Author Archives: Naptimewriting

Open Letter to Alfie Kohn

Posted on by

Dear Mr. Kohn,

I finally read Unconditional Parenting, which was recommended more than a year ago by a mom I really dig. At the time I was too busy to read it, and we were doing pretty dang well with the whole “respect kids don’t dictate to them; give them choices and empathy” stuff. I prioritized other work because I didn’t need your book at that moment.

Except that I did, because pretty soon after I put your book in my online shopping cart as a reminder to eventually read it, he turned Three.

All our parenting techniques went out the window as we fought to figure out how to get through each day. We started listening to those voices from family and friends who told us to take a harder line; as he got more out of control, we tried harder to control him. We tore out our hair and bookmarked the gypsies’ “going rates” page, and I cried almost every night in exhaustion and rage and terror at the creature who replaced the child we had parented so carefully. We drew the boundaries more tightly and he acted, predictably, as though the walls were closing in on him.

We barely made it out of Three alive. It took everything we could muster to survive. But unfortunately it meant we went from working with to doing to our son. And now that we’re coming out we know we’ve lost our way.

So thank you for the reminder that kids who are given firm rules and punished into following them misbehave just as often as children who are given respect and choices. And that those children who are treated as decent humans turn out to be just that.

Thank you, too, for the reminder that focusing on our long-term goals means both boys need to make as many decisions as possible now so they’re practiced in making good decisions later. That if we want to learn to influence them, we can’t coerce them. Not just because it’s demoralizing but because it doesn’t work.

Thank you for making me write down what I value so I’d remember that if I want these young humans to grow up and stand up for what’s right—to question repressive rules and fight for what’s important—they have to do it now. Gulp. With our structures (which are now more reasonable, generally created with his participation, imposed only when necessary, and flexible).

I feel more in control now that I’m not controlling. My son feels less caged and cornered and is a lot nicer to be around.

And we’ve redoubled our efforts to find an elementary school that refuses to create an environment where punishment and reward teaches kids only to obey, to do things for what their actions will get them rather than how their actions affect others.

Thank you for getting us back on track toward unconditional love and respectful, flexible, mindful parenting.

—The Calmer, Gentler NaptimeWriting Family

P.S. Dearest readers: don’t worry. The snark doled out weekly for most of the residents of this planet remains in all its bloggy goodness. There are only two mushy little dudes who get the aforementioned awesome me. The rest of you get the worn little nubbin that’s left after all the patient, respectful, engaged, long-term-focused defaulting to yes stuff.

Step off. Now.

Posted on by

At the deli counter of an outrageously overpriced foodie market, a snooty, overprocessed, and meticulously coiffed senior citizen looked at me in horror. Butter was strapped into his Moby Wrap, facing forward, and wiggling as though the beet salad in front of him were the best thing he’d ever seen.

[As always, I have no financial interest in mentioning a product I like. They have no idea who I am, I didn’t get a free product, I owned it before I began blogging, and I gain nothing from telling you Butter practically lives strapped to me in this wrap.]

She, the woman of the excessive care about her appearance, says, “Oh! He’s drooling” in the tone one might use to exclaim, “Oh! He’s seizing!” or “Oh! He’s choking and turning blue!”

Drooling.
Drooling. Small baby whose mouth never closes, whose teeth might or might not be razoring through his gums, and who genuinely thinks that at any moment he will be allowed to take the WHOLE world and stick it in his mouth, just to see if he can find any hidden nipples anywhere.

“Oh! He’s drooling,” she stammers. I believe she expects me to do something, like protect the market’s concrete floor from his sulfuric acid baby saliva.

“Yeah, he does that. He’s a baby,” I say with a blank look. I refuse the energy it takes to be polite, smile, or educate this idiot of leisure about how normal, unavoidable, and uneventful drooling is for a freaking four-month-old baby.

Today is not a screw-with-me kind of day. I know how to be polite. I just don’t want to. Because I’m tired of stupid people. Really, really, really I am. Of course he’s drooling, you dolt. And you just wasted one of the potentially delightful moments of my day. The choosing of brightly colored and tasty foodstuffs makes me happy. So shut your goat cheese hole and let me do my day.

