Nervous Girl

A Letter to My Children

Dear children of mine:

You are ten and almost seven years old, respectively. As you've grown and become more independent, it's been difficult for me to make sure any one part of you gets washed effectively--you've emerged from twenty-minute showers with, amazingly, still-grubby faces and knees. I don't know how you do that.

If I can't get your face washed in that length of time, I don't know how anyone is supposed to get you brainwashed in less. But that's apparently what the President is going to try to do on Tuesday. Good luck to him on that. Personally, I can't imagine any government official being able to hold your attention for more than twenty seconds unless he speaks in Spongebob's voice.

But he's apparently going to try, and it's up to your teacher whether she's going to let you listen (and I mean "listen" in the reform sense of the word, where your ears are in the same room as the sound being played--see above). And if you do listen, and the President's words penetrate your summer-softened brains, he's going to try turn you into a social activist.

You're going to be asked to reflect on the President's words and consider dangerous and subversive questions such as:

*What is the President trying to tell me?

*What is the President asking me to do?

*What new ideas and actions is the President challenging me to think about?

Children may even be asked to do something, like:

Create posters of their goals. Posters could be formatted in quadrants or puzzle pieces or trails marked with the labels: personal, academic, community, country. Each area could be labeled with three steps for achieving goals in those areas. It might make sense to focus on personal and academic so community and country goals come more readily.

Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.

My sweethearts, I just want you to know before you go into school on Tuesday: nobody can force you to have goals if you don't want to, not even personal ones. No one can force you to think about your community or your country, or make you believe that your actions could even make it a better place. There's a chance the President is going to float the idea that we all have to pull together to make positive change. I mean, how crazy is that? And I'll be damned if anybody tries to teach my kids that they have to be accountable. Or, for that matter, that they should have any respect for the Office of the President, if the President happens to be someone their parents disagree with.

So don't worry, kids. Mommy's got your back. And if. on Tuesday, you start to feel a sense of empowerment or responsibility, don't panic. Just shut your eyes real tight and think of Spongebob.

Oops! I almost forgot...

 I've been so focused on the Picnic with a Purpose that I'm hosting tomorrow, that I almost forgot about the millions of people out there in the blogosphere who, for reasons of scheduling or geography, can't make it to my picnic. Thoughtless of me to be blathering on about the good food, the camaraderie, the warm feeling that comes from working together for a good cause, the fun. When you can't join me.

Except...you can! Thanks to the nice folks at Hebrew National and the Motherhood, you can win your own Picnic with a Purpose! You can find a community organization that could use a little boost (and couldn't they all, these days?) You can get your friends and family together and rally around the cause. And, if you're not intimidated by my former career as a competitive eater (okay, it wasn't a career, just a hobby I was really, really good at), you could even invite me.

The Picnic is Tomorrow!

Sorry that I haven't posted in a while; I've been obsessing about many things, like starting my new law practice (more about that later) and my upcoming Hebrew National Picnic with a Purpose, also sponsored by The Motherhood. I feel a little pressure about the Picnic, because I'm one of the last of eight bloggers hosting one, and the previous picnics have been, I don't know, maybe a little awesome. Pool parties. Bounce houses. Merriment and frolic.

Whereas I'm going sort of deliberately old-school with my picnic. Simple menu, a local park with a pavilion and playscape. It reminds me a little of the church picnics we had at Fort Niagara when I was growing up. A long table lined with hot dogs, macaroni salad, baked beans, and the like, kids running around and playing, adults sitting back and shooting the breeze in those aluminum lawn chairs with the nylon webbing. Remember those?

But I really, really like the one twist this picnic has: that we're getting together to have fun, but we also get to do a service project to help people in our community. Let me be frank: Detroit is suffering, badly, and it's still likely to get worse. And I'm a cheap so-and-so. When things are tight, you'd think I'd want to give less, not more.

Weirdly, though, in this time of high anxiety, giving more is the only thing that eases the knot in my chest a little. So we're doing this service project for the SAY Detroit Clinic for homeless children and their families. We're decorating a "treasure chest" for the clinic and filling it with little toys for the kids to get as a treat after their appointments. And we're making little gift bags for some of the moms who come to the clinic. Know what's in 'em? Toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo and kleenex. If you have that stuff in your house right now, then you're doing better than a lot of people. If you have a house to have that stuff in, you're doing better than a lot of people. I have all that stuff. Sometimes it's good to realize how good I have it.

