Hocus Precocious

"Mommy, will these nibbles grow up to be boobs?" - spoken like a true-blue American-bred daughter (yikes!). Only four at the time when this gem was scribbled onto paper, my youngest daughter is filled with vision for her future as we generally spend hours each week pretending we're moms (still not clear who's doing the pretending), chatting on our cellphones, toting babies around, and making plans together. Her vision of motherhood and being a wife is at times hysterical, and sometimes so completely on-point that I convince myself that she really gets it. When she talks about her husband working late or I notice the way in which she so readily mirrors my facial expressions (eye-rolling mastered), I realize our kids really do reflect us. Anyway, not much of a blog for now, but it will have to do for a few days since I'm setting out for a short vacation. Stay tuned - I've got blogs in the hopper.

Walking on Eggshells

How bizarre it is to feel as if you're walking on eggshells with regard to one of your children. One of my three is currently acting out in a way that needs to be curtailed. Step one, access severity of disturbing behavior. Step two, research and explore curtailment procedure. Step three, execute a livable plan for curtailment. Step four, hold your breath and walk on eggshells everyday until either the disturbing behavior is magically exiled or something more pressing takes center stage in you head.

Reading Cues

What is the deal with my children's complete inability to read the escalation of their parents' emotional cues? It's bedtime. The kids decide for the hundredth consecutive night that 7:25 p.m. is the perfect time for an "impromptu" dance party. Damn those built-in stereo speakers. We let it go, willing to wash a few more dishes while they exorcise their pre-sleep wiggles. Over the course of approximately sixty seconds, a fever-pitch is reached, break-dancing and full-on floor spins end with head-butts into furniture legs. Suddenly, the volume is too much to take. My husband interrupts for the second time, "Guys, time for bed." As the frenzy unleashes some of the most innovative dance moves of the night, it becomes clear that the kids didn't hear their father. He interrupts again, "Guys, that's it, upstairs now". Oh my God, they still don't hear him. He's abruptly loud and angry-sounding, but their faces glow with bliss and ignorance. When will my kids learn to read?

Baby Talk

Strolling outside with my pre-school ladybug, I was struck by something I said. "Oh my God, it's like sunscreen weather." Now forget my Valley Girl lapse for a minute. Instead, think about how focused I was in the moment. A short walk to the bus stop was now about whether or not my daughter needed the protection of sunscreen for the next twenty minutes. It happens a million times a day. The things parents say are forever one-step-beyond themselves - reflecting instead on the safety, entertainment, or enrichment of their offspring. At 8:30 this morning, I was almost rear-ended. Why you ask? I finally spotted the elusive black squirrel while in the company of my youngest child who was desperate to see one. As I applied my brakes and shouted, "Black squirrel, black squirrel. Look left", I was vindicated. All three kids caught a glimpse of a black squirrel playing with two grey squirrels.

Lemonade

For two days running, my daughter has practically tripped off the bus rushing to ask, "Did you buy lemonade at the store?". I notice my eyes begin to roll without official permission. I can't believe it. She can't remember how to subtract three from twelve, but she cannot forget that her mother hasn't bought lemonade yet and outside temperatures are soaring past fifty. How does a parent ever deal with disappointment of this magnitude? There's whining. And did I already mention there's whining? I remind her that nine year-olds are supposed to be over the whole whining thing. She flashes a fake grin, apologizes, then asks if she can make strawberry smoothies. "NO", I say. "And what about the cupcake mix, can you make cupcakes today?" "No". "Can you make them tonight?" Do I really have to say no again? Well of course I do, because if I don't answer her, this could go on FOREVER. I try to stay calm, refocus her or me or both of us. Impossible.

Bonding with my Baby

Tonight I was fortunate to have a friend host two out of three of my young children for a sleepover. I was left to cuddle with my sweet five year old - my baby. Everyone with children (or a pet) has one. It's the last one and we all know it. My sweet baby flew from my womb like a rocket thanks to a three-times-a-charm mantra. But there really is a special bond with that baby. For me, it didn't crop up immediately as significant - different from the others (I feel suddenly transplanted to a Lost episode). Anyway, tonight my baby and I heaped ourselves in blankets and bathed in the black and white reality of "I Love Lucy" episodes for an hour. We shared pretzels and Kix cereal. When she noticed me falling back on a bad habit (mine is picking at hangnails - how glamorous), she cooed, "don't pick, don't pick". And when I didn't listen, she rang out again with the same sage advice. I whispered back to the sage, whose wisdom I read with respect, "I know". What I notice about the baby isn't that the child is more special than the other children in the family, but rather the parent has a greater appreciation for time with her children in general because it is the best measure of finite and fleeting available. Given the chance, any among my children would fill the same role, notice the same insights. But rushed through chores, homework, activities, friends, and scripted inquiries of their day, there are days when neither parent nor child has time leftover to relish much of anything.

Greed

I just took four kids to the seasonal ice cream stand in town for a random treat. By explaining that I only had eight dollars and wanted to leave the ATM out of the equation, I hoped to squash rampant requests for upgrades such as milkshakes and cherry dip. Despite my empty pockets and full disclosure, I shook my head to deflect their greedy demands. Borrowing a sentiment from my seven year old, I thought "what the heck?" Number one, it's a sweet treat. Number two, it's free and undeserved. Why is it that entitlement is always in the room (or the parking lot)? Crushed by their bad attitudes, I sat in the car with my slightly under-the-weather five year old to eat my kiddie cone on a perfectly sunny day. I needed a time-out. On the way home, I eavesdropped as the three older kids, smashed together in the back of the minivan, spouted on about the delicious ice cream. Apparently, and I quote, "it was the best ice cream ever".

Modern Parents We Salute You

Welcome to my very first blog post. My mind's passion is all about raising kids today. Not that kids, themselves, are innately rotten, but we as parents are charting new waters when it comes to raising them. Oh, you can say that everything is cyclical and that today's techno kids are no different than any other generation, but that isn't what this blog is about. My blog is about a generation of parents raising kids, for the very first time, without a cut-and-dry method. For thousands of years, children have been raised as ancillary components of the family unit - integral to the survival of the family - running the farm, sewing the clothes, etc. Modern days have presented parents with a shift. In many families, children are no longer necessary to support the homestead, instead children are born into a role of accessory. People have the luxury of having children just for the fun of it. Imagine that, having kids for the fun of it. In the meantime, starting in the 20th century, parents were stripped of their ability to raise their children with fear and respect as core motivators. Legions of parents were admonished and in some cases shunned, thanks to modern parenting dogma, for employing corporal punishment as a discipline technique. American parents universally began to feel spied upon, and rightly so as neighborhood do-gooders would call the police if they saw a child spanked in public. Now the question remains, and believe me, we're all still trying to figure it out, how do you raise successful, respectful and good children without applying the same discipline tools and techniques used by thousands of years of parents before us? And what are the consequences of raising kids without such a time-honored technique to show us the way? What will our children be like as adults, and how will they parent? Will they be as conflicted as their parents, struggling against manic extremes to keep up outward signs of normalcy. Parenting as we know it is a new frontier, folks, and we are basically fumbling with a clean slate. The first person to figure it out gets an honorable mention.