Suburban Kamikaze

We practically wrote the book on what you don't know

Esquire recently asked its readers to contribute to a popular feature in which famous women are asked to make a list of "10 Things You Don't Know About Women."

Where to begin?  There is so much you don't know, Esquire Guy.   

1. The best way to make sure we will not go to bed with you tonight is to accuse us of being in the throes of PMS.

2. The second best way is to fail to recognize that we are in the throes of PMS.  Duh.

3. Cappuccino. That whole "liquor is quicker" thing hasn’t really worked since the children came along.

4.  Angelina Jolie is not really our lesbian love interest. We just say that for you.

5. There is no aphrodisiac like a clean house.

6. Please do not ever, ever let us see you naked if you are still wearing your socks. Not even Daniel Craig can pull off this look.

7. We like it when you buy us underwear. We love it when you buy us underwear that we actually like to wear. We know how hard it is for you to pass on the novelty panties.

8. We can’t really explain the whole shoe thing. But you should really let it go.

9. If vibrators had chest hair and a sense of humor, we would still prefer sex with you – but it would be a close call.

10. We are totally picturing you naked right now.

All over but the vacuuming

It is not yet 10 a.m., but already someone is crying.

This is a new record for our family, on the annual day of Daddy-enforced vacuuming and compulsory thoughtfulness.

"I hate you Daddy!" screams the fourth-grader, who has not emptied the dishwasher quickly enough for his liking. "It's MOTHER'S DAY," he will remind them more than once through gritted teeth.

Yesterday, he made them draw up a list of chores and sign some sort of cease-fire.

But the strain is already beginning to show.

There is some sort of disagreement over ownership of a baseball bat that has been left in the living room. It is dragged upstairs under protest, crashing against each step on the way.

But it is not all crying, fighting and tersely issued commands.

There is also arts and crafts.  The seventh-grader, under threat of god-knows-what, is gluing a border of tiny colored jewels onto a handmade card. 

He will even, just this once, allow me to photograph him. Possibly I will be allowed to ruffle his hair.

It is good to be the queen, even of a small warring nation bearing sticky tributes.

Barbie of Suburbia

All morning, the bargain hunters have been walking up and down the sidewalk, going from house to house in search of patio furniture, jewelry boxes, framed artwork and 25-cent plastic toys.

How did they miss this? I think. She is three-feet tall, naked and leaning casually against the side of a house. A piece of yellow legal pad on which someone has scrawled "$2" is taped to the wall beside her.

"Are you sure you want to get rid of that?" I ask my neighbor. "She would make a good centerpiece."

In the end, my neighbor agrees, though neither of us has any hope for that kind of party around here. 

Still, we are keeping her.

Perhaps we will mail her all around the country like Not-Flat Stanley.  Probably we should take her shopping first. She looks cold.

What do you think Barbie? Would you like to get out of here?

Mommy is Pissed, And She's Wearing a Tiara

My tiara came today.

You're goddamn right I'm wearing it.

I consider it my prize for a week spent providing key logistical, clerical and requisitioning support for a science fair, violin recital, orchestra concert, talent show, student council fundraiser and teacher appreciation week.  I remembered to send in the school picture money, re-register for baton classes and sign the take-home folder.

It was an impressive if exhausting performance right up until the day we were supposed to turn in all of the pop-tops the fourth-grader had been saving for a year in a coffee can in the hall closet.

I blew it.

I was one sticky note short of beating those sadists at the local school district who designed this week's schedule, and by the time I remembered the coffee can in the closet, I was already at work and someone else's class was collecting the pop-top honors. 

Nevertheless, when the tiara arrived, I donned it. It was, technically, my payment for a parenting essay selected for publication recently. But I am claiming it as my prize for having navigated a week in which I did not kill any members of my family, despite ample provocation.

I am particularly proud of the fact that the 13-year-old survived recycling day.

I was scrambling around that morning trying to get breakfast, lunches and coffee made while be-ribboning the potted plant the fourth-grader was bringing for that day's teacher appreciation tribute.  And frankly, I was a little off my game, having been up the night before until 1 a.m. typing up the results of his painstaking inquiry into the electrical conductivity of various chemical compounds.  Luckily I was up by 6 a.m., so I had time to cut out lightning bolts for the display board.  But  I knew I would never get the recycling bin to the curb on time and so, uncharacteristically, I asked for help.

The teenager declined, and when I showed him my frowny face, he offered this explanation:

"Mom," he said, in an exasperated tone, "I have had kind of a busy week."

I know, I know. I should at least have wounded him.

Photo:  Frowny face with tiara. Now they will respect me.

