What Remains Behind

Is There Shame in Feeling Shame About Your Divorce?

2011-06-20T10:46:00.000-07:00

I read the NY Times story by Pamela Paul yesterday about How Divorce Lost It's Groove. I wrote a response on my other blog/website, Femamom, because I really resonated with it.

I'm a strong, independent woman, and I'm so strong I don't even have to be explaining how strong and independent I am. But shit, divorce rocked me. And the idea of being divorced rocked me. In my Femamom peice I write about how it was like the Imperial March followed me everytime I had to explain and it took a while to really get past that feeling. What's the harm in admitting this, I ask? Well, according to another blogger, Ask Moxie, whose material I've always liked, being ashamed is shameful.

Moxie takes offense to the article on her blog (which she writes with her ex-husband LOD). She thinks the article makes women sound like "sad rejected failures." Moxie doesn't like this take on it. But Moxie, there is an element -- a HUGE element-- of sadness and rejection when it comes to divorce. I wanted out of my marriage but hell, I'd still call it a rejection. I'd still call it (the marriage, not me) a failure. I'd still say that it made me feel like somehow I had failed - because of course, no one wants their marriage to crumble. You go into it thinking that you're going to be married forever - or at least hopeful of some semblance of longevity. I think Pamela Paul was interviewing people who are going through the mourning process. A surprising mourning process. That it's not all divorce parties and musical shindigs like Jack White is holding with his soon-to-be ex-wife.

Moxie says more:

"Failure is a badge of honor. Failure means you took a chance. Failure means you’re no longer white-knuckling it through life."

And while I did finally come to that, the process is not an overnight one. You do experience shame first, and there's nothing wrong with admitting it. In fact, I think I'm more badass for doing so.

Would I Tolerate An Internet Affair?

2011-06-16T10:23:00.000-07:00

For the record, I’d like to say that if my husband had an affair, I’d kill him.

I’m not sure I’d be able to forgive him. I’m not sure I’d be able to have sex with him again. (And this is coming from a woman who enjoys having sex with her husband.) But more, I’m not sure I’d trust him. And since I’ve been through a divorce before, I know that a marriage can do without a lot of things, but it cannot do without trust.

Right from the get go, I told Andy that if he was going to have an affair, please refrain from telling me. That’s right. I said, “Unless you’ve fallen in love with someone else, I don’t want to know.”

“I just want to know one thing,” he said. “Who are all these women that are after me? Who are all these ladies that I’m having affairs with?”

For those of you familiar with my writing about my husband here on this blog know that while I might like him to look like Johnny Depp, he might be closer to looking like a cross between Robin Willams and John Denver.

Okay, so there’s that.

I have been cheated on—twice. The first experience was at 20. My boyfriend was still in love with his ex-girlfriend and endlessly talked about her through our entire relationship. For a while I thought she was the third wheel, until I learned through multiple witnesses that he had been making out with her all over town and realized, Oh shit, I’m the third wheel. Took a few years to recover from that one....

(More here...)

Femamom and Kathleen Hanna

2011-06-14T18:04:00.000-07:00

I have come to a full circle about my Golden Age.

I was having a moment the other day. Fantasizing about time travel like Owen Wilson did in Woody Allen's new flick, Midnight in Paris. My little dream world came to a halt when Ali, a commenter, told me that, nah, maybe 1978 was not so great for a 19-year-old in NYC. That I could have gone back a few more years and really got the goods and been surrounded by artists that were at the peak, not past peak. So, I appreciated this comment.

And then I ran into this video of Kathleen Hanna. (See below.) She is the original Riot Grrrrl. The OG of female badasses. More, she's married to my high school crush, The King Adrock. That is my name 'cause I know the fly spot where the got the champagne. Adam Horowitz. Beastie Boy. (Okay, my crush on Adrock, not so original. Because who didn't have a crush on him in 1986?)

But when I saw Kathleen Hanna's explanation of how "Smells Like Teen Spirit" came about (she talks about a drunken night together with Kurt and I don't want to give it away), I immediately went back to 1991. Lollapalooza. The first time I saw Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. When I saw Paw at Rock Candy in Seattle on my cross country trip with my girlfriend (we listened to Paw and the Chili Peppers that whole trip). We even ran into Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament the same night. When I saw Henry Rollins at CBGB's. (I was very into hard core rock at that time.) And I thought. Hey, you know what? My heyday wasn't so fucking bad. 1991 ROCKED.

Maybe I'll take this as good segue to introduce a NEW blog that I'm working on called Femamom, a literary website/magazine about edgy tales from parenthood. Another writer friend and I are working on it together--it's taken me 40 years to FINALLY do some groundbreaking stuff of my own. Maybe now I've finally become a punk rocker? 40 can be ground breaking too. This is what I'm learning. We're looking for lots of fringe voices--so please check us out.

***
Below is a video of Kathleen Hanna's story about that night with Kurt. Well worth watching the entirety. Adam H. makes an appearance at the end.

Woody Allen Flick Update and Longing for My Golden Age: NYC 1978

2011-06-12T17:54:00.000-07:00

If you're coming here from the lovely Maggie May Ethridge's blog, Flux Capacitor , because she mentioned my Woody Allen dilemma, thank you for joining me. (And thank you Miss Maggie. Wow, love that lady.)

So here's my Woody update. I did in fact go see the movie, Midnight in Paris.

It was wonderful. Especially if you're a literary junkie like I am, then you will fall in love it it. I mean, it's just remarkable. The movie is about nostalgia, and what happens if you visit another time period. Specifically, Owen Wilson (the Woody character) decides that the Golden Age of literature, when Hemingway and Fitzgerald were writing in Paris, was the best time. Like many of Woody's films, the line of reality is blurred -- Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Picasso, Dali all make appearances. (Come to think of it, this era is probably when my grandfather met Dali - true story. Shameless self promotion, but I wrote about Dali wanting to paint my grandfather for Anderbo. You can read it here.)

It's original, funny, and it's SHOT IN PARIS. Sorry, there's nothing else I can tell you about my dilemma. I felt it. I wrote about it. And then I said, fuck it, and I enjoyed the movie.

Me, I'd love to go back to New York City, 1978. I was 8 years old at the time, but I wish I had been a rough and tough 19/20 year old hanging out at Max's Kansas City. Checking out Blondie. Seeing the Police. Bangin' my head around to the Ramones and the Talking Heads at CBGB's. Living the life of a poor broke ass artist/writer in NYC.

Crosby Street in 1978. Jesus, look at the street.

Why do I want to live in New York at this time? Why do I see this as the golden age? It makes no sense really. New York City was dirty, corrupt, bankrupt, dangerous place at that time. Rats and garbage in the street. People doing a max exodus to the suburbs. But there's something so raunchy and real. Something about living in a place no one wanted to be. That you were literally living on the edge when you were there. It forms you, that kind of place. It forces you to make decisions. Not like all these options I have now living in the suburbs.

I have fantasies of me and a boyfriend shacking up in an old loft in Soho. Maybe traveling uptown to see a Yankee's game for 10 bucks or whatever it cost then (even at the cost of getting a tomato thrown at your head, because that's really what Yankee's fans used to do if the boys played the game poorly. Fans threw fucking tomatoes.) Maybe taking a graffiti-riddled subway uptown to search for John and Yoko and instead seeing these people (in the photo above). This doesn't go on today in Central Park! Now the park is filled with nannies and crying kids!

What's funny is that I lived in Manhattan in 1989. My mother left our town in New Jersey right after I graduated high school and we booked our asses to the Upper West Side. Shakespeare & Co., the bookstore was there, just before Barnes & Nobles pushed it out. (Read Thomas Beller's essay on that here.) New York City was still in great transition. The Upper West Side had only "become" the Upper West Side about five years prior. It was Spanish Harlem until 1984! In fact, we didn't call the Lower East Side the Lower East Side. No, that was Alphabet City. As in You In Danger, Girl. They didn't take I.D.s' down there. Crack dealers on the street, for real. I remember wearing a college sweatshirt one night at a bar on Avenue B and my girlfriend saying, I wish you hadn't worn that sweatshirt.

Guiliani had just become mayor and was beginning to do his clean up of the city, and for better or for worse, but probably for the better, he certainly cleaned it up. I was so unhappy living there at 20/21 that I left pretty soon after graduating college and moved to San Francicso.

Would it have really been so romantic for me to live in NYC in 1978? Maybe not. But wow, it sure feels nice to dream about another time. Doesn't it?

Chicken Coops, Susan Orlean, And My Chicken Envy

2011-06-08T10:57:00.000-07:00

Susan Orlean loves chickens. (I love chickens too and wrote this new article about chicken coops, dog houses, and kitty lairs for Organic Authority. Check it out.)

Back to Susan Orlean. Can we also take a look at her patio? The bluestone terrace. Hello view.

Can we also talk about how she seems to know all of her chicken's names. Mary, who is so loud. I'm cracking up.

I follow Ms. Orlean on twitter and her obsession with her birds really does make me smile. She's like a little chicken lady. With her intricate stories. Her attention to details. Her chicks in a box.

I wonder how Elke would react if we had chickens. Scrambling around squealing about eggs. It's why I chose a specific nursery school for her next year. There will be a LIVE CHICKEN in her classroom. And while I find this adorable, who will clean up the chicken's poop? Will we ever stop talking about eggs? Maybe I'd write a story about a woman who collected eggs. She had so many eggs that she was afraid a few would break. Don't you feel that way on a day to day basis about parenting? I feel that way. That the eggs will all break sometimes. Or that I will be the one breaking them.

This morning I woke up and said to Andy, "I hate the hot weather." (It's 100 degrees here today in NJ.) Can we move somewhere cold? Somewhere with a farm and chickens? Somewhere like this--we escaped to the North Fork of Long Island in late March and ended up at this farm/vineyard called Old Field. Merlot, amazing. The North Fork is on the Long Island Sound and is known for its vineyards. We stayed at a bed and breakfast for two nights. Freezing but glorious.

Chickens to the left of me.

Water to the right. (Can you see the Sound at the end of the dirt road?) It's there.

Here I am stuck in the middle with you.

The Woody Allen Dilemma

2011-06-07T10:36:00.000-07:00

(Read my update here. But first read this post.)

I've been a Woody Allen fan for years. I quote Hannah and Her Sisters. Hell, when I was in my indie movie making days, I plagiarized the scene where Michael Caine follows Barbara Hershey around a New York City block. I bought the screenplays. There's the classic Woody favorites like Annie Hall. But I've gone beyond the oldies. I love Husbands and Wives. Manhattan Murder Mystery. I've seen Crimes and Misdemeanors over 20 times.

(Alan Alda as the callous egomaniac, Lester, trying to explain the definition of "funny" in Crimes and Misdemeanors.)

But Woody's affair and marriage to his daughter/not daughter Soon-Yi Previn left me feeling jilted. I knew this man was crazy--look at his work. But to be so morally compromised is a different story.

So after reading Laura Miller's essay today in Salon "When Bad People Write Great Books" I wondered how I'd approach Woody's new movie, "Midnight in Paris." How can I not see this movie people? Isn't there a point where you say about an artist that you respect and love--as an ARTIST--I love your work, but you're a vile, despicable, twisted human being?

Miller writes:

Learning the truth is disillusioning at first, but enlightening in the end. Part of the sadly underrated process of growing up is realizing that people, the world and life are no less beautiful and amazing for being imperfect.

Isn't this the truth though? Somewhere, I can draw the line between Woody and Roman Polanski. Raping and drugging an underaged girl ain't ever going to fly with me. Like, ever. Right? But with Woody and Soon-Yi, they've been married for some time. Have two children. Is it possible that he could have looked towards another person besides his own family for love, yes. Is it possible that they were actually supposed to be connected? As in fate? I don't know. Even my own reasoning sounds like a load of crap.

And then I think back to what Miller wrote. Artists aren't perfect. And though Woody Allen might be void of any moral code, his work inspires me.

Call me a wuss, and please forgive me Mia Farrow, but I'm going to see Midnight in Paris.

Embracing the Jersey Shore

2011-06-06T08:28:00.000-07:00

I was born and raised in New Jersey. I left for years. Went to San Francisco. Boston. Israel. Manhattan. And though I fought a lot of my Jersey roots as a kid--all the hair, the language, the guidos, the accents--I somehow returned only 10 miles from my childhood home and more, I spend summers in a place that I poked fun of as a teen, the Jersey Shore.

It's a fascinating experience living as an adult in the places that you grew up. Your perspective is entirely different. As a kid, I rejected the Jersey Shore. My friends had to drag me to the boardwalk. But then, one summer, my mother rented a house. Large front porch. Rickety floors. About five blocks from a quiet beach. And that was my first taste of how the Jersey Shore can be different than... The Jersey Shore. No Paulies. No Snookies. (Not that there's anything wrong with those folks--seriously, I love Jwoww.) But when a stereotype is broken, it can open your eyes to possibilities.

Long Beach Island has now become my happy place. I've surfed there. I've roamed the beaches. I've sat on the docks eating fish tacos. I read a book near the sand dunes. This area of Long Beach Island is quiet. There's a few lobster shacks. An ice cream parlor. Lighthouse. Kids riding around on bikes barefoot. Do I have to wait until August to go? Here's a new article on Healthy Livin' at the Jersey Shore I wrote for Organic Authority. I was very proud of my "livin'" -- a little ode to Jon Bon Jovi. I think I also got a dusty beach road lyric in there as well. Believe it or not, there's more to the Shore than just fried pickles. People are selling TOFU MEATBALL WRAPS people! They're making their OWN GRANOLA. LOCALLY CAUGHT FISH TACOS.

It's a beautiful thing.
(Above are pictures from our trip last summer to LBI.)

Half Sibling

2011-06-03T07:39:00.000-07:00

Connected by the color orange.

We were all driving in the car the other day--Andy, the kids and I--when I turned to Jake and said, "Share the fill-in-the-blank-junk-food with your sister."

"Half sister," Jake said.

Screech.

I turned all the way around this time.

"What do you mean, half sister?"

"That's what the school nurse said, Mom. She said Elke was my half sister."

I've worked so hard in making sure my kids don't feel left out of each other's lives. I've worked so hard collecting what's right for our family. Jake knows his parents are divorced. He knows he has a stepfather. Even Elke, at 2, knows C. is Jake's dad. (Click here for refresher.) But there's no need to push a statement like that in a child's face. It makes it seem like their relationship is less legitimate, and maybe I'm being sensitive. But it's my job to protect my children. There is no half. There is only a whole. There is only a family--one whole family--as blended and separate as we may be. And when it comes to Elke and Jake's relationship, there is absolutely no need to qualify the blood lines or that the fathers are different. We're talking about two children who live in the same house. Two children who share toys. Two children who brush teeth at night together. Who fight over the green seat by the TV, you know? Half sister is a slap in the face to their relationship just as if someone adopted was introduced by a sibling, "This is my adopted sister." Needless to say, I became enraged.

So I gritted my teeth and we listened to Jake's story. I asked him how the discussion about half sister even came up. He said that she was talking to the class. And from what I gathered, she was talking about different types of families. Which, I guess, in theory, is fine. She may have asked whose parents were divorced--and now that I'm writing, I'm getting more enraged, something about having to answer such personal family questions in front of other kids--and so Jake raised his hand.

"Your sister is a half sister then," the nurse said.

I'd call her a bitch, but she's too old. Is that too harsh? Sorry. I don't like it when insensitive teachers are attempting to school my children about their lives. It makes me want to tear their eyes out. Yeah, I'm a little overprotective, I guess.

"Jake, she's right," I said. "Elke is your half sister. She is correct about the term. She's correct because you and Elke have different fathers. But we don't use that term in our family."

"Why?"

"Because we don't need to. Elke is your sister. Period. End of sentence. You are Elke's brother. Period."

"Then why did the nurse say that, Mom?"

"I think she was teaching a lesson, babe," I said. (I hoped.) "And in that lesson, she was correct. But it's just a word, buddy. A sister is a sister and a brother is a brother. No need to say half. Not at all. It means nothing."

Andy put his hand on my lap. "I think you need to call the school," he said.

And though I'm still furious and hurt as I write this, I know now, because it's a few days later, that not everyone knows the right words for blended families. The nurse isn't a bad person. She's a sweet lady, much, much older, and I'll give her the benefit of the doubt that she was attempting to talk about a family situation, and didn't know how to handle it with sensitivity. There are ways. There are other ways than this.

I'll call the school today. I'll have a talk with her and ask her what happened. And maybe the next time she talks to a class of first graders she'll explain what a half-sibling is differently. That it's just a term. That it doesn't take away the love or the connection that two children with different fathers have for each other. That a half sister or a half brother is still a sibling.

Just like all the other kids with annoying little sisters or brothers they have to share their snack in the car with.

Running and Crying

2011-06-02T07:35:00.000-07:00

There is usually an intersection during a work out that is filled with worry and fear; it's a place that hurts, physically, that is. Can I continue? And sometimes this manifests emotionally.

Some pretty serious changes going on in my life (not anything to do with my marriage) but let's just say there's some stuff happening that I can't write about. So. Running helps. And listening to amazing music while running helps. Here's what's been getting me through.

1. Eminem. "I'm Not Afraid." His powerful voice, the rap, drives me up the hill in tears.

"It was my decision to get clean, I did it for me. Admittedly, I probably did it subliminally for you, so I could come back a brand new me you helped see me through. And you don't even realize what you did, believe me you."

This is a pretty amazing version with his band performing on Letterman. A tiny performance. Intimate and revealing. This is not my typical running song. It's so serious. So apologetic and unapologetic all at once. This tirade turns into a racehorse of a song and at the end, I find myself proud to be listening to it.

2. Foo Fighter's "My Hero." Please. "Truth or consequence say it aloud." Dave Grohl, I'm starting to think you're my hero. You get me up that hill every time, man. This is not the version I run to. But it's so beautiful, I had to add it.I am going to bawl when I see them do this live.

3. Stevie Nicks "Edge of Seventeen." In my mind I'm Stevie Nicks. I'm young and wearing a loose shirt with tight black jeans. I'm playing the piano and a few girls are behind me chanting "ooh baby, ooh, say ooh..." My hot boyfriend is playing the guitar next to me. You are now getting a very close inspection of my inner rock star fantasies. My love for Stevie is nothing new. I've been pretending to be Stevie since my mother hung a Fleetwood Mac poster on the back of my door when I was about 10. I love Stevie at any age, but Jesus, you don't get any cuter than this.

"He was no more than a baby then. Well, he seemed broken hearted, something within him."

Oh those broken hearted men and boys. It took me about 17 years to stop picking up those kinds of souls.

There are some singers so profound that they just bring you to the edge, and that's where I've been finding myself on my runs. Just on the edge. Crying. Tears and sweat mixed and embedded on the freckles and wrinkles of my face. My breath so heavy and final. It's good, I know.

It's good to let it out. And when I was a child, I remember my mother singing Rosie Grier's song, "It's Alright to Cry," from my favorite childhood album, Free To Be You And Me. I sing the same song now to my kids. Because it is alright to cry. Even with the sun burning your salty tears when you're running. I'll walk in the door, still crying, as I did this morning. Elke with babysitter. Jake at school. And I collapse into my counter, my head hovered, and I let it all go.

And then I take a shower.

Hyperemesis: Part II

2011-06-01T07:24:00.000-07:00

I realized today that I only have a Part I to my hyperemesis story. This is very difficult for me to write about, so maybe it's no accident. Maybe I've just been putting it off.

Last year, Babble published a story of mine about my battle with hyperemesis when I was pregnant with Elke. (Click here to read the story, "World's Worst Morning Sickness? My Pregnancy Nausea Made Me Consider Terminating.")

Just writing that title makes me cringe.

But I did. I did consider terminating. And I am totally pro-choice, so no, this is not some weird ploy to get you to read my story and then once I've reeled you in, I tell you how pro-life is the only way. Actually strike that. I hate saying "pro-life." Everyone is pro-life! (Okay, if you're Jack the Ripper then you're not. But you get my drift.) So, no, this is not some anti-abortion story. This story is about MY choice.

