So the brain surgeon is on the interview trail and it's finally for a real job...the kind where he will finally get a living wage. Okay, it might be a tad more than a living wage. My friends ooh and ahh. People say, "Oh, you will be so happy" and "Everything will be great, soon" and things like that. That's nice and all, but money has never really been a major driver for me.

That sounds crazy, I know, but it's true. Everyone who knows me can attest to that (even though they seem to have a vision that more money will buy some new level of happiness). Still, I'm looking forward to losing my title as breadwinner, too. I'm kinda tired. Happy, but tired.

Money is nice. It really is. It reduces some worry, I suppose. But over my lifetime, I've been blessed to be on both ends of the financial spectrum -- and many places in between -- and I know that it's true that money doesn't buy happiness. The opposite is also true -- poverty doesn't necessarily make people unhappy.

I say blessed, because I have learned much from all of my financial experiences....

And if you look across your life, at all the people you know, you will see that there is no correlation between wealth and happiness. People with a lot of money can find just as many things to be miserable about as people who are poor. People with fewer financial resources, in fact, often seem to be better able to find happiness in challenging circumstances.

Just some thoughts.

Toodles.

Housecleaning

I used to be obsessed with schedules and planning. An organized and clean house was inordinately important to me. This is one area (of many) where kids (and FlyLady) have been very good for me. Schedules become unbalanced in a moment’s notice. The best-laid plans go to hell in an instant. Even though I’m an expert housecleaner, I’m so outnumbered that cleanliness only happens when everyone is out of the house, but then I’m out of the house, too.

And what’s the point of the house, then?

In all honesty, every single day of the weak, several major catastrophes happen, even when I’m organized and running ahead of schedule. Someone barfs or pours a blueberry smoothie over their head or spills it on the couch, or the dog dumps over the recycling bin, or BooBoo gets glue in her hair, or the L-man puts lotion in his eye or Miss M stubs her toe and if there’s none of that, there’s always time for an unexpected blowout Poop-o-rama.

It’s the glamorous life I’m living, and I'm loving it.

Toodles.

Bad Tax Estimates

Did I mention I owe Uncle Sam AGAIN? Yes, for whatever reason, my CPA and I can’t seem to estimate the coming hit right. I did better this year…I owe just over $5,000. Last year I screwed up by $12,000. That was a fun check to write. Good times.

I did file on time. Points for that.

Happy birthday to my nephew Jesse and my little cousin Eden today!

Toodles.

Facebook Obsession

Okay, attempt numero uno at the short blog posts and getting my blog back in gear. I’ve heard the angry roars from my followers (kidding).

Topic of the day…My current obsession with Facebook, which improved, but then got MUCH worse after my family developed the GI BUG FROM HELL. Psychological recovery from this has proven tougher than physical recovery. Since I’m a writer by trade and have my laptop on all but 5 hours a day, the checking Facebook thing has gotten out of hand. Those little red notification notices are too tempting to resist.

The silly applications are worse. Why do I even take time to do them? I guess for a little bit of non-kid fun. I’m addicted to Scrabble, Kidnap, Pieces of Flair and occasionally get tempted into other things like Vampire Wars, Little Green Patch, Little Blue Cove and the like.

I’ve been Tweeting a lot more. I’m learning a bit about how use it more professionally, but really just playing so far. I have about 600 followers and I really have no idea how that happened, but it’s made Twitter much more interesting.

I’m feeling very nostalgic this week and looking at the interconnectivity of life. So many of my friends know each other, but people from different parts of my life that I never thought would have met. I no longer think it’s six degrees of separation, I think it is more like one or two.

Digging through the patchwork of my life is proving to be very interesting.

Toodles.

Update on the pedophile neighbor

I wish I had been blogging, but honestly, I just had too much to do. Okay, in truth, my free time was taken up with my Facebook addiction. Luckily, I’m finding Facebook less addicting now. Turning off the email notifications has helped immensely with that.

Really, I was a little freaked out.

To just get down to it, my neighbor swallowed a lethal dose of unknown pills two days before the election. His trial would have been on Election Day. He was facing 20 felony counts for child pornography (plus tons of evidence and a confession) and such and I guess he couldn’t take the heat.

