From this week’s Smartmom in the Brooklyn Paper:
Smartmom spent New Year’s Eve with Best & Oldest, but has been a bit tardy with her resolutions, those pesky promises we make to ourselves this time of year. Here’s her list:
• Broccoli: Smartmom plans to serve her brood healthier fare. This year, there’s going to be less Szechuan Delight and more salads, veggies and healthy soups. Smartmom needs to model good eating habits for her family, and it all starts in the family kitchen. Sure, they’re Food Co-op members, but sometimes Smartmom gets lazy and shops at Key Food, where she buys easy-to-prepare foods like pasta, Amy’s pizza and rotisserie chicken. So this year, it’s heart-healthy, low sodium, low fat and no General Tso’s.
• Public Service: Smartmom wants to always remember what a charmed life she and her friends lead in Park Slope. In these times, she wants to stay connected to the realities of the rest of the world and give what she can (in money, in time) to help those near and far who are suffering.
• Sit ups: Smartmom vows to get at least 30 minutes a day of exercise. That means running, walking, hitting the elliptical machine, doing sit ups, push ups, pilates or something else — anything just as long as it’s exercise. Think of the endorphins. Think of the abs. Smartmom is already off to a good start. In November, she joined Crunch Fitness and signed on with a great trainer named Claire Moore, who’s working Smartmom hard with an emphasis on abdominal muscles and upper arms.
This year, Smartmom also wants Hepcat to use that expensive Bianchi bicycle he bought five years ago that was Kryptonite locked for much of those five years because they couldn’t find the key. Duh. Last month, Smartmom carried the bike to the locksmith and had him break the lock. Now, it’s waiting in the basement for Hepcat to take a ride.
• Calm: Smartmom knows that meditation makes her feel happier and calmer. So why did she stop doing it? No good reason except laziness. Now Smartmom plans to get back on track with her Om by meditating at least three times a week. She’s going to get her meditation pillow out of storage, find that Tibetan singing bowl she bought on Bleecker Street and set her watch. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Twenty minutes and she’ll be brand new.
• Pages: Smartmom wants to read as much in the coming year as she did in the last when she consumed books by Henry James, Edith Wharton, George Eliot, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and Flaubert. Now she’s moved on to contemporary Canadian authors like Carol Shields and Margaret Atwood. Having a good book makes her look forward to long subway and bus rides and stealing away to bed early so that she can read before going to sleep. It makes her life feel rich and exciting. It makes her brain work good and hard.
• Nieces: Smartmom wants to shower attention on her adorable niece, Ducky. Since the fall, they’ve been spending more one-on-one time together, and it’s been great fun. Smartmom finds that it’s better to be with Ducky alone. When Ducky is with her mom, the Diaper Diva, she tends to cling like a peach. But when she’s alone with Smartmom, she cuddles and talks and plays with Smartmom.
• Homework: Smartmom will insist that the Oh So Feisty One does her homework earlier in the evening. She is sick and tired of her waiting until after dinner to get out her books. Then she gets sleepy and asks Smartmom to wake her up at 5:30 in the morning so she can finish. Smartmom only recognizes one 5:30 per day and it’s definitely not the one in the friggin’ morning!
• Girls’ getaway: Smartmom wants to spend a few days alone with OSFO so that they can bond. OSFO has been very adolescent of late and she doesn’t confide in her mom the way she used to. That’s why Smartmom wants to take her someplace far away from Internet and cellphones, where they can reconnect and maybe even rediscover each other.
• Writer’s ‘Block’: This summer, Smartmom will definitely return to Block Island, where she has a room of her own to write. This will be her fourth year in a row at the Sea Breeze, which is a pretty wonderful place to get those fingers typing, those words flowing, those books written.
• Deadlines: Smartmom promises to get her columns to the very patient Dumb Editor on time, every time, this year. Who said New Year’s resolutions are meant to be broken?