A Little Perspective

WARNING... Bragging post about to happen.... But I thought this was pretty cool. Miles drew this picture of our family yesterday. (The horizontal lines are stripes, by the way because for some reason we're all wearing stripes). I'm the one on the left with the really big head. Not because my noggin is really so oversized, but because he's trying to show the barrette on my ponytail. (The little square part on the bottom of the back of my head is the barrette.) Okay, so I may look a little weird, but I was quite impressed that my barely-four-year-old-son is already experimenting with perspective!

Post Partydom Syndrome

Okay, I'm never having a party again. Miles turned four last weekend and we had a big bash. Fifteen kids (counting the siblings) with parents. We went to the local firehouse to ride in the truck and try out the hose. Cake. Pinata. By the time everyone left my house looked like a bomb went off. And I was so tired that all I could do was sit on the couch and watch two episodes of Rescue Me back to back.

It was fun though, and it was all worth it.

But not the after-math. We're all so tired. Miles has been asking for treats at BREAKFAST time all week. And cranky. And not sleeping. And they've been fighting, fighting, fighting over the toys.

So next year, we're heading to Chuckee Cheese.

Everybody Remain Calm

I like mantras.

I like the simplicity of having a saying that can help you stay focused while getting through life.

When I was employed in Silicon Valley I had two. For years after reading the Dalai Lama’s “Art of Happiness” I chanted “affection and compassion, affection and compassion” to myself as people cut me off on highway 101 at rush hour, or jumped in front of me in line at the grocery store, or were rude at restaurants.

The other was “you can’t get what you want if you don’t know what it is.” The friend that shared it with me meant this in terms of men, but I found that it applied well to other situations including shopping for furniture, ordering dinner, and directing projects in the workplace. Give good direction, and you’ll get good results.

But I’ve been a little bit lost in the post professional world. The very qualities that helped me be successful at work –energy, impatience, perfectionism, goal-orientation – are often liabilities in the toddler department.

I was at our preschool one morning last month when a minor disagreement over a toy ignited a screaming match between two three year olds. Our director, in an unassuming voice said “okay, okay, people. Everybody remain calm.” And I thought, okay, here is the mantra for my post work life.

My son is one of those people who constantly pushes the limits. I’ll have to ask him, oh, ten or twelve times to brush his teeth. Only when he’s threatened with a loss of privileges (Dora the Explorer is the ultimate leverage) will he actually step into the bathroom. He’ll continually put toys into his mouth. He’s also a born negotiator: if you offer him two books at bedtime, he’s bound to ask for three. If you sing three songs, he’ll ask for four. (He got this from his dad, of course.) And I, of course, am completely unequipped to deal with him.

My energy level is way, way, way too high. While I think it is important to set limits with your children, I find that too often at our house, a relatively minor incident can escalate into a full-fledged conflagration. I’ll assign a timeout too rashly, and when Miles won’t take it, a full fledged battle will ensue. It is like I threw gasoline on the fire. When he starts the endless bedtime negotiation, I’ll get angry and ultimately find myself yelling – which is not exactly the best way to help him relax and fall asleep.

For a couple of weeks after I first found this new mantra, I was great. I calmly doled out discipline. I separated my kids during battles without adding a level of hysteria to the situation. Things were calm in our house.

Then summer happened! And I’ve been spending way, way, way too much time with my kids. There’s nothing like traveling alone with your children – to different time zones! - to increase your stress level. Needless to say, I’m failing miserably at staying calm.

The best that I can hope for is that if I keep working at it, I’ll better learn to manage my emotions.

Or that my kids will just wear me out to the point where I don’t have enough energy to fight back!

Some Days

One of the other Moms at school said to me recently, "Some days you get a lot done. Other days you survive."

How true. Except that I'd say "some months." We're having a great summer, but between packing for trips and unpacking when we get home and planning for the next thing, and buying the occassional birthday present, that's about all we do!

Stockholm Syndrome

My kids were sick last week. Which wouldn't be such a big deal (I should be used to it by now, right?) except that it has followed on lots of weekends when Mike has been either away or unavailable. Oh yeah, and it coincided with Miles giving up his nap. Anyway, Mia had an ear infection and high fever for several days, and Miles had a fever for a couple. Which meant no school, no playdates and LOTS of time around the house. A little too much time around the house. Oh yeah, and did I mention the weather was wet and foggy so we couldn't even go into our (tiny) backyard?

