Welcome to St. Patty's Day

Hello Charmer Friends and welcome to St. Patrick's Day. I am watching the parade in gorgeous, sunny, 5th Avenue Manhattan. From the comfort of my pajama's and a television in Brooklyn. Put it this way, we can handle about one trip to the city per spring break.

I know, I know, people do it everyday. It is very exhausting. Yesterday, Amanda and I were on a total of six trains. 6. Due to a combination of seeking the best express routes and hopping on wrong trains.

Our visit to the Met didn't work out as I had hoped, although we did make it to the lobby and I strained to peak behind the security guards for a glimpse at the magnificent Statue of David. No such luck. Next time the Met is an all day affair.

However we did make it to the Madame Tussand's Wax Museum and a 4-D showing of Sponge Bob Square Pants, thanks to the special aunt treatment. Now you know our secrets of how to enrich children with The Arts. And one little boy got the special uncle treatment, including an Irish version of a Yankee's baseball hat. (For the record, the father is a Mets fan.)

Meanwhile, Bob and I have been reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Nothing like a bleak apocalypse to make our spring break complete. Talk more about that later. It's the Woody Allen in us. (He's a famous NYC filmmaker who seemed more comfortable with depressing subjects.)

Thanks for coming over to the Charmer Blog and I hope you are all well.

With love, T

Your Very Own Brooklyn Tour

Even after all these years, I really have to gear up for the subway ride into Manhattan, aka "the city," as the locals call it. Taking the train into the city for six years was fine when I lived here, got a lot of reading done. But mostly I don't miss it. Yet many people do it for decades. Some people work in New Jersey and their daily commute from Brooklyn involves a train, bus, and boat. Not to mention the cost. This place can be a hard place to live and work.

So today as we thought about what to do, a 2-hour round subway ride held little charm for me. So we drove the car to Coney Island and shivered in the wind over Nathan's hot dogs. I'm saving up my gumption to go into the city for tomorrow which will be the big one for Amanda and me. Up and out first thing. Others will meet us midday. Thank goodness the TV show "Gossip Girl" is filmed near the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which means both my daughter and I want to go to there.

Mostly, we are enjoying family and playing with 5-year-old twins and reading and napping and wii-ing. It occurred to me today that my kids will have been to NYC too many times to count, and yet have not experienced many of the tourist sights. But hey, we're off to a good start thanks to today's scintillating driving tour which included a delicious Coney Island hot dog, ethnic neighborhoods, and old sites of their father's past life. We were going to show the kids their birthplace, Long Island College Hospital, however by that time the backseat duo were begging to end the Brooklyn tour.

"People would pay for this tour," insisted the father.

"Why?" asked the boy.

"I'll pay you to end it," suggested the girl.

Thanks much for coming over to the Charmer Blog. I hope you are all well. And I hope one day you can get a real deal tour of Brooklyn by the husband of yours truly.

With love, T

P.S. On Monday I start as communication director with the Des Moines Area Religious Council. My new commute is 8 minutes by automobile.

Jammed in Pittsburgh

When you're stuck in a traffic jam in Pittsburgh, you know you're in the wrong place.

"I knew we should have gotten you that GPS for Christmas," said Bob's brother. "But no, you said you didn't need one."

Bob's sister said that too.

But who needs a GPS when all you do is take I-80 straight across Pennsylvania? All the way. All the 8-hours across this state. West to east, no complications. There is no getting lost. Yet there we were, in Pittsburgh, which, by the way, is not on the way to New York City.

I blame it on bad entrance ramp signs in rural Pennsylvania. And the sad thing is, once you're on the wrong road, you stay on the wrong road. By the time you are able to turn around you are -- well -- in a traffic jam in Pittsburgh.

Your kids are all crammed up in the back seat with their blessed electronic diversions. By now, your 10-year-old son has watched "Meet the Fockers" three times and you've quit counting all the ways this movie is inappropriate for your child. You're just glad he's laughing out loud in the privacy of his headphones, even though you've placed him in the incorrect city, wrong state.

Besides that, spring break is swell. And I will tell you more later. Perhaps pictures too. I was trying to take a blogging moratorium, but here I am. Be assured, we're here, in Brooklyn, New York, USA.

The tea is ready so I gotta go. I hope you are all well.

With love, T xoxoxoxxo

Good News of Great Joy

It is my pleasure to announce the beginning of a Nursing Mothers Room, a clean, comfortable, private space for mothers to nurse their babies on Sunday mornings at St. John's Lutheran Church in Des Moines, Iowa.

They may need rocking chairs, I don't know. If they do I'll let you know and perhaps you could help. But in the meantime, I am basking in this beautiful sign of hope. That babies are born. And that they are welcome at our church. This is the kind of church to which I want to belong.

It will be formally announced next Sunday but I heard about it today and got permission to blog on the subject because the idea is so lovely. As with many things, nursing and me have a mixed history. I did it, barely, for three months, with much pain, and just when I figured it out I "had" to go back to work and so I quit nursing because the idea of pumping was waaaay out of the realm of my abilities.

Meanwhile, a dear colleague pumped in the office supply closet so she could continue nursing after her leave was over. She put a sign on the door that said something like "Stay Out." So we desk workers had to wait before we could retrieve our necessary paper clips, pens, and folders. The dark little room with dusty shelves was more sanitary than pumping in a bathroom stall, she said. I wish I had that tenacity. All I could do was stop nursing at three months, when I had to return to work.

