I lived in Hoboken, NJ for two years after college. While I loved where I lived, enjoyed my job and of course reveled in the whole social scene, I realized I was getting a little stressed out. Studying for the LSATs didn't help. I decided to take yoga.
Once a week for about two years I showed up for yoga at the Y. I would take my mat, get setup and enjoy an hour all to myself. While the class was really good for me, there are very few things in my life at which I have been worse. I was truly awful when I started doing yoga, and I was truly awful two years later when I moved out of Hoboken. I was even awful at prenatal yoga, which I tried briefly during my first pregnancy three years later.
Some of it was nervousness. For example, I have to confess that the first time we sent Omms to India, I tried hard to stifle a laugh. I did not succeed. I ended up being the crazy lady whom no one knows sitting there laughing out loud. Having to announce my color to the class didn't help either. I think I said I was chartreuse or something like that. The instructor paused for a moment and then went on take great delight in the next person's choice of color. The main problem, however, was that despite what the name of my blog might suggest, I am inflexible. (Hush up there, Big Giraffe! I mean my body not my personality!) Even when participating in multiple sports and in my best shape, my flexibility has been a huge weakness for me. My high school fencing coach made it her mission to work with me on it, and she was disappointed with how little I improved.
About a month ago, my triathlon training buddy told me she was going to start participating in a yoga class. She asked me if I wanted to join her. My first reaction was "no." There was no way I was going near a hot yoga class. Now technically her class is not a hot yoga class, but it follows immediately after one. She had warned me that the room is really hot. Why would I want to do that? After hearing for a couple of weeks how good it made her feel, I reflected on my own positive history with yoga and decided to give it a try.
Our family miracle for 2009 is that I actually managed to find my old yoga mat. No, not the one from Hoboken; the one from prenatal yoga. It was in the exact spot in our messy basement where I had left it 6 years ago! Unfortunately, the mat smelled somewhat musty, mainly because it had sat in our basement for so long. It went well with my yoga pants. The pants smelled like a dog had slept on them, mainly because a dog had slept on them.
When I first walked into the room, I couldn't get over how hot it was. A classmate informed me that it was in the low 90's. I immediately chose a spot by the open window. The same classmate was kind enough to warn me that my spot was actually in the front of the classroom. I immediately moved next to another window. Everyone dropped their mat and some special yoga towel with grips whose purpose I did not understand. They then began to rub down their mats with tree tree oil, apparently to help them relax. I also began to rub down my mat with tree oil to attempt to rid it of the damp basement smell. I figured alleviating the odor would be a huge source of relaxation. Any relaxation directly from the oil would be a nice side benefit.
Once the class started, I couldn't get over two things 1) How hard it was ) how much I sweated. I found myself slipping on my mat. I then understood why most of the students had that special towel. When some of the students were balanced with their feet on the back of their arms, I was doing the "modification." The modification involved me crouching down and sitting on a block. The teacher suggested adding a second block. I immediately did so. I still found it challenging. Needless to say my bridge did not go into a full back bend later on in the class!
Yes, I am still awful at yoga, and yes I was drenched by the end of the class. However, I really did enjoy it. I was even able to stretch further than I had been at the beginning. I also felt very relaxed...until I got into my car and the windows completely fogged. I couldn't see anything.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Bring a towel with grips to a hot yoga class or a yoga class right after hot yoga.
I take yoga and I am soooooo inflexible as well. But I don't care very much...usually in a forward bend where others put their hands on the mat, I'm somewhere dangling mine at kneelevel. When I'm supposed to stretch a leg, I never do.
But our class is quite relaxing, it helps me. And the average age of the people taking it is far higher than me. Nobody is dressed in the right outfits or so, which is cool.
we rarely do ooohms and that's good as I find them so weird. Positions , stretches and turns: ok I can see the body value for it and concentrating on those does clear my mind. Breathing excercises: ok I can see how that relaxes us. But chanting, colors, chakra's? Huh, no no not for me.
When I started this blog, it was to be able to talk about what it was like to formula feed a baby. However, I quickly realized that it also was a great way to let family and friends know what was going on with us. This is a post for them.
Today started out like a pretty regular Wednesday. I headed out to the gym and got home at my usual time. My routine is to walk in the door, wash my hands and sit down at the computer with a cup of coffee for about ten minutes before waking up the kids. You can imagine my surprise when I walked in and saw the contents from our junk drawer spread all over the kitchen floor. This was quickly followed by the pitter patter of little feet and an exclamation of "Hi, Mommy!" from my younger son (YS). He was wearing only a pajama shirt and eating Oreo cookies while scratching "himself." He's never gone downstairs by himself before today. Guess who's getting the safety doorknob put back on his doorknob?
I woke up my older son (OS), got both boys ready and had them sit down for breakfast. That's when I noticed that there was a bloody, pus and wax discharge coming out of OS's ear. It reeked. Seriously, it's been years since he's had an ear infection. After he finished picking at his breakfast, I put both boys in front of a movie as a special treat and went to call the doctor.
Our kitchen opens up into our living room. While I can see most of the room, I can see neither a large chair in the corner nor the kid's chair behind it where YS likes to sit when he watches TV. You can imagine my surprise when I turned around while on hold with the doctor's office and saw YS grinning proudly and announcing that he was a cat. I should clarify that he used my makeup to make himself a cat! Yes, he had used my mascara to draw whiskers, my eyeshadow for the nose, and my eyeliner I believe to draw the whiskers cats have above their eyes on his forehead. When I went upstairs I found that I had accidentaly left my makeup out in the bathroom. The mascara wand was in the concealer tube, and the concealor wand was in the mascara tube.
Y'S the cat than went off to watch the movie. I finally got through to the the doctor's office and was able to make an appointment. Then I scrubbed YS's face and, oddly enough, his arms which he had also done up (fur maybe?) and informed him that I needed to be able to see him for the rest of the day.
We went to the doctor's office. The nurse practitioner confirmed that OS had an ear infection and informed me that same infection likely caused OS's vomitting the other night. It's been years since he's had one. However, the eartubes that he got when he was 20 months old fell out, and she believes that there was a tiny hold left behind. This is apparently pretty common, and it tends to just heal on its own. OS was given the green light to not wear ear plugs anymore. Perhaps a little bath water got in there and caused the infection. OS doesn't ever run fevers with ear infections, and they never seem to bother him. In fact, even though his ear was weeping, it didn't hurt him at all.
The kids and I went to CVS where they insisted on playing musical chairs to a tune that was apparently in their own heads while the prescription was being filled. Since the store was empty, I just did the reasonable thing and pretended I had no idea who they were. We headed back home. The afternoon was fine except that YS commented a few times that he was cold.
I had planned on riding my bike this evening. I haven't been on it much this year, and my first triathlon of the season is on Sunday. The other night, I was pedaling up a hill past a parked car, when the chain popped off. I lost all momentum and barely got one foot out of the clipless pedals in time to avoid a fall. That's when I noticed my audience. Two teenagers in the parked car were making out.
When I took my bike in to the place where I had bought it for repairs, the store owner told me I wouldn't have any more problems with it. I was anxious to get out the door, but just when everything was ready, YS suddenly got sick everywhere. Guess OS had a bug after all. The Big Giraffe and I got him cleaned off and settled. Then I hit the streets to do a quick test of my fixed bike. You can imagine my surprise when I was going up a hill again, and all of a sudden the chain popped off again. Deja-vu. At least this time I didn't have an audience.
I'm sure you have a couple of questions. Let me answer them. Yes, I did take a picture of YS the cat. Yes, I did throw out the one remaining Oreo cookie. Yes, my kids did fight over the fact that I gave YS OS's custom designed barf bowl from yesterday since I was too tired to go downstairs to grab another container. Yes, I do have a fear that on Sunday my chain will pop off at the same time that I come down with the stomach flu. No, I'm not too worried about it happening in front of two teenagers making out. I'm worried about it happening in front of a couple hundred people!
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Real life sometimes is better than fiction; particularly when it happens to someone you know in real life and not yourself!
* I wrote this a couple days ago but didn't get to publish it before I came down with a horrible case of the stomach flu that involved my doctor calling in a prescription for me.
Yesterday my younger son (YS) had a ENT appointment. I was a little skeptical because we were just there a few weeks ago and have another appointment for July. I pointed out that I had never been able to schedule more than one appointment at a time because the ENT typically decides when I should schedule YS's next appointment based on what he sees in the current appointment. However, they had all of the appointments in their computer. I wasn't surprised when the doctor came to examine him and remarked that he had just seen us and that YS wasn't supposed to come in again until July. I wonder whose appointment we got?
It turns out though that the suprise appointment was a good thing because I found out that YS's second ear tube had fallen out! Because he never had even one ear infection with the tubes, he doesn't need another set. I know I should remember exactly when he got his ear tubes, but of course I only recall that he was slightly over a year. I did write a post about it somewhere though, and I know he had his tubes for almost 2 years.
One surprise doctor's appointment was not enough for me. I ended up having to take my older son (OS) to see the pediatrician to check out some phantom stomach pains. $25 copay later, my instinct that OS needed to see the doctor because he was jealous of his brother's frequent doctor's visits was confirmed. I think that makes him one lucky kid, but he unfortunately disagrees.
Even though the appointment was scheduled under false pretenses, it turned out to be a good thing too because I found out that OS's other ear tube had fallen out! This one I know for sure. He got his ear tubes in at 20 months. He's now 5 years and 8 months old. Most ear tubes last between 6 months and 2 years. We were actually told if they weren't out by this spring that the ENT would schedule surgery to remove them. He's only had one ear infection in all those years so he doesn't need another set either.
It's official: we are earplug-free!!! That probably sounds a lot more exciting than it actually is. The truth of the matter is that I never really found the earplugs to be a big deal. I stash a set of the Mac's Children's Earplugs (they're great because they're bright orange so you can see from across the pool if one of them has fallen out (which they almost never do) in the diaper bag, bathroom with tub and, during the summer, in the car. Since OS was in diapers when I started carrying them around, I never found them inconvenient. However, I know I have been enjoying no longer carrying diapers around, so I imagine I will feel the same way about the ear plugs.
This has all come at a good time too and not just because summer is approaching. The Big Giraffe and I realized earlier today that there were new things to carry. That realization came after we looked around OS's soccer practice to identify the first time soccer parents this evening. Yes, we identified ourselves. How could we tell? We were one of the few sets of parents who didn't have those fold up chairs with us. We were so uncool! And more importantly, I would rather sit in a somewhat comfy chair for an hour than on cold grass. Why weren't these chairs on the kids' soccer practice equipment list between cleats and the ball? Thankfully OS is too young to be embarrassed by us! Those of you who haven't ventured into the world of soccer yet take note so that you can too can be in the know and part of the popular crowd.
At the end of the day, I am now left with two mysteries. Where did the no longer needed ear plugs actually go, and why does the Big Giraffe suddenly seem incapable of hearing anything I say to him?
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Just when you think you have less to carry because you no longer need ear plugs, you suddenly have to carry around chairs.
Wow I'm amazed they let your OS's tubes stay in that long. They surgically removed my son's one remaining tube after 2 years...said they don't like to leave them in any longer than that.
I'm sure I commented before too, that we never had to use ear plugs either. Strange how different doctors are.
I can't believe my first season 2 triathlon is in a few weeks! I get excited thinking about how much fun it will be. The thrill of the adrenaline pumping through my body. The feeling of triumph as I cross the finish line. There's one feeling I'm hoping not to experience this season: the feeling that a pack of aliens is trying to break out of my intestines. Yes, that would be Runner's Gut. That little hidden "gem" that I didn't know about before my first triathlon. The shame of the running world. Fortunately I only experienced it after triathlons and two long runs when it was hot outside.
Last month I was over at a friend's house for lunch. She made some delicious butternut squash bisque. As my other friends and I exclaimed over the taste, she listed the ingredients. One of them was cream. I rarely make recipes requiring cream and when I do, I substitute fat free half and half, so it didn't register when I had my first bowl that it was real cream. Or later when I ate a second bowl. About 15 minutes later, I packed up my younger son (YS) and headed out to pick up my older son (OS). That's when I could feel the rumbling. Fortunately, I was able to keep it at bay until I was safely at home. I mess up on enough things with my kids as it is. The last thing I want is for OS to be forever teased about having the mom who locked herself in the preschool bathroom to confront a massive diarrhea attack. Pass that award onto someone else!
Pledging loyalty to the porcelin throne reminded me of other things that cause intestinal disturbance. Sometimes after a particularly intense run or spinning class, it feels like I have a baby turning over inside of me...except I know that it's not a baby, but rather something with the potential to alienate every other gym member in the class for the next 20 years. My doctor told me that I have Runner's Gut, and I am fortunte that it is not severe.
With my triathlons coming up soon, I decided to do a little more research on Runner's Gut. I found an amazing article in Runner's Digest. In addition to refreshing me on what I had learned in anatomy and physiology long before my mornings consisted of hunting through the house for the bottoms to a Tae Kwon Do uniform and before my afternoons consisted of giving up and shelling out $40 for a new uniform. The article explained that people who are lactose intolerant are more prone to Runner's Gut, and it also encouraged those affected to avoid dairy and curb high fiber foods for 24 hours before a race.
Well, that advice didn't exactly fit in with the way I had been preparing for my triathlons. In addition to using a cup of java with a splash of milk to wake up on the day of each race, I typically broke my fast with some sort of Kashi cereal that was soaked in milk. Yes, I do love my dairy products. It's amazing to me that I only had alien birth feelings instead of locking myself in a portapotty or squatting behind a bush for that matter. Oh, and I eat a lot of yogurt. While some people who are lactose intolerant are ok with yogurt, others, like my father, are not. In fact reflecting back, my mother who's a nurse always said that cream is the true lactose intolerance test for people who have the mildest of cases. Obviously my own unintentional experiment with the soup taught me that I could pass that test!
I switched over to Silk Light (or some generic version of it) for the splash of milk in my morning coffee. On days that I run, I eat soy yogurt instead of regular yogurt when I get home after my workout. I also asked someone from my spinning class whose intestinal aliens I had overheard if she knew anything about Runner's Gut. She quietly told me about a product called Ezekial bread. Why Ezekial? Apparently the ingredients and the recipe are inspired by what is written in the Bible. If you're looking for some laughs, do a Google search and read some blog posts about it. To sum it up, there are some hilarious descriptions of how truly disgusting this bread is. Few things could be as disgusting as...um...let's say alien afterbirth, so took my friend's suggestion to get the bread (and the English muffins), toast them, and cut the taste with almond butter.
I had walked past this bread every week without realizing it. In Trader Joe's, it's shelved with other bread. In other grocery stores it's with the frozen Kashi entrees. Unfortunately the store closest to us doesn't carry it. It reminds me of my recent purchase of a neti pot after a conversation at book club convinced me of it's magical powers (or really intrigued me enough to want to experience it for myself). I had walked by that many times too without realizing it.
