Category Archives: advice

January 18, 2015 · 7:31 pm

That Nugget

I started this blog over four years ago thinking it would be a great opportunity to share personal experiences, insight, and advice, keep track of aha moments and priceless things my kids say, and, of course, confess my worst parenting fails and lessons learned along the way.

I’m a pretty humble gal, so this is hard for me to admit, but I kind of sort of hoped at some point I would pass along a nugget of wisdom of such remarkable pure genius that I would singlehandedly rock the blogosphere and end up on the “Today” show couch opposite my longtime crush, Willie Geist.

You guys. Today (no pun intended), I hit the motherlode. This is it. This is that nugget.

You know that corner of your kitchen where you keep piles of recipes that you rip from magazines but never cook, stacks of field trip permission slips, event reminders, Scholastic book flyers, and fundraising catalogs from school, bags of chips, popcorn, and cookies that belong in the pantry but are needed so frequently that it’s easier to just leave them out, past-ripe bananas with which you plan hope (in your dreams) to make banana bread, Hanukkah gelt that you keep forgetting to throw out, the contents of a birthday party goodie bag filled with crap that you pray your kids will eventually overlook, a pile of chewed-up Legos that you found in the backyard because the dog’s new hobby is pilfering the kids’ toys, the shampoo and conditioner you bought two weeks go that you intend to bring to your bedroom the next time you bring a load of folded laundry to your bedroom (ha!), and the fourteen or so plastic cups filled with various levels of water that that your amazingly independent kids pour for themselves every ten to fifteen minutes throughout the day?

You know the corner I’m talking about, right?

You’re not going to believe what lies underneath that mountain of shit, I mean, stuff. It’s utterly spectacular. It’s space. Counter space.

S.P.A.C.E.

There is actual, real-life space in my kitchen to do stuff like cook. Or think. Or just stare at and feel calm, free, and open to receive the positivity the universe has to offer, because those who preach that nonsense that a messy house is a happy house most definitely don’t have children living among them.

kitchenspace

I can see the horizon from here, my friends, and it’s fucking glorious.

You can do this at your house, too. I believe in you.

Happy Sunday night,

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Filed under advice, aha moment, mess, motherhood

January 17, 2014 · 8:46 am

Stage Scared

stagescared

Once a year, each of the preschool classes at Riley’s school act as “Kings and Queens” of Shabbat.  That means the chosen class sits on the bimah (the platform or elevated stage in a synagogue) and leads all of the other teachers and children in prayers and songs during the weekly Friday Shabbat service.  On this special day, the kids wear crowns and their parents are invited to the service.

The night before Riley was to be King, I asked him, “Riley, are you excited to be a King of Shabbat?”

“Yes,” he said timidly.

“You know I’m going to be there, right?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Are you scared?” I asked him.

Last year when he was a King of Shabbat, he was terrified.  It was so bad that he wouldn’t even sit on the bimah.  He spent the whole service curled up in my lap trying to inch his way back inside of my vagina.  It might’ve been because I was there (mommies are magnets for shy toddlers), but I could tell there was something more going on.  Even when he first walked into the sanctuary and before he saw me, his head was faced down like a dog with his tail between his legs.  He was genuinely scared.  It was adorable and sad, and I wondered if or when he’d grow out of it.

“Yes,” he said.  “I’m stage scared.”

Stage scared.

“It’s called stage fright,” I said.  And then I stood in front of him and said with grand gestures, “You know, Riley, there’s a secret to getting rid of stage fright.  All you have to do is stand tall and proud up on the bimah and imagine that every single person in the audience is…NAKED!”  Yes, that’s the sage advice I gave my five-year-old son.  And there was more.  “If you imagine you can see everyone’s butts, you’ll laugh and be happy and forget about being afraid.”

I’m brilliant!  I’m curing my son of stage fright as we speak!

“Will I see your butt, Mommy?” he asked.

“Well, not my butt.  Imagine everyone’s butt except mine,” I said.

How about Karen’s butt?”

Karen is my good friend and the mother of one of Riley’s friends at school.  It would awkward for Riley to imagine her naked butt.

“Well…”

“And all of my friends’ butts?” he asked.

“Um…”

 “And my teachers’ butts?” he added giggling.

Crap.

“And the Rabbi’s butt?”  He was hysterical.

Shit.

I had a dreadful vision of Riley pointing at everyone’s butts and yelling out vulgar butt jokes.  In the synagogue.  On the bimah.  In front of his teachers and all of the parents and – gulp – the rabbi.  As my mind raced trying to find the words to get out of the lewd mess I’d made, Riley said, “Mommy, if you’re stage scared, aren’t you just supposed to take a deep breath?”

That might work, too.

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Filed under advice, parenting, school