Last night Darling Hubby and I were out running errands, and I commented on the fact that the world’s population has hit the seven billion mark. Earlier in the week, we had discussed news stories that as recently as in 1800 the world population just topped one billion. In less than 130 years, it had doubled. In just the last 12 years, the planet added another billion residents, and some scientists estimate that 10 percent of all of the people who have ever lived are alive today. Such numbers have sent my head spinning and sent me into periods of pondering the implications for the future and for my kids.

However, Darling Hubby summed up the implications best last night when he said, “And you just KNOW that every single one of those bastards are going to end up in line at Disney World.’

I’ve been struggling lately with the concept of enough when it comes to the kids. We are back in the maelstrom of back to school and facing a barrage of requests for our collective time, money and energy.
This year, both ladies are participating in weekly hip-hop classes, after school art and after school science club. In addition, Cat signed up for viola, chorus and volunteering in the classroom of the developmentally disabled kids. Each activity requires a time commitment both for the activity and additional practice, numerous checks, and lots of energy to support.
On top of that, there is the school booster fundraiser, the birthday book club program, book fair, classroom volunteer time, and field trips, now complete with two background checks.
Oh, and there is the year-end dance recital, complete with two days of performances, mandatory ad purchase in the program and costume costs. More checks, more stuff for the calendar.
Cat’s chorus group has the opportunity to perform in the Philadelphia Thanksgiving Day parade – for the investment of more money and time during the holiday week. Break out the checkbook and the calendar again.
Still, I felt we were riding the activity waves fairly well until the big one came along. The girls’ dance school announced that the school is participating in an event at Walt Disney World next summer wherein the girls (and about 998 other dancers) can perform in a parade at the Magic Kingdom. Upon hearing of the opportunity, the girls went wild. “We’ll be FAMOUS,” Cat yelled. “Maybe a Hollywood producer will be in the crowd and will see us and will give us a show and you can represent us Mommy,” she continued.
“Honey, I hate to break it to you, but it will likely be hot fat tourists from Indiana and Illinois who watch you while eating an ice cream,” I replied.
Fanning away reality like a pesky mosquito, she was undeterred. Hearing that the costume involved sparkly red shoes sealed the deal – she wanted in. Her younger sister, normally more reticent to participate in group activities, was even more excited.
“On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being that you will die if you can’t do this, how important is this to you?” I asked.
“Eleven,” she promptly responded. “This is the opportunity of my lifetime.”
If we go, and it is still an if at this point, it would mean more checks, more time, lots more energy. Though I am a known Disneyphile, even I am generally not insane enough to go in late June. It will be hot. It will be crowded. It will be expensive. The lines will be insane. We would be using a substantial portion of our vacation time and budget to go stand shoulder to shoulder with other pudgy tourists, sweating like hookers in church, in order to try to pick out my two in a crowd of 1,000 red sparkly-shod hoofers marching down the middle of Main Street, U.S.A. That doesn’t sound magical. That sounds maniacal.
This is merely the latest parental quandary in nearly a decade of choices. Bottle feed or breast feed? Day care or not? Private school or not? How many activities lead to a well-rounded child and how many lead to exhaustion? Summer camp or not? Tutoring or not? Disney on vacation or not? Family trip or runaway with a good book and a swim-up bar (and maybe Darling Husband, if he promises not to need or want anything).
Like many parents, I ardently want to give my children the world. I want to give them everything they want and more. I want to give them everything I had, and much much more. I want them to have opportunities that weren’t available to me. Yet, I also want them to understand the value of hard work and that you can’t always get what you want.
Where is the line? What is enough? What is the right amount of activity, advantage, and sacrifice to the interest and whims of tiny people with boundless appetites? Where does Good Mother stop and martyr begin? Does a good parent give their all and more in support of their child’s developing interests or does a good parent teach limits?
When is enough, enough?
I don’t know yet what we will do about the Disney parade. We need to decide soon but I can’t worry about it tonight. Tonight we have viola practice, test prep, homework and a special project that is due tomorrow. And for tonight, that is more than enough.

