Parenting Woes, Whoas, and Wahs

When I'm A Parent...

2011-06-13T08:19:00.000-05:00

Remember being about twelve years old and stomping off to your bedroom, slamming the door and dramatically falling on the bed proclaiming that you will NEVER EVER do that (whatever sin your parents just committed) to your own children? Usually it was a punishment of some sort?

We'll discuss discipline at a later point. What's on today's agenda is looking at how you were parented.

Admittedly not everyone experienced idyllic childhoods. In fact, many of us had a mix of bad experiences haunting our childhood memories. Build on it, whatever "it" is. Your parenting style will be strongly influenced by how you were parented - good and bad. From horrific abuse to the dramatic proclamations of unfair treatment, we are going to use those benchmarks of what will never be allowed to happen to our own children.

While soap in the mouth isn't even a point of consideration for most people, I am to this day scarred by seeing my youngest brother choking on a flow of bubbles spewing from his mouth. No matter what bad word could possibly fall out of one of my children's mouths I can guarantee that soap was never in my response possibilities. Ever.

It seems we all have a few items that supply the "I never" list. Surprisingly you might find yourself setting that list to the side and pissing off your inner twelve year old when you ground your child for an entire week. We do that sometimes. Keep evaluating your list because as you get older you'll start to see the wisdom in some of your parent's choices - are you willing to break that promise to yourself? Sometimes it may be the best option on the table.

But these are the negative aspects, building the "I never" list, but what about the positive points? We spend so much time focusing on the negative we seem to act like there aren't any positives to be found. The truth is there are more positive points to be acknowledged and we tend to unconsciously replicate a great majority of dear ol' mom and dad's parenting styles. Put some conscious effort into listing those positive traits, what do you plan to incorporate into your own parenting?

Mom and dad aren't the only source of parenting tips from our pasts. Is there a close aunt or uncle? Maybe it's your grandparents or a long-time babysitter or your best friends parents? What memories do they instill? What did they do that you would want to recreate for your own children? Maybe you were raised with a close knot of cousins providing an endless stream of playmates. What if you don't have any siblings or your siblings live far away? Clearly having other children around is important so you should keep that in mind when you buy a house and keep an eye for children of similar age to your little bundle of joy.

Keeping that list running will make you more aware of yourself as a parent.

Parenting Plan - Religion

2011-06-08T06:25:00.000-05:00

I left the details of a parenting plan rather open ended, as well it should be, but maybe I could explain it more in depth? I figure I would dice it up a little more over time.

As a reminder, I said everyone should take time to define a parenting plan, hopefully before children arrive. Don't worry, though, if you are getting a late start it's better than never. Quite honestly, most people have a parenting plan bouncing around in their head, but never really put a label on it.

A parenting plan is the core of your parenting attitudes. To define it outloud, especially with your partner, helps bring the both of you to the same page. It's also helpful to have this defined before you're faced with discipline issues and major life decisions. This way you're not parenting off the cuff and are equipped with some intentionally set guidelines. It is very important to remember that your parenting plan is going to morph over the years. You'll find what works, doesn't work and what needs to be amended.

So what about religion?

This is really a huge issue that requires some discussion with your partner. Obviously if you two are from different religious backgrounds this will feel like the 500 pound gorilla standing in the room. How do you meld your differences? Which belief standard will dominate in child rearing? Whose church, or whatever, will you attend? Or at all?

Most people tend to match up with someone of similar religious and moral standards, but this still ought to be discussed. Even if you met at church and are both very active in its activities you may be surprised that you still have some differing opinions concerning religion and how it should intertwine with your lives.

On top of the logistical issues of how to spend holy days and attending chapel, what about the religious standards of raising your child? How are you going to dispense information concerning your beliefs? How are you going to deal with other people's beliefs?

Even for people with agnostic views, religion is going to be an issue. Other people's religious views are going to be shared with your little tyke. Other people's religious views are going to surround and even question how you raise your child. Knowing how you are going to face controversial and inflammatory statements and invasive questions will make it slightly easier when the time arises.

Remember to consider the physical aspects of your belief system (food, clothing, swearing, worship) as well as the spiritual contexts.

Then you need to consider your families. What are their beliefs? How strong are they about their belief systems? How with the various views impact your daily life? How will you handle differences of opinions? And if you dare oppose their views, how is that going to impact your relationships?

All of this is going to address some issues in your relationship with your partner, but it most definitely will impact your children. Address it and define it early on and you could avert some really ugly confrontations.

All of us have religious beliefs in some form. Defining those beliefs may even strengthen something that has been lying dormant for a long time.

Preparing The Nursery

2011-06-06T08:01:00.000-05:00

Despite the bagillion different items offered in any baby store or baby section, you truly do not need a lot. A newborn baby has very simple needs - eat, poop, sleep. If you can cover each of those items you're fine.

Unless you have severed contact with all of your family and friends, your first child will likely be provided for rather amply. In other words, DON'T BUY ANYTHING! Spend your time filling out gift registries and let us, your family, spoil your baby properly.

You are likely going to be the recipient of TONS of hand-me-downs. Babies shoot through clothing and toys so quickly they get very little wear and it is simply criminal to throw away anything. People don't know what to do with all of that stuff so they pile it up waiting for some sucker in their circle to pop out a baby. TaDa! Instant stuff! Fortunately you can return the favor.

If I were to ever suggest loading up on anything it would be a few empty tubs to house the clothing and other stuff your child has not yet reached age-wise or to dump what your baby has outgrown to pass on to someone else.

Over-Protective Momma

2011-06-01T07:13:00.000-05:00

I like to joke about first-timers and uber-over-protective parents. So do a lot of other seasoned parents. We really need to stop, it doesn't help anyone, does it? Since my own son is going to be a first-time daddy and my daughter-in-law has all of the makings of being an over-protective momma, maybe it's time for me to simmer down.

First-timers tend to be overprotective because they're still learning the boundaries of baby's abilities. When a second child comes along it's virtually impossible to focus our attention on two moving bodies in the same manner. Three or more kids? Forget it. Soon we learn that eating worms, squishing dog poop through their fingers and staying up past 8pm is annoying, frequently gross, but in the end no one is hurt. Not that I encourage any of those, but it happens.

My sister-in-law insists that talcum powder will not be used on her infant son's bottom. She's read somewhere that there might be a link between dusting our baby's tushes and asthma. While I resist the urge to giggle, I remind myself that SIL is abiding by what she feels is important. I could argue with her standards and point out the century of babies with dusted asses that never developed asthma. That even though I started my own developmental years in the smoggy environs of Los Angeles, my allergies didn't kick in until my 20's. Somehow I doubt baby powder caused it. Yet, she is doing her best to protect her child and I must respect that.

Remember a few days ago I suggested that we develop a parenting plan. It means defining your standards and they must be YOUR standards, not mine nor anyone elses, YOURS. And if that means following the advice of an article warning against baby powder or limiting fruit juice or restricting hot dogs, then so be it.

This is your child and you must raise him or her as you see fit. What you will learn, what us seasoned parents learned many years ago, is your standards will change and your parenting plan will morph. As your baby grows and more children populate your home it may be unrealistic or too expensive to hold to the standards you set in the beginning. But that is for you to learn and for me to sit quiet as you make that journey. Ultimately children survive the parenting journey taken by the adults in their world.

As a soon-to-be grandma, I want parents to be over-protective. I want them to pad every sharp corner in the house and to monitor sugar intake. It shows you care. I want my grandbaby to be healthy and strong so I must trust my son and daughter-in-law to raise their child in a safe environment and that will only happen if they are in fact, over-protective parents.

Dealing With Advice

2011-05-23T07:25:00.000-05:00

The instant you announce your pregnancy you will be inundated with advice, most of it unsolicited. I am guilty, I've done it myself, hell I'm doing it here. Do yourself a favor - ignore ALL OF IT. You will drive yourself absolutely insane giving any of that jabber a moment's thought.

It's okay to seek out advice, but even then, take it all with a grain of salt. Pick and choose what you want out of the information and leave the rest behind - including what you read here. It is simply impossible to process all of the data being thrown at you and to follow all of those different directions. Much of what is offered doesn't even begin to apply to your situation or your personality or your belief system.

I remember being stunned by the amount of advice that flew in during my first pregnancy. Something clicked in me and I almost got angry when people started in on their opinions and stories about pregnancy, delivery and infant care. Once I released myself from following all of that different advice I suddenly felt lighter. I would nod and thank people for their input and then plunder forward with a path agreed upon between me, my husband, and my medical team.

Worse yet, the same volume flooded in with my second and third pregnancies. REALLY? I think I've got it down now, you can move on.

Please give us a break - we can't help it. We remember being lost, first-time parents. It's hard and we made so many mistakes. We are trying to help you and save you even a little bit of pain. Ultimately, however, those mistakes are what made us good parents. When you learned to ride a bicycle you had to wobble and fall, sometimes a lot, before you got a good handle on keeping your balance. All of the verbal advice in the world cannot make you a good bicyclist - you have to figure it out on your own.

But advice does exist and it's here for your taking. It's easiest to take it by bits and pieces - focus on your current situation and the next stage of development barreling down on you. Find one or two sources you feel comfortable with and possibly a friend or family member you trust. Rely on their information, but even they won't be perfect. Follow what in your heart feels right.

OH! And you! Even as an inexperienced first-timer you have a pretty strong base of experiences. Once the mechanics of baby care are established - how to diaper and mix a bottle, you really can do this on your own without anyone else's input.

Trust yourself. You're going to be awesome at this.

Second Child

2011-05-19T16:24:00.001-05:00

A friend is expecting her second child. She asked me recently how to prepare her three year old daughter for the new arrival.

First, talking about a coming baby before you start showing is just too abstract for young children. A growing belly is something they can touch and can relate with. Allow them to talk to the belly and read stories or whatever they come up with for interaction.

Prepare yourself for questions, but make sure you listen to the question. Yes, the sex question is coming, but usually they are not asking about the mechanics of getting the baby in there. Sometimes something so simple as "mommy and daddy love each other very much" or "daddy gave mommy a seed" is sufficient although those open the door to some interesting interpretations. I recall a story I read several years ago - the child asked his father about where he came from so the dad went into the big sex talk and discussion about anatomy. The child took it all in and after dad was finished with his dissertation, the kid asked, "but what hospital did I come from?"

When the baby arrives encourage, but don't force, interaction. I have two younger brothers. When the first was born I was allowed to lead a parade of neighborhood friends into the room for show and tell. My mom talks about how I was a mini mother to him, fetching bottles and diapers and involving myself in his care. To this day I have a very maternal attitude toward him.

My second brother was very medically fragile. Tweedle Dee an I were hands off. No breathing on the baby, no poking sticks or toys into his playpen, and don't you dare pick him up. Eh, how BORING! We scampered off into the yard to throw rocks at each other leaving Tweedle Dum stranded in his crib with his scary machines and over-protective mother. We were never allowed to bond. The boys grew up with a strange rivalry, beating the everloving shit out of each other. I grew up and moved away. It's only as adults that I have any form of relationship with my youngest brother but honestly we don't have much to say to each other. It's a shame because he's a great person with a funny personality and of course I'm fabulous, but we have never bonded as siblings.

When my older son was born there wasn't a chance of keeping my daughter out of the action. She gleefully fetched diapers and reported on the baby's needs. Eight years later when my younger son was born, he too was a medically fragile baby but nothing as severe as my brother. Amanda and Keith were allowed into the NICU to see the baby and when he came home they got to hold him and help care for him. All three of them have wonderful relationships and I am convinced it is based on allowing them to bond at the very beginning.

As the children get older it's important to allow them to have their relationship however they define it. The more you meddle and interfere the less they'll bond properly. Let them duke it out. Now I'm not saying you should allow a bloodbath, I mean after all it took too much work to get their grumpy asses into this world you sure don't appreciate anyone taking one of them out. So yes, stop fights when they escalate, but definitely let siblings squabble the little stuff through. It's important. Trust me.

I remember long evenings lasting into the wee hours of the morning sitting on my step-sister's bed. I had snuck into her room after lights out and we talked about everything and solved all of the worlds problems. We talked and talked and talked. We certainly had a few fights along the way, but we formed our own unique sisterhood completely outside the bounds of our parents reach.

Not so long ago I discovered when Keith was little he would crawl into Amanda's bed on stormy nights. AWWWWWWWWW!!!!!! This happened under my roof when I was at home. How did I not know? I also found out they talk about ME. How dare them! Actually, YAY! My kids have their own relationship and don't need me to play intermediary - as well it should be.

Parenting Plan

2011-05-18T08:20:00.001-05:00

Do you have a parenting plan?

Most people really haven't put much thought into their parenting style and face each challenge as it comes - you know, how we live our lives? How can anyone have a plan when life is crammed with so many different variables? But here is the secret successful people would share with you - they DO have a plan, surprises are all met with the same game plan. Successful parents do the same thing - they have a plan.

A parenting plan involves a statement of your parenting style - do you see yourself as strict, easy going, focused on formal education, wanting to give a broad base of experiences? There is no correct answer to this question, it will be as individual and the people involved. It has to do with you and your partner's personalities and personal experiences. It will be based on reflections of your parents, both good and bad. It will involve your views of politics, religion and society at large.

The second part of this equation is to describe what that parenting style looks like. If you see yourself as "strict" what would that involve? Does that mean rigid rules enforced with corporal punishment or does it mean you're going to have curfews for your teenagers? (uh, yeah, let's look forward to consider what our lives will be like with teenagers underfoot) Some people think any rules at all is "strict" others think rules with wiggle room is "easy going". So say it, define it.

Some people can't define something so vague as a style or theory. Instead, pluck out parenting situations you know people struggle through (catching stuff from TV is a decent source) and describe how you would handle it - either the same or differently.

People fail to discuss these matters with their partners and most never do so BEFORE the babies arrive. If you're expecting your first baby, NOW is the time. If you have no plan set for your parenting future, at least say out loud how you see your own parenting style.

Time To Start Up Again

2011-05-17T06:41:00.000-05:00

I'm glad I didn't delete this blog as I have a new purpose for it! I'm going to be a grandma!!!!! Keith and his fiancee are expecting my first grandbaby in August. I guess it's their first child, but since this is all about me it's my first grandbaby. HOW EXCITING!

When they told me at Thanksgiving, I surprised myself by bursting into happy tears. This did not surprise my daughter, she totally predicted my reaction. I'm not so sure I like someone being able to predict my moves!

This is a new role for me even before the baby has arrived and I'm trying to keep from being an overbearing bitch while expressing my joy and concern equally. This is not for wimps! In the meantime a coworker is pregnant and complaining about her meddling mother-in-law. These are tough relationships as we walk those fine lines between not enough involvement and too much.

A blog, THIS blog, would be a great place for me to work out those difficulties as I learn the tightrope of grandmother and mother-in-law. It's also a place for me to rattle out all of that parenting advice I'm just bursting to share with my son.

I doubt I will post everyday, but I will try to do something at least once a week.

So I haven't posted in a while

2010-06-01T21:01:00.000-05:00

Sorry I have neglected this site. I'm not sure I want to continue. When I started it was easy to keep up two different blogs, but as I've started following others I barely have time to read let alone write. Sooooo.... I will eventually repost some of these entries over on my first blog, the one where I post nearly every day - A Walk Through My Little World.

Thank you for following me. I hope you will follow on my other site, but if you don't I totally understand. My writing is there is raw and fairly uncensored, the way I prefer to write. That will be offensive to some, but I make no apologies. This is who I am and it's how I am most comfortable.

Again, Thank You!

Eau De Teen Boy

2010-05-04T07:19:00.000-05:00

Last week I was informed Axe was on his wishlist. He even found samples of his preferred scent and shared them with me. His sister described it perfectly - lemon pledge. But she relented and made that his birthday gift - shampoo, deodorant, and body spray.

Oh lovely, the dreaded body spray, the death knell to noses everywhere.

I asked if she taught him how to use it. Gratefully, yes. Just two little squirts. He is aware of other boys, classmates, who over-indulge. Well, he's aware of other people's comments of boys who over-indulge in their stink products. I'm convinced boys have under-developed noses. I mean, how else could they sleep in that stench? So it only makes sense they don't know how much cologne is enough or too much. And like food, more is better. Right?

But there is a larger issue looming. WHY he wants to douse his body in lemon pledge instead of reveling in his own personal stink? This can only mean the worst thing ever - girls. My baby has finally discovered girls.

And being the ~~social slut~~ extrovert he is, I would imagine a whole harem following him around, giggling at his stupid jokes, batting their evil little over-mascara'd lashes at him, and scribbling hearts around his name on their notebooks.

I should know. I met his father when we were fourteen and had the craziest crush on his stupid ass for years. I know this road QUITE well.

Dammit.

Big THIRTEEN!

2010-05-02T08:29:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday to my baby, the youngest of my brood, Ian.

He's thirteen today.

A teenager

Today launches his teen years. And despite the "teen angst" these next few years are truly the best years to come.

He's equipped with an easy humor

Able to make friends with everyone he meets

And adores his family

He's a great, wonderful person full of possibility and a wide open future.

Make the most of it honey.

The Birth Story - May 2, 1997

2010-05-01T06:00:00.001-05:00

On Wednesday, April 30th, my coworkers threw a baby shower for me. Since it had been eight years since I last had a baby, a shower was needed. The only thing I had was a crib. I was woefully unprepared for another child. The shower was a good thing. It was needed. It was what we did for anyone having a baby, but little did they know how much I needed it.

When I came home from work on Thursday I was exhausted and not really feeling well. I was having sporadic contractions but I really wanted to sleep. We decided I would go to the hospital the first thing in the morning so my husband took the kids to his mom's house for the night. I figured they would pump me with drugs to stop the contractions like we'd done in the past. After all, my due date was another three weeks away.

Very early on Friday morning we went to the hospital and I was immediately taken to a room to get hooked up to monitors and sit around while they observed me.

My doctor was called in.

The baby was exhibiting signs of distress.

My doctor didn't mince words. She said she wasn't going to mess around with a baby in distress combined with my cardiac history. I needed a cesarean and I needed it immediately.

OH CRAP!

I didn't argue with her. She was right. I felt it in my bones. But I was terrified. I was literally shaking like I have never shook before. My whole body was trembling. How I managed to sign the papers is an absolute miracle.

Phone calls started flying out informing family and work of the impending birth. When I called the school, I said that Mary won the office pool, that stinker for her smartass bid coming so early.

Suddenly I was prepped for surgery and people were flying all over. I was rushed to the delivery room and had my arms and legs strapped down. Of course I complied, but I REALLY did not like that. The sheet went up to block my view.

My husband stayed there for the whole thing. He had studied to be an EMT and really liked the blood and guts part of his training. This was clinical curiosity on his part, getting to witness a real live surgery. Oh and being a supportive spouse and all that. Sure. I had to ask him to remove his glasses - I could see activity in the reflection. I'm not as curious.

My doctor talked about what she was doing as she proceeded, but I really didn't need to know. Just get it over with and fortunately she was quick and efficient. Evidently I have a lot of blood vessels requiring quite a bit of sautering. Again, information I didn't care to hear.

