DotMoms

Sunday afternoon shoppin' blues

By Margaret

I am honestly and continually surprised at how much time and energy I spend making sure I have food in my house to feed my family.

Most Sunday mornings find me cutting out coupons and looking at sales. Composing my menu. Making my grocery list. And early Sunday afternoon going to the SuperTarget as well as the local Homeland. And good God almighty I'm tired of trying to come up with good, healthy, stuff for my family to eat. Something everyone will eat. Something that can be made in a reasonable amount of time. And something we haven't eaten once a week for the last eight months.

I go through this EVERY week. And on those weekends when I don't go to the grocery store over the weekend?  I can almost guarantee my week will be hellish and we end up eating Taco Bueno three nights in a row.

You'd think, after doing this for nearly 20 years, I would be better at it, able to accomplish it without it taking the whole damned day. But, no, it seems to take most of the whole afternoon and part of the morning.

Throw a high maintenance 4-year-old into the mix, and a hormonal pre-teen, and by the time I make it home I want to bang my head on the kitchen counter.

I tend to get in ruts. We've had roast every week for the last month. I think everyone is getting tired of it. But somehow when it is good, we have it again and again and again until it's not good anymore.

Cheese Dip is my fall back meal and I try to always have the provisions necessary to make it. It's not good for us, but when neither David nor I feel like cooking we can toss Cheese Dip into the microwave and call it done in about 10 minutes.

Several times I've gone to those places where you put the food together from their ingredients using their recipes and season it to your family's liking. I LOVE that! I still had to go to the grocery store or SuperTarget to buy snacks for the kids, juice, milk, sandwich meat and bread, but it was more of a quick trip than a major trek. But NONE of those places are open on Sunday and it is hard for me to get there on Saturday or on a week day evening when they are open. I tried having them make the food for me and picking it up, and that was okay, but there really is an advantage to seasoning the food yourself.

My husband does many things; he cooks, he cleans, he irons, he gets up with the kids in the middle of the night. Now if I could just get him to plan the menus and shop for the food, my life would be complete.

Margaret is a forty-something attorney with two adopted children (ages 4 and 12) that she is raising with her husband, a stay-at-home dad.

Remember when being sick was fun?

By Margaret

I have gotten to the age where being sick isn't fun anymore.

Not that being sick was ever really FUN in the true sense of the word. Like going to Walt Disney World is fun. But it was fun in the sense that you got to stay home while everyone else went to school. You got to lay on your Mom's bed all day and watch television and your Mom made you grilled cheese sandwiches and warmed up Campbell's chicken noodle soup and gave you Ginger Ale to drink.

That kind of fun.

Now, if I'm sick, I have to make my own grilled cheese sandwich. Which to me is the ultimate comfort food. I have realized that Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup is Y.U.C.K.Y! and soft drinks of any kind aren't good for anyone.

There is no more laying on the bed watching television all day. Or sleeping.

I remember, before I had kids, taking a sick day. Laying on the sofa in my living room with the phone near me. The TV remote control at my side, my aspirin or other medicines close by and chips and sodas and other good stuff to eat. I would stay there all day and not move for anyone. And watch Oprah and sleep at will.

Now, I only go home sick if I am so totally exhausted that I can't stay awake any longer. I have done that once in the last five years.

'Cause if I'm home, someone needs some juice or milk or something else that they can't get and I can. 'Cause when I am home in the middle of the day there is laundry that needs to be put away, or trucks that need to be picked up before someone trips over them or dirty dishes that need to go into the dishwasher or dirty clothes that need to go into the washer. Or someone needs to go to practice or tutoring or a party or the library or be taken to school or picked up from school. Or something like that.

I can't even begin to think about laying on the sofa surrounded by my favorite sick junk foods. In the first place, we don't eat in the living room and in the second place, I try not to keep junk food in the house. I want the kids to eat healthy foods and if they don't have junk food here, then they can't eat it or even think to ask for it. And we only drink soft drinks at my house when we are having chicken nachos or some other special event, so we don't keep those either. And I can't find the remote control when I'm feeling good much less when I'm sick.

So I've reached a time in my life where being sick isn't fun anymore.

And somehow, as I age, I don't think it's going to get more fun.

Margaret is a forty-something attorney with two adopted children (ages 4 and 12) that she is raising with her husband, a stay-at-home dad.