So, to recap--we're going to frolic. We're going to pig out. We're going to do a small service for a truly great organization. It's going to be an awesome day. The only thing missing will be the aluminum lawn chairs.

A Picnic with a Purpose

Less than one month from now, on May 30, I am going to have the privilege of hosting Hebrew National's Detroit Picnic with a Purpose. In conjunction with The Motherhood (http://themotherhood.com), Hebrew National is sponsoring a series of picnics to kick off the summer. If you're in Michigan and can get to Metro Detroit, I would love to have you, and as many kids as you can cart with you, at this picnic.

When the fabulous Cooper Munroe of The Motherhood asked me if I'd host a picnic, I said sure. Actually, what I may have said is, "You had me at 'hot dog.'" Hebrew National dogs are really, reeeeallly, good. They're not paying me to say that. They don't have to. I've been addicted to them since college. Go try one and see what I mean. Go ahead. I'll wait.

You back? Good. Hey, you have a little mustard on your chin. Have a napkin. There.

Now, where was I? Oh, yeah: picnic. So, there will be these excellent hot dogs, and an abundance of other picnic fixings to go with. There will be plenty of activities and games and prizes for the kids. Heck, there will even be prizes for the adults. So, to recap: through the goodness of Hebrew National and The Motherhood, I'm plying you with excellent food and lots of cool and useful stuff. For free. Could it get any better?

In fact, it could. Because this is a picnic with a PURPOSE, my friends, and the purpose is not just to stuff your pie hole until you can stuff it no more. (Well, that actually is a pretty good purpose, but it's not the PRIMARY purpose.) No, the primary purpose of this picnic is to help out S.A.Y. Detroit's Family Health Clinic, the nation's first 24 hour health clinic for homeless children and their mothers. We're asking picnic guests to bring small, safe summer toys like bubbles, sidewalk chalk, jump ropes, etc. to fill up a treasure chest for the clinic's young clients. The kids at the picnic will get to decorate the treasure chest. (The clinic has many other needs, so if you're interested in doing even more to help, let me know.)

The picnic will be at noon on Saturday, May 30. It's a lovely big clean park, with a pavilion and big playscape for the kids. I'd love to see you there, so if you or your friends would like an invite, let me know and I'll get one right out to you!

In which I singlehandedly solve the childhood obesity epidemic and the pretentious baby name epidemic

In the '50s, '60s, and '70s there was no childhood obesity epidemic. There was no childhood obesity epidemic because children were active. Children were active because they played outside. They played outside because they had time to. They had time to because they weren't being shuttled from Tae Kwon Do to piano lessons to Spanish class. They weren't being shuttled from Tae Kwon Do to cello lessons to Spanish class because those things didn't exist. Those things didn't exist because parents didn't think they needed to. Parents didn't think they needed to because the kids were already perfectly happy and well-adjusted playing sandlot baseball and freeze tag in the park down the block.

Kids could play in the park down the block because they had wholesome, normal names like Jimmy and Bobby and Debbie and Susie. When your mom leans out the back door and yells, "Bobbyyyyyyyy!" that carries all the way down the street, and you come running. Which further contributes to your fitness.

Do me a favor. Go to your back door and try to yell Jaden or Addison or Creston or Paris. Kinda sticks in your throat like a hairball, doesn't it? You can't get a kid home from the park with that kind of name. Hell, you can't even get a kid to drop his DS by yelling one of those sissy names. Want a well-adjusted, rosy-cheeked, active kid? Give 'em a nice normal name that will carry across at least four back yards, with a lawnmower running in one of them.

Think about it. You know I'm onto something here.

If only I'd thought of this before I'd named my kids (sniffy English prep-school name) and (sniffy Jane Austen heroine name).

