Tag Archives: World’s Best Mom

The Christmas Tree Nazi

As I write this, I am huddled in my semi-warm winter coat, alternately shivering and rethinking my statement that the original windows in this house are so much more charming than new ones would be. Writing while shivering in a thin winter coat makes me feel like something out of a Dickens novel. Which makes me feel very literary. Or poor.

Either way, I get a warm inner glow every time I glance to my left and see the festive splendor of my own blazing Christmas tree. Yes – the lights are on, and will remain on whenever I am in close proximity to my tree. If need be, I’ll turn off every light and electrical appliance in the house to make up for this gluttonous attack on the earth’s waning resources. I’ll even turn down the already insufficient heat. I love my tree just that much.

As you may have guessed by now, I can decorate the hell out of a Christmas tree. It’s one of my great talents in life, and every year my home is graced by yet another Christmas tree triumph. This is one area in which I throw any sense of humility out the window. I’m can confidently claim that my Christmas tree kicks your Christmas tree’s ass.

You are probably thinking that my family is very lucky to have this kind of genius on their side. Well – I don’t know if they’d agree. You see the price that everyone pays for my mad Christmas tree decorating skillz is that they don’t get to have any fun with it. And that’s my Friday Confession this week. I am a Christmas Tree Nazi.

Brief disclaimer here: I am not in any way supporting or condoning the Nazi movement. My children are not joining the Reichs of Hitler Youth and I am not a racist psychopath with mommy issues. I’m basing the title “Christmas Tree Nazi” on the famous “Soup Nazi” character from Seinfeld. So on the almost impossible chance that you have never heard of this character and had no idea what I’m talking about – please be assured. I am not an actual Nazi.

That out of the way – I am a total bitch when it comes to my Christmas tree. I have definite ideas about where the ornaments should be placed and how the various colors and styles should be distributed. I like a symmetrical tree. A messy looking tree doesn’t bother me if it’s in someone else’s house (it in fact, just reaffirms my own superiority in the tree decorating realm). But the idea of a haphazard looking tree in my own home makes me die a little inside. The only way to achieve the level of perfection that I demand is to be very rigid and controlling, and even strategic about the tree decorating process. And believe me – I’ve got this covered.

I can currently get away with excluding my children based on their ages and lack of attention span. But I know that they will eventually want to participate. I just plan to cross that bridge when I come to it. And possibly buy a “kids’ tree” for them to do with as they like. Their father has fond memories of decorating his own kids’ tree with Star Wars action figures. So I expect he will be supportive my multiple tree plan. In fact, I’m sure he’ll be happy because he’s not currently allowed to help decorate our Christmas tree either. He may as well be one of the kids. The first year we had a tree together, I had to linger behind him rearranging his more bizarre ornament placement choices.

So the Hood family tree decorating tradition does not include the sound of laughter, storytelling and favorite Christmas carrols. There are no childish squeals of delight when someone finds the perfect spot for that favorite ornament (okay – maybe a few, but only if I’m really excited). And there is no closing ceremony of a tiny hand placing our angel at the top.

Instead there is about an hour of lights detail with meticulous care taken to make the tree appear to glow from within. Then there are about 20 minutes of bow placement. And finally, unlimited time is devoted to the actual ornaments.

My ornaments are packed away so carefully that the box would most likely survive a three thousand foot freefall from a cessna flying over rush hour traffic. Since they rarely break, I have finally accumulated enough to transition out the “filler” ornaments (plain gold balls from Michael’s) that I had to use for my first tree. I really do love my delicate antique ornaments and dread the day that they are pushed aside for the kids’ school project ones involving dry pasta or styrofoam.

But I also know that when that day does arrive, I will embrace it with the same pride and enthusiasm I apply to their current toddler achievements. Such as figuring out how to take off their pants and run around outside before I realize they’re gone. Just kidding – I really will be proud of those pre-school ornament projects. And after an appropriate amount of oohing and aahing, I will direct them to the kids’ tree where these masterpieces can be displayed to their best advantage.

Look – I know this sounds really obnoxious. But it IS a confession. So that should earn me at least a few good person points right? Being able to identify the problem and that being half the battle and all… But to give you a sense of where this Christmas tree decorating hubris is coming from (just a sense since no picture can truly do my creations justice), here is a picture I took yesterday:

And here is another one without the flash:

Photographer, I’m not – so like I said, these pictures don’t really capture the magic of this year’s Christmas tree. But they do capture the completely neurotic obsession with perfect symmetry which is at the heart of this psychopathic holiday behavior. And as far as holiday photography goes, capturing the true spirit of the Christmas Tree Nazi is half the battle.

