Bikini Party

I’ve been to some wet and wild bikini parties in my time but none so enjoyable as the one I just attended with my 4 year old, in our bathtub. Sec spends most of her time these days pretending she’s a mermaid in the tub and tonight, I decided what the hell? If you can’t beat 'em, join 'em. We both put on pink bikinis and set to soaking. I did the unthinkable and read a grown-up book and in order to insure she wouldn’t splash my work of literature, I gave her free reign with the shaving cream. I’ve been holding out on the shaving cream play sensing that one day I’d really need that ace in the hole and it delivered, buying me a good 30 minutes of tub reading while Sec slathered everything in what she called “whipped cream.” Occasionally, overcome by feeling, she’d exclaim, “OH WE ARE SO BEAUTIFUL!!!!”

Primo was intrigued by the noise and within minutes was in the tub, too, a tight fit for a relaxing soak. Then Sec got out and Primo took over the lets-use-all-the-shaving-cream game, only he wanted me to read him my book out loud, the which I did, instructing Primo on the elusive art of personal narrative writing, according to Vivian Gornick. He was very interested in the memoir of Thomas DeQuincey though puzzled somewhat because I had to excise every allusion to opium, rendering the chapter a string of words that made no sense.

When David came home, he found us all in our bathing suits and the shaving cream can empty, while the house looked like a tornado had hit it. That guy misses all the fun.

For Avent-Garde Kids

Last summer, I took Primo to participate in a super-cool workshop of an avant-garde theater production for kids of one of our favorite tales, Pinocchio. A few months ago, we saw an early version of the work-in-progress which was fantastic. Now they've designed an incredible-looking edition of the original Collodi tale, as a companion book to go along with the full production of Pinocchio in late April. The illustrations, by London visual artist David Shillinglaw are captivating in and of themselves. You can read sample of the pages here.

You can buy the book, help fund the project (after all, the theater company's a not-for-profit) and even get a handwritten postcard from Pinocchio sent to your child here. Here's a description of the book and you will understand how handing it to your child will make you feel like a better mother, instantly:

"For many people, Disney’s beloved (and largely sanitized) version of the Pinocchio story is all that they know. Very few are aware that, in Carlo Collodi's original tale, Pinocchio begins as a mischievous and selfish wild child, the Blue-Haired Fairy first appears as a corpse, the Terrible Shark has asthma, and the Talking Cricket is swiftly dispatched by Pinocchio with a hammer.

An interactive story/coloring book, our version will be printed in black and white with a deliberately minimalist design. A box of crayons will be included with each book to encourage young readers to not only to read it, but to deface it, complete it, reimagine it, and otherwise make it their own."

Sister Wives

Yes, as in polygamy. Its my new favorite television show and I cannot get enough. It’s basically the reality version of Big Love except with four wives, and without the annoying cult-compound plot points that bore me to tears (or used to, now that the show's over). They are fundamentalist Mormons and live in Utah in this massive house which has different wings for each of the families, but all the wings are connected. The series begins with the husband, Kody, courting his fourth wife, which is a big deal because the last time he went a-courting was sixteen years ago, when he married number 3.

I am super hooked for a few reasons. First, I find polygamy in general fascinating. As an incredibly jealous and somewhat self-obsessed person, I find the idea of sharing my spouse pretty unthinkable. Also, I'd be way more into the idea if the reverse - four husbands to one wife - was a possibility, too. Imagine, in that scenario, how quickly my broken blinds would be fixed and how painlessly the dishwasher would be loaded. Yes, I want extra husbands because I can't afford house hold help. If I had more money and could afford a cleaning person or an aupair, the idea would have less appeal.

But the aspect of polygamy that I find totally amazing is the sisterhood component – that you have these women that are friends and sisters and co-mothers. Especially the co-mother part. That means extra babysitters. People to worry about your kids as much (or almost) as you do. People to whom you can turn and say "YOU talk some sense into this child."People to complain about your husband too, who totally get what a douche bag he can be. People to direct him to when he's being a gloomy mofo and you don't have the patience to deal. So I was not surprised to hear one of the wives say that as a kid raised in a polygamist household, there were times in her life that she wanted sister wives more than she wanted a husband. She didn’t WANT just a guy to marry – she wanted the whole family.

