Bits and pieces

Some favorites from the week:

This hand lotion, which has changed my life (or at least made my horribly dry hands more comfortable.) It's not perfect - it's pricey and the scent is a little strong - but after many winters of searching, I've finally found something that's not greasy and really works. (And I don't have a humidifier, but if I were to buy one, it would be this little one.)

This quote, which I try to keep in mind whenever I listen to the news.

This lesson from a 10-year-old. Livvy stayed after school to help make Valentine bags for a group of homeless children. When she got home, I asked how it was. "Guess where they live?" she said. I couldn't guess. "At the hotel where there was a fire!" (Once, when we drove to a store in a nearby town, the parking lot of an adjoining motel was filled with fire trucks.) "The children live in the motel?" I asked, with what must have sounded like concern in my voice. "But, Mom, they're lucky," she said. "They've got someplace good to stay."

Have a happy weekend.

Hello and goodbye

When Kate and Holt and Livvy were little, no matter what they were doing, they would jump up and shout with happiness when Web walked in the door. It was as though they hadn't seen their dad in weeks and he had finally come back to them. It was the reaction rock stars get when they walk on stage, and all he had to do was walk through the door.

Web (and even I) still get a pretty good greeting from Livvy, but the older two are more subdued now, as you might imagine. Which has made me think quite a lot about the act of saying hello. I make sure to say hello to each of them first thing when I (or they) come in the door, and I make sure they say it back. To be honest, I'm not sure they always would, without a little prodding.

But now I'm also thinking more about goodbye, thanks to a lovely photo essay I came across on the blog Sho & Tell. I say goodbye when Kate, Holt, or Livvy leave, but it's sometimes from another room, or called down the stairs. Sometimes it's just a wave if I'm on the phone. I love how photographer Angelo Merendino says, "There was never an 'I'll just let myself out,' it was always, 'We'll walk you to the door.' " Since his father died, he says, his mother stands alone by the door and waves. You can see the photos here, if you'd like. Meanwhile, I'm going to try to do better with goodbye.

Just a quick shout-out to the New England Patriots from a fan who tunes in only on Superbowl Sunday. It was an exciting game, to be sure, with some good commercials. My favorites, unsurprisingly, were Dove's #realstrength ad and Proctor & Gamble's "Like a Girl." Here's a full-length version, which makes me cry every time I watch.

(Photo by Angelo Merendino.)

Second best

Oh, what a week, including one daughter home from school yesterday, a second one home today. What I think they need most of all is sleep. School, away games, late-night practices, and even later-night homework, and it's not yet October. And, in our case, it's not yet high school. But it reminded me of a New York Times interview with Debora Spar, president of Barnard College and author of a new book Wonder Women: Sex, Power, and the Quest for Perfection, which came out this week.

In the interview, Spar says Barnard women are "coming out of high school exhausted," after years of fighting for perfect SAT scores, working to get into AP classes, and trying to balance all those many, many sports and extracurriculars. In her book, Spar advocates "satisficing," or settling for second best. "Sometimes second best is really good," Spar says, "and second best is much better than fourth best or worse."

She gives an example of coming home from work, saying a quick hello to her 8-year-old, and rushing back out the door. "Where are you going?," her son asked. To a PTA meeting at your school, she said. "Why?," he asked. Because I want to be involved in your school community, she told him. "But I want you here," he said. And after that, she never attended another PTA meeting.

During late-night homework sessions this week, I finished The Art of Fielding, a book I resisted for too long, thinking I had enough baseball in my real life. And if I'm completely honest, I also resisted because I tend to prefer books written by women. I'm a little embarrassed to admit this - it's ridiculous - but it's true. After reading this book, I hope I've learned a lesson. This is a story about baseball, yes, but also about relationships, home, fear, failure, and love. It paints such a true picture of college life and the friendships formed there, particularly male friendships:

"Schwartz held out his fist and Henry bumped it with his own, and Pella could tell from their somber, ceremonious expressions that their feud, or whatever you'd call it, had ended. Men were such odd creatures. They didn't duel anymore, even fistfights had come to seem barbaric, the old casual violence all channeled through institutions now, but still they loved to uphold their ancient codes. And what they loved even more was to forgive each other. Pella felt like she knew a lot about men, but she couldn't imagine what it would be like to be one of them, to be in a room of them with no woman present, to participate in their silent rites of contrition and redemption."

