What I'm Reading Now ... A Primer on Raising Adolescents

I realized the other day that when my kids were very young, heck, even when they were still in the womb, I was voraciously reading up on the best parenting practices. Compulsively so.

Then all three of the Picket Fence Post children hit puberty and it dawned on me that it's been quite a long time since I've read anything about childrearing. Two are of my kids are teens, the other's not too far behind. And all hell has broken loose.

After hearing some vivid tales from the Picket Fence Post household, a friend recommended this:


I now feel as though I finally understand why my house is suddenly filled with such loud melodrama ... or, conversely, the eerie silence of sulking and somber offspring. Reading Get Out of My Life But First Could You Drive Me & Cheryl to the Mall? is akin to stumbling upon a helpful translator who's explaining the goings-on that are occurring right in front of my eyes but seem to be in a foreign language.

The Youngest Boy, not liking the cover of the book one iota, was displeased to see me chuckling as I was reading it the other night.

"I'm gonna read that when you're not looking," he threatened.

"Go ahead," I taunted him, "at least you'd be reading a book."

"Grrrr," he muttered as he kicked a dog toy across the family room, "I hate reading."

A New Year, Lots to Celebrate in 2013

It's 2013 and I can proudly say that I've made no resolutions, although I have made a few, um, suggestions for myself for the new year.

As I skimmed through my brand, spankin' new 2013 calendar -- trying to ignore that nagging, superstitious feeling that anything with the number 13 is inherently unlucky -- and was taken aback when I realized several things:

I completely forgot to book my kids' annual doctor's appointments last year. Whoops.

My eldest two kids are not only going into high school this fall, but are going to turn 15 this summer.

Our "puppy" will turn 4 this spring.

Easter is very early this year.

Oh, and 2013 will mark the year that I become a published novelist. Seriously. Remember that book I talked about earlier, Mortified: A Novel About Oversharing? Well, it's going to be published this spring. More deets on this later . . .

After I marked down all the birthdays and anniversaries on the calendar, I thought about 2012 and what promises the new year holds and came up with several things we've got goin' on in the plus column:

-- I made it through Christmas without getting the swine flu or a stomach bug, both of which have sullied previous celebrations of Yuletide splendor.

-- The Youngest Boy did NOT freak out when he discovered that there was NOT a bow-and-arrow set beneath the Christmas tree. Katniss, he is not.

-- The older two went to a boy-girl New Year's Eve party while The Spouse, The Youngest Boy and I ate Chinese food (the adults had the take-out, the kid had leftover pizza . . . because I've been a lazy chef as of late. No judging!) and watched the second Lord of the Rings film, The Two Towers, because we wanted to have a quiet, family evening, save for our partying teens.

-- Our ice rink (pictured above) is actually operational! Longtime Picket Fence Post readers know that the subject of our backyard ice rink has been a source of tremendous angst for The Spouse, with the exception of one, spectacular year (the same year I got swine flu for Christmas, apparently because I'd been a wicked girl during the prior 12 months). Our history when it comes to this brand of home recreation is, shall we say, checkered, thus my joy at the fact that kids are actually SKATING on the rink into which The Spouse has invested so much money time.

-- The Spouse and I are both gainfully employed on a full-time basis. I'm currently on winter break from the university where I teach and am busily working on new syllabi for the spring semester. I'm very enthused about a course I'm developing.

Things in the minus column:

-- I haven't attended a yoga class in months. It was either sleep or yoga. I couldn't do both, so yoga got the shaft. And the kids have noticed. The Spouse has noticed. How did they notice, you might ask, other than by assessing muscle tone? Because when I'm actively practicing yoga I will experience moments, or stretches of zen-like, "yo dude" calm. That zen thing, my friends, has been noticeably absent, my patience practically nonexistent. Piling on a stress-filled Christmas season didn't help. Therefore, it is VITAL that I find a yoga class that fits into my crazy schedule. Soon!

-- I haven't had a real date with my husband since we celebrated our 20th anniversary in the beginning of November. (We did go to see Lincoln a few weeks ago while the kids saw a different movie with friends, but since the kids were in another theater and it was in the middle of the day, I don't consider that a date.) This situation, like the yoga one, also needs to be rectified.

Overall, the Picket Fence Post family is heading into 2013 with hope and eagerness, and I, personally, plan to laugh like a maniac when I gaze at our family calendar and discover that all five of us are scheduled  for something at the same time in different locations. Or maybe I'll just cancel all of our appointments and have us all go ice skating in our yard.

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.

My Dog is a Thief

Don't let that cute face fool you. That fuzzy, "ain't I cuddly?" mug is a simply facade. It's a front for a stealthily sinister thief who's becoming more brazen with every passing day.

Take, for example, a few weekends ago when we were having company here at the Picket Fence Post domicile. Seeing as it was a beautiful summer's afternoon and the pressing humidity had lifted, The Spouse and I decided to entertain his folks on our backyard deck. To keep the bugs from gorging on our food, we placed mesh covers over the plates of appetizers that we'd placed on the table, including a platter of hearty Vermont cheddar cheese and tangy slices of pepperoni.

But we'd forgotten that we'd left Max outside. The dog, lured by the aroma of spicy meat and rich cheese, hopped up onto a deck chair, climbed onto the table and removed the mesh covering. (It may stop flies, but not Havanese-Wheaten Terriers apparently.) At this point, we're not really certain about what happened next because we were still inside the house while Max was wilding on the deck.

All we know for sure is that several minutes after leaving him alone outside, The Spouse returned to find the green marble plate empty but for some oily smudges and a sad looking, slightly sullied pepperoni round that was curling up on one side. I was livid because my plans had suddenly been hijacked. All I saw unfurling before me was an afternoon and evening filled with taking care of and cleaning up after a sick dog who I didn't want to let back into the house until his ill gotten gains had passed through his system.

