American Road Trip

What I’m about to say may be considered blasphemy, especially coming from a former teacher: I love watching television with my 10-year-old son, Andrew.  After the rush out the door every morning, followed by the activities buffet of the afternoon and the dinner-and-homework sessions of the early evening, he and I have a standing date each night, a time for the two of us to re-group and reconnect.  We head into the sunroom, grab some blankets, and sink into the comfy couch.  Sometimes we make popcorn. Occasionally, we grab a handful of Hershey’s chocolate kisses.   And then we always grab the remote.

            

Andrew and I are really into reality television.  I know some other television-bonding families that connect via American Idol, The Voice, or Dancing with the Stars.  Andrew and I dabbled in The Sing-Off for a few seasons, mostly because I used to sing a capella in high school and am an original Gleek.  And, before that, I used to make him watch Divine Design with Candace Olsen until he finally protested, and rightly so.  That was cruel and unusual punishment.

            

We now have two very manly reality favorites.  The first is American Pickers on the History Channel.  The second is Diners, Drive-ins and Dives with host Guy Fieri.

            

My father-in-law, Steve, is a bit of a history buff (and a bit of a hoarder who thinks his stuff is worth something) and he’s the one who got us hooked on American Pickers.  This show follows the conquests of Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz, owners of Antique Archeology, a store that features finds from their “picking” forays across America.  What is “picking”?  Well, Andrew knows all about it.  I’m not sure that this year’s New York State English Language Arts test is going to ask about picking, but if by chance Andrew needs to write an essay about collecting memorabilia by looking through other people’s junk, then he’ll pass with flying colors.

            

Pickers Mike and Frank like to say that they are “uncovering the history of America, one piece at a time,” as they dig through people’s overgrown yards and barns filled with collections of miscellanea.  They are looking for “rusty gold,” anything they can make some money from.  These guys are knowledgeable about all kinds of Americana, but specifically they are passionate about bicycles, motorcycles, cars and anything else that fits into what they call “petroliana,” items relating to gas, motors, and gas stations, like big signs or cans with logos.  Mike is a fun character, who say things like, “If you’ve gotta crawl through dead chickens, raccoon poop and goat urine to get something cool….do it! What a honey hole!” And Frank is the master “bundler,” working deals by bundling items together and saying, “So, how about $120 for all three of these?”

            

Andrew and I enjoy watching the guys make a great discovery and we like learning the history about specific items, like a Model A car or an engine for an early Harley-Davidson Knucklehead.  We also like meeting the characters that own all this stuff, people with names like Hippie Tom and Dollar Dick.

But our favorite part of the show is when the guys buy something, but aren’t exactly sure of the value.  Will it be appraised at a high enough price for them to turn a profit?  As we speed through the commercials to find out, the tension is nailbiting.

“Andrew, time for bed,” Brett will call down from upstairs.

“Just a minute!” We’ll call back.

           

Before you get all politically correct on me, telling me that television warps one’s brain waves and that, further, reality television really warps the brain (think The Jersey Shore), give me a moment to explain.  Because Guy Fieri has really enhanced my relationship with my son.

           

Watching Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives (or Triple D, as us insiders affectionately call it) has made Andrew want to do two things of note: try new foods and travel.  Night after night, he and I sit on our couch with our feet intertwined on the ottoman, and “roll out” with Guy, traveling across America in a vintage red Camaro convertible.  From the Deep South to the Midwest all in one half-hour episode, Guy has sampled the best of “real deal barbeque” taking us from Texas to Chicago and Kansas City.  In general, Guy’s a really big fan of pigs, taking us viewers to smokehouses, shacks and holes in the wall, showing us “how it’s done.” 

Guy will hold up a giant sandwich that’s got layers of beef and pork and cheese and sauces between two slices of homemade ciabatta bread and then he’ll get ready to eat it by doing “the hunch.”  The hunch involves rolling up one’s sleeves (Guy always wears short sleeves, so that’s not a problem) and leaning over so as not to drip any grease on oneself.  Then you take a big-ass bite.  “Now that’s how it’s done,” he’ll say, fist bumping the chef, a huge grin on his face.  “It’s porktastic.”

“I’m so hungry!”  Andrew will say.  “I want to go there!”

“That’s just disgusting,” my husband, Brett will say, leaving the room.  “Who eats like that?”

“We do!” We say, even though, in real reality, we don’t.  However, Andrew does have a favorite sandwich at a local diner in town that he swears requires the hunch.  Other favorites, like a burger from The Shake Shack, also require the hunch.  (The hunch adds fun and danger to a meal.  You should try it.)

What’s really fun about Triple D is the road trips it has inspired.  When Guy featured a diner in Providence, Rhode Island called Louie’s, Andrew and I turned to each other and yelled out, “Providence, Rhode Island!”  Brett’s whole family lives outside Providence.  “Can we go?”  Andrew asked.

“Are you kidding me?  Of course!” I said. An enthusiastic high-five followed, and our first Triple D road trip was planned. (Andrew had the bacon, egg and cheese and did the hunch.  I had the homemade granola pancakes and did not need to hunch.  Brett’s dad had the famed homemade corned beef hash. I can’t recall if he hunched or not.) Once we got there, we discovered that all the places Guy has visited have a special stamp or seal hidden somewhere in the restaurant.  We also found a framed picture of him over the grill.  The items featured on the show are highlighted on the menu for easy reference.

Since then, we have hit another Rhode Island diner on Guy’s list, as well as one place on the Jersey Shore and two in Manhattan.  Gazala’s Place, right behind the Museum of Natural History, proved to be a nice respite from dinosaurs and serves authentic, child-friendly Middle Eastern fare.  The Redhead, in the East Village, has the most delicious fried chicken, mac n’ cheese, and homemade, New York street-style soft pretzels.  Plus, it’s up the street from The Strand bookstore and Momofuku Milk Bar, so we added those destinations to our tour.

Any time we visit a city in the future, we will be sure to look up one of the Triple D hot spots and incorporate it into our travels.  America never tasted so good.  With our bellies full, we might even come across some rusty gold, now that we know what to look for.

           

I have this friend who bans television for her children during the week.  I think I’m supposed to admire her, but instead, I just pity her.  Oh, well.  She doesn’t know what she’s missing.

Mommy 2.0

In 6th grade, I had to write my first big research paper. This paper was so enormous that it took the entire second half of the school year to complete. A serious assignment in all its complex aspects, it brought one of my best friends to tears during outlining. In retrospect, not only was this paper our introduction to real research, it was probably a rite of passage for scholastic stress.

First, we had to peruse books on famous people, and then we had to hand in a list of three individuals of merit who we were interested in studying. Then the teacher assigned us one of these notable figures.

I was psyched to get my first choice: Eleanor Roosevelt!

Like the good girl I was, I went right to work that evening, beginning with a stack of note cards in a new plastic box specifically designed for said note cards. New supplies like this were so exciting. I got a highlighter. My first.

Before any word could be written on a regular sized piece of paper, the teacher emphasized, we had to fill out 100 note cards. No more, no less. 100 on the dot. Furthermore, our note cards would be graded. A good grade on the note cards was the key to a good grade on the term paper.

I was really into these note cards.

I headed into the basement to find my parents’ set of World Book encyclopedias. Dusting off some spines, I found the one I was looking for, removed it from the shelf, and brought it upstairs to the kitchen table. I always did my schoolwork at the kitchen table, even though my parents had recently re-done my bedroom to include an awesome, white formica, built-in desk. (That desk never got any play, which is why I might not ever give my kids desks in their rooms. They can study all they want in our new basement.)

I found the entry on Mrs. Roosevelt and read through it, excited at what I found. “Mom,” I said, calling out to her while she was making dinner. “Guess what?”

“What?” she must have said.

“Most people in our class are studying people who have died, but I get to write about a living person!”

“Eleanor Roosevelt?” She asked. “Alive?” At this point, my mom stopped what she was doing and thought long and hard. She considered the ceiling. She looked out the window. She might have even counted on her fingers and toes before telling me that this was just not possible.

She did lots of things to try and convince me that the information from our encyclopedia was outdated.

But what she couldn’t do was Google it instantaneously or research it on Wikipedia.

After all, the year was 1982.

And in 1982, a mother and daughter didn’t have the answers to life and death questions at dinnertime in their kitchen.

My mother doubted that a woman born in 1884 was still alive in 1982. However, she couldn’t actually prove it to me. All she could tell me was that our set of encyclopedias hailed from before 1960 and that it was probably time to throw them away, since surely by now, man had walked on the moon and the wife of our 32nd president was deceased.

Zoom ahead to now.

On the day that Michael Jackson died, my children asked me who he was. Within about 9 seconds, I had positioned the laptop in front of them at the kitchen island and had started streaming the Thriller video on Youtube.

“That’s Michael,” I said.

Only the 1982 version wasn’t quite the same Michael as the 2009 version, so then I quickly found some more recent images that the kids recognized as their MJ. “Oh, yeah. We know him,” Andrew said.

And then, for my own nostalgia’s sake, I found other videos to show them.

“Who’s that?” Andrew asked. Boy George was singing Karma Chameleon from the front of a paddleboat on a river. He had ribbons in his braids and was sporting that iconic porkpie hat and fingerless black gloves.

“Is it a boy or a girl?” Zoe wondered.

“Yes.” I said.

“Why does he have so much make-up on?”

“Because it was the 80’s.” I shrugged. Then I showed them some Madonna videos. Zoe and I decided that “Material Girl” was our favorite. Andrew decided that the 80’s were weird.

A few months ago, while listening to the car radio, my kids wanted to know who Mick Jagger was and why Adam Levine of Maroon 5 had moves like him.

Upon returning to the house, the laptop and I got to work immediately, pulling up videos and creating an informational, 4-minute Youtube mini-lesson in How to Dance Like a Rolling Stone.

