Dinnertime and the livin' is easy

So I'm making dinner (right now in fact-- look at me multi-task). The sauce for the fish is boiling down, the fish is in the oven, the salad is on the table, and the veggies are roasting next to the fish. I start chopping dinner for Moxie: papaya is her latest fave and I've got a big bowl of that plus some chopped pears and I'll give her a little naked fish for protein. And chopping all this stuff is making me remember Monday night, Kent's cooking night, when we were all set to sit down at the table for dinner and I innocently ask, what's Moxie having? And he gives one of those 'Oh shit!' looks, then promptly grabs the box of cheerios and dumps a handful on her tray. "Done!" he pronounces.

I was kind of debating going for a run after dinner-- I have a headache and the cool weather makes me want to slouch around in my house with my socks on, drinking tea and being cuddly with my babes. But now I'm definitely going and let me tell you why: my health and well-being is very important to my family. Because if I die young from a heart attack or cookie-induced glaucoma, my kids are gonna be living on a diet of cheerios and Twizzlers. And I won't have that.

It's Tuesday, not perspective day

It's Tuesday and I'm doing my regular Tuesday routine: running mad loads of laundry, tidying up the house, scrubbing the kitchen, folding and putting away laundry, running to the grocery, preparing meals for the week... you know, the usual mom stuff. Tuesdays are my catch-up day after working all weekend because, even though Kent does cook and run a load of diapers over the weekend, he just doesn't see the house the same way I do. The grease on the stove top, the crusties in the crevices of the highchair-- these are visible only to female eyes.

And everytime I put the baby down, she tries to climb Tallulah's stair step-- it's her latest 'work'. Moxie loves to accomplish things: climbing up the stairs, reversing and climbing back down, gumming an entire apple, climbing into the living room chairs and turning to sit like a grown up-- these are her Mt Everests. She is conquering the world one baby milestone at a time and today's milestone is climbing onto the 2 and 1/2 foot stairstep that Tallulah uses to help me in the kitchen and pulling all the books off the non- baby proofed bookshelf she can reach from the top. But every time she leans against the bookshelf with one hand so she can grab and fling books with the other, the stair step slides farther away from the shelf. Yikes! So I keep dashing from the laundry to her, the cooking to her, the scrubbing to her. Since this is my day at home with just Moxie, one could say that it's a day to relax, but one would be wrong. Then one would get a punch in the nose.

It is however, a gorgeous day. The sun is shining, the breeze is blowing in the windows, and it has cooled down so much Tallulah and Kent complained that they were cold. Then I went to the grocery store and people kept telling me to hurry from the car to the store and "get that baby inside where it's warm". Can you believe that? It's 68 degrees, people! Get some perspective!

Dirty, like I'll never be clean again

I've been watching cable tv all day because my in-laws are out of town and when they go out of town, we spend at least one day watching their cable and swimming in their pool. When I've talked about watching tv before, I've been talking about watching streaming tv on the internet, which is a totally different animal: there's a minor amount of commercials and you have to search out whatever crappy show you want to watch. With cable, though, you're just flipping the channels and...Wham! You come across a show like The Mermaid Girl about a girl born with her legs fused together, unable to surgically part them, and her family's struggle to deal. And I have very mixed feelings about this show. Is it exploitive? Presumably, the show is giving the family money for filming them and they're raising awareness for the disease. But it's very hard to see that aspect when the camera keeps recording this girl scootching her 'mermaid tail' across the floor and I'm so glad the show gives her the name, Mermaid Girl, because it feels wrong to describe her. She has a flipper. If you've seen Brain Candy, the old Kids in the Hall movie, then you, too, have enjoyed a good flipper baby joke. But to see this girl is so much more disturbing than the flippers-for-hands image that Flipper Baby elicits. But I feel bad for feeling so disturbed-- she's a six year old girl. Anyway, after ten minutes of gaping, I gather the strength of will to tear my eyes away and change the channel. Deep breath of relief.

