Headphones & Hormones

They've outgrown the highchairs, they can't hear a word you say, and you don't know whose hormones are worse, yours or theirs. Here's my take on parenting teens as a perimenopausal single mom in 2025.

  • In Memory of a Kind Neighbor

    I was saddened to learn of the untimely passing of a neighbor’s son today.  I’ll call him J. J was only 38 years old.

    I didn’t know J very well. Until I read his obituary just now, I didn’t even know I’d been calling him by his nickname all this time. Our exchanges were mostly pleasantries,  but he was a very nice guy and a good neighbor– the kind who kept to himself but still helped me clean off my car when he saw me struggling through the snow with two young children or who offered to carry grocery bags in for me when he saw my hands were full.

    My son, in particular, took quite a liking to him.

    One day, the fence we shared was being replaced, and J was helping to taking it down. My inquisitive son sat in our temporarily shared backyard and asked him at least a million questions, as little boys do, and he was very patient and sweet and answered all of my son’s inquiries with a kind smile while he continued to do his work.

    After that day, Little M would ask about him often. He would see J’s mom in her backyard and ask where he was.  In the morning when we left for school,  he would always excitedly wave and yell hello as J passed by to start his truck for work.

    As I mentioned, I didn’t know him very well.  But they say children are the best judges of a person’s true character.

    Today I’m not sure what to say the next time Little M asks for him. How do I explain that his buddy is gone and not ever coming back?  Furthermore, how on earth will I keep him from asking our poor grieving neighbor where her son is every day when our paths cross?

    It’s suddenly occurred to me that, for the very first time (as we’ve been quite fortunate so far) I might have to talk to my five-year-old son about death.

    I considered just saying that J moved very far away and we won’t be seeing him again, and that his mommy is sad that he left so we can’t ask her about him anymore.

    But what if he asks why he left, or where he went, or why he made his mommy sad? What do I say then?

    I am not one of those people who has trouble lying to my child if it is necessary (and sometimes even when it isn’t). I can’t count how many times I’ve threatened a call in to Santa in December or claimed that our dinner was “just chicken” when it was really Nemo’s second cousin on everyone’s plate.

    But it isn’t merely about lying this time. I just have this overwhelming urge to shield him from the pain and confusion that death brings upon us, to keep the floodgates locked away from the river of sorrow that a first encounter with death inevitably unleashes on all of us. I want to let him continue to live in his happy little bubble where death exists only in video games and PG-13 movies, and the people you care about only leave sometimes but always come back. There’s an innocence I don’t yet want to steal from him. It makes my heart bleed for the children who have had someone very close taken away too soon—leaving behind tiny little broken hearts that never fully heal.

    As hard as it will be to break the news to my son, however I choose to do so, I just want to say I’m grateful to J for always being kind to him. For whatever the reason, his very presence unfailingly made my son’s face light up every day.  He was a good guy, a nice man who always took a moment to say hello to my little boy.  That’s all I could really ever ask for in a neighbor—all I can ask from anyone, really.

    May he rest peacefully, and may his family heal someday from the wounds that his sudden absence has left behind.

  • The Baby Wipe: Mom’s Best Friend

    Today, we pay homage to mom’s best friend: The Baby Wipe.  The Baby Wipe is, in my humble opinion, one of the greatest inventions in the history of the world (sorry, lighbulb, get over it).  Before I had kids I sadly did not know the sheer convenience of having a stack of these damp little problem-solvers in my bag at all times.  I had NO IDEA just how far beyond their intended use of shit-scrubbing they could go.  So to celebrate how much easier this nifty necessity makes our lives, I’ve conjured up 29 different ways to use a baby wipe, all of which were used by me (and probably you) at one time or another.