 

Go Ahead. Make Her Day.

Uh Oh.

Only a week to go until that special day and you still haven't figured out how to make it absolutely perfect.

And when you think of all that she goes through on a daily basis, the enormous sacrifices entailed in the incubating, birthing and care of your beautiful, relentlessly demanding children, it is little wonder that you sweat the prospect of how to come through for her just this once.

Yes, we remember last year. You fell short didn't you?

You didn't forsee that whole kid-produced, breakfast-in-bed fiasco.  Don't be too hard on yourself.  Now you know better.

Trust me, you can make it up to her.  The first thing to remember is that those adorable little macaroni necklaces and construction paper cards will warm her heart in ways that Tiffany jewelry cannot.

But they are perishable.  Not that mommy doesn't absolutely love them. And love is really what it's all about, isn't it?

I mean, you could go out and spend a week's grocery money on Coach sunglasses that make her look like a rock star,  and sure, she's going to want to have sex with you the minute she opens the box, but how does that compare to those little Brookstone gadgets the kids picked out by themselves when you set them loose with $15 apiece?  Those brought real tears to her eyes.

You could spend a car payment on something extravagant like a diamond and emerald palm tree  to remind her that even while she is freezing her ass off in the  Midwest for you, she still has humidity in her heart. But what does that accomplish, other than filling her head with images of deviant sex acts she has always wanted to try?

You could spend way too much on front row Tori Amos tickets, Ralph Lauren swimwear, a Caribbean vacation and something to read on the plane, but you'd only end up feeling selfish and exhausted when you realized how much gratitude there was in it for you.

Seriously, she has so much already.  What is she going to do with designer sunglasses anyway? It's not like she is going to Bimini anytime soon.  Is it?  And what is a little bling compared to the joy of waking up to burnt toast and a bed full of children? Some shiny new thing around her neck is only going to get the children kicked out of bed, pronto.

And without them you wouldn't have anything to be celebrating next week would you?  It would be just another weekend in bed. And who wants that?

Anyway, my point is, relax. You've still got a week.

Cheers,

SK

Photo: Mommy Likes the Bling, by Rick McCawley

© 2007 P.M. Dunnigan/Suburban Kamikaze

I'd be safe and warm if I was in L.A.

I jumped at the chance to blog-sit in Southern California this week.  It might be spring in some parts of the world, but from where I type, it's 48 degrees and rainy. 

I imagine I will get a lot more writing done once the feeling returns to the tips of my fingers. I hope he has a hot tub. I think pretty much everyone in L.A. does.  I will probably get to meet some important people. Possibly I will be asked to write a screenplay.

I just hope he calls soon with the directions to his house.

Anyway, here is where I am headed.  Stop by and help me drink all of his liquor.   

Photo: cosmos.com

I will take your questions now

I do not claim to have all the answers.

But look! There is my name,  in the forthcoming "Mothering Heights Manual for Motherhood, Volume 1."

(And so,  Mr. Kamikaze, the next time you have some particular critique to throw out, keep in mind that I am now a published authority in a parenting manual.) 

Don't look so surprised.  I am full of inspired parenting techniques. And so I will take your questions now.

Q: From where does the inspiration for your parenting innovations come?

SK:  I cannot say, really. Sometimes they just hit me out of the blue. Like when my son was a toddler and he kept peeing inside this giant refrigerator box we were using as a playhouse. And it was really starting to reek in there. So I had the idea that the next time he misbehaved I would threaten to put the box out on the curb. And then he did. So I did.  And then the garbage men came and took it away before I could take pity on him and change my mind.  And it hit me: Carry out your threats and your children will respect you. Also, the house will smell better.  That worked for a while.

Q:  And then?

SK:  Somewhere along the way, out of the frustration that comes from never, ever being able to take a shower without interruption, I began to craft increasingly baroque, extravagant threats.  Rococo almost.  Time-outs became abandonment at a local orphanage.  Instead of threatening to cut television time short, I threatened to disconnect the television, carry it to my car and drive it to the nearest Goodwill trailer. It comes from being a creative-type person.  Unfortunately, I tend to overestimate my ability to carry such things out.

Q:  It sounds as if you do not know what you are doing at all.

SK:  But I do.  I know that I am doing it exactly wrong.  That is the source of all true innovation. With each spectacular parenting failure comes reinvention. And then more failure. And more reinvention. That is the stuff that parenting manuals are made of, I believe.

Photo: Mothering Heights Manual for Motherhood, Volume 1. (Mothering Heights Press, 2008)  Available May 11 at Mothering Heights  and June 15 at Amazon.com and independent bookstores.

