Where are all the mommas?

From the Dallas Morning News, September 17, 2011

Julie Blair: Where are all the mommas? At Target, of course.
Photo: Evans Caglage / Staff Photographer

The stranger in aisle E31 had definite opinions about the size of my family. After surveying my three kids, she suggested I try for a fourth child. Doing so would eliminate the odd-man-out syndrome and “complete the set.” Even numbers are key for family harmony, she explained.

While I might have felt such a discussion was intrusive had it taken place at, say, a dinner party or a church function, this was Target. And it was Hot Momma Hour. So instead of being offended, I gave her take serious consideration.

These types of intimate conversations can be heard throughout the store between the hours of 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. Go on any day during this time slot and you’ll find dozens of mommas with their broods who’ve made the pilgrimage to the big box. They go not only for groceries but also in search of something more important: community.

The Target at FM2499 and Chin Chapel Road in Flower Mound has become a de facto country club for those of us staying at home with our children. It’s a place to find exactly what we need between the often lonely rituals of laundry duty and dishes. You can stock up on opinions about preschools, swim instructors and dance companies.

If you need to kvetch about nap schedules — or the lack thereof — you can do that, too. All you have to do is make eye contact with another woman who looks equally exhausted.

Moreover, you can go early: The store opens at 8 a.m., which feels like the middle of the day for those of us who’ve been awake since 5 a.m.

“I go to Target to find people like me,” said my gal pal Christine who lives in Flower Mound and often totes her twins to the store. “When my girls were little, I went in the early morning because I knew I’d always find other stay-at-home moms.”

While our town has a gorgeous, well-used community center and neighborhoods packed with young families with whom to play, Target offers an alternative.

The climate is a steady 73 degrees and fully shaded — you can’t say that for even the most engaging subdivisions.

Moreover, there is no need to clean up the playroom for company or even to brew a pot of coffee — you can get your fix at the Target Starbucks cafe.

My girlfriend Holly, also from Flower Mound, has gone so far as to take her husband and three boys to Target for a weekly play date on Sundays. There’s always something new for them to do in the toy aisle and friends to chat with, she said.

“It’s like religion,” Holly said, “except Target.”

If I were a glass-half-empty type, I would condemn the Target scene as evidence of a culture of consumption, a sad commentary on soulless suburbs designed for cars rather than connection.

Instead, I see the Hot Momma Hour as refreshing: It is a showcase of the strength and ingenuity of the human spirit in an age of technology.

Despite Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, despite drive-throughs and takeout, despite snarling highways and the absence of parks that keep us from one another, we remain committed to honest-to-God human contact.

We will still seek out and find the community we crave.

That, and a good deal on paper towels.



Julie Blair of Flower Mound is a freelance journalist and a Community Voices volunteer columnist. Her address is onehotmama10153@yahoo.com.

MommaSpeak

My dear friend Christina and I haven't spoken a full sentence to one another in ages.
In fact, now that I think about it, I'm not sure we've ever rendered a full conversation during the entire course of our wonderful three-year-long friendship.
It isn't that we don't have anything to discuss. We've got six children ages seven and under between us, so there's a lot of mention. Yet, the kids are the crux of the communication problem: Someone always needs something so we're constantly interrupted.
Lucky for us, our language skills have evolved as our kids have grown.
Just as those who text or tweet have developed emoticons and shorthand, Christina and I--like millions of Hot Mommas across the world--dispense with traditional language and lapse into MommaSpeak when we're together.
For example, instead of verbally greeting one another, one of us hands the other a Diet Coke.(Light ice, preferably 32 cold ounces but a warm can discovered rolling around the wheel well of the car will do.)
There is no need to inquire as to how the other's afternoon has gone. I can eyeball the number of bags in Christina's hand and tell if the day has been calm or zany. (One baby bag and clasped purse means that everyone slept well the previous night; multiple Target disposables brimming over with stuff, an errant beach towel wrapped around the neck, two pairs of sunglasses perched on her head means otherwise; an unescorted preschooler holding a Mastercard and car keys assures things are dire.)
With small talk taken care of, we jump right in to important issues.
We speak at the exact same time and in fragments for brevity.
Christina: "...mother-in-law dyed her hair pink which she says accentuate her new tattoo..."
Me: "...decided to build a beach in the baby's bedroom complete with sand..."
Christina: "..ended up roller skating through all that puke..."
Me: "...left for a job in Vietman for six weeks and has no internet access..."
Christina: "...stood on top of the ladder balancing four cans of mushroom soup..."
Me: "...found two albino hamsters running through the pipes in the kitchen..."
Christina: "...hot-wired the toaster in an attempt to curl Barbie's hair..."
Me: "...fed the neighbor's retriever the whole box of enemas..."
The diaglogue is dispensed with such speed that no U.S. military decoder could decipher it.
Christina: "...gottheearplugsstuckinsidethetoilet!"
Me: "...putthecarinreverseinsteadofdrive..."
Furthermore, our discussions are often yelled to one another. That's because we're often not in the same room at the same time and/or we need to be heard over the din.
In addition, our dialogues are interspearsed with the disciplining of a brood member.
Christina: "...locked himself in the cupboard...Mattie, please put the scissors down...before the physician could get into the room..."
Me: "...said she didn't want to do the math problem...William do not put underwear on the baby's head...before she ate the paste."
Our conversations, like most MommaSpeak, usually has an abrupt ending.
Sometimes we say goodbye. Other times, we just chase a child to the potty/car/dangerous precipice.
With the rules of MommaSpeak in play, it's all understood.

