First, there was the report of “the latest bank robber,” this one wearing a Darth Vader mask. In previous weeks, there have been reports of a bank robber who hides his face with a bouquet of flowers, and an elderly gentleman in a checkered jacket with liver spots on his hands, lugging an oxygen tank while holding up a bank in San Diego.

Then, in the very same newscast, a New York City official of some sort — I didn’t catch the details as I was trying to get the Star Wars “Evil Empire” theme song out of my head — implored people to “please take the money out of your mattresses and put them in a bank.”

Good Lord.

Bad economy.

What to tell the kids? Do we keep on prepping them for a future that’s like our past? Do we send them to college for liberal arts degrees so they can be “well rounded” individuals?

Or do we start teaching them Mandarin and send them for degrees in technology, because by the time they get out of school, the only jobs they’ll be able to get will be half-way around the world and involve bringing the next iPadish item to the growing middle class in Shanghai?

Or do we just get them Darth Vader masks?

Yet, I do believe that the bad economy is, in some ways, good for parenting — and for our kids. If you missed why, here it is, and today, it’s FREE!

Share, share: What do you think? Is the economy good or bad for parenting?

 A. turns the kids’ rooms into shrines where I cry myself to sleep at night. 

OR

B. sells the house and leaves no forwarding address.

I miss them. I do. But not in the weepy, lost-without-my-kids kind of way. I mean, it’s not the first time we’ve been apart. They sleep over at my in-laws’ house fairly regularly. But unlike at camp, they call every night with the run-down of their day. As a bonus, they sometimes arguewhile I’m on the other end of the line, all smug in the knowledge that my mother-in-law will have to break up that fight.

Of course, I spent much of June/July 2007 battling cancer in the hospital where I ached for them every single day. I’d put my cell phone on speaker so the nurses and my roommate could listen to them play the piano for me while I stifled sobs in my pillow.

But this is different. This is the first big step toward wondering where they are and when they will come back with my car. It’s the portal to the white-knuckle-nights of their teen years, and the do-you-really-need-a-waffle-iron shopping trips for their dorm rooms.

When I drop them off at college, will I cry on the way home? Or will I crank up the radio, singing along, “Na, na, na, na, hey, hey, hey, goodbye”?

The answer, it seems, came at a museum. I had a few minutes on Tuesday (hell, I had all day…the kids weren’t home) to drop by the Museum of Modern Art near where I’d eaten lunch, only to discover that it’s closed on Tuesdays. So, I wandered next door to the American Folk Art Museum, where I saw lots of things that reminded me of antiquing with my mother:

Makes me want to traipse around a muddy Massachusetts field, lugging crap historic treasures my mother has purchased for her antiques business. But then I saw this: 

Yes, that’s right: It’s a ball made from a Wonder Bread bag. This thing had to have rolled over from MOMA, where they are currently displaying such “art” as a bale of hay and a piece of wax paper that appears to have been scraped against a cheese grater and then framed and hung on the wall.

“This isn’t folk art,” I mumbled to myself. “This isn’t art.” And suddenly, I wished my kids were there, especially Nicholas, my 13-year-old artist who, just last week, snapped a well composed photo of the Cape May Lighthouse with the intention of painting that image upon his return from camp. No doubt they would have cracked wise about the Wonder Bread ball, turning it into a running joke whenever we buy bread at the supermarket or make grilled cheese sandwiches. Suddenly, I really missed my kids, because I would have shared that with them, along with this:

 He is surrounded by Christmas Seals from 1960, as though some kindergartener had gotten into Mommy’s desk while she was watching “Guiding Light,” and defaced the painting willed to her by her grandmother, who had brought it to America on a ship from Italy a century ago.

Jesus Christ.

What kind of empty nester will I be? A or B? Or perhaps C. None of the above. The good news is that I have seven years until I find out for sure. Until then, I will stay out of the museums unless the kids can tag along.

No wonder.

Share, share: What kind of empty nester will you be?

