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.

  • Winter: 10 Things I Hate About You

    sled (2)I used to really like the winter. At least, I felt like enjoying winter was a requirement of anyone who despises the summer. Like you can hate one, but not the other. Otherwise, you’re just a complainer.

    Well, screw that. I AM a complainer. I own it. If I want to hate the summer, I’m gonna hate the summer. If I want to loathe winter, I’ll do that too. Hell, if I want to go outside one day in the middle of May and trample on a bunch of spring flowers, or maybe smash some giant pumpkins in the street sometime in October, I’ll do that as well. Screw the seasons. All four of them. Yea, I said it.

    But since it’s winter, and most people hate the shit out of winter, I figured I’d dedicate a blog post to it and maybe give the people what they want. Plus, the Super Bowl is on right now and I need something productive to keep me busy in between the commercial breaks, and blogging about the weather seems productive enough.

    Dear Winter. You suck. Here is why:

    1. I always spend more time dressing my kids in snowsuits, coats, hats, gloves, boots, scarves, two layers of pants, three pairs of socks, and two shirts with an extra sweatshirt than they spend actually playing in the snow. Like, wayyyy longer. And it just doesn’t seem fair.
    2. Not every type of snow yields decent results when building a snowman. The light, powdery, fluffy stuff is impossible to roll into a ball. But the kids don’t understand that and want to know why we’re building a “snow lump” instead.
    3. Have you ever dragged children around on a sled, cross-country style, in the freezing cold? Maybe it’s fun for some people, but an Olympic athlete I am not. I’m usually huffing and puffing worse than an 85-year-old chain smoker by the end of my block, meanwhile my kids are begging me to “pull faster!”
    4. There is no graceful way to slip on ice. There’s a painful way, a mortifying way, and an ass-bruising way, but no graceful way. Except maybe if you’re Kate Upton.
    5. Shoveling. Because potentially throwing your back out and/or risking potential cardiac arrest beats the dangers of an icy walkway. Right? Right??
    6. No one wins with board games. NO ONE. Young kids holding tiny game pieces + everyone being forced to take turns + someone having to lose eventually = mommy chugging wine before noon.
    7. This might be mostly an NYC thing, but getting a parking spot is a pain in the ass enough on its own, without having to worry about needing four-wheel drive to be able to pull out of it.
    8. After Christmas, wintertime holidays are nothing special. I mean, they’re great excuses to get a day off, but I work from home on those holidays anyway. And don’t get me started on the most pointless holiday in the whole damn calendar: Valentine’s Day.
    9. There is no deeper hell on earth than a nasty mid-winter stomach virus sweeping violently through your home, complete with green-tinted children and vomit-covered couch cushions. And of course, the promise that you’re up next!
    10. I’m not a fan of facial pain. That’s right, facial pain. You know, the kind of pain you feel when it’s so fucking horribly cold outside that it literally makes your FACE HURT? Well, I don’t enjoy that.

    For argument’s sake, the winter does have its moments. You can drop off and pick up your children from school without a bra on and no one will ever know. Trips to the park are entirely off limits. The sun sets about ten seconds after it rises, so you can put your kids to bed as early as you want. The phony conversations you have when you run into acquaintances are cut short because everyone is freezing their asses off. That being said, I’m still looking forward to the end of this winter. I doubt I’m alone in that.

  • Ten Ways to Combat Stress (Or However Many I Can Come Up With)

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    See stress-reliever #9 for details.

    I’m just going to preface this post by saying I have no business, at all, whatsoever, telling people how to combat stress, since I could probably be the poster child for how NOT to deal with it. I think I might be more stressed out lately than I’ve ever been in my whole life. Want proof? Go check the date on my last blog post. I still had Halloween decorations up (and not the kind of Halloween decorations that are hiding behind the Christmas tree). Blogging is one of my favorite things on earth. But ain’t nobody got time for that these days, you know?

    Anyway, I guess I’m kind of just mentally searching for ways to, well, calm the fuck down. Ease up. Relax. Stop feeling like the walls around me are closing in. And if I actually manage to come up with some decent stuff, I want to share it with you. Just in case you are as stressed out and mentally imbalanced as I am to think anything I say actually works. So good luck to us both.