I felt pressure on my rib cage, like the doctor was resting her arm there. I found out afterwards that actually was my bladder or something vital that didn't belong there. I never really thought about the need to move parts, like your organs, out of the way, like literally outside of the body cavity.

And there was the baby, completely entwined in the umbilical cord. She carefully extracted him, continually commenting on the length of the cord - she had never seen anything like that before. It was sent to the lab to be measured, however, I always forget to ask exactly how long it was.

Let's stop for a moment here - the baby had been completely wrapped by the cord. There is absolutely NO WAY he could have been born vaginally. ZERO. We would have lost Ian and it was likely I wouldn't have survived either. My doctor saved both of our lives. I am eternally indebted to her.

As she started to pull him out I heard, "oooh your baby is so bad! He just BIT ME! I'm going to flip him over and spank him if he keeps that up!" I had to laugh.

He was officially born at 10:44 am.

Ian was rushed over to the baby table and they proceeded to do take apgars and clean him up. My husband left my side to monitor Ian's progress. He was three weeks premature and they were going to get him into the NICU ("nick U" or neonatal intensive care unit) immediately. Ian was transferred to an incubator and I remember catching only a glimpse of him as they took him out of the room.

I was cleaned up with all of my vital parts put back in place and my incision neatly stapled. ICK! I was taken to a private room, put on a morphine drip and slept for the rest of the day. Everyone got to see my baby before me so as soon as I was able to get out of bed and into a wheelchair, I was taken down to the NICU to finally meet Ian.

It's more than a little disturbing to see such a tiny baby hooked up to all of those wires, but somehow it didn't freak me out. I had already seen one of my newborns hooked up, not quite so much, but this wasn't foreign territory. He was in good hands. They were taking precautions.

Ian was diagnosed as Failure To Thrive, meaning he wasn't gaining weight properly. He was put on a feeding tube and still wasn't improving. By Sunday it was determined that he needed to see the big guns down at Children's Hospital. My gut said he just needed to be held and nursed, but they were the experts and he needs tests to make sure nothing is wrong. My OB had to give me a pep talk to get me on board with this plan.

Since this wasn't an emergency, the transport was arranged for midnight when there is less traffic. They brought his incubator into my room so I could see him off, all packed with monitors and blankets and whatever else was necessary for the twenty minute ride. I was very emotional and very alone. When they took him out I immediately called the one person I knew had experienced this pain, my mother. (and I'm tearing up as I type now) I was able to explain what was going on and then just bawled my eyes out. I can't imagine what I put my mother through, me crying and her unable to hold me on top of making her relive her own hellish memory of having a premature baby whisked out of her arms for an emergency. I had three weeks of this crap. She endured it for three years. My mother knew my pain very well.

I was released from the hospital on Tuesday and I was driven straight to Children's Hospital with a blanket bundled up and held close to my abdomen to keep my guts from falling out - seriously, post cesarean feels EXACTLY like your intestines are going to spill out on the floor at any second. I held them in place for nearly two weeks with that damn blanket. Anyways, me and my blankie hobbled out of the car and into another wheelchair so I could visit my newborn.

The staff at Children's is AWESOME. Clearly I wasn't the first mom to hobble into their institution. They were frank about Ian's progress or lack thereof. I looked around the NICU and saw all of the other babies, ones who had clearly been there for quite some time. Many were VERY sick and some were actively dying. It was a scary place to leave my baby. He was in good hands, but it was scary. And then I had to leave and go home to my other children. Every day I came back to the hospital to hold and feed my baby. At least I got to hold him. It was difficult with all of his wires and tubes, but they got him into my arms. Some moms in that room didn't get to hold their babies. I got to hold mine. He wasn't progressing like they wanted, but he was fine. I knew it.

They ran an upper GI on him. A month later I saw the bill for that little procedure, THANK GOD FOR INSURANCE because we didn't owe shit, but just for the consulting fees, not even the procedure, it was twenty THOUSAND dollars. TWO HOURS of consulting fees was TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS. Are they HIGH?

Finally it was determined that Ian was starting to thrive, just slowly and needed to be kept in the hospital for observation. They wanted him at five pounds before they would discharge him. Okay, does that have to happen at Childrens or can we move him back to his original hospital, just a couple of minutes away from my house?

HUH?

Yeah, why does he have to stay here? Can't he be observed at the other NICU? Doctors looked at each other, they scratched their heads and then they shrugged their shoulders - why not? So after ten days at Children's my baby was bundled back up, loaded onto the ambulance and taken for another ride. I spent all day, every day at the hospital until Amanda and Keith got home from school. I held Ian and rocked him. I knew from college psych the curative powers of direct human contact. My mother had been a "cuddler" in that very hospital for just that reason. Human contact.

I wished I had insisted on this earlier. It was the right move and I felt it down to my very core. I believe we call this "mother's intuition." And I've got it. Don't question it!

In a matter of days, Ian was up to his necessary five pounds and was discharged. Just days before his due date, Ian was at home.

Pregnancy Number THREE

2010-04-30T06:00:00.001-05:00

You can read about pregnancy number ONE here and you'll have to wait until June for the story of pregnancy TWO.

The summer of 1996 I had two children, seven and eight, and had given up the dream of having four kids. We had long discussed permanent solutions to not spawning more children, but it was only recently that he had agreed to be the one to step forward for the procedure. AGREED, he hadn't followed through yet. Obviously.

In September I went with my two friends, Booty and Piranha, to Cancun to celebrate our 30th birthdays. It was a grand time - four days of drinking, splashing in the ocean, getting sunburned and drinking and little more drinking. On the last day I felt a little woozy but discounted it as something I ate. I returned home still feeling woozy and bemoaning Montezuma's Revenge.

I couldn't shake the wooziness. Days later a neighbor marveled at my glowing appearance and asked if I was pregnant. NO! She apologized profusely over and over and was horribly embarrassed. The following weekend my husband left for a motorcycle rights meeting in Indianapolis and I started to notice little signs of pregnancy I remembered from the past. My fingernails become incredibly shiny and every single joint in my body pops. A lot.

Crap.

When he pulled in, I remember standing on the back porch. He called to me asking if I loved him. I responded, "do you love me???" This went back and forth several times until he finally yelled that he won a trip to Alaska. I replied, "I think I'm pregnant."

Crap.

I was at work when the doctor's office called with the test results. I had to go to the school office to take the call and with little privacy had to process the emotions that swept over me. Sitting in the nurse's office I bawled my eyes out and then called my husband to share the news.

I knew at the end of my second pregnancy that if I ever got pregnant again it would be high risk. I had hung up any hopes for more children unless we adopted. It explains a lot about my emotional reactions to the announcement - disappointment, fear, reserved excitement.

I left work for the rest of the day. After a long discussion in the car, my husband and I picked up a few items from the store and hopped around to the grandparents to make the announcement, giving each a gift bag with a pacifier.

Our parents are slow.

Each one was baffled that we showed up in the middle of the work day. They pulled out the pacifier and stared at it and we had to say the words that I was pregnant. They took the news much better than we did.

Then we pulled Amanda and Keith out of school and told them the big news. Honestly I don't remember their reactions.

I do remember my friends' reactions. Booty and Piranha laughed their asses off. What a dumbass I was, didn't I know how to prevent this?

Weeks later I received a garbled phone call from Piranha, crying. She just found out she was pregnant. Dumbass. I grabbed a pair of baby booties someone had just given me and rushed over to her house. Together we cried and laughed and plotted how to tell Booty. Booty's daughter was 12. She wanted more children but without a steady man in her life it just didn't seem likely. We had recently celebrated that our five kids were finally old enough that we didn't have to tote diaper bags everywhere and wear spit-up on our shoulders. Soon babysitters would be less necessary and we could pick up on our friend time unencumbered by children.

Not anymore.

Booty slipped into a deep depression. She was not pleased that her two drinking buddies were both knocked out of commission. She recovered just fine and our friendship is just as strong as ever, but there was a dynamic change in our friend world as she brought in new people to our circle. This is a bigger story that I will write about at another time.

My wooziness continued and it was accompanied with full body aching. Eventually I asked to change prenatal vitamins and felt a million times better. This wasn't technically a difficult pregnancy, but it wasn't easy either. This was the first time I didn't utilize a clinic and was able to see just one obstetrician. And oh buddy she didn't like my pregnancy history at all. I made her nervous. So much so that several years later when I tried to schedule a tubal ligation and received a little grief from her office staff because I hadn't had a mammogram yet, I said tell the doctor WHO is wanting it. Practically minutes later I received a call back with a little chuckling as her fervent breast health mission was sidestepped just to prevent ME from ever coming back to her with a fertilized ovum.

She sent me to a cardiologist who prescribed medication that was safer for my incubating baby than the other meds I was carrying. Both doctors flipped out hearing that I had taken that other medication before knowing I was pregnant. The child is a little off kilter these days, not in any alarming physical or mental way, but he's off - not sure if it's his weird parents, but it could be the combination of unrecommended medication and a four day drinking binge. Hard to say.

More concerning were the bouts of rapid heartbeats I was experiencing. The new medication worked very well for me - yay! But I was also having quite a bit of premature labor. Twice I rushed to the hospital for more drugs to keep my contractions at bay.

I don't remember a lot of being pregnant like I do with that first time. I was working every day and had two kids with active lives. I was busy being a mom. We made way for a new little bundle in our world and excitement built as my belly grew.

I was working at the kids' elementary school so I was monitored by both staff and students. Amazingly, I didn't have to do much explaining to the kids - they understood. Most of them had younger siblings or had other pregnant family members. And everyone had an opinion. Seasoned in this realm I kept my snide responses to myself. It was surprising to hear many of the annoying statements echoed by the students.

At the ultrasound I asked to know the sex. As everyone prepared for a boy, I made sure if that if we had a surprise I was prepared. I had heard horror stories of people having rooms painted blue only to bring home a beautiful baby girl. Fortunately that wasn't necessary.

My coworkers threw a baby shower for me and the next day I went into labor.

Come back tomorrow for the rest of the story!

Edward Scissorhands

2010-04-26T07:18:00.001-05:00

There are times your children will show you just how much you DON'T pay attention. I thought I kept on top of their activities and whoa, buddy, was I wrong.

I came home from the grocery store and started to lug the bags in through the backdoor, our typical entrance for that particular house, and I spotted a few clippings of hair. It was the familiar color of my daughter's blonde hair. Alarm bells went off in my head and I rushed inside. An immediate look at her three year old head did not show any glaring snips missing from her head, but as I got closer, yes, there it was. She had cut her bangs with a very lopsided left-hand whack, but it was hidden as she did not clip all of her bangs, a good portion fell over and hid her handiwork.

Upon questioning, she totally fessed up. What makes it worse, the deed was done the day before. Yes, I had been looking at my child a full twenty-four hours and never saw that she had cut her hair. The only give-away was the fleeting locks already hiding among the leaves and cutter on my back porch.

When had she found scissors? When did she slip outside? How long did it take her? - all questions that remain unanswered.

But I did find out WHY. Edward Scissorhands. We had watched the movie just two days prior. She was inspired. That damn, Johnny Depp, the man she would years later claim is "not too bad looking for an old dude," had influenced my child. I think maybe he owes me an apology - not that I hold any responsibility for not properly supervising my own child or securing sharp objects from my preschooler?

A more observant person would immediately see the handiwork. We needed to fix it. A friend took up the cause but it was a hard cut to repair. We ended up giving her a perm. With her quick growing hair, the perm soon grew out and was long enough to repair properly.

Curly Sue

Sex Ed

2010-04-20T19:25:00.000-05:00

WooHoo... school sent home a PARENT GUIDE for sex ed.

I get it. I understand WHY they do crap like this, but really? And it's great that they're discussing personal responsibility and maturity, but I don't want a BOOK of talking tips for my teen. I've always resented discussion guides, can't explain it but I do.

So we had a quick sex ed discussion. It went like this - don't have sex. And then I said not to touch anybody's boobies or their hoo hoos. And then I realized maybe I should cover ALL aspects and quickly added to leave boys alone too.

He burst out laughing.

Like I was joking or something. Dude, I'm serious. No boobies, no hoo hoos.

CRAP! I forgot to tell him about condoms. Well, we should be okay since his dad and step mom hand them out in Christmas stockings.

Just A Few Gray Hairs

2010-04-13T20:51:00.000-05:00

What are the things that scare you?

Me? I can't stand watching my kids ride bikes. I love riding. It's been a few decades, but I've always enjoyed it. But watching my own children??? OH HELL NO!

I was useless trying to teach them how to ride. I was a paranoid mess and their dad had to step up and take over.

All three are proficient riders despite my paranoia, not that I can really attest to it not having witnessed much riding. As you can imagine, there aren't many pictures. This one was taken as part of my nature walk a few days ago. It abruptly ended when he started the no hands stuff.

Easter Wrestling Match

2010-04-11T20:23:00.000-05:00

We had a splendid day, celebrating Easter this afternoon. The kids dashed out the back door for an egg hunt then we settled down for grilled hot dogs, real holiday food, no? Then a few Wii games of tennis and bowling - I suck by the way. A few rounds of Scattergories - Garlic, unfortunately, does not qualify for seasonings that start with J.

Keith, the usual wrestling instigator, had to leave for work, leaving Amanda and Ian to fill the void.

He thought he could pick her up

Easter Is Still In The Works

2010-04-05T06:17:00.000-05:00

It's turning out that holidays are multi-day events in my world. Celebrate here on the day of, celebrate there yet another day... or actually the other way around. Or something like that.

The kids have had their Easter with their dad and his family this weekend and I will be doing festivities next Sunday. We could have pulled everyone together last night but they would have had to leave another celebration early, and really, I'm not doing anything big, so no reason to make everyone scramble, right?

In reality I've been seriously scarred by the logistical nightmare of five Christmases in 36 hours. Several years in a row. With very small children. And all of the accompanying accoutrements necessary for any journey away from home over 30 minutes with very small children. And then lugging home all of the crap adoring grandparents gift to the spoiled brats.

I just won't be part of that equation for my own children. I want my time with them to be fun and light hearted and drama-free. Nobody should feel forced to choke down another meal after feasting just hours before somewhere else. Nor should they rush through this meal so they can flee to yet another. How maddening! How UNfun! Where are the happy memories in all of that?

Some of my most stress-free holidays with my kids were Easter with my ex's mom. With scheduling conflicts of two nurses in the family, trying to get all of the grandchildren together at the same time never happened ON Easter. She wanted all of the kids, even the big ones, under the roof at one time. She and the dearly departed "Bob-Bob" would get a ham, all of the side fixings, set up a beautiful buffet and open the house for the kids. People were everywhere. After we ate off plates perched on our laps we would gather in the yard and all of the kids under 18, including tag alongs not related to the bunch, were given a bag with their initials.

In the yard were a specific number of plastic eggs with coordinating initials. Adults had to help the littlest kids find their booty and then we retired to the livingroom to open the eggs. It was fun and easy and no demands, other than "show up."

Like I said, Easter never happened ON Easter. One year it was celebrated in the front yard IN AUGUST! Yes. August. An egg hunt. And we totally ignored the passing cars, drivers staring at us. Because it was fun.

Holidays should be fun. And memorable. They aren't about the day, but the togetherness. And that, folks, is my focus.

Happy Easter

2010-04-04T09:15:00.000-05:00

Up For The Hunt

2010-04-01T07:19:00.001-05:00

Posing With The Bunny

2010-03-31T07:28:00.000-05:00

Either I'm a bad mother or I haven't scanned all of my photographs because I cannot find one of Ian with the Easter Bunny. Actually I only have these three so maybe there are others in the photo box.

Dying The Eggs

2010-03-29T21:40:00.000-05:00

For those of you plodding along with little kids who need your help every step of the way, here is the light at the end of the tunnel. One day your children will be able to read the directions on the Pas box and make their own egg dye. They will be able to command the entire kitchen, leaving you to man the camera (and three eggs for you to color - hello, I never grew up).

This was four years ago and the last picture is totally worth a post on PhotoBomb, don't you think?

An All Star!

2010-03-28T21:08:00.000-05:00

This was Ian's third year playing floor hockey. I'm really happy he took to this sport, he has grown so much as a result of it.

His first year he thoroughly sucked and unfortunately his coach didn't do much teaching - most of the other kids had been playing for several years and were seasoned players not needing much instruction. Last year he went into the draft and landed on a different team with a coach totally dedicated to teaching the game and what a difference. Ian scored the "Most Improved" award. That pumped him up to stay with the sport and his confidence sky rocketed. Since most of the kids on this team were younger than him, Ian moved up to the next division and was recommended to join yet a different team. Again, he's landed a coach dedicated to teaching and inspiring and having fun. He moves the kids around to different positions. He also selected the newest members to be on the All Star team, including Ian!

Since this team was the youngest of the division they were SMEARED, losing every game. That said, these kids LOVE playing that losing really didn't matter. They played hard all the way up to the final buzzer.

Sewing With Kids

2010-03-25T08:01:00.000-05:00

All three of my kids have had at least a few rounds with my sewing machine. They have all attempted a thread and needle and I even taught them the basics of embroidery. The bottom line is kids are interested in what you're doing, they want to learn. Granted playing with mom in the sewing room didn't spark any talent, but they aren't foreigners to it either. Dabbling side by side with my own mother was enough that when quilting fever struck me I wasn't intimidated to sit down at the sewing machine. I'm still not a great seamstress, but I found a hobby I enjoy.

Ian wanted his own quilt. He accompanied me to the fabric store (I find it odd that all three are EXCITED when I announce I'm going to the fabric store and BEG to tag along. They want to voice their opinions on my fabric selections and meander through the other craft projects offered in the store.) So Ian picked out his colors - red, black and orange. Then he spotted a dark blue fabric with Chinese writing. He.had.to.have.it.

When we got home I showed him how to measure out and cut 4" squares and then to stitch them together. The squares were wonky and the seams wildly uneven. He lost interest about half way through, frustrated with the unevenness of the project. He tossed it up as a failed project and sulked off. I ripped apart only one or two sets and then finished it up for him. Yeah, I should have let him finish it but the despair was too great. He was certain this was a failure, I wanted to prove him wrong.

For the backing I selected sweatshirt material someone had given me several years ago. I didn't use any batting as the jersey fabric was sufficient.

He has finally outgrown the quilt as far as length, but it still gets pulled out for his bedding and he tries pretty hard to curl up under it. While I may have finished the project, this is his, he made it.

Rare Moments

2010-03-24T06:55:00.000-05:00

Siblings fight. If they don't then I need to know what you're putting in their Koolaid, because everyone I know has had a showdown or twenty thousand with their sibs. So when you catch them being nice to each other, cooperating, you either need to worry because they're up to something or grab a camera because it's not going to last very long.

This lasted about ten minutes before one taunted the other and honestly I don't know who started it and if I speculate here I'll be accused of favoritism toward the other. Sometimes the only answer is to close the door, walk away and let them fend for themselves.

