Oh the Roads You May Travel

If you know me at all or have been following my blogs, you know there is one very major theme in my life:  Driving in Brooklyn SUCKS!  I mean it doesn't kinda suck.  It doesn't usually suck.  IT ALWAYS FUCKING SUCKS.

And it's not about no turn signals or cutting people off.  I'm talking about major roads that look like scenes from the Walking Dead with pedestrians slowly wandering everywhere except in the crosswalks.  I'm talking about cars WITHOUT drunk drivers pinballing from one side of their lanes to the other for miles, and cars coming around behind yours to turn left in front of you while you wait for a pedestrian to get his turtle ass across the street.

Just yesterday, on my way to pick up my 6 year old from school, a city bus pulled out right in front of me (like slam on my brakes in front of me,) a car service (it's like a private cab company that has worse drivers because I think the standards are that you are breathing and have a driver's license from some country anywhere in the world) stopped short right in front of me, so after I eeked around him, he proceeded to race in front of me to the red light (30 yards away.)  Then, as the car service was stopped by construction, a giant white truck, one of those trucks with 8 foot wheels and a naked lady sticker on the back windshield, U-turned into my lane from the other side, over a 5 inch median strip of shrubs, only to tailgate the poor little Honda in front of me.  I knew the giant truck was from Brooklyn because he slowed to the posted speed limit while driving where the speed camera used to be, before he tailed the Honda onto the Belt Parkway like a porn star giving it his all right before the cum shot.  Ha ha.  They moved the speed camera!  But at least the truck slowed down for 40 seconds.

In any case, this is not an abnormal day driving in Brooklyn.  The fact that 5,000 pedestrians a day don't get taken out amazes me.  Maybe they do.  There is an ambulance screaming down any given street about 5x per day, minimum.  And in almost 12 years of living in Brooklyn, I don't think I have seen more than one, maybe two cars get pulled over for a traffic violation, unless you are countimg me, who has already been pulled over 4 times.  Once:  Insurance lapse. Dismissed.  Twice:  Talking on cell phone.  Cool colorful cellphone light definitely a bad idea.  Third time:  Didn't make a complete stop at a stop sign.  Are you kidding me?  I am the only one who even stops at this stop sign!  Warning.  And number 4.... well that was just recently, so let me tell you about it.

Let me preface this with the warning that if you are not familiar with Brooklyn this may be confusing.  You won't know the streets or routes, but I will try to explain them the best I can.  Don't give up, though.  You will definitely get the police situation.

So, I had two things on my agenda.  I had to go to Walgreens to pick up a prescription, and then make it to a Dr. appt at 12:45.  These places are about 2 miles from each other, but if you have ever used a GPS in Brooklyn, you know that it takes about 45 minutes to go 5 miles, and the additional parking search could take up to an hour plus.  I left at 11am.  Plenty of time.

So I went to Walgreens, and after a minor debate about my birthday not existing in the computer for my refill (HOW could she think my birthday was 4-20-18?  Just how?  I was even wearing eyeliner!) I was on my way to the Dr.  Now when I drive around Brooklyn, I actually put some thought into it.  Like trucks can't drive on Parkways (good.) The busier streets have tons of service trucks double parked (bad.) And not all busy intersections have turn arrows so it's better to get yourself on the desired street before those intersections and generally making a right turn will put the least oblivious sloth-like pedestrians in your way.

So my two mile journey included the possibilities of a Parkway (Ocean), A super busy Avenue that is always a nightmare (Coney Island), a few semi busy streets (Avenue U and Stillwell), and one street always full of double parked service trucks but doable (Kingshighway.)  So I chose the two semi busy streets (Stillwell left to Ave U,) a left onto the Parkway (Ocean Pkway where a school bus in front of me cut off all the cars crossing from the oncoming lane,) to the double parked service truck street (right onto Kingshighway, where I almost got hit by a red car backing up that I thought was going to make a U turn, but actually was double parking in front of me, then a car service stopped short in front of me to turn into a diner, and I had to go around a double parked Brink's type truck to cross the hell Avenue (Coney Island Ave) and arrive at my destination.  I know it's crazy and confusing, but I like to have a plan driving around Brooklyn, because as my 6 year old will tell me when I yell at some idiot driver, "What do you expect.  We're in Brooklyn, and driving in Brooklyn sucks."

Now if you are totally confused by my route, stay with me.  Here is the good part.  So I cross the hell Avenue and am 1 block from the doctor's office when I see flashing lights and hear a siren behind me.  The police car wasn't trying to pass me, so I knew he wanted me.  As a looked for a spot to pull over on this busy street, I was thinking, "What did I do?  My license plates are not expired.  I didn't go through a red light.  My insurance is up to date. WTF?)  The police told me to stop but I was not about to block the street, so I pulled into the first bus stop I saw.  Seriously, the cops don't care if they block traffic, but I do. Not only is it rude, but I'm not getting sideswiped by some pissed off moron.

