Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Once a year, I do the unthinkable. I take my cats to the vet.  It’s worse than it sounds.  I don’t have two carriers, so I don’t take them at the same time. Honestly, I don’t think any of us could handle it. They hardly like each other, they can’t stand the car, and they flat out hate the vet. I, on the other hand, adore my vet. He really tries to do his job, as much as the cats fight him, and there is nothing you can’t talk about with him.  And I do mean nothing.

I took Yoko first. She is the alpha cat, and the old lady of the house. At nine years old, she is so waifishly thin that she has surpassed maintaining her girlish figure and gone straight to frail. Yoko hates to get in the cat carrier, so I let her ride in my lap on the way there. I am sure we make for an interesting sight, just a woman tootling down the street in her Volvo SUV with a very angry and thin long haired black cat in her lap. Ain’t nothing dangerous about that at all.

She did fine until the vet walked in the exam room, which is when she turned into the cat from “Pet Cemetery,” all scary hunched and flat ears, fangs exposed and loud hissing. The good news is her teeth were exceptionally clean. She also gained a half a pound. He attempted to finish the exam with Yoko under a towel, but she managed to turn her head three hundred and sixty degrees before biting him. Good thing he had on oven mitts. The bad news is that when she lashed out, she got me right between the thumb and pointer finger. I was the only casualty.

After I got her home, it was time to take the other one. Moshe is younger and much more timid than Yoko. He is twice her size, a good fifteen pounds to her eight. He is also sweet and gentle, but dumb as a sack of hammers. He is the only living creature that I love despite his extreme stupidity. In fact, I love that he is an idiot. On him, it’s endearing, those big vacant eyes just staring at nothing.

Moshe was also scared of the car ride, but not because he remembered where we were going, more because he doesn’t understand what a car is. We got checked in and went back to the exam room. After Yoko’s exam, where I was the only one who got scratched, I decided to leave him in the carrier until the vet entered the room. Moshe stared at me from his carrier, meowing loudly. I, unfortunately, don’t understand meows, although I did get the tone of what he was saying.

The vet came in and checked his cat vitals, weighing him and combing through his fur and looking at his anus and whatnot. He asked me if I had any concerns, and I did. I told him that Moshe has taken to licking his genitals very frequently. I was worried he might be developing cystitis, although the litter box seemed pretty normal as did his eating and drinking.

Cystitis is not unusual in male indoor cats. When I was a kid, we had a cat that developed such severe cystitis that he required surgery. My childhood memory of the event involved the vet doing some major surgery, turning his penis into a cat vagina, or maybe just removing his penis and leaving him totally without male genitalia. I remember it with humor, because when we first got him, we thought he was a girl kitten until he/she had to get fixed, which was when we found out about the whole penis thing. And then, a few years later, no more penis.  I had a transgender cat before transgender cats were a thing.

Are transgender cats a thing?

Also, that operation had to cost a pretty penny. Looking back, I cannot believe my mother would spend any money on the care of a cat. Hell, we went through cats like they were paper plates. And she was tight with money unless she was spending it on herself, so there is no way she coughed up that kind of money to fix a very expendable cat. I have a theory. I think she slept with the vet for surgical favors.

But I digress. I told the vet I was worried about the cat’s constant junk licking. He got the veterinary technician to hold Moshe still, and then got down to table level to try to examine my cat’s penis. Moshe was appalled. He tried to resist this violation of his privacy, but he was no match for the woman holding him still and the veterinarian exposing him. All the while, the vet tried to speak calmly to him. “I know, Mosh, it’s your penis. No one should be licking your penis but you. I get it.”

I was speechless.

After he finished his exam, the vet stood up and said, “We are going to have an uncomfortable conversation now.”

“I thought we already were having one,” I said.

He ignored that and continued. “You might not know this, but some animals masturbate.”

I did know this. My mother in law’s dog used to rub one out with an old Mukluk slipper every chance she got. That damn poodle would slipper scoot across the room for hours. It was the only time she seemed happy. I can’t say I blame her.

He went on. “If a cat licks his penis frequently, we first have to make sure he doesn’t have an infection. You said the litter is normal, and upon examination, his penis looks normal too.”

He stopped talking for a moment and took out a pen and a piece of paper. He began drawing a cat penis for me.

“So a healthy cat penis would look like this, kind of like, well, it comes to a point, you see, sort of pointy. Like a cone, an ice cream cone.”

