The Second Giveaway Winner…

March 11, 2010

I know I said I was going to pick the second winner on Monday but I TOTALLY FORGOT!

You all know the drill. Click on over to find out who won.

You MUST MUST MUST go here and enter to win the writing contest. There have hardly been any entries so the odds are in your favor. And for a $2500 prize what are you waiting for????

*****

Unrelated, I have THE BEST recipe for home made spicy potato wedges that I am going to post over at Work It,Mom today. I may have eaten 5lbs of potatoes myself. Maybe. I’m not admitting anything. You can make the world’s best banana bread recipe I have posted over there while you wait.

The Better to See You With

March 10, 2010

Miles drew these picture of us the other day. I am the one with the pink hair. He is still at the developmental stage of drawing where his people aren’t realistic. The arms are coming out of our gigantic heads. There are bodies, but no legs. Fingers, but no hands. Sometimes there is a mouth, but not always. And the eyes are oddly detaile.d. It defies rationalization– so you see the outline of the eyes and the iris, but yet give no notice to the fact that human beings have a NOSE right there IN THE MIDDLE of their faces.

I love these drawings. All children start out drawing like this. Soon this stage will pass. Replaced by the symbolic generic people standing on the green grass line at the bottom of the page, a blue line of sky at the top, and the always present smiling sun in the corner of the paper. My daughter is in this stage now. Hundreds of trees have died so she can make virtually identical drawings.

This week I registered Miles for kindergarten.

I will admit that I practically skipped through the front door of the school, swinging my arms and waving his birth certificate around. I was not, however, waving his social security card, proof of residency, or immunization records around. I am not that on top of my game.

I was just happy that I remembered to go to the school on the designated registration day.

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While I am chronicling my failures, yesterday was picture day at school. I did not know this until my neighbor mentioned buying her daughter a new sweater and BRINGING IT TO THE SCHOOL MID-DAY so her daughter could change. It isn’t the schools fault. I am sure that they sent home ample notices which I really did plan on getting around to reading one of these days.

So my kids will be the ones who are keeping it real, dressed in the class photo the way they are dressed everyday: oversized hoodies, tap out shirts, and crooked ponytails (in the case of my daughter) I like to think of it as doing my part to help the other parents feel superior about their parenting skills. It is my gift to them. I am quite good at it, too.

I wonder if there is a job market for that skill.

*****

The principal asked me if I was going to be sad sending Miles off to school. And I think my hearty, “Hello, no,” may have frightened her a little bit.

But that isn’t the entire truth. It isn’t a sadness that he is going off to school, it is a sadness of what is being left behind. Right now he is wearing his Batman pajamas (with cape!), eating toast slathered with cream cheese, while singing along to the Little Einsteins.

The principal told me how she found herself wistful when her youngest was passing milestones. Because once the baby cooing was gone, it was gone. And she is right. That is the bittersweet part of this parenting gig. Milestones reached mean that another milestone has ended.

Those baby teeth you once celebrated erupting from tiny gums, if only because the teething pain and crying would stop, those impossibly small, square little teeth now fall out and are placed under pillows. They are replaced by huge teeth, which every time you catch the sight of them make you wonder what sort of summer home your orthodontist is going buy with your hard earned money.

And, more importantly, will he invite you for a visit.

Fabio Does Math

March 8, 2010

Oh how stubborn my little third grader is. Multiplication, according to him, is stupid. Memorizing multiplication tables is stupid.

I finally had to take matters into my own hands and offer up some good old bribery, uh I mean positive reinforcement. His class at school had a big ice cream sundae party to celebrate learning the multiplication tables. He was very excited by it. Even though he hadn’t actually MEMORIZED HIS MULTIPLICATION TABLES. I think, for him, the incentive of the party was too far in the distance and removed from the daily and weekly drudgery of memorization. Because, let’s face it, memorizing facts is boring.

So, we decided as a family that every week Fabio will memorize his multiplication tables. And on Friday night I will test him. If he gets 100% then he and all his siblings get to have ice cream sundaes.

See how I did that? I got his siblings involved. Now they get to nag encourage him along with me. And trust me, he does not want to endure the wrath they will dish out if he fails to deliver them their ice cream sundaes on Friday evenings.

This week it was the 3’s. So they got to have three scoops of ice cream.

They are most excited to get to the 12’s.

And yes, I realize that there are some awfully big ice cream sundaes in the future. But if it means that he won’t have to take his socks off to figure out the math on his SATs, it will be worth it.

Reality is Seldom as Pretty

March 5, 2010

Sometimes I read blogs written by other people and wonder how on earth they have time to do all the things they do. And where in all of that do they fit in taking care of their children, assuming those are real children they are showing in their photographs and not some cardboard cut-outs.

And I will admit that I wonder what I am doing wrong. Why doesn’t my day have that many hours in it?

