near, far, wherever you... {barf}

as if i needed another reason to love Kate Winslet. 

but wait. first: i can't believe Titanic is being re-released, and in 3D for that matter. the movie came out during my sophomore year of college and i loved it at the time. we saw it in the theater more times than i care to admit (are you reading this, Kerri??). i think it provided a form of escapism we were a little desperate for at the time. which is probably why i can't stand the movie now. flashbacks. 

anyway, apparently Kate is doing a press tour for this 3D reincarnation and someone brought up  "My Heart Will Go On," the film's (unfortunately) unforgettable theme song sung by one Celine Dion. as reported by nymag.com, in response to the question, "how does the song make you feel?" Kate responded thusly:

"Like throwing up." Ouch. Are you sure, Kate? What about the recorder, or that awesome key change? "No, I shouldn't say that … no, actually, I do feel like throwing up."

classic.

mbm

status update

hi, my name is Megan (hi, Megan!) and i've been off Facebook for about six weeks. (applause.)

in all seriousness—can you believe it's been that long? and i'm still breathing. i've had a mix of responses to my Facebook absence. some people have told me i absolutely must get back on. others have said they're thinking about getting off the site themselves.

i still have no desire to reactivate and have actually downloaded all my information so that i don't have to (i.e. i have all my pictures and pretty much all the e-mail addresses i need at this point). 

but, i admit, there are a few aspects of the site i miss:

1. asking for and sharing motherhood tidbits. for example, i'm itching to phase Matty out of his binky habit (mostly because he doesn't seem to need it and i really don't want him to be three years old and totally attached to it. i sucked my thumb until i was like 10, so i'm all for self-soothing techniques. it's just the damn binky drags on the floor everywhere and it just looks so babyish, when nothing else about him really says baby anymore. but i digress...). anyway, if i were still on the site, i would've asked my friends how they handled their kids' binky habits. instead, i'll have to rely on my own motherly instincts. and, of course, Google.

2. venting about "Smash." the show vexes me—like seriously vexes me—yet i can't seem to stop watching. and i have no one to talk to about this paradoxical problem. i do know some people i was friends with on Facebook were watching, but i actually don't have their e-mail addresses, so therefore no way of venting. it's driving me a little crazy. i wind up talking to myself during and after the show, which is somewhat disconcerting...

3. baby pictures. i miss seeing them and sharing them. in fact, i think tha's the sole reason people have told me to get back on Facebook: not because they care so much what i'm up to, but because they miss seeing my kiddo's face. i get it, i totally get it.

outweighing the above (rather featherweight) things i miss about the site are the below aspects i don't miss:

1. vague status updates

2. annoying status updates (like when people write, "i'm really enjoying this quality time with my kids." um, no you're not. you're on your smartphone checking Facebook.)

3. status updates with shoddy grammar and misspellings

4. finding myself absently scrolling through pages and profiles when i could be doing many more productive things. (in fact, since i got off Facebook, i've read two books, completely organized the boxes of odds and ends previously stored in our guest shower stall and renewed my love of "Golden Girls" repeats on the Oxygen network.)

at this juncture, i really don't foresee returning. we'll see how i'm faring in another six weeks, when baseball season is in full-swing (!) and i don't have easy access to my Phillies fans friends to abuse/be abused by. that might tip the scales. 

mbm

#10

he sent this picture to me via his iPod touch,
all decked out in his brand new uniform.

last summer, when i was on maternity leave (oh, what a glorious time), we spent quite a few weeks in Pennsylvania. the pool was there, my parents were there (to dote on and help with their only grandchild) and it was just nice to be out of the city. anyway, we went on almost-daily walks, to a nearby park that didn't exist when i was growing up there, but i sure wish it did. a big soccer field, playground equipment, a trail through the woods and three baseball diamonds.

most days we were there, so were a gaggle of old dudes playing softball. god bless 'em—whether it was 70 degrees or 90 degrees, they'd be out there every morning, in their uniform shirts, playing an official game. i loved those guys. they were like the Bad News Bears, all growed up. you could almost whoever was at bat praying not to get a hit, because that would mean they'd have to run to first base and oy, the toll that would take on their knees/hips/back.

fast forward to two months ago. my dad called me to triumphantly announce that he had gone to sign up for the senior softball league. this was some of the best news i'd heard ever. my dad has been rocking retirement for sure—between his garden railroad project, finally using his Kindle (much to my chagrin), the weekly trips he makes with my mom to play with Matty all day, and DVR'ing every show on every channel every day, he's kept quite busy. still, as i watched those guys playing softball last summer, i thought—and probably said out loud several times—that my dad would be an awesome addition to the league.

and now—he's in! today was his first team meeting and next week is his first practice. and, lemme tell you—senior softball is no joke. they play, like, 60 games over six months. it's practically the majors!

