Revenge of the nerds

With my frizzy hair, AP course load and complete unfamiliarity with pop culture and fashion (I'd been overseas during elementary and middle school), I qualified as one of the geekier members of the Wakefield High School Class of 1994.

And while I'm definitely out-geeked by the first generation Korean-American science genius with the incredible growing jaw that Dr. Youn describes from his teen years in his memoir In Stitches, my success as an ad agency creative director with lovely curly locks is out-shined by his tremendous accomplishments as one of the country's best known plastic surgeons.

Dr. Youn opens his hilarious book with the moment that solidified for him why he'd chosen the right field: he was about to remove a fourteen year old boy's enormous man boobs and give the guy a chance at a normal life. It reminded the young physician of how his skill could change this guy's life for the better, just as his teenage jaw-reduction improved his.

I thought back, trying to remember a moment when I first realized being an ad creative was my true calling. I'm not sure any qualify as true watershed moments, but I recall spending days with my 6th grade friend Diane as we worked on a meticulously written and illustrated "doll catalogue." Then in high school I took a job working at a Hoohobbers boutique for children and I got such a thrill from designing the window displays.

Finally, I took a job as a promotions coordinator at an alt weekly right out of college. I loved putting together events and writing the ads and invites and collateral, but I didn't much like meeting with nightclub owners and beer reps and asking for money. Copywriting and creating without the responsibility of negotiating contracts...that's pretty much the life of an agency creative.


I received my copy of this book because I am a member of the From Left to Write book club. We don't write book reviews, but posts inspired by the book we've read.

May his memory be a blessing

The first 12 years of Blessing's life pass in comfort. Her father is loud and drinks a lot, but in her eyes, he is the lovable big man who swings her and her brother up onto his shoulders as soon as he returns home from his cushy government job.

Then her mother catches him in the arms of another woman and flees Lagos to move in with her parents in their primitive rural home. Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away  is the coming of age story of a girl uprooted, a family in turmoil and a country in chaos.

Seeing her father for who his really is--not the king of the family, but a flawed character -- a failure, really--is key to Blessing's initiation into womanhood.

And so relatable. I was 8 years old when my charmed childhood came to a screeching halt. Dad had an affair and my parents separated. I met the Other Woman. I hated her. I hated my Dad. Divorce was on the table.

Although my parents reconciled and the separation only lasted about half a year, my father's betrayal forever colored my opinion of him. I admired his charm, his professional successes and his smarts, but I couldn't shake the feeling that deep down he wasn't a good person.

My Dad died of a sudden heart attack 9 years ago this week. When loved ones die, Jews say "May his memory be a blessing," and my father's memory is a blessing.

A mixed blessing.

I received my copy of Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away as part of my membership in the From Left to Write Book Club. Instead of critical reviews, we write posts inspired by the book we've read.

The Happiest Working Moms

I'm honored and delighted to host today's stop on Meagan Francis' virtual book tour. I've known Meagan since the early days of the Chicago Moms Blog (R.I.P.), and in the years since, she's added a fifth child (her first girl) to her beautiful family, moved from the big city to a much smaller town in southwest Michigan, and shifted her writing career into overdrive. 


The Happiest Mom is not unlike Good Enough is the New Perfect--also just released--in that its focus is on not sweating the small stuff, something increasingly hard to do in this age of hyper-parenting. But while Good Enough is a fairly weighty read of interviews and research into the lives of happy (and unhappy) moms with demanding professional lives, The Happiest Mom is a light, cheerful book full of quizzes, tips and adorable illustrations. It's not unlike an issue of Parenting magazine (who partnered with Meagan to publish it) in that you can open it to any page and find immediate inspiration in the form of a helpful hint. 


In The Happiest Mom and on her blog of the same name, Meagan speaks to a broad audience of SAHMs, WAHMs, part-time working moms and full-time working moms, regardless of their academic or professional ambition. So I challenged Meagan to come up with her top tips for happiness for moms like me--those of us who are as dedicated to our career selves as we are to our children and have upended traditional roles to become the primary breadwinners for our families.


Even though I'm a working mom, in our household my husband and I have still stuck to fairly traditional gender roles...at least, on the surface. But like many families, we're slowly working toward a more equitable division of labor: both the kind that happens in the home and the kind that pads the bank account. 

And we're just one face of the changing modern family. Maybe in your partnership the roles have been completely reversed: you're working outside the home while he's caring for the kids and getting dinner on the table. Or maybe you're a single working mom, or both you and your partner work full-time outside the home. These days, there are almost as many different variations of work-life arrangements as there are individual families.

