Picket Fence Post

As I mentioned yesterday, I decided to take the lead of some New England media folk and chronicle a day in the life of a Massachusetts suburban work-from-home mom of three by snapping photos throughout the day. That mom, of course, was me.

And wouldn’t you know that today happened to be the day when The Youngest Boy stayed home from school complaining of a constellation of vague symptoms. However because The Spouse was working from home, it wasn’t solely my duty to serve at the kid’s beck and call, fetching him beverages, snacks, lunch, blankets, etc.

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Our house has been plagued — plagued I tell you — by colds.

My kids have missed so much school thus far this year that if I worked in an office or someplace far away from my home (instead of out of my home where I can work all hours of the night to make up for missing daytime hours due to caring for ill children) I’d probably be in big trouble. And I consider my kids healthy.

In September, The Girl missed nearly a week of school with a low-grade fever that wouldn’t go away for days. That was accompanied intermittently by a hacking cough, major congestion, lack of appetite and fatigue. The Eldest Boy had the same cold/sickness/bug for four days — missed the Rosh Hashana dinner we hosted at our house — plus two days of school. The Youngest Boy missed one day of school. When I consulted the pediatrician’s office, the nurse said it sounded like the kids had a cold and said that if their fevers got high and stayed high, to call back.

So far during the month of October, The Girl came home sick from school on Tuesday and was finally well enough to return to school today. (She didn’t have a fever, just fatigue, head ache and hacking cough. We brought her in to the doctor’s office yesterday and were told it was a cold that could last five to seven days.) Hours after she went back to school, the school nurse called the house. The Girl’s twin brother was now sick and I had to pick him up from school. I’m just waiting for The Youngest Boy to come down with whatever this is. (In the meantime, I’ve had some sickness business of my own goin’ on for weeks, and was really sick for two days last month. The Spouse has been on and off sick.)

Is this just our family or have other people’s families been swamped with sick kids and colds that just won’t die?

We *knock on wood* seem to be a reasonably healthy family. We eat relatively healthy meals, or at least I offer the kids an array of healthy foods if you go by an entire week’s worth of meals (though they don’t always eat the well rounded fare). The kids have daily vitamins, drink milk and have lots of fresh fruit. They go to their regular well kid and dentist appointments. They’re active and play on sports teams. So why the heck does it seem like the twin 11-year-olds and the 8-year-old are sick all the time?

Within the past week, all three of the Picket Fence Post kids have been home sick from school with some viral/cold thingie. (Throw in two half days that each of the kids’ schools had last week, and I realized that I haven’t been freed from daytime child care responsibilities in over a week. Plus, they don’t have school on Monday. It’s difficult to work from home under such conditions.) The viral/cold thingie, which the nurse at the pediatrician’s office said I should simply allow to run its course, has mildly affected  The Spouse and I, though it didn’t stop us from seeing U2 in concert on Monday night in Foxborough, hip music fans are we, amidst a sea of Baby Boomer and GenXer concert goers out on a school night.

I’ve grown tired of this viral/cold thingie. I want this sick business to end. Pronto.

In other family melodrama . . .

. . . While she’s been recovering from her viral/cold thingie, The Girl gobbled up Twilight, the vampire novel that’s been so popular with the tween- and teenaged populace. (She came home from soccer practice last week and told me she felt left out because “everybody” on the team had already read it, everyone but her. Plus they all have cell phones, she added, to which I snorted with laughter.) It took her one day to plow through Twilight, seeing as though she was home sick from school and did nothing but read. At around lunchtime today, The Girl appeared in the kitchen to inform me that she HAD to have the next book in the series, New Moon. And given that she’s very excited for reading material and I adore that she’s reading, I’m going to oblige her.

Speaking of reading, The Youngest Boy (who’s not a fan of reading and has to be heavily lobbied to crack open a book) told me yesterday that he “loves” (he actually used the word “loves”) reading now that he’s able to read Diary of a Wimpy Kid in school. Said he “can’t put the book down.” I almost shouted with joy.

So when the new installment of the Wimpy Kid books, Diary of a Wimpy Kid Dog Days comes out on October 12, I’m going to make a big deal out of its release in our house, hoping to cultivate and nurture his budding excitement about reading. Can’t hurt.

Image credit: Stephenie Meyer web site.

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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My kids are constantly giving me grief about my working from home. They may say that they understand that I have to do work — which includes reading lots of stuff, sometimes watching TV programs and lots o’ writing at the laptop computer – but I don’t think they really do.

