Drinking The Supermom Kool-Aid

Tomorrow is Ethan's sixth birthday. They celebrate birthdays at his school. Which means that the moms (the PC term here might be "parent" but - c'mon - I think we can all agree this is 100% Mom Territory) send in small favors and birthday treats. And by this, I mean, handcrafted toys painted with silver dust and cupcakes that would make the spawn of Martha Stewart and Emeril cry. And then beg for the recipe.

I profess to be this laid-back mom who does not buy into this sort of stuff. So I just spent the past three hours tying little bows on miniature flower pots containing miniature dirt and miniature sunflower seeds. The pots have coordinating ribbon attaching HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ETHAN homemade tags with handwritten original poems on the inside fold: I am six, yes it is true! So here is a flower, just for you! (Eat your heart out, Whitman). For snack, I am sending in Rice Krispy treats - thirty - which have been manipulated into the shape of capital "E"s.

To Jeff's credit, I got only an eyebrow raise - but no actual comment - when he walked in the door and found me coated with glitter and marshmallow fluff (*not in the sexy way) and hacking away at defenseless Rice Krispy bits with a surgical intensity that would make Dr. Oz proud. Thank you, J, for that. And I would advise not touching me tonight, or tomorrow, or the day after that, because I think I am going to be a bit sticky, at least until this marshmallow veneer wears off.

A line must be drawn, however, so I decided to cancel the elephant rides. Because that is just excessive. And then what would the kid look forward to for his seventh birthday?

Motivational Quotes

Actual things I said today:

10) Mommy does have prickly legs ... Mmm - hmm, just like a porcupine.

9) Wow! A bag of snakes!

8) One more day until Halloween. Yep - that Great Pumpkin is keeping a close eye to see if you are being naughty or nice.

7) We do not lick our friends.

6) Why am I allowed to eat more Starburst than you are? Well, it is because mommies are taller than their kids and need the extra energy.

5) No ... Starburst are not a fruit.

4) I take it all back. You are not the worst secretary on the planet and you are not fired (to my husband, not to my actual assistant. I would never ever dare call her a "secretary." She owns me and she knows it.)

3) Of course I can tell the difference between a Spinosaurus and an Allosaurus.

2) I am done talking about penises. (This said with my best poker face.)

And ... my personal highlight:

1) Young man, I suggest you think twice before you TEST me! (Followed by subsequent phone call to my therapist when I realized that I have, in fact, become my mother.)

Get OUT Of The Car

So far the one true benefit I have observed from private school is the drop-off/pick-up function. The idea is brilliant. School employees manned with walkie-talkies stand by the front doors of the school. There is a sign that attaches to the dashboard displaying your child's name so when you pull up an announcement is transmitted to the employees inside, "Johnny Walker is now entering the building. Johnny Walker is entering the building." When you arrive in the afternoon, it is the same concept. You simply pull up to the drive-through window, err, I mean front door, and place your order. "One blonde kindergartener with a red backpack! Hold the pickles!"

The first week of school, I walked Ethan into the classroom during the morning and then waited for him outside the class in the afternoon because I knew he would not go for this drive-through idea. But at Back-to-School night the teacher encouraged the parents to do the drop-off/pick-up line to "facilitate independence." Alright - teacher-mandated parental laziness! I love it. Now I don't have to fuss with make-up or clothing choices or talking to anyone before 9 a.m. I simply pull on some yoga pants and slap on the giant black "I am so mysterious and glamorous with half of my face covered" sunglasses and out the door we head. If I wanted to, I could even drop him off while not wearing any pants at all! Not that I would – that would be weird – but it is nice to have that option in a pinch.

Ethan has been all bright and eager to do it himsel (!) and has taken pride in exiting the car alone and then reemerging, alone, at the end of each day to find me waiting. He scans the horizon each afternoon while he tries to pick out which granite-colored SUV is mine (truly, they all look identical) and when he sees me, his face relaxes into a combination of relief ("Whew! She came AGAIN today."), delight ("Yay! Mommy will have snacks and a juice box!") and a touch of smug superiority ("It is so nice to have my own private car service on demand.")

