Back from the Brink (Otherwise Known as Being Buried in Work)

The Picket Fence Post family has not fallen off of the face of the earth, nor has it been swept away in the winds of the hurricane.

We've been here, in the Picket Fence Post domicile in the suburbs of Boston, with our three middle schoolers who've been busy doing their adolescent things (including busting a cell phone, overdoing it with the noxious and likely toxic Axe body spray and testing their, uh, independence). We've been here with our freshly emboldened canine thief who aggressively dives at any unattended food with surprising swiftness given his stout build (like that slice of apple pie Max stole from my plate the other night the second I got up from the sofa). We've gone to soccer games, hockey games, band rehearsals, basketball tryouts, and I broke my left ring-finger (I think it was broken but I didn't go to the doctor to confirm because I'm an idiot) while "helping" the kids prep for said basketball tryouts.

We shelled out a healthy fistful of greenbacks for a hideously stupid-looking orange bodysuit (see above), also known as our 11-year-old's Halloween costume. We mourned the horrific conclusion of a Red Sox season which, sadly, resembled the kinds of seasons I used to experience when I was but a young Sox fan in my Sox jacket decorated with my Dwight Evans button, never imagining I'd have to wait until I was the mother of three to see a Boston World Series victory.

Together, the five of us in the Picket Fence Post family have shared laughs during the new episodes of Modern Family (loved the bit about Luke besting Phil at magic) and The Middle. The Eldest Boy and I are still catching up on the new season of The Mentalist, a show we like to watch together.

But I haven't been doing any writing. For weeks. And it's been driving me crazy. It's like trying to hold your breath for too long. It's unnatural and not at all good for you, at least it's not good for me.

Likewise, I haven't done a few other things that I normally do at this time of the year, like take the family apple picking, visit a pumpkin patch where we pay too much for giant gourds, carve said gourds and leave them to rot in a moldly heap on our front doorstep until Thanksgiving, or go to the Big E, the New England fair held in western Massachusetts and indulge in overly caloric, fried grub that would make Michael Bloomberg woozy.

Why? Why have I been off of my writing game and missed my celebrate-my-favorite-season-of-autumn-activities? I've become a full-time assistant professor teaching writing and journalism at a local institution of higher learning. In short order, I needed to craft not just a syllabus for the writing course, but create a new course about online and social media. In addition to teaching/grading and researching/designing a class, I've been helping to advise the staff of the student newspaper two nights a week.

The other big thing that has rendered me exhausted to the point where I don't think mere flavored coffee alone is potent enough to keep me awake over the long-term (I may have to look into those Turbo shot thingies at Dunkin' Donuts) is a non-fiction book project I've been researching for months. I'm in the process of conducting dozens of interviews as well as observing an educational process (can't give you the details now) three mornings a week. We're talking EARLY in the morning. Six o'clock hour early. The if-I-don't-get-caffeine-into-my-system-NOW-somebody's-gonna-get-hurt early.

However, despite sleep deprivation, autumnal celebration deprivation and coping with pediatric complaints about my new gig (one of the kids accused me of ruining this individual's life by taking a full-time job because, you know, I have nothing better to do than to concoct ways in which I can wreck his life, right?), I'm hopeful that things are becoming somewhat manageable right now, or maybe it's just the sleep deprivation talking.

Image credit: SuperFanSuits.com and Jordin Althaus/ABC.

Quick Hits: Clothes Shopping Hell, Oodles of Braces & No Second Dog (Yet)

Clothes Shopping Hell

The Picket Fence Post kids keep doing this growing this, lately in giant, sudden spurts. The amount of time in which they have to wear their clothes before they turn into high-waters or become so tight that they look like something the Hulk might wear seems to be shrinking. It seems like we're buying new shoes and cleats constantly. The boys' pants aren't worn enough to get rips in the knees.

Thus I took the three kids to Old Navy this week in order to pick up some inexpensive shirts and sports shorts, given that they said, "Nothing fits anymore!" It proved to be bad timing. Did every other mother with kids home for spring vacation have the same idea? The place was mobbed. Between following my offspring around to make sure they picked out the right sizes and nothing too expensive (or inappropriate, like 2-inch long shorts that the store was peddling to girls), it got chaotic, prompting me to start sweating and my patience to evaporate, which is why I think was of the kids who shall remain nameless, was able to sneak in a Lakers shirt without me realizing it. I'm not much of a shopper anyway, so having to go clothes shopping with three children in a packed store . . . well, let's say I'd rather have my teeth cleaned.

