The Mother's Handbook.net » Domesticality

I Bet Michael Kors’ Mother Never Had to Put up with This

themother — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 00:42:26 +0000

The Goth has rather, um, eclectic taste in clothes.

If one wants to wear poet’s shirts, gothic trenchcoats and Dracula capes (and doesn’t want to spend the ridiculous money that adult dress-up shops charge), one has to make minor accommodations. The Goth has learned to deal by–wait for it–making his own.

Having a mom with serious sewing skills does aid in his quest, just a little. Not that he’d admit it.

Regardless, the Goth has been working on this project since the beginning of the summer. And by “working,” I actually mean “thinking about.” He had a picture and an idea. It cropped up in conversation every once in a while. He finally took measurements about two weeks ago. A week ago, he bought fabric.

So we can see how absolutely important finishing this quickly is to the guy. Procrastination, thy name is teenager.

Meanwhile…

Mom has this Orthodox bar mitzvah to attend. How likely is it that the Mother will find something that covers her shoulders, elbows and knees in a summer wardrobe tuned to 100 degree heat and 100 percent humidity?

Not likely. Not likely at all.

While I do not relish having to sit in a separate section from the men (and have been screaming about it all summer), this good friend of mine chose this lifestyle. While I don’t understand it, I will fight for her right to do so. So I’m going. And I’m sewing.

That lovely iridescent silk taffeta that I bought on a spending spree a few weeks back is currently in a few hundred (exaggerating–probably only fifty) pieces on my sewing table.

And guess, my dear readers, when the Goth decided he wanted to finally work on his project?????

I’m supposed to drop everything to help him pattern, underline, mark, cut and sew. Worse, since his day starts at 2 pm, I’m usually on my way downstairs to start dinner when he suddenly shows up for help.

There is a bright side: Karma gave me four boys. No girls. I have vowed to raise four good men. Guys who can do stuff. Guys who are useful.

The Goth can not only cook and do his own laundry, but he’s learning to sew. Add that to natural charm and good looks, and some woman who doesn’t mind a little nasty procrastination habit is going to be thrilled.

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Cheesecake

themother — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 12:32:28 +0000

My family loves cheesecake (the edible, dessert kind. I have no wish to know what my boys think of the other kind). Birthday cakes are usually cheesecakes around here, which is fine with me because they require a lot less decorating.

All of my children can make cheesecakes. Note–”children” equals “boys.” From scratch. They have a reputation. Guests will ask, “Which boy made this cheesecake?”

[While I have absolutely no idea how it is that women are supposed to be the only ones who cook, yet 75% of professional chefs are male, I'm willing to exploit that bit of statistical foolishness for my own purposes.]

Give a guy a cheesecake, and he gets gooey tastebud love for a day; teach him to make his own cheesecake, and he can be fat for life.

This weekend, when we needed yet another cheesecake for yet another birthday, I looked around to find the nearest child and…

there was no one there. Nada. The boys had left me in the lurch. So I grabbed the only handy male and taught him how to make a cheesecake.

It was only fitting. It was his father. Hubby has this wonderful habit of not thinking about his father’s birthday until, like, the day before. Which is fine, except that then he calls me and announces he needs a cheesecake.

It’s not that they’re hard–they’re not. But they do take hours to bake and an overnight in the frig, which decreases their spontaneity significantly. And they generally require ingredients we just don’t have on hand (like, oh, 30 ounces of cream cheese).

Hubby made his father’s cheesecake. I helped him whip it up and left him with it in the oven to run errands. I gave him the rundown–how to set up the bain-marie, the exact diameter of the wiggly center that gets the oven heat turned off, the amount of time it sits in the oven undisturbed after heat is turned off–all the stuff that gives you light, airy, gooey cheesecakes instead of what my boys laughingly term “cheesecrete.” (Sometimes I feel sorry for my future daughters-in-law. Should any of my geeks ever procure one.)

And you know what? Best. Cheesecake. Ever.

I guess you can teach old dogs new tricks.

[We used this recipe from Not So Humble Pie. She's a god, I'm pretty sure. Don't click through to her site if you're hungry. Or on a diet.]

