So sleepaway camp was supposed to be for four weeks.
Four weeks of no tooth brushing, rare showering, mediocre (at best) food, and fun fun fun. For them. I’m talking about them.
For me, those four weeks went almost exactly the way a friend of mine told me they would:
week 1 – I was tearing up every time I walked past their picture
week 2 – still sad, but feeling better
week 3 – starting to enjoy my freedom
week 4 – Whoo hoo! Party! And the end is in sight! My babies are coming home!
Only they didn’t. Come home, that is. They begged and begged almost from the first day they got to camp to stay the full season: seven weeks. And I said no and no and no and no. I want them with me. I want to have a summer vacation with my kids. I want to watch their tennis improve – not just hear about it. I want to serve them mediocre food.
And then I noticed something. All of my reasons for not wanting them to stay started with “I.” And camp isn’t about me, it’s about them. Plus, my husband was perfectly OK with them staying.
So I said yes. And we drove up there for visiting day and got to see them. It was great. Only now I have to start all over again…
The twitterverse is all atwitter. The invitations are flying. Blogher10 is almost here. So why aren’t I more excited?
As Blogher10 approaches, I’ve been posting less, instead of more. I’ve been ignoring Twitter all together.
And I really don’t know why.
Maybe I’m feeling intimidated. Women I know who have been blogging for a lot less time than I have twice as many Twitter followers, lots of comments on their sites, a better understanding of SEO and probably did better than me on their SAT’s. Oh, and they’re all thinner for sure.
Maybe I’m just a downer. You know – everyone is excited so I can’t be.
Or maybe it’s because I don’t really know what I want out of it. I don’t think I could ever monetize Hip to Housewife, so that’s not it. I don’t want a free diaper bag. So that’s not it.
It’s bumming me out. Or it was. Because last night, I had dinner with the lovely and talented women from The Culture Mom Blog, A Child Grows in Brooklyn, Dusty Earth Mother and Ma Vie et Ma Joie. And I finally figured out why I’m going to Blogher and why I blog in the first place: the people. The women I’ve met in the blogging world are smart and funny and aware. They’re supportive and interesting. And quite a few of them make me laugh.
So here’s to Blogher. I won’t be at every party. I won’t understand a lot of the technical stuff, but I will be with an amazing group of women.
Every weekend throughout the month, the kind folks at Prevention are providing six classes a day along with this beautiful studio, towels, mats, and even water bottles. It’s too good to be true…and yet it is true!
Last weekend the instructor was celebrity yoga trainer (and preternaturally beautiful) Kristin McGee, star of the adorable and fun BendiGirls video, (yoga for kids), and eight other popular yoga and pilates DVDs. This weekend, it’s Jivamukti instructor Kyle Miller (who likes to sweat, she turned off the air conditioner this morning!). Next weekend, the folks from Pure – quite possibly the nicest yoga studio I’ve ever been in – will be by, after that, Yoga for Athletes author and instructor Sage Roundtree, and finally Baptiste yoga. Which scares me, but I’m gonna try.
So far, the classes have been full, but not crazy. And the vibe is nice – hey, we’re all getting a free yoga class, kinda evens out the field. Free yoga also means that – for the most part – the classes are not filled with hard core yogis. Those people usually follow a specific instructor. Or maybe they just think that free yoga couldn’t be good yoga. They’d be wrong.
I’ve been doing Yoga on and off since I was about fifteen – mostly on in the past several years. And I can tell you – if the first two instructors are any indication – the classes are excellent. In addition to being so pretty that it’s almost like you have to shield your eyes when you look at her, lest you be blinded by the glow, Kristin McGee was accessible, thorough, charming, challenging and gave precise, well timed instruction.
The studio is light and airy, with a lovely lounge area, and everyone is really friendly and nice. Also (sadly) not words usually associated with the Hamptons.
