Chicago Moms Blog

Ahhhh. Summer....

With Independence Day just around the corner, the shock of the speed of summer hits me once again.

Really? Are we really this far into the season? But, I've only just begun to get used to the green leaves on the trees! I am finally not surprised to see green grass instead of brown!

The seasons in Illinois are fast and furious. You have to pay attention or you just might miss the beauty of each moment. Before we know it, the air will be cooler (even though it IS cool right now! Weird, freaky global climate change!) and these heady, infinite days of summer will become a packaged memory: "The Summer of 2009". We'll remember the events in a cut and dried time frame, something I believe can't be completely comprehended by folks who live in 1-2 season climates.

This Privacy Thing

I crave privacy like I crave creamy chocolate or a glass of dry red wine. My kids don't understand this. Why should they? Kids are innately social creatures who want to be close to mama and my kids are no exception.

Being adopted does not mean they are excluded from separation anxiety, the typical toddler tantrums or even the normal discipline issues. In fact, my kids are completely normal in those aspects. And, they are completely normal when in comes to driving me batty.

Bloggers Who Brunch

My husband often refers to my Internet peeps and blogging buddies as my imaginary friends, so when Chicago Moms Blogger Cindy Fey asked me to co-host a brunch for our group, I jumped at the chance. It's always fun to get an IRL view of virtual friends. And speaking of view, Cindy provided a fabulous downtown venue for our gathering.

As Caitlin noted, for most of us the day started out like any other with chores and family obligations, but turned into something much more special once we gathered together.

Our brunch was fabulous. The food, the penthouse setting, the women and, of course, the food. Local purveyor of fine foods, Pastoral Artisan provided us with a cheese tray so delicious that even the pregnant among us could not resist the temptation of the selection of soft cheeses from Midwestern farms. (Cough *Carrie*)

Searching for nature in the Second City

I am well aware of the fact that my children are city mice desperately in need of a country mouse experience.  The last thing we want is to have our children suffering from nature-deficiency disorder.

With that in mind, we decided to take a little walk around the block last Friday to see what kind of nature experience we could find. Oh, who am I kidding? I actually was sick and tired of all the petty arguments and squabbles the kids were having, so I decided my only recourse was to get them out of the house, if only for a half hour.

Unfortunately, our walk started off on a bad note. As we walked past our building en route to the sidewalk, we saw two little baby birds that had fallen out of their nest and were now baking in the sun. I was surprised that my kids handled the sight so well. As we continued walking, however, my two oldest informed me that they were feeling sad because of those baby birds. At least they still have compassionate hearts.

How did we get so overscheduled?

Before I became a parent, I was never one of those people who made lofty promises about how I would eventually raise my child.  You know what I mean, the "My child will never _______" promises?  I had taught elementary school, and I knew how quickly ideals could get compromised in the face of an uncooperative child.  The way I saw it, making all kinds of unrealistic and lofty promises would just lead to feelings of disappointment and guilt down the road. 

So whenever I saw those ridiculously overscheduled kids whose harried parents were frantically shuttling them to one sports or enrichment activity after another, I never judged those parents and swore my child would be different.  I knew time was precious and after-school activities were plentiful, so overscheduling was inevitable.  I always assumed that at some point, my son's calendar would be jam-packed with activities. 

I just didn't think it would happen when he was two years old. 

When Babies Attack

My nearly six month-old baby was attacked by a two year-old at the park last Saturday. Am I exaggerating? Only a little. I was standing with my son is his stroller watching my older two children play t-ball when a mother I know from our neighborhood approached with her two year-old daughter toddling behind her.

We exchanged "hellos" and "how are yous." I asked how old her little one was now. She asked the same of my baby. Her daughter then reached into my stroller and began to poke and prod my baby with her little hands. She picked up his pacifier and put it in her mouth. She pushed a flower she had picked into his eyes. And then she took her grubby fingers and shoved them into his mouth.

All the while, I was trying to remain polite while also protecting my baby. I tried to block her hands with my own. I said things like, "Careful sweetie." "Gentle." "Oh, I don't think he wants to eat your fingers!"

Testimony by Anita Shreve: A Silicon Valley Moms Group Book Club

This month, for Silicon Valley Moms Group bloggers' monthly book club, we read a novel that many of us, as mothers, found tough to read. But probably every mother should read it. And their teenagers too - especially their teenagers.

Join in as Silicon Valley Moms Group bloggers discuss the book Testimony by Anita Shreve.

