Adventures in Real Parenting: To Boldly Go Where This Parent Has Never Gone Before

In a fit of uncharacteristic do-gooderism, I responded positively to an emailed plea for volunteers for tonight's band lock-in at the middle school. (Did you just hear that eerie music or was it just me?)

When I told MathMan what I'd done, he thought I was joking.  Then he reminded me that I must have forgotten that approximately one third of tonight's attendees will be seventh graders.  Anyone who's raised kids through the middle years just gasped. Seventh grade, at least at our house, is the year that we wish our kids went to boarding school.

So yeah, tonight.  All night.  From 9:00 until 7 a.m. ish tomorrow, it will be a glassy-eyed crew of parents riding herd over a bunch of raging hormones dressed in the obligatory event tee shirt and pajama pants.

In preparation, I've been watching iCarly and boning up on the difference between Ke$ha and Katy Perry, Justin Beiber and the Jonas Brothers.  I'll be doing some stretching, deep knee bends and squats just in case I'm called upon to race across the gymnasium to rescue some eighth grade percussionist from a swarming hoard of sixth grade worshippers glittering with flavored lip gloss and offering up their last stick of React gum.

I stopped in the toiletry aisle at the grocery store this afternoon with the express purpose of sniffing every available bottle of Axe.  I figure it's kind of like an olfactory inoculation.  My brain still feels a little twangy in spots, numb in others, but at least I managed to drive home with my mandatory 12-pack of soda intact.  Grape Crush.  It was on sale.

I've checked the duty roster.  I'm going to be manning the inflatables.  I wondered why the band boosters thought blow up dolls were a good idea.

"Mom, that's the blow up playground stuff.  The slide.  You know?"  Sophie rolled her eyes, puffed up her cheeks and sized me up.  I knew she was wondering just how often and how severely I might embarrass her tonight.

"Oh."  I  still thought blow up dolls sounded like more fun.  It must have been all that Axe sniffing.

She circled around me.  She's so antsy I want to get her with one of those darts loaded with sedatives. "By the way," she purred, "You're going to let me and Leah go down the slide head first, right?"

My Mom Thing kicked in.  That little red flag like on a mailbox popped up.  Except it didn't mean I had mail.  It meant that there was the potential for danger.  "Absolutely not," I snapped.

"But!"

"No way, sister."

She wanted to know why, of course.  Kids always want to know why when you say no, but isn't it funny how they never ask why when you say yes?

"If I let you and Leah skirt the rules, then I'll have a whole army of band geeks* wanting to break their necks. It'll be chaos.  It'll be anarchy!"  The Breakfast Club reference flew right over her shaking head, but she held her tongue.

"Well, don't forget to take a nap.  You better stop screwing around on your computer and sleep so you're not cranky tonight."  That was her speaking to me, not the other way around.

"Hey, I've got my speed.  That should keep me going all night," I harrumphed as I reached for the Lock-In Fact Sheet.  I hate it when she calls blogging "screwing around."  I shook the photocopied sheet full of text.  What to bring, what to not bring.  "So I see here that we can't bring our guns or knives or our dangerous substances or chemicals."

"Obviously, Mother."  The sound of rolling eyes echoed off the walls.

"Well, they won't be searching the parents, right?" I glanced again at the paper.  "Because I'm bringing my Star Trek U.S.S. Enterprise bottle opener just in case.  It's my major award, you know."

She stared at me without speaking.

It's true.  I won the bottle opener for my caption in a contest at Anna Lefler's blog Life Just Keeps Getting Weirder.  To be honest with you, I haven't not had it somewhere on my person since it arrived by special delivery yesterday.  Which proved tricky last night given the way I sleep nearly au naturelle these days.  

Finally, Sophie spoke.  "What do you plan to do with the bottle opener, Mother?"

"The way I see it, it's a versatile tool.  It's a weapon, if needed.  And who knows, maybe some adult will smuggle in some beverages that require an opener."  In my mind, a blurry image formed.  It was me on one of those metal folding chairs, tossing back a couple of Shock Tops while overtired and punch-drunk children tumbled headfirst down the inflatable slide.....

Listen up, my insomniac friends.  Feel free to text me tonight to make sure I'm awake and sober and not trapped in some tuba locker, okay?  Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook can find my mobile number on my profile.

I'll also be tweeting the event, in case you want to be part of the action.  If you have a Twitter account, you can follow me here for all the witticisms that are bound to be produced tonight.

There's nothing left to do now.  I've got my mom jeans and my Band Boosters Are The Real Players embroidered sweatshirt.  I'm ready to rock this thing.

See you tomorrow.  I hope.

*No offense to those of you who were Band Geeks.  I was one, too, until I gave up my trumpet to twirl a flag.  And let us not forget I married a guy who plays the bassoon.

Adventures in Real Parenting: In The Driver's Seat

MathMan and Nate are out of school this week for something called Fall Break.

I know, right?  Fall Break?  Lots of schools have just gotten started.  What can I say? It's Georgia.  We like to be ahead of the curve on things.  Starting school, voter suppression, French kissing the Confederate flag.....


So here these guys are, underfoot and messing with my routine.  This is where I say "I love them, but....."  because goodness knows I do. But I also love my routine.  Everything is off kilter right now, though, so I can't really blame them. I don't know what it is - the change in season, the shortening of the days, the lack of alcohol in my system, the general ennui and bad news burnout that seems to grabbed a lot of us by the lapels and made us swear off cable "news."

And then Twitter went all fercockta this morning.  That sounds way more fun than it is.  I mean, how am I supposed to know anything without Twitter?

Aren't modern day complaints hilarious?  Wah! I can't make the xBox work right!  Wah! That store's ATM machine is on the fritz!  Wah!  My cable is out!  Wah!  The internet is moving slowly.  Again!!!!

People, none of us would have survived the crossing of the oceans.  We would have been fish food or, on a particularly rough day, tomorrow's lunch special.  For those of you not living in the U.S., pick a World War to not have survived because....yeah.

But before I wonder too far into the land of low blood sugar and this ache in my neck, let me wrangle my thoughts back to what I thought I might tell you today.

When it became clear that I wouldn't be getting much writing/revising done yesterday, I acquiesced to Nathan's begging to go for a driving lesson.  He's got ants in his baseball pants about learning how to drive a stick shift.  See, we only have manual transmission cars.  He doesn't master driving one, he doesn't drive.

Well, good thing our county is loaded with aborted subdivisions.  The roads are paved and there's no traffic on the back streets where the developers didn't build before the bottom fell out of the real estate market.  That's where we go for driving practice.

And the truth is, he did pretty well.  This was his first outing with me, but he's been out with Chloe and with MathMan.  So he's getting it.  Sure the car stalls sometimes and his shifting still requires some finesse, but, for the most part, he definitely gets the concept.  This is a good thing because this is the same kid who videotaped himself just a year and a half ago doing stupid things with a wagon.

For those of you who haven't been around very long, Nathan used to be referred to as The Actor.  Not Good Actor, just The Actor.

So how about you?  Are you feeling weird today or is it just me?  What's stuck in your craw?  Or are you stuck in second gear?

Adventures in Real Parenting: Who's Stalking Our Kids Online? Why - It's Us!

My friend Carole sent me a link yesterday that made me laugh and cringe simultaneously Oh, Crap, My Parents Joined Facebook is a delightful website highlighting the online faux pas of parents and relatives. Can you believe some poor kids have to deal with not only mom and dad, but Nana and Papa, too?  Yikes.

Anyway, the link was quite apropos to a Facebook status I posted this week.

Lisa Golden parents by text these days.

It's true.  Just ask anyone with kids, phones and thumbs.