Dinner at the Duck Pond

The Duck Pond could be anyone's Happy Place: Its banks are lush, the waves ripple prettily, the fish bite.
But if you're a toddler who happens to like ducks, well, there's really no better place on Earth.
The Duck Pond has a menagerie that would make most zookeepers envious. There are gaggles of mismatched mallards, half a dozen exotics with Dalmatian-colored feathers, mysterious turkey-like swans, fifteen or so grackles that think they're ducks and two actual giant white ducks that were perhaps released from Easter baskets.
The ducks seem to frequent this pond for one reason: the toddlers.
The symbiotic relationship between the diapered and the feathered has likely been going on for generations: The babies bring bread, the ducks become junkies.
They all waddle about chasing one another with squawks of joy.
Occasionally, one of the aforementioned falls into the pond.
On our last visit to the Duck Pond, however, Charlotte was uncharacteristically disinterested in the fauna.
Instead, she wanted their bread.
"Ooh, food!" she yammered, bending down on stubby legs to finger a piece buried in the grass.
"Ducky bread," I suggested, making my ickiest face.
"Dirrrrrty," Charlotte breathed in her best Christina Aguilara voice.
Then, she popped the bread into her mouth.
As a recovering germaphobe, I choked back words.
"She is immunizing herself," I thought.
I pointed out the goslings to Charlotte in hopes of distracting her.
Charlotte responded by digging through the grass to find another chunk of bread.
Victorious, she pulled forth an usually large mound and jammed it between her cheeks chipmunk-style.
"Blah! Blah!" I said, sticking my tongue out.
I mentally began cataloging the germs that ducks might contain.
"Is Duck Itch food borne?," I thought. "What about Duck Death? How do you get that?"
Charlotte smiled like an angel sent down from Heaven.
Then, she turned on her heel and sprinted towards a pile of rocks. She plunged her chubby fist into a crack, pulled up moldy crust and rammed it into her mouth.
"Mmmmmm!" she said, chewing.
Then suddenly, I was noticing the duck poop.
It was everywhere--the grass, the mulch and probably the bread my child just consumed. Slimy white-green goo coated huge swaths of the grassy landing like icing atop a birthday cake.
Anxiety's heavy hand was pushing down on me.
"How about your crackers," I pleaded. "You have nice, clean fishy crackers in the backpack. Let's go get them."
Charlotte blinked and pulled herself up tall.
"No," she stamped. "Bwead."
"How about the bread we have at home?" I suggested. "I can make you a yummy peanut butter and jelly."
After raising three children, I knew that reasoning with a 20-month-old baby was no smarter than reasoning with, well, a duck.
I changed tactics.
I would offer limited choices that would not include toxic duck bread.
"Do you want cheese or oranges?" I asked.
Charlotte trotted off.
"Bwead, bwead, bwead," she sang.
In the great tradition of the Duck Pond, I waddled after her.
I was still squawking.

Two-by-Two

I am a big fan of the two-by-two playdate.
Noah, after all, had great results with this on his ark. And as the mother of twins, it works for me, as well: You get a girl for your girl and a boy for your boy and everyone--including the Mommas--are happy for two to three hours.
I have recently learned, however, that I should up my game and screen for children who have been fed large, protein-based snacks prior to playdates to eliminate any latent hunger.
"Hey, are there going to be hot dogs at this playdate?" one six-year-old boy asked me recently after hopping off our school bus with his sister. "Because my mom said there would be hot dogs."
I produced pretzels, cookies and apples along with the promise of hot dogs at 5 p.m., our dinner hour. When everyone seemed finished, I shooed the children up to the playroom and started the dishes.
Twenty-five minutes later, Superman was back in the kitchen.
"So, how about those hot dogs?" he asked.
I offered up the unfinished plate of fruit and reiterated my plan for dinner.
Twenty-five minutes later, our guest returned to pull on my apron strings.
"It must be time for hot dogs!" he said.
"Not yet," I said.
Then, I gave my charge a brief lesson on how to tell time without the use of a digital clock.
Thirty-two seconds later, he poked his head in the door.
"I'm totally ready!" he said. "You must be ready, too!"
I still had lunch and snack dishes to do, five phone calls to make and three loads of laundry on my agenda, but my reserve was faltering.
"How about hot dogs in five minutes?" I asked.
"Great," Blondie said. "I'll time you."
And darn if the little imp didn't come into the kitchen with a sand timer from some long-ago forgotten board game.
"I'll have to flip this five whole times to make five minutes," he said. "I'll turn it over. There. Now, gooooooo!"
What this boy didn't know is that anyone who breathes down my neck and/or whines while I'm making dinner has to help me make it.
"Alrighty, Einstein, I'm drafting you into service," I said, pulling an apron over his brush cut. "Now go outside into the garage and find the outside refridgerator, move the ladder that's holding the crummy door shut, pull out the extra Diet Coke boxes and find the apple juice boxes. Then, grab five and put them on the table. After you do that, go into the pantry and get the ketchup. You'll have to move the rice cooker and the mixer but it's back there. Then, place that on the table. Next, you'll need to get silverware for everyone--that's a knife, fork and spoon for all of us--plus napkins. These can be found in the drawer to your left. After that, you can get everyone to stop playing, wash their hands--make sure they use bubbles while singing "Happy Birthday" as a sanitary precaution--and get them to sit down at the table.
The boy looked at me thunderstruck.
"You can do this," I told him. "I know you're in the gifted and talened program."
"Buuuuttt..." he exclaimed.
"Now move it," I said, a polite smile on my face. "I'm timing you."