It Takes a Village (and a few margaritas)

A few nights ago, I met a group of mothers for a much needed round of drinks while we waited for our kids to finish rehearsal. Our 'drama mom community' has had an unusually high rate of life stresses lately, experiencing everything from brain tumors to husbands with cancer to parents passing away, so in between dealing with sleep-deprived teenagers and organizing meals for the families in crisis, we decided we needed a bit of R&R. Since jetting off to Aruba wasn't an option, we picked the next best thing - the bar at the local mexican restaurant.

It was a much-needed reminder for me, at least, of how beautifully women connect. Not all the moms knew each other, but after a few minutes of introductory small talk, we got right into the important stuff - opening up about how stressful it's been, comforting the moms who'd lost parents, talking about medical histories, and sharing our fears and concerns about our friends going through surgery and chemo. But in between the heavy moments, we also commiserated about perimenopause, made fun of our husbands and ex-husbands, and told embarrassing anecdotes about our kids. (I thought I'd struck comedy gold with the story of how I spent the weekend helping my younger son needlepoint the Guatemalan flag - don't ask - but one friend topped us all by relating a particularly bad argument about leaving shoes out with her 11-year-old, where the mom eventually threw the shoes . . "Not intentionally at her, and besides only one shoe actually hit her!")

We laughed, cried, and all split one more margarita (between middle-aged bladders, sleep-deprivation and lowered alcohol tolerance, a drink and a quarter each was all we could handle!) And I was reminded of that scene in Steel Magnolias at Shelby's funeral, where the women bond through tears and then laughter. Men may have a number of advantages over us, ranging from higher earnings to no lines in public restrooms, but they don't provide each other the same kind of village. So here's to all the mom communities we form, to all the women who help each other out, and to the healing power of a margarita!

Romance Novels

I'm a huge fan of Jane Austen, historical fiction, romance novels - any glimpse of that alternate reality where love trumps everything and couples don't have to bother with the messy details of normal life. (I always loved how Elinor Dashwood's family was considered poor because they only had two full time servants.) I also collect vintage novels from 1900-1930, which are a wonderful glimpse at social customs and fashions - and in which the virginal heroines are oblivious to boys, other than as friends, until true love hits them and they marry the men of their dreams. And the modern-day beach novel is always a fun escape - characters in Judith Krantz and Nora Roberts books are always 'flame-haired slender beauties' who never have to diet because they're too busy jet-setting to polo matches and international conferences.

The modern romance novel, according to Wikipedia, was officially born in 1972 with a book called Flame & Flower, the first 'category romance' to be published in paperback. Since then, romance has become big business. Harlequin sells 4 books per SECOND! (which is an awful lot of windswept cliffs, heaving bosoms, and manly chests). But I beg to differ - I recently discovered a vintage novel from 1921, The Sheik, which I'd read was the inspiration for the Rudolph Valentino silent movies (as well as the inspiration for an attempted early morning romp with husband 2.0 - but that's another story).

Reading the book today is a hoot - Diana, our intrepid heroine, is immune to love and prefers big game hunting and exotic travel. Against everyone's advice, she sets out to explore the Saharan desert, but before she left, her stunning beauty caught the eye of a wealthy Sheik, who decides to bribe her caravan leader so he can capture Diana for his harem. Diana is astounded to find that Ahmed is surprisingly clean for a heathen (she comments several times on his manicured nails), and his large tent is sumptuously appointed with silk divans, priceless rugs, and a fully equipped bathroom. Still, she resists him and loathes him until one day she loves him. After a brief interlude where she is captured by a rival sheik and rescued, Ahmed turns out to be an English nobleman who was adopted by a sheik. So now it's okay for Diana to confess her love and they end up living happily ever after in the oasis, with occasional visits to their country estate. (Oh, and although the Sheik forced Diana to share his boudoir for several weeks, apparently all he'd taken from her was her dignity and a bunch of passionate embraces, so she didn't suffer 'the ultimate humiliation' until they were properly wed. Yeah, right.)

The Sheik has all the elements of classic romance novels - the characters are sublimely attractive yet unaware of their charms, they discover deep, abiding passion despite the obstacles, and the plot is about as realistic as my appearing on Dancing With the Stars. And, like those Harlequin best-sellers, it's a great escape from the hassles and annoyances of modern life - although in the case of the Sheik, part of the fun was that I kept cracking up. (The book is full of overwrought prose, lines like "The touch of his scorching lips, the clasp of his warm strong body, robbed her of all power of resistance" - it makes Jackie Collins look like Evelyn Waugh!)

