Some days...

On the bright side, the child is coughing less and less and looking better and better. On the other hand, I think our TV is about to explode from overuse - at this point, I think I'm living at the Tipton hotel with Zack and Cody.  Or maybe I'm on tour with Hannah Montana?  Either way I think I should be allowed to order room service...  I'm certain I will be well within my rights when I drop the bombshell that tonight is Emmy night and this time Mommy gets a turn with the remote.

The Yankees seem to be playing their last game at Yankee Stadium.  Should I be sad that I'm a New Yorker born and bred and I've never even been there? Or should I just be glad it's not Shea Stadium...  oh wait, they're tearing that one down too.

The real question seems to be whether or not pneumonia girl goes to school tomorrow...  She wants to - I mean REALLY wants to.  But she would have to sit out recess with a book and can I really trust her to do that?  I doubt it. And as much as I like to hover, they don't actually allow the helicopter moms to hang around the school all day just listening to hear their child cough.  I guess we'll see how she is in the morning.  And both of us will be crossing our fingers!   

Pneumonia...

Well, apparently all my hovering could not protect my daughter from either strep throat or pneumonia...  although the hovering did get her in to the doctor before either one of them was very bad.  And I frankly feel I dodged the bullet by not getting sick too - clearly an "occupational" hazard for the Helicopter Mom.  Not so much of an issue for the Free Floating Dad...  The good news is she's coughing less.  The bad news is right after we went to the doctor and were sitting in the car waiting for our turn at the drive through pharmacy (sometimes I just love So Cal), Free Floating Dad calls on the cell to tell me about the obituary he read in the paper that very morning where some poor guy, not even 55 years old, died of pneumonia!  Of course, since the laws have changed in LA, he's on speaker phone and my 8 year old daughter is now cowering in the backseat planning her own funeral.  "Why didn't you tell me I was on speaker?!" he growls later after feverish pneumonia girl is in bed.  "I told you I was in the car." I insist as if I haven't made the same mistake a dozen times.  But I don't generally read the obituaries so I'm usually safe on that count.  More likely I inadvertently swear and don't realize it until I hear the giggle from the backseat over my cellphone.  So, sorry to the other helicopter moms I've done that to.  You know who you are.  Anyway, we're handling the obituary mishap by acting like she's hardly sick at all, so we'll definitely be paying for that in a day or two.

I have to say though, I was relieved at "Girls Night Out" when another of the moms told me her kids have had pneumonia three times because, because aside from the fact that I'm obviously a bad mother because I was at "Girls Night Out" when my daughter had just be diagnosed with pneumonia, I've never had pneumonia, Free Floating Dad has never had pneumonia and both of us keep worrying that she is literally going to die.  That one of the many times we tiptoe into her bedroom to check her breathing, we might be too late.  Which is probably overreacting.  But that's what I do.  Hover and overreact.  And eat too many chocolate wafer cookies.  So when I'm not fighting back the tears and morbidly trying to memorize her face, I'm yelling at her for watching 8 Hannah Montana episodes in a row and not practicing her piano.  Perhaps this blog should be titled "Crazy Helicopter Mom".  Well, I've got to wrap this up - it's been 20 minutes since I've held a mirror up to her nose.

Dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century...

To be perfectly honest, the idea of blogging has always seemed to me to be so...  well... narcissistic.  Not that I'm all that humble - I really only want to talk about me and my life but frankly, I want it to be easy, like on the phone, or over lunch, or in the school parking lot when I should really be exercising, or while I'm exercising.  It's just that blogging seems too much like work.  Sitting at a computer when I would rather be watching a soap opera or Entourage, looking up words on Dictionary.com so you don't think I'm a moron, worrying that you won't think I'm interesting, worrying that you will and become a stalker, worrying that you'll make fun of my kid...  But then I heard I can put ads up on my blog and if people click on them, I'll get paid...  so blogging here I come!!

For those of you who don't know what a helicopter mom is, it's a mom who "hovers".  That's me, I hover.  Like the channel 7 traffic guy over the 405.  But let's face it, I have to...  I'm there, aren't I?  With nothing else to do but read a magazine.  At the skating rink and the dance studio, at the piano lesson and helping at school, driving the carpool and organizing parties...  The exact opposite of the mom I grew up with!  Perhaps I've swung too far in the opposite direction but I like knowing that Jeffrey threw up on his uniform and why Isabelle's mom is never letting her go on pointe.  And all you other moms who know me, you like that I know that crap too...  Because then we can talk about it for an hour on the phone and believe that we have some semblance of control over the success or failure of our little angel's futures.  Which we don't, of course.  

Okay, so I'm going to use fake names, so no one gets mad at me and occasionally change details if I think it will be funnier that way.  Hell, if I'm sitting at a computer, it's my story and I'll write it the way I damn well please!  Unless you guys complain or stop clicking on my ads, then I'll write whatever the hell you want.  Just let me know...

Anyway, that's enough of a beginning.  I'll write about the health crisis in our family after I figure out how to get some of these ads.  Please God don't let them be for porno...