Kids are Gross — CMB Post

This was originally posted on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog.

A good laugh is hard to come by these days, so I welcomed the one I ran into the other day, even though it was at someone else's expense. I was talking to an expectant first-time dad who was so excited about all the plans he and his wife have made for their new baby. His enthusiasm was infectious and I remembered how thrilling it was when we were planning to bring our own twins home from the hospital.

I listened, smiling, as he talked about having to put the crib together twice, their concerns that the baby already has more stuff than the two of them put together, and whether their first "baby" (a six-year-old Chocolate Lab) would welcome his new little sibling. It all sounded perfectly normal, until he told me about an agreement he and his wife had made. "I plan to help with everything," he said, "except poopy diapers. That's just too gross!"

I laughed — out loud and right in his face. "Kids are gross," I said. "Get over it." I will grant you that moms have a leg up on improving their GTF (Grossness Tolerance Factor), what with all the interesting changes we experience during pregnancy and the less-than-pleasant after effects of childbirth. What mom will ever forget the first time her milk lets down in public, soaking the entire front of her shirt? All of that is personal, however, and we develop a pretty high GTF for our own bodies. But babies and kids are a whole different story.

I so wanted to burst this new dad's bubble by telling him about the booger bubbles his new baby will blow out of his or her cute little nose, and how you have to learn to suck out the junk with those weird, bulbous nasal aspirators. Turns out babies can't use a tissue for years and, even then, you have to hold it while they blow, and then you get to dispose of the mess.

Or how about when that baby boy waits until he is de-diapered and then takes aim right in your eye — or worse, your mouth.

Or when your newly potty-trained princess swallows a bright green plastic button and you get to fish her deposits out of the bowl and sift through them for SIX days to be sure she has passed the button safely and that it is not obstructing her digestive tract.

Or when your little boys decide to visit the bathroom together and use their streams as dueling light sabers (really, they do things like this). You won't even recognize your own voice when you hear yourself yelling: "The next time someone pees on the wall, you will all become sitters! Do you understand me?".

Or when your little girl explores the recycling bin, slicing her palm with the lid of a tuna can and giving you a graphic lesson in anatomy. You can't faint. You can't run away. You are the grownup!.

Or when they say: "Here, hold this," and hand you their ABC gum (that's already-been-chewed, thank you very much).

And even though you have told your little darling a million times that his shirt is not a napkin, he insists on wiping his face on his sleeve or the front of his shirt. Or even better, your shirt.

Or how about that time when your twins got their first bout of the stomach flu when they were four and you were pregnant and you spent five straight hours cleaning up her puke, running to the bathroom to throw up yourself, running back to clean up his puke … you get the picture … until your husband finally came home and took over (bless his heart).

Or how about when your beautiful baby girl comes home at the ripe old age of eight with BO so bad that she smells like the boys' high-school locker room and you have to buy her deodorant and invest in Dr. Scholl's foot powder.

I won't even talk about the disgusting things children will put into their mouths … and noses … and ears … and hair. My friend, the soon-to-be dad, will just have to discover those joys on his own, along with lancing boils, freezing off warts and clipping toenails.

In the '90s, there was a comedy duo called "The Mommies" and one of their funniest bits was about how intimate you become with your baby. Just yesterday, I found myself both gagging and giggling as I looked at my 17-year-old's frighteningly large feet and remembered The Mommies' reflections about how much they used to love to kiss their babies' little tootsies.

Poopy diapers, while certainly not pleasant, are just not that bad on the GTF scale. The good news is that children grow out of them in a few short years. The bad news is that when you bring a new baby into the world, something really terrifying happens. You become the parent. It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it.

This is an original Chicago Moms Blog post. When Susan isn't busy cleaning up messes, she can be found writing at Two Kinds of People and The Animal Store Blog.

Little Kids, Big Problems — CMB Post

This was originally posted on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog.

Until just a week ago, all my parenting experience as a mom and stepmom of six children (ranging in age from 29 to 10) has borne out the underlying truth of the old adage: "Little kids, little problems; big kids, big problems." Now I know that the problems of our little kids are big and getting bigger every day.

This week, our community was rocked by the news of the tragic loss of a fifth grade boy, who was found unresponsive in the bathroom at his public school and who later died, apparently of self-inflicted injuries. I cannot begin to comprehend the devastation the family* of this child is feeling and my heart breaks as they struggle with their pain and dispute even the possibility that he could have taken his own life.

While we do not know this family personally, the loss has had a profound effect on our family, particularly my own fifth grader, as it comes on the heels of a traumatic week for him. A week ago, he experienced his first encounter with verbal and physical bullying. The details are unimportant, but a few facts are worth mentioning. Though he felt threatened for several hours during the school day, my son never went to an adult for help. Though a number of other students in the fifth grade knew of the threats, they never went to an adult for help, either. When I asked my son why he didn't go to an adult, he said he was just scared. He was so scared, in fact, that he ran into the street without looking and was almost hit by a car.

I give credit to our school principal for the way he handled this incident. I think it was particularly insightful that he recognized and addressed the more global issues of keeping dangerous secrets. In speaking to the entire fifth grade, he explained the difference between tattling and going to an adult to keep someone safe. This can be a difficult concept for children to understand. You're not supposed to rat out your friends.