About midweek I realized that I really, really, really needed a break. So I got Sunday "off" and talked my friend Lisa into spending the day with me. We tossed around a bunch of different options - hikes, manicures, wine tasting, spa treatments, movies, lunch. For several days we talked about what to do but for some reason I just couldn't identify what I really wanted. And Lisa, who is the best and most understanding friend that you could ask for, sounded a little testy when she finally said, "well, what do you WANT to do?"

Technically Stockholm Syndrome is when hostages start to identify with their captors. Remember when Patty Hearst changed her name to Tanya and tried to rob a bank? Obviously I identify with my little captors - I love them more than anything else in this world. But in my case Stockholm Syndrome is about identifying too much with their world. Spending so much time with them and thinking about them that I have trouble of conceiving of spending my free time anywhere but at Target or Costco or the grocery store.

But the happy ending is that we went for a long walk at Chrissy Field and then drove up to Napa for a day of drinking wine in the sunshine...

Job?

Ok, I realize I complain alot, but deep down inside (sometimes very, very deep) I've been happy and grateful for being able to have the opportunity to stay home with my children.

Well, up until last week anyway. Miles finally gave up his nap. Now he's supposed to have an hour of (mostly) quiet time in his room - which gives me just enough time to make dinner, take out the trash and occasionally shower. And then I'm back on duty. Art projects, books, pretend trips to the doctor, bike riding, cooking dinner together.

All this quality time is, frankly, a bit too much for me. I've decided its time to start looking for a job!

Carnivore?

A couple of weeks ago I became cautiously optimistic that Miles was becoming less of a picky eater. After all of the agonizing that I had had in the last few years about what my kids eat, he has suddenly (with no urging from me) started eating three things that he always rejected-- hard boiled eggs, dried fruit and turkey cold cuts.

But at the same time, he's also asking more questions about food.

We have a board book called "A Train Ride with Monet," which is basically ten stunning paintings very loosely woven into a story about a train ride. It isn't a very compelling text, but as someone who learned most of what she knows about art from the '70s board game "Masterpiece," I like to delude myself that I am exposing my kids to great art.

One of the pages shows an oil paiting of turkeys, and reads "pass a flock of turkeys, feathery white." Last week, when we were reading it, Miles suddenly said, "hey Mom, does turkey come from turkeys?" I was surprised. It had never occured to me that he didn't connect the chicken on his plate with the chicken on Old MacDonald's farm.

And ever since he's realized that we eat the pretty, fluffy white birds that he's seen a million times in the picture book, he's had a lot of questions about what we eat.

"Does chicken come from chickens?" (Yep, you can't pull the wool over my son's eyes.)
"Ham comes from pig, right?"

And here was the kicker - "What are horses for?" Basically meaning, do we eat those beautiful creatures that we were feeding watermelon rinds to last weekend in Tahoe.

Let me get something straight. I'm not a vegetarian. I don't eat liver or scrapple or even dark meat turkey, but we have meatloaf from time to time and every now and then I really, really, really want a hamburger. But still, I found it strangely difficult to explain to my child why we eat some animals and we don't eat others.

And then yesterday, when he was playing with his little plastic animals, he asked, "Mom, what comes from giraffes?"

"Poop!" I answered brightly, since it was that time of day.

"No, Mom, what comes from giraffes?"

And I realized that he was wondering whether we ate giraffes. Which seemed kind of horrifying to me. So I started to explain again what the difference is, and realized that in his mind there probably isn't much difference between the soulful big eyes of the giraffe he sees at our zoo's African Savannah, and the big brown eyes of the cow he sees at the children's section. Or - for that matter - the big brown eyes that sees when he looks in the mirror.

If I really thought about it, I might rethink some of my own food choices. But I'm probably too old for that at this point. But my neice - who is now fourteen - has been a vegetarian for political reasons for a decade now. (Yes, she made that decision when she was the same age that Miles is now.) And it will be interesting to see where Miles goes with this.

