Mad for Mad Men

I love the television program “Mad Men” for as many inexplicable reasons as its complicated story lines.

First, Don Draper is hot! That is once I can get past the thought that he resembles my dad in his high school football player photos. Second, Joan the receptionist is real — a strong woman at work, a weak one at expressing her needs in her relationship, and one of the only women on television that you can admire for not looking like a half-starved refugee from an Edvard Munch painting. Third, NOBODY is socially aware at home or at work which makes for an enticingly ignorant way of life.

In Betty Draper’s world, a wife and mother are NOT expected to do it all.

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Oh, Shit. An Eco-Friendly Bag that Can Not Be Reused

When I used to think about shit in a bag, I would envision some evil teen schoolmate running away from a hated neighbor’s door, with the bag engulfed in flames on the door mat. Obvious signs of boredom in the sleepy desert town that I grew up in.

Now I have a different vision. Continue… »

My Son The Sport Savant

My son Jack may be a savant. Don’t immediately think “Rain Man”; think more Madden. Jack is 4 1/2 and has an extreme fascination with football.

I can’t figure out the connection. Both of his parents are well versed in the sport and are fans to a certain level (somewhere less than face painting) but we certainly haven’t had any time or energy to devote to building our own knowledge of the sport, let alone creating a prodigy.

He can recite scores — both as they happen, as well as some that happened months ago. He knows the names and purposes of all positions both offense and defense. He has favorite players, jerseys of favorite players, names of favorite players, great plays of favorite players, all colors of teams, all names of teams, all mascots.

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Life’s Most Important Lessons Come from Children

It is flu season, again. My son, Jack, is as sick as he has ever been in all of his four and a half years. Not as intense as when he had RSV as a baby, but in his older age, he fooled me into expecting that every sickness lasts only one day and that none of them confine him to the couch. This is day five of the fever that is burning up his energy and still has him prone.

Sometimes a retired-by-motherhood scientist has more information about disease than the average mom should know. I naively entered the science profession with the hope of minimizing suffering and ultimately reaching the holy grail of defeating a disease; eradicating it from the population. When my kids are sick, I keep going to bad places in my mind discovered in my ex-profession, like pneumonia, drug resistant bacteria, cancer, cancer, cancer. . . 

At my first job in the Bay Area, I signed up to volunteer at the hospital, reading books to children in the ICU. They were the helpless ones from birth to seventeen who had very serious diseases and were forced to stay in a sterilized environment every day. I thought that I would be able to go to their room and smile and read and talk and help them feel not so alone.

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Remove Glasses, Watch Wrinkles Disappear!

It wasn’t like birthing a child when your life changes in an instant.

It was more gradual. I couldn’t read street signs at night. I needed to move closer to the front in dance class to learn the steps. I couldn’t make out facial expressions on the television from the couch.

I was relatively young in my twenties, when I thought that personal image still mattered, so I tried to push away the image of Sally Jessy Raphael and scheduled an appointment for an eye exam.

Two weeks after all of the optometry tests with the weird conflicted pirate machinery (“Is this one or that one better?”) I came home and looked at the new me in the mirror.

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Flying with Children is the Opposite of Silence

Taking young children on an airplane compares to somewhere between having your fingernails ripped out one by one and having them ripped out all at once.

You should probably get exponential bonus miles for flying anywhere in the two rows surrounding young children. Or, at least free drinks. It is only just.

Before I had kids, I will refer to this henceforth as the “Age of Innocence,” I would scowl at the surrounding kids, harrumph at the parents and sometimes, like in the case of the seat-kicking kid all the way to Washington D.C., suggest that the parent do something.

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We Wuv When They’re So Cute and Huggly

My son is only hugs years old and yet he has mastered the complex emotional satisfaction of a hug.

Jacob has a language delay that basically means his words lack articulation, so when he says anything clearly — I am thrilled.

One week ago he began to say, “Give hug” as he walked towards me, arms open, and squeezed with emphasis upon contact. I equated this to modeling and that he was just hugging because he sees others do it, including me to him about twenty times a day.

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MOM ALERT! Former Physicist Has Found a Way to Create Time

I have gained a scant bit of time by using recorded television to my advantage.  Call it TIVO, DVR, whatever – I call it a time machine.

Granted, I don’t watch much television to begin with — two minutes of weather and news in the morning, and nothing for the rest of the day.  But, roughly half of the nights of the week, after the kids are tucked in bed, I settle down in front of the tube to give my brain what it needs — a well-deserved break from thinking, organizing and avoiding content inappropriate for children: bring on the murder, scary monsters and scantily clad adults, all so long as they are NOT animated.

Sure, I am a day or more behind knowing who got booted from Project Runway or what character got offed on CSI but this doesn’t affect a mother of two who rarely speaks to adults, especially those who may reveal some sort of cliffhanger. 

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Oh, So Damn Bitchy

When I was in tenth grade, hanging out with a friend, she made a statement to a fellow classmate that I cannot remember and then she made one that I have incorporated into life.

“It’s nothing toward you, I just feel like being bitchy today.”

This was a novel thought to me.

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A Mama Contemplates Her Karma

As I knocked over the salt shaker for the second time today it occurred to me that maybe I haven’t manipulated my luck possibilities. Maybe the reason I had a colicky baby is because I chose not to forward that e-mail five years ago to all of the people that I know. Or the reason that I had a second colicky baby was because I couldn’t remember which shoulder I was supposed to throw the spilt salt over.

Maybe the reason my second son only slept for a string of thirty minutes at a time twice a day until he was two-years old when he stopped napping altogether was because I chased his older brother under that ladder when daddy was painting the house.

Now that I think about it I saw a broken mirror in front of my house once. Is this seven years by way of association?

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