Archive for August, 2009

There were little balls of Play-Doh, a random handful of teeny little vacuum-unfriendly Legos and a pile of papers from fourth grade. I threw them all out, along with a giant piece of poster board with a hastily drawn soccer field that had a hole in its penalty box, and a fuzzy, unmatched black sock. And then, in the middle of the Great Bedroom Cleanout While the Kids Are at Grandma’s this past weekend, I stopped on these:

Impressive, right? Except the vast majority of these trophies aren’t really trophies at all. Every kid in the league got one. Swim trophies. Basketball trophies. Soccer trophies. Even a trophy for being “Jake’s Awesome Friend!” which, in the age of Facebook “Friends,” could spell a boon for trophy shops.

In other words, they’re a bunch of awards for just showing up.

I didn’t like them when he got them, and I pretty much hate them now. To me, it’s a big shelf of “You’re special, just like everybody else.” And that’s what’s wrong with raising kids in the 21st century. If you don’t have to earn your accolades, then what? What happens when you grow up and you don’t get a medal for attending a conference or going through job training?

I found out last night, when some friends who were here for dinner were lamenting the sense of entitlement among some fresh-out-of-college hires at their companies. They felt that these products of the first Trophies for Everyone generation all too often aren’t willing to pay their dues. They want the corner office, and they want it now.

Well, of course they do, because they, too, have a shelf full of trophies for being Jake’s Awesome Friend and for playing six basketball games back in second grade. Why shouldn’t they be lauded for showing up every day for work?

I have long told my kids that I dislike these rewards designed to pat them on the back simply for doing what they signed up to do. You might as well give out goody bags at the end of the season. Same sentiment.

But they seem to know the difference. I hope. Of the oodles of trophies in my son’s room just two of them were actually earned: a second place soccer trophy (for losing to an undefeated team by just two goals) and this honkin’ big thing:

A first place trophy for being the winningest team in boys’ “minor league” rec baseball three years ago. And he earned it. Well how about that?

I’m going to suggest to my son that we put away all the medals and trophies except for the ones he truly earned. If he agrees, then I’ve done my job. If he doesn’t, then I’ve got a lot of undoing to do before he applies for his first job, don’t I? Because when “everybody wins,” nobody does.

“Is that a soccer ball?” the nurse at my son’s pediatrician’s office asked, pointing to my necklace. I nodded.

“Cute!” she said, before adding, “Did your kids give you that?” Which is another way of saying, “Surely you’re not wearing a soccer ball necklace because you want to. What grown woman does that?” (more…)

There’s nothing about this in back-to-school guides: What happens when you only have 1 when you need 2?

Case in point:

At some point during a camping trip this past spring, my Boy Scout got hot. So, he unzipped the bottom part of the legs of his official Boy Scouts pants, thereby turning them into shorts.

Both bottoms of the pants miraculously made it home and into the wash, where one was promptly lost. And yet, he has two legs, and winter is coming.

Personally, I believe these types of pants should be outlawed  — at least in children’s sizes or until my son does all his own laundry.

Shortly after soccer season ended in the spring, my other son put his green soccer socks into the wash, where one was promptly lost. Which makes me wonder: Why not two? Why do we always lose one?

Anyhow, I’ve given up on finding the matching sock and have ordered another pair, which I hope very much will arrive prior to his first game in two weeks because Sports Authority doesn’t sell green soccer socks. Blue, white, black and red, yes. But not green.

And yet, it should come as no surprise that I am in this predicament. After all, I can’t find the match to this sock, which was a gift from the nice folks at the off-Broadway play “Secrets of a Soccer Mom,” where I’d signed books. If I can lose one very large, very royal blue sock with jumbo lettering that brings to mind the famous “Hollywood” sign, how can I be trusted with a much smaller green sock and the bottom of boys pants?

And where is that in the back-to-school guides? Nowhere, just like our missing items.

I just wanted to feel like I was living in a Bruce Springsteen song. I wanted to be that girl “you saw boppin’ down on the beach with the radio.” When I was a teenager, I wanted to work on the boardwalk.

But I never got a summer job at the Jersey Shore, choosing instead to work for a temp agency near my parents’ house in North Jersey. As a result, I never got to be that girl, the one who ran the Tilt O’ Whirl or checked beach tags “down the Shore.” Rather, I worked in an un-air-conditioned clothing warehouse with a tin roof near the Meadowlands. And I regretted that decision– until last week. (more…)

Apparently, the bear knows something, but she’s not telling.

It was funny to stumble upon this scene, and yet mildly disturbing as well.

Is your life a series of piles and rows of stuff? Laundry here, cleverly lined up Goldfish crackers across the coffee table there? Mine is. Here’s how I know:

There were two buckets of water balloons and four boys. Elapsed time to break them all: 5 minutes, 23 seconds.

I never expected to see a row of palm trees in the middle of Manhattan. My brother and I speculated that they’re for a roof party for P. Diddy. Yo, welcome Hurricane Bill.

Gentlemen, starts your engines.

I didn’t have to answer the phone when I saw my husband’s name pop up on the caller ID.

I didn’t have to check the end of the driveway.

I didn’t even have to pop my head into the garage.

I just knew. (more…)

You know it’s time for the Semi-Annual Culling of the Kids’ Closets when you find Pee-Wee Herman in an underwear drawer.

As I opened my son’s dresser drawer yesterday, I jumped as though I was an expendible character in a horror movie — perhaps Laundry of Chucky. Even after 12 years of motherhood, I just don’t always anticipate stumbling upon such things as Pee Wee Herman staring at me from among a pile of boxer shorts and white crew socks. But there he was, and there went my Sunday afternoon mellow.

The rest of my son’s room has been blissfully uncluttered for much of the summer. Now and then, his bed goes unmade for hours or even a day or two. But I just start singing “Kung Fu Fighting” or “Copacabana” and suddenly, he’s speed straightening his room. Anything not to hear about Lola, “she was a showgirl,” from his mother, with Dad as back-up singer. Hmmmm. Maybe we need dance moves?

But stumbling upon Pee Wee was a sign to me that it’s time to figure out which clothes can stay and which are too small and/or too ratty, the nicest of which will be donated to the church. That way there’s more room for things that fit.

So I whipped through his closet until I had a pile of “Wow, that hasn’t fit in two years” and “Is that ketchup, or blood?” I put them in large plastic bags and we hauled them downstairs to the dining room, where I’d just pawned off boxes of “I have no bookshelves for these” and “I read this four years ago” on the annual library book sale.

As for the drawer, I haven’t had a chance to cull it yet. Frankly, I’m afraid to open it back up. I mean, who knows what I’ll find there? Oh, Pee Wee knows. That’s who. And that’s a little scary.

The Magic Word of the Day was “quarter.” Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, which my college soccer teammates and I watched religiously, offered up a new word every episode. When you heard it, you were supposed to scream — which was really too bad for everyone in the crowded Burger King in New Hampshire one Saturday afternoon when one of my teammates came up twenty-five cents short for her order.

AAAAHHHH!

(more…)