How to - in case you didn't

I was told by one of you (not mentioning any names here!) that subscribing to my blog is confusing, so I'm going to spell it out for anyone who might have been too embarrassed (or, OK, too lazy!) to ask:

1. Go to the end of this post.
2. See the "subscribe to inside out by e-mail" link? Click on it. Fill it out.
3. Now go check your e-mail. There should be an e-mail telling you to confirm or activate your subscription.
4. All done!! Now you'll get my ramblings every time I post - so you don't have to remember to sign on.

See - I managed that with (almost) no sarcasm. This is why you sign up - because you love not being beaten over the head with my reminders to do so! Oh, while we're at it - one reminder!!! Sign up for my giveaway for a t-shirt from StinkyKids. I can see a whole bunch of people have viewed it, but you need to leave a comment to be entered to win! The contest ENDS WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3. So sign up now!

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Manis and pedis, but hold the margaritas for the little ones

This piece over at the Times scared me. "Never Too Young for That Pedicure." Are you kidding me? The 7-year-old profiled was sitting in an Upper West Side spa with her 3 1/2-year-old sister in tow. Yes, 3 1/2, the same age as the little pirate currently chasing our dog with her plastic sword and shouting, "Stoooooop, play with me."

Even in an upstate nail parlor, the cost of upkeep keeps me out of the chair, so don't expect to see my kid climbing in. I'm not introducing my 3-year-old to the world of "pink and whites" and "acrylics" before she can even pronounce the word.

So how do I balance a little girl who wants to glam it up with the pocketbook and the desire to keep her a little girl? It's called the home spa guys . . . and yes, you can let their fingers sparkle and their hair smell good without adding a French maid's costume and patting that butt out the door and down to the corner.

Our new favorite is the AllyKats line from a Maine mom who was playing around in her kitchen with her kids and came up with a funky lip balm that was good enough to eat - and good enough for kids. Founder Robyn has since passed the torch to Colett Bigler, a Washington state mama who's working to spread their "posh potions with pizzazz" to retail spots around the nation. Having a mom of little girls behind the products gave me that extra push in their direction - they don't want their princesses smelling like a French you-know-what either, right?

The pink and green labels, with a little girl and her kitty in the center, give a hint of what's inside every AllyKats bottle - something sweet, girlish and purely childlike. When she watches me spritz myself with my own grown-up perfume, Jillian always begs for a spray. And I don't feel bad whipping out the bottle of AllyKats Apple Blossom Super Spritz and squeezing at the pulse points or lathering up her washcloth with the Apple Blossom Squeaky Clean Wash. If the apple leaves you feeling a bit too Gwyneth, the Lily Grapefruit Squeaky Clean Wash, Super Spritz or Bubble Bash is a tamer alternative. On pirate days, lily grapefruit is the cat's pajamas. Meooooooww. Oh come on, I couldn't help it.

By the way - they're offering free shipping through the end of August on sales of $20 or more, so get over there.

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This old band

Because of the Labor Day holiday, my regular Inside Out is a little early. . . enjoy!