So, the cop comes to the car and asks me, "Did you see the woman in the gray shirt in the crosswalk?  You went right in front of her but the lady behind you let her go.  You were interfering with a pedestrian.  Can I see your driver's license?"  What?  I don't remember a pedestrian?  Was there one?  I'm usually pretty good about that since they are everywhere and easy to hit. "No officer,"  I replied, "I am really good about that and I apologize if I cut in front of a woman."
"Well," said the officer, "When you turned onto Kingshighway there was a lady in the crosswalk."
I handed over my ID and started thinking.  I had turned onto Kingshighway 11 blocks ago.  Had he been following me the whole time?  If so, why didn't he pull over the jackass in the red car?  The cop came back to my car with a ticket.  I asked him, "So have you been following me from Ocean Parkway?  Because that is where I turned onto Kingshighway."
"No you didn't, " he said, "You turned from Coney Island Avenue."
"No," I replied, "I have never been on Coney Island Avenue today.  I avoid it like the plague."
"You turned from Coney Island Avenue."
"No, I didn't."
"Yes you did. I saw you."
"That wasn't me.  There are a thousand silver SUVs and I was never on Coney Island Avenue."
Then I repeated my route to him.  Starting at Walgreens, with every turn, every detail on the way.  From the school bus to the red car to the Brink's truck.  Everything.
"You didn't go that way,"  He said.

Now if there is one thing that really pisses me off, it's being accused of something I didn't do.  What immediately came to mind was when I was in the hospital after I had my son.  A nurse came in to check on my c-section stitches.  After looking at my stomach she told me, "You didn't have a c-section."  WHAT?  I was in the operating room two hours ago being cut open by my OB who took a baby out of my uterus!  I was there!  I have witnesses!  Seriously!  How can someone tell you that you didn't have a c-section?  Not a good argument to have, especially with a post pardum woman.  "Are you kidding me!"  I told her, "Of course I had a c-section!  I was there in the operating room with my husband, doctor, nurses, and an anethesiologist!  You were not!"
"I don't think so, " she replied.  "Oh, here's the incision.  It's really low."  I was raging and determined that I must be in some alternate reality hell.  Apology?  You must be joking!!!

So here I was now parked in a bus stop with a deer in the headlight cop trying to figure out what to do.  After staring blankly for a few minutes, he handed me the ticket and my ID. "Well," he said, "Just go to court, plead not guilty and you will probably get out of it."  And he walked away.  Again, WTF????  Now I have to go to court because Wet-Behind-The-Ears can't admit he made a mistake??!!!  Fuck that!

But what can I do?  I pled not guilty, wrote down my route and all the details, ask my friends who have driven with me often to write down their experiences driving with me (One of which thinks I drive too slowly since I am always on the look out for pedestrians and always let them go even against the light!) and try to find out how many silver Toyota SUVs have been sold in Brooklyn in the last 10 years.  I will get everything notarized and go to court.  I'm thinking Officer Dingbat will not show up.

So what's the moral of the story?  From the rage filled, clueless drivers, to the comotose blindly walking pedestrians, to the cops who don't know what the hell is going on, driving in Brooklyn REALLY FUCKING sucks.
Thanks for letting me vent.

Halloween Seemed Spookier Back in the Day

Ever since I was a little kid, Halloween has been my all-time favorite holiday.  I remember lying on my bed trying to decide if I liked Halloween better than my birthday.  Halloween usually won, unless I was asking for some big birthday present like a bike or a Barbie townhouse with a real working elevator!  These days, it seems like corporate retail America is doing everything possible to suck the fun out of Halloween, like advertising costumes and decorations in July on the tail end of the back-to-school sales.  Personally, I have never understood buying Halloween candy in August, or actually any time before mid-October.  First of all, why is this necessary?  And more importantly, I will eat every piece of the 50 lb. bag of peanut butter cups within a week.  One year I actually bought candy that I don’t like just so I wouldn’t eat it.   That’s when I found out that even disliked candy is tasty at 3am.

Halloween is still my favorite holiday as an adult, and it adds a whole new dimension as a mom.  Although I still would love to go to an adult dress up Halloween party, these days I find myself on the trick-or-treat circuit, watching my kids do the frantic running from house to house that I remember so well.  Back in the ancient days of my childhood (before bags of pretzels were even considered a treat and homemade popcorn balls could be consumed fearlessly,) the parents who did take the children out almost never dressed up.  One of my favorite stories a friend told me was of two little princesses running door to door collecting candy while their dad waited patiently on the sidewalk pushing a cooler of beer in a wagon.  Still cracks me up!  Today, entire families get dressed up in a theme.  I was actually able to pull it off when the kids were little.  We did Star Wars featuring baby Yoda, Superheroes (which always seem to partner with a girl version of the superhero in a skirt,) and pirates.  Now of course the kids have minds of their own, and look out for Godzilla and Katniss Everdeen in my neighborhood.

