Category: jools (also a beloved child)

reading is fundamental: books for tweens and preschoolers

Posted on November 14, 2007 by wrekehavoc

fear not: i’m in a happy reading state of mind now.

why, you ask? for starters, i’m currently gripped by an apoplectic fear that some toy i might purchase for a birthday or a holiday will end up getting sent back on a slow boat to china. worse still, it might poison a kid. so pick a book. even if it’s a baby book and the kid does chew on it, it hopefully won’t be laden with lead.

there are some who think that some of the books i’d choose poison a kid. i mean, some of these authors, like my fave judy blume, end up on banned books lists year after year. they deal with topics like sex, or drugs, or rock and roll. or maybe a combo of all three. and some parents are so damned threatened by this idea.

now i am not a model parent. BC will be quick to tell you that i curse; i’m a major boohoo; i’m unfair from time to time; and i don’t let her live on reese’s peanut butter cups. but i like to delude myself believe that i have a pretty good relationship with my kids. we talk about lots of things. hell, they bring up stuff waaaay before i’m ready. and i try to answer them as honestly as i can — although believe me, sometimes, the answer is pretty short since they can’t handle the whole truth at times.

and when we read books together, we talk about them. if the characters are freaked out because they don’t fill up a bra yet, that’s fodder. if the characters are frightened by witches, we go there, too. i suspect a day will come when the kids will be smarter than i am, and they’ll start asking questions about nuclear particles and neurotransmitters. i’ll be the one, then, who gets to ask the questions.

but in the meantime, i get to be the smarty. i’m the mommy; that’s why.

so for a week, i’m going to share some of my favorite tween girl books, books that BC and i have enjoyed, sometimes multiple times. i’ll then magically pick a book or two that bridges the gap and that can be enjoyed by a tween girl AND a preschool boy (for those nights when i’m solo parenting and have to kill two birds with one stone. so to speak.) and then, onto preschool goodness. i’ll try to pick some faves as well as some slightly off-beat works.

but know that these are all kid-tested and mom-approved… of course, if you’re the type of mom who has perfect hair, has perfect kids, and is perfectly uncomfortable with anything remotely controversial, then these may not be perfect for you. if, however, you’ve an open mind, well, then. pull up a chair 🙂

read on, macduff.

kids books i loathe: The Holes in Your Nose (My Body Science Series) by Genichiro Yagyu

Posted on November 9, 2007 by wrekehavoc

anyone who has kids knows that they all hit phases where they’re fascinated with their bodies. no, not the way high society women are fascinated (and repelled) and decide to undergo the knife; i mean fascinated by farts, snot, poop, bellybuttons, and anything else that might smell or be gross.

to that end, some clever japanese authors created the my body science series. some of the books, like Everybody Poops, translate ok and are funny to little kids (although frankly, they’re dull for grownups.) some of them, though, like The Holes in Your Nose, are simply gross and awful. i like talking about body fluids like the next person ( i threatened as much in my initial post on NaBloPoMo weeks ago), but reading through this book is about as much fun as eating your own boogers. which someone i know does. which is why i got this book in the first place. (i won’t name names, but he’s the youngest person in this house.)

i mean, who the hell cares if you can’t smell your own farts when your nose is stuffed (as this book shares, along with booger-eating gorillas and plenty of bloody noses)???

nope. even i, a grossologist (read: mom) can hardly stand this one.

in short, it blows.

The Holes in Your Nose

themus interruptus

Posted on November 7, 2007 by wrekehavoc

so here i sit with a cold that appears to be moving me into a familiar upper respiratory hell. breathing is challenging, and i’m probably working my way toward pneumoniaville thanks to my monday with jools.

how do people do it? what i mean to say is how do people with immune systems like mine manage to stay afloat with young children? these walking petri dishes of love, these little people who use your hand as a tissue, who cough in your general direction, who spew contagion of every type at every turn. how can i refuse that little face when it so sweetly smooshes a cheek next to mine?

i can’t.