Pretty soon, we all had moves like Jagger.

I’d like to introduce myself. I am Mommy 2.0.

I know everything.

What happens if Andrew needs to figure out the phase of the moon on a night that the actual moon is hidden behind clouds? Mommy 2.0 finds the virtual moon online and calls it gibbous. Science homework saved!

What happens when Zoe has to learn to read using not only books but also an interactive computer program with quizzes and prizes? Thanks to Mommy 2.0, Zoe can learn to read online as well as off, thereby quickening not just her reading ability, but also her ability to read on a Kindle.

And when Andrew has to study major monuments of Russia, Mommy tells him that she thinks the one with all the pretty colorful spires on top is the Kremlin. But then Mommy remembers that she knows nothing about Russia and, thus, should not be trusted. Using your own knowledge is a classic Mommy 1.0 mistake. A quick check on the Internet confirms this and the homework answer is changed to reflect the correct information: St. Basil’s Cathedral.

Eventually, a newer, sleeker, thinner model will replace me like a Hoover with a Dyson. Mommy 8.0 will probably have all the info implanted behind her ear with a microchip and she’ll be able to give herself liposuction. But for the meantime, I’m happy with my iPod and iPad and iPhone, doing the light research and fancy footwork that my job as Mommy 2.0 requires. No microfiche to contend with in musty library basements, no dead presidents’ wives to wonder about. If only there were a way to help mitigate all that stress that still comes with our children’s education, what with the note cards, and research papers, and outlining, and test scores and report cards and tears and deadlines and procrastinating and Mommy threats, like, ironically, taking away computer time until all the work is done.

Could someone out there create an app to help me with that?

(PS -- Eleanor Roosevelt died in 1962. And I got an A on my term paper.)

The Counter-Resolution Revolution

Happy New Year, everyone. In thinking about what to say at the beginning of 2012, I have decided to copy Harvard Business Review bloggers Peter Bregman and Dorie Clark. Instead of just divulging what they want to accomplish in the New Year, they each wrote their own lists of what they will try to ignore in 2012. Making a list of what not to do? Now, that’s something I definitely can do.

1. I am not going to rip out pages of recipes from magazines and pretend that I am going to cook them someday. I am not. Ever. Going. To. Make. These. Recipes. There, I’ve admitted it. I have a problem. I rip out about 10 recipes a month from magazines like Martha Stewart’s Living and Food and Wine because the pictures look so appealing, and I think, I can totally make that! Not only can I make it, I will, and when I do, my life will improve! Dinner conversation will elevate with that meal on the table. I will throw elegant, simple dinner parties! And then I’ll get to buy myself a new outfit! So I rip. And then I pile these recipes in a corner in my kitchen, and then I file them in binders based on type of dish (I have an entire binder of side dishes, another for main courses, one for desserts…you get the picture) and then….nothing.

Guess what? These papers do not magically turn themselves into food. No parties with snazzy apps and rosemary-infused cocktails jump from the two-dimensional glossy world into the real 3-D of my kitchen island. Knowing this, I’ve tried to cut back. Now I only let myself tear pages of things that seem do-able. Like spicy mixed nuts. That’s something achievable, right? Or butternut squash and apple soup. With the mixed nuts as garnish, perhaps. But who has the time? Or the energy? Or the fingers? Last week, I actually cooked a full-on 3-D meal three nights in a row (using an actual cookbook, not the collection of random pages, of course). The first night, I burned my ring finger when a bubble of oil from the frying pan got me. The second night, I put a baking dish in the over without a mitt and burned a knuckle. The third night I cut my hand while chopping vegetables.

In the New Year, I am ordering in and gifting my culinary magazines to the dentist’s office.

2. I am not going to pretend I read the Harvard Business Review, or any other news-related periodical for that matter, besides The Scarsdale Inquirer and the Sunday Times. When I name-dropped above, you thought I was smart, didn’t you? You thought, wow, Julie reads scholarly periodicals. Nope. Truth is, my husband, Brett, reads the Harvard Business Review and everything else, and then he emails me links to articles he thinks I would like. He’s the clever one. I am merely arm candy. And I’m tired of it. In the New Year, I am not going to sit around looking cute and getting lost in fiction the way I always have. Occasionally, I am going to curl up with the newspaper and turn ugly with frown lines.

3. I am not going to be bothered by people who do things that bother me. Like the woman near me in spin class who totally can’t get on the beat and has no idea how to do tap-backs (don’t ask). This irks me. It threatens to take me out of my zone. But I resolve to shut her out, this symbol of rhythm-lacking humanity, in order to find peace with myself.

Same with the curly-haired woman sitting in my sight line at the diner who plays with her curls. She digs deep with her pointer finger and grabs one, and then curls it around her finger and then plays with it. Then drops it – I can breathe now – and then picks it up again. I almost say something to this woman, but what is there to say? Listen, there’s no denying that I am a crazy person. But, I really can’t focus on my Greek salad because of your compulsive hair-twisting habit, so could you maybe just sit on your hands until your food comes? Thanks!

In the New Year, I will try not to say any of this out loud.

4. I am not giving up on books in 2012. I have a Kindle. But, still, I like to buy books. Real books with real pages with real sounds and scents when I hold them close and turn the pages. Ah, a book! In my hands! With a glossy dust jacket, and some heft. It’s so delish. (I know, I know, I should be reading the newspaper. Perhaps on my Kindle?)

There are definitely times when I use and enjoy my Kindle. Like, when reading a ginormous tome like Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken or Ken Follet’s Pillars of the Earth. An e-reader is perfect under such weighty conditions. Or, when going on vacation. I tend to read a lot when I’m away, and so it’s fun to load up my Kindle with a nice list of books, and then see how many I can get through while ignoring my children on the beach.

But a list on a Kindle isn’t quite the same as a stack next to my bed. Each book in that stack is filled with promise, each unique in size and feel, and, thus, each creates a distinct and separate reading experience.

Furthermore, I am not giving up on bookstores. There is something so wonderful about browsing and dwelling and discovering that gets lost with the point-and-click efficiency of Amazon. Not that I don’t love my Amazon Prime. But that’s for another article entirely.

5. I am not going to read and respond to emails during certain stretches of the day. A lot of people have this on their list, I know. In general, I am not a super-plugged in person, and I don’t feel I spend too much time in the virtual world. But, I do notice that my attention is pulled towards the laptop in the kitchen during dinner-and-homework time, which is the exact time when I should be focusing on my children. It’s become a habit that makes me seem efficient, as I can respond to emails quickly while my kids work quietly. I am nearby, so they can ask me for help when they get stuck on something. (Not that I’m much help with 4th grade math.) But, because the computer is at the desk, I end up sitting with my back to Andrew and Zoe the entire time. I have realized that this is rude, and not just because of where I sit. 5:00-7:00 at night is not my personal work time. It is my time to work with my children. I will keep the laptop closed. I shall make dinner and – no, wait, I can’t do that anymore…I shall flip through a magazine instead – no, wait, I can’t do that anymore - I shall use this time to read the newspaper! Yes. And, as for my emails? You will hear from me eventually.

I hope this inspires you to think of things to ignore in 2012. And, as long as I’m not on your list, I approve.

Leaving on A Jet Plane?

A note: This article was written by my husband, Brett, as a joke. He emulated my writing style and vented about me the way I always do about him. And then I read it and laughed and decided it was good enough to appear in the newspaper. My editor agreed. Enjoy!

“A.M. or P.M.?” I asked my wife, Julie, as we sipped our morning coffee. It was a lazy Saturday and we were catching up, preparing for the week ahead.

“What do you mean?” she asked. I pointed to the email she had forwarded to me the day before. “According to this itinerary, you are leaving for Miami on Monday night, at 8 PM, not on the 8 AM flight you told me you were taking.”

“WHAT?!” She ran to the computer to verify her mistake and then immediately got on the phone with the airlines. Julie was on the verge of tears. Now, not only was she going to be late for her beloved Saturday morning Spinagogue, but also she wasn’t leaving for her three-day junket until a full day into it. She’d arrive just in time to pick up the tab for the dinner she had just missed. She had no choice but to pay an extra $300 to secure seat 19F on the 6:00 AM nonstop.

Readers of her articles know that Julie prides herself on disorganization and last minute decision-making. Remember, she was “born this way.” But here is the funny thing: she is hyper-organized when it comes to getting out of town. She’s been known to book family-free getaways nine months in advance. This trip to Miami had been in the works ever since her friend Gaby announced last winter that she and her family were moving to Missouri. Before Gaby had even sold her house or packed a single bag for the Midwest, Julie decided that a sympathy sojourn was a necessity, a must-have that would save her friend from a life of utter misery. “We’re going!” she told me, trying her best to make it sound like a request instead of a de-facto conclusion. “We’ll make sure it’s not over a weekend.” She was already logged on to Expedia.com. “The kids will be in school most of the time I am away,” she said, tapping furiously at the keyboard. “It will be easy.”



My wife sleeps in late. Like everyday. She claims she's catching up from her days and nights of breastfeeding. Mind you, that was almost a decade ago. Julie is just not a morning person. In fact, she isn’t an afternoon or evening person either. Brunch and naps are more her style. But at 3:43 Monday morning, Julie was up and about.

Frankly, I was impressed. She proved that she could motor. She awoke without an alarm, dressed, brewed a cup of coffee and jumped in a cab within fifteen minutes flat. I promised not to take this personally. But Zoe did. She awoke at 6:30 and asked, "Did she leave? Already?" And with her big black “Puss in Boots” eyes and her tiny quivering lips, she declared, "It will be okay. We'll be a family again on Wednesday.”

“We’ll be a family no matter how broke or hung-over mommy will be when she returns,” I assured her.

