Reassure You, Reassure Me

Before bedtime last night, my 7 year old ran into the family room and onto my lap, crying his head off. He does this lately, the crying, when frustration and anger overwhelm him. Tonight, his brother's success at the Star Wars Legos computer game set him off.

"John got to the next level," he groaned. "I DIDN'T, and I NEVER WILL!"

"Is that why your upset?" I asked, stroking his head. "Because he's ahead of you?"

"Yeeaahh," he sobbed.

"You'll catch up," I whispered into his ear, certain of it myself. "Now you have something to look forward to the next time you play. You can look forward to reaching that next level."

That resonated, I could see it in his eyes. After a while he simmered down, either because of what I said or because of the 15-minute DVD that I said yes to, despite the late hour.

It was strange timing. When Ben stumbled in, I was having one of those moments myself. You know, the "poor me's" about my writing "career" and some other "crap." As the months tick by and I haven't accomplished any writing or networking, part of me (the annoying,
wish-you'd-shut-up side) sees only failure.

Caring for my family and the house and myself takes all I have right now. Sometimes I worry, though. Am I falling behind? Am I missing one-time opportunities? Why can't I be more organized, more of a go-getter, just more?

Lately my life feels like a toddler's puzzle that's too hard for me to complete. I can't make these simple yet large pieces fit into their designated places.

So last night, as I reassured Ben, my own words echoed in on me: "You'll catch up, of course you will. You've got things to look forward to."

Ben will get to that next level, and so will I.

Tags: [freelance writing], [parenting]

DVD Reviews: Six for Summer

My family and I have had the pleasure of reviewing several movies recently, and the following six would be excellent choices for a summer movie night with the kids.

High School Musical, The Concert: This DVD features the original cast of High School Musical performing, you guessed it, in concert. My 7 year old, despite the HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS I spent bringing him to Kindermusic classes, has a strong aversion to music. So I'm glad that he loves High School Musical and that he tolerates The Concert. Both boys watched it with smiles, although they were not riveted, and occassionally wandered away. My 2 year old, however, loved it, dancing around the family room and singing. There are also lots of extras on the DVD, such as a behind-the-scenes tour and an "amazing interactive feature that puts you in the director's chair and lets you produce your own version of the concert." I haven't tried that out yet, but I'd say this is a must-have for the die-hard HSM fan.

Arthur and the Invisibles: I loved this movie, and so did my kids. My 7 year old, in particular, wants to watch it again in again, VERY rare for him. The movie is a combination of live action and CGI animation, with voicing by Madonna, Snoop Dogg and David Bowie. It starts Freddie Highmore, of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory fame, as Arthur, "a brave boy who must find a hidden treasure to save his family's home. To do so, he must enter the underground realm of the 'Invisibles,' tiny creatures who live beneath his own backyard." This was a very fun fantasy with a PG rating. It was just scary enough to be exciting to my 5 and 7 year olds, without giving them nightmares for weeks. The plot line kept my husband and I interested, the cinematography and animation were very cool, and the ending was satisfying. Heck, even Madonna didn't annoy me. I highly recommend this one.

Jump In!: How old is Corbin Bleu again? Please tell me he's at least 18, so I don't have to stop thinking the bad, bad thoughts I've been having about him. Ahem. Anyway, in this story, Disney rekindles the "Mom is dead" plot line. Brooklyn teen Izzy Daniels (Bleu) recently lost him mom, and is a boxer under his Dad's enthusiastic tutelage. Except there's one problem: Izzy does not love boxing, and he has discovered that he prefers the double-dutch form of jumping rope. Can he withstand teasing from his peers and, worse, disappointing his father to follow his heart? This one's an all-around feel good movie. With all the fun music and action, my family literally "jumped in" to the fun. Do the laws of gravity apply to Corbin? I don't think so. We were all tapping and dancing and, in John's case, doing Karate kicks by the end of the movie. Another winner for a family movie night.

