A Message From Above? Or Just Bad Timing

There's something just painful about waiting in a cafe behind a skinny little thing with her skinny little ass poking out the top of her skinny little jeans who's ordering the hummus sandwich but ummmm...I kinda don't really want the bread so can you just put it on a plate with lettuce? Oh, and to drink, ummmm...a hot water with lemon?

All while I'm about to order the chocolate peanut butter brownie.

The Not Ready for Preschool-Time Players

This morning as I sat in the preschool tour group, I found myself sizing every parent up. The one in the grey shirt, she couldn't brush her hair for this? Wow, that's some ugly tie that guy is wearing. Oh, that mom HAS to be named Muffy.

Meow.

The people who might normally be my friends (except for the Muffy who looked about as interesting as dryer lint) were suddenly my competition as we were informed by the director that last year, 250 people applied for 47 preschool slots. With priorities given to legacies.

We are not legacies.

As it turned out, I had no need to feel competitive since all the parents in the room were there on behalf of kids yet to turn two. Leaving me the sole idiot mom in the room (if not in all of New York City) applying to a threes program, for a kid whose current version of school is dancing with mommy to the Bangles in the living room, identifying the letters on her alphabet cookies (organic!) and talking back to Dora on the TV. Where are we going? Big blue mountain! Where are we going? Big blue mountain!

Shut up. Noggin is like preschool on TV.

(See? I did not make this up.)

You cannot even imagine the psychosis that preschool application time inspires throughout the boroughs of New York City each Fall. You could poke your head into any place where parents gather, whisper preschool and watch 80 heads whip around, Exorcist-style. It's like college application time. Only much, much, much much worse.

I swore I would not get wrapped up in it when our time came. Heck, Metrodad is avoiding it entirely. And by not getting wrapped up I mean total denial. Just ask Mrs. Crouton Boy who gave me such a You Poor Sweet Delusional Woman look when I ran into her at lunchtime and told her that we were just applying to the one school. One? As in...one?

Yes, one. The only one that managed to fit me in for the requisite tour considering I called a good five weeks after all the Together Mommies had done the right thing and called at precisely 8:01 AM the Tuesday after Labor Day.

The thing is? Call it kismet but oh my dear sweet lord did I love this school. Loooooooved. The director. The teachers. The philosophy. The walking distance from our apartment. It just...felt like me. Like Thalia. Even if we applied to ten schools this would be the only one I want for her.

I loved it in direct disproportion to our chances of getting in.

And so I am going to turn in our one application and hope really really hard that they get to meet Thalia in person and see what a geeeeenius she is and what an absolute perfect addition she would be to their classroom which is surely in need of a middle-class white girl to create some diversity. How Thalia's the kid with the great sense of humor, even if she doesn't know why we're laughing. The girl with the amazingly developed sense of empathy. Who doesn't freak out (too much) if another kid takes her toys. Who listens so hard to the bird sounds in the country and tries to differentiate the Jays from the chipmunks. The girl so filled with goodness that she can love even the most unlovable creatures of this planet.

In return, the preschool can do me the honor of billing me close to 5-figures so that my daughter can climb on a jungle gym, play with trains and eat paste.

The best part is, you don't even get charged extra for the paste they eat. It's included in the price and everything.

You Want to Know What Parenthood Does to You? You Reeeeeally Want to Know?

So sad. So, so sad.

If I had the energy to create a meme, I'd love to know how your pre-child and post-child worlds have collided. Just to make me feel better.

So Why is It Called Black Friday if it Puts My Credit Card in the Red?

And Then We Slaughtered All The Native People...

Aw, just kidding. I'm not so PC that we didn't enjoy the most wonderful, non-commercial holiday of the year with friends, family, and Nate's homemade stuffing with wild mushrooms, bacon lardons and chestnuts that, after the third serving, I've identified as the culprit that did me in for the night.

I'm far too full to get my butt out of the house to go shopping with the rest of the crazy people today. Am I alone here?

If you're like me, consider doing it all online. Cool Mom Picks just came out with our second annual Holiday Shopping Guide with so much cool stuff from smaller businesses and independent designers, I have no idea where we found the time to track it all down.



