So turns out G is no water baby. Even after the 8 weeks of $15 a pop swimming lessons we made him take. Which consisted of him:

a)      Frantically waving at me to get my attention so he could spend most of the lesson taking a “bathroom break”

b)      Me trying as hard as I could to avoid eye contact with him

Regardless, by the end of his swim class session, he could at least jump into the water while clutching onto a kickboard and “kick” his way to the shallow end. Meaning his swim instructor, Paul, caught him as he jumped and pretty much pushed him to the shallow end.

Whatever. At least he got into the pool.      

Well, his new-found non-aversion to swimming did not transcribe to Lake Michigan.

Big surprise.

I figured this out while visiting my parents at their Michigan house. As we prepared for the beach, G was so excited to play in the sand, go “swimming,” use his new Toy Story 3 raft his friend E had given him. Until we actually got to the beach.

After unpacking all of our stuff I said,

“Who’s ready to go into the water?” to which my land-loving son said,

“Oh, I’m not going in the water.”

Not going in the water? What was all this swimming talk? I responded with,

“I thought you were going swimming.”

He looked at me crazily and said,

“I just did.”

Let me report on what his idea of swimming was—gingerly walking over to the water in his Speedo swim vest, swim shoes, and swim goggles, quickly filling up his sand pail with water, and sprinting back to our beach chairs.

This clearly wasn’t going to fly with me. I was that child who would fall asleep at night still feeling the rhythm of the waves after body-surfing in sixty degree water all day.

After much cajoling, lecturing, and bribing, John and I eventually pulled him into the water, where he EVENTUALLY stopped clutching onto me and stood by himself for 2 minutes. And then was done.

The next day, he was a bit more comfortable, and actually started to enjoy the water, especially since he figured out he could ALMOST walk all the way out to the sandbar. With me holding one hand and my mother holding the other. But whatever—in his mind, this was REALLY SWIMMING! Still wouldn’t go in by himself.

Then pretty, red-headed T stepped into the picture. I did not even really witness this, but heard her approach while I was napping. My mother was making a sand castle with G and from my beachy daze I could hear a little, polite voice comment on what a nice sand castle it was. The next thing I knew, 7-year-old, T (who is a dead ringer for a young Molly Ringwald) and G were busily playing and having a grand old time.

Until T asked the deadly question,

“Wanna go swimming?”

My parents and I sucked in our breaths. Here was where all his bravado and charm was going to fly into the sky like a run-away kite, because we all knew that child wasn’t going into the water without HIS MAMA.

But turns out like all men, he’s a sucker for an older, red-headed woman because the next thing I knew, off he went, acting like going chest-deep into the water was second nature to him.

Looks like those red-headed girls can get you every time, even when you’re just a 5-year-old boy…

Last week while my husband was making balloon animals (yes, my husband was making balloon animals) at a friend’s BBQ, we actually got into an argument with one of his patrons.

She was four.

This was how it all went down.

We stupidly thought it would be fun to bring our friends a mini-balloon animal making kit since at their last party, John ended up blowing up about 30 balloons for decorations.

Totally funny. Great idea.

Not.

Because about 1 hour into the party, we saw that a group of children had TAKEN the kit, and were dangerously attempting to blow up the balloons themselves, which we all know, ends in some child choking on a balloon.

Therefore, John stepped in.

Now one thing to know about John—he is an amateur balloon animal maker, in a somehow non-creepy way. It all started when we stood in line for an hour once so G could get a balloon dog made by a VERY CREEPY clown. John said,

“I should learn how to make these so we don’t have to stand in this ridiculous line and hang out with this creepy clown.”

Ergo the balloon animal making gift he received that Christmas.

Anyway, to get back to the story at hand, John clearly had to step in and make some of these balloon animals (just taking the kit away and said balloons would have been too easy and just mean. Little did we know, mean was just around the corner).

All of a sudden, EVERY child at the party was hovering around John, jumping up and down and chanting,

“I want one! I want one!”

