When Will You Make an End?

My daughter just had her braces removed and got to bang a gong at the end of the appointment. The gong is huge and hangs in the busy offices of the team of orthodontists who have been managing my kids' orthodontia needs for an unexpectedly long time.  

Orthodontia - not exactly the painting of the Sistine Chapel, but close.

That's how it is with orthodontia sometimes. Your kid starts treatment and you have no idea how long it will take, and the orthodontist doesn't know much more than you. 

I'm not blaming anyone for this except the teeth. Teeth are unpredictable, hard to tame little beggars, and both my kids had problems with the same renegade tooth - tooth number 12 if your were viewing it on a dental chart or in a criminal lineup. 

My son still has his braces, his situation complicated by a sledding accident in which his right central incisor was broken off above the gum line. At the end of every appointment the technician briefs me on the progress - or lack of it. Again, this is not the fault of the orthodontia treatment, and in this case the blame is shared by tooth number 12, the right central incisor, and the sled.  

"So, how long do you think it will take?" I ask. "We really can't tell," they say. It is a similar exchange to that depicted in The Agony and the Ecstasy, the 1965 film about the painting of the Sistine Chapel. When Pope Julius II, anxious for Michelangelo to wrap things up, demands, "When will you make an end?" Michelangelo barks back, "When I am finished!"

I am a powerless pope in an orthodontics office filled with Michelangelos. I didn't need the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel painted on the roof of my kids' mouths, but it turns out that getting your kids' teeth where they belong is a goal almost as tricky to achieve.  

It was definitely worth it.

I started worrying one day when I watched a video in the waiting room depicting proper oral hygiene for the orthodontics patient. It seemed a bit involved and my daughter is the two-minute brush and you're done type. I imagined the bands coming off to reveal a mass of worms crawling in and out of each tooth, but as it turned out, my worries were unfounded, and my daughter's teeth were gorgeous. 

Seeing her new smile in the car mirror.

Still, my kiddo didn't really want to bang that gong, partly because she was turning twenty-one by this time, and partly because everyone looks up, claps and cheers at the noise. Since kids with braces live vicariously through the kid whose braces just came off, and their parents live vicariously through the parent of the kid whose braces just came off, I always sensed a whiff of resentment in the air whenever the gong was struck. Still, we had earned our gong moment, and I wanted all those people in the waiting room to resent us. I explained this to my daughter and just happened to add that she would be more embarrassed if I were to bang the gong for her.   

I wonder who got to bang the gong when the Sistine Chapel was finished, Pope Julius II or Michelangelo.

Tales of the Unexpected

Sometimes a snappy retort is welcomed and sometimes, not so much. Sometimes what comes from a loved one's mouth in our time of need is not what we expected to hear, and sometimes what comes out of our mouths is not what our loved ones expect either. 

Syd and Jon at that retort-ish stage.
Photo by Teece Aronin, all rights reserved. 

A few winters ago, during one of the worst winters on record, as huge swaths of the U.S. suffered through a polar vortex, I left work at 4 p.m. to take my son, Jon for an allergy shot. Then we hit the post office, tried to find our way back to an ice cream shop we like (I have no sane reason for that in the midst of a polar vortex), got lost, gave up on the ice cream shop, picked up my daughter, Syd, went to the store, then pulled into our apartment house parking lot four hours later. Everyone was a little on edge because the weather was truly awful. We sat in the car, dreaded getting out, and then I snapped.

"Great! We've been driving around for hours and now the whole evening is shot!" Jon looked over and said, "Mom, it's just one night out of thousands in your life. It's okay." I complimented Jon on being so wise. When we got out of the car, the wind hit us smack in the face. It felt like fistfuls of razor blades hurled by an unseen sadist.

"Oh, maaan!" Jon wailed. "I forgot I have to walk the stupid dog!" Watching him hustle up the walk, miserable from the cold, I called after him, "Jon! It’s just one night out of thousands in your life!" He flat-out ignored me and kept walking. I apologized later because using a child’s words of comfort against him is a low thing to do, but I was exhausted, cranky, and after all, it was a polar vortex.

One day, after I got rear-ended and my back was killing me, I asked Syd to bring me a glass of ice water and some ibuprofen. I was still a little loopy from a pain pill I'd had earlier, so as she handed the pills to me, I said, "Oh, thank you. Having you was such a good idea. Now I'm extra glad I did."