Just the check, please.

Back when I was a full-time at-home mom, people would sometimes ask, “What do you do all day?” It was meant to be either innocently inquisitive or incredibly insulting, as though staying home with two children under three was some sort of vacation from “real jobs” involving unsticking the copier and raiding the leftover danishes in the conference room. 

My answer was always the same: “I undo everything my kids have done.”

You know, putting away the 143 Matchbox cars snaked across the kitchen floor for a game called “Thanksgiving Traffic Jam.” Wiping peanut butter off the cat’s tail. Fishing the remote out of the toilet. Retrieving my bookmarks from behind the heaters.

Predictably, I was then warned to enjoy my kids while they were little, because, as conventional wisdom dictated, my little cherubs would soon enough turn to surly, sullen teens with chips on their shoulders and pot in their pockets. And then I’d be begging to go back to wrestling car seats and pulling what appears to be graham crackers out of the DVD player. Especially in the summertime.

Guess what though? They lied.

Or at least, they left out a part, because my kids not only aren’t surly, they’re actually helpful. That’s right:  My middle schoolers have worked with me instead of against me ever since they got out of school three weeks ago.

There’s nothing to undo when they put away their own laundry and dishes. There’s nothing to fix when they make their own lunches. There’s nothing to lug, wrangle, scrub. And with no activities lined up for them until later this month, there’s nowhere to carpool either.

I was in the middle of producing a video on Tuesday when my office door swung open, and my soon-to-be sixth grader appeared with a grilled cheese sandwich — with ham — that he’d made for me, a glass of cold water and a brownie.

“Who are you, and what have you done with the little boy who used to stash Legos in his diaper?” I asked.

A few hours later, I emerged from my (air-conditionless) office to go check on the laundry, only to discover that my 13-year-old had put away the pile of clean clothes I’d left on his bed.

“Do I need to scan your brain for a computer chip? Are you one of those suburban spies?” I asked my elder child. But he was busy drawing quietly at his desk.

How come nobody told me about this? Why did no one ever say, “Hey, you might have holes in your pants from repeatedly dropping to your knees to retrieve crawling babies from under the couch now, but one day, your kids will be a joy to live with”?

Why didn’t anyone say, “Look, I know you’re exhausted from being on call every single second of the day now, but in 10 years, your children will help you carry the groceries in, sweep the floor and remind you when the next World Cup game kicks off”?

Why did they try to sell me on the idea that bigger kids are guaranteed bigger problems?

That’s not to say that there haven’t been wrestling matches over the Wii, located in the room over my head. Or that I haven’t yelled, “Knock it off!” at least once a day since school let out in June.  Or that I didn’t just hear the soccer ball WHACK against my office window. Plus it’s true: I have gotten more stupid since my son turned 13 in March. It’s measured in his eye rolls.

But man, er, Mom, I’ll take that anyday over the daily deal with the Devil to get the kids to nap at the same time pleeeeeeease-just-for-a-half-hour-I-beg-you. Give me the “Your music is too loud, Mom” over “Veggie Tales again!” I’ll take yet another Mythbusters episode over anything with Elmo in it. I want the bounce-bounce-bounce of the soccer ball out back instead of the stop-dropping-your-bowl-no-bad-boy!

Give me middle school or give me, well, not death…but sometimes, it sure felt like a part of my soul was gasping for air back when my kids were little. And all the dire warnings of what was to come made me fear that it would shrivel up altogether as soon as puberty hit the house. 

So here’s my new promise: I will enjoy my kids while they’re not little. In fact, that’s what I do all day.

SPEAK UP! I can’t hear you. Tell us what you love, hate, fear, look forward to about your kids at any age. We want to hear from you!

Even more, they are fantastic with a video camera, too:

If we listened hard enough, we could hear our hearts breaking knowing ng that Springsteen was playing just 10 miles away.

Here’s a classic one from my days as a GoodHousekeeping.com blogger…because it’s summer, and I’m having a hard time putting together anything longer than a tweet today.