Therefore, I stepped in. With these two rules:

1)      You must wait your turn for a balloon animal.

2)      Each child gets one balloon animal so we did not run out of balloons.

And I have to say, most of the children responded well to the rules, quieted down, and patiently stood in line, and some even said thank you (miracle of all miracles).

Until the little girl with the pink tutu showed up to the scene.

As soon as I saw her, I knew this was going to be trouble. You can always tell the high-maintenance children because they arrive at parties in some strange get-up that their parents allowed them to wear so they can express their “creative sides.”

Well, this creative little girl already had a pink balloon dog and was DEMANDING a pink balloon hat.

Over and over again.

Mind you, there were some well-behaved children still waiting for their first balloon animal. So I of course, had to say in a chirpy, sing-song voice,

“Don’t forget the rules! Every child gets one balloon animal so we don’t run out!”

And gave her a nice little smile and pat on the head. Which resulted in her screaming,

“I want a pink balloon hat and I want one now!”

Well, John and I don’t respond well to the Veruca Salts of the world, so then John charmingly stepped in and said,

“Maybe if you say the magic word?”

Pink tutu girl,

“Now! PINK. HAT. NOW!”

John not so charming anymore,

“How about in Spanish? Por favor?”

To which Veruca Salt ran away to her parents, fell onto the ground, and started shrieking.

Meanwhile, all the patient children were staring at us balloon animal Nazis with their mouths agape. Needless to say, some of the parents were watching us, most of them I think on our side.

The mother of Veruca Salt came storming over, and said,

“Could she have one more balloon? Once she gets her mind onto something, she won’t give up until she gets it.”

And then just stood there, glaring at us.

What are two amateur balloon-animal makers to do? Not give in all the way, because that’s not how John and I roll.

I said,

“Well, we INSTITUTED the one balloon animal for one child rule because we are running out of balloons and we wanted to make sure ALL THE CHILDREN got a balloon animal, and some CLEARLY don’t have one yet. But if you NEED to get her one, go ahead.”

To which the mother did.

Now for those of you who have not had the joy of experiencing time around groups of children, you are probably astounded.

Really? That mother just gave in to her child and made sure her child had as MANY balloon animals she wanted while some patient children had none?

You betcha. Welcome to the world of “we don’t think ‘no’ is a healthy word for our children to hear” parenting.

Otherwise known as “hell.”

So for any of you parents who are somehow reading this and might have witnessed this, please know John and I are not evil and were not berating or taunting the child in the pink tutu.

We just said “no.” And will say it the next time to the next child who runs up in a fancy get-up and wants something she shouldn’t have.

Does that make us bad people or parents? We don’t think so. But if you do, feel free to get your balloons animals elsewhere…

Today I witnessed something that was just horrible. And please know that there will be nothing funny or endearing about this post—it will be a sad post. It will be a post that might make you mad or make you cry (like I have been doing all morning), but I felt the need to share it with anyone who still reads this blog in case you witness a child being repeatedly hit in public and want to know how to handle it.

I was at the Dollar Store. Shopping for last-minute items for my Avon walk weekend and buying G his summer pair of flip-flops. Now the whole time, I heard a child crying and whining in the background and a mother yelling at her. Which was sad, but unfortunately, not something that I hadn’t seen before. Until I passed the check-out line and saw this woman back-hand her 2-year-old across the face and say,

“You better shut up, or I’ll do it again.”

To which the child, of course, did not shut up because her mother had just hit her HARD across the face. So the mother did it again.

And I stopped in my tracks. And sat there for a few seconds. And then turned around. This is the conversation we had:

Me: Did you just hit your child across the face?

Mother: Yes I did, and I’ll do it again cuz she’s getting on my LAST nerves.

Me: Please don’t hit her again.

Mother: Why don’t you mind your own business? I’ll hit her again if I want to.

