The Mamahood

Momcation Fail

I love being a wife and mother. Almost all of the time. Even when it involves settling arguments and cleaning spills, crayon on the wall and worse. But once in a while, a girl needs a break, if only to recharge, sleep in, drink wine and maybe clean out the basement.

I had golden dreams of just such a time this past weekend (the first time in at least two years I've been given such an opportunity. TWO. YEARS. ). I had brunch plans with a friend. Thoughts of a luxurious morning in bed. Maybe a stop at my favorite ice cream place.

And then, right as my husband was about to leave with the girls, he comes home to find my oldest sobbing, with a 102 degree temperature, on my lap. And me, about to sob right along with her.

My husband did try to give me something akin to it. I did get to sleep in. I did get some time off (to visit the farmer's market, and weed our gardens). But it's not the same.

Fortunately, we're planning to try again in a few weeks. Until then, I'll limp along, dreaming of the momcation that could have been.

A Summer Romance, Part Deux

Last summer, my then-five-year-old became betrothed to a wonderful young man (the son of one of my best friends)—much to our amusement.

We figured it was a summer romance, which would fade away as they both headed to different schools, with other gorgeous little kindergarteners.

We were dead wrong.

My daughter's fiance endured mocking from his friends at school when he announced his engagement. ("I don't understand why it's bad to want to marry her," he told his mother forlornly.) My daughter told me that she liked some of the boys in her school, but "I promised H. I would marry him, so I'm going to."

And now they're back, blissfully, at summer camp together. Only now, my daughter calls him "Snuggleboy," and they kiss "only on the cheek, because on the lips is yucchy," and only when the camp counselors aren't looking.

Proof positive that one should never underestimate the power of love—even among mere babes.

With a Little Help from Mommy...

My daughter has a surprising number of do-at-home projects to complete for kindergarten this year—book reports, food pyramids, 100-object displays, to name a few. Which has brought me an interesting dilemma: How much home help should my eager learner receive?

In general, I've been taking a mostly hands-off approach, offering guidance, suggestions, and a little spelling help. But in my daughter's class, it's clear that I'm in the minority. There are projects that look so professional, even my (admittedly amateur) crafting skills couldn't touch them.

Obviously, my daughter's kindergarten grades aren't going to factor into her future ability to attend an Ivy League, but I'm starting to feel pressure to make her projects look prettier to help her "do her best." And starting to feel like a slacker mom because I haven't gone the extra step to dress up her projects to a Martha Stewart level. 

How far are you willing to go to help your children succeed? And how much homework help do you think kids should get?

Lice Isn't Nice

For the third time this year, an infestation of the icky little brown bugs has occurred on an unfortunate preschooler in my littlest's class, so the school (and we) have been checking heads with a fine-toothed comb. Literally.

Because in my head, even though I know lice are a fact of life, they infest young and old, clean and messy alike, there's just something skin-crawlingly icky about the thought of little brown bugs scooting around on your scalp.

And so, Mommy's been engaging in an on-going Avoid Lice 101 course for her kiddos, trying to scare them out of the types of behaviors—sharing hats and hoods, combing each other's hair, etc., that could lead to making all of my nightmares are true. We talk about how you get BUGS IN YOUR HAIR! (Exclamation point required.) That you will then need to sit and have your hair brushed for hours, and have icky-smelling stuff poured into it. Fortunately, my oldest, whose thick, dark hair reaches nearly to her waist, seems to have gotten the hint, and shudders right along with me at the mere mention of lice. (She is my target audience anyway—it'd be relatively easy to pull the bugs from my youngest's baby fine, shoulder-length hair, but my oldest will likely lose her locks if she ends up with lice.)

Some of the moms in the school have taken extreme measures—boys with razor short hair, coats placed in plastic bags (those coathooks are apparently too close for comfort), rubbing herbal potions that are said to repel the bugs onto their heads. I'm not quite ready yet to take it that far. But after one session of delousing, I may start to see the benefits of putting my kids in a lice-free bubble.

