Tag: Parenting issues

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Too Much

I’m exhausted. I was thinking to myself two weeks ago that I hadn’t done much volunteering at school. And the blogging fun had died down. I was happy for the respite, but felt guilty that I wasn’t doing enough.

And then last week happened. Unfortunately, I hadn’t written down two important events that I had volunteered for when kindergarten started in September. Traffic police and school staff feeder. Traffic police is where you help keep the parents from killing each other while dropping their kids off at school, and as staff feeder you must supply snacks for the 40 plus members of the teaching staff so they don’t kill the children.

These two things were not a big deal on their own, but I also volunteered to iron smiley faces on to tshirts for my son’s theatre production. I thought it would be so easy because my friend has a professional t-shirt press, but we couldn’t coordinate our schedule so I spent several hours ironing while watching American Idol Gives Back and Food Inc. (I can’t believe I’m still eating bacon. I have to watch it again.)

But wait, there’s more. I also volunteered to host my entrepreneur group at my house. Now, out of the 6 of us in the group only myself and one other have kids. Cleaning house for people with no kids is much more time consuming than cleaning for people who are used to finding peanut butter and jelly in the couch. I mopped, vacuumed, de-stinked the furniture (I don’t know what my kids did to the couch, but it smelled like a combination of feet, cheese crackers, and oranges). Because it was my entrepreneur group I wanted the house to reflect the person I want to be, not the person I actually am. That means I had to find a place for the piles of paper, books, and mail that were scattered around the house.

Not only did I clean, but I felt compelled to cook dinner since people were coming to my house. I made the thing I make when new friends come over. Chilaquiles and beans. It’s a hit and everyone loves it (or at least they say they do…). But it requires soaking beans overnight, cooking them in the morning and then adding spices in the evening. The chilaquiles are easy except for the chopping and sautéing of the vegetables and the cutting, spraying with oil and baking of the corn tortilla strips.

Needless to say, I’m ridiculous. I have an overcooking problem. Instead of buying everything for the teachers, I bought half of it and made banana bread and cookies. I also made brownies for the theatre group. Plus I worked on Thursday and Saturday night for my baking business. And I had people over Friday night, but we just ordered takeout, thank god. Did I mention that I’m an assistant coach for the boys’ t-ball team. Saturday was picture and game day and so was my older boy’s theater production (which was fantastic!!). That night, I went to work and baked.

Sunday I had the farmers’ market, which is always a good time, and we ended the weekend at the LA Times Festival of Books, one of my favorite LA events. Good Times, exhausting, but good.

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Snacks-Not a Good Idea

This is my latest post for LA Moms Blog “A Snack Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry.” I wrote it the day before this happened:

Last week, I offered to drive my friend and her two kids with us to a playdate. If you’ve ever driven anywhere in Los Angeles on a Friday afternoon you know you have to be prepared. We were driving far, far away and into the mountains (actually a 20 mile drive, but if there had been traffic, it could have taken an hour). I had water, snacks, jackets, jammies in case we came home late. I had everything – except a plastic bag.

Looking back, giving each child their own bag of peanut butter pretzels before driving up a windy mountain road wasn’t the smartest thing I ever did. The 2-year-old strapped in his car seat illustrated this by projectile vomiting all over the backseat and even into the holes on the speaker.

Let me tell you, hearing a bunch of kids whine that they need a snack is much better than cleaning puke out of speaker holes. I think I might be done with snacks forever.

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got milk?

As I said in my previous post, 2010 is looking a lot like 2009. Just like last year, I made a poor parenting decision so my kids and I could go to a fun blogger party.

Yesterday I took my boys to the W Hotel in Westwood and we hung out with celebrities instead of going to basketball practice. It might sounds bad and that’s because… it was bad! My older son is not the most accomplished basketball player and of all of his teammates he was probably not the one who should miss practice. I thought we would just be a few minutes late, instead we missed the entire thing. Did I mention I’m an assistant coach? Yep, not good. (But he’s 5 and the party had Legos! And an ice skating rink!)

Anyway, the event was to announce the new got milk? ad with Rebecca Romijn and her twin daughters. (The sign is held here by Romijn’s husband, Jerry O’ Connell, who is delightful), and to kick off a program that will give away 200,000 gallons of milk. And, if you go on Facebook and pass a virtual gallon of milk, $1 will go to Feeding America.

So really, we were helping to spread the message that milk is good for families. Actually, the 5-year-old who suddenly stopped drinking milk last year, drank two jugs of it. Oh, right. It was chocolate milk. But it’s still milk.