Farewell to the Mullet

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Mullet: A mullet is a hairstyle that is short in the front, top, and sides, but long in the back. The hairstyle was popular from the early 1980s to the early 1990s. Mullets have been worn by males and females. The mullet is distinct from the rattail, which consists of a long, narrow “tail” of hair growing from the back of the head. Mullets also vary in length from side to side and do not necessarily share a single, consistent length.

As I have mentioned on many an occasion, my daughter, Eleanor is follicley challenged. It is only now, at age two, that she has FINALLY started to grow some hair already.

She’s always had very fine blond hair, and I’m sure that if she was my only child, I wouldn’t think anything of it. But she is a twin. And her brother George has had a full head of hair from birth.

Ah – all of that explaining to people that he is not her older brother…”no, she’s not younger – just bald.” Thank god those days are over. As are the days of men seeing me with the twins in the stroller and Oliver at my side, and saying, “three boys – nice work!” (Incidentally – Eleanor was usually wearing pink or leopard print – or something else that no self respecting one year old boy would be caught dead in – but whatever.)

Even as babies – George was able to wear a barrette. Eleanor? Not so much. That one above is literally attached to all three of her hairs. And why would we have a picture that involved George wearing a barrette? I have two words for you: mean grandma.

Unfortunately – this new growth pattern just wasn’t very attractive. Since she always had some hair on the back of her head (I know – cute right?), that pre-existing hair has continued to grow at the same rate as the new hair on top of her head. The result? A bizarre hairstyle alarmingly reminiscent of the mullet.

It’s a bit dark – but truly displays her mullet to best effect.

I’ve never had a mullet or anything resembling one. In general, I’ve had different variations of the same hair style since high school. Albeit, with a few blunders such as perms and fringe bangs thrown in for future blackmail pictures – but never a mullet. No one in my family or Chris’ family has ever had a mullet. And I’ll be damned if my own daughter will be known as the neighborhood toddler with a mullet.

So of course, that means that the day we have been waiting for – for so long (really, really long) – had finally come. Eleanor’s first haircut!

Here are some “before” pictures:

So serious.

I told you it was bizarre.

Then during:

No tears. Pretty impressive considering that her brothers always cry and flail.

The back is now the same length as the sides.

And a blow dry no less! The last time she was in a stylist’s chair with a hair drier over her, she was in my stomach and my water was breaking (ah – memories).

And when it was over:

She got to pick out a barrette. But it was too big for her skinny little hairs. Maybe next year.

A lollipop made up for the barrette disappointment. (For me, I mean. She could have cared less.)

Sorry I don’t have any good “after” shots of the back of her head. She wouldn’t let me take any. Scenes from my future as the mother of a teenage girl: “Mom – stop it! You’re so embarrassing.”

I’m so proud of my mullet-less little girl. She didn’t cry or flail and I didn’t leave covered in toddler hair and snot. Maybe I should bring the boys next time so they can watch her work. My little girl took it like a man (a man WITHOUT a mullet).

"Suburban Moms Are So Annoying"

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This is not what I think (boy wouldn’t that be a sign of self loathing). This was a search used to find my blog. Someone who works for Pfizer in New York City finds us annoying and actually went to the trouble of conducting a Google search for related information on the internet. Like there are websites that offer resources for the poor urban people that have to put up with those irritating suburban moms.

And if there are, it appears that my blog is one of them!

The Big Piece of Cake was selected because of a line from my old Babies are the New Black post: “That’s what suburban moms who read Us Weekly do. We judge. In our stained sweatpants.” This link made the cut due to the fact that it included the words “suburban moms” and “so.” Not surprisingly, the researcher spent “0” seconds on my site. And who could blame them since all they saw that day was a misleading blog name promising baked goods and a post about my obsession with dolls. Sorry to disappoint.

Initially, I just had a little laugh over those crazy keyword searches that people conduct, and conceded that the search could have been for information less obvious than the selected words would indicate. It’s possible that my friend at Pfizer didn’t actually need data on annoying suburban moms and was really just looking up a movie quote or a funny story they read in the news.

