The house looks like someone picked it up and shook it. Deadline after deadline whizzes by my head, each one like a nuclear powered dragonfly armed with missiles. Emails sit unopened, telltale coffee rings adorn the countertop from when I frantically guzzled my almost-completely-cold coffee in one gulp just to get the caffeine in to my system. The single page of paper I’ve been using to frantically scribble notes to myself all day now looks like heiroglyphics, filled with scratchy and completely indecipherable writing. And just now, at 10 pm, I realized I completely forgot to brush my hair today. Or my teeth.

Welcome to “Husband Is Out Of Town, Day Two Of Five.”

I’ve seen a lot of flack around the internet lately from people who object to those of us who are normally partnered making a fuss about being a temporarily single parent. Even using that phrase – “temporarily single parent” – can, and has, gotten the knickers of many in to very significant knots. Apparently using the phrase “single parent” when you have a partner is using the wrong words, because I’m not technically single. Fair enough, but I don’t know what else to call it, and I’m too goddamn tired to think about it too much.

There’s too much angst around it. And I don’t get it. It’s not the Suffering Olympics, people.

It’s obvious that I’m not facing many of the same challenges a fully single parent does: for one, I have a very specific end date to my single-parenting.  But that doesn’t mean that while I’m a single parent, it isn’t a really hard thing to do. Being home solo with a sick and inconsolable and up all night badger and trying to organize everything like doctor visits and prescription pickups and whatever in order to get that sick badger better at the same time as trying to do everything I need to do as an adult and a grownup is hard, y’all. And if I say it’s hard, and if I say that flying solo this week is kicking my ass, it doesn’t mean I’m comparing myself wholesale to an actual single, unpartnered, parents by themselves all the time, never has any cavalry flying home to relieve them parent. You guys kick ass, and you rock, and you are awesome, and I am not pretending to be you. Seriously, people: I’m not comparing myself to anyone at all except to, well, me, me when my husband is home and the shit is not hitting the fan 24 hours a day and I actually feel like things are marginally under control around here. Right now they are not under control, not by a long shot, and part of that is the fact that this week, when the bottom is falling out of things, there’s nobody to clean the shit off the fan except for me. And that is a difficult place to be.

Right now is hard. A lot harder than a normal week.  And, swear to betsy: all I’m asking for when I say that is for you to say, geesh, dude, I bet. Let’s grab a drink when you have some free time!

I mean, you could say that any day, but you know what I mean.

So let’s lay off each other. If someone’s having a hard week, let them have a hard week without making them feel even worse about using the wrong words. And if you’re having a hard week: My sympathies. Let me know when to show up with a bottle of something only procurable in licensed establishments. Cause, I’ve been there.

The story playing out on my TV is a gruesome, albeit familiar, one, something probably even ripped from the headline of a news story I read last year. A baby has disappeared, a young mother is distraught, but not as distraught as a gravel-voiced investigator thinks she should be and a mother-in-law seems shady. By the end of the hour, the wee baby is buried, the mother, mother-in-law and new boyfriend are in custody, and a broken father has paid for whatever sins his wife feels he has committed.

And I am crying on the couch wondering why I just sat through that, terrified but compelled to check on my children, who are – of course! – perfect and sleeping peacefully.

I get into bed and pick up my book. I am reading Helpless by Barbara Gowdy, or maybe Room by Emma Donoghue or maybe The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, or maybe My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picault, guaranteeing nightmares and anxious, catastrophic thoughts at 3am.

Why do I do this to myself? I wonder, over and over again. Why do I feel drawn to, even sucked in by these fictitious, worst-case-scenario stories? Is it that I feel invincible, safe in my cozy home with my cozy family? Or is it the opposite, that these stories somehow offer me some kind of preparation in the world of, ‘anything can happen?’

I can often turn off the TV, walk away from something that I know is going to upset or scare me. But I have a very hard time putting down a book that I have begun. I feel invested, like the sanctity of literature depends on me consuming these words, disturbing as they may be.

