I saw a commercial today touting the upcoming re release of the “Walt Disney’s Beloved Coming of Age Story, Bambi” and I thought to myself what a perfect gift for a child you want to watch have a complete emotional meltdown.
Come here, honey, let’s make some popcorn and watch a movie about a cute baby deer who watches his mother get shot to death by a hunter and then gets separated from his dad in a raging forest fire. I think I’ll have to pass on the classic joy of traumatizing my sons.
Mac is already obsessed with death because he realized early that his dad has two parents and I only have one. At two years old, he asked me why I didn’t have a mommy and I had to explain to him as gently as possible that my mom is an angel. Then a year later our parish priest died and Mac burst into tears and said “I never want to be an angel – I want to live in our house with you forever!”.
We watch Spiderman cartoons in our car every day and a day doesn’t pass that Mac, now five, doesn’t ask me “why does Peter Parker live with Aunt May again?” because he is fixated on hearing me explain that Peter’s parents died.
Superheroes are pretty much always really tragic orphans which is super scary for little kids but I guess not as frightening for the grown up nerds that comic books were really created for. This is fine – as I’ve pointed out before there are plenty of adults who make the choice to torture themselves with movies like My Sister’s Keeper or Rabbit Hole. I’m just not one of them. There’s enough sadness in real life so I sort of think entertainment should be happy.
And there is no reason why children should have to experience loss or tragedy until it actually comes their way in real life. Watching Bambi is not going to prepare Mac for losing me. It’s just going to make him obsess about when he’ll lose me and doing that is a waste of the time he could be enjoying as an innocent. A beloved classic should be something that made your child smile, not something that made them question their own mortality. So, sorry Bambi, but you will never be welcome in my house.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
Hit Me Baby One More Time
My USWeekly is swimming with pregnant celebrities. Kate Hudson, Jewel, Alicia Silverstone, Selma Blair, Pink, Victoria Beckham, Jane Krakowski, Natalie Portman ----the list goes on and on.
With it being award season these famous pregnant women are parading red carpets nonstop. And it makes me love them. Even the ones like Mrs. Beckham, who always seemed like a plastic to me, and Kate Hudson, who seemed too dumb and self involved for me to tolerate, now fascinate me.
I love pregnant women. And I love babies.
This is great because, whatever is in the water, isn’t just available to celebrities. I have pregnant friends coming out of the woodwork. And all of them are just as gorgeous and fabulous as the aforementioned celebs. Maybe more so. And I am so excited to meet every one of their babies because babies are so much better than shoes, drugs or cats.
Being surrounded by pregnancies makes me remember how sweet my babies smelled. It reminds me of the days when Mac would lie in my bed and nap on my arm while I watched 90210 repeats on Soapnet. It makes me look at Charlie who at 3 is still the baby in our family and never want his little voice to change even if it means he’ll be a really weird adult. No one in your life will ever love you the way your baby will. I hope those celebrity moms don’t miss out on the wonderful, exhausting experience of taking care of a new baby by farming out all the hard hours to nannies. And I hope my pregnant friends, some of whom have older children or high powered jobs or both, are able to get a break from all the craziness to savor that new baby because they don’t stay babies for nearly long enough.
My babies are now wild and willful little boys and they wear me down even on good days but I never ever wish for them to grow up faster. And I never ever doubt that the time I have with them now isn’t something I’ll treasure for the rest of my life.
Even at 41, so far removed from my tween and teen years, I have a memory like a steal trap which enables me to recall how one day I thought my mom was perfect and the next I was completely mortified to be seen with her in the mall.
That day when Mac no longer wants to be seen with me is closer than I want to admit, so today when I can’t get anything done because he wants to be near his one and only Valentine every minute, I’ll take it. And I’ll hold onto this day in ten years when his Valentine is Kate or Fia or Alex or some other much younger girl and not me.
Today I have three extremely handsome Valentines fighting over me. And it’s a very good day.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
With it being award season these famous pregnant women are parading red carpets nonstop. And it makes me love them. Even the ones like Mrs. Beckham, who always seemed like a plastic to me, and Kate Hudson, who seemed too dumb and self involved for me to tolerate, now fascinate me.
I love pregnant women. And I love babies.
This is great because, whatever is in the water, isn’t just available to celebrities. I have pregnant friends coming out of the woodwork. And all of them are just as gorgeous and fabulous as the aforementioned celebs. Maybe more so. And I am so excited to meet every one of their babies because babies are so much better than shoes, drugs or cats.
Being surrounded by pregnancies makes me remember how sweet my babies smelled. It reminds me of the days when Mac would lie in my bed and nap on my arm while I watched 90210 repeats on Soapnet. It makes me look at Charlie who at 3 is still the baby in our family and never want his little voice to change even if it means he’ll be a really weird adult. No one in your life will ever love you the way your baby will. I hope those celebrity moms don’t miss out on the wonderful, exhausting experience of taking care of a new baby by farming out all the hard hours to nannies. And I hope my pregnant friends, some of whom have older children or high powered jobs or both, are able to get a break from all the craziness to savor that new baby because they don’t stay babies for nearly long enough.
My babies are now wild and willful little boys and they wear me down even on good days but I never ever wish for them to grow up faster. And I never ever doubt that the time I have with them now isn’t something I’ll treasure for the rest of my life.
Even at 41, so far removed from my tween and teen years, I have a memory like a steal trap which enables me to recall how one day I thought my mom was perfect and the next I was completely mortified to be seen with her in the mall.