Both my boys ended up having a lot of fun. They were able to try ice skating for the first time (in 75 degree weather) and take the Lego’s home. We did manage to get some basketball in today. To make up for missing practice I made the 5-year-old play with me for an hour. He did a great job! I think it was the one on one attention. Right.

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Our Disney Week

This was the reluctant week of Disney for my two boys. It started when I dragged them to see the Princess and the Frog and ended at the Staples Center watching Disney on Ice.

It was not easy to get my boys to these two events. I really, really wanted to see the Princess and the Frog. I had read that it was like an old-school Disney movie with hand-drawn animation and great music. I showed my boys a preview online and the 4-year-old laughed hysterically. The 5-year-old was not impressed. “I don’t want to see it,” he declared with a vehemence he usually reserves for talking about Star Wars. “I only like Red Eyed Tree Frogs.”

Translation: “I don’t like Princesses.” But he knew better than to say that he doesn’t like girls, or even princesses in front of me. I knew they would like it if I just got them into the theater.

So I did what any loving mother would do: I tricked them. They got out early from school one day last week and I surprised them with a trip to The Grove to see Santa. If you’ve never been to The Grove, it’s an over-the-top so-totally-LA outdoor shopping mall. It has had more visitors per year than Disneyland (in 2006 according to LA Magazine) and the Christmas Tree sitting in the faux park is the tallest in LA. Santa’s house is fabulous and has about the same square footage as mine. We were lucky enough to be the third group in line and it took us only about 10 minutes to see Santa, spend too much money buying pictures and a video (why did I buy the video? why?), and get a complimentary mini bag of mini marshmallows.

That left us the rest of the afternoon. “Look, a movie theater,” I said to them in a surprised voice. “I..am..not..seeing..that..movie,” my 5-year-old said. Come on! It’s going to be great. There are alligators, fireflies, Cajun music, voodoo. It’s going to be great!! I bought a giant bag of popcorn and dragged them kicking and whining into the movie. The first 15 minutes the whining continued but by the end, both boys were laughing and they both said they loved it. And so did I.

By Thursday, our crazy week of holiday activity was literally making me ill. I had baked all night Saturday, did a farmers market and catered a party Sunday, made 150 cookies on Monday, did a cooking demo at 5-year-old’s school Tuesday, tried to clean my house and get work done on Wednesday. On Thursday, I was sick.

But I was given 4 free tickets to see Disney on Ice Worlds of Fantasy at the Staples Center and had committed to going. Other than seeing Santa, we hadn’t had much holiday fun this season. I didn’t tell the boys what we were doing until that afternoon, but I said it was going to be great!! We listened to Christmas music during the long drive downtown and oohed and aahed at the holiday lights around the Staples Center.

I hadn’t been to an ice show in decades and I didn’t know what to expect, although I admit my expectations were pretty low. The show started with Mickey,Minnie, Goofy, and Donald skating and then the Cars drove onto the ice. There was a cute Little Mermaid segment and then came the best part of the whole show, The Lion King. The skating was amazing.

The second half was a bit confusing for me because I’ve never seen the Tinker Bell movies. I couldn’t figure out why Tinker Bell came out looking like a cross between Brittany Spears and a buxom Goldie Hawn from “Laugh In”. She eventually changed into Tinker Bell. None of that mattered because it made perfect sense to my boys. Near the end my 5-year-old yelled that he had to go to the bathroom and ended up getting sick (might have had something to do with the slushy and fries at 8:30 at night). When he came back I asked him if he was okay and all he could say was, “How did Tinker Bell save Spring?” Good Times.

Yes, our Disney week was a success.

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Dad is Great!

Up until about a year ago, my life was all about my kids. I was a 24/7 stay at home mom. I didn’t have much of a life outside my house.

Then all at once I became really busy. I started a blog and a business. Suddenly I had so much to do I had no time to think about how everything was changing.

I like that I have my own life now, but I feel like I’ve completely lost control of my family. My husband used to be a weekend dad who worked until late at night or go out of town several times a month. Now that I’m working more he has stepped up and taken a bigger role in the parenting.

He’s a great dad, but let’s just say he has a different style.

When I went to Blogher in Chicago this summer my husband had the kids for less than 48 hours. I think they spent 24 of those 48 hours playing Wii and they managed to eat at In n Out or Islands several times.

Since then, it’s been “Dad is great. Give us the chocolate cake.”