The Yoga is also sponsored by Colgate Pro-Clinical, which means they are giving out free toothpaste. (Hey, that stuff is expensive!) And also by Silk soy-milk products, and Joint Juice, perhaps the only “sports drink” I have ever tried that I actually liked. Eucerin – which, judging by the samples they’re giving out, has a new lightly scented lotion. (My daughter = Eucerin addict), Transitions lenses (I have no idea what they have to do with anything, but hey, they’re providing me with free yoga, they deserve a shout out, don’tcha think?), and Planters Nutrition, are also helping out. All in all – it’s free yoga and freebies. What could be wrong?
Well – there is one thing wrong. The studio has a lot of mirrors. So just when I think I’m looking strong and fabulous in my Warrior Two, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and, well, it’s just wrong. But that’s just me.
Why is Prevention doing this? I don’t know, and I don’t care. They are, it’s great, and if you’re in the Hamptons, you should check it out.
Note: I have no connection whatsoever to either Prevention Magazine, or any of the sponsors or instructions associated with this Yoga Studio. My only compensation was free yoga classes…which are available to anyone who signs up.
Not because of my saggy knees, or brown spots, or my elbows that look as if they’ve been crumpled up in the back of a drawer for a few decades. No, I am old because I am horrified by what “young girls” are wearing. (plus, I refer to anyone under thirty as a young girl – I’m old for sure!)
With summer-like weather upon the city, (though this week things seem to have cooled down) everyone is letting everything hang out. Manhattan is suffering from TMI of the body: and frankly, I don’t want to see it!
I mean, is there some rule that if you are female and possessing of a bustline you must display it so prominently one is tempted to insert a coin, grab your arm, and go for the jackpot?
Did I miss the memo that said your skirt must be so short that when you raise your arm to wave to your friend across the street, you reveal a thong so deeply wedged in it reappears on the other side?
Did someone forget to mention to me that tank tops must be worn below the bra line, so that all you need is a glass of mead and some rotten teeth to accurately approximate a Medieval serving wench?
Did I neglect to read the e-mail about displaying one’s love handles at every opportunity? Or the one about how the low-hanging pants once exclusively associated with plumbers have somehow become a fashion trend?
What ever happened to keepin’ it covered? If you’re twenty-something, well, OK. I don’t love it, but at least you’re twenty something. It’s the thirty, forty, even fifty-somethings wearing belly shirts that really get me. Here’s a newsflash: I don’t care how fit you are: unless you’re a supermodel, a movie star or a porn star, once you’ve given birth, nobody wants to see your stomach.
Plus, the flesh on display is not always taut – even when it is young. I suppose I should think it’s great that these girls feel confident enough about their bodies that they don’t care that they’re muffin’-topping it around town. But I don’t even like seeing the svelte ones so scantily clad the mother in me wants to run across the street and hand them a robe. Why on earth would I want to see the pudgy ones busting out of their hip-huggers?
When I was a teenager, Preppy was in. We must have looked ridiculous, a bunch of frizzy haired Jewish girls in multiple polo shirts with the collars turned up, as if we thought the real Wasps might not notice we were poseurs if we piled on the polos with aplomb. Our look was Wasp-wanna-be.
Today, Preppy for men is still in, but for young women, the look, evidently, is now “hooker with good highlights.” For example, the other day in Zabars I saw a polo-wearing college boy with his short-short wearing, bra displaying, tummy flashing, $400 haircut sporting girlfriend. It looked like a casting call for a new movie: Preppy and the Parentally-supported Porn Star.
I know it’s judgmental. I know I shouldn’t care what others wear. But I do care. I care because I don’t want my daughter thinking that objectifying herself is a good thing. I don’t want my son getting the idea that women are adornments, or sex objects, or are there for his viewing pleasure. And in case you think that sounds like I’m abdicating responsibility for raising him right, think about this: pit a mother’s admonitions to respect girls against an actual, buttocks flashing female…and guess who wins.
Look, I’m all for women reveling in their sexuality. But reveling and revealing are two different things. This physiological TMI offends me as a woman. It sets a bad example for my kids.But mostly, it makes me hope and pray that the fashion cycle keeps turning, and the Preppy look returns to prominence by the time my daughter hits puberty.