I had weird thoughts: Didn’t he wonder if President Obama would win? Why not the day of the trial? Why not three weeks ago? Why on a Saturday night? Where was the dog?

As those who know me well know, the month between when he posted bail and when he killed himself was challenging for me. I usually let things roll, but with the brain surgeon working weird hours and having the loose canon right next door, I had trouble sleeping and felt on edge often.

I knew he was going to kill himself. I worried he would shoot himself and a stray bullet would go through our wall or that he would take out more than just himself.

In some weird way, I feel very conflicted about his death, though. He was somebody’s son.

My children’s swim teacher, who had become our friend, killed himself just a short time before the pedophile neighbor did. It was so hard to understand, as suicide will always be. The brain surgeon was very torn apart about it – and he’s pretty tough, considering what he deals with every day. I was hysterical. It seems so senseless to me even now. Michael was this beautiful force of positive energy, loved by so many people. I know I will never understand.

We never really know people, I guess. People have their dark feelings.

So, when Michael killed himself and the pedophile posted bail, all I could think was, “Why do people like Michael kill themselves and people like [pedophile] don’t.” I wished the pedophile would. I wanted him to just disappear. Now I feel some terrible sense of guilt that he did.

He was a sick man. Everything I’ve read and heard says that you can’t rehabilitate a pedophile, but I’m not sure wishing death on them is the kindest course of action, either. The lead detective on the case, who had kept in contact with me, said there was no telling what he would have done if he remained free or when he was released.

The night of his discovery, I went into some sort of shock, even though I expected him to do it. I knew something was up all day. I didn’t see him or hear his dog. His morning paper remained untouched on his doormat. His Audi hadn’t moved.

When they found him, I sat plastered to my front window, watching the fire trucks and the ambulance come and go. I spoke to the police. I waited until the coroner arrived at 2:00 a.m. Then I watched them wheel him away. I’m not sure why I did any of this, because in doing so, I gave myself a permanent memory of the end of a sad waste of life that I don’t need. It isn’t exactly positive energy.

Now, a month later, there is still a police sticker on his door. His Audi is still there. It is eerily silent.

But I don’t have to worry about going to the park anymore or about him slamming his door or swearing at us when we walk by. In some sense, this five-year voyage to a little section of hell is over. Yet, he will always be in the landscape of my mind. Unwelcome in every way.

Perverted Pedophiles

Maybe it was foreshadowing, but about a while ago I took a break from blogging because my search engine data showed that some (I’m assuming) pedophile found my blog by searching (I’m going to put asterisks in hopes of not attracting more freaks) for “n*ked children v**inas.” I went through my blog and sure enough, I have all three words in it, though never together. Eeewwwwww.

Well yesterday morning (is this drama month or WHAT?) when the brain surgeon was brushing his teeth, we heard this POUNDING sound. Long story short, it is the police (lots of them) pounding on our neighbor’s door. They had a search warrant because somehow they figured out he was into child po*nog*aphy. See the California Penal Code he's arrested under here.

(Don’t worry…I’m sure I’ll get less paranoid and stop putting asterisks in everything).

The weird thing is this man has been awful to my children. I mean, nasty, rude, dreadful. He definitely doesn’t fit the: “Ya want some candy, Little Girl?” stereotype. Especially because we now know he’s into little boys. I have both, and either way, it’s creepy.

He isn’t bad looking, but he has always acted strange and angry. He drives an Audi A4, which he keeps remarkably clean. He used to go to work, but has been home for about two years, I think.

What I’m finding interesting now is how much we protect criminals to protect our values of innocence until proven guilty. It’s a tough balance, for sure. If he posts bail, he gets to come home and live next to our three children and us – and enjoy the view out of his bedroom of the toddler park – until his court date.

And he could come home. His bail is set at only $20,000, which means he needs to put up just $2,000 with a bail bondsman. And if we post warnings about him or notices of what happened, he can sue us for slander. Cool, ay?

Look: This guy in Barbara Boxer’s office was arrested last Friday for involvement in a kiddie porn ring and he’s already out of jail. Ick.

I hope that the freakshow cannot come up with the cash and will stay behind bars. Pedophiles are not so treatable, rumor has it, and I don’t even want him *looking* at my children in their winter clothes. If he gets to come back, we need to go, and that’s inconvenient on 10 different levels.

