Motherhood poses a lot of challenges, and different ones at various ages in the lives of our children.  When mine were younger and could barely speak, I had total control over their lives, or it felt that way.  Friends commented on how often I was throwing them in the car to go places and see things.  “The tall ships are coming into San Pedro.  Let’s gooooo!” I’d say and they’d look at me like, uh, okay, as if they had a choice.  Nine times out of ten, they had a great time.  Undoubtedly, they’d fall asleep in the car on the way home, I’d haul them in and make dinner, we’d bathe, read a book, bed.  Life was perfect; or at least, that’s how I remember it.  When people asked where I found the energy, I’d tell them that coffee fueled my day and that my excursions with the girls were part self-preservation and part necessary mothering.  If I didn’t leave the house with them, chances are I’d never really spend “quality” time with them at home.  “Will you play a game with me?” was often answered, “Just a sec.  Let me finish my work/the dishes/laundry/vacuuming/organizing/reading People magazine.”  In other words, at home, it was nearly impossible for them to get my undivided attention.  Out there in the world, before iPhones and Blackberrys were everywhere, it was possible to focus solely on them, to watch them learn, laugh, discover, stumble, grow.  It was exhausting, but it was wonderful.

Today was Day Six of spring break in the year 2010.  I no longer tell the girls where we’re going on any given day.  I make suggestions, all of which they think are horrible.  “I bet if we head to the Getty today, we could see the ocean.  We could roll down the grass hills,” I offer.  Or a simple “Let’s go for a hike” gets this response: “NOOOO.  I’ll do anything but that!”  So when I then tell them we need to wash the dog and then take her to the dog park, it’s like I’ve threatened to give them nothing but chicken liver and asparagus for breakfast, lunch AND dinner until they clean their rooms to my satisfaction.  Or worse, I’ve suggested we visit the Norton Simon Museum to look at the French Impressionists.  OMG Mom, you might as well forget to wear clothes when you pick me up from school!  But here’s the thing.  When I get so frustrated and order them in the car because we’re going to Descanso Gardens whether they like it or not (and with friends to boot), they have a great time like they did this past Monday.  My record is no longer a nine out of ten, but it’s still an eight out of ten.  That’s not bad.  So how come the whole process seems infinitely more difficult?  People warned me of this.  They said my children would eventually learn how to speak and have opinions of their own.  I was also told they’d develop unique personalities that would sometimes come into conflict with my own.  Did I think they were lying?  Or that my kids were so special this couldn’t possibly happen to them, or me?

Still, I know things.  During my ten years of mothering and my 40+ years of living, I know more than they do.  I know that a hike in Griffith Park will turn out to be more fun than Typing Pal on the computer.  I know that walking on the sand at the beach and kicking a soccer ball will make their cheeks rosy and checking out videos on You Tube will not.  My oldest fought me over going to see “How to Train Your Dragon” yesterday because, well she’s ten going on twenty-two, and a dragon movie, Mom?  Really?  She and I liked it even more than the other four kids we were with.  Why?  Because it has a message that a ten-year-old can understand, even hiding behind the cloak of a cute 3D film.  And she is only ten.  Besides, I was taking them to the Black Eyed Peas concert later that night, which was totally inappropriate but a super cool thing for me to do.  Like the dragon-movie lesson, Goldie was also the only one of my three girls to make out the F-bombs that Will.i.am. dropped during his amazingly spontaneous hip-hop routine.  And did I mention I want to be Fergie for just one night?

