Happy Halperts. And yes, I realize they're not actually my friends.

OK, so Pam and Jim had their baby on The Office last night. (And if you’ve got it DVR’d and haven’t watched yet, go away now and come back later, because spoilers are ahead).

They had a girl.

I want a girl. I really, really do. And for all the ridiculous reasons — the clothes are cuter, the hair is more fun (if more work); and for all the selfish reasons, or the one major selfish reason. I want a MiniMe. Or a version of me with a big dose of my husband. Here’s an essay I wrote on the subject, for American Baby, published in their January, 2007 issue, but written probably in 2005, when my James was several months old:

Girl of My Dreams

My daughter was going to be named Margot Mary. The first name we loved for being feminine, not girly; familiar, not overused. The middle name was for my grandmother. As my belly grew, so did my desire to have a girl. Still, I had a feeling that my bump was all boy, and sure enough, when the time came, we greeted Daniel and tucked away Margot’s name for later.

The next go around—surprise!—out came James. I fell in love with him quickly, but I also mourned my Margot, the girl I’ll never have.

Okay, go ahead and say it: why not try for the girl I really want? While not technically “too old,” I’ll be past 40 if I wait even a bit after James’s infancy. I love my children, but I also love my body, my sanity, and my relationship with my husband. Mostly, I’m just so stunned and grateful for these robust boys that I don’t want to push my luck.

Besides, my family is lousy with girls. My sister has two daughters (and, okay, a son). One cousin has three little girls. And when James was 3 months old, my younger cousin gave birth to her first child: a girl.

I took James with me to shop for a gift for Isabella, but when I steered the stroller into the section festooned with infant girls’ clothing, I had to steer straight out again. I couldn’t bring myself to fondle the tiny pink bodysuits or to judge the size of the sweet summer dress with its matching poufy pantaloons. I love boys’ clothes for their rugged, little-man look, but let’s face it, baby girls’ clothes are just too darn cute. I had to hightail it out of the store before anyone could see the dopey mom crying into the layette sets.

Lots of women imagine having a daughter. I dreamed up my actual daughter: she would have a riot of auburn curls, like my mother’s, and her dad’s big blue eyes. I would pass on my stubborn streak; my appreciation for the color red (and why it beats pink); my love of Little House on the Prairie; and, eventually, her great-great grandmother’s blue satin and lace garter, which all of us girls wore on our wedding day. Plus, I’d give her the best kind of father a girl could have – the kind of man who should raise daughters, because he’s so even-tempered and uncomplicatedly loving.

I realize that I can give versions of these things to my sons. They may never wish that Laura Ingalls was their best friend, but they can have a red rug in their bedroom. They can hand the family garter to the women they marry. But best of all is what my sons are already giving me, as they help me rewrite my celluloid motherhood fantasy – Woman Wanting Girl – with themselves in the lead roles. Without that old film running in an endless loop, I’m free to have fun with the reality of boys, their hit-and-run hugs, their take-no-prisoners play. In return I hope I can show them, but what kind of woman I strive to be, that they can love strong women and remain strong men. I hope they’re a lot like their father.

I don’t suspect I’ll stop grieving for my Margot very soon, but someday, maybe, two very lucky girls will grow up to meet my sons. And I can always fantasize about granddaughters.

I am revisiting this now not so much because of that new little fictional daughter (but kudos to the producers for, first of all, actually having a real newborn and not a chubby 6 month old in the role of Cecelia Marie Halpert, and second of all, how hilarious was it when Pam accidentally nursed her roommate’s child instead of her own?!), but because it’s been a few years since I wrote that, and my feelings have not changed.

In fact, they’ve intensified. As I’ve written here, we’ve had a baby boom in the family, and it’s not gone unnoticed by my boys. When I had James, Daniel was not quite two; bringing the baby home was barely a blip in his toddler-centric world. And now, for both of them, there is no life without the other, no memory of time alone (for James it’s the truth, for Daniel it’s the perception, but there’s no practical difference).

But now? Now, both of them would be excellent big brothers. And now, argh! They’re asking for a baby.

Yeah, yeah, I know. That’s normal. There are all these babies in the family, they know babies come from mommies, and so they turn to their mommy and say some version of, “hey mom, got a baby in there, by any chance?”

Just makes it more bittersweet that, no, there are no babies in there.

And so — thanks for indulging me here — I’m left saying another fond, sad goodbye to the Margot who never was.

Can you see what's on my big boy's shirt? Mr. Strong. I'm a lucky, lucky mom.

Regular readers may have noticed I didn’t post last week — that’s because we were in Florida for a bit over a week, visiting my parents, who some years ago joined the throng of Northerners who take off for southern climes in January and don’t come back until April or so, leaving their progeny with the snow and the gloom, as well as with the option to come on down for some sun & fun.

