Archive for April, 2008

Day 19 But it’s Tuesday!

April 30, 2008 at 1:13 am · Filed under Adult???, General Banter, Kids, Mid Life

At 12:37 this afternoon I noticed that I was wearing two different earrings. Back in the 80s this was a fashion statement. Today it was not. At 4:13 this afternoon I got a text from Mary telling me that yesterday’s blog entry had her guffawing. I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember what I had written. At 7:27 this evening I was made aware of a comment by Jane on the blog regarding “Grand Theft Auto 4″. It wasn’t until I went back, reviewed the thread and was reminded of Martha’s comment, that it all came together. So, it is official, I am losing it.

My grandmother had Alzheimer’s. It ain’t pretty. Since I have, on more than one occasion, followed in her medical footsteps it stands to reason that, I, too, will eventually be reduced to quiet humming. In fact, I noticed just the other day that I often hum. Georgie reprimands me regularly and tells me to learn the words or not sing at all. Ouch. And he is right, I don’t know the words to any songs other than “The National Anthem” and “God Bless America” and even those I cannot distinquish from one another without, you guessed it, humming a few bars. Oh, geez, if this is what things are like at 43 I can only imagine what I am in for.

With the goal of understanding my inability to get out of my own way I have tried to determine what is tripping me up. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

1. People love to tell you how wonderful and fulfilling parenting can be. No one tells you how exhausting it can be. How frustrating one’s children can be and how generally overwhelming it can be. Oh, sure, we all agree on that now, but no one bothered to let us know before we found ourselves up to our eyeballs in kids and their “stuff.”

2. I am either working or with aforementioned progeny all week. By the time Saturday (okay, Thursday) rolls around I am done for the week. I want to punch out and punch someone out. Not good.

3. I know I need to eat less/exercise more, spend less/make more and kvetch less/repair more but I don’t want to. I’m just too tired.

4. The new styles in the stores flatter no one. I didn’t look good in billowy tops when I was thin, when I was pregnant or when I was in my 20s. I certainly don’t look good in them now. (Once, when I was pregnant, Rich and I were shopping for clothes to fit my pregnant from my eyebrows to my knees body and he was so horrified by the clothing choices that he literally asked the salesgirl if the collective they thought that pregnancy made women want to wear polyester, bows and horizontal stripes. She was so taken aback that she offered us a 20% discount to just buy something and get out)

5. And why is it that it takes for freakin’ ever to build up muscle at the gym, but about 72 hours to lose it all?

So, armed with my fears of foot tumors, challenging children, muscle loss and Alzheimer’s I have made it through another day. Just one more before I am off on a plane to L.A., just me and my mom, for five days without anyone but myself to worrry about. Oh, wait, I am always worried…how is that gonna work itself out?

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Day 18 Yup, It’s Monday Alright

April 29, 2008 at 2:12 am · Filed under General Banter

It finally arrived – the Monday after vacation.  I had anticipated an easier than normal morning routine.  Rich was working from home until his acupuncture appointment at ten and I had a bit more leisurely morning than normal as I was going to see the foot surgeon at 9:30, so I was off the hook for school drop off and didn’t have to leave the house until 9.  (For the uninformed, I had a tumor, called a myopericytoma, removed from my foot five days after Harrison’s bar mitzvah.  They had expressed concern over it being a synovial sarcoma – from which I would be desperately ill.  Thank God it wasn’t.  Said tumor has returned and is bigger and uglier than ever.)  I pulled up to the Brigham just before 9 and, in anticipation of the forecasted rain, opted to valet the car.  No sense in unnecessarily wrecking my freshly coiffed hair.  (And why is it always a wind tunnel crossing from the parking garage to the hospital?)

Well, I was on time.  Not so the doc.  After close to an hour, I was finally moved from the public waiting area to an exam room where I was give the privilege of waiting another 20 minutes.  This would not have been so bad if I had thought enough to grab the “Woman’s Day” magazine from October, 2005 to keep me company.  Having neglected to do that, I was stuck studying a poster of the knee.  After ten minutes I realized that I was still not sure what I was looking at.  (I knew it was a knee, but am still unsure of what angle I was looking at it from!).  I then started putzing around with my TREO wishing I had some idea how to play the one game I have on it.  (Note to self: ask Harrison how to play it!)