My siblings and I had no parental supervision in our uber safe 70s suburban neighborhood where everyone on the block knew everyone’s kids and the threat of telling your parents was definitely not empty.  My brother was the trick-or-treat expert, hitting every house within the hour, changing costumes, and going back for more.  And more often than not, it would take until his fourth costume change for a neighbor to get suspicious and bust out, “Haven’t you been here before?”  It didn’t matter though.  My brother had already collected enough candy to stock a shelf at Walgreens, which he stored in a giant black garbage bag under his bed.

Back in the day, we used what we had in our closets to make our costumes.  I had a red dress, I was Little Red Riding Hood.  My mom had her old prom dress, I was a princess.  If we were really lucky, my mom would make us costumes.  One year she made me a white cat suit.  It was really cool, except I ended up saying, “Trick-or-Treat!  I am not a bunny I am a white cat,” at every house.  If we were really, really lucky, my parents would splurge on a store bought costume.  There were witches, vampires, Strawberry Shortcake.  Just about anything you could ever hope to be.  And you felt totally cool in a store bought costume despite the fact that the plastic mask’s eyeholes weren’t even close to your eyes, you were sweating profusely, and you couldn’t actually breathe through the 2cm mouth hole.  But you stumbled blindly and wheezing from house to house as the coolest Batman ever, unless of course it was really cold out and you had to wear your jacket over your costume.  Trick-or-treat fail!

Today’s kids have no concept of our store bought or homemade costumes.  The plastic masks were no doubt recalled after 30,000 kids passed out into their plastic pumpkins.  But today’s costumes are totally off the hook.  The basic ones are kind of similar to our retro costumes, minus the mask.  Pirates and Dracula are still made with that flimsy, seamless material that I have never actually seen used for anything else.  There are a few accessories which generally need after-market parts to get the full effect.  These basic costumes cost about 5 times as much as ours did, but for the really cool costumes, price tags can go into the $100s!  Some kid just showed me a costume he wanted of some kind of Captain Hook looking pirate made of velvet that was $1200!  Are you kidding me?  If I had an extra $1200 I would be spending the week at an all-inclusive adults-only resort in St. John!  Of course there are also middle level costumes for around $60 that use foam or wire as support, and come with a few more accessories.  And homemade costumes?  Not so much.

And then there is the candy.  Anything homemade goes right into the trash.  Today’s trust of strangers does not exist.  Prewrapped is a necessity, and some people even make goody bags with a bunch of stuff inside!  There are pencils and bags of chips, which were unheard of in my day.  So far the best candy my kids received were these giant colorfully wrapped chocolate truffles.  I decided to try one, and lo and behold, it had a liquid center made of BRANDY!!!  No wonder the grandma looking lady passing them out looked so happy.

But in this retro world we inhabit, everything seems to come back around.  Suzanne Collins must have denied permission for Hunger Games costumes, so Katniss is a DIY.  And the Godzilla mask, it’s softer than the plastics masks of yesteryear, but the eyeholes, well, they just don’t line up.

Back to School... With What????

Ahhhh!  Back to school again.  Parents’ annual time for reflection.  Reflecting on our children’s lives, growth, and education, as well as our own unbelievable aging process.  The time of year when the phrases, “How can I have a senior?  I’m too young to have a senior!” and “Wasn’t he just in kindergarten?” get thrown around like a beach ball at a Van Halen concert.

For me, the kids going back to school is a mixed bag.  On one hand, they get to see their friends again, and get back into the routine of learning more advanced stuff.  Plus my daily chore routine kicks back into gear (No more baby carrots and hummus for dinner!  Mom went shopping!)  On the other hand, we all have to get up hours earlier, and the fighting resumes about getting up, getting dressed, homework, gaming time, bedtime, etc. 

Personally, I like hanging out with my kids in the summer.  Ok, not every second (“She touched my leg!  He bit me!  I’m borrrrrred!”)  But for the most part, we have fun taking our time and doing spontaneous fun things.  I know many kids go to camp for the summer, but it is still a refreshing break from homework and math tests.