This year, we were there for slightly longer than usual (the school vacation combined with the jacking up of February-break-time airfares make planning a vacay awkward, so it ended up being less expensive to stretch the trip a couple days beyond the week the kids had off from school. Sounds like a good idea? In theory, yes. In practical terms, not so much. I love my parents to pieces, and some niggling family dynamic issues notwithstanding, we get along. My boys adore them, they show us a good time, my husband gets along famously with both my mom and dad. So what’s the problem?

A wee bit too much togetherness, with me, in the center, as the link connecting my kids to my parents, and my husband to my parents. The end result is that the boys had fun, but I felt slightly stressed. Also, truth be told (and I’m all about telling the truth about child-rearing, right?), it was just plain old too much kid-time. Me and my boys, 24/7, is only fleetingly wonderful. Overall, sure, it’s precious. I am keenly aware of the passing of time, of how quickly my babies stopped being babies. Now seven, Daniel, in particular, is breaking my heart on pretty much a daily basis. He’s still so young, but then he is busting his britches for more independence. He’s just so… big. And strong. And his own person.

I want to build times like this vacation into our years, to enjoy this before they scoff at the idea of spending a week with mom and dad, much less Grandma and Grandpa (oh, and did I mention that we also spent time with my in-laws, who also snowbird it for a month or so, conveniently not too far from where my parents winter? Yep. It was a Grandparent-palooza!). But that doesn’t mean that each and every moment of the past eight days was swimming in a sea of mommy love. No, it was not. I found myself wishing for a shorter trip, to get back and get them back to school, to leave my parents to their golf and their friends and the relative peace of their condo without Cars cars and crayons underfoot.

Then a funny thing happened on the plane on the way home yesterday. Not funny-ha-ha, but funny in that niggling way that sticks with you. Seated behind Daniel and me (my husband was sitting across the aisle with James) was a mother with two young children, a boy and a girl, I’d guess about a year or two older than Daniel. The boy, quite suddenly, let out a loud, long yell. It shook me out of my seat. Then he did it again. In the exact moment that his mother reached across her daughter in the middle seat to touch her son’s arm, I registered that she wasn’t about to angrily shush him. I realized that he wasn’t being disruptive on purpose. The child had a problem — Tourette’s maybe? Or autism? The mother did her best to soothe him, but he wouldn’t stop until we were in the air and he could fire up his portable DVD player and watch a movie.

The boy, whose name was Colin, I found out, yelled out in that sharp, startling way a few more times over the course of the flight. Daniel jumped every time, but I quietly explained to my son that this boy had a problem, that he couldn’t help what he was doing. I forget exactly how I explained it, but I said something like, “that boy has something just slightly wrong, maybe with his brain, that makes him unable to control what he’s doing. He can’t help it.” Daniel still winced at the yells, but otherwise wasn’t bothered. I winced, though. The mother was totally calm, even cheerful, which I’m sure must be her way of coping with his issues (and also went a long way toward making those around us understand, without having to say anything, that there was nothing she could do; no one said a word).

In the last 20 minutes of the flight, my boy pulled up the armrest, and put his head down on my lap. Before long, he’d fallen asleep, my big second grader, his large, heavy head with its untamable mop of dark brown hair resting on my leg. I held my book with one hand, and stroked his cheek with the other. Just as when he was a baby and slept on me, he both drooled and sweated, gradually dampening my jeans.

Meanwhile, Colin yelped and shouted.

Like I said, it was a small moment, and the obvious feelings — of gratitude and great love — bubbled up. It’s natural for any mother to feel that “but for the grace of God” sense when she sees another mom with a much, much greater burden. Then the funny thing happened. At one point, I put my book down and put both hands on my kid. I did all my usual mommy things, like cleaning a little stray wax out of his ear (gross? Sorry; it’s a habit I picked up from my mother, who couldn’t let any earwax or navel lint sit for long, either); trying in vain to smooth his hair, still stiff from yesterday’s dose of pool chemicals; shifting the collar of his shirt where it looked like it might be tight against his neck; slipping a hand under his shirt to feel his breathing and his skin over ribs newly exposed by a growth spurt.

I realized in that small, necessary moment that I wasn’t just lucky to have this kid and his little brother, busily coloring across the aisle with his dad. I was lucky to be able to do these tiny bits of mother-care, to literally feel him growing under my hands. I don’t know for sure if that moment was connected to being confronted with a boy like Colin, but I feel somehow that it was.

But whatever prompted it, I’m glad it happened. Though it didn’t stop me from being very, very grateful that they are both safely and happily back in school today, back up north in the tail end of a snowy winter.

Vegging out.

My boys are completely normal American children, which is to say, if you sit them down in front of a bag of potato chips, they’ll plow through them. If you give them a bucket of Halloween candy, they’ll dig right in. If you make a cake and offer them mixer beaters coated with chocolate frosting, what do you think they’ll do? (To be fair, they differ; James self-limits, for whatever reason, his junk-food tooth is more easily satisfied than Daniel’s, who — like his mom — will reach the bottom of that chip bag before he hears his brain’s “stop! please for the love of God, stop!” signal.)