Choose Your Own Adventure: The Adbominable Snowman: Have you read the Choose Your Own Adventure books? I haven't yet, but I picked up a few at the library book sale after watching this animated movie. It caught my interest with its promise to be "interactive" and a cast that includes William H. Macy and Felicity Huffman. As we watched, a prompt popped up on our TV screen every few minutes. Then the kids, Brian and I raced to decide what the characters should do next and enter our choice using the DVD remote (if we didn't do it fast enough, the DVD decided for us). It was fun and exciting, but overall a little too short. The whole story was over in about a half hour, even though it says 80 minutes on the package. You can then watch the movie over and over again, making different plot decisions along the way. It's very cool, but at $18, it would be best to either rent it or purchas it on a super sale.


HarveryToons: The Complete Collection: This set of four double-sided DVDs contains 52 episodes from the animated Harveytoons series of the '40s and '50s. It features characters like Casper, Little Audrey, Baby Huey, and Herman and Catnip (mostly the latter two). The cartoons always hold my boys interest, with loads of giggling throughout. The nice part is, Brian and I don't mind it either. It's the strangest thing, not remembering the cartoon but having it all come back as I watch it. I swear I must have watched hours of these 'toons as a kid. I just love the animation, all the cultural references, the silliness. I won't say there's no violence at all, but it seems quite tame compared to some of the crap that's on today. With 19 hours of classic animation, this set's a worthy investment, even if just for us old folks to reminisce. That said, it does not come with a list of episodes, which makes navigating the DVDs next to impossible. And it's no where near complete, as many HarveyToons cartoons are missing.

Dinosaurs: The Complete Third and Fourth Seasons: I had a vague recollection of Jim Henson's award-winning series from the early '90s, featuring a bunch of dinosaur puppets, and I decided to give it a whirl after reading positive reviews on Amazon. In the series, Daddy Earl is kind of a dumbass, Mom keeps him in line, and they live with their teen son, preteen daughter, baby and Grandma, whose always up for saying or doing inappropriate things in front of the kids. If you like outrageous humor, you'll have fun with this show. In one episode, Baby decides to leave the house on his own, riding his Grandmother's electric wheelchair into the countryside. As the family rushes to find him, a teradactyl swoops him up and puts him into her nest with her two eggs. Then the bird reveals to Baby that, when the eggs hatch, "you'll be their meal." Well that did scare the daylights out of my five year old, but that made it even funnier to me because I'm a mean mom. And the baby of course survives. This series manages to be hysterical and engaging, and we've had lots of fun watching it with the boys.

Tags: High School Musical: The Concert, Jump In!, Arthur and the Invisibles, Dinosaurs: The Complete Third and Fourth Seasons, HarveyToons: The Complete Collection, Choose Your Own Aventure, DVD Reviews

You know you have a toddler if (part 2) ...

Your child does this to your glasses:

And it's YOUR fault, for leaving them where she could get them.

I needed a new pair anyway.

[toddlers], [eyeglasses]

You know you have a toddler if...

You notice your child painting your purple bathroom wall with toothpaste, and you're glad she's found something to do so you can finish blow drying your hair.

Hey, at least she wasn't eating it.

Looking for Home

A few months ago at the post office in my town, I noticed some “most wanted” flyers hanging by the door. When I stopped to look at them, I realized they were actually notices of level 3 (violent, repeat) sex offenders living in our community.

Each flyer had a picture of a man, his convicted crimes, and his home and work addresses. I realized that if my boys left my house and walked to the corner store for candy, they would likely walk by the homes or workplaces of at least two of these individuals.

I don’t know if other states make this information public. In Massachusetts, they’ve made it public, then private, then public again. People I’ve talked to say that it's the same anywhere, bad guys are everywhere. But I wonder. Does everyone have level 3 sex offenders living in their neighborhoods? Do you? Does your state make that information public?

As I walked to my car that day -- Ava on one hip, John holding my other hand, it hit me: We’re moving. I’m not raising my kids here.

