NYC Moms

I Love A Good Spanx-ing

My parents always told me: you can be anything you want to be.   Sure, I thought, except a football player (wrong gender), a mathematician (wrong skill set), or a fashion model (just plain wrong). I'm not saying that I'm unattractive, but neither am I runway material...unless the runway is in the supermarket and I'm headed down the cheese aisle.

All that changed, however, when my friends from Role Mommy organized a mother-daughter fashion show at Macy's and invited my daughter and me to be in it.  My daughter, whose first word was “shoe,”  was beside herself with excitement. Me? I wasn’t quite as ready to tackle the runway.

I knew my daughter would look pretty. She’s smiley, she’s (naturally) blond, she’s got the little turned up nose I had until puberty robbed it from me. She’s eight. What could be bad? But what about me? Would I look pretty? Well, I wasn’t gonna look like a fashion model, that’s for sure. I mean, how many Jewish, 5’ 7”, frizzy-haired, size ten fashion models do you know? Something had to be done.

Dancing with the Sub-Pars

Announcer: Welcome, tonight, on Dancing with the Sub-Pars, Nancy and her husband, a completely ordinary couple, will attempt to better their marriage through the miracle of ballroom dancing.

Beautiful Sidekick (BS):  That's right, Bill.  It's quite an amazing experiment.  For some time now our couple has been secretly stealing away during their lunch hour to learn how to Cha Cha, rhumba, salsa and tango.

Announcer: It's true.  Though possessing only four left feet between them, they've managed to make it here tonight, to the finals.

BS: They'll be competing against a team of three: The Lack of Romances, The Overtireds, and the Same old Same Olds.  All together, these three call themselves The Perils of Parenting. 

Announcer:  Tonight, we'll find out if Nancy and her husband have a salsa that can add sizzle to their sex life, a Cha Cha that can charge-up their romance, and a Tango to topple the Perils of Parenting.

BS:  Will they take home the coveted  "My Marriage Still Feels Fresh" trophy?  Find out live, tonight, on Dancing with the Sub-Pars!

It's true, every Thursday afternoon for a year now, my husband and I have been dancing fools.  And I do mean fools.  We're not very good.  We never plan on competing. And no one would ever compare us to the celebs on Dancing with the Stars.  But we love it.

After ten years and two kids, our marriage had started to feel a bit like a business partnership.  You know: "You get the kids, and I'll get the milk.  Then you pay the bills, while I give the baths.  The memo on appropriate affectionate gestures in front of the kids will be on your desk by 8am tomorrow."  We needed a little something to remind us that besides being parents, we were also a couple. A couple of not very good dancers, but a couple nonetheless.

Mother's Day Off

Here's a typical day for me:

Wake up. Check mirror. Cringe. But realize there’s no time to shower. I’ve got to get the kids to school no later than 8:25. Since this is NYC, I do not have the option to get in my car in my pajamas, drop off my kids, and drive home before anyone notices me. I have to get dressed and try to achieve some semblance of presentability before leaving the house. I also have to get my kids ready, which means endless repetitions of “get dressed, brush your teeth, put your socks on, where’s your homework, sit down while you eat, you have to go to the bathroom now?, where’s your other shoe, hit the elevator button, and do you have your Metrocard?” Once we finally achieve the impossible and leave the house on time, we have to walk the four blocks to the city bus stop, hope the bus comes, hope when it does come the dispatcher doesn’t hold it there while he yacks about the Yankees with the driver and leaves all us parents and commuters seething, ride the bus across town, walk the six blocks to school from the bus stop, climb five flights of stairs to their classrooms, and then do the whole thing in reverse. All before 9am.

Once I’m home, do the breakfast dishes, make the beds, pick up their toys, check my email, look in the refrigerator for something to eat, try to get some writing done, procrastinate by cleaning out the linen closet (really just a few shelves in my bedroom cabinet, but it makes me feel better to call it a linen closet), realize that the crack in the living room ceiling is getting ominously bigger, make mental note to do something about it…eventually, open the refrigerator again as if expecting new food to have magically appeared since the last time I opened it forty minutes ago, run some errands, go to the gym, shower (finally), prepare dinner, prepare snacks, pick up kids, serve snacks, help with homework, greet the husband, serve the dinner, clean the dishes, tuck in the kids, pay some bills, do some online shopping (my son is growing at an alarming rate), knit a few rows of the sweater I’ve been working on for three years, collapse in front of the TV, converse with husband, (monosyllables, at best), wash up, put on pajamas, get into bed, and try to get enough sleep so I can do it all again the next day.

