Miles with his birthday mug. I bought it a few years ago when I still called him by the nickname Caboose. I only let him use it on his birthday because otherwise it would have been broken a few years ago.
Edited to add: His birthday was actually last month, December 12 to be exact. I have been going back through my year of photos and realizing all of the things I had meant to write about, but never did. Because I ran out of time, or they weren’t worthy of a whole post. But things I don’t want to forget. So I thought that I would just randomly post them on the weekends. Sorry that wasn’t clear. What can’t you all read my mind yet? Sheesh!
I have finally taken down my Christmas decorations. Notice I did not say put away my Christmas decorations. They are all currently residing in bins and boxes in the room that should be the dining room.
Except that: 1) I do not have dining room furniture. 2) The room has very light colored carpeting so there is no way in hell that anyone is eating in there. And 3) The room is incredibly small.
So I have taken to calling it that room. You know the room over there in the front of the house. The empty room for crying out loud. It depends on the situation which moniker I use. Everyone just pretends they have no idea what I am talking about anyway so it doesn’t really matter.
Right now I am calling it the room where Christmas threw up.
I have also told people I love not to let me buy another Christmas decoration. Should I attempt to purchase any holiday themed item next year they should pick me up and carry me out of the store. In fact if I pick up one sparkling bauble and utter the phrase, “I need this…” they should just shoot me.
I bought this huge glass jar before Christmas. It is filled with those red and white plastic wrapped mint candies. I had it sitting out on the counter, looking pretty, when the kids came home from school.
Oooohhhh, candy!
That is a big jar of mints!
I love mints!
Can we eat them, Mom? Huh? Can we?
It was then that I had a vision. My candy jar emptied before the week was over. And with that, cellophane wrappers stuffed in between the couch cushions, in the washing machine, on the floor.
It is just a decoration.
What, Mom?
It is just a decoration. The candy is not real.
They get in really close to the glass jar for a closer look.
Wow, they look so real.
I know, it is amazing.
It is now January 15th and the jar is still filled to the top.
*****
The week before Christmas my eldest son had final exams. Because of his good grades, he was able to waive 3 of his final exams. He ended up with a day off of school that fell right before the day of his toughest class, Spanish.
Perfect, I thought, for having an entire day to devote to studying!
Perfect, he thought, for having an entire day to devote to sleeping, eating junk food, and watching tv.
Even though tv watching is forbidden on school days.*
He sat on the couch and literally DID NOTHING. Other than annoy me with his lazy attitude. Because time is a wastin’. Get cracking on that studying! Where is your study guide? Your vocabulary words written on notecards– color coded by parts of speech? Your textbook?
I had errands to run and I knew as soon as I left the house he would turn the tv on. I was a teenager once. So on my way out the door I turned the tv to the guide channel and then slipped the remote control into my purse.
Our tv can not be changed without the remote.
I said goodbye and Miles and I left. At one point Miles saw the remote control in my bag.
Mama, why is the remote in your purse?
Ummm, hahahaha, I do not know. I must have put it in there by mistake.
You are so silly, mama.
We arrive home several hours later and I can tell my son is annoyed. He can’t really tell me that he was trying to watch tv, since it was expressly forbidden, can he?
He was helping to put the groceries away when suddenly Miles pipes up.
Don’t forget to take the wemote out of your purse, Mama.
I looked at my teenage son. He looked at me, mouth agape. I began laughing.
You have just been busted by your 5 year old!
I continue to laugh uncontrollably.
I can’t believe you took the remote control with you. Do you know how long I spent looking for it?
Clutching my sides I manage to squeak out:
Weren’t you supposed to be studying? Why were you looking for the remote to turn the tv on?
Well, well…. I, uh, well… I wanted to check the weather.
At that point I had to sit down I was laughing so hard. Even he was laughing at the absurdity of it all.
*****
If you are having a frank discussion about sex and STDs with your teenagers, make sure to work the words “oozing warty penis” in as often as possible. Judging by the looks of abject horror on my sons’ faces, and the way they protectively clutched their business, it is better than any abstinence talk. Of course they may need years of therapy to recover.
*****
To sum up, good luck out there. This parenting thing makes us act CRAZY.
*For reasons unknown I have eased up on this since winter break. But I am about to put my foot back down because if I have one more kid “remember” a homework assignment and wave it in my face at 6am at the breakfast table AFTER TELLING ME THEY HAVE NO HOMEWORK, I might just explode.
When I look back over my blog sometimes I feel like the most interesting posts to me are the ones where I wrote about my daily life, the “a day in the life” type posts. When you are busy going through the motions, the minutae of life, you think it is always going to be like that.
It isn’t. I never write about going to the grocery store anymore. Not because I don’t go. Trust me, I go to the grocery store more than anyone should have to. I go just about every other day. And yet, according to my offspring, there is nothing to eat.
Life swirls around and these little moments get lost. The same scene plays out at my house every morning, only slight variations.
(According to my daughter, leggings are the tool of the devil. Just so you know. Same goes for tights, pants, jeans, and usually shorts. Skorts are okay because they look like skirts. She would like it known that she is wearing those leggings under duress. Duly noted.)
For the most part I allow her to wear whatever she wants. I know the day is coming when she will not want to wear skirts or dresses. The drawer filled with hair bows (pretties, we all still call them) will be replaced with make-up.
There is usually four or five of us in the bathroom at once. Teeth brushing, hair brushing, hair drying, complaining about something. All puncutated by me constantly urging them to hurry up. To get a move on. Sometimes I even clap my hands together really loud while I do my yelling. Not that it makes them pay any more attention to me. I am not proud of this fact. It just is.