Making new friends

By Margaret

I made a new friend six or eight months ago.

I hadn't made a new friend, on my own, in awhile.

And when I say "on my own" I mean it wasn't:

- someone I worked with
- someone I worked for
- the wife or girlfriend of someone I worked with or for
- the parent of one of the children's friends
- the wife or girlfriend of one of the husband's friends or co-workers.

And I don't mean to diminish those friendships. Because I value them. But when there is already a relationship of some kind there, then the way has been paved for you, to a certain extent, to be friends. It's been made easier.

I made this friend on my own. I talked to her; we agreed this would be a great job if we didn't have to deal with clients, opposing counsel, judges or the trustees. I gave her my number and she (being much more organized than I - or more obsessive compulsive - it's a toss up) gave me her business card. I sent her email and invited her to lunch. We had lunch. I invited her to my book club. She invited me to go cook with her.

We just clicked.

Now we talk on the phone almost every day. When she was unavailable for a few days like when she had surgery and was drugged to the gills with pain killers, I worried about and missed her. Now, things happen, or someone will say something to me, and I think, "I need to call and tell her!"

I remember being a kid. Arriving at some place. A camp. A class. An event. Everyone seemed to have someone to sit with. Someonee to talk to. Somewhere that they seemed to belong.

It was hard. I found it hard to fit in. I found it hard to belong. Hard to figure relationships out and find the right distance and space with people. I always thought, when I was grown up, that it would be different. That arriving at a place. A class. An event. A meeting. That it wouldn't be hard. That I would always know what to wear and how to act and what the right things were.

But you know what? It's still hard. I still wonder about where to sit, what to say, how to behave.

But I keep trying. I keep trying because while sometimes it doesn't work out. Sometimes the schedules don't work. Sometimes the interests just aren't there. Sometimes the lifestyles are just too different. Sometimes it works. And it's nice to have someone to miss, and who misses you when you aren't there.

Margaret is a forty-something attorney with two adopted children (ages 4 and 12) that she is raising with her husband, a stay-at-home dad.

Quirky Sleeping Habits

By Margaret

Both of my kids have quirky sleeping habits.

Not bad habits. Really. But habits that make it difficult for them to go spend the night elsewhere.

Lizzie sucks her finger. It was cute when she was 6-months-old. Now? Not so much.  But she does it and I am at a loss about how to help her stop.

Last fall Lizzie fell down while running to answer the telephone. Before we found out it was just a sprain, they put a cast on it (to the tune of $600 for the cast, x-rays, sling and other assorted doctors and implements) that kept her from bending her arm.  Unfortunately, that also happened to be the arm that had the finger she needed to comfort herself. It took a couple of days for them to decide the arm wasn't broken and you'd have thought she was being kept awake all night with the pain from the way she looked. I kept quizzing her about whether it hurt and it finally dawned on me that she wasn't sleeping because she'd lost her comfort item.

Lizzie knows she is too old to do this, so it isn't a habit she wants to share with her friends. So when she goes to spend the night with any of them, or they come here to spend the night, the child DOES.NOT.SLEEP. She becomes a vampire. Staying up all night. And of course she wants company so no one else sleeps.

At home she goes to bed and goes to sleep in about five minutes. And she stays asleep. But take her out of her environment and she could party all night.

Jacob too is a good sleeper, when he's at home. He goes to bed and will stay asleep for a good 11 or 12 hours a night. His quirky sleeping habit is that he bangs his head on the headboard. And not soft, slow bangs but hard, earth shaking, teeth rattling bangs. And he sings. Or that's what he calls it. It sounds more like a sick cow in labor to me but he calls it singing. 

I don't really remember when he started doing this. When he began to crawl around, he would crawl until he got to the end of his crib and rock and bang on the slats. David had to tighten the screws on his crib every couple of weeks because I was afraid it was going to fall apart. And I have been at a loss about how to make him stop.

It's put a ridge on his head. I asked his pediatrician about it once and he rubbed it and said, "I wouldn't worry about it." But of course I do. It's not as prominent since he moved from his crib to his big boy bed but it's definitely still there.

