I won’t lie: There were jobs in my past where I would wake up in the morning, see that I was already going to be late, groan and think “What excuse could I give them today?” There were jobs that threatened if I was late once more, I’d be put on probation. So when I awoke ten minutes before clock-in time, I wouldn’t call in late – I’d call in sick. “Better late than never” was not part of their philosophy.

I was also infamous among my friends for sleeping a lot. A LOT. As in, 12 or 14 hours a whack. One day I slept 20 hours in a row. I was mocked, I was insulted. But I was well-rested.

Then I became a mother.

Mothers – single parents or not – are not allowed such luxuries as sick days and sleeping in. My toddler gets up the same time every morning, no matter what time I eventually fall asleep, or for how long. There’s no baby snooze alarm, there’s no “just another hour.” There’s no wheedling excuses for not doing your job. Get up and take care of business. End of story.

I have felt like hammered manure for ten days now. The Weather Channel reports that the pollen level is “astronomical,” and I am suffering a brutal assault. Despite a trip to the doctor and the emergency room, I am still miserable. My throat is on fire, my ears are throbbing, my sinuses are pounding. I wake up on the hour all night.

And I get up every day at 6:45 a.m. to the musical beckoning of “Mommeeeee… come get meeee…” from the other room.

Before I had a child, I used to always point out that one of the reasons I had no interest in reproducing was the locked-in finality of being a parent. You can always quit a job, get divorced, move. But man, you’re stuck with that kid! 

And it goes further. You’re stuck with that JOB. I can’t be lazy anymore (well, as much). I have eaten walnuts and canned green beans for dinner before, because I was too lazy/tired/unmotivated to cook. But I can’t do that for my daughter. I won’t. And when she wakes up, I have to get up and make her breakfast. There’s no calling out sick.

I think this is that thing I keep hearing about: “being responsible.” Glad I finally learned it – better late than never.

(With apologies to Prince for borrowing the title of his song…) 

My daughter has not as yet been afflicted with the short-attention-span menace that seems to affect so many of the younger generations.  She can still sit and stare, as if for the first time, at the same cartoons on PBS, the same “Thomas the Tank Engine” video, the same books, over and over.  Every day.

Don’t get me wrong; we buy her new stuff.  New books, new videos, new stuffed animals.  But time and again she falls back on the familiar ones, the tried-and-true rote play that seems to entertain her the most.  And while her minimalism and ease of self-entertainment is a nice concept, in reality, it makes me – and the other caregivers who have to endure the monotony – want to run screaming from the house.  As in, “if I have to watch the same Christmas-themed episode of ‘Thomas’ one more time, I’m gonna climb a clocktower with a high-powered rifle.”

I jest, of course.  Mostly.

I suppose this should be an expected downside to the mantra of “children crave routine” that’s been drilled into so many parents’ heads.  Yes, it’s nice to have a predictable framework for the day.  But when the minutiae in said framework is the same, all the time, it gets a bit hard to take for the over-2 set.  I love spending time with my daughter playing with her stuffed animals, but how many conversations can I have that are “ ‘Hello, Red Bird, how are you?’ ‘I’m fine, Ducky, how are you?’ ‘Let’s go to my house.’ ‘OK.’ ” 

She wants to play with the same blocks over and over.  She wants to go for the same walk outside.  She wants me to sing the same songs every night at bedtime.  Yes, I am glad she finds comfort and calm in these things.  And I’m certainly not worried I have a future “Rainman” on my hands.  But it will be a big change in my life when that inevitable switch is thrown and she, like most other kids, is no longer satisfied with any diversion for more than a minute.  Soon enough, the Consumerism Beast will rear its ugly head, no matter how much I try to prevent it from happening.

In the meantime, I will sing “You Are My Sunshine” for the millionth time.  I will hide the stuffed animals in the same locations.  And I will worry that I’m finding The Man in the Yellow Hat from “Curious George” strangely attractive…

When I was filling out my birthing plan for the hospital, I haughtily demanded that my newborn not be given a pacifier.  I didn’t want to start any dependence on a foreign object for infant soothing.

I was, in a word, an idiot.

After the third brutal wake-up call from the overnight nurse throwing on the light and clattering cheerfully into my room with my squalling infant in her bassinet, I conceded.  At that point, I didn’t care if they stuck a rutabaga in her mouth.  I just wanted more than two consecutive hours of sleep.

As her first year ended, my daughter seemed to be losing interest in her pacifier.  She was only using it to fall asleep anyway, and once it fell out in the night, she wasn’t freaking out or anything.  But now that she’s in her second year, a surprising and uncomfortable trend has begun: She seems to want it for the majority of her waking hours now.  She absolutely will not let me back out of the driveway without her “car binkie.”  If she hurts herself in any way (real or imagined), she whimpers “I need my binkie, Mama!”  And of course, if she’s tired at all, it is ferreted out from wherever I may have secreted it.

I’m not terribly concerned about it, at this point.  She’s not even two and a half yet.  Although I never had a pacifier, I certainly sucked my thumb until at least first grade.  And based on her genetic recipe, this kid’s gonna need braces no matter what. 

There’s a lot of chatter, both pro and con, about the use of pacifiers.  The Mayo Clinic Website has this to say:

The pros

The cons

Pacifier do's and don'ts

I haven’t experienced any of the “cons” listed above.  She’s never had an ear infection, her teeth look great (so far), and it didn’t seem to affect breastfeeding at all.

I have managed to get her to concede to not using the pacifier in public.  I usually just say “let’s leave the car binkie here so we know where it is,” unless I am foolishly, inconsiderately trying to squeeze out one more errand before her naptime.