• DC Metro Moms Blog's Amy G. leads us off with hoping she has done enough
• Wife and Mommy from Wife and Mommy thinks of all the moments she knew her life would never be the same
• Jennifer from Connect with your Teens discusses the ramifications and repercussions of teenage drinking
• Melanie from Tales from the Crib forecasts the future
• Bonggamom from Finding Bonggamom remembers temptation
• The Fabulous Miss S from Fabulous Miss S screamed in her head "No! Don't do it!"
• Silicon Valley Diva from Blog on the Wall shudders when she thinks back to her teenage years
• Kim from Passion & Art says no one asks to be raped
• Chefdruck from Chefdruck Musings gives her own testimony
• Jessica from It's My Life thinks about when the best isn't the best after all
• Robin from Who's the Boss gives her testimony
• Gayle from Everyday I Write the Book reviews Testimony
• Christina from The Carpool Reader goes through the evolution of a marriage
• Linsey from Me Too You is glad she got caught

More posts will be put up throughout the day on our writer's personal sites, so be sure to check back to follow along.

.... and if you have a post up on YOUR personal site on this topic, please leave a comment here and we will add your link!

About the book - from the publisher Hachette Book Group:

At a New England boarding school, a sex scandal is about to break. Even more shocking than the sexual acts themselves is the fact that they were caught on videotape. A Pandora's box of revelations, the tape triggers a chorus of voices--those of the men, women, teenagers, and parents involved in the scandal--that details the ways in which lives can be derailed or destroyed in one foolish moment.

Writing with a pace and intensity surpassing even her own greatest work, Anita Shreve delivers in TESTIMONY a gripping emotional drama with the impact of a thriller. No one more compellingly explores the dark impulses that sway the lives of seeming innocents, the needs and fears that drive ordinary men and women into intolerable dilemmas, and the ways in which our best intentions can lead to our worst transgressions.

Past Silicon Valley Moms Group Book Clubs have included:

• Comfort Food by Kate Jacobs
• Much to Your Chagrin by Suzanne Guilette
  
• It Started with Pop-Tarts by Lori Hanson
• Who By Fire by Diana Spechler
• The White Trash Moms Handbook by Michelle Lamar
• Writing Motherhood by Lisa Garrigues
• The Vaccine Book by Dr. Robert W. Sears
• The Other Mother by Gwendolen Gross

What She Said (Divorce Needs No Praise)

Artist and writer Sandra Tsing Loh is getting divorced.

She wrote about it in a recent article that cheesed me off.

My head snapped back as she breezed over her extra-marital affair and her decision not to give up her lover in favor of working at rebuilding her relationship with her husband. Loh quickly eschewed the scarlet "A" for a fatalistic analysis of marriage as a failed experiment. With tongue in cheek and wit sharp, she gathered pseudo-psychology and anecdotes to underpin the essential thesis: "It's not my fault." Her other married friends are un-sexed, un-fulfilled, unhappy. Her only friend with joy is single. Ergo it was the institution of marriage that failed, not her.

Loh made her case with 4 pages of well-turned words. She's a writer, used to taking her thoughts and airing them on the universe's clothing line. Making her sentences resonate with echoes of Shakespeare and iambic pentameter:

To work, to parent, to housekeep, to be the ones who schedule “date night,” only to be reprimanded in the home by male kitchen bitches, and then, in the bedroom, to be ignored—it’s a bum deal.

On the road -- again

In October of 2007, when my daughter was 10 months old, we all drove to Michigan to spend Thanksgiving at my parents' house. I'm not quite sure how it happened, but somehow we did not leave Cook County as a family again for 19 months.

Well, actually I am sure how it happened: last February, when we might have started to feel the traveling itch, our dog began her long, slow decline, which finally ended last month. During that time, she was waking up in the middle of the night almost every night. We couldn't subject a pet-sitter to that routine, nor could we board her. Nor, frankly, could we take her with us, as the stress on all of us would have been too much. Meanwhile, I became something of a slave to my daughter's nap routine, convinced -- not really consciously, but subliminally -- that one missed  nap was a one-way ticket to schizophrenia. With my depression and anxiety, my daughter's got a full plate of potential mental trauma ahead of her already, thankyouverymuch. So we waited.

Michael Jackson goes second to the right and straight on till morning.

A big piece of my childhood has just passed away. Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson have left this world... early. (She from a long battle against cancer and he from undetermined causes that lead to cardiac arrest.) It is a strange feeling that I am experiencing with this news. I did not know either one personally. I have simply enjoyed their personas from the audience like so many others. But their impact on my life is unmistakable. I speak today of Michael Jackson.

