Summertime and the living is easy(ish)
Posted
July 17, 2008 at
10:49 am by
Kymberly
Summer is a favorite of so many for one obvious reason: it is the one season when total disintegration of social mores is completely acceptable.
In summer you don’t have to wear shoes, eat your vegetables, or balance your checkbook (or maybe that last one is just my rule?)
Bath. On a summer day we just can’t be bothered with a lot of things that seem important the rest of the year, such as bathing.
My children are absolutely certain that a quick trip through the backyard sprinkler is more than equal to a long, hot shower. Soap, of course, is entirely optional.
Our son is also prone to standing in slack-jawed shock if confronted with the outlandish notion that he may, in fact, need to wear shoes at some time during the summer.
In his world, if shoes are required, then he’s absolutely certain that he has no desire to go there.
Blooming anew. Summertime is also a time when so many wondrous things not seen during lesser seasons bloom anew such as crabgrass, charcoal grills and ice cream trucks.
It is a little known fact that ice cream trucks are quite possibly the one instance where city kids have an upper hand over the otherwise hands-down slam-dunk superiority that country life has over urban living.
Sure, country kids have fresh air, wide open spaces, trees to climb (and fall out of), creeks and rivers to explore (and fall into), but can that really compare to the late afternoon jingle of a pied piper of ice cream off in the distance? I think not!
Trucking. In my day as a “city kid,” the ice cream truck’s appearance was surely the high point of the day for me and my fellow free-range street urchins.
We’d hear the distant, slightly creepy, yet mesmerizing musical tinkle of their bells, grab our coins (in reality my mother’s coins, I had no pride when it came to sweets), and race off with great speed, tracking the truck down like blood-hounds.
I was, of course, the same child who couldn’t find the laundry room in my own house throughout most of the years I lived there.
But an ice cream truck three city blocks away I could locate with only the coins clutched in my sweaty little fists to guide me.
Sadly, here in the sticks we don’t have ice cream trucks, although once in a great while we might score a frozen Coke from the cooler down at the feed store.
Dog days. We are in the midst of summer vacation and the new has not (quite) worn off yet.
By this I mean the children haven’t really begun to bicker in earnest (yet).
Nonetheless, the dogs have firmly grasped the spirit of the season and are firmly entrenched in their summer identities.
They shall henceforth be known as “he who runs through screen doors” and “he who inhales all pool toys.”
These summer alter-egos are helpful for keeping track of them as I engage in my ongoing daily battle to convince them that wicker and related outdoor accessories are not, in fact, a food group.
Heat. When it comes to feeding the humans underfoot, I take the notion that “if you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen” literally.
I serve nothing but food that doesn’t require cooking at all, like “the carbohydrate based salad family a la potato, pasta, and/or macaroni salad; or meat that is best cooked outdoors by anyone else but me — mainly Mr. Right.
I am all for any season where my entire cooking involvement consists mainly of tossing bags of charcoal in my spouse’s direction every few days or so, and standing far enough back so as not to lose any facial hair in the conflagration.
From the freezer. Finally, the children, helpful as ever, are doing their part to help me keep my cool on these unseasonably hot early summer days.
They are deeply committed to proving that they can, in fact, live entirely on freezer pops.
As a result, they are also cooling two-thirds of the house with the constant opening 
and closing of the freezer doors.
Granted this has taken the temperature in the kitchen down a notch.
I, however, get a little hot under the collar when it comes to the electric bill. Although I find a nice backyard bonfire and a glass of wine can do wonders for that.
Once burnt, never shy
Posted
July 13, 2008 at
4:01 pm by
Kymberly
There is a certain comfort to be taken in the knowledge that some things are probably never going to change.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence; the earth will continue to rotate around the sun, and I will not get even one iota smarter this summer over last.
Learned lesson. After three plus decades on this earth you would think that by now I would have learned just a little bit about sunscreen. You would be wrong. I have, however, recently learned quite a bit about aloe.
I sum it up thusly, on the first day God made the sun so the devil had no choice but to counter with sunburn.
For the record, I am much better at parenting then I am self-preservation.
Stupid mistake. Despite remembering to coat both children with a thick layer of sunblock, I still managed to believe it a fine idea to stand IN THE WATER under a blazing hot sun for more than four hours with nothing between me and the sun but my own stupidity. I know, just typing it I’m embarrassed all over again.