I have been pleasantly surprised by the results. Not even a "baby" kick when I run. Plus, and this is the true miracle, after I eat the English muffins, I am actually full for hours! Of course, nothing lasts forever, and often end up feeling extremely hungry a few hours later with no warning. I will still eat dairy within 24 hours of a run, but I don't plan to before any future races.
I'll have the true test in a couple of weeks. However, if I can even tone down the feeling of a pack of bulls leaping out of my gut, I'll feel that I have been somewhat successful.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Toasting Ezekial bread and slathering it with almond butter disguises the taste.
Oprah: Supporting Depressed Women whom Bloggers Leave Behind
Why on earth would I be writing another post about the Oprah show on mom confessions? After a commenter described enjoying reading the mommy blogger discussion about Oprah's show, I was intrigued about what others were saying. Plus, my Google Alerts notified me that I had been discussed on another blog. I now find myself in the unusual position of disagreeing with two fellow bloggers for whom I have the utmost respect, Jodifur and Pundit Mom. I would like to raise two major points.
I see a value in sharing the challenges of being a mommy through as many media as possible.
I do not understand why we need to pit the problems faced by moms against each other.
Let's put Oprah aside for a moment. Sometimes I have to remind myself that a large part of the support I receive as a mother is from the blogging community. I love feeling like I'm not alone in the parenting world. I like that I can laugh and cry along with other bloggers. It gives me the feeling that I'm not alone on this crazy parenting journey.
Why do I need this reminder? Because I don't feel like this a lot in my real life. Sure, I'm in a couple of different moms groups, I just finished a parenting class, and I participate in many activities with my kids. I was even surprised to realize that I actually knew many of my neighbors when I saw familiar faces at the town kindergarten information meeting a couple of weeks ago. As important as these activities are to me, I can't think of a time that I've had a truly honest discussion with another mom at swim lessons about feeling overwhelmed. None of my friends have turned to me at a moms group meeting to say they have trouble mustering up the energy to give their children a bath. Certainly if a mom has said it, it would have been with laughter in her voice and she would have claimed it had been a few days (laugh, laugh, laugh). A close friend who lives far away from me, confessed to me only after watching Oprah's show that she too had gone for a few weeks without bathing her child. There was no laughter in that conversation. Why? This is not just about whining because one of us has a tough day. It is about depression, loneliness, and shame around believing that we are failing to perform what we are taught by society to believe are simple responsibilities that are basic to who we are as women. That depression, loneliness, and shame is psychologically destructive, unless we can find support to help address it.
Those types of conversations rarely happen outside of relatives or really close friends. How many of us had kids though and didn't really know any other moms? Not all of us had those close friends immediately. For me the answer has been blogs. My blog has been the only place where I have been consistently comfortable sharing these sorts of parenting challenges, and the the URLs of my blogging friends are the only places where I have consistently heard about these sorts of parenting challenges.
Since blogs are out on the internet, shouldn't every mom feel the same sort of support that I enjoy? Ideally yes, but realistically no. Many of us did not know about blogs for a long time. There are many parents out there who still don't understand what a blog is. Even some who know about blogs choose not to read them, and they should not be expected to read them. How many new parents are "born" every day? Blogging is only one particular medium for receiving support. It's been a great support for me, and I often encourage others to read blogs. However, blogging isn't for everyone. Some people prefer parenting magazines, some people prefer parenting books, some people like reality TV shows about parents, and some folks even like Oprah. Many less fortunate people are unaware of or unable to take advantage of any of these supports. They assume they are bad parents and suffer alone.
I just finished a parenting class with someone whose six month-old first computer has never left its box. There is just no way she's reading blogs, and it took her several weeks to feel comfortable enough to share honestly about her own experiences. After all, it is a lot easier to admit on-line that one of your children may not be bathed as often as they should be than it is to admit that to people who will see (and smell) them and you at the grocery store. If you admit it on-line, it stays on-line (with the exception of people you know in the real world who read your blog). If you admit it in person, the next time you show up at that swim lesson, well you just don't know who has been discussing you and possibly passing judgment.
I wasn't shocked by anything that Oprah said. I've read about most of those challenges on mommy blogs, but I haven't heard most people say things like that in real life. We know that a lot of moms are depressed, lonely and isolated, and we also know that there are no easy solutions to those problems. In fact, the only solution that I can think of is to talk about it so that women do not feel alone. The fact that these issues are described on so many blogs does not invalidate the challenges faced by non-blogging moms or other new parents.
That leads me to my bigger disagreement with Jodifur's and Pundit Mom's posts (again I think that these women are wonderful bloggers and encourage you to read their blogs, and in their Oprah posts suggest some very important topics of discussion). They both suggested that Oprah misused her power and platform by focusing her "mommy issues" episode on parenting challenges rather than other issues, such as breastfeeding laws or maternity leave. I don't understand the either/or. Nothing prevents Oprah from having one of those shows next week and one the week after. On the one hand, one could argue that Oprah should identify the single biggest crisis on the planet and spend every single show discussing it. Is global warming more important than breastfeeding?
Of course, I have never heard anyone argue that Oprah should only cover a single issue. Rather, there appears to be a perception that she should only cover one "mommy issue." I have yet to hear protests that Oprah had James Taylor on her show last week, when she could have been using her power to bring attention to inadequate protection for breastfeeders and inadequate maternity leave. She should do both. She should bring attention and support to the lonely and depressed and raise opposition to laws that harm the health and welfare of our families. And sure, she can continue to provide entertainment through music and celebrities in other shows. We as mothers need to find ways to widen the amount of attention given to the challenges we face, rather than to pit them against each other.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Even if Oprah's words were not new, they deserve repeating as long as they help one more person receive support.
Well said. I've been working on being more honest about the challenges when I write, because sometimes I simply have a tendency not to want to write too much about the hard parts. But it really needs to be said. We all need to know we aren't the only ones getting our asses kicked by parenting.
As for the Oprah thing, I agree with your take. This was just one show, one angle. You can't address every important issue on every show.
I didn't mean to suggest Oprah misused her power. Oprah can say whatever she wants. My personal opinion is I found it whiny, and boring. That's my opinion. I think the time could have been better spent. That doesn't mean anyone else's opinion is wrong or my opinion is right.
I also find much of my parenting support from blogs. I am also fortunate to have other supports IRL as well, but like you said, some things are not so easy to bring up in a face-to-face conversation.
I do think that TV shows tend to make mothers look very silly when they portray the challenges, like we're a bunch of air-headed women who can't get our laundry done. I suppose that is the nature of TV though. Most people watch it to be entertained, not to see how things really are.
You make excellent points about the need for mothers to be able to find support for the isolation, depression and other challenges we face at different times in our parenting experiences. I thought the Oprah show was somewhat superficial in how the issues were talked about and that it was really more a way to promote products. If she really wanted to show these women bloggers as resources for other women, why didn't she share their blog names or urls? She only did it for Dooce.
You make a wonderful point that I hadn't thought about -- that there are so many moms not plugged into the online community and the need for those moms to have places to share and find community.
I would applaud Oprah if she would address that seriously, as well as the other issues. I think the show gave short shrift to the main issue. I'm not holding my breath that there will be any Oprah shows on FMLA or fair pay for moms. I don't think that's what the advertisers will pay for.
I made a comment a couple of posts ago...but again, I'm a mom of 14 month old twins. Did I mention I'm an American living in France with my french hubby? Not only did I get my butt kicked by having twins, but I felt like I had no support and/or friends here in France. I SERIOUSLY do not know if I would have made it w/o the internet. A lot of twin mom sites practically saved my life. I think we would all literally give our lives for our children, but I do think it's healthy for us all to be able to talk about how friggin' hard the road of mommyhood can be sometimes!
I think some of this is cultural/geographical, as well. This is no slight to MA, just my experience, but my years living in MA were the loneliest I've ever experienced - it seemed very, very hard to break in to your community, and I lived in Cambridge and Amherst and had dealings with Framingham, so I was somewhat geographically spread out.
I find that moms in MI are much more forthcoming. I have much deeper mom conversations with my friends here, although I've had some deep "off-blog" conversations with bloggy buddies. The main thing, though, I think is to get support and if you can't get support where you are, then blogging is even more fabulous than it is for all the other reasons it's fabulous (cross-cultural experiences, humor, beauty, truth, etc., etc.)
I, too think it is great that there is the outlet of blogging for women/mothers to express themselves and share their experiences, etc. However, I do sometimes feel there is a scent of self-pity going on in mothers sometimes. Lots of "woe is me" going on in the blog world, when these stay at home, upper class moms really shouldn't be complaining. Surely our mothers before us had it much worse. I mean, c'mon, they didn't have even television to help babysit their kids!
Seriously, women were much more oppressed decades back, and I think sometimes we need to be a little more thankful for what we've got and where we are in this world because while there is still ridiculousness (if that's even a word!) going on out there with people having issues with breastfeeding in public, we are still very fortunate as women living in America. I guess I'm just sick of hearing the complaining.
But wait, if Oprah has had James Taylor on recently, when is she going to give equal time to Jason Mraz? Cheryl Crow? Honestly, that you felt that you needed to defend your position is a shame. It's a great position you've taken and obviously one that has struck a chord with many, many of the fellow mommy bloggers out there. Support is definitely what we need, and support is important on so many levels. Again, well spoken, well said, well done!!
Ah, the Mommy Issues... It's never-ending, isn't it?
I didn't see the show. I can imagine where it went, though... All I can say is that everyone's experiences are different. I have had many close friends IRL and many online. There are definitely advantages to both. I may not be able to edit my sentences and thoughts with an IRL friend, and I also have to pause, mid-sentence, to hear their opinion (so annoying!). But an online friend can't hug me or go get coffee with me. My online friends don't call to chit-chat and kill the time with me as I'm washing dishes. (Though they could. Want my number?!?)
Yesterday I watched a really good episode of Oprah on mom confessions. She even had Dooce (famous mommy blogger) on there which is what caught my attention in the previews and made me set my Tivo for it. The show had, well true confessions from moms and what motherhood is really like; what no one ever really tells you about it. And no, it wasn't the whole "no one ever told me how much I would truly love my children" aspect of it either.
Seeing it made me reflect on what those first few years were really like for me; what I truly thought about them. So while feelings like "I can't believe I can love another person this much" were definitely there, I also had a bunch of "how did I get myself into this?" moments. I don't tend to get very personal on my blog, so be prepared for the mother load here.
I knew that motherhood would be challenging. Hadn't I, especially as a feminist, heard over and over again how hard it was to raise children? There was a part of me that just didn't believe it. Surely "they" were doing something wrong. I would do it right. Except that I didn't.
Those first few months, I would look back on my day and wonder where time had gone. It was already the evening and my biggest non-baby accomplishment would be loading dishwasher. Sometimes. Many times I didn't even have that accomplishment. Yet at the same time, I remember looking at the time and wondering how it could be 10 am when it felt like three whole days had already occurred in the span of the morning. When would the day end? I would look at it intellectually and be disgusted with myself that I had accomplished nothing. How hard was it to change a baby and give him a bottle? What was I doing with my time? What was I doing wrong?
I was very lonely at the beginning. I didn't know anyone else who had babies who lived close by and my family lived far away. When I thought about being a SAHM before kids, I assumed I would be like those moms I saw at the mall who were there with a friend sipping coffee while their kids play. I would say "park" but honestly before I had kids it had been probably over a decade since I had set foot in the park. I love to talk and I felt just plain isolated. I tried really hard to sign up for all sorts of baby classes not for my older son (OS) but for me. I needed it. I remember being at a new moms group and one of the mothers said she hadn't been there the week before because she child had been napping. I remember thinking so had OS but that's what those awesome bucket carseats were for and OS could sleep just in fine in that. I just couldn't afford not to go to my once a week parenting group because of nap; particularly since at that point it was the only baby class I was doing and that would have put me out from interacting with people during the day for two weeks.
Some of the classes were good, some of them were terrible and within a few months, I started to begin to get my feet a tiny bit more back on the ground. However, then came phase two, the competitiveness; unfortunately, the negative aspects of doing baby classes. All of the sudden I felt like I was in competition to be the best mom and it was a game in which I didn't even to participate. Obviously there was the whole breastfeeding issue, but there were also subtle little things like making sure OS had a nap at all costs or had a bedtime at all costs because torrential rains and storms of epic proportions would be upon the mother who did not take this aspect of parenting seriously. After all, that's what all good moms did. Good thing I wasn't in my new parenting class at this time or there's no way I would have put a sleeping OS into his carseat to leave.
There were other little things like making my own playdough, doing crafts, having a craft cabinet, going to parks, etc that I really disliked. At the same time though I felt like I was a bad mother if I didn't do those things. I remember thinking particularly parks and walks were the worst. We don't have sidewalks by us and so to go for a walk or to a park required packing up a diaper bag with every item known to mankind and lugging around the stroller in my car. Then there was bundling up OS or applying sunscreen during the summer, and seriously by the time I got to said park or for a walk I wanted a nap. You can probably guess how many times those trips happened.
We have an expression in my house that the Big Giraffe and I will say to each other. It goes as following: "Is this like frozen diced cooked chicken?" That was from my cooking phase where I felt like I needed to not only have homemade meals, but always have a well stocked freezer at the same time. The irony is, I'm actually a pretty good cook if I do say so myself. At this point in my life, I make all my own marinades, sauces and rubs. I cook simply, but everything is pretty much well seasoned and from scratch. I just couldn't do that though when I first had OS. One day the Big Giraffe came home to my find me crying. I had asked him to pick up dinner for us on the way home because no big surprise, I hadn't made dinner. He was alarmed that I was upset. All I could say was that I didn't have any frozen diced chicken (by which I meant chicken that I had cooked, diced and frozen myself). He was speechless. Why would we have that? I answered that I had been to a moms group meeting the night before where everyone said that you had to have it. Again with the torrential rains and storms. It was practically a necessity of parenthood like cases of diapers and wipes in your basement so that you'll never by left without a diaper and a child that has diarrhea.
To me though, cooked chicken breast was a meal. Why would I want to make another meal on top of it? After a few minutes, of crying I realized that it was ridiculous to be crying over diced cooked chicken and we got a good laugh out of it. Now that's our way of saying "Are you pretending to be someone that you're not?". For the record, the Big Giraffe told me that the day he found diced cooked chicken in our freezer was the day that he would insist on counseling because frozen diced cooked chicken is just not me.
I could go on and on about all the ways I've been surprised by motherhood. One of the authors of a book for moms on the show talked about realizing that she was over-scheduled in her effort to fit in with what everyone else was doing. At some point I realized that too and that I wasn't happy with the way I was choosing to spend my time.
