crazedparent

Holy water in a school parking lot...

"Don't forget, we're bringing Luna to school tomorrow for the Blessing of the Animals."

"Mom, we don't need to bring Luna. I'm going to bring my stuffed animal that looks just like Luna. I can bring a picture. Miss X. said that would be okay too."

"Sweetie, she's having a pretty big operation in a few weeks. Our puppy needs to get the Holy Water sprinkled right on her fur. She needs a little extra special attention."

"But Mom, Miss X. said the blessings can travel."

We arrived at school on the Day of Saint Francis. The parking lot was filled with dogs big and small, a few cats, rabbits, a turtle and four goats. After the second bell rang, all nine classes lined up in a circle in the yard, with students accompanying their parents...and pets. The kindergarten class huddled around their room pets, two cute rats.

Five held on to Luna's leash with a grin plastered across his face, his resistance to bringing her long-since forgotten. He dispensed dog treats to his friends when they asked if they could pet her. "Here," he said, "Hold this in front of her nose and tell her to 'shake.'" His friends complied and so did Luna when she saw the food.

Under clear bright skies, the school pastor came out with his bucket of holy water. He recited a prayer and asked all of us to talk to our pets and give them our own blessings. He walked around the wide circle of pets and kids, sprinkling holy water on all the animals and their owners.

I knelt down next to Luna and whispered in her ear, "You stay healthy, okay puppy? Stop with all this surgery business." A bit of water landed on her shiny black fur and I smiled in relief. While not always a consistent practicing Catholic, blessings are a tradition I back with my entire heart.

I grabbed Luna's muzzle and looked in her brown, non-cherry eyes with some more words of protection.

"Stay healthy, pretty girl. And if you poop on my lawn or jump on my kitchen counters again, you're going to need more than holy water to help you out."

A bunch of random thoughts...

Today's the first day in a week that I've felt like my face isn't about to explode from this raging cold bug and sinus infection. I won't say our family is healthy yet because when that happens, I get a one-to-two day reprieve, then we're smacked with another illness. We are in a better place then we were several days ago. How's that, sick-jinx gods?

A bunch of little items I've been meaning to post here for the longest time but they just sat in my notebook...

• Couture Moms - I always have designs on my t-shirts, but I've never been one to wear shirts that have some sort of "Mom slogan," if you know what I mean. I received this cozy brown long-sleeved  shirt for my birthday - it says "Mom(2)" ... Mom to the 2 (2 kids...get it?) in rhinestones.  And I dig it. For one, the shirt itself is so comfortable I want to wear it all the time. It's just warm and fabric is incredibly soft, wash after wash. It's also just a silly, fun shirt - every time I wear it I always get a least one mom asking where she can buy one. And lately, silly fun is what I need. Check out Couture Moms.

• Unhappy Meals from the NYT: Writer Michael Pollan's penned this excellent story about nutrition. His opening line - "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." - has become our mantra, and his nine tips for eating healthy make you want to break out your cookbooks after a nice, long trip to your local farmer's market. My favorite piece of advice? "Don’t eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn't’t recognize as food."  Not rocket science, right? Of course not, but you read it and think, yeah, that trans-fat yogurt butter spread can't be all that good for me.

• I wrote a confession about having a childhood crush on Shaun Cassidy during his Hardy Boys peak. During our sick fest, I hit the library to stock up on DVDs for the boys to watch on my laptop...and I happened to find the first season of the Hardy Boys show on DVD. Coincidence? I don't think so. Friday night, after the boys went to sleep, we watched a few episodes, one of which included Shaun Cassidy singing my favorite song of his, "That's Rock N' Roll." And here's what I said out loud..."what did I see in him?" (To which my husband replied, "Ah, you can add him to your list of "why?") Most singers look good while they belt out a tune. But Shaun? Not so much. Maybe it was his puppy dog eyes or super fly-away hair. However, the questioning of my puppy love -- at the ripe age of 5 -- for Mr. Cassidy has no bearing on my consistent adoration of another rock star. So you'll at least still get to laugh, or roll your eyes -- whichever it is -- at my embarrassing confessions about that topic.

• On writing: Over the past few weeks several folks have asked me about my writing, or like to chat about how cool being a writer is...not "i'm so cool because i write", but how cool that you can make money doing some thing you love and still maintain a flexible schedule." It is cool in many ways, and it happens to my love, but it's also my job. I write every single day, upwards of 2,500 words a day, for various and sundry editorial assignments. Point being, my brain gets tired or words sometimes. My blog is not an accurate representation of my writing. It just isn't. Perhaps it's simply a function of time, which I am always short on. Yet it often makes me question whether or not to even keep it. I will, of course, because it serves many purposes for me personally and professionally. But for those of you who write professionally and manage to keep your blog writing as articulate and entertaining as your published work (print or online), I am in awe.

