Picket Fence Post

Item #1: The Chew Monster (Otherwise Known as the Puppy)

Max, our mini-Wheat puppy, is smack dab in the middle of a rather nasty chewing phase and has been grabbing at anything within his reach and shredding it. Anything. Lego pieces. Pencils. Trash. Tissue boxes. Magazines. Soda cans. Shoes. You get the picture. Combine Max’s propensity for gnawing with the Picket Fence Post kids’ tendency to leave items lying haphazardly around the house and you’ve got the ingredients for my latest GateHouse News Service column.

Item #2: Co-Ed Sleepovers . . . Are They Nuts?

When I saw a Tweet this week from a Boston-based Fox TV journalist promoting her segment about teen co-ed slumber parties, she asked people thought about the notion. My immediate response was decidedly thumbs down. Putting hormonal kids together, with soft bedding, in the dark where parents will be absent for long stretches of time including in the middle of the night and a developmental lack of impulse control (plus teens’ brains aren’t fully developed) is patently crazy. Then I watched Sara Underwood’s piece on local TV and it only confirmed my initial thoughts. Please, tell me what you think about this trend.

Item #3: Pajama Diaries

So. Very. True.

Item #4: Modern ‘Like’ Family

Freshman ABC comedy Modern Family was unbelievably fabulous this week. It provided me with ample laughs just when I needed them. (You can watch the latest episode “Fears” for free at the ABC web site.) But the part that really had me rolling — aside from seeing the adorable Manny in his classic fisherman’s cap (I just want to hug that little guy) – was the scene where Claire Dunphy was driving her teenaged Haley and her friend around and could not, not for one more second, tolerate listening to her daughter continually and nonsensically invoke the word “like.”

Here’s what Haley said to her friend: “And then I’m like, ‘There’s no way I’m wearing that.’ And she was like, ‘Well if you don’t wear it then you can’t play.’ And then I was like, ‘Well, that’s fine by me.’ And then she was like . . .”

By this time, Claire, who’d been rolling her eyes as she listened to this, snarkily said the word “like” over her daughter’s conversation four times until her daughter objected. “Stop saying, ‘like!’” Claire shouted.

“Don’t embarass me!” the daughter shouted back.

“Ahhhhhh!” Claire shrieked as she gripped the steering wheel and violently shook her head.

This exact scenario – with slightly different wording and sans the guttural yell – occurred between my mother and me while she was driving me and a friend around when I was but a teenaged gal. I have a vivid memory of having what I saw as a perfectly pleasant conversation with my friend only to have my mother, seemingly out of nowhere, shout, “Meredith! Stop saying, ‘like!’”

I’m busily trying to stomp that tendency out of my own children before they become teens. I’m tryin’.

Image credit: Pajama Diaries via the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

I’ve been blogging relatively lightly during the past 10 days in a (somewhat) vain attempt to achieve (or chase an elusive) Zen-like state of mind. Trying really hard not to get overly rattled by holiday stress (though, at times, I’ve failed and needed someone to tell me to chill), I decided to give myself the last two weeks of December off from full-fledged blogging as a gift. . .  which means I’ll be back in January ready to dish.

But, in honor of New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day and all of the resolution baloney you’ll be — or have been — treated to, in my January GateHouse News Service column I’ve created my own parenting anti-resolution list which involves trying to make “underparenting” seem cool, acting more like moms you see on TV and embracing the crazy.

Happy New Year.

Item #1: Scary Movie Previews

Back in July, I blogged about how irritated I was to find, prior to a 1 p.m. mid-week showing of a PG movie about wizards, a movie preview for a PG-13 apocalyptic film about the end of the world and one for an as-yet-unrated film which included examples of close-contact brutal violence. Both trailers terrified my 11-year-olds.

I was even more irritated a few weeks later when I went to see the PG-13 film about Julia Child — to which I’d considered taking my 11-year-old daughter — and was treated to a trailer for a movie about a homicidal stepfather who went after his stepkids with a chainsaw and a knife.

So I called a spokesman for a national chain of movie theaters and asked him to kindly explain to me: Who picks these previews to accompany the feature films, whether the time of day is considered when selecting trailers and if the expected feature film audience is taken into consideration. The result is my November GateHouse News Service column in which I argue that theaters aren’t making wise choices about which trailers they’re choosing to run prior to movies.

Item #2: Baby Einstein Refunds

Perhaps you’ve read the news that the Disney Corporation is offering people who purchased Baby Einstein videos a $15.99 refund each, for up to four DVDs per household (for DVDs purchased between June 5, 2004 through Sept. 5, 2009). Why the refunds? Because the videos aren’t quite as “educational” as the company made them seem, the New York Times reported.

Over on the web site Mommy Tracked — where I’m a contributing columnist — author/columnist Stefanie Wilder-Taylor had a snarkily funny response to the news:

“It made perfect sense to me that I could sit my children in front of a DVD that shows colorful sock puppets moving at a pace slower than my grandma on the interstate highway and expect them to come away a prodigy. The only movement any of my kids produced after watching Baby Mozart was in their Pampers.”

Item #3: The Jig is Up

Remember yesterday when I posted an item about The Eldest Boy having lost three teeth in the span on 15 minutes. Well, as of the morning, I was informed by said child that the jig is up and that he knows “the truth” about not just the Tooth Fairy, but the dude in the red suit. The news filled me with a twinge of nostalgic sadness.