Syd smiled placidly and replied, "I'm not sure if you getting high on pain meds is a good idea. Kind of scared of what you'll say next.”

If I had thought she would say, "Aw, Mom, I love you," I was mistaken. 

This same kid sat in a high school classroom one first day of school as a girl came in, crying. Syd didn't know her, but she got up from her desk, walked to the girl and asked what happened. The girl explained that she'd just been bullied. "Do you need a hug?" Syd asked. The girl said she did, so Syd hugged her then stepped back and quipped, "Who do you want me to beat up?" I expect that show of support to her classmate will get her off the hook with the Universe for what she said when she handed me my pain pill.

Being a later life parent has its challenges but rarely do you expect them to come in the form of age-related sarcasm from your own kids. I was crossing the room one day when Jon, lying on the floor watching TV, reached out and wrapped his arms around my ankles. I smiled down at him, expecting an affectionate remark. What I didn't expect was, "I got your legs! Well, not exactly - maybe in another 40 years!"

Jon was an experienced quipster by that time, having tried out his early material on his grandmother when he was three. He was sick and I left him in the car with my mother while I ran into the pharmacy to pick up his prescription.

"Grandma," he said, "I'm gonna throw up."

"Just a minute, Jon," my mother said, scrambling around and searching for something he could vomit into. It took a minute, but she came up with an empty fast food bag, got out of the car using her cane, opened his door, leaned in and heard, "But not today."

Could there ever come a time when thinking of those moments with my kids won't make me smile? Maybe.

"But not today."

Certainly not today.

Laura Done Died

For years I've had a love affair going with old-time radio. Shows like Suspense, The Jack Benny Program, Inner Sanctum Mysteries, Your's Truly, Johnny Dollar - they all transport me to a place where my imagination does the work - if you could call it work. 

Image copyright, Teece Aronin

And because radio ruled for decades, my mind dances to places where Art Deco might have been new-ish, as could Colonial furniture, or Mid-century modern, and atomic design motifs. I love it all, and somehow, those decades seem safer - until you factor in for things like the Great Depression, Jim Crow, World War II, and the Cold War. Damn reality.  

I wish my kids could slip away into these shows like I can; I listen to them in my car on Sirius XM, where a host named Greg Bell airs them in what feels to me like something close to Heaven 24/7. My kids are politely tolerant of the Way Back Machine I'm running out of our dashboard, and they typically plug into their phones when I'm listening to these shows. 

Last Saturday my son was at a sleepover, leaving my daughter and me to what we call our "girls' nights." These girls' nights aren't what you might imagine. They're usually us ordering pizza and binge-watching shows like Buzzfeed Unsolved, Will & Grace, and the show we're currently crazy about, the "re-imagined" One Day at a Time. 

But sometimes on girls nights, we like to take drives in the country. We sing along with the radio at the tops of our lungs or I listen to my vintage radio shows while she plugs in to something newer. We still talk off and on, but the backdrops are these two different worlds into which we've chosen to escape while I drive. 

So after Syd and I dropped Jon at the sleepover, we set off for the open road. There was a big moon, a clear sky, and unusually warm temperatures for late January. All these elements combined to give me a kind of contentment I don't usually feel. I was all wrapped up in an episode of Inner Sanctum hosted by the cheeky Raymond Edward Johnson, and Syd was plugged in nice and snug, listening to music and texting. About halfway through the episode, she piped up and commented on the fate of one of the characters: "Laura done died," she quipped.

My heart soared. Could it be my darling daughter was, dare I say, listening to my radio show? Note that I say "my radio show" as though I were Jack Webb. I decided to encourage her and played along.

"Don't be too sure of that. These shows have a way of misdirecting you. You might get a surprise!"

In the end, even Raymond was surprised - surprised and disappointed by what proved to be a total lack of murders and how there wasn't "a drop of blood spilled all evening." Had this opportunity to engage my daughter in a sliver of my world just fizzled? After all, she had grown up under the shadow of the Twilight series and others of its ilk. This show - the ending anyway - might have been a letdown. After a few minutes, I asked her. 

"Syd, did you get into that story at all?"