Taming The Toddler

2010-03-20T21:29:00.001-05:00

Toddlers = tantrums

We're led to believe it starts at two, but really it starts much earlier. We just overlook it or mistake it for something else. By two, when they're able to really verbalize wants and needs, then we get it and understand they're just being assholes.

I was just over at Motherhood Uncensored and the poor thing is dealing with a tempermental 18 month old. My deepest sympathies. Truly.

On the morning of Amanda's 2nd birthday she woke up in a bad mood and stayed that way for a year. My happy, jubilant, carefree baby turned into a raging bitch. She screamed, cried, pouted, fought, hit, bit, ran wild and was basically horrible. That's not to say she didn't have her bad moods before turning two, oh no, she definitely did, I just didn't understand that it was foreshadowing for things to come.

Keith was moody to start off with, probably because he had a screaming, bossy, big sister always taking his toys away. It didn't help that his mom was worn out and just couldn't cuddle him like he wanted (the child was a serious cuddler).

Ian was a cranky, crying, puking newborn that by the time he turned two he was pretty much done with the screaming and transformed into a running heathen.

Sooooooo.... how do you cope? How do you tame the raging monster living inside your beautiful child?

My first piece of advice is think long and hard about when and why tantrums erupt with your child. Is there a pattern? Is there anything you can do to circumvent the meltdown before it starts? You can't make these observations and come up with strategies in the midst of a tantrum, you have to be armed going in. What is in your arsenal?

Grandmothers everywhere are tsk-tsking and will tell you the child is just tired. BAH HUM BUG!

Or maybe they're right? Of course tossing your child into a bed the moment the hissy starts is bad because you're setting yourself up for a bigger bedtime battle. But maybe it's time to re-evaluate the sleep needs of your little monster?

You should also look at yourself. What's going on with you? Are there some things that don't usually get to you except after work? Or during shopping excursions? Or when your spouse is working late? Basically, is it really YOU that is the asshole in this equation? I'm not pointing fingers because this was a huge aha moment in my own life. It was ME being the unreasonable bitch, especially in the mornings as I was trying to rush everyone out the door. I made a few simple adjustments to my morning routine and suddenly my blood pressure dropped and my kids stopped whining and crying and fussing and fighting (for the most part).

This was my comment on Motherhood Uncensored:

I swore my older two were tag teaming me. As soon as one ran out of new tricks the other stepped in. You have to stay on your toes, pull in other adults and stay creative. Yes, pick your battles, but sometimes what to pick isn't crystal clear.

Kids are screaming? Scream louder, mimic their tantrum. The WTF look on their face is totally worth it and it feels great. Next time? WHISPER (actually it's speaking really quiet). In fact, keep that whisper tactic in your back pocket, it even works with big people. Try it, it's amazing. Another time sit directly across the table with a very straight face and stare at the kid. They will get louder and louder but it will register that the screaming isn't affecting you and they shut up in like 2 seconds. Keep staring until you are sure the screaming won't start up again.

Basically, quit being predictable. I think that's a complete opposite of what all of the parenting experts say, but they're not sitting with a wailing child pissed off about the color of the floor tile. You are. Mix it up.

So, what is in your arsenal other than time-out?

Ballet of Cars

2010-03-19T07:30:00.000-05:00

Get a pad of paper, you might need to draw a few diagrams to get through this.

We were a three car family. A little over a year ago our Maxima was totaled. Instead of getting a new car, The Husband was happy for a while with his little mini van. But not for very long. He came across a $300 wreck and with a few dollars (like a lot) he fixed it up. I hated it.

Remember the cash for clunkers last summer? It was a killer deal and he saw another Maxima. A very pretty Maxima. He sacrificed his minivan for the deal and suddenly the fixer-upper sat unused.

Enter Amanda's car.

It was previously owned by my grandmother. Grandma admitted when she could no longer drive and allowed my mom to sell it to Amanda. That was nearly five years ago and it was over ten years old back then. It was in pristine condition and still smelled like my grandpa's cologne. It's no longer in pristine condition. In fact, it's on it's last leg. But it still smelled like Grandpa.

We struck a deal with Amanda to buy/take our fixer-upper and park Grandma's car.

Enter Keith's car.

He had bought it from his old girlfriend and decided he needed something new and sold it to his new girlfriend (ex and current are friends so I guess it's cool, I don't ask). He bought a van dug up by his father. Basically it's a piece of crap. He needs something else. Hey, maybe with a few dollars he can fix up Amanda's old car. He towed it to the shop and it NEVER STARTS EVER AGAIN.

Guess that sale is a dud. We decide to donate the dead car to charity. Keith is still looking for a car.

Amanda's new car needs brakes. But we swear we had brakes put on it during the summertime overhaul, so we need to get it to the shop that did the repairs. But the shop is out in the boonies and the girl with a part-time job, an internship, a full load of classes and trying to graduate in May oddly enough doesn't have any time to take care of this. Oh but wait, Keith happens to be doing a little side work for us very close to this auto shop out in the boondocks, maybe he can grab Amanda's car for the day, get it checked out and return it to her? Nope, she would be stranded without a car.

hmmmmm....

On Saturday, Amanda and I attend a planning meeting for a fundraiser (happens to be 2 weeks before she graduates, like she has time for this crap), hey follow me home, pick up our other car and we'll run this one to the shop.

Now, how to get the car back to her?

I swear a million phone messages back and forth between me, the husband, Keith, and Amanda trying to orchestrate this damn car. She came and picked it up this evening.

On top of all that, I sent The Husband out with Keith to talk to car dealers today. I know he has a strange effect with people and lo and behold he has managed to schmooze pre-approval with a legitimate dealership. Now it's just up to Keith to realize that he has a sweet deal sitting in front of him.

***I held off posting this, not wanting to jinx the deal***

MY SON IS THE PROUD OWNER OF A NEW 2010 CAR!!!!! OMG!!!

But the dance continues. The car has a recall issue and won't be ready until today. SOOOOOooooo... The Husband got the dealership to give him a loaner - a new Impala!

Moral of the story: adult-sized children and their vehicles are truly a pain in the ass! (Mom, I am sooo sorry)

Puzzle Me This

2010-03-18T10:04:00.000-05:00

Jigsaw Puzzles. Either you love them or hate them. I'm in the love group. It's something I picked up from my mom who got it from her mom and I think my great grandmother was also into puzzles. So maybe it's something genetic. I know I passed it on to my kids, well at least to Ian. Not sure if Amanda and Keith are as into them as I am, but Ian is certainly up for the challenge.

We're known for leaving a table out with a puzzle going for days. As someone walks by they add a piece. We can sit for hours hovering over the table staring at it, slowing pulling a picture together.

The challenge hits when you toss me and my mom together. It's like high stakes puzzling or something. Suddenly arms are flying across the table, hands are getting slapped, we're stealing pieces from each other, carefully guarding a set of pieces that will cluster into a significant portion of the puzzle. The fight is to be the one who puts in the last cherished piece. I think you could televise this, place bets and have a commentator. It's worthy of the Olympics.

My grandmother tried to intervene, mistakenly thinking she could play along but she only pulled back a bloody stump. My kids have tried getting in the action only to be beat down. This is serious stuff folks. And yes, it is just a stupid puzzle.

I may need a 12 step program.

So, are you into puzzles?

Family Night

2010-03-15T08:03:00.000-05:00

Do you ever have night where you just play board or card games as a family? We had a stretch where we were playing cards almost every night. If it were up to Ian we would play a game of some sort every day. It's good he likes playing, but it's a bit much at times. He begs to play Monopoly but we have to talk him out of it, it just takes too freaking long to play.

He also enjoys puzzles however we don't have a decent table set up for it. Puzzles are a huge thing between my mom and I and it's cool that Ian gets into like we do. Maybe it's time to set up a card table and get a new puzzle?

So what non-electronic amusements are found in your home?

Happy Diabetes Day

2010-03-13T07:52:00.000-06:00

Okay, this is a really long post and I realize most of you won't read it all of the way through so I'll give you the quick version first and if you're curious about the details, read on. Deal?

The bottom line is diabetes sucks ass. If you know you have it, follow your doctor's instructions. Just do it. But here's the thing, a whole lotta people are walking around with diabetes and fucked up blood sugars and don't even know it. If you are having weird symptoms that the doctor has never been able to pin point, ask to be tested for diabetes. It's a ridiculously easy blood test and for lots of reasons doctors don't think to do it. Ask. Insist.

Today is the five year anniversary of when my son, Keith, was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes - the insulin dependent type. The one that you can't control with diet and exercise. This was the single most frightening day of my life, the day unmentionable things could have happened. So, um, "happy" Diabetes Day!

******************

That nagging feeling that something is wrong. The tiny voice that screams from the darkness to persist, to keep digging despite being patted on the head and told everything is okay, even by so-called experts. The knowing something is wrong. Yes, you know if you dig far enough you're bound to find something, if you ask enough people eventually you'll find someone who agrees if only to pacify you.

But what if you're right?

There is no happy dance, no sweet vindication, no sing song "I told you so." I know because I was right, there was something wrong. It was something very very wrong and my son almost died from it. I was right and I very truly wish I wasn't.

I have long moved past guilt, but it still hurts that we didn't catch it earlier. The what-ifs will always haunt me in the quiet of night.

So here I am to stand as a warning to follow that gut instinct, especially as parents. Mother's intuition isn't reserved just for women, because my ex felt it too. Stand strong, YOU are your child's only advocate. Take that role seriously and keep digging until you have conclusive evidence showing otherwise. I scream at the simplicity of one tiny blood test that no one thought to run. When all else fails, please ask, no INSIST, that your loved one is tested for diabetes.

Diabetes? Yes. There are so many people out there with diabetes and keeping this malady at bay that we forget that it is horribly dangerous. Within a matter of hours fucked up blood sugar can literally kill you. Period.

And we never knew he had it.

The pediatrician never thought to test him for it. The gastro specialist didn't test him either before she prescribed medicine in almost placebo-esque fashion for irritable bowel. No tests, no exam, just a series of questions before issuing a diagnosis.

For ten years my son suffered upset stomachs, sudden diarrhea, vomiting and a general malaise of not feeling good. Frequently we passed it off as expert hypochondria. He did miss an amazing amount of school as he feigned illness all the damn time. He would urgently trot to the bathroom, come out looking like hell and then in hours be fine as pie. I admit to being confused - believe my child and try to shield him from pain or call him out on crying wolf. This is what held me from digging further. I wondered if he was faking it, but that morning trot wasn't made up. Could he really be THAT good at pulling the wool over my eyes? At such a young age? It just didn't seem possible. As he aged the complaints didn't change, they didn't become any more sneaky. If anything, his bouts of morning sickness became more inconvenient, holding him from activities I knew he wanted to attend. He was fourteen when I asked for a referral to a specialist, finally resolving to believe my child. That is when we were given the prescription to treat IBS.

One year later, almost to the day, we discovered IBS was not the culprit.

Keith had been sick, very flu-like sick, but without any fever. He had missed school on Thursday and Friday. On Saturday he went with his siblings to his father's house and spent the entire day on the couch watching cartoons and being pumped with Gatorade and cold-n-flu syrup (know where I'm going with this? Do you see the problem? Treating a diabetic with trumped up sugary treatments?)

On Sunday morning his father brought him back to my house as Keith didn't feel up to making the trip with the rest of the family. My ex nearly carried him into the house he was so weak. Something was wrong, little did I know just how wrong. His father and I quickly discussed the possibility of dehydration and we agreed if he got any worse I would take him to Children's Hospital, not the closer ER just down the road. He suspected something too. Our collective spidey senses were tingling.

Keith plopped down on the couch, clutching his jug of Gatorade. I returned to the computer for my regular online fun.

From here time gets garbled in my mind. What probably took just minutes played out in agonizing slow motion.

From the corner of my eye I saw Keith crawling to the bathroom. Not staggering, CRAWLING. My fifteen year old, six foot tall son was crawling to the bathroom. A weak call for my assistance came from inside, he wanted his Gatorade. I promptly slipped it in through the barely open door. A thud signaled he had dropped the jug of Gatorade. Another weak request for a change of clothes that again was slipped through the barely open door.

And then another weak request. He couldn't pull up his pants. Something is very drastically wrong if a normally shy teenaged boy asks his mom help in getting dressed. That was it, he was going to the hospital.

I made a silent agreement that if I couldn't manage to get him in the car on my own that I would call an ambulance. I did get him in the car and drove the 30 odd miles to the hospital barely inside the speed limit. God and I had a little chat along the way, mostly on my part pleading for my son to be okay. There was a calm to my frantic movements, a power beyond me that kept me calm, kept my car within the lanes, something bigger than me that delivered us to our destination.

I ran in the ER and just started talking to the first person in blue that I needed someone to help me get my 15yr old out of the car. I knew to get him on a gurney would guarantee immediate service. It took four large men to pull him out of the backseat. Somebody offered to move my car into the garage and I tossed my keys to a stranger.

From that point everything moved like a blur. He was rushed past the front desk and the official process of checking in. I never got an id tag. By the time I gave his name and basic vitals to one nurse I heard the people in the room quizzing him about the previous night ensuring they weren't dealing with alcohol or drugs. Soon they were asking if diabetes was in the family. The kid could barely speak and what he did say was severely slurred.

Like a brick they hit me with the possibility of diabetes. They rattled off numbers to me that made no sense. After two hours in ER he was admitted to Pediatric ICU at which point I received a crash course on diabetes.

The rest of Sunday and that night were spent with him getting poked every hour and trying to get him more coherent. His girlfriend spent nearly 9 hours at his side as the rest of our family filed in and out of the room. I spent the night in the room with him with very little sleep. Monday and Tuesday were spent in classes learning about diet and shots and blah blah blah blah....

I did indeed have a very sick child. He didn't have the flu, he wasn't dehydrated, he wasn't faking it. Had the doctor we visited a year earlier ran one very simple test, just one blood test, this trip to the ER and expensive stay in ICU could have been averted. There are a lot of what-ifs.

A healthy blood sugar is somewhere between 60 and 100. Diabetes is the inability of your body to maintain healthy blood sugar levels. Too low, anything below 40, the person can pass out and the organs begin to shut down. But we also have to worry about levels too high. Around 200 people usually feel a little woozy, over 300 and you ought to contact your doctor, maybe even get to the ER.

They told me at the hospital the highest they had ever seen was 750.

Keith's blood sugar that day was 1268.

He was slipping into a diabetic coma right before my eyes. His size and strength and youth are what kept him going for so long.

His diabetes may not have been caught in kindergarten when he first started clutching his gut in the bathroom, but at some point he would have tested positive. I am angry no one tested him and his pediatrician got an earful about it.

He has Type I, the sort that requires expensive daily injections and regular testing. If you don't have a diabetic in the family, you would be surprised how outrageously expensive the supplies are, particularly the test strips. It's obscene.

Keith is healthy and active and not feeling any repercussions other than carting around a little pack with his injection pens. He monitors his carb intake and adjusts his insulin accordingly. He does not suffer dietary restrictions like people have in the past due to the types of insulin and medications he takes every day.

So it wasn't so much a "happy" diabetes day, but I am ecstatic my son has a name and treatment for the beast that tormented him for so long. And he is very much alive and here.

Take care of yourself and the ones you love. Get tested. And PLEASE support the Juvenile Diabetes Association.

Time For A New Crib

2010-03-07T03:55:00.000-06:00

Most families decide to move their toddler out of the crib and into a big-kid bed when he or she manages to climb out of the crib. Right?

Well, Keith was moved out of the crib probably earlier than he was ready only because his sister had managed to climb in (and splattered herself on the ground when ready to leave resulting in a goose-egg sized bruise on her eye worthy of a DFS call).

But wasn't it sweet how she smuggled books into the crib before she broke in and then forced him into her favorite pastime?

A Letter TO The Youth Leader

2010-03-05T07:00:00.000-06:00

Dear Troop Leader/Youth Volunteer/Sports Coach,

I'm new to this group, what is expected of me? I would love to help out but you aren't very clear in what needs to be done. The jobs you are offering require huge commitments of time and I fear, experience, neither of which I possess. Isn't there something I can do that isn't so.... intense?

Your exuberant enthusiasm for this organization is not nearly as intoxicating and infectious as you had hoped. In fact, it's a little off-putting. I am glad to help, but I don't have the time to commit to four more evenings a month. Are you people meeting crazy or what?

Thank you for the invitation to be next year's cookie coordinator. Exactly what am I getting myself into? Oh there are extra meetings? and a special training? followed by more meetings? I would have appreciated knowing that up front. Maybe this is why you're not keeping parent volunteers around. And, uh, can you reign in Crazy Mary?

On a side note, it's great that you are encouraging responsibility in my kid, but can you PLEASE communicate with ME? Just give me a heads up as to what's coming down the pike. You want Junior here to show up to next week's parade? I need to know earlier than the night before. How about a calendar? A blurb on the internet? Oh, and uh, I'm divorced (new concept, I know) and the kid's father would appreciate some communication as well. He is not the devil, not a total uninvolved jackass like your ex and actually makes attempts to be involved. Send communications his way too, hell ask HIM to be the cookie-whatever-title! Thanks.

We, the parents, are just asking for a little communication. A parent packet would be nice with a calendar, expectations of my kid and of me, a list of volunteer opportunities, a contact list of the other parents... oh you don't have time to do this? I bet one of the parents could do it. Just ask.

Please remember what it was like to be new, unsure, overwhelmed and very lost.

Thank You,
Concerned Parent

A Letter From Your Youth Leader

2010-03-04T07:46:00.000-06:00

Dear Parent,

Tonight's troop meeting/youth outing/soccer practice is not one hour of free babysitting. Please do us the courtesy of at least walking your child in and making eye contact with the other adults in the room - do you even know who is entertaining your child for this hour?

Stick around and hear the details about Saturday's trip to the zoo. Don't rely on your nine year old's ability to recite the information. Isn't she the same child who can't remember to bring home her homework every night? I tried sending notes but I think they're stuck to last week's homework that you never saw. Otherwise you would have known to bring $2 for lunch and no I can't accept a personal check.

Hey, better yet, hang around and offer a helping hand! Can you at least help sweep up after our craft activity? Or maybe offer to be one of the chaperones for the trip to the zoo? I know Mary over there has an animal look in her eye, hoping to lure you into helping with the cookie committee, but stay over here, Mary is crazy. Mary has been doing this for fifteen years and her kids have long since dropped out. We don't want you to turn into Mary.

Start low and slow. Set your boundaries and say no. But DO be active. Participate in your child's world. Come and see who is influencing your kid. Be an example of responsibility and stick around to help out. Who knows, the two of you, you and your kid, might grow a new bond, one that will overcome the nastiness of the coming teen years. Maybe your kid will feel a sense of commitment and stay in the group through high school, something they can add to their college application showing what a well rounded student they are, something they can add to their job resume.

Maybe you will see your baby grow into a fabulous person worthy of your admiration. Maybe your child will see you for more than short-order cook, housekeeper, chauffeur. Maybe.

