Quick Hits from the Homefront: Strep Again, Broken Bulb, Calendar Chaos

Strep Again

The kids had been in school for less than a week when The Girl came down with strep throat and has been home sick from school for two days. Today, 24 hours after first taking her antibiotics, she's still feeling poorly. She's developed a strep-related rash, isn’t eating much, complains of pain in her throat and the rest of us in the Picket Fence Post family are crossing our fingers that we’ll be spared.

It’s simply too early in the season to get sick. I felt like I was sick for most of last fall/winter (including that bout with the swine flu). Seriously. I'm hoping this isn't a bad omen.

Broken Bulb

During a family barbecue over Labor Day weekend at the Picket Fence Post home, the good intentions of the environmentally conscious wreaked havoc in The Eldest Boy’s bedroom. He and one of his cousins were in his room when the clip-on lamp that had been secured to the top bunk of his bunk bed fell down and that curlicue light bulb (otherwise known as a compact fluorescent bulb) broke. Pieces fell onto his bed and his rug.

This led to panic among some of the folks at the event after The Spouse looked up the EPA’s guidelines for picking up a busted CFL because those bulbs contain mercury, albeit less than 1/100th of the amount of mercury in those old glass thermometers, according to the EPA. After The Spouse cleaned up the debris and opened the windows, we decided to throw out the old comforter upon which much of the debris landed. (I went out this week and bought a new one, as well as new sheets.)

This leads me to wonder what’s going to happen when regular, incandescent bulbs are no longer available. When you have kids in the house, lamps are going to get knocked over. It’s a part of life. And light bulbs often break. If we have to fret about whether we should call a Haz-Mat team every time a bulb breaks, I’m going to have to start doing lots more yoga.

Calendar Chaos

I knew it. I knew it. I knew it!

I spent a good hour or so on Tuesday morning working on coordinating all the disparate calendars under my purview (school calendars for two schools, two different soccer calendars and a hockey calendar . . . not including my yoga or work calendar) and inputting all the appointments into the online calendar I share with The Spouse as well as writing them down on the paper calendar we keep in the kitchen.

It was bad enough that for Saturday we already had on the youth sports schedule: The Youngest Boy’s 7 a.m. hockey practice, The Girl’s soccer game two hours later and The Eldest Boy’s game in the afternoon, plus The Youngest Boy’s 6 a.m. game on Sunday morning (we'd have to be there by 5:30) followed by the starting of the church year and my religious education teacher training session at 9 (I’m going to be a teacher for The Youngest Boy’s church school classes for half the year).

But, just this afternoon, we received an e-mail scheduling a new hockey game, in less than 48 hours, for Saturday morning, meaning that instead of the Saturday practice, we will have to get The Youngest Boy to the ice rink by 6 a.m. meaning we'll have to leave our house by 5:30 a.m. Calgon, take me away, please!

So, I’ve decided that I'm not going to maintain any more illusions that the family calendar is manageable. It’s not. It just isn't. And it’s not my fault. It's an uncontrollable hot mess that's beyond my control. I’m just going to have to roll with it, buy cups of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and try my best to get to where I need to go. If I don’t make stuff, if I'm late, it won’t be the end of the world. We can’t do everything . . . at least that’s what I keep telling myself.

Image credits: Mamas Health, Calendar Clip Art.

U.S. Women's World Cup Wows

Goosebumps.

Seriously.

Image credit: AP via The National

Between Nike's women-power ad and the unbelievable, come-from-behind win by the U.S. Women’s Soccer team to advance to the semi-finals of the World Cup, I am truly reveling in the awesome lessons that the team’s performance is providing all three of my kids, as well as the respect that my sons are rapidly gaining for the women’s game as they're now almost as into this World Cup contest as The Girl is. (She's even more thrilled because she met a couple of the players who've competed for the World Cup when she and her soccer team attended a Boston Breakers professional women's soccer game earlier this year, a wonderful experience for my gal.)


Image credit: Getty Images via The New York Times

This morning, the kids happily perused the newspapers sitting on the kitchen counter, amazed by the still photos which uniquely capture the amazing feats of Abby Wambach’s pivotal header goal as she leapt high into the air and Hope Solo’s game clinching save which makes her look like a superhero as she’s seen sailing over the grass to snag the ball.