Being a “premier teaching hospital”, the Brigham is big on medical residents.  I am all for new doctors learning the ropes and honing their skills, but the goon that came in to see me was either at the bottom of his class, got into medical school through nepotism, hadn’t read my records or was an arrogant ass.  Or all of the above.  Either way, he looked at my foot, announced that it was swollen (geez, Georgie coulda told me that!) and suggested a compression hose.  Um, what?  I agreed that it was swollen, but tried to gently suggest (really, it was gently!) that perhaps the tumor had come back and instead of shoving it into a support stocking we might want to get rid of it.  Just a thought.  His impatience for me was apparent and I suggested that perhaps Dr. R. would have a different opinion.  I swear he tsk-ed.  He left the room with the promise of coming right back.  “With Dr. R.” I hoped. 

Moments later, the two gave the prefunctory knock on the door (question - does anyone ever really answer that knock?  Has anyone ever replied, ”just a minute” or “come back in a few” or ”go away”?) and in walked the schmendrick and his mentor, Dr. R.  (Note: Dr. R. is highly regarded in his specialty – orthopedic oncology – who knew there was such a field? – and equally regarded by me and Rich).  I was immediately vindicated when Dr. R. took one look at my foot and commented that it was even bigger than before.   Compression hose, my ass!

A bit perplexed as to what the hell is growing in my foot (I don’t care if it was benign, unless it is a baby, nothing should be growing in me!) he directed me to have another MRI to see what’s what.  Ebony, the nice gal at the front desk made a few phone calls and instructed me to come back at 2 p.m. (it was now 11:30 or so) and report to the second floor.  So, here I was, dressed for work (yup, no jeans) with two and a half hours to kill.  I called the office to say I wouldn’t me be in (she was a bit irked) and did what any self respecting middle aged Jewish girl would do, went shopping.  I didn’t actually buy anything, but it cleared my head a bit.  Having changed into my signature jeans, I headed back to the hospital.

By now it was pouring out so I didn’t even entertain parking any way other than valet.  I dropped the car off and headed to the MRI suite which had “Dr. Phil” on and was filled with folks chilled out on Xanax, Ativan, Valium or whatever their sedative of choice might be in anticipation of the most claustrophobic situation one can imagine.  I, however, was cool as a cucumber knowing that my head would not be in that Godforsaken machine and it would only be the banging I would have to suffer through.

Turns out, it was the most relaxing part of my day.  I lay there, motionless, for an hour.  I had to take my glasses off (I was just close enough to blow the machine up with the screws in my specs) so, since I cannot see a bloody thing without them, I just shut my eyes and let the headphones fill my ears with “Magic 106.7 – Easy Listening” and enjoy the relative quiet (read: no phones, no kids, no nothing).  When the procedure was over I swear she had to nudge me awake.  What does that say about my life that I find having an MRI the ultimate escape?

While waiting for my car to be retrieved (from where, I wonder?) I texted Rich – “how do you feel after your acupuncture” to which he responded, “fine.  How do you feel after your MRI”.  Man, that’s depressing. 

So here I am, once again waiting for test results and, once again, assuming it is nothing.  That’s bitten me in the butt before, so let’s hope it doesn’t this time.  For now I am trying not to notice the ugly blob on my left foot and planning on getting a pedicure to beautify that of my feet over which I have some control.  Whatever…

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Day 17 Sunday

April 28, 2008 at 12:38 am · Filed under General Banter, Kids

Today I have been to Target ($358), Dick’s Sporting Goods ($120), the market ($208 the first time, $37 twenty minutes later when I went back to get more lamb chops – which, as it turned out, we didn’t need) and just noticed yet another pile of birdshit on my newly washed car.  I have done four loads of laundry and have two more to go.  I have spoken sternly to both my children and my husband.  I have eaten twice as many animal crackers than the serving size suggests and have yet to bathe.  And tomorrow I get to go to the doctor in the morning to find out why the tumor/mass/gross thing in my foot which was surgically removed in December is back, (note to readers: if they offer you a spinal, refuse it.  It was, without competition, the creepiest experience of my life.  And I’ve had lots of creepy experiences), rush to  work to try to catch up on that which I won’t get to in the morning and then, you guessed it, rush to pick the kids up at school.  It is such a mystery to me why I am so damned tired.

As I mentioned a few days ago, school vacation means very different things to parents and children.  I, as a parent, am as exhuasted as I have been since, well, February vacation.  I have a terrible case of the Sunday night blues and cannot even go hide in my room yet since one of the active loads of laundry happens to have my sheets in it.  I cannot do the Sunday crossword puzzle because someone, who shall remain nameless but he knows who he is, tossed the paper somewhere other than the recycle bin or the garbage pail.  I have rifled through both and concluded that it is just gone.  I cannot read the newest “Us Magazine” because I am saving it for my upcoming flight to Los Angeles where, I have just been told, it was 91 degrees today.  I hate the heat.  In fact, I take it personally when the mercury rises above 72 degrees. 

