Mini Van Madness!

The light turned yellow and I went for it. Cars were backed up and I ended up sticking out into the middle of the street when the light changed. I was trying to get to work on time (a rarity for me) and the excitement of having my boss not yell at me just got the best of me.

As I was blocking traffic the bright sun was blazing down on me like a spotlight on a crime scene. I got a work call to make me even more distracted and guilty when a bike went whizzing behind my sticking-out-mini-van. WHACK he hit the back of the car with his fist and yelled something at me as he flew off.

I'll call you right back I told my caller. I looked around as if I were a double agent in a spy movie and took off after the biker. He was fast and I was slowed by traffic lights but I kept my eyes on him like Jane Bond in a souped on minivan.

I was determined to teach the guy some manners and throw the book at him...The Hands are not for hitting book that is. I honked, rolled down my window and pulled up next to him. As he was yelling at me about how I put his life in danger by sticking out in the street I told him you don't use your hands on other people's property mister, if you have a problem use your words. Then the guy who was yelling at me because he thought I put his life in danger proceeded to dare me to hit him with my car. Now presumably this was a guy with a family at home and a decent job who took the whole leave your car at home and ride a bike to work thing very seriously...daring me to hit him with my 3000 pound car. 

With complete calm I laid out the consequences for his bad behavior. I am not going to hit you with my car but I am going to call the police on you! At which point he took off down the street. I lost him as the light turned red.

I turned up the road and continued on my way to work with the hope that I had freaked him out. Did he punch the back of my car because I was in a mini van and he figured that a crazy haired exhausted mother would be too caught up with listening to Elmo to do anything about his assault? Probably. Would he have done the same thing to me had I been in a low rider with big tattoos and a bobble head in the back window? I doubt it.

I had to stand up for myself and for moms in mini vans everywhere. Too often we are told that when we bought our mini vans we lost all sense of cool and any kind of edge that we had about ourselves. It's true that when I bought my mini van I surrendered to full mommyhood and vowed not to scream and give the finger to other drivers.

About a year ago I was waiting for a parking spot when the woman who was pulling out almost backed into me. I honked at her (a friendly toot not a lean on your horn angry rant) she proceeded to scream and curse at me. Holding back my desire to rip her head off I told my two kids who were wide eyed in their car seats that this was a classless woman and you don't ever yell at someone like that over a parking spot.  

The biker who took off down the street either forgot about our altercation or hid in the bushes for the rest of the day. We'll never know. While I will be more conscious about sticking out in the middle of the street I imagine the biker man will tell his friends that there was this cool edgy crazy haired mom in a mini van I whacked the back of her car and dude she actually came after me...

Call of the WILD

My husband left with the kids on a trip to NJ yesterday. They went to visit my 76 year old Candidate Mom who is adding yet another chapter to her already fabulous life. She is being sworn in as the Senate Majority leader in the New Jersey State Senate.

Being 76 years old the big boys and girls in the back room have determined that my tough-as-nails, left-of-the-liberals, attack-Chris-Christie-at-every-turn, mother is the right gal for the job.

I stayed in LA.  I’m working on a History Channel show right now and would’ve given my boss a coronary if I asked to leave. Also, we need the fracken money.

After much thought my hubby decided he wanted to take the kids and go. My family would have a b*tch free time without me hovering over everyone telling them what to do. I would get some much needed rest not staying up till midnight cleaning up and making the next days lunches, and my husband would set up some business meetings. It was a win win for everyone.

After their plane left I went into a tailspin having a two-hour manic jag crying while listening to fiddle songs about Jesus on Pandora (I can’t quite explain that one).

I had to face it. My family has become my identity. I live for them, love them with all my cells and can’t believe these tiny people who started from helpless blobs are emerging into real live fantastic people.

When I say they have become my identity I don’t mean it in that pre-feminist, 1950’s housewife kind of way, I mean that my husband and children complete me in a way that I never knew existed and that when my first child was born as I tell her everything in the world just made sense to me.

Some of that is just plain old’ biology. We come into this world to procreate. Our biology gives our brain the motivation to find a mate and keep populating the world.

Being married with children isn’t for everyone, but for me wifehood and parenthood has been very satisfying. As a matter of fact my only regret is that I didn’t start earlier. I’d like to have had a 3^rd baby.