Then I fall into a "What Not to Wear" pit because it's featuring a 36 year old mom and I'm hoping that she looks just like me so the tips will be appropriate the next time I win a $1000 shopping spree at J. Crew (it could happen, right?). Then I spend the next fifteen minutes worrying that I do look just like her with the frizzy hair, pudgy legs, disappearing chin, and protruding tummy.

After a few hours of switching between bits of movies I've already seen, tivo'd episodes of Ugly Betty, and Celebrity Fitness episodes (Erik Estrada still has it, that cutie pie), I got excited when Super Nanny came on. I love watching other people parent their children. Love it. I can't even explain the deep satisfaction I get from watching well-meaning parents holding their kicking and screaming children in time out or yelping when they get bitten by a two year old. Yes, I think with grim pleasure, bite that bad mommy.

It hurts me how much time I've wasted today and how dark is the chasm that used to be my soul. I feel like the tv is trying to catch my attention by catering to the worst aspects of my character. If cable tv were a mirror, I would feel ashamed. While I've been typing this, Kent came along and took control of the remote control and now his soul is shining through-- a Johnny Cash biography and mixed martial arts fights.

Squinting

I haven't been able to write about parenting because I haven't been able to think about parenting. In fact, I'm trying hard not to think about anything at all. I've been feeling lately that my life is all work-- working at my job, working at my housekeeping, working on my marriage, working on my friendships, work, work, work. Not because I'm putting any energy into any of these things, but because nothing is fluid or smooth right now.

You know what I'm talking about. Some days you tell your kids to get their jammies on and go to bed and they do. And then they sleep for four hours straight giving you and your husband a chance to drink a glass of wine, giggle about an Onion article, and make sweet sweet sexy time before falling asleep at a reasonable hour. Then the next day, well rested, your best friend calls just after you've dropped off your kid at preschool and she's dropped her kids at school and wants to giggle about fashion and celebrities and other non-important issue over omelettes.

Other days, you tell your kids to go to bed and they scream and kick and trash the playroom and it takes two hours to get the oldest one in bed and then the baby won't fall asleep even though you pace for an hour with her. And you pass her off to your husband just as the older one comes out of her room AGAIN to demand water. And at some point in the middle of the night after being awakened by a hungry nursing baby or a foot in the face by a restless preschooler (because of course she climbed in bed with you when she woke up for the fifth time at midnight) you are lying in bed unable to get back to sleep and realize that the only words passed between you and your husband all day was "Oh, I was going to tell you about..." before being interrupted by one or both of the children and "Your turn" as you passed a screaming child between you. Then the next morning your best friend calls to talk about her crappy day and when you are interrupted by the baby crying she gets frustrated and when you both try to figure out a time to hang out and chat no time is available because of this doctor's appointment or that errand. And when all of this happens it's no one's fault, it's just the way life is, but it makes every day feel like work. Even the things that usually are fun and fulfilling.

The days when nothing is fluid, it's easy for me to feel oppressed and depressed about my life. It's been a long time since I've had a complete night's sleep and with Moxie only ten months old, this isn't going to change soon. I'm back at work and we're still not getting ahead financially-- that's not going to change soon. Kent and I are doing fine, we're just too tired and busy to connect and that's not going to change anytime soon. I'm trying not to think about this too hard. I'm just doing what I have to do; washing the dirty baby or floor or kitchen or laundry. I'm taking care of the work at hand and squinting at the big picture. I'm trying not to rush through this hard time because this babyhood and young childhood is a weird combination of stress and joy and I'm not sure its possible to have one without the other. Of course, if I'm wrong and there is a way to get through this without the painful days, one of you bitches better tell me.

