Picket Fence Post

When I first started blogging in 2005, I dedicated an entry to something called, “Dysfunctional Family Bingo,” a term coined by a Brookline, MA psychologist in 2000 who was trying to come up with a funny way to cope with the inevitable madness that occurs during big holiday dinners.

I completely adore the concept.

Dysfunctional Family Bingo is like a regular Bingo game, except that the squares are filled with crazy things that could happen during a holiday dinner (there’s an ugly argument over politics, your kid breaks a family heirloom that was put in the middle of the coffee table, someone gets food poisoning, etc.). The idea is that you and your snarky friends print out the cards and secretly play along during a holiday event, like Thanksgiving. If one poor soul gets “Bingo” by unfortunately experiencing enough outrageous moments to win, that person calls the others and earns the group’s sympathy and perhaps earns a free drink the following week when you all get together to tell Thanksgiving dinner tales.

It’s a subversive way to recognize that there’s no such thing as a “perfect” holiday dinner, no matter what Martha Stewart may tell you. Everybody’s got some loony story to tell.

So in honor of Thanksgiving and the stress that sometimes accompanies big family dinners — whether or not you’re hosting — I’ve made up a 2008 Dysfunctional Family Bingo card.  If you’re expecting a particularly stressful Thanksgiving dinner this week, print it out and play along. Hopefully you won’t win.

See my 2008 Dysfunctional Family Bingo card here.

Got any Thanksgiving horror stories of your own that you want to share with the class? Please post your story (or stories) in the comments section below. And remember, in the words of the immortal High School Musical folks . . . ”We’re all in this together.”

Image credit: Meredith O’Brien/Picket Fence Post.

Item #1: Primetime Adoption Stories

If you’ve been watching House, 30 Rock and/or Brothers & Sisters lately, you might’ve noticed that they have at least one thing in common: Storylines involving career-oriented women who are seeking to adopt children. Sadly, thus far in the season, none of the fictional women has had any good news to report, and, in at least one case, a woman’s busy work schedule was held against her. I wrote about these primetime adoption stories in a column over on Mommy Track’d.

Item #2: Proposed Ban on Fast Food Ads

Question for the universe: Who buys fast food for young children? The kids, who have no means of getting to McDonald’s and likely don’t have the spare cash for a Big Mac? No, it’s not the 3-year-old toddling down to the local fast food joint on his own. It’s the adults in that 3-year-old’s life who buy him the fatty food. Adults, my friends, can just say, “No,” no matter how many tempting McDonald’s ads the kids see on TV.

In fact the adults can use these ads as teachable moments to explain to their little charges how the folks who created the ads don’t care about children, that they’re just trying to persuade kids to spend their parents’ money and eat things that are bad for them. At the same time, the adults can explain the concept of moderation, that having a burger and fries every once and a while, is fine. If you don’t teach kids about moderation as well as how to say, “No” to tempting advertisements, you’re doing your offspring a disservice as we live in a world that’s saturated with ads and bad food. 

That being said, I, a big First Amendment cheerleader, think it’s unnecessary to enact a ban on fast food advertisements during kids’ programming, no matter what the National Institutes of Health and the National Bureau of Economic Research say in a new study, claiming that if there were a ban on such advertisements, childhood obesity could be cut by 18 percent. (If networks want to voluntarily suspend that type of advertising, that’s their decision.)

“The study measured the number of fast food ads kids watched and found a fast food TV ad ban for children’s programming would reduce the number of overweight children aged 3 to 11 by 18 percent, and for adolescents (12- to 18-year-olds) by 14 percent,” according to Ad Age.

There’s a button on TV remote controls that says “mute” which you can tell your children to push when an ad comes on TV. There are DVDs you could have them watch which are commercial-free. And there’s also another handy button you could also use. It says, “off.”

Item #3: Q&A with Blogging Sisters/Mad Men Fans

I’m so missing Mad Men these days. Sunday nights just aren’t the same. In a moment of missing Don Draper & Co., I decided to e-mail two sisters in the NYC area who blog about Mad Men on their witty site, Basket of Kisses (a reference to Peggy Olson’s genius quip from season one). They fielded several of my questions for my Suburban Mom: Notes from the Asylum blog Q&A including this one about Betty Draper:

Meredith: Betty Draper: Victim, emblematic of young mothers of her era, or narcissistic and spoiled?

