This is how I totally rock my mom-itude.

1.  “Kids, PLEASE stop playing and laughing together so loudly.  I’m trying to concentrate on Facebook.”

2.  “Mommy, is that ice cream?”

“Uh huh.”

“Can we have some?”

“Ooof.  I just finished off the pint.  You snooze you lose, little dudes.”

3.  “Hey, 6 year old, can you pour me a glass of wine?”

4.  I let my 4 year old go out into the world dressed like a fucking smurf.  Blue shirt, blue shorts, blue socks, blue shoes.  Two days in a row.

5.  “Mommy, you don’t look so pretty today.”

“Hey, Blueberry Boy.  You’re in no position to be playing Fashion Police.”

6.  “Mommy, I don’t wanna go to school today.”

“I know a great Shel Silverstein poem about that!  Let’s read it!”

Next day…

“Mommy, I cannot go to school today, said little Liji -Ann McKay.  I have the measles and the mumps, a gash, a rash, and purple bumps…”

7.  “C’mon boys.  Eat your broccoli.  EAT IT.  You LOVE broccoli.”

8.  “Mommy, can we have medicine tonight after dinner?  Please please please please please?”

“No.  I know you’re all stuffed up, but I don’t like how excited you are about taking it.  Suffer on, children.”

9.  “Can I have a playdate with ____?”

“No.  I’m a working mom.  Working moms can’t reciprocate.”

10.  “It’s Mothers Day Movie Night!  Let’s watch Disney’s Prince of Egypt!  A violent but animated portrayal of how we Jews got our freedom!”

“Mommy, I’m scared…”

“You’ll watch it and you’ll like it.  It’s your history godammit!”

And there you have it. 

Do it.  Live it.  Love it.

I went to sleep really, really late last night.  Part of it was my own fault.  (I got caught up in the Spring issue of Bitch Magazine.  Yes, the articles are long.  Yes, the font is small.  Yes, the contributors are angry.  But who wouldn’t want to read about a 21st century gal who chose to give up pants?  How “hot topic” is that?)  So yeah, I take full responsibility for my needs as a reader.  But even if I had wanted to go to bed, there was no way in hell that I could’ve.

See Cuh-razzzy Lulu next door was at it again.

Lulu is about 15.  She’s perfectly racially ambiguous, soft spoken and rather shy.  She always says hi if I say hi first.  She as neighborly as 15 year olds who aren’t babysitting for you get in Brooklyn.  I suppose that being 15 she should be considered a young woman.  To me, however, she’s a little girl, rocking the upper middle class, well-educated but comfortably sheltered urban teen thang.  She’s totally normal.

Until she becomes Cuh-razzy Lulu.

Cuh-razzy Lulu screams at the top of her lungs for hours approximately once a week.  It’s all normal teenaged girl bullshit:  “I HATE YOU, MOM!  WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?  I HAAAAATE YOUUUUU!”  Which, whatever.  I can definitely handle.  I mean, I was certainly no walk in the park at 15.  (So sorry, Mom & Dad!)

But what Lulu does that’s super duper special and different is that she peppers her 2-3 hour histrionic parent-bashing rants with very high-pitched (and completely unnecessary, I might add) screaming.  Like horror movie screaming.  No words, just, you know, bloody murder style.

As one who shares a wall with her, I can tell you, it’s a pretty awesome cacaphony of sound.

It’s enough to make me wanna Incredible Hulk it over there, yelling “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, CHILD! SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

Seriously.  If I’m gonna be prevented from getting my beauty sleep, it better be by my own damn kids.

So, Lulu, you made it impossible for me to drag my ass out of bed this morning.  Which made me a grumpy, non-morning mommy and made me late for work. It’s important to me that you know that I blame you entirely for my working mom guilt today.

I’m so friggin’ glad I have boys.

I am truly fortunate in that I have a job that I love.  I don’t know many people who can say the same.  Hell, most of the country is psyched to have a job at all.  But I’ve been lucky.  Though I’ve changed jobs several times since I graduated from college, I’ve always enjoyed my work.

So much so that at certain points, before I had kids, my job defined me.