A few years ago, I wrote about hitting my Twitter limit, about how the internet has basically resulted in the globalization of bad news, and how I need to keep it in check or else the world’s problem’s become my own. I thought that putting down my Blackberry and picking up a book would help.

It would appear that it is time to reassess my reading list.

Do you do this? Do you continue to watch shows that freak you out, or read books that make you sad? Where’s your limit?

This morning I woke up to my 5 year old screaming at me about how much she does not want to go to school. Not because anything bad is going on, or that she hates her teacher, or cannot stand her friends. She was screaming at me that she doesn’t want to go to school because she’d rather be asleep.

My girl does not like mornings. I have no idea where she gets that from. Okay, it’s me.

Anyway. I don’t like mornings much myself but I don’t scream at anybody about it. Well unless you check my twitter stream on any given any weekday morning. BUT that aside, I don’t CRY about it. I just pull myself out of bed after slapping snooze 48 times and get on with it.

Maybe I should try crying. Or maybe I should invest in a mask that truly reveals my feelings about mornings so I could join my 5yo in a true temper tantrum. Check out these FREAKY baby masks and if you watch the video, prepare to be even more freaked out. Whoever made these things has ruined baby faces for me forever and caused me to abuse the word ‘freak’.

Or watch the video of these Hypermasks and prepare to be more than slightly creeped out:

I think I might need to get one of these despite the fact that they FREAK ME OUT. Join me?

source

So first, Kerry Campbell claimed she injected her 8 year old regularly with Botox and gave her bikini waxes so that she would win beauty pageants and be “famous” when she grew up. We were appropriately outraged.

Then someone finally called children’s aid and the child was removed from Campbell’s custody. And Campbell swore up and down that she’d learned her lesson, she’d changed!  We were appropriately smug.

Then she said the whole thing was made up, that she was paid off by The Sun to make the outrageous claims and the whole thing was hogwash.  We were appropriately righteously indignant at having been had.

Then the reporter Campbell said put her up to it said Campbell’s lying about lying. Now we’re just confused.

My head. It hurts.

Every new revelation in this story brought a new wave of fury. The first one was well placed. A mum, a non-medical person, is injecting her daughter with toxins in order to prevent wrinkles? Wrinkles? In an 8 year old? What 8 year old has wrinkles? She’s giving a prepubescent child bikini waxes?  To wax what, exactly? What is she doing to this child’s body, never mind the lifelong damage she’s inflicting on her psyche? This woman is UNFIT!

Then the story collapsed, and that collapse is just as telling. It says just as much about us as a society as it does about her as a mum. While her judgment is seriously under question no matter what she did – is it worse to inject your child with botox, or to just pretend you did for fame and profit? – what does it say about us that we believed it, that it was newsworthy in the first place? What does it say that we were completely willing to accept that someone could be that crazy as to do this kind of crap to a child for the sake of the publicized, Hollywood image of “beauty”?

Here, I’ll answer that: It says we are so obsessed with youth and youthfulness and sexuality that we’ve gone completely insane. Think about this: it’s OK and totally mainstream for you and me to inject ourselves with deadly toxins so that we won’t show a wrinkle. It is accepted and expected that women will maintain an attractive weight, an attractive style, and women of a certain age who look younger than that age are praised for “keeping themselves well” despite their years. We worship youthfulness and tautness and reject age in all its forms.  But we draw a line at botox on a child, because – well, because why? Why draw the line at all? It’s not like we don’t parade girls in beauty pageants. It’s not like girls’ clothing isn’t sexualized. It’s not like a 13 year old girl didn’t stand up on stage in front of millions during the taping of the last Oprah show and brag about losing 20 pounds.

So why were we so outraged by the thought of a Mum injecting her kid with botox?  Because yes, it IS an outrage, but let’s not pretend that in 10 years our society won’t be shilling that same product to that girl in the pages of Cosmo or Marie Claire.  If we want to figure out why this was even news in the first place, we need look no further than the copy of Star or Us Weekly in our grocery carts. Our society buys in to it, and we do too.

Too small.