You never know with internet searches. I’ve certainly conducted some weird ones myself. Just yesterday I wrote an entire post about the most beautiful blog family I’ve ever seen, only to discover that I lost the link to their site. My solution? See if I could locate the blog in a targeted Google search of course. The key word combinations I came up with were pretty bizarre. Here is a sample: “Mormon blog with four beautiful daughters.” Is that creepy sounding or what? One would think that I’m a psychopath putting the finishing touches on my homemade girl cages. Yikes! But in reality, I was just writing a funny post about not believing that such a beautiful family could possibly exist. I’m still peeved about spending time on that post for nothing. So if you are incredibly good looking, have four Nicole Eggert look-alike daughters and once linked to my Mormons Are Funny post, please comment so I can be in touch.

Back to my point – this odd keyword search made me think. Are suburban moms annoying? If I’m just speaking for myself, I’d probably choose “off balance” over “annoying” – but you know, semantics. If we’re going to take the search literally and go with the actual definition of “annoying,” “causing vexation : irritating <an annoying habit> <annoying questions>,” I’d have to say yes. We are annoying. And there are several points in favor of this conclusion.

First, we are rather pampered by the ease of our suburban lifestyle. Even though we don’t live in the city, we’re also not in the country and have pretty much any retail necessities that one could imagine in close proximity to our homes. And unlike urban families, we can drive everywhere with very few worries over traffic. While I am the first to complain about the hour it takes to get my group out of the house and buckled into their car seats (a sure sign of an annoying suburban mom), I also know that I’m much happier tooling around in the comfort of my own vehicle than trying to navigate the public transportation system.

Secondly, we don’t have as many opportunities to parallel park, so we irritate downtown drivers with our geriatric parking style – often pulling out completely to start all over again when it’s clear that we overestimated the amount of space we had. And pulling up to the car parked in front of us? Why would we ever do that? It’s not like city street parking is hard to find or anything. Oh – it is? Well how the hell would we know that? The shopping centers and strip malls we frequent all have parking lots.

And let’s talk about those vehicles we drive. I’ve already written about my own tank, but it’s pretty safe to say that most suburban moms drive some form of a minivan or SUV. I can defend this choice based on my own inability to find an economy car that accommodates three car seats – but I already covered that in the other post I mentioned above. The bottom line is – necessary or not, we drive big cars. And people can’t see around us on the road. And we’re usually so distracted by our children fighting, crying, puking, etc. in the back that we really don’t notice that we’re weaving, driving too slow or confusing people with the blinker that has been on for the past five minutes.

So based on our driving and parking styles alone, you can imagine how much other annoying suburban mom fodder I could pull together. But I’ll close with the obvious. The annoying suburban mommy bloggers.

What can I say about us…? Well, we’re kind of whiny. Whether we call ourselves career women or work at home moms, we do A LOT of complaining on our blogs. Of course we also exclaim over the daily joys of motherhood and the angels that were sent to us in the guise of offspring. But seriously, we do our fair share of kvetching. You think you don’t? Comment and I’ll come visit your blog to check it out. You’ve obviously discovered some nirvana that remains hidden from the rest of us. Please – disclose your secret.

And on the flip side of our communal bitchfest, we also torture people with syrupy sweet anecdotes about our children. We are SO proud of our little monsters that we fully expect to win awards for world’s cutest kids (which by the way is a title that was most likely already given to the world’s most beautiful family referenced above – sorry). Even when we are complaining about them or recounting amusing stories about their bad behavior, you know that we’re secretly pleased by what little characters they are. GOD we’re annoying.

I have based pretty much all of these observations on my own subjective experience. So if you’re feeling a bit ruffled and misrepresented, just let me throw a disclaimer out there. I am quite possibly one of the most annoying people I know. I have numerous flaws that rub people the wrong way, and I write about them all the time. My annoying habits related to my status of “suburban mom” are such a small part of the truly irritating person that I am.

And when I say “I am” – I really mean, that “we all are.” Come ON Pfizer employee in New York City (I’m back to assuming that the search was intended for evil). Do you really think that you’re any less annoying than the rest of us? Of course not. It’s all so subjective. I was once a city kid that had never even heard of my current neighborhood. I’ve done my fair share of eye rolling and guffawing over the suburbs – but now that I’m on the other side, I see that it goes both ways. No one is safe. We’re all annoying. And on a good day, we choose to call this state of affairs “diversity.”

*Before commenting on this – please read the “Pfizer employee’s” comment and my response (I think we’re #22 and #23). Thanks!

