As we’re all aware El Nino (La Nina?) is upon us – not sure which it is, really; the last time this was even at all a factor in my life (and I mean, on the periphery) my younger brother was out at school in California and kept not getting back, being stuck at airports, and I think in one case, carried 2, 60 pound bags 2 miles home from the train because no one actually believed his flight landed. This time, though, as the snow keeps coming, they threaten to strip Al Gore of his prize based on global warming or the lack thereof, and even my kids groan and skip the snow-men, heading straight to hot chocolate…this time, El Nino is bringing ME down.

This is because all three of my kids have been holed up with me (also my looking-for-work husband but that’s another post altogether). They are bored; the twins have practically turned into hobbits or gnomes or something from spending so much time in the basement. School keeps being cancelled; I mean, it’s not as bad as DC, where my friend’s daughters have been out for like 3 weeks. My oldest and I are in the middle of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “The Long Winter” and I GUESS it’s not that bad as we’re not grinding wheat to eat, nor is my husband following a clothesline to feed the cattle (my oldest laughingly told him to do the chores, feed the cows the other day, and he just walked by on his way to ignore the driveway shoveling).

I really, really, really have never wanted more to be on a beach, even for 2 days. One nice thing about having a real job was the corporate travel – the 2-day trip to California, made worth it by the two NIGHTS in the Four Seasons…these days, sweet heaven is a 15 minute escape by myself to Dunkin.

But trying to keep the kids going, I suggested a tea party for a couple of my oldest’s kindergarten buddies; they dropped by yesterday, and it was “great success”. Hot chocolate, chocolate fondue, sugar cookies (sidenote, my 4 year old twins were flying high on sugar rushes an hour later, weird) and they made necklaces with $6 worth of beads, then went downstairs and put on all the princess dresses. Perfect afternoon.

And one of her friend’s moms, who’d stayed for a cup of tea, told me “You are such a good mom, I think. You look like Martha Stewart”.

When’s the last time you got that positive reinforcement? I don’t feel like a good mom a lot. I yell (I believe I’ve mentioned). I work alot, don’t always drop what I’m doing to play, I’m constantly hollering about the cleaning. BUT, I did choose to spend this time with them and I am happy every day about something.And yesterday, it was hearing that from someone else.

I read this great article, today, that reinforced it.  And I don’t know, these days, if this road is less traveled…but at least for me it’s making a difference.

If your personal answer is “my two month old” well, enough said. Go take a nap.

But our house is light on 2-month olds (though currently heavy on coughers and sneezers); my twins are now 41/2, and beyond one recent episode at my brothers’ when they woke up at 4am and insisted it was morning, everyone sleeps through the night. In fact, they sleep so well, that episode stood out for its weirdness–they were chirping away in the guest room and I literally didn’t know how to convince them it was NOT morning, aside from pointing out the no-light, since they hadn’t woken up before morning in so long.

I have so many friends whose kids are up and rarin’ to go at 6am; I’m blessed with good sleepers…the twins are usually in bed till 7:30 and my oldest had to be dragged out of bed the other day at 9:30am. Granted it was after a late night but still, I’m usually able to get a good night’s sleep, even when I go to bed, habitually, at 11 or during whatever part of The Daily Show that I tune out to.

Yet of late I have been waking up at 4am.  I wander around. I go sleep in the guest room. Or not sleep in the guest room. And I worry.I worry about weird things that in the light of day do not seem as troublesome, or at least seem manageable. But at 4am they go through my head in a non-stop rush and I can’t stop them. What if all my consulting work dries up? What if my job-hunting husband NEVER finds a job and lives in my basement like a caveman forever? I start adding up numbers and dollars and thinking through budgets. Then I firmly say to myself STOP THIS. You can’t do anything about it in the middle of the night.

So then I start in with to-do lists. I have to finish x, I didn’t even start y. Why did I yell at the kids today when I was working so hard on my temper? Why didn’t I complete a, b, or c? I have to do all of these things for this client or for the conference, I have to follow up with him, or her, why didn’t I ever hear back from this person or that person? I found that if I start making a list, sometimes some of the things go away. But new things take their place.

