Not A Hipster Mom

This Sunday is Mother’s Day, and mothers across the country will celebrate with their families in a grand show of appreciation to the women who bring us into the world, raise us to adulthood, and continue to nurture us even once we have children of our own.  This Sunday, mothers will receive flowers, cards, gifts, and jewelry, and some will even eat breakfast in bed courtesy of their spouses and children, who will be well-meaning if not successful in their cooking attempts. While there are some mothers who choose to opt out of this holiday for various reasons, on the whole, this Mother’s Day most of America will find a way to show their wives and mothers just how much they appreciate them. I’ve always had a complicated relationship with Mother’s Day given my complicated relationship with my mother, and I always hoped that one day I would have children, and we would create our own Mother’s Day traditions. I told myself that I would reinvent Mother’s Day for myself once I wo...

When it happened, she caught me completely off guard. For a few seconds, all I could think of was that scene in Kindergarten Cop, when the little boy stands up in front of his class and proudly proclaims, “Boys have a penis, girls have a vagina!” much to the amusement of the other children.  My daughter was sitting on the toilet, when out of nowhere she started to imitate the way little boys hold themselves when they pee.  “Mommy,” she said, “this is how Dylan goes pee pee at school.”  I nodded, and said, “Yes, baby, that’s because Dylan is a boy. Boys have a penis, and girls have a vagina. Dylan is a boy, and you’re a...” I waited for her response.  “Girl!” she shouted. But it didn’t end there. “Mommy,” she said, “I want one.”  “You want what,” I said in shock, “a penis?” “Yes, Mommy. Me have one when I get bigger?” she asked hopefully, her face as sweet and eager as a kid on Christmas morning. “No, baby, you will never have a penis...

I make a point of telling of my two-year-old daughter that she’s pretty every day.   I don’t want her to think that her worth is based on her appearance -- and I tell her that she’s smart and funny every day, too -- but I make a special point of telling her that she’s pretty. Because while I frequently heard that I was smart when I was a kid, I very rarely heard that I was pretty, and I developed a complex about my appearance that to a certain degree still persists to this day. Not only was I rarely complemented on my looks (even though photos prove that I was in fact a very cute kid!), but I rarely heard adult females close to me saying anything positive about their own appearances, either. In short, I had no role models for healthy female body image, and as a child and teenager I spent a lot of time wishing I looked like someone else -- preferably someone blonde with  tan legs, small breasts and an overall Kelly from 90210-type look.  The fact that I grew up ve...

When my daughter and I embarked on our potty training adventure back in December, I thought I was prepared. Being me, I had done my fair share of reading on the subject, and I had spoken to several moms who had already been through the process at least once. I knew which potty seat to buy, I had already purchased a couple of picture books on the subject, and I felt like I had a solid plan of action. But, as with so many things in life, potty training turned out to be one of those experiences that is impossible to truly comprehend until you are in the thick of it. That said, here are ten things that no one told me about potty training …  so now you can’t say no one warned you. 10. The worth of a pull-up is dependent on the cartoon character it features. Minnie Mouse name brand pull-ups (as in Minnie Mouse from “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse,” not old school Minnie Mouse--this is important) are my daughter’s ideal choice, but if she’s run through all of those already, she will also acc...

My daughter and I are going through a phase right now. At least, I hope it’s a phase. For the last month she has refused to sleep in her own bed. Sometimes I win, and she starts out in her own room--usually on the floor--but she almost always ends up in my bed in the middle of the night. And because I need my sleep too much to fight with her, she almost always stays there until morning.  She has cried every night for the last month in the hopes that exhausted, I’ll give in and allow her to sleep in my bed. Some nights I have caved, and then sat bitterly in the living room, exiled from my bedroom. Other nights I let her cry, bringing her back to her bedroom over and over again until she finally passes out at 10:30 or 11pm. When I asked her why she doesn’t want to sleep in her bed anymore, she said that there are monsters under her bed. I did a thorough examination, getting down on my knees and peering under the bed in an effort to prove to her that there were no monsters whatso...

I’m trying not to be a yelling mom, and lately I’ve had to try a lot harder. I grew up with a lot of yelling, and I always promised myself that if I ever had a child I would not be like that. I’ve always held a deep belief that good parents don’t yell. Sure, maybe they yell every once in awhile--no one is perfect--but they don’t yell all the time, and they don’t hit. They control themselves, exerting patience, and triumphing over their basic human instincts which tell them to get angry and lash out when their children will not behave.  For the most part, I still believe this. I believe that every parent gets angry, but the “best” parents learn to remain calm when angry, and dole out punishments in a logical, non temper-fueled fashion. I never wanted to be yelling-mom Debra Barone on “Everybody Loves Raymond.” I wanted to be Clair Huxtable on “The Cosby Show;” the calm, clever mom. And incidentally, the lawyer mom, which is funny as I work at a law firm. But I didn’t realiz...

Lately, I’ve been considering a move to suburbia. All my life, I’ve always been more of a city girl. Pre marriage and child, I lived in both Los Angeles and New York City, and in both places, I tried to live as close to the action as possible. When I got married, I moved to the suburbs of Las Vegas, and while I enjoyed the quiet, safety, cleanliness, and affordability that came with living outside of the city center, it never felt quite right to me. I missed the proximity to the best restaurants, coffee shops, and bars. I missed the walkability, and the convenience of being centrally located. I even missed hearing the noise from the street at night. So when I relocated to the Bay Area after my divorce, I decided to return to my urban roots. I couldn’t swing San Francisco, so instead I moved into a small apartment in a cool part of Oakland, a city that is very much an urban center in its own right. Of course, the difference between L.A./NYC me, and Oakland me, is that Oakland m...