We could be heroes -- just for one day.

I have a friend whose stock response any time I start raving about a new TV show is something along the lines of, "no matter how great it is -- it's just TV." And so, I hesitate to rave. About a TV show. But, I can't help myself.

But first, a disclaimer, which is that I once was one of those parents who feels like TV and popular culture are toxic elements from which we must shield our children all costs. I didn't let Caleb watch anything until he was five. Not even those screens at the gas pumps. Seriously. I blocked them with my body.

And then he turned five and became the World's Biggest Consumer of Inappropriate Multi-Media Content on the Planet. I blame it all on Sudbury Valley. I mean, it's kind of hypocritical to tell your kid that he can make his own decisions for the eight hours a day that he's at school and then turn around and monitor everything he does at home. Certain things are off limits simply because I don't want them in my home: Saw, Hostel, movies of that ilk. But everything else is fair game.

So, Caleb's Great Aunt felt that he was heading down a bad road with the After Dark Horror Fest and Masters of Horror kick he's been on this past summer, and she went onto Amazon and got him "Heroes, Season 1" on DVD. And we started watching it together a few weeks ago.

Can I just say, I was hooked after the first episode? And so was he. There was just enough gore (Sylar the serial killer cutting people's skulls open) to appeal to him and just enough touchy-feely, human relationship drama to suck me in.

We have this ritual. After Eden falls asleep, I'll get up and get Caleb and we'll sit in my bed and watch a Heroes episode on my laptop. If it's been a rough night and Eden's had trouble getting to sleep, or if we get a late start, then he'll wake up early the next morning and get me so we can watch before Eden wakes up.

If you know the show, I don't want to bore you with a cast of characters. But, if you don't, just know that they fall into predictable TV/movie stereotypes. Two brothers, one the altruist, the other an ambitious politician. The cheerleader. The artist. The doctor. The cop. The geeky guy who loves sci-fi and superheroes.

But at the heart of everything is the idea of family. And love. Between parents and children. Husbands and wives. Friends.

It's just TV. But I still cried shamelessly during the season finale. Is it so wrong to wish that love could really conquer all?

On the job.

I answered three Craigslist ads one night last week. I had a couple of drinks beforehand to ease the anxiety that overwhelms me every time I start thinking about the fact that very, very soon the survival of my little household is going to be balanced on my atrophied and insecure shoulders.

My biggest problem with the entire process of looking for work is what I call the Goldilocks Syndrome. I'm either overqualified -- the job is obviously for a recent college graduate who splits a $2000 a month rent with 6 room-mates and will happily write just to see her name in print. Or, I'm underqualified -- they're looking for someone who's comfortable managing a crack team of highly-volatile creative personalities while simultaneously tracking seven projects across four corporate silos and doesn't mind job-related travel.

Much to my surprise, I heard back from one of the companies today. It's for news/content writers. Salary is breathtakingly low: $30k for full-time. But, they're also hiring for "part-time, telecommuting" positions. Which I figured could fill the gaps while I was waiting for The Health Guy to become financially viable. Because, if he doesn't, I may have to hurl myself off the top of the Prudential Center -- nice view, two drink minimum at the Top of the Hub!

In addition to the shockingly low pay, it doesn't sound like writers at this company spend much time tweeting or updating their Facebook status. According to Mr. Editor:

"Full-time staff are eventually tasked with producing over 20 stories daily (normally 200 words each."

Please, don't let him find out that I have recently agonized for an entire workday over two 600 word pieces!

They're conducting interviews the week of September 14th. I'm going to go in. Because it's been awhile since I've had to go through that process. And, I'd rather blow an interview here than for some as-yet-to-be-applied-for dream job.

The law of claw and fang.

Caleb had a friend over on Saturday. I'd promised to take them to the pool club. I was racing all morning, it being my day to pick up the milk for the co-op and for some reason, that always leaves me stressed-out and frantic.

Anyway, it took me about half an hour after Friend arrived to get all of the pool things packed, plus snacks, books, etc. By the time I was ready, I'd already confiscated all shooting toys, banished the boys to the 4th floor, and threatened to take Friend home -- at least twice. In fact, I was so irritated by Friend's blatant disregard of my simple requests, e.g. "Please don't shoot Eden in the face with the rocket launcher," that I'd made up my mind that once we left the pool, I was taking him straight home.

So, the pool. Boys swim for 15 minutes and then Friend says, "Uhm, we're really bored and we want to go home now, back to the house." So I say, "When we leave here, I'm bringing you home." I'd say they spent about an hour pestering me to change my mind, but I wasn't budging.

And then, my friend showed up. I haven't seen her for weeks, it seems. Or, I have seen her, but haven't really had a chance to talk in weeks. So she sat down and Caleb came over to see if we could leave, and she says, "I want to talk to your mom, so, go away." She can say things like that and still come off as completely warm and loving. But Caleb was doing his Human Velcro thing and finally, we both just told him he had to leave or ____. (insert threatening punishment here. For the life of me, I can't even remember what it was.)