Andrew and Zoe are fairly independent. They are intimately aware of their responsibilities, A-F day schedules, extra curricular activities, pick-ups and drop-offs. So it was a surprise to them that Julie left us two pages of notes to aid our stay-at-home adventure. “It makes mommy feel better.” I noted. “This way, she’ll be able to blame me for anything we didn’t do.”

I am entirely comfortable and capable of taking care of things around our house. Julie affectionately calls me her “house husband,” because shopping, cooking, cleaning, carpooling and generally having things in order keeps me sane. So the hour-by-hour, meal-by-meal breakdown my wife prepared made me chuckle. “Really, the kids eat dinner... every night?”

However, Julie was kind enough to leave several things off the list. Like the fact she had no gas in her car. I guess, in her world, SUVs run on rainbows and butterflies. And there were no instructions on how to comb Andrew's hair so he'd look good for his debut performance at the Fox Meadow Classical Cafe. "Dad, it’s in front of the entire fourth grade, so don't make me look like a dork!"

Julie also neglected to inform me that our cleaning lady was not coming on her regularly scheduled Tuesday, but rather on Wednesday. This happenstance threw the whole ratio of ready-to-wear vs. ready-to-wash smiley face sweatpants out of sync and added a late-night load of laundry to the list, since Zoe only wears one kind of pants these days. Disposing of the now moldy meat lasagna that Julie lovingly made two weeks prior would have to wait too. "Have Maria take care of that." Julie texted.

I couldn't. Nor could I leave the beds unmade on Tuesday. Even though I had an important meeting to get to in the city. The thought of a sink filled with pots, pans, bowls and dishes from Monday night's taco and pasta fiesta made me lightheaded. The least I could do was organize the mess for Maria. Perhaps I could stack things by size and color? I’ve done so before. Instead, I cleaned it all and missed my train. But at least I could think clearly again. 



On Wednesday I was feeling a bit fatigued. And this is how I made a fatal error. I decided that designer cupcakes for the kids would be a just reward for having been exceptionally well behaved while mom was away. The candy-by-the-ton and the Entenmann’s chocolate loaf cake my mother-in-law provided just didn’t spoil them enough. But I forgot about the principle of multiple choices. More choices = more happiness. Rushing home from the city to pick the kids up from school, I didn't leave enough time to find the "right" cupcakes. Instead, I settled for two, fancy we-hate-those-kind-of-cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery. In an instant, I went from "you are the best mother-father" to feeling like the dual role was one too many.

Tears flowed as the "I miss mommy" time bomb exploded. My tears. Now, I was on the verge. I had endured the kids’ anxieties and insecurities. Tickled their backs "like mom does" to help them fall asleep. Completed the list and then some. But one $3.50 dark chocolate cupcake brought me to my knees. 



Just then, Julie sent me a text. With emoticons! Sweet relief was on the way home. While my wife had bonded with her best friend, got inspired about her writing and generally enjoyed her three days of freedom, I was here, holding down and decluttering the fort for her inevitable return. Which, by some divine interruption, was delayed, and so Julie waited past midnight for her 47-pound duffle bag to arrive on a separate flight. It too had its own itinerary and up-charge. 



I missed my wife. I really did. Not because I had to fill in for her. Not because I had to supervise the electrician, or pitch in at the elementary school, or car pool for karate, Nutcracker rehearsal and Hebrew school. And not because I had to make beds, brush teeth or bathe babes. I missed her because she wasn't here to laugh at - or with - me. 



I am looking forward to taking a solo trip to Miami someday too. I think I'll take a break from being my wife, by being my wife. 



Brett Gerstenblatt makes frequent appearances as a character in his wife’s humor columns. Currently he is considering starting up a house-husband-for-hire service in Scarsdale.

The Same Me, Only Better

I want to live on Nantucket. Let me qualify that: part of me wants to live there. The artsy, romantic, writerly side of me is drawn to the moors, and the fog, and the endless views of blue water. This tiny island off the coast of Massachusetts inspires in me a sense of calm, of freedom, of anything-is-possibleness, like no other place in the world. On Nantucket, I would be a better writer, a better mother, a better wife, a better me.

On Nantucket, I would cook, and bake, and goshdarnit, I might even sew. I would grow my own vegetables in a garden I tended to myself and then can those vegetables for the long winter months. I would collect berries and make pies, preserving the leftover fruit as jam, in jars with those cute little fabric tops. I’d give this jam to people as gifts.

I would not watch The Bachelorette on Nantucket.

My weak-ankled children would ice skate, since that’s pretty much all there is to do off-season on Nantucket. Andrew would grow tough and broad, learning to breathe with a huge mouth guard attached to his palette, playing ice hockey and skating backwards. Zoe would join the championship figure skating team in winter, spending her summers surf casting for stripers off Quidnet.

On Nantucket, I would eat striped bass caught by my daughter.

I would fillet it on the beach with my bare hands.

On Nantucket, I would dress more J Crew and less Pamela Robbins. I would choose Sperry Topsiders as footwear in an un-ironic way, because they are practical. Not because they now come in metallic silver and gold. I would wear a bright yellow rain slicker as my every day outerwear, so that someone would notice me in a nor’easter and therefore be able to rescue me if a gale-force wind swept me down Main Street. (The rain jacket I have now is really cute. It’s from Barney’s. It’s like this wheaty-tan color, and has three quarter sleeves and that you can roll up or down, depending on how wet you want your arms to be.)

We’d get a dog, or maybe two. Forget my idea of a toy-sized, hypo-allergenic suburban fluffy puppy with a little “poo” or “doodle” in it (think cockapoo, goldendoodle, schnoodle, cavapoo). What we’d need in the New England wild is a pair of Portuguese water dogs, animals that swim the Atlantic surf with gusto, taking pleasure in long runs on the beach with us.

Speaking of which, I wouldn’t have to seek out opportunities for exercise on Nantucket, because my daily existence would just be so active. I’d bike to the market. (Don’t laugh.) And, even though I’ve never in my life tried this, I’m sure I’d be an excellent paddleboarder. Just for fun, I’d cruise through the marshes and bogs, boarding in Polpis harbor to investigate the native flora and fauna. In fact, I’m sure that I’d get so good at paddleboarding that I’d start taking sunrise yoga classes on a paddleboard, even though I am not a particular fan of a) sunrises or b) yoga.

What would my husband, Brett, do on Nantucket? The question is, what would he not do? He’d paint en plein air, whenever the mood struck and the light was right. He’d just pull over his truck and hop out, grabbing his folding French easel and pastels from under the tarp and dragging them onto the beach grass. He’d surf. He’d create. He’d distil his own vodka. He would not shave. He’d be.

As a pair, we’d certainly be well received, and not just as That Funny Jewish Couple Out In Eel Point. No, we’d have much more to offer the year-rounders than New York shtick.

Immediately, people would notice our keen intellect and diverse talents (I can write my name upside down and backwards, in script; Brett speaks a little bit of Dutch) and we’d be asked to apply our savvy to their Nantucket-specific conundrums. We’d be invited to lecture on someone’s yacht, and neither one of us would vomit. And, in that way, we’d endear ourselves to this community of fisherman and fisherwomen, restaurant owners and shopkeeps, bartenders and raging alcoholics, becoming as intricately woven into the tapestry of the island as cashmere is woven into a $2,000 Nantucket Looms blanket.

“So, why don’t we do it?” Brett asked for the thousandth time. We were enjoying a few beers at Cisco Brewers, while a local musician played guitar, Zoe already his biggest groupie. Andrew was playing lawn games with my father-in-law. The rest of us were inhaling a brick oven pizza made on site. “Why don’t we just move here already?”

“Because,” I said for the thousandth time.

I realize this argument is lacking in strength.

“Now is the time,” Brett pressed. “I’m in between jobs. You can write from anywhere. The kids will adapt. You always say you want to live here.”

Tons of excuses flooded my brain. I’d miss my mom. We love our house. The kids have friends in Scarsdale; I have friends. There’s no Bloomingdale’s on Nantucket. They don’t get the good movies on island fast enough, like that lame, quaint town in Cinema Paradiso. We just paid our temple dues, so we can’t leave for at least another year.

And, while all of that is true, or true enough, it doesn’t really get to the heart of the issue. For as much as I like to imagine that my heart belongs to Nantucket, it really beats right here. I grew up in Edgemont; there are still pictures of me in old theater production posters lining the high school hallway. I went to college upstate, moved to the city, and then settled in Scarsdale.

Did I…“settle” by picking a life that is so predictable, so similar to the way in which I grew up? Sometimes I wonder. But each time, I come to the same conclusion. Nope. I chose to live here above all other places, even Nantucket. Although I entered the main office at the Nantucket Middle School once in the late 1990’s and asked if they had any job openings for English teachers, I was relieved when they said no, and I never followed up by submitting an actual application for the following academic years. Instead, I applied to the Scarsdale school district.

Oh, I talk a good game, and I can fantasize with the best of them. But let’s be real here: what’s so great about living on an island with three lighthouses and no traffic lights? Sure, it’s got gorgeous vistas, but what a schlep. I mean, Nantucketers have an entirely different definition for away games at the high school than we do. Think Somers is far? Try Martha’s Vineyard. In January. I can barely make it to rec basketball at Fox Meadow; you think I’m putting Andrew on a plane to Chattam to compete?

And, by December, the gray weather really starts to wear on one’s psyche. As a diversion, there’s only so many sailor’s valentines one can make out of shells before developing a pirate’s accent and a permanent twitch.

“I have the perfect idea,” I said to Brett. “Let’s compromise. Summers on Nantucket, and the rest of the year in Scarsdale.”

“Great. So the solution is to have two houses?”

It makes perfect sense. After all, the same me, only better, already lives in two homes: the real and the imagined. And for a while, anyway, I guess that’s how it will stay.