Every now again, a friend will pay you a compliment so genuine and unexpected that it makes you laugh and touches your heart at the same time.

I received a kind message in response to my last blog post from a dear friend and former neighbor who has celebrated some of my greatest joys and calmed some of my biggest fears. Her message was sent at the end of a string that she had sent two years ago about a dinner party I was planning. Just like the day I received it, it made me laugh out loud.

While she may not be Mark Twain, I thought her wit should be shared nonetheless: “One of the brilliant things about our friendship, I think, is our willingness to challenge the capacity of each other’s liver.”

Cheers.

I have a confession to make. Up until this year, I did not enjoy my children.

That’s right. For the first nine years of my motherhood experience, I didn’t enjoy much of it.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my children. Completely. Utterly. Devastatingly. They are my north, my south, my east, my west. They are, without a doubt, the center of my universe.

It’s just that, until fairly recently, I didn’t enjoy them and my role as their mom.

Some back story is clearly in order here. I was never going to have children. I had resolved early on that I was going to stay single, maybe get a dog and devote myself to my career. Thanks to a boatload of early childhood trauma courtesy of my biological mother and stepfather, the kind that make Augusten Burrough’s childhood look like “Father Knows Best,” I resolved that I would not have children and hence would not risk inflicting the kind of harm on someone else that had been inflicted upon me.

I made it to age 29 with my plan pretty much working, except that I had two dogs instead of one. But I was childless, which to my mind meant that no child would have the affliction of me as a mother. I was certain that I was a carrier of the “Mommy Dearest” gene and hence it was best for all concerned that I did not procreate. I liked children. I loved my friend Karin’s daughter Kate and found her enchanting. But because I loved children, and because I was certain that I was fundamentally defective, I decided not to have kids.

The plan worked great until my dad’s birthday celebration 10 years ago when a combination of ribs and too much Pinot Grigio overcame my better judgment, and my then-fiance and I engaged in the requisite acts that resulted in a positive pregnancy test a few weeks later. Darling Hubby to Be was ecstatic. I was petrified. The first time I threw up was not from morning sickness; it was from terror.

I spent my entire pregnancy in a panic. We had copulated without me being on prenatal vitamins. Certainly I had hurt the baby as a result. I drank Cokes. Certainly I was hurting the baby. We discovered that I was a carrier for cystic fibrosis. Certainly I had doomed her to a difficult life due to my faulty genes. I didn’t follow the “What to Expect” diet regime. Clearly she would be starting life at a deficit.

Darling Hubby likes to tell the story of the first time we ventured into Babies R Us just to get the lay of the land. We had been in there about five minutes when I started to feel hot all over. Then I started to feel dizzy. Then I went into a full-blown panic attack followed by a crying jag right in the middle of the store. If I recall correctly, I ran to the ladies room and vomited. He still looks back on that incident as “sweet” because his interpretation of the events is that I cared so much about being a good mom, that it left me feeling overwhelmed. I look back and remember distinctly the feeling that the Boppies, and sterilizers and bottles and other baby supplies were there merely to highlight my complete ignorance and lack of preparation to be anyone’s mother. How could I be a mother when I didn’t understand how a Diaper Genie worked? The baby could get cholera because I couldn’t figure out the damn thing.

It became worse when Cat was born. From the moment I looked at her, I was fiercely determined to protect her from all harm, real and imagined. My quandary was how to do that when clearly the biggest threat was me. I had no maternal instinct. I had a poor initial role model. I had post-partum depression and a high stress job and no clue at all how to be a good mom to her. I desperately wanted to be one; I just had no idea how to do it. I read dozens of books and articles but failed to find one that covered, “How To Be A Good Mom When You Are Fundamentally Deficient.” My only certainty was that my good enough was nowhere near good enough.