On a brief walk, earlier the same day, a talkative nurse and her wheelchair-bound charge said hi to me, cooing at the delightful bundle sleeping on my chest. We talked a bit, and when I figured out that Jean, the seated neighbor, is blind, I took off Butter’s socks so she could feel his feet. And before that, talking with a Dad who’d had a rough morning with his children, I offered a sympathetic ear and some mildly amusing faux advice.

I’m not a nasty person by nature. I’m a big old softy. But I’m sick of stupid people.

“Oh,” she says the droolophobe. “How old?”
“Almost a year,” I answer, rounding up to a “shut the f— up” answer.
She looks shocked. I don’t care.

Screw her. She was probably ordering something with black truffle oil. And since she’s not sad or blind or cooing over my baby, she can suck it.

Next time, instead of organic hand santizer in a spray bottle, I’m carrying a vial of baby spit to atomize onto the world’s most daft.

Empathy is hearsay, your Honor

Posted on by

As much as I knew that my words would come back to haunt me, I didn’t realize how they would be twisted.

P: Mom, why wasn’t Emily at school today?
M: I don’t know.
P: Why not?
M: Honey, I don’t know. I’m not in Emily’s family and I don’t live in their house so I don’t know what they are doing today.

This discussion led him, somehow, months later to:

P: I took Casey’s shoes today at school and ran away with them.
M: Oh. Why?
P: Because someone else took my hat and ran away.
M: And didn’t that make you sad?
P: Yup. Sad and angry and frustrated.
M: So why would you do that to someone else?
P: Because someone did it to me.
M: Well, if taking and running made you feel sad and frustrated, don’t you think Casey felt that, too?
P: Mom, I’m not Casey. I don’t know his feelings. I don’t live in his house. He might feel anything at all and I wouldn’t know.

Okay, counselor. Rest your case and get off of mine.

I did not know that.

Posted on by

Everyone says babies are different, and I willingly grant that. But I did not know that some babies wake up and play, rather than scream every morning and naptime.

I also did not know some babies actually want to be put down. Peanut never did. He was three before his feet touched the floor. Butter gets to the point where my constant moving and constant talking are too much. He actually wants to be ignored for a few minutes.

I did not know that my love for adult board games would be countered by a raging intolerance for children’s games. But that card games stand the test of four year old play: incessant requests for a game of cards have not gotten old yet. And I have yet to say no to Go Fish. That game rocks.

I also did not know that “Go Fish” can be used outside of the game context. To wit:

Me: Peanut, do you want a sandwich for lunch?
P: Go fish.
M: Tortellini?
P: Go fish

Artisan pizza attacked, film at eleven

Posted on by

Handmade Gator Pizza Wheel Lies in Wait

Then Devours Local Five-Cheese Pizza

Authorities Say Cheese-Thirsty Gator Will Strike Again...

(I had to stage the last photo because the pizza wheel is so finely machined that nothing sticks to it.)

Here’s to having a knife-making artist in the family. Glad you’re putting your education to good use, dude.

Ah, that’s how it’s gonna be…

Posted on by

Peanut got better, I got sick.
I got better, Butter got sick.
And now that sweet little pat of dairy-based lipid spread is teething, weathering a sore thigh from a painful vaccination, enduring an impressive ear infection, and tolerating then puking two nasty-flavored sugary pink medicines.

Boo. Hiss. Tears.

Hard not to dislike dirty, germy little preschoolers when your four-month-old is in pain.

It was pretty easy to keep a first, home-based, breastfed baby healthy for a whole year. It’s pretty hard to keep a second baby healthy no matter what you do.

Again I say: boo.

Now THIS I could get used to…

Posted on by

Peanut was sick today. Poor lamb. Went to school but had them call me an hour in because he wanted his Mommy. Brought him home and he spent all day on the couch, quietly, after telling me “no t.v. because I just need to settle down.”

So he ate quietly at dinner, crawled into his jammies while Butter had a bath, and waited politely for stories. Butter fell asleep during storytime, Peanut didn’t battle us over anything. After bathroom and teeth and songs, he went sweetly to bed. Butter woke up to nurse one last time before…well, before the next time…and I asked Peanut if I could nurse the baby on his bed.

Sure.

So I sang to both boys as I nursed the tiny one. I told the older boy stories about when he was a baby. I changed Butter, put him to bed, and closed the door on two adorable, sweet, quiet, sleepy, well loved children.

Internet: if this was our night every night, I would have dozens of children. I’m not saying I want easy kids, because easy kids scare me. Spunky children plus supportive family equals interesting grownups.

