Mothering motives

“IT’S SUMMEEEEER!!!!!”

So says Selena Gomez in “Summer’s Not Hot”, the song of this summer as selected by my children for me to blast as we peeled out of the school parking lot on the last day.

We have already gone to the beach twice, Coney Island for #2’s birthday, the town carnival, Chuck E. Cheese for my girl scout troop’s end-of-year party, and Field Station Dinosaurs*. 

And then I got sick and lost my voice. 

I think I need to pace myself, but this school year was so hectic, and time seems to be speeding up, propelling my children into the outside world, I guess I got a little crazy.

I wonder how my kids will look back at this time?  With my dad in town this week (the poor guy goes from his relaxing life in Florida, to running a half-assed summer camp with me in New Jersey), we have been talking about my own childhood, and it’s surprising to me how different our perception of the same events can be.  Marathon bike rides, that I swear turned me into an endurance “athlete”, were not just for the physical benefit of his children, but a way to give my poor mother some peace and quiet.  The disappointing birthday cake of ninth birthday infamy -a pumpkin roll from Baskin Robbins goes over like a bag of dog turds at a sleepover, I tell you – was a harried, last-minute errand pawned off on my dad, on the way home from work.

So I asked myself, will my children know why I do the things I do?  Or will they develop their own set of reasons for all the wonderful and pain-in-the-ass things their mother did?  So in the interest of posterity, and to assuage my dead-mother fears, I have made a short list of things I want my kids to know concerning my parenting motives.  Perhaps they will reading these entries someday after I’m gone (while cringing and half-covering their eyes**).

Here is what I want them to know:

1.     I am hard on you because the world will be too.  It’s my job to teach you to be a functioning adult and, in my eyes, that includes remembering your own homework, making your own bed, cleaning up your own messes, and, yes, occasionally, the dog's vomit.

2.     If you haven’t guessed it already, I think reading is right after food, wine and sex on the list of life’s pleasures (not in that order, sorry to make you puke), which is why we do so much of it.  If you read, you will be exposed to worlds outside of your own small one, and maybe learn to look at yours in a different light.  That’s why every third time you ask to play Wii I tell you to go get a book instead.

3.     You are the most important people in my world (tying with, but occasionally being beaten by, Daddy on particularly bad days), but not the world-world.  Act accordingly.  That means putting yourself in someone else’ shoes, using your manners, and helping when you can.  That time I yelled at you Starbucks for letting the door close on the lady with triplets in a stroller?  That’s why.

4.     You know when you’ve had a long day and I ask you if you need some time to yourself and you go lie on your bed before dinner and read or draw or day dream?  Well, everyone needs that sometimes.  Sadly, I need that around 5pm, but I have to cook dinner, so after your bedtime is the only time I get.  Mommy needs to watch inappropriate television, read a book or stare into space.  So when you come down for the hundredth time to regale me with passages you have memorized from Diary of a Wimpy Kid or ask me what’s for dinner tomorrow night, that is why Mommy occasionally (OK, regularly) loses her patience.  I’ll try it the next time you’re all watching Phineas and Ferb and see how you feel.

5.     Family comes first.  You know I try my best and quite often our house is overrun with children so you all can socialize with those your own age, but there are days I want you to play with just each other and I say no to playdate requests - and #1, that request for nine friends to sleepover was outrageous, and you know it.  Some day, Daddy and I will be gone and you will be what is left of this special little tribe we’ve created and I need you to be a unit.  I want you to not only be siblings but friends, and that only happens if you spend time together hating me and Daddy.  So no, you will not be bringing friends down the shore with us when you are teenagers. 

