New Jersey Moms Blog

The Picky Kid Whisperer

I noticed something last weekend while watching The Dog Whisperer;  people jump through hoops cooking food for dogs that looks better than what I serve around here.  And the dogs (much like my kid) aren't interested.

Unlike me these people have recourse and when wit's end is reached they call   Cesar Millan; The (Picky) Dog Whisperer.  After watching the pooch/family interaction for three, maybe four seconds he asks with a bemused smile, "You do know this is a dog, right?"

"Yeah! Oh, heck yeah! Of course, we know Francis Lyle is a dog!" they say, adjusting Francis Lyle's doggy pipe and slippers.  

And I know they are so lying.

Cut to Cesar taking Francis Lyle on over to doggy rehab for a few weeks of quality dog-pack interaction and the next thing you know, Francis Lyle (now known as The Lean Mean Frankster Machine),  is eating canned dog food from a bowl like a ...Well, a dog.

I want a C-Section!

Nineteen bloated weepy years ago I bought all the books and magazines I could find about what was happening to my pregnant body.  And although much sideways-standing in mirrors ensued  nothing obvious happened for quite some time, so I continued reading.

It wasn't long before I became frustrated with the magical women in print who were having the Disney Princess version of pregnancy.  (That is, if Disney Princesses got knocked up which to my knowledge, they do not.) These Magical Moms all talked of natural delivery and good cheer; of layettes and breast feeding, and loving being pregnant.  And. Never. Feeling. More Beautiful. (I was all, WTF? When I read that. And honestly, I couldn't decide what made me feel the most beautiful - My pretty new varicose veins or the constant sweating.)

All teens should be sent to an island for the duration so they can only annoy each other

That was a line from an update letter stuffed  inside a Christmas card this year. All teens should be sent to an island for the duration so they can only annoy each other.  I guess something's wrong with me; I love my teen-age kid and I'm crazy about his friends.  Including the one with purple hair (this week) and piercings. Oh, and the kid who wears plaid pants topped with rummage sale Grandpa shirts. And don't forget the sweetie who squeaks that I'm convinced is a reincarnated  Disney Princess. Yeah, the one that curses, too (much).  And in case your wondering, uh-huh...Even all the ones that play music I hate. Loudly. In my house.  They all rock.

The update started like every other - What we've been up to letter - Until I got to, "All teens should be sent to an island for the duration so they can only annoy each other."  I reread that line like a million times because that couldn't really be what it said.  But it was. The only explanation that made sense was the person who wrote it assumed her (obviously deep) feelings about teens ran mutual.

I'm not in la-la land.  Kids can be challenging; sometimes very challenging.  And okay, sometimes on purpose but they are supposed to challenge.  Isn't it their job to be different from their parents?  And I know they don't say,  Mother Dearest, you look tired on this good eve. May I set the table for you?  But really, are they supposed to?

Necessary Edges

Last Saturday me and my kid were potatoing on the couch, chatting about life after high school, grooving on Sponge Bob and out of nowhere he said, "Thanks for making me stay at school."  It really shook me. I felt like I was in the middle of a special effects movie moment where ten thousand rewinds of things I'd done wrong flashed before me and it felt like a chop to the throat.

I saw the time I was furious only winners got little trophies. And when that big kid picked on him.  How bad I felt when I couldn't afford the game system he wanted.  That teacher who was unfair.  And the time his guinea pig, Jacques Cousteau, died. It was as if I'd just watched a lifetime of me blunting the hard edges of his life because he couldn't possibly handle them.  And I felt really bad. 

My son went to a Luthier Apprenticeship in September and since it's not a traditional school (he's learning guitar repair) there's no dorm, no meal plan... And everyone's older than him.  He moved into a small room at a stranger's home with no television or internet and those first few days were torture for all of us; we tripled our cell phone minutes.  He hated where he was living and once he started school and found himself face to face with power tools, hated that. There wasn't a wood shop program in high school but really, if he had wanted to use a band saw I'm sure I would have said,

GETAWAYFROMTHATIT'SDANGEROUSAREYOUCRAZYYOU'LLPUTANEYEOUT!

   

Birds, Bees, Sex, Dollars, and Sense

     When my kid was thirteen I decided it was time to have the talk with him so I walked into his room and yelled above the din of a video game, What do you know about sex?  Without skipping a flick on the controller he said, "Got it covered, Ma."  He was so nonchalant, I mean, I could feel the eye roll but I wasn't deterred, "Dude, you have no idea how much it costs to raise a child from birth to eighteen." And then left the room to let it sink in. 

