Birthday Party Fatigue

Back before I was a late blooming mom, I remember attending a birthday party while visiting my then preschool-aged niece. There was a rented Jump-a-lene, there were goody bags, there were lots of kids bouncing, eating, or crying, and my niece -- who is a super kid -- could not have been less interested in the presence of her aunt and uncle at this party, justifiably so. What I also remember was being bored out of my mind.

Now, preschool birthday parties are a regular fact of my life. Happily, now that I'm minding my own kids at these affairs, and actually know many of the parents, with whom I can quite amiably chat for, oh, say, three minutes at a time before being interrupted by the kids with some request, they're pleasant affairs. Even fun. Until Thing 1 or Thing 2 has the requisite "I don't wanna go home" meltdown.

But I gotta admit, party fatigue sets in, simply because the birthdays come willy-nilly one after another for five, six months at a time, until every kid in a preschool class has been suitably feted. My kids are immune to party fatigue, even when attending parties at the same venue a mere few weeks apart, and eating the same food at each party. For grown-ups, though, it can get monotonous. Of course the monotony is punctuated by the unexpected injury that happens when Thing 1 doesn't look where he's going and slams into a wall -- or another kid -- at GenericKiddieGym. Then there are moments like this: just yesterday, Thing 2 broke into spontaneous tears of terror when the rented Jump-a-lene, which we'd touted all the way over to the party, turned out to be decorated with the enormous inflated head of Spiderman. She never set foot in the thing and had to be carried, eyes closed, arms clutched tightly around a parental neck, every time she passed it. "Batman" she declared with a three-year-old's logic, is "nice," but "Spiderman is scary."

These moments, I have come to learn, are the hazards that come with the preschool party territory. They also include the fights over the goody bags on the way home -- hey party-giving moms and dads, at risk of sounding ungrateful, I must ask, why would you not include the exact same goodies in the goody bag so invited siblings can get along? And then there's the whole gift etiquette thing. At risk of sounding like the ever-kvetching Larry David of CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM, I gotta mention that if the invitation specifies "no gifts," my kids will bring no gift. So what's with the parents whose kids still show up clutching a festively gift-wrapped package?

Then there's the dilemma of where to throw a party, and how much to spend on it, when it's your kid or kids who are having the big day. Late Blooming Mom threw the kids' birthday party at preschool lunch this past year, which involved the purchase of store-bought mini-cupcakes, and making up goody bags: easy peasy. The kids were turning three, and to them, this was just enough of a party to let them know it was their special day. But now that they've been to so many of their classmates' parties, the ante has been upped. I know for damn sure the in-class party ain't gonna fly next year. So what'll we do come the day they turn four? The choices are a park -- my choice of preference, but dicey in January (when their birthday party will occur) even in sunny Southern California; our place, which is probably far too small to accommodate the guest list of every kid in their preschool class plus parents plus outside-school friends; a rented venue which offers the advantage that somebody else cleans up, but which will cost a minimum of two hundred and fifty bucks BEFORE food and any potential entertainment. I shudder to think of the final bill, yet I know how many of my fellow preschool parents have already shelled out such exorbitant sums even for the most mundane of venues. And this is for birthday parties for three and four year-olds. Once I thought Bar/Bat Mitzvahs had gotten out of hand.

Thinking back to when I was a kid attending parties -- or being the birthday girl -- I can't remember a single time when I went to a pricey rented venue. In those days, moms would inflate some balloons, put up a couple of streamers, spread butcher paper on the floor and throw down a bucket of crayons. Later we'd have some cake. That was that. The building I grew up in had a community room with a fully functioning kitchen that could be reserved for a small --- and I mean small -- fee, and it was there my first few birthday parties were celebrated, as were my brother's. One time, Dad did a magic show. The one really special event I remember was an in-person appearance by Alvin and the Chipmunks -- three guys in colored robes and big paper mache heads. They did some lip-syncing to their theme song and departed. So in the intervening years, I gotta ask: what the hell has happened to birthday parties?

