Control Freak Mom

I admit it. I had three different costumes this Halloween. And I’m not including the ones I made for the kids. I personally had three. There was the Mrs. Claus, the Preppie, and the Haunted Housewife.

I mean, it’s not like I spent gadzooks of time on the last two—those were sort of quick throw-togethers when I got sick of the unwieldy, uncomfortable Santa dress. Let’s just say the fur-cuffed fashion from the North Pole is a bit toasty given the Bay Area’s balmy fall temps.

But the fact is that no matter which of the costumes I wore this Halloween, it was the Control Freak Mom that I was really rocking. On the inside at least. And you can’t blame me. It’s not like I like being Control Freak Mom, it’s more that my judgment-challenged children force me into the role.

Though I did do what I’d call an impressive job of shoving Control Freak Mom down down down and outta sight. I guess you could say I managed to control my inner control freak.

Man, I’d be soooo good at therapy.

Anyway, take the pumpkin patch preschool field trip. (God help me.) Of all ten kazillion pumpkins at her disposal my darling Paige lovingly picked a dented, scratched-up little number with no stem. No freakin’ stem AT ALL.

And I’m telling you, someone would be hard pressed to find a crappy looking pumpkin amidst all the perfectly round, fresh-skinned gourds in the place. They’re genetically engineering pristine pumpkins these days. They practically have those carving kit stencil cut-lines already on them.  Paige had to look long and hard to find THE WORST pumpkin in that epic field of pumpkin perfection.

She hugged that thing fiercely like she’d found a Cartier tank watch in a hay bale. And instead of asking her why the hell she wasn’t going to pick a GOOD pumpkin, I just smiled weakly and took her picture.

SEE what a good mother I can be?

With the girls’ costumes I also had to suppress the Perfectionist Creative Director Control Freak in me. Though Kate did well deciding to be an Olympic gold medal runner. As a veteran of the newsy-timely costume myself, I thought her choice was a strong one. (Clearly something I passed along in the genes.) She had the running shoes, the little track skirt, a race number, and of COURSE a medal. But she needed the U.S. flag around her shoulders—right?! THAT makes it the perfect costume.

She was willing to drape the thing there briefly so her Obsessive About Photo Documentation Mother could take some pics. But after our extensive shoot (which DIDN’T make us late for the Halloween parade this year, thankyouverymuch) she tossed the flag aside and said breezily, “Yeah, I’m not taking that.”

WHAT?!? It is ALL ABOUT the flag with that costume.

But you know, I just folded that damn flag up all nice and popped it back in the bag to return to Target. Bless their flexible return policies.

Paigey was a mail carrier. Though it took several semantic attempts for her to settle on that term. When asked what she was going to be she knew Mail Man was all wrong. This is a gal who freaks out when you compliment her cowboy boots. “They are cow GIRL boots,” she’ll correct. So she told folks she was being a “mail girl.” This had gender-bendy San Franciscans thinking, “A male girl? Oh, nice idea, honey.”

She had the pith helmet, the blue shorts with the marching-band-like stripe down the leg, the U.S. Postal Service light blue shirt. I even bought her a pocket chain for her mail box keys and geeky black knee socks that totally rocked. But every time Kate and I suggested she have a stuffed dog biting her in the butt Paige started to cry.

Why you would ever CRY at such a brilliant suggestion is beyond me. It’s like sometimes I don’t even think the children find obsessively perfecting their costumes the highest calling in their lives. And yet, they expect me to be seen trick-or-treating with them.

Life can be so unfair. But you know what? Since I didn’t think a crying mail girl with a stuffed dog on her ass would be very in-character, I dropped the whole matter.

Let them pick crappy pumpkins! Let them have their costumes the way THEY want them to look. Whatever.

I don’t know, maybe if my kids and I were from the same generation they’d understand me better. Of course, I realize that by nature of the fact that I’m their mother this same-generation concept is an impossible dream. I mean, I’m not an idiot.