However a short time later, The Eldest Boy discovered a curious mound in our backyard: A pile of cheese and pepperoni slices -- largely unchewed -- covered in tasty combination of saliva, lively ants and grass, a not-so-expert attempt to camouflage the food for snacking later on the down-low. How he got all of that food from the platter to the yard is unclear. He couldn't have fit that large pile of cheese cubes and pepperoni slices into his small mouth, so he had to have taken multiple trips, all executed while The Spouse and I were cluelessly mixing up another pitcher of iced tea in the kitchen.

Although Max's thievery was ultimately foiled -- he kept returning to the spot where he'd left the food and rolled around in the grass so as to drive the pepperoni scent deep into his thick hair so he smelled like a muddy pizza -- it seemed to have whet his appetite for all things sneaky.

Since then, for example, he's developed an unhealthy affinity for a fuzzy gray, white and black stuffed lemur that he keeps stealing from one of the kids' bedrooms. He frequently grabs "Jack" by the neck and races around the house almost like he's advertising the fact that he cleverly got away with stealing the lemur but he just can't afford to hire a skywriter.

He's now figured out how to force my home office door open (it doesn't latch solidly so one push opens the door) and has been going in there, knocking over the trash can, eating the trash and then puking up what he'd consumed. He's stolen hair ties and dragged used tissues throughout the house, which is awesome when you have company over and you unexpectedly find one of those babies (or several of them) lying in the middle of the floor.

The Spouse thinks we need to bring Max back to doggie training school or start re-training him ourselves. I think we need to lock up our trash cans and not let him out on the deck unsupervised. What say you guys?

Three for Thursday: Dead Plants, 'Good' Food & Dog Meets Crab

Why I Hate Gardening: Stuff Dies

The crisp plant (pictured on the right) is only the latest in a long, tragic string of untimely deaths experienced by plant life that I've foolishly purchased or some hopeful soul has given me in the hopes that maybe THIS time I would develop a green thumb and the plant would thrive.

I usually start off strong when I buy plants, with a resolve to water them every day, shower them with loving care, sing them arias and read Yeats' poems aloud to the growing beauties.

Then real life kicks in. I get busy with work/writing stuff, kid stuff, house stuff, Max the dog stuff and I forget all about the plants which don't have the power to nag but are needy little buggers which require constistent attention. And when it comes to getting attention, the plants, sadly, are at the bottom of my priority list, hence the plant crisps currently weeping on my front door step.

What Do You Consider 'Good' Food?

Speaking of needing attention . . . now that it's summer and school is out, the offspring are lamenting that we cannot keep enough "good" food in the house for more than 24-48 hours. Now I'm not talking about Michelle Obama's definition of "good" food, I'm talkin' the three resident middle schoolers' definition, which is radically different.

Items they consider atrociously unedible but which I'm constantly pushing on them: Granola bars, frozen real fruit bars, actual fruit (of the non-berry variety), crackers, "healthy" cereal, cheese and any form of vegetable.

Items they consider "good" and which they think I plot to deny them: Any kind of cookies (except ones that anyone could consider healthy like oatmeal), ice cream (except raspberry-chocolate, The Spouse's favorite, at which they turn up their noses), tortilla chips (not the multi-grain kind), Goldfish crackers, anything The Girl bakes (around which her brothers swarm like aggressive seagulls) and pastries, the more sugar the better.

As I was lugging the many, many bags of groceries I'd purchased into the house today with The Girl, The Eldest Boy decided to take a quick inventory of the snacks I'd purchased. He initially declared the sugar cookies I'd purchased lame, though he changed his mind after The Spouse noted that they were tasty. He was unimpressed by the multi-grain tortilla chips, yogurt, fresh fruit, Life cereal and 100-calorie bags of snacks I'd gotten. He did, however, perk up at the sight of the "sugar buns" I'd picked up at a local farmers' market, as well as at the makings of the blueberry/raspberry shortcake I'd bought, particularly the whipped cream topping. The Youngest Boy wasn't available to comment on the groceries, although he'd remarked that there was "nothing" in the house this morning and I caved in to his complaints by taking him to Dunkin' Donuts. (Selfishly, I had to. We were out of coffee, which can be dangerous.)

I predict that by early Sunday -- although that may be too optimistic a time frame -- the plaintive wails of self-described "deprived" children will once again echo throughout my kitchen.

A Dog and a Crab Get Totally Cute

I was really in the mood for something silly and completely lacking in substance when I came across this video of a dog and a crab meeting cute at the edge of the ocean (however I'd bet the crab would take issue with calling it "cute").

Watching the video rekindled those smoldering "I want another dog" embers just a tad.

Random Notes from Suburbia: Pi, 'Dogs in the City,' Overzealous Sports Mom & Being Tardy

Pi in the Sky

As part of a school math competition to see how many digits of pi students could accurately remember, The Girl was able to recall, hold onto your hats, 102 of them. Seriously. I have no idea how she did it. I have trouble remembering where I leave my car in the grocery store parking lot. I'm not all that far removed from being the lady who frantically hunts around everywhere for her glasses only to have someone point out that they're
perched atop her head.

This was a reason for celebration and parental pride, at least initially, that, with seeming ease, The Girl could rattle off all those numbers. She even fared well when her brothers asked her to name random digits like the 22nd or 47the digit and they checked her accuracy.

Then the situation took a sinister turn.

"Hey, I'll bet she could memorize your credit card numbers," The Eldest Boy said as he raised his eyebrows.

Uh oh.

'Dogs in the City:' My Summer Shame

I hate -- I mean hate, hate, hate, hate -- reality TV shows. Other than the first two seasons of Survivor which aired some 10+ years ago, I haven't been a regular viewer of any reality programs because I find them to be 1) contrived 2) encourage bad behavior to nab ratings and all the accouterments accompanying reality show success (i.e. -- Snooki on the best seller list) 3) are wildly manipulated by the shows' producers and are in no way "reality" and 4) take prime-time slots and jobs away from screenwriters and all the other professionals who put together scripted television shows.