Then I get emails from people asking me the same thing. How do you keep your house clean? How do you find time to do x, y, and z? The truth is that there are always things that slide. I can’t do it all, and I am sure that the people I wonder about also have things that they are letting slide. I don’t know what those things are, but I wish I knew. So yes, I do like to keep my counter tops shiny and my floors vacuumed, and I make my bed everyday– but there are a host of other things going on that are far from perfect.

So I present the reality that doesn’t often make the blog.

If you were to come to front door today and stepped into my foyer this is what you would see.

Those clothes? I threw those down from the balconey at the top of the stairs. Those are the clothes and towels I gathered up in the kids’ bedrooms. The laundryroom is right there to the left. Perfect place for a laundry room, huh? Right near the front door. Wouldn’t want to hide that at the back of the house somewhere where unexpected guests would never see it, would you?

I do multiple loads of laundry every day. If you ever stop by odds are this is what would greet you. Be prepared.

Down the hallway you can see the niche, still painted the baby poop brown color. Perfect resting spot for the stack of baseball hats I needed to bring to have names embroidered on the back. TEAM MOM, not just an unpaid job, a lifestyle! Also on there a folded sweater and tiara. I know what you are thinking… where else should they be?

The bench has two of the children’s Valentine’s day boxes that they had to bring to school, um last month. They are still filled with cards and candy wrappers that no one seems to want to part with. And there are a pair of cleats that really belong out in the garage. At least I didn’t find them upstairs, a trail of dried mud leaving a trail up the stairs to their location. That was last week. Sometimes it is the little things I give thanks for.

Other people put pretty things out in their decorative bowls. I have cough drops.

More importantly, that stack of papers next to the bowl belongs to my child who was out sick from school for a week. He has been back in school for an entire week and yet the schoolwork still sits there undone. In my defense, I was sick and trying to simultaneously cough up a lung and give birth to my bladder; I just could not make him do the extra work.

And hey, what do you know, a new virus has struck our house. If you looked over to the couch you’d see a sick girl surrounded by blankets, pillows, and half drunk cups of water and gingerale. On the other side of the couch my friend’s sick daughter is surrounded by her own sickness induced detitrus. I volunteered to babysit for her for a few hours, because really what’s a few more germs among friends.

And if you looked really closely at the couch you’d see this,

that it is held together by duct tape. I should probably care more about this than I do. But I prefer to think of it as giving my house a little bit of a lived in look.

And the plastic bag hanging off of the tree branch right outside my front door?

I don’t even pretend to have an explanation for it. Sometimes it really is better not to ask.

I like to think of it as a sign of what lurks just inside the door, perfect for those unexpected visitors.

I revealed on the phone to a friend today that when I am running through my kitchen I am constantly banging my hip bones on the corner of the countertop on my island. Their response: Why are you running through your kitchen. And you know what? I really don’t know why. Except I do.

So to recap: I have piles of dirty laundry visible from the front door, furniture held together by duct tape, children who are sick, and I can not seem to learn from physical pain (if that isn’t a perfect example of why corporal punishment doesn’t work I don’t know what is).

I hope everyone else feels better because I have sort of depressed myself now.

And the winner is…

March 4, 2010

I know everyone hates clicking over, but it has to live on an ad free page, BlogHer ads rule.

So click here. Especially if you share a name with a beloved character from SpongeBob Square Pants.

Good news if the winner is not you. There are actually two more give-aways. One Monday and one next Thursday. I will be pulling the winners from the same original post, so if you haven’t commented yet, go ahead and do so now!

Seriously, what is holding you back?

I kind of want to leave MYSELF a comment so I can win.

Writing Your Words

March 2, 2010

My elementary school aged children are required to read every night for at least twenty minutes. Read aloud to me. And just between us, the repetitive, boring stories almost kill me some nights. But then other nights everyone is reading interesting fun books and time seems to fly by. Well, as fast as time can fly by when someone reads haltingly while phoenetically sounding out words. Words that are not phoenetically controlled. “It isn’t rig-hit. Ri-te. It was one of your spelling words awhile ago, remember?”

My 5th grade son is now reading books that I enjoy. And I love the way he gets excited to tell me all about the chapters he has read without me. So I too will know what is going on. And I pretend to be just as excited.

This weekend my 3rd grade son was reading the book, Love That Dog. The format was a little sophisticated for him. The book is written as a sort of reader response journal for a poetry class. The kid is writing responses to his teacher, whose questions and comments you have to infer from what the kid writes.

Toward the middle of the book the kid writes a letter to a poet that he admires. And as my son was reading this to me I couldn’t help but laugh.

…our teacher says
writers are very very very very busy
busy
trying to write their words
and the phone is ringing
and the fax is going
and the bills need paying
and sometimes they get sick…

or their family gets sick
or their electricity goes off
or their car needs fixing
or they have to go
to the grocery store
or do the laundry
or clean up messes.
I don’t know how
you find the time
to write your words
if you have to do all that stuff
and maybe you should get
a helper.