I love being a parent. (Except for the sleep deprivation, teething, piles and piles of laundry, too much homework, and constant worrying). I love the chaos, the schlumpy mom look (I have perfected it) and the automatic way mommy strangers, bond over sleep training, breast-feeding, preschools and kindergartens.

Even though my kids are still little (6 & 8) I walk by the park and look at moms with their babies and toddlers and miss that time.  When I was that mom in the park with toddlers I just wanted to be able to sit and read a book with a cup of tea rather then the never ending park games of pouring a bucket of water from the bathroom faucet onto the sand for the 2354^th time.

Sigh-The grass is always greener but raising children in one’s life is finite and sacred.  As our children get older it becomes less about physically keeping them safe (although both my kids are constantly falling and bonking their heads) and more about patience, setting boundaries and doling out discipline. These days are filled with eye rolling (my daughter), sneaking Oreo cookies at 5:00am (again my daughter) and sassy talking me with a little too much Disney channel show tude. (Must be a theme here). My son is pretty darn perfect. Except for the tantrums he had every day from age 6 months to…well yesterday.

I know I’m crazy but if I were younger and richer I’d do it, I’d have another baby. Since I’m too old and too broke I’ll just settle for the furry white dog, who is like a baby. I can even carry her around in a doggy sling if my baby cravings get strong enough.

Now onto my staycation where I’ve booked two massages in one weekend. I plan to sleep more and clean less, sit with a cup of tea and a good book and count the minutes until their return

Happy New Year!

A Year of excitement for sure

Obama gets Osama,

While Newt, Mitt, Ron and Michelle try to lure. (Sorry Herman)

Demi, Kim, Katy, and Debra

Find out their true love is less then stellar (Oh yeah and Sinead O'Connor)

From18 days till 6 years in the making

Those celebrities sure are flaking.

I’ll bet very few of you knew

With Paul McCartney’s third marriage there is talk of him becoming a Jew.

(Sandler & McCartney write next years Chanukah song anyone?)

Laundry, nose wipes and piles of laundry

Unglamorous, thick thigh and happily married.

Best of love to all my peeps

Many blessings for next year and a resolution to get more sleep!

(Note to self: Must leave dirty dishes in the sink to accomplish this)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Prince Chubby vs. Prince Charming

I can’t watch this part I say to my husband and children as we are eating burgers, gluten free fried chicken and French fries in front of the television. I get up to start clearing the table to avoid the part of our wedding video where during our modern Jewish ceremony I was supposed to circle my future husband three times. We counted somewhere between 5 and 7 times in this latest anniversary watching.

There I was feeling like a goddess in my 1920’s satin wedding dress flowing walking around my husband imagining myself looking like a Semitic Grace Kelly. What I couldn’t hear was the chuckling and giggling as our guests wondered if they were going to spend the rest of the evening watching me spinning around my husband.

My beloved remained calm and cool letting me have my Grace Kelly fantasy knowing full well that going to public school in the 1970’s where every child was left behind accounted for my mathematical challenges.

Eleven years later, with my two children and stepson, my husband and I watched via VHS that fateful day where Jon, his son and I started our family. The past eleven years have encompassed infertility (while trying to have a baby) overfertility (by popping out two in 17 months). Job loss, financial loss (thank you Bernie Madoff) and legal malaise with the hubby’s ex-wife.

The day started with the damn dog waking us up at 5am, the kids pouncing on us by 6, breakfast, circus class and soccer. Making lunch, cooking, cleaning, laundry and a quick happy anniversary kiss and then on to more soccer.

I know to many people this might sound like a horrible existence but to me it was a perfect day. My roots are showing, hair in many different directions, and I wasn’t able to get out of my standard Saturday outfit of black sweats and sweatshirt. Seriously I am grateful for it all. Especially the eleven years with my husband.

I was older when I got married. I had been living an interesting life. I wouldn’t say overly scintillating, but I was pursuing my career in the entertainment industry, contemplating my naval with different spiritual pursuits and looking for Mr. Right, soul mate, lover, caretaker, friend. Someone who would make me laugh, say all the right things, love me for who I am and never leave.

Walking down that aisle 11 years ago I had all of those ideas floating around in my head but I didn’t really know what any of them actually meant. They were romantic ideas based on CW television shows and I was living more like Rhoda on The Mary Tyler Moore Show…before she got married to Joe and got her own series.

