Book Giveaway: The MomsTown Guide to Getting It All

Update: The winner is ... Lazy Wife! Send me your address, Lazy Wife, and I'll get the book right out to you.

Has anyone ever told you to "Get a life"? Did it feel good? It's certainly not a compliment, right?

That's how The MomsTown Guide to Getting It All got off on the wrong foot with me, and judging by some of its reviews on Amazon, some other moms too. Authors Mary Goulet and Heather Reider dub followers of their program "GALs," their acronym for "getting a life." A harried mom who feels lost in the diapers and dishes and laundry and toys doesn't need to be told to get a life. Or does she?

At first I found this book condescending and disorganized. But as I went through it in-depth for this review, it won me over. I like it enough that I wish I hadn't said I'd give it away to a lucky commenter. But I did, so I will. Aren't I generous and honest?

Seriously though, I am happy to pass this book on to another mom. It contains some good information for women looking to kick start her life.

Presented as a 10-week program, "A Life Makeover for Stay-at-Home Moms," the books casts it net wide, offering advice on getting organized, improving your health, staying smart, exploring your spirituality, chasing your dreams, achieving balance (ha), handling finances and more. One section I like talks about turning your passion into profits, a perfect angle for moms considering re-entering the workforce.

The authors do cram a lot into 10 weeks. Week two tasks include cleaning out the pantry and kitchen and evaluating your wardrobe. Week three, they ask you to clean out and organize your office, go through the stacks of papers and create and follow a schedule. These are things I've been trying to accomplish for the last year. I doubt it will happen in two weeks, unless Goulet and Reider show up to watch my kids.

The book covers so much that I had to make a little cheat sheet. Yes I'm a geek like that. But it was the only way I could wrap my brain around all the information and tasks they assign each week. They do summarize each week, but I still felt the need to create a more detailed summary for myself.

During week four, the authors admonish us that we have no excuse not to exercise and eat well: we simply must. While I agree with this on the surface, being in the trenches with small babies and little help has taught me that sometimes, your personal needs do (gasp!) take a back burner. Moms at home with small children (or one needy or ill child), moms whose husbands travel or work long hours, moms with no resources to hire help or join a gym with babysitting services, know this. On that note, I felt the book missed the mark. Many SAHMs, above all, need to learn to nurture themselves and take babysteps, not chastise themselves for their inability to "get it all."

Along with working out three times weekly, the MomsTown program involves writing in a diary, spending time in your "sanctuary," reading the newspaper every morning, making your bed and taking a shower every morning. Stop laughing! They really say to take a shower every morning!

I enjoyed the many self-evaluation quizzes and "homework" assignments, on everything from honoring your authentic self, dismantling mental barriers to exercise, and uncovering your "crazy dreams" and finding ways to make them happen. These exercises add substance to the program. Working through them, I evaluated myself and the choices/excuses I make in new ways. And as a self-proclaimed self-help junkie, that's saying a lot. Later weeks do much to nudge us out of our comfort zone, encouraging us to "socialize our passions," get out to community events, invite new moms into our social circle and even throw a party.

Some readers felt that the authors put down women who love staying at home and do not want to find a job or passion outside of raising their family. On the surface, it appears that way. But if you read the book thoroughly, and don't let the gung-ho language throw you, you will see that they want women to find what makes them happy and honor that, even if it's "just" being a domestic goddess.

The MomsTown Web site does have lots of resources, and they just connected with MeetUp.com to help moms find others interested in the program. There's even a MomsTown radio program. By the way, a few months ago, MomsTown hosted a survey of the most helpful site for moms, and FlyLady won hands down. FlyLady has saved my SAHM behind on a continuous basis for the last five years. If you're drowning in household chores, start with FlyLady, then give this book a try.

So there you have it. Like with any self-help program, read it with an open mind, give new ideas a try, then take what works for you and leave the rest.

Would you like a copy? Leave a comment between now and Monday. I will pick a name on Tuesday.

Mamas Know There Are Days Like This

Plan:

9 a.m. Play with baby. Clean up breakfast dishes. Put load of laundry in washer.

10. Nurse baby, put her down for a nap.

10:20 - 12:20 p.m. Write.

Reality:

9 a.m. Play with baby, etc., etc., as planned.

