NYC Moms

The Stage Mom

I think I've become one of those moms.  In a matter of milliseconds, I went from being a proud mother watching her daughter take part in a low key ice skating competition at the local rink and in an instant, my pride turned to aggravation. As she took her place in the middle of the rink in her adorable cranberry velvet bedazzled figure skating outfit, we were poised to record one of those lasting memories from your kids' life that you never forget.   The music started - it was Michael Buble's "Everything" (not that I had anything to do with that selection...well sort of, and off she glided.)

Anyway, she was doing beautifully when all of a sudden, a loud alarm started blaring, over and over and over again.  We watched as our daughter continued to skate as best she could and she managed to finish the routine without any mistakes.  But it didn't matter because we were fighting mad.  Instead of giving her the chance to skate again without the incessant sound of a fire bell piercing her eardrums, they decided to stick with the routine she had just performed and move on to the next skater.

Much Ado About Miley

Here we go again.  First, Miley Cyrus posted some trashy photos of herself on her MySpace page and now, she was coerced by Annie Liebovitz to pose semi nude for the cover of Vanity Fair. 

Should I be outraged that my daughter's role model is wrapped in a sheet baring nothing but a pouty pose? While it might not have been the best possible decision for her to have stripped down to her skivvies in the name of high fashion photography, I think we do have to give Miley a break.  She  is only 15 and to be perfectly candid, when Annie Liebovitz tells you to do something, you just do it.  She's convinced the Queen of England to slip into outfits she didn't want to wear, so who wouldn't listen when a world famous photographer tells you that a shot of you in a sheet will look great in one of the most coveted magazines on newsstands today?

As a publicist who has spent nearly two decades promoting and protecting the images of clients, I don't think it's fair to place blame on Miley or even her mom and dad, who left the photo shoot to take their eight year old daughter home.  The problem is that Cyrus was left in the hands o

Rainy Days & Mondays

As I gaze out my window this morning, it's shaping up to be one gloomy Monday and frankly, I'm getting tired of all this raw weather.  I mean, if I wanted to be bone cold all the time, I'd pack up and move to Seattle or London, but here we are in New York and while we've had quite a mild winter, it's been torture waiting for spring to officially arrive.

Case in point.  When I inadvertently left my space heater plugged in - since my husband has decided that the heat must go off effective April 1 - he confiscated it and refused to tell me where it was.  I understand his concern - I did leave it out and it was plugged in and he claims it was still on (which I don't think it was), so he pulled the cord out of the wall and hid it under his shoes in the bedroom closet - three flights up from my home office.

Oops, I Did it Again...I Can Cook!!!

I don't know how it happened, but I think I've become possessed by my Grandma Dora.  Yes, the woman who taught me how to blow bubbles while she was wearing dentures and master a butterfly hook rug is inspiring me to embrace my inner Betty Crocker and cook like a Jewish Bubbe.

It started a few days ago at Passover when the Type A side of me went into overdrive.  In one weekend, I whipped up two turkeys, a fricasse, stuffed cabbage and several sides and shockingly, everyone was blown away by the results.  So today, when I discovered a chicken that had been taking up space at the bottom of my fridge (and was on the verge of becoming kind of smelly), I pulled it out, took a break from my temperamental MacBook pro and whipped up a new dish. I call it Beth's rotisserie chicken that's cooked like a turkey and tastes quite delish.

So now that I'm becoming quite the Rachel Ray of the kitchen, I might actually have the nerve to share my tasty recipes with my girlfriends in cyberspace.  Or maybe by next week I'll be back on Jenny Craig and will rekindle my longstanding relationship with my microwave.   Either way, what I've come to discover is that this cooking thing is really not that bad after all. 

An original post to New York City Moms Blog.

Take Your Kids to Work with a Twist

Today is Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day and to be perfectly honest, I feel like I'm shortchanging my kids. While I used to take them to work where they'd run through the halls and harrass my co-workers, ever since I left the corporate world, my office has become my basement, my sunroom, Starbucks, the outside of a library and a temporary office in Manhattan that I use from time to time but don't actually know any of the other employees that work there. And so, when my daughter announced this week that she was kind of bummed out that I no longer have a real job anymore, I decided to figure out a way to incorporate them into my busy schedule.

