Soccer season is in full swing with practices twice a week with games on Saturday. I love it. As I’ve mentioned before, not only do I get to watch my daughter have fun, I get to socialize with my friends who are there watching their daughters have fun too. I do have my worries though, which have nothing to do with what you might think, like my daughter getting hurt or being the brunt of unsportsmanlike behavior. No. My biggest fear is that it will be my turn to bring snack and I will forget. That would be awful. A humiliation from which I could never recover. How could I live that down? “MOM!!! IT WAS YOUR TURN TO BRING SNACK AND YOU FORGOT???????????” The worst. So I always make sure that I sign up for my turn right away so that I can get it out of the way and won’t forget. But then there is another fear looming ahead of me like, “What if I bring a sucky snack? The wrong popsicle or fruit no one can stand? What then?” So I quiz my daughter in advance. “What should I bring?’ I’m told to get the “Big grapes with no seeds and the creamsicle popsicles.” Done. I was a hit. The kids loved me. Whew. Now I can relax for the rest of the season.

Paul and I have been together for five years, married for three and a half. During that time I would have to say that we have all successfully bonded as a family. I can honestly say that my stepkids love me like a second mother and my youngest daughter Eva has welcomed Paul into her life. The only holdout has been my oldest daughter, Sophia. She has a hard time warming up to people in general, is kind of aloof by nature and definitely does not adapt well to change. She and Paul have had lukewarm relationship in spite of his many attempts to engage her in various activities. (They recently bought windshield wiper blades together, for instance. They’ve bonded over cars.) On some days, Sophia is a veritable chatter box, talking endlessly about the events of the day, but usually only directing her conversation at me, with an occasional glance toward Paul. There are times when he walks into a room and she barely acknowledges him. Paul takes this all in stride. He is a patient and understanding man, but I can tell that there are times when he wishes they could be closer.

And then the other day, something changed. Paul had just returned from a long business trip and we were finishing up dinner. He was standing at the kitchen sink and Sophia got up to put her plate in the dishwasher and completely out of the blue, she reached over to Paul, draped her arms around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder and sighed. They both stood there together, embracing until Sophia pulled away and walked out of the kitchen. Paul and I looked at each other with expressions of shocked delight. We have no idea what precipitated her hug and we didn’t question it. Paul and I were on an emotional high the rest of the night. Sophia’s simple gesture meant the world to both of us. And it only took five years.

Want to be on Dr. Phil with AND improve your relationship with the mom or stepmom in your life?

Jennifer Newcombe Marine and Carol Marine, the mom and stepmom duo who wrote No One’s the Bitch have the opportunity to be on Dr. Phil and they are looking for a mom and stepmom  who can’t stand each other, but who are willing to be on the show next week, Tuesday, Nov. 3rd. For more information click on their website No One’s the Bitch or email Jennifer at marine2marine@gmail.com.

Now that I am 48 and approaching the half century mark, I have decided to stop highlighting my hair and to let myself go gray. I am tired of the expense and the time it takes to sit in a chair for two hours and have someone glue foil onto my head. Besides,  I have several friends with beautiful white hair and I figured I would probably look the same since I am very fair and was a blonde when I was little.  I’m about three inches into the root growth and have made the grim discovery that I AM NOT GRAY AFTER ALL, JUST MOUSY BROWN.  So I am hightailing it to the hair salon today for a long overdue touch up because gray is one thing… but mousy brown… never.

The NY Times just recently published an article about family dinners and a study that said teens who eat with their families less than three times a week are more susceptible to drug and other substance abuse.  The article was called The Guilt Trip Casserole and is causing a public outcry in the mom blogosphere. Working mothers are tired of being blamed for everything. Obesity. Drug addiction. Video game addiction. School dropouts. You name it. The women in the article reasoned they had no choice but to eat takeout in the car while driving their kids to their numerous after school activities.

My  questions are: Why are only women being targeted? Can’t men cook dinner and/or drive the kids around? And why do the kids have so many after school activities? Why can’t the kids walk home? Do we live in such a sprawling society that there are no more neighborhood schools within walking distance? No community support for carpooling? Ever heard of a crock pot? Or Rachel Ray’s 30 minute meals? What about putting the kids to work? My mom worked full time with five kids and when we got home from school (we walked home or took the bus) she would call us and tell us what to do. Set the table. Make the salad. Bread the chicken cutlets. I always say that I learned how to cook over the phone.