"Had" to return to work???? Did I really "have" to return to work? That is the irony of it all because in hindsight the answer is no. At the time, I had this Midwestern protestant work ethic that said a firm yes. (By the way, that's another thing I'm at odds with -- the Midwestern protestant work ethic. Another blog for another time.) It's interesting to me now, having been laid off, thinking about "having" to go to work. What it really means to "have" to work. And the truth is, if I could rewind my life and change two things, they would be to nurse my two children longer than three months. Even four months. I mean, would the universe have stopped just because I took four months maternity leave, rather than three months?

So when I found out today that St. John's is starting a Nursing Mother's Room, I swelled up with joy. It's simply such a special time. And for a community -- it's special for everyone because that new little life is our hope. And now we can authentically say, you are welcome here.

And the poetic justice is that 10 and 13 years after nursing, my kids need me more than ever. And now is when I can be with them because I am not dealing in paper clips and files and futility. With a hundred thousand thanks to being eliminated and terminated. Paying bills is a good thing. And it's even better when you don't have to sell your soul to do it. If at all possible.

Thanks for coming over to the Charmer Blog. I wish you all a wonderful week of work and priorities and taking care of babies.

With love, T

The Return of Ox and Angus

Remember Ox and Angus? They're coming back.

Spring break. Our house. Anger management. Cat sitting. That's what Ox and Angus do. And we are lucky enough to have them around so we can go away during spring break.

Ox and Angus are hulking big college football players -- you know, Iowa - football - football -Iowa -- who were recruited from Texas. When those big brothers first came to Iowa, there were some issues with handling their brawn and they were put on probation as in no spring break for them lest they lose their scholarship, which their mother forbade. She has a tattoo on her neck.

Fortunately for us, we know the religion professor of Ox and Angus who set us all up with house sitting. It's a win-win situation. The boys get away from campus with cable TV and a freezer stocked with Salisbury steaks for a week. We get live in house sitters who love kitties and do litter boxes. Well, OK, we pay them cash, but I'm just saying. They're good with cats. Our only rule is no girlfriends. We don't even make them clean the bathrooms. (Bob does that when we get back.)

All this to say there's another Charmer Virtual Vacation coming up soon and it will be full of surprises. Destination New York Citae. Speirs-o-Rama. Food. Food. Food. The other coast, as they say in L.A. (Baby). Visuals included. So get your bags out as we do not charge for luggage and the dates will be announced soon, but I'll give a hint in that it falls over St. Patrick's Day. There is nothing like Irish celebration in Brooklyn, New York.

Thanks much for coming over to the Charmer Blog. Stay safe.

With love, T

Sin Coffee for the Morning

Forgive Me For I Have Sinned.

It is 9 pm New Years Eve and we do not have coffee for the morning. Sleep-in morning and no coffee. On the way home from the Iowa State football party -- Iowa won -- we stop at the nearest grocery store because it's open. Please don't tell God but I bought sin coffee. I paid money to sin.

Some people grew up believing that there's a devil under each chair at a dance. Some people grew up believing that beer and wine lead to sex and drugs. Some people grew up believing that birth control leads to the end of civilization. Some people grew up believing that the gay lifestyle is inherently immoral.

I grew up believing that if you don't buy fair trade coffee you are perpetuating the oppression of the poor which directly violates most all of the Ten Commandments, plus gets you an inferior grade of brew beans.

I have behaved badly and will go to extra church in 2010. Grace doesn't matter.

But the thought of waking up with no coffee seems worse.

Happy New Year!!

With love, T

Blame It on Little House

There's noway around it. Raising kids is a loose-loose situation. The ultimate goal of a parent is to not produce spoiled rotten brats. But these days it's really hard not to offer up to the universe just that -- spoiled rotten brats. It's not their fault. It's mine. And my question is this: how do you know whether or not your precious babies are actually, in reality, spoiled rotten brats?

So when your kids fight for who will sit in the front seat of the car -- fight like they're live on the Jerry Springer show with pushing and shoving and hitting and kicking and crying -- that's when you've confirmed the fact that you've raised a pair of spoiled rotten brats. And you're a total loser mother because it's your job to teach them basic automobile entry etiquette.

Parental expectations. I'm blaming it on all those Little House on the Prairie books that my teachers used to read to me. Where the kids were happy to receive a lump of candy for Christmas, where Pa played the fiddle for entertainment, where Ma sacrificed her calico fabric so that she could stay up all night and hand sew new calico dresses for good-girl daughters, Mary and Laura. How do you live up to that?

And then there's the poor mother of three who's cleavage just isn't what it used to be. And so for the inspirational makeover story of the year, this mother was awarded an experimental high tech pair of brand new silicon breasts. Not so good for nursing babies, but great for perkiness, firmness, and overall less jiggling. Seriously, I saw this on the local news broadcast while in California. They even showed the mother being wheeled into surgery, smiling and waving from her gurney.

So what exactly does it mean to avoid raising spoiled rotten brats? I dunno. But I can tell you that I did the unthinkable today with my own kids following the Jerry Springer event in the parking lot. I hope you don't judge me harshly when I tell you what I did . . .that I postponed our Burger King dinner that had been promised all week. Huge blow to the kids.

And then there's the "I'm sorry." Not my son, but my daughter responds by profusely apologizing. I don't want her apologizing. I don't want her to grow up thinking that she needs to apologize to anyone for anything. Unless she is the former president of the United States of America and has led the world into multiple unnecessary endless expensive pointless wars. Other than that -- no apologizing. So how do you teach that? My son has no urge to apologize. I'm trying not to generalize male and female tendencies, but I'm just saying, I don't like my daughter apologizing.

We end the night with television -- the good cheerleader/bad cheerleader movie. Fortunately the bad cheerleaders win. And now it's time to bake cookies.

Thanks so much for coming over to the Charmer Blog.

With love, T