Let the dishes wait a minute

My husband went out of town last week and I’m not totally sure when he’ll be back. Three minutes after he left, I missed his face. Three minutes after I missed his face, I missed the extra set of hands to help with all the household tasks that pile up and sap my will to live. Three minutes after that, I got sick. Naturally. Because if life is going to pile on the stress, it will definitely pile it on all at once. Because, well, that’s life.

I spent two days laying in bed. I didn’t even really sleep. My only symptoms were my entire body ached and my head felt completely fuzzy. Oh, and I felt incapable of remaining upright. So I mostly channel surfed, read, and wished I felt better. Friday I probably could have gotten up and accomplished something productive at 2:00 in the afternoon. But since I knew I was flying solo for Halloween shenanigans, I opted to save my strength for that night. Good call.

I then used the saved up strength to deliver crap to a neighborhood party. My husband had volunteered a table and an appetizer. I had stupidly volunteered an ice chest of water simultaneously. You can’t very well back out at the last minute when you are the one producing the table everyone’s crap is going to go on. But all of it required effort to produce. And by “produce” I mean I ordered wings from Papa Johns and heated them up in time for the party. Don’t judge. They were having pizza at the party. This was an acceptable item to bring. 

This was an acceptable kid to bring.  Iron Patriot.  Someone had to explain to me who he was.  I have been assured he did not make this character up.

The harder part was the folding table and cooler. Both required me to be upright while putting forth effort. The table had to be cleared off and wiped down. The cooler required locating and filling.

Does it make me a bad person if I momentarily just wanted to sweep everything off the table onto the floor?

Then they had to be drug down the street. Not sure why I felt the need to carry the table by hand rather than using a dolly. Also not clear why my daughter danced along next to me the whole way instead of helping me carry it. Such are the mysteries of motherhood.


No dogs were harmed in the staging of this photo of Katniss Everdeen and her bow and arrow. 

 And we hadn’t even trick or treated yet. Or gotten anyone dressed and out the door. Sheesh.

Iron Patriot and Katniss flexing their muscles for no apparent reason.

My daughter had friends coming over to trick or treat with us. My son was ready to leave an hour early. I successfully made small talk with other parents and stayed upright for a two full hours. I’m counting it as a win. Especially because my evening wasn’t over. Next up, drag all the crap back down the block to our house. Drop daughter at sleepover. Eat candy and cuddle the only baby left in the house for the night.

By 9:30 I raised the white flag and laid my head down on my pillow. I told my 8 year old son to turn off the television and go to bed at 10:00. I don’t know that he’s particularly trustworthy to accomplish that, but the cooties convinced me I didn’t care and his sugar high appeared to be wearing off. He took “turn off the television and go to bed” as turn out the television and go to sleep right there in bed next to me. I know this because his cold feet were pressed up on my thighs right around 3 am. Around 5 am he flopped over and began breathing on my right eye.

That morning, we got up and had breakfast together. Nothing special. Just the usual. I had two sinks overflowing with dishes, the kitchen floor was a mess, the trash needed to be taken out, the fridge needed to be cleaned out, grocery shopping needed to be done and we had volleyball, soccer and dance looming ahead on the schedule for the day. But my eight year old had had a fun night the night before, eaten his fill of candy, slept in Daddy’s spot in our bed and he was loving life as the only baby in the house. Plus he got to love life as the only baby in the house while sorting and counting Halloween candy. He radiated happiness and contentment. He rambled on uninterrupted telling me his every thought. 

And all my troubles fell away in that moment. And life was bright and shiny and sweet. It’s November and a good time to be thankful. So it was nice to have a moment that brought me back to feeling thankful. Because I am. For him and each day with him and her and their father. Even if their father is far away and can’t wash dishes for me right now.
So I sat myself down next to him and let the dishes wait a little while.

And the universe repaid me by giving me a great day followed by another great day. We watched Galaxy Quest and laughed. We went grocery shopping and they actually retrieved items we needed from aisles on the other side of the store. Yes, a case of Propel appeared in my cart. Yes, so did a roll of Gum Tape. But no one freaked the hell out or thought about killing anyone. And at one point my sweet babies even tried to convince me I look like I’m in my 20s.