The bigger problem is that our culture is obsessed with over-scheduling kids to the point that they have absolutely no free time. Life has become like the proverbial hamster wheel and we can’t get off. Maybe my kids are slackers, but they are not that busy. Eva has soccer two days a week after school. She also wants to take dance lessons and I said she could do that when soccer is over. Not at the same time. It is too much. Last night when she got home from practice she and Cheryl worked on  their dance routine in her room. Eva is also teaching herself how to juggle.  Sophia did her homework and jumped on the trampoline. Mark played his guitar and watched the baseball game. My kids were home at a reasonable hour.  I cooked dinner and we ate it together. Grant it, it was not an elaborate meal, just boiled pierogies and jarred applesauce, and we ate at the kitchen counter instead of the dining room table, but it wasn’t fast food in the back of the station wagon either. And I do this alone with a husband who travels. The kids pitch in. They do the dishes, walk the dog, fold laundry and Sophia, my right arm, helps with the driving. I also have a great support network of friends who help out when needed.  I learned this from my mother. She knew how to delegate  and that’s the secret.

Wednesday was my birthday. I am now 48. I wish I could say it was a fun, special day, but it really wasn’t. Paul was in L.A. on business and if he had been around I think things would have been  a lot different.

It started off just like any other day. I emptied the dishwasher, cooked breakfast and folded laundry. Since all the girls had a half day I told them I would pick them up from school, take them to lunch and then to a movie and wouldn’t that be fun? Not. Things got off to a rough start when I picked up Eva from school and some crazy, lunatic woman almost ran her over with her car, EVEN THOUGH I FRANTICALLY KEPT HONKING AT HER TO STOP.  I don’t know if it was  just the culmination of a lot of stress between the economy and that 16-year-old boy being stabbed, but I just lost it and had a shouting match with the stupid woman in the parking lot. I hurled epithets like, “LEARN HOW TO DRIVE, MORON!” and the like. I got particularly incensed when she told me she was going to pray for me. (With drivers like her on the road, I am going to need lots of prayers.) Needless to say, my children were mortified.

Then Eva complained that she did not want to go to the restaurant I picked. (Whose birthday was it???)  We went to my favorite burrito place and Eva sulked a bit. Then to the movies, which was fun, except that I was tired and couldn’t stay awake.  We saw Where the Wild Things Are. Very good. I highly recommend it. Afterward, in the lobby of the theatre I saw one of Sophia’s friends holding a large bunch of Happy Birthday balloons with a sign pinned to her chest that read: “I’m 16 today.”  So I went up to wish her a happy birthday and tell her it was my birthday too. The girl looked at me like a deer in the headlights and kind of rolled her eyes. I guess speaking to her was a  weird parental thing to do, as evidenced by Sophia’s horrified facial expression. How was I to know? I left the theatre feeling like I couldn’t do anything right and vowed to spend my birthday next year alone.

We had takeout pizza for dinner and afterward we sat around the table just hanging out until finally I said, “I sure could go for some cake right about now.” ( I had bought my own cake earlier in the day and put it in the refrigerator.) That prompted them to get up off their lazy duffs and serve me some cake. They were pretty good about it except they complained I didn’t buy ice cream or soda.  I do have to say the gifts and cards were wonderful. I will treasure them forever. Cheryl wrote in her card that I was “the best step mom ever.” And Eva wrote, “I hope 48 is better than the 47 birthdays that went before it.”  I realized that I cannot take teenage self-absorption personally. When the girls were small, they doted on me on my birthday. But now that they are teenagers, things are different. In time, this will pass.  I am looking forward to my husband coming home tonight. I miss him terribly.

My heart is breaking for the family and friends of a 16-year-old boy who was fatally stabbed Friday night by gang members. The incident happened in downtown Santa Cruz. The boy attended the same middle school and high school as my daughter Sophia ,who is also 16. He sat in front of her in Spanish class last year and they were  in the same core class in 8th grade. He was a sweet boy and there is no reason to believe that he was in a gang. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The story is still not clear as to what happened. Apparently he got into a verbal altercation with some gang members and it resulted in the stabbing. The assailants got away and are still at large.

Everyone in our small community is so shaken up by this story. I cannot even begin to imagine the heartbreak his parents must be feeling. Sophia cried all weekend.