Some kids, like mine, get a big packet at the end of the year.  This packet contains a welcome letter from their next teacher, a school supply list, and yes…SUMMER HOMEWORK!  Every year since kindergarten, my kids have had summer homework, sometimes worse than others.  Generally, it’s a 10-20 page packet of math and English, with a possible side of something else.  This summer, for example, my first to second grader had a 20 page packet of math and English, and three book reports consisting of 6 components, including a summary, an illustrated cover, and an alternate ending.  Needless to say, he knocked out the packet about 3 weeks into summer break, and the book reports… well, let’s just say there was a lot of door slamming and pillow throwing.  I know that not all school kids get summer homework.  I never did.  I mean it’s called “Summer Break,” as in “a break from school,” homework should NOT be included.  I was tempted to write a letter to the teacher stating that my child did not complete the summer homework because we were camping, going to museums, visiting other cities, and doing interesting things.  I thought better of it, though.  The reality is that in life, you have to do a lot of things you don’t want to do and may think are dumb.  Buck up kid.  You have a few reports due, negative feelings or not.

Aside from the homework, the most interesting information in the summer homework packet for me is the school supply list.  I went to public school, as do my children, and the first time I saw my eldest child’s school supply list, I was incredulous.  There are items on that list that I NEVER had to bring for school.  I know times have changed, but paper towels?  Back in the day, each classroom had a huge bolt of that brown butcher paper which was generally used in the bathroom for hand drying.  It wasn’t actually absorbent, but somehow we managed to get the paint off our hands, and sort of, kind of, dry them.  Glue removal was a problem, but isn’t it always?  What makes today’s kid’s hands so much better than mine?  My mom used the same paper towel for a week.  Wring and reuse, right?  And if not, you can get 18 rolls for $10 at the bulk store.  Can’t the Department of Ed get a good deal on 2 million rolls?  The IRS spent 4 million dollars on office furniture this year alone.  Surely they can shop at Ikea to fund hand cleaning for our country’s schoolchildren.   The first day of school looks like a pilgrimage to see the Brawny Man, or his fifth cousin three times removed, the Generic Brawny Man, in most cases.   And generic paper towels are about as effective as the brown butcher paper, except while the butcher paper just floats on top of the water, the generic paper towels sink and break apart like the Titanic.  In both cases, the water spill is larger after the attempted clean up, and an entire roll of generic Brawny will be used for one beaker spill. 

Then there is the copy paper.  Even if you are trying to delude yourself into thinking your paper towels will be used for your kid, there is no way around the copy paper.  Sometimes the teacher calls for one ream.  Other times it’s two reams.  I once had to supply a teacher with FOUR reams of copy paper!  If a teacher needs 120 reams of copy paper, she is giving way to much homework.  Not to mention that copy paper should not be a school supply.  It should be school supplied.  Although I have to admit it is kinda funny to watch the kids flip over like turtles and get stuck trying to carry 20 lbs of copy paper in their backpacks on the first school day.  As long as no one gets hurt, of course.  Honestly, it’s just a matter of time until homework will be all online, and copy paper will go the way of the 8-track.  Can’t the Pentagon recycle plastic bottles for the Dept. of Ed til then?

In any case, after I finished packing up my children’s school supplies, I wrote a poem about them.  Hope you like it.  I had to write it with eyeliner on an envelope, since I packed up all the paper and pencils:

My School Supply Poem

(Inspired by Joyce Kilmer and Dr. Suess)

I think that I shall never see

Such a list that bothers me.

Five packs of pencils, 1 box tissues

Five dollars for Scholastic News.

I hunt for Post-Its row by row

And wonder where my taxes go.

Copy paper? Not to be mean

But should I send a fax machine?

When I was young, (and maybe you,)

I brought some markers, crayons and glue.

Baby wipes brought in by kids???

My parents would have flipped their lids!

So much stuff our teachers lack,

My son can’t lift his own backpack!

And while big business teems with greed,

Our schools remain in dire need!

So how will education cope?

I guess by parents buying soap.

Have a great school year!

The Bedroom Disaster Made Me Cry

Recently I went to kiss my tween daughter goodnight.  Yes, there are “tweens” now.  I think it is a girl thing and basically covers ages 10-12, you know, when young ladies first show signs of their haughtiness before true teenage angst… But I digress…

So I entered my daughter’s dim bedroom, and felt a sharp pain in my foot.  I quickly moved to the side, tripped over something shin high (humidifier,) and fell into a pile of things both pointy and soft.  I was still a good foot away from her bed, where she was entranced in videos via headphones, so I crawled carefully over to her and removed them.  “What is up with your room???”  I asked emphatically. “I came to kiss you goodnight and I may need stitches!  Do you even know what all this stuff everywhere is???”  She shrugged her shoulders.  “Tomorrow we clean everything!  I’m serious!  Now turn off those videos before I bleed out!”  Then immediately in the sensitive, protective-mom softer tone, “I love you Baby Girl…”  I wasn’t happy, but c’mon, she IS my baby….  I left the room like I was walking through a minefield.

