There is so much blank paper to color. And so little time.
Puppers the stuffed dog looks on. He has a boo-boo on his tail, hence the Dora bandage wrapped around it.
But not so serious that you can’t color in your teeth.
I exceeded bandwidth last month. Oooops.
When I was in college I spent a summer in western Africa studying art. The culture shock was, well, shocking. Some things were hard to process because there was no framework for which to put the experiences into. And so some of the memories sort of hang out there in my brain, alone, until something triggers them and pulls them back to the forefront of my memory.
The other night we were watching American Idol when Neil Diamond came on. My older children groaned a bit. “Do you like that music?” one of them asked.
Rob answered, “Well, I don’t particularly love him. But your mother does. Ask her to sing his repertoire.”
I had to admit that Neil Diamond holds a special place in my heart.
On my last day on the African continent, ever since I have yet to go back, we were back in the city in our hotel room supposedly resting before our flight left. You have to remember that this was in the days before digital music, digital cameras, laptops, heck CDs were not even popular yet. So for this entire summer no one in our travel group had any access to music, news, messages from home.
The television had nothing on to watch other than state run programs that weren’t in English and a non-stop porn station. My friend Katie and I had turned it on and stood there gaped mouth until I finally turned to her and said, “I don’t even know what that is that they are showing.” She didn’t know either. Until they showed us a different camera angle. At which point we squealed and covered our eyes. Ah yes, back in the innocent dark ages when hard core porn was not available in everyone’s living rooms 24 hours a day.
The clock radio that was in our hotel room that last day was not so much a radio as it just played music in a continuous loop. There were several “channels.” I can’t remember what was playing on the other channels, but we preferred Neil Diamond over all of them. The song loop came around a few times and then one of us, not sure which one, began singing along. Next thing you know we were singing as loud as we could, and about as well as a typical American Idol contestant, which is to say not very well at all. We sang and danced and jumped on the beds through the loop a few times; eventually the hotel staff knocked on the door and told us to be quiet.
We listened to the loop a few more times and tried to sing along more quietly. But Neil Diamond demands to be belted out with overly dramatic enthusiasm.
Since then, Neil Diamond has always held a special place in my heart. I still know all the words to those songs by heart. And when I find myself scanning the radio in the car and one of them comes on, I have to stop and sing along. LOUDLY. (also badly and to the utter embarrassment of my children).
This would be why on Tuesday night you could have seen me singing karaoke style in my family room to Neil Diamond. And also why when it came time to vote one child said, “Well, I’m not voting for you that’s for sure.”
*****
Over at Parenting, my 10 yr old son has written an ambitious list of 101 things to do this summer. I share part of the list we have decided to do as a family.
At Work It, Mom! I have a roasted cauliflower recipe that I tried out to mixed children reviews. The adults in the house loved it.
Once upon a time my son complained about his hip hurting. And he dramatically limped around the house. Because I like to play a doctor, I assured him that his hip (and then knee) hurt from playing so much baseball. It had been All-Star season and he was out there running, sliding, throwing balls, for hours every single day. Of course you would fee achy. Then he got worse and I brought him to the doctor. We had blood work done and had to wait for what felt like FOREVER to get the results. Turned out he had Lyme disease. I felt horrible. He took antibiotics for weeks (months?) and dropped 10lbs off of his then already skinny frame.
If you think that would have caused me to turn in my Google M.D. license, you would be wrong.
So more time passed. This time my son was complaining that his jaw hurt. Well, duh chewing all the gum will do that to you. What? You haven’t been chewing gum? Well clearly you are grinding your teeth at night or something. Don’t worry you will get better soon. Just lie down and take a nap. Sleep is always good for what ails you. The next day he could not open his mouth wider than a centimeter or two. I brought him to the doctor and he had tonsillitis and had developed some sort of secondary infection in his jaw. OUCH! He had some antibiotics and began to feel better. I drank some wine to soothe my guilt.
But still I could not turn in my medical degree.
Last week my son was complaining that he had a sore throat. He had no other symptoms of being sick. No fever, no cough, no stomach ache, nothing that stopped him from inhaling vast quantities of food. I chalked it up to allergies that are causing everyone to have sore scratchy throats. Yesterday afternoon he came to me and said it felt like there was something in his throat. I made him open his mouth and shined my handy pen light in. “Holy mother of god!” I shouted. He had a huge abcess in his throat. I almost fainted from looking at it. Off we went to the doctor. Turns out that this is a viral thing, so no medication is necessary. We ran a strep test just to be on the safe side. We are dosing him up with tylenol, numbing mouth rinse, and soft food.
Last night I was googling my own medical symptoms. I have diagnosed myself with decompression sickness. I realize I have not recently, or ever, been scuba diving. Small details.
Last week when I went to open the kitchen window for the first time this year I discovered two wishbones that I had saved from recent(ish) turkey dinners. I had put them up there to dry and apparently get very dusty. The kids were excited to finally make their wishes.