Skinny Jeans And All

Ok, so motherhood isn't the only thing that I'm insecure about. I'm also pretty insecure about fashion. Which is incredibly stupid if you think about it. It isn't as though I'm going to work or anything - just grocery shopping, going to the playground, teaching at my son's preschool.

Nevertheless, I still have fashion anxiety. Or maybe angst is a better word. I'm so very, very tired of the white t-shirts and old Gap jeans that I always wear to the playground. Last summer I wrote about my quest to find clothes that were fashionable, not exactly the same as what everyone else is wearing, machine washable and cheap. I lamented the fact that these things were not readily available in my neighborhood. And that I couldn't find them on the Internet. But now I've realized that the real problem is me.

I'm chronically behind the times. By the time I noticed that everyone was wearing cargo pants - and wanted some for myself - they were no longer in stores. By the time I warmed up to trouser jeans (which reminded me a teeny bit too much of those Dickies we had in junior high) you couldn't find them anywhere.

So I did the unthinkable. A couple of weeks ago, I bought some of those '80s pants (now called skinny jeans) that are in the stores. My friend Lisa said they made me look thin, so of course I had to buy them. And part of me figured that I might as well buy the skinny jeans while they were still selling them because by the time I wanted them its a sure bet you wouldn't be able to find them for love or money.

But when I got them home, I just couldn't believe what I'd done. My husband laughed out loud when he saw them.

After Mike finished laughing I left them on the top of my dresser for a couple of weeks, but finally, I was behind on laundry and needed something to wear so I took off the tags and put them on and took the kids out. And felt ridiculous! Memories flooded back - illicit drugs, Yaz, Limelight, white pumps, Obsession. But here's the thing. Instead of making me feel youthful, it made me feel like one of those old ladies that tries to look young by dressing like a teenager.

But I'm not just insecure, I'm also compulsive. So the good news is that now I have something else to obsess about.

I Don't Like Spiders and Snakes....

I'm more than a teensy bit insecure about my parenting skills. But every now and then I do something that makes me just want to pat myself on the back and say, "girlfriend, you rock." Like when I took the kids - by myself - to Florida. Or last Saturday when I held a tarantula.

It was Bug Day at the Randall Museum, our local nature museum for kids. And Miles was transfixed by the spiders. We couldn't drag him away. Several other kids had held it, and I thought that he might want to also (with a little encouragement). So, in a moment of unaccustomed bravery, I held out my hand and held it.

It's legs were kind of soft as it walked across your skin, but the big soft body that dragged across my palm was creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepy.

But of course, I constantly underestimate Miles. He was wayyyy too smart to want to hold that thing.

But now I will have something to think about in the middle of the night, or next time we go camping.

On Being Mom

One of my friends just sent me a very beautiful essay called "On Being Mom" by Anna Quindlen. There are so many things in the essay that speak to me, even though her children are grown and mine are still (unfortunately) in diapers.

Quindlen writes movingly about the things she learned as a mother -- to listen to herself (and her kids) and not the experts, to learn to be humbled, and most of all to live in the moment. "I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less."

Several years ago my friend Stephanie told me that she tried to spend an hour of uninterrupted time each day with each of her children. Possibly this was before I had any of my own. But I remember thinking what a short time an hour seems like. And now that I have two, I think what an impossibly long time it seems.

It is easy to be busy. As a stay-at-home Mom I can't sneak errands in during lunchtime or on the way home from work-- I have to arrange childcare for every haircut or workout, or bring kids along with me. Even evenings out with my husband require tons of advance planning (by me, not him. he just shows up). I have all of the responsibilities of my son's coop nursery school. And then the many logistics of running our household. And checking email. And watching 24. It is very easy to get caught up in all of it.

Plus it can be hard to keep my kids' attention. I can spend a large portion of their precious naptime preparing afternoon art projects that will keep their attention for say maybe five minutes. Even dying Easter eggs got old after ten. And also - dare I say it - sometimes playing with the kids can be boring. I mean really, how many times can we pack our bags and pretend that we're flying on the couch airplane to Hawaii? Sometimes it is just easier to let them play by themselves, or to try to get them to watch Sesame Street.

But I'm already feeling the pull of nostaglia. Even Miles at 3-1/2 is feeling it. One of his new favorite activities is pouring over the photo albums of when he and his sister were newborns. "Is that Miles? Is that Miles" he asks, unable to recognize his baby self. And in another way, I'm having trouble recognizing him too. As grueling as it can be, it is just going too darn fast.