“No wonder he licks it all the time,” I said. No, I didn’t. I said it in my head.

“If you get really close to it, you will see it has these barbs. That’s perfectly normal for a cat penis.”

“I am not planning on looking closely enough to see barbs. I don’t want to look at it at all,” I said.

“So if it were inflamed or irritated, it would be rounder on the top, like a mushroom.” He drew another cat penis, this time with an inflamed tip. I wanted to knock the pen out of his hand.  “It doesn’t look inflamed though, so that’s a good sign. Which means, well, that he licks his penis because he likes to lick it. If you look on Google for, wait, let me say it differently.”

I laughed, out loud. I actually LOL’ed.

“Don’t go to Google. If you look at the Cornell website, you will see information about animal masturbation. It’s normal for some animals. Just make sure he doesn’t overdo it or it will become irritated. If it gets all swollen, or you know, bulbous on the end. Short of that, though, well, I guess he can have at it.”

Moshe and I were both embarrassed by that visit to the vet, and if you count Yoko too, we all were traumatized. It’s a good thing we only have to go once a year.

In Memoriam

I don’t feel right posting something funny on this solemn day, as if laughing on 9/11 makes a person unpatriotic. For many people, it is a day of reflection, of sadness, of introspection. Our nation suffered a horrible tragedy on this day thirteen years ago. Some people lost their lives, some people lost their loved ones, and the rest of us lost our sense of safety.

The truth is, most of us did feel safe up to that day. We had not had much in the way of large scale loss of human life, and certainly not on our own soil. Sure, we kill each other or ourselves on a daily basis, but we consider those small, individual tragedies, not one that affects the nation’s collective conscience. Over three thousand people died on 9/11, not just counting the Twin Towers. According to the US Census, over 6,000 Americans die every day.  There are also over 12,000 American babies born every day, so we still come out ahead, don’t we?

I feel less safe now than I did thirteen years ago.  Not because of the terrorists from lands far away. I feel less safe because of my fellow Americans.  I don’t want to go to a store and see people walking around with guns. I don’t want to be scared to honk my horn at another car to get their attention. I don’t want to worry about my daughters going to school.  One of those I don’t worry about every day, but I bet you can’t tell which one it is.

My daughters wished each other a happy 9/11 Day this morning. One of them was a toddler thirteen years ago, the other in utero. It’s meaningless to them, really.  They don’t know what the United States used to be like, before 9/11. These are the same kids who say Happy Memorial Day, Happy MLK Day, Happy Veterans Day.  If they ever remember Pearl Harbor Day, I am sure they would wish me a happy one of those as well. I wonder if in a hundred years, 9/11 will be a day off, the mourning and reflection replaced with a tasty cookout and an awesome sale at whatever replaces Best Buy.

Was I scared after 9//11, my daughters asked me? I told them yes and no. I wasn’t scared for my personal safety. I live in South Carolina. It doesn’t strike me as the biggest or most effective target of terrorism. I didn’t know anyone who died that day. I cannot imagine what it was like to be in New York City, in Washington, D.C., in Pennsylvania, on that day and for months after.  I am moved by the stories of others, as most of us are, but as far as a personal connection to that day, no, I am lucky I don’t have one.

What I was scared of, and continue to be, is how easily we gave up personal freedoms in the name of security for the country. We all lost our privacy that day, and we continue to give it up with very little protest. We gave up common sense, and a sense of community and trust and compassion. We gave up our belief in difference of opinion. We gave up mutual respect.

Does today make me sad? Yes, but not just for the loss of those two twin towers, for the people whose lives were taken from them. I am sad for myself, for my fellow Americans, and for my children. I am sad for what this country has become, for what we once were.  And I am sad because as a nation, I don’t think we have really learned anything from the tragedy thirteen years ago.

I hope today is a day of reflection, of telling those that matter to you that you love them. Life is fleeting, but so is freedom.

Use Your Head

I sometimes miss having young children, but lucky for me, my friend EL has them. I can enjoy all her charming little stories about her kids and sniff their little heads, and then I can go home to my teenage daughters and I can sleep. I can sleep through the night, and if I want to, on the weekends at least, I can sleep late, because chances are pretty good, if we don’t have anywhere to be, they too will be sleeping late. EL, on the other hand, hasn’t slept more than an interrupted five hour stretch in over four years. As a great philosopher once said, it sucks to be her.

