, the contestants are generally humiliated and subject to verbal, even physical, abuse. But that's just TV. It doesn't mean our culture, the one in which we're raising our kids, is pervasively cruel, does it?

I think back to the anti-health care reform rallies last summer, and the footage of protesters meanly hurling dollar bills at a man with Parksinson's disease, then belittling him, claiming he was after "handouts." That's what they considered healthcare reform: a hand-out, rather than a way to address the cruelties of the insurance giants who were routinely cancelling policies when people got sick, and refusing to insure those with pre-existing conditions, among other examples of really bad, anti-social, if profitable, behavior.

I think about the kid who was basically bullied to death last week when his roommate and another kid streamed a sexual encounter on the web.

I see a lot of cruetly happening in our culture -- person to person meanness, a decay of the social contract, a lack of "doing unto others" as you would have them do unto you.

I see a kind of publicly sanctioned social Darwinism, only it's not necessarily the fittest who survive: it's the meanest.

It's in this environment that we're all having to raise our kids.

I can't control what goes on in the world, and to a large extent, I can't control what my kids are going to be exposed to, beyond what I allow them to watch on TV, what music I'll let them listen to, etc. They're still pretty small and they don't know how to work the TV or computer or stereo by themselves, so it's pretty easy at the moment. I know this is not always going to be the case.  I don't know who's going to try to bully them at school, and I don't know what I'll be able to do about that yet.

But there are some things I can do now. In my house, sometimes a kid or a parent does something mean -- usually when tempers flare, sleep has been deprived, life is stressful. We're far from perfect. But when somebody strays into meanness around here, they know it's wrong, and they apologize. Sure, we each fail to be kind sometimes, probably on a daily basis. But much more of the time, we are respecting each other; we are taking care of one another; and we care when someone around here is sad or mad or upset over hurt feelings.

I'm lucky to have twins, and my twins have amazing empathy toward one another. Just about every time one of them cries, the other shows up moments later with a treasured stuffed animal, the other one's favorite, to make the sibling feel better. Their empathy doesn't stop with each other either.  Last year, when our family cat died, they were especially sweet to me, because I took the loss the hardest: I'd had the kitty for twelve years. The cat was named Honeybear.  When I told the kids the cat had died after a long illness, they decided to give me "Honeybear hugs," and that from then on, if anyone was sad in our family for any reason, the kids said that person should be given a Honeybear hug.    Though this kind of empathy doesn't stop my kids from having fits and being difficult, they know it upsets mom and dad, and they always show up in front of us sometime after the fit to say, "I'm sorry."

They still have their moments of bad behavior; I've been kicked and slapped and spit at, though not very often, and not very hard. So has Dad. But every time, Late Blooming Dad and I have told them right when it happens that this behavior is wrong; we've followed it up with an immediate consequence; we've removed them from rooms with others so they won't harm anyone, and stayed with them so they don't hurt themslves. Always, the intensity of the emotion passes, and they get the message that they're still safe and loved, but that what they've done is not okay.

The kids have spotted homeless people on the street, and seen us giving money to them. They've seen us cart food to our Temple's food drive. I hope to include them more in this sort of thing as they get older and can understand it better.

I hope my kids will turn out to be good people -- real mensches.

I may not succeed in this goal. But it's the single most important goal I have for my kids. I know a lot of parents I come across in my little circle of the world who feel the same.  But I just hope something changes in the prevailing culture pretty soon.

I don't believe we're here to vote other people off the island. We're here to make life on the island better. For all of us.

Working Mom's Latest Fear: Will I Be Sucked Into The School Volunteer Vortex?

2010-09-26T21:32:00.000-07:00

There are 43 committees at my kids' school's parent booster club.

Is it just me, or does that sound like school volunteer overkill?

Since my kids have been in kindergarten -- two weeks -- I have filled out dozens of forms from the club, not to mention the kids' teachers, all to do with what activities I can volunteer to be a part of, in the classroom and outside of it, ranging from re-shelving library books to driving kids to and from field trips to helping to organize and run any of the myriad of fund-raising events and activities that occur throughout the year. I've been told of mandatory commitments per child at the school, e.g., every family has to work one traffic safety shift, at pickup or drop-off, per child, during the year. I have been invited to no less than four volunteer events, and I've already missed two of those. I've been asked to contribute the "suggested" amount per child -- and nothing that you can pay in ten installments is cheap -- because, though a public education is free, a great one is not -- especially nowadays. Every day brings more mail in the kids' backpacks, offering additional ways to get involved.

If I get another piece of paper from the parent association, it's quite possible my head is going to explode.

I know the parent booster club is well-meaning. I know a good deal of this parental involvement is necessary, and at the very least, important, given the sorry state of public school funding in my home state. At the school my kids attend, funds raised by the parent association pay for art, music, physical education, an aide in every classroom at least part of the school day, a librarian,classroom computers and other equipment and maintenance, building and grounds improvement, and even additional teachers to keep class sizes from ballooning even further than they already have.

But please, well-meaning parent associations all over America, acknowledge this: a lot of us, moms and dads in the same household, have to work.

I was at a kids' birthday party this past weekend, chatting mostly with parents I know from the private preschool my kids attended (where, I might add, parent volunteering was gently encouraged, but no one was made to feel guilty if their schedules didn't allow for it). All of us have kids who've just entered elementary school, or have done so within the past two years. The four other moms I commiserated with there are all working moms, and among the five of us, our kids attend five different public schools. Here's what some of them had to say (I'm paraphrasing and relying on an imperfect memory, but you'll get the gist): "The guilt about having to volunteer is unbelievable." This from a psychotherapist. "They had me making these booklets, I had to punch out these shapes and fit them all together; it was really complicated and it took so long just to make one." This from a doctor. Another said, "I'm going in every other week to my kids' classroom -- my husband's going to go the times I can't. I did it the first time last week -- yes, it was fun -- but I was exhausted before I even got in to work!"

One mom, whose youngest just started at the school her older daughter already attends, confided, "A friend of mine volunteered to do a classroom project. It was a nightmare." Her friend had been sucked into the school volunteer vortex. The project wound up taking huge amounts of time. She worked really hard. And yet there was no pleasing anyone. Perhaps that's why this mom concluded with this advice: "Don't do it. Don't volunteer."

If only I had her guts. But the peer pressure is enormous, not to mention the self-generated pressure: what a horrible person I'll be if I don't help my kids' school. I feel as if I'll be hurting not just my kids, but their deserving, adorable little classmates. And, of course, volunteering can be rewarding. (Well, except for the times when there's no pleasing anyone.)

But the other thing is, there are all these Uber Volunteer Moms (UVMs) at my kids' school, and at the schools of these other moms' kids -- moms who once had high-powered careers, but have chosen to give them up -- or can afford to have given them up -- to be high-powered moms. God bless them, they can head up these committees and organize and fund raise in all their spare time -- time that I and many of my working mom peers simply don't have. What with my full time job, I feel like I don't see my kids enough as it is. I like to spend the time my kids are not in school and I'm not working, um, WITH MY KIDS. And what precious little "me" time I have left over, when my spouse gives me a breather by watching them for a few hours on Sunday, or they're actually asleep, is for keeping myself sane with blogging; a book project that I need to pursue for fulfillment I don't always get from working, mothering, and being a wife; exercising, what little I can; cooking a meal or two ahead; vegging out to a half hour of FOOD TV or "The Daily Show;" taking an occasional bath; having a once-in-a-blue-moon long distance phone conversation with a college friend/fellow working mom on the other coast, when the stars align and we can actually chat without interruption by kids or spouses for maybe twenty minutes; oh, and did I mention actually taking a nap? A forty-minute weekend afternoon nap -- man, it doesn't get much better than that. These things keep me sane. And a sane mommy is a better mommy.

Adding to the long list of mom/work/wife responsibilities with school volunteering means sacrificing time I'd like to have doing all those other things -- some admittedly trivial, but necessary to stress relief. As it is, I haven't been to one meeting yet, and I'm already nursing a bad case of reflux just contemplating it.

Yet later this week, I'm scheduled to perform my first volunteer activities at the school. I'm sure I'll feel virtuous for having done so, or at least, a smidgen less guilty. No doubt I will enjoy meeting other parents, some of whom, like me, may have to rush off to "real jobs" as soon as our volunteer session is done. And yes, in some small way, it will probably help the school, which after all is a community to which my family now belongs, and to which I am in some way obligated to contribute.

But I feel like I'd better bring some wolfsbane with me, maybe some garlic, a silver bullet. Anything I need to ward off the UVMs, and their guilt-inducing pleas for more, more, more precious hours of my time. If you've ever been sucked into the school volunteer vortex, you know what I'm talking about. Or maybe, as that gutsy mom advised me at the party, I will find the strength, at least some of the time, to JUST SAY NO.

Kindergarten On The Spin Cycle

2010-09-23T16:19:00.000-07:00

It seems an endless weekday spin cycle in the week and a half since kindergarten began. (The Spin Cycle is what my childhood friend and now fellow Late Blooming Mom, Lauren, calls it -- and that's exactly how it feels.)

Kids' chatter drifts in from their bedroom around 6:35 a.m. By 6:40, it's up-and-at-'em, with Late Blooming Dad standing over the kids urging them to dress in the clothes they picked out the night before, so as to avoid delays. What happens? Delays anyway. Little minds change: "I don't want to wear that shirt." "Where's my sweat band?" "Can you help me put on my socks?" If one happens to start playing with a toy, the other wants it ... even as dad insists, "This isn't playtime now."

The clock is ticking and by seven a.m. if no one has thrown a fit, the kids are seated at the breakfast table, food in front of them set out by Late Blooming Mom. Re-warmed pancakes (we make them once or twice a week), toaster waffles, some cut up fruit, some milk for him, some juice for her. There's much to-do over what to put on the pancakes (lately Thing 1 and Thing 2 are partial to a schmear of chocolate hazelnut butter) and how to cut them ("Pizza slices, please!"). Vitamins are distrubuted and chewed. Thing 2 eats everything on her plate and wants more. Thing 2 can't seem to make a dent in his breakfast; he's too distracted by an ad for a movie in the newspaper I've made the mistake of putting on the table.

If only they would just sit and eat. But somehow, Thing 2 invariably wanders into the kitchen in search of something else to eat; Thing 1 wants dry cereal only, but only certain kinds (Honey Bunnies, Gorilla Munch, and Life), and he's come to supervise the selection. If a toy has somehow found its way to the table, despite the rules, there will be disputes over possession. He uses the bathroom. She insists on washing her hands because they got sticky. All the while, Late Blooming Mom and Dad are barking, "Time's almost up. Keep eating!" as if this were the annual fourth of July hot dog-eating competition at Nathan's Coney Island.

It doesn't seem to matter if we set a timer to beep when breakfast is supposed to be finished, or keep reminding them we need to get to kindergarten on time. They have no concept of "late." They are not goal-oriented; the goal of getting someone on time is not only uninteresting to them, but not really clear. Even though mommy and daddy keep emphasizing, "We can't be late," they don't understand about having to go to the office for a "tardy" slip and being walked into class in front of all their classmates, already settled at their activities, and a stern-looking teacher who is no doubt keeping a mental checklist of which parents can't manage to get their five-year-old to school on time.

After breakfast, the kids still need help brushing teeth. And then there's getting their hair brushed (which involves spray in order to tame his bed head and her knots) and admonishments to put their shoes on, and finally, sunscreen is applied. Somehow that application of suncreen invariably cues the start of a meltdown. Thing 1 doesn't want to wear THAT jacket, but can't find the one he DOES want to wear, and isn't pacified by the offer to look for it at school. Never mind that we live in Southern California and the likelihood of him needing to wear the jacket is small at best. Thing 2 wants to bring bracelets, but only the ones that match, and she can't find them and we have no time to search for them. Late Blooming Dad, on drop-off duty, is already getting his colon in a knot. Late Blooming Mom hasn't even eaten yet and her stomach acid is through the roof (or at least gurgling up into her throat: what's better than reflux to kick-start your day?)

At last they are out the door, Dad strapping them into booster seats, then moments later acting as referee in an argument between them while in the middle of his tricky search for a parking spot within a few blocks of school (there's no school parking lot since we live in the middle of a city) amidst the cloud of CO2 that hovers around the school at drop-off time. Back at home, Mom scarfs down cereal and then exercises, getting the day's work started reading through documents while on the excercise bike. There's time for a quick shower, and then work begins for both Mom and Dad in earnest.

Late Blooming Mom is on pick-up duty, and post-school, there's homework to be found and mountains of papers sent home from the school to be signed (gift wrap fundraising, anyone? volunteers to car pool on field trips?). At the moment, Late Blooming Mom has some paid babysitting help so she can finish her work. But when that's over, the spin cycle continues, making sure homework's done and deposited in backpacks for the following day; lunches are made; and dinner is consumed starting promptly at six p.m.. Otherwise, there's no time for each kid to have a turn at the TV, teeth to get brushed, clothes picked out for the next day, and bedtime stories read. Like the 6:40-8:00 a.m. time slot, the 6pm-8:15pm time slot is passed with an eye on the clock and parental admonishments to eat, get ready for bed, and get in bed. Bedtime stories might be fun, in fact sometimes they are, but too often there are disputes over who gets their book read first or second, interruptions for one more drink of water/trip to the bathroom, demands for lotion or bandaids, etc.

By 8:15, the wee ones are usually out at last, and mom and dad can finish all that school paperwork, any actual work that didn't get done, do any household bookeeping/bill-paying/maintenance, and pass out in front of THE DAILY SHOW.

All too soon, it's 6:40 a.m. again, and we're all being spun around in what has, in a week-and-a-half scine school began, been our weekday spin cycle. I'd stop and breathe -- really I would -- if there was time to do it.

Kindergarten Jitters

2010-09-06T21:00:00.000-07:00

Thing 1, the boy around here, has been, as the expression goes, "acting out." He may only be five and three-quarters, but he might as well be a teenager given the attitude he's suddenly acquired. There's been some "I hate you"'s to Late Blooming Mom and Dad, some "I'll never play with you again!" to his sister, and a lot of throwing small objects across the room. There's been defiance -- "I won't eat chicken for dinner again!" -- and attempts at negotiation -- "I'll put my toys away IF you let me watch TV." And there has been some kicking, though the victims have generally been the wall next to his bed, or the floor (sorry yet again, downstairs neighbors).

But there have also been some "I need a hug"s, and some teary, "I'm going to be shy" moments when Thing 1 confesses he is afraid to be in a kindergarten classroom without his sister, Thing 2.
Thing 2 has been his companion for three years of preschool. They share a room. They are playmates every morning, afternoon and into the evening. And I never forget they began as womb-mates.

So I ascribe the new attitude to kindergarten jitters. It probably hasn't helped that for weeks now, Late Blooming Dad and I have been on top of the kids every morning to get dressed faster, to finish breakfast quicker, to brush their teeth and put on their shoes already. We keep telling them that kindergarten is going to start at 8:05 a.m (really, Los Angeles Unified School District, what are you thinking with 8 a.m.? Santa Monica schools start at the civilized hour of 8:30; why can't LAUSD get with that program?). But they have no concept of how time really works, or why it's necessary to get to school on time.

Preschool began at nine a.m., and being late was never a big deal. So this new time is going to be a serious adjustment for all concerned in Late Blooming Mom's household. (Maybe we should've moved to Santa Monica JUST for the later start.)

We've moved bedtime back, so the kids are in their room and ready for books at 7:30, though still rarely asleep till a little after eight. They've been rising at about ten of seven each day. Yet I still don't see how we're ever going to make that new morning deadline. My colon's in a knot in anticipation, and school doesn't officially start till next Monday.

I must admit I haven't been on my best behavior either. Much like Thing 1, I'm liable to blow my stack with little provocation. And though I'm much better able to tolerate not getting exactly what I want, when I want it, I'm NOT that way at all when it comes to the kids. I want them to hop to it, chop chop, whatever I ask them to do, because NOW it's kindergarten, and somehow that just feels so ... serious.

Maybe it's all those articles in the mainstream media about how kindergarten is the new first grade or something.

I know I need to lighten up about the whole thing: we'll get to school when we get to school. And teary-eyed though I may be, I'll survive dropping Thing 1 and Thing 2 at their respective classrooms. No doubt they'll survive without each other from 8:05-1:40, making new friends, and fending for themselves. After all, they've been separated before: Late Blooming Dad and I have each taken one kid, one day per week, for the majority of Saturdays this past year. The boy managed Little Dribblers (soccer) and Little Base Runners (baseball) without his sister; the girl sailed through Pre-Ballet without her brother. So I know they can do it.

I'm just wistful about the whole separation thing. (Mind you, I've got friends who're sending their youngest of to college this fall, so I know this is small potatoes. But I still feel it.) And though Late Blooming Dad and I have tried hard to reassure the boy, I know he's got to handle this big change by himself, one day, one hour, one minute at a time.

In the meantime, maybe I can try to chill a bit the next time Thing 1 throws a toy across the room. I remember once writing, at a much younger age than I am now, but still an adult, that "growing up means learning how to deal with uncertainty." So as the boy struggles to learn this ... and begins to grow up, just a wee bit, as kindergarten commences ... I need to be there with fewer reprimands and more hugs. We've both got the jitters. We both need a little reassurance.

Never Too Young For Cultcha

2010-08-22T12:14:00.000-07:00

I took my five-and-half-year-olds to see Shakespeare yesterday.

It was family-friendly Shakespeare -- THE TAMING OF THE SHREW trimmed to about an hour's length, performed outdoors under the trees, with rock n' roll, acrobatics, and juggling interspersed; characters with mohawks and dyed pink hair; entrances and exits made on skateboards and bicycles built for two. But it was still Shakespeare: the dialogue, monologues, characters, story, all his, and pretty much intact despite the cuts. (Thank you, Actors' Gang, who've dubbed this particular production of their annual Shakespeare for Families series "Katie the Curst.")

It was a small deposit in the kids' "cultcha" bank account ("cultcha" is what my Brooklyn-born, Manhattan dwelling parents thrived on).
The "cultha" account is something I feed with montly or so trips to museums, concerts, etc., as a hedge against my kids ever growing up to be the sort of people who attend five colleges in six years, can't name a book they've read recently, and make up words like "refudiate." It's an attempt to assure they don't turn into fans of such people either -- anti-intellectuals, anti-East and West Coast, anti-anything that smacks of "book learnin'."

The kids loved the Shakespeare.

Of course, the popcorn, lemonade, bean bag tossing for prizes, and free popsicles at the play's end didn't hurt.

But the fascination with what the actors were doing, the laughter at the slapstick, the excitement and joy at the dancing, the music, and the ability to actually follow at least the basics of the story, even though it was performed in the kind of English people spoke in the late 1500s, was genuine.

Thing 2 even said, the minute it was over, "Can we see it again?"

The "cultcha" thing seems to be working for them. They haven't met a museum they haven't loved (well, with the exception of the dark rooms at the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History, full of diaromas of dead animals that are honestly just plain creepy at any age). They have enjoyed puppet shows and hands-on science-based exhibits, interactive kid-friendly play areas in children's museums, sculpture gardens, live performances by dance troops, acrobats, and every kind of musical ensemble.

Am I raising them to be elitist?

You betcha.

Though I have to make one confession: after the Shakespeare, we made another stop. Target.

Yes, I live in that America too.

All in all, it was a great day -- for them, for me, and for that male white playwright who's been dead since 1616, but whose words still ring true. And that is something that cannot be refudiated.

Dad Gets A Taste Of Momhood -- And Lives

2010-08-09T12:34:00.000-07:00

Late Blooming Mom has been out of comission for a few days.

Just the other week I was saying to Late Blooming Dad, "I wish someone ELSE would plan, shop for, and make their every meal for a change!" It's my least-favorite part of momhood.

It took me undergoing surgery to make it happen.

I can't say the trade-off is worth it. But I have to admit, now that I'm recuperating and over the anxiety of having someone knock me out and cut me open, I am not missing kid-meal duty. In fact, this whole experience has provided a sort of mini-break -- albeit one aided and abetted by Darvocet and frequent ice over the incision -- from many of the kid-tending duties.

Since Wednesday, Late Blooming Dad has been Daddy and Mommy combined. Now I'm fortunate to have a spouse who takes on a good chunk of the kid stuff every day anyway, when he can: he normally rouses the kids, coaxes/barks at them to get dressed, and helps me get breakfast on the table while I get lunch in the lunch boxes. He does the bulk of the school drop-offs, has given more baths and showers than me, and dutifully takes at least one kid off my hands most Saturdays for sports or a class or playdate and lunch. He's sat through more than a few crappy kid movies to give me a nap or weekend down time. He's a good one, he is. And between us, the division of labor usually works pretty well.