I honestly don’t know which hurt worse — the peeling or my pride.
What I really suffer from is a case of rampant optimism.
A little sun. Despite years of cause and effect training which would have trained even a gerbil to recognize “sun minus sunscreen = burn,” I continue to operate under the delusion that I, the whitest white girl in America — can get “just a little sun.” This is akin to believing you can get “just a little pregnant” or “just a little nuclear radiation exposure.”
I persist in this belief because in my teens I could — and did — tan.
Tanning goal. That was really my whole life goal back then. Study? Maybe. College? Yeah, whatever.
A nice golden copper toned glow — I’ll work on it day after day until I achieved my goal with only a backyard lawn chair, a couple hundred gallons of baby oil, and my ability to lie completely prostrate for hours at a time to guide me.
Brown baby. They also tell me I used to get “brown as a berry” as a baby. Apparently, I am supposed to take great solace in the fact that I was a real babe when I was FOUR.
Meanwhile back at the pool, well meaning friends tried to warn me. By late afternoon my back was starting to feel a wee bit warm and I thought about sunscreen for a nano-second, but my children blissfully sliding time and again down a waterslide and my need to be waiting at the bottom because, after all, how could I trust the no less than THREE lifeguards on duty, seemed the more pressing matter.
By the time we left the pool, my upper body was the approximate color of a ruby red grape. I radiated enough heat to toast a marshmallow and people just passing by clucked in sympathy and then, I don’t doubt, laughed uproariously when out of my earshot at how stupid some people can be.
Phase two. Now, a few days later, I am currently in phase two of the sunburn process, phase one being the getting burnt part.
Phase two is the back-slapping phase. In this phase people who have never shown even the slightest iota of interest in you previously, people who don’t even KNOW you, will suddenly be seized by the need to slap you on the back.
It’s as if there is a primordial siren call of seared skin. Seemingly unbidden they are moved to “slap!” you on the back with a hearty hail fellow well met even if they know not why.
As you cringe and slither to the floor in a heap of blinding red hot pain, they are left to state the obvious to soothe you, “little burnt huh?” “Little burnt huh?” is obviously code for “I hate you enormously and I wish to see you dead!,” that is the only possible explanation for this.
The only possible defense to back slapping is to make the universally recognized sunburn warning noise whereby you grit your teeth, pull back your lips, inhale briskly and spasm your body inward in the standing equivalent of the fetal position.
Sure, they’ll STILL slap you on the back, but with these motions you are slightly less likely to want to punch them. As if you could really lift your arms to take a swing anyway.
As the days have passed I have regained near normal movement in my upper limbs.
Shedding skin. I have also started to shed skin like a snake, lending whole new meaning to the phrase “You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours!” My husband, lucky man that he is, gets to witness it all.
All I can say is that when it comes to reliving the sheer stupidity of the moment when I chose to eschew the necessity of sunscreen for the certainty of a not-so-slow burn, all I can say, is boy, was my face red.
Embracing my inner bad parent
Posted
July 8, 2008 at
7:42 pm by
Kymberly
That’s it. I’m done.
There is just only so much I can obsessively worry over and seriously? I’ve hit my limit.
Childhood obesity, white sugar, processed flour, artificial sweeteners, too much tv, not enough reading, lead in toys, toxic mold, toxic new homes, global warming, bullies, low self-esteem, high-self esteem, athletics v. academics, No Child Left Behind, whether seeing your parents naked will result in future therapy and how expensive might that be?
Whew. As someone who literally does “lie awake at night” worrying, this really cannot be good for any of us. Where is the study about what happens to kids with cranky, overwrought parents too tired to think straight? At what point do you have to start paring down your worries? There are only so many hours in the day and frankly, I may have to cast off lead and global warming.
Nutrition and obesity (although both my kids are slim) bears watching. Pedophiles and molestation I’m never going to quit worrying over. My kids will be 40 I’ll still wonder if they should ride their bikes alone. Seriously.
However, when do you just decide to put other worries on the back burner? To just start letting go of pretending we can protect our children from everything?
Here’s the thing kids. I’ll recycle when I can but I think you are probably right to suspect I may be leaving the world a lesser place than I found it. We all are. Sorry about that but short of keeping my plastics out of the paper bins, I’m not sure what I can realistically do for you there.