The next day I came to her door with a couple of garbage bags and a lot of determination.  The room looked like the massive devastation scene in an earthquake movie.  “Ok,” I told her, “This one is garbage, this one is donate.  Let’s go!”

We had to start somewhere, so I started at the front door (since I wasn’t risking anymore injuries,) and she started at the bed (where she had been reclining watching videos.)  I knew within the first 15 minutes that we were both in over our heads.  I don’t think I have uttered the phrases, “What is this?’ and “Do you want this?” more times in my entire middle-aged life.  Seriously.  It was like one of those dreams where you are drowning and you finally reach the shore only to get pulled back in again.  Actually, I believe those dreams are called nightmares and result in cold sweats.

Pile after pile we sorted, tossed, and organized.  The entire room:  under the bed, behind the bed, under the dresser, behind the dresser, under the bookshelf, behind the bookshelf, around every corner, more and more piles were attacked.  Some of my highlights include an unopened letter from school that I was supposed to get 4 months ago marked URGENT, a Halloween costume from 3 years ago, and 10,000 candy/gum/cashew wrappers from God knows when.  Wow was I being optimistic with 2 garbage bags!

I finally lost her about two hours in.  “I can’t do this anymore!” she wailed.  “I believe in you!” I encouraged. “We are almost done!”  She picked up a book from under a Monster High slipper and started reading it. Panting and sweating, I carried on alone.

Almost three hours and four garbage bags later I was done.  One bag of donations, and three for the curb.  I felt like I had just run a marathon, collecting trash all the way.  “Now isn’t this better?” I asked, sweat trickling down my neck.  We both surveyed her new clean, organized boudoir.  “Totally!”

So there are two main lessons I came away with from the hellish room cleaning experience: 

 1.   Check the room often and take action!  Make room cleaning a huge priority for your offspring before the hurricane hits.

And  

2.  Don’t cry into the give-away bag.

I know.  I should have learned the first lesson years ago.  Laissez-faire parenting has been out of style since the 80’s.  But lesson 2 kind of took me by surprise.  Of course it was obvious that her princess dress-up clothes and old Halloween costumes were destined for the donation bag, but when she immediately tossed in her nightlight and princess figurines, my heart fluttered.

And there’s the rub.  Your child is growing up.  Outgrowing her old clothes and toys, but sometimes, you are not.  I mean the nightlight…. THE NIGHTLIGHT?  She couldn’t sleep without it from the moment we put her in her crib until she was… well, I thought yesterday.  We brought it on trips by car and plane, and when it stopped working, the company had replaced it with a new “cooler” light, so we scoured thrift stores and garage sales to find an exact “old school” light.  That light was the most important thing to her, thus to us, for such a long time.  For years it was our mission to find another one that worked, and there she is, just tossing it glibly into the donation bag.  A tear mixed into my sweaty face.

And THE PRINCESSES!  Every single Disney princess INCLUDING the uber rare Pocahantas and Mulan!  Received from the Easter Bunny around age 4.  My daughter absolutely loved them.  All of them.  She would play with them for hours at a time.  Lining them up in different ways. Pairing them up with different partners.  Taking them with her everywhere.  And if one was missing, my husband would search through the night and into days to find that little lost princess.  There were a few nights when I had to put my daughter tearfully to sleep with promises that, “Daddy will find Cinderella, just not tonight.” And bless that man, he always did.  I think he used the night vision feature on his video camera at least once to search for a plastic princess in my daughter’s dark room as she slept.  After 7 years, all princesses are present and accounted for, and currently in the discard pile.  Another tear slides down my face.

My sister always tells me that when I clear out my stuff, take it out of the house immediately.  Don’t look in the bag.  Own your decision and move on.  Maybe I shouldn’t have looked in the bag, but I wasn’t sure if she might actually need something and was even paying attention.  How many folders were rescued that she or her brother can use next year?  I know I am a sap and I need to toughen up.  We all know it’s coming, but it still seems sudden.  Our children are really growing up.  Not babies, not toddlers, not even elementary school kids.  My swaddle baby is a tween.  She has a lava lamp and doesn’t play with princesses anymore.

So now, when I kiss her goodnight, a can walk peacefully from the door to her bed without incident.  She is MY baby, but she is a young lady.  I confiscate her cell phone, tuck the covers around her and tell her how much I love her, while a complete set of Disney princesses slumbers in my dresser drawer.

Oh The Things They Say!!!

“Oh the things kids say!”  I am sure you have heard that before.  And they do!  From the toddler telling the people in the checkout line, “My mommy has boobies!” To the Kids in the car complaining, “He farted on me!”  It’s always something.  Sometimes it’s funny at the time.  Lots of times funnier in retrospect… Whatever the case, you never know what is going to come out of your child’s mouth, despite the ongoing explanations you give about “appropriate conversation.”