Love notes from my babies.   They either love me or plan to hit me up for an X Box tonight.

My glass is officially half full.

Pull up a seat

Dinner out with my kids looks a lot like this: 

Lack of personal space pretty much sums it up.  Your eyes silently calling for someone to save you is also worth mentioning though.

I remember when they were small and dinner would be like roping cats just attempting to keep them in their seat and not screaming or crying. If you had a one to one ratio of parents to cats, you stood a good chance of succeeding. But there would be little to no adult conversation. You’d mostly just be happy someone else did the cooking and you wouldn’t have to wash any dishes at the end.  

I predict someone is about to get licked.

If the parents were outnumbered by the kids back when they were really small, oh, hell. Any other grown adult at that table is going to have to come off the bench and sub in. That’s the price of doing business when you dine with someone with small kids. Nothing is more amusing than the face of someone with no children trying to reason with your unreasonable child.

We quickly learned the tricks of the trade. How to slowly dispense Cheerios to keep a toddler busy. How handing over your car keys is a last resort toy. How to color with a kid while chatting with another grown adult. And never underestimate the benefit of going to restaurants that serve bread before the meal. My kids are good for a whole loaf of brown bread at Outback.

Even better, we’ve recently discovered that carefully slicing the bread and buttering it for everyone keeps the 8 year old occupied. If you’re willing to put up with slightly mauled bread that’s heavy on the butter, you just bought yourselves 7 minutes of quiet, sir. Genius.

Places that let kids refill their own drink are also useful. Pretty sure the other grown adults don’t enjoy watching my son making a suicide concoction out of every flavor. But I don’t care, other grown adults. That kid is endlessly entertained. Both by the making as well as the showing and discussing when he returns to the table. But places with refills are typically places with drive thru windows. That’s barely a step above my own cooking. Sometimes a girl wants to eat somewhere with a waiter that fills your glass for you. Don’t make you fancy schmancy. Could just mean you had a long week.

Bad lighting but proof that I was there.  Also proof that the cheep twisty crap toy things they give you can make entertaining fake glasses for all ages.

Sometimes if we’re in the market to not have to hear our kids’ voices, we’ll hand over our cell phones and enjoy the peace and quiet until they discover the WiFi isn’t working. Periodically, my husband and I can actually talk about our day.

We’ve also gone through periods where our daughter would take a book to the restaurant. Many was the Rainbow Magic fairy book that got read while tuning the rest of us out. Not going to lie. Wasn’t entirely unpleasant being tuned out.

But truthfully, hearing their voices ain’t always so bad at the end of the day. Especially as they’ve gotten older and can have an actual conversation. Not necessarily a stimulating conversation, mind you. But a conversation. So mostly we just yammer and shovel food in our face when we go out.

There are painfully bad jokes. Stories with no point. I try to convince the kids I’m secretly Hannah Montana and put on concerts in the backyard after they go to bed. My husband tries to trick my daughter into thinking we’re taking her to get the cell phone she's been asking for after dinner. There’s bickering. There’s teasing. And there’s question after question after question after question after question.

And next thing you know everyone wants to cram on the same side of the booth. The prized spot being right between my husband and I. That’s assuming he and I were allowed to sit on the same side to begin with. But if our side seems cramped, I’ll be darned if people don’t just start trying to shove themselves into the end of the seat and hanging off your neck.

And then people are touching your face or licking your nose. Slightly gross but sweet and funny. If your salad has croutons, you can count on my son’s grubby hand reaching in and taking them. If you are having a baked potato, you may as well cut off part to give to her.

 Your water glass may end up on the other side of the table. Your wine glass becomes a prop for a horrible French accent impression. The paper your straw comes wrapped in shot across the table at someone that’s not looking.

I’ll miss it when they’re big enough to realize it’s just dinner.

Feeling the Rain

It rained recently where we live. Lots and lots of rain coming down. Lovely to curl up in bed and hear it pattering gently on the window. And lovely, apparently, to let your children play in without a care in the world.

That's straight out of Chapter 12 in the Clampett's for Life book of parenting. We live by it. So naturally those were our children in the alley behind our house splashing in the river.

