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The Cougar

January 9, 2008

I have been remiss in blogging about the Cougar. The whole idea of the Cougar has been something that’s intrigued me for months now. I’ll be honest, I love the term. It’s much sexier and hipper than being a “Sugar Daddy.” A cougar is fast, stealth, not easy to catch, well-built, can pounce on a second. I mean – come on. Being called a Cougar is pretty sweet, in my mind.

I know some of you might disagree but there you go, I said it, I love the Cougar. I want to be a Cougar, except the part where I married a man who is older than me.

But there are some questions lingering out there around Cougars.

The first – at what age are you a Cougar? My co-worker, he loves the Cougars of the world but being a man in his 30s, he does not believe I am old enough to be a Cougar. A puma? Perhaps. But I’m not old enough to be a Cougar, according to him.

I’m ok with Puma.

But what about the man in his 20s? Would he consider a woman in her 30s, a Cougar, I wondered.

I just got my answer.

I just had a working lunch with my co-worker and a man in his 20s. Towards the end of the lunch, he commented that he’s dating a Cougar. He’s 25 and she’s 36. The entire dynamic of the lunch changed at that point. It was like we all had three beers under our belt and just rolled up our sleeves and dove into the pros and cons of the Cougar.

I’ll admit, until this younger guy admitted to dating and loving Cougars, I wasn’t overly impressed. But then, his reasons for preferring Cougars really got me. He went on to explain that women in their 20s are still trying to find themselves, they are still rife with insecurities and they complain about their bosses. Apparently this guy’s brother said “Dude, your girlfriend will never complain about the boss because she is the boss.”

I loved that.

So basically, he loves a more confident, self-assured, successful business woman. He loves the Cougar and claims he can never go back to women his own age.

Which then brought up the other issue that I’ve wondered about the Cougar-younger man relationship. That pesky biological clock.

So, knowing this man all of 45 minutes, I felt we had enough history together for me to inquire about this particular challenge.

I said, “It just seems to me, that at the end of the day, that the relationship between a man in his 20s dating a woman in her mid-late 30s might not be able to withstand time if the woman wants to get married and have kids.”

My fellow lunch mate was open to this and just said he doesn’t know where he stands with kids, given his age, but the Cougar said she doesn’t want them. I mean, who’s really thinking about having babies at 25? Certainly I wasn’t.

I still have my suspicions that at the end of the day, a relationship with that great of an age difference can really withstand time, in particular with the woman being more than 10 years older, but we all know Demi has made it work. It’s just the kids issue. If the woman wants children, her own biological children, I just don’t know how it can work out. Call me cynical.

But setting that aside, I am all for Cougars. Love the term, love how much people want to talk about it. Love it.

Cougar it up, kittens.

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Husbands, Motherhood

Can there be order amidst the chaos?

January 7, 2008

Good Monday Morning Kittens –

Here it is early January, a new year, a new week, frankly the first full week back to work for me in like three weeks. I’m dreading it. Aside from diets and exercise, the other topic most heavily covered in the news (also setting aside the primaries) is ORGANIZATION. Everyone loves to slim down, tone up and get organized in a new year. Indeed. At least on the Today Show they do. But what about real life?

Well, I don’t know about you, but of all the areas of my home that need organization and structure, I will go out on a limb and say that my daughter’s playroom tops that list.

Maybe you are different than me, maybe you have some kind of highly organized, structured, focused toddler, but in my reality, playrooms never look like this:

http://www.potterybarnkids.com/room/rom/romply/romplycbs/index.cfm

Or this:

http://www.potterybarnkids.com/room/rom/romply/romplycam/index.cfm

Or this:

http://www.landofnod.com/family.aspx?c=149&f=2649&pc=9

In fact, the playroom more closely resembles the disaster zone similar to the playroom pics on this person’s blog (scroll down a bit under the Messy Room entry to see):

http://jsvh.blogspot.com/2006/11/messy-rooms.html

So what is a gal to do?

First of all, we built a separate room with a door so that our darling cherub could have a place for her toys and her chaos and her mess…and we could just close the door at night and not have to look at it. It was well worth the money.

But even so, I still spend a lot of time in the room and there are times it drives me up a wall. I try to bring order to the chaos. I have really great baskets with pretty liners (that get pulled out and tossed around the room..along with all the contents of said basket… when my daughter decides its time to sit inside the basket and play). I try to organize the baskets. Balls, cars, other shaped items in here, dolls and little people in here, books in here.

Indeed.

That lasts about as long as she is napping.