Turns out, the Sheik was also the predecessor of modern romance novels' popularity. (When I get used books, I always flip eagerly to the page before the title page, to see if I've lucked into a first edition - this one was up to the 34th printing in only 9 months!) It was daring, and scandalous, and started a whole sheik/vamp fad that had a huge influence on the flapper era - so really, my fascination with The Sheik isn't about the romance, the seduction, and the Rudy Valentino fantasies, I'm just interested in the historical aspect. (Sure, and my brother snuck my uncle's Playboy magazines for the articles. . . . . )

Mommy playdates

It's been years since I was on the preschool 'playdate' circuit, where I scheduled my kids' social interactions, but I still remember one of the best perks, which was when I discovered a mom with whom I clicked. I'd go over to retrieve my kid, and we'd end up chatting for another hour, thrilled to find someone to talk to in complete sentences. At that age, the kids were young enough that they'd play with just about anyone, so it was easy to make most of their playdates with kids whose moms I enjoyed.

One of those preschool moms has become one of my dearest friends, so yesterday we met for a quick lunch at the Nordstrom Cafe, where we used to meet when our older boys were in preschool and our 2nd kids were in strollers. We reminisced about those 'good old days', remembering where Hannah (her perfect little girl) charmed the grandmother at the next table, or looking at the dent in the chair I'm sure was left by Ben (my rambunctious one). And we fretted that as our schedules (and kids' lives) have gotten more complicated, we no longer have those long, leisurely playground outings and Burger King lunches.

And then this morning I read an article (in the New York Times, so you know it's got to be true!) about how unstructured play time is good not just for kids' developing minds, but for over-stressed adults, specifically those raising teenagers. It was as if the article were written just for me - how did the author know I was play-deprived? We all get so loaded with work deadlines, household chores, kids to drive, volunteer commitments, and the idea of doing something just because it's fun has become alien - these days, my 'fun' tends to be a few stolen moments doing a computer jigsaw puzzle (which I hide the minute the kids come in the room since I told them I needed the computer for work).

Now that I know my stress is aggravated by being recreationally deprived, I finally have an excuse to schedule some play dates for myself. I just emailed my flute-playing friend about scheduling some time to play piano-flute duets (which I used to do with my best friend in 5th grade), and I'm meeting another friend for late afternoon tea. And I even decided married couples need play time. I'd just read a vintage copy of The Sheik, the hugely popular novel from 1921 which inspired all those romantic Rudolph Valentino movies, so I made Husband 2.0 get up earlier than the kids this morning to attempt a harem-fantasy-based quickie. (Unfortunately, his 'sheik' impression made me laugh so much that we ran out of time . . . but it was still fun! Plus I have scientific proof that play does reduce stress - this was the first morning in weeks that my not-a-morning-person-teenager's grouchiness didn't make me snap back!)

Now I'm remembering that although raising toddlers was incredibly stressful, we had all that mommy play time to help us cope, and I've missed it! I know how easy it is for us all to become 'mommy-martyrs', but now we have scientific proof that denying ourselves isn't good for us, or for our kids. So after I finish up some work, I'm going to email a couple of friends about getting together, then I'll go get a pedicure - not for me, but for the good of my family!

Nag, nag nag, nag nag . . . .

I swear, in my pre-mom days, I was a patient, calm, quiet person who never raised her voice, who handled conflict with serenity and aplomb, who never sweat the small stuff, who rose above petty annoyances. That was before I had to get recalcitrant kids to do homework, clean their rooms, take out the trash, practice drums/sax/voice/etc., feed the dog, rats & fish, study for an upcoming bar mitzvah, and so on - all of which take multiple reminders, and supervision, and maintenance visits to make sure one kid isn't spacing out and another isn't slacking off after 5 minutes. ("I swear, mom, I worked so hard, I need a break, and my clock says it's been 35 minutes!") I think I spent more time yesterday reminding Ben to practice drums than he actually spent at the drum set - and this is a kid who actually likes playing an instrument, I shudder to imagine the suffering of my friends whose kids resist piano lessons.

When my mom nagged me, I remember vowing, "I will NEVER bug my kids, I will teach them to be conscientious and responsible on their own." Oh, how charmingly naive I was. First of all, 'self-reliant teenager' is the ultimate oxymoron, because although they really WANT to be independent, they keep forgetting little details, like oops, that 8 a.m. call right after you've gotten home from carpool, "Mom, I forgot my lunch/spanish book/science project". And face it, their standards of cleanliness and hygiene are somewhat different from those of anyone above 18. (My friends with teenage daughters claim they have it worst, describing rooms with piles of discarded clothes from the last "I have nothing to wear" melt-down, but I defy them to complain to me after they've smelled the room of a teenage boy who gets any sort of exercise. I once picked up a pair of freshly-used tap shoes, and nearly passed out!)

