The Four Horsemen of the Marital Apocalypse

I'm often asked how Hubs and I have managed to stay married for sixteen years, have three kids, and keep from committing splattery homicide. How do you, people inquire, keep from a nasty, Deion-and-Pilar-Sanders-style divorce after all that time? The methods Hubs and I incorporate in order to keep the peace are many and well-utilized. The absence of domestic violence between us is not just because I would die before I was photographed at the Collin County jail in the infamous Mug Shot Towel (gray is so not my color).

 It is true we were both born to parents with long marriages and famously concrete heads, so we come by those variables naturally, I suppose, which help elongate our union. And while hard-headedness may or may not play a factor in whether or not your marriage succeeds or fails, believe it or not, there is a science surrounding what factors and variables are associated with successful forty-plus year marriages (evidently not killing one another or divorcing is considered "success" within marriage. And it totally is).

Psychologist John Gottman has spent twenty years studying what it takes to make a marriage prevail. He's unmasked a lot of myths people believe about marriage, too. Turns out more sex doesn't necessarily improve your marriage. Frequent arguing does not actually lead to divorce, can you believe that one? Turns out how you argue and how you make repairs matters more.

Other interesting and fun divorce-busting facts: wives who make sour faces when your man talks? You're more likely to be separated from that guy within four years. There's a reason husbands withdraw from arguments: emotional flooding. We're the athletes of the relationship skills. We can sprint. Men? Well, let's be kind and say getting frequently winded is a problem.

Believe it or not, Gottman did a study of 2,000 married couples over twenty years, and the result? He can predict within 94 percent accuracy which people will stay married and which will divorce. Stunning, but scientifically accurate. And not surprisingly, Gottman isolated certain attitudes that can single-handedly doom your relationship. He called these attributes The Four Horsemen of the Marital Apocalypse. See if you recognize the presence of any of the following attitudes and the behaviors that go with them in your romantic relationship:

Criticism. It's a tough struggle for me in life, really, to be right about everything. It can be such a burden. But when I start enlightening Hubs about the correct way to do...well, everything, the first Horseman enters the building. Now, complaining isn't criticizing. When I moan about Hubs leaving every empty container ever out on the counter, that's complaining. Not attractive, but not a Horseman. But if I attack Hubs' character or personality? That's criticizing.

Contempt. And yes, the familiarity of marriage can breed it. Words and body language communicate your disgust and your thoughts that your partner is stupid, incompetent, a fool. You don't admire your spouse. Compliments and admiration are hard to hold onto in the presence of contempt, and all of the sudden there's no mutual attraction.

Boom. Welcome, Second Horseman. Wanna stay married? Keep the contempt out of your conversations. Especially insults, name calling, mockery, and my favorite, hostile humor. Wait. What? Don't forget to eliminate the non-verbal contempt, too. Sneering, rolling your eyes, curling a lip, picking lint off your skirt while he's trying to communicate with you...all are loud body language.

Defensiveness. So once contempt has galloped into your marital bedroom, nostrils flaring and harness jingling, our third Horseman defensiveness is not far behind. Makes sense to want to protect yourself from insults, but the innocence game is hardly authentic. But defensive phrases and the attitude they express escalate arguments. Watch out for these defensive moves in particular: denying responsibility. Making excuses. Repeating yourself.

Oh, and this is a good one: reading your partner's mind which you just KNOW is full of negative judgements about you. "Yes, but"ting. Cross-complaining: "We never have anyone over because you're so antisocial." "No, it's just that you never clean up the place."Ouch. And watch out for the body language of defensiveness: fake smile, shifting from side to side like you're going to get sucker-punched, folding your arms. There's the Third Horseman. And finally:

Stonewalling. Once the other Horsemen have taken up residence in your honeymoon cottage, pooping all over your hopes and dreams, stonewalling can represent rock bottom.  And it's pretty self-explanatory. The stonewaller  just removes him or herself from the situation by turning into a stone wall. Oh, you're not trying to be neutral. You know this. You are exerting icy power, distance, and, my favorite: smugness, which makes me want to throat punch you. And not surprisingly, it's much more upsetting for women when men do it than the other way around.

So the moral to the story of a successful marriage? Don't let the Four Horsemen contribute to a grinding cycle of negativity. Don't let complaining turn to criticism, let criticism slide to contempt, become defensive because of the contempt, and then stonewall to avoid the erosion of your relationship. The good news is some negativity is just the spice your marriage needs to keep it strong...as long as y'all know how to play it.

Parenting's Guilty Pleasures

If you're a parent, you know the Herculean nature of the toughest job on the planet. It's a marathon, a Homeric journey, parenting, and it's not glamorous work. Intensive parenting can be repetitive, dirty, exhausting, and boring. You've got to grab what you can to keep going, find the little rewards for yourself to stave off the occasional, nagging resentment and help make the whole endeavor a little less stressful. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the ten most guilty pleasures of parents that help make the whole child-rearing experience a little more pleasant:

1. Kid's leftovers. Macaroni and cheese. Fried chicken strips and nuggets. Pizza crusts (or "bones," as we call them around here). Happy meal cheeseburger halves. I would never buy and eat these foods for myself as often as my kids get them. Luckily, anything I shove in my mouth over the sink while cleaning up after dinner has no calories. Likewise with any leftovers. I circle my children's half-eaten meals like a vulture. Again, if it's half a quesadilla on a Hello Kitty plate, it doesn't count.

2. Trashy, stupid, or R rated TV and movies. As parenting shaves IQ points off of you, you will find great relief in stopping thinking after the children go to bed. The History Channel or NOVA will put you to sleep anyway. You will be a beaten person by the end of the day. You will take pleasure in slipping into a semi-coma as the Jersey Shore crowd fist pumps or as Donald Trump fires people. You will be surprised to find yourself slack-jawed in front of anything that doesn't require you to use your brain. You will want cursing and adult content. You will want to live vicariously through violent programming.

3. Free babysitting and time away from the kids. So many parents feel badly about grandparents or other family and friends watching our kids while we escape. Don't. Run. Run like the wind. It's a parenting trade secret that it is indeed okay to be happy to be away from the kids and even better to not talk about them at all while you're out. They nagged you for grandchildren. Arm them with sugar and children's programming and don't look back.

4. Any and all child restraint toys. People without children think Johnny Jump-Ups, walkers, and play pens are for children's amusement. Not so. These apparati are for keeping the rug rat in one spot so you can doze on the couch. I think once I've left my kid in an automatic swing so long his legs went blue. At least the Baby Einstein bouncer taught me a little about classical music.

5. The post-bedtime tipple. Oh, I'll just say it. WINE. Just be careful not to combine with social media, or the next morning you may find some really interesting string of You Tube clips you posted on Facebook that you'd like to take back. For the love of Mike, don't drink and tweet.

6. Watching other people's kids freak out in public. I'm sorry, but it's true. Your kid is just as embarrassing as mine, and it makes me feel better. Let's not talk about how this reflects poorly on me. Just know I feel your pain as we exchange apologetic grimaces in the toy aisle.

7. Staying up too late. A guilty pleasure while it's happening, a feeling of death warmed over follows in the morning. But combined with numbers 2 and 5, it becomes pretty easy to tell yourself you'll sleep when you're dead. Related:

8. Coffee and coffee accessories. Coffee. Or as we at my home refer to it: The Life-Giving Elixir. Surely I must own stock in Starbucks as many lattes as I've purchased there. I have collected cabinets full of mugs with witty and/or pithy sayings on them. I have every creamer flavor known to man. Did you know they make caramel sauce for coffee? I do. Approach me before I've had coffee in the morning and risk drawing back a bloody stump.

9. Casual wear. God created yoga pants and hats because he loves us and understands it's hard to get a shower when you've got small kids. You're not a parent until you've sat in carpool in your pajama pants and/or barefoot. Bonus points if you manage to get fully dressed but still walk out of the house in your slippers.

10. The 45-minute bathroom visit. Let's face it: if you have to sit in the bathroom for 45 minutes, you don't have to go. You're hiding. Which I endorse wholeheartedly. Other good places to hide from your children for a breather: the master bedroom closet is usually big enough. The back yard. And one of my favorites: the laundry room. If you're like me, there's probably a pile of laundry big enough to crawl into and disappear for a week.

So, Godspeed, my fellow parents. Consider this my blessing to grab what you can to keep moving when the going gets tough. Having children is not unlike a hostage situation. You gotta do what you gotta do to stay sane and survive the tough times. Now if you'll forgive me, I'm going to take my wine and trashy magazine and go perch, oh so quietly, on top of the dryer for awhile. Cheers.

The Mommy War That Wasn't

Did you blink and miss the "Mommy Wars" this week the media tried to launch? They're so cute, the media, running memes up the flag pole to see just who will salute. But, as often is the case, we women were sorely underestimated in our ability to see and call shenanigans. The "Mommy Wars" just didn't seem to put the fire in the bellies of American women. I think we were too busy with laundry to watch a lot of the coverage.

First of all, I would like to point out the annoying quality of the term "Mommy Wars" anyway. I don't like anyone but my children calling me "Mommy" (it's creepy even when Hubs does it), so enough with the "Mommy bloggers," "Mommy Wars," etc. I'm not "mommying." Isn't it just parenting? "Mommy" somehow doesn't sound like a power player.

I also find it fascinating that there is an ongoing argument about whether mothers should hold paid employment outside of child-rearing and domestic management, but there's no discussion about whether or not Daddy should "come home" (it's made to sound like if a woman works somewhere besides at her house she has r-u-n-n-o-f-t). Where are the villagers with pitchforks for the men who dare keep their office job after the baby is born? And if I'm a "stay at home mom," why am I in the damned mini-van so much? But I digress.

Don't know to what "Mommy" media frenzy I am referring? In case you haven't noticed, this is a presidential election year (wake me in December, please), and that means pandering season. It also means a lot of meat puppets out shouting nonsense over each other until someone makes a sound bite that can rotate for the next news cycle.

So enter Hilary Rosen, Democrat. I still don't know what her job is, per se, except she's supposed to be a some kind of media and communication expert, and she's supposed to get me to vote for Obama. She could have been CNN's Senior Fallopial Correspondent for all I know, but all of the sudden, this Rosen person has said during one of these many cable news yammerfests that Mitt Romney's wife, Ann, mother of five, has, quote, "never worked a day of her life."