My daughter Elke is 2. She is a full of life kind of girl. Talking non-stop. Asking questions. Running around. Kicking it up in the dirt. Singing Lady Gaga songs--even mashing up Gaga with Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. She is a willful, wild, adorable piece of work. Well, all of that energy. All of that motion. It started somewhere. I believe it started in my belly. I believe her essence was captured during my pregnancy. It was a whirl wind pregnancy that started with me in the hospital at 8 weeks and then again at 10 weeks for dehydration.

I was miserable. Hiding under the covers most of the time, begging for the day to end. For the hour to end. I curled up in a ball and wondered what I would have done if it had been 1867. They would have shot me in the back of the barn, that's what they would have done. Hell, I would have shot myself. If I hadn't of starved to death, or died from complications of dehydration. Anyone read Annie Proulx's "Them Old Cowboy Songs" in the New Yorker about a woman on the prairie alone and pregnant? Let's just say it ain't good.

I was so sick that I wanted an abortion. I was open about this. I spoke to my mother, my husband, my midwife. Every day I suffered with extreme nausea. I couldn't take care of myself. I couldn't take care of my child. "Mommy, when are you going to stop being sick?" he'd say. This was a blow to a woman who just came from a divorce only two years prior. I had gotten used to taking care of myself. I didn't need anyone to help because I was a single woman. HEAR ME ROAR.

But when you're pregnant, you're vulnerable. Physically not as strong. Especially if you're sick and weak and can't eat or move like I was. I thought, wow, is a baby worth it? A baby? Why do we need a baby? I had a child. Another baby would just have been a bonus, right? This was a total turn around from how I first felt when I met Andy. All I wanted was a baby. It was crushing to turn around and think, well, this is just not worth it. Not to live this way, no.

So I wrote about it. It took a long time to write the words down. To type out for the world to read that I wanted an abortion. That look at me with this beautiful daughter now, this gorgeous curly-headed, blue-eyed, inquisitive little thing, a spit fire just like Alice, my grandmother that she's named for, and yes, that's what I thought about. I thought about terminating.

This is an interesting thing about my life and the life of essayists and bloggers and all of the amazing non-fiction writers brave enough to write about their lives in decades before. This is a story to share. I wasn't alone. And now, I've been able to talk about it. Write about it. To put it out there in the world and get feedback. My own cathartic process of how I allow myself to heal is through writing. It has been since I was about 10 years old. It doesn't matter who sees it. This is for me. But now, with this medium, it's communal, isn't it? It's brought me full circle and allowed myself to make amends with it.

"How can you write about this?" someone asked me.

How can I not?

I Got Another Confession to Make: I Let My Kids Eat Fruit Loops

2011-05-27T11:34:00.000-07:00

Okay, that's not such a biiiiig confession. But I've been listening to Foo Fighters a lot lately (and got tickets to see them in September. Yes, can't fucking wait.). "The Best of You" has become my new running song. Pushing up that hill. "Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you...." God, that man Dave Grohl makes me wanna be a rock star or get naked or something. Anyway!

This is a big admission for me. I'm a Whole Foods shopping, health food eating, vitamin taking, organic-buying, mama. Yet I allow a few chemically-laced foods to slip through the cracks. Fruit Loops on weekends and vacations. (If you also feed your child Fruit Loops, but, like, all the time, you might want to check out my new blog post for Organic Authority where I interview Charity Curley Mathews, who gave me healthy breakfast recipes for kids. She writes about feeding her adorable daughters on her blog, Foodlets.)

I actually feel a little embarrassed because my friends and family expect me to only have healthy options in the house. Can I tell you something else?

Sometimes I buy.... Doritos. Holy crappy! But they're so good.

It's funny because I've always been the kind of person, even when I was a kid, to head for the more natural option. When my brother was filling up his bowl with Capt'n Crunch, I was eating Grape Nuts and Wheat Chex.

But now, there's so much more of an understanding about the connection between healthy foods and kids' behavior that once you are educated about it, it's very hard to go back to the junk food aisle.

Look, I drank Tang as a kid because that's how I got my "vitamins." I still pick up a bag of M&M's every once in a while. My pasta isn't whole wheat. And yes, please forgive me, but the mosquito problem is so bad in my neighborhood that I actually spray my children with deet. I do. I'm sorry kids. I love you, but if I don't spray you with deet, you are covered in welts. (We are buying a CO2 canister that kills mosquitoes this summer, but I'm guessing there's something unhealthy about that too? Oy.)

I got another confession to make. How 'bout you?

Stepdad: World's Most Awkward Word?

2011-05-24T07:29:00.000-07:00

The word "stepdad" or "stepfather" doesn't roll off the tongue. Stepfather. Stepdaddy. Whatever. It's nothing like those cute syllabic words like mama or dada. (And okay, fair, enough. It's not supposed to be.) Could you imagine a one-year-old lovingly coo, "step!" Entirely unromantic. Robotic sounding, actually. Worse, it's connected to one of the greatest film villains, Maleficient. Snow White's stepmother.

Step. Blech.

As I've mentioned, Elke, at 2, has thrown all parental naming rules to the wind (click here for recap). She calls her biological dad, "Andy."

She calls Jake's dad, C., "Dad." It makes no sense. It makes perfect sense. She is copying her brother. This is his naming convention.

Jake, on the other hand, has gone through many names for Andy. First it was "babe." (I called Andy babe.) Then it morphed into "My Andy."

Now, he calls him Andy or "Dada."

Yes, it sounds a little young for a 7-year-old to call someone Dada, but I'm sure it'll evolve. It gives us a name that both kids can use. Maybe one day it'll morph into "Da." Sounds very Irish doesn't it? Or Russian, depending how you look at it. Da.

I've read articles about a few kids making up new names for their stepfathers. There's Kate Hudson who calls Kurt Russell "Pa," which I always loved. Children just want to feel included. That we're all connected even though Mommy and Daddy are divorced.

Sometimes you go in alone.

And then you come out together.

Weekend in a Blended Family in Two Acts

2011-05-22T17:36:00.000-07:00

ACT I: JAKE'S BASEBALL PRACTICE

Practice over. Kids hanging out near park entrance.

C., Jake's dad (and how I'll refer to him now on), is walking out of the park.

JAKE:

Bye, Dad!

ELKE:

Bye, Dad!

I seem to be the only person who notices this. I shake my head in amusement.

--------------------------------------

ACT II: OUR HOUSE AFTER DINNER, NEXT DAY

Elke walks over to pretend phone and puts it up to her ear.

ELKE:

Hi, C.! How are you? [Baby talk baby talk.] Good, we're going to get ice cream. [Baby talk baby talk.]

JAKE:

(To me)

Who is she talking to?

ME:

Your dad.

Andy and I look at each other and smile.

ELKE:

Yes, we're going to ice cream. Me, Andy and Jake.

Andy and I crack up.

JAKE:

My dad?

ME:

Yep.

JAKE:

Why is she calling my dad?

Me:

Well, she sees you talking to him on the phone and she wants to be like you. It's how little sisters learn.

ELKE:

C.! Yes, hi. [Baby talk baby talk.] We just ate dinner! Tacos! No. Yes. Phone. [Baby talk baby talk.]

Jake laughs. I shake my head, think, man, that girl is funny.

THE END

Slut: What's In a Word?

2011-05-19T19:20:00.000-07:00

Slut.

What does this word mean? Today I found myself on a blog written by a 21-year-old woman. She was offended by the word "slut" used in the title of a Toronto-based protest march called SlutWalk. Apparently, SlutWalk started in response to a police officer who said women most at risk of sexual assaults were women who dressed like sluts. She wrote a provocative post about how she didn't want to be called slut, like ever, and, more, that she found the word offensive. She spoke about words and how words hurt; she thought the reclaiming aspect of it sounded like a sign that might be sold in Urban Outfitters.

"Don't you dare call me a slut," she wrote. "Really, I'll kick you in the heels."

I loved the post because she was adding new light to a subject I thought was zipped up, closed. Especially among college-aged women. Slut. Slut? That's an offensive word to women over 21 these days? Educated women? Feminists? Hasn't that been a take-back-the-night sort of word for some time?

She's not the only one. Kristin Powers over at the Daily Beast is moaning about SlutWalk hurting the cause.

When Andy first met me, I was the divorce slut. You know. All divorced mommies are horny and ready for sex, right? Sure, baby. Whatever. But I'd like you better if we slept together.

Slut.

What does this word mean? Today I found myself on a blog written by a 21-year-old woman. She was offended by the word "slut" used in the title of a Toronto-based protest march called SlutWalk. Apparently, SlutWalk started in response to a police officer who said women most at risk of sexual assaults were women who dressed like sluts. She wrote a provocative post about how she didn't want to be called slut, like ever, and, more, that she found the word offensive. She spoke about words and how words hurt; she thought the reclaiming aspect of it sounded like a sign that might be sold in Urban Outfitters.

"Don't you dare call me a slut," she wrote. "Really, I'll kick you in the heels."

She's not the only one. Kristin Powers over at the Daily Beast is moaning about SlutWalk hurting the cause.

When Andy first met me, I was the divorce slut. You know. All divorced mommies are horny and ready for sex, right? Sure, baby. Whatever. But I'd like you better if we slept together.

Plenty of culturally acceptable sluts have infiltrated our society. Sluts as in the chicks from Sex In the City sluttin' it up on the streets of Manhattan making it okay to sleep with multiple men each week (and then talking about it). Then there's one of my favorite authors, Diana Joseph, who wrote the book, "I'm Sorry That You Feel That Way--the Astonishing But True Story of a Daughter, Sister, Slut, Wife, Mother, and Friend to Man & Dog." Then there's Jezebel. Just recently, Tracie Egan Morrissey posted a sort of enlightening (albiet icky, yet helpful) story How to Know Its Time For a New Vibrator. Owning a vibrator means you're in touch with your sexuality. (Slut.) Sluts with vibrators! Sluts with brains! Sluts with Manolo Blahniks! Sluts who can write!

Sluts are girls who like sex. Isn't that what we're talking about?

Yes, I understand that the definition of slut is a "dirty slatternly woman." I know it stems from prostitution. That there's a religious culture. Degrading connotation. Yes, women, girls, are trapped in the sex industry, or are trapped by their pimps. That much younger girls and boys use it to bully and label each other.

A friend of mine with two teenagers said:

"My issue is that my daughter and pals use it to put another girl down. Now, that said, she admires the hell out girls with lady balls which, as far as I can tell, are girls who get their slut on and don't give a fuck what anyone thinks. My son and pals say slut without a trace of admiration. A girl who is a slut is often gorgeous, scary to them because [of her beauty] and has a trail of broken hearts... They say slut to warn each other and to categorize some girls as the girls you look at, but don't touch."

(Lady balls? How amazing.)

If we're talking about a damaging word, slut needs revamping. Because after all, why should one word bring a woman down?

I was mesmerized by strong, overtly sexualized women early on. Sonic Youth's video for "Kool Thing" blew my mind when I was 19. Lead singer Kim Gordon took control of that song--and the video--in a way I'd never seen a woman do before. Kim sang with a I-want-you-fuck-me-now authority. Her breathy, powerful voice, banging her body around in hard jerks. It carried a high intimidation factor that mesmerized me. Stroking her kitty? "I'll be your slave. Give you a shave." Please. I love it. That slut ain't no slave, unless she chooses to be. (See video below.)

So I sheepishly wrote the dissenting opinion on the aforementioned woman's blog. Something like, "I'm 40 and I've been called a slut and a prude. People are always going to call you names--whatcha gonna do? Being a slut is about having sexual freedom. It's about being sexually comfortable. Nothing wrong with that."

I felt a little strange being the lone one out among these 20-something-year-old posters who were all, hell yeah, slut don't fly with me. What was I missing?

So I went to Elke's babysitter. She's about 24. A feminist like me. Getting her master's in child psychology.

"Why are these girls so anti-slut?" I asked her.

"The problem with slut is when it comes to young girls," she said, echoing my friend's sentiment, and what I already knew to be true. "Once that name gets attached to you. Like to a girl of 12. Boom. It ruins your life. You're spending years getting over it."

But she said more. Slut also means that you're nothing. That any guy can have you. That you have no self-worth.

It occurred to me that the word slut is less damaging with maturity. These kinds of terms typically fall under the I-don't-give-a-shit-what-you-think-of-me category when you're 40. It also comes along with the sentiment: I am a woman and make my own choices about my body. This is the one of the many embodiments of feminism. Is it not?

Upon my sitter's suggestion, I looked up the movie Slut. And I found this comment by an IMBD poster. The woman wrote:

"Embracing language that puts us down, reduces us to our bodies and sexuality is, in my opinion, masochistic and self-destructive. But maybe I think this because I've been a therapist for over twenty years and have seen the deadliness of this language."

Soon, I uncovered an interview with my heroine, Diana Joseph; she spoke about why the word slut still inflames people. She said:

"Girls' sexuality is scary. To girls. To boys. To grownups. And putting that kind of label on a girl is a way to put her in her place."

But the language and the labeling needs to change for girls and women of all ages. Doesn't it? To slut or not to slut? I'm for slut. And I'm still all for being a 40-year-old slut. (Though these days I'm only sluttin' it up with my husband.) I love it as a word that's being taken back. The more you use this term, the less demonstrative it gets. Though it never really changes when someone is using it in anger. Then, those words always hurt.

Here's another question. What will I tell my children? I have a feeling it will sound similar to both my boy and girl. I'll say: "Make love to who you want as long as you love and respect that person, are using birth control of some kind, and that person respects you. We don't judge people on their sexuality. On their choices. On who they decide to partner with--or how many." I believe this is what my mother told me and it's done me well.

And as far as the corrolation between women getting raped if they dress "slutty" as that charming police officer said? Didn't a poor nun get raped in an airport just recently? She was on her way to a convent.

Now, I've never written about this kind of topic on my blog. Tomorrow, you'll probably see me promoting some sort of kid-friendly fish recipe that I wrote for Organic Authority. So it might be a little awkward between us. But women can be many things. Rockers. Moms. Writers. Karaoke goddesses. Sluts.

Plugged Out: Modern Camping

2011-05-18T07:12:00.000-07:00

Andy and I have a retirement dream.

Sell the house, get a small place in the city and then buy a lot in upstate New York and erect a little prefab house. Of course, my dream won't happen for another 16 years once Elke graduates high school, and my plan can change 500 times. But whatever. This is the dream for now.

I wrote a post about modern cabins (click link to check out) for Organic Authority based on that dream. My favorite is the half house/half campground nestled in the mountain range outside of Tokyo (from Dwell, of course), shot by amazing photographer Dean Kaufman. Two yellow dome tents. Indoor-outdoor living. There's electricity, kitchen and water, but as the architect said--it's not exactly a house. Click here for a full gorgeousity slide show tour.

Two yellow dome tents acting as bedrooms. Smoke coming from fire pit on deck outside of kitchen. How fun would it be to sleep in that yellow tent?

Camping with a clawfoot tub!

Look at the views. Fire pit. A must.

Cast iron stove in the kitchen. And completely unrelated, but I can't help myself. How awesome is his hair? Long natty dreads!

Climbing wall inside the house! OMG.

We used to go to a cabin in the "country" - at least that's what we called it as a kid. Really, it was the Poconos, but who's counting. My mother's boyfriend, Joe, who we lived with for 4 years, and who was an incredible influence on me when I was younger, owned the house. It was an incredible getaway. The kind of house where my mother would open the doors and say, "Get the hell outside." I remember my brother and I fighting over Monopoly. (Me bossy? Shocking.) And when Joe's kids would come and visit -- two girls around the same age that we loved--the 4 of use would just comb the woods behind the house searching for rocks, wild berries, leaves. Any old thing we could make a pretend world out of.

In the summer, we'd fish at the lake. We'd take walks down the dirt road. We had ONE little black and white tv with those bunny ear antennas. Man, living the easy life, I tell you. I dream of that kind of experience for my kids. The kind of place where DSI is not allowed. No iPhone (that includes me too). No computer. No fucking Wii. Can someone give me a Hallelujah!

Maybe that retirement dream will come early. Maybe we'll be able to afford a tiny patch of land one day in the middle of nowhere. Put up a tiny prefab and we'll all camp out in the middle of the room. I'll light a fire on the pit in the back and I'll tell the kids to stay up to watch the stars. Plugged out.

When my mom and Joe broke up, we stopped going to the house. It was such a terrible feeling, not to have that outdoor space. And of course, I missed Joe too. Yet still, I love having that memory of us together there. Kara and Meg, Joe's daughters, were like sisters to me. I wonder if they feel the same.

Heathers Revisited

2011-05-16T11:56:00.000-07:00

Is it weird to post on a teenager's blog?

As I was reading through Jane Pratt's new blog, xoJane.com, I did a little searching about Tavi, the 15 year old who started the blog, thestylerookie.com, who helped Jane launch the new site. Tavi's a famous blogging goddess. (Tavi's street cred + Jane's cred=great material? One hopes.) But I digress.

Tavi had a post about her Heathers-inspired outfit. This girl. This 15-year-old girl keeps it real. She's wearing a "Teenage Suicide" t-shirt. A Winona and Christian necklace. A "Haley" necklace that she found somewhere. Jesus tights. Jesus tights! Man. How I love this girl.

It's refreshing to see someone younger than you--than me-- get caught up and appreciate pop culture in the way that meant so much when it first came out. It's a revival of your own youth of sorts. Isn't it? It makes me remember back to the days when Liz and I used to sit in the corner of parties "playing" Heathers and dreaming of who we could poison with drinks of drain cleaner (lovingly mixed with O.J., of course). And how that summer we took my video camera. Yep. Video. How we made up our own version of Heathers--Jen, Amy, Liz and I. Taking turns filming each other plot our deaths. We were 18-year-olds with wild imaginations.

I remember my father's secretary telling me once during one of my rants of a movie she just had to see, "You are a breath of fresh air." Is it scary that I'd say this to this 15 year old girl now?

So I wrote on Tavi's blog. Me and all the 15-year-olds. A picture of me and Elke snuggling in all my motherhood in my profile picture next to my words, so clearly the odd one out here.

"Hi, I think that was my necklace, and I gave it away because I couldn't find a second "Y". Gag me with a chainsaw. And I mean that as the highest compliment ever. "

I really did.

The Vegetarian Grows Some Antlers

2011-05-15T08:49:00.000-07:00

Have I lost my ever-loving mind?

I picked up these babies at Brimfield (see more about what I got here) and though I love them, I wonder if I've gone off the deep edge.

The inspiration comes from Jenna Lyons' house--the J.Crew director has a collection of antlers in her dining room. (Uh, I stole her idea about the wire Bertoia chairs too. Though I promise you, mine were $100 each because they're fakes, unlike Ms. Lyons, who, of course, has the real thang.)

The plan is to hang them in some sort of fashion here in my dining room corner just under my paper mache goat (at least that's what Elke calls it). The pictures will find another home.

Did I mention that one of the antlers has teeth still connected at the back of the plaque. TEETH. I stopped eating red meat at 10 years old. That's 30 years of not putting red meat in my belly. Chicken? I cut that out at 21. I'm a tofu/fish girl.

And now? Now I'm hanging antlers in my dining room. Someone call Freud.

Maybe I need a burger?

Bookcase Makeover Part III

2011-05-13T11:02:00.000-07:00

Went to Brimfield, Massachusetts yesterday with my sisters-in-law and mother-in-law and, man, did we have fun. Gorgeous day. Flea market and antique heaven. Change of scenery. No children. Drove home with one headlight and no GPS or usable cellphone... but hey, there's nothing like an adventure to get you in a good mood. SO.

I want to get to the bookcases which are coming together so nicely.

Upper shelf, you'll see a collection of clocks; I stumbled across these from a man selling these amazing burlap chandeliers. He had a box of old non-working clocks in the corner of his booth. $10 a clock. For unworking clocks? Okay, so he sold me 3 for $20. Good deal.