Not that I’m competing, but how can I compete with that? I only let them play Wii for a couple of hours on Saturday and I won’t let them go to McDonald’s and I don’t even want them to eat beef more than once a week.

My husband has been spending so much time with the kids on the weekend that if I go to get in the car with them the boys look at me and say, “Are you coming?” And then look a little disappointed when I say yes. Because it usually means no In-N-Out chased by ice cream or cookies at Diddy Riese. (My husband can’t have gluten so he HAS to eat there because he can get a lettuce wrap hamburger and gluten-free fries.)

In my attempt to be the cool parent for the Veteran’s Day school holiday I told them right up front that if they went with me to the Science Center I would get them McDonald’s. Yes, McDonalds. I already had a humiliating experience with a preschool parent last year about giving my kids McDonalds, so I was clearly aware that this was not a good idea.

We ran into a friend and her kids there and when she saw me she looked flabbergasted at my choice of toxins. “What are you doing?” This is wrong on so many levels, she said. She was so right and I knew it.

I really wanted to have a super fun day with the boys. I wanted them to say “Mom is great.”

Which leads me to Saturday. I got tickets to the Premiere of “Planet 51.” This would be super cool and the kids would love it. Or so I thought. When I asked the 5-year-old if he wanted to go he didn’t even have to think about it. “No,” he said. “I don’t want to miss soccer.”

In that moment I realized that someone has to be the enforcer. Someone has to make sure the kids eat fruits and vegetable and learn skills other than using a virtual light saber.

If I had thought about my kids and what was best for them and not what makes me look like fun mom, I never would have suggested it. He made a commitment to being on the team and it was his responsibility to go to all of the games.

Ugghh. Whether I’m trying to be the Enforcer or the Cool Mom, I can’t win.

On another note, The 4-year-old and I did end up going to the Planet 51 premiere Saturday. We hovered on the edge of the red carpet (which was actually green for the movie) and partook in the voluminous free junk food. My son loved the movie and I thought it was cute. I wasn’t crazy about a homophobic joke and a reference to plastic surgery. But other than that, it was good.

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Our Bad Week

I’m having one of those weeks where I feel like everyone else’s kids are angels and I’m the world’s worst mother because my kids act crazy in public.

Before this, it had seemed for a short while that we’d reached the stagethat other families talk about. That magic day when “it gets easier.” That’s what people say. “It will get easier when they’re both out of diapers,” or, “It will get easier when they start preschool,” or “It will get easier when you start drinking everyday, ” (or maybe I just say that).

This week has not been easy. It started when I took my 4-year-old with me to a meeting at the elementary school. This was for the “Green Team” that I was very excited to be a part of it. We got there and the two hosts each had a child with them, a 2ish boy and a 4-year-old girl. Their kids were sitting and being delightful; the girl read a book and the boy at quietly in his stroller.

My son, on the other hand, was jumping all over me and saying “Gum, gum, I want gum.” I, of course, forgot the gum I had promised him and he started saying (loudly) that he wanted to leave. I got him settled with a book for a few minutes and tried to listen to the organizers. My son then moved toa chair next to one of the group leaders and started making hacking noises and spat on the ground. I pulled him back and asked him what thought he was doing. “I’m pretending to throw up,” he said.

I pulled him away from the group, making a mini scene, and quietly told him it’s not OK to pretend to throw up when the world is in a panic about the pandemic flu. He just laughed.

He wasn’t laughing the next day when we caused our biggest scene of the week (at least I hope it was). At kindergarten drop off he likes to jump off one of the benches and have me catch him. I always tell him not to jump and that I have no intention of catching him. I always do. But this day, he jumped and kneed me in the stomach so I told him to stop and I turned away from him. He jumped again, missed landing on his feet and hit the ground on hisbutt/ back, hitting his head on the ground. It was loud and judging from the screaming and crying, it hurt, too. Moms from our class, from other classes, from other schools came over to us to make sure he was ok. I put an ice pack that a friend took out of her son’s lunch on his head and held him while he cried.

That made it official that I am the world’s worst mother. And for days I felt like it was true. After a tough morning of both kids fighting with each other and crying, I dropped the 4-year-old off at school feeling terrible. His teacher stopped me to talk. She told me she wished she could clone my son because he is such a good example for the other kids. Of how to throw up? I told her the story of his antics at the meeting and she didn’t believe me. No, she said. He’s so good.

Well, I guess that’s what it’s all about, right? I get all of the bad, embarrassing behavior and then when I’m not around he’s a polite young man.