My zen moment

Tonight Kent and I got into a fight. I forget what it was about-- laundry, kitchen duty, whether or not apocalyptic movies have to talk about god [I say if the movie is about the dissolution of humanity, the concept of god is practically begging to be addressed at some point. Kent says this isn't necessary and points out Mad Max. No talk of god there, he says. And that movie rocks.] Anyway, whatever the fight was about, it got loud. Kent decided he didn't want to go to our friends' house for dinner like we planned. And since the friends have kids Tallulah's age, she was promptly pulled into the argument. "Wait, wait. Let's not fight," she says, trying to salvage the evening. "I have an idea. Let's still go to our friends' house. It'll make us feel better." We explain that Mommy and Daddy need to work it out and then we do. We keep talking until we reach an understanding of each other's viewpoints, hug, kiss, tell each other how glad we are to be married, and hop in the car for our evening. We give Tallulah the standard, "Mommy and Daddy argue sometimes, but we always love each other" speech which she acknowledges with a grunt. As long as we're headed in the direction of playtime, she's got no input.

Fast forward a few hours. We're leaving our friends' house and I'm doing all my tricks. The five minute warning which I let Tallulah negotiate into ten minutes, the play/clean up time which now means cleaning up like superheroes, the race to the car, etc. We get to the car with surprising ease and I compliment Tallulah on her exiting behavior. Then Kent and I start to chat when Tallulah interrupts.
"Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom!"
"Tallulah, you know how to get my attention. Say excuse me and then wait your turn."
"But it's important!"
"Then say excuse me."
"Aaaaghhhh!"

Did I mention that it was 10:30pm? That her bedtime is 7:30? That she doesn't nap anymore? That bedtime is always our hardest time of day?

This conversation was the beginning of a half hour long screamfest. While I held her bedroom door shut and she kicked and screamed on the other side, I thought about something I've heard before about kids. It is developmentally appropriate for kids to behave well in public and school, and then act out with their parents. I always wondered about that. Why would a child understand how to get themselves heard and negotiate the toy they want and generally interact appropriately, then forget just because they're in a comfortable environment? As Tallulah gnawed the wood off the doorjamb, I had one of those flashes of insight: children are moving from a wordless, cultureless, lawless existence into a structured world with too many rules, words they can't comprehend, and expectations they have to struggle to fulfill. They hold themselves in as long as they can and then, Boom! They go completely bitchcakes. And they do it in the place where they feel most free, where the repercussions are the lowest.

So, in this light, Kent and I fighting is an important part of raising our girls. We show them that we disagree, we feel strongly, we yell, and after it's all over, we still love each other. We're still glad to be a family. And Tallulah is sending us an important message by losing her shit. She's saying, I trust you to still love me, even when I don't follow the rules or act the way you tell me to. So, it's good to fight, it's great when my kid yells at me.

Aah, insight. It looks so much like self-delusion.

Hot Guy Day

It was hot guy day at the grocery store today. Usually the days I go are old people day which is fine because Moxie loves to flirt with the little old ladies-- she lights up when they call her pretty. Shallow baby. But today was hot guy day and it's weird for me on a few levels.

First, if they're under 25, I automatically rate their suitability to date my daughters. Especially Indie teenagers with pencil jeans and black floppy hair. I imagine their sullen looks when they come to pick Tallulah or Moxie up, Tallulah's anguished, melodramatic pronouncements, "I'm in lo-ove, mom, you don't understand!" I imagine Moxie matching cool-for-cool, "Yeah, he's ok. He wants me to go to prom but, I don't know, it seems kind of lame." I picture the cute clean cut boys picking up the girls, calling Kent 'sir' and telling me they know where my daughters got their looks from. While I wander the grocery aisle I practice my look: "I know you're going to try to get my daughter drunk and keep her out past her curfew and that's why we have GPS tracking implanted in her hip and an automatic rifle in the closet." It's a lot to get across in one look, so I practice now.