The spring shopping excursion then led to another one of my least favorite tasks, one I avoid as much as possible: Going through the kids' clothing to find items that no longer fit, determining which items can be passed down to someone else and making the kids try on certain items, even when they swear that they didn't fit when, in reality, they're just trying to get rid of the unwanted item so I can no longer bug them about why they don't wear it any more. (When I make them take the item back, they resort to cramming it in the back of a drawer hoping I won't see it until another clothing purge session.)

And we didn't even have an open bottle of wine in the house.

By the time all the sorting and shouting was completed, and after I'd uttered my version of "money doesn't grow on trees" and "do you know how much these clothes cost?" parenting classics, we all so needed the laughs that Modern Family afforded us. I love Manny.

Braces, We've Got Braces

Adding insult to the whole shopping debacle was the fact that The Eldest Boy got braces on his lower teeth before our Old Navy trip. Plus, his top braces were tightened. The kid was in some serious pain. And Tylenol didn't really help.

The Girl, meanwhile, was informed that in two months' time the palate expander on the roof of her mouth -- which has been pushing her teeth outward to make more space -- will be removed and replaced with a full set of braces on the upper and lower teeth. Cue the groaning and teenage complaining. Times two.

This ought to be fun: Two pubescents enduring frequent pain in their teeth, begging for milkshakes, soft food and Tylenol. I think I'd better buy the Tylenol by the gross.

No Dog #2 (For Now)

This searching for a second dog is stressing me out.

We've tried several times in the past month to adopt rescue dogs I've seen on PetFinder -- dogs the Picket Fence Post family thinks will fit in nicely and get along with our 3-year-old, 25-pound Max -- but our efforts have thus far been fruitless. We came close last week to getting an adorable Havanese puppy mix (Max is a Havanese/Wheaten mix), but alas, we submitted our application after another nice family who eventually adopted the little guy.

A few days ago, I scared the pants off of The Spouse when, after bringing some donations to a local dog shelter with The Girl, I wound up placing a $25 deposit on a puppy with whom The Girl absolutely fell in love. She'd insisted on returning to the puppy area multiple times, after I said it was time to go, and snuggled with this one adorable, silken puppy. Although I can now admit that the puppy, whose lineage is unknown, would grow to be a fairly large dog, larger than what The Spouse and I had agreed upon, I was in a vulnerable place having lost out on the other puppy last week. I foolishly acceded to The Girl's request to put a 24-hour hold on the puppy and even allowed myself to begin thinking of names for her.

However when I showed The Spouse photos and a video of the dog, he said aloud what I was thinking but didn't want to admit: The cuddly dog would be bigger than we wanted. I sheepishly followed The Spouse up to The Girl's bedroom and informed her that we wouldn't be adopting the puppy. I think I took it harder than she did.

I've decided to stop trolling the PetFinder web site for a while. I need a break.

Image credit: PetFinder.

A Laugh When We Really Needed One: Claire Campaigns for Town Council

Take one part political debate, one part farce and one part auto-tuned, viral YouTube video and what do you get? The really funny latest episode of Modern Family, “Little Bo Bleep.” I really needed to laugh out loud and this new episode delivered. And after the week everyone in my house had, this had us rolling.

Remember a year ago during the ill-fated Valentine’s Day hook-up Phil and Claire tried to arrange at a nearby hotel? They were going to meet in a hotel room but Phil went into the wrong one, stripped down to his birthday suit and was discovered in a stranger’s hotel room and later was questioned by police. That incident came back to haunt Claire as the straight-laced mom of three saw her campaign for town council potentially derailed by the antics of naked Phil. And Claire was already worried about a new poll where voters said she was “unlikable,” hence her home debate prep with the Dunphy clan.

If you haven’t yet seen the episode, which also features a storyline about toddler Lily’s sudden affection for the F-word (Cam and Mitchell disagreed about how to handle a sudden spike in pint-sized profanity), do yourself a favor and watch. It’s available online for free.

Best line of the episode: "I am Phil Dunphy and I am not a pervert."

*Originally posted on Notes from the Asylum*

Couple of Parent-Centric Columns: Lessons from 2011's TV Parents & Why Moms Should Run for Office

Lessons from 2011's TV Parents

It's been quite the year for parents on the small screen.

