Urban Mama

Four Years Later: In Memory of Mami

I wrote this last year, but I never shared it. Today, on Mami's Yahrzeit (we're not Jewish but it feels like the word we should all use), I thought it was time to share. Diana McRae Angulo 1941-2008

I wasn't with my mother on her final Mother's Day. It's painful to remember, but I had just visited her with my six-week-old youngest, to introduce her to the final grandchild she would ever know and hold and love. So when my oldest brother asked if I was planning to join him the following weekend in Florida, I said – I can't, it's too expensive – I was just there. Plus, my husband planned to whisk me off to New York City, so I could visit and eat at my favorite places.

So because I wasn't sure that it would be her last, because I naively thought she would have at least another year, not just another five months, I didn't go, and there's little I regret more. I went again and again later in the summer and into the fall, but not that Mother's Day weekend. And now, every Mother's Day, I wonder, what is Mother's Day when you're motherless? When you have no card or flowers to send or a mother to call first thing in the morning. Even when you are a mother being celebrated by your husband and children's it's never the same.

When you're a motherless mother, the day of your mother's death splits your life forever in two, like a heavy branch after a lightning strike: life WITH Mami and life WITHOUT her.

Since my mother’s death, I’ve realized that mothering without your own mother just a phone call, a text message, a plane, train or car ride away is incredibly lonely. Nobody–not your best friends or even your siblings–wants to hear about all of your children’s little accomplishments … that star at tae kwan do, the all-A report card, the kindergarten dance recital.

Sure, I can tell a few of my friends and family some of these things, but only Mami would have truly cared, been excited about every detail, every project and pirouette, time out and reward sticker.

I wasn’t completely aware of how much I depended on Mami until she died. My oldest had received a yellow brick (a special reward system for good citizenship at his elementary school) from his kindergarten teacher, so I immediately pulled her number up on my old BlackBerry's speed dial and hit send. Then it hit me that she wasn't going to answer the phone, so I dropped it desperate and despondent that I would never share be able to mother with Mami at my side again.

The problem with grieving the loss of a mother when you have young kids is that grandmothers are everywhere.  Try going to the mall, the playground, a fair, the supermarket --  anywhere really -- without bumping into grandmothers. Whether they're Abuelas, Bubbes, Nanas, Tatas, Yayas, or Grandmas – they're all around, as they should be, with their grandchildren in tow.

The world becomes a painful series of reminders of what you don’t have. I felt resentful every time I went to a child’s birthday party and saw well-meaning grandmothers doting over their birthday boy or girl. I felt bitter every time I saw my mother-in-law delight in my children or call them her "special prince" or princess. It’s not fair, I thought. If I can’t have a mother (or a father, I might add), why should anyone else, why should my husband?

I wanted desperately to hit an “ignore” button and magically erase the sight of grandmothers and their grandchildren. The very sight was an offense.

Eventually I stopped wanting to sob every single day. I stopped wanting to tear my hair out whenever my mother-in-law came to visit – well, at least when it came to seeing her with the kids.

I stopped considering the sight of grandmothers a personal affront. But I’ve never stopped missing my mother. And I’ve never stopped talking to her. I don’t go for the phone anymore, but I tell her just the same. I smile a secret smile and talk to her in my head and in my heart.

She talks back, too, urging me to give my kids a break she never would’ve given me, to wear earrings and lipstick more often, sometimes she says these things through some magical connection with my daughter,

A few months ago, my daughter asked me who had given her a particular doll, and I told her, "Abuela." A little later, I overheard my three-year-old son say "Who's Aboola?" and my heart clenched, horrified that he couldn't even recognize the name. My daughter, who's 7 now, took him to a framed photo of my parents looking fabulous in their 30s, and said: "Not Aboola, Abuela. She was Mama's Mama. She died. Mama still gets sad about Abuela dying."

