On Hating Cell Phones (or why yes, I *am* a 75-year-old woman)

I remember staying home sick from school one day when I was in the third or fourth grade, lying on my parents’ bed and watching a fashion show from the future on Donahue. I don’t remember much about the show other than models dressed in flashy metallic jumpsuits (so similar to the ones we all wear now....how did they know?) and a woman pulling a phone out of her handbag while the announcer talked about how the future would be communication-driven and that everyone would have a portable phone. I looked at the phone  (attached by a cord to the model’s handbag) and was pretty skeptical. The idea of a purse phone seemed just about as likely as the realization of my fantasies of having a TV in the car or my brother being abducted by aliens.

Surprisingly (given that I had been given so much time to prepare, thanks to my friend Phil Donahue), I was the last of my friends to get a cell phone. It happened one day when a friend marched me into a store, told me that I was unreachable and that I had to get with the times. Because said store was offering a free phone for signing up with a plan (I love free so much that I signed up for 3 different Visa cards in undergrad just for free oversized T- shirts) I signed up. For a three-year plan. And, as luck would have it, my work gave me a Blackberry later that month (also free) so quite quickly I went from being a tech loser with no cell phone, to being a tech loser with two cell phones.

I am a terrible cell phone owner. It took me 2 years to learn my phone number. I leave it in my purse for days at a time. It rarely has any charge (please refer to “purse for days at a time”) and I will not give you my number unless there is a very good reason (ie. we are married or you have temporary possession of my child).  If you do have my number and venture to use it, you will likely be met with a voicemail message warning you not to leave a message because I don’t check messages (my plan came with free voicemail so obviously I had to take it).

I do use my cell phone-- it’s great for calling to say that I am running late or for calling my husband to see why he is running late. But I still have as many reservations as the average tech savvy 75-year-old.

Most importantly, I think that they are dangerous. They cause accidents on the road (I suspect a drunk driver and texter have the same level of skill and awareness). They cause brain tumours and brain cancer (okay, this hasn’t been conclusively proven, but I I’ve read enough studies and compelling arguments to believe it- particularly in the case of children who start using cell phones at a young age). I will remind you that even people as learned and earnest as TV doctors used to say that cigarettes were safe too.

I also think that they make us rude. It’s entirely normal to pick up a phone call during a meal or while out with a friend (or your wife). People text while others are talking to them. People speak loudly on the bus, in the airport, in stores invading everyone else’s space and comfort level.

Cell phones make it free for our in-laws to call us from anywhere, any time of day or night with their ludicrously cheap plans (which would be annoying for people who don’t like hearing from their in-laws as much and as often as I enjoy hearing from mine).

I am also not comfortable talking on a cell phone (it doesn’t tuck behind my ear the way my home phone does) or touching someone else’s cell phone (I know you’ve had that Petri dish in the bathroom with you). But finally, I am not comfortable calling a call phone, which seems to be something I have to do more and more frequently as people ditch their land lines.

I don’t think that anyone needs to be reachable all the time. I don’t want you calling me when I am at the park with my kid and frankly, I don’t want to be calling you. I don’t like when you call me from the grocery store as you shop with screaming kids and announcements in the background as you tell me to “hold on” while you ask some dude about where the buttermilk can be located. Also, I am nervous calling you. I am nervous that you will pick up while you are driving or that my call will interrupt an important meeting (who hasn’t forgotten to turn off their cell phone during one of those?) and that I will somehow be blamed.

That being said, I do see the benefits of having a cell phone. I like to be able to call my husband to find out where he is or to tell him something important (read: important-ish). I like knowing that my kid’s school can get hold of me in an emergency (in theory- if I were to charge my phone) and I like having something to look at and play on when you are boring me (but hate when you do it when I am boring you).

I just don’t want cell phones to replace land lines until metallic jumpsuits replace jeans and sweaters (or until my brother is finally abducted by aliens). 

Someone please tell me how to make time slow down. Seriously.