So what is a girl to do?  Well, this girl (shut up, if I want to consider myself a girl who is it hurting?) is going to take a shower, park herself in front of “Desperate Housewives” (even though I still haven’t had an opportunity to watch last week’s episode.  I hope, for the sake of those involved, that no one in my house was dense enough to erase it.  That could be the thing that pushes me over the edge) and have a Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich.  (I am partial to the mint ones but am not always able to locate them so I’ve branched out to the chocolate and vanilla.  I draw the line at the peanut butter.  That just sounds nasty.  I mean, really, peanut butter lo-cal ice cream?  There are so many things wrong with that.)

Assuming we all make it til morning, here’s hoping that all goes smoothly.  That Harrison and Georgie bound out of bed, treat one another with love and respect, eat a healthy breakfast, brush and floss their teeth and decline my ride to school, preferring to walk for the exercise and fresh air.  That I have a good hair day, the doctor tells me that my foot is nothing more serious than being unattractive and that the acupuncture that Rich is having fixes his dizzies for good.  That’s not asking too much, is it?

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Day 16 But Will She Come Back?

April 27, 2008 at 3:29 am · Filed under General Banter, Kids

Tonight we used a new babysitter.  She is a lovely girl, a sophmore in high school (read: she’ll be here for another two years which is all the time I plan on needing a babysitter.  If, in two years, when Harrison is 15 and Georgie is 8, Georgie isn’t human enough to leave Harrison in charge we have much bigger problems) the daughter of friends of ours and, perhaps most importantly, she has known Georgie, warts and all, for years.  And she still agreed to sit.

Rich went to pick her up at six.  I believe he made a conscious decision (perhaps made unconciously, but ultimately conscious, nonetheless)  to pick her up in the Porsche…there’s no denying the wow factor of a silver convertible in the eyes of the average kid who is chauffered around in their parents’ minivan.  Upon arrival back at the house Georgie, as if on cue, got a case of the wilds.  He was like a caged animal that had suddenly been set free.  His excitement was palpable and A. (the babysitter) looked shellshocked.  Oh, crap, I thought…maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.   But, the fact that Rich and I hadn’t been out alone in weeks (other than to visit an ER or two) was reason enough for us to make a hasty retreat out the door.   I walked out the door first and Rich stayed behind to whisper in Georgie’s ear something along the lines of, “if you don’t behave I will kill you slowly and torturously” and off we went.

We purposely opted to have a low key evening and one in which we would be easily reachable if necessary. (Things were so much better for our parent’s generation.  Without the “convenience” of cell phones at the ready, they would leave us with sitters, experienced or not, go out for the next five hours and be totally incommunicado.  As best I can tell, it never posed a problem.)  In the interest of not making A. think I was untrusting, I, instead, texted Harrison about twenty minutes after we left.  Our conversation was thus:

Me: Is everything cool?

Harrison: Yea!

Me: Is that an “I’m annoyed” exclamation mark or a “I’m surprised at how good Georgie is being” exclamation mark?

Harrison: What ev

Me: Answer me ya dope

Harrison: idk…both, more so u!

Me: huh?

Harrison: I’m more annoyed with you…oh, and Georgie is jumping all over A.

Me: Tell him not to

Harrison: No shit Sherlock…I did!

Me: Is she cool?

Harrison: Yea

And so it went.  I was not only having a borderline inappropriate text exchange with Harrison, but I was, in a roundabout (or not so roundabout) way, going around A. to be sure all was okay.  While she should have been worried about impressing me with her babysitting skills, I, instead, was more worried about her coming back.  What ev.

Rich and I continued about our business.  Unbeknownst to me, Rich gave a quick ring (he actually called the house phone and Harrison actually answered it!) to see if all was good.  Harrison reported that Georgie was dancing on our bed.  Naked.  Great, yet another neighborhood girl (from our temple, no less) who saw their first penis in my house.  Oy vey. 

Moments later, Rich’s phone rang (note to self: keeping my phone off when out for the evening is a good idea!).  Harrison was calling to report that Georgie was refusing to go to bed (so why should tonight be different from every other night?) and that’s when Rich took the big guns out.  He told Georgie that we were on our way home (lie) and that if he was awake when we arrived we would take away his new remote control helicopter (his old remote control helicopter had met with an untimely demise at the hand of a pissed off seven year old.)  His response?  “Let’s go to bed, A.!”  Ahh, nothing like a threat that works!

