A couple days before Father’s Day, I read the CNN article A father’s day wish: Dads, wake the hell up, which at some point on Saturday had been shared on Facebook over 55,ooo times. It’s basically a rallying cry for fathers to spend more time with their kids, and to appreciate their stay-at-home wives more. The piece has humor and oomph because it’s written by a stay-at-home dad who isn’t afraid to call out the deadbeat dads. Deadbeat as in, wants to play golf on a Saturday morning instead of getting up with the kids at dawn.

I confess, it made me cheer a little inside, especially the parts about changing diapers, washing dishes (repeatedly), and giving Mom free time. I tweeted that my husband is fantastic, but I’d be willing to try out polygamy for the writer of that piece. (Not really. Okay, almost.)

Tom finally read it during our special dinner at my parent’s house Sunday night. He didn’t laugh at any of the funny parts, and the first thing he said afterwards was, hadn’t I told him about some research that shows parents are spending more time with their kids nowadays rather than less? I said, “You feel kinda defensive, huh?” He agreed.

“How that article made you feel, that’s how Mother’s Day is for mothers every year. Even if it’s superficially an inspirational piece about how self-sacrificing and wonderful some mother is, that only makes you feel guilty for whatever that mother does that you aren’t doing.”

Tom said he’d never felt guilty on Father’s Day before.

And let me be clear: he has nothing to feel guilty over. Tonight he showed Callie how to sew a button back on her shirt, read bedtime stories, and is even now (at 10:07 pm), still talking with the girls about how to handle hurt feelings and how to know if an impression is from God.

Earlier today I read a guest post at Feminist Mormon Housewives by another stay-at-home father. It’s another funny piece, funny in the gender-role-reversal, he-knows-what-it’s-like, preach-it-brother, sort of way. He takes some light (easy, and reasonable) shots at past hardline patriarchal nonsense and turns some prophetical parental advice to his purposes, and then, oh then, at the end is an emotional zinger I did not see coming. About how, when one parent is the money-earner, the other parent’s life (and self) unconsciously comes second in priority and importance.

The comments I’ve seen on both of these expose-type pieces have been over-the-top adulation and gratitude for highlighting the common plight of stay-at-home mothers and unsung parenting in general.

The only thing is, these posts work on the trope of traditional-gender-role-reversal, but if either of them had been written by women for women, by mothers for other mothers, the writers would’ve been tarred and feathered as mongers of the mommy wars, fanners of the flame killing feminism and, worst of all, sanctimommies.

Which means that a) men really are just as good at being stay-at-home parents as women, even up to and including trying to shame and guilt their co-genderists, b) sancti-fyification of one’s own experience is inevitable and is either 1) a valuable cognitive-processing tool or 2) will be the end of civilization as we know it, or c)”staying at home” is a a really, really odd role: awkward, isolating, un-externally-rewarding/validating, and impossible to inhabit joyfully without telling oneself one is serving a (much) higher good than wiping the baby’s bum one more time.

I have no idea what the solution is, and it’s also easy for me to see that these men had fine (not malicious) intent. Much easier, in fact, than when I come across a sanctimommy post. (Of which, of course, I have been guilty in the past. It’s just so tempting, after all.)

Sure, I had to get up and move finally in order to do it, but I DID IT.

At pack meeting tonight (which if you don’t know what a pack meeting is, just be grateful and don’t ask), there was a crying baby. A one-month old. Mom fed her on one side and then had to go get something. Dad sat there, as the baby cried, and cried, and cried in her carseat.

She wasn’t starving, and she was in no immediate danger, but I felt my (non-existent) milk come in and just as I was about to start sobbing over the poor baby crying her little heart out, I pretended I needed another hot dog.

Maybe I should have asked to hold her. (I thought about it. I glanced at the baby, glanced at Dad). But Dad’s hands were free, and he’s not deaf. And my hands weren’t clean (I like people to wash their hands when it’s such a tiny baby).

And parents are different, or so I’ve heard.

It was none of my damn business (probably). Especially considering I can’t even say the word “babywearing” without dying a little inside, and I do let my babies (my slightly-older babies) cry at night. (Meaning the word “sleep-training” breaks me out in amphetamine-laced rainbows of anticipation).

But that little baby crying at the park tonight — I could almost feel the little peanut inside me reaching his hands (positive thinking on that — really I was going to say “her hands”) to me and crying the cry I’ll be able to recognize in a crowded churchhouse within minutes, and I can’t wait to hold him/her/it (knock on wood it won’t be an it) and work on our satiated drunken sailor look.

As I walk towards the dirtiest red minivan in a lot full of Honda Odysseys, I breathe deeply of the summer air, protected from the harsh sunlit glare by my rose-colored prescription lenses, get in the toasty car, blast some Franz Ferdinand, and ride off past the orange construction cones dotting Highway 73, towards the ocean, and freedom.

Not that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it.

This taught me a lot about the good man who is my father, and that saying you’re sorry is important and best of all: that proving you truly are sorry by becoming something different, — that that is not only important, it is possible.

All that to say that I believe in saying “I’m sorry.” The words are important, because words are important. Whether it’s saying seven positive things to counteract one criticism or being grown-up enough to say I’m sorry when I am, I want the people who eat in my kitchen and model their behavior after mine to know that their feelings, and the words they hear — the words that circle in their heads like my parents’ voices circle in mine — that they matter to me.

I want them to know I value them enough to say “I’m sorry,” even though I’m the mom and they’re the kids, and even if they’re probably still young enough to not remember if I yell irrationally about the crumbs in the car.