6.     I criticize because I love you.   I want you to know how hard I fight to not change your hair once you’ve done it yourself in that way I hate, or tell you to put on a different pair of shorts after you’ve chosen your own outfit because I know YOU think you look nice and that’s important.  But, no, I will not let you wear leggings with holes in the knees to the Spring Concert, or your ratty shark t-shirt to your preschool graduation***.   “Chew with your mouth closed…don’t pick your nose in public…leave the room if you have to fart…did you even wash your face?”,  I say these things out of love

8.     Life is short, do all you can while you’re here.  You all might think your mother is a crazy lunatic who tries to squeeze a lot (too much?) into a day, a weekend, a summer, but it’s only because I feel like there is so much out there to experience, why should we waste time?   I’d like to think I’ve instilled in you some excitement about life and the world.  Or maybe you’re tired and are too afraid to tell me, but I just want you to wake up and ask yourself, “What can I do today?” Some days that’s riding the Cyclone, some days that’s reading a book on the couch.  No matter what you do, every day should be a possibility.

And despite writing all of this, I know you will ask me one day, “Why were you always doing that?”

*A Jurassic Park style venue, involving life-sized, animatronic dinosaurs in a paleontology camp setting.  Awesome!

**Who doesn’t want to read their mother’s opinions about blow jobs?

***OK, it was technically Pop who pointed that out.

Anatomy of a night out

Drink 1 - The first drink of the night, you feel the liquid relaxation seep through your body, thanking God he created something as wonderful as alcohol.

Drink 2 - One drink was so wonderful, two has to be better!  You are now stress-free and in love  with the world.  What the hell was I so worked up about all week?  My kids are great!  My house is immaculate!  I love my life!!!  If you are with your significant other, making out usually occurs.

Drink 3 - The Decisive Drink.  This is where the direction of the night is decided.  Stopping at Drink 2, you can still get to bed early and feel few ill effects tomorrow morning other than an insane need for caffeine and a little facial puffiness.  Move on to Drink 3, and you have started down the slippery slope that will surely result in regret and your children watching a lot of morning television.

Stand up #1 - assuming you are out, at this point in the night you will probably need to urinate, or as we called it in college"break the seal".  This will also probably be the first time you've stood up since you began imbibing.  Sliding off the bar stool you will be surprised that the floor that seemed quite flat when you sat down, suddenly seems quite uneven.  You weave your way slowly to the facilities and return to your perch.

Drinks 4 - ? - All of these drinks are a bad idea and you know it.  But you've committed yourself to a horrifying morning tomorrow, so what the hell.  Several things will become excellent ideas now.  Dancing is one of them.  Others are stealing things from the bar, like the ladies room sign**, posting pictures on Facebook and asking strangers if you can try on their hats.  You will also get off your bar stool again, as the drinks, and water you've been consuming in a vain attempt the stave off tomorrow's headache, are working their way through your system.  Setting one foot on the floor you realize, "Fuck am I drunk."  You will have a conversation with yourself in the bathroom mirror, about "pulling it together" as you try to focus on your own reflection, wipe off the mascara under your eyes and crookedly reapply your lipstick.

Food - Right about now, you are done drinking and you will probably want to eat.  One way of procuring food is to head to another establishment, such as a diner.  In the harsh flourescent lights, you will order something you will most likely be seeing in a porcelain vessel at some point in the near future, and french fires are always involved (cheese and gravy optional).***  Your chances of paying the bill correctly are slim, especially if the tab has to be divided among a group.  Everyone just throw a twenty on the table and be done with it.  You owe the waitress a big tip for cleaning up the water and ketchup you inevitably spilled anyway.

Eating at home is another choice.  It is always the wrong choice, unless you own and can operate a deep fryer (see above).   You will fruitlessly tear through your cabinets looking for something that resembles the food you wish you were ordering right now.  You will end up dipping stale tortilla chips in a food service tub of sour cream, covering your arm up to your elbow.****

Retiring for the night - When you are wrapping up the nights adventures there are several things you can do to make tomorrow morning less hellish.  Drinking some (more) water and taking some Tylenol might help with tomorrow's skull-crushing headache.  Brushing your teeth is advisable because minty cotton mouth is always better than beer-flavored. If you are a contact lens-wearer, be sure to take out both contacts.  Vertigo caused by one seeing and one non-seeing eye upon waking will only expedite tomorrow's vomiting. Ladies, be sure to remove all of your makeup.  Forcing your loved ones to see what the love child of Carrot Top and Alice Cooper would look like is cruel and unusual punishment.
Be sure to take off your clothes and put on pajamas.  If you are a nude sleeper, than Godspeed, but waking up with one arm out of your top, in your underpants, might be hard to explain to your kids.