Clocks. One is a little on its side, but feels Rolling Stone-ish to me. Tiiiime is on my side. My SIL bought us one more. The WORKING clock that sits on the end. That was nice of her.

Old seltzer bottle. I think. What is that thing? It's funky bottle for $10 with a swirly metal top. Andy said apothecary. I came home with this. Maybe I'll move our collection of little brown bottles to the same shelf. Fun to play.

More Brimfield pix to come. Antlers. Parisian paintings. Industrial chairs. Metal letters. Naked mermaids. (Is there any other kind?)

Gardening With Elke

2011-05-11T10:33:00.000-07:00

8:45 a.m. Walking home from Jake's school. Elke races home.

Let's go to the garden, she says. Okay. I follow. So does Daisy.

We planted vegetables just last week. Lettuce. Strawberries. Rainbow chard. Parsley. Basil. Montauk daisies at the back need to go in the ground.

Oh, mama. What's in there? I see ants.

Daisy, come on! They pass the hydrangea vine.

And then chase each other through the grass.

Help Me Help You Get To School In The Morning Without Having a Nervous Breakdown (AKA, Just Let It Go)

2011-05-10T11:16:00.000-07:00

There are times when I am entirely overwhelmed by parenting. The small tasks just to put me over the edge. Just ask me to tie your shoe and next thing you know, I’m throwing it. (Not necessarily at the children, but somewhere hovering near their vicinity.) Ask me for Cheddar Bunnies 16 times as you walk out the door and I’m cursing you out under my breath.

To alleviate my insanity, I bought this photo by Kotama Bouabane from 20x200 and hung it in the mud room.

Just let it go.

Originally, the picture hung above my toilet bowl. You know, for those of us constipated folks.

But I moved it in hopes of getting myself to chill out during mudroom madness. When the kids are both talking to me at once. There’s Elke jabbering hysterically wanting cookies for breakfast and making sure I have all of her requests met for the walk to school. Bottle (yes, she still takes one), check. Blankie, check. Paci, check. Snack, check. Then there’s Jake asking me what he should write in his journal that day while I’m tying shoes and making sure his packpack is packed up. And then his sneakers aren’t on because he’s drifted into Jakeland—reading, or putting a Star Wars puzzle together, or just flipping through the calendar to see whose birthday party is coming up next.

"Jake, focus," I say. "Put your sneakers on, buddy."

"Who won the game last night mom?"

"I don't know, buddy. Put your sneakers on."

"I want ice cream!"

"No ice cream for breakfast. Here, take Pirate Booty."

"No fair, why does she get Pirate Booty for breakfast?"

"She already ate fruit, eggs, cereal. Put on your sneakers."

"I can't get my shoe on, it hurts."

"Elke, don't open the door and walk outside without me. You can't walk out by yourself."

"Okay, Mama. I sit right here," she says, as she opens the door.

"Mom, do you think you can get me those yellow laces for my new Nikes?"

"Jake put your shoes on." I turn to Elke who is out the door. "Elke, do not go outside."

"I just going to do chalk, Mama."

"Can you say the magic word, Mom?"

"What?"

"The magic word."

Here's when I pause. "What's the magic word?" I say.

He smiles. "Please."

This is when my HEAD SPINS and I turn into Linda Blair. This is also when I laugh. Why? Because he's absolutely right. Just. Let. It. Go.

Does this sound familiar to anyone else? Mornings have to be as equally as crazy for everyone else.

Just. Let. It. Go.

More Johnny Depp-Related-Stalker-Musings (This Time About Vanessa):

2011-05-09T10:41:00.000-07:00

I want her dress.
I want her hair color.
I want to know who cuts her hair and what products they put in it.
I want to know what size she is.
I want to know if they blow out the bangs and then flat iron them.
I want to know if she got the keratin like I did just to tame the frizz.
Of course, I want her husband.
You say: Your husband already has her man's glasses. (Click here for recap.) Stop being greedy.
Le sigh. Girl crush.

Office Makeover Part Deux: The Bookcases

2011-05-06T10:20:00.000-07:00

Okay, the big bad office makeover is finished. Really, it was more of an office take down, as in TAKE DOWN THOSE DAMN SHELVES. Sorry if I'm screaming. I'm just very excited. We spent an entire day removing the television and clearing the shelves. We got our lazy asses in gear to put together three Billy Ikea bookcases.

Okay, here is the before.

Here is the after. Drum roll...

Clean, white, streamlined and functional. Yay!

Since the room is so tiny, here's another angle:

And another:

Next week is my trip with my two sister-in-laws and mother-in-law to Brimfield, Mass. and home of the largest outdoor antique/flea market you've ever seen in your life (or something like that), where we will be buying some holy gorgeousity for these bookcases. If you're at all curious as to where my bookcase inspiration comes from, please let me introduce you to iSuwannee.com's head-decorating-bitch-in-charge, Jamie Meares. Not only does she run a series called Bookcase of the Day, but she's got a playful decorating design that I love.

I'll leave you with one of her bookcase showboats. For the record, I don't love the picture floating on the bookcase look-- too obstructive!--but I love the design of the bookcase itself. And the tables... and the couch... and the windows... and the pillow...

For Tuscaloosa: Two Essays And Help

2011-05-04T19:49:00.000-07:00

Brevity, the uber-short non-fiction journal that I've sent a few essays to--but have been rejected by (dammit!)--posted two new essays about the tornado that tore down Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Besides being an extremely low-income area, it was also home to the University of Alabama's MFA program.

Please read the essays and if you can, donate to the causes--the West Alabama Food Bank or the Give Tuscaloosa Tornado relief funds.

I donated to both, but was struck with sadness by the West Alabama Food Bank's "secret meals for hungry children." According to the Alabama Credit Union's website, there are many children in Alabama who go to school after a weekend of not eating. They eat tremendously at the beginning of the week and hoard food at the end of the week.

My kids eat so much that they're on the verge of turning into Cheddar Bunnies. I read about these kids hoarding food and my heart broke. Hungry children? Come on. It just shouldn't be, man.

I Have Two Baby Daddies

2011-05-03T08:44:00.000-07:00

Recently, Elke acknowledged that Jake has a different father than her.

When Jake's dad calls, I'll say simply (because, what else would I say?), "Hey Jake, your dad is on the phone." Elke will look at me, with what I interpret as wonder, and say, "Jake's dad?" Or maybe it's not with a question mark. Maybe I'm editorializing here. Maybe it's, oh, "Jake's dad." As in nope, not my dad.

"Cason is his dad?" she says. (Or is it asks? At two years old, a lot of her questions feel rhetorical.)

"Yes, honey, that's right. Cason is Jake's dad."

I have two baby daddies. I am not alone. According to a new study from the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, one in five of all American moms have children with different fathers.

Years ago, I was embarrassed by this. I didn't want to stand out. I hated explaining it to strangers. Remarriage. An ex-husband. Selling us like the Avon Lady of blended families on the playground. We're normal, just like you. We're fiiiine. (Read my first entry about it here.)

Time has done the job that time has done and I care little about reactions now. (Not that there were ever any reactions--it was all my own mind fuck. You know, that job we do on ourselves.) But it doesn't change the fact that there will always be a clarification about which "dad" is on the phone or which "dad" is taking you on a bike ride.

I see Jake struggle with this from time to time. The other day when a friend asked who put up his new basketball net, Jake said, "My dad." I knew he meant Andy. But sometimes it's just easier. Sometimes shorthand is necessary.

Elke has learned to clarify. She calls her own father "Andy." Why? It's how her brother refers to him. I find no need to correct her. No one seems to mind. Not Andy, who finds it amusing when his two-year-old daughter is screaming "Andy!" from down the street as he's walking home from the train.

Even in the morning, when she wakes up, the first thing she says, "Is Andy at work?"

Sometimes I correct her. Mostly I just nod. "Yep. Andy's at work."

Osama, Retribution & John Lennon

2011-05-02T08:51:00.000-07:00

I've been reading through all of the posts on Twitter, but that doesn't seem like the right place for my feelings. Do I want to rejoice? No. Do I want to scream out the window? No. Thomas Beller, who was Open City's editor before it closed, wrote this:

No cheering mobs, or anyone, on Manhattan's Upper West. Went to Strawberry fields for some reason, stood on 'Imagine.' Peered at tulips.

I think, yes. That's it. I feel melancholy. Sadness. Despair for the family members and friends of those who perished on 9/11. There's a placid depression, really. An unfolding of all that old stuff I felt around that time. About remembering those smoke clouds. About my bus driver high tailing it, racing away from the Lincoln Tunnel. Those feelings and more... of loss, really, just comes back up. Maybe this is called post traumatic stress? I don't know. Maybe that's why Beller felt it right to stand on 'Imagine' -- because there's always hope, even in such great sadness.

Yo, NYC--What You Got Against Farmers' Markets?

2011-04-29T08:26:00.000-07:00

In a surprising interview last week with Brian Lehrer, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer talked about a new study detailing the obstacles farmers are facing getting into New York City farmers' markets. Obstacles and farmers?

Oh, the outrage. My head is about to bounce from my neck.

Union Square's Greenmarket is one of my favorite places in the world--couldn't imagine the park without the teeming booths of food, veggies, flowers, breads and everything else good and natural under the sun. Some of the issues farmers are facing: large upfront costs, ticketing from police, fees, applications... blah, blah, red tape, blah blah, infuriating, blah blah.

Wal-Mart is looming around the corner like the big bad wolf... They'll make it easy-peasy for produce to be sold if NYC doesn't get their farmers' market problem under control. Hopefully this new study will shed a light and make change happen.

Here's more of this story I wrote for Organic Authority:

NYC Farmers Markets Without Farmers?

I Want My Husband To Look Like Johnny Depp--Is That So Wrong?

2011-04-28T11:22:00.000-07:00

To begin with, my husband, Andy, is a handsome, well-put together guy. Sure, he favors sweatpants with the bottoms cut off and the fray dragging through the dirt. Then there are his wire glasses (think Anthony Edwards in “Revenge of the Nerds”). Still, I didn’t intend to become one of those I love you, you’re perfect, now change, wives.

But when a single pair of black glasses—black rim, flat across the top, rounded at the bottom, and little retro—worn by People’s Sexiest Man Alive came across my radar, the inner fashion witch in me took notice. With one accessory, I could modify Andy’s somewhat nebbishy and unpolished look so that he resembled Johnny Depp.

People tell Andy he looks a celebrity. They’ll point to Robin Williams and Ryan Adams. “Or John Denver,” Andy has said. “I get that a lot.”

John Denver or not, I love Andy. He’s a veracious reader. He dreams of volunteer missions to Africa and Haiti. He’s got gray-blue eyes and chin-length hair I can run my fingers through. And when we first met, Andy accepted me, and my baggage—an ex-husband and a toddler—without much of a flinch. But his glasses? Less-than-desirable.

So I approached him with photos of Depp decked in his antique tortoise shell frames. Andy was an easy sell.

“I like it,” he said. “Find something similar, and I’ll try them on.”

But as I shuffled through Oliver Peoples’ online catalog, I wondered about my makeover. Was I stepping into some prescribed gender role where the woman must "clean up" her unruly husband? Did wanting his look to change mean I was pulling a Frankenstein number on him? And if so, did my want for him to emulate another man say something tragic about our marriage?

Here’s some full cornball disclosure: I loved Billy Joel’s song “Just The Way You Are” as a child—I always considered it to be the truest confession of love. Though I can cringe hearing the slow rumba of that first line—Don’t go changing, to try and please me—the message itself is pretty damn good. (Don't be such a people pleaser! Stay true to yourself! I wish someone sang this manifesto to me in my early 20s when I was starving myself for a stupid boyfriend who got off on Playboy models.)

And now. Here I was, demanding my husband wear glasses for the purpose of resembling another man. Don't go changing my-double-standard-ass is more like it.

* * *

I called my friend Beth, a therapist in Austin. Not only was she my authority on relationships, but she had been married for 15 years.

She reassured me that I wasn’t a selfish narcissist. (Phew.) I was engaging in fantasy, she said, similar to asking a lover to dress up like a French maid or the pool boy.

“Look, there’s a playfulness in it,” she said. “And Johnny Depp? He’s the epitome of cool. I think it’s great.”

“But Andy never asked me to change,” I said. “He never pined for me to put on a blonde wig like Meryl Streep.”

“Wait a second. Andy has a crush on Meryl Streep?”

“Meryl Streep in Kramer Vs. Kramer—but that’s not the point.” I pressed Beth to take my question seriously.

“Okay, so here’s the therapy speak,” Beth said. “If you didn’t love him the way he was, then, yes, it would be a problem. Because then that would be a different request. That’s often what happens to people. They’ve lost the attraction, and they don’t have that same charge. But you do. You just want to upgrade the image a little bit.”

Andy and I first met 20 years ago. Spring. Upstate New York. I was visiting my friend at her college. The night lingered at a bar where we met up with Andy and some of his friends. Nothing romantic materialized that night (according to Andy, I had a boyfriend at the time), yet he remained indelible. I remembered his terrible jokes. His smile stretching across his cheeks. His eyes, oceanic and penetrable. Our mutual friend would update me with Andy stories. Andy’s taking an African tribal dance class. Andy moved to San Francisco. Andy’s becoming a teacher.

Then, about five years ago, Andy learned I was divorced and asked our mutual friend for my number.

On the first date he wore ripped cargo shorts, a stretched out t-shirt with holes around the neck and an oversized blue button down. It didn’t stop us from a marathon five-hour date cruising the blooming Shakespeare Garden in Central Park, wandering through the medieval exhibit at the MET and eating at a sidewalk café. I agreed to a second date before our first date was over. (Andy would like all readers to know that on the second date, he wore a crisp shirt and a new pair of New Balance sneakers. Nice!)

Marriage counselors speak of differentiation—coming together as a couple while maintaining individuality—as a crucial element to a healthy relationship.

Johnny Depp aside, the new glasses had nothing to do with controlling, or dramatically altering who Andy was as an individual. It was possible he grew bored of his wire glasses and my suggestion came at the right time. They were an upgrade, as my friend Beth said. And what’s a marriage without some gentle nudging?

I didn’t want to pressure Andy to visit an eyeglass store; he needed to decide without my influence. But then my mother offered to watch the kids so we could have an afternoon lunch date. And a trip to the eyeglass store.

Inside the store, Andy stood in front of the mirror and swept his hair out of his face. The glasses were fantastic on him. Masculine. Bewitching.

He said something about them being expensive.

I said something about the glasses making him look hot.

Andy handed his credit card to the salesman.

* * *

The next day, Andy came downstairs wearing his new glasses and the same frayed sweatpants that he swore he wanted to be buried in.

“Like the glasses, babe?” he said.

“Love ‘em,” I said.

After all, what did the tattered sweats matter? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Keratin: The Hair Treatment That Changed My Curl

2011-04-24T05:42:00.000-07:00

An Ode to the Keratin Hair Treatment

For years, I spent hiding

from humidity and rain.

My frizz circled the globe

in an untamed mane.

My curly tentacles were oft found

tied up in a bun.

The poor tresses, you see,

didn't get much love.

Hours and dollars were spent

testing plenty of products.

As a teen, I'd coat my locks

with chemical straightening dollops!

Pools were nixed

Rubber bands on my wrist fixed.

My son, one day, said, "Mommy, you're so scary"

"Why?" I asked. His response: "Too hairy!"

(See this hair post for recap,)

My hair dresser said,

"You're a keratin candidate."

"Your hair will shine through

in weather you hate!"

My thoughts were of worry;

the process took four hours.

Until I witnessed my hair's loose curl--

and was amazed by such power!

A week of humidity

and my curl is still perfected.

Every penny was worth it.

Oh frizz and kink--you've been rejected!

Me, and my proud moment of non-frizzy, relaxed hair.

I hear angles chanting in the background behind me.

Diaper-Free Babies. Huh?

2011-04-22T10:42:00.000-07:00

Exhausted parents + poopy diapers = anything convenient you put into my hand, including a disposable diaper.

Granted disposable pile up in landfills at an alarming rate, but many folks are going a green route and using a method of "elimination communication" with their babies instead of diapers. This is nothing new. Many cultures all over the world, don't, and haven't ever, used diapers. Instead, they train a baby from day one with cues and sounds. Hummm... can't see myself doing this in the middle of the night, but I commend folks who do. In fact, one friend did--successfully.

Seems like a fitting post for Earth Day. Also a great way to shout out my new blogging gig at Organic Authority. My first assignment: Diaper-Free Baby, Really?

Sibling Rivalry

2011-04-12T18:55:00.000-07:00

Two kids. Two strong personalities.

Sometimes he demands more.

Sometimes she demands more.

And then there are moments of pause, when they work as a team, and actually enjoy each other. Locked in their little world of brother and sister. "Here, Elke, let me help you," he offers. And she lets him help.

And I smile.

*Let's go Knicks.

Goin' Through The Forest Mama

2011-04-05T08:12:00.000-07:00

Goin' through the forest, Mama.

Elke, don't go too far...

Okay, I done goin' through the forest. Here I comin' back.

Mama's Got a Brand New Office

2011-04-04T11:17:00.000-07:00

When Andy moved in with us, he had two requests:

1. A man room where he could watch sports uninterrupted and work.

2. Double sinks.

Here is a current picture of what is housed in the man room.

Shelved between copies of Natural Geographic and the series "What Every Teacher Should Know..." rests the true use of the room. Squint your eyes. See those titles? Goofy's Road Trip. Shrek. Brother Bear. The Man Room has become a child's space for viewing rated-G movies.

I even gave Andy this Stud pillow last year so he could try to take back the man room.

It didn't work. See Jake's yellow wrist band on the arm of the chair? More evidence that Stud has been replaced by Child.

I wondered then, why was it that Mama, who works from home, was stuck smack in the middle of the first floor (an alcove off the front hall -- a lot of light, no privacy) when Stud and Child both get to take solace in a room with a door? Even more, now that it's basketball season, Jake and Andy have turned the downstairs television into an NBA nightly party which I don't see ending until the playoffs are over -- and when is that, June? To make matters worse, Elke's toys were piling up across my desk.

So I moved. To the small alcove off my bedroom.

I was never for an in-bedroom office for all sorts of reasons. Paper, files. Feng shui experts will tell you it's not a good idea to have work in the bedroom. Crossing too many emotional boundaries. But if i keep it super streamlined like columnist Meghan Daum who has nothing on her desk... Okay, I'm gonna strive for that. And if you look at the photo above, the space really is defined. (Read: I have no other options.) Maybe with a small, white file cabinet, get rid of the zappos box, add a few pillows and a zebra rug like this one from Ballard....

The other step: removing tv and shelves from Andy's office. My carpenter said it would cost about $300 to take down the shelves, remove the television and patch the holes in the wall. $300? I'm strapping on a tool belt. Bookshelves courtesy of Ikea's Billy shelves. White and sparkly. Next step: bring all files, books, etc., into Andy's office so that our bedroom isn't cluttered with papers and papers and papers, and then, sir, we've got a compromise that doesn't feel so awful. And when friends say, "Why does Andy have an office/man room and you don't?" I can say: "Excuse you. It's a shared office."

Here's what the shared space looks like now. I didn't even get a shot of the floor. You can hardly open the door. Not a great use of space.

Wow, I love posting about decorating projects! More to come.

Interfaith Christmas Tree Part 2

2010-12-23T11:10:00.001-08:00

Thank you to Christine for sending this along!

Our Interfaith Christmas

2010-12-22T09:40:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, I didn't know what to do about the fact that Jake's dad is not Jewish and me and Andy are. I didn't want to confuse Jake and though I could have easily said - hey, buddy, you celebrate that holiday with your dad and you celebrate the Jewish holidays with me, I just want to always make sure my boy feels like people are looking out for him and his needs. Of course, there's the issue of continuity. So when Jake asked me one day why we didn't have a tree - my Jewish husband and I had to make a decision. We voted for a peace tree.

