Irish Daisy

Today, the fifth day of summer vacation, I’m making my girls clean their rooms. Three of them...together. Cleaning. There’s been yelling, slammed doors, shouting, thrown toys, hysterical weeping. It’s awesome. Yet, all I can sit here and think is how lucky I am. In my nice house in a nice, safe city, in a safe, prosperous county, in a state with the 5 th largest economy in the world, in the richest country in the world…I’m so lucky I have the opportunity to sit here and listen to my kids battle their way to a clean room. I’m not walking across a desert, or hiding from murderous gangs, or fleeing a home buried in violence or mud. I am not begging my rich neighbor to let me in so I can scrub their floors, tend their nice houses and lawns, pick their crops, make their food, or wash their dishes, so I can feed my children and keep them safe. I’m not sitting in a chain-link cage wondering where my babies are – the babies I suffered and struggled to get to saf...

So, I felt like there was something I needed to talk about after the frenzy of Halloween candy consumption and before the holiday season, with its stuffing, cookies, pies, sweets, and Bailey’s, is upon us. A two-month orgy of savory foods and delicious treats, followed by the self-imposed penance of a resolution and the resulting massive guilt if said resolution is not carried through. Here it is: Don’t go on a diet to feel better about how you look. Really, don’t. It doesn’t work anyway. I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t eat fruits and veggies, or exercise to avoid a blood clot in your leg. I’m not even saying dieting doesn’t work for weight loss – after all, we see success stories all the time in magazines. It’s just that dieting until you’re raging hangry because you just know you’ll feel better about your thighs, or belly, or butt if only you could fit into size 6 pants…yeah, that might not turn out like you think. Your…trouble spot will get smaller and the scale will show...

For just a few minutes last week I actually wished that gender stereotypes were true. It was a fleeting wish that popped into my brain while Badger and I were waiting for the nurse to put a cast on her arm. Because, you see, if the stereotypes were true, I wouldn’t be sitting in an Orthopedic medical office having my little girl’s arm put in a cast for the second time...this year. She wouldn’t have abrasions running down the side of her face from her hairline to her jaw. She would be sitting somewhere, looking pretty and clean, acting sweet and gentle. Yeah, uh, no…not so much. The Rise of the Action Princess I mean, I wasn’t a wilting lily as a kid –most people labeled me a “tomboy.” Not ever really liking that label, I coined a new one for my ferocious girls, “Action Princess.” Why did I feel the need to make up a label, and one that included the word ‘princess,’ you might ask? Couple of reasons. First, the number of people, mostly older people, who refer to little girls as...

It’s pumpkin season, so I was going to write about pumpkin bread…but, you know what, screw it. I’ll write about pumpkins later because there’s something else going on right now that’s a little more important. What’s going on has a lot of feelings clamoring inside me, it’s brought up a lot of things that I don’t look at very often, things I don’t take out and examine. But it’s all here right in front of us now and the fear, anger, worry and long-festering rage can’t be ignored – so, I’m writing about this instead. Not Okay In response to a now infamous tape of two men casually discussing, and one boasting about, sexual assault, author Kelly Oxford started a conversation on Twitter under #notokay . She tweeted about her first sexual assault at age 12 and invited other women to share their experiences. She said she intended to erase the tweet if no one responded. Hundreds of women replied within hours, thousands in a few days. It’s in the news, it’s all over social media, bu...

No, it’s not what you’re thinking. Really, it’s not. This is not the lament of a parent with a hormonal teenager, or a dirge about girls and emerging PMS, or a cautionary tale about how my once sweet daughter became an actual fire-breathing dragon because…HORMONES! No, it's not about any of that at all...it's actually a whole lot worse. Puberty Sucks Large I went through puberty, and it sucked, but wrapped up in my own hormonal shitstorm I wasn’t able to put my finger on exactly why it was so terrible and soul-sucking. 26 years later, I have a ring-side seat to Quokka’s voyage and, yes Martha, it still sucks. There has been tons of research about what happens to girls in our culture during puberty – in a nutshell, their self esteem and confidence plummet. Feisty, kick-ass little girls, shrink down into pretty paper-dolls, a two-dimensional copy of their younger self. Theories about why this happens focus on the cultural pressures that assault a girl and undermine her en...

I love school supplies. Really, really love them – the waxy crayon smell, the shiny binder covers, the rows and rows of bright markers and pens and pencils. I adore the colors, the scents, the memories and every moment of shopping for new school stuff. Loaded with fresh supplies and ready for a hopeful new year  I've loved school supply shopping for forever, even though I never really loved actual school. I was a good enough student and a lot of elementary school came fairly easy to me (okay, there was that trimester in third grade where I almost flunked, but we don’t talk about that). It wasn't the academics, or all of the terrible spelling tests that made me dislike school. It was the social thing – the having to deal with and understand other kids. I was that kid; the awkward one who wasn't really sure how to fit in anywhere. I was teased a lot and spent a lot of time either crying or punching someone (seriously, none of the shenanigans I was involved with in s...

If you pay attention to cultural commentary or women's issues, you'll hear something about how women are objectified in our culture, and while we know the definition, it can be hard to describe what it looks like in our personal lives. Athena, being only seven, doesn't know the definition and doesn't even recognize the word, but she’s already figured out how soul-sucking objectification can be. Athena has always been cute (okay, not always - she did have a couple of months of looking like Winston Churchill, but other than that, the cute is nearly painful in intensity). I mean really grab-her-up-and-munch-her-cheeks cute. Her head was in the 98th percentile when she was born (gets it from her big-headed dad, who is also pretty damn cute and extremely photogenic). Now, that sounds like it would be freaky looking right? Nope, what it does is make a person look like a living doll. See, cute The proportionally big head, combined with her proportionally large eyes, fu...

Three kids is only one more than two. I know, it's simple math.  It's amazing how hard that one extra kid can make parenting sometimes, especially now that we're outnumbered and none of our kids are what you'd call sedate, but it's just one more kid. Yet, the real difference between two and three is how people react to seeing me out and about with my three girls. I was mom to two girls for four years before number three joined the troop, so I've noticed the difference in commentary and reaction from the judging public (and it's amazing how many people feel compelled to say something). With just the two girls, I got a lot of compliments on the cute and how great sisters are. With three, I get a lot of, “whoa, three girls!!!” And then one of two follow-ups; either, “Wow, that’s going to be really rough when they’re teenagers,” or, “Well, you're lucky, at least girls are more cautious and quiet, three boys would be so much tougher.” I want to smack the...

So, Open House was on Tuesday – the same day we held primary elections here, which was a pain in the ass for other voters but worked out pretty well for us since our polling place is the elementary school. I always take the kids with me to vote and the poll workers always cheer me on and give everyone an “I Voted” sticker for participating in our democracy (we all push the “Cast Ballot” button together). Open House is  a great opportunity to see what the kids have been doing and learning in context – which is very different from the disembodied assignments that come home. (Pro-tip to teachers, teacher appreciation should happen after open house, not before – gotta leverage all of that good will).  I was very excited to see Athena’s class and work.  Her teacher is so enthusiastic about Athena’s performance and presence in her class. Her work has shown such growth over the year, and she’s a thoughtful and conscientious student, for all that she’s only in second grade. ...