They squeezed their eyes tight. My 3 yr old son wished for a “big bike” and my daughter wished for a puppy.
Then she realized that she was left with the short side of the wishbone.
Luckily her brother loves her, more than he loves his wish. Or possibly he has no idea of what exactly a wish is. In any event he handed her his half of the wishbone.
“Here, you can have my wish.” he said.
And just as my heart was exploding in a million pieces, my daughter looked up at him and yelled, “BUT I DON’T WANT A STUPID BIKE!”
Seriously, I have been the sort of busy that leaves me incapable of doing anything but fretting about how busy I am and mentally tallying all of the things that I have to do in my head. Over and over again. And yet, mysteriously, doing none of them. It is a great system.
I have found the time to vacuum my entire downstairs.
And I have quiche. That has to count for something, right?
Quiche, It’s Not Just for Brunch Anymore
I replaced all our bottles two weeks ago with SIGG bottles. They took forever and a day to arrive. I think they rolled them here. I was half afraid that by the time the bottles got here there would be some new study pointing out the dangers of these particular water bottles.
Because this is it. I am not buying all new bottles again. Next they can go cup their hands outside in the rain for drinking water.
We celebrated this weekend where she made her own cake (with help from Rob), a two layer triple chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and cherries on top. She was so proud of her cake. I have no good photos of the cake since my camera battery went DEAD and I couldn’t find the charger.
Since today was her actual birthday I picked up a small pink cake while I was at the grocery store. Can you celebrate a birthday too much? I don’t think so. Can you have too much cake? Definitely not.
My thirteen year old son is going through that phase where he hates having his photo taken. Virtually every photo I take of him features the back of his head. Or his hand in front of his face. Or a book. I tease him that when grows up he is going to wonder if he even existed at all during his thirteenth year. Or wonder if perhaps that was the year we kept him tethered to the basement water pipes.
Today I was taking photos when he unceremoniously informed me that he no longer wants me to write anything about things he does. Or doesn’t do. Or photograph him. Or show other people the photos that I do manage to get of him. I should just pretend that he doesn’t exist.
He probably wouldn’t want me to tell you that today I let him go into the grocery store all alone to buy a few things. it isn’t that he has been itching to do this. It has never really come up before, but today we were running errands and I needed to go to the store next to the grocery store so I asked him if he wanted to go in alone.
He definitely wouldn’t want me to tell you that as he walked away I shouted, “Don’t let anyone kidnap you now!” When he found me a little while later in the neighboring store he seemed to walk taller. Some imperceptible change had happened and suddenly I could see the future.
As we were driving home, his seven year old brother in the back seat decided to count. With each number he got louder and more enthusiastic. My 13 year old son looked over at me and said, “My god that is the most annoying thing.” I agreed, but instead of saying anything I reached over and turned the radio off.
“No sense in competing. We may as well embrace the counting.” I laughed.
“Doesn’t that annoy you?” he asked.
Rather than answer, I reminded him of a time when he was about the same age and he decided to count by tens all the way home from his aunt’s house. A house that is over an hour away from us.
“I remember that!” he said.
“Do you?” I asked, in between the shouts of FIRTY-FIVE… FIRTY-SIX… FIRTY-SEVEN…
“Yes. I don’t remember it being so annoying though.” He laughed.
Of course you don’t, I wanted to say.
And so if I don’t mention this son anymore it isn’t because I don’t have things to say about him. I do. It isn’t that I don’t love him. Because man, do I love this child young man. I am proud of who he is growing up to be. I am fairly confident these days that he won’t grow up to be a career criminal, a serial killer, or a Republican. Oh I kid. I just threw that last one in there for my husband. Some of my best friends are Republicans.
Sometimes being a parent means keeping your mouth shut and embracing the moment silently. Not matter how annoying it might be.
The best part of swinging is jumping off.
This morning I brought summer clothes and sandals down from the attic. The weather is in the mid 70’s today, though I am sure the temperature will dip low enough to require jackets again before summer is here for good.
I have children alternately insisting that their shoes from last summer, which are now two sizes too small, fit them perfectly. And children who are doing all they can in their power to insist that things that do fit them are too small. Clownishly small, a certain child insists.
I am being entertained, for lack of a better word, with how shorts should not show your knees. Even when you sit down. I told my son that we might as well call what he wants to wear capris. Or highwaters.
It was much easier before they had any opinions about their clothing or any (COMPLETELY INSANE) ideas about fashion. My sons make my daughter’s request for light-up Disney Princess sandals seem perfectly reasonable.
If you never see me again it is because I drowned under a sea of Teva sandals, plastic flip flops, and ironic Old Navy t-shirts. All of which span sizes 2T- 18, yet miraculously fit NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON in this house.
| BlogHer Ad Network |
| More from BlogHer |
| Advertise here |
| BlogHer Privacy Policy |
Notes from the Trenches
fighting the war on tantrums since 1994