But the older hot guys I find even more disconcerting. I compare all of them with my husband or with guys I went to high school. Like today there was a tall blonde guy checking out ahead of me with his 4 year old son. Instead of keeping it simple and admiring his ass, I'm analyzing his parenting skills and wondering where his baby mama was. Is he taking the kid so she can have the morning off? Is he raising his son by himself? Did he just give his kid a chocolate bar? Because these things influence how hot I think he is. And this is crazy because parenting skills should only affect hotness level when it comes to my husband. But it affects how I view every man of baby-making age (I know this could potentially be a wide range. I'm thinking late 20's to late 40's. Not Palin's soon to be son in law or Sean Connery) Am I alone here? Like when Brad Pitt left Jennifer Aniston for Angelina, his hotness points dropped significantly. Jennifer may not be my ideal woman, but to leave her for a blood drinking Billy Bob Thornton cast-off? Yuck. But then they had babies and his hotness factor went back up again. Higher than ever. Actually, strike that. There's nothing higher on the hotness scale than the low riding pants he wore in Fight Club. But you get my point.

Anyway, I was musing about the intricacy of male hotness for a mom while I loaded up my groceries and I noticed Moxie making eyes at an older guy getting into the car next to us. He was in his 60's or 70's and making smiley googly eyes at Moxie to make her giggle. "Watch out," I said. "She's an incorrigible flirt."

"Just the way I like them." He said. "Only maybe a little older."

There is no subtlety or intricacy to the male mind.

What the Hell Wednesday: Tylenol

I was playing Chicken with Moxie's fever last week, waiting for it to rise above 102 to get worried. I try not to medicate, trusting my children's healthy bodies, good nutrition, and occasionally supportive homeopathics to get us through the minor colds and flu bugs. But at night I worry more-- what if I sleep through the side effects of a dangerously high fever? Here are the side effects of a dangerously high fever I'm looking for:
*extreme lethargy and difficulty rousing
*difficulty breathing or odd breathing (shallow and fast or heaving in the diaphragm)
*dehydration (sunken spots on the soft spots of the head, no urination, no tears)
*seizures
*vomiting and diarrhea
*guarding of the abdomen--tummy is sensitive to the touch

Some of these are no more a problem at night than during the day-- I'd probably wake up if Moxie started to vomit on me. But lethargy?

So I tend to medicate with Tylenol at night, but I try not to medicate normally. I wait it out as long as I can, daring the fever to go over my comfort zone before I touch the medication. You might ask, why? Why not medicate for comfort and convenience? After all, having a miserable baby to tend all day is no picnic. The first reason is, our bodies punch us into fever for a reason. Fevers make the body inhospitable to bugs. If we don't allow the body to use its natural defense, how can it rid itself of the bugs?

The other answer is, Tylenol is evil. Oops, did I say evil? I meant....well, yeah, I meant evil. See, tylenol is metastasized (read: cleared) out of the body through the liver by binding to a powerful antioxidant called glutathione. Glutathione "plays an important role in antioxidant defense...Glutathione deficiency contributes to oxidative stress, which plays a key role in aging and the pathogenesis of many diseases including seizures, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, liver disease, cancer...." So basically, when you take Tylenol because you're sick, the tylenol depletes your body of it's ability to keep you from getting sick. And it ages you. Which is kind of funny-- everybody is looking for a magic pill to keep them young, meanwhile popping a pill that makes them old. Ha ha, mmm, sigh.

But it's hard to find the information about this. I want to put links for this information, but I'm finding it in hard to read and digest medical texts or doctor blogs. Here is one fact sheet that spells out the dangers of Tylenol, but often the discussion is about toxic overloads, rather than damage caused by regular doses. Also, liver corruption directly caused by tylenol use is downplayed or not discussed in most texts, although I did find it here, citing tylenol as the #1 cause of liver failure. Number ONE! I guess I can keep drinking my gin and tonics-- just cut back on the morning after meds.

And look, you can't avoid medicating the kids sometimes. The night I was watching Moxie's fever, I lost my game of Chicken. The fever won. I medicated at one am when her temperature got to 102.3. I think we just need to have all the information before using a medication so we can make a good decision for our long-term health. And the pharmaceutical companies aren't going to give us that information, the FDA apparently isn't concerned, and we get lulled into believing that 'safe' is the same as not harmful to our health rather than the FDA's true meaning: approved over the counter medications won't kill most people if used within recommended dosage. A friend of mine medicates when her kids grimace, just in case they might have an ache. Why would it be over the counter if it wasn't safe, she asks. Good question.