But the other reason I am hooked is that these are the nicest, most generous, thoughtful and wholesome people ever. These people go Ice Blocking for crying out loud. I didn’t know what that was but turns out, it is when you sit on large blocks of ice and slide down a hill. Is there anything more wholesome than that?

So, thanks to TLC for some totally addicting programming.

Ultimately I think David’s comments on plural marriage pretty much say it best:

“I don’t get why polygamy is illegal,” he said, “If a guy is crazy enough to willingly take on more than one wife, that’s punishment enough.”

Having Favorites

If you haven't come across this attention-grabbing Babble post called I Think I Love My Son A Little Bit More Than My Daughter, check it out. Or if you'd like to save yourself thirty seconds, I'll give you the main idea: Mom has two kids (and another on the way): a 20 month-old son and a 3 year-old daughter. Her son's birth was easy, they bonded instantly and he is a low-key affectionate child. Her daughter's birth was hard, they didn't bond instantly and she is defiant and hard-to-manage. The mom feels guilty because she loves her son (just a little bit) more than her daughter.

A few days later, Babble ran this response from a father of our (with another one on the way), 5 Reasons I Would Never Publicly Compare My Children.which I thought makes some really great points, particularly when he talks about the dangers of holding up a snapshot of the present moment as permanent and forever. This mom may feel like she loves her son a little but more now but fast forward two years, ten years, and it might be just the reverse, or she might not be able stand either or it might be the third child who's the real impossible one and odd man out, The one thing you can rely on in parenting is that everything changes, constantly, but when you post a controversial blog, that doesn't change. It remains and after fifteen minutes, collects dust until one day, your daughter unearths the thing and her heart is broken. Some things you can't take back.

At the same time, I think its brave of Katie to put herself out there to alleviate the guilt and confusion of other moms who may feel the same way. I was terrified during my second pregnancy and in the first year or two of my daughter's life before she was a real person, that since I loved my son so unthinkably much, there wouldn't be enough love for her. Now she is Sec and he is Primo and they are so wildly different and my relationship with them is so wildly different, I would be hard-pressed to compare. I feel such a kinship with Primo in so many ways, but in some ways he is unreachable to me. Sec is like a tiny version of me which makes her maddening sometimes but also means that I understand her and her needs profoundly. I do find myself sometimes protective of one more than the other, but I hardly think that's a matter of love and more a matter of the ways I've come to see them, and I try, hard, to be aware of that instinct and balance it out.

Its like asking which arm I love more. They're my arms. I need them both. Maybe I have this "I love you the purplest" perspective because I'm a sanctimommy but maybe its because I refuse to ask the question "Who do I love more?"Or maybe the explanation is that BOTH my kids are defiant and hard-to-manage, And I hope it doesn't break their heart one day to read that.

Muddy Monster

The nice spring weather brings the mud. And my baby loves mud.

Move over Chuck E Cheese. . .

I remember back in the Dark Ages when there was only one deal of the day website. Groupon was alluring enough. But now there are dozens of them, all micro-local with tantalizing offers of services you never knew you needed until they were provided to you 50-75% off. A few weeks ago, I bought one such Poppins Perk for a family-friendly restaurant in Park Slope where there are DVD players at the tables and an arcade room downstairs. The place is called PSBklyn and we went this weekend to use our delightfully discounted coupon. Food was eh and pretty pricey, if you didn't have a deal, but the design of the joint is lovely, so you really feel like you're having grown-up time even if Shrek is playing at your table. Plus, paying a little too much for medicore grub is still way cheaper than paying for a sitter. I think its the perfect place to head with another family with kids -- you can stick all the kids at one booth and play a movie while you have a perfectly enjoyable double date at the adjoining booth. But the big draw for my kids at least was the Game Room downstairs.




Skee Ball. Hooray.


Little girl knows to how take down the zombies.

And, of course, air hockey, which incidentally, I'd never played until this visit. What an amazing invention! Two thumbs up. I could play all day. I guess the air hockey in and of itself is reasons enough for us to go back. Plus, we have another Perk to use.

Zebra Cake

Sec went to a birthday party this weekend which was jungle-themed and when it was time to sing Happy Birthday, the mom brought out this tall, impressive homemade cake, which was covered in white frosting with black stripes. "Like a zebra!" the kids shouted.