It was definitely easier with my younger son. There is a reason my kids are 3 years apart and it's because I knew that I needed to have OS in preschool when YS was a baby. I won't lie and say it was easy. It wasn't. Sometimes I resented having to drive OS to preschool as much as I valued that one and one time with YS and to be really honest there was a part of me that really wished I could drop YS off with OS so I could take a nap. As much as I've loved that the biggest disappointment in our life is that one of my kids gets sick and we have to cancel a playdate, there is a part of me that feels guilty that part of what I enjoy about being a SAHM is not just the chance to be with my kids, but the fact that I don't have any deadlines or papers due. This is the first time in my life I haven't had that.
It has gotten better. My kids are a little more independent now. I realized I don't need to lug a huge diaper bag with me to the park. My kids aren't going to starve if they don't have a snack there and if the worst were to happen and they peed, popped or puked on themselves, it would be a stinky ride home, but we're talking 10 minutes not three hours. If the worst that happens is a naked kid car ride home, that's actually pretty good. Naked mom car ride is not so good at this point, but give me another few years! We also don't need a stroller at the park anymore and my kids are better able to understand that we can go to a park for a short period of time and know that we'll come back another time; better, not great. I can also sit on the bench at the park if I want while they run around and go down the slides. I still don't have a craft cabinet. I decided preschool was for crafts. It works well for us. Sometimes we do them, but more often than not we don't. A couple months ago I roasted a chicken and diced up the leftovers and froze them. It was nice to have, but so is just eating the roasted chicken leftovers the next day.
I yell at my kids way more than I would like and every morning I start the day off with the goal that I won't yell. More days than not, I make it, but sometimes I don't. I joke that at least my kids and the Big Giraffe will never have to look back and wonder what I was thinking when I was mad; they know. These past two years have been wonderful in so many ways. Aside from the " I can't believe I can love my sons so much" feelings and actually enjoying spending time with them, I've finally started to find myself again and I've taking a lot of pride with my triathlons, the books I read for myself, my blog and my more recent knitting. This is the happiest I've ever been. Yet that doesn't take away from the fact that in a fit of tiredness and PMS a few weeks ago I told the Big Giraffe that literally my biggest accomplishment since becoming a parent has been getting fat. Yes, I'm just about back to my pre-pregnancy weight but when push came to shove on my reflection of motherhood that was what came into my mind. Even I realized how ridiculously that was and started laughing right after the statement left my mouth and you know what came to both of our minds, "frozen diced cooked chicken".
Last week I was at McDonald's with my kids (yet another true mom confession) and YS hurt his finger. OS said, "Come here, honey and let me see it." Then he gave YS's finger a kiss. In the moment I saw myself since that's what I always say to the kids. He took my good parts. If I could give one piece of advice to new parents it would be that. No matter how badly you feel you're doing as a parent, you're doing something right too and you're kids will take that with them.
I adored this post! I think that, except for the knitting part, you could be my soul sister! I don't have a craft cabinet, either, and the last time I tried to bond with my five-year-old by making pancakes together, I burned them and blamed it on her.
But I love what you said about them remembering the good parts, and I really hope it's true. When I told my mom about the pancake disaster, she reminded me of the great Easter Egg Coloring Debacle of 1978, during which my brothers and I had her so agitated, she required a stiff drink immediately afterwards. Except I don't remember that part at all.
I hate to be a naysayer, but i hated that Oprah. I thought it was a whole bunch of whinnying with nothing of constructive. Of course parenthood is hard! But what can we do to make it easier. Don't you a a minivan? Don't get one!
Good post. I think it is good to acknowledge the weird competitiveness that can come out of parenthood. next time I'm over, though, I expect some frozen diced cooked chicken!
I started reading your blog a few months ago, but first time comment. Great post. I have 14 month old twin boys. Let's just say that A LOT of this rung true for me. By the way - I used to run. And your blog has helped my inspiration to start training for a marathon. Keep up the good work!
It is a lovely post, Alex, my dear. I am impressed with how very well you've expressed my own experience. I think it's another of those universal experiences really, but while we are in the midst of it (and actually, it never ends) we feel like we are the only ones to face it. Well spoken, well said, well done!
When I was a kid, I used to think about what it would be like when someday I had kids. Not surprisingly, I plugged my future family into my current life; my kids would go to my school, I would shop at my grocery store, and my kids would swim at the community pool and beach where I swam.
Do you ever get the feeling that you're just playing house? That the real parents will walk in the door soon? There's a small part of me that has always felt this. This is the same part of me that can't believe the my doctors are talking to me about getting a mammogram or needing glasses in a few years as I approach middle age. Just throw in a conversation or two about Depends while you're at why don't you?
I recognized a few faces at last week's town kindergarten meeting and began talking until the meeting started. At one point during the meeting, the superintendent-elect encouraged us to take a good look around at the people in the room because we would be seeing them over and over for the next 13 years as our kids go through school together. He then took a break so we could introduce ourselves to our neighbors. As I looked around the room I could feel myself starting to tense up.
If you would have told me 10 years ago that I would feel like this, I would have jumped to one conclusion: in the 8 years I have lived in my town I wouldn't have made any friends. In fact quite the opposite is true. As I looked around the room, I realized that I knew a lot of people there. Between my moms group, the Y, EI playgroup and various other baby/toddlers classes I have taken, I have really met a lot of people in my community. In fact, this week I've had at least three people whom I hadn't seen come up to me to say that they saw me from the back of the room. This is really a good thing. How wonderful is it to actually know people in your community? Isn't this exactly what I always wanted?
One of the moms whom I already knew even asked me to get involved with the PTO. I of course said I would. Again, it's exactly what I wanted. I guess what caused my good aniexty attack if you will, is that I realized for the first time that this my life. I'm not just passing through on my way to something else. Of course this is a good thing, but it's also a little bit scary at the same time. It's only scary though because it's different from what I thought it would be. Of course the Big Giraffe and I can always move, and just because we're here now doesn't mean we have to be here forever, but we have chosen a life path, and that path will always be different from the road that I expected.
Robert Frost's Lesson Learned: I tool the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
A community gives me a feeling of "home" when I start seeing familiar faces when doing grocery shopping or so and when I can bump into a friend. I find that very important.
Throughout my time blogging, I've blogged about my fantastic husband and two wonderful kids. One of the nice things about blogging is not only does it allow me to record my thoughts and feelings (and be able to look up key events like when my kids walked so that I have that information for their doctors appointments), but it also allows me to give public recognition to the important people in my life. While, I have mentioned many times how great of a friend Suzanne is in passing, I realized a couple days ago that I've never written a blog post just about her.
Suzanne and I met on the public bus (The Wilbus as in Wilmette+bus for those of you in the Chicago area) on the way to school freshmen year in high school. She was a friend of a friend of mine. Through this friend I would occasionally see Suzanne. We also both did the school retreat called Snowball so I got to know Suzanne a little bit better. Our high school was huge, though, and we didn't have any of the same classes for the first two years.
Junior year, Suzanne and I were in the same physics class, and since we knew each other we became lab partners. I still remember that one of my first conversations with Suzanne was over the book Backlash. In addition to not liking physics and preferring to either exchange stories about the horrible toilet seats in our house or compete over who could draw a picture that most resembled our phyics teacher, we also had a lot of other things in common. Physics was a much better class because Suzanne was in it. We must have had a good time in our labs because several other students whom I knew from youth group joined us during the second semester. Instead of having a lab partner, I was part of a lab "team". Our phsysics teacher must have seen it all before, or perhaps he just held out the hope that we could just all help each other. Either way, he never said anything.
Suzanne and I remained good friends. When my high school sweetheart, Jim, and I broke up senior year. I was completely devastated. Suzanne endured many phone calls from me and came over many times in the middle of the night to eat ice cream with me and listen to my heartbreak. I later learned that my parents thought I was having those 2 am conversations by myself in the kitchen. Suzanne and I did have a huge fight my senior year. I can't remember what it was about, but by the time graduation rolled around we had patched things up. That's the only big fight we've ever had.
Throughout college we would talk frequently on the phone and visit each other. In fact, I was visiting Suzanne at NYU when I met the Big Giraffe. It was Suzanne whom I called when Jim got back in touch with me and Suzanne whom I called when I moved out to NYC after college and was very interested in the Big Giraffe. It was Suzanne who helped to set the Big Giraffe and me up, and it was Suzanne who got the Big Giraffe an extra ticket to the Human League/Howard Jones/Boy George concert that Suzanne and I were attending, when the Big Giraffe shyly requested it a couple days after our first date. She was a bridesmaid in my wedding and is a godmother to my kids.
Don't get me wrong, Suzanne and I haven't always seen eye to eye on everything. In fact that is one of the reasons she's my closest friend. I always know that she'll be honest about what she thinks while supporting what I decide, on any issue. After I had my older son (OS), I was upset about the amount of weight I had put on and had yet to lose. She very frankly told me that I did weigh more than I used to but then listed how in every other way I was the same person so the weight really didn't matter. Then when we were walking in Times Square and some random jerk called me a fat bitch, I thought Suzanne was going to bolt after him and tackle him.
When I look at my two boys, I hope as all parents do that they have wonderful, successful lives. I hope they have loving partners, children if they choose, fulfilling jobs, and enjoyable hobbies. I also hope that they each have a "Suzanne" in their lives.
So what brought this on? Well, as I said it's overdue. I was also incredibly touched by the fact that Suzanne and her husband are gifting my boys with two weeks of camp this summer.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: There may be only one Suzanne, but everyone should have one in their lives.
That's very sweet to honor a good friend like this. Most of my real-life friends aren't bloggers or even read my blog, so I don't think I could post about them! But maybe I'll give it a try, too. Everyone always needs to know when you're a good friend. Nice post.
It didn't strike me until I was speaking at Holy Cross a few months ago how hard it is to raise kids when your family lives far away from you. Sure, I knew that, but I had never really stopped and reflected about how different my life would be if we had grandparents or siblings nearby. The fact of the matter is that we don't, and in addition to wanting family around because we love them there is one thing that we majorly lack: babysitters.
When we first had our older son (OS), we had a great teenage babysitter who lived next door to us. Even better, her grandmother lived with her family so there was always an adult at home. She was great with OS, reliable, and we didn't have to worry about any awkard situations with the Big Giraffe driving a teenage girl sitter home. I would walk to the end of the driveway and make sure she made it to the door safely. Fortunately, but unfortunately for us, she went off to college.
Not to worry, there was another teenage babysitter who lived two doors down from us. She was also great, and again I could just walk to the end of my driveway to see her home. Her parents are really nice people and one time when the sitter was running late, her dad sat for OS. I still remember when he walked into the house, saw OS watching Teletubbies, and asked him which one was Rudolph. OS thought it was hilarious. Her best friend also sat for the kids and while she didn't live next door, she had her own car and drove herself. Much to our dismay, these sitters also went off to college. They apparently felt no guilt at moving on with their lives and leaving us in the lurch. I'm not sure why they chose a quality education and the chance to live on their own over periodically babysitting for our kids.
It was around that time that we were trying for our younger son (YS). Between the lack of babysitters for date night or to watch OS during my ob/gyn appointments, I felt compelled to make a move. I decided to join a babysitting co-op or, as I called it, a babysitting cult. For a group of laid back moms, the application form was enough to scare anyone or at least me off. First you had to be referred by a member, then you had to do accept a sit or offer to do a sit within a specified period of time. You received tokens which were the currency which you earned for sits and paid for sits. If you were under a certain number of tokens, it was bad, and, if you were over a certain number of tokens, it was also bad. Cutoffs and formulas were all clearly stated. I haven't even mentioned the mandatory playdates. Plus you had to give them money. See, total cult. Alright so it was only a dollar a year...one dollar, a million dollars, who's really keeping track?
As much as I like to mock this cult, I really have enjoyed being part of it. When the coordinator needed to step down for a small move from Massachusetts to Sweden, I agreed to take over if no one else wanted the position. I only have to keep track of playdates, tokens, and annual dues. Basically it involves being on the computer, and I know this may come as a big shock, but as a blogger I do on occasion find myself in front of one. Thus, I can now proudly declare that I have fullfilled one of my personal dreams I never knew I had: I am a cult leader.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: You can be anything you want to be.
I have to say that the last thing I expected was for you to say you had become the leader! It does sound a bit like a cult but also like a really good thing :)
who does the sits? the other mom members of this cults? so it's adults babysitting? Hmm that's a total new concept for me.
As a teenager I became part of a babysitting organisation. Well no, it's a family organisations that organises courses and gives discount coupons etc etc and also has a babysitting service. Teenagers like wanting to make some money with babysitting but not knowing many people with babies can become members of the organisation and then families can apply for a babysitter. The coordinator than assigns babysitters from her pool, it's all recorded, insurance included etc... with fixed rates to pay per hour etc. It is handy.
I usually got picked up at home by the dads and driven back home. I never had any second thoughts about being in the car with this male adult??! Are you?
Cult leader in your spare time? Hmm, interesting! And who said blogging was your only talent. I like the concept of that 'cult" though considering we don't have parents around us either. I have a SIL near me, but she's really busy and unreliable, so lacks the time to help out much when it comes to babysitting.
The Big Giraffe and I take turns sleeping in on the weekend. Since today was his day to sleep in, I just had to watch the Today Show so that the kids would be quiet and let him sleep. Alright really and truly they are quiet when it's on...for about 3 minutes and then I inevitably turn it off. The one segment I got to see was about Facebook. How appropriate since as I was watching it, I was uploading photos of the baby sweater I knitted.
The segment talked about Facebook etiquette and how to know whether or not to friend someone. Ironically I had received a friend request a few days ago from someone I didn't really know who claimed to be a cousin of mine. I did recognize the name as being someone from my husband's side of the family. The BG confirmed that she was a cousin and Facebook friend of a cousin with whom we're close. I accepted her friend request and then forgot about it.
Until later on this evening that is when I received the following message on my wall, "I think I might be obsessed with you!! I have to know more about what your spiritual beliefs are. Are you a witch? I thought that--tell me about you!! Love--L".
Just in case you're not familiar with Facebook, what's written on your wall is viewable by your friends and, unless you block it, the poster's friends. More specifically it shows up on your feed. Don't get me wrong, some members of BG's family are Wiccan, including the boys' guardians if anything happens to us. However, this wall post did not say Wiccan. My immediate thoughts were 1) She has me mixed up with another cousin who used to be named Alex but has changed her name who is in fact Wicacan 2) All my Catholic school junior high friends who already may have thought I was bizarre now think I'm out casting spells on people. 3) Since I am unlikely to make my high school reunion this year, I can imagine someone being asked if they know what I am up to and replying "OMG, didn't you hear? She's a witch!"
Fortunately, there is a button to delete posts from a Facebook wall. While my kids and the BG might argue that I am a witch, I don't think that was what L was talking about. No laughing, BG or I may just cast a spell on you when you sleep...