There are other reasons. The schools are mediocre. The town's a retail mecca, which is nice sometimes but more and more I'd rather travel to a retail mecca than live in it. The town's also hell-bent on building out every square inch of open space that's left.

Within the last few weeks, we’ve come up with two communities that might work for us. One is on the ocean, the other’s inland but still just a 45 minute drive to the coast and closer than that to Boston. (For you local yokels, that’s Ipswich or Acton.)

The inland town would be kind of wildcard because I'm not sure if I've ever even been there. I'll have to do some research.

I like the idea of staying by the ocean though. I grew up close to the ocean but not in a town with beaches, and Ipswich has one of the best beaches in the area. It also has a neat downtown with lots of unique (not chain) restaurants and shops. I’m guessing it has a vibrant artist community, maybe I’d be able to find a writer’s group there. It has better-than-average schools, and many of the neighborhoods have a nice woodsy feel.

There's also a mix of different types of people with varying educations and income levels. Everyone there is not a rich, married-with-kids, white, LL bean-wearing preppy, unlike many of the nicer communities around here. I went to high school with rich kids, and I hated it since we were not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. I will not do that to my kids. I THINK we can afford a four bedroom with perhaps .75 to 3 acres there. I suspect that we’ll have to look for a long time, though, before we find the right house within our budget.

Do you love your hometown? Why or why not? What would your ideal home town/city be like?

Tags: choosing a place to live, moving, Massachusetts

New England Mamas

Have you checked out the blog New England Mamas yet? If not, you really should. Especially if you're from New England, but that's not required since there are several great writers collaborating there.

This post by Cape Buffalo, including the comments thread, will give you some idea why I will never leave New England. We're all about day trips and road trips here on the North Shore: mountains, shoreline, big city, artist communities -- we've got it all, and then some.

I so love it here.

My New URL: www.Wondermom.org

Updated to add: It's http://www.wondermom.org/. Without the the "www" it won't work. I'm so brilliant.

So, I broke my blog yesterday. I noticed that both Blogher and Plain Jane Mom linked to me, and I figured, what better time to go into Blogger settings and randomly push buttons until visitors are directed to a URL that doesn't exist?

Word to the wise: if you click "publish your blog to a custom URL" in Blogger, THERE IS NO GOING BACK. I was just foolin', but apparantly Blogger was not. Fortunately, I did buy Wondermom.org while back, and once my husband gave me the @#$& password to 1and1, we got it fixed.

And now I'm at http://www.wondermom.org/. Please update your links!

When I saw blogs with things like shared links and social bookmarking and all that, I just figured I'd add that stuff when I got onto Wordpress. Then I started tinkering and realized I could do a few things now, with Blogger. So, wheee! I'm bringing my blog out of 2004 and into, um, 2006.

I will put my traditional blogroll back together and link to it. But I do enjoy my new "linkroll" over there on the left. It makes me feel like I'm doing something somewhat usefull when I surf the Internet. Now that's an invention!

Speaking of feeds, they are pissing me off. The real reason I was tinkering around in my settings was that my post yesterday never showed up in Google Reader. No idea why. Also, a million years ago, somewhere, I not only selected a truncated feed for Wonder Mom but I also included the geekiest tagline. I won't even mention it here, it's that bad. Even though I went to full feeds (after getting the riot act from Erika), partial feeds still show up on MyBlogLogs with my annoying tag line. Aargh! The Internet is so unforgiving!

You know, I've used several exclamation points in this post and I'm fearful that I may use more. Let's wrap this up shall we?

New URL: http://www.wondermom.org/.
Feeds 101: Kicking my ass.

The end.

Poop and Rompers

Ava discovered the joys of ripping her diaper off this weekend. Outside by the kiddie pool it was kind of cute, until I realized she'd crapped in the pool and said crap was hanging off her butt, smeared on the edge of the pool, and floating in the water in a billion pieces. I handled the situation with the calm of an experienced mother, hollering, "Help! I need help over heeeere! Now!"