Her baby, just shy of a year and a half, is at the parrot stage, where everyone, including me, wants to see what you can make him do or say. He’s not much of a talker, as most second borns aren’t, but he does enjoy a bit of physical modeling. This is a kid who started pulling up before he was supposed to sit up and was cruising before he was supposed to stand. He is not very interested in what he is supposed to do.  Don’t forget what that philosopher said (see above paragraph.)

Anyway, most people, including me, think this baby of EL’s is just about the cutest thing since kittehs and baby goats took over the Internet. Getting him to react to you is like icing on the cake. One of her neighbors, a teenage boy who likes little kids more than the average teenage boy but not in a dangerous or creepy way, has been teaching  the little cute bugger how to fist bump.

Fist bumping is becoming more than just a hip way to greet your buddies; it is also, according to both Howie Mandel and the CDC, an excellent way to reduce the sharing of hand germs. Along with sneezing into one’s elbow and wearing a mask in public like the late great Michael Jackson, fist bumping is hygienic and fashionable, and obviously a skill a little germ carrier like a baby should master.

EL’s baby thinks his fists are not for bumping, though. He thinks they are for shoving in his mouth, in an effort to ease his sore gums and to gag himself. If you offer him your fist, you won’t get a fist bump; you will get what he prefers to give in response, his head. Much like a cat, EL’s baby likes to put his head against things that he loves.  Wait; make that more like a ram. He doesn’t sweetly rub his head against you, he goes for the kill. He recently put his head against EL’s orbital socket, leaving her with a black eye significant enough to make the average kindly stranger want to offer her a safe haven.

I remember those head butting days. My own sweet babies were fond of giving head butts, most often when you bent down to pick them up, so they could get a good smack to the bottom of your chin, enough to make you bite off a piece of your tongue or crack a tooth. We referred to it as “soccer hooliganing,” and I am pretty sure either my husband or I had a bloody nose from a baby head butt. For skulls with soft spots, they sure pack a wallop.

So back to EL’s baby and the fist bumping and the head butting. Her neighbor’s son was trying to teach him how to fist bump by putting out his own fist and saying “Gimme knuckles.” The baby’s response would be to whack his head against the boy’s fist. Hilarity would ensue, mostly because it doesn’t hurt to get a head butt on your fist bump. This little demonstration happened repeatedly, just long enough for EL to down a glass of wine and wish her neighbors weren’t so friendly.

After about fifteen minutes of fist bump training, the boy’s mother, EL’s neighbor, showed up to collect her son. “Watch this,” he told his mom, and put out his fist. “Gimme knuckles.”  And the baby head butted him.

The mother laughed and wanted to try as well. “Gimme knuckles,” she said. Head butt to the fist. “Gimme knuckles,” she repeated. Again with the head butt.

“Oh, he is just so cute!” she said. “He just keeps hitting me with his head. Gimme head, come on, give me head. Gimme head!”

EL was, rightly so, appalled. Her neighbor, a good Catholic woman, was telling her child, her baby boy, to give her head, over and over, and had no idea what she was saying. EL wasn’t about to tell her what she was saying, and instead stood there, unable to make it stop.

The appropriate response to such a request of a child, if you think about it, is a good bump of the fist. Or in this case, let him give her head. She would probably end up with a skull sized shiner.

Sometimes the Apple Falls Far from the Tree

Yesterday, my twelve year old daughter, S, made me cry in the car. It wasn’t what you think. They were tears of joy, of pride, of love.

Why? Because this person, my daughter, is amazing, and certainly not because of me. She is compassionate and caring and nice.

While I try to set a good example most of the time, the truth is, I am not that nice. I laugh at things I shouldn’t, like people with bad teeth or dogs squatted and hunched, relieving themselves. I sometimes don’t let people merge on a busy highway, just because I don’t like their car or the way they drive or their stupid bumper stickers. When I am in line with a full cart at the grocery store and the person behind me has one or two items, I think fuck you. So whatever kind of nice she is, she became that way on her own.

Nice has somehow become a bad thing to be.  When someone is unattractive, he or she is described as “having a nice personality.” Women gravitate away from nice guys, favoring the bad boys that eventually break their hearts or batter their faces or whatever it is that bad boys do. Single men know that to be described as “nice” is the kiss of death to any hopes of getting laid, which isn’t a nice thing to say, but true.