    I’m going to list as many “stress relievers,” as I can, with my ultimate goal being ten. If I make it there, awesome. If not, well, at least it was a quick read.

    Oh, and please don’t expect those boring, traditional de-stressing techniques from me. At no point would I ever suggest you light candles, take a bath, take deep breaths, listen to Enya, or write your feelings down in some type of journal. Unless your feelings involve a lot of cursing.

    1. Keep watching your favorite TV shows. You don’t have time for TV? Make time. I make a ton of time for TV. You know why? For the exact reason that people say you shouldn’t watch it. Because it’s completely mindless! That means I don’t have to think about anything that really matters while my shows are on. I’m free to wonder who the new crazy bitch on the Bachelor will be, or why they can’t just let Darryl and Carol do it already on the Walking Dead, or what the hell Penny was thinking when she cut off all her hair on Big Bang Theory. You know, the kind of stuff that doesn’t matter in real life AT ALL. It’s the perfect way to zone out of your own real life problems.

    2. Make your husband fix all broken household appliances. Or do it yourself. Or hire a fucking handyman. Whatever it takes just get it done. Non-functional crap around the house doesn’t directly cause stress by itself, but it often serves as the straw that broke the camel’s back. My dishwasher recently broke, and it stayed that way for two months. Two fantastic months of handwashing thousands of dishes and sippy cups and plastic takeout containers Tupperware. Because after working all day and cooking and cleaning and and doing laundry all night, I TOTALLY had an extra hour to spare for hand-washing dishes, like, 1955 style. I guess l’ll sleep when I’m dead, right? And now that the dishwasher is finally fixed, the toilet in our only bathroom took a nosedive. I need a basin and a gallon of water to flush it manually every single time, and plunging is my new workout routine. I can’t even talk about it without wanting to literally dropkick my husband the person who broke it in the first place.

    3. Cut out the people who suck. This makes me sound like I’m one of those people moaning and groaning on every social media site in the world that they can’t trust anyone, and their heart is delicate but they’ll protect it with the fire of a thousand suns, and yada yada blah blah blah. But really, those are the people you should delete on Facebook and in real life too. I’ve come to realize that if you want to vomit every time you think of a certain person’s face, you probably shouldn’t be friends with that person. Not on the internet and certainly not in real life. So move on.

    4. Have a glass of wine or two or ten. This is self-explanatory. Just don’t do it alone if you’re the crying type. And if you do it alone, I recommend having Youtube and a list of awesome 90’s music or movies nearby. Good times.

    5. Make some new friends. Not that I have any fucking idea how to do this. But it seems like it might help, if you can figure out where to find some people who are as awesome and cool as you are.

    6. Buy stuff for yourself sometimes. Last night I was on Amazon ordering some stuff that my kids need, and I hesitantly added a hat to the cart that I wanted for myself. I proceeded to checkout, reviewed my order, then stared blankly at the screen for ten minutes in a silent self-debate over whether I really needed to spend $19 on a hat. And then I deleted it from my shopping cart. But then this morning, my ears were really cold and I was all like WTF? I should have bought myself the damn hat. So don’t be like me. Keep your ears warm. Buy the damn hat.

    7. Plan a night out, but don’t expect it to make you feel any better. Going out is fun. I haven’t really done much of it ever since the time I got drunk and fell and broke all my teeth (true story), but it’s definitely still fun to do once in a while. However, do not expect one night out to cure any kind of stress you are feeling. You will probably just drink too much and end up without teeth very hungover, causing you to fall a day behind with the endless crap on your to-do list. Even if you aren’t a big drinker, just know that one “much needed” night out, though fun, will not leave you feeling refreshed and stress-free. It’s just a night out. Don’t get your hopes up. But definitely still go.

    8. Clean something. I know it doesn’t sound very fun, but I find that cleaning gives me a great sense of accomplishment, and also leaves surfaces in my home shiny and stuff. I fucking loathe doing it, but after a full day of scrubbing, mopping, and organizing, I usually feel amazing. Well, at least I feel amazing until my little bulls-in-a-china-shop children come stampeding in and wreck the place. But until that  happens, I like to sit back and enjoy the stress-free feel of a sparkling clean home.

