The Great Kindergarten Search: School Visit 1 of 3

Back in October, I blogged about the Dreaded School Choice first world Problem my family is currently experiencing. As the public school choice decision deadline looms, we're doing school and classroom visits to help us finally come to a decision.

Our first visit was to the Away District Bilingual school. Here's The Good and The Bad points that we had identified about this school prior to our visit (I've blogged about this before - so skip my next 2 paragraphs if you've already read my old post linked to above):

The Good = "Since none of the schools in this district are winning any awards, we figure at least our kids will come out knowing Spanish."[Also, we think a lot of the families there would be a great fit for us socially, i.e. a lot of former big city liberals now living in Podunkville send their kids there. "If this school were in a big city, there'd be a lottery for it and we'd never get in."] From the daughter of a bilingual teacher: "I'm amazed at how beautifully her accent is coming along when she speaks Spanish. The opportunities to learn Spanish are awesome."

The Bad = "It all depends on which teacher team your kid gets assigned to - there are some great teachers you will want to request, and then pray your kid doesn't end up with one of the crappy ones. The principal is a nice guy but he's not a good leader and there's no cooperation between the Bilingual teacher teams and the English-only teacher teams." Also - "My son acts out because he's bored. His teacher says he's so gifted it's like he's special needs, but instead of challenging him more in school they encourage him to attend a half hour math enrichment after school as if that solves the problem - so, what's the point of him sitting in class all day? We have to do a lot of extra work at home to meet his needs." And "My daughter went there K through 5th and afterwards we took her to Mexico to visit her grandparents, and it turns out she does not even understand a word of Spanish. We should have never trusted that school." "We didn't know our son got in until my wife finally called the school 3 days before school started and demanded to know." "We didn't find out which teacher my daughter was assigned to until literally the day before school started - she had been asking us all summer long. Frustrating." [Also, due to budget cuts, in this district there is no school on Monday mornings, and that lost time is never made up.]

.....

My perspective on this school has changed slightly, and in a good way, since visiting five Kindergarten and first grade classes there, and talking with the principal for half an hour. I also recently ran into a mom I know who actually teaches bilingual Kindergarten, and her son, who was at my kids' bilingual Montessori preschool last year, is enrolled in the Spanish immersion Kindergarten at this very school, and he is positively thriving there. Given her own profession, she's a tough critic, and I take her words as very high praise. The school started him out in the English immersion section, but once they realized he was already reading, they asked her if they could move him into Spanish immersion. That's great - I love it when I hear about a school proactively accelerating a kid when they've identified a need.

After the visit, I could now see sending my son to this school for Kindergarten - but he would need to be in the full Spanish immersion class, that is, the one that is intended for Native Spanish speaking kids.  He already understands Spanish (but is basically in silent mode still, refusing to speak it unless he can speak it perfectly - gah!), and so the language would not be a problem. If he were to be put in the English immersion class, however, it would be a complete, total, and unmitigated disaster. He already reads proficiently in English, but I worry about how he will actually test in reading - he is a perfectionist and will try to give up when he feels pressure.

We have two more visits in early Feb, so I will post about those in a few weeks.  As usual, your thoughts and perspective are always appreciated!

Zero Dark Thirty's Real Message is Anti-Torture

Zero Dark Thirty is quite possibly one of the most misunderstood movies ever. I'm a huge fan. It's one of those movies people will watch in the future to get a sense of what the militarized American empire was like from 2001-2011. It is also one of the strongest feminist and anti-torture messages I have ever seen in a major Hollywood film. Yet people are accusing it of being the exact opposite.

There's been a lot of criticism from people on the left that makes me wonder, "Are we even talking about the same movie here?" The praise from certain people on the right also leaves me scratching my head.

So when I came across this HuffPost Live interview of filmmaker Michael Moore by Marc Lamont Hill, I said to myself - finally, someone gets it! Thank you, Michael Moore:

"Does the artist have a responsibility for the ignorance of the person watching the art? I don't want to have to dumb down my work for the people who won't get it.  I want to put it out there and the people who get it, get it."

I encourage you to watch Marc Lamont Hill's interviews of Michael Moore in their entirety. They're posted in 4-6 minute increments with a short commercial in-between. Don't miss the part where Michael Moore calls out the workplace sexism in the CIA. Fantastic.

Sex Before Dinner

I'm the friend that people call up to ask for "married people" sex advice. I'll take that as a compliment. (I think?)

One of the biggest sexual roadblocks I'm hearing from married people has to do with being too tired at night for the mood to strike: "Help, we have amazing little kids, but they are cramping our sex lives because we're never alone!" Yes, that was me when my 2nd baby was under a year old, and not coincidentally, my marriage was at its lowest point ever. I learned that The Sex is very, very important to me. I start feeling irritable when I don't have The Sex regularly -- I start hating my DH and probably vice versa.

(Yes, folks, this is reason #1925 why I don't blog under my real name!)

Did I also mention we are crazy enough to co-sleep with our kids-- in separate beds, on separate floors of our house? This fact makes it difficult to ever have The Sex in our own bed late at night. That, and we all go to bed ridiculously early by American standards. (I judge this so-called US standard by the number of texts I get from local girlfriends after 10pm at night when my phone is turned off -- y'all Amurrikans definitely need to go to sleep earlier).