I was standing on the side, chatting with some parents when I heard Sec yell urgently for me.

"MOMMY! MOMMY!" she blared.

"Yes, honey," i rushed over to find her with a plastic fork poised to dig into the cake, "What's up?"

"I hope this really tastes like zebra, " she whispered.

God.
I.
Love.
That.
Child.

Love You Forever

There are two children’s books that make me cry every time. The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein and Love You Forever by Robert Munsch. It never fails: I get halfway through and I’m sobbing – not just a few silent tears, but a voice-quavering, choking sob that’s embarrassing in public. Which I was when I read Love You Forever to Sec at preschool drop-off yesterday.

In case you’ve never read the book, it starts with a new mom putting her baby to sleep -- she rocks him in her arms and sings:

“I love you forever

I like you for always

As long as you’re living

My baby, you’ll be.”

It’s not Langston Hughes or anything. In fact, it’s pretty corny the first time you read it. But on the next page when the mom sings the same song to her baby, who’s now a rascal of a toddler, it gets a little less corny. And when she sings it to her bubble-gum-chomping school-age kid on the next page, its not at all corny, and reaching the point of being sweet and touching.

When she sings the song to her teenager – that’s when I start to tear up. But it’s only when the son becomes a man, and moves to his own house across town, and she takes a bus in her nightgown in the middle of the night to sneak into his room and sing him the song, that I start sobbing.

This could be me. I could see this happening.

The thought of my baby boy – who, as tall as my shoulders now, isn’t such a baby – moving to his own house, well that just annihilates me. As I read this page, I am assailed by guilt at having felt annoyed when he wakes too early in the morning or bugs me for ten different kinds of snacks, or makes me watch him play video games. I have him now, nearly all the time. When he’s not in school, he is almost always a few steps away, telling me his amazing observations and corny jokes and listening to me talk about shit that I like which most other kids would be bored to tears by. One day, I’ll be just his mother, not his go-to person for just about everything. But though he’ll feel differently about me when he’s grown, I’m willing to bet I’ll feel the same way I do now, the same way I did when he was born and stretched his spindly fingers towards my chin in his first gesture of life of earth – that love and adoration for the little tiny human I ushered into the world. And I wouldn’t be surprised if I do scale his apartment building and creep into his bedroom and sing him the same lullaby I did when he kept me up all night as an infant.

I thought, for sure, the fact that I was reading the picture book in Sec’s classroom would curtail my customary waterworks, but no, they came anyway, and I felt like a maniac, wiping away tears in the book corner, while the other kids played with Flubber and Sec asked me why I was sad.

“I’m not sad, honey,” I replied, “I’m crying for joy.”

Which wasn’t precisely true, but a decent approximation of me anticipating my empty nest syndrome 20 years down the line.

Pink Boy

Just read this thought-provoking Salon piece by a mom whose son prefers pink and likes to wear princess dresses with maribou-feather slippers. You can imagine the shit she gets at the playground:

My son, the pink boy

I love the way she challenges the Dr. Phil philosophy (Its totally OK for your son to like those things, just make sure you take them away), and give her kudos for parenting without fear. Dude, I wish she were MY mom.

Bite My Tongue, a lenten sacrifice

For Lent this year, I’ve decided to give up something that actually makes a difference in my life, and the lives of those around me, rather than the requisite sacrifice of ice cream or hamburgers.

So for forty days and nights I will not indulge in the pleasure of . . . .

Making un-constructive negative comments

I am genuinely jazzed. I think this could be good. It is a tall order, to be sure, but note that I am free to say what constructive negative comments I want. I guess the rule is, if I honestly think it will make the slightest difference, than I can exude negative energy. But if, as is most often the case, nothing good will come of it, then I will opt to bite my tongue. Or, as my mother puts it, bite my tongue til it bleeds. The funny part about my mother using this expressive is that I’ve never known her in all my years, to EVER bite her tongue, even gently, I come from a people who never need to preface their remarks, “If I can speak freely” because they are ALWAYS speaking freely. This isn’t a problem in and of itself. I imagine if you were the kind of person who has a generally rosy look on life, a mild temperament, and a generous disposition, than it might be rather nice for you to freely express your positive thoughts. But my mother, grandmother, and regrettably, myself, hardly ever have something positive bouncing around in our brains. We are chronic complainers and control freaks, and our speaking freely is really a disservice to the world.