But you know what they do when faced with a dinner plate with chicken and broccoli? Well, in that they differ slightly from each other, too. James will start right in on the broccoli, while Daniel will make a beeline for the chicken. And neither of them get the pasta (presuming there is pasta, and both of them hope against hope every night that there will be pasta) until the protein and the veggies are gone or mostly gone. They also both know that once their cup of orange or apple juice is finished, they are free to help themselves to water. Another thing they expect: fruit after dinner. There is ALWAYS fruit, as there always was when I was growing up.

I’m actually way more easygoing on the “you must eat this” front than my parents were. I can still remember a bleak-looking little bowl of spinach (it was in a bowl to segregate its juices from my meat and potatoes; at least my parents bowed to my need to keep foodfromtouching) sitting in front of me until I finished it. And I always did, even though I didn’t like it. We didn’t have royal battles; the undercurrent of parental-control-versus-children’s-grousing was a very quiet hum. But it was there, and all parties present knew the parental-control faction would win every time. I hated it, but I ate the spinach, and I ate the liver, and I ate the beef stew (a semi-nightmare for a child who didn’t like foodthattouched.)

But you know what? Aside from the liver, which even my parents don’t eat anymore (I think my mom bought it because it was a low-cost source of protein and iron, and she’s anemic), I like all those foods. And I’m convinced (anecdotally, nonscientifically) that it was precisely in the “I’m in charge here, no backtalk” rules we had for eating that, eventually, gave me not only a taste for a wide variety of foods, but an understanding of what was good and healthy to eat, and even how to prepare foods. It’s not a mystery. My sister was less of a nightmare picky eater than I was, and my brother was possibly even worse than I was. And now, all three of us? We know how to cook, and we know how to eat.

The way in which my tactics (and my husband’s; as in most child-rearing things, we are firmly on the same page, thank heaven) differ from my parents is that I don’t make them eat what they would call really “weird” vegetables; I do bow much more to their proclivities than my mom would ever do. So, while I make them eat their veggies before the “fun” foods like pasta or french fries, I don’t make them eat stew, and I do bread their chicken and fish a lot of the time, and I do cook their veggies plain and slick them with butter, something my parents never did.

I realize I’m lucky as heck that I have good eaters who like vegetables (even if it’s a mind-numbingly boring repetition of broccoli; peas; green beans; carrots; and back again); who eat hearty lunches at school without complaint (a sandwich on whole grain bread, a yogurt, fruit, milk), and who don’t snack outside of circumscribed times and places. Daniel swears he’ll do such things as try eggplant when he’s 16 (or was it 14? I’ll have to ask him). And I swear I get his dislike of zucchini. He tries, and the texture skeeves him; I feel the same way about mushrooms, one of the few foods I avoid entirely. I won’t force that issue, but I will keep trying and hope he grows into it.

But what I won’t do is throw up my hands and stock my freezer with chicken nuggets (which, for the record, I do buy when they’re on sale; nothing like being able to pop some in the toaster oven when I don’t feel like fussing), or assume that fruit snacks, with their “100% vitamin C!” labels are a replacement for an apple or an orange.

Because as they get older, they need to have both a proper respect for food and mealtimes, and a proper respect for the fact that I know better. I’m sorry if that’s not PC anymore (we’re not supposed to direct our kids’ eating, for fear of triggering an eating disorder), but I do know better.

Food and kids is in the news, as it should be, with rates of childhood obesity rising to the point that our children’s generation is on track to have lower life expectancy than we do. That’s shameful, and horrible. But at the same time, I see and hear from a lot of parents who don’t exercise the control they could, either because it’s too hard to buck the tide, or because they’re afraid (sometimes rightly, depending on their tactics) of giving children a lasting poor relationship with their bodies. It is true that some chubby kids will grow into a healthier frame. It’s also true that some won’t. It’s true that some kids with no good example of how to eat will figure it out themselves. It’s also true that many will not, and will reach adulthood thinking a crumb cake and a Diet Pepsi is a good breakfast.

So here’s what I think. I believe that full-on nagging (or blaming or shaming)  a child who either doesn’t eat the right things, or who eats too much, or who you perceive (maybe because of  own weight or body-image issues) eats too much, does more harm than good. But I do think that pushing kids to eat better, even sometimes insisting that they do, can ultimately be a good thing, presuming you practice what you preach. My parents, as they sat by while my spinach cooled, didn’t humiliate me or shame me into eating it. It was just what was done. It never occurred to me to refuse, despite mild resistance and a lot of grumbling (and, in my brother’s case, a lot of surreptitious tossing of broccoli spears onto my plate).

