If your house is a mess, read this and you'll feel better

When I saw this photo in the Huff Post, I thought, "Hey, my dresser. Why is a picture of my dresser online?" and then I had to read on, because I wanted to know more about the person who has a dresser that looks as deranged and ransacked as mine, and who feels comfortable posting that picture on the world wide web. So I read What Normal Looks Like, and now I'm sharing it. You're welcome.

Too often when I read pieces about parenting, they give me either a headache or a panic attack.  This one, however, did neither. It made me laugh and it made me feel relieved. It injected a healthy and much-needed dose of sanity into my day. Because I am the person who greets you at the door, wildly apologizing for the state of my house, except my house is not immaculate, it's actually filthy. Guests will actually brush crumbs off my bar stools. They will step on tiny Legos and cry out in pain. They will need to wait for a glass of water while I wash them a cup from the overflowing pile in the sink. They will not be able to stop themselves from taking a paper tower and just wiping down the counter because it will only take a second to dispose of the dried Rice Krispies and then they can focus on the conversation.

My apartment is so frequently such a sty that my husband and I refer to it as Das Messen Haus which is  in no way correct German, but a term we invented to add some humor and tension relief into the air because when we look at the state of our house we are, basically, always horrified.

I've written about having people over at my messy house before -- My House is A Pigsty, anyone? It's a problem I can't solve until I  A. have less kids living in my tiny apartment or B. have  enough money to pay for a housecleaner. So, what I really need is permission to let myself off the hook, and assurance that other people are in the same filthy boat. I need this:

"Normal: There is a room in your house that always stays cluttered and messy, and much like Lady Macbeth's hands, will never be clean.

Normal: Your kids' bath toys are right where they left them after the bathwater drained

Normal: Cups and cups and cups. Everywhere. All the time."

Elizabeth Broadbent, you are cordially invited over to play at my place. Just don't wear dry-clean-only clothes.

De-cluttering with a second grader, and other oxymorons

I don't know what came over me yesterday. Maybe it was the cold that kept me at home all morning. Maybe the extra 30 minutes of sleep gave me vaulting ambition. But whatever combination of well-intentioned but woefully delusional forces contributed to the lunacy, I decided to get Seconda to de-clutter. I told her we were going to go through her toys and edit. We were going to downsize. When none of these euphemisms rang any bells, I told her we were going to give away some of her toys.

"NO!" she shrieked, "I need them."

"You couldn't possibly need all of them," I said. "Let's just take a look and see."

I started with her stuffed animals. In fact, I started and ended there because it took over an hour and by the time we were done, all my ambition was used up and I was dying to flee the apartment, no matter how cold the temperature.

Seconda's a stuffed animal person. They just never did it for Primo, but they hit that sweet spot for Seconda. They are the only kind of toys she ever really wants and she wants them, passionately, desperately. She carries a stuffed animal with her wherever she goes, including in her backpack at school, and grocery shopping and swimming and playdates and airplanes and EVERYWHERE.

She currently has three good-sized Ikea boxes full of stuffed animals and lately, there's been overflow. I'm not getting any more boxes to house any more stuffed creatures. So some of them have to go, I told her.

But which?

I held up a white Beanie Boo of the feline persuasion.

"Not Bianca! She's the only Italian cat I have!"

"Can't any of them be Italian?" I ask.

She didn't even dignify that inquiry with a response.

I held up a filthy brown cat we got at a toy swap five years ago, It was old and filthy even then and being carried around constantly and left in a burger joint in New Jersey for two weeks didn't not make it any less worn.

"Mom! That's Siamesey! It's the only Siamese cat I have!"

Incorrect, actually. I held up another Siamese cat as proof, but she just replied that THAT was a long haired Siamese and the other was SHORT HAIRED. Duh.

"What about this?" I asked, holding up one of at least four white fluffy non-named cats with no particular ethnic origin or sentimental backstory.

"But you gave me that!" she protested.

"But I gave ALL of these to you!" I protested back.

We couldn't give away the ones from her grandparents, or the ones won at the festival, or the ones her friends gave her for her birthday. We couldn't even give away the one she found in a giveaway box on the street.

"I just found that one!"

"Two months ago! And you haven't even played with it once!"