I thought I was being so smart.

Have you ever tried to dress a kid? Seriously, it’s EXPENSIVE. Kids’ clothes cost a fortune, and even more of a fortune because you’re replacing it every time you turn around. I can remember buying stuff for my newborn at Baby Gap, such as $30 jeans that were just so adorable! And then I blinked, and then those $30 jeans were suddenly way too small, just like the rest of her wardrobe, and I had to trudge out and shop some more.  And shoes. Seriously, kids’ shoes. $45 for a pair of shoes half the size of my hand, shoes that will last her about 3 months tops. But it’s not like you can cheap out, because OMG BABY’S FEET I WILL WARP HER FOR LIFE IF I BUY THE WRONG THINGS SHE WILL BECOME CRIPPLED FROM BAD SHOES OMG!

So this summer, I thought I was going to beat the system when it came to the shoes. Oh, I will get the good shoes, people. FOR LESS. My cunning plan went something like this: Summer shoes go on sale in the fall, right? So I bought her summer shoes, half price, six or seven months ago, estimating what size she was going to wear because hey! Kids are predictable, aren’t they!

Sure they are. And yesterday, when I pulled those five pairs of shoes out of the closet, some I planned to use this summer and others in to the fall, and started the Ceremonial Shoe Trying On, I realized the flaw of my cunning plan. Namely: Child Of A Man With Size 12 Feet. The trying on went something like this:

First pair: Tried to get them on her feet with socks on. Could not. Worried, pulled off socks and got shoe on right foot. Child squealed with glee. Pressed end of shoe. Toe has 0.02 mm space at end of shoe. Oh, god.

Second pair: See first pair.  Child, unaffected, walked around wearing two different shoes that barely fit her for 10 minutes while I fanned myself on the couch.

Third pair: Fit perfectly, even with socks. Awesome. Except they’re fall shoes, meaning they’re heavy and sweaty. On my toddler’s already sweaty feet. Awesome.

Fourth pair: Same.

Fifth pair: Mercifully, at least these ones are still too big, meaning my pride is at least somewhat salvaged.

Serves me right. I should have known better: If you try to plan ahead for any kid, you’ll learn a quick lesson on unpredictability.

In other news, anybody wanna buy some kids shoes? Unused, except for the pall of shame.

While none of this surprises me, the story below still is jolting for a mom who is raising a girl (that would be me).

Crystal Smith of The Achilles Effect recorded the keywords thrown at children in television advertising to get an idea of the gender stereotypes involved. She took this mash-up of words and created a wordle for each grouping of ads. Wordles generate ‘word clouds’ that emphasis the predominance of words that appear more often in a content source.

For the 27 commercials aimed at boys ages 6 to 8, she recorded 658 words and yup, you guessed it, a whole lot of power words.

For the 32 commercials aimed at girls ages 6 to 8, she recorded 432 words and yup, I cringed.

Then I cancelled the cable (not really but oh my holy, it’s commercial free from here on out. The show tie-in merchandise that my kid demands already is driving me nuts, she doesn’t need a commercial telling her to bug her parents more.)

Now while there is nothing wrong with the words ‘love’, ‘babies’, or ‘friendship’ there is absolutely no good reason those can’t be paired ‘power’ ‘battle’ or heroes’ end of story. Am I right?

source

It was obvious very early in his life that my first child was a genius.

The kid was turning his jigsaw puzzles upside down to give himself a new challenge when he was two.  He was reading when he was three and trying to figure out how to construct a solar-powered car from old office supplies at six.  The kid is smart and anyone who has spent more than 30 seconds with him knows it.

And then there is my second child.

She is charming and strong-willed, a combination that has managed to keep her bordering on the edge of Grounded For Life since before she could talk.  She is sweet and sensitive and stubbornly independent.  She is amazing in hundreds of her very own ways.

Despite my efforts to avoid labeling either of my children as the ___ one, they each seemed to have naturally fallen into their own equally wonderful but definitely different identities.

He is the smart one.

She is the daring one.

