There is a Reason a Tie is Like a Noose

February 6, 2010

Last night my 9yr old son has his third grade recital. An event which required dressing up in “fancy” clothes.

My 9 yr old, like most of his kind, hates dressing up. We have been having ongoing negotiations over what constitutes “fancy” clothes. Even though he told his music teacher that he owns no “fancy” clothes and that his family doesn’t believe in wearing “fancy” clothes, I told him that he was in fact going to be “fancy.”

I agreed to the dark jeans and sneakers in exchange for the button down shirt and blazer.

Then last night I snuck a tie into the mix. And it was then that the APOCALYPSE happened. A tie? A red tie? Clearly it was sent from Satan himself! And once it was on my son, why he turned into one of Satan’s fire spitting evil minions.

Duuude, it’s a tie. Not a live rattlesnake around your neck. said one of his brothers.

You just want to make me look stupid.

IT LOOKS LIKE THIS! LIKE THIS!

And Internet, I know I shouldn’t admit this. But I laughed. And his brothers laughed too.

Before anyone gets on me for the words “gay” and “retard,” know that I didn’t teach him those words. Nor are they permissable in my house. But I think we have all had the experience of being so angry or so frustrated that we literally can not think of any words to use to appropriately express our feelings. And “gay” and “retard” are the insults hurled around the schoolyard.

What he really wanted to say was “fucking douchebag” but he doesn’t know those words yet. Not to worry I am sure he will pick them up in the next year or so.

Don’t be fooled by his cool, collected appearance. Or his Fabio hair.

And here he is about to bang his drum. From the amount that he had spoken of the drumming I thought he was going to have a five minute long drum solo. Instead I think he banged the drum a handfull of times during a song. I captured it on video, but do not fear I will not share it. There are some things that only a parent can love. A third grade recital is one of them.

After the concert I commented on how cute all the girls looked dressed up. Most of the girls seemed to take the dressing up very seriously.

Girls are so weird, Mom.

You know what else was weird, Mom? The girls with straight hair made their hair all curly and the girls with curly hair made their hair all straight. Girls are so strange.

And a boy losing his mind over the prospect of wearing a tie is not strange. Not one little bit.

Coed Sleepovers Part Two

February 4, 2010

Wow, you people have opinions about the coed sleepover party!

I am not a huge fan of the sleepover party to begin with.

I find it interesting that the people who say they would allow it have a very narrow set of circumstances under which they would allow it. If they knew the family well. If the kids were very best friends. If they were under 12 (is that the magic age now? Have you seen what many 11 yr olds look like nowadays?)

I want to point out that I do not know this family AT ALL. My son barely knows this girl. She is not even in his class at school. And the party girl is turning 11.

This is not a best friend type of situation, which I might feel differntly about, though I honestly don’t know if I would.

I am not hypersexualizing the children, I think our culture has already done that.

No, I do not think that there will be some huge orgy going on in their rec room. Excuse me, I just threw up a little.

But I do think that it is my job as a parent to not put my child into a situation that they are not prepared to handle. I just do not see any good at all coming out of this big coed sleepover party and conversely I see the potential for a lot of bad. Why even go there?

And the people whho commented that I am thinking purely in a heterosexual mindset. Well, I think that even if there were a non-straight child attending they would be pressured to behave in a straight manner while playing Spin-the-Bottle, or 5 minutes in the closet (or whatever that game is called). Again, why even go there?

It’s my line in the sand. I think it is also telling that when my other sons heard about the invite they all laughed as if it were the most ridiculous thing ever. Not one of them thought I was being overly strict or uptight about it. They all thought it was inappropriate.

Oddly I do not have the same HELL NO gut reaction to the idea of 17 yr olds having after prom sleepovers/bonfires– if it were a small group, if I knew the parents, if…if…if.

While you are pondering all of this, go on over and make this spicy chicken soup. So delicious. And easy.

Just When I Think I Have Seen It All…

February 3, 2010

Yesterday my 10yr old son got a birthday party invitation in the mail. From a girl. That is somewhat odd for this age group, all things they do seem to be gender specific for a few years– you know those years when you can’t have a girl as a friend because then everyone will say it is your girlfriend, but she isn’t your girlfriend. And you don’t like girls anyway. Because ewwwwww cooties. Furthermore if you did like a girl you would show it by a)completely ignoring her, and b) being kind of rude to her.

Anyway, my son gets the invitation in the mail and asks if he can attend the party. I take a closer look at the party notice the time. 4pm - 10am. Awwww, she wrote am by mistake. Hahahaha.

Um, wait a minute. It says feb 20-21. Could it be? Nooooo. Yes? What?

Hey, is this party a sleepover party?

Yes, you do. But I am just confused. Maybe the girls are sleeping over and the boys are going home earlier and you got the wrong invitation by mistake?

And honestly I was confused. In what world is a boy-girl sleepover party a good idea?

So I called to RSVP.

Hi. This is Chris. I am calling to RSVP about the party… Uh, is it a sleepover party?

A CO-ED sleepover party?

The mother started laughing uncontrollably. Which is turn made me laugh.

I am glad you are laughing, because I thought something had to be wrong… I asked my son if maybe you thought he was a girl.

The boys are going to sleep in a different room.

More laughing. I am begining to think she is high, because the laughter and the co-ed sleepover party?

We didn’t want the boys to feel left out.

More laughter.

Yeah. This just isn’t a precedent I want to start. I have teenage boys who will want to know why they can’t sleepover their girlfriends’ houses.

I was worried that my son was going to be mad, but he actually thought that it was weird too. And so far everyone I have mentioned it to thinks that a co-ed sleepover party is a bad idea.

What do you all think? Would you allow your son to sleepover at a co-ed birthday party? What about your daughter? What if you dropped your daughter off to this party and then found out the next day that boys had spent the night also, would you be mad?

It’s That Time of Year

February 2, 2010

Last night the boys had baseball try-outs. Not the sort where they send you home and say too bad you can’t play, this is just to evaluate the kids and place them on teams.

On the other hand, my oldest son has spent the week trying out for the high school baseball team. It is a highly competitive team. Lots of boys trying out. Lots of boys who play baseball really well. He won’t know anything until tomorrow. Every night when he came home exhausted I would ask him how it went. I reminded him that he is not competing against all of those other boys, he is competing with himself. That his mindset isn’t supposed to be that he has to be better than all of those other kids, rather that he has to be the best that he can be. A subtle, but important distinction I think.

Every day he answered that he performed his best. So now we all just cross our fingers and wait. Feel free to cross your fingers along with us.

I write the kids little notes and stick them in their lunchbags when they have special things going on, big tests, whatever. The majority of the time the little notes go unmentioned. Sometimes I wonder if they really care about the notes or if they just roll their eyes and toss them out. Not that it matters, I think I write the notes for myself as much as for them.

This morning I was gathering the dirty laundry from my sons’ bedrooms (the laundry room is apparently a secret, invisible room because none of them can find it) and I saw this:

the note I had written him earlier in the week sitting on his bedside table, a little slice of his teenage life. Even though he would probably protest, I think he likes the notes.