Bed head.
"Flat on your back" gets a whole new meaning.

by Terri Mauro

Is it fall yet?
Four more weeks of fun, fun, fun.

by Terri Mauro

One more month of summer before school starts. One more month. Thirtysomething days. Four long weeks. A short time, and yet an eternity. It will fly by, I know it will fly by. But will it be quick enough to keep me from suffering kid overload?

The summer so far has been manageable, barely. We've had our big month o' camps--two weeks of church camp for both kids, then one week of basketball camp and one week of our city-run camp for my daughter, four weeks of special-needs camp for my son. After today, there's no more camp of any sort. We're camp-free. Just hangin' out at home. Relaxin'. Havin' fun. Playin' games. Buggin' mom.

My daughter has actually been home-bound for these last two weeks, and we've survived. Of course, she's easy--if there's a TV set with Nickelodeon on hand, she can amuse herself for hours. These past weeks she's broadened her show selection, adding Regis's and Rosie's morning shows. A "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" fan, she often declares her deep and abiding love for Mr. Philbin and her intention to marry him. Finding out that he had a morning show, too, was a treat. Seeing him co-hosting with his wife this week may upset her plans, but she's enjoyed watching her Regis all the same. And Rosie is "so cute." I've made sure the TV got switched to kiddie fare before "The View," though, 'cause they discuss things there I don't want her to, well, view. Then again, maybe I should save myself the trouble; she's been spending more and more time downstairs with Grandma watching soap operas, and we all know how discrete and chaste those programs are.

It keeps her busy, anyway. But from here on in, it gets complicated. Next week we go on vacation, which will be a week of relaxation surrounded by two extremely stressful, overly long airplane rides. When we get back, it's straight into three weeks of under-occupied children, and though my daughter just wants to watch, my son will want to play. Play outside, play with me in his room, play Candyland, play recycling with odd objects from around the house, play with the newspapers by distributing them all over the floor, play with the beanbag chairs by dropping them down the stairs, play with the drawers and doors by opening and shutting them over and over, play with his skin by picking off scabs, play, play, play, play, play.

Where do you go to get that year-around school, anyway?

We're back
And against all odds, we had a pleasant flight.

by Terri Mauro

I report back to you from the land of airplane travel that yes, it is still possible to go to an airport, get on a plane, and arrive at your destination in a reasonable period of time. This is news because on every channel, in every paper, you'll read about people who have not had such luck. Everywhere are reports about delays, canceled flights, people trapped in terminals, people trapped on runways, disgruntled pilots, deceptive airline personnel, dejected passengers. And yet my little family managed to sneak through without incident.

Of course, most of the bad reports have been about United, and we were flying American. This was just dumb luck, because I wasn't thinking about pilot strikes and mechanic strikes when I made the reservations. American's crews are apparently happy campers, and not prone to leaving customers stranded and steaming, and for that I thank them. Now, on the return flight, they did arrive at the airport late enough to bump our departure time by a half-hour, but arrive they did, and the pilot politely made up most of that time in the air. No complaint from me; hey, I'm late to work all the time.

It may also have helped that we were on non-stop flights between Newark and Los Angeles, with no time whatsoever in Chicago. The Windy City appears to be the root of all airline evil these days. People speak of it in hushed tones. "If it's bad in Chicago, it's bad everywhere," a steward told a passenger, shaking his head in rueful amazement. Things must have been happy at O'Hare the last two Saturdays, because badness did not trickle down.

Well, there was a little badness, but it wasn't schedule-related. It was seat-assignment related, and it was just stupid. Why, do you suppose, would they scatter a party of four, with two children, all around the cabin? We gave the children's ages when we made the reservation; doesn't that information reside somewhere? On our flight out to L.A., we were assigned two seats together, another seat seven rows away, and the last seat seven rows farther still. On the way back, we had three seats together--but one was across the aisle from the other two. Now, I have one highly hyperactive seven-year-old who requires constant supervision, and one quiet 10-year-old who will throw up if she doesn't have her head in my lap for most of the flight. Which of my unaccompanied children would you like to sit next to?

