Come On, Get Happy

Has anyone ever asked you what you hope your children will be like when they grow up, and you reply, “It doesn’t matter, as long as they’re happy.”  It sounds good to say, and heck, you probably mean it when you say it.  I mean it when I say it, at least I think I do.

But then, I end up spending most of my time grooming them to be “the right kind of people” when they grow up and not a lot of time focused on making my kids happy.  I’ve put a lot of effort into making them smart, healthy, athletic, attractive, savvy, and polite.  I guess I always expected ‘happy’ to be a by-product of the rest.  As if being the straight-A student will make my son happy.  Or getting to the next level in ballet class will make my daughter happy.  Hearing the grandparents tell them how good they are with their “please and thank yous” makes them happy.

It does to some degree because children generally like to be praised.  It certainly makes them proud to have achieved goals they have set for themselves (or more likely, that their parents set for them).  And when they grow up, they will definitely be happier if they are successful in their careers, fit and healthy, and have strong friendships with people who will support them in meeting the goals they end up setting for themselves. But do these things make them truly happy now?

If I think about some of my daughter’s happiest moments, they include an unplanned walk to Baskin-Robbins and sharing an ice cream cone together or a tea party on a Saturday afternoon or even just a chance to sit in my lap to read together.  My son favors a good, old-fashioned tickle session on his bed or watching a hockey game on TV with his dad – oh, he likes that walk to Baskin-Robbins, too.

We don’t do those things very often.  Usually, we are too busy shuttling them from swim lesson to karate lesson, volunteering at the library, preparing for some Big Event for school, or nagging them to do homework, clean their rooms, and say “please” and “thank you”.   Not that any of those are bad things; they are building a foundation to ensure happiness in their future.  But I can’t help but feel like I do need to take more time to give them happiness today.

The (Not So) Good Old Days

I like to think that over time, we are becoming more enlightened and embrace progress, which is why I usually roll my eyes when people resist change with the refrain of, “I grew up with…, and I turned out fine.” I grew up with asbestos ceilings, but I’m not going to knowingly put asbestos in my house, even if I think I turned out fine.

But every now and then, I do yearn to hearken back to bygone days of parenting, back when:

1) It was OK to hit your kids. I’m not saying that I want to use my kids as punching bags and take my frustrations out on them. But I can’t argue with the effectiveness with an occasional spanking for serious offenses. For example, the other day, the kids snuck out during their afternoon nap and went into our exercise room, which they are not allowed in without adult supervision. It only takes the thought of a 10-pound weight dropped on a toddler’s foot to know why we have this rule. I found out about their scheme when I heard someone scream, which turned out to be from my son when my daughter slammed the exercise room door on his fingers. They both know the rule about not slamming doors, about not going into that room unsupervised, and about not leaving their rooms to play when it’s nap-time. I really wished I could have spanked them both as a reminder about why we have those rules.

But I couldn’t spank them, not just because I don’t want Child Protective Services on my case, but because I’m conditioned not to lay a finger on my kids. I would have been consumed by guilt. As it was, I was feeling pretty guilty just for wishing I could spank them.

2) You could leave your kids in the car by themselves. The really horrible parents who left their kids in a locked car on hot days ruined it for the rest of us. Whether you’re stopping at the ATM, picking up your dinner at Applebee’s to-go, or dropping off another child at school, if you need to get out, all the kids have to come with you. That’s extra five-point harnesses to undo and extra hands to hold crossing the street. Suddenly, what was a two-minute task takes 15 minutes.

3) You didn’t know how horrible high-fructose corn syrup was. It’s in practically every single snack food there is, even stuff you think might be healthy (I’m on to you, granola bars!). Of course I want to feed my children good, nutritious food. Every lunch I pack for them contains fresh fruit, a green vegetable, some lean protein, and a little starch to keep the tummy full. But when they hit a growth spurt, they seem to be hungry 24/7, and it’s a long and expensive scavenger hunt at the supermarket to find them good snacks that will keep them sated between meals. When I’m short on time and feeling a budgetary pinch, I do wish I could buy some Oreos and Pop Tarts and be done with it.

Under Pressure

The documentary Race to Nowhere has been making the rounds in our communities, and all around me, parents are tsk-tsking the achievement-obsessed pressures put upon our kids today. In the Silicon Valley, where everyone is hustling to create the Next Big Thing that will Change Life As We Know It, the pressure is even greater as parents try to instill that drive to excel in their children at a very early age.

But it’s not just the kids who live in this pressure cooker. We parents are getting cooked right along with them. When my son started kindergarten, I was immediately approached by the PTA recruitment team, mostly comprised of the wives of the VP’s, CEO’s, and CIO’s that run companies like the one at which I work. They needed room mothers, fund raising task force members, traffic council volunteers (“traffic council” is a fancy word for being a crossing guard in the school parking lot). They’re very lucky that they don’t need to earn a living with jobs that dictate how to spend 10 hours of the day, but I do and their husbands work me to death. I don’t have the energy to work for them, too.

