I Heart Pixar

We went to see Pixar's "Up" this weekend and it was such a remarkable, beautiful piece of story-telling that I have no guilt at all about spending a sunny afternoon in a dark movie theater.

If you haven't seen "Up" yet, go--with or without your children. I know it's a cliche but: You'll laugh, you'll cry...Seriously you will.

It made me so incredibly happy to watch this movie with D. I have learned to tune out the cloying voices of the Bearenstein Bears (it is not true that the only difference is that they live in a tree!); the creepy faces of Thomas; and an assortment of other bizarre-o sights and sounds associated with he random content that is ostensibly created for children (If Thomas isn't nightmare-inducing I don't know what is). So it was a pleasant reminder to see that a "kid's movie" doesn't have to be crappy, watered-down, or just plain annoying. In fact, "Up" proves that if you look hard enough, you can find wonderful content for kids that also happens to be wonderful content for adults.

Cailou be gone!

Monday Musings: I Know The Secrets That You Keep...

Do you sometimes wonder about the secrets your fellow-moms are carrying around with them?

D has been in preschool now for almost a year and, during every drop-off and pick-up I find myself wondering about these other moms, what their stories are.

What were they doing right before the slapped on a bit of Chap-stick for the drop-off scene? Do they sometimes let their kids eat cereal for dinner? How much tv do their children really watch?

What is their marriage like, what time to they start drinking wine, do they miss work if they are at home, do they wish they were at home if they are at work?

Does that woman wear a thong under her Juicy Couture track suit? Are those pajamas under the luxe Burberry trench?

My imagination goes nuts.

There is this special thrill to knowing the secret lives of other people. And there is a thrill in divulging secrets too, no? Entire sites, like Post Secret, are devoted to allowing us to release secret thoughts that we don't ordinarily allow to see the light of our real lives. My friends L and C even started a site called shameover where people can write about the silly things they did after that one-cocktail-too-many.

The preschool universe is the perfect milieu for concocting fanciful stories of what "the mom next door" is really like. For the most part, you only see these other moms for brief snippets of time and yet, the logistical constraints of the event--we all get there at a certain time, we all have to do certain things, we all leave shortly thereafter-- give a crucible-like structure to your daydreaming. Last week, while I was putting D in his car seat and a mom I didn't know was doing the same for her bundle of (3-pm-post-snack-energy) joy, I heard her whisper to her daughter, "Just please help me here and be good and I will give you candy when we get home."

I laughed out loud. I have uttered the same thing countless times. But in the Montessori preschool parking lot, where the organic kale is to the right and they are handing out mom-of-the-year awards to hemp-clad women on the left, bribery of any sort and bribery by CANDY? The word verboten comes to mind.

I of course immediately liked this mother. I wondered if she wanted to join me for a playdate. Sans kids...! I sneaked glances at her and into her car to find some clue as to what other secrets she might have. Maybe she hated breastfeeding too. Maybe she chooses the museum to take her daughter to based on its proximity to the restaurant she wanted to go to for lunch. Maybe she still, after three years, couldn't get it together to keep diapers and wipes in supply and had midnight-hour dashes to the Safeway.

I have had so many revealing moments like this. The sleek, sophisticate mom in that impossible -to- maintain camel coat who pulls out a random Hello Kitty coin purse to pay for a bakesale item. The almost-but-not-quite Goth momma whose rear-view mirror has myriad Christ iconography. Who are these people? Where did they come from, how do they live?

It reminds me of the question that always comes to me on vacation, when we are lingering over yet another latte or mimosa at noon or 3 in a random cafe: Who are the rest of these people? What life do they have that allows them to be here right now?? It's just like that. Except writ small, on the scale of child-raising mundanity.

Or maybe I am making too much out of nothing? Maybe those people at the cafes are just fellow tourists, wondering the same thing about everyone else. Maybe the mom with the Burberry and pajamas wasn't up till dawn at her swingers party but was instead...just sleeping. Maybe we are all just boring old moms. It is possible...

On yet another day, taking D to school, I was next to yet another anonymous mom dropping off her child. I noticed said mom sneaking looks into my trunk as I unloaded stuff for D's school project. I knew the look well and tried to be the secret-whisperer from her end.

"I wonder why she always comes to school with wet hair?" she easily could have been thinking.

"I wonder if she feels embarrassed about driving that SUV."

"Is that the mom who has had 3 kids in 4 years?"

Then I noticed exactly where she was looking and I didn't have to try so hard to read her mind.

