Coast 2 Coast Mom

Relying on Each Other for Happiness

This post is inspired by Laura Munson's This Is Not The Story You Think It Is . . .A Season of Unlikely Happiness, this month's book club choice for the virtual book club From Left to Write. I received a copy of this book as a participant in the group.

We've lived far from family for over a decade now - not just a town or state away - but a necessary flight or full day's drive away. When we relocated from Michigan to California, my mom's words still echo in my mind that I shouldn't be too sad or anxious about the move, that it would be a good thing for my husband and me because it will bring us closer. That's we'd only have each other to rely on - in emergencies, for daily emotional support, as a spouse and also as best friends. We wouldn't have Desperate Housewives-like relationships with life-long friends we could pop-in on at a whim. We wouldn't have resources, and doctors and stores and babysitters we were familiar with or could find other friends to verify for us - we'd be exploring and testing them out ourselves. She was right of course, that we do have a different relationship than our married friends whom have not struck out completely alone. I don't know if that's better or worse, but it's definitely different. We've been each other's only cheerleaders, firestarters and celebratory partners for as long as I can remember. I don't really know "us" without this best friend-parent-lover mishmash that' we've become.

The Curse and Privilege of Having A Daughter

This post is inspired by this month's From Left to Write book club choice, If You Knew Suzy by Katherine Rosman. I received a copy of this book as a participant in the From Left to Write virtual club.

As with the majority of the books I purchase (or read for this book club), I pass them along to my mom, a sister, or friend - whomever I think would like it most. I have so many people whom I think would LOVE this book that I'm considering ordering a case.

Having JUST returned from the Metro Detroit area to visit my in-laws this weekend, I'm familiar with the locations and social norms that Rosman includes in the book. At least to this WASP-y outsider, the descriptions seemed spot-on and I giggled as I re-read some passages aloud to my husband to jog his memory, strictly from the novelty of having this geographic connection to the book. (I asked after reading about Franklin Village, "Hey - isn't that where we took Li'l Boo for doughnuts and apple cider at the Franklin Cider Mill?") Funny enough, my husband would have been bar mitzvahed the same year as the author and I'm sure that even if my in-laws don't know all of the people mentioned, that they have a friend who does. (I shouldn't be surprised each time I'm reminded how small of a world this is after all of our travels, yet I am.)

Meeting Dr. Scott and Learning Dinosaur Train Secrets

On Sunday we drove into NYC to visit the World Science Festival Street Fair for a screening of the PBS children's series The Dinosaur Train, as well as a booksigning and discussion with Dr. Scott Sampson (aka Dr. Scott to many 2-6 year old kids!). L'il Boo was so excited! On our drive in, he was all "I'm going to meet my first paleontologist!" Which made me giggle hearing that in his little four-year old voice.

Most of the audience was families with kids around Li'l Boo's age, and Dr. Scott was clearly impressed, but not surprised, to be talking with kids using such big words. I think about every preschooler or early elementary kid in the audience could name Triassic, Jurassic and Cretacious when asked, and knew the difference between herbavores, carnivores and omnivores. Li'l Boo answered a warm-up question saying his favorite dinosaur was the Velociraptor. I was shocked that he didn't say the T-Rex. Perhaps he's maturing beyond the T-Rex? I mean, he has a book listing over 100 dinosaurs . . .about time he became interested in one of the others ;-)

Getting Married at 9 - Similar to Getting Married at 4? Ridiculous, right?

This post is inspired by the Silicon Valley Moms Group book club choice, I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced. It tells the story of Nujood Ali's childhood marriage to a man three times her age, and her courage in becoming the first child bride in Yemen to win a divorce. . .she went on to become a Glamour Woman of the Year in 2008. I received a copy of the book as a participant in the book club.

The saga of Li'l Boo and his preschool girlfriend continues . . .

At dinner last night we were talking about this being Li'l Boo's last week of preschool this year. I told him that the bigger kids in his class were going on to kindergarten, and he would stay with his teacher and a couple of the other younger kids next year. I let him know that his "girlfriend" wouldn't be in his class next year. Li'l Boo surprised us by saying that he'll see her when they get married. It appears that they already have their wedding all planned out. Here's what he told us:

Would My Grandmothers Mind Being Called This Color?

This post is inspired by the latest SVMoms book club choice, Green Guide Families: The Complete Reference for Eco-friendly Parents. I received a copy of the book as part of my participation in the book club.

I learned of a concept for the first time last week, in the run up to Earth Day on April 22nd, that within the eco-friendly green movement, there are actually "shades" of green. I heard that 65% of people fall under the shade "light green." These people have made some earth-friendly changes to their lifestyle, perhaps commuting or taking publictransportation and recycling some of their paper, glass, plastic and aluminum products, but haven't changed eveything in their life to live completely "dark green" by living their entire lives in the most earth-friendly ways they can possibly imagine. 