Dolls from Inside a Black Apple

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Recently, I guest posted on this blog as myself at nine years old. One thing I remember most about that time is how much I still loved my dolls. I was in the end stage of dolls being age appropriate. I didn’t actually see the change coming, but this shift wasn’t lost on me at the time. I knew that it was becoming less common for girls my age to actually “play” with them – and more and more, I had to cloak my love of dolls in the guise of being a “collector.”

Of course, as I grew up, my interests diversified. But I have always just loved dolls. I live in fear that my daughter will be a die hard tomboy and I won’t be able to live vicariously through her as she plays with her own dolls.

So for this week’s Materialistic Monday, you can just imagine how much I covet THIS:

Emily of Inside A Black Apple has long been one of my Etsy favorites. Her whimsical paintings are sweet but always with a bit of an edge. And the little characters she creates are so original and lovable. But she really won me over with her dolls. This new one is probably my favorite so far.

And just when you thought it couldn’t get any cuter…

Ohmygod it just did. I want ten please!

Sadly (for me) this one wasn’t for sale. It was made for a friend’s little girl. Kate Coveny, age nine, is currently writhing in jealously.

Here is another one that charmed me:

Seriously. A bear hat? I love it.

Even more frustrating, her wonderful dolls sell out of the shop within minutes (this seems to be a theme for my favorite Etsy stores…) So the chances of my ever getting a little blond one for my blond little girl – let alone buy one at all – are slim to none.

If I ever learn how to sew, I do have the option to make one. Check out her tutorial with Martha Stewart. Okay – since that’s never going to happen, maybe a friend will make one for me – I mean – Eleanor. So if you feel so inclined, my birthday is in April (come on – of course it’s for me!)

Never Underestimate the Power of a Girl

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As I mentioned in the introduction to my last guest post, Tuesday was a bad day. In fact, I even had a rough outline in my head for the post that I wanted to write about it. I also had a title: Working Mom Hell. But one day later – and one day not all that much better – I haven’t the energy or interest to write about how much Tuesday sucked. I already lived through it and I don’t particularly want to revisit it. My account would end up being all wacky and ironic and highlight the quirky traits of my children and paint me as the hilarious straight man… But that’s not how it felt. It felt bad. And not funny. And now I just want to forget it and move on.

And the way I get past the bad is to focus on the good. I am proud of this coping mechanism. It’s one that I worked hard to cultivate, having been prone to martyrish ways in my youth. But my usual “go to,” my kids, wouldn’t work this time. I was still feeling the shame of my bad mommy day, and thoughts of my angels would just lead me back to the same feelings of guilt that I was trying to put to rest.

Instead, I read my Aunt’s story about lying in bed at night and talking to her big sister. And I found myself remembering a time in my life when I was really happy. Carefree and full of hope and unapologetic for flaws that I didn’t yet recognize as faults. I was a senior in high school and for the first time ever, I felt comfortable in my own skin. And I had a great job: I was a big sister to girls. I wasn’t a biological big sister and I wasn’t a volunteer Big Sister – I was just a babysitter.

When I first met Margaret and Julia, I knew that they wouldn’t be like the toddlers and younger kids that I usually took care of. Margaret was ten and didn’t actually require supervision in those hours between the end of school and her mother’s return from work. But Julia was only seven, and Margaret wasn’t quite old enough for the responsibility of monitoring her little sister. I was hired to keep an eye on them, to make sure they did their homework and to put together something resembling dinner (usually fish sticks – not much has changed).

As I said, I had never taken care of kids their age before, and I was immediately struck by two things. First that it was EASY! I didn’t have to chase them around or carry them, and when I asked them to do something, they just did it without any boundary testing or power struggles. The second realization was that I was never bored. Not for a minute. Even when we were sitting around doing nothing, it was like spending time with friends. They liked to hear about my personal dramas and the scandalous gossip of my social circles. And I liked to hear about their younger version of the same.

Kate: “Did I tell you that I found my dress for prom?”

Margaret: “I want to see pictures. I just got a new mini skirt for the birthday party on Saturday.”

Kate: “Are you still going? I thought that you were in a fight with her.”

Margaret: “We made up. Did all of your friends get asked to prom?”

Kate: “Since I only have girls at my school, we don’t have to worry about getting asked to prom. We do the asking.”

Julia: “Look at the picture I drew of you in your prom dress. I gave you a crown and wings.”

Never a dull moment. At least as far as we were concerned. I loved my girls and probably spent half of my earnings on candy at the drug store that was a few blocks away (remember when we went to the “drug store” and not CVS, Rite Aide, etc.?) We would usually walk over and buy chocolate bars and sodas. Diet Coke for me and Coke Classic for them. Or maybe Mountain Dew or Dr. Pepper. They were still experimental about their treats.