My friend has been having some dog issues of late, and she told me that she'd taken her Cesar Milan books off the shelf for a quick perusal and that she thought maybe it would do me some good to assert some dominance over my pack. This isn't exactly anything new, believe me. Things have gone from bad to worse at our house. The kids tell me to shut up. Kick me. Hit me. Yell at me. Call me stupid and fat. And all of that can transpire before we've been awake for more than an hour.

But see, the problem with divorce is that it throws everything up in the air. What would have been totally, completely, hands-down UNACCEPTABLE becomes, well, tolerable, when seen through the lens of "the kids are having a hard time and this is part of their coping mechanism." And, you know, I was fine with that. I endured. I withstood. I understood. But, over the past few weeks, I've found myself thinking, "when does it end?" When is it ok to say, "You're in pain. I see. I know. I get it. But that doesn't give you the right to hurt me, or anyone else in this family, physically or otherwise?"

A mother dog bites her pups when they get out of line. A pack leader pins them on their backs. All I do is take away laptop time or make them leave the room.

Until tonight.

Tonight, I'd had it. Dinner was over. We called Ellen to make sure she hadn't been felled by the intestinal virus that's plagued our house over the last week. And within 2 minutes of my being on the phone, Eden was sobbing that Caleb had kicked her in the stomach. I hung up. I asked to hear both sides of the story. It turns out that Eden punched Caleb first. A lot of verbal taunting had precipitated the punch.

But the bottom line was that I couldn't be on the phone for even five minutes without the two of them hurting each other. And I'm sick of that. I'm sick of them hurting each other. I don't know what I've done as a parent to make them think that it's ok to physically harm one another.

I was just done. I told them they were going upstairs to their rooms and they would have to put themselves to bed tonight. No me lying down with them. No Caleb sleeping in my bed. No me waking up whenever Eden calls me and going to lie down with her.

Eden was fine. She went up and brushed her teeth and got her pajamas on and climbed into bed -- with about 2 million stuffed animals.

Caleb, on the other hand, absolutely lost it. Like, Exorcist lost it. He didn't actually vomit, which surprised me, but he spent a lot of time gagging over the toilet. And screaming. And threatening to punch through the glass shower door. And clinging to me while wailing, "help me, help me, help me, mama, I love you I need you I love you I need you....I'm scared. I'm scared. I can't do this." I've never seen him like this. Ever.

I felt like the worse mother in the world. Because I just felt numb. My heart was NOT breaking. My little boy was being torn apart and I felt numb. And I know that he'll remember this night, the way I remember specific times in my childhood when I felt unheard and unloved and abandoned.

I just kept telling myself -- still keep telling myself, even as I type this -- that I have to do this because I love him. Because our family can't keep going like this. I know we all have things that we're angry about. And we're all in pain. But, I have to lay down the law. Certain things are unacceptable. We all have the right to live without fear of being hurt.

Both of them are asleep right now. In their own beds. I sat in the hallway with my laptop, as a compromise. At 9:00, I tucked Eden in and told her I loved her. She was asleep in seconds. I kissed Caleb and told him he could wake me up if he woke up in the night and was scared.

There's a South Park episode where Cartman's mom is at her wit's end and seeks professional help in dealing with her son. He manages to foil the attempts of two reality TV Nanny pros, and his mom ends up calling in Cesar Milan. Within a few weeks, Cesar's three-point plan of "exercise, discipline, and affection" have transformed Cartman into a model kid. It's hilarious. Cesar flicking Cartman into submission on the floor and using Kentucky Fried Chicken as a learning tool.

But, at the end of the episode, Cartman's mom realizes that Cesar doesn't want to be her "friend," and you see the actual dynamic that had created the monster than Cartman was. She made him that way, because there was nothing else in her life and she needed him to need her.

When I saw that episode last week, I found myself wondering, "Have I done that to Caleb?" When there was nothing else for me to love and be loved by, did I hold on to him too tightly?

I'm afraid that none of us will sleep well tonight.

Sunday night blues

Seems like every time the kids come home from a weekend away from me, we have to go through a brutal transition. Most of the time, it starts with Eden. She has a meltdown, which sets Caleb off, because it's loud and stressful, and when I get mad I sometimes direct some of my anger at him -- unfairly. But when they get home, he's like a puppy, always underfoot because he's missed me and doesn't want me out of his sight.

Tonight, the first thing Eden did was tell me that she'd had a nightmare this morning, that she was in a store, with Caleb and her dad, and she could see me sitting in the car, waiting. And that all of a sudden, I just drove away, and she knew that I was never coming back. She said she cried so hard in the dream, that it woke her up, and she was crying real tears.

Of course, I told her that I would never leave her like that, never.

I'm not exactly sure what set her off tonight. She wanted her soccer ball from the closet, and told me that she'd decided that she wanted to wait until she was eight to play soccer and was going to do belly dancing instead this fall. And then Caleb made some face at her, and she threw the ball at him. So, I told her that if she used it as a weapon, I was going to have to put it away. And, that was that. She was mad that I threatened to take the ball away. She was mad that I told her she needed to sit and have her ice cream before we went upstairs. She was mad that it was bedtime. She threw the soccer ball at me.

