mom tries

...only small minds

2005-08-03T07:13:00.000-07:00

I grew up in an 8,000-person, 500-cow town. Since this burg is half that populated (but doubly cowulated), I fully expected it to be twice as petty and stifling. I also knew it would stink twice as much when fertilizer was spread and it didn't rain. I really underestimated here, on both counts.

About 80% of this town is Lutheran, yet they still manage to break into factions depending on the TYPE of Lutheran. There is a serious schism between the public high school people and the Lutheran high school people. The most enthusiastic school boosters are barely on speaking terms with their counterparts at the rival school. When we have our annual summer parade, the Lutheran kids won't even queue up with the rest of the town in the public school parking lot. They gather in THEIR OWN parking lot and join the parade in the middle of Main Street. I am NOT making this shit up.

To this, I can only say: whaaattt?? I'm from the Boston suburbs. My town was 80% Irish Catholic. My knowledge of major US religions went like this: Catholics, Jews and Protestants. I didn't know the "Protestant" category broke down any further; I really didn't. Of course, I also had yet to meet any Republicans, although I did meet Teddy Kennedy.

I was in college in Chicago before I discovered there were different types of Protestants. In my dorm, I recall that it seemed to break down by race and geography. For example, the black girls were often Baptists and would leave pamphlets under my door warning I would burn in hell for being a nonbeliever. In person, they were very friendly though, unless they were pledging a black sorority, in which case they were "on line" and couldn't talk with or do anything with people outside their pledge class. The girl in the next room once secretly begged me for some of my Mom's care package food, because she had missed that day's group lunch AND dinner and couldn't go to the cafeteria solo. I also picked up that the pasty white farm girls from places like "Austin" (Minn., NOT Texas, ya doofus) were largely Lutheran, whatever that was.

Many years later, I did date a Lutheran in Chicago and found out there were various sects called "synods." I also attended a few services. To me they seemed exactly like tiny Catholic churches except that they didn't talk about Mary quite so much.

Only since moving to Wisconsin, however, did I gather that there really is a huge cultural (if not religious) difference between the Lutheran factions. The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS), which seems to have taken over in this town, is extremely right-wing. Women may do all sorts of serious work on committees but CAN'T VOTE. Hello, what century are we in here? This synod runs the Lutheran school system. So the schism between the schools is not simply healthy rivalry so much as some sort of religio-political litmus test. (By the way, the Catholic church is also pretty reactionary here. The priest told one October Sunday gathering that John Kerry was part of the "axis of evil." I bet George Bush would have been proud. He doesn't mind being misquoted at all, as long as the right sentiment is there.)

Ah, America. Thank god we have reality TV to unite us. Maybe we can get Kelly Clarkson to move here and run for mayor. She looks like she could be Lutheran. We could definitely use the karaoke talent.

memo to Wisconsin teens

2005-07-22T22:02:00.000-07:00

We have woods here, you know. Cemeteries, cars, barns, cornfields...get the idea? All socially tolerated places to "do it." What we adult Cheeseheads with small kids do not appreciate is when you use:

- a school playground in broad daylight (hint: a single tree is NOT the woods; skip science class a little less often next year)

- the beach at dusk (couldn't see your faces, but your gyrations were unmistakable)

Luckily, my toddler was wholly enchanted with a Sheltie while the latter incident played out the other night, not 100 yards from restaurant windows AND a boat launch.

Also, a little tip from an elder: if your boyfriend/girlfriend insists on increasingly risky outdoor unions, your relationship is at least 85% over. Stunt nookie is the death knell.

carrots, sticks and the birthday poopie

2005-07-15T05:18:00.000-07:00

Our 3-year-old gave me the most interesting birthday present this year. She came running out of the bathroom naked, grabbed me, took me to peer into the toilet and said, "Look, it's a poopie!" In fact, it was her first bowel movement on the potty.

So that was my gift. The birthday poopie. I'm just glad she didn't wrap it.

Nice story if I would be able to go to tell you how quickly said 3-year-old picked up toilet training after that early May event. But I would have to lie.

Our lovely, intelligent, well coordinated daughter has not yet grasped the concept of using the potty as an "always" thing. I think maybe she got confused with that new Sesame Street song that Cookie Monster thing, something about cookies being a "sometime" food. She does demonstration potty use...in other words, she CAN do it perfectly well, all by herself even, but she's not quite ready to fully implement the new program. It's like she's waiting for a federal grant or something. Or perhaps better bribes? We had been giving jelly beans or M&Ms for successful potty events.

