Even though I’m not a doctor, I play one when I go online. I surf the web and diagnose myself with any illness I think I might have. I’ve had ovarian cancer, IBS, hiatal hernias, and PID—all in my mind.

But after three days of a fever of 101 I realized that I had more than a bad cold.  I logged onto the CDC and compared my symptoms to H1N1: Fever. Check. Respiratory Cough. Aches. Chills. Check. Check. Check. The next day, I was at my doctor’s office and she was writing me a script for a Tamiflu and Codeine cough syrup.

With my scripts in one hand and my cell in the other I speed dialed Dr. Sirna, my kid’s pediatrician from the foyer of my doctor’s office because Dashiell, my youngest, has asthma. The receptionist told me she’d have him call me right back. I turned the volume up on my iPhone and told Dashiell he could not play Frogger on my phone anymore so I would be sure to get his call. I even brought the phone into the bathroom with me. I kept checking that the ringer was on as if had some Flu-OCD and it reminded me of when I was a staff writer for SELF, and I’d be waiting to do a celebrity phone interview.

Celebs prefer to call you because they don’t want you to have their number and they rarely call on time so I’d be stuck at my desk trying to occupy myself for anywhere for five to fifty minutes—but I’d really just be glancing at the phone, pretending to write another story.  The only person who called me on time, actually a few minutes early, was Jody Foster. I had to be called out of meeting to take her call. Hearing “Jody Foster is on the phone for you” is a love-your-life kind of moment.

But when you have the flu and your kid has asthma during a possible H1N1 outbreak getting a call from your kid’s pediatrician feels even more reassuring. It also doesn’t hurt that Dr. Sirna is a Jason Bateman look alike.

I told Dr. Sirna that I had the flu but I didn’t know what kind, he said, “If your doctor diagnosed you with the flu and gave you a script for Tamiflu, you have H1N1 because seasonal flu has not started yet.” He also told me that the H1N1 is not behaving in the way they expected, its much more mild.

Well not mine. (more…)

A friend just emailed me to say that a quote from my Screaming is the new Spanking post is in the New York Times Style section today. For the record, since I did that workshop, I yell a heck of a lot less, I just curse a shitload more. Kidding!

More bug fun. I walked into thee playroom on last night and a large black oval shaped thing was ON David’s right shoulder as he was busily putting together a Lack TV table from IKEA. It was as big as an old-fashioned shoe horn and as shiny. I just stood their motionless trying to figure out how my worst fear had been come true: a Brooklyn cockroach had made it to our tidy suburban home. I couldn’t speak. I just stood their staring at David’s shoulder and he looked up and asked me if the kids were ok because I looked freaked out. I didn’t say anything for a few more seconds and then finally I said, “There’s a very big… bug… on… your… shoulder. David is usually a cautious and measured person so I expected him to get up and look in the mirror and then figure out what to do. But instead somewhere between the words bug and shoulder he whipped off his t-shirt, which made me run in an “ahhh it’s gonna get me” panic out the room. Left to battle the insect alone, David didn’t know which revelation was worse, that we moved to a place where bug that large could be on his body or that I was clearly was out to save myself.
Once we realized it was a cicada and not urban enemy #1: a roach, we relaxed and felt rustic and outdoorsy and saw the humor in our house guest. It was much too energetic to capture on film, banging and buzzing into the walls and we laughed so hard trying to take a photo of it that we nearly fell down the basement steps.  Try if you can to imagine a mouse with shiny wings flying around the playroom and know that when we were able to swish it towards the door, were very happy to see it go.
And for you urban folks, cicadas look like this:

I was on a playdate this morning in my suburban neighborhood and in the middle of it the other mom actually started to clip coupons. Right before my very eyes I watched her trim out tidy rectangles from the circulars. It was so surprised, it was like the first time I walked my dog and he actually peed on a fire hydrant. Hilarious.
FC correction on Sept 25th

I would just like to say that since the economic crisis, I have changed my tune and love to clip coupons!

