The other night, after I got home from work, Mr. Prairie and I watched “Making Over America With Trinny and Susannah.” There are no words for how much I love them. Trinny and Susannah are bold and funny and are apparently bringing their brand of makeover to the U.S. While I often feel that “makeover” shows are all about sucking every ounce of individuality out of people and making them adhere to a socially acceptable, conventional beauty, I don’t get that from T & S.

But I digress. In this special, they were making over a very cute mom/waitress from New Jersey. Off the clock, the New Jersey mom, Denise wore baggy boring clothes. She wanted something different for herself, but like all moms, put herself dead-last on her list of priorities. Denise didn’t think of herself as pretty, she referred to herself as “plain.” And she had body issues as a result of the changes that come along with having two children.

While listening to Denise disparage some body part or the other, Mr. Prairie exclaimed, “What is wrong with her?!” Then he looked at me and said, “You know, I blame Hugh Hefner. Because of him, men think they should have some perfect, airbrushed girl that doesn’t even exist in real life! And women wear themselves out trying to be like that!”

My jaw dropped, in a good way. “You get it! You actually get it!” Then I said, “You know what this makes you, don’t you? A feminist!” He laughed, because he’s been one all along.

The next night we watched another show, this one about a wedding. The bride’s father talked about the ceremony representing the passing of his authority over his daughter to her new husband, who then has authority over her. Hubby asked me, “What did I just hear?”

I answered, “You just heard a wedding being described as a transfer of property between the father of the bride and the new husband. And the property is the bride.”

He said, “That’s twisted.”

It would never have occurred to Mr. Prairie to ask my dad for permission to marry me, because I was a grown woman. We told my folks, together, that we were getting married. It never even entered our minds that my father had authority over me as an adult and that the non-existent authority could be transferred to someone else. I told the pastor that I wouldn’t promise to obey anybody and he’d better leave it out of the vows or there would be a very awkward silence in the ceremony. And I told him to leave that submission crap out, too. Marriage should be a partnership of equals who love each other, not a master-and-servant arrangement.

So I asked Hubby, “You weren’t laboring under the mistaken idea that you have any authority over me, were you?” He started laughing and said, “Are you kidding me?”

You see, he believes that marriage is a partnership of equals, too. Because he’s been a feminist all along!

OK, I guess I need to get this toddler potty-trained. She starts Pre-K in the fall and they won’t take her if she’s not potty-trained. HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am putting out the call to all parents, especially anyone who has been through this with a girl, for any help you can give. I perfectly open to buying books, treats, prizes, special products, anything it takes. But I need some advice here, and possibly some consensus.

There are techniques and programs that people swear by, but I don’t know which one to try. This child does not seem interested in the least. I’ve tried to let her take the lead on this, but we’re getting down to the wire here.

What hasn’t worked? The potty chair she picked out all by herself, the potty ring that lets her be a big girl on the big potty, Hello Kitty underpants, promises of kitties or a puppy, and appeals to her better nature. The only thing I will not use? Candy or other foodstuffs as a reward.

HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, bless his pea-pickin’ little heart! I was browsing the CNN website this morning when I came upon this little article, Working from home: Not for every ‘Mr. Mom’ by Josh Lubin.

He correctly points out just how difficult it is to accomplish anything remotely like work while caring for a newborn. That’s because caring for a newborn is work.  He gets first-hand experience in just such when he agrees to work from home for a few hours while his wife goes to an unspecified early appointment. In the midst of his work requirements, other requirements pop (or poop) up: diapers need to be changed, tummies need to be filled, crying needs to be interpreted.

Then he says this:

“I realize that the ability to work and be a nanny simultaneously is a skill requiring practice.”

Did he just say “…be a nanny…?” Why yes, he did! Does he equate parenting with being a paid help? Does he consider what his wife is doing, presumably on her maternity leave, as nanny-ing? Obviously, judging simply by his choose of words, he considers caring for his child being a nanny, while I consider it being a parent.

I don’t deny that different parents have different parenting styles, but I find this tendency to refer to those times when fathers care for their children by themselves as “babysitting” or in the author’s case as “be(ing) a nanny” infuriating to say the least.