There are lots of opportunities to practice “I’m sorry” online. Lots.

Last week I was a little bit appalled by a self-flagellating “I’m sorry” essay on the Motherlode blog. A blogger on momlogic had written about her three-year old son asking (upon being introduced to her coworker): “Mommy, why is her face brown?” Readers attacked her for not answering the question herself. Instead, she had turned to her colleague to see how she would like that kind of question addressed.

Maybe this particular firestorm was more an indication of how fraught race relations are rather than how we teach our kids and respond to their questions. Because allowing kids to interact with other adults without parental intervention is actually a good thing, an invaluable part of learning to converse. If a parent always jumps in to interpret, kids miss out.

So the first question is whether racial inquiries are in a category apart. Is it unconscionable to not immediately set little kids straight on the appropriate modes of racial discourse? How do you answer a question like that? Do you talk about skin pigmentation and the sun? DNA, genetics, the slave trade, family group migrations from continent to continent? Do you say that God created several different shades of skin because a rainbow wouldn’t be anywhere near as interesting or beautiful if there was only one color instead of seven? Do you say skin color doesn’t matter, what’s inside matters?

(Perhaps a parent should always answer this type of question, because she knows her child and which type of answer (scientific, moral, metaphoric) would best satisfy her child.)

This mother, put on the spot by a fearless, unprejudiced three-year old, didn’t have a pat answer ready. Instead she turned to her colleague, who responded playfully and memorably.

So far, so good, right? Of course then the mother (made the mistake of blogging about it and) got attacked for doing it (parenting) all wrong.

Which is not surprising. The internet, especially strangers on big sites, can be cruel. I have seen too many good people torn apart by unthinking, uncaring strangers for the crime of being reflective and uncertain and honest to think that writers should accept such attacks as the whisperings of their own conscience.

But that was exactly what this mother did. There was too much sorry in her response to her critics. Too much mea culpa and cringing and “feeling ashamed at the cowardly way I handled my own son wanting his mommy to help him work through something in his head.” She said she “dropped the ball entirely” and worries that it wasn’t her son who hurt her colleague’s feelings, it was her. Of course by all accounts the colleague, who humorously and child-friend-ily compared her skin’s color to peanut butter, didn’t seem all that hurt. But the mother continued on about how she “blew her chance” and missed a teaching moment — a moment when it was she who needed to be taught. She concluded that she is flawed.

I don’t want to criticize this woman because she already seems too self-recriminatory (and also it sounds like she is a great, conscientious mother), but it made me think of other instances in which I have heard people — especially women — apologizing too profoundly for things that either a) aren’t that big a deal or b) aren’t really sins or crimes or character flaws, but rather mistakes or things that happen in the course of everyday life.

I see my sister over-functioning in her relationships, eager to overlook infelicities and mold herself into someone agreeable (loveable). I hear friends apologizing profusely for missing a husband’s phone call or a mother at the park apologizing to her child for the kid’s falling down when the mother wasn’t being hyper-vigilant every second of the day.

Women apologize for being sad about secondary infertility when they know that some women have borne no children or for not being ecstatic about a surprise pregnancy because some would be overjoyed. I apologize for  finding being a stay-at-home mom occasionally frustrating because I know some women would love to stay home.

My oldest daughter has learned to apologize when she spills the milk, and last night she tried to gulp back her tears when she banged her arm badly on the wooden leg of a chair, after a particularly spectacular gymnastic feat. I was reading a book, and she is aware and old enough to know how much I dislike interruptions. But her arm was pretty bruised up and I was happy to get her an ice pack and coo soothingly over her pain.

I felt bad that she thought she had to restrain her expression of hurt because it might inconvenience me, that she feared my impatience. I am here to comfort her and make things right in her world (even if my book was getting good right then). She doesn’t have to say “I’m sorry” for needing me; she doesn’t have to apologize in order to get my attention and affection.

And neither does my dad.

I can’t do it.

Maybe this is why I’m not a vegetarian, except I don’t envision any problem eating the zucchini and tomatoes and basil my garden is going to produce. (That and I love steak.)

But I can’t bring myself to get out the scissors and snap those fragile green stems. Maybe if I start with the beans. Their stems are thick and tall. And I mostly planted only one large seed in each of those.

My body is the soil my children grew in. They still grow in my time, my attention, my concern, my care.

I’m glad I don’t have to thin my children. But do I have enough soil for the three I have? For another one? Do I have the ruthlessness, the determination, the focus, to thin the other things from my life that might usurp the oxygen and water of my mother’s love that my children deserve?

It’s time to thin my children, now that they’re beginning to grow from me. I’m to prune the weaker parts of their personalities.

And the person holding the shears could use some serious shaping herself.

We walked on Sunday evening, after coming home from a weekend of binge eating and church conference at my parents. Sally and Susan ran ahead, holding hands, giggling, agreeing to play “sister princesses” when we got home. Spot held her plastic ponies in each hand, not letting go even when she tripped over loose gravel. When they got tired, and whined, Dick carried Susan on his shoulders, I carried Spot.

I pointed out airplanes white against the blue sky. Spot showed me “A bubble, Mommy! A bubble!”

“That’s the moon, honey,” I said. It was a three-quarter moon, early and wispy against the still-bright sky. It looked like a bubble.

“Yeah, Mommy, that’s the moon,” Spot agreed.

Susan would obstinately insist on the bubble description. Sally would concede the astronomical explanation, but make me acknowledge that it sure did look like a bubble.

My kids are coming right along. Now if I can bring myself to thin my plants.