 

We also discovered there was a lake at the end of the alley so we checked that out too. Exploring. That's another chapter in the book.

Although I went a little paranoid helicopter mom and decided we should explore with our flip flops on because this is random water in the street and it was starting to creep me out a little.  Rain is clean and rejuvenating.  Pooling water on your street is distinctly brown and more gag inducing if you think about it too much.  Flip flops it is.

But it's fun. A special kind of fun as they realize the whole activity is to just play in the rain.

This is a nut that knows how to embrace life.  Dirt, rain, tears, whatever.  Arms wide ready for it.  He will be a regular at the local emergency room but, man, is that kid going to have stories to tell.

Kids get so used to hustling to get out of the rain. They're so used to trying to stay dry. Watching them quietly settle into getting wet and embracing the rain as part of the fun is the stuff childhood is made off.  When I was a kid, I loved going out in the rain. Twirling, walking, running. Umbrella. No umbrella.

The world is such a quiet simple place when it's raining.  Less cars on the street.  Less neighbors out walking their dogs. I like that my kids had the benefit of each other out there in the rain with them. Life is more fun when there's someone to splash. Just ask my husband.

He gave the water a few splashes strictly for quality control purposes.  To be sure the splash quality was up to to snuff.   Naturally.

A good 30 minutes later and 2 dripping kids and we called it a day.   Not before a quick canonball contest in the pool on the way in though.  Because you're already wet and so what if the pool is freezing cold?  If you jump in, you won't even have time to worry about it.

It's funny how you can head home after a long day at the office with one idea of what your evening has in store for you.  And then life just steps in and takes your evening in a different direction.  A good kind of different direction.  Sweet and simple and laughing together.

Posing like pirates.  In the rain.  Don't the two go hand in hand?

Theses are the good days.    We'll pretend no one wept and pouted because the fun should never ever have to end regardless of what time it is and whether or not anyone has eaten dinner.  We'll also pretend that no one bickered with their brother over the toothpaste, her spot on the bed and the pee on the toilet seat. 

Good days aren't good because no one bickers.  Not to me anyway.  To me, good days are good because the joy and fun make the bickering just part of the noisy nonsense.  Good days make it easy to ignore the noisy nonsense and not let it ramp your stress level sky high.  I like to think of it as flying over the tree tops with the noise below me.  Because my house is hella noisy and chaotic.  Even on good days.   It's just about the good outweighing the noise and chaos.  It's fun when it does.  And this time it did.

A tiny little tributary of tears

I cried a river when my daughter started Kindergarten five years ago.  I've been fine every year since.  That includes my son starting Kindergarten two years ago. Him starting school left me semi sappy.  But it felt like the ball had already been rolling downhill since his sister started.

First day of 2nd grade.  Tried to convince me to let him wear a favorite shirt two days in a row.  We negotiated down to something clean and not hideous.  Winning. 

It also doesn't hurt that my son is the epitome of his father charging ahead to meet life and embrace it.  I've felt like I'm on borrowed time with that kid since the day he was born.  I just hope he remembers to call me when he heads off into the sunset for big adventures.  I will have his father hurt him if he forgets.   I will also track him down like a dog.   Specifically, a pit bull.  But I digress.

My husband's annual photo bomb. It's not the first day of school if that man's not intentionally lingering in the background making a funky face.

So  it surprised me a lot a when I cried a teeny tiny tributary the night before my daughter started fifth grade.  Nothing like the great Kindergarten Flood of 2008.  But still.  Because where did that come from?  This kid has been getting increasingly independent, bright as a bulb and confident to try new things and go places without us.  She's not a baby.  And I know this.  I’ve known this for awhile now. 

First day of fifth grade. 9 years old. Carefully styled ensemble.

It’s the letting go that’s hard.   I didn’t cry the night before she started fifth grade because I loved her so much.  Although I do.  And I didn’t cry the night before she started fifth grade because she looked like such a young lady.  Although she did.  

Curled hair.  Little foam rollers for the win.  On the bright side, she can put her own earrings in now.  On the downside, I get to put in hair curlers now instead.  