The School Book Fair: The Rules

1. We are here to buy books.

2. Number one would seem obvious, but what it means is: we will not be buying that $13 electronic pen that sends messages to that *other* $13 dollar electronic pen within a ten foot range. If I want to spend $26 for you and your sibling to communicate with each other when you're in the same room, I will buy you 1300 pencils. And a pad of paper.

3. Similarly, I will not be buying you that plastic pointer with the creepy little gloved hand on top, the little plastic purse trimmed in marabou feathers, or the plastic bobblehead Chihuahua. In fact, if it's made of plastic, it's almost certainly not a book, and see Rule #1 above.

4. While we're at it, no books with props. No books that come with stickers, markers, stuffed animals, charms or other jewelry. And absolutely no books with electronic sound effects. If it requires bells and whistles beyond good writing and nicely-drawn illustrations, it's probably not worth reading.

5. Also: No books that are based on TV shows, movies, trading cards, toys or computer games. I realize that you are young and may not realize whether a character in a book predates a character in a movie, so let me spell it out for you: Charlotte's Web, Curious George, and Arthur can come home with us. Hannah Montana, High School Musical, and Pokemon cannot.

6. Last but not least, a guiding principle: Titles in great literature almost never contain the word "fart."

Wolves have bad breath.

Not literal wolves, although I imagine their breath is pretty funky, too. No, it's this damn figurative wolf. He's been at a lot of doors locally, and elsewhere. And while he hasn't been at my door yet, he keeps driving through my neighborhood real slowly, and leering.

It's wearing, especially here in Michigan. Some friends have lost jobs. Some have had to fire people, some have taken pay cuts. Some are in fear for their jobs, and the ones who aren't were unemployed already. Let's just say it's not a super time for a stay-at-home-mom with a six-year hole in her resume to decide to go back to work.

But my job-hunting woes? Mere piffle, I assure you. One friend has a soul-deadening job, which pays next to nothing and which she hates like root canal. But she's close to losing it, and she's frantic because she needs the money and the flexible hours to take care of her sick father and her little girl. I wish her story was the only one like that I knew. The wolf is at her door, so many doors all at the same time. He's a busy wolf, and hungry.

Add to the stress of the economy the cold weight of winter pressing down on us in the north, and things seem almost unbearable. The snow is barely shoveled, and it needs shoveling again. It's grainy snow, not even good for building a snowman or having a snowball fight, just for piling up and slogging through.

There are other problems, too, but I can't go into them. But it's enough to make a girl want to write a psalm. Not one of the praise-filled ones, one of the desperate ones, where the psalmist is beset by enemies and treachery and there's famine in the land. One where the psalmist cries out to God because all other kinds of crying have been profitless.

I'm one of the lucky ones, right now. But I can't help seeing the bad luck all around me and wondering--when is somebody going to slay this hideous, drooling wolf? 

Clearly I'm missing something here...

Our school district is putting on a seminar for fathers called, "Making Every Minute Count." It looks very well put together, and the emphasis is, apparently, on squeezing the most out of those precious minutes with your kids.

Therefore, the seminar takes place for six hours on a Saturday, when presumably Dad would otherwise be home, making the most of his time with his kids.

I guess those 360 minutes don't count.

Maybe they should have called the seminar, "Making Your Wife Count the Minutes Until You Come Home and Spend Some Time With the Kids She's Been Keeping from Mauling Each Other to Death All Week." I guess that wouldn't have fit on the brochure, though.

Starting with the Easiest First: #15

So, this resolution to speak my mind when I think I'm right. I'll tell you why I made it. I've gone through forty-one years assuming that everyone else had a level of expertise that I lack--that if someone else had a strong opinion about something, or any opinion at all, it must be rooted in some worthwhile evidence. That if I knew anything at all, I would agree. No one else has said this to me; it's all me, talking to myself.

For example: shortly before Christmas, the news said there was a pretty big snowstorm coming. We have a snowblower, a behemoth. I've never used it because it's so big and heavy; that's always been my husband's bailiwick. However, due to his recent pacemaker surgery, he's not supposed to do a lot of pushing or heavy lifting. So he was showing me how to start the snowblower. We hadn't started it yet this winter so there was some priming and such to do. Then, the moment of truth--pulling the cord to start the thing up.