Some days it feels like I communicate more with my kids via texts, facebook statuses and tweets than via the traditional methods of hollering across the house or having serious conversations across the kitchen table while avoiding eye contact.  Okay, "some days" is a boldfaced lie.  It's every day.  But I think we all prefer it that way.  We're mostly a bunch of socially awkward eccentrics so limited face to face contact is less painful physically and mentally.  Except for MathMan.  He's the least socially awkward of us and even he has some trouble in the eye contact department.  So when your most socially adept person is the math whiz in the family?  Doomed.  Is it any wonder my best friends are dead British detectives?

That was like matheism or something wasn't it?  Or am I a Mathist?  What has America come to when the only people you can safely mock are the smarty pants elitists who know how to operate a graphing calculator?

I'm still traumatized by him showing me his Parabola the other night, but I digress.  I'm supposed to be telling you how I found out via a modern day version of the telephone game that one of my kids is "in a relationship."

"So did you see?"  Sophie's eyes were glued to the computer screen.

"See what?"  I stopped cleaning whatever it was that required scrubbing to look her direction.

"It says here that Chloe Golden is in a relationship with (name redacted)."  This pleases her.  She likes Chloe's gentleman friend and just happens to be friends with his younger sister now.  Very cozy.

Today you learn about your child's love life via relationship status changes marked by that heart emoticon.  If you're lucky, this is followed up by a change in the profile picture which now shows the happy couple.  You can at least see what the other half of the relationship looks like. (And you can, of course, stalk their page, if they don't have the privacy controls on too tightly.) 

Gone are the days when parents knew when you were "going steady" by the clunky guy's class ring wrapped in yarn to make it fit your teenage finger so that you could wave it around for everyone to see without accidentally casting it off and blackening some poor bystander's eye.  That class ring business was when our parents knew to step up the flicking of the porchlight as we sat in our boyfriend's car parked in the driveway.  The more they flicked that light, the more we wondered if he was, in fact, The One.

Our parents weren't stupid.  They knew that the good stuff, if there was good stuff, had already happened down Dam Lane or parked behind the Baptist church on the lower end of town.  They just flicked those lights to remind us that they were paying attention.

It's pretty much the same thing now with the likes of Facebook, Twitter and texting.  Although this "paying attention" requires a bit more nuance.  A text, direct message or email usually requires a response or some follow up action.  A Facebook status or tweet is less defined.  The safest thing to do is not respond.  Don't be too conspicuous.  Trust me on this.

And if you can't help yourself, at least have the good sense to respond privately and not where all their friends can see. (See below for more specific tips.)

All this technology extends the ease of meddling a parent can do far into the ages when most of us were already fairly independent.  We're able to peer into our children's lives, delving into the details in ways we might later regret.

For example, I'm sure my parents did not want to know how many times I woke up in strange places, wondering where some missing piece of clothing had gotten to and what was that guy's name again?  Even now, they don't want to know (so if you're from Rising Sun and reading this and you happen to run into my parents, just know that NEVER happened.)  Just like they didn't want to see pictures of me in a bikini wagging my tongue at the camera or putting my mouth right on the beer tap.

"So are you going to do anything?"  Sophie was trying to gauge my reaction to this relationship news.

"What do you mean?"  I stood behind her and looked at the screen showing the photo of my beautiful Chloe in the arms of a very tall, very nice young man.

"Are you going to 'like' the relationship status or are you going to comment?"  Her eager eyes gave her away.

"No, m'am.  I believe that's called 'creeping' and I hate to be accused of that."  I went back to my cleaning as I considered these new unwritten rules for engaging electronically with one's offspring.  What's considered cool, what's completely cringe-worthy, what will cause them to defriend you forever and ever and ever.

I try not to cross the creeper line, but I don't always succeed.  Nevertheless, I feel qualified from a time tested combination of trial and error to offer some tips for how to effectively communicate with your children in today's world without making them wish they and you had never been born.

1.  Do not write terms of endearment on their Facebook walls.  No sweeties, baby girls, honeys, sugars, precious poo poo pants or darlings.  Those belong in a private message, a direct message on Twitter or an old-fashioned email.  Frankly, most kids don't ever want to see that in writing.

2.  Do not comment on photos unless you are 100% goon free.  This is not the typical parent's forte. On second thought - just do NOT comment on photos. 
2.a.  If you cannot resist the urge to comment, be sure to neutralize the creeping accusation by beginning your comment with "Sorry for creeping, but....."  and make damn sure your comment is either spot on, crazy positive without being cloying (a tough, tough balance) or super funny.  And yeah, kids don't find parents funny, much less super funny, so stick with quick and positive (no cliches!) and get the heck out of there fast!
2. b.  Resist the urge to interact with their friends on Facebook.  If you've been allowed into the secret club of being friends with your kids' friends, don't abuse the privilege.  Control your impulses to comment, like, post songs or send links.
2. c.  If you are posting about your kids in your own status, tread softly.  Using their names with a link can be done, but you must be careful with this.  If you're simply referring to them, just be aware that they might see it or, worse, one of their friends might see it.  Teenage boys do not like being called their mother's babies, I assure you.  And when you refer to yourself?  No third person.  No ....and now Mommy has to.... or anything remotely like that.  Resist the urge.  Martyrdom is a delicate business, you know.

3.  Use the "Like" button judiciously.  They're happy that it's Friday?  Fine.  "Like" that.  They're pissed at their English professor?  Finger off the "like" button.  You do not want your thumbs up there.

4.  Some kids post their mood swings like I used to change my hair color.  Do not overreact.  If you're really worried, pick up the phone.  Do not, I repeat, do not post frantic messages to their wall unless you intend to escalate things and blow up Facebook for all of us.

5.  Twitter is a bit trickier.  For Twitter, it's best to look and not touch.  Although being able to offer advice, solace, or the occasional bit of tenderness using 140 characters or less is a gift.  Use your best judgment, but know that the consequences of being blocked are legion and many.

6.  Yes, yes, we all think it's funny to embarrass our kids to a certain degree, but remember what it felt like to have your dad laugh out loud at that school banquet and that food went flying out of his mouth and you wanted to die right there in your chair?  Or how about the time your mom asked you out loud in the grocery store aisle if you needed any sanitary napkins?  Oh, you remember. 

7.  Finally, as a gift to yourself, you might consider setting up a separate email account just for your kids.   This is especially handy for people with children living away from home.  The beauty of this is that on days when you don't want to deal with the drama, trauma or little hiccups of parenting, you can simply create an auto response email that reads "I'm off duty.  If this is an emergency, involves money, technology, a ride somewhere or favors, please call your father.  In case you still haven't added him to your contacts, his number is xxx-xxx-xxxx and he still answers to Dad, Daddy or (fill in name here)."


I should stop here.  I already sound like a complete know it all and even though I've secured her permission to write this post, there's no telling if Chloe would actually approve or agree with my Helpful Tips.  I suspect she'd offer this short, helpful directive.  "Just don't."

Until she needs her papers proof read, of course.

Please feel free to add to the list.  What have you learned about communicating with family, friends, coworkers in this new dynamic?

Only Mildly Offensive to Everyone

I grew up in a vanilla place.

Not the organic, hormone-free, Tahitian gelati made from The Pope's cows in Switzerland vanilla purchased at Whole Foods but generic vanilla from a paper carton purchased at the I.G.A.

The town wasn't exactly lily white.  We had our rednecks who are white, but hardly lilies.  And there was the little strip of houses on the edge of town leading out toward Salem Ridge where all the black people lived.

My face still burns with shame when I think about how I would lie flat in the truck bed with my cousins and our gang of rowdy friends as my aunt drove through that cluster of houses on her way in and out of town.  From the safety of their assumed anonymity, they would shout nigger and I would laugh because I thought they were being funny and daring and subversive.

