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.

Best Birthday Ever - Magic Kingdom, Jellyrolls and, How Old Do You Think I Am?

Monkey Man, Hubby and me in Fantasyland at the Magic Kingdom with a beautiful full moon on my birthday

I celebrated my 39 years on this planet at the Happiest Place on Earth.  No, it was not in Rick Springfield’s bedroom as you might have thought, but in Disney World.  It was really a surprise trip for Monkey Man to visit his grandparents who recently moved to central Florida, but lucky me, our trip just happened to fall smack dab on my birthday celebrating the last year of my 4th decade.

When Hubby and I planned the trip, I strategically organized our activities so that our day at the Magic Kingdom would fall on my real, actual birthday (said in my best 4 year-old voice).  Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, ice cream on Main Street, and fireworks over the castle sounded like the best damn birthday any 39 year-old kid could have.  I even shared it with 100,000 of my closest strangers since we were there the week before Easter which is the peak of their Peak Season. 

Hubby threw in an extra surprise.  He arranged to have his parents stay with Monkey Man on the night before my birthday (since the night of my birthday was reserved for this grown woman to watch Tinkerbell fly out of the magical Cinderella castle) so that we could visit our favorite Disney adult hot-spot – Jellyrolls.  Jellyrolls is a dueling piano sing-along bar and we go there every time we visit Disney World, which is once a year.  I would get to start my birthday with napkin requests of Jessie’s Girl and end my birthday with fireworks?  This birthday just could not get any better.

We met a friend, Rob Torres, at Jellyrolls who travels the world as an entertainer and he just happened to be in Orlando for a few days at the same time as us. We sang, we danced, we laughed and I gave Hubby an affectionate whack on the back when the piano players announced my birthday and my AGE!  “Happy Birthday to Pam who is 39!”  they screamed into their microphones and laughed before proceeding to play all my 80s music that I requested.  Age was just a number for me until it was announced to about 100 other people at a piano bar on a Monday night.

The night went on and they joked about how I was 35, 29 and by the end of the night I was 24.  I was like a real-life Benjamin Button and had no problems with that.  The piano players take turns each hour, and while I was using the ladies’ room, I bumped into one of the players in the hallway.  “Happy Birthday, Pam!” he said and then, unbeknownst to him, followed it with the Best. Damn. Gift. EVER. 

“You’re not really 39, right?” he questioned.  I beamed back, “Yes I am and THANK YOU!” as I bowed my gratitude to him.  His response, “Wow, what do you EAT?”

I don’t know about what I eat, but drinks are on me, so belly up to the bar because we are celebratin’!  Here’s to 39! 

My other date, Rob, and I at Jellyrolls

C'mon Kids, Share! Adults Need IEPs, too!

Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) are all the rage these days for children in America.  They assist kids with a range of needs from fine motor skill development to extended time on tests and assignments due to attention difficulties, reading comprehension, and a host of other needs that, back in my day (and my day wasn’t so long ago) would have had us kids separated into homogeneous classrooms learning at the same pace as our peers.  Before you get your knickers in a knot, I do believe in the IEP and how these legal documents can help a child be successful in school. 

However, this is the part where I stomp my feet and yell, like a child with Oppositional Defiant Disorder, “It’s not FAIR!” As adults, we have to muddle through our lives succumbing to our challenges and special needs without anyone helping us.  I need an IEP to deal with situations that come up last minute with no regard to planning or organization.  In order to function in my daily life, I have lists of things to do today, tomorrow, next week, what to buy, who to call, deadlines, due dates…you get the point.   

Imagine my outrage when I received an email on Monday at about 2 p.m. that announced my son’s first baseball practice is on Friday at 6:30 p.m.  Friday is my son’s sleepover birthday party which has been planned for over a month, because that is what I do for the convenience of my life and as a courtesy to others – I plan.  If the baseball program had my IEP and would have differentiated their instruction for each player and his parents, they would have known that this mama doesn’t do four days notice.  Upon reading through my IEP they would have made note: “Notify parent at least 2 weeks in advance so as to not have encourage catastrophic decapitation when mother’s head explodes off her body.”

But alas, there are no IEPs for the adults. If there were, I’d like mine to look a little something like this:

General Accommodations:
Attention/Focusing Cues = Take the following out of the room if you want Pam to accomplish something: All cleaning apparatus as she will clean and organize anything rather than the task at hand, photos of Rick Springfield and chocolate chip cookies. 

Use of Preferred Learning Style = Pam is a visual learner.  Do not read things aloud to her as she will become agitated and say, “Just give me the paper so that I can read it.”  Do not attempt any kind of verbal mathematical calculations, as she can barely figure that stuff out when it is written.  Graphs, charts, and spreadsheets all work well with Pam’s learning style.   

Length of Time for Assessments/Assignments = Pam is obsessed with deadlines so not only will she finish on or before time, she expects the same of everyone else. No modifications here.  Just do it, people.