There are three album covers that wallpaper my memory of my early youth, an Isaac Hayes album, Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water and The Jackson 5's ABC. I don’t actually remember the name of, or the songs from the Isaac Hayes album, as it was mostly played for my parents’ enjoyment, but the cover picture itself is cemented in my mind. Bridge Over Troubled Water always comes back to the surface during rainy days and melancholy times. However, The Jackson 5 album, now that was my score for living!  The album came out the year I was born, but remained a highlight in our house through all of my early milestones. My sister and I had a Holly Hobbie record player of our own. We would put the record on and sing using hairbrushes for microphones, while we danced around the hallways of our house. I distinctly remember how the music always inspired me to dance. But that was the effect Michael Jackson had, he made you want to dance.

Celebrity Passings Mark the Times of My Life

Elvis Presley, the King of Rock and Roll, died in 1977. I was a teenager at the time and his passing meant little to me. I had really only known the fat, drug-addicted, somewhat pathetic Elvis. Sure, I liked his music, but he was old (six years younger than I am now, yikes!)

In 1977, Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, was still flying high with his brothers, then known as the Jacksons, performing live at the Fourth Annual American Music Awards. He was about to launch his giant solo career. Everyone knew that Michael Jackson was way cooler than Donny Osmond, but not as cool as Led Zeppelin. Still, you never had to be embarrassed if you were caught dancing to a Jackson 5 record.

In 1977, Farrah Fawcett (then Farrah Fawcett-Majors) posed for her iconic poster, clad in nothing but a red bathing suit, big hair and an even bigger smile. Every boy of my generation hung that poster on his closet door or over his bed, and every girl spent hours in front of the mirror trying to get that hair. 

In 1977, Ed McMahon was firmly ensconced as Johnny Carson's second banana on the Tonight Show. I wouldn't say I was a McMahon fan, or even a regular watcher of the Tonight Show. It's just that Ed and Johnny and Doc had always been there, my whole life, on NBC at 11:30, right after the news. It was a fact, something you could count on.

Finding space as a job ends

Usually, I have so many unresolved thoughts buzzing around in my head, just waiting to be put into words on a page and sorted through and made sense of. But not today. For the last year, I've have the tension of 'what if', and 'what happens after' peppering my conversations with my husband, family and friends. But not today. For so long, I've had every day scheduled, with no time to shake off the busy-ness before starting again the next morning. But not today.

For the first time since my eldest daughter was born, three and a half years ago, I will have my days and my mind free to focus on her and her little sister. My current job is coming to a close within a month, and the anxiety about how to pay the bills after August was recently replaced with a collective sigh of relief when my husband and I were appointed as Resident Heads in the College while he finishes out graduate school.  Yes, it will come with late nights, and college-age dramas.  But it also means no more scheduling three different babysitters to come in during the week (and then scrambling to reschedule everyone and everything when someone would call in sick.) No more worrying that the house defied all sanitary requirements before said babysitters arrived in the morning, and rushing around to pick up. No more late night trips to the grocery store to make sure there was something ready-to-eat for their lunches. No more cutting plans short to rush back to work. Soon, I will be able to spend an entire, unhurried day, just being with my kids.  I can make them peanut butter and jelly cracker sandwiches for lunch if there's no bread in the house.

Victorian Morning

I was working at the dining table this morning, and suddenly realized just how Victorian my workspace looked. Funny! I had to take some photos to demonstrate:

The dining table as a whole, suitable cluttered in Victorian fashion. Note curtains in the background (they liked curtains), and richly-patterned rug, very much in keeping with their sense of style.

A mug of tea (strong black tea, with milk and sugar, just they would have drunk it), in a mug I actually bought in England, with a delightful illustration and text from Charles Dodson's original Alice in Wonderland. (Mclaggan Smith Mugs, Ltd., copyright the British Library Board -- and now that I've visited that site, I want many more of their mugs -- dangerous!) I also love my new table runner, embroidered with cheerful orange and magenta flowers on a dark mustard yellow background. Not hand-embroidered, alas -- this one's the Bridget runner from Crate and Barrel (currently on sale, if you're tempted). Hand-embroidering something like this is far beyond my skills -- and my patience!

Beyond the usual of being a mom...

Four years ago, on June 27th, I got "the call"--the one you dread as an adult, the one you wish you'd never get. My dad was dying and the doctors had told our family members to gather everyone around.

My older son was 8 weeks old, only home for 6 weeks after his 2 week NICU stint. I had just gotten over hanging out by a hospital bed feeling helpless...or so I thought. We scrambled, got a flight to SF and 24 hours after we arrived and my dad met his first grandchild, he passed...on my parents 37th wedding anniversary.

I got "the call" again a week ago from my mom. She, thankfully is ok, but her older sister, the last of the 3 surviving out of 9 children is not. I scrambled, making her flight reservations, contacting the US Consulate in Tijuana because her passport is expired but she has her naturalization papers, drivers license, et al, and trying to ensure her safe passage back to the US as well as trying to determine if and when we could get there from Chicago--expired/lost passports and all.