momtrolfreak

Preschool is for Lovaaaaahs

PHOTO: enormous pizza-box valentine Frog made for one of his girlfriends

Oh Lordy.

My son, he is in Love. Capital-L-O-V-E love. He's been completely infatuated with this particular classmate--we'll call her Tinkerbell--for a few months now. She's an older woman (five and a half!!), a full head taller than he, and very mature (I mean, you know, she can write).

My first inkling was when we were repainting his bedroom recently (see: OCD) and I asked him what color he wanted to paint his bedroom, giving him some swatches to choose from that ranged from ecru to taupe to desert sand, with one green thrown in there for giggles. He handed the chips back to me and announced, "I want to paint my bedroom pink." Now, I have always said, and I still believe, that my son can grow up to be a cross-dressing garbage man if he wants, I really don;t care as long as he's happy, but he has never shown any interest up til now in anything remotely girly, so I was a bit surprised.

"Pink?" I asked, trying to figure out how to talk him out of it because seriously, there would be some major clashing with his bedding. I have my limits. "Really? Why?" 

"Because Tinkerbell likes the color pink, Mommy, and when she comes over for a playdate [this has never happened] I want her to like being in my room."

Okay: awwwwww! I was proud that my little 3-year-old (by definition, three year olds are all narcisists) would actually take the time to think about what someone ELSE would like when choosing a color for his room. Still, we put our foot down. No pink.

Then the plot thickened.

At pickup one day in late January, there was a note in his cubby: "Please speak with Frog. He is in LOVE with Tinkerbell and ishaving a hard time understanding gentle touch. He is squeezing her hand too hard and jumping on her back when she sits on the rug at circle time. The things love makes you do! Thank! :-)"

LOVE was actually underlined five times. This was serious. So we talked about gentle touch, and how girls like to play, and how even Mommy doesn't like to be jumped on, and the whole time I was thinking, OH MY GOD am I already having the "no means no" talk here? What is going ON???

And then I found it: it was mutual.

Tinkerbell's mom called me to ask if we wanted to go out to dinner at pick-up one day the next week, because Tinkerbelll MADE her ask me. Ah-ha, so it seems we have a cougar on our hands, I think. (just kidding. I don't think 5 and 1/2 counts for cougar status, no matter how young your boy toy is.)

So we go out to dinner at the local noodle place, and the kids are so excited to be hanging out that they literally cannot sit still. Tinkerbell, by the way, presented Frog at dinner with a beautiful hand-drawn and lettered red piece of construction paper that said "TINKERBELLL FROG AND DOLLY." Dolly is her favorite baby doll, from whom she is inseparable. So, um, she's already married him, in her mind, right? This is their little family. She has appointed him her Baby Daddy.

If one of them is picked up before the other, the early-picked-up kid finagles his/her parent to let him/her play on the playground until, lo and behold, the other parent shows up and theyoung lovers end up playing together. As if they have not spent enough time together at full day preschool. Somehow Tinkerbell's mom and I have not figured out that we, too, need to wear snowpants and hats and gloves. Our kids are happily rolling around in the snow while we stand, teeth chattering, lips turning blue. Last night when we got in the car I realized I literally had no feeling in my ears. This is how Nanook of the North's mom must have felt.

The bright side is, I really like Tinkerbell's mom. So hanging out with her is a bonus, a nice little reward for all the chaperoning.

Except then we got in trouble with the teacher.

Frog ratted me out: he told his teacher, "We're going out to dinner with Tinkerbell tonight!!' as I was helping him get on his coat. She looked at me in shock. "Wait," she said, and pointed her finger at me. "You'rrrre ENCOURRRAGINNNNNGGGG THISSS!!!"  She was only half joking.

But really I don't see the harm, as long as he's not disruptive during class.

Which I guess he is.

But now there's a new wrinkle. Apparently his Capital L-O-V-E love has morphed into, well, Big Love.

As in, the multiple wives kind.

We went to see Disney on Ice with Penny and her daughter, previously called MiniPenny here but really, she's not really a carbon copy of her mom so that makes no sense, so, she shall henceforth be known here as Cinderella (her favorite princess in the Disney pantheon). Now, Frog and Cinderella are two weeks apart in age and have known each other--and had semi-regular playdates on weekends--since they were, oh, a couple of weeks old. So, they are quite comfy with each other. But it's never been romantic. Until now. (Does this sound like the pitch for My Best Friend's Wedding?)

So they sit next to each other for all of Disney on Ice (during which Penny and I kept looking over the tops of their heads, mouthing to each other, WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON? Seriously, whoever "wrote" and I use the term loosely Disney on Ice is doing some awesome psychotropic meds. There was only the barest hint of a plot, coupled with lots of cleavage (Jasmine is STACKED and has clearly been doing the 30 Day Shred), lots of talk of romance and How Do You Know If He Really Loves You (gag), and, um, fire juggling? Not to mention that I nearly had a seizure from all the sparkly spinny things they sold every kid in the audience for $20 or something right BEFORE the show, so that you had to look across the top of a sea of Seizure Spinners to see the ice. The kids were transfixed. Didn't move. And we didn't buy them anything either, because miraculously they didn't ask for anything, except for popcorn and a bottle of water. (I love our kids). ANYWAY, Cinderella was dressed as, shocker, Cinderella to see the show, and Frog was quite smitten, for the first time. He's always called her "my best friend" but this time he called her "my girlfriend" in the car on the way home.

He was talking to me about how the funnest part of the show was playing with pebbles in the parking lot planter outside after the show, because he and Cinderella were giggling and, well, kind of flirting. 

Frog: MOMMY, I can tell you are not listening to me because your eyes are not pointing in the mirror where my eyes are pointing.

Me: Okay honey, hold on, I'm just trying to get on the highway, just a second.

Frog: (pause) Okay Mommy, what was your favorite part of the show? (I love it when he interviews me like this. He's a contemplative kid, not a yap yap yapper, so whenver he's in the mood to really converse, I do cartwheels in my head)

Me: Hmmm...I think it was the Jack Skellington part because I like Halloween and they had spider webs and tombstones and ghosts and stuff and it was scary. What was YOUR favorite part of the show?

Frog: I liked the princesses. Because....mommy? I. LIKE. GIRLS.

Me: (stifling laughter) You Do, huh?

Frog: Yes. And Mommy? Tinkerbell and Cinderella are both my girlfriends.

Me: Well, honey, I'm not sure you can have two girlfriends at the same time.

Frog: Wull, MOMMMEEEE, yes I can because I love them both.

Me: (fully aware that we need not get this deep into relationship talk, that it is in fact harmless for him to like two girls at once, as he is thuh-ree, but enjoying the conversation) Yeah, but, one of them might get jealous. How would YOU like it if Tinkerbell had another boyfriend? How would you feel if she held ANOTHER boy's hand at circle time?

Frog: (lightheartedly) That would be okay....(reconsiders, looking out the window at the night sky, his childhood flashing before his eyes) WAIT. No.... I would be MAD, if another boy held MY Tinkerbell's hand I would be mad and I would...I would talk MEAN WORDS at him. (dear God, anything but that. That's a felony in some states)

Me: Well, so, maybe it's more fun to not have any girlfriends, right now, and they can both just be good friends...?

Frog: That's a good idea Mommy.

That only lasted about ten minutes, though, as the calendar quickly hurtled towards--as luck would have it--EFFING VALENTINE'S DAY. He carefully picked out valentines for both Tinkerbell and Cinderella, INSISTED on buying a $15 doll for Tinkerbell as a "Special Valentine," (don't worry, he got Cinderella a Cinderella snowglobe at DisneyWorld, it's all good), and blushed every time I mentioned either of their names. He also insisted that for valentine's day for school, when we were shopping for boxed cards for his class, that we not get JUST the dinosaur cards that he wanted, but that those were JUST for the BOYS, and he made me buy (oh, come on, it's $2 a box, big deal) another box of valentines that were PRINCESSES, "because Tinkerbell and Cinderella don't like dinosaurs, THEY will like Princess cards."

At least he's thinking of what his significant other wants, instead of what HE wants, which is more than I can say for many men (skanky lingerie as a gift for HER? really?).

So, good job, little man.

If he stops playing Putumayo Kids and I hear Barry White playing in his room, though, I'm cracking down.

I have to say though, both Cinderella and Tinkerbell are CATCHES. Tinkerbell has MANY admirers in the class, I know that. Cinderella goes to a different school but I think she's had a couple of Gentleman Callers as well. But my little guy's won their hearts.

He's only three, and it's already come to this.

I am so screwed.

What Fresh Hell Is This?: Field Trip, Part I: The Prologue

On Thursday this week I will be taking a vacation day from work to submit myself to the pure torture that will be chaperoning my son's field trip to some Child Crack Castle up in the suburbs somewhere. I am not sure why my son's teacher, in her infinite wisdom, has decided that we must drive 45 minutes outside our MAJOR METROPOLITAN AREA, where you can not swing a dead cat without hitting numerous activity lands, play centers, and children's theatres, on a school bus with 23 three, four, and five year olds, for DID I MENTION FORTY-FIVE MINUTES ONE WAY, to go to this particular play land with some sort of wonderful show that may or may not have to do with something historical, I just do not know. I love doing activities with my son, and will even frequently take him to places with other children in them so that he can, like, learn stuff alongside said children, but this place, the website for this place we're going on Thursday, it looks an awful lot like Chuck E Cheese. It's NOT Chuck E Cheese, but it looks like it. It has rides, and tokens, and video games, and Bright! Flashing! Lights! and Loud! Noises! and even godhelpme an ANIMATRONIC STAGE SHOW and right about there is where I blacked the fuck out while looking at the site. Really, you know I don't go to places like Chuck E. Cheese. How did I get tricked into volunteering to chaperone this field trip when it's at such a place? It's entirely possible that I will walk in the door and immediately either black out or clap my hands over my ears and scream "DEAR GOD MAKE IT STOP THE NOISE IS LIKE STABBING IN MY BRAIN OH GOD HELP ME!!!!!!! <sob>" which I think might freak out some of my son's friends. When I chaperoned their trip to Wrigley they rode a bus but it was like, four blocks, and then we sat in the cold and rain for two hours. It was a blast. Really. But now? I'll be lucky if I don't get puked on. If I hadn't volunteered to chaperone, I could totally just have my son be mysteriously absent that day and take him somewhere fun by myself, but nooooo, I had to be a Good Mom and sign up to chaperone. I will be wasting a DAY OF MY LIFE standing in what is essentially Chuck E. Cheese. Oh, and it has something to do with Black History Month. Which I'm all for, but riddle me this, Batman: what does this...

..have to do with the Underground Railroad? Which of these animatronic jester-dragons is playing Harriet Tubman?
 

America's Next Top Ridiculously Cute Baby Wearing Makeup and a Hat With Ears on It

 

SCOOP: the love child of Katie Holmes and Winnie the Pooh

Ya'll know I don't "plug" stuff much--very few reviews or product endorsements on here, and even then, nothing that I get paid for. But, I have to say, I'm giving a shout-out here to a marketer who knows how to contact a blogger.

We often get pitches for products and services, pitches that start with "Dear Blogger: Nice blog! I thought this would interest your readers! Please post about it!" and then it's a plug for, like, cat piss removal products or motorcycle repair kits or a pet boutique located in Nowheresville, America and it's just painfully, painfully clear that this person has never read your blog. I get a LOT of pitches like that. To the point that I don't even open pitches, usually, i just delete them without reading.

But today, i received an e-mail from Parents.com and seriously, this PR person has read my blog (!!!), had read enough of me to know both my pseudonym and my real name, mentioned some of his "favorite posts" and gave his own feedback about the issues I was exploring in said posts, and then--AND ONLY THEN--mentioned what he wanted from me.

How refreshing.

And it happens to be something I am interested in and support: CUTE BABIES.

I mean, hello? WHO DOES NOT LOVE CUTE BABIES?????

I'm on the fence about ugly babies, I could take 'em or leave 'em, but cute babies? Yowza, gotta get me some'a those.

American Baby magazine was one of my favorite magazines when Frog was a wee little thing. I think it's the first one I read, because it was in the ob/gyn's office. It's so pretty...not cluttered up with a bunch of useless crap. All the photos have good lighting and all the mommies look happy. It has good information and pretty pictures and lots of white space--like Real Simple. I like a magazine that doesn't make me feel like I had to spring clean it. And even though Frog never won their cute baby photo contest (he's too old for it now, he's like, ANCIENT at three and a half, right? The modeling industry, it is so cruel. Thank God I was able to coax him out of his anorexia issues. <--JOKE) ...

