Why The Grinch Compels

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.    

Let's Hear It For Coexistence!

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...

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

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.

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Over The River And Through The Woods ...

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.

I Got Into The Halloween Candy Last Night

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.

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

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."

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The Holiday Cards Lie!

They keep coming: the holiday cards featuring happy, smiling, beaming even, faces of gorgeously perfect, attractive, seemingly well-adjusted kids and their apparently joyful parents.

I don't believe them, though.

What I believe is this: Every picture perfect holiday card family is only showing us PART of the story.

The only honest card we've gotten so far was from our friends Jenine and Bruce, who enclosed not one card, but two. The first featured the kids posing in front of a snow-flocked Christmas tree, looking angelic. But the second card, enclosed with the first, was captioned, "The Real Holiday Card," and it featured pictures of both boys sporting casts over various limbs, and the girl with a face almost completely covered in what I am optimistically hoping was chocolate.

This is the true picture of family life for most moments of the year for most of us.

Though I spent the better part of the afternoon and evening stuffing envelopes with a holiday card featuring OUR gorgeously perfect, attractive, seemingly well-adjusted kids and ourselves looking apparently joyful, I am admitting right here, for the record, that ninety-nine percent of the time, it just ain't so.

Even at the photo session during which the pictures were taken, Thing 1 was having none of posing for a nice photo, and it was nearly impossible to get a snap of him actually smiling. Though normally he's overly exuberant -- his nickname of late has been "Mr. Enthusiasm" -- the morning of the photo session, he was cranky from not having slept enough (his own fault, he refused to go to sleep the previous night) and therefore almost wholly non-cooperative. Thing 2 was more amenable, but even she had precious little patience with posing: "I already said 'cheese,'" she'd protest, then then head off in search of toys or a snack.

This Sunday was far more typical than what's represented on the holiday card: Thing 2 woke up howling and turned out to have not one, but two, ear infections (one in each ear). Late Blooming Mom caught Thing 2's cold (but thankfully, not the ear infections) and slept in on Sunday, then had a nap in the afternoon, leaving Late Blooming Dad forced to cope with both kids for far too long on his own. Everybody turned cranky by Sunday night, and Thing 1 capped it all off by refusing to go to sleep until nearly 11pm.

I can't help but imagine similar scenes occurring in the homes of these very same picture perfect families depicted on the holiday cards we've received. But I guess no one's in the mood to take pictures on those days.

I bet even the Von Trapps (of SOUND OF MUSIC fame) had moments when they couldn't stand each other. It wasn't all puppet shows and Edelweis at the Von Trapp Manor.

We'll still be sending out the card on which we look happy. And the truth is, for many, many moments during a typical day, we are. But there are plenty of moments when we are not the family on that holiday card. I guess no one wants to get a card that pictures Mr. and Mrs. Von Grumpenstein, and their Twins, Whiny/Needy and Hyper/Annoying. But I just want to go on record as admitting that such a picture would be equally true, indeed.

A Response to "Oy, Hark"

The witty and smart Slate writer/NPR contributor Dahlia Lithwick posted this article in SLATE about how Jewish parents guide their kids through the onslaught of Christmas TV specials geared to kids.

I just wanted to add my two cents, in part as a followup to my most recent post dealing with the Christmas/Hanukkah December dilemmas.

So far, my nearly four-year-olds have, as yet, viewed only"A Charlie Brown Christmas" and the newer, less inspired Charlie Brown special that's paired with it on the DVD.

Even though "A Charlie Brown Christmas" is not merely a secular Christmas special, but includes religious content, I think it's a great way to introduce the notion of Christmas, as celebrated in the U.S., to Jewish kids. It covers Christmas displays, letters to Santa, Christmas presents, Christmas trees, a school Christmas pageant, and in its most famous moment, it hits on the passage in the new testament telling of the coming birth of the baby Jesus and what all the fuss is about. It's a great conversation starter, even with nearly four-year-olds. Mine have already been told we don't celebrate Christmas, but it's fine to enjoy the lights everywhere (we call them holiday lights) and the music, some of which, like the soundtrack to "A Charlie Brown Christmas," is stellar.

When they're a year or so older, I think they'll be ready for "How The Grinch Stole Christmas," and I've got no problem with them watching it, not just because I watched it as a kid every year, but because it makes me cry. It's basically "A Christmas Carol," except the Grinch is Ebenezer Scrooge, and it has a similarly important and uplifting message about not getting wrapped up in your own problems and turning into a misanthrope, and how giving to others -- being a real mensch -- makes you AND them feel great. Sure, both tales are centered around Christmas, but I don't buy Dalia's assertion that a character like the Grinch is some sort of code for Grumpy Old Jewish Guy. (Though he does have a dog named Max, which is a kinda Jewish thing to name a pet -- but then I wouldn't be surprised if Dr. Seuss -- Theodore Geisel by birth -- was Jewish.)

I don't subscribe to a "no Santa" rule (as in, if the TV show doesn't mention Santa, it's okay for Jewish kids to watch). I have some fond memories of "The Year Without A Santa Claus," and agree that the Heat Miser/Snow Miser rivalry and musical numbers are worth watching. And I still know a lot of the words from the songs in "Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town," which featured claymation Fred Astaire as its host, as well as the songs in "Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer," which has a great message about accepting those who are different (no, I'm not talking about Yukon Cornelius, or the Abominable Snowman).

I figure, the kids are going to see Santa everywhere anyway -- drinking Coke on billboards, hanging out with kids on his lap at the mall -- so I might as well explain who the jolly fat guy in the red suit is. When they're old enough to "get" ironic humor, I might search Youtube for a Jon Lovitz sketch as "Hanukkah Harry," the Santa equivalent who brought Jewish kids slacks.

On the other hand, I won't go out of my way to let my kids watch "Frosty" or pretty much any of the other specials aside from "The Grinch" or "Rudolph" because in "Frosty" and lots of the others, the animation is crummy, the music bad, and the scripts suck. I have discerning Christmas special taste, and I'd prefer to expose the kids to quality Christmas entertainment than schlock.