“When are you going to write a good story about the band?”
It wasn’t so much a question as an order, a direction from a neighbor who has seen me Wednesday night after Wednesday night in front of the firehouse in Callicoon Center.
I’m not known for taking directions well.
But, what the heck.
He got me thinking. Why haven’t I written a good story about the band?
To be honest, I’m not quite sure how to explain the mystique of the little bandshell, the summer night, the kids swirling in circles on the blacktop.
I have gone through stages with the band – loving it as a child, hating it (or at least the troubles it can bring) as a Callicoon Center homeowner, and now back to adoration.
Because, as a parent, I get it.
The Callicoon Center band is a time warp, it’s true.
Not because they play 80-year-old German marches and old-fashioned polkas.
Not because my mother brought me to the band when I was a little girl and slipped me a few dollar bills to throw in the cigar box still passed around in lieu of a hat.
It’s a walk into a time when you could take your kids out for an evening of entertainment that didn’t break the bank, that didn’t sell their soul to Disney, that didn’t hype them up on sugar.
Oh, yeah, there’s sugar. The pie raffle is after all, part of the appeal. One friend comes with her son only to leave at intermission after the raffle tickets are pulled. She’ll be back next year - she’s yet to win a pie.
Somehow, the sugar of a homemade pie, the sugar of a piece of cake slipped to a little girl with a sweet face who stands on her tippy toes to stare longingly at the forbidden, doesn’t count.
What counts are the shrieks of unadulterated glee from the kids who bound around the driveway of the firehouse, spinning in frantic circles and lifting their knees high as they march to the music.
They want to hear a group of musicians pouring their hearts and souls into music not for money but because they like to play.
They want to enjoy the music their way – loudly, enthusiastically, simply.
On Wednesday nights in Callicoon Center, thanks to a group of music teachers, music enthusiasts and a few talented kids too, they can.
And after the last Wednesday night of the summer, when the bandshell has been closed down until next year, a mom with a happy little girl can settle down in her office to write a good story about a pretty darn good band.

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Thursday's Without Words

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Johnson's take me away . . .

Do you have one of those plastic tubs full of half-used lotion bottles? When I paw through our medicines and other bathroom goodies - all currently housed in the guest room due to our neverending bathroom remodel - I find entire bottles just sitting there. They're left over, no doubt, from the Christmas gift exchange of three or four years ago.

Don't get me wrong - I love my lotion just as much as any other girl. But give me a little credit - I can't take just any old thing and slather up.

Yeah, yeah, you know I'm getting somewhere with this. My new obsession. I finally figured out Johnson & Johnson isn't just for Jillian. And they've hooked me. The Johnson's Melt-Away Stress line claims to have "Aromasoothe" to "calm and relax your senses." Science and mega-marketing buzzwords are all well and good . . . but wouldn't any mom rather hear it smells sexy? Because nothing says stress-relief to me like feeling a little less like frumpy mama. Johnson's has done it - they've bottled mmmm, mmmm, good. Or at least put enough in there for the bodywash to take up residence in my shower, the lotion to be rescued from the fate of the bottles piled in the guest room and the night cream to end out the day.

Too bad they can't do anything about those saddlebags . . .

So, does anyone out there actually LIKE getting all those lotions at Christmas? Or is the scent you put on your bod a little too personal for a Secret Santa exchange?

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Gender selection . . . may I have your attention

My favorite projects are those that take me out of my own little microcosm up here in New York State and into the minds of parents around the nation. Relying heavily on Help a Reporter (have I said before Peter Shankman is my hero?), I've been picking up new work lately that has come close to changing my stance on some pretty big issues!

The Babble Gender Selection piece, published a few weeks ago to augment the mag's Gender Issue shocked me for the lack of response - it generated a mere 10 comments at last look. I wanted to know what people were thinking on this one! So I was a little happier to get an e-mail in my Gmail inbox this evening, a weblog for the Center for Genetics and Society put up a snippet on the piece and told me I "nailed the issues."

So what do you guys think? Girl, boy, or you just want to count to 10 on fingers and toes?

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Tuesday Treasure: Idbids

I had to sneak the idbids box into my house because I knew one glimpse of the cute little flower inside, and it would be gone.

Making "iddy biddy steps for a greener world," idbids eco-friendly starter kit is my back-to-school-time find for education at home. Featuring a "field guide" that lays out the "iddy biddy" steps kids can take to make their life a lttle greener, the kits put an "I can do it myself" spin on living the green life. For a mom with a pre-schooler who can do just about EVERYTHING by herself (or so she says), that's the key to making it happen!

The kits also sport a little cinch-sack backpack made of organic cotton and sized just for their little backs. Although we've got a dozen and one kid backpacks dangling from random hooks around our house, designating an extra for the car so they can tote a few groceries is never a bad idea. It plays into the green theme of idbids AND the mommy's helper role all little pre-schoolers crave.

