I’m especially preoccupied with all of this because I recently found out that my ACL repair of a few years ago did not take. It’s unclear whether another surgery is the best option. The only thing that I know is that someday, I don’t know when, this knee will hurt. And maybe it will hurt so much and for so long that I will need a replacement – which I know isn’t the end of the world, but oh my god. I find myself doing a lot of magical thinking around the knee – Would I switch bodies with that person? That person? – trying to intuit what other kinds of health issues I would be inheriting along with their seemingly intact knees.

Crazy, I know. But isn’t it nice to know that things haven’t changed much around these peevish parts?

Yesterday my yoga teacher said something along these lines: our bodies are how they are and what we have right now. It was a different beast twenty years ago and will be a different beast in twenty years from now. We take care of them so that we can use them to communicate with the people we love. We take care of them so we can feel good. Because if we feel good, we can be good.

It made me want to cry. And it made me want to write.

You must watch this video about the A-Z’s of Dance. It’s so inspiring.

And hello again. We have some things to catch up on.

Click here to view the embedded video.

People don’t talk about crappy family time because mainly, you want to forget all about it. It’s pathetically easy to believe that other families don’t experience crappy family time – that your own family is the only family comprised of malcontents, drama queens and feeble brats who act like riding a bike around the chain of lakes is a cruel and unusual punishment. For my own sanity, I have to believe we all have crappy family time sometimes, and if I’m wrong, well then, you must be feeling really great about yourselves right about now.

By no means do I mean to imply that I am a blameless observer of crappy family time – some of my least proud parenting moments have happened within the framework of fun and togetherness. This is how it tends to go: I will play Julie McCoy, spawn an idea, quickly research a bit on line and announce it to the brood only to be met with resistance or worse yet, complete apathy. I will soldier on and run around making preparations, while I alternately bark orders for readiness and rattle off enticing reasons said outing will be just! so! terrific! Except that in lieu of smiling eager beavers, I get a pack of surly rabbits who refuse to come easily. And inevitably, I lose my cool and before we have even left the house, I have yelled at everyone and am left asking myself a simple yet crushing question: why bother?

Really, I’d like to know. Why bother?

Because sometimes, you finally shove off, pulling a black cloud behind you like it’s tethered to everyone’s bike seat and someone (I’m not naming names) will start in on the whining from the get go and others will bike ahead and you will spend a good 20 minutes fuming and pondering the question, and then you will find a way to dig really really deep and say something funny, something encouraging and a couple tethers on that cloud will snap, and your shoulders will relax and you’ll keep going, steadily pedaling your way into the light.

The truth is, crappy family time usually turns itself around. Notwithstanding all the annoyance and grief, if you push through, it eventually dissipates, sometimes in imperceptible increments, sometimes all at once. The moods lift, the complaints soften and you get into a groove so that by the time you’re rolling back home you feel happy, tired and like, maybe, you accomplished something. Together.

That’s why we bother.

No matter how much I think and I think, I just can’t figure out the answers.

Why can’t I look at those plump little visiting waterfowl pit-stopping in Lake Harriet and not wonder how much fat could be rendered from them. (Cooks will understand).

Why can’t I simply write a post about how safe my city feels for my roaming kids without an attempted abduction in Linden Hills three days later?

Why can’t I figure out how to balance my summer so I don’t end up like this by the end of June?

Why can’t I bike by the archery field by Lake Calhoun without picturing, in full gory detail, sound included, an arrow whistling through the air and piercing me right through the neck?

Why does bad stuff happen to good people?

Why does being this particular age feel so messed up? Not necessarily in a bad way.

Why can’t I slow down time?

I’m going to say that about covers it, so as to avoid really freaking you out.

It takes many stones. Many, many stones.

Yes, I am lazy, but I do also believe we aren’t doing our kids any favors by rushing to help them at every turn. I still make their school lunches, but I haven’t put frozen waffles in the toaster for months. I’ll still pour the milk in the cereal for Devil Baby, but only if the carton is too full for her to do it herself. I only tie skates and cleats for the youngest. Unless it’s dangerously cold, I don’t even nag about wearing a coat anymore.