But did you ever notice the outrageous things that YOU say?  I am not just talking about, “Stop writing on the car!” Or, “Are those my keys in the toilet?”  I have found that some sentences I have spoken (or shouted) to my children border on the insane.  I have too often found the words coming out of my mouth to be so unbelievable, that even I don’t really know if I said them.  I actually started writing down the most preposterous things I have said to my kids in the past few months.  I recommend it for a laugh whenever your frustration is getting the best of you.

Here are my top 20 outlandish utterings, no explanation necessary:

1.       “Please get your pork chop out of your nose.”

2.        “Why is your brother in the dryer?”

3.        “No, he doesn’t really love Hitler more than you.”

4.        “Why is there a $1300 charge for Shopkins on my PayPal?!”  (One of the worst sentences ever btw!)

5.        “Who locked the cat in the refrigerator???”

6.        “Why are you getting off the bus with one shoe?”

7.        “Were you and Lucas really flossing your teeth on the Museum of Modern Art field trip?”

8.        “If you don’t finish your chocolate shake, you are grounded!”  (There was Pediasure in it.)

9.        “Guess what?  It’s cereal-for-dinner night!!!”

10.    “Look!  How cool!  The Swiffer pads fit perfectly on your feet!  Let’s have a skating party!”

11.    “I’ll give you $50 if you let Mommy sleep for another hour.”

12.    “Those are not swords!  Those are for Mommy’s special time of the month!”

13.    “Why exactly are there Band Aids on the air mattress?”

14.    “Those are NOT the clothes you wore to school!”

15.    “Don’t you EVER put something from the restroom floor in your eye!!”

16.    “Ummmm…  Those people are just hugging because they are happy to see each other… I thought this channel was blocked!”

17.    “People don’t normally eat peanut butter and mayonnaise in the same sandwich, but okay.”

18.    “Cameltoe is when you can see the outline of your vagina through your clothes, and you are NOT wearing those leggings to school, or EVER again!”

19.    “Did you really tell your teacher you stay in the bathtub longer to play with your winkie?”

20.    “Thank you, and I appreciate your criticisms, but I can write my blog myself.”

Maybe my kids are extremely rambunctious.  I think it’s more like children are just honest.  They have yet to learn society’s perimeters of verbal acceptability.  It’s actually kind of sad when they start holding in their true feelings and your conversations get blander.  Whatever the case, there is one sentence that will always be the best to say and definitely the best to hear:  “I love you!”

The Ice Cream Man! Guaranteeeeeeed to satsfy!

Ahhhh! Summer!  The time of year where it goes from 40 to 100 degrees overnight, and also in the car, before you figure out that all the kids rolled down their windows with the AC on.  Thank you person who invented the driver’s window lock!

Goodbye early morning drop offs!  Hello amusement parks and sunny beach days that turn cloudy then sunny again when you’ve packed up all your stuff.  And no summer would be complete without The Ice Cream Man!  You can hear the jingle coming from 5 miles away, and no matter how high you crank up your 80s compilation cd, the kids can still hear him despite their windows being completely up, and locked of course.

I live very close to the beach, so we generally see The Ice Cream Man every day parked practically next to our house.  Of course I had a long talk with my kids explaining that getting ice cream truck goodies is a special treat despite our heavily trafficked location, and surprisingly enough, they kinda get it, and don’t beg for Spiderman faces with bubblegum eyes any more than I did as a kid when my local ice cream truck wasn’t parked in my driveway.

I have fond memories of the ice cream truck from my childhood.  The driver was always a guy, sometimes a long haired, acne covered teenager.  He always drove slowly, and would wait for anyone running down the street to catch him.  Some of the ice cream men even knew the kids’ names, and they generally came by after dinner to soft serve dessert.  I remember once my dad paid $10 to buy all the neighborhood kids ice cream.  I think he got change, too.  Obviously that doesn’t happen anymore, but it is still the ice cream truck, so you have to partake every now and again.

This summer I haven’t seen as much of The Ice Cream Man as usual.  I did see him today, though.  He was going 30 in a 25 zone and flew right past this kid standing on the sidewalk waving a five dollar bill.  Realizing the error of his ways, he slammed on his brakes and stopped right in the middle of the street.  Since I was driving right behind him, so I stopped and waited, figuring he would pull over to wait for the kid.  Nope.  Finally I honked at him lightly, and he did pull over.  As I drove around him he flashed a big moronic smile, but I had to smile back.  I mean he is The Ice Cream Man, and this was a much better experience than I had with a different Ice Cream Man last year.