I am totally not a grudge-holding person, at least not for most people, but what “takes the place” of those to-dos is a review of past grievances (like Festivus on Seinfeld). I rehash old fights or issues or things that made me crazy and then at 4:30 or 5:15 or whatever time it has gotten to I fruitlessly get mad all over again. And then get mad that I’m mad and even madder that I’m not sleeping.

Here’s what I’ve been told to do–read a boring book. Great, I don’t have any, there’s no light bulb in the lamp in the guest room and I never remember that till it’s 5:30 am at which point I don’t feel like traipsing around downstairs to find one. Watch a boring show to tune out. That’s easier than it used to be in that the guest room tv now doesn’t get cable so it’s informercials or early, early, early editions of whatever the “Today” show is at that point, but it doesn’t help me sleep boring or not. I’ve been trying to think of positive things but nothing comes to mind at 5:45.

Because that’s the point. The “worries”, in real life or real time, aren’t as bad–or at least, I can do something about them. They’re blown out of proportion in the middle of the night. Even if I know that, though, I’m up fretting away. And listening to the fish tank in one kid’s room, the heating system rattle away, and my own fears.

What keeps you up at night? And what do you do about it?

Over Thanksgiving weekend I saw a comedian, John Heffernan who went through a funny bit about how he is currently living with his wife, his sister in law, his 16 year old stepdaughter, and his 4 year old niece. He talked about coming home at the end of the day and the 4 year old would be fully decked out in heels, jewelry, and full Princess gear while everyone else was wearing sweats or some version therein. His point was that only the four year old cared enough to dress up for him.

Funnier when he said it (which is why he is a stand up comedian though to be honest I think I am funnier than the woman who followed him on stage, who will remain nameless) but really, funny because how true it is in my house. My daughters are OBSESSED with being “fancy” (damn you, Jane O’Connor and Fancy Nancy) so much so that they wear ONLY dresses, at all times, and tiaras whenever possible.

I on the other hand, ESPECIALLY since beginning my work-at-home phase, am beginning to find even myself a disappointment. But it seems so absurd to put on anything beyond comfy pants (I mean at this point I even try to avoid jeans if possible) to sit around with my girls. I remember the advice of one professional work-from-homer who said she made a point of putting on panty hose every day that she was working. Let’s be honest, I don’t put on  panty hose if I’m actually going out somewhere!

Another bit of recent advice was to, at a minimum, put on earrings. That jewelry made the difference.

I have been trying here and there (if for no other reason than that I should wear my 2 4-year-old cashmere sweaters before the moths eat them entirely). I have been putting on mascara every day. I’ve tried to mix it up with some jeans. I’ve taken the fact that my husband asked his family to give me pajamas for Christmas so that he didn’t see my 15 year old t-shirts every night to heart, and have been busting out those pajamas instead…soft, cuddly, worthy of being worn every day (and they are).

One of my consulting clients asked me to come into the office for Monday and I am unreasonably excited about the prospect of wearing normal clothes. And, if I am honest with myself, I know that whether it is superficial or not I do feel better if I take the time to slap on a little makeup; I put in earrings the other day to great critical reviews (by my girls) – I suppose it wouldn’t kill me to try a little harder, if only for myself.

What do YOU do to keep yourself feeling human?

There’s a storm brewing in our house and a fight upon us…and the conflict is being fueled by the marketing juggernaut that IS the Disney Princess collection.

I’ll preface this by saying that I’d vowed from the beginning to keep my home turf safe from junky mass-marketed toys; my oldest had an Elmo book, when she was little, and kissed Elmo in the book—but didn’t watch the show (or any tv, in my perfect mom days) until she was 2 1/2. And I don’t even think Elmo is bad. The toys in our house were wholesome award winners and played with lovingly, with small cartoon birds flying around our heads, gentle music surrounding us, and learning opportunities abounding. At least that is my recollection.

So then the Disney princesses arrived, and began a slow but all-consuming takeover, dressed for battle in (junky) dresses and 3 inch (if you measure to scale) high-heeled shoes. There is a bit of inevitability to this process, I suppose, when one is the parent of three girls, but here I’ll add that my husband is the main provider of princesses and their gear.The books arrived first with tales of love and marriage to the point that no one could mention a friend without saying “I’m going to marry [fill in name]”. No one in our house could date, or just be friends—it was all about marriage. With no understanding of the concept as they were marrying uncles, girlfriends, and in one case I believe a stuffed tiger. I hated the books and refused to read them, but they now seem the least of my problems.

