The Mommy Diaries

I recently took part in a focus group with a bunch of other mothers. We sat around a huge conference room table for an hour sharing our heartfelt concerns about children's cough and cold medicines. It was a pleasant-enough experience. I roped one of my best friends into doing it with me. I think she, like me, was only disappointed in one thing. The huge bowl of serious candy (we're talking Snickers and M&Ms here) was way on the other side of the table.

Anyway, in addition to the chocolate distraction, I was mesmerized by a young, granola mom who had brought her toddler with her. She had the usual rescue kit I remember whenever you take a small child anywhere and you want the kid to behave in public. Toys. Food. Drinks. Things that make noise you can dangle in front of his face.

But the thing that really amazed me was that the food she brought was a Ziploc bag of cold green beans. Seriously.

Now, I rarely eat green beans now, much less force my son to eat them. I certainly didn't give them to him as a "treat" when he was a toddler. I was all about the Cheerios and the fruit snacks. If I had offered up a green bean, he would have offered up a scream.

So then I started thinking I was a bad mom. And I started questioning my mom friends who, after laughing hysterically at the green-bean mom, said that they too were the Cheerio-and-gummi givers. Now, I don't feel so bad.

Yes, I already regret not plying my son with more veggies when he was younger. Last night, for example, we both had our first water chestnuts. (Verdict: they tasted like crunchy nothing.) And I certainly won't win any mother-of-the-year awards. But that green-bean kid is probably going to grow up and eat at McDonald's every day in college, eat Pop-Tarts for breakfast and insist on Easy Mac dinners until he joins Weight Watchers at fifty.

Just wait until he hits the school cafeteria with his tofu and soy pita sandwich and his carrot sticks. No one is going to trade him for their Chips Ahoy.

So, 'fess up. Are you green beans or gummi bears? How good (or bad) of a parent are you? And do you care?

Yippee. Excuse my glee but we suburbanites have yet another reason to stay safely cocooned outside the perimeter. The Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre at Encore Park opened last weekend here in Alpharetta. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's $35 million outdoor venue is very nice. It has a 12,000 seat covered pavilion, a spacious lawn, a big old stage, giant screens, easy parking and -- the best part -- is about ten minutes from my house.

Don't get me wrong. I absolutely adore Chastain and The Fox and Turner Field and all the great places we can go to see plays and concerts and ballgames in Atlanta. But there's a reason Chastain lets you pack a lunch. By the time you make the drive all the way from where I live (and manage to figure out parking and make the hike into the actual amphitheater and get to your actual seats) you need a good meal and a nap to combat hunger, dehydration and general fatigue.

So having a concert venue only minutes away makes us OTPers downright giddy. The mayor of Alpharetta was walking around during the amphitheatre's opening night with his chest puffed out and North Fulton bigwigs were shaking hands and just looking for babies to slobber over. Just last week, the first metro area H&M store opened at North Point Mall. Now this.

This of course doesn't mean that we won't still go to Chastain and The Fox and Turner Field. But it's nice that we now have a nearby option. Sure, I've heard that some people have started complaining already that there will be traffic issues when the Eagles play four sold-out shows and noise could no doubt become a concern when rowdier acts than the ASO take the stage. But it's all part of the deal.

Hey, ITPers, I hope you'll come check it out. But you may want to pack a lunch.

It's Mother's Day weekend and I'll be spending the big day with my son which is just perfect. My husband and two of his brothers finally planned that big golf weekend they've been talking about for more than a decade and, after they made the reservations, they realized it was Mother's Day weekend. They got a sufficient amount of grief from their wives but it's honestly not a big deal. As long as Luke and I are hanging out (and not arguing) it should be fun.

Mother's Day is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. Unlike some other holidays (Sweetest Day, anyone?) this isn't one created by Hallmark. This fest was created by a real woman to honor her own mom and all that she meant to her.

Growing up, not many of us had ideal relationships with our parents. Until we become adults and we realized how good they actually were...especially when we find ourselves saying the same things to our kids that they said to us. Every time I get frustrated with Luke for reading at the table or for his I Know Everything attitude, I can imagine my mom's glee if she heard my complaints. I'm thinking they'd sound very familiar to her.

Mother's Day is the second most-popular gift-giving holiday (right after Christmas). It's also the busiest day for long-distance phone calls. I've had friends say they just want a day with the family. Or they just want a day WITHOUT the family.

If you're a mom, what do YOU want? And what do you plan on doing for YOUR mom? Is the best Mother's Day a day with the family or a day without? And shouldn't it definitely involve chocolate of some sort?

One of the downsides of being a parent is that I see creepy people everywhere. More specifically, I see the creepiness potential in people everywhere.

When Luke first started playing baseball at Wills Park, another mom told me a frightening story about a friend of a friend at another ball field in another state whose child disappeared during a ballgame. When police showed up to help in the search, parents turned over their video cameras and several known child molesters appeared on the video footage in the stands and wandering around the park.

Duh, I thought. Pedophiles are going to hang out in parks. I never walked around the park the same again. Every time I saw a man by himself I glowered at him suspiciously. Was he there to watch his own kid play ball or was he evil? I warned Luke about bad guys and watched him like the proverbial mama hawk.

Yesterday, Luke started swim lessons at the Y. He can swim but we wanted to get him a refresher course before summer camp. Anyway, I was watching the kids from the other side of the window and noticed that while lessons were going on, a lone man came in and slipped into the lap lane. He put on his goggles but didn't do any laps right away. He just watched the kids from the privacy of his rope-side lane and then, after at least five minutes, did a leisurely lap or two before getting out of the pool. It creeped me out.