Since the day Benji was born I’ve been sad because he’s growing up too quickly. Okay, I am obviously exaggerating. I didn’t start getting really sad until he was about 3 months old when I had to put away his tiny little newborn sleepers, hardly able to believe that my big three-month-old once fit into them. I realized then that even though 6 p.m grocery store line-ups and morning meetings that are still going strong past noon seem to take forever, they actually don’t. Nothing does. Time goes more quickly the older you get (don’t believe me? Think about how long a two-hour car trip used to take when you were six) and I know that soon-- too soon-- I will be one of those weirdos who stops people with babies on the street to tell them to enjoy every second because of how quickly they grow up. I know that I will blink and my kids will be grown-up people making excuses not to have to see me (please God don’t let this happen--please let my children live next door because they can’t live without me)(or at the very least let them have me on speed dial).

The thing is that it’s hard not to mentally rush things-- you look forward to your child sleeping through the night and learning to walk and run and speak and read and he does all that stuff and it’s the best, cutest stuff ever and then he is asking to learn to drive and before you know it he doesn’t want to cuddle with you or kiss in public and then he tells you that he is bringing someone else to the prom. Sad stuff.

At least once a day I remind myself to enjoy a moment. It can be a moment when 2-year-old Benji old and 4-month-old Aviva are holding hands while Aviva nurses or when Benji is singing the ABCs at the top of his lungs while simultaneously clapping and marching though the kitchen or when sweet Aviva is sleeping on me, her warm little body splayed out on my chest as she periodically sighs contentedly. Even in those moments I know that too soon they will be sepia memories (was it Benji or Aviva who used to march through the kitchen while singing ABCs? How did Aviva get the cat to hold her hand while she was nursing? ) but I don’t know how to make them last. I don’t know how to make time go more slowly (other than spending all of our time in meetings with my colleagues). Every day I find myself tucking Benji in or feeding Aviva at 3 a.m. and I realize that my babies are one day farther away from me.

It’s not that I don’t want my kids to grow up, I just want it to take longer. I want more spit up in my hair and diapers to change and play dough under my finger nails. I want more wet kisses and middle of the night cuddles and for bubbles to stay amazing for a while longer. I want to always be able to kiss any pain away. I want to be the protector and confidante and best friend for twice--no-- ten times as long.

Recently I was in a store while Benji was sucking on his fingers and an older woman came to tell me that her daughter used to do the same thing. I asked how she got her to stop and she told me that the daughter did it until she was ten, but in secret. Then she lowered her voice and said that she’d better watch what she says because her daughter is in the store. She also added that her daughter is now in her fifties but that she didn’t want to embarrass her. This gray-haired woman hasn’t sucked her fingers in over forty years but in her mother’s mind it was just last night that she snuck into her bedroom and pulled her fingers out of her mouth as she slept.

The reason those crazies stop you in the street to tell you that time goes quickly and to enjoy every second is because it’s true. I know that too soon I will be looking back at this post* and ten or twenty years will have passed and my heart breaks a little just thinking about that.

*Well, that’s assuming this Internet thing is still going strong. I don’t know about you, but I think that it might just be a fad.

It's been a while, but I had a baby, okay?

It’s been a while. I know. Since I last posted I had a baby girl. While I am delighted to have her, I did find the process of getting in her in much easier than getting her out. Also, newborns keep you busy. And tired. And often stained. But I feel like the fact that my kids are now two years and four months respectively, things are getting easier (I was going to add a joke about my third child being 35 years old but decided against it because I knew that I would get in trouble)(and also because of how mature and helpful my 35-year-old child husband is).

For the record, It’s not that I haven’t been blogging, it’s that I’ve been doing it for someone else’s website* as I’ve found having forced deadlines works best for me (as evidenced by the fact that I haven’t updated this blog in 6 months). That said, I prefer to blog without a fear of being edited (many of my good jokes were edited out because I tend to put them in brackets and some editors don’t like brackets)(I do)(see?).

So my plan is for this to be my last catching-you-up-because-I haven’t-bothered-to-update-update-recently post. Regular posts ahead. No joke.


*I will hopefully get around to including links to those posts in case you care to catch up on my very glamorous and exciting life. In the meantime, if you are super-keen you can look them up on www.Mommyish.com.

Everyone in My House Is a PIcky Eater Including My Cat (alternate title: I Hate Making Dinner)

Are you one of my Facebook friends who posts pictures of stuff they cook -or worse- grow and then cook for all the world to see? If yes, please don’t send a friend request to my husband. Seriously. I don’t need for him to find out that pita pizza, taco night and pasta isn’t what everyone else is eating on a regular basis. I mean it.