Thus, in the spirit of Lent, I think I’ll make the world a better place (and give my husband a break) by experimenting with verbal restraint.

David doesn’t think I’ll be able to do it. He, however, underestimates my religious devotion, and, more important, my desire to prove him wrong. If things get rough, there’s always the Sunday absolution rule, where I can break my Lenten sacrifice on Sundays. Not sure who approved that loophole but I’m sure its kosher. Thankfully, I don’t blog on Sundays, so you won’t be privy to the rampage of criticism, contempt and complaints I may need to unleash.

To my tongue, I can only say: sorry, but you’ve got to take one for the team.

Baby Expo

Back when I was preggo with Primo, I would have killed - or at least, maimed- someone to get to attend a Baby Expo. Of course, six years ago, in Brooklyn, such a thing did not exist. But now, thanks to A Child Grows in Brooklyn, it does, and its happening this Sunday.

From bra fittings to seminars on sleep trainings, its one stop shopping for new parents in Brooklyn. There is TONS of stuff going on:

Learn about:

Sleep training, choosing gear, hiring a nanny, finding day care, school testing and zoning, greening your home.

Try out:

Strollers, carriers, baby yoga, stroller fitness, bra fittings, laser therapy

Get:

Manicures, blow-outs, maternity and post-baby clothes, toys, prizes

Watch demos of

cloth diapering, baby food making, CPR, installing a car seat

Sunday March 13th
11-4pm
Toren Condo, 150 Myrtle Ave, Brooklyn NY 11201
$35 admission/ $60 for two
register: achildgrows.com

first 250 to register get a free gift bag

SEMINARS:

Raising a Good Sleeper
Speaker: Janet K. Kennedy, PhD, NYC Sleep Doctor

• Best baby gear gurus.... tell all!
Speakers: Jamie Grayson (the Baby Guy NYC) & Jennifer Link (Sweet Pea Baby Planners)

• Parenting Partnerships: How to work together
Speakers: Soho Parenting and Family Matters NY

• Greening Your Home
Speaker: Alexandra Zissu

EXHIBITORS:
Babeland
Baby Angels
Baby Be Safe
Baby Bodyguards
Baby Brezza
Birth Day Presence
boon
Britax
Brooklyn Acupuncture
Brooklyn Public Library
Brownstone Nannies
Bump Brooklyn
Caribou Baby
Diaperkind
Dr. Browns
Family Matters NY
FasTrackKids
Gaggle of Chicks
giggle
Genius Organizing
GoGo Babies
Hank and JoJo
Happy Baby Food
Heights Pediatrics
Iris Clarke Lingerie
Lulu’s Cuts and Toys
Mabel’s Labels
MDK Productions
Mini Jake
Mini Max Toys and Cuts
NY City Explorers
NY Kids Club
NYC School Help
Park Slope Pediatric Dental
Perfect Capture
Red Moon Massage Therapy
Renew Physical Therapy
Ruckus Mobile Media
Salon 718
Soho Parenting
Stroller Strides
Tribeca Parenting
UPPAbaby
Urban Clarity
Wooly Boo

Storing this sex talk for later

I was just talking to a Mommy friend about the fact that one day, not too many years from now, we will need to have the sex talk with the kids. I guess the experts would probably say it will be a series of sex talks but just thinking about the inaugural one has me quaking in my boots. We were trying to think of what we'd say, how we'd make a justifiable case to wait. Then last night, I was watching Glee - not usually my go-to source for parenting advice and inspiration -- and I heard THE BEST EVER sex talk, given by a dad to his gay, virgin son.

And he said:

"When you're intimate with someone in that way you are exposing yourself - you are never going to be more vulnerable. You gotta know that it means something - it is doing something to you, to your heart, to your self esteem, even if it feels like you are just having fun. I want you to use it as a way to connect to another person. Don't throw yourself around like you don't matter. Because you matter."

Spot-on. Totally writing this on an index card and saving it til I need it.

Mom Watson

One of the best things about my son is his sense of humor. Both my kids, in fact, are super high- maintenance and hard to manage, but the upside is, they're fucking hilarious. And I'm the kind of girl that can forgive a lot when I'm laughing.

