My kids are brains

This morning I figured out that I am going to retire to the lap of luxury (no pun intended for those familar with Cheap Trick discography). You may be asking yourself how and that would be fair. Well, my children are going to take care of me in style during my old age.

O.K. maybe they won't support me when I'm old, but I'm just certain that they could. If their brains are any indication of how they'll fare in life, then they'll do just fine.

This morning it came to me. After years of intensive research, poring over books such as "Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood," "Playful Parenting," "Happily Married with Kids," "Parenting the Strong-Willed Child" and more... I realized that either A) I can become a parenting book critic or B) my kids are brains, bloody brilliant, advanced for their age, gifted beyond belief and here's how I can tell:

Almost every parenting book worth it's salt at some point emphasizes the need for giving children choices. Seems reasonable. Give a kid a choice between A and B and then you both feel good about it (making certain you are comfortable with both options). Give my children a choice between A and B and they will inevitably choose C, D or even E.

Other books suggest the use of Mama time outs. Just walk away for a while they say. Sounds oh so good to me. Most kids apparently are fine with Mama taking a few minutes to herself. My kids however, usually see this as an opportunity to fine tune their thesis on the correlation between extended periods in close personal proximity and the increase of stress in adults.

See... they are already doing college level work in preschool and elementary school. I'm set...

... if I don't lose my mind first.

Happy Halloween! Be safe and have fun. And by the way, the answer to the mystery rocker man was solved by my good friend from way back when, Kristin who correctly answered Tom Petersson of Cheap Trick. Ahh memories.

The color brown

Last night during a coloring session, my son said this:

"Mom, I'm interested in the color brown."


Upon further investigation, he added this:

"I think cowboys sometimes wear it."

And so they do.

Reminiscing

Ever since my daughter pulled out my old photo of Bob Geldof and myself at a party, I've been doing a lot of reminiscing. Sure can be fun. Remembering the music, parties, concert after concert, expense accounts, celebrity and more from a time when the most important decision to be made by me was usually what to wear that day or where to go out for dinner, is bringing up interesting pictures in my head.

The silly stories are numerous and tres amusing: riding from Dallas to Houston overnight on a tour bus with the beautiful Baton Rouge boys and their crew, near romantic misses with any number of cute musician boys and men, talking on the phone late at night with Marc Anthony (before he cut his hair and became enormously famous), hanging out with Ozzy and baby Jack in the office or with Joan Jett in the studio... dinner with Michael Hutchence, hanging in the bar with Geldof in L.A., backstage at Saturday Night Live with Living Colour (and Mel Gibson)... frankly it all seems a bit of a dream now. It used to be my life.


Reminiscing brings up a strange mix of emotions. Seeing myself younger makes me feel a bit old but thankfully less naive. It makes me wonder about the whys and the what could have been if I'd stayed in NYC or stayed in the music biz. It is often easy to look back and see only the good, leaving out the less-than-perfect that went with all the glitz and grungy night clubs. It is hard to see your friends as Vice Presidents of major record companies and wonder why things happen as they do. I know some of my friends are still very content in that lifestyle (if you will) but others just want to stay home with their kids but feel trapped in all that their career provides and what their family needs. I am certain I haven't yet explored all I will unearth in this nostalgic journey so I will no doubt share more at some future point.

And while I've been asked about sharing that infamous Geldof photo, I won't. Not cause I'm mean spirited or anything but frankly I looked at it again and neither Bob nor I look at our best. I will however share one of my favorite naive-girl shots back when I was unexplicably and ridiculously in crush for this man:


The first person who can correctly name the musician above and his band affiliation... A) shows their age & B) gets a Starbucks coffee card from yours truly mailed anywhere in the continental United States (I do Starbucks only because they are pretty much everywhere and despite their conglomerate status they give majorly to the Democratic party and other liberal causes).

And now I am off to enjoy the many blessings I have in my life as it is... today. I hope you do the same.

If mama ain't happy...

t'aint nobody happy. I haven't the slightest idea where this phrase originally came from but I hear it in my head often. At first it sounds mean spirited (at least to me) but the more I think about it and Mama self care, the more it rings true.

I've never been all that good at taking care of myself and my needs before my kids. If I do attempt it, I often set myself up for failure -- such as trying to exercise for a decent length of time while the kids entertain themselves, trying to meditate in any way shape or form while the youngins are awake!

The other phrase which most brings home to me the importance of self-care in Mamahood is oddly found in the world of aviation. Pretty much all of us have seen the airline stewardess go through the instructions of what to do in an emergency (sometimes if Mamahood isn't a emergency state, I don't know what is). Anyhoo... they always dutifully instruct that the adult MUST pull down and attach their oxygen mask before the child's. IF YOUR NEEDS AREN'T MET, YOU CAN'T TAKE MEET THE NEEDS OF THE CHILD. Aha!

