NYC Moms

Where Will It End?

...cross posted from our sister site, DC Metro Moms Blog.

As an attorney who works in child abuse, I have tried to keep my mouth closed about the polygamist sect raid.  Considering I am intimately involved in taking people's children away, I felt my opinion was a little hypocritical.  But after reading this article in the Washington Post, I knew I had to speak.  (Or blog ).

I feel very strongly about child abuse.  I feel very strongly about taking children away from abusive situations.  But, you cannot remove children for "a way of life."  We used to do that, we stopped.

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Lost Catholic Mom Looking for Direction: Pope, Can you Help?

...cross posted from our sister site, DC Metro Moms Blog.

I found myself glued to the Pope's DC visit this morning while running on the treadmill. I even started to tear up a bit when I heard the familiar hymns. Maybe it was the number of people (46,000) who had flocked here or the perfect April day for the outdoor mass. Whatever it was I raced home to listen to the mass on NPR. The Pope is huge for Catholics, although the Catholic Church has been hit a bit in the past few years, the Pope still is such symbol of hope for me. My own hope of finding God in my changing life--now with young children. 

I was a child raised in the Catholic Church with parents who were noncommittal to the whole thing. They stopped taking me to church in 8th grade. By high school I missed it and found myself back, only going alone. I spent several years trying to decide what I believed and wanted to be a part of. During college, I was Confirmed Catholic and decided to make a go of it. My husband claims to be no religion, though raised in a fairly strict Catholic household agrees it's good for our kids to be raised Catholic and so we baptized them both in the Church.

But now I find myself lost again.

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The Indignities Of Motherhood

....cross posted from our sister site, DC Metro Moms Blog.

After I woke up from my late afternoon nap in the lobby of the karate studio today, I started thinking about the indignities of motherhood. I face these indignities on a regular basis, but having to wipe the drool off my chin in a place I frequent twice a week sort of brought the concept home to me.

It starts with pregnancy and the "I don't look pregnant, I just look fat" phenomenon. I don't think we need to go into what pregnancy cravings, mood swings, and morning sickness does to our poise. I've thrown up in some interesting places. And in front of some interesting people.

The indignity of motherhood really hits its stride during childbirth. I did so many embarrassing naked things in front of scads of people while giving birth that I've lost count. You know what I'm talking about. Don't pretend you don't. I'm talking about pooping on the delivery table, peeing on your obstetrician, throwing up on your husband, displaying your nether-regions to a plethora of hospital staff.

I will neither confirm nor deny that any of these things happened to me.

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Stuck in the Middle -- Refereeing the Mommy Wars

Cross posted from our sister site, DC Metro Moms Blog

It feels like the Mommy Wars have been raging on for way to long, now.  I haven't been keeping track of the days like Keith Olbermann does, but I know it's time for them to be over. 

While we tend to be pretty civil here at the DC Metro Moms, when we had a dust-up a little while ago about whether children's birthday parties that are scheduled on weekdays, I started thinking about my place on the field in this maternal conflict and realized I'm stuck in the middle.

You see, I don't work full-time outside the home and I am not a traditional stay-at-home-mother.  After working in various office settings for more years than I care to count, I now work at home on a part-time basis.  There are plenty of good and bad things about that arrangement, but that's a different post for a different day.

But I realize, based on various episodes, that some of the moms I know who went back to work in their offices after having their children view me as a SAHM.  Sure, I have a writing business, but from some I can feel their disdain for my choice not to go back to my five-day-a-week job rising from their skin like

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What Birth Control?

....cross posted from our sister site from DC Metro Moms Blog.

When my third child celebrated the big "Six Mo." I realized I could no longer put off the decision. She was growing up.  My midwife had already asked me twice what I was going to do.

I needed to make a decision about birth control.  Preferably, ASAP.

Given the nearly precise spacing of my children (add my name to the "breastfeeding worked for me" list), maybe I could postpone the decision another twelve months without having to worry about buying an HPT.  But I'm not in the mood to gamble right now.  Did I mention I'm sleep deprived, too?

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I am Bravo's Bitch

....cross posted from our sister site, DC Metro Moms Blog.

