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

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.

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The Late Blooming Mom Delusion

I didn't plan on becoming a mom later in life.

But getting married at 37, and miscarrying a few times, sealed the deal.

Still, I thought sure there'd be all these advantages to my older mom status.

Already established in the working world, I had a career of sorts, with some earning potential, skills, pride in my abilities, and a professional identity. My own mom, who'd popped out both her babies before turning 30, never enjoyed those advantages.

I had more money than when I was in younger, and way more life experience. I counted on both of these things to stand me in good stead for later-in-life motherhood. In short, I expected to be a financially and professionally secure woman who also possessed the patience, maturity and wisdom that living as a grown-up for a good long while provides.

Man -- or in this case, woman -- plans, and God laughs.

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Late Blooming Parents Mean Late Blooming Grandparents

You don't plan to be a Late Blooming Mom or Dad, it just happens.

Soon after, you come to realize that, to paraphrase Joni Mitchell's BOTH SIDES NOW, something's lost, but something's gained.

Sure, you're getting to parent after establishing yourself in a profession, gaining some financial stability, and having attained the wisdom and maturity that come with being around 35-plus (or in my case, 40-plus) years.

But when it comes to grandparents, your kids may get short shrift. My kids got only one set of living grandparents. They're lucky that Grandma and Grandpa are way into them, and still healthy enough to enjoy them. But Grandma and Grandpa are also older than a lot of their peers' grandparents, and not quite as fit and nimble and game for babysitting as others. It's not their fault they can't bend and lift thirty-plus pound preschoolers, nor chase after them if they run into trouble. They can't wrestle a recalcitrant grandkid into a car seat, and they don't have the stamina to handle two of them alone for any length of time.

The other Grandparent problem that can come with being a Late Blooming Parent -- or any parent of this generation, I suppose -- is that many parents don't live in the same city or state as their elderly parents. This necessitates a lot of travel on somebody's, or even everybody's, part once the grandkids show up. Late Blooming Mom and Dad spend a big chunk of what little vacation time they have traveling east to make sure Thing 1 and Thing 2 get quality Grandparent time. Grandma and Grandpa make the trek west even more often, reciprocating more thanks to the freedom of being retired.

But the distance thing can be hard on everyone. This morning, Thing 1 and Thing 2 could not bring themselves to say goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa, who were scheduled to leave for the airport. Saying goodbye meant acknowledging that it'll be a while before they see the grandparents again, and when you're not quite four years old, your sense of time isn't exactly well-defined. They don't understand the difference between Monday and Tuesday, this week or next, let alone waiting months into next year before they get to see Grandma and Grandpa again.

Late Blooming Mom and Dad sometimes think about how nice it would be to live in the same state or city as the grandparents. But then we realize a host of reasons why we can't relocate -- jobs and the home we're paying off (who wants to sell in this market?) and the lives we've built here. We do the best we can, pooling the frequent flier miles and carting Thing 1 and Thing 2 across country when we can, hosting the grandparents here when they can come. It's never enough.

Still, there's something sweet about seeing the kids starting to remember their last trip to Grandma and Grandpa's house, anticipating the next one ... and speculating about the next time the folks will come visit us.

When I grew up, my living grandparents were a borough away -- Brooklyn -- and we went back and forth nearly every weekend. One grandma even slept over in my room on occasion, and babysat when she could. Going to visit grandparents was full of rituals. There were things I could play with that were found only at the grandparents' apartments. There was a recliner chair at Grandma Esther's, and she always gave me money to go across to the candy store and buy penny candy that they didn't seem to sell in Manhattan anymore. At Grandpa Bill and Grandma Ceil's, there was a high-rise view from which, if you craned your neck, you could sorta see Manhattan ... and there were dinners at Garguilio's, the kind of red sauce Italian place where every waiter looked and sounded like Billy Joel. When the grandparents came to Manhattan, there were crullers and chocolate blackout cake from Ebbinger's Bakery, and toasted, buttered raisin bread. Grandpa Bill used to swing me with both arms, in what he called "the grandpa swing." Grandma Ceil always tried to feed me, and had more cans of condensed milk and rolls of toilet paper in her house than she could ever need. She'd brush my hair one hundred strokes, and she was the only person who called Grandpa Bill "William."

I wonder what vivid memories of Grandma and Grandpa my kids are now acquiring on these visits. I know it's different when you don't see each other routinely, the way I did my grandparents. I just hope we're making the best of the situation, and for all the disadvantages of having Late Blooming Grandparents, the kids are getting what they should: hugs, kisses, and a sense of who they came from, at least from Dad's side of the family.

It's not ideal. But it's what we got.

Who Says We're Older Moms? Where I Live ... Not So Much

Yesterday I attended the Halloween picnic of my local parents-of-multiples club.

There were tons of new moms, and moms with two, three, four and almost five-year-old twins. Lots of us were over 35 when we gave birth.

I live on the west side of Los Angeles, a relatively affluent area, where multiples -- naturally occurring and "assisted" (in the parlance of the infertility world) -- are plentiful. Older moms are more likely to have twins than young moms, and then there are moms with fertility issues who are fortunate enough to be able to shoulder the expense of assisted reproduction. Our club has plenty of both.

My kids attend a private preschool, where nearly all the moms are at least over thirty, and many are my contemporaries.

And when I go to kid-friendly restaurants, local parks and museums, I often see moms who are clearly my peers.

I know this is far from the norm in many parts of the country. But I'm comforted to see I'm far from alone around here: I have plenty of moms with whom I can trade notes, compare war stories, and commiserate.

When I hang out with moms who were born AFTER 1973, I find that some of them can be more overwhelmed more easily; they seem equally exhausted, though they don't have age as an excuse; and they look to me for advice even if their kids are the same age as mine. It matters not that I've only been doing motherhood as long as they have. I'm older, therefore they figure I oughtta know what I'm doing. Either that, or being a mom of twins makes me a more seasoned veteran in their eyes.

