Tinsel And Lights

When we heard Tyler’s Taproom was closing, we weren’t all that surprised. It had fallen out of our regular rotation of Friday-night restaurants--so it was logical to assume that was true for the other Apex residents who comprise our town’s most significant consumer demographic: the casual-dining family with reasonably young children. With its friendly, knowledgeable bartenders, who could answer all your craft beer questions and gracefully fade in and out of conversation with you as you hungout--Tyler’s had always been a great place to sit at the bar. That mystique was kind of lost if you were relegated to the dining room--with the strollers and straw cups and non-beerdrinkers for whom “water will be fine, thanks”. Even with kids, though, we still made it work. About the time we’d start to contemplate a second pint was usually the moment one of the kids would announce they needed to poop or the wheels would just generally fall off in terms of our sons’ attention span for sitting......

"This is Mommy McMommy reporting live from the Way-Up Arena for an exclusive interview with the MVP of today's Little Tikes Tournament game. Tell us how you put together such an impressive win today, son?" Roughly 30 years ago, I staged news reports for the rented camcorder in my parents' living room. Sometimes, I was the serious news anchor imparting fiery accounts of peril and woe. Other times, I was a hapless morning show host, saddled with unruly guests--like a karate champion who roundhouse-kicked the set to pieces (aka, my sister Liz in a kimono). Three decades later, I regularly find myself "on location" in the finished attic of my adult home, conducting post-game interviews with my preschooler while his brother is at kindergarten. My two boys are both crazy-competitive and completely consumed with sports. At their age, they're still not totally clear on the rules, so they make them up--from the imaginary "penalties" to the ...

There are few chores more depressing than taking down Christmas decorations. The task you celebrated in your couch pants with Irish-cream-spiked coffee and blaring holiday tunes on the Friday after Thanksgiving seems more like a wake when performed in reverse--minus the alcohol and snacks, of course. Drowning (or force-feeding) your sorrows so early in a new year would negate too many of those resolutions you recently formed in a 12-AM-haze of steak fries, Prosecco, and leftover Lindt chocolates. It's a damn shame, though--because a cocktail and a casserole could really take the edge off as you cope with the death of your holiday spirit. As a kid, packing away the Christmas pageantry was just a big ol' buzz kill you were happy to leave to the grown ups. The amount of shit you gave your parents until they finally bought that goddamn tree was inversely proportional to the number of shits you gave about who made it disappear when the whole shebang was through. Dad's face and...

Tis the day before Christmas and running about Are two little boys with their bums hanging out Of character undies, McQueen and Tow Mater , Millennium Falcon , Yoda , and Vader . I tell them, “We’re leaving! We’re going to church! Get ready now or get left in the lurch!” Still trousers are carelessly hung on the chair, With Cars , tracks, and dinosaurs strewn everywhere If St. Nick is coming, HE’D better watch out This place is a minefield with hurdles throughout. The children have wrestled and jumped in their beds And now take to tackling with sheets on their heads “I’ve told you and told you! No blankets on faces!!!” They pause, but ignore, and are off to the races. We pounce on each one and a struggle ensues-- But refuse to let up til they’re clothed, wearing shoes. We practically chase them out into the car Where they start their complaining at once, “Is it far?” “Roll down my window”, “I’m bored”, and “I’m hot” As we quietly summon what patience we’ve got. ...

O Training Pants, O Training Pants How ever-damp your fabric.  I put him on  The pot to pee No urine do I hear or see I take him off  To play with me ...And then he wets your fabric Dump after dump Is shat therein The nastiest There's ever been So bad I cut  You off of him ...And throw away your fabric The weeks and months Go slowly by And when it seems  He's staying dry  The second that  My hopes get high-- He promptly wets your fabric When half a year Of stank dismay To poop-less pants At last gives way He waits, of course, Til Mother's Day To shit right through your fabric  No accidents--  Success in reach! Three months go by... Then at the beach I notice that There's been a breach Right through your swimsuit fabric By now, it's been  A full-blown year  Most days, he's fine He's in the clear  When least expected  Never...

There's a game we play daily in our household--not because it's clever or fun or yields fabulous prizes. It's just the nature of tiny humans to choose topics out of thin air, usually as an excuse to covet or complain. Ray and I are doomed to be the hosts and our boys the ever-constant contestants in what we affectionately call "The Wheel Of Random Conversation Starters". Don't know how to play, kids? Sure ya do! Just step right up, spin the Wheel of Want and Randomness, then fashion your leading question from whichever one of these fascinating categories it happens to stop on! Why Can't We...? Well, folks. This is where you get to complain about all the things mom or dad won't let you do. Doesn't matter what you're doing right now and whether or not that activity is relevant to the moment. At some point earlier you were pissed about something that's not allowed, and in the check-out line at Target or on the toilet after breakfast seems l...

The year we met, I made Ray a cake for his 25th birthday. Like many people, food was always a love language in my family--the plate and the palate were the giving and receiving ends of an emotional exchange. Mama's act of making the spaghetti and garlic bread I'd requested was a gesture of love, while my act of enjoying it was a loving acknowledgement of her effort. My dad's willingness to cook my mom's steak into a petrified cinder was a recognition of her preferences, while Mama's enjoyment of it was a compliment to my dad's understanding that she did not like her steak to "moo", (as she frequently and famously put it). I understood that preparing food for a loved one was a sincere expression of feeling that adults would often use to comfort others and to fortify their relationships. Unfortunately, in my young adult life, I had cooked only a handful of legitimate meals for anyone other than myself. Having been too lazy, cheap, and calorie-consc...

Our kids were born 21 months apart and nearly everything about those first four years of young family life seemed like a natural deterrent to long trips. An overwhelming amount of equipment--portable cribs, booster chairs, kid snacks, bottles, sippy cups, days-worth of diapers—was required to make travel possible, and even then there was no guarantee our children would allow us to enjoy a single second. But this year, we decided it was time for our first family vacation. We’d done the occasional long weekend to the beach or the grandparents’, but this would be a full-fledged week-long adventure to Disney World, two states away. My husband spent months planning it while I secretly tamped down my anxiety over the nightmare it could quite possibly turn out to be. Our kids could barely tolerate a single hour in the car, so it seemed like unbelievably wishful thinking to suppose that driving for more than one quarter of a day with them would be any less excruciating than the suffering i...

I am so very lucky to be blessed with such smart, healthy kids. I am infinitely proud of their inquisitive natures and their burning quest for knowledge--but it CAN be completely exhausting. At times, our "conversations" seem more like brutal inquests, where I'm pummeled with a barrage of seemingly irrelevant non sequiturs. My responses are adamantly demanded but almost immediately ignored or forgotten, like I'm being interrogated by a good cop/bad cop team of head injury patients suffering from short-term memory loss. Take, for instance, this morning's trip to the furniture store... [As I'm backing out of the driveway...] Older Kid: Mommy? Me: Yes? Older Kid: Where are we going? Me: To the furniture store. Older Kid: Is it far away? Dammit. Here we go... Me: Maybe 10 minutes. [I cut through neighborhood and get stopped at the red light before turning onto the highway; I enjoy about 1.5 seconds of silence] Younger Kid: Mommy? Me: Yes? Younger Kid:...