Recently, Primo has created what I think is my all-time favorite Primo expression.

"Wow honey, how'd you make that tower so fast?"

"Elementary, my dear Mommy."

"How will you do your homework and play video games, too, before bed?"

"Elementary, my dear Mommy."

"How are you going to make a real, live clone with my hair strand?"

"Elementary, my dear Mommy."

Never gets old.

If I knew where to get one, I'd totally buy him a pipe and woolen cap, just for my own diversion.

Snow White Adventure Birthday

When I asked Sec what kind of a birthday party she wanted, the answer did not surprise me. It would be a Snow White Birthday. But I dared to dream that there was a way to throw a Snow White Birthday that didn't make me feel like I was Disney's bitch.I'm not sure I succeeded, but I did manage to nearly die trying, and to throw a pretty pretentious princess party. So for that, I do deserve credit.

Thus the "Snow White Adventure Party" was born.

First, we gave the kids feral animal masks, to pretend they were the wild beasts who nearly tore SW to pieces in the Enchanted Forest:

Then I invited children to consult, if they were so inclined, our library of Snow White tales from around the world (they were NOT so inclined):

Then I cracked open the craft box and things started hopping. I don't have pictures of this stuff because I was too frantic running around and making sure the children had enough adhesive rhinestones and the like. But I will tell you what I learned: the only thing four and five year old girls want at a party is more and more surfaces on which to spread glitter glue. I handed them each a magic mirror to decorate, some string on which to put Fruit Loops for an edible necklace, and then, I handed over the crowns made out of poster board which I had spent LITERALLY hours drawing and cutting out by hand. The reason it took hours is that I am nota very talented artist and I don't have a very good sense of perspective. So it took going through several sheets of poster board - all the while, worrying about how I'm murdering trees with each artistic failure - before I got a decent crown to use as a template. So I cut out exactly enough crowns for each kid and basically had to tell them, as I handed them out, "This will be your one and only shot at this. Don't fuck it up, now."

We did some games:

Duck Duck Dwarf
Pass the Poison Apple
Potato Sack Race (yeah, that one wasn't themed but I has the sacks, so what the hell?)
And of course. . .
Pin the crown on Snow White.

Then it was time for party bags, in which I placed a printed copy of the original Grimm's fairytale (I'm shocked I didn't get more emails from irate parents whose kids woke in the wee hours with nightmares). I then gave the kids the materials to act out their own AUTHENTIC Snow White tale - with laces to suffocate each other with, apple to choke on, and a "poison" hair comb. At first, I didn't include parentheses around the word "Poison" but then I panicked that parents might think it was actually poison and try to sue me or something. Candy bracelets and pixie sticks need no justification, ever.




But no party would be complete without a cake that took me half the night to create but looked as if a child had done it. This time, I was fixated on making a special glass coffin cake with Snow White lying dead on top, and the dwarves keeping guard. Finally, I thought of the perfect way to do it -- the butter dish:


And so, another overblown theme party is behind me. Next year, I swear I'm putting on a movie and serving popcorn. End of story.

Read this and you'll never use the word again

We’ve probably all used the word “retarded” before, particularly in those teen years where our vocabulary gets boiled down to 100 words or less, all of them crass and unimaginative. But, I assure you, after you’ve read this post on the blog Love That Max, you never will again.

Thanks to Ellen, for so eloquently and powerfully bringing her story to light and for making me think, for once, that Twitter might be a force of good and not just something invented to annoy and elude me.

Its just a homemade pinata, whatevs . . .

I am not a crafty person, at least not in the good-with-a-glue-stick sense. In the sly and clever sense, I do qualify but that's a different blog post. Though I am not arts-and-crafty by nature, a few times a year, I strive to be. These are typically Christmas-time (refer to Time to Make the Stockings for evidence) and birthday party time.

Sec just turned four, which means it is party time again. And this year, I decided to make a pinata. A poison apple pinata, naturally, to fit the theme of her Snow White Adventure party. I knew this would be a long shot for us but as Sec's party was at the end of Mid-Winter Break, where we holed up in New Jersey doing nothing for nearly a week, I figured we'd have plenty of down-time to work on it. Plus, it wasn't a pirate or a castle or a double helix or anything - how hard cold it be to make an apple out of paper mache?