It made me think about how so much of the green movement is really a throwback to the lifestyle from a half century ago, and how my grandmothers' generation must be getting such a kick out of it - as a return to the life they knew in their younger years, and for the most part, never really left behind. When I visit my grandmothers, they've always done more with less, and by comparison of consuming less, seemingly accomplished more. They've continued their gardens and sewing on buttons and cooking from scratch. They're today's hipsters without trying to be.

Cooking with My Kiddo

This post is inspired by the Silicon Valley Moms Blog monthly book club choice for March, Top 100 Finger Foods and Top 100 Baby Purees by Annabel Karmel. I received a copy of both books as a part of the book club.

I remember when the idea of cooking with Li'l Boo first came to me. I read in several parenting books when he was a baby that kids are more apt to try foods when they help prepare them. I made a mental note for when I deemed him old enough to assist me, and moved on. Then while living in Naperville, I saw a neighboring family of four kids from about ages 2-8 prepare dinner and a lightbulb went off.

There they were, standing around the counter in the kitchen on various step stools and chairs, each working on different stages of dinner prep. The oldest was chopping a carrot, two were ripping lettuce, another stirring something in a bowl near her mom at the sink. Aha! So THAT'S how she does it! That's how she doesn't lose her mind everyday during the late afternoon/early evening witching hour.  She's not breaking up wrestling matches and blowing up over crayon drawings on the walls upstairs or ushering wailing children indoors to check out a boo boo. She gives' em jobs and keeps 'em busy. These kids were focused and taking pride in what they're doing. . . and relatively happy and quiet. I vowed to copy her from that day forward.

Literally Learning To Read in Celebration of Dr. Seuss's Birthday

This post is inspired by the Yahoo! Mother Board's monthly community topic, discussing how we celebrate reading in our families.

Two years ago we celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday at Marche in Chicago for their annual "Seussville" celebration. It was a family-friendly (yet gourmet) meal and we were amused by the menu items all inspired by his books, or taken from the Dr. Seuss cookbook. The Cat in the Hat was there, and Thing 1 and Thing 2 visited tables and worked the room too while the kids each received goodie bags of Dr. Seuss trinkets and coloring and activity pages. We ate it up, and it's one of my last memories of us living in Chicago. I'm not sure if Marche is still hosting this annual dinner, but we had a wonderful experience celebrating reading and eating as a family at a nice French restaurant.

I've searched for restaurants in NYC that celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday, but haven't come across any. (Fingers crossed that a local NYC restaurant sees this and makes plans to celebrate it next year - Marche was packed and you needed reservations to get in when we attended.)

This 'Workweek Widow' Understands the Possibility of Everything

This post is inspired by the SVMoms book club choice for this month, The Possibility of Everything by Hope Edelman. The book details one mom's parenting, marriage and faith as she seeks a cure to her daughter's disruptive imaginary friend, culminating in a wonderous trip to Belize to see a shaman.

From the very beginning of this book I connected with the author, and not only as a mother who would do anything for her child, but as what another friend of mine refers to as a "workweek widow." Moms who parent alone during the week while their husbands travel for work or work long enough hours that they're out of the house before the kids awake and return after the kids are in bed. My hubby and I joke that he should start a weekend dad blog for other dads in the same boat, but that it'd probably sound like he was divorced. Pages 81-83 of The Possibility of Everything were nearly word-for-word stripped from the stressful times in my life. In particular, two excerpted lines shot an arrow directly to my heart because I've had the same conversation and the exact same thoughts:

on page 81-

"'Can you come?'

There's a slight pause at the other end of the line, just long enough for me to regret having asked.

'I'll try,' he says."

and then on page 82

"In a few hours, after I calm down, I'll have the good sense to wonder why it is that when Uzi says, "I'll try," he means he'll try but I hear him saying, "I won't."

The Coco Chanel Mom Uniform

This post is inspired by this month's Silicon Valley Mom's Group book club choice, Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky by Chris Greenhalgh (Now a major motion picture). I received a complimentary copy of the book as part of the book club.

I didn't intend for it to happen. I didn't WANT it to happen. But alas, here I find myself in my slate colored yoga pants and long sleeve workout tee sitting with my laptop. Now a regular rotation in my laundry pile, I have succumbed to donning The Mom Uniform. I know I'm a part of the stereotype I used to joke about. I laughed at the mom jeans sketch on SNL years ago. I laughed at the Taylor Swift skit showing a mom speeding to a Nordstrom sweater sale. I laugh now because it's true.