i wish i was going to be on maternity leave this summer so that i could take daily walks and watch him play. (partly to cheer for him and partly, you know, to laugh at him. good naturedly.) i actually wish i could send a camera crew to film the practices and games, because i have a feeling it would make a great documentary.

i told him he should start a blog and record all the funniness that is bound to come from a bunch of geezers trying to play softball. but he hates to type (hates) so i'm not holding my breath. however, i do think he should submit to me entries (however brief!) that i can post every few weeks, summarizing his experience thus far. don't you agree? if you agree, leave a comment saying so. perhaps we can gang up on him and make it happen.

until then—play ball, daddy-o! give 'em hell! just don't give yourself a broken hip in the process...

mbm

timeless advice

heard this song this morning, as sung by Dean Martin. the air was mild again, the sun was shining, the trees were boasting tiny white blossoms and all felt right with the world.

again—as it is with most old standards—the advice herein is so very true, and (in my opinion) worth sharing with you:

When you're smilin'

When you're smilin'

The whole world smiles with you

When you're laughin'

When you're laughin'

The sun comes shining through

But when you're crying

You bring on the rain

So stop your sighing, be happy again

Keep on smilin'

'Cause when you're smilin'

The whole world smiles with you

mbm

spring in the city

have i mentioned green is my favorite color? took these on my walk to work this morning.

mbm

rotten eggs

i saw the headline for this article—which was Easter Egg Hunt Canceled Because of Aggressive Parents—and had to read it. i sort of which i hadn't, because this stuff makes me crazy. what is wrong with people?! (i ask that question time and time again and there's never a satisfying answer.)

this quote from the article really got me:

“You have all these eggs just lying around, and parents helping out. You better believe I’m going to help my kid get one of those eggs. I promised my kid an Easter egg hunt and I’d want to give him an even edge.”

so said the father—whose name is Lenny Watkins—of a seven-year old boy. the following is directed at Mr. Watkins: stop. just stop, sir. do you hear yourself? it is an Easter egg hunt you are speaking of. if your kid finds one egg or one hundred eggs or one thousand eggs, the course of his life will not be altered. it will be altered, however, by an uber-competitive, immature father who puts undue pressure on his young child to be the best at everything, even something that should be purely fun, like finding plastic colored eggs filled with candy and coupons.

i think i get upset because i know my son will be in school with kids who have parents like this Mr. Watkins. and those kids will probably be jerks to my kid, which will make me want to teach them a lesson (why i oughta...) but i will have to be the bigger person and instead teach my son that life is a journey, not a fucking contest. (i will edit obscenities when i speak to him, obviously.) and advise him to ignore the jerky kids who try to compete with him or one-up him or act like they have "an edge" over him. it will take all of my willpower not to tell him, "listen, Bubs, these idiots may think they're better than you now, but when you're all thirty years old, you'll be off living the life you always wanted and they'll be stuck in their parents' basements because they never learned how to do anything for themselves." 

it's not that i don't understand parents who 'helicopter'—at least the ones who do so out of the urge to protect their offspring. but what are you really teaching your kids by hovering over them so? i can tell you the answer: nothing.

i make a conscious effort every day to let Matty find his own way and make his own mistakes, inasmuch as an 11-month old can do that. for example, i let him explore things like the drawers of our TV stand and the contents of my computer bag and that pair of Converse i left by the couch. i figure it's better to allow him to feel a little autonomous before distracting him with a toy, rather than rushing in immediately saying, "no, no, no, no!" because doing that will only 1) incur the wrath of his fake crying and 2) make the object more appealing by underscoring its illicitness. (on Sunday morning, i let him unspool the entire roll of toilet paper in our bathroom, partly because he had most of it unspooled by the time i realized what he was doing, and partly because the poor kid has been suffering from extreme teething pain and playing with the toilet paper seemed to be giving him such joy. why the hell not?)

but sometimes i wonder if other people see me as a little negligent. for example, at the park a couple weekends ago, Matty was crawling around on the sponge-y surface of a play area and came to a stop near a bench. as he sat there exploring a few pieces of displaced mulch on the ground, his head was about six inches away from the corner of the bench. a dad sitting nearby covered the corner with his hand and made sure i was aware that my son's head was in close proximity to what i assume he considered a hazardous object. of course i knew where Matthew was sitting, but i figured worst case scenario, he'd knock his noggin once and figure out that he should move away. i mean, right? but, to appease this clearly worried dad, i scooted Matthew a few feet away, to ensure he was out of the danger zone.