I cried instead because that ball rolling down the hill is picking up speed.  And that speed is taking her further and further away from the little baby.  

First day of Kindergarten.  So excited.  Hold me.

I have a million memories of that little baby. Sleepless nights.  The shoebox apartment.  Laying on the floor with her as a baby.  Traipsing through Walmart and handing her the same stupid baby toy to play with every time we went and then dumping it by the cash register right before we check out.   House hunting at night driving around when she had trouble falling asleep.  Taking her on long walks to wear her out before bedtime once she could walk.  The days when it was just the three of us.  Her father, her and I. 

I miss that baby.  I couldn’t possibly part with the young lady she is.  I'd be lost.  She's amazing and like sunshine lighting up every day.   But I realized that that baby I remember so fondly is gone for good and that I miss her.  And that I’ll miss her every day of my whole entire life and I’ll never have her back.  And that’s hard.  

Loving them isn’t hard. It’s the letting go that is.  I suck at it.  

Their cute little faces help though.  At least I still have that. Hold me.

 

 

Hitting Reset

I was sick at the end of last week. Sick meaning home from work, complaining at nauseum to anyone that would listen and trying, trying, trying not to inhale every tasty piece of food that had the nerve to be in my house. I find it very difficult to focus on eating right when I’m sick. It’s like the cooties sap my energy as well as my ability to say no.

We all hope you can get well soon.  7 year old in his jammies handing it to me first thing in the morning.  I die.

Over the last 5 days, in addition to eating all the food I normally eat, I’ve also helped finish off a bag of Rolos, 2 whole bags of Flavor Blasted Goldfish, pancakes, 2 ½ boxes of Special K chips, a frozen strawberry daiquiri, more Rolos, 1 piece of chocolate cake and roughly 8 pounds of grapes. And, no, 8 pounds is not an exaggeration. Two 1 ½ pound bags followed by two 3 pound plastic containers. My kids ate some of them but let’s be honest, the vast majority got shoveled into my face.

Dear Mommy, Get well soon Mommy.  I hope get well soon Mommy.  Balloons. Kinfede=Confetti. 

And if the cooties sapped my will to eat right, heaven knows the cooties sapped my will to exercise and burn extraneous calories. I laid and laid and laid around some more. I laid around so much I actually got tired of laying around. And I’m a grade A lay around-er.

My children took pity on me and attempted to nurse me back to health by showering me with their attention. This sounds great until they’re telling you to move over on the bed to make room for their 3 foot tall Super Frog and want to hold the remote. No, I do not want to watch The Last Airbender. No, Phineas and Ferb is not my favorite show ever. And I feel confident we’ve watched too much Kickin’ It when I catch myself singing along to the theme song.

My daughter was not so patiently waiting for me to defeat the powerful cooties. Not because she loves me and wants me to feel better but because she was eager to hit the mall for back to school shopping. I’d be okay with never entering a mall again but she enjoys Justice. She especially enjoys Justice before school starts when she gets to pick out a special outfit to wear on the first day of school.

This is our third year letting her shop for her own first day of school outfit. The first year was Gymboree. The next year was Gap. This year was Justice. She thinks this tradition is very exciting. Someday she will realize it’s just a trip to the mall. Someday I will realize I’m an idiot to ever complain about a kid that just wants to hang out with me.

She's mostly into sparkles and accessories.  Right now she’s trying to convince me she "needs" a leather biker coat from H&M. Apparently a friend’s mother has already fallen victim to the leather coat “need.” I’m still holding the line though. My go to explanation is that it’s currently 100 degrees outside. Shuts that kid down every time but unlikely to hold up through December.

And since I was getting dressed and leaving the house, I decided it was time to hit the reset button and get back to business.

So I put on my compression shorts and went for an hour long bike ride. Running seemed like too much. Walking didn’t seem like enough back to business. Plus there’s a breeze when you ride a bike and that helps the molten lava sidewalk seem less molten-y. When you walk, it’s just you and the lava comparing notes the whole way.

It felt good getting back out there and gave me the boost to mentally hit the reset button on my cruddy eating and general laziness.