My three-year-old may not understand death, but his wise older sister apparently does. I couldn't have explained it better myself. And I couldn't have asked for a better response:

"Ohhhhh, I know who Abuela is," he laughed. "I thought Mama had said Aboola!"

It’s still ridiculously difficult and lonely to be without her physical presence, but I’m lucky. I had the kind of mother whose influence, whose love, I still feel daily.

Four Essential Back-to-School Wishes and Things

It's the second week of school, and I can finally breathe a sigh of relief that the fall is finally in swing. We still have a few after-school activities to begin, but otherwise the kids are off in their worlds of academic rigor and enlightenment. But even public education comes at a price, and that price is called school supplies. Now in year six of elementary education, I'm sharing my five "must have" product endorsements and then my five "wishes" for what my kids will experience this year.

1. Product: Mabel's Labels. The first year that my son started school, I spent what felt like an entire week ironing on labels and writing his name in Sharpie on every single one of his possessions. Now I just slap on a Mabel's Labels sticker. They're the best, and they dramatically cut down (or eliminate altogether) the number of my kids' things that end up in the school lost-and-found every year. Last year the only thing of my son's to land in the dreaded pile was a jacket passed down from a friend that I forgot to label. See? It was my own fault. The new Tween Pack is particularly useful for older kids who need their stuff labeled but have outgrown the cutesy prints.

2. Wish: Book Love. My kids love books *right now* but that's never something I want to take for granted. I know of a ton of kids who from one year to the next up and decided they'd no longer read for pleasure (especially middle schoolers). My husband and I love to read, so the idea of this terrifies us. I love to read so much I started a blog dedicated to the joys of young adult literature. I am fully aware that it's easy for tweens to either fully embrace books or to turn away from them as simply another language arts assignment. I'm praying my 5th grader continues to read every night, and that my 2nd grader grows more confident in her chapter-book reading.

3. Product: Quality Backpacks. My kids have owned various backpacks, and while some were a huge let-down (Pottery Barn Kids!), others withstand the test of thoughtless-kid time. Our current favorites are the L.L. Bean Mountainside (which my eldest throws around with the gentleness of a stampeding wildebeest and which I expect him to own for at least three years), the Garnet Hill backpack and accompanying lunch box (it was free when I ordered the backpack!), which my daughter is modeling in the photo, and the Lands' End "My First" backpack for my preschooler. Next year he should be big enough for a fuller-sized pack. We're also huge fans of the brand-new for-kids-by-kids Lands' End MadBox lunchbox, which each of the boys has (the preschooler loves his wolves, and my eldest has the patches).

4. Wish: Rockstar Teachers: If you ask a principal, she's likely to say that ALL her teachers are wonderful, but EVERYBODY knows that isn't true. I may not be a trained educator, but my sisters and close friends are, and it's no secret that every faculty has its duds. Every August, I pray that my kids get assigned a true rockstar who loves her job and can't wait to enter the classroom almost every day. With two kids in school, we've seen the difference between an average, good, and amazing teacher, and while we've been blessed never to have a truly awful experience, we keep fingers crossed for fantastic teachers our kids will never forget. (Ask me to name all of my favorite teachers, and I can prattle on from kindergarten to university).

What are your favorite wishes and things for this year?

Cadillac Escalade Hybrid: Five Reasons to Splurge for Practical Luxury

The week before school started, I had the chance to leave my just-serviced minivan "Rosie" (the one that was broken into) permanently parked in my driveway while I experienced the joy of living like a one-percenter, or at the very least a Kardashian -- which is to say driving in major blinged out style in a 2012 Cadillac Escalade Hybrid. 

When my elderly neighbor asked why we had traded in our Volvo station wagon (which we had to park somewhere else to make room) for such a "Gangsta" car, I explained we had not, in fact, splurged for a $85,000 car. What I think he really meant to ask was "If you can afford this car, why are you my neighbor and not living in Chevy Chase or Potomac?"

