You’ve Got a Friend

My daughter is the same age I was when I met my best friend.

Amy had just moved to Connecticut from Brooklyn. She arrived in September and was a curiosity to most of us. Amy had a New York accent, dressed more fashionably and moved more quickly. Her birthday was in October so she smartly had a party that month. Some of my friends had gotten to know her and I of yet had not.

Amy came right up to me and said, “Hey, you’re Dawn, right?” I nodded. “I heard you’re nice. Want to come to my party?” Yes! Amy’s party was a blast and soon she was the most popular girl at Nathan Hale Middle School. It happened so fast. Then, just as quickly, she was not.

It seemed less people wanted to talk to her and soon nobody did. I watched the other kids who once were so attracted to Amy suddenly ignore her. I thought they were mean. When I saw Amy crying I walked up to her and said, “Don’t worry. I’ll be your friend.” “Really?” she asked cautiously. “Yeah,” I said. “Let’s skip lunch.” Continue… »

Supermarket Parenting

I was doing my weekly schlep to Whole Foods when I noticed something. It was not the new mango-wasabi-beet foam reduction organic chutney for $10.99. Though ordinarily that would capture my attention.

No, it was the sheer proliferation of mothers with twin babies in dual strollers. These mighty mamas were pushing their progeny with one hand in front while behind their backs they lugged shopping carts. Each with that look of utter mommy determination in their eyes. Continue… »

Could You Survive After Being Shot 15 Times?

Abelina Magana knows something you and me will never know.

She was shot 15 times and lived to tell.

During the nearly half-hour it took her husband to shoot her repeatedly, she thought only of her three children. The last words she remembered saying to her daughter were: “Mommy will be okay.”

Abelina awoke about a week later in the hospital. Tubes covered nearly every orifice of her body. During her almost yearlong stay in the sterile institution, she was told she would never breathe on her own. She did. They said Abelina would never feel below her neck. Today she can move her arms and has sensation in her toes. They said more than once that she would die. Continue… »

What’s for Lunch?

Every day now for years I have packed a school lunch for my daughter.

I’ve struggled with making sure the food is healthy, varietal and yummy. Each day her lunchbox would come home with remnants of what I had so carefully and lovingly put together. She had a request: Could she get a hot meal from school, just like ALL of her friends did?

Hot lunches are pricey. While everything does have a cost, I thought this might actually be worth it. I could save money because I would be preserving my sanity. I looked over the printed monthly lunch menu. Why it was a cornucopia of treats, delights and no work on my part, save for writing a check. Continue… »

The DNA of Love

I’ve had the crud for more than a month now. It’s become a way of life.

Headache. Tummy torment. Vomit. A valley of frogs in my throat that gives me a hint of what I might sound like if I were to undergo sexual reassignment surgery.

Miraculously it has not affected my husband. He is Superman fighting off illness in a single bound. Son Jay who was always claiming to have some exotic disease when he was younger has grown out of that stage. Now he prefers to go into extraordinary detail about medical diseases in all of their gross glory. Continue… »

How to Find a Big Deal

In a former life I was a bargain shopper.

That was my job. I would write about and appear on TV to talk about sales. My bestselling guide was called The Joy of Outlet Shopping.

And it was a joy. Shopping. Saving money.

Then I had kids. I have never over-spent so much in my life.

But things are changing. With the advent of smart phones a bargain is right on my phone. How great is that? Continue… »

Would YOU Sell Your Soul to Write

After writing full-time at a news wire service in San Francisco I decided to move to New York City and become a full-time freelance writer.

My only writing connection was to a new women’s magazine that had changed its name from Feeling Great! to Feeling Good!

Genius.

The editor guaranteed me (alright, I begged) one article a month. That paid the rent on my 397-square foot studio.

Heat, food, clothing, clubs, and other essentials I would have to pay for through additional writing.

At a party with far more successful friends than I, was a writer who had graduated from Andover, Harvard and Yale. I know because he mentioned them as often as he did his name. Sometimes, I thought they were his name.

He said he was making money as a freelance writer so I asked him how he did it.

“Porn,” he said, downing bourbon straight up. Yep. A Yalie. Continue… »

So Not a Party Planner

Once again it is that time of the year. Which means it is two months past my daughter’s birthday.

She was born at the end of July however her birthday party (party being the ONLY thing that matters) is the first Sunday in October.

Who should I invite?

My personal feeling is to include everyone in her class, friends from her former classes and friends she’s had since she was three. Mimi is now nine (and two months).

Finally, I got it together, went on Evite, picked a “card” that she approved and wrote engaging copy. It did have a certain rhythm. Catchy! Inviting! Who could refuse?

Well, it’s one day and already I’m nervous. I invited more than forty kids! I’m so insane. It’s that not wanting someone to feel bad thing that I’ve been dealing with for years in therapy.

So now it’s more than twenty-four hours since I sent the Evite and I’ve only received five responses (all positive). What if the other thirty-five don’t respond? Worse – what if they do? How am I going to fit forty screaming kids into a small pizza parlor?!?!?!?! Continue… »

Let’s All Whine Together!

My daughter loves to whine. When she does so she accompanies it with jerky body movements that some might think could be a new dance.

One shoulder slumps down, the other back, while her arms flail in front of her. This is accompanied by a chorus of, “I don’t want to. No. I don’t want to. No. I don’t want to. N-o-o-o-!”

Can you feel the beat? The girls got rhythm. And something else – an ability to drive me insane.

When my 8-year old is rockin’ out to her whines and throwing her body in all directions, it causes me to do the same only in an adult manner

“STOP. NOW. I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANYMORE WHINING.”
Continue… »