Picket Fence Post

Remember way back in December I wrote about how, less than 10 hours after The Spouse’s 18-year-old cat died just after we decorated our Christmas tree, that The Girl began inquiring when we’d be getting a dog, just like the Obama girls? The issue about which I also wrote a column?

Well now it’s been four months since we first broached the subject of getting a dog for our family. The Obamas got their dog a few weeks ago, and now The Girl is wondering where OUR dog is. I told her that we’re still in the deliberative/research phase of this whole canine thing. The first step was to figure out what kind of dog we’d like, I told her, so, when we were at the library over the weekend, I borrowed a photo-filled book of dogs for everyone’s browsing pleasure.

The Youngest Boy (7), for some reason, kept saying, “Let’s get a pit bull!” To which I replied, “Never. No way.” Then he modified his request, suggesting that we get a dog he could “ride,” To which I said, “Never. No way.”

Since I work from home and will likely spend more time with this dog than anyone else in the family, I’ve made the executive assertion that I get to set some of the ground rules such as: No huge or drooly dogs. “Small dogs make small poop,” I’ve joked with the kiddos (half joking . . . kind of), adding that I don’t want some princess-y pocketbook dog either.

With those loose criteria in mind, the kids started to place bookmarks in the dog book to indicate their favorites. The Youngest Boy put bookmarks next to pictures of Yorkshire terriers, Cairn terriers (like Toto from The Wizard of Oz), a West Highland terrier (sensing a theme here?), and a pit bull terrier (he just wouldn’t let that pit bull thing go). The Girl echoed her younger brother’s West Highland terrier choice (those dogs look just like the McDuff character in the Rosemary Wells books) and a miniature poodle (my parents have a black one named Kelly whom she loves). The Eldest Boy, who has repeatedly said he does not want a dog but is resigned to the fact that it’s going to happen whether he likes it or not, ironically identified big dogs, a golden retriever and a Labrador retriever.

I decided not to identify any type specific breed because I don’t want to overly influence others, except for eliminating pit bulls and giant, drooly dogs that a 7-year-old could ride like a pony.

However The Spouse has yet to put any bookmarks in the dog book . He’s not so much on this dog bandwagon. Me thinks he’s going to need a bit of a nudge.

That being said I’d love to hear from you dog owners who have dogs and young kids: What kind of dog do you think would work for a busy family of five (kids ages 7, 10 and 10), given that I don’t want a big, drooly dog that’s difficult to care, groom or train?

Image: This web site.

Item #1: Bo the “Crazy” White House Pup

Reading the quotes from Michelle Obama saying that her family’s new dog Bo is “kind of crazy,” likes to chew on people’s feet and is up late at night loudly playing with his doggie toys (and interrupting people’s sleep) hasn’t exactly sent me hurrying to go and purchase a dog for my own Picket Fence Post family as we’ve been contemplating since our 18-year-old cat died in December.

While I watched the Obamas be taken for a walk by Bo on the White House lawn on the day they officially introduced him to the press corps, I (the person who’d most likely wind up doing most of the canine care) made a mental note: No big dogs.

Item #2: Mother’s Day Polls on Parent Dish

The folks at AOL’s Parent Dish are trying to muster up some Mother’s Day buzz by asking readers to participate in a series of polls, including which female celeb would you be comfortable leaving your kids with, reality TV moms’ show do you want to be canceled and what you’re doing for Mother’s Day?

Speaking of which, if you were making a wish that could actually be fulfilled, for what would you wish for Mother’s Day? Be honest now. Would love to hear your heartfelt desires. I know if it were up to one of my good friends — who shall remain nameless in this space — it would be for Mother’s Day to be abolished.

Item #3: “Knock it off or I’ll leave you two on the side of the road!”

Okay, so I have no idea what the New York mother actually said to her 10- and 12-year-old daughters when, after they wouldn’t stop bickering, she ordered them out the car, three miles away from home in a shopping plaza area, and drove away. Reminded me of a scene from Desperate Housewiveswith Lynette Scavo.

According to news reports, the 12-year-old chased the car and was allowed back inside while the 10-year-old was helped by a stranger who called the police. The mom, a partner in a law firm, was arrested and charged with child endangerment, the New York Times reported. Clearly this woman was having an extremely difficult time and took an unwise, ill-advised measure, but I feel like I need more information about this before pointing a judgmental finger, like whether she was planning on returning after a certain period of time, etc.

But at least the next time my three kids start fighting in the car (as they did today during a long car ride) I can tell them that a mom really DID leave her arguing children roadside.

Image credit: Associated Press/Ron Edmonds via the Huffington Post.