10. Nurse baby, put her down for a nap.

10:20. Get cozy in my desk chair, with some much needed pasta to rescue plummeting blood sugar.

10:21. Turn on monitor. Jump six inches off chair at sound of baby screaming.

10:24. Sing, rock, yell-sing over the crying. Rock some more.

10:29. Place blanket over sleeping baby's lap, hit wall with corner of blanket making small thunk sound.

10:30 - 11:00. Sing, rock, yell-sing over the crying. Rinse, repeat. Bang head on floor. Resist urge to stuff baby in closet.

11:00 - 11:55. Walk up and down the street pushing baby in stroller-carseat-combo-contraption. Head high, hopes high, blood pressure high. Think about getting high.

11:56. Leave sleeping baby to run into the house and throw food in the cat's dish so she doesn't meow obnoxiously like she does every single second of my life.

11:57. Return to stroller, see blanket moving in a tell-tale jerky fashion. Peek inside stroller and see fussing but perhaps about-to-sleep baby.

11:58 - 12:03 p.m. Push stroller in circles around the minivan.

12:05. Carry sleeping baby in car seat into the house.

12:06 - 12:08. Get cup of coffee and sit down at desk to think about what I could have written.

12:09. Hear baby crying. Pick her up, march her over to the T.V. and prop her in front of Baby Mozart for second time this morning. Tell AAP to bite me.

12:10 - 12:19. Write inane blog post that will somehow make me feel better. A little. Sort of.

12:25. Look for missing car keys. Go get the boys. Late.

Four Reasons Why I Love My Four Year Old

1. He's Honest. Oh glorious Saturday: I sleep in till 9:40. Fumbling for coffee, I run into John at the counter eating oatmeal. He slept late, too.

"Mama, your hair," he says gravely.

"Yeah?"

"It's bad." He stares at my head, wincing. "You've got to make it stop ... going down like that."

"Thanks, John. I call it Bed Head: Four Days Without Shampoo."

2. He Says Sweet Things to Me. On his way to the back yard he calls out, "Bye Mama, I'm going, so don't be lonely."

A moment later, he's back. He opens the slider a bit and sticks his head through, into the family room. "Mama, don't forget that you can come outside if you wanna come outside, because I want you to come outside."

"OK, honey. I love you."

"I love you, too." He smirks and looks down at the deck as he says it. Then he closes the slider and runs off.

3. He Brings Me Pinecones.


4. Some Days He Wears His Jeans Backwards, Just Because.

Late to the Purse Party

Have you spilled it for Sheryl this week? The blog goddess had a little purse party this week, and I almost missed it. Here's mine:



• A dead cell phone. I never remember to charge it and keep it with me when the boys are in school. You know, so they can find me. What if I don't want to be found, that's what I want to know. Sometimes I miss the old days, when a mom could vanish at the mall for hours at a time, safe from school administrators speaking of puking children.

• A pad of paper. Notice the missing pen. Pens that enter my purse find a gateway to an alternate universe. Will someone please invent a pretty pen that I can hang around my neck without looking like a dork?

• The wallet that I got for Christmas. I like the dragon fly on the buckle.

• An empty eyeglass case. My glasses never find their way into it and are so bent that I can't wear them in public.

• A stack of receipts, including evidence that I really did go to the gym this week.

• A beat-up envelope I use while grocery shopping, to improve my chances of not losing my list and actually using my coupons.

• Tissues, tampons. Wet wipes compliments of a local Chinese restaurant.

• No, I'm not an obsessive flosser. Those are compliments of the dentist, along with a card for John's next appointment.

• A stack of gift cards that I'd remember to use if I my brain hadn't broken.

• A raincheck for Natural Glow from CVS. It never expires and so may stay in my purse for the next 30 years, or until I'm old enough that glowing looks unnatural.

• A cold teether, which would make sense if my purse kept things at 40 degrees.

• A sword from a Transformer. In case I need to protect myself.

• A sticker from the pediatrician's office, which John picked up the night of my last fast food meal (she says fondly, wistfully).

• A compact that I never use but have carried for five years.

• Four lipsticks: one belongs in my purse, one in the car, one in the medicine cabinet, and one - my favorite - had been missing for more than a month. Thanks, Sheryl!