Patent pending

Garnish the cat bowl, Bossy's coming

Bossy's Excellent Road Trip rolls into town very soon and massive preparations are underway for the big event; invitations have gone out, new sheets have been purchased for the guest room (and used only twice) and the caterers are busily coordinating the delivery of the choicest ...

Okay, so there won't be any caterers.  But there will be food and drink and a houseful of Chicago-area bloggers for whom this woman is like an Internet god.    

Some in fact, are close to swooning at the prospect of meeting the woman who helped popularize the idea of drinking gin from a cat bowl. Now, of course, everyone is doing it, but the fact is, before there was iambossy there was no such thing as the cat bowl martini.*

As hostess for this thrilling, once-in-a-lifetime event, I just want to say, relax people. Some of you are starting to hyperventilate.

She is probably not even funny in real life.

I know I'm not. Just ask anyone in my house. "Mom, you are NOT funny," the fourth-grader tells me.  She turns to a friend's mother and issues a clarification: "My mom thinks she's funny, but she's not."

Anyway, my point is, there is no reason to be intimidated, even if she is a little scary in those aviator shades.  I mean, it's not like meeting Dooce, is it?  Now that would be scary. That woman is so famous she draws stalkers.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, her name may be "Bossy," but that doesn't make her your boss, does it? She's an ordinary blogger, just like you and me, only funnier, and willing to drive 10,000 miles across the country by herself just to prove  that she did not, in fact, make herself up.

Still, I will have some Sharpies on hand in case some of you want her to sign your breasts.

Of course, there is a small chance that photographs of you with your mouth full of appetizers or with crumbs on your face will end up on her enormously popular website where it will be seen by thousands of people, inviting comparisons to the shiny happy West Coast people who partied with Bossy last week in hummus-filled, bougainvillea strewn apartments in San Francisco and Laguna Beach.

Sadly, there is not enough bronzing powder in all of the world to make a Midwesterner glow in April and the bougainvillea here does not bloom until never, ever.

But I am not worried.  Because Bossy has a well-documented soft spot for John Cusack the Midwest.

Bossy's Excellent Road Trip Diary, Day 30

To be perfectly frank

Frank wants to put some kind of health powder into my water.

I promise him I will try it. Later.  After I finish my $4 peppermint latte from the evil corporate coffee chain.

Frank doesn't drink peppermint lattes and he doesn't approve of evil corporate coffee chains. He sits just a few feet away from me at work but lives on another planet entirely.

He's an anti-corporate vegetarian environmentalist in his 20s who spends his free time organizing Burger King boycotts and strategizing a media campaign to raise awareness of prison conditions.

He scavenges organic pizza crust from the backs of restaurants, reads French social theory and rails against gentrification.   He rides his bike and uses public transportation and still - I am sure of this - worries about his carbon footprint.

I am a 45-year-old suburban mommy whose purse is stuffed with grocery lists, receipts and overpriced cosmetics that were probably tested on animals. Hardly a day goes by when I do not patronize some corporate retail establishment. I could not name a single French social theorist.  The term "carbon footprint" makes me think of shoes.

It has been a long time since I imagined I could change the world. 

But it's not as if there is no common ground between us.

Frank wants me to listen to some Italian folk music he likes.

I like it too. It makes me want to chop fresh parsley and garlic and simmer homemade sauce on the stove. It makes me want to go to Williams-Sonoma.

"This makes me think of making spaghetti," I tell him.

"What about cleaning your rifle?" he says.  "Does it make you think of cleaning your rifle? Because it's music from the resistance."

"How was I supposed to know that?"  I say, a little defensively.  Jesus, when did I become "The Man"? 

I tell him it is just a matter of time before he falls head over you-know-what for some pretty young thing with a Prada fetish and a Neiman Marcus credit card.  And his "resistance" to the forces of rampant consumerism will come crashing down outside a Victoria's Secret dressing room.

But Frank is not the only force of social consciousness in the office.

"Is that fair trade coffee?" I am asked when I come back with a a bag of Starbucks Latin America breakfast blend.

It is $12 a pound coffee, ingrates, is what I am thinking.  But what I say is: "It was produced by an organic, lesbian co-op.  A portion of the profits go to benefit the anarchy defense fund."

Frank's gritty urban apartment would probably fit into my living room. But he lives within his means, while I am in debt up to my mascara.  One of my favorites brands is called "Urban Decay."  It makes me feel gritty and urban, like maybe this weekend I will head out to the North Side to catch a slamming new band.

But unless there is a new band called "PTA Mommies," it is not on my calendar.