Ethan has gotten accustomed to an earlier bedtime and has been dare-I-say – cheerful? - during recent mornings. After he has been safely deposited at school in the morning, I return home and shower and dress without my captive audience barging into the bathroom with important questions about "my balloons" (use your imagination on this one) or my favorite, "What happened to my penis to make it look so funny?" (My mom said to tell him, "A boating accident.")

So I thought we were getting the new routine down. Until this morning, that is, when Ethan woke up on the wrong side of bed. By wrong side of the bed, I mean the possessed-by-the-devil, whining, everything-you-do-MOM-is-wrong side of the bed. Without boring you with too many details, by the time we got out to the parking lot, he had removed his pants twice ("NO PANTS! You promised … SHORTS!"), flung a bag of Cheerios under a couch cushion ("I wanted LIFE cereal…") and thrown himself onto the bathroom tile because his hairbrush was "too scratchy!" Super fun morning for all involved. Do not ask me why his head was spinning around and he was about to projectile vomit green pea soup this particular morning because all week he has been Little Mary Sunshine with beams of light coming out of his ass. There is no rhyme or reason. I only have a B.S. in psychology so I will not even attempt to speculate.

Eventually Ethan has been secured in the vehicle and we are hurtling toward his 8:25 a.m.-3:25 p.m. destination, as I am counting down the minutes until I can mainline a Venti Pumpkin Spice Latte. YES, whipped! We pull up in front of the school and he will not get out of the car. Here's how it works: You pull up in queue. A teacher opens the car door, unloads the child from the back, helps them adjust their backpack, and leads them on their merry way into the school. But Ethan would not get out. He was holding onto the interior of the car for dear life, SCREAMING. When we had a cat and needed to load him into the carrier to go the vet, the cat suddenly developed fourteen arms and tentacles and it took two of us to smush him into the carrier while he made sounds so ungodly that they haunt my nightmares to this day. It was just like that.

At this point, cars are lining up behind me, some moms are honking, and no doubt wondering what I have done to induce such hysterics. Finally I wrench his little tentacles off the car seat and give him a (gentle) push while the teacher delivers the rest of the dead-weight out of the backseat. Somehow he manages to sit down on the ground in front of my car and is now sobbing with such theatrical vigor that he is going to be a shoo-in for the Oscar category "Best Impersonation of a Prisoner of War – Ages 6 and Under."

I hope he thanks me before his agent in his acceptance speech.

The Lump

The weekend is here. Delicious.

This week was Ethan's first week of kindergarten. There is no bus service for his school, so I have been dropping off (8:25 a.m.) and picking up (3:25 p.m.) since my work schedule is the "flexible" one. Flexible means that when I am not sitting at my desk, my clients only call my cell once every thirteen minutes, as opposed to when I am in the office, and then they call my office phone every four.

The school has sent home approximately 7,000 documents this week, give or take a few hundred. 6,998 of them are about what happens if your child arrives "tardy" to school in the morning or the parent is "tardy" for pick-up in the afternoon. From what I can discern, the punishment is VERY severe, and may or may not include leeches and/or some form of Chinese water torture.

I am not good at being on time. I have never been good at being on time. I could generously be classified as "not a morning person." I think "mornings" should start sometime around 11:30 a.m. and involve brunch and two to three mimosas before requiring any heavy lifting on my part. If I ever become President, that will be my first piece of legislation. All of these factors conspire to make getting out of the house in the early morning exceptionally difficult for me. The other factor conspiring against promptness is the five-year-old involved in this process who is, incidentally, also not a morning person. Given his druthers, we would be in our pajamas, eating Cheerios from the box, watching cartoons until sundown. This, actually, sounds fabulous right about now.

My week in review:

At 6:30 a.m. I have looked at my alarm and thought, "Are you freaking kidding me?"

At 6:40 a.m. I have coffee'd up, showered, dressed, and slapped on a little make-up so as not to scare the other moms at drop-off with the depth and breadth of my undereye circles.

At 7:10 a.m. I have prepared a breakfast chock full 'o nutrients and the proper balance of complex carbohydrate and protein for sustained long-term academic performance (for Ethan, not me - typically I "eat" only coffee until about 2 p.m. This is not because I do not enjoy breakfast - I do! - but because I am always at least ten minutes behind schedule).

At 7:15 a.m. I have made efforts to rouse the troop (singular) with a cheery morning greeting. The Snoring Bed Lump ignores me completely.