Anyway, as I was saying, EVEN THOUGH THEY NEVER AWARDED FROG THE CROWN THAT WAS RIGHTFULLY HIS, I love the cute babies, and I love American Baby magazine, and I read The Goody Blog on their site, too, so, you know, this is not a difficult request with which to comply.

Full disclosure: they are going to pay me millions of....oh wait, no. They will provide a link to my site in their blogroll. So that's cool. I'm a whore for attention, as we all know.

ANYWAY, if you think your baby is cute, BRING IT, BITCHES.

Go here for the rules and stuff. Basically, your baby HAS TO BE CUTE, and "between three months and 24 months as of the date of entry." The grand prize winner will be featured on the cover of the August issue of American Baby magazine. Just like the adorable bear/baby hybrid child on the cover up there ^. They judge based on the baby's appearance, the personality as shown in the photo, and the quality of the photo.

Also, a highlight from the FAQ: they tell you how to submit a photo. And the great thing is that it comes with visual aids which are totally appropriate. I mean, it's a baby contest, right? And this: does this or does this not look just like a pregnancy test pee stick?

 

One line means, "HOLY CRAP THAT'S A CUTE BABY." 

Two lines means, "UH....SERIOUSLY?"

And just as a public service (especially for my friend Penny), please do not send photos of your baby with food all over his or her face. Nobody wants to see that. Ew.  

As a special favor to you, I will refrain from getting pregnant again and having another baby so as not to compete with your cute baby and KNOCK YO ASS OUT OF THE RUNNING. Cuz lawd knows I make me some cute baby.

 

This is Where I Continue to Pretend You Are my Therapist

I worry that I will be crazy when I get older.

 

My mother had an imaginary friend named Imaginary Friend.

 

When I was little I would have to have to have blink my eyes in groups of four, exponentially, like this: blinkblinkblinkblink (pause) blinkblinkblinkblink (pause) blinkblinkblinkblink (pause) blinkblinkblinkblink

 

My mother is afraid of noodles (she cannot eat pasta, even the word ‘Noodle’ freaks her out). She is also afraid of yogurt, Santa Claus and cotton balls.

 

The Santa phobia is because his white fluffy beard REMINDS her of cotton balls.

My aunt used to think that if she touched something, she was then connectedto that person or thing with an invisible string. She worried that she would touch too many things and get tangled up in this web of make-believe threads ‘til she couldn't move. The fear of this manifested itself, however, in a compulsion to touch more things than usual. Fortunately, two fingers on her right hand functioned as a pair of scissors that could cut these threads, so my aunt was always walking around touching things and then cutting the string, touching and cutting, touching and cutting.

 

My great great grandmother was declared insane by her husband (my great-great grandfather), and he kept her locked up IN THEIR BARN for the final 27 years of her life. To his credit, he did bring her two meals a day, at the same time that he fed and milked the cows. Of course, no one back then had to legally declare her officially insane, and no one questioned her husband’s judgment. So I wonder, was she insane?

 

or was HE?

Doesn’t matter, does it. Either way, genetically? I’m fucked.

I've pretty much known I "should" be in therapy for oh, a decade. But I manage. I mean, I'm FINE. I'm a "functioning" ________________-ic <--insert name of whatever my issue is WHEN YOU FIGURE IT OUT (and please tell me)

As discussed earlier this week, I have--have always, in fact, had--some major issues with CONTROLLING THINGS. Hence the name of this website. When people do not do what I think they should do, I get ANGRY. And you would not like me when I am angry.

I have, on my own, gotten a handle on a lot of this (having a kid really makes you realize you have NO CONTROL OVER ANYTHING, as does being married to my husband). But it still crops up. I have a temper. I am not all that patient. I'm oodles better than i used to be (I used to drive like a crazy person, honking and swerving--a menace on the road, truly). I can stand in a line with no problem, now.

Fortunately, my controllyness is limited to one area: MY LIFE.

For awhile, I was soooo super busy with a full time job + parenting + grad school (I was going to say +marriage but HAHAHAHA we all know no one devotes any time to that when you've got that other stuff going on). And then I started a blog, just for the stress-flavored icing on the cake.

But then grad school ended. And they mailed me my diploma. And most people, now, would be looking for a job to go with their new degrees but I like my job and I don't want to be a teacher because STUDENTS ARE ANNOYING BECAUSE THEY WANT TO LEARN STUFF and then, EVEN MORE ANNOYING WHEN THEY DON'T WANT TO LEARN STUFF.

And I'd have to take a  pay cut to be a teacher anyway. So that's dumb.

And sorry to bring up the degree but I have to brag about it because if I'm not changing careers then I just incurred $30K of debt for NO REASON. So I have to brag. The more I brag, the more the money is worth it. The fact that I wrote "my grad degree" up there ^ just paid for $200 of my loan. Only $29,800 worth of bragging to go. (I may need to start a new blog just for that.)

But I digress.

Now that I'm not in grad school BECAUSE I GRADUATED WITH HONORS, WITH DISTINCTION, I HAVE A MASTER OF ARTS WITH DISTINCTION I GET TO WEAR A FANCY STOLE AT GRADUATION AHEM--

I've been having little panic attacks.

Because I've never not been incredibly busy.

I used to go to work from 7am-5pm and then hightail it to rehearsal, eating dinner in the car while studying ines in traffic, and rehearse from 6pm until 11pm and then go out for drinks til 1am and go home and sleep 4 hours and do it all over again, lather, rinse, repeat, for WEEKS. My only night off from theatre was Monday, and that was the night I went to school for undergrad.

I never had a night off. FOR ABOUT TEN YEARS.

When I was done with that, I had a baby. And then, because the timing was AWESOME, started grad school. So now I've got a three year old and I HAVE A GRADUATE DEGREE (cha-ching)  and a wonderful job but THAT IS NOT ENOUGH. OH NO, I HAVE TO BE BALLS TO THE WALL CRAZY-ASS BUSY ALL THE TIME.

Before I even finished my GRADUATE DEGREEE, i toyed with the idea of going to med school to become a pediatrician (no i am not kidding). I even shadowed my son's pediatrician for a whole day to get a feel for it. Fortunately that idea, though, lasted about as long as it took me to take a practice MCAT or whatever the hell it's called, because I am here to tell you:

MATH IS HARD.

I'm not acting anymore because it's too much nighttime work and I want to be home with my kid in the evenings since I'm not home with him during the day.

So I throw myself into these little projects.

I decide that we HAVE TO FIGURE OUT, IN DECEMBER, what my son's APRIL birthday party theme is going to be. and then reserch ALLLLLLL the venues in Chicago, and come up with prices, and then decide to do it in the party room of our building because it's cheaper but right now it's like $250 because of all the shit I'VE ALREADY BOUGHT for it. Now, I love parties, so this is my excuse. We used to spend that much on keggers before we had a kid. So, you know, not horrible. But still. ALL-ENCOMPASSING.

Then one day on the walk home from school my son said these words:

"Mommy can you tell daddy to take my bed back to the store, and get me a bunk bed? because i would like sleepovers."

He's too young for sleepovers, and I don't believe in getting him everything he wants, and I hardly ever buy him a toy right when he asks for it (it goes on a list for later) but by god, BUNK BEDS ARE COOL AS SHIT, right? So I researched the FUCK out of bunk beds, loft beds, playhouse beds. I shopped for them, I looked up recommendations (and then disregarded them because they said he couldn't have one til he was 6). I nagged my husband about it incessantly. Suffice it to say that in the space of a week, I had sold my son's current furniture on craigslist and had ordered him a loft bed, new dresser, and a little desk. I had also replaced his bedding, lamp, etc. And I had made my husband spend half of a Saturday finally painting our son's room.

Now, I ENJOY all of this. But that doesn;t mean it's not A DISEASE.

We have quite a bit of OCD in my family, on my mom's side. My grandmother used to wash her hands with water so hot it peeled the skin off sometimes in layers, like an onion. She still, at almost 80, takes her GARBAGE CAN out in the front yard in the middle of winter and WASHES IT WITH BLEACH.

because Lord knows, ya'll, don't nobody want a dirty garbage can in their yard.

So, this is why I know I need therapy.

Because I am crazy. And it's not a phase, because we're going on, what, five generations here.

And I really don't want to make my SON crazy.

Though, you know, genetically? Fucked.

But maybe I can offset SOME of that, the way you do with carbon emissions? Like, maybe even though he does have Type-O Crazy coursing through his veins, if I do the yoga and the exercise and the spirituality stuff and I get my shit together to be calm and "zen" about stuff, maybe JUST MAYBE he'll turn out normal?

So now I have a new project: OPERATION CALM THE FUCK DOWN.

All I need to do is some acupuncture, regular yoga, meditation every morning, switching my diet COMPLETELY, not checking the computer so much for work after hours and on weekends, and to stop yelling at old people.

As you can tell, it's going REALLY well so far.

Yet More Proof That I Buy Too Many Processed, Packaged Foods

Last night before bed, Frog was practicing his "making conversation" skills. He tilts his head to one side and sort of interviews you, like Diane Sawyer.

Frog: So, what is your favorite dinosaur, Mommy?

Me: Huh...I guess I'd have to say....the brontosaurus (pointing).

Frog: No that's called a brachiosaurus.

Me: Oh, okay..the brachiosaurus.

Frog: Why is that one your favorite?

Me: Because.....he has a long neck like a giraffe....and he's nice...and eats leaves.

Frog: Me, too.

Me: That's your favorite, too?

Frog: No, I EAT LEAVES too.

Me: You do?

Frog: Yes because I love lettuce in my salad. (i love that he asks me to put lettuce in his salad, as if that's not, like, the BASE for salad. He also will request a sandwich "with ham, and mustard, AND BREAD, mommy, please put bread on it") 

Me: Oh, right, that's true, lettuce IS a leaf. So you eat leaves, too!

Frog: Yes. Dinosaurs get their leaves from a TREE, and we get our leaves from a BAG.

Momtrolfreak’s Unauthorized Guide to Taking Your Preschooler to DisneyWorld Without a Breakdown or the Use Of Psychotropic Drugs

 

(this one's gonna be long, kids; grab a snack. For those of you who are thrown off by something on this site that may actually prove to be of use to someone, I can only offer that I will not do it very often)

GENERAL DOs and DON’Ts

1. DO take inventory of all your luggage before leaving your house, so that your LARGEST RED IMPOSSIBLE TO MISS suitcase is not left behind, so that you do not get all the way to the airport and then have to turn around and go home to get said suitcase, thus tripling your cab fare to $100 total.

2. DO borrow a booster seat from your friend for the cab ride. DO NOT, however, expect to be able to use it on the plane. Carseats are approved by the FAA, but boosters are not.The FAA hates people over the age of 2. Fuck you, preschooler, says the FAA. I hope you choke on a peanut while craning your neck to see out.

3. DO get a cabbie who drives fast enough to get you back to the airport in time.Ours was a Palestinian Steve McQueen, seriously, the guy should be a stunt driver in da movies.

4. DO marry someone who is smart enough to bring, on the second trip, a garbage bag and some wet wipes for the Inevitable Preschooler Puking Incident that will, occur from too much time spent in a herky-jerky cab. (Thank you Aquaman)

5. DO fly Delta so that if you do happen to arrive only 27 minutes before takeoff, they are nice enough to let you check your luggage and get on the plane.  Also, DO exploit the fact that YOUR THREE YEAR OLD WILL MISS HIS FIRST TRIP TO DISNEYWORLD in order to beg your way ahead in line and into the military and airline employee security line.

6. DO NOT get your hopes up that, when your connecting flight is canceled, the now-three-hour layover will mean that you will get Chick-Fil-A in the Atlanta airport, because of course you idiot you are there on SUNDAY.

7. DO exploit OH NO THIS IS MY PRESCHOOLER’S FIRST TRIP TO DISNEY to beg your way higher up on the standby list for the replacement flight.

8. DO NOT freak out that your spouse always decides to spend his time at airports loudly brainstorming ways to improve current TSA procedures, loudly employing the terms “BOMB” and “TERRORIST” within earshot of numerous TSA employees.

9. DO bring Afrin nose spray, antibiotics, Mucinex D, neti pot, Kleenexes, and SHEER WILL to counter waning sinus infection before flight, so that your head does not explode during takeoff (TSA frowns upon exploding sinuses these days almost as much as exploding underwear).  If your sister can have a full bowel resection and still make this trip, you will not I REPEAT WILL NOT be deterred by a sinus infection.