I’m getting off track.  I’m frustrated.  I’m a mother raising opinionated young women and that makes me happy.  At the same time, I don’t want their opinions.  I just want them to come with me and get out of the house so I CAN BE WITH THEM.  Mothering in the confines of these four walls (we have more, actually) is about getting meals, straightening up, folding laundry, answering emails, writing Daily Cup of Jo, sweeping the kitchen floor because WOW, when the sun comes in at that angle it looks like there’s an entire meal down there and who else is going to do it?  I’m not a neat freak, just someone who gets emotionally bogged down with clutter.  And as much as I like to joke with anyone who will listen that my kids drive me insane and I’m not really cut out for all this motherhood crap, the truth is being their mom is the best part of my life.  But not the cleaning, cooking, wiping runny noses part.  I’m talking about the part where I get to watch them discover the world and all the different people in it.  I’m referring to the time when Goldie was nearly three, pressing her nose up to the glass at the aquarium down in Long Beach.  There was wonder on her face at all the different colors the fish came in and then “What’s your name?” she asked the little girl who happened to be standing next to her.  I’m talking about two years ago when Bun-Bun taught Miss T how to ride a two-wheeler up at a campground in Santa Barbara, and I’m talking about last night when all three girls rolled their eyes and looked the other way when their mom sang “Boom Boom Pow” at the top of her lungs as she jumped up and down with her fists in the air.  I’m not claiming that precious moments don’t happen here at the house.  They do.  But more often than not, I’m the mean mom at home, the naggy one, the short tempered one, the kind of mother who kids don’t call everyday when they’re all grown up because that mother was a big, fat drag.  It’s no fun being that mother.  They know it.  I know it, and I know a whole lot more.  I know that for a few more years, I should still be the bad guy and order them out of the house for field trips to parks, playgrounds, concerts and culture because I’m still batting eight out of ten.  And pretty soon, no matter what I say, they won’t go with me anywhere for a while and they’ll notice things by themselves and find out truths and secrets without me.

I’m sure that’ll be one of the saddest days of my life (and possibly one of the proudest).

Perhaps a hula-hoop initiative.

I don’t know, can we?

Our run was gentle this morning.  The quads are still stiff from Sunday but it felt great to get out and move around.  Wendy and I obviously had to share with each other our thoughts on the health care bill and its passage.  I don’t think either one of us could contribute uniquely to the discussion.  We’re pleased as punch and wonder, as do others, what’s next?

Over coffee at the local café, where the neighborhood gathers like it’s Mayberry, our healthcare conversation eventually found its way to obesity.  A friend of mine sent me an email the other day titled “Walmartians”.  It was a cruel look at sartorially challenged individuals shopping at Walmart, most of whom were overweight.  I laughed because I was by myself looking at the photos and the captions were clever and I can be as mean and immature as the next person.  There was nothing funny, however, about the reality of what I saw.  A lot of people shop at Walmart.  It’s safe to say Walmart customers represent a cross-section of the American public and safer still to conclude that Americans could stand to lose a few pounds.  I don’t want to say we’re fat but…

President Obama takes on health care reform and signs HR 3590 into law yesterday.  There was celebration, champagne, a tangible sense of accomplishment.  His wife, Michelle, decides to take on childhood obesity.  What the hell is she going to be signing next year?  The broccoli bill?  The aerobics act?  The happy lungs law?  (Remember, I love alliteration.)  Why do wives and mothers seem to always take on more of the tasks that are thankless?  Whose rewards are so delayed as to be elusive?  Because we’re masochists?  What is it?

I’m not entirely sure where I’m going with this, but I know the fight against obesity in this country, and its success or failure, directly affects the bottom line in health care costs.  Citizens far and wide easily jumped on the “no smoking” bandwagon and now it’s illegal to light up anywhere except perhaps on the roof over your garage, if the prevailing winds are less than 13 miles per hour, and the nearest child under 19 years of age is further than 225 feet.  How hard would it be to outlaw portions and packaging that lead directly to thunder thighs and spare tire midsections?  I’m wondering.