we were at that same park on Saturday when a little kid came into the sand pit area, where Matty and i were playing with his bucket and shovel, and immediately kicked sand into the air. it wasn't a lot and of course kids are going to kick the sand. but the dad rushed over apologizing profusely to me. i just smiled and said, "it's okay! really! no worries!" Matty hadn't even flinched. and even if he had—come on. he's eleven months old, not eleven days. he's in the park to play, to get dirty, to get used to life really. (a park full of kids is a microcosm for real life, isn't it?)  

something similar even happened yesterday at my aunt and uncle's house. Matty was crawling on the floor in the sunroom/porch and there was some water on the floor—tracked in from outside or maybe just a few displaced ice cubes from the cooler that had melted. he was headed straight for the small puddles, and i knew it, but i was going to let him go. he's a boy—he's going to get into far grosser things than water on the floor and i might  as well get used to it.  but my cousins who were standing there turned him around, away from the puddles. i'm guessing they did it because they were closest to him at the moment and didn't want to be held responsible for Matty getting wet. i said, "ah, don't worry," but they'd already re-directed him.

maybe i'm the oddball—shrugging my shoulders when most parents are practicing hypervigilance. i just really want Matthew to learn, from an early age, to take care of himself whenever possible, and that if a little sand gets kicked in his eye or his head knocks into a bench, it's OK. these things happen and they're not a big deal.

then again, this is coming from the daughter of a man who hid Easter eggs in ridiculously hard places for a child to find—some might call him 'clever,' others might go with 'merciless'—and who gave vague hints when absolutely necessary, but never, ever did the hunting for her.

and, see? didn't i turn out all right? (don't answer that.)

mbm

this makes me cry a little

found this while looking at pictures from the last year. i can't believe how tiny he was. and i'm so glad Michael captured this on video. 





mbm

finally!

happened to see this picture of Jennifer Garner on People.com and—hallelujah. nearly a month after giving birth to her third child, she—gasp!—looks like a woman who gave birth to her third child nearly a month ago. 

this is how it is, world, for most of us gals! post-baby, we're puffy for awhile. we rest and we hunker down and we don't think about going to the gym or looking glamorous. who gives a damn? there are diapers to change! 

kudos to Jen for not pulling out all the stops (personal trainer, extreme diet, blowing off time with the kids, etc.) to slim down in an inhuman amount of time—if only to remind the average woman that it's normal to not be a supermodel four minutes after giving birth. 

mbm

bug off!

i saw this product as i was flipping through Parents magazine last night. the editors suggested packing your kid's lunch in one of these as an April Fools' Day joke.

um. are you kidding me?

i wouldn't do such a thing to my husband, my mother, my best friend. i sure as hell would never do that to a little kid, especially one i gave birth to! maybe it's because of where i live—where a roach finding its way onto a PB & J isn't out of the question—or the fact that a roach once landed on my head while i was in bed and i have been even more terrified of the disgusting, useless creatures ever since.

but: come on. i would never in a million years pack one of Matthew's future school lunches in a bag like this. whoever dreamed up this idea is plain old sadistic, in my humble view.

eeesh.

mbm

UPDATE: literally 30 seconds after i posted this, a co-worker started freaking out because she opened one of our file cabinets and a roach was inside. a roach was inside, people! do you see why these plastic bags are not funny? they. are. not. funny. 

unbreakable

this is Louie.

i was feeling a little bereft last night. i was more than ready for bed, but i found myself lingering in the bathroom, standing in front of the sink, brushing my teeth twice as long as i probably needed to, applying and reapplying anti-blemish serum to my multiple spots. (apparently puberty is perpetual for this 35-year old.)

why all the dilly-dallying? i always read before i go to sleep. i find it hard not to go to sleep without reading a little first, actually. and i'd finished my book earlier in the day and wasn't emotionally ready to start something new.

that probably sounds crazy to you, but the book i'd finished was Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. if you haven't read it, you probably still think i'm crazy. if you have, i'm betting you understand completely.

i'm only three percent kidding when i say i want my new mission in life to be convincing everyone in the world to read this book.  i'm zero percent kidding when i say it changed my life.

i told this to my mom yesterday—that reading Unbroken changed my life—and she said, somewhat doubtfully, "how?"

let me explain.

first, it is an amazing story. an incredible, utterly inspiring, nearly unbelievable story, and yet it's all true.

