I am so woefully unprepared for the holidays it’s pitiful.  I’m about to execute a HUGE Mommy Fail.  It’s not all my fault!  For some reason, holiday gift shopping falls on my shoulders.  I don’t know why this is.  HUSBAND and I both work, and even though I’m only part time I am in charge of almost all daily operations at home.  I arrange playdates, take the kids to NY Kids Club twice a week for Gym Jrs and Gymnastics, handle almost all the grocery shopping, bill payments, laundry…shouldn’t HUSBAND be sharing the burden when it comes to holiday shopping?

Add to that all the other “extras” that the holidays come with.   End of year tips, travel plans, Thanksgiving side dishes to bring to my mom’s, gifts for not just our kids but some of my friends’ kids, that darn family photo postcard that I have yet to even begin thinking about, and of course, finding something to do with the kids for those two, mercilessly never-ending weeks of school vacation.

On top of all the holiday craziness, YOUNG LADY just happens have been a December baby, which means I’m simultaneously planning an 8^th birthday party while trying to be the perfect holiday mom.  My babysitter always chooses this extremely stressful time of year for her vacation and HUSBAND always seems to be the one guy at work who simply can’t miss a day.  Yup…he’s even driving back into the city from my parents’ house on the Friday after Thanksgiving so that he can work.  He’ll come back that night, four hours of driving behind him, and he’ll lament about how slow his day was.  Yes, HUSBAND.  It was slow because you are the only person in New York going to work that day! (Apologies to all the fireman, cops and emergency room staff out there…and their spouses…I didn’t mean you).

Oh, but listen to me.  I sound like the Grinch who stole Mommy.  I’m usually a much more optimistic person, and I hate being the one to sour everyone’s holiday cheer.  But come on, who’s with me?  Isn’t “Holiday Time” just code for “Make Mommy Work Double Time”?  Do I really have to pretend to enjoy all of this?

On the other hand, with all the time I spend teaching my children to be charitable and kind, maybe I should be modeling it a little more.  Maybe I should spend less time sweating the small stuff and more time taking LITTLE GUY and YOUNG LADY to drop off coats for NY Cares.  And there’s always a box at school for toy donations.  We really need to clean out our toy closet!

You know what?  Let’s just keep the first part of this post between us.  I take it all back.  I’m going to start my New Year’s resolution early: To be the kind of person I want my kids to grow up to be.  And to ask HUSBAND to pitch in on the gift shopping.

YOUNG LADY has always been one of those perfectly behaved, sweet young things that you can take anywhere.  She uses her indoor voice, she never throws a fit in public and she has never hit, pushed, bitten or otherwise maimed another child.

When YOUNG LADY started preschool, I was horrified at the antics of some of the little boys in her class.  Pushing, shouting, wrestling on the floor….all of it seemed way out of control and possibly hazardous to my delicate little flower of a child.  I often looked at the mothers of these wild boys and thought, “Who ARE these women?  What kind of MOTHERS are these?” I’ll admit it: I judged.  I just couldn’t understand what kind of parent could raise a child to be so out of control.

Hello, Karma!  I see you’ve come to bite me in the tushy!

Boy oh boy do I deserve this LITTLE GUY after engaging in all that sancti-mommy-ous judging.  Now I’m the mom of the caveman with a megaphone mouth and I can feel all those first-time moms with daughters giving me the once over.  I deserve it.

Today I brought my son to preschool.  As soon as we entered the lobby, a throng of his little buddies shouted his name and ran towards him.  I beamed with pride.  My LITTLE GUY is liked!  He’s like “Norm” from Cheers!  And the boys rushed over….fast…and they kept coming…and they didn’t stop….and they all tacked him, resulting in a 6-kid pile-up with LITTLE GUY at the bottom.  And you know what?  LITTLE GUY loved it!

After a few of the other babysitters and moms and I pealed the kids off of each other, the boys ran off to pound on the fish tank or throw books on the floor.  Just as we were laughing at our boisterous young men, I began to notice a huddle of moms in the corner speaking in hushed tones.  It hit me: They were talking about me, my kid, and how wild he is.  They were wondering what kind of mother raises a kid who can’t control himself in public.  They were feeling superior because they had calm, sweet, well-behaved girls and these moms were certain that it was the parenting, not the gender that resulted in each kid’s behavioral trend.