Item #1: Obamas as Parents

The media seem obsessed with Barack and Michelle Obama, with Michelle’s clothing (tongues were clucking at the fact that she wore a sleeveless ensemble to her husband’s address to a joint session of Congress), with their daughters’ clothes, toys and JoBro fandom. Not a week has gone by when I haven’t read a story about the Obamas’ journey through parenthood.

This past Sunday, the New York Times ran yet another story about the Obamas’ parenting style, “First Chores? You Bet,” portraying them as loving, but strict with their daughters, ages 7 and 10:

“In the Obama White House, bedtime is still at 8 p.m. The girls still set their own alarm clocks and get themselves up for school in the morning. They make their own beds and clean their own rooms. And when the much-anticipated pet arrives, they will walk the dog and scoop its poop.

. . . Mr. Obama is a modern-day dad who leaves the Oval Office for dinner with his girls, rarely misses a parent-teacher conference or piano recital and prides himself on having read all seven books in the Harry Potter series aloud with Malia.

Mrs. Obama juggles play dates and homework with speeches to federal agencies and students. Both are committed to keeping their daughters grounded, their friends and aides say.”

As a mom with kids the exact same age as the Obamas — twins who are 10 and a 7-year-old — it will be interesting for me to watch them raise their children as I raise mine, but I’m hoping that the media will back off and let the family settle in and try to normalize the girls’ lives as much as life can be “normal” at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And no more stories on the girls’ clothing or backpacks, please.

Item #2: You Looking to be Led by a First Daddy?

In the same issue of the New York Times, there was another article about Barack Obama, the dad, this time in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. Entitled, “Father in Chief,” this piece by Lisa Belkin likened being a dad to being the president:

“We are intrigued by the first family not only because their children are adorable and so excited about getting a puppy and meeting the Jonas Brothers but also because our president seems to be such a good father — loving but not a pushover, thrilled that he now has a job where he can be with the girls for breakfast and dinner, strict about their chores, slightly cranky when their school is canceled ‘because of what? Some ice?’”

Then she swerved into a comparison, saying governing is “messy” like parenting:

“There are big differences, of course, between parenting and governing. Unlike children, we choose our leaders; the job of those leaders is not to nurture us emotionally; and the fantasy of a wise, all-powerful Daddy is what has gotten Russia and Germany in trouble over the years. But if Obama is going to struggle in his metaphorical role as parent to the country, it will be less because of the differences between parenting and leadership and more because of the similarities.”

I wonder if that mindset is what led Time Magazine’s Joe Klein to extend the analogy on MSNBC’s Morning Joe today. While discussing new CBS News polling numbers showing that a vast majority of Americans support President Obama and his proposals to jump-start our flailing economy, Klein quipped: “People are scared. They want to see government activism. They’re looking for Daddy.” (Link to video here.)

President Obama himself during his address to the joint session of Congress this week, also invoked his role as the First Dad when he was discussing how parents can help their children achieve their educational goals:

“In the end, there is no program or policy that can substitute for a mother or father who will attend those parent/teacher conferences, or help with homework after dinner, or turn off the TV, put away the video games, and read to their child. I speak to you not just as a president, but as a father when I say that responsibility for our children’s education must begin at home.”

I’m planning on quoting Obama the next time my kids balk at my request to turn off their TV shows/video games, per order of the Daddy-in-Chief.

Item #3: The Dirt on Working from Home

The same woman who wrote the Times article comparing governing to parenting — Belkin — recently posted an interesting blog item on her Motherlode blog entitled, “The Messy Side of Working from Home.”

“One side effect of the [economic] downturn may well be more parents working from home. For some it will be involuntary cobbling together a home business after losing an office job. For some it will be a way to save on the expenses of going elsewhere for work — no more office space to lease, no more commuting costs. And for many it will be a way to save on childcare. Work during nap time, or play dates or on wi-fi while watching karate practice. It can be done. Right? RIGHT?

Working from home solves many problems, but as one who has done it for nearly 15 years, I should warn you that it creates others you might not expect.”

Belkin described having to literally leave the house and then re-enter, once a babysitter was there, in order to stop her son from screaming and shrieking while she worked.

As a work-from-home writer for the last decade, I have to say that her observations are on the money. Sure, working from home gets slightly easier once the kids are older and in school, but the time I have alone in the house to spend on my writing once the kids leave from school doesn’t constitute a full work day. Therefore I have to get creative. Some of the keys of doing it without going crazy are: Being flexible, being willing to work at night (after the kids are in bed) and working on a weekend, when a spouse could watch the kids while you work.