So sure, I have the best intentions of staying detached, letting them suffer the consequences of a forgotten lunch, a disappointed drum teacher, a room that needs fumigating. But I'm a mom, too, and sometimes I can't help myself. I think they need a new 12-step program for moms who struggle with letting go - "Hi, I'm Lauren, I nag my kids." "Hi, Lauren!". But come to think of it, nearly every one I know would need to join.

At least now we have very public examples that make the rest of us not look so bad. Ayelet Waldman has a new book out, "Confessions of a Bad Mom", that glories in her non-perfect parenting (as well as revealing way too much information about her wild sex life as a teenager). And apparently the talk shows and blog-o-sphere are all a-buzz with a recent episode of Jon & Kate which showed her screaming at her kids not to eat so many strawberries, and commentators are debating whether she is a control freak or just a human mom with way more kids than anyone should have. So all of us who merely nag can take comfort not just in numbers, but in knowing, hey, at least no one has caught me yelling at my kids on national t.v., or talking about my sex life on a book tour. And next time my kids accuse me of being a mean mom, I'll just rent "Mommie Dearest" and hope they appreciate me for never screaming "No wire hangers" at them - sure, maybe that's because I can't find a path to their closets, and they never hang clothes up anyhow, but at least in comparison I look like the saint I used to be pre-kids!

Surprise - you're old!

My first-born turned 16 recently, and that was just the latest in a series of reminders of my own aging - roots that need touching up way more often than I can afford, having two children with hair on their legs, my own dear husband referring affectionately to his '50-something' sweetheart (I'm 50, not 50-something!). But it wasn't so much the fact of the birthday that made me feel old - it was the celebration.

Between starting his summer job and exhaustion from the end of the school year, David was too wiped out to plan anything but let me know he'd be okay with it if I took over (by saying discreetly, "Mom, just in case you feel like giving me a surprise party, I wouldn't mind, and Danielle might know who I would want to invite, because you know my guy friends are clueless about this sort of thing.") So with the help of his friend, Facebook, and a quick trip to Costco, I was ready for our house to be invaded by teenagers.

It all worked perfectly - Husband 2.0 got David out the door for a driving lesson, his friends showed up on time to help me frantically set the party up (getting 24 helium balloons out of my car, where I'd hidden everything), and he was suitably surprised (yelling something unprintable). I was definitely in the thick of things, supervising the set up, telling kids where to put their coats, suggesting good hiding places, but once the party got started, I realized that despite my internal sense of youth, I was not a peer, I was merely the party planner/caterer/maid. The kids thanked me for the sodas I distributed and the pizzas I cooked, a few even politely asked where to put recyclables, but that was it.

At least I was used to being a wallflower as a teenager, so that sense of being ignored was familiar. For husband 2.0, it was an unpleasantly novel experience. He'd been one of those popular kids in high school who wouldn't have deigned to socialize with a geeky nerd like I'd been (although the biger obstacle to our early romance might have been the fact that when I started high school, he was in first grade). So after he'd made a trip through the living room collecting used dishes, expecting to be fawned over like back in his glory days, he came back crestfallen. "When did I become invisible?" I reassured him that I still thought he was fascinating and the girls who ignored him had no taste . . . .

As I refreshed platters, cleared garbage, and tried to keep the 12-year-old little brother from being too much of a pest, I felt a weird sense of being a housewife from a 50s sitcom, like June Cleaver chaperoning one of Ward's parties and reminding Beaver not to annoy his brother's friends. (At least under my apron I had on cute jeans and platform wedges, instead of a starched shirtdress & pearls.) Sure, in many ways we've changed as parents (I listen to my kids, I never say "Wait til your father gets home", and I don't roll my eyes at their taste in music, since they like what I like), but on a basic level some things never change. Teenagers have always ignored parents at parties, little brothers have always been moderately annoying, and adults have always felt weird about getting older.

I went to wake David up the next morning and looked at his long leg sticking out of the covers, thinking, "Wow, that tall hairy man was once my baby", I realized June Cleaver, my own mom, and generations before them have had the same feeling - and it was actually comforting to realize I was a cliche, sometimes. Then I touched up my gray roots, put on some Lynyrd Skynyrd, and washed the rest of the party dishes.

. . .snips and snails and puppy dog tails . . .

Okay, I've known from the beginning that boys are different from girls. I tried to be a gender-neutral parent, and when my boys were toddlers they used their dolls for weapons and their play cooking tools for 'rhythmic instruments' (i.e., noisemakers). I cope by taking neighbors' girls to movies and malls, and I let husband 2.0 teach them to play "Dodgeball In The Dark" and other games of mass destruction. But sometimes a girl just has to draw the line - or so I thought.