That being said . . . before a Celtics game aired the other night (Go Green y'all), I was flipping through the stations and happened upon this new CBS show Dogs in the City. And, I'm ashamed to admit, I liked it, given that I'm so into all things canine these days. (For those of you wondering whether I've dropped the notion of getting a second dog to join Max our Havanese/Wheaten, I haven't, much to The Spouse's chagrin.)

Not only did I fall in love with the dogs on the silly show, but I learned a few things about pet training and was astonished by the idiocy of some of the dogs' owners. The woman who brought her dog to work with her after the dog had bitten a number of people and regularly lunged at her employees when they walked into her office? Really, that was a question, whether that dog belonged in an office setting?

Dogs in the City, I'm afraid to say, is destined to become my summer TV shame. Who can resist a skateboarding bulldog named Beefy who has separation anxiety?

Overzealous Sports Mom

Scene: An afternoon lacrosse game being played by boys, ages 10-12.

Featuring: A woman who was, I'm guessing, the mother or close female relative of the goalie for the opposing team. Or else she was a complete lunatic who happened to know the name of the goalie and felt perfectly comfortable screaming at him.

Some of the woman's best quotes, bellowed loudly from her comfortable perch on her folding chair on the sidelines, included:

"[NAME OMITTED]! Come on! Block that [NAME OMITTED]!"

"[NAME OMITTED]! Toughen up!"

"[NAME OMITTED]! Don't flinch at the ball! You're the goalie! That's what the pads are for!"

Going through my head: "Hey lady, why don't you go stand in the goal, wearing lacrosse pads, and let me hurl hard lacrosse balls at your head and see if you flinch! He's a kid for god's sake!"

I think this lady needs to watch the video below, about one high school athlete helping out another at a state championship meet to remind herself of why we have kids participate in sports: To build character, learn teamwork and create the good, healthy habits of staying physically active. It's not about berating and harassing from the cheap seats.

 

Unfortunately, I'm willing to bet that the woman who was yelling all of that garbage at the pediatric goalie wouldn't be at all impressed with how the high school runner helped out another, which is a sad, sad commentary of where youth sports parents are today.

Being Tardy

The Eldest Boy was participating in an event where the school band was going to be performing "The Star Spangled Banner," among other tunes, which was a very good thing, except that the band was performing at an event about 45 minutes or so away from our house. And we had to get there in rush hour traffic. And The Girl, The Youngest Boy and I had to wait for The Spouse to get home from work -- battling through rush hour traffic -- BEFORE jumping into the car to drive to The Eldest Boy's event.

We arrived just AFTER his band completed their musical performance. Oh yeah, I got your Parents of the Year right here buddy.

Image credits: This web site and Brian Friedman/CBS.

'Stop Blogging About Me Mom!' So It Has Been Uttered, So It Shall Be Done.

I've officially been given my pink slip. By my 10-year-old son.

I've been put out of work as the chronicler of his childhood. I've gotten the hook. His life story, or so I've been told, is his and his alone, so I need to just step away from the laptop. Immediately.

The kid's got a point. I can completely understand his feelings of vulnerability, his fretting that I'll, in my power-mad mom mode, mortify him on my blog or in a column. He doesn't like not knowing what little humorous chestnuts I might share with my readers. So this week he issued a blanket cease-and-desist order. I can only write about him from this point on, if he gives me explicit permission to do so.

What the kid doesn't know is that, for some time now, I've been trying in earnest to protect his privacy, as well as the privacy of his siblings. I no longer use their names in my parenting columns and blog posts. I don't post photos of them. I no longer write about subjects that I think will prove embarrassing to them (which means a ton -- and I mean A TON -- of funny and sometimes poignant pieces never get written). When in doubt, I keep it out.

I've been trying to delicately balance my family's privacy concerns with trying to write honestly and forthrightly about modern parenting in an era where there are over-involved helicopter parents and hockey dads who aim laser pointers at opposing players' eyes in an attempt to help their kids' teams win.

But now that The Youngest Boy has thrown down the gauntlet, I'll have to respect his request and only write about material he thinks is okay.

Maybe I SHOULD just suck it up and get a second dog to join my 2-year-old Wheaten Terrier/Havanese dog Max (against the vigorous opposition of The Spouse) so I'll have new, humorous fodder which I can mine for columns and blog posts. At least the dogs can't read.

Know a Parent Who Desperately Needs a Chuckle? Get My E-Book!

If you or someone you know is in the midst of raising kids, particularly young ones, and could use a big glass of wine and a belly laugh or two, I have a suggestion: A Suburban Mom: Notes from the Asylum freshly released in digital format.

If you have a Kindle, Nook or another kind of e-reader you can download my collection of 76 humor/parenting columns onto which I've added a new introduction reflecting on how much has changed in the past five years since the book was first published . . . like the fact that I don't write about potty training anymore, have ditched my minivan, haven't bought diapers since the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 and haven't had to call the nice Poison Control folks in many years to report that one of the kiddos has eaten something unspeakable, like cat vomit.

The book was described by my publisher, Wyatt-MacKenzie, thusly:

"A glimpse into the mind of a laid-back yet stressed-out, insecure, sleep-starved, TV-obsessed, news junkie, Generation X parent navigating the labyrinth of modern parenthood with three young children including a set of twins. From critiquing fashionistas who try to convince the pregnant public to buy maternity thongs and discussing whether at-home moms have sold out their feminist sisters, to tackling topics such as how to have a sex life while three kids are pounding on their parents' locked bedroom door, how to look cool while driving a minivan (a clue: you can't) and what happens when a toddler eats trash, O'Brien's collection of 76 columns illustrates how parents are living their lives in the real American suburbs, not in the white picket fenced world portrayed in fuzzy, honey-hued greeting card ads."