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You Can Take the Girl out of the City

themother — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:28:18 +0000

One of the things we parents do to our kids is attempt to force down their throats foster a sense of appreciation for nature.

To that end, then, we took Stretch out into the vast wilderness (sorta) with a two day trip to a local park. He was working on some scout stuff, and we were there to appreciate the black sky, the calm and quiet, and the cool breeze.

We are campers from way back, hubby and I. We have some grand stories with which we have bored our children, like the time our tent was leveled by a hurricane in New York (yep, really).

And the time we were camping in the summer in Montreal and all the locals were in swimsuits while I was in a parka. Canadians do not understand the concept of cold.

As the years have worn on, we have camped less and less. Some of it is change of circumstance, since we can now afford a decent hotel room. Some of it is time, as the kids’ schedules keep our weekends pretty full.

This weekend I realized another sad truth–some of it is conditioning.

I like nature as much as the other guy. But I also really like my wonderful king sized sleep number bed with its memory foam topper.

I love hot showers with shower heads that are actually big enough to get all of you in the water at the same time, and towels that you can reach within a step of the shower, and the heater in the ceiling that keeps that step toasty.

I have a thing about being able to wash my hands, with soap, when I leave the potty.

And I like being warm. Not in a wearing everything you own kind of way, but in a true, comfy, sit without keeping your arms and legs pulled up as close to you as you can kind of way.

Two days was enough.

I know I’m setting a terrible example for my kids. But there are so many other examples I set, that really are good, that I can let this one slide, just a little. Can’t I?

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Evolutionary Psychology is the Reason I Only Have Boys

themother — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:44:07 +0000

Photo: Ole Jørgen Bratland & Gisele Jaquenod, stock.xchng.com

Here’s the basic idea: Those personality traits that encourage successful reproduction in that person’s progeny are favored. Those that don’t, well, die out.

The idea has been around since the 1960s or so. Especially in the mating game, it explains a whole lot.

Like–why men have the roving eye. You see, a man’s investment in his progeny traditionally was a five to ten minute romp with his progeny’s mom. So the more romping he did, the more likely he was to successfully pass on those personality traits which encouraged romping excessively. In the long term, this produces the classic, “What’s your sign? Do you want to go to bed with me?” philosophy of fatherhood.

Women, on the other hand, have to invest 18 years in that little romp. Which means we have evolved to avoid the “What’s your sign?” men. We tend to chose men who might be around for, say, 18 years.

Hence the battle of the sexes, which has been going on since long before Darwin’s brilliance began to explain this whole mess. It seems humans, like most other higher mammals, simply did not evolve to be monogamous, or at least not easily monogamous.

[If you haven't read The Moral Animal, by Robert Wright, I highly recommend it. It's a fine review of the basic concept of evolutionary psychology, told in an appealing way, by stepping through Darwin's marital life. Fun, and fascinating.]

Society has chosen monogamy as the preferred method of male to female interaction. Yet, trying to fiat psychology always has its perils. So, too, does trying to upset the apple cart. As women’s gender roles have been changing, there has been resistance. And it may not come from where you think it does.

Yes, men are often credited with trying to keep women barefoot and pregnant. But, evolutionary psychology says they should be gratefully taking advantage of the new woman, who is perfectly capable of feeding her progeny herself (and preventing progeny, thank you very much). Men should be delighted that they can get free sex without the 18 year commitment.

Women, however, have a different agenda. Remember, the evolutionary purpose of any woman’s life is to create reproductively successful children. And if her girls are out partying and working and choosing not to procreate, MOM HAS DONE IT WRONG.

This new study shocks me a lot less than it has a lot of people. The purpose was to determine where opposition and hostility to changing gender roles arises. It turns out–it’s just as common among women as men.

Obviously, women have to support any social hierarchy, any social order. Regardless of cries of suppression, if the entirety of 50% of the population rose up en masse, things would be a-changin’. The fact that women, traditionally, DIDN’T, implies tacit approval of the status quo.

A woman whose daughters behaved as expected in the status quo had reproductively successful daughters. So that’s how she raised them. It takes a strong woman to step out of the mold.