We can’t just sign up our son for Little League, we have to coach, too (they must be strapped for coaches if they’re asking us). And I can’t bring cupcakes for him to share with his classmates on his birthday due to a strict no-sugar policy. Instead, I am supposed to put together a book about his life that I need to present to the class. Really, he’s the one in kindergarten, but I have to do a project?

We get weekly reminders – er, I mean newsletters – to pack healthy lunches, buy organic, support local businesses, recycle, conserve water, compost, participate in school events, read to our children at least 15 minutes every day, sign up for [insert sport here], and (my favorite) slow down and enjoy quality time with our families.

It’s not that I have any issue doing those things, but we can’t just do them. We must perform them at the highest level at all times. And for some reason, even though I believe that I would try to do most of those things on my own anyway, it becomes so stressful when there are external levers driving those behaviors.

Don’t get me wrong. I love where I live. I love the diversity. I love the culture of innovation. I love having my family close. I love having Stanford in my backyard. And I love the weather. I just wish this area came with a safety valve.

Declaring Victory

It's been a little crazy over the last few months, and I haven't had time to properly declare victory over the tiny diapered diva. Yes, after many frustrating months and an EPIC battle of wills, V finally shed her diapers during the day around the start of the year.

If you had asked me back in November, I would have told you V would be wearing diapers all the way to the day she graduates high school. It felt like there was nothing she wanted enough for us to dangle before her as a reward, no punishment scary enough with which to threaten her, no shame too great to inflict on her psyche. She simply wanted nothing to do with the toilet or underpants and that was the end of discussion for her.

(By the by, yes, she does display my mother's stubbornness and temper, aren't I lucky to be sandwiched between them?)

So how did we finally turn the corner? I'm not proud to admit it, but I pretty much had a melt-down in front of her. We had been trying to send her to the potty every hour to get her to pee in the toilet, and I had just returned from such a fruitless journey to the bathroom when she ran back to the play room, defiantly plopped down on the carpet and had a pee of such gargantuan proportions that it completely saturated and defeated her pull-up. So I grabbed the closest thing I could find to soak up the mess, which turned out to be one of her favorite shirts (a coincidence, I swear). And instead of cleaning it up, I threw the shirt at her and made her wipe it up. Then I screamed at her that I was done and I wouldn't be cleaning up her mess anymore, and I couldn't care less if she wore diapers for the rest of her life. I pulled off her wet pull-up, stuck underpants on her because I was too lazy to open a new pack of diapers, then I left to fume.

Probably not one of my finer moments of parenting.

But the next day, she didn't wet her pull-up at all, and the day after she started wearing underpants, and she's had nary an accident since. All in all, my momentary loss of parental dignity was well worth the results. Duh, winning!

It Gets Better When We Get Better

Maybe you have seen the recent “It Gets Better” campaign, in which celebrities urge LGBT youth not to take their own lives. It’s a tragic campaign really, putting the spotlight on how trapped today's kids feel by bullying.

It made me wonder how kids can be so cruel to one another. Then it made me mad. Why is everyone trying to convince the victim not to commit suicide? Why isn’t anyone telling those bullies to stop? And what about their parents? Who are the horrible parents of these horrible kids?

Certainly I’m not one of those parents. I’ve never taught my kids that it’s all right to take out my anger, frustration, and insecurity on someone else. I’ve never acted in a way that would encourage such awful behavior in my children.

It’s not like I’ve ever had a bad day at work then yelled at my five year-old for something as trivial as spilling his water on me at dinner. Or been embarrassed by my three year-old pooping at the public pool then humiliating her by scolding, “only little babies poop in their diapers” in front of her friends. I’ve never made a side comment to my husband about how the waiter at Chevy’s must be kind of stupid to get our order wrong three times in one visit and will be lucky if I don’t complain to his manager. Nope, not me. Or maybe I did – once or twice.

But surely the parents of these bullies do more than lose their temper. They must beat their kids. Or drink themselves into a stupor in front of the children. Or completely neglect them and leave them to lead “Lord of the Flies”-like lives at home. Losing one’s cool occasionally in front of the kids can’t turn them into bullies, right?

Then again, my kids have been yelling and taunting each other a lot. That’s just siblings being siblings, and a kindergartener learning delinquent behavior from the more belligerent kids at school. It couldn't be me. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe I had something to do with their recent aggression toward each other.

So I have been trying very hard the last few days not to yell at them at all, not to lose my temper over a five year-old acting five and a three year-old acting three. It isn’t easy – five and three year-olds are pretty evil – and there is a lot of stress in our lives from our environment, the economy, and an ever-growing sleep deficit.

What amazes me, and shames me, is that it has made a difference. They listen about as much as they did before (which is to say, not much), but they treat each other more civilly. They treat me and my husband more civilly. We’ve had fewer tantrums from the kids because their mom is throwing fewer tantrums.