I think the best antidote to all the kid-centered holiday specials isn't to hide from them, but to talk about them, watch them together, and do lots of fun things to celebrate Hanukkah. I think this year, at least, the kids they don't feel in the least bit deprived: there are special foods (chocolate Hanukkah gelt, potato latkes, and donuts), parties at their Jewish preschool, games of dreidel, crafts projects (they made a menorah at school out of egg cartons and popsicle sticks). We'll be lighting candles in the menorah at home, they've learned pretty much every known Hanukkah song at school, and they'll be getting plenty of presents. Not too shabby.

The Great Binky Withdrawal, Part Two

We're not out of the woods yet.

Thanksgiving Night, the binkies went bye-bye. Six nights of hell followed. She had four nights of bedtime fits, putting her fingers in her mouth and weeping for the departed binky. He turned hyper and got insanely wound up before the official "get into bed" time came,then when put into bed couldn't settle, tossing and turning for an hour and a half-plus. By the time sleep came for both that first night, it was after eleven. Though "bedtime" is officially 8:30, it'd crept to nine p.m. anyway. But after eleven? This meant no "me" time for mommy or daddy, no "us" time for mommy or daddy together. No down time, no catch-up on life time, and you can just write off romance entirely.

Naptime was no picnic either -- aside from a brief catnap in the car, they didn't nap at all on the weekend, destroying our precious afternoon respites. Yet once back at school, where they'd napped sans binkies for months, they slept. What do the teachers know that we don't?

When Day Seven dawned, it was time to appeal to a higher authority for help.

That authority, whom I'll call Dr. V. to preserve her anonymity, is a licensed family therapist who also happens to be a mother of twins. This makes Dr. V. a heady combo, a perfect mix of empathy for other parents of multiples, and PhD smarts. Her first reaction to our situation was a big sigh, and then: "It's tough. It's four nights of hell."

We told her it had already been six.

Dr. V. told us to be empathetic. We should tell our kids how hard it had been for us to give up binkies when we were kids. She pointed out we hadn't restricted the binky use as much as we should have before we took them away; sure, we didn't let them take the binkies out of the house, but hadn't consistently restricted them to the bed. But without judgment, she said there was nothing to be done about that now. Looking ahead, she had ideas, potential solutions, approaches: sticker charts for the bedtime routine, rewards given in the morning for staying in bed, the removal of privileges for not complying. She suggested leaving sippy cups in their room as a sucking substitute. She advocated getting them a replacement comfort object -- which we'd tried with limited success -- and the idea that the kids can "choose or lose," a concept of the kids taking responsibility for their problem instead of making it all ours. We were to tell them they had a choice, stay in bed or lose a privilege (naming it), and to be as emotionless about explaining it as a waitress explaining menu choices. Whenever the kids got out of bed, we were to avoid reacting at all, save to wordlessly escort them back -- twenty times, if necessary. She said to keep our emotions out of it so there'd be no payoff, in the form of parental attention. She told us to make a "doctor" the heavy: "The doctor says the new rule in this house is that you have to stay in bed." And she told us to find lots of occasions to praise them for good behavior throughout the day, as long as we specifically mentioned the thing they were doing that was good. ("Good job" would be too generic, but "you are sharing really well together" would work.)

We ended the conversation feeling armed and ready, and mutually agreed to hit the "reset" button on our emotions. We'd both turned into angry, grumpy, bear-like creatures, suffering from lack of sleep (Thing 1 had been up and in our room in the middle of the night every night, and our cat, not to be outmatched in the quest for attention, decided to throw up or poop outside the litter box for several nights as well). But we realized now, tired as we were, that our expectations had been out of line: binky withdrawal was no easy thing, and would not be conquered in a few nights.

That evening, the sticker chart, which had been retired awhile back, made its return engagement, with new explanations and rules. They still got stickers as the immediate reward for taking a bath, using the potty, getting in PJs, brushing teeth. But once they'd earned three stickers in the STAY IN BED column -- proudly put in the chart each morning after doing so -- they'd get a reward. (We picked making gingerbread cookies on the weekend as the first reward). They got to each go to bed with something they wanted: for him, a toy airplane, for her, a pink stuffed dog AND her sleeping bag on the bed.

Though one of us stayed in the room for a while, listening to Thing 2 talk herself to sleep (a new comfort mechanism) and Thing 1 do endless take-offs and landings, eventually, by ten, both were out.

The next couple of nights had some setbacks, but no tantrums, no hyper giggle fits, and when there were nocturnal wanderings, the kids went back down after being quickly escorted back to bed.

Weekend naps are still proving problematic, but at least they took one today after being separated into two different rooms.

It's far from perfect. The war isn't won yet. But we know, and they do, that there will be no retreat. The binkies are gone.

Bleary-eyed, we continue ...

"But We Could Have Adopted NICE Children."

I realize my latest entries have been all sweetness and light. But it's the fourth day of a four-day holiday weekend, parents alone with the kids, who are being their relentless selves, and THE GLOVES ARE OFF.

Yesterday, I nearly lost my mind. Here's how it happened.

Took Thing 2 (my daughter) to the beach, which is one of the amazing things you can do if you live in Southern California and it's two days after Thanksgiving. Let her play in the sand to her heart's delight, getting pants, socks and feet thoroughly filthy. Brought her to the amusement pier, where she rode on the kiddie merry-go-rounds, then met up with Daddy and Thing 1 at the carousel. Let her ride the carousel four times. Even let her eat a tootsie roll.

She fell asleep on the way to the pizza restaurant, even though it was only a five-minute drive, and though she briefly rallied to inhale a slice and a half, our troubles began soon after.

She would not leave the restaurant. Daddy and Thing 1, who'd already gotten too restless to remain, had gone back to the car in a garage that was charging us by the minute to park. I had to carry her out. She flailed and protested. I set her down. She wanted to dawdle on a bench. I picked her up again -- already a mistake on my part, since I've been nursing a hernia since I was pregnant with twins. I set her down again in an attempt to get her to cross the street. Protests continued unabated. And on it went, the sturm and drang, the whining, the flailing, all across the street, into the lobby of the building where we'd parked. That's where I made the big tactical blunder.

I put my purse and the diaper bag into the waiting elevator and turned to pick up my daughter. She darted away and the elevator doors closed. My money and drivers' license and house and car keys all disappeared behind those closed doors.