But since the surgery, he's had to do his share PLUS mine. The past couple of days, I've managed reading a bedtime story or two, a couple of short craft-making or playing with the train set sessions. This morning (Monday) was finally back to brushing hair and teeth, and smearing on the sunscreen. But the rest has been all dad, all the time.

Saturday was not exactly full of Kodak moments.

Unfortuantely for dad, the kids were in full-on Cranky Von Whinestein mode ... and in short order, so was dad. Nobody was pleasant to be around, and the brief time I spent in the company of all, my first trip out of the house since surgery for dinner in an actual restaurant, was kinda sorta barely tolerable. Dad could not wait until the kids got to bed, and then slumped off to bed himself, in a mood about as foul as I've ever seen him.

He was entitled.

But I huddled on the the sofa for a couple of hours after he went down, preferring reruns of cooking shows to being in the same room with the sleeping ogre. (Forgive the ogre reference, but SHREK 2 has been on our DVD player far too often this past week. I'd conveniently lose the damn video if I thought I could stand the fit that would no doubt result.)

Then a funny thing happened overnight. Everybody woke up in a better mood. Amazing what a lot of sleep can do. Dad, having realized Saturday had gotten off to its bad start when Thing 1 got out of bed far too early, lay down in their bedroom for another half an hour after they first awoke. They were supine, if not exactly asleep, until the civilized hour of eight a.m. Dad and kids, then rested and positively chipper, got off to a pleasant beginning. I managed to help out a wee bit in the morning, so dad could get some time on the exercyle -- not fun, but a mini-break for him given the circumstances. And the whole day, from swim lessons through a birthday party and getting ready for bed, went so much better for him and them ... and thus, by extension me, since even while recuperating, I have to put up with everybody else's moods.

Dad earned his grumpiness the hard way; I don't begrudge it. I just didn't want to be around it.

We all got a look at what it's like when a two-parent household is suddenly, temporarily, more like a one-parent household. I have to admit, I had my moment of gloating -- after the kids were abed last night, when I teased Late Blooming Dad about his taste of momhood, having him take responsibility for every morsel that went into them.

You'd think the down time in bed, reading or watching TV, or talking on the phone with friends, not working, or just plain napping, would qualify as the highlight of my recovery. But not having to shop, plan and pack lunch for camp has actually been the best part of this deal.

Now if only I can milk it for just a bit more ...

From Adorable To Impossible -- In Seconds Flat

2010-08-02T22:11:00.000-07:00

Car ads often boast that the vehicle being hawked can go from zero to sixty miles per hour in seconds flat.

Those cars have nothing on my kids.

Thing 1 and Thing 2 can -- and frequently do -- go from adorable to impossible, and do so faster than a speed measurable by modern physics.

They seem to pick two particular periods of the day in which to exhibit this astonishing capability:
the moment just prior to when we're all supposed to walk out the door for school/camp/the babysitter's wedding ... whatever event we're already late for ... and the moment just prior to when we're supposed to settle down for the night together for cuddles and books in bed.

It's quite incredible to witness the ease with which they morph their facial expressions from innocent, sweet, downright angelic to He/She Who Will Not Be Denied A Toy To Bring In The Car, A Toy That As Of This Very Moment Cannot Be Located Anywhere In The Entire House, But Must Be Found Or The Heavens Will Weep.

I'm talking thorougly believable, instant transitions even Oscar-calibre performers couldn't pull off.

They can be giggling in that delightul, infectious, giddy way, their flesh all warm and soft and squeeze-able in your arms, thoroughly enjoying a post-dinner ticklefest you're happily administering on the sofa. But when the announcement comes that the time for bed has arrived, mouths open in howling wails of protest; little feet kick and stamp upon the floor in ways sure to annoy the neighbors downstairs; or the little body is suddenly dead weight against you as the voice whines, "I'm too tired," "I can't get up," usually followed by, "carry me."

Agreeable, pliant children have turned into Children of The Damned, or rather, Children Who Are Damned Sure They're Not Going To Do What You Want Them To.

Late Blooming Dad and I have a unified policy at these moments: Don't Give In. After all, we can't let the pint-sized terrorists win, can we? But even so, when we should, by rights, ignore -- for ignoring is the only response that actually works, provided we're patient and can wait out the whining -- all too often, we slip up and begin to explain, to argue, to justify. This, of course, only prolongs the agony for all concerned. But it's hard to be on your best parenting behavior after a long day's work, after giving baths, preparing and cleaning up dinner, and wishing only to be done, done, done with the bedtime ritual and moved on to some much-needed grown-up time.

I know I should be treasuring the cuddly bed-time moments. But because bed-time is so often preceded by that adorable-to-impossible transition, and the accompanying fit, I've often got too sore a throat (from raising my voice) and too sour a feeling in my stomach from the adrenaline that coursed through me in reaction to trying to quell whatever fit has been visited upon us. All that I can think about is how soon they'll be asleep at last, asleep at last, thank God almighty, asleep at last (with apologies to M.L.K. Jr.).

Still, there are those evenings, even after such fits, when reading to them by flashlight, lying alongside them in their beds, or holding their hands until they nod off, is as sweet as such a moment can possibly be. Sometimes those very moments do follow the impossible ones by, well, if not mere seconds, than at least by a few minutes, during which everyone has cooled off and calmed down.

I suppose, if they didn't have the capacity to be so impossible, then I wouldn't appreciate it quite so much when they really are adorable. But trust me, I could do with a lot less impossible and a little more adorable around here.

Moms: A Special Kind Of Crazy

2010-07-20T22:28:00.000-07:00

In the opening chapter of Allison Pearson's quite funny bestselling 2002 novel, "I Don't Know How She Does It," working mom protagonist Kate Reddy, in the wee hours of the morning, desperately tries to make a store-bought pie look home-made for the next day's bake sale at her daughter's school. God forbid the other moms might suspect she didn't bake them herself. That's a special kind of crazy.

In Jerry Scott & Rick Kirkman's uncannily accurate daily comic "Baby Blues," in which they chronicle the lives of often exhausted, ever harried, yet wholly committed-to-parenthood parents-of-three, Wanda and Darryl MacPherson, Wanda is a full-time, stay-at-home mom, yet just as desperate as Kate Reddy. In the strip that ran 7/20/2010, Wanda tells Darryl she needs 48 cupcakes for a bake sale today that her son has just told her about. When Darryl suggests she could just buy them for the store, Wanda is outraged at the idea. Sure, she could buy them at the store, she tells Darryl, "If I wanted to FAIL AS A MOTHER." Once again, there's that special kind of crazy.

Last night, I was a poster mom for that special kind of crazy.

There I sat, bleary-eyed after a full day's work and having fed and gotten the kids abed, wanting to be doing anything else but what I was doing: sewing. Or to be more accurate, I was doing a piss-poor job of sewing. I took a sewing class in sixth grade, and remember well how I had to rely on my mother and her trusty Singer to complete the final project. Clearly mom's skills did not get passed down. I probably haven't done a project more complicated than mending a sock or sewing on an errant button since. But last night, after my daughter threw a fit-to-end-all-fits over the prospect of having to wear a camp shirt in the morning, as required for all campers on field trips at her day camp -- I sewed.

I sewed like a mother possessed.

I sewed because my daughter has a thing about shirts that are too big; for awhile there about a year ago, there were only three shirts in her entire drawer she claimed didn't "bother" her. After a shopping trip in which she tried on no less than nine shirts and rejected them all, I sought the advice of a therapist who is an expert in the field of child development. Said therapist very sagely told me to drop the matter and let my daughter grow out of her phase. She assured me my girl would one day don other shirts of her own volition, and that it wasn't worth the argument.

To my great relief, my daughter did eventually expand her shirt repertoire. The selection of what shirt to wear each day has actually been going quite well, lately ....or had. Until this damn summer camp field trip shirt made its appearance, and then there we were last night, back in wardrobe fitsville.

She hated the length. She couldn't abide the sleeves. And then there was the sheer wideness of the shirt, which seems to have been designed for a fourth-grader on the all-high-fructose-corn-syrup diet. While I sewed, I cursed the camp for supplying kids not even quite in kindergarten with shirts sized "Youth - Small" when they very clearly need extra-extra small.

I squinted to thread the needle again and again. I stabbed my finger more than once with a needle's point. As I sewed and sewed -- hemming and stitching and folding and safety-pinning to make the shirt less offensive to my girl -- the thought occurred to me that I was every bit as insane as Kate Reddy and Wanda MacPherson.

I could have told my kid, "If you don't wear the shirt as is, you can't go on the field trip." But see, really, I couldn't, because both Late Blooming Mom and Late Blooming Dad had to work today, and there was no way my daughter was going to stay home. And though I know I shouldn't be giving in to my daughter's fit, I shouldn't be making threats I can't keep, either.

So there I sat, sewing and sewing, determined that my kid would show up properly clad for the friggin' field trip, like every other mom's kid, and so she wouldn't throw a fit when we got to camp, which would have been mortifyingly worse than the one she'd thrown tonight. At least that fit happened in the privacy of home. There's nothing worse than looking like a weak parent in front of other parents. I much prefer to look weak at home.

Moms are, indeed, a special kind of crazy.

But then, so are kids.

This morning, the girl put on the shirt, albeit with a shirt of her own underneath it, to make it more acceptable to her fashion sensibilities. And she did smile when she pointed to my amateurish, quite visible stitching on the shirt, and asked if I sewed it just for her. But I have no illusions that my hand-crafted fix is going to make this shirt a wardrobe favorite just because I sweated into the night to get it done for her. According to Late Blooming Dad, who picked her up after the field trip, she whipped it off the second she was no longer required to have it on her person.

But precedent has been established: she wore the damn shirt. So when the next field trip rolls around, next week, my daughter is going to don that shirt again, without complaint.

Okay, probably not. But I can't deal with the fit that hasn't happened yet. Here's hoping that the stitching at least holds up when I put the damn shirt in the wash ... or I'll wind up sewing it all over again. Because that's the special kind of crazy I am. Me, my mother (with her trusty Singer that night before my sixth-grade project was due), and all the other moms.

The Kvetchiest Generation

2010-07-11T22:00:00.000-07:00

Does having kids make people less happy?

According to New York Magazine's July 12 cover story, and the research discussed within it, the answer is pretty much yes, if you're talking about day-to-day, moment-to-moment happiness. And the answer is no if you're talking about how having children makes life purposeful, meaningful, and connected. In other words, in the long run, you'll be glad you had kids, if you did -- and regret not having them if you didn't. But in the short run, while you're bringing up kids, well, you're going identify with articles like this one, which is subtitled, "The Misery Of The American Parent." (You can read the full article here:  "All Joy And No Fun".)

I found myself nodding in recognition and ruefully reading portions of this article aloud to Late Blooming Dad as we hurtled through time and space above the continental U.S., making our way home with our kids on a west-bound jet after a harried, hurried summer "vacation" visiting family and friends in New York City and suburbs.
Granted, I wasn't in the best frame of mind on this plane ride, as no "vacation" with "kids" is really a vacation, it's a trip; for this insight I credit an old friend of mine who happens to be a father of three. But in any frame of mind I'd have likely found my experience as a middle class, dual earner household in present-day urban America resonated with what's explored in this article.

Some of the findings that stuck with me are these: parents actually spend more time with their kids per week now than parents did in the 1970s, even if both parents are working now.  Yet that time isn't exactly happy-fun-Kodak-Moment time, because parents are tired and cranky from work by the time they're haranguing the kids to do homework, brush teeth, get into PJs, etc. Parents have LESS time alone with their spouses than before, so relationships suffer after having kids; and parents are busy ferrying kids to and from classes and lessons and various enrichment activities, where once upon a time, kids rode their bikes around their neighborhoods and played unsupervised, or at least with less adult supervision, thus giving their parents more "me" time. Parents seem to worry more now about preparing their kids to get into a great college, say, or be competitive in a more competitive professional world.    And today's parents take more parenting classes, and read more parenting books, than our parents' generation ever did.

Sometimes I wonder if we're making it all a bit too complicated.  I think back to what one wise dad friend of mine said right after I had my twins: "It's as hard as you make it."

But on the other hand ... it IS really hard.

This past week in NY was proof of that.

Oh, the whining that went on during the 20 minutes or so it took Late Blooming Dad and I to push our kids in strollers across the Brooklyn Bridge.  We the parents were melting, dripping, drooping from the heat and humidity. But the kids, who I remind you were IN STROLLERS, were IMPOSSIBLE.  There we were, trying to take in the sheer awesomeness of this architectural, engineering wonder, the incredible views of the Statue of Liberty, lower and Mid-town Manhattan skyscrapers, the grace of the bridge itself, and there were our kids, insisting that it was taking "forever" and they were "too tired" to keep going, and asking repeatedly, "when are we going to BE there."

An hour later, there we were cutting into a steaming pizza straight from the coal oven at Grimaldi's below the bridge, after waiting in line to experience this legendary spot and bribing the kids with cold water and the promise of ice cream after. Our always pizza-loving kids REFUSED TO EAT THE PIZZA.  They sat and whined and continued to whine until we finished every last slice, and I can't really say I enjoyed a bite of it as a result. They kept up the complaining until a stop down the street at the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory, where their undeserving selves were treated to cold, creamy, delicious treats, which finally, at long last, turned them -- and one of our few precious vacation days -- around.

The trip was one hard day after another. Sure, the hot weather didn't help. And family visits aren't always easy, even if our extended family is lower maintenance than most.

It'd be one thing if the only problem was family trips feeling like a grind.

But that's what every day life often feels like. And the article reinforced this feeling.

So many times I find myself resentful of their fits when they don't get their way, when they take what seems like hours to choose what bathing suit to wear to swim lesson, or when they refuse to eat what I've prepared for them despite the fact that it's what they said they wanted even just minutes before. So many moments I snap out of sheer exhaustion, and frustration. So many times I want to get it through their little heads that so much of what I do, I do for them -- to feed them, to clothe them, to educate them, to make them feel loved and secure. Yet I know damn well they have no idea how many hours, how much money, how much care and thought and worry goes into their upkeep and general welfare.

So often I resent the lack of time to myself, time I used to have SOOOOOO much more of, and the lack of which I feel all the more acutely for having had kids later in life. I know exactly what I gave up to have them.

So often I miss my freedom of movement, long for the ability to leave the house the moment I decide to do so, instead of having to pack enough clothing and provisions to make an ascent of Everest every time I go out, and have my departure delayed by the sudden, urgent need Thing 1 or Thing 2 experiences to bring along something that of course, at this very moment, cannot be located.

And yet, and yet, and yet ....

I don't regret having kids.

They DO allow me to feel my life is purposeful and rewarded, connected and rich, just like the article also says.

Moments of every day, they are off-the-charts adorable. Sweet. Loving. Gorgeous. Kind. Gentle. Joyful.

It's just that they somehow manage to morph from adorable into pains in the ass just at the moment when my ability to cope with their pain-in-the-assness is at its lowest.

I have held it together when they took twenty minutes to select the appropriate pair of socks for school today, and made us all late. I have held it together when they've delayed and delayed bedtime time with requests for water, the sudden need to pee again, and the refusal to make a decision on the crucial question of what book will be read aloud to them by flashlight. I have held it together when I've had to change their sheets at four a.m. knowing I have to be up and ready to work in a pitiful few hours, and I already stayed up too late filling out their forms for summer camp.

But after holding it together so many times a day, I inevitably get to a point where I am NOT going to be able to hold it together another goddamn second. I blow up. I yell. I stomp my own foot down. I slam a door.  I snap at my husband. I storm back into my kids' room, after storming out, and make them feel so guilty they're going to tell their daddy, "Mommy doesn't love us anymore." And after he tells me, it's a pretty easy to see why that NY Magazine cover proclaims, "I Love My Children. I Hate My Life."

It's moments like those that prompted me to turn to Late Blooming Dad one night in bed recently and say, "I don't understand. I wanted this. So why am I so angry?"

Clearly my expectations for parenthood must've been way out of whack. I know I didn't really expect it to be all moments in which you catch your son's flaxen-haired highlights glinting in the sun while he turns and gives you the most delighted smile, or when your daughter spots you enter the preschool play yard and runs to greet you with wide open arms and a hug for the ages.

But until you're in it, you can't know the drudgery of parenthood, nor the relentlessness of it. There is ALWAYS something more you need to do for your kids before you go to bed at night. There is always another meal to plan and prepare. There is always another cold, another rash, another booboo. There are trips to the emergency room and there are routine check-ups. There are schools to find, and camps, and classes. There are birthday parties for which presents must be bought. And there are moments when an overtired, overwhelmed, cranky kid pushes every button you have, and steps on your very last nerve.

Maybe parenting isn't really as hard today as this article makes it out to be. Maybe we're all just a bunch of kvetches compared to our own parents, expecting too much from being a parent while making it harder for ourselves. But I don't remember my own parents being this harried. I don't think they would have described parenting as a "nineteen-year grind," the way someone in the article does.

I remember having a lot of fun with them.

It's not that my brother and I weren't pains in the asses. I'm sure we were. But my parents did a lot of stuff with us they seemed to be enjoying, or at least, I remember my parents that way.  I know my mom and dad and I had our conflicts, especially through my late adolescence. But I don't know if either of them ever got to a "I love my children, I hate my life" moment. Somehow I doubt it.

My take-away from New York Magazine's piece, in the end, is that even though me and my fellow parenting contemporaries may be less happy, moment-to-moment, than our parents were, at least nobody out there is saying it's a walk in the park; parenting today, for various reasons, isn't much fun too much of the time, but at least we're all pissy about this together. And there's some comfort, if cold comfort, in that.

If our parents were part of the Greatest Generation, when it comes to parenting, ours is the kvetchiest generation.  But at least we're all kvetching together.

Entering The Golden Age?

2010-06-30T13:00:00.000-07:00

Late Blooming Mom has an older brother who also became a parent later-in-life. He has one child, and she's about a month shy of twelve as I write this. He once described the period of a child's life between ages six and twelve as "The Golden Age Of Childhood," a time when kids are self-reliant enough to do some things for themselves, way more interesting to be around than they used to be, yet not yet infected with the attitude and hormones that tend to govern adolescence.

All signs point to Thing 1 and Thing 2 entering that Golden Age.

Every day, they finds things about which they seem to be just plain thrilled.

They are gigglers, even uproroarius laughers, and can tell and make their own jokes.

They are curious, asking questions to figure out the way the world works. They are quick to put new concepts together, and creatively combine old knowledge and new -- if not with entirely correct results. (Just last night, when I was reading a picture book to Thing 1 and the text mentioned "Neon," he asked if "Ne-off" is when the lights go off). They have activities about which they are passionate. Even the mere promise of dinner at Souplantation, where they will get baby ice cream cones, is cause for celebration.
Right now, my kids don't have homework yet, and they barely have any "chores" around the house, save to unpack their lunch boxes when they return from camp, or pick out their clothes for the next day. Camp seems to be about painting robots and baking cupcakes. They each get a half-hour of TV time at home on weeknights, longer on weekend mornings. They have seen the latest Toy Story movie, they have plenty of toys at home with which to amuse themselves, and they never have to shop for, plan or prepare a single meal. Theirs is a remarkably carefree existence. It is, indeed, a Golden Age for them.

But my brother, when he used the term, was just as much describing the time as golden from the perspective of the parent. So far, anyway, I agree with him ... even though the fits haven't stopped, the fights have increased, and the ability to negotiate or argue has greatly improved.

There are times when you'd walk into Late Blooming Mom's house and it wouldn't feel like the Golden Age of anything, except, perhaps, of underage lawyers in training.

"I will be mad if I can't have what I want for dinner," says Thing 1. "I will calm down when I can have my book in bed," screams Thing 2, who is not at all remotely calm after being denied her nightly book because she would not cooperate with the bedtime routine. They make their demands, their threats. They lie on the floor and kick. They cry and yes, even utter that dreaded line every parent is loathe to hear: "I hate you!" It's the big bomb they can drop, and the other night, in the midst of a bedtime fit, Thing 2 defiantly dropped it ... before collapsing in a heap moments later and,within a half hour or so, finally truly calming down.

It'd be unrealistic to expect the drama and the power struggles and the rebellion to stop just because they happen to be approaching the Golden Age of childhood. The hard thing for Late Blooming Mom to do is to remember, in the heat of the moment, all the other moments -- the truly golden ones -- that can happen in the very same day, even the very same hour, as the yucky ones.