"Sorry, Mom, not really. Except for that one little part, I didn't even hear it. My friend, Juliana texted me then started a group chat where she introduced me to someone she thought I'd like. That person ended up liking me, but I didn't feel the same way. It was a whole big mess. I was trying to get out of it without hurting anybody’s feelings. Now I’m totally drained."

And not even by a vampire. I stared at her, my mouth open.

"All this happened just now? You got fixed up with someone, went on a blind date, got to know this person enough to know it wasn’t a fit, and then broke it off - all on the phone and all inside an hour?

"Yeah. I guess I kind of had my own drama going on."

We drove home and binge-watched Netflix. Syd still occasionally fiddled with her phone - probably nailing down a four-year degree, getting married, and having my first grandchild - all at the same time.

Feeding the Christmas Beast

I've had an epiphany: Christmas is a bit too commercialized, and some of us spend a bit too much.

Christmas Beast, copyright, Teece Aronin

Every January I start budgeting to feed the Christmas beast, the tinseled, bulbed behemoth already lurking at the end of the year. Christmas, for a lot of us, has become akin to a fluffy white snowball rolling toward us down a mountain, getting bigger and bigger and badder and badder, until it rolls right over us and stops. Then we're expected to dig ourselves out and start pushing it back up the mountain again.  

But the good news? Every Christmas you have the next 364 days to do it - if you start right away. It's like a pinball game automatically resetting and demanding $700 from you for the privilege of losing again.

Then there's online shopping which is great in a lot of ways, but not so great in others. For instance, it's still surprisingly hard work. Nothing tightens up those shoulder muscles like opening an email from Amazon alerting you to the fact that your order of 47 items was cancelled because your "payment method" has expired, and you try to straighten things out on a glitchy cell phone while waiting in line at UPS and pushing two 40-pound boxes along with your feet. 

I don't think this is how Christ would want us to celebrate his birth.

Another thing I doubt is that he'd want us giving children hundreds of dollars worth of presents they'll be too polite to say they hate, but you can tell they do anyway. This sad circumstance sets us up to discover vast Christmas gift graveyards that sprawl under kids' beds and bone piles of unwanted toys that lie heaped in their closets. What a waste. 

As my kids got older (my son is 17 and my daughter 19), it all changed, but not for the better. Instead of telling me what they wanted, or handing me a list, they would text me links to things, mostly tech products with purposes I didn't understand, things that Oppenheimer would've asked his mother for if he'd been a Millennial. And I don't blame my kids; it was a natural outgrowth of what we'd come to as they got older and more tech-savvy and I shopped more often online. Having them do that actually made my shopping a lot easier. Easier, but somehow colder.  

Today I'm pledging to kill the Christmas beast by refusing to feed it. I'm not alone, by the way. Lots of people are cutting way back on the amounts of gifts they buy - even for their kids. And some people have stopped buying their kids any gifts. If an article I read recently is true, Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher are two of them. Many parents now opt for gifts requiring more time and imagination than money, like  buying a kid art supplies and then committing an afternoon to making art with said kid. 

Also according to that article, some kids, and even some adults, have gotten pretty testy during the adjustment/withdrawal phase, but a lot of families feel their lives are on a healthier track now that they're doing things differently.

When I told my son what I was thinking, he said he could really get behind it. When I mentioned it to my daughter, she said, "I think that's a good idea, but can I think about it?"

I said, "Nope, you're already handling it a lot better than some people, so I'm taking your answer as a yes."

Besides, it's not as though I plan to go all Kutcher-Kunis on them. What I'm thinking is $100 each in presents plus treats and surprises spread throughout the year, like an afternoon playing my son's computer games with him then dinner at his favorite restaurant.

The idea is to give more from your heart than from your wallet and to give your kid a memory because those can't get lost under a bed.

Then again, if you saw my kids' rooms . . .

Giving Christmas the Old Heave-Ho-Ho-Ho

Those of us who celebrate Christmas are coming down to the final turn with just eight days left until the big day. Or the big show. Or the “really big shoe” as Ed Sullivan used to say. More appropos might be “the really big stocking.” At this point, however, many of us are ready to give Christmas “the really big boot.”

Until December 26, a lot of us will be losing it a little, and some of us have been losing it for quite a while already. About a week ago I looked down at my hands and realized that when I removed my nail polish the night before, I had overlooked my right thumb. Its nail coated in chipped “Santa Suit Red,” the thumb gazed balefully at me, pleading, “Don’t leave me this way.”