But at Kate’s school parade this notion really hit me. I was in my Haunted Housewife costume. You know—June Cleaver wig, gingham dress, tray of cookies right out of the oven, fake blood dripping from my mouth and eye sockets.

A girl tugged on my arm and asked me, “Kate’s mom, what are you supposed to be?”

I smiled lovingly at the little dear, leaned down and cooed in my best smooth mama voice, “A haunted housewife, honey.”

“Oh,” she said thinking. “Like, you mean, a haunted-house wife? Like… the wife of a haunted house?”

The poor lamb had never heard the term housewife. Which made me assume that “homemaker” would also be lost on her. She’d probably construe that to be some kind of residential architect.

Which wouldn’t be all that bad really, but of course I’d need to be carrying some AutoCAD drawings for that costume. Duh.

Back to School Breakdown

I’m here to bust some myths, people. Now that school is back in session mothers aren’t worrying about whether they bought the right Toughskins and Trapper Keepers for their kids. They aren’t fretting over whether Jasper will be okay on the bus, or if the lunches they packed reflect the new food pyramid. (There IS a new food pyramid, you know. But I figure it’s like the metric system and won’t ever really catch on.)

No, now that kids are back in school and structure has been re-established in homes after the carefree, chaotic days of summer, mothers are freaking out about what to do with their lives.

Or at least, I am. And I’d like to think that I’m not alone.

So humor me. Please.

In all the time I haven’t been blogging I’ve been busy having an excellent and comprehensive panic attack about my life. I’m questioning whether our kids are at the right schools, whether we live on the right coast, whether I should forge into a fulltime take-no-prisoners job, or should stay home and hand-sew clothes for the whole family and churn our own butter.  I’ve even been questioning whether I should be doing yoga, the Dailey Method, or just walking.

Oh, and I want a dog. And a new car. And after 30,000 hours of watching HGTV (a feat for which I feel I should be awarded some kind of doctorate in interior design) I want a house. A big swank fabulous house perched on the edge of a cliff in Malibu.

That’s all.

It turns out that when I decide to have a crisis it decimates everything in its path. It’s like some ginormous house-sized meatball rolling around rampantly picking up mailboxes, Priuses, and alley cats in its wake. It sees another anxiety and heads for it at full bore swallowing it up in one gulp, burping loudly, then moving on to find more.

Oh, my poor sweet husband. He comes home from work and really should have a riot shield at the ready to deflect my assault of ideas.

“Should we really be paying so much freaking money for private school? With Paige starting kindergarten next year maybe we should rethink this whole tuition thing.”

“Should I cut my hair short? Or just let it go gray?”

“I was thinking we should switch from Skippy to Jif. Thoughts?”

Okay, so I’m not really wavering in my allegiance to my my hair color, but I am considering jumping ship on our peanut butter.

Other thoughts I’m wrangling with: Is California really worth it? Or more specifically, the freaking expensiveness of the Bay Area? Would we be just as happy in Indiana? Tennessee? New Hampshire? Or maybe happier because, I don’t know, we’d live in some subdivision like the rest of the universe and eat at Applebee’s and life would be simple and easy and all-American?

The other day I even had the thought that I should get fake boobies. I mean, this was a fleeting thought and I honestly don’t remember what brought it on (I was clothed at the time), but it DID drift though my mind. Crazy, right?

Wait, this is seriously starting to sound like a midlife crisis. Pardon me while I self-diagnose here…

But now that I’m thinking of all this I will say that [WARNING: Over-sharing about my body] I’ve been having the most hellishly colossal periods lately. (I know, suddenly we are talking about my menses. This has gone a place you have totally not expected nor wanted to go to, but I’m telling you, that is how the meatball of my life has been working lately. Welcome to my world.)

Yes, so I’m doing things like sitting on my daughter’s bed and standing up later to see a marvelous pool of blood that I’ve left behind. (Guess it’s time to have that “Us Girls Get Something Called Periods” talk.) I mean, I like a good laundry challenge as much as the next masochistic housewife, but leaving large blood puddles around the house? I’m happy to revel in the traditional realm of grass stains.

