As hard as I try, I’m never going to be that mom. That mom who every kid loves - who always has the right snacks.

Instead I’m the mom who makes you sit down at the dinner table to eat. Or quizzes you on the state capitals in the car even though you’re only four. “Quirky,” is what another mom called me one time. Yeah, but not in a good way, I thought to myself.

I try, sometimes, to quote High School Musical, or to put cool stickers on my door in order to fit in. I even learned what Tony Hawk’s favorite cereal was and bought it for my kids.

“You’re still lame.” Jackson informed me. “And I still want to sleep at Luke’s house.

So what is it? What does Luke’s mom have that I don’t? Because the truth is, I never changed when I had kids. I kept waiting for that “mom” gene to kick in after I gave birth - the one that makes you pretend to lose at Connect Four in order to boost your kids’ self esteem. Or the one that plays airplane with a spoon directing pureed pea mush into your kid’s mouth.

Well, it never happened.

I was lamenting to Joe about this tonight - how I wish I were more like “that mom” and less like me. And he said, “Nonsense.”

That was it. Nonsence. Which, in my house, is code for “I’m not listening to you because I’m trying tor read the paper.” Well, no one listens to me. Ever. In fact, as I sit here at 2 in the morning, removing a flip-flop from the refrigerator, I can’t help but think that despite all of my “quirky” rules (one being NO FLIP FLOPS IN THE REFRIGERATOR) no one listens to me anyway.

Which, perhaps, makes me like every other mom after all.

I like everything about pool parties except for the pool part. People drown in them, kids pee around them, and over-uterused moms like myself look awful dressing for them. But the ‘party’ part I do like so when we were invited to one this weekend I said, “Sure…lemme grab my thong.”

Having both of my kids of swimming age for the first summer in, well, ever, I was able to enjoy all things pool party this time, minus the pool. (For those of you not familiar with the concept – or missed hearing about Tommy Lee’s disastrous pool party for his son a few years ago - this simply means standing a mere three inches from the pool’s edge, poised for a rescue, sober.) But the music was pumping, the tacos were en fuego and I was, despite being a tad keg-parched, having a good time.

Until the kids moved into the Jacuzzi.

Now, when adults move into a Jacuzzi it’s usually for hot, sexy things - or at least for a relaxing, post-ski soak. But for kids*, Jacuzzi’s simply provide fodder for terrible behavior. It’s like they think they’re protected by some invisible ring, or something, and we can’t see, hear or smell them. (As if we hadn’t already tested that during our own Jacuzzi days…) So before I could even shift my ready-to-jump-in-at-any-second feet toward the jets, Benji was already out, running toward me with trouble all over his face.

“Mom, Jackson said the H-word!”

The h-word, the h-word…

”Jackson said Hell?”

“NO. The H-word.”

“Hiccup? How are ya?” I asked him. “Help me out here.”

“He said FUCK.” Benji announced to the party.

All eyes were on me now, so I knew I had to nip this language problem in the bud pretty quickly.

“But that doesn’t start with an h,” I told him, loud enough for people to hear. “Fuck’ starts with an f.”

The eyes, the eyes…still on me.

Benji immediately started to cry and make a scene. “Yes, ‘fuck’ does start with an h! You’re stupid! I hate you! (Now there’s an h-word, honey…) You’re not my friend!” And then he ran, teary-eyed, back into the Jacuzzi.

Nobody blinked, which I took as shared horror in my dilemma. So I raised my non-alcoholic beverage toward the crowd and asked them for a little insight.

“What the fuck is that pre-school teaching Benji, anyway? I mean, come on…an h?”

God, I love pool parties.

*Mine

What does evil look like – I mean, really look like? I use the term so indiscriminately. People who attack doctors who perform abortions are certainly evil. My neighbor who encourages her dog to poop in our yard is evil, too. Milk that goes bad before it says it will…well, that guy who stamped it is definitely evil. But the truth is, I wouldn’t know what evil looked like if I was eating lunch with it. It’s just this vacuous fog of irritants in my life. Like my son’s flu, which took a strangler’s grasp on his head the other night.

That is evil.

In fact, his fever was so hallucinogenic last night it actually woke him up.

“Mom, a black hornet is in my bed.” He said at my bedside. “Can I sleep with you?”

“What black hornet?” I asked as he crawled in.

“The one who’s making me cough.”

“Huh.” And then I went back to sleep.

A few hours later, Jackson had to go to the bathroom and called for me again. “The hornet’s back, mom. Can you come here?”

And then it hit me. The black hornet was the face of Jackson’s evil. So I hopped out of bed, wanting to get a look at this guy – to stare fire into the eyes of something tangible…a live being I could cuss at, hit, or perhaps destroy with my hairbrush.

Naturally, he disappeared when I got there (Typical, cowardly, evil…) But as I crawled back into bed, my vacuous fog began to clear. Maybe there is no evil.

