UnchartedParent.com

Did everyone have a good Thanksgiving?

I hope you did.  Ours was cozy and delicious: we gathered with good friends, shared the cooking, ate turkey, two kinds of potatoes, cranberry sauce, vegetables, bread and four different desserts until yes, I gained two pounds (hey, that’s what New Year’s resolutions are for), and we’re still working our way through the leftovers.  We spent four whole days together as a family, and while the kids did have to be sent to separate corners a few times, I think it’s safe to say we still are glad to be related to one another.

If that’s not a good entry to the holiday season, I don’t know what is.

Looking ahead to December instilled a bit of panic, however (as it always does).  We stuff events into the month like people cram trash into those violet pay-as-you-throw bags.  (That simile was for the locals in my readership.  You deserve something for your troubles.)  We begin with Army-Navy Day, which is a full-fledged holiday around here, and then without pausing for breath we plunge ahead through Hanukkah, my son’s birthday, Christmas, my husband’s and my wedding anniversary and New Year’s Eve—not always in that order.  Then there are the assorted school, synagogue, community and personal events associated with one or more of these holidays.  Almost all are fun, but it’s crazy and as a mom, it’s my job to make sure it all happens for everyone in the family.

So when I advised my family in the car today that the month would be more enjoyable for everyone if we just expected the inevitable craziness and “rolled with punches,” I thought I was being wise.  Everyone nodded or spoke their agreement.

“It’s just going to be nuts,” I repeated to ensure the message sank in, “but let’s not stress about it.  Whatever happens, just go with it.”

Well here’s that karmic kick in the ass again, because the very first thing that happened was that less than an hour later—we were still in the car!—I felt the sore throat, the body aches and several other symptoms of the nastiness that’s been going around hit me squarely in that part of my brain where my optimism resides.

Unacceptable. 

I don’t care what I told my husband and my kids; I will not tolerate this.  There’s no time to be sick now.  This week holds gymnastics and ballet for my daughter, soccer and tennis for my son and swim class for both.  I’ve got my usual writing plus one training, one class to teach, one political dinner, one school board meeting, one fancy annual holiday event for my husband’s firm and a family Korean cultural event just outside of Boston.  Oh and then there’s the preschool cookie walk (bake your own) and a couple of friends’ holiday parties and a favorite children’s author actually IN TOWN.  Then there’s planning for the rest of the month, buying gifts, thinking about holiday cards (while not actually doing anything about them)—oh, hell, you know.  You’re doing it, too.

So the rest of the family can follow my advice and just roll with the punches.  I’m making my stand now: I will not be sick.  The flu can just wait.

I’ll let you know how it works out.

Are you confused about your kids under 10 and the H1N1 vaccine?  Given that it seems to be easier to obtain reliable information about Jon Gosselin’s latest hairdo than this vaccine, confusion is to be expected.  I’m not a medical professional and I can’t answer all of your questions about the vaccine, but I can clear up one very important point for you: young children receiving the nasal mist vaccine will need a booster approximately thirty days after their first dose.

I’d heard lots of rumors swirling about regarding the administration of the vaccine, and when I brought my kids to the pediatrician’s office so they could be vaccinated, no one said anything about a booster.  But the mom-rumor mill runs strong on H1N1, and after several people told me that they thought a booster would be necessary, I called my pediatrician to ask.  Sure enough, the kids need a booster dose.  The woman on the phone apologized for not letting me know about the booster at the time of the first dose and attributed the gaffe to the frenzied atmosphere of their office these days, which I can understand.  Still, I’d rather hear my kids’ health requirements from their doctor’s office than from the gossip I pick up around town.

So now you know.  Swine flu nasal mist vaccine for young kids requires two doses.  Make sure you ask your pediatrician or other health professional about this when you take your kids to be vaccinated. 

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On an entirely separate note, I have a personal message for the think-outside-the-milk-chocolate-box-type at Nestlé who came up with the idea of dark chocolate Raisinets: That was mean.  I’m trying to eat less junk food.  I don’t even like raisins that much.  Coating them in dark chocolate to attract new customers like moths to a lightbulb was a brilliant, evil idea.  Dark chocolate Raisinets are even worse than dark chocolate M&M’s because the hedonist in me convinces the rationalist that the damn raisins are good for me, and pretty soon I rationalize my way through an entire bag.  Next time, play fair.  If you’re going to seduce grown-ups with a new, irresistible take on junk food, at least include some coupons for Pilates or Zumba classes in the bag.