Anyway, I went to my Girl Parts Doctor, who’s office happens to be on Bush Street. No joke. She took a look under the old carriage (or rather into it) and announced that all was in order. This, she said, is simply what one’s mid-forties are like.

Perhaps this Back to School Mental Maternal Meltdown is simply related to oldness. Like, maybe if I buy a red sports car and have an affair with my secretary—after getting a secretary—I can work through it all like men have been doing for generations before me. I’ll start wearing my hair in a comb-over and will blow all our savings on a bungee jumping trip to New Zealand.

Wait for THOSE blog posts, people.

More likely though it’s not about age at all. If I know me it’s prolly just that I have too much time on my hands. I guess I’m like a blender that way. Last week while making a smoothie our blender started to smell like it was going to explode. The Husband, a.k.a. Mr. Gadget, walked through the kitchen to inform me that it would work better if I turned it up. Like, when it’s on Low and I think I’m coddling it the engine is actually angry and impatient, but when it gets fired up and can work hard it’s happiest. That is SO me. I’m like a blender. Who woulda guessed?

Until I find the perfect part-time job or project I’ve channeled all my energy into signing up for every frickin’ committee at Kate’s school. I’m so typecast as an urban/suburban mother it’s ridiculous. I can’t even have a crisis like a man (read: car, secretary, Grecian Formula). Plus I don’t even know whether I’m urban or suburban. If someone knows where I live and can help me identify the nature of my surroundings I’d appreciate it.

Well then, I think that about covers what I’ve been up to. [She smooths her skirt over her thighs and smiles serenely.] I’d love to hang out more but I have cupcakes to bake for a fundraiser, parents to enlist for a field trip, and I need to make the crippling decision about whether to go to yoga, hop on the elliptical, or take a hike.

Wish me luck.

School Pride

A few weeks ago some moms and I took our kids to the local old-timey ice cream parlor after school. While the wee ones ran around outside licking each others’ cones and tossing pennies in the fountain, the mom folk got to talkin’.

Here’s a snippet of our conversation:

Monica: “So we’re still not sure what team Hank is playing on.”

Lynn: “Really? Wow….”

Monica: “Yeah, sometimes I’m totally convinced that he’s gay. Other times? Not so sure.”

Jenny: “Well, he’s still super young. All in due time, right?”

Fran: “Sure, but if he IS, wouldn’t that be SO AWESOME?”

All of us: “Yessssss!”

Indeed. In many parts of the world a parent might be dismayed at the thought of their child being gay—horrified even. Here in the Bay Area we are downright thrilled by the prospect. It’s just one of the many reasons I love living here.

I consider myself a pretty liberal, open-minded person. I don’t care who you pray to, what you look like, or what foods you eat or abstain from. Gay, straight, whatEVER, that is your choice and good on ya. And I hope that I’m raising my kids to feel the same way.

Which is why I was shocked by my reaction to an event at my daughter’s school recently.

It was a few weeks ago. My mother-in-law was in town from Ohio, so I took her to the Tuesday morning assembly. It’s fifteen minutes of feel-good singing, storytelling, music, and announcements that never fails to deliver a mega-dose of warm fuzzies.

Even though San Francisco’s huge Gay Pride parade is this weekend, they were having a special assembly about it since school wouldn’t be in session near the actual event.

Each classroom was given a color to wear, and that morning instead of sitting in the auditorium wherever they wanted, the hundred or so children were arranged in the shape of a rainbow. The rainbow flag being the symbol of gay pride, and all.

It was adorable. Nearly as cute as my rainbow fruit salad (which happens to have no affiliation to the gay community). Parents were snapping photos and taking videos. The kids were clearly into it too. Typical Tuesday morning love-fest.