    1. Baby snot on the couch – This occurs more than I care to admit to the people who regularly sit on my couch.
    2. Random gunk on the cell phone screen – Don’t even text a single word until you clean that shit off.
    3. Crayon scribble on the wall – Really, who needs coloring books?
    4. Milk on the floor – Sorry baby Picasso, but your milk bottle masterpiece has gotta go.
    5. Sticky steering wheels – Unless you’re like Big M, who drives around with an entire car-detailing kit in his trunk at all times, this is the most efficient way to clean your car and go.  Ugh, men.
    6. Ketchup face –As long as your kid will eat anything doused in ketchup, you’ll happily deal with the mess later.
    7. Makeup remover – A.K.A. raccoon-face prevention.
    8. Greasy doorknobs – A regular occurrence in my house on pizza night.
    9. Marker face – You turned around for literally ten seconds.
    10. Boogers – Enough said.
    11. Anything involving waffle syrup of any kind.
    12. Last minute removal of visible dust before company arrives – Now pray that no one looks up at the ceiling fan.
    13. Spit-up – My kids were never big spitter-uppers, although my daughter once threw up in my mouth (I don’t even want to talk about it).  Still, this is an obvious one and thus makes the list.
    14. Baby food on the wall – A tip: baby food stains are unfortunately best wiped up immediately.  I learned the hard way that if you wait too long to clean mashed peas off the ceiling, your only option will be to eventually repaint.  To be fair, “too long” in this case was over two years later.  Any kind of cleaning that requires a ten-foot ladder gets automatically moved to the very bottom of my to-do list.
    15. Boo-boo disinfectant – for the times when Super Awesome Always Prepared for Anything Mom has lost her mind and left the first-aid kit home.
    16. Kitchen table funk – The sponge is ALL THE WAY OVER THERE in the sink, but these baby wipes are RIGHT HERE on the table.  Plus that sponge might be funkier than what I’m planning to clean with it.
    17. Post-poop doggy buttholes – If you ignore it, it only ends up on the rug.
    18. Bath time substitute – Sometimes, after a particularly long day, a quick wipe-down will do just fine (here’s looking at you, pregnant mothers with toddlers).
    19.  Insect killer – Thicker than a regular tissue for less bug-to-finger contact.
    20. The highchair tray – I love how it says “dishwasher safe.”  Who is taking up the WHOLE top rack of the dishwasher just to avoid wiping that thing down?  Even I’m not that lazy.  Usually.
    21. Questionable stain on floor – Don’t know what it is or where it came from, but maybe it’s better that way.  Scrub it up and move on.
    22. Questionable stain on baby – Again, don’t know what it is or where it came from.  It’s definitely better that way.
    23. Fridge handle – Hey, at least now you’re sort of trying.
    24. Post-floor-washing footwear for walking across the wet floor.
    25. Buffalo wing and spare rib lovers – Whip out a package of baby wipes for someone covered in barbecue sauce up to their elbows and you’ll be an instant hero.
    26. Side-view mirror defogger – Big M says our SUV has some kind of fancy heated mirrors, but who has time to learn what ALL of those little buttons on the dashboard are for?
    27. Toothpaste on the shirt – Next time maybe you’ll look in the mirror BEFORE you leave the house.
    28. Pacifier and bottle nipple cleaner – For those of you who refuse to recognize the five-second rule when it applies to young children (i.e. first time parents).
    29. Mouth cleaner – Here’s a new one as of a minute ago: I just found Little D splashing around in our dog’s water bowl and then licking the water off her hands.  I quickly grabbed a wipe and swished it around her mouth.  I doubt that it really did much good but I feel a little better about the whole thing.  Maybe I better go get her something to drink…

    photo (14)

    This is Little M with an empty box of our favorite affordable baby wipe brand on his head.  If I had the time I’d write another blog post listing 29 ways to keep a child busy for at least a half hour with a box.  Hell, if I had the time I would have actually made it to 30 uses for baby wipes like I’d originally intended.  But right now my kids need baths and to get to bed.

    And more importantly, The Bachelorette is on soon.  Don’t you dare judge me.

  • Got 99 Problems and the Beach is One

    Remember when a friend would call up and ask you to go to the beach, and you’d put on your bikini (wait, what’s a bikini?), grab a towel and a pair of sunglasses and be on your way?  Remember when you could lie in the warm summer sun, work on your tan, read a good book or a magazine, maybe even have a cold beer, and watch the cute guys pass by?

    Remember when a trip to the beach was actually RELAXING?

    Well, for those of you who went and had kids, those days are over.

    Can you imagine if you went to the beach today, at least one kid in tow, with nothing but a towel and a magazine?  Someone would probably call Child Protective Services on you and your screaming, sunburned, dehydrated, starving children.

    So yesterday, I woke up at 7am and decided it was a good day for the beach.  I spent the next three hours of the morning in deep preparation mode, careful not to forget a single thing because failing to remember even the slightest detail for a trip to the beach could have catastrophic results.  Remember; a trip to the beach is merely a very hot day outdoors surrounded by nothing but sand, water, and half-naked strangers.  It’s up to you to make it a little more eventful for the kids, and as bearable as possible for yourself.