So how do we prioritize The Sex, you ask? It's as simple as making Sex Before Dinner part of the weeknight routine:

#1. We plan to have sex early in the evening, 3 nights a week, as soon as we're both home for the night (it usually happens somewhere between 5:30-6:15pm-ish). We say hello to each other and the kids, talk briefly about our days, then put on some Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood or Dinosaur Train for the kids, and set them up with a beverage and some fruit. DH and I sneak off to a room in the house with a lockable door and a box of tissues. The TV distraction for the kids only works if we don't let them watch TV at any other time, which is hard because educational-ish TV is quite possibly the world's best babysitter ever.

#2. Twenty minutes later... done! DH starts getting dinner ready (he plans all dinners a few days in advance to free up more time), and afterwards the kids and I clean up, and eventually we're all asleep by 9:30pm (unless the 3-year-old has napped that day at preschool, grrr.....).

By having sex before dinner, DH and I are never "too tired" for sex. I've found that it's like sex begets more sex - and planned sex on weeknights often leads to more spontaneous sex on the weekends. I have no idea why on earth that is - it just is.

Try it, you'll like it!

The Unvaccinated Child with Pertussis in My Kids' Preschool

Last week, I got a mass email from the Board of my kids' preschool that hit me like a ton of bricks.

The email from the school informed us that there is a child in my kids' class who has been sick for the last two weeks with Pertussis (aka Whooping Cough). The email shared the child's name.

Given that this is such a tiny community, and a school of < 20 kids, we all know of the little girl and her parents, and word about these matters spreads so quickly (even when you've given up gossip entirely) so I don't see the sharing of her name as the privacy violation I would have seen it as when I used to live in a large city. But still.

Coincidentally, our DD had experienced some severe unexplained coughing symptoms recently, so we had a bit of a freak out once we heard the dreaded word "pertussis." You may have heard there was a pertussis outbreak in my state (WA) last year, due to vaccine-denier parents who had refused to get their children vaccinated.

The pediatrician thinks she has the asthma that runs in DH's family, and possibly some allergies. Anyway, the nebulizer he prescribed seems to be working. All is well for now.

This whole episode really has me thinking. While on the one hand, I'm not terribly sympathetic to parents who by choice have never had their children vaccinated against the preventable, devastating diseases of childhood - to be honest, I really question their intelligence, on the other hand, I tend to see this as one of the costs of living in a free society. Maybe there's a benefit to living amongst the occasional free rider in our democracy.

Your thoughts?

Film Review: This is 40... (see it)

Hollywood comedies are not usually super feminist-friendly undertakings, with the notable recent exception of the excellent Bridesmaids. Which is why This is 40, starring Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd, came as such an unexpected surprise to me. It's the sort-of sequel to Knocked Up (which was a decidedly un-feminist movie), however the world of This is 40 really has nothing to do with the sad sacks we met in Knocked Up. It explores totally new, refreshing, even possibly sexist stereotype-breaking territory. Here's a full review I liked.

I want to be perfectly clear: this is not some full-on feminist comedy. There are several problems with it, mainly having to do with class and privilege, dissected very nicely here. However, I can't help but feel hopeful about it. I'm taking it as a sign that the American film industry might be making some small progress.

For starters, the depictions of working women in heterosexual relationships in this movie won't piss you off as much as they did in the recent comedy The Five Year Engagement (the one where the guy goes batshit crazy after he gives up his career because his fiancee pursues the job opportunity of her life). I'm sick and tired of countless shows featuring working mothers as these unfortunate, hot messes who can't get it together and who Hurt the Kids because they work outside the home, while the fathers take no responsibility at all. This is 40 offers a welcome reprieve from all of that.

There are many beautiful little things to appreciate about the complications of the extremely privileged LA family headed by Debbie and Pete, a married, dual income couple who are both turning 40. They are something of a paradox: at times so much fun to watch, and at other times the very definition of the word eye roll. At times they are vulnerable and real, and their tenderness gave me hope in my own marriage (don't gag), other times they are total, unmitigated jerks in need of a serious call out -- {SPOILER}

... make sure you stick around for the ending credits to watch comedic genius Melissa McCarthy do just that.

The subtle, pitch-perfect stereotype-bending this movie does sends a unique feminist message. Debbie's a working mom who has not let herself go. She runs her own business, and her family needs her income (more on their financial situation after the jump). She has her own hobbies. She has her own interests. She goes clubbing and in one scene could go to bed with an attractive young professional hockey player if she wanted to. We get to see the imperfectly perfect Debbie in all of her complexity. And she's legitimately, hilariously funny.

Pete is a dad who also works at his own business and actually parents his own kids - I know, what a revolutionary idea. We see him happily handling the kids' morning routine. We see him physically present and engaged at his daughters' school. We see him monitoring his tween daughter's online presence. We see him disagreeing with Debbie about how to best parent their kids. We see them arguing about money. We also see him defending Debbie when another mother threatens her, even though Debbie is Wrong with a capital W. It just felt honest, as in a true version of equally shared parenting many of us aspire to but that is very rarely seen in movies or in life.

I also loved the fact that both Debbie and Pete suffer from daddy issues from their own families of origin, and that those issues are explored and compared. How wonderful to see depictions of family dysfunction that are not mother-blaming for a change.

One interesting criticism I'm hearing everywhere has to do with Debbie and Pete's imagined financial situation. They are so "rich" in the sense they conspicuously consume: they live in a fabulous mansion with a backyard pool, throw lavish parties, dress and decorate with style, have a personal trainer, an expensive bike, they vacation at a fancy resort, and their children have all matter of electronic gadgets.