Oh, and did I mention that cuddly flower toy I knew would disappear? While I've been typing this, Lola has already been claimed by a little girl whose eyes grew to saucer-like proportions when she saw her new friend propped against my monitor. Also spun from organic cotton, the idbids mascots - Lola and her buddies Scout (a cloud) and Waverly (a raindrop) are the main characters in the idbids storybook that accompanies every idbids kit.

When the story's done, log on to print out their "certificate of completion" and learn more about their new eco buddies. What's that sound? It's Lola taking iddy biddy steps onto the favorite stuffed animal perch in my daughter's room . . .

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Me . . . and the Associated Press

For those of you who joined me in my ranting about the Department of Environmental Conservation's plan to ban burning barrels in rural New York State, I've got some news!

The June blog caught the eye of an Associated Press reporter, and earned me a rant in his story. OK, so I didn't actually rant. I was unusually quiet! But this was the Associated Press after all!

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Babble Best: Sandboxes

What's better than a trip to the beach? Staying home with the sandbox . . . check out my review of my favorites over at Babble with Babble Best: Sandboxes

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Ah . . . young love

Once, twice, at least three times a week, they ask. "So, having another one?" Take a gander guys . . . because this is the closest Jillian gets to sibling rivalry, her dear old cousin. And yes, we broke it up seconds later!


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Counting – or not – the days to nursery school

I haven’t had much sympathy for the people bemoaning the end of summer this past week.
From the day Jillian and I made our visit to the Callicoon Nursery School last spring, I’d been counting down my days.
The thing is, I know she’s going to love it. I’m happy she’s going to love it. But, well, she’s going to love it… and that means her days as the Sullivan County Democrat’s junior reporter are coming to an end.
Our impromptu visit last spring was the sort that brings out the Sybil in a mom – she jumps for joy in front of her child, then hides in the bathroom for a good cry.
Pulling my book from my purse, I settled into a corner while the teachers set out a plate of pretzels and cup of juice so she could join the class at snack time. The plan was to keep my eyes on my book so Jillian would feel ignored and want to play with the other kids. I thought I’d get in some quality reading time not possible when she’s bouncing around begging to put together puzzles or play tea party. I knew my little politician would probably take the bait, opting for the excitement across the room over the boring old mommy in the corner.
I wasn’t worried. I’ve never worried. I refuse to believe loving your child means wanting to spend every waking moment in her presence. I love chocolate – I wouldn’t want it for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Hmm, M&Ms, Godiva… bad example. I love my husband too, but we haven’t been fused at the hip since our newlywed days. There, better. Are you with me?
Her too-big jeans hanging loose on her little hips, Jillian sauntered across the room to join snack time. I waited for the glance, the look, the question in her eyes. “Is this OK, Mommy?”
It never came. When a little girl she’d met at story hour a few times opted not to move over and give her a seat, the super-mom inside wanted to launch myself across the room and wrestle that pint-sized body over one seat.
But Jillian wasn’t fazed. She made an instant friend, a little boy who volunteered to share pretzels and juice at the little picnic table. From my corner I could hear her asking for more, telling that little boy her name.
For two hours she ignored me in favor of a felt story and a frog’s life cycle, Play-Doh and the sand table. The taste of her independence was like a refrigerated piece of chocolate – shockingly cold at the outset, but sending out waves of comfort as it warmed up.
School is a big deal, but it’s not the end of the world, I told myself.
I emerged stronger in the end, a mom who learned what it really means to be separate from her child. I’ve let her grow her own identity. She is Jeanne’s daughter. But she is also Jillian.
And, oh man, I’m going to miss her!

The first of many reviews . . . let me introduce the Stinky Kids!

I'm excited to be starting off reviews on this site with one of the coolest finds for kids who fall into the "monkey" category - just like my kid.