But I realize that teaching them to help themselves is actually a separate thing from teaching them to help me – and I’m failing miserably at the latter. Right now I’m staring at a muddy yard covered in the white fluff of a disemboweled stuffed lamb that Foxy went to town on. I sent the girls out to deal with it yesterday and frankly, they did a terrible job. Finger pointing, and so and so not doing her share ended up in exactly nada. They came into the house in a swirl of muddy shoes and loud recriminations and I let it drop. Because it was easier.

Earlier in the day, I had found myself picking up handfuls of disintegrating dog crap out of the garden because Saint James didn’t do it on the last cold day when I told him to. He had picked up a fair amount, but again, the complaints about it being stuck in the snow and impossible to pick up got him off. And it it got me elbow-deep in warm, wet dog shit. Was it easier than listening to Saint James gag and whine? Arguably.

How can I expect them to do anything for me if I don’t even make them finish the things I have specifically asked them to do for me? As the article points out, parents have no one to blame but themselves for this. I cannot expect that my kids would have any clue of what needs to be done around here, and even if they did, that they’d have any sense of responsibility to pitch in, if I’m not putting this into play in a more consistent way. Helping to set and clear the table just isn’t going to cut it anymore. Watch out, kids! Mama’s got a bee in her bonnet.

It’s going to take me a little while to figure out this writing gig. Traditionally, I have not been a big computer person. I never got sucked into the hours of surfing the web that gripped so many of us in the early nineties and never let go. At work, I’d call my mom or a friend or page through a fashion magazine if I needed a break. I never turned on the computer at night unless I needed to check the movie times. I was blissfully free and I didn’t even know it.

How times have changed. I’m juggling just a few different writing projects, but I find myself on-line, or at least on-laptop for WAY more time than I’m used to. And it doesn’t feel good in my body. I feel cloudy, groggy and all around nasty. I don’t like sitting still. I don’t like staring at a screen. I don’t like feeling gross.

I suppose I should have thought about this before I started writing. But here’s the thing. I love to write. I love this little community of readers. And peevish mama is very, very special to me.

With your patient and willing ear, you helped me create a habit of writing things down. This is a place where I can stash my thoughts and the shiny pebbles that I happened to find scattered around in my real or virtual life. It’s a place where I can work through the highs and lows of parenting a young family and of being this very strange age that looks like adulthood but feels like adolescence.

I’ve hit rough patches and lean patches and cuckoo-in-my head patches with peevish mama before, and I was able to write myself through. Maybe I can do it one more time.

So hang with me while I figure myself out. Yet again.

I found these pictures late this summer when the coalescence of my anti-climactic 41st birthday, Devil Baby’s impending leap into kindergarten and a general end-of-summer antsiness sent me into a tailspin. If you were anywhere within a two block radius of me the last couple weeks in August, you would have been alarmed at my state: alternatively weepy and manic, confused, verbose, morose, fretful, paralyzed, nervous and freaky. Deaky. Apparently, this identity crisis of mine was like a far off train whistle rapidly approaching over the last few months. Lady Tabouli reminded me that I was having these – um – thoughts back at our book club weekend in February. After too much wine, I confessed my angst to the ladies and said something about the fact that I can’t just be this aging party girl who goes to see concerts to feel alive. I needed a PLAN. I had completely forgotten. The ladies don’t forget.

Months, weeks, days. The words weighed heavy on my chest. Bounced around between my ears. Spelled themselves out behind closed lids like Sesame Street letters: WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO NOW?

WHAT THE FUCK?

DO I DO NOW?

So here’s what I know: 1. I don’t know the answer to that question, 2. I am not alone – many of us are wondering the same thing, 3. It is ok to take a moment, take a breath, take some time to figure some things out.

You see that number 3 there? That’s where Slinkachu’s pics come into play. Little does he know that a Minnesota mama saw his pictures at a time in her life when the confusion and angst rivaled that of her early twenties. I was amused by them. They stayed in my head. I went back to look at them a couple more times, showed them to Supergirl early one morning and finally found my message there. I felt it open like a flower in my throat: perspective.

