Archive for the ‘humor’ Category

13 Feb

Teaching Kids About Relationships (or How to Avoid Talking Directly About Sex)

Posted by I suck as a parent in boys, children, family, humor, kids, motherhood, parenting, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

I didn’t realize that conversations about the birds and the bees would continue long after my initial “this is how babies are made and no, it’s nothing like a chicken” talk that I had with my kids. I really thought that you have “the talk” and never speak of such things again. But with two teenaged boys I’ve come to appreciate the importance of continuing a dialogue—especially when one of those teens is dating.

So, in honor of Valentine’s Day, I’ve decided to share some relationship advice with my kids (and you). It’s either that or let my kids get their information from TV, movies and a bunch of their friends who also have no idea how to have a healthyish relationship.

Find my 5 Steps For a Successful Marriage at Manilla and on Yahoo Finance:

https://www.manilla.com/blog/5-steps-for-a-successful-marriage/

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/5-steps-successful-marriage-154545486.html

4 Feb

The BM* Phenomenon

Posted by I suck as a parent in children, family, humor, kids, motherhood, parenting, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

Has this ever happened to you?

You hear a word or you come up with an idea and suddenly that word or idea is EVERYWHERE!**  You think it’s some kind of sign – it must be – because what are the chances that you would come across an article or see something on television that addresses the very point that you were just contemplating!

It kept happening to me this past week. Was it the universe answering all of my questions or was it just a coincidence??

You decide…

  1. Last week, over breakfast, my younger son and I were discussing the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, and I mentioned that I would have had such a dull life if I hadn’t gotten married and had children. Cut to two hours later at the health club when this line flashed across one of the TV screens:

“You will never have the time, energy, freedom or mobility to be exceptional if you have a husband and kids.”

Hmm…

That was a quote from blogger, Amy Glass, an unmarried woman without children, who wrote her opinion about how married women with children are failures. Apparently the universe was telling me that I will NEVER be exceptional because I got married and had kids, but does that mean that I will also have a dull life?

2. Later that day I started writing a piece about my younger son who, I’ve decided, really needs to lighten up. As he’s “matured” he has lost his devilish spark. His teenage snarkiness and insecurities have dulled the twinkle in his eye and, EVERYTHING is embarrassing to him – if I dance around the kitchen, even if no one can see me, he is mortified. And he used to be the one to break into song and dance on the street.

I actually typed out this sentence: my younger son has lost his joie de vivre. Shortly after writing that sentence I took a break to read a couple of emails and scroll through some posts and I read this piece: “6 Qualities Kids Need to Succeed — and One They Don’t”. And, what was the number one quality? That’s right: joie de vivre!

What are the chances??

Was this another coincidence or was the universe telling me that I need to get my kid to dance in the street and sing at the top of his lungs—embarrassment be damned?!

3. A short while later I was having a discussion with a friend of mine about how, everyday, there is a new formula for raising successful children. And, I mentioned, that I was finally ready to embrace the whole Tiger Mom approach even it was so contrary to encouraging a joy of living in kids. Lo and behold, the next article I read was, “What Drives Success?” in the New York Times, co-written by…Amy Chua, aka The Tiger Mom!

Uncanny! Was this supposed to be my blueprint for success?

4.  And finally, in a moment that was clearly more Tiger Mom and less joie de vivre, I was yelling at my oldest son about his first semester final grades. Not the non-stop, berating kind of yelling, but a lecture IN A REALLY LOUD VOICE. I have no idea what got into me because a) he’s a senior and his college applications are done so there isn’t much that I can do about it and b) he doesn’t care because he is a second semester senior and his college applications are done and there isn’t much he can do about it. When I finally came up for air he turned to me and said, “You know, yelling doesn’t help. It never has.”

In a huff, I stomped off towards the kitchen and there, sitting on the counter, was a neatly folded copy of the Wall Street Journal with an illustration of a woman yelling at a child bearing a headline that screamed at me: “Damage Control: Talking to Your Child After You Yell.”