I think, I hope, that staying in control works, when you combine it with teaching kids the right way to eat (just the other day, I showed Daniel, for the first time, the “serving size” on a box of Fig Newtons; now that’s his new fascination. The serving size, not the Newtons), and doing so yourself. Especially when the alternatives range from bad nutrition to obesity and diabetes.

What do you think?

[photo: everystockphoto.com]

Work it, kiddo!

I have this very strong, distinct memory of my mother, probably not too long after she gave birth to my little brother, watching Jack LaLanne on TV and following along. I’m not sure why I was home (I was in second grade when my brother made the scene), but there I was with her, in our Totally 70s Den (braided rug, dark paneling, orange drapes on the sliding glass doors, Colonial furniture including a dark-wood-frame couch whose cushion fabric featured some sort of bird theme.) It was fun, kicking up my legs and touching my toes and doing whatever else LaLanne urged his viewers to do, but it was also cool to be doing it with my mom.

My mom’s always been big into exercise, and I (and my sister; our brother didn’t catch that gene, somehow) follow in her footsteps. Part of it is a complete inability to “diet,” so I have to work out vigorously to keep on an even keel with weight. But more important, working out is my drug of choice, my mood lifter, and having kids has made exercise absolutely non-negotiable. The algorithm is devastatingly simple: Mama hasn’t worked out in a couple of days? Stay away. Mom just got back from an invigorating run or a trip to the gym? Happiness ensues!

I’d of course love it if my sons followed in my sneaker-clad footsteps. (Having a dad who also values exercise — my husband was a personal trainer when I met him, and has an advanced degree in exercise science — should help). And I promote it. We have little races home from the bus stop, and trips to the playground sometimes involve running up and down the big(ish) hill in our local park, or jogging around the baseball diamond.

Last year, when I had to let my gym membership lapse (our bad financial year…) I switched to outdoor runs, and borrowed Pilates and yoga DVDs from the library for at-home workouts. Often, the boys were hanging around me (literally, sometimes) while I worked out. Like magic, before long, they’d join in.

A couple of observations: James, my little guy, is VERY flexible. (When he was a baby, not an infant any longer but not yet a full-fledged toddler, I used to literally fold him in half in my arms, toes to head, and call him Yoga Baby. He still likes it, if I can slow him down long enough to even get a grip on him). And Daniel? Like his dad, he’s game for activity, but he’s not, let’s say, super coordinated. (Also like his dad, that’s one of his particularly lovable charms).

This morning, I was in my regular Wednesday – Friday Pilates class at my gym, taught — inspiringly, in my opinion — by a late-middle-aged, 4′9”, not quite perfect instructor. Susie is a hoot, for sure. She also teaches yoga, and today, she was in the midst of reminding us to make every movement count. It’s easy, she said, when you’re accustomed to a move, to just sort of toss it out there, rather than really think about where you are, how your body is moving. Be mindful, she said. Think.

So I started thinking. A few weeks ago, the boys had gotten themselves into a typically crazed state, a combination of cabin fever (winter is so long, isn’t it?), and sibling rivalry. I was about to yell, or give someone a time out, or at least enforce a separate-room policy for a few minutes to give us all a measure of peace. But then I had an inspiration.

“Stop!” I said, as forcefully as I could. “Let’s do some yoga!”

And right there, in our former-dining-room, now-piano-room, right in front of the bay window facing the front of the house, the three of us practiced deep, cleansing breaths. We stretched our arms up high, then lowered our bodies, ragdoll-like, toward the floor. We did a little sun salutation, a little tree pose.

What the boys got from our yoga break? A diversion from their frenzy, and in the end a giggle. What I got? The measure of peace I was after, a reprieve from possibly yelling. And a sweet, precious, mindful moment, looking into the eyes of my sons as we all tried to balance on one foot without collapsing into laughter.

Sometimes you don’t have to run hard to get the boost you’re after from exercise. Surely, that’s something Jack LaLanne could still tell you. Or my mom.

Far as I’m concerned, some of these “taboos” are more or less the everyday here in Chez Mean Mom. I’ve enjoyed these segments because they show me that “bad” (a.k.a. mean) parenting is back! But I digress.

So. Spoiling. It’s yet another of those high-class parenting problems, right? Families struggling with the mortgage aren’t fretting whether or not another Wii game is in the cards for their brood, or how quickly you can replace the flat-screen TV, through which their 5-year-old threw the Wii remote when he got angry at a game (a real overheard conversation at the Y the other night). With every generation, the definition of “spoiling” changes, which is as it should be, I guess.

Lehrer referred to an essay once posted on Babble by a mom who was afraid she may be raising spoiled Mama’s boys when her little guys grumbled about their cold clothes on the one morning she neglected to run their pants through the drier to warm them up. Hilarious, isn’t it, imagining those boys, grown up and in adult relationships, sullenly expecting their wives to toast their khakis before work every morning, eh?