10. DO NOT expect to go on the Log Flume when it is 30 degrees in Florida. Doing so may result in the Log Flu. I hear it’s nasty.You shit splinters.

11. DO pack your coat. DO NOT think, “Oh, I’m a Chicagoan, I won’t need a hat/gloves, because I am hard core about the coldness.” DO realize that in Chicago, 30 degrees feels warm only by comparison, and because it is not, as in Florida, a DAMP cold. Also, in Chicago, you are rarely on a rollercoaster generating your own wind chill.

12. DO NOT think too hard about the fact that Mickey Mouse and Michael Jackson look and act and sound an awful lot alike (white face, odd nose, strangely asexual, white gloves...eh? eh?)

13. DO NOT be disturbed when your mother says, “Ohhh, I love Peter Pan’s Flight! I did it on Darvoset once!” Even though your mother doesn't even drink because half a glass of champagne on New Year's Even has been known to make her melt onto the passenger door of the car, laughing and crying at the same time. DO worry that this is what will happen on Peter Pan's Flight.

14. DO use the complimentary “Mickey’s Magical Express” service that lets you check your bags at your home airport and not see them again until your hotel room.

15. DO NOT assume that they will end up in your hotel room any time soon. They disappear for about 6 hours after landing. It’s alllll part of the magic, folks. Still, better than lugging them around.

16. DO NOT rent the strollers in the park. If you think you will need a stroller, bring your own cheapie fold-up one. The strollers in the park are $15 a day to rent and they are SUPER uncomfortable. My kid could not sit in the thing, and he’s 3. It was hard plastic (all the better to hose off, I guess) and the opposite of ergonomically designed. He ended up actually upside down trying to curl up for a nap. Either bring your own stroller or be sure that someone in your party is ok with carrying the 3 year old around on their shoulders a LOT.

 

17. DO bring an iPod to wear when you ride “It’s A Small World” for the second through tenth times. This way, you do not amuse yourself by changing the lyrics:

You can use a gun, you can use some pills,

You can use a knife, just as long as it kills,

Why did I come along?

I hate this fucking song,

It’s a small world, kill me now.

There is no line for It’s A Small World, so you ride it a lot while you are waiting for your FastPass entry time on the more popular rides.  So, you know, if you don’t want your ears to start bleeding, I recommend either an iPod, or, like, Meth.

18. DO familiarize yourself with the FastPass process. It saves you a lot of heartache, as preschoolers are not that great at standing in lines.

19. DO get there when the park opens in the morning, at least for Magic Kingdom. They do a whole show, the train arrives with Mickey and pals aboard, they sing, they dance, they throw pixie dust, and then they open the gates with fanfare. It’s very special and the kids luh-HUV it.

20. DO get there early and then head straight to the BACK of the park you are doing that day. For Animal Kingdom, head straight for the safari ride. For Magic Kingdom with a preschooler, head to Pirates of the Caribbean, Thunder Mountain Railroad, or Peter Pan’s Flight. For Epcot, do Soarin' or the TestTrack. Ride one, get a FastPass for another. Work your way toward the exit. Crowds will be much easier to handle this way.

21. DO, at least one day, eat lunch at Gepetto’s Restaurant, next to the It’s A Small World ride. Along one wall there are tables that have windows that look down into the beginning of the ride, and it’s very cool for the kids to wave down at the people on the boats while you’re eating.

22. DO prepare your kid for rides that may scare him/her. For instance, with my family’s love of Halloween and the like, my sister Margot had reserved a ride with Frog on the Haunted Mansion ride. We took him on first, giving him some coping skills, telling him if something jumped out at him he could “RAWR” back at it with his dinosaur claws up. He loved this and spent the whole ride rawring. As soon as we came out, he went in with his aunt and uncle, who would not have been able to help much if he had flipped out from fear. Apparently they got stuck in the part of the ride where a spook pops out of a barrel, so it popped out repeatedly in front of them, and Frog spent ten minutes going, “RAWR! (pause) RAWR! (pause) RAWR!” Good times.

23. DO NOT be alarmed when you hear “cast members” (all employees are referred to this way) welcome a new cast member and tell others “he’s with the mouse now.” Yes, it’s a cult. Just know that going in and it won’t bother you.You will be much happier if you just get it over with and drink the Kool-Aid on Day One.

24. DO stay on property if you can. We stayed at the Wilderness Lodge, in a 2BR villa (note: villas do not offer late checkout, you must be out by 11am, so if you want a late checkout to facilitate naptime, get a regular room). The lobby of the Wilderness Lodge is awesome. Oh, and it’s lovely when everything is decorated for Christmas. If you’re not Christian, go after they take down the holiday decorations and stop playing holiday music (January 10^th).Wilderness Lodge is cool because it looks like it's constructed entirely out of Lincoln Logs.

25. DO pick at least one day to do WHATEVER your kid wants to do. We did this our second day. It really, really makes them happy, and gives them a sense of control that somehow helps you with the rest of the week when you drag them all over the place trying to make everyone happy. While the rest of our group did Epcot countries on Day 2, we knew Frog would not be interested in the cultural immersion portion of that (he doesn’t even get what a country IS), so we let him pick the day’s itinerary. We did Small World seriously like 5 times in a row, Peter Pan’s flight 3 times, Dumbo, then Tomorrow land to do racecars, rockets, Buzz Lightyear, and the tour train, then we did a park tour on the old-timey railroad, then played in the playground in ToonTown.  We had snacks and potty breaks when HE wanted to. It was pretty much the best damn day of his entire life. The next day we went back to setting the itinerary, but he didn’t complain because he’d gotten his fill of calling the shots the day before.

FOOD:

Overall, the kids’ food sucks, which was a big surprise to me. I mean, it’s about kids, right? But all parks serve the same stuff for kids: microwave (weirdly coagulant) mac n cheese, cheese pizza, hot dog, or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The first day we ordered the peanut butter and jelly. It was a Smuckers pre-made one individually wrapped, with individually wrapped baby carrots pack, an individually wrapped pack of grapes, and a milk carton. There was nothing fresh.  Good that there were sides that weren’t fries, so kudos for that, but wow. If your kid will eat grown-up food, you may want to occasionally go that route and just have him/her share off of your plate. Come to think of it, most of the adult food is not much better: meatball sandwich, fish planks, chicken nuggets, pizza, etc. If you have a fridge in your room, I recommend getting some groceries. Save your money for eating out at night. There is no restriction on bringing sandwiches or whatever into the park. Oh and there are water fountains everywhere, so you can bring a water bottle to refill. The only problem with that plan—which I followed on Day 1 but then abandoned—was that the water in your room and in the parks tastes like Florida water. As in, slightly fishy or sandy or something. It’s just...off, somehow. So we ended up buying a case of bottled water and keeping it in the fridge, and each morning I’d tote one in my purse into the park.

KNICKKNACKS:

I highly recommend telling your kid up front what the plan is for gift shop buying. I saw a lot of little kids begging for purchases. Mine was all about the rides, thank God and was super bored the one time we went in a shop, BUT we also told him at the beginning that we would buy him three things. One toy at the beginning that he could buy with his own money, one balloon, and one thing at the end.  He had $12 of his own money saved up (presents from grandparents, chore money, etc). He bought a small die cast monorail that he took EVERYWHERE and put on anything straight as a monorail track. Great purchase.

The balloon we got on the way OUT of the park on the 2^nd day (for what it’s worth, you can let the air out to pack it, and then have it reinflated at your grocery store for like $1. Which is good because the balloons are TEN BUCKS.).

The last gift was a stuffed Mickey Mouse that his grandmother got him. This does not include, however, the AUTOGRAPH BOOK that you can buy anywhere in the park. Have this handy with a pen, as the characters show up unexpectedly. If you get there at opening, you can get a bunch of autographs before there’s much of a line. Frog warmed up to the idea of autographs on Day 3 and became something of a stalkerazzi at that point. We were begging him to go on a ride but he was determined to get Pluto, Daisy Duck, and then “Chimp and Dale” as he calls them, all in a row. By the way, only try to get autographs when the characters are set up for such. If they are walking around or dancing at a street party, they strangely do not have on the right "hands" for holding a pen. I plan to use this at work: Sorry, I don't have on my policy-writing hands today, oh well.  (Another bonus to getting there early is that you can ride the horse-drawn trolley that goes up and down main street). Oh, and he also got an owl from his great-aunt (it was her Christmas present to him), and then his grandmother bought him a tiny mouse-ears hat to go on the owl. So, so cute, the tiny mouse-ears hat. 

NAPS:

We did naps all but one day. I took the nap, too—I needed it. Oh and, we don’t co-sleep at home but I have to say, I had a really nice time co-sleeping with my kid on vacation. He is sooo warm and cuddly. The day we skipped the nap did not go well starting around 6pm, and we had to bail on our dinner reservations that night (the rest of the family went, we had a party of ten). He didn’t flip out, we just could see he was not going to hold it together for an 8pm dinner reservation.  Motivate your child to take naps by saying he can stay up to watch the FIREWORKS only if a nap occurs. You have to do the fireworks at least once. The castle is all lit up and it’s soooo pretty. Frog was on my hip watching the fireworks and whispered in my ear, “Oh, Mommy, they turn into starrrs.” Totally worth the price of admission.

DINNER OUT:

There are some cool restaurants to try out. Make your reservations the second you arrive in your hotel room the first night, things fill up fast.  I recommend the Japanese Restaurant at Epcot’s Japan (they cook in front of you at the table), the Kona Café at the Polynesian Resort, the Whispering Canyon restaurant at the Wilderness Lodge (only for lunch or dinner, though—breakfast there is not good at all. It’s a themed restaurant with obnoxious waiters who tease you, enormous drinks, all-you-can-eat milkshakes (yes really), and occasional stick-pony races around the restaurant for the kiddies. Oh, and be sure to ask for ketchup).  Also, there is a restaurant at Hollywood Studios where you sit IN a car and watch old b movies like you’re in a drive-in. I forget the name. Very cool though, reminds me of Pulp Fiction’s Jack Rabbit Slims. DO NOT eat at the NBC Commissary at Hollywood Studios. We ended up somehow with no other choice, stood in a massive line for an HOUR and got mediocre, lukewarm crap. Inexplicably, they “theme” their meals. There are only eight things on the menu:

“LOST” fried fish (ok, this makes sense, an island, gotcha)

“UGLY BETTY” Cheeseburger (um…eat it and you get fat and zitty?)

“GREY’S ANATOMY” Chicken Curry (um…I’m getting confused now…)

“EXTREME MAKEOVER HOME EDITION” Asian Salad (W.T.F., are you SERIOUS?)

There are two desserts,

“Desperate Housewives Chocolate Mousse” and “All My Children Strawberry Shortcake.”

 

I am at a loss here, people.

Just…take my advice, and make reservations for dinner. This will also keep you from enduring, after an hour in line, the person in front of you asking to SEE THE RECIPES for everything on the menu because someone in her party has egg and milk allergies. I’m sorry, but you had an hour of line-standing to ask that question. He manager went and got “THE BOOK” and brought it up and they spent seriously I am not kidding 20 minutes going over the recipes and devising work-arounds. If you have any allergies, MAKE RESERVATIONS FOR DINNER. The chefs will COME OUT TO YOUR TABLE and make you something SPECIAL. Do not go to a place called a COMMISSARY and hold up the line asking how GREY’S ANATOMY CHICKEN CURRY CAN BE MADE EGG FREE. DO NOT ORDER THE EXTREME MAKEOVER CHICKEN SALAD WITHOUT THE SESAME SEEDS, THE DRESSING, or the SOY. “ ASIAN SALAD, HOLD THE ASIAN” does not make sense.

WHAT TO DO AT EACH PARK WITH A THREE YEAR OLD:

I did a lot of research into what was and was not appropriate for our target age group. There are tons of things to do at each park, but I am listing below only the things you’ll want to do if you have a three or four year old in tow.

NOTE: AT all parks, there are an awful lot of 3-D rides and movies. If your kid isn’t into 3D, gets motion sick, or won’t wear the glasses, make sure to pay attention to those. We fall into the category above, so we did not do anything 3D.

HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS

Do not go to Hollywood Studios with a preschooler. It is a waste of your time. Do not go there. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Close cover before striking. Not available in all states. We dragged him there one evening (see Commissary fiasco above) and felt horrible as we wandered around with nothing for him to do. Finally we took him on the Star Wars ride, a cool flight simulator, but it was pretty herky-jerky and we were lucky we got out of there with a reprise of the Inevitable Puking Incident from our cab ride earlier in the week.