None of that can happen if you stay in your car, pushing your kid out at the curb, so can you drive off to do whatever it is you can pull in an hour.

Signed,
Your kid's troop leader, youth coordinator, sports coach

Happy 22nd Birthday To My Daughter

2010-03-02T06:35:00.000-06:00

To My Dearest Daughter,

How dare you grow up so fast! How dare you make me feel old! It's been one incredible ride, but I'm very glad back as a little cherub in your heavenly loft looking for parents here on earth you chose me as your mom.

You arrived on your own schedule

Never one to be hurried by others

Shy, but rarely quiet

Loving big sister

Cheesy

Sometimes pissy

Bossy

Silly

Cute

Smart

Dedicated friend

To the little embryo that turned my world upside down, what on earth would I do without you? You've turned into an amazing woman and for as much as I would love to claim all of the credit, so much of it is due to a large network of friends and family who love you so very much. There's also that inner spirit, something you had burning inside you long before you took your first breath, something I knew long before anyone ever met you.

I love you to your very core and am incredibly proud of you - may you always dance.

Happy Birthday!

March 2, 1988 - A Birthing Story

2010-03-01T07:27:00.000-06:00

It was leap year and I was nervous all day February 29th. I did not want my child to be born on that day. I mean it would have been cool to be only five years old this year, but then again, no it wouldn't.

Delivery was imminent, I had been experiencing bouts of false labor. A doctor's visit on March 1st, it was a Tuesday, confirmed I was in fact in labor, but the very early stages. After the doctor's visit we went shopping where I had a hissy fit and then melted into inconsolable tears - ah the joys of hormones. I managed a nap that afternoon and then had sporadic cramps, especially in my back for the rest of the evening, well actually for the rest of the time.

That night I could barely sleep and then asked to go to the hospital. UGH! I wasn't ready and they made me walk the halls at midnight. Eventually I was sent home, but I never got much sleep.

March 2nd was the women's final in figure skating (1988 Olympics). Perpetually uncomfortable, I found that a rocking chair was my only relief. I would rock like a madwoman during each contraction. They were getting close to five minutes apart, but the skating wasn't quite finished so I insisted we stayed until the end. (Ironically, I'm writing this as I watch Olympic figure skating - Thursday night)

At a military hospital I didn't have the luxury of a proper birthing room, but I did have a room to myself as I progressed through labor that afternoon. It was a blur as I progressed. By evening I lost all modesty and was seeking comfort. I was hot so I kept tossing the covers off. Since there weren't any other women in labor, I was the focus of the entire staff, including penny bets as to the time, size, weight and sex of the baby.

I was wheeled into a proper delivery room and I really don't remember much. I do recall as I was being cleaned up that the doctor complained that he had just bought his shoes and now they were ruined. oops!

My little Amanda was born just before 10:30pm, all nine pounds, five ounces of her. All of the newborn clothes we were given would only last for few weeks for she would move right into 3 month old clothing before she was a month old.

Baby Amanda was no different from fetus Amanda, just a lot louder. She was active and alert. I remember her first smile and no, it wasn't gas. She was a happy baby and as she grew she was quite capable to keep herself occupied, something that was a blessing when her brother came into the world.

With the exception of her toddler years (she sprouted horns, I swear) she was a fun, silly little girl who enjoyed reading, animals, and dressing up. She was actually a pleasant teen and she's turned into an adult not much different from the baby I knew so many years ago - happy, self content, curious, silly, fun, and loud (surprisingly loud for a shy person).

From The Beginning

2010-02-28T17:48:00.001-06:00

I always get sentimental right around my kids' birthdays, recalling the pregnancy and delivery and then all of the birthdays since. Each of the kids seem to enjoy hearing their individual stories but I've never really documented them in any meaningful manner, so I'll do it here for the whole world to see which I KNOW the kids will thoroughly appreciate.

None of my pregnancies were planned. Although the timing of each was rather inconvenient, I flat out refuse to call any of them accidents. The kids know this yet I lovingly refer to them as OOPS, OH NO, and OH SHIT. They can tell you which one they are.

Today I will highlight my first pregnancy which coincides rather neatly with the birthing story I will post tomorrow to celebrate the child born on March 2nd. You'll have to wait until May and June for the other ones. Crazy how I mapped that all out, huh?

I had just completed my junior year in college and still had more than a year of courses and student teaching to complete. I did a week of classroom observation (at my little brother's school - that was weird) and then left immediately for an extended weekend with my then boyfriend who was stationed in Florida.

It was a great little vacation (clearly). We took a day trip to St. Augustine which thrilled my history loving self. He lived with a very hospitable and friendly family in a mobile home. It was simple living in a simple world and I was very comfortable there, except the cockroaches. Uh yeah, the place was infested with them. WAY GROSS. I have huge issues with roaches and this didn't help AT ALL.

Summer school began and I didn't have so much as a clue that I was pregnant. When finally the realization struck that it was a possibility I consulted my best friend Vicki and she accompanied me to the clinic for the test. She was the shoulder I cried on when the test was positive. She asked what the response was supposed to be - I'm sorry or I'm so happy. More tears as I laughed, "Both!" I was happy, but damn, this was huge. Thank you, Vic, for being there!

Two hundred miles away from home, I made the most frightening call ever to my mom. I knocked her off her feet as her only response to everything I said was "wow." She called back a few hours later, clearly the shock had faded and she was back in the driver's seat rattling off information from the insurance company, arranging a doctor appointment at home and making sure I was okay. That simple phone call has endeared me to my mother forever. I may bitch about her, but she has my back. Thanks mom!

The call to babydaddy was even more nerve racking. He had to be called out of the field and faced a lot of heckling heading for an emergency phone call from his girlfriend - that can only mean one thing, right? And it did. He still jokes about my statement, "I'm kinda pregnant." KIND OF? Either you are or you aren't.

While I was in Florida we picked out wedding rings, but never set a date. A date was suddenly picked based on when he could get home on leave - September.

My memories of that summer are mostly about physical discomfort. I itched. Later I found out there's some sort of rash related to pregnancy, but none of the doctors I talked to seem to be aware of it. Head to toe, I itched. Everyone was convinced I was allergic to something, but we could never pinpoint the source. Visiting home was wonderful as my mom with long fingernails would scratch my back - absolute heaven. I also endured all day bouts of morning sickness. I worked at Taco Bell at the time and smell of the red sauce they use on burritos just turned my stomach inside out.

I also had strong cravings for mashed potatoes. KFC has the most incredible potatoes and they truly hit the spot.

It was a hot that summer. Africa hot. And we didn't have air conditioning. I snuck outside at night when I couldn't sleep and sat on the front porch, enjoying the cooler temperatures. It was the first time I ever saw bats as they would circle the street lights.

By September the morning sickness had faded away, but the potato cravings persisted to the bitter end. I also had a thing for bananas, frequently making banana milk shakes. Clearly I was needing potasium. The other craving was gumballs. Yes, those stupid quarter machine pieces of candy. I was not above breaking a dollar just so I could get my gumball fix. I mean I'll stop for one even today, but it was a dying NEED back then.

Much to the dismay of my advisor I opted not to enroll for fall semester, instead I chose to move to Florida and start my life as mother and wife. I had a lot of tough choices to make that year, ones that had I chose otherwise would have led to a very different life today. I do sometimes wonder "what if" but I don't regret.

Just days after a big formal wedding pulled together in a matter of months I moved to Florida to start a new life. We stayed a few days in the roach infested trailer until we could secure our own apartment. With only a few personal items that little apartment was stark. Money received at our wedding supplied a TV and bed. One of his co-workers loaded us up with a couch and coffee table. It was funny looking to have formal serving pieces laid out on a table made from milk crates, but that's all we had. It all felt surreal, like we were playing house.

I began regular OB appointments at the military base, in a true clinic setting, never seeing the same doctor. That was weird and impersonal. Fortunately the whole body itching subsided. I was progressing according to the schedule and that made the variety of doctors and nurses rather happy.

Most of my time was spent in the apartment. I would lug the laundry back and forth to the apartment laundromat which was increasingly more difficult as my belly grew. The UPS man became a common face delivering care packages and when the baby was born, he was excited to finally see her.

Thanksgiving was spent with new husband's coworkers at someone's house. I made my mom's recipe for rolls and it was a big hit. I came home just before Christmas so I could attend Vicki's wedding as a surprise guest.

Christmas was spent together as newlyweds and we went to the beach where I collected seashells. It was a cold blustery day, but I was determined to get those shells, many of which I still have today. A few days later, my mom, stepdad and youngest brother stopped through for a visit on their way to Disney World.

The last two months were agonizingly slow as we made preparations for baby. We didn't know the sex, but we were prepared for either. My afternoons were spent watching Days Of Our Lives and ticking off kick counts, a rather busy job as this was one very active fetus. She grew straining against the confines of my body. Eventually I was able to define the body parts just under my skin and could chase her foot around, assuring me she was ticklish. The first thing I did when I got to see her in the hospital was run my finger up her foot, no surprise, she retracted that tiny foot as quick as possible.

Why she hung out in there for so long is beyond me as she was very clearly uncomfortable. She would rock her head backwards and rub it against my spine - that is a indescribable discomfort especially as other body parts were frequently in the way, leaving me gasping for air.

Overall it was a happy, easy pregnancy. I spent a whole lot of time rubbing that belly, talking to the unknown entity inside. She was exposed to wide array of music between me and her father, a lot of laughs, and a whole lot of potatoes and bananas. That probably explains a lot about her eclectic taste in music, her easy humor and an undying love for mashed potatoes.

Come back tomorrow for the birthing story.

Spring Break Is Just Around The Corner

2010-02-26T07:49:00.000-06:00

Last night Ian handed me the lunch menu for March. First, I haven't seen a lunch menu since September. Somebody has finally cleaned out his bookbag and I guess he doesn't want to clutter it with new handouts - makes me wonder what else I haven't seen.

But the bigger issue was that an entire week was blocked out for Spring Break. Holy crap, is it that time again? So soon? Wasn't it just New Years Eve? Hmmmm....

I guess I'll have a little tag along at work for a few days. I'm sure he'll want to spend a few days of doing nothing - a skill I have cultured quite well in my children.

Spring Break! Already!

Banana Milk

2010-02-24T14:59:00.000-06:00

We have bananas sitting on the counter. They are like a beacon BEGGING to be eaten which is good because that's pretty much the reason we bought them. But I have this routine set with Ian to call and ASK before diving into a food item as his after-school snack - it COULD be sitting there for another purpose. We also have limits on snacks as this child will gladly graze all day long and never sit for a proper meal.

Today he hoped to toss me for a loop. "What would banana milk taste like?" I already know where he's going with this. Clearly he's spotted the bananas and remembers the totally awesome thing I said the other night about a new way to peel a banana (by the way, thank you to the blogger who posted the link, sorry I forgot already who posted it). First I speculate that banana milk would probably taste a lot like a melted banana milkshake. Crap, I didn't sound surprised. Oh well, he moves on and asks how to open the banana. I explain the steps, clearly he has a banana in his hand as we're talking.

OMG!!!!! "THAT IS SO COOL!"

I KNOW!

Then the mother in me kicks back in. "Make sure you drink all of your milk and eat all of the banana." I don't care that he's experimenting with his food just as long as he's not wasting it.

Cool Award

2010-02-23T22:34:00.001-06:00

Ooooh!!! Another first!

February 22, 1988

2010-02-22T06:09:00.000-06:00

This is such a big date in my life. It was my focus for nine long months, my due date.

I enjoyed being pregnant. It was amazing that a person was growing inside me. Unlike my later pregnancies I had no distractions and could spend a lot of time bonding with my growing belly and the alien rolling around inside. But that last month was pure torture. I was impatient to finally meet this person who was no longer a stranger to me.

Very impatient.

Her father was impatient too. We jokingly contrived ways to speed up her arrival, but true to her current personality, Miss Amanda does shit according to her own schedule (file that one under things we learn from our fetuses).

I knew better that babies rarely arrive ON their due dates. In fact, most babies arrive BEFORE their due date. By February 1st my bag was packed, the plan mapped out, phone numbers to grandparents written down, I was ready. And waited. And waited. And waited.

AND WAITED.

By February 20th, anxiety, anxiousness, anticipation, and impatience were starting to take their toll. Add to that my physical discomfort? Let's just say there's wisdom in the old traditions of "confinement," the hiding of women during their final stages of pregnancy behind closed doors away from the general public. I was not fit for human consumption.

The night of my due date it was clear I was nowhere near going into labor so my mom took us out to eat. As we stood in line waiting for a table, two elderly ladies were behind us. Two things bring out uninvited conversation from old women - babies and pregnant bellies. So I immediately became their opening line and my mother, the non-stop talker, quickly joined in.

"Oh honey," one chimed, "you've DROPPED!"

To this day, twenty-two years later, I'm still royally pissed about this statement. How in the FUCK would she know if I dropped or if I was carrying low? Seriously?

"When are you due?" she asked like every other stranger on the street has asked for the past forty weeks.

With a glint of evil joy in my eye I said, "today."

I swear both women shit themselves right there. Their eyes bugged out and then fell to my "dropped" belly. It was obvious they were taking quick inventory about gathering towels, sheets and boiling water in case their midwifery skills were going to be needed in the next five seconds.

And then my table was ready. Damn. No more torturing little old ladies!

I was then confined for the remainder of my days. That would be another NINE DAYS. nine. I was contemplating a do-it-yourself caesarean.

Boys At Play

2010-02-21T09:52:00.000-06:00

Even after growing up with two brothers I am still amazed at the physical nature of boys. It's constant contact of fighting and wrestling, even from the quietest, most sedate of males. And they don't outgrow it either. Put two grown men together, long time friends, and their first handshake is a fierce grip threatening to melt into a tumbling pile on the ground right before our eyes. Brothers are possibly the worst. They roll and tumble over their mother's livingroom floor, chase each other through the backyard. I imagine as they age and fall out of shape the running and tumbling will reduce, but I see my brothers, both in their late thirties, with a glint in their eyes of "catch me if you can."

Here is my son, Keith, with my friend's son Tyler, terrorizing our vacation house, Keith displaying his brute strength. All of the smaller kids were hoisted up and tossed onto couches, no different than when they were frolicking in the ocean just hours earlier.

Picking each other up is the best sort of fun, at least for the boys. The day Keith could pick up his big sister was a day of triumph. They each had differing versions, one gloating the other horrified, of how he was able to grab her and threaten to toss her over the railings at school (exactly what a mother wants to hear). And now Ian, just hair (literally) shorter than his sister, is able to lift her off the ground.

This is not how girls play and this is why mothers stand screeching for their children to pipe down (well, one of many reasons). We don't understand the inner animal of our male children, the NEED to be physical.

Another Thank You

2010-02-20T19:33:00.000-06:00

Welcome to all of the new followers! Wow! My eternal gratitude to Kelly at Speaking From The Crib for featuring my blog.

Today I am quite childless. If ever there were an upside to divorce, it's the weekends when the kids are with their dad. I adore having more than a few hours to myself, freeing me to go out and play without scheduling a babysitter or worrying about being home in time to see if anyone breaks curfew. It's a nice change in the parenting routine - I highly recommend it for everyone! Okay, I'm kidding about that, divorce is dreadful and should be avoided if at all possible.

So maybe if you know of someone with little ones at home, do them a favor and grab the kids (pre-arranged, I'm not advocating kidnapping) for a weekend. And for those of you given a kid-free weekend DO NOT waste it on mopping the floor or other housekeeping. Dive into the bubble bath, run around the house naked, enjoy a romantic dinner with your spouse, go out to a movie, curl up with a good book. In other words, ENJOY the time. To do anything else would be as logical as going on vacation to spend the entire week holed up in the hotel calling clients, running reports and everything you would do at your desk at work.

It's not to say I don't love my kids or enjoy having them around. But a few hours apart is a healthy thing. Don't dwell on them being away - trust me they will be back before you know it. And that floor you just mopped to perfection? Trompled and covered in muddy footprints in five seconds flat.

Well I was going to apologize for not posting anything today, oops!

OMG I'm a Guest Writer!!!

2010-02-19T09:10:00.000-06:00

This is my first time to be invited to write on someone else's blog. I froze like a deer caught in the headlights - how awesome! What the hell do I write???

So go to Speaking From The Crib and check it out. Then bookmark her and read her everyday because she's hilarious.

All Gussied Up

2010-02-18T07:59:00.000-06:00

So many of the pictures of my children are snapped in everyday shots. They are mostly blue jeans and tshirts sort of kids. Fortunately littered throughout my collection are times my kids dressed up, sometimes quite willingly. Beyond the mandated times of weddings and the sporadic dance, my kids have had plenty of other opportunities to dive into the dressier side of their closets. Much to my delight they have done so quite willingly.

It's not much of a surprise my daughter is drawn to beautiful gowns. I am surprised how well she pulls it all together - certainly not something she learned from me. I'll have to blame her aunt. What I did pass on to my daughter was the knowledge that accumulating pretty gowns doesn't have to break the bank, that with well-timed shopping excursions she can land some ridiculous sales.

Now the boys, that takes a little more encouragement. Yet when prom came rolling around, Keith went out on his own and managed a very nice tuxedo.

Like his siblings, Ian has been strongly encouraged to don the dress clothes for more than celebratory occasions. Lately it has been less of a struggle and when it comes time to shopping for the next size he has been actively involved with very specific opinions.

I even managed to get him out on the dance floor - SCORE! (And yes, that IS a Southpark tie)

They do make me proud.

Beyond Refrigerator Art

2010-02-13T22:51:00.000-06:00

Last time I posted how I keep just about every piece of art my kids produce. I keep it for posterity but also because I adore little kid art. As my kids grew their skills improved and their art went beyond mere "kid art". Both Amanda and Keith opted to take art classes for electives in high school and Keith majored in art in college. Pieces continue to flow into my possession, but it's a crime to shove them into a rubbermaid tub in the basement. They deserve to be framed....

After I uploaded these pictures it dawned on me that I have a few 3D pieces as well. I'll post them at some point. I'm also missing Ian's work. Unfortunately I don't have any of his stuff framed. His work is on display in my office cubicle. He is drifting away from drawing and more towards industrial art. Soon I'll be clearing off shelves to make room for his art next to his siblings.

Refrigerator Art

2010-02-10T09:02:00.000-06:00

What do you do with your kids' artwork?

I wanted to display it but the volume of paper that kept flowing in from school was just too much to merely clip to the refrigerator. I've heard of people that cycle it out, throwing away the older pieces.

That breaks my heart.

You could tell my kids had the same art teacher and that teacher used the same projects each year so I would get a lamb with glued on cottonballs from Amanda and then the next year get the same thing from Keith. And here began my love affair with kid art. It just fills my heart to walk through an elementary school and see all the variations of the same design. There is nothing as precious as a kindergartener's rendition of a person with stick legs and arms, a crooked smile, lopsided eyes, purple hair and a blob resembling a dog. LOVE IT!