A sign?! I wasn’t sure until…

I checked my twitter account after I read the article and saw this tweet from Today Moms: “STOP YELLING! To make kids listen, Dr. Phil says, try a whisper”.

I admit I was starting to get a little paranoid. I was beginning to wonder if I was part of an experiment where I was being video-taped and someone was intentionally feeding me information via the Internet to get a reaction (yes, I do watch too much television, thank you for asking).

What do you think? Is the universe speaking to me or is it a sign that I should just stop reading?

*Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. What did you think it stood for??

**The phenomenon, in case you are interested, is called the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, or “frequency illusion” which is the illusion that something which has recently come to your attention suddenly seems to appear with higher frequency shortly thereafter.

26 Nov

On Your Mark, Get Set, Celebrate

Posted by I suck as a parent in boys, children, family, humor, kids, motherhood, parenting, Thanksgiving, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

I am one half of an inter-faith couple—the lapsed Greek-Orthodox Christian half, while my husband makes up the Jewish half. What does that mean?

It means that December is a very long month.

We celebrate all of our respective holidays, so this year, in addition to hearing Christmas music on the radio that began around Halloween and negotiating packed shopping malls long before Thanksgiving, we also have eight days of Hanukkah to celebrate—in November. I’m going to be burnt out by Christmas; that’s too long for me to stay festive.

But I’m trying.

To begin, I will start with sharing a smattering of things that I am grateful for this Thanksgiving.

I would like to say that the things I am grateful for are all appropriately Thanksgiving-esque, but they’re not. Not that I’m not grateful for my health and my family and electricity and health insurance because I really, really am. I am the person who walks around waiting for the other shoe to drop because I can’t believe how much good stuff I have in my life and I’m thankful for all of it. But, I’m also really grateful for the inane stuff—like wine and popcorn for dinner when no one else is home.

It really is about the little things…

  1. I am thankful that my husband sucks at this parenting gig as much as I do because I know that I’m not alone.
  2. (This should really be 1a but…) I am thankful that my husband knows that he sucks at being a parent and doesn’t look at me with disdain when I do something stupid.
  3. I am grateful (and a little amazed) that my sons’ friends don’t mind hanging out at our house and chatting with me especially when I am wearing the same sweatshirt that I’ve worn for four straight days—and they’ve noticed.
  4. I am secretly grateful for the Xbox or PlayStation on days when I want to take a catnap on the couch and I know my boys will be glued to the screen in the basement for a good hour…or three.
  5. I am thankful that I have a 5-year-old dog, not a puppy, and that my kids are in their teens. I mean, I love puppies – who doesn’t – but I don’t like training puppies and I hate waking up at 3 am to let them out. Sort of like waking up with babies. I have truly loved every stage of my kids’ growth (even the terrible-twos, threes and fours) but it’s kind of awesome to have kids who can carry their own luggage through the airport, talk to me about something they read in the newspaper, and watch movies with me that aren’t animated.
  6. I am grateful that my 13-year-old finally started showering every day. Now if he would just pick up his towel from the floor…
  7. I am grateful for Netflix and Hulu streaming. How else would I be able to spend hours on the couch bonding with my boys over Psych and 24 reruns?
  8. I am so thankful that I have friends who lack a filter (one friend told me that hers “fell out somewhere” in her thirties). Who else would give me the straight dope?
  9. I am thankful that my kids are old enough to understand discretion and have yet to spill any of our family secrets.
  10. I am grateful that my kids don’t always snap at me when I try to talk to them and that, occasionally, they even laugh with me—not at me.

What are you grateful for this Thanksgiving?

Have a very Happy Thanksgiving and Gobble Tov!

27 Aug

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Posted by I suck as a parent in back-to-school, boys, children, humor, kids, motherhood, parenting, school, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , .

No, it’s not Christmas, it’s back-to-school time!!

I have always loved back-to-school time but as I’ve gotten older my reasons for loving it have changed.