I'm coming to realize there's plenty of tarnish to be experienced during the Golden Age. After all, the toddlers who threw fits didn't really go away, they just grew; and those teenagers have to come out of somewhere.

In the meantime, it's good to be just where we are -- gold and tarnish and all.

Their First Graduation

2010-06-25T20:53:00.000-07:00

I admit it, I've been a cynic about the growing trend of allowing kids to "graduate" from anything other than, say, high school. Since I was a kid, it seems graduation ceremonies have multiplied, and now kids are donning caps and gowns for eighth grade graduation, elementary school graduation, and yes, even preschool graduation. From the outside looking it, before I become a parent, this trend just seemed to me an extension of the growing American over-emphasis on self-esteem -- making everybody a winner, and conflating every move up a grade level into some extraordinary achievement.

But I am a cynic no more.

I liked the home-made motorboards.

They were made of construction paper, and each preschooler decorated his or her own.

No rented graduation caps for these kids, nor formal robes. This was a happily home-spun graduation, from a warm, fuzzy preschool.

My kids were among the 25, who marched into the sanctuary confidently, took their seats on the bimah, sang a song about going to kindergarden, another about all they've done in preschool, and an appropriately titled ditty, "Use Your Words."

They waved colored scarves. They each spoke into a microphone to say their names and what they want to be when they grow up. Dog trainer was the most popular choice, followed closely by princess. There were also some race car drivers, hockey players, gardeners, artists, teachers. One kid said she was going to make commercials. Another said he'd be a movie maker. This was probably to be expected. It may be a down-to-earth preschool, but we do live in Southern California.

Thing 1 had set his sights on being a race car-driving hockey player drummer; this was a big sign of maturity, since last year he'd declared he would simply grow up to "be a race car." Yes, me meant an actual car. Thing 2 combined professions of gardener and "rainbow princess," which is clearly much more exciting than being a regular princess.

Each kid got to march up to the heads of the school, take a rolled diploma (fake ones: the real ones were handed to the parents for safe-keeping later), and hug their teachers, the rabbi and cantor. They stood under two talit and the cantor sung a blessing.

Then they marched out -- or ran into the arms of waiting parents, siblings, relatives. We all traipsed upstairs to the social hall, whereupon the kids did a rehearsed dance to the Black Eyed Peas' "Tonight's Gonna Be A Good Night." And it was, especially when the girls, then the boys, took their turns performing mini dance solos. Thing 1 was particularly adept at twirling, and his little necktie with the baseball-player pattern twirled with him. With his first formal lace-up shoes (god bless Payless), hand-me-down blue slacks (thanks Nancy, mom to Myles and Evan), and Calvin Klein dress shirt, he was a picture of sartorial splendor, even when the shirt tails fell out. Thing 2, in her purple velvelty dress, gold shoes (again, thank you Payless), and sparkly purple hairband, was a vision of little girl loveliness.

Next came dinner and cake (where there are Jews, there must be cake), a slide show, family portrait-taking, and something that was way better than at any of my own graduations: the kids got graduation bags full of toys. I didn't even get that when I graduated from an Ivy League university.

As we left the school in the golden hour, just before sunset, the kids ran up the Santa Monica side street to our car, clutching balloons, without a care in the world.

Late Blooming Dad turned to me and said, "Let's remember this moment."

To all the preschool graduates this June, mazel tov. And to all your parents: you, too, remember this moment.

Everything's Still Beautiful At The Ballet

2010-06-12T22:13:00.000-07:00

Nothing like seeing your precious little ballerina in a group of three-to-five-year-olds prancing around a stage in white tutus and bunny ears to make you gush. My daughter appeared this afternoon in her dance school's annual end-of-the-year production, her very first real performance. This year's production was entitled BEYOND WONDERLAND.

There were plenty of students on stage at this production who'd studied ballet, jazz, tap and modern for years. And they did some amazing work.

But I was all eyes on the wee ones, the ones who, like my daughter, take 40 minutes of dance class once a week. I expected to be at least a wee bit emotional when my kid took the stage. But the funny thing is, my eyes started watering the first time some of the smaller kids took the stage, long before my own kid's group.
There's something irresistably sweet and moving about watching little girls in tutus dressed as flowers or caterpillars or what-have-you, taking their first few steps on stage during an actual performance, with lights, music, makeup, and in an auditiorium packed with family, that just brings out the "awwws."

My daughter, Thing 2, was only on stage for one number. Maybe it lasted three or four minutes. Maybe the kids remembered about half of their steps on time, to the music... my daughter, perhaps because she's at the older and more mature end of the class, remembered more than most. But the imperfections of the performance only made it that much more adorable. And when she and the others got stuff right, oh the kvelling I felt for all of them.

My kid has rarely managed to get up and perform a rehearsed song among her classmates in preschool; nearly every time she's been asked to get up in front of a group of parents and do some pre-rehearsed song and dance routine at a school function, it's been a wash, or pretty close to one. She's shy in these situations, and self-conscious.

But that wasn't the case today. Maybe it was the fuss I made beforehand, helping her apply blush and select lipstick in just the right shade to match the pink bunny ears on the costume. The care I took putting her hair into a bun. The attention I paid to getting her properly costumed and ready to go, on time and in place. Or maybe it was the many other kid performers, taking themselves and the whole endeavor so seriously. But for whatever reason, today my kid got on stage and delivered.

She had poise. She had presence. She showed no fear. And she was clearly having a blast up there.

Dad was practically blubbering. And he can be a jaded, cynical guy sometimes.

Thing 1, AKA twin brother, was riveted.

I just gushed for my little girl, for the sheer confidence she displayed, and her ability to just get on with it, no matter if a step or cue was missed here and there.

I'm not saying a star was born or anything. What she did -- and her classmates -- was far from perfect. But it's not about talent, not at this age, and it doesn't have to be. It's about taking a small step toward independence, toward being able to handle oneself out in the world.

One of the moms who chaperoned, watching the kids down in the cafeteria and backstage while waiting to go on, made a point of saying how well my little one behaved prior to her turn in the footlights, and after. "If only my kid had behaved that way," she sighed. (I'm sure her daughter would've behaved differently around another chaperone; kids always save their worst for their parents, don't they?) That compliment meant a lot.

But what meant the most was what happened after. When we met my little girl just after the show, and her brother handed her flowers, her entire face was shining with pride.

She doesn't graduate from preschool till Wednesday, but the proof that she's beyond preschool was right up there on stage, and off, in Beyond Wonderland.

Kindergarden, here she comes.

FREEEEEEEDOM! Or, Mom's 3-Night Vacation

2010-06-06T21:10:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Late Blooming Dad sent me off to the East Coast after assuring me, for weeks, that I'd have a much better time at my 25th college reunion if I wasn't encumbered with two five-year-olds whom I'd have to feed, bathe, and escort to the bathroom, not to mention make sure were entertained at every event. I admit I'd had misgivings; my first instinct had been to schlep the entire family with me for the big event, even though I knew from previous reuinons in my pre-kid life that, aside from the family field day event, which always involves a few child-friendly activities, there would be precious little for them to do while I ran into person after person I hadn't seen for decade(s) who wanted to chat me up. I had a picture in my mind of my kids frolicking on my college green, where I'd spent many a happy/tortured/day-dreaming/angst-ridden/text-book-reading/frozen-lemonade-eating hour. I thought about them wearing way-too-expensive clothing items purchased from the university bookstore, emblazoned with the university's name. I thought about dining with them in the dining halls, sleeping with them in the dorms, and the cosmic coolness of walking around my youthful haunts with the kids who weren't even a gleam in my eye back then.

But Late Blooming Dad was right.

It would've been a drag -- for them, for me, for all of us -- with me having to wrangle the kids while making fruitless attempts at having overly rushed adult conversations with way too many people, or worse, me abandoning the kids to Late Blooming Dad's care, foisting them upon him so I could just "please please please" have a moment with my freshman year hall mates.

So instead, off I went alone, while Late Blooming Dad signed up for full-on solo parenting for four nights/three days. I'd at least arranged for a the babysitter to come one night, to give him a much-needed break putting the kids to bed himself each night. But otherwise, he'd be on his own, and giving me a great gift, indeed: the gift of time with people I rarely, if ever, get to see, and the gift of seeing them without having to be mom at the same time.

Mostly, I had a blast.

I had dinners and lunches with close friends and some I hadn't seen for ages. I attended the storybook campus-wide, night-time outdoor dance on the college green that's the mother of all cocktail parties. I attended a reception for my class, I combed through the bookstore (did I buy the overpriced kids' clothes with the school name? You bet). I spoke on a panel about my career and the university's influence on shaping it. I visited the pizza place, the chocolate cake place, and the parts of downtown that have been totally redone, turning what was a dump of a downtown into an urben gem. Best of all, I reconnected with so many people, and spent quality time -- I'm talking into the wee hours conversations in a dorm room -- with friends I've kept up with and cherished but get to see all too rarely. I also renewed my connection to a place and a tradition that have kept that college ring on my right-hand ring finger for 25 years, grateful I'd been allowed to spend four years at a beautiful place, where I got to try out and try on so many different roles in my outside-the-classroom life. Sure, I had some good professors, read some great books, took some amazing courses. But the people I met, the pool of fascinating, smart, multi-faceted people with whom I experienced some of those four years are who really made the experience. And it was stimulating and wonderful to be hanging out with them again. No place I've lived or worked in the post-college world has been as inspiring an environment. It was exhilarating to be back in it.

But there were also sad moments. Some of my classmates are no longer around, and there was a list of them posted on the wall of our class reception. I knew one of them pretty well and it was hard grappling with the weird twists of fate that allowed so many of us to be reconnecting while a few of us got robbed of long and happy lives. Then there were the tales of illness, of marital discord, of divorce and moving on. It was time for me to repay in some way the amazing love and support my friends have given me over the years. It reinforced how important it was for me to be there, to be there for someone else who needed the unburden, and who needed the support. Then there was difficulty with a friend over social plans -- I was spread so thin over the weekend trying to see everyone -- that I hope hasn't ended the friendship.

As I sat at the airport waiting to board the plane back, I called Late Blooming Dad and Things 1 and 2 and felt a warm feeling descend over me. I'd missed them moments of every day, and had checked in each day. Part of the reason it was so terrific going back to college and connecting to who I was at another point in time, was that I was now going back to the me I am now, the person who grew out of the one in college, and who now counts a loving family to come home to.

A distinguished gentleman sitting opposite me with his wife waited till I got off the phone, then asked me if I'd just come from my college reunion. I told him yes, my 25th. Turned out he'd been there too -- for his 50th. He said it was "deeply moving, intense ... and wonderful." And then he chatted with me about HIS family.

The touchstones in life become richer and deeper as we progress. I still plan to bring the kids to see my college on the hill one day. That mental picture I had is going to come to life, the kids in their college-emblazoned clothes, slurping down frozen lemonade in the New England heat. But for now, I'm content with the weekend I had without them, the sheer untethered fun of it ... and the joy it gave me to come back home.

When The Tooth Fairy Comes Too Early

2010-05-18T12:57:00.000-07:00

It hasn't quite been 48 hours since some older, bigger kid at the playground bone-headedly leapt off the top of a play structure directly onto my daughter, resulting in one of my daughter's two front baby teeth being knocked clean out of her mouth.

My daughter is now fine.

I am still verklempt.

I'm sad that the smile I found the most beautiful in the entire world has suddenly been altered. I'm grateful, though, that it hasn't been altered permanently; a quick housecall to our amazing pediatric dentist confirmed there's nothing to worry about. I'm upset that I couldn't stop the accident from happening. And I'm angry at the other kid, even though I didn't see her, nor the accident itself. I was maybe fifteen feet away, back turned, minding my other child and talking to another mom.

My husband, who was standing right there when it happened, could nevertheless do nothing to stop the stupid decision the kid made, nor reverse gravitty. Like me, he was furious at the other kid in the moment, as well as her mom, whom he had to track down. But now that our resilient child has had a visit from the tooth fairy and become a celebrity at preschool, showing off her gap-toothed smile and brandishing a note and cold, hard cash from the aforementioned tooth fairy, my husband is calmer. Last night, he even made a joke about hiring an attorney to beat up the other kid. Me, I'm not laughing yet.

But I am adjusting to the new reality. And taking comfort that things could've been worse but aren't. A rushed trip to the emergency room right after the incident confirmed my little girl had no concussion. She doesn't even have a fat lip or a visible scratch outside her mouth. It's really quite remarkable: baby teeth are designed to pop out, and this one simply did.

It just happened a year-plus sooner than expected, and in a way that wasn't the natural course of things. So instead of me cooing over my daughter's adorable new gaping grin, and cheerfully telling tooth fairy tales, I've had to manufacture my own smile and my good cheer. But the day after the accident made one thing abundantly clear: life goes on, and my little girl isn't missing her tooth; she's too busy having fun.

Her attitude is helping mine. In this case, I freely admit my kid is acting like the adult, while I'm the one still a bit sullen and sad ("She'll go through kindergarten and maybe more missing a front tooth,"), and self-reproaching ("If only I hadn't suggested we go to the park Sunday afternoon ... if only I'd seen that other kid and said something before it happened."). Other parents are helping too. Tales of accidents and missing teeth and even broken limbs are showing up on Facebook and in my email box, as well as reassurance that a)this too will pass, and b)nothing can dim my daughter's cuteness.

Today, as my happy girl trotted off to school clutching that tooth fairy note to show any teacher or kid she didn't get to yesterday, I felt at least some of the icky emotions falling away ... and I started to embrace that this is, after all, part of the gig: stuff happens you can't stop. You can only be there to scoop them up and give them the love they need to heal. Given my daughter's get-on-with-life attitude -- which kicked in pretty fast after the initial shock, trauma and bleeding were over -- I gotta think Late Blooming Mom and Dad are doing something right. She's fine. So we will be, too.

Mother's Day For Those Who Aren't Moms

2010-05-08T21:41:00.000-07:00

This Mother's Day, I want to send out an embrace to those who aren't moms. Because Mother's Day isn't always so great for them.

I struggled with infertility for 3+ years before I tried IVF and hit a one-round jackpot, becoming a twin mom. This day reminds me of my luck. But on this day, there are, no doubt, many moms-in-waiting who are experiencing that same struggle, and others who went through it and didn't wind up with a child, whether via assisted means, adoption, or just getting lucky. I want to send out an embrace to all of you.

There are dear friends of mine who've wanted to become moms, but for one reason or another -- medical conditions that preclude it, or aging while still without a suitable partner and not wanting to handle the demands of single parenthood -- they haven't become moms. Some friends of mine are in their mid or late thirties or forties, single, and still want a kid, but it hasn't happened yet. I want to sent out an embrace to you too.

And there are those friends who've simply chosen not to have kids, and are happy with their choice. You get a hug too, for putting up with listening to me talk about my kids and for reading my writing about my kids. And for putting up with yet another Mother's Day, with all its lame Hallmark Card connotations, and the annoying cultural demands it places on everyone -- making those calls, sending those flowers. Not to mention how it may make you feel different and singled out if you're not a mom, and never want to be one. (For more on this, check out Anne Lamott's piece in Salon, here.)

As always, I feel empathy with anyone who's lost their mom, as someone who's been mom-less since 1992; there's no relationship quite like that one, and no one who'll ever love you quite the same way as the person who gave birth to you.

I really truly want to hug you all today, whatever your relationship is to motherhood -- because even if you're not a mom, don't want to be one, still want to and haven't, whatever -- we all have this in common: we had one. So on a day that can be joyous for some, but hard to take for others, everybody deserves a hug. I know it's true.

Mom taught me.

The Return Of Grouchy Mom

2010-05-05T22:26:00.000-07:00

I don't wanna be Grouchy Mom, really, I don't. Neither do my mom friends.

But sometimes, we find ourselves being really, really Grouchy to our kids. Take yesterday. Thing 2 announced, more than two-thirds of the way home from school, that she'd left Cheetah, the stuffed animal with whom she sleeps nightly, back at school.

This isn't the first time it's happened. But despite my warning, the last time it happened, that I would NOT return to school for it, and the lecture I delivered about how HER toys were HER responsibility... well, I turned around the car and went back to get the damn thing.

Not before I pulled over, though, let out a four-letter expletive, yelled at Thing 2 -- and at Thing 1 for good measure, as he'd instigated a fight with Thing 2 over the the snacks minutes before, already souring my mood. This night in particular I didn't want to make that drive all the way back, because Late Blooming Dad was due to get on a red-eye flight for the east coast within a couple of hours, and wanted to see them, eat with them and bathe them before heading to the airport. It didn't help that I was coming down with a cold that very evening either, sneezing every few minutes of the drive.

Why, you may ask, do I even let Thing 2 take aforementioned stuffed Cheetah to school anyway, instead of leaving it at home or at least in the car? Because she can't sleep without it, and she still naps at school.

But that really forced my hand. As I'd be putting the kids to sleep on my own, the last thing I wanted on my hands was the one-person riot that would ensue if Thing 2 was asked to sleep without Cheetah.

And in case you still don't have an accurate picture of just how important Cheetah is to the family, consider this: I've already restuffed the creature twice.

I really can't begrudge the girl her Cheetah because when I was her age, it was a foot-high rabbit called Bunny Bun Bun who accompanied me everywhere. And Bunny Bunny Bun, truth be told, still occupies some space in a drawer in a closet in my home, even though he's a patchwork of hand-sewn repairs (thanks to my mom in her day), and a few stray patches of fur.

By the time I got to school, my foul mood had dissipated somewhat, and another mom, hearing my tale of having to drive nearly all the way back in the middle of rush hour, said just the right thing: "It's a good thing time grows on trees," she said. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but it made me relax about rushing home. "We'll get there when we get there," I thought, and sure enough, we did. By the time we arrived, Grouchy Mom was gone for the night, and of course, Late Blooming Dad's preflight help didn't hurt.

In truth, the person I was angriest at for all of this was myself. My kid's only human, and she forgets things, even her favorite toy. It was I who reacted out of proportion. But in my defense, though it's no excuse, just an explanation, it WAS the end of a very long day, and by the time I'd picked up my kids, what with having already rushed to get my work in on time and pick them up before school closed, I probably had about one nerve left that hadn't already been frayed.

It took me till today to forgive myself. But now I remember that when we got home last night, riding up in the elevator and walking to our apartment, the kids hugged my legs and said "I love you, mommy," in spite of the fact that I'd been Grouchy Mom a half hour before. They forgave me, and they did it first. So right now, thinking about that, I'm Grateful Mom... and amazed and happy they found some grace when I'd temporarily run out.

The Fun Of Seeing Through Five-Year-Old Eyes

2010-04-24T22:11:00.000-07:00

One of the ceaselessy charming aspects of being Late Blooming Mom, of late, has been getting clued into my son's perspective as he tries to make sense of the world.

"Grandma Is Dad's Mom? For Real? You Gotta Be Kiddin' Me!" This is a direct quote from Thing 1, AKA the boy, after I tried to explain to him that the "mom" his dad kept referring to in conversation is the woman he's come to know as grandma. I guess we never bothered explaining to him what a "grandma" is, exactly. And once we tried to, it blew his five-year-old mind.

He simply cannot get over the fact that the person he has come to know as Grandma is his father's mom. He is genuinely tickled that Grandpa is his father's dad. And he finally seems to get that his uncles are, respectively, my brother and my husband's. But he's not quite sure how his aunts are related to him, or what exactly aunts are, even though he has two of them.

The total freshness with which he sees the world -- and the unbridled enthusiasm he has for it -- blow me away sometimes.

He's known for a week that today was the day we'd be going to see the Yankees play the Angels in Anaheim.

Nearly a week ago, he'd already picked out a new (well, hand-me-down, but new to him) baseball jersey and baseball hat to wear to the game.

This morning, he showed up in our bedroom fully dressed in his attire -- and carrying his baseball glove -- at seven-forty-five a.m., like a new blade of grass poking up into the morning light; it was as if you could still see the dew on him.

Later, at the game, he was full of questions about what was going on. The concept of the bull pen, no matter how many times I repeated it, seemed to thorougly elude him. The reason for the Yankees wearing gray uniforms, instead of their pinstripes, was laid out several times, but the idea of home versus away games pretty much escaped him too. Whenever I brought up that Yankee Stadium in New York is the Yanks' home, he wanted to know if the players on the team actually live there, or if not, where their houses are. He at least seemed sort of interested when I started counting off how many pitches the remarkable Andy Pettite had thrown, or when I pointed out Jeter, A-Rod, or former Yankee Matsui at bat.