And then I wonder to myself, what kind of “organization system” actually works the best. Baskets provide easy access for the toddler set but their contents are quickly emptied and dispersed around the room. Bookshelves can come tumbling down quite easily. Yeah yeah, I know you can anchor a bookshelf to a wall but still, the contents are going to come tumbling down quickly and it’s never going to look organized or neat.

So is it better to have the toys “organized” on a few bookshelves or “organized” in baskets dispersed around the room? Or is there another way? Anyone?

I mean, is it me, or is it just the Pottery Barn Kids or Land of Nod catalog that has beautiful organization systems with themed baskets all neatly organized and labeled? Does someone out there live like this? I mean, I get really tempted to just start dropping money and buying all these baskets and wardrobes and dressers and bookshelves in all the neatly matching colors and zen like state each time a new catalog arrives on my doorstep.

I settle down into the couch on those nights, pouring over the catalogs, analyzing the organization system, assessing the costs, laying out the new system in my mind – visually – in the playroom. Then I go to sleep and wake up to my daughter the next morning and face the reality of how that beautiful, trendy, coordinated system would actually look.

And so I ask you this – fellow moms with toddlers and playrooms – how do you do it? Do you have a room that looks like Pottery Barn?

If so, who are you?

And how do you do it?

And how long does it last for?

And don’t lie about it.

Surely Oprah’s got a guy who can solve all my lack of playroom organization and structure problems.

Afterall, I’m great in 2008…so long as you don’t come for a playdate and see how I actually live….

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Motherhood

I’m great in 2008……

January 4, 2008

Happy New Year Kittens!

First, let me apologize for my long silence. You know that you are always on my mind but sometimes there are a few hurdles in my way. It seems that with parenthood, I am still learning and re-learning the lesson that the best laid plans are, well, just that. In fact, rarely does something actually play out how you imagine it would.

Example? Well, my darling daughter, husband, parents, nanny and myself were all struck with the horrible Norovirus the week before Christmas (I swear that trip to that hideous Elmo Show with the terrible fight with my husband is the culprit. I swear we picked it up there). If you’ve experienced this drama, well then, you know what kind of hell we endured. I had the best intentions, that week before Christmas. I had so much work to do, I had errands to run during my lunch hour, I had presents to wrap, cookies to make, cards to send, manicure, pedicure and haircut appointments to enjoy, I was a gal with things to do. None of those things included laying on the floor next to the toilet, wishing for death, and thanking God for Elmo who kept my daughter quite distracted while I puked my guts up, hoping someone would come home soon.

So that’s why you didn’t hear from me before Christmas. And I’ve yet to get that manicure, pedicure or haircut.

Then we went to my parent’s house for Christmas and it was fun. Until the night of Christmas Eve. When the Norovirus struck my parent’s house. And tore through me, all three of my sisters and my mom again. You got it. Twice in the span of one week. Fortunately it spared my darling daughter and husband the second time. So, again, that same dreaded lesson reared its ugly head again. I imagined a really fun Christmas day, watching my daughter REALLY enjoy Christmas for the first time, sipping coffee, laughing and joking with my family. I didn’t quite imagine all three bathrooms in the house being occupied with an adult female body laying next to the toilet, wishing for death.

But really, who does imagine that when they think of Christmas?

Probably me next year. I’ll imagine it.

So what’s my point? pharmacy Well, my first point is that this is largely why you heard nothing from me for so long. My other point is, maybe it’s best not to really internalize the reality that the best laid plans are well, just that, because then you’d walk around being all negative and Debbie Downer for the rest of your life. This is parenthood and life, right? It just sort of happens, whether you like it or not.

Many really sweet things still happened over Christmas. My two-year old was pretty oblivious to the misery and sickness that was happening around her and she still loved Christmas. She graduated from a sweet, innocent request by calling Santa before Christmas and asking him for a “gingerbread house” to calling Santa after Christmas and just saying “Bring presents.”

Now that’s what I’m talking about, a gal who appreciates gifts and knows how to state what she wants.

The other fun thing to discuss is the fact that it’s, well, a new year. I, for one, am opposed to New Years Resolutions. It’s like giving up something for Lent. Haven’t I given up enough already? I mean, what do they say, in the first year of a baby’s life, you lose like a year’s worth of sleep. Need I get into what happens to our bodies from pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding. Isn’t that enough?

So instead, I will resolve the following:

1. I resolve to make sure my husband completes all of his assignments on his “to do” list every weekend.

2. I resolve to make sure I am equally, if not, more, pretty and funny by the end of 2008 as I was at the end of 2007.

3. I resolve to still drive like a maniac at the end of each work day and honk and swear and wave my fist at any annoying slow driver who’s delaying my efforts to get home quickly to play with my darling daughter.