It was a super hot day last summer, and my kids were being really good.  We spent the day at the beach, and I told them that as a special treat, after dinner we would go to the ice cream truck.  Both kids were awesome at dinner, and we set off to see The Ice Cream Man with excitement and a twenty.  Of course that day he wasn’t parked on our lawn, but I explained to the kids that he surely was around somewhere, and scouting for the ice cream truck is actually a legendary childhood rite of passage.

We found the ice cream truck parked a few blocks away, and my kids bolted happily to the truck window to select their choices.  I saw The Ice Cream Man exiting the truck on the other side.  Running up to him I yelled, “Wait!  We want to buy some ice cream!”  I notice he had turned off the truck, which is always a bad sign.  I pictured the bubble gum eyed Pink Panther melting like the Wicked Witch of the West.  “I be right back,“ The Ice Cream Man replied.  He was probably in his 50s and spoke with a strong Russian accent.  “But where are you going?” I asked desperately.  “I need to test drive car,” he told me, “Need new car.”  He pointed to a car at the curb with a “For Sale” sign on it next to a man holding keys.  “But can’t you sell us ice cream and then test drive the car?  We only need two things!” I was practically begging at this point.  “I need car.  I look at car, I come back and get ice cream.”  And then he was gone.  I stood there dumfounded.  Did this really just happen?  Was the ice cream man seriously going to be cruising around the neighborhood in a used car while my kids eagerly awaited him by the non-running ice cream truck window?  This is not how it is supposed to go!  I flashed back to my childhood and saw The Friendly Ice Cream Man in his white uniform waiting in his chilly truck for kids running towards him from half a block away. No, this is ABSOLUTELY not how it is supposed to go! 

Now normally I would have cursed him and gone home, but my kids were so excited.  I promised them ice cream truck treats, and they deserved them.  So, I went around the truck to talk to my enthusiastic offspring. 

“I’m getting a King Kone!”

“I’m getting a Monster High Melt!” They exclaimed. 

“Well,” I told them, “The Ice Cream Man had to run an errand real quick.  He had to leave the truck, but he will be back soon to get your ice creams.”

“Wait,” my son cried out, “Is that him?”

Sure enough, there he was, rounding the corner at top speed.  We all jumped back a few feet out of instinct.

“That’s him,” I confirmed.  “He’s thinking about buying that car, so he’s going to drive it around for a few minutes.”

So, for the next 15 minutes, we watched The Ice Cream Man tooling around and around and around the block, testing out the limits of his potential new ride, as the ice cream truck stood by idly getting warmer and warmer.  And let me tell you, 15 minutes is like 500 hours when you are waiting by a 

driverless ice cream truck, money in hand, no matter how old you are.

Finally, The Ice Cream Man came screeching to a stop in the car’s driveway. “Thank God!” I thought, breathing a huge sigh of relief.  Not so fast.  The Ice Cream Man and the car owner proceeded to get into a heated exchange in Russian.  I had no idea what they were saying, but I assumed they were haggling over the car.  The debate kept escalating until both parties were screaming at each other, and The Ice Cream Man eventually walked away in disgust.  He came back into his truck and poked his head out of the window. 

“You believe it!” he huffed to me, “That car need new tires!  New battery! New brakes!”

“That’s terrible,” I consoled him, “But can you please turn on the truck?” 

“It is terrible!” He declared starting up the truck, “What you want?” 

My children ordered quickly, probably fearing a sudden ice cream man departure, and we walked home $7.00 lighter.

As a mom, I find myself constantly comparing my children’s childhood to my own.  So much has changed, including The Ice Cream Man.  Unlike my parents, I cannot buy a round for the neighborhood from The Ice Cream Man for ten bucks, but he can park on my grass as long as he stays in the truck! 

The Mom of Rock

A long time ago, far, far away, I was the Queen of Rock.  Seriously, I was.  I spent a decade on the radio, and at one point, I was dubbed “The Queen of Rock.” 

Working in the music business was an amazing journey for me, stemming from a passion for music that was reinforced by my dad when he came home with the Bay City Rollers album, “Dedication” when I was in second grade, and further escalated in junior high when I was told, “Don’t stop believing.  Hold on to that feeling,” and “I’ve got the magic power of the music in me.”

Then, my life changed dramatically when I became “The Mommy of Rock,” and ultimately “Mommy.”  The transition was pretty huge for me, but I embraced it, and set out to find myself, in my new role, and maybe somehow bridge the gap between these two parts of my life.

