crossposted from BlogHer

I stared at the phone in my hand. My sister had texted me two words: MIDLIFE CRISIS. Because I sent her a pic of a convertible I saw while driving home with my seven-year-old daughter. But I bought one, anyway.

A Brief History of Responsible Automobiles

My parents always bought cars with cash. I don't know if they still do, but when we were growing up there were never debts like car payments floating around. Never. I was fortunate enough to drive not one but two used manual-shift Chevy Novas during high school, and when I went off to college, my parents surprised me with a used but still I thought white-hot burgandy Ford Probe. Its doors were tank-like, and it had those headlights that flip up and the seatbelts that move over you instead of you having to buckle them. (If you're under the age of 30, you probably have no idea such a thing used to exist. It did, and it was so awesomely Star Wars I can't even begin to describe it.)

I kept Peg the Probe from 1992 until 1998, when she sadly began a rapid deterioration into Things Were Falling Off Every Day. My father let me buy his car, Priscilla the Prizm, off him for $4,000. At the time, I had this sort of money in my savings account (the young, houseless and childless can be rich) and off I went to move to Kansas City in Priscilla.

In 2005, Priscilla and I were T-boned on a busy street by a SUV that was much bigger than we were. I was pretty distraught, because her axle was bent and JUST LIKE THAT I went from having no car payment to needing a car, stat. By this time, I was married and my husband and I had replaced his Ford Escort with a Ford Explorer, which we owned outright. We liked the Explorer so much we decided to get another one, because the one we had seemed like it would die soon, and then when that car died, we'd just replace it with something more Prizm-like. It made total and complete sense to us at the time -- gas was cheap, we had a baby and a ton of baby stuff and we made road trips up to Iowa at least once a month with all our junk in tow.

In 2008, gas prices did that thing. You remember that thing? When none of us could afford to go farther than two feet? And my husband and I owned two -- not one but TWO -- gas-sucking SUVs. We were spending $150 a week on gas. Ifreaked out and demanded we right our wrong immediately, but when we went to buy a Corolla, the used ones didn't exist. No one was letting go of a small, fuel-efficient car. So we ended up with another car payment and a very sensible, new, very basic Corolla.

Which then got hit by a tornado.

This is what it looks like when the universe is trying to tell you something.

My husband travels a lot for work and has a rental car. We still had the Explorer -- yes, the original one we thought would die. It has 190,000 miles on it, the front passenger door won't open from the outside, the air conditioning no longer works, it's rusting and the leather seats are stained and ripped. But it still runs, so we had lots of time to think about what to do.

Then, last weekend, my daughter and I were driving home when I passed a for-sale sign on a ramshackle midnight-blue Ford Mustang convertible. I stepped on the brakes and whipped the Explorer around. My daughter's eyes widened as I pulled over on the side of the road and called the number soaped across the windshield. Then we drove straight home, grabbed my husband out of the driveway and drove him to see it.

He was understandably flummoxed by my move. Me, who made him return the convertible he rented last year at BlogHer '11 because it was too impractical for all our luggage. Me, who made him give up his beloved, tricked-out Explorer for a teeny tiny Corolla. Me, who once pinned a Debt-o-Meter to the refrigerator to remind us daily of our credit card sins. What the hell was I thinking?

When Someone Almost Dies, You See Things Differently

I was thinking that we were lucky we only lost our car in that tornado. I was thinking I didn't want another car payment, and every sensible, responsible car he was showing me would mean another two- or three-year loan. I was thinking we made so many car-buying decisions in the past based on what the smart, right thing to do was in the case of any emergency, and then along came a tornado to blow up all our best-laid plans.

I was thinking about how we'd already gone through the carseat years.

I was thinking about how many years I have left to have adventures with my daughter.

I was thinking about how much time you end up spending in a car on the weekends getting your responsible adult errands done. And how much time you spend putting off little things that would be fun and not really hurt anyone even if they are a tish off the beaten path.

And I was thinking about my anxiety, and how I always try to plan for every single thing that could possibly happen, and how the older I get the more I realize I can't do anything but pray hard and row for shore. I told my husband all of this on Sunday night.