Cue the sturm und drang. Now, I believe Rosen was trying to say Ann Romney is a stranger to what most women go through and has never worried financially for herself or her family, having never having had to depend on a paid career to support them. You'd think a communication expert would have more expertly communicated this concept. Alas. The Romney camp was all over Rosen's statement like white on...well, Romney.

Clearly, I was told, there is a "Mommy War" between what the media calls "working mothers" and "stay at home mothers." Elitist, shrubbery-hugging, latte-sipping, penis-envying, arugula-munching working mothers think stay at home mothers are reading The National Enquirer, eating bon bons, and gossiping over the fence with Gladys Kravitz while kowtowing to their men. Stay at home mothers are contemptuous of cold-hearted career-driven harpies who want to be men, care about money and an expensive lifestyle more than their families, and have other people to raise their children.

To which the collective "Meh" was raised. Because it turns out women are women before they're Republican or Democratic. And mothers? Well, we could snicker at the clearly amped-up umbrage because we all know: if you're a mother, or a father, for that matter, who cares....of any color, race, creed, or tax bracket...you are working your ass off. And we all know it. We're not turning on one another. Sorry, mainstream media. That dog, as Dr. Phil so colorfully puts it, just won't hunt.

Sure, I may wish I had Ann Romney's millions, but I'd rather be poorer than a church mice than raise five sons. Three kids has almost left me insane and exhausted. Five? You would have had to strap ME to the top of the car instead of Seamus the Irish setter. Even with a nanny apiece. Because as any mother knows, there's Mom...and there's Not The Mom. It happens from birth. Even the most progressive of fathers, intent with matching diaper change to diaper change with his wife will one day hear these words: "NO! I! ONLY! WANT! MOMMY!"

It made me wonder if the people behind this "Mommy War" story are even aware of the realities of how parenting happens these days. There are no two armies of mothers, like Dr. Suess' Star Bellied Sneetches and Those Without Stars Upon Thars. There are women...and men...who work. We work full time, part time, at home, at our children's schools and day care centers.  There are people with the resources to choose not to draw a paycheck while their children are living with them and make child-rearing their profession. There are people who have absolutely no financial wiggle room for this option to be available.

As usual, it seems those in government are a good bit behind in the times in assuming American homes only look two possible ways in this century. The "Mommy Wars" non-controversy was exactly that, because it harkens from a different time than now. Now, we call it parenting. And it's the hardest job anyone will ever work, male, female, rich, poor or otherwise. Let's just hope this silly brouhaha has raised the collective American conscious regarding how much effort it does, indeed, take to be a parent, whether or not you're paid to do something else as well.

An Open Letter to Hawkins Crawford Romo

Dear Hawk:


Yep, Hawk. I just know that's what they're going to call you. This name of yours may or may not be the first Texas weirdness you will probably experience as the first born son of the very famous Tony Romo and your mom, the slightly less famous but fabulously blonde and toothy Candace Crawford Romo. Plus, barring some sudden Tim Tebow-esque quick changes in loyalty, you will be raised in this strange, strange  and sometimes plastic- and silicone-based place called Dallas. This can be both a blessing and a curse.

Given the above and that I am nothing if all about the children, I thought I would pen you a little note you can reference for some guidance in how not to become what I call a Dallas Douche as you grow up into a good little Texan. Have you seen Good Christian Bitches? Oh, wait. You're a newborn. But let's just say none of us wants you to grow up thinking hard times are leaves in the pool and your Beemer in the shop.

On this note, allow me to, in the interest of your future, give you some ideas about how to maintain your realness and assure your safe passage into adulthood here in the DF Dub:

Consider not being called "Hawk," which sounds like a character ON  the show Dallas, not a child FROM the city of Dallas. Perhaps "Ford" would have less of the douche factor. At least they didn't name you Landry or after a city, county, or city in Texas. I think those come with an automatic DSM diagnosis.

I don't care what Daddy does. NEVER WEAR A KANGOL. I blame the many head shots he's taken. Concussions make you do funny things like go to Mexico to party right before the playoffs. Silly Daddy.

Do not in any circumstance allow yourself to be used by Jerry Jones to sell chicken or pizza. Left to his own devices, he'll dangle you in front of reptiles like the Crocodile Hunter did with his two month old son. Jerry's clownish commercials are the height of douchebaggery. I fully expect him to break into a soft shoe. The man is a cartoon. Don't be forced into breaking bread sticks with him.

Don't let Uncle Chace talk you into smoking any of that wacky tobaccy. Those Hollywood types are dicey. On that note: if you take nothing else away from any of this missive, DO NOT PARTICIPATE IN REALITY TV.

If you run into Jessica Simpson, don't say you heard she cursed Daddy.

Don't just consider the debutantes to date. Pretty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clear to the bone.

Football, contrary to popular belief, is not a religion. It's okay to not follow in your father's footsteps.

Don't go near Rowdy. He's creepy.

Life does exist beyond Al Biernat's, Ghost Bar, and Neiman's. Related: there are other zip codes besides 214.

You can count on Daddy for at least the first three quarters of your life. Forgive him if he drops you in December. And Mommy for the times you will find her sobbing in the closet.

That's it. So go forth, Hawk, or Ford, or whatever you'll be called. I wish you Godspeed in this almost certain circus into which you have been born. At least you've got your Uncle Whitten. He's usually pretty good at making your Dad look better. And of course you have us, the Dallas Cowboys fans and community. We're incredibly loyal and very forgiving. Between seasons. As long as you're winning. Hey, but with the charmed life you've been born into? So far, so good.

Love,
Eliska

See Momma Run

Guys! Guess what! I just ran my first 5K. I was so smug afterwards. I have these really weird friends who think running races together passes for fun. I know, I know: a 5K is small potatoes to some of you uber athletes I watched tear past me on the way to the finish line. I'm no iron man. My pals and I ran the 5K and then drank like we had completed a marathon. But if you know any of my history at all, the fact that I ran a 5K race at all is really quite miraculous. I am proud.

I was born to a sluggish family, you see, a long line of TV viewers whose ability to keep the couches from floating off the floor is well documented. We love to WATCH sports, sure. We may have even made some drunken threats in the living room about suiting up for our college football team because they were stinking up the joint. Somehow these threats were never realized.

To actually move? To say I am not athletically inclined is to be quite kind. I, sadly, am clumsy. There's no way around it. I was born splay-footed and with the vision (if not the loveable affability) of Mr. Magoo. My hand-to-eye coordination was and is non-existent. I frequently walk into door jambs and knock over wine glasses (okay, that may not be so much about my coordination). I was raised with the idea that to run without anybody chasing you was pure absurdity.

Oh, but Momma tried. First it was gymnastic classes. I found that if I was very, very, quiet on gym class day (and mom had a couple of cocktails with lunch), mom might forget to take me. I remember holding my breath as we drove around after school: would she remember the lesson? No? SCORE. Me: 1. Balance beam: 0. My trying to bounce over a pommel horse was comedic gold. My cartwheels were more like flat tires.

Then there were tennis lessons I didn't want when I was ten. That ended badly when my parents showed up early to pick me up from one of these lessons and discovered my plan to merely hang around on the park benches and not participate in them. At all. I've repressed a lot of my parents' reaction to my genius scheme, but I think mom and dad took turns driving home so they could beat me. This was my first experience with being grounded. But it worked: no more tennis lessons were scheduled for the likes of me.

My next foray into moving was as a teenager. It was the 80s, the time of Jane Fonda, her striped leotard, and her damnable legwarmers. I do wish I had a dime for every butt lift I did in the privacy of my room, Jane spinning on the turntable, encouraging me to squeeze....squeeze while Jimmy Buffet crooned "Changes In Attitude, Changes In Latitude." Oh, how I did cuss Jane.

I bounced through aerobics classes. Now these classes are called "Zumba" or "Jazzercise" or what have you, but in the end, a bunch of people bouncing around like mental patients while trying not to sock each other with flailing limbs is the same no matter what the decade. My desire to throat punch cheerful work-out class teachers, resplendent in pony tails that mean business, has not changed over time, it turns out. And I discovered I never, never want to be in front of a full length mirror bouncing again. No matter how iron clad the undergarments. It's just not wise. Trust me. Nobody wants to witness that.

So then college, and twelve ounce curls of beer cans were pretty much the extent of my exercise there for awhile. And my health (and girth) showed the impact of my sloth-like attitude. I had pretty much accepted a life of being overweight and inactive. But I met a friend who simply wasn't having it. She showed up, uninvited, nay, truly unwanted, but she wouldn't take no for an answer. I found my heinie being hauled out for long walks against my pudgy will.

I really did find a joy in exercise at that point. But then life: marriage, a move, three kids in four years...and boom. Sedentary again. My weight was under control by now...so why bother? But as the stress of keeping all my proverbial balls in the air built, I was learning more and more about the healitive powers of exercise for mental health. It was annoying, really, how an exercise program was correlated with recovery from everything: cancer. Depression. Substance dependence. Dammit. There was going to be no way around it.

So when I re-committed to an exercise program, it was the first time I wasn't trying to narrow the size of my butt but instead manage my moods. It was time to start being an example to my clients. The idea of working out when it wasn't about how I looked was alien.There was no product of a pant size or number on the scale I was trying to reach. There was only process of revving up the machine and hopefully staying sane.

So the rumors are true. Exercise is really the magic bullet. There are no two ways around it. But I've discovered something else about an exercise regime: you get better at stuff over time. You can run instead of walk. You can run faster and longer over time. You can pick up heavier and heavier loads. And with each fitness goal accomplishment, there is a confidence you acquire that no one can take away from you.

And now I'm putting my program to work for the community by setting goals of completing charity runs. My workout is now more meaningful in every way. My values of self-care and community service are dovetailing, and I love it. Not to mention when there's a bar at the end of the course. It's the perfect carrot on a stick.

Now you. If I can do it, anyone can do it. Just start. Take one french fry off your plate. Walk in place during the commercials of your TV shows. Start anywhere. It doesn't matter. But the way you'll feel when you achieve your first goal (which may be just starting) will be addictive. Do it. Set a goal, no matter how small it seems to you. Meet it. Set another. Watch how you feel better. Move. It works. And it's a lot cheaper than therapy. Wait. What?

