I know I’ve written about this book before, but I really dig it. I’m a big fan of cleverness. You don’t have to be intelligent for me to like you, or even super smart…but clever, now that will endear you to me for quite some time. How can you not love chapter titles like these?

TV: Is six hours a day too much?
Bedtime: Is 5:30 too early?
Screaming: is it necessary?

And how can you not love an opening paragraph like this?

Gone are the days when a small person of tender age would do as he or she was asked, good naturedly and obediently, and the rest of the time would sit quietly reading or practicing a simple cross stitch. The child was able to carry on a lively and friendly conversation with a grown-up, when asked; but with equal good nature the youngster would disport himself to a quiet corner when it appeared that the grown-ups were converging. He might be trotted out to say his hellos, perhaps to recite, possibly to help serve drinks or pass cocktail peanuts. He might sit on a lap, but only if requested by a familiar grown-up he never presumed.

Let us be perfectly frank. You were here first. You are sharing your house with them, your food, your time, your books. Somewhere, in fairly recent memory, we have lost sight of that fact.

So out of gratitude for Christie Mellor I am now embarking on a series of Martini Tales. Ms. Mellor, you supplied the inspiration…the children and I will supply the “you’ve got to laugh or you’ll cry” fodder for storytelling. Click to see the first one. I hope you enjoy it.

“It is not your child’s time you are stealing; it is your time, and you get to have some of it for yourself.”

I actually walk, without pushing a jog stroller, every morning for an hour. I go to yoga twice a week and I have Monday mornings free to do various and sundry things like appointments with my neurologist or the occasional pass-out on the floor of the labyrinth. (Just me, the lab, and the organist practicing in the balcony.) Now, please don’t think that I am not guilt-ridden over these “me times.” In fact, I am racked with guilt. But not because I must abandon the wee tots in order to steal away. No, no, no. That no longer troubles me at all.

No, what I feel guilty about is that other Moms do not have this kind of uninterrupted time. Now granted, the walk happens at 6am which right now amounts to the pre-dawn hours. The yoga disappears in the summer, when the kids are sick, and during all three of thier winter school breaks. And the Mondays, well, more often than not they turn into errand-running, email answering extravaganzas…or I spend them doing this obsessive thing where I put stuff away in the kitchen even though I know it will be thrashed by dinner. Still, I know this is lush compared to the fate of most of the other preschool moms who consider it a joy to “be down to one” while they push a 200 pound grocery cart around Costco.

What to do about this dilemma? Well I have this little tape I play in my head. It goes “My suffering does not alleviate the suffering of others.” Now, this is probably a very non-helpful tape when it comes to…say…deciding whether you should tithe off your annual bonus to World Vision or buy those really cute brown leather riding boots with the nice little buckle detail. However, it is very helpful when you manage to get your time back into your own control, only to be tempted into let it go again in order to pull a guilt-based second shift as the art room mommy.

I will admitt that I have, however, been known to write checks for “scholarships” to VBS programs in lieu of volunteering. And if someone needs to bring snack twice this month, I’m the one to do it. Oh, and I have actually used physical restraint to keep a mom who was about to bust out their third child from signing up to chaperone a field trip in the last week of her pregnancy. (Hormones make you crazy.) But most of the time I just roll blithely along thinking, in the words of the unsinkable Christie Mellor “It’s my time and I get to have some of it for myself.” Hopefully I will become a shinning example for other Moms who still think they are stealing time from the children (or thier friends with younger-than-thine children) when they do something to preserve thier sanity.

Now could someone please remind me of that before I volunteer to take some child home with me after school everyday this week?