On Monday morning, he sent me a listing for a 1997 Chrysler Sebring with 71,000 miles on it that we could buy with the Corolla insurance payout, straight-up. No car payment. And the air conditioning works great.

We named her "Vicki."

I'm up again to answer a BlogHer.com Life Well Lived question. This one is pretty great.

How do you put yourself first? How does taking time for yourself help make you happier? 

I don't know what the outside perception of me putting myself first is, but I think I do it a lot. I didn't used to -- I used to do whatever I was asked to do, and then a bunch of stuff I thought I was supposed to do and then maybe at the end something I actually wanted to do. 

About five years ago, I started really examining what I could do to better manage my anxiety. I realized that excercise really helped amp down the adrenaline I can get unexpectedly and for no good reason. Now that I work from home, it's not unusual for me to turn to the jump rope or a short workout DVD or even push-ups if I start to feel my emotions spinning and I need to focus. So after spending nearly twenty years exercising for weight management, suddenly I was exercising to access some good dopamine -- which totally changed my attitude about doing it. I stopped resenting it as something I had to do and started looking forward to the feeling I'd get after working out -- something I wanted to feel, so exericise became something I wanted to do. I now look at that time as me time and putting my good feelings first.

I put a lot of time into my writing, in all its formats. I write fiction, here, and on BlogHer.com. Part of it is my job, but there's such a fuzzy line between work and play when you have a job you really love.

I love to sleep. I sleep as long as I can, whenever I can. Other moms are shocked at how late I will sleep on weekend mornings when Beloved and the little angel let me, and they often do. I make no apologies for this sleeping. It helps me rejuvinate from throwing everything at my work week, and I'm a much more fun person when I'm not tired. We've all made peace with that.

I have one child on purpose. When we first made the decision to have a small family, a lot of people got all up in our grill about it, as though not having multiple offspring was somehow selfish or cruel to our daughter. I felt really insecure about it for a long time, but now I'm as unapologetic about having an only as I am about sleeping. Our family of three is extremely loving and extremely agile, and I relish taking off for the zoo spontaneously and without anything but a wallet. I don't like chaos, and it's easier to avoid chaos without lots of kids. There, I've said it. My daughter has voiced both her love of being an only and her regret that she doesn't have brothers or sisters. I'm sure she'll vascillate on her opinion of it from day to day for the rest of her life, but she'll always know we love her unconditionally. I can't do much more: I've tried brainwashing her that my every decision is perfect, and it's not taking very well.

I don't have a dog. The little angel desperately wants a dog. But even if my mother weren't deathly terrified of all dogs, I still would not have a dog. I don't like barking or licking. Aren't I painting an awesome picture of myself? I adore other people's dogs, but like those who don't want children, I really don't want a dog that will need to be walked and have his poop picked up by me on a daily or weekly basis. It interferes with that agility I so treasure in our little family. Thus we have Petunia the cat, who cuddles and then wanders off to reorganize the library without remark when we leave town for a weekend. 

In the past, when I've thought about taking time for myself or putting myself first, I thought about things like getting a pedicure or going to the library alone. Those things are awesome, awesome, awesome, but anything can be putting yourself first if you're thinking about it that way. Every little thing you do to make your environment more comfortable for your particular needs is putting yourself first. I also think to some extent making your family more comfortable is putting yourself first, because the happier they are, probably the happier you are. Nothing makes me happier than my daughter's joy, so I really like having adventures and introducing her to new things. It might look like I'm doing something for her, but in the end, it's for me, too. I get to see the smile.

What do you do for yourself? Dr. Aymee has some tips over at Live Well Lived on BlogHer.com. Or you can skip straight to commenting to win a Kindle Fire, because I will not rest until everyone has an ereader.

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The folks at Lego reached out to tell me about their new Build Together site. It has instructions for how to build different things with standard lego sets organized by how much time you have and how much skill you have. I thought that was pretty smart, so I'm sharing it with you. I wasn't compensated for that little ditty, I just like legos.

I've always been fascinated by the little angel's skill in balancing and arranging her toys in all manner of Norman-Rockwell-meets-The-Shining scenes: super cute when she's there and super creepy when she's not.

