LA Moms Blog

Why My Kid's No Abby Sunderland

The news is good: Abby Sunderland has been found alive in the Indian Ocean. Thirty-foot waves had pummeled her boat, which no longer has a mast, but the vessel is still seaworthy. A trio of ships is heading out to rescue her.

Abby is the 16-year-old local girl who set sail back in January, in hope of becoming the youngest person to complete a solo sail around the world. Her family lost contact with her in the middle of a satellite phone call, and her actual location was unknown.

I cannot imagine the anguish her parents must have felt while she was missing. Then again, I cannot imagine allowing my kid to embark on such a journey in the first place.

It's only been a couple of years since I've allowed my daughter to enter a public restroom on her own. Until recently, she had never walked up to the counter at Baskin-Robbins to order her own ice cream cone. She has never walked to school on her own, nor has she ever ridden a bike to a friend's house. These are things I did all the time when I was a lot younger than she.

Women's Health Care, Victorious Women and Barbecue -- Farewell to the Month of May

The month of May is coming to an end, and so we bid goodbye to Women's Health Care Month, as well as Family Wellness and Heal the Children Month.

I suppose those encompass Allergies and Asthma, Arthritis, Fibromyalgia, Healthy Vision, Hepatitis, Huntington's Disease, Melanoma and Skin Cancer, Mental Health, Osteoporosis, Strokes, and Teen Self-Esteem, as May was the month for all of those, too.

Diseases were not the only topics honored during May. This was also the month of Bicycles, Civility, Good Car-Keeping (as well as Eco-Driving), Freedom Shrines (whatever those are!), Meditation, Motorcycle Safety, Smiles (that's nice), the Military, Victorious Women and Leaders of Tomorrow.

Heritage was big in May, if you are an American of Asian/Pacific, Haitian, or Jewish descent. It was also Latino Books Month.

Who declares all these themes for a given month -- and why?

Too Old to Rock and Roll

I'm almost ashamed to tell you the year I attended my first rock concert. Let's just say Elton John still had a full head of hair. And it was pink.

Concert-going was a big part of my social life when I was in my 20's, especially after I landed a job in radio, which didn't pay much but came with some very nice perks: Tickets to see some of the hottest acts in town, in the best seats -- even backstage passes and invitations to the after-party. Best of all, attendance was not only part of doing my job; everything was FREE, even down to the three drink minimums at  nightclub performances. 

I could have gone on like that forever, except for this: You can't pay your bills with free concerts and parties... and around the age of 30, I realized that I no longer related to the same music 14-year-old boys were buying. To be honest, I had gotten to the point where I'd realized that there was life beyond the Billboard Hot 100. I guess you could say I'd finally grown up.

Growing Up Too Fast

I enrolled my daughter today in the high school she will be attending this fall, and as I walked off the campus, I choked back a sob.

I had been holding onto the paperwork for the better part of the last month, and thought it was just because I was too busy to take it down... but after wiping away a tear, I am starting to think I had other reasons to put it off.

Has it really been nine years since I filled out the same forms to enroll her in kindergarten?

I don't recall getting this emotional when we enrolled in middle school. Perhaps it's because after five years at elementary, I was ready for the change. Or maybe at 11 years old, she was still a child and I didn't have to think about all the scary things that could happen to a kid in her teens.

She's not a baby any more. She's definitely a young lady now; at times more mature than I'd like... but then surprising me with a glimpse of the goofy little kid she used to be.

Stop Me Before I Text Again

In the news: One in three teenagers sends over 100 text messages per day; half send and receive over 50 texts daily -- and teenage girls do it the most (80 texts per day versus boys, who average 30).

My response to that headline was a resounding "D-UH."

My teenage daughter and I are forty years apart, and nothing marks the differences between our generations like today's technology.

When I was a young teen, it was a rite of passage to get your own phone line. Now that I think about it, my parents probably had ours installed out of self-defense, as my sister  and I tied up the family line the minute we got home from school until were pried off of it for dinner.

And these were the days before the invention of call waiting, caller ID, voicemail and all those other innovations that have changed the way we communicate.

So I don't feel any nostalgia for the "good old days." It was my idea to get Megan her own phone when she was in 4th grade, because she was spending four hours a day after school training in competitive gymnastics, and it made ME feel better, knowing that we could directly connect if we needed to.

The fact that the phone enabled her to communicate with all of her friends was just icing on the cake.

Bad News for Middle-Aged Couch Potatoes

Like most women, I struggle with my weight -- and the battle has only gotten worse with age.

Having a child at 40 didn't help. I didn't gain all that much with my pregnancy - but I didn't lose a lot of it after the baby was born, and 10 years later, I'd packed on so many additional pounds that I weighed more than I had while pregnant.

So I got serious. Two years ago, I completed a 56-pound weight loss regimen, and vowed that I would never get to the point where I'd have to go through that again.

Since then, I've regained eight pounds and I'm scared, because no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to shake them back off.

Last week, while listening to a report on NPR, I understood why: A new study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association concludes that middle aged women must exercise one hour a day just to maintain their current weight. 

Separation Anxiety

I remember my daughter's first day of preschool as if it was yesterday. The moment I tried to leave the classroom, she clung onto me and started to cry.

"Don't worry. It's just separation anxiety," her teacher reassured me. And in a very short time, those weepy, clingy episodes came to an end...

...until now. Ten years have passed and the urge to cling is back.

Only this time, I'm the one who can't let go.

My baby girl is embarking on an eighth grade field trip this month to Washington, DC. She'll be boarding a plane and traveling 2,685 miles without me. And she can't wait.

Wake Me Up When Adolescence is Over

"She's such a good baby," my friends and colleagues ooh-ed when my daughter was an infant.

She seemed to know when my maternity leave was about to end, because at just that point she began sleeping through the night.She didn't cry much, and when she did, it was kind of cute. And as soon as she learned to smile, it was apparent that this little girl was born with a good sense of humor.

She was so... easy. And this scared me to tears, because "easy" is not a word most people use to describe raising a child.

I braced myself for the terrible twos -- which weren't so terrible. My daughter was a delight as a toddler and through elementary school and even during the first years of middle school.

The Stranger

My home town - Los Angeles - does not have a reputation for friendliness.

I think this has more to do with geography than anything else. Our city came of age with the automobile. Yes, we have public transportation, but it is more trouble than it's worth in my far flung suburban neighborhood... and so we rely on our cars to get where we have to be.

That's one reason why we don't have a lot of pedestrian traffic -- and consequently, there are few opportunities for folks to interact in public. We are self-contained in our own little automobile pods and tend to socialize only with the people we already know.

My teenage daughter was a baby when we moved into our home, so we've lived on our street for a long, long time. You would think I'd know my neighbors.

You would be wrong. 

The Doggie in the Window

"I want a dog," my daughter announced for the umpteenth time. I reflexively replied with my usual answer:

"That's nice. But what about the cats?"

I wasn't always a cat person. That's something that developed over time, when I was a single gal living in an apartment complex that didn't allow dogs - but tolerated pets of the feline persuasion. I adopted my first kitten by accident, when a co-worker tired of the pet he acquired just a few weeks earlier -- and told me he was going to take her to the animal shelter.

I was so clueless, I didn't even know I needed some kind of carrier to take the kitten home. She pooped in my car.

I began to think that taking her on was a big mistake.