In truth I'm plenty befuddled by motherhood at times, even though I deign to blog about it. Though I've obtained a wealth of information about it in a short but intense period of time, I'm still making rookie mistakes at each new phase.

But I do feel something I think many younger moms don't. I feel the days are simultaneously long -- when I'm tending to my kids' incessant needs and requests -- and ruthlessly short when I'm savoring the rare quiet moment snuggling with them before bed. I feel pressed for time and wanting to stretch out the good stuff -- the golden afternoons when the sun glints in their hair and a few strands fall just so over their foreheads, when they're in dad's arms, turned upside down and giggling with abandonment, when they're having earnest conversations in the bath about what kind of cake they want at their upcoming fourth birthday -- or just now, when their dad called me into their bedroom to show me what Thing 1 had done. He'd gotten up from bed and taken out every pull-up in the closet and arranged them in two arcs fanning out, sorted by the ones that feature Lightning McQueen and the ones that feature Lightning's pal Mater (characters in CARS). Sure I want the boy to go to sleep already, but his late-night mischief is cute and he knows it: he smiled through his binky as I came in to inspect his project.

I have a sense of the temporary, the ephemeral, the way it's all slipping by so fast -- and feel a lot less fresh and immortal than my younger mom pals.

Here on the west side of L.A., there are a lot of us dragging our feet trying to slow down the gears of the "circle game," as Joni Mitchell called it. We're late blooming moms, and that means we feel that carousel going round a little faster than others. Sure, I was impatient for Thing 1 and Thing 2 to be toilet-trained, and I long for the day they'll give up the binkies already. But yet ... not so fast, please. I like the ride and I'm far from ready to get off.

Mammograms For Mommies

I'm heaving a sigh of relief today.

Had my yearly mammogram.

Passed.

I've had several of these since becoming a Late Blooming Mom, and even a few before that. Now it's become a yearly ritual moms in my age bracket have to endure. It's nerve-wracking each time.

Today went great. So did last year. But about nine months after my kids were born, I had a "suspicious" mammogram, and soon after, underwent surgery to remove the "suspicious" "chunklet" -- that's what my surgeon called it -- of me.

Days went by before the results came in.

The results were just fine.

Waiting for them sucked.

Nobody wants the threat of cancer hanging over their head. Worse, though, is having to actually deal with it -- like family members of mine, and friends and colleagues and colleagues' wives, have done.

The good news about doing yearly mammogram screenings, according to the radiologist who reads my films (actually digital pictures these days), is that when they do catch stuff, they can catch it early. Early screening means early treatment, and that means a lot of women, will survive and thrive.

For late blooming moms, who've already lived long enough to realize the preciousness of our numbered days, early screening can mean being around to enjoy seeing those kids grow up and maybe even have families of their own.

It's the fear of not being around that grips us when we go in for those yearly screenings, the fear we try hard to push to the back of our minds, or to forget about, conveniently cultivating our amnesia about it.

So just at this moment I'm pausing to be grateful for passing my mammogram, and to wish that all my fellow late blooming moms get the same happy verdict this year, and for all their mammogram years to come.

I send good thoughts to all those who are dealing with the consequences of breast cancer, wishing successful treatment and strength while undergoing it. I'm picturing you in the warm embrace of those children who came into your life later than most, and whose love you so richly deserve.

To imagine life without breast cancer -- and how you can help make that happen, visit Susan G. Komen For the Cure.

Working Mom Guilt

Like a lot of Late Blooming Moms, I was established in the working world before I had my kids.

I thought briefly about becoming a stay-at-home mom when I found out I would be having twins, but I know myself well enough to know I'd go crazy if I didn't have at least some kind of professional existence outside of mom-and-wife-hood. I also knew my husband and I would need the money; where we live ain't cheap. So there wasn't really a choice to be made, short of moving to some small hamlet where housing is inexpensive, we wouldn't know anyone, and as confirmed city mice, we'd have trouble adjusting.

Even though I briefly considered this option -- and sometimes I still do, when I get a look at our monthly mortgage payment -- there are other reasons I stuck with the plan to go back to work. I'd had friends who'd been working women grapple with being at home with just one baby, only to find they longed for the validation of other adults, the mental challenge of interesting work, and the independence that comes from earning a paycheck. One mom complained to me that she'd go to a dinner party and as soon as she told the person making conversation with her that she was a stay-at-home mom, that person's eyes glazed over ... and then the person inevitably focused on her software-executive spouse, and ignored her the rest of the night. It was just assumed she had nothing worthwhile to say. Of course that was ridiculous, but she felt stigmatized, as a former professional (with an MBA to her name) now deemed not worth dinner table conversation.

I took a six-month leave of absence when my babies arrived, and surprisingly, I didn't go crazy. I felt fortunate to have time to get to know them -- and get some experience and confidence at mothering -- before I resumed work. And when I did, I was able to work three days from home, two at the office, which afforded me the chance, once the kids hit the nine-month-mark, to use lunch hour a couple of times a week to take them to music and gym classes, accompanied by a nanny who proved an invaluable help (though of course an added expense).

I had some guilt then about not being around for every diaper change, every bottle, every nap, every minute of the day when some developmental milestone might occur. But babies are extremely high-maintenance, and I gotta admit, I was also relieved at times not to be on duty at home all the time. About a year later, I shifted to working at home nearly all the time, save for a meeting every week or two back at the office. I missed my colleagues and the social interaction, but it sure made it easier to see more of the kids: I bid them goodbye when the nanny took them to the park, greeted them with hugs and kisses on their return, helped put them down for nap, visited them briefly during afternoon snack, and kept up the lunch-hour toddler classes a couple of times a week. Best of all, I had no commute and was right there when the work day ended. I was far luckier than most working moms because I did, in fact, see my kids part of the day.

