The TMI Avalanche

Dec. 7 Update: Apparently the NYT had an Op-Ed about the same topic on the same day we wrote the below.  Draw your own conclusions.

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So....my boyfriend and I split up. Heartbroken.  But then we got back together. And he declared his undying love to me in his status feed.  You all saw it, right?  My ex-girlfriend was jealous but it was amazing.  But now I've been sitting by the phone all day waiting for him to call, and the only person that called was the Chinese delivery restaurant so now you can all be jealous of my kung pao.  In fact, hang, on let me show you a picture of this delicious chicken.  Getting my camera....taking picture...and there! Isn't it -

-Wait,there's the phone! It's him! Hang on - I'll give you the blow by blow and type as we speak.

[this section has been deleted due to content inappropriate for readers and parents of children who we respect too much]

Wow am I glad we resolved that.  Feeling so much better right now, the stuffiness in my nose is almost clear.  Remember I had that funny-looking mole removed from my back?  Well a week ago I found something funny growing on my foot, but then one of you (thanks Facebook friends!) suggested a great doctor, so I thought you might like to know I liked her so much I passed her name on to my cousin, who swears she fixed up all her problems "down there", if you know what I mean.  Needless to say she is going to remain single after that scare, but I digress.  How do I know all this? Well I found all this out at that restaurant you all recommended yesterday of course; where, if you will recall, I drank waaaaay to much.  My hangover is much better now after some onion rings and Gatorade for breakfast.  Though the headache sure didn't help me deal with that turd at work very well today.  Had to go off the wagon and have another smoke to get through it.  And can we say "yay" to elastic waistbands? I tell you, whoever made it acceptable to wear tights as pants is a geniu......oh wait! You won't tell that guy at work that I called him a turd, will you?  Speaking of turds....

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C'mon, peeps! You didn't think we were serious, did you!? Perhaps not, but it pretty much sums up some real life posts that you yourself might have seen on Facebook.

This is why we have so few friends on the social network behemoth ourselves.  If we're going to read about the intimate details of someone's life, we'd like it to be a detail of someone we know rather well.  And to our FB friends - we loves ya. We love the funny stuff you post.  We love that you post all the time and make us laugh.  We love the cute and tasteful pictures of your kids/pets/whatever.  And we appreciate that you have learned the line between sharing lots of details (fine) to sharing way more than anyone wants to know (not so fine).  To all those other people no longer on our list after making us cringe one time too many - we hope you learn to censor yourself, at least a little.  

Consider the unwritten golden rule of Facebook:  Oversharing in no way refers to the quantity of status updates you post.  Just sayin'.

Have YOU been a victim of TMI on Facebook?  Feel free to share this post.  And you're welcome.

Unnatural Nature in NYC

Well, peeps, its come to this. A tropical hurricane and a winter storm all within barely a week of one another. A hurricane in New York at any time is rare. A hurricane in October even rarer. A winter storm in early November is rare. A storm on the heels of a hurricane is unprecedented. 

 

Has this ever happened anywhere in history? We'd venture to think not, but if anyone can find examples to cite, we're all ears as we'd love to hear evidence to refute the scary implications of an unprecedented freak show of weather in this state.

Many of you have inquired as to how we fared with these storms. Fortunately, we kept our power and are fine. Sadly, many others are not, and it is them we have been thinking of.  As for lessons learned, we now know that we are a total scaredy cat and should not weather storms as the only grownup in the home next time. The only person crying like a baby should be the mini. Just sayin'...... (In our defense that was some wind though.)

Meanwhile, the freakish fall snowstorm brought up memories of our post last year, The Halloween Horror Snow. One of our all-time favorites, so please to enjoy.

This Public Service Message Has Been Brought To You By The Letter B

Hello, peeps.

It's been a while.  Worse, we're about to go preachy on you for a bit.  Suck it up, 'cause this one's important. 

See, we'd like to ask you to go vote.  Except we know that won't work because, for starters, scientific research has proven that asking people to vote isn't enough.  And by "scientific research" we mean because we said so.  Secondly, we know that if you're reading this you're either already going to vote, or you're Canadian, in which case you get a pass -- but only just this once.