We finished our dinner and headed home, striving to be there by 10 p.m. (for a few reasons, not the least of which is it is so much less painful to fork over $40 than to fork over $50).  We walked in sheepishly and asked A. how things went…did Georgie pull himself together?  A. gently and sweetly replied that he didn’t but they (she and Harrison) collectively did it for him.  And now, the burning question -

Will you come back?

And, even better than finding your size on the 75% off rack she said (sincerely, I might add), “sure!”  In fact, I think she even wants to!  Just goes to show that, much like the difference thirty years makes in one’s perception of school vacation week, so too, apparently, does it make in one’s overall tolerance for the likes of Georgie.  What we, as parents, find insufferable, the average 15 year old is fine with. 

 I’m down with that.

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Day 15

April 25, 2008 at 1:32 am · Filed under General Banter

All of Georgie’s pants are too short.  All of Harrison’s underwear is too small. (I only know this because his method of discarding them was to throw them out into the hall outside his room. They’ve been there for three days now.)  Rich still has the remnants of his vertigo (and is, um, cranky) and I have burnt lips from being at the playground every afternoon.  For some reason, these issues all feel insurmountable right now.  Perhaps that is because we are on Thursday of vacation week and I am fried.

Sitting at work today I wondered (aloud, which wasn’t necessarily a good career move) how I was going to stay awake.  It could be the endless week I’ve had, or it could be the allergy pills I have clearly become addicted to or it could be that I am so overwhelmed by the short pants, tight underwear and lingering vertigo that my body is threatening to just shut down somewhere.  I’d be just as happy to find a corner and suck my thumb for a few minutes…or at least until 8 a.m. on Monday when the school bell rings.

Tonight I was in CVS with the kids (went in for I cannot even recall what, left with $60 fewer dollars in my bank account) imploring Georgie to put whatever he had in his hand (he doesn’t care what it is, it’s all about the acquisition.  In fact, I didn’t look too closely, but I think he may have been holding a box of tampons).  I caught the eye of another beleaguered parent who assured me that my life with two boys was easier than his with two girls.  I don’t think so.  Sure, girls can be mean, hormonal and scary, but boys do things like run around in pants that are too short and toss their too small boxers in the hall fully expecting mom to not only pick them up, but replace them, magically, while you sleep.  Girls might be whiny and kvetchy, but, newsflash, so are boys.  Girls wear their puberty on their arm (their chest, actually) but boys just get snarky and spend a lot of time alone in their rooms.  Especially during vacation week.   Either way, children, it seems, are not even human half the time.  And it is killing me.

So, back to Georgie’s pants and Harrison’s undergarments.  Both issues need to be a(ttended to but the thought of doing so is, for some insane reason, stopping me in my tracks.  Perhaps it is a subconscious desire to arrest their development (wait, that is lunacy…if I arrest their development they will never grow up to be menschy adults who are being tortured by their own children!)  Maybe I cannot bear the thought of buying yet more clothes that they will outgrow before the AMEX bill comes due.  Or, it could be that I have a minor resentment that they keep getting new stuff and I don’t.  Having decided that is the case I did what any self respecting middle aged mother would do — when I was handed a surprise four hour babysitter I went shopping for me! 

For some reason I had been emailed a “friends and family” discount at Lord & Taylor.  Who am I to turn down a discount?  So I headed to the closest one (so what if it was a thirty minute ride – it was a beautiful day, I had the sunroof open and the kids were being tended to) and did a little damage.  Twenty percent less damage than had I gone without the discount, but damage nonetheless.  The next stop was DSW for which I had a thirty percent coupon.  Despite their ridiculous inventory of about a million and ten shoes, I left empty handed.  Trust me, I tried like hell to find something (at a certain point I became willing to buy just about anything – better than wasting a perfectly good discount) but there was nothing to be had.  Feeling a bit deflated, I started to head home.  I took a circuitous route with the plan that if I was able to park near (read: directly in front) of a particular store it would be karma I could not tempt and would stop in.  Well, don’t you know, there was a spot in front and a willing saleperson (how rare is that!?) to circle the store with me.  Again, I had success and left with a few pieces that will serve me well.   Cool.

When I pulled into the driveway I was greeted by the boys.  I felt my smile droop when I looked at Georgie’s too short pants and remembered Harrison’s too tight underwear.  And then, as if on cue, Rich pulled up (in his Porsche, with the roof down, of course) and said he’d only had one dizzy spell all day.  Ugh. 