At 7:20 a.m. after seeing no activity from The Snoring Bed Lump, I have repeated cheery morning greeting, this time with a firm edge to my voice.

At 7:25 a.m. I have started making empty threats to The Snoring Bed Lump about things that will be taken away if The Snoring Bed Lump does not get up RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND and I MEAN IT. "No bike riding after school! And that pony that someday you might get if we win the lottery? Not now, Mister. And you can FORGET about that drivers license when you turn sixteen … "

At 7:30 a.m. The Lump is now sitting at the table. He is upright and out of bed but for all intensive purposes, still asleep, although not now snoring. I have enthusiastically tried to coax him to take a bite of each item on his breakfast plate. "Try the mango! Look – it so ORANGE! And ORGANIC! And TROPICAL! You will like it! Just one bite! Half a bite! A quarter of a bite? Ok, just put it in your mouth, suck on it for five seconds, then spit it back out on your plate?" The Lump's response: "AHH! The mango is TOO cold! It tastes funny! It is SLIMY!"

At 7:37 a.m. I have given up, rinsed off the plate, slammed the last swill of my coffee from the mug and thrown a handful of Mini-Wheats (frosted, of course) in a plastic bag for The Lump to eat in the car. The Lump has now put his head down on the table and appears to be snoring, again.

At 7:38 a.m. I have put toothpaste on the brush because The Lump claims the tube is "too hard to squeeze in the morning when I am soooo tired!" I have coaxed The Lump, unsuccessfully, to engage in a thorough tooth brushing. Response: "AHH! The toothpaste is TOO cold! It tastes funny! It is SLIMY!"

At 7:42 a.m. I have given up on efforts at oral hygiene and am making empty threats about rotten teeth and eventual root canals. "Fine, you only want to brush one tooth? When the other nineteen fall out, you are going to be the one to explain to Grandpa why your teeth are now missing." Grandpa is - by trade - a dentist, not just some weird guy interested in teeth. Although, as I type this I realize "some weird guy interested in teeth" is, by definition, what a dentist is …

At 7:43 a.m. I have attempted to sunscreen The Lump, while avoiding direct contact with his breath, since he has only brushed one tooth. Response: "AHH! The sunscreen is TOO cold! It smells funny! It is SLIMY!"

At 7:45 a.m. I have requested that The Lump get dressed, please? The Lump has collapsed on the floor, spent from resisting everything for the past thirty minutes and from lack of food since The Lump only consumed four calories at breakfast.

At 7:50 a.m. I have asked The Lump, "Why are you still in your underwear?! Please, please, please put your clothes on."

At 7:55 a.m. I have asked The Lump why he still does not have any clothes on and why he has now removed the underwear he had on five minutes ago.

At 8:00 a.m. I have walked out the door with his backpack, his lunchbox, my laptop bag, my purse and my sanity balanced precariously. The Lump has followed holding his pants in his hand, which he will then put on while standing on the front porch. I have smiled cheerfully at the neighbors, "Good morning! Have a good day!"

At 8:02 a.m. I have been stuck in traffic, gritting my teeth, and find myself questioning whether I, after all the oral demands made of the Lump, have brushed my own teeth yet this morning?

At 8:10 a.m. I have restrained myself from pounding the steering wheel with my fists – still in traffic! -- and started to break a sweat thinking about all those anti-tardy leeches.

At 8:20 a.m. I have been responsive DJ for all The Lump's requests. His favorite to groove along with: "Momma, Don't Ya Tickle My Ticklish Toes." [Chorus: Don't ya don't ya don't ya tickle my toes, my toes ... momma, don't ya tickle my toes, my toes ...] Door to door, we can play this nine and one-third times. This song also gets played on repeat all the way home. One week, two round-trip drives per day. You do the math.

At 8:25 a.m. I have peeled rubber pulling into the school lot and dragged The Lump, his backpack, his lunchbox, my purse, and my sanity out of the car and hauled some serious ass into the school lobby, smiling cheerfully at other parents, "Good morning! Have a good day!"