and yet now, i am battling an awful cold, something which qualifies as a nuisance for most normal people. for me, though, it’s frought with angst. i ponder the all-too-familiar what ifs: what if i get an infection from this, what if antibiotics don’t cut it when i develop that infection, what if its the infection to end all infections? i try not to think about that too much; it makes me sound like a complete and utter hysteric. i mean, fer crying out loud: it’s just a fucking cold.

and i just had my IVIG last week, so one would think i would be in fighting form. if this is fighting form, though, i shudder to think about what my 98-pound weakling self would do with this germfest.

so i wonder: is it more important for me to be healthy, yet distant from my children? or is it better for me to behave as any other normal parent would behave: taking care of children while they’re sick, pouring love and affection into them to help them feel better, at the peril of my own health? i always opt for the latter.

i hope it doesn’t kill me someday.

media mom month!

Posted on November 1, 2007 by wrekehavoc

welcome to november and NaBloPoMo. i’m your demented slacker mom host, wrekehavoc. i must write every single solitary day this month. i must, i must, i must increase my autobiographical writing output! one of my buds suggested themed weeks. well, math is hard for me, so i suspect i will have themes that may or may not take up a week. but the uber leitmotif of the month for me, i have decided is:

drumroll please:

MEDIA FOR KIDS!

yep. people are always asking me my opinions about music and books i like — or loathe — for kids. or for grownups. or in general. and lord knows, one month can’t contain all of my opinions cos i’m such an effing know-it-all. but i figure i might take a stab here and there. i will try to stray off the beaten path slightly. after all, if you wanted things on the beaten path, you wouldn’t be asking me, wouldya? (shoot, i live lightyears off the proverbial beaten path.) but i will try to keep my recommendations to things that regular folks can obtain from their local library…

…cos i heart my local library, and you should, too!

some preliminary food for thought — also known as re-runs or greatest hits (you know GH albums are merely repackaging, right?):

top ten favorite songs

julian’s first mix CD

the perils of classic rock, take two

this rant is all maddening’s fault

i may throw in other posts about life in general, but expect a month filled with my trite contributions to the blogosphere.

and probably some body fluids thrown in there somewhere. cos i know you expect that sort of thing from me 😉

still looking for one divine hammer

Posted on October 25, 2007 by wrekehavoc

…of course with my luck, i’d probably end up beating myself in the head. (actually, with my luck, i’d beat myself so senseless that i’d need yet more scans. i suspect i will soon hit the point that i will no longer need scans; they will merely darken the room and say: eureka! she has XYZ! i see it, clear as day, without machinery.)

but life will resume some peace and calm. today, as i mentioned in the last entry, we lost our field trip. we did, apparently, gain an extra shot today, to the tune of four shots. yes, four. BC did her best to completely freak jools out on the subject. oooh, they hurrrrrrrrt! ooooooohhhhh! i haaaaaaaaate shots!!!! waaaaaaahhhhh! (BC will cry early to avoid the rush.)

so i decided that we would make the morning as fun as we could to offset what i figured would be an afternoon from hell. first, we started to clean the inside of the fridge (woohoo! let’s replace the insulation next, or tackle plumbing!) until a shelf i washed and put back fell to the floor, resulting in a broken jar of applesauce AND a broken bottle of soy sauce. (see? even G-d doesn’t want me to be domestic.) i thought at first that i had slashed myself in the process, and i sat stunned for a second, trying to figure out whether i had soy sauce coming out of my finger or blood. i licked the wound (don’t judge me!) and realized that, in spite of the stuff that gets pumped into my veins every four weeks, i doubt i am starting to taste like a stir fry. as soon as jools looked concerned, i lightened up. noooo, mommy is okay. it’s only a flesh wound. (jools may be the only four year old who likes monty python.)

yep. we know us some good times around here.

then, i wondered randomly, as i looked in the cabinet for a fresh jar of applesauce — what can we do with a can of pumpkin? (note to self: are you a latent ADHD kinda grrl?) we found a recipe in one of my favorite bread machine books for pumpkin challah, so there went half the can. i used the rest in a pumpkin bean soup that no one save for me likes.

