Selfish Mom

Nine years ago today my life changed forever

Jul 30, 2010 Kids

I’ve been staring at that terrible headline trying to come up with something less clichéd, maybe a little funny or snarky.  But I can’t come up with anything more honest.  Today is my oldest child’s birthday (the very minute this posted, actually).  And while I don’t love him any more than I love his little sister, he’s the one who made me a mom.  He’s the one who terrified me, the one I stumbled with and had absolutely no clue with.  He’s the one who helped me prove that you can flail around for the first few years trying to figure out who you are as a mom and come out just fine on the other side.

Being a mom is hard.  It’s especially hard for someone as lazy as I am.  Kids add a lot of work: more laundry, more dishes, shuttling from place to place, overseeing homework, disciplining, and as I found out with a boy, a lot of time monitoring personal hygiene (seriously, just about any mom will tell you: boys are gross and don’t seem to care).  And what they take away has even more of an impact: free time, sleep, money, peace of mind.  A grape is no longer a grape, it’s the giant round monster that will try to kill your child.  Stairs are terrifying and cars are death traps.  Bathrooms are slippery and hard and designed to crack your child’s skull open.

But even more than the specific physical challenges to keeping a child alive, the world suddenly becomes a different place, more sinister.  And Jake’s timing made this exponentially worse.  On September 11th, 2001 Jake was five weeks old.  I was hormonal and just beginning to settle into being a mom when everything changed.  I sat on my couch watching TV and holding Jake, knowing that his diaper was completely dirty, but I was paralyzed.  I was waiting for my husband to call from his job near the World Trade Center.  Hours later, even after I knew he was OK, I still couldn’t get off of the couch and take care of my child.  I couldn’t help thinking that having him was a big mistake, that the world was just too evil a place for someone so tiny and helpless.

And of course I eventually got off of the couch and that feeling faded.  We got on an airplane a couple months later and it didn’t crash and the world seemed OK.  But then Jake got older and the world got scary again.  It’s easy to read the news and convince yourself that around every corner is a child killer, or a kidnapper, or a pervert. Trucks are waiting for him to cross the street without looking and every innocent piece of Halloween candy is filled with poison.  But you push that to the back of your head and let your children explore and grow and learn because frankly, if you don’t, they’ll never move out and you’ll have to invite Dr. Phil’s son over to film you when your child is 35 and still living at home.

That’s another thing that confounds me.  I love my children dearly, and try to enjoy my time with them, but I’m always conscious of the fact that the ultimate goal is to get rid of them.  That I can measure my success not by how much they need me, but how little they need me.  I’m working hard every day to put myself out of a job.  The ultimate reward for having them will be when they’re on their own.  It’s a strange cycle we’ve all gotten ourselves into.

And then there’s the ultimate betrayal, the fact that just when you’re hitting your stride as a mom, when you’ve managed to keep a child alive for a respectable amount of time, they start to hate you.  Everything you do is wrong and stupid.  You’re old, uncool, and don’t know anything.

So if kids are dirty, and expensive, and exhausting, and maddening, and scary, why do we do it?  I mean, fool me once, sure.  But why do so many of us go ahead and have a second kid, or more?  Have our brain cells become so deadened at that point by lack of sleep and a diet of Goldfish crackers that we just don’t know what we’re doing?

No.  We know exactly what we’re doing.  Because even though day-to-day life suffers when you’ve got kids, overall it becomes so much richer.  I am amazed everyday at how sweet my son is, how he makes me laugh, how he hugs his sister when he thinks nobody’s looking.  How he loves math and music, and is fearless on his skateboard.  How he rolls his eyes and says “Oh, mother!” when I get mushy with him.  How he hugs me so hard I think my bones are going to break.  That’s what’s in it for me.

Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information. Amy also blogs at Filming In Brooklyn, Behind the Screen, and Momtourage.

Tags: Kids

Get Your Own Eggo Breakfast Pizzas!