In between drop-off and pick-up, I have worked, ignored crazed cell phone calls from clients and opposing counsel, visited the doctor (always – does anyone else under the age of eighty-eight go to the doctor this much?), and procured more coffee along the way. Notice I do not mention "eating." This is because I have not eaten much of anything until dinnertime, with the exception of a few sad stale Altoids fuzzy from rattling around in the bottom of my purse since 2006. I believe the clinical diagnosis is insane schedule induced anorexia. At this rate, I will be smaller than my high school size by my class reunion in November!

At 3:15 p.m. I have returned to gather Ethan (magically, he transforms from The Lump into a smiley, happy kid sometime around morning snack – his teacher reports how "charming" he is), his lunchbox, his backpack, his homework and my sanity from the school lobby, smiling cheerfully at the other parents, "Good afternoon! How was your day?"

Beginning at 4:00 p.m. I have started supervising homework, lunch packing, ignored crazed cell phone calls from clients and opposing counsel, prepared dinner, run bath, read bedtime stories, tucked in, stalked some people on Facebook, and maybe indulged in a little chocolate and some wine.

At midnight … I have CRASHED.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Jeff noticed my frayed-around-the-edges look tonight and kindly suggested that maybe I wanted to sleep in tomorrow? Until noon?

And I was all ... tomorrow ... until noon? Right now, I want to sleep from tomorrow until June.

Missing The Point

We are at a loss for how to keep Ethan in his own room at night. We have tried time-outs, reassurance, bribes, tying him to the mattress ... we are out of ideas. Without fail, we wake up in the morning (usually around 3 a.m.) and he has wedged himself right into the middle of our bed. And by middle of our bed, I mean he is sleeping on my back (I guess there is also some sort of Oedipal thing at play).

So I have this bright idea that the beginning of kindergarten this fall can coincide with the purchase of a new bed. Right now, Ethan has a very cool bed in the shape of a race car, but it is small, and he is starting to lop over the edges. We go to the furniture store to check out bunk-beds. Ethan is so excited - the height, the ladder, the novelty - he decides bunk-beds are AMAZING and cannot believe we are just now considering one.

When I ask him his thoughts on this bunk-bed purchase, he is overjoyed, "That would be SO great!! Then the WHOLE FAMILY could sleep together in MY room!"

School & Fish

Ethan was accepted into the private school of our choice. Yay! That means, for those keeping score at home, that Ethan passed his testing and Jeff and I passed our parent interview. Before acceptance letters had been mailed out, we met with the administration to review the scores from Ethan's testing. The principal was pleased to report that Ethan scored 99/100 on his assessment (good genes). However, she was concerned about his "deficiency in scissor skills." As evidence of the magnitude of the problem, she showed us a ragged circle that Ethan had cut from construction paper; it looked like it had been fed through a paper shredder, then given to a herd of deranged cats to claw at. Naturally, Jeff and I took immediate action. You will be happy to know that Ethan was grounded for three weeks - no TV, no toys, no after-school friends - just solitary in-room confinement with multiple pairs of safety scissors and 500 sheets of card stock. We have also decided against sports camp this summer in favor of enrollment at an Intensive Scissor Workshop run by one of the leading minds in scissor research at Johns Hopkins, in hopes that we can correct this issue before it gets out of control. Other than that humiliation, the post-mortem test review went very well.

To congratulate Ethan on his school acceptance and as a late birthday present, we took a trip to the pet store to select his first pet, a blue Beta fish. I fully realize that a fish is inarguably the least fun pet ever, but since Ethan is allergic to both dogs and cats and Jeff is anti-anything-in-a-small-cage-that-needs-to-be-cleaned (by him), we did not have a lot of options here. I suggested a special type of hybrid hamster, called - no joke - "a Robo Hamster" - which retails for around $75 and is specifically bred to have a sweet and cuddly disposition. Jeff sagely pointed out that we had just paid a pest control service $500 to "remove" the FREE rodent that had taken up residence in our basement, so.....? Really, I could not argue with that logic. So, fish it is.

Ethan named his fish, ingeniously, "Fishy." Fishy was a fun novelty for about ten minutes. Then came the death questions. I think Ethan is in the throes of some sort of existential crisis because he has initiated multiple discussions during the past month about what happens to things when they die. Ethan was both horrified, yet fascinated, to learn that dead pet fish get flushed down TOILETS! Now, the highlight of his morning is asking if Fishy is going to die today so that we can FLUSH HIM DOWN THE TOILET!? It is a good thing we did not get him a hamster.