Getting off the phone

Sooner or later, I was bound to drop my phone in the pond. Nearly every day I take our dog, Clementine, to a nearby pond to swim, and typically I'm holding a leash, a small bag of treats, and always my phone. This particular day, I put my phone under my arm to throw a stick, and it slipped and fell in the water.

It spent the next few days charging in a bowl of white rice. Each time I took it out of the rice and unplugged it from the charger, the phone turned on and off at will until it quickly lost all power. Even the short trip from charger to desk was too far, so back it would go.

I needed a new phone, but time got in the way, and for several weeks I did nothing about it. I simply left the phone charging and checked emails and texts from the kitchen counter. And I realized: not having my phone with me was something of a life-changer. Before, when I was stopped at a red light, I would check my phone. Before, while I waited at the orthodontist for a child to be done, I would read emails, send texts, or look at Instagram/Facebook/Twitter. I'd hear the ping of a new email or the different ping of a new text, and I would check as soon as I could.

Not having a phone with me meant sitting quietly at a red light, or reading a magazine at the orthodontist, or, even better, talking with the person beside me. I realized that before the phone-in-pond incident, I was on it all the time. I'd like to think I was better about it around my children, but I know I wasn't perfect. I know this because one night my oldest daughter, Kate, said to me, "I think not having a phone has been good for you."

I bought a new phone this weekend. I feel more comfortable having it with me when I'm out. But I'm going to try to hold on to my new after-the-phone-fell-in-the-pond life. I'm going to sit at a red light and pretend it's back home, sitting in a bowl of rice. I'm going to leave it in my bag while I'm waiting at the orthodontist. I'm going to try to be a little more present. And when I take Clementine for a walk, I'm going to leave it on the kitchen counter.

(Photo by Livvy Fletcher)

Motherhood here and there

For four years, we lived next door to a family from Norway, and they became some of our closest friends. Our children were young, with a 7-year-old, a not-yet-born, and everything in between. The kids raced between houses, had their first sleepovers, and started preschool and elementary school together. We celebrated Norwegian holidays with them, and they went trick-or-treating and to Fourth of July parades with us.

Audrey (the mom) and I spent hours talking on their driveway, and often those conversations were about life in the United States vs. their home in Norway. Audrey is Scottish, married to a Norwegian, and her ability to adjust to other cultures seemed almost effortless. Her insights into life both here and there fascinated me.

Eventually our friends moved back to Norway, and we miss them. I thought of Audrey, her sweet, Americanized kids, and all our conversations on the driveway, when I read the first of a series on one of my favorite blogs, A Cup of Jo. For the series, called Motherhood Around the World, blogger Joanna Goddard interviews American mothers about their impressions of raising children in a foreign country. First up was Norway (coincidentally), and last Monday was Japan. You can find both here.

I've loved reading about the differences these mothers have encountered living overseas. But I've also loved the sameness. For example, Joanna interviewed Yoko Inoue, a photographer who grew up in Japan but lived in the United States for 17 years before moving back with her American husband and son. She talks about children walking to school: "As parents [in Japan] we have to make sure kids always say greetings 'with big voice! Good morning!' No mumbling or looking down. If you don't, it's considered so rude!"

I smiled when I read this. "Remember to look the person in the eye," I'm constantly telling my children. "Use a good, strong voice" (though I'm going to start using the simpler instruction, "With big voice!"). Very Japanese of me, I now know.

This photo is not really related to the post other than reminding me of when she was 7.

Finding the way there

A friend dropped a book off on my doorstep yesterday morning with a note saying how much she liked it. My computer was moving slowly, so as I sat and waited, I read the author's note at the beginning of the book. And there I came across a perfect description of my life, right down to the detail about the author's sister:

"A hopeless navigator, I regularly got lost trying to find birthday parties and doctors' offices, exiting the highway at the wrong place and driving around for ten minutes without recognizing anything. After a while my children would begin shouting from the backseat, 'You're lost, aren't you? You're lost again! Call Aunt Bridget!' My sister, Bridget, would navigate me back to our town after I called her on my cellphone, my heart pounding with the stress of being late, being a wretched driver, risking a citation, being lost."

