I couldn't have said it better myself!

Have you seen this?

Click here for the link. I tried to post the article here, but I couldn't get the formatting right so that it was readable.

I'm not posting this in some self-righteous attempt to justify my current existence, but more as a way to explain to myself and others why it seems like have less patience (and more patience than ever in the same breath), less time, less energy (and more energy than ever), less self-respect (and more than ever) and A LOT fewer complete thoughts than I ever had before.

When I sit down at the end of the day and wonder what I did with my time, I'll just read this over and over and thank my lucky stars that I've been given the chance and the gift to take on this crazy challenge called motherhood. And then I'll go have a cocktail!

Vacay...Away...Hooray!

I haven't completely let my new priorities take over - the blog is still on the daily to-do list. Kevin and I took a kid-free vacation, and I've been swamped with "real life" stuff since we made it home. The vacation was wonderful.

We spent three nights at our condo in the mountains. We skied three days in a row which I don't think I've done since 2004 (Before Kids - or BK for short). Got to eat Indian and Thai food which is an experience that has become infrequent since our kids became old enough to express their EXTREME opposition to it. Had a leisurely dinner in a restaurant with friends. No "feed bag!" That what's we call the red zipper pouch in which I carry all of the emergency snacks and toys to keep my kids occupied in case of a slow (or even average) wait person.

I even took a very quiet and languorous trip to Target by myself. Never has perusing drive belts for vacuum cleaner felt so indulgent! But something else happened in the midst of all this child-free bliss. While waiting in line at Target a toddler two check-out aisles over started chattering to his mother. She understood every word of the incomprehensible babble...and I physically hurt. It was that primal milk letting down sort of pain that twinged through my body. That little voice made me ache for my kids. Not enough to get in the car and run home that instant. (I may be attached, but I'm not crazy -- it was only the first night), but enough to realize that my threats to run away to Mexico are full of hot air. I'd be on the next kayak out of the Sea of Cortez to get back to all of the nose wiping and argument refereeing. What can I say? I'm a sucker for my kids!

We came home on the day of Alex's 4th birthday party. Pictures to come soon of Scuba Party 2009. I guarantee the scuba diving birthday cake is unlike anything you've ever seen. Pretty? Probably not! Unique? Definitely!

Spy Kids: Live! With Caffeine

I'm sitting in a coffee shop attempting to get some last minute work finished right now. This is part of the new "Focus on Mothering Time While Mothering" and "Focus on Work Time While Working" pact that I made with myself...and my family.

I left home early to park myself in a coffee shop (since the library - my preference for a quiet working place - doesn't open until 10 a.m.! Who waits to go to the library until the middle of the morning? No one! Very inconvenient.)

Across the shop, I hear a voice that I recognize. I look up and can't place the face at first. Then I realize it's my neighbor. We know some of our neighbors very well, and others not as much. This is one of those not as much neighbors. We had dinner with them once right after Alex was born. So, it was almost four years ago, and I was in that post-baby fog. We always see the husband out and about, but the wife works a lot, and we never see her.

But sure enough, here she is. They are close enough that I can catch bits and pieces of the conversation, but far enough away that they can't see me watching. It appears to be a business meeting - although they are dressed in casual attire. And I'm learning a lot about my neighbor. How they came to live here...why they decided to have the number of children that they did, etc.

Is this terrible? Yes! I know it is, but all of my life, I've been a little too nosey for my own good. I can read lips, I have excellent hearing and I'm inherently interested in people. My husband hates eating out with me because inevitably, I have one ear on our conversation and the other ear on an interesting conversation at the next table or across the restaurant. Now that we have kids, I've had to grow a couple more ears because I need at least two for my husband and the kids' restaurant antics, but I still don't want to give up on some interesting tidbit that I might glean from the stranger two tables down.

Let me clarify a little bit. I do not hide behind couches and listen to people's arguments. I do not tap phone lines or even pick up secondary lines to listen to people's conversations. I do not rifle through people's things when they aren't there. I'm not that kind of nosey. I'm more the "If You're Going To Be Talking About Something in a Public Place then It's Fair Game for Me to Listen To" type of nosey. For some reason, I felt like I needed to clarify my voyeuristic tendencies so that you didn't think I was a complete freakshow.

