Ever heard the saying “looking at life through rose-colored glasses”? Then you know it refers to someone who looks at life with a rosy optimism. I wish I was guilty of that. I’ve always envied people who manage to be endlessly upbeat and full of optimism and hope. You know them, they’re the ones who make lemonade when handed lemons. When I get handed lemons I suck on them and make a sour face.  Anyway, Melanie in “Gone With The Wind” was one of those lemonade-making characters. No matter that the Civil War stripped her of everything, no matter that she was starving, no matter that Scarlet was so mean to her and secretly on the prowl to steal her husband Ashley – although heaven knows why she wanted that man pansy when she had Clark Gable  – that Melanie, she could find the good in everything and everyone. I hated envied her.

But that’s not the point of this post. The point is that I’m guilty at looking at life THRU something all right.  But it isn’t rose-colored glasses.

I’m guilty of looking at life through a Canon digital camera viewfinder. And as I only recently came to realize, there’s nothing rosy about it.

I was at the Hollywood Bowl a couple of weekends back. It was the first trip for my daughter Julia (who is eight) and we took her to the Bugs Bunny show where the L.A. Philharmonic plays along to the cartoons projected on big screens. And as I was videotaping the fireworks finale at one point I turned the camera toward my daughter, you know, to capture her expression. I could see her there, in profile, her wide eyes lit by the flashing fireworks in the sky, her face filled with awe and the joy of the moment. I paused for a moment, sort of taken aback by the utter rapture  she seemed to be experiencing. I mean, what we were doing was cool, but was it truly that amazing? 

At first I attributed it to the fact that she was only 8 and at 8 one is experiencing so many things for the first time. And as we all know, the first time is the most exciting. After all, it had been that way when we took her to Disneyland for the first time. So thrilled was she by the sights, the sounds, the magic of it all that it even rubbed off on jaded old me who had been to Disneyland too many times to count – for whom the magic had completely worn off.

But when I put down the camera that night at the Bowl and I looked at what she was looking at, I mean REALLY looked at it, through my very own eyes, not the viewfinder of my camera – I realized, her feeling of awe had nothing to do with being 8. I looked up at the fireworks in the sky, big and beautiful and sparkly, shattering light over the dome of the Bowl. At the crescent moon that hung in the distance on that crystal clear summer night. At the 18,000 upturned faces all experiencing this moment together. And you know what? To my amazement, it truly WAS amazing!

And I realized, I hadn’t been seeing it. I mean, I was  seeing it on the tiny video display but I wasn’t seeing  it seeing it.

And in that instant, it also occured to me that this has been the case for the last 8 1/2 years of my life! Why 8 1/2 years exactly? Because that’s how long my daughter’s been in the picture – figuratively and literally.

Since she was born and I got my first high quality digital camera, I have chronicled every move, burp, smile, gurgle, and later dance recital, talent show, piano recital, etc.  It’s the reason  Randy the perfekt husband gave me the nickname MAMMARAZI. And while I have recorded all these moments in her life for posterity, I never really experienced them first hand because I was separated from these events  as they were happening – by the camera!  So busy was I  making sure the images were centered, that no one was walking across the frame, that the focus was right, that there was enough head room – that I never truly got to enjoy them. Because I was never, not once,  in the actual moment – watching my little girl sing joyfully at the top of her lungs, tap dance to the perfect rhythm of a song, or even smile shyly as she was handed an award for being an exceptional student.

And suddenly I was very sad. Suddenly, the loss of the last 8 1/2 years hit me like a ton of bricks.

And I realized we have become photo obsessed, we parents these days.  That’s right. It’s not just me. There isn’t a single birthday party or school event I go to that doesn’t feature dozens of parents jockeying for position to get the perfect picture or video of their kid.  It’s such chaos and madness you’d think Brangelina was on the red carpet announcing another adoption! One MAMMAKAZE joked about the fact that whenever her one year old heard the word SMILE, he immediately struck a pose, even if there wasn’t a camera around! This is how conditioned our kids have become to having a camera in their faces.

I mean, my stepdad was a professional photographer and he never took as many pictures of the four of us kids the whole time we were growing up as I have taken of my one, single, only child in the past 8 years!  