It was clear I had budding artists, not because of the quality of their early works. No, theirs was just as cockeyed as everyone else in their class. But there was a passion. They were (are) always found drawing, doodling, and talking incessantly about drawing. I was not only flooded by art from school, but also from their bedrooms.

They exceeded the capacity of the refrigerator door and I looked for other options in the house. In very short time they were capable of completely wallpapering the entire house. As much as I love kid art, plastering all over my livingroom was pushing it a tad. I found the stairwell to the basement to be the perfect spot. Rather unceremoniously I stapled their works to the wall, Amanda on one side and Keith on the other. When little Ian came along his art was taped to the inside of the basement door. I couldn't have a fourth child if for no other reason than lacking space for another child's art!

There were rules for handing me a piece of art. It absolutely MUST have the date and child's name. I explained that mommy has a horrible memory and I'm not going to be able to remember who drew this beautiful picture when I'm really old. Like thirty-three. They understood. They knew allllll about mommy's bad memory, I can't even remember their names when yelling at them. So they diligently scribbled their name on the back and tried to write the date as best as possible.

Art that didn't make it to the wall was still kept. I had a tub in my bedroom for those pieces so I keep them forever. Yes, I am a die hard pack rat. And when the day came to move out of the house with the art-filled stairwell, I carefully removed each, some brittle with age, and stored them in rubbermaid tubs. I have two large tubs of my kids art. What the hell I'm going to do with it, I have no clue. But I have it.

You know how unimaginably painful it would be to lose pictures in a fire? I have that same sentiment about those two tubs of artwork.

Playing In The Snow

2010-02-07T21:16:00.001-06:00

If you've been following my snow saga over on my other blog you'll know that we were anticipated to receive a few inches, but mostly got rain. And it made me sad.

I love the snow. A lot.

It's hard, though, as a parent to revel too much in the crappy, sloppy mess. And then there's the whole drama of getting little ones bundled up, to rush outside, only to have them fall down, cry and want to come back in.

And then there's the issue of living in St. Louis. Have I ever bitched about St. Louis weather before? No? Then you haven't been paying attention. Winter here is cold. Bitter, ass biting cold (and in six months I will be whining about the dismal, tropic conditions of the impossible summers here - one or the other, folks!)

This means our children own heavy duty winter coats and have a sled buried somewhere in the garage. And they know that sled exists. And when snow is predicted they first think of having school called off and then think about that sled. Nevermind that perfect sledding hills are not abounding on every street corner, that many children have to be driven to such locations and driving conditions in this stupid town are usually unbearable after the drop of the first flake. Nope, kids are focused on winter fun...

...until they step outside, fall down, find insufficient snow to properly sled, and realize it's really assbiting cold.

And around here, we don't usually get but one, possibly two, storms with any accumulations. Usually, it's a meager dusting. If the ground is frozen enough, kids still manage to slide down the hills.

Soon the best part of snow days is getting back inside the house to cups of mouth scalding hot cocoa. Hey, have you ever made hot cocoa with something other than from packets and hot water? If you have baking cocoa, read the directions on the box to make it with hot milk. OMG, totally fabulous. The stuff you use water with will always taste like... well, something made with a packet of stuff and water.

Between the lack of real snow, the kids fussing, driving conditions, the cold, and a burnt mouth, I'm forced to remember the fun of snow of my childhood in Oregon.

Sibling Affection

2010-02-03T21:40:00.001-06:00

These would be perfect for Wordless Wednesday. Nothing needs to be explained. This is sibling affection at its best - one forcing the issue, the other trying to escape.

Fourteen years later - some things never change.

A Good Soaking Bath

2010-02-02T08:17:00.001-06:00

Remember when taking a bath was an ADVENTURE? You may have been coaxed into the tub, but it was a genuine battle to get you out. Oh the fun of sloshing and swimming, of pretending to be a pirate or a mermaid!

If only we adults could submerge our bodies into pools of deep frothy water filled with floating toys, wouldn't we take a bath every day?

I'm a shower girl. I'm alllll about a steamy hot shower and singing at the top of my lungs. If I could fully lay down in a bathtub without bashing my head or tangling my toes on the nozzle, I might still be a tub girl. I'm not graceful enough to read in the tub and I would surely burn myself if I had candles (don't ask, I really am that talented).

Aggressive Affection

2010-02-01T07:12:00.001-06:00

I have two pictures, almost identical but nearly a decade apart. These have been on my desk in the past and every time I see them I smile.

This is Amanda trying to kiss a friend, a little girl who wasn't so sure about the bearhug and kissy face coming her way. Amanda was hellbent in her mission and didn't let the little girl get away. Of course all of the adults found this hilarious.

Here is Ian going after a cousin. She was more receptive.

Riding Shotgun

2010-01-30T20:07:00.000-06:00

Of the 4,872,561,789,264,520,673 reason kids will fuss, bicker, bitch, wrestle; the number one argument in our family is who gets to ride in the frontseat of the car.

I was able to postpone the arguments for several years since the kids were restrained in child seats in the back. Once they outgrew the babyseat (remember, this was before every car was equipped with airbags) the fight was on.

It was a fight I anticipated. To this day my brothers and I would have a standoff in the driveway, arguing longer legs, age, built-in navigator abilities, or "you always get to ride with mom, it's my turn dammit."

SKREECH! FLAW!

That last argument would actually be, "I ride with mom all the damn time, somebody else can sit next to her" So maybe the fight has evolved as we fight over who DOESN'T get to sit in the front. But there would be a fight, dirty looks and a mad dash to the car door. You know, whoever reaches the door first gets to sit there? Yep, because that is the LAW!

And here is my daughter, BREAKING THE LAW as she totally tries to overcome her bigger little brother.

So here is QandleQueen's solution to children arguing over the front seat - TAKE TURNS. One gets the front going, the other gets the front riding home. If you have multiple children vying for the front seat then you need to make enough stops along the way so they can each have a turn. OR you can bring an adult with you. Then the monsters are stuck with the backseat for the ENTIRE RIDE *gasp*. Yeah, adults trump children every time.

And if they cannot resolve the matter among themselves in a peaceful, quiet and QUICK way, then you get in the car, turn it on, scream "I'm leaving" and put it in gear. If they STILL cannot decide then everyone is stuck in the back. Simple. No whining or the front passenger seat is vacant for an entire week.

By the way, Keith kept his front seat claim in the above picture. You do, though, have to admire the shock effect of sitting on the original seat squatter.

No Coat

2010-01-29T08:22:00.000-06:00

It's COLD outside. What is he wearing? A hoodie. Granted it's a thick, woolly hoody, but it's not a legitimate coat. Yesterday he ran back into his room and put on a long-sleeve shirt. Like that would make a difference?

He's also stopped carrying his bookbag. Everything is crammed into his Trapper Keeper, breaking it down so that a new one will be necessary before the end of the schoolyear.

WHY?

So he can land a coveted seat at the back of the bus on the way home. If he has to stop at his locker the odds drop, his advantage lost and he's relegated to the dreadful middle seats.

Basically I'm looking at a soon-to-be sick kid who is going to need a new Trapper Keeper. At least his backpack should last another year.

More Playing In The Sand

2010-01-26T07:12:00.000-06:00

I can't believe I had forgotten about this trip to the beach! This was just us, a family trip to the west coast.

The boys had been busy digging a hole.

Eventually they asked to be buried as they pulled sand in on themselves. Don't freak out, they aren't very deep and I kept asking if they could move limbs. It only took a few seconds to burst out.

While my kids bicker and taunt each other, more often than not, they're getting along. I like this shot as it shows the genuine companionship between my sons. There was no, "this is my hole, go away squirty little brother and dig your own." They easily took turns posing.

I always do a double take as the kid carrying the two buckets is Ian. It looks like someone much older with a budding six pack. Nope, just a scrawny eight yr old.

Notice the fifteen year old staring at the passing girls! He may have been looking at something else, but I highly doubt it.

Playing In The Sand

2010-01-24T20:05:00.000-06:00

On my other blog I posted some beach pictures. One of them, a boy buried in the sand and given a mermaid body reminded me of the one I took of my own son.

We were vacationing with 3 other families, my closest friends and their kids. These four have been partners in crime since they were babies.

While Keith was taking a break from the water and sunning himself, the girls started heaping sand on him and molding him into a mermaid.

I'm amazed he stayed so still for the ordeal and submitted to their whims.

The boobies and lopsided nipples (superball and a seashell) totally crack me up.

Sadly this was the end of the four kids hanging out. After this summer they began high school, started driving and having separate social lives. They used to be thrust together in a yard or basement while the adults would drink, now they were old enough to stay home by themselves or babysit younger siblings. Or they had to work. Or go to prom. Or whatever it is that teenagers do to not be home.

*sigh*

The Car Conversation

2010-01-22T09:16:00.000-06:00

WOE!

"Mom, what car can I have when I start driving?"
"Mom, can I drive?"
NO! You're TWELVE!
"Mom, when I get a car it's going to be..." blah blah blah blah

There's something in the water that mandates seventh graders begin the car quest. They fantasize about sitting behind the wheel of a sleek sports car, cruising down curving roads, wind mysteriously whisking through their hair.... yeah whatever. Dream on baby.

I've been down this road before, twice to be exact. I know that for the next four years conversations are going to pop up at random times about dream cars and the constant quest to take the car for a spin. As passengers they will critique passing cars, outlining desirable qualities. The car conversation is never complete. It is a wishlist that drones on and on with rude interruptions from parents reminding to finish homework, eat dinner, take showers and go to sleep, only to start up the next day. And the following day. And the day after that.

While I won't let anyone drive until at least a driver's permit is earned, I will allow certain pesky children take the keys and start my car. Little do they realize they're being used. Who else but a car crazy child would be willing to venture out in the freezing cold morning just for the "glory" to start the car? It's a quick way to kick a pacing kid out of the house while you're still getting ready.

Besides starting the car, they can set the radio, pump it up to deafening tones and imagine for three minutes that they are, in fact, winding the car down a twisting road with the air rushing through their hair - swoosh swoosh - until I finally manage to haul my ass out of the house. A quick scramble to turn down the radio, get out of the driver's seat and into the back, and the "driver" is a child again, left to critique passing cars.

Maybe it's that his feet are finally able to reach the pedals? Hard to say. But this is the age that the car conversation begins and it doesn't stop until the novelty of being a new driver finally wears off... oh somewhere around seventeen.

If you're good at math that means it's been three years since my last child finally quit yammering on about getting a car, driving a car, dreaming about a car. Three years. That is a short ass reprieve considering there are eight years between middle and youngest child. Such is life.

Sleeping Upside Down

2010-01-19T06:22:00.000-06:00

When I pulled out yesterday's picture of Ian sleeping in the box, I came across all of the other sleeping pictures. These crack me up so much that I created a whole album in iPhoto dedicated to sleeping kids.

At first I thought this was Ian except the original title of it insist it was Keith in 1992. Upon further inspection small details in the picture, mostly the fact that there is carpeting proves it was taken before Ian was even born.

It was during that "further inspection" that I noticed the full scope of the child's position - feet up in the chair.

And yes, he is sound asleep.

Cardboard Box

2010-01-17T09:11:00.000-06:00

A couple days ago I read someone's blog (sorry, forget which one) where they talked about kids playing with cardboard boxes. Well, my kids are no different.

There is something COOL about boxes. They spark imagination in amazing ways. I remember my dad bringing home boxes from work. What he planned to do with them is beyond me. It just dawned on me that he probably used them when he separated from my mom. My brother and I were oblivious. Those boxes were an incredible draw for our curious minds. We pulled them out to the front porch stacking them up to make the best fort ever - complete with a window.

A large box would have been awesome as well. Here Ian took up residence, literally, in a box.

You can see he taped a steering wheel inside the box. I also allowed him to color the outside of the box - he opted for a car theme. It survived several days as his brother and sister pushed him around the livingroom so he could drive. He begged to eat dinner in it, "driving" by the kitchen as if it were a fast food restaurant. He would push stuffed animals around in it and finally he tucked himself into the box to pretend sleep, only to really fall asleep.

Eventually it collapsed and was escorted to the trash. Other boxes came to life under Ian's command, but I don't have pictures of those.

Yes, a cardboard box is the BEST TOY EVER!

Do You Live Here?

2010-01-15T03:44:00.000-06:00

WOE!

Yesterday over on Dad's House, he was bemoaning that his teenagers are never home. I chuckled to myself, "oh yeah, just wait buddy!" I kept my reply to something along the lines of "they're just preparing you for college." The biggest damn understatement of the world.

I've always contended that every stage of childhood, from pregnant mothers getting up to pee every night right up to teenagers missing from family meals, is simply preparation for the next stage in life. Stepping stones is you will.

Jumping to my life scenario - when Keith graduated high school I moved across town, closer to work. I knew with two kids in college that I no longer needed a five bed room house and could certainly reduce that half hour drive. I sought a house that would accommodate all four of us if necessary.

Amanda had already flexed her muscle and had declared that she was in the market for an apartment. Keith also made other arrangements. I'll keep the details of that arrangement intentionally vague - OMG I'm not revealing all of my kids dirty laundry on the internets for once! Suffice it to say that everyone was placing bets as to how long Keith's arrangement would last. I warned him and I advised him that maybe it wasn't the best idea, but being the stubborn type that he is, my pleas fell on deaf ears.

It lasted a whopping two months.

He landed at his father's house, much closer to school and work and friends. Keith has been at his dad's house for nearly three years. This is a fine arrangement, but not what I had in mind at all. I kept my door open, if ever it was needed. Hell, Keith is still on my occupancy permit, although he has never technically lived here.

Earlier this week major drama unfolded at his dad's house - again the details not to be unloaded here. Keith wasn't involved, but felt the need to vacate for a while until the dust settles. This is actually unfortunate because it's a serious drain on Keith's resources. He now has to commute a half hour to work every day and can only grab a few moments to see his girl friend who lives a further fifteen minutes away. It's not easy on him.

Besides, I never see him. After work and dropping by to see the girlfriend, he comes in after I've gone to bed and then he gets up after I've left for work. Only extra shampoo bottles in my shower and a serious depletion of the milk in the fridge denote the additional person in my house. As always, if I want to talk to him it's done over the telephone. I saw Amanda longer yesterday than I've seen Keith in the three days he's been at my house.

The moral of the story: if you have teenagers, enjoy your time "together" because it only gets less and less and less. They turn into busy college students. And college students turn into very busy 20 somethings.

Goodnight Kiss

2010-01-13T20:49:00.000-06:00

WAH!

Ian still gets a kiss and a hug every night. Last night I wondered how much longer this is going to last? I don't remember exactly when Keith and Amanda stopped the hug and kiss routine. I think it just sort of faded out, not really a conscious effort on anybody's part. There wasn't any declaration from me that they are too big for the hug and kiss and neither one of them squawked in horror that I was still tucking them in bed.

Maybe it happened when they started staying up later than me? But, no, all through high school they were to be in bed by 10pm. I don't know! When did it happen? When did they stop being little kids needing that last expression of love before drifting off to sleep? Was it when I didn't need to close scary closet doors for them any more? Or when they were busy finishing the last lines of homework that exceeded my capacity to help?

Well, whatever it was it's just around the corner with my baby. It's only a matter of time before he sulks off to bed without so much as a warning. Of course teenagers don't SLEEP. Oh no. They lie in wait until the house is closed down, parents sound asleep, to flip on the TV, pop on the headphones and start playing video games (or as my daughter would do - read). How do I know this is just around the corner? Because he's already doing the fake-sleep-wait-til-house-is-closed-to-play-video-games-with-headphones. The hug and kiss are soon to say farewell.

*sigh*

:(

The Last Of The Christmas Cash

2010-01-10T08:49:00.001-06:00

Ian had spent all but one of his gift cards. I didn't realize he still had cold hard cash yet to spend. And oh my, was it burning a hole in his pocket!

Like with Flight Simulator, he spent countless hours on the computer searching for the perfect way to spend his cash. Forget that I've been rather adamant that he should put something in the bank - THAT'S BORING.

Ugh!

"Can we go to Walmart?"
"When can we go to Walmart?"
"Can we go to Walmart TODAY?"
"WHY can't we go to Walmart today?"
"I want to go to Walmart"

walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart

AUUUUUUGGGHHHHHH!!!!!

I don't want to go to Walmart. Got it?

walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart walmart

And then The Husband asks if I could drop off his new prescription at Walmart on my way to meet some old friends.

REALLY? What the hell is this need for MY body to be at Walmart? There ain't shit at Walmart that I want or need. Why don't the two boys who have this undying need to have ME go to Walmart combine their efforts and, oh maybe, GO TOGETHER?

I pushed Ian off onto his step-father and when I got out of the shower they were both hovering over the computer. The Husband, king of comparison shopping, had taken up the twelve year old's cause.

I was still requested to drop off the prescription, but he was going to pick it up. I think I can deal with the arrangement although I have no desire to step a foot in among the squalling masses.

The boys returned home after I did, lugging in a large box. They did it. They found the perfect way to blast through $100, the last of Ian's Christmas Cash - a stereo complete with MP3 connection, headphones, radio and CD player. And HUGE speakers.

Can we FINALLY put Christmas to bed?

Game Systems

2010-01-08T08:13:00.000-06:00

WOE

For the better part of 2009 I've heard endless requests for a new game system - in particular the newest Xbox. On and on and on. Of course it made its way onto the Christmas list. Then he discovered Flight Simulator and how perfect it would be for the now offline PC that he's basically take over since The Husband bought a shiny new iMac (yay me for converting the man to Apple!) So now the PC is primarily a game center and that works quite well for Ian.

Let's review the current gaming systems available in the house, shall we? Offline PC, shiny new iMac (with newest copy of SIMS - woot!), old Xbox, PSP (courtesy of his siblings for his birthday), forgotten Gameboy hiding somewhere under his bed, and an ancient Sega Genesis.

Does this child REALLY need another game system? I think not.

But I kind of want Wii for the Fit thing. And we found it on sale. So we bought it and held it back for Christmas. I subtly asked Ian his opinions on Wii as opposed to a new Xbox. OH.MAH.GAWD! Xbox is soooooo much better than Wii. Wii is lame and only old people and little kids like Wii.

Crap.

Well, it's already purchased and we're old people and he has plenty of other sources of electronic amusement, he's just going to have to cope. Suck it up.

And then came Christmas and the unwrapping of the big box labeled for our house address from Santa. And all of the smaller wrapped boxes inside the big wrapped box. The fun of a new game system and the array of different games to accompany it, wooo what fun!

Ian has been chomping at the bit to get the Wii set up. Just push all of that Christmas crap outside and make way for the Wii. I held firm that the Christmas decorations need to be neatly put away otherwise I will go insane and having seen me go insane he knows this is a valid threat and one to be feared, he then pleaded to set up the very light and small and portable Wii in his room until we get the family room cleared out. Okay, whatever.

Wii is set up. The little snot created my Mii with a SCOWL. And he's proud of it. The past twentyfour hours he has played bowling and golf and declared Call of Duty too difficult and he wants to shop for MORE games.