It’s a disturbing realization. How many of us suffer incompetent co-workers, bad drivers, and apathetic service providers all throughout the day and go home feeling just a bit pent up? How many parents take out all the inequities of their crappy day by inadvertently letting off steam at the stupid (sometimes colossally stupid) things their kids do? How often are bullies passing on the hell they catch at home – over getting a bad grade, forgetting to do their chores, talking back to a parent, or being generally lazy and recalcitrant – to someone who is going to shut up and take it (until that someone can’t take it anymore)?

In other words, how many parents essentially bully their kids without realizing it? After all, bullying is inflicting emotional pain and creating a threatening and hostile environment. What’s more painful and hostile than to have your mom or dad go crazy mad at you?

It’s really difficult as a parent to recognize when we’re treating our kids like emotional punching bags. At the end of an immensely bad day, if you come home to a whiny son and a daughter who decides to paint your skirt with strawberry yogurt, the first reaction is to yell and punish them. But that doesn’t make the day any better. Nope. It gets better when we get better, about managing our own hostility and giving our kids a good example of how to treat others.

Being a Full-Time Mom

I need to state for the record that I am a full-time mom. I also work full-time. I am still a mom, even when I am at work. I am still a mom when I am at the gym. I am a mom at 3am when V is screaming because she got a bloody nose. I am a mom when I take PTO because E has a fever and cannot go to school.

I am not a stay-at-home mom (quite frankly, I do not have the patience and fortitude that SAHM's have, and bless their hearts, they are stronger women than I am), but that does NOT mean that I am not a full-time mom.

Please note for future reference that just because a mother needs or wants to contribute to the household income that it does not diminish the full-timeyness of her motherly duties.

School's In Session

E officially started kindergarten this last Tuesday. After all the worrying and stressing over private vs. charter vs. public schools, whether to put him back in his bi-lingual daycare after kinder or keep him at the on-site after-school care, who would take him, who would pick up, and all the million other things that kept me up, it was a very anti-climactic first week.

Somehow he made it through his first few days without crying about not being with his sister or pre-school friends. Amazingly, I was able to wake up in time to get him to school before the bell rang. He made friends. He ate his lunch.

Lesson learned: I don't give him or me enough credit to transition to the next stage of his life without trauma.

And now that I've figured that out, I can return to my regularly scheduled program of worrying whether V will ever be able to quit the diapers.

Gratitude: The First of Many (Hopefully)

I complain about my kids. A lot. A lot a lot. They are whiny, they are high-maintenance, they don't listen, they are hyper. But at the end of the day, they are pretty good kids (of course, there's still plenty of time for me and the hubby to ruin them).

I need to complain less and be more thankful for having them in my life and be more appreciative of their virtues. So herewith, the first of what I hope will become a new series of posts about the shiny, happy side of my kids.

If nothing else, I will have some posts to re-read on those days when they are fighting or screaming or not paying attention or not paying attention while they fight and scream.

I am grateful that my kids like to eat their vegetables. I hear stories about moms who have to hide zucchini in spaghetti sauce or chop spinach down to the molecular level and mix it in with their meatloaf or meatballs. Some people have told me they bribe their kids with candy just to down a leafy green.

I don't have this problem at all. My kids LOVE spinach; I have to cook it 2 bunches at a time to have enough to go around. In our home, you might hear weird statements like, "No, you can't have more spinach until you eat some spaghetti!" They love cauliflower, broccoli, bok choy, and sweet potatoes.

I'd like to think it has something to do with my great cooking skills, but I think that it boils down to the fact that we're just lucky.

Words To Live By: Oh Heavenly God

E has been learning a little bit about God (aka "the Big Guy") from a few of his church-going friends at school. Even though we are not a religious family, I think it's good for him to have some exposure to religion and to explore ideas about God and spirituality and develop his own ideas.

I have to admit that some of the things he says really tickle me and even touch me so I thought I'd share:

On Death/Going to Heaven:
"Mommy, how did Great-Grandpa go to Heaven? Did he take a rocket ship?"
"Lucy went to Heaven to keep Great-Grandpa company."
"Mommy, I wish Lucy would come home from Heaven because I miss her. Are you going to cry now?"
"V, hold my hand because we are in a parking lot and there are lots of cars and I'm small. If you don't hold my hand then a car will squish me then I'll go to Heaven and then Mommy will have only one childrens and then be really sad and cry all the time. Do you want that to happen?!"
"Mommy, do they have TV in Heaven or is it so boring?"

On God:
(upon being asked who God is) "God is the Big Guy! He's the Man."
"Mommy, I think I'm getting sick because God used his magic powers to make me cough and plugged my nose all up."
"God made all the grandmas and grandpas, but then they made us borned the regular way."
"Mommy, did you know God is so, so big but can fit into someplace really small, like someone's heart?"
"I think I drank too much orange juice and now it's all the way up to God. You know, it filled me up to here (points to his heart)."
(upon being asked how his friend knows so much about God) "I don't know. I think he makes it all up actually."
"God can be really big or really small because He's magic. And He can be any color, even white!"

Belated Birthday Wishes to My Kidlets!