I do try really hard to make healthy meals for my family but there are a few complications, namely I have a new baby (okay, newish-- she is four months old but really doesn’t like to be put down for any length of time)(she is indeed on my lap as I write this in case you’re wondering); I am a vegetarian (who eats fish); my husband is a meat eater (who also enjoys fish but hates eggs, quiche, eggplant, lentils and most bean dishes) and my picky toddler is allergic to fish and seafood. In addition, at least 66.6 percent of us are lactose intolerant and finally, I really don’t enjoy cooking.

In the old days, I used to make fish a couple of times a week-- as an easy, healthy source of protein that my husband and I could agree on but now if we want to eat fish we have to do it after our son is in bed or eat at the table with him while he eats something else, which involves getting up about every three minutes to wash our hands using techniques gleaned from the movie Silkwood.

I won’t lie- the picky kid is the easiest to feed (well other than me)(and the baby who is not yet on solids). I make him casseroles and quiches and bakes and freeze them in individual servings. Unlike my husband, he is also happy to eat and omelet or crepes for dinner. However, the difficulty lies in the fact that everything I read says that we should all not only be eating meals together but eating the same meal together.

I spend a lot of time on cooking websites optimistically searching through articles with promising titles like “Easy Meals For The Whole Family!” and “Everyday Dinners That Everyone Will Love!” but generally three out five contain meat, one is a fish dish and the last one involves lentils, beans or both. I suspect that if I had unlimited time and a modicum of talent when it comes to cooking, this wouldn’t be an issue, but I really don’t. Entertaining is always stressful for me when I have to make something new, because cooking really just doesn’t come naturally to me (though, weirdly, I am a kickass baker-- if I could serve cake, pie and squares for supper every night, there would be no issue)(in part because most cakes that I make do not contain fish, lentils or beans).

This isn’t to say that I haven’t found any meals that we can all enjoy together -- I have -- and I’ve been quick to add them to the weekly rotation. But owing to the fact that it is a weekly rotation, my husband quickly gets sick of them and we soon find ourselves eating pita pizza or Subway or TV dinners while my son enjoys quiche and broccoli.  

I have come to terms with the fact that I might eventually have to start feeding my children meat, particularly if my son doesn’t outgrow his fish allergy --a fantasy of mine that has taken the place former fantasies, like waking up with perfect eyesight (or perfect breasts). I even took the step of buying free range, locally raised, humanely slaughtered, organic beef for my son, worried that I was depriving him of an important source of protein-- but he didn’t like it (we tried it a few times). And while I am okay with the fact that my husband eats meat, and even barbeques (aforementioned free range, locally raised, humanely slaughtered, organic) meat at our house, I just can’t bring myself to prepare it for him as vegetarianism is something that I truly believe in for health, environmental and ethical reasons (also, who the crap wants to cook three separate meals?).

My hope is that with experience I will become better at preparing new and exciting things for dinner but in the interim if you are a Facebook friend of my husband’s and you do plan to post something about the amazing six course dinner you prepared last night, would you at least change your privacy settings? We’re having tacos again tonight and I’d like him to believe me when I tell him that you probably are too.

Note: An edited version of this post was originally published by b5media www.mommyish.com

Two-Baby-Guilt

It’s dinner time, my husband is out of town and my two-year-old is asking me over and over to go get him another piece of corn (which involves pulling said corn out of boiling water, running it under cold water and then possibly cutting it off the cob, depending on his palate). My three-month-old however is happily drinking milk -- you know, the kind that comes out of me. Apologizing profusely I pull the baby off me and put her in her bouncy chair while I go get the corn. She starts screaming, I come back with the corn and it’s too late. I have missed my son’s corn window-- he has suddenly remembered that he is a terrible eater who prefers to play during dinner rather than eat. I feel guilty -- but not just regular guilt -- two-baby guilt.

What’s the difference between two-baby guilt and one-baby guilt you might be asking yourself (assuming you have one baby or less). Well basically it’s the difference between worrying that you are letting down two children as opposed to just one.

I long for the days when the only things I had to feel guilty about were not working, taking my baby with me to get my hair/eyebrows/nails done on occasion instead of the library/art gallery/museum and serving eggs for dinner a little more often than I should.

