"Mom, where's my..."

Any query that begins with those three words makes my blood boil, dear readers. Unfortunately it happens with stunning regularity, that one of my offspring, or H, loses something vital and they think it's my job to "help" them find it, aka, find it for them.

Ask my kids, "What is Mommy's least favorite part of being a mom?", and they will answer, in unison, "Finding other people's stuff!" It seems once you have passed a human out of your body, you develop the uncanny ability to find Polly Pocket shoes, Matchbox cars and lost umbrellas. More accurately, this skill starts to truly develop when your first little on becomes mobile, so it's been close to ten years for me that I've been digging under couches and searching through the kitchen garbage to benefit someone other than myself. And after all these years, I have decided two unavoidable facets of motherhood work together to turn mothers into the blood hounds of their households.*

First, you are around most of the time. You know that Little Man had his purple one inch-long purple dinosaur from the A&P vending machine when he went down to the basement, so you know where to start looking for it when he refuses to go to bed without it. You can, as Steve from Blues Clues says, ""Go back, go back, go back, go back to where you were". Second, as a mother, you are so used to anticipating the needs of your family, (whereas your husband is completely reactionary, waiting until the children are comatose with hunger before feeding them, instead of anticipating most children eat lunch between the hours of eleven and one), you can think pretty well like them when you have to. So while you could send your hubs to the basement in search of the dinosaur, he would not be able to read the clues left behind to have a successful search and rescue. If it's not lying in the middle of the carpet, he has no chance. There is no way he will see the half-eaten bowl of Goldfish next to LM's garbage truck and think to himself, "He probably put it in the back of the truck." Elementary, dear Watson! Instead, he will sigh beleagueredly, and tromp back up the stairs claiming, "It's not ANYWHERE!" It is imperative to think like your subject. Manys the time I have been crawling around on the floor trying to get a toddler's-eye view to find an absolutely indispensable toy.

And it is the indispensability of these lost items that really gets me annoyed, dear readers. With the exception of Little Man, whose reasoning skills are rudimentary right now, the other three people I live with can connect the dots enough to think, "If something is important, I'd better keep track of where I put it." Library books, flutes and American Girl eyeglasses. Healthcare cards, iPad chargers and car keys. Why are these things MY responsibility? It's also the lack of looking that drives me mad. My family's search for items basically consists of walking into a room , spinning in a circle, and leaving, then coming to me so I can ask them where they were the last time they had the item, where did they last see it, etc. H, sometimes tries harder. Recently, upon my return from Texas, when H had been driving the van for three days, H could not find the keys. He thought he could throw over his shoulder, "I couldn't find them, I'll be late for work" and hit the bricks. No fucking way. I told him he was not leaving until he found my keys, you know, with my having to take Little Man to school three towns over and all. "I've looked everywhere!" he sighs. Then, like a toddler, I had to ask him when he drove the van last, and to where. What was he wearing? Where did he go afterwards? "I went to work after, and I already looked in my bag!!!" I told him, 'Well, it looks like you're working from home today, as I will be taking your car." Another, more extensive search of his work bag results in the found keys. Funny how that works.

So while I do not expect any member of my family to have such extensive knowledge of the location of every item in the house, I do expect them to at least TRY, when it comes to finding shit. I know this is a war comprised of many battles, but I have to keep trying. If I don't go through this exhausting exercise, I'll be fielding phone calls, helping them find resumes and birth control pills.

*To be fair, I'm sure there are some dads who also have this gift, but I have yet to meet any one with a penis who could find the Lego firefighter's hat in less than a week.

Cast off those rags!!!!

I am about to make a bold statement, dear readers, prepare yourselves.

I pledge, from this day forward, I will not wear my Yankee hat or yoga pants after 10:00am on weekdays.