Sitting there in my trunk was a people-watcher's dream. That Indian mom? The smiley one with the rambunctious little kid who comes to school in an SUV and always has wet hair? She has a box in her trunk with a blonde wig, a bag of Fritos, and--get this--eighteen boxes of temporary tattoos...!

What does it all mean??

(You don't think I am going to tell you do I? Even boring old moms need their secrets...)

Weekend Links

Some people think your creativity peaks at age 30. Find out how to keep those creative juices flowing, so that your best work is still ahead of you.

Forget the drama over John and Kate's marriage--the drama over Kate's plastic surgery is far more interesting! Has your view of plastic surgery changed post-motherhood?

In the tradition of spending money to make money--how about picking up one of these awesome piggy banks to help teach your kids about saving?

Be prepared to covet--Sephora's Top 10 Lists make me want to try about a gazillion new things.

Check out this trailer for Leena Pendharkar's new movie, Raspberry Magic, "a coming-of-age story about an 11-year-old girl who believes she must win the science fair in order to bring her father back after he runs out on the family." Can't wait to see it, in part because it was primarily filmed in the Bay Area (and in part because the filmmaker is rad).



And--can it be?--Number 5 is alive...again?!?

Lastly, a general note: Big thanks to everyone who comments on my blog. Sometimes some of you ask me direct questions and I would love to respond, but I have no way of getting in touch with you. Please feel free to send these questions to deviswithbabies@gmail.com, or to include your email address in your comment.

Have a great weekend!

Brown Girls: Fiscal Priorities

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Check out Brown Girls in India Currents magazine.

You and Me in the Summer Time

I have become one of those people who says things like "time flies" and "I can't believe how big you've grown" without a trace of irony. No joke time passes and can I REALLY not believe that a child has grown, it does tend to happen every now and again, no...?

And yet: My lord, time flies. Is it really June? I just got the "reminder" in D's lunchbox that the end of his "school year" is this Friday. A mild panic started to set in. What am I going to do with D. allll summer? I have gotten very accustomed to the managed chaos of my two youngest ones at home while D is at preschool 4 days a week. Come next Monday, there will be another set of needs to address everyday--and this set has a louder voice!

My first thought was to consult my BFF google on things like "activities for toddlers in Berkeley" and "summer classes for kids." And there is an array of options. Gymnastics, music camp, every sport under the sun, organic farming (this is Berkeley), swimming lessons, underwater basket weaving...endless possibilities.

But even as I was masterminding my chock-a-block summer activities for D., I could feel the tug in the back of my head, the voice from somewhere in my childhood, questioning this over-scheduling I was in the midst of planning.

I spent many summers catching frogs in the backyard of my house. My next door neighbor C. and I spent entire days making up fantasies in which, on any given day, the swamp that ran through both of our yards was a magical land of flying cars (we lived in Michigan--cars featured prominently in our fantasies), or a secret garden full of treasuers to unearth. Sure, there were swim classes here and there, family trips and whatnot. But the majority of the summers of my childhood could best be described as unstructured. And when I think back on them, I cannot conjure up beautiful enough words to describe how perfect they were.

Obviously I am running the risk of being simply nostalgic and sentimental. But can't summer just be summer? Can't our kids read their books all day, laze around outside, stop--for lack of a better phrase--and smell the roses, eucalyptus, organically grown produce? Maybe they will get bored sometimes. Forgive me but: so what??

Welcome to the "slow parenting movement." It is an idea whose time has come. To support it: Here are some recipes for bubbles. I can imagine long afternoons blowing bubbles into the faces of my three babies. That is enough activity for one summer day.

Book Club?

I can't wait to read this book. Yes it is by an Indian woman and yes it could be pigeon-holed as the sort of "identity fiction" I begged to come to an end. But I can tell it's going to be amazing. It's not going to be one of those "one foot in the east, one foot in the west, woe is me tales." It's going to be a full, robust, plot-driven adventure, featuring an Indian woman as the protagonist. Just check out this blurb from Amazon:

In the wake of their mother’s mysterious death, Linno and Anju are raised in Kerala by their father, Melvin, a reluctant Christian prone to bouts of dyspepsia, and their grandmother, the superstitious and strong-willed Ammachi. When Anju wins a scholarship to a prestigious school in America, she seizes the opportunity, even though it means betraying her sister. In New York, Anju is plunged into the elite world of her Hindu American host family, led by a well-known television personality and her fiendishly ambitious son, a Princeton drop out determined to make a documentary about Anju’s life. But when Anju finds herself ensnared by her own lies, she runs away and lands a job as a bikini waxer in a Queens beauty salon.