The StinkyKids come from artist and mom Britt Menzies, who likes to joke that "every kid is a little stinker." Named for the different members of her extended family, the StinkyKids are cute-as-a-button hand-drawn kids who grace her line of shirts for women, girls, toddlers (both boys and girls), and infants plus a series of paintings that will dress up any nursery.

The StinkyKids are cute - but not to the point where you feel like you're dressing your kid in yet another cartoon character and padding the pockets of some big exec. In fact, Britt sends a porton of the money from every sale to charity - from Books, Bears and Bonnets to help fight cancer to my personal favorite, Girls on the Run, a non-profit that promotes self-respect and a healthy lifestyle in girls. The shirts themselves are printed on a heavy duty cotton that has made it through our washing machine and my daughter's own running!

And Jillian is a big fan of her "StinkyKids coloring book," printed right off the site's coloring pages!

Her motto - "Always Be a Leader of Good" is just the sort of thing any mom can get behind. And Britt has graciously agreed to send a shirt to one mom who has a little stinker of her own at home!

Visit her shop, then come back here to share in comments who your favorite StinkyKid is from Britt's line. The winner will be chosen at random on September 3, so remember to check back to claim your prize - a t-shirt with your favorite StinkyKid in your child's size! Remember - if you're anonymous, I can't award a prize, so please come up with an alias for identification!!

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Read 'em and celebrate!

This one has been bouncing around the blog world, but I figured I'd have a go . . .

Who says: The National Endowment for the Arts has an initiative you may have heard of called the Big Read. According to the Web site, its purpose is to "restore reading to the center of American culture." They estimate that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed.

Someone came up with the list below . . . not sure who because some of these books I'm actually embarrassed to admit to! But it's all in good fun - and as a proponent of get your a** back on that couch and read . . . well, here you go.

Here's what you do:1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Star the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list on your own blog.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte *
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling *
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee *
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott *
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (thank heavens for book club . . . this was a great read!!) *
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell *
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (oh, but I've tried, again and again I've tried)
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (this should count as several . . . after all, it's a series people!)
34 Emma - Jane Austen *
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (one of the spots I find fault with this list - did you see number 33??)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini (another book club book, and thank you to my Pantry Book Club buddies!)
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie-the-Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (it's on my list, I swear)
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery *
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Mysteriously, no one in the blogosphere seems to have a 51? It's a conspiracy, I tell you!
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (another one on my list)
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac (I couldn't get into it)
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding (really, on the list? well, OK)
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby-Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett *
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - A. S. Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (need I point to the complete works of Shakespeare above?)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl *
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

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It don't mean a thing, if you ain't got that . . .

OK, you got me. My latest column at Burbia proves life in the burbs is all about the swingset.

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Save a buck, find a steal

Being a parent is expensive - no surprise there. I've started telling friends who claim they're "waiting to be able to afford a child," to quit, now. Short of being the Donald or Geeky Gates, you'll never be able to afford having a child.

A USDA study breakdown from 2004 figures the average middle class family will be spending $184,320 to get one child to age 17. That doesn't include college.

And you wonder why I scour the net looking for deals? My newest favorites - BabySteals and MamaBargains are cut from the same cloth. Every weekday, they up one of those "must-have" parenting products, priced anywhere from 50 to 80 percent off the regular market price. Limited to just three - so moms like us make the buys instead of someone planning a mass resale on eBay - the products sell until there are no more. Every day, there's a new goodie.

It won't make us money, but hey, at least it'll ensure a little extra at the end of the week to slip in their piggybank . . . you know, for post-17, when the real price kicks in!

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Ahoy there!

I extolled the virtues of a daily walk with our kids in a recent PeekabooPicks column, and I was told I should show off Jilly's favorite dolly strollers in action. No one does it better than my little pirate. Pushing her Valco Mini Marathon to a recent showing of the Callicoon Center Band, Jillian stole the show.