and then, it was shot time. i promised little man that he could pick a slurpee or nerds candy as his reward for getting three shots. unfortunately, when we arrived, we discovered that he actually needed his tetanus, too. four shots. woohoo. i put on the happiest face i could and told him that he could squeeze my hand as tightly as possible if he wanted and yell if he wanted. i braced myself to keep smiling and not cry. and i’ll be damned.

the boy did not cry. not once.

in fact, he made what i refer to as his lee harvey oswald face, then laughed between shots. i wasn’t sure whether to be overjoyed at this development or terrified that my son is a burgeoning psychotic. but 7-11, the magic you weave will never be forgotten in these parts. slurpee must be the elixir of life.

of course, now i’m reeling because my doctor’s office has apparently not yet received my IVIG, so i am not sure whether i am getting my treatment tomorrow or not. i should be secretly happy if it doesn’t arrive — i mean, i already had one IV this week, mr. vein needs a little rest. but there’s the trains must run on time part of me that just wants to stay on course.

but either way, it’ll be ok. i just won tickets to see tori amos. and reaction or no reaction, slurpee or no slurpee, hell or high water — i’m a’goin’.

don't push me cos i'm close to the…eddddddgggge

Posted on October 24, 2007 by wrekehavoc

this starts with an apology to all the stay at home moms who manage to do this, day in, day out, with nary a complaint. i’m not worthy. really.

for the rest of you who are not candidates for mother of the year, pull up a chair. it’s:

incoherent rant-o-rama time!

every tuesday, jools stays home with me. i love our tuesdays together, and, since i know next year, he starts at the big school with BC, i won’t have a ton of tuesdays left. i love having a day when i get to focus on just one of my kids at one time. don’t get me wrong — i adore each of them with every beat of my heart. but when there’s more than one, you simply have to divvy your attention, your brainspace, your patience. and, with apologies to morrissey and marr, i just haven’t earned it yet (baby).

[neither has that guitarist. yet. but i digress. per usual.]

this tuesday, BC didn’t feel so well. her throat hurt, her ear hurt, and she was dead tired. so i relented. girlfriend stayed home with us and rested, and later that day, when she was swabbed at the doctor’s office and ended up with negative for strep, i thought, oh well, a mental health day for girlfriend. but her being home threw our little balance off. we couldn’t go out and do stuff. we just stayed in. and in. and in. nevermind the fact that girlfriend otherwise felt fine and frankly wanted to buy halloween stuff to “ghost” some of her friends’ houses on our street. (move over lourdes: make room for the holy miracle cure of Target.)

but we didn’t do squat.

then, last night, while jools soaked in the tub, BS yelled for me to come and take a look in jools’ ear. there was this HUGE white blob in his ear. and, according to jools, it was moving. in a word, EWWWWW. could it be a penny? a worm? jimmy hoffa? who the eff knows. i called our amazing pediatricians’ office, where they kindly let us bring him back in at 8:20 pm (yes, you read that right.) nevermind it was the same dr. who saw us earlier in the day and probably wanted to strangle my misbehaving kids. nevermind that poor man has a child sick with croup in his own home (which is no cakewalk, i assure you.) we all wanted to know what the hell had landed in jools’ ear and was making a home there. only, it was just massive amounts of wax and scar tissue from all the previous zillion ear infections he has had. once the doctor cleared it out and sent him on his way, all seemed well.

until this morning. mr. klingon wanted to stay with me. again. madame was fine for school, so i figured, okey doke: today’s half day elementary school in our People’s Republic; jools and i will run errands and have a laff. only, its raining, and while i’m thrilled to death it’s raining from an environmental perspective, it surely messes up all the day. and i’m single parenting for the entire day. can you say loooooooong day’s journey into night? joy.

and tomorrow. oh, tomorrow. jools was supposed to go on a field trip with his class, and i was going to chaperone. only, the class trip is now cancelled thanks to the weather, but the 3 shots that jools has to take in the afternoon are still on. the trip was the proverbial carrot for the medical stick that followed. and now, someone has TAKEN AWAY MY EFFING CARROT. ARRRRRRGH.

it all kind of makes me look forward to sitting with an IV in my arm for 6 hours on friday. sure. it will hurt like a mofo and be boring. but sometimes, boring is good.