The web site Cool Mom Picks wrote about the book:

"O'Brien's writing is funny and real, whether she's questioning the practicality of certain maternity clothes (leopard print thongs?!); venting about the zillions of pieces of kids' toys that are constantly landing underfoot (like 'tiny plastic grenades'); or describing a game of Candy Land with her family (when NO ONE wants to land on Lord Licorice).

I found her book to be as effective as one of those marathon bitch-and-laugh sessions with another mom: it kept me laughing, even through the madness."

In a review on the web site Literary Mama, Heather Hudson wrote:

"With a healthy dose of pathos, she manages to capture the befuddlement that comes with trying to parent in the face of the opposing demands of children and lurid temptations like fast food and the veritable buffet of kids' television programming. Like many of us, she makes laborious, whole food dinners only to have them resounding rejected in favor of mac and cheese, and she takes a stab at cleaning the house despite the fact that it's routinely dismantled while she dashes to the bathroom. She and her husband even try that staple recommendation of women's magazines -- daytime sex -- while the kids are otherwise occupied. Awkward. And funny.

. . . A Suburban Mom: Notes from the Asylum is an easily digestible, worthy distraction from the chaos of our lives. It has just the right amount of validation that we're all feeling our way blindly through this motherhood gig. There's something about sharing another's experience as she botches it up too that makes us feel like we're all more or less qualified. Even when we find our child coated in blue marker."

The publication ForeWord said:

"This book's short essays will appeal to harried mothers looking for relief from the sometimes claustrophobic world of parenting young children. In A Suburban Mom, readers will find both humor and reprieve from the outside world's view on their daily lives."

Image credit: Barnes and Noble.

Random &*$# Lenten Observation

You know that you've got a prolific potty mouth when your kids suggest that you give up swearing for Lent.

In the past two years, during the Lenten period, I put a quarter into a jar every time I slipped up and said something naughty. Later, I donated the money, but in a pinch I dipped into it to pay for school lunches.

I must confess, I'm not off to a &*$#%! great start . . . and I haven't even set up the swear jar yet. I think I owe it at least $5.

Quick Hits: NYC School Vacation Trip, Occupy Siblings & Margarita Bombs

NYC School Vacation Trip
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Intrepid. The United Nations. Top of the Rock. Wicked. Skating at Rockefeller Center. Zabar's. A nod to Linsanity.

The Picket Fence Post family headed down to the big city for a few days at the beginning of February vacation and, as was The Spouse's wont, packed so many activities into our brief three-day/two-night stay that I've been rendered exhausted for the remainder of the week as The Youngest Boy keeps bugging about where I'm going to take him next. (Copious amounts of coffee are not perking me up any.)

We packed ourselves into one hotel room -- seriously, New York City hotel rooms are so expensive that we couldn't justify getting two rooms, but at least The Girl got her own bed -- and we were able to make great use of my iPad (I got to watch episodes of Downton Abbey, my new addiction, in bed while the kids slept) in between dragging ourselves all over Manhattan and squeezing in a cat nap at a Starbucks at Rockefeller Center. (No lie. I was so tired at one point I had a very small nap while sitting in a Starbucks. After a latte nonetheless.)

The Girl loved visiting The Met with me, while the boys, or at least one of them, enjoyed going to the Intrepid with their father. (The disgruntled child kept texting me saying he was having a crappy time and wanted me to take a cab across town and rescue him from the horror of touring the museum with his father and brother.) Despite the complaints of that one child, it's a good thing we decided to split up and that I didn't take The Youngest Boy with us to the museum because, while he appalled by the paintings of naked people at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts when we went there several months ago, he would've been downright outraged at the plethora of naked sculptures throughout the Met. Really graphic sculptures too. (Every time we've tried to tell the child that it's art and that the human body is beautiful, he tells The Spouse and me that we're sick perverts.)

My two highlights from the trip: Seeing the Broadway show Wicked (which I didn't think I'd like because it's a musical and I'm not keen on musicals, but I wound up loving it . . . in fact everyone in the Picket Fence Post family enjoyed it, which is rare to achieve a consensus) and ice skating at Rockefeller Center even though I fell down on the ice twice, the second time landing really hard on my rear-end. It still hurts, days later. (Insert pain in the butt joke here.)

We tried, and failed, to get tickets to see Jeremy Lin, the New York Knicks' new basketball sensation, play at Madison Square Garden. I was told, in no uncertain terms by the two different ticket agents with whom I spoke on the phone, as well as by the Knicks/Ticketmaster web site, that it was "impossible" for me to buy tickets for all five members of my family. Losers. However we still got a taste of Linsanity by stopping by at the NBA store and getting The Eldest Boy one of the Lin T-shirts that the clerk with whom I spoke said is flying off the shelves. (My personal favorite souvenir from the trip: The "Knope 2012" T-shirt from the NBC Experience store honoring Amy Poehler's lead character Leslie Knope from Parks & Recreation.)

On our way out of town, we stopped at Zabar's, the famous NYC deli/grocery store, and bought the most delicious baked goods I've ever tasted. The chocolate babka -- a shout-out to Seinfeld -- was delectable and the knishes were fabulous. It's a good thing that I don't live near Zabar's or else that fanny upon which I fell at the ice skating rink would most certainly balloon if I scarfed down those choice eats on a regular basis.

Occupy Siblings

Perhaps I've shared one too many news casts and newspaper front pages with the Picket Fence Post kids about Occupy Wall Street because after we got home from our trip, The Youngest Boy decided to stage a sit-in in front of his sister's bedroom door, complete with a little tent, an Occupy Siblings protest if you will.

Why was the little person protesting? Not because there's a 1 percent versus the 99 percent thing going on in our household -- though if you asked The Eldest Boy he'd say The Spouse and I are top-hatted, walking stick-carrying snotty 1 percenters while the kids are the powerless 99 percenters whose only option to make change is to protest -- but because he believes his sister is hoarding a bunch of notebooks and he wants her to share the wealth.