Take a step back from your damn self, sister! (This is me talking to myself in my best Florence from The Jeffersons voice.) Get your head outta your fanny and open your damn eyes! You still the mama and those babies need you more than ever. Step back, girl. Step back.

And so I am. Trying.

From the July issue of The Atlantic, the article’s title – How to Land Your Kid in Therapy – is sort of beside the point. What is supremely hair raising, is the notion that we super-involved parents, who are literally devoting all of our time to making our kids happy and successful, could actually be doing them a disservice in the long run. Our ”discomfort with discomfort” is actually leaving them ill-equipt to deal with the real life stressors that will eventually come their way, and in fact may be turning them into little narcissists. Saying “good job” has become a verbal tick. To the extent that our kids believe us every time we say it (and why should they not?), they are left thinking they are pretty friggin’ awesome. When is the last time someone said good job to me? And yet I haven’t dissolved into a puddle of insecurity, have I? Obviously, kids need encouragement and some kids are more sensitive than others, but when I read this article, I realized my kids are in far greater danger of turning out to be clueless and entitled, with inflated senses of self than they are of having low self-esteem. Low self-esteem? Fat chance.

If you ever sit near the diving board at our pool you can hardly carry on a conversation for the constant yelling coming from the peanut gallery. Holding up the line, you have little Ashley or whoever screaming mom! mom! mom! mom! mom! mom! until her mother interrupts her conversation, watches her jump off the diving board, waits for her to emerge from the water and gives her a dutiful thumbs up or a big wow! good job! What the HELL? We aren’t talking toddlers taking their first plunges. These are 8, 9 and 10 year olds who insist on a captive, fawning audience at all times. My kids do it too and I’ve actually felt guilty saying No, I’m not going to score your dives right now. But damn if sometimes I don’t feel like averting my eyes to the pages of a magazine instead of watching them.

A couple weeks ago, Saint James and his soccer buddy walked in the back gate after having been at a soccer camp from 9-3. They were visibly hot and sweaty and had practice in an hour and a half, but they stopped at the rebounder and started kicking around some more. I had just read this article, so I was super self-conscious about my mother-henning, but was I crazy to think those boys should cool off after 6 hours of soccer? So instead of addressing them directly, I whispered to Doctor Dash to tell them to come inside. Of course Dash perfunctorily blew me off with an oh, they’re fine and asked me not to involve him in my article-craziness. So I went stealth. I banged around the kitchen for a bit, made an icy concoction in the blender and nonchalantly crooned out the back door – hey guys, want some smoothies? Mother. Hen. Wins.

Just this past week I was on my laptop at the pool and a tweenish girl ran up to me and told me that Devil Baby had gotten a back smack during dive practice. I sprang up and saw that she was being comforted by the assistant coach. I thought of the article, about letting kids sit with discomfort and just as I was about to sit back down, one of the moms rushed up to me and told me that Devil Baby was crying. I felt like yelling So What???? She smacked her back on WATER!!!! She’s FIIIIIIINE! But as such, unable to withstand the societal pressure to check on my child (who was FINE), I shuffled over, because isn’t that what I’m there for? Just waiting in the wings until they need a little pat on the back?

I think this article touched a nerve for me because I am at the absolute apex of my kid summer business. I spend ALL of my time driving them around so they can be super happy super humans – but to what end? I can tell you based on the last couple months that it is EXHAUSTING watching other people exercise. If I were on any one of my kids’ daily routines, I would be ready to do a triathalon tomorrow. I’d be freakishly buff. Outlandishly fit. But I’m not. I’m tired and crabby. AND I haven’t gotten to build a fort, ride a horse or learn graffiti art.

The weeks wear on, the novelty wears off, the boredom sets in and I pick up an article that shines a spotlight on something I’ve been kinda sorta thinking anyway. We fill up their plates because we want them to have fun, try everything, gain that muscle memory early on, so that in the future, it won’t be a struggle to learn how to play tennis, or ski, or swim laps. But what’s wrong with sucking? We all have to stink at some thing, some times, don’t we? And what’s wrong with being bored and “unhappy” during the summer time? It’s like it’s verboten to even suggest that. But don’t some of your best childhood summer memories involve time spent scampering around your neighborhood with no agenda? The problem is that there are very few kids around these days for my kids to scamper with. Everyone is busy.

