Johnson & Johnson - Propaganda machine

Summer is almost upon us. I celebrated Memorial Day by being vomited upon by both the girls all day Sunday, while H took the girls to a birthday party at his brother's house. Had it not seemed odd for me to show up instead of him, I sure as hell would have allowed him the opportunity to watch, one right after the other, Ice Age, Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure, and Cats and Dogs 2, while running back and forth between the bathroom and the girls to empty bowls of puke. Little Man has not gotten sick yet, but the fact that he is taking his first nap in six weeks does not bode well.

We did, before the tsunami of effluvia began, manage to get a day in at the pool Saturday, which is where the girls probably contracted this plague. I don't care how much chlorine they put in that water, just watching the spluttering that happens while some braces-wearing ten year-old gets dunked by his mates, and knowing how reticent kids are to leave a body of water to get ice cream, never mind urinate, makes me want to gag as well. But at the time , I was not paying much attention to the public health hazard that is a public pool, and we just enjoyed a glorious day in the sun, which, of course, requires sunscreen. And once sunscreen season begins, so does bathing-every-night season.

Yeah, I admit it. In the cold weather months, I don't bathe my kids every night. They all get some pretty dry skin, and as you ladies know, washing your hair every day is actually bad for it, so I take that as nature's way of telling me to take it easy. But once sunscreen and chlorine is involved, you go back to the back-breaking work of cleansing your offspring after a full day of (exhausting) summer fun. I remember fondly, the days pre-children, when H and I would come back from the beach, grab a cold drink, to shower and relax. Now, we face the Herculean task of getting three cranky, hot, children, who an hour before were swimming like fish, but now have the water affinity of a hairless cats, into the tub.*

It's not just in the summer that bathing your kids sucks. It pretty much stinks all year round. Those of you without kids think me a monster. You imagine yourselves, just like in the Johnson & Johnson commercials, bathing your adorable, chubby baby in the baby tub over the kitchen sink, as he splashes playfully and giggles - and that is an accurate interpretation...for the first six months. By that time (or sooner if you have gigantic babies like mine) you've had to move your behemoth to the regular bathtub and, after already spending the day bent over cleaning up toys and changing diapers, you now get to crouch painfully on the bathroom floor, trying to wash dried peach puree out of your little one's thigh folds. This is made infinitely more difficult by the bath seat your kid has to sit in to keep him upright, making it nearly impossible to wash your progeny's business end. At this point though, you still enjoy bath time, letting your kid play with the eight hundred squeaky toys and the puppet washcloths you got at your baby shower.

Fast forward another kid and now you truly, officially, hate bath time. It's a logistical nightmare. When the younger on is tiny, you have to wash him in the baby tub and the older one in the regular one, trying to placate the baby in his or her bouncy seat that you have managed to squeeze into the bathroom with you. Your oldest, accustomed to ample aquatic playtime, vehemently disagrees with the abbreviated version of this game when you haul him out after five minutes. Then, once the little one is old enough to be bathed together with his older sibling, what was once a idyllic, peaceful end to your day, has now turned into a stress-inducing, parent soaking, filthy, kid-soup. You want it over with as quickly as possible. There are no more washcloth puppets, they grew raggedy after so many washings, and you are no longer participating in after-dinner theater anyway. The kids each have one bath toy that does not have a squeaker. Who the hell designs those anyway? Someone without children who does not understand that, despite your religious squeezing at the end of every bath, any toy with a hole will eventually grow mold inside and begin to shit out a black sludge when you empty them.

If you think about it, the concept of a bath is really pretty disgusting. You lie there in your own filth, and if you are my son, drink some of it every night while your mother screams at you. I use this idea to make myself feel better when my children's baths last all of four minutes. Again, I harken back to Laura Ingalls Wilder, who had to bathe in her older sister Mary's leftover bath water. I'm sure she wasn't asking Ma where her Polly Pocket boat or Toy Story squeakies were. She got clean and got the hell out. Why have we turned bath time into a party? There are too many products prolonging children's time in there and creating a nightmare for parents, most of them purchased by grandparents. Do they not remember going through this hell themselves???? In my mother in-law's defense, she did save the water-coloring tablets for her own home, but I don't need any bath time art products. I have made it through my whole damn day and now I'm supposed to let my kids paint with colored soap, or draw on the shower walls with soap crayons, so I not only have to wash them, but them clean my bathroom as well? Are you high?