Just sickness.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with “He/She”, several years ago I befriended a neighborhood nanny who was male. Well, last year, he she’d. Anyway, I arranged to meet him/her at the park for wine night last Friday where a bunch of young girls set up a face-painting bench. Kids lined up with a pretzel - or something else tasty - in exchange for a squiggly mess on their arm, ankle or cheek. But the line was getting pretty long and the kids were getting nasty, so He/She stepped in to help. My four-year-old Benji went right up to him/her so I went and parked it on the wine bench.

(You should know as you read on that Benji looks exactly like my husband, by the way. You should also know that He/She is in love with my husband.)

So after about fifteen minutes of what seemed to be an elaborate ink sesh, I walked on over to see how He/She had marked my son. But when I got there, Benji’s face was peppered in black, smeary dots just above his lip and on his chin.

“Are those…bugs?” I asked He/She.

“No, it’s facial hair,” He/She responded, and then he/she took a step back to admire his work.

“Don’t you see? I’m Daddy!” Benji screamed with glee.

“Ah, I do see that, Benj, I do.” I said. “Now why don’t you go play.” And then I turned to He/She. “This has got to stop.” I said. “You can’t openly covet my husband and still be my friend.”

“Oh yes I can, girl. You’re not getting any younger and I’m gonna be right beside him when you croak.”

This is not right, I realize. In fact, this is all wrong. And if Joe had any idea – any idea that this was going on - this, this…convoluted divo/diva plot to steal his heart, he’d probably croak.

So Benji told Joe that he was a mop and I’ve started to work out more. Two can play this game, lady/lado.

Two.

Father’s Day Column up!
http://www.parentingoc.com/sugarmama_0906.html

I make it no secret that I’m a cat person, despite all the stereotypes that go along with it. Yes, I curl up with musty blankets and READ READ READ dorky books into the night, and I also probably smell. But I do have a racier, doggier side, or Joe would have dumped me long ago. Sex analogies aside, I like dogs. They’re cute when they yawn and shake that back leg when you scratch their privates. We’re just not soul mates like I am with my feline family.

Take our cat Donut, for example. I love him as much as I do my sons. I worry about his hygiene, his hydration, his poo…he is consistently part of my maternal mental checklist. Where is he? Who’s he with? Who ate my Luna Bar? Donut’s always in the line up.

So last night I couldn’t sleep. And Joe – awakened by my harrumphing – asked me what was on my mind.

“Donut,” I answered.

“Is he missing?”

“No, he’s on my foot.”

And then Joe rolled over and went back to sleep. He knows it – we all know it. I was thinking about how cute Donut was. And how soft. I was awakened by love for a being who wants nothing from me but my foot. Which is why I refused to move it and now have a CRINK in my ankle, which resulted in ME propelling OFF the bike in SPIN class this morning under NEON lights with a looped JT song MOCKING me.

But am I mad at Donut? No. That would be like being angry at Jackson for washing my money in the bathtub last year. Or Benji vomiting on my laptop. We’re family, right? Stuff happens.

So once I got over the fact that my high school alma mater was no longer a boarding school and that my old room was now a privately-owned office of someone with (presumably) better taste, I reveled in my old peers’ company at this weekend’s reunion.

Sort of.

This is no testament to my fine education, but I got the year wrong. The class of eighty-nine was the class invited to revel in its past glory, not my class of eight-eight. But no matter, for I had partied with these folks twenty (-one) years ago and it was like riding a bike.

My old BF’s and I stayed in a FANCYSCHMANCY hotel, bunked up ala ’89 (or ’88, depending on how far you want to go with this) and drank the good stuff, very unlike ‘88/’89. Now, I HATE, HATE, HATE all the cliches that define this weekend – the goop about sisterhood, friends 4-ever, but GAWD…magic.

So I don’t know when I’ll go back to my no-longer-a-boarding high school again – it was important to see it once in a therapist’s couch kind of way. But the concept of re-hatching has always sort of creeped me out. Because when I think about it, I really was “re-born*” at CSS - into the person I am today, in fact. I even vowed to write a book about it over my 89th (88th?) pink alumn-tail this weekend. Working title: Birth and Boarding.

Board at Birth? I’m open.

*This, of course, would make my only 20…Or 21, depending on how far you want to go with this.

I get on a plane tomorrow for my third high school reunion. And it’s not because I’m 20. The Colorado Springs School was, in fact, my third high school – 1,500 miles from the first one (Convent of the Sacred Heart in San Francisco), as well as my second (Lick Wilmerding, also in San Francisco.) You might say that that’s quite a commute, no? But it was really only a hassle on Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter Break.