Annual Goal:Pam will work towards being more spontaneous and just going with the flow.  Hahaha!  Kidding!  She will, however, try to understand the disorganized people of this world and show empathy for their lack of awareness for other people’s lives.

Strategies and Accommodations:Pam will be permitted to not verbalize her feelings but instead roll her eyes and use passive aggressive body language to convey how she feels.

Modeling, role play, rewards, consequences using the assertive discipline approach = chocolate chip cookies accepted as positive rewards.

Establish and use consistent routine, prepare for transitions well in advance. Keep as predictable a schedule as possible = THIS is what I’m talking about, people!

Comments:A program of expected behaviors and consequences will be established. Rewards including first row seats at a Rick Springfield concert, pedicures, and beach getaways for expected behavior will be given at the end of an agreed upon time interval. Negative behavior will not be acknowledged in this tracking format, but will be identified by Pam’s family when she loses her mind because other people aren’t doing what they need to do in order for Pam to function properly.  Should onset of mind loss be detected, husband is instructed to give Pam whatever time she needs at the gym to decompress, as this is her best anti-stress tool.

Going for His M.A. - Minecraft Anonymous

Memo from Mom

To: The American Academy of Pediatrics
Re: You and your entertainment media studies

According to you, “today's children are spending an average of seven hours a day on entertainment media, including televisions, computers, phones and other electronic devices.” Seriously, how is this possible, especially on a school day? Our children are barely home and awake for seven hours. There is homework, sports, dinner and activities. I think you totally made up this statistic, AAP.

However, you did say that number is an average so I guess we need to factor in weekends, too. If I’m doing the math correctly, kids would need to spend about 4 hours per weekday (that equals 20 hours total) and 29 hours on Saturday and Sunday. This would give us 49 hours total for the week, divided by seven days in a week for an average of seven hours per day.

C’mon, though, twenty-nine hours on entertainment media on the weekend? That is about 15 hours per day. What child gets up at 7 a.m. and does not move from an electronic device until 10 p.m., which is past my kids’ bedtime anyway? Fine, we have to take into consideration the older kids, but they wake up later and go to bed later.

Many parents are guilty of letting a lazy day go by with our kids when we simply need them to stay in one place while we accomplish the myriad of things to do on our list. Please, AAP, cut parents some slack and lay off the extreme guilt trip.  You are worse than our mothers.

As parents, we are exhausted. All week long we have worked and cleaned and cooked and driven our offsprings’ butts to practices and friends’ houses. Sometimes saying yes to watching five episodes of Spongebob followed by four hours of what my son considers the greatest video game ever created – Minecraft – is just what a parent needs in order to complete a long-overdue project or just plain think like a normal, functioning human being.

However, crazy statistics which I do not necessarily think were properly researched aside, I understand the demonic effects on a child’s brain and body when the free babysitter rears its horns. On the off chance that you have any credibility, my husband and I decided we needed to enforce some rules around this entertainment media fiasco. We knew too well that if the Betty Ford Clinic opened a Minecraft wing, our son could be first on the list if we didn’t stage our own intervention.

Our rules are pretty simple: our Minecraft addict can only use the computer, iTouch, Xbox, or watch television for one hour a day. He can earn more time by doing recreational reading or by playing. What counts as playing? Since our son enjoys sports and couldn’t care less about toys like Legos or action figures, it’s just some old-fashioned running around, drawing, writing stories, playing self-created ball games (where there is a ball, he will play) – anything that does not involve a wire, battery and/or electricity counts.

Just the other day, our little electronic junkie finished up his 60 minutes of video game/TV/computer bliss. He put down his iTouch and announced, “I’m going to read! Gotta get me some more minutes!”  I beamed proudly, knowing that the detox was slowly taking effect and with any luck, we would avoid the shakes and sweats.

Do we fall off the electronics wagon on the weekends sometimes?  Of course.  We try the best we can to set limits.  Hey, at least we don't walk around bragging that our kid "really doesn't like TV" or "only plays video games on the weekend."  When parents say that, the other parents are all rolling their eyes and coughing into their hands saying, "bullpoop."

Girl Scouts Teach Delicious Life Lessons

Photo by Marit & Toomas Hinnosaar

Memo From Mom

TO: Everyone who has a kid selling something for a fundraiser
RE: Cookies for sale! And wrapping paper and nuts and gift cards and…

I will be the first person to say that Girl Scout Cookie Delivery Day should be a national holiday. All work should cease so that Americans can sit peacefully and binge on Thin Mints, Samoas, Thin Mints and some more Thin Mints. No need to wear your fanciest clothes. Simply don your best elastic waistband pants and settle in for a day of pure cookie nirvana.