Jane

Yesterday Susan told Spot “You don’t have to say everything you do,” which was funny coming from last year’s winner of the flapping tongue macaroni trophy. I told Dick that Spot was making me crazy on Monday, and he said, “With the over-talking?” and I said of course not, I love being an accredited repository for every thought she ever thought of having. Dick tweeted about Spot’s condition and one of his friends replied that he would love it if his 10-month old son spoke to him all day, and I said, that’s his first kid, right?

Before the endless commentary began, it was our habit to take the kids to DI (Deseret Industries, a thrift shop) on the weekends, usually in the same trip as our weekly outing to the dollar theater (where we most recently saw Bedtime Stories — Adam Sandler’s best, which isn’t saying much, but it really was funny). DI is the kids’ favorite store, because it is the only store where they always get a toy. When Spot picked out yet another stuffed bunny, I suggested a nice soft bear instead (either of which would get a spin through the washing machine before my kids have a chance to drool that special nighttime drool all over them). Sally explained that Spot collects bunnies. If we go back the week after Easter, we’ll probably clean up on the bunny aisle, and this time Spot can explain in great detail exactly why she needs yet another first-litter-eating lagamorph.

I know that I should savor each funnily-pronounced word and cutely-incisive observation. And I do, I really do, until I’m concentrating on something else, and even though I can hear the decibel-escalating repetitions as she protests my inattention, I imagine that maybe this time she’ll get on with her day without the magical mom-affirmation of “Wow, yes honey, that’s great;” when she works herself up to the urgently-screeched message: “Mommy, I have a purple stroller,” I want to stick a fork in my neck.

Why do they tell us everything when nothing is very interesting, and then, when they start doing and thinking and feeling things that might actually merit discussion, they say their day was fine. And school was fine. And “I guess so” and “Sure” and “Whatever”? At least, I think that’s how a lot of teenagers talk. With my luck, I’ll still be getting the director’s cut when they move out of the house.

Jane

Comment of the Day from Beth:

Yes, we need to get our Lucy’s together. Because at 5 years old my Lucy does the same thing and has since she was 2. She talks — ALL DAY LONG. She is getting better, but once she has decided you are a person with whom she can be herself, well, the cascade of information flows like an unblocked dam. I bet though, that she will be your brightest kid yet. I think the talking implies questioning/observing your surroundings and that implies greater intelligence. Right? Doesn’t it? Otherwise I’m going to strangle her.

If you need to get some exercise, I’ll tell you.

If your talents don’t exactly extend to macrame, I’ll tell you.

If you’re not good at basketball, I’ll tell you.

If your iambic hexameter sucks, I’ll tell you.

Sally, Susan, and Spot, I’m not gonna lie to you. I may think you’re the bee’s knees and the cat’s pajamas and that your poop doesn’t stink (well, I KNOW that it does), but even if I think you’re the best thing since sliced bread and bottled Mountain Dew, I’m not gonna contribute to the sort of self-delusion that would lead you to make an absolute fool of yourself on a show like American Idol.

I’m sorry, and, YOU’RE WELCOME.

The kids were tired and Annie’s oldest, who truly is quite articulate, said that he would rather wait in the car than go in with his mom. The kids were in their coats, in their car seats.

A couple walked by and called the police, who came and had been at the car for three minutes when my friend got back to it. The female police officer who wrote up my friend did not know for sure whether the statute Annie had violated was state or federal, though she guessed federal. She was positive that children have to be 8 to be unattended in a car, and 12 if there are any children under 8 present also.

My friend was so upset and ashamed about the whole episode that she didn’t tell anyone but her husband for three weeks. When she finally told me about it, I did some research. I couldn’t find a state or federal law about leaving children unattended in cars. There are groups pushing for legislation to make cars safer for kids unattended in cars, and there are statutes about neglect, harm, and abuse to a child, but no such allegations were made in this case. (The police made no moves to open the car; they could see that the kids were happy and safe.)

Annie and I scoured the internet. She called the DMV and learned it’s not a traffic violation; she called the district court and realized the clerks had no clue beyond suggesting a call to the city police department, and, oh, wasn’t that odd — according to the code on the citation, Annie was charged with “trespass and graffiti.”

Today at the court appearance, the prosecutor’s case paper had the correct code on it. Turns out, there’s a city ordinance about leaving children under the age of 6 unattended in a car in a public place. Annie was too flustered and intimidated by the judge to defend herself; she pled guilty to an infraction and paid the (happily-low) $100 fine.

Now, there are several issues here:

1) Children die in cars every year from hyperthermia.

2) The couple who called the police did the right thing.

3) The American justice system is probably the most defendant-friendly in the history of the whole history, and yet it is still a maze of Kafka-esque proportions.

4) Mothers who care about their children never stop worrying whether they’re doing it right.

1) Children die in cars every year from hyperthermia. This happens in the summer time, when parents forget (or don’t care) that their children are in the car. Recent cases have involved parents forgetting to drop kids off at daycare. I haven’t heard of any cases in the winter time among children running errands with their parents. In the Ohio case of Brenda Nesselroad-Slaby (whose 2 year-old died after 8 hours in the car), no charges were brought because there was no “reckless conduct” present.

I’ve never heard of a kid being kidnapped out of a locked car in a parking lot, but this could happen. I don’t know how it could possibly happen to a five-year old and not a six-year old, but there you go.

2) The couple who called the police did the right thing. My friend might wish that they’d considered waiting a few more minutes to see if a parent would return. But what if Annie had fallen and gotten hurt? What if you walked past a car with two kids in it? Would you walk by? I hope not. (I hope you wouldn’t act smug when the mother got written up for it, either.)