During the quarterfinal game against Brazil, the TV commentators seemed to be dumping the dirt upon the grave of this 2011 U.S. World Cup bid at the end of the game after Brazil broke the tie. Yet the U.S. team came back, a player down -- as Brazil's players tried to kill time and fake injuries -- and proved, not just to us, but to all sports fans how the gender of the players on the field doesn’t matter because determination, spirit and tenacity are universal, and universally thrilling to behold.

UPDATE: Read my Pop Culture piece on the importance and meaning of watching and celebrating the Women's World Cup with The Girl here.

Image credits: Getty Images via the New York Times, the Associated Press via The National.

Dealing with the Sports Dad/Coach: Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose

The Spouse is a great youth sports coach. There have been families who've specifically requested that their kids be placed on his team. He’s calm, reasonable and doesn’t put his own ego out there on the court or ball field. It's all about the kids. The recreational teams he coaches are intended to teach children how to play a game and how to work together, and his efforts and attitudes reflect that. From time to time, I’ve joked with him that he’s like the Eric Taylor (Friday Night Lights) of the youth coaching set, particularly when he's making an end-of-the-game speech and awarding the game ball to a Little League player who stood out.

All three of the Picket Fence Post kids have greatly appreciated the fact that he’s coached them in one sport or another for years. (I put in two years as The Girl’s soccer coach when she was little, two seasons as a head coach, two as an assistant.)

Then came this Little League season. And I think the competitive pressure is getting to him. This year, more than any of the other years, I’ve watched him stress out over the batting order, over the pitching roster, over the fact that many of the practices were rained out and the team went on to lose tons of consecutive games. (They’ve won two to date.)

In the meantime, The Youngest Boy has lost some of his at-bat mojo because he was hit in the back by a hard pitch during a game. Now when he’s at the plate, he tends to back away and swing late. It’s messed him all up.

All of this has led to The Spouse wearing this pained look on his face during (and after) games when he’s frustrated because he feels pressure for his team to win, even though there’s been insufficient time for the team to practice and address their weaknesses. No matter how many times I tell him that it’s “just Little League,” they’re “just little kids,” I’m not really helping to improve his mood . . . though an after-game cocktail has seemed to loosen him up.

I so much want him to be able to take a few steps back and enjoy the silly insanity of it all, to see that he's coaching a group of kids who still find it amusing to make fart noises with their arm pits, climb the chain link fence around the dugout, giggle when someone says "balls" and who don't understand why it's necessary to shower after a game. When The Spouse is inspired and amused, it can be contagious, and that's a good thing.

As for The Youngest Boy feeling timid about stepping into the batter’s box, I hope that more, low-pressure visits to the batting cage will help improve matters. If not, then a nice ice cream cone or a slushy after the game seems to lift everyone's spirits.

Adventures in Youth Sports: Spring Edition (Includes a Pig on a Leash)

It's been a weird week in youth sports for the Picket Fence Post family. We're talkin' a tiny pig on a leash, a whistle, heated arguments, bone-chilling dampness and bodies flying.

On the Little League front, The Youngest Boy's team, coached by The Spouse, finally won their first game. In fact, they won two in a row and actually turned some smart plays that led to runners being tagged out.

The Youngest Boy pitched during one of those games and I watched him through my fingers as I, from time to time, had my hands over my eyes. It's really nerve-wracking to watch him gun in some decent pitches, strike a kid or two out, then walk half of the other team. The hurt look on the little pitchers' faces when they're pulled . . . just breaks your heart.

One of those two games was played on a damp, cold day. (I literally turned on the fireplace and curled up in front of it with a book after I got home trying to regain feeling back in my fingertips.) The game went on for well over two hours. The league rules say you're not supposed to start a new inning more than 1 hour 50 minutes from the game start unless there's a tie. However there wasn't a tie. The Youngest Boy's team was up by a decent amount of runs. But when The Spouse wanted to end the game, the coach of the other team wanted his kiddos to keep playing. (My guess is that he thought his team could catch up.) When The Spouse returned to the bench, another mother and I started bitterly complaining to no avail that the game had gone on too long and should've ended. At least The Youngest Boy's team prevailed.