I wondered: Do other women fail to take the polish off some of their nails? The next morning, a coworker flashed the backs of her hands at me. Seven nails had the polish removed and three did not. Most definitely an observer of Christmas, I thought.

On Christmas Eve, years ago, one of my gal pals was coping with her first Christmas as the single mother of a toddler. Blowing her bangs out of her eyes, nose dusted with flour, she was baking cookies, wrapping gifts, screwing toy ovens together and bathing her child - all simultaneously thanks to the six temporary arms single mothers grow during the holidays. When a friend phoned to invite her to a Christmas Eve church service, my friend exclaimed, “I just don’t have time for Jesus tonight!” If Mary had said that on the first Christmas Eve, Christmas, as we know it, would have even more baked goods in it.

Maybe it’s because my children are older now, but I am much calmer these days at Christmastime. Gone is the pressure from telling a four-year-old that I was sorry, but the present he wanted was too expensive, only to have him say, “Don’t worry, Mama - Santa can get it for me.” Long past is the night I rocked my daughter in my arms, both of us in tears because I failed to understand that she didn't "really want the truth about Santa."

Today, my children are nearly grown, so if they suggest I make cheesecake this year, they won't be too disappointed when I lovingly point them to the kitchen, and if I do happen to be a little frazzled, text them the link to a fudge recipe.  

Christmas Trees Aren't as Innocent as They Look

Getting a Christmas tree up gets many of us down. It’s enough to make even the most placid souls ditch cutting down a tree in favor of cutting up an elf.

Image copyright, Teece Aronin

My father suffered the agonies of the damned every time we put up a tree. It was as if the tree had it in for him and had taken it upon itself to avenge every Christmas tree everywhere, along with a couple of poorly maintained topiaries. My father tried to show the tree who was boss, swearing at it in curse words more colorful than a birthday bash for Katy Perry. Then my mother would say things like, “Honestly, Kenneth, the kids." And my father would say things like, “Well, by God, it’s time they grew up!”

One year, after I'd grown up, I became not only a single parent, but a single parent who was the only obstacle between my kids and their dreams of the perfect Christmas tree. Even before my divorce, I was more or less on my own Christmas tree-wise because my ex-husband is Jewish and has cerebral palsy, so he might as well have been permanently exempted from Christmas tree duty twice. He would giggle, salute, and say, “It’s your holiday, not mine.” Then he'd be off to wherever it is Jewish husbands go when they don't want to help shikza wives put up Christmas trees. 

Another complication with which many of us cope when putting up, and keeping up, a Christmas tree, is pets. Pets have been known to make or break a Christmas tree. They make them by lying peacefully beneath the trees, like contented lambs or break them by - well - breaking them. I'm in a few cat-lover groups on Facebook and am amazed by the number of photos I've seen of cats nestled among the boughs of their humans' Christmas trees. 

When I was about 13, the tree my father put up taunted him by leaning, no matter how many times he re-screwed it into its base. As a last resort, he secured the tree with twine tied to a picture hook in the wall. In the middle of the night, our dog took off after our cat and both dashed behind the tree. The tree-trunk, weakened by all the screwing and re-screwing, snapped, along with the twine, and the tree landed in the middle of the sofa bed where my brother was sleeping with his wife.

One year, my kids and I had a tree that started falling apart as soon as I got it up. Within days, our carpet was so buried under dried out henna-hued needles that it looked like the floor of Donald Trump's barber. It took weeks after we got rid of the tree to truly get rid of the tree. 

By the following year, the kids were old enough, yet naive enough, that I could stick them with most of the work. Now that they're in their late teens, I pretty much sit back and supervise. But I'm noticing something interesting, that every year as they put up the tree, they curse just a little bit more. 

But in a way, I don't mind; it makes me feel closer to my dad, rest his soul. 

Rabbit Ears

When I grew up in the sixties and seventies, we had about seven television channels, and switching around within them was a breeze. Today, TVs are "smart." My TV said right on the box that it was smart, but I attribute this to the fact that smart TVs are often arrogant and boastful. Being complicated, difficult, and frustrating doesn't make you smart. 

Bunny Ears, copyright 
Teece Aronin.