I lost it. Screamed at Thing 2. Called her an idiot, which was not at all the right word for the situation and not a word with which her nearly four-year-old brain is familiar. Uttered some curses. And desperately rang every elevator button hoping for the return of my stuff.

In a few moments, the elevator returned, and the doors opened.

My stuff was gone.

Round two of yelling commenced.

Within seconds, Thing 2 turned into a blubbering mass of jelly. She was crying. She was also terrified that her mostly kind, occasionally irritated, but normally loving Late Blooming Mom had turned into a red-faced, foot-stomping, yelling and bad-word-saying toddler who just happens to be in her forties.

I grabbed her and took her in the elevator down to her Daddy, handing her off rapidly while quickly shouting a terse version of what had transpired. I stomped off to the woman running the parking booth, hoping against hope -- but not believing -- that my stuff would have been turned in.

I steamed and seethed on the brief elevator ride to the parking attendant. And there, just outside the elevator, near her booth, sat my purse and the diaper bag -- rescued by some good Samaritan. Everything was undisturbed.

I'd blown a gasket for nothing.

Well, not exactly nothing. My daughter had disobeyed every request in the last twenty-plus minutes, after I'd done nothing but let her do as she pleased all morning. And she'd risked getting my wallet and keys stolen, even though she doesn't yet understand about that risk.

It was a good thing Daddy drove the kids home.

She fell asleep on the ride home, since we were way late for naps. So did he. But both woke up in the dreaded transition from the car to their beds. She refused to sleep. Daddy sat with her in front of the TV. I wanted nothing more to do with her. But I couldn't get him back to sleep either. And the cat wanted me to nap with him. He was meowing incessantly, the third "child" in need of mom's attention.

I snapped all over again.

I told Late Blooming Dad I was going out, and didn't know when I'd return.

Spent the next two hours wandering around the neighborhood. Cried. Brooded. Felt ashamed. Felt pissed off. Tried hard to get it all out of my system. Tried to remind myself this life -- family life -- is the life I've wanted and longed for. But just felt trapped. Wanted to be anywhere but home.

By the time I wandered back home, Dad had things under control and was plotting to take them out to dinner to get them off my hands a little while longer. I decompressed for another hour or so.

Later, after Dad gave them baths, I was able to get them changed, teeth brushed, books read, and into their beds. Going down for the night was a challenge, especially for my daughter -- I'd apologized already for screaming at her, reassured her I loved her, lectured her on the need to do what mommy asks, but she still had questions about the incident. Mercifully, they both finally drifted off by about nine-thirty.

Then it was time for the debriefing, on the couch, with Dad.

As we went over the day's events -- Thing 1 had had his share of fits, it wasn't all on Thing 2 -- and talked out our anger and exhaustion, I found myself ruefully telling dad, "We could've adopted, you know. After the miscarriages, you were the one who was so adamant that I soldier on, so we could have our biological offspring. When all along, we could've adopted NICE children."

We both cracked up.

Then Dad pointed out we were three days into a four-day holiday weekend, and he fully expected it to be like this. "My thought when the holiday began was, let's just get through the next 96 hours and make it back to work on Monday," he said. I was the one who'd had dewy-eyed, sentimental expectations of a perfect family holiday weekend. I was the one who'd been the idiot.

Now I realized that all over America, families had hit the day-three wall of the four-day holiday, and there were probably short fuses and fit-throwing kids and screaming parents all over this land of ours. Why should our family be any different?

Thankfully, it's 2/3 of the way through Day Four, and things are going a lot better.
But as Yogi Berra says, it ain't over till it's over. Wish us luck.

The Yes Zone, Thanksgiving Edition

It's Thanksgiving Day, and I'm thankful for the good folks at the Los Angeles Auto Show for opening their doors today.

On a day when just about everything else is closed, save the local playground, I got to take both kids to a giant "yes" zone (which I've written about previously here: it means a place where your kids can pretty much do whatever they want without getting into danger or trouble, and you don't have to keep saying "no" to them).

Basically, the annual Auto Show is a few "ginormous" rooms lined in plush carpet, full of shiny, gleaming, brand spankin' new cars, most of which you -- and your kids -- can go inside. Thing 1 is already something of a car fanatic, thanks to his favorite movie, CARS. Thing 2 is game to go along where there are bright lights, pretty colors, and buttons to push. The Auto Show is jam-packed full of opportunities to clamber, climb, pretend to drive, and push buttons. They did it all, and even better, there was an unexpected bonus: they got to ride around in car-shaped strollers between the exhibit halls and the various cars on display.

There was one glitch with the bonus, however: even though we'd let Thing 1 and Thing 2 select their individual car strollers, about halfway through the experience, it was noticed that one had a safety belt to click and the other didn't. All hell broke loose as Thing 1 wanted to trade cars with Thing 2, since she had the safety belt in hers. Suddenly his red car wasn't nearly as appealing as her yellow car. He found scratches to object to, and then said his was dirty. He pitched a fit and demanded a switch. We tried negotiating a trade with Thing 2. She agreed to switch at the Ferrari exhibit, but only briefly. Soon Thing 1 pitched a fit again. Late Blooming Mom tried cranking out the "You get what you get, and you don't get upset" rule, to no avail. Dad got the contents of two yogurt "squeezers" into Thing 1 in the vain hope that nutrients would turn him more rational. But by then, trading with his sister was no longer his ardent desire. He'd spotted another stall full of car strollers, and was adamantly campaigning for a full trade-in.

Probably we should've stood our ground. But it's Thanksgiving Day, and we'd already had it marred by one fit. So Dad managed to cajole a trade-in, and suddenly Thing 1 was climbing into a new green car stroller. From there, it was on to the hybrids and electric cars, and lunch, which wasn't much of a lunch -- a few bites of overcooked burgers, raisin bran cereal from which Thing 1 insisted on eating only the raisins -- but at least, as Dad sarcastically pointed out, it was expensive. (Memo to self: don't be lazy, pack a lunch from home next time.) To get them out of the hall and back to our own, decidedly un-pimped but reliable ride (a ten-year-old Camry, for those curious), we divided a kid's sized portion of strawberry/vanilla swirled frozen yogurt into several smaller portions, and shared.

