Almost a Perfect Ten
Posted
August 7, 2008 at
12:00 pm by
Kymberly
Having two children less than two years apart teaches a person a lot about parenting. The problem is that the person will be too bone tired for the first six years to remember a single bit of it.
For some, that new baby when the other baby was still a baby was a surprise. A happy surprise, no doubt, but a surprise nonetheless. For others, it was a conscious decision painstakingly choreographed. There is much talk of the children being “close” to one another.
Close enough to poke an eye out, maybe.
There are also many in the “get it over with all at once” camp. As if childrearing were really just an elaborate hazing ritual or painful rite of passage between graduation and that sporty little roadster and the comb-over you’ve had your eye on for your upcoming mid-life crisis.
How catalogs are ruining my life (aka a Pottery Barn addict speaks out)
Posted
August 5, 2008 at
1:23 pm by
Kymberly
Every junkie has her jones.
A smoker likes her ciggies.
A tippler likes her wine.
Any addict needs her fix.
Me, I’m partial to Pottery Barn. Pottery Barn catalogs, to be exact. I’ve heard rumors that there are actual Pottery Barn STORES somewhere. Giant mecca-like structures where one can sniff, touch, and wipe spots of their own drool off ACTUAL POTTERY BARN FURNITURE AND ACCESSORIES. I have not been able to follow-through on looking into this, however, because I always get a little week-kneed and lightheaded at the very thought. Imagine, if you will, the same reaction a choca-holic would get to, say, a Washington Monument sized piece of premium cocoa. THAT’S how I feel about the rumors of an actual Pottery Barn store.
Celebrity Baby Madness
Posted
July 30, 2008 at
5:06 pm by
Kymberly
As if we needed further proof that celebrities are, in fact, pure evil, we have Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie and that ilk nattering on to make us feel even more inferior than our non-size-zero selves were already capable of. According to Gwynnie ”(Having a baby) changed the way I see the world,” she told a reporter. “I feel like it’s even changed my DNA. (My daughter) is such a good girl and so reasonable. I’ve never ever raised my voice or lost my patience with her once.”
I say that anyone who says they have never lost their patience with a child simply isn’t trying. Spend a few hours with a child — any child at all — and I guarantee you will see how unreasonable the little demons can be.
Take my daughter — oh, not forever, we would miss her … eventually. What we wouldn’t miss is her belief that if she is just insistent enough we can make the impossible happen.
Crying over no milk. Say it’s 7 a.m. and we, foolishly and without regard for personal safety, have allowed ourselves to run out of some staple of life akin to oxygen. Something crucial to survival like, say, chocolate milk.
Upon apprising her of the no-chocolate-milk situation, she immediately falls apart. Completely. Because, of course, having a fit about the milk will indeed make chocolate milk appear — as if by magic — by sheer dint of force and will power generously sprinkled with a dollop of whining.
Maybe I should try it. As if that would work and adults wouldn’t have been employing it for years? Does she not think of all the tantrums I could have thrown in my time if whining and carrying on did any good at all?
Why, when I think of mortgage payments I could have dodged simply by staging a good foot stomping tantrum at the bank, the mind reels!
She is an unusual child is other respects as well. She moves so slowly in the morning that she manages to achieve an almost glacial quality.
Her movements are not visible to the naked eye although we’ll grant that if given enough time she will, eventually, make it all the way from the bathroom sink to the back door.
Is that my kid? For this methodical reason we have taken to calling her Pokey-Dokey. Throw her on a soccer field, however, and suddenly she’s alight with speed as if on fire. She moves like a streak across the green and dodges competitors and uneven ground with the grace of a gazelle.
Most game days I must be repeatedly reminded that the blonde blur is, in fact, my child. It just seems so improbable somehow. How is this the same child who needs a jump start to properly brush her teeth?
That’s a no-no. Our son, as a preschooler, was a fairly compliant little boy. We told him not to poke the baby. Not to eat things he found on the floor. And certainly not to kiss the doggy on the lips.
I had not, however, told him specifically that he couldn’t help his baby sister kiss the dog (by helpfully boosting her upright so she could really wrap her lips around the task).
I also completely failed to inform him that flooding the kitchen with the sink sprayer would not be a fine idea, so clearly, I was asking for it. He also, like many small boys, exhibits a complete inability to wrap his fingers around a pencil and properly write a thank you note — at least not without vast infusions of milk and cookies.
Meanwhile, if given a butter knife and a few unguarded moments he could happily unhinge a door — and his mother as well.
Unlike Gwyneth, I’ve been known to lose my patience over little things like that.
Worst yet to come. One saving grace in this whole thing is that if I’m not mistaken, Gwyneth’s child is approximately 2-year-old. The little darling should be getting just about ready to show her real toddler chops.
I say let that kid throw a tantrum — preferably in public — then we’ll see. I’ve yet to see a toddler who isn’t capable of staging a drama worthy of an Academy Award.
Surely that’s something any celebrity parent can understand.
This Birthday Business
Posted
July 28, 2008 at
5:04 pm by
Kymberly
It was the use of the phrase “party circuit” that finally put me over the edge. The phrase, you see, was used in conjunction with the word “birthday” as in “are you doing the birthday party circuit?” The term used to explain that any self-respecting modern child must first have their “actual birthday day party” with cake and presents from immediate family followed by their “class party” whereby they take treats into class. This culminates In a blow-out “theme” party for the child’s invited friends at a venue sure to impress other parents and/or break the bank. If a child should happen to suffer the misfortune of having a birthday over the summer holiday, then the only possible way to remedy this tragic situation is with something spectacular. Perhaps you could rent Disney World?
Excess. Clearly, the days of warm party punch in Dixie cups and a cupcakes homemade by the “birthday mom” are long past. Now you’ve got to really put your thinking cap on (and credit card on the line) to plan the “perfect” birthday party.
Examples of over-the-top birthday madness include:
Pity the Poor Tomato Growers - Excess Fear at the Family Dinner Table
Posted
July 22, 2008 at
6:33 pm by
Kymberly
We are an extremely gullible society, believing any health report and following any trend if an expert assures us it is valid.
Unfortunately, our standards of “expertness” aren’t really up to par. We tend to believe any news anchor, medical reporter, or lifestyle columnist that comes along. No good can possibly come of this. That lack of attention to detail is how the fitness movement, the theory of global warming, and the scourge that is decaffeinated coffee all got a foothold on us.
Global warming. In the case of global warming I suspect that the entire “theory” was actually invented by a couple of bored scientists who wanted to pull a fast one on their lab partners. Chuckling maniacally, they circulated a memo claiming that hair-spray or some such nonsense was going to bring about the end of the world through a bizarre chain reaction involving icebergs, the rain forest, and Aqua Net - and then sat back for some belly laughs when the other scientists stumbled onto their practical joke.
(more…)
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.
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