“where r u” my brother, Scott, texted me as I was racing around the streets of Newark, New Jersey, in my mini-van, desperately trying to find the garage where I’d paid for parking in advance.

“mulberry,” was all I could thumb back before the light turned green and I pulled out onto the wrong street…again. I asked yet another police officer where parking lot “Yellow 2″ was located, and she gave me yet another wrong answer. Finally, my kids, Nicholas, 11, and Christopher, 9, and I found the garage.  I parked before we ran to the Prudential Center, where the American Idol concert had already started.

“We paid 50 bucks to hear some guy name Michael sing Aerosmith. What’s up with that?” Scott texted me while my kids and I ran up several flights of escalators to join my brother and my niece, Erin, 12, up in the nosebleed seats. I sat down with the three kids between Scott and me, listened to a song and texted back, “Bruuuuuuuuuce.”

Springsteen was playing last week just ten miles from the Prudential Center over at Giants Stadium, the Boss’s home court. And yet Scott and I weren’t there. Instead, we were with a bunch of screaming tweens at what can generously be described as a well attended amateur night. We did it for our kids. But that didn’t stop our running commentary via text message.

When Kristy Lee Cook took the stage, Scott texted me again. “Right about now,” he wrote, “I am wishing I was back at my last concert …Hannah Montana.”

“I think the people who just passed by with the beer have the right idea,” I texted back.

“The problem is that this is a two-case concert,” he answered. Nicholas wanted to know what we were laughing at.

“Uncle Scott is texting me funny things,” I explained. When he asked to see my phone, I said, “Never mind.”

But by the time Carly Smithson was performing her karaoke version of Heart’s “Crazy on You,” Nick looked bored. Not much of a rock fan, he probably wished he, too, was at another concert. I texted that to Scott, who answered, “Maybe he can get in line to perform.” I replied, “He’d rather be two blocks over at NJPAC.”

Certainly the New Jersey Performing Arts Center would have jazz or classical music that Nick would enjoy. Meanwhile, I tried not to think about Springsteen. It didn’t last long.

I texted my husband, who had wisely stayed home, “Bruuuuuuuuuce.”

“Really?” he replied. “Is he there?” Bruce Springsteen has a habit of showing up at other concerts when he’s in New Jersey, so I let my husband sweat it out a bit before I told him the truth. He texted back, “;-).”

When Jason Castro appeared on stage with his ukulele, I took the opportunity to take Erin to go get some ice cream for everyone. I asked her how the concert compared to Hannah (Miley Cyrus) Montana’s. She said she like Hannah better because she knew all the songs. “I only know one song so far,” she explained.

“Maybe that’s the problem,” I mumbled.  “I know all these songs, and they’re not singing them all that well.”

But when we returned to our seats, everything changed. Teen sensation David Archuleta took the stage, and thousands of tween girls started screaming like the Beatles had just arrived in America. I texted Scott, “Can you hear me, Paul?”

Yet, Archuleta could sing well. He had a stage presence that none of the other contestants had exhibited. Also, he had fans. Lots of them.

Scott texted me one last time: “Pop thought Frank Sinatra was NOT one of the top crooners, and Dad couldn’t see why we thought ‘Bruce Screamstein’ was so great. And now we are the adults, wondering what these kids see in a bunch of variety show winners.”

The girls behind us shouted, “We love you, David!” And then Scott and I put our phones away for the night.

On the way home, I promised my sons, “Maybe next year, I’ll take you to a David Archuleta concert.” They nodded, and we headed home in the opposite direction of Giants Stadium.

“Nah,” she replied.

“I’m amazed it fits him,” I added. “He’s got a big head for a kid.”

“Whose hat is it?” she asked, and I told her it’s mine.

“And why do you have a cowboy hat?” she wondered. After all, we live in New Jersey, where the only people who wear cowboy hats are generally passing through the state to somewhere else, like a theme park in Hershey, Pennsylvania, or a revival of Oklahoma! on Broadway.