Book Giveaway: What Do You Do All Day?

Update: The winner of the book giveaway is ... Undercover Angel! Stay tuned for another drawing next week, for The MomsTown Guide to Getting It All.

Every now and then, a public relations firm asks me to review a book (because mom bloggers are hot, y'all). Since I have an out-of-control book addiction, I can never turn these offers down. But I haven't done many (*cough* any *cough*) reviews, so in a way I've been stealing these books. And yet, I want more free books (addiction, remember?), so I have to keep up my end of the deal.

Unfortunately, I can't write a proper review of What Do You Do All Day, by Amy Scheibe, because I got about halfway through it before losing interest. It's about a stay-at-home mom of two small children with a traveling husband, a gay boyfriend, a mean mother-in-law and some weight to lose. When my attention dropped off, her husband had left on an extended trip overseas, her gay boyfriend/playdate friend decided to go back to work, and she was having doubts about her happiness, her goals, her life.

At first, I loved this book because Scheibe has filled it with tons of great one-liners and because I can relate to a lot of her doubts and fears. The plot just didn't move fast enough for me.

Would you like to decide for yourself? To be entered in a drawing to receive my copy of this book, leave a comment on this post. I'll draw a name on Friday.

Monday Morning Hodgepodge

• Ava will turn nine months old next week, and in preparation she spent the last week shedding any remnants of her infant image. She learned to eat Cheerios, clap, wave, say "Dada," pull up on her knees, get up on all fours. She suddenly fits into size 12 months. My mom says she pulled herself up, unassisted, to a standing position, but since Ava already rolled and clapped for my mom before doing it for me, I refuse to believe this claim. Most significantly, she can now inch herself over to her brothers' Imaginext castle across the room. Let the toddler-like harrassment of siblings begin!



• After re-reading this post, I realize it came off kind of harsh. Normally I would have re-read the post and made some changes, but I'm sick of the whole topic and couldn't bring myself to do it. I just want to assure you that during the meeting I maintained perfect calm and decorum. Sure, I had passion. My nostrils may even have flared (because I'm so sexy like that). But really, my humorless, bitchy side didn't take over until I sat down to write.

• I just read an e-mail from Weight Watchers about feeding kids healthy food. No, I've never tried their eating plan, I just get their emails, because getting 3,243 emails every day makes me complete. Here's a quote:

"'I did some research with eight to 12-year-old children and found the major reason they liked going to McDonald's or other fast food joints was not the food, but because their mother was in a good mood because she didn't have to cook,' says Rosemary Stanton, a nutritionist based in Australia."

Oh, I get it. It's not McDonald's fault for filling their foods with trans fats and chemicals. It's mom's fault for being a grouch! Now it all makes sense.

• Speaking of healthy eating, I decided last night that not only did I need a McDonald's binge, I needed a Chinese food binge, too. Pork fried rice, chicken fingers, beef teriyaki, boneless spareribs. Mmmm, delicious, and yet, gross enough to offend my regenerating vegetarian sensibilities.

• I had coffee with my new friend yesterday, and we plan to meet at the GYM tonight. I haven't stepped foot in a gym since 2004. I'm not sure I'll even know what to do: Perhaps declutter their office? Clean their bathrooms? Wipe patrons' butts for them? It'll come back to me, right?

• Posts coming up ASAP about what we really did on St. Patrick's Day (I saved the green spaghetti for tonight) and The MomsTown Guide to Getting It All (it's not quite as bad as I first thought).

Happy St. Patty's Day

Last year for St. Patrick's day, I dumped some green food dye into pancake mix and called it a celebration. This year, I'm making "green spaghetti." The kids greeted this news with enthusiastic cries of "Yuck!" and "That's disgusting!"

Brian told them not to worry. "It's just regular spaghetti with green dye in it."

"No it's not. It involves a pound of spinach."

"Oh. Uh-oh."

Yes, I'm continuing to torture my family with my Vegetarian Times cookbook, and it's been great fun. Except the chickpea cabbage soup I made the other day, which the kids wouldn't touch and resulted in me getting a stomachache of epic proportions, requiring 4 GasX tablets, a shot of Pepto and a cup of ginger tea. I also got on my knees and asked God, "Why don't I own a hot water bottle?" Needless to say, I haven't dipped into the leftovers.