So thanks Anna Quindlen. My gift to myself for Mother's Day will be to try to be present more often.

Yoga Junkie

From time to time you read in the news about women who abandoned their children for crack or meth. If I ever leave mine, it will be for yoga. Mike was out of town for most of last month. When I organized some time for myself, I found myself booking sitters around yoga classes (I like Mark at Pretzel's Yoga.) Because when it came right down to it, I didn't need drinks or movies or girls dinners or trips to Target. I needed the plow position to keep me sane.

I did yoga religously for several years before kids. But we moved across town and I got pregnant and that was pretty much the death of my downward dog. But back in February I started going again. After an initial week or two of soreness, I've turned into a complete junkie again. When I do the plow position, I can actually feel all the little pebbles of stress in my upper back melting away. And not only does my body feel better, but my mind too.

When we were in Florida and I wasn't able to make it to class for a whole week, I could feel my body reverting back to it's old self. Shoulders hunched, one higher than the other, knots in between the blades. I felt like Quasimodo. And my patience was shot.

When we got off the plane I gave the kids back to Mike and drove over to Potrero Hill for my fix. And then I was tall again. Straight again. And calm again. And much more zen with my children.

How To Hate Yourself in Nine Easy Steps

1. Decide to take your two toddlers across the country to visit your mother, who lives in a destination to which there are no direct flights.
2. Decide you can do this without your partner, who needs to work.
3. Plan your trip soon after the clocks change so everyone's sleep schedules are out of whack.
4. Make sure that your son loses his binkie the week before.
5. Allow your son to stop napping after the loss of said binkie.
6. Make sure that your destination has lots and lots of breakable stuff that he can't get into. And a piano that is really fun - but annoying - to bang on.
7. Be sure that your destination includes a pool without a gate or net so the kids can't go outside to play without intense supervision.
8. Notice that your son never, ever, ever listens to what you say.
9. Find yourself yelling the entire trip....

Good, now you can feel guilty about it for months to come.

The Kindness of Strangers

It might be because once when we were flying home from New York with six month old Miles, I gave a stranger my white Gap t-shirt. His 1-1/2 year old had vomited all over himself (including his shoes) and the father had no extra clothes for him. So he walked off the plane wearing my t-shirt like a ball gown - and I never saw it again. Or maybe I did something extraordinarily nice in a previous life. Or maybe people are just better than I thought. Or maybe I just looked REALLY pathetic.

But whatever the reason, this past week I was on the receiving end of a kindness from strangers. Strangers who carried my enormous carry on bag off of the airplane, while I carried Mia and tried to corral Miles into the right direction. Strangers who didn't complain when my daughter kicked the back of their seat for three hours straight. Strangers who played peek-a-boo with her for hours. Strangers who peeled my son away from the plane window and directed him down the aisle. Strangers who gave us juice, watched my daughter, played with my son.

So if you ever see someone stupid enough to take a two year old and one year old across the country, and change flights on the way, help them out. They might be too frazzled to show it at the time, but trust me they are grateful.

San Francisco Treat

You know it has been awhile since you cleaned out your cabinets when you find something in them that EXPIRED in 1997.

When I was unpacking groceries on Saturday, I noticed a dusty box of Rice A Roni behind the cereal. When I took it out, I was appalled to see that it had expired nine years ago. Which means it has probably been sitting around for ten or eleven. Which is a long time. A VERY long time. Ten years ago, Clinton was president. The Internet han't boomed yet. I wasn't even dating my husband. And now we have a mortgage, wothless Internet stocks, two kids and a lot of anxiety about kindergarten.

I'm very conflicted about how much I want to pride myself on my housekeeping skills. I mean, I don't want to view myself as some sort of fifties stereotype who is fulfilled by spending my days vacuuming the house, cooking dinner and fixing a drink for my husband at the end of it. At the same time, this is sort of my job right now so I'd like to do it well. And, yes, have I mentioned I'm a little compulsive? I realize that old rice isn't exactly a health hazard but still, I'm kind of uncomfortable with what it implies about how clean we are. Not only do we apparently go entire decades without cleaning out, but the worst part is that we moved in 2001, and somehow we still managed to pack it up from the old house and unpack it in the new.....