To which I then asked to see the store manager (pointless) and then proceeded to call 911. While I was calling, the mother became even MORE agitated and swore and yelled at me and said:

Mother: Go ahead. Call the police. I don’t care. I’ll do it again. You don’t know what I go through. I have three other kids at home. You don’t know my business.

I paused my dialing for a moment to tell her:

Me: Don’t know your business? Let me tell you, I’m a mother. I know. And I know you shouldn’t hit your children. If you didn’t want children, you should have used birth control.

Which definitely did not help the situation. When the 911 operator (who I would like to add was a WOMAN) picked up the line, I explained the situation and the operator said nonchalantly:

Operator: Well, is she hitting her child or beating her child? We cannot do anything if she is just disciplining her child.

Which stopped me in my tracks. You can’t do anything if a child is getting physically harmed? In public? I was so shocked at all of this, that I unfortunately said,

Me: Well, she hit her child three times in the face.

And this went on for a while and in the meantime, the abusive mother left the store. With her child. Who I am sure she will hit again. And again. Which made me cry all the way home from the store because in the end, I felt like I did not make the situation better, but exacerbated it because now the abusive mother was REALLY angry.

Therefore, if I had to do this over again, I think I would have done the following:

1) Ask the mother if she was okay and if the child was okay.

2) If the mother started yelling and getting worse, I would have calmly moved to the side and quietly called 911. If other people were witnessing this, I would quietly inform them to do the same thing, because the more calls 911 received, the quicker the police would have gotten there.

3) When asked if the child was being beaten, I would have said yes.

4) I would not have yelled back at the woman who was either drunk, on crack, or both, because in the end, that didn’t help the situation.

There is no witty wrap-up for this post or I wish I had something meaningful to say, but I don’t. I truly hope that you don’t witness something like this, but unfortunately, I bet you will. And I just felt that maybe if I shared this, you could deal with it in a way I wished I had.

My son has figured this out at the ripe age of 5. His big epiphany came last night when I told him he needed to stop clomping around our bedroom in my favorite shoes.

G: Why can’t I wear these (red, shiny, stiletto) high heels?

Me: Because you are a boy and boys don’t wear high heels.

G: Well, that’s not fair.

Me: Nope. It’s not.

And then he was quiet for a moment. Finally he said,

G: Well, I guess some people get more than others.

That only took me 37 years to figure out.

And it didn’t make him mad or sad or anything. He just said it in a matter-of-fact way, calmly took off the shoes, and went to play in his room with legos. But before he left the room I called out to him,

Me: Don’t worry. Although women get to wear high heels, you’ll get better jobs and get paid more when you are older.

His response:

G: I’d rather wear high heels.

Right.

I made the mistake of opening my son’s backpack yesterday. Besides the various papers, art pieces, old packages of graham crackers, and permission slips I never signed, I found 2 soft-covered books. One of them had a foreign, sticky substance on the back cover that I assumed was food.

Turns out I was wrong. I found out what it was through the following, utterly confusing, conversation:

Me: G, you ruined this book. There’s some gross food all over the back of it!

G (without looking up or batting an eye): Oh, that’s not food. It’s pee.

Let me interject here that this said book had been in his backpack for over a week. I guess covered in pee.

Me: WHAT?!

G: I said (now speaking VERY slowly, like I am stupid or someone who has a hearing deficiency) that…it…is…pee.

Me: WHAT?!

G (now shouting): PEE!!!!!!! I said PEE!!!!!!!!

I am now silent for a moment. All the various circumstances where a book could get PEED ON for God’s sake go through my head. And let me tell you, I didn’t come up with many. Until it occurred to me—I know. He took it into the bathroom!

Me: Why on earth would you take your book into the bathroom with you? That’s disgusting. Don’t do that.

G: I didn’t take it into the bathroom.

A minute goes by while I wait for him to give me more information. No more information comes out of his mouth.

Me: Well, then how did you get pee on it?

G: I didn’t get pee on it.

Me: Who did?