Now close your eyes, feel the bed spin, as your night comes to an end.  Tomorrow you will find someone's cell phone in your purse and wonder how you got that bruise.  You will promise God you will never drink like this again.

And both of you will know you are lying.

*Based on actual events.
**Not that my sister ever tried to do that.
***In Jersey, these are known as "disco fries".  I find the sludge-like gravy to be repulsive, and too reminiscent of what all this alcohol will force my intestines to produce the next day.
****Not that I ever did that in college.

Wild, wild, life

Apparently, my schedule and wardrobe are so similar to Cinderella's that small woodland creatures cannot stay away from me. Which I wouldn't mind if they were helping me unload the dishwasher with their wings or pushing Matchbox cars into a bin with their rodent paws.  Instead, they are invading my home and/or coming here to die.

First, it was the baby rabbit who met his untimely demise when Reilly decided to go all Lenny from Of Mice and Men on his ass.  My children received a hard lesson in the food chain and spinal chord injuries.  They also learned that, despite the fact that he sleeps eighteen hours a day and lets their friends ride him like a toy, they actually have an ANIMAL living in their house.  They kept one eye on the dog for a month.

This fall, I was embarrassed to write about our rodent infestation.  The specter of my uber-clean Irish mother screamed in my head, "Only the shanty Irish have mice!"  It started out with my finding an adorable deer mouse in the pre-dawn hours every once in a while in the bin of dog food.  "Oh how cute", I'd think, and carry the can outside to let the poor guy scamper back to the woods behind our house, thinking he somehow had mistakenly found his lonely way into our abode.  Until I went into the girls' room one day and picked up some toys and found two mice looking up at me like, "WTF, lady?"  I screamed so loud they were shocked into stillness long enough for me to leave the room and grab a waste basket to cover them.

"WE ARE DIRTY PIGS!!!", I screamed at H over the phone, while I scrubbed my body with bleach. I immediately rejected his idea of setting traps, envisioning Little Man running, screaming, into a room with his little fingers caught in one like an episode of Tom and Jerry.  Thank God I called in the professionals, because it turned out we were as mice-infested as a tenement in Harlem.  Except our mice were after the Brie, not the government cheese.  Let me tell you, "They are in the walls" is NEVER a phrase you want to hear unless you are my husband and you are talking about TV speakers.

My self-flagellation over my obviously slovenly house-keeping skills was prevented when the exterminator told me with our proximity to the woods, the previous owner must have had a pest contract and our two year contract-free stay had allowed them to get back in and set up the Rodent Marritt in our walls.  So I did not have the cleaning skills of a crackhead after all.

Almost a year later, we are rodent free.  Indoors.  Ever see those spiky things people use to keep birds off their roofs and porches?  We have them, but our neighborhood birds are so tough the used them as supports to build the Trump Tower of nests.  H and I allowed to it remain, wondering what real harm it could do.  We think it's funny and it entertains the kids while we have drinks on the porch.  We are still city dwellers at heart, I guess, because "real" homeowners express their horror at our allowing wildlife within ten feet of the house.

Well the birds must have tweeted about the hospitality at Chez Mean Mommy, because last night, what did H find nestled on the side of the house?  Three freaking baby raccoons.  They were awake during the day, so my mind immediately began screaming, "RABIES!  LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE! KEEP THE CHILDREN INSIDE!!!!!"

I sent H out wearing his hockey gear to see where the mother was.  She was nowhere to be found, but the babies did not seem rabid.  So I spent my early morning hours on the phone with animal control and slicing apples up to leave by the babies at my children's request.  Oh yes, H had to tell the kids.  Does he not know the Napalm a needy, baby animal is to the emotional state of a nine year-old girl?  He obviously never read Charlotte's Web.  Thankfully, the mother came back, or the babies, fortified with organic Fuji apples found enough strength to leave saving me the $150 Animal Control wanted to humanely take them away.

