The Good Humor Man...Woman...Child

For today's post I have dredged up some comedic vignettes I penned about a decade ago. I seemed to have written them from a mother's perspective. How convenient.

IN LIFE

Enter Satan on a neon pink surfboard -

"Yo dude! How many times have you sinned?!"

The president of the PTA is mad.

He upstaged her son, the asparagus.

The holiday play could not be saved.

If I hang up I will have sinned.

I have not worked this hard to end up in the land of boogie boards.

So I tell her that her son stole the show.

He might even end up on Broadway.

You know, maybe play a vegetarian Hamlet.

She hung up.

That wasn't very nice - she never once said a word about my son the snowball.

Do you know how hard it is to put a straight zipper in a circular, bunny fur costume?

And then find out your son is allergic to bunny fur.

At 2am I baked thirty Christmas tree cookies for 15 second graders.

Then the fat kid in the second row threw up all over them.

At that point in life you just want to smile, stand back...and throw up on the kid.

The devil made me do it.

FOR THE BETTER

Something is burning.

But I am on the phone and cannot hang up.

After all, the nice lady is telling me that the florist's van carrying three dozen marigold's for Aunt Bernice's funeral -

Has been hijacked.

Hello dear - how was your day? Uh-huh.

Listen, your Aunt Bernice's marigolds are being sold on the black market in Akron, Ohio.

Oh and I discovered I used yellow fingerprint instead of mustard on the kids' sandwiches.

Watch out for that damp spot in the living room.

The blackened catfish exploded in the oven.

Someone put Snoopy stickers on my glasses lenses and I could not see.

Don't you agree that five looks like a three?

The pizza turtle arrives in exactly 29 minutes.

It is cold.

It has anchovies.

And the delivery guy has no change.

The successful warrior should have three weapons.

The power of fear, a big army and pizza delivery.

SO LITTLE TIME

I am late.

It is ten minutes to the hour when I will fall writhing to the ground in the midst of a nervous breakdown.

I am only too grateful to be spending the last moments of my sanity in a traffic jam and listening to the radio play something that sounds like "I bit your arm off in love."

Oh goody.

The couple in the car in front of me are obviously dying of some fast acting disease.

They seem to think there will not be time to make it to a hospital.

So they have commenced vigorously displaying their undying love for one another.

Right. Now.

Oh god.

It's catching.

The man in the car next to me is rolling his eyes at me.

What does it mean when he smiles at me like that?

Maybe his underwear is too tight.

I guess I'll never know.

His tie appears to have gotten wrapped around the steering wheel.

Now his eyes are rolling in the opposite direction.

God, men confuse me.

RECESSION FASHION P.S.

Memorial Day weekend is upon us and we can celebrate the beginning of summer! Whee!! Wear a comfy pair of shorts and a cool tank. Throw on some shoe bling and relax.

The Committee for a National Mountain Day

I was a giant goober this weekend.

I drove to Massachusetts for my 15th reunion at Mount Holyoke College and cried.

A lot.

I cried driving on to campus, I cried during the Laurel Parade, I cried driving home from campus, and even memorialized my shnuffles at one point on the love of my life's voicemail.

It is amazing how four years out of 37 can define you.

For many people the decision to attend college is intense. For a lucky segment of the population attending college is a given.

Whichever group you were in, chances are you spent a great deal of your high school years contemplating college and its myriad possibilities.

Admittedly, an all female college experience is a hard sell to the average hormonal teenage girl.

As I roamed campus this weekend, contemplating the art museum, the athletic awards, the faculty and innovative curriculum, I thought back to the point in high school when I made my decision to attend MHC.

My mother being of the era when women's colleges were the norm, was the one who introduced me to them - I actually think my best college interview hands down was at Wellesley. Mom even sent me on a prospective visit to Smith.

But Mount Holyoke wasn't on the radar screen. Something about her childhood chum Lou getting sent home from MHC for being scathingly unprepared in the art of constructing a good sentence had scared the bejeezus out of her. A cautionary tale oft repeated to me throughout my four years at MHC. I kid you not, on graduation day Momgoose let out a deep breath and said thank god they did not send you home like Lou!

The schools were nice, I liked New England and could care less by the women only thing - however I remained ambivalent.

But on that fateful prospective weekend at Smith my junior year of high school, I toodled over to visit my godsister at Mount Holyoke. We strolled across the campus chatting and eventually arrived at a waterfall.

