I Overparent. Big Picture Parenting Part 3

I overparent.

I know I have a tendency to be a helicopter mom. One of those moms who hovers over their kids making sure everyone is doing everything to help them have their best life. (Hey, I’m sorry, I watch too much Oprah.)

But today, I hit my limit.

Cuz all I do is tell my kids what to do. And all they do is ignore me. So I talk some more. And get ignored some more. Then I get pissed that they aren’t listening to me. Instead of just shutting up.

So this morning I got the message loud and clear:

We aren’t going to listen to you.
We aren’t going to find our library books.
We aren’t going to remember our lunch.
We aren’t going to turn in the library books that we did find, cuz we don’t really give a shit about the fines, even if you make us pay them. (Hey, it’s not like we sacrifice food and shelter to pay that fine.)

We are going to put our clean clothes in the hamper, cuz it is easier than opening two drawers and putting them away.

Okay Kids – Thanks for speaking so loud with your actions. I’ve got it.

Let me be clear:

I am not hosting that pool party that we’d talked about with that lovely family with the three kids, so you both have playmates for the night.

Which is great, cuz now I don’t have to pick up the house or make pigs in a blanket.

Oh, and Goodie – I don’t have to swiffer up the spilled juice off the floor the next morning.

I am not calling the hair salon to get you an appointment to get a haircut before school starts.

I am not meeting with the principal about how to make your transition to Middle School better. Work it out on your own.

And you know what? I just might forget to pick you up this afternoon. Why don’t you ask me 100 times? And I’ll ignore you 100 times. Cuz that seems to be the way the dynamic works in this family.

Okay, I will pick you up. But not at 3:00. Why don’t you just sit there in the 100 degree heat and wait a bit. See what it is like to come out of that double gate and not have Mommy standing right there, ready to give you a big hug and see how your day at went.

Cuz I hear you. This is NOT a two way street. We are NOT a team. It is all Mommy, all the time.

So God and Twitter help me! This week, you are on your own. Mommy is on strike.

Big Picture Parenting. I need a drink.

Uh . . . Face waxing is dangerous

So I had a weird week. By “weird” I mean I think I’m falling apart.

I went and got my face waxed. Now a year ago I would have asked WHY?

But now that I’m 51 and on hormones, uh, it appears there is a dramatic uptick in the growth of facial hair.

So the hot flashes are contained, but there is a wooly mammoth on my flipping face.

Also, I started using Retin A this year. Oooo, it makes my skin look lovely. (Maybe I just think it’s lovely cuz I can’t really see it through all that fur. Well, that and my eyes are shot too.)

It also makes the skin kinda thin. So I stop using it 5 days before my waxing.

Turns out, that wasn’t quite enough. Cuz when she waxed my face, my skin came off with the wax. Well, parts of the skin.

So I have scabs all over the lower part of my face. Hmmm.

Then I go to the knee doctor cuz since I’ve been trying to exercise more, I hurt my knee.

Torn meniscus. OhhhKayyy.

Then on Friday morning, I wake up with an eye infection. How do I know it is an eye infection? Cuz I went to the doctor. With my scabby face and yes, I was limping.

So here I am in my quest for fitness and beauty:

Blotchy face. Limpy/Gimpy. Red swollen eye.

Yeah – I rock.

And I need a veil. #helpme

Palm Springs Pride Parade – A Love Letter

What do I love about a party? Besides me in Party Garb?

Well, there’s the Balloons and the Bar (by Bar I’m referring, of course, to the Omelet Bar!)

There are the People I Love and the People Who Love Me. Then there’s the People Who Don’t Know They Love Me YET!

And a photographer – on my payroll! (Dude - I had better not see that double chin, or that double tummy.)

I get to have a Drag Queen. When is THAT ever a bad thing?

Our Party for the Palm Springs Pride Parade is the melding of my love for my over-the-top false eyelashes and Bloody Marys.

(Hey, if you are a Mimosa kinda of Girl . . . or Guy . . . or Guy-Dressed-As-A-Girl . . . or vice versa? Have at it. I like my morning cocktails SALTY!)

And Dear God: There is unlimited bacon.

And my children love the Budweiser Clydesdales and the Dykes on Bykes.

Of course this event is totally about getting clients, marketing our business and outreach.

But I get to wear false eyelashes. Over-the-top ones.

Yes, it’s all in a day’s work. #Accounting #PalmSpringsStyle

Halloween. Wait. What?!?

Halloween – Wait, What???

Halloween checklist:

Order costumes.

Wait, don’t order costumes until I find a discount coupon.