"Do you want to join the protest for notebooks?" he asked his brother, who declined as he was playing the role of the counter-protester taunting the Occupier, only he didn't have a snarky sign with him.

The ironic thing: I'm 100 percent certain that if I went to The Youngest Boy's Superfund Site of a bedroom I'd find 12 notebooks buried under various piles of garbage.

Margarita Bombs

The best line of the week came from The Youngest Boy who was telling his brother a story while we were driving home from New York, "And then the guy threw a margarita bomb!"

He meant Molotov cocktail.

Image credit: Photos of NYC by The Girl, photo of Knope shirt, NBC.

Get Me . . . I'm Gonna Be All Positive & Valentine-y

My normal, modus operandi is to mock Valentine's Day as a commercial venture ginned up by card companies, chocolatiers, florists, restaurateurs, lingerie manufacturers, jewelers and other assorted retailers in order to yield one big infusion of cash to tide them over until the next big, gift-giving national holiday.

"Why do we need a special holiday to celebrate love?" I'd ask. "Isn't that what your anniversary is for? And the birthdays of the ones you love?"

The Spouse also subscribes to this way of thinking, resentful at being told that he must demonstrate his love and affection by presenting me with something tangible every February 14, something that wasn't picked up at the convenience store on the way home from work.

But, as I seem to be doing a lot lately (see my previous blog entry), I've been rethinking this attitude. What if, instead of resenting the hearts and flowers and chocolates being shoved in my face by the onslaught of Valentine's ads, I embrace the sentiment instead? Hence, I've decided that. like with my refusal to allow stress and pressure to wreck Christmas, I'm not going to permit my rampant cynicism to put the kibosh on February 14. No, I'm not going to go all crazy and spend days baking all things heart-shaped and chocolate. I'm not planning on slaving away to make a grand, gourmet meal. I'm not making candies for all the children the Picket Fence Post kids hang out with (nor am I buying candies for dozens of children either.)

Instead, I'm going to aim for simple. Simple can be good, enjoyable even. I've purchased The Spouse one gift as well as some sweet tokens for the Picket Fence Post kiddos. Whatever we wind up having for dinner on February 14 -- whether it's frozen pizza, pasta or something easy to prepare -- the whole family can eat in the dining room at a candlelit table (we always have candles in the house) with some Sinatra playing in the background. All I'll do is pick up some kind of chocolaty dessert someplace on that day. That will be perfect.

In my new found spirit of mirth, I even picked up a box of Hello Kitty Valentines and will give them out, just because. (Now that the kids no longer have Valentine's Day parties at school where they distribute Valentines to all their classmates, I kind of miss the little Valentines with cartoon characters on them.) Filling them out makes me feel Lorelai Gilmore-esque. With all this cheerful, pro-Valentine's Day spirit, the Picket Fence Post kids and The Spouse will demand to know whether I've been sipping one too many gin and tonics.

Guess What We Did This Weekend . . .

I decided to take out the good old Picket Fence Post family's digital camera and, along with some internet surfing, decided to depict for you, via photographic images, what our weekend was comprised of:

After this weekend . . . even Max, who does little other than sleep, eat, play outside and lie in wait for people to leave doors open so he can rifle through trash cans, is exhausted:

Image credits: Moneyball image via Sony Pictures, Ferris Bueller's Day Off via Wikimedia.

As the Ankle Twists

It was a very sad sight: The Spouse carrying The Girl off the basketball court this past weekend after she turned her ankle and an opponent accidentally stepped on it. (Yes, it was the same ankle that took months upon months of physical therapy and acupressure to heal the last time she injured it several years ago.)

After two days of icing and elevating her ankle, of The Spouse and I forcing her to don the air cast we still have from the last time she went through this, she’s still complaining about pain but is walking with a somewhat regular gait.

Now we wait and hold our breath.

Will she fully heal and be able to rejoin her two basketball teams with whom she’s anxious to play?

Will she be pain-free soon and not have a repeat of what ailed her a couple years ago?

I’m going to be positive about this, damn it. The power of positive thinking: It will all be good. (But I’m still going to cross my fingers and knock on some wood for good measure.)

Nineteen Years is a Long Time . . . Especially on VHS

Monday marked my 19th wedding anniversary with The Spouse. And, given that we had finally gotten our power restored and that our town’s trick-or-treating adventure had been postponed until this weekend, I thought it would be fun to entertain the kids with our wedding videos (on VHS tapes), complete with early 90s hairstyles, attire and some family members looking a heck of a lot more spry than they do now.

Some of the Picket Fence Post kids’ observations, in no particular order:

• They thought that The Spouse looked very, very young. (He didn’t have a goatee back then and did have quite the baby face.) However they said they thought I looked the same, though The Spouse thought I looked angry. The Girl thought the bangs looked good on me.
• They couldn’t get over watching Grandma (my mother) dance. Nor could they believe that The Spouse’s father was out there grooving on the dance floor too.
• As they watched the tape and heard some of the tunes the DJ played – “Love Shack” by the B52s in particular – they said, “Wait, that song is that old?”
• There were two very young children at the wedding, children of my mother’s cousin who had traveled from far away to attend the blessed event. The Picket Fence Post kids have met them, but when they were college students, no longer the little toddlers coloring and dancing around. This was an eye-opener for them.
• They thought many people were wearing glasses that they considered “gigantic.”
• They, like the wedding guests at the time, were highly amused by a stunt The Spouse pulled: Since the reception was on Halloween night, he and the groomsmen snuck away and transformed into vampires, way before Stephenie Meyer even had an inkling about Twilight. The guys applied white powder to their faces and adorned plastic vampire teeth, with The Spouse throwing in an extra flourish with a black cape. The DJ requested that the dance floor be cleared as the sounds of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” filled the room and the “vampires” appeared, summoning the significant others to join them. I was stunned, having had no advanced knowledge of this plan, and, on the video, looked quite surprised when The Spouse tried to go all Edward Cullen on my neck. (This may be where the “you looked angry” comment came from.)
• Sadly, this was the first time they could remember seeing my grandfathers walk and talk as they’d both passed away before the kids were born.