Then we went negative. Although some parents have chosen to escalate from small treats to $10 toys, we decided it wasn't for us. The spouse made the call: start taking away toys for every poopy diaper. He took the GOOD toys, too: the Little Mermaid playdough set, the new, big dollhouse and the toy kitchen. It's helped some but wasn't exactly the magic bullet we had hoped for.

I don't have any client work for at least the next week or so, so I guess it's my turn to get creative. I'm going to put her in underwear and then just refuse to change her if she wets them. (At least for a while so she is uncomfortable). Of course at the same time I will try to do a better job of making her go potty every hour or so.

I am using the rubber pants, though. Even though my leather sofa now has both cat scratches and glitter glue on it, I haven't quite given up on it entirely.

what I miss most from childhood

2005-07-11T20:15:00.000-07:00

The July 05 post from "the cheese stands alone" reminded me of the cool stuff I miss from my childhood:

- Not being afraid to try something really stupid. A few telling examples: baseball with baserunners on horses (broke ankle playing first base); floating down the Charles River on pieces of old tires and wood (late for dinner walking 3+ miles home); girls tackle football, no equipment (Senior "powderpuff" football game).

- My Dad making us ice cream sundaes when we were small. He had all the toppings, whipped cream, sprinkles, the works in real sundae glasses with the long spoons. Calories? What's a calorie, Daddy?

- Ditching church every Sunday to play basketball or go fishing. We'd hide the equipment at the corner of the back yard and stop by to pick up the missile (single page newsletter) to "prove" we were there. I actually don't think the p's ever caught on to that one. Or they were just happy we were gone.

- Just goofing around with Dad, like building snowmen and having him run them down with the plow on my brother's pickup. Actually he took a chunk off the garage with that little trick. Maybe the apple doesn't fall too far...

- Sitting on a big rock in the river, reading or maybe writing bad poetry or journal entries or something. Later we would take contraband down there. However, leaving beer in the river to cool wasn't a good move since other teens would usually find it. The apple jack was pretty safe...normal people were afraid of aged fermenting apple juice.

- The cousins' ski trip every February vacation up in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Lots of minor corruption by people socially obliged not to harm you physically (in any lasting way, anyway). For example, telling you to jump off the back porch into 8 feet of snow and not being too quick to help pull your 5' carcass out.

Fellow bloggers: now it’s your turn.

The Rules:
Remove the first person from the following list, bump everyone up one spot and put your blog in the number 5 spot. Please link all of the blogs as they are linked now. This will be on your permanent record.
Golly Blog Howdy!
Hasty Ruminations
Get yerself Stewed
The Cheese Stands Alone
mom tries

Summerfest etiquette

2005-07-04T11:00:00.000-07:00

Attention: Mom has left the building! The spouse and I had a real day AND night out yesterday as we took in the best rock festival in the US, in the underrated but high-value lakefront festival city we call Milwaukee. (We also visited the fest on Thursday night, taking the suburban bus from Pewaukee. If you drink in Milwaukee, trust me, you will pee in Pewaukee.)

The daytime bands turned out to be far better than the night bands on July 3. Our local Madison band, The Moon Gypsies was terrific as always, despite having to crank their amps to 11 to compete with abutting rock stages. Here is Chris Wagoner, their very cool multi-instrumentalist, getting into the groove in their first set. We also enjoyed Jersey boys Joe D'Urso and Stone Caravan and were VERY impressed with Michelle Shocked, who has 3 albums coming out at once this week. One of them is described as "Disney songs reinvented as Western swing numbers." OK, this I gotta hear. Michelle had no problem competing with neighboring rock stages; she even has a very hard rockin' song off her new rock album (Don't Ask, Don't Tell). If you get a chance to see her, do it.

The evening showings were enormously disappointing, once again proving that Summerfest is all about finding good bands on their way up (or those just happy to be where they are, in Milwaukee, playing to a well-behaved and appreciative if not necessarily overly hushed and awed crowd.)

The spouse attempted to see Peter Himmelman, but it seems Pete was peeved that the neighboring stage was VERY loud and that all the people seemed to be over there. (It was some rocker named Gavin McGraw, which the spouse misnomered Gavin McLeod, you know, the Love Boat captain.) Anyway Pete really sucked.

I went to see Lucinda Williams and was initially quite proud of my superior judgment. She came out 15 minutes late (a big Summerest no-no; since people HAVE options here and will vote with their feet) but rocked through some of her more popular tunes. But 5 songs later, I was on my way to see Peter when the spouse and I nearly collided. He watched her for 30 seconds before concluding, "Um...she is messed up on something. I know that song she's singing and it is NOT that slow. This is just like watching Jerry Garcia when he was taking heroin." So while we were unhappy the performance wasn't better, we are now more concerned about Lucinda's health. Heck, I know Milwaukee IS pretty exciting, but you really don't need to take tranquilizers to keep it under control. If you start getting too worked up, visit the suburbs for a while. Problem solved.