Plus, I’m now scared at night when the brain surgeon isn’t home.

Thanks freaky pedophile.

I Have Been Shat Upon Before, but Today Takes the Cake

Here's a little something that happened on September 19th.

My oldest child is so psychic, and this story alone will sound like a silly way to say so, but let’s just leave it at that.

So today, after a couple of quick conference calls, we went to see the Animal Guys . (more on this and animal consciousness soon). Our playgroup had arranged for them to come to the park for a potluck show, and one of the other children was having a birthday party with a bounce house, too. It was cool and definitely educational for all, especially my daughter, since we are studying mammals.

Now, my youngest, who will be two in November, was in full potty training mode, refusing to wear diapers and such. I’d been indulging her for a couple of days and putting her in big-girl pants. She had been making it to the potty for the most part. I didn't use this video to train her:



As we approached the park, she started to yell “pee pee” while still in her car seat, so I told her we were almost there and to hold it. After we parked, I got all three kids out of their car seats (yes, even my 6-year-old) and we headed for the bathrooms. The older two were walking like snails, grabbing sticks and so on as children do, so I said, “Please hurry up or she’s gonna pee on my shirt.” My oldest said, “Mommy, you always pack us extra clothes, but you never pack any for yourself. Maybe you should.” “Good idea,” I said, but I’d never really needed one before, so I wasn’t really planning to follow through. (I did think it was a good idea, though).

Fast forward two hours and 10 trips to the bathroom made every time the one-who-is-now-fascinated-with-all-things-toilet-related yells “PEE PEE!” Mothers with 3-year-olds in pull-ups looked on with envy. I was a little proud, even though I had nothing to do with the early urge to potty train.

Well, somewhere between bounce house and birthday cake, I swooped my little one up for some reason (no idea) and plopped her on my hip, as usual, when yucky, hot, runny something landed upon my waist. I didn’t even have to look. I didn’t even want to know. I asked another mom to keep an eye on the older two and headed to the bathroom, pooh all over my hand and under my fingernails.

Too bad my eldest hadn’t had her little premonition about me needing a change of clothes, oh say, a day earlier. Poop was everywhere. Lots of it. Everywhere. I never understand how such little people can produce so much poop.

So, there I was, topless(and getting the top off without getting crap in my hair was no small endeavor) in a Los Angeles public bathroom with my naked baby, both of us covered in a river of crap. Literally. Luckily, I had clothes for her. I, on the other hand, had to wash my shirt out in the sink, during which time a nanny type came in with a baby. She initially looked at me stark-eyed like I was a homeless woman getting ready for the day, but then seemed to realize what happened.

Anyway, I could go on with all the gruesome details, but let’s suffice it to say that I’m glad it was warm out as I went back out to the gathering in my wet t-shirt and let’s all thank God it wasn’t white, or I would have been trapped in the bathroom for a while.

I have been shat upon before, but that was a pooh-athon to beat all pooh-athons.

Well, it’s time to get back to blogging. I can attribute my lack of blogging lately to two key things:

1. A slight (okay, slightly more than slight) Facebook addiction
2. My stat counter. It shows what keywords get people here and last month, one pervert found me by searching keywords that I will not repeat here (don’t need more perverts ending up here). Go away, Sicko!!!

Let’s start with a little Sarah Palin, because I just can’t get enough of her. This one’s worth watching.



On a personal note, life has been colorful, eventful and downright violent this week. First, the brain surgeon had a near-fistfight with someone who wanted to discipline our 3-year-old son for hitting his daughter. I have to admire my beloved’s restraint in the situation. I wasn’t there, but from what all of the bystanders said, the man deserved to get slugged.

It did bring up the question: When is it appropriate to discipline someone else’s child? My gut answer to that question is “never!” but it also depends on how one defines “discipline.” I happen to be a very gentle parent (unless I’m getting my period…go away hideous hormones!) and strict parents would likely call me “permissive.”

But there is a method to my ways. I don’t believe in spanking or doing time-outs. Why? I don’t believe either are effective, nor do I believe such discipline tactics help children learn to negotiate their way around the social intricacies of the world. Rather, they foster feelings of shame and resentment.