Thirty-six hours later I arrived home to my mother's anxious inquiry - Did you just love Smith??

Actually no! I said. However, Mount Holyoke is the best school in the world! Did you know they have two waterfalls??

The best decision I have ever made was because of a waterfall.

I had no idea that I would meet the smartest, craziest, caring, uncommon women who would challenge me, love me, school me and accept me.

Whether we chose Mount Holyoke for its curriculum, riding or crew, the arts program, or because it had a waterfall - we came together and made a home.

And in the immortal words of L. Frank Baum -- There is no place like home.

What's on Tap?

"I find people with children to be tyrants," she said. "As someone who doesn't have children, I think children are fine. I don't think they own everything." (1)

Recently there have been a number of articles in The New York Times and Washington Post with negative commentary on parents of toddlers and babies hanging out in bars or popular restaurants.

This is not a new war -- parent v. non-parent brawls have been raging since the 80's. But now I have a perspective from both sides.

Among the apparent blights on a restaurant or bar's ambience is the intrepid stroller. I get that.

We got the Bugaboo Chameleon and all of its tricked out humvee glory. And man, is it a pain in the tuckus. It is bulky, heavy and maneuvers around corners with the agility of a rhinoceros.

I much prefer our current slimline Maclaren fold up - leaves us lots of space for the party of four at the table next to us -- make that six -- oh wait seven - to add chairs to their table as their friends decide to join them for dinner.

Another infringement on the dining / drinking experience is the child. They talk. Apparently, loudly. In a cafe. During happy hour.

That young whipper snapper generation thinks of everything! The new bar happy hour - a quiet, contemplative space. Genius!

But seriously, babies and children are loud. They can disrupt the low murmur of respectable adults enjoying an adult experience in a lovely setting.

They can...*ring* All the single ladies! *ring* All the single ladies! *ring* "Hello? We are at the steak house. What? Speak up I cannot hear you!"

...they can...

"Yeah, that steak house. No the last time we got seafood I got sick, remember? In July. I said July! Yeah, it was awful."

...pardon the interruption, there is someone across the room taking a cell call...

"So where are you? Let me ask. Frank wants to know where we are going next? Wait, Frank let me call you back, it's really loud in here! There's a baby ya know. A baby I said! Okay let me call you back."

Uh-huh. The baby is always the problem.

Yes, there are parents who treat the public landscape like their own personal daycare. Yes, I have wanted to throttle a munchkin or two on the airplane.

But.

Giving birth does not regulate one to the house after 4pm.

No, I am not going to haul widdums to the bar with me at 9pm and throw back a few before a couple of rounds of beer pong. But yes, when said pub has outside seating and it is 6pm on a Friday of a long week, yeah, I am going hook up the booster seat and grab a libation.

Not only is it my responsibility as a parent to pay attention to the environment in which I introduce my child but I am equally responsible to pay attention to how my child interacts with that environment.

I am aware of those around me - but I cannot help it if Baby C is having a bad day. I'll move as quickly as possible to extricate the wailing time bomb. What I wish is that everyone else had the same consideration - those with AND without children.

But I am not hoisting the gangplank for 18 years before I venture in to a three star restaurant with my whole family.

(1) New Baby Boom Fosters Culture Clash: Parents vs. Public Spaces By Annys Shin, Washington Post Staff Writer , Sunday, May 16, 2010.

Comfort Food

One of the very first things a mother worries about is food.

From how long to breastfeed to when to start solids to juice or no juice to peanut allergies to scheduling family meal time -- food plays a primary part of the mothering role.

Food is a wonderful thing.

Perfectly salted, warm edemame.

Deep fried snickers.

Liver pate on toast points.

I have no patience for food snobs.

A palate should sample, compare, reject and crave. Your palate should drive your food appreciation. You should not dictate what your palate will or won't like. This is the theory upon which I hope to approach food with Baby C.

As a mother of a daughter, I am well aware of the potential issues that may revolve around food as she enters the years of body awareness / obsession. I can only hope that I instill in her the same love for and appreciation of food that my mother instilled in me.

My mother was a gourmand before her time and still is - and I was blessed to sample the riches.

In my toddler years my mother was a SAHM and we started every day settling in to breakfast - me with my 3 scrambled eggs. Every day.

Dinner time was a nothing to it (!!!) feast of cheese souffle or chicken a la king with homemade pastry or prime rib and yorkshire pudding or brunswick stew.