When I was a kid I loved shopping for supplies and buying new fall clothes. I still get the itch to buy a nubby sweater in mid-August just so I have something new for school. And, of course, I loved buying school supplies because there is nothing better than a brand new box of 64 Crayola crayons. (Burnt Sienna and Periwinkle will always have a special place in my heart).

Then, once I had kids, back-to-school time was equally exciting because the kids were excited (and I could buy Crayola crayons again- yea!). Everything was new: New teachers! New classrooms! And, even though their friends lived within a two-block radius and they spent their days together at the park the kids still couldn’t wait to see their friend IN SCHOOL and have recess IN SCHOOL!

As the kids have grown, all of our attitudes toward back-to-school have changed.  I still buy school supplies – but they are no longer as interesting to buy. Now it’s more like a scavenger hunt. Do you know how hard it is to find a composition book filled with 4×4 graph paper? I don’t think it actually exists. I think the teacher just puts it on the list because he hates us.

And the kids don’t even look forward to school anymore. First of all, they no longer get recess which, lets face it, was always the best part of school and second, they don’t need to go to school to see their friends because they are always at my house.

Which is why I’m singing Christmas songs.

The most wonderful time of the year has to be back-to-school time because I get my house back – at least from Sunday night through Friday afternoon.

Don’t get me wrong; I like that my kids have their friends over but there are times when I would really, really (really) like to put on my pajamas at 8:00 pm and sit on my family room couch within striking distance of the fridge.

We have a basement but it’s not very large so the 15-20 kids who end up at my house are usually sprawled on my family room couch. Even if they are in the basement I don’t want them to come upstairs to find me in my Mickey Mouse pajama top dipping into a box of cereal with a white wine chaser.

Some things are really best done privately.

The problem isn’t just that these kids are at my house all night. It’s that our youngest has his friends over from the time he wakes up until dinner, when his older brother’s friends are just arriving.

You are probably wondering why I just don’t kick them out – tell them to find someone else’s house to hang out in.

Then you are clearly not the parent of teenagers.

I want them here because I know where they are and who they are with. If I kick them out, even once, I’m afraid they will end up at the house where no one strolls through the kitchen casually making eye contact to check for dilated pupils or smelling for beer and tequila.

And, so, I put up with the inconvenience of eating popcorn (and sometimes dinner) in my bed with my comfy clothes on—but no pajamas—and I patiently wait for the “Hap, Happiest Season of All”: Back to School.

2 Aug

On My Next Family Trip – I Leave My Family Behind

Posted by I suck as a parent in boys, children, family, humor, kids, motherhood, parenting, Summer travel, Uncategorized.

My family is leaving for a two-week trip to Greece tomorrow so naturally I have been on the computer all morning trying to find a way to shorten the trip and fly home early.

No one really wants to go on this trip – which would have been nice to know before we booked it – but that would have been too easy. Here are some of the complaints I’ve heard so far:

–       “It’s going to be soooooo hot.”

–       “My friends are doing all these cool things while I’m gone, like camping and salsa dancing” (salsa dancing? seriously?)

–       “I need to talk to my girlfriend and the internet will be spotty.”

–       “It sounds boring – why couldn’t we go to Italy instead; they have a gladiator school?”

–       “Aren’t there riots there?”

I don’t necessarily want to go either, but I’ve been to Greece so it’s not like I need to see it. I just thought it was time for my kids to explore their roots.

I am a 100% first-generation Greek and I haven’t been to Greece in over 20 years.  My husband and my kids have never been to Greece – they’ve never met my cousins or met my aunts and uncles who are the last of my father’s siblings and are not going to be around much longer.

Besides, I thought my kids would want to go to Greece. They LOVE Greek Mythology! The Percy Jackson books sparked my kids love of reading so I figured Greece would be exciting for them.

Apparently, seeing the actual Temple of Poseidon does not trump going to a Chicago Cubs baseball game with friends.

I should have known better.