Image credit: Jae C. Hong/Associated Press via the New York Times.

The Obama family has officially been living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for a little over a week now and already folks are posting images of Michelle Obama online where they scrawl all over her mid-section suggesting that the First Lady is carrying the First Fetus.

I’ve stated many times before how much I loathe this fetish that web sites and so-called “journalists” have made of dissecting photos of female celebs, suggesting that if women have any contour at all to their bellies that they MUST be pregnant. I find the whole practice invasive and tacky.

When people openly hypothesize online, in print and on TV about whether someone might be pregnant — and that person won’t comment about the subject — did those folks ever think that perhaps there’s a good reason for the silence and that perhaps it would be in good taste to back off? If the woman is pregnant, maybe she’s had difficulties in the past (such as miscarriages) and wants to wait until she’s further along in her pregnancy to announce the news. If the woman isn’t pregnant, maybe it’s a case where she was photographed wearing a baggy outfit, or maybe she missed a month’s worth of Pilates classes. Either way, what’s the harm in waiting to report on these things until you know for sure? It’s not like a pregnancy will be a secret for long.

That being said, I’m ALREADY sick of the speculation that Michelle Obama might be pregnant. I seriously don’t want to endure four years of bloggers and entertainment “journalists” writing all over Michelle photos.

Image credit: AP/Telegraph.

Item #1: First Granny

Michelle Obama’s mother, Marian Robinson, is moving into the White House along with the Obama family in order to help 10-year-old Malia and 7-year-old Sasha adjust to their new situation while their parents settle into their new jobs.

Apparently the Obamas aren’t alone in forming a multi-generational household. The New York Times profiled several families with young children and two working parents who also have Grandma living with them, and cited statistics saying that this trend is heating up.

“A recent study by AARP shows that multi-generational households are on the rise, up from 5 million in 2000 to 6.2 million last year, an increase from 4.8 percent of all households to 5.3 percent,” the Times reported. An AARP official added: “Our cultural norms [about having grandparents moving in with their adult children] are shifting. There is a great renaissance of what we think about when we think about family.”

I wrote a column a few weeks ago about how I was coveting Marian Robinson and musing about how much easier my life would be if I had a grandmother like her, who was retired, ready, willing and able to cart the kids around to their activities, help out with the homework and dinner prep.

Item #2: Pediatrician Channels Miss Manners

A pediatrician fumed in a column in the New York Times this week that a particular patient of hers — who she nicknamed “The Rude Boy” — hadn’t been taught any manners. She fretted that if his situation was left unchecked, the child could grow up to become become a bully at worst, or an adult with grossly undeveloped social skills that could hinder him in the future.

“As a pediatrician, I worry about the trajectories of children’s growth and development: measuring a baby’s head size, weighing a toddler, asking about the language skills of a preschooler,” wrote Dr. Perri Klass. “Manners are another side of the journey every child makes from helplessness to autonomy. And a child who learns to manage a little courtesy, even under the pressure of a visit to the doctor, is a child who is operating well in the world, a child with a positive prognosis.”

Rude little heathens running around like maniacs in public make me crazy too.

As far as I know, my own three heathens aren’t rude in public; they save their savageness for me. However, if you hear or see differently, please contact me immediately.

Item #3: TV/Video Games for Recess

Guess I’d better re-work my kids’ TV/video game schedules. Typically, my three children (10, 10 and 7) are allotted one hour a day (give or take five minutes) for TV and/or video games, though that rule doesn’t apply to weekends when we have things like family movie night, or watch news or sports programming (a la NBC’s Nightly News or MSNBC’s Morning Joe, or a Red Sox or Patriots game).

Then I heard from The Girl yesterday that during indoor recess for her fourth grade class, they’ll be watching TV. Her twin brother told me he and some buddies have been playing video games on the internet during recess.

So when I told them that maybe I shouldn’t allow them to have their one hour of screen time on days when they’ve already had recreational screen time in school, that went over about as well as the matzo ball soup I served last week for dinner, which only one out of my three children would eat. (The two who found my homemade soup “gross” at cereal.)

Whatever happened to playing board games, games involving the class, doing something with arts and crafts or, horror of all horrors, reading during indoor recess at SCHOOL? I must just be horribly out of touch and old fashioned.

Image credit: New York Times/Gary Hovland.

1. “O’Briens and Obamas Ready for a New Family Pet” — Patriot Ledger/GateHouse News Service.

No. I didn’t write that headline. And no, I haven’t likened myself to Michelle Obama.

But I do have several things in common with the Obama family: I’m a working mom. I have kids ages 10 and 7. And, it’s very probable that we’ll both get dogs this year. (The Spouse is cringing upon reading that.)