On balance, though, it was a great outing. The kids were thrilled. And save the stroller trade-in shenanigans, it must be said that a good time was had by all. Yay for the yes zone, once again.

Halloween At The Mall? Sounds Lame, But It Didn't Suck

Last year a neighbor of mine told me she was taking her toddlers to trick-or-treat at the local mall, rather than traipsing around our neighborhood in the dark.

I was skeptical of the whole idea. The mall is already a place we visit too much. And why skip the festively decorated houses on the blocks south of our condo building? (Condos, it must be noted, are rotten places to trick or treat -- they rarely have a critical mass of kids and enough apartment dwellers willing to open their doors and give out treats).

But then I realized, hey, my kids are afraid to go out in the dark, especially on a street filled with costumed people, most of whom are bigger than they are. They also tire quickly, and I'd be forced to carry them home or schlep around strollers, making it hard to hold their hands when crossing the street or just to keep a close watch on them. They're ready to trick or treat as early as four o'clock, yet in most neighborhoods, the fun isn't even getting started by then, as not enough people are home.

I wasn't sure what happened at a mall trick-or-treat, but I was willing to give it a shot.

Sadly, however, when Halloween rolled around last year, both kids were suffering from bad colds, and they'd barely made it through their preschool day. They'd heard about trick-or-treating from classmates, and were determined to do it, despite being tired, cranky, and probably breaking out in low-grade fevers. Only one was willing to don a costume -- Batman pajamas. Yet they wanted to know what all the Halloween fuss was about, and refused to go home until they got their dose of it. Since it was the first year they were actually cognizant of something called Halloween, and some vague notion of what it is, I felt I'd be a lousy mom if I didn't oblige them and satisfy their curiosity, at least a little.

So for about twenty-five minutes, I schlepped them to a mall where most stores had already run out of candy, having been over-run with costumed kids in the first hour the place began its Halloween festivities. I wound up having to go to a candy store in the mall and letting the kids pick their own candy. They were exhausted but at least they felt they hadn't totally missed out.

This year, I vowed it would be different.

I adjusted my work schedule so I could pick them up early from school. I got them to a bigger mall, about half an hour after the proceedings began, so there was still plenty of free candy to be had. And I managed to convince both kids to don costumes, with the explanation that if they wanted candy in their plastic Jack-O-Lantern buckets, they had to wear them. (They picked the costumes, though -- Lightning McQueen Pit Crew Member for Thing 1, Butterfly for Thing 2.) We met my neighbor and her kids, and we were off and running.

I gotta say, it was much more fun than I imagined, if frenetic. There's something very sweet about a three-level mall packed with roaming bands of costumed cuties, mostly under four feet in height. Whole families were dressed up, adults and kids included (I even spotted two grown-ups in Dr. Seuss Thing 1 and Thing 2 outfits, toting a kid wearing the hat from the Cat In The Hat). There were plentiful costumed babies -- a pea in a pod, a lion, a tiger, Superman (or should I say "Superbaby?"). My kids were admired and cooed at by twenty-something sales associates at various stores, all in costume and giving out candy from baskets and buckets. One, in a witch's hat and striped red and black tights, just couldn't get over my son's adorableness: his sweet, plaintive face looking up at her from under his red Pit Crew hat/headset combo, his wee little voice politely and softly intoning, "Twick or tweat?"

We took a couple of candy-eating breaks, and managed to cover all three levels of the mall in an hour. Thing 2 then decided there were too many "scary kids" with "white eyes" (ghost masks), and it was time to go. We drove back to our neighborhood, where quite a few houses had done it up for the season, and clutches of trick-or-treaters, led by parents, were wending their way through the area. But Thing 2, when invited to get out of the car and continue the candy acquisition, declared it was all too scary. So after a brief drive-by of a house with an inflatable witch tending an inflatable cauldron (the kids called her "Witchy-Poo because dad had dubbed her that in honor of Thing 2's witch hat worn on Thing 2's very first Halloween), it was home to dinner, a showing of IT'S THE GREAT PUMPKIN, CHARLIE BROWN from our DVD collection, and one more piece of candy before tooth-brushing.

All in all, it was a much more satisfying treat-or-treat experience than last year, and I didn't mind the mall so much. We didn't buy a thing while we were there -- which has got to be a first for us -- and for a couple of preschoolers who clearly aren't ready for the in-the-dark, house-to-house trolling for goodies, it proved a safe and relatively non-scary Halloween haven.

To Treat Or Not To Treat?

Late Blooming Mom is not a treat Nazi. But neither do I hand out sugary snacks regularly and indiscriminately. Still, sometimes it's hard to know just what the best treat policy is.

Growing up, I had a best friend whose mom kept their New York City apartment 100% treat-free. She cooked health foods when the health-food movement was just gaining steam and coming into the main stream. And she made her kids finish what was on their plates. She did the same to me when I was visiting, and I was a frequent sleep-over visitor.

I still recall trying hard to swallow those cottage-cheese-laced pancakes for breakfast.

But I also remember what happened when my best friend came over to MY house for a sleepover.

My mom, who in contrast to hers, viewed life as a banquet to be sampled every day, kept our house stocked with treats. There were Entemann's chocolate or white sugar frosted donuts, Sara Lee yellow cake with chocolate frosting, Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies, and perhaps most loved by my brother and myself, Drake's Cakes: Devil Dogs, Yodels, and Yankee Doodles.

This stuff was always around, and my best friend knew it. So when she came to visit, she binged. She gorged. She simply could not get enough.

This was in contrast to my brother and myself, who were routinely satisfied with a single donut and a glass of milk.

A binge to us was eating two Yankee Doodle cupcakes instead of one. They came three to a pack, and three were never finished in one sitting.

Though I shudder now to think how much trans fat and hydrogenated oils I consumed as a child, I do know I always ate my treats in moderation.

My best friend, by contrast, has a sweet tooth so strong that to this day, she has to police herself.

So the lesson I learned was that it's okay to give your kids a treat sometimes, and a lot better than making them verboten.