In both cases, the nice lady at the gate was able to switch things around to at least give us two-and-two. Going out, those two-and-two were many rows apart, giving me a long peaceful ride with my mostly sleeping (and mercifully not vomiting) daughter and my husband a long lively ride with my mostly not sleeping son. Going back, we had the best arrangement possible: Two-and-two, with my son and husband directly behind my daughter and I. Or, more specific, my son right behind me, so that we did not have to yell at him for five hours to STOP KICKING THE SEAT. It is impossible to get him to stop kicking the seat in front of him because his feet don't reach the ground, and his knees don't reach the end of the seat to bend, and in the super-spacious coach section the seat in front of him is about an inch away, and his feet have to be somewhere. It is impossible, but people expect you to try. The best I can usually do is take his shoes off so it's at least a softer kick.

My advice, then, for people traveling with children, is to sit short kicking kids behind one of their parents, or at least behind a stranger who is a parent and knows that there are much worse things a kid could be doing. Arrive at the airport two hours early so that your children can actually be seated with you (I know you are thinking that being seated away from your children would make for a much nicer flight, but think of your legal liability toward the other passengers). And most important of all: Stay the heck away from Chicago.

Presidential psychology.
Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be politicians.

by Terri Mauro

Want your kid to grow up to be president? He or she won't have to run against one of mine; since they were born in Russia, they're ineligible, at least under current law. And given the reputation-scarring, gray-hair-inducing, crucible of fire the presidency has become of late, it's hard to know why anyone would wish that on their offspring. A White House staffer who could quit and write a best-selling book, maybe. But president? Why not something a little safer, like snake handling or fire-fighting?

Ill-conceived conversation
Childbirth again? Change the subject!

by Terri Mauro

What is it about women getting together that forces them to talk about childbirth? Seems every time I go to a wedding shower or a baby shower or just a party where the women congregate in the kitchen, the conversation invariably veers toward pregnancy and labor and all their attendant discomforts. The mommies-to-be and the moms-that-have-been compare notes on who had the worst morning sickness, or the largest weight gain, or the most uncomfortable weather, or the least competent spouse. Sometimes someone will hold forth with a long involved story of delivery difficulty that everyone has heard before but listens to admiringly again.

At such times, I might as well just fade into the woodwork, or fall through the floor, for all the contribution I’m going to make to the conversation. As an adoptive parent and someone who never got very far with fertility treatments, I don’t begrudge fertile folks their ability to bear children, but sheesh, do I have to hear about it all the time? I’m usually not the only one falling silent—there’s usually an unmarried woman or a married woman who hasn’t had kids yet in the crowd, and we stand there like children listening to their father tell war stories, waiting for it to be over so we can go play.

You'd think that it might occur to someone that childless people in the room might be uncomfortable with all this talk. But then again, I suppose I blather on about my kids without considering whether people might be uncomfortable with that. Now, of course, my kids are wonderful and endlessly fascinating and who wouldn't want to know their every move? I suppose, though, that for someone having trouble having children, hearing about childish exploits might be as saddening as hearing about childbearing ones.

So maybe we should all just start talking about the weather. Or maybe I should just stop being so sensitive. In truth, there is one good thing about listening to endless stories about epidurals and episiotomies: They make me appreciate adoption all the more. I mean, we had a miserable time in Russia, and got stuck there far longer than we anticipated, but in the end, it was only a month, and I think I might have actually lost weight. No surgery, no hospitilization, no morning sickness (though the food did sometimes make me a little nauseated). And through it all, my husband was suffering just as much as I. Clearly these pregnant people are going about it all wrong, and next time I hear them go on I shall just sit back and gloat. Give me my kids ready-made, you bet.

copyright © 2000 by Terri Mauro