But the rocking is hard to do when he stays at his Grandparents overnight. Baba and Grandma  have a futon for the children to sleep on and it doesn't have much of a headboard to hit. And the pillows have to be in right position. I've been laying down with him while he gets settled in to begin his head banging and it's quite a production and takes awhile to get it set up just right. Which sometimes makes it difficult to do when you aren't at home with the perfect pillows, the perfect headboard and the perfect blanket to cover you.

The last time Jacob went to my parents, my father told me that he got up at 4:00 a.m.  because of the god-awful noise coming from his living room. My Dad discovered Jacob, rolling around on their slate floor, in his big red Wiggles car. It makes an awful racket during the day when you are expecting it. I imagine it really was a god-awful noise when waking from a sound sleep. I surmised that he woke up, couldn't get a good spot to bang his head upon and decided since he couldn't sleep, he might as well get up and play.

So those are my kids quirky sleeping habits. Now if I could just get rid of my insomnia, or actually my waking up an hour after I go to sleep and being unable to sleep for another 2 hours, maybe I could figure out what to do about the kids.

Margaret is a forty-something attorney with two adopted children (ages 4 and 12) that she is raising with her husband, a stay-at-home dad.

Envy and fear

By Margaret

A few weeks ago I was talking to a friend who has been divorced for a long time. Her father died recently, her mother died several months ago. Her children are grown and married and in good jobs somewhere.

My friend told me that, for the first time in 30 years, she didn't have anyone depending on her, wanting her to do something for them or expecting her to take care of them.

I had to stop and process that when she told me.

I thought about it for a minute and I've thought about it a lot since then.

I will readily admit it made me envious and maybe a little discontented.

I love my children and my husband.

I am in my house, alone, so infrequently that on those rare occasions I actually am there alone, I don't know what to do.

The only time I ever spent the night home by myself I was so freaked out, I had David call a locksmith to fix the lock on our bedroom door. I thought I'd feel more secure if I could lock myself in my bedroom.

Since David and I have been married, I can count the number of nights, and tell you the reasons, David and I have spent apart.

About the only "alone" time I have during the day is when I'm in my car driving to and from my office.

A recent weekend was pretty typical for us:

• Friday night basketball tournament
• Saturday morning meeting with a client
• Saturday afternoon basketball game
• Saturday afternoon Mass
• Saturday evening yet another basketball game
• Sunday we took the foster lab to Pet Smart to show him
• Sunday after Pet Smart we went to the open house of a school we're thinking about sending Jacob to next year
• Sunday after that the kids and and I went to Target while David put dinner together

Then we had dinner, baths, stories, kisses and bedtime.

So you see why the thought of not having anyone depending on me, or wanting something from me, or waiting for me to do anything for them for a moment seemed like a luxury I'd been denied. And then to imagine another 15 or 20 years of it! It seemed too much to bear. And I was envious.

And then, Jacob wanted to count all the W's in his bedtime stories.

And Lizzie lost her basketball game, and tried to be nonchalant about it, but when she smiled at me tears sprung into her eyes and she had to have a hug.

And David reached for my hand as we all left the Pet Smart with the foster lab and I was overcome with an unbearable sadness to think that it would all ever end.

And my envy evaporated.

Margaret is a fortysomething attorney with two adopted children (ages 3 and 11) that she is raising with her husband, a stay-at-home dad.

Our TV-less life

By Margaret

We have given up television during the week in my house.

And no, despite what Lizzie might tell you, it’s not some type of sinister punishment designed to make her life even more miserable than it already is. We did it because it was driving us all a little crazy and the one thing we don’t need more of in our life is crazy.

It started last fall. As part of Jacob’s problems, we had him developmentally tested. In the course of that testing, they gave us a bunch of handouts to read. One of them talked about how much sleep a child Jacob's age needs (that’s a whole 'nother blog post) and another talked about how much television a child Jacob’s age should watch.

About the same time, it seemed the television was causing conflict. If Lizzie was watching TV, and I asked her to do something, I would have to repeat my request two or three times to get her attention and then she was slow to respond. Or if we told her she could watch TV AFTER she finished her homework/cleaning her room/putting away her clean clothes/loading the dishwasher (you pick one) she would do a half-assed job at it, or not finish it, in order to go sit in front of the television and slip into a cartoon coma.

So we instituted a new rule: From Monday through Thursday the television does not come on in our house.

