parental struggles

Five for Friday
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Five for Friday

Hooray for a few calm minutes in which I can sit and write a blog post! I have been so nonstop gogogo this school year that when I do have a few free moments, I feel certain I am forgetting something. Should I be at an appointment? Should I be picking up Carla for an appointment? Have I made dinner? Probably I could be exercising, but I am choosing to sit in a non-ergonomic position with my laptop on my thighs instead.

Absent-Minded or Mind Is Absent:

Forgetting something important is not, sadly, a hypothetical. This year so far I have already had a very embarrassing memory lapse. Carla had an orthodontist appointment; it was on my calendar; I got a text reminder the day before that I didn’t bother to open because I was already On Top Of It. I remembered to contact her school in advance to let them know I’d be picking her up. I reminded Carla about the appointment the night before and the morning of and reminded her both times that she would need to bring her retainer.

In the car on the way to school that morning, Carla wailed that she’d forgotten her retainer at home! The retainer she needed for the appointment, which was a retainer check. Fine. I will grab it for you, Carla! And yet, on my way to pick her up – like, literally five minutes away from her school – I realized that I, too, had forgotten her retainer at home.

My brain went immediately into project solving mode. Okay! I had arranged to pick her up early, so I would swoop in, grab her, race home, get the retainer, and race back to the orthodontist. If all went well, I might be ten or fifteen minutes late for her appointment. Not ideal. But we could still make it!

I called the orthodontist’s office to let them know the plan. But… no sound of the phone ringing on their end. No sound of the call being connected. I hung up and tried again. Same thing. I pulled up to Carla’s school. No Carla. The whole point of letting the school know in advance that she has an appointment is so that someone will go get her out of class and make sure she’s waiting in the lobby for me when I arrive. I tried the orthodontist again. Same issue. I went inside to get Carla. No one was in the reception office. Shit. I lurked in the lobby for a few minutes until the principal walked by, noticed me, and said he would go find Carla. After he left, Carla’s science teacher walked by and asked if I need help, and I said the principal was looking for Carla, and the science teacher said he would ALSO go look for Carla. I tried the orthodontist again. No answer. Okay, fine – they are having Phone Issues. But! They texted me a reminder the day before the appointment, so presumably I could text them back!

I opened the unread text reminder. Which is when I discovered that I was ALREADY AN HOUR LATE for the appointment. This is, of course, when the principal and science teacher reappeared, Carla in tow. And because they’d already gone to all this trouble of fetching her, I took her out of school even though we had missed her appointment. We went and got fast food for lunch and I brought her back to school. She pretty much thought it was The Best Thing Ever, but I felt (and still feel) like a massive dumbass.

Finger Embellishment:

I painted my nails burgundy in advance of my dressy event. I think they look lovely. How long will the nail color last? Hopefully through the event; I have learned that’s all I can really ask for. By the way, my kid and I got pedicures with my mother-in-law for her birthday, and I did my toes in this version of burgundy, which is so good. I would have bought it if the salon had sold it, but alas they did not.

Listen, I didn’t say I was GOOD at painting my nails. But no one is going to be looking at my old hands closely enough to see the mistakes.

Sandwich Success:

I have been doing The Bare Minimum when it comes to meals this school year. This was all fine and good when I was (not) feeding my own immediate family, but we’ve had houseguests for the past week. I ended up making some Actual Meals, one of which was the balsamic pork I’ve made a million times since my friend served it at her house many years ago. It’s a super easy slow cooker meal the results in shredded pork tenderloin. We serve it with brown rice, feta cheese, kalamata olives, and caramelized onions. (My husband adds diced sundried tomatoes, as well.) It’s delicious and different from most of the lemon- or soy-sauce-based meals I usually gravitate toward.

Because the only pork tenderloins I had in my freezer were a) giant and b) a two pack and c) frozen inextricably together, I had a mountain of shredded pork left over. Fortunately, I thought ahead and also had a ton of caramelized onions leftover. Instead of allowing all the leftovers to languish unused in my fridge until I finally threw them out, I decided to figure out how to repurpose them.

This is what I came up with: a vat of butternut squash soup with a fancy grilled cheese on the side. Sourdough bread, bacon onion jam, provolone cheese, leftover pork on one half, leftover caramelized onions on the other half. DELICIOUS.

I swear this is SO MUCH tastier than my photography skills might indicate.

Homophonic Hiccup:

As a former editor, I am prone to spotting errors in text. I like to think I’ve grown much less judgmental over the years when I come across a spelling, grammar, or usage error. We all make mistakes. Even the finest toothed comb of a copyeditor can overlook a typo. I make errors all the time, simply consult this here weblog for innumerable mistakes. And yet I still have my pet peeves. One of which is GLARING ERRORS in headlines, especially when those headlines come from major publications who should have careful editors on staff. “Lead” being misused as “led” really grates my teeth. Of course, this kind of thing happens, it does. Often I can overlook it; glass houses and all. But sometimes it makes me very grumpy and judge-y. This is one of those times.

