My Articles:
How Movies Put EVERYTHING into Perspective
Blood Diamond.
I stagger out of the movie theater with the newfound certainty that my life is pointless.
Why write blogs about my kids’ aggravating but endearing traits when African children are being snatched from their mothers’ arms and forced to commit unimaginable atrocities just to stay alive?
It seems indecent to obsess about SAT scores or worry about underage drinking in light of such horrors.
Mother’s Milk Saves Son & Others
When my son Nicolas was born at twenty-seven weeks, he weighed two pounds, had jaundice, and was too weak to cry. For ten weeks he lay in a high-tech womb that we euphemistically called an incubator. I was permitted to hold him for one hour per day, then longer as he grew stronger.
Our skin-to-skin contact was essential for our emotional survival, and it caused my breasts to swell and leak. A mother’s milk usually comes in right after giving birth, no matter how prematurely. The trick for we moms of preemies is to keep the milk flowing.
If I hoped to breast-feed Nicolas one day, I would have to pump, a lot. I lugged home an industrial-sized breast pump, and the hospital provided me with an ample supply of yellow-capped, seventy-milliliter bottles.
Diaper Genie in the Bottle
Late last night, I got into a domestic dispute with the Diaper Genie, and the result wasn’t pretty.
Well, I trooped outside to the curb in my flimsy pajamas and raised one of the trash lids half-way. I then pressed the magic button on the Diaper Genie and, like linked soccer balls, they rolled out into the trash.
PrePregnancyFriends
My old friends and little sisters are thinking about getting pregnant.
I am mother to a three-year-old boy. They are getting Ph.D.’s, attending law school, and going to the gym.
They are very busy.
I am playing with motorcycle guys, building train villages, and possibly taking a shower.
My Husband, the Father I Never Had
I watched my husband, Keith, brush the hair away from my five-year-old daughter’s forehead last night as he read her Pirate ABCs. His voice growled as he did his best Johnny Depp impression. Miranda nestled next to his chest, looked up at him, smiled and snuggled closer.
I walked out of the room, tears welling in my eyes. My dad never read me a bedtime story. Not once. That wasn’t our bedtime ritual. Even though I was only six, I remember it clearly.
You see, Lyle Dennison didn’t read to his kids. He he was too busy being an Oakland cop. And when the job had been too much for him, he was busy hoisting a few Manhattans at the neighborhood tavern.
Everyday is a Child’s Birthday
What if I treated each day like my son’s birthday?
I am not talking about presents, balloons, and birthday candles — though I enjoy such symbols of celebration. I am addressing the way I admire my son’s every expression on his birthday as if he were a newborn — the way he wakes up and notices the light lining the shades, the long eyelashes that he shares with my dad, the way his unkempt hair reminds me that I cannot yet bear to have anyone besides me trim his curls, the way he says, “Remember when we went on a walk to Phoenix Lake, Mommy? Remember that? Let’s do that again sometime.”
This year, for his actual birthday morning, I imagine a mommy, son, and Nana outing to Crissy Field where he can ride his new bike, followed by grilled cheese and hot chocolate, but my son doesn’t want to leave the house on a cozy December morning.
My son and I weave trains up and down a mountain as my mom watches from the nearby couch. Usually, I might grow restless after hours of indoor play, but today I am engaged in each moment and lose any trace of agenda.
China, Get Your Adoption Shit Together
When you think about it – China has always been an anomaly.
A power-hungry, deeply insecure and insanely controlling government that actually cared enough about their parent-less children to give them to those who deeply longed to be their parents.
Not anymore.
Now the government is saying that with some sixty-five hundred Chinese children adopted annually, they are running out of babies and kids to give away.
Mother Defers Her Friends for Her Son’s
“I’m not like THEM,” you complain to your husband as you head to your son’s game. “I need some alone time.”
“Yeah,” he shrugs, checking his Home Depot list. You refrain from asking why he’s doing this project now when you were hoping he’d handle baseball detail. “Some people are better at deferring.”
You repeat this to yourself as you sit on the bleachers, trying to act like you’re following a play. You say hi to some new parents, smile, ask them questions. They answer minimally, eyes tracking the players, apparently fascinated by something. They mention ref’s calls, sight rules of the game. Then the woman turns back to her Sudoku while the guy inserts one iPod ear bud, leaving the other to dangle over his designer T-shirt. He continues to survey the field, texting absent-mindedly.
Ya Got Two Kids Which Means. . .
**Giving each child half a mother.
**Shortchanging one almost all of the time.
**Putting the younger in the line of fire of an emotionally immature and unstable boss.
**Breaking up a tug of war over a favorite toy 12 times a day.
**Trying not to laugh when the little one ruins the older one’s elaborate tower of blocks and then looks at me and smiles.
**Consoling the little one when the older one tells him to “Go away!”
**Never having any time for yourself.
**Hearing them giggle every morning in the room they share.
**Satisfaction in knowing that they have each other.
**Being immersed in motherhood. One kid was dabbling.
**Crazy — what were we thinking?
**Lucky — we were thinking one of each would be nice.
**A family, one was an accessory.
**Holding them both in my arms and knowing I need nothing else.
**The little one adoring the older one.
**The older one adoring the little one, when it occurs to her.
**Seeing them smile at each other like they never do at anyone else.
**The older one teaching the little one how to play their new game.
**The older one reading to the little one.
**The little one watching every move the older one makes and trying to imitate her.
**The older one muscling in whenever the baby is getting attention and succeeding.
**Ganging up on Mom.
**A second chance to parent without nearly as much anxiety and paranoia.
**Watching the two of them run across the room to give each other a hug.
**Knowing that you love them both equally, but it was having your first that turned on a special light deep down inside you.
**The younger one keeping that flame going, when you think you have nothing more to give.
**Knowing that your second will never receive the massive amount and intense quality of attention that your first did, though you really, really try.
**Finally forgiving your own mother if you were a second child.
By Meeta Arcuri
Mother Murders Her Annoying Cat
Binkley was a mean cat, the kind who lives forever out of spite.
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