Wait, Glowie has changed her mind 10 times. What flipping costume DO I order?
(For those of you who creatively make your own costumes at home? I honor you, and secretly resent you.)

Think about actually taking them to one of those Halloween stores.

Nah, look for the online coupon.

Order cupcakes for the Classroom party. (I order them from Albertsons. What? Some people actually BAKE the cupcakes?)

Wait, what about my costume? Nothing in the garage “old costume” bins fit anymore. (Thank you Menopause…your gifts just keep on coming.) Wait, I can still fit into the Mrs. Potts costume. Oh, wait, with the hot flashes THAT is not going to work.

Enter “Plus Size Costume” into my search engine.

Go to Costco and buy sunscreen. Cuz Halloween in Palm Springs is like nothing you’ve ever experienced. (By “never experienced” I do mean: Hot as Hell.)

While I’m there, get the Halloween candy. Try to get things I hate (sweet tarts) so I don’t inhale it all before the actual Trick or Treaters arrive at the door.

(Sorry Kids, Mommy is menopausal, too fat for her old costumes, too hot to wear Mrs. Potts and as it turns out? Very, very hungry.)

Now that I have kids at two different schools, how will I be in two places at once? Well, the older ones, they probably aren’t doing school parties.

Whatever costume I order, I have to be able to wear it with tennis shoes, cuz I always help with the Costume Parade.

Camera. Check.
Video Camera. Check.
Safety pins. Check.
Valium. Check.

Wait. WHAT???

HALLOWEEN IS ON A SUNDAY????????????????????????????

I think I hear angels singing . . .Thank you, Sweet Jesus. No school. No parade. No cupcakes. No uber-sweating.

Just trick or treating. AT NIGHT. (No sunscreen!!!)

Hello Mrs. Potts.

You know you are old when . . .

So my husband and I were having a spa day. You know, a romantic, amazing day, where we say: we should do this more often.

You know what that looks like: We‘ve done this two or three times in the last 15 years.

But no matter.

Now, you know you are old when you are in the ladies’ facilities and it seems like a good idea, while there is no one there, to take a delicious steam.

So I go into the steam room. There’s a light switch but I decide not to turn it on. I’m going to luxuriate in the shadowy darkness and just let all the poisons (and fat – right?) melt out of my body.

I’m going to be a lean, mean, fighting machine after this. I lay down on the towel on the little bench, naked . . . sort of letting it all “hang out”. (Dear God – how literally accurate that term is for me now.)

As I’m laying there I think: What if I have a stroke or a heart attack? I’m all alone. The light is off. Even if someone poked their head in, it might look like I was “resting”.

I could be laying there with a high blood pressure induced aneurism and NO ONE WOULD KNOW!

So this is what it is like to be 50. (All right, fuck me, 51.)

I left the steam room. But it’s okay. We’ll be back. In about 5 years. Maybe in the interim I should interview for a “Steam Buddy”.

Those f-ing boys.

My 10 yo daughter, Blondie, is such a sweet kid. She was so shy when she was younger. Take that shyness and add to it she is the Big Sis of a little one who has had some serious health problems and she was a little slow to bloom.

(Not that her ship has sailed at age 10.)

But our little Blondie started to explode last year in 4th Grade. All of a sudden she is shouting out answers in class, bringing home extra science books to read (hey, let’s be clear, I still HATE Science Projects) and becoming some sort of an amazing Math Whiz.

So we are proud. And she works hard – this isn’t a freebie for her. Homework, discipline, really engaging teacher …

Then we go to Parent Teacher Conference (where mercifully, the chairs are normal sized) and find out, that though she is doing really well, the teacher feels she isn’t working up to her potential.

After a few hours at home, finally the crying comes. (And it comes so much more often now that she is 10 – I’m dying here.) Turns out the “popular” boys (I prefer to call them the “asshole” boys, but that’s just me) are degrading her and calling her show off.

If anyone tells on these boys, they call you a snitch. She is terrified of being labeled as such. My husband and I, not so much.

I wanted to drive my helicopter onto the school yard and cut off their heads. My husband, who is the calmer, wanted to have them kicked out of the school district and make sure they never get into an Ivy League School.

The 10 yo? She just dumbed herself down.

Calmer heads prevailed. At least the martinis helped.

There are always going to be some fucking boys telling my girl she is too smart. So Ya! One more thing to parent around. I’ll tell you how it goes. (Stay tuned, for the love of God.)

I'm a Kayak girl. Well, not really. HELP!!!

My husband is my valet. My kayak valet

We had big dreams of buying a boat this year, those took a dive along with the value of our home and the ever escalating rate of our credit cards. (Damn you Citibank-but that’s a separate blog.)