But they've missed a mortgage payment. Their accountant says they're beyond help and now they need to sell the house - primarily because Pete has poor judgment both personally with his father and because he has been running his business into the ground (the $30k indoor neon sign was a spot-on example). They suddenly find they need that $12k someone has stolen from Debbie's business. They need back the $80k Pete loaned to his mooching father without Debbie's permission. So the criticism is: that these rich, overprivileged people honestly feel like they are strapped for cash seems laughable. Wrong. Not at all. It's an economic fact these days. Hello, ever hear of the Overspent American phenomenon? Loads of people look rich while having a negative net worth and zero cash flow (See The Millionaire Next Door). Yours truly even blogged about that recently, when my rich friend confessed to me she could not afford a cup of coffee. So I find their economic situation 100% believable.

That's the thing about this movie. It makes you ask: can this be real? It made me reflect, and made me laugh so hard I had trouble breathing. It encouraged DH and I to have a great conversation about aging, the way we parent, the way we problem-solve in our own marriage. See it. It's not perfect, and you'll cringe at a few things, but see it anyway.

What I Resolve Not To Do In 2013

Obligatory New Year's resolutions post. I'm framing it in the negative this year. Sometimes I find it easier to achieve a goal whenever I'm able to frame it as "I will NOT do X" and opposed to "I will do X."

In 2013, I resolve NOT to....

1. Gossip. In 2012, I noticed I had some really uncharitable thoughts about a couple of local people who have nasty gossip habits. I resolve to do exactly the opposite: no more shit talking; only kind speech about others. I will also be brave enough to announce my discomfort with gossip. (Or framed in the negative: I will not be silent about my true opinion whenever someone is foolish enough to share mean gossip with me.) Instead of icy silence and a cold hard stare, followed by an abrupt subject change, I'll try something like: "You know, if she could hear you right now, it would really hurt her feelings to know you feel that way about her, so that's why this is just not an appropriate topic for me."

2. Allow my blood pressure get over 120/80. The way I choose to see it, my prehypertension diagnosis at age 34 was a real gift. It forces me to prioritize my heart health. In 2012, no longer did my cardio workout take a back seat to the rest of my life. Thanks to my blood pressure readings, my heart health went straight to the top of my priority list. And there it shall stay.

3. Avoid revealing my truest self to the people with whom I want to have deeper relationships. For years I've been saying I wish I had deeper friendships with local people. Well, if that is to be, then my high agreeableness, high conscientiousness, INFJ-self needs to do a lot more of the talking, and a lot less of the active listening. (Yes, that would be the exact opposite of what pretty much everyone else needs to do.) I've already gotten started on this resolution - I told a close local friend with whom I'd like to be much closer how I really felt about something, and she responded beautifully like I knew she would. Baby steps.

What do you resolve NOT to do in 2013?

Review of "What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekend" by Laura Vanderkam

I've decided Laura Vanderkam's advice is just plain right. Full stop.

I'm a huge fan of her blog, and when I found out she has another time-management book coming out on December 31 called What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekend - I immediately knew I had to read it. She was kind enough to share it with me early, and I absolutely loved it. It was the perfect length, it took me under 30 minutes to devour, and I felt I didn't waste even a single moment of any of my own precious 36 waking weekend hours enjoying it.

So, what do "The Most Successful People" do on the weekend, you ask? Well, in general, they do two key things with their time:

1) They have a structure - choosing weekend labor of a different sort than the weekday labor they typically engage in, or to borrow from fitness parlance they "cross train," and --

2) They plan - by making written plans, particularly about how they'll use their weekend downtime, they take full advantage of the happiness-boosting benefits of anticipation.

There is so much great food for thought in Vanderkam's book, and I say this as someone who already makes extremely good use of her time and who totally lacks the procrastination gene. A few tidbits:

On how to plan a weekend: Plan a few "anchor events," such as 3 to 5 things you want to do, sketched in ahead of time. What's something new you've always wanted to do? Dream a little. Write your ideas down so you can finally make those happen.

On household chores: Do them on the weekdays. "You may just spend less time on chores because you have less time." Designate only a small chore time on the weekend if you must. Better yet, hire help.

On kids' activities: "Pare down to the activities they and you enjoy most" with the knowledge that "depth and focus tend to bring more happiness than a scattershot approach where you never get a chance to go all in towards mastery." (Yes, indeed, that sounds refreshingly familiar.) Also, write down ahead of time how you plan to make use of any time you're going to spend waiting at kids' sports events. Mom writes down: "I'll read the whole Sunday times" while she waits four hours for her daughter's swim meet to end. Brilliant.

On Sundays: "Sunday? Miraculously everyone is free." Indeed. That makes it a great window of time to spend with friends you hardly ever see. Why not have people over for an early Sunday dinner?