That night, when The Spouse and I went to bed, we discovered that the Picket Fence Post kids had created a paper chain of multi-colored hearts saying, “Happy Anniversary.” There were 19 hearts, one for each year of marriage. It was a sweet way to cap off a weird, Snowtober, no power/no heat day.

Post-Snowtober: Occupy My Living Room

The snowstorm which washed over the East Coast on Saturday started off looking mighty picturesque. Like a Christmas card.

It put The Picket Fence Post family in the mood for some mischief as we were invigorated by the crisp wintry air. We “ghosted” two friends’ houses (meaning you anonymously leave a bag of candy at a friend's door with a note explaining “ghosting,” ring the doorbell then run like a fugitive back to your car) on our way to drop The Girl off at a Halloween party. (The Girl was dressed as Women’s Professional Soccer great Abby Wambach.) The Spouse, the boys and I enjoyed take-out and played games. The Eldest Boy and I watched some episodes of The Mentalist together while The Spouse and The Youngest Boy watched a movie. The Spouse picked up The Girl later in the evening and she came home happy but tired. All was well.

Until morning.

That’s when we realized that power had gone out sometime in the middle of the night. Everything – except for an outdoor paintball birthday party that The Youngest Boy was going to – was cancelled. After spending a portion of Sunday afternoon shopping and dining out at places that had heat and electricity, we headed home.

Cue the ugly pioneering phase of our story:

Unlike when we lost power for days in the heat of August courtesy of Hurricane Irene, it was unseasonably cold. Of course it was. There was snow all over the yard (about 5-6 inches), weighing down fully leaved trees sending several of crashing to the ground. We made it through dinner (grilling outside and using our propane-powered stove top) but then, despite our propane gas fireplace (which doesn’t throw much heat unless you’re right up next to it), the temperatures began dropping inside the house.

That’s when The Spouse brought a small tent into our family room – the one with the fireplace – and we created a makeshift encampment which reminded me of the Occupy Wall Street tent cities I’ve seen on the news. The boys were in the tent in front of the fireplace in their sleeping bags. The Girl was on a sofa in her sleeping bag under a pile of blankets. The Spouse and I were mushed together on another sofa (and not in a romantic way) under blankets. Our dog Max was thoroughly confused as he went from person to person, occasionally napped on his doggie bed that we’d brought downstairs, hopped onto the couch with The Girl, then scratched at the door to be let outside in the wee hours of the morning.

By daybreak, the temperature in the downstairs was 56. The temperature in the upstairs bedrooms was 48. School had been cancelled. Trick-or-treating had been postponed too. Then we got word that the electric company was estimating that power would be fully restored in our town by 11:45 . . . p.m. . . . THURSDAY!!

If that estimate is to be believed, that likely means that if there’s no power in town, the Picket Fence Post kids will likely be out of school all week. I’ve got my fingers crossed that The Spouse will be able to borrow a generator from work so that we can get the heat and hot water heater cranking (*praying the water pipes don’t burst*). If things don’t improve, it’s likely that my brother will soon be hosting a family of five, plus a fluffy dog.

Oh and it’s The Spouse and my wedding anniversary. (Yes, we got married on Halloween . . .it’s a long story, but suffice is to say it was a scheduling thing, not because we’re huge fans of Halloween or anything.) I suppose this is a great metaphor for our marriage: Things are never dull and, just when we life is running semi-smoothly, unexpected things occur and test us to make sure our senses of humor are still intact. After 19 years, they’d better be.

A Long Week of Melodrama: iPod Through Laundry, Running Over a Xylophone, Tryouts & Dress Shopping

One of my friends has likened my family to the Dunphys from Modern Family and, after several antics this week, that sounds about right . . .

Clean iPod

The Girl left her iPod in her jeans pocket. Again. It went through the laundry (both washer and dryer). Again.

As The Spouse and I tried to go to sleep last night, I heard loud banging inside the cycling dryer which I suspected was likely someone’s iPod. The Spouse groaned, hauled himself out of bed and went downstairs to see if I was right. When he came back, he had The Girl’s super-hot/fresh-from-the-dryer iPod in his hands. He added that he’d found a rock rattling around insider dryer as well. No clue who was carrying a rock around in his or her pants. But I don't think I want to know.

This morning the iPod was able to keep a charge and play music, but the screen looked a little funky. How many times 1) Is this going to happen in our house (there have been four other incidents of iPods in the laundry prior to this one) and 2) How much washing and drying can an iPod take before it dies a sad little death?

Dragging Things Out

Things were a tad chaotic on Wednesday morning as I was scrambling, trying to get the kids ready for me to drive them to school early so The Youngest Boy could make his before-school band lessons. In the chaos, The Youngest Boy rolled his ginormous xylophone – in its brand, spankin’ new bag that was a pain in the neck for The Spouse to get from the music store folks as the other bag's wheels were busted – out into the garage and left it behind my SUV. And didn’t tell anybody.

I, of course, had no freakin’ idea that the pricey instrument was back there and proceeded to exit out of the driveway once all three kids were safely buckled in. It was only the frantic waving and shouting of my next door neighbor, “There’s something under your car!” that got me to stop, get out of the car and see the xylophone under the vehicle.

Luckily, only the new bag was damaged in the incident, though it looks as though a rabid animal went at it in a fury. When I told The Spouse about my dragging the xylophone down the driveway, I heard his head explode over the phone lines. And this was all before I'd had my coffee. Not pretty.