We've been entertained by the hijinks of the Modern Family's Claire & Phil Dunphy and their bedroom door that should've had a lock on it before their kids surprised them at inopportune moment.

We've seen Parenthood's Adam and Kristina Braverman try and fail to ban their teen daughter from dating an older man who had his own apartment.

We witnessed The Middle's Frankie and Mike Heck declare themselves to be free from their children's unreasonable demands which reduced them to little more than unpaid, disrespected servants (although the self-declared freedom was short-lived).

We laughed as Up All Night's new parents, Chris and Reagan Brinkley, tried in vain to prove that they're hip and cool and able to party it up on weeknights, even though their baby isn't sleeping through the night yet, they're sleep deprived and Reagan needed to work in the morning.

My recent Pop Culture and Politics column details these child-rearing lessons that I gleaned from watching TV parents during 2011.

Why Moms Should Run for Office

In another recent Pop Culture and Politics column I extended an invitation to women who are raising the next generation to run for public office because, all too often, women's voices are not heard or represented in our elected bodies.

The advocacy group She Should Run offered up this dour data on the state of women in American politics:

• "Women hold only 17 percent of the seats in Congress."
• "State legislatures only have 23 percent women."
• "Only 6 out of 50 states have a female governor."
• "The United States trails behind the rest of the world -- ranking 87th in the number of women in our national legislature."
• ". . . [W]omen are 50 percent less likely than men to seriously consider running for office, less likely than men to actually run for office and far less likely to run for higher office."

As one of the founders of The White House Project (whose goals include electing a female commander in chief) said in the powerful documentary Miss Representation, when it comes to our daughters, "You can't be what you can't see."

Image credit: She Should Run.

Three for Thursday: Fall TV's Families, Early Risers & Bronchitis Blows

Fall TV’s Families

As the fall TV season kicks off in earnest, I’ve been paying close attention to shows that feature parents and families . . . at least those which tickle my fancy. This was the focus of this week’s pop culture column over on Modern Mom/Mommy Tracked where I previewed the shows which I’m planning to record on my DVR.

Among the returning shows I’m anxious to see are ABC’s Modern Family, CBS’ The Good Wife and BC’s Parenthood. (I reviewed the rather disappointing Parenthood season premiere here, though I’m fairly certain it’ll improve.)



Two new comedies about which I’m holding onto some lofty hopes are NBC’s Up All Night with Christina Applegate and Will Arnett as potty-mouthed new parents (you can watch the pilot episode on the web site) and ABC’s Suburgatory about a single dad (Jeremy Sisto who was great as the messed up brother Billy in Six Feet Under) who moves his teenage daughter from New York City to the ‘burbs in an attempt to provide her with a more protective, wholesome environment. The sharp, snarky pilot reminds me of the freshman season of Desperate Housewives which expertly satirized the faux perfection of the suburbs.

What shows are you eagerly waiting for?

Early Risers

The Eldest Boy asked The Spouse and me to drive him to school for 7 a.m. every day this week in order to get a little extra drum practice with his teacher leading up to the middle school band tryouts next week. (Yes, we’ve got a drummer boy in da house. And thank God he’s good because if he wasn’t, I’d be buying myself some pricey noise-canceling headphone . . . and Tylenol by the gross.)

Meanwhile The Youngest Boy, who also plays the drums/percussion instruments in the fifth grade band, has claimed that he too is supposed to arrive early to school for band practice as well. Only he’s not quite sure when exactly, which makes getting him where he’s supposed to be a tad, um, tricky. I think he simply guessed that he had to be there early yesterday, so I hauled my fanny out of bed early – The Spouse had already driven The Eldest Boy to school – to drop him off at school. That afternoon he reported that he and another kid just wound up sitting in the office until school started because the band teacher wasn’t there. His mistake or the teacher's I’m not quite sure. (Last year The Youngest Boy missed a bunch of band practices because he hadn’t been listening to the teacher when he announced the dates and times.)

All I know is that I was up, dressed and had applied make-up every morning this week well before I normally would have and if it was for no good reason, I'll be. I’ve sent The Youngest Boy's band teacher an e-mail asking him when I’m supposed to roll out of bed early and bring my fifth grader early. I’m still waiting to hear back.