I pulled my favorite work pants out of the dryer this morning to put on and I swear they felt tighter. My first instinct was to blame the dryer. I’m trying out not using my scale for the entire month of August so I have no way to know for sure if this is actual dryer shrinkage or Rolos induced expansion of the Jelly Belly. But whatever.

It’s Monday. The universal day for starting over. So I am.

Reset.

The Summer of Significantly Less than 500

On the last day of school as the summer loomed long ahead of us, I had big plans for things to do with my kids. Places to go. Things to do. People to see. It’s funny to be halfway through the summer and realize we haven’t really done much. It’s also funny to feel kinda sorta great about it.

It’s been sort of slow and easy. Our days are filled with quieter less photo op worthy moments but still fun time spent together. And I guess, after all my husband’s traveling for 7 months, there isn’t much more I want out of life than time together. 

Is there anything cuter in this life than your little kid walking hand in hand with his father?  

We got new bikes back in May and have been riding, riding and riding some more. We rode so much we dreamed up a big scheme we called “The Summer of 500” and started counting our miles hoping to get to 500 by the end of the summer. I’m here to tell you 500 miles is a really, really long way with 2 relatively small kids. We’ve managed to make it 40 miles. By mid July. I’m not even sure “The Year of 500” could happen.

Exhibit A that I bring up the rear a lot.

By the end of the 2nd mile, we typically have people wanting to know how much farther. We also have to field heat and thirst related complaints. The cure to almost any ailment while riding is hitting the Sonic. Amazing what a soft serve cone can do for your 7 year old’s disposition.

Sometimes we get crazy and order some tater tots and a slushee, too. I know. We get crazy up in here.

We mostly ride in the park by our house. We are fortunate enough to live near a lovely park with lovely trails and lovely ponds to look at and we feel lovely every time we take advantage of it being right here in the lovely neighborhood we spent years pining for while living in the hood in an old house with carpeted bathrooms.  I have nothing but warm fuzzy memories of my family’s time in that house in the hood with the carpeted bathrooms but believe me when I say we appreciate every lovely thing about where we live now.

Exhibit B.  Still in the rear. 

I typically bring up the rear on our bike rides in the hopes of wrangling the dawdlers. My husband typically takes the point position to head off certain insane 7 year old boys with a death wish that want to fling themselves out into traffic without looking.

Trying out riding to the grocery store.  My husband got to carry the backpack full of fruit home.  He drew the line at watermelon.

My husband also likes to try to set the pace for our ride. One time he started telling my daughter and I to hurry up. So I reminded him that the current activity was "riding together and having fun" not "finishing a certain distance and getting it over with." Dork.

We’ve also been trying out frisbees and boomerangs. I laughed hysterically when my husband took the kids in the front yard the first night to test the boomerangs and immediately lost one over a neighbor’s fence. The neighbors weren’t home and the fence was too high to scale. That’s called funny. 

Aiming with his free arm.  That's where the magic happens. 

We burn some daylight trying to throw them. Periodically we get one to come back into our general vicinity. Mostly we end up walking to retrieve it and laughing at each other.  And an extra reason to laugh at each other is always a good thing.

The ninja showing us how it's done.

We also located some frisbees to try out frisbee golf.  Two years after we moved here, we noticed our lovely aforementioned park has a course. My husband went to the ninja school of throwing and gets Tiger Woods like distances. The rest of us mere mortals require a several throws to get somewhere near the hole (which isn’t actually a hole but I’m too stupid to know what it’s called in Frisbee golf.).

The kids like that they each have their own frisbee and everyone is getting to throw instead of it being one at a time and boring. And I suck just as much as the kids do so even though their father crushes them, the rest of us are pretty even. It’s cheap entertainment and involves some walking. Thumbs up.

The frisbee golf course designers put a couple holes near the edge of the lovely pond in the lovely aforementioned park. I guess that would be cute and challenging if you're into frisbee golf and competitive.  But if you're the Clampetts out goofing off with your kids and one of them is a trainwreck and therefore likely to send his Frisbee to the bottom of the pond, holes near the water is annoying.

Exhibit C.  Yep.  Rear.  Still here. 