The Lead Menace? Yawn. Overrated. Sorry but if lead is so scary why are all our parents and grandparents and the entire Baby Boom generation not brain damaged? Oh wait, scratch that …
I’m not going to relax on “running with scissors” but I AM going to relax on the numerous things I cannot control RIGHT NOW. Or could lie awake nights fretting over to no avail.
So, um, eat your peas. Sit back from the TV. Read a book once in a while. Don’t chew the windowsills. Stay in my sight AT ALL TIMES and remember I love you even if I forget to worry about everything else under the sun.
And oh, that reminds me, I’ve got to worry about the sun …
So, what have you simply let go of worrying about?
More importantly, how guilty do you think we should feel about it?
When Mommy is a Moron: Don’t Try This At Home!
Posted
July 7, 2008 at
9:29 am by
Kymberly
It turns out that I am a moron.
I had no idea but the proof is there. It comes out as soon as I relate how it happened that I dropped my beloved camera into a body of water (heck, who am I kidding? It was a homicide. That camera was pushed!)
I am a parent. A role model. Someone who is presumably modeling responsible, smart behavior for the youth of America. Particularly the two “youth” that live with me. It turns out I am not doing so well with that.
The story goes like this So my camera was stored where it always is, on the shelf above the kitchen sink … and, well, it just goes downhill (downsink?) from there. One wrong move and you are pulling your beloved digital camera from the depths of a sink full of hot, soapy water.
For the record: cameras do not like that. At all.
To add to the “how does she even manage to be walking around upright?” of it all, the camera was actually plugged into a charger at the time and when it went under, I instinctively reached into the water and pulled it out! It’s a wonder I wasn’t electrocuted.
See? What’d I tell you? Moron! That’s me.
How can I lecture my children about responsibility, taking care of their possessions, and basic household safety if I myself am unable to achieve such lofty aspirations? Not to mention that I can’t have anything nice.
My camera is like an extension of myself. My third eye. My motto has long been If I don’t have a picture of it - it didn’t happen. I felt kind of light-headed and sick contemplating life without a camera. Head between the knees, breathe deeply, stay calm sort of sick. My husband, when told of our recent loss, said only (and with absolutely seriousness) Man am I glad YOU did that and not me or one of the kids. You know what? He’s right. If he or the offspring would have done something “so stupid” I would have gone apesh@#. I know, I’ve seen me do it.
Having worked through the five stages of grief over it in near-record time, I’m off to Best Buy to throw myself on the mercy of some seventeen year old “sales associate” who will put me back in photographic form. I know what I want but in the interest of “setting a good example” (which, by the way, sucks) I’m leaning toward severely restricting what I allow myself to purchase on the theory that one should not be rewarded for careless behavior.
Of course, if I’m truly on the path to being a pathetic excuse for a role model, those high-end SLR’s with the massive telephoto lenses are looking pretty good too.
You must be THIS tall to break my heart
Posted
July 3, 2008 at
3:29 pm by
Kymberly
Hanging upside down at 45 mph is definitely NOT the time to start fretting about your child’s hip-to-shoulder ratio.
I mean, if I were going to become obsessed with whether or not the overhead restraint system on a roller coaster could ACTUALLY prevent my child from plummeting headfirst to the earth, it would have made a LOT more sense to consider that with our feet planted firmly on the ground.
Instead, we were winging our way skyward at startling speeds. The people, and midway, below were receding like ants as the coaster climbed up and away. Honestly, I think I saw cloud cover.
This was the first time I had ridden a coaster with the mindset firmly set less on “thrill-seeking fun lover” and more “terrified overprotective mom.”
You see, when it’s YOU getting on the ride you have a rather savoir-faire attitude about the whole thing. It’s safe, it’s bolted down, and it’s inspected, right?
That trickle of fear as your lap bar locks you in place is part of the fun. That lighthearted moment when entertaining ride operators opine that they “hope” to see you back in 90 seconds is all part of the theater.
That momentous climb and stomach-dropping descent is all part and parcel of the adrenaline rush you came for.
Risk. Then they snapped the restraint bar over my “baby” and I just about lost my mind. This is the child I obsessively buckled into a car seat inside an airbag-laden minivan to drive 25 mph through the village.