I'm a lot less generous with treats than my mom was, and I tend to buy or make fresh-baked goods that are trans-fat free and missing those evil hydrogenated oils. It's probably better for my kids that Drake's Cakes are unavailable on the West Coast, where we live. And I have my little tricks, like buying those very very small organic, trans-fat free chocolate chip cookies from Trader Joe's, so I can give my kids two, which seems like a lot to them, and still avoid having them eat something the size (and unhealthy composition) of a single Chips Ahoy cookie.

I know many pediatricians and nutritionists would still condemn me for giving them anything made with white flour and refined sugar. But I also know I'm instilling in them a sense of moderation while allowing them some pleasure in treats. I give them plenty of fruit, and try heroically to get them to eat some veggies, despite major resistance. I think their diet is pretty good. So a cookie or a mini-cupcake here or there is just fine with me.

But there's another side to this issue, and that's timing. I've discovered that when you give a treat can mean the difference between a relaxing evening or a jaw-clamping, foot-stomping, give-the-parent-a-time-out-before-he/she-blows night of bedtime battles.

I've let my kids have a scoop of ice cream or frozen yogurt at lunchtime, and amazingly, they go down for their afternoon nap the same as they do any other day.

I've let them have that ice cream or frozen yogurt post-nap, maybe four o'clock in the afternoon ... and by six-thirty, they still have plenty of room for dinner. They've also behaved in their normal way: fits interspersed with mostly pleasant play. That's life with three-and-half-year olds.

But serve them those same treats as dessert at dinnertime, and an evening of hell ensues.

Last night I was a whupped and exhausted working mom. I picked up my kids from preschool around ten after five, after managing to get my work in on deadline even though it was a bear of a project. I'd had no time to make dinner, so offered to take the kids out to one of their favorite restaurants, the Souplantation. I did this knowing full well that the biggest attraction there, after the pizza and the blueberry muffins and paper cups full of raisins, is the miniature ice cream cone.

I got down on the kids' level, looked them both in the eye, and solemnly made them promise that, if I let them have ice cream cones as dessert after dinner, they would promise to be helpful at bedtime. They both agreed.

But, to quote CASABLANCA, "We know what German promises have been worth in the past."

I made sure they each got plenty to eat before the ice cream. I made them reiterate their promises as they ate it.

And once we got home, at first, it seemed as if they remembered their promises. They got into the pajamas and got their teeth brushed, all supervised by dad (who took pity on my end-of-the-week, working mom exhausted self, and took over for a bit). We did puzzles, which we sometimes do as a change from reading stories before bed. Then we put on the wind-down music.

The kids went bonkers. They were literally bouncing off the walls, having giggle fits, running into one another, zig-zagging from bed to bed, and refusing to listen to any request that it was time to calm down, cuddle, and get into bed.

Dad wisely gave me a time-out when I started to lose it.

A few minutes later, we divided and conquered: I got Thing 2 to bed after some cuddling, while he went off to another room with Thing 1, who had been the most hyper and the true instigator. But it still took until well after nine o'clock before both kids were off to dreamland.

Lesson learned for this mom: no treats at dinnertime, no exceptions.

Except .... we have three families from school coming over for Rosh Hashanah dinner on Tuesday, and there will be honey cake and apples dipped in honey and apple pie, so this lesson is going right out the window that night. I mean, how much of an ogre would I be to deny the kids a traditional holiday treat?

I'm weak, I know it. And I'll have only myself to blame when they're impossible Tuesday night. I guess all I can do is bank on a tough bedtime that night, and put it down to starting the new year on a "sweet" note. I want my kids to remember the sweetness of a family holiday, and sweets are part of that. My guess is, one day we'll forget about the bedtime battle that inevitably followed after, but the sweets will be fondly remembered.

Why America Is Bad For Working Parents, Part II

I know I should be all patriotic and such on July 4th weekend.

And it's not that I don't love my country.

But sometimes it sucks for working parents, as I've said in this space before (see Why America Is Bad for Working Parents, on this blog a few months back.) The reason I'm revisiting it now is because of an article from July 5's New York Times about how the otherwise employee-friendly company GOOGLE has royally screwed up its corporate daycare (On Daycare, Google Makes A Rare Fumble).

GOOGLE used to offer its employees terrific on-site daycare, contracted out to a company that specialized in such things, for a reasonable though not bargain cost. But the waiting list became too long, and the geniuses at Google who think they do everything better than other companies, including entering businesses they know nothing about, dropped their daycare provider, built their own crazy-expensive facility, then passed on the cost to employees -- and cut that pesky waiting list way down -- by making tuition so pricey, only the richest employees can pay it. It costs more than most colleges' tuition to send a kid to Google's supposedly state-of-the-art daycare.

Now I know company-provided daycare centers are a perk in the U.S., not a right. But I also know American workers work damn hard -- often harder, for longer hours, than their non-U.S. counterparts. We get less vacation. We have less flex time, less comp time, less call-it-what-you-will, time to spend with our families when they need us (which sometimes happens during working day hours). So in my view, Google gets ZERO props for providing a daycare benefit the majority of its working parent employees can't afford and can't get their kids into.

I've endured my own backup childcare center loss at my company due to budget cuts, and been left scrambling many a time when the kids' preschool is closed but I have no vacation time left. It seems like working and having kids is made virtually incompatible by corporate America, and the American government is doing squat about it. Many companies -- and the government -- are sending a message. That message is, if you wanna raise kids, you can't work.

The problem is, raising kids costs money. I'm not necessarily talking private school money -- though the dearth of public preschools has pretty much made some years of private school education a must for most families who live in urban areas with high costs of living. Parents and kids also need access to healthcare plans, which are often only available through their jobs (just try and get decent health insurance on your own, I dare ya).

So this July 4th weekend, I'm mad as hell.

I count my blessings about living here everyday, but I also demand more from my country than the crappy deal working parents like me are getting. Many parents would give up part of their hard-earned salaries for a safe place to leave kids when school is closed -- or for flex time when they get sick, or to have the chance to pick them up from school an hour early occasionally and get quality time. But often, parents don't get that choice. Meanwhile, the heads of the big companies, who can afford nannies and exclusive private schools and the like for their kids, don't ever have to sweat it.