And the bath safety products, like the aforementioned seat, are handy and do help prevent accidents, but again, do they need to be so jazzy? That protective spout cover does not have to make my tub look like Sesame Place, with Ernie's grinning mug on it, just make, plain, cushy plastic to prevent my kid from cracking his noggin open on the spout. But then again, maybe that would drive them out of the water. It's just too comfortable in there. There were no padded spout covers for me as a kid. My mother would have me tilt my head back under the faucet ,since rinsing out my ridiculous mop of hair wit ha cup was not happening and if I got clonked, it was my own damn fault for not paying attention.** They even sell bath goggles and foam visors for washing kids hair. Have we become that precious that our children can't take some non-animal tested, tear-free shampoo from getting in their eyes?

Thank God #1 is showering herself, cutting my workload by a third and buying #2 and Little Man a few minutes of play time. Not that independent showering is any walk in the park. She takes twenty minutes, soaks the entire bathroom, but still manages to come out with dirty hair clumped with blobs of conditioner, requiring a do-over. As long as she winds up clean through no work of my own, I don't care how long it takes.

The worst part is, I feel no guilt about the fact children in institutions must take longer baths than my kids. I refuse to buy into the hype, not everything has to be a game. When your day has been filled with school, and enriching activities, I am not providing you with the opportunity to do a water ballet. Get clean, get out and get to bed. If you don't like it, it's summer, I have yard, and a hose. Your choice.

*Never mind unpacking all of their crap. It's like Patton's 3rd army went on vacation.
** The best Mother's Day card I ever bought my mother read, "Let's relive a beautiful mother/daughter memory...You hold my head under the faucet and I'll scream"
***Yes, that is Little Man. I wanted to prove I have actually taken at least one photo of my third-born.

Sticks and stones...

Remember how I was wondering whether joining that other school board was a good decision? Well, after having six hours of meetings in the last seven days, I think I have my answer.

So classic parenting scenario to write about today. #1 comes home from school and tells me some kid in her class is bothering her. I brace myself, ready to hear a horror story of schoolyard taunting, when she tells me this kid who sits in her "pod"* is being rude to her and her friend. OK, I think. So she's not being singled out and being made the class pariah, so my blood pressure drops a few points, and I can halt my plan to corner this kid during the book fair and scare the ever-loving shit out of him. Apparently, this kid is telling #1 and her pal their writing is sloppy, or, after a harmless itch, accusing them of picking their noses, basically, general assholery. I breath a sigh of relief when she tells me he pretty much bothers all the girls in the class. I feel better, now what do I tell her to do?

My oldest has never really been teased all that much, but after five years of school, obviously, this isn't the first she has had to deal with a mean kid. When she was very little, I would recommend PC responses to rude behavior such as, "That's mean and I'm not going to play with you", which were met with varying degrees of success. As she got older, I began to suggest more aggressive comebacks, in proportion to the aggression of the offender. I even gave her permission to use the "S word" and tell mean kids to "shut up".

The problem is mean kids really don't give a shit. No matter how witty your comeback these little jerks have a pretty thick skin. It's like they have blessed with such a positive self-concept, nothing gets through. Meanwhile, my kid, like her mother at that age, is wounded by the smallest slight and can't process the fact that someone would act that way. I can practically see her stammering, trying to come up with a remark after she has been stung.

So, in this most recent scenario, I, again, went through all my tried and true bits of advice like "ignore him", and "tell him to shut up", when I had an epiphany. I remembered my own failed childhood attempts at bravado, that ended in mockery. Dickheads can sense your discomfort at being confrontational and your efforts only result in more harassment, which is exactly what #1 told me is happening with this little jerk when she does try to stand up to him. So I decided to level with her. I told her she could try all the things I told her to do, and if it ever got really bad she could talk to her teacher or I would (which she is loathe to have happen, not wanting to be a tattletale), but, I confessed to her, in the end, some people are just jerks. Until they see the error in their ways, and are ready to stop being jerks, you just have to put up with them the best you can. I wanted to go on to tell her, some people never change and TJ** will most likely go on to be the asshole holding the tap at a frat party, and will return to their class reunion a fat, bloated, divorced sales trader, still convinced the sun shines out of his ass, but life will teach her that lesson. I just didn't want to send her away with some pat answer thinking I had solved her problem. I wanted her to know I knew how frustrating this situation was and I was hear to listen.

