Reader Comment and Are You Jewish?

First, I just want to start off by saying thank you to my many fans who religiously read this blog. I would also like to highlight one email I received this week: "I was gratified to see that Stalin became Gorby, a much nicer figure, at least towards the end of his career when he redirected the Soviet Union and as a viable Soviet partner to Reagan.  Also a Nobel Peace prize winner (which meant more before Obama)."  Thanks Mom! I am consistently proud that I am the just about the only Jewish woman in my age bracket with Republican parents. It brings a tear to my eye. Now we are moving on.


So Big Shot Husband has had several assistants and/or interns over the years. They were from a variety of ethnic backgrounds but shared many traits in common: young, ivy-league, preppy, upper-middle-class, sufficiently sycophantic to Big Shot Husband. And invariably over the years, we have invited said assistants and/or interns to our house or out to dinner to meet our adorable children, show our appreciation for a job well done, or just to see what they're made of.


This summer, Big Shot Husband has had an intern. He has been somewhat unsure about his relationship with said intern, let's call him Sanjay, the entire time. He hasn't really been raving about him like with his last intern and I started to get the feeling that maybe this Sanjay was not sufficiently deferential to Big Shot Husband. Tonight was the night I was to meet Sanjay and see what was going on.


It was 100 degrees. We pulled up to kosher fusion pizzeria/falafel/Mexican (yes, really) place that is one of our favorites since we only have about 4.3 kosher restaurants from which to choose around here. Sanjay was waiting outside. In 100 degrees. I instantly wondered about his common sense quotient. Turned out, it didn't matter because the restaurant apparently didn't get the memo that it was 100 degrees outside and didn't turn on the air conditioning. But he was sufficiently preppy, ivy-league, cool glasses, the whole nine (yes, I know people don't say that anymore).


The entire meal consisted of this:
Gorby (4 year old son), "Sanjay, are you Jewish?"
Sanjay, "No."
Gorby, "Are you Jewish?"
Sanjay, "No."
Me, "So Sanjay, what extracurriculars do you do?" (Me, to self, What am I, 100?)
Sanjay, "I do. . ."
Interrupted by Gorby, "Sanjay, are you Jewish? Sanjay, I love you."
Nervous laugh by Sanjay.
"Sanjay, you laugh a lot," I don't have to tell you who said that.
The other three kids ate like they'd never seen food before and all Sanjay got was two small pieces of pizza. And no air conditioning.


We get in the car after dropping Sanjay at the public transit with the kids yelling out the windows, "Bye Sanjay!! Bye!! Are you Jewish?!! (no not really)."  Big Shot Husband says, "You know, I just feel like something was a little off with our relationship this whole summer. I don't think Sanjay liked being my intern." "Yes," I said, "I got that feeling, he didn't seem to have the awed expression most of your interns get while in your general vicinity.  And Gorby certainly didn't help seal the deal." Big Shot Husband says, "Yeah, and while you were in the bathroom with Eva, I handed him the stack of assignments I want him to do this week and he said, 'Oh, thanks, you really didn't have to...' because he thought I was giving him a present." Um, AWKWARD. "I thought the two pieces of pizza he ate tonight WAS the present," said Big Shot Husband. That, as well as a taste of Gorby's advanced interrogation techniques. 

My life is an afterschool special

So I get a call the other day from my ex-Nanny-who-was-with-me-for-8-years-and-then-left-saying-she-wanted-to-work-with-the-elderly-but-then-just-went-to-work-with-another-family-but-I-am-not-bitter. The thing is, she wants to "see the children." She left me almost exactly a year ago now. And she hasn't seen them for seven months, but I am not counting. When she left me it was, no joke, like a divorce. There were tears, recriminations, many questions, "Why would she leave, why?"  These were all directed at Big Shot Husband because I was too scared to actually talk to her about it.

You see, she kind of, like, half-raised all four of my children. She started working for me when Perfect Eldest Son (Pes) was one and now he's ten. And Zsa Zsa, Eva, and Gorby mysteriously arrived within a little more than four years after she started working with us. And the children adored her. And for many years Big Shot Husband was busy being a Big Shot and Ex-Nanny was my companion at home.

One time when Eva was less than two, for example, we were at the food court at the mall eating our Haagen Daas when a lovely African-American family sat down next to us and started eating their McDonalds or whatever. So Eva stood up, practically straining something trying to get over the side of the booth and looked at me accusingly, like, "This is my real family. Let me go with them." There were many times before she could talk wherein she would look at my quizzically like, "Who is this strange white woman trying to take care of me?" Ex-Nanny, as you can imagine, was infinitely nicer, more patient, and able to cope with a child who literally screamed for, oh, four years straight.