It’s probably a good thing I only had sons. I have a fairly decent shot at spreading my genes to another generation.

Well, maybe not. I guess I need to explore the reproductive potential of geeks. Next post.

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Cleanliness, Godliness, and Allergies

themother — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 21:10:18 +0000

“Cleanliness is next to godliness.”

How many times have you heard that? Do you have any idea where it comes from?

Turns out that it appears to be the grand wisdom of a 2nd century rabbi.

If you are at all familiar with the wisdom of the ancient rabbis, you are probably rolling your eyes about now.

These are the guys who took the whole idea of Passover, where one is forbidden from eating leavened bread to commemorate the flight of the Jews from Egypt, and mucked it up with a billion rules. You can’t have anything with even natural yeast that might have started to ferment. Anything you make from flour has to be certified not to have risen, even the tiniest little bit, by a team of rabbis, baked into matzo (and sold at exorbitant prices in boxes), and then broken up again into flour.You can’t have anything with peas or corn, or even rice, because once upon a time, people often used the same scoop to measure their flour products.

So we’re going to listen to these guys about cleanliness?

That saying always made me wonder–I mean, if there is a big guy in the sky running the world, wouldn’t he be too busy to worry about dust and clutter? Or at the very least, be able to afford a maid?

Why do we make our beds, when we’re just going to get in them again in a few hours? Why do we wash our floors, when we spend our entire lives stepping on them with our dirty shoes?

For thousands of years, floors weren’t just dirty. They were DIRT. And suddenly, we are supposed to wash our kitchen floors every day?

I have watched many, many young moms stress out about keeping the house spic and span. They clean everything, all the time, to keep their precious little ones from getting a speck of dirt on their little hands.

They’d be better off (and happier) if they took their precious little ones for ice cream, instead.

Kids were meant to live on the floor, even when it was dirt. Exposure to common household antigens is normal, and a growing body of evidence says that it is probably protective against a bevy of allergic phenomena. Allergy rates are exploding, just as fast as anti-bacterial handwashes are flying off the shelves.

This is not a coincidence.

I actually saw a commercial this morning that showed moms how to disinfect their kids’ toys in Clorox. CLOROX. Because bleach is SO much safer than dirt, right?

There is no doubt that the development of sanitation systems is the single most important advance in human history. But that isn’t about dirt, it’s about human waste.

The point? Stop stressing about clutter and mess and dirty floors. Live your life. Enjoy your kids. Even if they are covered in dirt. They’re supposed to be.

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The Blankie

themother — Mon, 11 May 2009 13:00:26 +0000

Breibeest, flickr

Blankies are the loveys of every tiny tot.

And the bane of every mother’s existence.

They can’t live without them, so they get carted around, everywhere. Which means: 1) they get lost, engendering a half-day search through the house, the neighborhood, the last fifty places graced with your presence, only to find it under a pile of stuff in his own room, and 2) they get torn up, loved to pieces, threadbare.

While I was pregnant with my oldest son, I was spending a lot of time studying for boards. My favorite study mechanism was to knit–it kept me sat down, and it kept me from pigging out, since my hands were busy.

A study had just come out recently (and remember, this was 20+ years ago) that suggested that babies were better at seeing contrast. So, if you wanted them to be hyperstimulated by their environment, it should be mostly black and white. I, being the hep mommy that I was, knitted my new baby a lovely blankie, made of black and white squares with little designs on them. It was gorgeous.

What it wasn’t, was fit for a toddler’s consumption. While it managed to survive washing after washing, when it started getting dragged around the house, it gave up the ghost. Little pieces of cotton yarn polluted my home. Blankie had to go.

The Engineer had a fit.

So I vowed, with the next one, that I would start with just plain old store bought blankies. The kind that could be replaced, without notice.

Not happening. Despite his carefully chosen assortment of several identical blankies, the Grouch picked the comforter as his lovey. And when it fell apart I stitched it back together, until the only thing left of the poor blankie was darning and love.

The Grouch being the Grouch, the eventual loss of his companion of so many years threw him for yet another loop in his serially traumatic childhood.

For the Goth, I started, again, with identical blankies. And made the crib comforter TOO BIG to be hauled around. Did it work? Nope. The Goth adopted a quilt from the living room.