I was a dancer.  Until I couldn’t dance anymore.  Then, I was a teacher.  And not the kind who went home at 2pm and had all summer off.  I was a teacher all the time.  Into the wee hours of the morn.  There was always something I had to plan, grade, consider, do.  I poured my type A self into this identity.  And it was fine.  I was young.  Single.  Driven.

When I got married, I had to re-examine how I was spending my time.  Suddenly there was another person in the mix.  A person who wanted to hang out with me.  Not Teacher Me, just me.  I had to figure out how to turn my work off.  It wasn’t easy, but we found a middle ground.  He was a teacher too.

Having children is what really messed with my shit.  I went from sharing my time with one person, to two and then to three.  I backed off of work.  Over the course of a five year period, I transitioned from working all the time, to most of the time, to not at all, to two days a week, then three, then four, then finally full time again.

That’s where I’m at now.

And like I said, I love my job.

Over the past few weeks, my “village” has rallied to help me out because my ankle is broken.  It’s been pretty amazing.  I have friends and family dropping off my kids and picking them up and coming to visit all because it’s a challenge for me to get around.  My kids are taken care of.  They’re safe.  They’re happy.

What a load off.

Except…

Now that I don’t have to rush out the door to play my “mom” role, I find myself going to work earlier, staying at work later, and generally becoming consumed with work stuff, like I was way back when, as a new teacher.  I feel like I haven’t seen my kids in weeks for any real amount of time.

It pisses me off that work is my default.  That I see this “help” as a way to not be the gal running out of the office at 4pm because I need to get my kids.  That I get to pretend I’m “normal” like everyone else at work without being pulled in seven million directions.

And then, poof!  Omigod, I’m a bad mom.

I need to get it together.  I need to unwrap myself from all the work stuff I’m all wrapped up in.  I need to re-surface my inner mommy.  I need to spend some time with my little men.

I love my job.  But I love my children way more.  Now, I just have to act like it.  I should probably wash my hair too.

You know that kind of tired where you’re like “oh Lord, how the hell am I ever gonna get my ass outta this bed because it is literally made of lead and I am too out of shape to heave ho it into a standing position?”  Yeah.  That’s me the past couple of days.

I. am. beat.

I should probably be better about taking my lady multi-vitamin.  And my 3000 IUs of vitamin D.  And my allergy pill.  And my very minimal dose of anti-depressant.

But seeing all that shit lined up on the kitchen counter makes me feel like an old person.  And evidently I’d rather be really fucking tired than feel like an old person for the 20 seconds it takes me to swallow all those damned pills.

Gah.

Other reasons I feel like I was hit by an invisible mac truck:

1. I’ve been cleansing for the last 10 days.  It’s great!  (Snore.)
2. My left leg is being weighed down by this stupid 20 pound airboot to heal my stupid broken ankle.
3. I haven’t exercised in about ten years.
4. My kids talk a lot.  Paying attention to their non-linear thinking exhausts me.
5. Every Sunday for the past 3 Sundays, I’ve stayed up to catch Mad Men on AMC in real time.  WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME?!

Luckily, I have a whole weekend to sleep it off.  My husband and children are running off to DC, leaving me here alone with a full bottle of wine, all the cable tv I can handle, and my cat.  Who insists on throwing up frequently and peeing in random but offensive places throughout my apartment.

My dad is coming to take care of me (I can’t walk, remember?).   So, Dad?  You are totally on cat duty.  Sorry, Dude.

As soon as I can convince myself to get the fuck off the couch, I will start my day.  Until then, I will lie here.  In my red fleece bathrobe.  With my glasses on and my hair looking nutso.  Run away, people.

Happy Friday!

“Honey, I have to go to Atlanta next week to help plan this conference.  But don’t worry.  It’s just for one night and my parents will be here so they can take the kids to school.”

“KAMI!  Your parents are coming because you have a broken ankle!”

“Oh. Right.”  (Pause.)  “I probably shouldn’t go to Atlanta then.”

Annnnd this is how my brain functions.  All the time.  About everything.  A problem presents itself and my instinct is always to say, “how can I make this work?” instead of “no fucking way, Jose!  I have a broken ankle!”