Well, actually, I made this pledge, to myself, two weeks ago, but I didn't want to write about it until I had taken it out for a test drive. I know. Wasn't I the one who had written so many times about accepting my lot in life as the haggard mother of three with no time for grooming? Yes, I was. Why this radical change, you ask? Well, after I had the annual Return to school Mini-breakdown, around mid-September, I realized part of what makes me so miserable in the fall is the fact that throwing on a tank top and shorts is no longer an option, and I constantly feel disheveled in my athletic gear. I decided, with Little Man turning four, I had had enough, and this would be the year I stop envying those put together women at school drop off and become one of them. The would be the year I got my "me-ness" back.

So I went shopping. I bought some new khakis and jeans, some cotton tops with cute details. Nothing too nuts. I bought a lot from Land's End Canvas, who market a J.Crew-type wardrobe, not the high-waisted slacks and shapeless twinsets of their parent company. I bought some scarves to jazz things up a bit, and finally invested in a cute pair of flats. I permit myself to throw on the old uniform in the mornings, when I'm trying to get the kids out the door, but once I return from dropping Little Man, the bangs get blown out, I throw on a coat of mascara and a pair of pants that actually have a button and zipper. Every single day. Not just on the days I have school board meetings or doctor's appointments.

The change has been miraculous. I feel like a real person. I thought my old, athletic gear was liberating me from the worry of putting myself together, but in reality, it was sending a different message to the world and, more importantly, to my psyche. It said, "I don't matter." I never thought I would fall into the category of women who put themselves last, I mean, I go on girls' weekends and make time to work out every day (at this point B would point out that I do it before sunrise, so it doesn't exactly qualify as quality "me time") Isn't "putting everyone else first" what all those moms on The Biggest Loser use as their excuse? But by not even giving myself the basics, twenty minutes to get myself dressed each day, I was giving away a part of myself that I damn well want back.

I still marvel at those moms who have their hair blown out, or even down, and wear clothes that definitely look "dry clean only", but now I get why they make the effort. it puts a little pep in your step, that has nothing to do with whether someone pooped in the potty or got an A on their counties of New Jersey quiz*. It only has to do with you and how you feel about yourself.

There are some glitches in the system, which I have not worked out yet. For example, how do I do laundry and clean out the closets wearing khakis, or finger paint with Little Man wearing a drape-y cardigan? So I have had to invent a sort of "house coat" outfit. I usually keep on the top I'm wearing and throw on the ol' yogas. And whatever happened to housecoats, by the way? Or non-ironic womens' aprons? I plan on bringing both back. It can be very frustrating for me to have H see me in those pants upon his return home, when I had been wearing really cute Lucky jeans two hours prior. It would be so handy to whip off whatever covering garment I have on and have him see my ensemble, which, to be fair, I'd probably have to point out since my sweet guy digs me in whatever I'm wearing, and wouldn't notice. But then, what choice does he have?

So fellow athletically-clad-but-have-no-intentions-of-working-out-in-the-forseeable-future mothers, hear my cry! You deserve twenty minutes to beautify yourself! You deserve to wear clothes that couldn't double as pajamas in a pinch! You deserve to look at yourself in the mirror and instead of resignedly sighing, think to yourself, "I look cute today." Because you are not just someone's mother, and the work horse that keeps this grist mill turning, you are you. Awesome you.

And don't you forget it, 'cause ain't nobody else gonna remind you, but you.

*Between my non-native status and my complete lack of geographic knowledge, I am NO help at all. When #1 asked where our county is I said, "Um, near the top somewhere?"

My kind of town (sorry, NYC)

Reasons I love Houston, TX:

Barbecue
Shoes
Indian pizza
Ear piercing
Dolly Parton
7 foot tall trannies
The House of Pies

Houston, you have won my heart. I have just returned from three days in the great state of Texas visiting my sister, KK, (which, along with the fact that I was sick last week, explains my absence), and let me say, Houston can give NYC a run for its money. OK, so Houston doesn't have monuments to architecture like the Empire State Building, and the Houston Museum of Fine Arts might not be the grand dame the Met is, but Houston does have a mall so big it has not one, but TWO Macy's, and, in this city, every eating establishment, from pizzerias* to burger joints, serves wine and beer. The motto of Houston, according to KK, is eat, drink and shop. And that we did. KK and I spent more time in the mall than we have since 1989. Which included getting her ears pierced at Claire's at the tender age of thirty-five.