But he was more fascinated by the P.R. gimmicks -- hot chicks bedecked in Angels attire shooting tee shirts up into the stands through a plastic gun (which I called a tee-shirt shooter, since we don't approve of guns in our peacenik household), and a man tossing wrapped bubble gum into the stands -- than by much of anything else that happened in the game. We're clearly years away from any discussion of the in-field fly rule. But he actually understood that when you hit a foul ball, you get another chance. He enjoyed the spectacle of it even if there were large parts of the game that were a mystery.

Then, an Amtrak train zipped by in the distance. He demanded I grab the camera and take a photo. Later, he said that was his favorite part.

His sister Thing 2 couldn't have cared less about what was happening on the field. Her attention was utterly fixated on the snacks -- pizza bought in the stands from a California Pizza Kitchen vendor (amazingly, the pizza was still hot); blue cotton candy; sips of Late Blooming Mom's chocolate milkshake; dad-peeled peanuts; and spoonfuls of frozen lemonade. When she was finally lacking for snacks and had even reached her sugar intake limit, if there is such a thing, she demanded we go home, but after much intercession by dad, who kept finding ways to re-engage her, she managed to last all nine innings through the Yankees' victory.

Thing 1 once again showed off how a kid mind works, or at least the unique way HIS kid mind works, when I pointed out snow-capped Mount Baldy in the distance, seen from our seats (we were high up, just five rows down from the top of Angel Stadium). He suddenly remembered the name of a scary part of Disney's Fantasia, which I've not let him see for more than a mere glimpse -- "Night On Bald Mountain" -- and asked me if this was the same mountain. Mind you, he probably hasn't watched our battered VHS copy of Fantasia for over a year. But that's the kind of memory he'll bring up when you least expect it. Nothing is lost on the boy, every experience filed away for later use.

As for Thing 2, I think aside from the blue cotton candy (I have a photo in which she proudly displays her blue-tinted tongue), the biggest highlight came right when we entered the stadium and she spotted a giant Mickey Mouse statue decked out in MLB attire, an advertising gimmick for this year's All-Star Game, to be held in Anaheim. Mickey's stature in the lives of my five-year-olds cannot be underestimated. The fact that Mickey was in the stadium added a stamp of Disney approval that my daughter, well, clearly approved.

Both kids took the greatest delight in climbing atop the baseballs made of cement that surround the parking lot, and the giant red metal mesh Angels hats were way cool for the kids to stand underneath.

Their fresh perceptions of the whole event made it more fun, or "funner," as Thing 1 would say, than games their dad and I have attended on our own, even if it was at times work to keep them occupied and entertained.

We ended the game playing catch in the parking lot with dad's, and Thing 1's, baseball gloves and a soft T-ball good for little fingers to catch. There were a lot of through-the-legs, Bill Buckner moments. But a few parental throws were actually caught and tossed back, and when Thing 2 in particular, who has not attended her brother's "Little Base Runners" class, got the hang of using the glove in mere moments, I couldn't help but kvell.

Between that, and her brother's morning visit to the bedroom in full regalia, I've a wholly new appreciation for the joys of baseball ... and how some things never get old when you see them through a five-year-old's eyes.

Alice Is Still Wonderful

2010-04-09T21:12:00.000-07:00

As a kid growing up on an enchanted isle called Manhattan, I was taken many times to visit the statue of Alice In Wonderland in Central Park, AKA the Margarita Delacorte Memorial. Almost from the time I was aware of the book, and possibly before I'd even seen the animated Disney cartoon version, I loved climbing on that statue. And for those who don't know of it, yes, you read that last sentence right: Alice is a statue you can climb on. In fact, you're supposed to, especially if you're a kid.

Flash forward to this year, when my five-year-olds starting seeing billboards for the Tim Burton movie of ALICE IN WONDERLAND. They were very curious and asked about each of the characters. I was able to get them to listen to at least a few pages of the book read aloud, and even purchased the Disney cartoon version for them, which they watched on a visit to their grandparents, enrapt. My daughter is rehearsing a dance number to be performed as part of her ballet school's production of ALICE this June. Given this confluence of events, a trip to New York, and the gorgeous weather on Easter Sunday, I knew it was time for me to revisit Alice.

She resides, as ever, atop a mushroom, surrounded by a memorable, familiar cast: her cat Dinah at her feet, the White Rabbit nearby clutching his pocket watch, the Mad Hatter conversing beside her, the doormouse perched to one side on a smaller mushroom, and the Chesire Cat observing the scene from a tree branch. If you look closely, you can also find other Wonderland denizens, e.g. that inscrutable caterpillar. The whole ensemble can be found just north of the conservatory, which some of us know as the miniature boat basin, located at seventy-fourth street and Fifth Avenue, on the East side of the park. (The conservatory is famous for a scene in another children's book, STUART LITTLE.)

On the particular Easter Sunday when we visited, the weather was about as glorious as it gets on a spring day in NY -- bright blue, nearly cloudless, and warm but not yet in the full heat of summer. And though many a kid and tween and even teen clambered over the statue, it wasn't so crowded that the kids couldn't gain purchase several times and occupy some choice spots. For Thing 1, that meant sitting atop the doormouse; for Thing 2, that meant sitting in Alice's lap and holding Dinah's paws.

Photos were snapped, and there was much scrambling hither and thither in and around Alice, and on the statue's many plants and creatures. (I say hither and thither because, well, those words just come to mind when one is thinking about Alice.) Grandma posed with Thing 1 and the Mad Hatter, and Thing 2 never seemed to tire of smiling for another snap while occupying Alice's lap.

I couldn't help but feel a bit wistful, missing my own New York childhood; since moving all the way across the country in what seems a lifetime ago, pre-kids, pre-marriage, post-college, I've created my own West Coast life, but I can't help but feel, after all this time, it's still a little inadequate. Sure, I can get my kids to Disneyland in an hour from where I live. But somehow, the lure of the simpler pleasure of an attraction like that Alice statue remains more powerful, more compelling.

The best art invites you to interact with it, and by that standard, the Alice statue more than succeeds. As I perched atop it, alongside Alice, I thought back to a childhood in which the big event of the day was climbing all over that statue, not passively seeing a movie version of the Alice story in 3-D. I know I'm waxing nostalgic about childhood, and that's such a cliche thing to do. But there's something genuine at the heart of most cliches. And for me, watching my kids enjoy the Alice statue was a lovely link between past and present -- something about which it's worth getting sentimental.

Don't Let The Kids Hold The Menu Hostage

2010-03-23T07:00:00.000-07:00

The other day, Late Blooming Dad said, after justifying the choice of a certain restaurant for Sunday brunch that didn't have much in the way of kid fare, "I'm not going to hold the family hostage to kid food."

So off we went to this place, even though the few kid items on the menu didn't fall into the usual list of foods acceptable to Thing 1, aka The Picky One. Thank goodness Thing 2 has a broader palate and can be more easily assauged. Thing 1 doesn't go much beyond dry cereal, muffins, pancakes, French toast, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, plain roast chicken and potatoes, cucumbers, pizza, grapes, pears, and only two forms of mac n' cheese: Koo Koo Roo's or the Annie's kind that comes in the shape of Arthur. Not a terrible diet, but a dull, dull, dull one if you're not a small and stubborn being.

At first the meal went pretty well.

That was thanks to the "house muffins," mini blueberry muffins provided on the house, while we waited. Thing 1 is a muffin fiend, and it was hard to limit him to just two. Then he ordered a crepe, the restaurant's version of pancakes. He'd already had pancakes for breakfast, but there was simply nothing else on the menu he found acceptable.

Then the food arrived, and suddenly Thing 2 began to raise objections. She was supposed to split an order with me, of scrambled eggs, turkey bacon, and a crepe, all things she's eaten happily before. But she was having none of the bacon OR the crepe, the latter tainted by vanilla yogurt, even though she'd have eaten yogurt separately. She just can't mix her food groups. Then the bananas in the crepe, which I'd removed as objectionable -- yes, Late Blooming Mom has some picky habits left over from childhood -- got transferred to her plate. She rebelled against them as "mushy."

But at least she ate the eggs. Her brother, Thing 1, quickly turned thumbs' down on the crepe, which was filled with melted butter, sugar and cinammon. Mind you, I think he might've devoured the whole thing had it been served up at, say, IHOP, where he's been before and where he feels he's in his comfort zone. But at grown-up brunch restaurant, it was deemed icky, and that, my friends, was that.

I wound up feeding Thing 1 a snack of peanut butter jelly and crackers at home later, and Thing 2, never one to be left out of a good snack, joined him in the crackers at least. But there, she put her foot down: despite her more wide-ranging tastes, she draws the line at peanut butter, which she deems "too sticky."

My meal wasn't bad, save for the bananas, which I'd specifically asked to have left out of my crepe, and the wheat toast that was ordered and never arrived. Dad's was pretty good (some kind of breakfast croissant sandwich). And the bill, thanks to a gift card from a friend, was actually reasonable, so we didn't waste too much money on uneaten food. The kids were happy when a surprise came with the check: complimentary tootsie pops.

But I confiscated those to hold out for a later date, because there were home-made treasts to be had: lemonade, and fresh chocolate chip cookies. I don't do a lot of baking or lemonade-making, but the kids adore this stuff, and I'd rather they have it made fresh at home than store-bought and loaded with preservatives.

Thinking back on Sunday brunch, we did have a nice experience dining out at a grown-up restaurant, except for the kvetching when the kids didn't like their food. But next time, I might choose a different place to avoid the kevetching. Still, by different place, I mean one with a few more kid options, NOT a kiddie chain restaurant or fast food joint. We don't do CHUCK E. CHEESE in this family, at least not yet (thankfully there's no convenient one nearby), and we avoid fast food chains where the food is pre-cooked or frozen; rather, if it's cheap and kid-friendly food we want, we head for the fresh Mex mini-chains, like Poquito Mas and Wahoo's Fish Taco, or Souplantation, where the muffins and frozen yogurt consumed are somewhat balanced by freshly made pizza, chicken soup, salad and fruit.

But we also take the kids to real restaurants sometimes, even if there's going to be some food kvetching. We like a nice meal nicely prepared. We're not about to foist our kids on a serious, white tablecloth place, or at least not very often. Happily, there are lots of moderately priced real restaurants around, serving fresh and even pretty healthy food, where our kids will actually sit for the better part of the meal.

Late Blooming Dad has made a stand, and I, as a foodie and a mom who needs a break from the kitchen sometimes, stand with him. Don't let the chicken nuggets dictate your choice of dining out. Food is too important, not just as nourishment. What's also important to teach kids -- well, my kids, anyway -- is the civilized pleasure of a well-prepared restaurant meal, on those occasions when we can afford it. A nice meal out is a worthy thing to learn how to enjoy.

When You're A Twin Mom, Every Day Is Operation Overlord

2010-03-18T22:53:00.000-07:00

The other day Late Blooming Dad remarked that just getting out of the house with our five-year-old twins, which invariably involves the packing of jackets, spare clothes, sippies, favorite toys, the various and sundry items required for a specific activity (ballet? swimming? gym class? school carnival?), a half-hour of coaxing toward the door, more time spent putting on shoes, taking them off when minds are changed ("I don't want those, I want these!"), putting on the other shoes, the doubling back from the elevator for the forgotten item (or, if you're unlucky, doubling back from whatever point already underway when you have to get the stuffed cheetah without whom SHE WHO MUST BE PACIFIED cannot go anywhere), can make every day seem like Operation Overlord.

For those who are not familiar with Operation Overlord --
-- and don't watch the Hitler Channel as frequently as my father-in-law -- this was the Allies' code name for the invasion to liberate Western Europe in W.W. II.

As you can see from the first paragraph, leaving the house with the kids is really much the same thing as planning for, and executing D-Day... well except no one is shooting at us as we attempt to establish a beachhead. And in W.W.II, we defeated the enemy, as Late Blooming Dad pointed out. Whereas we're currently battling to a draw with the kids.

But much as in Operation Overlord, the logistics are indeed elaborate, the task daunting, and the mental fortitude required is, well, sometimes more than Late Blooming Mom can muster on a weekend morning that began far too early when Thing 1 popped into the bedroom like an eager bunny and burrowed in-between us at the ungodly time of six-thirty-something.

Recently Late Blooming Mom visited an outdoor camping and gear store to purchase a roomy backpack with enough compartments and organizational features to serve a type-A backpacker, only to inform the salesperson that this pack was not likely to see Yosemite any time soon, but was going to be hauled to and from preschool on a regular basis. The criteria the backpack had to meet? Its ability to fit two lunch boxes, two jackets, school arts and crafts projects, favorite stuffed animals (see the aforementioned cheetah, above), snacks and water, and mysterious random substances (e.g., home-made play dough).

I've had a pain on my left side in the lower shoulder area for weeks now. Yet I'm so overtaxed trying to keep track of all my kids' stuff as it gets hauled from place to place, only to be unpacked and repacked again and again, that it's only just occurred to me the pain may be from the backpack. Though it does have reinforced padding and all sorts of clips and buckles I'm not using around the waist and chest that might better distribute the weight of all this crapola.

And this is without books -- remember, my kids are still only in preschool. They have no homework. Next year, you can damn well bet I'll be making them carry their own stuff.

But the weight is just one issue. The more annoying thing is just the fact of the stuff itself, and that I can't go anywhere without it. And the even more annoying thing is that the process of actually leaving the house with my children is, well, such a process.

I did read awhile back that preschools are process-oriented, not goal-oriented. So if my goal is, "We gotta get out of the house so we're not late for the dentist," they aren't thinking about that goal. Their experience at that moment is more like, "oooh, I've got sand in my shoes. I wonder what will happen if I dump the sand on the floor just as we're supposed to leave. Let's find out."

I am convinced it is a miracle anyone with more than one child gets anywhere remotely on time, because I certainly don't.

The other night, after dropping the kids off at school for a school-sponsored parents-night-out, another mom turned to me and said, "Doesn't it feel weird not to have those appendages attached?" She meant the kids, not their gear. But either way, it felt ... not weird. It felt amazing.

Then again, so did their tired little selves a few hours later when Late Blooming Dad and I tucked them in to bed. Which is where I need to be getting myself right now ... to build up my strength. Tomorrow, it'll be Operation Overlord, all over again.

Sleep Vs. Getting It On: The Tired Mom's Dilemma

2010-03-10T20:51:00.001-08:00

Last night, I was at a support group for parents of multiples, and the guest speaker, a clinical psychologist, brought up how important it is to maintain intimacy with your partner after having children. She meant every kind of intimacy, not just the in-the-bedroom kind, but when hands went up for questions, one mom said what was on a lot of our minds: "How do you have sex when you're tired?"

She really should have said "exhausted," which is the word that kept coming up again and again among the new and recent parents in the room. And even Late Blooming Mom, who is going on five years at this parenting gig, but has to work AND be mom AND be wife, is having a hard time getting to the getting-it-on part of the wife gig sometimes.

The guys in the room were tired too, and some of them said it certainly doesn't help anybody get in the mood when dad gets home from work and mom hands him a baby or kid as soon as he walks in the door.

The psychologist told us how relationship dissatisfaction for many couples dramatically increases in the six months to a year after having a child. Looking back, I have to say that wasn't really the case for us. We like being married to each other, liked it before kids, like it after.

What we don't like is having to juggle busy lives to the point where we barely get to see each other until after nine o'clock at night, and by the time we've wound down after that, we're often barely coherent, let alone ready to be seduced or seductive.

The psychologist suggested scheduling fooling around, so there's a designated space for it. But when I came home and suggested this to Late Blooming Dad, it only made him sad: "Is that what it's come to? How un-romantic!" He had a point. Still, in truth, I'm a planner by nature (he always points this out to me) and there have been plenty of occasions when I basically scheduled the fooling around, though I didn't exactly put it in my datebook or on his Treo. I'd just suggest, "Hey, tomorrow night, after we put them in to bed and get them asleep, let's go right into the bedroom." Sometimes I'd do this more than a night or two in advance. Not romantic in the least... but in practice, the planning didn't diminish the enjoyment.

So I guess, some nights anyway, this IS what it's come down to: a matter of scheduling. Still, there are those spontaneous times still happening, when we're not both feeling as if we can't prop our eyes open after a full day's work and then the school pickup/dinner/bath/bedtime routine, during which our children seem to make about three demands on us per minute. The problem is, too often, it's can't-keep-our-eyes-open night.

My only consolation is that last night, in that room with all the other couples, I wasn't alone in this dilemma. But Late Blooming Dad wasn't with me -- he'd agreed to stay home with kids so I could go to the support meeting. Perhaps next time I'll schedule a different kind of support meeting -- after the kids are in bed -- and make sure I sneak off for a nap during the workday. If that's what it takes, it's what it takes. Late Booming Moms and Dads have gotta do what they gotta do.

Parenting 101: Um, This Should Be Obvious, But ... Don't Bring Your Baby To A Bar. Please.

2010-03-02T16:58:00.000-08:00

What about bars doesn't the dad in this story understand?

It's a place where people that are of drinking age go ... to drink alcohol.

Late Blooming Mom sometimes misses adult life, adult conversation, adult beverages. "Miss" is actually too weak a word. Sometimes I crave it. Sometimes I'm almost desperate for it.

But not so desperate that I would take a kid -- let alone a baby -- to a bar.

To the dad in this story, I gotta say: if you need a drink and you need to do it out of the house, get a damn babysitter.

It's not that I mind having your kid see you drink beer or wine or a cocktail. But they can do so at home, or when you're with them at a party with other adults, some not drinking, where there are kids and kid-activities and you're not about to get into a car and drive them home.

Now this dad gets his drinks in Brooklyn, NY, and has his stroller with him, so at least he's not drinking and driving. But still. It's a BAR, DUDE!

I don't care that he went there before 7pm. I don't care that he leaves before it gets rowdy. It's still no friggin' place for a baby. Or a twelve-year-old, for that matter.

There's such a host of things wrong with this idea I hardly know where to begin. Bars are unsanitary places to bring a baby. Even if you're not there to get drunk, somebody else there is. And they don't care if it's before 7pm. They are not going to be careful around your baby when they weave their way to the men's room or throw up or get into a fight. So it's not that kind of place, you say? Again, I say, it's a BAR, DUDE. And if they're there before 7pm and drinking, don't expect them to be on their best behavior. Who drinks that early except drunks?

I could go on, but really, parents with half a brain reading this, do I have to? You get the gist.

I might have a nip when the kids are abed. I might even indulge once in a while at the dinner table, in front of them. In fact, I sip wine when we do shabbat dinner at home. But I ain't takin' my five-year-olds out for beers. And I sure as hell didn't when they were infants. Not even once.

Being a cool, hip parent is one thing. Being an idiot is an entirely different thing.

After reading this news story, I need a drink. But you can bet I'm not taking my kids with me.

Not Even Kindergarten, And I'm Already Anxious

2010-02-25T20:51:00.000-08:00

Kindergarten starts in seven months.

But I'm already anxious about it.

The kids aren't. They don't really know what kindergarten is, or how it's different from the warm, fuzzy preschool they've been attending for nearly three years. They have some vague knowledge it's coming -- a big change -- and we've even visited what will be their new school, back in October for a Halloween carnival. But they're really only dimly aware of it, and unlike Late Blooming Mom, who sometimes has trouble living in the moment, they're 100% in the here and now. What's for dinner, what TV show can they watch before, are they taking a bath together or separately, and what stories will we read at bedtime -- that's about as far as their agenda goes most days.

Me, I'm already worried ...

... about how I'm going to get them up and out the door for school that starts nearly a full hour earlier than preschool, the ungodly hour (to me anyway) of eight-oh-five a.m. I'm anxious about the kids getting homework for the first time. (Back in Late Blooming Mom's day, kindergarten homework was unheard of, but apparently kindergarten is the new first grade, like fifty is the new thirty). I'm concerned about how they're going to handle going to separate classrooms for the first time, after three years of being in school together. Sure, they've had a day here or there when one of them was at school alone, the other home sick or at an appointment. And we have one-parent, one-kid excursions every weekend, so they get separate time with us. But school has always been something they do together. Other twin moms tell me their kids thrive on separation, and I do think it's the right thing for mine, but yikes, it just kinda breaks my heart that they won't have that sibling for security in the same room.

Then there's the whole issue of how I'm going to keep two sets of teachers, kids and parents straight. I barely know all the kids in their preschool class now, let alone all the parents. The very idea that one kid is going to need supplies for school project X on day Y, while the other kid is going to need utterly different supplies for project Q on date Z, completely throws me.

At least I have it easier than folks whose kids are NOT twins, and at some point, have to manage drop-offs and pick-ups to two different schools.

But it's cold comfort right now.