Happy Campers

My 9-year-old son, Andrew, recently went on a mini-sleep away trip with his day camp. He was gone for a total of 5 days, which is hardly anything, but it gave me a microscopic view of what many of my friends experience when their children go off to camp for the whole summer. What I felt as I prepared for Andrew’s departure was a cocktail of emotions, made up of three parts packing frenzy and one part heavy dread. Add a twist of sunscreen, stir with a tennis racquet, and shake vigorously until nauseous.

Before I knew it, I was kissing Andrew farewell. “Bye!” I called, as the bus rounded the bend, “Have a great time! Mommy’s going to have a heart attack now and wash down some aspirin with a glass or two of sauvignon blanc!”

The next morning, my friend Andie called to check in on me. She was a pro, having already survived half of her first summer with her older child at camp. “Did you check for photos yet? I bet they’ve posted some.”

“Ohmigod, you’re right! I have to go!” I exclaimed. And then I hung up on her.

Sure enough, there was Andrew, smiling at the camera. He was scaling the rock climbing wall and zipping down the zipline. He was mountain biking and fishing.

He seemed like a happy camper.

But all I could see were the long pants he was wearing.

I turned to my husband, Brett, who was standing over my shoulder, peering at the same images on our laptop. “I packed him 6 pairs of shorts. Why is he wearing long pants on the hottest day on record since 1951?”

“Who cares?” Brett said. “He’s alive!”

But my critical Mommy eye couldn’t let it go. Did he have trouble finding the shorts? Did the counselors rush him out so fast for breakfast that he only had time to grab what he could, in complete survival mode?

Happily, I can report, the next time we saw pictures of him, Andrew was holding a frog and….wearing shorts! His black and grey Adidas shorts and a Rolling Stones t-shirt, in fact.

Which he was also wearing when he stepped off the bus two days later.

Brett and I embraced our son in our driveway, grabbed his duffel bag from the back of the bus, and decided that Andrew had definitely gotten taller.

I waited a good thirty seconds before jumping in and asking whether he had, as I suspected, been wearing the same clothes for seventy-two hours straight.

“I couldn’t find my stuff!” he said. “I wrote you a letter asking you to tell me where my toothbrush and hairbrush were, because I couldn’t find them. Did you get it? Why didn’t you write back?”

No, I didn’t GET IT! And how was I supposed to help him find his toiletries through the U.S. Postal Service when he was only gone for 4 nights? I was on the verge of getting rather upset with him until I realized that Andrew has had no real prior experiences with mail (or unpacking, for that matter). My digital-aged child must think that regular, old-fashioned, snail mail works just like email, only you write it down instead of type it. And, poof, it gets there instantly!

Honestly, this child knows more about how Harry Potter gets mail via owl than about how our muggle postal system works.
Sweet. Naïve. I hugged him a little harder. And then I brushed his teeth.

The next day, I got the letter.

“Letters?” My friend Casey laughed, when I told her the story. “At least you got one. My son never writes. Never. I got him that fancy camp stationery, with the check-off boxes, so that he doesn’t even have to work too hard to correspond with us, and then I pre-addressed the envelopes. And you know what I got?”

She paused here for dramatic effect. So I took my cue and said, “No, what?”

“I got a piece of notebook paper, torn out with like half of it missing. I don’t even know where he got the notebook. And on it was written three words: Send poker chips.”

“I love it!” I laughed.

“And, he put a stamp on the piece of paper, and then another one on the envelope, like they are stickers.”

The only item her son wanted for visiting day was a six-pack of Mountain Dew.

I guess all a boy needs to be happy at camp is something cool to drink while playing poker. I bet if he writes again, it will be to ask for some Cuban cigars.

A few days later, I was having dinner with a bunch of moms, all of whom have at least one child at sleep away camp. “I write to my daughter a lot,” my friend, Lisa, said. “So I just tell her what I’m doing. Like, today I went to work. This weekend, I cleaned your room, and tomorrow I’m cleaning your brother’s. Stuff like that. And you know what she wrote back after receiving a few of those?”

She paused for dramatic effect. “No, what did she write back?” We asked.

“She wrote, Dear Mom, stop writing boring letters about your life. It’s boring. Love, Lindsay.”

“No!” we laughed. Then we drank some more sauvignon blanc.

The stories kept flowing with the wine. Leila’s daughter writes in code. “She’s never texted in her life, but her writing is filled with abbreviations. Dear m + d+ z. How are u? The next time I write to her, I’m just going to throw down a bunch of letters all over the page and see if she can figure out what I’m trying to say!”

Deena had a similar experience. “Carly wrote about some girls that she’s having trouble with, but she’s got a solution. I am going to C U W (I think). “What does that mean?!” Deena wants to know. 8 grown women were around the table, several of us with advanced degrees, and we could not decipher Carly’s strategy.

Deena arrived on visiting day to discover that all fourteen pairs of her daughter’s socks were missing. Gone! “Can’t you borrow some from your friends?” She asked. Uch, Carly said, definitely not. She wanted to lose a dozen more of her own. “She can borrow someone’s bikini but not their socks? I don’t get it,” Deena mused. But of course she sent the socks.

Allie had seen photos of her son and had skipped over the Happy Camper mood, as I had, in favor of a critique. “Charlie has one green t-shirt and one green pair of shorts. Somehow, these two items found each other from the vast wardrobe I sent, and, every time I see a picture of Charlie, he’s head-to-toe green. It’s driving me crazy!”

She bet her husband that Charlie would be wearing all green on visiting day. She won.

Conclusion: the boys wear one thing all summer, while the girls prefer to dress in each other’s clothes as much as possible. In the end, most of it has to be thrown out anyway.

And while they are having the best time ever, we are worrying. (And also having a pretty good time.)

I guess the bottom line is this: are our children safe and happy? And, if so, can we accept their independent fashion decisions while simultaneously hoping for the best hygiene outcome possible? Can we believe that, come September, our happy campers will revert back to writing in complete sentences?

I’ll bet you ten poker chips, a Mountain Dew, three packs of socks, and a green t-shirt that we can.

Battle Hymn of the Mouse Mother

A lot of people wonder how it is that Jewish parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many doctors and lawyers, so many rabbis and Hollywood producers, one Itzhak Perlman and the occasional Madoff. They want to know what it’s like inside the suburban minivan of a Mouse mother’s world, to see whether they, too, could drive a perfectly normal child into years of psychotherapy.

Well, I am here to say that they can, because I am doing it.

People see me out with my daughter in public and comment at how well behaved I am, even as she is brow-beating me and publicly humiliating me. So many people wonder why, when my children call me stupid, I am able to remain calm and not smack them upside the head. They say, Mouse mother, how can I emit calm like you, even while raising independently-spirited, self-directed, emotionally strong children? How is it that your children are bright even though you got a D in 8th grade Latin and attended a college known more for its fraternity system than for academic rigor? Mouse mother, please, they beg, tell us your secrets. And so, after generations of protected silence, I am here to squeal the truth.

With a little practice, you, too, can be a Mouse mother like me.

Not sure why you’d want to, but that’s for another memoir with a high six-figure advance entirely.

Anyway! Back to my battle hymn, which is really much more of a whine.

Anyone can be a Mouse mother; you need not be Jewish to lack Tiger skills. So, please understand that for legal purposes, I’m using the term “Jewish mother” loosely. So loosely, in fact, that when I say “Jewish Mother,” I mean absolutely anyone except for Amy Chua.

Here are the things that I, as a liberal Jewish mother have allowed my children to do and/or done for them:

• Skip 2 months of Hebrew school in order to perform in a local performance of The Nutcracker
• Bribe them to play piano, practice the violin, make their beds, brush their teeth, and to be nice to me and others – oh, what
the heck, let’s just say “bribe them constantly” and leave it at that
• Talk them out of playing any and all contact sports for fear of them breaking their noses
• Talk them out of playing any sports that involve running because of the funny way they run
• Allow them to watch no less than 2 hours of television a day and to not let them stop until they had both committed to
memory a complete episode of iCarly
• Suck their thumb until the age of 7 and/or carry around a dirty, beloved shmatte like Linus from The Peanuts
• Write notes to a teacher excusing their inability to do homework because American Idol was on
• Choose all their own extracurricular activities, including fencing, Lego robotics, and a class in which my 5-year-old daughter was taught how to sing karaoke like a drunken idiot at a bar.

Now I know some of these seem unconventional, but if your goal is to have a human child like mine, as opposed to an automaton, for example, then you’d do well by following my example of mediocrity and a little dose of who-gives-a-hoot.
To prove that this type of parenting can achieve the desired results, I would now like to share a few success stories.

A Tiger mother might spend two complete chapters of her memoir explaining how to get one’s children to perform at Carnegie Hall, or at the very least, how to obtain an audition to the Pre-College program at Julliard. But a Jewish mother can boil the answer to that down for you in a few simple words: by kicking and screaming. As a Mouse mother, I prefer to regale you with impressive stories of just the opposite, and so I shall call this instructional section of my writing “How To Ensure That Your Child Never Achieves Much of Anything in The Arts.”

I recently took my daughter, Zoe, for a trial class at a ballet studio where some of her friends were enrolled. After the class, we discussed what she thought about it and tried to decide together whether or not she would be signing up. Being a Mouse mother, I didn’t really care either way. The signature move of the Mouse mother is the shrug, which I did repeatedly as we spoke. I wrote down our conversation verbatim because I thought it was so emblematic of our mother-child dynamic.

Me: So, what did you think of this ballet class?
Zoe: I didn’t see any machines there.
Me: Huh?
Zoe: You remember that place where Andrew took a class once? They had candy and drink machines.
Me: Oh.
Zoe: And ice cream. We used to eat ice cream before his class.
Me: You mean, that hip-hop class on Central Avenue?
Zoe: Yes! And they had stuffed animals to buy and also dance clothes. And a TV to watch.
Me: Uh-huh.
Zoe: That’s the kind of dance class I want to take.

