Got Flow?

One of the greatest gifts my mother ever gave me was a good attitude about my period. It was never a curse or even a nuisance in my house. It just was. In fact, getting it the first time was cause for celebration. Not cake and ice cream celebration–but definitely a rite of passage. On the day of my first period, I called my mother at work to tell her the news. Thrilled, she ran out and bought an entire grocery bag full of options. (Picture a big brown kraft paper block, not one of the flimsy plastic bags we use today.) Pads, liners, wings. It was all in there. Even— EVEN tampons. But, oh, no, I wasn’t going to use those. No way.

Until… I got invited to a swimming party. What are the odds on there will be a swimming party on the second day of your very first period? This is the kind of charmed life I lead.

Mom didn’t blink. Without embarrassment or delay, she showed me how to use a tampon. Oh, the good fortune. I’ve been bowling, mountain climbing, and horseback riding on the beach ever since.

And now, as my daughter approaches the age of menarche, I’m excited about the book Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation. If it had been around in 1982, I’m sure my mother would have picked up a copy. Catch authors Elissa Stein and Susan Kim on The View tomorrow.

I am a participant in a Mom Central campaign for ABC Daytime and will receive a tote bag or other The View branded items to facilitate my review.

Parenting and Hunting – What Message Am I Sending?

Part of the reason I’m able to write for a living is that I make money from advertising and commission on sales from links to Amazon and Ebay from HubPages, where I write primarily on parenting topics. My sales report from Amazon typically includes titles like What to Expect When You’re Expecting and lots of Dr. Sears. The occasional body pillow. Maybe a board game. These all make sense.

What is a mystery was my highest profit item last month: a hardwood hunting bow. I’m not complaining mind you; the commission was over $10.

I write occasionally on discipline, and it could be argued that I’m rather strict. But I’m going on record here to let you know that I never, under ANY circumstances, endorse bow hunting of children. Beating with a stick, sure, but leave the heavy equipment out of it.

Meet Me at the Hotel Room

Remember when hotel rooms were sexy? All vacation and rendezvous and sheets you didn’t have to clean? Yeah, me neither. But I do remember when a hotel room represented relaxation. A freshly made bed, hours of freedom, drinks mixed with ice from down the hall. And again, the lack of laundry.

Now that most of my disposable income goes toward exposing my children to experiences (and boots) that may create wonderful memories or somehow serve them later in life, hotel rooms are all about the agony of too much family togetherness. Where once there was soft lighting and exotic snacks, now there are wet towels on every once-dry surface and my tweens’ ever expanding collections of grooming aids, which are fast outgrowing my own.

Instead of a good movie on TV (possibly featuring a naked Mark Wahlberg), we are forced to suffer through endless half hours of Miley Cyrus and that guy with the mullet whose head heart we all wanted to break, with a sledgehammer, back in 1992.

There are soggy pizza boxes on the bed. (Okay, maybe that part’s the same.)

I hide in the bathroom reading a book, partly to be alone, and partly so that no one can stink up the 200 square feet that have become our family living space. Did I mention the dog? Oh yes, we’re that crazy. In close proximity to the ever present them, I grow increasingly irritated. I crave escape from my husband’s brilliant observations, such as, “This place really fills up at night.” We smuggle the dog in and out of the room, begging him to ‘go’ at our convenience.

Finally, I turn to the ill-equipped fitness center for refuge and am devastated to see that although there are only two lonely treadmills, the tiny room has been outfitted with three walls of mirror, allowing me to see all that is shielded in my own strategically mirrored home. I want to go home. Now.

Other parents have already crossed over, crossed back into the world of peaceful hotel rooms. They have begun to reserve two of them. I can’t do that. I’m not ready. And I’m far to cheap. Besides, if I did that, what would I have to write about?

Charlie Brown Christmas and Mother-Son Bonding

The night we put up the Christmas tree my kids wanted to be done by seven so we could watch the Charlie Brown Christmas special. I was impressed they wanted to watch it because it’s so simple and sweet compared to the quick, stylized stuff they’re used to. I loved watching them watch the Peanuts choose the ‘Charlie Brown Christmas tree’, hearing them laugh each time all the needles fell off, and knowing they’d forever be in on the joke.

My favorite part was bonding with my son over Charlie Brown’s wit.

“This is from when I was a kid, you know,” I told him.

“Yeah, I can tell.”

“How can you tell?” I thought he’d say something about the animation, or the corny music and ridiculous cartoon dancing. I was wrong.

“You can tell this is old school,” he said, “by the sarcasm.”

“The sarcasm?”

“Yeah. You just don’t get this old style sarcasm anymore.” I didn’t know. “Yeah, like ‘man’s best friend’, that’s classic. You don’t get that these days.”

“What do you get? What would they say in the shows you watch?”

“They’d just say ‘you stupid dog.’”

How did I get so lucky to have a kid so damn smart? He gets it, and me.

