Silicon Valley Moms Blog

Party or no party...that is the question

Is it just me or has the birthday party thing gone completely out of control? Let me rephrase that. If I don't have a birthday party for my 3 year old (by which I mean invite her entire class and other family friends) will I be ostracized from this tiny bubble of a society we live in?

First let me define the syndrome which I think has affected the Silicon Valley area...Birthday Party Entitlement Syndrome. BPES, for short. BPES occurs when a child assumes that she will be able to have the birthday party of her dreams at a venue of her choosing. It also occurs when a child assumes that he will be invited to at least 20 birthday parties over the course of a year. Good entertainment, food and drink (organic and healthy) are of course, assumed.

Now back to my story.

The pressure has been building over the last month or so. My almost 3 year old daughter went to her first birthday party in December (well, the first one she realized was a birthday party) and ever since then she has been asking when is it going to be her party and where will her party be? And if R were my first child this might seem quite cute and endearing. But R is my 3rd child, so I have seen the in's and out's of the birthday party and I have to say, I am so over it.

How to help?

My niece is about to make a big mistake and I need some advice.

S is 22 years old. S lives back east, not far from where I grew up. S graduated high school and did not go to college. S is now working full-time as a nurse's assistant in a nursing home. She likes her job, but doesn't love it.

All of this is fine. I would have preferred for her to go to college to have more options available to her, but it was not in the cards. And in the end, it didn't matter what I wanted because she is not my daughter.

The area where S lives is a bit rural – it has a small-town feel. It is not cosmopolitan at all, and while I cannot say for certain, my feeling is that she hasn't travelled far outside a 20 mile radius more than a few times in her life.

Now for the tricky part.

A funny on voting...

As I was putting shoes on my 2 year-old this morning, she says, "Where are we going Mama?"

"To vote", I said.

"On a boat, mama?"

"No, in the car, to Vote."

"Where are we going on the boat?"

"To Vote on the Boat."

"Are you going to drive the boat, Mama?"

"Let's get in the car."

I just want to VOTE!

I am embarrassed to say that with a BA in Economics and a MA in Education I actually had to do research to figure out if I am able to vote for the candidate of my choice in California's upcoming primary election.

About a month or so ago I got my absentee ballot in the mail. By the way, I generally love this system, as it allows for busy folks like me to sit down with my ballot and the pertinent information needed to make an informed decision, in the comfort of my own home. But like much of the mail I get, I ignored the ballot for a week or so, figuring that I had plenty of time to send it in. I assumed that since I was registered, I was good to go.

But that would be too easy.

Sunday evenings and my schtick

Conversations can seem difficult because we often forget to have them. It isn't that the words are hard to find, but rather that we don't even realize that they are there for us to offer. For example, I often find that Sunday evenings are a stressful time for me. The house is a mess after a weekend with 3 kids at home, there seems to be piles of stuff everywhere, mountains of laundry, toys to put away, and in the midst of this we are getting ready for school and work the next day, trying to re-orient back in to the schedule, etc. So what often ends up happening is that I snap at my kids to clean up their rooms, pick up the toys, and get organized for Monday. I hear myself and feel like I sound a bit overbearing with my desire to tidy. My husband calls it my organizing rampage – that doesn't sound too flattering, but it is pretty accurate.

An Ah-ha on a rainy night...

I had a huge ah-ha moment last night. And when I say huge, I mean huge. It was life changing, life affirming. And it happened while watching a TV show called Tell Me You Love Me. This show may be old news to some, as the season has already ended. But this rain storm seemed like a good excuse to catch up on the backlog of my TiVo list. (Actually, it is my DIRECTV DVR list, but our TiVo went kaput last year and I miss it so much and like to pretend it is still here...but that is another post.)

At first my husband and I thought Tell Me You Love Me was like soft-porn with a real plot, because the sex scenes were so steamy and the stories just as interesting. But then we realized (to my husband's disappointment) this was actually a pretty deep and thoughtful show, and each episode would not necessarily be quite so sexy (but some are!) If you haven't seen the show you really should…basically it is about several different people and their love lives. But it is so much more than that. It is about the true ins and outs of love, about how it can grip us and tear us apart, and then leave us wanting more.

A dish walk on a cold morning...

