Why I will watch

Much has been said over the past few weeks and months about Friday's wedding.

Every detail has been analyzed, discussed and eventually debated.

It's gotten to kind of a strange place where there are those who almost guiltily admit they will watch. Admitting that they do, in some little way, care.

And then there are those who could not care less.

But then the discussions took an almost angry turn. Many of those who didn't care picked up an edge in their tone. Some disdain. Contempt. Sometimes even anger.

"With all that is going on in the world..."

"Enough of this stupid wedding...."

To some degree they are so very right. We don't know William and Kate.

And there is a whole lot of bad going on in the world. Sadness and pain and cruelty. Disaster. And inequity. And fear.

So much that we often find ourselves a bit numb to it all.

- - - -

The last time there was a wedding like this, I was a girl like this.

I, like so many, watched the event with my family. As a little girl, I felt like most little girls probably did. I was watching a princess. A fairy tale. A dream.

Extraordinary and beautiful and magical.

But then we all grew up and found out that fairy tales, including the one we watched, weren't real.

Life had pain. And ugliness.

And princesses have pain in their lives, too. They aren't perfect. And they can't be saved by magical kisses.

- - - -

So here we are again. Facing a world that is sometimes filled with unthinkable tragedy and sadness and uncertainty.

But for a moment? Just for a moment I am going to let myself be drawn back into the fairy tale.

And perhaps, I hope, this one will have a happy ending.

The lessons we teach our children

Every day we teach our children something.

Sometimes it's the big lessons in life. Like kindness and generosity and forgiveness.

And sometimes it's the small, yet still big, ones like "Which one is worse, Mom? The F-word or the B-word?"

But this weekend? This weekend was the all important lesson...

Of how to use the light saber.

Without taking your brother's eye out.

The Easter Bunny is Creepy

Driving home last week, all three boys in the van, Caleb piped up:

Mom, kids at school say the Easter Bunny isn’t real.

Moment of panic set in.

Um, Caleb, look who you are sitting next to [for reference, that would be Eli], do you really think this is the time for this?

And then he turned my expectation of what was about to happen on it’s head as he earnestly as said,

I mean, it drives my crazy because I don’t believe them. It kind of bugs me that they do that, because I like how you think about it, Mom. As long as you believe in the idea, it will happen.

I smiled to myself and thought it all was well and good for now.

And then Noah, ever the skeptic, ever the straight shooter, piped up from the back row of the van...

I don’t know, Caleb... Santa Claus, I totally get that. Because he is like a man. But a giant bunny that walks on hind legs and can carry candy and sneaks in houses? That is just creepy and wrong.

I think it’s Santa wearing a bunny suit.

And you know? Works for me.

 Meanwhile Eli? The reason the whole conversation stressed me out? He was too busy singing "Thriller" and planning how to steal his brother's candy to notice. Afterall, as long as candy shows up, he doesn't care. And Michael Jackson dressed up as a zombie is way stranger than any walking, candy-toting rabbit.

Huffing and Puffing

Sometimes the best laid birthday dinner plans don't happen. But you realize that is just fine, because the birthday boy is perfectly happy with takeout potstickers.

And maybe you didn't exactly get a cake made. But dad did stop to pick up cupcakes.

 Which still work perfectly well for some good old huffing and puffing.

l

How many fingers?

My dear sweet Elijah...

I am afraid, I cannot let this happen.

As I have said to you all week, I am going to have to tape the rest of your fingers down. You simply can not have three fingers up. You need to stay two. Or one. Or zero.

I simply cannot let you turn three today.

Just promise me that you will never be so big that I can't carry you around and call you my baby.

I don't care how strange your future wife thinks it is.


I love you. Happy birthday.


Mom.

What to do with a wedding dress (if you are 7)

My parents are in the process of downsizing. Cleaning out. Prioritizing. Letting go of stuff.


Call it what you will. Point is they are getting rid of things.