It’s no secret to readers of this blog, but now everyone knows.  My latest essay, “Dirty Little Secret: Why I Don’t Clean My House” is published today in Babble.com‘s Bad Parent column.  Read it by clicking on the title and feel better about your own housekeeping habits!

Katherine Lee over at one of About.com’s parenting blogs asked yesterday for readers to weigh in regarding their opinions about the National Dairy Council’s new ad campaign promoting chocolate milk in schools.  In this age of struggling to teach our kids healthy eating habits and trying to curb obesity, many people are questioning the wisdom of persuading kids to drink milk that comes with extra calories.  Others think that the calories are worth it if chocolate will persuade reluctant milk drinkers to partake.

I have a different question regarding milk in schools, one that relates to kids who bring their lunches—like my kids—and that has frustrated me for some time now: why is it so difficult to find single-serving containers of milk that to put in kids’ school lunchboxes?

My kids do drink plain, unflavored milk in any percentage from skim to whole, and both kids would welcome plain milk in their lunchboxes if it were more easily available.  But despite the fact that the dairy industry has obviously packaged milk in individual cartons for decades—just think back to what was available in school cafeterias even when we were kids—it’s not possible to buy those little cartons in stores.  Single-serving cartons of orange juice are available in almost every grocery store’s refrigerated section, and in recent years, similar boxes of soy milk and/or cow’s milk flavored with vanilla, chocolate or strawberry have also become easy to find.  But trying to locate boxes of similarly packaged plain milk is as time-consuming and frustrating as competing for one of the season’s “hot” gift items on Black Friday, with just as uncertain a result. 

After scouring every grocery store in town for the only plain milk I’ve seen on store shelves packaged in individual boxes, I finally found a case of Horizon’s individual servings of 2 percent, unflavored milk at the local Toys R Us.  The next time I went, only cases of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry milk sat on the shelves, but I was able to buy three-packs of the unflavored.  Now those have disappeared from the shelves as well, and I’m about to start mail-ordering this milk over the internet so my daughter can continue to drink milk with her lunch at preschool.  This seems a little ridiculous, even to me.

As for my son who doesn’t like the taste of Horizon’s boxed milk but would be perfectly content with the ordinary stuff that comes out of a cow, gets pasteurized and ends up in our refrigerator and on the shelves of his cafeteria: he only gets twenty minutes for lunch, and he’s reluctant to spend five to ten of those minutes waiting in line to buy a single serving of milk.  I don’t blame him.   But try as I might, I can’t find anywhere those small cartons of plain milk that I could place beside the icepack in his lunchbox and that would nutritionally balance his lunch.

The availability of individual-sized cartons of milk for kids to take to school is hardly our nation’s most pressing issue, I know.  Given the choice between solving, say, this problem or the healthcare crisis, I’m pretty sure I know what I’d pick.  I’m just making the argument that with all the conversations we have about teaching our kids how to make good, healthy food choices, it might be nice if the producers and marketers at various points in the food chain would provide this easy, common-sense tool to help parents meet that goal.

Uncharted Parent keeps getting busier! I’m now writing an occasional column for my local newspaper, the Concord Monitor. Please check out my first one, “Cycle of hatred feels sadly familiar,” which ran in today’s edition.

The only kid-free moments I’ve had this week have involved either meetings or sleep, and there hasn’t been a whole lot of the latter. Flu, respiratory bugs, colds, coughs, holidays from school, escalating outside responsibilities—you name it, we’ve had it in the past few days. Even the cat contributed by suddenly becoming ill and requiring an urgent visit to the vet.

The week has offered a few positive notes, however. Four-and-a-half year old “Emmie” has been glued to my side all week due to her cold-flu-whatever-the-heck-it-is, and she’s made it clear that despite feeling icky, she’s loved spending this much time with me. I’ve been rewarded with an abundance of hugs, kisses and her eyelash-batting, “Mommy, I love you,” multiple times each day. While inarguably dramatic, Emmie’s affections are warm and genuine and work the same magic as the sudden appearance of a double rainbow on a misty, gloomy day. This is what Emmie is like in her sweet moments, and it’s what gets me through the tougher preschooler times.