     I'm sure it occurred to him that someday I would bring up sex and he probably wondered what I would say (Yeah, me too).  Would I talk birds and bees and storks and cabbage leaves? Or go the more clinical Slot A - Tab B anatomical let's pretend mommy didn't just say what she said conversation.   I'm guessing he thought, Got it covered, Ma would neutralize anything, but he was mistaken.  My economic-based version of sex ed left him unprepared and I knew he had no smart quip for that one.   

    

My Kid's Not Going to College

     My kid’s not going to college.  That used to be a hard sentence to get out because people looked at me funny.  During my son's high school junior and senior year, friends would talk about where their kids applied to college, who they'd heard from and where they were going, maybe.  And the plans, Oh! The plans. When they asked me I was honest, “My son’s not going to college.”  My son's always had other plans.  The look I got was a cross between pity for me and embarrassment for asking.  

     My son is in a luthier apprenticeship.  Don’t feel bad if you don’t know what that means; spell check doesn’t either.  A luthier is someone who makes or repairs stringed instruments; in my son’s case, guitars.  My son has been all about guitars for probably six years.  I say probably because I’m not sure. I wasn’t paying attention. I was too busy spinning my mommy-wheels and driving us both crazy in a futile attempt to get him to do my version of 'applying himself'.  Pretty much, I was too preoccupied with what I thought to notice he was already applying himself.  I insisted he join a school-sponsored club … Find a sport to participate in – Anything that would look good on a college transcript while he taught himself to play the guitar and happily pursued his dream.  Without me…

    

Born to be wild...ish

     Fact. Kids can be annoying.  In an effort to balance that out (and because it's more fun than a day at the spa) I keep telling my son, "I’m getting a motorcycle."   At first earful, he gave me the mom-is-so-lame-eye-roll thing, that I love so dearly.  When he actually looked at me and realized I wasn’t kidding my street cred rose like a ventigigajillion percent. 

     The funny thing is...In an alternate dimension; one where I wore too much eye-liner and ruled in black leather without feeling like, ya know, a pile of Jimmy Deans – I really did have a motorcycle.  And yeah, the bike is long gone but I hung onto to the memory by renewing the license. 

     I may have comfortably settled into my minivan life (and thanks to gravity, everything else settled, too) but that doesn’t mean I’m not the same person who owned the open road... Lo! Those fourscore and never mind years ago. And since I still have my license the state of New Jersey considers me perfectly capable of straddling another two-wheeled monster and driving the suburban mean streets. And they are MEAN.  We’re talking New Jersey here; Route 22 and traffic circles, People.

Sliding Down The Slippery Slope of Mt. What’s In This Stuff

During what came to be known as “The Spitting Fiasco of ‘92” I was in a constant state of, what? Is it the food? My cooking? The entertainment value of my face covered in strained plums?  What?   I worried (lost sleep, whined, and doubled my laundry) thinking it would be better when my son could tell me what he wanted. I didn’t know why he hated what I was feeding him; I only knew he did.

      My theory was, the drama and half my laundry, would vanish in a sparkly poof of unicorn magic once he could verbalize.  (In my fantasy) we would convivially discuss our points of view, compromise, find the toddler-foodie middle ground and work our way up to mother/son sashimi platters. That’s how life always worked before Picky (Capital P) entered my life.   And okay, talking stopped Mt. Baby from erupting constantly, but it also complicated things.  So many perfectly normal foods turned out to be surprisingly repulsive.   And I needed a separate day planner just to keep up with the reasons why this brand was good and that one was totally unacceptable, and which skinless baloney had skin, and why a meatball is good but a meatloaf is giant square doody on a plate, and frankly, I grew tired of hearing why my cooking was disgusting really, really fast.  In retrospect, spitting turned out to be an efficient, albeit inelegant, means of articulating his dislikes.

     I walked into the Picky thing oblivious; picky eaters were made and not born, right?  Oh, and to those of you that still believe that? Ha!  Just wait, because I believed the made/not born theory until the day he ate the Ritz Bits Peanut Butter Crackers in the Parsippany Pathmark (frozen foods aisle).  He was getting fidgety and we still had a few more aisles to go.  I opened the box and handed him some peanut butter bits to keep him busy.  He chewed a few times, paused a moment and then, without warning, began spraying crackery shrapnel everywhere like a little baby machine gun filled with gooey bits.  Because there was peanut butter involved it stuck to every surface he hit; Bags o’ Ice, my new shirt and as there is some justice in the world, that smug three-year-old who made fun of you just a few aisles back because you still drink from a bottle and Mommy!  Look at that dumb baby still drinking from a bottle.