But I digress. Yesterday's gig also involved an actual HOTEL ROOM stay. We all know what that means. I love the Plaza Hotel. Unfortunately, their awesome little restaurant was closed this morning due to it being July 4.

But to get to the point of this post, on the first Fest night, last Thurs., I was rocking out to Deep Purple, of all bands. I thought I would stay for just a little bit, mostly so I could call my sister (who is a huge Purple fun) and hold the cell phone up to "Smoke on the Water" or something...but they were really fun and I so I stayed. But while I was standing (or perhaps dancing very slightly) a big, tall, fat guy carrying a beer walked by me (like hundreds of others before him that hour). He asked me to move, and I did, but apparently not quite far enough. I was wearing sandals and the oaf stepped on my toes. This hurt. He did not apologize or even turn to look at me, but kept slogging (very slowly) by. So my pissed-off, knee-jerk reaction was to elbow him (lightly, mind you) in the ribs. He starts yelling at me, "I asked you to move, you should have moved more!" So of course I yell back, "You stepped on my foot you big oaf! I didn't even really hurt you!"

At this point, my cooler-headed spouse pulls me into a headlock. The goliath grunted and bumbled away muttering under his bad breath.

So my point is this, fest fans: it's like the freeway. The person passing (i.e. in motion, cutting through the crowd) has the responsibility to NOT step on, burn, shove, strangle, crush, or otherwise extinguish those whose feet are planted more of less firmly on the ground. If you step on my feet, I will elbow you just so you know that I know that you did this. I am small so you can and probably will mess me up. I don't care. I'm standing on principle. But not in sandals anymore.

Grumpona wags her finger

2005-06-29T21:10:00.000-07:00

Since bipolar disorder is not unknown in my family, I'm always wigged when my toddler has a day of rapid cycling from hypercheerful hugs-and-kisses mode to whiny, wailing stubborn bitchiness. You know, average 3-year-old behavior when naptime didn't happen or you had to REFUSE THEM something.

At times like these, she is a tiny version of the sullen teen who will one day reside with us. The transformation is so acute we've given her a new name. We say, "Oh, no, it's Grumpona, the girl who lives under the stairs! Where is our little girl? Bring her back, Grumpona! We miss her!"

The petite crab does not find this amusing. We get the teary-eyed cold stare, and lately a big "harrrummphh!" Even better, the imperious finger-wagging. She holds up her little index findger and slowly moves it from side to side. It cracks us up every time how seriously and methodically she moves that finger. I guess you have to be there.

finding Jesus

2005-06-21T04:45:00.000-07:00

As your standard-issue former Catholic (well, actually a lot less religious than that), I thought it was very funny a few weeks ago when I was gardening and dug up a little plastic statue of the Holy Son in my flowerbed. The 3-year-old was helping, as usual, and asked to play with it. Since I thought this was funny, we told the spouse about it as he walked by. "Hey, look, you won't believe this...I found Jesus!"

Instead of laughing or at least snickering, he of the 16+ years of Catholic education calmly grabbed the little plastic guy away from the toddler and re-directed her. "You idiot," he told me later. "People plant those little icons in the garden when they buy a house to bless the home; you're not supposed to dig it up."

Naturally, I suggested that he replant the Redeemer. An atheist performing the gesture would seem a bit gauche. He has yet to do so. So our daughter gave Jesus a bath, has taken him to daycare, and regularly hides him in the sandbox. Here, in homage to the Willy Porter song, he takes a break on the Smoky Joe.

why he married me

2005-06-19T15:25:00.000-07:00

The day before our wedding, a stranger arrived at my parent's house. After sizing up the available girls, he started flirting with an attractive bridesmaid. But he didn't waste his charm on me. "I know why you're marrying him," he confided. "It's because you can take him, isn't it?" (Thanks, buddy.)

Actually, I'm not that strong. Yet. But many years of marriage, I may finally be within a few hundred workouts of overtaking the spousal unit. This has much less to do with our respective exercise regimes than it does with my husband's shopping habits.

My husband is, shall we say, thrifty. As the child of Depression-born New Englanders I thought I knew tight with a dollar. Nah. Luckily we don't reside near a non-Walmart (IS EVIL) warehouse club. Still, he finds this stuff:

four pounds of ketchup: grandma's out of luck here

don't you love alligator wrestling the soap into the washing machine?

like I can even get this into the shopping cart

Now, my spouse and I are both quite small. But thanks to mega-size household products, my biceps, triceps, delts and welts have all increased 350% in the past 5 years! Thanks, hon!