The neatest thing about my mom is that she appreciates food at all levels of the spectrum. Many a weekend morning we would careen out of the house in our bathrobes to the Hardee's drive thru for sausage biscuits before the menu switched to lunch.

Dinner was ALWAYS sit down as a family. Always.

Even after the divorce and she was working her tuckus off we had a full dinner, table set, conversation rolling. Comfort food defined.

And on those nights when time was tight and her multi-tasking was stretched to its limit we still sat down to dinner. Like the time during tax season when we hit the local High's for banana splits for dinner -- we SAT down in the High's to eat them as a family and discuss our day before rushing off to the accountant.

Seriously.

I love my mom.

The other food lesson I have learned from my mom is that there is no proper food for a certain age. We ate what was served us and it was what my parents were eating and we did not leave the table until a good effort was made to eat it.

She did not obssess over whether, say, by introducing cheese grits before the baked potato it would decrease the likelihood that I would settle for the potato after enjoying the gooey grits. It was not an option - if the potato was on the table, the potato was it, take it or leave it. She was not alarmed that I downed her divinity candy like a child on crack because, I attacked the nightly waldorf side salad with the same vigor.

Mom was no food tyrant. We were not guilted into submission by tales of starving children. Rather it was her attitude toward food that drew us in. She just plain loves food. It is evident in the ease with which she moves in the kitchen, the pride in the presentation of a dish and her fascination with foods of different cultures.

For my mom, whether making a grilled cheese or baking sally lunn bread, food is creativity and comfort and caring. It is not a puzzle of creating the “proper” food combination to fuel the future Secretary of State. (Although…)

I was reminded of this a few weeks ago. At the store Baby C spotted a set of juice boxes. At this point we have not introduced juice to Baby C's food regimen. But lo and behold Baby C points to the juice box and says clear as day, "Juice!".

Well hell.

I started to fluff and flutter that she had obviously had juice somewhere. I was a possessed woman. No juice! No juice!!

Then my mom put it all in perspective.

"It is juice. Wait until she eats an entire bottle of Scooby vitamins in one sitting (that would be me) or actively requests a hit of the kiddy codeine (me again). By the way, do you think she would like some of my crab dip if I made it?"

We had not tested shellfish yet. Sigh.

Clearly, I need to take a few more pointers from mom. I need to roll with it and let Baby C join me as a non-discriminating admirer of food, glorious food!!

(Except restaurant buffets. They skeeze me out.)

For years to come I will make Baby C my mom’s recipes and hope that along the way I teach her manners, how to say grace, the right utensils to eat and cook with, to love family mealtime…to appreciate food.

In all of its many fabulous forms.

The Newest Entry in K's Guilt Hall of Fame

Mom guilt is universal.

I signed up for it, I get that. I accept it - not very graciously but I accept it.

Okay, so I fuss about it, obsess over it, over compensate...but still, it was no surprise that there would be mom guilt.

Recently, I have begun experiencing a new kind of mom guilt - a kind of sub-category I will call spousal guilt.

This sub-guilt comes with a nasty viral strain of annoyance making it rather complex and immune to known antibiotics such as massage, mystery books and jewelry.

Things at work have heated up recently and in true gentlemanly form the love of my life has offered on occasion to be the "pick up" for Baby C's care in the evening so I can work late.

Typically he has morning duty and I, the evening, which requires my leaving at precisely always too soon o'clock from work. Which can be frustrating if you have for instance, recently had your workload doubled.

So the guilt...

What if I do not feel like working late on the evening proffered??

What if tomorrow is better? What if it is better next Tuesday when, unbeknownst to me, hell shall wrent a jag in my deadlines and I will need to work late?

What if I say "No, thanks. Not tonight." - will that say to the love of my life that I am not really that busy such that I am not jumping like a parched runner in the Sahara 10K at the chance for time to keep working?

Is there something wrong with me that I am not grasping at every opportunity get my work done and excel, heck, maybe even exceed mine and other's expectations?

On a good day I say nay.

I say well, maybe it is because I lay awake last night making mental lists of house and work stuff and that my early morning accomplished two tasks around house before leaving for work and tonight when I get home I have four more things to get done and I'll actually probably toodle on some work stuff too -- so noooo...tonight isn't going to work to stay late at the office.

On an average day I figure I am really just lazy.

But there it is. A simple thing really.

A kind offer of time.

So why is it that my immediate thought is - Time on someone else's terms?

That, my friends, is my new guilt.