NYC Moms

The Mom Who Did Too Much

I had one of those weekends.  You know the kind where you do everything for everyone else to the point of running yourself ragged then you collapse because in the end you've promised too much, given too much and the guilt of not doing overwhelms? 

It all started Friday morning with the impromptu request for a playdate from my son's classmate who lives in the neighborhood.  No problem - could it happen at our house?  Again, no problem.  Then my daughter's class had a publishing party that went on and on - but fine -  the kids are sweet and smart , the parents are interesting and funny.  Fine.  I got home from that at 9:45 am - emails to answer, details to handle in my burgeoning freelance career.  Then back to school for my promised lunch duty.  Last year I did lunch duty three times or more a week.  This year I promise only Fridays for my kids and for the lunch aide whom I became great friends with last year.  So I race back - did I mention it is raining and blowing all day - for my boy's ridiculously early lunch hour - 10:40 am - (school overcrowding is a whole other post).  I'm late for lunch but there for recess - indoor (recall the rain) a screaming, sweaty, LOUD mosh of five and six year olds. 

Let's Go To the Video

We watched home movies over the weekend.  I was so looking forward to seeing my pudgy, sweet bambinos again now that they have grown so tall, lanky and capable.  And I remember so fondly watching home movies with my family when I was a kid – tons of laughs and good memories.  So, sure, great idea – let’s watch home movies.

We snuggle in on the couch after dinner - just the four of us - bowls of vanilla ice cream as our movie night snack.  Roll tape.  I am happily engrossed.  "Oh, look you were so cute."  "Oh, look how funny, you’re chasing the cat."  "So sweet, napping."  Then, like the slow reveal of clues in an old "Law & Order" episode the evidence of my titanic parenting mistakes presents itself.  One innocuous seeming miniDV tape offers digital proof that my children have made it to the “tween” or almost tween years despite me rather than because of me.

We Love Pier 40

It is Little League season again as I’m sure many of you are aware.  Time to suit up our little boys and girls (though my girl refuses to play) in mini-Major League uniforms and spend at least one day of the weekend at the ballfield.  It’s fun, it’s sweet, the kids are having a good time – at least at the T-Ball level where we are comfortably ensconced for our second season.  Daddy coaches my son’s team so it’s a chance for my daughter and I to leisurely walk over to the field, coffee and doughnuts in hand and spend an easy Sunday morning together.

As you can imagine, city fields are a far cry from the green, grassy and expansive suburban fields one pictures when thinking about Little League ball games.  And New York City fields are also a distant second to the city ball fields I played on with my friends when I was a girl in Flint, Michigan.  As it happens in a city where people are used to “making do” our kids play on a pier that juts out into the Hudson River and serves mainly as a parking garage and Fedex depot.  In the middle of this square sort of doughnut is an enormous field of Astroturf used as both soccer fields and baseball fields, variously and simultaneously, as need dictates.  This field is surrounded by stadium-like walls behind which lies the parking garage and the offices of the leagues who use the fields.  There are bathrooms and overall, the space is relatively protected.  On one corner of the structure’s roof, up three flights of narrow, dilapidated concrete stairs lies another rectangle of turf that serves as baseball fields for the T-ball division and soccer fields for the young kids.  This section of the roof is bounded by huge fences and netting to prevent calamity but remains otherwise completely exposed to the elements.  Winds whipping off the Hudson at 8:00 am in April can be bone-chilling.  Then, early June arrives and the sun’s blazing heat warrants sunscreen and lots of water breaks.

We're All In This Together

I’m a stay-at-home mom. There are things I like about it. There are things I wish were different. There are things I miss about working. I miss the camaraderie. I miss chatting about what I watched on TV last night over coffee and a bagel from the deli in the lobby. I miss having something other than spills, and spring concerts and book orders and “when does the class go swimming again?” to think about. I miss having something that is my own. I miss running out at three o'clock in the afternoon to enjoy a Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino without having to buy the larger size because my kids will want a sip when I pick them up. I miss freedom and autonomy. And, recently my husband’s business has hit an excrutiatingly long “slow period" and I miss my former paycheck. So, yes, sometimes I wish I worked.

Mommy Guilt?

Mommy Guilt? Oh yes - there is that. It changes, it morphs and develops into the most bizarre constructions of uselessness - but still it remains an ugly lump in the corner of the room that I can only really confront in the dark hours of the night when sleep eludes me.