I was too stupid and too young to know that hate isn't subversive.  It's frighteningly mainstream.

I didn't use that word much.  I did once when I was quite young and my mother heard me, wigged out and blamed the person she rightfully assumed I'd learned the word from.

"Paul, fix this," she hissed.  "I don't ever want to hear her say that again."

My dad is a real pedantic sort.  "If you ever say that word - if you even think it -, the nearest black person is going to come and cut your ears off."

Terror is an effective teaching tool.  I rarely used that word or even thought it.  For years after, I could sleep only if one ear was pressed firmly into my pillow and the other was covered with a blanket.  I wasn't taking any chances in my sleep.

So the other day, when I wrote about the mixture of classes and ethnicity at Nate's school, I failed to mention that my vanilla face might have stood out a little.  While we still have Sophie firmly planted among the clod hoppers and people not unlike herself (except for that whole having a Jewish dad, a non-believing mom and having been born North of the Mason Dixon and if you think that doesn't matter, you're wrong), Nate is now attending a school where mocha, cinnamon and free-trade organic dark make up the dominant culture. 

Nate's sense of relief in his new setting is almost palpable. He did fine at his old school, making plenty of friends and such, but he never felt quite at home.  Many of the kids with whom he attended school were quick to remind him of his outsider status.  Even trading "going to" for "fixin' to" didn't earn him full status.  Language always plays a part, doesn't it?  He'd forget his y'alls and drop in a you guys - the linguistic equivalent of dissing the Confederate flag or referring to "it" as The Civil War.

So now he's settling into his new role of still being somewhat of an outsider, but for whatever reason - the influence of TV, maybe? - he seems more at home in his new place.  He's careful not to go too far, of course, because he doesn't want to be tagged with the dreaded wigger label.  Those guys are laughed at by both the black and the white kids.

It's clear, though, that this atmosphere with a varied complexion is more to his liking.  Let's just say he's always been more inclined to listen to hip hop or rap than to country or even skinny, sensitive white guy music.

This summer as he played baseball for his new school, he made new friends and, as often happens, he's learned and shared some new words and phrases with us.  Being a word person myself, I can't help but play around a little with these shiny, new toys.  And kids, especially teenagers, love it when adults adopt their style.  They think it's really cool.

As I've tested out some of these new phrases, I've found the results to be mixed.  I guess there are still a lot of really stuffy people in this world.  I thought reality TV and having an African-American president had changed all that, but I was wrong.

Nurse during my physical:  So when did you have your last period?
Me:  You don't know me like that. Beeyotch.  Shiiiiiiit.

Grocery Store Clerk:  Is that credit or debit?
Me:  That's what she said.

Nathan to me:  I can't believe I'm up at 5:30 a.m. to go to school.
Me:  Your mom's up at 5:30 a.m.
Nate:  Mom.  No. See....
Me:  What?  You don't know me like that.
Nate:  Dad!  Make her stop!
Me:  Your mom's gonna make her stop. Yo.
MathMan:  My mom's dead.
Me:  Oh.  Right.  Sorry, honey.

Sophie:  mkalphalknsfphghsldkfh
Me:  Bitch, take the shit out of yo' mowf and eeeee-nun-see-yate
Sophie:  We just found another stray kitten.  Can we....?
Me:  Go back to being an unintelligible hillbilly.  And NO!

Chloe:  I'm getting anxious to go back to school.
Me:  Your mom's getting anxious for you to go back to school.
Chloe blinks, shakes her head, walks away.

MathMan, nodding at my empty wine glass:  How many have you had?
Me:  Shut up, bitch. You don't know me like that.
MathMan, who has taught at the above-mentioned school for seven years and has yet to make an ass of himself by trying to sound like a teenager, ignores me and points at the glass:  How many have you had?
Me:  That's what she said?

Beeyotch.

Adventures in Real Parenting: Orientated

Okay, so now the first draft is done.  Bring on the list of reasons - excuses really - for why all work on the novel will come to a standstill.
Today's excuse:  The Mom Thing

I had to wake early to ride to work with MathMan and attend Nate's Freshman Orientation. He's going to go to MathMan High School for reasons practical and otherwise.  I went to show that I'm making at least the minimum effort of engaging in his education.  A couple of months from now, I'll point back at this morning and shout "I do too care!  Why else did I go to that meeting?"

And he'll say "The Orientation in August?"

And I'll say, "Was that it?  Yes.  See?  I care!"

The reality is that MathMan will be more closely tied to Nate during the next four years. We've kind of planned it that way.  It's not that I don't care, but we've reached the point where what these kids are learning, at least in the math and science subject areas, are way beyond my limited abilities.  I'll be here to offer moral support, pack nutritious lunches and to remind Nate not to backseat his dad too much on during those hour long commutes.

The program reminded me why I'm glad Nate is attending such a diverse school.   The school -grades nine through twelve - is public and serves a mixture of middle, working and struggling classes, black, white and Latino populations. The staff is reflects the student population.

That school belongs to everyone.

While the administrators and staff demonstrated pride and excitement about the high-achieving students, there was a real effort to encourage all parents to help their students achieve. "Whether you see your student going to college or trade school or something different, it's never too soon to start them thinking about how the decisions they make now will affect their future."

It's pretty simple advice, but oh so important.  It's probably not so very different from the messages being repeated in every school offering orientation in the coming weeks.  It was good to hear even though this is our second time around the high school thing.

I tried to remember the messages given when Chloe was a high school freshman.  Five years can wipe out a lot of memory, I guess, because, while I'm sure the messages were similar, they didn't stay with me.  Part of that might be due to the expectations a parent has for his or her children.  We had high expectations for Chloe, but her personal expectations were even higher.  With Nate and Sophia we've been more relaxed and it shows.  They aren't bad students, but they don't freak out about the occasional B or C either.

Being who I am, I had to poke fun at the extensive clothing restrictions schools now have.  I understand that as a society we've really let our standards slip, but some of this is just too silly, too let's take ourselves a little too seriously.

"I certainly hope they don't include boobs in this 'no sagging' rule," I stage whispered to MathMan.  "Hey!  Maybe I could get some of those zip ties for my knockers, cinch them back up into place.  It's cheaper than surgery."

You just never know what's going to make MathMan's face go all ashen.

On the way home, Nate and I discussed the morning's programs and expectations.  I asked him what he expected from himself.

"My goal is to graduate with G.P.A. higher than Chloe's," he replied.

Behold the awesome power of Sibling Rivalry.  The bonus is that once he's said this, he can't go back.  She'll make his life a misery.

How about you?  Did you/do you set high expectations for yourself?  Do you need to use Nate's orientation for an excuse for not getting something done?  Do you need a nap?  Or maybe some zip ties?

His future's so bright.......

You Can Hire Me, Bring Me Back After a Session

During this - our time of financial recalibration - we've found it necessary to cut back and cut back some more. This has offered us a chance to revisit our priorities and to better understand ourselves as consumers of the vast array of options modern American have vying for their dollars.

Put another way - we see who we really are by what we continue to spend our money on versus what we're willing to do without.

For example:  I'm not willing to give up my nightly glass of wine or occasional beer. Make of that what you will. On the flipside, I am willing to stick my hand into the full vacuum bag, pulling out clumps of cat hair, bits of random things, dirt, dust, and the occasional dried Tootsie Roll of cat poo festooned with litter and feathers.  I can never figure out where the feathers come from.  They're indoor cats.

I figure, why keep buying vacuum cleaner bags when all I'm going to do is throw them away?  Recycle, reuse, repurpose. That's my motto and I'm sticking to it.