Bronchitis Blows

Last week it was The Girl who not only came down with a vicious case of strep throat which caused her to miss three days of school (after not having been in school for a full week yet), but she also developed what we believe was Scarlet Fever. (Yeah, sounds Dickensonian doesn’t it, or something out of a Jane Austen novel? But when you’re already taking antibiotics, as The Girl was, this side effect of strep isn’t a big concern, or so the pediatrician's office told us.) She rebounded nicely and was well enough to play soccer on Saturday morning.

A few days later, The Youngest Boy started complaining of a sore throat and of feeling poorly – a strep test was negative though – although he never became sick enough to stay home from school or stop participating in activities.

Then there’s me, who catches everything that goes by as if I’m fly paper. Although I miraculously did not contract The Girl’s strep (despite the fact that I’d been snuggling with her the night before she was symptomatic), I have developed a sore throat and vicious cough, the kind that you feel deep within your chest, like an itch that you just can’t scratch. (I only get relief from said itch when I pound on my chest to loosen the phlegm. Sounds awesome, right? You know you’re jealous.) Plus my voice has already started going hoarse, as it does at least three times during the fall/winter season.

A quick check of my symptoms on various, illustrious medical web sites indicate I likely have bronchitis, something I get rather often, and the only treatment is really no treatment at all. Other than rest, which I can’t really get with 14 million kids’ activities going on.

So when I sound like I’m coughing up a lung at Curriculum Night at my fifth grade son’s school tonight, hopefully the school nurse won’t march on over and hand me a face mask as the other parents inch away from me.

Three for a Thursday: Must-Read Parenting Article, TV Dads & Bruins Prevail

You Really Should Read This Article

The Atlantic's July/August issue has a provocative piece about the price children pay when their parents try to shield them from hurt, try to do everything for them and just focus on making the kids happy (I’m so guilty of the last one).

The end result? Unhappy twenty- and thirtysomethings who are ticked and disillusioned to discover that, once that they’re on their own, life isn’t all unicorns and rainbows people don’t constantly tell you you’re awesome and it seems like your entire happy childhood was somehow a lie.

Therapist Lori Gottlieb, also a mother, wrote that she’s seen a growing number of twentysomething and young thirtysomething patients who praise their parents but have had trouble “choosing or committing to a satisfying career path, struggled with relationships and just generally felt a sense of emptiness or lack of purpose.”

Gottlieb quoted psychologist and author Wendy Mogel saying, “Well-intentioned parents have been metabolizing [children’s] anxiety for them their entire childhoods so they don’t know how to deal with it when they grow up.”

A Los Angeles family psychologist added: “We’re confusing our own needs with our kids’ needs and calling it good parenting . . . I can’t tell you how often I have to say to parents that they’re putting too much emphasis on their kids’ feelings because of their own issues. If a therapist is telling you to pay less attention to your kid’s feelings, you know something has gone way out of whack.”

TV Dads: From the Doting to the Dreadful

In honor of Father’s Day, I surveyed today’s primetime dads and found that for every doting and devoted dad (like Parenthood’s Adam Braverman and Friday Night Lights’ Eric Taylor) there are also some dreadful drunks who no one would want to have as a paternal role model (like Mad Men’s Don Draper and Rescue Me’s Tommy Gavin).

I also left room for the lovable dopey dads like Modern Family’s Phil Dunphy who has a heart of gold and the common sense of a paper clip. The video above showcases how one of Phil's "big" ideas -- using the family's minivan to advertise his real estate business -- backfired. Big time.

Image credit: AP/MetroWest Daily News

Bruins Prevail

The entire Picket Fence Post family, including Max the dog, were up last night watching the Boston Bruins net their first Stanley Cup victory in 39 years while the boys wore Bs shirts and drank out of Bruins cups.

Once the game concluded, the boys ran out to the garage and honked the horns and then raced back into the house and replayed over and over the footage of Zdeno Chara hoisting the Cup over his head and shouting with glee. The Girl, who was happy for the team and the region, finally said, “Can I please go to bed now?” some 10 minutes after the game ended.

Now we learn that there will be what the mayor of Boston called a “rolling rally” in the Hub for the Bruins on Saturday. Provided The Youngest Boy doesn’t have a Little League playoff game on that day, I’m sure the Picket Fence Post kids are going to clamor to go downtown to celebrate.