We all deserve better. (Think so too? Check out MomsRising.Org. At least what they're doing -- pushing for mandatory paid sick days and paid family leave in every state -- is a start.)

So happy fourth. Now let's go about the real business of being patriotic: forming a more perfect union, with flex time, more paid sick days, and paid family leave for all.

Beach Babies: What I Planned, And What Really Happened

So here it is, July Fourth, perhaps the biggest beach-going day of the year.

Late Blooming Mom had it all planned: we'd be out of the house, bathing suited and sun-screened, all supplies packed, by nine-thirty a.m.

We'd have a traffic-free drive up the Pacific Coast Highway to Paradise Cove, a private beach in Malibu with a beach-side restaurant, pier, and mild waves. We'd frolic in the sand, picnic under our beach umbrella, and make a lovely half-day of it, getting back for nap time.

This ain't what happened.

How did I ever fool myself into thinking I'd get my beach babies -- two cranky, difficult three-and-a-half years-olds -- out of the house on a national holiday in a reasonable amount of time? Thanks to the full-on fit Thing 2 threw when I asked her to take a pre-excursion shower to wash her nest of hair (she'd refused the bath or shower last night, in another full-on-fit), we lost precious time. Victory was mine eventually -- I got her hair washed -- but then Thing 1 didn't want to stop playing with his cars long enough to get into his swimsuit.

Dad -- who had gamely fed them breakfast while I showered - was in no mood to take a long drive up the coast, and insisted on a much closer beach destination. Out went the fancy beach. No matter, public Will Rogers beach was just far enough away from the holiday hordes in Santa Monica, even if they did charge us an exorbitant ten-dollar parking fee.

The traffic gods were with us, so by ten thirty or so, we'd plunked ourselves down on the sand, with way too much stuff scattered around us: sand toys, lunch food, a beach ball, umbrella, blanket, diaper bag loaded with the kids' spare clothes. It seemed like we'd taken half the house with us.

The kids alternated from delighted to cranky within mere seconds. There was the fight over the request to eat cookies before lunch (denied); the fight over whether or not the lunch packed would be eaten or snack bar would be resorted to (the packed lunch won eventually); the fight over the last peanut butter and jelly sandwich (Thing 2 insisted this morning she only wanted peanut butter, no jelly, but then changed her mind at the beach).

There was fear of the ocean to contend with: only mommy or daddy actually made it into the water, and then just to fill up the bucket to make a mini-lake for the toy boats we brought.

There was the trip to the restroom, chaperoned by daddy, who had to handle both kids at once because someone had to sit with all our stuff (mom), and both kids insisted on going potty at the same time.

There was the sand-throwing ("Don't do that again, how many times do I have to tell you?").

There was the inevitable meltdown upon leaving. Thing 1 insisted on being carried because the sand was getting onto his flip flops, even though mommy kept explaining and demonstrating that we wear flip flops to the beach instead of shoes so they CAN get sand on them. Thing 2 blew a gasket at having to wear her car seat seat belt because her underwear felt "squishy."

Then they both fell asleep by the time we pulled into the garage.

Dad, still grumpy -- he's missing a reunion of college pals on the east coast this weekend -- went off to do some grocery shopping, insisting he needed a break.

And me, I'm left blogging, and realizing the idyllic beach excursion I had in mind was doomed from the start.

Still, there were moments -- the ones I'll remember, since they're the ones I bothered to photograph -- that were sweet. The kids loved the beach, even if daddy wanted to be elsewhere, and mommy couldn't relax because she was playing referee.

One moment I didn't capture on film that I may remember nonetheless was when we were all heading back to the car. Daddy had to carry Thing 1, and I was hauling our gear while trying to safeguard Thing 2 through the parking lot. An older gent passing by looked at us and said to me, "No one said it was gonna be easy."

He got that right.

I'll just add this other truism, slightly modified: "Late Blooming Mom plans. God laughs."

The Holiday Weekend That Wasn't

I should've known.

I should've known, when I woke up the day before our long-planned, Memorial Day Weekend/Daddy's birthday holiday in Santa Barbara, and discovered I'd come down with pink eye, that the weekend wasn't going to go exactly as planned.

Foolishly, I maintained my optimism.

After a quick trip to the eye doctor, and the pharmacy (not quick -- is it ever?) to get some drops, I was still looking forward to a long, relaxing trip: quality family time, sunshine and yummy meals and a fluffy king-sized hotel bed.

But it was a long haul getting out the door the next morning. The kids were whiny. Daddy had to finish packing. Loading the car seemed to take forever. At the last minute, Daddy remembered the cat needed his medicine. The kids demanded bagels before we could get underway. And the skies were gray.

The car ride itself was uneventful, save occasional pockets of traffic.

But we still didn't manage to hit downtown Santa Barbara until nearly noon.

The kids were ancy after nearly two hours strapped to car seats. We stumbled out of the car onto a castle-themed playground I'd found on the web, Kid's World in Alameda Park. It was cold and threatening rain. But somehow that didn't dampen anybody's spirits, and after we'd zipped up our jackets, the kids ran happily amok.

The problem was, it was nearly lunchtime when we got there. And with three-year-olds, if you delay lunch, you do so at your peril. For a delayed lunch means a delayed nap ... and the onset of crankiness that can ruin the rest of the day.

After an hour at the playground, the kids were far from done. But it was well past their regular lunchtime. So we forced the issue, promising to return to the park later in the weekend. Then it was back in the car (after potty and some more negotiating) and over to a lunch restaurant where the food was beautifully displayed -- and way too accessible for little hands. The kids were grabby and insistent and impatient, and not at all ready to behave in what was clearly an adult foodie hangout. Daddy had the impossible job of wrangling them and stuffing their mouths with yogurt while Mommy waited in line to pay for what they were already consuming. The kids didn't understand why, after I'd paid, they couldn't just help themselves to more of that on-display food. They had to be bribed with the promise of a cookie in the car so we could get them out of the place without further ruining everybody else's lunch.