I don’t know if it’s the ease and cheapness of taking pictures now – the fact that we can immediately see what we’ve taken and delete what’s bad without having to wait a week and pay a fortune for images that feature closed eyes, a partial thumb over the lens or some wise-acre sticking two fingers up behind someone’s head.

Whatever it is, we’ve created a whole generation of parents that will have a lifetime of memories of taking pictures of their kids , but not of the moments themselves. Very sad.

So I have VOWED that next time Julia gets an award or does a performance or blows out a birthday candle I will sit back, relax and take it in, burning it forever on that brilliant little hard drive known as the cerebral cortex.  Well, I mean, as long as Randy is taking the pictures with the Canon. Oh. And my brother John is doing video on that amazing Nikon he has with the super long lens. That thing captures images like nobody’s business!

You know, it’s not enough that plenty of perfectly good marriages are being ruined by lack of sleep, the demands of parenthood and juggling jobs and family life – but now vampires , emo chicks and werewolves are at it too?!

Yeah, it’s true. Know how I know? I read it in an article online and that makes it true, right? The article  said that there are thousands of women who were so obsessed with the TWILIGHT movies that they were neglecting their marriages and even their kids! They spend hours online obsessing about the characters, the production of the movies, even the actors and what they’re doing every minute of their lives.

And you thought Twilight was a story aimed at 14 year-old girls who recently acquired their breasts. I thought so too when I read the first book and saw the first movie, which I’ll admit, is as far as I got.  I mean, wow.  Having read the poetry that is Interview With The Vampire this was NOT my cup of blood.  

But I got it. It wasn’t meant to be great literature. It was clear to me that the appeal of these stories was the whole “forbidden sex” thing. The “danger of sex” thing. The first book was a long – and I mean very long – series of, well,  longing scenes, one after another after another. In fact, I kept wondering, “When is something going to happen?!” And then I realized, when you’re a teenage girl on the verge of her sexual awakening, nothing’s SUPPOSED to happen. Not if your parents and school counselors can help it. Sex is a scary thing, a dangerous thing. Especially in this day and age when it can actually kill you. Also, according to your friends, it hurts really, really badly the first time.

And while Stephenie Meyer may not know story structure if it impaled her through the heart, she knows that young girls have eternally been attracted to the bad boy and forbidden love.

Apparently, however, they aren’t the only ones. Because then I heard some of my mommy friends going on about these books. We’re talking women in their 30s and 40s. Women with husbands who, as evidenced by the existence of children, had already lost their virginity.  And lo and behold, they too had gotten wrapped up in the phenom that is Twilight. They talked about Team Edward vs.  Team Jacob. They giggled about Robert Pattinson’s brooding hotness. They marveled at the pecs of an underage Taylor Lautner. And somehow, I think they identified with the disaffected Bella who, if you ask me, seems like a closet cutter.

But at least none of my mommy friends have reached the frenzied point of the TwiHards who are neglecting their marriages and their children. But here’s what one such woman had to say in an L.A. Times article on the subject:

“My husband finally came to me and said, ‘I think you love Twilight more than you love me,’” says Johnson, who had become especially attached to the community she’d found online. “I ended up moving out of the house and fought for my marriage for six weeks. I had to take a step back and detox myself from Twilight. I was really angry that I had allowed it to suck me in.”

That’s what vampires do, right? Suck. Especially the ones in these books. But then, that’s my opinion. And clearly I am in the minority here.

Still, I’ve got to wonder if these women weren’t already having problems in their marriage. Maybe they are just  finding something in these stories that is fulfilling some need that isn’t getting met at home. And really, is this obsession any different than, say, the one that sucks in so many men during fantasy football season?

The bottom line is, all our marriages would be better served if we spent more time tending them instead of sitting in front of a computer screen obsessing about the lives of other people.

Uh, on that note…. Signing off to call Randy the perfekt husband who is on his daily long commute to his job so that Julia can grow up in a nice house on a clean street filled with loads of kids in the suburbs. I love you, honey. Yes, more than my computer.