I still felt guilty, but if work was slow, I was as likely to take a much-needed nap as to spend it with the kids. Slowly, though, my guilt began to grow. And now that the kids are in a full-day preschool, my guilt is great.

Knowing I have to work to help pay the bills doesn't really help. It only contributes to the feeling that I'm in a bind, a bind of my own (and my husband's) making: we chose to live here and do the kind of work we do, and make our lives far from extended family, where we have to pay for all the help we get.

Thankfully, the kids love preschool, and though parting is still tough in the morning -- separation and transitions are difficult for most preschoolers, my kids included -- they have a great time most days. When I show up, they are thrilled to see me, but I often have to coax them from the school, which is filled with stimulating toys and craft projects, boasts an elaborate outdoor play yard with a huge sandbox, a play structure, water tables, and all manner of outdoor toys and activities. Teachers are warm and don't hesitate to administer hugs. The kids' vocabulary has expanded exponentially, and their social skills, while in constant need of refining, are getting a lot of practice.

Still, there is guilt. Lots of kids get picked up earlier in the day than mine, and go to play dates at the park or other classmates' homes. Sometimes they just go home and enjoy being in their own space. My kids don't get nearly as much time at home as some of their counterparts, who leave at noon or three. And on some days, it takes a toll on all of us. If they're slow leaving school due to potty breaks, changing out of wet clothes, or an inclination to dawdle, we get caught in traffic and limp home by six, when I've got maybe half an hour to get some dinner on the table if we're to have baths or showers and all our bedtime rituals. And the kids are hyper from the ride and the carb-laden snacks I've had to give them in the car to keep them occupied. Plus they've had to hold it together emotionally to be without mommy or daddy for many hours, and they've been out of the cozy comfort zone of their own space.

Some evenings, they act out a lot; or they're cranky, whiny and tired. Probably the same is true of their peers who get home earlier, but I can't say as I don't see those kids. All I know is, the rare day when work is slow or I've managed to work ahead, I can pick them up a bit early, and they seem calmer, more rested, better behaved. They give me a little time to breathe when we get home, and I can spend some time with them before I turn into short-order cook, and start barking at them to eat, wash, change into PJs, etc.

Though I value my work, I miss being with the kids. They're only going to be this small once, and as a late blooming mom in her fourth decade, I ain't likely to have more babies.

Naturally, I overcompensate: I know I give them too many treats, trinkets, trips to restaurants, etc. I make sure there are plenty of hugs and kisses when I'm with them, and I devote nearly every minute of every weekend to them save when I'm asleep. Every couple of weeks or so, I'm lucky enough to have a babysitter for the night. But the latter circumstance brings on more guilt. Okay, not so much that I don't leave the house. Mommy and daddy need date night or mommy and daddy will be as impossible as a couple of whining toddlers. But the guilt is there, nonetheless -- especially if we've left one of the kids crying because they don't want mommy and daddy to go.

I don't know what the solution is, aside from a wholesale revision of our lives. And I don't have quite enough guilt to try to puzzle out how, exactly, we could make that happen, and make do somewhere else, with far less. My job isn't part-time, and we couldn't make do on a part-time income.

So I soldier on, a working mom, hoping the example I'm setting, as a woman who earns her keep via her expertise, will be a good one for my daughter, and will make my son realize that when he gets married, some day, his wife is entitled to a working life too.

My own mom was stay-at-home for many years, then went back to work, but always had a series of jobs, not a career. This bothered her. She was capable of much more than she was able to accomplish in the working world. I don't think she regretted the years she spent at home. But at the same time, she felt she missed out. It's some consolation that I won't have that regret.

But the guilt is there every day. Oh, to be like daddy, who blithely goes off to work without giving it a second thought. Thanks, society, for making expectations so different for men and women, even in this day and age. Or should I ascribe it to nature? The daddy gene is, surely, a bit different than the mommy gene.

All I know is, I hope I'm not doing motherhood half-assed. I console myself, like many a working late blooming mom, with the thought that I'm doing the best I can, given the circumstances. I suspect, even if I was staying at home, I'd find some other aspect of my mothering to make me feel guilty.

Hey, we gotta give them SOMETHING to go to therapy about in twenty years, don't we?

The Beast In The House

A few years back, a book called THE BITCH IN THE HOUSE was all the sensation. Some very smart, articulate women, single, married, and married with kids, admitted they're angry a lot -- and some of the moms were angry at the neediness of their preschoolers.

Count me in.

I say that knowing full well that being needy is the normal state of being for preschoolers for chunks of every day.

I say that knowing I'm not supposed to be angry because I should just accept the reality of the situation.

But the thing is, when one of my three-and-half year-olds is angry, that kid does not accept the reality of the situation and deal. That kid throws a fit.

Sometimes that fit goes on for twenty-friggin' minutes. Twenty eternal minutes so loud they hurt your eardrums and fracture your very last nerve.

Maybe other moms who are more resilient, or more patient, or past caring, don't mind so much.

But when the precious little free time I have at the end of a work day and school day has been eroded to a sliver before my own bedtime because I've been dealing with a screaming, whining, kicking, thoroughly self-absorbed and stubborn little beast in the house, then I admit it: I am the bitch in the house.

I know getting angry about it makes ME the child, especially when I'm supposed to be modeling good behavior and showing the kids how to handle anger.

But aren't I entitled to throwing a fit of my own now and then?

Preschoolers can be the sweetest angels on earth. But let's face it, they're also beasts. Sometimes they switch from angelic to beastly in mere seconds -- it's as if they have personality A.D.D.

When it happens, I do well sometimes: I'm patient and wait it out. I ignore. Or I leave the room till I can calm down. Sometimes.

But every once in a while, the inner bitch comes out, and self-control, well, that goes out the window.

So Yo, Bitches -- I Be One Wit' You. This is a tough job, and sometimes the only remedy we have is to, well, bitch about it.