A Wedding and a Funeral

My daughter likes to plan ahead. As in, her whole darned life. She's 5 1/2, and she already has a fiance, and a career path (an actress, or a writer like mommy if that falls through). And very specific ideas on how she will tie the knot, and what her funeral will be like (the mere mention of this is enough to make it hard to swallow). 

Since she was two the only time she's attended a funeral, her whole basis for comparison is a pair of funerals from the Star Wars saga (thank you, dear husband, for showing her that funeral scene from Episode 3, by the way). She has decided that she wants to be "carried around in a tub like Queen Amidala" and not burned, like Qui-Gon. I just hope I'm not around to see those plans carried out.

What I'm most shocked by is how adult and frankly thoughtful her wedding plans are. She wants a white sparkly dress (no surprise there), but her bridal party (her best pals from kindergarten, and her sister) will all get to wear their favorite colors and dresses—whatever they want. She wants to have Chinese food because she is Chinese, and American food because H., her betrothed, was born here and I couldn't give her a very specific answer about his heritage. (Plus, as she says, "That way, people can eat Chinese food if they want, or American food if they want.") Several songs from the Star Wars soundtrack made an appearance on her playlist for the wedding, and Beatles music as well. I'm half expecting her to start picking china patterns and putting her piggybank funds toward a down payment on her starter home..she'll need a large one to share with her babies. She plans on a daughter that she will name after herself.

Why Christmas With Kids Rocks

I've always loved Christmas the most, whether I was a kid hoping against hope that I'd pulled my behavior together enough for Santa to grant me my wildest wishes, a single girl starting out and feeling very grown up when she sent out her own Christmas cards and bought gifts for her family on her meager income, or a young married woman opening gifts on a quiet holiday celebration with her husband.

But better still is seeing Christmas through the eyes of my daughters. I was practically giddy last night waiting for my daughters to come home and see what I'd been up to (putting up our tree and stringing on the lights). After dinner there was a mad rush to load every branch with ornaments—sometimes two or three per branch, but who's counting? And then there was dancing around the tree, as our youngest giggled and proclaimed, "I love the tree sooooo much." She was genuinely shocked that the tree was still there this morning, as if she thought she'd dreamed up the whole thing. There was a little reconfiguration of the ornaments, as she lovingly grasped the ones within her reach.

The girls are spending a lot of time plotting out what they want Santa to bring, worrying about whether we'll have cookies made in time (the concept of a month doesn't really compute at their age), and snuggling on the couch to watch the same Christmas specials I watched when I was little. And when we all laugh at the antics of Snoopy or the Grinch, it's pure Christmas magic.

Why It Stinks to Be a Good Mom

I had big plans for today—playing hooky from work, picking up my oldest from her half-day of school (teacher conferences), and heading out for a fancy, just-the-two-of-us lunch and shopping trip.

Now, instead, we'll be scarfing down leftovers—and maybe hitting the stores for groceries. And all because my daughter simply couldn't stop with the 'tude this morning, despite repeated warnings.

At this point, I have probably spent a good 24 hours of my life saying something along the lines of: "If you listen and behave, we get to do cool stuff. If you don't, we get to stay at home and glare at each other." And yet, inevitably, she keeps crossing the line, keeps pushing and pushing until I have absolutely no choice but to make her face the consequences.

And so I miss out, too. So far this year, I have stayed home from a party, our town's fireworks display, a trip to my favorite ice cream place and countless small excursions and treats due to my daughter's rude 'tude. And I doubt today's lunch will be the last time I stay home from something spectacular to teach someone a lesson.

Don't feel too sorry for me, though. Consider this a payback for my years of doing the exact same thing to my mom.

A Swine Flu Survival Guide

My oldest spent Halloween on the couch, suffering from the first onslaught of what became a lost week for the Mamahood household, as each of us was felled in turn by what the pediatrician called "one of many viruses going around, possibly H1N1." (Not that he'd do the test to figure it out.)