To be honest, I've never driven such a beautifully appointed, top-of-the-line vehicle. And after a week of enjoying all of the tiny touches of engineering genius that the Escalade Hybrid offers, I can see why -- if you had the budget for it -- a family with multiple children would choose an Escalade Hybrid over a minivan. Here are five reasons my family loved our temporary ride.

1. It holds a LOT of stuff. We were hosting a childcare swap we lovingly called Camp ChevingLem with two of our best friends' kids. That meant I had 8 kids, ranging in age from 20 months to 11 years old, to watch two of those days. While the 10 and 11 year old didn't need any carseats, everyone else had to be strapped in somehow. Here's how much gear I had to haul into the car.

2. It fits 8 super comfortably. My Toyota Sienna fits 8, because there is a narrow seat you can attach in between the two center-row bucket seats. But my oldest is always a bit cramped in that seat, and there's no way we could fit a booster in it. The Escalade Hybrid, by comparison, fit my 4-year-old's five-piece-harness carseat right next to my BFF's full-sized convertible carseat. And there was still plenty of room for her 5-year-old to sit in her high-back booster. Bringing up the rear was two 7-year-olds in backless booster seats with my big boy in the middle. I had an 11-year-old friend accompanying me up front in the coveted shotgun seat.

3. It has a three-screen entertainment system. The Platinum trim-level of the Escalade offered my backseat travelers THREE different screens, so nobody had to fight over what movie to watch during our 45-minute drive to the National Harbor. There were dual head-restraint DVD screens for the second row passengers and one center drop-down DVD screen for the back-row passengers. This meant the kids could simultaneously watch "Annie," "Ice Age 2," and "Frozen Planet" while I listened to the XM Radio up front. Even the shotgun seat passenger could've watched along on the Navigation screen, but that would've been distracting, so we kept that screen on the XM radio and navigation map. 

4. It's in the little things. Every day we drove around in the Escalade, one of us discovered something else that made it remarkable. Whether it was the fact that all of the seats, not just the front two, were temperature controlled or that the assist steps automatically went up or down, the detailed accessories blew us away. Just ask my husband (who felt compelled to drive the Escalade with his arm completely extended). Here are his five favorite features.

1. Cup holders that heat and cool your drinks (Not at once, though. You pick).

2. Running boards that automatically extend when you open the door and retract, with a hum reminiscent of airplane landing gear, a few seconds after you close the door.

3. Feeling cocooned in thick, black leather

4. A DVD player for each of your 3 kids. 

5. The sense of being a good steward of the earth while driving 3 1/2 tons of car than an extra $10,000 for a hybrid motor buys you. 

5. It's a flashy but surprisingly functional car. Our friend recently joked as we entered a parking lot: "Which of these 300 minivans is mine?" and it's definitely true that in the suburbs, nearly ever family owns a minivan. That's why we picked a red one, so at the very least it would be easy to spot. But when you're driving a Cadillac Escalade Hybrid, you can't help but feel special. People stop to stare, wondering if perhals someone famous will step out. But for all of the flash, it's got so many practical elements that we wonder why we don't see more Escalades filled to the brim with children. It's definitely the way to go if you've got the funds (particularly for the Hybrid, so the gas mileage -- about 23 mpg -- is on par, if not better than in a minivan) and the family size.

When our week with the Escalade ended, we were all a bit sad, even though it was the First Day of School. My dramatic daughter proclaimed the night before we turned in the keys: "But I thought we could keep it forever!" Um, no, but thanks to GM for allowing us to be part of Driving the Northeast.

Disclosure: General Motors provided me with a week-long loan of a 2012 Cadillack Escalade (Platinum trim level) complete with a full tank of gas. No other compensation was received. All opinions expressed are my own.