So she arrives one afternoon recently to take the children out. Eva dresses up specially, wearing a jumper she knows Ex-Nanny loved. Zsa Zsa wears her prettiest silky pink skirt. The boys grunt politely. When it is time to get in the car to go to pizza, ice cream, shopping at Target and Claire's (yes, really), Ava gets shy. She won't get in the car. "Honey," I say, "Come on, Ex-Nanny wants to take you out for a TREAT." Open eyes wide and nod like a pageant mom. Ava shakes her head. My heart sinks, she is feeling betrayed, her other mother left and didn't return for many months.

Ex-Nanny pulls out her favorite trick, "I'm sure Mommy has a treat you can take with you, right?" Looks at me expectantly. I go get the roll of gum in a faux tape dispenser (yes, it exists, yes, it's disgusting), at which point Eva jumps in the car.

I can imagine single mothers feeling all stressed out trying to maintain a civil, friendly relationship with the ex for the sake of the kids. Dealing with the kids' disappointment, betrayal, expectations. The kids get home two hours later full of pizza and ice cream with new jewelry and baseball cards. Ex-Nanny asks me, "Are you OK, you're happy?" I put on a huge smile, "Yes, I am doing GREAT!" Then she leaves and I have to make the kids go to bed. Later that night I look at Big Shot Husband and say, "I am really glad we're not divorced." He says, "That's the nicest thing you've said to me all year."

Change

So some of my readers have suggested that referring to my beloved four-year-old son as "Stalin" might be a bit harsh. Yes, Mother, I am aware that the original Stalin was responsible for the deaths of approximately 30 million people. And was BFFs with Hitler for a while. I discussed this pseudonym issue with Big Shot Husband who said, "Maybe when he's a little more civilized, you can enact a blog-perestroika and rename him." I thought this was a brilliant idea. However, I decided that instead of waiting until he's civilized, today is perestroika and my baby is now Gorbachev. Yes, mother, I know your grandson doesn't have that weird purple thing on his head.

Another change we experienced today occurred in a downtown parking garage. Zsa Zsa, Eva, Gorby and I inserted our ticket to pay for parking. "$1.50," it told me. I had $1.25. And a twenty. I sighed. I inserted the $20, realizing I'd probably get a lot of small bills in return. I did not anticipate what happened next. In the change tray, I received 10 single dollar bills and 100 pounds of change, mostly in dimes and nickles. Then another one dollar bill. I complained to Management. Management pointed to the sign through the bulletproof glass, directly over my head that read, "No Money in Office." I sighed.

I appointed Zsa Zsa and Eva official coin counters in the car on the way home. It did not bode well when I heard Zsa Zsa explaining, "This is a dime, this is nickel..." They came up with, "$8.35, I think, or something like that." I recounted at home and got $8.45. Score! I only paid 55 cents in parking. And the best part is that next time I have to pay for something at the store, I can really irk the cashier AND the person behind me.  "...1 dollar and 10, 20, 30, 40...how much do I need? $7.37?...50, 60, 70.."

Trader Joe's is my new babysitter

One more day of 3/4 campless kids. I am going home to work out straight after dropoff for Perfect Eldest Son (Pes) this morning. I share this information with Zsa Zsa and Eva (8 and 6) and my sweet little Stalin, age 4. Zsa Zsa says, "Mommy, let's go to Starbucks first." "Well," I equivocate (yeah, right), "Maybe we could just do a quick Starbucks since I do have to go to Trader Joe's anyway. . ." Zsa Zsa is super smart. They fight the whole way there. I get many reports related to hitting, touching, tongue-sticking-outing, etc.

We sit down with our drinks. The Gabor sisters and Stalin suck down their drinks before I have even finished my emailing and Facebooking, let alone sip one iota of coffee. They think of fun activities to keep themselves occupied while I drink. For example, the Gabors demostrate how well they walk in their new flip flops, no, run, up and down the store. This gets Stalin all riled up and he not only runs, but shrieks. I tell them to sit down. Then Stalin decides to play, "I am a pundit," and yells into his pretend microphone, "This is Stalin on Fox News!!! President Obama should leave the White House!" I smile proudly but then furtively glance around, paranoid that the guy in the baseball cap on the laptop is actually a member of the Stasi.