I do love Girl Scout Cookies, and am very willing to partake in this old-fashioned, door-to-door sales approach. When a young, eager Girl Scout knocks on my door accompanied by her mom or dad, I have to buy a box or nine of these overpriced artificially preserved delicacies. Even if I shopped with a coupon or two that morning to save a buck, when Girl Scout Cookie time rolls around, I don’t bat an eye at the obscene amount of money it costs for a box of approximately 12 cookies. How could I deny a child working hard and pounding the pavement for her beloved organization? I do it for the charity, I do it for the community and sense of pride for the girls and yes, I do it all for the cookie.

However, when order forms are taped to the lunchroom table at work soliciting my hard-earned money for little Joey’s wrapping paper sale or Janie’s chocolate sale and yes, even for Girl Scout Mary’s Tagalongs, it is quite easy to ignore the silent pleas coming from those faceless forms. This method of passive fundraising doesn’t teach our kids the value of hard work, communication, or graciousness. It simply says, “Look, my kid wants to win a cheap plastic flyer disc. We have no intention of bringing him or her around the neighborhood and teaching our child to say hello, explain the fundraiser to practice good verbal skills, engage in small talk with a neighbor and to say thank you face-to-face with our consumers. We want to get in, get out and get done.”

Let’s add Facebook begging to this, now. We are in the throes of Girl Scout Cookie selling season and I cannot log on to Facebook without being bombarded by people letting me and the world know that their child is selling Girl Scout Cookies. “Patty wants to win an Xbox! Please Buy!” I don’t care if Patty wants to save starving koalas in Australia. Tell Patty to visit or call me and tell me all about the Girl Scouts and how she makes ten cents for her $4.00 box then we’ll talk.

Let's not forget the tried and true best way of selling anything - including beachfront property in Arizona - the grandparents. If time doesn’t allow for neighborhood canvassing and you need to boost sales by a box or 20, hit Grandma up. That’s what we do.

I'm blogging for NJ.com!

Check out my blog posts at NJ.com's parenting blog - the link is NJ.com/parenting.  I post 1-2 times a week   in the same style as this blog.  Things might be a little slower around this site since I'm blogging over there and also writing articles for parenting magazines around the country.  But check back here often as I will be around.  I will also post links to my articles in the magazines here.  The articles are more serious giving information about different parenting topics.  So lots going on in the freelance world but I will not abandon my "baby" - this blog. :)

Resolution from a Real Housewife of New Jersey

Real Housewife Tamra Barney (Orange County) cleans up - at the bank each season.http://www.flickr.com/photos/cleaningquickie

The last New Year’s resolution I made was to walk the dog every day. This was obviously a genius resolution, being made on January 1 in New Jersey, to start walking the dog is sub-zero temperatures. I lasted for about 2 weeks then told Walt, our dog, that he needed to start taking some responsibility for his own health. He had to create and implement his own indoor exercise program because momma wasn’t going outside until she saw a flower poke through the bright green grass.

That was two years ago. Last week, I came up with a lofty New Year's resolution. I will not watch any of the Real Housewives shows. I am a die-hard Real Housewives viewer enjoying Real Housewives of Orange County, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,Real Housewives of New York, and of course, my beloved Real Housewives of New Jersey (I do, however, draw the line at Miami and Atlanta). After a day of work, being mommy, cooking, cleaning, paying bills, making appointments and other actual REAL LIFE housewife duties, I love to become one with my couch and let my brain cells get sucked from my head for an hour.

With a great love and appreciation of such bad, but such good, television, one might wonder what spurred this decision. While watching some pseudo news show about how much some of the housewives make per season, the thought of me contributing to Teresa Giudice's $600,000 per season salary made me want to flip a table. A few other “housewives” were mentioned with season salaries all over $250,000. I decided at that moment that I can no longer contribute to the downfall of America.

I have struggled for quite a while with the reality of these shows, anyway. A housewife, as defined by dictionary.com, is “a married woman who manages her own household, especially as her principal occupation.” Many of the women on the shows are divorced, and/or manage their homes with the help of nannies, personal assistants and other in-home help. They spend their days meeting friends for lunch and talking about other women. Oh, wait. That does sound like some housewives I know.

However, kudos to a few like Vicky from Orange County and Lisa from Beverly Hills as, even though they do not fit the definition, they do actually have careers. Some of the women aren’t just making money off of their so-called fame but have been businesswomen long before they were on the show. They have a brain that is simply masked by their store-bought boobs. A book deal, record deal, or talk-show gig as a result of being on these shows does not count as being talented, motivated or having any sort of intelligence.

I am sure that this resolution will be more of a hiatus than a lifestyle change as I know all too well that when Real Housewives of New Jersey comes back on in the spring, I am going to cave just like Jacqueline gives in to Teresa. My need to see the family drama between the Gorgas and the Giudices will override my current convictions about the evils of these reality shows.

But, hey, it is January 3 and I’ve already lasted longer with my resolution than 25% of Americans.

published on NJ.com January 3, 2013