Since our purchase of a smart TV, I have witnessed my kids hopscotching between Hulu, Netflicks, and YouTube and using a "streaming stick" to stream shows from other places. Sometimes they needed our game-pad to get to what they wanted to watch. When I was young, the most technically advanced procedure we might have to perform in order to watch TV was adjusting the rabbit ears or switching from UHF to VHF. 

When remotes first hit the scene, my aunt had a neighbor who would get up from her chair, cross the room to where the remote was kept on top of the TV, change the channel, then return the remote to the TV top and sit back down. In that case, the TV wasn't smart and neither was its owner.

I need at least one kid handy when I want to watch TV because I'm dumbfounded by all the equipment needed to watch one simple television show. In my defense, even my son referred to one of our recent TV tech add-ons as "that cable thing we just got." 

Last night both kids were going to be away so my daughter, Syd got me all set up to watch HGTV. She was going out the door when I asked how to change channels. Syd said, "I'm sorry, Mom, but I think we'll have to wait until I have more time." 

Then she left me all alone with nothing to keep the TV running but its smarts and mine.

The first thing I noticed is that the audio was out of sync with the video and that the video was ahead. My son tells me this is because we have a cheap internet service provider. Eventually the show I was watching shut down altogether and a message appeared on the screen saying: "Due to inactivity, playback was stopped to save bandwidth."

I sat bolt upright, with my bag of chips and yelled, "Whadda ya mean inactive?" Was I supposed to be talking to the TV? My father used to yell at ours when watching Hockey Night in Canada, but it didn't seem to improve his viewing experience and anyway, I would have thought those days were gone. If the TV was so smart, why did it need help from me?

After Syd got home, we wanted to switch to Hulu for Parks and Recreation, and it was another big process just to do that. I watched wistfully as her little fingers danced around all the stuff and like a miracle, Parks and Recreation came on.

"Syd, do you think you can teach me how to watch TV without help?"

"Oh, sure, Mom," she said. But she said it like I'd just asked if I could ever learn to build my own spaceship, and she didn't have the heart to tell me it was hopeless. 

Due to Budget Constraints, No Sardines Will Be Purchased Until Tuesday

I have a budget, which is big talk from someone without any money. But now that I have a budget, I'm counting on the money to follow. 

Graphic: Copyright, Teece Aronin

My budget is calculated by taking each bi-weekly paycheck and setting aside at least half of what I need for each fixed monthly expense. Then I pull out what I need for groceries and personal care expenses for the kids and me and put it in envelopes. This keeps me on the straight and narrow and curbs the temptation to buy three shoes instead of two - you know, like people do. 

Sticking with a budget also means sticking to your guns. When the kids beg, "Please Mom, can't we have cake and chips for this weekend?" I calmly explain that they must then decide what they are willing to give up: toilet paper or heat. Notice the flexibility I employ in my willingness to dip into the fixed monthly expenses allotment in order to buy the cake and chips as long as they are prepared to sacrifice a bit on their end. I think this helps them to better appreciate the value of a dollar and to respect their mother's financial agility. 

If nothing else, they know that a woman with budget smarts and determination is in charge and that gives them a sense of safety when it comes to money. 

 My own personal finance hero is a woman I know who double checks the cost of what's in her cart before getting into the check-out line. If she's over budget, she swaps out or puts back items until she's at her limit again. She doesn't feel depressed or deprived over it because she knows the greater good is being achieved by being in control of her money. 

Being careful with my expenditures allows me to funnel more money into my vacation and entertainment accounts, and the kids appreciate that too. No more staying in independently owned hotel franchises with no elevators, no coffee and no door locks. This summer we'll be checking into a Holiday Inn, baby, and won't it be fine? 

Ah yes, the best is yet to come. 

The Long Arm of the Law

What do Matt Dillon, Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp and my mother have in common? Each could put the fear of God into any gunslinger, or in the case of my mother, into her runny-nosed, mercurochromed, wisenheimer kids every time one of them lipped off at another. None of us would have dared lip off at Mom. 

You could be in any room in our house and my mother could rap you in the back of your head from any other room in the house, and not take so much as one step in your direction.

You'd be standing in the middle of the living room basking in the glow of having just called your brother a sticky stalactite booger, Mom would be in the kitchen and WHAP.