Doing every, little, itty bitty thing for our kids is, for sure, a form of spoiling. It’s literal spoiling: if they never learn to make a sandwich, they’re spoiled not just because they expect sandwich service from you (or some other sap down the line) for life, but because they are missing out on learning an important skill. That also goes for doing things around the house that kids could do, but in many cases don’t — like raking the autumn leaves, shoveling the winter snow, cleaning the pool. (Does it go without saying that I did all those things the minute I was old enough? I also, for the record, stacked firewood. My parents had a knack for deciding to move the woodpile every year or so, for reasons that escape me now. I’m wondering if it was merely a character-building exercise for me and my sister? Hmmm…)

Then there’s the other kind of spoiling, which to me is far, far more insidious. It’s the kind of spoiling that encompasses everything from the sense of entitlement that grows like a cancer in homes when kids get everything they want without a moment of having to wait, or save, or consider whether they need it; to the lack of respect that’s bred in families where kids are not required to speak kindly to each other or the adults around them, or where manners aren’t enforced; to homes in which there are no rules, no clear sense of who’s in control. That spoils kids because it slows their progress toward maturity.

This last bit really gets my goat, and I see it everywhere. I see it when parents labor under the very dangerous notion that giving kids choices and letting them make all the decisions (starting from toddlerhood!) is better than just saying “because I said so.” This irritates me (and I’m not alone) because those kids tend to be, putting it charitably, out of control little monsters. But it also saddens me, because these kids end up anxious, insecure, and immature later on. Why? Because they’re dying for someone to just tell them what to do. They may seem as though they want to choose when to go to bed or what to eat for dinner, but that’s not the case.

I indulge my boys far more than my  parents did me, but I want to make a distinction between indulging and spoiling.  Spoiling is tossing things at kids without giving them a sense of where they come from or what sacrifices are being made to give them those things. Indulging is giving them treats just because, letting them know that you’re doing things for them because they’re fabulous children who deserve good things in life.

Here’s an example. This August, I’m taking my children to Disney World. There are kids in Daniel’s class who go to Disney every year, and have since they were babies. There’s nothing wrong with that, and if those kids are spoiled (and from close observation, I can tell you some of them are!), it’s not because they go to Disney. It’s because they expect that a trip to Disney, or non-fake Ugg boots, or an Xbox 360 game system, is simply what they deserve. It’s a shrug of the shoulders, it’s the status quo.

I know my kids are only 5 and 7 and don’t have a mature grasp of money, but that doesn’t stop me from telling them, without drama and point blank, that for the last few years we have not had the money for expensive trips or really cool game systems. I think it’s working. They now understand that a trip to Disney is pricey, a sacrifice, a treat-to-beat-all-treats. They are over the moon. We’re staying in one of the property’s “value” level hotels, which are perfectly nice. I was showing the boys the Disney website, clicking on pictures of the rooms and the eating areas and the pools.

“Daniel, look,” I said. “Our hotel has two pools!”

His already saucer-like eyes got wider. “Can we go in both of them?” he asked.

Rufus Griscom, in the radio chat today (and I’ve been going on so much here that Brian Lehrer’s long moved on from that segment, but check it out if you can), mentioned the famous marshmallow experiment, about how kids who could successfully delay gratification ended up all-around better adults.

All-around better adults: that’s what I’m after, in raising these kids of mine.

Oh, and later? I’m going to be asking my husband if he thinks we should move the woodpile pretty soon.

Are your kids always fishing for food?

There’s nothing like being validated, is there? Especially, I have to say, by the New York Times.

Just yesterday, a friend of mine sent me a link to a story in the Times about — wait for it — how kids today snack too much.

Yeah, been there, said that.

The writer, Jennifer Steinhauer, herself a parent, laments how kids can never go anywhere or do anything without snacks being involved. And it’s not just the pretzels, Goldfish and juice boxes moms stash in our bags (just in case of low blood sugar and/or a meltdown) while we’re out and about with kids. It’s also the amount of times we’re asked, as moms, to provide snack for this or that activity or event or meeting.

I fully understand the point of some snacks, as I wrote months ago, when this blog was still new. I get that toddler tummies are tiny, and it’s hard for little ones to manage the long stretch between breakfast and lunch, or lunch and dinner, without a tiding-over. I get that snacks can strategically fill in nutritional gaps (didn’t finish his breakfast milk? A 10 a.m. cheese stick or yogurt is a good calcium-and-vitamin-D boost).

What I don’t get, and never will, is the idea that kids of all ages need food to accompany just about anything they do. Let’s stop calling snacks anything virtuous (the tummy-tider-over; the nutritional gap-filler), and be honest: we use snacks as an event in themselves; a boredom-buster; a tantrum-avoider (hence, as my friend Gretchen told me, the growing number of parents who bring snacks church–as though you can’t ask a 5-year-old to go foodless for an hour. In church).

Snacks are a crutch.