Plus, I LIKE Christmas trees. They're perdy. 'nough said.

Today, I have the absolute joy of writing this sentence. My essay, "An Interfaith Christmas Tree" is running as a guest post in Lisa Belkin's New York Times blog, "Motherlode." (Yay!)

So far, I've gotten one picture from someone who decorated her Christmas tree in a dizzy of Star of David's. It's pretty awesome, and I hope she'll let me post her photo.

In the mean time, here's my interfaith tree.

Here's another tree from a writer friend, Ronda, who is in an interfaith marriage.

If you want to send me a picture of your interfaith tree - please email me at hayleykrischer@gmail.com and I'll post it here. Let's think of it as a celebration of ALL the holidays and all the joy this time of year can bring if we let it.

Pouring Water in a Cup II

2010-11-06T04:59:00.000-07:00

I seem to have a higher tolerance for water on the floor than I do for a todder walking around in circles crying.

Water, you can clean up. You can wipe it. Put it away. Like it was never there before. So I filled up a tea pot this morning and gave her my blessing.

Ah, the lessons of parenting.

Pouring Water in a Cup

2010-11-05T07:10:00.000-07:00

If I had to give you a list of things my brother and I did that were similar, I could name a few.

1. When we get angry, we bitch and moan about the house being a mess. (e.g., "And on top of everything else, this house is a wreck!")

2. We like to repeat ourselves.

3. We eat spaghetti with a spoon and a fork.

But all of these are learned, aren't they? Table manners, self-expression. Somewhere along the line, we watched our parents, or rubbed off on each other, enough where it became engrained.

My children are too little to determine what kind of family mannerisms they'll come up with. Yet there is one strange similarity that I can already see.

They both like to pour water from cup to cup. For a long time. No, really. I mean it.

Jake would stand at the edge of the baby pool at 18 months pouring water back and forth while the other kids would run, splash, or, yuck, drink the water. Jake was mesmerized by pouring water. To the point where my mother looked it up on the internet. (e.g., What if this is a sign of autism? Pouring water from cup to cup for an hour?) I'd egg him to play with the 500 pool toys that I bought him. Nothing. Pouring back and forth. I was so bored that I was tempted to bring a book. Have you ever watched a child pour water for an hour?

This summer I longed for Elke to be a cup pourer like her brother. But Elke is not that kind of baby. If I could get her to sit still for a picture you'd understand. Other mommies at the pool would joke. "She'll keep you thin!" Yeah, hardy ha.

Until two weeks ago. When Elke started twisting the top to her water cup off, grabbing another cup and pouring the water back and forth. Now, I realize, of course, that this is a developmental phase -- a great one at that, they're learning independence, working on motor skills, etc. I know Elke and Jake aren't the only kids who pour water back and forth. But for me -- it's cool. Both of my kids, at the same point in their lives, are/were fascinated with pouring water back and forth in a stupid cup! Oh the beauty of the cup. She can sit still for 15 minutes and pour that damn water. How do I let her do this in the house, I wonder. Or maybe I just let everything get wet. It's just water, right?

And I was worried about them being half-siblings. Nah. They're related. It says it all in the cups.

Mom, We Need a Crib

2010-09-01T04:26:00.000-07:00

Jake asked if his father could set up a crib for Elke.

Half of me wants to cry. The other half wants to feel overjoyed that he's so in love with her. Ugh.

Has our good co-parenting model confused Jake? Maybe he thinks we're just one big happy family? As my mother so wisely pointed out, I can't make this better for Jake. I can't buy him a crib for his sister at his father's house. His sister doesn't live at his father's house. My kids have two different fathers. That means when Jake goes to his Dad's every other weekend, he goes on his own.

I've been struggling with how to handle this and it's not been easy. Recently, I interviewed two experts for an article I wrote for iVillage about "16 Ways to Make Divorce Easier on the Kids." They had some excellent advice for parents that I had to apply to myself: 1) Don't shy away from adult conversation. 2) Let your kid know it's okay to be angry.

So I talked to Jake yesterday. I told him there were good and bad elements of the divorce, just as there are good and bad elements of life. Bad that his sister doesn't get to go with him and that he misses her when he's gone. I told him I knew what that was like since my brother and I were split up as kids too. Good that he gets to have alone time with his dad without having to share with anyone.

One thing I didn't do was make it entirely okay, which, wow, that was a difficult mommy exercise. We always want to make everything okay for them! I told him that he can be angry if he wants about it. "I'm not angry about anything, Mommy," he said. Well, just wait a few years, my love. Or maybe not. Maybe he'll just accept it as is and understand that I've done my best. But then there's Elke. This is a 17-month-old who walks around asking for her brother "Jake, Jake, Jake," all day long. It makes my heart ache.

I think Jake's dad and I are going to meet at the park with the kids at some point. And when she gets older, it's possible that she'll be able to spend some time with Jake and his dad if everyone is open to it. I'm not usually so down about this sort of stuff, but wanting to make it better... well, you can't always make it better. You can make it palpable. But not always better.

Divorce Porn

2010-08-28T15:10:00.000-07:00

Is it possible that we love watching divorce the way we do a car crash or a man falling from the flying trapeze? Bruce Feiler in the New York Times discusses Eat, Pray, Love as the newest book turned movie plunges into what he deems Divorce Porn. He interviewed novelist Nora Roberts who agrees with him. "Love has power, which is one of the reasons we’re interested when it screws up,” Roberts states in the article.

I found the same truth when I was post-divorce. Sure I looked for other divorced couples-- or uncouples--to commiserate with, but I was also on the search for eye candy for my kid. I wanted him to have a few other divorced family peers -and why not? I didn't want him to be the only one with divorced parents. I knew I wouldn't have to wait to long for couples to split, eventually he'd know some kids whose mom and dad were like his. And he did.

Has it made it better for him? I don't know. It gives him a reference point. It doesn't give him his mother and father happily married --which is what all kid wants, right?

Does it make it better for me to see Sandra Bullock struggling? Does it make it better to see Tiger Woods's kids will grow up without their dad in the house? Is it sick to say that the divorce porn theory might be right? That maybe it this odd part of human nature that makes divorce fascinating and satisfying all at once?

Anti-Anxiety Medication or Babysitters?

2010-07-30T07:46:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted, but I'll just jump right into it: Parenting ain't easy. As if I was the only one who has discovered this. There's an internet full of women like me discussing the intricacies of how hard parenting is, and then there was that New York Magazine cover, "I love my children. I hate my life."

Okay, I went back to my therapist after a few years off because I thought maybe I needed something. I don't know what that something is, but if a pharmaceutical company made a pill in the size of a glass of wine (or two), then I'd probably start taking it at 630 in the morning when my lovely little baby girl wakes up. She's 17 months old now and talking and whining and loving and loving her mommy. Loving her mommy so much that she doesn't want to let go of me -- EVER-- and this starts at 630 in the morning. I have taught her how to say coffee. Soon I will teach her how to say, "No requests until Mommy has her coffee." I believe Jake was 2 1/2 when he first learned this, and well, learning house rules takes some time.

I sat across from my therapist and went down the list. I'm a stay-at-home mom, I said. I have anxiety, I said. I don't have enough time to write, I said. I love the children, I said. I adore the children. But I'm not myself. I'm impatient. I'm cranky. I'm tired.

I NEED ANTI-DEPRESSANTS, I said.

Are you writing? she asked. Are you sleeping? she asked. Are you eating? she asked. Are you pooping? she asked.

I'm not pooping, I said.

Not pooping is not enough of a reason to go on anti-depressants, she said.

I need something besides Miralax and Benefiber, I said.

And so she pulled out her prescription pad, jotted something down and then handed me a prescription.

Here's what she wrote: "More Babysitters."

You need more support, she said.

I'm a stay-at-home mom, I said. This is my job!

She shook her head. You need more support. You need more sitters. Stop with the guilt.

What would I write about if I stopped the guilt? I asked.

If you had more sitters, she said, you could find out.

And then the session was over.

We're Divorced, But Still See a Couples' Counselor

2010-01-22T08:12:00.000-08:00

It seems like forever ago that my ex and I went to a co-parenting counselor, but in the end, it changed the landscape of our relationship as a divorced couple. (Divorced couple. Isn't that an oxymoron? Or at least a paradox?)

I wrote an essay for Parenting Magazine which you can find in their February issue. When I first wrote it, I originally called it, "We're Divorced but Still See A Couples' Counselor." (They changed the name for their own purposes.) At the time, it felt like we were going to couples' counseling. Because, really, we needed to learn how to get along.

Yes, the divorce showed us that we couldn't, and no longer would, get along as a married couple. But Jake showed us that we had to get along in some fashion.

As unwilling as we were, we were still a unit. An unwilling unit. A triangle and a square? A circle and a rectangle? I'm still wrapping my brain around it all and we've been apart for four years.

Here's the essay:

Raising Happy, Healthy Kids Through a Divorce

One last note: There's no real reason I've haven't posted in so long. Just life. Just two kids. Just writing deadlines. Just, just.

I Fear The Airplane Bathroom

2009-11-23T06:34:00.000-08:00

Here are my meditations for my flight to Austin with busy baby girl:

(Even this picture of her is blurry because she's just too quick!

The little mama won't stay still. Oh, how I fear this flight.)

Yo Gabba Gabba on computer (why isn't the one with Jack Black available on iTunes?)
Raspberries and puffs and cut up cantaloupe on tray - okay, maybe raspberries aren't so smart
Ergo carrier
Pacifier
Bottles
Toys with buttons
Positive thoughts
Lots of positive thoughts
Pretend sleep doesn't matter
Pretend reading US Magazine on plane doesn't matter
Forget about the time I had to change Jake when he was 18 months old in airplane bathroom with giant poopy diaper and all passengers gave me dirty looks (assholes)
Convince myself stewardess will be nice to me
Soon enough, the flight will be over

Happy Thanksgiving!

Burn it down. Burn it all down.

2009-11-11T17:41:00.000-08:00

A good friend of mine is going through a divorce right now. Talking to her brings up Stuff. Yes, that's with a capital S. The fighting leading up. The decision to get out. This family over, over, over. This is not the woman I want to be.

This photo, Untitled #6 by Jessica Bruah, is not necessarily about divorce. It might be less abstract than I'm interpreting it to be. Her husband could be in that house. Her cats could be in that house. God only knows what she's about to ignite.

Still, it reminded me of my divorce. Of that time in my life. You have to burn it down, in a sense, to create something new. There is nothing really left of that person that you were in your old marriage as the divorce is happening -- because your life is no longer as you imagined it. I became a new woman. A different mother. A different daughter. I reinvented myself, and I mean this in subtle ways. I was still Hayley.

But first, you extract. You burn it down. Scorch it.

She doesn't even have her shoes on, the lady in that picture. But she keeps her dignity. A beautiful skirt. One bag of the essentials. A blouse neatly showing under the cashmere sweater.

The Simple Things in Life

2009-11-11T09:38:00.000-08:00

I bought her a jumperoo.

I bought her squeaking blinking stacking blocks.

She has endless hand-me-down toys from her brother.

But like every other child...

... Elke loves her box.

Until she's onto something new. Her brush!

*yes, that elke's first barette!

Weigh Your Rocky Relationship. With Rocks. And Sand. And Water. (Or something like that.)

2009-11-03T06:27:00.000-08:00

I know I shouldn't poke fun.

But it's just too easy.

StepHeroes newsletter this week is about your rocky relationship. And I thought - wow, maybe they have a legitimate topic.

Maybe there's really something to the second marriage being a difficult one. Dealing with the ex. Dealing with the visitation. The two kids. The stepparent in the house.

So I opened this email: "Rocking Relationships."

http://www.blended-families.com/stephero/rocky-relationships.html

Apparently, if you pour buckets of sand and rocks into one large container, and then look at another empty container you'll figure out how to focus on what's most important, and that may or may not be your rocky relationship. Or maybe you're supposed to listen to sand falling into the cracks between the rocks with a pitcher of water and then watch pebbles fill in spaces between the cracks. I swear to GOD that's what it says.

Say whaaaa? WTF???

Why be so vague and cryptic StepHeroes Newsletter? How about take an actual issue and solve the problem. Here are a few actual problems we've been dealing with. Do you take child to Star Wars Concert two hours away in Philadelphia on weekend that is yours, or negotiate for a Sunday that's not yours? Do both of you go to soccer practice even if it's not your weekend? How do you handle Halloween? Does one parent stay home? Or do you suck it up to trick-or-treat with the ex? (I think I'll tackle all of these in another blog post).

Okay. Here's another one. Andy and I have been struggling with all the regular stuff that everyone struggles with. His stuff. My stuff. The kids stuff. Schedules. No sleep. Time.

So here's what Andy did to smooth out the rocky. He sent me this email.

"hot date!!! let's get a sitter for this weekend- we have not been out the two of us
in a looooong time- dinner and a movie

let's put this parenting thing on the shelf for an evening of no
reading solo on the couch or being mesmerized by
Perez Hilton and Lilo"

I'd like to point out three things that my husband did in this email and it does not involve measuring sand and/or pebbles or filling in cracks with sand and/or pebbles.

1) He used the word "hot." I don't know about you, but that always works for me.

2) Sitter. Do I need to say any more?

3) Honesty: parenting on shelf. (Yes.) No reading solo. (Yes.) Mesmerized by LiLo. (Am I the only one who still feels sorry for this girl?)

Hot date. I'm ready.

Take a shelf rocky.

Falling, falling, falling...

2009-10-27T10:13:00.000-07:00

Tree on fire.

Leaves on fire.

Leaves fall.

Her first fall.

Words fall...

Meshugana, You Kids Are Giving Me a Heart Attack, and Other Rantings

2009-10-20T10:26:00.000-07:00

I found myself calling Elke "Misery" the other day and remembered that there was only one other reason I should be calling my 7-month-old baby the same name Steven King donned his psycho-fan horror novel.

Nana, my beloved grandmother, Alice. The woman I named my baby after. Misery was one of her many nicknames for me. Misery! She'd scream. Even in a mall when we were shopping, she'd holler. "Misery, where are you!?"

Blame it on the writer's block.

Update: Blame it not on the writer's block, but more specficially on the opening of the short story that I'm working on... And. Cant. Get. Right. In my imagination, my short story is tied to a bed and Kathy Bates is cracking it's ankles with a sledgehammer.

Viola! Misery.

(Man, that picture is scary.)

A Conversation About Star Wars

2009-10-12T05:21:00.001-07:00

ME: Jake, this weekend your dad is taking you a place where they have Star Wars characters. Isn't that cool?

JAKE: Mom, you know they're just pretend right. You know the Star Wars characters aren't real, right?

ME: Oh, yes. I do know that honey.

JAKE: Just checking.

ME: It's still cool to meet them though, right? [Hoping he's not completely jaded, because for God's sake he's not even SIX. What's next? Santa?]

JAKE: Yes, totally.

Phew.

Jake returns from visiting Star Wars characters.

ME: Oh, so you met Mace Windu and a Clone Trooper?

JAKE: Yeah, it was so cool.

ME: Did you know that Mace Windu is the Baddest Jedi in the Planet? [Mace Windu is played by Samuel L. Jackson.]

JAKE: He's not bad, Mom.

ME: He's baaaaad.

JAKE: No, he's not.

ME: When it comes to Mace Windu, bad means good.

JAKE: Huh? [Child looks at me, perplexed]

How do you explain to child that Mace Windu is the Baddest Motherfucking Jedi on the Planet?

A Pin. A Fight. A Woman Named Jen.

2009-10-04T16:58:00.000-07:00

About two weeks ago, I walked with five close friends from high school through a winding park. We carried candles even though the wind kept blowing them out. Still we lit them again, and again. There was one girl who wasn't there. Her name was Jennifer Hoffman. She wrote about her fight at a blog called Elegantly Laced.

My instinct is to write that she struggled with breast cancer for 10 years, but really, struggle isn't the right word. She fought long and hard, and every step of the way kept incredible dignity. And she loved. And she laughed. In her first marriage, at 29 years old, she wore a beautiful flower behind her ear and a scarf wrapped around her bald head. Chemo didn't stop her wedding. It didn't stop her life.

Her husband sent pins for us to wear for the walk. A man from one of their three-day walks heard Jen speak. He lost his wife, this man, and apparently was so moved by Jen's speech that he made monogrammed "Jen" pins (donned with a Red Sox cap, her favorite team) for others to wear. Imagine, Jen struggling through chemo and walking for three days. Imagine a man being so moved. I had hyperemesis for all of five months. I hardly got out of bed.

Jen was one of my closest friends in high school, and for whatever reason, we lost touch. I never stopped loving her as a person. I never stopped wishing and hoping that the cure would find her, would save her from another day of the insanity of cancer.

I read archives of her blog now from time to time. If I was really, really honest with myself, I would admit that I knew she had a blog for all those years. But for whatever reason, I didn't read it. It is possible that it scared me that someone I knew, someone I was no longer in touch with, was so ill. That maybe reading her blog would have made me feel like some weird voyeur than a friend.

Whatever my reasons were - this was a woman who had tremendous supporters. She certainly didn't need me to add to the list. She had her new husband's family. She had people standing on the side of the road holding signs as she walked. No hair, short hair. The vibrant smile of a living woman - conquering her fight that day.

Oh, and she had an incredible sense of humor. The sign she and her husband held at the top of Mount Whitney said it all: "Cancer Schmancer."

I Don't Want To Go, Mommy

2009-09-26T10:41:00.000-07:00

Last night, my ex took Jake for the entire weekend (the custody arrangement is Friday-Sunday) for the first time in many months. We've had an alternate schedule, with only Saturday sleepovers for some time now, mostly because Jake voiced wanting to come home. And to give his dad a lot of credit, he obliged. Some men wouldn't. Power struggles. Wanting their time. I understand this.

But yesterday, Jake didn't want to go. I told him we'd take it one day at a time. He held on to me, and Jesus, I can see how Parental Alienation happens. I don't ever bash my ex in front of my child, and we always are polite and civil in front of him, but you could see how this would make any parent feel crushed. You could see how someone might want to lash out. I know this sounds extreme, but I felt as if my baby was being ripped from me.

I wanted to sneak notes in Jake's overnight bag to tell him I'm still here. How much I love him. That everything is going to be okay.

"Let his father handle that," Andy said when I called him after Jake left. I was so distraught, maybe due to separation anxiety. Maybe due to the legitimate fact that I miss my kid when he's gone. Because as I've said to people many times, I don't care that he's driving me crazy, I want him driving me crazy in my house.

"He'll be back," Andy said.

It is important for his father to soothe his son, so that it's not me stepping into their relationship. So that I'm not the third wheel. So that he doesn't have to look for mommy's notes or mommy's calls when I'm not there.

Me? I had to soothe myself, which I did.

***

When Jake was about 3, maybe close to 4, he had his first melt down in not wanting to go to his father's. There is no reason I can think of that Jake might not want to go to his dad's house. Except one. His dad doesn't have Wii. It sounds silly, but it's not to a small child. (Though at the time we didn't have Wii, so there goes that theory.)

Jake was hysterically crying. As in full melt down, "I don't want to leave!"

"I'm not going to take him like this," my ex said. "I'm not going to scar him like this." And I agreed. How can he go when he's like this? Won't it make his time with his father negative instead of positive?

So we sat down with the co-parenting counselor who we had been seeing since the separation. "You have to force him, physically if needed, to see his father," the doctor said.

"Does this mean dragging him out of the house screaming?"

"Yes."

We found this hard to comprehend. But his feeling about it was this: a child cannot dictate life. A child of divorce has to deal with divorce.

"You have to be very matter-of-fact about it," he said. "You have to tell your child, 'It's time to spend time with your daddy.' Then you walk out the door."

So things calmed down. But he still complained about going. He still wanted to stay home.

Then, one day, my ex came to me and said, "Well, now I see how it works on the other side. Jake doesn't want to leave my house either. He took a fit when I told him it was time to go home."