My 10-year-old son might say he knows I have work to do, but he still wants to know why I don’t just do all the grocery shopping and the laundry during the day so everything’s just so when he arrives home from school. My 7-year-old gripes that I drag them out on errands instead of getting the errands done when they’re in school, during the few quiet moments of my work day when no one’s home. There are incessant complaints about meals.

That’s why I took my 10-year-old twins to see the stop-action, animated movie Coraline with me. (The movie’s too scary for my 7-year-old and even scared my 10-year-old daughter a bit.) I wanted them to gain a bit of appreciation for their old mom.

In the movie, the blue-haired, 11-year-old Coraline Jones is angry with her distracted work-at-home parents who won’t entertain her and are severely domestically disabled. Then Coraline magically finds herself in an alternate reality where her “Other” parents seem perfect and dote on her all the time, giving her things she’s been craving. I wrote about the film and my kids’ reaction to it — “You should be thankful for what you’ve got,” The Girl said – in my Pop Culture & Politics column over on Mommy Track’d this week.

Do your kids pine away for a “perfect” parent?  (I frequently tell my offspring that I’m gunning for the Meanest Mom of the Year award.)

Dear Editor Who’s Expecting a Column From Me Today,

I’m doing my best to get you the column that’s due today. It might arrive in your e-mail box late today, like dinnertime [*fingers crossed*], with an outside chance of it coming tomorrow morning.

Why? There’s another snow day. My three kids are home from school. And they’ve been wrestling, insisting on showing me card tricks with a pack of Star Wars cards, doing coin tricks with two quarters and a nickel (likely pinched from my wallet), asking me to download songs for their iPods, requesting that I serve as a referee for their fights, wanting me to open stuck jars of strawberry jelly, whining for snacks (not the “healthy” ones like yogurt, fruit or a granola bar that I offered), presenting me with a comb asking me to assist with personal grooming, demanding justice when one kid got to watch Star Wars the Clone Wars TV show and the other didn’t get to watch a Disney Channel sitcom and breaking my heart by sidling up next to me while I’m at my computer, hugging me and telling me that he loves me, “my only Mommy.”

I’m planning on sending them all outside after lunch to frolic in the snow so I can put a good dent in the column, but most likely they’ll be back inside within 20 minutes claiming that so-and-so hit him or her unfairly with a snowball, requesting that I fish snow out of a boot that’s making their foot cold and wondering when the hot cocoa will be served.

Working on a snow day: Always a challenge.

Sincerely,

Your Picket Fence Post Scribe

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.

Item #1: Work from Home Glitch

What’s the work from home glitch? That would be called noise, more precisely, kid-related noise. When I read the Stone Soup comics this week about a mom of an infant trying to work from home as the baby cries during a conference call, I could sooo relate.

When my three kids were very young (and the youngest was a toddler), I had scheduled a telephone interview with a local district attorney to discuss an anti-bullying legislative proposal. Planning ahead, I fed the children a snack, then, after their bellies were full, I set them up in front of their favorite PBS show and headed down the hall to my bedroom, where I shut the door behind me.

Mid-conversation, the toddler started pounding loudly on my bedroom door. When I didn’t open the door immediately, he started shouting, “MAAAMAAA!” I responded by sticking my head underneath my bed trying in vain to continue the conversation. (By the toddler’s tone, I discerned that he was fine.) Fearing that the DA would hink something was drastically awry in my house, I admitted to him that I was working from home and that my youngest child was making noise. Luckily, he was very understanding. (For those of you who were wondering, the crisis that compelled my toddler to pound on the door was the desire for more food.)

Even now – with kids ages 10, 10 and 7 – they STILL make a racket when I’m on the phone. Yesterday I was on the phone for a very long time with the insurance company and the 10-year-olds decided that, of all the places in the house, the floor in front of the open door to my office was the perfect location in which to stage a loud wrestling match.

Item #2: Balance-Schmalance

Just in time for the chaos of the holidays, my witty Mommy Track’d colleague – author Stefanie Wilder-Taylor – recently mused about how insanely difficult it is to try to do have a well balanced life while simultaneously raising young children. Noting that she and her husband haven’t had sex in three weeks, Wilder-Taylor, mother of three including infant twins, said the horizontal mambo is simply one of those things they just couldn’t fit into their hectic schedules, regardless of the false hopes offered by “experts” in parenting/women’s magazines who claim that parents can make space and time in their lives for everything if they plan well:

“I’m not quite sure what makes someone an expert in the field to how to manage a family of five, a full-time writing job and an eating challenged baby without needing prescription medication — they will suggest to make an appointment for sex . . . My husband and I both have jobs, responsibilities, friends we barely see, e-mails we can’t return, broken things in the house that never seem to get fixed . . . [N]one of us really ‘have it all.’”

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