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.

The idea for my Mommy Tracked column this week started blossoming in my brain the moment that my kids’ pediatrician diagnosed one of my children with the swine flu and would be out of school for a week. This followed closely on the heels of my three children having had a ton of sick days last month, on different days, more than I can ever remember them having in any previous year.

Entitled, “In the Time of Swine Flu, What’s a Parent to Do,” the column includes quotes from a teacher who thinks that in order to contain epidemics like swine flu, there should be paid parental sick days, and examines Congressional attempts (that have thus far failed) to allow parents to take paid time off to care for ill children so they don’t send their sick children to school to contaminate more children and school employees.

UPDATE: Today’s Pajama Diaries comic strip makes the perfect illustration for this blog entry.

What do you do in your family when your kids are sick?

Item #1: Movie Sets are Boring

I thought the kids might find it fun to visit the location where a movie is being filmed in the MetroWest/Boston area. We might get the chance to see Adam Sandler, who the kids loved in the comedy Bedtime Stories, and maybe even Paul Blart, THE Mall Cop.

So after school one day this week, I drove the three of ‘em to the film shoot. We stood with a large crowd of other spectators across the street from where they were filming. Several of their friends came by intermittently, including a Girl Scout troop run whose members the eldest two kids knew. While they were amazed to see one of their teachers drive by in her mini-van, I told them to be on alert for some real fun as I handed them a Sharpie and a notebook for autographs.

However I think I way oversold it. We waited for over two hours and what did we get for our patience? Mere glimpses of Sandler, who gamefully waved to the crowd from across the street . . . and atop a hill . . .  kind of behind other people, and of other celebs who the kids didn’t know, such as Salma Hayek, Chris Rock and David Spade. Some random guy driving a Lamborghini past us on the street was actually the highlight of their experience, that and seeing the teacher in the mini-van.

The Youngest Boy complained non-stop, threatening to explode with boredom and hunger, even though I’d just given him a big bowl of ice cream before we left the house. When he found out that we were going to be at the set through the kids’ TV hour (5 o’clock), he stomped his feet and ran away from me, but not too far away. The Eldest Boy was so utterly bored that he kept pestering me that he had homework to do (on a project not due until the end of the week) and that I was wasting his time, taking away from his education.

What’s that they say about the road and good intentions?

Item #2: Dinner Knife Mystery

We are suddenly, noticably short on dinner knives, those relatively dull knives that came with our everyday flatware set. No matter how many times I run and then unload the dishwasher, we continue to be short on them. Where are they all going? Is someone throwing them away or swiping them? Should I check beneath The Youngest Boy’s bed, where I’ll likely find a treasure trove of candy wrappers, overdue library books, a mix of dirty and clean clothing and all of my working pens?

We’re also grappling with another mystery in our house: Who ate a big hunk out of The Youngest Boy’s solid, chocolate Easter bunny? (Yes, we still have Easter candy in the house, a little bit lying around.) For some unknown reason, The Youngest Boy decided to hoard his bunny until a future date. That future date was Monday, when he discovered — after a frantic search for the bunny – that someone else had beaten him to the punch and consumed a hefty chunk of it, the head and shoulders. He issued all manner of accusations and suspected everyone but me who, sadly, can’t eat milk chocolate (dairy allergy).

We’ve yet to find the perp and I doubt we will, I told him. Let that be a lesson to ya kid, don’t leave your solid chocolate bunny lying around in a house of candy freaks. But that still doesn’t help me answer my question: Where the heck are all the dinner knives?

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You know things are bad in the economy when even cartoon characters start getting laid off. This past week, the cartoon The Pajama Diaries by Terri Libenson, has featured a storyline where the married dad of two young kids, Rob Kaplan, got let go along with 200 of his fellow employees. His wife Jill is a work-from-home graphic arts consultant who’s clinging to her remaining clients.

Today’s installment, in particular, was pretty grim, depicting the downward spiral of the dad Rob’s mental state as he goes 20 days after sending out his resume without even getting an interview. He said, “I don’t understand — I’m an expert in my field. Who are they talking to?” To which his wife responded, “I’m guessing all the other laid-off experts in your field.”

On Libenson’s blog she acknowledged the change in tone saying, “Just as America is feeling the pinch of the recession, I’d like PD-land to reflect the current climate.”

I’ve been a fan of Pajama Diaries for a while as I relate to the tales of work-from-home mom feeling as though you just can’t do everything, or do it well. And, sadly, I’m guessing there are far too many families who can now relate to the tales of the out-of-work family guy or gal.

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.