I’ll admit it’s been a little rocky. There are times when the pull to turn on the television and let the children overdose on Disney or Nickeloden is great. And there have been times, when they are driving us crazy, that we’ve bribed them with the promise of the blessed "Raven." But, for the most part, it has worked out well.

And some good has come of it.

Lizzie reads more. And she has begun reading to Jacob. Dinners are not driven by having to finish in order to watch a movie/cartoon/TV show. We play games together; I'm a champion Uno and CandyLand player now. And of course, there aren't any more dinners in front of the television.

I'll admit sometimes I miss the mindlessness of television but after a few weeks of not watching television, you don't know what is on anymore, and it doesn't bother you much.

Or I guess I should say it doesn't bother me much anymore. Lizzie still thinks I'm just doing it because I'm MEAN.

Margaret is a fortysomething attorney with two adopted children (ages 3 and 11) that she is raising with her husband, a stay-at-home dad.

A new kind of pride

By Margaret

Jacob has been having some behavior problems and we've been going to Parent-Child Interactive Training with him. We've begun walking around talking like psychotic pre-school teachers -- lots of "good jobs" and enthusiastic "thank yous" being handed around to everyone.

We have "special time" every day. While we have our "special time," we are not supposed to give any commands (direct or indirect), ask any questions, and ignore bad behaviors. Have you got any idea how hard it is to interact with a 3-year-old and NOT ask questions?

Anyway. I try to remember it's:

PRIDE

Praise: Specific praise is better than general praise; "You did a good job drawing that car,” rather than a simple, "Good job!"

Reflect: Reflect and describe what they are doing. It shows you are paying attention to them.

Imitate: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Describe

Enthusiasm: And above all BE ENTHUSIASTIC!                           

We're also working on putting a positive spin on things. So when Jacob runs up to me when I pick him up from school and says, "I didn't get in trouble once today!" I swallow that lump in my throat and say, "I'm so glad you had a GOOD day!" instead of "I'm glad you didn't get in trouble today!"

I'll admit some days I feel a little ridiculous. But it seems like a good program and appears to be helping him. It really is something we could all use in our day-to-day dealings with people.

PRIDE may become my New Year's Resolution. Praise the people you are around. Who couldn't use more praise? Reflect, Imitate and Describe can probably be bundled into one thing; people like to know they've been heard. Try to find the good in any situation. And above all BE ENTHUSIASTIC!

Happy New Year everyone!

Margaret is a fortysomething attorney with two adopted children (ages 3 and 11) that she is raising with her husband, a stay-at-home dad.

Card me

By Margaret

We've come to this time of year. To send photo Christmas cards or to not send photo Christmas cards?

I always begin with good intentions.

I take pictures of my children through the late summer and fall with an eye toward, "I wonder if this would make a good Christmas card?"

I download them to my computer and put them in a special folder if they are Christmas card "worthy."

I print them out and demand my husband tell me which one is best and which one would make the best Christmas card.

And then Thanksgiving arrives.

And the cards haven't been ordered. The background hasn't been decided upon. Colored envelopes or white ones? No pithy message has been selected. In short, it hasn't been done.

And then the first of December comes bearing down upon me, and I still haven't picked a photo or a border or decided whether to have the folded kind or the postcard kind. And the message! Gack! What can I say that will be personal enough for family and friends but I can still send to people I work with?

And soon we are at that time of year when it is too late. And all those good intentions are for naught.

And I put away my hopes and dreams of being organized. My plans to get my cards out on time and in an orderly fashion are dashed.

You suppose anyone has a card available to celebrate National Prune Breakfast Month? I have the perfect picture of my kids for that.

Margaret is a fortysomething attorney with two adopted children (ages 3 and 11) that she is raising with her husband, a stay-at-home dad.

Password blues

By Margaret

My husband called the other day with a somewhat unusual question: What's my PIN number for my cash card?

I had to stop and think. At one time, I was capable of mentally retrieving our PIN numbers, phone numbers and passwords on a moment's notice, automatically, without thinking about it.

I suppose part of my difficulty could be attributed to age. I'm in my early forties and I'm not getting any younger, as they say. Or it could be a lack of sleep. It seems with two kids, three dogs, a full-time job and a lumpy mattress those elements all conspire to keep me from getting a full night's sleep. About the time Lizzie began consistently sleeping through the night, we adopted Jacob and my nighttimes were broken up again.