This is me. I remember driving a carful of girls to a birthday party and becoming utterly lost with no idea where to go next. The GPS was no help because apparently - as I remember - there there two streets with the same name in the same town. I called my sister, trying to sound calm for the listening ears in the backseat, and sure enough, she got us there.

I love the author's description of this state of being - being late, being a wretched driver, being lost. I once told my children I don't panic when I'm lost because I'm so accustomed to it, but that's not true. Being lost in a car is a terrible feeling. The GPS (usually) helps, to be sure. And of course my sister.

The book, by the way, is Paris in Love by Eloisa James. It's about the author's decision to take a sabbatical from her job, sell her house, and move with her family to Paris, where she continues to get lost, but this time on foot and - most important - with much greater pleasure.

Time flies

I'm having a time-is-flying-by moment. These spring weekends (and weeks) are so full, there's hardly time to think. It reminds me of having babies, when well-meaning people said, "Enjoy this time; it goes by so fast," and I thought, "I'm really trying, but mostly I'm feeling overwhelmed." We'll race to the end of spring, measured by the last day of school (the end of June in our case), and then it will all come to a halt, at least for a while. Yesterday, I went with one of my daughters on a field trip to the ocean, where we spent the day searching for crabs, shrimp, and starfish. We climbed over rocks, waded in icy-cold water, and ate picnic lunches on beach towels. I tried not to give in to the feeling that my field-trip days are numbered. As parents of 8-year-olds, we can still elicit screams of excitement from the school bus when it pulls into the parking lot and the children spot us waiting by our cars. That won't last, I know, but an 11-year-old and a 13-year-old remind me that what comes after also is good, just different.

I hope you have a very happy - and relaxing - weekend.

To watch and to read

I'm terrible about making time to go to the movies - ironic, because I love them and think each time I go that it's the very best I've ever seen. "The Hunger Games" was perhaps the last in-the-movie-theater movie I saw, which tells you something. But the film that's going to get me in my car is most definitely "What Maisie Knew," based on the Henry James novel, about the breakup of a marriage told from a child's perspective. In a review, Time Magazine says it's difficult to watch but is "the most provocative movie about parenting ... since 'The Kids Are All Right.'"

Speaking of parenting, I'm waiting for my library-reserved copy of What My Mother Gave Me: Thirty-One Women on the Gifts That Mattered Most. In these essays, women writers tell about gifts from their mothers that impacted their lives in profound and often unexpected ways. One writes of leopard-print shoes; another of a horse; and a third about a year of sobriety before her mother died of alcoholism.

One box of Kleenex for the movies; one for my bedside table.

Mothers

My grandmother - my mother's mother - passed away before my sister and I were born, when my mother was newly married. My mother, an only child, adored her mom, and when I was little, I loved hearing stories about their life together.

I worried, though, about my mother missing my grandmother, and I didn't like to think what it must have been like for her when she passed away. To me, it was unimaginable not to have a mother. Yet, she told me that after her mother died, she so often felt mothered by others. I liked that idea.

My mother passed away two years ago. I'm now in her shoes. Only, my feelings of being mothered come not just from others, but from her. I can't call her each day as I used to, but I think about her every single day, throughout my day, and I feel as though she's still very much my mother and always will be. I once found it unimaginable to lose a mother. Now I don't believe you can.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend and an especially happy Mother's Day.

My mother and me.

Lean In

I haven't yet read Sheryl Sandberg's book, Lean In, so it's a little funny that I'd be writing a post about it. In my defense, I'm really writing about Real Simple managing editor Kristin van Ogtrop's response to Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, and Sandberg's hugely successful and widely discussed new book.

Once, long ago, I read something van Ogtrop wrote in an anthology on motherhood. It was before I had children, but her essay struck me as the most honest and daring of the collection. Ever since then, I've looked forward to reading her monthly "editor's note" in Real Simple. She's funny and smart and, just as she was in that first essay, always honest.

