Ohio Moms Blog

Mean Girls on a whole new level

 When I was 12 years old my best friend and I got into a fight.  I can’t remember what the fight was about, but I remember feeling like my world was over.  Perhaps I was a touch melodramatic at the time, but the feelings were very real and very painful. 

I remember in junior high and high school there were times when I would get in arguments with my friends or people made fun of me, days where I’d rather join a witness relocation program than go to school.  It seemed like everyday would be as hard and painful as that one singular day.  But it passed. Every time.  We never had “mean girls.”

Yesterday, I read a story in the New York Times about that poor little Irish girl, Phoebe Prince.  She hung herself after months of being tormented and tortured by classmates.  While it’s to be expected that kids have issues with their classmates, never have I witnessed month after month of intentional harassment. Who does that?  And more importantly, where are the parents and why didn’t the school do anything about it? 

It's a tough crowd here at the playground

My daughter got made fun of on the playground the other day by an older girl for wearing pull ups – at the time she was still 2 years old.  “You’re wearing Pampers!” she said.  “No, I’m not” my daughter said, “They’re princess frog pull ups” and she went back to playing.  The girl tried a few more times to insist, but when she got no response, eventually she gave up.  Imagine her reaction if she’d realized they weren’t even Pampers – they were generic!  I made a face at the dad next to me and informed him my daughter was 2, not that it was anyone’s business how old my daughter was or how our potty training was going.  “Tough crowd” he replied, laughing.

It amazes me how cliquey some of the girls are before they even reach kindergarten in our town.  I lived here back when this place was mostly farm country, classified as a village and with a post office so small that it didn’t serve as ours even though we lived 2 miles down the road.  Good schools and easy commuting to both Dayton and Cincinnati (even Columbus in this economy, truth be told) brought an influx of people that changed both the size and character of the neighborhood.  If only some of the uppity moms and their families could have seen this place then.  I know that there will be a lot more pressure and teasing as the years go by and my girls grow up, and I suppose it would exist anywhere.  So I will do what I can to make sure my daughters are kind and inclusive, including being a good role model.

What we've got here is a failure to communicate

My daughter will be three in a couple of weeks. If she makes it that far. I might have to kill her first.

If the last few weeks are any indication of what three will be like, it's gonna be a long year. The attitude, the tantrums, the whining -- I don't know where to start my list of complaints. She's pushing me every chance she gets, and I'm not necessarily handling it with grace.

Last week I decided I would try talking to her. She's getting older, right? Surely she understands the reasons she should be good and do what Mama says. And surely she's now able to grasp consequences -- if you do A, then B will happen. If you fail to do A, then B is a privilege you will not receive.

Her favorite thing right now is Disney movies. Specifically Snow White. Which I have watched until I want to claw my eyeballs from my head. So I figured I'd explain that if she didn't behave herself, we would not be watching Snow White that evening. Simple, right?

Too Young for a Princess Party?

My three-year-old daughter was recently invited to a princess party at Sweet and Sassy located at the Polaris Mall. The details of the party included the girls getting their nails done, hair put in an up do, make-up, princess dress-up dresses, and then a walk down the runway to show their new beauty. After the make-up and fashion show the children shopped for lotions, nail polishes, etc. and have cake and ice cream in a separate room.

I declined the invitation.

I said no to my daughter attending the party because I did not want her introduced to the thought that girls need make-up, nail polish, and pretty dresses to look beautiful. I felt she was too young to be strutting herself down a runway all gussied up. At three, she is just too impressionable, and I didn’t want her to take away from that party that she needed make-up and her hair done to be beautiful. It was awkward telling the party-giver that my daughter would not be attending. I wished I had a better excuse than the fact that I didn’t want her to go and be introduced to superficial beauty at such a tender age. I didn’t want to stick up for my decisions as a mother, because my decision for that party was not a popular one. It was difficult for me, and I blamed most of it on my husband because I was too scared to tell the honest truth.

Do men get asked if they work outside the home?

I was talking at a table of successful women about balancing life with little ones.  Strategies were exchanged for working at home - be it house work, remodeling projects or a paying gig.  Tips for finding time for a haircut, grocery trip, or possibly even a bathroom break without kids were traded.  Then the conversation turned to the various intrusive comments mothers of young children always seem to elicit, “Are you staying at home, then, now that you have kids?” or “I don’t know how you could possibly leave those sweet little faces, even for a second!” and even, “So now that you have one of each, you’re done, right?” 

What is it about a woman with young children that compels a stranger to offer up personal questions or solicit unwanted advice?  Is it the slightly dazed look that we sometimes posses due to lack of sleep or a harried schedule?  I don’t think I’ve ever heard a man be asked if he’s going to stay home after he has a baby.  So why ask us – don’t we look like we have enough on our minds?  At least at our table we were easily able to agree – there are few easy decisions when it comes to parenting and family life, but we’d rather make them ourselves than depend on the opinions and advice of strangers to guide us!