Trying Tryouts

The middle schoolers just wrapped up two tryout sessions a piece in their efforts to attempt to make their respective seventh grade travel basketball teams. What has that meant for the Picket Fence Post family? Lots of dropping one kid off, returning to pick that kid up then dropping the second one off, later driving back to pick up the second one, sometimes having to leave dinner on the table and drag The Youngest Boy with me while I cart his siblings around. One night, The Eldest Boy had a soccer practice, raced home, showered, changed and went to hoops tryouts, came home and worked on homework. (The Spouse has been partially available to lend a transportation hand.)

Now the wait begins. Did they make a travel team or did they get cut? (Last year one of them made a travel team, the other didn’t.) If they made it, are any of their friends on the team?

Another big question this year: Coaching. The Spouse has volunteered to coach for both kids should they make the travel teams. *smacking hand on forehead* I don’t know whether to hope they make it or hope that they don't so I'll have a mildly less stressful winter. (If the kids don't make the travel teams, they'll still play in-town hoops. If you make a travel team, you have to play on both that travel team AND an in-town team. Yes, I know, we're crazy for even letting them tryout.)

Dressing the Daughter

Thank God for a helpful salesclerk (yes there are still a few of them out there) at a department store at a nearby mall. Without her help I doubt I would’ve found a dress for The Girl to wear to the bat mitzvah she’ll be attending this weekend, without having some big argument with her or without enduring oodles of tension like the icy vibe I got from another mother-daughter combo who were shopping at the same time we were.

The dress department salesclerk selected a bunch of cute dresses – ones I would’ve never in a million years picked out because I had trouble envisioning The Girl inside of any of them – for The Girl to try on. It was stunning to see her in grown-up dresses, and totally rock them by the way.

I credit the saleswoman’s spot-on taste with saving the day and getting us out of the store in under an hour. (I'm not a big shopping kinda gal, unless it's a bookstore.) The next hour was spent locating black flats, a cute (but cheap) purse and silvery nail polish. And although we didn’t find a little shrug to wear over her dress, I was pleasantly relieved that we were able to achieve any success at all.

But I’ll be holding my breath until she’s all dressed and at the party. As for The Spouse, he’ll be holding his breath until she arrives back home from the party.

Leaf Me Alone

The wretched Leaf Project has finally ended as my middle schoolers handed in their thick binders filled with leaves taped down and inserted into plastic sleeves next to neatly typed classifications and descriptions.

Though The Eldest Boy had been working on this thing for weeks, he only finished it up late last night, after getting home from his basketball tryouts. At around 9:30 p.m. he proudly presented it to The Spouse and I, as I crankily paused Grey’s Anatomy and looked it over. If we'd found big mistakes, the kid would've been up way too late to fix them. However there were none.

The Girl, who also finished up her project yesterday after we'd driven to a neighbor's house to pick one last leaf from a tree before going dress shopping, almost left the thing at home this morning, which would've resulted in a frantic call to yours truly begging me to bring the binder in to school. Luckily I asked her where her Leaf Project was before she got into the car – the kids all had to be driven to school every day this week (!). At least her binder wasn’t left on the ground behind the car. It wouldn’t have fared as well as the xylophone.

Image credits: Amazon.com, West Music and Norman Rockwell/Arcadia Youth Basketball.

Living a Dog’s Life & Other Observations

I was awakened at 3:45 this morning by our dog Max, who was scratching and whining at our bedroom door because he wanted to go to outside. Again. (The Spouse had already gotten up earlier to do the same thing. It's a bad habit of Max's that is becoming more frequent.)

I didn’t crawl back into bed until 4:15 following several failed attempts to coax Max back in 15 and then 20 minutes into his middle-of-the-night exploits. There’s only so much quiet, hushed "yelling" you can do outside in a residential neighborhood at 4 in the morning without causing a ruckus. Even the promise of giving him a generous helping of doggie treats couldn’t top his interest in whatever he was messing around with under our deck under cover of darkness.

This can’t be good . . . except for the coffee farmers whose business I’ve been enthusiastically supporting in the hours after Max decides to play outside at 4 in the morning.

***

The Youngest Boy was moving his hand up and down in the breeze while we were driving around this weekend when something occurred to him. He leaned his head of the window and opened his mouth as wide as it would go and faced the wind. “Why do dogs do this?” he shouted.

After 10 seconds or so, he found the answer. “Hey, it’s actually kind of cool.”

When we got home, his curly hair had been blown back away from his forehead as though he’d just emerged from a wind tunnel. “Don’t I look like Elvis?” he asked.

***

At an autumn town event this weekend, The Spouse and I gave the kids some cash and let them run around patronizing the various booths and buying lunch with their friends. While in the company of his posse, The Youngest Boy decided to stop at this one booth where, while other kids bought trading cards, he bought a plastic machine gun with blinking lights and a plastic bayonet at the end. It makes noise too. Bully for us.


As he handed me the box covered by the photo of the gun, I couldn’t help but wonder what the other parents at the fair thought as they spotted that little gem under my arm. Perhaps something along the lines of, “Peace out Mother of the Year?”

***

The Girl is slated to attend a bat mitzvah this weekend. That means . . . *cue the sinister Jaws music* . . . we’ve got to go buy her a dress. A real dress, not a cotton skirt to be worn with her “nice” hoodie and knock-off Uggs.

Needless to say, my sporty gal and her ubiquitous ponytail is none too pleased about the upcoming shopping excursion where, instead of warm-up jackets and sports shorts, we’ll be looking at items with hemlines. With her seeing this upcoming trip as just a tiny notch above doing a “poop check” in our backyard to pick up Max’s deposit’s, I’m bringing low expectations with me before we step into any stores.

My question: Should I bribe her with a big sundae before or after we get a dress?

Where the Kids and Their Buddies All Roam

The Spouse and I took the kids to a big event in our small town last week. (In some ways it reminded me of something you might have seen occurring in the Gilmore Girls’ Stars Hollow where everybody in town knows about the event and where you inevitably see tons of people you know.)