And hence, I would blindly stumble forward, doing my best and then hating myself because my best didn’t measure up to my self-imposed standard. I didn’t breast feed and then took that as Exhibit A in the indictment of myself as Bad Mommy. I went back to work after six weeks of maternity leave. Exhibit B. She had colic. Exhibit C. I gave her cereal in her bottle to help her sleep. Exhibit D. She refused to sleep on her back so we let her sleep on her tummy. Guilty on all counts.

Somehow in the midst of all of this self-loathing, I became pregnant again. My deficiencies didn’t double, they seemed magnified by an order of 10. Now, I was doing everything badly in stereo. Now, my desire to do right by the girls was doubled, but my failures were quadrupled. I was a serial offender now. Two children were afflicted with the life sentence of being my daughters. I would sometimes wish for my own early death so that they would be paroled early.

And hence another seven years went by. I decided that if I couldn’t BE a good mom, I could mimic one. And so I threw myself headlong into trying to do all of the things that good moms did. I read to them every night. I would try to smile when they puked on me. I filled their closets with the cutest clothes I could find and their rooms with educational, safe, age-appropriate toys. I sang Wiggles songs until I wanted to be struck dumb and listened to other kids tunes until I was sure my ears would bleed. I only sent in sandwiches cut in fun shapes. Every waking moment of every day was spent in service to giving the girls the best life possible and protecting them from me.

Every moment I spent with the girls, I spent second-guessing myself. God forbid that I had an actual human reaction like yelling or becoming frustrated. I was sure that those were signs that I was ruining them. Whatever I did, I was sure was wrong, or could have been done better, or should have been done cheerier. I loved them as much as I hated myself.

As you can well imagine, one can only keep up that pace of activity and self-loathing for so long. Eventually, something has to give. First I tried meds, but I felt like a bad mom for needing them. I tried exercise but felt like a bad mom for taking time away from the kids for myself. I tried just crying it out but I felt guilty for needing to cry it out given how fantastic and lovely and spirited my girls were. After about 7 years of white-knuckle parenting, I started therapy.

Fast forward to a recent conversation with my therapist, Todd, a kind, mellow, patient guy. We have spent over two years now talking through my magazine rack of issues and he recently said something that hit me like a thunderbolt. We were talking, yet again, about how I didn’t want my girls to have the same kind of childhood I did. I was telling him (again) about my anxiety-fueled determination to ensure that their experiences did not remotely mirror my own.

And then Todd said something to me that changed my life. “Tanya,” he said, “You are standing on the shore of a placid lake. The sky is blue. The weather is warm. The waves are lapping gently on the shore. All is beautiful at the lake. And you, my friend, are marching up and down the beach scanning the horizon non-stop for a tsunami that you are sure is coming but that will never arrive. You can end the patrol any time. The tsunami isn’t coming.”

I thought about his analogy for a few weeks. I realized that before I was 5, my parents were divorced. Darling Hubby and I will celebrate our 10 year anniversary this fall and he appears to have signed on for a lifetime mission (clearly he has mental health issues of his own). By the time I was nearly 10, Cat’s age, I had lived in at least 7 different addresses and had attended four different schools. The girls have had only two addresses, the most recent for five years and have attended two schools – their preschool and their current school. By the time I was Cat’s age, I had been exposed to cult members, domestic violence, sexual abuse, and mental illness, to name a few. The girls live in a bubble of annual trips to Disney, swim lessons, sleep-overs, and doting grandparents. Their definition of a traumatic event is not having televisions in their bedroom.

In looking at the differences between the worst of my childhood and the worst of theirs, it dawned on me, for the first time, that maybe, just maybe, their lives were this good, not in spite of me, but maybe because of me. Maybe, just maybe, I was able to take the best from my childhood – my Dad and his irreverent humor and focus on education, my Grandma Alice and her unconditional love, my now-Mom, Liz and her willingness to let me make purple cakes and paint windows at Christmas, my friends who told me I was funny and lovable, and others who helped me to survive and thrive- and pass that on to the girls. Maybe I didn’t poison them by exposure to me. Maybe I have strengthened them by it.