Louie Zamperini started life as what my Brooklyn relatives call a "scutch"—a rascal, a pain in the butt, unruly, wild, a smart-ass and so on. he then morphed into an a supremely talented, record-breaking track star, who made it to the Olympics in 1936 and would have made an appearance at the summer games in Toyko in 1940 if they hadn't been cancelled due to the world war in progress. he did make it to Japan eventually, but under the most horrific circumstances imaginable.

his story is one of heroism, humility and the strength of the human spirit. his story made me believe, all over again, that certain people are put on this earth equipped to face exactly what they ultimately face, and everything they encounter along the way prepares them to survive something most of us would have no chance in hell of surviving. it is these people—not the Kardashians, not Mark Zuckerberg, not Angelina Jolie or Alex Rodriguez—who deserve our admiration, our attention, our adulation. these are the folks we can learn from and look up to. i don't think most people today, my age and younger, really understand what a true hero is. i'm not sure i understood until i finished reading Unbroken.

the book also gave me something i'm almost embarrassed to admit: a much better understanding of World War II. i could blame my lack of historical knowledge on my Catholic school education, but the truth is that i had great history teachers (like Mr. Pauzano, who was as passionate about his subject as anyone who ever taught me)—i just didn't understand, at the time, how it related to me. at all. and if it didn't relate to me, i wasn't very interested. hello, typical teenager.

i'd seen Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan, but that was just Hollywood to me. compelling stories, but i didn't connect them to anything that had actually happened, even though i knew that it had. but Unbroken brought it all home, in a way much more visceral than even the first 10 minutes of Saving Private Ryan. it gave me an appreciation for our veterans—all of them—that of course i felt previously, but not nearly as deeply as i do now. it was all i could do not to start full-on sobbing when i saw the throngs of soldiers—young, old, active, retired—marching in the St. Patrick's Day parade last weekend. i am humbled to say that i finally understand. better late than never, i suppose. 

and finally, on a personal note, reading Unbroken gave me some insight into myself as a writer. though i started out in journalism, i really thought i was meant to write novels. i struggled through creative writing courses in college and after college, nailing the writing part, but agonizing over how to make up a story. i only fully succeeded when i wrote about something that happened to me, tweaking minor details so i could label it "fiction." i thought something was wrong with me—if only i tried harder, i'd be able to do it. but every time i sat down to write fiction, i wanted to get up. which is actually a normal response for any writer, fiction or not, but there was no part of me that wanted to create stories. tell stories—yes. i was—am—always writing in my head, descriptions, characterizations, first sentences, etc. but making it all up from scratch, creating my own version of Hogwarts or Narnia or even the corner of London inhabited by Bridget Jones? not at all.

Laura Hillenbrand writes beautifully and brilliantly. others supply the stories, she provides the narrative. to me, it's a perfect marriage of journalism and creative writing. that i can do.

anyway, like i said—life-changing. please read this book if you haven't. don't wait for the movie version. don't let it sit on your nightstand unread for weeks and weeks as i did. read it now. i promise—i really, really do—your life will be changed, too.

mbm

wonder

yesterday.

last night i went to meet my new nephew, who was born a week ago today. he weighed a pound more than Matthew did when he was born and yet, when i saw the newest addition, i felt certain my child had never been so small.

minutes earlier, Matthew had met me on the stoop of my mother-in-law's, reaching for me as Michael held him, grasping my neck, making his happy cavebaby sounds. i stepped inside to put my bag down so i could take him and he started to cry, mistakenly believing i was leaving him again already.

never.

i hugged him and kissed him a hundred times on his neck, between his ear and his shoulder, my favorite spot. then i carried him over to see his new cousin, who was asleep in my mother-in-law's arms.

if i'm being honest? i wanted to cry.

i know it's possible to believe life is a mystery, a miracle, a wonder even if you've  never had a child. but when you do have a child, it becomes an full-on obsession—trying to understand how it all happens. you're in a constant state of amazement. just when you think you've finally grasped the concept, it slips through your fingers and you have to start all over again trying to get your arms around it.

it starts when the baby is growing inside you. at first you feel sick, you feel fat, you feel tired, you feel worried. you see the flickers on the screen during your ultrasounds—"these are the eyes, this is the brain, look at the heart, here are the feet." the technician points out all the parts and you either see them or you don't (or you pretend to see them when really you don't).

then you feel the baby move. you feel the baby hiccup. you see the baby's foot, pushing against the skin that used to be taut against your ab muscles, that is now stretched to the max to accommodate this tiny kung fu star. and, slowly—mostly in the middle of the night—it starts to register. inside your body at this exact moment is a human being, someone with eyes and ears, a nose and a mouth. a person-in-progress who relies on you for everything already, and will need you in one way or another for the rest of your life. (you know this because you still need your mom, more often than you'd like to admit.)

then, before you can fully comprehend what's happened, a nurse places in your arms a creature who resembles—if we're being honest here—a miniature senior citizen. bald, wrinkly, toothless. he's wrapped in a blanket and looks pretty stunned by what's just gone down and you think, "well, at least we have something in common." 

your heart is already gone by that point, of course. you don't even know it, but it's gone baby gone. and your life—which has already spanned more than three decades and is chock full of memories and stories and mistakes and lessons—is actually just beginning.