I admit knowing that in a week or two, I'll be pulling my shirt up over my face to protect my lungs from the dust particles and rummaging inside the bag to dislodge its contents has made me a bit careless when I wield my magic sucking wand.  Oh, shoot!  I only meant to get the hairs out of that drawer, I didn't mean to suck up that cloth headband.  Oh, well, I'll retrieve it when I clean out the bag.  I can wash it and it'll be good as new.

So yesterday, the vacuum was behaving rather sluggishly while we did our dance around the living room.  I cut the power and hefted it off the floor.  Yeah, it was getting pretty full.  I dragged it to the ceremonial emptying garbage can and tugged my shirt up over my nose in preparation for the job.

Out came the usual suspects.  Cat hair in massive, gray clumps, horrifying dust, part of a pencil, a Q-tip, bingo! my headband, more hair and dust.  And hello!  What's this?

Nathan just happened to walk by as I held up the little surprise that waited, buried deep within the bowels of my beloved vacuum.

"What's this?"  My shock was real.

He looked at the object, then back at me and laughed nervously.  "Don't you know?"

"Whose condom is this?"  I held it, flattened and dusty, between my thumb and forefinger.  It flapped like a yellowish, ribbed-for-her-pleasure flag in the breeze from the ceiling fan.

"Not mine!"

"Whose condom am I holding in my hand?"

Crickets and the batting of his long eyelashes and finally.  "I said it's not mine!"

"And how did it get into the vacuum cleaner?"

"Does it really matter?"

In the grand scheme of things, I suppose he's right.

Happy weekend, lovers.  Careful where you put your condoms.

My Too Late Submission for Project Mom Casting

They wanted a picture of me, so here it is.

This is my late submission for the Project Mom Casting. The idea is that the producers of a reality TV show will be in New York City at the Blogher Conference auditioning potential cast members.

I missed the deadline because I thought all day yesterday was July 25th.  FAIL is my signature color.

And I won't be at the NYC event because I am, as usual, broke.  This being laid off and having no disposable income has really worn thin.  And that killjoy MathMan is not amused by my offer to turn tricks for some fun money.  Or airfare. 

I realize most of you aren't even aware of my blogher aspirations.  I started as a political blogger who shifted to relationship and bad parenting blogging.  I never identified as a "mom" blogger or a female blogger.  Sure I did blog as a decidedly female writer with the lacy black bra avatar, but that was just a way to lure mostly male readers back to PoliTits.  Ah, the good old days.

But here you are, still visiting and for that I am grateful.  So grateful that I keep my clothes on now.

But what if I didn't miss the deadline?  How would I sell myself?  I could say that I have three well-adjusted, bright, funny children who are important to me, but not the center of my life.  I believe you can be a mom without letting that aspect of who you are overshadow everything else. I'd say that I've been married forever to MathMan who is my best friend and totally hot.  I'd lie and say that I'm well-adjusted, too, except for the delusions about becoming a famous novelist, the Gaslighting of my children, the collection of cats, the mild OCD that kicks in after I clean, my lifelong addiction to sugar and ongoing battle with my weight, my murky past as a high school cheerleader, and my desire to be British.

To demonstrate my onscreen persona, I'd show them my facelift video from my aborted attempt to become a beauty consultant and the series of Commute Chats we made with the camera wedged between the dashboard and the windshield. (Note: I don't have a lisp, but if you need someone with a lisp for the show, I can do that! I'm a great mimic!)

And, of course, I'd mention that what I'm in the middle of is writing my first novel and attempting to find a literary agent so that it can be published and won't they hate it if this all turns out uncharacteristically awesome and they made the mistake of passing me up when they had the chance?

Except it's not their fault that I can't read a calendar, is it?

So what do you think?  Shouldn't they make an exception for me?  Don't you guys want to see me, MathMan and those wickedly photogenic children of ours on TV? Careful with your answers, I'm emotionally "delicate" at the moment.  Which also means sober. 

Love and thanks,

Lisa

Adventures in Real Parenting: Just Wait

Sometimes I'm reluctant to write about my kids and the things that go on here because I don't want you to think ill of them or me.  I don't want you to think that I'm a terrible mother, too.  I mean, we don't have to share every opinion to remain friends, do we?

On the numerous occasions when I let go of my fears and give in to the knowledge that these people with whom I share a home and life are my best material and I'm desperate to write a blog post, I go ahead and write, but that writing makes me fret.  I fret that I'm going to get one of those "Well, you just need to..." or "Well, when I was raising kids..." comments and it's going to alternatively make me angry and ashamed.  And then I'll grumble about it to MathMan and throw myself onto the bed in a fit and vow to never ever ever write about my kids again because some people can't help being advice givers or sanctimonious and I hope their kids drive them over the cliff someday too.

And then MathMan follows me into the bedroom, puts his TI-84+ Silver Edition on the night table and stands next to the bed giving me that look.  "Come on now.  You need a thicker skin. Your readers have a relationship with you and they want to help."

When he's reasonable like that is when I want to refudiate him the most.  With pain.

I realize that this makes me sound a bit too much like politicians who trot their kids out during the campaign only to whine when the media goes after those same kids later. But there it is.  This exploiting your children for money or humor or a stupid blog post or elected office is a complicated thing.  It's a field loaded with emotional landmines.

See it's one of those conundrums of being a domestic artiste.  It's too close to the bone, to the heart.  I'm allowed to poke fun at them.  And you're allowed to laugh, but you are not allowed to join in the poking (much) nor offer parenting advice.  Trust me on this.  I'd bet anyone who writes about family feels the same way.  I've just laid bare more of my inadequacies so that you might laugh.  I'm not looking for someone to come in and tell me what I "need to do" or how they do it so much better than I do.  I have therapists for that.

It occurred to me to check with an expert on this, but so far I've only managed to get distracted reading her quotes and reminiscing about her books.

If you haven't guessed already, I've been reading some of that Erma Bombeck book that's been assigned as bathroom reading apparently because it's been either relegated to or given the highest honor of being tossed into the big basket of bathroom reading material.

Now that I'm eating things like steel cut oats and vegetables, I've got more reading time than ever.  Since it's been brought to my attention that reading on the toilet contributes to varicose veins, I'm careful not to spend more than one paragraph at a time on "business."  While my leg veins that haven't already popped are grateful, I'm pretty sure I'll be dead before I manage to get through the Bombeck book and all those Prevention magazines that are supposed to prevent my death.  Choose your battles, Lisa.  Choose your battles.

But back to Erma, I wonder how she felt about reader feedback.  I so wish she were alive to blog today. And I'm pretty sure she didn't make her career off the backs of her husband and children because kids in the sixties and seventies were any better at doing what they were told or by staying out of trouble.  Bombeck did not once write that she'd be strapping tennis rackets to her children's feet like snowshoes to send them to school even if school was cancelled again because raising children is easy or delightful.  It wasn't then, it isn't now.  Don't let those fetishizers of parenting fool you.

I was one of those kids giving my mother another reason to reach for her nerve pills when I first discovered Erma.  My mom had some of her books around, but I didn't realize how amusing she must have found them because I didn't grasp the misery loves company appeal of it then.  I just saw Mom reading and laughing and thought what an odd thing that was.  Rare really, more than odd.

Even then, I read Bombeck while locked in the bathroom.  There was Just Wait Til You Have Children of Your Own and The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank .  I still remember a Bill Keane illustration of a mom ironing her daughter's hair on the ironing board while speaking into the phone, "Oh, just ironing something for Debbie."

