Bloggers for More Birthdays

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Nothing says you’re getting older more than the phone calls.  Last year, it seemed that every time I picked up the phone it was either someone telling me they were getting divorced, or that they had cancer.  I don’t mean to sound flip.  The first is the end of life as you know it, and the second the potential end of life all together.  But if you can’t find humor in it all, you can’t survive it.  There are even websites devoted to “Cancer Jokes.”  Gotta love the internet.

Still, it’s hard to find anything to smile about when you’re watching someone suffer. Still, I try.  Humor is how I cope with everything from whining kids, to leaky roofs, to sagging bustlines.  So when my mother-in-law was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma this summer, we joked about how chemo would be the best diet ever.  When my college boyfriend found out that his thyroid cancer had metastasized into his lungs, he quipped “Bet now you’re really glad you didn’t marry me!”  And when my own mother went in for her second mastectomy, after already having lost her large intestine to colitis twenty years earlier, we joked that it was “another year, another body part.”

Not truly funny, maybe.  But when you’re terrified, or sad, or desperate, sometimes you’ll laugh, just to make it seem like it’s not that bad. Sometimes you’ll laugh just so you won’t cry.

The End of Vacation: Ahhh!

Sure vacation is over, but it isn’t all bad.  After all, the kids are back in school, I am back at the gym, and Zabars is right around the corner.

Read what else is OK about being back from vacation by clicking over to my weekly post on TravelingMom.com.

Mean Mommy Confessions

The whining, the nagging, the rudeness, the backtalk.  Ah, yes.  The joys of parenting.

I’m sure that whoever you are, your kids are PERFECT.  But it can’t be just me.  Can it?

Please tell me it’s not just me.  That I am not the only mother being driven crazy by her own kids.

Mama, mama, did you see my drawing, mama?
Do you like it, mama?
Mama, mama, I made my own bed, come see, mama.
Mama, mama, I ate all of my lunch.  Isn’t that good mama?
Mama mama mama mama….

It’s enough to make me want to change my name to…Dada.

This summer, my son has decided that he is going to call me mama.  And he is going to call me that twice at the beginning of each sentence, and once at the end.  Basically, the format is:
“Mama. mama (insert need for approval) Mama.”

Then there’s the food.  His favorite used to be grilled chicken.  Suddenly, he deems it “gross.”  He used to eat watermelon.  Now it’s too wet for him.  He used to like cheese sticks.  Now, only fine French cheese will do.  He’s even turning down most types of cookies.  Can you say “control issue?” Meal time has become a game of Russian Roulette — and I’m the one with the gun at my head.

Click here to read the rest of this post at NYC Moms Blog.com.

Who’s Afraid of the Water Park? Me, that’s who.

I have trekked through the rain forests of Costa Rica.  I have biked 18 miles up-hill to the top of  Mount Constitution in Washington State. I have traveled through Turkey – by myself – with blond hair.  But the ideaof going to Splish Splash Water Park terrifies me.

It’s not the possibility of drowning *though there is that), or the inherent germiness of being in a place where so much, and so many, are so damp. (Though there is that, too.)  I’m afraid of it because it means I’ll have to wear a bathing suit in public for an extended period of time.

To read the rest of this post, click here.

Youngening: It’s true! We’re all getting younger!

Forty is the new thirty.  Fifty is the new forty.  Twenty one is the new eighteen.  In fact, my hormones are skyrocketing to adolescent levels even as I type.

It’s the new math.  And Lord knows, I’ve never been much good at math. Funny.  I’m not much good at getting younger as I age, either.

This  new math is everywhere.  It also applies to clothing: What used to be called a size ten is now called a size eight. (Though at Old Navy, they call it a size six.  God bless vanity sizing.) In this economy, it also applies to shopping: what used to cost $30 now is a 50%-off fifteen bucks.

Everything that can have a numerical value associated with it seems to have gone down.  Except, of course, the size a woman is “supposed to be.”

Seems to me that the only value moving backwards the “optimum” size for a woman, as portrayed by TV, magazines, movies, and runway shows.  Because according to them, size six is the new size twelve. In other words:if you’re wearing a size six, you’re big.  Excuse me?  I mean, I’m pretty pleased when I’m in my vanity size 8’s, thank you very much.

Maybe it does make sense. After all, if we’re all getting younger, shouldn’t we all be getting thinner too? Shouldn’t we all be careening towards pre-pubescent hips, flawless skin, and the ability to be out in the freezing cold without a jacket? I don’t know about you, but I’m not “youngening.”  I’ve said it before and I”ll say it again: if forty really is the new thirty, somebody forgot to tell my thighs. And my knees, and my eyesight. I’m not getting thinner and tauter any more than I’m getting younger and more interested in The Jonas Brothers.   My brain may say thirty, but my ovaries say “I don’t think so.”

