“Tabby,” I said in as even a tone as I could. “That overcoat just drapes over her shoulders. We do not put her arm in it.”
“But it’s a coat – it goes on,” she says, shoving poor RL Barbie’s arm further in the coat, wrinkling her double breasted navy blazer in the process. I grabbed RL Barbie and straightened the whole mess out. At this point, Tabby started fidgeting with Bob Mackie Barbie. She may be three; but, for Christ’s sake – it’s Bob Mackie.
“No, Tabby, the cape stays on.”
“I don’t like the hat.”
“It’s not a hat; it’s the top of the cape. Stop trying to take it off. You will ruin it.”
“I don’t like it.”
“IT’S BOB MACKIE!”
I distracted her with the hair brushes. Every little girl loves to brush Barbie’s hair. She picked up a bright pink brush. Then she reached for Millennium Barbie. Millennium Barbie has a beautiful three-rolled, top-of-the-head bun with one perfectly coiled tendril falling to the side of her face. A brush would destroy it. I threw Birthday Barbie in Tabby’s line of vision to distract her and sequestered Millennium Barbie to a safe spot. Then Tabby pointed and said, “Who’s that princess?”
I love my daughter but I will be damned if she is getting her mitts on my Breakfast at Tiffany’s Audrey Hepburn Barbie when she has shown no regard for maintaining these ladies’ appearance. No discussion, I grabbed the doll and put her on my desk.
At this point Tabby took all the stands off and laid the Barbies on the carpet. “The princesses are sleeping,” she said.
I could handle this. They were on the floor, yes, but no one was touching their hair. Our dog, Scruffy, decided it was time to give me a tongue bath. To get to me, he walked right across the Barbies in their repose.
“SCRUFFY!” I said, pointing at the beautiful little figures. Instead of recognizing the international sign for “Get Off My Damn Barbies, Mutt,” he thought I wanted him to lick the Barbies instead. The more frantic my gestures became, the more confused Scruffy became.
This indicated to the cat, Fluffy, that it was time to play. So Tabby is trying to force Venetian Barbie’s beautiful Carnivale mask into Christmas Cookie Barbie’s hand; Scruffy is trampling these poor peaceful beauties; and Fluffy is tangled up in ball of synthetic hair and mesh overskirts. Logan came in asking for something as I was trying to control the carnage. I told him “Just a minute!” through gritted teeth. He stepped back right on to poor Cinderella Barbie’s face.
“That’s it! Playtime is over. Let’s watch TV!” I bellowed.
And now I sit here, in my little office in which NO ONE is allowed, with my beautiful girls surrounding me. I gently tell them they may never see the light of day again.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Language Barriers
It is a common opinion that one should watch his or her mouth around children. Pretty much anything that pours forth from your mouth will spill out of theirs at any given moment --especially if that moment happens to be as you are trying to convince a headmaster of a prestigious private school that your little darling is the best choice to fill the one coveted opening left.
When I was pregnant with Logan, Nate and I agreed we had to curb our language. I am sure many parents will tell you this was not a problem because they don’t really use bad language to begin with. Not us. People wonder if we know words with more than four letters in them. I can keep it together in the grocery store – until my favorite kind of cereal goes up 13 cents a box. Cell phones only increase the problem. I forget the world around me can actually hear me on a cell phone.
So I got pregnant, and we decided we needed to cut out the swearing. And we did… for about three days. All of a sudden, those nasty words started inching their way back into our vocabulary. We decided that maybe we should not go cold turkey. We tried to slowly eliminate the more colorful words from our repertoire until we run them all out. Every time we slipped, we reminded ourselves that we just needed to clean up our language by the time the baby is born.
In the meantime we cranked up the Wolfgang Amino Mozart Pre Birth Selections on my stomach and told each other what we really thought of our employers. Then the kid arrived. Our language dipped. Once again we rationalized. How much would the drooling grub retain anyway? We just needed to stop cursing by the time the kid was crawling. We were doing well, but then the crawling led to grabbing which led to pulling which led to things falling and breaking. That led to me proclaiming my dissatisfaction with said events. And I did not quote Shakespeare.