And apparently that's only the first half...! Seriously? The "Indian-American experience" with a sort of culmination at a waxing lounge in Queens?? I'm getting tingly thinking about it...!

If any of you want to read this with me, welcome to the most low-key book club of all time. We can read the book and, in a month or so, we can put up some of our thoughts about it. Done. Hope you'll join me!

Monday Musings: Remember Why You Started This

From the time I was twelve until the time I was twenty-six I kept a journal every day of my life. Every single day. Sometimes, in fits of masochism, I go back and read some of these volumes. There are embarrassing odes to denim jumpers my mom wouldn't let me buy, self-righteous soliloquies on the perennial journal subject that "nobody understands me," and please oh please don't get me started on the bad poetry (For about six months, I wrote various renditions of "Leda and the Swans"...I can still hear WBY groaning in his grave...)

I'm not sure exactly why my "journaling" (I wonder how many words owe their existence to Oprah) ended. And it didn't exactly end. But, regardless of my efforts to the contrary, I have not kept up a daily journal since I was twenty-six. Which doesn't mean I don't try. In fact, for the last months I have been attempting to do some consistent writing again. And the other day, turning the page of my journal du jour, I came upon the following phrase, greeting me on what I thought would be a blank page:

"Remember why you started this."

Remember why you started this?

At first, I was creeped out. It was as if my journal was auditioning for a bit part in a horror movie. But the thing is, although I felt immediately affronted by my very own journal...the quote was in my handwriting. I had written it. It was me talking to me.

Since I was a kid, whenever I got a new journal, I would flip to random pages and write short notes to myself. I'm not sure why I started doing this but, as the years went on, the little blurbs became time-capsules of sorts. Reminders of the moment in which I began a particular journal. In one of my early journals, these snippets included such choice aphorisms as "Stay real" and "Be you." Gag much? They got a tad bit better with swiped phrases such as: "It's never too late to be the person you want to be." And in later journals, they became a little less yearbook-y: "Do you still like the phrase about the blue canary in the lighthouse." (Confused? Google "They Might be Giants.")

But this one? "Remember why you started this?" I couldn't remember when I wrote it, or what it meant.

Like I said, I hadn't kept a daily journal in a while--did I mean remember why I started writing again?

I got this beautiful, leather, handmade journal (thank you E.) right after I got married--did I mean remember why I married my husband?

I hadn't written in the beautiful, leather, handmade journal since I had had D.--did I mean remember why we decided to have kids?

Truth be told: I don't know. But the somewhat amorphous fortune-cookie advice couldn't have come at a better time. I was having one of those weeks when one part of my head was perpetually devoted to waxing nostalgic about my life pre-kids. We went to a party with all three kids and, in the course of 2 hours, I didn't manage to have a full conversation with even one person. We spent an entire Sunday in what we call "survival mode"--the world in which once breakfast for the kids is over, and the kitchen is clean, it is time to prepare lunch...and once lunch is over, and the kitchen is clean, it's time to prepare dinner...and, oh yes, there are myriad bouts of crying and whining and negotiating with 3 year olds in between.

I know you know what I mean yes?

Of course you do. And those days/weeks/months are horrible. And anybody who claims not to feel like that sometimes post-kid? I don't understand them. But...Remember Why You Started This....

Because those long days and those parties where you leave more exhausted than fanciful? Those days when you are solely taking care of little people's needs, those countless hours of cleaning (organic) Goldfish crackers out of various crooks of your home (Is that just me?)? Those evenings without concerts, those afternoons without cocktails, those days of derrieres and those fortnights of absolute fatigue? They're hard. But they are the the short term. They're the price to pay. They are the admission ticket for holidays of boisterous dinner tables, reliving beauty through the eyes of our kids, being able to give unconditional love, and learning how to receive it in our adult-lives...On and on...

There are so many moments of motherhood that are pure beauty. On good days it is all "Madonna with Child(ren)", with perfect lighting, a great soundtrack, the wind whipping through our hair, propelling the little sailboats of our maternal lives on their charted courses. But sometimes? Sometimes when it's a little tougher and the waters get a little choppier? Remembering why we are doing this--remembering why we started this--it can get us through the day. It can give us solace. It can propel us to safe shores during those moments when the wind just isn't there.