My daughter, however, is nice, and she makes it a good thing to be. She's bringing nice back.
On the second day of school, S was behind another girl on her way out of the art room. S didn’t know this girl and wasn’t friends with her; she was just another kid in class. S noticed as the girl walked that she had gotten her period in class, as she had a blood stain on the back of her shorts, obvious enough to anyone to whom such things like a big bloody Rorschach blotch would be.

She scooted up to the girl and whispered to her that she had a blood stain on her pants. She told the girl it wasn’t so bad, but she might want to go to the bathroom before it gets worse. S was discreet and quiet about it so as not to arouse unwanted attention. The girl thanked her, and the two of them, along with the rest of the art class, left to go to their lockers.

S told me she saw the girl later that same day, and that she was wearing a different pair of pants. She was happy for that girl, that she didn’t have to walk around all day in blood stained shorts for the rest of the school to see.

So, yes, that single act of kindness, that compassion for another girl going through a potentially emotionally scarring middle school experience, brought me to tears. How many teenagers would think about how someone else would feel?

When I was in college, I had the opportunity to do something nice for someone else, but I took a pass. I was walking to the cafeteria one day, and in front of me was another girl walking by herself. She had a nine foot train of toilet paper trailing behind her. It wasn’t stuck to her shoe; it was tucked into her pants. Her paper train floated along like an elegant reminder of some unusual hygienic behavior on her part. To this day I still don’t understand how a piece of toilet paper longer than my car can originate from someone’s pants, but still, this girl was walking along unaware of her own shadow. I felt I was in the presence of bathroom royalty. Rather than disturb her paper trail, or alert her to its existence, I merely held the door as she walked through it, making sure a heavy swinging door did not come between her and her Charmin.

Okay, it probably wasn’t Charmin. After all, it was college. That toilet paper was industrial and one-ply and probably could have survived the door, but still. I didn’t want to be the one to stop that train.

My daughter, being nice, would have told her about the toilet paper streamer. Me? I didn’t want to be the only one to witness that papery spectacle, even if it meant that poor girl discovered it later and felt deep embarrassment and humiliation and maybe even anger at those of us who saw it and said nothing.

That wasn't the only time I bypassed an opportunity to be a nice person. I also laughed at the person who tripped up the stairs and couldn’t get her hands out of her pockets in time. And the woman who walked across the hotel lobby with her skirt tucked into her pantyhose, under which she opted against panties. I snickered at the person with a static cling panty broach on the back of her shoulder at the grocery store. And at countless men, including my husband, with their flies down, or, worse yet, evidence of a dribble, a few damp spots on the crotch that couldn’t always be caused by a spraying faucet.

I have felt badly about some of those times, when I could have been nice, but chose to be amused instead.  At least most of them happened before I had a cell phone, and honestly, I am not quick enough on the draw even if they did.

In the car, on the way home, sitting next to my daughter, I felt a pride like none other, knowing that this child of mine, this amazing, nice person, she didn’t learn how to be nice from me, but developed it on her own.  She made a good choice, better than one I would make, and all I could think was, to paraphrase Jack Nicholson, she makes me want to be a better person. 

Except I will still laugh when someone falls up the stairs, because, seriously, that shit is funny.

Jumping the Shark?

Go shark yourself.

No, that’s not a new thing, but rather the slogan for SyFy's answer to Shark Week,  the Discovery Channel's annual week of documentaries all about those popular and misunderstood man eaters of the deep.

Nothing nice is ever said between the words “go” and “yourself,” so I find it incredibly entertaining that a television event would opt for that catchphrase. I can see kids all across America telling their parents and teachers to go shark themselves this August. Many a proud moment and possible viral video is about to be born.

Shark Week is something my family looks forward to, even though, truth be told, the programming is boring as shit. A new show or two might be produced each year, but the rest is reruns of shark documentaries, some as old as my teenagers. Apparently there is not that much new to say about sharks. They still have a lot of teeth, they still mistake humans in wet suits for seals, they are still misaligned and misunderstood and majestic. And they are still fish. Is there anything new to cover about these mysterious creatures of the deep?

Maybe not for documentaries, but for the SyFy Channel, there is. After last year’s inexplicable success of the B movie, Sharknado, the sequel is ready. Yes, Sharknado 2: The Second One is premiering this week, and it promises to be, well, about the same as the last one. Mediocre actors will deliver poorly written lines while unrealistically computer animated sharks fly out of water spouts and devour everyone, leaving a river of fake blood down a movie set that vaguely resembles a major American city.