Sometimes in parenting, the best thing to do is commiserate. I told her stories about my 5th grade nemesis Vito, who mocked a sweatshirt that was my particular favorite, that I refused to stop wearing. I told her the same useless advice her grandmother had given me. I think it made her feel better knowing she wasn't the only one and that she had been heard. Because, really, in the end, that is what any of us want when we complain about an unsolvable problem, whether it's a difficult co-worker or a husband who can't put his dirty underwear in the hamper. So why should kids be treated any differently? You wouldn't want your friend, when you bitch to her about your skid-mark boxer problem, to say, "Just tell him to stop, OK?" You want her to tell you, "Ugh, that sucks", and for her to share a domestic misery of her own. I know it's different with kids, that they are looking for answers, but when there are none, relating to the suckage of having to sit with a jerk-off until school ends can ease some of the pain.

Besides, he'll get his comeuppance. Being such a joiner at the school, I am the pizza day and ice cream day mom. You know who's getting all the small slices and the melted Chipwhich now, don't you?


*When did sitting in groups become the norm? I did it myself as a teacher, but damn, some personal space is nice. Would you want to sit facing someone all day long? Sometimes you just want to stare at the back of some kid's head and space out.
**All names have been changed to protect myself. I could give a shit about this kid.

Dear Watermelon,

I trudged through the rain on Monday, armed with my impossibly long grocery list and a large coffee, ready to begin the marathon* that is grocery shopping for five people, already grumpy because it was pissing rain and, having just returned from my Mother's Day Weekend with S at the W Hotel, I was wondering where were all the beautiful gay men to offer to push my cart and perhaps get me a bottle of water**. And there you were, shining, despite a thin coat of dirt, like a beacon of hope for the summer to come. Memorial Day is next weekend, so your appearance should not have been such a surprise, but with an audible gasp, I snatched you up and put you in my cart. And here's where I start to fall out of love with you, Watermelon.

The initial joy I felt upon seeing you, imagining tupperwares full of your flesh being devoured, poolside, by my children, begins to fade as I heave your fat ass from the display. My palms and chest are now smeared with gritty mud, the soil from your underbelly having mixed nicely with the rainwater all over my jacket. Now where to put you? They have yet to invent a drops-side grocery cart, and while I am tall enough to drop you into the main compartment of my rig, heaving you back out as you roll around its depths at checkout might result in a back injury. Mercifully, I was alone, otherwise you'd be riding shotgun in the car-cart, or petri dish, as like to call it, that Little Man prefers. So under the cart you go, as the grate down there will prevent any rolling. Or so I think. Taking a corner too fast out of produce, since I have exactly seventy minutes to shop, checkout, get home and put away enough food for an army (an army fueled by Go-gurts and bananas), you dive-bomb out of the cart and skid into the liquor department. Perhaps you were reminding me to buy wine.

After heaving you back into the cart, the rest of the trip goes well, if not a bit slower, as your heft and precarious position makes turning the cart much harder. At checkout, I get the bright idea to take your sticker off so the elderly female cashier who always comments on how much milk I buy, can scan you without my having to lift you yet again. No dice. The bar code on your sticker is defective, forcing me to plop you on the conveyor belt and watch you back roll, fighting any forward progression toward the scanner, where The Milk Police will sigh dramatically as she has to move you from the scale to the counter. Then I get to wrestle you back under the cart, from which you will escape again, almost causing an accident, as I push the cart along the downward slope of the parking lot.

During the car ride home, you will roll about the main compartment of the van, crushing empty juice boxes and the bread I have just bought. No matter how securely I pin you between twelve packs of soda, you manage to free yourself. I have tried every location in the van. Between the seats, on the seats, in LM car seat, and you always wind up on top of the Reduced Fat Lays. True, I could put you in the trunk, but that is full with two strollers and bag of clothes I've been meaning to donate.

Finally, we arrive home and I get you into the kitchen, where the floor is now covered in the same sludge I am. Now it's bath time, as I dump your rotundness into the kitchen sink to prevent this filth from getting all over everything when I cut you up. Getting you back out of the sink is a comedy of errors, since I am either faced with the "greased pig" scenario trying to lift you out wet, or the "baby melon" swaddling you with kitchen towels I will immediately have to launder since, they too, will become muddy. Note to watermelon farmers, I know you think the dirt is kitschy, and proof these are really, genuine watermelons, but I believe you already. A squirt with the hose after harvesting would go a long way.

Now comes the butchering. Placing you on a cutting board, you teeter perilously, causing me to pray I get out of this with all of my digits intact, since your movement and H's insistence I not ruin any of his good knives butchering melons, means I and stabbing forcefully at a moving object with a dull butcher knife I bought at Bed, Bath & Beyond ten years ago. I get you cracked open down the middle, so at least there is a semi-flat surface to rest you on, and this is where it is either jackpot or bust. After all the work to get to this point, and then see a crack,ed dry center, or a mushy pile of slop is enough to make my scream - but not enough to make me take you back to the store. I've seen people return unsatisfactory produce, but they're usually old and it's pint of blueberries. Am I supposed to throw you in a Hefty bag and drag your carcass to Customer Service to get my six bucks back? My time is worth more than that I think.