These kids are so spoiled what with New Englanders being able to revel in this win, along with World Series victories, Super Bowl wins and an NBA championship over the past decade. When I was a kid, aside from the Celtics’ winning streak in the 80s, most New England teams were pretty bad and rooting for a team, like the Red Sox, mostly meant that you’d get your heart broken.

Image credit: AP/MetroWest Daily News.

Mother's Day E-Greetings from 'Modern Family's' Claire Dunphy

As I eagerly anticipate the new episodes of both The Middle and Modern Family, as they will be Mother's Day themed (And what's Mother's Day if not an awesome opportunity to bring massive disappointment, chaos and burnt toast to mothers everywhere?), I learned that Modern Family's Facebook page is affording fans the opportunity to send personalized e-cards.

I pretended as though the Picket Fence Post kids were sending me an e-card featuring Claire Dunphy there were pre-written greetings from which you could choose.

(There are also e-cards featuring Gloria and Cam.)

Three for Thursday: The Pop Culture Edition: 'The Middle,' 'Modern Family' & 'Parenthood'

Image credit: ABC

The Middle: Don’t Cave on the Punishment

The latest episode of The Middle sparked all kinds of debate in the Picket Fence Post house about how far The Spouse and I would go to make a point and stand our ground when we punish a kid in the hopes of teaching him or her a lesson.

In The Middle’s fictional Heck family, the obnoxious, clueless teenage son Axl would not stop leaving his dirty socks all over the house. This habit was driving his father Mike absolutely insane. After repeatedly asking Axl to refrain from abandoning his socks, Axl continued with his slovenly ways until Mike threw down the gauntlet: If Mike found one more dirty sock lying around the house, he’d punish him, big time, take away something Axl cares about.

That next time occurred shortly thereafter. Mike was highly frustrated and, when Axl got all snarky and challenged Mike to take away whatever he wanted, Mike told him he couldn’t play in his final basketball game of the season . . . a move Mike immediately regretted and which his wife Frankie, behind closed doors, said she thought was idiotic. (She said she would’ve taken away use of the car, his iPod, his cell phone or TV before going to the extreme of taking away a kid’s season ending hoop game.)

And when Mike and Frankie learned that Axl was on the cusp of breaking his father’s high school record for the most free throws in a single season, they started actively looking for ways to try to back off the punishment without looking like they were backing off. They, in essence, caved.

The Spouse and I agreed that had one of us hastily punished a kid without realizing that he or she was on the verge of breaking a record, we’d likely offer the kid a choice: Miss the game OR lose the car/iPod/cell phone. However if it wasn’t the last game, too freakin’ bad. Next time, pick up your damned socks kid.



Modern Family’s 'We Love the Word'

Modern Family was so fun this week. I really needed the laughter it gave me like a little gift I didn't know I needed.

From Phil Dunphy’s ill-advised minivan shrink-wrap scheme to promote his real estate business – which would up making the family minivan look like a giant ad for an escort service with Claire and Haley serving as Phil’s escorts – to Cameron’s over-the-top middle school musical direction, I was thoroughly entertained.

As the end of the season draws near, I’m already starting to feel Modern Family withdrawal symptoms.

Image credit: NBC

Parenthood: Dealing with Teens is a Massive Emotional Challenge

Boy was NBC’s Parenthood a tough watch this week, leading up to the season finale next Tuesday.

There was the distinctly uncomfortable scenario of parents learning that their 16-year-old was having sex with her boyfriend. Sure, the mom, Kristina Braverman, had come right out and asked her daughter Haddie if she and her boyfriend were having sex, so when the girl eventually told her they were, Kristina should’ve had some kind of plan about what she’d do with that information. Instead, Kristina, who first had sex at age 15, looked baffled and uncertain as to what she was supposed to do next. Her husband Adam was horrified, wouldn’t even look at Haddie and had a great deal of trouble dealing with the contrast of him seeing her as a little girl and seeing Haddie as a young woman who was discovering her sexuality. (I covered this in more detail in my episode review.) The subject of teenage sex was dealt with in such a realistic fashion that The Spouse was definitely squirming in his seat.

Then there was the sadness surrounding the whip-smart and edgy Amber, the high school senior who plunged into a downward spiral when she learned that she didn’t get into either of the colleges to which she applied. She started doing drugs, drinking and engaging in reckless behavior, including showing up at a restaurant to meet her mother for dinner while high and dressed bizarrely.