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Day 14 Exhaustion

April 23, 2008 at 1:00 am · Filed under Adult???, General Banter, Kids

I just brushed Georgie’s teeth with my toothpaste and my toothbrush.  He recoiled when I shoved, er, put it, in his mouth and I, of course being impatient, asked him what his problem was.  I still hadn’t noticed that I had layered it with the white (read: grown up) toothpaste and not the aqua blue (read: kid’s) he favors.  As he was vigorously spitting into the sink (which is an improvement upon his usual spitting on the counter) I noticed that I was not holding a “Cars” toothbrush but a decidely boring blue one.  That’s because I have outgrown licensed toothbrushes/pastes and have moved onto grown up ones.

It is shocking that this is my only act of stupidity tonight.  I have been going full throttle since 7:00 this morning (it is vacation week, I slept in) and am wiped out.  From work I shot home to have some lunch so that I would not find myself at a McDonald’s drive through at 3pm and to, yup, change into jeans (I actually went for the jean capris today — it was a beauty) and awaited the return, by my mother/babysitter for the morning, of Georgie. Off we went to the airport to collect my mother in law and from there we made a few quick stops (including Dunkin’ Donuts for my daily iced decaf with skim milk and sugar, not too light.  Yes, real sugar.  Both the blue stuff and the yellow stuff stay with my long after I have ingested them and it is not pleasant for anyone.  That and they probably cause cancer which I have already had once and would prefer not to have again) before I dropped her off at her apartment.  Georgie and I then went directly to the new playground, arriving at about 4pm.  We left at 7pm.  Upon arrival home, filled with high hopes of Rich taking over the parenting stuff, I instead found him finishing up on the phone with someone and announcing his intense hunger (I believe he used the word famished.  I have asked him repeatedly why he doesn’t have a snack of some sort between lunch and arriving home.  I have yet to get a satisfactory response.)  So, being the Martha Stewart that I am, I whipped a few things together (shut up, Passover leftovers that other people made still have to be put together on a plate and thrown in the microwave!) and presented him with dinner.  Okay, I thought, he’ll eat and then take over.  No such luck.

Through no fault of his own, Rich was hit with the dizzies again.  It has been plaguing him since last weekend when we did our ER crawl and hit him over the head again tonight.  He slipped himself an AntiVert and asked me to assist him in getting upstairs.  My hopes quickly dashed, I obliged…just call me Julie Nightingale.  No hospital would be needed, he announced, but he was snoring loudly within ten minutes of taking the meds.  I still had two tired, dirty, unfed, snarky boys at my heels and had to fight back the tears in mere anticipation of finishing the parenting chores for the night.  I tossed (okay, hurled) a box of macaroni and cheese in the saucepan and called it a meal.  I told Georgie he could watch the last few minutes of “iCarly” (a show which, I believe, is intended for tweens and older, yet Georgie, at the tender age of six, loves) and if he went upstairs right away I would read him a book, or five.   Not surprisingly, he wasn’t quite as cooperative as one would hope, so  I had to threaten him once or twice, but he finally, being so exhausted himself he didn’t have the energy to be a pain in the ass, went upstairs.  That’s when we had the toothpaste/brush debacle.  I was just proud of myself for not weeping, yelling or running out of the house flailing about. 

Now Rich and Georgie are both asleep, Harrison needs a ride to a friend’s house for a sleepover (from which he has been instructed he must be home from, bright eyed and bushy tailed, at the tender (to a 13 year old, anyway) hour of 8:15am to watch his brother until the paid sitter arrives.) and I need to go to CVS to buy myself a new toothbrush.  I am sure that I will not get out of there without spending $50 which I am okay with, provided I remember to buy the toothbrush.

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Day 13 Guilt…

April 21, 2008 at 1:29 am · Filed under Adult???, General Banter, Kids

My mother always warns me that guilt is a wasted emotion thereby making it useless to feel guilty over anything.  I love the way the sounds and wish like hell that I could live my life believing it.

It seems I am in a constant state of guilt.  Some of it is fairly rational: do I spend enough (quality) time with my kids, am I contributing enough to the family bankroll, am I the best mother I can be…you know the drill.  Some of it, I am told, is totally irrational: did I really need my new and totally awesome handbag, was it okay to go out early yesterday morning to have a manicure and do a training walk for my upcoming Avon Walk for Breast Cancer Research (you can sponsor me at http://www.avonfoundation.org) thereby sucking up four hours for myself, should I really be going to L.A. for five days with my mother attend Big Sunday (http://www.bigsunday.org) leaving Rich and the boys behind…see a pattern here?  I am so overwrought with guilt over the aforementioned (and those just cover this weekend) that it is, even to me, ridiculous.