I don’t know what else to say except that I am holding my children even closer than before and lecturing them on ways to stay safe and out of trouble. There is no easy solution to the gang problem and the cause is hotly debated. I do know this though: Young people, in order to have successful, happy and fulfilling lives, need to feel a sense of community and belonging. They have to believe they have options and opportunities available to them, otherwise they  will become mired in fear, hatred and hopelessness.

I feel sorry for the young boy who lost his life so young. And I feel sorry for the boy who stabbed him, because when they find him, his life will be over too.

Remember my recent post called The Trouble with Perfect? This is what I was talking about. I think every mother should show this to her teenage daughters.

Today is the 20th anniversary of the Loma Prieta Earthquake that decimated the South Bay area, including downtown Santa Cruz, where we now live. When most people think  of the quake they don’t realize that the epicenter was in Santa Cruz and not in San Francisco, where most of the media attention was drawn. I read the coverage in the Santa Cruz Sentinel this morning and it was very moving. Reading stories about people who died, people who risked their own lives saving others and the general sense of the community rallying around each other, brought tears to my eyes.

We were not living in Santa Cruz then. Jared, my ex and I had just moved into our apartment in Bayonne, NJ. Our wedding was in a week and a half. We would have been married 20 years this month. Oddly, I always associate the Loma Prieta Earthquake with the year we got married. We had just finished unpacking some boxes when we sat down to a late dinner to watch the San Francisco Giants in the World Series. And then  there was a commotion. The camera started shaking and people were screaming and then the TV screen went black. Local newscasters came on to say that there had been an earthquake.

We had no idea that in three years we would move to the very town that was the epicenter of the quake.  Although we never experienced the quake first hand, we heard lots of stories. Some of which were actually kind of funny, in an ironic sort of way. One friend of mine, a videographer for a local company, had just organized and categorized his collection of videos. It had taken him weeks to complete the task. He had just finished and proudly announced his accomplishment to his co-workers when the walls started shaking and everything came crashing down, videos strewn all over the room. Now that’s funny. And then there were the fateful stories of chance and good fortune.  Like the friend who told me she left work early that day and had she not, she most likely would have been killed because the desk where she sat had been crushed by a chandelier from the ceiling above.

Everyone has a story. Mine is that I was watching the Giant’s game on TV in New Jersey with my then fiance.  Which brings me to the point I am leading up to here which is — this month marks the 20th anniversary of The Loma Prieta quake. It also means that if Jared and I were still married we would be celebrating our 20th anniversary. It would have been a milestone for sure and I wonder how many milestones Paul and I will reach. We’ll probably make it to 20 years together barring any unforseen tragedy or illness. We’re young enough. But will we make it 30? 40? And unless we live to our 90′s, we will not see our golden anniversary, like my parents who were married 53 years. That’s a hard point for me to reconcile sometimes. Paul and I don’t have much of a past together, but we hope for a long future together. But knowing what we both know about the twists and turns life can take us, nothing is certain or forever. Like the stories I read in the paper this morning from people who recalled this day 20 years ago when they were sitting in a coffee shop and 15 seconds later, it was gone. A pile of rubble. Many things in life are temporary, so live in the moment and enjoy life while you can.

I caught Paul’s cold and I’m miserable. Last night my tonsils felt like they were bursting out of my throat. Some people actually welcome the opportunity to stay in bed with a box of tissues watching I Love Lucy reruns (which is what I did as a kid and what I did last night), but I don’t. As an adult with kids I dreaded getting sick because I always had to take care of the kids by myself. My family was on the opposite coast and my first husband was a work-a-holic who was never home. I can remember having swollen glands and a temperature of 103 with an infant and a toddler and still he would work until 11PM. It was awful.

That was then. This is now, and Paul is sooooo much different. When I’m sick, not only does he act and look concerned, he actually takes care of me.  He cooks dinner. He makes me tea and he will go to the store and buy me soup if I asked him to. What a guy. What a difference. I shouldn’t bash my ex because he was going through his own sexual identity turmoil, but I didn’t know that a the time.

I feel much better today not only because I am tanked up on Sudafed and Tylenol, but because my hubby is in town and I have the comfort of knowing that  when he gets home tonight he will make dinner, clean up the kitchen  and bring me tea.