The next morning, Ava barreled into the kitchen yelling, "Done!" and handed me her diaper. Her diaper loaded with crap. And I, once again, hollered, "Help! I need help in heeeere! Now!"

Too bad Brian had to go back to work today. I'm really going to miss him.

Some people might take this opportunity to potty train, but not me. I'm too worn out from saving her life 87 times a day, thanks. The No. 1 rule on this first day back to solo poop management will be: Keep Diaper on Toddler's Butt. To accomplish this, I got all of Ava's one-piece rompers together last night. This morning, as she rolled around in her crib, I selected one from her closet and went to pick her up.

"Not that clothes," she said, laying back with her hands over her eyes.

"No?"

"No. Not that clothes, Mommy."

"I see."

"No way. No WAY!!"

Oh yeah, two year olds. It's all coming back to me now.

The Real Reason Twos Are Terrible

On her second birthday, right on schedule I suppose, my daughter became a suicidal maniac. She darts toward the street, she climbs the deck railing, she dips the toothbrush in the toilet water before sticking it in her mouth. I have aged 10 years in the last two weeks.

People say “terrible twos,” and I say, “Na. It’s not so bad. After three kids, I've got nerves of steel.” Or, that’s what I used to say.

Ava does not sit on the dining room chair. Oh no. She stands, leaning over the back rest, testing the laws of gravity.

She doesn’t hold on while walking down the stairs. On no. She fills both arms with dolls and heads down the center, freestyle.

She doesn’t fear losing mommy in a crowd. In fact, that appears to be her goal. She’s sees an opening and runs, no looking back, no hesitation.

At the Y last week, as I watched Ben finish up his swimming lesson through the glass door, I lost myself in thought for a few seconds. That’s all it took.

“Oh, I saw her go, but I thought you knew so I didn’t say anything,” the woman beside me said.

Yes, my 2 year old’s mature for her age. I let her do her own thing.

I strode down the long hallway, thinking of all the closet and storage room doors I’ve seen open in the place, my stomach dropping with each step. Then I saw them, at the entrance: a cluster of people looking down at the floor. Ava has her hands pressed against the door, pushing, while a woman holding her gym bag and car keys stood above her, looking vaguely confused.

“Stay with Mommy,” I told her. She gave me that look, you know, the one that says, “Yeah, right.”

At the fireworks Tuesday night, Ava again disappeared. We found her within a moment, in a nearby stroller. It took 15 minutes for my heart to regain its normal rhythm.

Wednesday night I couldn’t sleep. I kept dreaming that I had to watch Ava, kept catching glimpses of her running between rooms. At first, I tried deep breathing and repeating the words, “She’s in her crib. She’s safe.” At 4:30 I gave in and went to the kitchen to wash dishes.

Yesterday, Brian was off from work. The skies kept threatening lightening, so we just relaxed around the house. Well, we relaxed. Ava pinged off the woodwork, looking for an escape. Which she found.

At first, I thought nothing of it when she scuttled into the mudroom. But within a second, I was on my feet. As I approached, telltale rays of sunlight splayed across the closet doors. The door to outside was open; Ava was gone.

I found her out on the sidewalk, deciding whether to run across the street to the park or hitch a ride to Boston.

“Never go outside without Mommy! Never!”

“Yes, outside, me,” she yelled into my face, defiant.

“With Mommy!”

“No,” she taunted. “Myself.”

Later that day, as I got the boys a snack, another moment of panic hit. Where is Ava? I haven’t seen her in several minutes! Then I remembered: Brian has her in the basement.

After everything, this non-event brought a sting of tears, my nerves of steel reduced to a pile of quivering live wires. And I realized, this is why they call it “the terrible twos.” And this is why I need a drink, and it’s not even noon.