Happy Birthday, In Vitro Baby

Louise Brown, the world's first in vitro baby, turned 30 today. According to New York Times journalist Peggy Orenstein, she's married, lives in Bristol, England, and has a naturally conceived toddler of her own (you can read Peggy's musings on I.V.F. here). She's living a normal, ordinary existence, having a life and a family, and that's as wonderful in its own way as her extraordinary conception was.

Before I say anything else to mark this occasion, first of all, to Louise: You go, girl.

For all those parents who have struggled with infertility, and those who aren't yet parents, but desperately want to be, I remind you today of Louise, who gave her parents a very happy ending.

I.V.F., for many, means hope.

It doesn't always work; in fact, it takes even those who are lucky enough to conceive with it an average of three tries -- tries that are costly financially, physically, and emotionally. But those parents are still the lucky ones compared to those who've tried and tried and had no luck with it.

Peggy Orenstein's article goes into various ethical questions swirling around how I.V.F. is currently administered in the U.S. I'm not going to address those.

But I do want to say thanks to I.V.F.'s pioneers and its current, compassionate practitioners for giving hope -- and putting thousands and thousands of lovingly welcomed bundles of joy -- into the hands of so many who wanted to give love so much they've been willing to try something that was brand-new just thirty years ago.

For later-in-life moms, I.V.F. can mean the difference between having a kid or having no kid. To a generation of women including many who put off having children for a long time, taking time to find themselves, make careers, or wander through years of unlucky relationships until they found the right partner, I.V.F. has made family life possible.

"In Vitro" translates as "in glass," because the eggs are fertilized by sperm and left to grow for a few days in a glass dish in the laboratory. I think there's something marvelous about this method: it allows us to see the miracle of the cells dividing, a process that would otherwise take place deep inside a woman, and lost from view. While you'd think letting it all happen out in the open would demystify the miracle of creation, in fact, if you've ever seen photos or film of cells dividing at this part of the process, the effect is the opposite. It invites you to marvel at the wonder that is human biology, in its elemental form.

To those who thought. 3o years ago, that the sky would fall in, thanks to what they thought a hubristic act of meddling with nature, I say, hey, look: all that happened was a bunch of very, very wanted kids were born ... and continue to be.

Ain't nuthin' wrong with that.
Happy Birthday, Louise.

One Kid Is A Hobby

Let the flack begin.

I say it anyway.

Parents who have an only child are just playin' at it.

Last week when I was lunching with another Late Blooming Mom who has two kids under the age of five, we started talking about how two kids are way, way, way harder to manage than one. We compared notes about how when we're out and about with just one of our children, we feel like we're on vacation. We figure it's because a kid who gets one-on-one parental attention doesn't feel the need to act out to compete with his or her sibling for that same attention. We also know that it's much easier for us to be patient, understanding, and more easy-going with just one kid in tow.

Those trips to the restroom are a walk in the park compared to the usual chaos that ensues with two. Keeping one kid entertained at a restaurant is easy peasy. Keeping track of one kid running around a large, crowded playground couldn't be simpler. My friend was actually able to shop for a new dress to attend a wedding, even though she had her two-and-a-half year-old with her (she found her daughter some beads to play with and all was peace and harmony).

Another friend, when she just had one kid, used to marvel at how I managed to be so organized (always bringing food to snack on, water to drink, plenty of diapers, wipes, and extra clothes). In truth, I was in survival mode. I would've packed enough for an Everest expedition if it could avoid a potential meltdown. My friend was then contemplating having a second kid, and mentioned to me what her mother had told her in Korean-accented English: "One child like no child."

Before I get lots of hate email, I admit that's a huge exaggeration: any mom or dad who's had to stay up into the wee hours and calm a fussy, colicky baby on very little sleep, or wear down a strong-willed toddler having a kicking, screaming fit, knows just how challenging parenthood can be, even with one child.

But there are some crucial differences once the ratio of kids to adults changes: for one thing, it's way way harder for a parent to get a break. Watching over two kids close in age -- or in Late Blooming Mom's case, watching twins -- for more than two or three hours without anyone else to help can wear a parent down much faster. Trying to get two or more in bed reasonably close to whatever you've designated as official "bedtime" -- after baths and tooth-brushing and PJs and bedtime stories and yet another drink of water -- is akin to herding cats.

Moms and dads of more than one simply have to trade off for brief periods, so they each get a break and some totally kid-free time, or at the very least, they must divide and conquer. In our house, we try to do that at least once a week: mommy takes a kid somewhere on an "adventure," and daddy does the same. If we didn't, we'd be grumpy, irritable, obnoxious, short-fused, and generally impossible to live with. Basically, we'd turn into toddlers. And we've already got enough of those around here.

So yes, I think one kid -- at least compared to two -- is just a hobby.

Then again, I remember when friends of mine who already had a toddler then had twins. They informed us their strategy became what's known in basketball as the zone defense, since man-on-man was no longer possible. I wonder if they think I'm the one -- even with multiples -- who's merely got a kid hobby.

I think of my grandmother, who grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and then Brooklyn, in a small apartment, one of eight kids. They shared beds and slept in shifts. Though my grandmother was Jewish, she sometimes attended Catholic mass with her Irish friends: anything to get out of the house.

All I can say to those of you who've already got two, and are contemplating having more, is this: are you so sure you're ready to be outnumbered?

It's Mother's Day: Call Your Mom. I Sure Wish I Could Call Mine.

Those words aren't mine -- believe it or not, they were uttered by football coach Bear Bryant (New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman tells the story of how Bear came to say them in this Sunday's edition). But I heartily echo the sentiment.

My mom's been physically gone from the world since November of 1992. But among all the cliches about loss, I've found this one particularly true: there isn't a day that goes by when I don't think about her.