Except the school just sent home a permission slip and survey to have her evaluated for the gifted program, the same program that her brother was admitted to a couple years ago.  Apparently, my daughter is also smarter than average and I COMPLETELY MISSED IT.

*insert massive amounts of mothering guilt here*

How the hell did this happen?  How could I have missed “gifted tendencies” in my own child?  To be fair, the characteristics she seems to display and the ones her brother does  appear to be exact opposites.  I guess she’s a different kind of gifted?  Yes, sure, that’s it – and totally excuses the fact that I underestimated my kid.  Sure it does.

I’m actually much less upset about missing any supposed “signs” of superior intelligence and more concerned that I have fallen into the label trap with both kids.  I didn’t mean to and I thought I was working pretty hard at not making assumptions about their personalities, but somewhere along the way I stopped waiting to see how my kids would turn out and started thinking I already knew.

But I didn’t know my youngest child was smart.

Awesome.

On the plus side, I obviously have fanfreakingtastic genes.

The face of a genius?

Dear Old Male Fertility Doctors Who Keep Telling Us We’re Waiting Too Long To Have Babies:

Please Shut Up.

I’m 40. And as long as I can remember, women have been told that our eggs run out eventually. It’s the first thing you’re taught in Family Living in grade 7.  I do not know any woman who does not know this, who has not known it since she was 15, that fertility is not limitless. The Fear has been put in to us from a very early age.  And yet, many of us – more of us than ever, in fact – are waiting til later and later to have children.

And as a result, yet another screaming headline pops up. 35 IS THE BEST BEFORE DATE FOR WOMEN.

Yes. We women? We expire.

And how dare we try to defy our predetermined expiry date.

Apparently, if I was a “good” “smart” woman, I would have obediently popped out a baby in my 20s, when it would have been a hell of a lot easier to conceive (as in, not take 5 years) and give birth (as in, not take 5 days and a scalpel). The rest of my life would have been an epic disaster, with no career and no husband and no home but hey! What does that matter, as long as my eggs are ripe?

Christ.

Listen, Doc. Why do you think women are waiting? Because we just vastly prefer going out every night and sipping champagne in Jimmy Choos?

Actually? I think that *is* why you think we’re waiting.

And that’s 100% wrong. (Well, 99%.)

We wait because we want to be the best parents we can. For some of us, that involves doing some work so that we can give our child a home and a stable family or whatever it is that is just as important to us as fresh eggs.  And when you beat us over the head with this “best before” stick it’s just another way of telling us we’re morons, as if our reasons for waiting don’t matter, they aren’t as important as how old our eggs are.  Never mind choosing the right person to fertilize those eggs. Just frigging fertilize them already.

We also wait because, well, it’s not like our society is really encouraging people to have kids these days, is it? Mainstream media outlets publish article after article about how truly horrible it is to be a parent.  Other articles recently raged about how long it takes for your salary to recover after you take a parental leave (tip: YEARS.) And you don’t need to go far to see some parent being judged and disdained for simply being a parent (heard any good Mommyblogger jokes lately?)

Yeah. Kind of no wonder having kids is last on the list. We make it sound just so wonderful.

But here’s the thing. It *is* wonderful. Except for all the people who spend their time telling us it isn’t.

So instead of bashing women over the head with our biological clocks, how about we change the entire way we look at parenting? How about instead, we all start fully acknowledging and respecting the fact that reproduction is an imperative for our species instead of an inconvenience and an annoyance? How about instead of slamming parents, we look at parenting and children as wonderful, joyful, rich parts of the continuum of this life?   And how about we acknowledge that people take many paths to parenthood, and that some come to it earlier and some come to it later and each has unique challenges and that each one contributes to the tapestry of this life and we should celebrate it, not beat us over the head with our choices?

Or in other words, Old Male Fertility Doctor:

If you can’t say anything nice, then please, just shut up.