On why "the simplify Christmas narrative" is wrong:

"But if you’ve got young kids, it doesn’t take long to realize that there won’t be many Christmas seasons when the little ones will race downstairs in the morning to see what Santa brought. They won’t always be eager to bake with you, spilling flour on the counter in their excitement. Eventually they won’t care if you put up a giant tree, or go caroling, or make hot chocolate. You can beg off making a snowman because you’re tired. But there are only a few winters—and only a few days each winter when it’s snowy and you all are home together— that your children will ask to make snowmen with you. Someday, perhaps, you will be staring at the snow from the too simple room of a hospital or nursing home, dreaming of the days when making snowmen with your children was an option. This realization leads to a different question than that suggested by all these tips on simplifying the holidays. Namely, what are you saving your energy for? This is all there is. Anything could happen and you are not guaranteed another snowman. So make a fuss. Make a show. Spend your energy now."

Quite the spot-on argument to carpe diem this Christmas. "Life cannot happen only in the future." So very true. "What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekend" by Laura Vanderkam will be released on December 31 (you can pre-order it now). Happy Holidays, all!

The Death of My BFF's Father

I'm at that age now where the parents of my childhood friends are reaching the ends of their lives. My BFF's dear father's wake was on Friday; as if that day wasn't already the worst day ever. He had been ill for a long time, the kidney transplants ultimately didn't work. There were at least three occasions this fall where his hospice nurses told his wife, "This is probably his last day of life." He was sent home twice, but he kept bouncing back. He truly wanted to live. The medical bills piled up. The insurance companies were assholes. His wife quit her job to care for him full time. They were best friends, and had such a strong, fun 34-year-long marriage.

Now that he's gone, we're extremely concerned for her, both emotionally and financially. She's showing signs of going through the grief process: Denial, Anger... it's healthy. The anger piece has been oddly healing for my friend and her siblings. Her mom did not refrain from calling a few relatives out on their bullshit. Perhaps "bullshit" is too mild a word for the dynamic in her mom's family-of-origin. For example, mom's sister and her 5 kids spent the week before the wedding funeral (edit: wow-Freudian slip there big time...) eating and drinking her out of house and home - as if a new widow's home is some all-you-can-eat buffet. How galling. You're supposed to show up with food, and you certainly don't help yourself to it. You eat before you go. They're all pretty sure mom's sister's 15-year-old son who was recently expelled from school probably stole a bunch of cash from my BFF's mom's purse. At least he didn't steal the checks that were in there with the cash. Good times.

I was devastated that I could not fly out for the funeral, so I asked my parents to attend the wake on my behalf. They said it was lovely. My BFF's mom was really happy they came. Well-attended wakes and funerals seem to be a real source of comfort to the surviving family.

I also broke out my old school (circa 1982) Miss Manners Etiquette book because it's been ages since I've written a note of sympathy. I didn't know that "sympathy cards" with the condolence sentiment pre-printed on them are a faux pas. Glad I checked before I went to the store. The correct way is to write a personal, heartfelt note on your own stationery. It makes sense - that's what I suppose I'd rather receive on one of the worst days of my life.

My own parents' eventual deaths are amongst my greatest fears. I try to be Zen about it. I try to channel my recollections of how a Buddhist master might consider it, something like this.

Mother-Blaming Nonsense: National Tragedy Edition

How quick we are to judge. Young man commits an unspeakable crime, and what's the media's knee-jerk reaction on the very day of the atrocity, before the facts are in? Blame the mother!

Note the mother-blaming tone of this reporting, from two male journalists for Good Morning America via Yahoo:

"Adam Lanza of Newtown, Connecticut was a child of the suburbs and a child of divorce who at age 20 still lived with his mother...
A relative told ABC News that Adam was "obviously not well."
Family friends in Newtown also described the young man as troubled and described [his mother] Nancy as very rigid. "[Adam] was not connected with the other kids," said one friend.
State and federal authorities believe his mother may have once worked at the elementary school where Adam went on his deadly rampage, although she was not a teacher, according to relatives, perhaps a volunteer.
Nancy and her husband Peter, Adam's father, divorced in 2009. When they first filed for divorce in 2008, a judge ordered that they participate in a "parenting education program."
Peter Lanza, who drove to northern New Jersey to talk to police and the FBI, is a vice president at GE Capital and had been a partner at global accounting giant Ernst & Young..."

Let me get this straight. These male reporters have sprinkled some appallingly inflammatory allegations about their story, so let's check their unspoken pseudo-math here:

"Child of the suburbs" + "child of divorce" + "still lived with his mother" + "'family friends' described mother as 'very rigid'" + "divorce-court-ordered parenting education program in 2008" supposedly = This Whole Tragedy is The Mother's Fault??

Ugh, I get that at horrible times like these, which defy all explanation, people want to desperately cling to their narratives about what they think caused the problem. Perhaps it helps us psychologically deal with the harsh reality that bad things happen.

Broken families and "rigid" mothers seem to be the easy target du jour. ("Rigid?" How dare they? With so-called "family friends" like that, who needs enemies?) How about: WE JUST DON'T KNOW. It's too soon to tell. We may never know.

I don't know, and I suppose I don't have the words either.

Holiday Card PSA

I thoroughly enjoy sending and receiving holiday cards (and it helps my business). But... oy!

Based on the cards I've received so far this month, I feel the need to post another Holiday Card PSA.

1. People -  please, dear God, please have someone proofread what you've written. (Says the blogger who regularly craps all over the rules of grammar.)

2. No, "The Smith's" don't fucking live here. However, "The Smiths" certainly do, and we're so delighted to get your lovely card.

3. It bugs me when the wife who clearly does all the cards her-damn-self puts her husband's name first. I say it again this year: PUT THE WIFE'S NAME FIRST! -- like so:

Happy Holidays!