I’ve seen a lot of disgusting stuff in my 8 years as a mommy. I have seen pea-chunked puke and curdled milk  drool. I’ve seen poop that defied gravity and actually made it’s way UP and OUT of the diaper of an upright toddler. I’ve seen vomit SHOOT out of a mouth and HIT a curtain 10 feet across a room with the velocity of something created for the military by Lockheed Martin.

And you know what? As mommies we expect that. Well, if it’s our first child, we don’t. But we quickly learn that “gross” and “disgusting” come with the territory. And we accept it because, well, what else are we gonna do? Give the kid back? Hire a nanny like Uma? Have daddy deal with it? Yeah, right.

So we do our duty and we clean it up. No matter how stomach-churning. No matter that the scene might look like something that Crime Scene Clean Up would gag at. Because, well, it’s our job.

Somehow, however, in my naivete, I assumed most of the grossness would disappear after the potty training stage ended. But it doesn’t end. It just…changes.

Case in point. Recently, my kid got a T-Rex. No, not the dinosaur brought back to life by brilliant scientists with God complexes. A palate expander put into the roof of her mouth by her orthodontist.

Turns out she has a narrow palate and crossbite (thanks Grandpa!)  and they need to widen it so that her permanent teeth have room to come in straight.  This is one of those advancements that they have made since our childhood that has made our kids’ childhoods so much better than ours. You know, like TV remotes and video games that have 3-D exploding zombies instead of little white balls PINGING back and forth. I mean, if you can call watching entrails fly and sitting on your ass instead of getting up to change the channel, progress.

Anyway, in the old days, they’d wait until kids were in their teens (and  at their most emotionally vulnerable and self-conscious) to stuff them with a mouth full of metal. And because by that age their palates were set in bone, they’d have to pull healthy teeth to make room and then begin the years-long process of moving the remaining teeth into the gaps  so that they would be straight. In some cases there was also headgear that made the stuff they used to “inquisite” during the INQUISITION look like sand box toys.

Today, they have discovered that the palate is still cartilage when they’re young. And so they use the T-Rex to  slowly spread it to make it wider and then, VOILA, plenty of room for healthy teeth to come in. No pulling. And no mortification because when kids are 8 they actually think braces are COOOOL. Also, they don’t care what the opposite sex thinks, as long as they stay far enough away so as not to contract COOTIES.

Anyway, Julia has had the appliance for two weeks. And other than the first two days of minor discomfort, it has been a breeze, pain-wise. Cleaning wise, not so much.

Because that thing is DISGUSTING! Now the orthodontist did not explain why they call it the T-Rex, but I’m convinced it’s because it consumes everything that comes its way. Turkey, beef, edamame, couscous, bread…You name it, that thing grabs it and makes it its own.

And brushing doesn’t do it. No siree. The only way to get that T-Rex to give up its prey is high water pressure. Hence the purchase of a waterpik. But Julia and I  had no experience with a waterpik. And although I fairly quickly mastered the steady hand and aim, Julia didn’t quite catch on to the concept of keeping her mouth shut while I was pressing the ”ON” button.

So in the last two weeks I have gotten face fulls  (and yes, even mouthfuls) of backsplash and backwash. Ew. My glasses have been speckled with food spray.  My hair has been drenched in spit water. And once, I looked in the mirror to find a RAMEN NOODLE ON MY CHEEK. Yeah, that’s right.

Did I gag? Did I throw up? Did I throw down that waterpik, say forget it,  and advise Julia that she should just enjoy her mini-snacks as they appeared randomly in her mouth later in the day? Nope. I kept on pik-ing. Because I am a mother. And that’s what mother’s do.

Yes, I have freed much captured  foodage in the last two weeks. So much so that I am wondering if she is getting any nutrition at all. But she’s not losing weight so I’m not worrying…too much.

Meanwhile, Julia and I have BOTH learned to keep our mouths shut during the process. Usually. Sometimes, anyway. And as much as it grosses me out to do this, I have learned to let go of that obstinate piece of food and let it’s find its own way to freedom. And usually it does.

I have also learned that the gross part of being a mommy never seems to end. I can’t imagine what the future has in store for me. Perhaps some late nights sitting on cold porcelain tile brushing the hair off a clammy face that is vomiting into a toilet as a result of a flu or, worse, an illegal beverage or three at a high school party.