When my son was a baby he spent his days being read to, sung to and going to baby-centered activities. My daughter on the other hand gets read to by default as she’s stuck listening to her brother’s books, is sung to when my son wants to sing (even when she is trying to sleep) and goes to activities aimed at two-year-olds (with the exception of a weekly mom and baby massage class which she generally sleeps through as she’s finally far enough away from her brother’s singing that she can get some peace and quiet). Even her bath time tends to be weirdly focused on trying to include my son and letting him “help” (luckily she is not at an age where she thinks it weird that her various body parts are being washed on her brother’s recommendation but I suspect at some point this might become an issue.)

Because I don’t want my son to resent my daughter, I’ve tried to keep his life pretty much the same (well if you don’t count the fact that I recently convinced him that a group cuddle in mommy’s bed would be a fun activity for the three of us after a particularly trying night with the baby or that he is occasionally stuck talking to himself in his crib long after he wakes up from his nap while I finish feeding his sister). While I understand that feelings of resentment after the birth of a sibling are generally temporary (I got over the resentment I felt after the birth of my brother within seventeen or eighteen years) selfishly, I am also worried that my own relationship with my son will change. But then --of course-- I feel guilty that my daughter and I might never have that same bond-- the one that my son and I forged as a result of him being the most important person in my life until just after his second birthday.

I keep telling myself that having a sibling is good for both kids-- that forcing my son to sit and do a puzzle at the museum while I nurse his sister for half an hour builds patience (and puzzle solving skills, obviously) and that even though she gets very little alone-time, watching my son and listening to him talk and learn is just as enriching for my daughter as having my undivided attention all day long, but sometimes I have trouble believing it. I do know however that in the long run they will be happy to have each other. They will know how to share. They will have less parental pressure to procreate (provided one of them steps up within a reasonable amount of time) and they will have someone who shares their history (assuming that they don’t compare notes about the first two years of life).

The cat on the other hand -- well she got screwed. Don’t get me wrong -- I do feel very guilty for ignoring her ever since I started making human babies, the problem is that I don’t feel guilty enough to do anything about it.

Note: An edited version of this post was originally published by b5media www.mommyish,com

Why Yes, I am Terrified of My Kids' Doctor's Receptionist

My heart is racing as I dial and I hear the phone start ringing at the other end. A machine picks up and I do exactly what the outgoing message directs me to -- speaking slowly and clearly, I leave my name and phone number twice-- trying to sound friendly but not too desperate for a return phone call. The person that I am trying to woo with my friendly telephone manner? The receptionist at my children’s pediatrician’s office.

I’m not sure why I find this blued-eyed woman with a blond perm so scary. What I do know is that I am so intimidated by her that when she called a couple of weeks ago to remind me about Ava’s next appointment- not only did I not have the courage to tell her that the time was not great for me, I didn’t even have the guts to tell her that Ava is not my daughter’s name (it is an A name though, so I figured that she was close enough)(besides, I do like the name Ava, so what’s the harm?)

For the first few weeks of my son’s life she didn’t seem to like me and that was not fun- particularly for a crazy person such as myself, who enjoys calling the pediatrician on a regular basis with random health concerns I have read about on the Internet. And then something happened. I said something and she laughed (bonus! I was actually trying to be funny- she wasn’t laughing at me this time) and I saw a glimmer of what could be. And since then she has been really nice to me- I’m not sure what I did right, but now I have so much more to lose. Now that I know what its like to be on her good side, I am terrified of going back.

Because of my newly acquired status (we’re not exactly besties, but I can say with confidence that she doesn’t loathe me) I will take ANY appointment she gives me and the one time I had double booked and had to reschedule I rehearsed what I was going to say with a friend (who shares the same doctor so that we could role play) before making the call. I also seriously contemplated rescheduling the other appointment -- with a specialist whom we’d been waiting to see for several months-- so that I could avoid calling to switch.

For the record, I am not simply motivated by a pathological need to be liked -- I know this because I am quite certain that my dentist’s receptionist hates me (I often switch appointments at the last minute) and really don’t care all that much. It’s the fact that the pediatrician’s receptionist has power. She can go ask the doctor a question on my behalf or make me schlep my sorry ass in to see her myself. She can call a prescription into the pharmacy, or not.  She can make me feel like an idiot when I call to ask about green poo or tell me an anecdote about her niece’s similarly coloured bowel movement. She is the gateway to my children’s healthcare (and okay, maybe sometimes my self-esteem).

