You Gave a Life. Now Get One.

Memo from Mom

To: Parents (probably more the moms, but I’m not going to assume that) of school-aged children

Re: You gave a life.  Now get one, too.

As our children grow older, we are faced with this conflicting moment when they simply don’t need us as much anymore.  They don’t need us sitting on the floor playing cars and trains (sniffle, sniffle).  But, OH! They don’t need us sitting on the floor playing cars and trains!  (hooray! hooray!) No more pretending like I enjoy making choo-choo noises for hours on end.

They are off to school, spending hours in a classroom with an adult who is paid to expand their minds while entertaining them and running interference with the myriad social situations they will encounter. Mama is no longer there refereeing the sandbox watching out for the little girl in pigtails who looks like an angel but is actually the devil’s spawn. 

Our children naturally want to spend less time with the people that brought them into this world, more time with the people that will teach them things about the world that their parents never wanted them to learn about, and, in a nutshell, gain their independence. This phase can leave many of us sitting on the living room floor wondering what to do with all those cars and trains. 

If I may be so bold, let me tell you what to do.  Stand up and go get yourself a life!  They don’t need you to spend three hours pureeing their sweet potatoes anymore (not that they really needed that, Gerber had it under control).  Mommy and Me classes are a thing of the past replaced by after-school and weekend sports and activities.  Leisurely walks around the neighborhood with a mommy friend at 10 a.m. pushing strollers have now become bike rides on a Sunday afternoon.  Those dependent babies are now independence-seeking school kids spending five days a week, approximately seven hours a day, in school.  They are learning about how to become productive citizens.  Now it’s your turn. 

It’s time to show your kids what you’re made of!  Let them see that you exist beyond getting whites whiter and perfecting your crock pot recipe by stalking Pinterest.  I’ve seen too many parent “living vicariously through my kid” casualties to let it go on any longer.  Your daughter’s perfect landing at the gymnastics meet was not your perfect landing.  It was hers.  Your son’s “Star of the Day” award from Kindergarten was not yours.  It was his.  And telling everyone and their brother about it still doesn’t make it yours.  Yes, you’re proud.  We are ALL proud of our kids.  Go on, be proud.  But also, be yourself. 

Have something that’s yours, something that makes you feel good other than telling the world that your kid doesn’t eat red dyes because you are mother of the year and we are all here just hooking up our children to artifical dye IVs.  Do something that belongs to you.  If you need or want to work, go back to your career or start a new career.  If you have the luxury (yep, I said it, luxury) of staying home while the kids are at school, get a hobby that keeps you engaged and makes you feel good about what YOU can do.  This does not mean cleaning out the closets and alphabetizing the spice rack.  Spend the time that your kids are in school learning about the world and themselves learning about the world and yourself.   

Please stop trying to find your self-worth from your children.  All of us parents do the best we can, have the best of intentions, and we rock in our own ways.  Your child’s successes don’t make you awesome, they make him awesome.  Now it’s your turn to go out and find your own awesomeness.

Sexy Halloween Costumes for Kids are No Treat!

The innocent holiday of Halloween is upon us when children around the neighborhoods will innocently hold out bags and pillowcases and bright orange plastic pumpkins with nary a "Trick or Treat" while begging for artificial dyes and high fructose corn syrup all the while forgetting their manners.  Seriously, if nice strangers are going to give out candy without luring the kiddies into their homes, the least these children can do is say thank you.  These tiny thieves are all led by their adult chaperones who also expect me to give them some sugar, so to speak.  Yes, bah humbug.

To make matters worse, the scariest part of this season is not the goblins and ghouls.  It's the girls scantily clad in costumes. In just a few weeks, we will open our doors and play, "Guess What I Am?" We will gaze upon a 7 year-old girl standing on our front stoop and guess if she is a kitty cat or a Pussycat Doll.  Since I'm pretty sure kitty cats don't wear black lycra mini-skirts with a sequined sports bra, I'm going with the latter.

Even Big Bird and Elmo have gotten their sexy back, but at least their moms and dads at Sesame Workshop stood up for them and realized it wasn't so cute. Sesame Workshop 

was so offended by what a costume marketer did to their precious muppets that it asked them to pull the muppets off their shelves in 2012 (however, a quick search will show it's back, but at least mom and dad tried). 

When, and more importantly, why, did Halloween become a time to completely sexualize young girls?  Why are parents sitting at home, perusing the costume circulars, thinking, "Yes! It is totally appropriate for my 5th grade daughter to wear a skirt that barely covers her nether regions and pair that with fish net tights, because that is EXACTLY what a peacock looks like!" 