The god awful truth of the matter is that, in more ways than I care to admit, my schlepping justifies my existence right now. To do all this work, as mindless and frustrating as it can be, and then engage the possibility that not only is it not the best thing I can do for my kids, but that I may actually be doing it for myself, well, let’s just say that smarts.

I can’t help but wonder what the hell I’m doing. I keep reminding myself that the number one thing that broke my heart about working was not being able to be with my kids during the summer. I have a palpable, gut memory of pulling up to my house with my babies (who had been in their posh air-conditioned daycare all day) just as a gaggle of wet kids were spilling out of my neighbor’s minivan. I can still see all the colorful towels wrapped around heads, being dragged on the grass. My neighbor was tan, her hair wet. I was so envious and sad. And now, these many years later, we are all about colorful wet towels and yet, I am feeling truly burnt out by a different kind of rat race.

Mother hen needs a wee break, I think. And maybe the chicks do too.

Back to Tina (yes, I feel we’re on a first name basis now). Tina made me laugh over and over, and while I can’t relate to her sexy comedy and television life, I can sure as hell relate to coming up as a “brunette” in the seventies and eighties. She writes: “Let me start off by saying that at the University of Virginia in 1990, I was Mexican. I looked Mexican, that is, next to my fifteen thousand blond and blue-eyed classmates, most of whom owned horses, or at least resembled them. I had grown up the “whitest” girl in a very Greek neighborhood, but in the eyes of my new classmates, I was Frida Kahlo in leggings.”

She proceeds to talk about how she was inevitably drawn to super “Caucasian” guys, as was I. Such is the curse of a dark girl. My first TV crushes were blond (Bo Duke, Ricky Shroder, and Alice’s son, Tommy) and my first two boyfriend were blond Johns. And oh, how I coveted Cindy’s golden ringlets and Farah’s fabulous feathered do. I tried to get my formidable head of hair cut into feathers and it was so thick and heavy (and untouched by a curling iron – who knew you had to style it?) that I looked like Dorothy Hamil’s younger, retarded cousin who had accidentally injested copious amounts of Miracle Grow in an unsupervised gardening episode. Seriously, it was a bowl cut on steroids, voluminous and shiny, like a majestic, fecund mushroom – only it shrouded most of my face, which, in retrospect, is probably for the best.

I too was the frequent victim of mistaken ethnic identity. My middle school bus driver assumed that since I had dark hair and was at the same bus stop as the three Cho brothers, I must be their sister. It’s no wonder, considering my bus driver was an overweight, middle aged, BLOND Michigander by the name of Tanya. Why would Tanya need to distinguish between an Argentine girl and three Chinese boys? Aren’t they all the same? Those . . . brunettes? Only I had no idea I had been lumped into their family until one day I was getting off the bus and she yelled after me in her Midwest corn chip accent: Be sure to tell yer mother about yer brother’s nose bleed now. I stopped and turned around. Her arm jiggled as she pulled the lever. The bus door closed with a hiss.

Not that it’s a big deal. It’s not. So people think I’m Chinese (those three Chinese brother can be very misleading). Or Greek (I was in Greece). Or Arab (I did live in suburban Detroit). Or Indian (I used to get very very tan in Florida). So what? But when you’re young and you just want to fit in, it is kind of a big deal. At least Tina’s name was Tina. Try Gabriela. In Michigan. In the seventies. Oh, how I longed to be named Kim. Or Nancy. Sigh. I LOVED the name Nancy. It sure was prettier than Garbage-ella. Kids can be cruel. Clever, admittedly, but cruel.

Being a brunette or ethnic or whatever you want to call it certainly doesn’t kill you. Or even maim you. I like to think that the sense of being different, of being apart gives you the requisite space you need to observe. You aren’t splashing around having chicken fights in the pond; you’re standing on the shore, watching. And you can actually see better standing on the shore. At least until you’re old enough to beat it on out of there and get your ass to an ocean.