The time is now 9:43. We make it to TJ where the three munchkins run to the kids' coloring table as if they've never seen paper and crayons before. I shop peacefully. I check on them. They are happy, "Please can we stay a little longer?" they ask. I smile like I am a Good Mom and say, "Sure, darlings, you are coloring SO NICELY. I am SO PROUD OF YOU!" That's what Good Moms say in public. I keep shopping. I am smiling. It is so peaceful. I check out and leave my groceries by the coloring table so I can run to the bathroom.

As I walk away, I hear, "Here sweetie, of course you can have the green." "Thank you Zsa Zsa, darling, oh, sweetie Stalin, do you need help?" asks Eva. I walk slowly to the bathroom and think, "Hm, what would happen if they just stayed at that table for another couple hours? Trader Joe's does pride itself on its customer service. I could go get my nails done." I walk back to the groceries and my children and say, "COME ON CHILDREN," Grin, "Let's go sweeties!!! Your pictures are SOOOO BEAUTIFUL. No Stalin, you can't take that green crayon with you, you can use one of our 30,042 crayons, markers, glitter glue sticks or paint at home to finish your gorgeous project. And we can always buy more at Target later." I know, I know, this is the most expensive week ever.

I am not Zen

Last week I was totally Zen. I had my first "non-camp" week under control. There were swimming lessons, playdates, Starbucks trips...children were relatively well-behaved, I felt like a Good Mother. Today I am not Zen. In fact, I believe I may actually be Nez. I know this because I was reading an article in a parent magazine (you know the one with the beatific toddler in a spotless frock not screaming just like in real life), by a mom who is a Buddhist and spent years living in a whatchmacallit place where Buddhists live. I read the article very carefully. Anyway, she told us all about how we can apply Buddhist practices to our parenting. I am sure I am breaking like 12 Jewish laws just by talking about this (sorry!)

Anyhoo, the only two I remember (I told you I read it carefully), were "don't leave a footprint, i.e., don't accumulate lots of stuff" and "breathe." I thought of the first one today when I was at Children's Place with Zsa Zsa, Eva and Stalin. They needed a skirt and a pair of pants between the three of them. So, therefore, we left with two pairs of pajamas, a backpack, three sparkly notebooks (yes one was for me), a birthday present, two pairs of flip-flops (Zsa Zsa and Ava have yet to master walking in flip-flops, like, ever but they were only $3 and so cute, squeal), knee socks x 2 and I am too ashamed to go on.

After a few more errands and $300,000 later (gas is expensive, yo), we arrived home in time for lunch. Since Perfect eldest son (Pes) was at camp, Stalin wandered around depressedly for the entire afternoon throwing balls which nobody caught and hurling verbal abuse at me. And they all fought with each other. A lot. And Ava likes to tattle. A lot. And I yelled, a lot. And I wondered why my swimming teacher never called or emailed me back about lessons this week. Ha.

Now I am going to breathe. For the first time today.

Kids have feelings too?

I was at a beautiful Shabbos (Sabbath) lunch recently wherein the hostess began to describe her difficulty in discussions with her eldest daughter (age 4, same as my little Stalin), in explaining why some of her relatives don't observe the Jewish laws like they do. Many people who become religious later in life, like myself, face this quandry quite often. "Why," little Orthodox Jew child asks, "does cousin It/Grandpa/Uncle Whatjawho drive on the Holy Sabbath/go to McDonalds/wear tank tops when we don't?" My stock reply for the past ten years and four kids of momdom has always been, "Your fill-in-the-blank-relative is Jewish but not religious."

When I explained this approach to my lovely hostess, she said, "I know, but daughter keeps asking this question and that question and just doesn't leave it alone." I say, "Lovely hostess, just tell her, 'Your relative is Jewish but not religious.'" Lovely hostess says, "But she'll just keep asking questions."  I am not sure what the confusion is until I realize, "Oh, they think little kids have feelings and we should always answer their million annoying questions."  I decide right then and there to reveal my trick. "Well," I tell her, "at this point in the conversation with my child I would say, 'Stop asking questions, you are really annoying me, go somewhere else." Hostess and her husband laugh uproariously, as if I were kidding.

The Gabor Sisters

Sometimes I wonder why I own a television. Here is the scene before me:

Zsa Zsa (age 8): "Eva is so annoying! Sometimes I wish I didn't have a sister." High-pitched screech.
"I can't stand it!" More screeching, storm upstairs to room.
Eva (age 6): "She doesn't understand," sob sob, cry. "She thinks I don't love her but I LOVE HER MORE THAN ANYTHING!" Sniffle, cry. "And she said she wishes I'd never been born, really, she said that once!"
Cry, wail, "I am going outside!" Step outside, notice it is 100 degrees, stealthily sneak back inside.