how else to explain the unadulterated, highly-concentrated, knee-buckling love that bubbles up from your stomach to your throat to your eyeballs anytime you hold your child, anytime you hear your child, anytime you think of your child? how else to explain the way you look at the world now? you see all the dangers, yes (and god, were there always this many?) but you also see all the wonders, big and small. new daffodils bouncing in the wind, gray-white seagulls pecking at the sand, a flashing fire truck speeding down the street, an airplane glinting in the sky, an ice cream truck at the corner, an elaborate swing set, a new box of crayons... so many things you get to show him and teach him and experience all over again.

when i saw my new nephew last night, of course i remembered Matthew being that small. it just seemed like he was that size yesterday—and that he's been with me forever. has it been almost a year already? has it only been almost a year? 

i can't get my arms around it—how quickly it all happens, how naturally it all happens, how almost seamlessly it all happens. i know i've had a hand in the process—i've kept him fed, i've kept him safe, i've kept him happy (and i am certain he knows he is loved). but it also seems to be happening without me: my baby is becoming a boy. he knows so much, and it's only a fraction of what he'll know in a month, a year, three decades from now.

it's a mystery, it's a miracle. it's a wonder.

mbm

a drive on sunday

Matty and i had some errands to run on Sunday, including a visit with my Gram. but with his new napping schedule—which is working beautifully and with which i do not want to mess—i couldn't exactly go where i needed to go when i needed to go. he fell asleep just as i was about to pull into Bed, Bath and Beyond. it was only 10 more minutes 'til our next stop—50 shy of the hour i ideally wanted Matty to sleep—so i had to improvise. i was on Route 46 at that point and contemplated trying to find the house my parents lived in when i was born—my unreliable brain could not recall the number of the house, unfortunately, just the street. i realized i'd last seen it when we were house-hunting, which wasn't that long ago, and even if i knew the number, it wouldn't take me long to get there, leaving me more time to kill anyway. 

the memory-lane idea stayed with me, though, which is how i wound up exiting Route 46 via the ramp toward Route 23 North.

my Gram moved into a condo in Oak Ridge, New Jersey, in the summer of 1988. i was eleven years old. her divorce from my grandfather was final, her house on Hershey Road in Wayne—where i spent so many magical days as a child—had sold and she was ready for a new start. i was there when she wrote out and handed over her down payment check, sitting with my parents in the sales office trailer of the new condo development. the first week she lived there, i was with her. i helped her shop for furniture. i think i helped her decide where to hang her paintings (or she pretended to let me help decide).

i loved the house on Hershey Road, but my Gram's condo was a adventure. i loved that it was brand new and had that 'new house' smell. the complex had its own pool and clubhouse and playground just a short walk from her unit. she had her own deck, on which she had planter after planter of herbs and flowers. and she lived a lot closer to my cousins, which meant they came over to play (or she took me there to play) when i was visiting.

on Friday nights during my freshman year of college, i often took the bus from Port Authority to Willowbrook, where she picked me up after she got out of work. we'd drive up Route 23 to Oak Ridge and i'd spend the weekend with her. she probably thought i was nuts—most other freshmen spent weekends at parties, drinking, hooking up, curing hangovers with bagels and coffee. but i was feeling lost and lonely and it was easier to get to my Gram's than my parents'. (and Gram would never say to me, when i asked to visit, "honey, why don't you see what so-and-so on your floor is doing this weekend? why don't you go to the football game? see what's going on in the student center," etc.) we would stop at the A&P on our way home and get Stouffer's French bread pizzas or something from the hot food bar. on Saturdays we'd go shopping or see a movie or visit with my Aunt Pat. on Sunday, after Entenmann's donuts and a thorough reading of the Star-Ledger's arts and entertainment section, she'd take me to the bus stop up by her and i'd head back to campus—having spent another weekend successfully avoiding the fact that i had no friends at school, but also having strengthened the bond with my Gram.

eventually i did find some friends, and i spent far fewer weekends at her condo through the rest of my college years, but i really enjoyed being there when i did go. and then, between when i started my first job and found my first apartment—about a month's time—i lived with her up there. it wasn't my favorite time, i admit. again, i was adjusting (this time to real life, as opposed to campus life) and i've never been a graceful adjuster. but as weird as it was for me, it really couldn't have been easy on her. she'd lived alone at that point for more than ten years. now all of a sudden she had to worry about what to give me for dinner, about getting me to the Willowbrook bus stop in the mornings (through brutal rush hour traffic) and picking me up at night after her long days at work.

but she was my Gram, and she loved having me there. i probably could have stayed a year, in her mind. a few years. forever. 