G-d and Death

Posted on October 21, 2007 by wrekehavoc

as you can tell from a post or two, we’ve been struggling to understand the death of our five year old friend. BC and i went to a celebration of mason’s life yesterday. it was a lovely afternoon, filled with people’s remembrances of this little force of nature. i hadn’t even realized that he had met Queen Elizabeth II when she visited children’s national medical center, where the little dude got his treatment — the pictures are incredible. the most wonderful thing for me was hearing about the family’s life before cancer.

on a personal level, one of the hardest things for me as a parent is explaining to my child why G-d would allow such a glorious little boy to get sick and leave his family and friends at such a young age; honestly, i can’t even understand it myself. this morning, i saw our rabbi at hebrew school, and i asked her: what is the rabbinical explanation? cos i’ve searched and searched my heart, and i have a hard time telling my children that sometimes, G-d says no to our prayers. maybe i’m just a lax parent, but i really and truly want to believe that if there is some sort of Benevolent Being, that He/She would want to do better than that.

our rabbi, who i like very, very much, was so warm. yes, she said, there is a school of thought that feels that G-d is omnipotent and therefore sometimes simply says no. she, however, personally believes that G-d is omniscient, not omnipotent. G-d can’t change what’s happening; G-d can only try to provide us comfort and strength in situations that happen. G-d doesn’t make things happen in the world; G-d simply tries to support us.

at least, that’s what i thought i heard. i may be completely taking her out of context, in which case, i am soooooo sorry.

anyway, one of the loveliest gestures from the ceremony yesterday was receiving bulbs to plant in mason’s memory. and on the back of the instructions, there’s a quote from one of my most favorite books: St. Exupery’s the little prince. i’ll end with it since it makes more sense out of the situation than i or anyone else can.

In one of the stars I shall be living,

In one of the stars I shall be laughing,

And so it will be as if the stars were laughing

When you look at the stars at night.

You, only you, will have

stars that can laugh.

Seven Random Facts About Wrekehavoc

Posted on October 19, 2007 by wrekehavoc

I, too, was tagged by a very cool blogger for this meme. The rules are:

Link to your tagger and post rules.
Share 7 facts about yourself, some random and some weird.
Tag 7 people at the end of post and list their names.
Let them know they were tagged by a comment on their blog.

1. I look down when I walk. It’s probably a self-esteem issue, but it once resulted in my finding $100 on the floor of Ballston Common.

2. I was in law school. Yes, I really was. For a little over a month. I thought I could become a lawyer and save the world. In a sea of mid-1980s preppies, I had spiky hair; and I hated that my fellow students were stealing or hiding the textbooks we needed to read in the law library. I finally had an epiphany one Sunday morning that I didn’t need to be around such hateful people, all to end up in the yellow pages under Divorce Attorney or somesuch. It was one of the most expensive lessons I ever had, and it took me years to pay it off.

3. The first concert I ever attended was Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in November 1980 on The River tour. My oldest brother — you know him now fondly in this blog as BTD, or Brutha the Doctor — lobbied my mother hard to let me go with him and his then-girlfriend. I didn’t like Bruce at all then — but after the show, I was converted. And I never looked back.

Thanks, big brother.

4. When I was young, I liked to mix my tuna salad with applesauce. BS thinks this is probably the most revolting food idea in history. But every now and then, I do it when he’s not looking 😉

5. I was a three-time Jeopardy! winner back in the early 1990s. They made me stand on a box so that I was equal height with the other contestants. And I don’t think Alex Trebek liked me all that much. But that’s a whole other story.

6. One of my geeky friends informed me that my children share the names of two Star Trek characters. This is purely unintentional; I was not channeling the spirit of Gene Roddenberry. (And no one is named Spock or Kirk.)