Back when I was laughing at that, I had no idea of the kinds of things I'd one day find myself doing for my own kids.  Or the things I'd find myself saying.  When you're fourteen and tan and can wear pink velour tube tops without the slightest hint of irony, you never imagine yourself telling someone to stop licking the curtains or wondering aloud who you should call to have Cinnamon Toast Crunch delivered via dumptruck load because you're going broke buying it by the box.  No, you just give yourself another misting of Love's Baby Soft, apply some Bonnie Bell Seven Up flavored Lipsmacker and miss the opportunity to be glad for who you are then and how it all stretches out before you.  The way we humans are wired shelters us at that age.  We aren't able to peer into our futures for a reason, yo.

But now Bombeck is hilarious to me.  I'm that mom with my own Debbies and Steves.  It's me fishing keys out of the toilet and shouting down the heating vent in search of a lost hamster and wiping spills that no one else sees and praying to the laundry room gods for the safe deliverance from oblivion of all those random socks and finding new uses for old pantyhose and referring to my husband as "that idiot" under my breath.

And saying to my own darlings "Just wait til you have children of your own."

Adventures in Real Parenting: Not Guest Ready

She woke up with a start.  Oh my god! Her daughter's friend used the bathroom at the end the hallway last night!  That bathroom was commonly referred to as the Kids' Bathroom so now you know all you need to know about it.

She rummaged around in her mind for the date when last she cleaned that bathroom.  Had it been a Quick Clean(TM) a couple of weeks ago?  Or was it a month or so ago when she'd bribed her youngest to do it?  That was the day when she didn't feel like cleaning it even though it was beyond a health hazard.  She'd just painted her fingernails and there were no rubber gloves to use to protect them.  They'd all gone missing.  Again.  The last time she'd had some, they became part of some neighborhood performance piece - filled with water or pudding and painted up to look like chickens.  Something like that.  Maybe they were supposed to be roosters.

So she asked the youngest to clean.  The oldest was at work, the middle at some baseball field getting covered in red Georgia clay.

When she approached her darling, she didn't seem terribly interested until some payola was introduced as an incentive.  Negotiations ensued.

"I'll give you two dollars for a thorough job."

"Make it ten."
"Two fifty.  Three."
"You're being ridiculous.  Seven."
"Three fifty and don't push it."
"Seven."
"Five and if you say anything other than okay, the deal is off, I keep my money and you run in place carrying two full jugs of water the whole time I'm doing it."
"You've been watching Malcolm in the Middle again."
"Going, going..."
"Done.  Five dollars.  Do I have to do it now?"
"Yes."

And so she did and she did a thorough job.  For one brief, shining moment, her lust for money took hold and she asked if there might be more she could do.  So her mother paid her an extra two dollars to dust and vacuum the living room.

But that was then.  This was retro-active panic gripping her this morning.  She sprang from her bed not to fly to the window and throw up the sash to look for evidence of a jolly little fat man carry a sack of gifts on his back, but to fly down the hallway to confirm just how embarrassed she should be on this otherwise calm Saturday morning.

It was worse than she thought.  She lifted the toilet seat and lid and died a thousand deaths of shame.  Mucky.  Yellow stains.  Flecks. A brown skid decorating one side of the bowl.  Dark, short curlicue hairs scattered over it all.  It looked as though Jackson Pollack had found a new canvas.

"I've been in back road truck stop restrooms cleaner than this," she muttered.

Her husband walked out of the bedroom scratching his belly and yawning.  "Did you say something?"

She could clean now and at least feel as though she learned her lesson.  Saying out loud to three teenagers and assorted cats "Some one needs to clean the bathroom and I do NOT mean me" was too vague, too imprecise.  Such a loose statement made to children and young adults amounted to an anachronism.  Everyone assumed that "someone" was always somebody else.

She thought of her many mistakes as she cleaned that bathroom and moved on to the next - the basement bathroom.  That was where they kept the litter boxes.  As always happens in these moments of crisis cleaning, one thing led to another.  She scooped out the chunks from the litter, cleaned the sink and toilet, shined the mirror, swept the floor and ultimately got on her hands and knees to wash it.  That lead to the same thing in the kitchen, three loads of laundry, vacuuming and spot cleaning the living room carpet, wiping down the stove, fixing the loose screws on the coffee table, boiling eggs, putting a table cloth on the dining room table and carrying out the trash.

Toward the end of the frenzy, she inspected her damaged manicure and shrugged.  It was time for a redo anyway.

Her daughter finally emerged from the cocoon of her bed and sauntered into the kitchen.  Normally one doesn't speak to this person before she's been awake for two hours, but there was no time to waste.  She had to spread her shame around to someone who might be capable of relating to it.  Later, she would realize the folly of that idea.

"I can't believe you let your friend use that disgusting bathroom."

"Mom, he had to pee.  What was I supposed to do?"

"Well, tell him that it doesn't always look like that."

"But it does always look like that."

She opened her mouth to protest, but saw the futility of it.  Of all of it.

Her daughter sensed her dismay.  "Don't worry though.  He pees a lot.  It's what he's known for among our friends.  The last time a bunch of us went to Six Flags, we had to stop three times so he could go pee."

"Okay so what's your point?"

"My point is that he's probably seen far, far worse."

"I am not comforted by that thought."

"I know, but it's the best I can do."

I Started Something

I am having difficulty concentrating today.

At first I thought it was because of that high-pitched sound coming from the water pipes as MathMan hoses down the garden, but I don't think that's the only thing penetrating the armor of my brain right now.  I'm also hot.  As in Is This What a Hot Flash Feels Like? hot.

But then no.  Because I realize my heat (I don't want to write hotness here because I really don't want you to misunderstand my meaning) is a result of the weather and the fact that we've got our a/c set high to conserve energy.  Plus I won't shut my blinds because I read somewhere that having lots of natural light is essential to a writer's ability to concentrate.

Which brings me back to my lack thereof.  It could be this heartburn which feels frighteningly like seventh month pregnancy heartburn.  (Pauses, looks down at tummy that just won't shrink the way Jorge Cruise promised it would, ponders the possibilities.)  Oh, dear lord, no.  No emphatically NO. That could not be possible.  My interuterine jewelry is firmly in place, is it not?  I am forty-four years old and besides, I haven't felt any kicking.  Well, except that bit of marital violence that happens when MathMan takes up the middle of the bed and returns fire with his knee after I announce with my heel to his calf that he's crossed into the Green Zone.

It's impossible.  That's just belly fat.  And red wine and chocolate heartburn.  It has to be.

Having another child is unthinkable at this stage in my life.  You all know I'm done being  a parent already.  Just last night I thought I might just turn this all over to Sophie right now.  You should have seen her grilling her siblings about their recent forays into things I thought (perhaps hoped) they would never try.  If she doesn't make it on the stage (as is her wish, not mine), she has all the makings of a great litigator (which sounds an awful lot like alligator to me this morning).  She wasn't going to let them off the witness stand (lawn chairs, really) until she'd heard and dissected every last salacious detail regarding their teenage hijinks.

I just sat back and watched them wither under her cross examinations.  All I can say is that when she's a teen and trying out her own experiments, she'd better hope they've forgotten the sanctimony, the gasps, the requests to know more.

At some point, I decided I should call time on her badgering of the witnesses.  I adjusted my horsehair wig and reminded her that there would come a time when neither I nor her father would be around to protect her from her siblings.  She sat back, pursed her lips and then very daintily noted that she didn't care.  She'd have a big dog to protect her.

For their own parts, the older two didn't move to kill the prosecuting obnoxious little sister.  They even humored her, toyed with her a little.  And when it was all over, they told her to expect her teen years to be hell.  They'd see to it.

Gosh, I love family time.

But I was telling you about concentration.  It's true, I was lost, unable to string together the words for the scene I'm writing in the manuscript.  So I did what I always do.  Laundry.  Picked fleas off a cat and squeezed them between my fingernails until they died.  The fleas, not the cats.  Although lately......