So you LIKE the Wii? "Yeah, it's alright, but I still want an Xbox 360"

Shut up and go play 100 pin bowling.

Bathtime

2010-01-06T09:08:00.004-06:00

This is one of those shots that just amuses the snot out of me.

Four families traipsed to Florida for a week-long vacation. We shared a large house that could accommodate all of us, 18 in total. It had ample restrooms and bathing facilities, but Ian begged and pleaded to just once use the "shovel bathtub", I think the shape brought on the name. It was located in the master bedroom, aka NOT my room.

So we got permission to use their tub and Ian gleefully stripped down and jumped in before it was finished filling with water. The "Halen Unit", daughters along for the trip, best friends for life, moseyed in to find out why we had invaded the temporary home of "Hal's" family.

Ian didn't bat an eye that the girls were gawking at him, he was proud that he finally got to use the "shovel bathtub" and was hell bent that no one was going to join him. And the girls were oblivious to the fact that he was naked. They were clamoring for their turn in the tub.

I ushered the girls out to go find their fathers, the moms were busy drinking at the pool, so Ian could finish his bath in peace.

Bushy Hair

2010-01-05T06:27:00.003-06:00

Up until last year Ian has kept a shaved head.

I'm not quite sure what has prompted him to allow it to grow out, but at some point last spring he stopped requesting haircuts and let his locks sprout.

Yesterday morning, in a fit similar to many I've recited myself, he declared he was sick of dealing with his unruly hair and was going to get it all shaved off!

I had to giggle.

Going To The Movies

2010-01-04T07:04:00.002-06:00

The expense of theater visits kept me away for many years. My poor children rarely got to see a movie from within a theater as it was just more economical to wait for it to come out on rental. That philosophy changed as of Keith's seventh birthday.

He wanted to have a birthday party and as I contemplated hosting a houseful of little children running amok, high on birthday cake and soda, I fantasized gouging out my eyes with a spork. His fifth birthday was held in a local park. On the hottest day of the entire year. I just couldn't do that again. I also could not do another skating party as I did for his sister earlier in the year. Bottom line, I cannot handle kid birthday parties.

As I calculated what was spent on the skating party I figured I could actually take the little heathens to a movie. Two hours, no running, not at my house - this was doable. When I proposed the idea to Keith he totally latched onto it. He got to pick the movie, Muppet Treasure Island, and got to pick three friends and his sister could bring one friend - in other words, the same cluster of monsters that ran in and out of my house on a daily basis.

It was a total success. All of the kids enjoyed getting to see a movie on the big screen. And thus a tradition began. We now have the phrase "birthday movie". I've just been informed that Amanda wants her birthday movie this year to be Alice In Wonderland with Johnny Depp. I love how we can agree on things like this!

I don't remember exactly when we started a "New Year's movie", but it was shortly after my divorce. After a night of excessive drinking, I couldn't face an entire day of kids running through the house because it's too cold to go outside. And yes, a big booming movie was gentler on a hangover than the constant yammering of my kids.

The only caveat to the New Year movie was that all four of us had to agree on it. That has had mixed results. Lord of the Rings was an excruciatingly long movie. It also had rather scary monsters causing little Ian to scramble into my lap. It was in this movie that I discovered that Amanda and I have similar tastes in men. That was eerie when we both agreed that Orlando Bloom was rather scrumptious in his pointy-ear elfiness. Finding Neverland was a bomb for the boys and left me and Amanda dabbing our eyes.

The last two years we've gone to kid friendly movies of Chipmunks and Bedtime Stories. The big kids sucked it up like troopers, as if they didn't like it! This year, however, there was no question, it was Sherlock Holmes. It was a complete hit, even if it was a tad long. The Husband was a little put out that it wasn't more similar to the 1930's version, but he was still entertained.

I wised up a few years ago getting a member card for the chain of theaters we visit. I accumulate enough points for free tickets and popcorn. It doesn't justify the expense, but helps make it less painful in the pocket, if just psychologically.

You Look Just Like Your Mother

2010-01-03T09:06:00.005-06:00

Being told I look like my mother is something I've heard my entire life, mostly from my grandmother. I look at my mother's pictures and never in my childhood or teen years have I resembled her. TODAY I look like my mom, quite a bit actually.

When I brought my daughter into the world, the first thing my mother whispered was how much she looked like me. REALLY? I didn't see it. A few days later, rocking her in the middle of the night the tiny baby looked up at me and all I could see was her father. There was no way this child looked like me. None.

And yet, every time I turned around some one was telling me how much this little girl looked like me. My mother was constant in that assessment, but total strangers would echo it. As she grew people had the audacity to tell her to her face how much she looked like me.

Amanda and I have discussed this point repeatedly and we agree, we can't deny we're related (poor child) but we do NOT look alike. At all. The rest of you are high as a freaking kite.

You cannot hold a picture of skinny, teenaged me next to my daughter and say "wow, you two look alike." We don't. So don't say it.
Aw crap! Now I see it. It's the forehead and nose. Dammit.
At least she doesn't have me and my mother's thin lipped smile. Hopefully she'll escape the double chin, but she's doomed to have the old age jowls, she had them as a baby.
But really, we do not look alike. So many of her features are very different from mine - eyes, chin, overall build. So much of that does come from her father's side. She is also much more put-together than I ever was or ever will be. The picture of her in the green dress? She was running for Miss Missouri USA. OMG, something that I could never pull off, but she did it beautifully.

My husband has pointed out that more than looking like me that she and I have many of the same mannerisms. We move the same, twist our faces in similar ways and frequently react to the same things. That makes a lot of sense as I surely have a lot of my mother's mannerisms. I certainly have my mother's voice, which is eerie as hell, that's for sure. I found it funny as I watched Keith exhibit identical facial expressions as his father.

So okay, we're "similar" but really, she does NOT look like me. Got it?

Brothers and Sons

2010-01-02T08:49:00.004-06:00

WHOA!

One of the most difficult parts of having sons is that they remind me so much of my little brothers. To be honest, I was a horrible big sister. I teased, I tormented, I schemed and I set them up. So being the MOM of two squirty little boys really presents a problem for this woman that has been a mean big sister for most of her life. It's like karmic retribution or something.

For the most part I've behaved myself, but it's been difficult. There have been times I've had the irresistible urge to push either one into the dirt and laugh like a maniac - woo good parenting skills. Speaking of parenting skills, no one warns you what to do when these urges come on. If I lived in the days when women carried fans I would probably spend a good part of the time burying the screwed up look on my face behind one. Instead I've had to physically turn around. Other parents think it's to mask laughing outright at the goofiness of boys being boys, which okay, I've done that a lot too, but there have been times it has been to hide that weird look of shock of someone experiencing a flashback. My sons have done a lot of things that are dead on replications of their uncles twenty years earlier. It could be a smirk on their face, a tone of voice (actually the voices are nearly identical so this one hits me a lot), an obsession over a toy, but more often than not it's just boys being boys, wrestling, rough housing, running, or trying to eat something off the ground.

My way to cope with the conundrum is to step away from my mom-self AND my inner-big-sister and just watch the whole scene from a third party point of view. I think this is what has given me a quirky view of parenting in general.

So basically, as usual, it's all my brothers' fault.

Christmas and New Years Rolled Up Into One

2010-01-01T17:59:00.004-06:00

Happy Christmas and Merry New Year!

Since Christmas was preempted by icy roads last week, we postponed it until today. At noon my mom, her boyfriend, my kids and their significant others gathered at my house. Missing from the get-together was Grandma which is a whole 'nuther story that I'll have to vent elsewhere.

I've been eagerly anticipating the kids opening their gifts, especially Ian. He has spent the better part of the last three months talking about Flight Simulator. We picked it up on Black Friday with the other Christmas gifts and downplayed the likelihood of it arriving in St. Nick's bag. He yammered on and on and on about getting this game. We discovered that he would also need a joystick and that promptly arrived via Amazon.com. After Christmas with everyone else he had a wallet loaded with cash and gift cards. He has spent nearly every waking moment of the last week surfing the web. He had three pages scribbled out of different software combinations. I flipped this into a teaching moment and introduced him to the glory of spreadsheets.

Today he announced it was the BEST CHRISTMAS EVER after he opened Flight Simulator and a new Logitech joystick. He was also enthused to open the large Santa gift to the household, a Wii system with several additional games. Unfortunately, none of the new games can be set up yet because Ian returns to his dad's house for the weekend. Mmmmm... life lessons in patience.

After gifts were opened we packed up and headed to the theater for our annual New Year's movie. We unanimously agreed a few weeks ago that our movie this year would be Sherlock Holmes. It was pretty good, but kind of long especially for the three female bladders in the party.

A gentle, but bitter, cold snow greeted us as we left the theater. Overall it was a very pleasurable day and a good start to the year.

Sonofabitch

2009-12-29T20:28:00.002-06:00

TEE HEE

Another bad parent admission - my kids learned how to cuss from dear ol mom. Yep, I can out swear their bad boy biker, once-upon-a-time Marine daddy any old day.

So, I'm standing in the hallway of my dinky 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom "bungalow" doing the pee pee dance, begging my twelve year old to hurry the hell up. He even asked if I was doing the pee pee dance, meaning he was going to take his sweet ass time trying to torture me. I reminded him that I can and will get even.

"AUGH! That's NOT fair," he wails from the bathroom, still dawdling.

"Yeah, well life's a bitch," I inform him, "and so is your mother."

He giggles

And then I say, "you know... if your mother is a bitch... that makes you.........

a son of a bitch!"

Silence

"Mom, you're not right"

GRIN!

Now hurry up before I go pee in front of you

FINALLY, I get the bathroom. Geez. Whose stupid idea was it to move into a house with just one bathroom????

One Upping At Christmas

2009-12-28T10:57:00.003-06:00

WAH

Christmas and Grandparents - a combination that just screams "SPOILED CHILD"

It's kind of cool to see the grandparents go gaga over the kids, to give to the grandchildren things they weren't able to do for their own kids. It also makes it easier for us wallet-strapped parents as we know we can get away with just buying practical and cheap stuff like underwear without totally screwing our kids out of an awesome Christmas experience. It's all fun and games until grandparent rivalry kicks in.

What your parents and in-laws co-exist without any such rivalry?

Really?

Lucky!

Here's how it rolls, my father-in-law (FIL) is allllllll about Christmas. He must have suffered one too many underwear-only holidays and goes way overboard. His house, I'm sorry, mobile home, is a tribute to ol' Saint Nick in the highest degree. His artificial tree comes out of storage as the Thanksgiving Turkey is cleared from the table. It's lit up with antique ornaments and his house is draped in garland from room to room. The presents gush out from under his lush tree filling his tiny living room. He answers the phone in a HO HO HO merriment from Thanksgiving to New Years.

Then there's my mother. She is the shopping queen finding everything on sale in February and stockpiles her load. It would be a total shame if one of the other grandparents gave more gifts to her adorable grandchildren. So the race is on. Christmas lists are requested by late summer and she has shiftily taken note of what and how much was spent on the kids the year before.

One year, after a few spousal fights over the excessive back and forth trips between four or five households over Christmas we thought we could bring together my mother and his father for Christmas Eve festivities. You know killing two birds with one stone? I mean the two are friends for crying outloud, this is a no brainer! We were smacking ourselves on the forehead for not thinking of it sooner!

RIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGHHHHHTTTT!!!

Take a close look at my livingroom. It's a large enough space, especially compared to father-in-law's place
There were presents from end to end, most from "santa" - some in my mom's handwriting, other's in FIL's handwriting, a bare minimum in my handwriting. Totally insane.

To add to the fiasco, my sister-in-law (SIL) and her two kids attended the soiree. She and my mom do NOT get along in the least, but were at least civil for the evening.

After hours of ripping open presents - oh, you know one present at a time was distributed and everyone had to sit and wait for it to be opened before someone else could open one - further extending the exhaustion of the evening. So as we neared the end, the big, cool presents were saved for last. And this is where the rivalry really showed. There was near armwrestling as to which grandparent got to have the grand finale. My mom relented and allowed FIL to go last. It was, in fact, a grand present... so grand I forgot what all it was.

OH but we weren't done! Oh no. That's right, my mom got in the last word after all and asked my spousal unit to go get the large items out of the back of her car. WHAT?

This grand finale I DO remember because it was so underhanded, so lame, and the gifts, so underwhelming. She bought the kids SHELVES. OOOOOOOHHHH bigass bookshelves.

That was the one and only time we combined Christmases between the grandparents. SIL insisted that she would never do it again because she felt like the whole emphasis was on my kids - it was. As we assured her, we wouldn't ever make that mistake ever again. It was so stupid and so exhausting. NEVER again.

Sting Christmas

2009-12-26T12:42:00.004-06:00

Every kid has one, that one singular must-have gift, the one that gets toted to the ends of the earth, sleeps in the same bed with the child and even sits at the dinner table. Every parent who bends to obtaining the cherished toy also fantasizes about hiding it for all eternity.

Keith's prized toy was Sting, the wrestler. His father had turned him onto professional wrestling almost from the point of me announcing my pregnancy with the child. Going down the toy aisle he would gravitate to the action figures so for Christmas 1992, Santa loaded up little Keith with not only wrestling action figures but also a wrestling ring!

Keith also found under the Christmas Tree a large doll resembling his favorite wrestler of all time, Sting!

Mr. Sting accompanied Keith EVERYWHERE. I insisted that Sting could not go into the store as the security guards would take him away, so Sting stayed behind in the car. He went on overnight stays at Grandma's and swam in the bathtub. I don't remember how long Sting stayed as Keith's constant companion, but it was well after Sting lost a lower portion of one of his legs. Eventually he was relegated to the lower depths of the toybox and a new toy took front and center.

What were the prized toys of your children?

Not Because I Love You

2009-12-24T09:01:00.003-06:00

I just got off the phone with my older son finalizing plan for Christmas. I told him that if the roads are too gross not to come out. He accused me of being a Grinch.

Wellllll pardon me for not wanting to pry my ass off the couch on my day off to visit one of my children in the hospital - because I would feel obliged and shit. So don't screw up my day off.

Be safe dammit! And Merry Christmas!

UPDATE:
Weather was indeed crappy and my children followed my instructions to call me if they didn't feel safe making the trip. Christmas has been postponed until New Years Day. I'm a tiny bit sad, but very proud of them doing the responsible and SAFE thing.

Mother-Daughter Over The Years

2009-12-20T18:30:00.004-06:00

WAH!

Being a person who thrives on being "involved" it's no wonder when my daughter joined Girl Scouts that I got sucked into being a co-leader. Of course it doesn't stop there, oh no, Linda and I, co-leaders of like mind (uh, actually we share a brain - she has the nice, benevolent side; I am, of course, owner/operator of the evil side) we got active at the neighborhood level. Who knows what stopped us from climbing the ladder to meddle at the district or council-wide levels?

Every year our neighborhood organized a Mother-Daughter camp weekend at one of the three council campgrounds. It was during the winter so we stayed in the heated cabins and got to use the commercial sized kitchens. We dutifully took our troop and their mothers for our first camp weekend and absolutely loved it. The following years, Linda and I weaseled our way onto the committee (actually we were coerced and being schmucks who can't ever say no we were called to duty). Our daughters, both named Amanda, also enjoyed being behind the scenes.

One of the arts and crafts activities was to decorate a picture frame and someone took polaroids of the mother-daughter duos. It was such a popular activity that we did it every year. Even after we parted ways with the Girl Scouts, Amanda and I have continued to snap pictures of the two of us smooshed up close.

Scanning the GS pictures are a little difficult as the scanner grabs the frame decorations, blurring the pictures. These are fun memories and I love seeing how she's grown from a little girl.

The Leasburg Exit

2009-12-18T21:03:00.003-06:00

Nothing like a flash from the past when cruising down the highway. Signs alerted us that the next exit would be Leasburg and suddenly I recall a little camp trip back in 1997.

Leasburg isn't a stop on the traintracks, not even back in the day. It looks like maybe there was a grocery once, but not any more. Beyond Leasburg is Keyes canoe rental - one of our annual haunts. That year, however, I had just given birth. Ian was all of two months old when I finally broke loose for a little vacay on the Huzzah and Meramec rivers. We took Amanda and Keith camping with my friend Booty and her daughter, forgoing the canoe trip because I am a total freak about my kids EVER getting near the Meramec River. EVER. I still shudder at the thought.

The plan was to camp and then meet up with friend Piranha and her family to help her parents move to Lake of the Ozarks. Baby Ian had spent the night at Grandpa's house, but Grandpa couldn't keep him for the entire weekend so Piranha was going to pick up Ian and bring him for the rest of the trip.

That was the plan.

Oh, did I mention that Ian was a puke monster for the first year of life? And totally incapable of sleeping for long periods of time? Basically he was a completely delightful baby.

So imagine Piranha's delight as she sat with her husband, twin seven year olds and her own brand new baby all of 2 weeks old at a gas station in the middle of nowhere BEFORE CELL PHONES, holding my cranky, crying, non-sleeping, puking baby. And me nowhere in sight.

For a really long time.

I'm not sure what led her to call my house to leave a message, however she was none too happy to have my then husband answer the phone. His happy ass was supposed to be pulling up at the gas station not answering the fricking telephone. Well he got an earful before he was able to explain that I was still coming to retrieve my cranky, crying, non-sleeping puking baby, that he had left the party early as he was feeling sick (that would be excessive drinking and overexposure to the sun).

Booty and I had misjudged our time, arriving a tad late to our meeting location. Piranha quickly handed over the car seat with my puking bundle inside. She also delivered a letter mysteriously written by my wee bundle of joy while staying at Grandpa's house. I am sooooo not kidding about that letter. I know I have it buried here someplace and one day will share it with the world. Sharing that letter with Piranha had us laughing so hard that she quickly forgave the extended stay at the gas station, sitting on cases of soda as she unsuccessfully rocked my cranky, crying, non-sleeping, puking baby.

Any time we pass the Leasburg exit and the now remodeled gas station, Booty, Piranha and myself will recount that miserable day.

I'm Gonna Tell MOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM!!!!

2009-12-13T07:26:00.004-06:00

WOE

They fight. It's a fact of life. Pretty much every damn day. Actually EVERY damn day, multiple times a day.

My kids don't fight like I did with my brothers - that was brutal. The kids brand of fighting is more of taunting and teasing. Well, except the whole nut sack punching between the boys, but since they both think it's funny no harm is intended. And that is probably the whole gist of it, no harm is intended.

With two of them no longer living together, family get-togethers become boxing rings. I shouldn't be too surprised. Whenever I'm around my brothers we exchange all sorts of niceties as well. I hadn't seen one brother for a several years and his first comment to me was "you got fat". Without missing a beat I came back with "you got ugly".

It's all fun and it's bonding. Amazingly my kids are quite close. It's hard to remember watching my kids rip into each other, toss insults back and forth, smack and trip each other in passing. Then I remind myself that they really do like each other.
(Don't you just LOVE the snow boots? Yeah, she wore those all year long until she couldn't squoosh her foot inside it any more.)