So Sunday night, we headed over there to do what I could to help them. Meaning I showed them how to use the iPhone app to list things on Craiglist.

As we worked through the house. Couches. Tables. Chairs. Mementos. We came to the closet holding my wedding dress.

No, the closet doesn't just hold my dress. I mean, yes, it was 1996 and all, and this was a big dress. A dress that is contained in two boxes. And no, I don't quite know how one dress can be in two boxes. You know, you pay a ton of money to have it hermetically sealed and just hope they got the shrimp cocktail sauce out and call it a day. So yes, I have a huge dress in two boxes.

We keep our dresses you know. And why? No one really knows. My mother had a gorgeous dress. But I was neither thin enough nor or the right era to wear or adapt it. It's all like this myth we perpetuate to somehow make the insane amount of money we spent on them seem somewhat more okay.

And so you pay $150+ to clean and seal and keep your dress.

Maybe your daughter will wear it someday.

You could make it into a baptism gown.

Who knows, you might be famous and they will want it for a museum.

Okay, so no one said the last one to me. But I had to throw it in there.

Long story short, with the move, my parents are hoping I will take the dress (in two big, sealed boxes) and bring it to my home.

Driving home tonight, we were talking about the dress and what we might do with it.

The boys asked why we kept it and I brought up all of the aforementioned possibilities.

The "I might be famous someday" part they found particularly amusing.

And then I joked that I was pretty sure that none of them would be wearing it, right?

Caleb: No way will I ever need it. I am never getting married.


Me: Really? Never at all?


Caleb: Nope. I will never get married. I'm just going to have a Mom.


Mom: A Mom? You mean a wife or a partner?


Caleb: Yeah, not a Mom. I have one of those. Wrong word. Maybe a wife. but Noah isn't going to do that. Noah? He's just going to have a son.

Me: A son, but no mom to the son?


Noah: Yep. That stuff is all just nasty. Gross. I am not going to go and of that stuff. Nope, not me, I am not going to do it manually.

Manually? Did he just say manually?!

Clearly that was also not really what he meant. Perhaps a better word choice was needed? But the point was he said manually.

This conversation was all taking place in the car and so I had to slink down far enough in my seat to hide my hysterical giggles from being in the sight of the rear view mirror.

My kid is going to have a kid. Without a wife. But he's not going to do it manually.

Oh my. This is going to be good.

Why can't we have a pet?

A constant question in our house.

And the answers are long and legitimate.

We are gone 11+ hours a day.

Our back yard is the size of a watermelon seed spitting course. Or smaller.

I'm allergic.


I'm allergic and would have to clean up all of their stuff. And I mean "Stuff" like Cee Lo means "Forget You."

But then there was this. Flying home last night, flipping through the SkyMall magazine, I saw this. And then I knew I really had my answer.

This? This right here is why we don't have pets. Once you move past the terrifying photo, you realize that the pet community has now become as uber-competitive-about-pet-parenting as the plain old kid parenting community already was.

Really I can't do this ad more justice than it already does itself.

Two big questions:

1. Will it teach my toddler, too?

2. It doesn't say anything about teaching them how to flush. That might be a deal breaker for me.


If only I had $50 in my pocket to burn. Oh yeah, and a cat. And a whole lot of claritin.

Dear January Jones,

Can I call you Jan? Because really, I feel ridiculous calling you January. That said, I guess you really don't care what I call you in that you don't know that I exist. So we'll go with Jan.

Hey Jan. Here's the deal. I have really avoided jumping on the whole "I hate Gwyneth" bandwagon. Right now, she's the famous blonde that everyone loves to hate. And I get it. Her quotes seem pretentious. Her life unattainable. Her perception of reality not-understandable.

But I have avoided it. Frankly, I didn't care. Other than occasionally showing up on GLEE, she's really not a part of my life.

And then I was flipping through CNN online and saw this. A piece about how you don't feel that "Mad Men" pays well.