 In thinking about it, I have done very little in my life over which I should feel guilty.  I have been a good daughter, a good daughter in law, a good wife, a good mother, a good sister and a good friend.  I have been honest (sometimes to a fault), generous (ditto that), forgiving (no comment) and, I hope, kind. (Okay, in the interest of full disclosure I know that there is a part of me that is capable of being a bitch.  In my near middle age I try to curb that side and go with the kill ‘em with kindness mode.    I am usually successful.)  Which begs the question, why do I feel guilty so much of the time?

I work twenty hours a week – everyday from 9 until 1.  From work, I hustle to get some errands done, squeeze in time to run home to change into jeans (nope, still cannot wear jeans to work) and collect the kids.  As anyone who knows me or has read this blog knows, one never knows what they are going to get when they greet my kids at the end of the day.  Regardless, we are then faced with filling the remainder of the day (school gets out at 2 which, as far as I am concerned, is mid morning!) and often into the evening.  In fairness, Georgie goes to extended day (which, despite his protestations to the contrary, he loves) on Tuesdays and Thursdays allowing me a bit of freedom to accomplish whatever it is I want/need to.  Those afternoons are usually filled with visits to my therapist (no guilt there), my trainer (the guilt I don’t have over therapist I make up for here) and doing some marketing (I really need to expand upon my cooking repertoire.)  Sometimes I finagle a little shopping of some sort – but never more than a quick visit to Linens ‘N Things (which, I have heard repeatedly, is in danger of closing it’s doors.  I do not know how that is possible as I am quite sure that I single handedly keep them in business.  True, I never enter the place without a fistful of coupons, but I am certain they are still turning a profit in spite of my 20% discount) or Marshall’s (is it just me, or has it gone downhill of late?)  I have just those few hours to myself and, man, do I need them — on Mondays Georgie has an art class, on Wednesdays I take him to his shrink (which is nearby now, but used to be a 45 minute ride away) on Fridays I pray for playground weather so we have something to do that doesn’t involve me being responsible for any kindergartner other than my own.  Harrison, from September through March, has swim practice from 6 til 8, hebrew school on Tuesdays and a teenage attitude everyday.  All that being said, however, no matter how many hours I have or don’t have, I feel guilty.   What is my problem?

Every morning, I fly solo.  Rich has a new position and, during the ramp up, anyway, he is in total overload.  He is out the door by 6:30 or 7:00 leaving me to get myself up, dressed and presentable for work, get the kids up, dressed, fed and presentable for school and continue on to a productive day.  I appreciate that he earns more, and has a more prestigious and mentally draining job but it doesn’t change the fact that I am on my own.  Ever try to get a 13 year old boy out of bed before noon?  Ever try to convince a 6 year old boy that he won’t melt if he gets rained on (note to self: invest in a new umbrella just for him)?  Ain’t easy stuff.  And that is how my day gets started.  Everyday, Monday through Friday.  Friday nights are often Rich’s night out.  His office hosts a “Beer Hour” ever week which, as best I can tell, seems to start at 4 pm and end at, oh, midnight.  Okay, the beer hour itself ends at 6 pm or so (I think) and then Rich joins a group of colleagues and hits the town.  Conceptually I am fine with this.  In actuality, not so much.  By the time Friday night rolls along I have not only worked twenty hours, but have logged, on average, another forty with the kids.  I am officially exhausted (and a little bitter.)  As a result, I often take off for several hours on Saturday in search of my sanity.  (I have yet to find it, but I’m still tryin’!)  And, you guessed it, each and every Saturday, I feel guilty.  What up with that?!?!?!  Am I alone here or are other mothers doing this to themselves, I wonder.

I was telling my never married girlfriend, Susan about my upcoming solo trip to L.A. (we were headed to a Passover Seder – she and I were in one car (with Georgie and all the food) and Rich and Harrison were in another.  Not sure why we needed two cars, other than one had Georgie and the other had a Porsche emblem and the roof down) and the associated guilt in leaving Rich alone with the boys and she commented, with a degree of horror, that she hears this all the time from her married with children girlfriends.  She simply doesn’t get it.  When you put it that way, neither do I.