But I have a different theory. My brain will only hold so many numbers, passwords, PINs and IDs. When I have exceeded the number my brain will hold, they fall out and I lose them. Forever.

Recently I tried to log into my cell phone account. The login name is pretty easy, but I had to change my password because I couldn't remember what it was.

And this is where I get into trouble. My cell phone account will not take a password longer than six digits. My bank requires that my password be at least eight digits. Some of my accounts require there be letters AND numbers in the password. Some accounts have a PIN and a password.

Different places subscribe to different rules. You aren’t supposed to use:

• your date of birth or the date of birth of your spouse, children or any significant other
• your social security number
• any words in the dictionary or any word from Star Trek or J.R.R. Tolkien books
• any successive numbers or letters
• your mother's maiden name
• the name of your pet

And for God's sake don’t use your initials!

I didn't make up these crazy rules but I'm expected to know what they are and live by them. Sometimes I think it is a conspiracy to drive me completely and totally insane and makes me want to return to the days of quill pens and scrolls for paper.

There is one place, however, that I hate the most. The place that drives me the craziest, the one that makes my head want to explode, is my bank. Every six weeks or so my bank requires I change my password. And I can’t use any of the passwords I’ve ever used there in the past. So I'm actually required to remember my current password, think up a new and pithy password and remember what all my old passwords were. And you only get three tries before it says, “You are too stupid to use this Web site, call someone competent to reset your password” and locks me out completely and makes me call and actually speak to a human being.

Then I have to speak with someone at the bank who knows I’m not competent to live in the modern world. It almost makes me want to go back to writing checks and using cash.

Margaret is a fortysomething attorney with two adopted children (ages 3 and 11) that she is raising with her husband, a stay-at-home dad.

Why I’m glad the dog doesn’t pee on the floor much

By Margaret

Recently we began fostering Labradors from the Lab Rescue. You know, take the dog from the shelter or boarding kennel, bring it into a nice, normal household (or as normal as my house ever gets) love it, make sure it is nice, see what its bad habits are and then adopt it out to some nice family who needs a good dog. It’s rewarding, though the downside is getting attached to the dog and then having to give it to someone else.

Recently we got a new foster, our last one having successfully been adopted. Mallard, the new Foster Lab, was a little nervous and had an accident in Jacob’s doorway. Not a bad place to have an accident, 'cause if any place in my house is going to smell funny, it’s his room.

So I got out the towels, the bucket of warm water, the Oxy Clean, the scrub brush and the vinegar. Towels to mop up the pee. Oxy Clean to clean the spot. Scrub brush to rub in the Oxy Clean. Vinegar to spray on the spot to neutralize the smell and, hopefully, keep the dog from deciding Jacob’s room was his own personal toilet.

I successfully cleaned the spot where Mallard had his accident.

While I was on the floor with all these cleaning supplies, I decided to tackle the spot by Jacob’s bed where he had taken my concealer (sometimes the boy shows an unhealthy interest in my makeup) and one of my powder brushes and decided to paint everything he owned with concealer.

I had a little less success with that spot, but undaunted I moved to the spot in Lizzie’s room where it appeared she had spilled juice, then thrown dirty clothes on top of it to cover it up until it was permanently set.

Better success with the juice than with the concealer, I decided to tackle the spot in my room where god knows what had been spilled on the floor.

Spots on the carpet are like that at my house. They just appear. No one knows how they got there, what they are, or why someone didn’t try to clean them up until before they become a permanent part of the carpet fibers.

Suddenly instead of one small wet spot on my carpet I had four or five. All because the dog peed on the floor in one room.

And while I was on the floor I decided the baseboards and door jams needed cleaning.  Because, you know, you just don’t notice how dirty those baseboards are unless you are on the floor cleaning a spot.

So off to my cleaning cabinet for more supplies, I brought forth my Magic Eraser and another bucket of warm water and began wiping down the baseboards and the door trim.

That’s how I found myself on my hands and knees at 10:30 on a weeknight with wrinkled fingers and a sore back cleaning the baseboards.

And when I looked at all I had done, I was glad the dog doesn’t pee on the floor very much.

Margaret is a fortysomething attorney with two adopted children (ages 3 and 11) that she is raising with her husband, a stay-at-home dad.