For New Old Moms to Learn Old New Tricks
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I have nothing but praise for my first feminist. Nearly 50 when she guest starred on All In the Family as Edith Bunker’s feminist cousin, Bea Arthur’s indomitable, fierce, and unapologetically sexy character Maude was so beloved she was given her own ground breaking spinoff show, featuring taboo subject matter like domestic abuse, menopause (thank you!) and abortion. But on top of all that, Bea…
“When you suddenly see tears welling up in… your six year old daughter’s eyes and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky… when you are forever fighting a degenerative sense of ‘nobodiness’- then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.” Martin Luther King, Letter from Birmingham Jail Watching Grace exuberantly devour her life with absolutely zero…
I am a Virgo perfectionist professional personal organizer who has had my own business for 18 years. I am paid decently to run other people’s homes and businesses like a tightly run ship. I mentally declutter and re-organize every home I enter. When we first brought our daughter home I stayed up all night sanitizing the screens on the windows with a bleach covered toothbrush….
Top Ten Crap Things about Being An Old Mom 1. Other people. You will get eyeballs on you. When they ask “Aw, are you her grandma?” just smile and say, ‘No, I’m just her really old mom.” That will: a) shut them up, b) scare them off or c) get you a compliment/apology. Bonus, d) they will think twice before asking that question of anyone…
My sisters and I had to learn on the job just how much work goes into bereavement. Suddenly we were not only grieving our mother but making gnarly decisions- flying family members from Europe, college and California, coordinating pick ups, texting husbands lunchbox menus while composing obituaries, choosing the quintessential prayer card image that perfectly sums up ‘Mom’ (sunset on beach or sunrise?), psalms, readings,…
As a kid, I was such an arts n’ crafts nerd, I thought that emphasizing the ‘n’ in ‘arts n’ crafts’ made it sound way cooler than it already was. Spirograph was my gateway drug into rug hooking kits (6 inch square rugs, mind you). Craving a harder high, rock tumbling fed my Irish Catholic/German Jew propensity to martyr myself by turning dirty rocks for…
Just this morning Grace passionately apologized to her Olaf crayon when she broke his tip off. (She tends to color hard.) GRACE: Olaf. I am sorry I broke you because I love you Olaf. (Whispers to her Olaf crayon) You are my favorite. More than that reindeer. ME: Why do you like Olaf so much? GRACE: Because he’s white. And because the one thing he…
Our first clues that fostering a teenager would be absurdly terrifying occurred while Canada and I were fingerprinted. Absurd? The fingerprinting form had two sections, the top for adopting an animal and the bottom for adopting a human. Our finger-printer was an exhausted, distracted woman who paled when her cellphone rang. She apologized as she answered. FINGER-PRINTER: I have to answer. My son’s been missing…
Grace is the only one able to speak as the adults watch Florida sink from a pale hopeful pink into Shark Week red in it’s haste to elect the reality star of White Male Privilege. Grace: But Donald Trump doesn’t like brown people. While Canada (my husband, personal salvation and possible new address) tries to soothe Grace about her skin color being wrong for our…
While losing my already threadbare patience over Grace’s mourning the loss of an entire hand due to a hangnail, I can’t help wonder if she somehow caught hypochondria (My Hypochondriac, Myself) from me. Around age 6 I became convinced something was terribly wrong with me, despite what doctors and everyone else said. Undeterred, armed with stacks of Ladies Home Journal, People and Redbook, it was…