I've alway chalked this curiousity (and nosiness) up to an extreme interest in people. As an adult, I've also called it an occupational necessity and an occupational hazard. As a writer, I need to know about people. I've found some great characters mopping the floors in Panera bread company or chatting on their cell phone in the airport. And by not engaging these people in actual conversation, I can take the bits and pieces that interest me and the characters can take on their own life in my imagination. I don't have to accept all of the baggage that comes along with a fully developed person - just the baggage that interests me as a writer.

But, this is the first time that I've spied on someone who I know. And I'll admit, I feel a little guilty. I was actually relieved when the espresso machine got louder so that I couldn't hear the conversation across the room. If I can't hear it, I won't listen. But as long as I can catch strains of information, I'm hooked. I'm realizing that I'm a lot better at this espionage stuff when it involves people that I don't know. If it's someone who I've never met, I don't feel bad about soaking in all of their torrid (or moreoften than not, everyday) events and letting them create a life of their own in my mind. But when it's my neighbor, it just makes me feel wrong. Guess it's a good thing that my spy games don't topple over into the realm of real life - that would be a slippery slope.

Superheroes of the Most Usual Kind

For as long as I can remember, Alex has been obsessed with firefighters and fire engines. In fact, he's pretty much obsessed with anything safety related. Words that make his ears perk up are "smoke," "fire," "rescue," "alarm," "emergency," "ambulance." You get the gist of it. We have to constantly monitor our conversations to ensure that we don't use one of the hot button words which might result in a 20 minute conversation about the specifics of how the smoke detector works or why the ambulance has words written backwards on the front of it. Believe me, I'm very proud of Alex's curious nature as well as his constant quest to ensure that the world is safe from danger and wrong-doing. But, I can only detail the specifics of the inner workings of a rescue vehicle so many times.

Somehow, in the midst of his life full of safety, Alex has gotten it into his head that the most honorable birthday parties are not ones with marketing-laden figures like Nemo or Elmo or even Batman. Birthday parties are about honoring those that make our world a better place. Alex takes superheroes very seriously and won't stand for imposters or wannabes. Last year he carefully considered the job of our college friend Jason and said to me, "Mommy is Fireman Jason a superhero?" In his world, superheroes are real-life do-gooders. Thus the reason that Alex wanted to call Fireman Jason to tell him about the first time he went potty on the big boy potty. Jason, who does not have kids yet, feined surprise and appropriately praised the budding young firefighter who had mastered the most important fire hose - his own!

Given all of the firefighting hoopla surrounding our house, last year Alex requested a firefighter birthday party. The cake was a huge hit complete with Smartys serving as hose hookups on the sides. During our potty training days with Alex, we started using Smartys as a bribe to get him to use the potty. One Smarty for going #1 and two Smartys for going #2 in the potty. It worked pretty well. So well, in fact, that when I brought the cake out at last year's birthday party, Alex loudly declared, "Look Uncle Mark. There are potty treats on my cake. If you're really good, you can have one!"

We played firefighter games. A relay race to see who could put on all of the firefighting gear the fastest. "Pin the Badge on the Firefighter":

I bought clear plastic ketchup and mustard bottles like you find at a hotdog stand. We filled those with water, and the kids shot the water at the tissue paper in the bank windows to put out the fire.
All in all, it was a huge success and although I was happy, I was also slightly concerned that I had set the expectation for even more creative birthday parties in future years. And, I was right!

This year, Alex has decided that he wants a scuba diving party, complete with a scuba diver birthday cake, blue streamers hanging over the windows and an ocean sounds soundtrack so that his guests feel like they are underwater when they get to our house. He has requested a relay race called "Who Can Put on the Scuba Gear the Fastest and Run the Farthest in Flippers." This child's imagination knows no boundaries at the ripe age of 3 years and 350-some days. His list of ideas goes on and on.

I did find a fun picture online of a scuba diving cake made with white cake and blue jello that fits down into the cake to form a body of water supspended in the cake. Now I just have to come up with some scuba diving games and all will be right in the world of superheroes - those that rescue, those that save and yes, those that dive!

I can bring home the bacon...but shouldn't I just fry it up in the pan?

When Kevin and I made the long awaited decision to have kids, we agreed that we both wanted me to be a stay-at-home mom. I was raised by a mom who stayed home with us, and I loved the feelings of closeness and security that came with knowing my mom would always be around to dance with me or paint with me or just cart me around from activity to activity. I wanted that for my kids. I wanted that for myself. Or did I?