My next question is: what's up with the red dye #40 in the children's liquid Tylenol? Because I promise my kids don't give a shit what color the drug is when they take it. The corn syrup makes sure of that.

The full moon

We're still having behavioral issues with Tallulah, as evidenced by her behavior yesterday when her Grandma stopped by our house. Tallulah was excited her Grandma was coming over and prepared by coloring a picture and putting on her favorite dress. Unfortunately, Grandma was with a friend and could only stay a minute. Tallulah begged her to stay, and then jumped in the back of Grandma's van. When I reached back to grab her out, she hopped over the seat into the way back where I would have to climb over things to get her.

Now, I didn't want to embarrass Grandma in front of her friend with a screaming, disobedient granddaughter. I decided to move quickly and get Tallulah out of the van by reaching in and yanking her out of the car. I knew otherwise we would be talking and negotiating too long.

So I was pulling her out of the car and in the process she flipped upside down, yelling and giggling at the same time, when her dress flew up over her head revealing....somebody remembered her favorite dress, but forgot her underpants. And grandma's friend got a full moon AND a gynecological review.

Parenting is not for the weak of heart. Apparently neither is grand-parenting.

What the Hell Wednesday: The Joys of High Fructose Corn Syrup

Have you seen the new ad campaign about high fructose corn syrup? Let's defer the obvious by first noting that the girl in the commercial linked here was really cute in both a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode and in Desperate Housewives as the nurse who failed to see Carlos' mom waken from her coma and run around the hospital trying to narc on Gabrielle for her hot affair with the gardener. I'm so glad she's got a national ad campaign. Maybe the dairy industry can hire her next to talk about how eating more dairy can make you lose weight.

Because we all recognize this PR campaign as total bullshit, right? I mean, everybody and their grandma knows that high fructose corn syrup has been linked to increased diabetes, lowered insulin sensitivity, obesity, and, combined with a high fat diet and a sedentary life style, liver damage. The corn industry had to hire really good actors for these commercials because who else would be able to say those lines without rolling their eyes? And I LO-OVE that the commercial specifically talks about feeding that red food dye #40 and high fructose corn syrup cocktail to kids. Why wouldn't you feed that shit to kids? Hmm.

The Mayo Clinic recommends limiting consumption because "animal studies have shown a link between increased consumption of high-fructose corn syrup and adverse health effects, such as diabetes and high cholesterol." The article goes on to say that there isn't a definitive link between human consumption and these health risks because not enough studies have been done. Perhaps our government could spend fewer dollars subsidizing the Corn Refining industry and more dollars protecting its citizens with studies analyzing the health consequences of consumer products. Perhaps if we had universal health coverage, interest in keeping citizens healthy would be higher. But not only is the government subsidizing unstudied refined sugar, they also recently allowed high fructose corn syrup to be labeled "natural". That's right, check your products with the tag 'natural' on the front because you may be getting more than you think.

But let's say high fructose corn syrup is fine. No worse than consuming table sugar hidden in everything from ketchup to spaghetti sauce to bread to yogurt to toothpaste to fruit juice. What about the environmental damage caused by corn refining? Corn, according to a recent Washington Post article, requires more pesticides and fertilizers than any other crops and the runoff has long term effects.

Maybe if the Corn Refinery Association has $30 million for an ad campaign to tell consumers that we're stupid for not wanting their product, maybe they can afford to have their subsidies and governmental sponsorship slashed. In the meantime, we'll be checking our 'natural' products and continuing to keep the refined corn out of our kitchen.

One last thought: If you can't live without Coke, try getting it from a mexican market. Apparently imported coke, particularly from Mexico, is made with cane sugar. I haven't checked it out myself, yet, but that's the rumor. I hear the cane sugar really enhances the other chemicals in the soda.