No matter how you and your partner juggle life, work, and kids, my "secrets" of happier motherhood can apply to you. Here are three I think are particularly relevant to working moms:

1) You don't have anything to prove. As a busy working-out-of-the-home mom, my sister Kathreen used to feel obligated to chaperone every possible school field trip and head up the PTA, just to prove she was really caring and involved. After many years of giving all her personal time to the school, she realized she was volunteering more out of guilt than because she felt really strongly about accompanying her child to the zoo...and as for the PTA, well, it was time to pass the baton. Lucky me--by the time I got to have school-aged kids, I was able to follow my sister's example and limit my volunteering without guilt. 

Sure, maybe some moms shake their heads behind my back because I don't appear to be as involved as they are, but who cares? I don't have anything to prove to anyone besides myself and my own family...and there are many ways to contribute that don't include a lot of classroom face-time.

2) Do what you're best at or enjoy most, and delegate the rest. I actually love to clean...a few very specific areas of my house. As for the rest? Between deadlines and a toddler hanging off my leg, there's no way I'd regularly get around to cleaning my own baseboards or dusting the ceiling fan blades. My solution is delegating. 

My kids and my husband pick up a lot of the slack, but because my husband also works and my kids are still pretty young, there's just no way we can do it all. So we have a cleaning person, Lynda, come in twice a month to do the real dirty work. Worried about affording her services, I did the math, and realized her pay is about the same as the cost of a premium cable package.

I ditched the cable and never missed it. On the other hand, I'd miss Lynda something terrible.

Cleaning is just an example, of course. From grocery shopping to cooking, from schedule-keeping to managing your finances, chances are good you'll do a better job of juggling if you delegate the stuff that brings you down or just doesn't seem to fit. 

If you can't afford to hire something out and it doesn't seem all that important, another option is just ignoring it. After all, will anyone really notice if your baseboards aren't clean? 

3) Deconstruct guilt.
"Don't feel guilty" is easier said than done. And I'm not totally anti-guilt: I think real guilt (the kind you feel when you freak out on your kid for no reason, for example) is a useful tool that can let us know when we are on the wrong path. But nothing gets in the way of making confident decisions and enjoying life like free-floating, non-specific guilt. Whenever I'm feeling vaguely guilty but can't quite pinpoint a cause, I ask myself questions like these:

• Why do I feel guilty? Specifically, what did I do or not do?
• Is somebody else's opinion causing this guilty feeling?
• If so, does that person's opinion matter?
• Have I actually harmed anyone?
• Will my child (or spouse) remember this in a month? How about a year?
• Is there anything I can do to make this situation better?
• Are there positive sides that I'm not looking at?

And so on. Usually I find that the more I start to deconstruct what I'm feeling in relation to what's actually happened, the less and less guilty I feel. Sometimes I realize I'm feeling guilt over something silly, and that even though I, say, forgot to turn in the Scholastic book order (AGAIN), it isn't actually doing my child harm. Other times I realize that even though my child might be sad or disappointed (say, because I'm going away for the weekend for work) that there are positive sides (a fun weekend with Dad or Grandma!) and that I can ease his sadness with some special together time on my return.



Is Meagan's advice amazing, or what? I want her to move back to Chicago and next door to me so I can hear this kind of stuff every day, in person, over a glass of Pinot Noir. The only piece of wisdom I have to add is that just because you're working full-time doesn't mean you have to devote 100% of your nonworking time to your family. Meagan touches on the importance of pursuing your own interests in The Happiest Mom, but I find too many working women feel guilty about spending one more hour away from their children and avoid joining a book club, volunteering, or joining a roller derby team. I'm hear to tell you that you can do all of the above. Just not if you care to watch television ever again.


Do you want to win a copy of The Happiest Mom? Leave a comment here or on Facebook with your key to happiness, be it something you do...or something you don't. I'll select a winner in a week or so.

Good enough is the new perfect: the book

It seems like the more I'm on my game at work, the less I shine at motherhood. And it isn't about time at the office versus time at the dinner table. I get home at a decent hour, but I've been so focused on ideation and creation and presentation that I seem to have misplaced my mommy mojo.

You see, Josh left to review a show last night and both girls were up late, fighting sleep and in tears two short hours after I was bragging about how easy they were to a prospective babysitter. And today I earned parenting demerits from Josh for making Buckeyes batter before lunch, for failing to get A to nap, and for letting the kids play at the park too long.