When I got out of bed this morning, I heard the steady cadence of her voice in the next room. I looked at Beloved. "You're missing Story Hour," he said.

But I was late getting up and went down to get coffee and then we scrambled for the bus, and I forgot all about the whole thing until I went upstairs to shower and her light was on.

This is what I found.

The whole gang. She sleeps every night with almost everyone you see pictured here.

Ski Bear (slumped in the middle) is getting plastic surgery over Easter because my girl thinks he looks unhappy and wants him to smile more. SCARY!

Alexandra and Erin and their many pets.

Luv Bear, Sophie and Benjamin

Pink Kitteh and company

Tanya, who is unfortunately always in that hospital bed with tuberculosis, which killed Louis Braille.

(That was her explanation. I don't ask questions any more.)

Totally the best part.

I've been here in Austin at the first Dad 2.0 for two days now, and so far my take-away is how good my husband and I have it. Both our fathers are alive and active in our lives and our daughter's life. My husband is a world-class father and an amazing example of how to bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan. He has friends who are dads and indeed capable of talking about parenting with him, if he really wants to (I suspect they talk more about work and sports, but these guys are well-rounded awesome men married to powerful, well-rounded women). I don't know how Beloved feels about his support network, but I feel really good about it. My vision of modern fathers is one of an engaged, enlightened generation of guys who come home from work and talk to their kids about their homework or get on the floor with their babies. It's easy to forget it was just a generation or so ago that wasn't necessarily the case as a cultural norm.

What I'm learning from the men here is that they're as WTF about beer commercials as I am. They are tired of being portrayed in the media as inept cavemen incapable of diapering a baby or ignoring a hot twentysomething. 

They're trying to change the way they talk to their sons about being a man. Instead of squishing emotions, they are facing them and writing about them. They're -- along with moms, I believe -- open to recognizing just good parenting rather than good mothering or good fathering. Men and women do bring different elements to the table as we talk to our kids about puberty or heterosexual relationships, but the act of making dinner for your child or reading her a bedtime story or dropping her off at a friend's house -- no different. There's nothing gendered about most of parenting. 

Having these conversations with fathers who are also writers has been really fun for me. Writers tend to be a different breed just in general, more likely to talk about their feelings with total strangers. I'm accustomed to having these breakthrough conversations with women having been a very active member of the BlogHer community for the past six years, but prior to this conference I've only had those conversations with men outside my family and close friend group with two or three male bloggers, one of whom was in Sleep Is for the Weak. It's not lost on me the same guy who was one of the first guys to talk to me frankly, honestly, as a friend, with no weirdness, about parenting, is the same guy who co-founded Dad 2.0.

It's been a great conference, so far, and I'm excited to meet more of these guys today and tonight. I'm here with BlogHer.com editor-in-chief Stacy Morrison, as well as Polly Pagenhart and Shannon Carroll from the BlogHer conference team, and we're having a great experience. Way to go, Doug and John, and especially you, Doug, old friend and dad blogger extraordinaire. 

It's interesting -- David Wescott tweeted at me this:

@dwescott1 #dad2summit, great mombloggers are here, "rooting for" dads. would be the same if dads had a 5yr headstart?

I didn't say anything much on Twitter, but when I ran into David yesterday I said, "Well, look at Congress." And we stared at each other for a second, both sort of dismayed about that. I wasn't blaming him and he wasn't pitying me, we were both just sort of WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY is more than half the population so underrepresented in power positions in America? And WHY WHY WHY are we still acting like a penis disqualifies a man from being able to make a dentist appointment for his son?

I hope women and men as we go forward can look at parenting just as parenting and look at working just as working and recognize that all people bring something valuable to the table based on personality, not on gender. The world is changing, and I want to see it move toward true partnership between men and women instead of one-upsmanship and competition. Who's with me?

So last week, Beloved lived through a tornado. Our Corolla, unfortunately, did not. It's totalled, according to the insurance company. Still, we had plans to go to Iowa on Friday for a reunion with three of my four college roommates (the fourth lives in DC and has a new bebe), so ONWARD! we went. 