When I was a kid, McDonald’s French fries came in one size.  (Have I mentioned that I’m older than I want you to think I am?)  The golden arches introduced large fries in the early 1970s, coming in at 3.5 ounces, which was still a smaller portion than their Medium size is today.  My favorite junky snack food was (and still is) Doritos, which came in little bags containing about one-quarter the amount of chips they now sell in individual sacks at 7-11.  Of course, we’re personally responsible for what we consume.  Most people are overweight because they eat too much and exercise too little.  But food manufacturers are hardly helping.  Profit driven, their “schemes” to make more money involve the consumer buying larger servings than is necessary.  These out-of-whack portions are creating the unhealthiest generation this country has ever seen.  Thirty-two percent of children in the United States are overweight or obese.  During the 1960s, the percentage was less than one-third of that.

I realize I was supposed to talk about “American Idol” and Sandra Bullock, but neither of those topics came up this morning.  Obesity did.  Michelle Obama could use our support.  There’s no law we can create to legislate how much a person eats, but surely there must be some sort of economic pressure we, as a society, can put on manufacturers to make normal-sized portions attractive and affordable.  Hell, Congress just passed Health Care Reform!  Yes we can!

Okay, seriously, tomorrow I’m going to tell fart jokes.

My cup of Jo this morning.

I’m Irish.  I explained that all last week.  I was late meeting Wendy this morning because I was busy slicing three loaves of soda bread, one for each of my daughters’ classrooms.  They’re proud to be Irish today, though I’m not sure they know what it means other than wearing green and proudly explaining their first names to people.  If you don’t know me or my children, go ahead and guess what their names are.  Hint: all three suggest locations of the Emerald Isle.  (Duh.  Goldie, Bun Bun and Miss T are not what’s on their birth certificates.)

On our journey this morning, after Libi made me feel like the most important person alive, Wendy and I spoke mostly of the impending marathon, a mere four days away.  (She’s meeting me to run the last eight miles.)  The logistics are worth training for in and of themselves.  How do I get to Dodger Stadium?  (Practice.)  Where should Beth park in Hollywood with the girls to cheer us on?  How do they get to Santa Monica from there with the street closures and then where the hell do they leave the car?  How do we get back to the car once the race is over?  How do we get Wendy back to her car?  What if I get a side ache at Mile 7?  Should I wear my contacts or my glasses?  What about shorts?  Do I get a new pair?  Ponytail or hair down?  Michigan hat or the cute, pink ESPN one?  Can’t forget sunscreen.  It’s supposed to be warmer than I’m comfortable with.  What if I get sick?  It’s been known to happen.  Clip the toenails.  Do we have enough Vaseline?  I need to get to bed by ten for the rest of the week.  What if I don’t?!  Should I start carbo loading now?  Have I ever stopped carbo loading?  Why aren’t my legs thinner with all this running I do?  Should I spray on a fake tan so the gams don’t look so white in the photos?  I should wear my contacts.  I’ll look cuter and probably younger.  The husband wants me to carry my iPhone so, with Loopt, we can keep track of each other during the route.  (He’ll be several miles ahead.)  Do I want to carry my iPhone with me?  My SPIbelt works pretty well for that.  Wendy said she’d carry it during the last part of the race.  What should I eat Saturday night?  Sunday morning?  This afternoon?  What about my left foot?  What about my right foot?  Why did I sign up for this?  How much Irish soda bread is too much?  Should I take my driver’s license with me in case I get lost?  How would that help me find my way?  Is there a compass on the iPhone?  Any chance I can beat Shia LaBeouf?  Doesn’t his name mean ‘beef’ in French?  Will I see Carey Mulligan along the way?  I can tell her how much I loved her in “An Education”.  Maybe she’d run a few miles with me.  What if the lines for the portajohns are too long at Mile 11 and I really, really have to go?  I hope that guy who always runs in a waiter’s uniform and carries a tray with a bottle on top doesn’t pass me.  Wendy mentioned someone dressed up as a tomato during the Jimmy Stewart Relay Marathon years ago.  What if he runs and passes me?  What if it takes me until Monday to finish?  Why are my thighs still touching?  I should have Beth bring Pepto Bismol for the finish.  I should’ve done more sit-ups.  I should eat a banana right now.  How much water is too much?  Why can’t runners park at Dodger Stadium?  Why do we start the race at 7:24?  I wish I was “elite”.  They start at 7:07.  Purple is my favorite color.  I wonder if I can find purple running shorts before Sunday.  What if I can’t?!  Should I run Saturday, or put my feet up?  I hope I don’t get a caffeine headache at Mile 22.  There’s a Starbucks near 26^th and San Vicente at Mile 23.  Maybe Wendy could run ahead and get me a half-caff with room.  Why did I sign up for this?!  I’m exhausted.  I don’t think I can run it.  Maybe I can.  I should.  I can eat everything I want to after the race.  What should I eat?  It’ll be like I’m high as a kite and everything will taste excellent.  I’m definitely running.  I love all the freebies they give you in your race packet.  I hope I get some of that Gator gum so I can give it to the girls.  Oh, and Power Bars.  Who buys Power Bars?  I hope I’m one of the first thousand women to finish.  I remember when my running goals were so much loftier.  I remember when I was younger.