I know I'm being neurotic about it. But I'm a planner; I always plan ahead, and sometimes, that means worrying too.

This time next year, it'll all be old news to me, and I try to remind myself that I felt this same kind of free-floating anxiety months before the start of preschool. That sure worked out well. So I really need to chill about this.

But at the bottom of all my fears is the lump in my throat that sending my kids to "real" school -- not preschool -- means an idyllic part of their childhood is ending ... and when I drop them off next fall, they'll be taking more than baby steps toward independence.

Don't get me wrong, I want them to. But I'm going to miss this time when it wasn't yet about reading, writing and arithmatic so much, and the day was spent mucking around in dirt and paint. I knew if I picked 'em up filthy, they'd had a good day. Sure they've been learning -- social skills, conflict resolution, tolerating waiting for their turns and not always getting their own way. And yes, they can write their names now, they know the alphabet already, and a little math. But it's all been in the guise of fun. They love school.

I sure hope, even though they'll be entering "real" school, that their love of school doesn't fade too fast. And that my anxiety is quelled when they seem as at home in their new school as they've been at the old one.

That Helpless Feeling

2010-02-22T21:16:00.000-08:00

One feeling I didn't count on when I contemplated parenthood was the feeling of being helpless to help my kid.

I don't mean helpless to help master a skill, or learn something. I mean helpless to help when there's some illness or injury to overcome.

I'm a lucky parent in that my children have been pretty healthy, and I haven't had to deal with serious illness. The little guy was born with a birth defect that was surgically corrected, and while it was hard as hell to hand my nine-month-old off to an anaesthesiologist and a surgeon, and then spend the night with him in recovery, knowing the poor little guy felt awful, I knew the worst would be over soon. He had to endure casts on his feet for some months prior to, and after, the surgery, but that too was of a prescribed, finite nature.

It's only lately that I've had to deal with something of indefinite -- perhaps chronic -- duration.
The little guy, now five, has now been diagnosed with cough variant asthma, which means he coughs really, really hard -- sometimes hard enough to cause a bloody nose, or make him throw up -- and he does it only during the night, mostly before falling asleep but also a lot in the four-to-seven a.m. slot. Per doctor's orders, he's got an inhaler and albuterol, and takes a nightly does of singulair -- both are steroids that are supposed to help his little lungs. And he'd been doing well for the past month or so -- able to get by on just the singulair, without the inhaler. But a cold has come along and set that back, and last night, I decided the true meaning of torture is listening to your kid suffer and not being able to make it better.

The coughs are wracking, and awaken me in the next room, usually from nightmares about something bad happening to my family. I sneak into his room in the wee hours and try to elevate him. I check the humidfier. I look over at his sister and wonder how she can sleep through the racket. I slip out and back to bed, but often not back to sleep. In the morning, the boy wakes up looking haggard. He looks as if he's got a couple of black eyes -- congestion below them making him look like some tough kid from the Our Gang comedies. Only his sweet brown eyes and trusting, always raised eyebrows belie that impression.

Fingers crossed, the asthma won't turn into the full-blown kind, and the medicine will start to work again. At night in bed I find myself making a parental prayer of sorts, even though I'm not much of a believer, so it's more like wishful thinking. I wish, as an old Jewish saying goes. that this is the worst thing that ever happens to him. I can't help but think about parents and kids who have things a lot worse, with more life-threatening issues, and try not ot let my anxieties get the better of me -- which they tend to do at four a.m.

So here's a wish for peaceful sleep tonight, for my little guy, for me, for my family, and for all the little ones, healthy and not -- and their worried parents -- trying to get through the night.

Every Child Left Behind

2010-02-17T21:41:00.000-08:00

Utah is thinking of dropping 12th grade.

The state can no longer afford to pay for it.

That's how much value the state of Utah places on education, I guess. I'd like to say California, where I live, has its priorities a little more in order. But not much. This week, two school districts in my area, Santa Monica-Malibu and Los Angeles Unified, say they're probably going to shorten the school year by five days because of budget shortfalls.

That's five fewer days in which to teach kids the very same curriculum that teachers had a full school year to teach this year. Yet somehow, they've got to cram it all in.

LAUSD is already closed for three weeks at Christmas. When I was a kid, I NEVER had a three-week Christmas break. Did you?

WTF?

Gutless politicians won't raise taxes on anybody -- individuals OR corporations -- to save public education. The state government in Sacramento is gridlocked because of an outdated, stupid rule in the state constitution that budgets can only be passed by a 2/3 majority, instead of a plain old, 51 votes out of 100, majority. Because of Proposition 13, passed many, many years before my kids were born, taxes in the state are set at artificially low levels (thank you, Howard Jarvis, you're dead now but I'm still angry at you) and the state university system, once the envy of the nation, is raising fees, cutting the number of students admitted, and letting experienced teachers go.

And don't even get me started on President Numbnuts Bush's "No Child Left Behind" act, which sucked the creativity out of teaching in favor of teaching kids only the material that's featured on standardized tests, instead of teaching kids how to think.

My kids are due to enter a public school kindergarten in Southern California this fall. It's one of the better kindergartens in the city where we live. But already, before the recession, parents in the district were covering the costs for physical education, art, music, any necessary building improvements, and an aid in every already overcrowded classroom. I am more than a little worried about my kids entering a school system one parent recently described to me as a "house full of termites."

Yet what are my alternatives? Sending my kids to private schools that range in tuition from what it cost me to go to college 25 years ago, to DOUBLE what it cost, depending on whether the school is parochial or not. Spending all the money I've got on their education now, and having nothing saved for college. Or moving to some other state, which will no doubt be facing its own budget problems.

I'm mad as hell, to quote a fictional but prophetic character, Howard Beale, in NETWORK. Yet unlike Howard, I don't have the option of not taking it anymore.

And what about the kids who aren't as lucky as mine, and are already going to an overcrowded, under-performing school in a poorer part of the city? I can't say their futures are looking too bright, unless working a regular shift at Denny's is the limit to what they can aspire.

Next month I'm going to be attending kindergarten orientation, but I'm already angry before I've walked in the door. I say, let's not pay our state legislators or our Congressmen and Senators for one week next year -- and transfer that money to the school teachers. Maybe THEN the bums in Sacramento and DC will do something. But until they do, every child is getting left behind -- mine included. There's only one chance you get to educate your kids. I plan on doing everything I can not to blow it. But how about a little help, government? Or what the hell is government for?

Kids With Learning Disabilities May Do Better When They're Included

2010-02-08T12:52:00.000-08:00

My nephew has learning disabilities.

But he's thriving in school, and the biggest factor may be this: he's included in a classroom with kids who aren't learning disabled.

Too often, it seems, kids who are different -- kids with speech delays, kids on the autism spectrum, kids who have a range of sensory and/or behavioral challenges -- get shunted off into special education classes. And while that might be the right solution for some kids, it sure wasn't for my nephew, who started to come home from kindergarten imitiating the emotionally disturbed behaviors of some of his classmates, and was less and less responsive and engaged while at school. A mid-year change to a new school, in which he got help from an aid but within the setting of a regular classroom, made a world of difference.
He's well into elementary school now, reading, writing, doing math, doing work on a par with his peers, sometimes scoring in impressive percentiles within his grade level.

Yet a couple of years ago, his parents were being told by social workers he couldn't be taught.

It's amazing what a difference the right educational setting can make.

Putting kids with learning disabilities in classes with kids who aren't can have benefits for everyone. It's a way for kids to learn to be sensitive, caring, good friends to kids who need some extra help sometimes. Over the longterm, the learning disabled kids tend to do better when being in an inclusive setting.

And now, in a shameless plug, I'm going to mention the book my sister-in-law, Diane Linder, has written about her family's experiences trying to get her son what he needed to learn. It's called BEYOND WORDS - REFLECTIONS ON OUR JOURNEY TO INCLUSION. If you or anyone you know is dealing with the educational system and trying to get the best services and setting for a learning disabled child, you'll get a lot out of it. It's moving, it's helpful, and most of of all, hopeful. So if you are so moved, check it out at Powell's Books, Amazon or at Barnes & Noble.

Naked Time

2010-02-04T21:05:00.000-08:00

Five-year-olds love to be naked.

At our house, naked time is right before the bath.

Tonight, soon as the the kids had torn off their clothes and scattered them on their bedroom floor, they paraded into the dining room wiggling their rears at us. It was "booty-shakin' time." The girl cracked herself up after pronouncing the new word of the night: "Bootypenisvaginabootybutt."

Then she ran off cackling in the direction of the bathroom.

Her brother got in on the act too, racing into the dining room with his male parts wiggling, turning around for a booty shake of his own, and then tearing off after his sister.

I did manage to explain, at some point between laughs, that these words are not words to say at school -- just at home with family. So I contented myself that I had performed my parental duty, and then let them just enjoy the silliness of naked time.

It's going to pass all too fast, I know. First they won't want brother or sister to see them naked; then it'll be mom and dad. Before I know it, they'll be using underarm deodorant and shaving. I'll have a couple of broody teenagers too obsessed with their appearances and too embarrassed to ever be naked in front of me again. Their cute little naked selves parading around the house with peach-like tushies will be but a distant memory.

So for now, I let 'em indulge in naked time, and watch as they giggle, delighting in doing what my daughter joyously refers to as "shakin' what your mama gave ya."

Love Means Having To Drive Past Monterey Park

2010-01-25T08:00:00.000-08:00

With all due respect to the late pop novelist Eric Segal, who penned the ridiculously inaccurate yet often quoted line, "Love means never having to say you're sorry," I submit the above definition, which proved its validity last night.

Late Blooming Mom, Dad and five-year-old twins were driving on Interstate 10 around dinnertime, heading back to Los Angeles from an overnight trip to see visiting relatives in the Palm Springs area. The drive between L.A. and P.S. is pretty much a culinary wasteland of Denny's, TGI Friday's, Mickey D's, the slightly more tolerable In-n-Out Burger, etc. But after you get through the strip-malled communities of Pomona, West Covina, El Monte, etc., you come to a culinary mecca for some of the best Hong Kong-style Chinese food outside of Hong Kong. It's called Monterey Park, and even the most casual reader of the Pulitzer-prize-winning L.A. Weekly food writer Jonathan Gold knows that a u-shaped segment composed of Atlantic Avenue, Garfield Avenue, and San Gabriel Blvd. contains a large number of excellent Chinese food establishments.

Sadly, Late Blooming Mom does not get out to Monterey Park very often, even though it is, traffic permitting, maybe 10-15 minutes east of downtown L.A.
That's because we live pretty far west of downtown, we're very busy between work and ferrying the kids around to and from school, activities and the endless calendar full of preschooler birthday parties. Also, one of our kids is about as picky an eater as they come. His major food groups consist of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, pizza, Koo Koo Roo's mac n' cheese, plain roast chicken, roast potatoes, the occasional minibox of raisins, and the blankets part of pigs-in-blankets, the latter which must only be made with Applegate Farms mild Italian chicken sausage from Whole Foods, even though he only nibbles at the sausage. Oh, and add to that list anything involving sugar. The other child, while more adventurous in her tastes, still insists she doesn't like Chinese food, though she was witnessed devouring several bowls of wonton soup and dumplings during our traditional Jews-Eat-Chinese-Take-Out-On-Christmas meal (AKA the 11th Commandment).

Despite the kids' tendency to veto any dinner choice I make the mistake of mentioning, I was hoping against hope to force them into enduring an authentic Chinese meal last night, figuring I'd bribe them with the promise of fortune cookies at the end of the meal. (This promise has worked before.) Late Blooming Dad was fully supportive of this idea, and had even been plotting where we'd go (Ocean Star) on the drive out to P.S. the day before, when we zipped past the appropriate exit.

But we'd deprived the kids of their afternoon nap time/rest time on Saturday AND Sunday to cram in more activities and time with the visiting cousins. Saturday afternoon, they'd had several hours of floating with us in plastic oversized innertubes down and around the river pool known as Splashtopia at Rancho Las Palmas, courtesy the cousins (thanks again, K & J).

They'd happily fed ducks around the hotel grounds without getting their fingers nipped, had several meals out involving treats, and enjoyed a trip to the Living Desert Zoo, complete with a ride on the Endangered Species Carousel. It'd been an action-packed couple of days. So by the time we'd made a stop in Cabazon, on the way out of the Palm Springs area to check out the giant dinosaurs I'd once seen in PEEWEE'S BIG ADVENTURE, the kids were pretty bushed. (RE: The dinosaurs, I must digress. I can't resist pointing out that this onetime innocent roadside attraction has, we inadvertently realized too late after paying admission, become a Creationist museum with signs aplenty attempting to refute evolution, and featuring a costumed Medieval Crusader coming upon a giant T-Rex, which prompted Late Blooming Dad to remark, "That's a special kind of crazy." Just try to explain to your five-year-olds, who are already-terrified-of-giant-robotic-dinos, that the museum has made a "mistake," since people and dinosaurs did not inhabit the planet at the same time. Really. No fooling. You could look it up. Please, please look it up! And then tell your children.)

Before pointing the car east toward our hoped-for destination, Late Blooming Dad couldn't pass up the chance to buy two pairs of Rockports for less than the price of one at the nearby outlet mall. So by the time we got underway in earnest, it was already five-thirty. An hour later, still a good 15 minutes or so shy of Monterey Park, the boy had fallen asleep, and the girl was barely keeping her eyes open watching MARY POPPINS with her headset on. By the time we approached the Atlantic Avenue exit, both kids were snoring.

I turned to Late Blooming Dad as he was about to get on the exit ramp and said, "Am I being cruel to insist on this dinner?" He paused before answering, so I knew the answer. "Let's just head home," I said... and Late Blooming Dad, god bless him, promised to cook me a consolation prize with what little we had on hand when we got home: spaghetti carbonara, made with turkey bacon (we're a pork-free household, but really, it's damn good with turkey bacon).

As Atlantic Avenue and the promise of dinner at Ocean Star faded behind us, I realized that these are the kinds of sacrifices one makes day in, day out, for love. But I'm determined that one day, the boy and girl will learn to love an excursion to Monterey Park for dinner just as much as I do. Until then, for all those who can, have a dumpling for me, will ya?

The Newden Days: Five And Counting

2010-01-20T20:11:00.001-08:00

"Mommy, do we live in the newden days?" the boy asks as we read a bedtime story and I stop to explain that people sometimes wore hats to bed to keep warm "in the olden days."

"Yes," I say, after I stop laughing several minutes later. "We live in the newden days."

These newden days, I am getting used to having five-year-olds, and they are, indeed, very different from four-year-olds. The tantrums are fewer and tend to come only when someone hasn't had enough sleep. But they've been replaced by a near constant condition best called "selective listening," which is mostly not listening when asked to do something, but listening when there is the possibility of a treat, a new toy, or TV watching. Thanks to the inspiration of the president of the local parents of multiples club, I've instituted a sticker chart in which the kids earn a sticker if I only have to tell them to do something once. Fifty stickers -- a very big number for them to contemplate, but an achievable one -- will earn them a trip to the toy store at the Farmer's Market, and the chance to pick something out. We're only one day into the plan, so it's premature to say it's golden, but at least for now, it seems to be working.

The newden day sticker chart plan was implemented after a horrendous evening of whining and complaining that turned ME into a four-year-old. Yes, I was the one throwing a tantrum last night, the likes of which had not been seen since ... well, a week or so after Halloween, when another horrendous evening of whining and complaining had occurred. That's when I threw out all the Halloween candy in front of their little horrified faces.

I know Mel Brooks says, "It's good to be the king," but at that moment, it felt lousy.

Still, it had to be done. They behaved like angels for quite awhile after that incident. And as a result, I reverted to my middle-aged, mostly mature self, and haven't lost it too badly except for last night.

They say you're supposed to figure out the triggers so you can nip a tantrum in the bud. I don't always know my kids' triggers, though being overtired is the most obvious. But for sure I know my trigger: working hard to prepare a dinner, or more often, several, since the kids don't always deign to eat what Late Blooming Dad and I do, and then listening to the kids kvetch about what I've given them. The harder I work on a dinner, the more likely it is they're going to kvetch. And the corollary to this law is that the more they kvetch, the more likely I'm going to blow up.

Hence last night.

It isn't pretty, this forty-something person turning into a four-year-old having a tantrum. It usually involves my yelling and storming into another room. Sometimes a door is slammed -- something I've distinctly forbidden the kids to do. And this time I actually threw one of the boy's toys across the room.

In the words of Sesame Street's Grover, "I am so embarrassed." I turned into a lousy role model AND I felt like crap for the rest of the evening.

But I'm human. The kids forgave me. I forgave them. We all did so much better today.

One day, they may look back on these days as their olden days, and they'll be raising their own kids in some "newden days." At that point, I hope they heed the words of the great Bruce Springsteen, who gives the best prescription for how to deal with your parents: "Take the best, forgive the rest."

Why Being A Mom Later Is Better, And Why It's Not

2010-01-11T21:22:00.000-08:00

I started this blog two years ago to write about my misadventures as a late-blooming, AKA later-in-life, mom. Reflecting on those two years, in which my kids aged from three to five, here's what I think's better about being a mom later in life:

Appreciation.
It sounds corny, I know, but I have a greater sense of time's fleeting nature and therefore savor moments with my kids in ways I don't think I would have, had I had them say, five or ten years earlier. I sometimes catch myself holding a little hand in mine a little tighter, and making a mental note to register the sensation of the warmth of that hand, and the casual but sure way it holds mine back for security, safety, and reassurance.
I plan events like that trip to Disneyland for their birthday months in advance, making sure everything's arranged to make it a great day they'll remember (even though it included Thing 2 peeing on her underwear because we didn't quite get to the toilet in time; she sure was glad of that spare pair I just happened to have packed). I make sure they get out in nature, have time to just set their own agendas at the park or at home, and get exclusive one-on-one time with each parent. I take them exploring -- new places, new experiences, new foods -- because that is what my parents did for me. And I think of my own parents every day, knowing what they're missing because they're not around anymore, but appreciating that I can do for my kids some of what my parents did for me.

I'm not saying that younger moms don't savor the moment, or make sure their kids take a lot of bites out of life's banquet.

But I know how consciously I do it. I think I am aware in a way they may not be.

On the other hand, here's where younger moms have it all over me:

Energy.
I know for a fact that I had more get-up-and-go in my twenties and thirties than I have in my forties. Here is is, 9:30 p.m., and I am nearly ready to pass out. But catch me a decade ago and I would've said the night was just beginning.

I feel like the five years of child-rearing have aged me ten years. I'd have the gray hairs to prove it if I didn't go to the hairdresser to hide them. I remember well how much time I used to have, pre-kids, to exercise and stay in shape (ah, those long work-out sessions at the Y, and the three-hour bike rides along the beach). Now I manage about 30 minutes on an exercise bike, 2 or 3 times a week if I'm really good at juggling all I've got to do between kids and work, and not down with the latest cold the kids have brought home to share. I use wimpy, five-pound free weights, and spend maybe ten minutes on mat exercises. My body is NOT toned as a result. I am not really a lot more flexible. But I am sorta kinda hanging on, maintaining what I have. And let's not even get started on what bearing twins has done to my body. Suffice it to say, hernia surgery, from which I am still in daily pain many months after the last stitch was sewn.

I used to bounce back quickly from a bad night sleep. I rarely needed a nap. And I could stay up, up, up, with little consequence. Now, I can barely stay awake through the ten-dollar movie on date night.

All this means that the patience I'm supposed to have with my kids, a supposed gift gleaned from years of living life and gaining experience, runs out amazingly quickly after five p.m. Five to nine p.m. -- when, if I'm in luck, they're certifiably asleep -- are my personal "witching hours," when they're at their worst, and sadly, so am I.

Still, overall, I suppose the trade-off -- less energy, but a heightened appreciation for what I have -- isn't bad. The child in me, who still wants it all at my ripe mid-life age, asks, why does there have to be a trade-off? But the grown-up, who has long learned to live with life as it comes, answers, "get over it." Happily, there are two things I still haven't gotten over: Thing 1 and Thing 2. It's some kind of miracle, after all, that I managed to have kids later in life when, for a time, it seemed doubtful I'd have one, let alone two. I'm deeply appreciative that they're here. And, just to be clear, deeply grateful they're asleep in the next room at this moment. Because Late Blooming Mom is whupped. Happy. But whupped.

Your Boy/Girl Twins Have Just Turned Five. What Are You Gonna Do Now?

2010-01-06T11:22:00.000-08:00

If you've made it through five years of late-blooming motherhood with twins, here's what you're going to do:

You're going to Disneyland.

