Monthly Archives: April 2011

A few months ago all us Gottliebs were in New York City for Snowpocalypse ’11. The last night we were there I had a handful of friends meet for drinks at the hotel while Mr G and the kids hung out and watched a movie. As I was preparing to go down to the bar Alexander was taking out his contact lens.

Or at least he was trying to. His eyes were so dry from the cold and wind that he was having a real struggle, and since neither Mr G nor I have ever worn contact lenses we had no experience to draw on.  I sent out a tweet.

Help, Alexander can’t get his lens out, what do we do?

Of course Mel showed up 15 minutes later with eye drops. Not just any old eye drops either, it was her favorite brand and everyone swore that she was absolutely right they are the best.

So I excused myself and ran upstairs to put drops in Alexander’s eyes. Mr G waited five more minutes, put a second set of drops in, and then waited a few minutes after that to have Alexander take the lens out.

Except it wouldn’t come out.

By then there were a dozen fabulous New Yorkers that I was dying to get some time with and I was feeling a little put out when Mr G showed up at the bar to tell me that Alexander really needed my help. Thankfully Emily was there and headed up to the suite with me.

Emily showed Alexander how to push on the sides of his eyes to release a particularly sticky lens. She was patient with him, removing her own lens multiple times, and holding a mirror for Alexander so he could take care of his own.

I stood there feeling incredibly lucky that my children have a community of women that will help them when I can’t.

Those are the aunties.

Emily, Mel, Melanie and I were talking about poor Alexander and his eyes. I kept saying how very very lucky he was that Emily and Mel were there to help him, and Melanie said, “You know I just wrote a book about that.”

And she did. Melanie Notkin wrote a wonderful book for all the women in a child’s life. If you’re lucky enough to have family nearby you know how important they are. If you’ve moved away from your families then the non genetic Auntie just might be the lady who makes everyone’s life better.

If you’re an Auntie (or a mom) you’ll love this book. Melanie has chapters for everything from swaddling baby to 529 plans. It doesn’t go on sale until April 26, but I’m going to give one away here.

To enter leave a comment below and/or tweet a link to this post, two entries are fine, but no more than one comment and one tweet will count as entries. I’ll use a random number generator to pick a winner at noon on April 24.

This weekend Jane had a soccer tournament and Alexander had baseball. Mr G and I went with the divide and conquer parenting strategy. I went with Jane to Newhall and Mr G hung out with Alexander for picture day, a game and a few playdates inbetween.

When our foursome is split up we typically rely on texting quite a bit. While Jane was warming up I grabbed my iPhone and played catch up.

My father sent me a message asking where I was. Newhall, I told him. He texted me, Hot?

I moved over to texts from a girlfriend. It was so nice to see you, you look so good, I love your hair… you know the standard stuff. She texted me a question about my shorts, they are cute where did they come from?

I watched a little soccer and then there was a break in the game. I picked up the phone and started sending replies.

I replied to my father’s question about hot: Hot as hell and tacky as shit.

And then I replied to my girlfriend’s question about my shorts: Why thank you.

Except I sent them to the wrong peoople, so the text threads looked like this.

DAD: Hot?

ME: Why thank you.

FRIEND: I love your shorts.

ME: Hot as hell and tacky as shit.

I have tried, unsuccessfully to scrub this from my brain. So I figured I’d share my therapy moment with all of you.

My mother has moved again (this is a phrase you should be familiar with, she moves a lot). This time she unloaded a box o’crap on me that included my Sixth Grade English Notebook. I want y’all to know that I wrote excellent poems in sixth grade and I got all A’s. Mixed in with the batch of excellent poety is this essay. I assume that the assignment was to write about a recent event, but I can’t be sure.

Here it is. You know you want to thumb this up on YouTube, because I am kind enough to repeatedly embarass myself for y’all.

Recently I rediscovered Reddit. I’ve always loved reading there, but I never submitted, commented or otherwise participated in their discussion. I’ve found my happy place though with the TwoXChromosomes SubReddit (which is just a subgroup). It’s a really great little board, and I’m scared to share it with too many folks because I don’t want to be that blogger that made the feminist happy place suck.