I have to go lie down.

But first, I have to put Dorina Allen’s Stout with Beef recipe in the oven.

May you be poor in misfortune, rich in blessings, slow to make enemies, quick to make friends. But rich or poor, quick or slow, may you know nothing but happiness from this day forward.

Again, sláinte.

My two friends were available to pinch hit today for Wendy, who was previously engaged.  How convenient that their names provided continued alliteration.

Helen has a daughter.  Harriet has two sons.  I have three girls.  While we don’t always talk parenting as we’re huffing up the hill, it dominated the conversation this morning because there’s a lot going on presently.  Here’s what we came up with:

Parenting is hard.

If you have children already, you know we speak the truth.  If you’re thinking of procreating, keep this thought on a Post-it-note inside your head.  It’s not meant to scare you, nor deter you from populating the earth.  It’s a statement like “there are no guarantees in life”, offered as a suggestion for managing expectations.

There are volumes written about the difficulties that parenting presents.  I’m certainly not going to cover a whole lot in one post.  But every now and again, circumstances dictate it as the focus of my every thought.  Am I doing it right?  Are the girls happy?  Do they know the golden rule?  I was pleased to learn at the dinner table last night that, in fact, they do.

For Helen, control is a big issue.  She’s worried she inflicts too much of it in her daughter’s life but believes it’s the least, and the most, she can do.  Parenting involves too many invariables.  Why not control what she can to possibly alleviate some of the intensity of what she can’t?  I get this.  I always say that our children’s lives will never resemble our own.  We were allowed freer reign, jumping on bikes with friends to roam the neighborhood.  “Just be home by dark,” our mothers asked.  There was little heli-parenting, few mothers and fathers who hovered and knew all we know today about the minutiae of our child’s life.  And yet, crime is down.  Abduction statistics clearly indicate that getting hit by lightening is as likely to happen to our son or daughter as being abducted.  It doesn’t matter.  The media has given us Elizabeth Smart, Jaycee Lee Dugard, Polly Klaas and, more recently, Chelsea King and Amber Dubois.  Who cares about statistics?  We won’t let our children walk by themselves anywhere.  We can control that and most of us do.  But what about the Internet?

Parenting is hard.

There were no home computers when we were kids.  If we wanted to communicate with our friends, we either called them on the phone or went to their house.  We covered a lot at school and some of us were scolded for talking during class.  But there was so much to say!  The occasional passed note, intercepted on its way, got us in hot water, but the damage was contained.  The word “viral” only existed in medical terms.  Today?  The Internet is the bane of every parent’s existence.  It is not the only curse.  That PG-13 rating really tangles things up, but the computer is a minefield: full of information and entertainment, both educational and deadly.  Access to it MUST be controlled (as well as the ability to text) and that’s where parenting gets really, really hard.  Really, really.  I might well spend years on my oldest daughter’s naughty list because I won’t let her bring her iTouch into her room with her at night.  I have an overwhelming need to be liked, but when it comes to the kids, my needs won’t always be met.  The cyber world makes my job much more difficult than it was for my mother, but what’s the alternative?  Surrender?