Trotting Out My Turkey

This is the November edition of the print version of After the Bubbly, an award winning family humor column. If you’d like to see it in a local publication, let me know and I’ll do my best to get it there!

In the third grade my son’s class put on a Thanksgiving program. Imagine my pride at having him appear as both a turkey and a rapper and read the essay he wrote about being thankful for his education. We value overachievement here. As it turned out, he wasn’t the only one expected to perform.

Two weeks before the show, I received a note from the music teacher saying that because my child had been chosen to be a turkey, I needed to cover a white t-shirt completely with feathers. Use a hot glue gun, it said. The tone had a distinct air of condescension: if you’re not able to make the costume, please call the music teacher. That’s a dare if I’ve ever heard one.

I’m not too interested in competing with other moms via my child, but I’m also not one to back down from a challenge. I skipped off like a good mommy to Hobby Lobby where an entire aisle is devoted to feathers. These are not cheap, especially the turkey-appropriate colors like brown, white, and black. How badly could a fuchsia and chartreuse turkey stand out from the crowd anyway? I compromised, buying one packet of the good feathers and a value pack for filler.

I also bought a natural colored t-shirt because I figured that might make up for my feather scrimping. At least if I ran out of feathers he’d have a turkey-ish color showing through. I bought glue sticks and said a little prayer that my trusty glue gun still worked, because no way was I buying another one of those. At the register I smirked at my ability to get out of there for under ten bucks.

That night I waited impatiently for the glue to melt in the barrel of my ancient gun and started sticking. I attached a few feathers to my own shirt and burned off some fingerprints, but overall I rocked the turkey shirt. After about a half hour, I called it good, even if there were a few spots of natural showing through.

Judging from the feedback I received the next day after the dress rehearsal, I should have kept going. 

“You forgot the sleeves,” a neighbor girl noticed. As if turkey legs have feathers. Sheesh.

My son, ever the encourager, pointed out that one kid wore a plain t-shirt. Plain! I’d done a better job than at least one mom. That was good enough for me. 

On show day, as I took my seat in the cafeteria, tens of turkeys graced the bleacher stage. Some of them looked like Vegas acts and others looked like, well, kids being forced out in public with feathers glued to their shirts. My son may not have been the most attractive fowl, but his ‘Turkey Boogie’ blew the others’ out of the barnyard and his essay proved that he is one smart bird.

I just feel sorry for all those competitive moms whose kids had no t-shirt showing through.

Smartass Family Politics

At breakfast the other day my daughter was being especially sweet to me. In an effort to extend this kind of treatment to my husband and son I told her how much I loved her, my sweet little sweetie pie.

“At least someone around here is nice to me,” I said.

“Sure,” my husband said. “You should hear her when we get in the car. She’s real nice then. That’s when she really makes fun of you.”

Not wanting to break the spell, my daughter launched a protest. “No I don’t. Daddy’s just saying I’m a bad person.”

I didn’t know how we’d gotten from teasing to morals. “Oh no, Sweetie,” I said. “He’s not. Besides, making fun of someone doesn’t make you a bad person.”

My son, who’d stayed out of it up to this point, let out one of those puffs of air that says oh-give-me-a-break-would-you?

“Mom,” he said. “You’re just saying that because you make fun of a LOT of people.”

This is the part where I stopped talking.

When You Want to Run Away

This is the September edition of the print version of After the Bubbly, an award winning family humor column. If you’d like to see it in a local publication, let me know and I’ll do my best to get it there!

When I was a kid I never wanted to run away and join the circus. Now that I’m older, I get it. Although it’s not my dream to tame lions or become the bearded lady, I understand the lure of escaping to some exotic life where the tightrope you walk is literal as opposed to the figurative balancing act we do here in the world of diapers, homework, and ear infections.

My mother tells a story about her mother, who would tell her children that if they didn’t behave she would run off to Tucumcari, New Mexico and they’d never find her. To which my mother calmly responded that they most certainly would find her – in Tucumcari, New Mexico.

Mom shouted similar warnings to my brother and I as kids. She would run away and never return. We didn’t have reason to believe her empty threats, but then again, you never knew. Moms are crazy like that. Our mothers and grandmothers didn’t mess with balance – work-life or otherwise. They didn’t have spa days or antidepressants or Oprah. They just woke up in the morning and did what needed doing. And if they lost it once in a while, well, they were entitled.

Genetics notwithstanding, I have yet to issue such a circus-running-off sort of threat. I prefer short periods of actual escape to fantasies of long-term flight. Running off for weekend writing classes and conferences recharges my depleted mama batteries and gives me strength to face the days of infinite laundry and incessant requests for Nintendo DS cartridges. I schedule my respites months in advance and write them on the calendar – in pen. In Sharpie even.