We realized about our son, that transitions were hard. That it wasn't about us. That it was about the leaving.

***

Today Jake is at soccer. Last night, just before they were pulling out of the driveway, I said, "I'll see you at soccer tomorrow, okay?" I'm not necessarily inclined to go to soccer on my ex's weekend, especially because the ex is the coach. In this situation, I thought it would help Jake feel better because had had been so upset.

"I don't want you to go to soccer," Jake said. A little smile on his face went a long with it. I'm betting he wondered if it would hurt my feelings.

It didn't.

"Okay, honey," I said. "I don't have to go to soccer." I kissed him again. "I'll call you tomorrow, how about that?"

"Okay," he said.

I kissed him again, then again, then again. Then they left.

And he'll be back tomorrow.

You Have Straight Hair, Your Brother Has Curly Hair

2009-09-22T12:47:00.000-07:00

I want to say it doesn't bother me that my daughter appears to have straight hair. Let me correct myself. It doesn't bother me. I see those tiny spikes, those little prickles of light brown hair shooting from her ever white scalp, and I think, she's all Daddy. And that's fine. Of course it's fine. My Irish friend is married to a Chinese man and they have three kids who resemble their Asian decent more than their straight-outta-Dublin decent. "Come on," she says, when I complain that Elke and I don't look related. "You think my kids look anything like me?"

So what that Elke looks more like her dad. Elke's dad has great hair.

But it's not about the hair. And it's not about the kids not looking alike. My struggle is about them having different fathers. My struggle is about explaining to my daughter why her brother has to stay at his father's house sometimes. I know she will ask about it when she's old enough to talk. She'll want to go with him, I imagine. Just as Jake wants to be home with his sister. "I don't want to leave," he told me this morning. Then again on the playground. Then again just before he left. And then he went. And he was fine. As he always is.

Sometimes I worry that out of anger, one of them will say something awful. You're not my real brother. You're not my real sister. Though maybe exploring that kind of anger is normal. Who knows? This is all coming from a person who tried to convince her younger brother that he was adopted. Numerous times! Because he had blonde straight hair!

I look at these children. I see the almond shape of their eyes. I see the round tips of their youthful noses. The arch of their brows. Even with different hair, they are siblings. They are both of my gene pool, even if their fathers are different. They are my children. And God, they love each other already. She'll be seven months in a couple of days, and her smile is like nothing else when she sees him, even if he's throwing a pair of sweatpants in the air, and it makes me want to cry every time.

So when Elke says one day, "Oh, Mommy, I wish I had curly hair like you and Jake."

I'll say, "My darling, if you only knew the burns I inflicted on my fingers from straightening my hair with chemicals in my 20's."

And if she says, "But, still..."

So I'll say, "Let's get out the crimping iron."

Laments of a Jewish Mother's Failure to Get Her Child To Eat

2009-09-16T18:38:00.001-07:00

I have turned into a Jewish mother. I have turned into my Jewish grandmother. The kind that forces you to eat when you're not hungry then turns your un-hunger into guilt about the starving children in Africa, and all of the other children that are starving everywhere except for this blessed house.

Tonight, I took the first step in turning my child into Philip Roth, circa "Portnoy's Complaint." I don't know if it's impossible to incite pre-school resentment and Odeipal rage in a five-year-old over his refusal to eat edemame, or anything else healthy, but if it is - I may have done it tonight. If you haven't read "Portnoy's Complaint," then you only need to hear this passage to follow.

"From my bed, I hear [my mother] babbling about her problems to the women around the mah-jongg game: My Alex is suddenly such a bad eater I have to stand over him with a knife. And none of them apparently finds this tactic of hers at all excessive. I have to stand over him with a knife! And not one of those women gets up from the mah-jongg table and walks out of her house! Because in their world, that is the way it is with bad eaters -- you have to stand over them with a knife!"

I became a vegetarian at 10 years old. It was the moment I understood what veal really was; I got up from the table and swore off meat. My mother was excessive with the meat. Roast beef. Pork chops. Lamb chops. Lamb stew. Tongue. (Tongue. Who knew tongue was a tongue?) Liver and onions. (And if we ate our liver and onions, we could watch the Barry Manilow special!)

My mother didn't know what to do with me as a vegetarian, but respected my choice. My grandmother, on the other hand, harassed me. "Come on, just a little piece of chicken isn't going to kill you. One little piece. It's just chicken for God sakes. Mashuganah! What kind of person doesn't eat a little piece of chicken?" I was bullied. I was tormented and picked at. My cousins would make chicken noises as my grandfather made eggs! "It's a chicken abortion!" I'd cry.

And now I'm doing the same to Jake. A boy should eat his vegetables. You want to be like Popeye? You want to be big and strong? Oh, boy, you're going to be mad at me when you don't grow up strong and you say, 'Mommy, why didn't you make me eat my vegetables?"

Here was tonight's drama:

"Jake, just eat four bites of the edemame."

"No. Two."

"Okay, three, and if you don't eat it in the next five minutes, I'm going to take away Wii."

"Noooooo!"

"Okay, if you don't eat those three edemame beans in the next 4 minutes and 50 seconds, I'm going to take away dessert."

"Nooooo!" [crying]

"Jake, stop climbing on me and eat your edemame!"

"But, Mom, can I tell you something?"

"No! Eat your edemame! When I was a kid, I loved vegetables--"

"But, Mom, I really want to tell you something, because I don't like this one--" [he shows me a shriveled edemame]

"I ate spinach. I ate broccoli. Nonnie gave me every vegetable and I ate it. You have 4 minutes and ten seconds. Put the edemame in your mouth, Jake!"

[He puts one in his mouth. Is chewing. And crying.]

"Stop crying and chew! Do you want to be a big strong boy? Do you want to be a tennis pro like Rafa Nadal?"

"I want to go to sleep!"

"You only want to go to sleep because you don't want to eat your edemame!"

And it goes like this until he brushes his teeth with the edemame still in his mouth.

I would have been better off standing over him with a knife.

And if he ends up writing a book on masturbation and overbearing mothers -- and detests every God-damned vegetable on the planet -- I only have myself to blame. Oy vey!

My So-Called Memories

2009-09-13T05:45:00.000-07:00

I spent last night watching two episodes of "My So-Called Life" on hulu.com, and wow, the memories just flooded me. Specifically, the episode where Jordan Catalano and Angela Chase go to the boiler room to make out; their love is all fuzzy and sweet. You've got a leaf in your hair. Your cuticles are like moons.

Just do it? Right here in a parking lot?

We're not in a parking lot. We're in a car.

Except he doesn't want to profess their love in public. He wants to keep it all cozy and secret in the boiler room. So she confronts him with a line that no 15-year-old girl would ever have the mental capacity to say to the boy she's in love with, "Admit that this all happened. That you have emotions."

Oh, this line kills me. And it makes me think of my high school boy. You know, the boy. There was a boy I had. Scratch that. I didn't exactly have him. He on the other hand, had me... my heart... for a long time. We had years of courtship. There were phone calls. Songs serenaded. Notes in the yearbook. Rides home. And then finally, finally after all of that childlike foreplay, we kissed. And a little more than kissed.

He didn't call me after that night. He didn't call me that weekend. In school that Monday, I saw him in the hallway and he said Hi in this teasing way, dragging out my name, "Hayyyleyyyyy." It was taunting, and weird, and overtly sexual. And I was so angry. So rejected! We could have been Winona and Christian straight outta Heathers. You know, our love is God, let's go get a slushie. Instead, after all that time, all I got was a... cat call?

After class, he waited for me. We had a stare-off. And because I didn't know how to speak, because I couldn't speak to boys back then, I grabbed a friend's hand and walked away. I was stoic, right? I didn't need a boy to determine my happiness. I had no use for heartbreak. Pshaw, heartbreak. Pshaw, rejection. I was far too tough for that. Go find yourself another girl. (So he did.)

What did I really want to say? "Admit this all happened. Admit that we had something between us for years. Admit that we had this connection. Admit that I was more than just a one-night hook up." Maybe for him it was all about finally getting the girl, and the chase was over. It was possible. I was 17. He was 18.

I spent years, years, wishing that all the time he spent chasing me I could have been more open about my feelings. That I had no relationship with my dad. That I came from a divorced family. The strong man of the house was no where to be found. That I was terrified of being hurt. That my mother spent all of my adolescent life figuring out her own male-female relationships, so there was no male-female relationship to copy.

That boy wanted me for years. But I was just a scared, emotionally immature girl who found it a lot easier to relate to women than to boys. Don't. Get. Close. To. Boys.

Jake. My beautiful product of divorce. My lovely little Jordan Catalano. My boy. He's got me and Andy as the man-woman role models. He's even got me and his Dad. He sees we have respect for each other. He sees civility. He doesn't see the back and forth emails filled with disagreements. He doesn't see the blow ups (even though they're now generally few of them). Jake will be able to talk to girls. He'll be able to form healthy relationships.

I hope he doesn't take girls to the boiler room. And if he does, I hope he'll take her hand in the hallway afterwards. I hope he'll spell her name right if he writes her love notes. Angela. With one L.

My Un-Breastfeeding Story

2009-09-11T12:20:00.000-07:00

The other day a new friend asked me if I was still nursing.

"No," I said. "No. Uh, and no."

"Oh. Okay??"

"Yeah, uh. There's a story," I said.

Maybe that's there's not much of a story about my experience breast feeding Elke IS the story.

I nursed Jake for a year. We were fiercely connected. I produced a ton of milk. So much milk, that my breastfed baby looked like a formula fed baby. He was round, chubby, and loving, and would not take a bottle. It was the joy of my life, and the curse. I couldn't get enough of him. I couldn't get away from him! It was the first paradox of motherhood that I was introduced to. (He is 16 months here. My milk was good, but it wasn't that good!)

At eight months, I got a sitter. I was desperate for some space. I needed breathing room. It was that feeling of get off me. Give me back my body. Then there was also the feeling that I could nurse forever. And looking at my eight month baby boy, I wished I could nurse forever, and would even say, Can I still nurse you in kindergarten? Because I would if I could. (Though now that he's actually in kindergarten, the idea of nursing a five-year-old frightens me.)

I knew I would breastfeed Elke. Having nursed Jake so long, I was a pro, right? I didn't need no lactation consultant tell me how to feed a child. Come on! The lactation nurse in the hospital came into the room and told me to put Elke inside my shirt. Like a kangaroo.

The pediatrician came in and said, I cannot believe this baby has gained weight in two days! Your milk is magic!

Holy shit, I was such a well-seasoned veteran, I nursed and played Wii on my first day back from the hospital!

But because I had been so intensely sucked into nursing (pun!) with Jake, mama needed a bit of space. I had a babysitter from the get-go. The next step was to bottle feed. This was a relief for many reasons, the main one being FREEDOM.

The other was a little different. Elke didn't seem to love breastfeeding. She didn't fall asleep at the breast. She choked. She gagged. My breasts overproduced milk, and her time nursing was challenging, like a constant fight for her to control the milk flow.

Any veteran nursing mother knows where I'm going with this. The minute I put a bottle into that baby's mouth, she was relaxed. The next time I gave her the nipple - as in my nipple - she rejected it. As in, uh, lady, why you giving me that crazy fountain?

She went on a full nursing strike. I used a different body wash. I nursed with the opposite arm. Every day and night was a constant struggle. And I realized, I was missing out on this bonding time with her because I was so focused on the nursing. I missed those times where I rested with with Jake on my bed. The two of us side-by-side and just listened to him breathe. I didn't need to nurse Elke to have this, I realized, so I started laying down on the bed with her. The way I used to breastfeed Jake in bed. Except we were quiet. We were there for peace.

And then I got mastitis. And if you've never had mastitis, it's as if Wolverine is assaulting your breasts. And then I was done with breastfeeding.

So I'd cry myself to sleep at night about my inability to feed my daughter. Andy would hear me crying more in the shower, as I stared down at my full, unimportant, useless breasts. There was also the phyiscality of it; I had the pregnancy from hell, and now I couldn't even nurse my baby. Oh, what we do to ourselves. But really, oh, what we do to ourselves!

I searched through breastfeeding message boards reading posts from women who were still exclusively nursing and I'd curse the day I gave her the bottle.

But time passed. My hormones passed. My expectations of being the best nursing mother ever passed. Elke started nuzzling me. And falling asleep on my shoulder. And then she started saying, "da-da," even though I know she really means ma-ma. And I have balance in my life. I have a baby who I can walk away from - and then come back to. And I can have sex with my husband without a bra!

And Elke is still my little kangaroo. See?

The Case Against Facebook

2009-09-08T08:37:00.000-07:00

What is it about Facebook that incites such ire?

The first Facebook complaint of the day I witnessed was during first-day-of-school chatter. "She's facebooking that she's at the Botanical Gardens!" one woman hissed. "Like I care every time she goes somewhere?"

Two hours later, at Panera Bread, I hear another woman bitching. "First she wanted to be my friend, and I ignored her," the woman sitting behind me said. "But ignoring her isn't enough! Now she invited me to be Linkd In! When will she get the hint?"

There's no medium with Facebook. You're either too demanding. Too public. Too nosy. Or you're obsessed with announcing to the world where you are at all times - physically and emotionally. "Getting tennis lessons!" "Took a sip from my iced soy latte! Too cold!" "Lost all the baby weight!"

My friend Dave -- who is a real friend as well as a Facebook friend -- admitted to this last night. "I was at fireworks with my family and I found myself posting on Facebook. 'Enjoying fireworks with family.' It was crazy," he said. " I was writing about enjoying fireworks instead of actually enjoying fireworks!!"

Initially, the Facebook whirlwind hit me like it did everyone else. Albeit, I was a little confused by the attention and the requests for friends. I went to Andy who already had over 300 friends.

"I wasn't friends with this person in high school," I said to Andy. "Why do they want to be my friend now?"

"They don't want to be your friend," he said. "Facebook friend is different from a friend friend. Facebook friend is like a fake friend. They don't want to get to know you. They just want to acknowledge you then mosey on their way."

Then I friended Andy. And it took him two weeks to be my friend.

Then I invited him to be my husband. And he didn't respond.

"Why won't you be my husband on Facebook?" I said, following him around the house.

"Facebook world is a different kind of world, Hayley..." he said.

"Sounds like you're avoiding me."

"Do I have to be committed to you in the virtual world and inside our house? Are you going to post a 'honey-do' list for me on Facebook? Are you going to ask me to mow the lawn on Facebook?"

So, I thought, if my husband could ignore me. I could ignore some people.

One woman was a friend of Andy's. Let's call her Jane. He took me to her wedding when we first met, and then we never spoke to her again. Just fell out of touch, I guess. I was taken off guard when she first friended me. I honestly didn't remember her name and thought the invite was a mistake. Until Andy mentioned it.

"Are you ignoring Jane? I got an email from her saying you ignored her on Facebook."

"Oh, Jane! I didn't realize it was her. And, anyway, I don't even know her."

"I told her you're having Facebook issues. That you had some trepidation about the Facebook."

"While we're on the Facebook topic..."

"Uh, huh."

"Did you accept my invitation to be my husband?"

[He walks away laughing]

My biggest problem, outside of my real life husband not wanting to be my Facebook husband, are the Facebook braggers. Specifically, one woman who cannot stop talking about her house in the Hamptons, because oh Lord, if I have to hear one more time how a deer is shitting on her tennis court or how her husband is considering buying a Ferrari I will shoot myself. This was not a woman I wanted to be Facebook friends with or friends with in real life. But here I was - hearing details about her day.

Why not ignore her, you ask? Because Facebook Bragger friended me twice! The first time, I ignored her. And she persisted! The second time, I asked Andy what I should do.

"Okay. Should I email her something honest? Like, should I say, 'We're not friends in real life. You were always mean to me. And since there's no place for a Facebook frenemy, lets not be pretend friends on Facebook.'"

"No," Andy said. "That's terrible Facebook etiquette."

"And not marrying your wife on Facebook? Is that good Facebook etiquette?"

"My worlds are colliding!" he screams.

"Oh, because there's a Facebook Andy, and a husband Andy?"

"An Andy divided against himself cannot stand!"

So I accepted Facebook Bragger's friendship. Because, what I've learned, it's okay to be fake friends on Facebook and detest the person in real life. It's also okay to love your wife in real life, and pretend she doesn't exist on Facebook.

And Andy?

He's finally my Facebook husband.

Baby Personals Ad: Teeth Welcome

2009-09-04T10:14:00.000-07:00

Big-blue-eyed, six-month-old baby, who loves when brother chants "Bad, Bad, Baby!" who can sit up, and who has fabulous fashion sense (look at those silver booties! and leggings!), is looking for mouth that doesn't require such painful teeth.

On the other end of the spectrum in a small town in New Jersey...

Five-year-old boy who tells horrible knock-knock jokes, and whose mother laughs at all knock-knock jokes, except for one when I stupidly responded, "That was just terrible," and then watched little boy's face sink into the depths of depression, is looking for teeth to fall out.

Boundaries: Part III

2009-09-01T15:25:00.000-07:00

My initial reason for starting this blog was as a writing exercise, as well as to journal about my blended family. I was really proud of our incredible progression into a positive place for my son and now, my daughter. For a long time, I felt like a shining bright example of how to let go of anger after a divorce and co-parent my child with my ex-husband. I wanted to use this blog as a celebration of those accomplishments, because, damn, we worked hard to get there.

But as I've mentioned on this blog - sometimes I have problems with boundaries. Sometimes I cross the line. Sometimes I blur the line. Sometimes I'm unaware of the line. I'd rather not play a guessing game about what boundary has been crossed. I'd rather take the questionable equation out of the picture entirely. It helps me keep strict boundaries. This is important.

Writing about your family is okay. I will continue to write about my family when I can, but have decided to no longer to just write about my blended family situation. If it comes up every once and a while, great. But to write, and to really, really write, one cannot feel as if they're under a microscope. I have many outlets to write -- magazines, short stories, essays, on the back of crumpled up receipts -- but the online blog format is just too revealing. It's too much of a daily introspection into my life, and I'm not sure if that's working for me in this particular capacity. Ex is the past. Ex is to delete. Ex + daily introspection = backspace. My life is about moving forward.

For those looking for advice on how to manage a blended family, I leave you with a quote from my co-parenting counselor: "A divorced relationship is still a relationship."

Second, I leave you with this wonderful blog: thegrownupchild.ca. Carolyn, the writer of this blog suggested I write a newsletter on blended families, but really, she should do the newsletter. She is a wonderful resource.

And lastly, as my wise mother never fails to remind me: "If you always got along, you wouldn't be divorced."

With that said, I've decided to change the name to my blog. After all, family is about life, and life is more than just family. Right now, I'm going with "Climbing the Steps." That one's sort of sucky. So it'll probably change.

I'm constantly amazed by the honesty and frankness of the women who are unadulterated and open in their work. For me, I'm going to have to find a different way to approach blogging because that's what works best for me. And you know what? Change is okay.

"We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind..."

--from "Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood," by William Wordsworth (otherwise known as the poem that inspired the movie Splendor in the Grass)

My splendor in the grass is the little boy in that photo.

Thanks for reading my blog.

Update: I found a better name.

The Anti-Newsletter: My List for Increasing Intimacy

2009-08-25T05:36:00.000-07:00

I don't know why I get so incensed when I read the weekly StepHeroes Newsletter. (The last one on training your child like you train your dog made my head spin.) Maybe it's because the writing is just so general, unhelpful, and bad, and really because it makes no sense. The first sentence in this week's letter on "Increasing Intimacy for Blended Family Success" tells us that the success of second marriages is at a twenty percent low, but doesn't bother to quote a study. Cheers to you on your second marriage! You have absolutely no chance.

I knew nothing about creating a life as a blended family. My own experience taught me what not to do, but not what to do. I was dying for a newsletter with honesty and vulnerability about blended families. But every time I went on the internet, I found garbage like article in today's StepHeroes Newsletter.

"... one of the easiest ways to enhance love in a relationship is to cement rituals of connection."