You know, on second look, this headline has more issues than just the spelling error.

Little Golden Girls Books:

A dear friend of mine and I have a longstanding joke that I am Dorothy Zbornak and she is Blanche Devereaux from Golden Girls. (Which Golden Girl are you?) So when I saw this post about what the Golden Girls would be reading, I was delighted to see that I have read all three of the books assigned to Dorothy. (Depending on which book the group selects for Engie’s next round of the CBBC, perhaps we are ALL Dorothy????)

We have an action-packed weekend ahead of us. You will not be surprised to learn that I do not want to participate in any action. I want to sit at home with my cat and finish reading my new book (it’s so good and I have no idea where it’s going) and maybe eat another fancy grilled cheese sandwich. Instead, I’m going to go put on my fancy dress and shoes and try to muster up some social energy.

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Birthday Sleepover Awkwardness

Why yes I am dramatically behind in planning and/or even thinking about my child’s birthday party this year, why do you ask? 

For one thing, my husband is on call on Carla’s birthday weekend, which means we have to find a different date for the party (just… trust me. we are not doing a party on a call weekend), and I can’t figure out what that date should be. Seems like it should be obvious, or that there should be some reasonable candidates, but I am struggling. We’re up against camp and holidays and other birthday parties and vacation and no date seems workable.

For another thing, Carla has been happily discussing plans for her party for several months now, so it feels like I don’t have anything to do. When in reality, I have ALL THE THINGS to do because her saying “I want to have a water theme” doesn’t make water-themed décor magically appear in my house, nor does her making a list of kids she wants to invite equate actually inviting anyone.

Let’s start there, with the invitations, because that’s part of the delay, I think. 

Carla wants a sleepover party this year. Here’s the thing: I refuse to have more than six children in my house overnight. Why this number, I don’t know. All I know is that I can hardly deal with having one child over for a sleepover, it goes against everything in my constitution, and the thought of something like ten kids makes me hyperventilate. I know a large sleepover party is doable. One of Carla’s friends had, like, twenty girls sleep over last year. But that kid’s mom is a very different person from me, in almost every way, which instead of making “big sleepover” seem possible, makes it seem even less possible, if that makes any sense. Hell, even my own mother hosted big sleepovers with probably ten or more kids when I was in middle school. My mother was FANTASTIC at birthday parties, let me tell you.

Carla is amenable to the limit, but she would love to have a BIG PARTY with all her friends, and then have a select few stay the night after the party and I… well, I have put my foot down about this. And I’m feeling like I want to walk it back, but I also still agree with my reasons for saying no in the first place. 

This may sound like a non-sequitur, but stay with me here: We have reached an age where birthday party invite lists have begun to be… tricky. Like, I am theoretically 100% behind Carla or any child only inviting people to her birthday that she wants at her birthday. We are long past the days when you invited the entire class or – in some cases – the entire grade. And I theoretically completely understand that just because parents are friends with one another does not mean their children are also friends with one another. 

In practice, it feels so different and yucky to leave people out, especially if they are the kids of your friends. And yet: six person limit. 

My reason for not doing the big party with the smaller sleepover is related to that yucky feeling. I don’t want to leave anyone out, I don’t want anyone to feel less special or less of a friend or lesser in any way because they weren’t included in the super exclusive sleepover contingent. Carla’s argument is twofold. First, she says that other kids have big parties and then a few kids sleepover. Second, she says that she would never, ever mention to anyone that only a few kids would sleepover. My rebuttal is that kids a) aren’t great at secrets and b) can be mean and c) people always find out! 

Other people DO do this! I have picked up my kid from several birthday parties, and a couple kids remain behind to stay for a sleepover extension. This has never bothered me because I have only recently allowed Carla to sleep over anywhere. But it has bothered Carla. She always feels left out and wonders why not her. We had a good reason: she wasn’t allowed. That helped soothe the hurt feelings. Plus, she’s a very cheerful kid who gets over things pretty swiftly. But what about the other kids who may not have mean sleepover-hating moms to blame their lack of fun on, or who may be struggling with finding their crew, or whose feelings are sharper and longer lasting? 

(I have no good place to stick this point, but I want to head off any suggestions that Carla invite one or even two people over. I think I could be okay with a Big Party and one kid sleeping over after. But Carla doesn’t have a Best Friend, so that doesn’t really make sense in her situation. Plus, I think part of the allure of the Big Sleepover is the BIGNESS of it.)

We’re not doing Big Party with the Small Sleepover. We just aren’t. I mean, I suppose I could hold two events on two separate days but NO THANK YOU ONE PARTY IS ENOUGH I MEAN IT. Please, back me up here, because I can feel my resistance crumbling as I type and I know I will RUE MYSELF if I give in to the two party plan. Can a person rue herself? Even if that’s not a thing, I will.