MAGIC KINGDOM (divided into a couple of areas):

RAILROAD  stops at the front gate, Frontierland, and ToonTown. A full circle of the park takes 20 minutes. It’s a great way to get around quickly when your feet hurt, but if your kid is like mine, it’s just as thrilling as any of the “real” rides.

HORSE-DRAWN TROLLEY – super cool to ride this. Slow but cool, one-way trip. Great views of the castle. You hop on right at the main entrance, in the square.

Adventureland: Swiss Family Treehouse, Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean (now refurbished with animatronic Johnny Depps, nom nom). A small waterfall drop in the dark could scare some littles. Frontierland: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad: If your kid is fearless and over 40 inches. Test him out first on the Barnstormer kiddie coaster in ToonTown to gauge his fear factor.  Mine did this the last day and clenched his teeth through the whole thing and said he didn’t like it, but 30 minutes later he cited it as his favorite ride. So. Also, Tom Sawyer Island is AWESOME. You take a raft over and then kids can just explore. There’s a fort with guns where you can get all conflicted about your kid pretending to be a sniper, until he tells YOU to try it and you really find that you very much enjoy pretending to shoot the obnoxious people standing in line for Thunder Mountain Railroad. Avoid the Country Bear Jamboree, it is somehow both boring and creepy at the same time. It’s almost exactly like going to Chuck E Cheese. If that isn’t enough to scare you off, then nothing will.

Liberty Square: The Hall of Presidents now has President Barack Obama standing among George Washington, John F Kennedy, Thomas Jefferson, etc. That is so super awesome I just don’t even know what to say. Barack side by side with Thomas Jefferson, who owned slaves…gulp. Yay America, you’ve come a long way, baby. Also here is Haunted Mansion (see above for coping techniques).

Fantasyland: It’s a Small World, natch. Also Peter Pan’s Flight, Dumbo ride, Cinderella’s Golden Carousel, Pooh’s Playful Spot (I know, sounds dirty, right? But it’s just a great play area with a treehouse that for some reason has a sprinkler system. MY house doesn’t have a sprinkler system). AVOID: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (sounds innocuous, but it’s the converted Mr Toad’s Wild Ride and apparently it’s terrifying).

ToonTown Fair: A great place to meet characters and get autographs. You can tour Minnie’s house and Mickey’s house (they do not live together. I thought they were married? Huh).  Ride the Barnstormer (kiddie coaster) and there’s a water play area called Donald’s Boat (was not turned on, see aforementioned 30 degree weather).

Tomorrowland: SPEEDWAY, super popular, make it there early in the morning. Space Mountain has height restrictions, 44 inches, so we didn’t do that, but I remember it being very, very cool, if you have an older child. Tomorrowland Transit Authority is a really child ride that take you on a tour, very boring but not for a 3 year old, he loved it. Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger spin (do not let your child control the movement of your vehicle, you will have an Inevitable Puking Incident of your own. Have him stick to shooting the laser gun at the bad guys). Astro Orbiter is a rocket-go-round, with AWESOME views.

EPCOT:

Spaceship Earth is the ride inside the big ball. It’s chill and has a great planetarium thing at the end. When you get off, there’s a driving video game. DO NOT DO Mission Space. You might want to check out Test Track, but it never had wait times under 150 minutes when we were there so we never got to it. Ellen’s Energy Adventure is supposed to be funny but it’s 45 minutes so we skipped it, as we are amusement park commitment-phobes. The Seas with Nemo & Friends is a nice relaxing ride with scenes from Finding Nemo.  At The Land (the place with the awesome cafeteria with organic food and hydroponically grown produce), you MUST ride Soarin’, and the very chill “Living with the Land.” If you’re with a preschooler you can avoid the “World Showcase” entirely.  Although, if you do venture over there, check out right smack dab halfway around the lake (where the ferry landing is) there is a model train set up with a Swiss town, very cute. 

QUICK ANECDOTE: In “Paris,” we walked past a crepe stand, and overheard the “Cast member” saying “No no, I am sorry, sir, we ‘ave only ze crepes.” To which the tourist replied, “LOOK, I don’t want a crepp. I want cotton candy. You know, fluffy pink stuff? COTTONNNN CANNNDYYYY.” More apologies from cast member.  Kind of crazy that we Americans are assholes even in FAKE FRANCE.  “America,” in this instance, was literally 30 feet away, so walk your fat ass over there and get your cotton candy there.

ANIMAL KINGDOM:

There are two shows here that are GREAT, like, I WOULD PAY FOR THEM GREAT): Festival of the Lion King, and Finding Nemo—The Musical. Really amazing production values; I was shocked. Great talent.

 

Preschoolers will like Kilimanjaro Safari, Forest Exploration Trail, The Boneyard in DinoLand, Fossil Fun Games, TriceraTop Spin. There’s a DINOSAUR ride that’s a bit risky scary-wise, with a height requirement that Frog was a tad too short for so I can’t comment but my mom says there’s a T-Rex that makes even adults almost crap their pants. So maybe not.  

FINAL TIPS:

• If you are alone with your kid (no extended family), they will let the whole family stay in line for a ride, one parent rides while the other stays with the kid(s), and then gets off and switches out with other parent (i.e. without going to the back of the line).
• If you stay on property at any Disney resort, there are “Extra Magic Hours” for the parks that change each day. Some days Magic Kingdom opens an hour early. Another day Animal Kingdom stays open an extra THREE HOURS for guests (though be aware that the safari does not happen after sunset).
• If you have a GIRL, you may want to book a character breakfast or lunch (Cinderella’s Table, etc). The girls seemed to be very into this. Also, if your daughter owns a princess dress (or two) already, BRING IT so she can wear it to the park. Otherwise she will see ALL THE OTHER GIRLS wearing THEIR princess dresses and she will feel left out and want you to buy her a dress THERE, which is like $70. AVOID AT ALL COSTS. Also, there’s this thing where you can go to a “princess salon” where they slick your daughter’s hair back into a super tight bun, sprinkle pixie glitter all over her head, put MAKEUP on her, and attach a tiara with fake sparkly hair. This results in your child looking like a common street prostitute. AVOID. Also, do not let your child wear her high heeled glass slippers to the park. Duh, you think, but I saw three girls hobbling along in pain like bound-footed geishas. AVOID AVOID AVOID.
• You can get your kid a button that says “First Time!” and she’ll get more attention from cast members. If it’s a birthday, you can get a button that says that, and then seriously everyone she passes will say “HAPPY BIRTHDAY SALLY!!” and she will feel like a celebrity. It’s a bit creepy, actually, after awhile, for everyone to know your kid’s name, but you know, up to you.

I have to admit, I’ve always sort of rolled my eyes at the idea of Disney, choosing to be all cool and “above it”--but I have to say, this was probably the best week of my kid’s entire life. It’s really, really nice, from his perspective, to be in a place where everyone greets HIM instead of his parents, you know? No one frowns when you walk into a restaurant with a kid. Every dinner feels like a special occasion. It’s…nice. It’s a really, really nice vacation from reality. As we walked out of the Magic Kingdom that last day, we said “Goodbye, Castle!” and “Goodbye, Main Street!” and my kid got a little teary-eyed and then I seriously got choked up. He looked at me and said, “Mommy, I love it here. When we have to go on an airplane back home I will be so sad to go to my city.”

I felt the same way. The real world—especially one that is gray and only 3 degrees today—kinda blows when you have literally been spending your days in Fantasyland.

Frog bidding farewell to the castle, with blanket and Kangaroo in hand for comfort.

My Husband: Putting the "C0ck" in "Hancock Building"

I have this compulsion when my husband and son are heading out of the house for the day to say, "Be safe!" Can't help it. I have a very active imagination. I can bring myself to tears sometimes just looking at my son and thinking how great he is and how lucky I am to have him in my life and then wondering if something horrible will happen to take him away from me. There was a tragedy several years ago  involving my young nephew (a fatal accident when he was the age my son is now), so I thought that was why I worried so much, but as I talk to other mothers, I hear more and more that it's universal. We worry. It's what we do. Some of us worry about our children getting hurt. Others worry about the psychological damage we are inflicting on them (from divorce, from NOT getting divorced, from being maniacal about cleanliness, for being impatient with them).

I can be all free-range for awhile, but if I'm stressed or tired the overprotective helicopter parent in me comes out like gangbusters. I told my own mom about this, and she said that when I was little she always worried I would not live past  the age of seven because she could not imagine me older than that. Oddly, this made me feel better. I'm sure that's indicative of how screwed up I am.

It's human nature to worry, i guess, at least for mothers. We invest so much of our being in these little people. It's excruciating to think of something happening.

Incidentally, because I know my weaknesses, I do not ever let myself watch Law & Order or CSI or any of those other dead-body shows. I made the mistake of watching Angelina Jolie's The Changeling and worried for weeks about kidnapping. It also helps me not to watch network news (I get my news from NPR, which rarely covers stuff like child abductions). No 60 Minutes and no 20/20, either: those shows are porn for worriers. I have to stay away. BACK AWAY FROM THE WORRY PORN.

So yesterday, as my husband and son were headed out the door to go to the top of the HANCOCK BUILDING, sweet Jesus, my usual "be safe!" morphed into "PLEASE BE SAFE" with a sidecar of two texts and a chaser of one phonecall on their way there, reminding my husband of things that could go wrong at the top of the Hancock Building with a three year old. You know, just in case he was planning on letting him rappel down the west face of the damn thing.

So about an hour later, my husband sends me a picture from his cellphone, with the title

HI MOMMY WE ARE BEING CAREFUL ON THE 93RD FLOOR:

Oh, HAAAA ha ha fucking ha. Soooo funny.

(This is, by the way, a MURAL of buildings, with a faux scaffold. Had this been an ACTUAL emergency, the tones you hear would have been followed by a rage blackout and a divorce.)

You know how the therapy for a fear of flying is working your way up to taking a *real* flight? The theory is, I suppose, that you just immerse yourself in the fear and as a result, you get over it.

If you are a worrier, then, the best cure is to marry my husband.

You receive total full-on FEAR IMMERSION and eventually you chill out.

In theory.

I'm waiting.

Rhymes with Orange

Frog is starting to learn to sound words out on the page, and part of that skill includes a fascination with rhyming. He will say things like "hit, fit, it rhymes it sounds the same! match, catch, it rhymes it sounds the same!" He likes for me to challenge him.

Frog: "Hey Mommy, let's play a rhyming game, ok?"

Me: "Sure kiddo."

Frog: "Okay you ask me a word to rhyme."

Me: "Cat."

Frog: "Hat!"

Me. "Good job. House."

Frog: "Mouse!"

Me: "Right, okay you do one for me."

Frog: "Okay! Scissors."

I'mmmmmmmm Dreeeaming of a Whiiiiite Two-Days-After-Christmas......

I spend a lot of time subconsciously beating myself up about failing to do the things I should be doing. It's hard for me to congratulate myself on accomplishments, probably because when I was a kid I would get an a 99% on a test and my dad would look at it and ask, "Which one did you miss?" If I got 100% he would ask if there was extra credit, and why didn't I get it.

But I have to say, it's looking good as I go into 2010. I finished my grad degree, for one thing, which has allowed me to actually have something the rest of you may have been referring to all these years as "weekends." For three years, mine have been spent shooing my family out of the house, or locking myself in the bedroom with headphones on to cancel out the noise of two boys (the one I gave birth to and the one I'm married to), so that I could read GOBS of, oh, say, Dante's Inferno or non-fiction studies of Old English. (For those without advanced degrees, in Old English you just add an "e" to the end of everythign and double some of the letters, for example, "Ye Olde Bookshoppe" - at least that's what they taught me at DePaul. Huh, is that not right?)

This morning, on a REAL LIVE WEEKEND, I went to a 2-hour yoga class at my gym. TWO HOURS, I TELL YOU.  Frog totally had cabin fever (he's not used to this public-school, two-weeks-off thing, and adults are oh-so-boring when one has to deal with them for days at a time), so for the first time I took him to the gym and put him in their childcare. He didn't even have a problem separating; he was thrilled to have some kids his age to play with. He said "Bye, mommy!" and I trotted out the door and around the corner to the gym and up four flights of stairs to a darkened room with sitar music playing and floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides. As I did my vinyasas and cycled through sun salutations, I felt something I haven't felt in a long time:

calm. 