So, enough about my stomach. Tonight we have an ice cream social at John's new preschool. Tomorrow I have my first date with my new girlfriend. Sunday, Ben has a birthday party at the local candlepin bowling alley.

We took the boys bowling last week since they'd never been, and we didn't want Ben to be a complete novice in front of his friends. I can't believe how expensive bowling is! For the kids to bowl for 1/2 hour, it cost $13 ($26 for an hour). We rented three pairs of shoes, the kids bowled for 30 minutes, and Brian and I played two strings. It cost us over $30. Maybe it's because we're broke, but for less than an hour of entertainment, I was not impressed.

Anyway, after eating all the green spaghetti myself tonight, I may get crazy and dump some green food coloring into my beer. Are you celebrating St. Patty's Day?

Coming up: A long-overdue review of The MomsTown Guide to Getting It All. I'm also giving it away to a commenter, but mostly because I didn't like it. Doesn't seem so exciting when I put it that way, does it?

Diet Tipped

While decluttering I discovered a batch of Oprah magazines from 2003. Inside one of them I found a diet tip: To help stem night time snacking (or, ahem, binging), choose sweet or salty, and stick to your choice. This should result in feeling satisfied quicker and, supposedly, eating less. Still no word on whether beer is sweet or salty.

Diet tips offered in women's magazines are evil marketing tricks, designed to keep us fat so that we keep reading the diet tips offered by women's magazines. Don't you think? Still, I thought this one had some promise, so I tried it.

The first night, I kept eating well-salted popcorn, waiting to feel satisfied. But my brain kept saying, "Sweet! You want sweet!" until I broke down and ate some Cadbury dark chocolate. Last night, I kept eating Russel Stover chocolates until overcome by salt cravings I broke down and ate some nachos with salsa. Tonight, I plan to just eat a Babe Ruth bar and get the sweet and salty thing over in one snacking session. If my previous tests are any indication, I expect to end up with my face in the kids' bag of candy, hunting for Sour Patch Kids.

So there you have it: Never trust diet tips offered by women's magazines. As for me and my evening snacking, maybe I'll just stick to beer. And nachos. And chocolate.

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To the Principal's Office

I struggled a bit with what to say about my meeting with the principal. It was what I expected, which isn’t saying much. Nothing came of it, except that he now knows my opinion of his preschool. He now knows what happened to John when he went there (tantrums, suddenly hating school, wetting the bed). He knows my account of what I saw when I observed.

We got off to a rocky start, because our meeting never made it onto his calendar. He asked me how long I needed and I said 15 minutes. As I began talking, I felt keyed up. My first few sentences came out like blurts. “John went to the preschool.”

“He goes there?”

“No, he went there. It wasn’t good.”

“O.K.”

Then I spoke for 15 minutes straight, with him asking a clarifying question or saying a rationalizing statement every so often. Within the first 30 seconds I used the word “reprimand.”

“What do you mean by that? I mean, did she yell, did she redirect ...”

“No, she reprimanded. There was no cheerful redirecting.” (Redirection to what? Sitting and waiting?) “She took the toy out of his hands and said, ‘Give me that, you know better than that.’”

“They’re very structured, I know that,” he said at one point.

Here's the thing. I waited a few weeks before going to him so that I could be as calm and rational as possible. I planned all these diplomatic ways of saying things, not wanting to insult him or put him off. But once I got in there, and he began rationalizing? I just started going off.

“How are kids with speech and motor delays helped by not being allowed to speak or move?” I asked. I described the mean assistant castigating one little boy, and I think I compared her to Nurse Ratchet, but I'm not sure.

At the end he said, “Too bad I didn’t know, before you took him out, so we could have worked it out.”

Somehow I didn’t think he meant, “So we could have fired that bitch,” so obviously we couldn’t have worked it out. I shook my head. “No. If it wouldn’t have caused a scene, I would have taken John with me when I left that day [the day I observed].”

“O.K.”

Leaning across the table, I stared him in the eyes and willed him to believe me. “I want you to know that if what I saw was anywhere in the realm of NORMAL or APPROPRIATE, I wouldn’t be here.”

“Noted,” he said.

