Quit yer bitchin'

"Little Man is complaining that his tummy hurts, and is lying on the rug during circle time."

This is the phone call I got from the preschool while enjoying coffee with a friend today, during the one, non-family-benefitting event on my schedule this week, and I had to leave and go pick up my sick child. I thought, "He can't help it if he's sick though." Ignoring the fact that I was planning on grocery shopping and taking the dog to the vet after coffee, I race over to the school.

The moment I set foot in the classroom, I know I've been had.* Little Man, henceforth known in this post as Little Asshole, literally can not keep a straight face while telling me, "My tummy hurts." We get in to the hallway and he breaks into a joyful run, asking me where his Lightning McQueen is. Once out side, I sit him down and ask him, "Are you really sick, buddy?" His reply? "No, I just pretending." Grrrr.

After a serious talk about lying, and informing LA that not only will he not be eating any treats or drinking any juice today because of his bullshit tummy story, he will also be taking a nap and going to bed early. Oh, and there will be no playing with Mommy, as she has shit to do that she normally gets done when you're at school, freeing her up to play with you afterwards. Having The Most Boring Day Ever tends to nip the faking-sick-thing right in the bud, just ask #1 and #2. For I will not have that shit.**

So this is an appropriate beginning to what was supposed to be a post about my efforts to stop complaining, which were tried mightily today. Don't worry, I will still save all my bitching for you guys, hopefully spinning it into comedy, but what I mean is, I am really trying to stop the thoughtless whining I seem to do pretty regularly. Like today, instead of calling H, then S, and possibly my sister, to share my outrage, I just let it go.

It all started after an argument with H, where I was claiming he wasn't supporting my work at the school and with scouts, etc. Yes, I had PMS at the time, and yes, I realize how ridiculously touchy-feely that sentence is, but I wanted him to stop rolling his eyes when I told him about another meeting I have to attend. H asked me a question during our too-long-progesterone-fueled discussion of this topic that really got my wheels turning. "How can I be supportive of something that makes you so miserable and you choose to do it? Do you get anything out of this at all?"

What? I almost gasped in disbelief. I'm doing this for the kids! I love spending time with #2 and her troop, and raising money for the school! Was he serious? But when I really thought about it, all he really hears is kvetching when I talk about the PTA and Girl Scouts, so why would he think I love all this stuff? Why would he be psyched for me to do more of it? That would be insane.

I started thinking about complaining, in general. We all do it. It's a national pastime. We are tired, stressed, overworked - in the office or at home. Think about the last time you asked someone how they were. They probably said "fine" but then your discussion progressed to your both complaining about work or the kids' soccer schedule***. When's the last time someone told you they were "great". If they did, you'd probably tink they were medicated or annoying. It seems we commiserating is the easiest way for us to relate. Why do we feel more connected to others sharing their troubles? I know there's some biological, Darwinian explanation about empathy, etc., but wouldn't it be a whole lot nicer if we all shared our good news without worrying like the other person thinks we took some X with our Wheaties?

Complaining also takes a lot of energy physically and emotionally. Think about an annoying incident you've had recently and retell the story to yourself. As you go through it, you experience the same rise in blood pressure and negative feelings you did the first time. Why do you want to feel that twice? Is another person saying, "Boy, that really sucks", worth it? Unless it involves them making you feel not crazy, which I often do, asking H if my reaction was appropriate to a certain annoying stimulus (the answer is no, more than I think probable). After looking at it though, just every day chatting-while-picking-the-kids-up griping, is really sucking the life out of me.

So my plan is to radically cut back on the day to day moaning. Sure, it might be harder to come up with a positive topic of conversation during my daily interactions, when groaning over the math homework is such comfortable common ground, but perhaps sharinging, instead, how great the Girl Scout camping trip**** was will leave both myself and my conversational partner feeling a little more upbeat.

Will this work? We'll see. So far this week, I feel a lot happier. Plus, as I disclaimed before, I will still keep bitching up a storm here. Don't change my name to Mary Sunshine just yet.


*I posthumously apologize to my mother for the time in second grade I found a quater on the playground and used it to call her office and leave a message for her to come get her daughter at school. In my defense, didn't my mother, or the secretary, think maybe they should call and speak to an actual adult before she came and got me?
**Oh, Tina Fey, how I love thee.
***We are on the field Saturdays from 9-1. What the hell are we going to do when LM starts playing? Build a yurt and live on the field?
****Thankfully, my troop did not stay over as was one of my fears being a troop leader. It was exhausting and awesome. I can barely lift my arms to type though, after rowing a boat full of seven year-olds across a huge lake.

First steps

“Don’t cry, don’t cry. Breathe...smile...wave.” That was my internal dialogue this morning on the porch, dear readers, as I watched both girls leave to WALK TO SCHOOL ALONE. I was not at all prepared for this. I knew #1, being in fourth grade, would be able to walk the quarter mile to and from school by herself, in fact, she did so yesterday, asking me at pick up, “Can you drive #2 and LM home, and I’ll meet you there?” But when the principal answered my inquiry as to whether #1 would be able to walk #2 home in the affirmative, I was blown away. I also realized that even I am not immune to helicopter parenting.

Helicopter parenting, where parents “hover” over their children, helping in every aspect of their lives, is a modern phenomenon so pervasive; it has rendered our children essentially helpless when not with their parents. I have seen its affects on my own children, who although intelligent, I now realize, have been ridiculously sheltered. I thought I was immune to this shit. I don’t do #1’s homework, LM isn’t wearing a life jacket in the 18 inch deep kiddie pool (yes, people actually do that), but when #1 asked, over the summer, if she could walk to and from school this year alone my first, internal, reaction was, “Have you lost your damn mind???”