As I lay in bed last night trying to figure out an alternate plan for this vacation I had an epiphany: I don’t need to take my kids on any more of our extravagant vacations. They can get to all these places one day on their own.

Seriously, what have I been thinking?

My kids like to travel (usually) and it’s become the only guaranteed family time we can grab—no friends, no sports—so I like the idea of taking a family vacation but really, do I need to fly them to a different continent? They would be happy going to Disney.

I don’t even know if my youngest remembers going to London and Paris when he was seven-years-old or if he even remembers traveling to Australia a couple of years ago (hands-down, the greatest vacation ever!) So, although I like to say that I’m taking my kids on these trips so they can see the world, it’s so I can see the world…and not go to Disney.

My parents didn’t take me on exotic vacations when I was a kid. Although my trips to Greece sound exotic, those vacations were not filled with days of swimming in crystal clear water and hiking amid the beautiful scenery. They involved sitting in my uncle’s flat in Athens listening to my parents catch up with my relatives.

Crazy fun for a kid; let me tell you.

So when I plan trips with my kids, I try to include all of these great activities that they will enjoy just so they can have these great vacation memories…that they won’t remember anyway!

So screw it. No more planning “teen friendly” vacations. No more working around their school and sports schedules. Besides, I can cut the cost of these vacations in half if I leave the two kids home.

And by 75% if I leave my husband at home.

But that’s a blog for another day…

10 Jul

I Left My Baby On a Train!

Posted by I suck as a parent in boys, children, family, humor, kids, letting go, motherhood, parenting, train travel, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , .

Ok, I didn’t actually leave my baby on a train. It was my 13-year-old and I didn’t leave him anywhere; I put him on a commuter train heading for the safety of camp in the northern suburbs of Chicago.

Still, as the train pulled away from the station, it sure felt like I placed my newborn on the train and let him go.

It was like that Subaru commercial with the dad who is giving his car keys to his older daughter but instead of a mature teenager all he sees is a little girl in the driver’s seat.

What was I thinking??

Even my husband (he of the “let’s send our kids to summer camp for eight weeks and not have any communication with them” mindset) couldn’t believe that I let our son take the train! WTF?? I thought he would see this as a huge step toward independence.

It didn’t help that I kept replaying scenes from movies over and over in my head as I drove home from the train station.

Have you seen the movie, Source Code? The Jake Gyllenhaal movie where the northbound commuter train in Chicago explodes over and over again? Yes, that scene kept popping up.

Followed very closely by the scene from the movie, Unstoppable, where Chris Pine and Denzel Washington are desperately trying to stop a train from hurtling off the edge of the train tracks as it races toward a sharp bend in the tracks. (Clearly I have to stop watching late night television).

I fretted for a while, wondering if he actually made it to camp then realized, if there really was a problem, I would have gotten a call from the counselor who meets my son and his friend at the train every morning (or at least I would have seen something on the morning news, right?).

Then it hit me: what I was most afraid of when I put him on that train is not that he would end up as the victim of some crazy Hollywood movie plot; it was that he wouldn’t need me anymore.

The more independent my “baby” gets the less he will need me…and then he will be gone.

With my 17-year-old just a year away from leaving for college (and basically gone most of the time already) my youngest is the only one I have left to take care of (unless you count my husband and the dog and my 17-year-old when he is home, but you get the point).

Letting go of my 13-year-old means just that—letting go and not knowing what will happen or where he is or what he is doing. It’s scary…

…and, yet, surprisingly easy to get used to.

Let me explain.

The first couple of days I walked him down to the platform and admonished him to stay behind the yellow line. I waited for his friend to meet him but not for the train to actually show up (I watched for that from the bridge, out of his line of sight).

By the third day I found the walk down to the platform to be unnecessary. His friend will show up, I reasoned. Besides, it’s not like he wanted to sit and chat with me while we waited.

photo

He can’t get away fast enough

Day Four:

My alarm goes off at 6:45 am and my first thought is: why can’t he just ride his bike to the train?

