Mother of the Year
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Dr. V | Friday | February 11, 2011 |
Why do we humans have to make love so complicated? I’ve spent the last week listening to radio ads appealing to desperate men without a clue what to get for their mate: bears? chocolate? jewelry? pajamas? flowers? massages? Screw this one up and you could be paying for weeks, the ads direly imply.
Kids don’t have it much easier. When I was in elementary school, I would stress for days over which Valentine to give to which kid. Tommy’s gross, so I can’t give him the “Be Mine” ones. He gets the “Valentine, You’re Neat.” That sort of thing. (more…)
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Dr. V | Tuesday | January 18, 2011 |
Since we had the day off yesterday, I schlepped the kids to our local Safari Park for a little walk on the wild side. If you know anything about San Diego, you’ve probably heard about the World Famous San Diego Zoo (and that is how it refers to itself, the World Famous San Diego Zoo- there’s confidence!) but you might not have heard about its wallflower sibling, the San Diego Wild Animal Park/Safari Park/whatever it’s being called these days.
Aside from its location in an often sweltering inland valley, which makes sense since it is supposed to approximate an actual African savannah, the Wild Animal Park is my favorite of the two parks. Its central feature is a huge open space populated by herds of wild beasties, which you circle around in a giant tram and admire from afar while the driver tells you interesting facts about their biology. It’s a science nerd dream come true.
Alas, your average tourist is not a science nerd and demands a bit more flash and pizazz to compete with Legoland and Sea World, so in order to stay competitive our little Wild Animal Park had to change several things:
- Rebranding itself as the Safari Park, because while wild animals are nuisances, safaris are exotic.
- Add a zipline (if you’ve watched Sister Wives, not that I have, but if you caught the promos or anything on your way to the BBC channel, this is where the guy took wife number 4 on their honeymoon, and they did this.)
- Add a hot air balloon
- Add a SpongeBob motion simulator ride (how this fits in to the theme is beyond me)
All of which you get charged up the wazoo for, of course, on top of the park entry fee. (more…)
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Dr. V | Wednesday | January 5, 2011 |
I think I’m going to need to start a whole new category for the myriad ways I am scarring my children for life. I can title it, “This is why it’s good I did not choose a career path involving children.”
I’m not the cool parent. I’m not even the nerdy parent where it’s ok because they know they are the nerdy parent and it’s almost kind of geek-chic. I’m the nerdy parent who thinks they are cool, and that is about as bad as you can get, because I clearly lack judgment about this whole kid thing.
The skies have finally cleared a bit and the poor kids are going stir-crazy, so I packed them up for an outing. We went to the Natural History Museum, to which we have yearly passes because it’s inexpensive, there are dinosaur bones involved, and to be perfectly honest, I selfishly like science museums the best.
“Would you like tickets to the 3-D movie?” the person asked.
“What’s the movie?” I replied.
“We have two,” he said. “Turtle Reef”- which despite sounding nice concerned me as to how interesting that would be to a 4 year old- “and Waking the T-Rex: The Story of Sue.”
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Dr. V | Tuesday | November 23, 2010 |
I went to feed the new betta tonight and I couldn’t find him in the tank. I fully admit that I cursed like a sailor as I peered around the tank (at least the kids weren’t around to hear it.)
Then, I spotted him- chilling in the little filter: you know, the little box that hangs off the back of the tank? How the HECK did he get in there? The only thing I can possibly fathom is that he got sucked up the tube that pulls water into the filter. He seems like he would be too big for it, but apparently I was wrong. He went all Augustus Gloop on me.
He looked at me, abashed, floating listlessly in his one inch of space. I dumped him back in the tank and breathed a sigh of relief, at least for now. At least this time I figured it out before he kicked the bucket.
Is life in our household really all that bad? Free worms, regular water changes, the cat leaves you alone. Really, life is good as a V betta. I seem to keep getting the emo fish who can’t wait to escape the horribleness of my home.
When I took Koa into the specialty hospital a couple of weeks ago, I noticed they had a small betta tank, just a bowl, actually, in the exam room. When I relayed my tale of woe, the vet chivalrously offered the betta to me, which I thought was very kind. “He’s been here for 5 years,” he told me.
5 YEARS. 5 years of being subjected to daily scrutiny from strange cats, dogs, and children, some of whom are possibly radioactive, and the fish is fine. I have a fish for 5 weeks and he manages to get himself dead every time. I told him the fish was probably much safer there than in my home, which is some Bermuda Triangle vortex of fish doom, and obviously I was correct in that assessment.