And when I realized, at long last, that my children’s lives are not worse for me being in it, and in fact that maybe they are better for it, I was finally able to exhale and enjoy being their mother. I know now that they have stability, they are connected, they are much-loved and they are flourishing.

Will they need a Todd of their own someday? Probably. But, they will also have me, their Mom, with them every step of the way, and now we can actually enjoy the journey together.

I was shoveling out Cat’s bedroom this evening and came across a bin of Barbie dolls. All but one of the dolls was completely naked, including the lone male doll, an extremely well-developed park ranger doll given to the girls a few years back by their grandfather. The bin looked like a Barbie orgy had occurred with clothes strewn everywhere and all of the dolls looking disheveled. There was even a Barbie bikini top laying across a Barbie lamp.

Lately, the girls have engaged in the time-honored tradition of locking themselves in their rooms and whispering and giggling loudly while they simulate one of the Barbies and the lone male engaging in relations. I know they are doing this because I walked in on it once (they never remember to lock the entry from the bathroom). They looked up, slightly embarrassed and scared until I said, “Barbie and Ken are getting funky like monkeys, huh?” Then I put away the laundry and left.

I’ve wondered since then if I should have something more, or different. I’ve had “the talk” with the girls at various points. It’s more of an on-going conversation. I’ve explained the basics and from time to time they ask for clarification or additional information. Hence, I didn’t interrupt Barbie and Ken’s romp for a teachable moment.

Anyway, this evening I was looking at the Barbie debauchery wondering at what age one explains orgies to one’s daughters and deciding that I am too young for that conversation. I also realized that my parents are apparently too young for the conversation as well and that I am perfectly fine with that. Grimly amused, I started dressing the dolls but then stopped when I noticed something even more disturbing. The boy doll was missing half a leg. The bottom half was in one of the Barbie purses.

Simulating Barbie sex is one thing. Simulating Barbie as a brutal murderer is something else entirely. I could just hear Darling Hubby’s lecture on how this is all due to the fact that I let the girls watch “Law & Order” reruns with me from time to time (never SVU or Criminal Intent and never when the crime is against a child – just your garden variety NYC homicide, and in my defense, I try to shield their eyes from the actual killing if I can time it right.)

Go ahead judge me harshly, I deserve it. I should have known things were out of hand when Bubba, our Rottie, accidentally killed Sparky the hamster, and they asked if we could put crime scene tape around the playroom. They also asked if I would defend Bubba in court.

Cat wandered by, checking my progress on unearthing her room and pulling me out of the conversation I was having in my head with Child Services. “Cat,” I said, “What happened to the boy doll?” I asked. “Tate broke it while we were playing by accident,” she said. “Well, you know I don’t think I can fix this based on how it broke,” I said.

“Don’t worry about it Mom,” she replied. “We have already issued him a service dog, so it’s all good.”

I laughed and returned to the pile of clothes on her bed. Apparently, at age 9, “Dogs 101″ has had more of an impact on her imaginary world than “Law & Order.” Now I am just waiting for the news that Barbie and Ken are expecting puppies.

It has started.

I knew it was coming. I actually hoped it would happen. But I guess I wasn’t prepared for it to happen today, in this way.

Up until now, Cat and Tate, ages 9 and 7 respectively, have shown an appropriate amount of sibling rivalry. I say appropriate amount, though truthfully I have no idea what is normal in this regard as I have no siblings. I am an only child and on my dad’s side of the family an only grandchild and hence my experiences with sibling rivalry involve me competing with various canine “siblings” through the years. I usually came in second to Lynnhaven though I was less high maintenance than Bobby Lee.