At 8 am, after having my morning coffee, my five year old assistant wandered into the kitchen while I was hard at work checking my emails. When the phone rang, I asked him to field all my calls. From there, my daughter had a brief consultation with my husband/CFO who decided to take a day off from his own job and was busy taking care of all the things that had slipped through the cracks (like fixing our minivan's windshield that has been broken for two years) since I've been busy building my business.

Passover Pandemonium

I have officially learned my lesson.  As the undisputed winner of the procrastinator award of the 21st century, I decided it would be a totally great idea to cook for 18 Passover guests on the same day as our seder.  You see, I've never really cooked an entire meal on any holiday.  Usually, my mom cooks half, I make a turkey or a roast beef, we buy the side dishes, and voila, our guests arrive and devour the meal in record time.

On some occasions, I've even purchased the soup to nuts holiday special that comes complete with cooked turkey, matzoh balls, farfal and more, but this time around, I was bitten by the cooking bug (I must have lost my mind) and was deciding to make a statement.  Though I profess I don't cook, hate cooking, can't cook - I cooked.

But when you're a cooking novice, there are roadblocks at every turn.  Take the turkey for instance.  I bought one on Tuesday and was afraid to leave it in the refrigerator, fearing it would go bad, so I stuck it in the freezer thinking I could defrost it the night before our guests would be arriving.  That would be

Guess who I'm inviting to dinner?

I don't know about you, but if you decided to become an Obama supporter, you've probably been receiving a ton of email blasts from their camp.  The messages come fast and furious - some are inspirational, some tattle on Hillary Clinton's latest misdeed, others urge you to join the grassroots movement and wave an Obama sign in the next state that will be holding a primary, but my favorite one of all has been the "you can have dinner with Obama" messages. 

When I first read the invitation and then saw the big honking DONATE NOW button right below it, I figure it was was just a ploy to get me to fork over some bucks to the campaign so that he can keep steamrolling his way through to the nomination.  What I also realized is that even if I give $25 to Senator Obama, there's no way I'm going to wind up becoming the lucky person who will get to break bread with him on the campaign trail.

My Personal Message to Hillary Clinton

As Senators Obama and Clinton get ready for their showdown in Pennsylvania, Hillary received a crushing blow this past weekend when Pennsylvania's Senator Bob Casey decided to endorse Barack Obama, instead of Clinton even though she and her family has ties to the state going back to the time when she was a young girl. To add insult to injury, a few weeks ago, New Mexico's Governor Bill Richardson, the same man who spent Superbowl Sunday with Bill Clinton, who was given numerous positions in the Clinton cabinet, turned his back on his old friend, didn't return his calls, phoned his new pal Obama and jumped aboard the "Yes we can!" train.

While Barack Obama recently said he hopes Hillary continues to campaign, most Democrats are urging her to drop out of the race so the party can make up for lost ground as Senator John McCain, who became the Republican nominee more than a month ago, continues stumping across the nation.

Hillary, as much as I'd hate to admit it, it looks like the party's over for you.

Mom MD

I don't know about you, but whenever my husband or my kids get sick, I become everyone's nursemaid.  This week, as the weather continues to go from cold to spring-like to cold again, everyone came down with something.  My son out of nowhere spiked a raging fever - of course, after hours so we had to take him to a medical clinic to check him out and then my daughter came down with an awful cold and cough and kept taking her temperature every 10 minutes hoping her illness would warrant a doctor visit too.

Then there's my husband who usually goes for about two weeks at a time before something starts bugging him.  This week he probably has a head cold but he's thinking it's something way more serious - he always does.  I know I shouldn't just dismiss it as if he's delusional, but unfortunately, my mother-in-law is a fanatic when it comes to getting sick - she's literally at the doctor's office at least once a week.  In fact, I think it rivals her appointments at the beauty parlor.

Flying by the Seat of My Pants

I don't know why, but these last few weeks I've felt as if I've been flying by the seat of my pants at home, at work, on the phone and with friends.  No matter where I turn, I have been doing things last minute and my husband is pretty much losing patience with my antics.  Last weekend, when my daughter had her usual Hebrew school, gymnastics and ice skating class - all in one day, we got sidetracked by a Purim party and the rest of the afternoon got completely screwed up.  We raced to get to ice skating - got there too late, missed the lesson and my daughter was thoroughly depressed because she couldn't twirl around to her new recital song - which I had failed to download onto a CD because I couldn't figure out how to work my new Macbook.

While my husband glared at me for my time management problems and demanded we invest in a dayplanner, I agreed that I have been a bit flighty these last few weeks.  I'm busy building two