Nicole Oppenheim writes
As many of you already know, I could definitely be described as an unconventional parent. I don’t really care if my kids swear (colorful verbiage is an important part of everyone’s lexicon), I let them eat way too much candy (they both have a sweet tooth the size of Jupiter), and I don’t bathe them every single day like all the parenting books recommend (dirt builds the immune system and prevents allergies, right?). So when my husband asked me what I wanted to do for Mother’s Day this year and my response was, “Get the hell away from all of you crazy people,” his laughter and eye-roll to the ceiling could have been predicted.
I know Mother’s Day was started as a day to honor the woman who changed your diapers, made sure you had clean clothes to wear, carted you around town until you or one of your friends could drive, and then sent you to college and paid for it, but it’s still just as much of a faux holiday as Valentine’s Day. Just as you should celebrate the love you share with your special someone more than one chilly day in mid-February, so too should you remember to show your mom (or grandma, or aunt, or godmother) some gratitude most days of the year for all the things she does for you. And let me tell you a little secret: A mediocre brunch, some flowers, and a mawkish card once a year is not even close to enough. In fact, it so misses the mark that it’s kind of insulting.
Allow me to describe what would be a perfect Mother’s Day for your truly: I wake up to the sound of a silent house. No toddlers screaming. No dog whining to be let out. No husband next to me snoring loud enough to wake the dead. No cat meowing plaintively, waiting for food. Just me, the subtle sounds of a spring morning and muted sunlight coming in through the drawn curtains. sigh Oh, and the all-important smell of freshly-brewed coffee (that was made by someone other than me) is wafting up from the kitchen.
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Nicole Oppenheim writes
I take my camera with me wherever I go. You never know when something noteworthy will reveal itself and I like to be prepared. (Oh, and before you ask, no, I was not a Girl Scout.) For instance, yesterday while running some errands, I noticed an excellent juxtaposition of storefronts. In a strip mall up here in Rogers Park, there’s a very large candy store right next to a dentist’s office. Cause and effect? That’s probably overstating it, but there has to be some kind of cosmic symbiosis at play here. And, like every Gen Xer, I appreciate irony above all else, so I snapped a quick photo.
Generally, this photo-snapping habit is enough to quench my thirst for irony and humor in everyday life, but there have been a few times when I’ve wished for a video camera to record entire events in real time. This past Saturday was one of those rare times when I wished to all that’s holy I’d had a video camera on me. The resulting film would have been an instant classic (a term that is not thrown around lightly here at CHIRP). There was drama. There was action. There was comedy. There was even real vomit! It was a three-year-old’s birthday party and it was fantastic. Never before have I been so happy not to have been involved in any way with the success or failure of an event. I was a guest, as were my three-year-old twins and my husband; but truthfully, we were peripheral actors in a carnivalesque scene of absolute mayhem.
First, a little background: My kids attend preschool in the Gold Coast. Ironically, my husband and I chose this particular preschool for our kids not because it was posh and all the moms/nannies dropped their kids off in Lexus SUVs; no, we chose it because it was the cheapest we could find. (And for the record, I drop my kids off in a hand-me-down Ford with a huge dent in the front, a peeling bumper, and a semi-functional defrost system). Posh Preschool is even cheaper than the preschool classes offered by our neighborhood Chicago Public school—no joke! Oh, and the quality of education my kids receive at Posh is amazing. For what we pay, comparatively speaking, it kind of feels like stealing. (Win!)
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Nicole Oppenheim writes
Initially, I purchased the Dum-Dum pops because I thought they’d be kind of a fun little treat for the kids once in a while. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d come to curse the existence of that little cartoon drum figure and the insulin-spiking, fruit-ish flavored globs of pure evil on a stick that he peddles. Dum-Dum pops, almost at the bottom of the candy hierarchy in my humble estimation (they rank just above Laffy Taffy/Now ‘N’ Laters, and those weird British licorice things that look like black spots of tar surrounded by day-glo pink, yellow, or orange fondant. Yuck.), have become my kids’ junk food obsession du jour.
Frankly, I’d rather eat a nearly-petrified peanut butter drop from my grandmother’s purse than a Dum-Dum pop. It’s not that they’re gross, it’s just that they’re so boring. It’s like they’re trick candy. You think it’s a delicious treat, but NOOOOOOOOO. It’s really furniture polish or LSD or crystallized goat innerds. Dum-Dums are suspicious. I don’t trust them. People give them out at the bank, for Chrissakes! And yet I bought them for my children. Such are the lengths a mom will go to to keep her kids quiet for 10 seconds.
Given my distaste for Dum-Dums, I never thought my kids would take to them more than cookies, cupcakes, marshmallows, or another type of mass-produced confectionary treat. Yet, as I type this, there’s a huge jar of them up high on a shelf in my kitchen with two little kids dancing a pagan jig beneath it, clamoring for the sugary goodness that only the Dum-Dums in question can deliver.
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Nicole Oppenheim writes
On Saturday mornings and afternoons, my beloved husband takes over the child-rearing duties which enables me to run necessary errands (groceries, dry cleaning, pharmacy runs, etc.) and also to have some time to myself. Because I’m the biggest dork in the universe, I tend to frequent stores selling fabric, art/craft supplies, coffee, and records. (Hey, Entrepreneurs! I would LIVE in a store that sold all of these things under one roof. I’m just sayin’.) But really, any location that offers relative peace and quiet and a chance for me to geek out about some of my favorite things is where I’ll be on any given Saturday.
This past Saturday found me indulging the bibliophile side of my personality at the library. After browsing through some new releases and picking up a variety of interesting-looking novels, I headed straight for the art section looking for something to inspire me to complete the piece I’m currently working on. Because I’m a total bookwhore, I couldn’t help glancing at the shelved tomes on the way there. In the parenting section, which I usually avoid like the plague, I spied a book called Bringing Up Happy Children. I hurried past, thinking, “My kids are happy, right?” I paused. Hmmm. Are they? Really? “Crap,” I thought to myself while pivoting on the spot, “I’d better read this book just to make sure.”
Such is the seductive power of so-called self help books. Damn you, Random Author with no extra letters after your name to denote a graduate degree! You have no special training in child psychology or a similar field, and are, therefore, no better qualified to write such a book than I am. You may not even have children! But I am compelled to pick up your book nonetheless. The title is written in a decent font, so you were at least smart enough to hire a qualified graphic designer. Dare I judge a book by its cover? Might you have some insights after all? I doubt it. And I intend to call your bluff.
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Nicole Oppenheim writes
“Try Jell-O Pudding Pops, Frozen Pudding on a Stick!”
What’s up with quoting this seemingly random and delightfully kitsch-y commercial from the 1980s? Because I’m about to get all Bill Cosby on your asses. No, not Bill Cosby like THAT. I was thinking more along the line of his “Kids Say the Darndest Things” schtick. Bear with me. It’ll be good. I promise.
Because everyone and their sister is putting out a year-end Top Ten list, I decided I’d do the same. Except instead of ranking best albums of the year, best television events of the year, (Come on! They’re television events, for Chrissake! They deserve a Top Ten list!), or best crazy rants overheard on the Western bus, I’m going to rank my Top Five Shining Moments in Parenting for 2009. (This is a short column, so I’m only listing five). Many of them have to do with funny things my kids have said over the past year—this is where the Bill Cosby part comes in—and unlike the boring stories your boss and/or coworkers tell you about their annoying kids, you will actually get a chuckle out of these.
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