What a difference four days make…

12 Jun

Parenting is Like Your Senior Year in High School

Posted by I suck as a parent in boys, children, family, homework, humor, kids, motherhood, parenting, senioritis, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

Do you remember suffering from senioritis as a student: those final weeks when you couldn’t wait for high school/college/grad school to end so you could get on with the rest of your life?

I think I’m suffering from the parenting equivalent.

I know that unlike high school/college/grad school, the parenting gig doesn’t end (as my cousin once said to me “once you have kids you always have kids”) but the apathy that I have been feeling towards my parental duties is highly reminiscent of those days when I could not bring myself to finish another study guide or research paper.

Sure, eventually I would slog through the notes and the reviews and the essays in school, but I remember doing so with no enthusiasm and wondering when the drudgery would end.

Kinda how I feel about parenting right now.

I swear if I have to pack another lunch/drive another carpool/sign another form, I’ll lose my mind.

Which is why I have not been able to write a single blog about how I’ve sucked as a parent, because everything I’ve done kinda sucks.

The other day my 13-year-old’s dinner consisted of a Frappuccino from Starbucks, some Oreos and a large bag of Sun Chips (at least it was the veggie kind). He may have had a cheese stick, too, but I don’t remember…I was too busy reading People magazine.

I couldn’t even bring myself to yell at my 17-year-old for slacking off on his finals! He and his girlfriend were “studying” for physics and I heard a great deal of laughing. Laughing! Physics is not something to laugh about – unless you are on a roller coaster – and yet they were giggling and I knew that nothing was getting done. I could not muster up one “Have you learned anything yet??!!” because I was catching up on episodes of Lost.

The good news is, in school, if you succumb to the effects of senioritis there could be real consequences. A recent New York Times post listed the potential pitfalls of slacking off as a senior in high school: losing your spot, having to explain yourself to the administration or worse, losing a scholarship.

Thankfully, for me, the consequences of my slacking off are far less dire. First, my children are old enough so they really can fend for themselves. Eventually even my carb-loving youngest child would scramble an egg or eat some yogurt. Heck, he might even be motivated enough to get his brother to take him out to eat! And my oldest would eventually suck it up and do his homework, probably even more so because I’m not nagging him.

I also have a husband who helps pick up my slack, as long as it has nothing to do with talking to our kids about sex or telling our 17-year-old that he can’t have his girlfriend in his bedroom – at which point he will run away and is no help at all.

I assume this monotony will eventually end and be replaced with exciting parenting duties like driving to-and-from camp and planning college visits. Until then I will stock the fridge with heat-and-serve dinners and take the lock off my older son’s door. And, finish watching Lost. I only have four more seasons to go…

19 Apr

Go Away*

Posted by I suck as a parent in family, humor, kids, motherhood, parenting, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

“I can’t wait to go to college!” my 17-year-old proclaimed.

Finally, I thought. I was so excited that I completely ignored the fact that he finished the sentence with: “…so I can get away from YOU!”

All I heard was HE CAN’T WAIT TO GO TO COLLEGE!

Whatever the driving force may be, I don’t care – he wants to leave!

I was worried for a while that I was making his life too easy and he would never want to go to college. He doesn’t need to set an alarm clock because I happily (?!) climb up and down the stairs every morning for at least a half-an-hour begging him to get out of bed. He’s never had to make his own dinner (if food is not prepared he’ll graze until he can get the car keys and go out to eat); and his sheets and clothes are (surprise!) always clean when he needs them.

Why would he want to leave?? (And more importantly, what is wrong with me??)

I know most adults would never leave a place where they are catered to, waited on and downright worshipped, so why would a teen?

But I have finally hit on the best way to get your kids to leave: annoy them, harass them, remove their bedroom door if you have to, whatever it is just do it and let them move out.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my kids. But I really, really, really want them to go to college – preferably a college that requires a 3-4 hour plane ride from home. Of course I will miss them but I will see them again – there are lots of breaks from school where they can come home, sleep late, visit their friends and borrow our car. Breaks that are just long enough to remind me that I want them to become productive members of society so they can move into their own homes and do their own laundry.