Don’t forget to mark your calendars. Think about it. Sharknado was the biggest shark thing to come out last summer, and it isn’t even officially part of Shark Week. Take that, real science.

SyFy knows a good thing when they see it. Sharknado got them a lot of attention, and this sequel is looking to live up to the hype. What SyFy lacks in quality programming, it makes up for in shameless self-promoting. In that regard, SyFy is beating the dead horse all week, pulling out such horrible movies such as Jersey Shore Shark Attack, Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, and the one I watched this afternoon, 2-Headed Shark Attack.

Yes, I admit it. I didn’t sit and watch the entire horrendous piece of crap stench, but I did watch enough to speak semi-intelligently to the matter, if that is such a thing. Besides, it was either that or SpongeBob, and I have reached my lifetime maximum of SpongeBob’s laugh. Seriously, can’t my kids watch something else besides SpongeBob?

2-Headed Shark Attack is what it sounds like. A giant two headed shark eats everybody. There is a loose plot, kind of like how porn has a plot, in order to transition from money shot to money shot. The computer animation has got to be done by some kid in his parent’s basement on a Commodore 64, and the entire wardrobe is from the hoochie mama collection at Kmart. Let’s look a little closer at the story line, shall we?

The premise of this stinker was laid out in the first thirty seconds, something about a class full of hot students in bikinis and board shorts on a boat in the deep sea, learning to use sextants. After a couple of sextant jokes, a big dead shark slaps against the hull of the boat. The teacher of the class, whose acting career has really taken a downturn, tries to hook the dead shark against the boat, but it slips under and into the propellers, thus making a trail of chum that naturally attracts the rare two-headed great white shark. It shows up and starts eating everyone, sometimes in pairs, sometimes just sharing one victim.

 At one point, a small atoll is spotted, and all the hot students decide to head there for safety, after the big boat has also been attacked and damaged by the two headed shark. Somehow, this magical two headed sea beast is able to be in two places at once, thus terrorizing both the non-English speaking crew back at the boat and the hot students over on the island.

Carmen Electra, Dennis Rodman's ex-wife, is also in the movie. She is cast as a doctor, since that’s believable,  but instead of doing anything vaguely intelligent,  she spends most of the time lying around arching her back and working on her tan while slowly rubbing her thighs together. You know, like a real doctor would.  I can’t tell if she is sexy or constipated, but she must have a really good chiropractor.

After the token black guy gets eaten, because, surprise, he can’t swim, I turned off the movie. I don’t know exactly how it ends, but I imagine that Carmen arches her back while saving the day, since she is the only “star” of the whole production.

My real problem with these shark movies is that I can’t tell if they are good bad or just bad bad. Things that are good bad include s’mores, flip flops, county fairs, and Limp Bizkit. Things that are bad bad include yeast infections, freezer burned ice cream, Kenny G, and broken toes.  SyFy shark movies? Well, they could go either way.

Sharknado 2: The Second One premieres July 30. Hell yes, I am going to be watching, and I don’t care who knows it.

Commando in Chief

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the only difference between little kids and teenagers is two feet and ten years. The narcissism and horrible decision making skills are about the same, but the scale at which those traits are displayed is much larger with that added decade. Granted, the upside of the older ones is that they usually don’t crap in their pants. Also, they understand sarcasm, so they are not a total buzzkill, but you will still want to shake some sense into them from time to time.

Yesterday was one of those times. My oldest daughter, E, and I had hair appointments. I went for my usual extensive gray covering and small trim to freshen things up, while E needed to get the straw like split ends sheared off so her hair might once again look like hair. She wore a cute little white patterned sundress, spaghetti straps and a mid-thigh handkerchief hemline, and with her hair straight and shiny, she looked just beautiful.

After hours at the salon, we got home and went in the kitchen to grab a snack. She made a comment when I walked past her about not wearing any underwear, one I wish I could remember. I thought she was joking and lifted up the back of her dress. She wasn’t joking. Bare bottom. We both screamed.

” Stop it Mom. I’m naked under this!” she screamed.

“You went out in public like that? What were you thinking?” I yelled at her. “Oh my God, I sat in that chair after you. Other people are sitting in that chair right now!”