The miniature little dolls were the next big problem—a, the children couldn’t dress them because their PARTS were too small, the DRESSES too tight-fitting, and children’s HANDS don’t work that way. So I was constantly dressing and undressing little rubber dolls and picking up shoes from here there and everywhere.The kids threw them aside, however, when the Barbie-sized princesses began their invasion—complete with full wardrobes, falling-off shoes, impossibly small accessories, and floozy hair. My dad summed it up in an email after Christmas; brand-new Aerial was missing, and I sent a note to my family asking if they’d seen her around in the wrappings, and his email came back “I saw the ho”. What he meant to say was “I saw the horse she came with,” but this was a clear case of the freudian slip and I think in fact the message was more correct than he knew.

And the horses, the HORSES. They turned my manly husband obsessive compulsive as he searched all over for a horse for each kid’s doll, paying Kmart something like $40 in shipping (maybe I exaggerate) to get us a Belle horse (‘because she’s really hard to find’) The horses, which provide no visible means of transportation as the dolls CAN’T SIT ON THEM WITHOUT FALLING OFF, do nothing but stand around covered in silver manes and jewels. That is they were covered in jewels until they began shedding them to remain stuck (possibly forever) to the kitchen floor.

What I remember at that age is loving Little House on the Prairie books and sure, I watched the show, too. But this wholesome activity did not involve 1000 plastic parts, high-heeled shoes, dresses that ripped if one looks at them wrong. And if Little House did have dolls, I’d venture to say they’d be modest. That is, I’d never expect Ma or Laura (doll-form) to be lying around flashing their lady-parts all over. My house is indecent with naked ladies since the kids can get the dresses off, but trying to put them on means stiff arms poked through torn holes in cheaply made gowns. Last night while watching the Biggest Loser I dressed 4 dolls because there’s only so much naked flesh a person can take.

The dolls provided a teachable moment, of sorts, the other day when the girls began lobbying for MORE princesses—they needed Jasmine, they claimed (who we found to be elusive even in the flesh on our visit to Disneyworld; a fellow 4-year old patron offered the opinion that she was dead, another byproduct of stories that inevitably involve killing and such, even if it is evil stepmothers). And they needed a prince, since only one is in our house. I’m not talking about my husband, who does remain the single male figure in this house of girls, but Snow White’s beau who came in a set and who flounces about in a manly tunic (my husband laid down the law that he stays dressed, less from a sense of modesty than from his cheaply made boots and cruddy pants that are impossible to get back on). “We need more boys” the girls claimed, for their princesses, but I pointed out that the lesson to be learned is that your girlfriends are who’s around to count on, and they didn’t need a man. I think the lesson perhaps was over their heads.

To sum up let me alleviate any lingering worry and report that the “ho” has been found; my obsessive husband launched a house-wide search that never turned her up (this from a person that loses his wallet, his shoes, anything not attached to him at a given moment) and we thought she was gone forever. But a game – a wholesome game, in fact, of “pretend we’re camping”, a game worthy of Little House – involved pulling out the sleeping bags they got for Christmas, and it turns out that Aerial, ho or no, had merely crawled in for a long winter’s nap. Even I found myself excited at her return. And ten minutes after she turned up, I picked her naked self off the floor.

The Washington Post recently ran an article talking about leisure time – as studied by an expert, and written by a working mom (I know, I know, all moms are working moms) who had no leisure time. In fact, in order to prove she had no leisure time she volunteered to be a part of a study on leisure time and it took her about a year to find the time to do the study.

Here is a link to the whole article.

I read the article, I read the comments, even read reaction by another blogger, Marissa Levin, who writes for the Examiner (here).

My thoughts come at a time when I’m trying to work on controlling my temper – in my continuous drive towards self-perfection (ha!) It’s actually because I know I yell to much, especially when my 6 year old mini-me runs around bellowing as well. It all got reinforced by my mom who wrote me a note to pull it together after I yelled at Christmas (this after YEARS AND YEARS of blaming Christmas conflict on my sister, who was absent this year – but who to be honest is the usual source of conflict. Just kidding).