The first half of the calendar year is pretty birthday-intensive for our family, with my father's birthday in January, my mother's and my birthdays in February, E's in March, and V's in May. It feels like every other week is a family dinner to celebrate someone's birthday.

And now that the kids are old enough for parties, it feels like I have to skip my birthday altogether and go straight from planning my dad's birthday dinner (I don't usually plan my mom's because we have always been lumped together - it's not like I don't love my mom. Mom, if you read this, it's not that I don't love you) to planning E's birthday party. The second the last of his little party guests leaves, then it's time to plan for V's birthday party. Having their birthdays two months apart was clearly a grave tactical error on my part.

In case you don't have kids or haven't gotten to the point when your kids have opinions about their parties, I need to disclose that birthday parties are monumental events that require top-notch project management skills. But that's a topic for another day; the point is that only now, about 3 weeks after V's birthday party, do I feel like I've recovered and gotten a chance to breathe.

So *inhale*, *exhale*... Happy Belated Birthday to my two favoritest kiddios!

Ice Cream is IN!

E completed his allergy panel last week, and while he still tested positive for a skin reaction to milk protein, he had no reaction when we tried milk in his oral challenge. I am thrilled to report that he was able to consume four large spoonfuls of plain ice cream without any kind of reaction.

Dairy was our last major food allergy to overcome, and I'm not going to lie, it was the biggest one. Of course, that's what I said when we got the OK from the doctor to give him wheat. Then eggs. But I've really been looking forward to the day when he can have dairy. It means that he can eat pizza and ice cream. It means I can go to a regular grocery store and get regular yogurt. He can go to a birthday party and not be the weird kid who doesn't have any cake and brings his own food.

Now we have a different challenge, which is untraining him from staying away from all these foods he's learned not to touch the last 4 years. I daresay he is probably the only kid who says that real ice cream is "slimy and weird". And he's literally afraid of cheese.

But I welcome this new problem. It's a lot less stressful than the days when I worried about lunch snack trades causing a trip to the hospital. And really, it's just a variation of a picky eater, albeit a really strange case where the child would prefer broccoli on rice over pepperoni pizza. Yup, it's a good problem to have.

Love Thy Brother

Anyone who knows me knows that my brother and I didn't get along growing up. We didn't completely despise each other, but we bickered - a lot. Now that we're adults, we've (gasp!) matured a bit and we're getting along and making an effort to be closer.

Back then, if you asked me why I didn't care for my brother, I would have told you he's self-centered and underhanded, that he gets more everything for doing less and for caring less about his family, that he's immature, and a lazy, spoiled brat.

If you could have asked him why I suck, he would have probably told you that I'm mean, that I always point out every little thing he does wrong to Mom and Dad, that I try to make him look bad by parading my good grades in front of him and our parents, and that I don't treat him super nice like everyone else does.

After some surprisingly frank coffee-side conversations with my brother, we realize that at the heart of the matter was a feeling of unfairness. It wasn't fair that I got straight A's, obeyed all the rules, and did more chores around the house, but when we each got our drivers' license, my first car was the 6 year-old family car beater Jeep (OMG, the loser-mobile!) and his was a brand new, fully loaded Forerunner (because a BMW would have been a little too extravagant).

Likewise for him, it wasn't fair that I got a bigger allowance. That my parents nagged him about homework and piano practice and they never bugged me about those things. And I'm sure a ton of things he still hasn't told me.

I have two of my own now, and I can safely say that this rift between my brother and me is due in large part to my parents. Yes, it's cliche to blame your parents for your own failings. But the thing is, as a parent, I know that right now, my husband and I are the biggest influence on our children.

And I know from personal experience that one child doesn't automatically love another one just because they share parents and a home. In fact, sharing usually breeds jealousy and resentment. It's the parents' responsibility to nurture the relationship between their children.

So far my kids get along really well (they're only 5 and 3, there's still plenty of time for the wheels to come of this wagon). I'd like to say I'm lucky, but in truth, my husband and I work really hard to strengthen their relationship. Our efforts don't always work; my son recently asked me if we could sell his sister on eBay for $1 million.

From what I remember of my own childhood relationship with my brother, I've learned a few things about what can hurt that bond between siblings, and we try our best to avoid these:

Comparing them to each other. "Why can't you eat your vegetables like she does?" "Your brother could already write his name at your age." "I never have to tell your brother to do his homework." My brother and I got a lot of this growing up. It totally bites. You may not think you're doing damage, but to this day, when my brother and I get into a room together, I feel ugly because I was always told to care more about my appearance since I wasn't naturally as good-looking as my brother.

Not sharing intentions with them. My parents are hard-core, old-school Chinese when it comes to certain things. One of them is that it's not a child's place to question a parent's actions. But at 10 or 12, I couldn't see why they did what they did. All I saw was inequity. My brother was allowed to go to slumber parties but not me. I felt embarrassed I was the only one who couldn't spend the night at a party. It wasn't fair that he was able to go to his friends' houses for overnights and I wasn't. How was I supposed to know that my parents were worried that I might get kidnapped (a la Polly Klaas)? For one thing, they could have told me what their concerns were instead of flatly telling me that overnights were forbidden.