She could bounce braids with one of those four-fingered love taps, love taps that seemed devoid of any love short of the kind in Scared Straight. These raps in the head never hurt, but they got our attention. And in truth we knew she loved us with everything she had.

Eventually my brothers and I resorted to experimental methods of insulting each other hoping to fly under our mother's radar.

We tried whispering our insults upstairs when Mom was sweeping the sidewalk . . . and WHAP.

We passed notes to each other in the basement while Mom was in the bathtub and . . . WHAP.

We coded messages to each other using secret decoder rings while Mom was next door having coffee and . . . WHAP. 


I wish I could describe to you what these encounters with our mother looked like, but it's a little like that problem people have after near death experiences when they find human speech wobbly, puny and inadequate to the task of describing something so astonishing.


One day, years after we'd grown up, my brother was driving somewhere with his kids, my mother, and me. My little nephew was on the driver's side in the back seat and my mother was on the passenger side up front. Then my nephew said something of which my mother disapproved and  . . . WHAP. My nephew never saw it coming.

"Whoa! What was that?" he yelped, not hurt, but surprised.

"That son," said his father, "was the long arm of the law."

Defending Facebook: My "Charmed" Life

If Facebook gets you down, makes you feel your relationships, your family, your furniture, your holidays don't quite measure up, or if you think everyone on there is a shallow bunch of fakers, please understand: You aren't privy to everybody's backstory. 

On one of many road trips back to see my mother. 
Photo copyright, Teece Aronin

I post pictures of my kids baking cookies as the dog watches with flour on her face. I make sure you wake to photos of my cat, stretched in feline repose across my bed. I choose pictures that show most cheerfully or poignantly or humorously how well my kids and I get along.

What you don't see is everything that came before, like a tsunami crushing our lives. Life fell apart, and what you see on Facebook is the repair work, the reassembly, the cleanup - with me, the mother, who never knew a damned thing about how to do any of this - as team captain by default.

There was the end of a marriage to the man who fathered these children, who helped build a home only the most tangled of crossed stars could destroy and did. There was me scrambling to find a better job before our house sold out from under us. There was me networking in two different states, first the kids' home state and next mine, to find that job. 

There was the kids having to leave their father. There was the kids having to leave their grandmother. There was me having to leave my mother when I'd always planned to be there as she aged. There was the night before we left when she broke the "no open flame" rule at her assisted living facility, lit a votive, and joined hands with us around the flame. Then she spoke with a smile of how grateful she was that we had been near her all those years and how she would pray for our trip to be safe.

Then there was the 500-mile move away from every warm thing my kids had ever known.

There were the months on end where I swore I was piloting the kids through hell only to learn that they were guiding me. There were the endless kindnesses of family and friends who took us in, shored us up, and gave us hope.

There was Facebook, which became a way to document the restoration. The place I laid our trips to cider mills and pickle festivals and county fairs as though they were flowers and Facebook was an altar. 

It was a place where the Facebook friends who truly knew me tracked our progress and supported the effort, and where those whose newsfeed I clogged, viewed the work, neither knowing nor caring that there was any work in it.

It was the place I showed off my new sofa with framed Rothko prints hung perfectly level right above - and where at least five nail holes hid behind each print even though I measured. It was a place where few knew it took five years to save the money for that sofa because I was terrified of credit card debt. It was somewhere just a handful of people were aware that the sofa's predecessor had belonged to my aunt, was chewed up by our dog, and that the prints came from a thrift shop and cost $12 each.

I, who loved to write and aspired to be a blogger, developed my "voice" on Facebook, found rhythms for my words, and learned how good it felt when my posts made people laugh. It was a place where my friends nurtured the writer sapling until it was strong enough to launch that blog. 

Anyone who didn't know me well might have thought: 'What a great little family; I wonder what happened to the marriage.'

For the record, the marriage was lost in the tsunami.

But I had Facebook where I documented our trips to see my mother and my ex-husband, where friends could see how well he and I worked together for the sake of our children, and everyone could wonder just how much was exactly as it seemed. 

Imelda's Doghouse

My dog, Hope keeps swiping my shoes and I have a theory as to why. I think it’s resentment over my refusal to buy her any shoes of her own. Now, I have two children to buy shoes for and blessedly, they only have two feet each. This makes buying shoes a much more reasonable proposition than buying shoes for them plus Hope who, like most dogs, has four feet. If I'd wanted to buy that many shoes, I'd have had two more kids.

