image courtesy of: http://gemandjewelrydoctor.com

There are many aphorisms about aging, “Age is only a number” or “You’re only as old as you feel” or “40 is the new 30” etc. Call me old and cranky, but I hate them all! Of course, there’s truth to all of these sayings. But in the end, they just perpetuate the notion that youth is inherently superior and that admitting you’re old is admitting defeat.

So, yesterday was my birthday and I turned 42. The funny and not-so-funny thing about being a woman of a certain age is enduring the tired joke, “Happy Birthday! So you’re turning 21 again, right?”

The implication is that, of course, you’re either going to lie or refuse to reveal your true age. That’s a number that’s as closely guarded as your ATM PIN or the balance in your bank account.

Okay old folks (and by old, I mean anybody over 35 in our youth-obsessed culture). Let’s all quit lying to each other and to ourselves and just admit that we’re getting old, and you know what, it’s going to be okay! In fact,  I’d like to reclaim the word “old” in the way that gays reclaimed the word “queer” and convert it from a derogatory insult and into a rusting badge of honor.

Growing older is a privilege not everybody gets to have. There’s no greater tragedy than dying young. But almost as tragic, is mourning after a youth that’s all too fleeting and not living in the present or happily looking forward to the future.

Maybe I’m simply a late bloomer, but I honestly feel that youth is overrated. At least mine was. I’ve never felt better about myself physically and emotionally. I’ve finally lost the stubborn baby fat in my face (hello cheekbones!) and actually look like a grown woman instead of a child. Thanks to a grueling regimen of taekwondo, yoga and Barry’s Bootcamp, I’m in the shape of my life, even after three pregnancies, and I have not broken a hip.

I’ve been with the man of my dreams for twenty years and I have two brilliant and funny children who make me laugh hysterically every day.  I get to work from home as a freelance writer and blogger and set my own schedule. I’ve won life’s lottery, it’s true. But all of these accomplishments are the fruits of YEARS of daily grunt work – grueling, mind-numbingly exhausting, back-breaking, spinning around in circles, frantic, daunting and endless labor. Being a grownup can be stressful, frightening and disillusioning.

People act as if age is an expiration date or a best-by date on food. The fresher the better and they act accordingly. But some of the world’s most precious and beautiful gemstones are created by time and intense pressure. Diamonds are formed after years of crushing adversity in a dark place underground. Pearls are formed as a natural defense to irritants in an oyster. I don’t think people are any different. Even when precious gems are formed, they still need to be polished and cut to achieve their true beauty and well, these things take time.

Maybe someday we can have old pride parades to celebrate our oldness and chant, “We’re old, we’re bold, get used to it!” But until then, this “old” lady is just getting better and bad-asser with age.

Fun fact: Kids be crazy.

In fact, kids are famously “bipolar” little S.O.B.s and my mom friends and I used to joke that dealing with children is like hanging out with mini  mental patients – only without those super helpful strait jackets. Turns out that according to the new American Psychiatric Institute guidelines, if your child throws lots of tantrums, s/he could have “disruptive mood dysregulation disorder” (DMDD). This new diagnosis will be added to the new, updated version of the psychiatric handbook, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in May 2013.

According to The Huffington Post blog,”children who exhibit persistent irritability and frequent episodes of behavior outbursts three or more times a week for more than a year” could qualify for this diagnosis. Oh crap. Looks like I’m screwed because it sounds exactly like my hormonal tween son whose formerly sunny disposition has been turning annoyingly emo on me since he started middle school.

This trend towards pathologizing what was long considered developmentally appropriate behavior and overmedicating children isn’t going to make it any easier for children and their parents to learn how to regulate their emotions. Tantrums and mood swings are difficult enough to deal with, let alone worry that this means your toddler has some psychiatric disorder because he fell apart when you served him applesauce with the blue bowl instead of the usual yellow bowl. Little kids act all kinds of crazy and hormonal tweens and teens, even crazier. But guess what? That’s their job and it’s refreshing to see that kind of commitment to excellence from young people these days.

Personally, I think childhood and your teen years are really the only time in your life that you’re entitled to be crazy without REAL consequences. In fact, it’s your duty and right, before all those unfun, grownup responsibilities turn that youthful spontaneity into rigor mortis, to let your freak flag fly. I think our biggest issue is that NONE of us are encouraged to act “crazy” enough.