So instead of asking you to go vote, we're going to ask you to stop anyone from talking yourself OUT of voting, and to help get others to vote. 

Observe some typical barriers to voting, along with responses you can use:

Argument: "My state's going all blue (or red), my vote doesn't count"
Response: "Awesome! Let's skip the lines and go get ice cream.  Just kidding.  Even if your vote might not make a difference that year, it's a symbol of your freedom, and it sends a signal to others.  Telling people you voted might inspire 10 other people to vote.  Conversely, not voting breeds additional non-voting.  See what you did there? You made us say boring words like "conversely". Can we go get that ice cream now?"

Response: "I don't like either of the candidates"
Answer: "Tough sh-t.  You get two Presidential candidates.  But that's not all - there's loads of people to pick from in the local races, and you might actually like one of them! As an added bonus, those political peeps probably affect you way more than the head honcho."

Argument: "I have better things to do"
Response: "Maybe, but will any of things give you an awesome sticker you can wear all day long to tell people that you did it? We didn't think so." 

Argument: "I have no childcare"
Response: "Nothing says Democracy like shoving a bunch of kids into a voting booth with you while they whine for Sponge Bob.  What do you think we'll be doing on the way to school tomorrow?"

Argument: "I don't know who to vote for, so I'm just not going to vote"
Response" "Grow a pair and pick one".

As a bonus, if you live in New York City, the Governor just signed an order that says you can vote at any polling place.  So there's no excuse peeps. 

We know this may be mind-boggling to some, but the idea of a participatory government is that you actually participate.  And other than jury duty, which is forced on you, that leaves voting.  Now, notice we haven't told you who to vote for, nor have we engaged in partisan politics bashing each candidate.  We're not trying to influence your decision, because that's the point.  Everyone's had months to make their arguments, and at this point, it should be your decision.  But no one will know what it is if you don't actually make one and mark it on a ballot somewhere.  So please, vote, remind your friends/family/coworkers to vote, heck, pass this along to them if it'll help.  The point is to talk any sissies that want to willingly abstain out of it.

See? Told ya we'd get preachy on you. 

Problems With Our Second-Graders

Exhibit A: Typical second-grade humor

Since we seem to have lost our funny of late, we'll share a story from mini.

At baseball practice today, we were eavesdropping just hanging out and overheard her talking about what sounded like a joke with a friend.  All we heard was "see, a mom, a dad and a baby are on a plane..."

Bored and curious to hear what seven year-old kids find funny these days, we asked to hear the rest.  Apparently the mother dies on the plane, the baby disappears, and the father comes home, looking for the baby, only to find it sitting happily at home.

"How did you get home" asks the father?

The baby, apparently a prodigy, replies with a song, to the tune of "This Old Man".

"You went pfffftttt [insert loud fart sound]

I went zoom! [say in sing-songy excited voice]

That's how I got back so soon...."

We were of course, shocked.  Killing off the mother?  Letting the now-widowed father think his child is gone? Really? Poor taste and serious offensiveness aside, do we need to start educating you on the elements of story structure and how this has no relevance at all to the flatulent story they're trying to tell?

There's a clear answer to this problem.

We need to help our kids come up with better fart jokes.

When to Fight and When to Let it Go

When it comes to many things in life, I find myself* frequently debating in my head when to make a big deal of something and when to let it go.  In a weird way, managing food allergies in a child is easy in this way because most times it's not a choice - you can't let go, not even once.

What that in mind I'm finding myself in an odd position where I do have to let some things go for the first time that I haven't before, and it sucks.  While I've recognized that, the hard part is finding that line.

For the first time, mini is eating lunch in her school cafeteria.  It's not what I'd have picked and it makes her mother hyperventilate sometimes. But circumstances have played out such that here we are.  And despite meeting upon meeting starting in May and all of our requests and all the information we provided the chaos we feared is here.