“My brother gave it to me when I was in the hospital to go with the sheriff’s badge, which read ‘Jennifer,’ that my friend had given me,” I explained. “He figured it would complete the outfit for when I was bossing around doctors and nurses.”

The significance of my son wearing that particular hat for his D.A.R.E. program graduation, a de facto fifth grade graduation ceremony, was not lost on me. A few days after Chris entered his third-through-fifth grade elementary school, I underwent my last of six rounds of chemotherapy. Then I spent much of the fall in daily radiation treatments, before finding out in January that I was in remission from non Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

We’ve been dealing with the fallout ever since.

We dealt with it when Chris was in third grade, and we were waiting to find out if I would need a bone marrow transplant.

We dealt with it when Chris was in fourth grade, and we feared the cancer might come back.

We dealt with it when Chris was in fifth grade, and were –are – both still so angry that we had to go through what we’d been through.

Yesterday, when he was wearing my cowboy hat, he would dance to “Cotton-Eyed Joe,” and I would cry to Martina McBride’s “Do it Anyway.” I knew I would. I cried last year when my older son danced in his graduation and they played that Hannah Montana song about climbing mountains to a slide show with pictures of the kids. I was doing fine this year until I heard these lyrics:

God is great but sometimes life ain’t good
And when I pray
It doesn’t always turn out like I think it should
But I do it anyway

On my way home, a friend called to tell me she had Hodgkin’s lymphoma. So, I did it anyway.

Then I visited a neighbor who is dying of cancer and was having a rough day. So, I did it anyway.

Then my kids came home from school, and I got lost in listening to their exciting plans to film a movie this summer with Mary’s kids. And I did it anyway.

Through the good, the bad and the downright frightening, I’ve been praying anyway, because somehow, we made it through the last three years, and somehow we’ll make it through the next three.

There will be rotten times, and there will be spectacular times, and there will be regular, every day times. And yet, I’ll do it anyway. Won’t you?

When I get e-mails from Fabien, it feels like I’m hearing from an alternate world where the Champagne flows, knowledge of the French language is helpful and the people seem to be unaware that there’s a big recession going on. Oh, how I want to go there.

My brother, Scott, wants to go there, too. In fact, he’s the one who introduced me to Flûte, where Fabien is the Director of Operations. Described on its Facebook page as “the chic bar-lounge specializing in Champagne, with two locations in New York City and one in Paris,” Flûte sounds to me like the antidote to suburban parenting. And sometimes, I need that.

Scott told me about his one-and-only visit to Flûte in downtown Manhattan, where he took a class on Champagne vs. sparkling wine.

“They opened 10 bottles of bubbly and then educated us about them,” he recalled. I pictured a group of grown-ups in smudge-free, fine clothing, sitting in a room with mahogany walls and Parisian artwork, discussing the Champagne’s “bouquets” – as though somebody, somewhere hadn’t just lost their shin guards 20 minutes before game time.

But that was a long time ago – or at least before the economy collapsed – and, though New York is just 30 miles from here, it seems so far away when it comes to visiting Flûte.

Sometimes, Scott and I talk about going there like people in old movies discuss Hollywood: “Someday we’ll get there,” we sigh. But getting there requires orchestration that neither of us is willing to attempt to undergo these days. For one thing, we’d have to brave rush hour, as neither one of us works in the city. And I’d have to get someone to take my kids to and from choir/soccer/piano/baseball until my husband gets home at dinnertime.

“Doctor’s appointment?” the kindly, helpful neighbor would ask as my kids pile into her car and I gear up for my trip into the big city.

“Er, no. Intro to Sparkling Wines of Australia and New Zealand,” I’d mumble, eyes averted. “Thanks for carting my kids around town!”

Then there’s the cost – not just to get into the city and back – but the fees for the classes, if we take one, or simply the, what? Ten bucks a glass for the bubbly? In this economy, that seems hard to swallow, especially when we’re paying for choir/soccer/piano/baseball or whatever.

