Girls

6 year old Petite has friend over for playdate. "Let's pretend we are sisters at a dance and all the boys are surrounding us" "OK pretend he kissed you and now you're dead but then you're alive" "I got kissed!" "Me too!" 3 year old Bebe is crawling around on floor pretending to be a puppy dog. Petite twirling around the room "the boys are all trying to dance with me" YEE GADS!!!! This is age SIX? What the hell am I in for in 10 years????

Gluey mom

Took bebe to kid science museum this morning. She isn't interested in any activites but a number of her camp counaelors work there. She's mostly interested in following them around and chatting. Basically, we could just schedule a coffee date. Did manage to get her mildly interested in glue project - Only bc favorite counselor was sitting at that table. Now I just dropped kids at Grandm'sa house just in time to head off to meetig only to discover glue on front on new sweater At least I didn't wear the cashmere one Damn Didn't bring change of clothes Desperately try and rinse glue off sweater front Resulting in large water stain replacing glue stain Lovely impression I'll make How do other moms seem least drift between preschool paint and glue activity and professional "I have it all together" work life?

SO happy to be in California right now. Shlepped the girls to Tahoe

for the weekend. Because MAMA has been dying to get to the Sierras (a huge pull for me to move back to CA). Previous weekends/trips "en famille" have not fared so well (read: SUCKED!) - including taking them "off the beaten track" in Morocco, to a fabulous luxury hotel in Sorrento that hubbie was shooting. Hotel room bigger than our entire apartment which turned out to be much needed since it RAINED FOR A WEEK - and Mama was solo entertaining two tykes - one of whom insisted on only eating hot dogs (in Southern Italy? Not so easy to find). So, trepidatiously, we embarked on this weekend, discount hotel room since very "off" season at ski resort. Turned out to be GORGEOUS foliage (=happy Mama) and even though no hiking (not with these two), we managed to put them on the back of bikes and take lovely ride through fall foliage (bribing them with chocolate along the route). A tantrum free (almost) weekend (empty hotel helps - no fear of waking paying guests). Feel we might be back in the game!

Settling in

Two weeks into Bebe's new school and things feel almost settled. Found out that the heater in the floor IS in fact legal and up to code. Amazing since in order to heat the place, the metal grate on the floor will heat up to burning hot temperature, enough to severely burn feet - big or little. Of course there is no way I will use it as it is place directly outside the girls' room. Can't believe this is up to code. Jeez. washer and dryer finally arrived after two weeks and, I kid you not, no less than 10 phone calls and 15 emails which arrived daily, each one confirming a different delivery date and time. Are we actually IN the USA? Land of "convenience"? Seriously, it was more "convenient" to take Bebe and trek across town to DARTY in Paris, place our order and wait for the delivery.

Fairy WIngs

Tonight while falling asleep, Bebe announced, completely matter of factly, "Mama I don't want to do the Olympics in swimming or gymnastics because I am wishing for fairy wings and then I will be able to fly"

