I was admiring my friend Melissa’s top and like all of us she couldn’t resist saying, “Its H&M”. I was surprised. In the beginning of the summer I’d tried to shop at H&M for some everyday staples but it was really bad, a combination of the most unflattering Marimekko-meets-Ikat prints in moo-moo like long dresses. I left the store and went to J.Crew. Then she said she’d done well at Forever 21. But I’ve never shopped there and we started talking about how chain stores can really differ by neighborhood. Melissa assured me that the Forever 21 in midtown has the good stuff. But I can’t shop next to a 14 year old, it makes me feel even more middle aged then I am. I need a shop called Forever 39.

I read Redsy’s post on Shine about being proud of her nude body in front of her daughters and even said a few “hear, hears sister! But what really rattled me were the comments. Nearly all 57 of them, responded with a prudish: clothes please. Do any of these people actually have kids? It didn’t sound like it because if they did they’d know that when you have a house and kids and a dog and a job, you’ve got enough going on a weekday morning that you don’t really think about where your bath towel is. In a perfect world I’d have time to wear an attractive robe and make my kids pancakes in the morning, but in reality  I’m pouring them Cheerios in just a bra and panties. Homes are intimate places. I am never alone, whether I’m on the phone, sleeping, peeing or showering my sons are always around. And if they happen to see me naked when I’m stepping out of the shower that’s just the way it is. I’m not a hippie or an exhibitionist I’m a busy woman whose to do list goes far into the double digits the last thing I’m going to put on that list is: cover up in front of the kids.

Monday:
“I’ll take factory chicken”
Kinderblogger, after I asked him if he wanted frozen nuggets or homemade chicken cutlets.

Tuesday:
“My force field has an erection!”
Explaining his superpower during horseplay.

Wednesday:
“I have a funny feeling when she’s here. It’s hard and I’m just so tired of her coming all the time and when can everything be normal again?”
On spending another day with our substitute babysitter while nannyblogger is back in Trinidad taking care of her brother who was hit by a car.

Thursday:
“It’s a hairy cockroach! It’s a hairy cockroach. A hairy cockroach!”
After a mouse ran towards me while I was in the bathroom indisposed.

Friday:

“I wish there was a machine that could always keep me company.”

Today, after spending spring break with a substitute babysitter and not as many playdates as usual.

Our mornings are minefields. One minute Kinderblogger is playing Legos and Toddlerblogger is spilling yogurt and Cherrios on the floor and the next minute Kinderblogger is hysterical and Toddlerblogger is holding a part of Kinderblogger’s Lego car, also crying, and I before I can even put down my eyelash curler Kinderblogger pushes his brother down and kicks him in the back. They both get time outs. They both are crying. I’m in my underwear and wondering if the neighbors can really see me through the sheer curtains. (more…)

Kinderblogger is on winter break and grandmotherblogger (husband’s mother) has been very anxious to see him. So she flew down from Boston on JetBlue to JFK. We met her at the terminal, had lunch, kissed him goodbye and watched her take him through security to spend the week with her in Rockport. We drove home and tried not to call. I felt like he had left for college. And then around 7pm the phone rang. I knew from the sound of grandmotherblogger’s voice that something was wrong. And was it. Kinderblogger had been playing space legos in the den and projectile vomited all over her wall-to-wall and then asked to go home. The next day grandmotherblogger and grandfatherblogger drove him back home five hours one way. Dropped him off. Kissed him goodbye. Got in their car and drove five hours back home plus Connecticut traffic. Grandmotherblogger needs way more than flowers to get over her disappointment. She’s devastated. I think, she thinks he  broke up with her.