Some adults and parents may think it's just an unfortunate by-product of our culture.  The other 364 days of the year, our children are seeing their former idol Hannah Montana twerk while bringing a new job description to the sports fans' foam finger. First graders wear shoes with tiny heels and makeup to get themselves that much closer to being a "grown up." However, some of us adults realize, "Hey, WE are the adults.  We have a say in what our children are wearing while soliciting sugar on the streets."  Some of us are wistfully remembering the days of plastic costumes sticking to our bodies while trying to breathe through a tiny mouth hole on a mask that was held onto our heads by the thinnest, frailest elastic ever made.    

So parents, stand up and declare, "I will not let today's trick-or-treat turn into tomorrow's turning tricks!"

Are School Supplies Going to Pot?

Memo from Mom

TO: Parents of school-aged children, Boards of Education, and School Administrators
RE: Reading, Writing and Socialism 101

September always marks a new year for me. Pointy pencils, colorful crayons, neat notebooks and fun folders are way better than sitting at home and feeling like you should be at some fancy soiree donning party hats, gowns and swigging champs (yes, I watch too much Real Housewives of OC) to ring in the real new year. Let me go shopping for new clothes, backpacks and lunchboxes and I’ll have a happy, back to school day, minus an excruciating hangover.

As much as I’ve loved to buy new supplies for myself when I was in school, when I taught school, and now for my son, I’m beginning to feel a bit swindled. I totally understand that schools have tight budgets. I am the first mom to bring in extra tissue boxes, cleaning wipes, hand sanitizer, construction paper or whatever the teacher might need for the classroom. As a teacher, I’ve spent more of my own money than I care to remember on cleaning products, basic supplies and supplemental activities to keep the kids engaged beyond paper, crayons, and my smiling face so I know how teachers need these supplies for the whole class.

As a parent, when I receive the supply list, I dutifully set out throughout the summer picking up pencils here, notebooks there, sometimes checking sales and sometimes just grabbing supplies as I see them so that I am not in a shopping frenzy the last week of August. However, I’m learning that many schools, and classes in my son’s school, have communal supplies - as in, “Hey kids, I know you picked out your favorite characters for your folders and mom bought you Elmer’s glue sticks so your papers actually stick, but we are going to put them all in a giant box and redistribute them to anyone in the class whenever they need something. Even if you take care of your one folder for seven months and Sally rips through four in two weeks.”

I am all for sharing, but when I’ve hunted down eight highlighters, five notebooks, five pocket folders, six glue sticks, tennis balls for chairs, crayons, etc. all summer long, packed them neatly into my son’s backpack and an overflow bag because we can’t fit all that into a backpack, with instructions to make sure he gives everything to his teacher, I can’t help to feel like a toddler – it’s not fair!

Most parents participate and use this as a teachable moment for their children – be prepared and follow directions! We spend our hard-earned money on supplies for everyone, while some others don’t contribute. I understand that some families cannot afford supplies, but this is where the district needs to kick in a few bucks, or parents can visit the dollar store.

Then there is the child who does not know how to care for his or her belongings. When little Joey didn’t bring in his first box of crayons, uses someone else’s crayons, then breaks his crayons because he doesn’t like his picture, Mr. Teacher should not be grabbing more crayons from the community pot to replenish angry Joey’s victims. A note needs to go home to Joey’s parents, saying pay up and bring Joey to therapy.

I teach my child to share, and he does a fabulous job at it, but if I find out that the Yankees folder we gleefully found is being used by another child, I will stomp my feet in that school office and demand a special PTA meeting. He’s still young enough to feel like a folder with his favorite baseball team is special. He picked it out himself and he will smile when he pulls that folder out of his desk. Don’t tell me he got an 11x17 piece of construction paper folded in half while Timmy across the room is beaming from ear-to-ear with my kid’s Yankees folder.

Alas, I am not one to simply complain. I will complain AND offer up solutions! Can I suggest that a portion of my beyond ridiculous taxes actually be put towards our children’s educations and not to the salary of the Assistant to the Assistant to the Assistant Superintendent? Districts, throw a few crayons to the kids and just let my child have his Yankees folder. And parents, model what you expect from your children. Follow directions and do what the teacher tells you to do.

The mom date - a new venture for Match.com?

Mom Dating. Who would have thought that after being married for 5, 10 or 15 years that we would be stuck again in that “asking someone out” stage? Because that’s exactly what attempting a friendship with another mom is like. There is no Match.com for moms seeking moms for friendship and commiseration, so we are left like animals in the wilds of school functions, playgrounds, and baseball fields.

Had I known before I had a child that I would be tossed back into the throes of middle school as a mom, I might have opted to continue living the socialite life of a married woman with a dog. Of course, this is where I proclaim my love for my child and tell you that I wouldn’t trade him for the world blah, blah, blah…

The only thing that has changed from then until now is in middle school when girls were mean I was anxiously awaiting my period. Now, I’m anxiously awaiting menopause. Other than that, there are still girls on playgrounds gossiping and judging and waiting for their little angels to be dismissed from elementary school. We are all guilty of it, I know. I try hard to not be as guilty of it as others, but it happens.