Love,

The Drapers

Betty, Don, Sally, Bobby & Gene

4. I don't care who is in the picture. The recent talk amongst media darlings about whether or not "The Mom Stays in the Picture" is entirely up to every woman to decide for herself. While I make no judgments about such matters, I will share that where my people come from, it's perfectly normal to send cards with pictures of just the kids. 

5. Finally, kudos to those marketing wizards are over at Minted. From the look of things in our mailbox, your sales are through the roof! Hats off to you, because we've already received three of your same card. (It's this card, if anyone is curious.)

Your thoughts? Kvetch to me about holiday cards.

Why Our Children Have Never Met Their Grandparents

Our children have never met my husband's parents, and this is by choice. Five years ago, when I was pregnant with our first child, my husband wisely decided to end our relationships with both of his parents. We're so grateful they will not be able to hurt our children, but at the same time, it's a loss. As much as we hate to admit it, yes, it's a loss.

When some people find this out about our family, it's like their heads explode. Clearly, many folks have never had the experience of being related to a person with a truly toxic personality, and I think until they encounter one firsthand (perhaps when their own children marry into a family that has one) they'll never quite grasp the horror of it.

There's the dominant social narrative reflected in the adage "blood is thicker than water" - we should all spend time with our families no matter what; we should just grin and bear it if they hurt or annoy us because they're family, etc. I find this view to be terribly naive. Once a dynamic gets bad enough, I think it actually makes the choice to cut people out reactively easy to make, but not painless.

The first question people have for us - what on earth did DH's parents do to make you want to get them out of your lives?

Let's just say his parents' behavior could fill all of the DSM-IV and then some. The answer is a rather long story. I'll try to be brief. His parents divorced years ago, and are both remarried and each live both far away from us and each other. To me, that makes the fact that they are both now out of our lives even more telling, because we made two independent choices to no longer speak to them.

His father has PTSD from serving in the army in Vietnam, and from all of the many horrible things I'd imagine that entails. He's grappled with alcoholism, and was fired from his final job for berating and assaulting a female coworker when he got angry with her and lost control. Now he lives on disability. None of his three living siblings want anything to do with him. He tells the most obvious, outrageous lies about his ex-wife - to the point it is downright offensive. He's the more obviously toxic one.

We strongly believe his mother suffers from Munchausen Syndrome - she always speaks in a whisper (until she gets angry, then she yells in a normal voice) and despite going to several doctors, none could find anything medically wrong with her. After her sister was legitimately diagnosed with MS, she began claiming to have lupus. Whenever she would visit us (before we had kids), she would claim to be sick and would spend most of the visit in bed, or in the bathroom for hours. But she never wanted us to take her to the ER, nor were there any measurable signs her health was in jeopardy. There was also the time when her 2nd husband called to ask us what her real date of birth was - when they started dating she had claimed to be 35, but she was actually 50. (That's kind of awesomely bad, actually.) Finally, we figured it out.

Years ago, and before his parents' divorce, his mother opened credit cards in both DH and his brother's SS#s and names without their knowledge, then racked up a bunch of charges for what she later claimed were for Christmas presents for them when they were kids. DH did not learn of all the debt she had racked up until college. It was a nightmare trying to restore his credit.

When we told her we were expecting, she asked for our baby's SS# so she could allegedly open a college savings account for him. When we explained that that information was not available until after a baby was born, and would not at all be necessary, she demanded mine. Obviously, I refused to give it to her. Then she threw a fit about us not finding out the baby's sex until birth, and not sharing the names we picked out - a cascade of classic boundary issues. DH tried to reason with her, she was abusive. Eventually it came to this.

The reactions of his parents' families of origin have been very validating to us. His mother's sister made a point to tell us that no one in the family was in any way judging us for cutting his mother out of our lives - they have known her since she was a child, and they understand what a difficult person she is, perhaps due to some unknown psychological illness. His father's SIL said similar things about his dad's condition - they all get it - and we appreciate that they make an effort to stay in touch.

We're also grateful to my parents, who are much better grandparents than they ever were as parents (and BTW, they weren't bad parents by any stretch of the imagination). They want to see our kids and babysit them so we can take trips together. They ask permission before giving them things we might not approve of - they respect our authority as parents. So wonderful. Our kids have never felt that they're missing out on grandparental love.

I'm sure our choices strike some people as cruel-hearted. In fact, some we've told have felt the need to project their own wishes - "Maybe you'll just decide one day to call them up and forgive them, before it's too late." Well, it's a two-way street, isn't it? This experience has definitely given me a lot more empathy for people who don't have happy, intact families - trust me, they have their reasons.

Happier At Home, for the Holidays

Just finished Happier At Home by Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project. I can't seem to get enough of her. While I understand her tone is not everyone's favorite, I promise if you give her ideas a chance, her very approachable suggestions will inspire you to do some little things to make yourself happier. The bibliography at the back of her book is also a real treasure trove of wisdom and emotional intelligence - I literally photocopied the pages of it from my library copy, and plan to read many of the books she references.

One of Rubin's suggestions I have actually practiced is to mini-decorate my home for the holidays. Honestly, this one was a stretch for me. Rubin's a fan of doing a little holiday breakfast for the family on various holiday mornings - simply putting up something festive as a centerpiece on the breakfast table and then sitting down together as a family before everyone leaves for work and school on the holiday morning. Yeah, no.