I hadn’t actually gotten around to naming the fish- paranoia, perhaps, or simply playing the odds- but I think Augustus is quite fitting. Or perhaps Lazarus. Or Lucky, in the ironic sense. Augustus Lazarus Lucky the Great. I like it.
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Dr. V | Tuesday | August 31, 2010 |
This week marks my daughter’s second week of first grade.
The first week of first grade was rather tough. They don’t post the list of classes until one day before- of course this is done by design, to avoid the principal being hunted down at her home by hordes of “concerned” helicopter parents wanting to discuss the reasoning behind Timmy’s classroom assignment.
Of course, my daughter was given the one assignment I didn’t want her to have- a combination class with a group of first and second graders. My reaction was so immediate and visceral that I thought I was going to vomit right then and there in the hallway.
I didn’t think I was going to be that kind of parent, the one who freaks out over things that in the big picture are probably pretty inconsequential, but there you go. I guess I am.
Because my daughter is pretty much a younger incarnation of me I was able to pinpoint my concerns right away. I don’t have any concerns about her abilities academically. She’s a smart cookie. Au contraire, I was much more concerned for her social well-being as far and away the youngest kid in the room, one smart enough to keep up but maybe not savvy enough to know she’s being a little nerdy.
I spent the entire night in a sleepless panic, imagining her sitting alone in the dust on the side of the playground while the other girls laughed at her glasses.
“You’re projecting,” said my husband, and of course he is right. But that doesn’t stop me from worrying.
“I’ll just share my concerns with the teacher,” I thought, and got to school a little early that first morning. As did every other parent in the school who has some worry or another. There was already a line in front of the beleaguered principal’s office, and classes hadn’t even begun yet.
I met the teacher, and immediately felt ten times worse than before. My sense of foreboding went through the roof. Fifty red flags were screaming “DANGER!! SHE IS GOING TO RUIN YOUR CHILD!” and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why, as she is actually a very kind and well regarded teacher.
After a second sleepless night spent wondering if I had now blown her chances at getting into a good college, it finally hit me: her first grade teacher is a dead ringer for Charity McKay, the most dastardly internal medicine resident ever to terrorize the halls of Davis during my tenure there. Beneath her bubbly facade was the heart of a rabid killer: lord help you if you didn’t remember the sodium content in a bag of Lactated Ringer’s.
A snotty senior student tried to correct her once. She ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti. We cowered in terror when her 5’1 shadow darkened the corridor, signaling the impending arrival of our doom.
So here I am, still neatly conditioned one decade later to a submissive huddle at the mere suggestion of her, and now her doppelganger is in charge of my daughter’s development.
No matter. I can be reasonable. I can’t imagine she would have gotten very far in her career as a teacher if she actually devoured small children as I suspected Dr. McKay might do on the weekends, so I’m going to be open minded and give her the benefit of the doubt.
But if she mentions at any point she has a sister who’s a vet, I’m joining the line outside the principal’s office.
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Dr. V | Thursday | July 1, 2010 |
My children have spent the wee dawning days of summer re-enacting the World Cup.
On this side, representing the Bipedia, we have the Daughter and the Son.
On the other side, from the United Republic of Retrievers, we have Koa and Brody.
And we’re off! Daughter runs the ball, easily dodges Koa, and heads down the field. Son goes running after, screaming that he wants a turn.
The goalie stands firm. Daughter feigns to the side, then punts the ball past the goalie, who pounces on it, grabs it in his teeth, and runs away.
Son starts screaming: “You can’t use your TEETH!” then grabs the goalie by the scruff. A scuffle ensues.
Daughter grabs the now-flat ball and throws it into the goal. Koa is standing by the back door trying to get out of the stadium and into the concession stand.
Son starts screaming that the goalie sat on him. Daughter is now playing on the swings. Goalie is eating a piece of chalk.
Referee grabs the ball and tries to get the game back on track, but now we’ve degenerated into mass chaos. Not unlike a real World Cup game, as far as I can tell, or maybe rugby.
Ref calls a time-out and runs to get some water. By then, someone’s going headfirst down the slide and the hose is now on. Koa is sitting forlornly under the table with a handful of daisies stuck to her head.
When does school start again?
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Dr. V | Friday | June 18, 2010 |
Yesterday was a really bittersweet day for me. It was my daughter’s last day of kindergarten. I didn’t think it would hit me quite this hard, but it really got me right in the throat to watch all the little munchkins skip up to the teacher with their little cardboard caps to pick up their kindergarten diplomas.