The boys, concurrently:
Pes: "Stalin, let's play a game with this ball."
Stalin: "Throw it up."
Pes: "OK."

Zsa Zsa, moments later, floats downstairs, "I am sorry Mommy," smiles. I say, "Say sorry to your sister."
Zsa Zsa: "I am going to, I made her a card." Across the way they are laughing and smiling and hugging. All in the space of four minutes.

In six years, I may be hiding out in Arkansas in a trailer working at Wal Mart and going by the name, "Fern."

I'm not a sucky mom

Summer vacation. What to do? Take kids to Starbucks. Daily. Come with oreos. Three for each child, lest they feel deprived. Get vanilla steamers for three (with whip of course) and decaf vanilla latte for Perfect eldest son (Pes). He's drinking coffee!!! I am so proud. After a few minutes, kids start fidgeting what with all that sugar they've ingested in that three minute time period. Go to bank. Watch boys run around bank. Be embarassed. Let them have dum dums that are readily available in big bowl even though about five minutes earlier I said, "That's enough sugar for you for the whole week." Feel like sucky parent, try to tally how much nutritious food they've had this week. Have trouble.

Target time now!! Yes, we are WT. After all the shopping completed, we are waiting for various children to emerge from bathrooms and I spy a little boy, under two, blond, adorable, elmo overall shorts, big bruise on forehead in dollar section. He uses cheap foam mallets as a bat to hit millions of squishy ball-y things across the aisle. I look all around and cannot for the life of me figure out who his mother is.  I plan to wait until she makes herself known lest someone decides to abscond with him while she gets her head out of her tush.

I see a likely suspect. Totally normal looking. Only likely in the sense that she is the only woman anywhere near the kid. I say "ma'am" four hundred and seventy two times before she looks up (when I am four inches from her face). I say, "Is that little blond boy yours?" She is two aisles and many paces away. "Oh yes," she says, "what is he doing?"  Um, excuse me? Your kid is in diapers. I could have grabbed him and carried him far away by the time you actually got around to looking for him you idiot. "Oh Ayden," she says, "what a mess you made." In a rare moment when my kids decided to look well-trained, obedient and helpful, they started gathering all the mess the kid made with the balls and mallets and put them away (except not my four- year-old Stalin because he doesn't even try to pretend to be well-trained or obedient or helpful).

Then she said, "Oh thank you so much. I should have kept a closer eye on him! Thanks to your children for helping clean up the tremendous mess he made."  Oh, except what she REALLY said was, "Let's go Ayden."  Really? I mean, the girls on Teen Mom are better mothers than this lady (except you, Amber, you are kind of a sucky mother, sorry to throw you under the bus), and they are TEEN MOMS.

Yay!! I am not a sucky mom!

Let's go see Charotte's Web! That'll be fun!

In my never-ending quest to be the best mom ever, I jumped on the opportunity to take my kids to the local children's theater's adaptation just yesterday.  (Perfect eldest son [Pes], opted out. As usual, he is smarter than I am).  Also, because I have decided to actively participate in my children's educations, I started reading Charlotte's Web to Stalin (youngest son) at the beginning of summer. Thus, I could tie in the novel with the play. Yeeeeaaah.

Due to circumstances beyond my control (Stalin couldn't figure out how it was still light out at bedtime. Every night. For weeks. This is all we talked about), we only got a quarter of the way through Charlotte's Web and that pig is still smiling menacingly at me every time I put Stalin to bed.  Luckily, he knows it's nighttime now even though it's light out.  Brilliant.

So, the appointed day arrived. We were early and got first pick of seats.We sat in front. Zsa Zsa wanted to be further back, Eva's back hurt because we were on the bench without a padded back thingy, and Stalin, surprisingly, didn't complain. I thought it was cool because we were basically on the stage! And then it started.

To be fair, this theater troupe had to condense a long, somewhat maturely themed novel into one hour. However, I mostly did not enjoy the production. I am trying to figure out if it is because I was spoiled by extremely good theater with box seats when Big Shot Husband was a bigger shot than he is now? Or is it because I have an IQ higher than 12? Let me just summarize my main complaints:
1) Wilbur was played by a much too "happy" guy wearing large amounts of pink, including pink converse (why?).
2) Lurvy had some crazy accent that sounded like Boston by way of London and appeared extremely "slow." I know this verbiage because I was watching "Teen Mom" (yes, you read that right) the other night and Maci, her baby-daddy Ryan and her new paramour "Kaaa-hhl" (this is the name "Kyle" in the Union states) had a whole text-induced discussion on wheather Kaaa-hhl was "slow" or not.  I gather this means an IQ lower than 12.
3) Charlotte was played by a beaming African-American lady who was dressed in all brown with bright red shoes. Do arachnids have red feet? She Alivin Ailey'd her way through the part and smiled so much that I was wondering how much Prozac she was on.
4) I was a little offended by Templeton the rat's casting. He was an African-American guy, a little ghetto, with a blue crips bandana around the neck. And a long rat's tail slung across the shoulder. PC anyone?