Our Million Dollar Video

2009-12-10T20:47:00.002-06:00

AWWWWWW

Sadly I don't have the video digitized, maybe one day I'll hook up the ol VCR to make the transition.

I remember standing in my mom's livingroom laughing so hard I was gasping for air. Actually EVERYONE was laughing so hard they were gasping for air. The snorts and squeaks made it even funnier so we were laughing at ourselves laughing.

In the middle of the floor was my son, my second child. He was all of eight months old and somebody (probably my mother) thought it would be "cute" to see his reaction to her musical stuffed Rudolph. She turned it on and set it down on the floor opposite of the baby.

It would take four steps, nod twice and then the nose would blink.

And baby Keith's eyes LIT UP. He wanted that blinking thing across the room BAD and started to commando crawl towards it. Every time Rudolph stopped to blink, Keith would stop crawling and flutter his feet. Uproarious laughter - awww, isn't this cute? Quick somebody grab the video camera!

To move things along we moved Rudolph closer, impatient to see what Keith would do. They were practically nose to nose and Keith refused to blink, captivated by the reindeer. As Rudolph would nod, so would Keith. Even more laughter.

THEN!

Then, Keith propped himself up and latched onto Rudolph's nose with his mouth! As Rudolph would nod so would Keith's head. And when Rudolph's nose lit up, SO DID KEITH'S CHEEKS!

Funniest damn thing EVER!

Death Of A Christmas Tree

2009-12-09T10:16:00.003-06:00

WAH!

It happened one Christmas day back when my youngest was just a wee toddler. I was sure we had a future baseball star on our hands as he had been scolded for the umpteenth time not to swat the ornaments on mommy's pretty tree with his wiffle bat. Oh but he had perfect form and his father was quite proud, if only he would aim for something besides my precious tree.

We will never know exactly how it happened although the offending bat was later found at the scene of the crime. I was in the basement in quiet conversation with my husband when we heard a loud crash. We jolted up the stairs to find the Christmas tree splayed in the middle of the livingroom floor, our two older children standing on the couch plastered to the wall with wide eyes and a beseeching look that screamed "I didn't do it" and their little brother stranded UNDER the tree, little red TellyTubby slippers poking out in desperate kicks to be freed. I instantly pictured the Wicked Witch under Dorothy's house in The Wizard of Oz*.

Scrambling to lift the tree off our smooshed baby, we found he was quite alright, just a little shaken. We lost a few ornaments, but fortunately the tree is home to mostly plastic and fabric decorations. The tree stand, however, died. Since Christmas was over it didn't make any sense to try to find a way to rig it back into an upright position. We swept up the shattered pieces and then left the tree lying prone in the middle of the floor until we had more time to properly pack it up.

Later that day, the youngest was found behind the tree stand (still attached), turning it as if he were driving a big truck.

I totally failed to photograph a single portion of this epic tale. BAD MOM! BAD BAD BAD MOM!

*I type for shit and originally had "The Wizard of Ox". Typos of this magnitude truly amuse me.

A Sense of Direction Is Hereditary

2009-12-08T07:12:00.003-06:00

WOE

Waiting for daughter to arrive at a meeting I get a call from her in near panic. I know this sound. She's lost again.

Me? I'm descended from homing pigeons. I'm not above getting lost or a little turned around, but with a little diligence and a few choice words I manage to get to my destination albeit a little late. But those moments are rare. More often than not, I know exactly where I am geographically. I definitely got this trait from my mother, the AAA Queen. She will proudly tell you that she can whip up a trip-tik with the map laid out on the counter facing the customer, upside-down to her, and perfectly wiggle that orange highlighter across the entire US of A!

The geography trait was passed down to my youngest son. I recall him chirping up from the backseat, barely able to talk, pointing out familiar landmarks. His siblings staring at him awestruck because THEY had no idea where they were. When Amanda finally had her drivers license I would send her youngest brother along for the ride just to make sure she could find her way home. And no, I am not kidding.

Amanda inherited her lack of direction from her father. I used to joke that he would get turned around in a cardboard box. It never failed to amuse me how he would be completely lost in a shopping mall - me totally secure, willing to place money, which end was anchored by Sears.

Keith got a mix of the two. He needs solid directions, but has managed his way around town. Only once have I received a frantic call as he took a wrong exit off the highway and landed in downtown St. Louis. And to be honest, I've made that mistake and it's not an easy one to undo. Between Google Maps and him rattling off street signs I finally got him to terra firma.

Amanda read street signs to me and while the streets were familiar, they weren't so familiar that I knew their intersections and I certainly couldn't discern which direction she was headed. She was following MapQuest which had directed her some fucked up way into the neighborhood. Had she called me to begin with I would have had her there in a total of three turns. Finally I asked, "is the sun on your left?"

YES YES

"turn left." I told her major streets to look for and gave her right/left directions.

I really have NO clue where she was. It's too bad I've finished her Christmas Shopping because she really needs GPS.

Can I ever get a decent picture????????

2009-12-05T21:53:00.002-06:00

Is it at all possible for my children to pose for a happy family picture? EVER?

Fund Raisers

2009-12-04T13:16:00.002-06:00

WAH!

'Tis the season for schools, sports, clubs and churches to hit you up for their latest round of fundraising. The slick sheets of candy, cookies, wrapping paper and trinkets galore dazzle you just in time for holiday shopping.

Today I'm delivering live wreaths to my co-workers and collecting the last orders for butterbraids. It's never ending. And having three kids has meant multiple order forms overlapping left and right. At least I'm down to one child now, but that hasn't slowed the activity any - how the hell does that happen????

I know some people who flat out refuse to sell, buy, or even discuss fundraisers. In fact, I've had to tell a dejected child more than once that we just cannot participate - the project, whatever it was, could do just fine without me passing around that stupid sheet.

Some places have gone the short route of just asking the parents to donate $50 at the beginning of the year and be free of the fundraising hassle altogether. And trust me, I've plunked down well over $50 per child per year in buying crap from their fundraisers, so that really is a bargain.

But I like some of the stuff.

The wrapping paper is good, solid stuff. The cookie dough comes in cool buckets and tastes delightful unbaked. And our local fundraiser thing, TJ's Pizza, is the BEST EVER! Girl Scout cookies? Just go ahead and mark me down for 3 thin mints, 2 samoas, 1 peanut butter... better make that FOUR thin mints and THREE samoas and one peanut butter.

And having been the adult leader of a few groups trying to raise funds? Totally sympathetic to anyone else in the same shoes. It's like it's my duty to return the favor. I do try to be selective and only buy what I can use or gift and try really really hard not to order anything out of guilt.

Usually.

So what are you opinions about kids fundraisers? Gobble them up? Avoid them like the plague? Pick N Choose? Something from everybody? That $50 idea is the best ever?

The Art of Shampoo

2009-12-03T14:15:00.004-06:00

WHOOPS!

Husband has noticed that the shampoo bottle is not emptying at a rate consistent with two people showering everyday. I don't take notice because I use the frilly girl stuff in the pink containers, figuring two able-bodied males can mention when their supplies begin to run low. And who would think to look if one wasn't running out fast enough?

It came out in the course of conversation that Ian is only using conditioner, not the shampoo. Husband thought it was completely ridiculous, why on earth would somebody go to that much trouble to NOT wash his hair?

My thought? Maybe nobody TOLD the child about the difference between shampoo and conditioner?

I don't exactly recall ever having that conversation with ANY of my kids. But, I also have to remember that for the past several years Ian has been practically BALD and didn't need much instruction on hair care beyond "rub a washcloth across your noggin". So, no, I can't imagine anyone HAS explained the difference.

And so last night we had a quick instruction on shampoo and conditioner.

Rinse, lather, repeat

Boys, Boy Parts, & Stupid Games

2009-11-30T19:08:00.004-06:00

WHOA!

WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA

Last night I had to use my MOM VOICE - the loud, screechy, sit-your-ass-down-before-I-ground-you-forever tones that set children the world around on edge. After twenty some years at this parenting game I've even mastered "The Look" and "The Point", things you see sweet little southern old ladies execute flawlessly causing grown men to quiver in their boots. I don't know that I have that effect over grown-ups other than the ones that actually emerged from my very own uterus. With time, maybe?

It seems my sons, ages 20 and 12, have taken up a new past-time - sucker punching each other in the crotch. Oh it's great fun, don't you know? Toppling your six foot brother into a twitching blob on the livingroom floor or catching your twerpy little brother in mid-flight running across the bedroom. Yes good times.

NOT!!!!

Dammit, this gonad attack could seriously alter my future as a grandmother (not that I want or need that to happen ANY time in the near future. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE wait. PLEASE! And by all means, WEAR A CONDOM if you can't wait. PLEASE).

Besides, I really do not want to deal with nut sack injuries that might require me to apply ice, extract lodged zippers and certainly not a trip to the ER. It's really bad enough that I happened to be present when the nurse removed a catheter - something a woman does not ever want to witness with her grown, man-sized son. Really. I could use a little Etch-A-Sketch eraser action to get that out of my memory.

I've mulled this over with several other mothers and we all agree that this qualifies as "stupid boy behavior." This may, however, take the cake going beyond TYPICAL stupid boy behavior.

Whatever the reasoning, whatever the pleasure or sense of revenge, it is quite clear that my sons are braindead both above and below the belt.

In Store Meltdown

2009-11-27T23:44:00.002-06:00

WHOA!

We've all seen it - the in-store meltdown by a child who has had ENOUGH. There is no placating him, no toy, no candy, no promise big enough to quell the whining and tears. The only recourse is to leave. NOW!

And there is nothing like having that meltdown happen in your own cart by one of your own. Seeing it happen to someone else brings out a knowing sympathy.

Today was Black Friday. After four hours of non-stop shopping and line-standing we came to Walmart and a boy at a neighboring checkout quickly ticking down to his own little explosion. Mom and dad saw it coming, was trying to hurry along as best as the slow line would allow. Fortunately there were two parents on this outing so one could continue in the checkout line while the other took Mr. Meltdown for a bouncy walk. The other shoppers would have preferred if mom had just taken him straight to the car as his high pitched wailing was really unbearable.

Personally I cannot see any reason to bring a child along on marathon shopping days like Black Friday, although I saw many other people who didn't seem to have any problem with it. There were plenty of strollers, pumpkin seats and kids locked into shopping carts especially after the sun was up. I'm glad to see the kids were not brought to stand in line in the cold, dark morning hours. But after the doors were unlocked and the first rush of craziness was over, kids were present all day long. Whining and wimpering and outright wailing was a constant background sound to the day's shopping.

I guess I'm sprouting into an old lady because I would rather not encounter "that" on my shopping trips. Some teenager or non-shopper out there could make a killing by offering Black Friday babysitting. I certainly haven't participated in Black Friday until now partly because I wouldn't bring kids with me on such a day. Well that and I am not a professional shopper - I'm more of a professional ANTI-shopper.

So do your fellow shopper, and your ticking time-bomb child, a favor and leave the kids at home. Hire a babysitter, coax grandpa into a few hours of bonding time or get your bargains online. THIS is no place for the meltdown prone.

Are We There Yet?

2009-11-22T08:54:00.003-06:00

WHOA!

As we look toward family gatherings and lengthy car rides, let's discuss the oft asked question, "are we there yet?" It comes in multiple forms:
"How much longer?"
"How many miles do we have to drive?"
"Why do we have to go?"

After several rounds of intense questioning by my middle child it started to dawn on me that the string of questions were code for "what's going on?" We spend so much time planning and discussing with our partner the upcoming events that we forget that until Thursday night in a flurry of packing and prepping the car that the kids may not be aware of a five hour trip across the state for a weekend stay with Aunt Beatrice, who they only know as a name on Christmas cards and occasionally invoked in long-ago memories.

So one of the first things we can do to avoid a long string of repetitive backseat inquiries is to actually forewarn the kids of travel plans. Now if you've been parenting for a few years, you have learned that mentioning speculative plans can backfire especially if the plans don't come to fruition. However if you wait until the plans are solidified, it could be Thursday night prior to leaving before you know anything for sure. Rarely do these plans materialize in a matter of days. Usually you know several weeks, if not months, in advance that this weekend is even a possibility. Therefore, you owe it to your kids to give them fair warning of upcoming plans, even if it's not etched in stone, at least a week or two in advance.

The flip-side of the backseat inquisition is EXCITEMENT. Those kids are jittering with sheer anticipation of getting there. And NOW! So then you need to find something to distract those anxious minds. Depending on the length of the trip you can utilize electronic babysitters (DVD's, hand-held games, books, CD's). Don't rely on just one gadget to be enough. Your normally sedate child will turn into a bouncing chihuahua and will need multiple distractions. You will need a whole diaperbag of games, gadgets and maybe a horse tranquilizer. Okay, nix that last one, but trust me you will fantasize about it.

I also found getting extra copies of maps to be a great silencer. On a fourteen hour car trip to Florida, I handed my middle child a map with the anticipated route already marked out with a highlighter. I taught him watch for road signs and how to follow along on the map. For his younger brother I got a travel book with games and cartoons relevant to the area we were traveling. Because we were crossing several state lines, each child got their own stickerbook so they could record the states they visited as we drove. I still have mine from my childhood and continue to update it thirty years later.

All of this planning and charting and mapping is also a fantastic teaching opportunity. Reading, geography, sequencing, alphabet...

Remember all of the stupid cartrip games people play? Find words in alphabetic order on billboards. Singing 99 Bottles of Rootbeer on the Wall (okay, I admit, my kids learned it the real way with BEER). I Spy, 20 Questions, and a whole songbook of campfire songs. Anything and everything. Even teenagers too "cool" to do anything but roll their eyes will join in... eventually. If you also think all of this cheesy and unnecessary, lighten up. You're making memories dammit.

Sadly you'll still have a few "are we there yet" but hopefully not a constant string.

So everyone, what car ride distractions do you remember from your childhood? What do you do with your own kids?

Growth Spurts

2009-11-20T06:09:00.004-06:00

WAH!

Girls seem to blossom overnight, but really it's more gradual and it just SEEMS overnight. Boys, on the other hand? Definitely overnight. Or certainly in a matter of months.

Last May I had a skinny, short sixth grader whose shaved head was starting to grow out. He had a couple of major events requiring dress clothes. Everything he tried on required a belt (or those groovy inside belts they now put in the waistband of kids clothes pants) and was too long. I knew this day was coming so I bought slacks requiring a belt and a little hemming. I rolled up close to three inches on those legs - and by the way, my tailoring skills totally suck. I'm sure his grandmothers would have a full-blown hissy if they saw how I attacked this project.
By September his other slacks (older ones, not too long) were starting to show his white socks. Well, first things first, he was promptly told NOT to wear white socks or those ankle thingies with dress shoes! And then, where are those slacks I hemmed up in May?

crickets chirping

Last night was another dress-up meeting. Finally the hemmed pants make an appearance as I'm asked to make them longer. My sucky tailor job is quickly pulled out and viola, pants that come down to his shoes! It's like magic.

He's still skinny, but really looks like a teenager with that bushy mop on his head.

In the car he proudly told me that he can go back to wearing ankle socks.

Calendars

2009-11-19T07:44:00.002-06:00

Has it really been a week since my last post? Very sorry - life has been whirling out of control. Or I've been dreaming of hibernating.

I get a little frantic trying to remember everything I have to do. And when I get frantic about trying to remember everything I am bound to forget something. I learned a long time ago to cart a pocket calendar around with me. It has been an amazing lifesaver for my wee little brain. Recently I discovered that I could order a five year month-at-a-view calendar. I have been dancing around with my happy book, my new brain. Those planners with broken down days by minutes and hours have never been of any help. I need to see the entire month, to be able to look ahead beyond today, to remind myself at least fourteen times that I have an obligation on Saturday.

Schools have started issuing daily planners to students beginning in fifth grade. This has been a huge improvement in teaching personal responsibility and time management. When my older kids were in school they were given credit for filling out each days activity and having a parent sign it. By seventh grade I was able to back away from asking what homework projects they had because they could forecast and organize on their own. By high school they learned to use those booklets like daily bibles, even recording out-of-school activities.

My younger son attends school in a different district and I don't think this group of teachers ever embraced the idea of the planner. It's just another gimmick. But I've seen it work. It meant the 5th & 6th grade teachers harped on it endlessly and enforce parent involvement. It was a win win win situation all the way around. Since this group of educators haven't stepped up, I'm forced to take the issue up personally. It's much more difficult as I cannot see and hear what is being told to the kids in the classroom. I don't know if he's missing major assignments. It's rather aggravating. We're muddling through.

So, are your kids getting these daily planners? Is it effective? Are the teachers USING it? Are you reviewing it?

Kid Friendly Job

2009-11-12T16:01:00.002-06:00

YAY!

I have the tremendous luck to work for a fantastic company that allows us to bring our kids to work (provided they stay quiet and out of the way). I also have a fabulously large work space that allows a second person to be in my area without being a huge nuisance.

So tomorrow I will be bringing my son to work while his teachers enjoy a professional development day. He will have his PSP, a book and a laptop at his disposal to keep him fairly busy during the day. And when the novelty of his electronics wears off, he can play DVD's in one of our conference rooms if not occupied by one of the ninety bajillion meetings we hold every week or he can run minor errands for my co-workers.

Fortunately no one abuses this liberty so having school aged kids running amok through our halls and cubicles is a rarity. Most are able to keep themselves entertained and also put in a few hours of volunteering. It's a win win situation that we all cherish.

No one better screw it up!

Time To Wake Up

2009-11-11T06:45:00.003-06:00

This morning I walked into my son's room, crawled into bed next to him, pulled all of the blankets off of him and onto me and started poking him in the ear. Then under his arm, behind his knee and on his very ticklish waist. Then we played tug-of-war with his blankets. All the while his eyes are closed.

He finally crawled out of bed with a scowl on his face. Mr. Grumpy Grumpinstein. Hey at least I didn't choose my favorite wake up method - really bad, very loud, off-key opera.

So how do you coax your kids out of bed in the morning?

Parental Screw Ups

2009-11-10T19:00:00.002-06:00

WHOA!

So a few friends of mine were discussing today ways they totally screwed up in the parenting department - you know those times you turned for a few seconds to grab something and the baby rolls off the couch, bed or changing table?

Me? Oh I have plenty of flubs. There was the pretend nibbling that turned into an actual bite on my son's ear. Or the time I walked out of the post office leaving behind my son, same one I bit. When I reached the car and saw the older two sitting there I realized what I did and turned around and got him - he didn't even know I had left. He was playing with some blocks. Of course his brother and sister filled him in on the primo parenting and it's now brought up as a regular reminder of how much I love my children.

So what about you? How have you flubbed in the parenting department?

Eau De Boy

2009-11-09T06:27:00.003-06:00

WHOA!

My youngest is twelve - in the throes of boy stink. I worked for many years in an elementary school and noticed that the fifth graders start to reek right around mid-March. I joked that as the sap starts to churn through the trees, so does the hormones through the kids. And at twelve, in seventh grade, the odor has not receded.