However, there have been many times where I’ve had the opportunity to chat or volunteer with a mom and get to know her better. I’ve met a mom or two whom I realized was a cool one in the bunch, someone who seemed on par with things that are important to me in parenting and who enjoyed occasionally bellying up to the breakfast bar in her pajama pants with a juice tumbler of wine on a Saturday night after the kids are in bed ready to dissect Real Housewives of every city in America.

I jumped ahead, though. Once you get to drinking in your pj’s you have established a friendship, so let me back up. It’s that time after chatting a bunch at school functions and finding out that she, too, considers pajama pants appropriate attire for anything (I obviously highly value women who enjoy comfort). After I’ve learned that she equally values working out hard and eating dessert harder, it can be natural to want to take it one step further and ask the anxiously anticipated fear of rejection question, “Want to grab coffee?”

Instead of going straight for the solo date, maybe a good strategy would be to use the kids as an excuse like, “Hey, want to take the kids out for ice cream?” then if the group date goes well, we can exchange email addresses (is getting a phone number to text too soon? I don’t know!). Then we can ease into that shared coffee on a Saturday morning while the hubbies have the kids at baseball practice.

Little kids have no problem walking up to another child at the park and calmly and ever-so-coolly asking, “Want to be my friend?” to which the reply is usually an enthusiastic, “YES!” and off they go running to discover their love of sliding, jumping and spinning in circles. Why can’t moms be like that? After we’ve chatted it up at a few soccer games one mom should just be able to turn to the other mom and excitedly ask, “Want to go shoe shopping?” to which the other would reply “Of course!” and both moms giggle off to the department store while planning an evening of pajama-wearing wine drinking while watching almost any show on Bravo.

Jim Gaffigan’s Dad is Fat + My Husband = Most Annoying Alarm Clock

Memo from Mom

To: Jim Gaffigan
Re: Thanks for waking me up

I know, you’re thinking, “How did I WAKE you up? I don’t live with you. And I certainly wasn’t in your bedroom! I’m a married man, you’re a married woman. Stop spreading these lies!”

Okay, Jim, slow yo’ roll. It’s all because of the Father’s Day gift I bought my husband. Your book, “Dad is Fat” was requested because my husband (and I) are huge fans of your comedy. So I obliged, and am paying dearly for it.

My husband has this problem where even though he can sleep past 6 a.m. on the weekends, his body won’t let him. Whereas I can will myself to sleep at any point during the day (I totally related to your napping chapter in the book), he just wakes up for no good reason, as if starting his day at the crack of dawn means getting a jump start on the laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning the toilets… but I digress. He doesn’t clean toilets. Or do laundry. You get the picture, Jim.

No, I will tell you, though, what he does get done at 6 a.m. on a Saturday morning when I am enjoying slumber without an alarm clock and our son is contently playing baseball on the Xbox or reviewing the previous night’s baseball games on MLB Network. My husband is reading your laugh-out-loud book, next to me, in bed, with the light on. At 6 a.m. The first time I heard a chuckle it became embedded in part of a dream, I think I had a pet monkey who started laughing at me or something bizarre like that. The next time I heard him laugh, I looked at the clock and thought, “It’s impossible that the one person I share my room with is laughing at this ungodly hour of the day.” The next guffaw brought thoughts of, “Really? He has the light on and is LAUGHING while I am getting my required eight hours so as to not wake up a completely crazy, sleep-deprived person whom he has known for the last 16 years treasures her sleep almost as much as her autographed Rick Springfield jeans.

Rather than smacking my husband on the head in an effort to turn off what I lovingly referred to as the most annoying alarm clock ever, I simply kicked both you and my husband out of my bed. I hope it was good for you, Jim.

Can Advil Help This PMS?

Memo from Mom

To: Moms with PMS
Re: I have a headache from your PMS

Remember last week at school pick up when you chewed my ear off and told me, “My daughter reads 3 hours a day, goes to piano, karate, Mandarin Chinese and gymnastics lessons 7 days a week and has nary a moment to play on that evil brain-sucking box you call a TV.”?

And then there was you, yes, you know who you are, that told me at baseball practice, “I saw the cutest project on Pinterest yesterday while drinking my coffee before taking the kids to school and by 11 a.m., I had the perfect bird feeder/organic home garden/entertaining area for my mom friends to lunch with me. Thank goodness I don’t work because it would really get in the way of my very important projects.”

Hold up, there, mommy, because you had PMS, too! You caught me at Target and couldn’t help yourself, “I went to the gym this morning for two hours because WHO HAS THE TIME to go when the kids get home from school and we need to do our long-range family plan? Plus, I just can’t bear the thought of a second without them.”

Yep, you all had the same ailment - PMS – Perfect Mother Syndrome.