Risking limb and livelihood

I took a lot of time for career and leisure and belated growing up before I had my son…. about 13 years’ worth. As a journalist/editor/web content-type person, I logged hundreds, sometimes thousands of words and myriad mouse-clicks on my computer for work, and sometimes as many for my online social life.

Because I’ve always preferred life as a freelancer to working for other people, I tried to be smart about taking care of myself. After my first few muscle kinks and dull aches, I learned to pay better attention to my body. I did a lot gentle yoga to make sure my spine stayed in line. I put lights and wrist-rests in the advised places to avoid eyestrain and carpal tunnel. I even slept with an ergonomic sleeve. And when I felt myself knotting up in spite of all of those precautions, I went in for some medical massage. My meticulousness drew more than one odd stare from coworkers, but my arms, shoulders and fingers were my livelihood.

Then came my boy. And my realization that we were both happiest being as close as we could be. There were years of wearing him in a sling or mei-tai. There was extended nursing, including plenty of typing with my arms arched around his hungry body, doing whatever I could to simultaneously nourish him and be clever about reviewing a Beyoncé concert on an overnight deadline. I knocked lots of assignments out in double-time as he napped or his dad took care of him, throwing break-time cautions out with the bathwater

I enjoy being a girl

 There was something inside of me from the moment I found out I was pregnant that I knew I was going to have a girl.  The thought of little girlness excited me.  I’m not a girly girl myself, but teaching a girl how to become a woman intrigued me. 

 Then she came & she came in the tiniest package possible. Born two weeks early.  My little 4 1/2 lb baby girl was already dainty, which led me to believe that’s how she would always be.  However, as she grew, even thought her size was small, her attitude and spirit took up an entire city block.  Still does.  It’s amazing to watch your child take over an entire room, especially a child who comes from two socially awkward parents.   And over time I have realized my girl was more like a boy. It’s like having two kids in one. Give her Diego over Dora, cars over baby dolls, and pirates over Barbie.  My daughter will not wear dresses.  The idea brings her to a weepy mess on the floor.  Pigtails?  No such luck, she asks to me to take her to the salon and her hair cut short.  Not too long ago she told me her name was Zach and then a week later it was Pikachu.  My daughter quite frequently says she wants to be a boy.  I ask her why? She says, “because I like boys”. 

Oh, Ramen Again...

“Oh, make sure you don't use the debit card for anything...”

“Um, what about food?”

“No, just wait.”

“What about the birthday money that Nora gave you to deposit to buy her doll from e-bay?”

“Yeah, just let me know before you process that payment...”

Grrr...

This is what owning a small business and working for yourself looks like.  It looks like rummaging around the refrigerator and the pantry to find a can a beans, a can of tomatoes and some baby carrots to make... CHILI!  Or looking around the floor of the car, beneath the couch cushions, and sometimes your kid's wallet to find... BUS FARE!

Turning off the Radio Never Got Easier

 Each weekday morning at 7:15 the girls & I get into the van and make the daily trek to school. The ride to drop off both the girls at their respective schools only takes me about 20 minutes roundtrip.  To fill the silence in the car (oh yes, there is silence because my girls are anti-morning people & I am happen to be a morning person) we listen to the radio.  

I can't stand their radio station with all the craziness in the morning. I don't like what they are saying & I really don't like the commercials they play.  The girls really don't care for the station that I listen to in the morning as they say it has too much talk.  We finally settled on WMJI, which boasts itself as playing 'Cleveland's greatest Hits.'  

It has news and weather (this is a must for my teenager, Giggles) and it has to have decent music (and thankfully my tween, The Chicken loves 'oldies'.) So we settled on Majic 105.7 as our radio station of choice in the morning hours.  Some days the music that it plays gives it staying power to last into the evening, that is, until this morning.

They started out with some local news, which lead into world news, which in turn they shared this story. 

The story is about an obese woman giving birth to a healthy baby girl in Romania yesterday via c-section. They went on to talk about how she required 4x the anesthetic than a 'normal' person would need for the same surgery.  Then it started to get ugly.

Saying No

I can't say no.  I try.

“Nnnnnnn...”

It just won't come out.

“Mom, I know you're allergic to all things with fur, but can we take in this SECOND stray cat?”

“Nnnnnnn... Nnnnnnaaaaa...”

Or, “I know I already have a pet rat, but we were just at the pet store, and they have a dumbo rat. A DUMMMBO rat!!! Mommmmmm, pleeeeeeease?”

“Nuh... Nnnnnnrrrr...”

And then there's, “Sharon, I know you're already a member of a gazillion organizations, but you should really join this one too because it only involves one thousand pounds of more work!”

“Nahwahhhhh!”

So I sneeze, go without sleep, stress (as a verb), cry, and drink (sometimes before noon).