Good thing perfect parenting is overrated. In their new book Good Enough is the New Perfect: Finding Happiness and Success in Modern Motherhood (out April 19th), Becky Beaupre Gillespe and Hollee Schwartz Temple, the work-life balance columnists for the American Bar Association Journal, interview dozens of working women and comb through hundreds of surveys to determine what makes us happy. The answer, not surprisingly, is that the "good enoughs" among us are happier with our jobs, our spouses and our children than the "never enoughs." And while in our culture of perfectionist overachievers "good enough" is often interpreted as "you suck,"between the demands of our children, our jobs, our spouses and our own personal needs, something has to give. And it shouldn't be our happiness. Because you know what they say, if mama ain't happy, ain't no one happy.

Fortunately, I am happy. One of the hardest things about Josh and my gender-role reversal is I have to accept that--through practice and familiarity--he has become the more adept parent. He knows our children's routines and can read their moods better than I can. The bonus points I earned from breastfeeding and baby soothing (especially late at night) have long since expired.

My happiness comes from hanging up my supermom cape and realizing that my kids are thriving regardless of whether or not I'm packing every lunch, volunteering as room mom or watching them at swim practice. Not only that, I have obligations that take me away from my family multiple evenings a month. But I refuse to feel guilty about maintaining my friendships, nurturing my passions and staying fit. 

That said, I need to re-master the bedtime routine if I'm even going to qualify as a "good enough" mom.

Disclosure: I received a review copy of the book at no cost. I was not required to write about it and all opinions expressed are my own. 

Have you read Unbroken?

The story of Louis Zamperini, a ne'r do well kid turned Olympic runner who enlists as an officer during WWII, goes down with his plane and fights off sharks only to be further tortured as a POW in a series of horrific Japanese camps, is the focus of Unbroken, a newish nonfiction book by the same woman who wrote Seabiscuit.

My mom recommended it to me when she was last in town, and I suggested it to my book club, who gathered in my dining room to discuss it last night. I took a couple of photos before my guests arrived.


Note the new paint on the walls, the buffet I bought off craigslist last Sunday and the food. Emily set the bar high last time by serving a very English spread of shortcake, strawberries and homemade (!) lime curd for our discussion of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand. How was I to keep up when Louie spends three-fourths of the book starving. I couldn't very well serve filthy, bug-infested rice balls or raw shark liver, so I pulled from Louie's Italian heritage and offered working mom-friendly antipasto assortment courtesy of Whole Foods and Trader Joe's: Parmesan-Reggiano and Provolone cheeses, a beef salami, marinated artichoke hearts, olives and Josh's homemade crusty loaf. "Dessert" was strawberries and Hershey bars.

Reading this book while following the crises in Japan was disconcerting, to say the least. On the one hand, I was watching the media's coverage of the immense challenges facing the poor, unfortunate elderly Japanese citizens living on the northwest coast and being reminded of the horrors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. On the other hand, I was finally learning about horrors a very racist, brutal country inflicted on its neighbors and POWs 60 years ago and how Hiroshima could have been prevented had the Japanese not been so unwilling to accept defeat. All of us were surprised we'd grown up so well educated on the Nazis and the Holocaust and so fuzzy on the details of the Pacific front beyond the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

I recommend Unbroken without qualifications. It is a highly readable story about a truly inspirational character that gives today's reader a thorough education our war with Japan and a profound respect for the men and women of the greatest generation. At the very least, reading about the Louie's incredible trials (starvation, daily beatings, humiliation and torture) will put into perspective the relatively minor challenges we face today.

Now I'm the "experienced mom"

Once upon a time, I was a new mom too

This post was inspired by Teresa Strasser's hilarious and profane tell-it-like-it-is pregnancy and childbirth memoir Exploiting My Baby, which I read as part of the From Left to Write Book Club.


Six years ago, Z was 3 months old and I was heading back to work. I'd spent weeks nursing her through DVD-watching marathons of Gilmore Girls and The O.C., and while I was nervous about leaving her two days a week at our neighbor's home daycare, I was even more freaked out about those other three workdays, when my child was going to be cared for by Josh--proud parent, but utterly inexperienced when it came to caring for babies and children.

Our next-door neighbor Sharon was my (and Josh's) go-to gal when it came to parenting advice. I admired her children's collection of attractive wooden toys and knew I could count on her to always have Infant Tylenol (and Motrin!) in her medicine cabinet. Heck, "going potty at Sharon's house" was a major incentive when it came to toilet training.

Now Sharon's moved up the street to a bigger, better house (and replaced most of those wooden toys with sports gear, a Wii and a Dish subscription) and our elderly neighbor to the south passed on. Two new couples moved in on either side of us in the last year and both are expecting babies in the next month or so. I don't know if they'll look to me as the "experienced mom" next door, but if they do, I'd share what worked for me. It's not the same as advice, because I don't assume what's right for our family is some kind of gold standard.