Passing judgment on their arguments. Let the records show that to this day, in any disagreement between me and my bro, my mother will ALWAYS take his side. At 38, I know it's not because she loves him more, it's because she feels like I am the stronger person and the more mature person, and she feels like I am more likely to take the high road. But damn if it doesn't feel like she loves him more. With our kids, we will mediate (you know, so they don't end up throwing forks at each other) an argument, but we try not to take sides and instead make them work it out directly between them. It's hard - in most cases, it would be faster and easier to tell so-and-so that he or she is being a brat. On the upside, I am a lot more patient now than I used to be.

So now you tell me - what are your strategies for strengthening the bond between your kids? I need tips so that 30 years from now, my kids are not blogging about my sub-par relationship-building skills.

Kindergarten: The Throwback Year

We are in the middle of Kindergarten registration season, and even though my husband and I have made the decision to put E into public school, it's still causing a lot of stress.

You may think the stress comes from knowing that the charter school we registered for is expecting to receive over 500 applicants to fill only 40 spots.

Or you might think it's due to knowing that our public school's enrollment is at near capacity and some residents may get re-districted to a sister district.

But mostly what is stressing me out is the very establishment of Kindergarten itself, which seemingly still operates on the assumption that there is always one stay-at-home parent who has no other scheduled priorities beyond his or her child's school schedule.

When our kids enter Kindergarten, we will be tethered to 4-hour school days, 8:30am - 12:30pm (or even worse, 11:00am - 3:00pm - I might as well throw my whole day away). What do we do with E the rest of the day? There's no after-school care program through the school district, so now we have to find some alternative child care in addition to making a decision about school itself (I refuse to think about what to do if he gets put in the 11:00am class, I have no idea how to work my job around those 3 hours in the morning until he would go to school).

I really don't understand why this is. E's pre-school allows me to drop him off at 8:30am and pick him up at 6:00pm. He has structured lessons in pre-school: math, reading and writing, art, and PE. He is used to this schedule, it's not too much for him. He doesn't feel abandoned by his parents. When he goes into first grade, his schedule will be 8:15am - 3:30pm. So why is there this one school year where parents are forced to scramble to figure out what to do with their kids for half the day?

Now we have to consider hiring a nanny to shuttle him to and from school and watch him for the time he's not in class. The cost of a nanny who has driving credentials: almost the cost of a private school that does offer full-day kindergarten. I'm starting to see why people thought we were crazy to go the public school route. But really, it shouldn't have to be crazy to support our public education system.

I'm sure there's some method to this madness that I can't see. Maybe someone can explain it to me. Or better yet, maybe someone can tell me how to solve the dilemma we'll be in come September.

Wearing Mom Genes

Recently, I had one of those calls with my mother. You know, the kind that starts out innocuously enough and casually takes a turn to disaster when you least expect it. Mom knows all your insecurities and exploits them willy-nilly on a whim. In this case, it began with a simple phrase that should always be accompanied by foreboding, slasher-flick music whenever my mother utters it, "Oh, I need to tell you something..."

Apparently, I have a smart mouth. And I shouldn't be dispensing advice to my cousins or siblings (or any relatives or even friends, for that matter). I guess an off-handed comment I made to a cousin caused a cataclysmic tear in the very fabric of my cousin's relationship with her parents. I didn't know I have such POWER. Neat-o.

It doesn't really matter that when I called to apologize to said cousin, she told me that my comment had nothing to do with the argument she had had with her mother and that it had already blown over. It's irrelevant that my mother blew the situation out of proportion by just a wee bit. The damage had been done, I was an emotional wreck for days. Now that's power.

It's the power of Mom, to undo someone with just a sentence or an intense glare. And it's in every mother's genes, as I discovered from E's teacher after I scolded him one day by simply telling him, "I'm really disappointed in you." E's teacher told me he was nervous and scared to do the wrong thing all day, that he didn't want to disappoint the teacher, that he hoped I wouldn't be disappointed in him anymore by the time I picked him up if he was a good boy all day. With V, if I look at her the wrong way, she spontaneously bursts into tears, not one word needed.

I'm really ambivalent about this. On the one hand, I know what it's like to be on the receiving end of a Mom-whammy, and I feel for my poor kids. On the other hand, sometimes it is the most efficient and effective way to influence their behavior. With great power comes great responsibility, but Peter Parker never had to figure out how to get his son to stop using his daughter as a battering ram. I guess there's really only one solution: save up for the kids' therapy bills when they get older.

Do you have Mom-guilt? If so, how do you cope?

It Wasn't My Idea

Whenever my husband and I argue over something kid-related, and let's be honest, it's always the same argument, a little voice inside me always falls back to the same position, "Well, I'm not the one who wanted kids."

Horrible, right? I'm a bad person and a terrible mother because when things get tough, I always feel like I took on this extra responsibility that I didn't really want in the first place. If you ask my friends, most of them will tell you that they were surprised that we ended up having children. That's because I had said quite clearly on many an occasion that I didn't think I could do the whole parenting gig.