When we first started discussing college with our son, I didn’t really think that I would need to sell him on the idea of going away. It’s college! It’s freedom! It’s fun! But he just didn’t seem to grasp that.

We wanted to show him college students having fun (no, not playing beer pong or doing shots off of a co-eds belly) so we sent him to a college football game. Take my advice: If you are trying to sell your kid on the idea that college kids have SO MUCH FUN then don’t let him go to a football game on a rainy 43–degree day with his dad, uncle and grandfather and make him sit in the stands until the end of the game even though the final score is 83-10.

He won’t even look at a Big 10 school now.

We tried other tactics like stopping at a college that “just happened to be on our way” to our destination and scheduling college visits with his friends but nothing motivated him…until we demanded that he give up his phone at 11:00 pm every night.

Now he can’t wait to get away. Who knew?

I have to wield this new power wisely though. I don’t want to tighten our rules so much that we find him climbing out the window in the middle of the night to flee from the tyranny. No, I will pull out the demands only when I find him getting a little too comfortable in our home like when he plops himself on a stool at the counter and says “breakfast,” or when he’s out of clothes and asks me when I’m going to finish his laundry.

Then all bets are off…

 

*I’ve been holding on to this piece for the past couple of days because it seemed contrary to what I was feeling since the bombing incidents in Boston. This blog post is about wanting my kid to “Go Away” but on Monday I was prepared to have both of my kids live with me forever if it meant I could protect them from random acts of violence. But with a few day’s distance I remembered that no matter where my kids are I will worry about them. It doesn’t matter if they are running down the stairs too quickly at home or driving home from college, I will worry. If I tried to protect them from everything I wouldn’t allow them to go to the movies or a shopping mall without me and they wouldn’t be allowed to participate in largely populated events, teach children in elementary schools or even attend college. And those are only the events of the past year and a half. And so, it is with that in mind, that I can say my kid will leave home and I will worry but it is the way it’s supposed to be.

10 Mar

Happy Birthday to Me?

Posted by I suck as a parent in children, family, humor, kids, motherhood, parenting, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

Yesterday was my older son’s 17th birthday and I spent the day shopping…for me.

I hadn’t picked out a gift for my son yet and yes, it was on my mind as I lunched with a couple of friends and meandered through over-priced niche stores, but it didn’t stop me from shopping for me. And why would it?

The more I thought about it, the more sense it made to me that I should be getting gifts for bringing life to my child. Why wasn’t my husband buying me presents to thank me for giving birth to—and raising—his oldest child? Sure, he did that after our son was born but why stop there??

And grandparents? Where were my gifts?  Shouldn’t they be showering me with gifts as well? My contribution to this endeavor has brought them 17 years of joy beyond anything they could possibly have imagined and yet, I have never been appropriately thanked…with presents, that is.

The day didn’t start out as a shopping trip for me. As I set out in the morning I was actually a bit obsessed with finding my kid the perfect gift (especially since the day was upon us and I was empty-handed).

But when I found myself at the perfume counter at Barney’s, I knew I was no longer shopping for him. Yes, I made a good showing of trying to find him some after-shave but Barney’s doesn’t carry Axe and I wasn’t really going to spend fifty bucks on aftershave for a 17-year-old.

I’m not suggesting that you skip your child’s birthday celebration and make it all about you. No, your kid should have gifts and cake and celebrate with friends and family.

But raising kids is a thankless job—we’ve all heard that before—and it doesn’t really have to be. If no one is going to thank you why not give yourself a little treat on your child’s birthday. Why not spend the afternoon celebrating with friends – preferably at a nice lunch followed by a Sprinkles Chai Latte cupcake?

It really doesn’t have to cost anything, though. It could simply be the gift of time: time to read a book, or take a nap or go for a walk…but new perfume doesn’t hurt either.

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