If Emmie’s expressions of affection are a rainbow, a similar gesture by seven-and-a-half year old “Jack” is like the pot of gold at the rainbow’s end. Emmie wraps her arms around me and kisses me and tells me how much she loves me, but you can look up and down, high and low for a similar expression from Jack and in all likelihood, you’ll never see one.

But I’ve learned that I can find that pot of gold if I know where to look. Jack simply has his own way of telling me how much I mean to him. Yesterday, for example, he tackled me.

We’d played a few games of Mastermind together (remember Mastermind?) and then a few raucous rounds of table-sized air hockey while Emmie napped. We goofed around and sent the tiny plastic puck flying into the air to perform loop-de-loops and other feats that make a seven-year-old boy giggle so hard he can’t sit up straight, and he emerged from our hard-fought mini-tournament the victor. He put away the game and before I had a chance to prepare myself, fifty-six pounds of boy flew at me and landed on my back.

Jack wanted to play, and I obliged. I joined him in the tickle/wrestle/boy stuff antics because I wanted him to have fun and because I realized that this rough physicality was the equivalent of Emmie’s hugs. Jack was full of smiles and laughter, he’d had a good time with his mom and he thanked me by goofing around with me in a way that was all at once silly and sweet, focused and casual, an expression of emotion that was masculine and cool. I appreciated this subconscious gesture of affection so much that I ignored the little voice in my head warning me, “He’s seven. You’re not. Keep this up and you’ll be in traction by the end of the hour.” After all, isn’t a son’s love worth a little thing like a wrenched back or a sprained neck?

Of course it is. And now I’m going to conclude this post, wrap a warm compress around my neck and go to bed (I’m writing this at night) with a smile on my face, because I know my kids love me. They told me so.

The words are there; you just have to know how to hear them.

One of the things we try to teach our kids is to be proud of who they are. Tall or short, extrovert or introvert, lover of sports or music or math or computers—we want our kids to discover their true selves and not to be ashamed of what they find.

So I’m going to set a good example here and proclaim to everyone that I am officially a geek. Specifically, I’m a word geek.

Recently, I found myself in need of a dictionary definition of the phrase, “blended family.” I checked both online and in a dictionary made of actual paper, and here is what I found:

blended family—noun
a family composed of a couple and their children from previous marriages

While not inaccurate, to my mind this definition omitted a rather important alternative definition of the term “blended family”—that of a family that includes both biological and adopted children.

So I did what any word-obsessed parent in a blended family would do. “Honey,” I told my husband, “I’m going to contact Merriam-Webster.”

“You do that,” he replied.

“I’m so excited. I’ve never emailed the dictionary before!”

As I recall, my husband laughed at me, then left the room.

Undeterred, I sent my email to Merriam-Webster that evening:

Both your online dictionary and your Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition, list only one meaning for the term, “blended family: a family that includes children of a previous marriage of one spouse or both.” While this meaning is correct, it is not the only correct definition. “Blended family” can also mean—and is often used to refer to—a family that includes at least one biological child and at least one adoptive child. The term is commonly employed in this manner in the adoptive community. Would you look into including this additional definition in future editions of your dictionaries?

A couple of days later, I heard back:

Thank you for writing and for your comments about “blended family.” We have made a note of them for our citation file and will keep them in mind toward possible future revision of the entry.

We appreciate your interest in Merriam-Webster.

Sincerely,

Neil S. Serven
Associate Editor
Merriam-Webster, Inc.

Okay, so I got the form, “Thank you for sharing your concerns with me” response. (Hey, I used to write letters like this. I can identify them when I see them!) But dictionary definitions do change as the usage of words and phrases alters over time. If the word-mavens at Merriam-Webster hear the term “blended family” enough in the context of families formed by both biology and adoption, they could be swayed to include us in the definition. If you want to contribute to the momentum to recognize our families, you can send a quick email by going to Merriam-Webster online and filling out their form. It could have an effect and then you would be accomplishing something—even if you don’t get as jazzed up about the prospect of emailing the dictionary as I did.

And if you do get a kick out of writing to the dictionary, don’t be ashamed to tell your kids. Let them see that it’s okay to be whoever you are—even if that person is a word-geek!