It just breaks your heart as a parent to watch a child endure emotional pain and watch her mother Sarah struggle with how to help her child guide through this wrenchingly difficult time.

The entire episode made me admire parents of teens – which I’ll become at the end of the summer – all the more for the challenges with which they must deal and still attempt to retain their sanity.

Image credits: Eric McCandless/ABC and NBC.

Three for Thursday: More from the Mom-Petitors, 'Modern Family's' Coitus Interruptus & 'Parenthood' Takes on Team Fundraising

Item #1: More from the Mom-Petitors

The creator of those crazy “Mom-Petitor” Xtranormal videos has posted a new one. Of course, it made me laugh because it rings true. This time, the insane helicopter mom on speed decided to grill the down-to-earth mom on what she plans to do when the perfect mom's kid sleeps over at the slacker mom's house. The helicopter mom plans on spending the night in her car outside the house, just in case.





Item #2: Modern Family’s Coitus Interruptus

The Spouse and I were rolling -- rolling I tell you -- as we laughed out loud while watching Modern Family last night as Claire and Phil’s three children burst into the bedroom to find their married parents doin’ the nasty. The kids’ reactions – literally washing their eyes and young Luke looking confused because he doesn’t understand what was going on, saying, “It looked like Dad was winning” – were priceless, as was Claire and Phil’s and the kooky confusion that ensued later when they had a confusing discussion with Gloria who was trying to sneak into their house to erase a horrific e-mail that was accidentally sent to Claire.

I, personally, think that when a couple’s first child stops sleeping in a crib, the parents should, as Claire’s father advised, buy a solid bedroom door lock. Hell, maybe it’d be a good idea to present a pregnant woman with a door lock at her baby shower and tell her, "You'll thank for me this later."

Did this particular episode ring true with any of you? The Spouse and I have had a lock on our bedroom door since day one so, thank goodness, we've not had this unfortunate "caught in the act" moment.


Image credit: NBC

Item #3: Parenthood Takes on Team Fundraising

I hate it, hate it, hate it, when you sign a kid up for a club or a team only to learn, after your check clears with the admission fee and/or you’ve already spent a mint on athletic gear, that you’re ALSO expected to sell crap -- lots of crap, hundreds of dollars worth -- in order for your kid to continue participating.

This has happened to us with both youth football and hockey teams, when we were saddled with raffle tickets for which we wound up eating the cost – like a hidden surcharge you don’t find out about until later – as opposed to putting the kids on the phone and making them harass everyone we know to raise money for their team/league. Why don’t they just incorporate the cost of the stupid raffles and fundraisers into the cost of the sport and get it over with once so that we know the full cost up front before our kids are already deep into the sport?

This week’s episode of Parenthood -- which I reviewed here on CliqueClack TV – tackled the issue of youth sports fundraising with an amusing storyline about a clueless teenage baseball player who didn’t realize it would’ve been a good idea to try to sell the $500 worth of Christmas wrapping paper that he needed to peddle to raise money for his team’s baseball tournament (or he wouldn’t be able to participate) BEFORE Christmas. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday isn’t really a great holiday for wrapping paper sales. His mom, upon whom he dumped this "I gotta sell this stuff immediately" argument, marched the kid out to a sidewalk in front of a corner coffee shop with a folding table and made him a quirky sign, “Support a Procrastinator.”

Though his mom wanted to bail him out and shell out the $500, she couldn’t afford to and told him if he didn’t sell it, that’s the way life is sometimes. But he wound up being bailed out by his grandpa instead.

Image credit: NBC.

Three for Thursday: More on Dad's Stand for Bullied Daughter, Sports Schedule Woes & Saying Good-Bye to Family Car on 'Modern Family'

Item #1: Dad Stands Up for His Daughter, Follow-Up

Remember the story I wrote about last week about the Florida dad who boarded a school bus after his daughter had been bullied on it, demanded to know the identity of her tormentor(s) and was threatened with arrest? Well more info on the story has come to light.

After the father apologized for his behavior – he was charged with two misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct and disturbing a school function -- he told the media that his 13-year-old daughter has cerebral palsy and that students on her bus had allegedly repeatedly harassed her, smacked her on the head, spit on her and even tossed a condom at her. Reading all of this and seeing the video below, who can blame this dad for getting angry and storming onto the bus?



