MAMA: Adventures in Martial Arts and Motherhood

Here is the headline on a recent NY Times blog:  A Surprising Risk for Toddlers on Playground Slides. ( http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/a-surprising-risk-for-toddlers-at-playground-slides/?src=me&ref=general ) Surprising risk? For my child? Uh oh, this is clearly important. Better read it right away.  The article turns out to be about the dangers of a small child going down the slide on his parent's lap. Unfortunately, for both parent and child, the child can accidentally catch his foot on the side of the slide while going down and break his leg. Says the article: " This may be one of those counterintuitive cases when a child is safer by himself. If a foot gets caught while the child is sliding alone, he can just stop moving or twist around until it comes free. But when a child is sitting in an adult lap, the force of the adult’s weight behind him ends up breaking his leg." A t wo year old with a broken leg is really sad. Even worse is how bad that ...

"Money doesn't buy happiness. Uh, do you live in America? 'Cause it buys a WaveRunner. Have you ever seen a sad person on a WaveRunner?" - Daniel Tosh Confession, I did not go to jiu-jitsu this morning. I would like to say that I was sick, or that I was taking care of some very important business,  perhaps volunteering at the ASPCA or cleaning up the park. I was doing none of those things. Instead of working on half guard drills I was at the TMobile store buying a new phone.  To be fair, my current phone was really old and had an annoying tendency to randomly shut itself off in my pocket. And I was eligible for an upgrade so I could get a fancy new phone for half the price. Which I did. Now I can do all kinds of things with my phone. I can check email and Facebook. I can download free time sucking games like Angry Birds and Cut the Rope. I can even, occasionally, when I am feeling very old school, call people.  Welcome to the year 2000! I am really not an easy s...

Over the weekend Maya caught what seemed to be a stomach bug. You know the one. It strikes in the middle of the night. Numerous sheets and outfits get changed and washed and changed again. Out comes the Pedialyte. (which Maya hates with a passion and refuses to drink) On goes Tangled. And then Spy Kids. And then Olivia. (The TV limits in our house are suspended the minute an illness hits) Twenty four hours later it is gone. Well, almost... Yesterday Maya went back to school with a clean bill of health, or so we thought. An hour into the day we got a call from her teacher. "Her stomach is ok but she keeps getting up to pee. A lot. Or at least she thinks she has to pee. Perhaps she has a urinary tract infection?" Hmmm. So I call the doctor and set up an appointment for that afternoon. When I pick her up from school she seems perfectly normal; happy, full of energy. The doctor says the same. Everything looks fine. They just need to do one lab test to make sure. Ha...

It's Spring Break time! Back in my college days that meant something very different than it does now. No I never went to Cancun, nor did I ever "accidentally" lose my top poolside. But there was one Spring Break when I went to the Bahamas with two of my friends. We were an odd mix, two girls and one guy who I am pretty sure had a huge crush on my friend. Here are some things I learned on that adventure: -It takes a long time to get your whole head braided. If you are on the beach at the time, reapply sunscreen. Often. -If you forgot to take the above advice, Chloreseptic spray (meant for sore throats) can be soothing to a sunburn. (I am not sure which one of us geniuses thought this up but there is a photo in my album of me spraying down my friend Steve. It works.) -If you are young and stupid (aka: college) and want to know where to find Bahamian weed ask the taxi driver. When he proceeds to drive to a shack at the edge of Nassau and tells you to wait in the car while...

In a lot of ways, my jiu-jitsu school is more of a gym than a dojo. There is no bowing. Students can wear whatever gi they want. There is no formal lineup or recited student creed. Class begins when the teacher starts demonstrating and ends when no one wants to roll anymore. It seems, although I have never done this, that you are perfectly free to go to workshops elsewhere or to visit your buddy who owns a school out on Long Island. We occasionally have "pop in" students who know my teacher from somewhere else or who are just visiting NYC and want to train for the day. Despite all this informality, there is plenty of loyalty there. Many blue and purple belts speak of my instructor with the same reverence that Daniel-san gives Mr. Miyagi. They clearly respect him, and not just for his many jiu-jitsu titles, although winning does not hurt. True the mat sometimes feels like the locker room after a big game, but there is no missing the camaraderie. These guys like trai...