So let me put it out there to the fauna in my area. From here on out there will be no more lax wildlife policy in New Town.  I think it is H's jurisdiction, as I have enough wildlife to manage, but it is doubtful he himself will be crawling under the porch to instal the mesh the exterminator recommended. I often like to put a toothpick in my mouth, squint my eye and quote Quint from Jaws, "You got city hands Mr. Hoopa'.  Countin' money all your life."

But however it happens, no more living in my walls, no more birthing babies under my porch, no more bird hostel.  I am not Sleeping Beauty, Snow White or Cinderella.  Or you will find out the hard way I am way more like the wicked stepmothers.

This is NOT me.

Let Me Take You to Rio*

I am back from what can only be described as My Best Vacation Ever.  Re-entry has been a little rough. Fortunately, we returned at the start of the holiday weekend, which allowed me to continue to eat and drink for four more days, as well as avoid any contact with reality.  Unfortunately, it also involved the town pool's grand opening and involved my scrambling around the attic looking for items that haven't seen the light of day in a year like pool bags and goggles.

Finally having taken all week to unpack, restock the refrigerator and done most of the laundry, I have a moment to write the blow-by-blow.

Sadly, my trip began with being negged by American Airlines.  First class on our flight was packed, mostly because everyone was going to the conference that was the reason for our trip as well.  I still think if H had listened to me and I had been checked in by the guy wearing the ascot I could've gotten him to bump someone.  Instead, I flew in steerage where I proceeded to get into a turf war over my overhead storage which I ended by telling the guy across the aisle from me since it was over my seat my bag was going in it, PERIOD.  And I have to ask, when did it become appropriate to remove your shoes AND SOCKS and place your feet on the seat in front of you?  Apparently, when it became appropriate to take twenty minutes in one of the two bathrooms and leave the place festooned with toilet paper upon your exit. And airline food is food in only the broadest sense in that it would serve as fuel for your body to sustain itself.  A long journey with terrible provisions and poor sanitary conditions, was I aboard the Mayflower?

The horrors of the flight were quickly erased from my mind upon checking into the impressively modern Hotel Fasano.  "Modern" no longer means the metal and white plastic of the 90's, but eco-friendly woods, odd light fixtures, furniture-as-art and porn mirrors.  What are porn mirrors, you ask?  Well, after noticing several small and oddly placed mirrors around our room, there really was no other explanation.  Sure, the one in the shower could be a shaving mirror, but the one on the ceiling over the bed really had no otehr impossible explanation.  Odd, because it was only about a foot square and toward the foot of the bed,  It was as if they wanted to be avant garde about it, or couldn't fully commit to the idea, resulting in a decor fixture that was both creepy and useless.  The staff was mostly perky, young Brazilian women (more on those in a minute) and dapper gays.  Michelle from Gilmore Girls escorted us to our room, helpfully pointing out that Madonna, herself, had stayed in the next room.  I was suitably impressed.  H blinked impassively.

Dildo lamp

You can't even see your FACE in this tiny thing

Poor H had to leave for a full day of meetings and I bolted for the roof-top infinity pool, sweet justice for every night he's "had" to go out to Nobu with "clients" while I ate fishsticks at home with the kids.  The problem with staying at a hotel of this ilk is the pool is inhabited by the greasy, Speedo-clad, nouveau riche douche bags who, for some reason, do not have to work to maintain their wealth, and their aspiring model girlfriends, wearing mere strips of bathing suit to cover the most private parts of their sylph-like bodies.  I, myself, fulfilled a childhood fantasy, sitting on a chaise wearing my big-ass hat, an impractical bathing suit with hardware, while waiters brought me drinks and arranged my umbrella to keep the sun off my lily whiteness.  I was a complicated child.