Like I said, Karma’s a…..well, I deserve it.  I judged without knowing the full story.  I didn’t understand that even when LITTLE GUY is being a GOOD LITTLE GUY, his little body is a storage box for boundless energy and an insatiable appetite for motion.  Thank goodness I can send him to New York Kids Club for gym class and open play during the winter months when the playground is no longer a viable option for “getting our sillies out”.  I understand now that it has nothing to do with how I raised my kids. It has everything to do with how they’re built.

Then again, I do know a few boys who are calm, focused good listeners and a few girls who can tear up a room faster than LITTLE GUY.  Is it possible that I’ve done this?  That I somehow treated LITTLE GUY and YOUNG LADY differently and that I’ve raised them to behave like the stereotypical son and daughter?  Or am I just overthinking things (as usual) and being too hard on myself for being too hard on all those mothers of boys years ago?

What do YOU think?

Remember last week when I was lamenting about urban Halloween and pining for the crunch of leaves under my feet and the ringing of a doorbell on a crisp, fall night?  Yeah, let’s forget all about that.  2011 was the one year when New York City kids won the “Who had the better Halloween” contest.  Thanks to that ridiculous storm last weekend, many towns in Ct and NJ are still without power and had to actually CANCEL Halloween!  And kids who lived in towns that didn’t cancel Trick or Treating had to fight freezing temperatures, icy streets and cranky parents who wanted a blow drier and a working DVR that would tape House.

We ended up having a GREAT Halloween.  We trick-or-treated in a friend’s doorman building, hit a Halloween party and did some store-to-store trick-or treating.  But I do have some notes for the local businesses that we visited. Maybe they can take it into account for next year.

NEW YORK KID CLUB: Two thumbs up!  Not only were you ready with a bowl of lollipops and a fully costumed staff, the festivities started a full week ago.  My kids LOVED attending gymnastics in costume and you did a great job building up the pre-Halloween buzz!

I’m also very thankful to all of the terrific mom and pop stores who stayed open and well-lit with a dedicated staff member at the door armed with a smile and a bowl of candy. One hardware store in my neighborhood gave out full goody bags packed with candy.  And it was GOOD candy.  Not cheap stuff. They put their store’s name, number and address on the bags…smart marketing, guys! My kids LOVED you!

I wish I could be as enthusiastic about a few of the bigger, corporate stores near us.  I don’t want to make sweeping accusations…some of the grocery stores and other bigger businesses rose to the occasion.  As a local parent and one of their customers, I appreciate this.  I mean, I shop in your store all year.  I spend my money with you.  When you help my city kids celebrate Halloween by giving them a two-cent piece of chocolate and a smile, it makes me want to keep giving you my business.  But when you don’t, I get a little miffed.

There was one party pooper in the bunch.  I won’t name names.  But let’s just say it’s a store that actually SELLS candy.  A LOT of candy. And they are a BIG store with about a zillion franchises and they have no problem placing rows of candy on the lower merchandise racks, right by the register, exactly at stroller level.  I spend all year shopping there, telling LITTLE GUY that no, Mommy won’t buy him that piece of candy and “put that down, we’re not buying it”.  So when I go in at 6:30 PM on Halloween with my costumed cutie who has been so good all night about saying “Please” and “Thank You” and you tell me that you ran out of candy at 4 PM, it makes me not want to shop at your store any more!

OK, maybe I’m being a spoiled brat. I mean, it’s not their JOB to be nice to my kid. It’s their job to sell me stuff at a reasonable price. Maybe I’m being a high-maintenance mom with unreasonable expectations.  On the other hand, isn’t passing out candy on Halloween just a nice thing to do and a smart move for a store that sells candy in a kid-heavy neighborhood?

What do YOU think?

When I was growing up (in a town full of houses and tree lined streets and public schools you didn’t think twice about attending), Halloween was a very big deal.  I grew up in New England, and we had those archetypal Halloween nights with cool temperatures, leaves crunching under our feet, the distant smell of burning wood stoves and of course, Mom or Dad following us in the car.