Item #2: Sports Schedule Woes

I’m trying to be a good sports parent. Really. I am. *earnest smile plastered on face*

Although I deeply resent how, in order to allow one’s children to participate in youth sports at even a minimum level, one has to assent to having one’s family’s weekends hijacked by uncompromising sports schedules which make visiting family or things like having old fashioned Sunday dinners – as I longed for when I wrote this post – nearly impossible, I’ve been trying to go with the flow these past weeks.

It hasn’t been easy.

The Youngest Boy’s hockey schedule is extremely fluid. Too fluid. To borrow an analogy used on Mad Men on Sunday night, it’s like soup that’s spreading all across the kitchen counter, but no matter how much you try to capture it in a pot or hold it in your hands, there’s still more of it that you’ve missed, that's still on the counter or slips through your fingers and it winds up dripping all over the floor and onto your shoes.

There’s no one regular hockey practice time, therefore, practices pop up in my e-mail box intermittently, most of the time for dates when I’ve already made plans for that particular time slot and have to do major schedule shifting, delaying and appealing to other parents for transportation help in order to accommodate these “new” practice times. (I get that booking hockey times can be extremely challenging, but something that we can at least count on and work with would be nice.)

Just this past weekend, there was a 6:50 p.m. practice scheduled for Sunday. But when The Spouse brought The Youngest Boy to the arena, they were informed that the folks who send out the e-mail schedule updates had mistakenly put “p.m.” instead of “a.m.” The practice was at 6:50 a.m. The Spouse and the other parents who showed up with their kids were admonished to check the hockey web site EVERY DAY to see if there are changes to practice and game schedules that weren’t either e-mailed to us via the hockey calendar e-mail system or the coach. (Like parents have nothing better to do than to chase down the hockey people to see if they’ve decided to switch things around with no notice and without telling anyone. Add it to the list with making sure the kids are fed super-nutritious and home-cooked meals, bathed, clothed, have done their homework and didn’t leave their shoes by the front door so that the dog’ll chew them up.)

Even when the schedules are set, things are still proving rather, shall I say, constraining. The Eldest Boy’s soccer practices go until 8 on Friday nights. One of The Girl’s soccer practices is late on Sunday afternoons, and The Youngest Boy’s hockey games range wildly in their times from very early in the morning – I’m talking 6 a.m., which means he has to be at the arena at 5:30 – on a Saturday or Sunday morning, or they can be in the middle of the day, when he’ll have to wear his uniform to church and race out of there in order to make it to the game. He has a few games on Friday evenings.

What does this all mean? It means that we have practically no weekends where there’s a significant block of free time to, say, drive out to western Massachusetts to visit my parents for an afternoon or spend the day in Boston if we wanted to. I’ve had to tell The Picket Fence Post grandparents that the best way to see their grandchildren is to come to their games.

This is making Mommy extremely frazzled – especially with new hockey practice times cropping up like time bombs waiting to blow the family schedule all to hell – but I’m trying, really, I am, to be a good sport about all this. Go team!. . . and please pass the ginormous cup of java. I really need it.

Item #3: Modern Family: Saying Goodbye to the Old Family Car

Modern Family returned last night for its sophomore season debut and it was funny – I laughed out loud at Cameron’s flinching when Mitchell used the nail gun and the nails went through a wall and nearly impaled Cameron’s back – but I think my expectations for this wonderful show were too high because I wanted it to be off-the-charts hilarious, and it fell short of that.

But there were moments that resonated nonetheless, like the story arc about the old Dunphy family station wagon that Claire wanted Phil to sell because it’d been sitting in their garage, unused, for years. It was the car they used when their children were very young, when Luke was a toddler (and used to frequently puke in it, thus they nicknamed his puke bucket they kept in the car, “Buckety”). While going through the car to prepare it for sale, Claire began to feel nostalgic about when they were a young family, so they took the old bucket of bolts out for one last hurrah and the video below is what happened.



This reminded me of how attached members of the Picket Fence Post family were to our tan mini-van – christened the “funny van” by The Eldest Boy when he was 2, who’d misheard us call it a mini-van; the “funny van” name stuck – when we got rid of it a few years ago. We got it when I was pregnant with my 9-year-old, and when we got rid of it, it was a very sad day for one unnamed member of the Picket Fence Post family.