Because I cannot and will not host two separate parties (right????? that would be dumb?????), and because I refuse to make a portion of birthday invitees feel like the B Team, I am trying to work myself up to a slightly bigger sleepover. Like… eight people??? Could I do ten? It’s always possible that we invite ten and only three show up. That would be IDEAL, honestly. But in my experience, if you plan on that kind of attrition, everyone shows up and also one kid brings her out-of-town cousin. 

Carla is not the problem here. She has narrowed her list down to five invitees, with very little pleading and negotiating. I AM THE PROBLEM. There are some kids that I would like to invite just out of… I don’t know. Mom friendship? Duty? Duty invites? That’s awful. No one wants to be at a party because the birthday girl’s MOM wants you there. I am sure the duty invitees would HATE THAT, and Carla might also hate it too, and I can see right now that if I tell her to invite A, she will ask, “If I can have an extra spot for A, why can’t I invite B instead?” which makes total sense; I refer you back to my theoretical conviction that a kid should only invite kids to her birthday party that she wants at her birthday party.  And even if I upped the guest list count to ten, there’s no guarantee that the duty invitees would make that cut, either. (Ugh ugh ugh. I need a different way to frame this than “duty invitees,” because these kids are sweet and wonderful and fun and they just aren’t in Carla’s immediate circle, that’s all there is to it.)

Listen. Pretty much no one these days is going around inviting every kid in the class/grade or even every kid of one gender in the class/grade. Carla has been invited to three birthday parties this year, that’s it. So I get it. Not everyone gets invited. That’s not how friendship works. We moms all say, “We understand.” And I know that we do. If Carla didn’t get an invitation to a specific kid’s party, I would understand. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t sting. 

Someone’s feelings are going to get hurt. Perhaps many someones. Perhaps someone’s mom’s feelings are going to get hurt too. I don’t want to be the cause of it!

Do you see? Do you SEE why I am struggling to plan the party when I cannot figure out the guest list?????? 

Clearly I am in bit of a tizz. We’ll have to reconvene later to discuss present ideas and cake. (We have one gift for Carla: a pair of tickets to a play we think [hope] she wants to see. Nearly Twelve is exceedingly difficult to shop for!) 

Let’s look at a soft sleepy kitten to soothe the jangled nerves.

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Nothing Says Valentine’s Day Like Shopping for New Hair Dryers

It has been an extremely challenging parenting week around here. Let me be clear: Carla is a fantastic kid and I love her with all my heart and feel so lucky to be her mom. And also, a lot of the time, I feel completely unfit to parent her. Yes, yes, I know – we’ve got the bases of food, shelter, and love covered, so we’re already ahead of the game. But I spend a lot of time, especially when things are tricky, feeling like I am doing her a grave disservice by being her primary source of guidance. (My husband is a wonderful father to whom parenting seems to come much more naturally/with less anxiety; he is just, by nature of his job, not with her as often as I am. And, much as I’d LOVE to, I can’t simply direct my child to wait for her father to come home to be parented, you know?) (Or CAN I?????)

My husband, after I’d leaked tears all over him immediately upon his arrival home from work yesterday, said kindly that he thinks every parent feels this way. I am pretty sure some of us (cough cough me) are simply inept. Developmentally appropriate challenges or not, I feel like I am flailing around without any idea how to help my kid.

Anyway, I am going to distract myself by turning to a problem I CAN solve, maybe, which is that I need a new hair dryer. 

My now-dead hair dryer was this medieval torture-looking device by Drybar  and I really liked it. It made my hair smoother and less frizzy than the standard Conair I use as a backup. I could operate it one-handed, which left my other hand free to turn the pages in my book or choose invariably wrong answers in my daily French lesson. I also think it tamed my wavy hair much better than a regular hair dryer, which always seems to leave a few ripples near the crown of my head. In fact, on days when my hair was being particularly accommodating, I didn’t even need to use a straightener.

When I bought it, I had never spent more than $50 on a hair dryer, and it seemed so ridiculously expensive. But now that I am considering a new hair dryer, I see that it is quite reasonable. In terms of pricey hair dryers, of course. I could just use AIR, which is FREE.

A very good friend of mine – and a person with what I consider to possess the platonic ideal hair – said that this combo straightener/dryer, while spendy, is worth every penny because it dries and straightens simultaneously, no need for a separate straightening device. I mean, if it would transform my hair into hers, I would buy it in a heartbeat. Like, a horrified, “am I really spending this much money on a hair dryer” arrhythmic heartbeat, but still. However, I suspect that no hair implement could ever perform that magic. Her hair is supernaturally beautiful.

If I’m going for brand name, there is the slightly less-expensive Dyson… but I have no idea what superpowers it claims and I feel too exhausted by, you know, everything, to look into it.

Drybar also has a straightening hair dryer, MUCH more reasonably priced than the Dyson.

Or maybe I just need a good ol’ Revlon dryer/brush combo for $37.

Of course, I could go in the complete other direction and get this $720 beauty that Sarah has heard great things about. 

What are you using to dry your hair?