Then it was on to the hotel to check in. By now, we were perilously past the onset of naptime, and about to miss our window, beyond which overtiredness sets in, and getting the kids to sleep becomes impossible. Sure enough, the novelty of the pull-out couch bed, and the fun of putting their brand new sleeping bags atop it, kept them giggling and hyper and bouncing off the walls.

By this time, Late Blooming Mom's pink eye had progressed to pink eye with a full-blown cold -- runny nose and all -- and Daddy's patience was, well, well nigh exhausted. Mommy had to lie down and begged for a half-hour's peace. Daddy, realizing the kids were simply not going to settle down, grumpily took them on a walk around the hotel grounds.

When they returned, Daddy had gone from grumpy to furious. Mommy got up and coaxed the kids into actually laying down on the bed and being quiet. Then, at last -- at nearly five o'clock -- they fell asleep.

Which naturally meant dinner would be delayed (so much for our six-fifteen reservation), and the kids wouldn't get a long enough nap. We had to wake them to go out to eat, after pushing our reservation later, and only got them into the car after howls of protest and kicking, screaming fits.

Still I clung to the hope that, once pacified with pizza, the children would behave.

Dinner was a disaster.

Thing 1 insisted on sitting on Daddy's lap the entire time Daddy was trying to eat, as well as interrupting the meal frequently to be taken to the window to watch the man making the pizza. Thing 2 was briefly entertained by a new Color Wonder book and markers, but soon proved as restless as her brother.

The fun kicked into high gear when the pizza maker took a shine to Thing 2 and gave her a little ball of pizza dough ... which she promptly refused to share with Thing 1. After attempting to reason with her (my big mistake -- you can't reason with a sleep-deprived three-year-old who has been hyped up on pizza and stimulated by a total break with her usual routine), I finally resorted to taking away said pizza dough. The resulting howls caused every adult in the entire restaurant to glare at us, and pass summary judgment on our parenting skills.

Thing 2 was carried, screaming, all the way to the car, and Thing 1 followed in full-blown whining mode.

Getting them to bed was no easier.

Both were told they were ruining Daddy's birthday (tomorrow), and threatened with the prospect of being packing up and driven home first thing in the morning.

The threats didn't work. Neither did the yelling that followed the unheeded threats. Daddy finally lost it and left the room.

At long last -- maybe at 11 pm or so -- they finally succumbed to actual sleep.

Being able to shut the door and crawl into the king-sized (but too soft) bed was little consolation. Late Blooming Mom and about-to-turn-a-year-older Dad were in a state of extreme grumpiness. We didn't want to be with them, and we didn't want to be with each other.

Daddy's birthday dawned cold and gray again -- not exactly typical Santa Barbara weather. The bathing suits we brought, and the blow-up pool toys, sat unused -- and would remain so for the entire trip, despite our going to the trouble of paying for a hotel with a pool. The kids were irritable and fussy over breakfast. Thing 2 refused to have her hair brushed. Thing 1 refused to leave the room. By the time we dragged them to the famous annual street-painting festival (I MADDONARI) in front of the Mission, they were only mildly tolerable.

Thing 2 perked up considerably at the prospect of getting chalk and being allowed to decorate a square in the kids' area. But Thing 1 continued to be a pill, demanding his own square and chalk, then refusing to do anything with them except break the chalk.

Finally, promised a ride on the carousel, they lightened up and we managed to get them into the car. At the carousel, they relaxed: this was an environment they could understand. Though Thing 1 nearly managed to come unglued because he wanted to ride the horse Thing 2 had already chosen, once the ride got underway, the morning was salvaged.

Lunch at a beachside cafe was a little trying -- there was fighting over the Color Wonder markers, and Thing 1 insisted he didn't want the guacamole even as he shoved chips laden with it into his mouth. There were repeated, lengthy trips to the bathroom: now that they're out of diapers (except for nighttime), every restaurant bathroom is an amusement park. But after the meal, the kids got to play in the sand, and mommy and daddy got to collapse, weary and nearly out of juice, and just watch them.

That day, though it involved more coaxing and threats, they napped a little earlier.

They still got up to miss our five-thirty reservation at our favorite Santa Barbara restaurant. Getting them into the car to go there was another horrid chore, and we had to promise a trip to the bookstore (and prospect of buying new books) to pull it off.

But as we waited on the line to get into the restaurant, salvation arrived in the form of the blues guitarist and drummer who set up shop outside to entertain us. And the free buttermilk fried chicken pieces the restaurant distributed to us, on cute plastic sword skewers, helped too.

Dinner was a bit frantic, not the leisurely affair we'd enjoyed many times before in our pre-children days here. The kids tore through the basket of mini muffins on the table, but rejected nearly all of them after biting into them and then putting them back in the basket. But the food came fast (perhaps they took pity on us). We had to order the dark chocolate bread pudding souffle to go -- concealed in a bag -- so the kids wouldn't see it and demand sweets before bedtime.

Back at the hotel, bedtime at the hotel was yet another interminable struggle.

By the time they nodded off, Mommy and Daddy were again too grumpy to do much besides turn out the light and hope tomorrow might be better. The dark chocolate bread pudding souffle sat uneaten in the hotel fridge.

Miraculously, that morning was okay. The kids were their picky selves at moments during breakfast, but being allowed to watch some TV seemed to pacify them, and after we'd checked out, we found ourselves in real sunshine, for the first time on the trip. Too late to save our hopes for swimming, the sun at least made a long enough appearance to make for a pleasant morning at a beachside playground. We'd stopped first at a bakery/restaurant to get some sandwiches for a picnic, and treat the kids to a morning snack of fresh baked goods.

So they were well-fueled for playing, and we knew we wouldn't have to tear them away from the playground to go to a restaurant since we'd gotten the sandwiches. Free to climb and run and jump and get wet (the playground had a water feature), the kids were, well,PERFECT ANGELS.

Just in time for us to pile in the car and go home.

The Rails Are Off ... And Bedtime Is New Year's Eve

Way back around Thanksgiving, Thing 2 figured out how to climb out of her crib, though she managed to scrape herself while doing so. She proceeded to climb out several times a night, and so we figured it was time to take a rail off one side of her crib. And since Monkey See, Monkey Do seems to be the rule with twins, we figured we'd best do the same for Thing 1, even though he'd shown no signs of wanting to imitate her feat.