Now that I’m a mom, I want my kids to have the same magical, exciting experiences with Halloween that I remember so fondly.  But how do you do that in a city of cement? Where are the crunching leaves? The wood burning stoves? And there’s NO WAY I’m letting YOUNG LADY and LITTLE GUY go ringing door buzzers or roaming around apartment buildings asking strangers for candy while I wait outside in a cab!

Sure, here in the city we have options.  The park near us has a party and a Halloween parade. There are many well-known city blocks that deck out their building fronts in full spook on October 31^st, and thank goodness New York Kids Club is inviting all the kids to wear costumes to class all this week!  And of course, if you are lucky to live in a huge, doorman building (we do not), you may find at your front desk a list of participating apartments where you are welcome to trick or treat while all the children in the building roam the hallways in costume.

My kids don’t really know any different.  But I can’t help being a little bit disappointed.  It’s just not the same.  I guess it’s what you give up by living in the city.  For all the benefits, this is one annual experience that is best enjoyed in the suburbs.  At least in my humble, costumed opinion.

I really do love being a New York mom.  I love stroller walks and concerts in the park and classes at the New York Kids Club.  And my kids will have a great Halloween….we plan on trick or treating our way up Broadway to a friend’s big, doorman apartment building and then (if everyone is still awake), hitting a family Halloween party being hosted by a family from LITTLE GUY’s preschool.  It will be fun, it will be spooky and everyone will eat WAY too much sugar.

But maybe next year I’ll call one of my friends from high school….one of the friends who decided not to leave, and became a home town mom with a house and family in the same school district where we grew up.  Maybe my kids would like to experience a classic, country Halloween with fresh air that smells like fall and chills your excited bones.  Then again, they’d probably rather spend Halloween with their friends, doing what they’ve always known and considered to be the FUNNEST night of the year.

What do YOU think?

This post is for the first-time moms out there.  I have a little piece of advice.  A little gem of Mommy wisdom that most of us don’t learn until it’s too late: JUST GO.

It took me a few years to get it….and that was a few years too late.  And hey, I’ve only got two kids.  So I’m not trying to act like the most experienced mom on the block.  I’m just sharing this small bit of advice I wish someone had given me when I was a first time mom:  JUST GO.

When YOUNG LADY was three, we sent her to preschool.  After a year of breastfeeding, another year of being a full-time mom and six months of trying to juggle a full-time job with part-time child care, I was more than ready to kiss YOUNG LADY goodbye each morning in exchange for a precious three hours of kid-free time.

Of course I knew she’d cry. I mean, I’m her Mama!  She LOVES me!  I’m the most important person in her world!  I gave up my body, my career, my freedom….she BETTER cry when I say goodbye!

And cry she did.  AND THEN I TURNED AROUND.

BIG mistake.  Huge.  I wish someone had been there to tell me what I’m telling you now:  JUST GO.

To be fair, the teachers tried to tell me. My mother did, too.  Everyone around me was telling me to get out of Dodge but how could I?  My little girl was crying desperate tears and begging me, “Mommy!  Don’t Gooooooooo!”.

How could I leave?

So I turned around and tried to reassure her that everything was OK. And that’s why it wasn’t. Because when I turned around, I gave YOUNG LADY proof that all was NOT all right in preschool.  As she ran into my arms and buried her head against my pounding heart, absorbing all my stress and doubts about leaving her without even speaking a word, she got validation from me, the one person trying to leave, that she should NOT be left.

Maybe you think I’m being dramatic. That this was no big deal.  Just a day in the life.  Well, if that’s what you’re thinking, you’re wrong. Because YOUNG LADY continued to cry at preschool drop-off for the next two years.  Every day.  Two years.

With LITTLE GUY I swore I wouldn’t make the same mistakes. So when he was six months old, I marched him into my local health club, headed straight into the day care center and proudly handed him over to the caregivers.  I kissed his chubby cheeks and said, “Mommy’s going to exercise. Have fun, and I’ll see you soon.  Because Mommy ALWAYS comes back.”

The thing is, now that LITTLE GUY is going to school, he doesn’t have any problems separating. I kiss him goodbye, he gives me a wave, and he’s off.  I sometimes pathetically shout after him, “Don’t worry!  Mommy ALWAYS comes back!”  But he’s already involved in building blocks or finger painting And I’m left feeling a little bit empty and unappreciated.