G: We were at the playground during Reading Buddies* and we were UNDER Charlemagne (clearly not the child’s real name who did this. I did not want to embarrass the poor child and put his real name) and he had an accident.

Me: ?

G is now looking at my blankly like he cannot believe we are having this mundane conversation as to why his book has pee all over it.

Me: Under him? Were you all making a pyramid?

G: What’s a pyramid?

And that’s how this conversation continued. To this day, I don’t know how G’s “Froggy Goes to Camp” book got peed upon. And I doubt I ever will. My big question now is—what do I do with the damn book?!

*For those of you wondering what “Reading Buddies” is, it is a charming program where the preschoolers are paired with a 2^nd grader and the 2^nd grader reads to his/her preschool buddy, usually on Tuesday afternoons. Where the brave  2^nd grader hopes to not get peed upon…

My son is now part of The Breakfast Club.

And before you get any ideas, he’s not angsty, nerdy, or busy taping other little boys’ buttocks together.

Nope. He’s only five. And he’s decided we have to leave even EARLIER in the morning than usual so he can go eat breakfast at school with his other preschooler friends.

At first, I thought it was just a fad. But now into week 2, turns out it is a lifestyle. Which I have to say, really cramps MY STYLE, since I now have to wake up 30 minutes earlier just so he can eat breakfast at school which consists of:

1)      Milk

2)      A piece of fruit

3)      One of those little individual boxes of cereal

4)      Something insanely unhealthy and non-breakfast-like such as saltine crackers or a chocolate cookie

When asked why he can’t eat cereal at home, he promptly ignored my question and ran to the door to put on his shoes. After experiencing breakfast with his friends (which usually consists of two 5-year-old boys and one little girl), I have figured out breakfast at school is a necessity so they can: a) brag about what movie they recently watched or b) eat out of those little individual boxes of cereal that all children (and adults) secretly love. These are the conversations I experience:

G: I watched Spider Man 2 yesterday. It was great!

Boy #1: Me too!

Boy #2: I didn’t watch that one. But I watched G-Force.

G: I didn’t see that one.

Boy #2: Oh I did. It was good.

Girl: I saw Cinderella. I loved it!

Silence. Boys don’t watch princess movies OR if they do, don’t admit to it.

G: I saw Transformers 3 (which is a big, fat lie, since this movie doesn’t even exist).

Boy #1 and #2 both admit that their parents won’t let them watch the Transformers movies. They all look at me like I am the coolest mom EVER since G has seen these movies. I therefore don’t have the heart to tell them all G didn’t see the 2^nd or pretend 3^rd one either.

And so it goes. Every morning. Some mornings, I actually get milk spilled all over me which makes me want to hurl since I cannot STAND the smell of milk. Most mornings I have to wipe up the numerous spills and shepherd the children into class before the 2^nd bell rings. But for now, I am fine with this. As far as I am concerned, it is the best breakfast ever—I don’t have to talk, pick up the bill, or even look nice. It just doesn’t get any better than that!

I got to experience life today. The game of LIFE, that is. Do you all remember that game? With the fun, clicking circle you spun in the middle of the game board? The one with the little cars that have the holes for you and your spouse and all of your children? G was home sick today, so we ended up playing board games. And he was adamant we played LIFE.

Within the first two moves, he had skipped college to become a computer consultant, was making $70,000 a year, had home and auto insurance, and had purchased 2 stocks. I, on the other hand, was $50K in debt and slugging my way through college.

At first I felt like I should really encourage him to not skip college, but then when the kid purchased his 4-bedroom colonial home and I was BARELY able to afford my log cabin in the woods as a low-paying policeman I thought,

“WHAT?!Come on!”

Plus, I kept spinning the number 8, which automatically gave him $10,000 for one of the stocks he purchased. And I realized, maybe this whole college thing is now a bad idea, considering how expensive it is. Most kids are starting off their adult life in debt thanks to $20-$30K a year for college tuition and expenses. You don’t need a college degree to become a real estate or travel agent, so why not?