Now let's discuss Brazilian women.  My stepmother is Brazilian (and was in a joyful rapture over the fact I was finally going to her home country) and is, indeed beautiful, as are most Brazilian women.  No, they don't all look like Giselle, they just think and act like they do.  That is what makes them gorgeous.  Coincidentally, it was Rio Fashion Week, which did up the quotient of truly alarmingly tall and thin fifteen year-olds (and gays) in the area, but even the average woman on the beach was strutting her stuff.  There was no apologetic picking of wedgies, or tugging of hems.  Dimpled ass cheeks hung out, shirts were rolled up to expose flabby midriffs and it was wonderful.  I think we could use a dose of their "Yeah, I ain't perfect, I'm just gorgeous" philosophy.

After I whiled away the afternoon reading poolside, I had to go get ready for a work event with H.  I felt very Betty Draper, getting dressed to go schmooze clients, with H coming for me with the car and driver. Unlike Betty, I was uncomfortable with having a chauffeur, since I am usually the one in that role.  So as H answered some pressing work emails en route, I couldn't sit in silence with Phillip, our adorable twenty-something driver.  No, I have to touch him on his arm to get his attention.  Why, WHY am I always touching people?  It's like being a mother has erased all my boundaries.  I swear I would have licked my thumb and wiped dirt off of his cheek if I noticed any.  Then I proceed to ask him about the ads I saw for American television and our conversation degraded into comparing the assets of various Bachelorette contestants.  I am super classy and reserved, no?  Happily, the work event went well and my mortification over my grabbiness with the driver went away as I was mugged repeatedly by complete strangers, being kissed on both cheeks upon our introduction.

The next day dawned brightly and I had coffee with H on the rooftop before he took off for the day again.  I went for a really long run, during which I was hit by Little Man's stomach bug.  I think we all saw this one coming.  No, I didn't pull a Charlotte, and crap my pants, but the smell of the fried shrimp and garlic the beach vendors start preparing at nine in the morning that was merely unpleasant the day before, now made me almost double over and wretch.  Sadly, I was five miles from the hotel.  Listening to Beyonce and breathing through my mouth got me back safely.  Some water and a nap seemed to set things right, but I cancelled my massage anyway.  I have already pooped on a table in front of witnesses one time.  I was not anxious for a repeat performance.  Pulling myself out of bed in the afternoon, like a later-day Judy Garland, I was pretty much well enough to not throw up on H's business associates at drinks that night.  I don't think any amount of double cheek kissing would make me feel better about that.

Pre-nausea

Days Three and Four were the vacation portion of the trip, with H being done with work obligations.  So now I would actually see some of the country I had been in for two days already.  Yes, the stomach bug had prevented my having Phillip drive me around sight-seeing and probably ranking our favorite Housewives of New Jersey all the while, but to be honest,  I was kind of glad since I was a little intimidated by the language barrier.  I really, truly, had meant to brush up on my Portuguese phrases before we left, but I had to buy bathing suits.  Yes, I am ashamed at my cultural self-centeredness, but it did produce an unexpectedly pleasant side-effect.  H was completely in charge.  I'm sure you have visions of my control-freak self with smoke coming out of my ears as I was unable to orchestrate everything, but honestly, it was incredibly freeing.  I was like a three year-old. I would make my needs known, "I need a soda", and wander away to look at a display of "I heart Rio" t-shirts while H made it happen.  Dinner reservations, hailing cabs, sending back the wrong coffee, I was unable to do any of it.  It was glorious!  It was also kind of hot hearing my husband actually speak the language he's been shouting at the computer screen during Rosetta Stone lessons for the last year.  My own vocabulary, small and effective, included "yes" ,"no", good morning", "thank you" and our room number for ordering drinks at the pool.

A word on Brazilian tourist attractions.  They know how to do it right.  H and I took the all-glass cable car up to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain which had beautiful views of the surrounding area,  but also had gorgeous teak chaises to relax on and enjoy the view while drinking your wine.  That's right, they have nice furniture and booze at a major tourist destination.   Same scenario at Corcovado, you know, the big Jesus statue.  They had lovely stone picnic tables and a stand that sold wine and beer.