There was always rationale. Always some theory as to why our children will have selective deafness that will keep them from hearing profanity. And then our son started to speak. And by “speak,” I mean parrot. I do believe the first thing he said to The Mothers was “Damn it!” Yet another vote for me for Mother of the Year.
But kids do know what you should and should not say. Dawn has an Uncle Duke, who works at the docks. Uncle Duke is about as stereotypical a dockworker as you can get. On a good day, he will only refer to you as a “panty-waist, son of a bitch.” On bad days he will heighten his use of expletives and name-calling to an art form. But he is a cream puff around our kids. As a treat, we take them to see Uncle Duke at work.
One visit, he took the twins, Logan and Tabby around to see all the boats and equipment used in his trade. When they were almost done, a fork lift operator was unloading boxes. He turned the lift too quickly and knocked down a couple of cases of toilet paper. The rolls got loose and TP’d the dock. Uncle Duke, his supervisor, unleashed a torrent of words so filthy Quentin Tarantino would have blushed. He used every curse in the book and then started just making new ones up. The other workers circled around. Some were jotting down notes. After his diatribe of filth finished, Twin 2 walked up to him with his finger out ready to tsk.
In a very commanding voice for a four-year-old, Twin 2 wagged his finger at Uncle Duke and proclaimed, loudly, “UNCLE DUKE! You said a bad word!”
All eyes turned to Twin 2 in anticipation. Which word would he cite? There were so many to choose from.
Twin 2 planted both hands firmly on his hips and said, “You said ‘stupid.’”
And it was true. Somewhere in the river of profanity, Uncle Duke had, in fact, said “stupid.” To this day, whenever Uncle Duke says stupid, his co-workers make him put a quarter in a jar. Next month they are going on a cruise with their collection.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
General Admission
Last year I helped my girlfriend throw an engagement party for our friend. It was an elegant affair, for a backyard cocktail party. We even had real flowers. She has a child Tabby’s age. We got my sitter, Mary, to watch all three at my house and waited expectantly in her backyard for all the stimulating conversation we were about to experience. As we stood there in our heels and big girl dresses and our husbands hovered by the appetizers, drinking martinis, the guests started to arrive. Imagine our surprise when the very first guests who entered came up to our knees.
My girlfriend and I looked in horror as the party area filled with children, not all of whom we even liked. In total, four couples brought their children to our cocktail attire-requested party. So regardless of paying $35 an hour for our own children to be watched, we spent the whole night chasing after kids, asking them not to touch all the food and to watch out as you may knock over one of the highboy tables … “Oh, dear, there goes the rhododendron.”
When I took to the Mommyverse to ask if anyone else had had this experience, the response was not favorable… towards me. They said, if I did not want children, I should have clearly stated this on the invitation. Besides, what was the harm? Why could I not have just gotten one extra little table and put some fun foods on it for the kids? Had I just popped in a video, I would have been fine, they said
.
Earlier this year, my cousin and her husband threw themselves a black tie anniversary party. Her sister asked what her daughter should wear to the party. The hostess cousin replied, “I assume whatever her sitter puts her in. Children are not invited to the party.” Things, I am told, got ugly from there. I attended the party. It was lovely. I know it cost a fortune. There were half a dozen empty seats of parents who did not know until the last minute they could not bring their children -- and one child in the corner, watching a video on an iPhone.
Being new to Momhood, I missed the day when the switch over from Children are not invited unless specified to Children will always be included happened. I labor for hours over the wording of a dinner invitation to insinuate that this is an adults-only evening without its sounding like I will provide strippers and a fishbowl. I have no problem with somebody asking me if kids are invited as long as they accept that no is a viable option. Occasionally I will respond to a child inquest with “No, this one is a night off for the parents! My own kids will be with their grandparents.”