Anyway, I am talking a big game and insisting that I am not going to feel guilty, yet I know that I will also be maniacally settting up extra extended days at school, babysitters and friends to pick up the slack with the boys while I am gone.  I will, I am sure, second guess my plans a minimum of a dozen times and feel beholden to everyone who pinch hits over the course of those five days.  I already feel badly about the cost of the ticket (I know I could have gone cheaper, but wanted to be on the same plane as my mother who had already made her plans), the challenges Rich will face each morning before school (even though I do it every day) and taking a trip alone (even though Rich has done a fair amount of travel over the years and, despite it being for business, he was in Japan and I wasn’t).  I know in my heart that I have nothing to feel guilty about, yet guilt prevails.  That is so wrong.  And I haven’t even done my “things I need for L.A.” shopping yet…

 

 

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Day 12 What a Difference 30 Years Makes

April 19, 2008 at 12:43 am · Filed under General Banter, Kids

Back in the 70’s when I was in the throes of my elementary education, I, like all my co-students, lived for vacation week.  The multiplication tables might have eluded me (I still don’t know my sevens), but I knew just when vacation fell.  It wasn’t that we took great trips (we didn’t) or that we went on great adventures (we might have, but, like most of childhood, I have no recollection) or even that we had no homework (well, there was always one mean teacher who gave us some unnecessary assignment which I invariably left until Sunday night), it was that we didn’t have to be anywhere.  We could sleep until we woke up and not be awoken by the shrill of an alarm clock or, in my case, the shock of my brother ripping the blankets off my bed.  We were free agents and the days lay ahead of us, blank slates just itching to be filled.  It was pure bliss.

That was in the 70’s when I was the kid.  Now that I am the parent, I see vacations in an entirely different light.  My alarm is still going to go off at the ungodly hour of 5:45 a.m., I still need to be somewhere and now, just to add insult to injury, I am charged with making sure the kids are cared for, fed and entertained.  I will settle for relatively clean, McDonald’s and lots of videos.  I talk a big game, but the truth is, I have been in a virtual panic for the past week (“vacation is next weeK?!?!) trying to figure out how I am going to:

1. Get to work and be sure that Georgie isn’t fending for himself.  (Who knew that the town vacation program would be filled two months ago!) 

2. Eke out a moment to myself to, oh, I don’t know, go to the market. 

3. Get Harrison where he wants to be?  (And he is going to want to be somewhere everyday)

I have opted not to do the math for the babysitters…I’m making this much to pay that much.  Nothing good will come from that exercise.  Trust me. 

No trips for us this time (we did take a last minute trip to Disney over February vacation – and I only threatened to get on the next plane home, alone, twice) so it is time to open up the bag of tricks and make it a magical week.  Or something like that. 

Back in the 70’s (every time I write that I feel increasinly aged), while my brothers and I were ecstatic over the mere idea of vacation I now know (not because she told me, but because I am a mom) that my mother (and all her mother friends) was secretly suicidal.  I give her credit for taking the high road and not giving in.  It would have been very easy to do that.  So, here’s to all us moms who are going to rally this week, keep our temper tantrums in the single digits and never let on to our kids how grueling this week can be.

And for any of you moms out there who love vacation week as much as your kids do, I think we may have to re-evaluate our friendship.  

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Day 11

April 17, 2008 at 1:45 am · Filed under General Banter, Kids

As I am sitting here staring at a blank screen, Harrison is loitering behind me suggesting that I write about my day, with all its twists and turns.  He knows all about them because he was at the center of it all.

I was at work, busily trying to pull together a complicated order (everything felt complicated today – probably because Georgie woke me up just after midnight and proceeded to harass me until 4 a.m. with claims of being afraid.  I knew he was lying based upon his smile and suggestions that my getting in his bed would erase said fear.  Heard that line before!  I stood my ground, or laid my bed as it were, and didn’t give in.  I suggested he find a spot in his bed, on the floor or in the tub but I wasn’t going to be wooed in!  One point for mom!) when I heard my cell phone ring from my handbag (my new, really swell, happy birthday to me handbag). I was on the phone with a client so ignored it.  Two beats later, the second line in the office rang and I knew I was being pursued.  Carolyn answered the phone, put it on hold and told me it was the kids’ school.  Crap.

I assumed it was going to be the nurse attending to Georgie who was lying to her about some phanton symptom (wonder if he is trying to seduce her into his bed, too!).  No such luck.  It was the school secretary asking me to hold for the principal.  Why is it that even at 43, being summonsed by the principal still brings a knot in my stomach and a line of sweat over my lip?  I held for Mr. C. and knew immediately that he wasn’t calling to ask me to serve on the PTO.  He announced his fury and launched into a rant over something Harrison had done over which he was irate.  (I know you are dying to know the specifics, but this is the internet, after all, and I don’t want to fuel any fires…will be happy to share offline with anyone interested).  I didn’t say much of anything,  although I will admit that my initial reaction was to be curious as to what he was so upset about.  I am not one of those delusional parents who thinks that my kid does no wrong (in fact, I always assume that they did do something wrong!) but his anger seemed so misplaced and the “crime” so benign that I, for once, didn’t say a thing.  When I hung up the phone I still didn’t get it.  All I wanted to do was call my father who would have either laughed at the ridiculousness of it, or gone for the jugular and offered to rip the principal a new one.   Since I couldn’t do that (for anyone out there in blog land who I don’t happen to know, my father died just over two years ago and is missed terribly…) I just sat on it for a bit and tried to predict what Rich’s reaction was going to be.