    9. Have your cake and eat it too. I hate that saying. What the hell else would you do with it?? Stare at the damn thing? Anyway, nonsensical idioms aside, you should eat cake. It’s delicious. Obviously, it won’t help with your diet woes, but like I said, IT’S DELICIOUS.

    (I seem to be grasping at straws here. But I will think of a #10. I promise).

    10. I give up. Now the stress of finishing this blog has ended for me, so at least one of us is less stressed out, right?

  • The Ten Super Moms I’ll Never Be (No Matter How Hard I Try)

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    I’m just jumping right in today, as the title basically speaks for itself. Here we go!

    1. Super Healthy Mom – Her kids don’t have a clue what the hell gluten is, but they are terrified of it. She thinks Ronald McDonald is the spawn of Satan, and she’d rather die than be seen holding a Happy Meal. While her grocery bill is quadruple the size of a standard grocery tab, the three-acre, fully organic garden growing in her backyard keeps her away from the wicked, non-locally grown produce items desecrating the aisles of the nearby supermarket. Oh, and GMO’s are sure to be the cause of earth’s apocalypse. She told me so.
    2. Super Workout Mom – We all remember this chick, right? That horrid “what’s your excuse” woman? Shhh, I know, I know. I want to punch her in the face too. Thankfully, not all the Super Workout Moms are as bitchy as she is, but they do all seem to share a knack for making the rest of us feel like giant walking blobs of shit. Somehow, her post-pregnancy body is even better than her pre-pregnancy one. But it makes sense, since she’s a busy one: she lifts 100-pound CrossFit weights with just one pinky finger all weekend long, and she’s training for a 26-mile marathon every other day of the week. She’s got at least twenty pairs of those Lululemon yoga pants, which is good because she doesn’t ever take a day off. I guess I wouldn’t either, if my kids could play handball off my abs.
    3. Super Career Mom – People often ask this mom “HOW do you do it all?” but no one really knows the answer (maybe not even Super Career Mom herself). Somehow she balances a great career with being a great mom. I haven’t much to say about Career Mom, because her mysterious ability to be both a boss at work (literally) and also be a boss at home is seemingly impossible and somewhat mind-boggling. Yet somehow she does it. And she’s got the financial ability to purchase a decent home in 21st century America to show for it. Kudos.
    4. Super Clean House Mom – You know how you turn into a psychotic house-scrubbing maniac every time company is coming over? Well Super Clean House Mom is like that all the time, even without the looming threat of some snarky relative pointing out that the blades on the ceiling fan need to be vacuumed or whatever. Diamonds may be a girl’s best friend, but this OCD mom’s BFF is probably her precious Swiffer Sweeper. Not a single speck of dirt occupies a surface in her home, and her family just seems to KNOW better than to leave their crap all over the place. I’d be impressed, if I weren’t so busy looking at my dusty fan blades.
    5. Super Well-Behaved Kids Mom – Is it positive reinforcement? Negative reinforcement? Is reinforcement even needed, or did she just win some kind of secret parenting lottery which granted her perfectly angelic children? Whatever it is, Super Well-Behaved Kids Mom is doing something right. Her kids clean their room, set the table, get good grades, say “please” and “thank you.” And they’ve NEVER sold one of their birthday gifts to a kindergarten classmate for five dollars (yes, my son did that). These kids are seriously flawless. Come to think of it, there’s actually a 50/50 chance that they’re aliens. If so, then they really need to head back to their home planet, because they’re making the rest of us look bad.
    6. Super PTA Mom – Super PTA Mom wants to change the world, one bake sale at a time. And thank goodness for that, because someone has to deal with all these pesky school politics and holiday fairs. Considering the fact that afternoon dismissal regularly conjures a social paralysis in me that I haven’t experienced since the first day of high school, it’s probably safe to say that not everyone is well-suited for such a job. Hats off to you, PTA Moms. Seriously.
    7. Super Fun Mom – If moms were government organizations, this chick would be the post office. Neither snow, nor hail, nor rain, nor sleet (or however the hell it goes) will keep this determined mama indoors with her kids. She’s at the park, the museum, the movies, the zoo, the amusement park, the NASA Space Station boarding a rocket ship for a family tour of the moon. She is, hands down, THE MOST FUN MOM EVER. The only video games her kids play are the ones where they all dance around the living room together, and I’m pretty sure she only owns a computer for the purpose of researching more fun shit to do. She kind of makes me hate fun.
    8. Super Friend Mom – This mom boasts a pretty impressive lineup of BFF’s, especially for someone at least a decade or two out of college. Her kids’ playdate schedule is booked solid thru next year, and she actually still talks to people ON THE PHONE. Like, just to say hi and stuff. Her stress levels are probably much lower than most because she does “girls night out” at least once a month (gasp!). She’s kind of like an adult reminder that the “popular girl” doesn’t always grow up to be a total loser after all (to the sad disappointment of wallflowers everywhere).
    9. Super Holiday Mom – She has the kids’ Halloween costumes purchased in August, Christmas shopping finished by September, and Easter baskets ready to go in February. She’s always at least one holiday ahead of everyone else. Her outdoor decorations seem to defy the laws of physics, with displays so dazzling they occasionally cause traffic accidents on her street. Her Elf on the Shelf has a more exciting life than most Hollywood celebrities, and every December you find yourself wondering if Super Holiday Mom’s husband is Santa Claus himself.
    10. Super Pregnant Mom – She’s nine months pregnant, wheeling a double stroller through the supermarket with one arm, and pushing a cart full of groceries with the other. To her, the giant round bump in her mid-section is nothing more than a mere mosquito bite. She accomplishes more in her third trimester of pregnancy than some people do in their entire life. It’s almost as though she doesn’t even realize there’s a person living inside her.
    11. Super Not Super At All Mom – I’m none of the above, as you might have guessed. I’ve certainly tried to be all of these moms at one time or another, but I’ve failed pretty epically every single time. It’s okay though. I’ll let you in on a little secret: Super Moms don’t really exist. A Super Mom is only “super” on the surface. Beneath the façade of awesomeness is a regular mom, like you and me, who is just as flawed as everyone else. It’s great to be inspired by her, but try not to be too envious. Super Jealous Mom is not a Super Mom at all. Now excuse me while I go attempt to practice what I preach.