When my children were young, guilt took the form of inadequacy. As a SAHM it seemed I could never do enough to keep the little developing minds stimulated. Somedays I was good - somedays I planned painting and games and read books and made it to the playground for silly song singing games on the swing and home in time for a nutritious dinner and a reasonable bedtime. But all that "good mommy" stuff would have worn me to such a frazzle that by the next morning I'd be content to let them 'veg' in front of Sesame Street, Blue's Clues and Dora for the entire morning. See, they're learning I would insist at some nonsensical utterance that could possibly resemble Spanish.

Sandwich Generation

This last week has been filled with myriad and sundry conversations with friends, family, my husband and my children about the sudden loss of my dear mother-in-law.  We've examined it and its unexpectedness from every angle, considered every clue, kicked ourselves for every missed opportunity and still she won't be coming back to us - no matter what we think we've sorted out.  And, so now, without so much as postcard reminder, I find my husband and I have entered into the "sandwich generation".  You've heard of it, surely - its in all the papers, all the magazines of our times - the generation raising children while beginning to deal with the elder care of parents.  It's just that I thought I was a good ten, fifteen years away from it. 

Sure, my parents have had a couple of things in the last few years - some minor - some not so - but while suffering through my own mid-life crisis, trying to deal with making something of my life before I die - I just had never considered my parents - or my husband's parents who are considerably older than mine - would actually die anytime soon.  Sounds childish, I know, but - well, I just wasn't ready.

Reality Check

Who can figure the how and why of life's timing?

We'd just spent four fun-filled days at Disney World - a place of grand fantasy and joy - perhaps the happiest place on earth - where everyday parades float down Main Street USA and every night fireworks illum the sky reminding us that at Disney World every day is the grandest of celebrations. And, I suppose, there are some schools of thought that every moment is a celebration so Walt was onto something. In any event, we had a marvelous time. Our group consisted of 43 parents and children - the oldest nine, the youngest 18 months all brought together by amazing friends who not only organized the entire trip, but paid the way for us all.

My darling kids and I "fast passed" our way through roller coasters and rides, laughing and screaming - as a mother riding Space Mountain with your under age 10 children is filled with unparalleled fear and the Mad Hatter's teacups left me dizzy for a half hour. Overall, Big Thunder Mountain was a rousing hit with our small family and the group as a whole seemed happiest on Toon Town's Barnstormer.

Go Girl!

I voted for Hillary on Super Tuesday.  Despite my early support for Obama, despite the button my daughter sports on her backpack "Obama for President", despite my son's insistence that "everyone is voting for Obama" and despite my own vote canceling out my husband's vote for Obama.  I voted for Hillary and I did it because she is a woman.

It started for me with the "Iron my shirts!" heckler in New Hampshire. There I was all innocently assuming that this was battle of qualified candidates and while Hillary is a woman we as a country were ready to put a new foot forward and seriously consider a woman as candidate for president. After all we've had women secretaries of state for two different administrations now. But I guess I overlooked that pesky little word "secretary". So the hecklers, they got me a little tweaked by the whole idea of women in America as domestic servants.  I can tell you in my household that my husband, already fairly handy with an iron, has those two numbskulls to thank for his own recent re-involvement with that steaming hunk of metal.

Lovin' the In-Laws

Some women I know have amazing relationships with their in-laws.  As if the day they met their future husband they also found a whole other family that they slipped into with remarkable ease.  Not so much for me.  I mean my in-laws are lovely people and I enjoy them in the same way you enjoy the aunt and uncle you see at Christmas.  We see them more often than that but not much because we live in New York, they live in Michigan.

I’m not sure what it is – I mean we like each other.  I enjoy them when they are around but there’s no powerful bond.  Maybe it is because they have so many daughters of their own – my husband is number seven of eight and six of them are girls.  So maybe it is simply a numbers game. 

We’ve never outright argued or disagreed in some overt way – but there have been moments when I felt they were too controlling or too exclusive.  And, if pressed, I’m sure they have things to say about me, too.  There was the conventional wisdom in the early days that there must be something wrong with me because I didn’t hold his sisters’ babies in the years where a new infant arrived like the morning paper.   

Parenting - not just a job, it's a responsibility

Okay - I have officially had it!  Just read a bit about a little girl--six-years-old--who won four tickets to a sold-out Hannah Montana concert by writing an essay that began with the line: "My daddy died this year in Iraq."  Turns out her father isn't even in the military.  Her mother's comment when the ruse was uncovered was something to the effect of "we did what we had to do to win."