1. Swaddle for the first month, but don't force it if your baby hates it. Z loved a tight swaddle and A wanted her arms free from the moment she was born.
2. Try to get your baby to accept a pacifier. Or you may become the pacifier.
3. Give breastfeeding a shot. I found it easy and convenient and snuggly as all hell. And I loved having an extra 500 calories in my diet. I breastfed exclusively for about 6 months and then supplemented with formula for another 6-8. There's no shame in using formula. Pumping at work does get old and since no one was giving out gold medals for breastfeeding, I took the path of less resistance.
4. Read Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child and follow Dr. Weissbluth's advice. The ability to sleep is a skill you need to teach your child. Don't believe the crazies who say you'll damage your 6 month old if you let him cry it out.
5. Wear your baby. I loved the wrap-style carriers for infants and the Ergo for slightly older babies.
6. But get a stroller too. If you've got the cash, start with a snap-and-go style stroller for your infant car seat and graduate to a well-made umbrella stroller. Get a used jogger or all-terrain stroller if you encounter a lot of rough roads or paths.
7. Don't go crazy with the baby equipment, but be sure to get a bouncy chair, an infant car seat, a high chair or booster seat and a Britax convertible car seat. Hit up yard sales, consignment sales and parents with kids a year or two older than yours for craptastic plastic toys, pack n plays, exersaucers and the rest.
8. Go out to eat and take your infant with you. You won't be enjoying your meals out in 5 or 6 months, I promise you. And travel while your baby is still young. Moms get nervous about taking their new babies on a plane, but as long as you've got a boob and/or a bottle, she'll be happy (and fly free!). It's one year olds who are holy terrors in flight.
9. Make friends. Having a baby is your free pass to making new friends. Just as my six year old makes friends with kids for any reason ("Hey, you like Harry Potter and I like Harry Potter--let's be friends!"), so do moms ("You've got a 2 month old and I've got a 3 month old--let's hang out with our tits out!").
10. Vaccinate. The data is in. The scaremongers were at best ill-informed and at worst committing fraud.

Mommy's got a brand-new to-do list

I just read Take the Cake, a collection of you-go-gal essays for working women about how to make the most of your time and find balance as a working mom. In spite its amateurish cover and typesetting, it's a nice enough book full of common and uncommon sense about budgeting, finance, parenting, organization and every other topic women's magazines cycle through every 12 months.

But there was one real gem in there, a totally radical (and radically simple) twist on the to-do list.

Here it is: divide your page into 4 quadrants. Label them "me," "work," "family," and "volunteer." Organize the tasks you need to complete (not big projects, tasks) into the appropriate quadrants and highlight those that can be completed in 15 minutes or less (I used an asterisk).

Put everything on the list, from taking your exercise class to researching your next vacation destination to calling the dentist to schedule an appointment. Tackle a 15 minute item whenever you have a spare moment and start a new list weekly, transferring over any items that didn't get done the first week. It's lame, but I get a charge out of crossing items off my to-do list, and adding everything I want to get done (even those low-priority, no-particular-deadline items) had greatly increased my productivity.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of Take the Cake as a part of the From Left to Write book club.

Unspoiling my children

You know what? I'm learning that it's okay to say no. It's been a few weeks since I read Richard Bromfield, PhD's How to Unspoil Your Child Fast: A Speedy, Complete Guide to Contented Children and Happy Parents, but I'm starting to put his advice into action.

He recommends putting an end to indulging our children--not just because we'll be happier if we quit frittering away our time and money making them "happy," but because they'll grow into happier, more self-reliant individuals if we don't give into their demands.

Are my children spoiled? On the grand scale of American children, they're probably not. They are mostly polite, well-behaved kids, and their behavior never approached the horrifying examples in the book of children who demand a toy or candy reward for enduring a few boring errands.

But they want for nothing and probably are over-indulged. Worse yet, I've witnessed them acting entitled or attempt negotiation with us (e.g. "Please can we have dessert? I ate a good dinner. Please, please, please?") I've found it's easier to give the kids a small square of chocolate than it is to hold my ground and say "No means no."

But I'm embracing my ability to power to say no and defer gratification. Every time my 5 year old asks for something (usually something from that infernal American Girl catalog), I tell her "You can ask for that for your birthday or save up your allowance." She's learning about the relative cost of things and would rather consider purchases than actually make them.