Roberta Lipp, Basket of Kisses: Well, both. She is well educated, and now she is full-time devoted to making her house look sparkling and meals on the table. And I think that Don having a secret identity expands the metaphor of a young woman involved with a closed off man who feels like a stranger. But yes, she is spoiled and narcissistic. She has been taught that looks are a woman’s only value, and she looks like she looks. She has some character traits that I’m not a fan of. But I very much feel Betty’s pain. 

Read the entire Q&A here.

Image credit: Greg Gayne/Fox via TV Guide.

Jan Eliot is scaring the crap out of me.

Just as I’m in the process of giving my twin 10-year-olds a little bit of responsibility – letting them stay home for small intervals of time while I go pick up their brother in town some place nearby, as long as they keep the phone next to them, don’t cook anything and don’t answer the door – I read this week’s Stone Soup. The storyline this week has focused on the teenaged girl who’s at home watching TV when her grade school-aged sister starts to choke on some food.

That settles it. The minute my 10-year-olds come home from school today, I’m going to teach them about the Heimlich maneuver, and pray they don’t use it for recreational purposes. Plus I’ll tell them they can’t eat anything when there’s no grown-up at home.

Image credit: Stone Soup via GoComics.

While walking through Stop & Shop I spotted a 75 percent discount bin filled with Halloween stuff. At the top of the heap of candy were many bags of High School Musical candy. High School Musical strawberry pop rocks to be exact. I was surprised to see them because I didn’t know they existed, and believe me, my house has plenty of HSM paraphernalia.

Then, while walking through the frozen food aisle, I spotted Troy, Gabriella and Sharpay again, looking out at me from the other side of the freezer door. This time, they were pictured on a box of waffles. Photos on the box showed a waffle with ”EHS” (for East High School) on one side. Another waffle, right next to Troy, had a crest for “High School Musical” on it . . . because when you think of High School Musical, of course, you think of waffles. And strawberry pop rocks.

Sometimes I wonder what these marketing folks are thinking. Do  they think parents will just capitulate and buy their kids anything with HSM on it?

Shortly after Shrek 3 came out, there was a boom in Shrek merchandise, particularly on all manner of food products all over the grocery store. One day when my kids spotted Shrek on a cereal box, they asked if I’d buy it.

“What does Shrek know about cereal?” I asked, speedily pushing the cart past the neatly arranged boxes as they looked longingly over their shoulders at the green ogre. Shrek knows as much about cereal as Troy Bolton does about waffles.

Years after readers of the world excitedly gobbled up the thousands of pages in the seven-book Harry Potter series, I have finally reached that milestone myself.

My twin fourth graders have been obsessed with Harry Potter since 2006, when they plowed through the books during the summer. To date, they’ve read each of the books an untold number of times and their enthusiasm for the subject matter has not waned. Their birthdays were both Harry Potter-themed this year. (I was rather proud of the Sorting Hat I made from paper bags.) The Girl was a character from the series for two Halloweens in a row. (She was Hermione Granger last year, Ginny Weasley this year.) The Eldest Boy was an unnerving Potter doppelganger last year.

Knowing that their mother is an avid reader, they hounded me for quite some time, trying to persuaded me to read the series. This past spring I acquiesced, put aside all my other reading for pleasure and commenced my Potter odyssey. Last week, I finished the gloomy melancholy that is book seven. (Now I get why, at first, The Girl had to put down Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows multiple times in order to “take a break.”) I was shocked by how dark books 5-7 were and was moved to tears more than once. Whenever Harry saw his deceased parents, for example, I teared up.

And, as promised, I’m now making plans to take The Eldest Boy and The Girl out to a nice lunch where we’ll have a Harry Potter book club meeting and discuss all seven volumes. (I decided not to discuss each individual book with them because they, knowing what eventually happens, couldn’t stop themselves from revealing spoilers.) However I’m going to have to go back and refresh my memory about each book as it seems as though a lifetime has passed since I read those first few innocent books.

For those Harry Potter fans out there: What was your favorite book in the series? (Mine is book five, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.) Were you surprised by how dark the series became in its later years?