Friday I went to the kids' preschool for a special mother's day shabbat, and they presented me with the gifts -- wooden jewelry boxes they'd decorated, and mother's day cards made with their teachers' help. But what really touched me was that I was there with all these other moms, that I had finally joined this amazing sorority and that I had something deep and profound in common with them all: the experience of motherhood.

I wish I could share it with my own mom, but at least I've joined the sisterhood, and it's given me an appreciation for all she did for me -- from making those cream cheese and radish sandwiches I took to school for lunch to schlepping me through Lord and Taylor's and Bloomie's and Macy's every year for clothes while putting up with my refusal to try on anything that wasn't Tomboy-ish, to sitting with me at the Macy's lunch counter after, and teaching me about the small pleasures of a sandwich and a milkshake.

My mom was opinionated, brash, pushy, even intrusive at times. But she was witty, provocative, a great party-giver and a party guest unafraid to get a little drunk and pretend she was the bouncer (she once demanded an incoming party guest say who he was, even though he was the former Governor of NY; when he said his name, she said, "Oh, right, I voted for you," and let him pass). She was a voracious reader with an insatiable intellect. And though she could be hypercritical and harsh, when she caressed my cheek with her hand or hugged me tight, I felt safe and enveloped in warmth and a bottomless font of mother love.

Now I know a little about just how much you have to put up with when you're a mom.
And also about how indescribably blissful it is to see your children smile and hear them bust up laughing.

The other week I burned myself cooking. Since then, my daughter has made a point, every day, of kissing me "on the burn" to make it better.

My mom may be gone, but my daughter has found a way -- without knowing -- to make my hurt from that loss just a wee bit better. And the best part is, that part of her that wants to make me better is a part I recognize: it was part of my mom. Years before I became a mom, my mom taught me how to be one. Maybe I'm starting to teach my daughter.

Hollywood Takes Notice: Here They Come, The Late Blooming Mom Movies!

This weekend brings the opening of not one but two -- count 'em, two -- whole movies centered around women who want to -- or inadvertently become -- late-blooming moms. Given that the movie industry (in which I'm a tiny cog, part of a giant movie machine) has been largely blind to the phenomenon of women becoming later in life mothers, this is cause for rejoicing. Now let's hope they're actually good.

My money's on Tina Fey and Amy Poehler's BABY MAMA to deliver on its promise. It's a comedy about a 37-year-old career women with a tilted uterus that means she can't get pregnant ... so she hires another woman to carry her baby. Early reviews have been good, and word has it this channels the spirit of the classic Neil Simon play and movie THE ODD COUPLE, with a gender-bending twist, and a more contemporary spirit. Supposedly Fey's character is not some cold-hearted, ambitious to the point of being a bitch career gal, but rather a much more realistic, warm and hard-working gal who is bumping up against infertility, and is smart enough and financially able to do something about it. This being a movie, I understand she also gets some romance in the form of Greg Kinnear. Apparently Sigourney Weaver is spot-on funny as the head of the surrogate pregnancy firm that puts the leads together, and Steve Martin does a hysterical star turn as the head of a crunchy granola food company where Fey works. John Hodgeman, egghead of THE DAILY SHOW, is the ob/gyn.

BABY MAMA is high on my want-to-see list, mostly because it sounds funny, but also because it's a high profile movie dealing with things like infertility, juggling career and the desire for mom-hood, and the fact that a lot of us don't come to mom-hood until after 35. It's about time we had a movie of our own. I don't guarantee it'll be good since I haven't seen it, but I hope it'll generate enough box office to convince the industry it's time for more movies with 35+ female leads and dealing with real issues. Check out the trailer for BABY MAMA here.

The other movie dealing with the later-in-life longing for mom-hood is THEN SHE FOUND ME, starring -- and directed by -- Helen Hunt, who was funny and endearing on TV's MAD ABOUT YOU, but has been kinda brittle and hard to take in the movies. She seems a bit warmer this time in the trailer (let's hope it's true in the whole film). Apparently in this movie, based on a novel by Elinor Lipman (a popular chick lit author), she plays a teacher left by her immature husband (played by MATTHEW BRODERICK), only to wind up pregnant by him when he briefly comes back, only by the time she realizes it, she's fallen for an irresistible single dad (COLIN FIRTH), whose kid she teaches. She's also adopted, and finds out her real mom is an advice-giving talk show host (played by BETTE MIDLER). I gotta admit, the supporting players are the bigger draw for me here -- who doesn't wanna fall in love with Colin Firth or hear Bette Midler be a brassy talk show host? Check out the trailer for THEN SHE FOUND ME here.

Full disclosure: I don't work for the companies behind EITHER of these movies, and had nothing to do with them professionally. I'm just a Late Blooming Mom happy that Hollywood has finally taken notice of us, at last.

The Blessing Of A Little "Me" Time

When you're a late blooming mom, as much as you adore your kids and are thankful for having them, you also have moments when you long for those pre-kid days.

I miss those long, leisurely Saturdays, when my husband and I would sleep in, curl up reading the paper in bed (or do other things best done in bed ... you get the idea) ... and then go out for a hot breakfast somebody else had to cook and clean up. Then there were the those days when I'd bid the husband a happy "see ya later" and amble out the door for a bike ride up and down the beach, without worrying about when I'd be back. Saturday night, we could eat at a civilized, grown-up restaurant, and linger over dessert. We didn't have to wolf down our food to get out before the toddler restaurant clock went off because somebody couldn't stand to sit still another second, or leave half the food behind unfinished, let alone leave a hefty tip to clean up the mess we left. We could hit a late movie or hit a bookstore before it closed, go our separate ways inside it and browse to our heart's content, then reunite to drive home and snuggle back into bed.

Of course it's still possible to do some of those things, if we've got an available babysitter.