Welcome Back

Want to shoot myself. We finally found an apartment to move into. After squatting at my mom’s for seven weeks, she was plenty ready for us to find our own home. Real estate shopping sucks right now. Nothing available, unless you are able to buy, which we are not. Picky we are not. We looked at and applied to every two bedroom apt in Sausalito, my only requirements being that there are at least two bedrooms (even tho the kids have slept ON TOP OF ME to date, I had high hopes of sleeping in a room with only one other person. Though, frankly, right now, my fantasy night includes me alone, sleeping just about anywhere. Honestly, I am thinking of taking a backpacking trip alone). Every apartment we applied to fell through: one was so moldy Clay started wheezing after three minutes in the bedroom, another owned by a crazy guy who decided, after the agent accepted our application, that he didn’t want to meet us, the third we lost out because even though we were acceptable, the owner preferred to take a Silicon Valley 27 year old with a million dollars in the bank (is that legal?), the fourth, the owner told me he doesn’t want kids in the building (and stated that he cant legally not accept my application but since he doesnt want us, please don’t apply). Several more we put in an application for and the agent just never called us back. Finally, we were accepted to our current apartment after the initial applicatns decided not to take it (probably should have taken a cue from them). We had a feeling the apartment was quirky and a shoddy cosmetic job had been done so that it could be rented, but we needed somewhere to live and frankly, this was our only option. This weekend we discovered why this part of Sausalito is called Hurricane Gulch. We owned a house ten years ago on the adjacent hillside and sure it was windy but now I realize that house was protected because if was tucked into the hillside. The brick townhouse we rent is smack in the middle of the “valley” between two Sausalito hillsides, right in the path of the hurricane winds that blow down the hill towards the bay. Frinds Jessica and Jonathon came over for dinner Saturday night. I had told them the house gets cold, dress warm and they realized I wanst exaggerating when they kept their parkas on all evening. Meanwhile the windows are so old that gusts blow through the gaps between paine and sill. The girls’ room is so cold that I have our sleeping bags tucked into their beds. Down sleeping bags – the ones we used trekking to Everest Base Camp. That’s how cold it was this weekend. Because aside from the hurricane winds blowing inside due to the crappy windows, the fireplace has no damper. Just an open chimney to the sky. The realtor had told us we could use the fireplace. Now the management company tells us it is not usable. Not only was that appealing for its charm but it would be a way to keep warm! (Yes, this is August in Sausalito. Eveyrhwere else in the country people are dropping dead from heat exhaustion. Meanwhile we are wearing long underwear and fleece and wrapping ourselves in down sleeping bags). Now for the heating system. I never used heat gorwing up in San Francisco. Didn’t even realize we had central heating since my dad forbid anyone to use it. Turns out the heating system in this apartment is a metal grate in the middle of the floor – right at the intersection of the girls’ room, the entryway and the kitchen. Impossible to avoid stepping on or over it. The heat blows up from there. The system gets verhot, the grate becomes a burning piece of metal. It is clearly labled “Caution: Keep off. May cause burns. Keep children away”. Now HOW are we spuppoed to use this system without injuring either ourselves or the kids? We turned it on, just to check it out. The thermostat must be broken because it is blank – impossible to regulate temperature. We flipped the switch that says “heat”, a huge rumbling noise gurgled up from the floor, followed by a strong burning smell and then the piercing screech of the smoke alarm. We turned it off. We wrote to the property manager explaining that 1. The heater set the smoke alarm off 2. This doesn’t seem safe (and says “Caution, keep off, burns” etc). Their response was “Don’t scream at me Tamar! PGE checked it out and it is working fine” Excuse me? I called PGE. They do check heaters. They don’t check whether they are in a safe location or likely to burn someone (hmmmm???) I called the Sausalito building inspector. A very nice man called me back and said they don’t check heaters either. I called the Fire Department. A nice fireman drove twenty minutes to our house. (Im not sure why I couldn’t get through to the Sausalito Fire Department 3 minutes away?) . Guess it is a slow day, since I had explained this isn’t an emergency, I just have a question about possible fire hazard and to whom should I talk? He looked at the system questioningly and stated he had no idea whether it was hazardous but, it clearly doesn’t work. A local realtor came over just to check it out. She turned it on, practically burnt her hand in about 2 minutes. Just then our sofa was delivered. The guys, moaning and groaning about our low ceilings and steep staircase (all of ten stairs. Jeez guys, do you know how many times Ive schlepped furniture up and down 70 stairs of our old house???) and immediately piped up “what is burning in here?” I’ve been advised to go through our apartment with a fine tooth comb, document every single scratch, crack and dent. Not to mention the open wires poking through the wall, the dodgy extension chord into which the stove is plugged, the cracked glass window in the children’s room and the toilet that barely flushes. Seriously I’m just about the most low maintenance tenant you could get. Indoor plumbing and safe living conditions are my basic requirement. But for the rent they’re charging, I’d like to not have my kids either freezing their fingers off or making trips to the ER for feet burns on the heating system. Yes I have reported this to the property management company. Who replied “You don’t need to scream. It’s already been check out”. Excuse me? That doesn’t cut it.

Mom needs to escape

Sitting in The Grove on Chestnut Street in San Francisco, after having just stormed out of my house. I am beyond frustrated and it’s because of my kids.

Everywhere I look moms are sitting with kids, who are NOT pulling on them, nagging at them or having a temper tantrum. Just net to me, a mom has a newborn in the bjorn and her three year old is calmly sitting next to her, sucking on a lollipop. At another table two moms sit sipping coffee, each with a toddler CALMLY sitting in a stroller, looking at an iphone.

Granted, the whole bebe-with-electronics thing kind of creeps me out. The iphone has become the new addiction etc. But honestly, at this point Id be in heaven if mine would sit and play with anything short of live dynamite and just let me have a conversation for more than 30 seconds.

This morning I took my two to the playground and noticed that there wasn’t more than one minute time span that someone (Bebe) wasn’t calling “mamamamama” or “mama look at me”. I mean, CONSTANTLY! Then La Petite starts, I think vying for attention, either calling “mama look at me” or coming over and pulling on me, wanting me to come climb up the play structures with her.

It’s worse when, like today, we met up with my friend , Nadine, and her little one. Nadine sits there calmly while her tot plays near her or wanders away to climb up the slide. Every once in awhile the two year old comes over to check in with mom and Nadine smiles, gives her daughter a big hug and kiss and then the little one wanders off. Meanwhile Bebe is calling “mama look at me!” from the monkey bars and La Petite is pulling on me “mama I need you” so that by the end of a mere 45 minutes I’m about to boil over AND am thinking HOW am I going to get through the rest of the day?

They are constantly questioning, complaining or nagging. There is little if no silent time and when the two of them are alone with me it is constant rivalry for attention, sitting on lap, getting hugs, or just talking. Non stop. I mean NONSTOP talking, demanding, pulling.

So HOW do other moms do it? I have tried all the typical methods of setting limits. I’m not overly indulgent and I am definitely not personally invested in my kids “needing” me. You know those moms who NEED their kids to need them. I don’t! I must be the only mom who feels like “please DON’T need me!” Please need someone else!

To make matters worse, when my husband comes home and I’m desperate to escape the kids, they treat him like he’s the boogey man “no daddy no daddy!” and run away from him. The only way for me to have ANY break is to escape – to physically LEAVE the house. Which is exhausting for me after six years, and discouraging for dear old dad.

Today, when DH came home and was going to take over the kids, they ran from him in terror, I ended up doing bathtime while folding laundry and he is reading a book. He shrugs and says “I cant do anything if they run away from me”. Which I understand – it’s tough for him t take charge if they run from him in terror (which is completely unfounded) but it means I dont get a break, I end up fuming, spitting fire at both husband and kids and storming out.