The newsletter goes on to talk about morning coffee together, adult-only date night, spontaneous lovemaking. This is great advice if you live in Never Never Land. Isn't life so much more specific? Of course I understand the gist of this - make time with your partner -- got it.

We've had a tough week and a half. Elke was in the hospital. Andy's antsy from being home all summer. I've been cranky because I haven't had enough time to write and no matter what I do, the house is a mess. Jake... well Jake is five and therefore is a happy little entity as long as he has swimming, Wii, and chocolate milk.

Here's where my intimacy scale gets tipped in the wrong direction and we lose our connection: I'm trying to negotiate summer travel with Jake's visitation schedule, and that's fine because his father's flexible, but it's always a cloud over us. You know, that Jake also belongs to someone else. Jake gets home from weekends with his dad and his behavior is always different. That impedes on my happiness.

Said husband doesn't get lucky that night because Mommy's got her mind full of crap about how she's fucked up her child.

Neither of us sleep because Elke no longer sleeps through the night.

Then said husband goes to see Phish in Saratoga and Mommy gets resentful. He gets her a massage because he doesn't want her to be unhappy, but the masseuse swings her neck from side to side, and ouch - is my husband really paying you to misalign my neck?

Said husband tries to implement more intimacy by taking on baby and cleaning chores. (Yes, I am aware that the Bjorn is strapped practically around her neck, but it's the thought that counts.)

It works.

I can't show you pictures of what I did to husband to cement my ritual of connection, but feel free to check out the NSFW fleshbot.com if you want some visuals of someone else's enjoyable time.

So here's my family's list for increasing intimacy:

1. Husband vacuums

2. He carries around adorable teething baby in Baby Bjorn

3. Blowjobs

Now that's how you write a newsletter!

Hospital + Babies = Nothing I Like About It

2009-08-18T12:25:00.000-07:00

Babies and hospital are two words you do not want to see in one sentence, but there we were Monday with the sweet baby girl, Elke, in the pediatric emergency room. End of story: Elke had a UTI and she's fine. Thank God she's fine.

They're not sure how she got it. She's going to get an ultrasound next week to see if there are any abnormalities that might of caused it, but holy crap, holy peach-colored dressing gown, holy blue-eyed baby girl... it was the scare of my life.

When she woke up from her nap early Monday, Elke was rolling in a puddle of puke. I took her temperature which was 102 and called the doctor. They took me immediately because, well, the child was blue. She's not even a child. She's a pea-sized version of a child. She's just a baby! And she was blue. Outside of the fact that you don't ever want to see a blue baby, we were more concerned because Elke has a slight heart murmur. One of the bad signs of a problematic heart murmur is discoloration.

Temperature rises at doc's office to 103. Pediatrician takes blood, and cutting my arm off with a chainsaw would have been less painful. Elke is screaming, her arm stretched out and blue, turning purple from the needle shoved in her tiny baby, spider web-like vein. "It's positional!" My pediatrician is yelling at her nurse because the blood is barely dripping out, and not fast enough. So the nurse is trying to move the tube up and down like a game that's gone haywire. Still, Elke is screaming and she is still blue.

My pediatrician, who is not an alarmist, and who in five years with Jake has never suggested I go to the hospital, said: "I want you to go to the ER." As in, do not go home. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200.

Dr: Are you going to be okay to drive?

Me: [Nodding head.]

Dr.: I'm this close to calling an ambulance. I need to know if you're okay to drive.

Me: I'm okay.

Not okay. Not okay. Not okay. Elke is not okay, and her not okay is far worse than my not okay. I'm her mother and I have to be OKAY. This amazing burden of being someone's mother.

The drive to the hospital is long and sweaty. We're going through a heat wave here on the east coast and the sun beats down on the car; inside it doesn't cool down fast enough. I stare at Elke through the baby mirror and wonder what our life would be like without her. I think about all of those fucking drugs I took when I was pregnant - that God -dammed hyperemesis and I wonder, I pray, Dear God, please don't make it so the drugs that kept me alive are now making my baby sick. She moans in her car seat. "We're almost there baby girl. We're almost there."

When I get her into the pediatric emergency room and pull her from that sweaty cocoon of a car seat, I see that her color is returning. And suddenly the room opens up. Suddenly, I catch a smile. Her eyes, red, and her lashes all wet, are bright again. I look around the room to see, of all things, a Wii.

A little boy, who is all hunched over, an who appears to be in pain, is approaching it.

"I don't think you should play that," his mother said. "You were complaining of your chest, your ribs, your arm hurting. I don't want you moving your arm around."

"Don't you know Wii makes everything feel better?" I say to her.

And we both laugh, and then I feel better. I can laugh. Elke is pink again. Elke even laughs, I think.

We're admitted. Doctor checks her heart. "The murmur is so slight," he says, "that I would be surprised if my resident can pick it up." Catheter. Shot of antibiotic. Ultrasound next week to make sure kidneys are okay and to possibly see why this UTI happened to a baby in the first place. I think about the peach colored gown, this polyester gown for tiny babies and am so grateful that her skin resembled the color of that gown.

Baby is all better. Her first swim in the pool will tell you as much. And she's no longer blue. She's just my beautiful snow white.

Fighting With Mr. T

2009-08-14T11:56:00.000-07:00

I like to think that I've become a better fighter in my second marriage. Andy and follow a couple of rules. One is Kevin Bacon's advice: "Keep the sex dirty and the fights clean." Love that one.

Another rule: don't tell me that I'm being my mother or father. Who isn't guilty of acting like one of our parents? And I don't mean this in a pleasant way.

Still there's a little bit of screaming, yelling, tantruming, pouting. None of these are great traits, but when you're angry, you're angry.

What's new to me - because in my past relationships, the fighting was off the hook dramatic - is our ability to make up. We come back to each other fairly quickly, which has never been so for me in past relationships. It's eye contact, or a smile, or a tease. Sometimes it takes a day. Sometimes it takes five minutes. I think it's the reason Andy and I get along so well, because we allow the making up process to happen. I read somewhere that it's not that people fight - because everyone fights - it's how they fight, and more importantly, how they make up.

Andy and I went to yoga this morning and he was still mad at me from last night. I flipped out about stuff not being done around the house. (I know, me and every other wife.) He was focused in his practice, which, good for him, but not so great was that he refused to make eye contact with me.

"You still mad at me from the night before?" I said when we got home from the class.

"No."

"You wouldn't look at me in yoga. I was staring at you all through those down dogs."

"I was focused."

"Oh, Mr. Focused, huh? What are you, Mr. T? All focused?" [My voice deep and weird like Mr. T's] "I pity the fool who's not focused. It's like that? [Deeper voice, grunting] Huh. Huh.

Andy cracks a smile.

So I text him I love you's and he forgives me.

Have I mentioned that I love his hair?

I Rocked The Casbah

2009-08-11T10:30:00.000-07:00

Thankfully the Google news feed on blended families has improved from the "Train Your Child Like You Train Your Dog," article. Today, I got a link to The Detroit News which highlighted a blog post about a stepmother trying to balance clothing sprees -- and love -- between her daughter and stepdaughter.

My stepsister ruled the roost. There was an attic off my bedroom in my father's house and for some God forsaken reason, my father and stepmother allowed her to create a "club" in this attic, which means she freely walked through my room with her friends at any given time because it was her fucking club.

Since I was used to being the older sister and the H.B.I.C (head bitch in charge), I was completely unaccustomed to anyone pissing on my territory and expecting that I'd be okay with it.

I complained to the parents who really were ill-equipped to handle it. In fact, I don't remember them handling it.

I was 12. So I went playground on her. "If you walk through my room again, your club is toast." And the poor thing, since she was an only child, she didn't understand the wrath of a sibling -- especially one as angry as me.

She strutted into my room as I sat on the bed reading, then made her way into the attic/club with two friends.

"Liz, I told you not to come in my room."

She shrugged.

To her disadvantage, I had a 10-year-old brother. So when I told him it was time to have fun in her club, we destroyed the place. Chalk over all of her drawings. Tore up magazines. Books strewn. When we were finished, I actually felt bad for her.

She discovered the destruction when I was in the kitchen. I heard hysterical screams from upstairs.

As my parents were figuring out how to deal with the situation, Liz took it upon herself to one-up me. At this point my father took notice. "Dad," I said, a smile on my face, laughing at the absolute hilarity of it. "She took all my furniture." There was nothing left in my room except for the bed! Really, I was impressed.

When the ordeal was over, my relationship with her was never the same. She was done trying to get along with her stepsiblings and her mother was done trying to get along with my father.

I've hoped to run into her at my local pool where someone told me she sometimes swims. Maybe reminisce about how strange our life was together and how removed our parents were. Apologize about destroying her club.

We had ten years together as a strained stepfamily, yet to this day I can't remember what she looked like. Isn't that awful? But I remember the furniture. The chair with the giraffes. The sign on the door of the attic that read: "The Casbah."

Beach, Baby. Beach.

2009-08-05T16:13:00.000-07:00

i watch the sprinkle of the sun as i feed her

her sips linger on her lips

his voice, erupting from below. "i can surf mommy."

and i see him at the shore

running to the crest of the wave, smacking his body at the water

sand nestled in his hair as i smear more lotion

dolphins arcing over the horizon

"forecast was wrong. no rain tonight."

sun gold and pink

surfers lingering, bobbing

umbrella up

mommy digging beaten toes into sand with baby on hip

"more kadima tomorrow. i'll beat you then."

You Say Nana, I Hear Grandma

2009-07-28T08:26:00.000-07:00

I wrote about Jake's grandmothers the other day and wanted to follow up with a really great story.

Jake has one Nonnie, my mother. Not sure how the word came to play. Something about her not wanting to be called "Nana" because my grandmother, Alice (who Elke was named for), had already taken that word.

Alice was a Nana. When she was introducing herself to people, she said, "Hi, I'm Nana." For an entire week during a cruise we were on (she owned a travel agency, so we went on a lot of cruises), the waiter who took care of our table called her Nana. Cason still refers to her as Nana.

Jake's other Nana was Linda, Cason's mother. He didn't start calling her Nana immediately. First it was a grandmama or grandmother or something strange and formal because her other grandchildren - Jake's cousins - had called her that. Thankfully, it morphed to "Nana." Maybe there are just certain words that are common for kids - mama, dada, nana - because they're easy to say.

On Saturday, we were at a family get-together and Andy's mother, Eileen, was there. Jake was walking into the backyard and I said something along the lines of, "Do you want to play Go Fish with me?"

He said, no, "I'm going into the backyard with Nana."

I was surprised to hear this because he has never called Andy's mother by the name Nana. She's either Eileen or Grandma Eileen. They're still establishing a relationship - one that Andy and I are still figuring out. One Jake is still figuring out. One that Eileen is still figuring out.

Maybe I'm being and have been too anxious and over-analytical about our relationship with Andy's family. I can't help but think: Is this a burden to you? Maybe the question is more about me initially coming to them as a divorced woman. Look, I know I have nothing to be ashamed of. Especially now - getting along so well with the ex and all of us working towards a healthy place. None of us needs to be ashamed. God, it's actually annoying that I still feel shame. Yet being ashamed of my divorce is something I still struggle with. And it comes up in weird ways. This might be one of those ways.

Back to the story. Jake is walking into the backyard, calling Eileen "Nana."

So I ask him.

Me: Did you just call Eileen, 'Nana'?

Jake: No, I called her Eileen.

[He runs out the door. Eileen follows]

Me: [To Eileen] You know what. He just called you Nana.

Eileen: [Ferklempt] Oh... oh... oh, really? [Smiling, hand her her chest] Oh... [She follows him out the door.]

Jake, honey, you called her Nana. I heard it. And he called her Nana because the word Nana in Jake's mind means grandmother. It's more than just an easy word association when you're five years old. It's a definition. With that one slip, Jake answered my own question about where we fit. Jake knows where we fit. She seems to agree.

I guess Jake has three Nanas.

And one Nonnie.

The Dog - Child Connection: Are You Kidding Me?

2009-07-27T06:34:00.000-07:00

Did I read this right? Does this article say: "Train Your Child Like You Train Your Dog"?

I subscribe to a Google news feed on blended families, and I swear to God, this is what came into my inbox today. Train your child like you train a dog. The article was taken from the topic of Emily Bouchard's newsletter StepHeroes Community Newsletter. I know this article is just a symptom of very, very bad writing, but it's actually so much more problematic.

If you look at the article closely -- sans title -- you see some insanely broad advice. "Use life rewards." "Smile and be positive." "Make yourself irresistible." In theory, this sounds great. But what about a kid who doesn't want to visit Daddy's house? What about a kid who feels homesick or scared? What about a resentful stepparent who isn't in the mood to deal with an angry kid?

In all fairness, I think the website that wrote about Emily Bouchard's newsletter did a disservice to her. If you look at her site, she's got quite a bit of knowledge on stepfamilies. Her idea was to state that "techniques" you use to train a dog can be used in handling your children/stepchildren. Yet these canned snippets, this kind of pop-psychology advice is never good for anyone because it has nothing to do with the emotional complexities of living.

In real life, it's not easy for my kid when he comes home from his dad's. We have similar rules, but they're varying. As my mother reminds me, "You can never really control what goes on at his father's house." Maybe he's got more patience. Maybe he's got less rules. Maybe they're the same rules but we execute them differently. Maybe Jake is just different with each of us. Maybe he acts out more when he gets back from a weekend, or a night. Maybe it's just something Andy and I have to sort of deal with.

Emily Bouchard, I have some new "rules" for you: Respect the children. Give them boundaries. Make them feel at home. And if they push you away, make them feel at home some more. Give them space. Then, give them their own space. Give consequences for rules broken, but make sure not to enforce rules like a drill sergeant. Talk about feelings as a family. Talk about feelings some more.

And please, don't treat your child like a dog.

Holy Hair

2009-07-24T09:20:00.001-07:00

Clumps and lumps and strands and mounds of my hair are falling out. As I speak. Just dipping, and dripping to the point that I'm tripping on them. The baby is ending up with globs of it around her little fingers and saliva-covered fists. It's all over the sink basin. The floor. My pillow.

Online last night, I read that the excessive mound of post-natal hair shedding could morph into a dangerous baby tourniquet! An unsuspecting mother could unknowingly cut the circulation off her baby's little chubby finger if a strand gets too tightly wrapped around it... all because of... hair.

Now, I have written here about how much I love long hair. I love my husband's hair, even when it's greasy. I almost had a nervous breakdown when Jake's hair got cut short.

In my early 20s, my hair used to come out in clumps in the shower. I mean disgusting amounts. I never thought about it twice, except for - ewh, that's gross. But now, now I'm not in my early 20s. Now, I'm getting close to 40, and hair falling out just doesn't seem right. I know it's normal. I understand it will stop. I think I'm at the five-month peak, actually, but still, there's this nagging feeling that I'm getting close to menopause and losing my hair is one of the symptoms of that... and was it my imagination, or was I oh so hot in the house the other day even though the air conditioning was on.

Oh, that's right, I remembered, coming back to the world of the sane. I'm on the IUD. (Which could also cause hair loss. Don't get me started.) And I just had a baby.

Andy said to me a few days ago, holding his hands anxiously over his head, "Babe, I think I'm losing my hair."

I love my husband, but, bitch, please.

Does this look like a man losing his hair?

On Grandmothers

2009-07-21T11:13:00.000-07:00

Jake's grandmother, Linda, was born to be a grandmother. She was a southern woman, from Louisiana, to be exact. Made all sorts of baked breads, and cookies. These amazing chocolate tiny things with powered sugar.

Oh, and there were the pecan pies. And the homemade macaroni and cheese. And the stories about her childhood, being raised as a girl of the south who lived in the shadow of the Civil War, her family never really getting over the loss of aristocracy. She was also ridiculously smart, had a Master's Degree in English, and never missed a single day of the New York Times crossword puzzle. When Linda died of cancer two years ago, I grieved for Cason and his father. But also for Jake. God, I wanted him to know her.

He has my mother, thankfully. The two of them, their curly-headed mess intersecting each other like they were a twisted rope impossible to untie.

Jake is my mother's baby. I was scolded for giving my own son a time out once. "You're being too hard on him and I don't like that," she told me.

"Mom, you already had the opportunity to screw up two children. Now it's my turn," I said.

But for reals. He talks to her until he's blue in the face, and she listens with wonderment and fascination. My kid ate a book and she insisted, "He's going to be a scholar." That's a Jewish grandmother for you.

Step-grandparent wasn't ever a word I had to define, so I was unsure of how to approach it with Andy's parents. Jake was immediately taken under Andy's family's wing - but there's pressure in that too. As in: Here you go, love. Meet your new aunt and uncle. Meet your new grandmother. Then there was my anxiety. Would they love him as they did their own biological grandchildren? I was worried. Insecure. It was new to all of us.

As time passed, they got to know each other. This is so important when blending families, because we all just want things to be fine. We're all so happy! We're all so normal! The divorce didn't affect us! But it takes time for children and adults to forge a new relationship, especially if everyone has expectations of what that relationship is supposed to look like. (Uh, like me.)

Andy's mom has three sons, yet she's not exactly an expert on video games. Still, she rocked out her best driving stunts on Mario Kart Wii. And Lego's. And monopoly. And then soon, the title of grandma became not so significant, because really... what the hell is a title, anyway? We're still going back and forth between grandma and her first name. Not sure where the ball will land.

So it was shame on Saturday when Andy's parents came to babysit because we had plans to see God of Carnage (if you're in New York - run to see it), and I completely messed up the visitation schedule. Jake was with his dad. I didn't even bother to tell Jake that Andy's parents were going to be at the house watching Elke for fear of him feeling left out. Cason, being Cason, offered to bring Jake over for a few hours, but I knew he wouldn't want to leave once being back home.

Me, I always miss him when he's with his father, but I believe Andy's mom missed him as well -- which I was glad to see. "You couldn't switch the days, huh?" she said at lunch, a little glum. No, but next time, I'll be more understanding that her relationship with Jake matters. And that this is still a developing time for them. I think of Linda often, and I think that she'd be happy to know that her grandson is learning how to love a woman who is entirely different from his southern-born nana.

I'd really love to hear if anyone reading this has experience with step-grandparents -- or more specifically, step-grandmothers -- and how they, or their children have developed relationships with them.

* * *

Oh, Nana. If you could see us now... she's got beautiful blue eyes and he swims just like Grandpa.

An Open Letter To My Core (AKA, My Mummy Tummy)

2009-07-17T12:28:00.000-07:00

Dear Core,

I know some people refer to you as a stomach. Or a belly. Or in my case, a Mummy Tummy. But since I want to pay more attention to you, and I mean the good sort of attention, not the bad kind (like the coffee ice cream that I ate twice this week), I'll refer to you as my core.

Core, I have neglected you. I'd like to blame it on the hyperemesis. For nine months, I was unable to utilize you because really, I was quite sick. For a long time, I hardly ate. But then once I felt better, I ate. I ate a lot. Then I got sick again, and stopped eating. Still, core, I was selfish. I had pregnancy fantasies that I would bounce back into shape and look like I did when I was 27, even though I was 37 and well, core, ten years makes a difference.

Actually, wait. I did think of you at least once. That time when Andy rubbed my belly and told me how much of a cute pregnant lady I was, and I warned him. "You know this big belly isn't going to be so cute once the baby's out, right?" (Andy met me just after my divorce. When my body was too bootylicious for ya babe, because one baby doesn't = Mummy Tummy like age + two kids do.) So he just sort of looked at me and ran off to the gym to work on his... core. Because he's devout. And core, I'm just not. I'm sorry.

This week I ran, I did laps in the pool, and I went to yoga. I put on my bathing suit and stared at my belly and wondered why the Mummy Tummy was still here. Why? None of my above-mentioned workouts involve you.

One might ask: Can't you just get your ass on the floor and do some sit-ups for christsakes?