A new era

For those of you guys who have been living under a rock - and thus haven't been getting my weekly Christmas card-like list of my accomplishments, I started a new column a few weeks ago at PeekabooPicks. Dubbed Mama on the Move I run down my favorite products every Tuesday for moms like me who are always on the go!

But not everything that comes through my mailbox these days fits into the Mama on the Move category. And I'm getting so many cool products, I've decided to branch out this site and start adding some reviews of the products that don't make it into the different sites that regularly print my words.

So what's coming? Reviews, goodies, hopefully some give-aways . . . But I need some feedback! Anything you guys want to read about? Anything you want me to check out - remember, the holidays are coming! So leave me some comments!

New Babble piece up - I get cranky about the Worst Toy Makeovers! Yes, we all know I like to rant . . . now hear me roar!

Deserving DeGraw

There’s one sure shot straight to a mother’s heart – be nice to her kid.

But Gavin DeGraw wasn’t just nice to the reporter’s kid. He walked into the cafeteria at the Benjamin Cosor Elementary School in Fallsburg last week with a wide smile and open arms.

He shook hands. He signed everything in sight.

Keep Reading AFTER the Jump

Good dog . . . bark

After five years of living in the same place, our dog is finally making progress.

She’s starting to separate our property from everyone else’s.

Opening the door to let her run out for a potty break Sunday night, I made a quick grab for her collar when I saw three deer standing a few hundred feet away.

They were munching on the neighbor’s flowers, and as much as she would have liked them distracted from the fruits of their labor, I wasn’t ready for a night tromping through the woods to find our runaway.

So I hooked Livvy to the chain before letting her loose.

She ran out across the yard, and the startled deer took off.

But the two hungry bucks and their female companion were smarter than most. Considering how often they end up in front of my car, I don’t give them much credit for brainpower.

This trio stopped, however, and glanced back at their would-be attacker. When they realized she was deep in thought, sniffing out the absolute best spot in the lawn to let loose after a long drink from the water bowl, they sauntered back to the flowers. No dog, no sense letting a good meal go to waste, they figured.

My guard dog, meanwhile, the same slobbering, sniffing hound who scared the bejeepers out of the homeowner’s insurance investigator, was quiet as a church mouse.

She ran from one spot to another, sniffed, then moved on.

Finally settling on one dying patch of grass – apparently one of her favorites based on the brown tips of our poor lawn – she did her business without a peep.

Bounding up from her spot, I assumed it was time – the alpha dog would be unleashed.

Instead she glanced across the yard, then turned around without a single woof. She crashed onto the porch and straight into my poor husband, who was trying his darndest to hold still while I simultaneously shaved his head and watched the dog be outwitted by a bunch of deer.

Pushed away from the buzzing razor, Livvy bounced her way back onto the lawn, her chain making such a racket that the deer once again started from their post.

Clueless, the dog who’s known to bark at the air blowing a lone leaf across the yard paraded around the tree then back again.

And then, suddenly, we heard it. A low growl… then a bark.

Hanging off the porch, I looked to the backyard, where Livvy was standing at attention, her eyes trained on the same three deer who were now sampling the apples that had fallen off of our tree.

She barked again and jumped, pawing at the ground at the far end of her chain. Those, apparently, were her apples and she was bound and determined to bark those deer out of sight. The deer didn’t bother to jump. They didn’t shy away. They didn’t even stop chewing.

I just shook my head.

Five years and counting. That’s all it took.


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Wanna Cha Cha?

Sorry sexperts . . . in my house it's a cha cha. Check my new essay out on Babble: Bad Parent - A Private Matter!

Bookslut and Me

Call me what you may . . . a geek, a bookworm . . . but I like bookslut the best. And now I get to write for them! Check out my interview with the one and only Jancee Dunn (yes, I'm kissing some serious hind end here) over at Bookslut. Then buy her new book: Don’t You Forget About Me.

