How to Feel Like a Supermom: Halloween Version

A few months after Seconda was born, when Primo was about two and a half, we took a road trip, and during this road trip, we pulled over to eat the sandwiches I’d packed at a New Jersey rest stop. I don’t always have the foresight or energy to pack sandwiches and often we just drive and drive with whining children and rumbling stomachs, looking for someplace that isn’t McDonald’s, finding nothing and finally stopping at McDonald’s, over-hungry and a somewhat guilty. But on this occasion, I had packed sandwiches and it was a beautiful day so we ate outside. I was playing with the kids, tickling them or pretending to eat them or something and I noticed a mom nearby with her baby, watching us. Not in a creepy way. In an admiring way.

Then the mom talked to me.

“You’re such a great mom,” she said. “You’re so fun.”

I didn’t want to mislead the lady so I quickly disabused her of the notion that I was always this great. I told her that the kids drive me nuts and I don’t feel so “fun” when I’m yelling at them like a harpie. Then we talked about her baby and exchanged mom notes and went back in our cars to reach our separate destinations.

I’m not the sort of person that gets frequently admired – like an astronaut, or a doctor or a mother of triplets – so her compliment made quite an impression on me. I’ll admit it, I treasured it. I milked it, too, reminding David every five minutes in that car ride that I was a “great mom” and wasn’t he lucky to have landed someone as “fun” as me, someone so fun, in fact, a perfect stranger could not help but comment on it. It still gives me a little buzz to recall. Our job is so thankless in so many ways, so much self-sacrifice is involved, and all you typically get from strangers is reprimands, head-shakes, tsk tsks and other despicable gestures of judgment with the clear message,

“You suck.”

I was thinking of this Rest Stop Good Samaritan this week because it occurred to me that while I couldn’t be a SuperMom, there are certainly moments or things I do that make me feel like a SuperMom. Short-cuts, of you will. Little things with big payoff. It’s similar to my strategy for looking hot. There is just no damn way right now that I can go to the gym, I’ve tried and I just can’t make it work. But if I put on a really great dress that’s cut just right, well, I won’t be any thinner but I’ll look thinner and feel hotter. Illusion it may be but hey, there’s nothing wrong with that.

So in the spirit of magic tricks, I offer you –

Tip No. 1 for Feeling Like a SuperMom

Let your kid costume you for Halloween.

That’s right, tomorrow, for the first time in years, I’m wearing a costume. It wasn’t my idea. Primo planned our family costume last March, when his spook obsession first developed. I thought he’d forget about it by Halloween by as capricious as kids are, they have some ideas with staying power. So this year, David will be Frankenstein and I will be, who else? His bride. I bought the wig which seriously is so tall that I can hardly keep my head straight. And today I am going to spend much too much time scrounging around for some facsimile of a bridal dress in my closet. For a minute I thought about wearing my actual wedding dress but then the reason I was born returned to me. So, I’m dressing up tomorrow and it better make me feel like a SuperMom, to combat the searing embarrassment.

Now, that I think about it, I should re-title this tip: Tip No. 1 for Me to Feel A Little Less Lonely in my Douchiness.

What is it with kids and Vaseline?

The other day I used some of this fine petroleum jelly to aid Seconda with some . . . diaper distress – note my careful avoidance of TMI here – and as I popped off the lid I saw her little eyes shift over to the tub of Vaseline and I saw the thought written there, as clear as if it were in 20 point Arial font on my computer screen,

“I have got to get into that shit.”

I understood that she would not rest until she had been reunited with that petroleum jelly, on her own terms, without my supervision. And yet, despite this assurance, I put the damn thing back in the low shelf in our bathroom.

Less than an hour later, I called for my daughter, to no response.

Then I shouted her name with extra force and I heard her squeaky voice call out from the bathroom: “I can’t.”

“WHY can’t you come here?” I asked.
“I -- can’t.” she repeated, and she sounded muffled, like she was in a compromised position.

There she was, crouched over something in the cabinet, like a feral animal nursing a wound. When I pulled her out, she, of course, had Vaseline all over her. And all over the contents of the cabinet, the shelves and extra toilet paper rolls and sample shampoos and bandaids. Everywhere.

Funny thing about Vaseline. It doesn’t wash off. Not remotely. I learned this only after dragging my daughter to the sink in a farcical Sumo-typr wrestling match with her slipping out of my grasp and darting back over to the Vaseline like some kind of junkie.

Fun way to spend an afternoon.

Spooky Spoofs

I don’t have many fields of expertise and certainly very few that are useful to anyone. But if you and your child love Halloween or spooks generally, and if you and your child want to see these spooks appear in spoofs of famous children’s literature, than doggoneit, I’m your woman. Primo and I have read so many of these spooky spoofs that I wrote a short article about my favorite ones for Time Out NY Kids which you can read by clicking here. All of them are one hundred percent amomamok-approved for quality. Just in time for Halloween. . .