I've also become better about enforcing consequences. Both girls behaved atrociously on our flight home from NYC. It was lunchtime when we landed and I knew they were hungry. I also knew it would be another half and a half before they got home, so I needed to feed them. I bought them a McDonald's Happy Meal to share, but I made a point of sending back the toy. The girls' eyes widened a little, but shockingly, they didn't utter a word of protest. It was as if they understood that their actions really did have consequences and they quietly ate their chicken nuggets.

I'm not sure my demonstration of unspoiling was as dramatic as the "shock and awe" tactics Dr. Bromfield recommends, but it did work. Well enough, in fact, that I'm almost looking forward to turning around the car the next time the kids are shouting in the back seat and silently driving them back home.

Disclosure: My copy of the book was a review copy provided to me free of charge. The link is an Amazon affiliate link, which means I'll get a small percentage of the purchase price if you click through to buy it.


A couple hours after posting this, I received the following email from the book's author:


Alma, I loved your story about unspoiling. Your buying your daughters a Happy Meal but asking McD's to keep the toy was brilliant.  And I could not help but smile at your anticipated pleasure at turning the car at the next infraction.  You so demonstrate what I truly believe, that parents know all this, and that once it clicks, it clicks.
Richard Bromfield

On finding the right classroom for my child

Today Z is in kindergarten. She didn't luck into a spot in the Spanish immersion classroom, so she's in a regular class of 18 with a wonderful, experienced teacher. They line up for lunch, recess and their extra-curricular classes and they work on their letters. The goal, by the end of the year, is for each kindergartener to tie their shoes, recognize 20 sight words and write 2 simple sentences about a picture.

If you know my daughter, you know she's already reading chapter books.

I'm fortunate that her school has recognized her gifts early in the year and they're having her assessed by the gifted and talented teacher this week. We have a meeting scheduled with her teacher for Friday where they'll tell us our options, but it looks like they're going to recommend skipping her ahead to 1st grade.

After much soul-searching, I think moving her ahead a year is the right thing to do. Z conquered the kindergarten curriculum (and more) in her third year at Montessori preschool and she's the kind of kid who craves new challenges. She's already complained about being bored by "sitting and coloring" -- she'd rather read or just play with the great toys in the classroom. She knows a handful of 1st graders and her teachers agree she's ready socially.

The only drawback is her size. In the 10th percentile for her age, she'll look positively puny next to 6 and 7 year old 1st graders. Once again, she'll complain about "always being in the front row for the class picture." Yes, I'll be swimming against the cultural currents, which seem to favor "redshirting" children so that they'll be the biggest/strongest/smartest.

It's been interesting going through this process while reading Monica Holloway's parenting memoir Cowboy & Wills: A Love Story. Although on the face of it the challenges Monica Holloway deals with raising a son with high-functioning autism are quite different from mine, we both see the incredibly important role school (as well as the companionship of a wonderful dog) plays in a child's success.

In the meantime, I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I received my copy of Cowboy & Wills for free as a part of the From Left to Write online book club. The link to the book is an affiliate link.

Figures in Motion: An interactive history lesson

Although I received my copy of Famous Figures of Ancient Times: Movable Paper Figures to Cut, Color, and Assemble
in plenty of time to participate in the From Left to Write book club, it took us a few weeks to locate the supplies necessary to create the moveable historical paper dolls from the book.

Creating the figures required scissors (which we had), a single hole punch (which we lacked) and a box of brads. (Brads!?! They're like the opposite of chads. And it took me the better part of a week to figure out what those little gold fasteners were called and another week to find a store that sold them!)

Once we were outfitted with the requisite supplies, Z went to town on the figures. She can cut out and assemble the pieces independently and she enjoys learning the names and biographical information behind figures like King David and Alexander the Great. It's amazing how cutting, coloring and assembling a figure can help information "sink in." Even I--notoriously bad at recalling dates and details from history class--immediately recognized and remembered the basics after handing one of the men from Figures in Motion.

If anything, we hungered for more information than the brief character sketches provided in the book. Z wanted to know if they were good or bad, what their houses were like, what they ate, and how they died.

Disclosures: I received my copy of Figures In Motion for free as a member of the From Left to Write book club. My link to the book as an affiliate link, meaning if you click through it to purchasefrom Amazon, I receive a small referral fee.

The limits of self-imposed happiness

In This Is Not The Story You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness, Laura Munson recalls a what could have been a sad, sad summer. Her husband announced he didn't love her anymore. His business was failing and she was writing novels that never got published. The dream life they'd built in Montana was a house of cards in danger of tumbling down.

But it didn't turn out that way. Fueled by therapy and a pile of self-help books, the failed novelist journaled through her summer of discontent, determined that her husband was wrong--he did still love her--and he just needed a little space to figure that out.