As we continued playing and I continued sucking, G was racking up dollar after dollar. I found myself getting grumpier and grumpier.

Yes, I know it was only a game. And yes, I know that I am now 37 and he is only 5 and that none of this should matter. But it seemed so realistic to me in this bad economy where people who are making bad decisions (like buying houses they cannot afford) are getting breaks and aid to get out of debt. And the suckers (like us) who played by the rules and paid our dues are barely getting by.

The game of LIFE was showing me something that I have now realized with too much conviction:

Life just isn’t fair.

That is until G hit the “mid-life crisis/pick a new career” spot. When you reach this spot on the board, you have to give up your old career and salary and pick a new career and salary from a stack of cards. And what do you know—every card he picked, he needed a college degree, and so he would have to pick again. And again.

He picked accountant, to which I gleefully said,

“Nope—can’t have that one little boy! You didn’t go to college, remember? Pick another one!”

He chose the doctor card, to which I yelled,

“Looks like you need a degree for that one as well. Too bad! Pick again!”

And then he picked artist. No degree needed for that one. I was still in my prime, because I was SURE he was going to pick a $15,000 or $25,000 a year salary card.

Nope. The kid somehow became an artist with a $100,000 a year salary.

As I slumped back into my seat and the child proceeded to hit TWO SALARY spots within one turn and therefore made $200,000 with one spin he said to me,

“This Life is good, Mama!”

Let’s just hope life really works out like that for you in the end, my dear.

So I have now officially turned into one of those women who is stressing out about where to send her child to kindergarten.

Yep. Kindergarten.

I can’t even spell kindergarten correctly (or is it kindergarden? I can never remember).

We dumbly decided to test G to see if he was “gifted” and turns out a graduate student at IIT thought he was (or maybe G was the only child that day who did not cry when he was separated from his mother and would answer all the questions). Who knows? All I know is that we are fortunate enough to have choices of where to send our child to school.

But like all things related to our generation, we have TOO many choices that just stress us out. And let me tell you, this is stressing us out. Because in my mind, there is a definite equation here:

good elementary school = enrollment into selective CPS high school = acceptance into good colleges and many scholarship offers

Therefore, my fear becomes this equation:

mediocre elementary school = enrollment into mediocre CPS high school = acceptance into some small college in South Dakota I have never heard of that somehow costs $30K a year

And so how do I handle all of this? I decide to ignore it and spend all my free time planning an exorbitantly expensive trip to a dude ranch in Montana.

Seriously. Sometimes my passive ways of dealing with stress even amaze me.

And yes, I did say a dude ranch in Montana.

So now that I am done obsessively checking Orbitz, Expedia, and Travelocity to INSURE I am getting the best deal out to Bozeman, Montana (turns out there are no good deals to Bozeman, Montana), I am left with this looming decision which needs to be made by tomorrow.

Which also happens to be my birthday.

Did I mention that my favorite thing to do on my birthday is drink martinis on the couch, huddling under a quilt I have from college that I REFUSE to throw away, while I continually watch Legends of the Fall all day?

Guess that won’t be happening tomorrow. You certainly don’t make important decisions about your preschooler’s life while holed up in your house replaying the scene where Brad Pitt comes bursting through the mountains with hundreds of black horses over and over again.

So hopefully we made the right decision. And if not, there is always Montana…

1)      That your water park has a bar. Within the perimeter of the actual water park. That serves ACTUAL alcoholic drinks and not non-alcoholic drinks. Because those are the biggest oxymoron of them all.

2)      Maybe that your preschooler knows he will indeed get his face wet if he goes to a water park. And that he could have gone to the hot tub at his grandparents’ house, located twenty minutes away from his house, for free.

3)      If your preschooler won’t go on any of the little kid water slides because he’ll get his face wet, walk into the fabulous interactive water playground because he is afraid that the big bucket of water will be poured on him (even after you have explained FIVE times that they ring little bells for 30 seconds BEFORE the big bucket of water pours out, therefore insuring anyone and everyone to get out of the way), or even go on the Lazy River that the babies are on FOR GOD’S SAKE because he MIGHT get his face wet, make sure you can leave right away and get your money back and not have to stay overnight in ROCKFORD.