all of this was fluttering through my mind as i drove up Route 23 on Sunday. i hadn't been up that way in almost five years, and that time had been to help my aunts clean out the condo, a few months after Gram had taken a spill and wound up in the hospital. it was then the doctors realized her emphysema was too advanced to send her back home to live alone. she never saw her condo again.

the emotions got to me once i had gotten off Route 23 at the Oak Ridge Road exit. almost nothing had changed along that winding, two-lane road, which i'd been on countless times. i remembered how excited i'd be when we hit that part of the trip twenty years ago. almost to Gram's! almost to Gram's! i remembered how the storefront by the train tracks used to be all decked out at Christmastime, with lots of lights and moving parts. i remembered spending as much time as my cousin Brad and i could get away with spending in Ridge Pharmacy—which had everything from Tylenol and baseball cards to an excellent assortment of teeny bopper magazines and coloring books to stuffed animals and wiffle balls. i remembered going to the Blockbuster and trying to find movies my cousins, Gram and i would all like.

and i don't normally feel this way, but i had a moment in the car on Sunday, driving along Oak Ridge Road, when it hit me: all of that is over. we'll never again gather at Gram's for a birthday or a holiday. we'll never eat her melt-in-your-mouth (aka overcooked) broccoli or laugh (and groan) when she realizes after dinner that once again she forgot the mushrooms, which were supposed to be served with the roast beef. i'll never open her pantry door and find a brand new tin of Nestlé Quik and an unopened box of Bazooka. my cousins and i won't take the trail through woods behind her place down to the ice cream shop on a summer afternoon, or pretend to play tennis on the courts near the clubhouse. Gram and i will never catch another matinee at the movie theater in Kinnelon and stop at McDonald's for dinner on the way home.

the tears welled up and my throat started to burn but i reminded myself how lucky i am to have those memories at all. i glanced in the rearview mirror at my sleeping son and thought, this is why people have kids. someday i'll be able to tell him about all the fun i had with his Great Gram Claire—the shopping trips and the Easter Egg hunts and the the sleepovers with the cousins. it will be as clear in my mind then as it is now, as it was when it was happening. 

and eventually he'll be fully grown, maybe a father himself, thinking of all the wonderful times he spent at his grandparents'. already i've loved watching the bond form between my parents and him. and i know it's going to grow into something equally as special as the connection i had—and still have—with my Gram.

that realization made actually driving by my Gram's old condo less bittersweet. the neighborhood was quiet, i didn't see a single soul anywhere, and it was impossible to tell who might be living in her unit now. and once i saw it, there wasn't much else to do, or think about. i pulled out my camera, snapped a quick picture—just because—and drove away.

it was a great place while it belonged to my Gram and i'm so happy she had the years there that she had. my memories of the place will always be with me. but it's not where she lives anymore.

so, with Matty still asleep in his car seat behind me, i eased the car onto Route 23 South and drove back toward Wayne, to go pay the great lady a visit.

mbm

slow. the frig. down.

this morning as i was walking to the train, i heard—over the music that was playing on the headphones i was wearing—angry fighting. i looked to my right and saw two men in side-by-side SUVs, stopped at a red light, yelling at each other through rolled-down windows. i didn't catch everything they were saying, though one definitely proposed getting out and physically fighting.

i am not sure exactly what they were arguing about, but considering it was rush hour i'm assuming it had to do with a lane change or something equally unimportant as to evoke such rage before nine a.m.

hearing them go on—they continued even after the light changed—reminded me of what happened last night.

Michael and Matty met me at the PATH station after work. Michael was heading into the city to meet a friend for a few beers; i thought it would save time if he met me at the train, rather than waiting for me to walk all the way home before he could then walk all the way to the PATH.

anyway. Matty and i were on our way home on a gorgeous night. he was happily bellowing away as passers by and i was enjoying the mild breeze. we stopped at the busy corner near our building. there's a traffic light—and technically a WALK sign, too, but it's been inexplicably wrapped in black plastic for weeks and weeks—but it's still a treacherous intersection. traffic can back up there pretty good during rush hour, so people are always running the light. the other night as i was waiting there to cross, by myself, a saw a car nearly rear-end another one. at the last second he swerved, tires screeching, and avoided what could have been really ugly.

so last night once the opposing light turned red and i knew we had the right of way, i waited a few seconds. i saw a sports car coming down the street at a speed i would expect if the light were green. i still don't know if he didn't notice the red light or just didn't notice the crosswalk, but the (male) driver stopped his car with the front bumper across the far side of the crosswalk. as if it didn't exist. when he stopped, i flapped my arms at him and mouthed, what the hell?!? the driver—he looked to be in his 50s or 60s—ducked his head in apology, several times, as if to say, "you're right, you're right, i'm sorry."