Having one son already pass through these stages, I know that another smelly stage is coming probably around ninth grade - the swimming in cologne stage. I guess I should be grateful that he didn't turn to Axe. Someone had alerted him to the new scents of Old Spice, and like their advertisements say, "this isn't your father's cologne."

I remember in college two particular boys, Clark and Kenny. They were two incredible pieces of manliness, both baseball players with chiseled bodies. As if the vision of this duo walking across campus wasn't enough, they wore Polo. I know many people who retract thinking of the guys who wore Polo back in the '80's but for me and Vicki and Barb that particular smell will forever mean Clark and Kenny. Better yet, they were friends with Vicki's boyfriend and often were found visiting my dorm room. Hours after their departure people would come into our room and say, "mmmmmm... Clark and Kenny were here." You could smell them. In a good way. ...sigh!

Years later I still stop at the men's cologne counter and sniff that emerald bottle of Polo, recalling those years of Clark and Kenny. Swoon. There is nothing like a GOOD cologne on a man. It seems that the good looking guys master smelling good. So imagine walking past your own bathroom and catching a whiff of delicious man cologne and realizing it's YOUR SON emitting it??? I swear I had to find a place to sit down to absorb that conflicting information.

While it's nice to have a reprieve from years of stinky sweaty boy, I wonder if it's an improvement? It does make me believe that boys have, in fact, no capacity to smell. Why else would they be able to live with their stinky feet or how could they bathe in such strong colognes?

A Job Well Done

2009-11-08T11:08:00.003-06:00

You know after all of those years of scolding, sleepless nights, and locking horns there is a payoff.

Last night after cleaning up from volunteering at a trivia night, I dropped my daughter off at her car amazed that the clean up was a cinch. I had to set up and tear down the AV equipment. The set up went quickly although I did it myself, but I knew tearing it down, my most dreaded part, was going to take a while. I also loathe dragging it out of my car and into the office. I figured it would sit in my car until I got to work on Monday. But no, my daughter was also volunteering and she stepped in, easily taking commands and not getting in the way (some helpers aren't quite so helpful). She also offered to help unload it all at the office. Holy crap, who can pass up an offer like that? If only all cleanups went so smoothly.

When I dropped her off at the car, I thought "wow, I raised an amazing person."

(I'm totally taking credit although many people may have contributed to the cause)

First Game

2009-11-07T17:18:00.002-06:00

Today is the first game of the hockey season for my son. It's his third year and I think he's finally got the swing of the game. This is floor hockey and he competes against five other teams in his age bracket. It's not the cut throat competition of ice hockey and requires very little equipment, just a stick.

Sadly his team lost by one point. By the last ten minutes of the game things really heated up and the parents were all standing up and screaming. Nothing like a few last minute points to get the blood pumping.

I'm glad his brother and sister weren't heavy into sports. Amanda played several seasons of girls soccer for her high school. They were played after school while I was at work so there wasn't much juggling of schedules. Many of the parents in today's audience have two or three kids playing hockey so they spend all day sitting in that gym. Some of the players also play ice hockey adding another level of chaos to the schedule.

What activities are your kids in? How insane is your schedule?

Sleeping Like a Baby

2009-11-06T08:04:00.003-06:00

One of my online friends just came home with her first child. Neither is sleeping. So how is it the phrase, "sleeping like a baby", ever came about. Babies do not sleep and when they do, they jolt awake at the tiniest of sounds.

"Sleeping like a drunk college student" would be better, don't you think? Of course as a parent of two college students, I would prefer to not think about passed out college students, not that I've ever fit that description myself. But it would be a more apt description of one of those really sound sleeps that we all desire? To sleep all through the night, no interruptions, and to wake up refreshed and happy?

Oh.

Passed out college students probably don't wake up refreshed and ready to go. hmmm

Well, my friend Wombat needs happy thoughts sent her way. Her baby needs to start sleeping other than when held and momma is in DIRE need of sleep. Hopefully they both will find their way to a mattress and will begin sleeping like a baby really really soon.

COOKIE MONSTER

2009-11-05T08:01:00.004-06:00

CHECK OUT GOOGLE TODAY!!!!!!

Okay, everyone, join me singing, "C is for cookie"

c is for cookie songs
Download free mp3 | Download free music

You can thank me later today for that little earworm.

Sesame Street

2009-11-04T06:50:00.003-06:00

YAY (Did I really overlook a positive aspect when naming this blog? Well, I'm adding YAY. It's tiring to only whine, we need to celebrate too)

God Bless Google. If it weren't for that precious search engine how would I know that today is the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street? Yes, today Google features Big Bird's legs (isn't it cool that Google does that on special days?)

Did you watch Sesame Street as a kid? That would depend on your age. If you are anywhere past your mid-forties chances are you were "too old" to be captivated by muppets reciting the alphabet and counting and dancing and singing. But me? At 43? When Sesame Street came out I was three years old and the target audience for the new show. All of that cartoonish showmanship was absolutely captivating. To this day I have a hard time navigating away from Sesame Street when it comes on TV.

My children were as captivated by Sesame Street as I was. It was clean wholesome TV and not nearly as mind-numbing or violent as TellyTubbies or Power Rangers. I could actually sit down with my kids and enjoy the same show.

This is not to say I don't have some criticisms about the show. It's clearly targeted toward inner city kids. City buses and taxi cabs are foreign objects to most American kids (I'm sure that amazes New York TV execs). The attempts to keep the show demographically even is horribly obvious, even to small kids. And changing the theme song? That is sacrilege! Maybe it's been changed back... it has been a few years since I've watched it. But there was an "urban" beat added to "Come and play, everything's a-okay..." A real turn off for a purist like me.

I cried when Jim Hensen died. I loved his magical creatures. They were so zany and yet so personable. Those monsters were not scary monsters. They were fun and lovable. I cannot decide if I love Cookie Monster or Grover more. I've become a pretty big fan of Elmo too.

Sesame Street, thank you! I would surely have learned my alphabet and how to count despite your existence, but you made it fun. You kept me entertained and educated.

Happy Birthday, dear friends.

Holiday Planning

2009-11-02T11:20:00.005-06:00

Woe!

As I pant over the fact that October seems to have flown by, making September seem only days ago, I am now struck with the fact that it IS November. And since it is November it is time to thrust ourselves into planning the upcoming holiday season, schedule who goes where, and to think long and hard about traditions.

Personally, Holidays are about logistics. How to get all of the necessary people together at the necessary times. I had a tiny peek into the chaos when I was dating my first husband as he was pulled from mom's house to dad's house to grandma's house to some shindig at a hotel. He came from a big family. I did not. Holidays for me had, up until my marriage, been a private affair around the family dinner table. There was no shuffling from one meal to another. It was simple and it was easy. Since the day I said "I do" holidays have been nowhere near simple nor easy.

It was difficult when the kids were little as we had to pack up a diaper bag with multiple changes of clothing and any other implements of mass destruction like portable cribs and walkers. And of course bundle the kids in cumbersome snowsuits to keep them warm. None of the homes we visited were suited for large gatherings and bringing babies or toddlers and their assorted equipment was even more burdensome. Grandparents cooed that they didn't care - they were just happy everyone was together. So we tripped over each other and tolerated cranky baby cries as little ones couldn't keep their regular nap schedules.

Getting home was insane as we had to lug all of the loot (leftovers and shiny new toys) home in our tiny car.

Then I had to get divorced and further complicate the whole chess-game. Kids are picked up one night to be dropped off the following afternoon to be picked up another day later. Thanksgiving is a jumble of seven different meals spanning half the state over four days. Fortunately my two older children are able to drive, but they also have significant others further adding to the mayhem. Christmas is a delicate ballet crammed into 36 hours. By December 26th we are worn out and sick of looking at ham and turkey left overs, pie is a dirty word and life would be much quieter if batteries would instantly die.

Since my kids have grown up in this strange world of shuffling to and fro maybe they have fond memories of it. Me? I find it horribly stressful and vow not to make it any more difficult when they start their own families. I'm not quite sure, maybe I'll follow my former mother-in-law's lead by hosting Easter in August (we really did that one year). It's about being together - the specific dates don't matter at all. And I'm screwed up enough to actually pull it off.

So how is holiday planning in your world? Easy Schmezy? A well orchestrated ballet? Quiet and uneventful? Sheer chaos but you love every minute? Do you volunteer at soup kitchen or do you host a quiet affair for friends abandoning family chaos?

Other People's Children

2009-11-01T20:34:00.004-06:00

WHOA!

We encounter them all of the time, good and bad. They are other people's children. The good ones we hold up as examples to our own children, "look there how that little girl is quietly reading a book, not running around like some heathen banshee." The point gets kind of lost as your child doesn't understand the meaning of "banshee" and, well, "heathen" is sort of vague too, but they do get the idea that both are bad descriptions. The bad kids are great examples to point out, "I swear, if I ever catch you doing THAT I will tan your hide!" In fact, my kids have probably learned more about acceptable behavior from my comments about other people's kids.

But what do you do when THAT kid is your kid? Notice I didn't ask "if". They all do it at some point or another. If you swear your angelic darling isn't THAT child then chances are they REALLY REALLY are. Even good kids can act the ass.

All three of my kids have been particularly good kids, but even they have had their moments of glory. My very first teacher conference ever was for my daughter in kindergarten. We brought her along, knowing that this was going to be rave reviews. And it was. Amanda was a very good little student. But that night she decided to go haywire. She was scooting under the desks and running around like a wild... banshee. Both teacher and I stared at her in absolute shock - me in embarrassment, teacher in bewilderment.

Another time I was at the grocery store and Amanda and Keith were running some form of tag between the aisles. I cut the trip short, ushered them through the check out line and once we hit the parking lot I read them the riot act all the way to the car. A woman with a little baby screeched at me threatening to call Family Services. Yeah, just wait lady, your day will come.

Maybe that is the key, the parents' reaction. That there should be a reaction.

Last night the Halloween party was invaded by twin heathens, possibly four or five years old. They rolled out of the van literally screaming at the top of their lungs with mom and dad ineffectively hushing them - and bam, Spiderman and Hulk broke loose and never stopped for the next three hours. Screaming, running, hitting, poking, provoking, hiding, screaming and more running. Mom and dad moseyed to the dining room leaving the miniature tyrants to run loose outside, assuming the other adults would keep an eye on them. Which that right there is a huge mistake - NEVER assume another adult will monitor your child. We have our own children to monitor and hell one of the children I was monitoring was a legal adult. I served my time chasing around energetic kids, I do not appreciate having someone else's brats thrust on me.

What is one to do when left facing unattended children misbehaving? Most people try to look the other way, but not me. I have a schoolmarm raging inside of me and she comes bounding out whenever children are running rampant. I have found her to be quite competent in squelching errant behavior. A stern look dead in the eye and an even tone leaving no question that you are quite serious and I say things like "put that down, it doesn't belong to you" or "you're not allowed to___". Sure enough I had to tell Spiderman that he was not allowed to touch my daughter's costume (he was hitting her constantly), that no one was to open the pumpkins, it was not nice to blow out the jack-o-lantern candles, and that he could only run on the grass, not the parking lot. The kid avoided me like the plague but was peeved to find that I did not stay close to my jack-o-lantern and was instead in all of his places of misbehavior. He'd been chewed out a few times.

Another mother reprimanded Spiderman for hitting her daughter but he came back with "she hit me first". The mistake this mom made was trying to be nice, to not start a scene. The little snot ran to his mother, who had finally come outside, and was clearly trying to tattle-tale. She ignored his pleas. And there was the whole problem.

It's hard not to cast judgment, but the problem seemed rather cut and dry and everyone was privy to it except Spiderman's parents. Rather sad actually.

Halloween Costumes and Christmas Lists

2009-10-31T10:10:00.004-05:00

WAH!!!!

Halloween costumes and Christmas lists are two things kids will obsess over at a frantic pace, nearly all year. You can drive across three states with a non-stop stream of babble gurgling from your backseat detailing either or both of these topics. Mind numbing doesn't even begin to describe it.

I figured when preparing for Easter that maybe discussing the upcoming Halloween and Christmas gifting seasons is a tad early. But just a tad. I declared many years ago that I will not entertain any discussions concerning Halloween until September. None. Zilch, nada. And I cannot accept any Christmas lists or magazines marked up for my reference until AFTER Halloween. One holiday at a time dammit!

We got the Halloween costume completed several days ago (a major feat for my procrastinating ass) and guess what was handed to me last night? A lego magazine marked up all of the fabulous Bionicles he wants for Christmas. I DON'T EVEN HAVE *MY* COSTUME FIGURED OUT!!!! We cannot have this conversation. Well, there wasn't a conversation at all - it was not so slyly slipped under my book. hint hint hint

Well the joke is on HIM! He's getting underwear for Christmas, so there!

Pageants

2009-10-30T06:18:00.007-05:00

I have circle of friends who gather every time a beauty pageant airs on TV. They wear their tiaras and feather boas and share platters and bowls of fattening food and, most importantly, pitchers of margaritas. Then they pick the contestants apart and squeal with laughter.

How rare they would land such a flub as the little girl from South Carolina wanting to get maps into the hands of the kids in South Africa!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WALIARHHLII

But what do you do when your very own daughter announces she wants to enter a pageant? Of course you ooze supportive sentiments and keep your doubts hushed up and quiet. I mean how can she compete against girls who have had years and years of experience of toddling around with vaseline on their teeth and duct tape on their boobs?

That was exactly the situation when my daughter proclaimed that she wanted to run for Miss Missouri. It came with a hefty entry fee that she managed to scrounge up through various sponsorships. A friend offered her a fabulous dress for competition and she mustered enough tanning bed trips to hide her lily white skin.

I sat in the audience that night, holding hands with my mother in a white knuckle clutch. We were in awe of actually being at a real beauty pageant. She and I had spent many years bonding over Pageant shows, not laughing at the contestants like my friends, but genuinely admiring the dresses and hairdos. And here we were at one live, with one of the contestants our own flesh and blood.

When she came down the stage stairs in an elegant glide, not tripping or stumbling like I would do, suddenly my eyes started streaming in nothing but pride. She was so beautiful, so graceful. We were sure she was well placed to actually win. It was devastating when her name wasn't called as a finalist, but she bounded out afterwards, tired but not dejected. It was a glorious experience, she said, and she landed a meaty scholarship to a school where she later found her calling.

Pageants come in many forms, not all of them for beauty queens. Amanda also ran for Miss Missouri for her favorite organization, Job's Daughters. This was more about her participation and knowledge of the organization as the winner would spend the next year promoting the group. This time she did place among the finalists, but no title. She came out of this one more dejected because she could really see herself winning. Just the same though, she came out with the most trophies and a killer smile.

Pageants can offer so much more than a tiara and title. Some come with scholarships, but they all offer an experience. A wise woman will take it for what it's worth and add it to her life resumé. Our job as parents is to clap like crazy and urge her on - neither of which is too difficult.

The Great Pumpkin

2009-10-28T21:42:00.004-05:00

So we're watching the classic Peanuts, The Great Pumpkin. My kids never got the glory of these old cartoons, the ones we middle agers continue to insist on watching with the same intensity as we did thirty years ago. I still moan when I miss the old Rudolph cartoons and my kids look at me cross-eyed.

I'm pretty sure a PowerRanger Reunion, a Pokemon Christmas Special, or something from the 1990's will make a come back in another 20 years and my kids will be all agog over it. The payback will be the dismayed look on my grandchildren's faces wondering what hokie crap is that? With any luck I can lure the little ones to the glory that is Snoopy and Rudolph and Frosty The Snowman while their delusional parents pant over the Japanese influence that ruined the cartoon world. Yes, that is a political stand - I do not like the new animation. Of all things I could possibly say, well... it looks... fake.

Oh well. Last night I pulled out an extra blanket for the bed, a twin sized one to cover me since my partner in crime is a walking furnace. It was covered in a faint print of Ariel, The Little Mermaid. A deep sigh, remembering this to be the prized blanket of a little girl decked out in Little Mermaid paraphernalia from head to toe. The child who watched the VCR tape a million times before I finally viewed it from beginning to end in one sitting. That was a little surreal, being able to quote a movie I was watching for the first time. Maybe this will be the treasured cartoon of one of my children?

Things come and go, trends fade away. But we fiercely cling onto those happy remnants of our childhood. We try to share their glory, but the retelling is never as good as the actual experience. So the memory lingers in our mind and we are sad that another generation will never understand sympathizing for broken toys on a stray iceberg or the sheer anticipation of the song "Kiss The Girl".

Pink Eye

2009-10-26T21:41:00.003-05:00

My kids are past the pink eye days, but lo and behold I've managed to get the nasty disease. It's forced me to take off work (yes that IS the cause of tears streaming down my face, not the infection... riiiiight). I don't miss having sick kids, but I do somewhat miss having random days off because of sick kids - you know what I'm talking about, right?

It took me a while to figure out the source of the contagion, but sometime this morning I recalled using a computer at the library on Saturday and touching my face. I know better. I work on computers for a living and just last week pleaded at the monthly staff meeting for my coworkers to wipe down their laptops with antiseptic wipes because when they get sick *I* get sick. Total self preservation there. After using a public computer I should have gone directly into the restroom and washed my hands. But I didn't and I'm pretty sure I wiped something off my face. After touching my face I always manage to remember my mother admonishing me when she showed up at my job at Taco Bell twenty odd years ago, you know in that screwed up way that mothers do just to embarrass you, and her pointing out that I touch my face a lot. I can't remember this motherly advice/observation/social embarrassment BEFORE I touch my face. No, always after. And thus, I infect myself with something crusty and gross in my eye. Lovely.

As I lay on the couch I think of sick days from school. It's mandatory that sick days are spent on the couch. Well I assume such for the entire world, but maybe it's just my family. You're really super sick if you can't even get out of bed. My ever so helpful mother would leave a pot and a wooden spoon to serve as bell if the invalid needed anything. In retrospect I'm sure my mother intentionally never obtained a real bell because she would be forced to do bodily harm to the first of us miscreants to ring it out of pure amusement... or need... whichever.

Since none of us had acquired the taste for tea, she would make jello and make us drink it hot. In case you have never had the pleasure, it is sweet. Too sweet. And when you vomit, it adds unnecessary color. I'm sure that last detail was also unnecessary, but the world needs to know. In case. Drink your tea and be glad of it!

With my own sickly children, they also got to drive the couch, but no banging device as everyone is right there anyway. A few times I even made the evil hot jello for them, but they fortunately LIKE tea and quickly opted out of grandma's tonic, waiting, instead, for it to set up and eat it like proper American children. I do insist that my kids drink orange juice when they are sick. They choke it down like troopers and pretty much avoid the stuff the rest of the time. I swear by it.

As I talk to friends and coworkers, I discover that not everyone is privy to the restorative powers of driving the couch, watching Scooby-Doo, eating jello and sipping orange juice. They were forced to stay in bed and drink broth, or worse, tough it out and go to school/work.

So what was the sick day options when you were growing up, and what do you offer to your own children?