But come on, this is what I wanted, right? A kid who happily and easily separates, leaving me with free time to work or just be kid-free?

So how come I’m jealous of those bewildered, first time moms fighting back tears by the cubbies as their frantic children cling to them screaming?  Do I really want to go back to THAT? And anyway, isn’t it too late now?

What do YOU think?

When YOUNG LADY was having a hard time separating from me at preschool drop off, her teachers would try (hopelessly) to distract her.  As she screamed “Mommy! Don’t GOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”, three rattled, twenty-something Masters of Early Childhood Ed candidates would attempt to steal my little girl’s focus with books, toys, activities and even a netted cage full of caterpillars.  Nothing would divert YOUNG LADY from her goal: To keep a panicked Mommy in the room.

Time and a few tough love moments got us over that bump, and YOUNG LADY eventually learned to enjoy school, safe in the knowledge that (say it with me) “Mommy Always Comes Back”.  But one thing never changed: YOUNG LADY has never been a kid you could distract.

Then along came LITTLE GUY, in every way the opposite of his older sister.  Where YOUNG LADY would spend an hour inspecting a single toy, discovering twenty new ways to play with a single object, LITTLE GUY moves from toy to toy like a hopping bunny, throwing things around the floor, making a mess and never pausing.  Anything can steal his focus, because he’s never really focused in the first place.  No matter how interesting the toy in his hands, “Look at that!” is usually enough to get him to drop whatever he’s holding….even if you’re just pointing at a bare wall.  He’ll stop, inspect the wall, see that it’s nothing to look at, and then go back to….wait, what was he doing before Mommy…..where was…..hey, what’s THAT?  And he’s off to the next thing, never having remembered what he just put down.

It’s almost too easy.  Preschool drop off, sneaking in that extra forkful of dinner, getting a stolen toy out of his hands in the playground.  All of it accomplished simply by suggesting that something else might be equally if not more entertaining.  And if you read my post entitled “The TV Dinner”, you’ll remember that this NY Mama has no problem getting a healthy meal into a resistant child….just turn on the TV (The ultimate distraction)!

But am I doing LITTLE GUY a big disservice by encouraging his tendency to lack focus?  Am I missing the early signs of ADD?  Does that sound as ridiculous to you as it does to me?  I mean, it’s normal for a three year old boy to be easily distracted, isn’t it?  Maybe I’m just noticing it because my first child was so calm and focused….but am I making a bad choice by taking advantage of an opportunity to make parenting LITTLE GUY a little bit easier?  Or is that how moms do it?

What do YOU think?

Mornings are a bit nutty around here. HUSBAND leaves early for work (lucky!) and it’s my job to get YOUNG LADY and LITTLE GUY off and running.  I am charged with the seemingly simple task of getting two fairly cooperative children fed, dressed, and down to YOUNG LADY’s school for morning drop-off no later than 8:00 am.  Since we start the whole routine at 6:30 am, you’d think this was easy.  A whole hour and a half to put on clothing that was set out the night before, eat a simple breakfast and travel ten city blocks.  We have plenty of time.  So can someone PLEASE tell me why we are always stressed out and running late in the morning?

It starts at 6:30 am when I wake up.  In fifteen minutes flat, I’ve gotten myself dressed (Shower? Me? Have we met?) and YOUNG LADY’s breakfast is on the table.  I’ve got a mug of coffee in my hand, the dog has had his morning treat, and I’m about to start making the bed. At 6:45 I hear my daughter’s alarm go off, and that’s when all the momentum grinds to a halt.  We begin to play the hokey pokey. With a giant emphasis on POKEY.

We always start with such high hopes. We’ve been through this before, and this morning we’ve both decided it’s going to be different.  But YOUNG LADY is tired, and she requires time to acclimate to the whole “being awake and functioning” concept. (For a giant “I TOLD YOU SO” moment, see last week’s post on sleep).  By 7:00, she’s beginning to consider the long-term ramifications of removing her PJ’s and getting dressed, and by 7:40, Mommy is once again stressing out and raising her voice because we are going to be late for school.