4)      When you stay overnight in Rockford because you wanted to make sure you had PLENTY of time at the said water park, do NOT think that the hotel rooms closest to the actual water park are a good idea. Because unless your child LOVES the water park and cannot get enough of it, they are LOUD rooms and entail you to have conversations like these:

Me (turning to my husband): Why are there loud, shrieking girls running up and down the hallway outside our room at 9:30 pm?

Husband: I don’t know. What do you want me to do about it?

Me (after disdainfully looking at husband, dressed only in his underpants): Well, clearly you can’t go out there dressed like that. I guess I’ll have to take care of it.

Me (loudly opening the door and sighing, almost getting whacked in the arm as loud, shrieking girls run by): Excuse me (to the girls, who have now stopped in their tracks), do you know WHO is running up and down the hallway? My little boy is trying to sleep and keeps getting woken up by LOUD, RUDE girls?

Girl #1: Oh, I don’t know!

Girl #2: Nope. Me neither.

All said as they quietly walked off. And then started shrieking TWO minutes later.

5)      Did I mention to insure that the water park has a bar? Because when all else fails, like it will when you dumbly decide to take your preschooler to a water park, at least you can get a cheap pina colada, close your eyes, and pretend you are in Jamaica…

Yesterday my son was excited not that I had bought him a new Transformer or some stupid video game, but because I had brought home the ENTIRE Nutcracker suite on CD vs. the partial Nutcracker suite my parents had given him.

He’s five.

This whole transaction made me happy on so many levels. It made me happy because:

a)      I think video games are a plague that suck all social skills and intellectual capacity out of a child’s mind and will fight the acquisition of them with every bone in my body and am therefore thrilled he has not discovered them

b)      He has an appreciation for all kinds of music (not just rock like my parents think)

c)      I won’t have to hear him complain anymore that he doesn’t have the WHOLE version of the Nutcracker suite anymore

In all seriousness, I am happy because it is moments like these where I think that maybe our little experiment to raise him in the city vs. the suburbs is paying off. Not that suburban children don’t go see The Nutcracker (they do—believe me, I saw them all being dropped off by their dads in minivans prior to the performance), but I wonder if OUR suburban child would have gone to The Nutcracker. Or Lollapalooza. Or to see Blondie at Ravinia. Or if we would be going to a museum a week during the summer or the beach every other day.

He certainly wouldn’t be requesting to go for cocktails at The John Hancock as much as he does.

My husband and I are very adjustable, in that we adjust to any environment we are in. If we are vacationing on a little lake in Wisconsin, we go fishing in a rowboat and eat cheese curds. If we are downtown in the summer, we are all about finding the new hotel bar to try the new IT martini (and just assume that bringing our son is fine. Whatever, if we’re willing to pay $6 for a kiddie cocktail, more profit for them). So that makes me wonder, if we lived in a quiet, calm little suburb, would we become a quiet, calm little family?

I feel like we would. I envision living in the suburbs as this hazy, sunny, summery life where children run around in their large backgrounds in colorful rompers and blow ridiculously large bubbles. While the parents sit on their pristine decks and grill on their beautiful Weber grills and drink fresh-squeezed lemonade.

Why would we want to leave this calm utopia to drive an hour into the loud, dirty, city to pay large amounts of money for parking in order to squeeze into a crowded museum or concert for three hours?

We wouldn’t. But when you are surrounded by the loud, dirty city every day, driving 20 minutes to go to the zoo or taking the 147 Express to attend Lollapalooza or go to a movie in the park just doesn’t seem so out of the ordinary.

Therefore, in the city we stay. Or at least until our son discovers video games, and then we’ll have to move to where we can tell him, “Oh, you can’t get video games here (in Uganda)….”