You can’t go a soccer game without a snack. Sure, they play hard, so the orange slices and water bottles at half-time are good. But the Munchkins after? Apparently, my friend Susan told me, you can’t go to a Brownie or Girl Scout meeting without a little somethin’-somethin’ either (I have boys; hence, no Brownies, and I haven’t broached the world of Cub scouting yet). Says Susan, a 7:30 pm Brownie meeting for a bunch of first-graders must be aided and abetted by donuts and cookies. Really? Didn’t they just have dinner? Don’t they have to go to bed, like, soon? You can’t go to a Mommy & Me class without food. My younger son James was in a gymnastics class a couple of years ago, and he was the only one who left after the hour of tumbling and balancing; everyone else had signed up for a second hour of crafts. And … a snack.

I am quick to add here, my kids do get snacks. Of course they get them at school because frankly I think I’d be hauled up in front of a very disapproving PTA if I didn’t send in my second-grader and kindergartner with their daily snacks (along with lunch). I agree with that, and I’m a big fan of our principal, who frowns on junky snacks, and both my sons’ teachers this year, who have stressed that the kids should bring in water, not juice, for snack (probably more to avoid sticky spills on desks than for health, but I’ll take it!).  I have bought vending-machine fare for the boys as a treat (though I steer them to pretzels and popcorn, and away from candy bars and Pop-Tarts, and I often require them to hang on to the goodies until after dinner. They comply).

How do you feel about the ubiquitous culture of snacks? Not about the necessary, between-meals, nutritious snacks, but the “here, kid, have a dollar for the vending machine because I can’t bear to hear you whining any more” snacks? Can your kids get together with an organized group without sniffing around for juice and cookies?

Quick: What does this cry mean?

I have a brand-new nephew, Nicholas (Nico, for short). His parents, my brother and sister-in-law, are mostly going minimal when it comes to baby gear. Part of that is a space issue–their house is  pretty compact. But a bigger part of it is that, from what I can tell, and not including having read probably four million books on pregnancy, birth, and babycare (they approach most things fairly intellectually), they plan to rely largely on instinct. (And by the way, the photo above is not little Nico, but stay tuned to the end of this post for a gratuitous, isn’t-he-the-cutest photo of the latest member of my rapidly expanding family).

As any of us who’ve given birth can attest, babies themselves are born with a host of fascinating and useful instincts. They can grasp a finger, even with their toes (shades of our simian ancestors!). A newborn placed on his mother’s belly will scootch his way up toward her breast–the urge to feed and the intoxicating, familiar scent of the mother is so strong. Even lying in bed beside his lactating mother, a newborn–who otherwise can’t really roll over–can roll himself toward her. They may need some help nursing here and there, but they know how to suck. For seven-or-so-pound, comma-shaped beings, they have pretty amazing abilities to figure out what they need to do, and do it.

So why do their parents, upon having children, seem to lose all instinct?

Oh, I know we don’t forgo all our instincts as adult human beings after we give birth. We know, the vast majority of us, to respond to a baby’s cry with food and/or comfort, for example. But when it comes to ongoing baby- and childcare, too many parents conveniently forget their instincts in favor of relying on experts, or products, to tell them what to do.

It’s not hard to see why. The sheer preponderance of stuff you can use to help you figure out your baby and decide what to do next can make even the smartest (and certainly the most well-meaning) parents feel they need all kinds of help. With all the stuff out there, I’m saying, it’s easy to feel you’re starting from absolute zero when you’re handed your baby for the first time.

Here are just a few examples.

• You can hire people to plan your baby’s arrival, in much the same way you can hire a wedding planner to aid you in hosting your nuptial celebrations. I read an Associated Press article, by Caryn Rousseau, on the phenomenon, and just now went to look for it on Google. The story was picked up by just about every news outlet in the country, so here’s just one example, from the Chicago Tribune.
• You can buy (or register for, so someone else can buy it for you) a baby-monitor-like device that helps you keep track of feeding amounts and times, wet and dirty diapers, and so on. The device is cleverly called the Itzbeen (as it, “it’s been 2 hours since Tyler’s diaper was changed…” because why go by the time-honored butt-sniff?). Buy at your own peril.
• You can download a mobile phone app that aims to decode your baby’s cry for you. I’m trying hard to imagine this one: your infant is wailing, so you ask your phone if it thinks it’s a hungry cry or an I’m tired cry? Seriously?

Back in the old-media days, it was all about the What to Expect When You’re Expecting series of books. I have, or had, more than one of these, and to be honest, there’s some good info in them, but the tone is–at least to my ears–so patronizing, so infantalizing. It’s like you get pregnant and poof, you forget how to use your higher brain. You forget that you have instincts.

I tend to think the pile-on of stuff serves not only to separate parents from their money (not to mention space in their homes), but also to separate them from their inborn common sense.

What’s your opinion? How much stuff did you use to help you navigate babycare?