But after bitterly watching others head out for evening cruises, music blaring, ice chests overflowing with beer, the kids prancing in delight, dogs taking the position in the bow (that is the front of the boat right?) like something out of Titanic . . . well, we couldn’t take it anymore.

So we started researching Kayaks. Cuz we were going to get on that flipping lake somehow, dammit.

After dealing with some really odd Craigslist people, many phone calls, more research, deals were negotiated.

(Hey, we negotiate deals for a business, but nothing got more of my attention than these Kayak buying plans. Did the price include paddles, how about throwing in the life jackets, is that dog of yours available?)

And then we had it. We brought home our first of two kayaks. Hearts hammering, palms sweaty, it was like falling in love all over again.

Until it was time to actually “get in”.

And btw, once you are in? The kayaking part? A lot of fucking work I tell you.

But back to the getting in.

So every time we go kayaking I require my manservant to help me. By “manservant” of course, I mean my husband.

Because there is the packing up: the vests, the paddles, the water bottles, the towels, the SEATS! (And I could write a whole separate blog about my new “kayaking” wardrobe, complete with crocs, which we refer to now as our “kayak” shoes.)

Then there is the several block haul to the lake.

And then the real fun begins. The dock is old and seriously splintery. (By seriously, I mean there is a visit to Urgent Care in your future. )

There is the squatting down and unlocking, then untethering the two kayaks. Then tethering back the one that isn’t going on this trip.

There is the putting in the seats.

I’m telling you, from the time I said: “Can you help me get the kayak in the water?” an hour has now passed.

Now there is the getting in part. I’m sure I’ve told you, but I have terrible joints. It’s sort of a congential gift from God – back surgeries, titanium spine, hip replacement, torn knee ligament . . . so the bending down and getting in? Ya, it’s like something out of Laurel and Hardy. Not that I’m old enough to know who they are. (Shit.)

So getting from the dock, down into the kayak seat in the water? It seems impossible.

So I turn around three times like a dog before she lies down.

I panic a little bit.

The whole while my ManServant is holding the kayak next to the dock, trying not to snap at me. (Cuz that could put his career as my ManServant in jeopardy, for God’s sake.)

Then I sit on the towel on the dock (with help – ground sitting is not really easy for me) and I try to slide (I believe “plop” is the better word) into the kayak.

But I’m a big girl and I go with FORCE. So my husband … uh, manservant is stretched out across the dock (no towel for him – he’s manly) trying to hold the kayak even so I don’t capsize before I have even begun.

As the kayak fills with water, covering my specially clad ass (I wear “swim shorts” from the Solar Protection Clothing Store), I grab the paddle he is handing me, and off I go.

My kayak valet, of course, sits on the dock until I return.

Cuz you don’t think I can get out of that thing by myself do you?

Thanks James. I mean “Honey”.

Power of the Tooth Fairy

I recently discovered the POWER of the TOOTH FAIRY in my youngest daughter's life. She has lost three teeth so far . . . and as time has progressed, you may notice that the Tooth Fairy is becoming just a LITTLE BIT more stern and emboldened. I hear she drinks also . . .

Dear Glowie,

Congratulations on your FIRST TOOTH! You are officially a big girl now.

This is a very important and exciting time in your life – you are finally starting to grow up!

You are a very good girl. You have a lot of spirit and love in your heart. Keep being a good student, listen to your Mom and Dad and your teacher. You are also a very loving sister. Your whole family is so lucky to have you!

Brush your teeth every morning and every night!

Love,

The Tooth Fairy



May 25, 2010

Dear Glowie,

Congratulations on another tooth! You have lost two teeth in one month! Wow!

You have such a big heart and you bring joy to so many people, every day. I am so proud of you.

Be a good girl and follow the rules! Your Mommy and Daddy and your teacher, made these RULES because they LOVE you and they want you to DO WELL. I love you too!

Brush your teeth every morning and every night!

Love,

The Tooth Fairy



Dear Glowie!

Congratulations on losing another tooth. You are the most amazing little girl ever! You have such joy in your heart and such love for everyone. The world is a better place for having you.

Be a good girl and brush your teeth every morning and every night.

And don’t lie to your Mommy about brushing your teeth! I want you to be the healthiest and prettiest little girl in the world. Lying is NOT pretty! I love you.


The Tooth Fairy

As you can see the Tooth Fairy might need a Martini! #maybetwo

Back to School. Stalking is a skill set.

When I first started getting into Twitter, I followed all the big Mommy Bloggers. Nothing would be more exciting than getting a response, or horning in on a conversation one of them was having.

Until one night.