This is my post-dead cat column where I discuss my three kids’ response to the passing of our feline, family pets of my past and whether we’ll get a dog.

2. “Marley and Motherhood” — Mommy Track’d.

Speaking of family pets . . . I went to see Marley & Me last week as an assignment for Mommy Track’d. And while I won’t spoil the movie for you, if you go, be sure to bring a box o’ tissues. You’ll thank me later.

That being said, my Mommy Track’d column is about the storyline for Jennifer Aniston’s character in the movie — she was a newspaper reporter who gave up her beloved journalism job after having kids — that doesn’t get as much play as the antics of the one-dog wrecking machine.

3. “Get Your Lipstick Tube Ready” — Mommy Track’d.

NBC’s Lipstick Jungle – which I first dismissed as a pink confection but later came to like during its second season – is hanging by a thread. Depending on how its ratings fared for its last original show (which aired on Friday), NBC execs will soon decide whether Brooke Shields & the Lipstick gals will live to see another day. This column is my argument for why it should continue.

4. “Live Blogging the Golden Globe Awards” — Suburban Mom: Notes from the Asylum.

The Girl and I watched the insipid Golden Globe arrival shows (flipped back-and-forth between stations) and then the awards show, though The Girl went to bed well before 9. I live-blogged the madness (Tina Fey, Ricky Gervais and Tracy Morgan get kudos) on my Suburban Mom blog.

As for what my tween-aged gal thought? She squealed upon seeing her favs – Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers, Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens – and was irate that Cyrus didn’t win the award for best song in a film.

Image credit: SF Chronicle/20th Century Fox/Barry Wetcher.

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.

“There will be young children in the White House for the first time since the Kennedy generation,” so said NBC’s Brian Williams at 11 p.m. on election night after projecting the state of California for Senator Barack Obama, thereby earning him enough electoral votes to capture the presidency.

My children are the same ages as Malia and Sasha Obama, 10 and 7. Michelle Obama has struggled with the same working mom issues as I have (although I don’t have a mega-watt, power job like hers). Michelle and Barack Obama were married two weeks before The Spouse and I were wed. With all those similarities, it will be fascinating for me to watch the Obamas navigate parenthood and their work while the whole world is watching.

For my kids, it’s also going to be interesting to see their experiences mirrored by children in the White House, especially for The Girl, who feels a kinship with Malia because they’re both Hannah Montana and Jonas Brothers fans.

Image credits: The Huffington Post.

UPDATE: I just had a column about First Kids in the White House published on the Mommy Track’d web site.

Seven-year-old Piper Palin — who’s the same age as Sasha Obama — provided one of those moments last night at the Republican convention that makes parents like me, the mother of a 7-year-old boy, simultaneously laugh and cringe.

While Sasha Obama stole some of her mother Michelle’s thunder at the Democratic convention last week when she took the microphone and bellowed greetings to her dad via satellite TV, Piper Palin was sitting in the audience near her dad Todd last night and was holding her baby brother during her mom’s speech. Then Piper “groomed” her little bro in a moment only a parent of another little kid could love. ( Video clip here.)

There they go again.

Savaging a working mother of small children for her choices instead of just trying to understand her decisions and realize that each family and each woman is very, very different.

This time it’s GOP VP nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a mother of five, who’s in the cross-hairs. She had a baby in April. And returned to work days after giving birth. Before the birth, Palin reportedly got on an airplane while her amniotic fluid was leaking after consulting with her doctor. Now, because she went back to work, because she boarded that plane and because she’s got a baby and is running for vice president, people are all over her. Calling her a bad mom and questioning her competency, particularly because her 4-month-old has Down Syndrome. (And I’m not even talkin’ about Palin’s policy positions, qualifications or her teenage daughter’s private situation which even her opponent says should be kept out of the political arena. Let’s leave those items aside and focus on the attacks on her bio.)

Today’s New York Times has a page one story about what they coyly dubbed, “The Mommy Wars: Special Campaign Edition:”

“. . . [T]his time the battle lines are drawn inside out, with social conservatives, usually staunch advocates for stay-at-home motherhood, mostly defending [Palin], while some others, including plenty of working mothers, worry that she is taking on too much.”

The article continued:

“In interviews, many women, citing their own difficulties with less demanding jobs, said it would be impossible for Ms. Palin to succeed both at motherhood and in the nation’s second-highest elected position at once . . . Many women expressed incredulity — some of it polite, some angry — that Ms. Palin would pursue the vice presidency given her younger son’s age and condition.”

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