In the aforementioned instance, this man attempted to grab my child and “discipline” him for hitting his child. I don’t believe he was intending to hurt my little boy physically, but I do believe he was going to chastise him and try to force a fake 3-year-old apology. For whatever reason, my children say “sorry” freely, despite a lack of traditional punishment and despite the fact that I don’t force them to apologize, so aggression as a means to that end was just ludicrous.

When violence occurs, I remove the child from the situation and we talk about using words and not fists (or teeth!) and we talk about how the other person would feel. We often discuss whether or not we think people will want to play with kids who use their bodies rather than words to express feelings. We take time together to calm down. Usually at this point, my children will volunteer to apologize, because, in reality, they are gentle souls who lost control of their emotions in the heat of the moment. When the heat dissipates, they feel sad about what they’ve done.

Sound familiar?

Yeah, to me, too.

To that man, I want to say: If grown men lose control of their emotions and almost get physical over my 3-year-old, I think it’s okay that my 3-year-old has not learned to control his emotions. He needs guidance, not punishment.

Luckily, I have a 6-year-old daughter who is ridiculously gentle now, despite also using her body to communicate when she was 3. It gives me confidence in our parenting choices despite the jerkface trying to do the job for us because he clearly thought wew were inept.

But on the violence and setting a good example note, I failed miserably yesterday. I punched someone in the face and split her lip open.

Yep. It’s true.

In one of the more surreal experiences of my human existence, I pulled behind a white Jeep SUV yesterday at the exit of a parking structure. There were no lines and a minimal wait. The driver of the SUV decided she was in the wrong lane and signaled for me to reverse, which I did. I then pulled into the next lane.

Apparently Jeep SUV lady didn’t like this, because she began screaming at me to move. I tried to back up again, but couldn’t, and she kept swearing at me and yelling to let her in front (by this time, we both could have easily gone). I calmly and inappropriately said, “I would if you weren’t being such a b***h.”

Well, turns out soccer mom #2 didn’t like soccer mom #1 (moi) calling her names, because she got out of her car (which I later found out had kids inside), walked around my car, reached in my front window, grabbed my ponytail and smacked me in the face.

So, I punched her in the mouth (thanks, cardio Thai boxing class!) and then somehow kicked her in the chest (I’m flexible, but did scrape my leg on the window). She walked away and called me the C word, and then kept yelling with blood covering her front teeth.

I honestly did not hit her that hard. It feels really weird that I made someone bleed.

The security guards and parking attendants at Hollywood and Highland were useless. They got on their walky talkies, but just observed her attack and called the police. They didn’t come help me during the attack. They wouldn’t let her out, however, and signaled to me to block her in, which I did until she reversed and threatened to hit my car with her car.

Then, psycho soccer mom reversed all the way through the parking lot to escape, but they caught her at the other gate.

Then it got complicated, because she claimed she just walked over to “talk” to me and that I randomly hit her. To make matters worse, she was swollen and bleeding and I was unmarked. Luckily, witnesses corroborated my story, but for a good while, I thought we were both going to jail. That would have been something to blog about!

In the end, I didn’t press battery charges. Her children would have ended up in custody, since her husband was out of town and she had no one to pick them up. She cried and said she was under a lot of stress and so on, and I figure that being held for two hours with fear of arrest likely taught her a road rage lesson.

Late last night, the brain surgeon and I were laughing about how comical the whole thing must have looked...Two soccer moms in t-shirts, leggings, tennis shoes and ponytails brawling through a minivan window.

Classic.

Paul Newman dies and my former sorority sister is senior advisor for McCain

Rarely am I saddened when a celebrity, especially one I don’t know (said as if I know so many) dies, but I’m really sad about Paul Newman. He died yesterday at the age of 83, having lost his personal battle with cancer.

Although he’s nearly as old as my own grandparents, there was such a young spirit about him. Besides being a phenomenal actor, he was also an activist and had a warm heart. How could anyone resist old blue eyes?

Goodbye Paul Newman. I know the whole world will miss you.



On a weird note, I’m not sure how I missed the fact that the former president of my sorority house (my pledge and initiation year) is the senior advisor for McCain. She’s all over the airways right now. Perhaps it’s because I don’t watch television very often and have to wait for it all on YouTube.