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: When there is more than one Alex, more than one Wiccan, and more than one person seen as a witch in a family, it is easy to get confused on Facebook.
That's a funny dilemma. I had someone from high school 'friend' me and I swear I couldn't remember her for the life of me. I had to dig out my old yearbook to see who the heck she was.
I have totally ignored friend requests on Facebook. The good thing is, the people don't realize that you've ignored them. They probably just think you didn't see the alert or aren't active or something.
Two months ago I messed up taking my birth control pills. In addition to using them for birth control, my ob/gyn recommended them because they have been found to reduce the rate of ovarian cancer, which is prevalent in my family, by 60%. Then for the next couple weeks the Big Giraffe and I were worried about having a new addition to our family, and no I don't mean the canine one I would love to have at some point. This was not helped by the fact I had a wonky pregnancy test that we weren't sure how to interpret. Then we spent what seemed like the equivalent of a down payment on a new home on other pregnancy tests. Alright, obviously that is an exaggeration, but those things aren't cheap.
On top of it all, I just had been feeling off. I had more headaches than usual, I felt crankier than usual (no comment on that one!) and although it was nice that I wasn't getting my period, I still was getting bad cramps. After I missed my pill and had to take two the next day, I dreamt that I had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. I woke up to a pounding headache. That sealed the deal. I was going to go off The Pill for a few months until my appointment with the cancer specialist that my ob/gyn recommended.
I have felt much better since I've been off The Pill. Until period time that is. First of all, I started getting it again. Between The Pill and my triathlon training, I was only experiencing it a couple of times a year. Now the frequency has increased, although the triathlon training is definitely continuing to mitigate the symptoms. The worst part though is not the cramps, the bloating or the PMS. It's the hunger monster that it appears to have unleashed! My doctor said it's just the hormones and not to worry about it. Honestly if I hadn't had my period twice already, I would wonder if it were a monster of another sort...a tiny little human monster. Don't freak out BG. Remember you had to go out and get me extra supplies this month? Anyone else have this happen?
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: The Pill protects from more than just extra births.
I have yet to have my cycles return post partum, but I was off the pill for 2 years prior to conceiving baby #3 and I much prefer no pill. Although I was put on the pill at 15 to help lessen painful (very, very) menstrual cramps.
I'm not sure what my point of this comment is, so I'll just stop.
I've been off the pill because I'm on antibiotics and the pill wouldn't be as effective anyway. I got the antibiotics during my placebo week and didn't start the new pack on Sunday, so it's only been 8 days. No symptoms, though. Good luck!
The dollar store by me sells pregnancy tests. I thought this was hilarious and I made a crack to the check-out guy. "I'm not sure I would trust a $1 pregnancy test." He didn't think it was all that funny and curtly informed me that they were one of the store's biggest sellers! Many people buy three and take them all and compare results. Even then, it's still cheaper!
Anyway, just a tip in case you need it in the future. But I hope it's a tip you never have to use!
Yesterday my moms group had spa day at a local spa. For my birthday the Big Giraffe (BG) got me a gift certificate there to have a hot rock massage. I was pretty excited about it. I had one about 4 years ago, and it was fantastic.
Unfortunately the only available time slot was 1:15 pm, but, since my group was going to be there from 9am-2pm, I figured I could just get there earlier and hang out before my appointment. By the time I arrived, most people had already had their services and talked about them. Someone brought up being asked if she wanted her chest and abs massaged. She had said no because she was uncomfortable about not being covered with the sheet. I thought she meant her abs. I knew about that kind of mistake from my earliest experience with a massage.
I got my first massage when I was 18 and a senior in high school. I had no idea that you weren't supposed to wear underwear until my friend and I showed up. She said she was having her period and was averse to tampons, so her masseuse said she could wear her bikini bottoms. I too said I had my period and couldn't wear tampons, even though that wasn't true. This is particularly funny because we shared a locker on the swim team and had a giant box of tampons in our locker. I decided that my "period" meant I also needed to wear my bikini top in addition to the bottoms. In hindsight, I am surprised that the masseuse acted like my reasoning for wearing the top, "Uh, my period?" was totally logical. Or she thought I was an immature whack job, which would be my guess. My second massage was a gift from the BG for my 23rd birthday. This time I also said I had my period even thought that wasn't true and wore my underwear. No top though.
By the time I had my third massage, I stopped claiming that I am having my period, and I went appropriately attired (or not attired). I did keep the sheet practically glued to my body. A couple massages later, and I now act like a massage veteran. After all, now that I've gone through labor and have massive stretch marks, I don't care as much. I'm modest but I'm not going to jump in a locker if someone sees my changing at the Y.
With all that in mind, when the masseuse asked me if I wanted a chest and ab massage, I thought why not. Why not because for some bizarre reason I thought that there would be... oh I don't know...a SHEET to cover my nipples. You can then imagine my surprise when I suddenly felt a cool breeze on my chest. Yes, I was half nude in front of the masseuse. The obvious thought came into my mind: I should have worn my bikini! Yeah, talk about a horror show there. I've lost a lot of weight, but bikini material I am not! Plus can you imagine his surprise, particularly if I had said "Uh, my period?"
Despite my initial surprise, I was able to relax and even enjoy the massage, and despite BG's suspicions, he didn't really massage my breasts. I shouldn't really criticize the BG; he took the news very well. I think he was a little suspicious of my claim to have grown as a person. Uh, bikini to partially nude? Seems obvious to me. He also looked a little surprised when I mentioned tipping the masseuse and muttered something about the peep show being enough of a tip. He seems to enjoy teasing me about it, which proves that he benefitted from the chest massage as well as I did. (And yes, he keeps insisting that the masseuse benefitted most of all.)
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: A chest and ab massage means that the top half of your body will be naked, including nipple exposure.
I thought you were by definition naked in a spa even when walking from the sauna room to the massage desk or swimming in the pool...at least where I've been so far already. So be warned if you come to Europe! Places can even be gender mixed
Well that sounds a bit um, breezy oh my gosh if I could have a massage right now, covered nipples or not I would totally go for it. I'm sure the masseuse has seen it all before anyway.
Holy crap, you are brave. There is no way I would do that. I don't even like getting a manicure because they massage your hands. I hate when strangers touch me.
It's been a little while since I posted. A long long time ago, practically in the dark ages or better known as the time before I had children, I rarely got sick. When I did get sick it was always a big deal like viral meningitis or when I worked at the DA's office and got some really weird rash and a high fever and left a completely incoherent message on voicemail for my boss except that I was actually talking to a different co-workers voicemail. What can I say except that I'm impressed that I was even able to pick up the phone.
This year, though I think I have had more colds than I have had in the past ten years combined. In fact the last time I was at the doctor I asked her about it. She said it's probably because my older son (OS)is in school 5 days a week for the first time this year. She said it's pretty common for the parents to be sick a lot even though the kids are healthy.
This Monday OS had a cough. I didn't think too much of it, but when he barely touched his pizza at lunch I know something was amiss. When has OS ever refused pizza? Sure enough later that night he had a fever. He hasn't had one in about two years. I'm not joking. We still have the same bottle of Children's Tylenol I bought when he turned two so I wouldn't have to buy any more of the dinky little bottles of infant medicine. Then of course we had YS though...
Anyhow, we were lucky that the fever didn't even last 12 hours; he was up and fine in no time. I did keep him home from school for a couple days. Then the Big Giraffe got it. He did worse. Then I got it and spent several days feeling like I was coming down with something, eventually ending up with a fever over the weekend. Plus I've had some issues going on in my personal life (fortunately not with my hubby or sons) that just seem to make dealing with anything more difficult. So how was YS? Perfectly healthy fortunately leading me to wonder if this illness was bacterial since YS had to be on antibiotics for a while because of his surgery.
Hopefully that's it for colds this year. After all I have other life threatening worries to keep me occupied. Take for example the Hotwheel car that happened to just be placed oh so perfectly at the bottom of the stairs this afternoon. Guess who saw her life flash before her eyes. On a positive note though when I attend parenting class tomorrow and have to name either a good parenting moment, a good nurturing moment for myself, or a parenting moment I wish I had handled better I will be able to give an example of the third.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Adults are not meant to ride on Hotwheels, particularly starting at the bottom of their stairs.
Other than the time our golden retriever, Gandalph, stole a pot roast off the table and the time he ate a baby wipe used to wipe off our older son's (OS) hands after he ate some of a different pot roast a few weeks later, Gandalph has left food on our table alone. Until recently that is.
In the past few weeks, Gandalph has been helping himself to our plates regardless of whether or not we are sitting at the table. In fact yesterday he accidentaly got my finger as I was throwing out some old nan in his haste to intercept it before it hit the trash. I figured it probably had to do with his new dog food, but I gave the vet a call just in case. She called me back yesterday evening.
Vet: I'm sorry to call you so late. Gandalph is such a great dog. It sounds to me like he's just really hungry. Alex Elliot (AE): Thanks for calling! I was up anyway (scrounging around in the kitchen for a snack). That's what I was figuring. Vet: He's probably hungry all the time and it's probably making him irritable and uncomfortable. AE: I completely understand. I feel that way too. Vet: It's probably all he's thinking about.' AE: (me clanking around the dishes in preparation for an evening snack of toast). Vet: It sounds like a really good solution would be to increase his dog food 30%-50%. It might make him slightly heavier, but it's about quality of life. Being heavier correlates with some health problems, but it doesn't necessarily cause them. AE: (Can you be my doctor! I want someone to tell me that I need to increase my food intake 30-50% and tell me it's about me being happy!) So I shouldn't go back to his old dog food? He really didn't seem to like it though. Vet: No, the new food is good, and he obviously likes it. AE: (Trying to pretend that my high fiber whole wheat toast with a touch of Smart Balance is a donut or better yet a thick slice of fudge cake.) Yes, it's much better when you enjoy what you're eating. Vet: It's probably a good idea to not have him in the room when the kids are eating until he's not so hungry. AE: (Alright seriously can you be my doctor?! I would love to have my doctor tell me that I shouldn't be in the same room as my kids when eating. No whining, no complaining about what I've made, no telling me that I'm mean, etc. etc.) Yes, I've been separating them. Vet: Also, you should keep the kids away from him when he's eating. AE: (Do you accept Blue Cross Blue Shield of MA? Can I have you write a prescription stating that I too need to be away from my kids when I eat because maybe then my insurance would cover a sitter for them. Maybe just maybe I would be able to finish a meal when it is still hot. At the very least I might be able to have enough time to taste it and better yet enjoy it. ) Yes, we already do that. We're also trying to give him some extra attention. Vet: Everybody needs extra attention. It's important because it lets the mother dog know that she's he's appreciated and can help make up for the fact that her kids told her that they wished that the lady at the grocery store was their mother...(Whoops! That was me substituing myself every time Gandalph's name came up.) Vet: If this still doesn't work then there's a great drug out there that supresses the dog's appetiate. It's expensive but works well. AE: You know I'm hungry all the time too.....(do you know how expensive my Y membership is. Hmmm...you wouldn't be chance know if that med is sold to humans under a different name like other vet meds are? Better yet, have there been any studies on humans taking that pill because I would be happy to volunteer myself.) AE: So to summarize, I need to increase Gandalph's food 30%-50%, let him eat in the comfort of his own space and privacy, keep him away from any kids mealtimes which inevitably involve whining, crying and meltdowns and give him love and attention. I have just one question: Can I be my dog?
The Big Giraffe gave a bemused look when I recounted this conversation to him and reminded me that we have an extra dog dish if I need it. I did not appreciate that.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Some dogs have all the luck.
A couple weeks ago I attended friends' baby shower. In the swirl of conversations about everyone becoming parents, I caught up with an old (well perhaps former is a better word than old since she is only four years older than I am) college adviser who happened to be there. She's about 4 years older than me. I asked her if she ever felt pressured by her friends to have kids, since she and her long time boyfriend/partner want to remain child-free. She acknowledged that being surrounded by parents had changed many of her friendships, but not because they were pressuring her to join them. The big culprit: her friends only wanted to talk about their kids. The answer wasn't really surprising to me, because I have friend of that phenomenon in parenting magazines and books.
Right around that time, a friend of mine invited me to take a parenting class she was offering at her family network. It meets once a week for 12 weeks and get this: they provide free childcare and free dinner for both kids and parents. Here's what interested me in it aside from not having to worry about dinner once a week: the class is about a parent's identity as a person.
That's right, it's a class for parents about basically getting to know themselves better. Both the Big Giraffe and I thought it sounded like a good idea so we signed up. Tonight was our first class. I'm pretty excited about this parenting journey.
Of course our next step on our parenting journey may not be in the most enjoyable direction. The hospital called this afternoon to tell us that our younger son (YS) got the first slot for surgery on tomorrow's schedule! That was what we were hoping, for because he's not allowed to eat breakfast. We have to be there at 6 am tomorrow.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Parents are people too.
Good luck with the surgery! Both my sons have had surgery at different times and we lucked out with one of them having an early slot, too. Makes it so much easier.
And on the parenting class, they have one just like that, too here at our local school. I was blown away by the free childcare and dinner thing, too.
I have been very stressed by my younger son's (YS) upcoming surgery. I wrote a post at GNMParents last Friday about how Parenting When Family is Far Away compounds this sort of stress. Today my younger son (YS) had his pre-op appointment at the hospital. Apparently I'm either getting old, losing my mind (hey I'll be 33 on Saturday), or perhaps a combination of both because I have no recollection of having a pre-op appointment before my breast reduction surgery. Or maybe it's just that it wasn't required.
I had never been to this hospital before, but I knew where it was because of a very important landmark: the drive-thru Starbucks. The ENT must be a fellow coffee lover because he appeared to be on the same wavelength. When I mentioned knowing the location of the hospital because of the Starbucks, he commented how much he likes the drive-thru aspect!
YS and I arrived, and I was immediately impressed with the hospital. It was bright and clean and, oddly enough, cheerful. They had a lot of nice plants in the atrium. YS was seen promptly for his appointment. It was one long appointment. It lasted over an hour, and the nurse and nurse practioner who saw him were very thorough. They asked me all the usual medical history questions and then basically went over YS with a fine tooth comb. One nurse has been doing this for 25 years and gave me very detailed information on what to expect with both the surgery and recovery. Sheeven gave me a little schedule to follow (cafeteria for breakfast, coffee stand, then waiting room) to follow during the surgery to make the time fly. Is it possible that she knew me in a former life? Or maybe my house is bugged, because I had been worried about the slow tick of the clock during the surgery.
The good news is that both she and the nurse separately told me that YS was so calm during the physical that they really thought that he would have an easy recovery. Their reasoning was that a lot of times just being around doctors and nurses is traumatic for kids, never mind the surgery, so since YS was totally fine with being poked and prodded they felt he was one step ahead of the game. Whether it's true or not, I felt an immediate sense of relief. So much so that my MIL commented on how much more relaxed I looked when I walked into the house after the appointment. There is definitely an emotional benefit to parents from the pre-op appointment. I left feeling reassured. I not only knew that the hospital was near the Starbucks, but I knew where to park, where to go when we first arrived at the hospital on Friday, and what to expect during the recovery. Instead of waiting for the discharge from the hospital, they gave me the handouts including the food list and post-op treatment today.