I suspect part of the problem is that so many of us late blooming parents work full-time, and we simply haven't the time to put together home-made party games, do all the baking, and clean the place up after the hordes have left. Renting the venue, getting it catered, and hiring the entertainment is convenient. And I'm sure, come January, the husband and I be committing some form of birthday excess, in what has clearly become the norm of the middle and upper middle classes.

My favorite party this year has been the one at a park where the mom did, in fact, make all the games (we still have the hand-decorated, personalized water bottles with the squirt tops with which we sprayed each other). If I had a little more Martha Stewart in me, I could probably get organized and "craft" a real old-fashioned, homey party like that, though I'd probably be staying up till midnight getting it all ready, and then wind up too exhausted to enjoy it. Seems like my options are that I'll either feel exhausted from trying to be Homey, Down-To-Earth Super Mom, or guilty (and out way too much money) for being Time-Starved, Throw-Money-At-The-Problem Working Mom.

But of course, the party won't be about me. My kids will enjoy whatever party we throw (well, until the inevitable meltdown as nap time approacheth). Late Blooming Mom will no doubt wind up with another case of party fatigue by year's end, but I guess it's a small price to pay for giving my kids what all kids want: just another excuse to eat cake.

What's Going On In There?

Just a quick entry send you to this great ONION piece about what's going on in babies' heads ... ya know ya wanna know ... (click on ONION, above, to get to the piece ...)

And more soon from the frontlines of late blooming motherhood.

"Childhood Is A Period Of Transitory Psychosis"

Not my words.

In fact, they're not even the words of Thomas W. Phelan, author of the best-selling discipline-your-kids book 1-2-3 MAGIC. But he's the one who quotes them, attributing them to some anonymous author. I first heard them quoted to me on Friday, from my high school pal Jode, who's another late blooming mom -- of twins. When she said them, a bell went off in my head. Did it just ring in yours too?

It may sound like a harsh statement, but for those of us on the front lines of parenting toddlers, it's just the truth.

I freely admit I'm no model parent -- this blog can attest to how I've lost it and blown up at my kids, for example. But I try hard not to be raising little brats. I want to raise little mensches. (For those of you not familiar with Yiddish, a rough translation: a good, compassionate, giving person of integrity.) Nevertheless, the kids aren't born acting like mensches. They've gotta be taught. It's not that they don't have the sweet gene. It's that they also have the selfish gene. The irrational gene. And the persistent-to-the-point-of-intransigence gene.

I try hard to encourage the sweet gene. But there are moments when the others are just gonna win out, no matter what kind of parent I'm trying to be.

Last Friday I went on a parenting-book buying spree, out of desperation. For five solid mornings, our children were impossible when we tried to get them ready for preschool. (Our amazing part-time nanny, who usually helps me get the troops to school, wasn't working those mornings. Coincidence? I think not.) So this weekend I cracked open the first -- the aforementioned 1-2-3 Magic -- and began putting it into practice. So far, so good. The fits didn't go away. But they were of shorter and less painful duration. The sticker chart with all the morning tasks the kids need to accomplish, is doing us nicely too (the kids get a reward -- an inexpensive toy -- from the "treasure box" if they complete the tasks). I'm encouraged.

But I know not to get my hopes up too high.

"Sometimes," Jode reminded me, "they're just gonna be crazy." It's our job, as parents, to live through it. And our choice whether we do so gritting our teeth, or philosophically, calmly, waiting out the crazy moments. Sometimes, I hope to do the latter. But parenthood being what it is, I know I'll have my crazy moments too.

Optimistic Amnesiacs

A few weeks back I wrote about our "vacation" weekend in Santa Barbara, prompting my dear old friend Mark to comment, "Now you know the difference between a vacation and a trip."