Most times, you are nice and ripe though, which means my counters are now a sea of watermelon juice which will eventually drip all over the floor, causing it to be sticky until the dog licks it up or the cleaning lady comes. Usually the former. I spend the next twenty minutes hacking off slices, then cutting the flesh out of those slices into non-choking hazard cubes. At this point your rind becomes an issue. I have two choices, neither of which are good. I can take the bag out of the can to prevent weight-induced ripping, and subsequent cursing and fit-throwing, when I remove the bag after I'm done, or take the bag out and leave it open on the floor to spill its contents each time I drop in a rind, causing the dog to have a joy-seizure as he finds orange peels and chicken bones skittering across the kitchen floor. Six of shitty, half a dozen of crappy if you ask me.

Finally, finally, I am done. I clean up all your juice, rind, and any mud that has escaped the hosedown. I heave the gigantic bag of garbage out the back door and leave it on the deck, instead of taking it down to the garbage cans under the deck, since it's so heavy. H will literally step over it as he goes to walk the dog tonight and Reilly will get his chicken bones anyway when he is let out to do his business in the morning and chews a hole in the bag. This time it comes with a watermelon rind salad. When he chokes to death we are both going to hell.

The kids see the giant tub of melon and gleefully begin to stuff their faces. Do you know, Watermelon, you have a laxative effect? I do, and will get the joy of experiencing it in two hours with Little Man. I eventually cut them all off after they have eaten nearly their body weight in you, and put your container away for tomorrow. That evening I will snag a few pieces and call out to H as I got to bed, "There's watermelon. Stay away from the ice cream!"

Tomorrow dawns, and as I drag my tired ass into the kitchen, and run the hot water to heat up my coffee mug, I notice, in the sink, a container that was too large to fit in the dishwasher, left there by a husband too lazy to wash it. It's your container, watermelon and you are already gone.

This post should make you feel pretty special, Watermelon. You must be some kind of awesome for me to go through this kind of work for roughly twelve hours of enjoyment. And you are. Despite all my bitching, you are the herald of good times to come. You are quite the good time fruit. Nothing un-fun is watermelon flavored - gum, Italian ice, the sherbet in that weird Friendly's "Wattamelon" roll, a certain lemonade and watermelon cocktail H makes - so having you around means fun is right around the corner.

Now if only the pre-cut stuff wasn't as much as my weekly coffee bill.


*Seriously, I can't get it all in one cart.
**The best weekend ever. I called for a cab and when we arrived downstairs, I was informed, by the African American, male concierge with the blue contact lenses and false eyelashes, that not only did he love my hair and my (fake) Tory Burch bag, but that the W's Acura would drive us to our location gratis. If he had handed me a drink I might have thought I had died and gone to heaven.

Just when I thought I was out...they pull me back in!

So the school year is winding down, and while I begin to dream of summer and field trips with the kids, spring also means preparing for the upcoming school year. Pre-registration begins for activities like soccer and dance, and organizing committees, who lose members as children age and prepare to move onto middle school and high school, begin to look for new blood to fill their ranks. This is where the title of today's post comes into play.* A little history first...

Seven years ago, I was a newly minted mother of two, when I enrolled #1 in mildly educational babysitting, also known widely as preschool. The school I chose was a "cooperative" school, which means, in order to keep costs down, each family has a job to keep the school running, such as buying the juice in bulk at BJ's, or taking the recycling to the center each month. I was put on the cleaning committee, and spend one night every few months wiping everything in the class room down with a bleach solution. My father in-law still tells the tale of his "co-op" experience, where he was assigned to clean out the rabbit cage, so not having to handle rodent shit, I got off easy.

Half-way through #1's school year, a sign went up advertising for new board members. I thought to myself, "I was a teacher. I'm home with the kids. Isn't this one of those things I saw myself doing?" So I called the current board president and asked which positions were open. After being reassured none were too much work, I selected Buildings and Grounds Manager which would consist of organizing the school cleanings I myself had been participating in, and buying new play equipment for the school. If there was a problem I would deal with it, but things usually ran pretty smoothly.

Fast forward three months, and I am on the playground dismantling a jungle gym by hand and tearing up the rubber mats in order for the play area to be repaved. A few months later, I am priming walls for the muralist to paint. Then the outdoor storage sheds collapsed and needed to be demolished and removed. What happened to the bleach spray and buying Big Wheels? I did enjoy being on the board though, which allowed me to see the inner workings of the school administration and to help make major budget and staff decisions. So as my term came to a close, I duped the next poor soul into thinking this position was a piece of cake and hot-footed it to Registration.