The teacher took them down to the field for a few minutes to run some energy off before the afternoon graduation party, and while they were doing that I joined a couple of the parents who arrived to set up. One of the mothers had a child in junior high, and she was telling me about how devastated she was to hear that a classmate of her daughter had taken his life over the weekend.
As I put two and two together, I started to cry. I had already known about this tragedy, from the dear friend who was this boy’s cousin. He was a sweet and much loved boy who had the unfortunate experience of being bullied, and he just couldn’t bear to fight through one more day.
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Dr. V | Tuesday | January 26, 2010 |
Gross stuff, I mean. *I deal in gross stuff on a day to day basis- diarrhea, blood, bloody diarrhea, and abscesses. Cat bite abscesses, the Grandaddy of Nastiness. It is important that you keep this in mind as I tell you this story.
I was very happy when my daughter’s kindergarten teacher recently asked me to be one of the chaperones on their very first field trip. They were going to a nature reserve, and as a biology major and lover of all that nature-y stuff I couldn’t imagine a more fun way to spend the day.
I boarded the bus, my 5 year old hanging onto my leg like a little barnacle. We worked our way back towards the middle of the bus, where she suddenly had a change of heart and abandoned me for her little buddy Lucy, leaving me stuck sitting next to That Kid, the one no one else wanted to sit with, the one who stared at me without blinking for 5 minutes straight before announcing that she ate franks and beans the night before and had a lot of gas.
“That’s great,” I assured her.
“Guess what else I had?” she asked.
“Um, apples?”
“No.”
“Ice cream?”
“No.”
“I give up.”
“No guess! YOU HAVE TO GUESS!!!”
(more…)
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Dr. V | Thursday | September 10, 2009 |
Picking my daughter up from kindergarten is an adventure. We have no bus service, so one has to either walk a short 15 minutes, or drive. I’m fine with walking, personally, but my 3 year old who has to accompany us has a different view on things. I’d like to say I just told him to deal with it, but with temperatures over 100 for the past two weeks, I can’t say I blame him for complaining.
I also have to contend with the fact that I have this puppy. A puppy with separation anxiety. A puppy who needs exercise and stimulation. Brody comes along.
We have a couple of options when we get to the school if we drive. We can park on a nearby street and walk a block in, which allows me to pick my daughter up right outside her classroom door, or I can wait in line to load her into my car. Option 2 is nice when the toddler is napping, or when Brody is being rambunctious, but man that line takes forever to get through. So I decided to chance it with walking in.
I was admittedly nervous trying to shepherd a 3 year old boy, a 12 week old dog, and a 5 year old girl along a busy street. I was also concerned with how Brody would handle being in the middle of a sardine can of cacophony when the kiddos filed out en masse. I had visions of a red faced kindergartner grabbing his throat in the throes of an anaphylactic reaction while the stern faced principal looked me up and down, disapprovingly writing down my name and conscripting my daughter to 6 years of hard labor in the xerox room.
Instead, it actually played out about as one would expect if you were to bring a Golden Retriever puppy into the midst of an elementary school. He was a rock star.
“Aw, he’s so cute!” said a parent. Times 10.
“Can I pet him?” asked a brave first grader.
“Sure, I replied. “Thanks for asking.”
“Can I pet him?” ” Can I pet him?” “How about me?” “Can I pet him too?” The next thing I knew, Brody was surrounded by 15 sets of little hands, reveling in the glory of his adorableness while his own 5 year old owner proudly announced, “That’s MY dog Brody.”
I was also concerned about using this school as a training tool, trying to teach him manners in the middle of about the biggest kind of distraction you can get. That ended up not being the problem.
The problem was forgetting to walk him before leaving the house.
Right as we were smack dab in the middle of the school grounds, surrounded by a sea of impressionable youngsters with questionable handwashing habits, Brody hunched over and deposited a nice, healthy compost heap in the middle of their grassy knoll.
I, of course, did not have my plastic bags with me.
There was a collective gasp.
I stood there. There was no escape. I had blown it. There would be no recovery from leaving a pile of poop at ground zero kid central. I looked around, panicked. The restrooms were miles away; between it and me, a sea of disapproving faces. We were surrounded by feet, many of which were wearing Crocs and/or similarly permeable foot apparel.
So I did what any respectable dog owner would do, and what any respectable mom would never do. I used my daughter’s art project from the day to clean it up. I HAD NO CHOICE. Ugh. I am sure this will end up being discussed in therapy 15 years from now, when my daughter is bitterly telling a bearded man in a cardigan how her mother used her beloved kindergarten memento as a poop bag. I owe her a pre-emptive ice cream/Barbie.