So being the compulsive person that I am, I thought about cleaning out some more. But I was afraid of what else I might find.

Big Girl

Ok, it won't come as a surprise to anyone who knows me if I say that I'm more than a teeny bit anal. I had a color-coded timeline for the week before our wedding for family members and wedding participants. I do packing lists for our family before each trip in Excel (and save them all). And I carry around a little spiral notebook that contains lists of things I need to do (long and short term), groceries we need and clothing that the kids need. Each night I pick up (and sort) all of the kids' toys.

So you'll understand why it bothers me so much when my kids don't snap into line and follow the perfect structure of the lives that I've planned for them. Sometimes I have trouble letting them do their own thing. And lately that's all Mia wants to do....

Lately she doesn't want to lie down to change her diaper. She resists a lot of the clothing I pick out for her to wear. And today she had a complete meltdown because I tried to peel her Clementine for her.

Last week my friend (who has three daughters) said that sometimes she just lets the girls do whatever they want to do, because she doesn't want them to be on such a tight leash that they have to stage a huge rebellion when they reach adolescence.

I thought a lot about this.

So I've started asking Mia "where" she wants to change her diaper. She'll usually go ahead and do it if she gets to choose the place. I drew the line at the bathtub, otherwise we've been experimenting all over the house. I'm letting her pick her own outfits (although she keeps going for these ugly, ugly, ugly purple cords from Old Navy). And today I gave into the possibility of a big sticky pulpy mess in the back seat and let her peel the Clementine.

And she showed me up. It was perfectly, daintily peeled.... each piece of peel handed personally to me in the front seat, instead of deposited on the floor for posterity. And hopefully we'll still be speaking when she hits high school.

Television

When Miles was very small I was adamant that he not watch television. I didn't want him to get used to passive entertainment that would diminish his imaginative ability. When we interviewed nannies, I was very firm that he not see any TV during the day (and I know for a fact that his sitter never showed him any - she couldn't figure out our Tivo).

But then Mia was born.

And I started thinking that a teensy bit of TV might not be so bad.

But he wasn't interested. Now that I so desperately need a little break, he just won't watch it. TV doesn't have anything to compare with pretending to be on a plane to Hawaii. Or dumping your legos. Or pushing your little sister. We've had the odd twenty minutes of Elmo's world, and once or twice he's watched the 30 minute "Grinch Who Stole Christmas" all the way through. But that's it.

And then last night, he actually sat on the couch and watched an entire episode of Seasame Street. The WHOLE thing. Sure, Mia was still running around like a crazy person, but I actually managed to clean up from dinner, pick up the toys and put Mia into her pajamas in relative peace.

Wow. Thank god for the electronic babysitter!

How To Get Your Husband to Do Housework

I've cracked the nut on getting Mike to do stuff around the house.... A couple of weeks ago I left him alone with the kids all day Saturday while I did co-op stuff. The plan was that on Sunday I'd watch them while he fixed some things around the house. Apparently they wore him down so badly that he was down in the basement at 8:30 on Sunday morning, avoiding them.

So now whenever I want him to do something, I just arrange a little "quality time" with Miles and Mia....

Why We Got in a Fight About the Party

Here's why Mike and I got into a ripping big fight before the party last Friday. He said he'd be home at 6, so I had a sitter coming at 6:30 figuring that we'd be at the party before 7. (It was kind of a baby showery thing and was supposed to go from 6 until 9).

The babysitter arrived on schedule but there was no sign of Mike. So I called him. And called and called and called. But he never picked up the phone. So I called my friend Julie to see if she could give me a ride to the party. She was already there....

Not knowing whether Mike was on the way home or stuck at work at a meeting, I called a cab. I figured he could meet me there and we could drive home together. (Oh, I forgot to mention that it is impossible to park in this neighborhood....)

So wouldn't you know it that Mike called right after I'd booked the cab. He had just started home (it was 6:45). When I told him that I didn't believe there was anyone so important in the world that they wouldn't understand that you had to duck out of a meeting for five minutes to call your wife to tell her to go ahead and leave and not wait. I could have BEEN at the party by then!