A few days later, in a completely unrelated conversation, my same 10-year-old boy told me that he has been feeling completely overwhelmed all school year and he has no idea how he is going to be able to handle the work and logistics of middle school. His 17-year-old sister smirked at the idea that his fifth-grade life is so hard. After all, she is having to take exams, and ACTs and SATs, and choose colleges, and pick a career, and make decisions that will affect the rest of her life. All he has is a little bit of homework.

It was tempting for me to smile at his worries, too. But I get it. As the youngest of six, this boy has a preternatural understanding of the fleeting nature of childhood. On the one hand, he sees clear-eyed what the future holds in store for him and that growing up is not necessarily all it's cracked up to be. On the other hand, he is holding on white-knuckled to what is left of his boyhood, trying to squeeze out every drop before the well runs dry.

And then we lost another fifth grade boy in our community. I knew when I heard it on the news that the rumors were probably already flying at my son's school. Fifth grade is all about gossip. I also knew that he was probably going to be very upset. We had a long talk that night. We talked about how sad we were for that other little boy and his family. We talked about living in the moment and trying not to worry too much about what's going to happen next. Mostly, we talked about the importance of talking. I reiterated how much we love him and helped him enumerate all the adults in his life he can trust and turn to whenever he needs them. I don't know if it comforted him. I hope it did.

There is no question that the stress our children face is increasing. My adult stepchildren are shocked at the amount of homework their youngest siblings are expected to do every night. When my high school juniors were in elementary school, they didn't even know when the standardized tests would be administered. Now, my little boys worry about them for weeks in advance. I can't help but wonder what else they worry about. I can't help but worry that we, the adults in their lives, are somehow failing them when they feel that they cannot come to us with their problems. Fifth graders should be thinking about books and video games and friendships and snacks and play dates and the myriad other exciting things that being 10 means. They should not be carrying the weight of the world. It's too heavy for those slender shoulders.

*The Oakton Elementary School PTA has set up a fund to help the family of Aquan Lewis. For more information, click

This is an original Chicago Moms Blog post. Susan also writes Two Kinds of People and The Animal Store Blog.

Photo credit: The Weight of the World by Jen via Creative Commons.

To Do List or Not To Do List?

After much debate and poring over long lists of names (see the comments on my previous post), our puppy finally has a name:  Hazel. While naming by committee is a bad plan (think Enron), Hazel was the one name nobody hated. During the course of this naming ordeal, it became evident that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who make lists and those who don't.

As a non-list maker, I find them distracting. Every time I have tried to use a listing tool — be it a "to-do" list, a packing list or even a shopping list — I  get bogged down in the process. I like my lists to be perfect, neatly typed in a legible font, alphabetized, of course. Maybe I just never found the right system.

List making reached its zenith during the "Day-Timer" years. Listers bought expensive, leather-bound notebooks with specialized pages for everything from appointments and phone numbers to plans for the afterlife. People said ridiculous things like:  "I'm lost without my 'Filo-Fax'" or "Oh, my God, I forgot my 'Day Runner!'"  To be perfectly frank, I don't think most people are that much in demand.

The cult of list making is huge, with entire industries devoted to it, and some people are very particular about which tools they choose. I have one friend who special orders colorful little pads with shiny covers that fold over and tuck in, like a matchbook. She gets them by the gross, but gives away the green ones because they offend her aesthetic sensibilities. Then you have your scribblers who make their lists on anything handy — used envelopes, paper napkins, their hands. These folks usually end up with wads of paper littering their purses, pockets and cars.

These days, list making has gone high tech with Palm Pilots, BlackBerrys and other handhelds, not to mention Bluetooth connections for wireless synching. These gadgets have their own secret shorthand and magic pens that write right on the screen. It's a miracle of modern list-making science.

In stressful situations (like naming the dog), I do occasionally succumb to the lure of the list.  Somehow, it just seems to add to my stress, as I usually forget it, lose it, or spend 20 minutes trying to remember that one last thing. I don't even like crossing things off my list (too messy).

True list makers, on the other hand, take great satisfaction in the checking off process.  I have one friend who actually talks to her list:  "Aha, I got you," she says, wielding her pen like Zorro's sword.  "I crossed off everything on my list today," she'll gloat on a particularly productive day. Or she'll lament: "I did nothing on my list today," as if it will somehow chastise her in the morning.

Long ago, BC (before children), I worked for Arthur Andersen. During orientation, we spent two entire days learning how to make to-do lists the "Uncle Arthur" way. Two days! Team leaders reviewed our lists every afternoon. I usually just made stuff up. Even back then, I knew there was something fishy about the Arthur way of doing things.

These days, with a family of six, I find I have had to make one concession to the list: my refrigerator calendar (see it in all it's glory in the right-hand side bar). It's a huge month-by-month magnetic eyesore, where each person is represented by a different color, with separate colors for school, the house and the dog (Hazel!). Everything goes on the calendar. There's just one little problem: my husband. Though a self-confessed Palm addict and a veteran list maker, he completely ignores my system. He picks any color, willy-nilly, and never even bothers to enter his appointments on the calendar. I've heard in some states this is grounds for divorce.

So, I guess it's true. Despite years of rebellion, I have finally become one of them: a lister.  Uncle Arthur would be so proud.

Post your comments here or e-mail me at 2KoPeople@gmail.com.