Random thoughts indeed.

The best friend's baby...

Most mamas have at least a few friends sans babies. Could they use a touch of help in dealing with their mom friends or mama's in waiting?

Louise Knott Ahern (from Opt Out and The Writer's Vibe)  just pointed me to a new blog by author Mary Castillo. The romantic chica lit writer just launched How to Survive Your Best Friend's Baby. Looks like she'll be posting ideas about on how to pamper and stay connected to soon-to-be moms and what she dubs "moms in action." It's cute and the first post already makes it one of my must reads. Go help make it a great resource for child-free friends and moms alike by adding your perfect gift ideas from when you were pregnant.

Mind your manners...

I was at the park yesterday with my boys when I briefly was introduced to another mom. The typical two second "hi, hello, nice to meet you," and then you go about your bidness. Nol, though, is a mooch. Even though he had just eaten his lunch and then some, he proceeded to wander over to this woman with one of his friends as he saw her pull out some food for her toddler. Her boy/girl/I'm not sure was probably about two. As I watch Mooch start to head to her I quickly went over to him and said it's time to go...and hello, you just ate you heathen. But he insisted on mooching since his friend was doing the same thing. Peer pressure for preschoolers.

The mom asks if they want a taste of whatever she was offering her kid and puts the teeny tiniest dab of it on her finger. One for Mooch. And then I thought I heard, "Say thank you." Nolan did indeed say thank you but for some reason I thought the mom told him to say it before the food was off her finger. Noooooo. Maybe she was saying it to her own son, I thought. And then I saw her give the friend a teeny tiny piece of food and she said it  - "Say thank you." Before the food was off her finger. He said it and so fine. Her voice was commanding.

It bothered me that she did that to my son. First, he clearly said "Yes PLEASE" when he was offered food. He knows something abotu manners, and knows how to say THANK YOU thankyouverymuch. He would have shown you his awesome skills if you had let him do it on his own. Little kids like to do things on their own, dontcha know. Second, if you want to remind him to use his manners, you might want to wait until AFTER he has the food in his hand or he is not chewing his cud. And finally, how about you let his MOM handle it, since I was standing, oh, RIGHT BEHIND HIM.

Okay. So yeah, I know, it takes a village, blah blah. And perhaps she was just doing what she does to her own kid. But seriously, be the village when Mom or Dad isn't right in your grill, okay? Otherwise you risk irritating the parent who has already worked her arse off teaching her kid about manners (see point one from above).

Those thoughts in your head...

The New York Times Magazine had an essay by Yannick Murphy last weekend called "Home and Away." She starts out her story with a feeling familiar to most moms - how something so mundane as going to work with your husband seems so exciting and liberating when you've been at home with the kids for daaaaaaaaaaaaays. Their adventure goes not as planned and turns out to be a sad one as her hubby, a vet, has to put down an injured horse. When she returns home, her kids ask her what took them so long. She writes:

"They were looking into my eyes, and I knew my eyes were telling them how much I loved them and had missed them and wasn't that really the look of someone who had been gone for days? When they were babies, I was in the habit of not speaking aloud to them, I just talked to them in my head and looked into their eyes. And that's what I did now."

Half the time I'm talking to my boys in my head I'm wondering what they hell they are doing. The other half of the time I'm capturing a *click* moment. Staring into their eyes and saying to myself, "You are the most wondeful, most beautiful, most edible, most sweet baby and I am so blessed you are mine. How could I possibly be this lucky."

Q. smiles and wiggles. But Nolan, I'll stare at him, capturing his sweetness, and he'll suddenly touch my face or lean in to give me a nose kiss. He's only four. And he can read my mind.

Pregnant belly kisses...

No, I'm not pregnant, and I'm not interested at this stage in having another wee babe. But I'd almost consider it if I had a guarantee that Bono would kiss my pregnant belly. Yum.

Slash/mom...

Since I quit my former day job a few months back, I've been having trouble with this whole labeling thing that comes with being home with your kids. I stay at home, but I also work from home. I work from home alot - basically any moment the kids are asleep. And then I do everything else associated with being a stay at home mom, except cleaning bathrooms. I leave that for Noah Drake (even doctors have to clean bathrooms).

If I were a true "stay at home" mom, let's face it - it's still work: taking care of your kids and running a household is a shitload of chaos.