Losing my voice

It happens at least once – sometimes twice – a year. My world as I know it comes crashing to a halt.
It starts with a tickle in the throat.
Then I start making pleas for pints of Ben & Jerry’s, the colder, the better.
A day later, I’m coughing like a smoker with a carton-a-day habit, and I’m in danger of hacking up a lung.
This is the day you give me a sippy cup of milk Jillian left on the bottom of her toy box three weeks ago – I can’t smell it anyway. This is the day you tell me it’s going to be $600 to fix my car – I can’t hear you anyway.
For me, all of this is unpleasant, yes, but not the end of the world.
That comes later. Usually two or three days later.
As the concrete wall of gunk builds up in my chest, I drink Robitussin by the gallon. I gargle a bay’s worth of salty water. I run the shower until there’s so much steam pouring out the bathroom door you’d think I had a locomotive running through.
It’s no use.
I lose my voice anyway.
And my world goes crazy.
Interviews are out without a voice. So are phone calls to set them up. In fact, phone calls of any sort are off the table – unless I want to be reported as a heavy breather to the folks at Verizon.
My family takes full advantage.
My daughter celebrates by leaving her toys strewn across the floor of our office/playroom. She doesn’t have to listen to Mommy’s yelping when a Matchbox car becomes lodged in my foot.
My husband, who was kind enough to cart home the requested Ben & Jerry’s a few days prior, enjoys his respite. Accustomed to being greeted at the door by a wife hungry for adult conversation (after a day of answering “why? why? why?” wouldn’t you?), he’s smart enough to hide his glee at the lack of incessant chatter from my direction.
The world outside the house is noticeably less polite.
There’s no pointing and laughing, but there’s a fair amount of snickering.
There are more than a few “what’s that you say? I couldn’t heeeeeeear yous,” in that lilting tone of voice I know means they’re laughing at me on the inside.
But I can’t call them on it.
I can’t yell.
I can’t poke fun.
I can’t even offer up a bit of biting wit.
And I don’t like it.
I admit it. I talk too much. But the first step to recovery for me wasn’t in admitting I had a problem.
Because two days without my voice, and I’m itching to go yell it from the rooftops.
So watch out. The next step in my yearly bout with voicelessness?
I get it back. And I start talking… a lot.

Kicking it country

You can rag on country music all you want.
Go ahead. I have. Moving from New York to the South took a taste adjustment I’m still getting used to.
But I’ve got to hand it to the country music world.
When’s the last time you saw a rapper pull a pint-sized girl onto the stage and walk her around, her little hand wrapped in his big ol’ paw, to meet every single member of the band?
Rascal Flatts lead singer Gary DeVox did it on the stage at Bethel Woods Sunday night without ever missing a note.
He covered her eyes while he shimmied.
He led her out onto the bump-out stage and helped her wave to the crowd.
That’s the way you get me. Give the little kids what they came for.
At last year’s Brad Paisley show in Bethel, a youngster walked away with the star’s cowboy hat.
If I hadn’t already crossed the country line when I made my way over the Mason-Dixon, I would have fallen – hard – that night.
Those are – in truth – the best interviews.
The ones who appreciate the every day, the people who made them who they are.
I’ve been to my fair share of concerts – plenty more in the years since Bethel Woods opened for sure – and I’ve seen my fair share of performers who think rather highly of themselves.
It’s their right, I guess. After all, they’re on stage. I’m just writing about it.
But the country performers tend to set themselves apart with their humility.
I’ve come to grips with liking a few of their songs too – I even admit to being a full-fledged fan of Paisley and Rascal Flatts.
Laugh if you will. I know my friends did when I moved back North.
But it’s their eagerness to sign autographs, their special attention to the kids – that’s what makes them worth seeing.
Because, in the end, who wants to pay to listen to another self-important windbag? We can turn on the TV for that, log online – get it for free.
But if you’ll be nice to a little kid – nice one day perhaps to my little kid – I’ll lend you my ears.