Oh, and by the way, I found your secret stash:

mom's business trip...right here

2005-06-18T08:51:00.000-07:00

I can smell Web sites. This one smells of musty Goodwill couch, peppermints (boy on right is hiding new smoking habit from Mom), and Chocolate Shoppe ice cream.

Unfortunately, I was unable to detect the poopy diaper that spent all day in the middle of my living room yesterday. I guess there are "no's" in what my nose knows.

The NC kids' roadtrip journal made me realize that being alone in this house for 3 days kinda feels like I'm on a trip, but not a fun road trip with my drinking buddies. (Oh southern twentysomethings, can you swing back up to WI?), but rather a solo, soulless business trip.

This is, of course, exactly the sort of trip a home-based business owner would take. I don't actually get to GO anywhere or SEE anyone, but the sheer absence of the demanding family schedule frees my inner self.

OH SHIT. It seems my inner self prefers life in an EconoLodge in Kansas.

Take the last two days. Each day, I've made a pot of coffee for myself, but absolutely nothing else to eat, as if I'm saying to myself, "oh, you're not worth expending my awesome cooking talent...get another piece of Kringle." So I did. When I got hungry, I came up with an excuse to run car errands so I could go through the Culver's drive through. I spent both days typing ceaselessly on the computer, occasionally punctuated by a burst of gardening. (I also got a few little home repairs done that have been bugging me for years...like the caulking in the bathroom floor around the tub. I see it every bathtime but by her bedtime I've either forgotten or am too tired to go haunt the basement for the caulking gun.)

Then, when my retinas fully roasted, I lay down on the sofa, watching TV until I fell asleep. This is EXACTLY what I used to do on business trips, absent the good porn channels.

Phone skills by gender

2005-06-15T22:25:00.000-07:00

Phone skills. Again, gender plays a role here, with 95% of boys using the phone as a weapon well past puberty. Tiny girls usually acquire telephone etiquette before crawling, bellowing "heh-wo!" into the earpiece (like YOU always talk into the right end) and seem genuinely pissed if no one answers back. This is great practice for teen dating.

With today's disposable society and technology advances, the average adult throws away at least one obsolete cell phone each year. Keep charging the batteries, and baby has a great new toy (with real ringtones!) that will both entertain and educate. In a few months she can teach you how to set a calendar alarm, play Tetris and calculate a tip using obscure phone features.

Since by now you're gained so much confidence in her abilities, you even let her use the real phone to talk to telemarketers and hypertalkative relatives. Any day now, I'm sure she'll figure out how the calling plan works. Somebody needs to figure that out.

Murphy's law of minivan travel

2005-06-15T22:20:00.000-07:00

A small child who drifts off to sleep in the car awakens when the engine cuts. Unless, that is, you are at a distant store you must enter. Then the kid will wake loudly only AFTER you have carried the 30 lb. carseat into the store (and not one second before). He will NOT resume napping on the ride home, since in fact you COULD leave the child in the car in your own driveway. You've long since rigged an extension cord outside to let you place the baby monitor transmitter on the car window. Just remember to open the windows and put the car in the shade...and no, you really can't do this on a truly hot day. The guilt of dealing with an overheated, sweaty, screaming toddler is really not worth it. But I'm just guessing here.

napping, a health requirement

2005-06-15T21:57:00.000-07:00

Researchers says babies need 1-3 naps of at least one hour's duration daily.

Parents need their babies to have at least two naps daily, of at least 2 hours in length, at precisely 9 am and 2 pm. This allows the parent to sleep through one nap and accomplish about 250 pre-planned tasks during the other. Funny how parents don't get their needs met.

Only OTHER people's babies drift peacefully off to nap for 2-hour stretches. Your child sleeps only while in motion. By "motion" we mean moving very quickly and then staying that way...That $70 electric swing that will morph into a snazzy coatrack within 2 months is COMPLETELY worth it now when you realize how much shoe leather/gas you are saving.

Let's face it; you're much too exhausted to drive safely now, anyway, since you'd have to cross state lines to ensure a lengthy slumber. Clearly, you'd collapse before pushing a stroller would do the trick, since reaching 65 mph requires being in top physical shape, and you're...well...maybe you should try the stroller thing.

childproofing, or studio apt?

2005-06-15T21:45:00.000-07:00

Unless your child is very, very lazy, this is a waste of time. Can you really go 3 years without corded appliances, pets, plants or anything that can be gnawed off and ingested (that means everything smaller than your fist or anything at all not comprised of heavy metals).