What Every Girl Should Know, or: Teach Your Children Well

I can't believe it. But my baby, my little girl, my last child, will be starting kindergarten in the fall. Am I a "yahoo" mom or a "boo hoo" mom about this? I must confess to mixed feelings. Having sent two other of my chicks out of the nest to institutional learning facilities already, it's not my first time at the rodeo, to use some Texas-speak, so I'm not exactly verklempt, but at the same time not overjoyed and impatient for her to get on with it.

I'm used to my chickens flying the nest. But this is my last time to send a baby to kindergarten. Soon, all my precious pearls will be surly teens that sleep until noon and largely reek of Axe body spray. I can get nostalgic, but I must admit a little excitement about the new stage, too. Long stretches of time talking to people over three feet tall! Lunch without a chicken nugget in sight! I'm not going to know how to behave.

I, indeed, grow a little dizzy at thinking about the prospects of freedom during the school hours. Leaving the house without children! What a heady proposition. And the cash! My lord, the money I have shelled out since I have been paying for day care, full or partial since 2003, could fund an African nation for a decade. I may or may not go on some kind of Thelma and Louise-type spree.

This is my only girl to launch, too. I do so with some trepidation, knowing first hand how school can be. The dawn of her first year out of my clutches has me musing about what the future at school holds for her (again with the musing). There are so many lessons I want to impart to my daughter as she navigates elementary school, junior high, and the Lord of the Flies experience that is high school. The world can treat females harshly.

After spending some time meditating on what a girl really needs to know, I did derive list of wishes and my hopes for her future as she matures and becomes the lovely young lady I know she can be. Oh sure, we're teaching her she is not the sum of her looks, her rights to defend herself, physically or verbally, and other important things a girl needs to know here in Texas, like the difference between a semi- and a fully automatic rifle and how to properly clean her .38.

But on a more micro-scale, I decided there were a few pieces of advice you might not find in a parenting self-help book that carry as much weight. I want my daughter to be aware of all the traps that can hold her back. And on that note, I beg of you to review another few nuggets of truth I want to impart to her and judge if your daughter, too could not benefit:

1. May your greatest fear will be that there is no such thing as PMS and that it's just your personality.

2. It is possible to be both smart AND pretty.

3. It is possible to be funny AND be taken seriously. In fact, being funny will make people listen to you and respect you (see Jon Stewart. Even though he is a dude).

4. Being catty is not the same as being funny.

5. Thongs attract no one substantial.

6. Do not photograph yourself naked. Ever. EVER. At any time. Related: use of the "trout mouth" pose, either combined with a flashed peace/gang sign is never appropriate either.

7. Choose your friends wisely. That weird kid everyone made fun of was Bill Gates.

8. Wearing pajama pants in public means you have given up on life.

9. Bigger boobs are not necessarily good. See: unwanted attention, backaches, inability to jog without giving yourself black eyes, and brutal underwear.

10. Don't make a scene. This isn't reality TV. This is reality.

11. Do not date anyone who honks for you to come out to his car. This practice is acceptable when dropping off a package, not picking up a person.

12. Words printed on your butt make you somebody's property.

13. Dates do not take place anywhere there is a bed present.

14. Women should not speak in questions. Ever notice how women always ask everything by raising their tone at the end of their sentences, so everything they say sounds like an inquiry. And this one time? At band camp? Like that.

15. Know what a "douche canoe" is and how to avoid one at all costs.

Small details, and yet the devil is in them, no? So here's to raising our daughters well. If we do, hopefully there will be fewer butterfly tattoos and strippers all around. Here's to parenting females in a wild new world. Buckle up.

Whoops: There Goes Reality

Okay, so I watch Jersey Shore. NO! Wait! Don't stop reading this! Don't turn away just yet. I know I will be judged by some for tuning in to watch the Orange Ones, but you have to understand a little about me here. I consider myself a sort of an anthropologist. A sociologist, if you will. A Watcher of People. Tuning in was a cultural scientific endeavor, you see, the watching of the Jersey Shore. Most professional. These people are Northerners, y'all. They could be biting the heads of chickens for all I knew. Investigation was needed.

Because seriously: I tuned in the second or third season (the one before Italy; not a lot different happens from episode to episode, so it's hard to differentiate) after watching the show blow up in its initial popularity without me. From the outside and to me, these Jersey Shore people were an entirely different culture, nay, a wholly different species than me. A grating, audibly dressed species, albeit, but nonetheless: it was like a car wreck at which eventually even I couldn't resist a stare. What were they doing?

I couldn't resist finding out: who was this Snooki who made more money than I, silly me with my post graduate degrees, could ever dream about? What was a Situation, and why were his sunglasses always half down and his shirt half up? Would fake boobs actually keep one afloat in salt water? INQUIRING MINDS HAD TO KNOW.

Yes, I am a "cultural anthropologist and entertainment sociologist." That sounds so much classier than "television addict and media lemming." Whatever the case, I was determined to get a bead on why these characters seemed to resound so much with so many Americans. If you didn't love Jersey Shore, you loved to hate Jersey Shore. I knew going in that partially, the popularity had to do with the train wreck that these...kids? What are they, 40?...seemed to be. I'm always up for a good train wreck by trade.

Of course, MTV profited handsomely by encouraging the Jersey Shore cast to bring in the eyeballs with the drama. The more arrests and fistfights the better. MTV sat back and just coolly shot footage of car wrecks, both literal and figurative, that the cast created. How do you top getting arrested or doing a face plant on Italian cobblestones? When you're competing with the interwebs, that's a lot of pressure for a Snooki or a Situation. Or anyone, I would think, with a discernible lack of talent who is being paid to appear on television.

Fascinating to me! People paid handsomely to...do what? They don't perform, per se. They don't really do much of anything. And this is where I wonder if there wasn't a little social irresponsibility on the entertainment industry's part in what happened next. What at first looked like a cute Spring Break blow-out became a lifestyle for the Jersey Shore bunch, the work they were paid to do.

Snooki's falling down, punching people, flashing her undercarriage, getting arrested. Deana gets drunk and lets her panties fall around her ankles dancing. Situation's smashed and passing out on couches in restaurants in between twitching, jumping, and being paranoid. Jenni charmingly will drop her drawers and pee just about anywhere.Vinny developed an anxiety disorder so disabling he packed up and left the show for weeks before being put on the spot to return. Ron commits domestic violence with Sammi. Most of the cast treat sex partners like Kleenex. Then suddenly the cast finds its collective age closer to 30 than 20. And MTV didn't think there would be a little emotional fall-out?

It's a new dawn at the Jersey Shore as its sixth, yes, sixth season comes into the planning stage. Snooki is now pregnant and engaged, carrying the guido baby she has wanted with Jionni forever. The Situation finds himself in treatment for drug abuse or dependence, but when he's out of rehab, he doesn't want to give up the big bucks he gets for appearing in the very nightclubs where he drugged and drank until he couldn't stand. How will the show handle the cast's changes? Will there be changes?

Because after all, will the same viewing audience love the Shore cast when they're watching Snooki gestate and shop for a breast pump with the same fervor that they did watching her roam the streets of Italy, falling down and barefoot, drunk and screaming? What if getting off speed will make for a kinder, more gentle Situation who doesn't scheme with the Unit (Yes, yes, yes, insert snark about these silly names here)? What if half the cast chooses not to drink, or in Vinny's case, club (turns out crowds, flashing lights and pounding music ain't too good for anxiety symptoms)? Will MTV step in? Or step back?

If MTV steps in to take care of their cast, will they kill their show? Will big bucks win over the health of these aging cast members? Is it at all possible to address the fact that the Shore lifestyle, which includes binge drinking as de rigueur, isn't so cute and can, in fact, only lead to crazy, jail, or dead? Is there a way MTV can seize this moment to expose their young audience to the fact that in real life, the way you act when you're really hammered is really not so endearing?

I'm interested to see where my little anthropologic foray into the psyches of both the MTV programming team and the Jersey Shore crew ends up next. The party's largely over. Summer is not never-ending. Time marches on. But I don't think anyone could have told me that in my early twenties either. That I would, eventually and against my will, be dragged into adulthood and maturity kicking and screaming.

Don't get me wrong! I'm not a sourpuss. I like friendship, wine, and song as much as any other human. But Abe Simpson was right: I was "with it" once. Then, they changed what "it" is. Now, what "it" is is scary and strange. It'll happen to you. And I think we're watching something like that hit the Jersey Shore cast. Here's hoping the entertainment industry doesn't chew them up and spit them out like bad chicken parm. And that the twenty-somethings who want to model their lifestyles after Snooki and Sitch realize it's just a little too much reality. Even at the Jersey Shore.

What I Didn't Do on My Spring Break

Spring break! I'm still musing how I morphed from the college student who spent this time largely intoxicated and wearing as few clothes as possible into the doughy mother of today that now spends spring break in places like zoos and museums and the canto of hell that is the Lego store at the mall. Where did the trash can punch, belly shirts, baby oil, and iodine days go? Le sigh. With all due apologies to Bob Dylan, the times, indeed, have a'changed.

For me, spring break now has become a study in survival instead of a week of beer pong and sunburn. Spring break, twenty-first century momma style, is now figuring out how to entertain the heathens until those cruel teachers open up their school doors again. And this year, I experienced particular trepidation as Hubs got it into his head that the family should go camping. Yep. You read that right. Camping. Outdoors. He wanted to take them fishing. Who in their right mind puts a sharp hook on the end of a long string for a kid under the age of eight to fling around on a pole? It can't end well.

Full disclosure: I am what can be only generously called "indoorsy." I don't mind the outdoors, per se. As long as it's screened in. And has an outlet for my hair dryer. But I am repulsed and, indeed (I can own it), even frightened by most bugs. Mosquitoes consider me a fine delicacy. My pheromones must smell like barbeque sauce. And I don't think I've been without internet access since...well, the dawn of the internet.

