Fourteenth

December 14, 2010

‘Tis always the season for topless wii playing.

Thirteenth

December 13, 2010

Let’s pretend that when I dropped the cupcakes off at school in the morning that I had just finished working out and those were my work-out clothes I was wearing. Not my pajamas.

Also, let’s pretend that the cupcakes came from a fancy bakery and not the Wal-Mart. Because I don’t shop there! Okay I do sometimes often, but I properly chastize myself every time I walk into the store and buy their cheap, cheap products rung up by the underpaid employees. But I have seven kids. How else am I supposed to keep them supplied with the over processed, sugar filled, fat ladened snacks that is their god given right to consume as Americans?

Twelfth

December 12, 2010

Christmas carolling.

Sprinting from house to house, because that’s just what you do when you are seven years old.

Just hoping this house gives out candy.
Or that it’s the last house.
Miles was convinced that we were walking much because we lost our way and had no idea how to get back home. Because that happens all the time. You go out for a walk, get lost, and then decide to ring people’s doorbells and sing to them instead of asking for directions.

Exactly Six Years Ago

It would be the last time I looked like this.

Eleventh

December 11, 2010

It is the sport that never ends
It just goes on and on my friends…

Eleven year old was thrilled to play in another football game. (He’s the one with the 88 on his jersey)The opportunity to run around and tackle people? Who in their right mind would want to pass that up?!?

The weather was gorgeous and sunny. And a hour or so sitting on the bleachers was a nice respite from the rest of the holiday madness.

Tenth

December 10, 2010

Season of small miracles.

Jars full of Christmas candy. So far the kids haven’t noticed them on the bookshelf. Usually they have a radar that hones in on anything sugar related.

My 16 year old is feeling well enough to eat today. Dinner saw him down five sloppy joes… so far. And I see him reaching for the half gallon of ice cream.

The miracle of antibiotics never ceases to be miraculous.

Subjective Life

Comment from a previous post:

This is Chris’s version of the story. I’d like to hear what the other mums would say. Maybe Chris is right, maybe she’s not - but NONE OF US CAN KNOW because Chris can write whatever she wants. And to be honest, I don’t think much of her having a go at people on a blog - they have no chance to defend themselves. The pen is mightier than the sword, etc.

Chris writes very well but the fact that everybody comments that she is a wonderful mother always strikes me as a bit silly - maybe she is, maybe she isn’t. This opinion is completely based on what Chris decides to tell us, and even more so, on how she tells it. I think she even mentioned at one stage that she only gives us a glimpse of her life. I could write stories about my wonderful parenting which may be true or not, but nobody knows except me.
I’m sure Chris is a fantastic mother but all these blogging mums sound wonderful.

First this entire blog is MY VERSION of MY LIFE. It isn’t an objective narrative. If all of my children had a blog their accounts of life in this house would be vastly different.

The question of whether or not I am right isn’t even really a question. I don’t know that there is a right or wrong in human interactions, there is only our perceptions. Who we are as people color all of our interactions. Often the things we say to people, the messages we intend to send, are not the ones that are received. Does that make either side less valid?

What would that mom say if she had a blog? I have no way of knowing. Maybe something like:

Today I volunteered at the school, like I often do because I feel like it is important to be an integral part of my child’s education. We were painting t-shirts. Three kids didn’t even have t-shirts, though the teacher has been sending out emails about needing them for over month.

There was one mother who showed up today and I bet she was one of them. I don’t recall ever seeing her at school. But she obviously is too busy doing her own thing to come to the school She doesn’t even have the “time” to get her son a proper haircut! I almost asked if he were a girl, but I bit my tongue.

Then, she kept dripping paint on the kids’ shirts. God. Why volunteer for something you have no skill for doing. And why did she have a bottle of water with her? Did she think she was going to die of thirst while doing this? I heard the teacher ask where her son’s homework was from the previous week and she gave some sort of lame excuse.

In any event, everything is colored by our own perceptions, moods, baggage. That’s what makes writing entertaining.

Yes, a blog is only a tiny glimpse of any person’s life. How could it NOT be?

Otherwise it would read like a itinerary about doing laundry, cooking meals that half my children turn their noses up at, or price comparison shopping at the grocery store.

I could tell you that I made the appointment for my 16yr old son to have his tonsils and adenoids taken out the Friday before Christmas break. Merry Christmas, son! And how this has caused him untold angst, not because he is having surgery, but because he has to miss a final exam and the teacher isn’t really being supportive. It isn’t like we are going on a Disney vacation here. There really isn’t another option. He needs to have them removed. They are so swollen and painful that he hasn’t really been able to eat and has lost quite a bit of weight. He literally ate NOTHING all day yesterday until I bought him ice cream at 8pm last night.

Or I could write about how Pandora keeps suggesting songs to me that I DO NOT LIKE. Enough with the damn instrumental Christmas musak.

Or that I haven’t finished doing my Christmas decorating.

Or that one of cabinet drawer faces fell off. This is the second one that it has happened to. Cheap particle board cabinets combined with “enthusiastic” drawer shutters is a bad combination. At least it is an easy fix.

Or that when I tried to clean the fish bowl out I broke the bowl and all the little rocks went down the disposal and broke it. Then I bought and installed a new disposal myself.