My boys have always been animal lovers. They've had hamsters, and a lizard, and various other small caged pets at various times. I said okay when the boys' godfathers wanted to give them tropical fish (and now that the weird-looking algae-eater keeps the tank walls clean, I actually enjoy them). And of course I was more than happy to get the dog (who, by the way, is a total girly girl, and refuses to do 'Sit' or 'Lie Down' unless she's on a soft surface). But for years Ben has begged for pet rats - and I refused to discuss the matter.

It's not just the basic idea of a rat. I lived in New York City for 5 years, and I saw subway rats the size of german shepherds, and I even had rats in my apartment. One night I woke up to an odd sound coming from the box of Rice Krispies on my make-shift shelf (created out of salvaged milk crates, painted green & nailed to the wall of my studio apartment). I turned on the light and noticed that the box was moving, with a large, brown tail coming out of the top and extending down the side. I did what any independent, Cosmo-girl Living In The City would do - shrieked, grabbed an industrial strength garbage bag and thick rubber gloves, and sent the cereal box & its inhabitant down the incinerator shaft. But it was as close as I ever needed to come to any of that species.

Ben pleaded, he showed me internet articles about how smart and trainable rats are, but it didn't matter how many times I agreed that the character in Ratatouille was cute, I wasn't sold. Until I needed a good 'hurdle helper' (a.k.a. bribe) to get him to keep his room clean, and I'd also run out of good chanukah present ideas for a kid who was too old for Bionicles and too young to appreciate clothing as a gift.

So Ben is now the proud owner two very cute, clean, white rats with subtle markings of caramel (which he named Peanut) and brown (Mocha). I actually enjoy feeding them, watching them take a nut into their tiny paws that look surprisingly human, seeing how daintily they nibble, how sweetly they nestle and groom each other. But I still don't like to hold them - it's too hard to ignore the tails, which still are awfully reminiscent of the Rice Krispies incident.

These days, I go to Petsmart for an assortment of rat food, dog toys, and aquarium filters, and I feel like the owner of a menagerie - but then again, that's what having a house full of boys feels like anyhow. (And at least the boys will go shopping with me when it's to the pet store - not exactly what I had in mind, but it's something!)

Thanks for the Mammaries (sorry!)

Women are notorious for being able to bond in almost any circumstance - my husband is constantly amazed at the conversations I strike up with other women in check-out lines, airports, doctors' offices, any place where having to wait in one place creates an opportunity for temporary kinship, and we can talk about children, trying to lose weight, the cute earrings someone has on, or any number of subjects (whereas men seem limited to 'how about those Lakers!'). So it didn't surprise me when I began chatting with a group of strangers in a waiting room, as we all sat around in our plush yellow robes listening to subtle contemporary jazz.

Only we weren't waiting for exfoliation treatments or pedicures, we were all there to get mammograms or related services at the oh-so-subtly named Women's Breast Center. (The name, prominently displayed on the wall, makes it hard to pretend we were there for any other reason, although it also made me wonder what the waiting room would look like in a Men's Breast Center . . . . ) At first we all stuck to our magazines and Blackberries, but eventually the long wait broke down our isolation and we began chatting. (There's something about the prospect of having your breast mashed between two metal plates and being told, Relax!, that breaks down barriers real quick.) We learned about each other's previous mammogram horror stories (technicians with cold hands!), we compared notes on whether it was more unpleasant for smaller or larger breasts (the jury is out, we all think it hurts!), and we wondered how weird it would be to do a mammogram for Dolly Parton or Pamela Anderson. And of course we cracked the inevitable jokes about men having to undergo a similar procedure for their prized appendages.

We also got into family history (many of us had relatives who'd had cancer) and one woman told us her bone cancer was detected by what she'd thought was an overly picky radiologist whom she now credited for saving her life. (Which made us all ashamed of the times we'd griped about those other 'overly picky radiologists' who wanted to take just one more image.) And of course, we all agreed that the whole experience would be more pleasant if the facility also offered the body wraps and massages that the robes & music seemed to indicate.

In my case, my wait was longer because my family history and cystic tissue merited an ultrasound (which is just like the ones for pregnancies, with the blue goo and the fuzzy black & white computer image - god, did that bring back memories!, but nowadays they warm up the goo and give you lots of towels, as opposed to back in my pregnant days when I felt cold & greasy for hours afterwards). But eventually I was told I was done - until next year, of course. I have that wonderful sense of accomplishment, of ticking off, and being free from, one of those unpleasant maintenance duties for a year or so (dental exams, blood tests, cleaning out the stuff that leaked in the freezer). (Okay, I don't clean out the freezer every year, but I know I should and I just did it so it counts!)

Meanwhile, I can rejoice in being part of a gender that bonds so easily, and if the Women's Breast Center takes the suggestions we all promised to send in, maybe next year I will be able to get that post-mammogram massage!