Continued frankness: a "vacation" for me does not involve traveling anywhere with my three children under the age of eight. This is not "time off." It's just parenting in more stressful circumstances. I know, I know. I'm about to get blasted by you June Cleavers who seem to actually enjoy making peanut butter crackers in a moving car, but I'm coming out of the mommy closet on this one. It's just a beating for me. Have you ever traveled with small children? They are the rock stars. They have wild mood swings and unreasonable demands.You're just the roadie. There may or may not be peeing out the sliding door of the mini-van. It's just ugly.

So I must confess I was not looking forward to this planned spring break camping trek: the packing, the unpacking, the hauling of food, the non-stop confusion...all jokes aside, I was starting to feel overwhelmed and resentful. My kids have been at each other's throats this week. The only way it could be worse would be to trap us all in two rooms in the middle of Nowhere, Oklahoma. It became more and more clear to me I just might end up committing Harakiri if forced to camp.

Now, being a female, I started feeling guilty, because if you possess ovaries, this is what one does. Hell, being a mother, you get used to the constant and grinding feeling of inadequacy, so my dread of this camping trip just pegged out the Guilt-O-Meter. I want to show my kids a good time. But I was going to hate this experience, perhaps even affect their good time. Not to mention perhaps strangle my cheerful spouse. What's a mom to do?

Option A: Go camping. Sulk. Scratch. Not sleep. Eat a hot dog off a stick. Come home to a filthy house that hasn't been cleaned because it's spring break and the kids are home. Stress over packing, food, timing, refereeing. Become overcome with the noise, the confusion, the...oh, I'll just say it...just too much damn togetherness for me. Because this is true confession time, ladies. I am here to say, fearlessly, what a lot of you are thinking: I just wish I could have a few days of vacation for myself. Away from my family. Please, put down the pitch fork.

Now, don't get me wrong. I adore my brood. I love Hubs. But since the birth of my first child almost nine years ago, I have been alone about ten minutes. Okay, I'm exaggerating. But it's been a challenge to say the least. In order to raise several small children without lasting emotional damage to anyone, there is an alchemy of self-care that a woman must participate in or become the main character in The Yellow Wallpaper. You can't pour a gallon of milk in a shot glass, people, but that's what a lot of moms do.

So, it's camping eve. And it occurs to me I could do something radical. There was, in actuality, an Option B: I could choose to not go camping. I was ashamed to even admit I had the thought. At first. But the more I thought about it, the more intoxicating the idea became. Two days alone? The possibility of sleeping for maybe twenty hours straight? Wiping no one's heinie but mine? But I was wracked with shame. Could I dare? What kind of mother wants her family to go on a vacation without her?

Turns out: ALL OF US. But wanting time to yourself for women is like admitting you're a Nickelback fan: you expect to be ridiculed. To care for ourselves as fiercely as we care for our family and friends? Preposterous. But the thought of not bathing, feeding, or shuttling short people to lessons of every stripe for two days? Having a chance to clean ALL THE THINGS and have them stay that way for more than half an hour? I started wanting this break like a fat kid wants cake.

Oh, the mental struggle. But as a trail-blazer and mom advocate, I decided to bring up the matter to Hubs. He is a prince among men. He told me no problem. He could handle it all (and he can, y'all, he's a toddler whisperer). He said enjoy. He said he got it. I just about wept in relief. I had been given the green light for my camping reprieve.

Now, there are those out there who would judge me. Judge on. All I'm saying is for me, there isn't much a Twilight movie marathon, a cold bottle of pinot, and a slab of Spanish cheese can't cure. The house has been my own private spa for the last twenty four hours. It, as the kids say, IS ALL GOOD.

Moral to the story? Listen to yourself. There are a lot of people who would call me "selfish" for taking 48 hours to myself while my spouse hauls the kids for their s'more and hiking time. I am actually probably related to most of these people. But, y'all: I am the expert on my own mental health, on my challenges, on what I need to stay balanced, on my marriage, on my kids and their needs. NOBODY ELSE IS. As long as I am working with my spouse and taking his needs into account, it's not only okay to do what I need to care for myself. It's a must.

Get what you need, mommas! And daddies and singletons too, for that matter. Even though I felt some guilt at grabbing this time alone initially, I am now proud of myself for being brave enough to shout down the Committee. You know, that group of critical voices in your head that try to shame you into being perfect? Do you, y'all. If it works for your family, it doesn't have to look like anyone else's system. Get the balance you need. It makes you a better parent. I am going to be rested and ready to put my Supermom cape back on in a big way thanks to my spring break.

So you have permission from this professional: Get a real break for yourself. Do some radical relaxation. The kind that makes you think you might need to feel guilty about it. Practice some fanatical self care. Come on in. The water, so to speak, is fine. I've got to confess I'm more relaxed than I have been in a long time. I wish you the same. But I've got to go...the Brad Pitt film festival is about to start.

Happy spring break indeed, y'all!

Like, Bag those Fashions! Or: Gag Me with a Spoon

Ah, the 1980s. A magical time where we all believed in capitalism with all our might. Arnold told us he'd be back. We inquired about where, indeed, the beef was located. Alf proclaimed, "I kill me." Michael Douglas slithered as Gordon Gekko. We were gagged with spoons. Alexis and Crystal had sequined, shoulder-padded cat fights. People wore some terrible, terrible clothing. Why did you think everyone did all that cocaine and had all that pre-AIDS sex? To get one another out of those horrible fashions.

But dismayingly, inexplicably, and like megalomania, 1980s-style clothing is, indeed, evidently back in fashion. As far as I can tell. Being the elderly, I have to go by the thick glossy magazines that threaten my self-esteem and by what's on the rack at my local stores. But everything I'm seeing right now makes me look like Claire Huxtable. And it's bad, people. BAD. These trends were horrifying enough back then. This is like returning to an abusive relationship. We need an intervention, and I'm glad to provide one. Behold: 80s trends that do not look good on you, or indeed, anyone now or ever:

Flashdance-style loose tunics and belly shirts. You are not Irene Cara (look it up, whippersnappers). And unless you are the taut captain of the high school cheerleading squad, you do not have the belly to pull this off. And then it would still be inappropriate. Trust me. And these tunics are particularly offensive when paired with...

Big obnoxious patterns. A five year old doesn't look good in polka dots. You don't either. Giant stripes, pink animal prints...Your shirt, ideally, should not be audible. Which leads me to...

Neon colors. We had a saying back in the 80s, and it still applies here: friends don't let friends wear neon. I don't care if Oprah's wearing orange pants and Gayle's in bright green. They are misguided. Breathtaking wealth doesn't save you from fashion faux pas. The average American female tuchus is a size fourteen. That's a lot of pants seat. It is ill advised for that seat to be teal.

Spandex leggings or 'jeggings': Have you seen the average American? For the love of all that is holy: most of us look like we are stuffed in sausage casings when we don this abhorrence. And no giant, Demi-Moore-in-About-Last-Night oversized-dress-sweater can or will conceal the crime that are my thighs in Lycra.

Shoulder pads. Unless it's a particularly good sale at Neiman's or you have some other plausible reason to tackle someone, you probably should not resemble a defensive end.

Crimped hair. It was as wrong on Debbie Harry as it is on Rihanna. I want to buy you conditioner.

Leg warmers. This is not Black Swan. These are to be forgiven only in transit to or from an actual ballet lesson.

Leotards. See above. Plus, aren't these just onesies for grown women? It is so wrong for anyone over the age of fourteen months to have their shirt snap at the crotch.

Jelly shoes. Especially in Texas. We've got way too much heat and skin. The smell of people's feet stuffed in plastic is like napalm here. And there's got to be a name for the feet-fat that squishes out, waffle style, from between the straps. Shudder.

Scrunchies. I am not a Heather, but you can consider me the new sheriff in town, of sorts. Just. No.

Bedazzling. There are WAY too many sequins out there right now. I blame Snooki for what I'm calling the Jersification of the nation. It's tacky, y'all. As are press on nails (whether "active" or "glamor length." It's  irrelevant).

Headbands. Not the ones that sit on top of your head. The ones across the forehead. A la Peaches Geldof. The wrong is strong with this one.

 Jams. The big, flowered, knee-length shorts? GOD FORBID. Can Panama Jack or Coke brand clothing be far behind? WE MUST STOP THE MADNESS. For the good of the children.

Swatch watches. See above re: plastic accessories and sweaty people. And on account of the general hideousness.

Members Only jackets. I forgive this on Paris Jackson alone.

Rat tails. They're called RAT tails. How flattering could they have ever been? And finally:

Bubble skirts. I can say with authority that any garment that "bubbles" anywhere near your hips? Not just a no. But a HELL NO. I cannot reiterate this enough.

So, as usual, you're welcome. Please, consider your fellow man in the selection of your outerwear. I'm allergic to ugly. These are items I have indeed seen in high-end stores lately. We may or may not be doomed. But one thing you can count on: you will not see me out in a turquoise jacket.

Flannel and ripped jeans always did suit me better, after all. Wake me up not when it's time to go-go, please, but when it's time for the 90s styles to make a repeat. Except for the Hammer pants. Natch.

Turn Your Head and Cough, or: The Joys of Aging

Mick Jagger said it: What a drag it is getting old.

Okay, so I'm not that old yet. But I am old enough where the doctors do that thing where they quit trying to fix you and instead start saying "Well, these things are to be expected at your age," or "Yes, that's common in people over forty. You'll have to ice it."

The first time my pains were poo-pooed, I was a little put out. Why was my doctor refusing to fix me!? My baby-carrying shoulder hurts!  But evidently people my age are expected to play through the pain, rub some dirt on it. I'm now the little Dutch boy with my finger stuck in the dyke, holding back a flood of inevitable, age-related physical decline. Good times.

There's no dignity to this middle-aged war against time, either. The good news is that any decorum I had was lost during the birth of my children, anyway. There is no etiquette to a postpartum shower with a nurse you've never met, your stomach stapled shut and taped over with saran wrap, your innards sliding out onto the tile in chunks (sorry, guys, but actual childbirth ain't cute). I was mortified, but to her credit, that nurse made that experience seem as natural as taking my blood pressure. But I digress.


So just when I think there's nothing more embarrassing the medical community can do to me, I am told by my lady-bits doctor it's time for the rite of passage every woman must endure: my first mammogram.