Feeling Violated After Car Break-In

Things are just things. They can't hold you or wipe your tears or tell you that you look breathtakingly beautiful... But some things carry with them powerful memories: the way my beloved Aunt smiled telling me about her favorite ring; the sheepish grin of relief and satisfaction on my husband's face when he saw how much I loved a jewelry set he bought me before our fifth Christmas as husband and wife; the sturdy Lands' End backpack that accompanied me across the country on countless trips for business and pleasure.

So much of my life as a freelancer depends on my laptop, and now my MacBook Pro is gone. With it went the last batch of photos and downloads I hadn't backed up. Also gone is the very spendy first-generation iPad that my husband got me for Mother's Day 2010; a brand-new pair of Sennheiser headphones I had bought to replace an identical pair that had broken a while back. There were also about a dozen other things I won't bother to itemize except to say that it's a tribute to my Lands' End backpack that everything fit so comfortably.

What hurts most, however, is not the electronics, but the small jewelry roll filled with irreplaceable pieces. When I called one jeweler, Adel Chefridi, to find out the approximate value of the freshwater pearl earrings and necklace the Husband had given me, the rep was so touched she said Adel would make me a replacement of the set, even though it's no longer part of their collection. As soon as I receive my insurance check, I will definitely take Adel's studio up on the offer. Unfortunately, another set was made my a jeweler friend who has since switched to interior design work, and  yet another was created specifically for me by a dear friend who designs jewelry for her loved ones. Pictured is me looking amused during our 10th anniversary tea at the Langham Hotel in London. You can see earrings made by one friend and a necklace by another.

There were also pieces that belonged to my beloved late aunt and grandmother, amy they forever rest in peace. These can never, ever, be replaced. No amount of money could replace the sentimental value of the sparkles themselves. I can no longer leave the jewelry to my daughter or nieces as I had planned. I can never put them on again and smile at the memory of them wearing the items or the moment they passed them on to me. They are lost to me, and for that I am sad beyond belief. 

The break-in thief hit the jackpot when I parked my van at a garage in downtown DC. He got so much more than he bargained for, and in exchange I feel violated, dejected and stupid (Why do I have to be a freelancer who schleps her work on her back? Why didn't I leave the iPad with my kids at my friend's house during our childcare swap? Why didn't I remember to empty everything out in the one day between vacation and work?). I have no hope that my things will be recovered, but I hope that one day justice prevails and the thief is caught. Not for my things, but for my treasures. 

Sleepaway Newbies

This is my daughter looking sweaty. This is not my daughter's bed. It's her very first overnight camp bed, and I have to admit I was more nervous than she at drop off yesterday. We may or may not have been one of the last parents off the lot (hey, we had TWO kids to settle in, since her older brother is also at camp). I know she's going to have an amazing time and will regale me with endless stories when we pick her up on Saturday, but part of me can't believe she's a) old enough to go to camp and b) brave enough to have asked to go (we were just going to send big brother and have her join the little brother at Grandparent Camp aka Noodle Camp). I hope they both make great friends and lifelong memories.

 

 

As for me, I'm spending my very first day kidless and fancy free... babysitting for my bestie's boys for a few hours. Does that sound ridiculous? Probably, but we all do crazy things for our closest firends.

In Defense of Taylor Kitsch – | Film.com

Taylor Kitsch has had a rough year making the leap to the big screen. His first two leading roles post-“Friday Night Lights” fame – “John Carter” and “Battleship” – turned out to be two of the year’s biggest big budget flops to date. With such high profile, back-to-back duds, some “FNL” fans must be wondering if their beloved Tim Riggins has a future in Hollywood.

The answer is an all-caps YES, if you ask us, and not just because we’re devoted fans of the high-school football drama. Kitsch, 31, isn’t to blame for the epic failure of “John Carter” or the box office under-delivery of “Battleship.” Both barely earned back their budgets, and that was only with help from overseas ticket sales. (Read Film.com’s reviews of “John Carter” and “Battleship.”)  He was horribly miscast for the former, although even a different lead wouldn’t have helped salvage the uneven mess — and let’s not even get into the marketing morass that might have sunk “Carter” before it even opened. As for “Battleship,” how could he not trust his “FNL” writer/director Peter Berg to direct him on the big screen – even if the material was based on a board game?