Yet I was now allowing a teenager with a laminated badge to buckle him in preparation of being hurtled through the air at warp speeds with our feet dangling below. How does that make any sense?
Our son first expressed an interest in roller coasters last summer. Because he was 9 and of average height, I still had a little wiggle room (as did he). He did not, thank the Lord, meet the height requirements.
Fifty-two inches tall is the magic number for all the really good, high-velocity, rip-the-flesh-from-your-face roller coasters. This is crazy because any mother knows that 52 inches is not tall at all.
I would have preferred it be something a bit more substantial, say 7 feet or 8 feet.
Even before the “train” (as they coyly call roller coasters because “hurtling death cars of doom” didn’t test well) rolled out of the station, I knew we (OK, I) had made a terrible mistake.
As we hurtled through the space-time continuum, I could think only of tragic miscalculations. Did they mean 52 inches for anyone, or just those husky kids I’m always reading about? My kid is skinny. What if he slips out? He’s so small, after all. He still has a safety rail on his bunk bed for Pete’s sake!
I don’t think I breathed for the two-minute duration of the ride. Well, that’s not technically true; I did take a couple of deep breaths, primarily to provide ample oxygen for my screaming. I am not what you call a good role model.
Then, just as quickly as it began — it was over. As the car came to the much-ballyhooed “complete and final stop,” the teenage ride operator and resident sadist assured us we could now put our arms and legs outside the car if we so desired. As if I could unclench my white knuckles from around that restraint bar.
He’s funny, that kid. Finally free of the g-force, I could look left and see my child again. His eyes were closed and his face was pale. Climbing out of the car on shaky legs, he clutched my hand, pulling me forward as we nearly jogged down the ramp back to safety.
We were leaving that terrible steel beast in the dust! We were nearly free of the terrifying experience, my baby and I.
I said as much with the opinion that I was sure glad that was over. Turning to me, still shaky, his eyes opened wider and a huge grin split across his face: “That was awesome, Mom! Let’s do it AGAIN!”
Six “agains” later, our son was essentially fearless.
Grown. Leaving the park that night, the lights on that big steel monster twinkling behind us, I took note of a very prophetic sign: “Lost and Found is Located at Guest Relations” and I thought how wrong they really were.
Lost is the heart of a mother who arrived with a little boy and left with a “big kid” who is braver than she. Found is the courage of one small(ish) boy who arrived that morning having attained exactly 52 inches and left feeling 10 feet tall.
When All-Stars is traded for “You’re All Stars!” Are we raising a nation of wimps?
Posted
June 30, 2008 at
5:30 pm by
Kymberly
A Cleveland, Ohio suburb has cancelled its annual Recreation League All-Star Game for 9 to 12 year olds. In a letter to coaches, the league announced that the decades old tradition would end because certain kids were being singled out as better players than others.
- WTAM Newsradio 1100
Man, some blogs just write themselves don’t they? I mean, seriously?
Do the children that are stunned and crushed by some peers “being singled out as being better players than others” feel the same way when “some kids are singled out as having better grades than others?” Perhaps we should do away with the honor roll and report cards too?
Look, I am generally all about fairness and preventing hurt feelings at all costs. As a once shy, unathletic, two-left footed child myself, I understand all too well how the have-nots (or “catch-nots”) can be made to feel the chilly frost of separation from the herd. Of having it be known that you aren’t “all that” in the chosen arena. I am the girl chosen last. Yeah, that kid. Nice to meet you.
Even I, however, see the merit in competition. In team spirit. In lauding the chosen few for their extra-special accomplishments, hard work, or yes, God given talents.
Why? Because real life works like that too.
Like all aging hipsters certain that “kids these days” are “going to hell in a handbasket” I fear that we are raising a nation of wimps. Entitled wimps at that.
So used will they be to kudos and certificates and a ticker-tape parade just for showing up that they will, I fear, be unable to function in any real, competitive workplace. “Just do your best” can be both a balm for the less gifted or a catch-phrase for the uncommitted. “But it’s not fair!” the battle-cry of the entitlement mentality.
Turning sports into just another “you show up, you get a sticker!” (and hell, probably a snack) endeavor is not the way to save children from hurt.