  • I Can’t Tell You If You’ve Found “The One”, But Neither Can Anyone Else

    I don’t know about you, but I am getting very sick of these obnoxious articles popping up all over the internet which list a thousand bullshit ways to know if you’re with the “right” one. They’re all “communication” this and “respect” that, with their condescending listicles that make newlyweds feel all smug and amazing but leave the rest of us wondering where the hell we went wrong.

    It drives me crazy. I’m no relationship expert, (seriously, not at all), but I do know that if your husband of fifteen years doesn’t declare you the most beautiful lady in all the land every single time he looks at you, it’s not exactly a reason to go filing for divorce.

    I think that people need to understand that marriage is hard. There is no foolproof checklist or “list of fifteen things” that will quickly determine whether or not you married “the one.” There are over seven billion fish in the sea (actual world population), so who the hell knows if the right one swam up to you and put a ring on your FINger (haha, get it?).

    Your husband probably won’t support every decision you make, even the big ones. He isn’t likely to make you feel sexy when you’re bumming around in stained sweatpants and fuzzy slippers. He surely won’t always be honest with you about everything. He might not help around the house enough (or at all). Perhaps he rarely shows his appreciation for all you do, not even with a simple “thank you” once in a while. He probably doesn’t plan date night very often (or ever) and maybe his definition of romance is never leaving the toilet seat up. He’ll sometimes get you really shitty gifts on birthdays and holidays, or none at all. It’s very possible that he’d rather be watching football or playing video games or taking a nap on the couch than partaking in family outings on his days off.

    You’re not always going to finish each other’s sentences, or constantly be making each other laugh, or having deep conversations over glasses of wine every night. Hell, you may not even see each other for more than a few minutes a day.

