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Monday Listicles: things i said i would NEVER do

Somewhere in the U.S., it’s still Monday even though here I’ve just put the kids on the bus to Neckerchief Academy for their Tuesday. For yesterday’s listicle--which I’m going to pretend is today’s prompt–Greta gave us a prompt that is basically an exercise in eating humble pie: a list of ten things we said we’d never do…and then did.  I did this list the easy way: I thought about being a parent and how often being a parent seems to result in eating one’s own words with remarkable frequency. Or maybe that’s just me.  Maybe the rest of you don’t have this problem.  Sigh.

1. “because I said so, that’s why.” Yes. That was me. And more than once. The phrase of parental last resort–and it’s not a resort that I’d like to visit as often as I seem to be doing.

2. There was a time, back in the day, when I thought team sports were the exclusive realm of the Great Santini and his offspring. I didn’t play a team sport growing up (me and hand-eye coordination were strangers for a long, long time); I don’t follow a particular team; I don’t get the whole “team” thing. Mostly I just don’t play well with others, is what it boils down to.  But then Liam fell in love with soccer and there I was…standing on the sidelines in the freezing cold, driving all over New York to games, and here in Abu Dhabi, I’m back in the shlep-wagon, out to soccer school, over to practice…And you know what? Being on a soccer team (and having the great coaches he had in NYC–thank you, Sean and Marcus) — it’s the best thing that could’ve ever happened to him.  Of course, my weekends are shot to hell, but hey, who needs a weekend away, right? Rah rah rah go team.

3. “do you know how many starving children there are in the world who would eat that?” I have a very clear memory, when my mother would say that to me, of saying back to her “well why don’t you mail my food to the kids in Biafra then, hmm?”  Funny, she didn’t seem to appreciate that idea. I remember also thinking to myself “I will never, ever say such a stupid thing to my kids.”  Yeah. Well. Um. What can I say. It’s true, dammit. So eat your carrots!

4. In graduate school, I spent a lot of time thinking about feminism, poststructuralism, gender theory, and other stuff that now makes my early-middle-aged brain hurt to even contemplate. At the time, however, my friends and I sat around talking learnedly about how gender differences were really just socially constructed ideologies that could be done away with if parents would just be a little more, you know, thoughtful.  I believed my own words until the first time my little boy picked up a stick and said “pwang pwang pwang…”  I’m still a feminist but now I’m a feminist who has to accept that she has sons who will, for reasons known only to their DNA, step over or around the socks on the floor, leave the toilet seat down, and look at her blankly when she says “why did you knock that over?” Let me be clear–they are made to put the socks in the laundry, wipe off the toilet seat, pick up the thing they knocked down. But I’m fighting against genetics, here, people, which means that, yes, I’ve been that person who smiles and shrugs and says “well (nervous giggle), you know, boys…” Ugh.

5. Related to 4: when my boys were toddlers, I’d watch their adorable chubby selves playing “bakery” in the sandbox and look in horror at those ill-bred “big boys” playing chase and I’m-gonna-shoot-you-with-my-triblatteringlaserpistolgrappler.  I’d be all smug and judgey and decide that the mothers of these boys had utterly failed. I mean really, what mother would let her children play such a violent game? Um…hi. That would be me. And I’ve even said “run around and chase with your friends,” because I recognize that children are like puppies. They need to be exercised regularly or they’ll just wreck the furniture. .

6. MY children will never be like those OTHER children who walk around surgically attached to their screens. Cue hysterical laughter here. Computers, e-readers, DSi, iPod touch…the electronics in this family could stock an Apple store. I think we manage their computer time pretty well but the sad fact is that when screens are up, bickering is down.

7.  You know how when you were little and your mom would spit a bit on her shirttail or (worse) her fingers and smootch at your cheek to get off the remnants of your last meal? And remember how you thought “god that is gross!” Remember how you thought, nah, you’d never do such a thing? Yep. I thought so too. And then just yesterday, I grabbed Caleb’s arm just before he got on the school bus and swiped–with my shirt and some spit–at the glob of jam on his cheek. He said “MOM THAT’S DISGUSTING” and squirmed away.

8. I never thought I would have sons.  How’s that for hubris? I always wanted to have children but in my mind’s eye, it was always me and charlottedoralucyameliaruby reading Little House on the Prairie and playing dress-up and then later, when they were grownups, my daughters and I would hang out and have long conversations about Life and Shoes and Relationships. They’d tell me what to wear so I didn’t look too dowdy and we’d be the best of friends.  But noooo, the gods have a larky sense of humor and so I am the mother of boys, which means I don’t sit on the beach and flip through magazines. No, it’s SWIM and DIG and PLAY BALL WITH ME and DIG and SWIM.  And when I’m an old woman living alone with a hundred cats, the boys will buy me the valu-pak of Depends and the high-grade cat food, and congratulate themselves on being good sons.

9. I would never make separate meals for my picky eaters. If they don’t want to eat what I cook, then they’ll go hungry. HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHA My children’s eating habits keep me in a state of perpetual humility. I have failed here and here and here and will probably fail again at dinner tonight.