Help us spread the word about it and post one of the neato Holiday Guide buttons on your blog, and we'll automatically enter you in a drawing to win a $250 gift certificate to Zutano. Whoo! Free clothes for the kids. Good ones, too! Just email info@coolmompicks.com and send us your url.

And if it's toys on your brain, in this, The Year of the Recall, you'll also find awesome suggestions in the Cool Mom Picks Safer Toy Guide.

Bonus: None of them take batteries. Which make them very welcome gifts for parents too.

So what was the dish that did you in last night? And no fair saying turkey.

Breaking News: New Moms are Fat

These days I'm getting upwards of 25 press releases a day to Mom101. Most I scan quickly and delete. A few, if I'm feeling snarky, get a response like, "You know, if you took the time to read my blog and not just pretend that you read it, you would know that there's no way I'm going to write about your canned tomatoes/Precious Moments crap/corporate apartments where I nearly died."

But today I got one titled New Study Links Lack of Sleep to Weight Gain in New Moms.

(Maybe you got it too - you, and you, and you, and you. Maybe even you? Nah. Probably not.)

And I thought, hallef*ckinglujia, just what every sleep-deprived new mom has been hoping to find in her inbox.

Indeed I am beyond delighted to know that Sage's continued insistence at waking up every 2 hours all night leaves me not only cranky, irritable, limited in my brain capacity and looking like crap, but now it's making me fat.

Forget the fact that the research was conducted by Kaiser Permanente--who after seeing Sicko, is not exactly on my holiday list. What am I supposed to do with this information? How am I supposed to respond to an email that informs me that "getting enough sleep – even just two hours more – may be as important to mothers as a healthy diet and exercise."

It's like getting a pitch that says "If you just made more money--even just $100,000 more--you may have a better quality of life."

Um, thanks for the tip.

Call me cynical, but no insurance organization does research for the betterment of humanity at their own cost. Is it possible that the research is paving the way towards more reasons not to pay out? Sorry 'bout your diabetes and hypertention, fatty...if you had just slept more instead of watching Grey's Anatomy after having those kids, we might have approved you.

DECLINE.

Or maybe this is the first step towards insurance companies covering night nurses and daytime doulas for us all for the first six months.

Because that sure would be nice.

Aaaaaand...The Deception Begins

Saturday night, Thalia was in a mood that we fondly refer to as Two. As in, "Oh Thalia. Are you acting Two again?"

Nate offered her a grape and was met with an inordinately loud and screechy NOOOOO! I DON'T LIKE GRAPES! And so he took the grapes into the kitchen, shuffled them around on the plate, then brought them right back. And offered them again.

As jellybeans.

She ate them all.

The semi-smart, mostly sensible mom within me was cringing. We don't tend to lie to Thalia. We don't tell her that the playground is closed or that the ice cream store ran out of ice cream. (Although really, that did happen once. Ask Tony.) I do think that keeping things on the straight and narrow is a better long-term tactic even if I have to endure a few tantrums along the way.

So I corrected Thalia, "Daddy was just playing a joke on you, sweetie. He was being funny. It's really a grape." Too late. Thalia insisted that no it was not a grape, it was a jellybean. She even proceeded to separate the grapes from the jellybeans on the plate using some sort of incomprehensible assessment system, and show us exactly which was which.

So then I did what any semi-smart, mostly sensible mom would do.

I told Nate to get out the video camera.

What can I say, the whole thing was hilarious, what with her yelling MMMM JUICY JELLYBEANS! SO SWEEEET! for an hour all while popping grapes.

Cut to today, lunch time.

Thalia and I were bargaining chips for food, as in finish that half of your sandwich and you can have one more chip.

(The chips, by the way, were in part a passive-aggressive reaction to some sanctimommy on a message board last night who led with, "My whole family knows that the first person to offer soda, chips or candy to my three year-old is DEAD to me." Like having a one-night stand with an ex, every so often I go back to that board remind myself why left in the first place.)

Thalia was respecting the trade-off pretty well, until she walked back to her sandwich, lifted it near her mouth, then turned her back to me and pantomimed taking a bite. "I did it!" she declared, before making an enthusiastic bee-line for the foil bag.