Since I don't cook, and mornings are a bit too harried around here already, I decided to amend her suggestion and decorate the mantle for the holidays. So far we've done Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas - all using items we already have. Each time, the kids have jumped in and taken over decorating. So yeah, decorating the mantle has turned into some unexpected family holiday fun for all of us - DH and I like not having to be the one to do it alone, and the kids love calling the shots. Who knew? Gretchen Rubin's right again.

Have I mentioned I'm not a super happy-go-lucky holiday person?

Nevertheless, having two preschoolers has definitely changed my outlook on the December holiday season. They get so excited about decorating, about reading anything Santa-related, about pointing out the "beautiful" lights on people's homes (but lights on the exterior of our house? over my cold dead body.) I never could have predicted the sweetness of the holiday magic these two little kids have brought into my life. Now I get it.

One of our holiday traditions is watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation each year. How did I never before notice the hotness that is Beverly D'Angelo? Also, many of the late 80s fashions depicted in the movie are back again - crazy! Is little cousin Ruby Sue wearing a wig? The kids love the Julia Louis-Dreyfus character, Margot the mean neighbor. All day yesterday DS asked DD to ask him: "Why is the floor wet?" so he can respond "I don't KNOW, MARGOT!" Ds also pointed out a house that resembled The Griswold home a little too closely. Cracks me up.

What's happening in your home for the holidays?

Post-Thanksgiving Notes

We hosted Thanksgiving at our house this year. In attendance were 15 adults, 6 children, and 1 newborn baby.

After the fact, a few of our guests were kind enough to send us some thank you text messages. One even sent us a handwritten, mailed thank you note. I'd say his parents raised him right.

Unless the person is a professional baker, their homemade rolls will never, ever beat the awesome ease of the Pillsbury Crescent rolls. It kills me to admit that though.

Next time we do Thanksgiving dinner, we need to make sure there are enough mashed potatoes to have some leftover.

I ran a Turkey Trot 5k race on the morning of Thanksgiving (26:12 yo!). Five of my friends had originally said they'd run it with me. But come race day, only one of my friends actually showed up - she went most of the distance with me, despite just getting over the friggin' stomach flu. Folks like her are the ones that make the world go 'round. People who do what they say they're going to do are terribly underrated.

Saw the excellent movie "Lincoln." My favorite film reviewer is A.O. Scott from the NYT, and he gave it 4 stars, which he rarely does. He says "See it. Take your kids to see it." (School-aged kids is what I think he really means.)

Tomorrow I leave for a trip to Boston to see one of my BFF's (and I'll be doing a bit of work, but mostly a lot of play). See you next week!

The Petraeus Scandal

Never ceases to amaze me how stupid powerful men can be. I just can't ignore the coverage of the truly bizarre, oddly compelling Petraeus Affair. Such a perfect case of the truth being stranger than fiction.

Even though this is all arguably about lawful sex between two consenting adults, I'm convinced Petraeus still should have been automatically disqualified as head of the CIA - not for his failure to keep it in his pants though - but for lacking the basic common sense to avoid conducting his affair over Gmail. Holy hell. I get that old guys might not be particularly tech savvy, but come on! Blackmail could have happened. State secrets could have fallen into the wrong hands (insert plot of most recent Bond film here. And since we're on the topic of Bond, I'd like to award Tweet of the Year to @feMOMhist for this one: "Daniel Craig's face looks like a hide.  If a female star had that skin she'd be peeled & lasered until her face looked like a newborn's ass").

As for the "real" Petraeus scandal? I absolutely loved Glenn Greenwald's piece in The Guardian: "FBI's abuse of the surveillance state is the real scandal needing investigation":

So all based on a handful of rather unremarkable emails sent to a woman fortunate enough to have a friend at the FBI, the FBI traced all of [Petraeus paramour Paula] Broadwell's physical locations, learned of all the accounts she uses, ended up reading all of her emails, investigated the identity of her anonymous lover (who turned out to be Petraeus), and then possibly read his emails as well. They dug around in all of this without any evidence of any real crime - at most, they had a case of "cyber-harassment" more benign than what regularly appears in my email inbox and that of countless of other people - and, in large part, without the need for any warrant from a court... 

But, as unwarranted and invasive as this all is, there is some sweet justice in having the stars of America's national security state destroyed by the very surveillance system which they implemented and over which they preside. As Trevor Timm of the Electronic Frontier Foundation put it this morning: "Who knew the key to stopping the Surveillance State was to just wait until it got so big that it ate itself?"

Exactly. Though the most recent brouhaha this week suggests that Broadwell's emails were overtly threatening of Kelley's life... who (besides that jokey, shirtless FBI agent) really knows anyway?

Two other aspects of this scandal are pushing some buttons for me.

First, seeing pictures of Mrs. Holly Petraeus just breaks my heart a little bit. Maybe it's her vulnerability as an older, cheated upon, career-less wife that I'm feeling. I just hate how folks are taking this opportunity to critique her appearance, which, to my eyes, frankly, she appears dignified, refreshingly surgically un-altered, and perfectly age-appropriate. I find the obvious victim-blaming and ageism damn depressing. Nice reminder that women are too often valued only for their sexual attractiveness to men.

Secondly, it disturbed me to see this creepy picture of Ms. Broadwell, presumably taken by the paparazzi from outside, clearly showing her inside the private home of her brother. The obvious invasion of privacy is totally jarring.