In the end, she OKed the release of one Beanie Boo penguin who she had covered in duct tape before learning the lesson that duct tape never comes off plush animals, ever. Who would want such an animal, I don't know. He looks like a penguin POW. It's pretty disturbing.

So, the fall cleaning was not a success. Except that my daughter's reconnected with all her beloveds. And I've learned that next time, I'll have to de-clutter when she's not looking.

Our Mommy Problem

I read a fantastic, very insightful essay in the NY Times yesterday, called the Our Mommy Problem;  it speaks to a lot of issues, really, but mostly, it reflects on the extent to which motherhood has become an identity, one which, it's assumed, defines and consumes us to the exclusion of everything else. I love this bit:

"We are outclassed at every turn. We are outspent and out-helicoptered and outnumbered. It used to be good enough just to keep your house from being coated in a thin layer of dog hair and human feces."

Yes! Yes! A thousand times yes!

But this is really the bottom line:

"Somehow, as we’ve learned to treat children as people with desires and rights of their own, we’ve stopped treating ourselves and one another as such. But that’s not hard to understand when the reigning cultural narrative tells us that we are no longer lively, inspired women with our own ideas and emotions so much as facilitators, meant to employ at all times the calm, helpful tones of diplomats."

As a mother who beats herself up about her seeming inability to employ those calm, helpful, diplomat tones, I'm grateful to Heather Havrilesky for opening up a discussion about what motherhood means, and what it doesn't necessarily.

To paraphrase one of my favorite songs from the late 80s:

"My first name ain't Mommy. It's Janet. Miss Jackson if you're nasty."

Mo' potty, mo' problems

 The good news is: we've finally gotten Terza to use the potty.

The additional good news: the kid is very intent on cleaning up after herself.

The bad news: that involves her emptying out her own potty. Which is the grossest mess ever.

The word shitstorm comes to mind.

It's tough because I don't want to discourage my self-starter from following through, flexing her independence muscles and aspiring to good hygiene. Nether do I want to have a Slip 'N Slide: Piss Edition experience every time I enter my bathroom.

She's so terrifically proud of herself:

"Mommy, I used the POTTY!!" she shrieks, running pantless into the kitchen.

I freeze in place, usually in the middle of draining the pasta for mac n' cheese.

"That's great, honey," I manage positively enough: "Let me come see."

The Jaws soundtrack plays as I follow her down the hallway to the bathroom, silently repeating the mantra, "Please let it be pee. Please let it be pee."

"See Mommy?" she announces: "I put it in the big potty!"

By which she means, she deposited 10% of whatever was collected in the potty into the toilet. The rest is scattered all over the floor, running down the front of the toilet and, somehow, splashed over the side of the adjoining sink.

"Honey," I sigh: "I've told you already. Mommy needs to empty the potty. Thank you for your help but you are not allowed to empty the potty. Mommy does it. Mommy. Not Terza. Mommy. Got it?"

Then, as I mop bodily fluids off the floor, we role play what she'll do next time she uses the potty and she obligingly pretends to call out, "MOMMY! You have to empty the potty!" and I think she's got it. And then an hour later, we repeat the scene all over again.

Clearly, she needs more supervision in the bathroom. Clearly, I cannot provide it. There's homework to help with and dinner to make and emails to respond to and the other messes Terza makes to clean up.

What I should do is build her gross motor skills so as to improve her accuracy. Have her practice pouring cups of water into a bowl, until her percentage in/ percentage out ratio tips. or else just cover the bathroom in garbage bags.

Sexy Chucky: or, I had a rage fit at the Halloween store

A few weeks ago, I took the kids to our local pop-up Halloween store. We already had a costume for Terza -- Max from the Wild Things, handmade by my grandmother years ago. Primo had decided to make his own costume, as he is won't to do. Seconda had decided on her costume, too -- Princess Bubblegum, the royal scientist from Adventure Time, which I OKed. We popped into the pop-up store because she'd seen the costume in their window but alas, they were sold out, and we'd need to wait a day or two for them to replenish their supply. I was ready to leave, but the kids, of course, wanted to browse. They wanted to see what was on offer.