What I love so much about the internet is that it forces me to think. I don’t find that I’m changing my mind, but rather that I’m thinking things through more critically. Critical thinking is always good. Lately I’ve been thinking about the fact that I’m a very different mother to Alexander than I am to Jane.

In the last two months Alexander has played with fire and Jane has a male admirer. Alexander played with fire alone in the house, Jane got a text from a boy. Ask me which one had me in orbit? Apparently playing with fire is a phase that little boys grow out of, the text messages may never end.

I care more about my daughter’s chastity than I do about the fact that my son is a budding pyromaniac. I can rebuild after a fire.

Further I will let my son wear nail polish, but not pink, because that would be feminine. I will let my daughter wear jeans, but not from the boy’s department. I know.

But I do think about women and our clothes, and I wonder why we have to wear high heels to dress up and men can wear proper shoes. I get irritated that we’re supposed to have misshapen feet from jamming ourselves into pointy toed things, and that we can’t run to catch up because our feet are cramped and our skirts are prohibitive.

I watch Jane play at school and I wish she’d wear the shorts from her uniform and not her skirts because then she could run and play. The boys don’t have to worry about skirts flying up.

And then I remember all the wonderful things about being a girl, and I look at the privelages of being a woman. And I remember that we’re just different, and different is good.

I just wish we were all a little nicer.

You may or may not recall that although Junior is adorable and I do love him best, Sparky was actually recruited by us Gottliebs to win the war on vermin. For the most part Sparky has been useless, she does not love me, but she doesn’t dislike me. She’s a typical cat with me, aloof and busy shedding. With Alexander it’s a completely different story, for Alexander Sparky is all purrs and snuggles, she’s the perfect pet.

Last night Sparky became my favorite too. Watch her at work, and you can look for a cameo of Mr G.

About 45 seconds in you’ll hear Mr G saying, “Jess you gotta do something about this.” Um, I did. I put it on YouTube. Is there soemthing else I’m supposed to do?

I have Rheumatoid Arthritis and I’m not fighting it. I’ve posted updates for y’all to read and to see at various times, and I’ve worked hard to assemble a team of physicians that can help me get into remission.

I’m not in remission and I’m not fighting this thing.

I’m in pretty good shape these days. I come dangerously close to actually making a fist with my right hand and yesterday and today I was able to run in the canyons without needing narcotics afterward. That is a huge improvement. I haven’t opened a bottle of Advil in several weeks, my energy level is mostly high, and steroids aren’t a part of my life any longer.

Still, I have symptoms and discomfort. I have swelling and some numbness and tingling. If it never progresses past this point this is Arthritis I can live with. Sadly, it’s improbable that I won’t see some progression unless the medicines get this into remission.

You see the medicines are the ones that need to fight the arthritis, not me.

I know everyone loves to fight their diseases and Fuck Cancer is a wonderful sentiment. Recently I was with my friend Becky who had been treated for cancer and she explained to me how much she disliked people talking about her “fight”. She talked about the people who had cancer but died, is that because they didn’t fight hard enough? Were they not strong enough? What if your cancer is just deady like the pancreatic cancer that killed my Grandmother? Was she not up for a fight?

My children have a mother with RA, which is an autoimmune disorder closely linked to leukemia. Of their four blood grandparents three have, or have been treated for, blood cancers. Should I raise my children to be fighters just in case? Please understand that my single greatest fear is that Jane or Alexander will have one of these disorders. It’s a fear so overwhelming that it wakes me up at night, I feel cold like I’m dead and like cancer is just sitting on my chest like a ghost from a cartoon.

I’m not a physician. I’m not a scientist or a researcher. I’m a 41 year old woman with a debilitating diagnosis and an overwhelming desire to see her children remain healthy. I’m not fighting arthritis. I’m living with it, and I plan on living nicely. If my illness is to progress I wouldn’t want to be made to feel like it’s because I didn’t fight hard enough.