Perhaps this is not just Rio, but the rest of the world, except for the US.  My trips abroad with my family including my father, aka, Clark W. Griswold, probably would have been enhanced by drinking, but it wasn't on the itinerary, so I don't know for sure.  Can you imagine this scenario at, say, The Empire State Building?  That teak furniture would be covered with the urban hieroglyphics of "Mike wuz here" and "Josephina is a skank" and people would be vomiting from the 102nd floor.  We just cant handle that kind of awesomeness and it stinks.  A friend commented that it's not Americans at our tourist sites.  I asked her if she'd ever been in Manhattan the day after Thanksgiving.  I digress...

Of course I have to write, at length, about the food.  It was wonderful, but then again, so is most food I don't have to prepare myself.  Two of the meals we truly memorable/comical.  The first was our trip to a traditional churrascaria, which is basically a festival of meat.  They have a huge salad bar, which has all kinds of rices, breads and veggies, but the main attraction are the waiters that wander around with huge skewers of prime rib, strip steak, rump roast, pork shoulder, several different kinds of sausages and organ meats, slicing you off a serving upon demand.  You are given a coin with "Sim" (yes) and "Nao" (no) on each side.  The waiters will keep coming, and coming, and coming, until you flip it to "Nao".  Wanting to try everything, I would be putting a bite in my mouth, then simultaneously have to stop and pick up my little pair of tongs to catch whatever flesh was being sawed off near my plate.  It didn't help the I'm-in-some-kind-of-eating-contest feeling that they had a ragtime band playing such soothing ditties as "When the Saints Come Marching In".  I felt like I was a part of Audrey's overeating nightmare in National Lampoon's European Vacation.  Aside from that, the food was wonderful.  Although I discovered I do NOT like chicken hearts.  Or eating them to ragtime.

Post meat-fest

Ten minutes later....

The second meal was during our last few hours before our flight home.  We decided to fill our bellies with feijoada - a beef, pork and bean stew that is the national dish of Brazil.  We found the name of a local joint and hot-footed it over there before the car came to take us to the airport.  We thought it was going to be straight forward, "Two bowls please."  Then they start plunking dishes down.  This teeny-tiny crock of what appeared to be black bean soup.  Is it for the bread or do we drink it since there were no spoons?  I had visions of the waiters laughing at us from the service station as the stupid Americans drank the dip.   Then they give us bowls of olives and a plate of cheeses.  For the stew or an appetizer?   We were beyond the early bird special since Brazilians don't even think about dinner until eight o'clock, so all eyes were upon us.  Apparently, this stuff was an appetizer as they took it away and brought even more plates.  Rice, shredded kale, fried yuca, and a whole platter of fried pig skin.  H was apoplectic with delight.  Then, the main event.  Two, steaming cauldrons, one of meat, and sausage and the other of black beans with what I'm pretty sure were pigs ears.


H and I ate until we thought we would burst.  And then we thought about the fact we had each just eaten roughly five pounds of meat and beans before sitting in close proximity to strangers in an enclosed tube for nine hours.  Perhaps, not our best decision.

(notice H's great posture in the mirror above)

We finished the meal and made our sad way to the hotel, burping and farting all the way.  While I had missed the kids, I felt like an entirely different person in Brazil.  I was relaxed, body confident and had even managed to relinquish control.  Who was this Brazilian Mary?  I kind of liked her.

Upon landing stateside, I tried my best to hang onto this feeling.  I didn't turn on my Blackberry right away.  To be fair, I was distracted by H's bitching, since we once again, did not get a first class upgrade, and this time he flew with the unwashed masses.  He was so crippled one would think someone folded him up and put him in the overhead compartment.  Sissy.  First class was heavenly though.  I enjoyed my champagne and personal entertainment device while fully reclining in my seat.

After over a week, I have been forced back in to some of my old ways. I am back at the wheel of this family and I am the one fulfilling everyone's needs.  But I am going to frame that picture of me in the hat to inspire me to get back to that mental state.

Either that or add more meat to my diet.

*My children insisted I put this song from the movie Rio on my iPod.  I internally rolled my eyes, but it was pretty rad to listen to it while actually there.