On a different playing field later in the week, The Girl's soccer team was quite well matched as they took on another area team in a tough contest. But they weren't well matched if you consider that the ref was a hometown ref, and the game wasn't in our hometown. Normally, when the officiating is somewhat imbalanced, we tell the Picket Fence Post kids afterwards that oftentimes things aren't fair and you just have to roll with it 'cause there's nothing you can do about it. But in this particular case, the guy reffing the game was so blatantly unfair, that the parents on the sidelines, including yours truly, started griping. Loudly. (I hardly ever yell to a ref, except at a Red Sox or UMass basketball game.)

Bodies were flying. Girls were falling. And penalty shots were taken . . . at our goal, repeatedly. At one point, the normally even-keeled Spouse, who never gets into beefs with others at youth sporting events (see above how he let the other Little League coach drag the game out), yelled directly at the ref after one particularly egregious missed call. The guy turned to The Spouse, held out his whistle and asked him if he wanted to take over.

After the game -- where we noticed that a spectator watching another game on an adjacent field had brought along a tiny pink pig on a red leash -- that ref was waiting near the exit for "the guy who had a question" about his officiating. Cue the loud, impassioned argument between the ref and The Spouse while The Girl rolled her eyes and urged me to keep walking to the car.

Just your average week in youth sports.

Huzzah! My Rain Dance Worked! Practices & Games Canceled!

When I saw that weather forecasters were predicting several consecutive days of rain this week in the Boston area, I was secretly thrilled. No, not because I have a twisted desire to live in dreary, Seattle-like weather where I actually want to sit in front of the fireplace (in May!) in order to warm myself up or feel the need to wrap myself in a blanket while working at my desk.

Why have I been so chipper about all this lousy, unspringlike, inclement weather (in the 40s-50s)? Because I’m a desperate soccer/baseball mom who is delighted to enjoy a break from racing the three Picket Fence Post kids around to soccer practices, soccer evaluations (for placement on next year's teams), baseball practices and baseball games. (It’s supposed to be nice over the weekend – when The Spouse is around to help pitch in on the schlepping all over town – so the weekend games should go on as planned. And I’m okay with that.)

What a relief it has been to “only” have to hound the kids about doing their homework assignments and about helping out with chores like emptying the dishwasher and feeding Max while I have the opportunity to finish my work AND make a decent meal that wasn’t whipped together on the fly (cereal, soup, PB&J) in between drop offs and pick ups.

Sometimes it’s nice to have the weather force you to take a step back from the madness of the spring youth sports season -- and from being the children's indentured servant chauffeur -- and take a breather.

Image credit: Planet Mom T-shirts.

Notes from a Rainy Spring Break: Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Potter Mania, Patriot's Day, Passover, Clothes Shopping & a Visit to the ER

If you asked the Picket Post Fence kids, I'm guessing they'd likely tell you that they did "nothing" during their spring vacation, nothing of note anyway. We didn't go away to a warm, tropical locale like several of their classmates. We didn't go to an amusement park or a super-fun venue. We stayed home and I didn't arrange for them to party their way through the week.

And though I still attempted to work from my home office this week -- one day resorting to hanging a blanket over my windowed office door and banishing the children from the room so I could finish something -- between The Spouse and I, we still managed to do a bunch of stuff with the kids so they can't say they just sat around all week. Well, they can say that they sat around all week, even though they really didn't:


-- After The Youngest Boy's hockey team blessedly lost their playoff game, thus ending the season (*wild fist pump from this hockey mom*), we went out to dinner at the 99 Restaurant near us, which boasts that the day after the Red Sox win, kids eat free. Suffice is to say that the restaurant haven't been serving up many free kids' meals lately as the last place Red Sox haven't exactly gotten off to a stupendous start, and our kids certainly didn't eat free the night we dined there.

-- One weekend night, the five of us went to see The Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, which was at least better than the first film version of one of my family's favorite kids' book series by Jeff Kinney. In this sequel, Greg Heffley wasn't a raging, inconsiderate narcissist and actually had a heart, unlike in the first film where he was nearly soulless.

The Picket Fence Post kids spent the whole car ride home afterward telling me how much nicer Mrs. Heffley is than I am and how, compared to her, I'm "wicked strict." I don't know whether to take that as a compliment or not.