Because that pond is only lovely if I’m riding past it. That pond is not lovely if I have to wade into it or feel around on the bottom with my hand. Because when I think about having to do either of those things, it’s the nastiest pond I’ve ever seen in my life and I kinda sorta think I threw up in my mouth just thinking about the brown water.

I keep convincing my kids to practice on other holes instead. Odds are they'll eventually want to broaden their horizons though.  I’m not against broad horizons.  I just think we should find ways to do it that don’t set off my gag reflex.

Doesn’t make me a bad mother. Plenty of other things might. But that one doesn’t.

Tales from the Mall

This week marked 6 weeks since my 9 year old convinced us to let her get her ears pierced. She did some careful calendar watching for 6 weeks and has been one eager beaver for the day to arrive she could change out her earrings. I found this amusing since I knew she didn’t actually own any other pairs of earrings. Eventually she put 2 and 2 together and realized that, too. So then we started discussing when we could go to the mall to pick out earrings.

Technically, she did attempt to convince me we should shop for earrings the day she got her ears pierced. I deflected the request by pointing out she wouldn’t be able to wear them. The shelf life for that excuse was limited though.  Poor long range planning on my part.

We made the rounds in Claire’s no less than 3 times. The first time was a quick survey of the store's inventory to see what we were working with. The second time was to be sure we didn’t miss anything. And the third time was to be as OCD as possible.

If you are capable of spending 30 minutes in Claire's without wanting to try on some of the wacky glasses, I'm concerned you aren't human.  That is entertaining stuff. 

 kept myself entertained by trailing along behind her holding the ones she had picked up as possibilities along the way . I also did a lot of sightseeing. I’m here to report Claire’s sells a wide range of crazy crap. I guess I thought their customers were mostly 12 year olds. Then I wandered past the display of piercing related jewelry. My daughter just thought the other earring had gotten lost on all of them. I also discovered that Katy Perry has line of fake eyelashes.

I didn't realize I needed to worry about my 9 year old wanting to glue on fake eyelashes.  Super.

My daughter settled on a lovely assortment. 24 pairs in all thanks to buying a couple of sets. My favorites are the watermelons which she wore last night while we were eating watermelon. She tried to tell me she needs some piano ones to wear for piano lessons. I said I need “I’m not made of money” ones to wear when she tells me things like that.

It's not a trip to the mall if there's no cookies involved.

Changing the earrings out ended up being more of a production than I expected. The backs on those first earrings they put in stay on really well. I guess that’s intentional so they don’t fall out and the holes close up on anyone accidentally. But they were so snug certain people were paranoid I was going to rip their ear off getting the back off. We stopped 4 different times to keep tears and freaking out at bay. And then it was done.

Attempting to take it out herself. 

She’s still building her confidence at putting them in herself, too. I can’t believe I ever worried about having to clean this kid’s ears for her. What I should have been worried about having to do is having to change her earrings for her every morning. This morning was starfish. It didn’t even require a back on it and just slipped in. 5 minute operation. What on earth.

Still smiling because I haven't started pulling on her ear yet.

And for anyone that may have noticed I have less hair on my head in any of those photos, kudos to you on your sharp eyes. It’s not your imagination. There was some haircutting going on. At work I keep telling people I shed my winter coat. I guess I think that’s funny and I am incapable of just nodding and smiling.

It’s embarrassing to admit that I probably hadn’t gotten a cut in a year. I seem to make a habit of putting off getting my hair cut until I am full blown shagadelic and putting my hair in a ponytail all day every day.

The before mug shot.  I know.  Split ends central.

A trip to an actual hair salon for a cut and style was one of my mini goals when I first started my health kick last July. I never seemed to get around to rewarding myself and doing it. But I finally did. Holy cow it’s lighter and cooler. I celebrated feeling good about my new do by trying on some clothes I normally wouldn’t look at twice in my favorite new size. Size 8.  And it fits.

Liked the color but thought it made my chest look flat or droopy or something.  Didn't help there was a full on shrieking child in the dressing room 3 doors down and her mother was clearly just plowing ahead trying on stuff despite that for 10 deafening minutes. 

I didn’t buy anything. But then, I didn’t really need to. The new cut combined with seeing myself in a Size 8 is my idea of treat all by itself.