At one point we were in triangle pose facing north and I looked out the fourth-floor windows and surveyed my neighborhood, my kingdom. Fluffy snow was falling steadily on the rooves (yes, I know, rooves is an antiquated pluralization, but I like it and I can't make myself type "roofs") of what I recognized as my son's school across the street, the gelato place on the corner, and, in the distance, the building I used to live in and the homes of some of my friends. Everything was completely silent, snow falling steadily, blanketing each roof like the peak of a far-off mountain, buffeted away by the smoke rising from so many chimneys. We were high up enough to where I couldn;t see the streets, so there was no movement except the snow (down) and the smoke from chimneys (up). It all struck me as very Dickensian, except without the starvation and corruption. (Well, SOME corruption--it's Chicago, after all.)

As the wonderfully chill (they're not all chill, surprisingly) yoga instructor asked us to breathe in and thank ourselves for taking this time to honor our bodies, I really felt that gratitude. I surveyed my little corner of the world, blanketed in snow, and felt extremely limber, alive and blessed.

"The feeling of centeredness that you have now, after sivasana, is always with you...you just have to access it," she said. What a wonderful reminder.

I picked up my son from childcare and we took 30 minutes to walk the two blocks home as we stopped and made (and threw) snowballs, wrote letters in the snow on the sides of buildings, caught snowflakes on our tongues, and just generally enjoyed the (20 degree) weather. 

It's not normal for me not to hurry in 20 degree weather. 

It's not all that normal for me not to hurry, period.

May I take this feeling of gratitude and happiness and calm with me into tomorrow, and the next day, and the next year.  May that attitude, cultivated and honored, enrich my son's life and the lives of others around me. And my own.

I know I will fail in this, sometimes. Probably often. But I will try not to criticize myself for it. I will recognize it, and let it float away, like thoughts during meditation. The more relaxed I am, the more relaxed my son will be, the more relaxed I will be.....

I'm not going to make any resolutions, per se, as they always fail. Lose weight, exercise more, write more, blah blah blah. 

I will almost certainly have weak moments where I bitch about work, or "fuss" at my husband, or tell my kid to hurry up. I might even say something snarky to an old person who should mind his own business, but I hope not.

I can promise you unequivocally, however, that there's one thing I'm NOT going to do this year.

Homework.

I am Creeped Out By My Kid's School Craft Projects: V for Snowman

They say that the reason you keep singing a song that's stuck in your brain is because you don't sing it all the way through, so there's no resolution, so your brain keeps going over it again and again to get resolution.

I'm not sure what this "snowman" project Frog brought home reminds me of; it's adorable but also somehow very disturbing. The closest thing I can come up with is that it's somehow vaguely reminiscent of the masked dude in V for Vendetta. See?

Same hat, same outstretched gloved hands, same kooky white face and even the moustache, right?

But this can't be it, because I am still obsessing over it, so clearly my subconscious is searching for a better answer. Anyone help a girl out here? I need to know what this "snowman" reminds me of SO HE WILL STOP CHASING ME IN MY DREAMS.

Jingle Bell RAWKS! (or, A Jaded Urban Buddhist Gets All Verklempt About Christmas)

We haven't really "done" Christmas that much with our kid. We bought a few presents. Last year we didn't even have a tree. There was certainly no Santa Claus, Virginia. We just didn't put that much thought into it.

I myself never believed in Santa (my parents didn't even try to trick me, I was so onto them from Day One), and my husband was disappointed year after year when he didn't get the big-ticket item he wanted (usually involving a motor and the ability to potentially decapitate oneself): he never understood, if the Big Man could bring you anything, why a rough year financially for Mom & Dad would factor into it.

It was partially the lying.  I'm over that now: I mean hey, I lie to my kid all the time:

"Sorry, sweetie, McDonald's is CLOSED today."

"Nope you need to go to school NOW because Mommy has to drive to the office today (he has no idea I telecommute some days. He would be so mad if he knew I was here, a block away, and he could be watching Little Einsteins all day instead of, sigh, LEARNING all the time)

"I don't know what happened to your last cookie [that Daddy ate]".

[Incidentally, I fussed at Aquaman last night for eating Frog's Organic Sandwich Cookies, and told him if he's going to do some midnight snacking to get his OWN, cheap-o, non-organic craptastic store brand sandwich cookies.]

[Also incidentally to that side comment, if you are not from the South you may be wondering what exactly "fussing" is. The best way to explain it to a Yankee would be, I suppose, that it's somewhere between commenting and yelling, maybe a good-natured, not-loud, commentary. By a woman. About something a man is doing wrong. I am usually not yelling at him, I am fussing at him. It falls in the same category as "ugly." As in, "I don't know why you have to be ugly." If I am fussing at my mother about her being out of the freaking country for a year, for example, she might reply, "Oh, stop being so ugly, I'll be home in December." It's all about maintaining the niceties while still getting your point across. You draw more flies with honey than with vinegar, etc. Though why anyone would want to attract a bunch of flies is beyond me. Anyway.]

So back to my husband eating our son's organic cookies.

Aqua: "You don't care if I eat healthily?"

Me: "If you can't grasp the irony of scarfing twelve organic cookies at 2 a.m. while smoking a cigarette, then I can't help you."

Partially it's also been that neither of us is technically a Christian, so we're undecided about how much to "commit" to a holiday that is really about the birth of the Baby Jesus. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE ME SOME BABY JESUS, but is it hypocritical to do Santa and Christmas if you're not a Christian? I'm a Buddhist and Aquaman is agnostic (grew up Baptist and ran screaming), but we were both raised with (secular, half-assed, present-focused versions of) Christmas and have fond memories of it. So we want to do the tree and Santa and all that jazz. We're just struggling, now, with what to do about the "meaning" of Christmas. Can it be about the holiday and renewal and the solstice and spending time with family and doing charitable acts, and not be about the birth of Jesus? I mean, we can TELL him that stuff--I plan to teach him about ALL religions, as my parents did with me--but as far as what we specifically celebrate, as a family? I don't know. I mean, it's not as if Santa has a ton to do with Jesus, right? Santa was not one of the wise men, as far as we know, so the Santa thing is a dubious connection at best, right? Also, trees were pagan symbols celebrating the solstice, so a tree is not necessarily Christian either, right? RIGHT??!!? I don't know. I tend to overthink. But I'm interested in others' thoughts. (get thee to the comments box, down there V). 

For now I'm going with, we celebrate Jesus' birthday the same as we do the Buddha's birthday, just in different ways. On Buddha's birthday we light candles and do a fun parade at the temple. On Christmas we celebrate Jesus' birthday by having a tree and giving presents. Some include Jesus in the secular pantheon (I know, oxymoron) of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. The parallel teachings of Buddha and Jesus are pretty amazing to read, side by side. LOTS of similarities there. So, you know, I'm a big admirer of Jesus'--it's just the one-and-only-son-of-God thing that's problematic for me. 

None of which has anything to do with Santa.

So we committed to Santa. And the tree. A REAL one, for the first time ever, in my house. I don't even have real HOUSEPLANTS, so this is a big deal. I'm fine with it, as long as I don't get too close, or else my eyes start stinging. (NOTE: This is because I'm allergic to some trees, not because I'm all "religion, ow, my eyes, the burning" Though if I get some sort of burned-out cross image somewhere on my body, or stigmata, or struck by lightning, you'll be the first to know.)

And when I say committed, I mean, C-O-M-M-I-T-T-E-D.

It's just not in my nature to half-ass anything. Anything worth doing is worth OVERdoing, I say.

So, in addition to the tree I have a wreath on the door (that I have cleverly converted into a peace sign, see above), and an adorable train-shaped advent calendar that I spent literally three hours stuffing with little candies and nuts and notes that led to other presents (this was part of my $300 Target shopping spree, which I forgave myself for because I had not been to Target in literally three months, at ALL), and a tree in Frog's room (the Charlie Brown one he decorated with his friend Monkey in my last post), and snowman cookies,

and carols playing, and a stuffed Santa, and we're reading all sorts of Christmas books (I'll have to add them to my amazon thing on the right sidebar for you, as well, if I can figure out how to do that, and then if you click through MY site to get there and then you buy one, I will receive a percentage of the sale so small as to actually withdraw money from my checking account) and at night Frog has requested that his bedtime song switch from his two previous favorites, "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music and "Stay Awake" (apparently from Mary Poppins but I only know it from the AWESOME lullaby album "Now the Day Is Over" by The Innocence Mission (see sidebar), given to me as a gift when my son was born) to now, ALL "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," ALL THE TIME. Somehow he is comforted by the thought of Santa watching him while he sleeps. How effed up is THAT?

Not any more effed up than Sinterclaus, written about to HILARIOUS effect in David Sedaris' essay "6 to 8 Black Men."

Not any more effed up than that old favorite bedtime prayer that asks God to take the child's soul "if I should die before I wake." I mean, seriously? Yikes.

Though, similarities abound. Santa is very much like the Old Testament God: there are repercussions for naughty behavior. The stocking full of coal is slightly reminiscent of the whole locusts thing. Or maybe the i'll-take-your-first-born child thing. Which is also like Rumpelstiltskin.

In short, DO NOT FUCK WITH SANTA.

Or GOD.

Or RUMPELSTILTSKIN.

SERIOUSLY.

THEY WILL FUCK YOU UP.

Oh, and, we're also going to the ZooLights Festival, and shopping downtown to see the window displays and Michigan Avenue all lit up, and this Saturday we're having Breakfast with Santa at Macy's (I will hold my breath and pretend it's still Marshall Field's), and going to see The Nutcracker Saturday night (hoping that his love for SYTYCD will hold up for three hours of ballet, HA! as if. We are So leaving that shit early), and then Winter Wonderfest at Navy Pier, which will include ice skating and riding a Santa Train and seriously, I think I have a problem. I went from 0 to 60 in a matter of days.

My interior monologue is SANTASANTASANTASANTASANTA.

Why? Because my kid LOVES it.

I seriously am chomping at the bit for us to write a letter to Santa together.

It's the closest I'm gonna get to praying, so I've got to make it good...

Do ya'll still sacrifice animals, these days? 

Ah.

Just the milk and cookies, then.

Growing Up So Fast It's Scaaaaaary

I may have mentioned before how Halloween is a High Holiday in my house. I come from a long line of women who for whatever reason love Halloween more than any other holiday. Christmas is fine, we enjoy the giving and the togetherness, but nothing gets us excited like a bunch of bats and some candy apples. It's entirely possible that the reason I became a professional actress was my love for playing dress-up. My sister Margot really takes this to extremes: you know how people volunteer at holiday-time? Every Halloween, she volunteers... AT A HAUNTED HOUSE. Where other people do Christmas in July, she does Halloween in April. When she was getting her degree in sociology, her thesis was on the phenomenon of slutty Halloween costumes for young women, how the whole point of the holiday was to be a "Naughty nurse" or an S&M version of Rainbow Brite (therapy, anyone?). She doesn't conform to such stereotypes herself, of course: her costumes generally forgo sexiness and flattering cuts in favor of cleverness. She also usually makes her boyfriend coordinate with her. This year, she wasn't allowed to volunteer at the haunted house as usual because her doctor said that, post-surgery, her immune system wasn't strong enough to allow her to safely interact with that many members of the public who may or may not have H1N1 or god knows what else.

So, as she couldn't go to the haunted house, she decide she'd just BE a haunted house. She got a big ol' box and cut a ton of tiny windows and painted it black and lit it from within to make the windows glow and walked around inside it, with--and this is the best part--ghost sock puppets on her hands, coming out of the haunted windows. This, my friends, is what I call commitment.The large box also provided her with the necessary germ-free bubble that allowed her to venture out to a party. Is clevah, no?

So it goes without saying that the sister of someone so dedicated cannot just half-ass this holiday. You can't be a cafeteria catholic if your sister is a nun. Well, I guess you can, but you'd have a disconnect, and you'd have a hard time figuring out what to get your brother-in-law for Christmas (I mean, God? The ultimate Guy Who Has Everything). So even if I wanted to, I cannot phone it in. And I wouldn't want to even if I could. I, too, love Halloween. LOVE. I love the candy buying and answering the doorbell and commenting on the kiddies' costumes, I love picking out a pumpkin and carving it up and almost gagging at the seeds being so gross, and I love mulling for months over what we're going to dress as, and wandering around Lincoln Park (because the big brownstones have the coolest decorations and the best candy, and because trick or treating in a high rise is totally lame), even if it means bundling up and/or just suffering with wind-chapped cheeks and purple fingers clutching that treat bag, because by God, Halloween ROCKS.

One of the BEST things about having a child--and I acknowledged this as a benefit early on, about five minutes after I found out I was pregnant--is that I totally have an excuse to dress up now. Not that I didn't still dress up before, but I was never able, pre-child, to get Aquaman to dress up WITH me, to do any semblance of a "theme" together. Now I can. Bwa hahahaha.