It's a long cord. My husband is not supposed to raise his left arm over his head for a couple of months so as not to dislodge the leads of the pacemaker before they're firmly implanted. He was pulling the cord with his right hand, but still--it was a dramatic and strenuous motion. It occurred to me that it might not be the best idea for him to make that motion, but then I talked myself down: I didn't want to nag him, surely he would not do anything to jeopardize himself. It was only after about a dozen, increasingly strong (and ultimately unsuccessful pulls) that he paused to ponder aloud, "I wonder if it's the best idea for me to be doing this."

Yeah. Turns out his information wasn't any better than mine.

Long story short, I persuaded him to call the cardiologist. When we reached him, the doctor opined that it was probably okay, and told my husband some things that would indicate if it wasn't. While we were waiting for the call back from the doctor, I learned via my beloved Internet that if my husband had dislodged a lead, it would require another expensive surgery of the variety from which he had just spent a month recovering. The insurance company probably would not be as enthusiastic about paying for this one. And instead of spending the holidays with our family, he, the kids and I would spend it in a hospital alone.

In short, the cost of not speaking up is too high, and in more than just financial terms.

So, this year, I've been speaking up in ways large and small. And while I try to be respectful in the process, I don't apologize for my point of view. Speaking up about big things: I told my husband that I recognize it's his health care and his decision, but I don't care for his cardiologist. I don't think he's the best doctor available, and I don't like the way he dismisses my concerns. My husband listened. I don't know what he'll do, but he listened.

Speaking up about small things: A couple of little boys at our bus stop bragged to me, laughing, that they had tricked my son into stepping in dog poop. Now, I know: boys will be boys. They're always tricking each other into stepping into or touching something gross. But I thought it showed a certain amount of snottiness to brag about it to the mother of the kid they'd just tricked. What did they think I was going to do, laugh about it with them? Congratulate them and say, "Boy, you sure showed that dumbass?" I was irritated. My son, though he's older, has never tried to pull such a stunt with these kids. (In fairness, it's not that he's a paragon of virtue; my son likely has Asperger's, and such stunts do not readily occur to him.)

How to speak my mind to these kids without being mean or inappropriate? I only had a few seconds to decide before heading for home, and I did.

I said: "I hope you guys have friends who are just as nice as you are." And I do.

New Year's Rationalizations

So. I came to the decision today that I am going to treat my New Year's resolutions more like the stock market and less like a dance marathon. To wit: I am hoping to just finish the year in a better position than where I started, rather than disqualifying myself altogether if I fall down once.

Yes, I realize that this is rationalizing my inevitable breaking of resolutions.

And yes: I've broken a boatload of them already.

But hear me out: There were 23 of them to start with. I've been keeping some of them, like #1, "Begin each morning with prayer." Although sprawling across the bed with one arm flung across my face, moaning, "God, please don't let disaster come crashing down on us today," as I reach for the snooz button with my free hand, was not exactly what I had intended when I wrote that one.

I've been doing a little better with #12, "Encourage and support kids in reading daily," if you are willing to count my vivid depiction of the future of the child who doesn't read as a bagger at Kroger, carrying groceries out to the BMWs and Jaguars of his former classmates.

Number 23 was "Blog at least one time per week." So what if it took me almost the entire first week of the year to do this blog post? (And don't ask about #2, "Write for at least 20 minutes every day. There's a reason that one's called "#2.") I haven't even approached #9, "Get and keep bedroom clean and uncluttered."

I tried to make a start on #22, "Give blood at least four times," but the nurse at the Red Cross said my hemoglobin was too low. The receptionist at the front desk offered to give me a sticker that said, "I tried."

The ship has already sailed on #14, "Send thank-you notes within a week of receiving gifts," although technically Christmas was last year, so the thank-you notes I've failed to write as yet for those gifts shouldn't count against this year's resolutions, should they?

It's too early for #20, "Plant and tend a vegetable garden." Hoping to accomplish #21, "Get a job," in one week would be optimistic to the point of foolishness.

Only one resolution have I followed scrupulously, every day: #15, "Speak up when I think I'm right about something."

I think it's going to be a great year.