Unless she weans herself off it beforehand, I don’t think I’ll start any full-scale Project De-Binkify before she’s at least three years old.  Parenting.com apparently agrees with this plan.  And Parents.com has suggestions when the time is right – that time, by the way, greatly varying depending on child or expert asked.  One is a three-day countdown to rounding them up and getting rid of them; another is a gradual phase-out.  I also know people who have done the “Binkie Fairy” thing, much like the Tooth Fairy, who shows up and takes pacifiers away to babies who need them.

I don’t know what method I’ll use, or when exactly I’ll decide to undertake that project. I think Project De-Diaperfy will take precedence to the former.  But that’s a subject for another blog entry…

I went food shopping today.  Let me read you some of the items purchased:  organic 2% milk; bananas, strawberries and blackberries; omega-3 and flax pita bread; 99% lean ground turkey; wild-caught salmon.

And salt-and-vinegar potato chips.  And marshmallow Whippets.

I’ve spent a lot of the last two years banging on about two things: how I hate my weight, and how I am hell-bent on breaking the cycle of sugar addiction and obesity in my family, by raising my daughter to love healthy, whole, “clean” food.

Maybe I should actually set an example.

I used to have a bumper sticker that said “If you can’t be a role model, be a terrible warning.”  I found it amusing – back when I didn’t have two big blue eyes staring adoringly up at me, looking for guidance.  Now it’s more than time for me to step up to the plate – and said plate should only have food on it that I would want my daughter to eat.

Since she’s been eating solid foods, I’ve found myself eating certain foods in secret, behind her back.  I’d be rocking her to sleep, fantasizing about what I’d plow through once she was in her crib.  Like, say, the empty box of Whippets sitting next to my computer as I type this.

I don’t want to be a “do what I say, not what I do” mother.  I don’t want my kid to finally put it together and say “wait a minute!  How come you’re eating Lucky Charms and I can’t?”  That’s not fair. 

And more pressing is the fact that I’m a single parent.  I can’t afford to be lax about my health.  I don’t want anyone else raising my daughter because I dug my own grave with a fork and a spoon.

Tonight I’m having a presentation at my house about eating to maintain correct blood-sugar levels, and eating based on the glycemic index.  If you’re interested in reading about it, you can also check it out online.  I think it will be a good fit for me, as I currently eat sporadically and therefore overcompensate when I do, which is not conducive to weight loss or health. 

I’ve also been spending more time outdoors, as it’s finally feasible to do so.  I even went for a run/walk last night (in the dark, of course!).  I wish I had a friend to go walking with around here; there’s a great rail trail near my house, and Mine Falls, but I don’t feel 100% safe to go alone as a woman, especially with a toddler.

Anyway… Bottom line is this: I want my daughter to look up to me, to see me as a successful role model worthy of emulation.  And the only way to ensure that is to become that person.  Cue the Hoobastank song…

I realized with some alarm last week that it is 2008.  This probably should have registered, oh, say, in January.  But suddenly, as I looked at the number 2008, I realized that this year was a … let’s say… noteworthy anniversary of my high school graduation.  This will undoubtedly be feted with some lavish reunion organized by those in my class who actually enjoyed high school.  All both of them.

I have only attended one reunion thus far.  It was our fifth.  I felt positive about attending because I was young, thin, married and happy.  Oh, I looked *good*, people.  I wore a white-tassel flapper dress.  Hey, it was the 80s.

After that, well… I had begun the mantra that would haunt me all the way to my late thirties: “What do I have to show for my life?”

After losing my husband, weight fluctuations, floundering with a career direction, no children, nickel-and-dime-ing my way through college… I didn’t feel like going back and reporting to my peers.  I’d had so much going for me; surely I should have accomplished something “by now.” 

I think the only person that could possibly make me feel better would be fellow classmate Linda Ayers.  Or, she could make me want to jump off a bridge.  Linda and I had so much in common that I felt like we could have been two “compare and contrast” lab rats.  We were both born on the same day, we both skipped the same grade; we were both pale, scrawny, bespeckled and tended towards nerdosity.  However, only one of us was valedictorian – and it wasn’t me.  I always thought that, eventually, I’d see Linda’s name in the news about how she’d found a cure for cancer.  Meanwhile, her potential-doppelganger was fronting a cover band and wondering why she couldn’t keep a successful relationship going.

I thought that if I ran into Linda and she was just a normal housewife with a boring job, too (not that my job now is boring, but I’ve certainly had decades of ennui), that maybe I would feel some personal acceptance of my perceived lack of output.  But that never happened.

I was still meeting with a counselor about my self-imposed “what do I have to show for it” failure obsession when the Second Act of my life started.  When that tiny cell divided inside me, my life divided into “that was then” and “this is now.”  I let all the past detritus slough away.  I had a whole new life to contend with – figuratively and literally.

If I do end up getting an invitation to a class reunion this year, I just might go.  Hello, my name is Kathleen.  And I have Something to Show For It.

Some of my co-workers were recently discussing their older children, and were smiling ruefully as they recalled the years gone by, and how quickly they’ve flown.  David said “I already have anticipatory nostalgia” about his youngest, as he watches his child’s childhood disappear.

I can totally dig that.

My kid is only two (and a quarter, but hey, who’s counting?  Oh, right – that’s the point of this blog), and already I’m saying “HEY!  Let’s put on the brakes here!”  I see a newborn and I can’t believe my 31 lb. toddler was once only 8 lbs., 5 oz.  I look at her little bald baby pictures as I stroke her downy blonde hair.  I think about how she was so small, it was awkward to hold her.  Now she’s so long, it’s awkward to hold her.  I remember mouthing the vowels to her as I changed her diaper; now she says “thank you, Mommy!” as I change her diaper.