So you'd have thought I'd have been prepared for the singular hell that was the morning we left on our next "vacation."

Yet somehow, nature or God (if you believe in that sort of supreme being) wired would-be vacationing parents to be optimistic amnesiacs. That morning, when I awoke seven-thirty-ish and began to get Thing 1 and Thing 1 ready for our 358-mile journey to the Bay Area, I actually believed we'd breakfast, dress, brush teeth, and be out the door and underway by nine o'clock.

Nature or God or whoever is responsible for the wiring of three-year-olds must've been, in the words of British comedian Ricky Gervais, "havin' a laugh."

I'm far too shell-shocked, just a few days later, to remember just how many fits were thrown by Thing 1 and Thing 2 that morning. I certainly can't recall what each one was about, though I have a dim recollection of having been roundly chastised for cutting a banana instead of handing it over whole for consumption. I remember howls of protest that followed my picking out item after item of clothing that was deemed to "not match" and was summarily rejected. There were disagreements over footwear preferences (Thing 1 went from insisting upon donning his new light-up Lightning McQueen sneakers to fiercely rejecting said sneakers within the space of two minutes). There was heated discussion of how many hair scrunchies could be put into Thing 2's hair and what shade of scrunchy was allowed, and then the aforementioned scrunchies had to be made tighter roughly every twenty seconds. There was a fight between Thing 1 and Thing 2 over a certain toothbrush both insisted on using, even though Thing 2 was just getting over a virus. You get the idea.

Meanwhile, Dad was alternately packing up the car or attempting to intercede in the ongoing whine-a-palooza that was taking place. Then he had to set up the portable video player in the car, involving a complex piece of rigging between the seats that he'd been unable to get in place previously, having worked till well past midnight the night before, necessitated by having missed half a day at the office tag-teaming with Late Blooming Mom to care for Thing 2, who was suffering from the aforementioned virus.

But perhaps the culmination of the tortuous morning from hell was when Thing 1 suddenly announced his binky was missing.

Is there anything more damnably exasperating then when you've finally got the car packed and everyone ready to leave on a six-hour-plus drive, only to realize your departure has again been delayed by an all-hands search for a missing pink binky?

Somewhere, God, nature, or whoever/whatever is responsible for causing a three-year-old to lose his binky at the most inopportune moment, was laughing so hard that I believe he/she or it broke his/her/its ass.

Yes, we're talking ass-breaking laughter.

Late Blooming Mom, on the other hand, was near tears.

We abandoned hope of ever finding the binky, and located a substitute.

I got behind the wheel ready to tear that binky in half with my bare teeth. Good thing it wasn't in my mouth, but in Thing 1's. He stopped whining almost immediately.

It took me nearly 100 miles -- to un-grit my teeth.

And that, dear blog readers, is how Late Blooming Mom's latest "vacation" -- pardon me, 'trip" -- began.

Here's to optimistic amnesiacs -- otherwise known as vacationing parents -- everywhere. Much like the pain of childbirth is mysteriously forgotten before a mother conceives another child, if we didn't forget how hard it is to get out of town with the family, we'd never go, would we?

Could It Be ... We're Diaper-Free?

I had given up hope they'd ever stop wearing diapers.

Despite all the nudging I'd gotten on potty training from friends and relatives and busybody strangers, I stuck to the plan: encourage, but don't push.

But it was the preschool teachers who took matters into their own hands, no doubt weary of changing a year's worth of diapers. Half the class was already trained when they clued me in, insisting Thing 1 and Thing 2 were dry all morning, and coveting other kids' Dora and Blues Clues underwear.

Usually Late Blooming Mom rails against rampant commercialism, marketing to toddlers, the Disney-ification of even the preschool set.

Not this time.

We'd already been making potty chairs and underwear available at home for many, many months, with only intermittent use.

But suddenly, peer pressure -- and the lure of cute theme underwear -- seemed to have kicked in.