apology not accepted, pal. if i hadn't known that intersection was so dangerous, or if i'd been looking the other way once the light changed, we might have been toast. at the very least, it would have been far too close a call and Matty wouldn't be the only one who needed to be changed.

especially in our area, where state law dictates that cars must yield to pedestrians in any crosswalk, not just those at traffic lights, people drive like maniacs. and i just don't know what the goddamn rush is. or why people get so riled up on the road. this is not a new problem, obviously, just a maddeningly persistent one. and one i feel could be rectified with a little forethought.

but most people don't think about what could go wrong—as a result of sending that text at 65 miles per hour, or inputting info into the GPS while trying to make a turn, or gabbing on the phone while driving down a residential street, or applying mascara in rush hour traffic—until it does go wrong, and then, of course, it's too late.

i hope those two men this morning felt stupid later about wasting so much precious energy threatening to rip each other's limbs apart.

and i sincerely hope that driver last night imagined for a moment how things could have gone down if i hadn't been paying attention at that crosswalk.

mbm

zoinks!

promoting violence... or bell bottoms? 

i just read a blog written by a mom (around my age) who is really pissed that her brother let her four-year old son watch the Cartoon Network while he was babysitting one night. now her son wants to watch more shows on Cartoon Network, like "Scooby-Doo" and "Tom and Jerry." this mom thinks the shows are "violent" and "dumb." all the other moms who posted comments in response to the blog agreed with her.

i...disagree.

am i crazy? if Bubs wants to watch "Scooby-Doo" someday (like when he's four or five), i'm okay with that (as long as they're the old-school ones from the '70s). i grew up watching Scooby, and "The Jetsons" (about which the aforementioned writer said: "Mr. Spacely is really mean!" come on!) and " Tom & Jerry " and "Looney Tunes."

i do remember my mom having an issue with the latter, precisely because she thought it was violent. but i never saw it that way. i just thought it was funny. i didn't think Wile E. Coyote ever really got hurt or that Tom and Jerry ever did any serious damage to each other. it was just their schtick. and besides: i knew they were cartoons!

now that Matty is more aware and more into playing with his toys and exploring the world, i turn on the TV less and less. i fully intend to be a go outside and play! kind of mom when the time comes; TV will be a privilege—and he will not have one in his room until he's much older. (i had to wait until eighth grade graduation for mine and i survived just fine. eeesh, i really sound like a mom now.)

anyway, all that said, with all the garbage that's on TV these days (i saw a clip on "The Soup" last night from some show called "My Strange Addiction," on which a man was filmed making out—tongue and all—with his car, and a woman dealt with stress and sadness in her life by drinking nail polish), i really don't think "Scooby-Doo" is much to worry about.

i had an awesome childhood. my friends and i made up games, ran around our backyards for hours and hours, played with dolls and action figures and made mud pies in our sandboxes. we climbed trees, we rode our bikes, we played i'll-show-you-mine-if you-show-me-yours... (oh.) anyway, i was a normal kid. and i watched these so-called violent cartoons.

in fact, i have very happy memories of hunkering on the couch to see what zany mystery Scooby and the gang would solve that afternoon. and if you ask me, Jerry hitting Tom with a frying pan is a lot less traumatic than pretty much anything that happens on screen during "Yo Gabba Gabba."

am i right?

mbm

ignorance is—was—bliss

ignorance is bliss

i've really, truly had enough. today alone i have found myself fretting about:

- what i'm eating and whether or not it's the right stuff

- if Diet Coke is going to give me cancer someday

- if Matty should be five or six when he starts kindergarten

- whether or not i should start brushing the four teeth he has now or wait a few months

that's just today, and it's only four o'clock.

the genesis of those worries? the food/Diet Coke thing came from the fact that there was free fruit, bagels and pastries in the kitchen at work. i went down to fill my water bottle and a friend was in there grabbing some fruit from the platter. she completely bypassed the baked goods, which i had my eye on.

"damn carbs!" i said. "how do you resist them?"

she told me she'd been reading a book about healthy eating, one Dr. Oz (i later learned) endorses. the basic gist is that Americans put mostly crap in their mouths, don't get enough (or any) nutrients and the processed food they consume instead of fruits, veggies and beans is causing cancer, high blood pressure, cholesterol issues, etc.

i am a middle-of-the-road eater. i am mostly healthy, though i have a relentless sweet tooth and limited time to A) shop for fresh produce as often as one needs to shop for fresh produce (which, in my experience, is twice a week) and B) whip that fresh produce into a variety of meals. so Lean Cuisines tend to be my standby. (i do enjoy Amy's Organics, but those are pricey.)