If you have a show, and you put it on BRAVO, I'll watch it. Not only will I watch it, I will DVR it. I will DVR it and I will watch it and I will call my friends to see if they have watched it or DVR'd it.  Pathetic? You need not answer that question.  Believe me, every day in every way I hear that inner voice screaming at me, "Woman, have you no shame? Do not watch Make Me A Supermodel. Do not!"  Yet, week after week, I find myself,eyes glued to our TV, just waiting to see whether Ben will end up in a bi-curious hook up with Ronnie. (Email me your thoughts on this. OMG, did I just type that? I meant to so not.)

Surely I am not the only woman alive who has chosen Kenmore appliances and then questioned whether she should now switch to GE based upon what's being used in the Top Chef kitchen. Totally normal, right? Pleaseohpleaseohplease, make that a normal thing to think. Please! 

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Flame Wars

....cross posted from our sister site, DC Metro Moms Blog.

A blog wouldn't be a blog without it's occasional flame war. What, you haven't heard about flaming? It's when posters and bloggers can get, um, intense? Um, mean? Um, nasty and insulting?

When reading posts, sometimes it can be hard to really know what the author meant to say. Communication is 90% nonverbal, and there is no room for nonverbal communication in blogging. It's no wonder things can get emotional here!

Well, it seems inevitable that flame wars are going to happen. Therefore it's important that you learn to become a true flame warrior. What? You don't know how to engage in flame wars?

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Give Silda A Break

....cross posted from our sister site, DC Metro Moms Blog.

I would have dumped him hard. Lawyered up, taken him for every penny, and then booked myself with Matt Lauer for an in-depth interview, and then Oprah for some healing. Perhaps a book deal.  But she didn't. For whatever reason, be it a sense of loyalty to the father of her children, or an attempt to save face, or as some people have intimated, a well-paid last obligation as first lady of New York. She had her reasons.

But since she did do what she did, and did it on TV, in two different press conferences, we all feel entitled to comment on it. And I for one am a bit perturbed by some of the commentary I have seen on her.  Yesterday on the Urban Baby message boards she was being slammed for being a Harvard educated fool and demeaning the role of women.  Even her friends are coming out to publicly comment.  She is even even being blamed her the her husband's infidelity.  Blah, blah, sanctimonious, self-serving, my-grass-is-greener, BLAH!

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Kids Parties - Paying Someone Else to Do the Work

My twins will be three tomorrow, and since I am a firm believer that birthday celebrations dont count after the actual birthday, we celebrated on Saturday. 

This was my first foray into hosting a kid's birthday party.  For 1 and 2, we had quiet celebrations at home with family.  I was actually leaning in that direction this year, and then at a December birthday party for one of their "school" friends, I was approached by the most organized mom, who was rounding the other moms up for a quick Spring Birthday planning meeting.  Knowing that the parents would be gathered, she had actually had the foresight to get the official class birthday list so we could all claim our birthday party dates.  When all of the moms were assembled and dates were chosen, discussion rapidly turned to where each party would be held.  Various venues were thrown on the table, and everyone claimed one, with some being claimed more than once.  I realized quickly that not only was it sort of expected that we throw a party and invite the whole "class", but that these women, all of whom had WAY more experience than I at this, were firm believers in not doing it at home.

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The Oscars as Family Bonding

This is cross posted from our sister site, DC Metro Moms Blog.....

Some families rally around college and professional sports. You know the type. They're the families where everyone watches ESPN, reads SI and can recite obscure statistics about Heisman winners and NFL/NBA/MLB Hall of Famers. Not the family I grew up in, and most likely, not the family my husband and I are creating. We don't really have a "bag" (music, art, drama, camping, scouting, pets, etc.) that unites us all in a common passion or hobby. What my siblings and I (and to a lesser extent, our spouses) do have in common is a love of movies, and in particular of the Academy Awards.

Since my brothers and sister are all at least 10 years older than I, I was the rare 8-year-old who got to stay up late on Oscar Sunday to watch the telecast. Some of our family's favorite memories are of watching the awards together, a feat which has never been easy with us being spread all over the U.S. for most of our adult lives. There was the year my sister Diana yelled "Oh My God!" and nearly fell off of the sofa when she saw a tan, long-haired and gorgeous Daniel Day-Lewis accept his trophy for "My Left Foot." She was apparently expecting someone who looked, well, a little more like the Christy Brown in the film. And then in 1999, there was an audible collective gasp, leading to immediate phone calls, when "Shakespeare in Love" beat "Saving Private Ryan" for Best Picture. Six years later, my brother and sister called to rub it in that "Crash" had topped "Brokeback Mountain," a film they deemed overrated.

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