6:00 a.m. is the new 7:00 a.m. I’m hoping 8:00 p.m. will be the new 9:00 p.m. soon.
Kindergarten is the new first grade. I know, I say that a lot.
The afternoon carpool line at school is the new inconvenient truth (it’s new to me, anyway). Mamas all over the country are trying to make the most of the time they spend trapped in their cars waiting and waiting and waiting in carpool lines that I’m sure wrap around the Earth at least twice. Speaking of the Earth, I have breaking news. Global warming is real, and the number one cause is the carpool line.
Cookie tantrums are the new Kefir tantrums. With the new school schedule, I have an hour to kill every morning between dropping Dylan and Riley off at school. Every morning. I could go home, but if you knew how much effort it takes to get the kids in the car in the first place, you’d understand why I’m avoiding doing it twice. I could also enroll Riley in the early care program at school, but it’s expensive (and I’m a Martyr Mama). So far, we’ve alternated between going to Publix, Target, Whole Foods, the bank, and any other place I can think of to kill some time. You’d think this would be easy for a Shopaholic Mama like me, but its not. Riley’s outburst yesterday morning over a sugar cookie from the bakery at Publix at eight o-clock in the morning was damning evidence that this routine is unsustainable.
My bed is the new Riley’s bed. Again. Boo.
Food therapy is the new occupational therapy. After almost a year of weekly occupational therapy (with the most bestest therapist on the planet), we’ve moved on to our next challenge. After a false start last week, we’ve officially begun food therapy. It’s going well so far, but we’ve started with easy or “green light” food to establish trust and structure. Shit will definitely hit the fan next week when we transition to “yellow light” food. That’s when food therapy will be the new happy hour.
Math parenting is the new attachment parenting. Move over, Mayim Bialik! As it turns out, good parenting simply requires logs, columns, some simple addition and subtraction, and most importantly, statistics.
When Dylan was an infant, I kept a log of all of his diaper changes. There were four columns in my, ahem, poop log: date/time, wet, poop, and notes (where I recorded which breast I started with for each feeding). Lunatic Mama! I suppose I could have added up the wet and poopy diapers on a daily or weekly basis or churned out some statistics on how often poopy diapers resulted from breastfeeding on the right side first, but let’s be honest. The poop log was for my sanity. It gave me a sense of control in an absolutely uncontrollable situation – motherhood. Here she is:
Yes, I still have the poop log. I can’t bring myself to throw it out. It’s a relic that should be preserved if for no other reason than to show a struggling Mama that there’s at least one Mama in the world crazier than her (me).
Nearly six years later, there’s a new log in town – the dinner log. It has more columns and is way more mathematically advanced than the poop log ever was. The dinner log has seven columns including: date, number of opportunities (bites available), number of occurrences (bites taken), percentage of success, length of breaks between bites, length of entre meal, and notes. The dinner log is no joke. I think I’m going to start a bedtime log for Riley. Even if the statistics are grim (and they are), at least I’ll feel less nutty. The future of parenting is in math.
Bumblebee is the new Lightning McQueen. The boys are newly obsessed with Transformers, and their favorite game is to shout “Bumblebee!” every time they see a yellow car. By “yellow car,” I mean anything yellow, including actual cars, trucks, vans, school buses, taxis, diggers, dump trucks, and cranes (there’s a lot of construction going on near our house), street signs, street lights, buildings, houses, the sun, flowers, and trash on the side of the road. If it’s yellow, they yell. Yeah, you don’t want to be in my car.
Married to Jonas is the new Keeping Up With The Kardashians. Okay, maybe not, but let me tell you, the Jonas Family is a serious bunch. The term “over achiever” doesn’t even begin to describe this brood. If nothing else, these shows are excellent insomnia entertainment.
Running is the new walking. Disgusting hot and sticky South Florida weather be damned. I’m running my first 5K of the year on September 8th.
Missouri Representative Todd Akin is the new village idiot. I usually keep politics out of this space, but rape, pregnancy and abortion are inextricably linked to motherhood. Regardless of your political affiliation or your belief about choice, it’s our responsibility as voters to be aware of the dialogue about the female reproductive system happening at the highest level of leadership in our country. The notion that a woman has the power to prevent pregnancy (i.e. “shut that whole thing down”) during a rape is not only disrespectful to survivors of rape, but also to women (and men) struggling with fertility issues and women (and men) who’ve suffered the loss of a pregnancy. This botched-biology nonsense is misogyny and proof that women’s bodies – or anyone’s body for that matter – should not be legislated. Period. (Speaking of period, I’d love to hear Akin’s theory on menstruation.) Okay, I’m done.
On a lighter note…
Nicki Minaj is the new Mariah Carey. Apparently, when Mariah found out Nicki was being considered as a judge for American Idol, she hung up the phone. You go, girl. (p.s. I don’t know who Nicki Minaj is, but apparently she’s hip with the youngsters. I’m old.)
Is there anything new going on in your life?
The Runaway Mama by Jen Gregory 