So, what did I do with the fourth?

Stretch started out the same way as his brothers–a series of identical crib blankets, four for ten bucks at Target. And the way too big comforter, with an ice skating penguin quilted in flannel (BTW–this is the quilt that ruined the Grouch’s fine motor skills and got me in trouble with his kindergarten teacher).

But Stretch was unimpressed by the size, and fell in love with the ice skating penguin.

It was a sturdy quilt, but it didn’t survive Stretch’s childhood unscathed. Judicious darning kept it going until his 8th year. Then it was simply irreparable. Little holes popped up and little pieces of stuffing popped out. And Stretched loved it just the same.

I took him to the fabric store, and we bought some cool red flame polar fleece and made a brand new blankie–which he loves, and which he hauls around the house.

But underneath the pillow, he keeps his wadded up scrap of flannel, stuffing and holes.

In my next life, I’m going to make the kids’ comforters out of Kevlar.

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The Gene for Common Sense is on the X Chromosome

themother — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 03:54:21 +0000

photo by mandam, flickr

[This is the post that started it all, over at Timeless Bliss. Read it. Go ahead. Then I'll tell you the story.]

Has anyone out there ever sent her husband on an errand?

A simple errand, like, buy a gallon of milk?

He calls you on the way out the door, from his cell:

Hubby: Which store?

You: Who cares?

Five minutes later:

Hubby: Okay, whole, 2% or skim?

You: Who cares?

Two minutes later:

Hubby: Which brand?

You: What’s on sale?

Two minutes later:

Hubby: Should I put it on the credit card, or pay cash?

By this time, it would have been easier to get the damn milk yourself, since you’ve spent the entire time on the telephone.

And how often do you have that PRIORITY talk? You know the one. It’s the conversation where he is convinced that THE most important thing in the world is finding out about some minor point with some company, which will probably take you four hours on hold and another ten bouncing around from one department to another. Meanwhile, you are thinking about: feeding the children, washing the floor, paying the bills, doing the laundry, and finishing your novel (okay, the floor is optional. But you get my point).

Men have different priorities than women. Mostly because they have no common sense.

It doesn’t matter how brilliant he is, a man is simply genetically programmed to respond to all manner of problems with a greater problem.

I struggled with this for years, until a fellow lab-mate explained it to me.

The gene for common sense is on the X chromosome. And, unlike the coagulation cascade, where half is usually good enough, you need TWO copies for full expression.

No, I don’t have any research to back this up. But that’s just because the people doing the genetic research are mostly men.

And they have different PRIORITIES.

[Okay. Ready?

I posted this for Timeless Bliss, as a contributor, the day I left on my two week vacation (on which I still am, but I'm steamed, so I'm back, for a special engagement.) It posted a day or so later. I thought it was funny. My editor, Cindi (over at Moomettesgram's Musings) thought it was funny.

A few hours later, the post was taken down by the muckety-mucks at Blissfully Domestic. Because it contained a profanity. Apparently, they haven't gotten the memo that a single "damn" for emphasis isn't really profanity. I can do profanity. Ask my kids. This isn't it.

I got an email; Cindi got an email. I was trying to figure out why they didn't just edit it and put it back up. Days later, I finally found out why.

This is the text of the email I received:

Your post has been reverted back to draft status by Katie.

Accompanying note:
Blissfully Domestic strives to be an uplifting and encouraging source for women. While this post is irreverently humorous, we do not think it is in line with Blissfully Domestic's goals of strengthening marriages and encouraging women to be better wives. Thank you for submitting it but unfortunately we cannot publish it at this time.
Sincerely,
Katie
Managing Editor

WTF? (now, that's profanity) I've been married for 25 years. But I do not define myself as a wife. I define myself as a woman who is married. And I believe strongly that the reason I am still married is because my husband has a sense of HUMOR. I have no interest in learning to be a "better wife," nor in working with people who believe that women should BE "better wives."

So I told the people at Timeless Bliss to shove it, and I sent a nice note to Cindi thanking her and explaining why.

And this is where you learn who your real friends are.

Cindi resigned, too. In support. And because it frosted her as much as it did me.