When domesticity failed me, I turned to my one true love.  The internet.  The internet never fails me.  It entertains with no added fat or calories.  The most it may ask of me is my email address, but I've got that covered.  My fake address is a veritable gold mine of snake oil ads and penis enhancement offers.  Finally, I saw this link posted by MathMan and laughed at how on target it was concerning my own issues.  Except, I don't have a thing for George Clooney.

And now I look again at the clock and realize that the words written here could have been in the manuscript.  It wouldn't have made a lick of sense there, mind you, but I would be that much closer to my word count goal for the day.

What's distracting you? 

I Spent Some Time in The Mudville Nine

The baseball game was a win with caveats.  The team won after being down three runs until the sixth inning.  Their rally was stunning.  Thankfully, Sophia even got to see it.  She emerged from the bathroom at the bottom of the fifth inning.  Up until that point, she'd been hiding out in various stalls having some sort of episode.

We'd forgotten once again that this kid is a total headcase when we go anywhere.  That's how rarely we actually go out for fun as a family.  We forget from one year to the next.

Before the game even began, our darling had diagnosed herself with heatstroke and excused herself, grabbing her water bottle, Nintendo DS and cell phone.  The phone is critical to driving her father and me insane.

For those of you horrified that two parents with legs in perfectly good working order would allow an eleven year old to go alone to a public restroom on the concourse of a small, minor league baseball field?  Stop stroking out.  She knows what to do in the case of an emergency.  I am the founder of the School of Benign Neglect, don't forget.  And besides, with the sour face she was pulling, no one would have approached her anyway.

The text assault began approximately fifteen minutes into her restroom retreat.  She began with laying out of the case for why she needed to go home.  "I'm overheated, I think.  I don't feel well.  Can you drive me home?"  She texts both MathMan and me to increase her chances of getting an answer.  She eventually ratcheted up the requests.  "I barfed a li'l.  Can I go home now?"  Next she attempted logic.  "Chloe is coming to the game after work.  She can drive daddy and Nathan home."  She even worked on what she wrongly assumed was my achilles heel.  "Besides, u don't even like baseball, Mom."

Finally, she resorted to tearful pleas employing text-short hand and a sad face emoticon, no less.  "Plz, Plz, Plz......! :-<"

It seems cruel to mock her in her hour of need, but we know this kid.  We may forget from year to year that she pulls this stunt, but we recognize this anxiety and even if we don't know its cause, we know its cure.  Ignore it.

The best text came about halfway through her crisis.  "I am so hot there's sweat in my underpants."

Oh how we laughed.

About an hour into the drama, I put down my beer, shoved my peanuts at MathMan and stomped to the restroom.  It was time to end this nonsense.  At least my precious girl made it easy for me to spot her feet under the stall door by wearing tie-dyed flip flops.  I knocked with purpose.  "Let's go."

The woman who opened the door with wide-eyed astonishment had a sense of humor, thank goodness. 

"Mom?"  Sophia stepped out of another stall a couple of doors away when she heard my voice. So those flip flops weren't so unique after all.

I led her out into the fresh air and we sat in the shade.  I started to berate her for turning yet another family outing into a pain in the ass.  I watched her eyes tear up a little as I hissed between clinched teeth.  And then I stopped.  I let the flashback of myself throwing up behind a bush at a McDonalds somewhere outside Birmingham, Alabama pass.  I could still hear the angry voices of my siblings complaining that I'd ruined the trip to Cape Canaveral.

"Phia, are you okay?  Can you pull it together?"

She tried to smile.  "Can I have a dollar?"  She pointed at the booth where if you got one of three balls into the hole in the tarp background, the prize was a cowbell with which to drive your fellow fans batty.

I handed her a dollar.  She came close with balls two and three. 

"Listen, it's cooling off.  It's quite nice and the fireworks will start right after the game.  Why don't you come watch with us now?  I'll get you one of those frozen drinks."  I just wanted to get back to my seat and relax and watch the men young enough to be my sons strut around in their form-fitting white pants.

"Not yet.  Can I go back to the bathroom just in case?  I might get sick again."

"Okay."  I watched her gather up her things.  "Hey, don't hog the stall for too long.  Move around.  And, for cliff's sake, stay out of the handicapped stall.  No need to be rude, right?"

"Right."

"Hey, Soph.  I remember what it was like to feel sick and for everyone else to be angry at me about it.  Just try to relax, okay?  We're not mad, but we're not going to stop having fun because you don't want to be here."

"I know.  I'll come out in a while.  I'm feeling a little better already."

Photo courtesy of Doug Golden

Do You Know the Muffin Man

I suspect that when Sophia looks back at this summer, she'll remember it as the summer she learned to cook.  Or more precisely, the summer her mother stopped giving a damn.  The poor kid is only eleven and I've kind of checked out.  Not that she minds.  As long as she can make herself a grilled cheese, she's cool with it.

This isn't really a new dynamic for us.  She's been a latchkey kid since she was too young to be.  By the time she was able to stand on a chair to turn on the stove, open a Campbell's soup can and empty the contents into a pan, she's been ready to be on her own.  Sadly, Georgia does not issue work permits or drivers' licenses to six year olds.

So far this summer Phia has mastered cake from a mix, homemade buttercream frosting from the Wilton recipe, grilled cheese sandwiches, beef and broccoli stir fry and pie crust.  "Mom, you have to stay out of the kitchen while I do this" has become the rule.  Fine with me.  I've got porn to surf.  Besides, she can read.  She can follow a recipe.  She doesn't need me hovering about.  And when she does need me, we yell back and forth across the house, but I do not cross the threshold of the kitchen.  It's like a Gordon Ramsey scene without all the swearing and ego.  Mostly.

"Try this."  She thrust a buttercream covered beater into my face mid-twitter.  I hit tweet and took a lick.

"Excellent."  And it was. Sweet, but not too sweet.  The consistency was perfect.

"Can I frost the cake now?"

"Knock yourself out, sister."  I took another lick.

"Mom, when can I learn to do the filling for a pie or a cake from scratch?"

"Oh, we still have July, right?"  This is me trying to wiggle out of commitment.

"Yes, but you promised.  You said..."

I held up my hand to cut her off.  "I don't remember that.  And if I did say, it was probably while I was still sharing the office with the litter boxes.  The contact high from cat urine makes me say all kinds of things I don't mean."

Her face drooped. Then she got an idea.  Logic.  Yeah, logic works with me.

"Please?  What good is it to know how to make a pie crust if I can't make the filling?"  She parried.

"Good point.   But at least you have the satisfaction of knowing that you can do something lots of adults can't do."  I dodged.

She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at me with those root beer eyes.  If logic wouldn't do the trick, then brown-eyed manipulation would.

I hate her sometimes.

"Fine.  This weekend.  Okay?  We'll make another chocolate chess pie.  Or how about a chocolate cream pie like Grandma makes?"

"Good.  Okay.  And the cake from scratch?"

"Look, let's not push it.  We have five more weeks before school starts."

"Fine."

We're still working on the clean as you go method, but good for her.  She's going to be far more self-sufficient than those other two layabouts. That's partly my fault.  I'm such a control freak I didn't invite them into the kitchen as much.  Come to think of it, though, Sophie invited herself.   And when I attempted to shoo her out, she resisted.  She's always been determined to learn her way around the kitchen.  Before she was tall enough to reach the counter, I'd have barely said the words "Ah, not right now, sweetie, why don't you go watch...." before she was standing on a chair next to me, her little apron tied around her waist.

At least when she informs me that she plans to live with me forever, I know that means I'm set for desserts.

There Is A Light That Never Goes Out

Photo by Craig Bender

This post is not for the faint of heart or those who do not understand that I am all talk.  Got that?  All talk.  No experience.  None.