To make a long story short, seven years later, I am still on the board, having held a variety of positions and serving as president twice. I am now a "Trustee" which means I show up to meetings to give the board the benefit of my experience, and not much else. I have comfortably been put out to pasture, which is fine, since next year is Little Man's last at the school, and I can start planning how I will use that money for shoes. I began to think how nice it would be to no longer have meetings to attend at night and parents to cajole into fulfilling their contractual responsibilities to clean the school kitchenette once a month, or to pay their tuition on time. I was ready to be done.

And then the call came this September. Could I be class mom for #2 at the elementary school in New Town? I thought to myself, "I was a teacher. I'm home with the kids. Isn't this one of those things I saw myself doing? AND it's not a board position." So I said yes. And thus, the flood gates opened. I volunteered for pizza day, bagel day and began working in the school library. The class parent thing is pretty minimal, I get to go on field trips, like to a mine last week, and got to see where they actually filmed the mine scene from Zoolander, (sadly, none of the other parents got my, "It's the black lung, Pop!" reference), but I do attend board meetings where I sit in silent observation, happy to not be one of the ladies at the head table. Much like the U. S. prior to WWI, my philosophy in New Town has been one of isolationism, I'll interact, but only when necessary.

The things I had volunteered to do require only my presence and an occasional email about the teacher's Christmas gift. I'm tired of having to deal with difficult parents who think these schools are run by magical elves who raise money for the new sandbox and want all the snacks, other people go to BJ's to buy, to be free of high-fructose corn syrup, and who need to be forced to participate in a constructive way. I say constructive,since I have had plenty of experience with parents who want to plan and execute nothing, but bitch about what others do in their stead. So no organizational roles for me, thanks! I am purely a drone, a worker bee! Tell me where to deliver these pizzas and bagels and let me use that cool scanner at the checkout desk!

And then the call came last week. My name had been brought up to the school board's nominating committee, and would I be interested in being VP of Fundraising? They've see my hard work and think I'd be great for the job, and I have an education background. And I thought to myself, "Stop and think about it, dummy!"

I mentioned this phone call to H. He smirked and said, "Here we go again." He said all along, I have too big a mouth and am too bossy to simply sit back and be one of the nameless masses. Which is a valid point, loud and bossy are two of my greatest charms, but that also makes the whole isolationist thing tough. Half the reason I've been keeping my trap shut is I know there are plenty of people at the preschool who did not enjoy my leadership style, but knowing we were moving, I didn't have to care. Being in New Town for good makes me reticent to open my trap at meetings to say, " I think five people have already made that point. Are we ready to vote?" Despite my fear that New Townians would (inevitably) discover my brash ways and lack of tolerance for nonsense, I found myself being drawn to this job. I had to ask myself, why was I being pulled back in? Little Man is getting bigger and soon I will have more time to write or maybe go back to school or get a part-time job. Why would I want to add to my never-completed-but-ever-growing to-do list?

I have to be honest, part of it is pride. I like that a group of women I don't know very well thinks I would be a good leader. As I have stated, and restated, being a stay-at-home mother comes with no glory, no job review, no pay check, to give you the shot in the arm we all need once in a while to feel like we're doing a good job. Having an outlet where my work would be tangible and appreciated is tempting. A lot of moms were once high-achieving women in work and school, what's wrong with using our skills to help our kids?

There is also the "somebody has to do it" argument. The do-nothings I mentioned above aren't going to run the Fun Fair or organize the school auction, so why shouldn't I? Or H asks, "Why should you?", since he envisions himself hauling linens off a party rental truck, which is probably a pretty accurate prediction. While the job description is deceptively simple, peppered with plenty of assurances that I would have help, I know reality can differ greatly from what is promised. Even with the best of intentions, I can see myself hauling boxes at the book fair and having to call and yell at the bagel guy when our delivery is late.

The question I really am asking myself is, is this a distraction? Will being busy with this kind of stuff take up so much mental space I won't have time to worry about where I'm going with this writing? Am I subconsciously sabotaging myself? Is this what women do? Fill up their lives to the max while their children are young, then, when there are no more committees to head or fundraisers to run, we are left feeling useless? To be honest, I really don't think this is what I'm doing, but it's still a niggling thought int he back of my mind, that I will have to stay vigilant about what it is I want, while doing this work, so that I have already started down the path to my own future, when the last of my kids goes off to college.