But seriously, I could take one of these nights every week without being worried. As it is, this is a semiannual event. At best.

Garage sale life

Posted on by

You know those yard sales where someone’s trying to convince you to buy a table with three legs, a jacket with no lining, and a great cassette collection though you have no cassette player?

Well, I’m the neighbor who keeps all that stuff in the house because it’s just embarrassing to drag it out to the lawn.

You might remember almost two years ago an adorable and indignant Peanut ruined my car stereo. It’s been hit or miss each time we’re in the car—sometimes we hear CDs or NPR and sometimes the speakers just won’t work thanks to the quarter still lodged somewhere in the CD player’s nether regions.

I’m getting fed up, though, There were weeks we heard 90% of what we wanted to. It’s now down to 25%, even with the trick Spouse devised where we Fonzie the passenger side of the dash to jiggle the quarter out of whatever contact points are blocked.

And you know what? “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me” is nothing if you hear only 25%. “This American Life” is useless if you hear one sentence out of four. And, most important, “Science Friday” might as well be “Science Monthly” since we hear almost none of it.

Bah humbug.

(btw, spell check allows Fonzie but not CDs. Proof the coders are over 40. Or knows more pop culture than punctuation rules.)

If you can’t beat ’em…laugh at ’em

Posted on by

The first rule of Parent Club is you must talk about Parent Club. The second rule of Parent Club is never laugh at them, because it will come back to haunt you.

Mom: Peanut, it’s time to get out of the bath.
P: No.
M: Yup. Time for jammies. Pull the plug, please.
P: No.
M: Peanut, you can have Dad dry you or Mom dry you. Which one?
P: Green.
[Mom and Dad both laugh. Thus begins our downfall…]

Spouse: Peanut, time to put away your toys.
P: No.
S: Let’s see who can put away faster: you or me.
P: [looks right at Spouse and pauses…] Left.

M: Peanut, let’s go for a walk.
P: No.
M: It’s a gorgeous day, Mama wants some exercise, and you can choose to bring a blueberry muffin or a sandwich. Which do you want?
P: Green.

The non-sequitors are not just for defiance, either.

S: Peanut, time to get out of the bath.
P: No.
S: If you don’t pull the plug I will lift you out of the tub. And you will be sad because you like to do it yourself. And you will be cold. And I will put on your jammies and you will be a little cold and still sad. And you will get stories and songs but you’ll still be a little sad.
P: And tomorrow I’ll still be a little sad.
S: Correct.
P: Where did we get this washcloth?

The eighth rule of Parent Club is if this is your first child in Parent Club, you HAVE to parent.

The tragedy of Netflix

Posted on by

Oh, streaming movies from Netflix is delightful. Spouse and I stream films the one or two nights a month we can find time beyond dishes and errands and food prep. And I found for Peanut both Kipper and Pingu for his movie day, thanks to the recommendations of readers who know my feelings about non-violent, non-menacing, non-commercial age-appropriate, limited-length DVDs.

Movie Day once a week means Shower Day for Mama Naptime. (Yes, that means most other days may not include showers. Show me the mother of small children who showers regularly and I’ll show you a woman with child care or a partner who is home during daylight hours.)

Movie Day with the DVD player also means Peanut gets the remote and watches, pauses, goes to the kitchen to eat a snack, comes back, watches, pauses, runs around, watches, pauses, snacks again, pauses, goes to the bathroom.

And that’s where the tale of Netflix’s wonderment goes horribly, horribly wrong. The remote does not work on streaming Kipper. Peanut is not allowed to touch the computer. Peanut cannot, therefore, stop streaming Kipper and life as he knows it comes to an end when nature calls.