But then the invitee launches into a diatribe about how they don’t really do things without their kids and they think their children are entertainment enough and don’t need to exclude them to have fun. I assume that I am in the wrong and quickly retract the no-kids ban. I hang up and go hug my kids, apologizing once again for their great misfortune of having such a soulless mother. I spend the rest of the day thinking how to subtly let Nate know our wine and cheese evening is now a wieners and beans potluck.
So if we tell the Mommyverse that we need to get away from our little ones, where are we supposed to go if they are welcome everywhere? What about the amazing conversation we lament being absent from our lives? How in depth can you get on a topic when you have to interrupt with “Mom’s talking to a grown-up now. Please get out of the flower pot.” Heated political debates should not be paused to ask “Where did your pants go?”
I am not asking for the liberty to do keg stands, just the chance to not jump up and shove a wad of tissue in my conversation partners’ face when they sneeze.
The flipside, of course, is actually going out. Nate had just been promoted to Super Cool, Extremely Important, Very Influential Employee at his work. By his rising to this august position, we received an invitation to a mixer for all the executives at his level or higher. This meant an evening of rubbing elbows with sophisticated people while sipping cocktails. I was so excited it caused me to hiccup.
Gigi, Dawn and I were on the phone every day trying to decide on an outfit. Since the first thing we decided was that my chosen outfit should have no food, spit, paint or drink stain on it, this eliminated three quarters of my wardrobe. I photographed myself on my cell phone, sent it to them and awaited their comments. One time I got a bit hasty in the contacts section and sent the photo to The Mothers by accident. They called me and asked for an explanation.
I explained, and they said to be more careful, that these risqué photos could be sent out to the whole world in a matter of minutes. I looked at the photo I had mistakenly sent. I am not sure slacks and a sweater set constitutes risqué these days. I guess it was the suede oxfords that pushed it over.
The day of the event came. I left myself a few hours to dress. Since Nate was not there, I asked my sitter to critique every detail. She smiled quizzically and said “Oh, yes, lovely. Very chic. Belt? Yes, that is a belt…oh, do I like it? Yes. But not necessarily with that top. I hope I am not stepping over the line. Perhaps I should just see to the children’s dinner.”
I was sitting perfectly still in my grown-up party outfit when Nate arrived. I had invested two hours into my appearance, and I looked acceptable at best. Nate raced in, spent four minutes assembling and looked stunning.
We blew kisses to the kids and off we went. I nervously tried out my topics of conversation in the car. “How about that stock market?” I said casually. “This is one humdinger of an election, don’t you think?” I said with a whistle. “Boy, cancer research –could they use some more cash or what?”
“What are you doing?” Nate asked.
“Making small talk.” I said.
He grabbed my note cards and threw them out the window. He was right; I should just ride his coattails.
The women in attendance looked exactly as they should. No matter how casual or formal, they were perfectly pulled together and wonderful looking. I could not stop adjusting my hair. I grabbed the first drink that came by. I did not know the man who had been holding the drink was not a waiter. The drink belonged to the Executive Director of Many Important Things. I spit the sip in my mouth back into the glass and offered his drink back to him. He politely declined.
Nate stepped in. A few moments later, he mingled us in and out of small collections of various people, each seemingly more important to the company than the next. I liked his tactic – keep us moving. Don’t let me sit too long, or I might detonate like an unpinned grenade. As the evening wore on, my confidence came back to me. I did, after all, hold a college degree. I had traveled the world in my SWOC life. I taught myself to cook, regardless of what The Mothers say. I could certainly hold my own in this crowd.