So in this temper-control mode I know that I have to make sure I’m not working too much. Because that is when I get stressed and yell. Especially since my stated goal is to be around to spend time with my kids – and the article here raises an interesting point. It mentions that over the years we are not spending LESS time with our kids – in fact, we probably spend more. I know for me, I am constantly stopping what I’m doing to play Go Fish or Crazy Eights or watch an Annie show. My mom didn’t do this as much – we played on our own more (and could, out in the yard, unsupervised, without the marauding band of kidnappers that we fear are out there today). I told my twins today, in fact, the the benefit of having a twin sister was that they always had someone to play cards with and they looked at me blankly, then played half a game before one threw all the cards at the other.

Obviously a big part of the leisure time thing is choosing that time and also defining what is leisure time. If you’re “doing work” but on facebook for an hour (I would NEVER do that) is that work? Or if, just as an example, you were hypothetically my husband and at work emailing your friends for 2 or so hours about football, The Sports Guy, Jersey Shore, and then playing Mafia Wars on facebook – is that leisure time? Should it be counted as so?

All right, also, another thought I had (these are more “thoughts” on the article than a well-organized response) is I know, personally, I need to a, develop a hobby and then b, do the hobby. That would be qualified leisure time. But in the interim I’m fitting it in, and while sometimes that means extra stress, I know that I’m not able to sit restfully and watch television (I can’t watch Jersey Shore restfully or not restfully) without doing something…knitting, working on the computer, reading, something. So does that mean it’s not leisure time? To me, it is, and I’m still able to sort-of relax. Should I be dedicating time to doing nothing or only things I wish? Sure, I guess, but I feel lazy when I do that. I’m better busy; I guess the balance is “busy” vs “too busy” and that is a slippery slope.

Now that I’m working from home I have more time to spend improving my children’s lives (!) and the intervention, it seems, comes non-to-soon as my six year old has turned into a hoarder.

Have you seen those people on tv? Matt Lauer was talking to one a while ago on the Today show, and I watched  in disgust with my own (at the time) secret hoarder as she ate breakfast before heading to the bus – never guessing she was actually looking for tips!My mother and I went to her bedroom to help her “organize” – it was a disaster area. She likes to play games that include making little tableaus of dolls with blankets, etc all over her room so there is no floor space available; she likes all her books to be laid out in various piles all over her bed; on and on. So we tried to buy her some shelves and boxes (in fact, she got these from her grandma as a birthday gift and pointed out “This is NOT what people usually get as a gift”.)

We started going through her boxes and found the following (only the weirdest are listed):

1. A candy bar wrapper that she had saved for its glow-in-the-dark properties

2. A spice bottle filled with water

3. The end of a loaf of french bread (disgusting) that we threw away, in the sink, and which she then saw had sort of reconstituted with the addition of water and which she then WANTED BACK

4. Three random plastic toys that belonged to a set she might someday get, she thought (she won’t)

5. Two popped balloons

6. Ripped wrapping paper from a birthday gift that she was going to re-use

7. A bunch of old newspapers – it turns out that these were comics given to her by Daddy when she was in the hospital over the summer, so she wanted to save them.The last bit of reasoning is sort of cute and in fact, she had REASONS for everything she saved. But put together as a collection filling her room (and arguably attracting rodents) the whole mess was gross and a bit scary.

She wants to hold on to things that are important or have some meaning to her, but it’s everything. I know that sometimes I am the same way – saving each picture every kid draws, every single school assignment – but it so quickly becomes overwhelming that now I am rash, and throw things away the second they come through the door. In fact I got a special trash can behind my “main” kitchen trash can – it’s a two-can set in a pull-out drawer, and I think some people use the second for recycling but mine is kid stuff I throw away that I don’t want the Hoarder to pull back out of the trash. For the most part  she forgets what I throw out – though she did pitch a fit when she went back to find the previously mentioned ripped wrapping paper.

I think she wants to hold on to her childhood, all of it, and in many ways so do I. But not in the form of a moldy piece of old bread.

The title of this refers to my 2010 resolution. Devoted readers (I don’t even know if my mom’s on this list, I doubt it) may remember that I made a promise of trying to blog a bit more frequently, but based on the entirely cruddy ending of 2009 (which began and middled as cruddy too) I felt it was best to keep my mutterings to myself. I know that 2009 was very few people’s favorite year, but I think I ended up feeling even sorrier for myself by blabbering about how “2009 stinks, 2009 stinks”. It therefore became even more self-fulfilling (and stinky).