Sugar Rush

Ethan's fifth birthday party is this weekend. Last year I went a bit overboard on the food, goody bags and all related stuff. I promised my husband this year I would NOT "overdo it" (despite an almost pathological inability to not overdo it).

I just received this e-mail about the cupcakes I ordered:

This message was sent to you at the request of Divvies LLC to notify you that the package information below has been transmitted to UPS.

Scheduled Delivery: 29-February-2008

Ship To: ATTENTION: [Deleted]

Boxes: 2

UPS Service: GROUND

Weight: 28.0 LBS

I think 28 pounds of cupcakes may count as overdoing it.

Crazy Like A Fox

I have not posted in awhile. I have been busy setting up my office. After working for a big firm and a small firm and a judge and even the Discovery Channel (Yes -- I am name-dropping and No -- I did not get to go down in those cool shark cages with the Great Whites), I am out on my own. For better or for worse. If you have a phone, you have a lawyer. Call me.

On a non-self-promotional note, I have also been busy helping my son apply and interview for colleges. And by colleges, I mean kindergarten. Haven't you heard - first grade is the new Masters program? To those who have children still sucking on pacifiers, you'd better hurry up and make sure your kid has all of his or her pre-reqs completed. AP Physics by age three is de rigeur, these days.

Of course, my husband and I have different philosophies about private school v. public school. We, in fact, have different philosophies on pretty much anything involving money. He thinks public school is superior because it is - in a word - free. I think private school is superior because it is - in a word - expensive.

Actually, truth be told, public school would be fine and dandy for our little Einstein if safety were not such a concern. Serious issue alert: Ethan has a life-threatening allergy to peanuts and tree-nuts. This means that if he eats even a minute smidgen of something with nuts or that "may contain" nuts or that has rubbed against a nut and has some nutty-like residue on it, his whole body can crash, resulting in shock and heart-stopping, throat-closing death within minutes. Emergency treatment of such an allergic reaction requires giving him a shot in the thigh (or many shots in the thigh) of epinephrine and calling 911 for advanced life support. My little guy does not go ANYWHERE without four syringes of epinephrine and a cell phone.

My issue with the public school is that they agree to keep his epinephrine but will LOCK it up in the nurse's office, which is open at all times, EXCEPT when the door is shut and locked for one hour a day while the nurse is at lunch. I get it - they lock it because it is a needle and medicine and kids will be kids - BUT if your kid were on the ground turning blue, would you be happy about this? What happens when the nurse calls in sick and nobody can find the key? Or is out having a smoke and nobody can find the key? Or her car gets a flat and she is five minutes late and nobody can find the key? It is simply unacceptable.

There are a couple of private schools that do not lock up the epinephrine but instead will keep it on the teacher's person. And can provide a nut-free cafeteria. And seem more than willing to work with us on not killing our kid. It took the public school FIVE days to call me back and then I was told they understand Ethan has a life-threatening medical condition and want to meet with us to review emergency plans and are really happy to do so - but they are currently busy with testing - so maybe we can get together in mid-May?

So, now all my lawyer-like hackles are raised, combined with all my mommy-like hackles. I am yelling "ADA and 504s" and want to take reasonable steps and start writing letters and calling higher-ups and storming the Board of Ed and setting fires, but Jeff placated a bit. This, I should note, AFTER he said that I need to calm down because "confrontation is my middle name [direct quote]." To which I calmly and rationally replied, "What the F*** do you mean by THAT?!!!!!" And then he hid in the guest room. For the next three weeks. So, that went well. Communication is the key to a healthy marriage.

But now we are all "Look, schools! Happy happy family!" and are moving on to the parent interview section of the private school admission process - meaning schools interview the parents, not the other way around. I really hope there will not be an oral math section; I am not strong with computing fractions in my head. Jeff got new shoes and I got eight new suits because nothing I owned matched his new shoes. I hope they like us!!!

If not, have you heard about that lunatic setting fires at the Board of Ed? A travesty, really.

My New Year's Threesome

Today marks the end of my self-imposed exile from both the home office (where my personal computer lives) and the gym. There was a mouse sighting in my office, which prompted my head to almost explode. I literally could not go down there for a week for fear of a mouse running across my bare feet. I just imagined the mouse having a mouse party with all its little mouse friends on my desk in the middle of the night. I was wondering where all the good wine from our wine rack had been pilfered off to. I had been blaming the babysitter, but now, I know better -- it was actually the rodent infestation drinking my 1992 Pinot. Ick.