I also took each of them out on dates a couple of times. Margaret and I went to see Joe Versus the Volcano and ate huge boxes of movie theater candy before the previews were over. Then Julia and I went to Swensons for ice cream sundaes. Now that I think of it – I was a very bad influence on them with the junk food (again – not much has changed).

Julia was still very much a little girl and would crack me up with her odd little ways and sayings. She loved to have her arms tickled while we watched TV and would say that it made her “all hotted up.” I asked her not to say that anymore – it just didn’t sound right. We were all too young to worry very much about embarrassing each other. Everything was taken in the way it was intended. Intentions were always good.

Margaret came home one day with this t-shirt she had decorated. She used glittery fabric paint to spell out “Never Underestimate the Power of a Girl.” Underneath were two stick figures, one pink and one blue to represent a girl and a boy. And between them was an “equals” sign (girl figure = boy figure). Julia and I agreed that the equals sign looked more like lasers that the stick figures were shooting at each other. Margaret couldn’t decide if she liked that idea better than her original vision.

I have a picture of the three of us. I’m sitting down with Margaret and Julia on either side of me. Margaret is wearing the t-shirt. I love that picture and I always look at that t-shirt: Never Underestimate the Power of a Girl. It reminds me of the girl that I once was – both at their age and at seventeen. I remember so much of my childhood, and how I felt. Maybe that’s why I enjoyed spending time with my young charges so much. I knew how they felt – I had been there.

Margaret and Julia kept me connected to the little girl that was still inside of me. I was leaving for college the next year, but I wasn’t really ready. I would rather have spent another year braiding Julia’s hair and telling Margaret about the parties I went to that weekend. Growing up was never easy for me. And it still isn’t. Being a good big sister is a lot more fun than being a bad mommy.

And I’m sure that when my kids are in college, I’ll look back and remember this whirlwind of IEP meetings, potty training and trying to balance work and family as a far “simpler time” than it seems to be right now. This is a pattern for me – looking back. But just as I learned to be more positive and not dwell on my shortcomings, I’ve also learned to look forward more. And to have a little faith in my ability to do well by myself and the people I love. My intentions are always good. And I never underestimate myself anymore.

How Do WE Get Ready for Halloween?

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As a family primarily populated by small children, we’re really just beginning to create holiday traditions. For a long time, it felt like we were the house of babies, then toddlers. And now that everyone is between the ages of two and three, we can actually say “we have three kids.” They are finally all able to understand Halloween – or at least the various decorations and activities that go along with it.

Now we have three very enthusiastic little people in our house who just LOVE PUMPKINS! So number one on the list of what we do to prepare for Halloween? We talk about pumpkins incessantly. The word “pumpkin” must be included in every other sentence – at least. And if we are driving in the car, there must be constant speculation about where the pumpkins are, how many there are and which direction should be taken to find them. Oh – and if there aren’t any to be seen? Get ready for some screaming.

We also make it our first order of business to purchase a hideous plastic light up pumpkin:

My three year old, Oliver felt that this was a “must have” on one of our trips to Harris Teeter – LAST MONTH. At the time, I thought, “what the hell? If an ugly light up pumpkin decoration adds to their Halloween experience, why not?” Why not? Because it’s now the most important feature of the house and must be plugged in at all times. Plugging that stupid pumpkin in is my first priority when we get up and when we come home in the evening. I’m starting to worry about what will happen when Halloween is over and the pumpkin is put away (hidden). How will they function without their tacky idol to worship? Will I have to buy them a plastic light up turkey?

The next Hood Halloween tradition is to buy our costumes early. And demand to wear them ALL THE TIME:

Unfortunately – George tired of his Yoda ears a couple of weeks ago and decided to hijack his brother’s costume:

If I don’t hide the Superman top, George will demand to wear it everywhere: to daycare, to bed, to the mall, in the tub (seriously – we’ve had some BIG fights about that). I’ve written before about George’s tendency to get attached to things. And I think that he would shatter all of the glass in the house with his screams if I dared to take that Superman costume away from him and let Oliver wear it. Luckily Target had more. So we’ll have two Supermen this year. I don’t care – at least Eleanor is happy as a ballerina. And I suppose I should be pleased that George isn’t demanding her costume.

But I think our most festive new Halloween tradition is “decorating the ceiling.” What – you’ve never tried this? Well let me tell you how it’s done!