Jul 29, 2010 Contest/Giveaway, Product Review

Eggo™ Real Fruit Pizzas

I was sent these new Eggo™ Real Fruit Pizzas to try, and honestly I wasn’t sure when they arrived that they were going to be my thing. I mean, I love pizza, and I love granola, and I love many other Eggo products, but I’m not crazy about yogurt mixed with other things and I’m pretty picky about fruit.  I could really only be a food blogger within a narrow niche of picky vegetarians who aren’t crazy about typical vegetarian go-to foods. :-)

But anyway, I was happy to try something new with an open mind.  I made the strawberry Real Fruit Pizza in the microwave for my family and while we liked it, my husband hit the nail on the head: it was good, but we’re a crisp crust family.  The microwave preparation makes a tasty breakfast pizza with a soft crust, but I made the next one – Mixed Berry – in the oven, and that made ALL the difference.  I’m not even all that crazy about blueberries or raspberries, and yet I wolfed the mixed berry one down myself in about three minutes.  And it only took seven minutes to bake in the oven.  Totally worth it if you like a crisp crust (if you like soft crust, you’ll be thrilled with the lightening-fast preparation of these breakfast pizzas in the microwave).  Read through to the end to see how you can win your own Eggo™ Real Fruit Pizzas sample pack.

Morning Routine Renewal

Mornings around here have settled into a routine, but I’m not sure it’s a good one.  The kids get out the door on time for the camp car-pool, but they’re usually making their own breakfasts and I’m often scrambling to get their camp backpacks packed at the last minute.  And inevitably someone remembers that they need something signed, or a costume, or a special shirt, or something else I’m not prepared for.  Sadly, any change to this will involve me, um, you know, not being a completely lazy disorganized ass, but it’s worth it if I can make things a bit smoother in the mornings.  They only have a few weeks of camp left, but these changes that I’m planning on making will carry over well to the school year.

• I’m going to enter all of their camp information into my google calendar, so that I don’t waste time searching for the camp calendars (I’m hopeless with paper, I think it hides from me).  I check that calendar multiple times each day, so I won’t be blindsided by pajama day or color wars day or let’s-see-if-we-can-make-your-mom-yell-in-frustration-while-getting-ready day.
• I will get all of that stuff prepared the night before, so that there’s no running around in the morning searching for things that I find ten minutes after the kids leave.
• I’m going to make them set out their clothes the night before, so that I’ve got a better idea of what I need to get ready for them.  Having a 25-minute quick cycle on our washing machine is great, but having to wash underwear last-minute makes for a harried morning.  Besides, a watched dryer never dries (although here’s a bonus tip: throwing a couple clean, dry towels in with the wet underwear speeds things up).
• I’m going to wash and cut up fruit for the kids the night before.  They’ll eat it if it’s all ready for them, but if they have to wash it and prepare it, they’ll ignore its existence.
• I’m going to stock a bigger variety of breakfast foods that they can make themselves.  While I’d love to vow to be downstairs with them at breakfast time, it’s just not likely most days.  With four people showering I’m usually the last one in (unless I want to get up at 5:30, which I don’t) so I’m just being realistic about this one.
• The biggest change I’m going to make is re-instituting our daily checklists.  I’ve used these off-and-on over the years when I felt like I was being a real nag.  Instead of chasing the kids around reminding them to put their dirty clothes down the chute or to brush their teeth, or punishing them endlessly after the fact, I put everything into a checklist for each kid so that they had no excuse for forgetting something.  It’s not foolproof, but a lot of the stuff they were just honestly forgetting, so this helped them focus.  After using it for a while they always get into a groove and then we let it go, but they need it again, definitely.  And if your kids aren’t old enough to read, I did Fiona’s first checklist with little pictures: the toothbrush, the light switch, etc.  Worked like a charm and checking things off made her excited.