But the stuff I did all by myself -- like that leisurely bike ride -- has pretty much gone by the wayside. So have the hour-long catch-up phone calls to friends on the other coast; the afternoons spent shopping for clothes or shoes or kitchen equipment; the ambling Sunday morning visits to farmers' markets where I could bum around sampling the produce, and planning that night's dinner based on what looked good. Reading for pleasure has been reduced to ten minutes in bed before turning out the light. And God forbid I need to make time to get a haircut.

I think late blooming moms miss this kind of "me" time more than younger moms, because we had more of it, and we had it for more years. "Me" time is largely a relic of our pre-mom pasts. Damn, damn, damn, damn -- to paraphrase MY FAIR LADY lyricist Alan Jay Lerner -- we'd grown accustomed to its face. Or more precisely, to its place -- in our daily lives, and especially our weekends.

Of course, some late blooming moms manage to squeeze it in. It's easier if they have just one kid, so they can palm off the childcare on dad sometimes, or trade shifts. But when you've got two, this becomes a bit more problematic. And if they're both toddlers, like we have, then it's rare that dad -- or late blooming mom, for that matter -- is willing to take them on solo for more than a very short time or manageable excursion. (With two three year-olds, often even the grocery store is not a manageable excursion.)

But late this afternoon -- bliss! Dad decided, of his own accord, to take Thing 1 AND Thing 2 out for an hour or so, letting Late Blooming Mom do one of the things I do in my now precious slack time: blog. (Mind you, the temptation to do something useful with this time, like sort their books and hide those we can give up to a friend's baby, is great: just because I have slack time doesn't mean I stop being a Virgo. But I'm going to resist.) After blogging, I might just call a friend from college, back east ... take a bath ... read a book ... or luxuriate in the late afternoon sun with the cat on the bed.

Of course I have to keep an ear tuned to the phone, just in case Dad needs a rescue. He's taken the kids to what they refer to as The Pillow Store, known to the rest of us as Bed, Bath And Beyond, to buy new plastic cups for juice, since their old ones cracked ... and to observe the wonder that is the shopping cart escalator, which takes your shopping cart up or down alongside you on the escalator. (They could probably get away with charging parents of toddlers admission just to witness this mesmerizing phenomenon.)

But for the moment, it's oddly, beautifully quiet at home, a Zen-like bubble of peace and tranquility, and a reminder of those days when "me" time wasn't a luxury, but a regular part of the day.

Of course, I recognize that the reason I'm able to appreciate the quiet so much -- in a way I never could before -- is that later, the house is going to be filled with the sometimes happy, sometimes chaotic noise of family life: giggles and whines, cries of protest, bursts of laughter, and later, tiny snores.

But for now, here's to me, doing nothing but hanging out ... with me.

Late Blooming Idiots Make The New York Times

I'd like to be smug and say late blooming parents make better parents. But in a recent New York Times article entitled "Parent Shock: Children Are Not Decor," some late blooming parents prove positively idiotic.

I'm not going to name names -- I don't have to, the parents in question are named in the article -- but I am going to take issue with their particular brand of parental idiocy.

See, a lot of us got married later and had kids later, and in between the two events, we made some money and bought some nice furniture. Some of us know bloody well it's going to get trashed when we have kids, and -- news flash -- some of us could care less. You don't have to be a parent to figure out why. I think back to a remark by a childless colleague of mine who dotes on her cat, and can't understand why people complain when a cat scratches the sofa leg. She said, "I'd rather have cats than furniture."

But apparently not the bozo parents mentioned in this New York Times piece. Take the couple who went ahead with putting up silk Shantung draperies in their son's bedroom, which he wound up smearing with yogurt. What did they expect? They also kept their molded wood chairs that are so sleek, he slides off them.

I hope they enjoy the trip to the emergency room they're eventually going to make.

Then there's the couple who whine about the loss of their Park Avenue apartment's formal dining room, now a play room for their twins. Who in blazes uses a formal dining room in this day and age, anyway? Nancy Reagan?

Another complains about how they ordered a cherry dining table from France -- and their daughter promptly used a pen to carve her name into it. I love France -- cue the hate mail from Republicans -- but come on, do we not have perfectly nice tables here? That don't require trans-Atlantic delivery charges? And won't cost so much you'll throw a fit when a kid does what a kid is bound to do to it?

Don't even get me started on the numbskull mom who refused to babyproof her furniture because things like safety corners on coffee tables are "just gross," and has never installed railings on the open side of their "floating walnut staircase"" because "we couldn't bear it. It was too ugly." Yeah, okay, she says she trained her kids to hold the handrail and no one has fallen off. Lady, you got lucky. If my son visited your house, it'd end in a lawsuit. And it's not because he's not trained to use stairs. Normal stairs. With a frickin' railing.

Look, I love nice things too. Hell, even when I had a rental apartment, I got upset when a friend's girls came for Passover and ground flourless chocolate cake into the carpet. But when their mom told me, after I got upset, that "Kids are messy," I had to admit her point. And dinner was more fun with them than it would've been otherwise.

I have some nice stuff I've trained my kids not to abuse -- the coffee table with the glass insert, for example. But I don't fill my condo with safety hazards. I've got white bars on the windows of two rooms -- the kids' bedroom and the family room -- that have very low sills. Do the windows look beautiful? No. But my kids are not going to fall out of them, either. That's a trade-off with which I can live. And here's a newsflash to the parent who hates the babyproofing stuff: when the kids are old enough to know better, you put it away. Have you so little patience you can't stand a cushion around your coffee table for a few short years? Who is the real child in your house?

As for spending big bucks on collector's item furniture, there's no need to when you can get perfectly good imitations of high end designer stuff. We live in a world where there's actually nice stuff at Ikea ... where you can upgrade to lovely items from Crate and Barrel, go up the price chain further to Design Within Reach or Room and Board. You can have really tasteful, even beautiful decor, and if your kids stain it or break it, you can replace it for less than the shipping charges for that table from France.