It all started with one of my great ideas for kid friendly activities. I have these all the time – but they never turn out quite the way I have in mind. This particular gem was inspired by stickers. My kids love to put stickers on paper, but do tend to get frustrated when they can’t peel the stickers off the paper to re-stick them. So what could be more fun than reusable stickers? The answer? Halloween window clings! Have you ever heard of these? They’re like little gel stickers that you can put in your windows. I thought this could keep them busy for a long time while I made dinner, got lunches ready for the next day, changed out of my work clothes… And that it did.

While I put away dishes and Chris was on the computer, Oliver had the genius idea to rip the orange and black gel shapes into tiny pieces. Because shredding things is fun! Then he decided that if the pieces would stick to the window, they would stick just as well to ceiling!

I told Chris that I was running upstairs to change and caught Oliver in the act. He was mid-fling and obviously thrilled with the results of his work. We don’t have particularly high ceilings, but I had to be at least initially impressed by his skill. He had only gotten a few good throws in at that point, so I told him he had to stop, took away the pieces in his hands and called to Chris to make sure that nothing else happened until I came back downstairs. Assuming that my husband was in charge downstairs, I wasn’t in a rush. But apparently I should have been since my directions were not followed.

I came downstairs to find this:

Here is a close-up:

Now, I don’t usually take pictures of my children using their powers for evil. But this was just too outrageous. I needed proof. So before starting in on the husband evisceration, I grabbed my camera. That small detail out of the way, the whoop ass can was opened.

Unfortunately, no one was overly concerned with my rage. Chris thought the whole thing was hilarious and even tossed a few scraps himself. Just another example of men taking inappropriate pleasure in their sons’ misbehavior. It’s all about example setting at our house.

Anyway – the fun ended when we had to pull the pieces down later that evening and realized that they had stained our ceiling. But orange and black is festive for Halloween…and it makes the ceiling look old…like in a haunted house… Oh who am I kidding – it looks like crap. And I’m fairly certain that it won’t be re-painted until next Halloween. Chris is a bit of a project procrastinator. I mean, it takes him a year to make a dentist appointment (sorry honey – but it’s true).

So here it is October 30th, and we’re all ready for the big night! When darkness falls and the festivities begin, we’ll have our plastic pumpkin blazing, our children dressed as Supermen and ballerinas (costume wearers to be determined), and our ceiling stamped with the signs of much mischief. If you think about it, with the exception of costumes, it doesn’t deviate much from everyday life a “the house of kids” – where every day is Trick or Treat.

Happy Halloween!

Why I Hate Halloween

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Hate is a very strong word – especially since it’s only one half of my bipolar feelings for Halloween. So to pre-empt any self righteous indignation on behalf of this annual dress up party, I’ll first state some of the things that I LOVE about Halloween.

I love candy. I love little boys and girls in pirate costumes. I love little boys and girls in princess costumes. [Okay – so the little boys dressed as princesses are just hypothetical since their fathers won’t allow it. But those that settle for being princesses in their hearts will eventually have their day in Key West.] I love chilly nights with glowing, grinning pumpkins. I love the sound of a neighborhood party and the sight of men unafraid to wear tights in public (even some of the aforementioned censorious fathers). I love the idea that for one night you can put on a costume and pretend to be someone else. Because don’t we all entertain the idea of being someone else every once in a while? Even just for a minute?

So with that out of the way… This Friday Confession is that I hate Halloween (at least 50% of the time). Why? Um – because it’s scary. I have mentioned previously that I do not enjoy horror movies. The Ring did not give me thrills and goosebumps. It made me want to throw my TV out the window screaming, “never, never, NEVER do that do me again! How am I supposed to sleep at night now that I’ve seen that?!” I’ll stick with Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin thank you very much.

But how can you avoid the truly scary stuff in these October weeks? I live in fear of channel surfing in the evening. You may be clicking through, looking for something entertaining – perhaps a Will & Grace rerun, or maybe one of those Danielle Steele movies on Lifetime – and out of nowhere you are confronted with Linda Blair screaming obscenities and spewing green slime. That is just not something I’d like to see. Especially as a surprise. I don’t particularly like nice surprises, let alone those of the demonic variety.

Another thing I don’t like about Halloween: the undead. The whole premise of this day is that the dead come back to visit, and my very least favorite droppers by are the ones that don’t know how to stay dead. At it’s very core, the idea of the dead coming back to life is decidedly NOT fun. Yet every year, people strap on their fake gore and find each others’ missing heads and terminal wounds delightfully amusing. Exactly when and how did the undead become festive?