The Giveaway

I’d love for you to share some morning tips of your own that have helped you out.  Five winners will be chosen via random.org to receive two of the new Eggo™ Real Fruit Pizzas (both varieties, Mixed Berry Granola and Strawberry Granola, one each) to sample.  (This contest is running on some other blogs, so if you win somewhere else you can’t win here as well.)  Out of all of the comments on all of the blogs running the contest, five will be chosen to receive another sample two-pack of Eggo™ Real Fruit Pizzas plus a couple of Eggo coffee mugs.

All you have to do to enter is leave a comment with your best morning streamlining tip.  Please make sure you leave a valid email address so that I can get in touch with you if you win.   Entries will be received until 12am on August 5th, 2010 (confusing, I know – just consider it late-night on August 4th).  Any entries received after that time will be removed.  Five winners will be chosen by random.org sometime on August 5th.

This promotion is sponsored by TheMotherhood.  Giveaway is open to legal residents of the continental U.S. who are at least 18 years old.  Only one entry per person please.  For my complete givaway rules, please see my Giveaway Rules page.  You can see all of the very official somebody-else-came-up-with-them rules here. Want more info about Eggo™ Real Fruit Pizzas?  You can join The Motherhood EggoAm Circle.  Good luck!

Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has Compensation Levels of 2, 10 & 11. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information. Amy also blogs at Filming In Brooklyn, Behind the Screen, and Momtourage.

Tags: #EggoAM, breakfast, Eggo Breakfast Pizza, Eggo Real Fruit Pizzas, morning routine

Bargaining with an eight-year-old

Jul 29, 2010 Kids

I try not to say no to my kids unless there’s a good reason.  Unfortunately for them, a good reason can be anything from “We can’t afford it” to “You don’t need it” to “Leave me alone I’m taking a nap.”  But I try not to be capricious about these things.  If it makes sense, whenever possible I say yes.

Jake’s birthday is tomorrow (how the hell do I have an almost-nine-year-old?), and with about 20 kids and counselors in his camp group I told him yesterday that I’d bring in two-dozen yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting.  That’s his favorite combination.  Instead of my preferred reply, “You’re awesome Mommy!” he said “But what about all of the kids who like chocolate cupcakes?”  I told him OK, we’ll do chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting.  “No, some of them will want yellow cupcakes!”  Sigh.

I explained to him that one box of cake mix makes 24 cupcakes, so he had to choose: all yellow, or all chocolate.  And also that anybody who complains about the flavor of free birthday cupcakes should just shut up (I think I said it nicer than that).  He didn’t want to choose, and a very pleasant car ride turned ugly fast.  He got incredibly snotty, told me I didn’t love him, and said that if I didn’t want to make both kinds then he didn’t want to bring in cupcakes at all.  I calmly said fine, his choice.

I don’t reward my kids in any way when they act like that.  I waited for him to calm down, and asked if he had anything to say to me.  He teared up a little and gave me a huge hug and told me he was sorry, so I offered him a compromise: he wanted a yellow cake with chocolate frosting for his party.  I told him that if I could make one layer of that cake chocolate, he could have two kinds of cupcakes.  He said he wanted to think about it.  Such weighty decisions on his head!

A couple hours later my little Hamlet came to me and told me – rather sadly – that it was a deal.  And he thanked me for making the cupcakes and the cake.  The sadness and the un-prompted thank you made me pause for a sec.  It’s his birthday, should I just do it the way he wants, for that one day?

I don’t know what I’m doing half the time, but I do know that I don’t want my kids to take me for granted.  Would baking an extra box of cupcakes make that happen?  Maybe not.  But I’d rather they not grow up with the sense that they get whatever they ask for.  They get way more toys and video games than we would ever buy them because of my job, so saying no to material things just doesn’t come up as much as it used to.  But I want them to know how much time it takes me to do things for them, to keep them in clean clothes (most of the time anyway), and keep the house stocked with food, and take care of the logistics that come with two kids and a husband and a house.  I want them to value other people’s time.

Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information. Amy also blogs at Filming In Brooklyn, Behind the Screen, and Momtourage.