 So you know what I want for Mother’s Day? A day off. I want to wake up in a nether world where my kids don’t want anything from me other than to shower me with praise and love. I want to live in an apartment where the beds are made by invisible imps who don’t come to you with their problems, don’t put away your favorite jeans somewhere you can’t find them, and never ever ask for a raise. I want to go to the gym and not worry about how soon I have to be back, or whether or not it’s fair to my husband to have to stay home with the kids when he’s been working all week and I’ve been able to go to the gym whenever I want to (Ha!). I want to shower in the morning, and have time to blow-dry my hair. I want to make one thing for dinner and have everyone eat it. Or better yet, have someone else make it, and do the dishes afterward.

 

That's the Way the Matzoh Crumbles

I had a bagel for breakfast today.  Normally, that wouldn't be a big deal.  Maybe not the wisest choice, given my resolution to lose those ten pounds I've been trying to get rid of, for, I don't know, fifteen years -- but not such a big deal, either.

Except that I'm Jewish, it's Passover, and I'm not supposed to be eating leavened bread. I'm supposed to be eating Matzoh.  So I'm feeling a bit guilty.  Mind you I don't feel guilty the rest of the year when I eat cheeseburgers (I'm not "supposed to" mix milk and meat), lobster (no bottom feeders, either), or fry up some bacon on a Saturday morning. (Too many "not supposed to's" to count.)  I'm not a religious person at any time during the year.  My husband and I even belong to a Humanistic Synagogue, which celebrates and affirms the cultural and ethnic aspects of Judaism, without all the higher power stuff.

I'm not kosher (hence the bacon); I almost never go to synagogue (even the Humanistic one); and though my family and I do celebrate Shabbat most Friday nights, it's about a two-minute ceremony, after which I may serve roast loin of pork. Seriously.

And yet.

I feel guilty for eating a bagel.

A Time for Children, A Time for Shopping

Now that all I have is two overgrown babies (they're 8), I love baby stuff.  I love the little onesies.  I love the hats.  I love these teeny tiny cowboy booties. And I really love buying stuff like that at a store I can feel good about supporting.  Recently opened on the Upper West Side, A Time for Children is just that type of place. 

Walk in, and someone greets you with a genuine "Hello, may I help you?"  It doesn't sound canned, like the cashiers at Old Navy asking the next "guest" to step down to the register.  (Hey, if I'm a guest, how come I'm paying?)  Here, the people working there really want to be there.  Why?  Because they're not just working, they're being trained in how to deal with customers, how to stock items, how to market.  And because they know that 100% of the net profits from the store go to The Children's Aid Society, a charity which has been helping New York’s children and families in need since 1853.  Let me say that again: 100% of the profits go to charity.

And lest you think that a store like that must carry hideous crocheted tea-cozies, acrylic knit afhgans, and macramé  belts, let me assure you that this store has GREAT merchandise.  Stuff like socks from Little MissMatched (a personal favorite of mine), baby clothes from Hanna Anderson, loads of Paul Frank items, and a well-edited selection of children's picture books. 

I Love a Good Freebie

Some people dream about being celebrity for the glamor.  Some people want the fame.  Some, the chance to leave their mark on the world.  Me?  I want the swag.

B.K. (Before kids) I worked in television, where the perks were, if not many, at least extant.  I got a cool Nickelodeon jean jacket, an HBO watch, Lifetime hats and t-shirts, sports equipment from ESPN.
Now, as a mostly-at-home Mom I get....a lot of groceries.  That I pay for.

I miss the freebies.  The lunches that were served in post-production houses every day, courtesy of my clients.  The snack carts they wheeled in at around 4pm every day.  The stash of office supplies that meant I never had to spend twenty-minutes looking for scotch tape because SOMEONE had taken it from the kitchen to do an art project involving sea-shells, Lincoln Logs and the hair recently cut off a Barbie's head.

Kid Hater

When my kids were two or so, we took a class at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan.  There was one little girl in the class, a beautiful blond, about the same age as my twins. She had a lovely smile, a cute little laugh, and I couldn’t stand her.

Something about her rubbed me the wrong way.  Even at two, it seemed to me (and I know this sounds insane) she was full of herself, like she was some miniature adult who knew how cute she was, and was flaunting it.  I’m not proud of this.  And to this day, I can’t really explain why. But there you have it.