Accuse me of being unoriginal. Unimaginative. An American parenting cliche. A victim of societal pressure. A rube taken in by the massive Disney marketing machine. A mom in for a long, long day that will no doubt include some whining, a tantrum or two, and overpriced snacks.

You're right.

I'm going anyway. Full disclosure: I'm not going today, on their actual birthday, because a number of factors (including dad's work schedule) mean Saturday is the big day, with more crowds; it can't be helped. But nevertheless, I'm going, with dad along to kid wrangle. I'm going because I went to Disneyland with my parents as a kid, and I loved it.
I'm sure there was whining, I'm sure there were tantrums. But I don't remember any of that. I remember IT'S A SMALL WORLD, I remember the castle (though I'm always confused -- is it Sleeping Beauty's or Cinderella's? One's here in California, the other in Florida). I remember the Jungle Cruise. I remember the Enchanted Tiki Room. I remember the train ride. And I remember just walking down Main Street. It's the most contrived, artificial, fake street in the U.S. But I loved it.

So I guess we're going to make my kids some mouse memories.

But we're also going to mark a milestone that this day represents. Late Blooming Dad and I have survived five years of parenting twins, and we have -- another cliche, I know, but it's true -- the gray hair to show for it. We began this enterprise at a later age than most parents -- me, 41 at the time they made their debut, dad a pup of 39. We had less energy and more frequent need of recharging our batteries than our younger parenting peers. We had, perhaps, more life wisdom, but not necessarily the kind of experience that makes one an experienced parent. And we may even have had less patience than when we were younger. Yet here we are, with two very happy, reasonably well-adjusted-when-not-being-impossible preschoolers who'll be heading off to kindergarten in the fall.

Sometimes I think about a chance encounter with an older couple -- late fifties, early sixties? -- we met on our honeymoon. We were sitting on a lovely terrace on the grounds of a beautiful hotel overlooking Positano, on Italy's Amalfi coast, having a late-afternoon drink. The couple told us they'd been here once before, on their honeymoon. Now, all their kids had graduated high school and the last one would be off to college in the fall. So they were back, for the first time since then. "Enjoy it now," they told us. "You may not be back till your kids have graduated."

This memory makes me want to do a couple of things. One, drop everything and get on a plane for Italy, because we deserve it after getting through five years with twins. Two, make damn sure we do get back there when our kids graduate, because that couple was probably right: odds are, with all of life's obligations and constraints on money and vacation time, we probably won't get back there until the kids graduate. Positano is, perhaps, our Magic Kingdom ... sparkling off in the distance, but with luck, health, and love, we'll get there again some day.

So for now, Disneyland with the Adorables will have to suffice, to mark not just their big milestone, but ours. It may not be getting them through college yet, but it feels like a big deal to two weary but grateful late-blooming parents.

My Betty Draper Moment

2009-12-31T14:29:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I threw a cookie-making/cookie-decorating party for six kids aged five and under (plus a baby) and their moms and a dad.

It was equal parts chaos and joy, but worth all the mess to hear the house filled with little-kid squeals and giggles (well, except when the squeals turned more scream-ish and there were too many monkeys jumping on the beds). It was a sticky, sugary, dough-y mess, and everyone got their hands dirty. By five-and-under standards, a rockin' good time. Plus of course all my kids' toys are like new to their playmates, and everyone knows, as one mom remarked, that other kids' toys are the best toys.

The house was a something of a mess of course when it was all over, but parents pitched in a bit before leaving, and for once I really didn't mind picking up after everyone -- perhaps because, as a working mom, I don't do this sort of thing every day. Mrs. Don Draper of MAD MEN I am soooo not.

But that didn't mean my husband, on his return home from work, didn't accuse me of having my "Betty Draper moment." He meant it in a positive, though teasing, way, as in, "see, you can act like a suburban stay-at home mom from the early 1960s." He knows, of course, that I watch MAD MEN and cringe at pretty much every Betty Draper moment. Spouse of the series' protagonist, ad exec Don Draper, Betty is a chain-smoking, neurotic, chronically un-inquisitive housewife/mom with no intellectual or inner life, who lets her kids play with her dry cleaning bags and sit in the front seat of the car without a seatbelt, and never seems to notice when her husband heads back to the office at odd hours (well, at least in Season 1; I'm still catching up on DVD).

I prefer to think of my cookie party as more of my Laura Petrie moment, because a)Laura, aside from the occasional "Oh, ROB!" moment, was pretty happy and b)Mary Tyler Moore, who played Laura to Dick Van Dyke's Rob, went on to play Mary Richards, single career woman who was "gonna make it after all." I can stand to be compared to Laura precisely because, a few years later, when I was of TV-watching age, she become Mary, and I'm kind of Mary now, except after the show, when she presumably went on to become married-career-woman-with-children. At least she did in MY fantasy of her future.

Doing the mom-hosting-a-kid-party thing was very fun, actually, and I really do believe it's because I do it so rarely. I savored the moment. It was far from perfect, and that's the way I prefer it: this was emphatically not my Martha Stewart moment. Hence the mess -- and the messy cookies the kids decorated, with way too much colored sugar crystals to be magazine-shoot worthy. Those cookies sure were yummy.

Monday it'll be back to business as usual around here, and my inner Laura Petrie will have to go back into hibernation, at least until the next school vacation when I can manage to get some simultaneous time off from work. No doubt by Monday I'll have been driven mildly nuts by having my kids home so much, and be thrilled they're back at school and I can concentrate on the more grown-up matters than cookie-making. Confession: the stay-at-home mom life has never been an option for me anyway, and I'm kind of glad. I don't think I'm well-wired for it though I know moms who are. But for a brief shining moment, it's been awfully nice to NOT have to juggle work, school and kids this week, and just be home with the family.

And now ... leftover cookies. Happy New Year To All, and to all A Sweet Year.

Let's Hear It For Coexistence!

2009-12-23T21:42:00.000-08:00

I'm tired of reading about the latest skirmishes in the alleged "War On Christmas," the obsession of people who don't get that church and state are, have always been, and according to our Founding Fathers, always should be, separate. Whenever I hear about some blowhard complaining that he was shopping in a big national chain store and was wished "Happy Holidays," instead of "Merry Christmas," and he thinks this is some kind of crime, I just get depressed by the blowhard's ignorance, and the spreading of intolerance he and his argument represent. "Happy Holidays" could mean "Happy Christmas and New Year's," since New Year's comes right after Christmas. This is a holiday season; it includes Winter Solstice, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year's. And including these other holidays and wishing joy to those who may celebrate them only takes something away from Christmas in the mind of the blowhard. Yes it's the time when the Birth of Christ is officially observed. But there are a lot of other observances, and occasions for celebrating or gift giving, right around the same time. And gee, a lot of the people who celebrate these OTHER days happen to be, um, Americans, when last I checked.

But on a happier, cheerier note...

Sunday evening, Late Blooming Dad and I drove our kids out to the San Fernando Valley's Woodland Hills to look at the lights. There's a neighborhood called Candy Cane Lane where the neighbors put up elaborate light displays, and while a few of them are strictly religious in nature, featuring light-up nativitity scenes, the majority feature everyone from Tigger and Pooh to Sponge Bob, and this year the characters from the movie "UP." There are a lot of inflatable Santas, some Peanuts characters having a Charlie Brown Christmas on someone's front lawn, fake snowballs, and many, many twinkling lights. It's great fun and this year, there was even a nod to our holiday, Hanukkah, via a giant inflatable Hanukkah Bear with a blue yarmulke, his paws clutching a giant driedel. It was a celebration of winter, American pop culture, and yes, different religions. And it was quite a harmonius mix -- like secular Christmas songs that just happen to be written by Jews (White Christmas, The Christmas Song, Silver Bells, etc.) or sung by them (heard that new Neil Diamond Christmas album, anyone? Have a Cherry Cherry Christmas).

The kids thoroughly enjoyed it. They did ask about Christmas and why we don't celebrate it, but this was about as teachable a moment as you can get when it comes to explaining that different people follow different religions, and in America, that's okay. That maybe there isn't one truth, but many. That maybe the main idea of them all is, "Love The Neighbor," and the rest is, as Late Blooming Dad says, "commentary."

On the way to dinner, along with the hamburger joints, we passed a sushi restaurant, a Halal meat market, a kosher bakery, a Chinese take-out place. Our dinner destination was Brent's Deli in Northridge, a deli so good, even transplanted New Yorkers like myself admit it's as good as any deli east of the Hudson. It was packed with families slurping down matzoh ball soup, chewing pastrami and corned beef sandwiches on rye, munching on pickles. I had an egg cream with dinner.

It was a great night, a night to be had only in America, and maybe only in Los Angeles. (A friend on Facebook, who has since moved to North Carolina, read my post about it and was sighing about how much she missed L.A.). I think my many Christian -- and agnostic -- and atheist -- and fellow Jewish friends would agree. It made me feel included in the American Dream, and that feeling of inclusiveness is, in a way, a holy feeling, one that puts me in mind of peace on earth and good will toward ... well, even blowhards.

So Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Winter Solstice, and Happy New Year to all, and to all a black and white cookie from Brent's.

Not Just Another Disney Princess

2009-12-13T21:12:00.001-08:00

Took the kids to see Disney's newest animated feature, THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG.

Spent the first ten minutes just sitting there marveling at a Disney Princess who doesn't look like any previous Disney Princess. Granted, she's not technically a princess. But she DOES win the heart of a genuine prince, so close enough.

Now I suppose JASMINE and MULAN were big steps forward in terms of minority inclusion in the Disney Princess pantheon, Jasmine being some sort of ""1001 Nights" Middle Easterner (though ALADDIN's location was changed from Baghdad to the presumably more palatable, fictional Agrabah), and Mulan being Chinese. But somehow their ethnicity didn't stir an emotional chord with me the way the new gal, TIANA's, does.

Tiana is African-American. She's hard-working, ambitious, resourceful, smart, loving -- almost too perfect, which makes it hard for her to really grow as a character in the story. But that's a small quibble.

The inclusion of an African-American princess is probably long overdue when you realize the U.S. elected a mixed race, half-African-American president a year-plus BEFORE this movie came out. But to give Disney some credit, the movie was in the planning stages long before Barack won a primary.

What really struck me, watching the movie in those first few minutes, was what a non-event Tiana's color was to my children, even as it was such a big event to me. I grew up on Disney movies like most American girls, though my princesses were of a generation considerably older than my own. SNOW WHITE was made before my own mother was born; CINDERELLA and SLEEPING BEAUTY predated my birth. But the modern era of Disney princesses began with THE LITTLE MERMAID's ARIEL, and I've seen all the princesses that followed her just because, well, I love good animated movies and I went to see them as a grown-up before I had my own wanna-be princess. None of them have looked -- or sounded -- anything like Tiana, a New Orleans would-be restaurateur who doesn't let her poverty or skin color in the pre-Civil Rights era South get in the way of her ambitions. She made me think of legendary New Orleans African-American woman restaurateur Leah Chase of Dooky Chase, and made me happy that Tiana's restaurant really isn't something out of a fairy tale. She also made me want to go back to New Orleans and eat there, but that's another story: the whole movie is a tribute to, and advertisment for, historic New Orleans.

There's a lot to like in THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG besides the choice of making Tiana African-American: it's got lovely music by Randy Newman that's inspired by the vibrant jazz of New Orleans' native son Louis Armstrong (including a trumpet-playing alligator named for Armstrong). It's hand-drawn and has the lush look of the Disney classics of my childhood, like THE JUNGLE BOOK. It's funny and touching.

But again, I keep going back to the fact that Tiana's skin color, though it registered with my kids, did not seem in any way unusual. After the movie, my son -- not a big fan of princesses in general, but someone who enjoyed the movie from start to finish nonetheless -- went off to buy some things at the Farmers' Market with dad. I sat with my daughter, who was slowly making her way through some frozen yogurt, and talked with her about the movie. I asked her about Tiana's skin color. "It was brown," she said matter-of-factly, and then, at my instigation, we talked about the different skin colors of various friends, teachers, babysitters, etc. in our lives. In passing, I mentioned that Tiana's skin color was the same as Barack's. My daughter noted this but simply moved on. She was more interested in asking who among those we know are Christian, since it's Hanukah this week, which we're celebrating. We've talked about how we don't celebrate Christmas, but many of our friends do, and she's trying to sort that out. But this too only merited a brief discussion. There was a lot more talk about the alligator, whom I mentioned was named for Louis Armstrong, the same guy whose album of old Disney tunes we enjoy. And there were questions about what the shadows in the movie were (there's a villain, also African-American, called the Shadow Man, who practices voodoo and makes use of scary evil shadows). My son, when he returned, was more concerned with the fate of a Cajun firefly in the movie (I won't say more, I don't want to spoil what happens).

It's hard to say now if Tiana will really and truly join the pantheon of Disney Princesses in my daughter's heart: my kid's loyalties have migrated from Aurora (SLEEPING BEAUTY) to Cinderella of late. I suspect merchandising will tell the tale. And I wonder whether or not my daughter will ever pick a Tiana outfit for Halloween the way she gravitated to Cinderella's this year, and whether or not the fact that Tiana doesn't share my daughter's skin tone will make a difference to her when it's time to play dress-up.

But as we left the movie, I noted a couple of small African-American girls who'd come dressed in full princess regalia. I thought, hey, at last, a princess up on the big screen who looks like them. Here's hoping the race of future princesses will be as matter-of-fact to their kids as Tiana's seemed to be to mine. Of course, I'm still waiting for a Disney princess who's Jewish, notwithstanding the current web parody along those lines. But for now, we've got REBECCA RUBIN, this year's AMERICAN GIRL. So Disney isn't quite there yet. But an American Girl -- that's not too shabby.

Kid Overload: When, Exactly, Do They Go Back To School?

2009-11-28T22:26:00.000-08:00

Don't get me wrong. I'm lucky to have two kids, two healthy, reasonably well-adjusted kids.

And there was much fun had over the long Thanksgiving break: in-car punchy goofiness on the long rides to and from the Bay Area, watching them interact with aunt, uncle, and cousin -- my niece, who gets props for being chief hairdresser for the girl and clothes dresser for both girl and boy, as well as bath giver, book reader and breakfast server.

But by Saturday night, the holiday had grown a bit old and stale.
By Sunday morning, back at home, Late Blooming Dad was at wit's end -- justifiably -- as the fits and need for him to be referee increased. Late Blooming Mom scrubbed the usual nap in hopes they'd be abed earlier tonight. My scheme was to take them to a movie at nap time, and it pretty well worked -- they stayed awake for the whole forgettable thing (PLANET 51, in case anyone can yet avoid wasting time and money on it), thanks to popcorn and a cinnamon sugar-dusted pretzel. But by late afternoon/early evening, they were rather cranky and nightmarish, and getting through dinner at the mall outside the cineplex was an ordeal for all of us, including dad, who had met us after an all-too-brief respite from kid-wrangling after he'd dropped us at the film.

Yes, they did mercifully nod off before -- brace yourselves, this one may be a record for the year -- 8pm. 7:45, to be precise. But the price we paid might not have been worth it. Crabby times two -- well, four if you count we two parents -- is exponentially greater than its sum would indicate.

So to all the parents who won't admit it, but want to, I'll say it out loud. I'm not proud. I can't WAIT for my kids to go back to school tomorrow.

Anyone up for babysitting over Christmas break?

Over The River And Through The Woods ...

2009-11-23T21:18:00.000-08:00

Actually, Grandma came to OUR house this year. And so did Grandpa. And they did it BEFORE Thanksgiving, so we'll be spending the time before, during and after eating turkey with the Northern California part of the family.

But looking back at the past week, there's much to be thankful for. Kids and grandparents thoroughly enjoyed each other's company, save when kids were whiny, but they were mostly pretty good. The boy got his hair cut as Grandpa looked on; the girl was sick a couple of days, but this only gave Grandma more time to shop the neighborhood. The grandparents got to watch soccer (Thing 1) and ballet (Thing 2), shabbat at school (I've never seen such challah-grabbing as I did among a few preschool and kindergarteners huddled around one loaf of bread), and were game for trips to the art museum and car museum, as well as more than a few meals out where they endured the table manner-challenged but again, still pretty decent, behavior of the next generation.

Best for me was a slow work week so I could be fully present for all the goings' on, including Grandpa reading a Disney/Pixar CARS book to the kids over breakfast, and Grandma reading the antics of Max & Ruby to them in bed with a flashlight.

Though we don't live in the same city, perhaps that makes these visits all the sweeter between kids and grandparents. The bond grows, and the time flies, try to savor it though we all do.

Because the visit coincided with the anniversary of my mom's passing (17 years prior) and what would have been my dad's 80th, I was especially appreciative of having my husband's parents around.

So while we didn't go over the river and through the woods to Grandma's (and Grandpa's) house, I'm grateful they came to ours.

Taking Care Of The Sick Kid

2009-11-20T21:23:00.000-08:00

I have seen way too many episodes of SUPER WHY! and DORA THE EXPLORER in one day, but at last, after many Pedialyte popsicles, Thing Two (the girl) is on the mend.

Poor kid woke up saying "I don't feel good," and proved her point a little later by throwing up the previous night's dinner.

Much of the day was spent in lethargy on the sofa in front of children's television -- thank goodness for TiVo, something I am putting on my "things I am thankful for" Thanksgiving list this year.

But between that and napping, there were some sweet moments when I fed her soup and helped her squeeze the last of those push-up popsicles for all their juice, and just lay beside her.

The day was long and staying in the house every waking hour of it was claustrophobic. I was testy by the end, but not with her so much as with her brother, who somehow remained a Tigger-like bouncy bundle of energy far into the evening.

But the whole experience brought to mind a school sick day from my own childhood.
I remember the crunch of Saltines. I remember the sucking down of grape juice. And I especially remember daytime 1970s TV: The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, Let's Make A Deal, The Galloping Gourmet, and the only soap I could ever stand, though it gave me nightmares: Dark Shadows (to this day the name Barnabus Collins gives me chills).

The feverish, icky days spent at home were claustrophobic then too, save for trips out to the doctor. I remember submitting to "throat cultures" and drinking treacly pink fruit-flavored, strong-smelling antibiotics to cure Strep. I remember keeping the cleaning lady company: her name was Elizabeth, she was African-American, from the South, once proudly told my mother "I voted for Mr. Nixon" (my liberal Democrat mother was appalled) and when she could get it, enjoyed chewing on the fat from lamb chops.

Those days seemed impossibly long to me whenever they came. I hated the sore throats -- it hurt so much to swallow. I hated burning up in fever and having to be given a cool alcohol sponge bath. I especially hated having to do more homework to make up for what was missed in school.

Maybe that was part of the reason I got so testy by day's end yesterday: I had a visceral memory of those shut-in all-day sick days from my school days.

But in the end I'm glad I was there for my kid, who thankfully was much better today, save when she woke up from a nap after having a nightmare and cried and thrashed until only Daddy could get her calm. That's the other thing I'm glad for: Late Blooming Dad, who was ready, willing and able to take over.

Here's hoping there won't be any more sicky sick days soon. And to all the Late Blooming Moms and Dads staying home with a sick kid, I wish you patience, and a high tolerance for kids' TV.

I Miss My Cat

2009-11-16T21:18:00.000-08:00

He died last Tuesday.

He was my first child.

I got him 13 years ago at the West Los Angeles Animal Shelter, for seventeen dollars. In exchange, I got 13 years of love.

He was my bridge from being single to living with my boyfriend, getting engaged, getting married, having kids.

He came into my life a few years after I'd lost both parents. My closest family member was nearly four hundred miles away from where I lived, and at the time, I wasn't dating anyone. I didn't have a roommate, I was working full-time from home, and I was in regular need of a hug.

He was in need too -- not just of hugs, but a home. A three-year-old who'd been brought in by his owner, for no reason that was shared with the shelter, he'd been in a cage for ten days and had already won the hearts of the staff, who dubbed him Marmalade because of his coloring. I couldn't take him home the first day I saw him, because I'd come without a cat carrier -- I didn't own one. But it didn't take me long to bond with him, because he meowed each time I walked by eyeing other cats, and drew me in with his gorgeous honey-colored coat with creamy white highlights around his cheeks, nose and eyes, and creamy chest and paws tipped with white, and his tiger-like tail, full of rings. When I offered to scritch his head, he knew a good thing and he promptly flopped down, belly up.

It was love at first belly rub.

I was back with a borrowed cat carrier when the doors to the shelter opened at seven thirty the next morning.