Image credit: Scholastic.

For the second time in as many years, the Tooth Fairy neglected to visit our home last night after a child in our house lost a baby tooth.

The last time this happened, The Spouse and I suggested that perhaps the Tooth Fairy had too many homes to visit and that she’d likely arrive the following night. The Tooth Fairy made up for her lapse by leaving $2 instead of the single dollar she usually leaves in exchange for a child’s tooth.

This morning, we told The Youngest Boy that because he lost his tooth after dinner last night, perhaps he was placed at the end of the Tooth Fairy’s client list and that she just couldn’t get here in time. Must’ve been a busy day for pediatric tooth loss. Hopefully, we told him, the Tooth Fairy will get her act together and show up tonight.

Any more time that I have to spend watching our 7-year-old walk around holding his tooth and looking sad — as he did for a half-hour before school this morning – will just break my heart.

UPDATE: The Tooth Fairy finally made it to our house last night to pick up the lost tooth and drop off $2.

Item #1: School Celebration Overload

To celebrate Halloween with his classmates at school, my second grade son had “friendship salad,” where each member of the class was asked to contribute a piece of fruit. Members of my fourth grade daughter’s class were asked to bring in a pumpkin so students could carve them in class. My fourth grade son was asked to bring in an apple for a class project, and had a small party.

To celebrate Thanksgiving, both of my fourth graders’ classes are going to be making “friendship soup,” where each member of the class has been asked to contribute an ingredient, while parent were asked to additionally send in Crock Pots, utensils, bowls, etc. (The Girl has been asked to bring in two 48 ounce cans of chicken broth, while The Boy has been asked to bring in a can of corn niblets. That’s for a soup neither of them have said they’ll eat once it’s made.)

To celebrate “Winter” (not Christmas, not Hanukkah, not Ramadan), my fourth grade son brought home a form the other day asking each class member to bring in a new, wrapped book (no more than $5) for a book swap during the class “Winter” party. Scholastic book orders were attached to the note with the suggestion that we could easily order through them so we’d get the books in time for the party. (The note also said that requests for food and supplies for the “Winter” party will be forthcoming.) I’m certain that I’ll soon receive a similar note from The Girl.

When I received that note about the book swap – in a tough economic climate where people are worried about their jobs — I must say, I became irritated, even though my neighbor, who has a child in fifth grade, said the children have always loved the book swap event. Why couldn’t the kids pick a book they already own and wrap it up with handmade paper bag wrapping paper that they decorate themselves? It would promote recycling and still promote the joy of reading, as the note for the swap indicated was the point of the event. Maybe the kid donating the book could even write a note about why the book was entertaining.

I think what bothers me about this is that it’s coming in the middle of a crazy time of year. Taken alone, out of context, $5 for a book (plus wrapping paper) doesn’t seem like a big deal. But then I have to double the cost because I have two kids in the fourth grade. Then I factor in that the room parents for my three children’s classes will soon be asking for donations (usually $15-20) for gifts for the teachers. (We just went through this with the coaches of my kids’ sports teams where parents contributed a similar amount.) When you also consider the cost of the ingredients for friendship soups and salads, paper goods and store-bought food for a bunch of parties (due to allergies, most of the food has to be purchased so that ingredient are listed), the cost of the game we were asked to buy to contribute to a “game basket” for my second grader’s class as part of a school fundraiser, as well as the other requests that have come home from school in recent weeks and it adds up quickly.

My wish is that all of these in-school celebrations and the “gift-giving” could be made simpler, and occur less frequently. Oh, go ahead. Call me Scrooge.

Priceless Semi-Related Tangent: My preschool-aged nephew, who dressed as a skeleton for Halloween, didn’t have a Halloween party at his school. They had an ”I’m Not Scared” party instead. I kid you not.

UPDATE: My proposal to substitute used books for new books and use paperbag wrapping paper for the fourth grade book swap was shot down because, I was told, there are “reasonably priced” books in the Scholastic book order from which parents could choose. And there are “reasonably priced” books in that book order, but this is more of a principle thing at this point, trying to get away from more consumption. Parents are not ATMs.