10. God. Some people just can’t shut up about their damn kids. That’s what I thought. And then I started a blog.

 

Double-dipping this week: this post also links to the wonderful lovelinks site–it’s like Cheers bar for small bloggers (or micro bloggers, in my case). It’s where everyone knows our (screen) name and they’re always glad we came, where everybody can see that all our troubles are the same…and now everyone knows that I’m old enough to remember that show when it wasn’t in reruns! Click on the button below to find some great reading–and then come back on Thursday to vote for your favorites. I won’t even be mad if you don’t vote for me!

Read full story · Comments { 19 } on January 17, 2012 in Children, expat, family, Feminism, food, Gender, Kids, Monday Listicle, Parenting, sports

Grace in Small Things #3: Food, Flowers, Sunsets

Grace day again.  It’s beautiful here – I finally understand what people have been talking about for the last nine weeks, about what happens when the humidity breaks: clear blue skies, soft air, light breeze. Perfect. It’s finally possible to walk outside for more than five minutes without developing a thin film of sweat from head to toe.

Grace notes? The first is extraordinarily simple:

1. Toast with butter and fresh honey, which I had for breakfast. I may, in fact, head back for a third piece. (It’s very small bread!)

2. The fresh honey comes from Food Queen Honey and we buy it from Suhil, from Yemen:

To amuse Caleb, Suhil did a dramatic pour:

3. Fresh naan bread, baked in a clay oven:

Finished:

We bought 3 plain naan and one filled with minced potato and onion, for 6 dihram. That’s about…$1.50.

4. Sunsets.  Our apartment faces south and west, and every evening, I watch glorious slow sunsets.  Even through my grimy windows (a natural filter of salt, sand, and dirt films the outside of all the windows. There aren’t enough window washers in the world to keep the windows of all these glass-clad skyscrapers clean):

5. Bougainvillea. Not so much the flowers themselves as their color. This city’s color scheme, aside from the color of the water, is generally…dust. Dusty brown, dusty green, dusty dust.  So the shock of scarlet against a blue sky hits deep:

Hmmm: I wonder if Proflowers can match that?

 

full disclosure: I was compensated to include the link to proflowers, but the ideas, photos, and experiences in this post are completely my own

Read full story · Comments { 3 } on October 23, 2011 in Abu Dhabi, expat, food, grace in small things

Nutella Wars

It’s the end of the first week for the boys in their new school and I’m in a food fight.

I’m fighting for my kid’s right to eat a Nutella sandwich.

On the first day of school (first day of second grade, new school, new country), the assistant teacher in Caleb’s classroom decided that his lunch was “unhealthy” and only let him eat the carrot sticks I’d put in his lunchbox.

His lunchbox contained: carrot sticks, small cup of pudding/yogurt, granola bar, and—here’s the crux of it—a nutella sandwich (let the jury be advised that the nutella, about a tablespoon, was spread on whole-grain brown bread).  Plus—oh the ironic horror of it all—I’d put a small bag of potato chips in his lunchbox for a “special first day treat.” Potato chips are almost NEVER in our lunchboxes.

Now is this the platonic ideal of lunchbox lunch? Do I wish Caleb were one of those kids who just LOVES broccoli and gets cravings for sushi? Well sure. Do I wish that I could send him off to luch with a cunning wee tub of hummus and some celery sticks? Absolutely.

But that’s not my kid.  Me? I’m a Michael Pollanite; I’m an Eating Animals acolyte; I think “Food Inc.” should be required viewing for all US citizens.  My kid? He spits on my desire for locally sourced organic produce, thinks that vegetables (other than tomato sauce) might kill him, never met a chicken nugget he didn’t like. Somewhere there’s a Tyson tycoon laughing at me.

So I’ve made my (relative) peace with the lunchbox. Whole-grain bread,  pretzels not chips, yogurt, granola bar, slices of apple or carrot. And either nutella or peanut butter (for the record, although nutella has more sugar, peanut butter has WAY more fat. Nutritionally they’re about equally good—or bad).  (Click here for a nutritional info on both)

But this assistant teacher has decided that Caleb’s lunch is bad. Unhealthy. And thus, of course, she is also judging me.  And thus, of course, I’d pretty much like to rip her head off.  Who does she think she is—particularly on the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL to tell a seven year old not to eat his lunch?

I sent off a shirty email to the teacher, who responded promptly and said she would talk to the assistant, so I figured everything would be fine, going forward. But then three days later, the assistant did it again.  The sandwich was deemed “dessert” and so she allowed him yogurt and pretzel sticks.

Would you like to know who came home from school utterly exhausted, crabby, and crying?

See earlier on “want to rip her head off.”  Off went another shirty email sent to the teacher, who again apologized and said she would now tell “Miss Ella” to leave Caleb alone at lunch.

It’s not like I’m sending my kid to school with candy bars and bottles of soda; he’s not standing on the playground selling crack, for god’s sake.  It’s just NUTELLA.

Here’s the thing: Miss Ella doesn’t know what she’s up against. I’ve survived seven years in the Manhattan Public Schools.

That woman is toast.

With Nutella.

Read full story · Comments { 10 } on September 9, 2011 in Abu Dhabi, Children, Education, food, Parenting, UAE