Image credit: Boston Breakers

-- The Spouse and The Girl went to see the local women's professional soccer team, The Breakers, play their home opener. The Girl got to meet and get photos/autographs with players after the game, including with her new favorite professional soccer player, Alex Scott, who plays defense, like The Girl frequently does. I was thrilled that she got to enjoy a game where female athletes took center stage for a change.

-- On Patriot's Day -- a holiday in Massachusetts commemorating the beginning of the Revolutionary War -- The Spouse woke The Youngest Boy up in the 3 a.m. hour (yes, he really did) so they could drive up to the town green in Lexington, Mass. and secure a good spot from which to watch the reenactment of the first battle of the Revolutionary War. They returned home like twin ice cubes from being out in the cold for so long, even though they'd just spent an hour in a toasty warm & cozy restaurant eating goopy, syrupy breakfasts.

While The Spouse essentially slept the rest of that day, I took The Girl to the Emergency Room to have her wrist X-rayed and learned she'd only sustained a sprained wrist -- as opposed to a broken wrist -- during her weekend soccer game. (A follow-up orthopedic appointment took place later in the week for more laughs and wasted moments spent lingering in a waiting room, after The Girl's pain persisted.) After our ER visit, I cooked up a Seder dinner for the Picket Fence Post family. The Spouse made the brisket, while I made everything else.



-- There was ample Harry Potter mania at the Picket Fence Post household over the vacation week as I finally allowed The Youngest Boy to watch the fifth movie in the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, seeing as though we finished reading the book aloud together last month as part of our Harry Potter Reading Out Loud Project. (We're at the beginning of reading the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.)



Early in the vacation week, I purchased Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 on DVD and finally got a chance to see if for myself because when it came out in theaters last fall, events conspired against me being able to see it, though The Girl saw it twice and took The Spouse with her once. It was a fantastic film -- much better than the Half-Blood Prince film -- and it left me feeling depressed and sad for one of my favorite characters from children's literature. I have a soft spot for Harry Potter.

-- Later in the week I took the two older kids (The Youngest Boy was visiting some classmates at the time) candle pin bowling in a bowling alley that looked and smelled like it was 1965, only minus the cigarette smoke. (I half expected to see Sally Draper there.) We met a friend of mine and her three children and I got to jabber away with my college pal while our kids bowled and I intermittently humiliated The Eldest Boy by cheering "too loudly" and embarrassing him . . . which only made me want to do it more.

-- The kids and I also spent several hours in the torturous shopping mall near us (I HATE shopping, except for books) seeking clothing items that would be appropriate for Easter, Passover and a first Communion we'll be attending in a few weeks. It always feels as though I just went shopping to get them clothes, but they keep doing that growing thing, necessitating frequent clothes shopping excursions. During our trip, The Youngest Boy was for some reason trying to press me into buying him a suit (?!), this from the kid who spends most of his waking hours trying to convince me that 40 degrees is shorts weather.

It was general chaos as I tried to oversee not only what the kids were trying on -- checking on the sizes and the price of the clothing, as well as whether the items fit them when they emerged from the changing rooms, sometimes all at the same time. I started stressing out, which generally leads to bad shopping decisions on my part. When we got home later, The Eldest Boy told me I had left some of the stuff that was designated as being in the "to buy" pile behind, though I think he accidentally left those items in the dressing room. But I could be wrong, perhaps that last discussion about boys' undergarments unhinged me. Who knows?

-- An ice cream sundae party with their younger cousins was canceled after one of my nephews got ill (before coming to our house) and we ate the sundaes without them. We visited the library once, had two of the kids' friends over to play at the house on Patriot's Day and The Girl had a sleepover with a friend one night.

Now I need a vacation from their vacation where they didn't "do anything."

Image credits: Cinemagie, Boston Breakers.

Breaking News from the Picket Fence Post Family . . .

. . . The 2010-2011 youth hockey season, which began in August 2010, is now, officially, over. (This makes me wonder if that nagging cough and runny nose that I've had for what seems like months on end will finally end now that I'm no longer sitting in ice cold arenas.)