We Can't Deliver the Flowers Because The House Is A Crime Scene

This post is inspired by See Mom Run by Beth Feldman, a compilation of funny parenting stories by bloggers and writers (many of whom I know!), and the latest book choice for the Silicon Valley Moms Blog book club.

Our life was crazy when Li'l Boo was born, and in a lot of ways it has never let up (Hello! Four moves in four years?) At the time, we were living in Silicon Valley and had purchased a new home when I was six months pregnant. Unfortunately, the house needed a lot of work before being "liveable" and as a result had to wait until we had a working sink, toilet and shower before moving in. I remember my mom calling me to say "You are nine months pregnant - MOVE INTO THAT HOUSE." So we moved the following weekend . . . little did we know that would be our only weekend sans baby as Li'l Boo arrived early, just four days later.

Well, our second night in the new home we received a phone call from our previous building manager letting us know that there had been an arson fire at our old complex (seriously, the only crime we heard of during our five years living there - HAPPENED TO US - the day after we move out). The fire was in the carport area, our neighbors cars were destroyed (thank goodness we had moved with our car already!), the external walls of our bedrooms were burned, and the fire department had hacked into our place with axes to fight the fire as we weren't there and the doors were locked. Fortunately the only things we lost that night were our bikes, and a twelve pack of diet Dr. Pepper. No one was hurt.

The whole middle-of-the-night event was shocking to us and the community. We lived in a small, quiet town on the peninsula and rarely heard sirens. The kind of place where stores leave signs on their doors that say "Gone to Hawaii, will re-open in a month upon our return" and nothing would happen to the place in their absence. We caught the story of the arson fire on the local news that night (still have it on Tivo), and could not believe how lucky we were to have moved that weekend so we weren't in the place when the explosion and fire occured. I had visions of me being wheeled away via ambulance, mentioned as part of the news story ("one pregnant resident was taken to the hospital"). I'm sure I would have given birth that night had we been there from the shock of it all! That was Sunday.

Now in between having a baby, moving out of my office in Menlo Park, buying a new home in the South Bay and remodeling it so we could move in, my hubby was unhappy at work and weighing staying at the job or taking a new one, with recruiters knocking on his door regularly. We decided that since I was pregnant that he needed to keep his same job and wait to jump ship until I was back at work. Keep some stability and health insurance - right?

Well . . .he was actually scheduled to head to Seattle that Thursday for a day of interviews, until I awoke at 3 a.m. Thursday morning feeling ill and uncomfortable. (In hindsight, I was having contractions, but what did I know - I wasn't in pain like I had spent months fearing.) I drank some water, but didn't feel any better, so we drove over to the hospital - where I then feared walking into the ER and having them send me back home, so we sat in the car in the hospital parking lot and I drank water and we discussed the full moon. (Perhaps the reason for our craziness?) My uncomfortableness subsided and we drove home and fell asleep after c2cDad called the HR rep to reschedule the day of interviews. They were rescheduled for the next day.

Li'l Boo arrived Thursday night, so suffice it to say c2cDad had to call back to reschedule his interviews for a second time. Only this time, he had to admit that we just had a baby (not wanting to divulge personal family info during the initial interview process, it never came up until this point). They were congratulatory and surprised that he even scheduled a day trip so close to the due date (though really, Li'l Boo was just early). Yes, I am a great wifey.

My in-laws arrived from out of town a few days later and the newly rescheduled interview day rolls around. c2cDad flew up for his interviews and called me around mid-day somewhat panicked "is everything ok at the house?"

"Uhm, yeah. Everything's fine, why?"

"Well," c2cDad responds "I just spoke with the HR manager here, and they said they sent flowers to the house, but were told they were undeliverable. The delivery driver just called them to say the address was a crime scene and she couldn't leave the flowers."

At that moment we both realized what had happened. I laughed my first big belly laugh since giving birth. Of course! In the midst of everything else, c2cDad hadn't had time to update his resume with our new address, so they had our old one - the location of the fire. Sure enough, there was "Do Not Cross" crime scene tape hanging around the place.

I can only imagine what the HR team and hiring team must have thought, and it makes me laugh all over again. An interview candidate calls to reschedule his interviews twice, and his address is marked a crime scene. I'd be thinking, "Who is this guy? That's a likely story - this guy had to reschedule because he was in jail" or something along those lines. . . as an HR rep, what goes through your mind when you do something nice for a job candidate, and you're called saying it can't be delivered because they're home has police tape around it?

Oh, fresh flowers arrived to our new home the next day and were genuinely appreciated. I was impressed that they sent them in the first place and bet they've all added this story to their rolodex of work stories that they share over laughs.