I figured it would be a fun, multi-sensory activity for the children and I to do together. The kind of activity I imagine myself doing with the kids in my daydreams where I am Mother Superior. As I set up the materials, and the children waited eagerly, with their sleeves rolled, I found myself wondering why I didn't undertake this kind of activity more often.

In the first minute of two of the activity, as Primo dipped his hands in the flour/ water mixture and a feeling of Earth Mother-ness suffused the scene, I resolved to be more adventurous about crafts

And then four minutes later, I took it all back. After laying on about three strips of newspaper, the kids decided it was a total borefest and I found myself alone, looking at a good hour or two worth of work. The worst part was, the kids had made such an infernal mess and fought so bitterly in those five minutes, that I actually felt RELIEVED that they ran off.


It didn't turn out half bad though:


I know it doesn't look like a poison apple, but it does, you must admit, look strikingly like a poison pear, could pears ever be blood-red. In any event, you get the idea. And it was operational and managed to hold the weight of Whoppers, Lemon Drops, Sour Straws and the other junk I found at the Dollar Tree to fill it with.

You could say, mission accomplished. Or you could say, that's a great idea I'll never do again.

Bob Marley’s on the Tangled soundtrack. Sure, why not?

Like many four year-old girls, Seconda is newly obsessed with Tangled, the new Disney movie about Rapunzel. It has even overtaken her Snow White obsession, and for the most part that’s not a bad thing. I mean, Tangled isn’t really any less offensive from a feminist point of view – sure, Rapunzel's not a total moron like Snow White, and she knows how to knock a guy unconscious with a frying pan – but a dashing stranger still ends up rescuing the damsel in distress, and in the process, wins her hand in marriage. So its not like some big improvement to have replaced one Disney fairytale with another, There is, however, one way in which Tangled is a real improvement and that is in terms of the music. Look, no one’s going to deny "Heigh-Ho" and "Whistle While you Work" are catchy ditties but those are two out of a dozen songs on the soundtrack which Sec has been insisting we listen to for months. The soundtrack is mainly background music, with lots of villainous swells and string instruments chirping away frantically like the bids of the forest. There's one ballad thrown in, sung in Snow White’s I-just-sucked-helium voice, which goes "I’m wishing/ I’m wishing/ for the one I love/ to find me/ to find me/today.” Not the kind of lyric or melodic complexity to sustain repeat listening. That's a nice way to say after you hear it three times in a row, you start fantasizing about a bear happening into the scene and attacking that pale, puny princess.

The Tangled soundtrack, featuring the vocal stylings of Mandy Moore, is pretty much pop crap, yes, but its nice-sounding pop crap, with creative rhymes. The best part is litening to Seconda belt out those ballads full on American Idol-style, with her vibratto shaking the walls of the car and her soft whisper quavering at all the right emotional places: ‘And at LAAAAAAAST I see the liiiiiights and the fog has somehow (whisper) lifted/ and its WAAARM and rel and BRIIIIIIGHT!" If Star Search was still on the air, Sec would be THERE.

But even Seconda accompanying Mandy Moore gets old after about two hours. So last weekend, when we were driving home from New Jersey, after we’d heard “At Last I see the Lights” at least five times, I surreptitiously selected Legend by Bob Marley on the iTouch, and “Is This Love?” started playing.

"Hey! This isn't TANGLED!" she observed.

"It isn't?" I asked.

"No, its not!"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," But she didn't seem convinced. So rapacious is her love for the soundtrack that I could tell she was falling prey to the powers of wishful thinking, allowing herself to believe it was possible.

"Maybe its the bonus tracks!" I suggested.

"This doesn't sound like Tangled," she noted, but she was listening, now, with interest.

"But its about love!" I said, really selling it now. "Maybe its about how Flynn Rider and Rapunzel are wondering if its love that they are feeling."

She considered, quietly. The song finished, and “No Woman, No Cry” came on.

"Is this from Tangled too?" she asked.

"Could be," I said, "Maybe its Flynn telling Rapunzel not to cry, because she can bring him back to life with her golden tears."

And in thi way, we listened to half of Legend. Is there a better testament to how universal Bob Marley's lyrics are, that you can connect each of the songs to the 2010 Disney remake of Rapunzel?

By hook or by crook, baby.