No problem, I thought. I've breastfed three babies. I've whipped out these puppies to do so in front of my father-in-law and hosts of other friends and relations. I've breastfed in exotic locales: the Dallas World Aquarium. At a staff meeting at a counseling agency. On the side of the road in the rural Mississippi delta. In the Collin County, Texas courthouse (making some officials nervous with the sound of my breast pump in the handicapped stall. I might have argued at the time it WAS a weapon, but again, I digress).


How humiliating could a breast exam be? I thought smugly. And with this bravado and not a clue about what to expect, I rolled up my local hospital to present the girls. After being greeted by a couple of women who had me sign more autographs than Justin Bieber at a bat mitzvah, I was then whisked into a dressing room. No deodorant or perfume allowed (who knew?), so I am then treated to an invigorating upper-body wet wipe. Besmocked, I join the other ladies in the waiting room, and we are all resplendent in our matching pink flowered fashions and with our awkward, limited eye contact.


As this is a family publication, I will not go into too much detail about the actual procedure. Let me suffice to say it included small Vietnamese women, kneading, and what I can only describe as boob patties. There really are not words for the experience of seeing a tender, very private part of you flattened like a cheek cell from eighth grade science on a glass slide. Surreal doesn't quite cover it.

The following sonogram to take a closer look was also a tad Kafkaesque. Let's just say I'm glad the cold gel of the pregnant belly is mercifully warmed for your more northern regions. I was also relieved the time I spent alone on the table, draped with a towel, waiting for the doctor to come tell me what he saw, was short. Fortunately for me, the news was good: an all clear. I said a silent prayer for the women who had been on the same table who weren't. And thankfully got the goo off my chest.


So I'm patched together for now, and I'm starting to get convinced if a doctor asked me to strip down and tap dance while singing an aria from Tosca, I'd obediently disrobe and begin vocal warm-up. I know this getting older thing is not for the feint of heart. There are more medical indignities to come. There is the inevitably, of course, of the dreaded colonoscopy to which we all must eventually succumb. But I'm telling y'all: I might need my doctor to buy me dinner and a movie before THAT seems right.

Oh, well. In the end, having your every orifice probed and your fleshy bits squeezed by the docs are acts of self-love. It beats the alternative. So I will not go gently into that good night. I'm living to a hundred, dammit, if for no other reason than to give my children hell as long as humanly possible. You do the same. Turn your head and cough. Take care of yourself despite the un-stateliness of it all. There's no stopping the march of time. I just wish it would stop marching all over my face.

To quote the great David Bowie: time may change me, but I can't change time. There may be more and more upkeep on the temple (cathedral?) as I ripen, sure. I refuse to be in denial. It may take some humbling experiences with gowns in which the dimpled, stark whiteness of my heinie cannot be obscured. I may indeed need to require a level of intimacy with med techs to which I will have to grow accustomed. Accoutrement to stay healthy and young at heart may be necessary.

But hey. At least my bifocals will allow me to read my bar tab accurately.

The Broccoli Wars

I have become a food Nazi. I don't know how exactly it happened. It's really quite remarkable how much my attitude about food has changed over my life. My childhood, after all, took place in the 70s. It was a decade of Sugar Pops cereal, microwaved hotdogs, and the Kool-Aid man crashing through walls with pitchers full of his sugary bounty. My baloney had a first name, and it was O-S-C-A-R. There were sponsored cartoons by the dairy industry that played between cartoons after school: "I hanker for a hunka...a slice a slab a chunka...I hanker for a hunk of cheese!" Oh, I definitely hankered for a hunk of cheese.

Not to mention I was raised in the deep South, so the memories of glorious mountains of Crisco melting in a deep fryer on almost a daily basis are still with me. Chicken fried steak. Fried chicken. Fried tacos. Homemade french fries. Hell, I believe I even could have eaten a deep-fried doorknob under the right circumstances. There were vegetables, sure. All prepared lovingly with fatback or butter. Every Southern home had a container of leftover bacon grease on the stove top to spoon into dishes. On account of the deliciousness. I kid you not. And I loved it all. Unfortunately, as I matured, my love of this type of cuisine did broaden me through the beam considerably.

So despite my deep and abiding love for craptacular food, I was dragged kicking and screaming into maturity when I decided to try to get pregnant...and discovered my alarming cholesterol levels that were going along with the extra weight I was carrying. The effects of poor food choice were no longer just cosmetic for me.

For the first time, I realized my eating habits and the subsequent effects on my health didn't just impact me. There were people who needed me not to drop dead of a massive coronary event. And somehow, over time, with the help of friends who were awesome cooks, I became a foodie. Refrigerated doughs no longer enticed me. I stepped away from the fried cheese. I embraced, GASP, vegetables. And not cooked with bacon fat or Velveeta, either.

I never enforced my new, more healthy habits on my family, though, even though eventually I narrowed my heinie to a single-digit pants size and corrected my cholesterol problems. I didn't want to go to war with my children over food and make the dinner table a battleground. I feared risking my relationship with them by being too controlling. I wanted them to feel like they had choices. They'll mature, I said. Their tastes will change. I give them vitamins, I told myself. It's all good. And it was...until my husband was diagnosed with liver disease.

As frightening as Hubs' diagnosis was, I was told by his medical team that there was plenty we could do to take care of his lemon of a liver...and most of it was nutritional. He needed mega-doses of certain vitamins, and supplements weren't going to be enough.

He needed to re-haul his diet. And having been told, I was on it. Being the information wonk that I am, I did thorough research on the foods that packed the nutrients he needed as well as ways I could prepare these foods so he might actually eat them. I, in a scant few months, became an excellent and creative organic chef. An honorary PhD in nutrition was born, and the broccoli wars were begun.

But I was loathe to enforce this diet on my children. Hubs is a grown-up, and I was having trouble enough converting HIM. Like their mother, my kids can be a bit...comment se dit?...recalcitrant. Self, I said to myself, don't all children live on chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, and pizza? What's a childhood without Cheetos and cupcakes? None of my children were overweight, I rationalized. They were active. But I made different meals for each one of them daily. I capitulated to what they insisted on eating. And I can own it: it was easier, and I felt overwhelmed. They outnumber me, you see.

But then: I had what we in the counseling and theology circles call a Come To Jesus meeting with a naturopathic doctor in the form of a six hour workshop about the biology of happiness. What I learned from her was astonishing. She gently pointed out that the lack of protein, the chemicals, the sugar my children ingested might...just might...have something to do with why they often act like baboons on crack. She explained the brain chemistry of how vitamins and protein impact mental health...and the role it plays in mood and attention span...and behavior.

Duh, as my eight year old son would say. I realized I had gradually decided to take the path of least resistance to the detriment of my children and despite what I knew as a professional counselor. Yikes. I couldn't wait for THEM to get sick before I radically changed their diet as I had Hubs'. As Sam Cooke sang, a change is gonna come. There's a new sheriff in town at Chez Counce, y'all. Pray for me. But I will embrace the Food Nazi label gladly if it makes my children act any less like hellions. If it helps my dyslexic son succeed in school. If it impacts their happiness and success positively in any way.

You see, I made a common parental mistake: I had confused generosity with duty when it came to my children's diet. It's very generous to give my son Pringles and cupcakes when he wants them. It makes me very popular. I am assured at the time that I am the best mommy ever. Indeed, forcing more nutritious choices on the kids has rendered me, for the moment, momma non gratis. 

My daughter is angry with me even as I type this. I won't let her have chocolate Cheerios for lunch. I'm taking a beating. Along with a side of sullenness and tantrums. But I'm determined to remember my duty by them. Not always popular, but the right thing to do. Because I have my children's best interests at heart, I'm now in it to win it...no matter how much aggravation ends up on the menu.

The Hijacked American Brain

Whitney Houston. Josh Hamilton. The TCU football team. My goodness. Drugs and alcohol and their misuse are front and center in the news lately, as are opinions about those who partake. Speculation is that Houston died as a result of combining drugs and alcohol. Josh Hamilton ends up in a bar despite the fact it will cost him a millionaire's career and maybe his family. Young, privileged kids with their whole lives in front of them inexplicably decide to dabble in a little behind-the-scenes pharmaceutical sales.

And the judgments are flowing. Two LA radio hosts were suspended for calling Houston a "crack ho." The comments and call-ins about Hamilton and the college kids at TCU online and on radio sports shows are blistering. And I'm finding everyone's smug outrage a smidge hypocritical. Because if I've learned anything from years in the mental health counseling biz, it is this: if you're pointing a finger, there's four more pointing back at you.

Be honest: ever had a couple of drinks with dinner and driven afterwards? If not, next time you're out, look around at the other tables and see how many people are. Or does your doctor give you a prescription for "mommy's little helpers" (known in the suburban set as Xanax or Valium)? Or maybe you wait until the kids go to bed before you drink a bottle of wine...just because you can't sleep?

Oh, America's got a problem, all right. And it's what I call a bio-psycho-socio-spiritual problem. How does addiction happen? Experts have isolated the root causes:

Biology. If you have a mother or father who was troubled by drugs and alcohol, you are four times more likely to develop a problem yourself...before you ever even pick up the substance. There's a particular link between men and their sons. Addiction is a family disease. Funny thing, too: substance abuse isn't the problem, folks. Substance abuse is a symptom of the problem. We use substances to solve our problems: something akin to using a shovel to hammer a nail in the wall. Might get the job done, sure, but there's a lot of collateral damage.

Psychology. Depression, anxiety, other mood disorders: if you have a mental health issue, you are at increased risk of developing a dependence or abuse problem. There are personality traits that can precede misuse of drugs and alcohol too. Some people aren't easily stimulated, or they're risk takers. But instead of skydiving or bungee-jumping, however, these individuals say to themselves: let's take ten tabs of acid and see what happens! Undiagnosed mental health problems can play a big role in why people medicate themselves.

Sociology. Nurture plays a big role in who develops an addiction problem as well as nature. Your race, your neighborhood, your socioeconomics all factor in. Were you bullied at school? Suffer physical, sexual, emotional abuse? Were you over-indulged? Neglected? All load the dice in favor of addiction.