Its not like I’m hyper accommodating because I’m afraid of getting fired or anything.

It’s because of my vagina.

We women are supposed to be bendy, right?  We are the nurturers, the mothers, the ameliorators.  We are the givers.

The problem-solvers.

It’s genetic.  And learned.  And promoted, for chrissakes.  We women should be able to “do it all!”  Check out Rosie the Riveter.  She did her part to help the war effort, raised 8 kids and cooked every meal herself*.  She also knew how to rock a bandana.

I am as ardent a feminist as they come.  I waltz through life pretending I have extra sets of arms.  I am a wife, a mother, and a career-oriented educator.

But sometimes, (because it’s physically impossible to do otherwise) I have to say “when.”

Or my husband has to say “when” and then he looks at me with his woman-you-so-crazy face until  I agree.

We cannot do it all.  I cannot do it all. And the balls I have in the air are not all of equal weight.  The challenge is to sort through them, color code them, and let some of them fall the fuck down.

No one is gonna drop dead if I don’t go to Atlanta.

But my ankle may fall off if I do.

And that would be awful.  Without an ankle, I wouldn’t be pretty anymore and my husband might leave me for a woman who has two ankles and then my children would be torn between two homes and I’d have to get a second job at McDonalds to support my she-lacks-an-ankle physical therapy.  And then I’d never be able to run the New York Marathon because who could run a marathon missing an ankle?  Or I’d devote my entire being to figuring out how to run the marathon sans ankle at the expense of everything else in my life thus alienating my friends and family and ultimately dying alone.

So, I’m saying “when.”  And in my spare time, now that I’m not going to Atlanta, I plan to Martha Stewart my balls.  In pretty, spring shades.  Also, I will alter their sizes accordingly.  This is the feminism of today: If I focus on my balls, maybe my vagina won’t feel so betrayed.

When do you say “when”?

*I totally and completely fabricated this information about Rosie the Riveter for the sake of making my point.

I broke my ankle.  On vacation.  In Costa Rica.

Sigh.

Ok.  I’m making it sound a lot worse than it is.  It’s sprained pretty badly and fractured just a little bit.  Thankfully, I got an awesome airboot for my troubles.  (Now I know what astronauts feel like.)

Everyone tried it on.

The airboot, together with the little fracture, has done wonders for my love life.  I mean, my work/life.  It’s times like this when the house of cards falls and it doesn’t seem to matter the degree of the infirmity.  The results would be the same for a stomach flu.  When Mommy’s down for the count, so is the infrastructure that makes the whole working mom thing work.

Last week, because I’m a ridiculous fucking martyr-for-the-cause type, I tried to pretend I was fine.  People were constantly stopping me to check in:  “Holy shit!  What happened to you?”  (The boot is a little terrifying to see juxtaposed again a lovely little navy blue boat-neck dress that comes to the knee.)  My standard response was, “I’m fine.  Really.  This boot is just an inconvenience for the next four weeks.”

Yup.  I said that up until Thursday afternoon.  When I puked all over myself, my car (and my husband a little) from a stress-induced migraine.

Something was telling me I wasn’t as “fine” as I thought.

My husband was freaked out.  As soon as the kids were in bed, he phoned my mom and together, they plotted against for me.  He mapped a Help calendar for the next three weeks.  All I had to do was sit there.  On the couch.  With my left leg elevated.  And suddenly, I was no longer going it alone.

Asking for help sucks.  Being faced with a bearded man who’s demanding that you accept the help he arranged for you is a hell of a lot easier.

The thing is, I’m very independent.  I do my thing.  I have my structures in place.  I know exactly how much time we need in the mornings to get where we need to be.  Help throws all that shit to hell in a handbasket.  Help necessitates a certain degree of flexibility that this momtrolfreak does not normally possess.  Thus, there is friction between Help and I.

But, the crux of the issue is this:  Requiring help inherently means that I can’t do something myself.

I hate that.

I have carefully built a fragile working mother ecosystem here.  My sons and I?  We’ve got this thing down.  Pretty much.  Well, more often than not, anyway.  However, this ecosystem can’t survive right now without some outside intervention.  And the outside intervention will ensure that this stupid fracture heals in a timely fashion.