P: Mommy! Mommeeeeeeee!
M: [soaped and NOT leaving the shower unless someone is on fire] Come on in here, Peanut. I know why you need me.
P: MOM! [crying] I need you. I need YOU!
M: Pea, come here.
P: [screaming, crying]
M: Peanut, I know Kipper won’t stop and I can fix it.
P: Mom, I have to go potty and Kipper won’t stop. IT WON’T STOP! [scream in rage, fear, and helplessness. piercing scream. new scream. painful scream.]
M: Peanut, come into the bathroom.
[he does, crying]
M: Honey, I know Kipper won’t stop. That makes you sad.
P: [sobbing]
M: Honey, go potty while I tell you how I’m going to fix it.
P: [sobbing louder, stis]
M: Honey, the remote doesn’t work on the computer. Kipper is playing from the Internet to the computer and the buttons you have don’t work.
P: [nodding, crying]
M: And that makes you so sad.
P: [sobs]
M: I know it’s sad, babe. You’re disappointed. But Peanut? I can fix it. I can make Kipper stop and go back.
P: [sobbing]
M: Honey, I can make Kipper go back so you don’t miss any of the new Kipper.
P: But it won’t stop.
M: Honey, I can make it stop and I can make it go back. I will fix it. You won’t miss any Kipper.
P: [crying]
M: Peanut. Take a deep breath. You’re sad. I will fix it.
P: [crying, wiping eyes]
M: I will fix it, babe.
P: [crying, washes hands, goes back to living room, and I thank heavens, again for Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. And as he continues to cry, I wonder if the empathy can stop in a while because, for crissakes, I said I could fix it and he needs only wait the ten glorious minutes I need to wash out the huge clumps of postpardum hair leaving my head in a fistful each hour of the day. ]

I rewound the playback to the exact moment he told me tragedy struck. And he watched the rest of the movie, scarred for life and terrified of ever needing to go to the bathroom again.

Thanks for the tragicomedy, Netflix.

Why Parents Hate Parenting

Posted on by

Oh, boy. There are a big steaming bundle of quotes in this New York Magazine article on the huge pile of crap that is contemporary parenting. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways:

Did someone say their emotional life is “a high-amplitude, high-frequency sine curve along which we get the privilege of doing hourly surfs”?

Yes, yes she did.

Did somebody remind us of the research that shows “Most people assume that having children will make them happier. Yet a wide variety of academic research shows that parents are not happier than their childless peers, and in many cases are less so”? Yup. Same article.

Hmm. “As a rule, most studies show that mothers are less happy than fathers, that single parents are less happy still, that babies and toddlers are the hardest, and that each successive child produces diminishing returns,” you say? Tell me more. Despite believing firmly in attachment parenting, in offering a supportive, firm, and respectful environment, despite being on top of the current child development research on how discipline means teaching and therefore must be gentle, this article sings the refrain of how much parenting sucks.

The article mentions that people seem skeptical of this data, seem to pity those “for whom” this is true. Those must be the lying liars on facebook who claim life is always a bowl of cheesy-poofs.

Or, did I mention, they’re lying liars. Before Spouse and I had Peanut, my OB said, “avoid anyone who tells you parenting is bliss, wonderfully rewarding, or a blessing. Parenting is rarely joyful. Children can be delightful. Parenting is a hot steaming bowl of stress thrown on your favorite couch. While you’re on it.”

Some people, as one researcher notes, want children and think they’ll be happy, only to find that offspring “offer moments of transcendence, not an overall improvement in well-being.” The moments of bliss are opiate. And the rest of the day is 23.5 hours of drudgery.

Because, as the article quips, as industrialization led to sheltered childhoods (rather than apprenticeships and farm labor at a young age) children “went from being our staffs to being our bosses.”

I bristle at the suggestion that it’s organizing projects and scheduling children that makes parenting difficult. Luckily, the article clarifies that it’s actively paying attention to children rather than ignoring them that is so freaking exhausting. Soccer and ballet aren’t the problem. Knowing that discipline means teaching gently and consistently, listening and responding empathetically teaches emotional maturity, attachment leads to independence, and subverting your desires to help your children become model citizens is simply way more work than any paid job.

And this parenting job sucks the life out of parents who work at home or who work outside the home. “Today’s married mothers also have less leisure time (5.4 fewer hours per week); 71 percent say they crave more time for themselves (as do 57 percent of married fathers). Yet 85 percent of all parents still—still!—think they don’t spend enough time with their children.”

Not surprisingly, those societies (I’m looking at you, Holland) that value nurturing children, that pay for a parent to stay home with babies for over a year, that support breastfeeding, that pay for good education and health care, and that offer quality childcare to all workers means parents are less exhausted, stressed, and angry. “Countries with stronger welfare systems produce more children—and happier parents.” But we’re buying Baby Einstein crap instead of lobbying for social changes that will actually produce smarter, healthier, more self assured children.