Because by then, if she tries to go out of the house looking like a runaway who’s fallen in with a bad pimp…well I’ll be too old to do anything about it.
Here are some of the choice things said to me recently by friends and family (and one stranger):
As I was on my way to the gym:
“I so admire you, Nancy. I could never leave the house looking like that.”
As I was entering a dressing room to try on bathing suits:
“Are you gonna fit in those?”
As I was saying goodbye to a mother who had come to my apartment to pick up her child from a playdate:
“Is this space adequate for you? With two children? You find this adequate?”
As I was discussing a family issue with a relative on my husband’s side:
“Well, you’re an outsider, so you can’t really understand.”
As I was debating putting up bookshelves in my kitchen:
“Well if you want it to look like a cook book shop in here, go ahead.”
As I was putting a meal in front of my nine year old.
“It’s OK Mommy, but it’s not the best.”
As I explained to a stranger that I only had one dog.
Well that’s just ridiculous! He deserves someone too! That’s selfish! You’re a selfish woman!
What’s going on, here? Since when did I become a punching bag for everybody in town?
I know, I know, these are stressful times, and people are on edge. But honestly, do they all have to take it out on me? Continue Reading »
3. When I get Wii and DSi games to review….I give them to my kids, so they can figure out how they work and tell me all about them. Because the truth is, no matter how hard I try, I stink at video games. All of ‘em. I stink at Wii Fit, which tells me, even though I am a three-time a week yogi,that I can’t do Yoga. I stink at Fossil Fighters, one of my son’s favorite games. (he gives the graphics big thumbs up) mostly because I have absolutely NO idea how to play it, no matter how hard I try. I stink at all the Mario stuff, because I can never remember what I’ve learned in earlier levels, so when I have to start from the beginning…I’m really starting from the beginning.
But now, my kids are away at sleepaway camp, and while they both played Atari’s new Sandlot Sluggers DS game, they are not here to tell me all about it, and somehow I think that the camp directors would frown upon me calling them up and asking them to clue me in.
But I got my (full disclosure) free copy of the game from my friend Beth at Role Mommy, and I wanted to write about it. So there was only one solution: I played the game myself.
First a little background: Backyard Sports: Sandlot Slugger, the latest title in the Backyard Sports series, includes not only the typical pickup games and season modes, but adds to the experience with a bunch of mini games – including a home run competition you can play against others – and a full-fledged story mode.
Stories? This, the English Major in me can do.
In the story, a bunch of bullies has taken over the sandlot, forcing all the other kids in town to stay inside playing video games ( kudos to the makers of this game as portraying that as a bad thing!). And that’s where you (or in this case I) come in: you’re the new kid in town who forms a new team to show those other guys who rules the diamond. But since the town is already filled with teams, so you must defeat each of them in their own neighborhoods to show them you’ve got what it takes, and win their best players over to your team.
So where was I in all of this? Loving it. There was reading to do (a story has words!), there were great, fun graphics that didn’t try to look realistic. (My son called the graphics awesome.) And so far, nothing for me to suck at.
Yay.
Then I tried my first game. I picked my team name. Easy. I picked my location. Also easy. Then the game began. I had no idea what to do. And here it is, the biggest confession of them all: for the first three batters I had no idea whether I was pitching or hitting. Yeah. Scary.
I did like the scenery. And I thought the commentators were hilarious. And I appreciate that this isn’t one of those games that’s striving for realism. (I often wonder what’s next: a secret door into the steroid room?) These players are cartoony, the commentary is too. So it seemed like a good match, this game and me. I mean, I like a good game of let’s pretend as much as the next girl. There’s nothing like escaping from reality.
But as for the playing. Well, I guess it was realistic. Because I sucked.
In fourteen days, my kids will leave for sleepaway camp. You’d think I’d be excited. They are going to have this incredible experience, make lifelong friends, enjoy the mountains, and a lake, and the camaraderie that’s practically exclusive to being at camp.