Everything seemed to be going smoothly until I got home and remembered that my older son (OS) seems to have gone straight from age 5 to age 15 this week. How did I remember? Well, for the third day in a row, he told me that he hates me and that I'm the worst mother in the entire world. I am sure he will be far happier with my parenting this weekend when his brother is getting all of the attention. Wait wait wait! Before you take his side, not only has my MIL extended her visit so that he has has a grandma staying through YS's recovery, but I've arranged some special playdates as well as some alone time with him for later on in the recovery.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: A calm child, cheerful hospital, experienced medical staff with good bedside manner, a visiting relative, and a nearby Starbucks can help a parent of a pre-op child manage stress.
There's nothing quite like coming in contact with great nurses. I'm so glad it was a good experience and helped put you both at ease! Keeping my fingers crossed that they're right about the easy recovery.
Yesterday I was out running errands. Alright I was out running errands because I am completely neurotic about my younger son's surgery. While I have little control over his pain management, I have total control over purchasing boxes of Mac and Cheese and other such items that others who have parented through this surgery have told me to stock up on. Plus I was starting to sound like a water buffalo when I was exercising and realized that it was time to refill my inhaler prescription!
As I was strapping myself into the car all set to go home I caught a glimpse of something absolutely terrifying in the rear view mirror: my eyebrows. Realizing I had just enough time I drove over to the eyebrow waxing place and got my problem fixed. Then I called the Big Giraffe and had the following conversation:
Alex Elliot (AE): I just got my eyebrows waxed. I think the esthetician is on the phone with her friends telling them that she just met Michael Dukakis. Big Giraffe(BG): I'm sure she did not think that. AE: It was pretty bad. She had to use a brush and scissors. I've never had that done. BG: That's pretty neat! AE: Excuse me? Neat would be if the cat brought me my slippers. Neat is not having gigantic scary eyebrows. BG: I still think it's cool. AE: I'm off to Verizon now. BG: Why? AE: Because every call I make on my cell phone is automatically on speaker phone. That's why I'm calling you from the car. I don't want everyone to know that every couple months I could be mistaken for Micheal Dukakis.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Neat eyebrows are well groomed eyebrows.
Happy holidays to you all! It's been a busy but fun week here. The funny thing is that I can't even tell you exactly what we've been doing except that I've laughed more this week than I have in a really long time. Don't get me wrong; I love to laugh much to the Big Giraffe's chagrin because there might be a slight tendency to have it be at his expense. Such as right now while I'm watching him trying virtual step aerobics on the new Wii Fit we got as a gift for Christmas.
Christmas Eve day the Big Giraffe ran a few errands while my MIL and I made cookies with the boys. I even made them from scratch and pulled out my cookie dough press. I have an itty bitty problem every year: operator error. The first several cookie sheets worth of cookies I make always look like a two year old got a hold of the cookie press. I master the cookie dough press by the last dozen cookies. Satisfied that I have put the cookie dough press back in place and made lovely cookies I then pack up the press and put it away for next Christmas Eve. We all found my cookies to be quite funny to my chagrin. The Big Giraffe told me in all seriousness that theis year's batch not only tastes better than last year's (thanks to the William Sonoma on-line recipe!) but also looks better. I like to think it's because the boys are better at decorating them, but the Big Giraffe has clarified that my technique with the cookie press has gotten better.
Christmas Day itself the boys were up bright and early. We opened gifts and then the Big Giraffe made us our traditional, delicious eggs benedict Christmas breakfast. We spent the rest of the morning and the afternoon playing with the kids and of course setting up their toys. We also set up the Wii and had a great time playing with it. All of us bowled together even my MIL. The Big Giraffe and I had a ton of fun competing in tennis. Then it was dinner time.
After much thought (on my part as everyone else said they really and truly didn't care) we bought a HoneyBaked Ham and a couple side dishes. This worked out perfectly because I was able to make homemade rolls (yes, from scratch!) and a homemade au gratin potato sidedish. We also had the Christmas cookies and a cake. The ham was already cooked so I had full use of the oven for my sidedishes. I was quite pleased with it. Then it was time to beat up the Big Giraffe at boxing to engage in some healthy sporting games.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: A Wii offers more than a wee bit of fun.
In order to drive my friend and her family to the airport on Friday, I needed to arrange for my older son (OS) to go home from school with a friend. OS was absolutely thrilled. It was like Christmas had come early. In fact, all I had to do Monday morning was to remind him of the playdate, and he jumped right out of bed.
The friend's mom had graciously offered to keep OS until late afternoon so that the kids could have plenty of time to play. It turned out to be good not just for OS but for me as well. YS and I stopped for lunch, and it took a lot longer to get back than I originally thought it would. We ended up getting back just in time to pick OS up. Unfortunately, he was well into a movie called Rudolph's Shiny New Year. Not wanting to overstay our welcome and also having some things we needed to do, I promised OS that we would try to find the movie on TV later. Surely it would be playing many times again before Christmas.
Unfortunately, when I got home and looked on-line for the next showing, I couldn't find it anywhere. OS was upset and ready to nomimate me for worst mother of the year. I was able to appease him by pointing out that another showing of regular Rudolph was coming on that evening and we could record it. Unfortutunately Tivo deleted the one I had recorded last week. I even said he could stay up late as a special treat.
Later that evening the Big Giraffe, OS and I were camped out in front of the the TV. However, I kept on getting up to answer the phone, load the dishwasher and perhaps read blogs and check Facebook. Basically I had no idea what was going on in the movie. At a couple points the Big Giraffe and I even asked each other what movie this was. I briefly checked the info and read that it was a 2001 version. I assumed it was a re-make of the original Rudolph. However, when the singing hippotamus (not kidding) made her debut, I began to have an inkling that this was a different movie. Turns out it was Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Island of Misfit Toys. See I thought that's what the original movie was called.
OS loved the movie. Neither the Big Giraffe nor I were as impressed, by which I mean that there may have been a lot of eye rolling and stiffled laughing, pariticulalry at the part where the Abominable Snowman dressed up in a pink bunny costume as a disguise. OS kept on saying that he didn't look like he was in disguise and didn't understand why he was wearing the costume. If a five year old is picking up on the flaws of the movie...well...that's enough said right there.
Here's the worst part though. I'm about to reveal a spoiler so if you haven't seen this movie you might not want to read the next part or this movie may be ruined for you forever more!
S P O I L E R
S P A C E
Picture this said in a darky echoey voice. The bad guy turns out to be a forgotten teddy bear. Apparently he was a favorite toy of a boy until the boy grew up and put him in a box on a closet shelf. One day the bear got thrown out and ended up on a giant heap of trash in a dump. I could feel the tears building up. He got mad and vowed to take care of the forgotten toys. Santa explained that it was a mistake and in fact the boy wanted him very much. He was all grown up with his own child. I'm getting choked up even writing about this. This is worse than a Lifetime movie! Anyhow, at the end of the movie, a little girl in a crib snuggled up to the bear and then the grown up who had owned the bear as a boy came in to look at them happily. That's when I lost it. OS was pretty alarmed. I mean he was already confused by the Abominable Snowman in a bunny suit, but mommy crying over this movie; now that he completely didn't understand. Come to think of it, I don't either. Now if you'll excuse me I have to go find a kleenex to wipe up some tears and blow my nose.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Bad cartoons with hippotomauses and discarded, super-villain teddy bears can be as moving as any other drama.
*Apparently Rudolph's Shiny New Year will be on abcfamily this Sunday at 7:30 am EST followed at 8:30 by Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reinder and the Island of Misfit Toys.
You've never heard of the Island of Misfit Toys? This is a classic! Although to be honest, I don't think I've ever watched it... Anyway, I am in love with Bumble the Abominable Snowman. I used to have Bumble slippers, which I believe I got from Delia's, the teen clothing store. But I digress. Bumble rocks. And I'd cry like a baby over an abandoned teddy bear, too.
A while ago a friend asked me to drive her family to the airport because parking and car services are pretty expensive. I was happy to help, except for two things. First, the drive would coincide with my older son's (OS) preschool pickup. Second, I couldn't fit my friend's family, my younger son (YS), and me in my car at the same time. Size soon became the least of my car problems.
Last week as I was driving my boys to my older son's (OS) Tae Kwon Do lesson, it sounded like a group of preschoolers were planning the drums in my car. OS and my younger son (YS) were actually innocent. I know! I couldn't believe it myself. Not surprisingly, cars aren't supposed to make that noise. Unfortunately, the replacement axle wasn't in stock, and it needed to be ordered. I was told my car was safe to drive as long as it wasn't icy or snowing out. Hmm...call me crazy, but I think we may have just had the teensiest tiniest weather incident out here...so teenie that a state of emergency was declared and the National Guard was called out! That effectively meant we were down to one car.
At least we had our health...until I found a spot of blood at the foot of the bed where my cats typically sleep. After examining both cats and the dog, I was unsuccessful at finding any wound. I was unsure whether to be relieved or more concerned.
Fortunately, all problems had a solution. My friend suggested that we get around the car capacity issue by taking her car to the airport. I could then drive it back home. She further asked that we keep her car in our driveway to avoid it being towed in the event of another snowstorm. As long as we were going to take car of the car, she further, generously suggested that we borrow her car until my car gets fixed. Meanwhile, OS had been asking for a while to have a playdate with a close friend of his from preschool. Her mother agreed to pick OS up with her daughter. To describe OS as excited would be more of an understatement than my description of our snowstorm.
This morning, I felt things were on the right track. I even slept in a bit, skipped spinning class, and continued to extend the life of my less and less supportive and more and more stinky shoes by using the newly fixed treadmill in our basement. When I got off and pulled off my socks to get into the shower, I found the solution to the last problem. The source of blood at the foot of our bed had been a foot...specifically my foot. I apparently had a blister on my heel that was bleeding but fortunately didn't hurt.
I had a good conversation with my friend on the way to the airport. My friend doesn't need to pay for airport parking. I don't need to rent a car. OS had a fantastic playdate, filled with hugs and play. And I will be giving myself a holiday gift of running shoes this week.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Trivial problems have easy solutions.
I woke up on Friday morning for spinning class. It was raining out, and I debated going back to bed. I figured I would get up and look outside to determine whether it was safe. Since things looked okay, I drove to class without thinking too much about it. It was raining out, and there were a heavy puddles along the way. One person who was in the class commented that her alarm didn't go off because of the power outage. The rest of us were surprised. What power outage? We had no idea.
In fact it wasn't until I drove back from the gym that I heard on the radio that schools were being closed and that there were major power outages. It was actually raining hard enough to make me uncomfortable driving. That's pretty rare for me, but it left me relieved that school was cancelled. I later saw on TV that a state of emergency had been declared for MA. The Big Giraffe has many colleagues who live in Northern Massachusetts and New Hampshire who had no power, heat, or (worst of all) internet. I hadn't realized how bad things were closer to home until today, when calls started to come in from local friends who didn't or in many cases still don't have heat or electricity. We have offered to let people we know stay with us, and we also had one very nice couple call us assuming we didn't have electricity and ask if we would like to stay with them. We went to a mall on Friday night and it was jam packed. In hindsight, we realized the crowds were there probably because people were looking for a place to stay warm.
Today we went to a birthday party at one of those kids' birthday party places. The kids had a fantastic time. Many of the parents did not seem as upbeat. As we chatted, we learned that we were the only people there who had electricity! Worse, none of them were expecting to get power back until Monday.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: New England storms affect the whole region.
My mom asked me how you were faring and whether we'd be able to visit you this weekend, as she heard that the problems in your area were bad. Glad that you were spared!
that ice storm ad its problems was on the news here. I'd panic if I had no electricity in winter. it must be awefull to have children and not have heating. And all the food in the freezer is going bad. Oh gosh....is all electricity back now?
New England is a fairly dense region...can't they make investements in underground electricity cables??
The holidays are always a funny time for me. I suspect that the Big Giraffe would say that they are a somewhat crabby time for me. I absolutely love Christmas. Plus right after Christmas is my birthday. I enjoy the Christmas lights, the cheesy Christmas music, and the awful decorations in the mall that go up way too early but make the mall look bright and cheerful. Every year I'm determined that it's going to be the best Christmas ever.
However, with family living so far away, this festive season can bring on bouts of homesickness not to mention shear fear. Fear of what you might ask? Let me explain the holiday dinner transition theory that my husband hears about every year.
When you grow up, your family prepares your big holiday meal. As you get older you begin to help with the meal. Gradually you work your way up to making a dish or two all on your own. Then one day, you have your own place and you actually cook that dish in your own home and bring it to your parents' house (or whoever hosts the family meal.) Then over time you host the meal, but it probably starts out small. Perhaps you cook the main dish and family members bring over side dishes until one day (in my homesick mind it's about 20 years later) you host the whole thing on your own and if you have kids they are also in the beginning stages of the transition.
The problem is that I went from making dishes at my parents home (I have lived out of state since college) to making the whole meal. This tends to cause major stress particularly because I am not one of those people who finds cooking relaxing. Plus I really like relaxing and playing with the kids on Christmas, and I have no desire to spend hours in the kitchen preparing a meal. On the bright side, the Big Giraffe and I are free to come up with whatever holiday menus we choose.
This year my MIL is coming for Christmas. It's the first Christmas that a relative has ever celebrated with us since we got married. While it's her first Christmas celebration, and she doesn't care what we serve, her presence causes the backup plan of frozen pizzas stashed in the freezer just in case to lose their appeal. The past couple of years we've done fondue which has been a lot of fun, but the boys don't particularly like it, by which I mean they don't like it at all. Plus I'm a little nervous about them being around the fondue flame. For several years, relatives have sent a meal on dry ice from a famous Chicago restaurant for Christmas Eve. That has been fantastic and is another idea that we are considering extending on our own for Christmas this year.
My question to you is what do you serve for the holidays? Or perhaps I should ask, if you could start holiday meal traditions from scratch, what would you serve?
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Without traditions, holidays offer a blank slate of opportunity.
Lasagna or homemade spaghetti and meatballs are good dishes that everyone will like - including your boys - but can still be made to feel special. Add some good wine, salads, cheeses and crackers (for appetizers), and a special dessert. The boys could help you make meatballs and you could prepare the sauce early and let it simmer all day.
One of my friends' family has filet mignon every Christmas dinner because it doesn't take a lot of time and is luxurious. Pop some potatoes in the oven and make a good side dish like mac and cheese with really quality cheese (Martha Stewart has a great recipe).