“I tucked my dress under me,” she said, “like this,” and showed me how a proper lady would smooth her skirt before sitting. Proper ladies also wear underwear, especially in public.

“Your dress isn’t long enough to do that.” I said.

“Yes, it is,” she said.

“Oh,yeah? Well, bend over and touch your toes. “

The toe touch is my mothering litmus test for all things too short. At some point, we are all going to drop our phones and have to bend over and pick it up. When that time comes, we might not remember to squat demurely. Also, in her current state, the demure squat wouldn’t do the trick any better than the toe touch.  Either way, someone is getting an eyeful.

When I was in junior high, which is what we called middle school in Florida, I knew a girl who was known for her mini-skirts and no panties combination. I am pretty sure that’s how she passed ninth grade. I never witnessed it myself, but the memory haunts me anyway.

My daughter turned her back to me and started to bend over. “Not like that!” I shouted. “Turn your back to the wall; I don’t want to see your lady parts!” She turned around and bent over again.

“Oh, ok,” she said, and stood up. “I see what you mean.”

“What were you thinking? Seriously, what is the thought process that gets you to making a decision like going out in a short dress without panties?”

“Be nice to me!” she said.

My husband poked his head in the kitchen. “She can say whatever she wants. You went out in public without panties. You have lost all grounds for complaining. You forfeited nice when you went out like that. ”

I love it when he has my back.

“So what were you thinking?” I asked again.

“This dress is thin. I didn’t want my panties to show.”

“But you were okay with your pubes showing? I don’t get it. I see your point though. If you don’t want your panties to show, then don’t wear any. Makes perfect sense.”

She rolled her eyes. Too bad she can’t get college credit for eye rolling. She would have a fucking Masters in eye rolling.

“Why couldn’t you just wear your light gray thong?” I asked.

Mind you, when I was fourteen, I didn’t have a light gray thong. I didn’t even have a thong. And I certainly wouldn’t have gone out without anything between my privates and the rest of the world. We had two options back then, briefs or bikinis. You wore whichever ones your mom bought you, or in my case, whichever ones your sisters didn’t destroy before handing them down to you. You didn’t think about panty lines. You just accepted that in certain outfits, your panties would show. It wasn’t embarrassing because everyone had panty lines. You weren’t all that special.

“Oh,” she said. “I forgot about those.”

“Or the peach colored ones. “

“But those would show,” she said.

“Not really, they are the same color as your ass. Your bare ass. Your bare naked in public ass,” I said.

“Just stop,” she said.

“She will stop when you put on panties,” my husband shouted from the other room.

My younger daughter, S, came bouncing down the stairs. “What’s going on? I heard yelling.”

I love that about my kids. They are so nosy. When I was a kid and I heard my mom yell, I would stay right where I was, out of the line of fire.  My kids are comfortable knowing that anger is not misplaced around these parts.

“None of your business,” E barked. Well, anger that isn’t misplaced by me.

“She isn’t wearing panties,” I told S. “She went out for her haircut without underwear. And she sat in the car and the shampoo chair and the hair cut chair all like that. Oh, and the waiting area couch. She has sat in many places.”

“Gross,” S said.

“Indeed,” I answered.

“Shut up,” E said.

“But what about your period?” S asked. S is on her period for the third time ever. It is her new frame of reference. It is the sun around which her whole world revolves.

“I’m not on my period. That’s you,” E snapped.

“But you still have discharge,” S said. Well, whispered. She whispered discharge, like one might whisper cancer or black.

“Don’t talk to me about my vagina!” E yelled at her.

…And scene.

E went upstairs to change her clothes, and maybe put on panties. She came back downstairs in a hoodie and sweatpants. Did I mention it was about 95 degrees outside?  Earlier, it was hot enough to skip panties, now she was covered up like the Taliban was coming over for dinner.  I just don’t understand.

What I do understand is why she screamed so loud when she sat on the hot leather seat of my car after our haircuts, and for that, I don't blame her.

Summertime Sadness

I went over to a friend’s house today with the kids. She has a beautiful home with a pool in the backyard and it’s all really lovely and clean and neat and I couldn’t help but feel like a big awkward loser lump by the time the hanging out was over. Not because she has two wonderful children and a husband who travels for work and is therefore not always around meddling, not because she is thinner than me or can get her hair perfectly straight. Not because seriously, her house is gorgeous and she has interests that she pursues and she can speak Hebrew and she is going to Hawaii in a few weeks. No, the reason I feel like a total turd when I compare myself to her is this:

She knows how to say no to her kids.