Some teachers came to the front of the auditorium and started explaining what Pride Week was all about. And then the slide show started. And no, no, there weren’t any photos of men in leather chaps with their butt cheeks showing. Though, honestly, that wouldn’t have bothered me. (They’re always so toned, those boys!) It was the words that got me.

A list came up on the screen. Essentially the message was that you should be proud to be:
Lesbian
Gay
Bisexual
Heterosexual
Transgender
Queer
Questioning
Intersex
Ally

To which I thought, INTERsex? What the hell is that?

I also wasn’t quite sure what “Ally” referred to.

I felt kinda like I did when that Ann Landers sex quiz went around my school in ninth grade. When you answered the questions and tallied your score you’d find out how experienced you were. I’m not sure why I even took the quiz. I was fully aware that my rating would be “pure as the driven snow” or maybe “still has that new car smell.” But what really intrigued me—and my friends—about the quiz was the sex acts that were listed that we’d never even heard of, forget done.

Without having the Internet at our disposal (I’m OLD, people) we still managed to find out what “fisting” and “rimming” meant. Then we wished we’d never asked.

Anyway, the school Pride presentation went on to take each of the terms and break them down. A couple teachers narrated each slide that popped onto the screen. For “Gay” there was a collage of photos that included two daddies sitting on a couch with their children. For “Lesbian” I think there was an image of two women getting married, some two mom families, and two women holding hands. The teachers said things like, “Men who love other men are gay.”

I was totally down with it.

They even slipped a “Heterosexual” slide in there with a picture of the Obamas. (Refreshing to see them labeled not as ‘black’ for a change, but as ‘straight.’)

But really, I was just wondering when the hell they were going to get to “Intersex” so A) I’d find out what it meant, and B) I’d see how they were going to handle that photo collage.

I was also curious about what were they going to say about Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning. This crowd included kids from kindergarten to fifth grade. What was the lowest common denominator of age-appropriate info they were going to share?

And of course I couldn’t help but see all this through my mother-in-law’s eyes. Of all the sweet kids-playing-piano assemblies we’ve had, she had to be in town for this one. I mean, I don’t think that this kinda presentation is standard fare for the public schools in Ohio. It all seemed very California.

Interestingly they didn’t end up having a slide for each term. At least, as far as I can remember. And there was one for “Intersex,” but there was just one image, not a collage. It was a photo of a husky woman on a hiking trail, and one of the female teachers presenting said, “This is Leslie, a friend of mine from college. She is intersex.”

Wait—whaaaat? It felt like I’d been shown a photo of Pat from that SNL skit. And I still didn’t know what Intersex meant.

There was a coffee gathering for parents after the assembly. Being unabashedly outspoken as I am, I mentioned to a couple mamas that I was a bit surprised by the presentation. And moreover I was shocked by my own reaction to it. Usually I’m totally down with whatever that school does.

“The gay and lesbian thing—no brainer. No issue there,” I whispered to some gals by the coffee urn. “I guess I just wonder if they needed to get so technical and label-y about it all.”

A couple women nodded their heads. Another one quietly said, “Yeah… What’s Intersex?”

Exactly.

Call me square, but I’d rather not have my child wondering about the finer points of various sexual orientations until she naturally starts to think about them herself. I always thought Mark and I would decide when and how we’d to talk to our kids about that stuff. I was kinda surprised that the school took the liberty to delve into it on our behalf.

And I guess what really struck me was how freakin’ comprehensive they were. Couldn’t they have just stuck to a high level “accept everyone” kinda message?

“I feel really weird admitting this,” I mumbled to the mamas, “But if my five-year-old came home and started asking me about the terms they were talking about this morning? I’d be kinda annoyed.”

One mom put her hand on my arm and said, “What they couldn’t grasp probably just floated right over their heads.” And as I grabbed another slab of coffee cake, I agreed and hoped that was true.

That night at dinner Mark asked the girls how their days were. Kate piped up, “At assembly today we all looked like a rainbow!”

And that was that.