This article makes me want to shake every person pining for a child and show them that: “Children may provide unrivaled moments of joy. But they also provide unrivaled moments of frustration, tedium, anxiety, heartbreak.” Parenting is not all buttercups and rainbows. And it’s not just the vomit and the late nights and the filthy carseats. It’s soul DRAINING, emotionally WRENCHING, personally EXHAUSTING bullshit day in and day out that leaves icky stains on life.

And yet we smile for the ten seconds each hour that our children are joyful, those crazy-making little monsters for whom we sacrifice what seems like everything.

Our comments rule

Posted on by

“you had me at obstructionist. or licking, i can’t remember.” —Norm, 7/27/2009
“Norm, don’t lie. I had you at brownies.” —naptimewriting 7/27/2009

Finding the prescient comment from j over at 20-20 made me think I should go through a greatest hits of your comments. We’ve had more than 3,500 comments on 600 posts here at Naptime Writing (come on, is that all, with 54,000 views? 6%?), and here are some faves…

“I’m with my 3 year old 14 hours a day. Which explains a lot about me. Is 8am too early for a cocktail?” The Kitchen Witch, empathising with us 4/24/2009

“no one makes pica as appealing as Gabriel García Márquez” —ck from badmommymoments 10/28/2008. Sure most of our dialogue is about motherhood, but we’re all literate ‘n’ shit, too.

“I still think you need to make Pudding Day every Day!” —Faemom 6/13/2009. One of her favorite (and most compelling) rallying cries. See also 8/6/2009, 10/02/2009,

“I’ve pretty much said, “screw it” and started a therapy fund instead of a college fund for my three!” —Jenn the Great 5/08/2009 introducing what is, increasingly, my parenting philosophy

“It is surprising that we continue to procreate when it is accompanied by such crap.” —Lanita 4/05/2010. Well said.

“Maybe it’s kind of hard-ass of us, but when our kids whine and cry for things lately, we just tell them over and over that we don’t understand what they’re saying. It’s actually kind of fun sometimes (if, frankly, a little wrong) to make a big show of not understanding. “Why gracious me and mine, I so desperately want to help you get what you’re asking for, and my ears are just pricked and quivering to pick up what you’re saying, but all I hear is a high-pitched whining sound…”” —Daryl L. Houston of Infinite Zombies 2/24/2010 with one of many bits of advice commenters share that I totally plagiarize and use daily.

“:::And with the passing of time, the Bicycle that was the Basket created the world and all that was in it. The Basket created the world and the Bicycle created the world; human beings and plants and animals and peanuts created they as one.” —squadratomagico 3/17/2010 on Peanut being full of goodwill toward prostheletizers.

“You know how some names sound OK on little kids but not on adults? I think Pretend Hitting might work for a while, but then you’d have to change his name to something more adult, like…Passive Aggression or Backhanded Compliment.” —Falling 1/27/2010 on Peanut’s proposed name for Butter

“Nobody spams me. Why not? I want spam. Especially Chinese spam. But not the kind that comes in a can, thank you very much. I don’t do canned meat. Even if drizzled in cream of potato soup or sprinkled with Parmesan cheese. (Two recipes that come highly recommended by SPAM’s current website.)” —Organic Motherhood with Cool-Whip, totally beggin’ for Valentine’s Spam 2/14/2010

“#2 will be different from #1 in every way that you can imagine. and i’m sure that you can imagine.
and you, as a parent of 2 will be completely different than you were as a parent of 1. this is much harder to imagine.” —Sarah 9/26/2009 with a classic I understood at the time and understand much more now.

“The baby? He’s deliciously good. Maybe your new one will be too. Even if he/she has colic, I bet the baby will seem easier than Peanut!” —Fie Upon This Quiet Life 1/27/2010; wow, these commenters are freaking e-tarot cards.

“People tell me that when your youngest reaches some variable age (4, 6, 25), life gets a lot easier and you can enjoy having kids a bit more because you actually have some time back to yourself to keep your own individual world afloat. I really hope so, because if I look objectively at what my life has become (much as I adore and even appreciate my beautiful children and all that), it’s pretty amazingly shitty.” —Kate from katesevolution 2/4/2010 on our favorite theme at naptimewriting (other than phlebotomy and glitter)…love the kid, detest the job

“I’m just going to assume that we’re all doing the best we can.
Not to mention that maybe our finger-pointing conversations should be directed towards the fact that fathers never have these kinds of issues with each other or with themselves.
And now I will go repeat these assurances to myself as I had a horrible mommy moment last night and need to pray that my children won’t eventually stab my neighbors.” —Steel Magnolia from EverythingOverRice 5/7/2009 on mamas judging each other.