But since we've suffered through a week of some sort of swine-like virus, I can give you a few pointers to help you through the flu.

1. Don't expect to get through unscathed. The whole thing about quarantining the sick person to one room away from everyone else seems a little far fetched to me. If your child (and let's face it, it always starts with the child) is one to willingly be separated out from the crowd to a sick room, you're a lucky person. But mine just want to crawl in my lap and cough right into my face. And I can't exactly blame them.

2. Have your takeout menus at the ready. No one was really up to cooking for the duration of the flu, so we ended up calling in several cultures' versions of comfort food to keep us going. For me, the two quarts of wonton soup I downed this week was like a big shot in the arm of Tamiflu.

3. Remember: What happens during flu season, stays during flu season. Your house will look like a disaster (as will you). Your feverish mate will likely do something to tick you off—and you will do the same to him. And you may just decide to let your kids eat lollipops for lunch, because they're sick anyway and you can't get up off the couch. But none of it should ever be brought up once the quarantine is lifted. You get a free pass. You have the flu.

4. Hope your stars align and it happens when there isn't a whole lot going on. I was lucky, in some respects, as this came when my daughter's school was closed for the bulk of the week (darned teacher's conference). She didn't miss much. But it did occur during a key week for several of my clients, which meant I got a lot of, "That sucks that you and your family have swine flu. So when are you getting that to me?" e-mails.

5. Remember that there's no rest for the wicked—or for moms, apparently. You will still be expected to keep the family in some semblance of civilization. Even if you do wear the same pajamas three days in a row.

Good luck to you.

Life with the Food Allergic

True confession: I used to sometimes roll my eyes when I had to make my daughter abstain from peanuts to preserve an allergen-free environment for a very allergic kid in her class. But now I'm the one provoking the eye rolling, as my youngest daughter's recent testing has shown that she's allergic to milk, eggs and wheat, making birthday cupcakes and cookies (unless they're made vegan and gluten-free) out of the question.

It's been an exhausting few weeks as we adjust to our new reality—where we're voraciously reading food labels, searching for that elusive halfway-decent recipe for everything-free bread, and forced to BYO to every single event we're going to, to avoid making our hosts hunt down vegan cheese and rice pasta.

Living without all of these things is more expensive (a $5 loaf of bread with nothing but rice, yeast and water, for instance), and not quite as tasty (the "mac and chreese," which my daughters gobble up, tastes evil). So we've taken to serving up two different versions of some meals, and trying to teach our daughter that some foods, like her beloved Goldfish crackers, are simply not allowed. 

It's tough to make your little one give up her precious trick-or-treat booty, or to try to socialize when most socializing these days revolves around food, and most of the kid-friendly options simply aren't friendly to my daughter. And it's even tougher to realize that the options available—disappoint your child, or make life difficult for everyone else around you—are no fun either. I only hope that her doctor is right, and that my daughter will grow out of it within the next few years.

It's a Scream

There's no hitting allowed in our house—including spanking. But as my neighbors can attest, the volume tends to go up around here—especially when the kids are being their most out-of-control selves. Now the experts in a new New York Times article are saying that yelling can be nearly as detrimental to a child's psyche as spanking. 

Which is great, because we're not all carrying around enough guilt because we bottlefed with BPA-ridden bottles, work and have to leave our kids with someone else, let them watch TV before they turned two and generally did the kinds of stuff our parents let us do back in the day (and we turned out okay). We definitely need to be made to feel even more terrible about raising our voices when our kids are snarling, screaming and fighting for dear life for the same pair of fairy wings.

Honestly, when the timeouts, the 1, 2, 3s, and the rah-rah sticker charts aren't working, I kind of run out of other options—and the patience to try them, too. I'd love to see the experts try their best "dears, that's a bad choice" on my daughters when they're worked up to a frenzy. I bet I wouldn't have to get to three before the experts started their screaming.