Ah, boarding school..images of privilege and punishment dance around our heads. Which is why I rarely mention it. Or, why, when I do, I say (lie) that it was a school for the gifted. The truth is, I had a GPA of 1.6 and something like 433 absences getting on the plane – not a lot of collegiate options packed in those duffel bags. But that was the school’s forte – stripping you of rules so you had none to break. Crafting a curriculum around your strengths and then tie-dyeing your weakness to make them more appealing. You really had no choice but to excel.

You also had no choice but to wear Birkenstocks.

The eve of my departure (I was 15) marked the last time I ever had my own room, closet or bathroom. That’s the irony of the whole privileged theory. My room in San Francisco was expansive, with its own walk-in and sink. At boarding school I had half a wall and about fifteen minutes a week on a pay phone we all shared.

Dare I say it was the best time of my life?

There’s a Billy Joel video with a big pillow fight – what is that song? – that embodies the biggest dorm cliché/fantasy known to the eighties man. All these girls laughing in their underwear, painting their toenails, talking about the boys from the dorm next door…well this really happened at my school. We were piercing each other’s ears/noses with stolen vodka and a safety pin, of course, but the sisterhood was there.

And our parents weren’t.

So tomorrow marks my first time getting on that plane since I graduated in 1988. My luggage is lighter – as is my hair – but I still feel like the same person. A tad off-path at times, but a gal who’s found her way.

It’s true - we have portraits of naked ladies all over our house. And I never think to mention it simply because I forget that it’s a sensitive topic. No, I am not trying to force nudity or art on anyone’s kids - nor am I willingly forcing the ‘what-do-you-call-your-privates’ conversation on you or your families. It’s usually just an honest oversight.

So this is my blanket warning to you.

If you want to come over for a glass of wine, milk or a mug of Joe’s favorite brew, you will pass a few boobs, an elbow and a rainbow-colored ding-dong depending on how far down the hall you go. So go ahead and tell your kids that we’re weird on the ride over – it’s ok. Or that we like elbows and rainbow colored ding-dongs. I really don’t care.

But just because you say ‘matching-white-shirts-and-jeans-on-a-beach family portrait’, and I say, ‘what, and take down a painting to make room for faces I see every day?’ doesn’t mean we’re so different. It’s simply a tomato/tomahto thing.

Now let’s take all our clothes off.

Jackson was invited to a sleepover a couple of weeks ago at Wes’ house. Wes is a nice kid – ‘Wes’ was also a back-up name for Jackson, so, naturally, I like Wes. But after I agreed to the overnight via voicemail, it dawned on me that I had no idea who Wes’ parents were, where they lived or if they had guns, a pool, faulty railings or tantric sex. My good sense had clearly passed out from I get-a night-off-from-one-of-my-kids giddiness. So I did what every good parent would and tried to back out.

Here’s a brief transcript of what went down:

Voicemail #2: Hi, this is Cynthia Jenkins again – scratch that last voicemail. Could Wes come here instead? We have a tree house. Call me back.

Returned voicemail from Wes’ mother #1: Hi, Wes’ mom here. Actually, I will be out of town and my husband Larry will be watching the kids and he thought it would be fun to have a “guys” night. See you Saturday at five?

Larry. A rash was beginning to crawl up my neck.

Voicemail #3: Hi. (LONG PAUSE) Do you have guns? (ANOTHER LONG PAUSE) This is Cynthia. Call me back.

When we finally connected, Wes’ mom could not have been more accommodating to my neuroses. She gave me a list of references and permission to stop by unannounced to check her cabinets. When I did that - (I actually showed up an hour early on Saturday) – Larry escorted me into their living room and told me to “have at it.” Now, there’s really only one word to describe a woman who behaves like this – WHACK. JOB. This was not a normal activity mothers find themselves participating in. And despite how ho-hum Larry was acting about this whole situation, I was certain he was thinking the exact same thing.

After a quick assessment, I deemed Wes’ environs squeaky clean, as I did Larry. So much so, I could have fallen asleep (the stress of all this) right there and had my own sleepover. But I managed to pull myself away from their beautiful artwork and kitchen-big-enough-for-a-party to wait for Larry’s “they’re asleep” text* later that night.

The next morning I arrived at Wes’ house at 8:30am – a little early for a Sunday, no? Regardless, a dressed and wakeful Larry graciously offered me a cup of coffee as well as my unharmed kid back – neither of which I accepted. I’m kidding, but my point is that, well, I was sort of falling in love with Larry.**

As I was packing Jackson up and saying our good-bye’s, Larry asked me if he was going to be reading about this someday.

“Excuse me?”

“Aren’t you Sugar Mama?” he asked.

“Oh, that.” I answered. “No, you’re safe. I only embarrass myself on my blog.

Which, of course, is how this entry came to be.

*Larry’s text actually read, “You’ve raised a good one. Smart kid. They’re winding down right now. See you tomorrow”

**This happens to me when I’m under stress.