    Since this was my first trip to the beach with two children who are both old enough to walk, I wanted to get some tips and ideas to help me out.  I decided to consult my old friend Google and typed in “ways to make a family beach trip more fun,” then came upon some helpful stuff like “construct a sun shade using only bamboo poles, rubber bands, markers, and a sheet!” and “make sure the kids are wearing hats!”  Well, let me just slide these here bamboo poles in my bag right next to my towels and sunblock, then superglue these here hats to my kids’ heads (since that is the only way they will ever keep them on), and go!  Thanks Internet!

    After I finished my useless research and packed the car with more bags and beach chairs than my husband and I could carry in from the parking lot in a single trip, we finally headed to the beach.  Our day continued like this:

    My kids spend the first fifteen minutes fighting over a tiny plastic shovel, despite having enough toys for half the kids on the beach.  Eventually my daughter gives up the fight and grabs a giant sand pail, fills it to the top with sand, and dumps the entire thing in my lap.  Thanks!

    She quickly gets bored of us and wanders onto our neighbor’s blanket before I am able catch her.  I apologize profusely for her getting sand on their blanket but still receive numerous dirty looks.  I walk away wishing I’d instead demanded an apology from them for disobeying the unspoken rule of personal beach space and setting up less than ten feet away from us.

    We then eat lunch and enjoy the crunchy, gritty goodness of sand sprinkled generously by the wind onto our turkey and cheese sandwiches, and I resist the urge to make a painfully corny joke about how I’m eating a SANDwich on the beach.

    I grow increasingly annoyed with our too-close neighbors, who are noisy and curse like truck drivers. Hey, Parents of the Year?  Just because you’re cool with dropping f-bombs in front of your kids doesn’t mean I am.  Shut the F%*# up!

    I pry a tiny seashell out of my daughter’s hand before she puts it in her mouth and potentially chokes, then repeat several times with various other tiny objects.  Not really in the mood for the Heimlich today.

    photo

    I decide to take the kids down to the shore and have about five heart attacks once the water is deep enough to cover their toes (I have some MINOR anxiety issues with drowning).  I get over it after a minute and allow them to go ankle-deep, then have five more heart attacks when a plastic bag lightly grazes my foot.  I get super grossed out when I realize just how disgustingly filthy this ocean water is and then daydream about being in Aruba.

    I take about twenty different iPhone pictures of the kids with the ocean in the background until I finally have one where both children are sort-of both looking at the camera, then silently curse my phone for taking such crappy pictures of my beautiful children.

    We head back to our sandy abyss and I change my daughter’s diaper while wondering why toddler bathing suits don’t have little crotch snaps like onesies do.  The only thing easier than changing the diaper of a sweaty, squirmy toddler is changing the diaper of a sweaty, squirmy toddler in a WET BATHING SUIT.  Even more fun than THAT?  Is putting the soaking wet bathing suit BACK ON after the diaper change is over.  I can’t even blame her for being miserable after that.

    I reapply the kids’ sunblock and my daughter tries desperately to escape, falling in the sand before I’ve managed to rub it all in.  She now resembles a 20-pound chicken cutlet in a bathing suit.

    My husband takes the kids for a walk and I have ten whole minutes to myself, most of which are spent refolding towels, shaking sand off of blankets, and throwing away garbage.

    Three long, hot hours have passed and it’s finally time to head home.  We take a moment to consider how we can get these kids home without taking half the beach’s sand with us.  We give up quickly– it’s really not possible.

    We go home, give baths, make dinner, sweep up the sand left behind, and get the kids to bed.

    Once I’m finally sitting down to relax, I take out my phone and look at at all the pictures I took. I can’t help but smile to myself because I can see they were having an awesome time, and, believe it or not, I think maybe I did too.

    photo

  • Questions, Questions, and More Questions

    I recently saw this meme (or whatever those crazy kids are calling it these days) on Facebook:

    376346_366185590122036_1361832126_n

    A year or so ago, I would have thought this statistic was majorly exaggerated.  Do people even say 437 WORDS a day?  But one year ago, Little M was not yet four years old and I could still hear some of the thoughts inside my own head .  Now, just a few weeks shy of his fifth birthday, I’m wondering if that number might be a little short.  Perhaps they didn’t bother to count the questions that lack even the slightest bit of sentence-structure and, well, any form of common sense at all.