Your thoughts?

In Which I'm Asked for Financial Advice

Sometimes we never really know the honest shape of someone's financial situation.

One of my BFF's called me up the other day in tears because she felt frustrated over not having enough money in her bank account to buy herself a $3 pumpkin spiced latte (or something or other - I don't drink coffee). I was shocked.

From all outside appearances, you would never know she and her husband are having financial problems: they drive a BMW, live in a $800k-ish house in a very nice section of a major city, and take an annual family Caribbean vacation. (But see The Millionaire Next Door for a description of the consumer preferences of truly rich folks: tastes running pretty much the exact opposite of my friend's.)

She perceives me as someone to go to for financial advice. Why ask me? Because she knows I'm financially independent now despite my parents never having made more than 6 figures, plus she knows I had some student loans, and I hardly ever buy new, etc. Admittedly, it comes somewhat naturally to me.

I should add that she's blessed with two very caring, very wealthy parents who have given her a lot of cash over the years - they technically own her house and instead of a mortgage, she's paying them back... they also paid for her college, grad school, her lavish 500-person wedding, two new cars for her, and are also funding her two kids' college educations. Now if only I had chosen my parents that well - actually that's my best financial advice right there: choose rich parents!

What can she do to have more money now?

My first piece of advice for my friend: Stop accepting money from your parents. Start managing your own income more effectively.

Yes, the parents are happy to give it, but when you boil it down, it is actually having the effect of making her unhappy. See, I have this little theory about certain ex-rich kids, and I channel a bit of the Warren Buffet in my thinking on this topic. Rich people, please stop giving large sums of money to your kids. It may gratify them in the near term, but their inability to manage that money effectively seems to hurt them in the long term. Pay for their college, then go see your estate lawyer about how to stop being their ATM.

I went to college with a handful of rich kids whose parents constantly gave, gave, gave material things to them. In one case, the guy got $150k cash from his folks at age 22. It was gone in less than a year, thanks in part to his poor marital choices, namely, his ex-wife who spent $18k of it on wedding photos (it literally pains me to type that). Since he's been living in the same city all this time, he could have used that $150k to purchase a 2 bed/2 bath condo in the 1990s, then maybe traded up once or twice pre-2007, and he could be living mortgage-free today in a very nice home. But no.

My second piece of advice for my friend: Fill out new W4's to adjust your tax withholding, so you can stop giving Uncle Sam an interest-free loan.

She and her husband are both employed by corporations. They receive W2's and a large tax refund every year. You never want to get a refund (the concept of the time value of money, anyone?). I told her to gather her most recent tax returns and check out the withholding calculator at Kiplinger's. Then they should each fill out a new IRS Form W4, and submit the forms to their employers. Voila! More money in each paycheck. (But will they have enough to pay their taxes next Spring? hmmm...)

My third piece of advice: Do a quarterly balance sheet. Get to know your own net worth. Understand your cash flow. Then you can set some specific goals.

One goal might be to have at least $1000 in the bank 6 months from now - or whatever amount would make her feel comfortable enough to be able to indulge in her favorite latte once a month.

My fourth piece of advice: Read up on money and investing.

There are a lot of great personal finance books out there, and your local library is the place to get them. Many years ago, I had the good fortune to read The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need by Andrew Tobias, and I learned all the basics from it - it made me open a Roth IRA as a teenager (awesome). Other people I respect have loved Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez. Oh yes, and I understand there are some fantastic and free blogs out there, too.

Got anything else for my friend?

How Do You Handle Gossip?

I'm a big fan of Gretchen Rubin's book, The Happiness Project. Someday soon I hope to read her follow-up book Happier At Home (which @Cloud recently reviewed here.)

One of the best takeaways from THP is the suggestion that we all stop gossiping. "Gossip" is defined as saying mean-spirited information about someone behind their back. There's also a difference between innocuous gossip and malicious gossip. Rubin has blogged about her thoughts on gossip, and also has a short video that I like.

My question for today is how do you handle gossip?

In general, I do not gossip about people IRL (I try to reserve my gossip for the anonymous internets, heh, heh). But I often struggle with how to handle myself when I suddenly find myself in the awkward position of being the unwitting audience for someone else's gossiping. This is complicated by living in a small town, where lots of people gossip and have fun doing it - and also often learn something useful.

Here's an example from last weekend at the local bar. A friend, I'll call her Gossip Girl, out of nowhere starts gossiping about another friend of ours who just had a baby and could not come out with us that evening. The things she was saying weren't very mean, but they definitely would not have been appreciated by the person who was not there.

I wish I had said something to clue Gossip Girl into the fact that she was being inappropriate, something like - "It would really hurt her feelings if she were here right now to hear you saying this." Someone else tried to give her a hint that night - "this is a very, very small town you know..." but G.G. did not pick up the cue.

The whole interaction just left a bad taste in my mouth about G.G. While I had her correctly pegged from the get-go as someone to whom I shouldn't feel safe revealing anything important, it was still a disappointing interaction. I wonder what she's saying about me!

Waiting for Election Results

I just want to say that I cannot wait until we're older and someday the election results are instantaneous.

That, and it is so strange how FoxNews of all places has reported Obama ahead for over the last hour, while CNN of all places has had Romney ahead.

At this point, I don't see how Romney can win Florida, and so goes the election.

That is all.

Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser

Finally, I recommended a book club book that everyone else hated! I think this has got to be some sort of odd rite of passage.

"Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow" by Elizabeth Lesser was my pick. Well, it was sort of my pick in a way but not really.... See, I bought a copy as a birthday present for my friend, C, who loved it. C then recommended it to our book club as her pick, before she had actually read it. Turns out, C and I were the only ones who liked it. But C did not show up to book club, so I was the only one present to defend the book that everyone else hated. Hence it suddenly became "my pick" to defend.

It felt damn strange.

Defending it made me feel vulnerable, due to the subject matter.  The basic thesis is more complex than what I'm about to describe, but here goes: we're all just a bunch of bozos on the bus, and nobody is perfect. Yet almost everyone puts on a capable face and tries desperately to act like they've got it together all the time. Then, usually when something pretty bad happens in their life, they find their old capable face has to go, and they choose to start behaving more authentically.

Ok, not the best sales pitch anyone ever did for a book, I admit.

What can I say. This is not a book for everyone. INFJ-types like me will probably like it or at the very least appreciate it. Anti-therapy types who belittle the idea that people can go through a Phoenix Process after something bad happens to them will not care for this book. And people who cannot abide the story of a mother who cheats on her husband and ends a marriage for what our larger culture construes as frivolous reasons also will not like this book. Folks who don't want to think about aging, death, and dying will hate this book.

So to the 1% of the population I have not already described here: go ahead and read it!

I loved it, and am finding it hard to articulate why. Perhaps it is because I found one message of the book so appealing - and that's the encouragement to stop playing it so safe. Stop clinging to your most closely held judgments about the way you think others are living their lives so incorrectly. Instead, be flexible, be vulnerable, trust the universe, look for the signs that are there.

Halloween Reading

I had no idea there was once a Great New England Vampire Panic, during which people allowed the exhumation of the bodies of their relatives who had died of tuberculosis, and treated said bodies as if they were the living dead. Creep out! Love it.

Thoroughly enjoyed this online test to determine whether I would have been accused of witchcraft. Answer: Yes, the village menfolk totally would have roasted me in the flamety-flames. Definitely. (Thanks @feMOMhist via Twitter.)

Off to get the kiddos to their trick-or-treating, but first we must drive to one of those actual neighborhoods where everyone keeps the porch lights on. I have dibs on all of the Snickers, DH the Butterfingers. My kids, who are going as Spiderman and Spiderwoman, have been "practicing" the candy ask for several weeks now.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Mother-Blaming Nonsense: Nanny Edition

What is it about mothers (always mothers, but never those golf-playing, traditional corporate dads though) who outsource their childcare to nannies, babysitters, or even just to other relatives that apparently drives such a disturbingly large number of people crazy with unacknowledged jealousy and misplaced rage?

When a mother uses daycare: "How dare those mothers leave their kids to be raised by total strangers!"

When a SAHM makes time to prioritize her physical health: "She puts her kids in daycare so she can spend 2 hours a day at the gym - how self-indulgent!"

When a WOHM gets help from a postpartum doula, or nanny, or even her own mother: "People who hire night nannies or have a grandparent who is willing to take care of their 'trophy kids' so they can work long hours should have never had kids in the first place!" 

When a WAHM pays somebody to watch her kids in her house for any amount of time: "Why does a mom who is home even need a nanny in the first place? She must not really love her kids." (But why is "preschool" ok? I guess I don't fully comprehend the rules.)

By the way, all of the above describe parenting choices I have made at one point or another, and for which I'm sure I have been judged. To our knowledge, my husband has never once been judged. We save up our harshest judgments for mothers.

I, for one, am sick and tired of all the sad sack crabs in a bucket sticking their judgmental noses into other women's business. (Amen @nicoleandmaggie!)

Obviously, nobody like me, who has used pretty much every form of childcare known to humankind, should read any of the internet comments out there about the recent Krim Tragedy. And definitely don't read the NYT's coverage. However, I appreciated what Moxie had to say, as well as Laura McKenna's post.

I'm devastated for the Krim Family and for their community. 

I'm sick about how this reads for our society: Latina nannies might be potential child murderers! Moms, you're taking a big risk trusting someone else with your kids (until they're school-aged anyway... oh, wait...)

Part of me wants to sing the praises of our awesome Latina babysitter, (who like the nanny in the news is actually a U.S. Citizen which is a fact that, sadly, comes as a shock to everyone), but somehow that does not feel right. It feels defensive, and we don't have any reason to feel defensive.

The story was big enough to make the radio news in my tiny town, which is located just about as far from NYC as you can get in the lower 48 states. Why? What's the relevance? None. It's that there's just something about the story of a rich, white SAHM who hires a Latina nanny that triggers this deep-seated sense of jealousy in people. I suspect the truth is that some people are feeling a little bit happy and relieved about what happened: as if this was a kind of rough karmic justice and Krim deserved it because she wasn't doing her job as a mother, she wasn't willing to sacrifice enough of herself. 

As if somehow it means their own kids are safe because there's got to be a limited supply of badness out there, and it has struck somewhere else, so we're protected for awhile. Ugh.

What's the solution? Obviously, avoid the news. Stop wasting your time on people who stay stupid, patriarchal things and who, when called out on their statements, lack even the basic self-awareness and decency to be able to apologize. Stop caring what other people think (to whatever extent you may have cared in the first place.) What else have you got?