Links: Slate, Huffington Post

This Monday morning was the usual domestic version of “The Amazing Race” with my husband and I working as a team to get our sons out the door by 7:30 to get to their next pitstop – school. As I said my hasty goodbyes to them as they rushed out the front door, I was blindsided by an unexpected blast of intense love for them. The kind of poignant heart cramp that squeezes your insides like a gas pain and makes you stop and clutch yourself. Anybody who has ever truly loved another, knows that wrenching, sickening sensation. The  intensity of that kind of love scares the shit out of you because contrary to what the self-help gurus and wise yogis will tell you about practicing detachment and finding serenity within, I am resigned to the fact that my heart and soul has transferred out of my body and is split into two defenseless little boys who are out in the big bad world clad in tiny sneakers. My destruction lies in their sticky little hands and that’s a terrifying feeling.

But then it occurred to me that maybe we love till it hurts because we forget to leave enough love for ourselves. I am particularly guilty of this and so are the legions of other busy moms (and other busy, non-breeding grownups). As I mentally reviewed my to-do list, I realized that I would probably skip lunch yet again today and just snack on the run because I had too much to do. And then it hit me like a ton of bricks that I would never neglect a loved one the way I routinely neglect myself. Starve myself or skimp on meals to save time. I would be horrified if I caught myself criticizing, berating and mentally beating up a friend or family member for perceived failings (imaginary or otherwise) as often as I do to myself. I love my family unconditionally and maybe it is time I start doing the same for myself.

Novelist Anthony Powell once wrote, “Self-love is often unrequited” and as we all know, unrequited love just sucks. It is so painful not to have our awesomeness recognized by our beloved,  but how tragic is it when that person is yourself?

When an airplane is going down, the safety video always shows the importance of the grownup putting the oxygen mask on themselves first before they put it on their child. So today, I am strapping on that oxygen mask and taking some deep breaths. And I may even have lunch today. Baby steps.

Somehow, I missed Gwyneth’s 40th birthday yesterday and to rectify my oversight, here’s Refinery 29′s awesome, tongue-in-cheek homage to GP’s Top Ten Moments.

As you all know, Gwyneth is my girl. She is my #1 MILP (Mom I’d like to Punch) and for that, I am eternally grateful. Actually, I have very complicated feelings towards GP. I’m torn between having a horrible unrequited girl crush on her and hating her for being so narcissistic. It’s these dueling impulses of wanting to make out with her and/or throat punch her that makes me so angry. Regardless, I wish her many more glowing, age-defying years of smugness ahead where she can add more hyphenates to her increasingly multi-hyphenated status as mom-designer-chef-actress-singer-model-lifestyle guru-fitness freak.

When you’re hitting the birthday party circuit every weekend like me, chances are you are coming home with a bag full of future landfill. Not to sound ungrateful, but it’s usually filling-destroying, cheap candy mixed in with stickers, glow sticks and other developing-world-produced detritus that is destined to go right into the garbage. I’m not a hippy or an eco-advocate, but the sheer waste generated by the average birthday party has firmly cemented my anti-goody bag stance in recent years. And yet, I am not comfortable, breaking tradition with giving a little parting gift to guests as a thank-you-for-coming gesture. So over the years of throwing kiddie parties, I’ve tried different things.

ONE NICER GIFT VS. GOODY BAG OF STUFF

I’ve tried to downsize and get one bigger, item instead of a bag full of junk. It usually ended up being the same cost in the end. In recent years, I’ve done marshmallow shooters after Laser Tag parties or a mini golf club after a mini-golf party. After a Thomas the Tank Engine themed party, I wrapped bandana handkerchiefs around an engineer’s cap and attached it to a dowel to mimic a hobo’s bindle.

ECO-FRIENDLY GIFTS

In other years, I’ve gone the eco-friendly route and gave away a tree-in-a-box or a small Forget-me-not flower in a pot. But this year, I discovered these rad Lego Soaps from the Tub Time Shop on Etsy. You can customize from a wide variety of scents and who couldn’t use soap, right? These were a huge hit at my 6-year-old son’s birthday party last weekend and it’s good clean fun.