I now understand why people have more than one child.  Once the first baby hits two, you’re like, “wait, that went by too fast!  Let me try it again!  I’ll pay better attention this time!  I’ll revel, I swear!”  Of course, the second time you’re doubly exhausted, because now you also have a toddler vying for your time.  But people manage to do it.  Over and over.  God bless ya.

I think having my baby at a later point in my life has really driven home the need to live in the Now with her, to savor it, to be present as much as possible.  I don’t have the luxury of time, or the possibility of having another one (let’s be realistic; my last date was… when?).  Sometimes I get razzed for taking so many photos of her.  But I already see the months and years flying by, and with the quality of my short-term memory, I’m gonna need some visual aids to jar things in a few years.  HA!  I’m not kidding.

Over a decade ago, my friend “Sharon” had her first son.  She told me early on that she was already fretting about “empty nest syndrome,” imagining his eventual departure.  I think he was under a year old at the time.  As a single, self-absorbed person at the time, I couldn’t fathom what she was talking about.  I thought it was bizarre.  “She’s already crying at the thought of him leaving her… someday?  Like, eighteen years from now?”

I get it now, Sharon.

Anticipatory nostalgia isn’t as bad as retroactive nostalgia.  Because knowing ahead of time that you’re going to miss these current times helps you recommit to cherishing them now.  There’s no regret yet, no woulda/coulda/shouldas.  There’s still time to craft and perfect the experience you’ll be rerunning in your mind ad infinitum someday.  There’s still time to make the precious memories you’ll be smiling about in your dotage.  Or in my case, my fifties.  HA!  I’m not kidding. 

I think I’ll go make some Play-Doh animals with my daughter now…

It’s non-existent. 

Wow!  Short article!    

So.

I’ve been thinking about dating lately.  (Yes, let’s say “dating,” since this is a family newspaper. HA!)  I’m in such a quandary about it, though, I am paralyzed into inaction.  There are so many things for me to consider before re-entering the dating pool, I can’t even dip my toe in without freaking out.  I get as far as doing the free search on match.com (motto:  “It’s OK to look”); when I actually find a profile that piques my interest (and at last fishing expedition, it was a whopping total of three – out of 100 profiles) and am prompted to “take the next step and set up a profile,” I shut down the page faster than if it was porn and my mom was coming into the room.  I justify this reaction with “well, most of these guys list ‘sarcasm’ as a turn-off, so clearly…”  And don’t get me started on the “desired body type” requirements of the average male.

(By the way, if you ARE looking, check out the Telegraph's own personal ads in the Encore section...)

I did, in one incendiary moment, sign up for chemistry.com months ago – solely because the questionnaire was so darn fun.  And, by the way, long before the (validating) commercials about it, I too was rejected by e-Harmony after taking the LSAT they call their questionnaire.  It took longer than some dates I’ve been on.

But the next day, when chemistry.com sent me five matches in my area – and two men that had read my profile and wanted to meet me – I took my page down.  Ack!  I felt exposed, terrified.  I just wanted to look!  I wanted to see who might be out there eventually!  What do you mean, they want to meet me now?

I wasn’t always like this.

But now I’m a mother (whereas before, I was just a ‘mutha’).  Now I have to screen potential dates through a whole different set of criteria.  I can’t just consider my own druthers (“he’s a smart, funny, witty, sexy musician that cooks!”); now I have to extrapolate out much further than a few dates down the road.  Is this someone I could see myself dating for more than a few months?  Is he good and kind around children?  Is he too much of a child himself, instead of a responsible adult?  (This tends to go with the ‘musician’ portion of our program.)  Would I want this person to meet my daughter?  And of course, even further out from there, to the whole life-sharing thing – the prospect of which makes me clench up several areas of my body, and not in a good way.

When I had my baby, I made a commitment to her: that I would devote the rest of my life to her, and make her my number-one priority and focus.  As she should be.  I told my friends that I was not going to date ever again –  that I’d had over twenty years of dating, and that I could and should focus all that passion and intensity on raising a happy, healthy child.

Well, yeah.  But…

As the years of my born-again virginity start to pile up, however, I have to cop to the fact that in order to be a great mom, I also have to be a happy person myself.  And while I’m still reticent about committing myself to an online dating profile, much less a full-blown relationship, well… maybe I’d be willing to go out for sushi or a hike with someone of the opposite sex.

Who doesn’t mind sarcasm...

Not having had a lot of experience with children before having one myself, I knew very little about timelines for behavior and growth benchmarks.  I read a half-dozen books during my pregnancy, but am still surprised on an almost-daily basis at how fast my “baby” is turning into an independent little person.  Things I expected to happen around four, or at least three, are happening already.  And it’s a bit jarring sometimes.

Last week, I got home from work and was greeted by my babysitting mother, who had a bemused look on her face.  When asked to elaborate, she said “we have a new bedtime routine, apparently.”

Now, I’ve been proud of our ability to establish a schedule and routine with my daughter, from dinner to crib.  She seems to like having a plan, and will recite it for you: “Dinner, bath, jammies, brush teeth, brush hair, Mama read stories, go ni-night in the crib.” 

Well apparently, she decided one step needed adjusting.  Mom handed me the digital camera.  Pictured was my daughter, sitting in the rocking chair, reading stories to her Snoopy.  Alone.

When they got to that step, she told my mother “Baby read stories herself to Snoopy.”  (“‘Herself’?”  my mother interjects at this point.  “She knows the word ‘herself’?”)  She asked for her blanket and her binkie, and a stack of books.  Mom complied.  “Go please,” my two-year-old then instructed her, adding “close the door.”