Instead, I look for more unflattering pictures of Jennifer Garner to compare myself too. And then soon, I'll run out of those because Jennifer Garner is Jennifer Garner, and with or without the Spanx, I'm sure she's working on her core.

Stomach, I have one word for you: pilates.

xoxo,

(McSweeney's actually has a column dedicated to Open Letters to People or Entities Who Are Unlikely to Respond. They're hilarious, some heartbreaking and I encourage you to check 'em out.)

Hyperemesis: Part I

2009-07-14T08:29:00.001-07:00

It was a year ago that I told Jake I couldn't swim with him.

"Why not, Mommy?" he asked.

It was a reasonable question. We were at the swim club. I was in a bathing suit. It was summer.

"Mommy's sick, honey," I said. I held up the black bag that my BFF Liz told me to deem as the newest fashion accessory if anyone asked. Didn't you see it in Vogue? You didn't? Too bad for you because it's the new rage. The black bag, a smallish purse about a foot long and ten inches wide was attached to me -- literally -- for the first five months I was pregnant with Elke.

Beautiful Elke. This picture, a reminder that I made it through.

I had been diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum, a severe form of morning sickness that had put me in the hospital twice in a ten-week period. I was almost three months pregnant and down to 114 pounds. Couldn't eat. Couldn't puke. Couldn't do anything but roll in a ball. Television hurt. The sun hurt. Sheets hurt. I wanted to live under the covers. I wanted to live under the bed and not come out until the nausea stopped pulling me down under and stopped sucking the life out of me.

Inside my fashionable bag was a syringe and a motorized pump that continuously fed me Zofran, a powerful anti-nausea drug typically given to cancer patients. Every morning and night, I injected my thigh, my waist, or what was left of the fatty part of my emaciated belly with a new needle and refreshed the syringe. The Zofran took the edge off -- when it was working. It wasn't a miracle drug. It allowed me to eat three tamari rice crackers.

Andy took Jake's hand. "Come on, buddy. I'm here to go in the pool with you. Mommy will just watch us."

Andy kissed me. "At least you're out of the house, babe," he said. For the first time that week. But I was angry at this disease for taking away the joy of a pregnancy. Of our new life together. I was desperate to have a baby. Now, I was desperate not to be pregnant.

Jake was only four years old and was just learning how to swim. His wonderful body flailed in the water. Blowing bubbles and then erupting to the surface. "Did you see that, Mommy? Did you see that?"

In my haze, I saw him. Like a zombie, unable to experience anything but the weight of my thin body. I shuffled to a blue, grimy lounge chair in the shade. My legs, lifeless and weak. My mind, warped from the hormones, and the nausea, and the drugs. Watching like a spectator as my son learned to swim.

The hyperemesis made me doubt my ability and my identity as a mother. I could barely take care of Jake, let alone the baby growing inside me, whose new home in my womb was infested with depression and the steady flow of Zofran. Imagine if it was 100 years ago, Andy and I would say. I'd be gone.

An older woman sat next to me and asked what the bag was for. So I told her.

"What we do for our children," she said.

I nodded, thinking, yes. What we do. This experience would be Jake's first lesson in sharing Mommy with a sibling, I thought, as I sipped my savior, Lemon-lime Vitamin Water.

I read blogs of people who have not survived breast cancer. People who have had miscarriages. Who are burned in plane crashes. Real, real tragedies from people who still have an incredible outlook on life. I cry for them. I ache for them. My hyperemesis wasn't traumatic like those losses - but the unrelenting nausea was devastating and debilitating. Ask any woman with hyperemesis to look outside her mind at what she has to look forward to, and she will tell you in that moment... she is unable. Being pregnant and unable to At least 25% of women polled in a study by the Hyperemesis Foundation have aborted at least one pregnancy. I certainly contemplated it as well. Is this really worth it, I couldn't help but think. (Of course now, I see it totally was. Because, holy shit, I love that little girl like nobody's business.)

"Mommy's going to feel better soon," I told Jake when he got out. I wrapped him up in his favorite dinosaur towel and pulled him tight I hoped. I hoped. I hoped.

More on this...

Boundaries: Part II

2009-07-13T23:39:00.000-07:00

When I started writing this blog a little over a month ago, I thought it would be a great way to share about our life as a blended family. And when I say family, that includes Jake's dad.

Except one thing. I didn’t tell Jake’s dad about it.

Why couldn’t I just tell him if we're so open? Yes, I had planned on talking to him about it. I didn’t know how.

Oh, hello there Cason. What time are you picking up Jake tonight, and by the way, I'm writing a blog about all of us....

So he found out accidentally. And initially, he wasn’t happy about it. His biggest concern: that I’d hurt him with something that I write.

But I’ll never do that, and I think I've already shown that from what I've written. Still, I understand his concerns. We're divorced. We have a history together. In our divorce, I made it very clear to him, to family members, to our counselor in our co-parenting sessions, and to friends that I have no intention of hurting him.

Because if I hurt him, I hurt his son. And that child, that little explorer, is my boy too. A child I would never want to wound. It’s our crap. Not Jake’s. And thank you very much, but I’ll keep our real bad crap to ourselves.

Another important reason: I let go of my anger a long time ago, and I want it to stay that way.

It’s a strange thing to be a blended family. It’s like, beyond strange. With Jake explaining who his stepfather is to friends. And me explaining that my son is with his father. And Mommy, can you order the Touch N' Brush for my dad? It’s strange, and it’s unconventional. But it’s my life. It’s the only life I know. And it’s the only life Jake knows.

I know other divorced families. People are so angry, so hurt. There’s so much fighting and so much resentment. We get divorced for a reason. People no longer get along. It’s not easy to continue to maintain the relationship once the paper is dissolved. But then there are the children. And anyone not trying to maintain some semblance of decency with their ex is doing a disservice to their child. All you can do is try. And if the other person makes it impossible to try, then you have to at least allow your children to make up their own minds about their parent -- without you bashing that person. Kids are always smarter than we think. Let them form their own decisions.

I was really, really reluctant to write this post. I was even reluctant to write this blog. I didn't want to mess the boundaries that we've worked so hard to place. But now that I have Cason's blessing to write to my heart's desire, I felt that it was important to continue to express that being in a blended family is a work in progress. And I'm proud of that work that me, Cason and Andy put into it. My relationship with Cason is still a working relationship. Different from a marriage or a partnership. But still, a relationship.

But It's Summer

2009-07-10T08:03:00.000-07:00

I keep saying it's summer. As if no one knows. To remind myself to relax. To stop all the running that I've been writing so much about. To take a nap with the baby. To enjoy the pool in the afternoon. Kids should have unstructured time. Time to just sit. To read on the porch. No where to be.

So when Jake said, "Can I take a shower outside tonight?" I looked at Andy and said, "It's summer."

"Come on, buddy. I'll hose you down," Andy said.

Jake ran to the back door and stripped off his clothes.

"The water's going to be cold," I said.

Andy went for the hose. Too much of a smile on his face as he put the stream on jet. "It's summer," he said.

Jake ran, soaked and naked through he yard. The grass thick and moist. His feet muddy. Smoke from the neighbor's grill making its way through the fence.

"Mom, can I pee in the grass?"

"Uh..."

"Come on, it's summer."

You Want To Play The What?

2009-07-08T07:11:00.000-07:00

Just yesterday I read Anne Bernays' piece in The New York Times Magazine about her nice Jewish boy of a grandson who joined the Marines. Anne was in shock that her grandson, who is from a liberal New England family, decided to become a 'warfighter.' Is it any surprise that a Jewish grandmother would have a stereotypical dream for her grandchild to be a doctor or a lawyer? Or in Anne's case, a writer.

But on the eve of his graduation, Anne came full circle and fired an M-16. Anne hit the target five times! I've written here about my family evolving, but this is quite an evolution.

The article is here: Warrior Day . (I think you may have to be a member of nytimes.com to view it.)

Anne read my Lesley College application and story where I was working towards an MFA in Creative Writing before I took the year off. (Four month old baby, you know.) She wrote me an incredibly lovely letter that I still remember.

Anne is also Hester Kaplan's mother. Hester Kaplan was my mentor at Lesley for a semester. She's a wise, beautiful lady. A mother hen without the pecking. She is the goose with the golden egg. I'm staring at Hester's Facebook picture as I write this, her smile and pretty blue eyes approving. Yes, keep writing Hayley, I hear Hester saying.

What struck me about Anne's piece is how easily we -- yes, even open-minded liberals -- place our own desires on our children's futures. When I was 21, my father said to me, "You have a time limit for this writing thing. If you're not published by the time you're 35, you need to find a real job."

"Don't dictate my dreams," I said to him. And he respected that. Thankfully, I've made a living off of writing or editing in one way or another over these years. But if I hadn't? Well, I guess I'd have to think of something else. I know it was my father's way of trying to protect me. He's been supportive of me ever since, even in my quest to publish a short story... a finalist, yes. Published, not yet.

Our children make choices about who they're going to be in life. We help shape them. Sometimes inadvertently. Sometimes we're more calculated. Jake has been obsessed with puzzles and Legos since he was about a year-and-a-half-old. He had a knack for getting the right block to fit. And now, watching him build Lego houses, I can't help but dream he'll be an architect one day.

Look at me, the dreamer, trying to imagine Jake's future. It's his future, Mommy. And Mommy needs to lay off. I can still have romantic visions of a musician-architect, though. Can't I?

Jake's father is a musician. I hoped Jake would get the music gene before he was even born. Cason's been playing the piano with him and letting him strum the guitar since he was a baby.

But Jake wants to play the drums. He's said it more than once. Enough for me to take it seriously and get him lessons.

"The drum kit is going in the basement," Andy said. Because, we can encourage a musical interest without having to take Advil all day long, right? Am I ready for pounding? Not really. But I'm fascinated to see if Jake takes the same intensity towards the drums as he does with his puzzles. Because musical instruments are like puzzles. You figure out how they fit together, and there you have harmony. A connection of mind and hands. And then music.

Sure, I would love for him to play the piano.

But the drums it is.

Building Blocks

2009-07-07T08:28:00.000-07:00

I'm finally feeling better after two weeks of overall crappiness and being run down. It hasn't been the greatest year of health for me. Before the being run down stuff, there was the mastitis. Then there was the pregnancy. I have this beautiful baby girl to show - but man, the process of getting her into this world was a tough one. Hyperemisis. Hospitalized twice. Severe vertigo.

But here she is, this beautiful baby. Who looks exactly like her daddy.

And she's the star in our life. We're all in love with her.

Now I have to start taking care of myself. Mommy neglect is nothing new to any of us. We're fabulous multi-taskers. Terrible at taking care of ourselves. I do know how to take care of myself. I worked at a health food store in San Francisco for years. Years before Whole Foods came to town there was Thom's Natural Foods on 36th and Geary. I sold and recommended vitamins and herbs and well-being.

And now look at me. Stacks of vitamins in the pantry. My evening primrose oil. My sinus tincture. My immune builder. My food-based daily vitamin. My green powder. Who is taking all of this stuff? Because I know it's not me.

Well, this has got to stop. I read Maggie May's blog today (she's an incredibly poetic and articulate writer) who wrote about how she cured herself of endometriosis with supplements and a better diet. No more fries and coke for lunch? I get it.

Okay, so does this mean I'm going to cut out my coffee and soy creamer? Probably never.

But I need to focus on what makes me healthy. Step by step. Sun salutations in the morning even if I can't get to yoga class. Walking with the baby if I can't run. Building blocks. The basics of good health.

Daily vitamin. Omega-3's. Water. Getting to bed (somewhat early), even if it's only a few days a week.

Until I have this.

Looking With Eyes Closed

2009-07-05T07:32:00.000-07:00

I write a lot about how evolved we are as a blended family. And we are. But there are moments that catch me when I'm not looking. Or maybe it's the opposite. Maybe I'm looking in places I don't need to.

This morning I was importing images into my new MacBook. (The iPhoto is so great - this is my first mac in 10 years, and wow I love it.) I slipped in a disc titled: "Jake Year One." He was a beautiful baby. Curly hair. Chubby cheeks. Always on the go.

I flipped to a folder titled New Mexico. We had taken a trip with my best friends. Rented a house just outside of Santa Fe in the mountains. A hot tub. Kids. My first marriage was just unraveling then. There are pictures of the three of us as a family and we're not even standing next to each other. We have this baby between us and there couldn't be more space. Air and space.

Then there were pictures of me. My hair was too long. My body not in shape. My skin looking a little pale. My smile, not genuine - just sort of flat. I was in distress, of course. But God, to see myself so unraveled. So unkempt.

Just as I imported the pictures, I quickly deleted them. Just too hard to look at still. There I was crying after four years. Even now with a beautiful baby. A beautiful marriage. A beautiful five-year-old boy. And my relationship with my ex -- healthy and okay. Still, those pictures, evidence of a marriage that was just about to fall apart. Two months after that trip, it did.

Maybe one day I'll look. Maybe one day I'll look and say, that was me. I had to experience there to get here.

I know someone might suggest getting rid of those pictures, but I keep them for Jake. I do want him to see his parents together. I always loved looking at pictures of my mother and father - if nothing else, for proof of their marriage and a love for each other that once was.

Does everything from my first marriage have to be so connected to my world now? Does my past life have to be completely folded into this one? No. Maybe the answer is this: keep the photos for Jake, but take a break from looking at them. As blended as we are, my life and who I am with my son has changed drastically from those pictures in New Mexico. And as my lover in another life Eddie Vedder wrote: I've tasted a life wasted, and I'm never going back again.

I'm the first to admit I've still got some boundary issues. Maybe this is a photo boundary issue. You there, photo. Stay in the closet. You there, photo. Stay on a disc.

We'll let you know when it's time to come out.

***I want to make an addendum. The Eddie Vedder quote was not to say I wasted my life in my first marriage. There was nothing wasted in that time I spent with my first husband. I had my child in that marriage. I wouldn't be who I am without that first marriage. But now I've learned what it takes for me to be happy. How important it is to be happy. And healthy. It's why it's important for me to have a good relationship with my ex -- because I'm never going back that other way again. (Of course, we run into a few hiccups. Aren't there always hiccups?)

The View From The Floor

2009-07-01T06:55:00.000-07:00

This was the gap week where I was supposed to hang with the family... have the unscheduled free time summer should give to all of us lucky souls. It's a discussion Andy and I have been having. Camp all summer for the boy with the boundless energy or some down time. I voted down time. And then came the UTI. And the ENT. You know the rest.

Was feeling better yesterday. Chiropractor cured the ear pain. Apparently it all stemmed from my neck, and maybe all just can be chalked up to leaning over too much with a four-month-old baby. So Andy, Jake and I went to the beach. Left baby girl with the babysitter. I swear to you, I was opening an umbrella! That's all! Now my back is withered and weary. There are worse things in life, but I am just one of those people. An illness hits me, and then I spiral.

So it's just me and the dog. The injured mutts. (That's a comfy cone around Daisy's neck, an alternative to those plastic cones that keep doggies from eating their sutures.)

With all the bitching aside, we had a beautiful day at the beach. And this morning I got to see, and hear, my little boy read an entire book on his own. Man, reading just happens. It's something so amazing. And it was all from the floor - where I was left to lay with ice packs.

What else did I notice from the floor?

The skylight needs cleaning. (But aren't the trees lovely?)

Someone put gum under the coffee table. Hum. Interesting.

The Babysitter

2009-06-29T08:31:00.000-07:00

So you know about the running. Now all the running has got me into trouble. Ran to the ENT doctor Friday after waking up at 4am with horrible ear pain, so much so that it felt like someone had stuck a knife in my ear. I was diagnosed with fluid and TMJ.

UTI. ENT. TMJ. OMG. WTF?

First, I need to backtrack. Early that morning, we went to visit Andy's kids as promised. The eighth graders were adorable. Running down the hall to greet us. "It's Elke!" Cooing and oohing. Taking pictures. Asking questions. "I heard you're a vegetarian!" one boy in a red track jacket yelled. Then a girl with long brown hair to Jake: "We heard you like Star Wars!" Unlimited excitement.

Finally, I sat down in a chair and twenty children surrounded me. I believe I have an inkling of what Brad and Angelina might feel like. The kids stared at Jake and the baby. Not to close, but peering and staring and taking pictures and more pictures and more staring.

"This is like the Lion King," Andy said. "Hold her up like Simba, Hayley."

"Mr. Adler talks about you guys all the time," one girl announced. Well, to hear from 13-year-olds that your husband is bragging about you and your kids... it makes the heart go mushy. I was so glad we went.

The four of us went for a quick lunch. Andy's last day of school. It should have been a celebration. But as the afternoon progressed, so did my ear pain. There I was hunched over in my veggie burger. I made an appointment with the ENT doc, but Andy needed to go back to school to wrap up his class before they shut down the school.

"Who's going to watch the kids?" I said. I called three babysitters including my mother. No one was available.

"How about Cason?" Andy said.

And in one of those strange life moments, the phone rang. Cason's number popped up.

"Why hasn't Jake called me in three days?" Cason asked. His voice was tense. For the record, it's not my responsibility to have Jake call Cason. What makes it more difficult is that Jake is not a phone kid. Like, at all. Like, he's so adverse to the phone that he typically hides under the table. And, Cason knows he can call at any time to speak to Jake -- as long as I can coax Jake to scream, "Hi Dad!" from under the table.

I ignored the comment. We're at that stage now that acting a bit pissed off is not going to ruin the relationship. It is a relationship, and sometimes we do fall into a weird comfortable spot of bitching because well... we were married. Bitching was a large part of my marriage with him. There is a short hand.

"Look, I've been sick all week. Sorry he didn't call. And now I have this ear pain... and I have a doctor's appointment, but no one to watch the kids."

"What about Andy? I hear his voice."

"He's packing up his room at school. We're in the city now, having lunch." I paused and looked up at Andy who was nodding his head in a yes, go ahead and ask him motion. "Can you take Elke and Jake?"

"Uh..." he said.

"It's okay," I said. Maybe it was too much. She was four months old. "I can try to find a playdate for Jake. I can bring the baby with me."

"Uh..." he said.

I've written here about the discussion that Cason and I had about the kids. "I'd take both of them when she gets older," he said. "After all, she is Jake's sister."

And I appreciated his words. But when Elke was born, I couldn't help but think of how difficult it might be for both of my children when Jake had to leave the house every other weekend. Would Elke miss her big brother terribly? Would Jake feel left out?

In my parents' custody agreement, my brother, David, and I were split up. My mother took me, and my father took David. Every weekend we were together, but were separated during the week. "It was the biggest mistake of my life, doing that, not taking your brother," my mother has said. "You never should have been split up." I love my brother and we're very close now, but our relationship as children was tumultuous because we were apart so often.

1973. I was two, my brother, David, just a few months old.

Andy is well aware of my history. And shortly after Elke was born he said that he fully expected Cason to take Elke with Jake at some point. "Cason taking Elke will be good for everyone," Andy said. "Also, it will give a continuity so the kids don't feel that they're missing out on each other, or separated, and make it seem as normal as possible," he said. "Maybe Cason will even teach her how to play piano. Who knows."

Jake reading Curious George to Elke

So I got back to my phone call with Cason and backtracked some more. You have to work, I said. It wasn't fair for me to ask you for so much, I said.

"Wait. I can take them. It's fine. I'll just leave work a little early. No big deal." There was a sadness in his voice when he said this. Of course this is only my projection, but maybe it had to do something with him longing for a new wife and a new baby. A child of his own, a sibling he can give to Jake. And I do believe he'll have that one day. I do.

Jake was thrilled when I told him Elke was going with him to his dad's. "You have to show your dad everything, okay?" I told him as I dropped them off. "How to change a diaper. How to burp her. How to give her the pacifier. How to play with toys." Jake nodded, smiled and gave me a giant, slurpy kiss.

"Here's the thing with baby girls," I said to Cason. "You have to wipe from front to back. Like, you have to get in there if she poops."

Cason looked at Elke and pointed his finger. "Don't poop."