Or that I wish that damn fish would die already. I know this makes me a horrible person. But I thought that was part of the appeal of a single fish in a bowl, the short life expectancy.

Or how I ran out of gas the other night while picking my oldest two sons up from their football banquet. I was stuck in the middle of a major road, at almost 10pm, in 38 degree weather, until AAA brought me gas. At least I had the bickering of my sons to keep me warm.

Or that I haven’t run or done any form of exercise in over a month TWO months. And the other day I actually said to one of my chidlren, “Oh that shirt you are looking for is hanging on my treadmill.” I hang my head in shame.

Or how every single morning my oldest two sons leave the house at the very last possible second before the bus arrives. And how every single morning I issue the same empty threat of making them walk to school should they miss the bus.

Or how they both always shout, “Have a good day. I love you, Mom,” as they head out the door. And if I happen not to be home when they leave, they will text it to me. Let’s have a collective, Awwwwwww.

Most parts of life are boring. The getting the garbage cans to and from the curb. The paying of bills. The vacuuming of carpets. The homework assignments. Especially the ones I forget to help the youngest members of the family. The scrubbing of toilets. Who wants to write, or read about that stuff? No one.

Sometimes I read those lifestyle blogs and marvel at the gorgeous photos of perfectly decorated rooms, where there are no errant socks, discarded backpacks, crumbled up wrappers peeking out from under the couch cushions. I wonder if the writer has stacked the clutter behind her. Is she holding a tantruming toddler out of the view of the camera with her leg.

Life is messy. It’s complex. It is, at times, crazy making. And this little blog here is just a glimpse into mine. Filled with random things that happen in my life. Sometimes they are incongruous, just like real life. One moment I am fantasizing with a friend about having plastic surgery at one of those surgical resorts. (Because apparently once you hit 40 your fantasies take a very Ponce de Leon twist) Then the next moment I am practicing multiplication tables and discussing zombies.

At any given moment I am holding back something, just out of view. But that doesn’t mean what you do see is any less real or true.

Ninth

December 9, 2010

The blondes.

I bought Miles those headphones because when he plays on the computer, or watches anyone else on the computer, he likes the volume turned way WAY up and it is annoying to everyone else. Why do all the kid websites have such grating music? So when I brought the headphones home we all rejoiced at how smart I am.

Until he put them on and started talking to us really REALLY LOUDLY. Some might even call it shouting. And because he could no longer hear us responding to him, he continued to say the same thing over and over again.

We stared at him for several minutes while he did this, oblivious. When he finally looked up at all of us standing around him, he smiled. “I LOVE THESE NEW HEADPHONES!” We couldn’t all help but laugh.

My 11 yr old son looked at me with the expression he has in the photo above and said, “I’m not sure this is an improvement.”

Eighth

December 8, 2010

The last time I made candy lollipops like these was for my son’s first birthday. The son who will soon be turning 15 years old. I used Winnie the Pooh molds because his whole nursery was done in the classic winnie the pooh theme. Excuse me while I wipe my eyes. What? I have allergies.

Anyway. It probably comes as no surprise that I am something of a perfectionist.

Children? Not really perfectionists.

But they more than make for that with the enthusiasm and love whith which they tackle these sorts of things.

Who says you can’t learn something from your children?

And as my son said, even messy looking chocolate tastes good.

So Politically Incorrect

Yesterday I volunteered at Miles’ kindergarten classroom to help the kids make t-shirts. It involved painting their hands and feet with brown fabric paint. There were four of us, so it went quickly and smoothly.

Of course there was the one uber-mother who said that she has never seen me before at the school, implying of course that she is at the school so often she would notice the lack of my presence. I sweetly pointed out out that she said that to me the LAST TIME that I was at the school.

Which actually I don’t think ever happened.

But seriously don’t try to feel superior by being passive-aggressive with me, I will be forced to respond with my own passive aggressive fuck-you. I work, take care of a house, keep seven children alive, and “help” with endless homework projects– I’m just thankful my shoes are on the right feet most days. I have no desire to eat lunch in the cafeteria with my children on a regular (or irregular) basis. If that makes me a bad, uninvolved parent, so be it. But those bon-bons are not going to eat themselves now, are they?

Two of the mothers helping were Asian. This is an important part of the story. As we are almost done with the kids one of them said that all the kids look so much alike she couldn’t tell a lot of them apart and the other mother agreed. I thought of my dear friends HeatherB, Karen, and Kelly and how the Internet confuses them for the sole reason that they are all black. I started laughing and couldn’t wait to leave the school and call Heather to tell her that all the white kids look alike, too.

So, that would have been a funny way to end this post. But. There is always a but… and I have to be honest…

As we are cleaning up and getting ready to leave, I picked up something and tried to hand it to one of the mothers with a helpful, “Don’t forget this!” She gave me a scathing look and pointed to the other Asian woman, “It’s hers. Not mine.”

Hahahahaha. Whoops. Hahahahaha.

In my, albeit lame, defense, I was busy painting kids feet and hands with paint and making sure they didn’t touch me, themselves, the floor, or the chairs with the paint.

It occurred to me later that she probably didn’t get that I was being passive aggressive with my earlier response. Something which really disappoints me.

Now I am just the uninvolved racist parent. But, on the bright side, I bet she will remember me at the school now.