So, my big girl pants are on.

Hello, Help.

I’m stubborn and bitchy and I’m currently in some pain.  I recognize that I need you right now.  I’ll try my best to micromanage you as little as possible.  Especially since you’re my friends and family.

Thank you for lending a hand.  I’ll get you back.  Pinky swear.

Love,

Kami

Last June, when I appeared on The Gayle King Show, Gayle randomly asked me my thoughts on The Mommy Wars.  She explained that back when she was working and raising her two kids, there was a lot of tension between moms who worked and moms who stayed home.  As a mom who has been on both sides of that fence, I responded honestly.  I said that I didn’t think it was that much of an issue anymore.  Because, in my experience, it’s not.

Then, last week, that same, old, stupid Mommy Wars flame that I claimed was a non-issue, was fanned by pundit Hillary Rosen. Rosen, a working mom, said something along the lines of  “blah, blah, blah, she’s never worked a day in her life, blah, blah blah…” in a tirade against how Mitt Romney is using his wife as his women’s issues barometer.

An idiotic move, but…

Come on!  Let’s all kumbaya and celebrate our vaginas together. Let’s not get caught up in this ridiculous rhetoric yet again.  And let’s certainly not allow The Mommy Wars to make political headlines in an election year.

Say it with me: The Mommy Wars are nonsensical.  We all work hard.  We all love our kids.  End of story, Media.

What is it about pitting working mothers against stay at home mothers that makes for such hawt and scandalous news?  Here ya go, folks!  In lieu of naked mud wrestling, lady #1, who has seven kids and stays home will catfight lady #2 who has 3 kids and works full time.  Let’s watch closely and see who wins!

I think there’s another story here.  The story of the conservative right and how it bandies about the loaded term “family values.”  See, the Mommy Wars are a perfect foil for Romney’s effort to get the lady vote.  Who’s a Better Mommy is a contest that’s clean, wholesome, riles us up, and doesn’t make him have to work that hard.  We can duke it out among ourselves, while our right to choose is wrenched quietly out from under us.

Mommies are so easily distracted, aren’t we?

I’m all for family values.  In fact, family is my first priority.  But my definition of family values is a bit broader than Rick’s and Mitt’s.  And it’s a little to the left.  It has nothing to do with whether I work, stay home or (dare I say it!) work from home.  Family values are about valuing family.  In every shape, size and sexual orientation.  This quick re-ignition of the so-called Mommy Wars sparked by Rosen’s 8 word on-the-air comment is symptomatic of just how low on the totem pole family values are here in this country.

Wanna talk about the real Mommy War?  The one that is founded on real family values? The one that all moms AND dads at home and otherwise have been raging for decades?  Let’s discuss how hard and how expensive raising a family is!

The family situation in America is unsustainable.  There are very limited government supports for elder care.  There are none for the shit that hits the fan when a baby (or two or in Ann Romney’s case, five) enters the game.  For us 99%ers, today’s economy requires that both parents work.  Daycare costs a fortune.  It’s prohibitively expensive for multiple children.  If you don’t have family helping you out, it can cost almost as much to go to work as to stay home.

And for the stay at home folk, not even the warriors among us can handle being alone with our young child(ren) 24/7.  Ann Romney, I respectfully don’t care what you say.  If you reared all five of your boys with no help, you’re simply not human.

The conservatives have been busy promoting family values by trying to cut funding for Planned Parenthood and demonizing gay marriage.  They need to get their faces out of the Bible, I mean Constitution, and see the forest for the trees. Student test scores are low nationwide.  We are far behind in math and science education. Our kids can’t read.  They’re obese (thanks for tackling this one, Michelle Obama!).  We also see grown ups who hate their jobs because their jobs make their lives outside of work  (you know, the lives that involve their families?)  infinitely more stressful.  We parents spend our lives strategizing and juggling and balancing logistics.  We are constantly doing this in myriad ways to make it all work BECAUSE we value our families.

HELP US.