But here’s the problem: my kindergarterner, who is a mirror of myself, started walking around complaining about EVERY little thing, too. All the bad parts of school were discussed ad nauseum over and over. And I finally sat her down and said that she needed to STOP complaining about everything! Especially old grievances – she brought up the other night how I’d given away one of her birthday gifts (a Bratz doll that wasn’t allowed in our house) OVER a year ago. The doll was even replaced (not by me, by my husband) but she still was complaining – not because she was still mad, but because complaining was becoming her go-to!So I discussed staying positive and only talking about the good things and realized that of course it was advice I should be taking. I’m being tested as “for better, for worse” has also turned into “for lunch” as my husband job-hunts from home, and together our family develops cabin fever in record-setting cold.

But if the sunshine doesn’t start with me it won’t so I’m hoping my pollyanna ways will begin to rub off. At least I can write about it to hold myself accountable!

The latest manifestation of my ongoing figuring-out-what-I’m-doing-with-myself is this weird thing that as I drive my kids around – most recently, to a series of doctors appointments with a soundtrack of holiday tunes mixed with coughing, awesome – I keep peering into offices big and small and I am fiercely jealous of what is going on in there.

Offices big or small – I’m in the ‘burbs of NJ so we’ve got them all, from pharmaceuticals to a spiffy new L’Oreal headquarters to small obscure who knows what they do offices – I go by them and I wonder what the staff is up to, and imagine the fulfilling life I could be leading if I went there everyday.

How absurd. The last “real” job I had was in a similar office park and I made it a point to spend as little time in said office as possible. I hated it – from the stupid gossip to the even stupider office I had (they moved me into an old mailroom with no windows and cords hanging randomly about). As I figure out what kind of a job I should pursue, if/when I pursue, I’ll make it a point to limit office time, I think. So why the envy?

I guess it’s the set schedule? The something firm to do? Is it that I know that whether the folks are doing something or not, they’re getting paid? Is it that they are wearing something other than jeans and a sweater, that they have a reason to put on makeup? That they are in CHARGE of something?

It’s also grass is always greener – I know that, sensibly. And to be honest, as I’ve spent the past couple weeks really disengaged from all work and trying to be a better mom to my kids, I am feeling a sense of peace and feeling the stress ebb from them. Also starting to feel boredom set in with a feeling of what’s next.

I think in all honesty though only the constant soundtrack of three coughing kids could make a NJ office park look like good times.

Today was one of those proud moments of parenting when I knew that all the sacrifices I’ve made in my career and my life—the decision to stay home for a while with the girls and do whatever work I could to make some dough, but putting them first…the counting pennies and canceling gym memberships to be able to afford this decadent lifestyle of playgrounds and making sure they have what they need—oh, all those decisions really came home to roost today.

For today, after an utter and complete breakdown at the Michael’s because I wouldn’t buy her clay, my angelic 5-almost-6 year old, who I lose sleep over every night—she’s not being challenged at school. She needs more playdates. I need to not do x or y or z right now so that I can do (fill in the blank) for her. Well, that very same perfect child (not) had an utter and complete temper tantrum, highlights of which included her streaking away from me at the store to get to the clay, yelling “I’m not leaving this store without the clay” and then when we left (leaving all items behind unpurchased, carrying her out while the twins followed faithfully), her taking off her seatbelt and yelling “I don’t care about the law, I want to yell at the law” in some sort of weird Johnny Cash-channeling moment. So following this—I didn’t engage—I put her in her room having taken some of her primo toys and resolved to leave her there perhaps forever to make up for all the warnings and other times the didn’t get dragged up to her room.

She yelled down at me a series of sweetness-es and then capped it with “Santa doesn’t like you, Mommy—no one likes you”.

This is obviously absurd. A little funny. Mostly absurd.

But it also sucks. Because as I continually question what I’m supposed to be doing and what’s the right call, it makes me feel like “What am I doing here at home?” Maybe they’d be better without me! There’s no appreciation here. There’s no appreciation, necessarily, elsewhere in the working world—but at least there is money!!

A 6-year old shouldn’t make my decisions—to be sure. But nor should she rule my life. And I guess my struggle now is how much power I am giving her. I’m struggling with the balance of staying home for me, for them—and where the right thing is for all of us.

Any answers out there?