"It's just a party," he said. No, not just a party. A lifeline. When you've been at home with the kids all week and spent a lot of time picking up toys, and picking up toys, and picking up toys without an adult to talk to.... party is life. He may be working hard, but all those lunches, dinners, even GOLFING... I have to believe there's some interesting adult conversation happening at least part of the time. Enough, at least, that you forget your wife is waiting at home....

Treading Water

Sometimes I feel like I can never catch up. There's always something. The kids have suddenly outgrown all their clothes. There's a bill from the hospital that for some inexplicable reason insurance hasn't paid. And you have to sit on hold for an hour. There's a birthday party for which we need to buy a gift. Or Miles has pnemonia or an ear infection and we have to go to the pediatrician and then wait for our perscription at Walgreens. And there's work for our co-op and a mountain of laundry that needs to be folded. And we're out of milk again, or bread or all the bananas are mushy. Not to mention that every day I need to cook for the kids, do the dishes, take out the trash and pick up enough toys that it doesn't look like a bomb went off in our living room.

I know other mothers who always look fabulous. Who have great nails. And trendy clothes. Jeans that fit and white t-shirts that don't have stains under the armpits. I know some who actually have regular workouts. I know other well-read mothers who read A Million Little Pieces back when it was still non-fiction. I know mothers who actually go out to dinner with friends. And say "I love you" on the phone whenever they talk to their husbands. And ones who have time for hobbies and actually knit hats for all their friends new babies. And actually made by hand 29 valentines with their kid to take to school. Oh yeah, and some have jobs too and still manage to take their kids to Music Together and the pediatrician. So I'm just wondering how they do it?

Last Friday night I went to a party (which caused a big fight with Mike that is a whole other story) and two of my friends asked me if I was still writing fiction. And I had to laugh. Because, me, I'm just trying to keep my head above water.

Mia's First Haircut

Last week, when Mia was running around at Acrosports, I took a good look at her. Her hair was all matted in back, she was covered with scabbed over bug bites from our trip to Mexico and she had stains all over her pants. Could this ragamuffin really be mine?

So I decided that it would be nice if she looked like somebody actually took care of her. She doesn't have much, but a little cleaning up of her hair would help.

So her first haircut.... She was a little skeptical at first, but the knowledge that she'd have a lollipop when it was over helped out a lot.

MILEStones

Here's a weird thing about kids. They change in an instant. You can take them to swim class for a whole year, and they are flailing around in the water and then suddenly one week they are kicking across the pool.

Mia's Aunt Annie gave her a baby doll when she was eight months old. Sorry, Annie, but she has never touched it. She got two more for her first birthday and aside from the occasional wipe of their bottoms hasn't really given them the time of day either. But last weekend we were in Tahoe and she found a baby doll that has been up there for a year or so and suddenly she can't live without it.

And then there's Miles. He loves to do art projects. But inevitably they look the same. He piles on watercolors until they turn a muddy brown. He scribbles until the paper starts to fall apart. Once he did three lines in a circle that he claimed were caterpillars, but nothing that had really resembled, well, anything. Then the other day he was at the table with a magic marker and said "hey Mom, I drew a picture of you." When I looked, I was shocked to see that I had arms. And legs. And feet. Oh yeah, and eyes. And a HUGE nose. And a mouth too! It seemed like overnight that he went from scribbles to actual people.

So the next day I had him draw pictures of his teachers for their birthday cards. And I noticed that he was drawing them upside down (head at the bottom). We always knew he had a different perspective on the world, but this confirmed it for us....

Flubber

It is a cruel joke. As if I wasn't frustrated enough by blue jeans today, Miles came home from preschool with his jeans and t-shirt each covered with a huge spot of flubber. (If you don't know what flubber is, it is kind of like playdough, but more plasticy and really sticky. )

Every week the teachers at school set out some new tactile projects for the kids. This week one of the projects was trays with little plastic dogs and piles of flubber. I don't know if it was intentional or not, but the flubber is brown and looks just like dog shit. And of course the kids have had a blast playing with the dogs in shit. And I'm sure none more so than Miles who occassionally takes the blue bag from my New York Times and pretends to pick up dog poop in our living room.