I don’t know. I DO KNOW that I’ll do it. Without complaint. Because she’s my kid. And I love her. ‘Nuff said.

I try not to judge other parents. The key word is “try”. Because sometimes, I’ll admit it, I do. Case in point, this show on TLC called TODDLERS AND TIARAS. It’s all about the world of little girl beauty pageants. Yep, that whole JonBenet Ramsey creepiness still lives and it has it’s own TV show.

I watched this clip and it made me rethink everything I know as a mother regarding my daughter’s behavior. In fact, if I compare any episode of Julia’s discomfiture (explicable or inexplciable) it doesn’t come near the horrific brattiness of the kid in this video.

But I don’t blame her. Because I can assure you, she did not learn that attitude from watching DORA. No siree. That comes from listening to the adults around you. AND from them allowing you to get away with acting like a little diva from hell.

Suddenly Lindsay Lohan seems like a dream child.

OMG. If that was my kid. Well, it wouldn’t be, I’ll tell you that. I may be a bit on the soft side as a mom, but I would NEVER  let my kid get away with talking to me like that.

Then again, is it really the kid’s fault? I mean, her mother is pushing her into this whole pageant thing. She’s creating her own little Frankendiva.

All I can say is BAD MOMMY. BAD!

Be warned. I’m in a complaining  mode. Specifically about how much of my life is consumed by my child and her activities. Oh don’t act like you’ve never been there. If you don’t occasionally feel totally overwhelmed, irritated and maybe a teeny bit  resentful by how much of yourself you have given up for the sake of your children then you are either a pod person or heavily medicated.

I mean HOW FAR SHOULD OUR MOMBLIGATIONS GO?  When I was a kid, parents didn’t play with us and schlep us around to every activity under the sun. In fact, the extent of their involvement with us (other than feeding and clothing us) was to shout – whilst fixing dinner or gluing together the broken coffee table, “Go outside and play and don’t come home until the streetlights come on!”

Nowadays, my kid has such a social schedule you’d think she was the President of the United States of Children.

Especially this week when all of her activities have come together in a sort of PERFECT STORM.

MONDAY – school/ piano

TUESDAY – End of year conference/ school/dance class/ rehearsal for Talent Show

WEDNESDAY – 2 Talent Show performances for the school in the a.m./ Dance competition rehearsal after school

THURSDAY - School Awards Assembly (she’s getting an award…shhhh!)/ Orthodontist appt./ Talent Show Rehearsal/ Evening Talent Show performance for parents

FRIDAY - Dance competition at a location SO FAR AWAY that will take hours in rush hour traffic on Memorial weekend to get to…ARRRGH!

Crazy, huh? And yet, I’m not the only one. All the parents I know have gone hog-wild crazy catering to their kids and their kids’ activities. And most other parents have more than one child so you can multiply their madness accordingly!  

So, where is MY time, you ask? The pathetic bits and pieces of the day eked out to attend to MY work, MY chores, MY personal hygiene? And why is a girl who says she wants to be a doctor when she grows up so focused on the arts anyway? Good questions. If you have the answers, lemme know.

Meanwhile…. before any of you state the obvious, let me just say it myself.

IT’S ALL MY FAULT!  My kid only has this mad schedule because I have allowed it. Yet, as a parent I have the right, the obligation to JUST SAY NO!

And you know what? I plan on doing just that. From here on out, I’m putting my foot down.

Yessiree. Next time she tells me she’d like to take an art class, or join the school chess club I’ll stare her straight in her big,  chocolatey brown eyes that look at me with such unconditional love and I’LL TELL HER…

“You listen here, missy. ABSOLUTELY NOT…. until I have some time to think about it.”

I know. I know. I’m a total pushover. So sue me. I don’t know  why I do it. Love or guilt or the desire to give my kid what I didn’t have in my childhood. Or just because I’m her mom and think she’s the most talented little thing on the planet and generally, it’s all fun, even for me. Probably it’s a little of everything.  Still, the bottom line is that I bring it on myself. And therefore, I shouldn’t complain.

Buuuuuuut…. since this is my  website and I pretty much do whatever I want on it…. WAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!

WHAT DO YOU THINK? DO WE OVERINDULGE OUR KIDS?

