The Mamahood

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.

A Very Important Date (Or 10)

Egads! It's only a couple of weeks into school, and I already feel bombarded trying to keep track of our new schedules. My oldest daughter has some sort of class or another every single day of the week—and is thinking of signing up for the Daisy troop the mom of one of her classmates is planning to start up. In addition, she's been invited to three birthday parties within the next few weeks—and then it's Halloween, with several events related to that.

Our youngest's schedule includes three days a week of preschool, with a very slow progression each week toward finally hitting a 2 1/2 hour day, gymnastics on Saturdays and speech therapy every Thursday. And we do need to fit in a few follow-up appointments at her ENT (we need to start talking about whether she's a candidate for atresia repair, AKA opening her ear canal), and a visit to the allergist to see what's causing her eczema, which is better but still not under control.

And then there are all the back-to-school nights, family socials, potential playdates...and I'd like to squeeze in an apple-picking day sometime before the orchards are picked bare.

This doesn't even factor in my own very important dates—deadlines (I have a ton of them coming up, thankfully), and perhaps an actual, honest-to-goodness date with my husband once in a while.

And so, I've downloaded some heavy-duty scheduling software to my iPhone to keep track of my overscheduled life, and I'm constantly syncing it up with my computer and setting alarms to keep me reminded of all of these very important dates. I know it's only a matter of time before something slips through the cracks.

A Buying Frenzy

With the economy (and my business) so shaky, we'd been so good for so long—not buying anything frivolous, shopping the sales, etc. Well, we've just blown all that good behavior out of the water with a large-scale buying binge.

It started because my husband's several-year-old computer was in the last death throes—1 GB of space left, a screen literally held together with scotch tape and a prayer, a hard drive that rarely decided to work on the first try. So it was time for me to upgrade to a new MacBook Pro (heaven!), which wasn't exactly a small splurge.

Then came our 10th anniversary, a milestone that deserved to be celebrated with something more than takeout and a bottle of cheap Champagne. So it was off to Daniel Boulud's culinary mecca Daniel for an extravagant feast that cost 1/3 of our monthly mortgage payment (but was worth every penny).

Last week, it was a new iPod Nano. We've killed off two sets of portable DVD players that we use for long road trips to visit the families (I don't feel too bad about killing them off, since each one basically caused all of our DVDs to skip)—so we've decided to give the kids our older iPods on our next road trip and download movies and shows to those. No more worries for the safety of our DVDs, and I know that the iPods can stand up to a bit of wear and tear.

Now that the binge is over, I'm having a little remorse—I'm the kind that likes a good splurge, but always feels guilty afterward. It's back to frugalness around here, at least until the Christmas madness begins.

First Week of School

My oldest started kindergarten this week—and I guess I got my teary "oh-my-God-she's-leaving-the-nest" moments over before the big day, because our daughter's sendoff to school was a dry-eyed event. (Yes, I know that I've been sending her to full-day preschool for over a year now, but there's something about the bigness of the school—and the bigness of some of the kids I see coming to the school—that makes this a totally different deal.)

I've been nervous about my role in my daughter's educational process. I want to be involved in the school, but without hovering. I want my daughter to succeed, but I have a big-time tendency to push hard, and I'm already having to hold myself back from wanting her to get it all right, all right away. For instance, this is the first time my daughter has been told to write on lined paper, and she's having trouble getting her letters to hit the lines. When I started thinking I should head to Target to get her more lined paper to have her practice writing until she got it right...after she's already completed her kindergarten homework...I knew I needed to lie down or have a glass of wine.

I hope I learn soon to get the balance right—especially since my youngest starts her educational career at the cutest little preschool on Monday. School is a lot tougher today than it was when I went (my daughter hasn't had a single chance to play at school, according to her reports), and my kids don't need undue pressure on the homefront.