About half way through my walk at the dish yesterday I realized I had forgotten that it was New Year's Eve. Wow, is it really? Another year gone –2008- Do I sound like my parents when I say it went by so fast, where did the year go? The school year just started, didn't it? Fourth of July was last weekend, wasn't it? I remember New Year's 2000 like it was yesterday. My husband says that as we get older time seems to go more quickly because, as a proportion of our total years, each day is a smaller fraction. (I remember being a kid and thinking that each day seemed so long, so maybe that makes sense?) But whether there is a mathematical reason or not, I just know that time seems to fly by…

So as I walked I thought about 2008. But that seemed so distant…not real somehow. So rather than look forward I looked back. I thought about 1998; 10 years ago…I was pregnant with my first child. It seems amazing that I haven't been a parent my whole life, because it sure feels like it has been a lifetime. And the wide-eyed pregnant woman I was then, with no idea how challenging children would make my life. And how wonderful at the same time. I remember being pregnant and thinking how hard that was, the bloating, the back pain, the nausea…it was all about me. I had no idea that just around the corner my life was to change and it would become so not about me. My life is now filled with a family, and while I do find time for me, it is often a challenge and sometimes comes with a bit of guilt. But 10 years ago I had no idea about all that…

Christmas? Nope, not anymore.

Someone asked me the other night if I was ready for Christmas. Without hesitation I answered that we are Jewish and don’t celebrate Christmas. This might not seem remarkable in and of itself, but for me it is huge. I converted to Judaism about 10 years ago – my husband is Jewish and while he never asked me to convert, this was something that I felt I needed to do, for me. When I converted, I said it was with the understanding that we would have to do Christmas. My husband accepted this, even though the idea of Santa, a tree and presents all seemed very foreign to him. (Tell me about it… have you ever seen a plate full of gefilte fish??)

Anyway, over the last 10 years, Christmas has been the most stressful of holidays for me. It seemed like it didn’t fit, and it felt very lonely. I ended up doing it all myself, and the parts that my husband helped with, he really didn’t feel any connection to. Part of me felt frustrated that I was not having Christmas in way I had imagined I would with my children. But part of me was also feeling more and more of a connection to the Jewish holidays as I did them and learned about them, and it seemed unimaginable (yet strangely fitting) when this year I realized that Christmas just didn’t work for me at all anymore.

The home dream...shattered

If you own a home in Silicon Valley, not only do you consider yourself lucky to live here (the weather is great, the people are nice) but it somehow seems amazing that we can actually afford to live here. The prices are so high and in the ten years I have been here, they just continue to rise. So it isn’t surprising that these adjustable rate mortgages would have seemed like a godsend to many people looking to buy a home.

The issue hit the front page of the San Jose Mercury News in an article titled "Housing slump hits home in East S.J.". The people who bought a home with these loans are now being sucked in to an even worse situation than they started – their homes are being taken back by the banks and they are left with nothing more than a fleeting memory of their home. Not to mention, the money that they lost.

Got Confidence?

If I am being totally honest, I am nervous. I can feel it. I can hear that voice in my head giving me messages of self-doubt, wondering if I can handle these new things I have taken on. What new things, you ask? Well for one, I have just signed on to post with SVmoms blog and it is completely new for me. I love to write. That part is not new. But now I have a commitment to write (oh no, the big C word). I don’t think of myself as someone who is afraid of commitment. I have been married for…wait, let me do the calculation…11 years. No worries there. I have 3 children, big commitment. But this is different. It is more of a confidence thing. And that is something that I have struggled with off and on for…wait, let me do the calculation…39 years. You get the idea? My friends don’t see me as an insecure person. In fact, most of them would say I am very much in control and confident. But that is really who I aspire to be, who I hope I can be. The real me is a bit scared…maybe even a lot scared.

I have also taken on the role recently of board member to a local non-profit organization. But I will get to that later. Now you have to realize that, for almost 10 years I have been home with my 3 kids, not working outside the home, and life has been pretty good. But a month or so ago I was talking with a friend (ok, my therapist…actually, she is a mindfulness coach…really great)…anyway, I told her that in my hour that day I wanted to figure out what to do with my life. No pressure, but this was something I had been thinking about and I wanted an answer. I needed a direction. I might not have been that harsh, but I felt that the time had come for me to at least put it out there. I wasn’t thinking that my new life needed to start right away, but I thought it would be nice if I had some idea where I was headed.