In Oliver Stone’s newest drama “Savages,” a violent California tale of sex, drugs, and the money that makes it all possible, Kitsch proves he’s more than just a pretty face. (Read Film.com’s review of “Savages” here.) The good news for Kitsch is that Stone, a notoriously divisive director, has received mostly positive reviews for “Savages,” and so has Kitsch personally. Although his character transforms the least in the twisty story, Kitsch doesn’t necessarily need to display much range in the role. As the steely-eyed Chon, a pot dealer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, he’s the muscle to his business partner and best friend Ben’s (Aaron Johnson) sensitive pacifism.

via www.film.com

I wrote this for Film.com, a new outlet I'm contributing to occasionally. I blazed through ALL of "Friday Night Lights" earlier this year and thought Taylor was amazing at Tim Riggins. If you didn't watch "FNL" when it was on the air, you simply must catch it on Netflix, like I did!

An Unexpected Grief Trigger

Two days ago I almost got in a car accident. I was making a right turn at an intersection I drive by at least four times a day. It's about one mile away from my house, right in front a townhouse development. As I made the turn, I saw a grandmother with the same short and curly hairstyle and unnaturally purplish brown dye job Mami used to sport occasionally. The Abuelita was holding hands with her sundress-wearing young granddaughter, smoothing down her hair and fixing a bow that adorned the little girl's locks.

Staring at the tender scene between the petite grandmother and her preschool-aged granddaughter, I veered too far to the right and nearly crashed into a parked car. I corrected my course at the last possible second, and then I started to cry -- not only because I'd nearly rear-ended the sedan, but because that Abuelita reminded me so much of my mother. For the briefest of seconds my heart had sped up at the thought of her, the image of her touching my own daughter's hand, of her making sure my girl looked her best -- just like the grandmother on the sidewalk.

So I cried the rest of the short ride home, out of sadness that my daughter, who is in so many ways just like my mother, doesn't get to experience that love and attention from Mami. She does have a wonderful grandmother, a NaNa who loves and spoils her dearly, but it's just not the same, and it still hurts to be reminded of that loss.

Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been

At the PBS Annual Meeting I was lucky enough to attend last month, the genius keynote speaker discussed how greatness is the marriage of fanatical discipline and amazing creativity. As I sat there realizing why one of my former employers was no longer relevant, I also recognized why this blog isn't a very good reflection of what I intended it to be in 2003 when I started it.

I have not been disciplined in keeping up with this blog. It has not been a priority. And it's a shame too, because considering when I started this blog, I could've done something spectacular with it had I really given it the time and energy so many of my friends do with their blogs.

Instead, I tend to blog on a monthly (if that) basis to a handful of readers who follow along because they've added me to Google Reader and are surprised I actually posted. There's no engagement, because there's no consistency. I'm too busy waxing poetic about attractive actors or reviewing the latest family movie or declaring my undying love for a literary character to focus on what's supposed to be my most personal outlet. As my 10-year-old son would say, that's crazypants of me.

I want this space, and I don't want it to languish into complete irrelevance. Perhaps it already has, but if a flagging corporation can attempt one final grasp for meaning, I can too. So from now on, I will be dedicating myself to my own thoughts and pointing you in the direction of some of my other work on a more regular basis.

I will tell you about the heartbreaking (grown up!) novel that I read (thank you From Left to Write), and becoming a swim team mom. I will share the sorrow of my son's first dealings with insults from a "friend" and the joy of my daughter's dance recital. It won't be every day -- it will never be every day -- but it will be more, because I have more to say. I hope you find it worth reading.

 

Being Bullied is No Joke

It seems like every celebrity has been doing it recently, so what do I have to lose? I too will admit that I was bullied. Repeatedly. In elementary school and middle school.