Now I'm sitting here looking at a full to-do list, a wrecked and increasingly stinky car and an upcoming business trip to Dad 2.0 on Thursday. My parents are coming down Wednesday because Beloved's job keeps him from being anywhere near our front door when the little angel gets home on the bus, and I'll be gone through Sunday. They'll leave on Saturday when Beloved can fully take over again. 

Last night the little angel had a fever, which appears to be gone now, so she went to school, and I have I hope a babysitter coming at 4:30 because I have a board meeting across town tonight. 

This is working parenthood. This is life.

Hi! I stink!

Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

I read an article on Salon this morning by a college professor regarding what she sees going on around her: kids utterly dependent on their parents, still, in college, and parents intent on following their childrens' every move via cell phone or Facebook:

College is a perfect middle ground for this age group: Students are forced to make their own choices and take responsibility for them, but help and guidance are there if they need it. What I see, though, is that the self-reliance they should be developing is thwarted by parental involvement. An academic advisor at Drexel told me the other day what she is most surprised by is how students “tolerate parental interference.” 

A few people have asked me why I set the young adult novel I'm writing in the year 1990. My truth was that a lot of the plot twists couldn't have happened if cell phones and texting existed. Kids today seem a lot more transparent than they were when I was in high school. It was possible for someone to intercept the note you wrote your best friend about the cute guy, but short of taping it to the hallway wall, there wasn't really a way to mass publicize it. And your parents found out what you were doing from gossip -- they usually didn't have cold, hard, photographic evidence.

I wonder if it's harder to separate ourselves from our kids now because we CAN keep track of them easier. We CAN give them cell phones and insist they pick up when we call in order to have such cell phones. We CAN follow them on Twitter or friend them on Facebook or what have you. We're told we SHOULD at least be aware of what they're doing online -- I worry for me, though, will that be the gateway drug to stalking my kid? 

One of the hardest moments for me as a parent so far was the first day my daughter went on a field trip with her daycare to an amusement park. She was riding up there with another parent, a parent I didn't know. And it was AN AMUSEMENT PARK. On a very, very hot day -- I think it was more than 100 degrees that day. I worried she would get too hot, get dehydrated, get kidnapped, fall out of a roller coaster -- there were at least three thousand things I worried that day. I could've volunteered to chaperone that field trip, but I forced myself not to because it would just feed my need for control. 

Of course my girl arrived home sweaty, slightly sunburned and full of stories of adventure, high speeds and junk food.

It was so hard to not know.

If I have that much trouble with a field trip, I know I'm going to be a trainwreck the first time she leaves home without me. If I thought I could track her movements with GPS, I probably would. But that's the point of the whole Salon article -- there's a reason kids move out of the house when they're old enough, and it's this: They need to have their own lives.

I'm sure if my parents could've tracked me better in college, I would've behaved worse, not better. With them to rebel against, I probably would've rebelled. As it stood, I barely missed a class and got straight As, because I knew there was no one to make me do my homework and I saw kids around me failing out of college right and left because they couldn't discipline themselves. 

I better bookmark this post and make myself read it every night when my girl goes to college, because I'm sure I'll have accidentally left a GPS chip in her luggage.

Oy.

Over the past week, I engaged in a two-state, five-store quest for a pair of jeans that fit. I tried on more than fifty pairs of jeans. In front of my seven-year-old daughter, who assured me over the course of two stores that I really didn't look right in skinny jeans. Because I'm not necessarily skinny. She wasn't being mean, she was being honest, and she was actually right. I wear the fact I didn't burst out crying when she said this as a badge of honor and body acceptance. Also the fact I didn't burst out crying when subjected to high-mounted fluorescents and knees that have fallen two inches from where they were on my body in 2009.

I'm cheap and I don't like to pay more than $30 for a pair of jeans, but my booty desires a fit I've found only in more high-end brands. Hence, I do all my jeans shopping in discount stores like Gordman's, T.J. Maxx, Marshall's and the like. My body refuses to conform to the standard jeans model, whom I'm convinced now is seven feet tall and has no gradual curve between the top of her hip and the bottom. I used to think the basketball hoop formed by thirty yards of excess material directly above my ass was due to the high-waisted jeans of the late eighties and early nineties. Now with jeans more low-rise all the time, I'm flummoxed. Surely I'm not the only woman on earth in possession of a bowling ball ass? That is what weighted lunges to you! And weighted lunges are all the rage, right? Am I practicing outdated exercise? Have we moved on to ballet football?