Perhaps he thinks I didn’t work closely enough with the teacher, the one who didn’t acknowledge me with a millisecond of eye contact when I visited her classroom for an hour. A few times he said, "Did you talk to the teacher about this?" or "Did you ask about that?"

Whatever.

I recounted my last conversation with the teacher. I told him, “At best, your misrepresenting what this is, because it’s not a preschool experience. People join thinking it’s a preschool for 3 to 4 year olds, but it isn’t. I’ve observed five preschools in the past two weeks, and every one of them was an entirely different world than what you offer.”

“O.K.”

“I strongly suggest that you observe for a few hours.”

“I will.”

So that’s it. He claims to know nothing of this issue being brought to the school committee last year. He gave me no indication of any actions he will take, besides observing. He bristled at the idea of me going to the school committee. “I’d rather you didn’t,” he said, "but do what you want to do."

Why should he care, anyway? Aren’t we all working together to give our kids the best education we can? That's a laughable thought, right? It's all about CYA.

I am so going to the school committee.

My Supersized Day

In the spirit of full disclosure, I want you to know that I had my final McDonald's binge yesterday. It all started when I got the boys off to school and found myself in my car with a rumbling tummy. It occurred to me that I've given up some bad habits in my lifetime, and never, NEVER, have I done it without binging first. (Well, except the time when I gave up screaming at my boys. I didn't binge on that first, I just cried myself to sleep and felt like a scum of the earth for a few days. THAT was fun.)

Anyway, for breakfast, I had a sausage and egg McGriddle. It was so disgustingly delicious. I had a hashbrown too. I have strong ties to the McDonald's hashbrown, dating back to my youth.

I thought I was done. But then Ava fussed all day long, and by 3:00, she wouldn't nap and the screaming was escalating, so I took her in to have her ear checked. You can't blame me on this one: 4:30 appointment, all three kids in the car at 5:15, no dinner in the crockpot, Ava STILL crying IN HER SLEEP. What would Jesus have done? Drive-through!

OK, maybe He would have had some figs and amarynth, and of course fish, to feed the kids. But I didn't, and I figured, I had my last hurrah, why shouldn't they? I got a large fry (which I shared), a Big 'N Tasty AND a McChicken. Followed hastily by two chewable Gas-X tablets.

If the idea was to make myself sick enough to vomit just thinking about my last fast food experience, I succeeded. From now on, if I eat anything at McDonald's/Burger King/Wendy's other than a salad, you can all point at me and laugh.

You already point and laugh at me, don't you. Don't you!

Coming up: My meeting with the principal about his dismal preschool program, i.e., how to ruin a public school admistrator's morning and yet still feel completely unsatisfied.

Fine, McDonald’s, Have It Your Way

I’m breaking up with McDonald’s. People who knew me in my 20s would never believe that I was even going out with McDonald’s. But it's true. It started with a French fry or side salad here, a grilled chicken sandwich there. It progressed to a Big ‘N Tasty with a large fry and a soda.

Before I had kids, I scoffed at parents buying small children Happy Meals, I admit it. Now I have a 30 lb bag of these toys in my basement, which I pull out from time to time when I want my kids to just. leave. me. alone. (Usually while I’m on the phone with a teacher, doctor or cruise line reservation desk, which I call sometimes just to pretend.)

Ten years ago, I was a vegan eating organic, drinking no coffee, eating nothing deep fried and shopping at Bread & Circus. I was a nutritional Puritan.

I lasted a while after Ben’s birth, too. He never ate meat until he was a toddler. I continued cooking complicated vegetarian meals. For snacks he’d have three different food groups, whereas now he’s lucky if he gets one. Now I realize the boys have been choosing from their candy bags more than once a day, and we’ve been visiting the golden arches sometimes twice a week. How did this happen?

It’s just so freaking easy, that’s how. I'm just so freaking lazy. And busy. Pull in the drive-thru and -- presto! -- you have a “meal” the kids will eat. They don’t call it a “Happy Meal” for nothing, apparently. I could have gotten a salad but the allure of the Big ‘N Tasty proved to much for me to resist. I repeat: HOW DID THIS HAPPEN TO ME?