I think I discussed enough gay sex yesterday to keep me sated for a while.

Why are you looking at me like that?  This is what passes for solid mother/daughter time these days.  She drives, I ride, we chat.  About things.

And the eleven year old in the back seat of the car?  She's kept deaf and dumb by the clever pumping of Top 40 Radio into the back speaker at ear-splitting levels.  When she did show the temerity to lean forward and inquire if we were discussing sex, we shushed her and turned the volume up another notch.

Actually, I tried to play dumb.  Who me?  Know something about anal sex?  The difference between being the Top and the Bottom?  Lube?  Listen, sister, I've had sex three times.  Missionary only.  Never on a Sunday.  And I made point of not enjoying it by silently reciting some passage of Faulkner while I endured it.  Hear me and hear me now - sex is gross.  Yuck.  Never do it. 

And then I slipped up because I became distracted by a text message from one of the kids' therapists and mentioned that were I a gay male, I would probably get bored with giving blow jobs eventually because I'm good for about three minutes that way and I'd probably learn to like taking it up the butt because I'm a people pleaser.  Except not with your dad because what he didn't get in height, he got in the trousers and I'm rarely ever so drunk that it doesn't hurt a little.

The nice policeman who filled out the accident report said her car should be fine.  Any body shop worth its grease would be able to knock out the lightpole shaped indentation in the passenger side door.  I wonder now if she tried to kill me.

It's funny how our children think they can shock us. What silly games we all play.

And yes, it's true, I am not a gay man nor do I think I'll ever be one unless reincarnation works, And golly do I hope it does. But that's because I fear death and wish for another chance to do things right.  Or to at least have tall, good-looking skinny genes.  And if that means I'm a gay man?  Cool.  Going with current standards of stereotypes, I can count of having good fashion sense for a change, too.

Anyway, listening to Chloe talk about gay sex was interesting and all, but what it really served to do was remind me of a time when it was all before me - that future thing.  It's a strange connection, I know.  But here are my precious and her friends with the madcap sex adventures and new ideas and they're so young and ready to pounce on the future and I think, dang....where did the time go?  My time, not theirs.  They can worry over their own crows feet and gravity morphed bits and bobs when they're forty-four.

And then I heard the Smiths on an episode of Gavin and Stacey after someone with a new blog address posted it on Facebook.  Ah, the music I listened to when I was their age.  And I thought it really is flying by.  As Ferris says, life moves pretty fast....I may not be nineteen anymore, but with the genetics I do possess, it's likely I have another forty years.  Better stop and look around a little bit before I miss any more of it.

And you, my straightlaced friends? What are you playing dumb about these days?

Oh, one more thing.   I may be fooling around a bit with those new blogger templates.  If you come back and don't recognize the place, now you know why.  Someone's been rearranging the furniture again.

Well the pleasure, the privilege is mine...

And Breakfast in Bed, Too

January 22, 1999

Father's Day 2007 - The Reenactment

 So today we honor those guys who are fathers, daddies, dads, pops, daddios, papas et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.  This parenthood thing is kind of a trip and after twenty years at it, I'm still not sure we're any good, but I think it's safe to say that MathMan is better at it than I am.  Well, at least he's more sane about it.  Lately I've been mumbling some rather unpleasant and unmotherly things about the children we've produced.  No, that's not entirely true - I've graduated from just mumbling about it to putting it into writing.  (Gasp! Another new writing project?  How about you finish one first!)  I even gave it a working title - Motherhood and Other Acts of Depravity.  Just little jottings here and there, you know.  Sadly, I fear it may end up being my seminal work.

Speaking of semen, I did ask MathMan recently if he thought it would be too harsh to tell the kids that they're only here because he used to like to stick his penis into my vagina and leave his DNA?  With the predictable eye roll, he ruled that yes, it would be too harsh.  He laughed though.

But this should be about him, not me.  So here it is.  Thank you to MathMan for being a great father.  You're no Alex Stone, but then I'm no Donna Reed.  Not the most demonstrative man on the planet, each of our kids still know they're loved because it's that evident when they banter and joke with you.  Especially when you think I can't hear it.  It's like music to my soul.  And I love how you respect their brains, their individuality and their beings.  It's quite something to see each of them reflect back to you your unquestioning belief that each of them will do great things and be good people.

And Happy Father's Day to my own dad who wouldn't dream of using a computer to read this, but who will one day (hopefully) be able to hold one of my books in his hand and say "So this is what you meant by writing."  That will be right before he sees his name in the dedication.  And then I'll tell him to put the book down unless he wishes to be embarrassed to death by what he might read there.  I should go now and call him and see what the weather's like and what kind of birds are visiting the feeder we gave him this time last year. And to thank him for not killing me when he had plenty of justifiable homicide opportunities.

Happy Father's Day to those of you who've left behind your own DNA and stuck around to watch it turn into something pretty amazing.  Well done, you.

Yes, You Read That Right. And It Still Doesn't Make Any Sense.

I'm sure I've said this before, but once upon a time I had a coworker who would, during a particularly rough period at work, announce to the bullpen that she wished for a time machine so she could find the first woman who thought her husband was at the office having a party and decided that it would be swell to get out and work, too.  Once she found that woman, her plans were to do some rather unpleasant things to her.  She'd go on to describe those unpleasant things in graphic detail.  Sometimes with sound effects.  Back then in the 1990s when we were in them there boom times economically, all us secretaries or administrative assistants yucked it up pretty good.  Wadn't no one runnin' about screechin' how we should all be glad to at least have jobs. Besides our bosses were either out of the office at their 2.5 hour lunches or safely tucked away behind closed doors.  Snoring.

But then came the 2000s and the results of massive deregulation and bursting economic bubbles and wars waged and surpluses squandered so the wealthy could keep more of their money and, well, castles built on sand and all that.

So now that I and so many others floating in this leaky boat of unemployment seem all but barred from that world of bad office coffee, overly complicated voice mail systems and public restrooms cleaned by someone else (usually), I realize that work wasn't all bad.  I mean, at least it paid something.  And by the time I was asked out or "laid off," I'd climbed pretty high on the ladder. So there's that.  Joke's on me, though.  Now every fucking position posting demands salary info.  My last salary wasn't high enough to keep us from the edge, but it was just high enough to ensure that my resume is going straight into the shredder if I'm daft enough to give my salary info.

Talk about damned if you do, damned if you don't.

But the thing I've been itching to write about is the fact that besides a little money of her own, what probably really drove that first married and well-kept woman into the workforce was the mind-numbing sameness of every day when you're a housewife.  Thank goodness I'm hanging on to the fantasy of writing this novel because if I didn't at least that to hold on to I might just do a Sylvia Plath.  You don't think I rented a house without a gas stove, do you?  If I've learned one thing, it's plan ahead people, plan ahead.

(Oh, there she goes again with the suicide jokes.  Such a facile attempt at humor.  Or is it a cry for help?)

But really, it's wash the clothes, put the clothes into the dryer, fold the clothes, put the clothes away because otherwise the clothes will spend 3.2 days on the floor and then end up clean, but having been slept on by cats, back in the laundry hamper.  Or, more accurately, next to the hamper.  No one can be bothered to actually put things into the hamper.

It's the same with the cooking and the cleaning and the carrying Target bags full of used cat litter to the basement.  It's all just so much of the same stuff over and over and over until you think "Yes, I may not be thrilled with having to stand at the photocopier or sit through tiresome meetings, but at least I can dress up a little and maybe have a leftover Napoleon when the conference room clears out."  Not to mention the paychecks.  Those are nice, too.  No matter how trivial or insulting to our sense of self worth.

I'm sounding a wee bit defeated today, aren't I?