She’s TWO!

After that, it’s been the same every night.  She “reads” a few books to Snoopy, ensconced in her blanket and the rocking chair we’d previously shared.  She’ll usually let me or her sitter rock her in the dark afterwards, as we used to do, so at least we haven’t been totally shipped out to pasture on the bedtime ritual.

There are other “Baby do it myself!” moments throughout the day – she wants to Velcro her own sneakers (I could force her to need me by buying shoes with laces, I suppose.  HA!), she takes off her own socks… Lately she evens wants to undo her own diaper.  But we don’t need that kind of mess, thank you!

Her burgeoning independence has its benefits and fun moments, of course.  She’s been helping me load and unload the dishwasher and washer/dryer since she was eighteen months old.  She shocked me months ago when she inserted her “Thomas the Tank Engine” tape into the VCR, turned it on, and pushed “Play.”  She just mastered peeling her own banana and using a straw.  She’s got the fork and spoon down pat.  And thankfully, she seems to enjoy brushing her own teeth and hair (although, Mommy gives them both a once-over after she’s done).  She is now also fully responsible for feeding the cats at dinnertime (after I open the can for her).  That’s pretty cute – especially when she calls them: “Kittieeeeees!   NUM-nums!”

I’ll take advantage of her desire to stretch her independence muscles, and enjoy her volunteering to help out with cleaning up and other menial chores as long as I can.  I know eventually she’ll adamantly refuse to load the dishwasher, will expect me to do all her laundry, and will demand “… and close the door!”

Oh, wait…

Recently, I was listening to some parents of junior high students (yes, I realize it’s now called “middle school.”  But I’m old school.  Without the “school”…), who were bemoaning all the issues that kids these days have to endure.  I smiled, thinking of my dear, sweet two-year-old at home playing with her Play-Doh and chattering to her stuffed animals.  And then, a horrifying realization hit me:

“Remember how much you hated junior high, Kath?  Remember the torment, the teasing, the desperate desire to be beautiful and popular?  Guess  what?  You get to LIVE THROUGH IT ALL OVER AGAIN, via your daughter!”

Ack.

As if I didn’t dislike 70s reruns enough; now I got to see them LIVE!  I was not happy at this prospect.

Yes, I have many years until my daughter is in junior high (yes, I’m going to keep saying “junior high” – try and stop me! Bwahaha!).  But please, Lord, please spare her from all the travails I suffered leading up to those years.  No, I won’t let  her skip a grade, as I did, wrenching her from kids her own age and social maturity level.  Yes, I will encourage her to be a part of a team, whether it’s Girl Scouts or soccer or the debate club.  Yes, I will try to help her develop self-confidence and a positive outlook and the right priorities, so she won’t have her self-esteem battered by Mean Girls.  But I can only do so much.  As my own mother would obviously tell you, after listening to her nerd daughter come home every day and whine “nobody liiiiiiiikes me!”

But I digress.

I think as parents, one of our roles is to armor our children against as much as we can, with shields of self-worth, pride, confidence, and the secure knowledge that they are loved for who they are, no matter what.  I don’t mean delude them into believing everyone thinks the sun rises and sets on them.  I just mean helping them discover who they are, where they want to go, and giving them the encouragement and the tools to get there.  Like, how to jimmy open a locker from the inside, if you’ve been crammed into one, for example.

But I digress.

No, I won’t live through it all over again, because I won’t let my daughter live through it once.  I know what to do to prevent it.  As the saying goes “If you can’t be a role model, be a terrible warning.”  Knowing that I can help my daughter avoid some of the heartbreak I endured in my eleven years of public school makes it infinitely easier to recall the past.  Because I know history, and therefore am not doomed to repeat it.

My two-year-old daughter has not, so far, succumbed to the “Terrible” moniker – she’s still Terrific, Talented, Teachable, Thoughtful and Touching.  But mostly she’s Talkative.

We’ve come a long way since she first pointed to a cup and said “wawa,” two weeks before her first birthday.  Now it’s pretty much non-stop chattering – to me, to her stuffed animals, in her crib at night… Some of it is downright hilarious, especially when she repeats something an adult has said.  And yes, we now have to be very, very careful (I refer to the wince-inducing “crap!” episode).  But it is pretty funny when a toddler tells you she has “bad knees,” or says “oh my goodness!” when she drops something, or exclaims a gossipy, conspiratorial “I know!”

Every day she surprises me with new words.  A month ago I foolishly tried to write down her current vocabulary.  Once I got to 200 words, I realized it was far too late to start this endeavor.  She was a full-blown linguist at this point.

She mastered full sentences long ago, before her second birthday.  I do love it when she says “Mama go work at the paper; bye-bye, see ya, have a good day.”  She also just mastered “Telegraph.”  Our company never sounded so cute.  She’s unfailingly polite, too, with “please,” “thank you” and “you’re welcome” all down pat and used liberally.  This past weekend, she met me at the door with a handful of purple roses and, smiling, said “Happy birthday, Mommy!”  That was the best present ever, hands down.

She sings the lyrics to songs.  She fills in the last words in rhyming Dr. Suess books.  She even makes jokes.  When I was dressing her for outside last week, I was ticking off the attire: “Rain hat, rain coat…”  She chimed in with “rain…binkie!  Hahahahahaha!”  I love when she cracks herself up.

Of course, not every word delights and warms my heart.  She has adopted my exasperated “ come on!” a little too well.  And if I could go a day without hearing “again!” and “uppie!” and “what is [insert name of whoever’s in the room, on the television, or whatever stuffed animal is available] doing?” a million times, I’d consider it a spa day.