Oh, and as promised, here’s little Nico, expressing his instinct  with an open-mouthed cry, which I prefer to believe means, “Where’s Aunt Denise?!”):

This stapler? About the most exciting thing in a law office, from the boys' perspective.

And there we sat, in a conference room, waiting for the closer to gather her stack of papers and Wite-Out and stapler (seriously, folks; digitize. Let’s go paperless!) and get the process started. While we were waiting, and out of the clear blue, Daniel began complaining of an earache.

Meltdown city? In fact, no.

My husband, in a break during the loooong process of signing multiple copies of loan documents, ran across the street to a convenience store for some children’s Tylenol, which helped Daniel temporarily, but even without the pain, both boys had to hang around a dull office (complete with fake ficus tree) for two hours without complaint and without bugging us endlessly so we could concentrate on signing our names over and over and trying to listen to the details of our particular refi process.

And they did it. They both had activity books and a box of crayons, markers, and colored pencils to entertain themselves, which turned out to be an inspired choice of distraction, since they could pretend they were doing “work” while we did our “work.”

When, finally, the last paper was signed and the last fax received (honestly? Faxes? In almost the second decade of the twenty-first century? I digress, but I was amazed at how many trees had to perish so we could secure a lower mortgage rate. Maybe that explains the fake ficus), the woman who handled the closing pronounced our boys “excellent.” She said: “We end up having a lot of children in here for closings, and I have two children, so I know what I’m talking about. Some of the kids are awful, but you’re excellent.” The firm’s partner, wandering by in his snowboots and fleece, invited the boys to his office to plunder a bowl of candy on his desk, and jokingly offered Daniel an internship (he likes calculators, my little geeky second-grader).

I get this a lot:

“Oh, what angels your boys are!”

“What well-behaved children, my goodness!”

“Is he always this polite?”

“Denise, do your boys ever scream and run around like lunatics?” (this last was a comment from my cousin’s husband, Mike, as he tried to corral his kids and a couple other random female cousins at the tail end of a party, while my boys placidly waited for their coats.)

The answer, to Mike and everyone else: Yes, they do scream and run around. No, they aren’t always this polite. Yes, they are well-behaved and angels. Outside the house.

At home? Eh, not so much.

At home, Daniel and James run, literally run, from one end of the house to the other; leap onto and over furniture (Daniel can’t get across a room without making my heart stop in 12 different ways); slam monster trucks against the base moldings (that would be James, who wants to drive monster trucks for a living someday, after which he might be a dentist); and squabble with each other. Constantly.

Normal boys, right? Of course they are.

But outside the house, you’ll see Daniel slinging a protective arm around his little brother, introducing him to strangers, and stepping out of the way to let other kids run rampant at the library or the post office or the supermarket. James is more rambunctious and mischeivous when we’re out in public, but without Daniel as his foil, he calms down pretty quick. Give him a slice of American cheese at the supermarket and he’s my puppet.

So my secret is out: Those well-behaved boys trailing me in the mall like cute little ducklings? Just imagine the bigger one stomping angrily around the house and making his most determined “mad face” because I’ve asked him to shut the TV/go brush his teeth/stop banging on the piano. Just picture the little one telling me to “stop talking to me! don’t even look at me!” at the dinner table because I committed the grave offense of requesting that he eat one bite of hamburger.

I guess that they feel safe and comfortable enough at home to, as my mom would say, let it all hang out. But the fact that I get the glowing reports on my angels in the outfield? Yeah, that feels good. Because that’s always been one of my goals: I want to be the parent who leaves the doctor’s office (or, in the case of last week’s refi episode, the lawyer’s office), or the family party, or the playdate, and be able to hear, as the door closes behind us, “what nice boys. We’d love to have them come back again.”

Give me an S!

So, I didn’t change my name when I married my dear husband just over 9 years ago. Surprised? No one who knew me was, but I’m continually surprised at the hoopla it causes even now. Or maybe especially now, with our two sons firmly entrenched in the local public school system. But more on school later.

First, here’s why I did it (or, to be precise, didn’t do it):

• I like my name. I always have. I like that it reflects my Italian-American heritage, even though it’s not immediately obvious to everyone that it’s even an Italian surname (and to that end, I did a little research: Schipani probably originates in Calabria, the region that occupies the toe of Italy’s boot. That fits, because Calabria is where my Schipani great-grandfather immigrated from. But curiously, it also might be, even further back in time, Albanian). See? History and the natural ambiguity built into history. What’s not to love?
• I like being a Schipani. There are people in our ancestral line (OK,  only as far back as my own father can remember) whose likes and dislikes, senses of humor and hobbies and penchants, echo mine. That feels good to me. I didn’t want to jettison the name that makes me feel tethered to that past.
• I had my name for a long time before I met my husband. Specifically, nearly 33 years. I was 34 when we got married. I’d been using my name as an adult for long enough that it would’ve felt abrupt to just become someone else.
• It’s tied to my professional identity. As a magazine editor and writer, I’m connected, quite literally, to my name. People recongnize it on mastheads and in bylines, and these days (not the case when I began my writing career more than 20 years ago) on Google.
• Did I mention I just like it? I like that it’s a little hard to pronounce or to spell (for some people, that is. I mean, I learned it when I was four or five. My seven-year-old can spell it now, too).