A few years ago when I hosted my first Christmas Eve for the whole family, I made a huge pot of chili and set out shredded cheese, sour cream, guacomole, and corn chips. It was a lot of fun.
we were thinking of cooking a turkey of xmas eve, eating some of it, and then using the leftovers to make m's dad's ragout - which is basically brown gravy full of shredded turkey and pork meatballs, all poured over traditional tourtiere (old-fashioned quebecois meat-pie).
and the best part is, here in ontario, you just BUY the meat pie (and don't tell anyone).
so, yes, meat, meatballs, brown gravy, all over ... meat in crust.
yum.
it's our first xmas on our own, so we are looking forward to doing our own thing!
Super easy - roast a chicken, boil the potatoes while the chicken is roasting (peeling is Big Giraffe's job), use some packaged or canned gravy (there are some wonderful ones in gourmet stores), steam green beans in the microwave, heat up parker house rolls that you got from the supermarket, and serve a bakery pie for dessert. If you don't find cooking relaxing, you should be able to spend the day with the kids. This dinner can be brought to the table in about 20 minutes active time and an hour and a half total time (I have a great, easy chicken recipe I can send you).
Alternative - serve Christmas day brunch, instead. Buy a stollen, heat it, make scrambled eggs and chicken sausage. Voila! Mimosas for the adults.
I do a brunch menu on Christmas (usually stolen from Williams Sonoma) and then on New Year's misc appetizers, keeps us full and happy all day. A great start to the year. Best of luck!
WOW, I'm really bad at advice on this subject. My husband is the cook in my family. And I usually end up at my sister-in-laws for holidays and the most we have to bring is like a pumpkin pie or something.
We don't have any Christmas traditions. My parents (still the hosts, their won insistence) sometimes have ham, or beef, or turkey. Except when they don't--one year we all made Chinese dumplings with my Taiwanese SIL, yum. The traditions are more a simple brunch after presents (egg casserole and coffee cake), lavish Christmas stockings for the kids. The last few years there have been Christmas crackers, a la Britain. It will be great! And less pressure than Thanksgiving, where it's all about The Meal.
I've told you before about the waffle feed Christmas Eve, which is SO fun! But also, on Christmas Day we have sticky buns in the morning and then a ham dinner later...my mom makes her rolls and we have all kinds of fun salads, but the main meat (the ham) is a Honeybaked Ham so just needs heated...I think your "on ice" idea sounds like lots of fun!
My mom suffers from a lot of cooking stress as well, but my best holiday meals I remember are fondue or fondue (bourgignonne) or raclette.....nothing to prepare except for salads etc , everyone cooks during the meal himself. It's very cosy, it's very festive (with the heat glowing from the table), and it's often done in Belgium during the holidays. You can order special meat/cheese fondue dishes at all buchters.
oh and the best thing is that most butchers give you "crepe/pancake batter" along and then you make crepes in your little pans after the meal!!!!! mmmmmm, with hot apple sauce or chocolate sauce or ....
Have you ever had one of those days where you receive an email that leaves you feeling kind of shaky? So that no matter what else happens the rest of the day it's always there in the back of your mind? You can tell yourself that you know it's silly and that it's not even worth your time thinking about it, but instead of following your own advice you obsessively think about it for the rest of the day? My friend Sally HP described it as wanting to put out a broadcast bulletin to the world saying that you really are a good person. Perhaps you might start to come up with defensive comebacks that are a complete and total lie just for the shock value? Let's just say that I've come up with some pretty good shock lines!
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: The wrong email can put you in the wrong place.
Today I was once again a guest speaker at a college where I discussed the Mommy Wars. I really enjoyed it. We talked about the origin of Mommy Wars and spent time discussing SAHM, WM and WAHM. We also noticed that no one talks about Daddy Wars.
The Big Giraffe had arranged to take the morning off and thus was in charge of taking our older son (OS) to preschool. I usually take our younger son (YS) to a community playgroup on Mondays. The Big Giraffe was pretty excited about taking YS. While he loves spending time with YS, the excitement went beyond father/son time. It was because he knew that he would be treated with much admiration (I always say he is treated like a hero). While I was talking about how I plan to go to vet school in a few years and discussing what it will be like to be a mom and a vet student, the Big Giraffe was being praised during the parent group for being an involved parent and asked to give his opinion on a variety of subjects.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that the Big Giraffe is so involved in the boys' lives. He's an excellent father, and I'm not trying to take away from that. However, one time we did a little experiment where the Big Giraffe told people that he was planning on going to vet school and people responded with admiration. Not one single person asked him what he was going to do about daycare or if he was worried that he would not spend enough time with his kids. Basically all the questions I get. This was in the back of my mind today when I was at the class.
When I got home, the Big Giraffe told me about how much fun he had had. About how he got to share his perspectives about toys and gender roles. How the psychologist who ran the meeting applauded his opinion. I said the exact same thing last week about toys and gender roles! I know that in reality there aren't many dads at the parent group, and even fewer who will speak against gender stereotypes, so when a dad does attend it's a big deal. This is particularly interesting to me, since my husband is socially liberal and probably not representative of a significant plurality, much less a majority. Not like any one mom's opinion would represent all moms either. Somehow we seem to make more allowances though for the former. However when the Big Giraffe proudly told me that a few people told him that they enjoyed his comments and that they hoped he would be back soon, I realized that I've never heard anyone say that to another mom.
Ahh the irony that I could be speaking about feminism at a college class while my husband is being heralded a hero at a playgroup I attend every week. Alright maybe not so surprising because we both have the same view of feminism and gender and again he's an excellent father. I do have to say that I was suspicious when he told me that the next time he goes to parent group they'll be throwing him a ticker tape parade.
A. Elliot's LessonLearned: The road to equality doesn't follow a parade route.
Isn't that the truth! I have to say that when my hubby talks about going back to school I think about the time it would take from the kids...not that I wouldn't support him. I would, absolutely.
But I wonder if I would think of it for another dad?
I wouldn't say this is the irony of feminism but rather an example of how much farther we have to go before women's ambitions and abilities to be considered good moms are regarded the same way men's decisions are. Society has a long way to go when it comes to double standards for women.
and then, imagine you are the WOHM countepart to the SAHM of your wife in a lesbian relationship! i have never been one to go in for identity politics, but there are some times when i feel so absolutely ALONE in the world in terms of my experience.
WOHMs aren't like me - they don't have another mother to leave their kids at home with when THEY go to work... WOHDs aren't like me - they are dads (and you might or might not be surprised about how different that makes things).
it's kind of like having the best of both worlds, but having no one else to talk to about it. but also having no one to share perspective on the demands and stressors of family life.
Not that I'm a big fan of Sarah Palin, but I did notice that people asked how she could possibly campaign and be the vice president while raising young children and I don't recall anyone asking the same questions of Obama.
Or, how about how much airlines go out of their way to help a man travelling alone with young children, but look at women doing the same thing with almost a look of derision. How could I be considering disturbing other's flight by bringing these virus-carrying noisemakers on this flight?
Yup, you said it Alex. Lesson learned perhaps, but how many times do we have to learn the same damn thing?
This morning when I returned from the gym, I was surprised to find that the boys were already up. Normally they are just stirring when I get back allowing me enough time to take a shower and get dressed before helping them. Then we all go downstairs together to have breakfast. This morning, they rushed downstairs and had breakfast first.
After breakfast we went upstairs so I could shower and get ready and they could get dressed. After I stepped out of the shower, I realized that I was actually good on time. In fact I had time to slather on some lotion, which I find to e a necessity when the first hint of winter appears. Since I hadn't used it since this past winter, I had to hunt around a little bit for it. Meanwhile the boys had gotten dressed and popped into my room. Fortunately any sense of privacy I may have had disappeared when I had that first transvaginal ultrasound almost exactly 6 years ago. Perhaps in the checklist the Big Giraffe and I were given in our pre-conception appointment there needed to be a question that read, "Are willing to have an audience when you get dressed for the next 5+ years?"
I grabbed a bottle of lotion that I had been saving for a special occasion. I frequently do this with nice lotions for when I will be going out or just need a little pick me up. The boys were intrigued. I explained to them how my skin was a little dry so I need to rub some moisture in it. I even explained that this was my special lotion. My older son (OS) inquired about the appearance of frosting on my skin. Males! I carefully explained that this lotion was thicker because it was a body cream, meaning that it was packed with moisture. I explained that as I rubbed it, it would eventually be absorbed by my skin. OS looked skeptical. While I can't be sure, it looked to me like my younger son (YS) was reminicing about his experiment with body cream the other day.
I kept on rubbing and rubbing, but if anything the lotion was become thicker and thicker. I wondered if perhaps the lotion had gone bad. Can lotions go bad? I grabbed the bottle to see if there was an expiration date on it. That's when I discovered the problem: it was "luxurious foaming bubble bath." That's why I had saved it! The boys thought this was hilarious, as I made a beeline back to the shower.
I don't know whether YS was inspired by my lotion fiasco or just being two, but he took a detour on his way to getting his socks this afternoon and reappeared with Vaseline all over his face. For the record, that did not happen during naptime. During naptime, he was playing with stomp rockets...until I put my foot down and stopped him.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Do not use buble bath as a body cream.
This past week has been very busy, but in a good way. The Big Giraffe and I have gone on three date nights! I know, I can't believe it myself. Let me just pause here so I can pinch myself to make sure I'm not asleep! I hope that those three date nights don't mean that we won't have any more date nights for the next year. Is there a quota on how many date nights you can have a year once you have kids? We went to the So You Think You Can Dance Live Tour, to see the movie Mama Mia in the cheap theater with the awesome self serve popcorn butter machine (seriously why don't all theaters have that?) and tonight out for coffee and dessert. I'm still in shock that we had three in one week!
We also replaced the sunroof this weekend. I should clarify that by "we" I mean the roofers because for the Big Giraffe and I to have replaced the roof would truly be an impressive feat. We were impressed with how quickly that was finished. After having a week filled with date nights and successful major household repairs, it seems almost fitting that election day is tomorrow. Like many, I can't believe that the election is already here. It seems like the campaigning has gone on for...what...four years? Regardless of what happens, I am excited to go cast my vote. I'm going to watch the results come in tomorrow night. I'm excited for my kids to be part of this historic event as they began their introduction to politics.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: I encourage you to go out and vote.
I schlepped the boys in with me, and H was tres excited to be in the same place as the fire engine...even wore his fireman's helmet. I taught him to say 'Barack the Vote' :)
Before I had kids, I decided to do Weight Watchers to shed a few pounds before trying to get pregnant. It worked although not all of the tips were as great as I had hoped they would be. One of them was to only buy candy that you do not like. That sounds like a good plan. If you don't like the candy then you won't eat it, right?
Fabulous! I had debated the whole idea of handing out stickers, goldfish crackers, or playdough. I realized though that the problem was that we only get a handful of trick-or-treaters so I would end up storing all the extras. Alright really I would store the extras then proceed to forget about them and then buy new ones the next year etc etc. By the time we would be ready to move, I would be discarding old Halloween treats left and right. I used the tip and it actually worked and I've been doing it ever since.
This year not so great candy once again sounded like a good comprise. That way the Big Giraffe could take the leftovers to work the next day like he's done in years past. Phew. Except that little trick might not work when Halloween is on a Friday...or when your husband is telecommuting for the week following Halloween particularly when you have a grand total of one trick or treater. I tried to convince him to take the whole bowl, but I think he thought I was a crazy person and got scared. I saw him glance at his dad a couple times. Plus I was eating one of the pieces of the candy as I was handing him the bowl to him. Yeah, the end result may just be that you end up eating a lot of Halloween candy that you don't like while trying to convince yourself that it tastes like a Snickers. Yeah, that just doesn't work well either. Nor does asking your kids to bring back a Snickers bar for you. Next year I'm either getting better candy or digging up a costume for myself so I can trick or treat at the neighbors!
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Eat a few pieces of Halloween candy that you really like on Halloween or you may eat many pieces of Halloween candy you don't like.
I buy just a few full-sized candy bars to give out since we only have a few trick-or-treaters each year. At least then I'm not stuck with a half a bag of candy that I'll eat.
Although my kids brought home a ton of candy that I'll probably dip into anyway.
Buy generic non-edible treats that can be used for birthday parties. I.E. instead of spider rings and ghost stickers, do Spiderman stickers and pencils. If you DO buy Halloweenish stuff, though, just put it in a bag with any Halloween decorations you put out, or with your sons' Halloween buckets for next year. It's better than eating candy you don't like. That? Is a waste of calories.
I love the Diet Coke and Snickers suggestion. Hee hee.
Husband bought two 5.6 pound bags of candy at Costco. We put two bowls of candy outside the door when we left for the evening around 5:15, and found nothing when we returned around 1:00. I bet this would work on the other 364 days of the year, so ship your candy to me. Maybe it is the only benefit of living in the lobby of an apartment building...
I always buy candy w/ peanut butter b/c I hate, hate, hate peanut butter. Except that Michael now has a hug bag of candy in the house with lots of yummy candy I like. And it's calling my name
We were hoping for a downpour so we'd hit maybe 3 or 4 houses and call it a night... It was raining but gave way during trick or treating, and my oldest went crazy. He was way ahead of us and we stopped at every house on the street. We have lots of candy calling to us.
I bought one bag "just in case", we got zero trick o' treaters and now I'm stuck with a bag of Health bars that I don't really like but find myself dipping into anyway. I hate when it sticks to your teeth.
A few weeks before my younger son was born, I discovered this show on Fox. I was hugely pregnant and very tired. There was nothing good on TV. I was channel surfing when I caught the beginning of the first show of the second season. I admit that I started watching it as a joke. In fact I think I even called by husband in the room to laugh at the idea of it. I thought it was a bunch of random people who they were going to teach to dance. However, by the end of the episode I found myself setting up Tivo to record it the next week. As much as I was amused by the opening dances, I was very impressed with the actual dances the couples had to do and how much training and talent they had before even coming on the show. I had no idea there were so many different dance styles. In fact, I even let my boys watch the show this summer so that they could see that there is more than ballet, jazz and tap.
The Big Giraffe and I were trying to figure out what to do to celebrate our ten year anniversary this past August when we saw an ad for tickets for the Live Tour. We just knew that that would be the perfect way to celebrate so we went ahead and got them. Ever since then I joked that the audience would consist of thousands of teenagers and us. Sure enough when we were on the T, a teenager asked us for directions to the BU arena. After giving them we asked her if she was going to SYTYCD. Sure enough she was! Yep, the youth and me because you know I'm just so hip and cool like that. However, when we actually got to the arena, I noticed there were a lot of old farts people my age there. I also noticed that they were selling programs, and you just know I had to get one because like OMG!!! Joshua's picture was in there!!! My program, my 16 year old multiple personality, and my husband all found our seats and realized that everyone around us was our age and also had programs. They also looked like they were on a date night! And I thought we were so original. For our generation anyhow. I did sit next to an octogenarian.