At this point I had had several glasses of wine and very little food. Nate, recognizing the signs of Tipsy Wife, maneuvered us to a spot on the couch. A gentleman came by with a tray of little, artful pieces of food. I reached up to grab one and stopped myself. Since the guy I had stolen the drink from was sitting within earshot, I thought I would poke a little fun at myself, let people know I did not take myself too seriously. I looked up at the waiter and said “Are you really a waiter, or am I going to grab your stuff and put it in my mouth too?”
In my mind, this sounded breezy. The poor waiter’s eyes grew very large and said “I…its tuna mousse in Filo cups.”
A gentle woman to my left took pity on me and engaged me in conversation. I spent the rest of the evening speaking to her and the wife of Nate’s boss. They were lovely ladies, and I really enjoyed our conversation -- at least until Nate mentioned on the way home that I had spent probably a little too long talking about what I think takes smells off my hands best.
And when the head of the company sneezed within an arm’s reach, I reached out and put a tissue under his nose.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Mother Knows Best
I have spent thousands on Sleep Trainers, Potty Trainers, Walking Consultants, Nutritionists, Lactation Consultants, Speech Therapists, Play Therapists and any other ist I could get my hands on.
And The Mothers still insist they are right.
I call in tears with my latest crisis – Logan threw sand today; Tabitha is talking back to me; Logan refuses to urinate in one of the 27 receptacles I have purchased for this purpose; Tabitha won’t eat what I give her – or anything else for that matter; Logan does not listen to me when I tell him not to do something, even though I told him I really wanted him to stop; Tabitha is licking the dog’s tongue and won’t stop – anything that happens on a daily basis. The Mothers would dish out some form of the same answer:
“That’s what kids do.”
Sometimes they say something like “Send him to his room if he doesn’t listen” or “Maybe she is bored; play with her.” I remind them that raising children today is different. These old myths of childrearing are completely ineffective, and what do they know anyway?!? I mean, who did they raise? Okay. Maybe that was not my best comeback.
Anyway, I tell them I have to go because I need to consult my library of “How to Raise a Kid” books from people who were FAR more qualified than they to answer. I conclude our call and immerse myself in hours of reading. I talk to the Mommyverse. I call to Dawn and Gigi, and we share war stories. Finally, I call Nate, who needs to be reminded of the lengths I go to to raise his children properly. (
He is in a meeting; so I leave him a lengthy voicemail).
After a period of anguish, I make an appointment with Dr. Godsend. When he enters the exam room, he looks around. Noticing the lack of children with me, he says, “It’s just you again.”
“I feel the children distract whenever they are here.”
“Pediatric appointments can be annoying that way, yes.”
I tell him of all the vicious and clearly burgeoning sociopathic behavior of my children. I detail the tireless and extensive research I have done on these matters. I barely make it to the end when I ask what, dear doctor, can possibly be done?
Dr. Godsend crinkles his brow and says, “That’s what kids their age do.”
Now see, Mothers, THIS is advice I can use!
BONUS!
What to do when you are stuck inside with your kids all day
We have all had those days when we have to keep the kids inside – Rainy Days, smog-alert days, sick days, “They INSIST on wearing that outfit” days, etc. On a few occasions, this “day” turns into “days.” Sometimes, around Day Five of imprisonment inside play, you need to rely on your imagination for fun things to do and interesting interactive play.
I thought I would write down some of my ideas that have gone over pretty well in these situations – in case you ever need something to do with the kiddies on an Inside Day.
10 Things to Do With Your Kids on an Inside Day:
1) “Find the Kids’ Favorite TV Program” - This is one of the easier games. Simply pop the kids in front of the TV; give them bowls of popcorn and chocolate milk; and fire up the remote. To supervise, all you need is a book of your own and something cool to drink. (Rule of thumb; chilled white in the morning, rose for the afternoon and vodka/gin should be reserved for 5:00 o’clock – or about the time the news comes on.) Read your book, and when your children start wrestling or throwing food, just change the channel! It’s that easy…and you don’t even have to look up from your book. There is no reason Suze Ormond can’t speak to your little ones – let them do the taxes next year.
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