You can live nicely without your family room looking like Barney just moved in. Our family room is decorated with vintage movie posters. Our kids haven't complained. (And by the way, the posters are framed behind plexiglass, so we don't worry about errant crayons.)

So here's a tip for the late blooming parents who are making the rest of us look bad in The New York Times: ultrasuede comes in some really pretty patterns and shades these days. And when the kids spill juice all over it ... it comes right up. If you won't give in to the ultrasuede because you just have to have a white silk couch ... well, when that spill happens (and it will) ... DEAL WITH IT!

What I Had In Mind

The other day, after telling someone the latest saga in the ongoing battle of the car seat (the one my daughter refuses to get in with exasperating frequency), I heard myself saying, "This is not what I had in mind when I dreamed of having kids."

But happily, the other night, I had a reminder of what I did have in mind.

I was giving the kids a bath and they started objecting to the recently installed shower head with the hose attachment -- the one that makes rinsing the shampoo out of their hair and the soap off their skin pain free for the bath-giver. "I don't like the shower," "It's scary," etc. they proclaimed.

Inspiration struck.

I put the shower head under the water and made a fountain.

The first giggles began.

Soon I'd turned the shower head and hose over to one kid, then the other in turn.

The joy and laughter that came from the simple fun of hosing each other off, giving each other water massages on their feet, spraying water all over the bath (thank goodness for the shower doors) was infectious.

We late blooming moms may be cynical and jaded about life from having lived it a little longer than other moms ... but that just means the power of the giggle to bring us joy is even greater. Seeing Thing 1 and Thing 2 take such unabashed, spontaneous pleasure in something so simple as a shower hose made me feel young indeed, and very very happy to be in their company.

The sound of my children giggling ... now THAT is what I had in mind.

The Payback Kid

Whenever I gave my own mom an especially hard time, she used to say to me, "You should have three just like you."

Though sometimes it feels like I do -- with demanding twin three-year-olds and a neurotically needy, if adorable, cat -- the reality is that only one of them lives up to the moniker, "The Payback Kid."

One of them at a time, that is.

Within two weeks of being born, my daughter clearly held the title. That's because she came down with a mysterious virus, developed a high fever, and had to be hospitalized for ten days, undergoing two spinal taps, giving us all a terrific scare that she had meningitis (she didn't, and I'm still awaiting an apology from anyone responsible for the mix-up at the hospital's lab). I was forced to shuttle back and forth between Thing 2 at the hospital's neo-natal intensive care unit (AKA the NICU) and home, where Thing 1, like his sister, was in need of feeding and cuddling.

But a funny thing happened during Thing 2's hospital stay. Thing 1, who seemed to begin life as my mellow, Zen baby, turned into a needy Thing indeed, refusing to calm down without near constant holding, swaddling, and swinging. Thing 2 returned home healthy but more independent, content to snuggle into her swaddle blanket and settle down without much fuss. Thing 1 continued his demanding ways for months on end. It looked as if Thing 1 was going to lay claim to the title after all.

Smash cut to about two and a half years later: Thing 2 learns to say no, refuse to go to bed, stamp her feet in vehement protests. Thing 1 picks up a few of these tricks from her. They both throw tantrums when they don't get what they want, whether it's ice cream, another ten minutes of Baby Einstein, or the ability to wander off into a busy street unattended. But while Thing 1 can be easily distracted, or at least we can wait him out (he recovers from blowing his top quickly), Thing 2's temper proves longer lasting. Her fits are tougher to squelch, her desire for limit-testing seemingly insatiable. The title has been swapped again.

Six months later, Thing 2 seems determined to retain her crown.

Bedtime is her battleground. But then, I recall, it was mine too. One of my most vivid childhood memories is being put out into the hallway of our New York City apartment -- not an internal hallway, I mean the one where people got on and off the elevators -- with my pink blanket and furry bunny. Apparently, mom had had enough of my refusal to go to sleep. I'd been banished.

Today you might call child welfare if you saw an unattended kid curled up with a blanket and a bunny in the hallway of a New York apartment building, but in those days, when we knew all our neighbors and nobody got by the doorman without being buzzed in, I was safe.

I was also undoubtedly a pain in the neck.

Sadly, my mom isn't around to see me struggle with getting Thing 2 to bed. One of the hazards of being a late blooming mom is that all the grandparents don't necessarily come with the package(s) that took so long to arrive. Mom never got to see Thing 1 and Thing 2.

Despite the temptation to do what mom did to me, I've never put Thing 2 outside the condo with her striped blanket and cherished toy ducks. That's one childhood memory I don't want her to have. But I've lost my temper, I've yelled, I've stormed out of her room -- I've basically lost it in front of her. I've run the gamut of stuff a good mom is not supposed to do in this situation, and vowed to do better.

Whenever I've had enough sleep to get some perspective on it, I laugh.

That's because somewhere, I know my mom is laughing ... at me and my payback kid.

Some Way Cool Late Blooming Moms

There are plenty of well-known late blooming moms these days, but a few meet my criteria for way cool, because they've managed to do some amazing things while being late blooming moms too ... and that's no simple stunt. Sure, the ones below have an edge on the rest of us: they probably have staffs. Or at least, I know they can AFFORD staffs -- staffs to take care of themselves, let alone their kids.

But nevertheless, I consider them worthy poster moms for our growing club (and growing we are, to the point where one in five women have their FIRST kid after 35, and I'd also count the ones who wait to 35+ to become repeat moms).

J.K. Rowling, creator of HARRY POTTER, is the world's most successful living author (the series has sold approximately 400 million books), and she's performed something even more magical: gotten lots of kids to love reading. The British writer has lately become a big philanthropist -- you go, girl. Though she had her first baby in her late twenties -- the one she cared for while on welfare and writing the first POTTER book in coffee shops -- she became a late blooming mom after marrying her second husband. She had a baby at 37, then another at 39 -- during the same period she was writing of many of the books. No easy task for a mere muggle. (Potter fans raising kids will no doubt enjoy my pal Jen's blog, Julia, Harry & Me and btw, Jen's a late blooming mom too.)