Likewise, one of the best things about Frog going to a Jewish preschool (besides delicious hamentaschen and challah) was that they did Purim, so we got NOT ONE BUT TWO HALLOWEENS!!!

Aquaman tries to get me to wait until it is ACTUALLY OCTOBER before I start shopping for costume ideas. Silly man. He's right to try, because clearly, when I start in August, it means that I buy something in August. And then possibly change my mind a few times, so that every Halloween, we've ended up with two or three different costumes for Frog. You know, for different purposes. The kid has more costume changes than Lady Gaga. It's a little ridiculous, I'll admit. I have a problem. There, I said it. But that's not going to keep me out of Party City and off the Costumes Express website next September.

See, he's just so damn cute. His first Halloween, we went first with a little comfy lion costume. He was only 6 months old or so and still really chubby. I had thought, ok cool, he'll be a lion and then I can be Dorothy and I'll make Aquaman be the scarecrow, DONE. But then I trolled around for Dorothy costumes and "sexy dorothy" was not gonna be appropriate for, well anything, and the only other option was "Plus Size Dorothy" and that was the frumpiest piece of shit I've ever seen in my life. I seriously think it was made out a vinyl picnic tablecloth. Either that of grocery bags from Aldi.

Anyway, we got his picture made in the lion costume (I don't usually post photos of my kid's face here but he looks nothing now like he did as a baby, becasue he was a pretty fat baby, so woo-ha, caution to the wind):

 

And that was really cute but then I had nothing to coordinate with it. And I needed to coordinate because a) there was a neighborhood fair and parade to go to and b) there was my office Halloween party to go to and c) it's a sickness. So I sold the lion costume on craigslist and searched for something else. Enter the pirate:

 

Arrrrrr. But that smile lasted about 2 seconds before we discovered the hard way it was too itchy and stiff.  So, we went to Old Navy and tried on a nice, comfy, soft chicken costume: 

Oh the humanity. Even at this tender age (get it? tender? chicken tenders? eh? eh?) Frog had an overdeveloped sense of injustice. I'm keeping this photo for use in his therapy sessions later on.
It's just as well, as I had no idea what I was planning to wear in order to coordinate with a chicken costume.

So, we finally ended up with a bat costume.

To coordinate with the bat, I was a vampire. Easy peasy since I'm really white and have straight dark hair so pretty much, all I had to do to be a vampire was wear black and put on a choker and some red lipstick. Et voila! I do not have a photo of the two of us in theme, this is yet another victim of the fact that my husband, though an art teacher, takes craptacular photos, so I do all the photo-taking and therefore am never recorded in pictures. Huh, kinda like a vampire.

The next year, when he was just under 2, I scoured the thrift stores for the raw materials to fashion a tiny adorable Luke Skywalker costume. I was rather proud of this one. I was Princess Leia to coordinate:

 

 

The next year, I lowered my standards because we actually closed on our sale and our purchase of the condo and moved on October 31. It was unavoidable. This is like if a normal Christian person was forced to move on Christmas Day, seriously, there was some gnashing of teeth up in here. Our wonderful new neighbor (also room parent of my son's daycare class, known to you as The She-Kramer or MashugaMom) picked Frog up from school that day and took him trick or treating with her son while we set up his bedroom, paid the movers, etc. He wore a lame-o doctor costume, though even then, it was a theme, because his friend was a firefighter, so it was an emergency services thing. And he looked adorable in his scrubs and white coat, though I have no photos. 

This year, he actually started having his own opinions, so I had a blast "shopping" with him online for ideas of what we should. Unfortunately he's effing THREE so his opinions changed on a daily basis. Finally I cut him off, no more mind-changing, so in mid-September (extraordinary willpower to hold out so long) we ordered our costumes online. He wanted Star Wars. I got him the Luke outfit (not from Tattooine like before but Luke as an X-Wing Fight Pilot in the orange jumpsuit), and I had to re-purchase the Leia costume, at his insistence (I'd sold the previous one on craigslist, dammit). Together, we succeeded in convincing Aquaman to be Darth Vader.

Only problem was, when the box arrived, Frog was insistent that he HIMSELF was going to be Darth Vader. Uh....crap. So I (BECAUSE I AM BRILLIANT!!!) came up with a test. If he could wear the Vader mask for five whole minutes, he could be Darth Vader. It's amazing I got a photo of this....

because it literally lasted about six seconds. I AM EVIL GENIUS.

Luke wins!

 

And Aquaman got to hide behind his Darth persona, though he did have a quite a bit of flair when the wind picked up:

 

We're storing the Darth and Leia rather than passing them along this year. There are too many other characters he might want to be, now that he knows what Star Wars actually is, and I am not buying the same costume again. "We could wear this same theme every year," Aquaman said hopefully.

Honey, please. Have we met?

So, I was really just planning to do a little retrospective here, a funny and lighthearted review of our Halloweens so far, but in digging out these old photos, something different happened. I got totally choked up. My little munchkin was so, so fat and smiley as a baby, in that lion costume, and now he's, look, i know he's only three but he seems SO OLD. Look how skinny the body is that's stickin gout from under that Darth Vader mask. Three and a half years has gone by in the blink of an eye. Aquaman said to me the other day, "five more blinks just like this and he'll be in college."

Uguh. 

He's already so mature sometimes, telling me "I KNOW that, Mommy!" when i try to tell him, um, anything, or getting upset with me and slamming the door of his bedroom (he did this so much one evening--I found out later, he hadn't napped at school, eureka!--that I actually went in there and calmly threatened that if he did it one more time Daddy was going to take the door off its hinges and he would not have any privacy. This actually worked, thank God.). He's such a teenager already, I feel like I have missed the baby part altogether. I totally get why people have another baby right about now; you want that age back. I really do. I have GOT to find a way to do less, to not stress about work so that I'm not doing it in the evenings when I should be enjoying family time, etc. Grad school being over with is a huge weight off, one less thing that takes me away from my kid. I have writen before about this: choosing "good mom" means beign a bad student and bad employee; choosing "good employee" means bad mom, etc. You are never succeeding at all of your roles at one time.

I find myself enjoying the times when my son is sick because not only do I get to stay home from work with him (Aquaman and I fight over who GETS to call in!) but my little boy becomes littler, more cuddly. Stays still for longer. Lets me cuddle him tighter. Stays still long enough for me to smell the top of his head.  I had to go across country for a business trip a couple of weeks ago, and the first night when I called home and my son got on the phone, the smallness of his little voice took my breath away. He sounded so tiny. My husband got back on the phone. "Oh my God, he sounds like such a baby!" I exclaimed.

"He IS a baby," my husband said. "We just don't realize it anymore."

I forget that he really IS still small, that time hasn't run out.  He may have gone from pudgy, smiley infant in a lion costume (and chicken costume, and pirate, and bat costume) to skinny, gangly boy who has his own opinion about what he'll wear, but his childhood isn't over yet.

I still have a chance to soak it up.

I just need to find a way to get more hours in the day, or slow time down a bit.

May the Force be with me.

I Have No 'Good' Excuse Because I am Not a Real Writer

Hello, friends in my laptop. (Ooh! Laptop! She's on the go!!!) I know I've been neglecting the blog again but really I haven't. I've got all sorts of awesome stories stored up, an actual list of acftual stories to tell you, written down on actual paper (you know? that stuff we used to use to keep in touch with people? it's flat? white? eh...? eh..? Yeah. I barely remember it either). Soon I will tell you about Halloween (it will be a FULL COLOR PICTORIAL!!! in fact!), and the swine flu epidemic at my son's school, and going out for a girls' night to the theatahhhh, and etc. But right now, for the past two weeks, all that has been consuming me is MY JOB. And see, I don't write about my job, mostly because many of you would not find it interesting and also because I don't want to ever be fired for writing about my job.

So there you have it. I don't write about my job, and all I have been eating sleeping thinking for the past three weeks, basically, is my job--so tell me, fair reader, what would I write about? I'm now sitting in my hotel room in San Francisco, on a business trip, a little toasty from a few drinks at the mahhvelous ABSINTHE (Jamie from Top Chef is the head chef there, yum! You absolutely MUST try the beef cheeks, urmagah, and the bailey's cupquette for dessert). And it's midnight here which means 2a.m. at home. So I should be sleeping. But I'm not. You know why? Because a coworker friend who reads this blog asked me yesterday what the freaking deal was with me not writing for awhile. So I replied basically what I just told you: that I don't write about work so, you know, all work and not play makes momtrolfreak a no-post loser. So she said, "Well, you better write something soon, I mean, people may give up on you...I mean Jen Lancaster will go a few weeks without posting but she has a good excuse because she writes books and stuff." I'm not sure if she said 'good' excuse or 'real' excuse, I kinda blacked out in there somewhere. But so now, here you go, Jessica, this one's for you. I'm posting. IS THIS BETTER? And now I have to go work on my novel too so I don't feel like a total loser.

Looking forward to another anxiety dream tonight: you know, when you're a control freak and you go out of town for a week while your son's class is having a mini-breakout of the plague. your stunted ability to control unleashes itself in your dreams. After my first night here, I woke up in a cold sweat and had to call Aquaman to make him promise me that at the first sign of fever in Frog, he would call me and take him to Children's Memorial and not that crappy hospital HE always goes to when he almost hacks off a limb at work.

The second morning, I had to call him to tell him to make sure not to leave the room if Frog was eating the grapes we bought at Whole Foods right before I left (how ironic it was, in my dream. for Frog to have been taken down by a double-priced ORGANIC grape that was supposed to be good for him. Without the pesticides, though, it doesn't go down the throat as easily, I guess).

This morning? I had to call him to say, you know, just in CASE there HAPPENS to be a large, and by large I mean, of course, COFFEE-TABLE-SIZED spider in our house--an obese and hairy one, like if a tarantula and Rush Limbaugh had a baby--you know, don't let it eat our son. Or, for that matter. any imaginary infants we might have lying around the house.

Aquaman assures me each time that things are Under Control. I don't see how that can be, if I am not there, but he says he is "bringing his A game." He was a C student, so I find this maybe not so reassuring.

  

And You May Ask Yourself, Well: How Did I Get Here

I'm at the computer, my husband is working late, my preschooler is in his room building block castles while listening to Santana, and marriages are crashing down all around us. Of our closest friends, three of the couples that five years ago I would have said were among the most stable, the most loving, the most perfect matches, have ended. It’s hard to know where to go, what to say, who you’re allowed to talk to, what your role is. If you have a role at all.  

Divorce necessarily is about self-preservation and, if there are children, about keeping those children happy and sane and loved, so I’m not looking for sympathy here as the friend of someone getting divorced. My role is tiny-to-nonexistent. No one cares—no one should care—about the effect someone’s divorce might have on that person’s adult friends. But I can’t help feeling shell-shocked because...these relationships? These were Things I Knew For Sure. 

One couple we actually lived with for several months when we had sold our house and our new condo ended up being behind schedule. These people took us into their home, OFFERED out of the blue that we should move in with them, into their tiny three bedroom bungalow with two kids and one bathroom. We were living there when she found out she was pregnant with their third child, and I was one of the first to know. It was their family life, their children, their parenting that made us rethink our childless existence, that made us decide at 32 that maybe we did want children after all.

One couple we considered as legal guardians for our own child and only decided against asking them because we worried it would be too much of a burden, financial and otherwise. I remember watching them say goodbye with affection once as he was headed just to the grocery store and I thought, wow, we don’t kiss each other goodbye. What’s our deal?

I remember one wedding like it was yesterday: an intimate celebration on a set that my husband designed that actually rotated on a turntable. This little cottage turned in circles before us, surrounding the two lovers with twinkling fiberoptic “stars” and as much love as one could cram into a church basement-turned-theatre. Almost everyone there was an actor—including the officiant—and when a cell phone rang during the ceremony the officiant quipped, “If that’s God or my agent, tell him I’ll call him back.” They were the coolest kids in town, with the coolest apartment in an old warehouse building, where you had to wind your way, Escher-like, through a maze of stairways and hallways, past dozens of Not The Right Doors until you finally arrived at The Right Door, only recognizable as such because of the heap of parkas and boots piled outside and the laughter coming from within.  They held Flirting Parties and parties where men ended up dressing in old period costume pieces from the show that had just closed and making fun of their partners who had worn the clothing onstage.  Their parties were more like “happenings” in the sixties. You couldn’t risk missing one. He took my belly photos when I was pregnant with Frog and framed several 8x10's as a shower gift. I still have a black and white photo they gave me of the first time I met their daughter: my foot next to her tiny infant foot, a photo on which the new mom had written, “Big foot, Little Foot, foot foot foot.”  The infant girl is, what, ten now? Eleven maybe. Maybe only nine, but she looks older. Gorgeous like her mother, who directed us in our first show in Chicago, in tiny bit parts in a very cool theatrical experience that really MEANT something…because everything these two did, it meant something.