I wish I could say that I have found a way to stay calm throughout these emotional firestorms, but that would be a lie. Even if I give an outward appearance of calm, I'm generally seething inside.

But tonight, for some reason, I just didn't feel angry. I put the soccer ball in the pantry and started getting us ready to go up for bed. She went through her usual "go away/come back," PushMe PullYou routine, and I just kind of went along with it, but always moving us toward bedtime and upstairs.

At one point, she was collapsed in a heap at the bottom of the spiral staircase, sobbing. I went down to her. She was still arguing about the soccer ball and telling me to call her dad because she didn't want to be here with me.

It's heartbreaking when she's like this. She's furious. And she's sad. And it makes me feel helpless. So tonight I said to her, "Eden I know you're sad and angry."
To which she spat out, "How do you know what my feelings are?"
And I said, "Do you think I've never been sad or mad?"
And then I stopped and got down on my knees in front of her and said, "You're right, Eden, I don't know how you feel. I've never been a five year old girl whose mom and dad got a divorce. I don't know what that's like or how much it hurts or how scary it is."

And it was like a dam burst. She just cried and cried, and she let me scoop her up and hold her in my lap. We went upstairs and watched a SpongeBob episode and brushed teeth and went to bed.

Lying in the dark, the three of us in my bed, the kids talked, back and forth. Caleb said, "Papa says that there's no way a kid can love his parent more than the parent loves him." And I said, "That's true. I love you more than anything in the world." So Eden says, "Who do you love second?"
"Ellen," I said.
"And then Gran and Grandpop?" she asks.
"Yes."
"And then your friends?"
"Yes."
"And then Papa?"

I wasn't really sure how to answer that and Caleb immediately clued in to my hesitation. I think I made a decent recovery by saying something along the lines of the fact that I cared about their dad because I knew how important he was to them.

I'm in the dark here. Stumbling along, hoping against hope that I don't do or say the wrong thing. Trying to rid my heart of anger and disappointment so we can all move on.

Hold onto me

A friend of mine informed me that blogs about kids and food are boring. Seeing as how I don't really know enough about anything else to warrant writing about it every day, I have to admit, I'm at a bit of a loss. But, I'll do my best.

I've been catching up on Weeds with a pile of Netflix discs from Season 4. Midway into disc 2, Silas hooks up with a neighbor's mom -- clearly a plot point geared at all of the 40+ female viewers. Being a premium cable show, the sex is pretty explicit. But I thought that the most compelling part of the whole scene was a four-sentence interchange between Silas and The Cougar.

They're kissing, and she's backed up against a counter in her store, and she says to him, "I have a sink in the back."
And he says, "A sink?"
"To hold onto," she says.
And he just looks right at her and says, "Hold onto me."
That kills me. And I don't know if I could say exactly why.

I fought the cod and the cod won.

So, I know I used that line for my Facebook status, but, it just fits so perfectly.

I got my first Cape Ann Fresh Catch CSF (community supported fishery) share this week. It was a fish. Duh! Complete with head and tail. Gutless, thank goodness, but still in a relatively Whole Fish state.



I don't own a good, sharp fillet knife, but I figured I would attack the fish with my favorite regular all-purpose knife and my kitchen shears.

It wasn't pretty:




but we ended up having a great dinner of fish and chips last night, thanks to Ellen and Eden!



I'm excited about being part of this inaugural CSF. I'm not sure if I'm up for 11 more weeks of filleting, but from what I'm reading from other members, there are plenty of other ways to prepare the fish. I'll have to figure that out as we go on. And next time, I'll wait until the kids are around to fillet the fish so they can see how it all works.

Beef. It's what's for dinner.

So, step two on my quest to source guilt-free food. We don't eat that much red meat, but the kids like hamburgers and shepherd's pie, so I thought I'd start with ground beef.

Here's what I've found.

U.S. Wellness Meats
If you buy in bulk, a 25-lb box of 1-lb packages costs $165.62, or $6.62 per pound. According to the website, the farmers that supply U.S. Wellness are "committed to sustainable and humane practices." I like the variety available on the site, and according to Nicole Hahn Niman, author of Righteous Porkchop," local might not be the ultimate goal when it comes to buying meat. Still, I found some options closer to home.

Wheelview Farm
This farm is located in Shelburne, MA, slightly over two hours from Boston. Their meat comes from Belted Galloway cattle that eat only fresh green grass in the summer and hay in the winter. I'm leaning toward this place because they sell ground beef in bulk orders of 100 pounds. So, it's cheaper, whether you drive out to the farm and pick up the meat yourself ($4.50/lb) or have it delivered ($5.50/lb). I've contacted some people I know to see if anyone wants to split an order with me, and it looks we have five families so far.

River Rock Farm
I can buy ground beef from River Rock Farm in Brimfield, MA at my local crunchy convenience store, City Feed for $7.50 a pound. I can also drive to the farm -- about an hour from Boston -- and get the meat for $7.25 a pound. The cattle are pastured. And visitors are welcome to come and meet them and tour the farm.

I'm looking forward to the first burger of the summer!