So in the end, I'm going to do it. I was a teacher, I'm home with the kids and this is one of those things I saw myself doing, but also, I want my kids to see that, even if it's not in an office, there is work to be done. I will be in the school more, which is something, as a child, I craved from my mother so much. I hope the smiles on their faces mean my kids feel the same little jolt of excitement when they see me in the school halls, that I felt when my working mother could take off work and come in. I want them to know their school matters to me enough to add it to my to-do list. And I want them to see that, no matter how full, I will manage to keep myself, and my dreams for myself, on that list as well.

*Sofia Coppola makes me want to pluck my own eyes out.

Kick, ball, change....

Happy Mother’s Day! I am currently sitting on the patio of my local Starbucks, child-free, which is the best gift ever. Unacceptable Mother’s Day gifts, for those of you who don’t know, are kitchen appliances, cleaning equipment of any kind, gift certificates to home improvement stores, or anything that can or should be used for the betterment or beautification of anything or anyone other than the mother herself.*

I feel a little guilty getting away today since poor H also needs a break, as well, after we were out last night at our daughters’ dance recital. Sweet Jesus, is there anything more painful than a suburban elementary school dance recital? I know it sounds cute and all, but let me trap you in an poorly air-conditioned auditorium for two hours, as you watch the awkward product of a year’s worth of dance lessons, set to the soundtrack of every Disney movie ever made, and tell me you don’t think those prisoners they water-boarded got off easy.

The night of the recital is one of my daughters’ favorite nights. For two kids who get terror-sweats having to tell the waitress at the diner they’ll have pancakes, they surprisingly do not mind performing in front of hundreds of parents. Do they love the stage? Do they love dance with every fiber of their being? No, it’s the costumes. Sequins, feathers, satiny spandex in blindingly bright colors – my girls are in heaven. It’s the one night a year yuppie parents, whose offspring are usually entirely outfitted by Crewcuts, let their children dress like they’re participating in the talent portion of a Kentucky Junior Miss pageant. There is enough synthetic fabric held together with fashion-grade sewing glue, a single spark and the place would be like a tap-dancing Hindenburg. The designs of the costumes are chosen to vaguely represent something in the song chosen, for example, #2’s costume was completely covered in pink fishscale sequins, as her song was “Under the Sea” from The Little Mermaid. The fifth graders who danced to “Cruella Deville” wore red-sequined flapper dresses with black feather boas draped over their shoulders. H thought they were supposed to be Vegas showgirls.

Once you regain your eyesight, after having your retinas burned from the light bouncing off ten-thousand sequins, the dancing, of course, is the most tortuous part of the night. The dance teachers who plan this thing know what they are doing. They start you off easy with the adorable kindergarten ballet class. Everyone smiles indulgently watching them plie with their tutus hiked up under their armpits and their little girl bellies poking out. Then, once you are lulled into a sense of safety, you are smacked in the face with the awkwardness that is the fifth grade hip-hop class. You can not look away from the horror, as ten year-olds wearing striped shirts with some kind of raggedy looking vest (H asks, “Are they prisoners? Pirates?”), track pants and Kangol-esque hats try to pop and lock. It winds up looking like ten girls having simultaneous epileptic fits. You are given a break with the first grade jazz class, dressed as lions, dancing to a song from The Lion King, only to have to suffer through the third grade tap routine. Bring in Da’ Noise, Bring in the Da’ Funk, this is not.

Have you noticed a relation ship between the age of the dancers and the cringe-inducing effects of their performance? It is directly proportional after second grade. Once the baby fat is truly gone from their bodies, and they lose the, aforementioned, adorable potbellies, you are left with girls who do not know how to control their rapidly growing limbs and who look strange in child-like fairy costumes, but like JonBennet Ramsey in anything mature. And the poor chubby girls. I love they are up their rocking their shit, but if your daughter runs toward the husky, for the love of Christ, make sure her costume fits properly. How comfortable would you be in panty hose a size to small, cutting into your abdomen? But there is only so much a parent can do to prevent their child looking like a total dork, when you are not choosing the costume. As I mentioned back around Halloween, with her glasses, #1 has a distinctly The Girl from the No Rain Video look which can not be helped. And as the girls age, you can see the gap widening between the truly rhythmically blessed and the regular folk. By third grade, there are only one or two girls who can really dance in each class. You have nine girls in the hip-hop class trying , unsuccessfully, to do the arm wave, and one girl who, I swear to God, doing The Worm across the stage. She is also the girl who can do the flexed arm hang in gym.