In fact, I’d like to challenge both sides of the aisle to cowboy up on the family values front.  Offer parents an actual family leave, not the bullshit one that FMLA covers.  Provide us with work flexibility that doesn’t punish us for having to take our kids to the pediatrician.  Socialize childcare.  Enter the 21st century!  Feel the peer pressure!

I gotta say, riding on the coattails of the old Mommy Wars is an entertaining deflection.  The Romney’s are running with it.  Ann even claimed that the PR uproar Rosen’s comment caused was the “best birthday present ever!”

We need to shift the conversation away from “who’s a better mommy?” to how to strengthen all our families.  We need to focus on how to grow better, happier, and more effective people and citizens.  In the words of my radical feminists sisters of the 1960s and 70s, the personal is political.  I just want to make sure we are politicizing the appropriate piece of the personal.

(this post was inspired by my husband and his rage against this particular machine.)

My family is a bunch a early risers.  (Excluding myself, of course.)  But my four year old is like a fucking rooster.  ”What?  It’s daylight?  I better start talking to my animals and singing songs in foreign tongues immediately!”  And thus, begins our day.

We are in Costa Rica.  It is awesome.  Volcanoes, macaws, super-sized banana trees, 115 degree heat… It’s pretty dreamy.  But because my kids get up at the butt crack of dawn (keep in mind it’s two hours earlier here than in New York), I had to pack accordingly.

What to bring abroad when your kids wake up too damned early:

1.  Lots and lots of storybooks

2. Travel Zingo (you know. Like bingo, but better.)

3.  Go Fish

4.  Markers, pencils, paper

5.  matchbox cars (like 500 per kid)

6.  Two stuffed animals each (preferable small in stature)

7.  mad libs

8.  Scratch and Sketch coloring books

9.  Bath toys (for those early morning I-don’t-know-what-the-hell-to-do-with-these-children baths)

10.  Self-control and a serious well of patience

Those items have served us well.  Or at least better than, “Jesus, people! Go the eff back to sleep!”

But the best early morning activity we’ve done by far, was totally spontaneous.  We got to tour the local hospital emergency room.

Yup.

We woke up at 6, enjoyed the lovely breakfast buffet of fresh pineapple, papaya, huevos, etc and hit the road to the nearest emergencia in Quepos.  Costa Rica.   Because who isn’t interested in reviewing the quality of healthcare in developing nations?

Or, maybe it was because the most graceful among us (and by graceful I mean clumsy as all hell) fell down the stairs at the beautiful butterfly garden.  We won’t dwell on the fact that my afore-mentioned four year old cut me off and my body was not prepared to stop just yet… And suddenly, my left ankle was the size of a fucking grapefruit.

So, the next morning, at 8:15 a.m., we went and spent some time with the locals.  In the emergency room.  Which was filled exclusively with young mothers and babies.  And us.   My kids were the ones wearing headphones and watching Diego on individual iPads.

Normally, we reserve tv solely for planes and car trips, but, it turns out, it’s a great early morning activity for dark, dirty, third world hospital waiting areas as well!

After reading my X-ray, the “doctor” informed us that my ankle was not broken.  YAY!  But, unfortunately, I’m stuck with log-leg for the rest of my life.

Ok.  He probably didn’t say that.  But he might have.  My Spanish is limited to buenos dias.

Somehow, my valiant husband procured a pair of crutches and an ankle wrap for me.  And, though I’m pissed about missing both the night hike and the national park tour (I really wanted to see three-toed sloths), I can actually bear a little weight on my stupid leg today. Strangely, spending the last couple of days in bed, icing my ankle, all hopped up on Motrin and red wine hasn’t been so bad.

Evidently, the best way to entertain your children when they wake up too early on vacation is to hurt yourself so your husband is forced to amuse them.  All.  Day.  Long.

Sorry, honey!

Crap mornings shoot my day.  I wish my kids would just fucking do what I ask them to do the first time I ask them to do it.  I swear, that alone would procure a lifetime’s supply rainbows and butterflies.  But after I’ve repeated the words “brush your teeth” 15 times, I’m bound to lose my shit.

Really, deep down in their pure little four and six year old hearts, they’re asking for it.

