I’ve been thinking for the past couple days about going to Germany to join the runaway cow Yvonne. In case you haven’t seen the stories about her, she escaped just moments before being sent to the slaughterhouse and has spent three months wandering free through the Bavarian Forest. She is a renegade bovine, and I applaud her. But it’s a dark moment when I’m ready to throw it all away and become Thelma to a dairy cow’s Louise. And if you live in Lutherville, or any other area without power, you know exactly what dark moment I’m talking about. Perhaps your moment is still happening (my most …
At this point everything in my house is charging. There are little red lights glowing in several rooms around the house where we are charging the laptop, the Nintendo DSIs, the iPods, the portable DVD player and anything else that comes with a plug. That’s the height of our storm preparation at the moment because if there’s anything I fear from what Irene may bring, it’s spending several days without electricity. I know that it’s hard to predict what damage will come, but if you live in the Lutherville area, you know power is the first thing to go. I went on a pre-storm walk with my dog this…
Earlier this summer my son declared the Target store in Cockeysville completely off limits. “I am NOT setting foot in that place,” he said with such venom that I had to stop playing Words with Friends on my iPhone to get to the bottom of his disgust. “It’s the school supplies,” he said. “It’s only July, and they already have them all out. Summer just started!” While I understood his need to stay in carefree summer mode then, it’s now time for him to snap out of it and for us to head up York Road with school supply lists in hand. And, really, it’s me who should be dreading the trip. With three…
I made a friend of mine jealous today when I ran into her in the checkout line at Target. She was with her daughter and asked where my kids were. “They’re all at camp this week,” I gloated and then waited for her to tell me that she was envious. She did, but my self-satisfaction was short lived. For one thing, my house feels creepy when it’s this quiet. Even my dog is jumpy. For another, I put a lot of pressure on myself to get all kinds of huge tasks completed when my kids are gone for several hours a day. As I write this, a brand-new carpet steamer/cleaner thing (total impulse-buy at Kohl’s…
Was I the only mom who spit out her coffee when reading the news about the child pornography charges against the now former owner, president and CEO of the Padonia Park Club? I had only recently signed a very large check for my family to become new members at the club. We were so excited to take in all it had to offer. And then reporter Mike Schuh from WJZ-TV broke the story about the charges against Ira Charles F. Rigger Jr. Like many 21st century moms, I mentioned my disgust in a Facebook status. Mike Schuh (who is one of my Facebook friends) commented, saying “you outta [sic] see the …
I contemplated standing at the bus stop when school let out earlier today with a boom box held over my head blasting Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out for Summer.” My children are thankful that I didn't. Normally I don’t want to party like a rockstar when the school year ends. I might be more prone to sit in a dark room listening to Samuel Barber’s incredibly depressing but beautiful "Adagio for Strings” as I contemplate how to keep everybody entertained all those endless, hot days ahead of us. Not this year. Bring on those long, lazy days. After a school year of tight schedules, project deadlines…
Now I see why some parents keep their Disney trips a secret from their kids until the morning that they’re leaving. We’ve been on a Disney countdown in my house for a while now, and pretty soon I’ll be able to give up the airplane tickets because my kids have enough energy and excitement built up to rocket themselves from our house in Lutherville down to Orlando, Fla. on their own. This is our first trip to Disney as a family. The last time I stepped foot in Orlando, it was 1977. My mom rented a white Ford Pinto that we tootled around Florida in. I remember loving Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. The …
You know it’s May in Lutherville when you start seeing all the yard sale signs out in front of each neighborhood. My neighborhood’s yard sale day is this weekend, and from the level of my kids’ excitement, you would think it was a holiday. Each year on yard sale day, my kids jump out of bed at the crack of dawn and get dressed in record time. Meanwhile, their piggy banks cower in fear. No quarter or dime is safe. And, while they’re distracted with what they’re going to buy, I’m consumed with finding things that I can sell. We have a shed stuffed full of “yard sale items”—the old crib, a …
My 5-year-old daughter has big plans for this Mother’s Day. She has whispered very loudly and very breathily (in a way that only little kids can do) in my ear that she plans to make me breakfast in bed, to buy me a sparkly diamond ring and to help me fold the laundry. I assured her that it’s my idea of the perfect Mother’s Day, but really, she had me at that breathy whisper. As much as Mother’s Day is about celebrating your mom, for me it’s also about feeling so fortunate to be raising my three wacky but wonderful kids. I don’t need the presents—just the moments. I’m looking forward to the …
I was in the gym locker room the other day when a very nice woman pointed at my footwear and said, “Oh, look at the ducky boot!” I replied, “Actually, it’s my boot of shame.” We were talking about the removable walking cast that I’ve been hobbling around in for the past two and a half weeks. While she thought it was cute that it makes my right foot look like it belongs to a gigantic duck, it actually makes me cringe whenever I look at it. I have to wear it for at least another month because I have a stress fracture in the second metatarsal bone in my foot. I’ve mentioned before that I love to…