Of course there were a lot of young people too and also a lot of people with their kids. I sort of wished that we had brought our older son. The key words being "sort of" because then it obviously wouldn't have been a date night and as much as I like exposing my children to the arts, date nights are starting to become like eclipses in that they seem to be a once in a year or two opportunity. Not wanting to be outdone by the teenagers I did the obvious thing; pulled out my Blackberry to Twitter where I was of course!
The show started, and it was very good. Our seats on the other hand were not, but we still enjoyed it. I saw all the numbers I was hoping to see. The audience was enthusiastic about everything, and it was nice to be able to yell for something other than preventing one of my kids from whacking the other one on the head or dashing across a parking lot. Intermission came, and I grabbed my Blackberry because I noticed the light was flashing. Obviously someone was sending me a personal email about my Twitter status! Bad guess! It was a text message from our babysitter saying that MIL had arrived at our house. We weren't expecting her until Friday, so needless to say we were very surprised. Not as surprised though as they both where; our sitter because she didn't know my MIL and my MIL because some woman who wasn't me opened the door to my house.
Although the awesome Samba number with Katee and Joshua and the Bollywood number, which combines traditional and modern Indian dance into a really fun-looking combination, were both in the first act, I still found the second act to be a lot better. Twitch and Katee performed their my fav number involving "the door", and we also got to see the dance with the briefcase. The octogenarian was clapping with the rest of us. During the door number, she also clapped her knees back and forth and I swear let out a few hoots and hollers.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: You don't have to think you can dance to enjoy So You Think You Can Dance.
Leighann said that in Chicago, Katee was injured and had to sit out several dances. Kerrington filled in the "Door" dance. Glad we both got to see Katee!
Last week my husband was out of town. Big deal. People's spouses travel all the time for work. It shouldn't be a problem, right? Except that it was for me. My husband rarely travels. I can count on one hand the number of times he has traveled since we were married. One of those times, I asked my mom to come up from Chicago since my older son (OS) was a baby and the thought of taking care of a newborn on my own for a whole week was just daunting.
I felt like I had to put on a brave face. Sure I can "man" the fort so to speak. It would even be fun. Growing up I remember kids getting to have movie night in pjs with sleeping bags or everyone in the family going through their individual favorite fast food place or a combination of both when a parent was out of town. As a kid, I thought that must be the best treat ever. As a parent whose husband was just out of town for the week I now know what that was about: survival. You don't have to cook dinner, you get peace and quiet when they watch a movie, and you don't have to argue over pjs or bedtime since you need to wear the pjs to watch the movie and the kids conk out during it!
Back to A. Elliot the wimp. Honestly, I'm embarrassed to say it, but the week was pretty hard for me. We normally are not, knock on wood, an accident prone family. However, during this short week, alright let's be honest here, 4 days, OS hurt his thumb in the door and the cats had rumbling tummies. A few nights later there was a lot of laughing and a crash followed by lots of crying. My younger son (YS) fell off his brother's bed after lights out and instantly developed a goose egg with a scratch down the center. This involved another phone call to my dad the doctor although I couldn't get a hold of him because he was at work. My mother who is a nurse told me to make sure that YS wasn't acting drowsy. Seeing as it was already passed YS's bedtime, he was already drowsy to start with so I took to poking him every half hour after I separated the boys and had YS sleep in the guest room for the rest of the evening. In the midst of all of this, I also found out we needed a new roof on our sunroom.
Alright, so a lot going on but by no means a crisis. Like I said before, normally we don't have accidents, much less two in a span of a few days and normally we are well stocked on catfood. Oh yeah, normally we don't have to replace a roof either! It also didn't help that it was hard to get in touch with my husband particularly about issues like the roof. While the Big Giraffe and I have always trusted the other's decisions (I bought our house without the Big Giraffe even seeing it), it doesn't mean that this was my first choice.
I read a really good post by Ms. Chicky a few days ago about the difference between loving your child and liking your child. I could totally relate. I think I would be hard-pressed to find a parent who couldn't. By the end of the week the first day, I was starting to feel just like she had described. Not that I don't feel like that at other times, like perhaps this evening after telling my kids yet again to stop throwing things, screaming, and poking each other. I think though that the combination of solo parenting, complete disruption of gym schedule since I couldn't go first thing in the morning, lack of sleep (did I mention that every night BG was gone at least one of them was up in the middle of the night and that never happens when he's at home) and the fact that I felt like I couldn't even get five minutes to myself during the day without some sort of interruption was just getting to me. Yeah, I know; throw me a pity party. I'm a wimp. I admit it. I was disappointed with myself too.
I do think next time I'll be better prepared. First of all, it won't be so new. Second, I'll make sure I have cat food. On a more serious note, I think I went into it with the expectation that I would just keep things running the way they always do. Except that it wasn't the way things always were for me, and so I was the one who ended up having a hard time adjusting. I get now why the fun things happened during my friends' parents' trips. I think it's a way of saying that the parent at home knows that the routine is going to be disrupted so let's just make it work for us and have fun. Sure, I'll cook some dinners at the beginning like usual, but I'll also do that drive thru night or movie night or better yet find someone in the babysitting co-op to watch my kids for the evening (in other words handle the bedtime rituals) so I can go grab a cup of coffee in a bookstore by myself. I took a 4 hour nap on Saturday while the Big Giraffe and the boys spent some quality time together.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Loss of routine is disruptive.
As someone whose routine is irregular and gets disrupted often (take now- Husband has been on nights for three weeks with three more weeks to go) I can say - you do what you need to do to survive! And the sleeping htne - totally normal. My girls, even though it's common for Husband to work nights every few weeks, always wake when he's on nights. May not be the same kid, but most nights he's working - someone's waking.
Sally HP tagged me to write a 7 Things About Me meme. It's been a while since I've had a meme at FF&FP so here it goes.
When I was younger I had an imaginary identical twin sister. Her name was Mary Frances and she lived in the world on the other side of my bedroom mirror. Of course that meant that she was left-handed. I remember as a kid thinking that was totally obvious. The flaw in this reasoning was that for some reason, I mean I really can't believe this, it was not intuitive to other people that I had an imaginary identical twin sister. My parents were a little skeptical when I told them that Mary Frances broke my canopy bed when I was 5.
Almost two decades later, I met a guy who had his own imaginary country where he was president. When he ran for reelection, his cat beat him in the primary. He managed to eek out a victory in the general election as an independent. We immediately started dating. Although that didn't work out, we eventually became friends, and he had been friends with the Big Giraffe before I met either of them. Unfortunately he passed away from colon cancer. We named our older son after him. This should count as three things about me.
I was a vegetarian for ten years. I still don't like a lot of meats.
I cannot sleep at night unless I have a heavy blanket. It makes no difference how hot it is outside. I found out when I became a parent that it's a sensory issue. So is the fact I hate celery in chicken salad, soups etc.
When I have any sort of big project to do, I like to get it done right away. Sounds good, right? Sure sometimes. It was great for schoolwork or for projects at work. Not necessarily when handling things though in my personal life. Many, many times, I wished that I had just stopped to calm down and think about things before I delved into them. I get into the mode where everything needs to be done yesterday and thus totally stress myself out and anyone who happens to be around me. I can see my husband nodding his head in agreement. In fact he may have even said a "Here! Here!" out loud.
Need an example? I found out on Friday that I need to have an area of our sunroom repaired. Here is what went through my mind: What? I'm going to have to sell my kidney to pay for this!!! It's going to snow, and then we will have ceiling and wiring damage, and Oh my God it's going to snow and it's the end of October and it's going to snow in a few weeks and I need to call roofers and did you see the market today, and it's going to snow in three days and what if the roofers futz around with coming by to give me an estimate and did you see what happened with the stock market today and surely it will be snowing in five minutes and our sunroom needs to be fixed. Has it already started snowing? By Friday afternoon I already had two roofers and a handyman out to give me an estimate. I also felt like I might have diarrhea. The good news is that at least in this instance my tunnel vision was productive and my stomach calmed down. The better news is that the fix is relatively inexpensive and not of significant consequence to the house.
I absolutely love Greek yogurt. No, seriously I eat it every day. Hmm...I think I need to re-stock tomorrow.
I love napping. One of my favorite things to do is nap on a hot summer day. I love getting all cozy under a heavy blanket with the air conditioner on. To me it's absolute luxury to be able to have nothing else to do so that I can nap.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: What you sense and what you imagine can impact what you like in life.
Late last night the Big Giraffe mentioned to me that he had given the cats the last of their food that morning. He offered to go out and get more. Since he was trying to pack for a business trip and get some other things together, I said if he could get it would be great, but if he couldn't not to worry about it. Then I went to bed. Since I didn't hear anything else about it, I was very surprised this morning when he mentioned that the cats hadn't eaten. "But you said not to worry about!"
Yeah, yeah I know. He then replied, "But really I should have gone and gotten the cat food since you'll now have to take the kids." Uh, yeah? ( Envision Elle Wood's voice from Legally Blond. ) He knows me so well. There's was nothing we could do about it though so I made a mental note to pick up cat food this afternoon. Apparently that mental note went straight into the mental garbage can.
At dinner time this evening, while, my husband was boarding his plane and I began solo parenting (alright really I had been doing it all day, but it's different if you know that your husband is at least in the same state as you) I suddenly realized I had never picked up the cat food. Rats! The kids were cranky and it was raining. However, the cats needed to eat and in addition to loving my cats dearly and wanting to take excellent care of them, selfishly I didn't want to sleep in cat pee tonight when two angry cats decided to rightfully protest. Call me crazy. I told the boys I just needed to use the bathroom and then we would leave for the store.
However, for reasons I don't understand, my older son (OS) thinks it's hilarious to push on the bathroom door as I'm trying to close it. This time though, his thumb got caught. He let out a piercing shriek. I looked at his thumb and wondered why it looked like he had grated cheese on his thumb. That I almost let out a shriek as I realized it was his skin. He had scraped up his thumb so that it literally was a bloody mess. However, not so bad that we needed to go the the ER. I did give my favorite ER doctor a call though: my dad. He told me to bandage it and put ice on it. He also had me give OS Tylenol. The skin beneath the nail was already starting to bruise.
After OS was calm I felt a huge sense of guilt. I had been solo parenting for approximately 10 minutes and already an accident had occurred! I kept on thinking about what Sally HP told me yesterday about being a SAHM: her job is to pay the bills and make sure her kids don't die. When she said this I burst out laughing because first of all it's true, but second it was just so funny the way she said it. Obviously, OS just has a few scrapes and a bruise, but I wasn't feeling so good about fullfilling my job as a SAHM. OS was in a lot of pain and I still had the cats to feed! How did I go from being so organized this morning (dinner in the crockpot at 8 am) to this? There's just no way I could wait until tomorrow to get the cat food. I seriously contemplated calling the head of our Helping Hands for my moms group. I can't imagine how that email would have looked: "Member has an emergency need for weight management dry cat food. Purina from grocery store will be fine."
Fortunately, OS began to feel better and after bribing him with new band-aids, he and my younger son (YS) agreed to a short grocery store trip. Brief it was. We left with the cat food, a few items we were running low on, a new box of band-aids, two toys from the clearance section and guilt medicine a bag of miniature Snickers for me. Thankfully the Big Giraffe will be home soon!
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Mommy guilt hurts more than fingers caught in the door.
I've been pretty lucky in that I've never had issues with the workmen we've hired in the past to complete projects around our house. I've heard all the stories: workmen who never show, workmen who take off halfway through the project, workmen who charged way more than the original estimate. Nope, we've been fortunate. We completely re-wired our downstairs without a problem. We replaced our furnace without a problem. We gutted our kitchen, took down two walls, built a deck and redid a bathroom without any problem. Alright, that last sentence was all one project involving a father/son team, but needless to say it was a lot of work. Everyone showed up when they were supposed to and finished when they said they would. We even had a good experience with the power wash guy, despite the fact that I'm convinced he had smoked a joint earlier; he repeatedly said to me "God bless you and have a blessed day." It was prompt city here in our house.
This positive history no doubt explain why I'm so irritated with the landscapers who are supposed to come and de-Secret Garden our lawn. They were scheduled to do the job last Monday, weather permitting. It was supposed to take two days, so if not Monday and Tuesday then we were told it would be Tuesday and Wednesday or Wednesday and Thursday, etc. You get the picture. They didn't show. I figured they must be planning on Tuesday and Wednesday. No dice. The Big Giraffe called them and the guy explained that they forgot it was Columbus Day. Okay. That doesn't explain Tuesday. They swore they would be here today. Guess who didn't show? Now, the guy is promising rain or shine he'll be here on Wednesday, and he is saying that it is in fact a one day job. I know I shouldn't complain because compared to stories I've heard this is nothing. Also, I'm about to be able to actually see my yard and as an added bonus not break my leg if I should choose to do cartwheels around my yard! Alright maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, particularly because if in a neat yard I would at the very least sprain my ankle if I attempted a cartwheel, but I am about to have a neat and tidy yard. Yeah, yeah I'm appreciative and greatful and all of that andirritated. I'm just mostly annoyed because I re-arranged a bunch of appointments last week and this week to work around the landscapers. I hope I don't have to re-schedule them a third time.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Some workmen are not reliable.
FWIW, Alex, I'd call them and let them know that. I'd just say that you can't keep rearranging the schedule and need a firm commitment from them. They may not be aware of its being a big deal.
As I wrote before, I finally succumbed to other bloggers the powers that be and joined Twitter. Kate from Eucalyptus Pillow asked me to explain exactly what it is. I have to confess that I actually first heard about it at BlogHer Chicago two summers ago. Emphasis on the word heard. Everyone was talking about Twitter. Not that this would ever happen to me of course, but have you ever had the experience where you've blanked out during a critical moment when someone is telling you a story? Suzy was dating Jon and when you zone back in Suzy is now dating Stan and you're not sure what exactly happned but are too embarrassed to admit that you don't know because you weren't paying attention? That's sort of like Twitter and me. I knew that it involved typing one line sentences, but I was too embarrassed to say that I had no idea what exactly those sentences were about or why someone would want to read or write them.
I think the best way to explain Twitter is to compare it to the Facebook statuses. All you are doing is answering the question, "What are you doing?" You then type one sentence that describes what you are doing; you aren't allowed to use more than 140 characters. For example, my Twitter status the other day was "I can't figure out Twitter" or something to the that effect. Yesterday I twittered that I was on cat duty to make sure that the cats didn't jump through the giant hole in my wall. Anyone who follows me on Twitter would have been notified of my activity and wondered if I were drunk. Someone who knew me in person might be aware that the workmen scheduled to replace our living room picture window had shown up.
Unlike when someone reads your blog, you get notified if someone is following you on Twitter. There are security settings that can require someone to get permission before becoming a follower of yorus or can enable you to block specific people. You can use Twitter from your cell phone or your Facebook account.
