This week's Brentwood Home Page column

Who knew so much anxiety could precede a birthday party? And I wasn't even hosting!

Iran is for lovers?

One of the top headlines right now is the story of the three American "hikers" detained in Iran for supposedly crossing the border from Iraq illegally.

Hiking in Iraq? People do this? Seriously?!!

I know I have a very small circle of reference since I am not a world traveler. I mean, I'll do stuff, as you can see from that very old photo of us at Rock City. But the stuff I do has to be near an interstate and some kind of truck stop or Wal-Mart. Call me pedestrian, but my knowledge of the Middle East comes from news sources, and those lead me to believe that the only people going to Iraq are military. I am quite happy to stay in familiar areas and leave the roaming to those so inclined. You won't find me signing up for the Peace Corps, and the last flight I was on left me so impatient to get back home that my fidgeting nearly got me tagged as a security concern.

Still, it seems pretty obvious that the Middle East should not be a recreation destination. I haven't seen any brochures luring people to "Cruise the Gaza Strip" or trumpeting that "What Happens in Yemen Stays in Yemen."

An article on cnn.com is not clear about whether the three hikers worked in Iraq and were out for a "relaxing" weekend or went there specifically as tourists. It says they stayed in a hotel and were warned many times by the hotel owner to stay away from their destination town because of its proximity to the unmarked border with Iran. Iranian officials say the three are spies, but I'll bet they say that to all Americans.

Lots of folks revile the suburbs, where I live, as hell on earth. Of course, they aren't that bad, and maybe I'm just unaware of a growing market for vacation packages in war zones.

Just let me know if you see any bumper stickers that say, "Pakistan: Land of Enchantment."

You won't find us where the wild things are

We are not big puppet people around here. My husband and I both have always found puppet shows particularly cringeworthy, and it looks like that aversion has passed down to our kids, especially Owen.
Well, the twins weren't morally opposed to puppets the way Owen is. They at least would watch Sesame Street, and I have always given credit to Sesame Street for teaching them letters and numbers as well as, you guessed it, cooperation.
Owen, on the other hand, gets pissed if you try to leave the TV on a program with puppets. His unexplained opposition to this kind of kid's show is legendary around here, so we're usually watching the History Channel, the Military Channel, Discovery or House Hunters, which teaches a surprising amount of geography. I guess his one exception is Phineas and Ferb, which is hilarious enough for adults but has no snotty twins calling people "loser."
So I wasn't too concerned about hitting Fandango to get tickets for Where the Wild Things Are. Though it's a classic, we don't even own the book. Owen said he had seen that book at preschool, then went back to playing Star Wars. Tim brought it home from the library because, of course, neither of us had read it since childhood.
You know what? I thought it was a terrible kids' book. I really could not believe that Maurice Sendak would start a book and then just stop writing in the middle when it's getting good. I guess when it came out it was a fun idea to think about kids going to their wild place. But I much prefer The Salamander Room for imagination.
My interest in the movie version of the wild things piqued when I heard it was directed by Spike Jonze. Still, I'll stick with what I think are Jonze's most important contributions to date, which are showing us that Christopher Walken can, in fact, dance like a mofo and introducing us to his spoof with the Torrance Community Dance Group performing to the Fatboy Slim song Praise You.
There be genius, and it won't depress my kids.

The inevitable

I’ve been thinking a lot about a mom I used to know named Laura. We weren’t friends; her daughter was in the same preschool class as one of my twins. Still, she was one of my favorite people to see four days a week because she always smiled, and her daughter was sweet. She didn’t gang up with some cronies in the school entrance like a sorority clique, ignoring anyone who didn’t serve one of her purposes. She walked her kid in, spoke a few friendly words to any moms who also happened to be there, and went on her way.
I was fascinated by her because she just seemed above it all, but not in a snobby way. She had a life waiting for her, you could tell, but she wasn’t trying to prove it to anyone. And she influenced me a lot.
See, some moms behave the way they probably behaved in high school, the way a lot of grown guys act like frat boys when they get together. A really good blogger I like to read calls them the Muffia, because they can be pretty intimidating if you’re just trying to get your kid in the door and to the right classroom. They’re the ones who drive the biggest SUVs, park where there’s not really a parking spot (oh, wait, I used to do that sometimes), talk really loudly about the awesome stuff they’re doing, and wear kitten heels on field day.
So if you know you’re not one of the Muffia (and you know when you’re not), it’s a relief to come across someone who just is open and friendly to everyone, even someone like me who dares to wear house pants to preschool drop-off instead of True Religion jeans.
Sometimes during field trips or class parties, Laura and I would talk, and I found out that her preschool daughter was her third child, not her first, which would explain why she was not one of the giddy sorority types. She had done it all before, and she could control herself in the presence of her peers.
Not only was this her third child, but there was a significant age difference between her first two and her third kid. Kind of like how Owen is seven years younger than his brothers. At the time, I just had the twins, but hearing Laura talk about her family and the perspective the age difference gave her made me consider having another child someday.
Up until then, I always said, “No way, no how. Never, never, never again.” Caring for the twins as infants and toddlers was so hard for me that I told myself that we would always be a family of four. Then during the twins’ last year of preschool, when they were 5, I lay awake one night and realized that they would both leave the house for college at the same time and that would be it. I didn’t want that.
Now my third child, the one who is seven years younger than my first kids, is barreling toward kindergarten, and I think about Laura a lot. One thing she told me as we finished up that last preschool year was that she couldn’t wait for summer. I shivered because, with the twins, I was at the preschool any time the doors were open, looking for something else to entertain my two boys, someone else for them to look at and talk to instead of me. A change of scenery, if you will.
“No, I’m really looking forward to this summer,” Laura said, “because it’s the last one before they start real school. I’m just really going to enjoy my time with her because once you get on that school schedule, you don’t get off until they graduate.”
She was speaking from experience, and I knew she was right. She didn’t see her child’s childhood as something to get through. Moms can and should enjoy it, too, and I do now, thanks to Laura.
My 13-year-olds don’t give me good pajama hugs anymore, but my 5-year-old still does. I’m so glad I have him, even though a party of five is way harder to seat at a restaurant than a party of four.