I drove off and called Liz, my best friend since the fifth grade. Now, Liz isn't Cason's number one fan. She's Italian, from New Jersey, and while she never flipped a table, she's fiercely loyal and doesn't forget if someone hurts a friend. With all that said, she's one of the most objective, thoughtful people I've ever met in my life.

"You all have evolved," she said. "And I really can't believe I'm saying this, but he's evolved."

I shit you not when I tell you that four years ago, when my divorce lawyer was convincing me to walk out of the courthouse because Cason's lawyer was being difficult to negotiate with and I said I am not leaving this courthouse without a divorce, that I would have ever, ever guessed that one day Cason would be watching my baby.

We have evolved. There's no denying it. And so has our relationship -- enough for him to include my daughter from another marriage in his life. No one feels left out. Not Elke. Not Jake. Not even Cason.

"How'd it go?" I asked Cason when I picked them up.

"Like riding a bike."

"Mommy, Is Elke sleeping over?" Jake asked as we walked to the car.

"Not tonight, love," I said. "We're going home."

"Can she sleep over one day?"

"Yes, love. When she's bigger."

And I'm sure one day, she would.

Running, Running, Running

2009-06-25T09:05:00.000-07:00

Today was the first day I ran for 30 minutes straight since I've been getting back to working out. Because, yes, my Mummy Tummy Watch is still very much on. There were a few amazing songs on my iPod shuffle, particularly Sheryl Crow's "Out of Our Heads" (If we could only get out of our heads... and into our hearts...) that pushed me. I even sprinted at the end. Waving to the mailman as I ran my way down the street. My face flushed and sweaty. My cheeks bouncy and red.

I came home to run somewhere else. Andy's kids (he's a teacher) were graduating today and he wanted us to come into the city to join in the celebration. Apparently the girls were hell-bent on seeing baby girl. It was a lovely gesture. A short visit though. A quick meet and greet.

Here's the thing. Jake was busy in his room playing Lego's/dentist/Star Wars. What does this mean? Han Solo was getting his teeth cleaned. Most importantly, Jake was finally playing by himself after four straight days of serious adult entertainment.

Elke was sucking on her Whoozit. Ali, my babysitter, was here. Would have been a great time to work and write. Download material into new Macbook. Shop for a bathing suit online (because God only knows I don't want to try one on in a store).

I knew about this graduation for weeks. But now, it just seemed so difficult to get to. Too many schedules to juggle. To many people to please. And look, finally how happy is everyone playing by themselves.

I called Andy to see how important our presence really was.

"So you want us to come in for about a half an hour?" I asked. (Takes 30-45 minutes to get to Chelsea, the neighborhood in Manhattan where he works. Which meant we'd drive for an hour to an hour and a half to stay for 30 minutes.)

"We're going out for tapas afterwards - me and some other teachers. Not sure if Jake wants to sit with a bunch of adults."

"Is there a better time to come in?"

"Don't worry about it, hon," he said. "It's too much."

Oh, Lord. I did it. Don't worry about it = disappointed.

Since last week I've been running. Andy was away in Kansas at a special education conference for five days. Running four times to dog hospital down the Jersey Shore for Daisy's surgery. Running to Long Island for Father's Day. Running to Jake's school for last day of class parties and saying good-bye to pre-k. Next day running with Elke back and forth for Jake's "move up" day ceremony when he gets to meet new teacher for next year.

We've all had those weeks. We've all had those months. Just so much running. Did I mention the UTI and the stomach bug that came simultaneously at the beginning of the week?

And then to think that I need to run to clear my head of all the friggin' running. (If we could only get out of our heads...) When do I get to stop?

So I felt guilty. Andy's a great teacher. The kind that walks over the Brooklyn Bridge with kids just to talk. The kind who takes kids to see Spiderman 3 just because.

I wanted him to have his family's support on graduation day. Especially since these kids all gave the baby so many presents. Teething rings. Posters. Toys. Cards. He's proud of his little girl.

I jumped in the shower, dragged Jake away from giving Han Solo a root canal and got in the car. Texted Andy, "We're on the way in." Zoomed to the highway.

"Come tomorrow," he said when he called back. "I've got kids for one more day. You'll come into the school. It'll be a great distraction. Then the four of us will go out for lunch."

"Are you sure?"

"You've been doing a lot of running around. I totally understand."

So I turned around. Dropped children to babysitter who took them to the park.

I found my hour. No longer running.

Recharging.

Let's Talk About The Gosselins

2009-06-24T05:49:00.000-07:00

Okay, I hate doing this, but I can't help but be consumed like the rest of the world about Jon and Kate Gosselin.

I've been through a divorce. I know how it affects one child. Jake was 18 months when my ex and I split. He was a late talker. Just a few words, really. Cason used to work in the basement. Carpentry projects. Jake would bang on the basement door and say, "Da-da." Cason would walk up the stairs, say hello, a few kisses and hugs, then go back down.

A few days after Cason moved out, Jake walked up to the basement door and asked for Da-da. "Da-da's not here, honey," I said. My eyes tearing up. Me looking away, not wanting to face my young son, my baby. How do you tell a baby that his mom and dad are never going to be together again?

We had two days of Jake looking for Da-da in the basement, and then he stopped. Toddlers live in the moment. If someone disappears from their radar, they move on. Not that Jake didn't build a relationship with his father up to that point, because he did. They played guitar. They hammered nails. They did puzzles. But Jake quickly accepted that Da-da was not in the basement. That he wasn't in the house.

Now the Gosselins. What's it like to have eight children asking where Daddy is? Though the Gosselins have proven to be overall shitty parents (Who puts their kids on TV? I don't care how much money they're getting, sorry.), they still love their kids. They're going to try to talk to them rationally about the separation. About Daddy no longer living in the house. About switching out parents on weekends, because I'm guessing they're not going to shuttle eight children every other weekend like the rest of us divorced parents.

I find myself fascinated by the logistics of it all. Do you tell each child at once? Do you tell them as a gang? How do two people console eight children? Dealing with one emotional child is enough to make your heart sink. But times eight? It overwhelms me.

The children will move on. They'll accept that Mommy and Daddy might not love each other, but they love the kids. And the children have each other. There are lots of shoulders to cry on in that family. Sixteen of them.

The kids will recover from the divorce. Will they recover from their lives being taped from the time they were babies? Probably not.

I'm a Mutt

2009-06-23T11:43:00.000-07:00

It's not really about my last name. Sure, I can make jokes that looking at the class list for Jake's new kindergarten class and not seeing my last name there makes me want to call up the secretary and have the list changed. Krischer. I'm a Krischer.

But am I?

If my daughter is an Adler, and my son is a Fentress, then that makes me a mutt. A Krischer, Adler, Fentress mutt.

I love my Daisy mutt. Got her in Brooklyn 10 years ago. She had the sweetest profile. I remember eye lashes. Do dogs have luxurious eye lashes? Daisy did. This is what I remember. Dark eyes, a sweet little face pressed up against the pavement. Them telling me that 15 other people had signed up to take her. "I have a backyard," I told her adopted parents. Then I smiled. Signed the papers. Got the girl out of Brooklyn and into the 'burbs.

When Daisy first started going to the vet, we called her Fentress-Krischer. Then that changed. When she had her operation the other day (torn ACL - she's doing fine) and Andy picked her up, I realized he'd be getting her under the name Krischer. It's not something that Andy cares much about. He teased me once or twice about not taking his last name. His other sister-in-laws have taken the last name Adler. Maybe if things were different. Maybe if Jake was also an Adler. But maybe not. Filling out legal documents isn't really my thing.

My ex suggested the other day that maybe Jake would want to be a Krischer-Fentress. It's not necessary, I told him. Both my kids have different last names from each other and me because they just... do. Not the first time I've written about the kids having different last names, and not the last time it'll come either.

So my dog is a Krischer. A mutt. Just like me.

To My Son And Daughter About Their Fathers:

2009-06-20T09:12:00.001-07:00

To you, my boy, I never thought he'd love you like his own.

And do what other children only wished their own fathers would do. That includes reading books about pooping. And reading books to you while you're pooping.

To you, my sweet girl, I never doubted his tenderness, but I never thought he'd be so undaunted.

To you my boy, I never thought he'd be such a wonderful father. And do things with you that he always wanted to do with a boy.

I never thought we'd have each other. And that means all of us.
Some children have no fathers to speak of. And you have two. Very different dads.
One quiet and gentle. One who glides over ice and glides over keys. The other who rocks and dances, and plays and laughs. Squeezing life as if there aren't enough drops. Just one more drop.

You my sweet girl, you have one daddy.
But your dad's love of life, well... it's like having two fathers. And just wait until you're old enough to see him dance. Your brother's dad is not yours to speak of, but maybe sleepovers won't be out of the question when you're older.

As he already said, "She's Jake's sister, after all."
Thank you, men. For being fathers to both of my children. Happy Father's Day.

Now go do your yoga.

Two Rocks

2009-06-18T08:29:00.000-07:00

Jake came home the other day from before care (a morning childcare program that Jake goes to a few times a week) to tell me what the kids made for Father's Day.

"Rocks," he said. "And we painted them."

Nice, I thought. So we'd give Cason a painted rock as well as the infamous, magical Touch n' Brush for Father's Day.

"Everyone made one," he said. "But I made two. For Dad and for Andy."

Of course, this made my heart stir. Look, all Andy really wants for Father's Day is to be able to go to his yoga class. And yes, Andy has his own biological child now to give him a Father's Day gift. While that gift might merely be a soggy diaper, she's all his.

But in a blended family, you want both the biological parent and the stepparent to be celebrated. And with or without the stupid rock -- they will be. Cason was even kind enough to offer to share Father's Day. Morning breakfast with Jake at iHop with his Dad. Afternoon barbecue at Andy's sister's house with stepdad.

So I thought more about the two rocks. Was Jake really evolved enough to want to create two Father's Day gifts on his own? He's adorable and sweet... but he's five.

"Whose idea was it to make two rocks, honey?" I asked.

"My teacher," he said. "She passed out rocks to everyone, but to me she said, 'You get two.'"

God, I love those before-care teachers. It was incredibly thoughtful to include Andy. Typically, the stepparent gets the shorter end of the stick. And it must hurt. Andy gives everything to my child. As if Jake is his own. Clearly, they recognized how important Andy was in Jake's world and helped Jake express it through... rock art.

When Jake came home yesterday from pre-k with more Father's Day presents, he came home with one rock. Let me just say, Andy doesn't need no stinkin' rock to tell him how much Jake means to him. (Second, who knew rocks were such a hot commodity?) Still, there's something about this that bothers me. Jake's pre-k teacher is aware of our family. She's met Andy a number of times and Jake even made this remarkable family picture in her class. (Isn't it amazing how he included all of us? Even Elke, before she was born? It blows my mind every time I look at it.) Clearly, Andy is very tall, very red, small-headed and consists of only two lines. How can you not make this man a rock?

Okay, fine. So the pre-k teacher didn't have Jake make a second rock. (And since we have three rocks now, it really is okay.)

But don't you just love the teacher who did?

The Best Cure For Divorce?

2009-06-16T10:27:00.000-07:00

I got hooked to the idea of surfing when I was 13. A boy serenaded me on the phone with "Surfer Girl" and then inscribed in my year book, "See you down the shore, surfer girl." He was smitten with me and I was smitten with the idea of surfing.

Years later, I still was attracted to surfers. Todd who I used to drive down the shore with his board on the roof of my car. Dean with the blue eyes who worked at the gas station to save enough money for a surf trip to Mexico.

When I moved to San Francisco, I found more surfers. I moved to a neighborhood called, "The Sunset" for God sakes. I'd even sit at Ocean Beach enviously watching people zip up their wetsuits and run into the water. Still, I never had the courage to get on a board. Even with my strong fascination, I saw the ocean as a giant moving monster. So instead, I saved it for the men in my life.

During a weekend in Santa Cruz with some friends, my surfer-friend Dave Seabury (who I secretly wished was my boyfriend), dared me to stop gawking from the shore.

A wave would rise and I’d lift my chest, swallow some salt water, spit it out, and trudge on again. You can do this, I told myself. Then, I imagined myself falling off the board, the board smacking me in the head, and drowning while unconscious.

I rode the wave on my belly back to land.

“What happened?” Dave asked. “You were about to get up!”

“I’m too scared,” I said, and plodded back to my towel thinking more The Poseidon Adventure (and I mean the original) than The Endless Summer.

After that humiliation, I was done idolizing surfers. I was done dreaming someone would sing Surfer Girl to me again. I missed my family, none of whom surfed, and moved back to New Jersey.

Back in New Jersey, I met Cason. He liked land, loved sailing, hated the word ‘dude,’ and even ridiculed the skate park opening in our small suburban town. “Where do they think we are, Southern California?” he asked. I had given myself a powerful surfer exorcism.

Maybe it was his love of being on top of the water when I wanted to be submerged. But eventually, we separated. During the time leading up to our divorce, I'd drive down to the Jersey Shore and plunk myself onto the beach, staring out at the waves, wondering when I’d allow myself a turn. I was a strong woman. What was stopping me?

I analyzed my strengths:
a) Fixed detached gutters during rainstorms
b) Delivered Jake through natural childbirth.

Anyone who has pushed a child through the dreaded ring of fire knows I didn't need to go any further with my list. Here's what I had to do: stop waiting for a man to call me surfer girl. If I wanted to surf -- then what the hell was I waiting for?

When my father offered to take Jake and me on a middle-of-divorce-craziness trip to Maui - I of course said, yes.

I waited until the last day of the trip, then signed up for a surf lesson. “Mommy’s going surfing!” I told Jake and left him with my dad to splash in the pool.

My instructor, Twolia, was a beautiful Asian woman with a tight, black wet suit top and tiny bikini bottoms. Holding a board on her head, she walked towards me with her seven-year-old son in tow. He balanced a surfboard on his head.

“Do you surf with your son?” I asked.

“Oh, he taught himself to surf when he was four,” she said.

I imagined Jake surfing at the Jersey Shore, his curly hair wet and salty from the water, and kept going.

The horizon was filled with surfers when Twolia and I climbed down a cluster of large rocks to get into the water, then paddled out. I was excited, more so than afraid, and held the board close to my body.

“See the shadow in the distance,” Twoila said. “That’s your wave coming.”

I pulled my body to the back of the board as she instructed and dug ferociously into the water to reach it. Just as the wave propelled me ahead, Twoila yelled, “Stand up!” and my body elevated above the board. Balance kicked in, and I stood.

My stomach turned, and my body rose as the wave drove ahead. I bent my knees and looked to the mountainous landscape that circled the beach, then allowed it to sink me back into the water once the wave dropped out. The board rash across my right thigh was my battle scar.

I thought of the surfer boys from my past. Even my non-surfing ex-husband. None of them would have expected me to surf. And why should they have? I had always been the girl on the shore unwilling to dive in.

Not anymore. Now I was more than a surfer girl. I was a surfer.

What else did I learn? You can always stand up.

Maybe He'll Be A Comedian

2009-06-15T19:33:00.000-07:00

Jake: Mommy, why did you marry Andy?

Me: Because I love him.

Jake: No, you don't.

Me: Yes, I do.

Jake: Why else?

Me: Because he's funny. Remember how I told you it's okay for someone to say you're funny? That you could say "thank you" instead of yelling, "NOT FUNNY" when someone says you're funny.

Jake: [Thinking] Yes.

Me: One of the reasons I love Andy is because he's so funny. It's also one of the reasons I like your dad, because he's funny.

[Jake falls on floor laughing.]

I guess I'm funny too.

He's With His Father

2009-06-14T09:05:00.000-07:00

Oh, I spent a quarter of our drive home from our barbecue in Brooklyn yesterday crying in the car. You see, even if my child is being fresh by telling me so rudely, "I'm mad at you, Mommy, you're not my Mom," because I won't let him have chocolate milk for breakfast, I miss him. I miss him, I miss him, I miss him. It hurts my brain and my body how much I miss him. And when we're at a barbecue in Park Slope with other children his own age, I miss him more.

I know he's having a wonderful time with his dad. They went bike riding. They went to baseball practice. They built Lego houses. But you know what? He's not with me.

Look, this is a thing that divorced parents and their kids have to deal with. Sometimes your kid is going to be with the other person and you're going to walk into his bedroom at 8pm wishing he was home. You'll make his bed, even though you're trying to get him to make his bed on his own. You'll put his stuffed animals that he forgot to take to his dad's house neatly in a row on the pillow. You'll clean up his Star Wars action figures, even though, yes, you're trying to get him to clean his own room. And you'll pace some more. And you'll cry. And you hope that he's not missing you as much as you're missing him, because if he is, it'll break your heart. And though you've been doing this for four years already, you'll never get used to it. Never. Never. Never.

"Can you try to think of it as some time to yourself?" my girlfriend said. "Every other mother on the planet just wants more time. Now, look, here you have some."

"I could," I said, "except that because it's every other weekend, it feels so unnatural. Everyone else has their kids at home driving them crazy, and I have the weekend off. It's just not right. It feels wrong." Not that Jake doesn't have sleepovers with his Nonnie and his Uncle David. (And I miss him then too.) He's in Pre-K. I'm away from him for most of the day. But it's not the same when he's with his dad.

It's about having to share him with someone else -- someone who doesn't live in my house.

I have the BETTER end of the bargain. I get Jake 75 percent of the time. Cason gets him every other weekend for a night and one to two days out of the week. (Custody arrangements were for the entire weekend, but Jake started asking to come home early. Thanks to Cason and his flexibility, Jake now goes there Saturday to Sunday right now.)

But this weekend was not my weekend. And this is how it goes when talking to someone who doesn't know us at said barbecue in Park Slope:

New Person: Congratulations on your new baby!

Me: Thank you. [I kiss Elke on the temple]

New Person: Just wait until she's six months. She'll grow into a totally new person.

Me: Oh, I know. I have a five-year-old.

New Person: Oh. [Looking around] Where is he?

Me: He's with his father.

New Person looks at Andy, assuming that Andy was the ONLY dad, but now realizes that's not the case. I nod, grab a chip and make my way into another room. I'm sorry, I don't know how to segue from that unless I spill my guts about our family, and I just don't feel like doing that every time I meet someone new. So I walk away. Me and New Person can bond over brownies at the end of the barbecue. I try to think about something else. About my beautiful daughter. Or about tomorrow, that Jake will be home tomorrow. I try to talk to other adults about anything but children.

In the car ride home, I called Jake to say goodnight and suggested an iChat to Cason. We had never done one, but he agreed.

"An iChat?" Andy said, when I got off the phone. "You're going to see Jake tomorrow."

"Let's say Elke was at someone's house every other weekend until she was 18. Wouldn't you miss her?" I asked.

He looked back at her, sleeping in her little baby seat and nodded.

"Just because I don't tell you anymore how much I miss him, it doesn't mean that I don't think about him all the time," I said.

"So do the iChat, then," Andy said. "It'll make you feel better."

(Side note in Andy's defense to anyone at all thinking he's being insensitive - which he'll readily admit to at any other time in his life, but this time, that's not the case. Andy is a FULL ON stepdaddy with Jake. Jake is in that I-don't-want-you-Mommy-all-I-want-is-Andy-and-that-includes-him-wiping-my-ass phase. So when Andy gets a break from Jake, he takes it. He rests so that he can wrestle for three hours straight, then play Mario Kart Wii, then wrestle again, then read four books as Jake sits on the potty and will not let anyone read to him while making a poop except Andy.)

So this morning, we set up an iChat with Jake. And he loved it. "No, stay!" Jake said as I was signing off. "I'll see you at the birthday party later. Your dad is taking you there and I'm picking you up. Okay, honey?"

Then my adorable son played peek-a-boo with his sister on iChat. And told me a few bad knock-knock jokes. I blew kisses to the computer. He blew them back.

Last night when he was back in bed at home, I smothered him with kisses to which he covered his face, then hugged me in a death-like choke hold. My boy was back in his bed.

And there we go... the weekend's over.