It’s clear to any Jewish mother out there that this girl understands her culture. Zoe knows that professional ballet is just not in her future, so why even try? How smart of her to know that, come puberty, her Polish genes will betray her, ensuring a body so low to the ground that it’s better constructed for potato farming than arabesquing. The closest she will ever come to doing a split is with her Barbie doll’s legs. And that’s so totally cool with her, as long as she can buy stuff and enjoy snacks.

It was one of the proudest moments of my life.

My firstborn, Andrew, proved to be another story entirely. He actually seemed to have some drive beyond the candy-and-shopping aspects of the theater. In fact, he tried out for and was given the coveted role of Fritz in last winter’s production of The Nutcracker at SUNY Purchase. Now, a Tiger mother would have spent weeks, days, and hours preparing her child for such an audition and would then feign modesty and humility but secretly take credit for the child’s success when he did well. But not me. I merely got Andrew a nice haircut and told him to smile a lot in front of the choreographers. Like the Mouse mother I am, I believe a nice Jewish boy with dimples can get ahead in this world merely by knowing his left from his right and by following his own interests.

Seeing that her child has a passion and talent for something of worth, a Tiger mother would certainly push and squeeze and prod and threaten to the point that a) the child got really freaking amazing at the skill and b) the child really hated both the activity and the Tiger mother. Where a Tiger mother values perfection, a Mouse mother values diversification above all else. Why stick to just one thing and become the best at it when you can try so many fun activities and be mediocre at all of them? Which is why, once Nutcracker season had passed, I did not take Andrew to The New York City Ballet. Instead, I took him straight to rec basketball.

Call me naïve, but so far, this renegade technique really seems to be working. And by “working,” I mean its produced children who, at the ages of 8 and 5, are pretty happy doing their job…of being kids.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Dear Scarsdale,

Welcome back! I hope you enjoyed the Hamptons/Europe/the New England coast/horseback riding in the Grand Tetons (circle one). Here’s what I did while you were away.

June:
After nine summers camped out at the Scarsdale Municipal Pool, I have become an expert at understanding its culture. This year, I entered the complex and immediately began a strategic assessment so as to determine the perfect place to sit. The pool is a bit like a middle school cafeteria that way; everyone knows that once you’ve picked a spot, it’s hard to switch out and become a member of another locale. So the first day at the pool is critical. Sun or shade? Hill or valley? Near the new moms or the new grandmas? Find some other Fox Meadowans, or branch off? As Brett and I perused the grounds with our children, chairs strapped to our backs, it all became clear: this was make-it-or-break-it time.

After some deliberation, we settled on the Greenacres Knoll, a grassy rise equidistant between the baby pool and the main pool, favored by a few families from one part of the village. With growing excitement, we realized that neither or our children, ages 8 and 5, would be spending much time – if any – in the two smaller pools this summer. When my children were little, I waded through the baby pool for weeks on end, only wet to the ankles. Then I spent a summer or two submerged mid-thigh, and then the following two fully soaked. Last summer, we turned a corner, and I didn’t even have to get wet! And, now that Zoe, my younger one, is a confident, able swimmer interested in doing handstands in the main pool when not diving off the high dive, we could literally turn our backs on the baby and medium pools.

Truth is, a kid could defecate in one of those small pools and throw up in the one, closing both indefinitely, and it would not affect our nuclear family’s happiness in the least!

We had progressed.

July:
The phone rang one afternoon as I was home working on my novel, jarring me out of my creative spell. I saw the ubiquitous “Scarsdale Public Schools” number pop up on caller ID, and immediately assumed Zoe had been hurt at rec camp.

Turns out, she had actually hurt someone else. “Hi, Mrs. Gerstenblatt, this is Jill, over at Camp Sagamore. We had a little incident at the pool today, in which Zoe hit her friend, Daisy.” Oops, I thought, cringing. I had never received a call like this, one in which you instantly feel like the worst mom ever. As a former teacher, I had certainly made those calls, and now I hoped that Jill over at Camp Sagamore would not think less of me and that Daisy’s mom would forgive us both. “I’m going to call Daisy’s mom next,” Jill explained. “Please tell her that I am soooo sorry, will you?” I begged.

When I asked Zoe what happened, she explained it like this: “Well, Daisy was talking to me in the pool and I wanted to swim. And she just wouldn’t let me! So I punched her.” She took a deep breath. “And then, she punched me back. In the wiener.”

Which is worse, I wondered, sending Zoe off to kindergarten with a strong left hook and her own sense of justice or with an incorrect understanding of her own genitalia?

During the same week, my son Andrew came home from his swanky private day camp – complete with door-to-door bus service each day -- with an announcement. “I think I want to go to sleep away next summer,” he said, between bites of his cookies and milk. I might have gasped. I looked at him across the kitchen island, fighting back tears. “But – but – you said you’d always live at home, even when you went to college! Even when you got married! You never wanted to leave me!” Andrew shrugged. “Yeah, well, I changed my mind. Plus, day camp is getting a little old.”

Well, excuse me. Maybe next summer, we should trade places. I’ll go to swanky day camp with water slides and zip-lines and he can go to the Scarsdale pool and try to find the perfect, quiet spot in the shade in which to read, preferably upwind of the sewage drain and downwind of the distracting chatter of the circle of friends on the knoll.

August:
There is nothing I love better than trying on last season’s cashmere over my workout clothes in 95-degree heat while fighting off others who want the same item because it’s now 75% off.

That’s right: the first weekend in August brings the Scarsdale sidewalk sale! Of course, the sidewalk sale is a bit like the Jewish holidays; they come early or late but never on time. This year, the first weekend in August was actually the last weekend in July, but whatever. I’m not going to try and explain the complexity of this. I’m only going to say that I put it on my calendar and I came, I saw, and I conquered.

The sale, like the pool, has its own, unique culture. You basically find yourself half-naked in the back of a store like Pamela Robbins, giving strangers advice about what to buy. “Oh, my God, that looks awesome on you,” I said to a woman that I see regularly at spin class who basically ignores me, and I her. But today, bolstered by fashion at deep discounts, we could not only speak to one another, we could become each other’s temporary BFFs. “You think?” She asked, turning this way and that in the mirror. “Yes, I think!” I enthused, thinking, Duh, Dolce and Gabana, what a no-brainer. “Here, try this, it’s too small for me but it will probably fit you perfectly.” I added.

Too small for me? Had I just admitted that she was thinner than I was? Who was I, and why had I become so nice? Anyway, after 9 minutes of love-fest, we parted ways. I knew we’d see each other at spin class, but I waved goodbye like she was going to sleep away camp. “Talk to you next year!” I joked, sort of.

August is also when I head to Staples to buy school supplies. The third grade list wasn’t so bad; it was the kindergarten one that got me.

“Twistable crayons, thin and thick markers, and colored pencils, all have to be branded Crayola?” I said aloud in the middle of the store, to no one. “15 thick glue sticks?” The list also included two large boxes of tissues and pump soap and a Purell, plus two containers of wipes per child. At 48 wipes per container, that’s 96 wipes. Let’s say the class has 22 children in it. That’s 2,112 wipes per classroom. I pictured the kindergarteners, very clean and germ-free, stuck to their seats with all that glue, like something out of The Little Rascals.

But, then I thought, given Zoe’s track record, glue might not be such a bad idea.

Is Andrew on the verge of going to sleep away camp? Will Zoe make it through kindergarten without being sent to the principal? Will I ever finish writing my novel? The school year of 2010-2011 has all the answers. Stay tuned.

Your Pal,

Julie

Mirror, Mirror

My daughter, Zoe, is on her cell phone again in the back seat of our car.

I try to tell her that we have almost arrived at gymnastics, but she shushes me with a combination death stare and pointer finger in mid-air. One minute, Mom, that finger tells me. Can’t you see I’m busy, the look signifies.

She’s blabbing away to Tanner Oberstein, her boyfriend.

“Yes, Tanner,” she coos. “I miss you too, Tanner.”

I roll my eyes into the rear-view mirror, hoping she’ll take the hint and get off the phone.

As we pull into the parking lot, she makes her goodbyes. “See you soon, Tanner Oberstein.” There is a pause as she listens. “What’s that? You want to marry me?” Her eyes light up and she giggles before snapping her blue plastic Cinderella phone shut. Zoe gazes out the window, past the grey sky and asphalt, into the rainbow-hued Disneyland of her imagination, and sighs contentedly.

I don’t like to stereotype, but my 4-year-old daughter is such a girl.

Some of it is totally my fault. Like the fact that she enjoys getting her nails done. I confess: I introduced her to this activity, mostly out of desperation. How could I get a much-needed pedicure on a Saturday afternoon, with child in tow? Why, have her pick a color and get her nails done too!

I swear, I only planned on taking her the one time. That was it. It wasn’t supposed to become a “thing.”

But the women in the salon loved her and told her she was so cute. They complimented her clothing choice and they painted pretty flowers on her thumbs.

No one ever offers to paint flowers on my thumbs.

And I thought her self-selected outfit was kind of tacky, thank you very much. What other girl wears a pink and purple costume tutu over Capri-length blue leggings? With a sparkly tank top? I mean, besides from Madonna, circa 1984? It’s embarrassing. Adorable, they said. Your daughter is too sweet.

Zoe left the salon feeling like a million bucks. I walked around the room shelling out about a million bucks in tips to all the nice ladies who made Zoe feel like the princess that she’s pretty sure she is.

I used to worry about what people would think of me if I let Zoe march around in whatever zany combination of clothing she wanted to wear. Would they think I was negligent? Or worse, color-blind? Would they see us together and whisper, “What a shame. There goes a woman who cannot get her daughter to listen?”

But after a few tearful fights about wardrobe choices, I backed off. I won’t say which one of us ended up crying, just that Zoe always gave me tissues when I needed them, and patted me on the back, saying softly, “It’s okay Mom.” Then she went about her business of getting dressed as much like a sideshow attraction as was humanly possible as I re-applied my mascara and looked forward to preschool drop-off.