Though when I was there last week I realized that maybe I don’t have to try quite so hard. The woman in front of me spent almost ten minutes trying to set up an appointment for her son, yammering about why each suggested day and time didn’t work for her. And in that time the best thing ever happened - the receptionist looked up at me (while aforementioned annoying mom was looking at her Blackberry) and rolled her eyes. At me! I won’t say that it felt as good as the first time my kids smiled at me, but it was pretty close.

Would It Be So Wrong to Lie About My Baby's Age?

My husband made me stop lying about my age while we were still dating (I used to shave off a year, just to take the edge off) and I truly haven’t done it since. Though recently I have been tempted to shave a couple of weeks off my daughter’s age. See, the thing is that I make small babies so my seven-week-old currently looks about three weeks (she weighs just over eight pounds) and I went through the same thing with my son.

Her small size is not something I worry about as she is healthy and growing and has been able to hold her head upright without support since the day she was born thankyouverymuch but I am still exhausted by people asking how old she is and then inevitably following up by telling me how tiny she is and how she looks younger than her age (as though I had not yet given her a really good, hard look).  I do have a bunch of stock responses along the lines of “small people make small babies” or “a big baby would have required a paternity test” or even the “my son was small too and look how well he’s doing” at which time I point to my 26-month-old (who still wears size 18-24 months) as proof that I do indeed feed my children, but it’s still a conversation that I dread. Incidentally, people’s follow-up question (yes. they have follow up questions) tends to be “how much did she weigh when she was born?” which I find so irritating that my follow-up question has almost become “Why? How much do you weigh?”. Of course these comments fall into the harmless if irritating box --worse are the ones that are downright rude.

Take what happened three weeks ago - I was sitting on a bench outside, nursing my daughter while talking to my son (we had been walking home from the grocery store when the baby got very hungry). A random woman sits down next to me and tells me that my daughter is pretty. I realize that she is talking about my son and I correct her, while thanking her for the compliment. She defends herself by bringing my son’s long eyelashes into evidence (they are apparently “too long for a boy”)(at which time I make a mental note to stop putting mascara on my two-year-old. Son) She then looks at my daughter, who is now finished nursing, and tells me that she is too skinny. At this point I muster up every ounce of self-control I have (as this woman was surely NOT too skinny and I was tempted to tell her as much), put my daughter back into the stroller and walk away with my skinny daughter and girly son.

Afterwards, friends were full of suggestions about what I should have said to this opinionated stranger -- from the overly-polite-too-highroad-for-my-blood “thank you for your comments” to the clever “she is a girl-- she can never be too thin” to the very rude “eff off” but the bigger question is not necessarily what I should have said, but why this woman felt like it was acceptable to say anything to begin with.  I mean, had I been standing there alone with my husband, would she have felt entitled to make similar appearance-related comments? (NOTE TO HUSBAND: I am not implying that you are girly-- I am merely tying to illustrate a point). Why are people’s children fair game? And by children, I am also including zygotes given that comments start the minute pregnancy is suspected (“is that a baby bump or a big lunch?”). And while most comments are harmless if inappropriate (for example the time a normally very respectful friend’s husband commented on the size of my usually-small-but-bigger-when-I’m-preggo-breasts) some really are not. For example, I was constantly made to feel worried and self-conscious because I didn’t show all that much until the very end of both of my pregnancies (“Wow! You’re nine months pregnant? You look less then six!”) and I have a friend who was constantly made to feel like a beluga whale during hers (“Wow! Only six months? You look like you’re ready to pop!”)

I wonder if people feel entitled to comment because of the manner in which pregnant celebrities and their babies are objectified in gossip magazines or because it’s assumed that once you are “with child” you are less person, more vessel. Though I have no clue why people feel a right to comment on our children’s appearances. It must come from the same place as their desire to constantly give unsolicited advice. Which I don’t know about you, but I find super helpful – in the same way that I find people who remind me that my baby shouldn’t be crying in public by giving me dirty looks helpful.

Note: an edited version of this piece was originally published by b5media www.mommyish.com