3) The American justice system blah blah blah. Ignorance of the law is a poor defence, but when almost no one knows what the law is, and when there’s no intent to neglect or actual neglect or any harm, what purpose is there in humiliating a mother who is honestly doing her best, which is pretty darn good?

4) Mothers who care about their children always think they’re doing something wrong. And if they’re not doing it wrong, for sure some other mother is.

We parents are so hard on each other. A couple months ago I told another friend how tempted I was to leave Spot napping at home while I ran to the school to pick up Sally. I was SO tempted: Spot had just barely fallen asleep, and I hated to drag her out into the cold. The school is only three minutes away; we live in a very, very safe neighborhood. My friend told me she’d recently left her baby asleep at home in the exact same circumstances, only she took the baby monitor over to the neighbor’s house.

I woke Spot up that day. What if there’s a fire, I thought. My friend who had left her baby at home also recounted a time when she left her kids in the car at the printers’. She could see them through the store window and she was only gone for three minutes. But, she said, she would NEVER leave her kids for twelve minutes in a large parking lot.

Neither would I, for that matter. I think. Except maybe I have, at the grocery store? Or the movie rental place? Sally is almost 8, so she’s probably been at least six any time I’ve done that. And probably I was only in the store for nine minutes, so that’s okay.

I do leave Susan and Spot while I get a drink at the gas station (or used to!) — in fact they were in the car when I locked my keys in it last month.

My point: there are large gray areas, despite laws about booster seats for eight-year olds.

And negotiating the gray areas is tough enough without law enforcers adding unnecessarily to the guilt and uncertainty parents feel every day. Surely police officers can tell a difference between a mother running a quick errand and a mother leaving her kids in a car while she bar-hops.

When I told Dick about Annie’s mistake, he said, “Wow, reminds me of that time your friend Andrea passed a car on the right and the police pulled her over and made her feel so bad for endangering her kid who was in the back seat.”

That happened almost eleven years ago, when Dick and I were dating. I still remember Andrea showing up at my house right after it happened. She was shattered at the idea that she might be (thought) an unfit mother. Dick and I haven’t talked about that in ELEVEN YEARS, and when we did talk about it Sally was the merest twinkle in Dick’s eye, but we both remembered it, and I bet Andrea does too.

I’ve joked before that I’m going to wait to have another kid until the American Academy of Pediatrics decides it’s okay after all for babies to sleep on their stomachs. Because if I have to count the weeks until another newborn can turn over by herself and get some quality sleep, I just won’t make it.

I know I make mistakes as a parent. (And I know I’m not the only one). But I hate the feeling that everyone else is watching, waiting for me to screw up.

Jane

p.s. I’m in the running for a spotlight on Mormon Mommy blogs, if you want to go vote (in the sidebar). Because I AM a good mother, dammit, and even if this post isn’t even “funny in a makes you think sort of way” (as one of my sweet readers said), but just plain “makes you think” (I hope), I’m, uh, sure I’ll have something almost-funny up again soon. (Thanks also to the MomNerd.)

Comment of the day (so far) from Keli:

A most excellent post, thank you. I have done this several times. I admit it. I will run into the “Sev” to grab a hot chocolate, and I admit, I don’t want to unbuckle my 2 year old, and wrastle the 5 year old, and then have to buy them crap they won’t eat or drink in addition to my hot cocoa. It’s purely selfish. But if a mom can’t have her selfish time, what can she do?

I usually try to get a 12 year old to sit with my kids in the car while I bar hop, though. That makes me a much better mother.

{Back to the Bloggy Giveaways Post}

Rachel is the same age as my Susan (4) and Jacob is the same age as my Spot (2). Rachel is the most placid kid I’ve ever met. Even in the minivan, where she’s exiled to the lonely middle seat while the others ride in the back and watch the movie, Rachel is content.

But Jacob is another story. That boy is not quiet or incurious or eagerly agreeable, if you know what I’m saying.

Things are fine on Tuesdays and Thursday mornings though, when Sally is busy negotiating the social structures of the second grade.

On a fine Saturday morning, however, when we are babysitting while Chrysanthemum and her husband dress rehearse for the church Christmas program, it’s a whole new dynamic.

(And it’s almost enough to make me wish I were at bit more musically inclined.)

Sally is used to being the leader of the little people. She objects to being lumped in with “the kids,” but she condescends to being known as the leader of the little people, despite my sweet mother-in-law’s objection that this might be offensive to the persons in TLC’s Little People, Big World reality TV show.

(I think if you’re willing to be filmed for a reality TV show, you probably won’t get your knickers in a twist over a seven-year old calling her sisters “little people”). (Because reality show stars are big-hearted like that).

This morning Susan shared her paints with Jacob, who refreshed his muddy water at a rate consistent with his fascination for the water that comes out of the door of the fridge. Spot did some hard time in the laundry room after slapping Rachel for breathing on her dolly stroller, and Sally decided, after repeatedly expressing her gratitude, loudly, for not having any brothers, that the fort in the loft is now a Girls Club.

Dick objected.

Dick is, after all, male. Also, his ears were being pierced by the screams emitting from the other male person in the room.

Sally said she would make a separate Boys Club for whenever Jacob is over to play.

This satisfied no one but Sally, Susan, Spot, Rachel, and me. Which is to say that it satisfied everyone but the two male persons who found that to be rather discriminatory. Or, in other words, the screaming from the short male person was not stopped by Sally’s campaign promises of equal facilities and equal opportunities for hiding from the grown-ups.