And--if her book is to be believed--she was right. Her husband came back and her journal turned into her first published book. Go her!

Now, I think there's something to be said for taking responsibility for your own happiness. Life can serve up a lot of crap (death, job losses, financial difficulties and rocky relationships), and wallowing in our misery and playing the blame game are probably pretty poor choices. But I think Munson's Pollyannaish "serenity now" approach only works for the challenges of a pretty comfortable existence. I also just finished reading Sarah's Key, and it's pretty clear that the French who watched tens of thousands of Jews get deported to Nazi death camps probably should have gotten angry, spoken up and fought back instead of thinking, "Hey, those Germans will do the right thing if we just step back and give them a little space."

I received my copy of the book in exchange for my participation in the From Left to Write blogger book club.

Culture shock

I just finished Girl in Translation for the SV Moms book club--likely the last ever as the Silicon Valley Moms Group is sadly closing down the Chicago Moms Blog and its sister sites across the country.

A powerful coming-of-age-in-America story that reads like a memoir, this debut novel from immigrant author Jean Kwok reminded me a bit of the times in my life when I've felt like an outsider looking in, not quite fitting in.

I grew up with my dad in the Foreign Service, and while we spent more time Stateside than many Foreign Service families, I recall clearly our moves to West Berlin midway through my 4th grade year, to Islamabad, Pakistan after 6th grade and my return to the U.S. in the middle of 9th grade. My struggles to navigate my way through new school and make friends are familiar to any kid who had to move around, but they were compounded by the added complexities of a new language and an unfamiliar culture.

It seems trivial comparing my relatively minor struggles to fit in to main character Kimberly Chang's travails in Brooklyn. After all, she has to deal with a huge language barrier, total culture shock and the utter poverty as she fights to win scholarships while working in a sweatshop alongside her widowed mother. But I still remember my return to the U.S. after nearly 6 years abroad. You might think an American teen returning to public high school alongside some of the same kids she left behind in 4th grade would have a fairly seamless transition.

You'd be wrong. I had culture shock. A minor case, no doubt, but culture shock all the same.

Apparently watching a few old episodes of DeGrassi High and listening to a tape my cousin made of an Omaha Top 40 station did not prepare me to be cool in Arlington, Virginia in 1991. I didn't know any of the TV shows on the air. I couldn't name any of the cool bands. I wasn't wearing any of the cool brands. And I had no idea my bangs should be curled, teased and sprayed into gravity-defying sausage rolls. (Besides, trying to catch up was hopeless as I didn't have a curling iron in the right voltage and the drugstore hair care aisle gave me a panic attack.)

I received my book for free as a part of Silicon Valley Moms Group Book Club. See how other moms were inspired by this book here.

Book review: Who By Fire

If you've friended me on Facebook, you know I read a lot of books. My 30 minute commute is perfect for that. In the past month I finished Beautiful Boy, A Mercy, Jesus Land and Factory Girls, loving all but the last one. But I'm reviewing Who By Fire since it is the only book I read for a book club, and my book club is a bloggers' book club. Which means you don't have to take my word for it; you can see what a dozen or more women across the country have to say about Diana Spechler's tale of a family still reeling from the childhood abduction of its youngest member.

Who By Fire tells the story of a family torn apart by kidnapping from the perspectives of its two surviving children (both are now young adults) as well as their mother. Bits, desperate for affection and attention in the face of her family's loss, is self-destructive and promiscuious. Her younger brother Ash deals with his guilt by becoming an Orthodox Jew and fleeing a yeshiva in Israel. Their mother, in a desperate attempt to reunite the family, spins a web of lies and gets mixed up with an unsavoring guy who promises to "deprogram" her overly pious son.

The book reads like a mystery, something I wasn't expecting from a piece of modern Jewish literary fiction. As the plot thickened, I found myself sucked into the dramatic, if somewhat far-fetched story. I sped right through to the happy ending, which strained the limits of believability, tying up all the loose ends into one perfect bow.

How I came to look forward to bedtime

Stage one: board books. Baby chews it. Mommy snoozes.

Stage two: fairy tales. Classic stories usher in the Princess stage.

Stage three: library books. A full bag every week means fresh stories every night. A big improvement, even if escapee tones result in the occasional library fine.

Stage four: chapter books! Mommy cheers the return of her favorite childhood characters and marvels at how dated the Ramona books have gotten (Beezus reacts to Mrs. Quimby's announcement that she's gotten a part-time job with "Now you're liberated!). We finished Ramona the Pest this week and now we're two chapters into Ramona the Brave. But since Ramona's getting a older a lot faster than Z, I need to switch gears and find a more age-appropriate book or series. Any suggestions?