No one is more surprised than I am that I did it (twice) and that I actually enjoy it. That I was capable of investing so much love, time, and effort into the whole endeavor. That I actually have enough patience to watch over my little brood without going completely mental. So do I love being a mom? Yes. Do I regret having kids? No.

But that doesn't change the fact that having them wasn't my idea. So when we come back to the recurring argument - and for the record, that argument is over whether or not said husband is investing enough time and effort into the rearing of his children - I always end up thinking to myself, "It's time to cowboy up, because you were the one who wanted these kids, not me."

I never say it, of course, precisely because it is so very wrong. But I think it. I think, I earn half the household income, so why is it every time a munchkin is sick, I'm the one who has to take a day off to stay home. Why does everyone give me a guilt trip for carving out time for myself to exercise or have dinner with a friend while the husband does the same completely guilt-free? How come Daddy gets extra credit for taking twenty minutes out from surfing the net to play with the kids, but if I give up my whole day to devote to the kids, nobody remembers. Especially since I didn't want to have kids in the first place.

See, there I go again. I guess the crux of the issue isn't really who wanted to start a family first, it's really about parity in parenting. If one parent is the wage earner and the other is the household manager, the roles are more clearly defined. But when both parents have equal responsibility for bringing home the bacon, it's harder to define who's "in charge" of managing the parent-child dynamics. On most days, I gladly take ownership because I love the kids and I'm capable and well, it's just not going to get the attention it needs if I don't. But sometimes, I wish the one who was doggedly persistent about becoming a parent would step up to the plate.

Resisting the Rat Race

As the days grow shorter and the leaves turn from green to gold to red (or rather, here in the Bay Area, the leaves simply yellow at the edges before falling off the trees), parents of 4 year-olds everywhere start to experience anxiety attacks and insomnia as we prepare to enter our babies into the rat race. I don't know about where you live, but here in the Silicon Valley, when our children reach school age, we parents are overwhelmed by the pressure to get our kids into the right kindergarten to get into the right elementary school to get into the right high school to get into the right college to get into the right post-grad program to land the successful career. As you can see, it's pretty much a straight shot from Montessori to that corner office at the Fortune 500 company, and you don't want your child to get behind.

A perfect storm of over-achieving parents, a sucky track record for state public schools, and affluence means that parents here start grooming their kids for success at a young age through a combination of academically rigorous private schools and a plethora of extra-curricular activities. For example, my niece, who just turned 5 in August, takes ballet, jazz/hip-hop, swimming, gymnastics, ice skating, and soccer, on top of being enrolled in a private Mandarin immersion school. Parents fight over that one open slot in the "gifted youth" program like it's the last Tickle-Me-Elmo at Christmas time.

Well, most of us do that. I've horrified many friends and colleagues by telling them we plan to enroll our son in either the neighborhood public school or charter school next year. Even though many of California's public school test scores are in the crapper, our school district gets great scores and consistently boasts that 50% or more of its graduates go on to top universities. So why pay private school tuition when the public school in our district is doing the job?

Still, when I tell other parents about our intentions, they look at me like I suddenly sprouted horns. "How could you short-change your kids like that?", "Don't you love your kids enough to buy them the best education available?" Yes, those are actual questions I have been asked. By my mother, no less.

It's hard not to occasionally fall prey to self-doubt. I don't want my kids to be at a disadvantage later in life. I do want them to get the best opportunities that we can give them.

But I also really want to believe that one can achieve that without putting a 5 year-old in 6 extra-curricular activities on top of an 8-hour academic program at an ultra-competitive private school. I want to believe that with all the pressures my kids will face in adulthood, my husband and I can give them a few years during which to play, explore, and enjoy life without without feeling the pressure that they have to get really good grades because mom and dad have invested a lot of money in their brains (and they definitely feel that pressure, even if they can't articulate it). I want to believe that by staying involved and interested in their education, we as parents can build a foundation for a love of learning that will serve them well in the future.

Maybe I am naive, I'm not sure. But I want to believe that I'm not.

Eggcelent News!

The drought is over. Let the baked goods rain down upon my son and all his little friends! We took E to the allergist for his oral challenge for eggs. And I am thrilled to say that he was able to eat an entire hard boiled egg (although it took him 2 hours to eat it under the watchful monitoring of a nurse) with only a small rash to show for it.

The allergist gave us the OK to introduce small amounts of egg into his diet. This means that cake and cookies and all the other stuff he will spend his adult life trying to resist are now open to him (might as well get a chance to enjoy them now while he can, right?). In fact, he has recommended that we feed him eggs 2-3 times a week in small amounts to build up his tolerance.

This avid baker of a mom could not be more thrilled!

So to commemorate this milestone, I'll be making some cupcakes for him to bring to his Halloween potluck at school (decorated like Spider-Man to go with his costume). The only thing is, he doesn't like frosting (I've never let him have any since I never know if it has milk in it), so while his friends will get the masked Spidey cupcakes, he'll be enjoying his unfrosted Peter Parker cupcake.