And what of articles that praise the massive amounts of time (6.5 hours per week) modern fathers spend with their children, relative to their own fathers (2.6 hours per week)? Well, Arlie Russell Hochschild’s book The Second Shift neatly puts them in perspective. When mother goes back to work, the majority of parenting and household tasks will be her responsibility. But no one will ever consider the performing of her responsibilities as being “a nanny” or a housekeeper; no one will ever give her a cookie for doing her duty.

Not that Mr. Lubin is asking for a cookie. I just hope that this instills in him a measure of appreciation of the shear amount of hard work his wife will face in the ensuing years and inspires him to contribute his share during that second shift.

And I would love to tell him that this, too, shall pass. More quickly than he can imagine, and sooner than he wants, his child will grow up. He might want to re-address the idea of working from home in a few years. Eventually, she will be able to sit on the potty by herself and get her own snacks from the kitchen. Then, before he knows it, it’s off to school and, inevitably, she will be all grown up and he’ll be wondering how it happened so fast. Wasn’t it just yesterday that she cried in the middle of his conference call and cracked everybody up?

Enjoy it now, Mr. Lubin, this time will not come again.

As I sit here on this historic day, watching that history unfold on my TV, I am struck by the utter disregard my daughter has for the solemn events we are watching. So far I have received one request for Pink Panther, one for “Pongo” (101 Dalmatians), and two crying fits when I told her “No.” Now she is rapidly emptying a tissue box and making a small mountain out of the tissues.

Well, it’s ridiculous to expect a toddler to appreciate something I consider exciting but that she has proclaimed boring. And it is exciting, instead of gazing longingly to a past that never really existed, we, as a country, are once again looking resolutely into the future. And once again we will have a president who addresses the American people as the adults that we are.

I think the chief failing of the out-going administration (and most conservatives) is that they do not see the American people as adults that are capable of making our own decisions, they do not trust us to handle the hard stuff. The Great Depression could have destroyed the country but the strength of the citizenry kept it alive. During WWII, the tough-minded American people did what was required to defeat the greatest threats our world had ever faced. Tire-rationing, food-rationing, women taking over “man’s work” to free men to fight, Civil Air Patrol, black-outs, the American people coped very well, soldiered on, made do, made it work.

After 9/11, did the administration ask the people to sacrifice any material comfort for the good of the country? No, they told us to go shopping, to travel, to spend money as if there were no tomorrow. Oh, we sacrificed all right, our civil liberties, the assumption that our private telephone calls were truly private, our dignity at the airport, too many of our brave service men and women. We weren’t even asked to forgo paltry tax cuts so our troops could have little luxuries like body armor. But now many people have unwillingly sacrificed much of their life savings, many have sacrificed their homes.

Were those who benefited the most from the CEO-president asked to sacrifice their golden parachutes when their companies began to falter? Are you kidding me? The CEO-president asked us, the tax-payers, to bail out his buds!

At a time when it was easy to blame the “other”, were we asked to set aside old prejudices and come together in unity? No, grievances were allowed to fester, bigotries were encouraged. We were told to fear the “other”, to fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here. Innocent people, whose only crime was practising a different faith than most other Americans, were detained in airports and escorted off planes.

I interrupt this post with the joyous news that Obama is now officially our president even before he takes the oath of office. Great day in the morning!

The old administration did not trust us with the truth, they did not trust us with their mistakes, they thought we were too weak to handle the difficult road ahead and tried to deceive us that the road was a smooth one.

President Obama trusts us enough to admit that the road ahead is a tough one, but that we can meet and exceed the challenges. He understands that we come from tough stuff. Every single American born in this country is the descendant of people tough enough to cross land bridges during the last ice age, to make perilous ocean voyages, to leave the comforts of home to carve a new life out of the wilderness, to survive and surmount slavery, to fight for independence, to fight to keep our country united, to survive deadly epidemics and find cures for them, to claim, demand and fight for the inalienable right to be treated as full and equal citizens, to rise up and demand the right to vote, to walk The Trail of Tears, to retain their sovereignty in the midst of hostile forces, to have their land taken away and forced to move to reservations and survive, to endure internment with dignity. Our naturalized citizens all took the difficult steps to leave their homes and start a new life here. No matter how desperate their previous existences may have been, no matter how war-torn or destitute their old homes were, it is still painfully difficult to pull up stakes, forsake roots, leave family and friends, say farewell to familiar sights and faces, to chose to live among strangers, to learn a new language, to adapt to new ways of doing things, yet thousands of people do just this every year.