The deception! The chicanery! The outright lie!

I have no idea where she got it from.

Guess She's Not Quite Getting the Concept of Sarcasm Yet

Nate: Okay, time to change your diaper.

Thalia: No!

Nate: Let me change it Thalia, you pooped.

Thalia: NO!

Nate: Oh Thalia, please let me change your smelly, stinky diaper filled with excrement. Please do me the courtesy of allowing me take it off your body and then wipe all that poop off of your butt and then please let me...

Thalia: Aw, don't cry, Daddy.

Half

Sage turned Half this week.

Today she is Half plus three days.

I think the tough legacy of the second child is that when mom sits down to write you a beautiful Half post, what you get instead is one for Half plus three days. What you get is the remnant writing time, the moments not previously committed to work and family and real people time and once in a while, a few consecutive minutes of sleep.

I hope that in these six months I've made up for the time drain in other ways. I hope I'm learning to let Sage be her own person. I hope I've spent enough time memorizing her smile, absorbing her expressions, tickling her and then laughing at the ensuing patented Sage Alexandra Wiggle Dance.

I hope that I have enough photos of her to make up for the fact that we have no baby book to put them in. I hope that I have enough images of her in my head to make up for the fact that I don't always have enough photos.

I hope I've remembered to give her a turn on the swing too. I hope that we've hid enough of her newborn gifts to make up for a two year-old sister that claims them all as hers.

And I hope that my beautiful Princess Sagebrush continues to be the sweet, smiley, stubborn girl that she is now. At Half.

Half and three days.

The half birthday suit

Hugs, Not Drugs. Or Maybe Both Since They Both Can Get You Detention These Days

Hey, hear the one about the middle schooler who got detention for hugging her friend after school? Well I did, and I have an oddly opinionated take on it.

What? you think. That's crazy. Liz is never opinionated!

Yep, I really am. And I have very strong opinions that you should make one tiny little click with your mouse and read all about it over at Wonderland on Alpha Mom, so that maybe Alice will invite me back again to opine about other sorts of things.

(((Hugs)))*


*I always kind of hated that.

The Old Fart Musical Creed

This morning I was watching the Today Show for a rare, brief moment and some rap group (do they still call them rap groups? Is that hopelessly out of date?) that I've never heard of is singing some song I've never heard of and - shockingly - there are people in the audience screaming and clapping and singing along. Every word.

And all I can think is, how is possible for them to be so familiar with these bands that I don't know? Just like I wonder how the spoiled skanky girls on My Super Sweet 16 can get all excited about the bands their daddies book for their parties. I mean REM, sure. ACDC, totally. But Saosin? Hellogoodbye? Huh? Wha? Who?

That's it, my musical knowledge is officially stunted.

(And this is on my mind only partly because yesterday Kristen made me watch some You Tube video to prove to me that I knew some song from the 90s about put yo hand on yo hip or some other f*cking nonsense which meant nothing to me because I'm old and farty and OKAY KRISTEN I DON'T KNOW THE SONG ALREADY.)

The first sign was about ten years ago when I saw some talentless nobody on late night TV singing some annoying song about a genie in a bottle and I thought to myself, well that's the last time we'll ever hear from her.

Then, about three years ago I was on a message board, when someone typed in FERGIE IS DATING JOSH DUHAMEL! and I was shocked, shocked that an American TV actor could land the Dutchess of York.

And so now it is time for me to accept and embrace my musical lameness.

Okay so I do get a little squeamish when the "oldies" station in NY that played Chubby Checker when I was a kid is now playing U2 and the Police. But otherwise, I accept that I'm pushing 40 and that my time has come to hand the cool music torch over to the younguns with the time, energy, and inclination to listen to bands new enough to cite Green Day as an influence.

And so, allow me to be the first to sign the Old Fart Musical Creed:

I accept that the world of hip music has passed me by.

I accept that I only have heard of 11 of the top 20 mp3 artists - and one of them is the Beatles.