But then Fabien went and e-mailed me again, this time while I was taking a break from chaperoning the fourth grade class trip at the Liberty Science Center, just across the river from Manhattan. I read it on my cell phone:

“Don’t forget that today is Tuesday. That means Flûte’s 2 for 1 Champagne Happy Hour from 5-8 pm!”

I forgot for a moment that my fourth grade charges were taking turns standing in front of a giant blue plastic mouth, which “sneezed” on them every 20 seconds or so.

Fabien’s e-mail went on: “Everything (including our delicious hors d’oeuvres, Champagne by the glass, by the bottle and our amazing Sparkling Cocktail menu) is buy one, get one free.” 

Immediately, I forwarded it to Scott. Seconds later, I received Fabien’s e-mail again, this time forwarded from my brother, who had written, “Hey! Tuesdays are 2 for 1 night!”

Oui, mon frère. Oui.

Maybe this summer, when the kids are visiting their grandparents for the night, and Scott and I have stashed away some cash for a real treat, we’ll go to Flûte. Until then, I’ll look forward to my e-mails from Fabien while I’m waiting for choir practice to let out.

Tell us: What do you dream of when you’re carting kids while covered in Play-Doh and crumbs?

That’s right: It’s a pink KISS T-shirt for toddlers. And it makes me giggle.

See, my brother, Scott, was a big KISS fan back in the day, much to my father’s chagrin. Our dad, who has stated more than once that rock and roll is to music what comic books are to literature, hated KISS and their crazy makeup, platform boots and, most of all, their same three chords over and over again.

“That’s not music!” he would protest whenever Scott played “Christine Sixteen” on his record player. Also, “They can’t sing!” and some other words I can’t print here. This is a family show.

To my father, who admits to sneaking out of school to go hear the jazz bands in Newark, New Jersey, back in the forties, KISS was may well have been the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse.

Plague, War, Famine, Death, “Shout it Out Loud.”

Scott, however, thought they were really, really cool. Also that their ballad, “Beth,” was high class because it involved violins and these compelling lyrics:

Beth, I know you’re lonely
And I hope you’ll be alright
‘Cause me and the boys will be playin’
All night

But now KISS appears on a T-shirt for toddlers — pink, no less — in Babies R Us, not to mention on a web site called “Oldies.com,” where I fact-checked their albums and songs for this blog entry.

And that makes me giggle …nay, snicker. In part because Scott used to give me records for Christmas that he wanted, including, but not limited to, KISS’ “Love Gun.” But also because the very thing that had caused so much teenage and parental angst in my childhood home has been reduced to an ironic T-shirt located on the same floor as the Bugaboo strollers and the diaper pails. A T-shirt for little girls.

So, thank you Babies R Us for making my day. And thank you, KISS. I hear you callin’. I really do.

Anyhow, my baby is here: Stop Second-Guessing Yourself — Baby’s First Year. It joins its big brother and sister, Stop Second-Guessing Yourself — The Toddler Years and Stop Second-Guessing Yourself — The Preschool Years, which are Mom’s Choice Award winners. They make nice Mother’s Day presents, or shower gifts, or a treat for you to read while hiding in the bathroom as the kids watch Dora the Explorer. Or whatever.

If you’d like to get yours signed, I will be here with a pen:

Borders
Route 23 North
Riverdale, NJ
Saturday, May 8th
2-4 PM

Book Expo America
Javitz Center, New York City
HCI booth #3577
11:00 a.m- 12:00 pm

General Autographing area: TABLE 5
1:00 – 1:30 p.m.

 Or you can try to win all three and some other goodies at the Housewife Awards. The deadline is May 10th, so get your story in now.

Meanwhile, please stop second-guessing yourself. Really. You’re a good mom and your gut will serve you well. Oh, and Happy Mother’s Day from this “new mom” to you.