We are, all of us, tough-minded people, capable of surmounting any difficulty that we face. And I have complete faith that President Obama’s administration will treat us as competent adults. I believe that his administration will trust all of us to make our own private sometimes difficult medical decisions for ourselves. I hope that his administration will usher in a new era of tolerance, compassion, and acceptance for all people.

But my little daughter doesn’t grasp any of this because she has no knowledge of the past eight years. And apparently neither do these people up in Wyoming and many others just like them. People were so concerned about Bill Clinton “taking away their rights” that militias multiplied like cockroaches. But it was Bush who presided over the biggest retreat on civil liberties in decades. And now these same types of folks are worried about Obama infringing on their rights!

I wonder exactly what sorts of rights people are concerned about losing. The right to have guns? Contrary to popular opinion, Democrats and other assorted liberals do not want to disarm the public. We want hunters to have their firearms, we want law-abiding citizens with the proper training and permits to pack heat, when appropriate. We just want to keep the criminals, the mentally unstable, the rage-driven nutjobs from having easy access to guns. We want waiting periods and cooling-off periods, we want children to make it through childhood unscathed even if daddy has a handgun, we want places of business to be able to keep guns out of the workplace if they so choose. WE DO NOT WANT TO TAKE ALL YOUR GUNS!!!!! Please get over yourselves.

Are they afraid that now with a black man in the White House, they won’t feel as comfortable making racist jokes? Good. Discomfort is a sign that you should stop. Are they afraid they will have to stop hating gay people and, you know, start treating them like human beings? Hatred and fear are terrible things to harbor in your heart and your soul will shrivel and die as a result, and we can’t make you stop hating, but we can insist that you treat other human beings with dignity and respect.

They seem to be afraid that their religious liberties will be compromised. I simply don’t get this. This country was founded without requiring religious tests for holding public office and without establishing a state religion. Our founding fathers had seen first-hand the dangers inherent in a state religion and many colonists came here to escape real religious persecution, not the “persecution” some modern church members claim to experience. Religious persecution tries to keep you from practising your faith. Not being able to force others to abide by your faith is NOT persecution. Get over yourselves.

Are they as worried about leaving a huge national debt as they say? Too late, baby! Bush already did that for you. It’s a little late to be getting your underpants in a wad over it.

I’ve got it! They’re afraid that all their trans fats will be replaced by olive or canola oil, that the air they breath may become cleaner under a president who doesn’t despise the EPA, that some of those lazy, useless, good-for-nothing endangered species may be protected. After all, who needs healthy oceans and diverse habitats? Soylent Green, anyone?

Wow, imagine the affront to one’s dignity should the partially hydrogenated oil in snack cakes be replaced by polyunsaturated fats! The horror.

Honestly, can’t the right come up with anything better to be concerned about? Oh yeah, terrorism. Well those wars have totally turned out great, huh? There have totally not been any more terrorist attacks anywhere since….oh, wait, there have.

We already live in a surveillance society, unless you never leave your home, you are photographed or filmed in lots of public spaces, from banks to department stores to parking lots. Your banking habits are subject to scrutiny, as are your overseas calls. And all this happened way before President Obama was even elected.

I personally am looking forward to the next four years, the new era we are entering promises to be exciting and scary and ultimately fulfilling.

Congratulations, Mr. President, you earned it!

As you may know, due to the presence of two small children in the House, I watch a lot of children’s programming. Some of it I like, some of it I can stand, some of it is “meh”, and some of it is actively awful. But I have resigned myself to my odious fate. Occasionally, I can sneak in the odd rerun of “Project Runway” or “Matlock” (I loooove me some “Matlock”!) but there is one type of TV show I avoid like the plague.

Soap Operas.