I told one of the women, in a tweet, that I thought she was fabulous, and I was stalking her with orange stained Cheetos fingers.

I laughed at my cleverness, until I logged back on to see that a couple of these big Mommy Blogger chicks were having a conversation about how they hated people who used the word: “stalk”.

Gulp. One even posted a link about a teacher that was killed by a stalker. (They didn’t note in the article if Cheetos had played a role in the murder.)

Wow. I felt terrible. Cuz I hate that kinda stuff.

So I went on to post an apology.

But I couldn’t. Cuz these two women had BLOCKED me! Not for using the “f” word, or bitching about my kids, but cuz I had manifested my adoration for them by telling them I was Twitter Stalking them.

Fast forward one year.

I still don’t use the word stalk much. Cuz I’m scared of the backlash. (Though anything that has to do with Cheetos and Stalking does make me laugh.)

But I have discovered that my stalking skills are a real boost to being involved in my childrens’ lives.

When we moved to Palm Springs, I checked out the local school, by assuming a semi-squatting position in the bushes (bougainvillea of course, kinda thorny) so I could watch the families and their kids interact with each other on their way into the school.

I actually wept, when I saw a Daddy and his little girl ride bikes to school. Then the Dad rode off, carrying that little pink bike on his shoulder.

I saw the PTA ladies talking to everyone.

I wanted to be part of that group.

So I straightened my legs, and walked into the group. That welcomed us (and my petrified, at that time, 7 year old).

So we signed up.

Every day (sometimes from the bushes, sometimes from out in the open) I watched these mothers embrace my daughter, a brand new student coming into the school in the 3rd grade.

And our lives have never been the same.

In case you want to know who I am? Drop by the middle school this week. I’m the mother who walks in the odd crouching position, hovering outside the 6th grade classrooms.

I see many touching acts of kindness. By kids and adults. Every day.

Cuz stalking? Baby, it’s a skill set.

Saturday Mornings

We had a summer filled with Saturday mornings.

Then School Started.

Which for some reason meant I got up at 4 or 5 am to get my work started, before I got my kids up at 6:15.

It seemed like a great plan for the first three days of school.

Ahem. Cuz any plan that includes Mommy only getting 5 or 6 hours of sleep a night is sure to be a good one right?

I must have been running on some kind of adrenaline high. Cuz I had business dinners, I was super efficient, and I even wore undergarments when delivering my daughters to their schools.

I signed up to be the school crossing guard one morning a week. Cuz in that weird, over-awake, sleep-deprived state, holding a giant metal stop sign while other mothers tried to run me down seemed like pure genius in the moment!

We are in the process of a couple of business deals. I’m negotiating, figuring out terms, supervising due diligence., developing strategy for each deal. Well, why don’t I just say it? I’m a goddess.

And I’m purging. No, not throwing up, cuz that would be wrong. I’m throwing out all the old school work from last year, going through old photos, last years handbooks, etc. Again, an odd manic state has overtaken me.

And then there was the schedule.

Get the girls up, so my older daughter can get to Middle School by 7:30. (Bell rings by 7:40 and she has to get her Sax to the band room first. We are pretty sure she is the next Clarence Clemons.)

Then bring the 2nd grader home. Feed her a second breakfast, then walk her to school at 8:00. After crossing guard duty, I get home at 9:00. And I’m sweaty. Cuz the first week of school, temps hit 115. (Don’t touch the monkey bars, no really, NOOOOOOO.)

Then, Blondie gets out of school at 1:50. ONE FIFTY. Dear God in Heaven. HELP ME!

So my work day now ends at 1:30.

Except for those two evening meetings. Which meant I didn’t get home until 9:00.

So the next morning I get up at 4 am to get started on my work.

6:00 am exercise classes . . .

By Friday? Flat on my face. Efficient? Not at all.

A smiling crossing guard? Uh, NO! (Really, you need to smoke, talk on the phone AND try and run me down, all at the same time. Now I know why the office lady complimented me on not hitting anyone with the Stop Sign.)

On Friday I got very little work done on our next potential acquisition. (By “very little” I do mean I moved the papers around on my desk. And evened up the corners of everything.)

During my exercise class I lay on the mat in the fetal position.

I did however buy a couple of items from Lane Bryant online.

I looked at Labs available for adoption.

And I did bathe. (Did I mention walking my kid to school when it was 90 degrees BEFORE 9 am?)

But the mania was gone and it was replaced by a heaviness in my limbs.

Saturday morning? Slept til 7:30. I’m a new woman. Ready to . . . crawl back in bed and watch some TV.

Back to school? I gotta come up with new plan. Carpooling anyone?