Mind Your Own Business

My mind often boggles when confronted with so many people so willing to tell other people how they're living their lives or raising their kids "wrong." You name the topic—breastfeeding vs. formula, working vs. SAHM, TV vs. no TV—everyone has an opinion, and they're willing to blab about it (and scold you about it). Especially on the web, where the opinions expressed are often extremely harsh, because those expressing it can hide away behind their computer screens.

I definitely have my own opinions about how children should be raised, and how life should be lived—and my ideas (for the most part) seem to work well for my family. But one of my biggest opinions is that I should, generally, keep my opinions to myself. We're a working-mom, mostly vegetarian, lots of pets, TV's okay, pierce-your-ears-at-age-5 kind of family. But I know that that doesn't work for everyone, so I don't feel like I should force my own views on everyone else.

I'm tired of watching women tear other women down over the choices they make, or the lifestyles that are forced on them. (Most women I know don't have much of a choice in their ability to stay at home, for instance.) Can't we all just get along, embrace our differences, and enjoy each other's company? Be a little kinder, a little gentler, a little more supportive?

I'm thankful that my circle of friends has always been supportive of my choices—even if the outside world isn't always.

Raising A Quarter Million for Your Kid...

According to MSN.com, that's how much you'll pay to raise a kid from birth to age 17 (note that that figure doesn't even factor in those wonderful college expenses). So how are so many people from modest means go about raising a child without going (too far) into hock?

As someone who is in the home stretch of our most expensive year of parenting, thus far (including a trip to China to adopt one child, day care/preschool expenses for both kids, and diapering the baby), I have to say it isn't easy. Especially when the economy pulls the rug out from under your relatively successful business.

Our entertainment expenses have been practically nil, since we've basically had a sitter exactly three times in the past year (and every time was free). A wild night for us is a glass of wine and a game of dominoes.

Since I'm able to accomplish most of my writing and content strategy work from the comfort of my couch, I'm saving oodles on commuting and wardrobe (since I don't even have to move out of my pajamas on any given day, if I really don't want to).

And of course, there's always debt. We are in the hole right now, due to a faster-than-expected adoption, and a miserable fourth quarter for my business. But I'm expecting, with my growing uptick in work, the fact that my oldest is heading for a (free! blessedly free!) wonderful kindergarten down the street, and my hope that we'll make it through the next quarter without a major home-repair catastrophe (fingers crossed and knocking on wood), we'll be, with the exception of our mortgage, debt free by January. 

Just in time to really buckle down and start saving up for college—the other quarter million we'll need to raise by 2022.

A Little Local Flavor

I've been devouring Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, author Barbara Kingsolver's book about the problems with the way we currently eat—things like the lack of variety (corn and soybeans and their byproducts make up a vast portion of our diet), the amount of oil consumed in producing and distributing food all over the world (i.e. getting us those mealy tomatoes in January), and the overabundance of "fake food" in our diets. Her family opted to spend a year trying to just eat food they grew themselves or purchased from other farmers in the area.

So we're trying a similar experiment, doing the bulk of our grocery shopping at the farmer's market. We're already getting the girls to try some new foods (purple cauliflower this week), and the food we're eating simply tastes better—a byproduct from buying what's in season, when it's brought in from only 10 to 50 miles away.

According to Barbara Kingsolver, if we all just committed to eating one meal per week that was locally produced, we'd save millions of barrels of oil each week. Great taste and saving the environment? I'm totally on board. You can find out more at Local Harvest.

Government-Sponsored Harassment

I've had to endure plenty of governmental snooping in my life, thanks to the requirements of international adoption. So when the U.S. Census Bureau decided to come calling a few years ago to get us to fill out a half-hour survey detailing our housing and utilities expenditures, I wasn't feeling too keen on doing that. And based on my research, they had no right to ask anything more than how many people live in our house.

I told them that I knew that I was not legally required to give out that information, and I was not willing to do that. But they kept calling. And coming by the house. Sometimes on a daily basis. And when I kept insisting that I would not give them the information, they told us that they simply would not stop calling or stopping by until we did. So I finally called the regional office, complained that they were harassing us, and it stopped.