After a quick whisk to the vet, where he was weighed, inoculated and declared "somebody's love muffin" by the smitten doctor, I brought him home. I introduced him to one room at time in my West L.A. two-bedroom, and each time, he'd come back and "buuuush" me with his head to thank me, and meow as if to say, "It's all mine now? I can live here? With you?"

I dubbed him Honey Bear, because he was honey-colored, soft as a Teddy Bear, and simply brought to mind those bear-shaped honey dispensers you can get at the supermarket. He had the sweetest dispostion and gentlest nature of any being, human or animal, I have ever met.

He was a high-maintenance kitty, but worth it.

He demanded food at ungodly hours. He stood on hind legs and poked me with a paw if I neglected to feed him or break for lunch or stop working in time for dinner, or stayed too long on the couch watching TV before bed. He took up half the bed and most of the covers. In his last four years, when he battled lymphoma and endured chemotherapy, he demanded lots of medicine, costly treatments, and even, for more than a year, nightly administration of IV fluids. But, as the vet once said, "He never gave us a moment's trouble."

Always, he was there for me. Through the ups and downs of my romantic life, till I finally settled down, he was a constant comfort.

He moved with me, living in three apartments.

He allowed himself to be adopted by my boyfriend, who became my fiance, and then husband ... and made a man who'd never had a real pet turn into an adoring father willing to take allergy shots to be around him.

He taught my husband and I how to be parents, how to put our "child" first.

He saw me through surgeries and miscarriages and the birth of my twins.

He saw us both through those crazy first months with two babies.

He somehow cajoled my husband into being chief belly-rubber, and the love sessions between the two of them became a regular feature of their lives. I've never forgotten the night he planted himself atop my husband's chest when my husband had cried out from a nightmare. My husband always told the cat, when the cat settled down on his side of the bed, "Puss, you honor me."

But always, always, always, he was my cat first, my guardian, my mascot, my Patronus.

He was unfailingly gentle. He never bit save in play, and then, he would barely leave a mark. He never scratched except by accident, even when I sat him down and put him through the torture of cutting his nails. He rarely hissed -- maybe once, at a visiting human who smelled of cats, and maybe once at another cat at the vet's. Never at me. Never at a family member.

If I made the bed, he got under the sheets.

If I put a blanket down, he sat on it, assuming it was for him.

If I read the newspaper, he lay atop it.

He would often sit on my desk and get right between me and my computer: if I had to work, so be it, but he was going to be a part of it and that was that.

He would sit in a chair at the table during most meals, hoping, mostly in vain but not always, for a handout -- chicken, fish, or even better, the chance to lick a cereal bowl's residual milk. Boldly, he'd leap onto the table even though he was lifted off time and time again. More than a few times, he managed to snag somebody's supper before he was caught.

But mostly, he was just here, content to hang around me, a being whose very presence in my life kept me grounded and safe and enveloped in the sure knowledge that I was loved, no matter what.

He left the world just as my kids, nearly five, were starting to really appreciate him, wanting to feed him, giggling when he licked treats off their little hands, and marveling at watching him lap up water.

I'm glad they got to know him at least a little.

By watching me and their dad take care of him, they learned about being gentle to animals, about how they didn't always come first, about softness and sweetness and coziness, and about how great it is to have a little bit of nature, a touch of something wild, in your home.

But he was my cat, not theirs. He made his loyalties known time and time again, ushering me into the bedroom and plopping down in his accostomed place on the bed, sharing not just body heat, but the simple comfort of being in each other's company, and I was the company he loved best.

As I write this, I am thinking of an old Hoagy Carmichael song that captures the many, many nights (and days) I was fortunate to have with the cat I named Honey Bear. Funny, I never sang this one to him -- mostly I sang him a version of "You are So Beautiful," with lyrics rewritten to refer to a cat, to which he would meow in call and response ... or my own bastardized version of "How Are Things In Glocca Morra?" (I retitled this, "How Are Things in Honey Bear-land"). But it's this Hoagy song that best captures my feelings for him and, I think, his feelings for me:

It's not the pale moon
that excites me
that thrills and delights me
oh no
It's just the nearness of you

It isn't your sweet conversation
that brings this sensation
oh no
It's just the nearness of you

When you're in my arms
And I feel you so close to me
All my wildest dreams come true

I need no soft lights
to enchant me
If you'll only grant me
the right
to hold you ever so tight
and to feel in the night
the nearness of you.

I Got Into The Halloween Candy Last Night

2009-11-03T20:43:00.000-08:00

It was mocking me from across the room, in the bright orange plastic Jack O' Lantern pails.

I was helpless to resist the siren call of the snack-size Three Musketeers bar. Which is, by the way, a candy bar filled with some mysterious mock-chocolate, mock-creamy, foamy substance I have never been able to identify, but is something I suspect will survive a nuclear holocaust intact, much like a Twinkie.

My stomach was unhappy later. I must've downed a pint of milk in the aftermath just trying to rid myself of the trans-fatty acid aftermath.

But this afternoon, the candy was mocking me again.

Today I managed to resist, but only because the husband came back from lunch at the studio commissary bearing a brownie, and when faced with the choice between a fresh-baked goodie and a factory-made, preservative-packed treat, I am adult enough to choose the slightly more wholesome option. Afterall, there are eggs and flour and milk in brownies, and the fat involved is mostly butter, not hydrogenated corn solids or some such artificial evil.

I hope to be a little more of a grown-up tomorrow and skip the sweets entirely. But I'm not holding my breath.

Halloween itself was marked by the children finally "getting it" this year. They went full-on trick-or-treating for two full city blocks, tramping up the front walks of a dozen or so decorated domiciles (we skipped the ones that didn't have Halloween decor, the universal sign welcoming trick-or-treaters). And they did so in the dark. The girl, by the way, who had been utterly terrified of the whole prospect last year, and opted out except for the well-lit trick-or-treat fest at the local mall, was fearless this time around. This year, as soon as the very first door opened and a kind, smiling stranger deposited candy in her pail, she was sold on the entire enterprise.

The girl dressed as Cinderella, and got admiring stares, particularly in the costume store when she first tried it on. But the boy was the stand-out hit in his store-bought Wall-E outfit, a sort of foam sandwich board duplication of Wall-E's front and back, with the addition of a light-up glow stick on the top left, Wall-E gray goggles for his eyes (which he wore perched atop his head like movie star sunglasses), and Wall-E gloves that made his hands look like electronic arms (he mostly left the gloves in the built-in treat pocket on the bottom of the sandwich board). Wall-E was greeted all night with exclamations of "Look, it's Wall-E!" and "Cool Wall-E costume!" and "Hi, Wall-E!" Either Wall-E is much beloved, or my son looked simply adorable as Wall-E, or more likely, some combination of both factors.

As a Late Blooming Mom who has fond memories of this holiday (as posted previously here), I feel I did the kids right this year. I can check off the Halloween box. I carved a pumpkin with the kids. I took them to a Pumpkin Patch AND a Pumpkin Festival. Late Blooming Dad made a chocolate pumpkin bread. And I even got a tiny bit crafty: I didn't handmake the costumes (leave that to the moms who have the time, god bless 'em) but I DID wind up sewing the Wall-E goggles' headband so they would fit without slipping off my son's head. Plus the kids got to go trick-or-treating at the Star Eco Station on Friday, the mall Saturday afternoon, and in the neighborhood Saturday night. Oh, and did I mention the Halloween picnic for the West Los Angeles Parents of Multiples? (The highlight for me: the quadruplet toddlers dressed as Elvis ... or should I say, Elvii?)

A lot of people get down on Halloween these days as rampantly commercial, a waste of money and bad for the environment (given all the treat bags, treat wrappers, and decorations that get tossed when it's over). Religious groups of all stripes are starting to oppose it: it's got pagan origins, it involves images of evil, etc. But let's face it, America has embraced it and turned it into something it never was back when it was All Hallow's Eve. And your point is?

All the trouble Late Blooming Dad and I went to was worth it when we heard our daughter say, as we brushed teeth post-candy, "I wish every week was Halloween." Now would someone pass me the StarBursts?

"It was so yummy that I can hardly feel my eye."

2009-10-30T21:38:00.000-07:00

You read it right.

That's what Thing 1 said the other day.

I can't remember what he ate that was so yummy, but I don't think I'm soon to forget his creative attempt to articulate what he was feeling in response to aforesaid yumminess.

I am sure I am dating myself now as a very Late Blooming Mom indeed when I say moments like this remind me of an ancient TV show with Art Linkletter, ART LINKLETTER'S HOUSE PARTY, which ran for something like 20 years and was later revived with Linkletter and Bill Cosby as KIDS SAY THE DARNEDEST THINGS. It can't be quite as obscure as I'm making it out to be, because WIKIPEDIA tells me it's been mentioned on FAMILY GUY, SOUTH PARK and THE SIMPSONS. The basic idea was that Linkletter (and later Cosby) would interview kids and, well, they would indeed say the darnedest things.

My kids oblige daily.
It's getting so that I don't even notice the mangled English that is their attempt to master their mother tongue. "I'm gooder than you at swimming, "Thing 2 brags to Thing 1. "No you amen't!" proclaims Thing 1. And so it goes on.

They take in what they hear me say like sponges, yet somehow things don't quite come out the same way when uttered from their mouths. "Why are the cars in their lines on the freeway?" Thing 2 asks. She means lanes. "What's an exit?" is Thing 1's question when I say I'm taking the next one. Sounds like an easy concept to explain -- it's the thing you take to get off the freeway, the ramp, the lane, the way you choose to take your car when you leave the freeway to go where you want to go. But somehow this didn't really clear it up for him.

They're piecing together how the world works, using language clues, and the results are sometimes not exactly accurate, yet betray a certain logic.

Perhaps my favorite mistaken assumption the kids are under is that when you kiss, it means you're married. It comes from too many Disney movies in which the princess kisses the prince at the end in a big wedding scene. Somehow, this recently led to my daughter kissing daddy and then proclaiming, with a huge smile, "We're married now!" (Elektra complex, anyone?) And when Thing 1 kissed his sister, he proclaimed that they, too, were suddenly wed. (Ah, incest. I won't be explaining that one to my four-and-a-half year-olds.)

All too soon, they are going to understand way more about the world and I won't have to explain why the car is thirsty and we have to stop for gas, or that we're not in the earth, we're on it ... or that regular TV -- as in, TV not recorded on our TiVo -- has something called commercials.

I'm in no hurry. I realize that right now, I am, to my children, an expert on the world. And I'd better enjoy it now, because in a few years, they will have dethroned me from my lofty perch. They'll be the self-proclaimed experts, and they're going to be explaining it to me.

It's Not The Terrible Twos You Have To Worry About: It's The F^&#ing Fours

2009-10-21T20:17:00.000-07:00

Sometime last year, I was at one of the monthly support meetings thrown by my local parents of multiples club, and the club co-president was decrying "The F^%#ing Fours," the phase her twin boys were going through. She said, "Everyone talks about the terrible twos. But no one warns you about the fucking fours!"

At the time, I just laughed, and figured maybe she was exaggerating. Maybe she'd had a particularly hard day with her boys, two kids I'd only glimpsed at club events, where they were invariably well-behaved and adorable.

But now I know about the F^%#ing Fours. And I want them to be Fucking Over.

Okay, not entirely. Four has mostly been a fun age, a better age, an age during which my kids have learned to use three and even four-syllable words, play together without need of near-constant intervention by a referee, go to the bathroom before going to sleep, and only rarely wet the bed. They eat more and different foods (maybe not vegetables, but you can't have it all), and they're easier for one parent to manage on a trip to the mall, the store, or the movies.

But lately, at least one of the kids -- Thing 1, my son -- has entered into a new and infuriating stage, the "I will whine about everything and throw a fit if I don't get exactly what I want, when I want it" phase. This morning, he could not handle the concept that he wouldn't be able to get the toy Late Blooming Dad had procured for him at a baseball game -- thunder sticks -- because he was refusing to eat his breakfast. He threw another fit because he had forgotten to take a different toy to school with him. And he proceeded to go "batshit" in the back seat of the car -- "batshit" being the technical term for kicking, screaming, and crying at a pitch designed to induce headaches in all but the most Zen parents.

Thing 1 is sometimes egged on by, or inspired into, his poor behavior by his sister, who though technically the same age (well, younger by two minutes), knows better and is developmentally advanced enough to realize that throwing a fit is NOT gonna get her what she wants. Though she went through something of a Fucking Fours state around three-and-a-half -- isn't it typical of the girl to hit the behavioral milestone sooner? -- she manages to regress quite dramatically on occasion.

Tonight that occasion was the minute we arrived home, when she demanded Late Blooming Dad carry her over the threshold into the apartment. Dad, who was busy cooking dinner and had already taken his shoes off, refused, asking her to just come inside. This prompted a five-minute crying fit that included dragging herself along the floor on her back, while refusing to take off her shoes or get up.

You'd think the gods of parental hell would have taken compassion on us then and let us off the hook for the night. But it was not to be. Thing 1 refused to sit for much of dinner, or to eat his food without assistance he no longer really needs. He lay on the floor demanding to be carried, and we responded by ignoring him for about fifteen minutes... though it seemed more like the 100 Years' War before it was over.

His fits continued in fits and starts, interrupted by instances of him spitting and then being given a time-out for having done so. Somehow or other, he calmed down enough to get into PJs and brush his teeth. But come bedtime, it was Torture-Your-Parents Hour again. He wound up getting a time-out, but since he wasn't going to stay in the family room alone, I sat in there with him and made up a bedtime story about dinosaurs that seemed to calm him at last.

He's in bed now, after one last talk from me about how being difficult means you don't get TV, you don't get toys, you don't get a treat, or anything else you really want. I hope it sunk in, but my suspicion is, to paraphrase Jackson Browne, when the morning light comes streaming in, he'll get up and do it again.

The co-president of the twins club warned me. I should have known they were coming. All I can do now is hope to hunker down and get through them ... and for those of you who have kid or kids younger than mine, CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED!

The Still-Pretty-Great-Pumpkin, or HALLOWEEN: The Next Generation

2009-10-16T20:55:00.000-07:00

I remember Halloween pretty fondly from my Upper West Side childhood.

My friends and I used to dress up in home-made costumes -- they were ALWAYS home-made in those days, never store-bought. And we'd trick or treat "for Unicef," shaking our bright orange cardboard boxes -- which I loved putting together the day before, tucking in all the tabs -- chanting in singsong, going from apartment to apartment. (The next day, mom would break open my box and help me count the coins we'd donate.) I had Halloween parties in which my art-loving, ever-creative mom used to "web" a room in our apartment, stringing twine through everything to creative an enormous web. Each string finished off attached to a wooden clothes pin, and each kid at the party got to try to wind that string around the clothes pin and untangle the web. We used to eat candy corn until we got stomach aches. A great time was had by all, and it didn't cost a lot.

But these days, Halloween is big business, the kind of massive consumer-goods-heavy enterprise that makes me think of what one of the PEANUTS gang says about Christmas in "A Charlie Brown Christmas," that it's all run by "an eastern syndicate."

I want my kids to enjoy it, but I don't want to be compelled to buy, buy, buy to make that happen.

Yet it isn't easy.

A Halloween SPIRIT store has opened up on our corner. It has a huge inflatable orange man-type figure of undefined identity -- is he a scarecrow? A big orange stick with hair? And there's an inflatable Jack-O-Lantern snow globe and skeleton. It's pretty enticing. For several weeks now, we drive right by it on the way home from school, and I admit I've promised the kids we'll go in to buy costumes. Unlike my mom and many of my friends' mothers of that day, I don't have time to make a home-made costume, so store-bought is gonna have to cut it. I will part with money there.

A couple of weekends ago, Late Blooming Dad and I packed the kids into the car and drove the 29 miles to Pasadena. The lure was Kidspace Museum's 15th annual "free" Pumpkin Festival. But "free" didn't really mean free. True, there was no admission fee. The festival was in a big park by the Rose Bowl. But other than one arts and crafts table open to all (we made ghost puppets), everything else required that we purchase tickets. Tickets were a dollar each, and each attraction cost anywhere from one to six tickets. After the kids endured the lines and visited two bouncies, played carnival games, got face painting, and temporary tattoos, we'd spent quite the wad. Might've spent more, but they RAN OUT of pumpkins.

So much for free Halloween festivities.

And yet... I feel compelled to spend more. On Sunday, it's off to an urban pumpkin patch, the kind of temporary attraction thrown up for a few weeks in October on an otherwise empty lot. There will be a train ride, pony ride, more bouncies and face painting, and I hope we will actually be able to purchase our pumpkins there.

I'm drawing the line at decorations on our door; I really don't need cobwebs and a hanging paper glow-in-the-dark skeleton, now do I?

I promise I'll stop the financial bleeding there, really I will. Oh, except for the following weekend, when the local elementary school puts on their 62nd annual "Halloween Hoot" carnival. 62nd annual. I kid you not.

Clearly I'm not the only one who finds this holiday so compelling, despite the money parents part with, me included, and the commercialism run rampant. I think it's about some very good childhood memories, and a compulsion to give my kids some of the same, while they're still young enough to appreciate selecting a pumpkin, taking it home, carving it, turning out the lights, and watching the glow of a candle through those Jack O'Lantern teeth and eyes.

Pass me the candy corn, will ya? Who says wax-like sugar concoctions are just for kids...

Their Fred Astaire Moment

2009-10-10T22:31:00.000-07:00

The very first time you're exposed to something wonderful in this life, be it the person you fall in love with, or your very first taste of ice cream as a child, I have a name for it. I call it a "Fred Astaire moment."

Back when I was fourteen or so, living through the hormonal and social hell that is eighth grade, I felt alienated from pretty much everyone I knew. My parents could not relate to me, and my middle school classmates had turned on me. It wasn't that they hated me. It was just that they didn't "get" me ... and I didn't "get" them.

I'd always had friends in kindergarten and elementary school, and coasted along with a comfortable social life through sixth grade or so. But in seventh, the girls I used to like, and who used to like me, became a lot more interested in boys... to the exclusion of all else. And the boys in my class I may have been friendly with once upon a time pretty much ignored my existence and paid attention to the girls who were boy-crazy.

Maybe my pubescent hormones hadn't fully kicked in yet, or maybe I was never one for gossip or speculation about the crushes and the rites of teenage physical exploration about which my classmates had suddenly become obsessed. I know I had no interest in shutting out some people because they weren't "cool." But by eight grade, that is what happened to me.
Kids whom I'd known since second grade and who'd always invited me to their birthday parties and sat next to me in class started to ignore me. And when I didn't act coy around boys and talk of my latest crush -- because really, I didn't have any yet -- the gap between me and my classmates only got bigger.

It didn't help that I enjoyed doing my English and History homework, loved reading and writing essays about Shakespeare or world politics, and was often a teacher favorite in the classroom. I was soon branded a nerd, and though no one ever said it to my face, the social isolation that I experienced made it clear to me what my reputation was.

As if it wasn't unfair enough that most of my classmates were in the midst of full-blown boy obsession and I wasn't, I still suffered from the mood swings and hormonal symptoms of adolescence. I had braces, glasses, and now pimples, and I felt very much alone.

My mom knew how unhappy I was. But she was a nosy mom and the last thing I wanted to do was share my feelings with her because of that. Like any teen, I jealously guarded my privacy. She tried to get me to talk to a child psychologist, and when I caught her on the phone with this shrink, I hung up the phone on both of them.

Then one day, when I found myself having a crying jag and just couldn't seem to stop, mom dragged me out of the house. She walked me over to the Regency theater, a movie revival house a few blocks from our apartment, and sat me down in the midst of a Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movie. It was a black and white musical from 1936, and I had never seen anything like it.

A few minutes after I arrived, I couldn't resist looking up at the screen and watching, through my tears, a tap dance number so breathlessly exhilarating, exuberantly musical and irresistibly swinging, that in a moment, I utterly forgot myself. I was lost in an experience of grace, of sheer joy and disbelief and wonder and delight that a human being could do what the man I was seeing -- and his dance partner -- did on screen.

In that moment when I was lost, I was saved.

My adolescence turned around right then and there.

No, I didn't stop being a nerd. On the contrary. I become a teenaged Fred Astaire aficionado at the height of the disco era. I also finally understood what it meant to have a crush, even though, in reality, the object of my affection was then in his seventies (this being the late 1970s). It was the young Astaire I fell for, the guy up on screen, not the real one. And while it would be awhile before my movie star crush that could never be was replaced by real crushes on real boys my own age, the feelings began there.