    You know, the kinds of questions where your kid might as well be saying to you: “I’m asking a question just to hear myself talk, and although I’m well aware that vacuum cleaners don’t have fangs, I’m still going to ask about it.  You’re the parent, take my puzzling jargon as a sign that I’m tired, hungry, bored, restless, nervous, and/or insane and act accordingly. Do it.”

    Off topic, but I just looked up a synonym for the word “jargon” and Word suggested “gobbledygook.” WTF, Microsoft?

    So anyway, I have taken it upon myself to document just a few of Little M’s recent inquiries, some of which I found hilarious and had to literally tear the insides of my cheeks to shreds to keep from going “BAHAHAH” right in his little inquisitive face.

    Who am I kidding? I laugh when he’s funny, whether he means to be or not.  He’s too young to take himself seriously, and I’m too easily amused by him to restrain myself either way.  So below are some of the questions I can recall Little M asking over the past week or two, in no particular order:

    • Is the baby a waffle monster?
    • Can I have gum for dessert?
    • Can we eat breakfast and dinner at the same time?
    • I get to sit in Daddy’s chair?  Am I the man of the house now?
    • Do I speak Spanish?
    • When I go to college, will I have a pretty girlfriend?
    • Can I have gum for lunch?
    • What do they sell at the vegetable store? (I then asked him what he thinks they sell at a vegetable store, to which he replied “Trader Joes.”)
    • After we go over the Verrazano Bridge, will we be in Sesame Place or Brooklyn?
    • Can I have coffee with my cake too?
    • If I help my team at soccer can I have gum?
    • Daddy is fixing his car in the garage. When are you going to fix dinner?
    • Poppy gave me five moneys -um I mean dollars- today.  Now I can go to Disney World, right?
    • Why does everybody always go to Costco?
    • Why doesn’t the baby go in timeout when she gives her dinner to Ike (our dog)?
    • The baby has a stinky in her diaper.  Can I see her poop?
    • What time is 3:00?
    • I put all my toys in your bag, Mommy.  Can you help me close it?
    • Ok, I’ll take the toys out.  Can I put them in your shoe instead?
    • Do you put ketchup on your carrots, too?
    • Do sharks eat dinosaurs?
    • Why do Ike’s farts smell so bad?
    • There’s a spider on the door. Can I keep it as a pet?
    • Look, I caught a bunch of cicadas! Can I put them in the bathtub?
    • Can you call Daddy and tell him to give me gum when he gets home from work?

    I think you get the point.  My son has a mild obsession with gum. Oh, and he likes asking questions.

    I was feeling kind of investigative, so I googled “why kids ask so many questions” (can I consider myself “feeling investigative” EVERY time I google something?  If so, what about the time I googled my own name? What was I investigating, then? Myself?).  I found a short Washington Post article from a few years ago that said:  “A research team from the University of Hawaii and the University of Michigan found that kids are asking ‘why’ as a means to get information about the world. The research found that when children received explanatory information, they were more likely to end the questioning.”

    Who the hell is doing this research?  And have they ever met ANY FOUR YEAR OLD ON EARTH?  Did they mean to say “they are more likely to end the questioning…after they’ve finally passed out from the inevitable exhaustion of constant mouth-running from dawn to dusk?”

    I also found out that incessantly asking questions is considered to be evidence of a gifted child.  I really hope they are right.  Because when my son asks me why he can’t use his toothbrush to brush the dog’s teeth, “gifted” is the last word that pops into my head.

  • A Trip to the Not-So-Supermarket

    Some people enjoy going to the supermarket.  I am NOT one of those people.  The only part of grocery shopping that I like is when it’s over.

    I usually go shopping with Little D when Little M is in school to decrease my odds of having a nervous breakdown somewhere in between the bread aisle and the frozen vegetables, so my experiences will reflect that.  If you’re lucky enough to have the pleasure of shopping by yourself then your trips are likely less painful, but maybe not any more enjoyable.  And if you have the misfortune of always shopping with several kids in tow, then I’m incredibly sorry to hear that.  I hope you never find your three year old hiding in the dairy case atop a pile of string cheese after a terrifying five minutes spent frantically combing every aisle with your four other kids looking for him.  True story (though not mine, thankfully).

    So allow me to take you on a journey filled with fruits, vegetables, toilet brushes and more to demonstrate my disdain for the wretched activity called food shopping.  Maybe I’ll even pick you up a gallon of milk and some ice cream along the way.

