The Teeth

September 29, 2011

It’s the beginning of the end of babyhood. The loss of the first baby teeth from my last baby’s mouth. Though since he had to have them pulled I am still kind of in denial about this whole growing up thing.

I am not sure there is anything more guilt inducing as a mother than your child needing extensive dental work. And needing to be sedated to have it done because he completely freaked out and lost his little mind at the previous dentist I had brought him.

So this time, he had a nice shot of valium he drank out of a little shot glass. (I was a bit disappointed they didn’t give him a little lemon wedge and some salt on his hand.) And then he had the laughing gas, something which does not make him laugh. It makes him ANGRY. VERY VERY ANGRY! THE STRAWBERRY GAS DOES NOT SMELL LIKE STRAWBERRIES!! It SMELLS LIKE POOP!!! STINKY POOP!!!! And THE MASK IS STUPID!!!!!

And even stupider than the mask on his nose was the blood pressure clip on his pinky finger. He would put his hand under the blanket he had on and pull it off. The dental assistant would put it back on. Repeat. Again and again. Finally, she told him it was a little finger puppet. He held his hand up, looked at it in his drugged stuper, struggling to focus his eyes, and said, “Well then, THIS IS THE STUPIDEST FINGER PUPPET EVER!!”

He was very excited for his first tooth fairy visit. I had posted to twitter that someone needed to remind me of my duties. My 10 year old was STILL waiting for a visit from the tooth fairy since early June.

Thankfully I remembered. Right after I went upstairs the next morning, flipped on the bedroom light, and said, “Goooood Mooooorrrrrning!”

And of course this is the one and only time Miles has popped upright in bed immediately awake. I ran downstairs to my wallet. I had a $10 bill and a $5 bill. I ran back upstairs and Miles was sitting on his bed, the little teeth in his hand, the corners of his mouth turned down. “The tooth fairy didn’t come.”

I sat down on his bed, stuck my hand under the pillow, and pulled out the $10. “Look, she left your teeth and gave you money!”

He was so very excited. “I bet she left the teeth because I didn’t get to show Dad them.”

“I bet you are right!”

“Do you think she will give me more money if I put them under my pillow again?”

I stuck the $5 bill under my 10 yr old son’s pillow.

Over breakfast everyone marveled at the generosity of the tooth fairy. My oldest son said, “Gee, back in my day we got a dollar!”

“That’s because back in your day the tooth fairy was younger and better prepared.”

Story of My Days

September 20, 2011

It seems like most of my time is spent at one football field or another. Always a practice or a game to attend.

And this boy, oh this boy of mine.

I love to watch him play.

He lives and breathes this game. He loves playing football over anything else. He gets on the field and my sweet, calm, happy go lucky child is replaced by someone who is anything BUT those things.

This photo makes me laugh. I just imagine the kid from the other team looking up and seeing all the white shirts rushing at him and thinking, “Oh, shit!”

And this is where football players differ from normal people, I think, and by normal I mean me, so take that with a grain of salt. But if I were that boy in the maroon jersey I would drop that ball and run in the other direction screaming.

And here he is taking down that kid with the ball. Watching him play is always exciting.

But this photo is by far my favorite. It was half-time and had just found me and his younger siblings sitting in the stands. He scanned the bleachers near us and asked if his oldest brother were there. He had been really excited that his older brothers said they would be coming to his game after their football practice. Before I could answer his brother came running over from the snack bar shouting his name. My 12 yr old son’s face lit up like a little kid with a puppy on Christmas. He was that happy. They stood there and talked for a couple minutes. Even the woman who was sitting next to me on the bleachers commented on how sweet it was.

These are the moments that I treasure above all the others. These are the moments when I feel like I just might be doing something right. That maybe these kids are going to turn out just fine after all.

So This Happened

September 17, 2011

It rained. I can not even remember the last time it rained here.

Saturday the sky turned dark and ominous. And suddenly it began pouring. I was stopping at a store on my way to 10 yr old son’s football game. So I got to walk through the parking lot in the rain. Wearing a white tank top. OF COURSE I WAS. I texted Susan and she said, “Dear God I hope you are wearing a bra.” I assured her that I was. And it was strapless and black. Something everyone could now see for themselves. Just keeping it KLASSY.

People were dancing in the parking lot. People were taking photos. Rain is like having a spaceship full of aliens land in the Target parking lot. You have to post that shit on Facebook.

Then within five minutes it stopped. The sun came back out. And five minutes later you never would have even known rain had fallen.

Good thing there was a parking lot filled with people photographing it with their phones. Otherwise it would be like it never happened.