I’ve tried yelling, but it raised my stress level and took too much time out of our morning.  Plus it made YOUNG LADY really upset and then I had to send her off to school feeling like the worst mom ever.  I tried writing down a schedule for YOUNG LADY to follow, but when she couldn’t manage to eat breakfast in under fifteen minutes, she spent ten minutes making excuses and checking to see if I was mad, making us even later for school.  I even tried waking her up earlier, but somehow we just naturally adjusted our speed and wound up exactly as late as we were the morning before.

It’s not that YOUNG LADY is chronically pokey.  Twice a week when I announce that it’s time to get ready for NY Kids Club gymnastics, she manages to underdress her leotard and get herself into coat and shoes in under five minutes.  I’m relaxed and YOUNG LADY is on the ball.  I realize that this event happens later in the day, when dew of fresh sleep is no longer evaporating from her bed, and that YOUNG LADY is beyond thrilled to be going to NY Kids Club as opposed to school.  But what gets me is that she’s shown she is capable of getting out the door in a reasonable amount of time.  I know that she WANTS to have successful, stress-free mornings, but somehow we always seem to fail.

Maybe it all comes down to needing an earlier bedtime.  Maybe my expectations are too high: are other almost-eight-year-olds required to make their bed and do their own hair? Maybe it’s all HUSBAND’s fault for leaving me in charge.  Or maybe I should just relax and accept the fact that a less-than-perfect family owes it to the universe to start the day with less than perfection.

What do YOU think?

Ah, the magic S word…..SLEEP!  Parents dream about it.  Kids don’t appreciate it. Nobody gets enough of it.  Especially in my house.

I’ve always tried to be laid back about the S word. My father was an insomniac, and I have spent much of my adult life having trouble falling asleep. I really didn’t want to pass my sleep challenges on to my kids, so I swore to be relaxed about rest.  Sure, we did a little “cry it out” when both kids were old enough to self-soothe, but HUSBAND and I never made a big deal over sleep.  We’ve always had a “relative” bedtime, give or take a half hour, and napping has never been an issue.

Then last year, YOUNG LADY started reading for pleasure.  She’d learned how to read in school the year before, but it was during first grade that she discovered the joy of books.  We’d put her in bed with a book around 8:00 or 8:30, assuming she’d fall asleep reading.  But at 9:00 she was still at it.  And at 9:30.  Finally at 10:00, HUSBAND and I would tell her that we were going to bed and that would finally convince her to put down the Fairy Magic book and turn off the lights.

We didn’t want to make a big deal about it.  I’m ultra-sensitive about creating sleep neuroses for my kids, plus we didn’t want to discourage YOUNG LADY’S new-found love of the written word.  So we tried to be cool about her late nights, and now we find ourselves with a daughter who is about to turn eight and thinks that 10:00 PM is her actual bedtime.

The thing is, YOUNG LADY has been doing just fine sleeping from 10:00 pm to 7:00 am.  She’s growing quicker than I can clothe her, she does great in school, she cleans her plate at dinner, she’s a happy, funny kid…sure she falls asleep on long car rides, but we’re New Yorkers so how often are we in the car?  I’ve always just assumed that YOUNG LADY was a kid who didn’t really need a ton of sleep.

But now LITTLE GUY is giving up his nap.  We have him enrolled in an afternoon preschool program (where he is absolutely THRIVING thanks to the careful preparation he received last year at the New York Kids Club 2s program, thank you very much), and we’ve been trying not to let him doze off at 4:00 PM.  Our plan was to put him to bed at 7:00 and have him sleep through the night.

But every night, at 8:30 PM, LITTLE GUY is still going strong.

I worry that my kids aren’t getting enough rest.  8:30 or 9:00 until 7:00 shouldn’t be enough sleep for a three year old.  And none of my second grader’s friends are allowed to stay up until 10:00.  But on the other hand, neither one of them seem to be suffering.  They are both thriving and growing.  Besides, if I put them in bed and force them to lay there in the dark when they aren’t tired, aren’t I just breeding little insomniacs?

What do YOU think?

Oh Dear, it’s starting.  My YOUNG LADY is only seven, but already she is paying mind to what’s cool, how she looks and how others see her.  After three straight years of refusing any outfit that did not include a skirt, YOUNG LADY has now pronounced all skirts and dresses “Baby Clothes” and has resigned herself to wearing leggings….EVERY SINGLE DAY.