See, we’re supposed to like all kids.  Think they’re special, or cute, or funny.  Like babies.  Who hasn’t heard the dictum:  all babies are cute? Puh-lease.  All babies are not cute.  Some babies look like a cherry tomato after it’s been in the fridge too long: wrinkled, red, and ready to burst with something that probably won’t look or smell too good.

Kids are the same way.  I’m here to tell the truth:  there are kids – little kids – that I don’t like.  They’re bratty, or pushy, or too whiny.  They’re bossy, they don’t share.  They just rub me the wrong way.  Do I think this makes me an exemplary parent?  Of course not.  Can I help it?  Not a chance.

Sex in America

It's been a bad week for sex in America.  First, New York governor Elliot Spitzer, well known moral-highgrounder is found to be consorting with prostitutes, and then today came the news that one in four teenaged girls has a sexually transmitted disease.

Sex scandals are nothing new.  Powerful men in politics from Alexander Hamilton to Bill Clinton, to Jim McGreevy have all gotten embroiled in sex scandals while in office. And some of these scandals (Bill Clintons comes to mind)became national  -- even international -- obsessions.  But if the men involved weren't famous, wouldn't it all just have been sex?  Seems to me it's the celebrity that makes it scandalous, not the sex act itself.

Let's face it, our culture glorifies sex as much as it vilifies it.  We want our politicians to be tv-ready (witness the fawning over Obama's good looks), but then are shocked, positively shocked I say, when they turn out to be sexual beings.  Music videos (mostly watched by teen-agers)feature sex acts only marginally presented as dance moves.  Horror movies like Saw and Hostel entwine horror and violent sexual images so completely that they've generated a new film genre: gore-nography.  The Victoria's Secret "Fashion Show," has become a soft-core prime time ratings bonanza; shows like The Bachelor pimp women out to generate ad-revenue, and on and on and on.

But still, a politician who has extra-martial sex?  With a hooker?  How could he? Or a teenaged tv star, getting pregnant?   I'm shocked, positively shocked, I say. But sadly, not at all shocked to find out that nearly half of the African American girls in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey had at least one sexual disease. Because a world as sexualized and sexually confusing as ours is bound to have consequences for those too young  -- or too arrogant -- to navigate it.

Pundits are very quick to denounce Spitzer's hypocrisy: he was a moralist who prosecuted prostitution rings, after all.  And I agree,  I think he's a hypocrite and a fool and he should step down.  He broke the law, and governors can't do that. But maybe it's not him that's wrong, but the law that's wrong.

So what I'm about to say, I say  as a mother of a little girl, and with the full knowledge that many (if not most) of the regular readers of this blog will disagree, but I think public schools should be able to hand out condoms along with strong recommendations  for abstinence, and that prostitution should be legalized.

Weight Weight Don't Tell Me

It's official.  I am the only human being in the history of human beings who goes on perhaps the single most recommended, non-fad diet in the entire world, follows it TO THE LETTER, and GAINS WEIGHT.

Until recently, I weighed the same -- (give or take a pound or two, and not including the immediate post-partum months) -- for just about my entire adult life. Not that I was thin or anything. It's just that  I'd been trying to lose the same ten pounds for twenty years. But recently, I've gained some weight.  Not a lot, mind you.  But enough that my pants don't fit so well. Enough that I've gone from "wouldn't it be nice if I could fit into a size 8 all the time" to "are these size 10's mismarked?  They feel a little snug."

Where have all the Manners Gone?

Scene One: We open on a lecture inside a local synagogue.  A Rabbi speaks earnestly to a group of parents about what it means to parent an ethical child.

From the rear of the sanctuary a loud clunk is heard. 

CUT TO A woman putting her Ugg-shod feet up on the railing as she reclines in her seat.

CUT TO Out-Raged Mom, looking shocked that she would be so disrespectful to the Rabbi, to the synagogue, to all of the people gathered in the room.

Another loud clunk resonates throughout the sanctuary. 

CUT TO The woman, dropping off her shoes, and replacing her now bare feet on the railing, dirty soles  directly facing the Rabbi.

CUT TO:  Outraged Mom  Seething.
Suddenly, the lights in the sanctuary dim, and Outraged Mom begins to spin, faster and faster until she's just a whir of light, color, and perfectly highlighted hair.  The spinning stops, only now, she's:
SUPER-OUTRAGED MOM, defender of good manners for all.

OK, OK, so maybe it's a little dramatic.  The point is, how am I supposed to teach my children proper, polite behavior, in a world filled with SO MUCH bad mannered behavior that I really do wish there were a super-hero to stop it?