The teachers sent home a bag of Borax, that I'm supposed to rub into the flubber to get it out before putting his clothes in the washer. (Apparently the washer will cook it in forever). So I just spent half and hour with the Borax, no luck and have been carving at it with a serrated steak knife for the last ten.

If the flubber was only blue or green or purple, I'd just say what the hell, he's growing quickly, he won't wear these clothes much longer. But no, it had to be dog shit brown. Oh well, gotta get back to my scrubbing.

On Fashion

Last summer I wrote about my struggle trying to find new clothes. Well it is still ongoing. Part of the problem is that with only three hours a week - at best - without kids, I don't really have time to shop for myself. But the bigger problem is that I just can't find things that are right for my current lifestyle.

This week I spent my precious three hours shopping for new jeans for myself. I went downtown to the Lucky Jeans store and realized that I will probably never find jeans that I like. At Lucky you can get many different styles of jeans - distressed, with rips, patches, "whiskering" and even with faux oil stains. (If you don't believe me, check out the Lucky web site).

I realize that I'm just a few breaths away from forty, but I hadn't realized before how out of touch I am. I guess I'm officially an old fart. But really, why would I pay more than $70 for jeans that are already worn out? And aren't those "whiskering" lines the kind of fading that you get when your pants are TOO TIGHT? But what really floors me is the oil stains. I teach at my son's preschool - I can generate my own stains, thank you very much.

So I did what I always do when I get frustrated shopping for myself. I went down the street to Old Navy and bought a pile of nice, new, inexpensive, oil-free t-shirts for the kids.

The Holidays?

Ok, here's my dirty little secret... I don't really enjoy the holidays.

I've been living in California since 1991, and early on I used to go back to Connecticut for Christmas every year. I enjoyed the midnight services at our church (fabulous music, sightings of high school boyfriends) but in Connecticut the weather is usually cold and you end up stuck in the house, with the double whammy of no exercise but lots of cookies. And inevitably every year my sister and some of her kids would be sick. The last time I was there she cooked a fabulous dinner and as we were sitting down she said "I'll be right back" and went upstairs and vomited for 12 hours.

So I don't go back anymore. Plus, now that we have two kids there is absolutely nothing in the world that could tempt me to go through JFK on the holidays.

But now I'm finding that I don't really enjoy the holidays here either. Somehow I can't quite get into the spirit. Sure, we got a tree with the kids. And after I spend an hour sorting through all of our ornaments to pull out the unbreakable ones, we decorated it. And then I spent the rest of the next three weeks encouraging Mia to put the things that she'd removed back onto the tree. We also read Christmas books - Polar Express and the Grinch - and we watched the Grinch video about fifty times.

But the week before Christmas was rainy and both the kids were sniffly so we spent most of the week inside. Not only did we miss the two kid parties that we'd been invited too, as well as a showing of Peter and the Wolf at the symphony, but I still had to deal with a week of sick kids indoors.

And there's the incredible stress of getting holiday cards out (I tried for FOUR months but never could get a picture with both kids looking at the camera at the same time) as well as making sure we have presents for everyone in the family. (Last year I gave Mike such a hard time because I had only ONE thing to unwrap that I had to make sure he had some good stuff this year). And mailing gifts on time. Not to mention the teachers, babysitters, contractors, etc that all need gifts too. And getting ready for visiting relatives.

So by the time we get to Christmas itself I'm making last minute cookies so we have something to leave by the fireplace for Santa, and wrapping the last few things (I used to pride myself on wrapping beautiful presents, now I'm just happy if they are covered), and trying to pull together something nice for dinner. And the whole time my kids are acting like crazy people because they've had so much candy!

I'm not a religous person, but the thing I always enjoyed most about Christmas was the music. But I don't have anyone to make my annual trip to church with, and anyway after everything else i'm too tired anyway.

So now the holidays are over. I'm exhausted. But I'm unpacking toys and trying to fit things into the recycle bin. And I still need to do thank you notes! And take down the tree and get rid of it. And replace the goldfish that didn't survive "babysitting" by the neighbors.

But unless I sound like a complete Grinch myself, there were some wonderful moments of watching the kids when they saw Santa, or opened a gift that they enjoyed. Making sugar cookies with Miles and Mia. And of course when we took our 20 month old daughter Mia skiing (see gratuitous picture)....