There may have been a good reason for him to be in the water. Maybe he was working a sore ankle under the water. Or maybe he was a pervert.

The problem is that in today's twisted world you just don't know.

I get sex offender alert emails that let me know when sex offenders move into my zip code. I always Google their addresses and check out their faces, hoping I'll recognize them if I see them in line at the grocery store buying candy. I'm not sure what I'd do if I actually saw them but it makes me feel like I'm being proactive knowing they're out there.

At the park. In the pool. Lord knows where else.

How worried are you about creepy people? Do you take any extra precautions? Have you ever confronted anyone or changed your daily routine because of your fear of possible bad guys?

With apologies to the parents who think we caved for no good reason, as of Saturday we now own a Wii. Luke diligently worked toward his goal these past few months, filling in all the little squares on his daily chart and even doing extra chores or extra piano so that he actually earned his Holy Grail ten days early.

We set it up Saturday morning and he and my husband played right after they spent way too much time creating their Miis -- their gaming Avatars. Luke gave himself much cooler glasses than he wears now and my husband gave himself cooler hair. They played for a little more than an hour each day but Luke was not even a little bit obnoxious about asking if he could keep playing or about which other games he could buy or when he could play again.

Instead, he wanted to know what he could work toward next. He's thinking a video iPod but we haven't decided yet. Just in case, he did a bunch of extra chores over the weekend.

So this worked out just as I'd hoped. Luke hasn't become obsessed with the Wii but he has fallen for the idea of working toward a goal and earning something he really wants.

The only downside so far is that my husband -- a sports writer who covers baseball -- takes the baseball game a little too seriously. I overheard him playing baseball with Luke yesterday on the Wii and he was trying to figure out how to switch pitchers based on their current ERAs and was also commenting on which guys he wanted to play based on how they treated him during Spring Training interviews. Looks like someone's going to have to work on his sportsmanship or he'll never get a video iPod.

But enough about my family. What about yours? How do video games fit in at your house? Do you make your kids earn playing time or do they play whenever they want? And have you ever tried making them work toward a goal like this? Do you think it will work a second time?

At the bus stop this morning I was talking to one of my neighbors about what he was going to do with his son this summer. He and his wife have adopted an 8-year-old from China and, since they both work, they don't know what to do once school is out. "That's the elephant in the living room," he said, asking if I had any suggestions. Summer camp, I offered? "Tie him to a tree in the front yard?" he joked. At least I think he was joking. After all, it's been awhile since he's had kids. People don't do that sort of thing anymore.

In any case, summer is supposed to be fun -- think sleeping late and trips to the pool and picnics and lemonade stands. But it can also drive parents nuts. For me, because I'm still working all summer, I'm trying to get all my work done while making sure Luke still has some fun. He's pretty good at entertaining himself but I don't want him to spend the whole summer just reading and playing LEGOs. That's pretty much what he did last summer, save for a few half-days at magic camp and our mother/son last-minute escape to Hilton Head.

This summer, therefore, we actually made plans. We've planned a week at the beach with my parents. Luke's going to sleepaway camp with his best friend since preschool (more on that on a later post!) and we're even heading to NYC for a few days in July.

But even with all that planned, I'm sure I'll hear those dreaded words, "Mom, I'm bored." That's when I steer him toward his bookshelf or his toy and game closet or point out the dirty frog tank or the dog that would like some attention or even his messy room.

Worst case, I could send him outside to see if the neighbor's kid is tied to a tree. Untangling him should keep him occupied for awhile.

Sweet and innocent Miley Cyrus (aka Hannah Montana) poses in the new issue of Vanity Fair naked from the waist up, wrapped only in what looks like a satin sheet. The provocative shot was taken by celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz. In a caption with the photo, the 15-year-old Disney star says: "I think it's really artsy. It wasn't in a skanky way. Annie took, like, a beautiful shot, and I thought that was really cool. That's what she wanted to do, and you can't say no to Annie. She's so cute. She gets this puppy-dog look and you're like, 'OK.' "

Well, apparently Miley had a change of heart. She issued a statement over the weekend saying, "I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be 'artistic' and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed. I never intended for any of this to happen, and I apologize to my fans who I care so deeply about."

Now here's where things get confusing. News reports are fuzzy, but Miley's parents were on the set for at least some of the shoot. People magazine said they left before the controversial photo but her grandmother and teacher were still there. At some point, someone suggested that Miley take off her shirt and wrap herself in the sheet and nobody protested. They must've thought it was a good idea. In fact, in a statement, Vanity Fair said, "Since the photo was taken digitally, they saw it on the shoot and everyone thought it was a beautiful and natural portrait of Miley."

I only have a son who happens to think Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana is "gross" so I have no personal stake in the matter, but my friend Vicki has a Miley-obsessed 10-year-old daughter.

"I don't know why a teenager would take pictures without clothes on. It's totally inappropriate," she says. "I have a hard enough time toning down the oversexed images she sees every day."

As far as Miley's backpedaling once the photos were shot? "They think we're stupid."

Britney Spears did the same thing when she was trying to change her bubblegum image and attract older fans. By shooting risque pictures and then apologizing later, she kept the young, squeaky clean kids and brought in a hipper, older crowd. Looks like Miley is doing the same.

But I'm just amazed that her parents or her grandmother were on board. I don't care how popular or cool or hip your kid is. I'm thinking fifteen is way too young to be posing in a bedsheet.