In her most recent "editor's note" (an expanded version was published in The Huffington Post), van Ogtrop says, "Here's the thing: I don't want to be striving for bigger/better/higher/more every minute of every day. I don't always want to have a larger goal. That just sounds exhausting and, worst of all, completely joyless."

Obviously, as editor of a successful lifestyle magazine, van Ogtrop has achieved the kind of success I think Sandberg's talking about (but remember, I haven't read the book!). And she makes a point of saying how much she loves her job. But to me, that makes her argument more compelling, not less. This is the part that moved me most: "... I can tell you with certainty that, when I'm lying on my deathbed, I'm not going to be thinking about career wins. I'm going to be thinking about my parents and two sisters who greeted every new life situation like it was another chapter in a long, hilarious narrative; my steadfast husband, who gave me love and a true north; and finally, the three children who made me take life both more and less seriously, and whose faces are the only thing I see when I close my eyes."

The second best part of van Ogtrop's essay is the last few sentences. I've given away too much already, so I'll let you read it for yourself. I'd love to hear what you think.

(The photo above - of the mantle in my living room - was taken by my good friend and fabulous photographer Jennifer Green.)

Sleepover

My two daughters love sleepovers with all their hearts (the younger is just getting started). They would have a friend or 10 sleep with them every night if they could. Of course they can't, especially with a mother who doesn't quite share their passion. I'm a fan of a good night's sleep and an advocate of beds, preferably one's own.

So there's always a tiny sense of worry on my part when a sleepover is coming up. But then - every single time - it's just fine. It's fine even when it's not fine, if that makes any sense at all. Even when a child has to go home in the middle of the night. Even when another child can't sleep. Even when all children are up at an ungodly hour of the morning. It's still OK. Everyone will sleep well the next night. Last night's popcorn will be vacuumed from the couch cushions. Everyone will have had a good time. Why I can't remember that beforehand, I don't know.

But then, the other night, I was reminded. It was late, and I was turning off lights and locking doors when it occurred to me there was someone asleep in every part of the house: one daughter and a friend in the basement; the dog in the family room; my son and another daughter upstairs in their rooms; and my husband in our room. At the risk of sounding like a big sap, it made me happy. It was a nice moment. And I didn't even mind the sound of four feet tearing up the stairs very, very early the next morning.

Photo by Simply Seleta

Escape

My daughter and I took an Amtrak train to New York the other day. As we stood on the platform, I listened to an announcement over the loudspeaker telling passengers which cars were "business class" and which were something called "quiet cars." The train was crowded enough that we were happy just to find a seat, but I was a little intrigued by the "quiet car" concept, so I looked it up on my phone.

Amtrak says people who sit in quiet cars have to talk in subdued tones. Actually, they shouldn't talk much at all, and they definitely can't make or answer calls. Anything that might ding has to be muted, and even the lights are dimmed.

I think Amtrak is on to something. At home, I have a place like that, and it happens to be my car. It's become a habit that when I pull into the driveway, my children get out while I stay in. Often I'll sit and sift through emails (or, if I'm being totally honest, Facebook or Instagram) on my phone. Sometimes I'll listen to a story on the radio. That time in the car is my escape.

The bathroom - a place where lots of people like to hide out - doesn't work as well for me. Inevitably there are visitors to the bathroom. Usually they knock, but sometimes they don't.

13

My daughter Kate, as I've mentioned here before, is 13. You've heard me talk about her age because I can't quite believe it. I've had half a year to process this age, and still. How is possible she's a teenager, how in the world did it happen so fast, and how can I be the mother of a teenager when I was one myself just a minute ago (I know - ha)? I realize parents say this at every single age: How can it be that you're a month, a year, four years old, 10? For me, it's 13.

Kate got her hair cut the other day, and the stylist asked her what grade she's in. When she answered 7th, the woman looked quickly over at me with an expression that said "you poor thing." And then she said it out loud. You poor thing. I wasn't sure if she was referring to me or to Kate, but I understood her message. She went on to say she would not go back to 7th grade for anything in the world. She'd choose any year in high school over 7th grade.