First of all, you had me at the whole, and I'll paraphrase here, "They didn't hate me because I was ugly, they hated me because I was pretty part."

Dude. That isn't something that people say. Period. (xoxo, a girl who had the pretty people be mean to her. And we weren't mean to people like you, we were terrified of people like you.)

But you had to keep talking, didn't you? You had to go on and say that you financially don't get very well paid to be on "Mad Men."

And that's when I lost it. Well, no, I didn't really lose it because I have a life and all. But seriously.  Jan, come on, my friend. This isn't a commentary on unions or anything like that. This is a OH MY GIVE ME A BREAK commentary. Maybe this is a plotted out plan to seed this in the midst of negotiations. But still.

You may work long days. Guess what, so do pilots. And nurses. And snow plow drivers. And tax accountants. And moms.

The difference? You have hair and makeup and amazing wardrobe. You have beautiful things and doors opening at every turn. And because of all of it, you have hundreds of thousands of people who adore you. And while I don't really care to do the research to find out what you make per episode, because, let's face it, I have pasta to cook and baths to run (sadly not my own) and dishes to scrape...I have heard it's in the neighborhood of at least $50,000 an episode. No, not a "Winning" salary by a long shot, but you saw what good that did Charlie Sheen.

My point? We don't care. Don't go giving interviews like that to outlets like CNN Marie Claire (I stand corrected, the interview was with Marie Claire, but CNN picked it up...point still stands). Unless of course you want the rest of us to roll our eyes every time we see you. Do you know how many people out there don't make $50,000 a year? Let alone a week? Let alone work only 22 weeks a year? Let alone look fabulous doing it?

We don't care. Yes, you happen to be on my favorite show on television. But if you are all that bitter about what you make being on it, move on. Or at least don't go making the rest of us loathe you for sounding so ridiculous.

xoxo,

Molly

P.S. If you could pass the same message along to other actors, athletes and professional sports team owners and representing organizations, I would be most appreciative. And if you do know Gwyneth, it might be worth having a chat about what the two of you can do to be less annoying to us peons. Thanks.

Don't make me turn this car around

We thought we'd treat ourselves Saturday night. All of us. Everyone quickly got cleaned up and we piled into the car heading to a family dinner out.

And for the next mile and a half, the three boys poked at, picked on, teased, annoyed, and egged on one another.

It went on and on and on. I could feel myself tensing up. Crossing my arms. Trying to keep that oh-so-sweet-but-seriously-I-mean-business voice.

Cut it out kids.

Keep your hands to yourselves.

Stop poking your brother.

We're about to go out and have a nice dinner, please let it be a nice dinner.

Stop it. I don't want to be "that family" there tonight, you guys.

Please cut it out guys or we won't go.

And then we pulled up to a stoplight. The classic brotherly behavior continued, escalated, magnified.

I quietly said to Brian, "That's it, I don't want to go."

With that, he turned on the turn signal and we headed back home. It didn't take them all long to realize that this time we were serious.

The pouting, wailing and crying began and continued all the way home. We got home and all piled right back in the house. I set about warming up kid food while Brian turned back around to go get takeout for us.

And then I looked over at Eli and saw that, in the 45 seconds we had been home, he looked like this.

Right then I knew that we won. We were right. We made the right choice.

We turned the car around and, as much as it wasn't a fun moment, it was an important one.

Sometimes this parenting thing means you eat takeout, and sleep in a chair, and have to be the bad guy. But maybe when all that happens, in the long run, you're actually the good guy.

Managing screen time

Just when you think you are doing a decent job of managing how much "screen time" your kids get. When you feel good about the fact that their friends have iPod Touches and your kids don't (and won't anytime soon). It's then that your kids get creative.

When they do this.

Start by digging in the recycling when your mom isn't looking.

Find the least smelly smelly milk carton.

Cut it apart.

Sneak a sharpie.

Viola. $2.49 iPhone.

And a million dollar perspective and imagination.

I love this kid.