But then there is this whole other world of candy corn and superhero costumes. It makes me feel so conflicted… Especially when I find myself talking to people who are entirely against Halloween. One coworker told me that her kids passed out candy, but did not dress up like their friends. The reason being that their grandmother felt very strongly about Halloween and called it the “devil’s day.” My response was that “it’s not if you go as a fairy princess.” But given my own aversions to Satan and the undead, I can see her point.

In the end – I do not ban Halloween, and OF COURSE I encourage my children to dress up and have fun. But there will always be that part of me that says, “wait – why are we doing this again?” No need to give me a history lesson – I know the background. But I kind of think that the Hallmark corporations of the world have made us forget about those very serious superstitions and instead, turned the day into a Disney themed party where both lovely and horrifying creatures coexist with only theoretical bloodshed. My own unreasonable fears and phobias will never allow me to fully buy in though; and I’ll be more likely to avoid the dark basement at night than to gleefully festoon my front lawn with fake corpses. I think I’ll just stay home and pass out candy to three year old ladybugs. And I’ll stick to Netflix movies until November first.

Cat Poo (The Beginning of The Big Piece of Cake: Part III)

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Tuesday was my 100th post. I’m celebrating by not actually writing anything new this week, and instead, re-publishing some posts that I wrote for a friend last Winter. This is the last of three.

My oldest son, Oliver, has been somewhat slow to get with the talking program. While his vocabulary increases steadily, it’s often hard to understand what he’s saying. For example, it took days to identify “ca-pour” as catapillar. Who knows how much of what he says is lost on us.

One word that features prominently in his daily chit chat is “careful.” (Gee, I wonder where that one came from…) Sometimes it’s directed at his siblings and sometimes it’s just a note to self as he tries something that he knows I would discourage. But it took us a while to understand that what he was saying was “careful.” It doesn’t sound like “careful.” It sounds like “cat poo.” Chris and I love this so much that we now say it all the time. As I’m climbing up a window sill to pull down a Christmas wreath: “CAT POO!” As Chris balances on a banister to retrieve a balloon from the ceiling over the stairs: “CAT POO!” We really need to stop, or Oliver is going to think that this is the true pronunciation (and the twins will show up at daycare telling each other to be cat poo).

Every day offers the challenge of deciphering words in the scramble of Oliver’s language. Another current highlight is “get out” (as in get him out of the booster seat, the shopping cart, the fort of pillows under which he is trapped…). This registers phonetically as “gay out.” We have had hours of fun with that one. But one that has really made us stop in our tracks, is the word “frog” (his current favorite animal). When Oliver yells “FROG,” it sounds a little more like “FOG,” which when pronounced with a particularly hard “G” is unnervingly similar to something else….

Out of Context (The Beginning of The Big Piece of Cake: Part II)

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Tuesday was my 100th post. I’m celebrating by not actually writing anything new this week, and instead, re-publishing some posts that I wrote for a friend last Winter. This is the second of three.

Recently another twin mom I know mentioned that she saw me out shopping and tried to wave, but realized that I didn’t recognize her. She kindly suggested that she was out of context since we really only see each other at playgroups, and we didn’t have our kids with us. Then she laughingly said, “and I generally feel out of context when I’m not with my kids.” She is wonderful and I hate to use her comment as a negative example; but the truth is I never want to feel out of context without my children.

It would be so easy to just drift into the ongoing whirlpool of need that they generate. I could lose myself in that quite happily given the rewarding existence of being loved more than anyone by children who are for me, the bright, shining center of the universe. But then I remind myself that Eleanor won’t feel out of context without me when she starts high school, and then college, and then goes to Cancún for Spring Break, and then gets a beach house for the summer with her friends. I can’t lose myself in my children now, because I’ll be needing that identity back when they leave me to find theirs.

I’ve increasingly found that a major element of my motherhood experience is being both a mom and just me at the same time. “Just me,” being the side of me that watches me deal with melt downs and tantrums and dance with the Wiggles and walk out of the house wearing unflattering clothes because I’m in a hurry and I’m just going to the Safeway and I don’t have time to indulge in a wardrobe crisis. It’s the objective side of me that does the laughing and the storytelling and remembers to notice every detail of George’s 14-month-old smile because his face will have changed again by the time he turns two. The mother in me focuses on what needs to be done and really lives in the moment. I need her to take care of my children, but I also need that observer in me to appreciate them. And if I need to have “just me” to laugh about their daily antics now, I’m going to need that same part of myself to help let them go when they inevitably start to grow up.