And I guess I can’t blame Jacob. It probably wouldn’t be any fun to hide out in a Boys Club by yourself. For one thing, one of the main components of a club is the other members, so how could a club of one be even remotely equal to a club of four?

I thought about taking Sally aside for a quick rundown on Civil Rights, beginning with the War Between the States and Brown v. Board of Education and continuing on to Rosa Parks and Caroline Kennedy, who deserves that senate seat even if her husband didn’t cheat on her because DANG she wears pearls well.

But by the time I had prepared to fight this threat to justice everywhere, Jacob had agreed to Sally’s suggestion that they go string bracelets from the plastic bead collection.

Because, you see, there are no girl toys and boy toys, no Girls Club and Boys Club. Only love and harmony and SHARING, at our house.

I leave it to you to guess which pieces she insisted on and which pieces Mom gently persuaded her into.

I plan to assert myself when it actually snows, though. She WILL wear socks with those flipflops, if it’s the last thing I do.

Jane

p.s. Dick was thinking to himself this morning (early, as he leaves the house at 5:30) and he realized that the camera is an important part of my blogging, and that since he’s missed seeing pictures in my last few posts, he would have one more look-see in the cushions of the couch for the missing camera (last seen the night I cut my hair). I’d told him it had to be in the couch, but apparently we hadn’t delved far enough into the couch’s innards over the weekend. So Dick went couch-diving this morning, which is much too similar to dumpster-diving at this house, and he FOUND THE CAMERA. So here is a picture post just for you, Dick. Thank you for taking the time this morning to use your Daddy eyes.

Happy Wordless Wednesday!

I’m not talking about the obvious (and unfortunately ineffectual) abuse that’s so embarrassing at the Walmart. You know, the parents who whack their kids while shouting, “Stop hitting your sister” or “I told you not to use the #@%& word, @#%$-it!” And I’m not talking about those who speak to anyone under the age of 10 as though they’re braindead, either. Because let’s face it, my children are often in a sugar-/TV-/breathing- induced coma reminiscent of brain-dead-ism.

And I’m not even talking about people who treat their friends’ or strangers’ kids differently than their own. Those conscientious parents who’ll go out of their way to answer a question or offer condolence to someone else’s kid while their own flesh and blood howls for a half-hearted nod of acknowledgement. (I do this one ALL THE TIME.)

No, those are all posts for another time.

I’m talking about how we handle kid-sized interruptions when we’re lucky enough to be engaged in witty bantering and sparkling repartee with another actual adult human (where witty bantering and sparkling repartee too often equal hammering out the logistics of our next playdate).

What do you do when little Addison/Aidan interrupts a real conversation?

Do you immediately stop your selfish adults-only talk and turn your body so you’re open to your child and generally treat her as though the President-elect himself has asked for a minute of your time?

Or do you swat them aside vaguely, pretending you can’t really hear that screeching coming from the hordes now writhing on the floor?

Too much or too little? What do you think?

1) Children should be seen and not heard

2) Children are my reason for B.E.I.N.G.

3) What Children?

Jane

Comment of the day from Paula:

I think the best way to handle this is to give your attention to the child long enough to take care of anything truly urgent, or to remind them not to interrupt and promise they will have your full attention in a few moments. Then don’t forget to give them your attention at the appropriate time. I’m not in the “children should mold their lives around the expectations/needs of adults” camp, but age-appropriate expectations of politeness are in line.

That being said, most of the time my kids have to be pretty persistent in trying to get my attention before I even notice they are there, LOL.

But Spot refused to put on her skirt. Instead, she insisted on wearing Susan’s shirt and her own blue jewelled flipflops. I tried to shame her into putting on her skirt by telling her I could see her diaper, but she was unashamed.

Which is why, at 12:53 pm, as we pulled into the church parking lot, I surreptitiously took one last (long) swig of my pre-church Mountain Dew.

A man pulled in next to us and got his three sons out of the car. Dick and I speculated later that his wife was terminally ill, or home with a fretful baby. Perhaps he works a hard job on third shift, then comes home in the early dawn to a messy home and three active boys.

Which is why he took one last (long) swig of his Red Bull, directed his son to bring it along, and warned: “Don’t drink all of it!”

(Not that my friends’ kids eat boogers.)

I used to jog with my friend when we lived in Cairo, so I wasn’t too excited about her seeing me in my post-moving fat slump and with my busy/poor/lazy gray hair. In a toss up between losing 20 pounds and getting a better haircut than the one Dick gave me a few months ago, getting a cut and highlights was the much easier fix.

(Hey, I can hope that if I have striking hair, no one will even notice my fat jeans.)

As my nice (young) stylist worked, I caught up on my trashy magazine reading, though unfortunately they didn’t have any really juicy ones like People or UsWeekly.

Instead I looked through some parenting magazines, and picked up a bunch of expert advice that I’ll be working into my daily routine.

One tip was so potentially life-changing that I thought I’d pass it on to you. It’s from Parents magazine:

If your morning routine is crazy, and the kids are having a meltdown just as you are rushing to get to your own early meeting, gather your kids into a circle and beat on your chests, yelling like Tarzan, for thirty seconds. Everyone will start laughing, and then they’ll magically find the lost tennis shoe and the hidden homework. (I may have made up that last bit, but they definitely talked about everyone laughing off the days’ stresses).

I don’t know about your kids, but when mine are out-of-control, the last thing they want to do is humor Mom in a little team-building role play.