Sometimes I’ll just watch Zoe and wonder, where does this somewhat frightening – albeit cute -- behavior come from? How much of her girlitudes link directly to me, and how much is passed down through the ages?

Like the Taylor Swift Mylie Cyrus Phenomenon. I’m no geneticist, but I’m pretty sure there is a hot pink, sparkly genetic marker in Zoe’s DNA that causes unrestrained love for these female entertainers. I can’t explain her obsession (and that of many of my friends’ daughters as well) any other way. She was born with it.

While listening to Hannah Montana in the mornings, after she dresses, or before, or right in-the-middle, Zoe puts on her make-up. This involves Q-tips and blush brushes and a great deal of privacy. No one is allowed into her room while she’s getting ready.

There’s even a sign on her door that says so.

When Zoe looks at me as a female role model, what does she see? I hope I inspire more of a foundation in her life than the correct application of foundation.

(The other day, Zoe was scribbling furiously in her notebook. She told me she was writing an article. Now that’s more like it!)
But don’t even get me started about her shoe fetish.

It began, as many stories do, with a pair of espadrilles. It ended, as many stories do, with the following pronouncement: “They hurt my feet, but I love them.”

Now, who hasn’t said that about a great pair of toe-pinching, heel-rubbing, Band-Aid-needing shoes? But, I ask you, how many people say it at the age of 4?


Should I laugh, or should I worry?

I’ve settled on a little bit of both.

When Zoe “flirts” on her pretend phone with her pretend boyfriend, I worry that, someday, she will get her real heart broken by a real boy. I see in her my own enthusiasm for love, which, combined with an active and romantic imagination, can really backfire. Growing up, it was easy for me to assign wonderful traits to boys who really were not so wonderful or deserving of my attention. I hope Zoe is wiser than me, and that she doesn’t fall so hard, so fast. Unlike her mother, I hope she spends more time studying mathematics and less time doodling hearts on her notebook paper.

And I worry that our little power struggles will only grow as she grows, until she’s 12 and she slams the door on me and I yell at her and she yells back at me and I’m on the verge of moving out because we’re living in one of those horrible teenaged TV dramas. I worry that someday she won’t talk to me about her life any more, that she will roll her eyes at me when I ask how her day at school was. Maybe she won’t want to get her nails done with me anymore, preferring her friends’ company to mine.

But there’s still plenty of time before all that happens. If it ever does, that is. (Turns out, I have some Disneylike fantasies of my own, complete with mom and daughter Happily-Ever-Afters.)

So I take her to get her nails done now because I can.

At the salon, I study Zoe’s reflection in the mirrors lining the wall opposite us. Her feet swing far from the ground, her hands barely reach across the table to the manicurist. Today she has decided on two colors, and she instructs the manicurist to paint every other nail blue or purple, accordingly. “Just file, not cut,” she adds with authority.

Then Zoe turns to me. “What are you looking at?”

“You.” I shrug. “And me.”

“Okay.” She smiles, letting me.

Snow Angels

If you really want to know the weather forecast, ask a school crossing guard.

Last week, I did just that. I had missed the report on the radio and I needed to know whether or not another snowstorm was indeed brewing. Moms around town had started complaining and rolling their eyes skyward, so it seemed like a snow day was imminent. But before I cancelled my plans for the next day’s spin class, confirmation was required.

I headed to the elementary school. There was someone I needed to see.

“Hello there!” Tom, our crossing guard, smiled. He held up his red stop sign so that Zoe and I could get safely over to the other side of the street and collect Andrew.

“So, Tom,” I asked, “whaddaya think? Big storm? Or blown out of proportion?”

“Oh, no! This one’s gonna be a doozy. Accumulations of up to 18 inches!” He reported enthusiastically.

My heart sank. “No hesitation?” I asked. “You’re sure?”

“Oh, I’m sure. You better get ready.” He dropped the sign and signaled the cars to pass. “Have a nice day, now!”

Have a nice day? Was he serious?

How could I have a nice day when I now needed to scratch everything planned for tomorrow and get over to the supermarket for…for whatever people always get before a big storm?

I quickly gathered my wits and my children and off to the market we went. The sky grew more and more ominous by the minute.

It was hard to find parking. The supermarket was crowded with other frantic moms looking to stock up on items as if hibernating for the whole winter, instead of just one day.

I was pretty sure I had milk, but I bought another gallon. Also, I remembered purchasing eggs recently, but better safe than sorry, I thought, adding a carton to the cart.

Where was all the bread? The entire section looked ravaged. I grabbed a pumpernickel because that’s all that was left. No one in my house even eats pumpernickel. But I imagined us spending days cut off from civilization, huddled together under one blanket by the glow of my last remaining Jo Malone candle, saved from starvation by this very loaf of bread. Into the cart it went.

Brownie mix was key. As was pancake batter. I stocked up on microwave popcorn, predicting a movie night in our near future. The deli counter line was long. I’m not sure why “snowstorm” is synonymous with “3/4 of a pound of turkey,” but apparently, it is.

Snowstorms remind me of Superbowl Sunday that way. Throw everything into the cart and head home for overstuffed sandwiches. There is no dieting on these sacred occasions. Anything that can be consumed is.

Now safe at home, Andrew began his Rituals for Invoking the Snow Day Gods. “Three ice cubes flushed down the toilet!” he instructed himself, running from the kitchen to the bathroom. That accomplished, it was time to do the Macarena four times, facing north, east, south and west, directly in front of the refrigerator. He then dashed upstairs to put a spoon under his pillow and a penny on his windowsill.

Second graders know almost as much as crossing guards do about these things. They just rely on different means to the same end.

As I put away the groceries, I couldn’t help but notice that I now had enough milk and eggs to make a soufflé for ten people.

The precipitation hadn’t even begun when the call came in from the district office announcing the cancellation of school for the next day.

“Goody!” My children shouted, moved enough to dance the Macarena once more.

“Movie night!” I called, trying to get into the spirit. “Get your pajamas on and meet me in the sunroom in ten.”

“Zoe, remember to put your pajamas on inside-out,” Andrew instructed as they headed upstairs.

“Okay.” She nodded.

“Why?” I called up after them.

“Dunno,” Zoe confessed.

“Because then we’ll have a snow day! That’s the last thing you have to do before going to bed.”

“But, Andrew, school has already been cancelled for tomorrow,” I reminded him. “You don’t have to conjure any more voodoo.”

“Still,” he shrugged, not taking any chances.

It’s hard to argue with that kind of logic.

We awoke the next morning to a world blanketed in white. It was beautiful and serene and my children seemed cherubic in their inside-out pajamas. They helped me make chocolate chip pancakes (two eggs down!) and then played some imaginary games that Andrew came up with.

Eventually we made brownies (using two more eggs) and played a World Championship game of Uno. Then Zoe watched a Disney princess movie while Andrew and I read some Harry Potter.

What are we going to do next? Andrew and Zoe wondered.

The snow was falling heavily, so going outside was not yet an option.

“Uhm…a game of Clue? Wii?” I suggested.

“No,” Zoe said.

“Nuh-uh,” Andrew concurred.

I looked at the clock.

It was only ten in the morning.

How was that even possible? Had the space-time continuum been warped by the snow?

What the heck were we going to do with the rest of this day?

“I want to play Quiddich!” Andrew called.

“I don’t like that game!” Zoe countered.

“Andrew, why don’t you practice piano while Zoe and I apply tattoos to her arms and color her hair with Moxie Girl dye?”

“I don’t want to practice piano right now,” he said. “I’ll do it later.” He flopped dramatically onto the couch and sulked.

“I don’t want tattoos!” Zoe whined. Then she too flopped dramatically onto the couch next to her brother.

They were on the verge of boredom. That, I could handle. It’s the slippery slope from antsy and bored to Let’s Kill Each Other In The Manner of Lord of the Flies that I fear.

I had hoped to sneak up to my office for some quiet in which to write, but for now, it looked like it was time to get cracking.

Eggs, that is.

“Everybody, to the kitchen!” I called, summoning my best impression of Meryl Streep’s impression of Julia Child.

“Why?” They asked.

“We have several soufflés to make!”

“Uch,” they groaned.

“Fine, cupcakes then,” I said in my regular voice.

“Ooo!” They agreed.

So that was a relative success, and I was now down to only 16 eggs. I boiled a bunch for snack later on in the day.

The hours between 11 am and 3 pm dragged on interminably. The romance of the snow day, created the night before, had worn thin.

And then, like magic, the snow stopped. Sun came out. The outside world beckoned.

“Kids!” I cried. “Get your boots and hats and ski pants and thermals and socks and gloves and scarves and sleds and let’s go play in the snow!”

45 minutes later, we were dressed.

“I want to make a snow angel!” Zoe cried.

“I’m going to throw snowballs at Mom,” Andrew declared.

“And I’m going to make a snowman that looks like Tom the crossing guard, decorate him with hard boiled eggs and cupcakes, and hope he has the mystical power to ensure that school reopens tomorrow!” I smiled, chasing them out the door and into the thick snow.

Now, who wants some hot chocolate?

iTube

“Zoe, you are so smart,” I told my four-year old daughter the other day as she spelled out the word pony.

She looked up at me and smiled. “I’m not just smart. I’m K-Mart smart!”

I swear! That’s what she said. Then she walked away from me, humming “Be true, be you, Moxie Girlz!” I was horrified, but the tune was kind of catchy.

Okay, so maybe my kids watch just a little bit too much television. But I no longer have a real babysitter, so sometimes I call on my friend Nick to stay with the kids in the sunroom. Nick is cool. He “gets” my kids and teaches them all about SpongeBob and iCarly. And he’s always available, whenever I need him. I just turn on the TV and hit channel 33, and there he is.

My lovely old friend, Nickelodeon.