Full Hands (The Beginning of The Big Piece of Cake: Part I)

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Today is my 100th post. Considering the fact that I started this blog in late June, that seems to have crept up on me rather quickly… What can I say, I’m an enthusiastic poster. To celebrate this milestone, I decided to devote the next few days to the first posts I ever wrote.

They were written last Winter when The Big Piece of Cake didn’t exist, and my neighborhood friend Tricia, ask me to contribute some guest posts as a mother of twins to her blog, Reston Mom. I enjoyed this so much that after several months spent mustering up the courage, I decided to start my own blog.

This is the first of the three pieces I wrote for Tricia (this first one was broken in to three parts for Reston Mom, so it’s longer than the next two):

Full Hands

Recently, Tricia asked me if I’d be interested in contributing to her blog with some reflections on being the mother of twins plus a first child that was only 18 months old when they were born. This is a question that I get all the time: “So you must really have your hands full – how do you manage?” The answer to this would be that I have no idea. People say, “I just don’t know how you do it,” and I think, “me neither.” As my husband, Chris likes to say, we’re just trying to survive and our only real job right now is to keep the three of them alive.

Now that we’re out of the marathon phase of three-hour feeding schedules for infant twins (including three to four wake up calls each night), I think we can get past survival mode. Newer priorities include herding, refereeing, and keeping anything weapon-like out of reach. They’re not violent children – just very physical. The oldest probably sets the tone by initiating games that tend to involve knocking each other down on the floor and seeing who can hold the others down the longest (and as a 40 lb. two year old that looks like a 4 year old, he has a gross advantage over the other two pee wees combined). Honestly, after about six months of feeling like I ruined Oliver’s life by bringing home not one, but TWO unwanted siblings, I’m just glad that they all seem to like each other.

I just never considered that I might end up with twins. I knew twins and I babysat for twins. I listened to my friends muse that it would be so nice to just have twins the first time around and then be done with pregnancy. But I never had those daydreams myself. I always knew that this would be too much chaos for my orderly existence. When Oliver was born, I couldn’t believe how exhausting and all consuming he was; and I have a very clear memory of saying to Chris, “I don’t know how people have multiples – I just couldn’t do it.” But here we are, and somehow we’re all alive, and I find that I don’t need to have everything in order anymore.

It’s impossible to predict what a weekend day at home with the kids will bring: how many battles of will I can expect, what moods I will encounter when I enter their bedrooms in the morning, who will have a runny nose, or when they will actually start the day (it could be anywhere from 5:00 to 7:30 a.m.). What I do know is that I will have a pile of laundry that will never be completely folded until everyone goes to bed, that I will never get around to that vacuuming that needs to be done and that I will very possibly not even leave the house or put on shoes. But I also know that I will witness a developmental leap in speech or motor skills, I’ll receive innumerable hugs and kisses, both requested and offered, and I will discover yet another amazing skill that I didn’t know I possessed, such as fixing matchbox cars or leaping over hurdles Bionic Woman-style to reach a 2 year old attempting to push his little brother down the stairs (all in good fun of course).

The truth is – everything about my twins was unplanned. I’m one of those controlling types that prefer to keep things logical and organized. I knew for a fact that I wanted a three to four year age difference between my (two) children so that I could get the first one out of diapers, into pre-school and engaged in some kind of intelligible communication before embarking on another round of sleepless nights with a second newborn. Well that didn’t work out. Instead, we ended up with three babies under the age of two, all in diapers, in daycare, and nowhere near the ability to communicate clearly with words.

Life was simple with just one baby. There was always one answer for everything: whatever is best for him. If there was an earthquake and a giant crack opened up in the ground, I could pick him up and run in the other direction. Now I’d need to get the stroller, strap in both twins securely and then convince Oliver to actually hold on to me while I carry him and push the stroller with my free hand. At this point, we’ve all been consumed by the giant crack; and trying to climb out with all three of them is beyond even my disaster planning skills.

I spend less time making future plans now (and forget disaster planning, I can’t even watch movies like War of the Worlds). Instead I focus on the next few weeks, days, hours. I’ve found that no one is on board with my preference for sticking to a plan (not even my husband), so I’ve given up. I just do the best I can to keep things organized and try to be ready for anything. But then – isn’t that the case for all families?