Spiritual. In the end, addiction is really a spiritual sickness, a chronic emptiness, the ultimate isolation from God. It's the hope that something outside of yourself, whether that be meth, booze, food, sex, or designer clothes can make you somehow better. People throw a lot of different things in a lot of different holes trying to fill up, never understanding everything they need to calm down and feel whole is already inside.

Have all of the above whammies or a combination thereof, and poor coping mechanisms are hard to avoid using if you've never been taught to self soothe in a healthy way. So, I don't judge anyone who's got a disease. Once you dump copious amounts of mood-altering substances on the brain, it's chemical ability to experience pleasure is completely changed. After you've experienced these powerful but fake highs over and over, a good sandwich or winning a contest just doesn't do it for the addict any more. After some time, it's not about partying. It's about getting out of bed.

And this is disease that is primarily defined by the symptom that people refuse to admit they have it. Addiction is a progressive and deadly condition, and there are only three outcomes to it without intervention: dead. Crazy. Or jailed. These ways are the only ways an substance dependence problem can end without treatment.

If you wonder if you have a problem, you have a problem. Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous are correlated with successful recovery, true, but please: get evaluated by a substance abuse counselor. Treatment and support are two different things, and you need them both. There are no shortcuts. But if you have cancer, you just don't go to a support group and talk about it. Or tell the doctor, "No, I don't think I'll do chemotherapy. It's too hard, and I don't want to lose my hair." If you don't treat your diabetes, it's still there. And it will blind you and take your feet before it kills you.

If you are related to someone who has a problem, there's help for you at Al-Anon. Please go talk to other family and friends of addicts.Turning a blind eye, refusing to speak up enables your loved one to keep killing themselves. But in order to wage war against illicit substance dependence and abuse, we've got to get past the stigma and silence and shame that surrounds addiction. We need to drop the judgement. Because we're in denial. And in recovery, that stands for "Don't Even Know I Am Lying."

Valentine's Day, Or: Not For the Feint of Heart

Ah, Valentine's Day. One of my favorites. Oh, the haters love to say it's a made up holiday, blah blah blah, just designed to get us to consume. As the kids say: Whatevs. Because I love a holiday that's all about love. And now that Hubs and I have been together over fifteen years, the good news is I've trained him well. He knows the routine: card. Chocolate. Roses. Something sparkly. Formulaic, I know, but it works for both of us. As a left-brained engineer, he likes formulas where he can drop in known variables to get the same result every year: a smiling wife.

Oh, yes, I have many warm Valentines memories with Hubs. We met on February 10 (yes, I'm a girl. I remember the exact day. And what I weighed then. But I digress), so Valentine's is kind of an anniversary for us. We would repeat our traditions every year: candle light dinner. Sipping champagne. And watching "Sleepless in Seattle," which he brought over with a heart shaped chocolate chip cookie. The cookie was from his mother to him, but to his credit, he shared it with me. So many sweet, romantic memories.

And then: we had children.

Oh, sure, the romance is still there. But when you have three kids eight and younger, Valentine's Day grows to match its container, not unlike a goldfish in a Koi pond. Valentine's Day has become The Great Valentine's Initiative. In order to pull off Valentine's Day for three children at school, you must possess the strategic planning skills of an Erwin Rommel (look it up). It turns out arranging everything you need for a family Valentine's is not for the feint of heart.

First: you better start early. The locusts come out to feed. Women who are good at this stuff are buying Valentine's supplies in December. Wait until February, and you'll probably won't find the specific cartoon character Valentines your child will melt down without. Do not make a mistake and buy Hello Kitty when your four year old daughter requested Dora. You will pay.

Teachers will then require you to purchase fruit trays or pretzels which must be procured and delivered on the day of the party. Your child must somehow not drop and ruin these foods between your mini-van and his school room. There must be a small but tasteful gift for teachers. Between my children, there are five. There should be a Valentine from each child to each teacher. Each much bear a carefully crafted message of your child's adoration of aforementioned teacher.

And then there's the night before the children's parties at school, at which time you will create an assembly line that puts the largest Toyota factory in Japan to shame. Pencils must be poked through, magnets slipped in, and lollipops taped into valentines. Tiny, cheap heart stickers must be peeled up and applied, and they will never hold the damn things together. You will address no fewer than 130 of these Chinese made valentines (do they even know who Dora the Explorer IS in China?).

And then's there's the morning of the party. Do the children have their valentine garb on? You know, the five dollar t-shirt they pressured you into buying at Old Navy that they will never don again after this day? Do they have their required snacks? The valentines? It is possible to need a sherpa to help schlep the valentine's goodies to school.

Don't forget you must attend the party at school! Never mind everyone's having them at the same time, so like Clooney on Oscar night, you must make the rounds if you have multiple children, triggering a nuclear sibling rivalry meltdown for whomever doesn't get your visit first. Children will be swinging from the ceiling, having been pumped up for weeks about valentine's day and then stuffed full of sugar. The room will be crowded with a ring of weary adults avoiding conversation with one another and checking their watches.

Finally, the haul home. Do the math: three kids, about 25 little scrappy valentines apiece, boxes, bags, or mailboxes, and candy to wrestle away from the kids before dinner. Their sugar rush can and will last for days. Prepare yourself to watch your children act as if they're on crack. It's Valentine's Day, people, and they are READY TO PARTY LIKE CHARLIE SHEEN. Lock up your tiger blood.


Hubs and I are often too tired to stay up to watch "Sleepless in Seattle" now as we are officially Sleepless in McKinney, Texas. If Hubs were to bring me a heart-shaped chocolate chip cookie, it would be crumbs in the pan before I could get to it. A glass of champagne, and I'm snoring like a congested heifer. Needless to say, some of our romantic traditions have been tweaked from the age BC (Before Children).



But despite all of the above, don't get me wrong. Valentine's Day is better than ever after children, because the love has doubled...and in our case, tripled. Oh, it's chaotic. It's demanding. You will work your heinie off to make it happen. But when they grin at you with their mouths ringed with chocolate and say, "I love you, Mommy!" it's all worth it, isn't it?



And all of this because two people fell in love.

How To Get a Kid To Do Almost Anything. No, Really.

So I'm in one of our local retail establishments recently, shopping blissfully (okay, no one really shops blissfully, per se, but when you're without your children, it's something close), when I hear the screaming. Looking around, I see a young mother who is not as fortunate as I. She has a full cart and two young children in tow. Automatically, she has my sympathy. I'll shop at midnight before I try to haul toddlers through the grocery store. It's brutal.

At any rate, as I'm watching this little family and feeling grateful I'm alone, a familiar drama unfolds between the two toddlers. They start to argue about who's going to help place items in Mommy's cart. And as it often happens with toddlers, violence ensues. Older boy punches younger brother. Younger brother begins to wail. And then, inexplicably, Mom grabs older boy by the shoulder and begins swatting him, punctuating each lick with a word: "You...better...not...ever...hit...your...brother!"

I was agog. This was crazy-making at its finest. Was this mother really hitting her kid to get him to stop hitting? Don't get me wrong. There's been many a time I felt I was completely unarmed to control my toddlers. I've made plenty of mistakes. A lot of us resort to hitting and time-outs because we just don't how else to influence our kids' behavior. But I'm here to let you in on a little secret about how to get your kid to be a lot more amenable, whether that kid is three or seventeen.

Why do any of us do anything we do? For reward, of course. Every decision you have made today, from the choice of clothing to going to work, has a reward of some kind. If you know anything about training dogs, for example, you know to teach him a trick you have to reward him when he gets it right. If you just beat the dog when he doesn't do the trick, he's just going to learn to avoid you, not to roll over or shake. And our kids are the same way.

So what reward do our children want? How do we teach them the proper response to discomfort? Believe it or not, it's not with gifts of Squinkies or trips to Chuck E. Cheese (which is actually a canto of hell, but I digress). Fact: what our children actually crave more than anything is a good relationship with their parents. And if you have a good relationship with your child, it turns out, they indeed will crawl over hot coals to please you.

How does this coaching look in practice? Let me break it down for you using a great example from my own kids. So we're all chilling in floor, chugging some Thomas the Tank Engine cars around some plastic tracks. Everything's copasetic until my daughter, then three years old, decides my seven year old son is crowding her section of track. So she, as many three-year-olds do, decides clocking her brother across the back of the cranium with a toy train car is an excellent way to call his attention to his encroachment.

Now, for those of you unfamiliar with Thomas the Tank Engine, first: good for you. Remain blissfully ignorant if you can. Secondly: those cars are made out of cast iron. At the time, I'm worried my daughter has caved in her brother's head. He howls in pain and then shoves his sister as hard as he can in retaliation.

Now, here's the part where it's tempting to start yelling and putting babies in corners. But what I've learned is there's a better way. First, take a deep breath and resist the urge to crack their skulls together. Once you're calm, then:

Reflect and validate. I indicated that I totally get why my son shoved my daughter. I mean, you're sitting there, minding your own business, and suddenly someone clocks you across the back of the head. If I were taking up too much space at the bar, and some one came up and punched me over it, I'd feel mad and hurt. So did my son. I let my son know I get it that he's mad and hurt and has a right to be.

Empathize. Once I identified and validated my son's feelings about my daughter wailing on him, it was time to give him an example of how I can understand his feelings. I told him a story about a stray dog who decided to come take a chomp out of my calf while I was out walking one day. About how I didn't even know him or bother him, but he decided to hurt me for walking down his street. I could, I told him, totally get how he feels.

Explore alternate behaviors. I told my son I sure felt like kicking that little dog for hurting me for no reason. But I didn't kick him, because I wouldn't feel good about myself and I could get into trouble. I needed to find some things to do that wouldn't hurt anyone or get me trouble. I told him about calling animal control and calling my mommy and crying on the phone (true story) and how those things made me feel much better.

I explored with my son some options about how he could manage his (valid!) feelings and get some relief. We came up with some great alternatives: asking for help, telling her how he feels, getting a stuffed friend or some hugs and kisses for mom. You want more than just one alternative behavior in case his first one doesn't work out for some reason.

How did it all end? With my son hugging me and saying I was a great mom, and him leaving the room feeling heard and empowered. I'm happy to say he resorts to violence a lot less these days. Oh, he's not perfect, but he doesn't want to disappoint me. We have a great relationship.