Actress/activist Susan Sarandon is great on screen in everything from BULL DURHAM and THELMA AND LOUISE to the recent Disney hit ENCHANTED ... but here's what she says about being a later-in-life mom: "I had my kids late. I didn't think I could have them and I didn't expect to have them. But they are my best work." Considering how good her acting is, the kids must be stellar. Their dad, actor/director/activist Tim Robbins, is no slouch either. Susan has worked on the part of more good causes than I can count, and is an unabashed, proud progressive.

And speaking of politics ... Elizabeth Edwards is a lot more than the spouse of former senator/onetime VP candidate/2008 Democratic presidential primary contender John Edwards. She's a lawyer, educator, author, active in all sorts of charities, and the kind of gal who keeps on keeping on, even through breast cancer: hence her campaigning for her man even after being diagnosed with a recurrence. But what I find most impressive about her is that she found the courage and strength to have kids again after one of her children died in a tragic accident when his SUV overturned in high wind (for more on the questionable safety of SUVs, read Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker Archive) . She also established a computer lab and an ongoing scholarship fund in her late son's name. Her daughter's in law school and she's busy raising the two young kids she had in her late blooming mom-hood ... while campaigning. Me, I'm tired just reading this.

I was just a kid when ANNIE HALL came out, but even though I didn't quite get all the relationship stuff, I knew Diane Keaton was the funniest woman I'd seen on a modern movie screen, and a direct artistic descendant of the great screwball comedy actresses -- Katharine Hepburn, Rosalind Russell, Myrna Loy and Carole Lombard. Keaton continues to elevate whatever movie she's in, even if the scripts aren't so great. (Someone write a better movie for her, please?) She continues to work even though it's tough to land roles when you're over fifty in Hollywood. And though I'm sure she can afford the staff I mentioned above, whenever I've spotted her out and about with one of her kids in tow here in Los Angeles, she's doing it solo. She goes to the park or the mall with her kids like any other mom. Diane came to motherhood via adoption, but aside from avoiding the wear and tear of pregnancy on an older body, she's a late blooming mom like the rest of us. And unlike other celebrity moms, she seems to have avoided the weird celebrity trap of showing off kids as the latest fashion accessory. Clearly she's too real for all that. Yay.

Emma Thompson is the only person to have won Oscars for both acting (HOWARD'S END) and screenwriting (SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, adapted from Jane Austen's novel -- how's that for a screenwriting debut?). She's as versatile as they come, brilliantly playing two different Jane Austen heroines, carrying suppressed torches the way only the Brits can (THE REMAINS OF THE DAY), showing up in salient contemporary works like ANGELS IN AMERICA, smartly written romantic comedies (LOVE, ACTUALLY) and unafraid to do stuff that's just plain silly (ever see THE TALL GUY?). She's part of the HARRY POTTER series too (playing Professor Sybil Trelawny) and she even popped up in an uncredited role in I AM LEGEND, because the producers probably realized her very presence would lend credibility to an otherwise hard to swallow plot point. She's seemingly ubiquitous, happily for us ... yet she must take SOME time off, because she went and had a baby at forty, and later had this to say: "I have periods of intense activity, then stop. My ideal is to work hard in the morning until I pick Gaia up from school. Just putting an empty square in my diary seems to make a space in my head, too. You have to be very good at saying no." Like Emma, a lot of us established careers before a baby showed up. She may not need the paycheck as much as we do, but she knows she needs the work to keep sane: it's an integral part of who she is. A lot of us can relate to that, and we, too, have to be good at saying no.

Helen Fielding , another British woman writer like J.K. Rowling, wrote the hilarious best-selling BRIDGET JONES' DIARY and its sequel, giving voice to the angst of "singleton" women everywhere. Even though I was already married when I read BRIDGET JONES, I'd had plenty of singleton years and could still relate. Before being a bestselling writer, she used to make documentaries on poverty in Africa for Comic Relief. Her longtime boyfriend/father of her kids is a writer for THE SIMPSONS. As my own husband, who is a huge SIMPSONS fan, would say, how cool is that?

Ten Ways Younger Moms Are Different From Us

Literary legend has it that F. Scott Fitzgerald told Hemingway, "The rich are different from us." Literary legend has it Hemingway replied, "Yes. They have more money."

But aside from the obvious difference between younger moms and we late-bloomers -- they're, um, younger -- how are they a different species, exactly? Here's how:

1. They get tired. We get exhausted. And we do it before ten a.m.

2. They wash or discard any piece of their child's food that falls on the ground. We practice the "ten second rule." If it wasn't on the ground more than ten seconds, it's good eatin'.

3. Sometimes we practice the "twenty second rule."

3. They still think it's called a "vacation" when the kids come.

4. They can buy a pair of pants that fits over their hips without trying on, oh, say, twenty pairs.

5. Their kids wear pajamas. We encourage our kids to sleep in their school clothes. Trust us. It's a helluva time saver in the morning.

6. They make nutritious, home-cooked, free-range, organic dinners. We maintain an extensive file of take-out menus.

7. They write lengthy holiday letters documenting their famiy's doings, and add hand-written personal notes to all their friends and relatives. We're lucky to get an unsigned photo card in the mail by New Year's.

8. They are perky. We are not. Even on caffeine. Especially on caffeine. You don't want to be around us on caffeine.

9. Their kids wear brand-new matching outfits. We think hand-me-downs are gifts from God -- they cost nothing, and they don't involve a trip to the mall that inevitably results in you being the parent everyone else walks by pitying when your child is having a fit because it's time to leave and you didn't buy the kid a (FILL IN THE BLANK HERE).

10. When given the choice of sex with their partner or sleep, younger moms still choose sex.

What's that like?