I blame the media, with their messages of doom and danger, making us think pedophiles lurk around every corner waiting to snatch our children away the minute we dare to take our eyes off of them. It’s part of the alarmist nature of modern parenting where only the power of our own worry can prevent the unthinkable from happening, from swine flu (that never really amounted to much, but I was at my CVS at 5:30 in the morning with the kids regardless) to head injuries (remember that baby helmet?).

Realizing what a choke-hold I had on my girls’ burgeoning independence, I tried my best to back off a bit this summer. They started walking the dog together in the evening, following the same route they take to school. They began ordering their own food at the pool snack stand, and going to the bathroom, without me, on our field trips. Baby steps.

But nothing could prepare me for the sight of my girls walking away, laden with backpacks and lunchboxes, happily chatting away like actual, real people who exist apart from me. That’s the crux of it, dear readers. These little people were, literally, a part of my body, or attached to it, then completely dependent upon my care for so long, how can it not be difficult to see them as their own separate entities? Modern life gives us the luxury of not, you know, sending our kids to lose appendages in the local mill at the ripe old age of four, but at some point we need to cut the cord, even if every talking head on the TV and parenting rag offers me nothing but advice to the contrary. I know in my bones it’s right.

But it still didn’t stop me from grabbing Little Man’s Diego binoculars from the car and watching them for as long as I could.

"We're Off Cupcakes and Back to Doughnuts"*

I'm sweaty, my kitchen is a mess and everything is stained red. No I didn't kill anyone, although I'm sure that was your first thought, but I had to whip up a batch of red velvet cupcakes. I'm officially a "Mom" now since I recently purchased one of those snazzy, Tupperware, double-decker, cupcake caddies that safely totes twenty-four little cakes, rather than what I had been using - ratty gift boxes reinforced with packing tape. But even with this new purchase, I AM SO OVER CUPCAKES.

Cupcakes have been a fad for quite a while now, starting with the now-famed Magnolia Bakery in Manhattan in the 90's, then Sprinkles in Los Angeles circa 2003, with the idea spreading over the past ten years like a sugary Ebola virus, until every town, city and hamlet had its own cupcake shop. Some of these places are great. Magnolia, in NYC, has wonderful cupcakes, which can be purchased from the sullen staff, bloated with their own hubris at having landed a minimum wage job that entitles them to yell at tourists who just want to eat a cupcake on the non-existent bench out front and talk about Aidan ala Carrie and Miranda. But many of the shops you are lured into these days, with their adorable displays and pun-based names, like Babycakes, serve what can best be described as lumps of sickly sweet dough, topped with equally nauseatingly sweet lard. Crumbs, a chain trying to be the Starbucks of cupcakes, with their marble-topped tables and black and white photos, is a prime example. Although their classics are good (I even sent KK a giant red velvet one for her birthday), in an effort to outdo the everyday cupcake, they have come up with such tooth-rotting combinations as the BaBa Booey** - chocolate cake filled with peanut butter frosting, topped with peanut butter and chocolate cream cheese frosting and rimmed with peanut butter chips. You all know I love sweets, but this is even too much for me. Sure, they're assholes at Magnolia, and you're forced to eat their goods sitting on the Bleecker Street curb, while some fashionista on the way to Cynthia Rowley lets her Maltese takes a piss on you, but at least you can taste more than sugar.

It seems everyone is ready to ride this frosting wave until the bitter end. Can't figure out what to do with your life, but have decent credit? Take out a loan and open a cupcake shop!!! Stay-at-home moms, empty-nesters, former tattoo artists, name your niche and there's a shop for you. It seems if you can operate an Easy Bake oven you qualify. And speaking of former tattoo artists as bakers, when did cooking school become the new tech school? Have you watched any reality cooking shows recently? I don't know about you, but these were the same guys hanging out at the smoking wall at my high school and now their making French meringue? Odd.

The chefs' attire and body piercings aside, I think cupcakes are just inherently wrong. They are cake's lazy, ne'er do well younger sister - trying to achieve all the results with half of the work and failing miserably. Real cake has layers of cake and frosting, so that each bite can have some of each. Try to get a bit of each while eating a cupcake, and you wide up covered in crumbs and butter cream after it collapses when you have to unwrap it in order to gnaw at it from the sides and bottom. Watching my kid eat a cupcake makes me want puke. Little Man takes the entire glob of icing off in one giant mouthful, forcing me to imagine his little arteries hardening at the sheer volume of saturated fat entering his system at once.

As a mother, I can not cut cupcakes completely out of my life. They are, after all, the end-all-be-all of elementary school class parties*** - quite handy not requiring utensils or plates, and children do love them (even though their mothers avert their eyes in horror when they are consumed). I need not be worried though, as apparently, cupcakes' time in the sun is almost over and they are about to be eclipsed by French macarons, which are beautiful to look at, come in interesting flavors, and are less likely to be nicknamed after a giant-toothed, big-lipped radio sidekick. Not sure if I'll be eating many of them though, since I don't have access to a high-end bakery these days and they haven't made it to the 'burbs. Also, they're French, and French women annoy me. I'd be effortlessly thin too if I had government-funded babysitting. When your kids are around all the time, so are their cupcakes.


*One of the best 30 Rock quotes ever. Play the bottom one.
**Sure, some of the proceeds of this cupcake go to charity, but a tie-in with Howard Stern's (who I surprisingly kind of like) crony might not be the best marketing tool.
*** I love that my kids' school is so old fashioned we can still bring in cupcakes. Because there is no more half-assed way to celebrate a six year-old's big day than individual packs of mini-muffins.