So I challenge you to give this emotional coaching thing a try. It's so crazy, it just might work. And while we're at it, we might consider how this relationship thing might reward not only the kids, but how you might be able to influence the grown-ups in your life too. Everything boils down to relationships. The use of violence or anger is kind of like holding a gun to someone's head. Pretty effective while you're wielding it, but what happens when you put it down? People run away.

So I challenge you: try it! With your spouse, your boss, the customer. Reflect ("What I hear you saying is..."). Validate ("I can totally see how for YOU that is so.") Empathize ("And I can see how you feel X about that.").  Because believe it or not, even though some grown-ups seem to need a time out or a smacked bottom, there's another way to win friends...and most importantly, influence people.

It's Called Empathy. Look Into It.

You are so rude.

Okay, so maybe not you specifically. But someone may think you are: did you see the recent reader poll that Travel and Leisure magazine printed naming America's rudest cities? Of course you didn't. Who can afford travel and/or leisure in this economy? But I digress. According to the poll, the Dallas/Forth Worth area is the sixth rudest city in all of these United States. And the rudest Southern city, to which I take particular umbrage.

No surprise to me New York took the top prize. Insulting one another is how New Yorkers show love. If you can make it in New York, evidently you can make it in federal prison. Miami was number two. Does a lack of clothing make you rude? DC was next: quelle surprise. For proof, all you've got to do is watch a little Sunday morning talk where politicians bring rudeness to an art form. Los Angeles was fourth. I can imagine all that Botox, silicone, and bleach can angry up the blood. And fifth? Boston, which evidently often can be mistaken for one large drunken hockey brawl.

And then there's sixth: our Dallas/Fort Worth. At first I thought I'd handle this problem of being named sixth rudest city in America the old fashioned way: blame it on Fort Worth. But then, I thought: No. I have been put on the Earth to be a Wayfinder, a Mender (thank you, Martha Beck). It is my charge, nay, my duty to help clarify for the good citizens of North Texas how and why you are rude. And more importantly: how you can stop it right now.

Cell phone etiquette. I have no desire to hear about the drama between you and your Junior League while I am trapped in line with you in Target. And can we embrace the idea of using our indoor voices? Because I can hear you yelling to your friend about your husband's irritating foibles in the health and beauty section while you're in electronics. And check that puppy one too many times when you're supposed to be eating with me? The back of me hand.

Littering. Fast food restaurants have trash cans. Your mommy is no longer here to pick up after you. No one wants to throw out the empty cup you left in the grocery cart. Stepping on your discarded gum makes me highly stabby. If you smoke, put your butt where it belongs. Don't throw it out your car window. The reasons are twofold: one, my world is not your ashtray. Two: you can set things on fire. Duh, as the kids say. This is Texas. We are entirely flammable.

Verbal abuse. I can't stand someone who goes off verbally on someone who can't respond. Like a supervisor berating an employee. You truly can tell someone's character by how they treat their subordinates. Or worse: a customer going off on a clerk, cashier, or waiter. Terrible karma, dude. Also: swearing loudly in public. Now, I play it blue sometimes. But not in front of kids or other people who may not share my love of four, five, and six letter words. Meh. What can I say? I have a limited vocabulary.

You have a baby. In the bar. If the word "Pub" is in the name of the establishment, it is best to leave the kiddies at home. I hate to cramp your style, but get a sitter or stay at home. News flash: people drink and cuss in bars. Kids have their own restaurants, and they're called McDonald's. They'll grow up soon enough, and you can resume your night life. If you're not too tired then. And please: insist your child not stand and jump in their chairs, run around the restaurant, or trash the place. If they scream, take 'em to the car. Sorry. Such is the life of a parent. I knew the job was dangerous when I took it.

Catch flies with honey. Make eye contact. Would it kill you to smile when we do, or at least look like you'd like to kill me a little less? Can we add "thank you" and "please" to your lexicon? Can we, for the love of God, not interrupt? Can we not wear pajama pants or stripper halter tops in public? Can we not drop the door in the face of the person coming in behind us? Could we not turn traffic into a high stakes video game in our Mad Max-like efforts to command the roadways?

I could write a dissertation on ways to improve Dallas' standing in the rudeness category; believe me, I've got more. But I am absolutely sure none of you, dear readers, are guilty of the above social infractions. I know you're right here beside me in the fight to bring back civility. If not, we can only try. But I'm thinking: if we can't get some empathy for all the other people with whom we are sharing the planet pretty soon, we're going to end up with problems a lot bigger than a breach of etiquette.

How You Do Anything, Or: How You Do Everything

I live in construction hell. No, really. Grand scale highway expansion. My local folks will know of what I speak: my Collin County, Texas, roads have been torn up literally for years. Both of the main arteries I take to get south to Dallas, a state highway and an interstate, have been transformed into what I lovingly call the Concrete Chutes of Death. I'll explain.

On the interstate, there are barriers on both sides of two lanes and no shoulders, meaning the almost daily, exhilarating experience of hurtling seventy miles an hour down the road with inches separating my car from an eighteen wheeler and the concrete. The state highway is worse. It's one lane, no shoulders, concrete barriers on either side. It's like an Atari game, I kid you not. An accidental flick of the wrist, or God forbid a sneeze, and bad, bad things can happen to you.

So, when your everyday thoroughfare includes either an exciting game of Stay-In-Your-Lane-For-The-Love-of-God or the unexpected surprise of a lane closure, resulting in a half hour delay (you never know! The road changes every day! Exits move!), it can make a commuter a tad...shall we say cranky? Let's just say I've noticed more than one of our local citizens wearing his heinie as a hat while behind the wheel in our lovely construction (did I mention it has been going on for years and is slated to continue to go on for years more? But I digress).

Drivers behaving badly got me to thinking. Having noticed that how someone does something is usually how they do anything, I started to think about a metaphor (that's something old English majors just kind of do) where car=you and the drive=life's journey. Hear me out. It seems apt.

If you are impatient in traffic, racing around people, tailgating, always in a huff about being late, that's how you approach problems in your life: interested in furthering your own gains without the concern for the safety of others, worked up, far from peaceful. You gun the engine, wear out the brakes, don't get your car serviced; parts wear out and accidents happen. Chances are you treat your body and life the same way.

Are you afraid to drive? Afraid of traffic? Seized up and panicky in the car? Worried you'll get lost, be late, get hurt? Are you thinking about yesterday or tomorrow, driving distracted? Do you, and I have to say this trick makes me mental, come to a complete halt on the highway exceleration ramp because you're too afraid to excelerate and join the faster pace, endangering the people behind you? Do you force yourself into traffic, making others stop or move over before you will or before someone gets hurt?

Are you always looking in your rear view mirror or around you instead of watching the road? Are your hands on the wheel or do you sometimes steer with one knee? Are you doing something else when you're supposed to be driving: eating? Putting on makeup? Texting? Do your self-righteously judge other drivers? Do you vary your speed to please others, maybe go a little faster than you want to because someone behind you is pressuring you? Or do you trust in your own driving and pay attention to what YOU think is safe? For the love of all that is holy are you aware your left blinker has been on for the past five miles??

Do enjoy the drive or resent having to make it to get to where you're going? What is your attitude toward delay? Do you curse your luck and pound the dashboard? Or do you know your anger or stress will not open up another lane of traffic and turn on some music and try to relax, do some thinking? Do you ever give thanks for your car that is in fine repair when others walk or ride without heating or cooling or sometimes even parts they need? Oh my god please tell me you do not cut corners through gas stations to turn right. I might cut you.

How we do anything is how we do everything. How you approach the car and the drive is how you approach yourself and your life. Sometimes when improvements are being made, it does look kind of like a hellscape. Like no progress is being made. Like harm is eminent (and I'm looking at YOU, intersection of Highways 380 and 75). How will you guide yourself through? What's your GPS?

Because in this metaphor, folks, life is a highway. And we are, indeed, fated to drive it together all night long. For me, I'm going to go the speed limit, signal, proceed with caution and not worry if someone's tailgating me or change my speed for them. I'm waving at folks on my county road, and I'm the one that will let you merge in traffic. If you're signaling nicely, of course.

So I hope my little car and driving metaphor sparked some insight for some of y'all. Because from where I'm sitting, some of you don't care if your drive ends soon and violently or if you take someone with you. I'm thinking: if folks don't like the way I'm driving, they can go around; I have a tendency to stick to the right lane myself anyway. I'm going to keep an eye on my gauges, do maintenance when needed. But alas: I fear my interior will always smell of drive-through chicken nuggets.

Celebrities Are Just Like Us. No, Really.

 Hi. My name is Eliska, and I am an addict. That's right. I try to cut down, but I can't. My drug of choice? Pop culture, and a twelve-step program couldn't keep me clean. Television, movies, media of any kind...and my beloved, adored trashy magazines. SIGH. Confession: I have two master's degrees, and yet my favorite entertainment choices include soap operas and the Twilight Saga. I know: you're judging me. I'm comfortable with that.

I suppose it's my flair for the dramatic that ignites my love of celebrities and the entertainment business, but I also like to think it's an aesthetic thing: celebrities can be so beautiful...and their belongings so shiny. I won't even mention my struggle between hating consumerism and my lust for shoes. The flesh is willing, people. But I get a little dizzy when I see platform Manolo Blahniks. I think it's on one of my chromosomes or something.

I know I'm an addict because I minimize my use, too. I used to have addicts I saw for group therapy who said, "WELL. I may be an alcoholic, but at least I don't do drugs," or, "WELL, it's just pot, it's not like it's crack," or "I only do powder. I would never do crack," while the heroin addict is all, "WELL, at least I only snort the stuff, I would never shoot it." The things we say while in denial. Me? I like to say, "WELL. I may like Sons of Anarchy and People magazine, but at least I don't stoop to watching the Kardashians." I am at least dimly self-aware, hopefully.

A lot of people say it's fun to watch celebrities and their drama unfold in public, that we little people enjoy watching the rich and beautiful suffer. May be true for others, but I have to say for myself I've seen plenty of drama and suffering unfold in my counseling office, enough to satiate me for sure. Trust me, everybody's got drama going on. I actually enjoy watching celebrities to catch them acting like regular people...even when they think they aren't regular.