Tonight the weirdest thing happened. At 10:30 I went outside to walk the dog and there was a stray black and tan cat sleeping between the steps of the house and my landlady’s car. At first I thought it was cute and whispered through the screen door for fatherblogger to come see, sure as soon as I spoke it would scamper away. But the cat laid still. It did not move when we said, hey kitty, or flinch when we clapped our hands loudly. The cat was dead, on our doorstep.
A light in my landlord’s daughter’s house was on so I rang her bell and told her about the cat. We called 311 and they told us to put it into a plastic garbage bag marked CAT for the garbage men to take away. We laughed and then told them we didn’t think that was funny.  They wouldn’t come get it unless it was on the sidewalk or street and they didn’t want to know why a stray was found dead in our driveway. So we put on gloves, got a bag and shovel and did as we were told and it made my stomach hurt. As we were crawling into bed I was telling fatherblogger how freaked out I was about the dead cat and that it was full moon and what did he think the cat reeally died of, I mean we’ve had a big problem with people feeding strays and not everyone thinks they’re good to have around and then I noticed we didn’t have any water for our bedside tables. It’s usually fatherblogger’s job to bring it up.
No water? I asked.
No, I forgot.
Yeah, well…I started to say which is our code for I’ve done the tallying of work around here and its your turn to get up off your duff.
And he said, yeah well… you’re in bed talking about how freaked you are about that dead cat, but I was the one who had to pick up and fold it in half to get it on the shovel and throw it out in the trash.
So I went downstairs and got the water.

I’ll admit that real estate is my porn. And it’s not the brownstoner festishy-kind that’s titillated by the concept of buying low and flipping. My real estate fetish has to do with space, not having enough of and wanting more, a lot more. Even though we live in a duplex apartment in Brooklyn, the kind my real-estate agent mother-in-law would describe as darling, it’s a compact unit. The best way I can explain it is to say our apartment has no halls just rooms that lead into each other. You’re in the kitchen and you step from tile onto parquet and you’re in the living room. Upstairs, you open French Doors and you go from our room into toddlerblogger’s room and from toddlerbloggers room into kinderblogger’s room and from kinderblogger’s room into the bathroom. I’d like to think it keeps us a close knit family but I also dream of having my own room someday, one that’s way down the hall. A hall long enough for a child to have to really think about what they are going to say before they burst open the door.

But for now, I have a drawer. My bedside drawer is the one place where I can put my private things, tuck away a notebook with ideas, cards from fatherblogger and house my “don’t touch” face creams. The problem is that lately, toddlerblogger has become extremely curious about nooks and crannies and compartments and open and closing and all that cause and effect kind of stuff. The other day he woke up before the sun was up and was walking around our room and I just didn’t want to open my eyes yet even though I could hear him open my drawer. What could he be doing, I wondered as I tried to return to a dream I’d already forgotten. The worst he could do is write on the wall. But then he started to say something, At…at…hat…hat…hat…hat. What hat what? I opened my eyes and there was toddlerblogger wearing my diaphragm on his head and pointing to it saying Hat! Hat! Hat!

Here’s another installment from the mom on the PTA I call her crazy emailer. But feel free to decide if she lives up to the name.
(more…)

Doing 180 seems to have stirred up some strong feelings and I guess I wasn’t as clear as I thought. So here’s what I was trying to say: I was saying that if I stayed home and didn’t work at all, I’d become a little nutty and eventually be the mom wearing the funky hat. So I need to work, in some way, other than working to take care of my kids, even though I may not always want to. And it’s that tension of doing what I don’t always want to do, but seeing the benefit in spite of myself that makes me a grown woman and I’ll continue to work to keep the funky hat at bay. I agree with your comments:
There are many ways to define adulthood.

And it is about our choices, of which we sometimes have so many: work, don’t work, work a little, work a lot, work a lot with a little help, work a little with a little help, work a lot with a lot of help….
The subject of working and mothering is something that I’m going to continue to address, because that’s what grown women do…GOTCHA. No seriously, I am going to keep writing about it becasue it fascinates me and is something I’m trying to figure out.
As for Blogher, I’m glad you guys had such a great experience. As you know, mine was mixed.

In the past few weeks, I’ve recieved a string of emails from friends who’ve decided to stop working so they can be home with their kids full-time. And last week it happened so much it reminded me of when everyone was losing their jobs in the dotcom bust in 2001. Only this time it was good news, except that my friend’s tone sounded just as worn out as the folks who had been laid off. A sample email read: After thinking it over, it’s time for me to stop trying to work full-time with two kids and just stay home a while.

These emails, gave me a lump in my throat each time. It was a mix of disbelief and jealousy. It was that same happy-sad pang I’d get when a friend got engaged while I was waitng for fatherblogger to give me a ring. Inside, I was genuinely pleased, thinking, you go girl! And then, naturally my next thought was to turn around and ask someone, myself, my husband, can I go too? (more…)