Here, just to get this out of the way, are two reasons I didn’t change it that don’t apply: I didn’t keep Schipani because I don’t like my husband’s name. I do like it. I like it because it’s strong and upstanding, like my husband himself, and I was proud to give that name to my sons. And I didn’t keep my name for purely feminist reasons, though I am certainly a feminist. (I believe I’d still be a feminist with my husband’s name.)

Of course, a major reason many women change their names is for the sake of family unity. I do struggle with that notion now that I’m a mother. It does sometimes feel odd to know that I’m not only the sole girl in the house; I’m also the sole Schipani. But does it matter? Not really. The boys don’t call me Ms. Schipani — they call me Mommy.

Thing is, now that they are both in school fulltime, I get double the calls and notes and emails for “Mrs. X (my husband’s name).” Even those teachers or administrators who make a point of acknowledging my different surname slip up and call me Mrs. Schipani (Um? That’s my mom!).

Many years ago now, I was supposed to marry a different guy, and when we were engaged, I made it clear that I’d be keeping my name. I thought he’d have figured that out already — but I was wrong. He. Hit. The. Roof. (No, this isn’t why we split, though the fact that I miscalculated his reaction played into it). Why? “It’s what everyone does!” “It’s what you’re supposed to do!” And, my favorite: “Our future children will be confused!” Much about that time is foggy in my head, but I remember my reaction clearly: “Listen,” I said, “I don’t plan to have children who aren’t bright enough to work out that Mom has a different name than Dad.”

I didn’t know what I was talking about then, being a good 16 years from becoming a mother, but it turns out I was right. It’s not the kids who have a “problem” with the name situation. For kids, at least for my kids, it just is what it is. Mommy has a different name. Daddy is the only one with blue eyes. Mommy’s older, but Daddy’s taller. They categorize, they compartmentalize — they understand, and they take for granted.

I had a scary moment yesterday when Daniel said that the fact that my name isn’t Mrs. so-and-so (like all his friends’ moms) is “hard.” But when I pressed him further, it turned out he meant it was hard for everyone else. My dear boy can’t figure out why the teachers can’t write “Ms. Schipani and Mr. X” on a note home. Even he knows calling me Mrs. Schipani is wrong, and can’t they figure that out?

Why indeed.

Did you change your name, give your maiden name to your children, struggle with the possibilities? I’d love to know (mostly, I’d love to know I’m not alone!)

I feel my temperature rising...

I’m going to make a major admission here: I’m not very good at being at home with my kids. I’m not looking for either condemnation or sympathy; it’s simply a fact of my personality. And knowing this fact for sure has been what’s made me able to create my working-and-family life “balance” (which I put in quotes because as any parent knows, there’s no such thing as balance; it tips back and forth maddeningly) with a minimum of guilt.

So I work and my kids go to school (and before full-time school, I relied on daycare, which I still kinda miss because they had longer hours there than they do at school now). I realize I’m extraordinarily fortunate that I have a career I can fit (better word: stuff, or shoehorn) into school hours, with random extra hours at night or on the weekends if need be. I’m also fortunate that when I did have them in daycare, I found one that was both excellent and affordable.

I’ve written about my determination to not be a guilty working mom before, and I stand by that. Sometimes I feel like a voice in the wilderness, telling anyone who will listen that I don’t feel guilty, that a working mom is the woman I am, not a forced situation or an uncomfortable compromise. I don’t feel that making my work a priority (for the money, yes, but also because it’s who I am) automatically makes my responsibility as a parent less of a priority. My children are top of mind, and consume the majority of my heart, all the time. It’s just that that mind, and that heart, exist in a person who must, must, must work for a living, and must feel free to derive personal and professional enjoyment and satisfaction from that work.

All of this is my long-winded way of saying this:

I am terrible at being, just BEING, at home with my children. Which I am right  now, on Day Two of a viral illness my younger son James is suffering. Naturally any mother (or father) isn’t going to love their child’s sick days — that would be, er, sick. No one, whether they work or stay at home, enjoys the disruption to the household, or the drudgery and helplessness of caring for an ill child.

But I suspect that some parents have the ability to just … be while they’re home. To suspend the devotion to schedule. I can’t. I can do all the things I’m supposed to do — take the boy to the pediatrician, administer medicine, make chicken soup, put Cars in the DVD player (again), build a train track on the living room rug. But I can’t do it with patience.

It’s not who I am. Am I alone here?