My son wanted to know why I was laughing and I had to tell him that it sounded exactly like my life. Trying to find the time to write my words.

So many times I have things I want to write about. I write things in my mind. And then the time never materializes to write them down.

The hours that the kids are at school I had thought would stretch before me like an endless expanse, but they are now filled. With what exactly, I don’t pretend to understand. But I know that most days I look up from whatever it is I am doing and there is 30 minutes left before the kids come bounding in the front door.

And you know what I think at that moment? I think, ‘Shit, where did the day go?’ And I worry about this. I worry that one day I will be all old and about to die and think, ‘Shit, where did my life go?’

Maybe I need a helper. Like a slave. Or a wife. I could use a wife.

It’s a (Sometimes) Peaceful Life

March 1, 2010

For the second year in a row I have partnered with the people at GoodNites. And I have a fabulous giveaway that you won’t want to miss. You don’t even have to have little kids to appreciate this one!

So click on over.

Plaguemageddon

February 26, 2010

While some of you are sufferring from SNOWmageddon, we have been suffering from the plague here.

The plague which leaves you feverish, coughing, and in the case of one member of this family, wishing for better bladder control.

I texted Susan yesterday that I really need to keep better track of my periods, if only for the fact so I can know whether or not the muderous rage I feel is justified or the result of PMS. I told her I would normally eat a handful of candy and down a bottle of wine, but I gave those up for Lent. So clearly my only available option was murder. She agreed. Jesus would understand. She also offered me bail money and isn’t that what friends are for? It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Or maybe that was the Nyquil. (I will cough on the first person who points out that Nyquil contains both alcohol and sugar. It is medicinal. Jesus approved loophole.)

I was thinking this morning, as I rushed my 15yr old out the front door while shoving Sudafed and dollar bills into his hand, that highschool is so much more intense now than I remember it. (That makes it sound like he is running a meth lab in his spare time, doesn’t it? He isn’t. At least not that I know of. Kids these days!) My son is so busy, and while I get on him for not making the best use of his time, the truth of the matter is that he doesn’t have all that much free time to waste. Which comes full circle back to why I get so annoyed when he doesn’t make the most efficient use of his free time.

He told me the other day his life motto is why do it today if I can do it tomorrow, because tomorrow you might forget all about it. Said, of course, with a flash of the dimples that allow him to get away with murder.

Last night he arrived home from his baseball game at 10:45pm. I fell asleep while waiting for him. He woke me to find out if there was any leftover dinner. There wasn’t. I told him to eat some cereal. For the record, he had money to go and eat dinner after school, before the bus left for the game. Which he did, but that had been at 5:00 and teenagers need to eat as often as newborns.

I handed him another $10 this morning. Yup, he has another game tonight. I hope all the exercise helps keeps his arteries unclogged in spite of all the fast food he is eating

I had more I was going to write, but you know when you find yourself singing along to the Fresh Beat Band that it is time to get up and get your ass out of the damn house. Especially when you look down at yourself and discover you are wearing two hoodies on top of each other, one of which has Nyquil dripped down the front of it, and a pair of yoga pants with the knees worn out. Man, I am so sexy.

Snowman!

February 24, 2010

Or, according to my kids, a snowboy.

I was talking to Susan on the phone yesterday when the kids arrived home from school. She jokingly asked if Texas snow was different from CT snow.

Well, for one thing my daughter is outside playing in it wearing a skirt and MaryJanes, I answered.

Later on in the day as I was driving out of our neighborhood I realized that every single house where a child lived had a snowman out front. All of them in the middle of a snowless area of the yard, covered in dead grass. It is supposed to be in the mid 50’s today. I suspect by the end of the day there will be puddles with rocks, carrots, hats and scarves in every single lawn. It was fun while it lasted.

That is the best thing about Texas snow, it doesn’t stick around long enough for you to get sick of it. It doesn’t ask for any special accomodations from you. It leaves you happy, wishing for more.

Snow, Texas Style

February 23, 2010

The scene driving my 7th and 8th graders to school. Heated debate between them and their friend over whether this is actually considered snow. My kids say it is sleet. Their friend says that if it is white and falls from the sky, it is snow. I settle the debate and say it is snow, texas style.

I am somewhat surprised that there even is school today. One of my neighbors who is from California and has never in her life had to deal with snow before called me this morning.

Chris? What are we supposed to do?

Just try to stay alive.

I feel like you are probably kidding.

Note the lack of winter gear. Pajamas, rain boots, and a hat.

A snow ball.

Miles looks at the snowball he just threw on the ground.

Well, that was fun. Let’s go back inside now.

And so we did.

I, however, refrained from jumping on the couch.

My highschool son texted me that they are all outside playing in the snow. And I wonder about my little kids who were scheduled to take practice TAKS tests all day today. I hope they get to go outside and enjoy the snow for at least a little bit.