Despite their lack of expertise, the girls sign up year after year simply because they love to dance, and that idea makes the pain of watching worth it. I am proud of my girls for getting up there and just enjoying moving their bodies whether or not they are the best dancers. We can all learn something from that. It’s been embroidered on enough throw pillows to make we want to gouge my own eyes out, but it reminds us all to dance, or live, like no one is watching. And it’s even better if you are entirely covered in sequins, feathers and synthetic fringe while doing so.

(And you are all welcome for re-posting that picture of me before my eighth grade jazz dance recital)

*Unless requested by the mother, which make you a better mother than me.

"AND HE WAS IRISH TOO!!!!!!"...or why not to use exclamation points on a headstone

I thought I had a good segue into today’s post with it being Cinco de Mayo and all, but I was confusing it with the Day of the Dead. Maybe all the parties and promotions at local Mexican joints would have tipped me off that this was not a day for celebrating and remembering the beloved deceased. Oh well.

I went to a truly heartbreaking wake this past weekend, for a friend’s husband. Out of respect for my friend I will not go into detail, but between that and Mother’s Day coming up, I began to think about the rituals surrounding death and how they affect the way we grieve. More to the point, I began to entertain, for the first time in almost fifteen years, voluntarily going to the cemetery to visit my mother’s grave.

I know that sounds terrible. The last time I chose to go was the day H and I got married. I have been between then and now, but only because we were burying, yet another, member of my mother’s family (again, we are like the Kennedys and should get a group rate on burial plots). My mother’s grave site has never been a place I truly felt anything but anxiety. With the exception of my wedding day, when I went with one friend, going there has always been riddled with performance anxiety. When I accompanied other family members, I always felt like I had to match the emotional reaction of the person or people I was with. If they were crying I had to cry. Sometimes, I really just wanted to sit quietly and think about her.

Part of healing is moving on to the stage when you can celebrate the life of the person who is gone, without being ripped apart by the fact they are no longer with you. Going to the cemetery never seemed like it would help with my grief. Staring at a cold stone did nothing to help me remember the woman my mother was and the life she lead. I felt closest to my mother talking with her sisters and friends, remembering all the crazy-ass things she said and did.

I think that’s why gatherings like wakes are helpful. To distract you from the fact that you will be putting, or have put, this person you love into the ground or in a box and never, ever see them again. I have to say I’m all for the Jewish tradition of sitting shiva with no body present. Even when it was my own mother, I just could not get past the fact that there was a dead body in the room. I found it distressing beyond belief and distracting. I know it is part of the process of letting go, but let’s be honest, nobody looks like themselves, in their casket, with all that cakey makeup on. Unless that mortician is using MAC products, I myself, will be insisting on a closed casket. That will also save H the horrible task of picking an outfit to bury me in (since I get to die first). I don’t even want to know what he’d pick out.

Once you get past the corpse aspect though, wakes are really a beautiful thing. Everyone who loves the person is in one room together talking and reminiscing. I have noticed a trend, as of late, of having a video in the room, of photos set to music, which I think is really lovely. Sure there are tears, but there can be some laughter sprinkled in there. I heard some of the best stories about my mother during her wake and at the reception at our house afterwards. Ever heard the song “Finnegan's Wake”? It’s not just a stereotype. Sure, with the invention of funeral homes, we Irish aren’t drinking around our dearly departed, we have to wait until we get home after, but I loved having a few drinks and listening to my aunt retell the story of my parent’s first date where my mom sassed the hell out of my father, or the story of how, as a teenager, she threw a dresser drawer of underwear out a 6th story window after her twin sister messed up their just-organized dresser.

So compared to these lively tales, my mother’s grave seems cold and lonely. We just really aren’t the kind of family who leaves photos in Ziploc bags or teddy bears at site, like the family to the right of my mother. We were tasteful in the inscription we chose, including the pertinent information and the last few lines of an Irish blessing (“...and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of his hand”), unlike the joker on her left whose family put, in all caps, “AND HE WAS IRISH TOO!!!!!!” And, yes, there are that many exclamation points. But how do you sum up someone’s life in stone? Maybe their way is better, maybe they feel more of a connection when they visit. Were we supposed to write “She’d kick your ass and make you love her, all at the same time”?

My children have never been to “see” my mother. The visit I am contemplating might include them, but after a dinnertime discussion of the logistics of death and bodily remains, during which #1 burst into tears, I don’t think they’re ready yet. I also don’t want this vast field of marble to be what they associate with my mother. I work hard for them to see her as the smiling face next to their eight year-old mother's in the photo booth picture, the woman had red hair like Mommy, who loved potato chips like they do. And maybe, that’s the reason I don’t want to go. For myself, I don’t want to associate such a lifeless place with my mother, despite everyone’s best efforts on Mother’s Day, with flowers and balloons, at the contrary. I want to see her at the kitchen table telling me not to take shit off some mean 8th grade girl. I want to see her laughing with her friends at a summer barbeque, drinking White Russians at a picnic table. I want to hear her telling me I am a good mother and wife and she’s proud of me. But I can’t have that, so I don’t go.