DVD Review: Miss Potter

I agreed to review Miss Potter and then the beginning of summer with the children at home and the swimming and the staying up late and the birthday partying and the eating of processed meat on a bun just plain kicked my ass. So I asked my Mom to watch it, and she did because she does everything I say. (Just kidding Mom! xoxo) She then told me all about it after watching it three times to catch all the details, and she was so thorough that I feel like I watched it myself. Now for my part, I shall attempt to write a coherent review. Let's all cross our fingers!

Miss Potter stars Renee Zellweger as Beatrix Potter, the English author of the famed "Tale of Peter Rabbit" series of children's books. Potter lived from 1866 to 1943, and the movie focuses on those "coming of age" years, detailing her efforts to break free from her mother's control and to get her illustrated stories into print.

My Mom's first impression of the movie was that it was boring, but as the story unfolded, she became more interested. Potter was a sheltered child from an upper-middle class family, with her mom being the domineering, controlling type. Discouraged from intellectual pursuits (according to her Wikipedia biography), she spent her time journaling and painting horticulture and animals. She also developed a tight, public relationship with a bunch of imaginary animal "friends," which my mother said seemed to clear up a bit after she got away from her parents.

Potter managed to get her book accepted by Frederick Warne & Co., while winning the heart of one of the owner-brothers (played by Ewan McGreggor). Of course, her mom had issues with this and whisked Potter away for three months.

Without giving anything away, the movie follows Potter as she goes on to successfully break free from her parents' grip and become a successful author and, later, conservationist. My Mom thinks anyone interested in knowing more about the author behind The Tale of Peter Rabbit series would enjoy this movie, as well as those interested in the conservationist movement. Also, people who like kid's books, those who enjoy kids, as well as kids who read books, also people who like nature, and drawing, and painting, and drawing and painting about nature.

(Note: That last sentence was not my mother's. It was mine. I am sorry.)

Overall, my Mom says Miss Potter is a worthwhile family film, and she gives it 3 out of 5 stars. She very much enjoyed Zellweger's performance, and McGregor wasn't so hard on her eyes either. She also forbade me from giving the DVD away, so I will not. Because I always try to do what my mom says. However, I think if she doesn't want to give it away, it should get at least 3 1/2 stars. Don't you?

If you would like to delve a little deeper into Potter's life and the detailed, witty entries from her daily journal, check out Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature, by Linda Leer. Publisher's Weekly calls it "engrossing," and BookList says it is "endlessly fascinating ... altogether a remarkable achievement."

The Winner ...

Hey, I forgot to announce the winner, again! Let's blame it on old age, ok?

The winner of the Winnie the Pooh DVD is ... Lace! Congrats, and please send your address to clouth@gmail.com so I can get it in the mail to you.

Turns out Lace links to quite a few giveaways on her blog, so if you want to maybe win some cool stuff, go check out me-lace.blogspot.com!

She's 2

If you ask Ava how old she is, she'll say, "Five, old."

In reality, she's 2, and our family will descend on the house to celebrate in three short hours. It's a beautiful day, the house is clean, and the cake is baked and decorated. Logistically speaking, we are ready.

Yet, I feel so full of cliches: my heart's bursting with love, she's the light of my life, time flies.

It seems like yesterday that I was pregnant with her. (Looking back at the comments on that last link, I see that you guys named her! Look at me, letting the Internet name my girl.)

I prayed so hard that she would be healthy and, please, God, let her be a girl. I got my wish. Every single day I'm grateful.

Like when she expresses her love for something:

"Love. Ben. Much."

"Love. Chocolate. Much."

Or, hate.

"Hate. Naps. Much."

That last one often comes with a foot stomp.

Happy birthday Ava Nathalie. Even if you stop napping at the tender age of 2, Ben and John, your Dad and I, we're all better people for having you in our lives. You bring us so much joy.

Love. Ava. Much.


Brothers in love


Four months old: China doll


Seven months old: the height of chub


Two years old, in her favorite place to play: the mudroom. (Why? Are you kidding? The shoes, man. The shoes!)


On her birthday Wednesday, playing peek-a-boo, with a face full of blueberries and blue marker, as appropriate for the occasion.