It’s not the shows that really bother me. It’s all those darned commercials.

Commercials are what started me on my zhu zhu pet hunt a few weeks back. The kids saw a commercial for these motorized hamsters, and asked that I “add it to the list” of toys for Hannukah. “The list” started out in an orderly fashion, as a few items scribbled on my iPhone, but in recent weeks, it has escalated into a black hole of every toy, doll, truck, video, movie, and game ever made. Every item they seen on a television commercial or played with at a friend’s house gets added to the ubiquitous list. “The list” should now just be called “Toys R Us.”

Anyway, zhu zhu pets were a top-of-the-list item. So when I received an email from Toys R Us.com, declaring, “we have the hottest toy of the season – zhu zhu pets!” I started to panic. Those hamsters were the hottest toys of the season? Who would have guessed such a thing? I went immediately online to purchase some, my heartbeat embarrassingly quick, only to find that they were all sold out at Toys R Us, Target, and WalMart. Amazon had them available from third party sellers who were jacking up the prices. A motorized hamster for $10 is cute. At $35.99. it becomes roadkill.

But now I suddenly really, really, really wanted these zhu zhu pets. The chase was on. I told my mom about them so that she could use her high-powered shopping skills in the greater metro New York area, hopeful that together, we could succeed, like Batman with Robin by his side.

Sure enough, a day or two later, my mom called me. “Did you get the email from Learning Express? They’re getting their shipment of zhu zhu pets today!”

“Holy Bat-hamsters, Robin! I’ve got to get down there now!”

The only problem was that Zoe was home sick and I, too, was feeling under the weather. There was no way I could get these toys with Zoe in tow, since they were for her. I made the decision to leave her at home with Maria, our cleaning lady, turn on the television, and then dash down to the village. I was victorious, purchasing both Nums Nums and Pipsqueak, as well as a whole host of equipment for the hamsters to play on.

“It’s easier to get a swine flu shot than a zhu zhu pet,” I joked to Ken, the store’s manager.

Just then, a voice from behind a display to my right said, “We’ve got our sound bite!” Suddenly, a camera crew and a reporter made themselves known to me. “We’re doing a story about zhu zhu pets for Nightline,” the reporter explained.

“Funny! I’m doing a story about zhu zhu pets for the local newspaper!” I replied. Turns out my witty little bit of dialogue got me on television. This is ironic, since the very thing I am having issues with is how much time my family watches television.

At this point, I don’t think a few more minutes of television viewing could hurt. The damage is clearly already done.

That's Life

My four-year-old daughter, Zoe, came home from preschool the other day with a great idea. One of her little friends had brought an actual, live animal into the classroom for “show and share” time, and Zoe was inspired. “Can I bring my hermit crab to school, Mommy? Pleeeeeze?”

“Of course!” I agreed. “What a fun idea! We can take the crab out and let him walk around on the carpet. Your friends can even take turns picking him up.”

Unfortunately, when we got home to tell Sponge Bob Square Crab the good news, it was too late.

I recognized the signs of Sponge Bob Square Crab’s expiration right away. The poor thing, usually tucked tightly into his shell (hence the moniker “hermit”), was limply hanging out, exposing his entire face, neck and both claws to the elements. He was not just resting. He was resting eternally.

Zoe and my seven-year-old son, Andrew, were not as certain about Sponge Bob Square Crab’s demise, having never experienced death up close. “Oh, look, Zoe,” Andrew began, “I think your crab is getting ready to move into a bigger shell!”

That big shell in the sky, I thought, holding my tongue.

Shame on me. All I said was, “Uh, yeah, maybe that’s what it’s doing. Let’s wait for Daddy.”

I have some classic moves as a parent. One example that springs to mind is the “Why don’t you wait until Nana comes to visit” move. This strategy allows me to get out of buying my kids expensive things like tap dance shoes or video games, but then they get them anyway. I also have been known to use the “Your teacher won’t let you” excuse when I don’t want my kids to bring something particular to school. I have no idea whether or not the teacher really won’t let this item into the classroom, but it seems reasonable enough to my kids, and so they stop fighting me and put the toy away.

But my best, by far, is the “Let’s wait for Daddy” move. “Let’s wait for Daddy,” is code for “Mommy doesn’t want to handle this. Mommy is going to put you to bed, have a glass of wine, and make Daddy play medical examiner on the corpse of a deceased crustacean when he gets home after a long day in the city.” It also means, “Then Mommy is going to make Daddy break the sad news to you at breakfast tomorrow and bury the thing in the backyard before he takes you to the bus.”

It takes a village. Truly.

Anyway, before there was Sponge Bob Square Crab, there was Superchick.

Superchick was born last spring in an incubator in Andrew’s first grade classroom. Although a lot of the eggs did not hatch, Superchick and one other (aptly named Fluffy) made it into this world.

The first weekend after the chicks hatched, one of Andrew’s friends took the pair home to care for over the weekend. Andrew was there for a play date, and when I picked him up, he begged to be able to take the chicks home the following weekend, if the teacher selected him.

So, sure enough, the following Friday, I got the call from Andrew’s teacher, Mrs. B. Mrs. B is awesome. She’s really into teaching and really into the kids. She’s calm and organized and a lovely person. She’s the kind of teacher you always want for your children and sometimes are lucky enough to get. So when Mrs. B asked me if I’d like to take Superchick home for the weekend (Fluffy having already been taken to the farm earlier in the week), naturally I said yes.

The first day with Superchick was, hands down, the most fun I’ve ever had with a chicken. We took her out into the sunny backyard and watched her climb all over the rocks and peck at the grass. I have video of her stepping over Andrew, lying in the grass, and resting in the crook of his arm. Superchick was so lively and strong and silly. She had this wobbly little chicken walk and she chased Zoe up the hill, following as she called “Here, Superchick! Here!”

On Saturday morning, Superchick seemed lethargic. She couldn’t find her footing on the feeder, and kept slipping off it and landing on her soft little butt. I took her out of her cage to see how she managed on my kitchen floor, but her balance was no better. Up, down. Up, down. Every time I would right her, she would slip back onto her tush.

I kept a close eye on Superchick while lying outright to my kids about her condition. “She’s just so worn out from playing yesterday with you guys!” And “Let’s let her rest. She’ll be much better tomorrow.” I shooed them out of the house to attend birthday parties and to go to the park.

Late that Saturday night, I found Superchick lying flat on her furry back, feet up in the air. She looked over at me and sighed through the glass. Superchick wasn’t dead (yet), but she sure was pretending to be dead and it was freaking me out.

“I’m on the verge of killing the beloved class pet! I damaged the circle of life! I am a failure as a mother!” I confided to Brett. “This is a disaster!”

I hardly slept that night, picturing Superchick lying prone in her cage, never able to lay eggs for the world.

I emailed Mrs. B the first thing Sunday morning. She wrote back immediately, asking me to call her at home. An intervention was quickly arranged. “Let’s meet at the elementary school. I don’t want the chick to die in your house,” Mrs. B explained.

“Neither do I!” I agreed. “Good plan.”

I woke the kids to tell them the “exciting” news. “Guess what? Mrs. B called to tell me that Superchick is going to the farm TODAY! We have to get her ready. Right now.”

So the kids and I propped her up in her cage only to watch her topple over again. We put her in the car and headed over to our rendezvous spot with Mrs. B.

“Hi!” She smiled as we stepped out of the car. I rolled my eyes at her, but kept up the charade.

“Hi, Mrs. B! We are soooo excited for Superchick’s big day!” I fake-enthused.

“Yes!” Mrs. B began. Then I opened the car door, revealing Superchick’s glass box. “Holy…I mean, how do you do, Superchick…? Wow, you look…just great…?” she trailed off, momentarily losing the ability to stay enthusiastic.

Superchick, lying on her back with her feet straight up in the air, just turned her head toward Mrs. B and sighed.

“Andrew,” Mrs. B said, regaining her composure and looking my son in the eyes, “Thank you so much for watching Superchick this weekend. You did a great job.” Her sincerity brought tears to my eyes.

Because he really did do a good job.

And I probably did, too. But sometimes these delicate little creatures just don’t make it, even under the best of circumstances.
At least that’s what I tell myself when I think of fate of that poor little fuzzball, Superchick, and of Sponge Bob Square Crab as well.

You know what will make me feel better?

A dog.

Definitely!

School Daze

Imagine, if you will, a suburban household at 8:15 a.m. Let’s just pretend that the house exists on a quiet, shady street, in the middle of bucolic bliss. Like perhaps in a village 30 minutes north of New York City.

Oh, what the heck, let’s just call it Scarsdale.

So it is 8:15 in the morning in Scarsdale, and it’s September. And in this particular place at this particular time, the household goes into momentary panic mode. For argument’s sake, let’s just pretend that there is a mom and three elementary-aged kids inside this abode. Now, I’m just guessing here, and remember that this is pretend, so I can make up all kinds of crazy stuff if I want to, but I think the mom is shouting at two, if not all three, of her children, at this very moment.

“Molly, put on your shoes!”

“David, where is your homework? Did you do it last night? Did you put it in your homework folder?”

“Remember the permission slip!”

“Don’t forget that you are going home with Tyler after school!”

“Please eat your lunch today – I packed your favorite!”

“Brush your hair!”

“Brush your teeth!”

“Pee!”

“The bus is coming!”

“The bus is here!”

“YOU MISSED THE BUS!!!”

It is now 8:16 am. The children pile into the minivan with an over-the-top, harried mom, who is on the verge of cursing under her breath in all manner of colorful language. She cannot believe that the children need to be driven to school again when she pays taxes for the convenience (and green-ness) that is known as the yellow school bus.

If all that carbon monoxide is green, that is.

Is this your morning?

Welcome back-to-school, everyone! Happy September to you all. Hope you had a nice, relaxing vacation down the shore or up the coast or right here in the middle.