Not even the strongest dose of Advil – for me, the person enduring the sputterings of you, the PMS afflicted mom – can handle the headache and moodiness this kind of perfection boasting can bring on. I can only nod, smile politely, and roll my eyes in my imagination while you attempt to feel better about yourself.

However, your raging PMS inflicts not only your own painful perfectionism on yourself, but on others, as well. You tell whoever will listen – or whoever hasn’t blocked your statuses on Facebook – about the fabulous art projects you’ve created with your children on a rainy day (while I cleaned the house and my kid played Xbox until his thumbs were sprained). I don’t care about the 100 cake pops you made after you took your three kids to their NJ ASK prep class. It all pains me more than my monthly uterine contractions.

As a fellow mom, I do get it. A little bit. We all get a touch of PMS. We find ourselves at some point looking for our Super Mom capes in an attempt to do it all – work, take care of our kids, run the house, get in a workout, and volunteer at school - and we mention it to others in conversation. However, many of us try to do it with grace and humility in a simple effort to survive. I don't really care what you think of me, but I do care that you think you are better than me. Your Zero Tolerance Policy on sugar sweetened drinks makes you not a better mother.

I have no shame in letting you know that I loathe cooking, that I buy gift cards for teachers rather than making homemade gifts with my kid's picture on it, and I bring store-made brownies to parties. You'll find my kid's report card hung proudly on our fridge, but I won't stop you while I'm walking the dog to let you know how he did in 2nd grade spelling. Side note: Although my house is pretty much always neat and clean because of my ridiculous, obsessive compulsion to put things away, this is not to impress you and the Joneses, but to keep the voices in my head down to a whisper.

We are all moms, trying the best we can. You’re just trying a little too hard and advertising it, so please, take two Advil. You can call me in the morning, but please, I beg you, don't tell me about the five-course breakfast you just prepared for your family.

Adventures of Messy Mommy

Memo from Mom

To: Housekeeping at any hotel in which I am a guest
Re: Many, many thanks

After staying at a wonderful hotel last weekend, I felt the need to write a thank you not only to that hotel, but to each one in which I have been – and will be- a guest. Hotel housekeeping, I know you will not believe this, but I am a neat freak at home, taking great pains to make sure everything is in its place. Clothing is either in a drawer, a closet, or a hamper. Contrary to my husband’s daily actions, the floor is not an appropriate resting place for socks, t-shirts, or jeans. Bath towels get placed on hooks or bars to dry and if someone forgets (I’m looking at you, sweet child o’mine) and leaves a towel on the floor, I appear like a Domestic Superhero and swoop down on that towel and give it its proper resting place.

I cannot close my eyes in bed at night if my husband’s dresser drawers are not shut all the way. If a shirt is peeking out at me, I will get up to make sure it is tucked away properly. Dishes do not stay in my sink thanks to a dishwasher (and a woman in this house, ahem, who puts them in that miraculous modern-day machine). The carpets get vacuumed at least once daily if not twice no thanks to an incredibly cute, large, shedding black-furred dog in our house. There is a canister of Clorox wipes under every sink in this house to ensure total anti-bacterialism in all bathrooms and the kitchen.

However, hotel housekeeping, you do not know the real me. You know my alter ego, Messy Mommy. I love to travel, but even more, I love to stay in a hotel and go balls out wild on the hotel room! There is nothing like opening my suitcase and putting my crap EVERYWHERE. I am not a fan of putting my clothes in the hotel drawers, so my suitcase vomits clothing. Sure, I’ll hang some things in the closet if I am staying long enough, but it’s just so much fun to see it all spilling out of the suitcase, crying for its real mom to come back and make it all neat and pretty.

But the bathroom is where the real action takes place, as you know. So many towels, so little time! And I don’t have to wash them! What, I only used that towel to dry my hair? Well it is used and now must go! I took great pleasure the other day while enjoying all of the above luxuries and then, when I was done using the washcloth in the shower, I had nowhere to put the washcloth so I threw it over the shower door onto the floor. Just a simple toss and a wet SPLAT. It was a beautiful thing. There it sat, amid the other discarded washcloths, hand towels and bath towels, used but only once, ready to be laundered. But not by me! Ha! (And yes, I am totally aware of hotels trying to help save the world with their little signs to hang towels only used once. Hilarious! If I have a housekeeper at my fingertips, you can darn well bet I will ensure that housekeeper's employment. I do my part for the earth at home. I’m on vacation. Lay off).

Housekeeping, I realize you know me only as a messy guest. And I do apologize. But you must understand that most likely I am on vacation or at least on vacation from being preoccupied with every house detail at home. I am not breaking lamps or peeing off my balcony (those days are long gone). Please don’t judge and let a mom live and feel the simple freedom of towels strewn about without having an anxiety attack.