Pouring a playdate

If you are a mama, martini-ing or otherwise, I hope you've read the Cosmopolitan Moms article in the New York Times. I also recommend the insightful comments made on the topic of drinking during playgroup on BlogHer. I just wrapped up a post about the article on Grrrlfriend-a-Go-Go.

What do you think of all this cosmo-controversy? Are you all for, iffy or against mamartini playdates?

Thanks, CityMama, for the links on drinks!

Photo credit: Martini / http://www.flickr.com/photos/strzelecki1/

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PC - Pouring a playgroup

Have you read the Cosmopolitan Moms article in the New York Times?  I highly recommend you download it (and the great comments over at BlogHer) and take it to this week's playgroup or park visit to get a very interesting convo going with your mama grrrlfriends.

I have to say, I am struggling with the whole idea of "momtini" playdates. I certainly have mama friends who I love sharing a cocktail and adult conversation with, and with some of those friends, I would be fine doing that while the kiddos vrooom trucks and piece Legos alongside us.

I also have a big concern for the line-crossing that can happen easily. We all remember that Oprah with Tracy Gold, right? One (or two) big, innocent glasses of red wine and then a mini-van full of her family off the side of the road. Yikes.

I also have concerns about the parents who see this as justification for addictive behavior, and even though we don't like to talk about it (out loud), we all know someone who we've been concerned about drinking during naptime or out of depression or boredom or some issue that feels too enormous to tackle when there are soccer practices, piles of laundry and part-time work to tackle, too.

I am certainly not saying that mamas who drink are bad people or bad parents. I am saying that this is an issue that needs some attention.  If martini playdates bring it into our conversation, that is a good thing to debate (you can get a good start by viewing the videos in the gallery here).

The article is not just about alcohol. It is also about how moms connect, and how women who are mothers find times and spaces outside the potty/breastfeeding/teething talk  in their conversation. To me, this is the most valid point of the piece. I imagine most moms, if not all, understand that how easy it is to get swallowed up in your children's lives that you forget you are a woman, an adult, a person who needs more social interaction than a playgroup.

I admit to feeling uncomfortable when the wine bottles have come out at my own playgroup. Maybe I wasn't ready for that kind of connecting with the Playgroup Mommies at that time, or maybe it was just the presence of booze that made me wary. 

I would be happy to host an apple pucker party for some of the moms I know, not at noon on a Tuesday, but maybe at five on Friday. And I think I would be happy for the kids to come and sip diluted apple juice, maybe even without the valves in the cups.

My one sticking point, however, in hosting a get-together like this is to call it what it is. If martini parties really are about connecting as women, then  I say that we should make them us-centered and remove all kid-implications from the title. When it comes down to the final pour for me, this fun and friendly fete, is just not a playdate.

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Getting My Shit Together Monday

Welcome to my new (and lovely named, mais non?) feature. Here, I will be attempting to get those many nagging things in order in my apartment, in my calendar, on my to-do list, and in my life. Of course, I am beginning this on the day before one of best friends comes for a two-day visit, the same day I've sent Lil E off to Camp Grandma so I can actually unpack a neglected and still half-full suitcase sitting in my dining room, wash a sink-full of sippy cups and coffee mugs and clean off my sign of a genius cluttered desk.  As happy as our little family is, things are OC in this apartment. Totally Outta Control. It is time to do some (so not pregnant) nesting.

I have an overwhelming list of shit I do need to get together:  organize the pantry, get my billing system back in working order, update my website, turn my drop-off zone of a bedroom into a den of desire. I know it will feel good to check these things off of crabby Post-It notes I leave for myself, and yet, it stresses me out just to begin. I don't want to be stressed out. I want to feel good, empowered, better.

Here, my intention is to put all of that here for the world and world wide web (OK, for you three) to see, to reduce the bigness of that list and to increase my happiness in my own home, in my own little world.

If you'd like to join me, feel free to shout out how you'd like to get your own shit together this week. We can stress go about it together, cheering and chanting each other along the way.

Week One - This week has been handed to me courtesy my barely-alive refrigerator and a thankfully responsive landlord. The 482-year old fridge has now joined the stove that I have used pliers to turn on for the last year. Hallelujah, the landlord purchased a brand new refrigerator and stove to be delivered tomorrow! (Enter choirs of domestic angels). As long (long long long) time renters, Bruce and I have never had appliances without other people's crumbs left in them! While I know they will be the absolute bottom-line appliances that our nice but DIY-crazy landlord can order, I couldn't be more excited about this. Hooray hooray hooray!

Now on to the getting my shit together part: This will involve cleaning out the old freezer and resurrecting any food that has somehow survived living in a cooler of melted ice all weekend. It will also involve cleaning off the stove top because I wouldn't dare have my landlord take it away thinking we were unclean tenants or anything crazy like that.  It will involve a very precise and glorious moment where I let out those OCD tendencies (moment being the keyword here) and organize a new fridge where healthy foods live on easily-accessible shelves and Diet Dr. Pepper and Bruce's disgusting fruit juice energy drinks live in the far-reach corners. It might even involve some behind-the-appliance wall scrubbing and floor mopping, but for now that will have to be a big old Maybe. I don't want to go too crazy and burn myself out on Week One, do I?

In prepping for the appliance installation, we'll be rushing to make our kitchen seem clean tonight. I should note that the vaccuum cleaners do live in the corner next to the fridge, and will have to come out and find a temporary home in our exceedingly crumby dining room. Coincidence? I think not.

Happy Monday! Feel free to submit your favorite DIY websites, tips and photos of your own neat-as-a-pin homes that will have me running for my label maker. Wish me luck and please, do join me on this journey toward (some) domesticity and (a wee bit more) sanity.

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