Genes vs Jeans

They either make my butt look too big, or too broad. They accentuate my gut or give me muffin top.  They are jeans.  The bane of my existence.  My dream is to be able to look good in a white t-shirt, a pair of jeans, and some flip flops.  But it seems that my genes won’t let me look good in my jeans.

If any of you have been paying attention, you’ll know that for the past several months, I’ve been writing for 23andMe as one of their founding community members in the Pregnancy Community.  (And no, I’m not preggers.  I just have been – thus, I qualify.)  According to my genes, I am at a slightly elevated risk for obesity.  According to my genes, I will never look good in the aforementioned jeans, t-shirt and flip flops ensemble.  According to my jeans, my genes are correct.

I find it almost impossible to buy jeans.  If they’re “classic cut” they make my butt look like North Dakota – wide and flat.  If they’re low cut -  well, where do I begin?  How are you supposed to wear underwear with those low-cut jeans?  And if you’re not supposed to wear underwear (yuck!), then what are you supposed to do with your – ahem – furry bits?  Brazillian?  I don’t expect to rhumba any time soon.  Plus, I find it more than slightly offensive that men – with their hairy backs, fuzzy butts, and occasional ear hair, deem it “sexy” for a grown woman to be hairless “down there.”  Call me crazy, but that smacks of pedophilia to me.

Then there’s the question of how to keep those low-cut jeans from falling down.  Many’s the time I walked behind a teenage home-boy, wondering how he does it.  It truly is a miracle of fashion physics.  Their pants stay up, even with their waistbands way down.

SO I was already worried enough about my jeans, when suddenly my genes had to complicate things.

According to my genes, I am also at greater risk for developing diabetes.  Yet this doesn’t phase me.  Genes only slightly influence diabetes.  I figure that if I exercise and eat right, it won’t be a problem.  But obesity?  I’m a girl who watches each cookie I eat deposit itself as fat on my upper thighs.  I am a girl who almost always buys the size large.  I am the girl with back-muffin-top.  You know, at the bra line?  This obesity gene – is serious business. IT’S FREAKING ME OUT!

And because of that diabetes risk, I can even have a pint of chocolate chip mint to soothe my worried mind.

Darn you, jean-etics!

Can I Have Mothers Day Off?

Here’s a typical day for me:

Wake up. Check mirror. Cringe. But realize there’s no time to shower. I’ve got to get the kids to school no later than 8:25. Since this is NYC, I do not have the option to get in my car in my pajamas, drop off my kids, and drive home before anyone notices me. I have to get dressed and try to achieve some semblance of presentability before leaving the house. I also have to get my kids ready, which means endless repetitions of “get dressed, brush your teeth, put your socks on, where’s your homework, sit down while you eat, you have to go to the bathroom now?, where’s your other shoe, hit the elevator button, and do you have your Metrocard?” Once we finally achieve the impossible and leave the house on time, we have to walk the four blocks to the city bus stop, hope the bus comes, hope when it does come the dispatcher doesn’t hold it there while he yacks about the Yankees with the driver and leaves all us parents and commuters seething, ride the bus across town, walk the six blocks to school from the bus stop, climb five flights of stairs to their classrooms, and then do the whole thing in reverse. All before 9am.

Once I’m home, do the breakfast dishes, make the beds, pick up their toys, check my email, look in the refrigerator for something to eat, try to get some writing done, procrastinate by cleaning out the linen closet (really just a few shelves in my bedroom cabinet, but it makes me feel better to call it a linen closet), realize that the crack in the living room ceiling is getting ominously bigger, make mental note to do something about it…eventually, open the refrigerator again as if expecting new food to have magically appeared since the last time I opened it forty minutes ago, run some errands, go to the gym, shower (finally), prepare dinner, prepare snacks, pick up kids, serve snacks, help with homework, greet the husband, serve the dinner, clean the dishes, tuck in the kids, pay some bills, do some online shopping (my son is growing at an alarming rate), knit a few rows of the sweater I’ve been working on for three years, collapse in front of the TV, converse with husband, (monosyllables, at best), wash up, put on pajamas, get into bed, and try to get enough sleep so I can do it all again the next day.

So you know what I want for Mother’s Day? A day off. I want to wake up in a nether world where my kids don’t want anything from me other than to shower me with praise and love. I want to live in an apartment where the beds are made by invisible imps who don’t come to you with their problems, don’t put away your favorite jeans somewhere you can’t find them, and never ever ask for a raise. I want to go to the gym and not worry about how soon I have to be back, or whether or not it’s fair to my husband to have to stay home with the kids when he’s been working all week and I’ve been able to go to the gym whenever I want to (Ha!). I want to shower in the morning, and have time to blow-dry my hair. I want to make one thing for dinner and have everyone eat it. Or better yet, have someone else make it, and do the dishes afterward.

It’s not that I don’t realize that I’m lucky. My children are healthy. We are not poor, or starving, or displaced by war, or floods, or fire. I have a loving husband, a caring family, a comfortable home. I am not ill, or in peril. I get it: I’m one of the lucky ones. Which makes me feel all the worse that all I really want for Mother’s Day is a day off.