today i brought my lunch—leftovers of a whole wheat pasta dish i made for myself last night after Bubs went to bed and while Michael was at work. whole wheat penne, garlic, broccoli, diced tomatoes out of a can and pre-cooked, pre-sliced grilled chicken sold by Perdue.

i thought it was a healthy (and frugal) option until i started looking into the book my friend was reading. then i started questioning everything.

that lead, naturally, to Googling whether Diet Coke causes cancer. i am not a full-on coke head, but i do enjoy a can or two a day. i kicked the habit for a while a couple years ago, and stayed away during my first trimester of pregnancy, but sometimes i just craved it, so i indulged.

from what i've read there is no link between Diet Coke and any kind of cancer. but it still got me worried, to the point that i went without my can at lunchtime. 

and then, while i was eating my lunch, i was reading a blog on Parenting.com that i read regularly. it's written by a mom of two, who today was writing about a piece that was on 60 Minutes last week. the topic was "redshirting" kids for kindergarten, which apparently means holding back a year kids whose birthdays fall after the cut-off date (which is usually September, at least in this neck of the woods).

i'm a December baby and my parents kept me in nursery school for two years instead of one, but mostly because without siblings and because we'd moved to a new state when i was two years old, my social skills needed some work. (hell, they still do, but that's another post.)

anyway, i guess we won't have the same issue with Matty, an April baby, but it got me wondering about all kinds of things—mostly it got me wondering if there was ever a time when people didn't worry so much about everything? is it the Internet, and this plethora of "research" that reaches so many more people than it used to? people seem to be trusting their instincts less and relying on studies and reports and data and—god help us—reports on the evening news.

even as all of this was flying through my brain, i asked another co-worker when she started brushing her kids' teeth, because i've been wondering when to start trying to brush Matty's. she forwarded me a story she'd just seen in the New York Times, about how toddlers today are often ending up having to be put under anesthesia to fill all the cavities in their baby teeth. baby teeth! part of it is that these kids have been allowed to suck on their sippy cups all day (likely in place of their binkies) or are eating too many snacks and too much sugar. the other part is that parents give up quickly when these same kids put up a fight to brush their teeth. the article advised brushing nightly and visiting a dentist before your child's first birthday to be evaluated for cavity potential.

i immediately went downstairs to Duane Reade and bought two different infant toothbrushes and two kinds of infant toothpaste.

then i thought to consult the advice of the doctor who founded the pediatric practice we take Matty to. he said as long as you're not doing middle-of-the-night feedings and/or feeding your child too much sugar, you can hold off on brushing until about 15 months, when the kid will want to do everything you're doing. forcing the issue too early, he said, risks setting up a bad association with teeth brushing. (considering Matty rarely lets me even stick my pinky in his mouth to feel for new teeth, i think that's a real probability with him.)

so now i'm contemplating returning the toothbrushes and toothpastes.

aaaaahh! stop the madness! but how? how can i stop being affected by every stupid thing i read? maybe i should Google that....

mbm

may you stay forever young

i've been an only child my whole life, but never really longed for siblings.

until i started watching Parenthood.

last night i finally finished watching the season finale and, honestly? it is a great show.

i'm not into vampires, gangsters, crime scene investigators or wanna-be singers. my current TV tastes trend more toward house-hunting/improvement programs and sitcoms and hour-long shows that deal mostly with real life situations. this is my philosophy in a nutshell: make me laugh or make me think, but don't make me have nightmares or want to bang my head against a wall.

anyway. this is all to say that i'm sure many people out there think Parenthood is not cool or edgy or different enough to be good, and that's fine. you're entitled. but i'm telling you—it's so, so, so good.

the Braverman family is large and largely dysfunctional, but not in a dark, tragic way. just in a normal, such-is-life kind of way. they all live in the Berkley area of California (lucky) and see each other often and have boisterous family meals and sometimes boisterous family arguments.

the storylines have ebbed and flowed over the last few seasons, but this season was pretty pitch perfect for all 18 episodes. the various, intertwining plots were both compelling and completely relatable. consider: 

Peter Krause as a dad who lost his high-level job to a twentysomething upstart, just in time for his daughter to be accepted to Cornell. Lauren Graham as an aspiring playwright falling in love with her son's high school English teacher (the charming and adorable Jason Ritter). Julia Stiles as a hopeful adoptive mom, Dax Shepard as an endearing screw-up of a single dad/music producer trying to get his life together.

i mean, come on. i haven't even gotten to Monica Potter or Mae Whitman yet. or Craig T. Nelson! and: Bob Dylan sings the theme song. what more do you want? 

seriously: just for a little while, trade your Jersey Shore and Bachelor for a few episodes of Parenthood (watch the last few episodes of the season on-demand—it's free!) and tell me you're not hooked. tell me you don't secretly wish you were a Braverman.

i totally do.

mbm