So, I lose it.  They make sad faces.  They look at the floor.  They look at each other.  Pain shoots across my abdomen and at that moment I know.

I’m gonna have a craptastic day.

I wish I didn’t have to rush my kids out the door 5 days a week.  I wish I was one of those serious type A, hyper-organized, made-of-lists moms who could circumvent crap mornings.  

But, that’s not me.

And anyway, I’d lose the lists.  Even if they were e-lists.  I can’t find anything.

My kids are now at their respective schools.  I have no doubt they are playing and learning and perfectly happy.  I dropped them off over an hour ago. They’ve shifted gears.  

I, however, am still brooding.

Over the fact that my boys would prefer to laugh and play and wrestle on the bottom bunk bed than get ready to go.

What’s not fun about getting ready to go?  Huh?  HUH?!

Thus, I’m putting a moratorium on getting ready to go.  Let’s call it an experiment.  Wherever they are at in their morning process at 7:40 a.m. is “ready to go.”

No socks?  Sorry!

No pants?  Oh, well.

Unbrushed teeth?  Nobody’s gonna die.

I will not yell, I will not yell, I will not yell…

Top o’ the crap morning to you!

I love the concrete jungle.

Back in June, when we moved from the foresty, farmy suburbs of Boston to the anti-christ of New York City, I felt this incredible sense of freedom.  I was no longer tethered to my car.  I could get a really good, freshly baked bagel 24/7.  And, I could buy beer on Sundays.

Embrace the freedom, people.

This kind of freedom, however, is pretty specific to the fast-paced hustle of a city that boasts several hundreds of thousands of inhabitants per square mile.  None of whom moo or trot or slither.

At least not by design.

The global warming-induced early April showers (in March) that are feeding the early May flowers (in April) here in NYC, keep reminding me of the antithetical constraints of this urban styled freedom.  The blooming dogwood lined streets of Brooklyn are lovely.  But even I, the ultimate concrete jungle lover, can see that they are a poor representation of authentic greenery.  Authentic freedom.  Authentic mooing.

So…please don’t tell anyone…but suddenly, all this concrete is making me feel just a tad bit… erm… claustrophobic.

Ok.  I’ve said it.

I’ve got to get out if here.

I’VE GOT TO GET OUT OF HERE!

Last year, for Father’s Day weekend, we escaped Greater Boston for Smugglers Notch in heavenly Northeastern Vermont.  It was, literally, a breath of fresh air.  But this year, living in the urban capital of the world,  my family and I crave something even closer to God.

We can’t possibly be alone in this pursuit.

We’ve been researching places on Cape Cod, considering Western Mass, and revisiting the idea of Maine.  But this week I was approached to promote the Northeast Kingdom, Vermont and my mouth about dropped off my face.

The Northeast Kingdom is just about as close to God as you can get.   It is wide open green space littered with mountains and lakes and moose and peace and quiet.  It is an urban yogi’s wet dream.  And it is New York City’s alter ego.

Take a moment and paint a mental picture.  Green for miles and miles.  Wildlife.  The soundtrack? “The hills are alive…”

Plus, the fact that it’s practically in Canada offers a convenient opportunity to shoot up to Montreal as well.

I am yearning for it. Sugar shacks, Cabot’s Creamery, hikes, covered bridges, the whole nine.  The whole kingdom, if you will.

(Yes, I actually used the word “yearning.”)

So here’s the rub.  The Northeast Kingdom Travel and Tourism Association (NEKTTA), is hosting a Facebook contest during the month of April.

The Grand Prize?  A two night midweek Summer stay at Couture’s B & B, a lovely working farm located in Westfield, VT. Plus, a gift certificate for a three-course dinner for two at the award winning Tastings Food & Spirits located in nearby Troy, 2 passes to the brand new Pump House Indoor Water Park at Jay Peak Resort, and two 18-hole greens fees to Orleans Country Club.

Are you drooling yet?

The contest is scheduled to begin this Tuesday, April 3 and will be held on the Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom Facebook page.  Go there.  Enter.  Keep your fingers crossed.

The Northeast Kingdom is a little corner of perfect.

(all photos courtesy of NEKTTA)