Dear_Sis@the_end_of_my_day.calm©
Two sisters and their friends, share the joys of Larchmont motherhood through E-mail.

by Val Estabrook

Date: 4/5/03
To: Dear Sis Readers
From: Val
Subject: Larchmont Responds!

Asked for response and I got it! Larchmont moms e-mailing Dear Sis every week. One thing overwhelming clear…we are all in the same boat….and it IS sinking. Never fear. We never hit the high water mark at the same time….there’s safety in numbers…this too shall pass…laugh and the whole world…please stop me, please…so sorry. You say it best. Here is a sampling of e-mails received over past 6 months. Reveal wonderful insights to parenting. Check it out…

To: Val
From: Jackie
Subject: I’m supposed to miss this?

Dear Sis looks great, and is so funny and painfully true (read entire e-mail “All this pain may be over far too quickly’), but there are some things that cannot be over soon enough. For example…

I was away last weekend. The girls and Dave fended for themselves. Apparently, I must have hidden the recycling bin, dishwasher and garbage can before I left, and no one in my family had found them before I got home. For some reason the food that I had laboriously and lovingly prepared had NOT been eaten. I have no idea what they actually did eat while I was gone, but whatever it was required a lot of dishes.

Tina decided to redecorate her room while I was gone. She created a ‘Traffic Safety’ theme, represented by several filthy but still fluorescent orange traffic cones that she and her sister purloined from a construction site at the end of our block in a burst of vandalism (temporary, I hope.) I will not miss these painful memories. I promise. XXXXXXXXOOOOOOOO

To: Val
From: Kim
Subject: Are we laughing enough?

We LOVED your column…we felt like we were there in your kitchen of men (read entire e-mail 'Eng'). I’ll have to send you some thoughts from a female dominated kitchen…Dennis is gone to work by 6:30am. So there’s lots and lots of chit chat around our table! I’m also working hard to introduce more laughter around the house. My mother-in-law tells me I don’t laugh enough….says children laugh 455 times a day. Adults laugh just 15 times daily. Today I kept a tally:

2am…Rose has the croup and can’t breathe and I’m holding her close to a steaming shower. I’m smiling on the outside but scared to death inside. Then she starts laughing! Her face is all wet and she thinks it’s funny. I don’t.

Laugh Tally: Rose 6, Mom 0

9am…(read entire e-mail ‘Are we laughing enough?’)

To: Val, Kim & Ann
From: Barbara
Subject: Remind me to never throw a New Year’s Party

Your Santa story was very funny (read entire e-mail "Is there really a Santa Claus?")…and all true! I’ve not really stopped to think about it, but when I do….whew….it is amazing to reflect upon the hell we go through in bringing holiday joy to our families! I’ve got a whopper of a New Year’s story to share with you…re-heat that skim latte and listen to this:

Among the many inane New Year’s celebrations in my life, the most recent ranks among the truly ridiculous; an evening that makes the accompanying ritual of a ‘New Year’s resolution’ a myth…a worthy tradition wasted on me, a woman who obviously cannot learn from her past debacles because she cannot remember her own name let alone a pledge made only a year ago to never again, in this or any other lifetime, throw a New Year’s Eve party. But I digress… (read entire e-mail A Pretend New Year's Party).

To: Val
From: Judy
Subject: New Year’s

Forgot to mention…I liked your piece on “A Pretend New Year’s Party”. I just finished eating my last little hot dog – leftover from the plate (served with Grey Poupon, of course) brought over by one of my guests. Our New Year tradition is to have a few couples over for an evening of eating. We stretch dinner out from 8pm to 1am, moving back and forth from dining room to living room so we don’t fall asleep. (food for thought).

Judy, your Larchmont Gazette Publisher

To: Val
From: Pia
Subject: I feel better now. I’m not the only one to send holiday cards in March!

Hey. Loved the flood story (read entire e-mail "Don't you just love it when your house floods"). I think it reads well. I think moms will identify. I just took an order for New Year’s Cards from a client yesterday, January 12, and she asked if I thought it was too late to send out holiday cards. I said, “It’s never to late.” Words to live by.

Pia

To: Val
From: Janet
Subject: Enjoying Dear Sis Column

I meant to tell you yesterday that I had read your piece “Eng!” Forget about shorthand, when you talk to kids you need interpretive language skills! I’ll be giving you a ring in a couple of years for advice about James and the college nightmare. Sounds like you guys are doing a great job. (read entire e-mail “What were your verbal and math scores?”)

Love, Janet

To: Val
From: md
Subject: one six year old with the flu

One six year old with the flu, average fever 103 for 6 days. One bored 8 year old, stuck in the house because of sick brother and snow bound. One 4 year old, stuck in the house because of sick brother and snow bound. Now 6 year old is on the mend and 4 year old has 102.

When does school start again?…Glad we didn’t plan a trip south, though. Nothing worse than being sick and not being in you own bed.

Always enjoy eavesdropping (or maybe its “e-dropping”) on your lives (read entire e-mail “Snow..the good, the bad & the snuggly”). Thanks. md

Many thanks for your support and continued good reading! Keep sending those E-mails to Dear Sis cause they keep me going. Just click on this blue link: val@larchmontgazette.com for an easy e-mail form addressed to me.
XO Val

Val and Kim Illustrations by Larchmont artist Sue Girardi. "Ann" courtesy of Snobhollow.net "Barbara" from : www.acn.net.au/ebusiness/ manual/chapter6.htm

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