It is endearing when she talks to her babies and stuffed animals.  Not only does she do the voices for them – “Hi, Pooh!”  “Hi, Piglet!”  “How are you?”  “Fine, how are you?” – but she is quite the loving little baby-mama.  She puts them down for naps when “they’re so tired,” and says “Good night, sleep tight.”  And she’s big on hugging.  “Group hug!” she’ll command.  And of course, “kiss, too?”

Yup, so far, the Talkative Twos are pretty darn adorable.  Maybe she’s just lulling me into a false sense of security so she can slam me with the Terrible Threes.  But I don’t think so.  Besides, I’m sure she’d tell me.

I'm writing an article for the Telegraph's "Feast" section in March that offers tips for dealing with finicky-eating toddlers.  If you have a tried-and-true method that you'd like to share, please post it here or send it to me at kpalmer@nashuatelegraph.com, and I'll compile the best ones for publication.

Thanks for your help!

Lest you fear that I do not think of you, Dear Reader, in my off hours, let me assure you otherwise.  I did something this weekend specifically because I thought it would be good blog fodder.  I was coerced into attending an event for the sole reason of your entertainment at reading the write-up.  And you owe me, big.

I saw “Sesame Street Live” at the Lowell Civic Auditorium.  And I’ll never get those two hours of my life back.

My other single-mom friend Janice began asking me to attend said event over a week ago.  I hemmed and hawed, figuring I’d eventually be able to come up with some reasonable excuse to avoid sitting in a theater full of screaming toddlers and paying $8 for a giant Elmo-head balloon (that was the actual price: eight dollars.  For.  A.  Balloon.).  But as Janice dutifully searched the Ticketmaster Web site at midnight the night before, and I still hadn’t come up with a single argument against it – besides, you know, adamantly not wanting to go – I finally conceded and let her book the tickets (if for no other reason than it was midnight, and my daughter gets up the same time every morning no matter when I go to sleep).  I thought, hey, at the very least, it will make an amusing blog subject.  So the tickets were purchased.  Fifty bucks total for me and my two-year-old.  No kid discount price.  Sesame Street knows they own you.

As Sunday arrived snowy and bitterly cold, I cringed at the thought of bundling us up and risking life and limb on Route 3 to get to Lowell (Massachusetts state motto:  “Welcome to Massachusetts: Kiss Your Wimpy, Safe-Driving Ass Goodbye”).  But Janice came to my house with her spare carseat, installed it in my car, and the four of us were on our way.

After trudging through the still-falling snow and brutal temperatures to the Civic, we found that our seats (Parquet, Section K, second row) were actually quite good.  They were on the far left of the auditorium, but because of that, they were pretty close to the stage.  The place was sold out, but the crowd of under-5s were surprisingly non-psychotic as we waited for the show to begin.  Punctually-challenged as we were, we only had to wait about one minute, until a seven-foot-tall Bert came through the mylar-ribbon curtain.

And then the kids went insane.

It was the Beatles on Ed Sullivan all over again.  This giant Muppet was getting more screaming adoration than I thought possible.  Until Ernie came out.  And then Big Bird.  And then… well, a couple I don’t know.  But they saved the big guns for last:  Elmo.

Now, keep in mind that the last concert I went to was Rush, several years ago.  And despite our fervent love for the world’s best power trio of prog-rock, none of us were shrieking “GEDDYYYYY!”  or “ALEX!” or “NEAL!”  (OK, I probably did scream “NEAL!” at least once.).  These toddlers were chanting “El-mo!  El-mo!”  The kid behind me was absolutely losing it.

Our two girls were just staring, mesmerized.  I’m not sure they knew what to make of giant Muppets singing and dancing in front of dozens of rainbow lights.  I think the promoters were playing fast and loose with the expression “technically-dazzling.”

The show itself was… jaunty.  Super Grover loses his, well, superness, and spends the rest of the show trying to find it.  Sort of a “How Grover Got His Groove Back” for the preschool set.  Along the way, we heard songs about eating right, exercising, getting enough rest, and hygiene (with a running joke about Oscar the Grouch’s mudfish named Gene, who’d always say “hi, Oscar!” after someone said ‘hygiene’). 

It was all good, clean fun, except… well, call me a cynic with way too many gay friends, but… there were a couple jokes that I know were clearly NOT for the children.  To wit: Tully the Monster’s superhero alter-ego is Triangle Boy (ahem), whose crisis occurs at… the gym.  Where Ernie, Bert and the Count are working out to techno music under a disco ball.  Ahem.  Tully also cops to knowing a guy who “wears a feather boa.”  Ahem.

I also enjoyed Cookie Monster’s self-loathing when one of the other monsters asks “what are you doing?”, to which he replies “Is that trick question?  Me eating cookies.  What else is new?”  I feel ya, CM.

I had thought that Janice had told me the show was only 45 minutes long (which made sense to me, given the target audience’s age and attention span).  When I found out it was 45 minutes and then an intermission, and then another 45 minutes, I felt like I did a decade ago when I went golfing for the first time and, sunburned, sweaty and cross, I staggered towards the clubhouse only to be informed that, oh no, that was only the first nine holes, Kath.  We get to do it all over again.

I needed a beer.

I scanned the lobby and saw what I was looking for: the line of men.  The line of women, of course, was in front of the restroom (it is times like this that I am truly grateful that my toddler is not toilet-trained).  As I gleefully debated “beer, or wine?  Beer, or wine?”, my dreams were shattered by the youngster behind the counter who informed me that they were not serving alcohol at this event. “But,” I cried, “this is the event that we need alcohol at the MOST!”  He was unmoved.