Not only would buying Hope shoes blow my budget, I would have to find shoes designed to fit those four ugly paws she has. And I'd have to take her shopping where we'd have the issue of her prima donna, Imelda attitude and her constant flip-flops (sorry) over whether the shoes on her back feet should match the shoes on her front or if she should go for two different styles.  If Hope thinks she’s so smart, she should impress me by asking for just one pair and then learning to walk on her hind feet.

Sometimes Hope doesn’t flat out steal my shoes; sometimes she just “borrows” them. Case in point: when she "borrowed" my sandals and had that picture up there taken at Glamour Shots. And we still don’t know how she got to the studio because Hope can’t drive with shoes on.

But anyway, back to the swiping issue. Whenever the kids or I come home and let her out of her crate, she springs out, woofing and howling in what she expects us to believe is delight over our safe return. And I fell for that canine con-job for a while, but have come to suspect it is actually a release of pent up anger over having spent the day in the clink combined with her rotten attitude about the whole shoes thing. 

And she wouldn't have to spend the day in the clink if she hadn't chewed up the sofa when we were at the movies one night. Granted, it wasn't the newest sofa, and it was plaid. Maybe Hope's not Scottish - or maybe she hates plaid. Anyway, as she’s running around like this, feigning happiness, she darts into my room, grabs one of my shoes in her mouth and dashes around the apartment with it, stopping every few seconds to give it a little chomp.

Despite my best efforts to snatch back the shoe or to remember to just keep the bedroom door shut, I now have at least five half pairs of shoes. I didn’t think there was any such thing as a half pair of anything, but now I know there is; there are half pairs of shoes. And where she’s stashed the missing shoes is a complete and utter mystery. I’ve looked under the bed, behind the chewed-up plaid sofa, and even in my closet which with Hope’s lack of opposable thumbs you’d think would be off-limits. Maybe the cat let her in.

I don’t know, I suppose Hope could be right. Maybe I should buy her some shoes. Maybe if I do, my missing ones will mysteriously reappear the next morning, with telltale doggie drool still drying. 

No, on second thought, I refuse to be bullied by a dog who, if it weren't for me would still be at the pound cooling her unclad heels.

Hope, hear this: I’m mad as heck and I’m not going to take it anymore. I want my shoes back now and I want you to ixnay on the “orrowing-bay.” 

Chew on that, why don't you?

If Sr. Martha Was Right, My Kids Are a Real Snooze

I am the parent of two of the brightest candles on the cake, two of the sharpest knives in the drawer, and two of brightest bulbs in the marquis of motherhood. These future captains of industry, United States presidents, Nobel Prize winners, or better mousetrap builders are, in my humble opinion, destined to accomplish great things. Why, just look at their picture!

How is it then, that these two mothers of invention (Sydney, age 15 and Jon, age 13) can’t come up with one simple plan to alleviate their occasional run-ins with boredom? Why is it their mother, not nearly as clever as they, who is expected to come up with the solution?

Jon actually had the audacity to tell me one day that he was so bored, the only thing keeping him awake was the discomfort he felt from being bored.

“Read,” I suggest to them. They say. “Nah.”

“Let’s go for a walk,” I offer. They say, “We don’t feel like it.”

“Go do something together,” I urge. They gasp, “Yuck!”

One day, after an exchange very similar to those above, I shared with my offspring what Sr. Martha used to tell us back in high school: “When you’re bored, you’re boring,” she would say.

As I quoted Sr. Martha to the kids, I thought how cleverly I was throwing the ball back in their court. Throw a ball; no, they'd shoot that idea down. Skeet shooting; hey, how about that? “Too loud,” they’d complain.

Even Sr. Martha’s retort, enough of a verbal slap back in the day to straighten my friends and me right up, was met by my youth of today with sullen, unfazed silence. If Sr. Martha was right, and Sr. Martha was always right, then my kids can be a couple of real snoozers. 

Though their boredom is neither my responsibility nor my fault, I am endeavoring to come up with a list of activities guaranteed to blast out the bilge of boredom and restore the busy bee buzz that happily engaged kids generate. Following is the list I’ve come up with so far and I can be ready to implement it at a moment’s notice.

