Blog Posts by MelissaC

Being that Thanksgiving is this week I thought it would be appropriate to jot off a list of things I'm grateful for.

1) Kids and a dog who are potty trained. Really this I count as one of my greatest achievements as a mother- the fact that I got two kids ( and a dog)- to learn how to use the potty. No my dog doesn't actually sit on a toilet- but you get the gist! Having a diaper-free life - where I don't have to worry about forgetting to take one with me- and thus need to resort to using a makeshift paper towel one instead on a toddler who has just majorly pooped his pants - well it's just plain liberating.

2) Coffee. Really need I say more-it is the sweet nectar of the gods and the spring in my step- the reason I manage to drag myself out of bed every morning at the crack of 6am, to make PB&J sandwiches for my kids- and smile sweetly at them, when they spill their chocolate milk all over their uniforms, as their carpool ride honks at our front door.

3) Nutella.

So I write this blog, Married My Sugar daddy, and while I see it as a tongue n cheek chronicle of my experiences being married to a man who is 15 years older than me- if I dig a bit beneath the surface I know that our marriage wasn't an accident by any means. I'll admit it- I've had a "daddy complex" since the ripe old age of sixteen.

It's not that I didn't have a father, I did. He was a very loving dad, but having been raised the son of two Holocaust survivors, who I surmise, based on the few sketchy details he's shared from his childhood, had their own emotional demons to wrestle with and had a difficult time demonstrating their love for him.

And so, when my father had my siblings and me, I think he was emotionally ill-equipped to let us get close to him. I don't think he was even consciously aware of his emotional distance from us- I believe that it was his normal. His way of expressing love was providing us with food clothing and shelter- just as his parents had with

As a full fledged member of the tribe- and a yeshiva graduate (okay I dropped out after 10 th grade for the mean streets of public high school- but still feel I logged in plenty of quality Jewish learning during those formative ten years) in my opinion Chanukah is by far one of the best Jewish holidays.

For one, there's no dwelling on suffering…you don't need to fast, atone for your sins or spend all day in synagogue praying to g-d to shine his mercy on you. NAH- this holiday is all about getting your party on; gorging on greasy fried foods like latkes, aka potato pancakes, and sufganiyot, aka jelly donuts. And then there is the present factor. Unlike our Christian friends- we get eight nights of presents.

Still growing up all I really wanted was to slip into a window display at Macy's and embrace the pimped out Christmas tree, and rosy-cheeked electronic Santa as my own, drink a punchbowl full of eggnog and of course go caroling. Hanukkah just didn't hold that same

Once the bloom is off the rose, some (OK, most) relationships enter the lukewarm zone. He wants sex. You would rather watch Desperate Housewives. You love gabbing about that bitchy girl at work. He would rather watch sports. So... are men and women really compatible? More importantly, is happiness possible with a man?

I remember being a child, going to the diner with my parents every Sunday morning for brunch and looking at the couples around us, sitting across from each other, not speaking a word to one another, waiting impatiently for their food to be served. Even at 8 years old, I swore to myself -- when I got married, my husband and I would never run out of things to say and never sit across from one another. We'd sit on the same side all cozied up.We'd be one of those forever married couples who fifty years in, would still be gazing into one another's eyes longingly, feeling that romantic fire in our bellies, gently caressing the other's arm while puttering around the kitchen

Forget about my kids -- I'm the one having major growing pains. After accidentally clicking on a folder on my computer which contained pictures of my 8-year-old daughter as a cherubic toddler scampering about, I found myself overwhelmed with sadness. OK, I was weeping uncontrollably for a solid five minutes as I clicked through a dozen or so files, charting her progression from baby to now self-possessed almost tweenager.

I am not one of those overly sentimental parents-I can't recall her first step, her first bite of solid food, or the first time she said mama. Of course, I can vividly recount her first temper tantrum. We were at a Carvel store and feeling frustrated at not being able to lick the ice cream fast enough to keep it from melting she took her sugar cone and threw it in on the ground.

She's a feisty, hot-tempered redhead, who surprises me everyday with her determination and unwillingness to succumb to a situation she can't solve; who has my whole heart and whose red-hair

I always thought once a became a mom, that my kids would always, unequivocally be my first priority. But you know what they say about the best laid plans...and as I've been taking on more writing assignments, which I love, my kids and their needs have taken a bit of a back seat.

No, it's not that I completely ignore them in favor of work and I think that fact that most of my work is done at home, at least gives us an opportunity to see each other. For instance right now, my son is attempting to engage me in a game of pass the ball around while I type this (mainly throwing it in my face) and still, he's not getting my undivided attention-hence his need to aim his ball right at my nose. But I'm a lot better off than other moms, who work outside the home 12 hours a day- and don't have the luxury of having a ball aimed at their nose, or having their five year old sitting on their lap while they type.

I try to balance working with being a mom- but always feel like I'm coming up

After 11 years of being a full-fledged member of this institution we call marriage, I can say with total and complete certainty that at this point I'm fairly convinced my husband could care less about whether or not I can fit into a pair of skinny jeans. In fact, 95 percent of the time, if I walked around draped in a potato sack, it wouldn't illicit much of a reaction from him. As I write this, I'm not quite sure whether the fact that the shape of my body has no bearing on him is actually a good thing. Is it that he loves every last inch of me or it that he's just quietly resigned himself to living with a wife who has no interest in doing stomach crunches?

Of course, when we initially met, as we rollerbladed in NYC's Central Park, me in my Daisy Dukes - hair perfectly coiffed and my face decked in full-on eyeshadow and shimmery lip gloss, he told me shortly thereafter that although he was enamored with my skill on blades, my jean shorts, may have fueled his lustful gaze.

But

When I was a wee, nubile 23-year-old writer living in the big bad, very expensive city of Manhattan where rent is the equivalent of a vacation to a tropical paradise and I subsisted on Ramen noodles for two out of my three daily meals, I definitely made a conscious decision to date guys that had stability, a.k.a. a good job.

Of course, most of the 23-year-old guys I knew were like me --struggling and unsure of their career path. In fact, most could often be found on a weekend playing touch football or, let's face it, getting high, rather than looking at the help wanted ads. But I guess that's what our 20s are meant to be -- a time of self-exploration, dipping our pinky toes into different career fields, drinking martinis on weeknights and engaging in casual relationships with Mr. Right Now.

By 22, after having attended college in Manhattan and having done the "dating thing" since the ripe old age of 18, I was very much channeling Charlotte from Sex in the City, sitting in a