You’d think I’d be looking forward to having some time alone with my husband. To enjoying evenings out without worrying about a babysitter. To getting to read the paper on the actual day it comes out. (Most of my news comes to me in the back seat of a cab!) To not having to say “brush your teeth, have you had a shower lately” or “how did a cream cheese sandwich end up under your bed?”
Well, I’m not doing that. Me, being me after all, well all I’m doing is bursting into tears every five minutes.
I guess I’m selfish. I don’t want them to leave me. My husband keeps on telling me that they’ll be fine. I know they‘ll be fine. They’ll be great. I’m the one I’m worried about. Since I have twins, they’re both leaving me at once. And so, being me again, I start to think about when they’ll leave me emotionally – when they both start to care way more about their friends then they do about me – at the same time. I think about when they’ll leave me intellectually, when they’ll both start to think they know everything and their father and I know nothing — at the same time. When they’ll leave me physically to go to college — at the same time.
At the same time – I’m happy for them. I am. I loved camp and I know they will too. I’m just sad for me. Because it isn’t just that they’re leaving for camp. It’s that they’re old enough to leave for camp. It’s that this is just the beginning of them really, truly becoming independent and separating from me. Which is healthy, and wonderful, and what a parent hopes their child will do.
She flies through the air with a grunt and a wheeze,
That middle aged-mom, on the flying trapeze.
Yes, that would be me. In this, the middle aged-crisis part deux post.
You’ve already read about my hair and my calamitous (if courageous) pole dancing escapades…but now you get to see me on the trapeze. Yes, really. That’s me up there in this video from the TD BankFlip event at The Trapeze School of New York.
(Full disclosure: TD Bank invited me and some other great bloggers like Jessica from Momma’s Gone City to attend.)
So which one is me? Right after they’ve strapped us all in, that’s my rather copious butt climbing up the ladder, then me, jumping off the platform, and me, hanging by my knees reaching out my arms. At 2:11 in, that’s me again, clearly in need of a little highlighting help (hello roots!), trying a new release trick where I’m supposed to swan dive into the net. Stop smirking – I said “supposed to.”
A few weeks ago I went to the Trapeze School of New York with my friend, Rachel, climbed the ladder, grabbed the bar, and jumped. You know, just in case there was any doubt that I was deep into mid-life crisis mode. This is me doing a back flip dismount off the trapeze. And doing a catch with an instructor.
Pretty impressive, huh?
Well, I thought so, except that there were other people in my class who were REMARKABLE. A dancer/gymnast type who had the most perfect, graceful, 2% body fat form ever, a woman who could hang upside down in a SPLIT! And they’d only done it once before. Of course they were both about 15 years younger than me. And had’t given birth, but still. I guess I should be used to it. I have always been “last picked for the team” girl. (or at least “last picked of the not total losers” girl) So the fact that I was there at all, swinging through the air, well, I was pretty happy.
But then last week, I went again as a guest of TD Bank. Now, there are lots of reasons to love TD Bank. They open early and close late. They count my kids’ coins for free. They give out dog biscuits. (oh, and they have a lot of great banking stuff, too, including the opportunity to get a new Flip camera just for opening a checking account. You only have until June 5th – so hurry!) But the real reason I love TD Bank and always will is this: For the first (and let’s face it, most likely only) time in my life – I was the best one there!!!!!
I know I had the advantage, I had done it before – but let’s not dwell on technicalities, shall we? Because of TD Bank, I got to feel, for the first time ever, what it’s like to be considered the best athlete in the room.
This might not seem important, as say, the fact that all of their checking accounts include:
Free Online Banking and Bill Pay
Free TD Bank Visa®Debit Card with Visa Extras reward points
Free ATM access at over 5,200 TD Bank and TD Canada Trust ATMs, plus they reimburse other banks’ ATM fees when you maintain a minimum daily balance of $2,500.