That very first night, it might as well have been New Year's Eve in the kids' room. They were up playing with toys every time we re-entered the room (having been alerted by the giggling) . We kept marching them back into bed and leaving.

Finally they slept ... but at three a.m., Thing 1 appeared at our bedside, proclaiming, "I'm all done sleeping. I want breakfast."

One of us -- I can't remember who, I'm too bleary-eyed at the memory of that night -- got up and marched Thing 1 back to bed.

The New Year's Eve thing seemed to die down after a couple of nights, but Thing 1's middle-of-the-night appearances at our bedside continued ... to the point when we decided enough was enough. Thing 2 was staying in her bed all night, having adjusted to the freedom of losing that rail. But Thing 1 was clearly not ready to be let loose from the crib.

Thing 1's rail went back up.

Thing 2 maintained her freedom.

In the ensuing weeks and months, Thing 2 routinely appeared at our bedside in the morning -- though thankfully never before six a.m., and frequently not until seven -- to inform us that Thing 1 was awake, needed a diaper change, and wanted his morning milk. She became her brother's keeper, and was quite insistent that his needs be met, since he could not get out of his crib himself to tell us what they were.

Then a week or two ago, Thing 1 began to climb out of his crib, and landed with a thud. Fearful of an injury, especially since Thing 1 has a tendency toward obliviousness to all danger -- we realized it was time for his rail to come down again.

Saturday night, Dad took off the rail, after we'd prepped Thing 1, explaining he was now ready for a Big Boy Bed, but the rule was, he had to stay in it after we put him in it at bedtime.

Saturday night was New Year's Eve all over again.

Thing 2 joined in the shenanigans, even though she's been staying in her bed for months. After repeated visits back to their room, to march them to bed, Late Blooming Mom wound up sitting in their room, back against the door, keeping a vigilant watch until they both fell asleep.

The second night -- a school night, which made getting to bed on time more important -- New Year's Eve returned. Toys were overturned, closets accessed, drawers rummaged through. Every book on the book shelf seemed to have landed in Thing 1's crib. And when I walked in on the two co-conspirators, one kid was standing up legs apart, the other was crawling underneath said legs, and both were in the midst of uncontrollable giggles. They gave me looks that said, "We know we're busted -- but it was sooooo worth it." I marched them to bed and did my mom cop act, sitting against the door till I heard snoring from each crib.

Realizing I couldn't keep this up, the next night, I wound up making repeat visits again, but it was only to guide Thing 1 back to bed. His sister, who'd failed to nap at school, had fallen into a deep sleep the moment her head hit the pillow. This mystified Thing 1, who kept complaining in a loud voice that his sister wasn't talking to him. I told him she was asleep and he'd better get to sleep too. The third time I came in to check on him, he was practically asleep, but sprawled face down on our folding futon beneath the crib, toys and books strewn everywhere about him.

The next night, we had a sitter.

The kids behaved like perfect angels and though the sitter had to pop back in once, briefly, that was the extent of the bedtime battle.

But then, the next night, New Year's Eve was back. Cop enforcement was necessary. Worse, Thing 1 showed up in our room at three a.m. requesting we help find his apparently lost binky.

Tonight, it's daddy who's doing the cop bit at the door.

Every morning that Thing 1 awakens without having gotten enough sleep, he's a whining, complaining, annoying pain, kvetching about everything. We explain to him that he's like this because he hasn't gotten enough sleep, and the reason for that is not staying in bed at bedtime, when we tell him to do so. But he's too cranky for the truth to penetrate his sleep-deprived mind. Several times, we've carried him kicking and screaming down to the car so he can go to preschool.

Tonight daddy threatened Thing 1 with putting the rail back up. But I don't want him to follow through on the threat because, as bad as the mornings are, as icky as playing cop can be, and as much as I long for the path of least resistance, I know Thing 1 has gotta work through this. He must learn that bedtime means bedtime, and he's got to get to the point where no parental cop need be present to enforce the rules. A real Big Boy bed isn't too far in his future. And we're planning some out of town trips this summer, which can only be accomplished if he can stay in a bed all night, since he's gotten too big for a port-a-crib.

We're gritting our teeth and carrying on as best we can, sleep-deprived and grumpy.
But I think I understand the meaning of the expression "off the rails" in a way I never have before. He's gone off the rails, and we can only keep firmly putting him back in bed until he figures out that Big Boys Stay In Bed, so that, god willing, their parents can too.

I Need A Holiday From The Holiday Weekend

Maybe it's a truism that holiday weekends are not holidays when you have kids ... but it nevertheless bears repeating over this holiday weekend.

In my pre-late blooming mom period, when I was single or dating or married sans kids, I couldn't wait for 3-day weekends. They felt so rich and luxurious. I could sleep in. I could fool around with my husband AND sleep in. I could go for a long bike ride on the beach, amble over to a farmer's market, cook a really spectacular meal, and still have time to see a movie or catch up on whatever Tivo had Tivo'd for us.

I'd end those weekends fully rested and blissed out.

Now I'm an adrenaline-addled stress puppy after just two days of minding the kids. Ferrying them from museums to birthday parties to pizza restaurants, coaxing them into the car and out of it, into the bathroom and out of it, I'm a teeth-gritting, one temper tantrum away from losing it, wreck.

And let's not even get into how long bedtime seems to take on these holiday weekends.

I know, I know, I wanted kids. Desperately, terribly, deep down in my heart and in my bones.

I just never thought a 3-day weekend would mean not having a second to myself. (Okay that's not entirely true. I'm sitting here blogging. But I didn't get to it until 9:40 p.m.).

Here it is, Sunday night of President's Day weekend, and I'm bracing for what's to come tomorrow. My husband actually has to work tomorrow, so it's me and the kids (and the in-laws, here for a visit ...who are helpful, but with twin toddlers -- a high maintenance combo if there ever was such a thing -- there's only so much you can impose on Grandma and Grandpa to do). Daddy has a full work day ahead of him ... and I can't help but envy him at least a little. Because it's got to be more relaxing than this ...

Here's to the resumption of the work week on Tuesday. Now that's something I never thought I'd say.