Footwear, above all

Since we took our family vacation early this year, I'm offering my helpful advice on how to go from an "after" to a "before" on your summer vacation.

1) Choose shoes based on looks, not function. I was so excited when I bought my adorable Crocs Patricia sandals. (Crocs also makes wedges now! I know!!!) I stood in Macy's and proclaimed, 'These shall be my Disney sandals!' because they are comfy, somehow very lightweight yet supportive. Also, they're Crocs, so it wouldn't hurt them to get wet since we'd be riding Splash Mountain and sitting in the Soak Zone at Shamu Stadium. I hurried home to plan all my Orlando outfits around these vaunted shoes.

I did not anticipate 95 degree weather in early May or the Florida humidity. These, coupled with a 12-hour car ride and many more hours standing and walking than I am used to, caused my feet to swell and the evil Crocs sandals rubbed a nickel-sized blister on the top of my left foot. Actually, I knew by the time we walked across the concrete prairie from our truck to the Seaworld entrance on our first day that my feet were in trouble. Of course, I'd packed Band-Aids in case THE BOYS needed them, but I used at least a dozen that day.

2) You might not think a blister would affect your look. That leads me to tip #2, which is the blister walk. I had to modify my walk to compensate for that blister as much as I could, so other Seaworld visitors must have thought I was smuggling baby sea lions out between my knees as I hobbled across the park. I resisted complaining audibly and instead chided myself for thinking I could be cute at a theme park. On Day #2 at Animal Kingdom, I still refused to succumb to tennis shoes and wore my bathroom flip-flops because they didn't rub the blister spot. After only an hour in the simulated jungle, my legs were so tired that I walked like the 80-year-olds. Actually the 80-year-olds were doing great on their scooters and Hoverounds. Between the motorized old folks and the stroller brigade, we were about the only people walking!

3) Ride the wettest rides first, so your freshly sprayed hair will get soaked and form an impenetrable crust that looks wet all the livelong day.

4) Drink much more lemonade and Diet Coke than you usually do since that's what you can get in your refillable Disney mug.

5) Accidentally leave your expensive face soap at the Hampton Inn in Cordele, Georgia, so that you have to use the super fatty Mickey soap provided by Disney resorts.

6) Slather sunscreen on your face, especially if you usually don't, then try to put on blush as you normally would. Coppertone does wonders for powder makeup, making the colors more vibrant and clownlike.

7) Finally, accept the fact that no one at the theme park except your youngest children ever looks at you. They are all just trying to survive the crowds with their own family members intact. Fashion is not a consideration. If you want proof, scroll down to the photo of my boys in front of the Animal Kingdom gate, click on it and look at the crowd in the background. That's what everyone looked like. See the grown man wearing Mickey's magical wizard hat? People wore that stuff all day. I saw dads wearing rhinestone-studded, princess-themed Mickey ears that their daughters had discarded on the Peter Pan ride. NO ONE cares what you wear. By the third day I did something I would never do in Brentwood. I pulled out the only pair of capris I'd brought and wore them with my tennis shoes, which mercifully did not hit the blister. And I walked from Pirates of the Caribbean all the way to Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin with nary a limp.

8) Don't forget to pose for pictures without sucking anything in so you look pregnant. Clutch your giant lemonade as if life depended on it. Be sure to turn so that the angle showcases the fleshiest part of your arm. Ahhhh, success! I've included the above photo for demonstration purposes only. You results may vary.

Photographic evidence

Feast your eyes on the back row of the vehicle. Click on it to get a good look. In this photo taken on the Dinosaur roller coaster at Disney's Animal Kingdom, my four men are being attacked by a giant T-rex (guess there's no other kind) just as they think the ride is coming to an end.

I, of course, bailed as soon as I read the sign that said it was a turbulent ride. But even 5-year-old Owen, in the green T-shirt, is more of a man than I. He actually looks more afraid than I am comfortable with. Tim and Henry both look surprised, but Mason, in the orange, just looks annoyed. He said, "I wasn't scared. It was just SO LOUD." I don't think the couple on the front right feel the same way.

The Happiest Place on Earth

...except for Henry.
We posed for this photo on the last day of our 2001 trip to Walt Disney World, when the twins were 5. I found it while looking for photos to show Owen, who now is 5 and will visit Disney for the first time when we go next month.
This picture perfectly displays the dynamics of that entire trip because Henry was not sad. He was PISSED. He did not want to go to that breakfast at Chef Mickey's because he was terrified of characters. We knew this and tried to be sensitive about it the entire week, not forcing him to get too close to any giant upholstered mammals. Fortunately the Disney characters are excellent at backing off when they see that a child is shy or scared.
On the morning documented here, however, I was bound and determined to get my photo, which was included in the pricey package we'd bought. By the time we posed here, Henry had already ignored Minnie Mouse and slid from the booth under the table as a man-sized Chip from Chip and Dale approached us. As we got to the picture area, there just happened to be a ginormous Goofy standing nearby in a chef's coat. Henry balked, I insisted strenuously, and I got my picture. I guess Henry decided he'd make me pay by ruining it.
But I think that face makes it even better. Click on the picture to see it in full effect.