We sat talking while the kids played in the pool. Her teenaged son decided he was hungry and came up to the porch. He politely asked for some chips and guacamole. He even used the word please. And his mom said, “No.” She made it look so easy. He didn’t argue; he just walked back to the pool and jumped in.

It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen.

A little while later, when the urge for chips and guacamole didn’t let up, he did try again, and this time, she said, “You can have salsa.” He went in the house to get the bag of tortilla chips and a jar of salsa, and then he asked everyone if they would like to join him in a little nosh. No one did. He seemed a little saddened by it, but decided he would go ahead with satisfying his craving. My friend advised him to get a bowl for the salsa, then instructed him on the need for a napkin to clean up any spillage. She gently chided him when his salsa dipping threatened her clean white shirt. He didn’t roll his eyes at her or make some snide remark. He just did what she said and quietly ate his snack.

Never once did she get out of her seat. Her thirteen year old child was able to help himself, to eat, to clean up his mess, and to put away the food.

It was the second most amazing thing I have ever seen.

You see, I have this bad habit in the summertime. I don’t exactly hover over my daughters, but I do forget that I can say no. I also forget that they are capable of doing way more for themselves than they care to. So when one of them requests her scrambled eggs fluffier, the eggs are fluffier. If one of them only wants to do the 9:30 gym class she likes instead of the 8:30 one I like, then guess what time we get at the gym? Let me give you a hint; it’s not 8:25.

I actually spent twenty minutes trying to find a solution to the milk problem today. The teen wanted a bowl of cocoa crispies. The whole milk was too fatty. The almond milk was too watery. The one percent milk expired three days ago, so she couldn’t use that, mostly because neither of us was willing to do the sniff test. She insisted she would just choke down the cereal dry because we didn’t have the right kind of milk. After that, I spent another twenty minutes trying to understand why I wasted the first twenty minutes giving a shit about milk and also, why do we have so many dairy and non- dairy options?

What I’m trying to say is, it’s about halfway through the summer, and I have turned into a mushy pile of mom. I have lost what little spine I have. I am officially a pushover.

Do you remember when your kids were little and started talking, and you were so excited to understand what they said that you forgot you didn’t have to do what they said? I had a period of time like that with each of mine. I could finally make out sentences, such a major step up from screaming and crying and pointing and grunting. It turned out, when I finally stopped to think about what was going on, that they were just issuing constant demands to which I acquiesced, almost like negotiating with terrorists who don’t speak my language.  All I thought was, yea! I can understand you!  I should have been thinking, I liked you better when I didn’t know what a demanding prick you were.

I just found a wet beach towel draped over a chair in the kitchen, and I didn’t even yell at anyone. What is happening to me?

I would love to spend some time examining why I become a children’s doormat every July, but that kind of self-reflection takes energy I no longer have. Because in addition to waiting on my kids like some underpaid hotel server, I also fall into the trap that I don’t have to do anything either. I keep forgetting that I am not on summer vacation. Adults don’t get a summer break. People who work outside of the home are well aware of this fact, and every summer they scramble to find activities or child care to fill the hours normally occupied by school. Stay at home moms, on the other hand, find that those few precious moments of solitude are gone, not to be seen again for almost three months.  It’s more than a little disorienting.

When my daughters were young, I didn’t want them to get bored at home with me, so I planned all sorts of summer fun. I called it Camp Mom, and while I found it exhausting, it was still educational and magical and stimulating and all those things that you want summer to be with your kids. Now, they are both basically teenagers. They want to sleep late. They want to sit in their rooms and text and watch Netflix, until you decide you need to go somewhere or do something. Then they need to you drive them to so and so’s house or take them to the store for more maxi pads or figure out the milk problem. Naptime is still inconsistent, and the magic is gone. No, they don’t want to try a new kind of food or learn about a different country or go to a museum. They don’t want to go swimming for the same reason you don’t; it’s too hot outside and it messes up their hair.  They are too old for day camp and the free ten o’clock movie and too young for jobs and driving.

Question: when does school start?

Answer (from every mom): Not soon enough.

Somehow, my friend hasn’t given in to the summertime blues. She has maintained her personhood. I want to be like her. Maybe I will get that right by next summer.