But to me it’s BIG. Come on, you remember those days – standing out in the field during PE, praying that you’d at least get picked before that girl who was always talking to herself about rabbits while she incessantly twirled a lock of her hair? You don’t? Well, I do. And it wasn’t pretty. And it wasn’t fun. But last week, at the TD Bank event, I got to feel like the first picked for a change.
Yes, for one, brief shining moment — I was a star. I even considered running away from it all (what all? I have no idea) and joining the circus…the middle aged circus. Instead, I just decided to hold on to the feeling by buying a ten class card.
I might not be the best one the next time I go (ok, ok, so I won’t be ) — but I’ll always have the memory. So TD Bank, thanks for the memories. I”ll think of you every time I flip out!
The crazy blind dates. The long curly hair. The constant wondering when (and if) I would find Mr. Right. The cosmos. Other than the shoes and the rampantly indiscriminate sex, I could relate to Carrie’s life in the HBO hit series Sex in the City.
Of course by the time the show aired I was already married, and by the time it ended I already had two kids, but still, her life was close enough to what my reality had been – the glamorous, better dressed version of my reality – that even with its excesses, the show rang true.
But here we are, on the cusp of a new Sex and the City movie, and I can’t help but wonder….why is it that my life now centers around organizing my synagogue’s High Holy Days, cleaning up after the dog, and packing up the kids for sleepaway camp, while Carrie and the gang still have lives that include gallivanting across the desert in designer duds?
Read the rest of this post on New York City Moms blog by clicking here.
My son patiently explained that when a baby was growing inside of it’s mother, it got all of it’s nourishment from the Polenta.
Perhaps Puberty Education (the new p.c. way of saying sex education) isn’t quite working out.
For years, when my kids asked where babies came from, I told them the truth: they didn’t want to know. And you know what? They didn’t. They watched National Velvet and practically fainted when they realized where the baby foal was coming from in the opening scene. I told them that before they were babies they were “ingredients.” Then after a while I told them the proper names of the ingredients. And last summer, when they were nine, I told them the rest of it.
They didn’t want to know.
My daughter wanted to know if there were some other way to have babies. Like maybe how gay people got their babies. (this is NY – a kid with two dads isn’t news to her.) My son decided he’s never getting married.
Think maybe I told them too soon?
And I wasn’t the only one. In puberty ed last week, the teacher brought in a tampon, unwrapped it, showed them how the applicator worked, then doused the thing with water to show how big it got and how absorbent it was.
Oh – and that was in my son’s class.
Why, I ask you, did he need to know that? At ten? My husband is almost 50 and he still doesn’t know that much about tampons.
I do want my kids to hear the truth. I don’t want them to think sex is weird or bad or dirty. I don’t want them to be freaked out by the changes in their bodies. They should be prepared, understand the biology. But maybe TMI is having an effect on them. I’m worried it’s freaking them out, upsetting them, making them more uncomfortable in their bodies rather than less.
So how do you know what to tell them when? I sure don’t. Books can help. Friends. Teachers. (Except when they’re showing your kid a tampon!) But really, it’s you who knows your kid best. I might have misjudged their readiness to know about the facts of life, but I knew how to tell them. I’m their mother, it should come from me — not from some kid on the playground. But I also know my limits, and when the time comes that my kids are thinking about sex, and birth control, and STDs. Well, I’m gonna go to the experts.
This months SVMOMS book club pick is The Body Scoop for Girls, by Jennifer Ashton. It’s a comprehensive guide to adolescence, changes in your body, and overall wellness. And I’m definitely gonna need it. (it’s gonna be my expert) This post was inspired by the book.
[Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in exchange for this post, for which no editorial guidelines were set. I received no other compensation.]
If you liked this post, please share the love! (not in a puberty ed sort of way!)
Click Here to buy See Mom Run, a collection of essays (including mine) by the most harried moms on the web.
Click Here to buy The Bigger The Better the Tighter the Sweater, which includes my essay about my boobs. (yes, really)
Click Here to buy The Knitters Gift, which features my essay on the psycho-sexual effects of being a knitter. (sort of, kind of)