Photo: Who says revolutionaries don't like spaghetti?

www.plus.maths.org
 

A brief history of no time

It's not really the non-stop bickering that has me distracted, so much as the unabated shrieking.

The bickering is just routine stuff set to a pulsing Disney pop tune; she is rehearsing a dance routine for the talent show, he  is determined to sabotage her efforts. 

The shrieking is harder to take. There is nothing funnier to our seventh-grader these days than to jump out at us from behind doorways and around corners with a high-volume shriek.  Unless he can make one of us jump and spill something at the same time.

But really, I could probably write through through the pulsing pop tune, the non-stop bickering and the intermittent shrieking, if not for the incessant throwing of objects across the room.

Some of the things flying across my house are balls, designed for throwing, and create no more disturbance than a sort of mild thumping and a few close encounters with the decor. The coffee mug takes a hit, but remains safely upright. Even the pencils skittering across the floor can be mostly ignored.

I could work around the pulsing pop tune, the non-stop bickering, the intermittent shrieking and the stuff being thrown, except that it always seems to devolve into deliberate beaning, which leads inevitably to crying and demands for immediate intervention.

"MOM," she screams, "HE hurt me."

And so, we are back to bickering:  "I threw a crayon at your butt," he counters. "How could it possibly hurt?"

It is a good question, but it is beside the point.

The point is, there is no way I am going to get any writing done. I may as well be trying to solve a formula in quantum physics as to attempt to put a sentence together from beginning to end with any degree of ...  any hope of  hc=6.63x10   whatever.   

A tale of two mommies

They were the best of kids. They were the worst of kids.  And something was always about to be spilled.

But I am getting ahead of myself.  And so I shall go back to the beginning:

They were journalists of vastly different talents.

One was the "creative" type - a constant source of colorful stories, many of which - much to the disappointment of her editors - were strictly for in-house entertainment. 

The other was a hard-driving, management-bound overachiever, whose long hours and can-do attitude on the bankruptcy court beat endeared her to her supervisors but didn't exactly make her the life of the office party.  (Um, sure, we'd love to hear more about new operating capital provisions under chapter 11...) 

Even so, both found love in the newsroom, and in 1994, found themselves in a family way.

Three days apart in 1995, there were baby boys, who could not have been more perfect.  Baby girls soon followed.  But here, their diaper bags diverged.

Management mommy took what, at the time, seemed like the harder road.  She headed back to the  office, polishing her credentials all the way to the big office and the executive paycheck, relying on childcare, housekeeping and a variety of other outsourcing arrangements.

The story teller opted for what she liked to call "actual parenting,"  a selfless and noble undertaking which, as she frequently reminded Management Mommy,  was in no way morally superior, but which she nevertheless described in a superior way, even while also employing the services of a part-time nanny, a cleaning service and a figure skating coach.  Because her children meant everything to her.

Management Mommy, meanwhile, struggled with the fear that she was not a good parent because she worked long hours and secretly loved her job.  Creative Mommy struggled with the fear that she had compromised her career and her financial security and that without a full-time paycheck she would be forced to buy shoes from the clearance rack.

Each sought to reassure the other.

"Maybe you won't have enough money to send your kids to college,"  Management Mommy would say. "But at least you had all that time to read stories to them when they were little."

"I am sure she is just going through a stage," Creative Mommy would say. "It probably has nothing to do with the fact that she doesn't see you until bedtime."

And so it went, year after year,  a tiny slice of the ongoing social experiment known as  "Mommy Wars."  Because what is the point of making choices if you can't make someone else's choices seem wrong?

The boys are teenagers now, the girls are in their final years of elementary school, and it isn't hard to see the results.

At least it isn't hard for me, because, as usual, they are all in my house, wrecking my furniture and leaving sticky cans of half-drunk soda in the bookshelves.  Management Mommy is traveling on business and staying in fancy hotels where, presumably, the floors are not covered in chocolate syrup and fireplace ash.

The girls are plotting some new kind of mischief, having not yet exhausted the possibilities of homewrecking with their fire making, arts and crafts and cosmetics experiments.

The boys'  faces are frozen into unconvincing expressions of wide-eyed innocence.  From questions about egg shells on the front porch to Rice Krispies in the couch cushions, they answer every accusation with an equally unconvincing "Whuut?"

They are a handful, these children, and when they get together they are more trouble than the sum of their parts.   They are sneaky, dishonest, expensive and messy.  Also loud. They destroy every room they enter and their standards of personal hygiene are, to be frank, not really standards at all.

How is it possible that they are all like this?  Which side gets to chalk up the win?  I have to admit I cannot say.

But I do know this:  something is going to be spilled.

Photos: The best of kids, the worst of kids.