Although we’ve attended this event for several consecutive years, this time, it felt different. Very different. Why? Because The Spouse and I allowed the Picket Fence Post kids to go off with their friends, to enjoy rides, to spend their allowance money on ridiculous things like pens that zap your hand when you press the button on the side (something that thrilled The Youngest Boy who kept zapping himself) and slide down inflatable slides with their friends. No parents with them.

It was a strange feeling to be sitting on the blanket next to The Spouse without any offspring next to us. It was just us, the two of us, like in our pre-kid days. Sure, the kids, their friends in tow, periodically checked in, showed us their purchases and scarfed down some of the sweets and beverages we’d brought along (you know your kids will be checking in with you when you have food), but then they zoomed back out amongst the crowd again with promises to return when the fireworks started.

As we watched other parents with younger children -- clueless toddlers and willful preschoolers -- chase them about, it was an odd thing to realize that this is where we are in our lives, with our parenting: We’re giving our kids some latitude, some freedom to test out, like a bicycle with training wheels. They have time alone with their friends but know that Mom and Dad (and a cooler of food and drink) are close by. We’re no longer having to hold their hands, watching over them every second. They’re standing up on their little colt legs and watching over themselves, with their parents providing a safety net if they need it. (It feels similar to when one of the two older kids babysit someone else’s children and either The Spouse or I are available, a phone call away, if they need us.)

By the time the main event – fireworks – started, all three of them had returned. And even though two of her friends had decided to sit with us, The Girl wasn't shy about leaning against me and allowing me to give her a hug. The Youngest Boy, who had blown off my admonition to bring a sweatshirt with him, also leaned against me but I think it was more about getting warm than it was about affection. Even with their freedom, they still came back. I hope that’s a good sign.

Falling to Pieces Over the Leaf Project

The seventh graders have a big assignment. Big. It’s called the Leaf Project.

Here’s what it is in a nutshell: Collect a few dozen leaves of different varieties. Identify the tree from whence the leaves came. Press those leaves. Mount the leaves in a book, along with info about the leaves. Hand it in.

Sounds simple, right?

Not so fast.

Neither The Spouse nor I had heard anything about this seventh grade Leaf Project until just before we walked into the science teacher’s classroom on Curriculum Night when another dad asked us how our kids were coming along with the project.

“What ‘Leaf Project?’” I asked.

He looked at me quizzically as we took our places behind the desks. It was during the science teacher’s presentation that we learned about the Leaf Project. She said she’d be taking the students around the school grounds a few times to ID trees. We just needed to give them a reference book to help them classify the trees, something I bought the day after Curriculum Night.

Still, it sounded fairly easy enough. No need to stress out.

Then I received an e-mail from a kind parent inviting my kids to a session with a forester from town who had volunteered to conduct a session with seventh graders at a student’s home, but my seventh graders wouldn’t be able to make it. And the Leaf Project became the subject of ample, anxious chatter at the sidelines of soccer games among the seventh grade parents.

My kids started freaking out over it and worrying, insisting that the only place they could search for leaves was on the school grounds, as long as I bring them to the school and hang around in my car waiting for them. On two different afternoons when I was supposed to be working.

“Why can’t you just go in the woods in the back of our house?” I asked them, irritated that they were asking me to truck them around as though my schedule was irrelevant.

“We can’t,” they said, protesting that there aren’t enough different kinds of trees in our woods. The only place to look, they were convinced, is at school.

“Why would we waste all that work we did?” The Eldest Boy asked, referring to the school leaf walks where the trees have already been identified.

“Why, you can’t just go outside?” I still didn’t get it, why they couldn’t just go into the woods and ID trees and leaves near us.

Then yesterday, The Eldest Boy and The Girl asked if they could stay late after school with their teacher and go on another leaf collection walk and take a late bus home. I said, “Sure,” as that option seemed preferable to me spending two afternoons hanging out in the school parking lot waiting for them. Then my daughter inexplicably decided not to stick around after school so she could get her own personal leaf time on Thursday, when the kids had the day off from school (for the Jewish New Year, which we’ll be celebrating on Sunday), and have The Spouse or me bring her to the school grounds while we wait for her.

However it poured last night (I tend to think it was the collective tears of crushed Red Sox fans). All the leaves are now wet. But since The Girl waited, she’s going to have to tromp through the dampness, collect and dry out the leaves.

Damned Leaf Project.

What's Up With These Early Fall Illnesses?

First it was The Girl who had strep, followed by a rash that internet medical sites told us was scarlet fever. She was home sick from school for three days last week.

Then it was me with a horrid cough followed by a temperature that spiked to 103.5 last weekend. (I’m much better now but still have congestion and a slight cough that won’t quite go away entirely, ‘tis quite annoying to The Spouse at night.)

Then today, The Youngest Boy, who has been hacking and coughing for a week (once so badly that his teacher sent him to the school nurse to rest for a bit), developed a fever. It was a low fever, but still . . . And even though he begged me to let him go to school (yes, I was as shocked as you by the fact that he wanted to go to school, but I suspect it was because he had gym class today), The Spouse and I insisted that he stay home, even if it meant that I had to miss my morning yoga class and attend to his various and sundry requests (make him comfy on the sofa, make him chicken soup, etc.).

A few days ago, I was convinced that I’d be on the receiving end of a mid-day call from The Eldest Boy to come and get him from school because he said his throat felt “weird” although he didn’t have a fever and his throat didn’t look scary. But he made it through school day okay, although he was a bit more fatigued than he normally is for a few days.

I’d hoped that we’d squeeze in a trip to an apple orchard this weekend, maybe get some fresh cider, cider doughnuts and pick enough apples to make lots of apple crisp, perhaps a pie, if I'm feeling Martha Stewart-ish. However all that autumnal goodness will be put on hold until I’m sure that The Spouse doesn’t become the final one to be felled by this parade of early fall illnesses.