In every store, I would select between 8-12 pairs of jeans and sit the little angel on the little stool. She would begin to critique the fit before I got them on, in most cases. To her credit, she wasn't critiquing my body -- just the fit. "Those pockets don't sit flat, Mommy," she'd say. Or maybe "I can see your underwear."

She actually is an astute shopper. It's all about the fit, ladies. Anyone can look good if the fit is right.

I left the state of Nebraska on Monday empty-handed. Last night, I challenged Missouri and its larger T.J. Maxx to the test.

The little angel and I walked into the dressing room with eight pairs of jeans. I'd since abandoned skinny and was horrified by "flare" (Little Angel: That is like a foot and a half of material across, Mommy") so basically all that was left for a 38-year-old woman is boot-cut. I got three pairs to lay flat over my unusual butt and not cause a muffin-top. However, two out of the three pairs are about five inches too long.

My inner monologue upon discovering this:

1. I'm 5'6" and wear a size 8. I've always thought I was pretty average. Size 8s sell out really fast. Are size 8 women really seven feet tall now? Or are all the kids wearing five-inch heels to school with their jeans? 
2. Did I miss a chapter? Why am I needing to have jeans hemmed now like when I was nine years old?

HOWEVER. I was so excited the jeans fit my hips and thighs I resolved to find a tailor ASAP so I can donate the four pairs of jeans I bought in 2007 and have worn every week since then in rotation that now are so stretched-out, faded and unflattering I feel like I'm setting a new standard for mom-who-has-given-up every time I wear them.

When I was checking out last night at T.J. Maxx, the teenager who rang me up mentioned her mom wears a size 8, too. Thanks, kid. Is she seven feet tall?

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Read my review of Kim Purcell's young adult novel Trafficked on Surrender, Dorothy: Reviews!

Late yesterday afternoon, I wrote a reaction to a recent Rolling Stone article about a school district that enacted a policy unofficially called the "No Homo Promo." It was meant to bar teachers and administrators from discussing homosexuality at all in the schools. It resulted in teachers and administrators ignoring bullying, which led to a suicide cluster in the district.

Here's an excerpt:

More than anything, kids need to know they are lovable and that they can trust the adults in charge of their lives to look out for their best interests. They are deserving of respect and the protection of adults just by existing. They don't have to do anything to earn it. It is their right as children to be protected until they are old enough to protect themselves. We as a society agree on that -- we have adifferent court system for kids, we have laws about sex and abuse and child labor. We as a society agree children are different than adults.

It's long, but if you're interested, read the rest on BlogHer!

I've been including poems with my holiday cards since I was 21 and I sent out Christmas pieces of paper instead of Christmas cards because I was too broke to buy cards. I'm 37 now, so that means I've sent out 16 holiday poems.

And this year, I didn't.

This year, I was working on revisions on my novel and all my creative energy went to that. This year, I sat down at least three times and the words wouldn't come. This year, I wondered if maybe that well had dried up, if I'd said everything there was to say about the holidays and family and goodness and light.

There were a few complaints. And I felt guilty. I'm really pleased people liked them enough to be sad when they ended ... but not enough to try to force something that just wouldn't come. I was telling Beloved about this problem when the little angel piped up that she would be happy to write one. Since I've already sent out my holiday greetings, this year, here are the poems she wrote. I think I'm passing the torch. From now on, there's a new sheriff in town.

Happy holidays to you from the Arens bards!

Snow

Nose

Only

Wow!

Man

Awesome

Nice

Sliding

Lightning-fast

Exciting

Daring

Christ

Holiday

Rejoice

Israel

Stocking

Tinsel

Mary

Angel

Santa

Dreidl

Exciting

Cradle

Elves

Mistletoe

Berries

Embark

Remember