After being home with our first born, Alex, for a few months, I started to get antsy. Not antsy to get away from the house. Not antsy to get away from Alex. Simply antsy to explore other venues of myself while being a mom. Slowly but surely I started picking up writing gigs, volunteering opportunities, consulting jobs. Suddenly my noodle in the acronym soup had changed. I was no longer a SAHM. I had become a WAHM without even knowing it.

Part of this transition was simply that I like being busy. I like feeling as though I'm being intellectually challenged and that I'm doing something to better the world. Deep down, I think my greater fear was becoming obsolete as a person. I would soon be able to define myself as a mother, but would shortly not be able to define myself as anything else. This really scared me.

Something about writing "stay-at-home mom" or "homemaker" on my tax returns made me cringe a little bit. If I'm honest with myself, I'll admit that something about those phrases didn't feel good enough to me. In spite of the fact that SAHM was the title I had dreamed of my entire life and a title that I truly believe is the most important one of all in this world.

Here's what I've learned. I have loved being a Work at Home Mom - a lot! I love spending time with my kids and helping them to become better people. I love the picking and choosing that comes with having my writing career and my consulting job be secondary to my primary responsiblity as a mother. Don't like the option that's being presented at work? Don't want to seek out a new gig? Don't want to go to work today? No big deal. My "real" job is being a mom. I can say no to all of those things that I don't want to do in my freelance life.

BUT...and this is a big BUT. I'm not very good at being a WAHM. In trying to combine my two careers - that of a money-earning part of the working world and that of a child-adoration-earning part of the home world - the career that suffers is the one involving my family. There are many times when I find myself saying "One more minute" (which is really 30 more minutes) while I finish up an article or a newsletter layout or a strategic planning agenda. Meanwhile, the dishes sit unfinished, the laundry sits unfolded and the kids sit waiting for mommy's much needed attention.

What I've noticed is on the days that I am fully committed to my SAHM job, my entire family (including myself) is much happier. Things are clean. Things are organized. Mommy has more patience. And life is a lot more fun. So, I'm trying to find a balance. Selfishly, I don't want to give up my WAHM career. But honestly, I want to a more focused mother, a more focused homemaker and a more focused partner. I'm working on ways to divide my time more evenly so that I don't have to stop writing or mothering, but can do each one just a little bit better.

There's no right or wrong answer. And I know there's no panacea in the "Mommy Wars." But I feel like I'm having my Mommy War as a civil war within myself. Any suggestions?

Are there seals in my bedroom?

We've been visiting my husband's sister in Chicago this week. It's been a great time for the boys to spend time with their older cousin. The night before we left, Ben started waking up in the night screaming. He continued to get worse...and worse, until the night before last, he was gasping for air all night long. I finally put him in bed with me because his breathing was so shallow and erratic, I was worried that he wasn't getting any air.

The next morning, as he sat barking like a California sea lion, I realized we had ourselves a full-blown case of CROUP!! Alex had croup when he was a baby, but I don't remember it being quite so severe or scary. Ben's sickness symptoms tend to be amplified much more than Alex's. Even as a baby, Alex would have a cold with some whining and a side of groans. Ben gets a cold with lots of screaming and thrasing and death-rattle breaths. Just the difference in the way their little bodies respond to illness.

So, needless to say, we spent most of one day at the Immediate Care clinic at the hospital. His croup wasn't bad enough to warrant emergency intervention, but when you're on the road, you can never just walk into a doctor's office. Little Ben sat on my lap and wheezed his way through most of the visit. One steroid shot in his leg, and two more sleepless nights filled with barks and coughs, and he seems to be on the mend.

Although, after all those nights of Croup germs being coughed into my face, I think I've gotten the adult version. I no longer have a voice to calm my sicko kids! Should be a fun plane ride home!

Please tell me why my car is in the front yard??

Okay...it's not actually my car, but I do have a question. What do you do when everyday you find something new lying in your yard? Something that is not yours. Something that belongs to your neighbor. The latest culprit?This skateboard that I almost backed over while pulling out of the driveway this morning. Our neighbors have three kids who are older than mine. They love playing outside, and they subscribe to the old-school thought process of roam the neighborhood and knock on doors to see who might be home to play.

