Dumber than a Fifth Grader

My daughter invited me to attend fifth grade again. I told her no, I must decline her generous offer. Don't get me wrong. Who wouldn't want to push dinner prep and laundry aside week after week to dive into some math? And those who know me best know that I'm itching to identify some greatest common factors in fractions. But like I told her, if I don't get the grades, I'm not doing the work.

White Whale Continued

I while ago, I wrote about something I don't do well as a mother - bathing my children. Short of risking people thinking that there's only one white whale floating in my pond, let me enlighten thee. I'm a bit embarrassed as the things that escape me tend to be pretty basic, and yet I've never nailed them. For instance, bundling. I have never been a mother that fusses over getting every appendage covered before heading out somewhere, even in the bitter Vermont winters that our two oldest children weathered the first years of their lives. As infants, my kids were on the less is more program because their mother didn't go the extra mile with the sherpa surrounds. I relied on them. Certainly, if they could cry to nurse, than they could cry if they were too cold.

All you need is love

I remember collecting wisdom about having children before I ever had children. One thing sticks out in my memory as universal advice (voiced heavily by my parent's generation). I think it's a cliche, but never-the-less, it was something I really latched onto. The advice was this: Just love them, that's all they need.

Really? That's all they need. O.k., I guess loving them covers some ground like feeding them, keeping them close to you in a parking lot, and discouraging them from eating glass. But what about the rest of the crapshoot? I spend way too much energy (and it's riddled with tension like I'm about to explode) on correcting and admonishing behavior - ultimately (and hopefully) molding some kind of useful human being that won't need to be locked up down the road. Honestly, I couldn't begin to list the other stuff that I need to do to in addition to loving them. I guess the message was that the love part is a bare necessity and everything else is icing. Huh?

Your Moment of Zen...

I'll leave you with this. I long for the day when I thought I could lose weight by cutting my hair. Seriously, I'm up at least 5 pounds, maybe more, thanks to winter indulgences such as cookies and chocolate. Cutting my hair won't make up the difference I need. I'm so desperate that I've stopped drinking the magical elixir - Coca~Cola. And I'm quitting my gym membership because they no longer have a magazine rack - no more People Magazine. On the upside, shop vaccing my basement full of water and hauling buckets has brought me closer to my goal weight in short order. Yahoo!

All in a name

I have a problem. The name of my blog is no longer working for me. In fact it might be working against me. First of all, (and this may come as a big shocker) I'm not Jewish. The other big problem with calling my blog Kids Today Oy Vay is that I often find myself wanting to write about something other than kids. So as I poured pancake batter this morning, I wondered outloud - "I think I want to rename my blog". Now six year-old Nora, always willing to contribute, suggested, "You could name it Kaden, that's a cute name for a blog". Well darn it, she's right. Kaden is a cute name, and not just for a blog. However, I want a more clever name - something that underscores the themes about which I write. So if anyone reading this post has a good idea (and you may need to go back and read some of my older posts), please send a comment with your suggestion. I would really appreciate the collective brain power.
P.S. And if you think I should keep it as it is, tell me.

Eureka!

I finally figured out the IFs and WHENs of my blog sessions. When I feel like a crappy failure of a mother, I dry up and no words come. But when I feel decent about the things going on and all family members are nearly on the same page, I can write. So, can you guess what mode I've been in since March 2nd? That's right, crappy failure of a mother. When I look back on my life since becoming a mother, a huge paradigm shift took place the moment my children entered school. When I began to regularly turn them over to someone else for the first time, it was as if they suddenly became mini-me's. If they didn't behave well (and I had the pleasure to hear all about it), I wanted to shrink into a ball and slink away unseen. I felt shame and guilt, while a burning need to make things right oozed from my every pore. For the first time, there was another arbiter. And for the next several years, there will always be some other adult outside of our family to evaluate, monitor and even judge my kids. It's hard for me to separate myself and remember that I can't make my kids behave a certain way. Sure, I can discipline behaviors, reiterate rules and dispense lectures from the hip. I can bribe and motivate with creativity. But, alas, at the end of the day, I must remember that we (they and me) are not the same.

Ludicrous

A few months back, my husband and I witnessed the most ridiculous television commercial. It opens with a couple of young kids watching TV in a dark family room. Next you see the kids levitate ala superman as they are slowly sucked toward the TV. Just when I think, good, somebody out there gets it - here's a mocking commentary on the evils of television and its suffocating grasp on our children, the mom and dad pop their heads into the shot with a cheery, "Hey kids, we've got donuts" (or something like that). Now we see the vortex of television go limp as the kids run toward the Dunkin Donuts contraband delivered by their folks. That's right kids, not only do you win, but you can have it all. Watch all the television you want AND feast on fatty fried donuts.