Since this isn't my first time at the rodeo, I know what'll be on offer. For the boys, there'll be all manner of monsters and homicidal maniac costumes, lots of blood dripping and exposed brain matter and demonic grins. For the toddlers, there will be animal and princess costumes. And for my seven year-old daughter, there will be a large assortment of shit.

Because she's only seven, her store-bought costume options are not exclusively shit yet. They are mostly shit, with a slim selection of non-indecent choices, like Princess Bubblegum, or the Athena costume we got last year. She rocked that floor-length number, swinging a large silver foam sword (Athena was the goddess of battle strategy, in addition to wisdom, you know). Since she's big for her age, and likes her apparel loose and roomy, she wears size 8 or 10 and when you get to size 8, and definitely size 10, you are staunchly in sexy costume territory. Lest you think I am exaggerating, check out this piece on the Huff Post which compares the "child" version of costumes with "tween" versions.

So, walking in the store, I know what'll line the aisles. There'll be the popular cartoon character costumes, lots of My Little Ponies and a whole bunch of Monster High ladies (don't get me started on these, just refer to this piece I wrote for Babble last year about the dolls). There'll be a few select historical options, like Cleopatra. There will be a handful of animal costumes, though these won't be full-body plush suits, of the ilk available for the two year-old; instead they'll be headbands with animals ears adhered, leotards and adorable, tutu-style mini-skirts chockful of furbelows. I've never seen a mouse wearing a tutu, but that is clearly beside the point.

And then there's the rest. Seconnda pretty much aged out of the regular princess category - Cinderella ate my daughter when she was three and then, at about age six, she spit her out. Princesses are still an option for her at Halloween time, though in her size, we are faced mostly with Sexy Princesses. To make a Sexy Princess outfit, you just take a regular princess gown and hack off three feet of material so that is reaches to the child's mid-thigh. The knee-high boots don't come included of course, but the packaging suggests they'll be the perfect accessory. The packaging also shows you how to rock the sexy princess look - a hand on the hip is good, hip cocked up is even better. Don't forget the alluring smirk, the hallmark of all sexy princesses.

But wait! It's not just princesses! You can be a sexy ANYTHING. Just elevate the hemline and stick the hooker boots on and bam, Minnie Mouse is now . . . Streetwalker Mouse. 

Look, I was prepared for the shockingly over-sexualized girl costumes. But being prepared did not prevent me from being mad. I was irate. I fantasized about grabbing all the floozy kid costumes and flinging them to the floor screaming to no one in particular: "YOU ARE SELLING STRIPPER OUTFITS TO CHILDREN! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! HAVE YOU NO DECENCY?? REMOVE THIS APPALLING SHIT IMMEDIATELY."

Then Seconda interrupted my fury reverie by gasping: "Oh, Mommy, look! It's a Sexy Chucky Costume! That is SO inappropriate!"

I thought she was joking. It's the sort of thing that I'd thought you could only find on SNL or, maybe, Jon Stewart (did you catch the segment last year with the vagina costume? Hilarious). But, no, in fact, she was right. There was a package clearly featuring a very buxom woman with a I'm-going-to-devour-you-by-which-I-mean-your-dick-of-course look on her face. She was sporting a kind of apparel that I'm not sure there's a word for -- an overall dress so short it barely covered her ass. Knee-high stockings, obviously. And stitlletos. Oh, and the ax. 

It wasn't a kid costume (not yet, at least) but the sheer ridiculousness of a sexy Chucky costume just whipped my fury to a climax. The thing about parenting though is, you can never have the rage fit you want, when you want it. You annoyingly have to pull your shit together . . . until such a time, at least, as you can write a blog post about it.

So I laughed, and said,"Honey, that's inappropriate in so many ways I don't even know where to start." I didn't want to make a huge deal, didn't want her even paying too much attention, cluttering up her beautiful brain with so much fucking noise.

But as we walked out the store - me fuming, my daughter laughing - I thought: "How dare you, costume company? How dare you suggest to my seven year-old daughter that the thing that makes a woman of interest, what makes her worth paying any attention to is a pair of tits and a pair of legs and a hideous leer that, frankly, is going to give me nightmares. Go to hell please -- and take your abhorrent, piece-of-junk costumes with you."

This Halloween, I think I'll dress us as something really scary. I'll dress up as "Enraged Mother Costume Shopping for Her 7 Year-Old." Hell hath no fury like that, I tell you. 