So instead I purchased an unbendable piece of cardboard with Elmer’s glue on it, sold under the misnomer “pizza.”  Three dollars to almost lose a crown on something that could have been left over from that Rush concert.  Then it was back to our seats for round two of the Sesame Street gang doing their renditions of “Holding out for a Hero” and “Superman.”

It was a pretty harmless way to spend an afternoon, I suppose (we escaped Massachusetts unscathed); the only harm came to our wallets. I’m not sure our kids were really old enough to appreciate the pageantry and ribbon-gun finale.  But I did my motherly (and bloggerly) duty, and attended my first kiddie show.  I guess it’s all downhill from here – Nemo on Ice, Disney Princesses Tour, Dora the Explorer, the Musical.  I draw the line at Hannah Montana, however.

Anyone wanna go see Rush?

Thank you for reading this.

My personal coach and I have been working together for seven months.  Each telephone session, we set goals and figure out ways to achieve them.  I love being accountable to her and having deadlines for making things happen in my life.  Granted, everyone should be accountable to themselves, and that should be sufficient.  But some of us need an outside person to not let down, in order to not let ourselves down.  Anyone who’s joined an Anonymous support group or a weight loss program will attest to that.

So.  Here we are, the beginning of another twelve-month cycle.  Another random starting point for us all to refocus, regroup, renew.  The resolutions have been made, the wheels set in motion.  But how do we keep them going?  How do we stay positive and encouraged, excited and motivated?  How do we keep tackling the issues without letting the issues tackle us?

My coach had some advice:  Say thank you.

Motivational speaker and all-around kick-ass person Tony Robbins (one of my heroes) starts each day with what he calls “the hour of power.”  It involves giving gratitude, getting in some physical movement, and refocusing on what you want.  He also encourages visualizing what you want as having already happened.  I like that one.  I like seeing myself in my fully-actualized state.

Now, as to the first part: gratitude.  I told my coach that I felt I was a pretty thankful person – one of my friends nicknamed me “Thankleen” –  that I was very aware of all the things I have to be grateful for, and give thanks for them “at least quarterly.”  She politely suggested that perhaps I could bump that up a wee bit more often.  To, like, daily.

It’s good advice.  Try it some morning.  As you’re rushing around, stressed that you’ll be late for work, stop and think “Man, I’m so thankful I have a job.”  As you’re pounding away on the treadmill, feeling defeated, remember “At least I live in a country where I have the opportunity to become overweight.”  When you’re stuck in traffic, think “I’m so lucky to be able to afford to sit here alone in my own car, much less afford the gasoline.”  When your husband annoys the crap out of you, remind yourself “I’m so glad I have someone to come home to every night.”  And when your kid draws on the wall, think “at least we have walls.”

So… thank you.  Thank you for my health, for my fully-functioning body, for my lavish dwelling, for my owned vehicle, for my parents, my aunt, my job, my talents, my amazing friends.  Thank you for allowing me to be born in America.  Thank you for not making me live in poverty or pain or fear.

Thank you for my sweet, wonderful daughter.  Thank you for all the love I've experienced in my life.  Thank you for letting me wake up alive today.

Thank you for reading this.

Last week I did two things to secure a better future for myself and my daughter: I voted in the New Hampshire primary, and I started a diet.

I’m sure I speak for many New Hampshire residents when I tell you how relieved I am that the politicians and their posses have ridden off into the sunset.  It was truly crazy around here with the media circus and the frenzied supporters.  And frankly, if I heard the word “change” one more time, I was going to slit my throat with one of the ubiquitous fliers stuffed in my doorway.

I will cop to a funny(ish) story about voting, since although it shows me to be an idiot, hey, it’s entertaining for the reader.  When my father ran for local office last year and I went to the polling site, they asked me if I wanted to declare a party.  I thought (incorrectly) that I had to register for the same party as my father in order to vote for him.  So I did.  Now, months later, the blood drained from my head a few nights before the voting when I realized that I had not changed my party affiliation back to my own preferred one.  Well, I decided to go down and vote anyway, because there’s plenty of candidates that straddle party lines, and I knew I could at least vote strategically within the ‘other’ party.

When I got to the polling venue and said my last name, the man said “Nancy?”  I paused.  That was my mother.  She wasn’t going to vote today.  She was registered independent.  I could be her and vote for my own party!  That thought lasted about two seconds.  Clearly, I couldn’t do that in good conscience.  “No,” I replied, and took my own ballot.  After voting for the most contrary member of the ‘other’ party, I shuddered, went home, and took three showers.  I still feel dirty.  (Kidding)

I took my daughter to the polls with me.  I plan to always bring her, and instill in her the importance of making her voice heard.  I hope most women I know voted in the primary (or, in other states, will vote).  Consider the amazing power we have as a gender, as a voting bloc.  And consider how many women had to fight so hard to give us the opportunity.  Did you know that freed slaves got the vote fifty years before women did?

The other step I took towards a better future was signing up for my office version of The Biggest Loser.  Twenty of us at The Telegraph are going to compete for twelve weeks, and the person who loses the largest percentage of weight (as opposed to pounds – or tonnage) will win the money we put into the pot weekly. 

Our initial weigh-in was… painful.  I hadn’t been on a scale for a few weeks, and was horrified to see the results of my holiday gluttony.  But I’m back on track, eating amazing, delicious, healthy whole foods.  I even bought a used treadmill on craigslist.com today.  It’s non-electric, and a lot harder than a ‘regular’ one.  I also have some workout videos that I enjoy doing, and have set up some walking dates with friends.