When I sucked at sports (and oh I really, really did). I learned that sports were not for me. Not in the “I’m going to be a contender!” sense anyway. Those All-Star games of old certainly culled the likes of me from the stand-out-sports-star herd and I, for one, am better for it. Realizing I was never going to make a living, or much more than a fool out of myself, in the athletic arena allowed me to hone my skills in other, more appropriate, ways.
Today my sign reads “will write for food” and I don’t think the sports world has missed me much. Imagine if I’d spent my formative years being assured I was “just as good” as anyone else, despite all evidence to the contrary?
In truth, all this “you are all stars!” mentality probably only postpones reality for a decade or two until the overly coddled generation discovers that in the “real world’ just showing up is not enough. You have to perform - nay OUTperform others - too.
In life, like in baseball, sometimes you’re the Louisville slugger, and sometimes you’re the ball.
Rarely, in either, however, do you win it all just for showing up.
Balancing Acts
Posted
June 26, 2008 at
1:09 pm by
Kymberly
I was at the checkout lane magazine rack, too cheap to buy, yet eager to learn how Angelina Jolie is going to balance celebrity, saving the world, motherhood and photo ops.
I was about to flip open an issue to catch up on our generation’s answer to Mother Teresa, when I noticed the cover of a competing publication — “balancing career, family and you.”
New theme. Then, in a true “mob mentality,” a third cover called to me, singing the siren song of promise to “balance work and home life.” That’s when it hit me: Balance is the new “in” thing. Like ”basic black.” Balance, my friends, goes with everything!
Want it all. All appearances to the contrary, I want to live a balanced life. I do. I want to make the world a better place for animals, children, and people who are woefully unable to merge into traffic properly.
(more…)
Your sofa or your life.
Posted
June 24, 2008 at
5:29 pm by
Kymberly
The late Erma Bombeck (my own personal Goddess) once wrote that if she had her life to live over again she would “sit on the good sofa and eat popcorn.
That such an accomplished woman would list such a seemingly mundane regret alongside “laugh more, cry less” and “tell the people in my life that I love them daily” is striking to me. It speaks of missed opportunities, regretted priorities, and longing for the life that might have been.
For me, that longing first struck when I caught myself beseeching my children to stop piling all the sofa cushions onto the floor to make a fort. Despite their giggles and joyful faces, I vetoed the entire project.
“No bouncing, no eating, no jumping, no piling - don’t even LOOK at the sofa!” I screeched.
Let Ivana Trump’s children eat cheese sandwiches on her sofa; I was saving mine for a special occasion. For the first time in my adult life I had a matched living room suite and I was willing to scar my offspring for life with my bellowing to protect it.
On second thought. That night, having vanquished the urges that drove my children to want to wax creative with my home furnishings, I pondered my priorities - or lack thereof.
What goes through a person’s mind when she tells her toddler that somehow the sofa is more important than he is? Isn’t my child at least as “good” and his creativity as worthy of protection as a hunk of cotton batting and poly-blend in my living room?
I realized with a start that I have spent far too much time and energy protecting my furnishings from my family. Cautioning everyone from my husband to the dog not to touch, smear, sully, or wear out anything in our home, I had my family on full-alert that actually using our possessions was not really allowed. How had I turned into this woman who valued her upholstery and knickknacks over her family’s comfort and creativity?
Eat off good china. I vowed that, unlike Erma, I wouldn’t wait until the end of my life to make a change in my priorities. That I will put my family’s comfort and happiness ahead of preserving our possessions in pristine perfection. In short, that we will sit on the sofa and eat popcorn if it pleases us. That we will use the real silver, the good china, my grandmother’s rocker, and the nicest quilts. Our family is worth the “good stuff.”
We are not materially wealthy. When this sofa is beaten down, and I know it will be, I will not necessarily be able to plunk down the funds for a new one without effort. I will save long and hard and someday another “good” sofa might come along. I will probably have grandchildren sitting upon it by then.
If and when that day arrives, I plan to break out the popcorn, toss all the cushions onto the floor, and get down to the business of living. Because you’ll find that when it comes down to choices, it’s your sofa or your life.
Choose life.
Naming Names: Crimes Against the Junior League
Posted
June 15, 2008 at
2:08 pm by
Kymberly
On the auspicious ocassion of this Father’s Day I think it only fitting to bring up a rather touchy subject. What’s a day that’s all about family without bringing up something sure to piss nearly everyone off anyway?