Or at least, that's what we thought. Until a lady named Carmelita from the Census bureau started calling and leaving messages every few days. And then left a note on our door that it was about the same housing survey that I'd told them I wouldn't answer a few years ago.

There are government agencies I can call to stop a company from harassing us with repeated phone calls or mailings. What can I do when the harassers are the government?

The Joys of Working with Government

When we decided to adopt our second daughter, it took me less than 3 months to pull together a 50-page dossier for China, including a home study, special copies of birth and marriage certificates, letters from doctors, bosses, accountants and our town's police, pictures of our family and house—and then having the county, state, and the U.S. and China all sign off that the information in those documents was, in fact, true and correct.

So I had to stifle a giggle when our Early Intervention caseworker gave me the spiel about how difficult the paperwork will be to get our youngest daughter the BAHA hearing aid she needs to help her right ear. Hmmmm...a note from her doctor and an estimate from a state-certified audiologist? I'll have that for you yesterday.

Our daughter's ENT faxed over the medical clearance within the hour.

It took a week to get the form with the names of the state-certified audiologists from our caseworker. They were listed with the mailing addresses, and no other contact info. So I had to search out the phone numbers.

And as I called, I discovered that only one audiologist in a 20-mile radius actually worked with BAHAs. Fortunately, she was willing to e-mail an estimate over a few days later. Done. Right?

Wellllll....two weeks later, my caseworker calls to say that she needs a written estimate. So I call the audiologist, and she faxes that over.

And then, a few days later, she wants to know where my daughter's hearing test results are...though she had promised to get that herself. I sigh dramatically, scan the darned thing in, and e-mail it to her. Done. RIGHT?

Not so fast. A week later, my caseworker tells me that the estimate needs to be on letterhead. I ask the audiologist (who I now feel obligated to send cookies or flowers) to send it again. Two days later, I discover it needs to be the "hole sale" cost (the mistake is hers....not mine). This saintly audiologist sends it out, yet again. We appear to finally be set.

Except my caseworker calls up a few weeks later to say that my daughter needs a hearing test. Which seems pretty unlikely, since I sent the caseworker the results weeks ago. I speak to her supervisor, and tell her the date the e-mail was sent with the test results. She finds it...and so we're done. Right.

Then the waiting began while the government reviewed our case. (Meanwhile, our baby is getting bigger by the moment, and losing precious days of key speech development when she could be having fabulous normal hearing instead of the muffled right side she has right now.)

And now, we're finally, really, truly done. We're approved, and our audiologist has ordered my daughter's BAHA, with a peony pink headband to hold it in place. And I will no longer underestimate our government's ability to drag their feet.

The Martha Effect

Once upon a time, my husband and I loved to entertain. We'd spend days poring through magazines, cookbooks and recipe sites, hours in the kitchen whipping up fanciful desserts and dinners, and lots of quality time enjoying the fruits of our labors with our friends, on our fancy wedding china and crystal.

Fast forward past two kids, and now our entertaining has been kicked down a notch or 10. We have guests over rarely—mostly because we're too afraid to have our friends see how we really live, and too tired to make sure that most of the dog hair is off the couch and there isn't a days-old sippy cup moldering in a corner.

When they come, if they're lucky they get homemade pizza or a nice pasta dish that can be pulled together in 30 minutes or less. If they aren't, they get takeout.

And I blame Martha Stewart for the empty spaces in my social calendar. If I didn't have to live up to her impossibly high standards, I wouldn't feel so guilty for not having fresh flowers on the table or for opting for boxed brownie mix and Ben & Jerry's in lieu of the vastly superior from-scratch versions. I wouldn't worry that my friends (the bulk of whom are mommies, and I imagine, might have a sippy cup moldering away in a corner, too) are judging me for the level of cleanliness. And I would know in my heart that they're there to see me, not my house.

I'm taking baby steps back to the entertaining glory of my youth...trying to sneak in little meals with a few friends, in between the big entertaining events in our calendar: the girls' birthdays, and our annual Spring Festival bash. I'm just tired of being alone with my cookbooks.