So you will notice that I don't have that little "Timeless Bliss Contributor" badge on my sideboard anymore.

That's it. Rant's over. And now, back to our regularly scheduled canned posts while I get the rest of my relatives tucked away on airplanes.]

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To Health Food, or Not to Health Food…That is the Question

themother — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:00:09 +0000

Last week, Momlogic published an article by Rhonda Kaysen entitled, “Beware of Broccoli.” It was a review of a NY Times article which argued that parents who are obsessed with the healthfulness of the food that their kids eat are, in actuality, causing food paranoia and neurotic behavior in their children.

I don’t disagree. Every child of a health nut I have ever met was a bit weird. But, then, so were the parents. I think it’s sort of a chicken-and-egg argument. Are they neurotic because of the food thing, or are they neurotic because of their genes?

(In the best unintentional sarcasm of the week, the first commentator on the MomLogic article whined, “why does (the article) have to take the tone that its all the mother’s fault?”)

A bit of history might be in order here. When I was pregnant with my first child, Perrier announced that there was Benzene contamination in their product. I had been guzzling the stuff, since my favorite imbibations (coffee, diet coke, and wine) were now taboo. I have since blamed Perrier for everything strange that has happened to my son, especially the fact that he became an Engineer (anyone who has ever loved an engineer knows exactly what I’m talking about).

Shortly after he was born, the alar scare hit.

So, I don’t think anyone would blame me for the organic craze.

My children got organic baby food (which I had to make! Twenty years ago, there wasn’t jarred organic baby anything). They ate nothing but wholesome, lovely food, based on the most recent research into nutrition and health.

AND THEN THEY WENT TO SCHOOL.

Someone mentioned McDonalds, and my perfect little boys were now craving fat and sodium on white carbs.

Here’s my take on the whole thing:

No question, our kids eat way too much salt and sugar in their diets. But if you don’t keep sodas, candy and chips in the house, how are they going to get them? And if you do, well, what kind of role model are you setting for your kid, anyway?

When the kids are grousing about not having anything in the house to eat, refer them to the apples and granola bars. This method has two main advantages:

1) The kid eats good food, at least when he’s home.

2) When the neighborhood kids get together and decide whose house to go play at, they’ll choose Mrs. Johnson’s house, because she always has freshly baked cookies and lets them drink sodas.

If you are one of those moms who always wants her kid at home and doesn’t understand why he always plays at Johnny’s house, read this section in reverse.

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All Last Minute Requests Must Be Submitted in Triplicate

themother — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 13:00:47 +0000

Some of you who follow me on Twitter (tmhmom, ’cause The Mother was apparently already stolen by some blackguard) got to listen to my hissy fit last week when the Goth announced that he needed twelve dozen cookies for tomorrow.

This is a classic parenting dilemma, affectionately referred to as, “The Last Minute Request,” but usually known as, “WHY THE HELL DIDN’T YOU TELL ME THAT LAST WEEK!”

The Last Minute Request is usually a book your child needs for school. He has known that he needed it for a month. His teacher has known since the beginning of the school year. But you find out at 6 pm on the day before your son has to have read the first five chapters.

So you jump in the car and go to the local bookstore. They are out of said book, of course, because EVERYBODY needs a copy by tomorrow. So you go to the not-so-local bookstore. They are also out of said book, because everybody needs a copy by tomorrow, and most of the mothers who didn’t know until yesterday started there, knowing that the local bookstore was going to be sold out. So you go to the bookstore clear across town, only to find out that some &%^$ teacher at a school you’ve never even heard of has assigned the same &%^$ book for tomorrow.

The Last Minute Request is the reason I’m a card carrying member of Amazon Prime. I don’t drive; I surf.

Other, far more hair-pulling last minute requests:

A shoe box for a diorama for tech-theater. Oh, and by the way, do we have any little bitty furniture? How about a one-inch tall kerosene lamp?

Swiss guard costumes. We’re doing a movie for Spanish class, and we’re stealing Monty Python and poking fun at the Spanish Inquisition, and it would be so much more believable if we had those really cool costumes with the balloony britches, ruffs and leiderhosen. By the way, we’re shooting it tomorrow. Can we use the house and send the little ones to the pound?