Lately, Kinderblogger has been treating me with all of the love and kindness of 7th grader getting ready to break up with his girlfriend. He won’t look me in the eye, he won’t scoot to school with me, or kiss me goodnight. Something is obviously churning in that little mind of his but I hadn’t been able to lure it out of him until last night. We were lying on his bed reading C is for Construction and out-of-the-blue he offered this bit of insight into his psyche:

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“SLING SHOT MONKEY” “SLING SHOT MONKEY MONEY”. I sat in the auditorium trying to hide the concern in my face as 100 kindergarteners chanted SLINGSHOT MONKEY at the school’s annual Fall Catalog Sale kickoff assembly. Every year the company that runs our fall catalog sale throws a rollicking, slapstick assembly to get the kids all excited to sell, sell, sell. Brian, the catalog’s “entertainer/motivational speaker” who was well-meaning but had the charisma of a Best Buy sales guy explained to grades K through 2 that whoever sold 15 items would be rewarded with a slingshot monkey stuffed animal. All it took was for him to fling that thing across the auditorium and lust was in the air. They wanted that monkey and they were going to hit up their relatives and unload 15 rolls of wrapping paper to get it. (more…)

My youngest darling babyblogger, has officially turned two, and nearly overnight he’s turned bad. On the morning of his birthday, he woke up as his usual sweet, amicable easy-going babyblogger self and then around noon, the time he was born, he became this brand new don’t-screw-with-me temper tantrum toddlerblogger. The changes were immediate: babyblogger would wear shoes. Tdddlerblogger hates them and throws them into the street. I decided to make my life easier by putting him in a pair of proper Velcro sandals that he couldn’t chuck into on coming traffic. But toddlerblogger was having none of it. He hated the shoes so much he started to drag his feet along the pavement as if he was a pirate with two peg legs. As soon as I saw his shoe-shtick, I rolled my eyes and told him to cool it. We were standing in front of an outdoor cafe and I got the feeling people, especially a new mother with a baby in a Snap-n-Go, noticed my tone and turned to watch. Temper-tantrum toddler could sense it too and he “fell” on the ground scratching his chin in full view of the new mother enjoying her sleeping infant, burger and pint of Guinness.

Oooh naughty naught bratty rat!

But now that we were players in a street scene, I had to be the good mother so I softened, bent down, wiped his chin, let him change into his Crocs knowing he still throw them in the street. Our recovery was brief because as soon as we reached the curb, Toddlerblogger refused to hold my hand to cross the street so I had to pick up him (did I mention I was also pushing an empty stroller, walking the dog and carrying his scooter in my other hand?). Because I had to carry him and push the stroller and the dog I ended up zigzagging across and looking very much like a mom who didn’t have anything under control. Watch and learn new mom, watch and learn.

The rest of the afternoon didn’t really get any better and Toddlerblogger was still insisting on doing his barefoot impression of Fred Flinstone and he was still refusing to hold my hand when it was time to cross the street. Inevitably, as we were waiting at a curb he threw his Croc in the middle of the street. Only this time when I rushed over to pick it up, a woman bent down to get it for me and behold, it was the new mom who had watched us at the cafe before. Our eyes met and she nodded at me. Mom: 1. Toddlerblogger: 0.

That’s what a friend called staying home with her kids. I laughed so hard I nearly choked on my turkey burger. But I still wanted to try it, positive that when I stayed home I would be fulfilled. And now, I do stay home, two days a week on Mondays and Fridays. No work. No office work that is. Its been about a month and our house is calmer, there is (occasionally) more food in the fridge and the floors are cleaner. I finally had time to clean out our junk drawer and the boys drawers only have clothes that actually fit them. But there’s one thing I haven’t been able to keep so tidy: my sense of myself.

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Is it possible for a mother to know her child is going to be a stalker? I wonder if Peter Braunstein’s mother knew her son had a social dysfunction. Did she see the longing in his eyes as he watched the jetset on the swingset? Did he glom on to one friend and not let go?

Now of course, I don’t think preschoolblogger is a future stalker. But he is so social, so intensely social and desperate for friends that when he shows up at the playground he’ll walk up to any child around his age and ask, “Will you play with me?” And it fills me with pride that he is so willing to reach out until I see him get shut down. Kids are mean. It breaks my heart to see him longing for that connection and not get it. He keeps trying but he gets frustrated. (more…)