Item #1: Slutty Halloween Costumes

From the moment the first catalogue for Halloween costumes arrived in my mailbox, I noticed that something seemed off, more so than in previous years. As The Youngest Boy leafed through it and circled a half-dozen costumes he was considering for Halloween, I couldn’t help but notice that a large proportion of the costumes for the girls beyond their toddler years, were sexed up, with the girls wearing obvious make-up and striking mature poses to make them look older, much more so than the boyish looking boys. I opined about this phenomenon in my October GateHouse News Service column.

Item #2: Fall TV Premieres

In the midst of the TV networks unveiling their slate of season premieres, I visited with the Manic Mommies and did a podcast with them where we dished about fall TV.  Shows we discussed included: Mad Men, Grey’s Anatomy, The Good Wife, Cougar Town, Glee and Parks & Recreation. You can download their podcast for free at iTunes or through other means. Go here for info on how to listen to the Manic Mommies online.

Item #3: Law-Breaker Moms

Three instances of states/municipalities trying to enforce over-the-top rules and regulations when it comes to the care of children:

How many of us have relied upon our fellow parents to help us watch our kids from time to time? How many have watched other people’s kids as a favor? Well if you lived in Michigan and you didn’t have a daycare license, you’d be a lawbreaker, according to media reports. Here’s the scoop from the local TV station, WZZM:

“Lisa Snyder, of Middleville says her neighborhood school bus stop is right in front of her home. It arrives after her neighbors need to be at work, so she watches three of their children for 15-40 minutes until the bus comes.

The Department of Human Services received a complaint that Snyder was operating an illegal child care home. DHS contacted Snyder and told her to get licensed, stop watching her neighbors’ kids or face consequences.”

In addition to Michigan criminalizing unlicensed ”it takes a village to raise a child” parents helping parents, folks who actually do run licensed daycare centers out of their Massachusetts homes were met with a host of new regulations by the state’s Board of Early Education and Care which will now consider daycare providers ”educators.” According to the Boston Herald, new regulations will mandate that daycare providers to do regular progress reports on children in their care which track “the cognitive, social, emotional, language, motor and life skills developments of infants and preschoolers,” brush the teeth of any kids there longer than fours hours and creative a an educational curriculum which demonstrates that daycare providers are offering “planned learning experiences.”

Meanwhile, a New York mother is being threatened by officials in Saratoga Springs because she and her 12-year-old son have been riding their bikes to his middle school. Riding or walking to school, according to the Times-Union, is banned — yes BANNED — by the school, at the same time we’re reading non-stop about the epidemic of fat kids who get little to no exercise:  “The Jackson street residents pedal more than four miles together each way to the middle school on nice days, despite being told not to by school officials and police.”

So, let me get this straight: You can’t watch your neighbor’s kids without getting a daycare license. If you get a daycare license, you have to become an “educator” and create curricula and conduct progress reports on babies. And if you’re trying to teach your kid about the joys of riding a bike to school, you’re told by the school and an awaiting state trooper that you’re breaking the school’s regulations and that you’ve got to plop your behind into a parent’s car or a bus seat.

Is it any wonder that parents feel under siege from governmental buddinskis?

Item #1: Meet Max

After nearly seven hours of driving to a dog shelter in New York State and back, the Picket Fence Post family now has a new member: A three-month-old wheaten terrier/Havanese puppy whom we named Max. (At least we think he’s a wheaten terrier/Havanese. That’s what we were told by the shelter folks, though his paperwork mentioned something about a Skye terrier. . . )

Max didn’t sleep well in his crate last night, even though I quasi-slept on the sofa near him. The scared little thing whined intermittently, reminding me of a baby awakening and crying during the night. After dusting off our baby gates and using caffeine this morning like a controlled substance, I feel as though I’m returning to my “new mom” days. A column on our search for Max is in the works.

Item #2: Papi Letdown

I was out on the road all day yesterday with the Picket Fence Post family getting Max, so I didn’t catch up on the heart-rending news regarding Big Papi until late yesterday and then read full coverage in the newspapers this morning. (Reading newspapers, on dead trees, how old school.) Hearing that David Ortiz in 2003 tested positive for performance enhancing drugs felt like someone had taken away Christmas, especially because of how it endangers the perspective on the special, glittering gem of a 2004 season. It’s a gut-level disappointment for someone like myself who hopes and wishes that seemingly good, decent guys like Ortiz wouldn’t and don’t mess around with such things. This, according to the Boston Globe’s Bob Ryan, makes me “terminally naive.” However I think it’s one thing for a show-off of a guy like Manny to test positive, quite another for the quiet, affable Papi.

Item #3: Pot-Dealing Mom on ‘Weeds’

Over on Mommy Track’d, I wrote about my recent Weeds-a-thon, where I OD’d (pardon the pun) on the Showtime comedy/drama about the widowed, pot-dealing soccer mom who used to peddle her wares to fellow suburbanites in order to provide for her kids. However after watching the Nancy Botwin character evolve over several seasons — in a recent episode she gave birth to the baby of a Mexican drug lord — I wasn’t thrilled by the transformation. Despite all this, the show continues to be riveting.

Item #4: Potter is the New Skywalker

In my latest GateHouse News Service column, I make the argument that, for kids today, the Harry Potter series is to them what the Star Wars series was to us in the days when Star Wars was merely a trilogy and not a six-pack. I also think that, as heroes go, Potter is better than Skywalker, writing, “. . . [U]nlike Luke Skywalker, who had the tendency to whine and be gratingly self-absorbed, Potter suffers and doesn’t whine, which sets my kids’ favorite childhood character several notches above the one I admired as a kid.”