This sounds like a eulogy, and in a way it is. I am mourning the loss of this great marriage, of their life together and what it meant to those who came into contact with them. They meant so much to us. They still will.

Amazing what we can’t see coming.Would it change anything if we could?

I wonder if we would brace ourselves for impact.

To some extent, our current lives and our ideas of what the future holds are based on these marriages. Each time one dissolves, we grab hands, take a deep breath and duck under the wave, let it wash over us. We feel the pull of the current washing everything out from under us and out to sea.  We dig our feet into the sand until our toes cramp.

These are people I respect and love, all of them.  It physically pains me to see them hurting. My husband and I are having late-night talks these days where we intone meaningless, trite phrases like we never saw it coming and of all people and then intertwine fingers and murmur to each other, We are so lucky.  

This is our mantra now: We are so blessed. Not that we didn’t realize it before. Not that we haven’t been through our share of trauma and hard times and really hard times and hurt feelings. We have. And I don’t know why those times, for us, led to resolution and a strengthened relationship rather than to divorce.

I am under no delusions that it could not just as easily have gone the other way.

I know no secrets to a happy marriage. I cannot throw stones. I am not more committed, more forgiving, more understanding, more patient than other people. I tend to hold a grudge. I know what it is to feel as if I could never forgive, and I know what it is to finally feel the release of forgiveness come upon me unexpectedly.  What I don’t know is how to get from the former to the latter.

In the end, I don’t really know anything. So I leave off writing and I go to my son’s room, grab his little blanket from the bed as bait and lure him to me. He resists—he is, after all, building a castle, important work—but the blanket's inevitable pull draws him to flop, finally, into my lap and release into me, to suck his thumb (this last remnant of his babyhood), to let me cradle him like I did when he was a baby and I was even less certain than I am now of what the future would hold. I curl around him and we listen to 'Black Magic Woman':

Don't turn your back on me, baby....

I bury my face in his tousled hair and breathe in the familiar scent of my magical, perfect three-year-old boy: campfire and Nilla wafers.

“I love you Mommy,” he mumbles around the sides of his thumb.

“I love you too, Boo-Ba.” I squeeze him a bit tighter.

“And I love Daddy a lot.”

“Me too,” I whisper, laying my cheek on top of his Nilla-campfire head.

Me too.

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Bad Mommy Files: The One Where I Yell at a Defenseless Old Man & Enjoy It

I have about had it with old people telling me how to raise my child.

I have a pretty mild-mannered, well-behaved (unlike me, I know) child, not some hellion who runs around screaming in restaurants. I consider myself to be pretty strict (as I am constantly seeing other parents allow behavior such as backtalk and extended high-volume whining that I do not tolerate in my child--though unlike old people I have the sense not to comment on it to those parents...anyway). I insist on manners, taking turns. He clears his dishes from the table. He picks up his toys. He says please and thank you and sometimes even "Yes Ma'am" or "no sir." This is not a juvenile delinquent.

Yesterday afternoon in the lobby of our building (a highrise with over 200 units, so I have many neighbors I hardly ever see and some I have never, in fact, seen) the She-Kramer (a.k.a. MashugaMom, tell you more about that soon) and I were chatting and our two 3-year-old boys were playing and giggling quietly together near the lobby display planter which has some little pebbles in it. They were scooping up rocks in their little hands and counting them, rearranging them on a very small scale, and whispering to eachother and giggling. We had an eye on them. They were literally five feet away.

So this 60 or so year old man (not ancient, just gray) walks by and exclaims, "Your boys are THROWING ROCKS!!!!" (which was a lie, actually) and I politely (no really, sometimes I am polite, work with me here) said, "Oh, don't worry, we've got an eye on them, they're just scooping, not throwing, thanks."

Then he says without looking at me, still walking past, but not exactly sotto voce, "That's what you get when mothers don't pay attention to their kids" as if the actual situation was that I was on the corner turning tricks and smoking the crack-rock while my child was tagging the elevator with graffiti whilst getting some girl pregnant out of wedlock.

"EXCUSE me?" I said, and he kept walking.

See now, if there's one thing I can't stand, it's lying.

If there're two things I can't stand, they're lying and criticizing my parenting.

And if there're THREE things I can't stand, they're lying, criticizing my parenting, and making a rude comment and then not standing your ground to hear the response. Be a man and say it while you're looking me in the eye, you know?

Now, let me just say, we have family in town who just left so I was out late the night before and a tiny bit hungover yesterday morning and then spent the whole day on vacation from work, waking at 6:30 am (OWWW HANGOVER) eating pancakes at 8am (DID I MENTION HUNGOVER OWWWW), then a full day at the aquarium, then walked all the way to the train with a three-year-old and walked home four blocks after getting off the train and THEN went to the library and checked out some kiddo books and walked home from there and was exhausted because did I mention I did not have I MEEEAN MY SON DID NOT HAVE a nap?

Funnily enough, Rude Semi-Old Man then proceeded to talk to the doorman for twenty minutes, occasionally glancing over, I presume so that he could wait us out and avoid walking back past us again. I imagine that he usually gets away with saying rude things because most other people who are on the receiving end of those passive-aggressive comments do not say anything back. NEWS FLASH: I AM NOT OTHER PEOPLE. The She-Kramer and I stood our ground for twenty minutes, chatting nonchalantly in the path of where he'd have to walk to get back to the elevator to go home. We essentially held the entire tower hostage.

Finally he comes back past us and SMILES, and thinks he's going to keep walking.

"Sir," I said. "I honestly don't understand how you can smile at me now after the rude comment you made before."

"That wasn't rude," he said, "It was right." (Oh. NO. You dih-uhn.)

"No." I replied, "When you tell a woman that her mothering skills are not up to par because her son is playing with some pebbles under her supervision, that's rude."

"Well I've lived in this building for 33 years," he says, appropos of nothing.

"I could not possibly care less how long you've lived here; that doesn't give you license to criticize people for no reason. These boys aren't bothering you."

"Well when I was a boy, if I had done that my father would have whacked my ass!" he sneered, raising his voice again.

"Oh yeah and look how great you turned out." I replied. "Your father should have taught you not to be rude while he was at it. Frankly, I'd like to whack your ass right now."

Okay, so.  This was not nice. The She-Kramer says I'm her hero, but I felt a little guilty. I mean, elders and whatnot. But still. He was a jerk, right? Or with old people are you just supposed to always grin and bear it?

Before you answer that I would like to submit that, as one person told me last night, "60 is the new 40." He was not the least bit over the line into "elderly." I've seen him in our gym; he runs on the treadmill. I've seen him lugging his laundry downstairs, carrying groceries, etc. He had no walkers or canes in sight, a full head of hair and a full mouth full of real teeth (that I wanted to punch out).

So...I felt kinda bad about it for about, oh, 30 minutes. But then the She-Kramer, who of course witnessed the incident, told me I'm her hero because that guy and some other old fogies have criticized her and other parents and actually made them feel bad (unwarranted! she's an awesome mom) more than once over the past few years (there's a Righteous Old People Pandemic in our building) but she usually doesn't say anything back and just ends up feeling abused. 

So now I feel like maybe I've done my civic duty. Much of my childhood was spent under the watchful eye of a hypercritical father, nothing was ever good enough, blah blah blah. And I never talked back. (We get along great now, and I've let him know that he was a jerk back then, and he's okay with that. We've moved on.) So for me, I know from experience (many times where I've said nothing in similar situations as an adult) that I'd have been thinking about it a LOT more if I hadn't said anything, carrying around the bile that comes from wishing one could go back and think of a retort in time, even internalizing the critique as if it might somehow be true (yaaaay childhood).

It would be really, really relaxing if I was the kind of person who could just hear a comment like that and chuckle to myself, "hee, what a silly old man, how cute" and have it not bother me, but that is just not who I am. Buddha, Schmuddha: no amount of meditation or yoga or acupuncture or therapy is going to turn me into a person that can shrug off injustice, whether it is experienced by me or someone else, regardless of whether it's important or insignificant. It's simply NOT FAIR to be criticized for something you didn't do (or told you didn't do something that you did, like supervise your child). And it's none of his business anyway. Maybe he'll THINK next time before he mouths off to someone about their parenting skills (or anything else).

And maybe, just maybe, that means that some younger, newer mom in the building or the neighborhood who DOESN'T have the gumption (or isn't thinking fast enough because she's sleep deprived from nursing all night) to stick up for herself will be SPARED the experience of being unnecessarily made to feel like a bad mom.

So in retrospect, I wouldn't change a thing. It was totally worth it.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this, including any similar anecdotes you have to share!

Maybe we can celebrate "National Internet Mouth Rudely Off to Old Dudes Day (NIMROD)."

Or "Parents Insisting on STicking Up For Families (PISt-UFF)."

Sharing is good. If you enjoyed this post please forward it to your friends and subscribe free in just one step, via e-mail or RSS feed so future posts go straight to your inbox! Oh and if you copy this to somewhere else, please give me credit. Thanks kids! 

If this had happened last week I could have blamed it for my kid dropping the F-bomb, but alas

I've really been wanting to get Frog his own little "boombox" for awhile. (This reminds me of this one time when I was in, oh, sixth grade or so and I said I wanted a "ghettoblaster"--this was the term EVERYBODY used for a portable radio back then!--and my mom jumped all over it and made me promise never to say it again because it denigrated a group of people...my mom rocks. I had not even considered the components of the word until then). So anyway, we bought Frog this little $25 boombox cd player thingie. I should mention that I am sort of anti-noise. I mean, not as bad as gloppy things--if I had to choose between eating yogurt and listening to loud music, I'd pass out, and then wake up and choose the music. Aquaman has this thing where when I am not home he loves noise--he works in a damn wood shop most of the day, after all--so frequently I'll walk in the house and he has the radio on, the TV on, the dishwasher going, and he's on speakerphone. THIS IS LIKE STABBING ME IN THE HEAD DEAR GOD OH MY GOD MAKE IT STOP.

But anyway, so we got Frogboy the radio so he can listen to music in his room. I have five or so CD's of kids' music that I bought when he was a baby and we just never listen to, and I was going to employ those, but then Aquaman remembered he had literally over 100 CD's in this box under the bed, of all the stuff he's burned to his iPod. So he just GIVES Frog the box without looking at it.

Which is how I came home today to my three year old listening to the soundtrack from motherfucking 8 MILE. Yes, that's right. Eminem. He's a big fan of the lyric in "Lose Yourself" that mentions "mom's spaghetti." Good times.

I went all Tipper Gore on his ass and confiscated half of the CD's. He has now decided that his faves are Johnny Cash, Elvis, and Fleetwood Mac. I am hoping that "A Boy Named Sue" will outweigh Eminem. SOON.

State of the Preschool Address

Though he has been at a daycare full-time since he was 6 weeks old (because I am a horrible mother who had a child only so I could hand him over to somebody else to raise, in keeping with my horrible-mother decision not to have siblings for him), Frog has not started real live "preschool" until now. He is now at a big school that goes up to eighth grade, with school buses outside and large kids in basketball uniforms roaming the halls, and special teachers for different classes like Art and Dance and Clay Pottery and Drama and a school library with a librarian and everything. A REAL LIVE SCHOOL with a teacher who has 13 years of experience in this age group, and two master's degrees, and two assistant teachers who are seasoned veterans, plus a couple of student teachers. And a classroom the size of a football field (not really, but it seems like it). With true "centers," including a computer center.  There are downsides of course: there are 23 kids in his class and I don't even recognize some of them, and he only knows the names of a few off the top of his head. It's a lot of kids. The ratio is great, though, it's just not as intimate as the daycare (11 kids I think?).

It's been a month now since the first day of school, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to go over what he has learned so far:

1. He can write his whole name. No shit. He is 3 and a half. His name is not something easy like "Bob," either. It's hard and it has a silent consonant and everything. This is hard core. Oh and I don't mean I dictate the letters to him, oh no. He knows the letters and what order they go in. Two of them are drawn backwards and one has a vestigial appendage, but holy christ on a bike, my kid can write his name. He could not even write the individual letters a month ago. This is AMAZING.