Book review: Sleep is for the Weak

I haven't had a Blackberry since I left my old job in February, but I spent last week reading mommybloggers on the train.

How's that? Well there's this thing called a book. It's made out of paper and it's kind of like a blog in that you can read it and relate to it. But while there are plenty of funny anecdotes about potty training and the cute things kids say, there are no distracting typos, comments or linkydinks dragging you off into that black hole timesuck of cyberspace.

Sleep Is for the Weak is--dare I say--an essay collection on motherhood. It just happens to be an essay collection published by BlogHer and penned by A-list mommybloggers like Finslippy, Mom-101 and Three Kid Circus. And not since The The Girlfriends' Guide to Pregnancy have I read such a funny, honest, shot-from-the-childbirthing-hips truths of motherhood, hemorrhoids and all.

I smiled at Rita Arens' account of pulling a turd out of a constipated kid's ass because I've so been there. I laughed at Tracy Gaughren-Perez's "Pity the Parents," a cautionary tale about how dining out with kids is a recipe for disaster. And I very nearly busted a gut giggling over Eden Marriott Kennedy's "This is Motherhood." (I'm linking to the original because it is that funny!)

Online, my favorite blog posts are humorous or humiliating. Preferably both. I'm not big into aw, ain't my kid the cutest? and isn't being a mom just the best? stories and I carry that prejudice offline. So while I wasn't all that keen on Mariam Kamin's recollection of her "Most Handsomest" son's preparations for picture day, I just about pissed my pants when Eden Marriott Kennedy's little boy blithely confessed that "sometimes I like to hurt dogs."

Lucky for me Sleep is for the Weak is more piss and vinegar than sap and saccharine. Get it for your friend who's still thinks blogging has something to do with those AOL chatrooms and doesn't understand why you'd want to expose your kids to internet predators.


This review was made possible by the friendly folks at Parent Bloggers Network, who probably know all of the contributors personally.

Book review and giveaway: The Rookie Mom's Handbook

Once upon a time, I was a rookie mom. Not one of the Rookie Moms, mind you, but a freshly c-sectioned woman with a squalling lump of baby to call my own. I filled those early winter days of maternity leave by breastfeeding to season after season of the Gilmore Girls and The O.C. on DVD, unaware of the other, more interesting, ways I could be spending time with a baby.

Not Heather Gibbs Flett and Whitney Moss. The two Berkeley friends were so committed to leaving the house every day that they started a spreadsheet tracking all the fun stuff they could do with their new babies. That spreadsheet turned into a blog, and that blog's just been expanded into a highly-giftable book, The Rookie Mom's Handbook: 250 Activities to do with (and without!) your baby.

The entries range from basic (#2 get to know your gear) to moderately ambitious (#60 design your own baby clothes), but my favorite suggestions include step-by-step instructions for basic functioning that seem incredibly obvious now but highly intimidating at the time. Stuff like how to take a hot shower when no one's there to hold your child. (Answer: Strap baby into a bouncy seat or shower at the gym while junior's in child care.)

My top five favorite activities from the book are...
#43 go on a little date with your mate while baby's small enough to nap in her car seat (seriously, I tell this to every new mom)
#114 use the Internet for errands (I don't even set foot in shoe stores anymore)
#148 meet friends for brunch at a restaurant (it really is the best meal to eat out with kids)
#165 make a cheap-o rattle (done it!)
#179 save old sunglasses and dead cell phones to distract baby from the real thing (I've even bought uncut keys from Ace Hardware and put them on a keychain)

Rookie Mom Whitney was kind enough to send me an extra copy of The Rookie Moms Handbook to give away. Want to win it? Leave a comment before May 6th. If you don't have a blog where I can find you, you might want to also send me an email with your contact information.

Pissed off and inspired

I watched the Iraq war documentary No End in Sight with Josh this week and it made my blood boil. Every single time the Bush Administration had to make a critical decision, they made the wrong one. The arrogance is truly astounding. The tragedy is monumental. And the cost is absolutely astonishing. Please buy or rent this DVD.

But lest I spend this week shaking my head and thinking we Americans can't do anything right in the Muslim world, I'm also reading Three Cups of Tea--what an inspirational story! It chronicles the adventures of a mountain climber/emergency room nurse who, barely escaping death, stumbles into a remote mountain village in Pakistan and ends up building schools for the poor (including girls) in Pakistan and Afghanistan. It's a true chronical of international development, but it is also intensely personal and a gripping story complete with wily criminals, religious zealots, wise but illiterate village chiefs, a kidnapping and a whirlwind romance (Greg Mortenson meets and marries his soulmate in 6 days).