Sunday: a love story

I know all I write about it kids and poop and tantrums and I know that you, faithful and devoted readers with exceptionally good taste, never tire of these subjects which are endlessly fascinating. But this Sunday was so lovely and I was thinking about how great Sundays can be and I remembered this poem I read in a poetry class in college, by Gwendolyn Brooks, about the kind of Sunday you used to have, before kids. There are several reasons I love Gwendolyn Brooks and the first reason is that she reads her poems like she means it, and not in the usual staccato, totally lifeless, nasally voice most poets read their work that puts way too much emphasis on their peculiarly-placed line breaks. Brooks performs her poems, which is to say, delivers the lines with flourish and feeling -- almost sings the poems, really -- and she has a very pronounced lisp which is incredibly endearing. You can hear her if you listen to that poetry collection I am always going on about, Poetry Speaks to Children - she's on the CD. But the real reason I love Brooks is she knows how to make a poem that punches you in the gut -- in a good way. She puts things in such a way that you have to wonder, "Why don't we ALWAYS use the expression a 'limping afternoon' or 'my heart playing hopscotch'?" She gets it just right. See for yourself.

when you have forgotten Sunday: the love story

by Gwendolyn Brooks

—And when you have forgotten the bright bedclothes on a Wednesday and a Saturday,

And most especially when you have forgotten Sunday—

When you have forgotten Sunday halves in bed,

Or me sitting on the front-room radiator in the limping afternoon

Looking off down the long street

To nowhere,

Hugged by my plain old wrapper of no-expectation

And nothing-I-have-to-do and I’m-happy-why?

And if-Monday-never-had-to-come—

When you have forgotten that, I say,

And how you swore, if somebody beeped the bell,

And how my heart played hopscotch if the telephone rang;

And how we finally went in to Sunday dinner,

That is to say, went across the front room floor to the ink-spotted table in the southwest corner

To Sunday dinner, which was always chicken and noodles

Or chicken and rice

And salad and rye bread and tea

And chocolate chip cookies—

I say, when you have forgotten that,

When you have forgotten my little presentiment

That the war would be over before they got to you;

And how we finally undressed and whipped out the light and flowed into bed,

And lay loose-limbed for a moment in the week-end

Bright bedclothes,

Then gently folded into each other—

When you have, I say, forgotten all that,

Then you may tell,

Then I may believe

You have forgotten me well.

Hot Dogs and Ghoul Masks and Books – Oh My!

I am never so glad to be a Brooklynite as on a Sunday. There is such a panorama of possibility in terms of diversion and delight, its hard to know where to start, especially on a spectacular sunny fall day. This Sunday we started at Bark, the eco-friendly haute dog joint on Bergen Street. Pork and beef blend dogs with all sorts of fresh, tasty toppings (oh, chili cheese dog, wilt thou be mine?) are so good you won’t mind paying the high prices (six bucks for a dog? Seriously?). Primo polished off a biscuit with cherry jam which he highly recommends and Seconda quite enjoyed the piping hot and greasy salt-and-pepper fries. And the best part is the whole place is green – from the wind power used to keep the lights on to the reclaimed wood communal tables to the compost receptacles. Hey, green is the new black.

Then off to the feature presentation of the day – Ghouls and Gourds at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Best damn October-fest I’ve been to in years. And the recipe for success is simple: huge, Julie Taymor-like masks and puppets that kids can crawl into. Check out my kids in these puppet pieces of art:

Icing on the cake was meeting the author/ illustrator of Primo’s favorite book: The Field Guide to Monsters. Johan Olander was delightful; he talked to Primo for a while about his process and inspiration, and let the kids draw their own monsters, some of which he’ll include on his website. Primo was really thrilled. His monster was the Zookalak, who lives in the air, eats trees and plants and looks charming, with 10,000 teeth. Then we hit the story-telling tent and heard Javaka Steptoe read a few of his books, like Rain Play and a funny collection of tongue-twisty puns he helped to illustrate called How Much Wood Could a Woodchuck Chuck? Oh, literature! Oh sunshine! Oh Brooklyn!

We've got a winner for the Big Apple Circus Giveaway!

And its . . . Meg Graham Hansen!!!!

Horray for you, Meg! You've won four free tickets to the Big Apple Circus where feats of wonder will be performed before your very eyes!

You have three days to claim the tickets before they go to the second place winner, so either post a message below, send a FB message to me, or post on the amomamok wall by Wednesday 10/ 25 at 10am, to let me know you want the tickets and we will get you all set up.

Happy Sunday!

A mish-mash of illuminating miscellany

Today I am consumed with making 4 zillion sugar cookies and chocolate chow mein spiders (don’t knock ‘em til you’ve tried ‘em) for a little Halloween party tomorrow. Because of that, today’s dose of blogness falls under the category of Miscellany.


1. Do other people find that for months and months after they move into a new place they lack items which they need for civilized life? I have been living in this apartment for three months without a toilet bowl brush, or a razor or baking soda. Since these things are never direly necessary, they never make it to my sphere of consciousness when I’m at the store and I just have to look at my toilet bowl and think, "Man, I need a toilet brush." But I have must get a razor soon because trying to hide from David the fact that I am using his razor to shear the dense growth on my legs is very stressful.

2. If you sign up for a Mommy and Me swim class, make sure you have a one-piece bathing suit before the first class. If you don’t, you’ll end up wearing a skimpy bikini that fit you five years ago when you bought it but now, after two children, looks indecent and not in a good way. And once you get over the horror of wearing it once, it will be easier to continue wearing that bikini to swim class rather than buy a suitable black one-piece like all the other sane mothers. And while your own horror at wearing the bikini will subside the horror others feel while seeing you barely contained in a stretched-out Old Navy two-piece will not diminish and you won’t stand a chance of making any Mommy friends.

3. An explosive moment in our apple-pie-baking several weeks ago made it necessary for me to explore the wonders of my "self-cleaning oven." I didn't even know I had one of these and I certainly didn't imagine it would actually clean itself, without any help OR cleaning products. Guys, its MAGIC. If you are looking for something to believe in, believe in self-cleaning ovens.

4. Does anyone know any good games for a Halloween party with a bunch of Kindergarteners and 2 year-olds in attendance? Craft project ideas are welcome, too, but make them the easy and not-so-messy kind because I’d like to avoid stepping in puddles of glitter glue for the next two weeks. Who invented glitter glue pens by the way? Who really thought that would be a good idea?