I want a Mother’s Day Off. A day off from the guilt, and the worry, and the responsibility. A day off from the whining and complaining, and instant refusal to try any new food, even if it’s just a different brand of chicken nugget. I want to have a day where no one talks back, everyone does as they’re told and my breasts miraculously return to their pre-I’ve-breast-fed-two-kids state, and pass the pencil test with ease.

I want a bouquet of freshly picked flowers, sunshine and warmth without that

New York

humidity. I want to be like a character in an old Fred Astaire movie, burst into song, know all the words, have a full orchestra accompanying me, and dance the foxtrot like nobody’s business.

Ok, well, maybe I’m getting carried away.

How about I just knock it down to wanting to sleep in and not have to do the breakfast dishes? Oh, and if I do decide to burst into song, I don’t want anybody to laugh.

Hey, it’s Mother’s Day. Is that really so much to ask?

Put some clothes on!!!

This week, summer prematurely came to New York and with it, came a few discoveries. 

1. People on the East Side spend a lot of time on their knees, while people on the West Side spend a lot of time on their food.  How else to explain the plethora of tulips, hyacinths, and daffodils sprouting from every tree-trunk garden  from East 69th Street to East 91st Street, and the presence of Zabars, Citarella, H&H, Barney Greengrass and Fairway in roughly the same area on the West Side of town?

2. When your children scooter to school, it is unwise to wear your brand new bright yellow beaded Rafe flats.  You will get blisters.  You will bleed.  The yellow will turn orange.  And not in a good way.You don’t want orange shoes.

3. Whichever Ice Cream your child wants from the Ice Cream vendor whether it’s neon green shots, disgusting Sponge Bob ice with gumball eyes, or even the basic Ice Cream sandwich — said vendor will be out of it.

4. I am old.

No,  this isn’t about my upcoming birthday (Sunday – feel free to leave birthday greetings right here in the comment section.  No.  Really. Do.)  This isn’t about saggy knees, or brown spots, or elbows that look as if they’ve been crumpled up in the back of a drawer for a few decades.  No, I know I am old because I am consistently horrified by what “young girls” are wearing.

Yes, it seems I have jumped right from young mom in trendy threads, to disapproving Grandma in hip-high underwear without stopping at middle-aged woman still trying to be relevant.

But seriously.

Is there some rule that if you are female and possessing of a bustline you must display it so prominently that one might think your are at a State Fair, vying for the blue ribbon in Breast Augmentation?

Bagels are Kosher for Passover, right?

I had a bagel for breakfast today.  Normally, that wouldn’t be a big deal.  Maybe not the wisest choice, given the tagline of my blog– but not such a big deal, either.

Except that I’m Jewish, it’s Passover, and I’m not supposed to be eating bagels. I’m supposed to be eating Matzoh.  So I’m feeling a bit guilty.  Mind you I don’t feel guilty the rest of the year when I eat cheeseburgers (I’m not “supposed to” mix milk and meat), lobster (no bottom feeders, either), or fry up some bacon on a Saturday morning. (Too many “not supposed to’s” to count.)  I’m not a religious person at any time during the year.  My husband and I even belong to a Humanistic Synagogue, which celebrates and affirms the cultural and ethnic aspects of Judaism, without all the higher power stuff.

I’m not kosher ; I almost never go to synagogue (even the Humanistic one); and though my family and I do celebrate Shabbat most Friday nights, it’s about a two-minute ceremony, after which I may serve roast loin of pork. Seriously.

And yet.

I feel guilty for eating a bagel.

Twittering Counts as Exercise, right?

I got up this morning and got dressed to go to the gym.

But am I at the gym?

Nope.  I’m Twittering and emailing, and blogging, and reading some of the blogs that I like.

But I am wearing exercise clothing — which must count for something. (Doesn’t intent burn calories?)  I am moving my fingers at astonishing speeds. (Thank you Mr. Henry, my tenth grade typing teacher.) I must be losing weight, just by using Twitter.

Let me count the ways:

1. The outfit. (LuLu Lemon, I love you for making my butt look small.)

2. The finger speed (see above)

3. Twittering is like having a big long disjointed conversation with a whole lot of people you don’t really know.  It can be exhausting. Exhaustion means you’re burning calories, right?

4. When I Twitter, I think about all of the other things I should be doing.  I imagine myself exercising instead, for example. Imagination is SO SO powerful.  Aren’t we always telling out kids that?  Something that powerful MUST count as exercise. I mean, really.

5. Also, When I Tweet (oh, I SO know the lingo, don’t I?) I occasionally get up from my desk, walk to the kitchen, open up the pantry door, and grab a snack. And if that doesn’t burn calories, well, what does?

So for all you Tweets (Tweople?) out there who think that sitting at a desk, typing on your laptop, and chatting with your virtual friends all day might not be the best choice for your (literal) bottom line….take heart! You’re Twittercizing! Feel the burn.