Hurry up, already.
(*Rereading those old posts I have come to realize that I used to be funny. I think that went away with the toddlers, too.)
****
I also don’t write about my teeth and visiting the dentist anymore. Mostly because they have been all fixed up and aside from cleanings every 6 months things have been great. But, that changed, as these things are apt to do. I had to have one of the root canals redone. This morning I went in and had my second appointment with the endodontist and left with half my face numb.
I didn’t think much of it. On the way home, I stopped and bought coffee. I paid for it and I brought the cup up to my mouth to take a nice big swig. The coffee dribbled out of my mouth and all down the front of my shirt. I took several swigs of coffee because I didn’t notice until I felt it through my shirt. I tried to play it off like it was no big deal. Hahaha, this happens all the time. Nothing to see here. But I do not think the other patrons bought it. Though it was hard to tell what with all the laughing. And pointing.
I am now going to attempt to eat something. I am starving and if I don’t get some food soon I might just gnaw my own lips off. Which, now that I think about it, I might just do anyway. On the bright side I will save on lipgloss.
I still have all of my Christmas decorations up. I hate taking them down. The house feels so empty and undecorated. But I also kind of hate my decorations right about now too.
I have been working out again. Like everyone else it seems who made a New Year resolution to get fit, healthy, fit into those pair of jeans, or that bathing suit without crying. I actually began in the middle of December and my neighbor is working out with me. We both hate Jillian and her 30 day shred right now.
I also decided to get off the sugar train again. Why do I love sugar so much? Not cakes or cookies or chips or fatty foods, no I want the straight sugar. Preferrably in the shape of a small chewy bear.
I am forbidding this child from growing up. A note to all of you parents out there with toddlers wishing they would just grow up already… stop right now. Tiny kids, tiny problems. Big kids, big problems.
And by problems I don’t mean getting into mischief, I mean the issues and decisions that arise are more important in the grand scheme of life, have greater implications,and bring you right back to your own teenage years where you fully understand why your parents just didn’t understand. It is because YOU WERE FUCKING CRAZY. That my friends is a friends is a full circle moment.
The one thing that I do try to do is at least APPEAR to understand to the crazy hormonal thinking. Then I call my friends who have younger kids and scare them. At least they will have military school options already researched in advanced. Or convents, as the case may be.
My daughter has been bugging me to curl her hair. And while I consider myself to be something of a girly-girl, hair curling is not something I have ever really done. I did have a brief love affair with my curling iron during the mid 80’s, however, that is something best left in the past.
Last week we were out shopping and my daughter spotted hot rollers. Oh, her life would not be complete until she had the hot rollers.
Unfortunately for her I have never used them. And it was probably a mistake to wait until we were getting ready for a New Year’s Eve party to try them for the first time. Scratch that, it was definitely a mistake.
Her hair did not come out curly. There were many tears. I finally resorted to making pin curls like I remember my grandmother doing to me once upon a time.
At one point all of the boys were in the bathroom wondering: a) why she wasn’t just happy with her normal straight hair, b) when the hell we were going to leave for the party, and c) why do girls cry so much. (The answers are a) because, b) when we are DONE, and c) get used to it)
We finally got her hair curly to her satisfaction (”But it doesn’t look curly, it just looks messy,” said one of the boys right before I killed him with the flaming daggers that shot out of my eyes.)
We went to the party and within the hour she looked like this.
Yesterday seemed like the perfect day to break out the Easy Bake oven. The little oven that let’s you cook a minature cake by the heat of a 40 watt lightbulb, yet affords you all of the mess of a real cake! What’s not to love about it?
My daughter got started on her own. Opened the little package and poured it into the tiny bowl. She added the water and stirred away. It didn’t look right. In fact I twittered: Easy bake oven cake mix looks frighteningly disgusting. Like curdled milk baby vomit. Just in case you wondered.
But I assumed that little lightbulb worked miracles or something.
It did not.
It was then I realized our Easy Bake oven mistakes. I had assumed my daughter could read the packages well enough to differentiate between cake mix and the frosting mix. She, on the other hand, was not even aware that she was supposed to read “all those letters.” So we had just baked miniature pan of frosting.
The second attempt went much, much better.
The little piece that is missing from the cake? That was the amount she was willing to share with her siblings.
Tracking Santa’s flight on the computer. One of the best things about having children spread over a wide age range is the opportunity to see your older ones be genuinely sweet to the youngest ones. To get excited for them. To play along to all things Santa.
At our house Santa got a vodka and cranberry.
It was so windy yesterday that both of the trees blew over and the wreath blew off the front door. Unlike the snowmen donuts I chased the wreath down and hung it back up.
At o’ dark thirty Christmas morning.
The aftermath.
One of the toys that Miles had to have. A toy which will be broken and/or discarded never to be looked at again in a week.
It isn’t Christmas until you give yourself some tattoos. It’s like a holiday tradition.
It was an iPhone, iTouch, iPod, Ninetendo Christmas. My daughter’s craptastic must have present of the season… Pixos.
My daughter doing her Amy Winehouse impression. For the record that is a tiny bottle of 7Up flavored jellybeans.
And then on to the homemade pizza. New life, new traditions. We also had crack. If you haven’t made that recipe you should click over and make it now. No, really. I’ll still be here when you copme back.
Jingle bell hair ties.
Rootbeer floats, the movie Elf, a glass of wine. The perfect ending.