And so I humbly submit my list of quick yet fairly easy Mama spirit lifters in which I recently engaged:

- Exercise 40 minutes at 9 pm (good cause I got to watch Grey's Anatomy, bad cause I couldn't fall asleep later),

- Exercise 40 minutes at 5:30 am (damn early but much better than the previous version),

- Buy yourself a new coffee mug (try hard to make certain the one you love is the only one and on the highest most unreachable store shelf),

- Cut caffeine intake (remember the mug) in half,

- Pass on that glass (or several) of wine,

- Take all appropriate prescriptions and vitamins,

- Take a quick shower (even 5 minutes is good),

- Sing LOUDLY alone in the car!

Music really lifts my spirits and I have to remember to seek out oldies but goodies that help me, as The Partridges used to say, "Come On, Get Happy)! For those who remember that song... it is a guaranteed mood lifter, even if you hate it! I used to play it loudly in my office (you may not want to try this at yours but I DID work in a record company) whenever there was discord in the office or halls... inevitable people would sing along, laugh, ask "What the heck?" or shout "Shut that off!" Either way, they were distracted (can be used with children younger than 7 as well).

But I digress.

Here is my radio sing-along playlist for yesterday's work commute:

1) "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor

2) "Stitch Me Up" by John Mayer

3) "Raspberry Beret" by Prince

4) "Now That We've Found Love" by Heavy D. and The Boyz

5) "Small Town" by John Cougar

6) "Mandinka" by Sinead O'Connor

Share the hugs

To everything - turn, turn, turn

I've been away awhile - over a week. I have rewritten and rewritten, only to delete and start over waiting for some fabulous inspiration. I'm not finding it. I'm finding myself in love with Fall, especially the colors of the changing leaves which I will very much miss when they are gone. When we think of Fall, we get caught up in harvests, pumpkins, colorful leaves and pulling sweaters out of their Summer hiding places. What I too often forget is that it is a season of dying. It's been true this year for certain. Co-workers, too many young children, Iraqis and U.S. soldiers, personal myths, beloved pets.

I am reminded of lyrics by The Birds:

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep

To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven

And so I'm now trying to focus on the death which comes with Autumn and leads the way to the birth of something new in Spring. It is all about choices...


What to choose, where to go from here - that is the question (for me anyway).

So while my last few weeks have been full of sad news, parental frustration (can anyone say "where's my daughter now?"), stomach bugs and vomiting, there have been a few highlights:

I found a system that makes laundry work well (an amazing feat in this household for certain), I finally got to spend some great quality time with girlfriends I haven't seen in forever - of course I also left realizing how different my life has become from theirs and feeling like the woman who has nothing to contribute to the conversation other than "Oh I'd love to take a vacation like that" or "Hey have I shown you the pictures of my kids?".

And so, even though most of my laundry is put away (for a change) and I'm closer to a real budget, I'm still not as happy as I'd like to be and I'm still struggling with being an imperfect mother in an imperfect world, someone who struggled with depression and a hard time handling stress even before adding kids and a spouse to that equation. I'm sure Erma Bombeck could find something funny in all this (such as where was my little Wonder Woman when we all got sick -- off keeping the world safe from tickle bugs, that's where), but not me right now. And while Martha Stewart could probably make this look beautiful and festive, I'm going to try to focus inside and think about how to truly bring forth positive, lasting and beautiful change.

If anyone has some great thoughts or inspirations to share about living the life we want, resurfacing goals and achieving them, finding healthy ways to cope with depression and stress, positive alternatives to time outs, and most importantly how to create an effective family schedule and stick with it (the hubbie and I are not good at this), please do share.

Geldof redux

Anybody remember the Boomtown Rats? or Bob Geldof for that matter? I realized something today (besides that I'm old enough to remember both of the aforementioned music icons...) and here it is (in a reverse of the Boomtown Rats classic): I LIKE MONDAYS!

As I came home to the familiar chorus of "MOM's HOME!!!!! and was met shortly thereafter by my daughter holding a black & white 8x10 photo of a bygone era -- me with bad hair and clearly a bit intoxicated at a rock'n'roll party with none other than Bob (Live Aid) Geldof by my side, a wave of nostalgia overcame me. My daughter said, "Look Mama. I found this picture of you and your uncle!" I was struck by the difference of my life then and now. Back then Monday probably meant showing up at work by 10am after a night of bar hopping and NY socializing. Today's Monday means something a bit different.

Back then I probably wasn't all that fond of Mondays. Oddly, today I figured out I kinda like 'em.

Even though I got to watch MTV in my office back in the old days and eat expensive dinners with Michael Hutchence, attend parties at Debbie (now Deborah) Gibson's house, take business trips to Los Angeles to keep track of Mr. Geldof and attend video shoots to attend to the hair stylings of Cheap Trick, I like my Mondays better now.