I also developed a compelling interest outside of school that led me to haunt the stacks of Lincoln Center's library for the Performing Arts, to read all about the golden age of Hollywood; about movie musicals; the songwriters and composers who wrote the "standards" of the 1920s, '30s, '40s and '50s; the Broadway shows of those same years; the New Yorkers, many of them Jews like my family, who emigrated to Hollywood and what they did there, writing comedies and musicals and great songs ... and a fascination with American film so strong that I would wind up moving to Los Angeles and storming my way into the movie business not so many years later.

But the main thing I want to convey about that moment isn't that it influenced my life course. It's that it made me experience something wonderful, unique, exhilarating and the delightful, that I'd never experienced before, in a way so powerful it lit me up inside.

Tonight my kids had such a moment.

My daughter is taking a pre-ballet class on Saturday mornings, not because I got her to do so -- I really couldn't care if she dances or not -- but because she feels like it, and finds it fun. Last week she saw some girls at the school in tap shoes, having a tap lesson, and she wondered what that kind of dancing was all about. So I promised her that I'd show her some tap dancing at home.

Today, I remembered the promise, and so after dinner, before the bath, when both kids were ready, I put on the very same dance that had lifted my soul years before, a jovial little number called "Pick Yourself Up." (Gotta love having DVDs with scene selection; you can watch in on Youtube too.)

I sat back and watched my kids watch Fred Astaire for the very first time.

Curiosity on their four-and-a-half-year-old faces soon gave way to smiles, laughter, and light in their eyes. When Fred pulled his first tap dance move, I gestured to the screen and said, "That is tap dancing." Suddenly, it was like a light switch went off inside my kids. Within seconds, they wereup out of their seats, and nothing could stop them from what they simply had to do next: they were trying to tap dance -- in their socks -- all over the living room floor.

Their joy -- and the need to participate in full body with what they were witnessing -- was as potent as the exuberance I'd felt as a lonely teenager suddenly lifted out of herself in a darkened movie theater on west 67th street.

It's not my hope to don't condemn my children to years of old movie musical nerd-dom. It's an odd interest, I'll admit it, and I've taken some social heat for it over the years.

But I am damn happy they had a Fred Astaire moment. And I'm taking a moment now to marvel at how a small joy like watching tap-dancing shadows filmed decades before I was even born can make my kids get up an dance.

I reveled in this moment, especially because it's one I never have imagined all those years ago in a movie theater on west 67th street.

Avoiding the Kid-Centric Life

2009-10-05T17:30:00.000-07:00

Kid-centric parenting has run amuck.

If you don't know what I mean by that, then take a minute and stop and think about the moms (and maybe dads) you know and how much their lives utterly revolve around vehement sideline screaming at Junior's soccer, comparing Ms. Thing's pas-de-chat with that of the other would-be ballerinas at dance class, enrolling the kids in advanced Mandarin lessons and, even when out with adults, talking EXCLUSIVELY about their children.

I'm not against finding the very best school you can for your kids, whether public or private. I don't see anything wrong with a few fun activities after school, or "enrichment" as it's come to be called. Sometimes tutoring is actually called for, when a kid is having a tough time with a subject. And even I have a tough time resisting the impulse to talk shop with other parents when I see them, not to mention write about it on this blog.

BUT there are limits. Or rather, there should be.

Focusing too much on your kids, living through them instead of living your life, using them to compensate for disappointments, or trying to control them to compulsive levels because you're frustrated at your lack of control of other parts of your life, isn't good for them or for you.

I like to think I have an advantage, as a Late Blooming Mom: I had a life before I had kids, and I refused to give it all up and trade it in for rampant mommy martyrdom.

The same is true of Late Blooming Dad. There are things he liked to do before having kids. He hasn't given them up. He just doesn't get to do them as often. But he and I both try hard to make space in our lives for the stuff that kept us sane and happy BEFORE the kids came along. We spend a lot of time with our kids, but we don't just do stuff they want to do. We bring them along on activities we enjoyed before we had them. Our kids go to museums because WE like museums; to baseball games because WE like baseball games; and though we take them to Pumpkin Festivals so they can get face-painting and bounce in the Jumperoos, it's because we enjoy seeing them have a blast at these events, not because we're looking for developmentally appropriate educational outings that will provide educational enrichment.

We also make sure we get a night out two or three times a month if we can swing a sitter, so they get used to the idea that mommy and daddy are entitled to some time to ourselves. Sometimes daddy gets a day or night off; sometimes mommy does. This summer, mommy and daddy each had a three-night trip to see old friends WITHOUT bringing the kids.

We are better parents because we do all this.

Yet not all later-in-life parents I run into take quality time for themselves or keeping up their pre-kid interests. In fact, some of them -- particularly a breed I'll call Hypermoms -- seem to be doing the opposite. They're the ones I saw back on the preschool tours who aksed questions like, "What private schools do kids get into from this preschool?" "Are the kids reading when they graduate?" "What is the emphasis on academics?" Remember, I said these moms were touring PRESCHOOLS. Which they clearly confused with college prepatory high schools or Stanley Kaplan SAT prep.

The Hypermoms have Blackberries whether or not they are working moms. They seem to be equally frantic whether in business suits or yoga pants, whether scheduling their next conference call or setting up their kids' KUMON tutoring schedule.

Their counterparts are the Hyperdads, the ones I was talking about when I mentioned the vehement screamers on the sidelines of Junior's soccer game.

There's nothing wrong with encouraging achievement in your kids -- be it athletic, artistic, or academic. And of course you want your kid to be able to compete in the world, at least enough that when grown-up life comes around, it won't be a cold hard shock.

But when your whole life is kid-centric, and you have lost your inner -- and outer -- life apart from your kids, and you've deluded yourself into thinking life really is ALL about the kids, you're not doing them a favor, or yourself.

I realized one day after spending hours trying to find and schedule soccer, ballet, and swim classes for the kids, that I needed to stop and spend some time doing something for me. I was exhausted, cranky, and no fun to be with, and Late Blooming Dad, bless him, took the kids out to a movie and the mall. I took to the hills -- specifically, the Inspiration Point trail and Will Rogers State Park, a place I used to go to, pre-kids to breathe, to exercise, and look out at the view, to get a little perspective. The mountains, the sky, the trees, the ocean, and the city itself are all in view, and yet it's quiet up there, where it's high enough to hear yourself think.

Some days, a mom's gotta do for a mom and for no one else. I may be a Late-Bloomer at momhood, but part of what makes me bloom at it is that I know, even though I wanted parenthood more than anything, that while it's a lot -- and I'm glad for it -- it's not everything.

"No I Amen't!"

2009-09-29T20:30:00.000-07:00

That's what Thing 1, sick with a cold, vehemently said this morning when his sister inquired if he was going to school with her.

I'm not exactly sure how "No I'm not" somehow became "No I amen't!"

But I can respect the passion.

Still, the big feelings these little people get can overwhelm. And I don't just mean them.

I recall a David Sipress cartoon from the New Yorker in which a father and mother faced their young progeny, and the father addressed the kids thusly: "Your mother and I are feeling overwhelmed, so you'll have to bring yourselves up." (See the cartoon here.)

That's exactly how Late Blooming Mom -- and Dad for that matter -- felt tonight after Thing 1 and Thing 2 began to grab for the same toy after dinner. When I took the toy away from both kids, telling them, "If you fight over it, the toy goes away," a switch flipped in Thing 2 and she went from "difficult" to "The Wrath of Khan" in sixty seconds. Her fit continued for the next fifteen minutes, during which we mostly ignored her, though Thing 1 did his part to make things worse by being the unfeeling little brother, laughing at her plight. This was deemed unacceptable and got HIM a talking to. Finally Late Blooming Dad managed to get her in the bathroom, at least in proximity of her waiting bubble bath. There I gave her cold water to drink, stroked her calmly, and got her at least down to "Defcon 2."

Getting their teeth brushed and hair combed was well nigh impossible, given their lack of ability to focus on anything that needed doing, in favor of dawdling and finding new ways to distract one another or, in Thing 1's case, weave in and out over the sink so that more toothpaste wound up on the sleeve of his Alien pajamas than in his mouth.

Our nightly routine of late involves Late Blooming Mom or Dad sitting in the right angle where their beds come together (the two beds forming an L shape) and reading books to them by flashlight. Tonight things went awry within moments because Thing 1 had chosen a lift-the-flap book, and Thing 2 insisted on lifting the very same flaps Thing 1 wanted to lift, while Thing 1 was insistent on going first all the time. I finally had to take the book away from them and move to the next book. This very nearly caused escalation to "Orange Terror Alert" on the part of Thing 2, but when she saw it was no use throwing yet another fit, because I'd already started reading the next book -- one she wanted anyway -- she shut up.

By this time, dad had already poked his head back in the room twice to find out why I'd raised my voice at them yet again. Dad had reached the top of his fed-up-meter by the time the baths had ended, so it was lucky for me that exhaustion finally kicked in on Thing 2's part -- the fits had taken their toll, and she just didn't have another in her. And Thing 1, who remember has a cold, was already settling into a Benadryl-induced drowsy state.

Thing 1 was out minutes after I finished the second book. Thing 2 took a bit longer -- she just had to have one more, if minor, freak-out. As I curled up next to her she declared, "My finger hurts," and tried to pry a band-aid out of me, but I stood firm, then tried to distract her: "Think of how much fun we're going to have on Saturday when we go to ballet, and have a girl-girl date." (That's what I call a day when I take her out alone.)

At last, the boy was snoring and the girl was sleeping quietly up against me. I finally left the room and unclenched at last.

The big passions come out of these little bodies, and they tend to do so at day's end, when mom and dad have the least energy and reserve to roll with the rolling waves of feelings too big to handle.

One day, I'm going to show them that David Sipress cartoon.

Little Boys And Their Violent Toys

2009-09-21T15:00:00.000-07:00

Late Blooming Mom is a product of 14 years' (K-4 through 12) Quaker education. At Friends Seminary in Manhattan, if you brought so much as a water pistol to school, you got sent home, and your parents got a talking-to. The Society of Friends (often referred to as Quakers) promote nonviolence and the belief that every person is holy. So playing with toy guns, or light sabers, or pirate sabers, or toy weapons of any kind, is verboten.

Yet little boys like to point plastic weapons -- or even, in my son's case, a rolled up piece of construction paper taped together -- make phaser sounds, and say, "You're dead!"

My little boy did not do this until he saw some other little boy do it at preschool. But now, I have to be the make-believe-play police, and tell him "'Star Wars' is not a good game to play."

At Rosh Hashanah dinner the other night, a good mom friend pointed out, "You have the poster for Star Wars up in your family room!" Yes, we do. But no, we haven't let the kids see it ... not yet.
We also have posters in there for "Lawrence of Arabia, " "To Have And To Have Not," and "The Glenn Miller Story," but have no immediate plans to screen any of those for the wee ones just yet. (Not even the utterly wholesome one about the trombone-playing band leader; sadly, they just wouldn't get it yet.)

I look forward to showing them "STAR WARS" when it's "age-appropriate." After all, it's a great movie.

And as far as violence goes, it's not so bad. True, an entire planet of innocent people gets blown up. But it's a fantasy, it's not a blood-spattering Marty Scorcese movie.

I realized, after the dinner, that the real point of all this isn't about when it's a good time to show a kid "Star Wars," about which parents can reasonably disagree.

It's that kids, and boys in particular, seem to automatically reach a point where they engage in pretend violent play, no matter how you bring them up, and how much you try to control their home environment, no matter what you tell them.

My son is one of the least aggressive four-and-half year-olds you'll ever meet. At least, he was before some other preschool boys got hold of his imagination. But I guess this is just the way it is. Doesn't mean I have to like it, or I can't tell the other kids at school, as my daughter did the other day, "'Star Wars' is not a good game to play at school.'" You go, girl.

As for my son, I'll just keep steering him toward other kinds of play for as long as I can, as best I can, and hope, even without the benefit of 14 years of Quaker education, and even with exposure to a lot of media he's not ready for, he comes out as uninterested in guns, and as peace-loving, as me.

Mommy, I Got Uh Ideah!

2009-09-17T20:39:00.000-07:00

"Mommy, I got uh ideah!" he tells me at least six times a day. Sometimes it's actually, "Mommy, I got uh good ideah." These ideas usually involve what treat I should bring at afterschool pickup, what TV show we "haven't watched in a long time," some place "I never been," or "where we should go for out dinner."

When Thing 1 mispronounces words, they're so adorably mangled I don't want to correct them (e.g., Wahoo's, a chain of Baja-style Mexican food joints, is invariably pronounced "Woo-Ha's"). And even when he pronounces a new word correctly, it somehow sounds way cuter than it should.
Tonight he pointed to a dog in the comics and asked "Who is dat doggie?" I told him, "Marmaduke." The name "Marmaduke" rolled off his tongue something like this: "Mahermaduuuke?" Later, when he announced what pajamas he was donning for the evening, he selected "Alien," the PJs with the three-eyed alien in the flying saucer, but then declared, "Tohmaarah I will wear tooo-ulls." "Too-ulls" means the pajamas with the tools on them.

Thing 2 doesn't mispronounce or mangle words, but takes great delight in substituting one word for another in familiar songs. Thus "Twinkle Twinklie Little Star" was rewritten featuring her 11-year-old cousin's first name. She sings a lot of songs in Hebrew, learned at school, but she learns these all phonetically, so sometimes, for a non-Hebrew speaker such as Late Blooming Mom, it's very difficult to ascertain where one word begins and another ends. For a year I thought she was saying, "Davvy, mellow Israel" in one song. The "Davvy" was actually "Davide," for the star of David. And once again, on today's ride home, she insisted on substituting the word "penis" for something far more innocuous, then giggling herself silly.

Sometimes their language use leads to confusion, i.e., when Thing 1 mistakenly told me one of his preschool friends had "passed away" -- an expression he'd heard me use -- when he meant the kid had left the school to go to kindergarten. Luckily I cleared that up quickly. Other misunderstandings are just sweet, as when he asked me, "Is it fall yet?" and then "why I haven't seen leaves fall off trees?"

The truth is hard to explain to a four and a half-year-old. The truth is, we live in Southern California, and there are only a few spots around town with trees that lose their leaves this time of year. But one harbinger of time passing I can certainly mark is the way the kids are acquiring and using language. Fits and misbehavior aside, when it comes to how they talk, this is an adorable age indeed.

A Visit To "Both New Yorks"

2009-09-12T21:24:00.000-07:00

Thanks to a late Labor Day, summer vacation came late this year.

But we didn't mind because apparently that's when the good weather decided to come to New York City. We flew in on a Tuesday evening, and after the longest wait ever for a rental car and car seats, had an exciting moonlight entrance to the town so nice they named it twice. (Though that's not why this post refers to "both New Yorks;" more on that later.)

The kids were wide-eyed with wonder at the vista of Manhattan lit like a fairytale city, and agog at the midtown tunnel's bright lights. But within just a few minutes of their arrival on the island of my birth, Thing 2 gave up her fight to stay awake, and Thing 1 tried valiantly to stay up in hopes of seeing the exterior of the Plaza Hotel, which he knows is home to Eloise, but didn't quite make it to fifty-ninth and fifth before nodding off too. By the time we parked at the hotel on the Upper West Side, our weary kids were well into dreamland, and all we had to do to get them down for the night was transfer them from car seat to stroller to bed, without bothering to put on their PJs.

But the next morning they were rarin' to go.
A late morning breakfast at the Fairway Cafe was just the ticket for all of us: awesome lox and bagels and pancakes and eggs, and a view of Broadway's hustle and bustle, complete with many yellow taxis and big buses that kept the kids enthralled. Next it was off for a playdate with friends who just welcomed their fourth child, and had ample toys and kid-friendly snack food -- sorry, M., for the mess we no doubt left in your playroom!

By late afternoon, we were riding the local IRT down to South Ferry, and wandering around Battery Park in search of the Statue of Liberty ferry ticket booth, which we eventually located in Castle Clinton. Because it was late in the day, there was no time to visit Ellis Island, but that place, while significant to our families (grandparents and great-grandparents first set foot on American soil there), would have been lost on the kids at this age. All along, it was the Statue that had drawn them; they'd seen it in books and on TV, and their excitement at approaching it was infectious. Never mind that airport-style security put into place since 9/11. Once on the boat, it was a delightful ride with amazing views and temperate breezes through the open windows (the kids were a bit too spooked to ride out on the upper deck). Liberty Island was a place to run around, look through telescopes and stare up at the Statue (we didn't have tickets to go inside, but it didn't seem to matter to the kids).

As Late Blooming Dad and I watched our kids frolic under the statue, within sight of Ellis Island and a Manhattan skyline forever altered eight years ago, we couldn't help but find ourselves moved. When a helpful national park ranger stopped to chat, I told him, "We're lucky to be here." Lucky, indeed, to be free and to be fulfilling the hopes and dreams of a better life our relatives -- some distant, some not so distant -- came here to live.

But enough seriousness. Soon we were buying souvenirs -- a Liberty torch flashlight for Thing 1, a foam crown with alphabet stickers so Thing 2 could spell her name on it -- and hopping back aboard the boat, where we contemplated our dinner options.

Since we were so far downtown when we landed, we decided to visit a lower east side landmark that, curiously, neither of us had visited in all our years living in NYC: Katz's Deli. A friend of Late Blooming Dad's from college days came and met us with her son, and soon we were devouring a spectacular shared pastrami sandwich. Thing 1 started feeling the jet lag and lack of a nap, and turned cranky when nothing at the deli suited his tastes (peanut butter and jelly is not on the menu); thank goodness Thing 2 was content with matzoh ball soup. We grabbed a slice at the pizza place next door for Thing 1, then headed to one more stop, with the kids falling asleep in their strollers: Ferrara's, at Mulberry and Grand, my long favored place for Italian rainbow cookies, cannoli, and the butter cookies with the jam inside.

We cabbed it uptown, and the kids awoke, which made socializing with the friends who stopped by the hotel a lot harder than we'd hoped. But the kids DID finally fall asleep, and so did we, after a very satisfying first day.

The second day involved a wonderful brunch/playdate at a friend's in the neighborhood; many of my NY college pals are in the theater business and were free during the morning, as were their kids, who hadn't started up in school yet. After that it was more playing -- at a huge, renovated playground in Central Park -- capped by a brief visit to the portrait of Eloise at the Plaza. Upon seeing this portrait, the kids gleefully pointed out Eloise's pets in the background -- Skipperdee and Weenie (a turtle and doggie) ... and we managed to drop the subject when they inquired as to whether we, like Eloise, were going to take the elevator to the Tippy Top floor. I had a great memory of having tea in the Palm Court there with my college roommates, sometime after I sold a pitch and got my membership card in the WGA.

Next it was on to Patsy's Pizza, a branch of the place Sinatra made famous, this one back on the Upper West Side, where Thing 2 slept through the entire meal, but Thing 1 rallied for the meatballs. The pizza, btw, rocks. And the night's capper was a visit with my late parents' best friends, who welcomed us with art kits and cookies and ice cream for the kids, and apple tart for the grown-ups, but especially with warmth and joy at seeing the grandkids my own parents never got to know.

The night ended with what perhaps for the kids was the best moment of the trip yet: the arrival at Grandma and Grandpa's, on Long Island, the latter place being the second New York to which Thing 1 referred to sometime later (when we got back to California a week later, he told everyone he'd been to "both New Yorks"). Given that the kids only have one set of living grandparents, it was especially moving to watch them race up the walk to the doorway to embrace grandma and run inside in search of grandpa.

The rest of the trip was a blur of playdates with the kids' cousins (my nephews) and aunt and uncle (brother and sister in law), with whom there is just never enough quality time, given that we all live so far away, and the kids barely know each other. And there were a couple of playdates with family and college friends who've wound up on the island, and Late Blooming Dad's high school buds. Grandma and Grandpa graciously took the kids off our hands every morning for a long session of Noggin' (apologies, Grandpa, for having to endure so many hours of preschool television) and breakfast while Late Blooming Mom and Dad stayed in bed, something we never get to do together at home. The kids' favorite part was probably the post-sugar high from the orange sherbet at Carvel's; positively giddy, they danced and giggled and charmed everyone in the place.

On the last day, we ate outside in Grandma and Grandpa's back yard, and though the mosquitoes were biting, it was worth it to be under New York skies.

Though I grew up a snob when it came to the Bridge and Tunnel boroughs, it sure was nice to share both New Yorks with the kids. They've actually made 5 visits to NY already in their young lives, but this year was the first time they remembered last year's trip ... and they're starting to really appreciate it. It was no accident when, a few nights after our return home, when Daddy put on the Yankee game (a rare game broadcast all the way here in in L.A.), Thing 1 asked, "Can we go see the Yankees some day?"

I can't wait till next year's trip.