Well, we're still sucking it up as much as we can.  Cancelling, couponing, cutting, clearing out.  MathMan has become a bit of an ebay selling machine.  Still, some days it's not enough.  Yesterday the water company robo-called and since I wasn't sure how long our grace period was, I took action.  I asked Chloe to help out. 

"Hey, will you pay the water bill and I'll pay you back with interest when Daddy gets paid."
"With interest, what does that mean?"
"You continue to live here rent free."
"Not funny, Mom."
"Yeah, well neither is not flushing the toilets for a week and a half."
"Point taken."

It may not be much, but sometimes those small victories can keep me going for another day.  Just so I can do more laundry and bake brownies and.........oh, fuck it.

Brought to You By the "Miracle" of Modern Science

The cultural development of the children continues*....

Today's Musical Challenge, Marshall
Setting:  Inside Roxanne, the 1995 Toyota Celica, some nice Luigi Gatti is playing in the background as Nate and I make the trip to his new high school where he's on the summer baseball team (yay, Nate!)

Me:  This music is killing you, isn't it?
Nate:  It's almost as bad as the Adult Album Rock you forced me to listen to.
Me:  Don't end a sentence with a preposition.
Nate:  You cut me off.  Yesterday.  You forced me to listen to yesterday.  Can we listen to some of my music?
Me:  Sure.  Is it going to be women or men singing about sex, money and fame?
Nate:  Let's see what's on, shall we?
From the radio's speakers.  Eminem:  When you're not fucking grown men, listen too....
Me:  That's not music.
Nate:  You're not listening right.

THIS is not starving.  A little perspective, please
We're at the thin end of the month again.  You'd think I'd figure this out so this wouldn't happen, but it does.  We're out of milk, bread, eggs, meat, sugar, plain cream cheese, bagels and chocolate. One lonely apple sits in the fruit bowl.  It's seen better days.  So we're living on the pasta and tomato sauce I've hoarded, some leftover cereal (dry), and lots and lots of Ritz and Townhouse Crackers that were buy one/get one free a couple of months ago.  Thank you, modern American science, for preservatives.


Anyway, Chloe and I spent  approximately eight minutes discussing whether the low-fat garden vegetable cream cheese we were scraping from its plastic tub was more like a spread or a dip.  We finally settled on dip.  It's faboo on Townhouse Crackers in case you're wondering.

So after our dinner of  crackers and cream cheese in front of Golden Girls, I mentioned that I'd found tucked away into the stupidly high cabinet where I hide things an unopened box of Lucky Charms.  And thus dessert included the shoveling of dry sugary cereal into my mouth while watching Toddlers and Tiaras.  I did, of course, pick out those shamrock and rainbow-shaped marshmallows to save them for last.  My brain doesn't know it's done eating until I've had something sweet, you know.  Tonight I needed that little extra oomph delivered by those other-worldly-colored hard marshmallows to switch off my hunger.

Be that as it may, the star attraction was the show.  Oh my gawd, people spray tan their kids?  And give them false tooth covers and hair pieces? And I thought I saw some freaky stuff on fetish websites.  Not even in the balllpark, my friends.  Tonight's episode featured a little red-haired girl who was adorable with porcelain skin and gorgeous wavy locks.  Her mother covered up her little girl teeth with a toothy set of falsies and had her beautiful, milky skin sprayed tan.  Even her face.  The results were sadly hilarious.  We elevated the moment in our own living room....

Chloe:  I want to adopt a little red-headed kid when I'm older.
Me:  You know if you adopt one, you have to keep it.
Chloe:  Okay, I want to find a friend who has red-headed kids who I can spoil.
Me:  That's a bit odd, you know.
Chloe:  Do you want to be called Grandma?
Me:  I didn't mean odd in a bad way.

I understand that sometime this evening Sophie sent MathMan a text reading "Food, food, food."

I suggested that maybe it's time to cancel the cellphone service and satellite t.v. so we can buy food, food, food.  That suggestion was vetoed as they dug into some left-over baked penne.

Yeah, thought so......


*Some of this may or may not be true.  I'll let you smarties decide.

Adventures in Real Parenting: No Matter What You Call Her....

The Baby...Cupcake...Resident Evil...Garbo...RezE....Sophia...she leaves elementary school behind tomorrow. I'm a bit stunned that we'll no longer have a little kid in the house.  Of course, as far as she is concerned, we haven't had a little kid in the house for a long time.

A couple of days ago, she mentioned that she doesn't really want to grow up.  I told her there was no rush.......

May middle school be easy on you, kid.

Love,

Mama

Adventures in Real Parenting: And If You Tell Anyone, I'll Do It Again

 Last night I cried.

Contrary to what I may occasionally write here, this is not as common of an occurrence as you may think.  I treat crying pretty much the same way I treat throwing up.  I fight it all the way.

And although there are a myriad of contributing factors involved - hormones perhaps?  I did feel utterly compelled to buy chocolate yesterday....., suppressed stress, changes in routine, etc., I still ultimately blame motherhood for the tears that overcame my best attempts to hold them back.

First there was Nate and a lot of noisy pain after he fell and cut up and banged his elbow and arm.  Funny how he and his friends can fly screaming around the winding streets of our subdivision, a gaggle of yahoos on a go-kart, dodging police, rock throwing preschoolers and sisters begging for turn on the contraption and all is hunkydory.

But he walks across the yard carrying a tennis racket and bam!  He's on the ground and his arm is busted.  But then, who am I to talk?  I had an OxyClean FAIL this morning that ended up with me getting some of it in my eye and taste of it, as well.  It doesn't go well with coffeetongue.

After much moaning and indecision about going to the doctor, ice application and Ibuprofen, Nate went to bed with a belly full of pork chop and fresh strawberries and woke up feeling okay enough to go to school and declined a trip to the doctor's office.

Nevertheless, worry, worry.  My worry switch had been flicked into the ON position.

What really pushed me to tears, though, wasn't the kind of scary, worrisome parenting stuff.  Instead it was the nice stuff.  The stuff that, even though it makes you cry, it also makes all this worth it.  Chloe was the culprit.  Or more specifically a paper she wrote.  She emailed it to me late last night expecting I would proofread it this morning for her.  I saw it in my email and thought I'd take care of it right then so she wouldn't have to wait and I wouldn't have it hanging over my head as something to forget in my long list of Friday errands.

Wanna know what the paper was about?  Facebook.  Of all things.  And it was an excellent paper.  That kid knows how to write and I'm not saying that because I'm her mom.  If I thought anything she was about to hand in for a grade was crap, I'd tell her so.

In the paper, she wrote how Facebook had allowed her to stay in touch with friends she went to school with from kindergarten through sixth grade in Illinois.  And now how she uses it to stay in touch with friends from high school who have scattered for college, military service and work.  And how she uses it to keep in touch with family near and far.  And how it's comforting to see your mom's constant (constant?) status updates and posts, especially when you want to be independent,but it's still nice to hear her "voice."  Wahhhhhhh!

I lost it.  I cried first when she wrote about how she'd seen so many graduation pictures from her old Illinois pals that she almost forgot that she wasn't there with them, part of it.  Wahhhhh!  Guilt! Guilt!  And then when she admitted that sometimes she wanted to hear the sound of my voice, well.......there are no words I was so touched.

Ten minutes after I told MathMan, I'd be right back - I was just shutting down my computer, he came looking for me.  I was in tears at my computer.  He became alarmed.  I like to cry alone, rarely letting him comfort me.  "What's wrong?"

I blubbered out some response, quickly followed up by the PMS explanation.  He hugged me, rubbed my back and kissed the top of my head.

When he left the room, he said "You know, it's okay to cry."

Sometimes.

The chocolate remains untouched.