You know you’re a parent when it hurts you more when something happens to your child than if it had actually happened to you. It’s just so hard to see them work hard to achieve a goal and then fall just short of attaining it. I’m not talking about frivolous things like saving money to buy something new. I’m talking about not making a team, or doing poorly on a test or even losing a friend. I know it's part of life. How we deal with setbacks is part of what has shaped us grown-ups in to the people we are today. But it’s hard to pass that wisdom along to someone who really can’t see past the …
My husband wins the son-in-law of the year award for spending what seemed like an eternity on the phone with my mother the other night. He was trying to explain to her how to get her cable box back in sync with her 20-year-old television set. “All you can see is fuzz?” I heard him ask her. “Turn off the TV… do you see the button? No? It’s the little red one.” He then very patiently walked her through the steps so she wouldn’t miss another minute of the NCAA basketball tournament. It’s a phone call we’ve come to expect on a quarterly basis, whether it’s from my mom or his dad. Technology can …
I can tell what time of year it is in my house just by judging the number of tissue boxes we go though on a weekly basis. And, it’s time for me to run to Target to stock up. Seasonal allergies reign supreme in my house, and my son Jimmy is the king. When we had him tested several years ago, we were convinced that his main allergy was to our 15-year-old, one-eyed cat named Stella. She had been snuggling up with him and leaving all kinds of ancient cat dander around in his bed. We warned her that when the test results were in, she might have to find another place to sleep and shed. But, on …
I’ve gotten to the point in the season where I find any temperature under 55 degrees absolutely unacceptable. Enough with the 20s! I don’t want to see any more frosty car windows. No more icy, crunchy grass. No more snow shovels perched against houses as if waiting for the next big storm. Winter, you’ve overstayed your welcome. I know it’s only early March. I realize we could have more snow. But aren’t you just DONE with it already? I’m ready to see the germs that have been passed from kid to kid all winter in elementary schools around our area disappear. I'm ready to stop arguing with my …
You should see the chart on the wall of our dining room. It’s intricate. It’s magnetic. It’s colorful. But most of all, it’s ignored. It’s a chore chart for our three children. Every few months or so, my husband and I become inspired. We whip ourselves into shape. We sit the kids down for a family conference and lecture them about the importance of completing chores. The merits of cleaning up your room, the thrill of taking out the recycling and the satisfaction of setting the table are our favorite talking points. And, the kids are always eager to get on board. Jimmy likes the idea of …
Have you gotten a good look at Suzanne Somers lately? Seriously? I saw her on the Today Show the other morning, did a double take and then had to change the channel. Or what about, dare I say it, Joan Rivers? (Take a look at this Time Warp post from TMZ.) She will be 78 in June, according to IMDB. She looks like she is trying to pass for 25. What is going on with women and plastic surgery these days? Celebrities are going under the knife and emerging looking like aliens. Actresses as young as 30 are using Botox. What wrinkles can they possibly have? I bring this up because I just turned 42…
I am sitting in my office listening to Princess Ariel sing “Part of Your World” from the movie The Little Mermaid on Pandora.com. As I’m desperately trying not to sing along because the walls are paper-thin and I’m sure my co-workers and the students in the hallway would not appreciate my warbling. My 5-year-old daughter Mary Kate is lying on the floor of my office on her sleeping bag, drawing a picture of hearts and rainbows. (See photos.) Meanwhile, I’m trying to prep for my class I have to teach in an hour. We have already made a trip to the vending machine in the hallway. She has already…
I will be the first to admit that I asked for all this snow. I had been lamenting that we had only gotten dustings here in Maryland while our neighbors to the north got dumped on. When I made the request of Mother Nature, it was only because even with dustings, school seemed to be delayed or closed anyway. I wanted my kids to at least be able to get outside and play in it. And, in line with the current trend of transparency in journalism, I must also admit to you that my middle name is “Snow.” I was born in a blizzard and my parents got creative. I was the sixth child. It was the 1960s. …
If you’re lucky, the most contact you have with the Lutherville Volunteer Fire Co. is when the firefighters escort Santa Claus on a fire truck through your neighborhood each Christmas. Or maybe they’ve helped you and your kids pick out a Christmas tree from the vast selection in the lot behind the fire house on Bellona Avenue. Perhaps you’ve hosted your child's birthday party there. I use the word lucky because firefighters don’t often come into our lives during the good moments. In fact, we depend on them during the very worst moments. They arrive when we need help, whether it’s to take a …
My kids are greeted each morning with a copy of The Baltimore Sun and The New York Times on the dining room table. Time Magazine is on our coffee table. If they wander into my bedroom in the morning, they’ll see the TV tuned to The Today Show. In other words, the news is everywhere in our house. So when U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in Arizona, it didn’t take long for my 10-year-old son, Jimmy, to start asking questions. “What happened?” he simply asked. I had a brief, internal struggle over how to answer him. Part of me wished I hadn’t stepped out of the room the moment the story…