Tags: birhtday cake, Parenting

My Week On Twitter

Jul 27, 2010 Uncategorized

Monday, July 19th

Tuesday, July 20th

Wednesday, July 21st

Thursday, July 22nd

Friday, July 23rd

Saturday, July 24th

Sunday, July 25th

Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information. Amy also blogs at Filming In Brooklyn, Behind the Screen, and Momtourage.

Tags: Twitter

People like this make me cling to karma

Jul 22, 2010 Around NYC

So I was driving the kids to camp this morning – my two, plus another girl that we carpool with.  The drive is long and maddening, a route filled with double (and occasionally triple) parked cars, buses, dollar vans, completely nutty livery cab drivers, encroaching pedestrians waiting to cross the street, and bikes who don’t have a lane so they take whichever one they can grab.  It’s forty-five minutes (if traffic is good) each way of lane changing and avoidance and white knuckles, and that’s on a good, routine day.  Not like two days ago, when we were held up for twenty minutes because just ahead of us a parked car pretty much lost its door to a passing bus.  Or the day before that, when I discovered that my car’s air conditioning wasn’t working (it was 95 degrees).

Today was going fine, and then a guy almost ran me into oncoming traffic trying to avoid a double-parked van.  I was driving along in my lane on the left, and he was next to me on the right, and all of a sudden he was changing lanes right into me.  I slammed on the brakes and the horn, all three kids screamed, and this guy slipped just in front of me.  I’m pretty sure I let out a string of expletives while it was happening, but I’m not sure.  Hopefully the kids were screaming too loud to hear me.  Thanks to the guy behind me paying attention I didn’t get rear-ended.

So all of that would have been bad enough, but honestly not all that unusual for driving in Brooklyn.  It was what the guy did next that got my blood boiling.  He – with nothing in front of him and still very close in front of me, since I was still trying to avoid getting hit from behind if I stopped completely – slammed on the brakes so that he could yell at me and give me the finger and shake his fist.  I slammed on the brakes so hard that the anti-lock brakes engaged, and I missed hitting this guy by about an inch.  All so that he could aim his anger at me for a situation that had been his fault.

I laid on the horn some more and he got going.  He was in front of me for a few more blocks and it took everything I had not to pull up next to him at the traffic lights and call him every name in the book.  But that would have been about the dumbest thing I could have done.  The guy’s behavior had already clued me in to the fact that he was unhinged.  Plus, I had three kids in the car that I’d be putting in danger.  Plus, I’d be setting a terrible example for them, especially for my son.  Plus, I can’t claim to be better than people like this guy if I act like this guy.

In a situation like that, the only thing that gets me breathing normally again is my belief in karma.  Not the traditional karma, where God decides what happens to you based on your actions, but more of a man-made karma.  That you shape what happens to you based on how you live your life, how you treat others.  I don’t have ulcers because I really believe that something bad will happen to that guy because of how he acted today.

If you ask my kids what karma means, they’ll both say “Do good things and good things will happen to you.”  I don’t dwell on the other part with them, the part that gets me through the day: do bad things and you’ll get what’s coming to you.  Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday.  So I don’t get myself into trouble yelling at this guy and making him madder.  I sit back and let it go, knowing that someday he’ll get what’s coming to him.

Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information. Amy also blogs at Filming In Brooklyn, Behind the Screen, and Momtourage.

Tags: road rage

Why I call my husband “The Ass”

Jul 21, 2010 Blog & Social Media Stuff

I just saw that tweet and was about to respond to it on twitter.  I get a tweet or an email just about every day asking why I refer to my husband as “The Ass” online.  So I decided to write a post explaining it once and for all, and I can just refer people here from now on when they ask.