    The fun begins before I even step into the store with shopping cart selection.  I don’t know if I’m walking around with an invisible wagon-shaped black cloud over my head, but it never seems to fail that I should end up with a broken cart.  Even if I try taking a few for a test-drive or at least skipping over the dilapidated ones, it doesn’t seem to matter.  You never know if you’ve picked the most spastic cart until you are already in the store with a kid strapped in the front and at least three items nestled snugly inside.  Sometimes I’ll see one that looks good— minimal rust and a seemingly smooth ride—but that is always the one with dirty tissues, crumpled up flyers, and someone’s grocery list littered along the bottom.  So I’ve decided to give up trying.  The sooner I grab a cart and go, the sooner this will all be over and I’ll be driving home in the privacy of my own SUV, shamelessly ripping into the box of peanut butter-chocolate chip cookies that I totally bought for the kids.

    My tour through the produce section is usually uneventful, aside from occasionally getting sprayed in the face by those annoying sprinklers they use to water the greens.  After produce I head to the deli counter to purchase cold cuts for dinner because grocery shopping leaves me too traumatized to cook.  The deli counter is one of those places where having even one person ahead of you means you will inevitably be waiting forever for them to mess up your order.  Either your meat is being sliced by an angry teenager who would rather be at home playing Call of Duty and he takes it out on your Boars Head ham, or a partially deaf older lady who always gives you a half pound when you wanted a whole one (I said “HAVE,” not “HALF”).  You always go home feeling a little empty as you make your sandwich, wondering might have been if only they’d gotten it right…

    So next I’m off to the non-perishables.  I have a thing with dented cans.  I don’t like them.  When I was a kid someone once told me you could get botulism from a dented can and that all your muscles would immediately be paralyzed and you’d suffocate or have a massive heart attack or something terrible like that and basically drop dead three seconds later.  I suppose they weren’t aware of the level of hypochondria they were dealing with, seeing as I’m still petrified of this even today and I don’t even know if it’s true.  Either way I’d like to travel back in time just to slap them in their stupid face for scaring the crap out of a little kid like that.  I don’t know why restaurants can be fined for having dented cans but supermarkets are over there selling them at full price and shit. Have you ever noticed that when a can is dented, EVERY single can of that particular brand and product is also dented?  Is there like some pissed off stock boy standing in the back room crying and bouncing green beans  off the wall because his girlfriend just broke up with him?

    So next I’m at the dairy case having flashbacks to the time when Little M was younger and he reached behind him in the cart and grabbed the egg carton and started throwing eggs all over the floor while my back was turned.  That was fun.

    By the time we make it to the checkout line, Little D has gotten tired of sitting in the cart and begins attempting to escape.  She is usually successful.  I actually once caught her like a football while we were waiting in line at Costco.  So I then have to hold her with one hand while placing $200 worth of items on the belt with my other hand.  And with my third hand, I usually try to keep her from pressing buttons on the credit card machine and ripping Tic Tacs off the shelves.

    The cashier then asks if I have any coupons.  I say no, because coupons are way too stressful for me handle (stay tuned for a future entry about my thoughts on extreme couponing).  Then the cashier looks at me like I’m a complete moron and hands me a stack of crappy coupons for stuff like lactose-free protein shakes or half priced stool softener and then reminds me to remember my coupons next time.

    I’m out of the danger zone now and heading back to the car, but the fun doesn’t end there.  Something is surely going to fall out of my cart.  A bag of potatoes will get loose, or paper towels will lose their way, or if my day really sucks, my eggs will get fried on the parking lot pavement.

    So then I’m finally home.  Now it’s time to bring Little D into the house and leave her temporarily unsupervised while I run back and forth with seemingly endless shopping bags.  When I walk in the door I find her standing on the dog, eating a piece of cheese she must have found on her highchair or something, and I suddenly feel nauseous because I don’t recall her actually having cheese with any of her meals or snacks today.  I then proceed to spend the next hour putting away what feels like Pathmark’s entire inventory, and resist the urge to punch Big M in his Big Face when he gets home from work and complains that I forgot to buy his Lactaid milk so that he can consume his usual three bowls of cereal a half hour before I put dinner on the table.

    Three days pass and I begin to wonder if there is a secret fifth person hiding out in the house somewhere who steals all the food at night because the fridge is already bare and $200 worth of groceries have vanished into thin air.  I reluctantly remind myself to repeat the process all over again tomorrow.

    I better put Excedrin on my grocery list this time.