Stuff I Love: (iPhone Edition) Lose It! App

With each child, I tacked on an extra five pounds, mostly in my flabby, paunchy gut. For those keeping track, that's a total of 10 pounds on top of the extra 10-15 I've always carried around just for kicks.

I've never been good about losing weight. It's not so much a matter of not exercising enough. I'm the kind of person who will walk up the five flights to my office, walk to the market instead of drive, hit the elliptical, take aerobics classes, etc.

For me, it's all about the food. And I tried everything: low-carb, low-fat, eating foods in a certain order, cutting out wheat, cutting out dairy. Nothing worked. I eventually conceded I don't have the willpower to restrict my diet for the long haul. Then a friend told me about Lose It!, a free app for the iPhone. (Yes, I said it's free, in case you missed that just now.) Lose It! is basically a calorie counter in which you enter your starting weight, your goal weight, and the desired rate of weight loss. It then calculates a daily calorie budget for you, and you keep track of what you eat and how much you exercise.

That's it. It's really simple. I've used it for almost three weeks, and I've lost four pounds so far. And for the first time, I'm actually believing that maybe I can lose all my extra blubber.

Now, the calorie counts are not all accurate. Nor are the burn rates for various exercises. But if you do a little googling, it's easy enough to put in the correct numbers. Why I think it's effective, at least for me, is that it requires me to think about what I eat. And I'm realizing how many empty calories I used to consume. Stuff I wouldn't even remember eating afterwards. The cookie someone left in the breakroom after a meeting? 350 calories. And it wasn't all that good, and that's as many calories as a whole serving of stir-fry at dinner. Dayum!

That's not to say I feel deprived. Looking through my log, I've had stuff like strawberry-rhubarb pie a la mode, double chocolate cookies, green curry chicken, grilled steak fajitas. That's good eating right there. Admittedly, the fat content of my diet isn't anything to be proud of, but the calorie count is doing OK. And if I can make it through the daunting holidays, I will hit my goal weight (which is a nutritionist-recommended weight of 151 pounds, in case you care) by my birthday.

In a nutshell, if you are trying to lose weight, the solution is simple: eat less than you burn. And if you, like me, have trouble knowing how you're doing on that eating:burning ratio, get the Lose It! app for your iPhone. It's easy to use, it's free, and it works. Did I also mention that it's free?

A Journey of a Thousand Miles...

Means bringing a whole lot of crap with you when you're travelling with babies. My cousin A is bringing her adorable baby to meet the family in October, which means she is going to be travelling with a 3 month-old.

I remember taking E to Washington DC when he was about 5 months old, and taking V to Hawaii when she was about 4 months old. It seemed like a lot of work at the time (little did I know that it's cake compared to taking a 4 year-old anywhere, including to the mall just a few miles from home), but now, it doesn't seem so bad in hindsight.

Maybe that's because I've probably forgotten most of what I learned about travelling with an infant. Among the things I can recall:

• Breastfeed the baby at take-off and landing (if you're lucky, he will sleep for at least part of the flight)
• Don't try to pack up all the baby stuff and bring it with you - you know how much airlines charge for luggage these days, right? - and buy things like diapers when you arrive (that is, unless you're about to take a hell ride on a cruise ship)
• Ask your airline if a bassinet is available and if it is, try to reserve the seat in front of it. Alternately, if you can afford it, put your baby in his own seat.

I'm sure I learned way more than that, so I'm hoping anyone who might see this post would be willing to share your tips on travelling with Junior.

Being -Free: A Guide to Coping with Allergies

Because of E's numerous food allergies (let's review: dairy, egg, nuts, mildly allergic to wheat, used to be allergic to fish too), I've ended up being a resource to my friends whose kids subsequently also develop food allergies or sensitivities. I'm bummed to hear other people tell me their child can't have milk / soy / gluten /nuts /name your food here, and I wish in a way that I was the only one dealing with this because it's a crummy situation, let's just be honest about it.

That being said, when I thought about how things have gone with E's diet, it's not the colossal pain and source of emotional angst that it used to be. Somehow, we've adjusted to it pretty well. So I thought it might be useful for those of you who are trying to do the -free diet to read what's worked well for us.

Eating Out Is Bad
Okay, if not bad, at least a pain. Eating out is never easy because waiters don't always know if the food you order contains the offending food. Heck, even the cooks don't always know because processed foods can contain trace amounts of stuff you just wouldn't expect in that food. And it's not just going to restaurants, it's going to people's houses, amusement parks, and birthday parties, too. E always gets a big bowl of fruit salad and a small bag of gummi bears when he goes to a birthday party; he never partakes of cake, and that's just how it's always been. So if you want to eat out, make sure you're bringing something along for your child that you KNOW is safe and that he'll enjoy.