I’m very hopeful that being in this high-visibility competition with  my co-workers will keep me on track, because it’s vital that I get back to a healthy weight and existence for my daughter.  I’m the only parent she’s got.  Not only would I like to be around long enough to become an annoying burden to her in my senior years (ha!), but I’d like to be able to keep up with her when we’re playing.

Tonight when I set up the treadmill, she immediately hopped on, grabbed the handle poles up front, and said “mama do!”  So I stood behind her and walked, moving the treadmill.  She trotted along handily.  When I stopped, winded, she said “mama, again!”  So I guess I have my own tiny trainer to help keep me moving, too!

As the Biggest Loser theme song goes: “What have you done today to make you feel proud?”

Well, this New Year’s Eve, I managed to get out of the house and celebrate with other adults.  My friends hosted game night, which is always fun.  There were snacks and drinks and cutthroat competitions.  I had my mind blown by two card tricks, which I doubt I will ever figure out.  Apparently, one is based on simple math.  But the other… that one surely has an element of the occult to it.  J

My two-year-old helped me de-ornament the Christmas tree today.  It’s the perfect job for her, since she’s been practicing for a month now, despite my pleas otherwise.  No, actually she was very respectful of “Mama’s tree.”  I took the advice I saw in a “Kid Tips” column in the Telegraph and bought her a small tree of her own.  “Mama tree, baby tree,” she explained to anyone around.  She had her own non-breakable ornaments, some little toys under it, and a tiny stocking taped to the adjacent wall.  It was pretty darn cute.

So here I sit, in my newly non-festive and unexpectedly barren-feeling condo, trying to decide how I want this new year to go.  Yes, there are the standard, universal resolutions: lose weight, save money, stop swearing like a sailor around my toddler (oh, you don’t do that?  Oh.  Um.).  I guess if I was to choose one word to capture the overall essence of my 2008 goals, it would be ‘streamline.’  Streamline the waistline.  Streamline the daily routine.  Streamline and organize the household possessions.  Streamline my journey to the future.

I started doing my annual end-of-the-year purge last week.  I uncluttered the breakfast nook (“Aerosmith’s in my breakfast nook!”  Reference? Anyone?), going through drawers of paper and computer detritus (that last word is for you, Ma).  I cleaned out a kitchen cabinet that was so jam-packed, it no longer closed.  I even installed my new printer/scanner, and made my computer desk actually usable again. 

But as many of you might know, you need to make a mess to clean a mess.  I no longer have my nice, empty dining room table, as it is filled with photos and empty albums that need to be matched up, and random things that don’t really have a home, hence their previous exile to the cabinets and drawers.  I also have a bunch of eBay stuff I’m selling for my parents, as they do a renovation.

Surrounded by my own clutter, I look at it and realize it’s not really junk that needs to go away.  It’s just the products of living.  It’s 3-D manifestations of memories, events, projects and plans.  But I do need to get a hold of it now, before the cumulative effect of decades happens.  I do subscribe to the “the best things in life aren’t things” belief, and it’s something I want to instill in my daughter before peer pressure kicks in.  So far she seems perfectly content with her reasonable amount of (mostly hand-me-down) toys, and the large box her new carseat came in.  So that’s good – although, it’s difficult to cram myself in said box when she says “Mama, box too!”

But then, I’ll be streamlining myself soon, so maybe that won’t be an issue for much longer.

I have a small family.  Two parents, an aunt, a sister-in-law, a nephew and my daughter.  That’s it.  Five adults, two children.  Over the last couple years, we’ve slowly started phasing out giving Christmas presents.  Last year, when my brother died, any remaining shreds of festive feelings we had were washed away in bitter tears.  So this year, we are officially skipping the whole thing altogether.  My mother will be working all day, and I will be working at the paper all night.  I will spend Christmas Eve in Maine with my good friends Tracy and June, at their calm and beautiful home, drinking wine and watching my toddler chase their dog.

When we were younger and still living at home, our father used to get in very bad funks during the holiday season.  A devout Catholic, he would be angry and depressed that the rest of his family did not attend church.  Eventually, we would hear the record blasting from the stereo in his study: “Where is the Christ in Christmas?”  One particularly jaunty December, he called us “heathen scum.”  Ho ho ho.

I don’t tell you these things to elicit pity or sympathy, or to lambaste my dad.  He still gets depressed every holiday season, but fortunately, he doesn’t seem to know where that record went.  The reason I tell you these things is… I agree with him.

If we’re not going to go to church and celebrate The Reason for the season, then why are we still rushing around and stressing out, spending money on gifts that have become obligatory and not heartfelt?  Why are we buying presents for everyone, when we aren’t giving any ‘presence’ to the One whose birthday we’re marking?  It doesn’t make sense to me.

I know people buy gifts for others to show their love at a loving time of the year, and they enjoy doing it.  I certainly love giving gifts in general.  But ‘round here at Christmastime, it just ends up stressing my family out, worrying about how much to spend, what to get whom, dealing with the crowds, etc.  So forget it, I said.  Let’s just get the toddlers something.

Personally, I detest shopping.  Yes, I’m a bad ‘girl.’  I don’t enjoy it at all, and avoid it like the plague.  If I do buy gifts, it’s usually from a catalog, from the convenience of my own couch, or online.  I will say that Nashua’s downtown merchants have gone a long way to removing my abhorrence of the task.  It’s so nice and personal and relaxed shopping on Main Street, it’s a much more enjoyable experience. 

But overall, I just can’t buy into… buying, for the sake of buying.  The frenzied department-store commercials are starting to really bug me.  BUY!  HURRY!  SPEND, SPEND, SPEND!  Get out there with the crazed masses and do your civic duty to boost the economy!  And get that parking spot before that minivan does!!!

Ack.