At Thanksgiving, I think of all the things that I’m thankful for – my family, friends, health, Starbucks, cardigans, Colin Firth – the usual. I also think of the things that I don’t have any more, like the need to shave my legs on a regular basis (sorry husband), and ex boyfriends. I’ve been married just over ten years, so the dating thing is far, far in the past (thankfully). But every so often, I remember the dating life I had. I’ve dated all kinds, and when I think about it, every possible cliché has been covered (I guess that’s when you know you’re done dating).

Let’s review some memorable ones, shall we?

The smoker:  He was not even remotely my type – think an early 90s version of Kid Rock, only way less talented. And by less talented, I mean not talented musically, in any way, at all. He was sweet, but he was one of those guys that hung out in the smoking area at school with his buddies (I did not hang out there because I didn’t have a death wish – Greek father finds you in the smoking area, you die people). Anyway, he would try to woo me with an acoustic guitar he couldn’t actually play – what can I say, I threw him a bone for a few weeks. It didn’t last because of course I was a good girl, with standards, and that really got in the way of me being his groupie.

The pathological liar: Aw yes, I remember him fondly. This guy was classic, because of course he was good looking. The fact that he was a pathological liar got lost behind his unbelievable biceps (he could have easily kicked David Hasselhoff’s ass in Baywatch). Eventually however, he had to put a shirt on, and then it became clear that every word that came out of his mouth was a sad exaggeration. It got to the point where I just kind of felt bad for the guy. Also, if there was a World Record for eye rollage, I’m pretty sure I won it back then.  I’m also pretty sure the dude is in politics now, but that’s just a guess.

The jerk: Another classic. At first, he was sweet and charming, which helped mask his arrogance and his hairiness (SHUDDER). But then he became that guy who would just honk and never come to the door. He was a jerk personified. My dad would have totally taken him – if he had ever come to the damn door.

The Emotional Hippy – Now, I say hippy, because he wore socks with sandals and I’m pretty sure that is the definition of hippy in the hippy dictionary. And I say emotional, because listening to a grown man WAIL in a packed movie theatre while watching Jerry Maguire should have been the first sign to run in the opposite direction. But no, I stuck around for the “I forgot my wallet” date, and the classic, “why yes I do bathe in my mother’s AND uncle’s bathwater –what’s wrong with that?” experience (um, where do I start?)

The backgammon addict/poet – This dude was smooth. He quoted Leonard Cohen to me, he introduced me to Charles Bukowski and Il Postino, and he wrote me poetry and love letters. He even made me a mixed tape, with music that didn’t make me crave Pepto. He told me he wanted to marry me after a week of dating, told me he loved me soon after, and proposed five months later. The fact that we christened every model of VW, and contemplated contacting the company to tell them which we preferred, was just an added bonus.

So thanks!

Thanks smoker, pathological liar, jerk and thanks emotional hippy – because of you, I’m able to confirm that the VW Jetta really is the one to go with.

I recently attended a full day conference with many other blogging women – lots and lots of estrogen.

Good times.

Mostly.

I might have done something a little embarrassing, when a fellow blogger and I headed to the ladies’ room.

There were three, maybe four people in the stalls, and it was totally quiet – quiet, except for this loud, buzzing sound. What followed was a little bit funny, and a whole lot embarrassing.

I shall now re-enact my foot in mouth experience.

Cue the loud rhythmic buzzing sound.

Me: “What is that?”

SILENCE

Me: “Is someone using a vibrator in here?”

Laughter fills the bathroom

Lovely Innocent Person: “Um, it’s a breast pump. Sorry.”

Take Note: Lovely Innocent Person, whom I shall now refer to as Lovely Super Mom, is using a breast pump in a bathroom stall, because as mentioned earlier, she is a SUPER mom.

Me: “OH! I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize. Please don’t apologize.”

What happened after that? Small talk among several stalls, complete with laughter, and a mutual respect for Super Mom that was palpable in the air. Other than that, I can’t really remember, although I’m sure I asked her if she needed anything, apologized about a hundred more times, and thanked her for being lovely.

So the moral of the story is? Keep your vibrators at home, people. Also, do not make small talk while in a bathroom stall – unless you’re four.