No, if you really want to have a better morning routine, I’m afraid the answer is much less exciting:

1. Go to bed earlier (kids too).

2. Get up earlier (kids too).

3. Plan clothes/lunches/backpacks/outerwear/homework the day before.

4. Eat a good breakfast (kids too). No straight-sugar cereal.

But wait! I have an even more unsexy suggestion: If your morning routine is crazy, and if you really want to fix it:

5. Take a look at your priorities and schedule, and plan things so that you have an hour (or even a half hour) in which to concentrate on your kids in the morning without interruption.

Let me just say that I know these five things work, because I have way too much experience with the staying up late, the waking up late, the scrambling for clean underwear, and the blog posts that need finishing. It’s shocking (SHOCKING!) how much smoother things go in the morning if I’m not trying to talk on the phone to Tara or finish a post or pay a bill that was due last week.

The sad, hard truth is that parenting takes quantity time as well as quality. I can’t blame Parents for wishing that a 30-second screamfest would solve all our problems, though. Wouldn’t that be loverly?

Jane

That’s the Unsexy Morning Routine that works-for-me. Check out Rocks In My Dryer for more tips!

Comment of the day (and why I love Memarie Lane so much):

My midwife always has a stack of free Mothering magazines. The last one had an article about “gentle discipline.” This mom was playing ball with her two little boys and they kept getting upset and fighting. So she had them sit down and told them that the ball is a “talking stick” (why not a talking ball?) And whoever had the talking stick could talk while everyone else had to listen. And then each boy got his turn with the “stick” to talk about how he felt about his brother and the ball and the incident that had occurred. And then there were rebuttals and such, and then they sang a song and hugged.

I prefer my spanking stick.

1) Determine which battles are worth fighting and which aren’t. It’s nice to give the Hubs some input here, always remembering who usually mops up the tears and blood.

2) Plot strategies for the battles worth fighting.

3) Resist all temptation to fight those battles not worth fighting.

Your lists may differ (I don’t see how), but here are our:

Battles (Not) Worth Fighting

1. School Attendance — Not Worth It. I know, you’re probably thinking that’s easy for me to say when my kids are so intelligent and well-socialized, but I’d let them skip school now and then even if they weren’t prodigies. Remember Mrs. Lynde’s sage advice:

That is I wouldn’t say school to her again until she said it herself. Depend upon it, Marilla, she’ll cool off in a week or so and be ready enough to go back of her own accord, that’s what, while, if you were to make her go back right off, dear knows what freak or tantrum she’d take next and make more trouble than ever. The less fuss made the better, in my opinion. She won’t miss much by not going to school, as far as that goes. (Anne of Green Gables)

2. Church Attendance — Worth the Fight. Normally I think it’s a good idea to have low expectations (saves on disappointment), but church attendance is one of those things that you should just expect, and keep on expecting. Church wasn’t optional when I was growing up, and if I still have to go now, you can bet your cute patoote my kids do too!

3. Homework — Not Worth It. I know, again with the advanced mental abilities making it easy to shrug off homework, but really. If Sally, age 7, goes to school for 6 hours everyday and then wants to play with her sisters or run around outside or read Danny Dunn and the Swamp Monster, I’m not going to make her sit and fill out some stupid worksheet on the pattern ABABAB. So there!

4. Naps — Worth the Fight. At some point (say 13 or 14 years of age), your kids will grow out of napping. This is a sad, sad day that deserves black balloons and dead roses. Until then, revel in the nap-time. After that, do whatever it takes (locks, threats, bribes) to protect “quiet” time.

5. Piercings — Not Worth It. I’m all for restraint in the puncturing of random appendages, but the one good thing about piercings is that they are so easy to remove! I got a second hole in my left ear when I was seventeen (oh the delicious rebellion!), never guessing that when I was thirty-one I would turn down a pair of earrings from my sister because I haven’t worn anything in either ear for about six years.

6. Tattoos — Worth the Fight. Have you seen all the advertising for tattoo removal? Maybe when my kids are twenty-seven they can make a decision like this for themselves, but no way are they doing it when they’re too young to realize that someday that’s going to hurt like a mother AND cost lots of money to remove.

7. Hair — Worth the Fight Not Worth It (ultimately). After watching home videos of toddler-Sally, Dick made me promise not to cut Spot’s hair in the same Monkees cut (Sally’s the pianist). I am in complete agreement, but Spot is always taking out her ponytails, so often she has hair in her eyes, which bothers me, but not as much as it bothers Grandma, who I will probably have to supervise all her visits with Spot to protect her from scissors. Oh well. Susan keeps cutting her own hair, and I shaved my head when I was nineteen. Almost did it again the other day, but have gained approximately fifty pounds since then, so would not look like Demi Moore in GI Jane now as I did back then.

8. Modesty — Worth the Fight. I was sometimes the least-modest person in the entire city of Cairo (except the tourists), and usually the most modest on the beach in Florida. I don’t want my girls to get a complex, and I don’t see myself ever forcing them to wear a bra. Hmmm, come to think of it, I can’t even see myself taking them shopping for a bra. Maybe Dick . . . no, that’s probably weird, although he did take me bra shopping that one time. Whether clothes match or not is a different story, and definitely Not Worth It (as is backwards panties. Do not point out things like this).

9. Language — Not Worth It. This one might seem a tad self-rationalizing, because I have a bit of a problem with my favorite words (beginning with “f” and “s” and “d”), but I really can’t get too worked up about what they say. We don’t take the name of the Lord in vain, but I think it’s best not to overreact to obvious ploys for attention like “Mommy poops in her diaper.” (If you can’t imagine the appeal of the f-word, read Paddy Clarke HaHaHa. Go ahead. I read it for an English class at BYU, so it won’t hurt you.)