2. He LIKES writing his name. And learning things. And going to school. He has learned, therefore, that it's not just babysitting, and that there is knowledge to be absorbed, and being away from home is sometimes very cool. He has also learned how to tell me about his day. This includes wild hand gestures, usually. I got a whole explanation the other day about "scratch" in pottery and how to attach things and the steps before firing the glaze.

3. He likes school. He runs PAST THE PLAYGROUND to get inside in the morning, and on Saturdays he is somewhat disappointed when it's not a school day.

4. "Shooters" make you "died." (This is not from school but rather, from a classmate. He is in a class with a lot of four year olds and a couple of five year olds (who just missed the cutoff for kindergarten), many of whom have older siblings, and so this sort of thing is unavoidable. For what it's worth, he learned what shooters were AND what monsters were (and that they live in your closet, thanks for that) from an older kid in his class at daycarel. He just hadn't learned yet that the shooters could be employed to kill the monsters in your closet. So I guess what we have here is congnitive synthesis.

5. Self-sufficiency. It used to bother me at the old daycare center when the teachers would clear the tables for the kids. We make him put his plate up at home. I had considered Montessori because of their emphasis on this, but the one he got into that was near our house was full of weird robot children and the principal was a fembot and it wasn't accredited. Preschool requiresself-sufficiency however: he now knows how to peel a banana AND WILL TELL YOU PRETTY MUCH TO BACK OFF if you try to do it for him. He hangs up his own coat, packs his own lunch, etc. Amazing.

6. How to drop the F-bomb. (for the record, it is only coincidence that this coincided with the first month of preschool. You may have noticed, his mom is a little, shall we say, potty-mouthed. But I NEVER swear directly in front of him. It is possible he overheard it from another room, however. This is my theory and I'm sticking with it, and evidence supports me: he pronounced it "fo-KEEN" so he's only heard it from afar. If he had been near me when I said it he would have pronounced it correctly. Because if nothing else, especially when cursing, I have IMMACULATE DICTION.

7. How to do yoga, and the names for downward facing dog, cat, cow, cobra, and...airplane. I am not sure what that last one is. He described it and it kind of sounds like triangle or half moon. We were in the car when he was explaining it, so he couldn't show me. He seemed like he kinda thought I was an idiot for not knowing it already.

8. That "namaste" at the end of yoga means, "Teacher, stay. Don't end the class." You know: "Nama, Stay." 

9. That we don't share food at lunch because our friends who have allergies might get sick (and he knows exactly which friends have what kinds of allergies). 

10. That we have to follow through on what we say we're going to do. In his words: "if you say on Thursday that you will eat school lunch on Friday because it is pizza day you can't choose your mind and bring your lunch that day because that would be wasting food so you have to just eat pizza even if you don't feel like it and if you don;t want pizza you can just eat the corn." 

11. That no, we really do clean up our messes before we move onto the next thing. Now, WE teach this at home and always have, and his daycare said they taught this too but I repeatedly witnessed them  picking up his toys when I would arrive and he'd just run for the door, eager to get out of there. Now I ring the bell and the classroom door is locked and I watch him through the glass as he picks up EVERY LAST LEGO (or whatever) and puts it in the bin and back on the shelf, and then runs to his cubby and gets his own lunchbox, backpack, and coat, and runs to the door, kisses me, and then runs past me and down the stairs, to unlock his little bicycle from the bike rack. It is AMAZING. I took him to get his hair cut the other night and he was playing with a bunch of toys in the waiting area, and when the guy called his name he looked up and said "Okay I'm coming I just have to put my toys up first!" and we watched as he quickly moved everything back to the shelves and then came to the chair. WHO IS THIS CHILD?!?!?

He's a big boy, that's who. 

Dinosaurs, Dolphins, and Hippogryphs, oh my!

So, a few weekends ago we went to Brookfield Zoo to see the animatronic dinosaur doohickey. Frog loves dinosaurs and even knows the names of some of the basic ones--he's just started being interested--and I thought he'd get a kick out of it. Well, you know, it was okay. I do love the GENIUS warning signage (see above) in which a moray eel-like dinosaur manages to look cheerful in silhouette whilst chomping off some poor child's hand. Honestly, I thought the whole thing was pretty lame, because though they were molded nicely, their movements were jerky and the ones that you could "control" were done via buttons that had two steps: "Choose motion (like wagging the tail)" and then "execute command." Have these people met children? Nothing worked right because kids just came up and started smashing buttons and yelling IT DOESN'T WORK!! And it was hot and broad daylight and blah (yes, my compaints include 'hot' and 'broad daylight'--I think perhaps I would not have fared so well in the dinosaur's perfect natural habitat). Also, they did not have a section where you could go in an outhouse and sit on a toilet and then have a T-Rex rip the roof off. I mean, come on. Where is the creativity?

Frogboy was a little nervous about some of the big gest dinosaurs. The coolest one, in my opinion, was the brontosaurus-like creature by the central pond, and you don't even have to pay extra to see that one. Apparently they do it at night too which might have been a better atmosphere for ME, but I think Frog would have had a heart attack. I mean, he's pretty brave (case in point: he got a flu shot on Sunday and DID NOT CRY--the nurse said he was the youngest kid she'd ever given a shot to in 17 years to not cry--so take THAT, Home Depot cashier lady).  He is, however, scared of the dark now (thanks to Quincy on Little Einsteins who said in a recent episode, "I'm scared of the dark!" And now Frog says, "I'm scared of the dark!" Annnnnd fuck you, Quincy).

In other news, we also hung out with "Aunt Jackie," who is the twin sister of his Buddhist godfather, Jack. For the time being, at least, she has become proxy-godfather because we see her more often because Jack sold his soul to the Devil (read: Microsoft) and moved to New York. ("Temporarily," he says. Puh-shaw, say I.) So Jackie works at the Shedd Aquarium, and we got to go for free and do some really cool stuff, like go behind the scenes to see up top above the big main tank where the turtle is (!!!) and also see a preview of the new animal behavior show. It is very glitzy and sort of reminiscent of "Cirque du Soleil" and though parts are kinda cheesy (my main problem was with the porpoise-like, totally unflattering costumes worn by the trainers--and also the sour faces on some of the trainers who clearly were thinking, "Uh.....I am a MARINE ANIMAL BEHAVIORIST FOR FUCK'S SAKE, WHY AM I DRESSED LIKE A PENGUIN?!?!?!") But here's the thing: though some people have a problem with going all "Hollywood" with the show and think that it should be bare-bones education like before, the truth is that NO ONE WATCHED IT BEFORE. I guarandamntee you that they will sell more tickets with this new show, and that means that more people (including children) will fall in love with the animals and want to protect them and the planet they live on, WHICH IS A GOOD THING. Because my son was RAPT for this whole show. And last time we went, he wanted to leave the dolphin thing after 3 minutes. So there you go. Also, can I just say, walking penguins are the cutest thing I've ever seen. There's a whole number where penguins come out and walk RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF YOU and if you do not squeee over this you have NO PULSE. 

Last but not least, we dragged Frog along on the Harry Potter Exhibition at the Museum of Science and Industry. We got free passes because we are members, so we took Frog's Fairy Godmother (who shall remain nameless because she hasn't picked a pseudonym yet) with us because she is a Harry Potter FANATIC. It was cool being at the big ol' museum after hours--it was our Night at the Museum, we kept joking, except without Ben Stiller or rabid monkeys. So we walk up to the ticket-taker people and we're already in a party mood, because it's cool to be there after dark, and the guy busts out with this very John Oliver-like British accent, and he looked like John Oliver too, and he say, "Ha-loooo, ah you heyah to see Harry Pottuh?" Without even thinking, I employed a similar British accent (from my bag of many) to confirm that yes, we were, and he interrupted me: "Are you making fun of me?"

Uguh.

I really wish that I had had the quickness of wit to come back with, "No, are you making fun of me?" but alas, I just stood there, dumbfounded. Then it turned out we were early so I had to stand there and make small talk with him for SEVEN MINUTES (it's a timed entry kind of thing) all the while trying REALLY hard not accidentally use a British accent again. Because you see, I am pretty good at accents. I was an actress for years. I have been British and Irish and Polish and any number of things and the only accent I can't do, so far, is the particular mixture of Australian/Greek  that a former coworker used to have. Try as I might, I can't get it just right. The exhibition, by the way, is kind of lame. It's mostly memorabilia in glass cases, not really the "total immersion experience" they make it out to be. It was not "just like being at Hogwarts." But you get to sit in Hagrid's big chair, and you get to throw a bludger at a goal, and......well, there you go.

Who wins, then? I'd say, Shedd Aquarium, as I was thoroughly entertained, they were real animals, and they were the only one of the three attractions that did not FORCE me to exit through a(n extremely overpriced) gift shop (a seven dollar bookmark, MSI? REALLY?!??!!). Oh and, they didn't make me feel bad about mimicking someone's accent. But I still maintain his was a fake accent, too. No really. So. Ack. 

Ego Boost of the Day

Shopping with Frog at Target...

Me: "Okay, in this section we need toothpaste, hair dye, and a new thermometer."
Frog: "Mommy, what is hair dye?"
Me: "It's shampoo with color in it that I put in my hair to cover the places where my hair is gray instead of brown."
Frog: "Why do you do that?"
Me: "I don't know...so I won't look old."
Frog: (Laughing) "That's silly, Mommy, you're ALREADY old!"

Great. Thanks for that. I even let you wear a completely hideous outfit today that you picked out yourself, and this is the thanks I get? Remind me to hide your toys when we get home.

The Usual Suspects

Until he was three and a half, Frog had no interest whatsoever in stuffed animals save his floppy bunny ("Bunny"), who, along with "Blanket" (<--formal name), constituted his favorite things, the two things he must have in order to sleep. At daycare, he had a "nap blanket" that was different from "Real Blanket," but he never took a "Friend." Bunny was the be-all and end-all, and of course was a seasonal item from Pottery Barn from a year before when he started honing in on his preference for him, so I embarked upon a mad craigslist/word-of-mouth/eBay search to find a backup just in case he got left somewhere, a la KnuffleBunny. After six months, one finally surfaced on eBay and I paid FORTY DOLLARS to get it. The very next day, before it even arrived, he decided Bunnies were for babies and he wanted Penguin to sleep in his bed. Well, that was just effing GREAT.

Now that he's in an urban, public preschool, a boy's gotta have a posse. You never know when you could get jumped at snack time. For nap at school, he has a small Star Wars pillow, a friend (the identity of which rotates weekly), and a "school blanket." At home, however, it's a free for all. His bed gets a bit crowded, but he's a great sleeper so I don't care. He can have whoever he wants in his bed as long as he doesn't get out of it before 6:30am.

This past weekend I heard him playing in his room sounding very bossy, which was odd since he had no classmates over (and of course no siblings, because I am a horrible, selfish woman who cares nothing for my son's future happiness). I peeked in and found that he and his friends were having circle time, and he was the teacher.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mesdames et Messeurs, I present to you FrogBoy's "friends."

It was show-and-tell, you see. Apparently Monkey (bottom left corner) had brought both a blanket AND a tractor--going over the proscribed one-item-per-child allotment--and this had caused quite a stir, so Teacher FrogBoy was having to straighten those whippersnappers out a bit.

Funny how, looking at this, you can totally pick out a few stereotypical preschoolers in the bunch; I haven't been in the new class enough to know, but this looks an awful lot like my son's old class back at The Daycare:

1. The monkey is bigger than everyone else and clearly having trouble keeping his hands to himself (one can hardly blame him, though--i mean, his palms are covered with velcro).

2. All the littlest kids (including "Dude," the turtle from Finding Nemo, R2-D2, baby penguin, and baby lion) are sitting together--safety in numbers, ya know...

3. Lion is totally laying down not even pretending to pay attention. (King of the Jungle + top of the food chain = totally spoiled)

4. Thomas the Train looks like he's about to LOSE IT over Chicken having a foot in his personal space

(By the way, have you sensed a trend here? However creative my son may be in other ways--his fish are named Pirate, Dreidel, and Frank; he has a rich fantasy life--his stuffed animals' names leave something to be desired.)

Now to the other side of the circle...

THREE GUESSES...

WHICH ONE IS THE BITER?:

You can just TELL from Bunny's body language that he is afraid to sit there. He knows he's gonna get bit again. Watch out, Bunny!

And of course, last but not least, there's the kid who's strung out on Ritalin:

Best part? The sheep (an exchange student from Scotland) not only 'baa's but, if you pull his tail, actually VIBRATES. How appropos.