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Debomama
Brilliant review by brilliant book mama...sniff!
(from GREAT MEMORIES: Book MAMA's April Pick For Moms)on 04/02/12Share your opinion
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I’m lying by the pool with my older sister. It’s spring break. The kids are swimming. The sun is warm, and it feels good on my skin. I’m soaking it up—soaking up all that vitamin D mixed with UV radiation. I know it’s not good for me. I know it causes skin cancer. But it feels really excellent—like a lot of things that aren’t good for me.
My sister is telling me how tired she is all the time. She’s saying that maybe she should revamp her vitamin regime or maybe change up her hormone creams. She’s saying her tummy is distended all the time. Maybe she should cut out gluten, she says. She’s telling me how her sciatica always flairs up when she tries to work out more, how the chiropractor isn’t helping anymore. She’s talking about her latest visits to her acupuncturist and her endocrinologist and various other...
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Some girls can only have one friend at a time. They are “Best friend girls.” They have the BFF and they are good to go. This is a dangerous game because if something goes awry with the BFF then there is no safety net. I was (and am) more of a group gal. I have my close friends—far and wide—and then some more friends…and then a few more. But twice in my life I had a BFF.
My first best friend lived one house away. She was a year older—five to my four. We stayed besties until I moved away at the beginning of junior high. We went to different schools, and I see the value in that now as I watch my daughters navigate the brutal waters of playground politics in elementary school. I think I felt generally confident knowing I had my best friend waiting for me at 3 p.m. every day; so no matter what happened at school, I had that...
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Book MAMA's Review of:
In Memory of Andrew…1969-2012
I met Andrew in the early 90’s. We were both recent college graduates trying to find our way in the world with the vague idea that we wanted to work in the movie industry. I guess we were both satisfied with starting at the very bottom because we found ourselves at a very low budget production company where I was basically just a production assistant which doesn’t really mean anything unless you’re on a film set, and Andrew was the world’s most over-qualified gopher. I was getting sexually harassed pretty much on a daily basis (didn’t really realize it at the time and didn’t really care—I didn’t feel particularly victimized, I just thought it was pathetic and funny) so I would hide out downstairs in one of the empty meeting rooms and smoke and read scripts and write...
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The first movie I ever took my older daughter to was Finding Nemo. Taking a toddler to the movie theatre is one of those stupid things you do with your first born in a desperate attempt to pretend your life is still normal and fun. A toddler is just a big baby. Period.
It was raining—I hadn’t slept in months—I was a lactating, slobbering fool and needed to get out of the house for two hours with my older daughter who was suffering from the jealousy and ill effects of a newborn sibling. (READ: smearing fecal matter on the walls.)
So there we are with all the best intentions. We settle in with popcorn, drinks and candy. It’s dark, and she’s a little scared so she’s sitting on my lap, so basically the popcorn and skittles are everywhere. Her diaper AND my boobs are leaking…so far…so good.
Now I don’t know if you remember Nemo,...
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When my kids were babies and then toddlers, I needed babysitters so badly but I was too damned scared to get one and leave my kids. Now that they are older; they want us to leave them alone and leave them be and I kind of want to just hang out at home! Is that ironic or does it just suck?
Okay, hold that thought. A little background information is necessary here: we have always gone to the same town every Summer for vacation. I grew up spending Summers there, so consequently I have a 1970’s perspective on the safety of this town.
So, even when the kids were little, we made the trek because it mattered to me that we go. We once made the 14 hour drive with a 1 year old baby and a 2 year old puppy. That does strike me as mildly insane now, but we’ve always gone there and we always will—and I was bound and determined that that be...
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Up until 2 days ago, I was going to recommend a completely different book (Ali in Wonderland by Ali Wentworth—the very funny and adorable actress who is married to the also adorable and smart George Stephanopoulos—read that one too—it’s interesting and hilarious.)
But I just finished another book and it was TOO amazing and riveting and dare is say, mind blowing, to not share! I found myself talking about it to other moms and particularly to my younger sister who has six kids—including twin 2 year old girls. This sister and I talk “mom shop” constantly—we can dish and share and not judge and it’s amazing and wonderful. Inevitably, though, I compare us. I often feel like the lame…albeit older sister who only had 2 kids while she did her Catholic duty and had 6 and there doesn’t seem to be any birth control in sight and she is 7...
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I’ve always loved forms and questionnaires…not the medical kind where you have to dig up your insurance card and remember the circumference of your child’s head, just the fun ones. My sisters and I did them constantly when we were little to pass the time on long car rides—(pre Ipad/pod /everything). Those forms were fairly basic—favorite color, food, number, animal—but those oh so vital statistics could change a lot as one matured. We went from pink/cotton candy/#7/ and bunnies to slightly cooler preteen answers…maybe black or green/ pizza or tacos/ the gutsy favorite #13/ and dolphins or dogs or “a great big eagle that I can ride”—a direct quote from one of my more daring and telling entries.
I guess it was all part of finding ourselves…”who am I?” think Anthony Michael Hall in Breakfast Club…who are you? How do you explain it?...
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I hate to do this to you again, but in my library work wanderings doing inventory, I found this gem of a book, but I don’t think it’s going to be an easy one to track down! Because of that, I’ve semi-summarized it below so even if you can’t find the book, you can get the gist of it here.
The bottom line is…everything you say to your kids means I love you, and if you think about it, that’s really true.
Recently I’ve said a few things to my kids that really meant I love you:
“No, you can’t have cheez-its and Hershey bars for snack…why? Because it’s gross and unhealthy and BECAUSE I LOVE YOU and I want you to feel good and happy.”
“No, you can’t go out on the roof…why? Because it’s a stupid idea and you could break your neck and BECAUSE I LOVE YOU and I would die if you died.”
“No, you can’t go to the movies with a group of...
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I’m pretty sure this book was written to some degree in response to the coddled and sheltered atmosphere we’ve created for our children today. Not only are they becoming screen zombies with zero social skills (like actually talking skills—not texting or insta-gramming or whatever) but they aren’t even being exposed to actual sports or recreational activities because they can do them virtually.
My kids were doing wii archery the other day. They loved it. And I do understand that it does take a modicum of skill to sort of aim the wii remote and then pull your nonexistent bow back and try to hit the target. Whatever. I actually have an archery trophy—junior girls champion (that’s 10 and under) from Summer camp. I shot real arrows from my own little quiver at a real hay bale target. I wore a little leather arm band in case the bow...
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There’s a great line in a great movie called The Anniversary Party. (you need to see it if you haven’t—Alan Cummings, Jennifer Jason Leigh) But Phoebe Cates has this quote—in the scene, she’s really drunk and on ecstasy for the first time and having probably the first honest conversation with a friend that she’s had for a very long time and she’s very, very upset and sobbing uncontrollably and then says this about being a mother: “Once you have kids you totally lose the right to ever just swallow a big handful of pills.”
Suicide is basically just a choice some people make—a brutal, selfish, scary choice that seems almost impossible for some to understand, and for others—maybe close enough to their way of thinking that it becomes somewhat more fathomable and understandable.
Stephanie Madoff Mack’s book is a book about suicide—her...
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