That day when Mac no longer wants to be seen with me is closer than I want to admit, so today when I can’t get anything done because he wants to be near his one and only Valentine every minute, I’ll take it. And I’ll hold onto this day in ten years when his Valentine is Kate or Fia or Alex or some other much younger girl and not me.
Today I have three extremely handsome Valentines fighting over me. And it’s a very good day.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
41 Bottles of Beer on the Wall
It came again. Which I guess is a good thing because the alternative is that it doesn’t come and that’s never a good thing. No, I’m not talking about my period, although the appearance of that inconvenience is also a welcome thing to me these days.
It’s my birthday. 41 years of me. And I have to tell you, turning 41 sucks way more than turning 40 does. When you have an “event” birthday like 30 or 40, everyone makes such a big deal about it but really nothing changes. But when you have that less exciting 41st or 42nd or 43rd birthday there’s less to celebrate because you haven’t reached some milestone, you’re just continuing to be “in your 40’s” and that makes me sort of cringe.
The thing is that as a kid I thought 40 was so old. Actually, I thought it sounded pretty old until maybe five years ago when it started getting close! But now that I’m actually “in my 40’s”, I don’t feel any older and I certainly don’t feel any different.
I thought that in my 40’s I’d act “grown up”, but I still act like a giddy middle school girl when one of my friends calls or more than likely these days texts me.
I thought that in my 40’s I’d be sure of myself, but I still worry that people don’t like me. That I’m not cute enough. Or smart enough. Or good enough. Will it ever end?
I thought in my 40’s that I’d be strong enough to insulate myself with just the people I love and who I know love me, but I still obsess about the friends I’ve lost and I still cry when someone hurts my feelings or my friends’ feelings or my kids’ feelings. Damn, I cry a lot.
I thought in my 40’s my kids would be in their 20’s or at least their teens, but they’re not. They’re 5 and 3 and I don’t regret that at all.
I thought in my 40’s that I’d be done with beer and nachos and dance thumper, but I’m not and I hope I’m never done with those things because you know what, they’re fun, although I never realized this in my youth, old people deserve fun, too.
I thought in my 40’s that my kids would have cousins with my bloodline and that we’d all do stuff together. And the fact that it isn’t that way sucks.
I thought in my 40’s I’d be Jay McInerney or Kelly Ripa. I’m neither. Yet.
Being in my 40’s is not what I thought it would be, but nothing ever is, right?
The way I look at aging, it’s not being older that’s hard because, although I may make jokes about it, I really don’t care about my age. For me, it’s more about the fact that in order to reach 41, I’ve had to live through 40 years of all the crap life throws at us. And while there are certainly so many wonderful things I’ve been given, there are also countless days you couldn’t pay me to live through again.
In order to make it into our twilight years, we have to be resilient enough to push through the hard years and enjoy the good ones.
As Bette Davis, of the famous eyes, once said “Old age ain’t no place for sissies”.
I’ve been called a lot of things in my life but sissy has never been one of them.
So bring on the next the 40-some years. Hell, make it 50, 60 even. Put me on a jar of smuckers. I can take it.
It’s my birthday. 41 years of me. And I have to tell you, turning 41 sucks way more than turning 40 does. When you have an “event” birthday like 30 or 40, everyone makes such a big deal about it but really nothing changes. But when you have that less exciting 41st or 42nd or 43rd birthday there’s less to celebrate because you haven’t reached some milestone, you’re just continuing to be “in your 40’s” and that makes me sort of cringe.
The thing is that as a kid I thought 40 was so old. Actually, I thought it sounded pretty old until maybe five years ago when it started getting close! But now that I’m actually “in my 40’s”, I don’t feel any older and I certainly don’t feel any different.
I thought that in my 40’s I’d act “grown up”, but I still act like a giddy middle school girl when one of my friends calls or more than likely these days texts me.
I thought that in my 40’s I’d be sure of myself, but I still worry that people don’t like me. That I’m not cute enough. Or smart enough. Or good enough. Will it ever end?
I thought in my 40’s that I’d be strong enough to insulate myself with just the people I love and who I know love me, but I still obsess about the friends I’ve lost and I still cry when someone hurts my feelings or my friends’ feelings or my kids’ feelings. Damn, I cry a lot.
I thought in my 40’s my kids would be in their 20’s or at least their teens, but they’re not. They’re 5 and 3 and I don’t regret that at all.
I thought in my 40’s that I’d be done with beer and nachos and dance thumper, but I’m not and I hope I’m never done with those things because you know what, they’re fun, although I never realized this in my youth, old people deserve fun, too.
I thought in my 40’s that my kids would have cousins with my bloodline and that we’d all do stuff together. And the fact that it isn’t that way sucks.
I thought in my 40’s I’d be Jay McInerney or Kelly Ripa. I’m neither. Yet.
Being in my 40’s is not what I thought it would be, but nothing ever is, right?
The way I look at aging, it’s not being older that’s hard because, although I may make jokes about it, I really don’t care about my age. For me, it’s more about the fact that in order to reach 41, I’ve had to live through 40 years of all the crap life throws at us. And while there are certainly so many wonderful things I’ve been given, there are also countless days you couldn’t pay me to live through again.
In order to make it into our twilight years, we have to be resilient enough to push through the hard years and enjoy the good ones.
As Bette Davis, of the famous eyes, once said “Old age ain’t no place for sissies”.
I’ve been called a lot of things in my life but sissy has never been one of them.
So bring on the next the 40-some years. Hell, make it 50, 60 even. Put me on a jar of smuckers. I can take it.
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