On the plus side: a nut and seed free cafeteria, so concerns about cross contamination are limited to eggs, which is very helpful.  Also in the plus column, epipens everwhere, 1-2 teachers always present, and the entire staff at the school trained on food allergic reactions and epipen use.  Also on the plus column (and no small point as our experience shows that this, more than anything is what ultimately leads to a good result) is a school and kitchen staff whose intentions are good and who do not dismiss our concerns as neurotic, take food allergies seriously, and genuinely wish to do everything they can to minimize a reaction.

I frequently pause to remind myself this, as this cannot be taken for granted.  Loyal readers will think back to when the local public school (who serves pb&j sandwiches and sesame bagels in the cafeteria) wanted mini to eat there with no teacher to supervise, no adult trained to use an epipen, and no full time nurse in the school, not to mention a principal who called us "crazy" and wanted to focus on other kids with "real medical issues".  So compared to that, we are a million miles ahead.

In the minus column, while intentions are good, execution, planning, and communication has fallen short.  Questions have been ignored or dismissed.  There is still no procedure for how we know what mini will be eating.  I have found myself too often emailing at 11pm the night before, extremely frustrated, trying to find out the ingredients for lunch the next day or what mini can eat.

She is frustrated when she asks me in the morning what's for lunch and I don't know.  I am frustrated when we find out at 11am that day, and have to drop everything to email her teachers so she knows the food is safe.  They are frustrated because they don't want to deal with the last minute email.  Mini is anxious if we're at work and can't do it, and then she's told by someone else that we agreed but without having heard from her teachers that her parents said it was fine she's not sure whether or not to eat it (pause to both commend this 7 year old for her maturity and responsibility, and lament the fact that she needs to be this mature at such a young age).  The disorganization worries me and shakes my trust to a degree.  Will they know to re-check labels if vendors of "safe" change? Will they let me know so that I can?  How is the person giving her her food sure that it's the "safe" pasta and how will mistakes or confusion be avoided? These are things I can't let go, so sadly I've had to become more than a bit of a pest, which I hate.  I'm sure other "allergy moms" can relate.  When it comes to food allergies, there's really no room for error.

I continue to voice our concerns and things are slowly improving now that everyone has a few weeks' experience under their belts.  But each day brings new decisions.  What do I do when I find out that day the whole class is getting pizza and come to find out it has eggs? Do I let her sit there with plain bread? Or drop everything at work to get a cab and bring her safe pizza? (which is what her father ultimately did after I cleared it with the school)  Some would say that those are the things that I need to let go.  But then I think about my little girl, watching all her friends eat her favorite food, smelling it, and eating a sad sandwich -- all of which could have easily been avoided with some planning which would have resulted in a solution that didn't exclude her.  That one, I decided, I couldn't let go.

There are some things I let go.  I didn't love the fact that there's an "allergy" seat at the table, which affects her socially, but if the school felt they needed that to properly keep an eye on her then that's that and I haven't even brought it up.  They're not going to do everything the same way I would, and she's old enough to handle feeling a little different sometimes I guess.

What else can't I let go? Unsolicited feedback about how I'm handling it.  You may not agree with having my daughter present during some planning conversations, but aside from the fact that it's my choice and obligation as a parent to do what I think is right, she's going to need to do this for herself one day.  So that one I couldn't let go.  That, and I take criticism of my parenting personally.  That one's black and white, peeps, blame it on the Aquarius in me.  Which brings me to my next point:

Though this keeps me up at night, eventually there will come a time where I can't know or control every single thing that goes into mini's mouth.  After all, I won't be there in college, reading over cafeteria ingredients.  I won't be there when she's out with her friends, judgement impaired from a couple of drinks as the menu comes by.  I won't be there when she has her first kiss, wondering whether or not she was brave enough to ask the other person what they ate that day.  So yes, I need to know that she is prepared and will know what to do when those times come.

I know every parent struggles with this.  As our kids get older, we have to learn to let go, little by little.  But trust me on this one: it's so, so much harder to let go when it comes to this food allergy stuff.  I'll get there eventually.  And the rest of you?  Have a little patience.

*Had to write this one in the first person, peeps.  Sorry 'bout that.