For today’s post, I’m just going to strongly encourage you to click through to “How to Survive a Mid-Air Disaster” by Johanna Stein. (I mean it. Look, I’m a mom, and I’m using my you-better-do-this-or-else tone. Click on the link NOW.) If this doesn’t make you laugh out loud in sympathy, horror and/or delight, you are still suffering from a sugar-induced semi-coma and it’s time to cut back on the Halloween candy you’re stealing from your kid’s plastic pumpkin. Plus, regardless of whether you are a parent or not, you will never look at children—or parents—on a plane the same way again.

Here’s how Stein’s essay opens:

I am at the O’Hare airport with my daughter and the guy she calls “dada”. We are about to board a Florida-bound plane to visit my mother-in-law.

But the child is losing her shit.

After two years of being the perfect travel companion she has suddenly developed a fear of flying. For a toddler she’s pretty smart (I’m not bragging when I say that… it actually creeps me out) and I wonder if maybe she’s worked out the physics of what we are about to do. Perhaps she has come to realize, as I have, that manned flight is a practical impossibility and is certain to end in our fiery deaths.

Or maybe she’s just toying with me.

Click here to read the rest. You won’t regret it.

This post is directed at the mothers of boys out there, or child-development types, or even the men who remember what it was like to be seven or eight years old.

In general, I’ve found seven to be a great age. I’ve had such a delightful year listening to “Jack’s” increasingly sophisticated ideas, his application of actual reasoning to his arguments, the beginning of his inevitable joke-and-riddle phase. He can stump me sometimes, he catches me off guard with his humor and we’ve begun to find a few common interests. I’m hoping to hang on to this phase of his development for as long as possible.

There is, however, one exception to my infatuation with seven-year-old boydom: the child’s lack of coping skills. (Yes, I know I made up a word there, but I like it.)

Jack and I can be in the midst of a perfectly rational, enjoyable discussion about dinosaurs or the recounting of a funny antic performed by some kid on the bus, and then something subtle occurs—like his four-year-old sister doesn’t understand the last thing he said, or he discovers that the clock over the stove is off by a minute or two and thereby just gave him an incorrect time—and Jack dissolves. Rain when the weatherman predicted a dry day, a rule broken during a board game, a toy falling off a precarious pile where he just placed it in an effort to put it away—any of these, or anything at all, is cause for a full-blown, no-holds-barred meltdown.

At first, I thought that it was only Jack who is as volatile as a peppermint Mento dropped into a two-liter bottle of Coca-Cola. But as I began to talk to the other moms in the bleachers at soccer practice (yes, thank you, I am officially a cliché), I discovered that many of them possess stories to match my own. Moreover, some of them had been through this stage of boyhood before and/or knew others parents who had and expressed the uniform opinion that this volatility is a classic characteristic of the seven-year-old boy.

What is it about seven-year-old boys that renders them incapable of coping with, well, anything? I’ve been trying to puzzle this out. We know, for example, that girls tend to develop emotionally more rapidly than boys. I’m wondering if perhaps seven-year-old girls then generally have more emotional tools at their disposal to grapple with the emotions generated by their increased cognitive skills and more complex interactions with the world than do boys wrestling with same thoughts and interactions. I think it’s a plausible theory, but I don’t know if it’s true or if some other dynamic is responsible.

In any event, whatever the cause might be, we parents have to deal with the rumbling volcano that is the seven-year-old boy. (Or eight-year-old; much as I’d like this phenomenon to end on Jack’s upcoming eighth birthday, I think it’s a fairly safe bet that it will continue.)

What are your experiences with boys this age? Have you got any tips for those of us who are trying to help our seven-year-old boys cope with the world around them?

Sorry everyone, I did miss a post last week without offering so much as a tweet in explanation. That’s what near-total immersion in a fictional world of one’s own creation can do to a person (even if I was researching the non-fictional background for my novel). Then, as soon as my plane touched New England tarmac, I traded that immersion for one of macaroni-and-cheese, laundry and Halloween. I’m still digging out from the sugar-and-chocolate avalanche, but I should nevertheless be back on my regular blogging schedule this week.

Oh, and to any locals reading this: Where were the Junior Mints last night? My kids returned without a single offering of The Greatest Candy in America. What is the world coming to? (I’ll be okay, though. I’ll just console myself with the Twix and KitKat bars. Sigh.)