“Occasionally impatient and perhaps even inept but deep and unstoppable love trumps indifference anytime.” —the brilliant JRB 6/13/2009

“Does he have any idea how peaceful I would find it to sit at a desk in an office with grown-ups walking by to chat and no one screaming at me about invisible boo-boo’s or empty sippy cups? I think I would like it. I would.” —Country-Fried Mama 1/18/2010 on my daily fantasy

“I had this little psychic flash about you that said (1) girl and (2) march 6. Then another flash said march 3. But one or the other. ” —Ink, 7/31/2009 regarding the boy eventually born 3/23 after two full days of labor. Don’t quit your day jobs, Inky.

“Congrats again. Because Peanuts need friends.” Sarah from Momalom, 8/19/2009 on the person who Peanut says is “his best in the whole Universe.”

“It will help me be a much better Dad for Critter knowing that other people out there have acknowledged how very, very craptacular a lot of parenting really is.” Dan Summers, the DFW-lovin’ physician we dearly miss here at Naptime (he moved to Massachusetts and dropped off our radar), on this blog’s keystone post Parenting Ambivalence.

“If acting like a 4 year-old girl didn’t involve princess dresses, time-outs and chocolate restrictions, I’d behave like my daughter too. I’m afraid she’d have too much fun if I did, though. And that is unacceptable.” —ck 7/28/2009

“Women with more confidence in themselves as individuals seem to more at ease with mothering. Women that strive for perfection, pressuring themselves to balance everything perfectly – right foods, right schedule, right activities – also seem to struggle a bit more.” —Sarah from Momalom pinpointing on 6/13/2009 why I am destined to fail at this craptacular job.

“I decided that parenting requires a tremendous ability to be inauthentic…. for example, “Oh, honey… it’s okay that you had a poop accident on the carpet. It was surprising! And then you stepped in it because you were running to get me, which was a really good choice” when inside it’s more like, “Oh fucking hell no! I can’t take it any more! How THE HELL am I going to clean poop out of our lovely wool wall-to-wall carpet. That’s it… I am officially giving up. Someone else can do this.”” —Dana 8/27/2009, on another touchstone to which I cleave during the tougher moments. “Dana smiled at poop; I can do this. Dana smiled at poop; I can pretend to enjoy this. Dana smiled at poop; remember not to eat off the floor at her house.”

“I am feeling much like an indentured servant lately, and I don’t need anyone else telling me that I’m not going a good enough job at it. The kids are asleep. Partner on the phone & watching sports and, yes, I am on the computer. And thank goodness, b/c otherwise I’d be folding laundry or stewing about how much I need to do and how I don’t have the energy to do it at night after the kids go to bed when it’s the only time of the whole, impossibly long day that I have to myself.” –Jen from Momalom 5/26/2009 on why seeking grownup interaction online is important.

“Unacceptable, Unacceptable, Leroy Brown.
Most unacceptable man in the whole damn town.
More unacceptable than elderly King Kong.
Less approachable than a dog who guards the place where people dispose of useful objects they should have freecycled but were too lazy to post on Craigslist.” —MPB being sassy when I noted that Peanut learned the word “bad” to my horror and chagrin. Do *not* reinforce MPB’s behavior by laughing. I will not have my blog hijacked by people who are more clever than I am. That’s what real life is for.

“Posting my thoughts and having people actually understand them keep me sane and happy. And THAT makes me a good mom. Most days.” –Gibby from Lost in Suburban Bliss, 5/26/2009 on writing and connecting with other moms online.

“And isn’t it true that almost four is often wiser than almost forty? My kids seem better equipped for survival in the world on a regular basis.” —BloginSong 2/23/2010 Yup, they do. Wish they’d parent me for a change.

“If I had been there, I would have run over and given Treadmill Boy a wedgie on your behalf.” —Not Drowning Mother having my back 12/09/2008 against the man who torpedoed my career

“staying home with my daughters, day in, day out, can be lively and exciting when things are going well, then turn to complete shit in as short a time. then i feel like complete shit. and i don’t get any money. and nobody thinks i do anything all day. motherhood has its rewards, which are infinite and deep, and i think it has just as many setbacks and frustrations. and doing your best, assuming you’re making a real go of it, is plenty. mothers are very hard on themselves, and society is very hard on mothers.” j from 20-20 on 9/15/2008, writing pretty much the synopsis of my entire weblog in one paragraph.