Parenting is hard.

Harriet has an adolescent son (and a pre-schooler).  By nature, boys and men aren’t quite as loquacious about their feelings as the opposite sex.  They really are from Mars — not a bad thing, only different.  Harriet’s dance with her sons will not be exactly like mine with my daughters.  But the golden rule applies to everyone, and the first line of defense against the cruelty that life sometimes dishes out is the parent.  We teach our children by what we say and what we do.  How many times did we have to tell our kids to say “please” and “thank you” before they said it by themselves?  Ten thousand?  While I don’t mean to oversimplify the challenges we face now and in the future as our children grow, repeating the golden rule over and over, in terms both obvious and subtle, isn’t such a bad place to start (and continue).  It doesn’t have to be biblical, as in the term “do unto others…”  A simple “treat others as you want to be treated” works just fine.

I’m not a doctor, nor have I ever played one on TV.  I’m a mother who sometimes grabs onto an idea like a dog with a bone.  I didn’t make up the golden rule, but it’s good medicine.  Given twice daily, every six hours, might improve your child’s health.  But still…

Parenting is hard.

(No, their real names are not Helen and Harriet.)

For some tips on parental cyber education, www.yourcec.org is a great place to start. 

A classic.

At 7am this morning, even Libi the dog didn’t feel like getting up to greet me when I arrived at Wendy’s.  After an obligatory stretch, we set out slowly.  I’m still recovering from my last long run (20 miles on Monday) in anticipation of the marathon on March 21^st.  The quads are still tight, so I’m dreaming about a hot bath tonight after the girls are in bed.  Does anyone care about any of this?  I’m not even sure I do.

Marco gets better every time I see him.  His nasty sense of humor is intact, which is good and bad.  He’s so smart, it’s often been tough to keep up with him, though since recovering from his brain injury, I’ve had the upper hand now for over a year.  That seems to be coming to an end.  What’s fascinating and complicated about Wendy and Marco’s life today is one question.  What now?  It’s not a simple question – quite the opposite.  It’s loaded with philosophical implications and practical considerations.

Again, we talked about family as we headed up our long hill.  Wendy’s parents are retired.  My mother will be soon.  My siblings are going through “empty nest” syndrome, and Marco is trying to figure out his days.  They’re all asking, to one degree or another, “what now?”  Mostly, they’re figuring it out as they go along, to varying degrees of success.  Whether it’s a job change, a traumatic brain injury, children who leave home, I’ve often thought how I would answer that question myself at any given point.  What now?

Yesterday was Dr. Seuss’ birthday and today, Miss T and her classmates celebrated with a chapel program dedicated to Mr. Geisel.  There was talk about favorite Seuss books and one boy chimed in that “Oh, the Places You’ll Go” was the best.  What did we give as graduation gifts before this book was written?

With banner flip-flapping,

once more you’ll ride high!

Ready for anything under the sky.

Ready because you’re that kind of a guy!

The first time I read this book (given to me after a graduation, natch), I cried.  I’ve read this to my daughters and cried.  I listened to that seven-year-old boy claim it was his favorite book and I got a lump in my throat.

But on you will go

though the weather be foul.

On you will go

though your enemies prowl…

…On and on you will hike.

And I know you’ll hike far

and face up to your problems

whatever they are.

The life transitions that some friends and family members are going through right now is heavy stuff.  I’m observing.  I want to learn.

You’ll get mixed up, of course,

as you already know.

You’ll get mixed up

with many strange birds as you go.

So be sure when you step.

Step with care and great tact

and remember that Life’s

a Great Balancing Act.

The balancing part is tricky.  Don’t you agree?

Next: something shallow and trivial for Thursdays in the kitchen