The Doyenne of Domesticity

I know that I am, by now, considered a resource for all things domestic. Really the epitome of a working mom who has it all together.


What can I say. It's just where I excel. Cleaning and cooking and entertaining and dressing impeccably at the same time. It's just my sweet spot.

As you also may know, I maintain an incredibly healthy diet. Always.

So it should come as no surprise that I came home last night, and, with my coat and heels still on, put dinner in the oven and set about starting a batch of brown rice.

Because, you know, it's super healthy or something.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cue screeching horrible sound of a record player needle. And if you don't know that sound you need to leave now, I am already feeling old.

There have to be better ways to eat healthfully that don't involve brown rice.

Don't get me wrong, I love my Zojirushi rice maker. Like I sing along with it when I start it each time (yes, it sings). But I somehow missed the part where brown rice was going to take two hours to cook.

Brown rice is the enemy of working moms everywhere.

I got home at 6 and had dinner done at 8. And I was making rice.

In between? The kids got bored.

And I caved and made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And fruit salad. And eggs. And bacon. And toast. And carrots. And more fruit salad. (Hello growing boys).

Along the way, I also learned, thanks to my friends on Twitter that Trader Joe's makes a great frozen brown rice, that Costco also has a good pre-made one and that people swear by Uncle Ben's brown minute rice. So there you go, buried in my dinner debacle, a tip for you.

Oh yeah, and tomorrow? Leftovers.

Keeping up with the Joneses

A six-week long school project. Research. Book shopping. Photos. Even a trip to the zoo.


It is third grade animal research project time. And it all culminates in having to create a three-dimensional model of the animal.

The directions that came home explained that the model should be no larger than their school cubby. So, at Caleb's conference, I asked to see the cubbies so I knew what we were dealing with.

His teacher walked us out to the hallway to show us an example from a student last year.

It was a bald eagle. That. Looked. Like. It. Had. Been. Stolen...From. A. Museum.

I mean, I am sorry, I realize that this is the first time I have had a third grader. And I don't have girls. And maybe Caleb's artistic skills are more average than I think they are. But I am going to go out on a limb here and say that there is no way in the world that any third grader made this piece. It was suspended in flight. Eyes focused on its prey. Incredible detail in the color and feature texture. Soaring over its shoebox which, of course, no longer resembled a shoe box but an amazing natural field.

This wasn't the first time I have seen this. There have been science projects. Overviews of their communities. And planets.

Oh the planets.

Yes, this fall, Caleb's class had to come up with their own planets and then create three-dimensional models of those, too.

This was also the project where we learned that three-dimensional models are not my forte. And that I have no idea what I am doing when it comes to paper mache.

And that, yes, it is possible to screw it up and have it take five days to dry.

But in the end it was Caleb's project. He came up with it. He chose the materials. He put it together. Because lets face it, clearly my help really just held him back.

But I was amazed when I went to the planet day at his school. No, not by the fact that other people are horrible at paper mache, too.

But by just how many of the planets made me think, "There is no way a kid did that."

Maybe I am delusional. Maybe my creative kid who loves to make things really isn't all that.

But maybe, just maybe, there are a few too many people out there who aren't really letting their kids take the leads on their own school projects.

So this weekend, Caleb had to make his gorilla. Brian worked with him on this one (see aforementioned planet). He offered to drive him out to get Styrofoam to form the body. But Caleb refused. He knew what he wanted to do.

He's cute. He's somewhat proportional and relatively anatomically correct. (Oh yes, this is a third grade boy we are talking about, he spent plenty of time making sure he had a gorilla butt.)

He's standing on a bed of homemade play-dough. And yes, he's still wet.

But most importantly, he was made by Caleb. The kid who is in school.

I have enough Joneses to keep up with and enough Jones-ing to do. I refuse to be measured by my kids' school projects.

So this morning, we will march Mr. Gorilla in to school with pride.

Because, in my humble, inept-paper-mache-er opinion? This is what a third grade project should look like.