It took many years to understand what being married and getting married really meant. Planning my wedding was the first test of our relationship. My dad had recently passed away and this was the first wedding in my immediate family. My mother, one of the big “boys” in New Jersey politics had high expectations for this long overdue event. Even though she had eloped with my father and had no lavish wedding of her own she was determined to dictate that no young children were allowed, the steak and salmon would be the main choices of dishes and that my future husband and I were having a wedding that was too Jewish for her liking.

My mother and I continued to bicker, Jon and I fought about his family and by the time the wedding arrived I was ready to skip it all and take off for our Hawaiian honeymoon by myself.

Nevertheless after being plucked, hair colored, polished, massaged and waxed I was ready for my big day. I walked down that aisle with an immaturity and naiveté about what becoming a wife really meant. For example;

My dream world: Husband works out everyday and is totally fit and buff while making tons of money and showers all his love and attention on to me.

Reality: Husband gets chubby on our honeymoon from eating too many desserts loses job and health insurance two months after getting married.

Me being the neurotic, hold-nothing-in, type of person that I am let him know each and every day how uncomfortable I was with the his lack of income coming into the house. One can understand having this conversation with a spouse several months after losing their job if all they were doing was sitting on their butt. For or me it was expressing myself within the first five minutes into his unemployment.

Cut to: Eleven years, two more children, one house, one dog and several bumps along the road and I look at our wedding video and am grateful that my husband had enough patience and love to give me the space to grow into a woman whose CW witchcraft characters have matured into more of a Meryl Streep type woman.

Although my husband still eats too many desserts he is one of the most hard working and best fathers around. After losing his job he went to business school and got his MBA while working as much as he could at various consulting jobs. Although I still feel the need to say anything and everything that is on my mind to my husband I no longer need to say it within the first five minutes. If I can hold out for 48 hours then I know I have really matured into a full-blown adult.

Perhaps if Kim Kardashian had understood one tenth of what it meant to be someone’s wife and realize that she wasn’t just playing one on TV (I think she was confused about that) then maybe she would’ve put her 20 million dollar wedding on hold or waited to get to know her fiancée a bit longer. Although that wedding alone but have been enough to help the economy make a hefty recovery.

In the end being lucky in love is one of the best gifts there is. Marriage is a difficult road at times but one that can mirror the ultimate flaws within and give us a chance to unknot ourselves and experience true love intimacy and total acceptance from another person.

Happy anniversary to my wonderful husband, best friend, lover, and most important thing of all...tamer of the shrew!

A Hug from home - Veterans Day 2011

As I was putting my daughter to sleep the other night she told me that at her afterschool dance class she tripped and fell into a nearby wall and hit her head. It was one of those moments where only a mommy can make you feel better. One of the other mom’s came over to see if she was ok, but it wasn’t me, she ran outside of the classroom to cry so no one would see her break down.

 I was working and wasn’t there to hug her and hold her and wipe her tears away.

As I was feeling sorry for myself and my daughter I began to think about all of the mothers and fathers, and all of the sons and daughters who are all over the world putting their lives in peril. Those who are moms and dads are very far away from their children. They aren’t able to give their love and comfort to a bonked head, a bad grade or hurt feelings from some mean girls.

For those whose sons and daughters are over there, no matter how brave he or she may be, once in awhile there is a strong yearning that only a mothers embrace can fill.

We talk about our war veterans but the truth is that we are so far removed from the front lines. We go about our business and unless we have a friend or a family member who is serving in the military we can forget about the sacrifice that many of these men and women and their families are making. 

After giving birth to a boy I am convinced that war is definitely a man-made idea. I watch how he and his friends play turning everything into a gun, make shooting noises and play out long imagined battlefield games. I watch him and pray that these games never become real for him and hope that he never has to know a real life battlefield.As long as our men and women are at war every day really should be Veterans Day. We need to honor them, remember them and find ways to connect to what they are doing for our everyday lives.

I promise, if all the rest of you will, to try to honor, remember and do something for a veteran in the next two weeks, I will too. I’m including links of possibilities that can inspire all of us:

 Host a screening for The Welcome

http://www.thewelcomethemovie.com/

Listen to NPR’s intense and haunting story about Dark horse battalion. The marine unit that suffered the highest number of casualties during the 10-year war.

http://www.npr.org/2011/11/05/142061223/darkhorse-battalion-and-the-afghan-war

Donate your wedding gown to military brides.

http://www.nammas.org/events/brides-across-america-operation-wedding-gown-event

To all of you Veterans, thank you for your service and for being modern day heroes for the rest of us.