What do you get the birthday kid who has everything? How about an evil stalking clown? I’ll bet you didn’t expect me to say that. File this one under “I couldn’t make this sh*t up if I tried” category. But Dominic Deville, a Swiss actor,  is a professional evil birthday clown who (for a fee, of course) ominously stalks your child via text message and phone for a week leading up to the birthday party, warning them that they are being watched and that they’ll soon be attacked. After stalking your child for a week and scaring the spicy tuna roll out of him, Deville shows up wearing an evil clown mask and smashes a birthday cake in their frightened little faces

According to the blog post by The Huffington Post, this is meant “all in fun” and Deville promises to back off at the request of parents. How very reassuring.

If you’re the kind of parent that wants to ensure that your child suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and will lose bowel control every time s/he hears the Happy Birthday song for the rest of his or her life, you can go to www.evilbirthdayclown.com . Just make sure you add in the future therapy bills into the fee.

I know that this is all kinds of wrong, wildly inappropriate, totally twisted and I’d never inflict this on any child because I hate clowns. So why can’t I stop laughing about this? I’m a sick mother.

So what do you think about the evil birthday clown as entertainment at birthday party? Harmless fun or fifty shades of effed up?

Are You Mom Enough, Bitches!?

Just in time for Mother’s Day, TIME has a heartwarming issue which throws down the gauntlet in the never-ending mommy wars. My comments for TIME magazine at this time are simply, “Fuck you!”

Pardon my unladylike language, but the smug, hot mom breastfeeding a Kindergartener and the inflammatory challenge, “Are you mom enough?” is a calculated salvo (and a fuck you) directed towards all moms in the hopes of starting a world class cat fight. I’m a big fan of the “Hunger Games” but this dystopian society has nothing on the ultimate gladiatorial bloodsport that is modern motherhood. We can’t seem to get enough of The Mommy War Games as entertainment and pitting moms against each other so we can scratch each other’s sleep-deprived eyes out with chipped manicures over super important issues like breastfeeding vs. formula feeding or co-sleeping vs. cry-it-out. The best gift you can give a new mom is a hockey mask to protect her from the sanctimommies who are capable of cutting a bitch over the importance of using cloth diapers.

But unlike the “Hunger Games,” I’m not sure what the prize is at the end of all this mama drama except the dubious title of best. mom. ever. Yeah, congratulations on that.

In my utopian society, moms would recognize this magazine cover as a transparently divisive ploy to waste our precious energy fighting amongst ourselves and refuse to take the bait. They’ll refuse to doubt themselves with the question, “Are YOU mom enough?” As for me, I’m a deeply flawed, multitasking mom who spends way too much time on facebook and needs to serve more vegetables at dinner. But my kids are loving and loyal and they think I’m mom enough and in the end, that’s all I give a shit about.

So let the Ten Millionth Mommy War Games Begin! But the odds are NEVER in your favor.

I used to think making pills out of your placenta was deeply disgusting. But now I realize that was pure amateur hour when it comes to ingesting human flesh in capsule form. I wish this was an urban legend, but according the this piece at The Atlantic Wire, when these pills were seized by authorities and tested, they were found to be composed of 99.7% baby parts and super bacteria. Among ethnic Koreans living in China, these pills were intended as performance enhancers in the bedroom.  They also have another side effect: just reading about the pills works as an appetite suppressant. So if I’ve ruined your appetite for the day – you’re welcome. It is bikini season, after all.

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picnic table jeans

Multi-tasking moms, your denim prayers have been answered with the invention of the picnic table jeans. Whether you are at a mommy & me class or at the park, your beloved offspring can eat their goldfish or chicken nuggets right from your crotch from the cross-legged position. And from the standing up position, all that saggy material can probably hold loads of storage between your legs. Leave the diaper bag at home mommies! Oh, and you’re welcome.

(via Lucky)

As the mother of two sons, I am profoundly grateful that I will never have to step foot into an American Girl store and be surrounded by my worst nightmare: dolls. I’m not sure how this fear originated, but I have always been really creeped out by dolls, even as a child. The uncanny valley-ness of their plastic eyelids clicking shut just made my skin crawl. Even now as a grown-ass woman, I go out of my way to avoid the doll aisle at Target and hastily avert my eyes or change the channels if a doll commercial for Baby Alive comes on.

So when I saw this Creepy-Ass Dolls site and book via Creepy LA, I thought, “Yes! Finally someone understands!”

Although picking out Lego shrapnel out of my feet with tweezers isn’t a picnic either, at least I can sleep at night not worrying about a Lego minifigure possessing my soul in the middle of the night.