The first step to paving the bridge is of course the cool onesie.  You know, the infant bodysuit that is the staple of babies everywhere.  “It’s a girl!” had no influence on the black Led Zeppelin onesie, or the Ramones onesie, or the Slipknot onesie.  I don’t think any infant girl wore more black than mine, including Bella Lugosi’s daughter.  We had Judas Priest, AC/CD, and of course the ever popular “I Wanna Rock!”  In fact, onesies just keep getting more and more extreme as time goes on.  There are all kinds of funny sayings and pictures.  They even sell them at the big chain baby stores now.  Onesies have definitely gone from simple white undershirts to statement pieces, the statement being made by the parents, of course.  And as we laugh at other babies outrageous bodysuits, parents’ minds are already scheming about where to find that laugh-out-loud onesie and where to find a better one.

The next step in bridge building is noise cancelling headphones.  Gwyneth Paltrow was photographed at her Coldplay husband’s (I have no idea if they are still married, btw.  I am still looking for my original set of car keys…) show with her kids wearing such headphones.  What a great idea!  And if they are good enough for Gwyneth’s kids, they are good enough for mine.  In fact, a friend of mine actually gave my daughter the exact same headphones for her first birthday.  Score!  Owning kid noise cancelling headphones means that you are now ready to take your child to a concert.  Much like a passport, kid headphones insure the idea that when the circumstances present themselves, you and baby are there.

My time actually presented itself sooner than I expected.  When my daughter was about 2, my friend happened to get box seats at a big rock show.  I was hesitant at first, but my friend swore it would be fine, and after all, my toddler had noise cancelling headphones.  I explained to my daughter where we were going, and we created a signal for when she had enough:  She would pull on my arm and pat her face.  She was actually excited to wear the headphones, and wore them in the car all the way to the show.

Well, we got in without incident (yes, she needed a ticket!)  We even had VIP parking with our box seats, but as soon as we hit the crowd, I could tell that my decision to take a toddler to a rock show was a controversial one.  Everyone looked at us.  Some people gave the big thumbs up and told me how great I was, but some people were not so thrilled.  You would have thought I dressed up like Hitler and put swastika armbands on my daughter by the way some people reacted.  I got death stares and nasty comments, but when we got to our amazing seats, my daughter was awestruck.  She was dancing to the first band, and when she signaled me that she was done during the second band, we left.  She seemed to enjoy herself, but I decided to wait a while until I rocked out with her again.

I wanted to continue building my daughter’s relationship with music, both recorded and live.  The next four years or so I consider the “Kid Show” years.  You know, Disney on Ice, Sesame Street Live.  All the kidcentric entertainment that we could afford without mortgaging our house.  Then when child two came along, we got a little bit more band intensive.  The Imagination Movers, Music for Aardvarks, and those annoying Fresh Beats who inspired me to get my own noise cancelling headphones.  Unfortunately I could still hear the band, so I guess mine didn’t cancel all the noise.  That actually brings me to an important point:  It’s great to take your kids to live shows, but don’t torture yourself in the process.  The live music experience opens your child’s eyes to the exciting performance aspect of music and the thrill of being in the audience, but if the characters and the songs hit your unbearable meter, skip them.  There are plenty more Bubble Guppies in the sea.

Another important element in music bridge building is the car.  As a mom, you spend more time in the car than Tolstoy spent writing War and Peace.  Many parents play kid cds in the car.  There is even Radio Disney to get the party started.  I am not one of those parents.  I need music when I drive, MY MUSIC.  It is stressful enough just driving in NYC.  I am not adding onto the problem with some annoying kids’ band.  And honestly, my kids are developing an appreciation for rock and roll classics.  They can identify the Beatles, the Stones, Led Zeppelin, and The Ramones.  Plus I tell them about the bands:  the British Invasion, the origins of punk, the influence of the blues, and whatever interesting PC stories I know.  Yeah, they hear pop music in school.  I will even play Katy Perry and Paramore, but I am happy my kids know what came first.  Even the Go-Gos are a big hit in my car.  Seriously, 80s music sounds like it was created for kids.  I will choose “Hey Mickey,” over Mickey Mouse every time.

My children are in elementary school now, and that is really a great time to expand their musical worlds.  We are not throwing them into the mosh pit (although I have seriously thought about it at times!) but they have seen mainstream acts such as the Goo Goo Dolls, Nickelback, and Lynyrd Skynyrd.  Both my kids wore their noise cancelling headphones, and they both watched intently and even raised their hands up and sang the chorus with the crowd.

All in all, I feel pretty good about the rock and roll education my kids are getting.  I never tell them what to like, but they often tell me what they like.  They both wanted to go to the limited release Led Zeppelin movie several months ago, so I took them.  Robert Plant’s pants were even tighter on the giant screen (I didn’t make a big deal about it except in my head!) but my kids focused on the performance, and they loved it.  They talk about it still.  I have often heard that the most important tenet of parenting is to be yourself, and I believe it.  After all, your kids have some of your genetics.  Maybe mine got the “Queen of Rock” genes from me.