(Even if I don't entirely accept that the Beatles are only number 20 and that Madonna rates just above Hannah Montana)

I accept that what to me is atonal, to someone else is brilliant.

I accept that I cannot name one song by 50 Cent.

I accept that I cannot bring myself to call him "Fitty" Cent and instead say "Fifty."

I accept that when a friend tells me she's going to the VMAs, I'm not in the least bit envious.

I accept that even while I tap my feet to a house music mix playing at a party, I'm really hoping the next cd will be MTV Class of '83.

I accept that mohawked college kids wearing torn Clash shirts eye me suspiciously even as I think, I rocked that look the first time around, you wannabees.

I accept that kids today scare me when they dance.

I accept that when I dance, I scare the kids today.

I accept that it's pretty lame I when that Killers song comes on Guitar Hero III and I jump up and yell, "Hey wait, I know this!"

I accept Avril Lavigne wears too much eye makeup and there is nothing I can do about it.

If you're with me, sign your name at the bottom, forward it to ten people, and Bill Gates will send you $10,000. It's true. It happened to a friend of mine.

Perhaps We Should All Just Think of it as the First Halloween Post of '08

So I finally sit down to upload my Halloween photos and I can't find the USB cord. Then I find the cord and my computer won't turn on. Then it will turn on but whoops, Nate bought Guitar Hero III (Because hell, why not have it on both PS2 and Wii. We're millionaires!) and Pat Benatar is calling to me.

So now it's 96 hours later, you are all so over Halloween, and pretty much already onto the deleting of the 8 million new posts in your feed readers thanks to NaBloPoMo.

But you know what? Tough. I have some cute kids in some cute freaking costumes and dammit, I'm posting them here so you can delete this in your feed reader too.




I have no idea where Thalia got the idea to be a peacock, but from the day she understood that Halloween meant dressing up in a costume, she insisted on it.

"Oh sweetie," I'd say as we navigated the crammed aisles of Ricky's and stressed about my lack of free costume-making time. "Why don't you be a ghost? Or a bumblebee? Or something ready made on the store shelves like this slutty nurse? Isn't she soooooo preeeeetty?"

Nope. It had to be a peacock.

Oh, and Sage had to be a butterfly. HAD TO.

So with a bit of legwork plus much help from Grammy (God bless Grammy!) while Nate and I were out of town, a Danskin leotard, some feathers and a blue mask conspired to turn my girl into a peacock for the night. But wait...Grammy had other ideas. With the addition of a tiara and a wand, Thalia became no mere peacock. She was a princess peacock.

Which, as Nate reminds me, makes her a bit of a drag queen peacock, peacocks being necessarily male.

I admit I scoffed a bit at the concept when my stepmother first described it. I couldn't imagine why Thalia needed to be more than just a cute animal. I have managed to shield her from the princess crap thus far in her life and now, 2 years of avoidance were about to be felled by a dime store tiara and wooden wand.

Still, I went with it. I was just grateful I didn't have to make a costume myself. (And that Sage's was, at the last minute, available through BabyStyle.)

As we headed out the door, Thalia beyond thrilled at this crazy idea that you can just knock on strangers' doors and they will hand you candy, the excitement was dashed by a creepy recorded sound emanating from a neighbor's apartment.

WHOOOOOOO-OOOOOOO.

Thalia didn't like it one bit.

"I heard a scary noise."

Normally unflappable, she cowered at my legs and clutched my knees for comfort.

"You know sweetie," I found myself saying as I bent down to her level. "Maybe what you can do is wave your magic wand and say 'go away noise!' And then, maybe it will."

"Go away noise," she said. Then more confidently. "Go away noise!"

And with that, the tape ran out or the magic worked - but indeed the noise was gone.

"Daddy!" she called, running in our door. "I heard a scary noise and wave my wand and said, 'go away noise.'"

He looked at me in disbelief, and tried to undo whatever horrible damage I had apparently done. He sat Thalia down and tried to explain in that annoying guy way that noises can't hurt us and that sometimes magic doesn't work and tons of other stuff that Thalia didn't really hear. She was just delighted to have a magic peacock princess wand in her possession that's capable of making scary noises go away.

And me, I was delighted right along with her.