Girls in the Band

Last year my husband was making our morning coffee when he turned away from the grinder and announced that he was going to recruit our 10 year old daughter’s friends into an all girl band. I asked the obvious question. “Why in the hell would you want to do that? I think Zoë might be the only one who plays an instrument.” “No – Kelly plays the violin and Lucy and Greta are both taking piano lessons too.” I think I either furrowed my brow or made a sarcastic face at him. “Ok, so first, it’s a little weird that you know that and second, four classical pianists and a violin player do not a band make.” He finished grinding and started brewing. “They can learn the other instruments and they could play a great song at assembly on the last day of school. I think it would be a wonderful bonding experience for all of them.” I reached for my mug. “I think they will enjoy it for a week then drop it like a rock but if you think it is a good idea, talk to the other parents and see what they think.” The parents thought it was a fantastic idea, as did the girls who immediately dubbed the band the Soho Six (we all live on Soho Drive). Two weeks later Ren had purchased a ridiculous number of used instruments (four electric guitars, a drum set, microphones with stands and an amplifier) and had signed the girls up for lessons at a local music school. At first, the girls were really excited about the prospect of learning to play “Vacation” by the Bangles on the last day of school. They burned it onto a CD and played it hundreds of times. They all jumped into the car on the day of their first lesson and came out of the music school delighted that they could all strum C, D and E on their electric guitars. The only band member who seemed a less than thrilled with the prospect of rocketing to pop star status was our drummer whose first lesson had been taught by a plump long haired hard core ex member of a 70s rock band who was extremely talented but somewhat impatient with beginners. They practiced every day, banging on the drums, playing C, D and E over and over again and screeching the Vacation lyrics. We took to wearing earplugs during their jam sessions. About a month into lessons, I walked into the garage during the first major band fight. Evidently there was a dispute over who should be the lead singer and who should play rhythm guitar. The result was a screaming match that revealed long held tensions (by long I mean they had been festering for more than a full week) and a desire to move away from 80s classics and forward to 90s pop. The fight also included a heated exchange relating to costumes which divided the band into the girls who wanted to dress like Britney and the girls who wanted to dress like Joni Mitchell. It got ugly and soon everyone headed home in tears. After the dust settled several band members came back to the garage and attempted to rekindle the band fire, but after two band members became vocal critics of the Soho (Four and Counting) it became apparent that the dream was dead. Last weekend I went down to the garage to put a bag of ice in the freezer and was a little sad to see the dust covered Hello Kitty electric guitars lined up against the band lockers (did I mention that Ren bought them lockers so they could store their music and eventually their fan mail). Ren walked in behind me carrying a case of Diet Coke and said “Don’t sweat it honey. The first band was just a test run. As soon as the girls are in school, we will get them going with guitar lesson and put together an all Solis band. We could be a modern day Partridge Family. Come on get happy . . .

Ella and the Microwave

I was upstairs on a conference call when I smelled smoke. I ran downstairs to make sure that Ren had things under control. The living room was semi filled with smoke. The kitchen was almost black. I could barely see Ren, who was standing in front of the microwave. We opened doors and windows and frantically searched for the fire extinguisher – which had disappeared after our “almost burned the house down while grilling steaks incident”. I asked Ren what had happened as we fanned the clouds of smoke out to our back deck. “Evidently, Ella decided to warm up her Lunchables pizza in the microwave and set it for about 65 minutes. When Ren walked into the kitchen, the microwave was smoking and the timer was at 60 minutes. He opened the door and flames shot out at him. Thinking on his feet (Ren is excellent in high stress situations) he shut the door and allowed the flaming pizza to burn out. Ella was hiding in our bedroom waiting for us to appear. One interesting note about the situation is that while early on, we were hoping that the fire alarm didn’t go off, because it is connected to our security system and would have resulted in an immediate visit by the members of the Westlake fire department, after a while, we both became a bit concerned that the alarm hadn't gone off. With enough smoke to clearly indicate that the first floor was on fire, the alarm probably should have called for back up. Anyway, no one was harmed (other than the pizza) so we are grateful. Our house totally reeks of burned cheese, which sucks. And Ella has learned a valuable lesson -- Mommy and Daddy are idiots for allowing the microwave to be located at toddler level.

Mommy I Have to Tell You Something

We were sitting in the car waiting for my husband to come out of the local wine shop when Mattie pulled the back of my hair and said “Mommy I have to tell you something.” Any parent, teacher, aunt, grandparent, babysitter, pretty much every human who has ever spent more than a few minutes with a toddler knows that there is nothing good at the tail end of Mommy I have to tell you something. I braced myself for, I am going to puke or I just ripped the tail off of the hamster. Instead, Mattie said, last night when Luna spent the night she convinced me to stick my foot in the toilet. I turned around. “Into the clean toilet, right?” Ella made a well timed entrance into the discussion. “It had poop and pee in it. Fuck (that was the bubble coming out of out my head). “Why on earth did you stick your foot in a toilet filled with poop and pee?” She looked up at me placidly. “I sort of wanted to see how it felt on my foot.” “How poop and pee felt on your foot?” She nodded. Ella chimed back in. “I told her not too and I told her to wash it when the poop got stuck to her toes. I’m going to stop this one right here as it has clearly already gone well beyond any reasonable line of TMI. We are on our way home to bleach Mattie’s feet.

Nanny Versus Mommy

My husband is burned out. He agreed to become a stay at home parent when Alex (our nine year old) was 3 months old. I think we both assumed at the time that we would eventually hire a nanny who was as good as Mary (our first nanny) and that he would either go back to work or just enjoy his life. That was nine years ago. When we moved to Austin, we decided that it was time to find a nanny before my husband flipped out and set me on fire. Our first nanny was Patty. Patty was a little younger than our ideal nanny (24 instead of 40) but instantly connected with the twins, was deemed suitable by both Zoë and Justin and was more or less tolerated by Alex. The problem was that Patty wasn’t very smart, which left us constantly concerned that an exercise of poor judgment could put the twins at risk. Soon after we hired Patty, I became the subject of a giant wave of momgossip at school. Evidently Patty was always on her cell phone when she picked up the big kids and was causing the moms to worry that she was going to plow someone over with our SUV. A month after we hired Patty, I went to school to read in the classroom and noted that signs had been erected everywhere “Stay Off of Cell Phones During Pickup (Patty)”. Patty’s name didn’t actually appear on the signs, but we all knew who the signs were speaking to. And then there was the makeup. Let me start by saying that I don’t wear makeup. Every now and then, I will put on mascara or give eye shadow a try, but since I didn’t start wearing makeup at a young age, I never mastered the skill of makeup application and generally do a bad job of applying makeup now. Plus, I am busy and hate to spend two minutes wiping makeup off of my face at night. But Patty loved makeup, applied it beautifully and carried a makeup aisle in her purse. Every now and then, she would let the twins play with her makeup. Soon play turned into obsession as the twins began asking for makeup at the store, taking makeup out of the bathroom and applying it in my closet. They were two coats of mascara from being mini versions of Tammy Faye Baker. I hated it, but I also hate spending the time that I have with the girls fighting with them so I tried a number of alternative approaches from makeup is kind of uncomfortable, don’t you think to let’s save makeup just for special occasions to I will give you each fifty dollars if you stop wearing purple lipstick to the super market. Nothing worked. So I fired Patty and hired Virginia, a no makeup wearing, skateboard riding, sarcastic smart film student. This weekend we are going shopping for toddler skateboards and the associated braces, pads and mouth guards. I couldn’t be happier.