Then, of course, there was the Dolly Parton concert, which was the catalyst of this weekday trip. I have seen U2, sat in the tenth row to watch Eric Clapton perform, as well as various other artists, and I can say with complete certainty, that Dolly Parton, with her overly injected, clownishly made-up face, platinum blonde wigs, sky blue satin, capri jumpsuit covered entirely in six inch-long rhinestone fringe, was the single best performer I have ever seen. She played eight different instruments during the show, including a dulcimer and a harmonica. She sang her classics, of course, but not to be hemmed in by the country genre, she also played Tina Turner's "River Deep mountain High" and Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" Stairway to Heaven! On a banjo! And I was sitting next to a seven foot tall drag queen dressed as Dolly. Had I died and gone to heaven?




Needless to say, my return to regular life has been bumpy, although I missed the kids and H a lot, the lack of barbecue, wine, sleep and pie, is making me a little cranky. What is making me even more cranky is missing my sister. We realized during breakfast at The House of Pies (see below), over huevos rancheros, and slices of both sweet potato and Texas pecan fudge pie (all of that was my breakfast, after which the tiny, Mexican waitress asked me, "You always eat like this?"), we had not spent this much time alone in almost ten years. Between the spouses and the kids, it seems there's always someone around which, while adding to the fun, also changes the dynamic.



For those of you with siblings you are close with, you know what a wonderfully complicated relationship exists between brothers and sisters. This is the person who has been there all your life and knows your deepest, darkest secrets, your strengths and weaknesses - like the fact you hate feet or minor chords (KK, and me respectively). You are probably pretty different, even though you came form the same household, and you appreciate those differences. One of you is balanced and relaxed, annoyed by the "pressure to move fast" after the other returns from a morning run, hopping around the hotel room flipping through guidebooks. I once read the sibling relationship is so important during childhood because these are the people we try out different personas on before we take them out in public, like Guns and Roses metal head, or suburban goody-two-shoes trying to become a hippie by buying peace sign earrings at Claire's and a baja at Spencers (again, KK and me). Our brothers and sisters helped shape you into the person you've become by their reaction to your unfortunate Joey Lawrence cap, and having seen all the struggle, are proud of you (and the fact that you ditched the chapeau).

Now that the girls are old enough to have had long-term friendships, the term "best friend" is being bandied about the house. While I am glad they have made close connections, I know the fickle nature of childhood friendship, and the same girl you split a BFF locket with from Piercing Pagoda in third grade, could be calling you a bitch by the sixth, so I don't encourage such exclusivity. I tell them, "You were born with two best friends, your sister and Little Man." In my experience, your siblings are the best friends you can have. You may be pissed she ripped your New Kids on the Block poster, but she's gonna be there for the good and the bad for the rest of your life, like it or not, which tends to encourage some kind of warm feelings, or at least a resigned peace.


When I am alone with K, I'm not a mother or a wife, I'm just me. The me I was before all these other relationships started rubbing against my edges and changing the shape of my personality. Being alone with my sister is like refocusing a fuzzy image. I leave with a renewed clarity about who I am and what's important to me.

So maybe make a plan with you brother or sister(s) for a night away, or dinner, or just an uninterrupted phone call. You can gain a new perspective spending time with the people who knew you when you were still becoming you.

And if you can do it while singing "Backwoods Barbie", that's even better.

*Indian pizza? I thought this was going to be a schizophrenic culinary nightmare...until I tasted saag paneer on flatbread.