I love this about them. We've been hearing so much about the difference in children's play-style since we've all become helicopter parents and the safety of our world has gotten more questionable. It makes me happy to live in a neighborhood where, in spite of the fact that there are no sidewalks and multiple wild animals (i.e., bear, mountain lion, coyote) who could devour our children, these kids are still having endless hours of unsupervised adventure outside.

Every day I wonder if when my kids are old enough to play on their own outside, I'll be brave enough and smart enough to give them a long enough "leash." I'm a pretty protective parent and come from VERY protective parents, so it's going to take a whole lot of self-talk to prevent me from building a cage that my kids can play in outside - protecting them from the dangers of our mountainous neighborhood, protecting me from the dangers of seeing my children hurt. Come to think of it, maybe a cage isn't a bad idea. Even now, my boys are constantly fighting with each other. We'll throw them in there and charge admission. It'll be like Ultimate Fighting Evergreen style. They always say that white trash moves to the mountains. So, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Ultimate Cage Fighting it is!

But, I digress. Along with spreading their love around the neighborhood, these kids spread their toys all around the neighborhood - at least my portion of the neighborhood. If I collected everything that I've found lying in my yard, my boys would be pretty happy in a few years. They would have soccer balls, dirt bikes, shovels, bows and arrows, army men, bungee cords...and a skateboard! And a little plastic ring in the shape of a pink heart. Not sure which one of the boys was wearing that one when it was plopped in our yard.

These items mysteriously appear. I never see the kids playing in our yard with said toys. The toys just make their way into our driveway or grass on their own. So, I've been watching. I think I've determined the problem. The neighbor kids stand at the bottom of their driveway waiting for the school bus every morning. Their driveway is directly across the street from the top of our driveway. The school bus door opens on our side of the street. The kids must hold on to their beloved items until the last possible minute and then toss them (into my driveway) before they step onto the school bus.

Here's my dilemma. I don't really care all that much, but I feel like I should care. I grew up in a perfectly manicured house with a perfectly manicured lawn, and I guarantee that if my neighbor had left his skateboard in our driveway, it would only have happened ONCE. But I feel like I should do something.

Sometimes I ignore it, and the toys mysteriously make their way out of my yard in a few days. Sometimes I place all of the items in a nice tidy pile at the bottom of their driveway. Sometimes I almost crush the skateboards with the wheels of my car. Regardless of the action that I take, nothing is ever said about the toys by me, the neighbor kids or their parents. It's like this silent game we have going to see who can not talk about it the longest.

As my kids get older and I'm constantly stressing picking up after yourself and caring for your things, I feel like I should be setting an example for my kids by setting our neighbor kids straight. Am I making too much of this? Or should I just hide everything in my garage and be happpy that I don't have to buy my son his own skateboard?

Got Milk? Not us!

Our youngest son, Ben, is a strong willed little boy. From the moment he came into this world, things have been his way or the highway. Or in the case of his birth - both!

From the very beginning, he was an excellent nurser. He latched on within five minutes of being born, and never looked back. I weaned him at 13 months, but he probably would have kept nursing for another year had I let him.

Now he is underweight. Not that I put too much stock in the growth curves, but they did create them for a reason. At his 18 month check-up, he was in the 98th percentile for height and the 0 percentile for weight. Yes...ZERO! To our credit, both of the boys had a projectile vomiting plague the week before Ben's check-up. He lost five pounds that week, which for a boy of his size is a lot of weight. You could see his collarbones sticking out. I could trace the contour of every rib with my eyes. It was like watching my little boy peer out of a super model's body.

What is the connection between his weight gain issues and breastfeeding? My mommy guilt! Before weaning him, Ben would never take a bottle. We tried day-long nursing strikes, we tried bottle, cups, syringes...anything to get milk into him another way besides directly from my udders. I certainly didn't mind all of the nursing, but a girl's gotta have a break. He wouldn't take anything. I finally got him to take a few sips from one of those plastic shot glasses that comes with children's Tylenol.

Before weaning him, he would also never take milk, or formula - nothing except water - and then only if it was from the short-man's shot glass. I always assumed that after I weaned him, he wouldn't have a choice and would start drinking milk. We tried whole fat, half fat, no fat, goat milk, buffalo milk, soy milk, rice milk, chocolate flavored, strawberry flavored. It was a veritable Starbucks of dairy drinks at my house. No luck!!

