New Jersey Moms Blog

Is it All About Oil? (or What My Daughter Doesn't Know About BP)

I haven't told my daughter anything about the oil spill. She doesn't watch television normally, except for PBS Kids. So, she hasn't seen the devastating pictures of oil-soaked birds and grown men in the south holding their heads in their hands. "Sid the Science Kid" hasn't gotten around to that yet.

Sometimes I wonder how we'll explain things to her when she's older, things like corporate personhood (yes - the law has been so twisted in our country that corporations actually have the same rights under the law now as people.) These are rights that "We the People" are supposed to have, but it doesn't seem to work out that way these days.

So I find myself, looking up from filling out endless summer camp registration forms for my daughter (so she can spend a week in some relatively unspoiled nature) thinking about corporate malfeasance and the laws that protect corporations.The system as we've set it up allows too many things like the BP oil spill and the terrible deaths of those 11 rig workers, and environmental degradation, to happen. And what about global warming, part of the end result of all that fuel we keep consuming? I'm not Michael Moore or Al Gore. I'm just saying...

What Does Your Nightstand Say About You?

My husband and I have matching nightstands - small, brown wooden Ikea tables, each with a small matching lamp. (Very basic; the husband wouldn't go for the pretty, girlie ones). This morning, I looked at what was on and around his nightstand, and compared it with mine.

His: a pink My Little Pony that our daughter left there (its been there for at least a week and is beginning to look like a tchochke my husband put there on purpose). There is also a pair of tweezers (I don't want to talk about it) and ....- and that's it! The nightstands have a cabinet underneath - his is empty. Ok, there is a enormous book on the floor, Paul Scott's the Raj Quartet, and a few science magazines, and a book he just finished on the Rolling Stones on the nightstand too. And a Word Girl early reader paperback. But all of these things are pretty neatly stacked (except for the Raj Quartet behemoth sitting on the floor ).

Mine: earplugs, dry-eye nighttime cream, (God, do I sound like a middle-aged woman or what!?) foot cream, a picture frame (knocked flat and lying forlornly, face up) of a drawing my daughter made of herself a year ago that I love. A book I read two months ago (A Three Dog Life) and a recent edition of a literary journal that published some of my poems, various catalogs, the Sunday Book Review section from the Times from three weeks ago, dirty socks, a fridge magnet and a spin top (left behind, courtesy of the kid), various books on improving your life, on writing, various collections of poetry, a local weekly newspaper, etc., etc., etc...I am afraid to look inside the cabinet inside the nightstand.

I have an inner slob and it is coming out on my side of the bed.

Let Us Now Praise Good Men

I haven't even put away my Mother's Day cards yet, and the house is still filled with flowers (now softly dropping their petals all over the dining room table) but for some reason I am already thinking about Father's Day.

There are many joys of parenthood, but one of them is getting to watch my husband be a father. It's wonderful, of course, because he is a great dad and a fully engaged partner. But I also learn a lot from his parenting style, which is much more easy going than mine. (Did I mention MUCH more easy going?)

On a recent Friday my husband worked from home, so he'd be on hand to pick up our daughter after school. I needed his help, since I would be busy taking my mother to a doctor's appointment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, during rush hour, on a Friday. Who knew what time we'd be home? (Maybe by Saturday? Certainly couldn't count on making it back for dinner.)

Angels in my Kitchen

She is still small enough to want to be carried, my beautiful little daughter. I pick her up and carry her home from the bus stop, burying my face in her mop of straight blond hair. I breathe in deeply; she smells good -- a mixture of organic hair-detangler, sweet apple juice and the peanut butter she ate for lunch. I let myself enjoy the moment, knowing how fleeting it is, how bus stops and holding hands will someday be a thing of the past and she'll be a tall teenager who will fix her hair anyway she wants and roll her eyes at her dark-haired, serious mother. It's a gorgeous spring afternoon and everything is perfect. It's a gorgeous spring day and everything is a disaster.

Because what is waiting for me at home is not the normal, afterschool cycle of puzzles and PBS KIDS, sneaking into the home office to finish up work, dinnertime, baths and a favorite book. What is waiting for me at home is my mother, lying on the couch, thin and tied, fighting cancer. Like my daughter, she is wondering what's for dinner.

The Art of the Hospital Visit

All night I pass the picture in the hall. It is a soft, inviting painting, a far away place, a village with narrow winding streets and a few boats floating in a blue sea.

It is very late, and I am walking the halls of Mt. Sinai Hospital. The place where my mother gave birth to me. Where she now lies in room 216A, recovering from two surgeries, neither of which can cure her.

The painting makes me think of the Caribbean, or Greece. I stare at it intently, so badly do I want to be somewhere other than here. I walk the halls looking for her nurse, or waiting for her to come back from her latest procedure. I have brought organic chicken broth and a small sandwich, her cell phone charger and a new book for her to read.