Now we'll have oodles and oodles of extra time given that we now just have one kid playing Little League -- The Spouse is coaching the team -- and two kids playing travel soccer. With all this free time, maybe I'll take up a new hobby, like catching up on sleep.

T-Minus 4 Days 'Til Opening Day . . .

Forget the freezing temperatures, bitter New England winds and March snow flurries.

Forget the middle and grade school science projects about which The Spouse and I have to nag my three kiddos.

Forget the never-ending youth hockey season with games in bone-chillingly cold ice rinks.

It's almost Opening Day for the Boston Red Sox . . . when all will be right with the world (as long as the pitching holds on and the *knock on wood* injuries remain at bay).

A UMass Hoop Game, the Boston Garden, Thunder Sticks & the JumboTron

Image credit: J. Anthony Roberts/The Republican

My college roommate, our husbands and our six kids high-fived Sam the Minuteman on Saturday during something we rarely get to enjoy these days: A night out together that had nothing to do with youth sports or school activities. We watched our alma mater, UMass-Amherst, face off against Boston College in a men's basketball game at the Boston Garden.

Going to this raucous college basketball game after a long, stressful week was awesome for three reasons, despite the fact that my team lost in the end:

• I got to sit with my gal pal and make snarky wisecracks. (I need more time with friends, sans kids. Seriously. It happens too infrequently.)
• We got to yell at the top of our lungs and not be accused of spousal or child abuse. (My voice was hoarse after the game.)
• We got to make a lot of noise with the plastic thunder sticks the folks from Powerade distributed to the enthusiastic UMass fans (who far outnumbered the BC fans and we were in Boston), even though the people who run the Garden made an announcement saying that thunder sticks were banned from the arena.

It proved extremely cathartic to be able to scream, "Booooo!" in response to the refs' questionable calls and bellow from the pit of your stomach when the situation called for it because, in real life, I can't "boo" my kids when they tick me off or loudly make noise at people who irritate me.

As for the Picket Fence Post kids, their favorite moments included:

• Spending gobs of (my) money on food and drink. (Why are chicken fingers so freakin' expensive in arenas?)
• Appearing on the JumboTron three times while dancing like little maniacs and waving the thunder sticks during time outs for the express purpose of making it onto the Jumbo-Tron.

The Spouse and I joked afterward that we should bring the thunder sticks to The Youngest Boy's hockey game, just as a joke, to satirize folks who go overboard in their cheering/booing/screaming at youth hockey games, but then thought better of it as we weren't sure people would get that we were being ironic.

Image credit: J. Anthony Roberts/The Republican.

Three for Thursday: Rotting Jack-o-Lanterns, Homework Monitoring & Hockey Schedules

Rotting Jack-o-Lanterns

Once again, I have the scariest doorstep in the neighborhood.

Why? Because The Spouse and I have left the three jack-o-lanterns that the kids carved on Columbus Day weekend on the front steps. Now they’re moldy, collapsing piles of mush. So the question is, do I leave them on the doorstep to "scare" people on Halloween or toss 'em out to prevent the spreading of the mold-infested mush all over my doorstep? (I'm inclined to go with option number two.)

Homework Monitor: Helicopter Parenting or Responsible Parenting?

He knew that he had to finish the hat. The vocabulary word hat to be precise. Each member of my 9-year-old’s class was assigned a vocabulary word and was asked to create a hat which represented the meaning of the word without using other words.

For days I’ve been nagging The Youngest Boy about his hat – had he thought about what he’d like to do, had he pulled together the necessary material, etc. “You don’t want to wait until the last minute,” I told him as he'd tell me it wasn’t due until Friday.

When he presented me with his hat yesterday, I suggested that he needed to use something sturdier than Scotch tape to hold up this big piece of cardboard he wanted to attach to a hat. I offered to help him attach an elastic string to it later, later meaning today.

Then, as we were pulling out of the driveway this morning, with 10 minutes to spare before he was supposed to walk through the school door, The Youngest Boy started shouting that his hat wasn’t due on Friday, it was due TODAY. And because I was the one who suggested that he ditch the tape and replace it with an elastic but hadn’t yet done so, all of this was my fault.