    There will be times when you’re madly in love with each other, and times when you’re literally miserable being in the same room together. Times when you look at him and somehow simultaneously love and hate his stupid face at the same time. He probably has similarly mixed emotions about  your stupid face.

    But you shouldn’t beat yourself up over it. I really think it’s normal, this imperfect, undefined version of marriage. So this isn’t the part where I list all the crap he does do or should be doing to make up for all the shitty stuff. In real life, every relationship is different. What doesn’t work for you might might be working just fine  for someone else, and vice versa. Nothing is ever set in stone, so stop pretending that it should be. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you can breathe a nice big sigh of relief that you and your darling aren’t headed straight for Splitsville simply because the fucking internet told you so.

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  • Why Having “Only” One Kid Is Harder Than It Seems

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    Recently a very sweet reader commented to me that she only has one kid, but can still really enjoy all the stuff I write about on my blog. ONLY one kid, she said.

    My kids are about three years apart, so I had “only” one kid for a while myself, and let me tell you, having one kid is not necessarily easier than having two. It’s probably not even much easier than having a whole litter of ‘em, actually.

    Now that I have two kids, a nice chunk of my day is admittedly spent prying my children off of one another, mediating arguments prompted by such pressing matters as whether it’s time to watch Princess Sofia or Scooby Doo and who gets to eat the last package of fruit snacks. But I have to say, in between those annoying moments of fighting, my home is constantly filled with the joyful sounds of children playing together. Frequent fits of giggles and shrieks of laughter, freckled by mischievous moments of quiet scheming, then followed by even more explosive laughter– these are the sweet, sweet sounds of siblings getting along. And to me, they’re some of the most beautiful sounds you will ever hear.

    I think that if you could bottle the blissful sound of children’s laughter, it might just cure every illness under the sun.

    Just to clarify, I’m not implying that having one child will leave you with a dull, laughter-less home. Not at all. Every kid is hilarious in his or her own little way. But we do tip the laughter scale around here a lot more than we used to before my daughter came along.

    Particularly for a new parent, caring for “only” one child can be one of the loneliest feelings in the world.  In fact, I was extremely depressed for most of the three years I spent as a mother of one child. The door would close in the morning as my husband headed off to work, and the seemingly endless hours of loneliness would begin. I’d look down at my little guy, and he’d look up at me, his eyes as big as his expectations for the day, and I knew that keeping him content for those long hours was all on me.

    It’s a pretty big job, and not an easy one.

    Fact: there is really only so much coloring, finger-painting, and shape-sorting you can do before you start to lose your ever-loving mind.

    Some moms like to fill their toddler’s schedules with exciting play dates and Gymboree classes. And that’s great. But what about parents who, like I was, are new to their neighborhood and don’t have a ton of mommy friends with whom to set up playdates? And the Gymboree classes? Um, have you seen the pricetag on these freaking classes? I can roll a big ball around and sing The Wheels on the Bus to my kid at home for free, thankyouverymuch.

    Another problem I had when my son was an only child was the sharing thing. At home, all of his precious toys were his and his alone. Without the frequent wails of “but it’s MY turn!” from a jealous sibling, sharing was a foreign concept to my little guy. So you can imagine that play dates were a BLAST back then. I’ve always found it an awkward situation when your kid has engaged in a knock-down, drag-out, tug-of-war match with another kid over some shitty toy, and the parents need to step in and encourage the angry toddlers to “take turns” with said shitty toy. Either no one listens and the match rages on until the toy is removed and both children are sulking, or the other kid hands it over and your kid ends up looking like the jerk. Nope, my kid was never the one to hand it over. Not back then, anyway.

    So moms of “only” one child, do yourselves a favor and give a little (or a LOT) of credit where it’s due. Raising kids is tricky business, no matter how many you have.  Every type of parenting comes with its own set of challenges- one kid, two kids, ten kids, twins, triplets, whatever.  The bottom line is that you are raising a living, breathing, human being who is depending on YOU to keep him or her thriving and well, 24/7. It’s a big damn responsibility. And I think that, even for those parents raising a whole boatload of kids, we’re all just figuring out this parenting thing as we go.

    Although for the record, I do NOT want a whole boatload of kids.