I have one present under my tree: a small babydoll for my sweet little babydoll.  My daughter and I will go to Maine, have a delicious gourmet dinner cooked by Tracy, and hang our stockings by the chimney with care.  We’ll enjoy the silence of the blanket of snow on the rural landscape, and snuggle up in our cozy bed together. 

As single mothers, my friends and I have to deal with a certain elephant in the living room (this is where I would usually insert a joke about my weight, but I’ll give myself a break today). Whether asked aloud, whispered behind our backs, or silently wondered about, the question is always there in other folks’ minds:

“Who’s the father of her kid?”

Taken as a group, my circle encompasses most of the possible reasons a woman finds herself as a single mom.  One of us is a divorcée; one, a widow.  One is a woman who stopped waiting for Mr. Right and decided to go it alone, via a donor she chose at a sperm bank.  One is a woman (who stopped waiting for Mrs. Right) who chose her best friend to be her donor.  And one of us is just a good ol’ fashioned “oops” brand single mother.

And I’m not telling you who is who.

Because that’s the point.  With all due respect to those people who are dying to know, it’s really no one’s business but ours.  Whether we actively chose our situations or fate thrust them upon us, it is our private matter, and one we can choose to share with you, or not.  But it has to be up to us.

I understand that the majority of mothers in our society are, in fact, with partners.  So yes, it is natural to assume some things when you meet a woman with a child.  But when I was pregnant (and oh-so-hormonally cranky), nothing sent me into a tizzy faster than going to my weekly check-ups in the same office, with the same chart (albeit different doctors) that held the same personal information, and having the doc-du-jour placidly skim my information and say “so, will your husband be joining us today?”  I finally made them put “SINGLE PARENT” in big block letters on the front of my chart.  And still I was asked.

The same goes for house-hunting.  On every walkthrough I went to, the real estate agent would ask “will your husband be wanting to see the property as well?”  One time, after I said “no, there is no husband,” the agent paused and said “soooo… it’s just you that would be making this decision?”  I smiled tightly and said, “Yup.  But I think I just made it.”

Well-meaning strangers in supermarkets get a lot more slack.  But sometimes it’s still hard.  “Oh,” cooed one woman, “I bet she’s Daddy’s little girl, isn’t she?”  “Well, it’s just Mommy and Nana, really.”  “But she’s mostly Daddy’s little girl, isn’t she?”  At this point, you just have to smile and push your cart down the next aisle before you throw a can of stewed tomatoes at someone.

It’s not to say that all single mothers are reticent to tell you their stories.  But speaking personally, if I feel backed into a corner by a blunt question, I do get riled.  I think I expected society to judge me harshly, so when the issue comes up, I automatically go on the defensive.  But it’s not to say I won’t tell you – on my own timetable. 

Certainly, if you’re dating a single mom, I think you have the right to know, if you’re planning on pursuing a serious relationship with her, whether or not some other person is going to factor into the equation.  But if it’s not an issue for her, hopefully her date will see it’s not an issue for him/her, either.

Until we single moms decide to say “hey, by the way, about that thing we haven’t talked about…”, please: just walk around the elephant.  And watch where you step.

As you mommies (and, I suppose, you daddies; but hey, it’s the ‘Mother of all Blogs’) can attest, no matter how joyous and fulfilling the time spent with our children is, there comes a point when you want to go all “Thelma & Louise” and jump in your convertible with your best gal-pal, in search of a young, undiscovered Brad Pitt.

I have those days.  And it’s been hard, being a single parent, to carve out any time for myself that doesn’t impinge on someone else’s free time.  I am at the mercy of my few babysitters and their overworked schedules, if I want to leave the house sans baby.  When I do get out, always in the back of my mind, stressing me out, is the time constraint, the deadline, the – I wince to call a spade a spade – curfew.  I have to ask permission to ‘stay out late,’ at something as innocuous as game night at a friend’s house. I  can’t afford to tick off my sitters, who happen to be my mother and aunt.  They have jobs and commitments, too, and I can’t work them into the ground so I can see more than one movie a year.

Um… can I?  No, I know, Mom.

Irrespective of my babysitting requirements, I don’t actually have a lot of things to go to.  As infrequently as we are able to go out, my dear friend Glen is pretty much my socializing catalyst.  We attend musical theater, we’re in a book club, we have game nights, we go to the movies… If he wasn’t gay, I’d be all set.  But alas.

I do have several mommy friends, but it’s difficult to get together with them, for the same reasons I have.  On this coast, for elementary school age and below, I have one single-mom friend, two friends with three children, and one friend with five (as of this writing – they’re going for number six by Christmas.  Good luck, you-know-who!).  I have three friends that are an hour or more away.  And let’s not forget that I work Friday nights.  Needless to say, there’s not a lot of spontaneous “hey, let’s go out tonight!” phone calls in my life these days.

Historically, my major source for friendship (and dating, but that’s another blog post) has been my officemates.  Working at a newspaper with a midnight deadline, though, doesn’t afford us the opportunity to go out as a group that often.  Well, some of them do – but part-time single mommy’s at home way before they hit the town.

So what’s a gal to do?  Fellow mothers are too busy.  What about non-mothers?  Well, that comes with its own eggshells to tread upon.  The mom doesn’t want to bore the non-mom with constant mom-talk, and the non-mom (hopefully) doesn’t want to impose her unsolicited advice and inexperienced two cents’ worth, at the risk of alienating the mom.  But at least non-moms are usually more available.

What it all boils down to is this: We all need time away from our responsibilities and daily stress, time to be with friends – time to be ourselves, apart from being a parent.  So… who wants to have a playdate with me?

Next time: Who’s Your Daddy?