So I still haven’t made my decision, if after brunch I will be heading up north to the cemetery. Maybe I’ll decide how I feel that day. But if I do go, I sure as hell won’t be taking any teddy bears or balloons. I do like the tradition of pouring a drink on the grave, though, and having one for yourself. I think White Russians might curdle in the sun though.

Who do you want telling you about stocks?

I was watching the last few minutes of "Early Today" on NBC, if half-listening and grunting while doing crunches on the stability ball count as watching, when they had they daily report from the business channel, CNBC. I vaguely pay attention sometimes during this segment, listening for any major news, as H is in the business, but today I actually paused and watched. Why? Because I was struck by the way the typical female reporter in a typically male field had changed over the past ten years. I wasn't sure if I was watching the CNBC report, or an ad for a singles hotline.

The reporter, Nicole Lapin, is attractive by anyone's standards (that link is to her Facebook page, dig the "sexy librarian" thing she has going on). If I told you to imagine a female financial reporter, what would you envision? Probably some talking head, with short middle-aged woman hair and tasteful clip-on earrings . For those of you who don't know Ms. Lapin, she has long, like middle of her back long, hair, wears as much makeup as a Vegas showgirl and is twenty-five years old. Does she know her stuff? Seems like it, but I wonder if her looks, or the way she presents herself can or will get in the way of her career.

Like may areas in life, there is a double standard for men and women, and in broadcast journalism I'm sure there is no exception. But it seems women of today have taken the double standard and turned it to their advantage, or think they have. We have all noticed the trend in sideline sports reporting, of young attractive women interviewing athletes as they come off the field. Remember when Howard Cosell was around? I'm sure in an effort to boost ratings, sports producers are using beautiful, young women to draw in the male viewers. Because God knows, no men watch sports already. And while these young women are making in-roads into a typically male dominated field of reporting, are they leaving a bread crumb trail behind them that only the genetically blessed, or surgically or cosmetically enhanced can follow? Will they, as they age, have the staying power to keep women a real presence in these types of broadcasts?

It seems on CNBC, they are running the gamut. One of the first, and best known financial reporters is Maria Bartiromo. I love her (shockingly, she has no Facebook page). She is hella smart and articulate. I actually enjoyed watching Squawk Box, a financial news show, with H in the morning, since Maria could dish it and take it with Mark Haines and Kahuna and the Brain (they have since changed the line-up to still contain Joe Kernen, but add Rebecca Quick and Carl Quintanilla...snore). To answer the question, yes, she's attractive, but not in the boobies-in-your-face way. She also doesn't try to hide her femininity with short hair or oddly-colored, masculine blazers, ala Suze Orman (although H does not consider her a part of CNBC since she has been co-opted by Oprah). There area whole groups of ladies who are nice to look at, but don't look like that's why the got the job. And spare me the hate mail, I know these pretty ladies had to have something between their ears to land these jobs, they blithely throw around terms so confusing to me, I feel like I'm listening to Charlie Brown's teacher, but maybe a little less lip-gloss would not be so distracting.

I know I am also promoting another kind of double standard, that attractive women can not be taken seriously, which is equally unfair. Women are sort of screwed when it comes to this because there isn't a set "uniform" for us in certain businesses, like broadcasting. Typically, men in the news, wear suits and have short hair, but for women there are so many questions. Suit or dress? Long hair or short? How much eyeliner is too much? By looking at the picture of Amanda Drury above, sometimes bad cleavage choices are made. This is like Jim Cramer wearing his shirt unbuttoned - bad idea.

It will be interesting to see how this new trend shakes out, as these women age. I even see some of the plainer types on these channels grasping at the trend the longer in the tooth they get (I'm looking at you, Trish Regan, with your hair extensions and spray tan). I wonder if it will work. It all goes back to the adage of never judging a book by it's cover, but it seems young and beautiful is becoming the only acceptable cover when putting a female face in typically male environment. Personally, I think these producers need to do some field testing, because while it may work in sports, when it comes to news, financial and otherwise, we want no-nonsense women, who can give it to us straight, like Maria, or Kaite Couric. I'd say Sylvia Wadhwa (also pictured above), but that may be going a bit far.