Until today, Cat and Tate have jockeyed for the position of favorite child using the passive-aggressive tools that are apparently embedded in the X chromosome. For example, Tate will say at dinner, “Don’t I have such wonderful manners, Mommy? I sit up straight and wait until everyone is seated,” she says smiling broadly and cutting her eyes pointedly toward Cat whose face is smeared in barbecue sauce. Or Cat will come up to me and give me a hug and pat my shoulders and say, “I’m sorry that Tate doesn’t sleep well Mom. It must be so hard on you.”

Until now, though they love each other and get along well, when given the opportunity to throw the other one under the bus to earn brownie points with Mom or Dad, the opportunity was never, ever missed and frequently sought after.

There has, however, been a shift in the force.

Tonight, someone did something that violated a house rule. Without going into details, I didn’t know for certain who the culprit was but I had a strong suspicion based on history that it was Tate. I called the ladies in front of me and then asked who the offender was.

“Not me,” said Cat.

“Not me,” said Tate.

“Well ladies, there are only four people in the house today. I know it wasn’t me, and I know it wasn’t Daddy. Logic dictates it was one of you. Don’t compound the problem by lying to me,” I said.

“It wasn’t me,” Cat said.

“I don’t remember doing it,” Tate said, suddenly deeply interested in our carpet and shifting from foot to foot.

I looked at them both for a moment, waiting for Cat to go ahead and rat out Tate. After about 30 seconds, Cat stepped forward. Literally.

“Mommy?” she began.

“Yes, Cat?” I said.

“It was me,” she said.

I stared at her for a minute. I was 99% sure she was lying and covering for Tate, but I couldn’t be completely sure because I hadn’t seen this happen before. I was in uncharted waters. So, savvy cross-examiner that I am, I blurted, “Are you covering for your sister?”

Cat stared at the floor and then said, “No Mom.”

Tate looked at her sister with an astounded look and then resumed looking at the floor. Apparently our carpet suddenly was deeply fascinating.

“I see,” I said. “Okay, well since you committed the crime, you serve the punishment,” I said to Cat. I sentenced her to collecting all of the inside trash in lieu of 15 minutes of Disney Channel. Tate started to help her, but Cat shook her head at Tate and said loudly in my direction, “It is MY responsibility since I was the one who did it.” She then whispered to her sister to go watch tv and to “look innocent.”

And so it has started. They are now forming an alliance of resistance against the evil empire and I apparently, despite my Princess Lea fantasies as a kid, am Lord Vader. In that moment, as I watched Cat take the blame for this petty offense on her younger sister’s behalf, I flashed forward about 10 years and saw the myriad ways she might do it again. And I shuddered.

I am proud that they have bonded. I am touched by their affection for each. I am amused that they are unaware of how transparent they are.

And I am so, so screwed as they perfect their techniques.

This is an actual conversation that just took place in our home:

Me: “Ladies, we do NOT put money between our butt cheeks.”

Cat: “Relax Mom, it was in an Easter egg.”

Me: “That does not make me feel better. We do not put Easter eggs between our butt cheeks either.”

Cat: “But I was just helping Tate with her homework. She didn’t want to do it so I jazzed it up.”

I am afraid to ask what the original assignment was.

Our family vacation in sunny California continues and I had a realization today that left me a little sad.

When we look back on this time, we will likely remember very little of it. We will remember the trip to Sea World, the zoo and La Jolla but many of the little things that made us smile will be forgotten, likely before we even get back on the plane. I think back on other trips we have taken and remember the big events, but the details are already hazy.

It’s a shame really because the details are probably the most accurate reflection of the trip. Our pictures will show us petting a pilot whale or feeding a sea turtle but we likely won’t remember our conversations and true reactions at that time.

To combat this photoshopping of our memories, I am committing to writing a few of the mundane details of this trip – to capture us as we are and not merely the glossy summary version. The unedited version of us is less pretty, and less appropriate, which is probably why I want to preserve it in the first place.