Mother Teece’s Boredom Busters:

• Make water balloons and use them to play dodge ball.
• Paint each other’s faces with washable markers.
• Groom the cat - a friendly and patient cat (or dog) is required for this activity since trips to the E.R. do not constitute good boredom busters. 
• Script and then shoot a movie using their phones, laptops or cameras.
• Make a house of cards.
• Visit an elderly neighbor and offer to help with errands or yard work.

Now . . . following is an alternate list that I often wish I could trot out. I call it:

Mother Teece’s House of Horrors Boredom Busters

• Force your children to sit through every Barney, Blues Clues, and Dora the Explorer episode you had to watch with them when they were toddlers.
• Make plans together for you to ride the bus with them to school, then coordinate your outfits just to make the trip more fun.
• Hold hands with them and skip past the basketball game the kids up the street are playing.

Granted, my real list isn't very lengthy, nor, you might argue, as inspired as my alternate list, but I plan to keep working on both until they're as long and as priceless as the Mayflower Madame's client register combined  with Heidi Fleiss' little black book. 

Other parents no doubt can come up with even better ideas than these, but if they're ever feeling stuck, they can borrow my list. EITHER ONE THEY WANT.

How to Properly Socialize Your Infant

Though we usually got along well in principle, there could be a bit of head-butting between my former mother-in-law and me. When my daughter was a year old, the chief issue was my mother-in-law's concerns that I hadn't gotten out of the house enough since Sydney was born and that it was probably because I was depressed. Further, she worried, if I wasn't getting out enough, then neither was Syd and that meant the baby wasn't being properly socialized. 

Syd, seen here a few years older,
learning what a plate glass
window looks like.

I disagreed but who was I other than one of the two parties in question and the mother of the other?

But it was stunning how quickly we called a truce when the family patriarch, Grandpa Sid (my mother-in-law's father) announced that he was taking the family on a cruise. 

There were quite a few of us going, too. In addition to Grandpa Sid, my mother-in-law and I, were my father-in-law, my sister-in-law, my then-husband, Michael, and Grandpa Sid's caregiver. 

Michael and the baby and I spent the night before departure at his parents' and while hugging her, Michael accidentally bruised his mother's rib. I reminded her unhelpfully that love hurts. 

The next day, my father-in-law handed us the matching t-shirts he'd had made with embroidered nautical motifs and the cheerful little message: Grandpa Sid's Family Cruise. There was even an extra-tiny version for the baby.

That first night on the ship, I was alone with Sydney in our cabin. She was having trouble falling asleep so I stepped onto the balcony and held her - not like Michael Jackson held his baby on a balcony, but silently and gently. Together we watched the moon reflected in a crooked jag across rough, slate-colored water. Hushing sounds from the waves, breezes kissing her face and the lilting motions of the ship put the baby right to sleep. 

Dinners on the cruise were extravagant, and Sydney was dressed like a princess for each one. One night we were served by a dignified waiter of mysterious national origin who reminded me of the late actor, Brock Peters. When my mother-in-law blew razzberries at Sydney, he dryly inquired, "And who's the baby, madame?" The waiter's question reassured me that my theories on infant socialization might be almost as sophisticated as my mother-in-law's. 

One afternoon, we all disembarked for a walking tour and my mother-in-law was excited that Syd would finally see the sun. She took turns with my father-in-law pushing the stroller, the entire time saying, "Look, Sydney! That's what a cloud looks like!" and "Look, Sydney! That's what a horse looks like!" and "Look, Sydney! That's what a manhole cover looks like!"

Then, either she or my father-in-law lost their grip on the stroller, and Syd began a speedy decent down a grassy embankment, all of us chasing after her. Faster and faster, she rolled until the stroller smashed into a chain link fence at the bottom of the hill, a loud ka-ching signaling the end of her ride.

By the time we caught up to her and took a good look, we saw that she was no worse off for the experience and seemed to have actually enjoyed herself. 

"See, Sydney?" I said, pretending to mash my hand into my face. "That's what a chain link fence looks like."

Then my mother-in-law, much to her credit, began to laugh, and her laughing made me laugh. And we laughed together hard . . . until we had to stop because it made her bruised rib hurt.