When I started SelfishMom.com I had no idea what was going to happen.  It wasn’t exactly a personal blog – I always intended for it to be public – but with millions of blogs out there I figured it would be read by a few people I knew, and that would be that.  I didn’t realize that blogging could be a career, and I had no clue what was involved.  But I did know that my husband is a very private person, and that he wouldn’t want me to use his real name.  So, I asked him to pick a fake name to be known by online.  I figured he’d pick “Wally” which is the name he gives at restaurants (I don’t know why).  But he didn’t want Wally.  I bugged him for a few weeks, all the while getting very sick of just referring to him as “my husband.”  Finally I gave him an ultimatum: come up with a nom de blog, or I would simply call him “The Ass.”  He said fine.

You see, Ass was a nickname that we’d been using for each other for oh, fifteen years or so at that point.  “Hey ass, what do you want for dinner?”  “Ass, you’ve got a phone call.”  “Yo, ass, come here for a minute.”  Yes, I know that sounds weird.  But we’ve been together forever (21 years, more than half of our lives) and who the hell knows how it started?  It’s an affectionate nickname.  It had belonged to both of us, but online, it became his, and I capitalized it to differentiate from the times when I was sure I would just be referring to him as an ass (see, lower case=name calling, upper case=affectionate nickname).

If I’d known how big my blog would get, would I have started out calling him Ass?  I honestly don’t know.  He didn’t care in the beginning.  But in the beginning all of the people reading Selfish Mom were probably related to me, or went to high school with me.  He pretty much stays out of my blog life.  He doesn’t comment, I don’t think he even reads it much.  He’s not on twitter.  On those rare times when I do mention something about a tweet referring to “The Ass” he gets an annoyed look, but I think half of that look is due to the fact that I’m blogging at all.

If he were to ask me to stop calling him The Ass at this point, I’d stop.  It would probably live on in my About page as “formerly known as The Ass” but that would be it, and I’d call him Wally or Fred or whatever he chose.  But really, I don’t think he cares.  He wants me to be happy, he wants me to be fulfilled, he wants me to make money, and he wants a clean bathroom.  Not in that order.  And I want him to be happy too.  But he knows (and hopefully everybody else does too) that when I type the words “The Ass” I’m smiling every time.

Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information. Amy also blogs at Filming In Brooklyn, Behind the Screen, and Momtourage.

Tags: nicknames

Do you have wifi dead spots?

Jul 21, 2010 Product Review

We’ve got a big house.  It’s not ginormous, it’s just tall – four floors and a basement.  Our modem is in the basement, and several locations in the house are hard-wired to the modem.  Also connected to the modem is a Cisco wireless router.  That wireless router gives us a somewhat unreliable but usable signal on the bottom two floors.  Once you get to the third floor, though, the signal pretty much disappears.  So a couple years ago my husband piggybacked a second Cisco wireless router onto the first, which gave us wifi on the upper two floors.

But a few months ago the second router stopped connecting to the internet, and we can’t seem to get the connection working again.  After doing all of ten minutes research the other night (I was in an impatient and frustrated mood), I ordered this Hawking HWREN1 Range Extender from Amazon.  I hooked everything up this morning, and it works like a dream!  I usually use a product for more than ten minutes before reviewing it, but this was just such a quick and easy solution, I’m excited to share it.

Configuring the range extender consisted of bringing a laptop down to the basement where the modem and router are, along with everything in the range extender box plus an extra ethernet cord.  Set-up would have taken about three minutes, except it didn’t work the first time, or the second.  It would get to the last step with no problem, then not be able to finish.  I took a quick look at the HWREN1 support section on the Hawking site, and discovered that my range extender needed a firmware update.  I’m not going to lie, this was a little bit of a pain in the ass.  It involved changing an ip address and resetting the range extender and doing some other stuff that might look overwhelming to someone without a lot of computer experience, but if you take it one step at a time and follow the very clear directions on the Hawking site, it’s very doable and was done in about ten minutes.  Once the firmware update was complete, the HWREN1 set itself up in about two minutes.

After that, I just had to figure out the best placement for it.  Basically, you want to find a place that’s still getting a strong signal from the original source (the router) but that’s closer to the place you need the signal to reach (and remember, that location needs an outlet to plug the range extender into).  In most houses this would probably be about halfway between the router and the dead spot, but in my house the signal has the most trouble getting out of the basement.  I put the range extender on the first floor near both the basement door and the stairs that go up to the rest of the house, and that did the trick!  I’ve got an excellent signal now throughout the entire house.

