NYC Moms

Stand by your man … AS IF! Even Tammy Wynette would back off.

What’s more disgusting than a lyin’ no good, cheatin, hypocritical, political man? Their wives that stand by looking dumbfounded as their unfaithful husbands apologize to the public. Do these women have no pride?  We’ve seen the scene many times before. Eliot Spitzer’s wife joins a long list of deer in the headlight ladies. It’s like a scratched DVD, the same scene plays over and over again with different faces.  Why must Silda Spitzer stand there in her pristine suit as he gives the cameras a whopping 60 second of his time? He slept with prostitutes as old as your daughters for the past year! And you stand there like its no big deal? What exactly is the message of “standing by your man.” Well, for me it means you support your husband even though his actions are grotesque. Spitzer got tripped up in the laws he created to bust prostitution rings. The Irony is FIERCE! (as my project runway hero Christian would say)

10 Ways to Lift Your Spirits

I had family coming in for the long weekend, but their plans changed at the last minute.  I didn't realize how much I was looking forward to the company, or how much I miss them.  My kids have a holiday on Monday, but my husband does not.  The weekend forecast looks cold, and without our usual roster of fun activities lined up, I'm feeling a lack of excitement.

January in general is an in-between time, full of resting and waiting--for the next major holiday, for longer days, for spring most of all.  If you're stuck in the in-between, or just feeling blue like me, you might want to try one or more of my 10 Ways to LIft Your Spirits, all of which worked for me today:

New Year's Resolutions

Some of my new year resolutions reappear on my list each year. Number 3 is a regular and if I achieved it annually I'd need new pants, to say the least. Number 5 usually accompanies a recently retired "Smile more" but I didn't think I could get any more mileage out of that one. I could never remember if my intention was to acknowledge that I'm happy or work harder at faking it. In any event, it may be time for a more concrete list of things that I can accomplish and actually check off. What I probably need is more of a bucket list, things to do before I kick it. This list is an attempt at more tangible goals.

1. Set limits
2. Try harder to remember things
3. Lose 10 5 pounds
4. Forgive
5. Laugh more (it strengthens your abs)
6. Buy local and organic (blah, blah)
7. Stretch
8. Keep the apartment cleaner
9. Throw more parties
10. Run a marathon (jk)

Reviewing this list, number 1 seems a little risky. How will I know if I've accomplished it when,

My New York Mom Rookie Mistakes

I made the rookie mistake of taking the kids to "story hour" at the JCC yesterday.  Cookies, juice, stories...what could be better?  Our 3 year old didn't have school because of "staff development day," so we needed something to do.  Great idea. Bad execution.  It turned out to be cookies and chaos.  Too many kids.  Too much noise.  We couldn't hear a thing, and when our 20 month old started climbing onto my head, we left.  I should have known better.

Unfortunately, I've made bad decisions like this before.  Decisions that I knew were misguided, but that I made anyway.  I call them "rookie mistakes."  Your instinct is saying, "Don't do it.  You'll regret this.  It's not worth it."  But for some reason, against your better judgment, you do it any way. So what's the good news?  You rarely make the same mistake twice.   

Here are my other Top Ten New York Mom Rookie Mistakes.

Dumpster diving

When Diego started to rebel against his high chair, we knew it was time to try something new. We thought we'd pick up a booster seat but weren't getting around to buying one. The usual inertia, yes, but our shopping dilemma is more complex. We don't like to support big box stores, homogenized chains with shameful business practices. We feel compelled to support local businesses but are loathe to pay boutique prices. Shopping online and having items shipped seems unnecessarily harmful to the environment (trucks, gas, oil), a real waste of resources. What is a responsible (read: neurotic) mother to do?

Reduce, reuse, recycle is the battle cry and the response is the stoop sale, craigslist, or the classifieds at parkslopeparents.com. But a lot of time can be wasted searching stoop sales and/or setting up transactions online. An even better solution, requiring a certain alignment of the stars, involves walking down some residential block in brownstone Brooklyn, such as Carlton Ave., and finding a booster seat by the curb with a little note taped to it that says, "Free." That's what happened to me. I only walked by it once, casually pretending not to notice it, before picking it up, dusting it off, and hanging it off my Maclaren.

Babies and bars

What is it about babies out on the town after hours that makes me cringe? So very many things. The most obvious problem is my thwarted goal of escaping to the bar to get away from the babies. Instead, I find myself smiling wearily at overwrought parents who were too cheap, clueless, naive, European, thoughtless, or blindly optimistic to hire a sitter. Even the now defunct Tots and Tonic, the Brooklyn baby friendly happy hour, was held between the hours of 3 and 5 PM. How I long for its return and its sensibilities.

Things I hate about New York

I was surprised to get an e-mail recently that commented about my "unadulterated" love for raising a child in Manhattan.  There are certainly many things I enjoy about being here and, particularly, about being here with Bunny.  But "unadulterated"?  I don't do unadulterated.  So, in that spirit, here is my list of things I really hate about living in New York.

1.  The noise.  The god-forsaken, ever-present, the-type-changes-but-it's-always-noisy noise.  It can be construction drilling, ambulance or fire truck sirens, neighbors yelling stupid shit or playing music, large trucks barrelling down the street hitting potholes, horns honking, trash cans crashing, dogs barking... it doesn't matter.  It's always there.  One of Bunny's first words has been "loud."  Every time a siren goes by (which seems like hourly), Bunny points out the window and says: "lau!"  The loudest noises are usually reserved for naptime or when she's falling asleep.

1.  The noise.  The god-forsaken, ever-present, the-type-changes-but-it's-always-noisy noise.  It can be construction drilling, ambulance or fire truck sirens, neighbors yelling stupid shit or playing music, large trucks barrelling down the street hitting potholes, horns honking, trash cans crashing, dogs barking... it doesn't matter.  It's always there.  One of Bunny's first words has been "loud."  Every time a siren goes by (which seems like hourly), Bunny points out the window and says: "lau!"  The loudest noises are usually reserved for naptime or when she's falling asleep.