So after a few choice on-line purchases from a site dedicated to potty-training products, theme underwear included, we sent them to school with underwear.

Within two weeks, they were wearing it every day (with a few rewards on the weekends -- they're bonkers for strawberry banana smoothies).

Within three weeks, they were willing to wear underwear at home too.

Of course, the accidents began.

Late Blooming Mom goes on record here to say she has never, ever, done so much laundry.

One weekend it seemed the washer and dryer were going round the clock. May the gods of Global Warming forgive me. (I promise I use earth-friendly, high-efficiency detergent). I should probably purchase carbon credits just for that weekend.

But now we're past the month mark, and visiting every bathroom in West Los Angeles.

They're all fascinating. Seat covers are cool. Flushing is too loud. Sinks with stools so kids can reach them (or step stools so Thing 1 can pee standing up and miss the rim) are the best. It's not unheard of for us to spend twenty minutes going potty in a restaurant. (One time we came back and our food was gone and we had to order it all again.)

The trips to the store to purchase new diapers have slowed to trickle. Yes, we still use a few -- pull-ups, that is, and only overnight. I'm too much of a softie to deprive Thing 1 and Thing 2 of their night-time sips of water, and they don't quite get that they can get up at night and use the potty if they need to go.

The money we're going to save going forward ... well, let's just say it's time to put some into the college fund.

And all my stress over when and how to potty train, and whether they'd ever, ever, ever really get there, has vanished like stormclouds after the rain.

Praised be the potty.

Now if only I can teach Thing 1 to improve his aim ...

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.

Potty Mouth Has Made Its First Appearance

Thing 1 misbehaved at preschool.

Apparently, while on the potty, he dropped the f-bomb.

We know this because one of his teachers pulled Daddy aside at drop-off to let us know, and to request that maybe we teach him to say something inoffensive like "fudge." She added that she, too, has uttered the same word in front of her own kid while she burned herself on the stove, prompting her son to repeat it.

Clearly she attempted to make us feel better by including this anecdote about herself.

But suddenly all those times Late Blooming Mom or Daddy have uttered bad words in front of our kids are coming back to haunt us. And we can't help but feel like bad parents, wondering what the teacher and everyone else within earshot and above toddler age thinks of us.

I knew my kids had learned "Goddammit!" from my own lips, utttered in exhaustion and exasperation. But I've already tried to persuade them to substitute the silly "Goshdarnit!" Thing 2 asked me what it means and I told her, "It means 'oh bother,' just like in WINNIE THE POOH." Since she's already fond of "oh bother," this was the perfect explanation, and she has, indeed, been happily using the new compound word I created to replace the swear word.

But the f-bomb, I honestly can't recall saying in front of them. Daddy thinks he may have been to blame. I certainly could have. It's not that I don't watch my language around the kids 95% of the time. But goshdarnit, sometimes the lack of sleep and stress over trying to balance work and family life make me much less patient, and much more apt to explode in a string of epithets. Often the bad words are prompted by bad behavior on the kids' part -- refusing to listen, say, when asked to stop jumping off their beds onto the floor; refusing to go to bed; refusing to stop saying ... well, bad words.

I'm embarrassed about my son saying the f-bomb. But what's worse is, when I try to point out to him that this isn't a nice word, and I suggest using another, he just laughs and keeps repeating it. If only he'd misheard, the way he did with "damn it," which accounts for him heartily proclaiming "Bam it!" several times a day, just for the thrill of it.

I can't help but find it ironic, though, that Thing 1's potty mouth incident occurred WHILE he was using the potty. I gotta give the kid some credit. If you can't drop an f-bomb into your speech while sitting on the toilet, then when CAN you use the f---ing word?

To anyone who claims they've never said a bad word in front of their kids -- who must've learned such things somewhere, I say -- what the hell. We're not going there for saying those words, and neither are our kids. But I realize I may be getting more than my share of notes from teachers in the year ahead. Bam it.