mothers on the verge

The Rabbit had Show and Tell this morning and there was never a doubt as to what she would "show:" her secret pink suitcase that I'm not allowed to look inside. The back story on this item is that a week or so ago I found foil wrappers from chocolate Easter eggs in the kitchen and her bedroom, and when I asked her whether she had eaten them she said "No!" smiling from ear to ear in the sign I recognized from my own childhood as "Oh yeah! I'm lyin!" And so a big cry fest began where Mama discussed how people don't lie to each other in this house, and The Rabbit fought me that she WASN'T lying but she didn't know how the pink foil got under her bed and the chocolate on her face. (Which means she hasn't mastered that first rule of subterfuge: hide the evidence.) It dawned on me that perhaps she needed a place where she could "allowably" lie. IE, a place where she could keep secrets from me. So I broke into my stash of favorit...

So, any mamas out there have experience weaning their rabbits from the thumb? The Rabbit is now five and still sucking her thumb. Believe me. I don't think this is a huge crisis. I sucked mine until I was at least 7. Might have been 8. But both her dentist and doctor are really putting the pressure on me to make her stop. Even telling her she has to stop. Problem is her teeth, they say, and palate. She has a nice overbite. Nice enough that the teeth sometimes stick out when she smiles. I don't notice it. We're not talking Bugs Bunny. But they say this could permanently affect the permanent teeth. Sigh. See -- I never had orthodontia. Even after my love affair with my thumb. So I have a hard time believing this is the cause of her overbite. I suspect it's her papa's family -- with their severely messed up teeth that required years of braces. Not to mention my own sister and her messed up mouth. Tonight she went to bed crying, knowing she wasn't supposed to suck h...

Away for the weekend for the Prince's grandmother's memorial and home today with a sick Rabbit. I wanted to give my updates on how I'm progressing with my plan to start seeding some kindness around me that I announced a few days ago. I thought I would give daily updates, but as I started to type them I realized they read like some "Oooo look. I'm doing good" list which frankly made me gag. So let's just say that over the last 3 days I'm 2 for 3. I actually have noticed something different already -- I feel way more attuned to the kindness given to me. A thoughtful voice mail message, for example, left at a moment when I really needed to hear from a friend. Kismet. Kindness. The same thing in that it's helping. So enough of the Stuart Smalley stuff. And back to our regular programming.

In for my second round with Gotham, with 13 years and counting, I feel like I may be slightly qualified to write about this point: The costume of attitude, and of course clothes, that we New Yorkers don to stress our exalted status in the cosmos. Like me, Susan Sawyers, a great blogger on The Huffington Post, has recently made the flip from Cali to Gotham , and wrote about her experience for the past nine months. And I have to say, we Manhattanites did not fare so badly, but not so well. But even those of us who aren't exactly native, but aren't exactly newbies, still feel the sting, and often, when we step out of line. Like the woman with the Parents League, who after I called to find out nursery school options for The Rabbit, informed me I had missed all the deadlines for any "good" school and asked, "What were you thinking?" In my stressed out state, having spent the past 4 months buying our new place in the Lower East Side, I told her, "Moving....