Chekhov's Ace Bandage

Primo fell hard on his wrist while playing ball the other day so I bought him an ace bandage. As soon as I opened the package and found those two sharp metal teeth that secure the bandage in place, I had an uneasy feeling.

There is no way these do not end up embedded in the sole of my foot, is what I thought. The possibility of them sticking into Terza, or Seconda or Primo's foot is also pretty high, and it's also perfectly feasible they'll end up somewhere worse, like our cheeks -- either the ones of our face or ass.

"When you're done with this, make sure you put these teeth somewhere safe," I instructed Primo.

"Sure," he said. By which he meant, "What you said."

When I woke the next morning, I found the ace bandage in a tangle on my desk with absolutely no metal teeth anywhere in sight.

"Primo!" I said, "Where are the metal teeth?"

As if that was a fruitful inquiry.

I had him move the couch and move the desk and look under all the furniture and his search revealed nada. Then I took the cushions off the couch and removed everything from my desk but, alas, the metal teeth were totally MIA.

"It's like Chekhov's gun," I told David. "I know those metal teeth will re-appear. It's only a matter of where and when and what part of my body they'd adhere to."

That's kids, for you. Adding a touch of spice and anxiety into your every day.

Tyrannical two year-olds

Two year-olds are tyrannical. You can set limits and collaboratively problem-solve and you can over-ride their protests, lifting them out of the playground kicking and screaming. But that doesn't change the fact that they act, nearly all the time, like overlords.

Last week, I was carrying Terza home on my shoulders while Primo pushed the empty stroller beside me. This is a near-daily occurrence. Terza doesn't like riding in her stroller but she also doesn't like walking. She's big enough that I can't carry her for more than a few blocks, so I frequently end up putting her on my shoulders. Of course, sitting perched up high opens up a whole new world of temptations for her. One of her favorite is grabbing the sunglasses off my face and hitting hem about the head with them. Because I'm the kind of person who likes to learn from my mistakes, whenever possible, I now remove my sunglasses from my face when she's on my shoulders, and I place them handing from the collar of my shirt, where they are, presumably, more safe.

So there we are last week, with Terza craning her neck and leaning over to grab my glasses, and finding them missing. Then she locates them hanging off my collar and is full of questions. Well, only one question, repeated with an impressive amount of persistence.

"Do your sunglasses hurt you, Mommy? Do they hurt? Do they Mommy? Do they? Do they hurt you?"

"Are you asking me if my sunglasses are hurting me?" I ask, because, you know, it makes absolutely no sense.

"Yes. Do they hurt you?"

"No." I answer, glad that it's a simple question with a reassuring response.

"NO, MOMMY!" she wails.

I repeat my reassurance because I think she hasn't heard: "Honey, it's OK. They do not hurt me."

And she wails, "No, Mommy! I want your sunglasses to hurt you!"

There is only one thought a mother could possibly think when hearing such a thing, and that is: "What. The. Fuck?"

"MOMMY!" she wails, as if I've really disappointed her.  Since she's sitting on my shoulders, she is wailing directly into my ear and it is unbearably loud.

I consider doing the whole "Cut that out right now or I'm putting you down" thing where I put her down and she cries for 10 minus on the street while my big kids whine about how they are bored of standing on the street watching Terza scream and then eventually she calms down, so I put her back on my shoulders and within 30 seconds, she resumes whatever infernal behavior got her in trouble to begin with. I calculate that we are only two blocks from home and decide I don't have the time to "address" her shitty behavior. Instead, I will use the shortcut method which involves just telling her whatever the hell she needs to hear to make her stop causing adult onset hearing loss in me.

"OK, ok, fine. My glasses hurt me, ok? They hurt. Are you happy?"

She considers for one blissful quiet moment before crumpling up in hears over my head, throwing my balance off.

"Mommy!! I don't want your eyeglasses to hurt you!"

"Are you saying you WANT them to hurt or you DON'T want them to hurt?"

But at this point, she is just saying WAHHHHH and AHHHHH and MAHHHH.

Meanwhile, Primo, behind the empty stroller, is cracking up.

"She is one crazy baby," he concludes. I have to concur. This much, at least, is very clear.