Here’s the problem, I used to be seriously into, nay addicted to, “Days of Our Lives” in college. Marlena, Roman, Kim, Shane, Patch, Kayla, Bo and Hope, Jack and Jennifer, Victor Kiriakis, Ma and Pa Brady, Julie and Doug (from when I was a child and my mom used to watch it), and who could forget Calliope and Eugene (the incomparable John de Lancie). Who could not watch in fascination as all the bad karma in the world descended on the hapless Brady clan week after week? Who could not try to fathom not just the tragedy, but the utter weirdness swirling about Salem? What was that? You could? Well, maybe that was just me.

Anyway, I have purposely avoided getting re-involved with soap operas, especially as a SAHM. I’d get even less housework done than I do now! I have indulged myself by reading the blurbs in the back of the TV listing every week. The familiar names and the comfortingly kooky predicaments all felt like postcards from my younger self who used to structure her class schedule around “Days”(I kid you not).

Today I accidentally watched a few minutes of my old friend, “Days”. No, really. It was a total accident. This morning I had the TV on whatever morning “news” show is on NBC. I wanted to watch the weather and see more footage of that amazing plane crash in NYC. When Pumpkin finally reached her boring, old grown-up show limit she pulled her favorite “Pink Panther”(animated) DVD out of the cabinet. She watched it while she colored in her big coloring book and munched on the occasional crayon. When it was over, I switched it back to the TV so I could make her lunch in relative peace. And what should be on? “Days of Our Lives!!!”

I found myself in the warm embrace of old friends. There was Kayla and Marlena, discussing John Black’s latest bout of amnesia. Nothing had changed! Including my little problem. My eyes glazed over and I sat motionless on the edge of the couch. Where I would’ve watched the whole thing if my daughter had not reminded me, rather forcefully, that she was ready for lunch.

So the next time I grouse about having to watch children’s programming, I’ll try to remind myself that it is better than the alternative.

You all have been privy to one of my dark secrets and it’s your turn: What do you absolutely adore yet avoid like the plague? It can be anything, guilty-pleasure-TV, verbotten snack, luxurious indulgence, run-of-the-mill vice, whatever, just share.

As you may know I turned 40 this year, and thus begins my third decade as an official adult. Every decade, every year is uncharted territory at its very beginning. And it is usually only in hindsight that we understand each year, each decade and the lessons we drew from them. It strikes me that there are some people who never recognize those lessons and blithely carry on their lives in a kind of stasis of mind. As if at some point in their lives they reached a level of learning they were comfortable with and froze their development in amber. Never evolving past a certain point, never changing, never becoming more than the simple sum of their parts; their years are simply an enumeration, not a teaching tool.

I do not want to become one of those people.

Mr. Prairie and I married when I was 23, so the majority of my twenties were about learning how to be a married person. Together we learned how to forge a partnership of equals, a team. The two of us against the world.

We began trying to have children when I was 29, so my thirties were consumed with the babies. First with the thought, “Are we ready to do this?” When the answer came back, “Ready as we’ll ever be,” we jumped in, both feet, eyes closed. It was not as easy as it is in the movies. Five years of trying, tests, procedures, drugs, heartbreak, disappointment, giving up, then giving back in, hoping, crying, and miscarrying. Then success, we triumphed, I triumphed over the body that had thus far only betrayed me. I not only struggled with infertility, I wrestled it to the ground and kicked its ass. Then followed eight months and one week of fear and high-risk status.

But the consumption by everything baby did not end with my son’s birth. There was a year of post-partum depression, undiagnosed of course. I had no idea until the fog of hormones lifted and I got to experience “normal” again. And just when I was getting used to being “normal” again, I got pregnant (planned) with my daughter. Another ride on the baby-go-round! Luckily, I did not experience PPD that time around.

Now, facing forward into my 40’s, I wonder what the future lessons will be. But I suspect this decade will be about learning how to be the grown-up version of me. Wunderkind, wild child, young woman, those times have come and gone. It is time to let go of any remaining shred of reticence or timidity. It is time to reach for the things I want. It is time, and long passed, to claim the title Writer for myself.

And I want to triumph over my body once again, this time making it fit my self-image. But I will save that struggle for a future post.