Last week I posted a news story about McDonald’s at DotMoms, and many astute readers reminded me that eating at McDonald’s is the nutritional equivilant of licking the dumpster behind the local Motel 6. (At least, the way we eat at McDonald’s is.) One of the things that pisses me off about McDonald’s is they COULD offer more healthful food. They COULD bake the damned chicken nuggets. They COULD offer a vegetarian sandwich. They COULD give a shit about the health of the millions of people who, sadly, rely on them, who eat their because it’s affordable and convenient. But they don’t.

So here and now, I’m breaking it off with McDonald’s. I’ve pulled out my dusty vegetarian and healthy cookbooks. And so far, so good. Monday we had peanutty spiral noodles, last night, pasta a faglio with chard. Tonight, we're having sage roasted turkey breast with orange pan sauce.

I used to be a vegetarian, a health nut, a cook. I'm making a comeback. And I'm off to order Fast Food Nation from Netflix.

Quick Preschool Update

Today is John's third day at his new preschool, and he seems to like it. All the tantrums and behavior issues we had while he was in the evil preschool have just evaporated. He told me the other morning that he, "Wants to go to all the schools that don't give time outs and none of the schools that do give time outs." He assures me that his new school does not give time outs. (Which I already knew, of course. Wasn't going to make that mistake again!)

I like the new school, too. The teachers seem sweet and warm, just like the red room. They have different themes, this week is "dinosaurs." They have a lunch bunch so that I can leave him there for an extra hour if I need to. And, they are $25 per month cheaper than his old school, so I can actually afford to have him go to lunch bunch as often as we want.

Tomorrow is the BIG DAY: I meet with the principal to talk about the evil preschool. Chatting with moms around town, I have discovered that last year, an assistant that worked at this evil preschool got so freaked out at the depth of their evil that she she quit and went to to the school committee. So, after I meet with the principal, I plan to meet with the school committee chair, so I can reinforce what this woman said last year. I don't know if they think they fixed the problem in their preschool, but I can assure them that, no, the problem still needs fixing.

Wish me luck!

Chicken Soup for the Young and Perky Soul

I'm not normally obsessed with my age or being old or young or whatever. However, during the last six months I've begun feeling very middle-agey. It didn't help at all when I went to Brian's 20-year high school reunion. Everyone there looked old. Old I tell you. And they're just a few measly years older than me.

We went to see INXS last month, and when the bartender at the Wang Center carded me, I didn't have my I.D. She decided to let me get my beers anyway. "You just better be 21," she said.

"I'm 37, I have three kids," I told her, and we both laughed. I'm old enough to have a child who's old enough to buy a beer.

When my mother-in-law came over last week she brought me a gift. At first I was all, "Oh, Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul, cool." Then I noticed the script at the bottom: "at Midlife." I looked at her. "Oh, for midlife, thanks A LOT!"

"You're welcome," she smiled, and I realized that she was dead serious and, duh, "mid-life" totally applies to me and I should just accept it right now.

For the last five months I've been thinking I'm 37. But last night I realized I'm not, I'm 36. I found a year!

Thirty-six sounds much perkier than 37, doesn't it? It's mid-thirties as opposed to late thirties. I'm 36! Woot! My boobs arent' perky but my age is! Remember "Six" from the TV show Blossom? PERKY! In a really bad way, sure, but perky nonetheless.

When I told Brian about this -- about my found year and that I'M ONLY 36!! -- he just looked at me sadly and shook his head. "When you start forgetting your age, you're old."

"No, I didn't forget! I remembered," I insisted. "You're just jealous because you're 40."

"I'm 39."

"Oh. Well, then ... Shut up!" I said over his laughter, and I chucked the book at his head.

You Want Lies With That?

Happy Meal habit? What Happy Meal habit?

My latest post is up at DotMoms.

Happy Friday!

Calling All Philanthropists

Sorry I haven't been here. I have the stomach flu, writing deadlines, laundry and this is the killer: three little kids.

Philanthropists, feel free to send send over a babysitter, a copyeditor, a housecleaner, a cook, and some Pepto. Oh, and some bigger jeans because, damnit, if the stomach flu doesn't make mine fit, nothing will.

On the plus side, this 10-day-and-counting bout of nausea has gotten me off of caffeine, sugar, alcohol, food and water. Now if I can just cut out air and sunlight, I'll be my own self-contained ecosystem.