I will admit that I didn’t exactly cover myself in glory when I reacted angrily to all of this. Luckily, The Spouse was still in the house, so I told The Youngest Boy to get out of the car and have his father assist him while I drove the other two kids to school so they wouldn’t be late.

Here’s my question: Where’s the line between being a helicopter parent (who is doing her offspring no favors by doing everything for them, coddling them, instead of making them learn to do things for themselves, always coming to the rescue) and being a responsible parent who’s trying to teach her kids, as they gain the maturity, how to be responsible for themselves?

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.

Three for Thursday: Restaurant Tells Screaming Kids to Get Out, Showtime's Dysfunctional Moms & Sports Parents Crying Uncle

Item #1: Restaurant Tells Screaming Kids to Get Out



A North Carolina restaurant owner has sparked a hearty dialog online by posting this simple sign in its front window, “Screaming children will not be tolerated.”

A Babble blogger called the "no screaming kids" policy a “total joke,” writing: “I don’t condone bad behavior in public, but we all know even the most well-behaved children are sometimes more boisterous than we’d like them to be. That doesn’t mean families should be forced to stay home.”

A writer on Slate said while she doesn’t tolerate “screaming by my children at home, let alone in public,” she thinks the sign is overly hostile: “It’s an admonishment, an advance assumption that those children will scream. It creates an immediate atmosphere of hostility toward families, and it is, in itself, rude.”

In her defense, restaurant owner Brenda Armes told her local TV station that she wants to give her customers a pleasant dining experience saying, “We want to attract the type of people that come in knowing they aren’t going to have to sit behind a table with a bunch of screaming children.”

In the TV interview, Armes added that she just wants parents to take their children outside if the kids start to scream. The sign notwithstanding, that’s not an unreasonable policy . . . speaking as someone who has, in the past, hastily asked the waiter to pack up my food in a To Go bag while I hustled my screaming toddlers out to the car and The Spouse paid the bill.

Do you think the restaurant owner went overboard or is sending a negative message to parents?

Item #2: Showtime's Dysfunctional Moms

Back in March, The Wall Street Journal ran a feature story saying that Showtime was planning to build on the success of their pot-dealing suburban mom show Weeds and was promoting more shows featuring strong, dysfunctional female characters.

From Weeds’ Nancy Botwin, who has taken her children on the run along with her former brother-in-law, and Nurse Jackie’s unfaithful, drug-addicted nurse married mom of two, to The Big C’s married high school teacher mom whose cancer diagnosis (which she’s kept secret from her family) has caused her to upend her life, Showtime is really delivering on the dysfunctional mom front, a subject to which I dedicated my recent pop culture column.

Item #3: Sports Parents Crying Uncle

And I thought I was the only one who feels overwhelmed by the intensity and time suck that has become youth sports. Just this Saturday, my three kids have four games in four different towns, starting at a pre-dawn hour, with the last one occurring smack dab in the middle of dinner hour. The whole day will feature The Spouse and I racing around to four different places for soccer and hockey games. (My 9-year-old son has TWO games on Saturday in different locations.) I've already informed my daughter's coach that The Girl will miss her Sunday afternoon soccer practice because we’re going to be belatedly celebrating Rosh Hashanah with family -- heresy, I know -- however we have arranged for The Youngest Boy to get transportation to and from his soccer practice Sunday morning while The Spouse and I are preparing for our big family celebration (for which we're missing church, FYI, because Saturday was so packed).

This schedule makes me crazy because I oftentimes feel like sports can take over family life, even when I limit each child to one sport per season and don't go to "extra" tournaments and competitions. Well the local CBS station here in Boston just featured a mom of three who decided she’d had enough of her sons’ insane sports schedules and is taking their participation down a notch.

In the segment – link here – the mom talked about the scheduling nightmare that is having three children play sports at far-flung locations and the negative fallout she has received from her parenting peers when they learned that she pulled her kids off of travel teams and stopped making a year-long commitment to specific sports. She just reduced their involvement, not eliminating it altogether, mind you.

“Experts in youth sports have found a lot of youth burnout among over-scheduled child-athletes, and now there is burnout among parents as well,” WBZ reporter Paula Ebben wrote on her blog.

As the new fall sports seasons commence, what do you think about this issue? Can sports – particularly when it comes to travel teams – spiral out of control? How do you handle it?