It's still painful to recall, even though I'm more than 25 years removed from the worst of it. And I don't mean the throwaway taunts of classmates and so-called friends who thought they were just helping me out by pointing out all of my inadequacies (like that I was fat, ugly, hairy, boring, un-likable in either a platonic or romantic way). I'm talking about being actually afraid of a particular student who took any and every opportunity he had to belittle me, intimidate me, ridicule me, threaten me even when he thought I had tattled on him (when in fact I hadn't and didn't even know he and a group of other guys were smoking a joint on school property until he told me).

It's turning my stomach just to think of him, and yet I can't remember his name. I remember the names of some of his friends, a few of whom were actually really cool guys who weren't mean to me but weren't necessarily my friends either, just classmates who occasionally deemed me worthy of conversation, because I liked Led Zeppelin and the Who.

This guy wasn't good looking or particularly clever. He looked a bit like a junior-high version of Nelson from "The Simpsons." He was not athletic and had several extra pounds to lose, but somehow being a pudgy guy was ok, whereas being an overweight girl was inexcusable. He made me emotionally cower and wonder what was so horrible about me that he had to lash out again and again. 

I remember praying. Not for revenge but for him, that God would grant him peace and kindness and understanding. Sometimes I prayed he wouldn't notice me, that I could be invisible instead of my huge and offensive self that somehow managed to piss him off without so much as a word in his direction. To tell you that I internalized a lot of his jabs and jokes is to put things mildly. A small, irrepressible part of me really believed I was unworthy -- not of something particular but of everything.

Despite my maturity, despite my faith and my friends from church, this bully got to me again and again for three years.

He probably doesn't remember.

I don't wish him ill. I hope he changed and reinvented himself and went to college, met a lovely woman, built a family with her. But I do hope that one day when his children experience their first inevitable encounter with a bullying classmate that he'll feel remorse and regret -- not about me in particular, but about his cruelty in general -- the kind that cuts so deep a little girl felt unworthy of anything but that cruelty in his presence.

It's a Leap Day Miracle! Favorite Things

Hello friends -- two posts in a month! It's truly a Leap Day Miracle, as Kenneth from "30 Rock" would say. Since it's such a unique day (happy birthday and anniversary to all of the Leap Day babies and marrieds of the world), I thought I would check in to share some of my favorite things.

1. I've been having lots of (regularly updated!) fun keeping Teen Lit Rocks going with my sister Diana. Each month we read a book with adult and teen contributors and then review it on a monthly Book Club Day. February's selection was "Born Wicked," a story about the oldest of three sisters who are actually witches in 19th century New England.
2. Hunger Games. Only 24 more days until the movie hits theaters. I'll be watching it (again) at a midnight screening in San Francisco, since we're heading to California for a close friend's wedding that weekend. Can't wait to see one of my favorite YA books come to life with such a stellar actress playing Katniss.
3. The Civil Wars. I am still kicking myself for not going with Jen to see them when they came to DC, but they're just so, so good. Their harmony and their chemistry (and they're not even together!) is amazing. Here they are singing their most popular single, "Barton Hollow."
    
4. The show "Alcatraz." I know it's not "Lost," but I still love it. The husband even watches it with me (which is the ultimate sign of a show's awesomeness). As People's TV critic Tom Gliatto says: "The show has the makings of great--what else can I say?--escapist entertainment."
5. Dr. Seuss. It's Seuss' birthday this Friday, and we're all set to watch The Cat in The Hat-a-Thon on PBS. We've alrady seen "The Lorax," so we're going to enjoy our early release day by donning our red Cat in the Hat hat, reading our favorite Dr. Seuss books and and watching PBS together. Mami once enrolled us in a Dr. Seuss Book of the Month Club, so we have almost every title he ever wrote. Wasn't she an amazing Abuela? We're looking forward to the Dr. Seuss-a-thon.