Science fair projects. Anyone ever try to put together a last-minute science fair project? Let’s just say, you’re not going to get a particle accelerator. A lemon battery, maybe. (I LOVE science. I HATE science fair. Science fair was invented to give parents duodenal ulcers. I blame the gastroenterologists’ lobby.)

Suffice it to say, twelve dozen cookies was only a minor blip in the spectrum of last minute requests. it wouldn’t have even made a blip at all, except that I was already making 60 rolls for an event for my husband.

It probably wouldn’t have been interesting enough fodder for an article, if the next morning had gone better.

The Goth took one look at his carefully boxed, lovingly baked, twelve dozen cookies and said, “THESE HAVE NUTS! I CAN”T TAKE COOKIES WITH NUTS!”

I have a new policy. All last minute requests must be filled out in triplicate.

I suppose it’s not surprising, then, that, when the Grouch announced today that he needed a copy of Dante’s Inferno by tomorrow, and it had better be the Barnes and Nobles version, I reminded him that he had a driver’s license.

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The Dummy Daddy Decade

themother — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 11:00:22 +0000

A woman from the UK named Rachel Cooke wrote an article a few days ago called “The Dummy Mummy Decade” for The Observer, which bills itself as the oldest Sunday paper in the world. In it, she argues that there exists now a generation of women who talk about nothing but motherhood and children, and we are sending feminism back to the dark ages.

Her Bad Mother ripped her apart nicely yesterday in her article, “Who’s the Dummy, Mummy?” , which is, frankly, the only reason I know about the piece, because, as I have already pointed out, we here in Texas haven’t quite entered the Enlightenment, so it would HAVE to be the oldest Sunday newspaper in the world for it to have gotten through.

If you haven’t read these articles, go. Now. I’ll wait.

Back already? Good.

I think the Observer is VERY lucky that they don’t have open comments on the article. Their servers probably would have shut down. Unfortunately, loads of irate prattle will only prove Ms. Cooke’s point. We like to talk about our kids, and we get defensive when anyone says we shouldn’t.

Mine would have gone something like this:

Dear Ms. Cooke:

Thank you for pointing out the cultural phenomenon which you have so literately dubbed “The Dummy Mummy Decade.”

We are sorry we are boring you. Just remember, please, that not all women are as fabulous as you. We don’t all have glamorous jobs in journalism, two income households without kid expenditures (allowing us to spend tidy sums on pretty frocks), and lots of time to devote to reading the latest bestsellers or watching the latest indie movie. We are too busy extolling over our child’s poop.

So, when we meet a woman of your fabulousness at a cocktail party, some of us find ourselves a little outmatched (your examples all seem to be from cocktail parties; you confess that the mothers you know PERSONALLY aren’t all that bad). We may retreat into motherhood as the only thing we know how to discuss with your mightiness. Forgive us our insecurity.

On the other hand, we might be just as worried about YOUR self-absorption, if you began prating on about those indie movies that you had time to watch, and those bestsellers you had time to read.

But, while we’re on the subject of generations of a sex that are setting evolution on its ear, and setting a bad example for the world, I would like to introduce you to the Dummy Dad Decade.

These are the men you meet at cocktail parties who can’t stop talking about sports. They live, breath and die by sports. They can’t carry on a normal conversation without adding in the name of some athlete who just got caught doping or some team that just managed to get themselves into the playoffs.

This phenomenon is SO pervasive, that whole sections of NEWSPAPERS have been devoted to it (even the Observer. I checked. But they seem to have the football rules a little mixed up). It is discussed on the news EVERY NIGHT.

And men who don’t have teams of their own? They become sad, deluded schizophrenics who invent imaginary teams to play with.

What is this generation of men doing to the cause of male social evolution? What kind of role models are they, when they cast aside the important male values of sexism and world domination, in favor of fantasy football?

And what message does that send to the opposite sex? Clearly, with male weakness showing, it’s time for women to go for the throat, and return them to their prehistoric position at the bottom of the social ladder.

But, wait. We can’t. We’re too busy going after each other’s jugulars.

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