My retreats may not be as exciting as swallowing swords, but for me, some quality time with a spiral notebook and a half decent pen is usually enough to return equilibrium. And if it’s not, I run off to yoga class, where we make like a tree and stand on one leg, or rest our thighs upon our biceps. That’s balance. These are the things that keep me from losing it.

So next time you’re tempted to run away and join the circus, remember that you can juggle fire in your own kitchen and rig up a tightrope in your backyard. Just make sure you wait until after you’ve finished all that other balancing  – you know, the checkbook, the food groups, and the quality time spent with each child.

And if you hear of any writers’ meetings in Tucumcari, New Mexico, don’t come looking for me.

Lela Davidson is a Northwest Arkansas writer seeking to balance life, love, and laundry with a husband, two children, a dog, and an ever-changing number of fish. Read more at www.afterthebubbly.com.

Parenting Dilemma #8754: Cell Phones

Just after school got out last spring I had this discussion with some other parents of soon-to-be sixth graders regarding cell phones. Because I had pretty much made up my mind that I was NOT going to get my son a phone that he clearly did NOT need, I was pretty outspoken on the ridiculousness of the whole idea. That’s just my way among friends after a margarita and I’m not apologizing for it.

“You’ll change your tune,” they said. 

“What if he misses the bus?” they questioned.

“It’s really for YOUR convenience,” they assured.

So okay, yeah, whatever. I am now in the market for a cell phone. But I still think it’s ridiculous. Sort of like the 50-something inch TV that’s starting to look small to me now. Back to phones – let’s take a little trip down memory lane, shall we?

Back in the olden days we didn’t have cell phones. We didn’t even have cordless! All phones were attached to a wire and if you thought you might need to make a call you carried a quarter in your pocket for a payphone. If you were at school, you used the office phone.

Back in the olden days if you missed the bus you didn’t call anyone. You walked home.

Back in the olden days if you wanted to have a private conversation with your friend you had to stretch out the phone cord and hope your mom didn’t detach it from the phone while you were hiding behind your closed bedroom door down the hall. Unless of course you had a phone in your room, in which case you had to know your parents were listening in from the kitchen.

And back in the olden days we didn’t have our own secret text language that our parents couldn’t figure out. We had to be clever and make plans while they weren’t listening or watching. Whatever, Dad – no, you did NOT know were were ’sneaking’ out the sliding glass door.

We didn’t have rollover minutes and faves and unlimited texting. It’s actually a miracle our thumbs didn’t fall off – like the vestigial tail –  from lack of use.

Not in the Frommer’s Guide to NYC With Kids

About a month ago we took our first trip to New York City. We stayed in a great location in the financial district, which on the weekend turned out to be surprisingly low-key and family friendly. 

On our first night in the city – a Saturday – we took a tour of the harbor and ate overpriced pasta on the pier. Afterwards we discovered the waterfront of Battery Park City, an area full of frisbee, dogs, and strollers. My Frommer’s Guide to New York City With Kids had highlighted the playground just two blocks from our hotel as a key perk. It didn’t disappoint.

Our kids jumped, climbed, and slid down the fireman’s pole with the real city kids while my husband and I found a bench to relax and keep an eye on them. With the sun setting, kids laughing, and dogs barking, we felt at home. Just like a couple of locals.

“I could totally live here,” I told  my husband.

Three very cool teenaged girls - the kind you might see on one of those reality shows I’m too old to know the name of – approached the playground equipment. The tallest, longest-haired, hottest-bodied of the three immediately grasped the pole directly in front of us and began to demonstrate to her friends how to work it. Twirling, sliding, grinding - clearly, she had been practicing.

My husband squirmed and averted his eyes while I searched my pockets for ones.

The closest thing we have to this sort of free entertainment in the suburbs is when one of our drunken friends hosts one of those parties where you’re supposed to buy your own personal stripper pole at the end and install it in your bedroom where your children certainly would never have the curiosity to ask hey mom, why’re you hanging off that pole? Though I have never personally been to one of those parties, I have heard stories from people who were sober enough to remember the evening’s events.

And to my friend who actually had one of these built into her new house from the upstairs down into the laundry room. Sure it’s for the kids to slide down. Mmhmm. That’s why the laundry room has a chaise lounge and a deadbolt.

It’s not for me to say how people do or do not relate to metal objects. I just wanted you to know that the Frommer’s Guide doesn’t list everything.

My Favorite Funny Mom Blogs

I have finally gotten around to adding some links to my new blogroll. (Down there, on the right.) Go for a laugh and let them know you found them here on After The Bubbly!

Crazy Texas Mommy manages to mock the Stepford moms and the tatted granola parents at her kids meet the teacher nights. Sure, but did she piss off the office staff too? She still has a little to learn from this PTA mom.

Wendi Aarons makes me laugh out loud every time, but especially with this ode to back tats. And reminds me why I have no ink.

Jessica Bern is trying to survive single motherhood, her family of origin, and dating the under-employed. Now if only she could find her keys.

Okay – I promise to add more soon. These are my favorites.

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