On Mondays these days, I get to hang out with REAL rock stars. I assist talented and ever-inspiring 1st & 2nd graders to experiment with art, I marvel at the growing social skills and great jokes of preschoolers while sharing a nice healthy nosh, I get a few hours at work wherein I'm not responsible for anyone's kids (not even my own) and then I get to play tickle trap with my boy and my girl, listen with joy beyond compare and ridiculous parental pride as my son READS BOOKS TO ME!!!! and get to see my hubbie before he takes the little people to bed leaving me with a little time to myself! Even feeling the need to rise at 5am just to get in a good 40 minutes of exercise didn't dampen my day!

Geldof would be proud (he may be a rock star but even he is now Dad to 4 girls)! And while some Mamas seem to bemoan the fact that they find themselves dated by the songs of the 70's and 80's, I find great joy in them! Give me "September" by Earth, Wind & Fire, "Tragedy" by the Bee Gee's, anything by Andy Gibb or Peter Gabriel and I'm happy! And don't forget "Wake me up before you go, go"... I know, I know but somebody's got to admit to liking it!

The ABC's of Mamahood

ON A BAD DAY:

Anger, Boogers & Boo boo’s, Colds & chaos, Dirty clothes piling up, Edginess, Falls & fights, Grocery store tantrums, “Hate you!”, Ignored, Jealousy & junk food, Kicking, Lost library books, Messes & monsters, Nightmares & NOOOO!, Over tired, Poopy diapers, QUIET!!!, Running away, Spitting & stress, Tears & time outs, Unfinished everything, Volume LOUD, Worn out, eXasperated, Yelling, Zero tolerance

ON A GOOD DAY:

Arts & crafts, Blocks & Legos, Cuddling, Dress up time, Earth mother activities, Fall leaf crunching, Giggles, Hugs & homemade goodies, Ice Cream, Jello Jigglers, Knitting & kid kisses, Loads of loves, Macaroni & cheese, Napping (I wish), Open heart, Plenty of patience & pirate music, Quiet, Reading aloud, Sunshine & sharing, Tag & tea parties, Us all together, Very happy, Water play, eXcited, Yes Mama, Zoo trips & zaniness

Of course any Mama worth her salt knows that every day is some combination of the above and SO MUCH MORE!

Mama nirvana

Last night my son said: "It's hard being a Mom." It was like Mama Nirvana!

Today he called me a "dumbie."

Never boring this Mama stuff.

How did I get here?

Can you name the band that goes with these lyrics?

"And you may find yourself
in another part of the world
And you may find yourself
behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself
in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself
-well...how did I get here?"

Is that dating us (you? me!) I've been wondering lately, does anyone else ever wake up and think "how did I get here?" Some days it seems surreal that I've got kids, a house, a spouse, cars and more... That I'm dealing with school lunches, budgets, yard debris and teachers that are sometimes great and sometimes maybe not so much and what exactly to do about that. ... that frankly I'm not just somebody's Mom but two somebodies!

Even when I fully own my mamahood lately, when I'm deep in the midst of enjoying a bike ride and soccer ball kicking around the block in the rain, being the bed monster, reading a favorite book just one more time, I find myself wondering how did (we) get here - meaning our country, our world. It is a definitive shock to realize you (meaning me) are more scared about what your own leaders may do before the upcoming election than you are of the multiple other threats that linger in our world these days.

I sometimes wonder what it might have been like to be a parent during the 50's or 70's, maybe even the 60's (I would have thought that era would have been tough and scary but if it was, my mother isn't letting on). Can any one of us imagine what is might have been like to not worry about too much fat or sugar in our children's diets, to not have to be concerned whether or not they were getting enough exercise, not have to worry about viral marketing directed toward our kids, consumerism run amok, our own government not acting in any semblance of what's in the best interests of the tiny people we nurture each and every day from the moment we knew they were growing inside us. I wish the Great Turning had already turned in many ways (although I really need to work on my gardening skills first). I wish I could see the future and find some comfort there.

I know that what I can do is be the best mama I know how to be, work on improving every day, focus close to home, do what I can and love the heck out of my little people.

How did we get here - indeed. And where are we going?

Back to life

Ahhh the weekend was lovely. Now back to life. It's Monday and here's the words that thus far describe my day:

waffles, carpool, 1st grade, stick bugs, preschool, bus safety, art class, fire drill, recess, school counselor, PE teacher, lunch room, pbj, graham crackers, child trade, work, volunteer meeting ... home again, home again jiggidy jig.

Happy happy

Happy happy autumn autumn. Perfect Fall weekend, welcoming October. Long walks. Tons of yard work. Time in the garden. A date. Kids going to bed for the babysitter without incident. Pumpkin patch. Hay ride. Pumpkin picking. Hay bales. Hay maze. Elephant ears. Fresh fruit. Ahhhhhhh.