Recently, I have begun to branch out in my daily newspaper reading. Now that I have discovered the birth announcements, I am no longer confined to the police blotter to keep up with the myriad ways humans can commit crimes against the innocent. When it comes to giving children outlandish names designed to say (about the parents, mind you) “look at ME” I really do think there ought to be a law.
Don’t believe me? Just read your local paper’s birth announcements. There you will see for yourself that there really are people who name their children “Alltruism” and “Hayllheigh.”
(more…)
Siblings: To Have, To Hold, To Choke
Posted
June 8, 2008 at
8:25 pm by
Kymberly
Clearly, in any attempt to effectively manage or overthrow fierce dictators bent on forcing their will on a helpless populace, it is imperative that our country’s ambassadors be well versed in conflict resolution and the careful handling of narcissistic personalities bent on personal victory at all costs. Ideally, these people should be parents.
Diplomatic. Not until I had children did I realize how much of this parenting gig was all about diplomatic relations.
For all the talk of how ideal it was that my children were spaced almost exactly two years apart, presumably so they could grow up close to each other, it was never made clear that this actually meant “close enough to poke the other’s eye out.”
It is said that you should keep your friends close and your enemies closer. It may be assumed, then, that you should keep your siblings closest. Directly under your foot might be good.
Referee. I now routinely spend my days refereeing blatant acts of aggression, in-fighting, and attempted coups on the part of my son and daughter. Each of whom sprung from birth fully equipped and eminently capable of arguing to the end of time over such crucial life altering decisions such as who has the biggest piece (of what? Who cares?)
Size is key. The item in question could be a clump of mud. It wouldn’t matter.
Who went “first” last time; and who has dibs on any and every thing in (as my son has actually claimed) “the whole world to infinity plus six.” Repeat as needed.
Only child. Granted, this might be a non-issue for the average parent, but I am operating under one glaring handicap: I was raised an only child.
As a result I am utterly incapable of grasping what makes window seating, the blue cup, or being first in or out of any door so crucial that one would be moved to tears over not achieving any or all of these aims.
My husband, one of four children and - it might be worth mentioning, the only boy - finds my utter incomprehension fascinating.
It is, as he puts it, as only a person who spent too many carefree years riding shotgun, always getting the biggest piece, and having to share nothing would think.
I know not the fight to the death over the red toothbrush or what that means for all future negotiations if one should actually suffer the indignity, and resultant weakness, of losing.
No insight. Thus, I cannot understand why my two otherwise loving, sweet, and caring children can be stirred to shove each other brutally over which one gets to push a shopping cart, for example.
Or that my obvious solution that they take turns would simply disseminate into a secondary struggle over who would push “first.”
“First” being a term that I hope to abolish from the English language along with “always” and “never.” As in “you always let him go first” and “You never let me do anything!”
It helps if your children are sufficiently dramatic so that each of these utterances is accompanied by hand wringing and the flinging of themselves to the floor in a performance worthy of vintage Olivier.
Drama. Extra points are awarded if a child can shriek, as if in pain, “he’s looking at me!” in a frequency heard only by dogs, beleaguered parents, and certain childless people who are always convinced that their children, if they had any, would never behave that way.
Of course, as a result of my only child status, I was also not well versed in the stealthy, and seemingly innocuous way that sibling torture can occur.
Once, at age 4, our daughter appeared before me sobbing and clearly in real distress. Upon hearing (through nearly unintelligible sobs) that her brother had been “kicking” her, I was moved to set aside my usual “don’t ask, don’t tell” position on tattling and call in the big guns - namely me.
Rushing upstairs to confront the culprit with my still sobbing, but now deliciously martyred daughter in tow, I cornered the alleged perpetrator at the scene of the crime and let him have it.
Oops. Coming up for air only long enough to pause in my “we do not, and I mean do not, ever hit or kick a person in this family mister” diatribe, I was met with his incredulous reply: “But mommy, I wasn’t kicking her, I was kissing her.”
Which just goes to show that when it comes to even the most otherwise loving siblings, sometimes a kiss is just a kiss; but other times, it’s a little more like a declaration of war.
Immunity. So what’s a mother got to do to get a little diplomatic immunity?
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