One of my reasons for joining Twitter is that I have been the last to learn about several writing opportunities that others have heard about through Twitter. It's not as addictive as I had feared it might be, and let's face it, the last thing I need right now is to be twittering away while doing something critical like performing "cat scans." Perhaps that is not so critical; obviously someone tipped the cats off to the workmen's arrival since they were nowhere to be found. I think the informant was the neighbor's cat who is always hanging out on our lawn. I also think that cat is our older cat's boyfriend, but I don't have the hard evidence I need to convince the Big Giraffe that I'm right.
The biggest drawback that I've both heard and experienced it that once I've Twittered something, there doesn't seem to be much point in doing a blog post about it. Sure, Twitter is only a senentece and a blog post gives all the details, but it sort of feels like telling someone a joke after already revealing the punchline. I enjoy being on Twitter, though, just like I enoy reading everyone's status updates on Facebook. What can I say except that I'm nosy and I have ample time to find things like Twitter and Facebook fascinating, for example when watching windows or Tae Kwon Do or sitting for five minutes in a parking space because I got to preschool early!
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: This one was passed on to me by Balex Elliot. When someone tells you they are for example @alexelliot and you have no idea what that means and are tempted to do a virtual Star Trek gesture back at them, it means that to find them on Twitter you should go to www.twitter.com/alexelliot.
an IRL friend of mine does twitter (as well as a large amount of virtual friends) and tried to explain to me why I should do it, and just made me resist it even more. like blogging isn't time sucking enough!
THANKS for the explanation! I was wondering was the heck that was about. I guess I just haven't caught on with the whole virtual networking thing, b/c I just haven't gotten into Facebook either. Blogging is about my extent at virtual/social friendships. Thanks again!
i got on twitter because i had things i wanted to share during the day, but didn't think they qualified for a blog post. most of the time they were just one-liners or observations. i like it because with browser add-ons i can twitter site URLs or whats on my mind right from the address bar. there's also a plug-in that i use with my blog that twitters a "blog alert" when i post something new. you can also link twitter with your facebook status - but i haven't gone that far yet.
I just joined twitter too. I found out about it the same way you did, but at blogher SF, where I met you! I also thought it would be a big time suck, but finally decided it was a good way to get connected, which it's proving to be.
The Big Giraffe and have wrestled back and forth over the years with whether or not to move. We would like a tiny bit more space. However, we love our home. Hence the difficulty of the decision. Our deadline to ourselves was always before our older son (OS) started kindergarten.
Somehow, the years went by quickly and before we knew it OS was starting pre-k last month. That's right, next year he will start kindergarten. This upcoming spring is the spring that we always said we would put our house up on the market. The Big Giraffe and I talked it over amongst ourselves and with our financial adviser. We decided to go ahead and do it it this spring. Of course this was all before the current economic crisis. However, we're keeping our fingers crossed (for more than just our own personal reasons of course), but even if we ultimately decide that this really just is a lousy time at least we will have gone ahead and readied our house to go on the market for the following spring.
While it's really exciting, it's also a little sad. We went ahead and looked at a couple of houses. As we were going on the tours, I kept thinking, "Need new furnace. We just did that. Needs new wiring. We just did that. Needs new kitchen. We just did that." It's just that we really fixed up our house so everything is relatively new or at the very least in working order. Everything is nice and pretty with tons of sunshine, and if I light a scented candle it smells good too. I always relax when I walk in the door. However, not sad enough that I don't want to move. That's where we are here in the Giraffe household. We're getting things up and running. Worst case scenario? We're super organized for the spring of 2010.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Once you finish improving your home, you are ready to move.
We looked and looked and looked and looked and decided that we'd remodel our beloved (but a little too small) house instead.
Then our realtor called us very excited. We had to come THAT MINUTE. D couldn't make it. I could. I called him. D you HAVE to see this!
We put in a bid within an hour. It's our perfect house and it was completely worth the wait. It will all work out. Yes, it was sad to leave our other house, and yes, we'll probably move when C is out of high school because it's too much house for just the two of us, but we really, really love it. It's been perfect for raising an active boy.
So exciting! I love the idea of moving and am seriously considering it for next year. However, when I really start to look at our options, it's a little depressing to think that while we might be getting more room, any home that fits all our criteria will probably need a lot of work too. Hopefully your budget puts you guys well above this annoying scenario. And plus if you have plenty of time to look, you just might find the pre-polished diamond, instead of just the rough.
I know I've been MIA this week. I have been reminiscing a lot about my single days. No, not the images of being young and carefree but rather the memories of when I was able to call in to work, take the day off and then curl up in my blankets and go back to bed if I were sick. It was even better when I got my first cat because she snuggled up next to me. Ahh, those were the days: feverish, throwing up, dirty tissues covering the bed, but most importantly peace and quiet. I really and truly had those days off.
A couple of Fridays ago, I woke up at 1 am and threw up. I felt nauseated for a couple hours and then fell back asleep. I canceled everything for the day figuring I had the stomach flu. Nothing else happened though. My stomach felt delicate for a few days, but other than that I felt fine. I figured it was stress because we've had a lot going on and any time I've thrown up, whether from morning sickness or an amusement park ride, it's taken me a few days to be able to eat normally again. A couple of days later, I developed a sore throat for a couple of days, followed by a cold for a couple of days, followed by losing my voice followed by a trip to the doctor followed by spending the rest of the day in bed. Had I been back in my single days, I would have called in sick and curled up with my cat. I probably would have even had food delivered. However, I didn't feel feverish, and to "call in sick" would involve my husband calling in sick to work and I can pretty much guarantee there wouldn't have been peace and quiet. Plus the cat still hasn't gotten over the fact that I had kids and tends to make herself scarce during the day. More than likely had I tried to snuggle with her she would have peed on my bed. I would complain to the management, but that would just be writing a letter to myself. I just tried to cut back on everything and to try not to be around too many people lest I expose them.
Apparently there is a virus going around that starts with GI issues and then morphs into a cold. Of course, anything could have brought me to the royal throne, so I may or may not have had this virus. However, it had gone on long enough to not feel right and more importantly for that sore throat to prevent me from doing my two most favorite things: eating and talking. For the record, my kids loved it because I also couldn't yell at them and they couldn't really hear anything I told them to do. My doctor prescribed antibiotics because she was concerned that I was developing a sinus infection. As I described it, "This is the crappiest I have felt in years." Whether the virus ran its course, I had been suffering from allergies that developed into something more, or the problem really was bacterial, the antibiotics seemed to do the trick. Hopefully in the next day or so my voice will fully return. In the meantime, I highly recommend the Spooky Friend-Z from Friendly's. Yes, it is everything that you should not feed your kids: sugar and artificially colored orange. I enjoyed it immensely. Of course I also couldn't really taste anything either!
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: It is easier to get ill with kids. It is easier to be ill without kids.
My friend, who's one of those parents who only fed her children organically grown things that she grew herself, handmade baby food, no television, only reading, etc., etc. listened to me whine about being sick when C was about the age of YS.
This is what she said,"Buy tons of junk food, put together a pile of his fave videos, and you get comfy on the couch and just let him sugar and stupor his way through your illness. He'll get back to normal when you do."
My jaw dropped and I was shocked, but it actually worked. I got the rest I needed, got back on my feet more quickly, and C was (really) no worse for the wear.
Is there some monkey virus going around? I swear everyone I talk to is getting sick and for a long time, including me. Starting at labor day weekend, I walked around with a cold for a month. And probably b/c I couldn't just curl up in bed with my cat, too. B/c those were the days, I have a cat also and did the same thing, pre-kids days.
I'm looking for a couple more bloggers to review Jooners. Please leave me a comment or email me if you're interested.
Speaking of the Jewish holidays, I had a little bit of a whoops moment yesterday. My older son's (OS) preschool follows the local public school's calendar. I had heard friends discuss plans for what to do during Rosh Hashanah since their children had the day(s) off and they don't celebrate it. In fact I remember that when growing up we had both days off from school. Thus, when I was invited to take my kids to the zoo with a couple other friends and their children, I happily agreed.
The kids had a wonderful time. OS in particular was excited to be included on a fun outing since he's convinced that his little brother has all the fun while he's at school. The zoo was fairly crowded. You can imagine my surprise then when I checked the on-line preschool calendar to find out if OS's school gave both days or only the first day off. I found out that not only did he not have the second day of Rosh Hashanah off, but in fact he was not supposed to have the first day off. Whoops!
It's preschool. It's not like he missed his SATs or anything. However due to a cold I've had since Friday that seemed to be getting worse instead of better, I went to lie down while the Big Giraffe, who does take both days of Rosh Hashanah off to observe the holiday, took both boys and dropped OS off at preschool. He got to explain why OS wasn't in school yesterday. The teacher thought it sounded reasonable.
OS had a fun day, the Big Giraffe got to do the explaining, and I woke up feeling much better.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Just because some members of your family take certain religious holidays off does not mean that schools will close for other members of your family.
That is totally something I would do. My school actually has Weds and Thurs off next week, which is sorta strange since it's a non religious private law school and it doesn't take any of the other Jewish holidays off. But I refuse to complain any time someone wants to give me time off.
No, not when you think it's way cool to have a fanny pack although I still think it's one of the top inventions evah! I'm sure that as a parent there are many different ways to complete that sentence, such as when I realize I'm excited that I only had to change 1 dirty diaper today instead of three! Or my partner and I feel accomplished because we were able to a five minute conversation during dinner without being interrupted! Or how about feeling like my day is made because my kid wiped himself today without my help! Hmm...there seem to be a lot about potty training here.
No, today's excitement was sadder than all that. I was excited because I bought a new mop. A new mop whose head can be put through a washing machine 50 times though before being replaced!!! How cool is that? So at the rate I wash the floor, I consider it a lifelong investment. I'm kidding about that last part.
We've got some exciting prospects going on here in the Giraffe houshold, but that's under wraps for right now. For now though you can know how truly excited I was about this purchase. The Big Giraffe did a nice job of faking enthusiam as well.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Nothing says lame old like getting excited over a cleaning product.
I was excited the day I picked up my new Dyson. And then when I used it for the first few times, because you know, it actually did what it was supposed to do and sucked up crap. But then the novelty wore off now that I use it all the time.
Congrats on the new mop - I need a good one - mine doesn't seem to work all that well. Or it could be because kids seem to spill stuff 2.4 seconds after I finish cleaning the floor.
Ever since I was little, I've always had a compulsion to get to places early. I'm not sure why. Ever wonder who that bizarre person was circling around your block? Is it a lost person? A stalker? How about me arriving way too early for a playdate or a meeting and stalling for time. Haven't seen that block-circler recently? Well, I have grown up a bit now, so instead of circling the block, I now sit in a reading my Blackberry.
However, as the kids schedules are getting busier, so am I. All of a sudden I have to give more thought to when I plan to make dinner because we just might not be around when I would normally be cooking. Plus this is fall so we're back to fun plans with friends and family outings on weekends. We love it all, but every event requires exchanging a bunch of emails or playing a lot of phone tag with a several people to get everyone on the same page. Sometimes Almost always the planning takes longer than the event.
In fact I was just talking to my triathlon training buddy this evening about time management. She has 4 kids, and two of them are older than mine. She delivered an insight that really resonated with me - when you have a lot going on in the evenings it's hard to get to bed on time, which in turn makes it hard to get up early the morning to exercise.
Of course sometimes there are ways to at least cut down on the amount of time, email, and phone calls needed to organize an event. Know where I'm going with this? Click over here. Oh, come' on you know you want to know what exactly I'm doing with this Jooners thing!
I always go to bed late, because I sleep in, because I get at work late, because I work quite late to get my work done, because I can hardly get into the stores before they close, because I cook late, because i blog/iron/...late, so I go to bed late
not early...Late. I never learn. and I always complain that I'm tired
I am still looking for bloggers to do blogger reviews. Did I mention that there are going to be prizes? In fact there will be prizes for both bloggers and blog readers! Click here for more info. For our wedding, my aunt and uncle gave the Big Giraffe and me gift airline gift certificates. We decided to use them to go to Disney World for our one year anniversary. I was quite excited when we got to Disney World and I discovered they sold one of the greatest inventions ever: fanny packs! For some reason the Big Giraffe didn't seem to fully appreciate how momentous this was. I never understand why fanny packs went out of fashion. They're so convenient particularly for those time you need to carry a wallet, cell phone and maybe one or two extra things like a tube of sunscreen and a packet of tissues. Sure you have a giant bulge over your stomach and you look like you're straight out of the 80's, but you don't have to lug around a purse or a backpack.
When we went to Disney World for a family reunion last year, I learned that after having two kids, the fanny pack just didn't fit. I was pretty upset about it. Tears were shed. The Big Giraffe tried to console me by saying I could just buy a new, larger fanny pack. That just didn't make me feel much better for a variety of reasons starting with the words "larger fanny pack". Fortunately, or actually unfortunately, we had to lug around a diaper bag everywhere with us anyway so a fanny pack was actually not needed.
After receiving a constant barrage of criticism from the Big Giraffe and various friends over the last year for running without my cell phone, I decided today that I really need to start carrying it with me. However, unless I'm wearing my fleece, I don't have the pockets to store my cell phone. That's when I remembered the fanny pack! With trepidation, I tried to put it on. Not only did it fit, but I had to tighten it! I have a sneaky suspicion that the Big Giraffe was laughing at me when I went running. I saw a glimpse of a smirk on my way out the door when he said that it is not my best look. He just doesn't appreciate how truly stylish I was. I also think he's jealous of my fanny pack. Not only is it handy, but the zipper handle is shaped like mouse ears and the Disney characters form the letters to the word "Disney" across the front.
Two people with obviously highly evolved tastes did stop me on my run to compliment my gear. They were specifically more interested in my pedometer than my fanny pack. Pedometer? Umm...that's my iPod. They had no idea what an iPod was, and they didn't even get it after I tried explaining it to them. That's right, the other group that just loves fanny packs are old people. I think they zoomed in on the fanny pack and figured I was one of them.
It's amazing how excited I can be over the fact that my fanny pack fits again. Yes, it is kind of pathetic. Don't agree with that one, Big Giraffe!
I take yoga and I am soooooo inflexible as well. But I don't care very much...usually in a forward bend where others put their hands on the mat, I'm somewhere dangling mine at kneelevel. When I'm supposed to stretch a leg, I never do.
But our class is quite relaxing, it helps me. And the average age of the people taking it is far higher than me. Nobody is dressed in the right outfits or so, which is cool.
we rarely do ooohms and that's good as I find them so weird. Positions , stretches and turns: ok I can see the body value for it and concentrating on those does clear my mind. Breathing excercises: ok I can see how that relaxes us. But chanting, colors, chakra's? Huh, no no not for me.