What interested me about this conversation was that, though I knew Kate was listening, she seemed unaffected, unimpressed. And that's the thing about 13 and 7th grade: You're in it and it's all you know at that moment and it's OK. Certainly not every day is OK, and for some, few days are. But the other day, when I was driving Kate and two elementary-school friends home, we passed their old school. I asked them whether, if they could choose, they would go back or stay where they are. Instantly, they each said they would choose Middle School. They like going from class to class. They like that there are so many kids. They like that they're older. They like being 7th graders.

Someday they might say something different. They might say they wouldn't go back to 7th grade for anything in the world. But not now. For now, this is what they know. This is who they are.

(Getty Images)

Sleep

I ran into a friend yesterday whose wife had a baby a month ago. When I asked if they were sleeping - how many times a day do you think they hear that question - he said they've come up with a plan. Because they're photographers with their own business (and flexible work schedules), they split nighttime duty. Jo, the mom, sleeps from 9:00 at night until 3:00 in the morning. At 3:00, Dave goes to bed and sleeps until 9:00 (a.m., not p.m.!).

Clearly, they can't do this forever - and won't have to, even much longer. But I wonder if sleep ever stops being an issue. We're not at the curfew stage yet (eek), but I find I stay up so much later than I should because a.) my kids are up later; and b.) I need time once they've gone to bed. Time for things like laundry and cleaning up, but also time for sitting at the computer or reading or, like last night, watching the Oscars. Just time. And sometimes taking that time at night makes the morning harder than it should be. I'm grumpy and rushed and yell silently at myself for not going to bed earlier.

Like Jo and Dave, I probably need a plan. A go-to-bed-so-much-earlier plan. But then again, I may just enjoy the fact that I'm not waking up in the middle of the night - until I am again, once curfews kick in.

Spending

It's funny about money, and it's funny what you remember. I remember my father's comment long ago that my mother had a very hard time spending small amounts of money but a much easier time with large sums.

I'm the opposite. I can spend and spend, as long as the amounts are very small. I've even been known to buy only one of something when I really needed two, only to come back the next day (or a few hours later) to buy the second. And if I buy a few things at one grocery story, a few more at another, and go to a third for the last items on my list, then I feel OK. I've only spent a little in each place.

All of this to say that large purchases are hard for me. Even when those purchases are important. Like a new mattress for a boy who's been sleeping on his aunt's hand-me-down since he moved from his crib to a bed nine years ago.

So, no more new socks for me for a little while; fewer chewy sticks for the dog; a moratorium on leggings for one daughter; and not as many peppermint hot chocolates from Starbucks for the other. Only a new mattress for this boy. It's time for me to become more like my mother.

Waiting

I set the DVR the other night to record Oprah's two-part interview with Lance Armstrong. Technology is not my strong-suit, to put it mildly, so in the process I ended up taping all of Oprah's other interviews (and upcoming ones, too, I'm sure. Stay tuned.).

So last night I sat down to watch Oprah talk with funny, down-to-earth, totally refreshing Drew Barrymore. Who knew? That's not entirely true: I knew a little bit. I knew she was wonderful in "ET." I knew, very generally, that she had a difficult childhood and was in rehab by the time she was 14. I knew she ended up being a successful actress who seemed a little quirky and definitely likable. And I knew she is now the mother of a sweet baby girl named Olive.

Oprah asked Drew, because of her experience growing up with parents who did very little parenting, what she would do differently with Olive. And she said: "I will be there at 3:00 in the school line waiting to pick her up."

I watched the Lance Armstrong interview, by the way. I listened to him apologize for doping, for lying for years about his doping, and for being a bully. But nothing in that interview moved me the way Drew's statement did. That she would be waiting for Olive. That she would pick her up at 3:00. Because she never had anyone waiting for her, and every child should.

There was the usual mix of grownups on our school playground this afternoon, everyone trying to stay warm. There were nannies, grandparents, fathers, older sisters who had walked over from the Middle School, and mothers. All waiting for 3:00.