7. I grew up in what was once a smaller town in NJ, a place that’s now extremely huge and populated. One of the theories is that it’s named for Thomas Luker, a farmer who happened to be BS’s great-grandfather back 10 or so generations (hence, jools’ middle name is Thomas.) I hated the place, feeling constrained and much the outsider. I suspect I’d still feel like an outsider if I returned there, but I lovedlovedloved growing up near the ocean. I loved summers when I’d prowl along the Boardwalk and stare down the bennies, tourists who came from NY or Philly. And, though I’ve grown to love my newer (ha! nearly 20 years I’m here) home, I must confess I have never gotten over the fact that it takes at least three hours to hit the ocean. And now, when I go back to the Jersey Shore, I’m probably considered a benny, too.

I’d love to tag people but they’re still smarting from the last tagging. But anyone who wants to pick up the cause — just let me know in the comments.

oh mercy, mercy me

Posted on October 15, 2007 by wrekehavoc

with sincerest apologies to marvin gaye.

today is blog action day. ~~because i’m a lemming~~ because i’m a bit distraught over the weekend’s events, it comes as something of a relief to write about something like the environment (which tells you how awful the weekend truly was)… although there is a part of me that wonders whether we are adding to the pollution in the blogosphere.

but i digress.

clearly, we need to use less, as my dear pal kellyo notes beautifully. i’ll try to tackle another piece, however picayune, of the puzzle.

recycling is a topic near and dear to my heart, especially on tuesdays when i start getting cans, bottles, cardboard, and the 57 editions of the washington post that BS has left under his chair ready for our friends in the recycling truck on wednesday. i dare not take them to the bins for fear i’ll get chastised by the Woman Who Haunts The Recycling Bins, she who informed me one day that some of my cardboard was not, in fact, cardboard. she wasn’t wrong, and i was chagrined, and now, i am pretty well informed about my paperboard and my cardboard. i’m strongly against segregation, but in this instance, i’ll try to keep the twain from meeting, so to speak. nevertheless, i’ll let my friends in the blue truck help me out in case i’m mistaken one day. i don’t want to be wrong on that and enter recycling hell. more importantly, i don’t want to eff things up and actually create more pollution than i would have if i left things well enough alone.

so i thought i’d share some of my favorite recycled products. just cos.

littlearth license plate handbags. i have been jonesing for a jersey plate handbag ever since i first laid eyes on one of these things on my thelma-n-louse trip to arizona with my pal murph. see — recycle license plates and make them a fashion statement. they should get prisoners working on THESE. correctional centers would actually MAKE money. (note to BS: the ho-li-days are coming…)

recycled aluminum wall clocks. these are SOOO cool, if you like mod-ren sorts of artsyfartsy stuff. which i do, of course. of course these look more like a craft i can take up one rainy day with the kids… speaking of the kids…

junkyard cats. these pups (no pun intended, though they also have dogs and other critters) are made from scrap and rejected garden tools, farm machinery, bicycle and auto parts, which is nice because it keeps them out of the junk heap. [note to self: contact them. your garage alone could furnish noah’s modern ark.]

laptop lunches lunchboxes. not just for kids (or vegans) only! do you have any concept of how much waste is created every day because we all use those little plastic bags or buy individually-packaged cookies or hohos or whatever it is you like in your lunch? yes, these lunchbox systems are made of plastic — it’s recyclable, although at this price, there ain’t no WAY you’re recycling it anytime soon. and they are so gosh-darn cute! if i weren’t afraid BC was going to lose these, i would snap one up in a second. instead, i am trying to reuse some of the little plastic containers i have amassed over the years to pack her lunches. inside a cute, tween-approved lunch sack, of course. (GAWD, mama, you embarrass me!!!) but one day…

now, since i’m just chanelling the hints from heloise chick (for the insane parent-set), some more recycling tips for you moms, dads, and caregivers out there.

1) you know how sometimes, you end up printing more pages than you wanted to off your printer or fax? stop telling the computer to piss off and save those pages. your kids can draw on them til the cows come home. don’t let that tree die in vain.