For example: the recent blow-up of the marriage of 47-year-old Demi Moore. Who knew her hot 33-year-old husband would cheat on her? Well, me, but I digress. I've never been particularly attached to Demi, but when the story broke, I felt some empathy. It must have stung for an aging beauty that her husband went to a taut 20-something for some outside action. Embarrassing. This aging beauty felt for her. I can't imagine how difficult to have to address such personal matters in such a public way. How would you address such a public humiliation?

I mean, think about it. How glad are you there aren't photographers in your yard wanting to get a shot of you in your jammies? Or a comment from you about your husband shtupping a teenager? Or making up a really good story about you if there isn't one? Ugh. Fame doesn't really sound all that rewarding to me. I'm imagining TMZ's story on the number of wine bottles in my recycling bin even as I write this. And I shudder to think about the Access Hollywood report on my weight and wardrobe. I'm not pregnant, I swear! I just ate a big lunch.

But Demi impressed me, and she reminded me again why I am fascinated by celebrities.  Speaking out, Moore said; “What scares me is that I’m going to ultimately find out at the end of my life that I’m really not lovable, that I’m not worthy of being loved. That there’s something fundamentally wrong with me … and that I wasn’t wanted here in the first place.”

Did you ever think money or beauty would make you completely secure? Demi has both, but just like every other soul, in the end, she worries she will not be loved. Hell, even Halle Berry got cheated on. For everyone, celebrity or criminal, it all comes down to: love. Every story I ever heard in my counseling office was boiled down to a story about love and power: or a lack of them. Everyone, everyone, fears deep down, they will not be loved. Even if it seems they don't really have a deep down.

Moore added that freedom and power for her meant, “Letting go of the outcome. Truly being in the moment. Not reflecting on the past. Not projecting into the future. That’s freedom. Not caring more about what other people think than what you think. That’s freedom. To not be defined by your wounds. Somebody wrote something to me that said, ‘Don’t let your wounds make you become someone you’re not.’ That’s really powerful. And not taking life too seriously."

Love and power. In the end, for the plowman and the playwright, the artist and the ditch digger, every human problem is rooted in these. Counseling Katrina evacuees in the Dallas Convention Center in August of 2005, talk was not so much of lost possessions or buildings, but of the loss of personal power and the agonizing grief associated with the loss of love. 


So, it turns out US magazine is right (and there's a sentence I never though I would type!). Celebrities really ARE just like us. Because despite how some behave, and I know this is a shocker, but they are humans, of a woman born, flawed with feet of clay as we all are. When they do wear pants, they put them on one leg at a time just like you.

Power and love. Good for Demi. She knows where her power is, and she knows whose love it is most important to have, and this is true whether you have a smush name with your partner or not (TomKat? Brangelina? We would be Eloug or Doliska. Yikes). Hint: Moore's power didn't lie in Ashton's "commitment" to her or in her impressive bank account. Money isn't power, because it, too, can disappear: Just ask Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, who were Madoff investors and lost millions they thought safe.


No, no matter who you are, you hold the key to power and love in your heart. You are not your wounds. You are not what they say you are. You are not your story. You are not your Jimmy Choos, your BMW, your 3000 square foot house. As Dr. Seuess said: You are you. This is true. There is no one out there more you-er than you. Love you and empower yourself.

The Ph.D of Parenting, or: Just a Mom

I AM NOT BORING. Yet, I've found that people assume that most domestic engineers (I refuse to call myself a stay-at-home-mom; I'm in the mini-van way too much) are judged to be dull as dishwater, capable only of discussing poop texture and the best way to get apple juice stains out of the carpet, or perhaps give a dissertation on the subtle differences between the Sesame Street muppets (can YOU tell Zoe from Rosita? But I digress).

In a world where "What do you do?" is the second most asked question after "What's your name?" it's hard out there for us moms. Even our partners can wonder what we do all day. I actually had a man at a party start looking over my shoulder for someone else to talk to after I told him I was largely a child-rearing specialist at the moment. WTH, as they say on the interwebs? I'm interesting, dammit!

And pretty sharp, too, don't doubt it. I haven't lost any IQ points since I hung up (albeit temporarily) my Licensed Professional hat. Because home and family management, my dears, requires a lot of brains and general wiliness. Here's just a sampling of the liberal education required of a parent whose primary job is on the domestic front:

Math. Helping with homework will require you dust off that part of your brain that once knew long division, how to "borrow" in subtraction, and how to use the metric system. Brush up on fractions (helpful not only in homework but also in the exact division of food between siblings to avoid bloodshed. Ever cut a sandwich in half and then cut the other kid's sandwich into quarters only to have the first kid scream Hey he's got more sandwich than me!!!?). Your math skills will also come in handy as you calculate how to feed five people for a week armed only with a twenty dollar bill and a fistful of coupons.

Chemistry. You will need to know the science of cleaning solutions, the many applications of bleach, and what products will clean or destroy marble, ceramics, wood, porcelain, and glass. You will learn the subtle differences between detergents, fabric softeners, color catchers, and dryer sheets. You will be an expert on medicine: fever reducers, stool softeners, mucus reducers, vitamins, and available allergy meds both prescribed and over the counter. You will need the precision of a pediatric nurse in dispensing these meds. You will require an honorary degree in nutrition.

Language arts. Spending the majority of your time with young people will require the debate skills of a criminal defense attorney. You will be called upon to spell and define any word in the English language off the top of your head. You will use persuasive skills you never knew you had in the pursuit of convincing your children that clothes are, indeed, an excellent gift, brushing your teeth daily is not optional, and that no, shooting bottle rockets at the dog is ill-advised at best.

Art. You will: paint with fingers, brushes, and sponges. You will crayon, mark, chalk, sticker, glue, fold, assemble. You will stamp, inexplicably, with not only rubber stamps but fruits and vegetables. You will make mosaics, mold. And you will spend more time cleaning up after art than your charges will spend making the art. You must possess the story-telling prowess of a Brother Grimm.

Kinesthetics. Otherwise known as physical education. You will run, chase, and do more squatting than an Occupy rally. You will do 45-pound toddler curls when your kid goes all Gandhi on you and you've got to take him limp and screaming out of a retail establishment or restaurant. You will take punches to the head and privates frequently and become adroit at avoiding head butts. You will wrestle children in and out of clothes and the bathtub. You oughta see my guns.

Theology and philosophy. You will be required to answer questions scholars have debated since the dawn of time, including but not limited to who, what, and where God is; details about Heaven's exact location and whether or not your child's stuffed animals will go there; and why so many different people will give him different answers to these questions. You will need to be ready to explain why bad things happen, why other kids can be mean, what "dead" means, and why little boys can't marry their mother.

I could go on. My point? I do have one: the next time you dismiss someone (or yourself) as "just a mom," or "just staying home," remember: life it about finding your values and a way to use these values to have an impact on the world. I may still be wearing maternity panties when my oldest is four, sure, but don't mistake my yoga pants or yogurt stains for stupid or lazy. Pat yourself on the back: parenting may be boring, dirty, and exhausting...but always know if you're doing it well, you are in the service industry for the world. Not too shabby for just a mom.

Resolved!

Well, folks, it's that time of year again: New Year's Eve is upon us. Every other commercial on television is for Weight Watchers, Reeboks, or Chantix. I am preparing for the January-to-Valentine's-Day crowd to surge in at the gym, resplendent in their shiny fresh spandex and blindingly white, brand new running shoes, asking me how to set the bicep curl machine.

Yep, it's that time, alright: time to make a list of ways I didn't become a better person this year. Oh, I kid. But once more and despite the fact I'm pretty flawless already (erhem), it is the time to talk New Year's resolutions. It's so much easier to make resolutions for other people, right? If only.

I'm of two minds, really, when it comes to New Year's resolutions. On one hand, it seems kind of silly and arbitrary to designate a random day as one to make changes in lifestyle. And usually if you're waiting for some external cue to prompt you to improve, that means a meaningful, long term change is probably not going to happen. Unless you are prompted internally by your heart, change will be temporary...and you'll be two-fisting cheeseburgers by January 3. And if you set your sights unrealistically, when you inevitably break the "rules," you're going to feel even worse, like you failed. To the shame spiral!

On the other hand, though, no one is a bigger fan of clean slates, new leaves, goal setting, and a desire to improve than moi, even if  New Year's resolutions seem a bit canned. As a professional counselor, I am totally into second chances, and I know that change is actually unavoidable anyway.

So in the spirit of the season, I started thinking of some resolutions that might actually be attainable for me, just small changes I can make to make being Eliska just a little bit better (not to mention more pleasant to encounter) this year. But I think I'm going to make them winter resolutions. I'm not sure I have stamina for the whole of 2012. What's that old saying about if you don't have expectations, you can't be disappointed? I like the option of a spring revision.

So here's some examples of some low risk resolutions that I might be willing to consider for the likes of me at least until March:

1. I will make a genuine effort to make Baptists fear and loathe me less. I can't promise anything.
2. I will not call other drivers names in front of my children. Related: I will also refuse to tell them what "troglodyte" means.
3. I will rise above my love for trashy magazines. After I find out what's really happening between Russell Brand and Katy Perry. Or if R-Pattz and K-Stew will be getting married.
4. My four year old daughter will not own more shoes than I do.
5. I will call off the war on my cuticles.
6. I will never, ever utter the words "I know! Right?" EVER. AGAIN. Related: I will not throat punch you if you say them to me. Despite how desperately my fist might itch.
7. I will not call a Starbucks latte or last night's take-out leftovers "breakfast."
8. I will not call Hubs "Daddy" when there are no children around.
9. I will overcome the shame of pulling my mini-van into the Harley Davidson store. Perhaps I will paint flames down the side of it and re-christen it "The Blazebago."
10. I will reach some internal zen regarding sharing Dallas with Glenn Beck, George Bush, AND the Kardashians.

See? Keep them specific and reasonable, and you too can make New Year's or Winter Solstice resolutions that are not only helpful but perhaps even achievable. Except for that last one, I should be all right. I hope so, because Kardashians have a tendency to break me out in sarcasm and eye rolls. Happy New Year, darlings! Whether you think 2012 is the beginning of End Times or the beginning of the Age of  Aquarius, may you achieve everything you want for yourself during it. See you there!