10. Eating (What) — Worth the Fight. Eating (When) — Not Worth It. I saw a mother holding her child in the straight-jacket hold at a picnic last week. Lots of screaming ensued. It wasn’t pleasant. Look. Family dinner time is important. It’s important that we sit around and discuss our day, but don’t make your kid eat when she’s not hungry. As long as the food on offer later is the same nutritious stuff as was at the table, let them eat when and how they want. Please. And if it makes them happy (and keeps them quiet), LET THEM EAT CAKE!

11. TV Viewing — Not Worth It. When I say “TV” what I really mean is watching movies in the back of a moving minivan. This is something that should be encouraged at all stages of development. Mindless TV watching at home should probably be rationed, and while The Simpsons is fine for any age, The Family Guy is not.

12. Seatbelts, Swimming Lessons, and Shots — Worth the Fight. A few months ago I got off the freeway to spank Susan for taking off her seatbelt. She did it a couple more times that week. It was some rough boundary-testing week, and I’m pleased to say that she now starts to hyperventilate if somehow we start rolling with her seatbelt unfastened. I want to be safe! she wails. Thank you. My job is done.

13. Manners — Worth the Fight. When Sally was eighteen months old, she started curling her hand into her chest with her elbow out at a 90-degree angle whenever I prompted her to say “please.” I couldn’t tell if this was some strange sign language she’d picked up or what. Then I realized that when I prompted her to say please I was usually holding something in my hand that she wanted, and I was holding it back away from her, against my chest, until she said the magic word. It was sign language, all right. But not very pretty.

So. What do you think? What are your battles worth fighting and not?

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This is my first attempt at a Thursday Thirteen, and it’s also what Works-for-Me.

I’m not ready for another kid, and so I talked it over with my good friend Tara, because open communication is important in any marriage. One reason I’m reluctant is that I feel extremely lucky to have three perfectly healthy kids. Why push it? Do you know how many things can go wrong? The odds on having four normal kids seem almost astronomical.

Here’s my baby, Spot. Not such a baby anymore. We first noticed something ‘off’ with her eyes at six months. She’d outgrown the usual newborn cross-eyedness, but her right eye was often not tracking with the left. We hoped she’d outgrow that, along with those strange grunting noises and the diaper-wetting.

At nine months I took her to a pediatric ophthalmologist who couldn’t get her to do her eye trick. Like a recalcitrant car that insists on running smoothly the second you take it into the shop. The cross-eye doctor said her eye muscles were all equally developed and that it was probably just a baby thing that would resolve itself. Don’t you love doctor-speak?

Dick thought we should get her a patch, but I couldn’t imagine her keeping it on. Plus, the doctor hadn’t actually recommended the pirate look.

So now she’s 21 months old, and the mysterious eye thing is not resolved. It comes and goes and I call her cross-eyed baby sometimes. Today we saw a different pediatric ophthalmologist. It took his assistant approximately 46 seconds to diagnose Duane Syndrome. Okay. Can we not call things “syndromes” unless they’re seriously life-changing/threatening/coma-inducing? Also, could we not name syndromes after your beer-drinking uncle who likes to watch NASCAR?

Avoidance? Huh? Anyway, Duane Syndrome means that in the 6th week of pregnancy, her 6th cranial nerve didn’t hook up with the 6th eye muscle that it’s supposed to control. Her left eye cannot turn out past the midline. It’s completely untreatable and means (to Dick) that she will never be great at basketball and (to me) that she will never be a fighter pilot.

To Tara, it’s a good reason to have a fourth kid because, as she pointed out, we no longer have three perfectly normal children anyway.

On the one hand (more like ninety-nine out of a hundred hands), I’m grateful beyond expressing that it’s not something worse. Spot has the most common, least complicated type (I) of Duane Syndrome, and she seems to be compensating well for it. DS is more common in girls than boys (3:2) and not hereditary and usually doesn’t affect quality of life.

Unless you wanted to be a fighter pilot.

When do you tell your kids that they can’t become something when they grow up? Do you ever tell them? Do you take your son aside and tell him he’s tone deaf before he tries out for American Idol? Do you tell your daughter that the tallest ballerinas are only 5’7″ and that since she’ll most likely grow to 5’10″, she might want to pick a different dream?

When do I tell Spot she can’t be a fighter pilot?

So I was talking to my friend who taught fourth grade. She has read practically every YA book, and especially every single fantasy-type book. This is my friend Tracey who, with our friend Melinda, I used to sit around on Friday nights reading books in high school. You know, when we weren’t out being extremely sought-after at parties.

Tracey loves Harry Potter — I think she said book five is her favorite, but the whole series is smashing! And I bragged casually mentioned how my soon-to-be second grader (Sally) was almost done with that one.

Oh, but with book six and seven, she said, you can definitely tell they’re not for kids anymore. Because the characters are growing up, they start swearing some, and Harry isn’t even really going to school, he’s fighting the bad guy, so it’s pretty scary.

Sally just showed me on the dust jacket of The Half-Blood Prince: “Teenagers flirt and fight and fall in love,” hand over her mouth, smirking and rolling of eyes. So it seems Tracey was right about the kissing, too.

What to do? I know this is only the first in a long line of books, movies, songs, clothes, etc that I’m going to have to allow or disallow. Clothes are easy. They’re modest or they’re not. Music is harder because I like a few songs that have questionable lyrics (but really good melodies!). Movies are pretty easy so far, even though Dick periodically tries to convince me that Sally can watch a a PG-13 movie with him. (She can’t. I’m in charge. The End.)