“I think the reason they drive us crazy is because they *are* in fact crazy-making machines.” —Ink 7/29/2009 I repeat this in my head every single day to keep me off the ledge. Or, rather, on the ledge.

“Shortcake rounds from the grocery store are hereby nominated for eternal banishment since Kitch thinks they’re twinkie knock-offs and I am convinced they are press and stick toilet bowl cleaners before the blue color gets added, sneakily.” —jc 10/13/2009 proving that urinal cakes can be funny and non-nutritive in one comment.

“We no longer perform circumscriptions in our office. It’s very difficult to get the kids to lie still, and we kept poking them with the sharp end of the compass.
However, I do think “The Circumscribed Child” would be a great title for your novel.” —Dan 2/22/2010, mocking for me the shockingly lame vet who darkened my tenth month of pregnancy when I didn’t even have the energy to rant.

“have you also noticed that in couples skating when the guy lifts his leg over the woman’s head it looks like he’s about to crap on her? Where do they come up with this stuff?” —Phoo-D. Timeless.

“The monster likes to create his own swear words, often amazingly achieving some Spanish/English bilingual-sounding insult-like results. Current favourites are ‘panco!’ and ‘chanchudo!’” —Mama in Macondo 2/26/2010 on my new kid-safe road rage words.

“You know, at the risk of this being a love-fest for all bloggers who are at the end of their rope, I totally get my therapy here, and having compatriots in the game of borderline-insanity-from-trying-too-hard makes every overwraught word I write worth it.” naptimewriting 12/30/2008 because you readers rock (and have for at least the two years I’ve been at this nonsense).

Bolano’s 2666

Posted on by

So I read 2666 with the Infinite Summer crowd, and posted here, weekly, my favorite quotes and my growing disenchantment with the novel.

And nobody in the whole wide world noticed that I stopped reading 50 pages from the end. Just fizzled out 840+ pages into a book…and don’t know when, if ever, I’ll pick it up again.

I’m glad I engaged with Bolano’s massive undertaking but I just didn’t like the text. Some moments, sure, but they were few, far between, and underleveraged. I’ll try Savage Detective some day. After the long list of books already recommended to me, and the stuff sitting in my pile of “the second I get a chance I’m reading this.” And after I finish some journal submissions. And client work. And another novel.

Maybe in 2026.

Interview with Butter

Posted on by

Welcome, readers, to today’s feature interview: a discussion with the newest reason I can only write at naptime. Without further ado, I give you Butter.*

Me: Good morning, Butterbean.
B: Thththththeeee.
M: Really? Is that what you’re planning to do today?
B: Aaaaaaaaaaah. Glue.
M: Glue? Glue what?
B: Aaaahhhyyyyy noodle.
M: Glue noodles? That’s very crafty of you.
B: [smiles]
M: Where did you learn pasta arts?
B: Ggggggggerhard.
M: Gerhard Schroeder? Is that what he’s up to these days?
B: Aaaaaaaah. Thhhhhthhhtheeee.
M: I think it’s Angela Merkel, but a lot of world has passed me by lately.
B: Ghee.
M: That’s right, Butter. You happened.
B: Ghee.
M: Mmmm-hmmm. Clarified butter. Ghee.
B: Aaaaaaaah ghee.
M: Let’s not get too full of ourselves, here, B. You’re new.
B: Kkkkkkkkglue.
M: Right. Thanks for the course correct: onto projects. I had you scheduled for tummy time, music time, chewing stuff time, staring at shadows time, and napping, but if you want to glue, I can roll with that.
B: Ghee. Aaaaaaah ghee.
M: Yes, well, you’re cute, but let’s not go overboard. You’re a baby. Babies aren’t that interesting.
B: Aaaaaaaahhhhhyyyyyyy.
M: You are? Maybe.

*Posts such as this are why stay-at-home mom writers should not be given Internet access. I’ll probably delete it later, out of sheer embarrassment. But the fact that you read this far means at least that you’re as desperate for entertainment as I am.

Also? This is the actual conversation we had this morning, Butter and I. So now who’s a little desperate?
Oh, yeah. Still me.