The signal is as secure as your router’s signal.  In other words, if you have your wireless router set up with a password or WEP key, then you’ll need that to sign on to the range extender’s signal.  Connecting to the range extender was very easy.  My laptops detected it the same as they would any other wifi signal.  For some reason, I had to restart a couple of laptops in order to get internet access from this signal initially, but once they got a signal the first time I then disconnected and reconnected, restarted, and did whatever else I could to try to mess the signal up.  Reconnecting was flawless every time.

So, to sum up if you have wifi deadspots in your house from your wireless router, I highly recommend the Hawking HWREN1 Range Extender.  Don’t be scared off by the little bit of trouble I had getting it set up, the instructions are clear and once you set it up once you’re done, and you should have a fantastic wifi signal.

This review in no way guarantees that the product reviewed will work for you in the same way (hey, it could work even better, but it could be worse).  Please check with the manufacturer or other sources to ensure that this is the right product for you.  The owner of this websites takes no responsibility for anything that happens to you as a result of buying or using this product.

Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information. Amy also blogs at Filming In Brooklyn, Behind the Screen, and Momtourage.

Tags: basement, Hawking HWREN1 firmware update, Hawking HWREN1 Hi-Gain Wireless-300N Range Extender, how to install HWREN1, problem with Hawking HWREN1 range extender, signal, wifi dead spots, wifi signal booster

“The Good Wife” filming today at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens

Jul 20, 2010 Around NYC

This morning while driving back from my kids’ summer camp I stumbled upon the unmistakable sight of dozens of large trucks lining the street, setting up for a movie or TV shoot near the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens.  It turned out to be CBS’ The Good Wife, my new favorite show from last season.  The Good Wife has an amazing cast of powerhouse actors, including Julianna Margulies (ER), Chris Noth (Sex and the City, Law & Order), Josh Charles (Dead Poets’ Society and the completely underrated and overlooked Sports Night) Christine Baranski (Cybill, Mamma Mia, and sucky secret-keeping), and Alan Cumming (X-Men and the 1998 Broadway revival of Cabaret).  Plus a couple of fantastic cast members who were previously unknown to me, Matt Czuchry and Archi Panjabi, who TV Guide’s Matt Roush referred to as a “Super-Hero Mystery Sex Goddess.”  I went to a panel discussion a few months ago to hear several members of the cast discuss the show, and it was really fascinating.

Anyway, I wish I had time today to wander around the Botanic Gardens hoping to run into Julianna Margulies and gush about how amazing she is on the show, but I had to take my dying Saturn in to have the AC fixed.  And as huge a fan of the show as I am (and as much as I’ve been neglecting Filming In Brooklyn), broken AC during a heat wave trumps fawning fan-girl adventures every time.  This especially sucks because when I went to that panel discussion and had the chance to ask a question, I very self-servingly told the cast about Filming In Brooklyn and begged them to let me on-set should I ever show up while they were in my borough.  Matt Czuchry said OK, but I’d have to wear the same lime-green raincoat I wore to The Paley Center that night.  But at least I’m sitting comfortably on my couch right now instead of standing in the blazing sun in a bright coat trying to explain myself to a disinterested production assistant.

The “set” signs point to an entrance on Washington Avenue near Crown Street, and the trucks line several blocks of Washington Avenue as well as a couple of side streets.  I hope for the cast’s sake that they’re not stuck in coats today filming a Chicago winter scene.  There isn’t enough Kleenex in NYC to blot those foreheads fast enough.

“The Good Wife” at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens [Filming In Brooklyn]

Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information. Amy also blogs at Filming In Brooklyn, Behind the Screen, and Momtourage.

Tags: Filming In Brooklyn, Julianna Margulies, The Good Wife