(more…)

. . . in it, my mother arrived at my house, unannounced, on a weekend day. With great flourish, she presented The Spouse and I with a baby she said she “picked up” for us. (My mother’s a super-shopper. Plus she’s been agitating for us to have a fourth kid. *Insert chuckle here* )

When The Spouse and I looked at her, dumb-founded, the baby, which my mother had named Charlie, started growing freakishly fast (like in that recent episode of Fringe) and not only became mobile, but became verbal, all within the span of an hour. The dream continued with The Spouse and I running off to the store to buy baby-proofing stuff, gates, diapers, etc. because we were unprepared for having a baby in the house.

I related the dream to The Spouse, while our offspring were in the room, and we got a big chuckle out of it. However when we started making joke about Charlie, The Youngest Boy — who gets insanely jealous when we hold our toddler nephew – started screaming, “Charlie’s a fake! There is no Charlie!”

When I unwisely pushed the issue a little bit more, saying that I thought I heard Charlie running around in the other room, The Youngest Boy went nuts, “No! There’s no Charlie!”

Apparently the dream cut a little too close to home for the kid.

We have nicknamed The Eldest Boy “The Instigator.” He’s frighteningly adept at identifying people’s sore spots and pressing their buttons whenever he’s either irritated with them or simply bored.

For example, he knows that if he asks me if he can do something and I say, “No,” and he continues to ask me, especially while wearing that smirk of his, I’m gonna lose it. In short order. With The Youngest Boy, all The Eldest Boy has to do is to ignore him, pretend he can’t hear his little brother, and the little man will ball up his fists, bite his lower lip and start shrieking while his older brother chuckles.

His intentionally provocative behavior has reached a point where, nine times out of 10, he enters a room with his siblings and someone winds up crying or they wind up beating on one another. So The Spouse and I have told The Eldest Boy that we’re going to tally the number of incidents in which he goads his siblings into a fight. At the end of the week, we told him, if he has a large number of incidents (we conveniently never defined “large”) there will be consequences (again, undefined).

This morning The Youngest Boy ran into the kitchen to say, “He instigated me! He instigated me! He’s gotta be punished!” (That incident was uncorroborated, though.)

Thus far, his tally is two since Monday.

Item #1: New find — The Pajama Diaries

Amidst the glut of post-election analyses, number crunching and U.S. maps colored red and blue, this week I discovered a new comic strip in the Boston Globe. (If it was there before, I hadn’t noticed it until now. My bad.)

The Pajama Diaries, by Terri Libenson, features a character named Jill who is a freelance graphic designer who works out of her house, is married, and has two young girls. (That could be me, only with three kids, only one of whom is a girl.) Jill lives across the street from a family whose home she snarkily dubbed “Perfectville” and uses the DVD player as a babysitter so she can quickly get some work done without interruption from the little people.

After reading through some of her previous comic strips, they hit home, both about the challenges of working from home and about the struggle against the perfect, and they made me laugh. It’s gonna be a new staple in the Picket Fence Post home.

Item #2: Boston Globe Features ‘Mommy Dating’

Ever bring your kids to a local playground and hoped that a mom would talk to you or that a group of moms would welcome you into their fold? That’s called “mommy dating,” according to the Boston Globe  which likens playgrounds to meat markets:

“To the casual observer, the playground may appear a pleasant tableau of mothers and babysitters and, oh, children. But to the initiated, it can be as socially charged as a singles’ bar. The blonde mom over here, the organics-only mom over there, the insecure moms hovering near the swings, pretending to be occupied by the kids. Meanwhile, style is assessed, labels identified, judgments made.”

Now that my kids have gotten older and we don’t hang out at playgrounds like we used to, I’ve become the mom standing on the sidelines at one of my kids’ bazillion games, chugging a caffeinated beverage, and hoping someone won’t point a finger at me and say, “There’s the mom who hates on kids’ sports and the PTO online and in columns. Don’t talk to her.”

Item #3: First Family Gets Ready

On page one of today’s New York Times there’s a feature story entitled, ”A Family Expected to Balance State Dinners with Sleepovers.” The reporter spoke with Michelle Obama’s Chicago friends and how the First Family plans to create its own support system for the girls on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Interesting read.

Image credit: The Pajama Diaries.