But books? What if my mom had not allowed me to read Wuthering Heights or Phantom of the Opera at 12? It wasn’t until a month ago that I watched the Gerard Butler Phantom and realized he was old enough to be Christine’s father, and just how disturbing that is. And Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged at 13? (though anyone who can get through John Galt’s speechifying deserves a few romantic encounters).

Compared to what most kids see on TV, this probably seems like a really silly question. But, my kids aren’t most kids.

The best answer, dang it, is for me to read the books first, right? Please don’t say that. How about I watch the movies? Is the last movie coming out soon?

What would you do? Have you read books six and seven? Have your kids? Will they give Sally nightmares or scar her for life?

At first I wondered why Rocks in My Dryer and Musings of a Housewife were so indignant. I agree that a 15-year old appearing topless in a magazine is cause for outrage, but I can’t see that it’s cause for surprise.

Unless you rejoiced in the relative wholesomeness of Hannah Montana and bought into her image, her family-friendly vibe, and her insistence that you can have “the best of both worlds,” as her hit song proclaims. The best of both worlds being, one assumes, stardom and a Christian, down-to-earth family life. I think it’s safe to say that one can have anything one wants, but not everything one wants, as my dad says his brother Herb always said.

It’s interesting to see who bloggers and commenters think is to blame for the photo. Is a 15-year old responsible for her own choices? Should her dad have made a different decision for her? Is it Vanity Fair or the celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz or Disney who most exploited a child? Billy Ray’s heart is probably achy breaky tonight, knowing that he’s definitely winning the blame game, especially in Shannon at RIMD’s estimation.

But one thing about the handwringing bothers me. While I can only imagine how hard it is to have to explain to young sons about topless photos, I think we might miss a great teaching moment as parents if we approach it as Shannon seems to, angry that there’ll have to be an “unpleasant conversation in our house tonight, about modesty and decision-making and growing up too fast.”

Now that I’ve figured out what I want my kids to learn from this experience, I’m almost regretful that Sally, at 7 1/2, hasn’t shown enough interest in the Hannah Montana DVD Grampa sent for Christmas for a lesson on modesty and decision-making and continuing-to-make-good-choices-no-matter-what-our-age to be relevant. My almost-tween still likes Dora and Curious George and Arthur. And guess how eager I am for that to change? Right.

First of all, the conversation could be pleasant, I think. When we’ve talked about modesty with Sally and Susan, it’s been in the context of that other great Disney invention, the Disney Princess. We talk about how we can like Ariel and Belle and Jasmine even if we don’t like what they choose to wear. We can love the person and be happy for their good choices while recognizing that they might make some bad choices or choices that aren’t right for us. It makes viewing a Disney movie a little bit more complicated, but the lesson of the complexity of people — loving them, being happy for their good choices while choosing not to imitate their bad choices, translates well into real life.

But I think the greatest lesson to be learned here is about peer pressure, and how it can trick even parents, even sophisticated (one imagines), fame-experienced grown-ups. This is what Miley said originally about the photo:

I think it’s really artsy. It wasn’t in a skanky way. Annie took, like, a beautiful shot, and I thought that was really cool. That’s what she wanted me to do, and you can’t say no to Annie. She’s so cute. She gets this puppy-dog look and you’re like, ‘OK.’

Saddest words I never want to hear out of my daughter’s mouth: “you can’t say no to Annie.” She’s famous, she’s intimidating, she’s emotionally manipulative (puppy-dog look?). Miley’s dad Billy Ray had a chance to be a real hero on that photo shoot, to stand up and say, “No. In our family we don’t take off our clothes in public.” And then to his daughter, he could have said, “Honey, you can say no to ANYONE. You never have to do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, and if anyone ever asks you to, I hope you’ll come to me for help.”

If he wanted to get real mushy, he could’ve added, “Miley, you and me, and your mom (and sisters and brothers). We’re a team. We decide what’s right for us, and no matter what anyone else thinks or does or says in the world, we can do what’s right for us.”

But I’m jaded about the Cyrus family business. I’m afraid they’re probably more concerned with spinning the blame and soothing fans to spend time correcting their daughter’s erroneous belief that “you can’t say no to Annie.”

Yesterday my 7-9 year-olds Sunday School lesson was on following the commandments. When I asked the kids for examples, one boy suggested traffic laws like “stopping at stop signs.” I started listing the 10 Commandments and got stuck on number two, explaining what an idol is. Another boy said, “Like American Idol?” and I said, “Oh no, like a statue that you worship instead of God.”

But the next minute I wondered. And now I wonder more. Who are our idols? I think God wants our children (and us) to have good role models, to look up to people who do amazing things and magnify their God-given talents. And those people don’t have to be perfect. We’re not perfect. Of course. But this photo is not the best of both worlds. The best of both worlds would be the opportunity to share one’s talents AND encouragement/support from one’s parents to always make right choices.

Show me that best, and my daughters and I will enjoy more from Miley Cyrus than just a great object lesson in the perils of peer pressure.

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I don’t know if it is better or not that some of the kids might have thought that they could duct tape and stab their teacher and then she would be able to stand up and “be all better.”

When Sally was almost four, she colored baby Susan’s eyelids with a ballpoint pen to “make her beautiful” like the princess in the movie (one more reason to boycott make-up). I said, “But you could have poked her eye out!” No problem, Sally said, “You could’ve stuck it back in.”

So you almost expect that kind of reasoning from a 4 year old. But from 8 and 9 year olds? My church considers the age of accountability to be 8. I hope by the time my kids are 8 they’ll a) know this kind of behavior is wrong and b) be aware that actions have consequences that are, sometimes, horribly permanent.

Hell in a handbasket, indeed.