My summer was lovely, thanks for asking.

Yes, I missed you too.

For those of you who know me, you know that I always – and I mean like 30 plus years of always – go to Nantucket for my summer vacation. Not this year. This year, my children and Brett and I tried something different, something novel, something completely in-law-less.

First, we went to the Jersey Shore. Way down. Exit 13 off the Garden State Parkway, where no Scarsdalian has gone before.
Down there, people come from Philly, and random parts of Pennsylvania that I’ve never heard of, and even Delaware. I didn’t see anyone I knew. For seven relaxing, sun-filled days, I didn’t see any Bodyfit or Circle of Friends stickers on any cars, or any New York license plates whatsoever.

“What’s that accent I keep hearing everywhere?” I asked Brett one afternoon in Cape May, as we strolled the quaint Victorian streets with our kids. “Is it…southern?”

“Yeah. We’re in the beginning of the south, you know.” Brett teased.

“New Jersey was a part of the Confederacy?” I paused, trying to think back to 11th grade. “Really?”

So close to home, and yet a world away from all the New Yorkers in Massachusetts.

On the Jersey Shore, we played a lot of mini-golf. We ate something called “water ice” which is basically Italian Ice, only somehow better. Creamier. Like sorbet. (Brett thinks they removed the national label for political correctness. I’m like, “is the term ‘Italian Ice’ derogatory? Since when?” We debated this for quite some time. When on a family vacation, you can do this sort of thing since no one has to leave to catch a train to the city or a bus to school.) On the Jersey Shore, we walked the boardwalks and spent six hours straight in inner tubes at a water park and then rode on huge Ferris wheels perched next to the Atlantic. We bought hermit crabs painted as Sponge Bob and kept them as pets in fancy cages bought at the five and dime in town. We jumped off a private dock into the bay located right in our own backyard. And we all had a blast.

But wait: there’s more. Then we spent a week in the Hamptons, reconnecting with our peeps. Get-togethers with different friends from Scarsdale moved seamlessly from lazy afternoons on the beach to tranquil evenings all together, with wine in hand. Every day was more restful and beautiful than the next.

And then September 7th arrived and my summer came to a screeching halt.

Registration for fall classes nearly sent me over the edge. Is Andrew elite enough for junior elite tennis? Will Zoe get off the waitlist for preschool gymnastics, and will her name be selected by lottery for the coveted Wednesday Coach Terrific class? Will my doctoral committee member who is on sabbatical in Sweden (or Denmark? Maybe Norway? Definitely not New Jersey) ever get back to me about revisions to chapter five of my dissertation?

Coming home after summer vacation is like being in a car commercial: I go from zero to sixty in under five seconds.

To manage the stress of September, I tried to plan ahead. Really I did. This year, I went to Staples for school supplies over Fourth of July weekend in order to beat the back-to-school crowds. Only they hadn’t gotten their back-to-school shipment in yet. “Come back in, like, August?” The girl behind the counter said. “You know, when everyone is like shopping for back-to-school stuff?”

“But, you see,” I wanted to tell the clueless sales girl, “that’s exactly when I go on vay-cay-shun!”

Some people handle back-to-school planning differently. To stay ahead of the crowd and get a leg up on the latest fall trends, my friend Sloane did some clothes shopping for herself on one of the muggiest days of the summer. “I bought leather leggings,” she confided as we watched our kids splash in the town pool a few weeks ago.

“In August.” I countered.

“Yeah. It was like 94 degrees out.”

“You so needed those.”

“I did. And the cute booties that go with them. Now I’m all set for fall.”

Sloane is going to be styling’ in her black leather leggings with coordinating booties and I still cannot locate 5 inch Fiskars scissors to satisfy the particular demands of a second grade school supply list.

But the worst is behind me now. The kids are successfully off to school -- with or without scissors -- and the after-school activities have been lined up for the most part, with coordinating carpools in the works.

And now that it’s underway, I remember how much I love September. New books, new clothes, a hint of chill in the air. The promise of something; a fresh start. A few hyper moments each morning are worth it. Because once the kids are out of the house and off to school, I can breathe in that clear fall scent in relative peace, and look forward to the season ahead.

Whatever it may bring.

With or without leather leggings of my own.

It's Our Party

I used to think jumping up and down on a trampoline with three year olds was fun.

But approaching the 50th time, I started getting a little tired of it.

Am I allowed to say this in print? I don’t need to spend any more Saturday mornings or Sunday afternoons at Tumblekids or Wonderjumpers. And I’m just guessing here, but think I could live out the rest of my days very satisfactorily without attending – or hosting, for that matter – another Coach Terrific party. I love my children and I love celebrating their birthdays and milestones with them. I’m just not sure I have to keep inviting the world along to watch.

Now, just so everyone is clear about this: I am guilty of many celebratory offenses myself. I have been known to go ga-ga over personalized Internet invitations and to race to the best bakery for the Perfect Cake. I once hired a groovy guitarist for Zoe’s birthday and actually sang harmony with him at the party. (Who can resist a Crosby, Stills and Nash tune, I ask you?) In fact, in the context of the larger world, these are hardly “offenses” at all.

But also, just to be clear, sometimes I think we have gone a bit too far. Like, when you look at us collectively. All the parties, all the hoopla. Every year, for every kid in the village. Are we mad?

I really like throwing parties. I am outgoing and social, and so I kind of get a high from having entertained well. But I think there’s a danger in that, too. Andrew’s fourth birthday party was held at a local gym. 30 of his closest preschool friends were invited, along with all the grandparents and many friends of mine from high school and their kids and maybe a few strays I picked up on the over way to the place. For the invitation, I arranged a photo-shoot of Andrew in a green Power Ranger costume jumping up and down and posing mid-air on the gym equipment, looking fierce. It’s not like I hired a photographer or anything; I took the digital images myself and uploaded them into Shutterfly and made an invitation. It was fun for both me and Andrew, but let’s just call it what it was: a little bit nuts.

It was then that I realized the ugly truth. The preschool birthday party is the gateway drug to the bar mitzvah.

Each year from that point on, the need to succeed would get greater and greater, until I couldn’t outdo myself anymore. Nothing would get me high enough. No overnight sleepover in the Museum of Natural History, no all-access passes to the tween concert of the year. I imagined myself, several years in the future, line dancing upside down in a zero-gravity simulator transformed to look like Mos Eisley’s Canteena, dressed as Princess Leia. Welcome to Andrew’s Intergalactic Coming of Age Party: The Bar Mitzvah That’s Out Of This World!!!! What a bad trip that would be.

The truth is, until fairly recently, I felt a lot of pressure about throwing these somewhat elaborate, although now typical, parties for my young children. I’m not proud of it, but I’ll admit it. I started worrying in January about Andrew’s April birthday because venues book months ahead, especially if you want to get “the best” time of day at “the best” party place, whatever that may be.

“There is always a theme on top of a theme on top of a theme at these things,” Brett added when I told him the topic of this week’s article. “I’m at this party last weekend and I’m like, with the bowling alley, weird science, and a hired Sponge Bob character, did ya really need the piñata, too?”

“Plus, this party circuit is an endless cycle,” Brett continued. “We’re either going to parties or planning our own or attending our own. We’re purchasing gifts, opening gifts, returning gifts, re-gifting gifts or donating gifts to the school fair where we win them back in the raffle. At these parties, everyone arrives with toys wrapped in the same paper from the same toy store. We eat the same tiny slices of pizza and huddle in the corner by the veggie plate, waiting to get our goody bags and go. It’s Groundhog Day!”

So I guess I’m not the only one frustrated by this.

“The thing is,” Brett elaborated, “everyone feels the same way about these events, and yet it’s an accepted and routine part of our culture. People talk about breaking the cycle but no one ever does.”

Until now, that is. Enter the Seasonal Birthday Party, or SBP.

I’m going to give credit to my friend Lila for this one, and then I’m going to snatch that credit away from her and say I came up with it first. Why? Because it’s a brilliant idea and who wouldn’t want to be aligned with that?

The SBP is really great for those of you with 3 and 4 year olds with a large network of preschool friends. When Andrew was in preschool, he attended at least 25 birthday parties between the months of November and June. It was then that Brett and I first discussed the idea of the Seasonal Birthday Party. What if the parents got together to plan four parties a year, grouping the children together by birthday season? The fall party could be a Coach Terrific party, the winter one could be at a gym, the spring one could have a children’s entertainer and the summer one could be at the town pool. Everyone would be celebrated, and everyone would be included. How awesome! How revolutionary!

And then, like most great ideas on the verge of implementation, it fell by the wayside and we stepped back into the familiar pattern of individual (but pretty much all the same) parties.

Truth be told, I worried a little bit about the group party thing. I worried that my own child wouldn’t feel special. That maybe, in this world of personal parties, he would feel gypped. (And then he would grow up to always feel slighted by the world and it would somehow all be my fault. If only I had let my child have his own 4th birthday party!)

But now that I’m on to child number two, I know that things in general need not be taken so seriously. So when my friend Lila approached me a few weeks ago, suggesting a group party for the five children in our preschool class with summer birthdays – including Zoe’s – I jumped at the idea. She and another friend had already thought it out, deciding to have the event at an ice cream parlor where the kids could make their own sundaes.

“What fun!” I enthused.

“It will just run an hour, I figure,” Lila added.

“Only an hour! Genius!”

“And no gifts – just the hosts will exchange with each other.”

“Amazing!”

And so, given the job of creating an evite for the event– an evite! So simple, so green! – I got to work and sent it out. The next day, I received a phone call from the mom of another of Zoe’s classmates. She hoped she wasn’t imposing, but her son Peter’s birthday was in June, and, well, this was like the best idea she had ever heard of in her life, and, so, could Peter join the summer celebration as a host, too?
Absolutely! The more the merrier!

It’s not just my party anymore. And that’s really something to celebrate.