Anyway, overall it was, um, cute. I looked over at Stalin at one point (Zsa Zsa and Eva had high-tailed it to the row behind us to enhance their comfort with the extra padding), and he was beaming, clearly enjoying himself.  This is when I remembered how many times it took to remind him of the summer light late thing.  And I thought about the miracle of a child's little brain: neurons firing, misfiring, tracing new patterns, expanding the capabilities for memory, learning. . . This is my mantra, "Children's brains don't work right."

Cream Fairy

My children have eczema.  I know this is a scintillating fact. However, it has forced me to reevaluate my mothering skills, as does pretty much every. thing. every. single. day. So youngest child, let's just call him Stalin, has had bad eczema this past year or so. When I put the prescription steroid cream on his delicate broken-skinned fingers, it hurts. Fair enough.  Except that he is very, um, vocal when displeased and on the occasions when I don't feel like holding him down, listening to his ear-splitting screams and fighting back, I sigh, dejected, and give up.  Once, I even whined about it to my mother-in-law.  Well, on this occasion, brilliant mother-in-law suggested I put the cream on him while he sleeps!! Brilliant.  Except that now, when he has bad eczema, he asks for "cream fairy" to come. So "cream fairy" sneaks into his room and puts the potent steroid on his bumpy little fingers while he tosses and turns and then she sneaks back out, exhaling the whole way.

Yesterday, cream fairy was overtaken by mean mommy (she comes around more often than cream fairy). Here's what happened.  In the morning, we were all getting ready for shul (synagogue). By all, I mean my husband had gone to shul and my perfect eldest son (Pes) decided to stay home (he usually goes) so I was home for the morning with Pes, Zsa Zsa and Eva (my girls), and Stalin. We were all getting dressed and Stalin showed me his completely disgusting, red, raw finger that he had rubbed all the skin off in an attempt to scratch and requested the pleasure of cream fairy's company in his room for that evening.  Suddenly, it dawned on me. HE IS FOUR YEARS OLD AND I AM THE MOTHER AND I CAN PUT CREAM ON MY CHILD ANY DARN TOOTIN' TIME I WANT. And that's what I told him. Except he might not have heard me because he was screaming so loudly. And I put the cream on. And it felt good.  And he looked at me like I'd lost my mind.  And I had.

I have a blog and So..what do you do?

First I want to say, I have a blog!! Here it is. This is my blog. That's all I have to say about that.

When I first started dating my husband (when he was a medium-shot, not a big-shot yet), I would go to these boring Washington parties and people would ask, "So. . .what do you do?" I would then make up all kinds of stuff about how interesting it is to write about pharmaceuticals/healthcare/financial stuff/etc and how it's so great that my job/career is so "flexible" (since I wasn't ever employed all that much) and then they would yawn and walk away.  This brings me to one of my favorite stories from about two years ago:

So I’m sitting in the back of the van in between my two daughters, my least favorite place to be.  Back of the van, that is, not the daughters.  Though having a 4 and 6 year old chatter your ears off after a long day at an amusement park is loads of fun—the overstimulation of the day has apparently only affected me, a rapidly aging 35 year old woman with issues.  Anyway, the two girls are different as night and day, reflected in their distinctive voices: one very similar to a Chipmunk capital C (Alvin? Theodore? Who cares?), the other like Lauren Bacall after smoking a pack or two of Marlboro Lights every day for years.  So elder daughter, at the approximately 2 hour mark of ceaselessly talking in my ear on the right side says, “When I grow up, I want to be a teacher or something that lets me not work too much so I can be with my kids.”  Sounded reasonable although I think she needs to find a gig that lets her chatter for a living.  Daughter two rasps from the left, “I want to be, um.  Well, I think I want to do nothing. . .like you do Mommy.”

So you see, I just don't go to those parties anymore because even my kids have cottoned on to the fact that I do nothing. Except now I have a blog.  Oh and I have a FASCINATING job with a big healthcare organization where I write about diabetes prevention.  Yawn. I mean, it's really great. Flexible hours, not too much pressure, decent pay, and I still have enough time to do nothing!