2) hey you working parents: you know how there’s always some forgetful person at the office who also prints a bajillion pages of things and then leaves them at the printer for a few days? i say, after two days, the statute of limitation ends. if the paper(s) hasn’t been claimed or put in a recycling bin, take THOSE home for your kids to use. my kids thought it was hilarious when they wrote official “mail” that had my company’s logo on it. i just resisted the temptation to actually mail that stuff…

3) all those little bits of crayon you have lying about, naked and too small to be held by even the tiniest preschool hand? make homemade crayons. jools loved coloring with his — it made automatic rainbows.

4) there are tons of things you can make from old computer stuff. i’m hoping i can get BC to make me a disco ball. hell, i’ll hang it from the rear view mirror of the Prius.

5) this one from BS, who has never considered himself terribly crafty: take old CDs or DVDs you don’t want. buy round cork, and glue it to the backs of aforementioned disks. Voila! you’ve got coasters. (and yes, we really, really DO have such coasters in our home. pity we’re so uncivilized that we hardly use them.) BS is such a dark horse. he’s crafty!

6) recycle clothes. (hint: they’re found at rummage sales, jumble sales, goodwill, garage sales…). organize a clothes swapping party with friends. (one of my clever friends does this. there’s always wine, so i’m always there.) i’m thrilled i have friends who take the clothes off my hands, and my friends seem happy that there’s less stuff to buy. happy happy all around. if you want to make money off them, then send them to a consignment shop. but the pain and heartbreak of that process sometimes is not worth the trouble. donate. it’s good for the earth, it’s good for your karma, and hell, it’s so freaking easy. (just don’t donate the things that are permanently covered in vomit. use those as cleaning rags.)

ok. all politics is local. all betterment starts with you. turn off your computer and change the world.

little man

Posted on October 9, 2007 by wrekehavoc

oh, jools. i didn’t know if i could manage a day home with you today. BC was home from school on thursday and friday. then, everyone was home saturday, sunday, and monday. considering tomorrow is half-day elementary school and i’m pretty pushed thursday and friday, if i didn’t get a day to myself today, i wouldn’t get one until far into next week.

and i didn’t.

you stayed with me today after waking up at 6 (screaming, per usual, there’s a six on the clock!!! only to then fall back asleep after i woke up and came over to collect you.) i figured that if you fell back to sleep, then you were a pretty tired palooka. so my peace and quiet be damned. you stayed.

i’m so glad you did.

we played the lilo and stitch game that your sister usually won’t let you touch (and you gleefully reminded her of that when she came home from school); we played candyland, perennial house game favorite. and may i tell you, little man: you cheat. you cheat like crazy. and even though i tell you i won’t play with you if you don’t play by the rules, somehow, we keep playing. i think we continue because there’s something so fun about watching you giggle when i pick the plumpy card for the seventeenth time in the row, just before i would have won the game. like you know, somewhere deep down in your little soul, that G-d really wants to see you win and see mama get screwed just one more time. and i laugh and laugh each time because i want you to see that sometimes, it’s the journey — not the journey’s end — that really matters.

and what a silly day. we took all of BC’s broken crayons, put them into metal cupcake holders, and melted them into giant rainbow crayons. i always read about this and thought it would be fun. somehow, i never did this with BC because i hadn’t amassed that many broken crayons. but you, my friend, you are the second child. so much has been broken before you. i’m the youngest; i know of these things. the trick, my love, is to take the broken stuff and figure out how to make something wonderful out of them.

i’ve done it for years.

today, i told you that i was going to run errands to the post office and the store while you were at gymnastics. usually, i sit at the back and get a precious 45 minutes of novel writing while you tumble. but this time, i had stuff to do. you nodded and understood. and when i came to collect you, you sweetly informed me: mama, i missed you while you were running errands. but you were okay, right, little man? oh yes, mama. things that would make your sister cry her heart out are things that you accept with a zen-like grace.

just the same way we snuggle at night. BC curls into me, trying her best to meld into my body, childlike. but you, little man. you put your arm around me, just like your father does. you pull me to you, curling me into your side. protecting me.

you are my child, but at moments like these, amidst the cars and teddy bears, i already see the man emerging.