To the best of my knowledge, there are no mice at the gym, but there are a lot of skinny people and sweating; both things I try my best to avoid during the month of December. I mean, why make yourself feel bad, on purpose? I went back today, totally overdid it and will probably be sore for at least two full weeks. On my way out, I saw an ambulance pull up, sirens blaring. Three stern paramedics bustled their way in and raced toward the cardio room, holding a stretcher. Apparently, I am not the only one who took a month off in lieu of eating nothing but potatoes and then decided to run fifteen miles on the treadmill, on setting nine. Mmm - potatoes. Mashed, buttered, fried, baked - I am the female equal of the Forrest Gump shrimper guy when it comes to the number of ways I *heart* potatoes. Alright, seriously for a second - I hope the person in need of medical attention is fine and it was just a pulled hamstring or something relatively benign like that. Heart failure is an unpleasant way to ring in the New Year.

Aside from going to the gym, my New Year got off to one wild and crazy start. We went to a fabulous, but low-key party, at our friends' home - thank you, W family! Basically, the parents drank in the kitchen and the preschoolers ran around in the basement, possibly huffing from aerosol cans, eating lead paint chips and sampling peach Schnapps from the wet bar. Whatever - they had fun!

Ethan was allowed to stay up until midnight, which thrilled him. When asked the best part of New Years, he replied enthusiastically, "Banging on the pots and pans outside!" Truth be told, that is a nightly practice at our house. At the stroke of midnight, we all run outside and bang with metal spoons on our cookware, just to make the sure the neighbors are not sleeping.

I awoke on New Year's Day sporting the customary and proper champagne headache, a plastic bead necklace, and smeared mascara from my attempted "smoky eye" look the night before (Note to self: Moms, as a general rule, should not attempt smoky eyes - it screams "trying too hard.") More notably, I awoke with not one - but TWO - guys in my bed. Alright, so one is more a guy-in-training and is related by blood. The other is legally bound to sleep next to me every night until we are parted by the cold, clammy hand of death or by arbitration and court-ordered dissolution, whichever comes first (KIDDING, J!).

Virtually, the one thing Jeff and I agreed on re: this whole parenting shebang was that we would not have our kid sleep in our bed. Period. No kid in bed. This means that, according to Murphy's Law of Parenting, Ethan has spent the better part of a month tucked soundly where - that's correct, studio audience! - right in the middle of our bed.

This process happens by default. He waits until we are snoring at 2 am before launching a full-scale bed assault - sprinting down the hall (it is important to be fast so as to outrun all the nighttime monsters), tattered blue blanket and Woofie the dog underarm, he then flings himself smack into the middle of our bed, somehow stealing MY pillow as he goes.

At this point, Jeff and I are too sleepy/groggy/lazy to march him back into his room, so he is rewarded by being allowed to sleep with us for the rest of the night. This is extra fun for me because: 1) as aforementioned, he steals my pillow and, usually, my part of the comforter and 2) Ethan enjoys sleeping with some angley, pokey body part wedged securely into the tender part of my lower spine. I only got a "B" in anatomy, but I would wager a bet that the bone-in-question is latin for "Triceratops horn."

As a result, I am now averaging approximately fourteen cups of coffee a day. Out of respect for my environmental footprint, I may just start snorting the dry coffee grounds and stop wasting all that water during the brewing process.

Martha Stewart Would Know How

I just finished wrapping approximately half of the 76,000 presents that "Santa" will be giving to Ethan this year. Next year the gift theme will be "anything that comes in a square box." I mean, have you ever attempted to wrap a four-foot stegosaurus? I think it would be easier to wrap a live baby (not that I am suggesting this; the litigator in me feels compelled to state that I am in NO WAY CONDONING OR RECOMMENDING WRAPPING BABIES.) That said, if for some reason you did, it would easier than the damn dinosaur....

Off the top of my head, next year Ethan will be getting a box of tampons (square - check), perhaps a CD (square), and maybe I will even throw in a self-help book on how to deal with weird parents (I know, I know ... usually a rectangle - but you gotta live a little).