4. I resolve to continue to be as dedicated to fashion and shoes and accessories in 2008 as I was in 2007.

5. I resolve to remain steadfast in my commitment to celebrity gossip and spreading it around as fast as I can.

See, kittens, it’s 2008, we’re great…….what else is there to say?

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Celebrities, Fashion, Husbands, Motherhood

Over the river, through the woods…..to Elmo we go….

December 17, 2007

Ahh..the holidays! That glorious time when all the streets are a-glow, children are all behaving as good as they can in the hopes that Santa will bring them lots of treats, and our kitchens smell like cookies and egg nog.

Right?

Indeed….maybe on TV…or maybe in your house….but mine…..only sometimes. It is with good intent that we all make holiday plans but sometimes, sometimes, the best laid plans….right?

Case in point. On Saturday we had tickets to take darling daughter to see Elmo – Sesame Street Live. We took her last year and she loved every minute of it, so we decided to take her again this year because we knew she would just love it.

I forgot to print directions out to get to the show before I left work on Friday so I emailed my darling husband and requested he print them out before leaving the office.

Friday evening I asked him if he printed the directions (and called to order the ham for his family Christmas dinner we were having Saturday night…he offered to order the ham…and I reminded him several times throughout the week to place the call). He didn’t print the directions or order the ham. I was incredibly annoyed.

Saturday morning, I noticed darling husband on the computer, quickly accessing directions to the Elmo Show and jotting them down. I had this gnawing feeling that I should go check the directions myself and also write them down but that seemed so annoying and micro-managing that I refrained.

I also refrained from commenting further on the Christmas dinner ham. I figured, if we don’t have a ham for his family’s Christmas dinner, well then, we don’t have a ham. There’s only so much a gal can do in a week.

So, things seem to be moving along. We are all packed into the car, ready for the drive to the exciting Elmo show. Darling daughter is decked out in a pink and red Elmo track suit, my mother is bundled up in the back seat, darling husband and I are buckled up in the front. We are leaving in enough time to anticipate holiday traffic clogging the roads but still not miss any of the show. Life is good. We are excited!

Then I take the time to read the directions and though it’s been one full year since we were last at this location, something just seems totally wrong about the directions. I start to question them, husband starts to get annoyed. Toddler starts to fuss. My mother starts to pick at me and tell me it’s fine.

Then suddenly we are exiting off the Beltway and onto the Dulles Toll Road..and for those of you that live in Washington, we were headed to the Patriot Center at George Mason University. I was 100% sure we needed to instead be exiting the beltway onto 66 West.

At this point, I am LIVID. Husband had two things to do in the course of one week. TWO things….and were either of them done? No. And when one of them was done, it was done incorrectly and at the last minute. And it was such a simple request.

I mean, I was beyond the point of breathing out the anger, I had steam coming out my ears, my head was spinning in full circles and I was breathing fire.

My sister was able to reroute us after a quick phone call and I tried to keep my mouth shut as I seethed in anger in the front seat….until my mother continued to pick at the directions and then my husband chimed in to question the new directions and then I was pissed off at both of them and suddenly I was shouting “Screw you!” to darling husband…with my mother and child in the back seat…..and I’m pretty sure I attempted to kick him out of the car…that he was driving…..as we sat at a traffic light next to Tysons Corner Mall…..and I yelled at him for never doing anything and I do everything…..and as this screaming match was happening…..with my mother in the back seat….I found myself wondering……

Is this what the holidays is really about?

I mean……here we are….on the way to Elmo Live……and we cannot stand each other and are screaming…and my mother is, instead of just keeping her mouth shut, chiming in and making comments…and worse – siding with my husband! A woman who has been barking at her husband for 40 years……she’s not in it for sisterhood…she’s making it worse!

Is this my life?

Is this all really happening?

Is this what Big Bird and Elmo would want of us, en route to see them perform? Is this the Sesame Street Way? What would Santa say?

Because I don’t know about you but I was pretty sure I was leaving only coal in my husband’s stocking and returning all his gifts as soon as the Elmo Show was over with.

I should also note, that while all of this was occurring, I could completely see the humor in it. The endless humor in the image of a screaming family despising each other one week before Christmas en route to see some dumb Sesame Show about being good and all that crap.

I mean, it’s funny, really.

And isn’t this what inevitably happens to all of us at this time of year? Does anyone come away unscathed? Does anyone survive a full holiday season with way too many family members around and too many kids hopped up on sugar and napless, without at least one screaming fit? Isn’t this the reason for the season?

Whatever the case, we still have two weeks to go. If nothing else, it’s hilarious blogging material after the fact.

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Husbands, Motherhood