That makes a few Pi Beta Phis in the news this year (my personal fave is the brilliant and beautiful Eyee Hsu, who did some fabulous Olympic corresponding from Bejing), but I have to say, when you’re a flaming liberal like me, the news of Nicolle Devinish (now Wallace) is just plain fun.



Nicolle Wallace was always a staunch republican, even in such a liberal place as U.C. Berkeley, where we all went to college. That’s one of the only things I remember about her (besides the fact that she frequently spent the night at the Zate house). As our president, she had political fortitude even then and a way of staying pleasantly neutral and cute.

Did I like her then? I think I did. Although she had a reputation for being phony, she was always sweet on the surface.

I cannot judge Nicolle Wallace as a person today. I haven’t seen her in over a decade. But as a political figure, I can only say I’m thoroughly unimpressed with her positions, although she definitely remains poised, yet strong, under pressure and delivers her lines eloquently. She usually makes McCain and Palin look as good as they could ever look, which isn’t great considering their myriad deficiencies, but not for a lack of effort on Nicolle’s part.

Oh, and she isn’t so nice to the media, of which I am a member.

However, like our President Bush, Mrs. Wallace can party. Was it I who held her hair back while she bowed to the porcelain gods after that college party?

I’ll never tell.

Happy, Happy Birthday...Baby

On the East Coast, my daughter is now 6 and I have just over an hour until she turns 6 here on the Pacific Coast.

It is so cliché, but my how time flies.

This song from Mamma Mia makes me so mindful of it all, but it also makes me CRY CRY CRY...



And this one my dear friend played for me a few years ago, after her mother played it for her, and I still can't get through it without sobbing. Although I'm not a huge country fan, Martina McBride sings it so beautifully.



My firstborn and I had a little ritual tonight to say goodbye to 5. We had our last snuggle while she was 5, our last goodnight kiss and then a last 5 photo. Then we talked about how 5 will always be a part of her and that it isn’t really goodbye 5…just hello 6.

Less than a decade ago, I was such a different person. The rapid aging of my firstborn continually reminds me of how little time I have to get it right.

Not sure what “it” is, but I do have a constant yearning to get “it” right.

I remain in awe of the way the birth of this child transformed me. I was a feminist. Now I’m a new kind of feminist. I never believed I could stay home with children (How boring! How mindless!), and I never considered homeschooling (What wackos!), but now I spend the majority of my time finding ways to do both.

When I left medicine (and when medicine, in turn, left me), I felt like I’d go back. Medicine seemed the perfect combination of care giving and intellectualizing. But it is not that at all. While it is another topic, I know that what I do now is so much more important than what I thought I’d do then.

By virtue of my checkered past, many of my friends are physicians. Lately, by virtue of our age, many of those same friends are having children. They bear them while full of guilt for leaving their colleagues when they take blunted maternity leaves. They enjoy their babies a precious 6 weeks or 12 weeks or even 4 weeks before handing them off to spend much of their waking hours cared for by someone else (in the best cases, a relative) and it’s really hard. It’s heartbreaking.

As my daughter turns 6, I’m even more grateful that I have been so blessed to be able to provide for our family in such creative ways.

A few friends have given me such deep perspectives on life and the value of these children I’ve chosen to have, as have the children, of course. Really, there is nothing more important than raising them, nothing more precious than these moments that I am fortunate enough to share with them.

My daughter has taught me so much in her 6 short years. She truly has transformed me. As she grows, I miss every person I lose along the way. I will never hold that newborn again. I will never again watch her learn to walk. I will never again have to help her remember her ABCs. That baby is gone and if I think about it too much, it makes me profoundly sad.

Yet, I’m so excited to see who she is becoming. It’s hard to stay sad when there is so much to look forward to.

And each moment gone reminds me of how important it is to cherish every second...every silly tantrum, every funky desire, the 100,000th step...everything. These will be the stories we will share. This is the creation of our family history and our individual life histories. These moments -- each one of them -- create the person she will be regardless of which hat she eventually chooses to wear.

I asked her how the last 5 years have been and she said, “Really happy!”

I hope she always feels that way about her life.

I’m grateful for each moment of every day with her.

Happy birthday, Baby.