Substitute Foods Are Great
There are a lot of options out there these days: soy milk for regular milk, non-dairy margarines for butter, rice-based pasta instead of wheat. You can swap a lot of these substitute foods without really a noticeable difference in taste or texture. A few items that have passed our discriminating palettes (that being mine, not E's since he has never had the original to compare to):

• Soy Yogurt - Whole Soy is my favorite brand; it's thick and creamy and full of fruit flavor. I especially like the lemon and mango/apricot. Silk can be good, too. Its texture is like Yoplait, but I find it cloyingly sweet (E loves their blueberry soy yogurt).
• Rice-Potato-Soy Pasta - I forget the name brand, but check out your closest Whole Foods for a selection of gluten-free pastas. I've found that ones that have a combination of grains has better texture than the ones that are all one grain (quinoa, rice, etc), which tend to be mushy unless cooked perfectly. Also check out soba, made from buckwheat (which is gluten-free and wheat-free despite the name) - but beware, some soba has wheat in it, so look for the kind that's 100% buckwheat.
• Double Rainbow Blueberry Soy Ice Cream - It has such great blueberry flavor that you can't really taste the soy flavor too much.
• Sorbet - for those of you who can't deal with the soyness of soy ice cream, enjoy some sorbet or fruit juice popsicles.

Not All Substitute Foods Are Great
The worst offenders:

• Gluten-free bread - any brand, I guarantee you it will be an affront to all that is beautiful and delicious about bread. It is the gluten that imparts bread with that great chewy, light, delightfully pillow-soft texture. Forget about bread and carbo-load on something else (potatoes, rice, corn, there's lots of options).
• Gluten-free, dairy-free, and egg-free cake/cookies - I hate to break it to you, but you're generally going to pass up the bakery section of your grocery store. Leaving 1 one of those 3 things can still result in a tasty treat, even 2 out of 3 can be a winner, but not having any of those things in your baked good - you'll just have to learn to get over it. What you can get is usually not worth the calories anyway. As an alternative, try gluten-free, vegan fruit pie.
• Fake cheese - pretty self-explanatory.

Forget About Imposters
After all that talk about substitute foods, which have their place, we find that it's just much tastier not to pretend. Why eat fake yogurt for breakfast when you can have a real hash brown? Sometimes when you go on a -free diet, you spend so much time worrying about what you can't eat that you forget about the great things you still can eat. Just a reminder for you:

Breakfast foods:

• Hash browns
• Rice crispies cereal (great with some freeze-dried berries and soy milk)
• Corn flakes
• Sausage (check ingredients to make sure there's no dairy)
• Bacon
• Fruit

Snacks:

• Potato, corn, or tortilla chips
• Popcorn
• Fruit

Generally speaking, Asian meals will have the most options for gluten-, dairy-, and egg-free dishes, especially Vietnamese cuisine, which is largely rice-based.

Leading By Example
The most important aspect of a successful -free diet is your outlook. The way you react to your child's diet will become your child's reaction. Act as if your child is being deprived and he will feel like he's being deprived. Sometimes it's the hardest thing for a parent to act like being allergic to something is like having straight hair or brown eyes - it just is part of who your child is. For me, it was so hard not to feel like I've lost out on something I always imagined myself doing with my kids: baking cookies together or making pancakes together on a Sunday morning.

At the same time, it's imperative to help your kids to understand that they do have an allergy. As much as I'd like to hope that I'll always be there to keep E from the things he can't eat, it's not realistic. He needs to be able to tell his teachers, his friends, or his friends' parents what will make him sick. E now is able to tell people, "I can't have eggs", "no cows milk for me", "I can't have cake, thank you". And he doesn't feel bad about it (usually his follow-up statement is, "can I have some gummi bears instead?").

The trick is to strike the balance between being clear what foods he is allergic to and not making a big deal of it. A few lessons we've learned along the way:

• Try to have the whole family follow the same diet, at least when you are with your child. Don't groan, if your kid can't eat pizza, is it fair for you to munch away on a slice in front of him? Meet your pizza needs when you're at work, and enjoy family dinners that you can enjoy as a family. You will probably actually start eating healthier for it.
• Don't freak out if your child is putting a foreign food near his mouth (parents whose kids get anaphylactic reactions get some slack on this one). You don't want your child to fear food. Instill in your kids the habit of not eating new foods when they're not with you, and teach them why.
• Carry an epi-pen and Benadryl (children's oral suspension) with you when you go out to eat, just in case.
• Read all food labels and try not to keep dangerous foods in the house.
• Try to discourage your kids from being picky eaters (an uphill battle for some parents, I know). But the thing is, if your child can’t take in entire groups of food (dairy, gluten products, soy, etc), then it’s more difficult to ensure they have a balanced diet. Teach your kids to embrace the foods they can eat so that they get variety and balance in their diet. The best way to do this is not to be picky yourself – suck it up and be an adult about eating your green vegetables or fish or whatever you dislike eating.

I’m sure there are plenty of other tips that I’ve missed or haven’t picked up on yet. So if you have a child who has a food sensitivity and/or allergy, please share your strategies on how you cope with his/her dietary restrictions.