And so, here are a few things that will never make into our photo albums or post cards, but which I find worth preserving nonetheless:

1. On our vacations, we spend an inordinate amount of time discussing farts. Maybe it is because we are all in such close proximity with little respite from each other, but we are all highly aware of who farted, when and the quality and quantity of gas passed. It is especially noteworthy and highly discussed when Mom farts. This is the height of hilarity and newsworthiness for those aged 7 and 9. As Cat stated today, “You don’t do it often Mom, but when you do, you really make it count!”

Since we have eaten an inordinate amount of Mexican food on this trip, we are all eating a much larger than usual amount of refried beans. If we had to boil the trip to date to one catchphrase it would likely be, “Mom, I think my beans are starting to kick in.”

2. No matter where we are, or what we are doing, the children would rather be in the hotel pool. We have spent two and a half days interacting with a wide variety of land and sea animals, eating fabulous foods, and seeing amazing sights. Yet, the children ask us 30 times a day, “When can we go back to the hotel and get in the pool?” I am firmly convinced we can save thousands of dollars and a ton of aggravation if we just take the kids to the local Hampton Inn for a week every year and let them swim in that pool until they are waterlogged. If we threw in a few farts, they would have their ideal vacation at a fraction of the cost.

3. On this particular trip, the girls start every morning by performing a concert together in the shower. They suds up and then belt out Katy Perry’s “California Girls” at top volume. They take turns on who does the Snoop Dogg role. This morning, they performed “Baby Got Back” as an encore. Chris is sure that we are both going to hell as a result of the fact that this is how our lovely young ladies start their day. I am sure we are already in hell because the ladies also perform “California Girls” in the car, waiting in line, at restaurants and anywhere else it occurs to them to do so.

4. The most uttered word of every day is “Mom.” EVERY sentence starts with “Mom.” For example, “Mom, can you open this for me?” or “Mom, where are my water shoes?” or “Mom, I am hungry” or “Mom, sissy said something mean to me.” It doesn’t matter that Dad is standing beside Mom or that Dad is closer to the child or that Dad may possess greater experitse about the issue at hand. All questions, comments, concerns, complaints and grievances start with “Mom.” Hence I hear a lot of “Mom, who farted?” and “Mom, when are we heading back to the hotel so we can go to the pool?”

5. For Cat, 9, who is a tremendous dog lover, this trip has really been nothing more than a series of dog-sightings, interrupted by interactions with more exotic animals at Mom’s insistence. It started at the San Diego airport. As we were walking to the rental car area, Cat spied a Rottweiler who was at the airport to greet its returning owner. Cat was thrilled beyond belief when the Rottie squatted and peed in the middle of the airport parking lot. That event has generated more discussion than the zoo or Sea World. Yesterday, at breakfast Cat said, “Mom, do you remember that Rottie that peed at the airport? That was great.” Today at La Jolla Cove, home to wild sea lions and gorgeous sea lions, Cat was more intrigued with the chihuahuas and pitbulls that she saw walking by. As I was sitting on a bench, soaking in the sun and the beauty of the sea lions on the rocks, Cat yelled over, “Mom, come look. Quick! COME LOOK RIGHT NOW.” I started to run over and then stopped and asked suspiciously, “What’s up, Cat?” “A HUSKIE, MOM!” she yelled with fervor. “I just saw A HUSKIE.” I think instead of saying she say the San Diego Zoo, La Jolla, Sea World and Disneyland, Cat will tell her friends that she saw a huskie, a rottie, four labs and three chihuahuas.

Clearly, if either Cat or Tate became president, or a pop star, or a master criminal, none of these details would make it into their biographies. None of this is really noteworthy. And yet, I find myself collecting these memory snippets, like shell fragments on the beach, and wanting to take them home. These are the colors that won’t show up in the official trip photographs and yet these are the colors that make the moments golden.