Sure, you can put caps on your electrical outlets (why are they so near the floor, anyway; aren't most electrical products kept on counters or some sort of table?), locks on your cabinets and kitchen appliances and keep most rooms locked all day. But then, why have a house at all? You are now confined to one small, carpeted, windowless room containing nothing but a crib, baby's toys, diapers and a changing table empty but for the top shelf.

Heck, sell the house and move into a studio apartment in an old folks' complex. You might even meet a nice old lady who'll babysit while your scour department stores for larger pajamas and wall-mounted storage.

baby fashion police

2005-06-14T11:28:00.000-07:00

I believe babies are ignorant of gender until they learn to say the word "shoes." Boys quickly build a more menacing vocabulary featuring phrases like "Whack shoe on you good!" and "Me winna. You losa!" (picked up from a Bostonian grandfather).

Girls repeat the word "shoes" all day long for at least 6 months, all the while finding and hiding all back-closet footwear in a 3-block radius. They happily submit to their own shoeing, anticipating a trip to the park or ice cream parlour. A half hour later, finding themselves in yet another shopping cart, they then petulantly kick off their favorite footwear somewhere in an 800,000-square foot home improvement warehouse.

A girl will also experiment with clothes, shunning all actual hats but proudly wearing Mom's dirty underpants on her head and bras around her neck. By the time public embarrassment has shamed you into investing in a tall, expensive clothes hamper, your child is headed off to college and spirits it away for her dorm room.

Photo corollary to the baby fashion rules. No matter how many cute Carter or Gap ensembles are received, there will never be anything clean to wear for a formal portrait. Relax. Your child will never smile for a strange photographer anyway, so you won't be buying any photos.

Foreign fashion note: If anyone hands down expensive Swedish babywear, you will locate it exactly 1 month after baby has outgrown it.

summerclad

2005-06-14T11:24:00.000-07:00

Summer dress for baby. In cooler weather you could simply layer items over baby to be stripped off as they were soiled with strawberry yogurt and grape juice. Since flea-dipping the cat is easier than dressing a toddler, why not just skip it altogether?

Buy a case of plastic underwear (forget Little Swimmers, they are useless) and let the kid run around in these all summer. The waterproofing enables you to dunk baby in the tub, kiddie pool or lake immediately after food is taken. Another trick is to place the high chair in the yard. Babies have heartier appetites al fresco anyway. When mealtime ends, simply hose down the baby, bib, place, utensils and chair in one long, high-powered spray. Make sure baby is securely strapped so that he or she is not blown onto the lawn while wet, thus adhering to dirt, dead bugs and grass clippings.

clothing winter's child

2005-06-13T22:08:00.000-07:00

Baby's first winter, you'll purchase 3 or 4 snowsuits, none of which will fit on the 7 days the mercury finally dips below 20, in mid-March. But it's fine since by now you've realized that it's easier to run the car heater for a 1/2 hour and sprint your coatless offspring into the carseat wrapped clumsily in a cotton blanket.

Keep that maternity-sized parka you never wore while pregnant so you can shove the little bundle under your coat for the walk from the car to the local diaper-merchant. Unzip your parka only enough to allow for airflow so other parents won't mock you for being too cheap to invest in a 5th snowsuit usable for less than a week.

Better yet, order pallets of Huggies from e-bay or Army surplus depots and refuse to leave your house until spring. Someone else in your home will eventually get hungry enough to purchase food.

eating with baby

2005-06-13T21:38:00.000-07:00

Dieting in the postpartum era. You got so darned heavy in the first place by listening to that "eating for two" nonsense. (They never said the second person was Refrigerator Perry.) Slim down and speed up baby's mealtimes by reversing the process. That's right, share all of your food with the baby (assuming he's on solids by now).

Your child will soon learn to scarf down the meat and macaroni in record time, leaving you with only vegetables and whatever yogurt or applesauce you can scrape off the floor.

Most nights you'll be too tired to remember to inhale a pint of ice cream right before bed. Nursing moms can justify this behavior anyway as necessary calcium intake.

There IS another way to look at this. "Screw the diet, I've earned this food!" Even if you could care less about your girth--though cat and baby alike have long since proven your tummy is the softest surface in the house--you may still wish to at least feign eating the same food as baby. After all, she wants to eat what you eat.
Keep steaks, lobster, Snickers bars, etc. hidden in an adjacent room and saunter over a dozen times during dinner to sneak "the good food."

The little one is accustomed to "highchair time" as code for your showering, doing laundry, or anything else best accomplished without junior's assistance. NEVER let kids see fruit, cake or cookies until they've eaten at least some of the meal.

Once they've gone snack, they never go back.