Book review: The Sky Isn't Visible from Here

I'd long held up Jeannette Walls' The Glass Castle as the ultimate oh my God do these things really happen? tale of extremely bad true-life parenting, but she's got some competition from Felicia Sullivan, author of The Sky Isn't Visible From Here.

Sullivan recounts a Brooklyn childhood spent in the company of host of unsavory characters, most notably her mother: a drug addict who lies, cheats and steals her way through deadbeat men and dead end jobs while subjecting her daughter to verbal attacks and leaving her vulnerable to sexual abuse.

Not surprisingly, the author doesn't come through unscathed. She recounts her own struggles with drug abuse, alcoholism and unhealthy relationships. And you've got to give her credit: she comes across as a pretty unlikeable person in her very own memoir.

But it isn't all bitterness and sorrow, and the lack of a ghost writer credit on the jacket offers a clue. Felicia Sullivan triumphed over the bad hand she was dealt and achieved success as a journalist and essayist. Even as she watched her mother survive on life's fringes, homeless, sick and unrepentant.

Other Parent Bloggers Network members are reviewing this book...see what they have to say.

A well-loved fairy tale collection

I can not overstate how much my daughter loves this fairy tales book. It's not bordering on obsession. It is an obsession. She easily spends two hours a day "reading" this collection of classic fairy tales out loud to herself or badgering one of us to read a story to her.

The illustrations are horrendous third-rate Disney cartoons. The stories are simple and short enough for a young audience (about 10 pages long on average), but they differ enough from Walt Disney's movie versions that Z can point out all of the inconsistencies. And the illustrations are horrible: imagine third-rate cartoon images of Cinderella, Rapunzel and all the rest.

Z's copy of A Treasury of Fairy Tales is being loved to pieces, but we're not worried. It seems to be a permanent fixture in the Borders bargain books section.

Book review: ScreamFree Parenting

I just road-tested a parenting book I haven't even finished. I'm 126 pages into ScreamFree Parenting: The Revolutionary Approach to Raising Your Kids by Keeping Your Cool, so I'd absorbed enough of Hal Edward Runkel's theory to give it a whirl as I tried to put an overtired-to-the-point-of-hysterics Z to bed tonight.

"The only way to retain a position of influence with our children is to regain a position of control over ourselves."

Translation? Even though my three-year-old threw the fit to end all fits over Sleeping Beauty underpants, I was not to yell, threaten or force her to put on another pair, any pair, and get in the damn bed.

Instead, I explained the situation (both of her Sleeping Beauty undies were dirty and in the hamper) and asked that she pick another pair. When she refused, wailing "Sleeping Beauty...Sleeping Beauty" over and over, I gave myself a time out. I closed her door, walked downstairs and took a few deep breaths. I checked in on her every 10 minutes or so, asking if she was ready to get dressed for bed and and if needed any help. She was a sight to behold: sanding butt naked in the middle of her carpet, her face blotchy and streaked with snot and tears. Inconsolably crying out for her favorite licensed character underwear.

Finally, after a very long 30 minutes, the cries died down to hiccups, and I returned.

"Sleeping Beauty..." the howling began again. Runkel calls this "throwing down the gauntlet."

"A ScreamFree Parent never picks up a gauntlet."

I decided to try empathy (page 101). I told Z how sad I was that there weren't any more Sleeping Beauty underpants in the drawer. I told her I felt a little bit like crying too, and I asked her what she thought we should do since all of the undies were in the wash. She pointed to the hamper and I asked her if she'd like to wear a stinky pair. She nodded and I handed them to her. Heck, what's an extra 12 hours in a pair of panties when you're three years old?

I brushed her teeth and asked her to please use the potty. She refused.

Another gauntlet. This time I employed Runkel's choices and consequences speech (page 106). I told her she could use the toilet and I'd read her books or she could not use the potty and go to bed without stories. It was up to her. She crossed her legs, pulled up her pajamas and I put her to bed, whimpering. She cried "stories, stories..." for about 5-10 minutes before she finally fell asleep.

It was an exhausting and frustrating hour, but I'm glad I didn't lose control. I didn't really get exactly the compliance I was hoping for, but ScreamFree Parenting stresses that obedience is for dogs, growing responsible, loving adults is the purpose of parenting.

"Your number-one leadership role in the family is that of a calming authority."

By staying consistent, even-tempered and cool, I modeled good behavior. By leaving Z's room, I gave her space, and by empowering her to make her own choices, I showed her respect without giving up discipline.