I get irritated when people need to classify moms - and dads for that matter - into one bucket. You're either one or the other. How could you possibly be more? You're either a stay at home mom/dad, a work from home mom/dad, a stay at work mom/dad. But what if you're like me - an insane mix of all of the above. Just because I work from home it doesn't mean I have a nanny taking care of my kids. I just work around their nap schedules. And late at night. I have employers, I have clients. I still have a foot in the door in the corporate realm. And I know I'm not the only mom who's doing this.

I've decided to come up with my own label for what I am: a slash/mom. It covers stay at home/work from home/stay at work MOM. Everything is a slash. It's the only way you can capture what you do.

But in the end it doesn't really matter what's in between the slashes. They all add up to the same thing.

I'm a mom...and then some.

The Ricky report...

So nothing to do with parenting other than this being a mom's night out...

Last weekend I went on my Ricky Martin escapade with my hottie sister. Our seats were so close to Ricky that we could literally see the beads of sweat dripping from his buff bod. But did I get to meet him? First, some scene setting...

When we arrived at the venue we took our seats and did the jaw drop when we saw that we could jump on stage if we felt so inclined (we didn't.) About ten minutes before the show started, we heard some woman shouting "WOOOOOOOOO RICKY!!!" It was this large and in charge gal with her four pals. I by large, I should really say obese. These women were very overweight. And where should they be sitting? On either side of me and my sister. The largest of the women sat down next to me and I kid you not, the impact of her ass hitting the chair pushed me off mine and onto my sister's chair. This woman was now sitting on half of my chair. My sister finally said, "You need to tell her to get off your chair or protect your seat." And so, as soon as this woman got up for a minute, I moved myself to the edge of my chair. My sister buttressed me so that when big momma sat down again, I wouldn't move. It worked, but then we nearly puked when big momma pulled out a white lace thong to throw on stage. Oh. My. God.

Anywho. The concert started, we were in Latin heaven dancing our little culos away. Ricky did a little serious number:

Then a little capoeira (wiping the drool off my face):

 

      

 

   And up-close-and-personal drum work for "Jaleo":

But he never made contact with the front rows. He was all about the back of the auditorium. I think it had to do with the big gals and the married couples in the front row. We started to get a little bummed that he wouldn't look down, but then at the encore, when he belted out "Vuelve" and we were all singing along, he looked at me and my sister - he smiled...and winked. No lie. We both saw it. We both looked at each other in a state of shock. 

After the show we decided to be completely adolescent and chase him as he went to his tour bus:

He saw us and waved, then drove off in a black Caddy Escalade. And dammit, he left us behind!!!

Ricky Martin. No backstage, but a direct smile AND WINK.

Hot.

And yes, the formatting is all wonky. I've tried to fix it a jizillion times but STUPID TYPEPAD won't let it look the way I format it.

Mama, where are you going?...

"To see the man who will be your new daddy, sweetie."

And I don't care what you say - Ricky Martin IS NOT GAY!!

While you know about my adoration for Rick Springfield, I also love this other Rick(y). My sister and I are going to see him in concert this weekend  - a nice mom's night out, don't you think? And can I tell you how close I will be to his bon-bon? Thiiis close.

At this particular venue there are the regular seats. And then there are the best seats in the house, the pit. Only fifty people sit in the pit. Only two rows.

This is where I will be, Internet. In the pit. Smack in front of Ricky Martin.

A few years ago I attended his concert and sat in the fifth row. I watched how two ladies in the front row managed to get themselves backstage. I know the moves this time, people. I will not reveal these moves to you in the event that you, too, are sitting near me. I will not share them. Stop asking. No. I won't. Until Monday. Only then will you know if I've achieved success.

Wish me luck, and shake your bon bon baby.

Mama drama...

I never posted about Linda Hirshman of The American Prospect and her story, "The truth about elite women."  Synopsis: smart, college-educated women are killing feminism because they are choosing to stay at home with the kids. To be honest, there was so much banter in the blog world about this topic that I just didn't want to touch it.

But boy, I can't believe the drama over at the LiteraryMama blog. Shoooo dawg. Let me break it down for you...

On November 30th, Jen reviewed Hirshman's article and dropped in a quote by Miriam Peskowitz (who wrote The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars). Jen's review? Hirshman's article sucks. Guess what? Hirshman posted a comment, only the comment didn't refer to the actual review...it referred to the Peskowitz quote.  And what Hirshman bothered to write was so very petty. Seriously, after reading her comment I actually questioned how she wrote her initial story.

Still with me? Okay, so on December 1st, Peskowitz posted on the Literary Mama blog in response to Hirshman's comment.  Her bottom line? She politely tells Hirshman: step. off.   

Your mama drama for the day.