I’ve always been an Old Navy mom.  I never saw the point in spending more than eight dollars on a shirt for a kid who will grow out of it in three months if she doesn’t destroy it in two.  But suddenly, YOUNG LADY is asking to go to Lester’s (oh, you don’t know about Lester’s? Have a daughter? Just wait….) and wants those feathers in her hair that all the girls on iCarly and Victorious are sporting.

I guess I should have expected it.  I was the same way.  Even in my little, small-town school, far, far away from New York, I remember fighting with my mother over feathered hair (that’s featherED hair, not feathers IN hair) and tight jeans.  But I certainly wasn’t seven years old!

Last weekend it became clear to me that YOUNG LADY needed some back to school clothes.  Between a growth spurt this summer and her refusal to wear a dress, we didn’t have any weather-appropriate attire in her closet.  I tried to pull out the computer for a cyber-trip to Old Navy.com, but YOUNG LADY convinced me to take her to Lester’s where I spent almost twice what I would normally pay for about a week’s worth of school clothes.

Then we headed over to one of those boutique hair salons for kids where I paid $28 to have three fluorescent feathers woven into my baby’s head.  I have to admit…it looks kind of cute!  I was unsure of my actions the entire time, but seeing YOUNG LADY feel good about herself and confident in her appearance was a very satisfying prize.

I’ve read that it’s normal for kids this age to start trying to define themselves, and for some that means getting a sense of their physical selves and perhaps trying to create an identity through personal style.  I’m glad to see YOUNG LADY taking pride in her appearance and I do think she looks awfully cute.  But on the other hand, I’m spending more than I think I should on clothes and I’m worried about the vanity aspect….I mean, does she have to look at herself in EVERY car  or shop window we pass?  This is New York!  You can’t take a step without having a car window on your left and a storefront on your right!  I have to leave five minutes early to get anywhere these days!  But maybe my expectations are out of sync with reality.  I chose to raise my kids in New York. Maybe I should have expected a certain amount of materialism and style obsession.  But shouldn’t strong parenting counteract all of that environmental influence? Am I a good enough mom to win out over iCarly?  And will they take out those $28 feathers when they do a lice check at school?

What do YOU think?

I wish someone had told me back when YOUNG LADY was starting solids: Turn off the TV when you eat.  It was during that blur of a first year when the drone of the TV provided the backdrop to my long, home-bound days, and I hardly realized what I was doing when I parked YOUNG LADY in front of a Baby Einstein video and fed her some rice cereal and banana.

By the time YOUNG LADY was two, she was eating many of her meals in front of the boob tube.  I noticed an interesting phenomenon: If I fed her without TV, a struggle would ensue.  She would spit out her food, refuse her veggies and try to get up from the table.  If the TV was on, I could get her to eat full servings of sautéed tofu, steamed broccoli and apple slices polished off with a glass of milk.  My food anxiety would subside….and it would be replaced with TV anxiety.

This was around the time that the American Academy of Pediatrics had come out with a recommendation that children under the age of two not be exposed to TV of any kind.  I was worried that any glimpse of TV would rot my child’s brain, but more worried that without the proper, perfect nutrition, she would fail to develop and I would be crowned Worst Mother in Manhattan.

Now, with kid number two, I’m a little more relaxed about these things.  I realize that a little TV never killed anyone (seeing YOUNG LADY develop into a perfectly normal, intelligent seven-year-old has helped allay my fears) and I’m a little easier on myself when LITTLE GUY has a meal that does not contain complete, 100% organic servings of each food group.  But that doesn’t mean I’m completely cured of my need to be a perfect mom when it comes to what my kids eat, and I’m still kicking myself over the fact that I repeated my past mistakes: I still feed LITTLE GUY in front of the TV more often than not.

Like most New York families, we don’t have family dinner every night.  HUSBAND usually doesn’t get home in time to eat with us, so I end up feeding the kids round one, saving round two for HUSBAND and picking on bits of each for myself.  All the while, I’m aware that I’m passing my own food anxiety on to my kids and modeling bad habits with my eat-and-run approach.  Putting the TV on during meals is just icing on the bad parenting cake.  But on the other hand, if turning on the TV means getting a nutritious meal into my kids, how can it really be so bad?

What do YOU think?