So, I ran home, did my daily ritual of changing into jeans (nope, still cannot wear jeans to work), hopped in the car to pick up Georgie (he had an early release) and reached Rich on his cell.  (It sounded like he was outside enjoying the weather, having lunch with some friends, repeating his war stories of the weekend and clearly oblivious to the insanity that I was dealing with.)  I told him what had gone down, he noted the craziness of it (phew, we were in agreement) and said he would call back when he could talk.  In the meantime, Georgie was being a pest on the playground (remember, he didn’t sleep last night!)(not that it matters since he is often a pest on the playground.  And everywhere else) and Harrison was frantically texting me from the bathroom at school clearly beside himself after having been screamed at by the principal.  What is a parent to do? 

This parent decided that her kid had not done enough wrong to warrant the outburst and opted to march into the school and take him out.  I found him sitting at his desk in Spanish, motioned to him to come with me, signed him out and off we went (oh, a friend spotted my angst and took Georgie off my hands…thanks, Bev!). 

Harrison has been fielding texts and IMs all night asking how much trouble he was in, how mad were his parents and all the other stuff that 13 year olds need to know and I am proud that he can truthfully report that we aren’t angry with him.  What he did (you’re dying to know, right?) was silly.  It was dumb.  It wasn’t any of the things that he was told it was.  He is not doing anything that millions, no billions, of 7th graders before him, and after him, have done.  Sometimes we have to remember what it is like to be his (gross) age and not get our panties in a bunch. 

I know my dad would have been proud of my reaction.  This is about me, after all.

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Day 10

April 15, 2008 at 1:02 am · Filed under General Banter, Kids

Betty Spagetti is becoming the bane of my existence.  Who, you ask, is this woman of whom I speak?  She is a bizarre doll (not surprisingly, what was once a single doll now has an array of cast-offs – Betty is no longer just a gal, she is an astronaut, a ballerina, an equestrian, a hooker and who knows what else) who has interchangable heads, arms, ponytails, legs and shoes.  No matter what combination you opt for, she would, if a real human, be about seven feet tall, weigh about 95 pounds and favor five inch sneakers.  She has secured a spot in Georgie’s heart and on my short list of things I want to destroy. 

So not only does my darling six year old son have a vast collection of Barbies, mermaids with changing color tails and every variety of princess that Walt (Disney, that is) ever imagined, now these damned Betty Spagettis (each with ten, yeah, ten separate parts) are everywhere I turn.  They are in the bathroom, they are on the kitchen table, they are on the ottoman in the familyroom, and, yes, they are in my car.  They get soaked down along with the mermaids and they are the threat of the week. 

Georgie, if you don’t (fill in the blank) I will take away your Betty Spagettis.

Or

Georgie, if you (fill in the blank) I will take away your Betty Spagettis.

Frankly, it is getting old.

Many of you are reading this and are horrified for one reason or another:
1. What is a six year old boy doing with all those dolls? (Listen, I am so over this.  He is what he is.  He happens to prefer the dolls naked, so take from that what you will)

2. Why is she always threatening him?  (If you have met Georgie you can likely answer that one on your own)

3. She really bought him a “Hooker Betty Spagetti”?  (I’ll let you decide)

4. How come she is fixated on these dolls when Rich is still not, in his words, one hundred percent? (a few reasons – not the least of which is that I find this “not one hundred percent” stuff irritating as all hell.  I haven’t felt one hundred percent since 1972 and even then it was sketchy.  Also, he is much better and suffering now more from the hangover of it all than anything else.  Hopefully there will not be any further episodes…)

I am less upset about the dolls conceptually and more upset about the fact that there are pieces of Betty stalking me.  This morning I found a head in the shower.  Tonight I stepped, barefoot of course, on one of her platform shoes.  It is everything I can do to not take each an every last arm, leg, shoe and head and bury them in the middle of the garbage bag (because, and Rich learned this the hard way, if you just throw them in it is virtually guaranteed that he will spot them through the plastic and lose his shit.  Big time) 

There.  I feel better.  Sometimes just venting about it makes it better.  That and the fact that everyone is upstairs in varying degrees of rest and sleep and there are no Bettys bothering me right now.  I fully expect to have some part of her get in my face before I retire but for now, she is safe from execution.

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