I have lumpy breasts. Always have. Well, since they made their appearance anyway. Granted when I was 13 and they were mere nubbins – barely capable of getting a sideways glance from hormonal boys – I didn’t know it. Then they could be described more as a single lump in your oatmeal. If your oatmeal was otherwise very very flat.

But once I got to breast exam age – the truth emerged. My breasts are really fibrous. And therefore it makes it very difficult to do a self breast exam to check for unusual masses. For that matter, my GYN can’t tell either. So I’ve been having mammograms for several years now.

Well, today I had another. And….Ow. It hurt.  

It’s almost inhuman what they do. They take my little breastlings  and tug and pull and mash them down between two plastic plates. And they crank that thing so it smashes them down like a vice. ..  I see them do that sort of thing all the time on How It’s Made. But usually they’re just squishing two pieces of wood together to make an oar. Not a sweet little innocent breast that never did anything to anybody! Certainly nothing to deserve this kind of  pain.

Look, my breasts have been through a lot. Snarky comments like “You’re flat as a pancake,” from 7th grade girls (Dee Dee, you know who you are!) who were several sizes bigger than me. Boyfriends who behaved more like they were trying to tune in Radio Moscow than turn me on. Breastfeeding! Oh yeah. You moms know how bad that one can be. How can such a tiny jaw have such a vice-like grip?!

But that mammo. I look down and see my little boobie. Literally smashed as flat as a pancake. And I think to myself, Dee Dee didn’t know the meaning of “flat as a pancake”. If she could see me now.

The mammo tech, a nice woman with really cold hands (I mean really, you’re a woman, you should know better) always apologizes and says she’s not trying to hurt me. And I know she doesn’t get pleasure doing this to other women. Although if she really cared she’d put those hands on a heating pad before putting them on my breasts!

Today while she was “positioning” me for the x-rays – she complained that my nipple wouldn’t point the right way.  She wanted a profile shot. My breast apparently felt it looked better if it was photographed from its right side. Who knew boobies were so vain?

Anyway, no amount of kneading and mashing would make that nipple point in the required direction. I told the tech that  years of gravity had taken its toll. She politely countered that it was because I was FULLER on the right side. AWWWWW. No one’s ever used that word before when describing my breasts. It almost of made up for all the hurtful insults Dee Dee had hurled at my chest in my youth… and for the cold hands. Almost.

As the tech  clamped me in as soundly as she could, she told me to hold my breath. Fortunately that wasn’t a problem since I hadn’t taken a breath since the whole breast contortions had begun. Pain’ll do that to you.

And then, SUDDENLY,  it was all over. She released the clamp. My breasts quickly recoiled and resumed their positions on my upper torso. And as they did I swore I heard a little “whimper” coming from one of them. Until I realized the whimper was coming from me.

As the  pain slowly left my body, I actually thought that I  might have licked my wounds if I had the talents of a Cirque du Soleil contortionist. Then again, probably not as that would have been REALLY WEIRD.

Instead I quickly swaddled my little ones in their tiny cradles (aka my bra) and I crossed  my arms in a super protective mode. You know the position. It’s the same one we women use when it’s really, really cold in the office and we wore a really, really thin shirt.

I hobbled overly dramatically out into the waiting room and toward the exit. Feeling a little battle weary and very relieved that that was done for another year.

And as I left, I passed many concerned-looking women. And I knew that some of them were there because they actually HAD serious issues. And I realized that although a mammogram hurts, I’m sure it hurts a lot less than breast cancer.

I quickly stopped my whining and felt very grateful. Grateful to have had the mammomgram. Grateful to have insurance to pay for the mammogram. And grateful that I live in a time where they have such a wonderful screening process that helps with early detection and saves so many lives every year.

Because of mammograms, breast cancer has become one of the most treatable forms of women’s cancers.  And since mammograms came into being, the death rate from breast cancer has gone down 44%.

So if you’re over 40 or have a history of breast cancer in your family,  suck up a little pain for your long term health. Go get your mammogram.

And if you can’t afford it, click on the link below to find a place that offers free screening mammograms.

http://www.liv.com/free_mammograms.php

You know the saying “beauty is pain?” Well, sometimes good health is too.