The Disaster &The Lost Corned Beef: A Tragic-Comedy

Stranger things have happened, but when my mother collapsed in bed two weeks ago, complaining of a tummy ache and an all-over-her-body itch that was driving her crazy I took her to the Emergency Room. Seven hours later, at 3 a.m., I staggered out and drove home, alone.

They were keeping mom. They had to run more tests.

This is how life is. One minute you're giggling in the ER, discussing an upcoming family wedding and summer vacation plans. The next, well, you think you have a diagnosis -- because the smart, kind, grey-haired ER doc tells you he suspects gallstones. We were relieved, gallstones we can certainly handle. We started watching Grey's Anatomy on the ER's tiny television suspended near the bed. (Few things are as surreal as watching a medical drama while in the middle of your own medical drama.)

There was just one problem - that nice doctor came back and told us they couldn't find any gallstones. So now we had to get a CAT scan done. And by the time I got back to the hospital the next day - well they hadn't found any stones with the CAT scan either. They found something else.

Six Days to Better Sex

You know those articles that give tips on how to keep your marriage on track?

I found out recently that I don't need to read any of them. All I have to do is pack a suitcase and get out of dodge (in this case, New Jersey). That's where I live with my husband, little girl and a kitten. They are all affectionate and wonderful and only the cat sheds, but sometimes mom needs a break.

I left town recently for work. A conference took me all the way across the country. Whenever I travel 3,000 miles these days (which, lets face it, isn't too damn often - most times I can't even make it to Hoboken) I take my daughter with me. Over the past five years, I have taken her on my lap, breastfed her in a sling, occupied her with Cheerios and stickers on the tarmac, and the last time - let her watch the movie Bolt in her own seat. I take her because California is where her Grandpa lives.

But this time there was serious work at hand and I needed to focus. Going on this trip also meant a plane ride all to myself where I could work, doze and read a novel. For more than 15 minutes straight! It meant a hotel room shared with a good friend and colleague, near the ocean. It meant dinner with no one climbing on my lap, solo walks on the beach, stimulating conversation and work, work, work. It meant taking an extra day and half to see my dad, ALONE.

They Don't Look Like Olympic "Girls" to Me

Some days it feels like we just aren't making any progress in this country, and no, I'm talking about the economy. I've been thrilled to watch the Winter Olympics with my family this year, even introducing my little girl to the amazing feats the athletes are performing. She dances around the living room imitating the athletes and I bite my nails. Good times.

But I may have to start turning NBCoff, since I don't want to expose my girl to the creeping sexism I've noticed in the commentary. Last night we were on the edge of our couch watching the amazing, grueling, dangerous, spectacular Women's Downhill ski event, in which American Lindsey Vonn won gold. This is one of the toughest courses in the world - almost two miles long and to top it off it was rough and very icy. Six of the women skiers crashed; one had to be airlifted to a hospital.

These were exciting, dedicated, POWERFUL athletes. Vonn famously crossed the finish line despite a very painful injury. And what did the male broadcaster refer to her and her fellow ski mavens as? Girls.

The Up Side of Being Sick

I've been on a roll since January. I hit the post-vacation ground running - busy with work projects, busy with my dreams. I really felt like I had hit my stride with work, and even crossed some long-term things off my to do list. Heck, I was even shopping around for a new accountant to do our taxes - In JANUARY! I was also looking forward to a business trip to California and just registered for my first ever Blogher conference.

When anyone asked me how I was, I said the same thing: Great. Busy with work. So grateful to HAVE work, good engaging work. Sure, my family was having a bit of a rough time getting back in the work-school-swing of things, but I was fine.

But there was another side to the story. I was so busy I had stopped going to yoga, which is like church and the gym for me, rolled into one. By mid January a chronic problem with my hip was so bad I couldn't even hobble to a yoga class. My NYC writers group, which I had run for about a year, collapsed. My weight has been climbing higher. I still haven't been to the dentist or taken the cat to the vet. And, oh yeah, after I got some bad family news right before Christmas resorted to my oldest, nastiest habit - secretly smoking.

Haiti (and Kindergarten) on my Mind

Last week I mentioned to a colleague that I was freaking out about the school situation for my daughter. She lives in another state, but she felt my pain. There are few options for working families -- in lots of places -- who don't want to send their kids to failing public schools.

She sent me a link to a book that raises some important questions, like what happens when families like mine abandon the public school system. When more affluent families avoid local public schools by turning to private institutions, or by simply moving to a better district, "we’re reproducing class inequality for the next generation." I put the book on my Amazon wish list and then, through the twisty-turny world that is the Internet followed a bunch of links off the original search that took me to -- orphanages in Haiti and a network of people in the U.S. who have adopted Haitian children.

This was a week BEFORE the earthquake hit.