I even went so far as to put cinnamon and vanilla extract into his drink thinking the incredibly unique flavor would tempt him. It didn't. And then my pediatrician reminded me that vanilla extract has alcohol in it. Granted, it was only a couple of drops, but at least he had the right mocktail for his little shot glass.

Now, I know that milk is not the panacea of children's weight gain, but you have to admit, it doesn't hurt. Especially breast milk. There have been numerous times in the last six months (as I've watched Ben's weight curve plummet), that I've wondered if it wasn't my own selfishness that caused me to wean him when he was still happily nursing. Not only does a girl need a break, but a girl's gotta have a cocktail sometimes, too! And I wasn't a big fan of those bite marks I was getting from his periodic experiments with chewing while nursing.

Life can't be full of what ifs, but this is a what if that I've been thinking about a lot since his mandatory doctor ordered weigh-in is on Thursday. We'll just have to hope that all of that mac n' cheese I've made with heavy cream and those avacadoes that I've hidden in his grilled cheese sandwiches are doing the trick.

The Song of Purple Summer...or Red Fall (as it were)

In November, Kevin and I took a long weekend to visit our friend Brian in Los Angeles. It happened to be the weekend of the wildfires that were engulfing southern California. This picture was taken in broad daylight (not at sunrise or sunset). The eerie pinkish haze was the bi-product of the smoke filled skies. It made for a beautiful pic - although not very beautiful breathing.

This picture was taken after a day in downtown Los Angeles. Although I've visited L.A. multiple times in my adult life, I haven't spent much time downtown. Our friends have always lived in Santa Monica or Hollywood. We've either hung out at their local haunts or spent time walking the Santa Monica pier or the boardwalk in Venice Beach. It was a monumental weekend for visiting downtown L.A.

First off - the wildfires. The town was hazy and smoky and abuzz with the latest news of where each fire had spread. To most L.A. residents, it must be second nature to see Ahh-nald on the news every night, but I'll admit, it's still a novelty to me to take the Terminator seriously when he's talking about a state of emergency.

In the midst of all of this, this was also the weekend of the Proposition 8 protest marches. We took the subway down to City Hall to check out the spectacle of it all, as well as show our support for the protesters.

As we walked to City Hall, the newspaper boxes were filled with pictures of Sean Penn's face. Milk was schedule to be released the following week. Brian, who is friends with Dustin Lance Black (the writer of Milk's screenplay), was reveling in how crazy it was that this group of guys that he calls friends could very likely win an Academy Award for their work. How prophetic. It also didn't escape any of us the significance of the Prop 8 marches in the wake of Harvey Milk's recent popularity resurgence. Just 30 years before (almost to the day) Harvey Milk's life was taken from him at the San Francisco City Hall. And now here we were watching a fight for the same basic human rights that Milk believed were not only possible but deserved by all. Two steps forward and one step back. The story of our world!

After the rally, we made our way to the Ahmanson Theatre a few blocks away to see Spring Awakening. Brian had seen the original Broadway production, but this was our first time. I have to say simply that I loved it. Spring Awakening is one of those shows that people either loved or were indifferent about. When I've gushed to friends in the theater community about how much I enjoyed it, some have shrugged it off with, "Oh, it was okay."

Let me qualify the "I loved it" statement. It wasn't like being that 15 year old sitting in a theater in Chicago watching Les Miserables for the first time. I loved that show with every fiber of my being. The music, the staging...everything. But I was also 15, and I loved (and hated) everything with that sort of passion.

I loved Spring Awakening intellectually. It didn't move me emotionally. I wasn't weeping at the sad ending. But the music was exciting (I'm always a sucker for a cello), the concept was unique, the lyrics were poetic. The staging was creative and the lighting was phenomenal!! Loved the blue lights that came down during the second act.

And to this day, whenever "The Song of Purple Summer/I Don't Do Sadness" comes on my ipod, it takes me back to that weekend in November. The orange skies filled with wildfire haze, the red faces of those fighting for their rights that had been revoked, and the purple summer of that small moment in Spring Awakening when Ilse still has hope in spite of all that life has taken from her.