Things I Have Been Thinking About

September 13, 2011

1) Bento Boxes. Everytime I see them the same things run through my mind in rapid succession:

Awwww, that is so cute.
Where the hell is the rest of the lunch or do these bento box children not eat?
How can I get my children on board with non-eating thing?
Who the hell has time to cut their kids food into shapes?
What do they do with the extras that are left behind when they cut out the shapes?

2) My kids’ elementary school sent home a letter saying that they would no longer be printing out the homework pages and handing them out to the kids. They are GOING GREEN!!! Instead the parents have to print them out at home. I’m sorry, but that isn’t going green since the same amount of resources are being used. It should be called GOING CHEAP!!! I opted out of printing them at home. I wrote to the school that this created quite the conundrum since we were also GOING GREEN!!! at our house. Truth is I know I have limited mental resources and I would never remember to print the worksheets or we would run out of ink and then my chidlren’s failing out of elementary school would be all my fault. At least now they can fail out on their own.

3) I have a post from last week over at AlphaMom with my tips for having a successful school year. You should head over there and tell me yours. One that I left off the list, having a rubber signature stamp made. Because holy hell they might not want to give my kids worksheets anymore but they have NO PROBLEM sending home thousands* of papers each week for me to sign.

*I’m not sure that is even an exaggeration.

4) Football. I have kids on four different teams. I don’t even have anything else to say about it. Or at least nothing that anyone would care to hear about it.

5) I have a post about life insurance and what this means in my post-divorce life. You should go read this one so that people will pay me to do more writing for them. (See the food eating above.)

More Therapeutic Cleaning

September 7, 2011

Continuing in my efforts to maintain my sanity through painting, cleaning, purging items in my home, I tackled a carpet that has been bothering me.

At the beginning of the summer one of my sons and his friend decided to take apart their skateboards in the middle of this room. No they didn’t use any sort of drop cloth, don’t be silly.

Why they chose the middle of a carpeted room when there is a perfectly empty tiled entryway less than 3 feet away, as well as a two car garage, and a DRIVEWAY, I do not know. And according to their responses when I lost my ever-lovin’ mind on asked them , neither did they.

Nor did they seem to notice all the grease marks that covered the carpet after they were done.

I made a half hearted attempt to clean the carpet, but was unsuccessful. Last week, however, I decided to just put my mind to it and scrub the damn thing.

It came completely clean.

Now I am trying to train the kids to not walk in there. I know. I must just like to hear the sound of my own voice.

College or Bust?

September 6, 2011

I wrote this post about college over at AlphaMom last week and I have been fascinated by the comments. In part because it perfectly illustrates how people read what they want into things.

I thought I wrote about how going to a 4 yr college right after high school isn’t the only path to a happy and successful life. Maybe there are some kids who know exactly what they want to do; I know I didn’t, nor do my children who are almost college age. So this isn’t really a hypothetical discussion for me. I am there in my parenting journey. Knocking on the door of high school graduation.

In the economy we have right now I really don’t want my children going into huge amount of debt for undergraduate work. And I certainly don’t have the money to fund their “finding ” themselves.

I didn’t say that a college education wasnt important, which it seems some people thought I was saying. However, I also don’t necessarily think that college is for everyone.

So anyway, I wrote about that and what I hope my children decide to do. I’d love for you to come weigh in on the discussion.

Any Given Saturday

September 4, 2011

Yesterday was the first official game of the season.

After the scrimmages last weekend, hopes were high. Very high.

Then the team was forced by political b.s. to recertify as a Division 1 team. Oooof. That was the wooshing sound of deflated hopes.

The first half of the game felt very long. The mom I was sitting next to and I both thought the game was over and began packing up our stuff to leave, that is until the menfolk asked us what the hell we were doing. You’d think I have never been to a football game before.

Halftime saw us losing 18-19, not too bad.

The other team ran out of water (?!?!) so halftime dragged on while we all waited for them to go buy some. You’d think that you would plan a little better. Since it is over 100 degrees and all. Not really surprising that the kids would drink a lot of water.
As an aside, another thing I have discovered since living here on the face of the sun, otherwise known as Texas, cold water does not come out of the tap cold. It comes out warm. I guess because it is so damn hot here. In CT, the water came out of the tap deliciously cold. You didn’t need ice to make it palatable. I am considering buying an icemaker for my home. That is how much ice I buy.

By the end the score was 18-32.

On the bright side, it means we have nowhere to go but up!

*****

Would you like to win $100 gift card?
More.

The Reason I Have Gray Hair

September 2, 2011

This child and his tricks.

Among many, many other, usually sports related, reasons.